The Collected Papers of J. L. Moles - Volume 2 9004538046, 9789004538047, 9789004538726

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The Collected Papers of J. L. Moles

The Collected Papers of J. L. Moles Volume 2: Studies in Greek and Latin Literature Edited by

John Marincola

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Diogenes (1882) by John William Waterhouse. Art Gallery of NSW. With permission Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Moles, J. L. (John L.), author. | Marincola, John, editor. Title: The collected papers of J.L. Moles / edited by John Marincola. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2023]- | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Contents: Volume 1. Studies in Dio Chrysostom, Cynic philosophy, and the New Testament — Identifiers: LCCN 2023001839 (print) | LCCN 2023001840 (ebook) |  ISBN 9789004537101 (v. 1 ; hardback) | ISBN 9789004538047 (v. 2 ; hardback) |  ISBN 9789004541283 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004538719 (v. 1 ; ebook) |  ISBN 9789004538726 (v. 2 ; ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Rome—Historiography. | Greece—Historiography. |  Dio, Chrysostom. | Cynics (Greek philosophy) | Latin poetry—History and criticism. | Bible. New Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. Classification: LCC D56 .M65 2023 (print) | LCC D56 (ebook) |  DDC 937.007202—dc23/eng/20230131 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023001839 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023001840

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. isbn 978-90-04-53710-1 (hardback, vol. 1) isbn 978-90-04-53871-9 (e-book, vol. 1) isbn 978-90-04-53804-7 (hardback, vol. 2) isbn 978-90-04-53872-6 (e-book, vol. 2) isbn 978-90-04-54128-3 (hardback, set) Copyright 2023 by the Estate of J. L. Moles. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

For Rachel and Thomas

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Contents



Preface xi John Marincola Appreciation xiv Ruth Chambers Publications of J. L. Moles xv Abbreviations xxii Permissions xxiv



Professor J. L. Moles XXVIII A. J. Woodman



Introduction to Parts 4 and 5 1 Christopher Pelling

Part 4 Studies in Greco-Roman Biography 31 Plutarch, Crassus 13.4–5 and Cicero’s de consiliis suis (1982) [8]* 11 32

The Ides of March and Anna Perenna (1982) [7] 14

33

Some ‘Last Words’ of M. Iunius Brutus (1983) [14] 17

34 Fate, Apollo, and M. Junius Brutus (1983) [17] 35 35

Plutarch, Brutus, and the Ghost of Caesar (1985) [27] 43

36 The Attacks on L. Cornelius Cinna, Praetor in 44 bc (1987) [32] 45 37

Review of J. Geiger, Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography (1989) [35] 49

38 Review of P. A. Stadter, A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles (1992) [49] 55 * Numbers in square brackets refer to the section ‘Publications of J. L. Moles’.

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39 Review of N. Horsfall, Cornelius Nepos: a Selection, including the Lives of Cato and Atticus (1992) [46] 65 40 The Text and Interpretation of Plutarch, Vit. Cic. 45.1 (1992) [43] 69 41

Plutarch, Vit. Ant. 31.3 and Suetonius, Aug. 69.2 (1992) [44] 76

42 On Reading Cornelius Nepos with Nicholas Horsfall (1993) [52] 81 43 Textual and Interpretative Notes on Plutarch’s Cicero (1993) [54] 91 44 Plutarch, Brutus, and Brutus’ Greek and Latin Letters (1997) [71] 100

Part 5 Studies in Greco-Roman Historiography 45 Virgil, Pompey, and the Histories of Asinius Pollio (1983) [15] 131 46 The Interpretation of the ‘Second Preface’ in Arrian’s Anabasis (1985) [28] 134 47 Review of A. J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (1990) [38] 149 48 Review of V. J. Gray, The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica (1992) [45] 154 49 Truth and Untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides (1993) [53] 159 50 Livy’s Preface (1993) [51] 190 51

Xenophon and Callicratidas (1994) [61] 224

52

Herodotus Warns the Athenians (1996) [69] 247

53

Cry Freedom: Tacitus, Annals 4.32–5 (1998) [72] 272

54 Ἀνάθημα Καὶ Κτῆμα: the Inscriptional Inheritance of Ancient Historiography (1999) [73] 365

Contents

55

ix

A False Dilemma: Thucydides’ History and Historicism (2001) [76] 411

56 Herodotus and Athens (2002) [79] 439 57

‘Saving’ Greece from the ‘Ignominy’ of Tyranny? The ‘Famous’ and ‘Wonderful’ Speech of Socles (Herodotus 5.92) (2007) [85] 462

58 Narrative and Speech Problems in Thucydides Book 1 (2010) [86] 490

Introduction to Parts 6 and 7 518 John Marincola

Part 6 Greek Literature 59 Notes on Aristotle, Poetics 13 and 14 (1979) [3] 525 60 A Neglected Aspect of Agamemnon 1389–92 (1979) [4] 548 61

A Note on Antigone 1238f. (1980) [5] 562

62 Aeschylus, Agamemnon 36–7 Again (1984) [20] 567 63

Philanthropia in the Poetics (1984) [22] 571

64 Review of S. Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: The Oresteia (1986) [30] 583

Part 7 Latin Literature 65 A Note on Cicero, ad Quintum fratrem 2.10(9).3 (1982) [6] 605 66 Aristotle and Dido’s Hamartia (1984) [18] 609 67 Politics, Philosophy, and Friendship in Horace Odes 2.7 (1987) [31] 618 68 The Tragedy and Guilt of Dido (1987) [33] 632

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69 The Dramatic Coherence of Ovid, Amores 1.1 and 1.2 (1991) [42] 644 70 Review of R. Mayer, ed., Horace: Epistles I (1994) [68] 649 71

Reconstructing Plancus (Horace, C. 1.7) (2002) [77] 663

72

Poetry, Philosophy, Politics, and Play: Epistles 1 (2002) [78] 703

73

Vergil’s Loss of Virginity: Reading a Life (2014) [97] 725

Envoi 74

Horace: Life, Death, Friendship, and Philosophy (2012) [90] 771



Index Locorum 779

Preface At his untimely death in October 2015, John Moles was already recognised as one of the great classical scholars of his time. His expertise ranged widely over Greek and Latin literature, philosophy, biography, historiography, and the New Testament, especially the books of Luke and Acts. His work, which was and continues to be extremely influential, is distinguished by its close reading of texts, its careful attention to language (examining both what is said and what is unsaid), and a consistent interdisciplinary approach. This two-volume collection brings together fifty-nine of John’s previously published notes, articles, and book chapters, eight reviews, and seven previously unpublished papers. The papers appear in chronological order by section, the one exception being the final chapter, which seemed to me a fitting envoi to the entire collection. John’s work appeared in a variety of publications in different countries over nearly forty years. Methods of citation varied greatly in the original publications, and so in editing these papers I have tried to bring uniformity by doing the following: (1) standardising spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, and manner of citation throughout; (2) correcting obvious minor misprints and slips; (3) reformatting a very few of the earliest pieces to make them easier to read and follow; (4) updating references to standard works of ancient authors or collections that have appeared since the publication of the papers; (5) inserting references to reprints (and occasionally updated editions) of scholarly articles and books; and (6) providing a bibliography for each chapter. My editorial intrusions are marked with curly brackets, thus: { }. The page numbers of the original publication are placed within the text in white square brackets, thus: ⟦ ⟧. Although I have checked each item in the bibliography for accuracy, it was not possible to check the many thousands of references in these volumes. (In a few cases, where I became aware of a mis-citation or the like, I have corrected it without indication.) Nor have I tried to update the articles either by listing bibliography subsequent to their publication or by reference to those scholars who have engaged with the articles (either in agreement or disagreement). It would have required a scholar of John’s calibre to do so, and as with all scholarship, these pieces are of their time. In any case, specialists will know where John’s influence has been felt. His unpublished papers, as one would expect, were in various stages of completeness. Those appearing here were in sufficiently good shape to make clear the lines of thought and interpretation that John intended to pursue. Where it

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was possible and I felt myself competent to do so, I filled in references. At the same time, the reader will understand that these papers did not receive John’s ultima manus. There is a certain amount of repetition in them (which I have let stand), and there is little doubt that John would have added more references throughout. There are, however, two exceptions. First, Professor Justin Reid Allison expended a truly impressive effort in editing ‘Matthew the Mathete’ (ch. 26) so as to bring it up to the standards John himself would have maintained, and I am very grateful to him for his efforts, as all readers of the article will be. Second, Professor Damien Nelis was of enormous help in clarifying and updating a number of references in ‘Vergil’s Loss of Virginity’ (ch. 73), immensely improving the article while retaining John’s signature voice. To both of these scholars I am greatly indebted. It has been nearly seven years since John’s death, and I regret that it has taken so long to bring this project to light. I have been sustained over the years by the kindness of colleagues and friends. Ruth Chambers, John’s widow, has supported the project from the very beginning, offering every assistance and displaying a patience in awaiting the final product that was exemplary. Federico Santangelo tracked down much of John’s unpublished material. Aldo Brancacci, Jane Heath, and Chris Pelling were very helpful in providing feedback at various stages, and I am grateful to them not least for their illuminating introductions. For offering assistance in a variety of matters, and/or for providing material in hard copy or electronically, I thank Justin Reid Allison, Alexander Hardie, Stephen Harrison, Adam Kemezis, Christina Kraus, Manfred Lang, Damien Nelis, Chris Pelling, Fran Titchener, Tony Woodman, and Harvey Yunis. At Brill I am very grateful to Mirjam Elbers, the Classics editor, who agreed to take on the publication, and to Giulia Moriconi, who has assisted in all aspects of getting the materials ready for publication. I thank also Theo Joppe who has been indispensable in the production of these volumes. I am indebted as always to the Interlibrary Loan department at Florida State University’s Strozier Library for help in procuring a large number of items. Towards the final stages of this project St Hugh’s College, Oxford provided generous hospitality. Two people deserve special thanks. My wife, Laurel Fulkerson, has lived with this project every step of the way, and has offered support and assistance throughout. And Tony Woodman’s advice and generosity at all stages of the project was invaluable. Without his assistance and support, this collection would have never come to fruition. This project has been both a joy and a challenge. A joy, because I got to spend it in John’s intellectual company, but a challenge because I wanted

Preface

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to do justice to his rich output and to do my best to make it more accessible to others, since I believe it is of value not only for the numerous brilliant insights it offers, but also because of the methodology employed, which is of a value independent of the content of any individual chapter. As a young scholar, I, like many, benefitted from John’s astonishing generosity in reading and commenting on my work. I hope that this collection may represent not just my own gratitude to John but also that of all the young scholars and colleagues whose work over the years he cultivated, nurtured, and improved. We owe him more thanks than we can ever express. The collection is dedicated to John’s children. J. M. Oxford, May 2022

Appreciation Ruth Chambers This collection of John’s papers brings to the classical world a definitive view of the breadth and brilliance of his scholarly output. That this has been accomplished is due to an act of selfless dedication for which John would be deeply grateful. I speak for him, and his family, friends, and colleagues, in expressing profound thanks to John Marincola for his painstaking editorial work and his unwavering devotion to ensuring that all John’s papers are gathered and presented under one imprint. Bringing John’s lifetime writings to publication in this way is an outstanding achievement and a lasting tribute to a friend.

Publications of J. L. Moles Note: The dates for unpublished articles are approximations and based on indications in the manuscripts. 1978 1. ‘The Career and Conversion of Dio Chrysostom’, JHS 98: 79–100. 1979 2. A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus (diss. Oxford; unpublished; see below, no. 100). 3. ‘Notes on Aristotle’s Poetics 13 and 14’, CQ n.s. 29: 77–94. 4. ‘A Neglected Aspect of Agamemnon 1389–92’, LCM 4: 179–89. 1980 5. ‘A Note on Antigone 1238f.’, LCM 5: 193–6. 1982 6. 7. 8. 9.

‘A Note on Cicero, ad Quintum fratrem 2.10(9).3’, LCM 7: 63–5. ‘The Ides of March and Anna Perenna’, LCM 7: 89–90. ‘Plutarch, Crassus 13.4–5, and Cicero’s de consiliis suis’, LCM 7: 136–7. Review of M. L. Clarke, The Noblest Roman (London and New York, 1981), LCM 7: 137–9. 10. Review of P. A. Stadter, Arrian of Nicomedia (Chapel Hill and London, 1980), JHS 102: 254–5. 1983 11. ‘Dio Chrysostom: Exile, Tarsus, Nero, and Domitian’, LCM 8:130–4. 12. ‘“Honestius quam Ambitiosius”? An Exploration of the Cynic’s Attitude to Moral Corruption in his Fellow Men’, JHS 103: 103–23. 13. ‘The Date and Purpose of the Fourth Kingship Oration of Dio Chrysostom’, ClAnt 2: 251–78. 14. ‘Some “Last Words” of M. Iunius Brutus’, Latomus 42: 763–79. 15. ‘Virgil, Pompey and the Histories of Asinius Pollio’, CW 76: 287–8. 16. ‘The Woman and the River: Diogenes’ Apophthegm from Herculaneum and Some Popular Misconceptions about Cynicism’, Apeiron 17: 125–30. 17. ‘Fate, Apollo and M. Iunius Brutus’, AJPh 104: 249–56.

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1984 18. ‘Aristotle and Dido’s Hamartia’, G&R 31: 48–54. 19. ‘The Addressee of the Third Kingship Oration of Dio Chrysostom’, Prometheus 10: 65–69. 20. ‘Aeschylus: Agamemnon 36–37 Again’, LCM 9: 5–6. 21. ‘Brutus and Dido Revisited’, LCM 9: 156. 22. ‘Philanthropia in the Poetics’, Phoenix 38: 325–35. 23. Review of J. L. Strachan-Davidson, Appian: Civil Wars I’ (Chicago reprint, 1983), JACT Bulletin Review 64: viii. 24. Review of N. G. L. Hammond, Three Historians of Alexander the Great (Cambridge, 1983), JACT Review 1: 32–33. 25. Review of A. J. Woodman, Velleius Paterculus: The Caesarian and Augustan Narrative (Cambridge, 1983), JRS 74: 242–4. 1985 26. ‘Cynicism in Horace Epistles I’, PLLS 5: 33–60. 27. ‘Plutarch, Brutus and the Ghost of Caesar’, PACA 82: 19–20. 28. ‘The Interpretation of the “Second Preface” in Arrian’s Anabasis’, JHS 105: 162–8. 29. Review of C. Carena, M. Manfredini, and L. Piccirilli, edd., Plutarco: Le vite di Temistocle e Camillo (Milan, 1983), CR 35: 260–1. 1986 30. Review of S. Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: The Oresteia (Cambridge, 1984), LCM 11: 55–64. 1987 31. ‘Politics, Philosophy and Friendship in Horace Odes 2.7’, QUCC 25: 59–72. 32. ‘The Attacks on L. Cornelius Cinna, Praetor in 44 B.C.’, RhMus 130: 124–8. 33. ‘The Tragedy and Guilt of Dido’, in M. Whitby, M. Whitby, and P. R. Hardie, edd., Homo Viator: Classical Essays for John Bramble (Bristol and Chicago, 1987), 153–61. 1988 34. Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). 1989 35. Review of J. Geiger, Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography (Wiesbaden, 1985), CR 39: 229–33.

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36. Review of P. McGushin, Sallust: the Conspiracy of Catiline (Bristol, 1987), CR 39: 393–4. 1990 37. ‘The Kingship Orations of Dio Chrysostom’, PLLS 6: 297–375. 38. Review of A. J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Sydney, and Portland, 1988)’, History of the Human Sciences 3.2: 317–21. 39. Review of L. Pearson, The Greek Historians of the West: Timaeus and his Predecessors (Atlanta, 1987), JHS 110: 231–2. 40. Review of P. J. Rhodes, ed., Thucydides: History II (Warminster, 1988) and J. S. Rusten, ed., Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War II (Cambridge, 1989), JACT Review 7: 28–9. 41. Review of A. B. Bosworth, From Arrian to Alexander (Oxford, 1988), JACT Review 7: 29–30. 1991 42. ‘The Dramatic Coherence of Ovid, Amores 1.1 and 1.2’, CQ 41: 551–4. 1992 43. ‘The Text and Interpretation of Plutarch, Vit. Cic. 45.1’, Hermes 120: 240–44. 44. ‘Plutarch, Vit. Ant. 31.3 and Suetonius, Aug. 69.2’, Hermes 120: 245–7. 45. Review of V. J. Gray, The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica (London and Baltimore, 1989)’, CR 13: 281–4. 46. Review of N. Horsfall, Cornelius Nepos: a selection, including the lives of Cato and Atticus (Oxford, 1989), CR 42: 314–6. 47. Review of J. R. Bradley, The Sources of Cornelius Nepos (New York, 1991), Ploutarchos 8: 30–2. 48. Review of C. Habicht, Cicero (Baltimore 1990), Ploutarchos 9: 28–31. 49. Review of P. A. Stadter, A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles (Chapel Hill, 1989), CR 42: 289–94. 1993 50. ‘Le cosmopolitisme cynique’, in M.-O. Goulet-Cazé and R Goulet, edd., Le Cynisme et ses prolonguements (Paris) 259–80. [English version no. 70, below.] 51. ‘Livy’s Preface’, PCPhS 39: 141–68. 52. ‘On Reading Cornelius Nepos with Nicholas Horsfall’, LCM 18: 76–80.

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53. ‘Truth and Untruth in Greek and Roman Historiography’, in C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman, edd., Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter and Austin) 88–121. 54. ‘Textual and Interpretative Notes on Plutarch’s Cicero’, in H. D. Jocelyn and H. Hurt, edd., Tria Lustra: Essays Presented to John Pinsent (Liverpool) 151–6. 55. ‘Thucydides’, JACT Review 14: 14–18. 56. Review of P. A. Stadter, ed., Plutarch and the Historical Tradition (London and New York, 1992), CR 43: 29–32. 57. Review of D. A. Russell, Dio Chrysostom: Orations VII, XII, XXXVI (Cambridge, 1992), CR 43: 256–8. 58. Review of J. M. Alonso-Núñez, La historia universal de Pompeyo Trogo (Madrid, 1992), CR 43: 285–6. 59. Review of A. J. Pomeroy, The Appropriate Comment: Death Notices in the Ancient Historians (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), CR 43: 295–6 60. Review of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Supplementary Volume 1991: Aristotle and the Later Tradition (Oxford, 1991), Ploutarchos 9: 32–4. 1994 61. ‘Xenophon and Callicratidas’, JHS 114: 70–84. 62. Review of N. G. L. Hammond, Sources for Alexander the Great: an Analysis of Plutarch’s Life and Arrian’s Anabasis Alexandrou (Cambridge, 1993), CR 44: 344–5. 63. Review of T. J. Figueira, Excursions in Epichoric History: Aiginetan Essays (Lanham, Md., 1993), CR 44: 331–3. 64. Review of F. Chamoux, P. Bertrac, and Y. Vernière, edd., Diodore de Sicile: Bibliotheque Historique I (Paris, 1993), CR 44: 272–4. 1995 65. ‘The Cynics and Politics’, in A. Laks and M. Schofield, edd., Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy (Cambridge) 129–58. 66. ‘Dio Chrysostom, Greece, and Rome’, in H. Hine, D. C. Innes, and C. Pelling, edd., Ethics and Rhetoric: Studies Presented to Donald Russell (Oxford) 177–92. 67. Review of E. Badian, From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentekontaetia (Baltimore and London, 1993), JHS 115: 213–5. 68. Review of R. Mayer, ed., Horace: Epistles I (Cambridge, 1994), BMCR 6.2: 160–70 (= BMCR 1995.02.37).

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1996 69. ‘Herodotus Warns the Athenians’, PLLS 9: 259–84. 70. ‘Cynic Cosmopolitanism’, in M.-O. Goulet-Cazé and R. B. Branham, edd., The Cynics: the Cynic Movement in Antiquity and its Legacy (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London) 105–20. 1997 71. ‘Plutarch, Brutus and Brutus’ Greek and Latin Letters’, in J. Mossman, ed., Plutarch and his Intellectual World (London) 141–68. 1998 72. ‘Cry Freedom: Tacitus Annals 4.32–35’, Histos 2: 95–184. 1999 73. ‘ΑΝΑΘΗΜΑ ΚΑΙ ΚΤΗΜΑ : the Inscriptional Inheritance of Ancient Historiography’, Histos 3: 27–69. 2000 74. ‘The Dionian Charidemus’, in S. Swain, ed., Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy (Oxford) 187–210. 75. ‘The Cynics’, in C. J. Rowe and M. Schofield, edd., The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (Cambridge) 415–34. (Entitled ‘The Political Thought of the Cynics’ in this collection.) 2001 76. ‘A False Dilemma: Thucydides’ History and Historicism’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., Texts, Ideas, and the Classics: Scholarship, Theory, and Classical Literature (Oxford) 195–219. 2002 77. ‘Reconstructing Plancus: Horace, Odes 1.7’, JRS 92: 86–109. 78. ‘Poetry, Philosophy, Politics and Play: Epistles 1’, in T. Woodman and D. Feeney, edd., Traditions and Contexts in the Poetry of Horace (Cambridge) 141–57, 235–7. 79. ‘Herodotus and Athens’, in E. J. Bakker, I. J. F. de Jong, and H. van Wees, edd., Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden) 33–52. 2003 80. ‘Dio und Trajan’, in K. Piepenbrink, ed., Philosophie und Lebenswelt in der Antike (Darmstadt) 186–207. (English edition, previously unpublished, is entitled ‘Dio and Trajan’ in this collection.)

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2005 81. ‘The Thirteenth Oration of Dio Chrysostom: Complexity and Simplicity, Rhetoric and Moralism, Literature and Life’, JHS 125: 112–38. 2006 82. ‘Cynic Influence upon First-Century Judaism and Early Christianity?’, in B. McGing and J. Mossman, edd., The Limits of Biography (London and Swansea) 89–116. 83. ‘Jesus and Dionysus in The Acts of the Apostles and Early Christianity’, Hermathena 180: 65–104. 2007 84. ‘Philosophy and Ethics’, in S. Harrison, ed., Cambridge Companion to Horace (Cambridge) 165–80. (Entitled ‘Philosophy and Ethics in Horace’ in this collection.) 85. ‘“Saving” Greece from the “Ignominy” of Tyranny? The “Famous” and “Wonderful” Speech of Socles (5.92)’, in E. Irwin and E. Greenwood, edd., Reading Herodotus: A Study of the Logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus’ Histories (Cambridge) 245–68. 2008 86. ‘Defacing the Currency: Cynicism in Dio Chrysostom’ (unpublished) 2010 87. ‘Narrative and Speech Problems in Thucydides Book I’, in C. S. Kraus, J. Marincola, and C. Pelling, edd., Ancient Historiography and its Contexts: Studies in Honour of A. J. Woodman (Oxford) 15–39. 2011 88. ‘Luke’s Preface: the Greek Decree, Classical Historiography, and Christian Redefinitions’, NTS 57: 461–82. 89. ‘Jesus the Healer in the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and Early Christianity’, Histos 5: 117–82. 2012 90. ‘Horace: Life, Death, Friendship and Philosophy’, in The Horatian Society Addresses (Horatian Society, London) 5–18. 91. ‘Luke and Acts: Prefaces and Consequences’ (previously unpublished) 92. ‘What’s in a Name? Χριστός/χρηστός and χριστιανοί/χρηστιανοί in the First Century AD’ (unpublished).

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2013 93. ‘Time and Space Travel in Luke-Acts’, in R. Dupertuis and T. Penner, edd., Engaging Early Christian History: Reading Acts in the Second Century (Durham) 101–22. 94. ‘Matthew the Mathete: Sphragis, Authority, Mathesis, Succession, and Gospel Truth’ (previously unpublished) 95. ‘Greek, Roman, Jewish, and Christian Philosophy in Luke-Acts’ (previously unpublished) 2014 96. ‘Accommodation, Opposition or Other: Luke–Acts’ Stance Towards Rome’, in J. M. Madsen and R. Rees, edd., Roman Rule in Greek and Latin Writing: Double Vision (Leiden) 79–104. 97. ‘Vergil’s Loss of Virginity: Reading the Life’ (previously unpublished) 98. ‘Selling Christian Happiness to Pagans: the Case of Luke-Acts’ (previously unpublished) 2017 99. ‘Romane, Memento: Antisthenes, Dio and Virgil on the Education of the Strong’, in A. J. Woodman and J. Wisse, edd., Word and Context in Latin Poetry: Studies in Memory of David West (Cambridge) 105–30. 100. A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus, edited with updated bibliography by C. B. R. Pelling (Histos Supplement 7; Newcastle). Moles also wrote the entry ‘Demonax’ in D. J. Zeyl, ed., Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy (Westport, 1997) 172–3, and various entries on Cynicism in OCD3: ‘Bion of Borysthenes’ (243); ‘Diatribe’ (463–4); ‘Diogenes the Cynic’ (473–4); ‘Cynics’ (418–19); ‘Crates of Thebes’ (406); and ‘Oenomaos’ (562).

Abbreviations Ancient Authors. Abbreviations for ancient authors generally follow H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, edd., Greek–English Lexicon, and P. G. W. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary. Note, however, that Dio Chrysostom is always and everywhere cited simply as ‘Dio’. Modern Works. Abbreviations for journals follow those of L’Année Philologique, with the usual English-language modifications. For frequently cited modern works, the following are used. ABD ANRW CAH2 CIG CIL Cohoon / Crosby

D–K FGrHist

FRHist

HRR IEG2 IGR ILLRP

D. N. Freedman, ed., Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols (New York, 1992). H. Temporini, et al., edd., Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (Berlin and New York, 1972–). Cambridge Ancient History, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1961–2005). A. Boeckh, et al., edd., Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (Berlin, 1828–77). Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin, 1863–). J. W. Cohoon and H. L. Crosby, Dio Chrysostom (London and Cambridge, Mass. 1932–51), 5 vols. Cohoon edited and translated Orations 1–31, Crosby Orations 32–80; cited by author’s name, followed by volume and page number. H. Diels and W. Kranz, edd., Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin, 61951). F. Jacoby, et al., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin and Leiden, 1923–56; Leiden, 1994–). Texts are cited by the number of the historian, and T(estimonium) or F(ragment). T. J. Cornell, ed., Fragments of the Roman Historians (Oxford, 2017). Texts are cited by the number of the historian, and T(estimonium) or F(ragment). H. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Leipzig, 1906; vol. I2, 1914). M. L. West, Iambi et Elegi Graeci, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1989–92). R. Cagnat, ed., Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes (Paris, 1906–27). A. Degrassi, ed., Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae (Florence, 1963; vol. I2, 1965).

Abbreviations

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H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (Berlin, 1892–1916). A. Laks and G. Most, edd., Early Greek Philosophy, 9 vols. (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 2016). Long–Sedley A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, edd., The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1987). LSJ9 H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A Greek–English Lexicon, 9th ed. (Oxford, 1968; repr. with new supplement, ed. P. G. W. Glare, 1996). L&S C. T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1880). OCD2 N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard, edd., The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1970). OCD3 S. Hornblower and A. J. Spawforth, edd., The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1996). OCD4 S. Hornblower, A. J. Spawforth, and E. Eidinow, edd., The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. (Oxford, 2012). OGIS W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae (Leipzig, 1915–24). OLD P. G. W. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1982). PCG R. Kassell and C. Austin, eds., Poetae Comici Graeci (Berlin, 1983–). Cited by fragment number with volume and page number in parentheses. PIR1 E. Klebs and H. Dessau, edd., Prosopographia Imperii Romani (Berlin, 1897–8). PIR2 E. Groag, A. Stein, et al., edd., Prosopographia Imperii Romani, 2nd ed. (Berlin, 1933–). PSI Papiri Greci e Latini: Pubblicazioni della Società italiana per la ricerca dei papiri greci e latini in Egitto (Florence, 1912–) RE A. von Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, edd., Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1894–1978). SIG3 W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1915–24). SR G. Giannantoni, Socraticorum Reliquiae, 4 vols. (Naples, 1983–5). SSR G. Giannantoni, Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae, 4 vols. (Naples, 1990). SVF H. von Arnim, ed., Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, 4 vols. (1903–24). TrGF B. Snell et al., edd., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Göttingen, 1971–2004). TLL Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (Munich, 1900–).

ILS L–M

Permissions We gratefully acknowledge the following publishers and individuals for permission to reprint the papers for which they hold the copyright. Numbers in parentheses refer to the chapters in this volume. E. J. Brill, Leiden: (56) ‘Herodotus and Athens’, in E. J. Bakker, I. J. F. de Jong, and H. van Wees, edd., Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden, 2002) 33–52. Cambridge Philological Society, Cambridge: (50) ‘Livy’s Preface’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 39 (1993) 141–68. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York: (37) Review of J. Geiger, Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography (Wiesbaden, 1985), Classical Review 39 (1989) 229–33. (38) Review of P. A. Stadter, A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles (Chapel Hill, 1989), Classical Review 42 (1992) 289–94. (39) Review of N. Horsfall, Cornelius Nepos: a selection, including the Lives of Cato and Atticus (Oxford, 1989), Classical Review 42 (1992) 314–6. (46) ‘The Interpretation of the “Second Preface” in Arrian’s Anabasis’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 105 (1985) 162–8. (48) Review of V. J. Gray, The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica (London and Baltimore, 1989), Classical Review 42 (1992) 281–4. (51) ‘Xenophon and Callicratidas’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 114 (1994) 70–84. (57) ‘“Saving” Greece from the “Ignominy” of Tyranny? The “Famous” and “Wonderful” Speech of Socles (5.92)’, in E. Irwin and E. Greenwood, edd., Reading Herodotus: A Study of the Logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus’ Histories (Cambridge, 2007) 245–68. (59) ‘Notes on Aristotle, Poetics 13 and 14’, Classical Quarterly n.s. 29 (1979): 77–94. (66) ‘Aristotle and Dido’s Hamartia’, Greece & Rome 31 (1984) 48–54. (69) ‘The Dramatic Coherence of Ovid, Amores 1.1 and 1.2’, Classical Quarterly 41 (1991) 551–4. (71) ‘Reconstructing Plancus (Horace, C. 1.7)’, Journal of Roman Studies 92 (2002) 86–109.

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(72) ‘Poetry, Philosophy, Politics and Play: Epistles 1’, in T. Woodman and D. Feeney, edd., Traditions and Contexts in the Poetry of Horace (Cambridge, 2002) 141–57, 235–7. Classical Association, London: (35) ‘Plutarch, Brutus, and the Ghost of Caesar’, Proceedings of the Classical Association 82 (1985) 19–20. Classical Association of Canada, Calgary: (63) ‘Philanthropia in the Poetics’, Phoenix 38: 325–35. Classical Press of Wales, Swansea: (44) ‘Plutarch, Brutus, and Brutus’ Greek and Latin Letters’, in J. Mossman, ed., Plutarch and his Intellectual World (London, 1997) 141–68. Exeter University Press, Exeter: (49) ‘Truth and Untruth in Greek and Roman Historiography’, in C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman, edd., Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter and Austin, 1993) 88–121. Francis Cairns Publications, Prenton, UK (52) ‘Herodotus Warns the Athenians’, PLLS 9 (1996) 259–84. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland: (34) ‘Fate, Apollo and M. Iunius Brutus’, American Journal of Philology 104 (1983) 249–56. (45) ‘Virgil, Pompey and the Histories of Asinius Pollio’, Classical World 76 (1983) 287–8. Ruth Chambers and the Estate of John L. Moles: (31) ‘Plutarch, Crassus 13.4–5, and Cicero’s de consiliis suis’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 7 (1982) 136–7. (32) ‘The Ides of March and Anna Perenna’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 7 (1982) 89–90. (34, 66) ‘Brutus and Dido Revisited’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 9 (1984) 156. (42) ‘On Reading Cornelius Nepos with Nicholas Horsfall’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 18 (1993) 76–80. (43) ‘Textual and Interpretative Notes on Plutarch’s Cicero’, in H. D. Jocelyn and H. Hurt, edd., Tria Lustra: Essays Presented to John Pinsent (Liverpool, 1993) 151–6.

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(53) ‘Cry Freedom: Tacitus Annals 4.32–35’, Histos 2 (1998) 95–184. (54) Ἀνάθημα καὶ Κτῆμα: the Inscriptional Inheritance of Ancient Historiography’, Histos 3 (1998) 27–69. (60) ‘A Neglected Aspect of Agamemnon 1389–92’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 4 (1979) 179–89. (61) ‘A Note on Antigone 1238f.’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 4 (1980) 193–6. (62) ‘Aeschylus, Agamemnon 36–37 Again’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 9 (1984) 5–6. (64) Review of S. Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: The Oresteia (Cambridge, 1984), Liverpool Classical Monthly 11 (1986) 55–64. (65) ‘A Note on Cicero, ad Quintum fratrem 2.10(9).3’, Liverpool Classical Monthly 7 (1982) 63–5. (68) ‘The Tragedy and Guilt of Dido’, in M. Whitby, M. Whitby, and P. R. Hardie, edd., Homo Viator: Classical Essays for John Bramble (Bristol and Chicago, 1987), 153–61. (70) Review of R. Mayer, ed., Horace: Epistles I (Cambridge, 1994), Bryn Mawr Classical Review 6.2: 160–70 = BMCR online 1995.02.37. (73) ‘Vergil’s Loss of Virginity’ (previously unpublished). (74) ‘Horace: Life, Death, Friendship and Philosophy’, in The Horatian Society Addresses (Horatian Society, London, 2012) 5–18. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York: (55) ‘A False Dilemma: Thucydides’ History and Historicism’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., Texts, Ideas and the Classics: Scholarship, Theory and Classical Literature (Oxford, 2001) 195–219. (58) ‘Narrative and Speech Problems in Thucydides Book I’, in C. S. Kraus, J. Marincola, and C. Pelling, edd., Ancient Historiography and its Contexts: Studies in Honour of A. J. Woodman (Oxford, 2010) 15–39. Routledge, London and New York (47) Review of A. J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Sydney, and Portland, 1988)’, History of the Human Sciences 3.2 (1990) 317–21. J. D. Sauerländer’s Verlag, Bad Orb, Germany: (36) ‘The Attacks on L. Cornelius Cinna, Praetor in 44 BC’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 130 (1987) 124–8.

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Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa and Rome: (67) ‘Politics, Philosophy, and Friendship in Horace Odes 2.7’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 25 (1987) 59–72. Société d’études latines de Bruxelles, Brussels: (33) ‘Some “Last Words” of M. Iunius Brutus’, Latomus 42 (1983) 763–79. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart: (40) ‘The Text and Interpretation of Plutarch, Vit. Cic. 45.1’, Hermes 120 (1992) 240–44. (41) ‘Plutarch, Vit. Ant. 31.3 and Suetonius, Aug. 69.2’, Hermes 120 (1992) 245–7.

Professor J. L. Moles A. J. Woodman John Moles, born in Belfast in 1949, came from a linguistically gifted family.* His father was a headmaster whose hobby was learning new languages; his mother was a modern linguist; his uncle taught Classics at John’s school; and his sister taught French at the University of Glasgow. He attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, which was also the alma mater of E. Courtney, J. C. McKeown and R. K. Gibson; while there, he twice became Ulster Chess Champion; he was also Irish Champion in 1966 and 1971, and twice a member of the Olympiad Team. He would go on to write The French Defence Main Line Winawer (1975), described by Wolfgang Heidenfeld as ‘perhaps the best of all chess opening monographs’, and French Winawer: Modern and Auxiliary Lines (1979, with K. Wicker). He invested the royalties in wine, of which he was a connoisseur. In later years he resisted all attempts at persuading him to return to chess. After an outstanding school career, John followed his brother to Oxford, winning a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, where he was in the first cohort to be allowed to offer literature for ‘Greats’ (previously there had been no alternative to philosophy and ancient history). At Corpus he was taught by Ewen Bowie, John Bramble, Frank Lepper and Robin Nisbet; after Firsts in ‘Mods’ and ‘Greats’ he wrote A Commentary on Plutarch’s ‘Brutus’ for his D.Phil., supervised by both Bowie and Donald Russell. One of his later regrets was that he never seemed to have the time or opportunity to revise his thesis for publication.1 For a year (1974–5) he held a temporary lectureship at Reading, which was followed by permanent positions at Queen’s University, Belfast, and University College of North Wales, Bangor (respectively 1975–9 and 1979–87), where there was a small Department of Classics headed by M. F. Smith. I first met John more than thirty years ago, in 1983, when he turned up at the ‘Past Perspectives’ conference on historiography which I had helped to organise in Leeds. He made an immediate impression because of his hair, which in those days stuck out rather wildly on each side of his head; but this was not the reason that we came to be colleagues in Durham, to which I had moved from * This remembrance appeared originally in Histos 9 (2015) 312–18; the updated version is printed here by kind permission of the author. 1 His thesis has now been published as Histos Supplement 7 (2017), with updated bibliography by Christopher Pelling.

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Leeds in 1984. In the second half of the 80s the Classics Department at Durham, which at the time attracted more students than anywhere else in the country apart from Oxford and Cambridge, found itself in a developing crisis: several colleagues in quick succession departed either through retirement or resignation, but the university refused to replace any of them, with the result that our staff:student ratio was becoming almost insupportable. Since this was a period when the University Grants Committee was encouraging departmental mergers, I suggested to our Vice-Chancellor that, if vacant positions were not to be filled, we should perhaps try to tempt some other Department of Classics to transfer itself to Durham. When he agreed to this in principle, I made the further suggestion that perhaps we should open negotiations with the small Department in Bangor. I reckoned that its members would be attracted by the prospect of teaching Greek and Latin literature in the original languages to large numbers of students, while we for our part would acquire the desired new colleagues, amongst whom was a brilliant young historiographer. The transfer of Bangor Classics to Durham, strongly supported by Professor J. A. Cannon of the UGC, was the first merger of Classics Departments in the country. John arrived in 1987 and immediately made his mark: occupying a large room in the Department, he covered every surface with mounds of files, papers and books, which he then proceeded to impregnate with cigar smoke. The cleaners were forbidden to touch anything, and indeed couldn’t have done any cleaning even if they had wanted to. (Nor did they have to face Boris, the legendarily neurotic dog, as had often been the case with their counterparts in Bangor. John was always very fond of dogs.) Although he lived out of town and refused ever to learn to drive a car, he would get the bus back into town in the evening and would spend several hours working in the Department until it was time for the last bus home again. Very often he would come along to my room, slump into the ancient armchair, and test out his latest ideas in collegial conversation, delighted to be in the company of someone who at that time smoked even more cigars than he did. Many of my pleasantest hours in Durham were passed with John in this way, discussing the issues and problems raised by Latin or life. Before coming to Durham John had already published over twenty articles or book chapters on a wide range of major Greek and Latin authors; the year after he arrived in Durham, there appeared the only classical book to be published in his lifetime, a translation of, and commentary on, Plutarch’s Life of Cicero in the Aris & Phillips series. It is unusually good at providing material at all levels: an excellent introduction to Plutarch for beginners, it is also much more quoted than most other volumes in the series because of its contributions to

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scholarship (his discussion of the concept of ‘truth’ is especially noteworthy). In his translation he sought to reproduce in English the verbal patterns which articulated the author’s meaning: he regarded this as an extremely important function of translation, and his method became a feature of much of his later scholarship, proving especially fruitful in his various analyses of Thucydides. His sensitivity to verbal patterns was also part of what became a larger project, namely his attempt at persuading readers of Greek and Latin literature that many classical texts were filled with puns, plays, and verbal wit of all kinds, especially those relating to proper names. This became one of his particular concerns when, at a later stage, he turned his attention to New Testament texts. John’s move to Durham did nothing to interrupt his productivity, with the result that by the end of the 1990s he had published (often more than once) on Aeschylus, Sophocles, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Arrian, Aristotle, Livy, Cornelius Nepos, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, Tacitus, Plutarch, and Dio Chrysostom, as well as several studies of Cynicism (on which he would later be interviewed by Melvyn Bragg on the radio). He regarded the interdisciplinary nature of classical scholarship as one of its great glories, and he endeavoured to put it into practice, gratified that his own work crossed the boundaries of literature, history, and philosophy. This substantial and remarkably diverse range of scholarship has as its defining and unifying feature John’s consistent attempt at arriving at original positions on the texts and authors he discussed. The outstanding quality of his work was such that he was promoted to Reader in 1993 and was awarded a personal Chair in 1996. The late 1990s saw Durham Classics experience a second crisis a decade after the first. The University was using a financial model which projected that the Department of Classics would be in debt to the tune of £1 million by the year 2000. This was regarded as unsustainable, and the administration in its wisdom proposed to close down the Department. Colleagues were sent a letter by the relevant Pro-Vice-Chancellor (formerly a medieval historian of considerable distinction), suggesting that they take early retirement and threatening redundancy if not. The immediate response to this intimidation was panic, and we naturally looked to our leader to see what should be done. Our leader at the time happened to be John, who was now paying the price for his personal Chair and, rather improbably, was serving his term of office as Head of Department. Over the critical period that followed, John almost single-handedly devised a rescue plan, which, though to some of us it seemed to contain elements of pure fantasy, nevertheless was sufficient to persuade the administration of the viability of our continued existence. Any success that the Department has enjoyed during the past decades is due significantly to John; without his inventive genius there might not now be a Department at all.

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It is absolutely characteristic that, while this crisis consumed an enormous amount of John’s time and energy, he nevertheless thought it vital to fulfil his more personal responsibilities as Head of Department. He was, for example, painstakingly supportive of his short-term colleagues and junior researchers, for whom he would make time to check if they were happy in his Department, to advise them on all academic matters, and even to organise social events at his own expense. It was also thanks to the trust he inspired and to the confidence in themselves which he helped them develop that they proceeded to their future careers at a time when such a prospect seemed almost impossible. His tenure of the headship is remembered with affection as well as gratitude; and his concern for junior colleagues remained unchanged throughout his career. John’s promotion to Professor coincided also with the birth of Histos, whose first issue, under his editorship, came out in 1997. Since John had been an early user of word-processors and computers, in retrospect it was perhaps less surprising that he conceived the striking notion of combining a modern method of communication with what was then, and remains, a hot topic in classical scholarship. At the time, however, an online journal devoted to classical historiography seemed—and indeed was—revolutionary; and, when one looks back at that issue of 1997, one cannot fail to be amazed at the glittering names of the contributors. Each of these scholars—scholars of the distinction of F. W. Walbank and T. P. Wiseman, to give two examples—had contributed either as the result of a direct invitation from John or because of his reputation. As founder and editor, John did everything himself, apart from the technical business of putting the papers and reviews on screen, which was done by our colleague and fellow historiographer David Levene. Histos brought immense prestige and welcome publicity to the Durham department at a difficult period, but, when the Chair of Latin at Newcastle was advertised in 2000, John felt it was the moment for a new challenge and submitted an application. As it happened, there were several professorial vacancies at the time, and highly eligible applicants for them; but it seemed to me then, as it still does now, that Newcastle were interested only in capturing John, who thus became their fourth Professor of Latin in succession to Jonathan Powell (1992–2001), David West (1969–92) and G. B. A. Fletcher (1946–69, having first joined the Department as Professor of Classics in 1937): a more distinguished line-up is difficult to imagine. When he took up his Chair, John went out of his way to encourage the participation of David West, who was still living locally, in seminars and the like; in just the same way he would make a point each week of socialising with another long-retired Newcastle Latinist, Donald Hill. Although he had a decidedly contrary streak (which came out especially in

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his wicked sense of humour and love of provocative statements), John always displayed a highly developed sense of responsibility. John’s departure for Newcastle meant a break in the publication of Histos, partly because the journal’s website remained at Durham; but, thanks to the persistent enthusiasm and effort of John Marincola, there was a new start in 2011 under the joint banners of Florida State and Newcastle universities and under the joint editorship of Professors Marincola and Moles. The new start included a complete re-formatting and up-dating of the earlier issues, all of them utterly professional in appearance, accessibility, and navigability. Some of the papers published in Histos have become classics, and beginning in 2014 a supplementary series of monographs was begun. Histos, in other words, goes from strength to strength, all due to John Moles’ foresight more than two decades ago. It was his pride and joy, and rightly so. For someone who relied so much on computers, John was a strangely reluctant user of email; he much preferred the telephone as a means of communication, and thought nothing of extended long-distance phone-calls to colleagues—sometimes across the Atlantic, and sometimes to scholars scarcely known to him—to satisfy his curiosity about some point in a Latin or Greek text. His phone-calling probably reached its height during his last years in Durham, when he was trying to increase the number of submissions to Histos, and it was Histos which also accounted for much of his scholarly energy. He was repeatedly dismayed by the standard of submissions in terms of argument or stylistic presentation. He loved the making of a case and would often spend many days trying to improve a single submission, writing comments and corrections or re-writing entire sections. Exactly the same treatment was given to the work of postgraduate students, some of whose first publications owe far more to Moles than to the authors themselves. His role as creative reader and critic of draft papers was not confined to his own department. Not long after I first met him, I sent him the draft of what would eventually become a book-chapter on Thucydides, an author in whom John had an intense interest (at one point he planned to co-author a commentary on Book 1). A substantial interval elapsed, as usually happened where John was concerned; but in due course I received many closely typed pages of detailed notes and comments, which were so helpful that I singled him out for special mention in the preface to my book. In the years that followed I would very often take advantage of his generosity and acumen in this way; and I was not alone in so doing, as Christopher Pelling amongst others will testify. Although one would scarcely describe John as one of Nature’s administrators, his research achievements meant that he was a natural choice to chair the departmental Research Committee in Durham for three years in the mid-90s.

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He was a most effective chairman, encouraging colleagues to write and publish and, as always, offering help where necessary. He also oversaw the departmental research seminar, and, after he had moved to Newcastle, undertook similar roles there. In particular he was responsible for co-ordinating the Newcastle Classics submission for the 2014 ‘Research Excellence Framework’, a task not to be wished on anyone. The move from Durham to Newcastle saw a dramatic new development in John’s scholarly interests, although he saw it more as a natural extension of work on which he had been engaged for many years. While he continued to publish on his favourite classical authors, from the mid-2000s he began research on the New Testament, especially Luke-Acts, on which he became an expert and published extensively. If this latest interest typified his intellectual curiosity and need for challenge, it should not lead us to forget another manifestation of them: for many years he was also a prolific reviewer. In the 80s and 90s he had reviewed for various journals on a wide variety of topics. His review-discussion of Simon Goldhill’s first book created almost as much stir as the book itself, while his review of Joseph Geiger is rightly seen as a classic contribution to the study of political biography. Although he eventually abandoned reviewing as too time-consuming, it was a task which he took extremely seriously, regarding himself as a fearless critic. John’s love of argument meant that he was always on top form in seminars or at conferences, for which he was correspondingly in great demand; and the fertility of his brain allowed him to accept invitations to speak on widely different subjects at many different venues in the United Kingdom and across Europe and the United States. What turned out to be his last conference was in Heidelberg in the summer of 2015, where he delivered the key-note address on the subject of Seneca and Horace. He ‘contributed massively to the discussions’, wrote one of the organisers in tribute. ‘He was an example of insight, openness, and modesty’ (John, though a scholar of firm views, was famously self-deprecating).2 In advance of the conference, as was usual, he had tested out on me his ideas and insights during the course of numerous weekly meetings over coffee; we held these meetings without fail during my periods at home in England, and they were always extremely enjoyable occasions: it seems impossible to believe that tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, I shall not get one of his phone calls demanding my immediate presence at our regular rendezvous.

2 The volume, Horace and Seneca: Interactions, Intertexts, Interpretations, edited by Martin Stöckinger, Kathrin Winter, and Andreas T. Zanker has now been published (Berlin and Boston, 2017), and is dedicated to John’s memory.

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Sociability was very important to him. He loved company, especially if there was good food and drink. He believed that scholarly visitors, whether lecturing or examining, should not only be treated with the respect due to their function but also given a good time, often resorting to his own pocket when limited departmental resources failed. Many visitors to Durham and Newcastle will have pleasure in remembering—or, in some cases, trying to remember—the hospitality to which they were treated when John was master of ceremonies. He had been greatly looking forward to welcoming to Newcastle the new co-editor of Histos, Christopher Krebs, whose visit was scheduled for the week after he died: it is beyond sad that he was denied the opportunity of offering the hospitality for which he had made such elaborate and far-sighted arrangements. John died suddenly in the afternoon of Sunday, 4 October, from heart failure. Although he produced so much brilliant scholarship, he always felt that he could have done more. The fact is that he devoted so much of his time, almost all of it unheralded and unrewarded, to the work of others; in all the tributes that have been paid to him since his death, the most consistent reference has been to his kindness. Although it is perhaps only natural that scholars will never feel satisfied with their work, John leaves as a legacy of his genius a body of scholarship which in its range and quantity, imagination, and acuity, one finds hard to parallel.3 3 For comments and memories I am most grateful to members of John’s family, as well as to Ewen Bowie, Anna Chahoud, John Marincola, Damien Nelis, Christopher Pelling, Elizabeth Pender, Martin Smith, and Rowland Smith.

Introduction to Parts 4 and 5 Christopher Pelling In late 1979 I faced the daunting task of examining John Moles’ Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus as a doctoral thesis, along with Alan Wardman as co-examiner. It was one of the first doctorates to come my way, but it was not hard to realise that most were not quite like this: the depth of scholarship, the range of interests, the sharpness of the comment were all outstanding. There were also a fair number of the Molesian touches that were to become so familiar in his later work. The first page set out its stall: This commentary is … to some extent restricted in its scope and is avowedly a ‘literary’ one. But one must use inverted commas because it is really impossible to make an absolute distinction between historical, philosophical, or literary approaches1 And he goes on to explain why: the literary critic needs to explore what material Plutarch would have been working with in order to see what he has done with it; the historian cannot gauge the reliability of the material without an idea of how it has been reshaped. Many of the papers collected in this volume will revisit, and again firmly qualify, that distinction between ‘historical’ and ‘literary’ approaches, with similar rebukes for anyone toying with what he called the ‘pure lit.’ approach. There were other things too. Take for example the intricate commentary on Brut. 2.5–8, Plutarch’s discussion of Brutus’ Laconic epistolary style (Moles [2017] 66–76). It is a tour de force, demonstrating that ‘from several points of view, 2.5–8 is an excellent illustration of the subtlety and elusiveness of P.’s literary art’. A certain amount of the subtlety depended on the double meaning he found in the word παράσημος, first apparently in the sense ‘striking’ (2.5) and then in the enigmatic summary ‘that is what these παράσημα letters are like’ (2.8). For Moles this suggested the alternative sense ‘counterfeit’, and served as an indication to the knowing reader that these letters were forgeries, even though on the face of it he has taken and quoted them ‘straight’. He found a fair number of other puns and wordplays in the Life as well, including ones that even he found ‘horrendous’ ([2017] 36)—not, on the whole, features that had previously been thought Plutarchan characteristics. It is fair to say that his 1 Quoted from the posthumous publication, Moles (2017) i.

© Christopher Pelling, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_002

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examiners were not wholly convinced. On 2.5–8 one of us asked ‘do you think Plutarch is really that sort of author?’ He left us in no doubt of his view that yes, Plutarch was. His future work would make it clear that he thought many other authors were too. John never published his thesis, though he never abandoned the thought of doing so, and it eventually appeared posthumously in 2017. I was able then to add some bibliographical updating, but there is no doubt that John himself would have revised it much more thoroughly and responded vigorously to later scholarship. His reply in 1997 to Shackleton Bailey’s treatment of Cic. ad Brutum 1.16 (below, Ch. 44) gives some idea of what he might have done. It is true that the ‘book of the thesis’ was less of a career necessity in 1979 than it later became, and for that matter John already had a permanent position at Bangor; but it is hard to think that that was the reason. His mind was already moving on to other authors and other things, with that restless thoroughness that was never going to be content with less than a full investigation—a further characteristic, incidentally, already visible in the thesis, for the long excursus on demonology and Zoroastrianism went well beyond anyone’s idea of the needs of a Brutus commentary (Moles [2017] 314–27). His substantial first paper on Dio Chrysostom (vol. 1, Ch. 1) had already come out in 1978; a note on Aristotle’s Poetics and a paper on Aeschylus followed in 1979 (below, Chs. 59–60); another tragedy paper came in 1980 (below, Ch. 61). Not that he left Plutarch completely. Several of his papers in the 1980s and 1990s extracted and revised material from the dissertation (below, Chs. 32–36, 44), and others built on the Plutarchan expertise that he had acquired during the doctoral years (below, Chs. 31, 37–8, 40–41, 43). His Aris and Phillips Cicero also appeared in 1989.2 As Tony Woodman said in his Histos obituary, ‘it is unusually good at providing materials at all levels: an excellent introduction to Plutarch for beginners, it is also much more quoted than most other volumes in the series because of its contributions to scholarship’.3 That turned out to be the only book he published, and yet in the articles one often feels that there is a book waiting to burst out: books, perhaps, on ‘Herodotus and imperialism’, or on ‘Tacitus and the empire’, or on ‘Historiographic prefaces’, or more generally on the interplay of the literary and the historical. As Oliver Taplin said of Colin Macleod, ‘many a scholar would have made whole monographs out of his austere paragraphs’:4 a sentence like ‘textualised history does not create history: it is a metaphor for it’ 2 Moles (1988). 3 Woodman (2015) 313 = above, p. xxix. 4 Taplin ap. Macleod (1983) ix.

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(below, p. 301) prompts intense reflection and invites expansion. There is certainly a book on Xenophon’s Hellenica lurking in his praise for its ‘generic diversity’, ‘part Thucydidean, part-Herodotean, partly events-driven history, partly individual-centred history, sometimes closely linked to the prose encomium, of which Xenophon was a pioneer, sometimes closely linked to political biography, of which Xenophon was also a pioneer’ (below, p. 286). Long footnotes frequently grapple with vast problems, again indicating how much he had to say (e.g., below, pp. 289 n. 26, 292 n. 31, 320 n. 84, 328 n. 90, 346–7 n. 111, 379–80 n. 27). His arguments also often build on his own earlier papers, so that one proposition or interpretation depends on others put forward years before. Take for instance the final paper in Part 5, his ‘Narrative and Speech Problems in Thucydides Book 1’ (Ch. 58): footnotes refer back not just extensively to his ‘History and Historicism’ (Ch. 55) but also to ‘Truth and Untruth’ (Ch. 49), to ‘Xenophon and Callicratidas’ (Ch. 51), to ‘Herodotus Warns the Athenians’ (Ch. 52), to ‘Herodotus and Athens’ (Ch. 56), to ‘The Thirteenth Oration of Dio Chrystosom’ (Vol. I, Ch. 10), and to his piece on Herodotus’ Socles (Ch. 57)—a host of papers, then, mainly on authors other than Thucydides. That is the sort of interlocking to be expected in a book; it is more striking in a whole publishing career, and incidentally makes it clear how valuable it will be to have the papers now collected together for easier consultation. Such interdependence may sometimes run the risk of circularity, though John himself would have expected the individual arguments to stand or fall on their own merits; it is true that anyone unconvinced of (say) one intricate case of wordplay is unlikely to be persuaded by a second case that relies on a reader’s memory and acceptance of the first (e.g., pp. 400, 402). But a multiplicity of similar test-cases, all responding productively to a similar approach, can create their own persuasiveness through simple coherence. It is one response to that sceptical ‘do we really think that this is that sort of author?’, or a broader ‘how do we know that ancient authors wrote like this?’ John’s answer might be along the lines ‘because it so often works so well if we assume that they did’—though I expect that he would have phrased it more robustly, ‘because it’s self-evident that they did’. Seeing the papers together will put readers in the best position to decide how far they agree. The papers are too nuanced to allow easy summary in a chapter-by-chapter way, but it is possible to give a Moles-like listing5 of some features that constantly recur. The first two have already been mentioned.

5 For such lists see, e.g., pp. 49–53, 93–4, 411–13, and a spectacular sequence in Ch. 58, 493–5, 495–8, and 501–5.

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(1) A focus on puns, especially on personal names, and wordplay. He is concerned to reflect the verbal patterning in his translations by keeping the same English equivalent, wherever possible, for a recurring Greek or Latin word; this can lead to some acknowledged clunkiness (e.g., pp. 135–6), but he is sure that it is worth it (pp. 275, 369 n. 4). Sometimes the puns come so thick and fast as to be bewildering, as at p. 312 where, as he puts it, ‘the biological world … goes haywire’; he finds particularly dense clusters in his discussions of Cremutius Cordus (esp. pp. 330–8) and of Herodotus and Athens (pp. 446–7). One can feel his eyes lighting up when he can combine punning with literary allusiveness: the Latin play on liber/liber/libertas evokes the Socratic παίζειν/παῖδες/παιδία/παιδεία (p. 332), and an echo of Hesiod in Thucydides’ treatment of causation can play on διά as ‘throughness’, ‘separateness’, and ‘Zeus’ (p. 504). Few scholars would push the approach anything like so far. (2) The mediation between the ‘two camps’ (p. 224, cf. pp. 160–1) of historians and literary scholars, with the insistence that the literary aspects cannot simply be stripped away like icing to leave a reliably historical cake (p. 180). Strikingly, he takes Woodman himself to task for trying too often to justify Velleius Paterculus’ narrative as historically accurate rather than acknowledging the literary tweaking that Woodman’s other work so often highlighted.6 His own criticism clearly aligns more with the literary, and in the articles he rarely engages on matters of precise historical detail, though of course he does in the Brutus and Cicero commentaries. His bigger concern is to resist extreme positions on either side; he can be just as sweeping about ‘pure lit.’ approaches (p. 303 n. 56) as about unsympathetic ancient historians (367, 396, 503). Credit though is given where credit is due, even if in characteristically Molesian terms: ‘if in the great scholarly battle over the interpretation of historiographical texts F[igueira] is clearly on the historical side, ὡς Λακεδαιμόνιος he often uses literature well’.7 (3) The importance of intertextuality, an aspect to which he was sensitive even before the term became part of everyday classical discourse (e.g., pp. 136–8). The most spectacular example comes in his treatment of Annals 4.32–3, where he identified a plethora of suggestions that others had missed (and, it should be said, not everyone would accept) and found these basic to his interpretation (pp. 283–300). (4) The need for minutely close reading, and its value for teasing out big ideas: his work so often uses the sharp, precise, and often minute to offer 6 Moles (1984) 242. 7 Moles (1994) 332, alluding to Thuc. 4.84.2.

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insight into the biggest critical questions. It is worth noting that he subjected modern scholarship too to the same close reading, clearly working through works (particularly perhaps commentaries) with a thoroughness and thoughtfulness that few would rival: that is clear not just from his reviews and from the ‘ridiculously long paper’ (p. 347) prompted by Ellen O’Gorman’s thesis (Ch. 53) but from the extended Auseinandersetzung in many papers with the work of Tony Woodman, conducted in the middle of a warm personal friendship. (5) The conviction that the best literary criticism in antiquity was to be found in the responses of later writers to earlier. In his inscriptions paper (Ch. 54) author after author emerges as an insightful reader of his predecessors (‘that is (of course) … that these successors understood Thucydides in the same ways as this paper does’, p. 397!). Dionysius of Halicarnassus gets further ticks for intelligent reading (pp. 154, 374–5 n. 17); Moles’ old favourite Dio Chrysostom is also given a good mark (p. 512). The critics themselves by contrast win no such favour; there is barely a mention of [Longinus] or Demetrius, and Aristotle’s Poetics is dissected more often than approved (p. 175 is a rare exception, but even there we have qualifications). (6) The idea of ‘proportional meaning’, phrased like that only in his later papers (pp. 477, 481, 513) but arguably present much earlier: that is, a willingness to acknowledge countercurrents in a text while still insisting that that the dominant meaning remains. Not all tyrants are bad, but most are, and an ideal can remain an ideal however often it is compromised in practice (p. 455); the unfree are not guiltless, but there is no equivalence between them and those who strip their freedom away (p. 247); any hint of threat when Callicratidas speaks to the allies is only minor (p. 234). This goes with the next point: renuancing a moral position need not undermine its fundamental strength. (7) The insistence on an author’s moral and political commitment, especially opposition to imperialism and tyranny: that is particularly clear in his treatments of Herodotus and of Tacitus, and his resonant titles make his position clear—‘Herodotus Warns the Athenians’ (Ch. 52); ‘Cry Freedom!’ (Ch. 53). Moles could consequently find texts less ‘open’ than has become usual in recent criticism, as the final page of Ch. 58 makes particularly clear (p. 514). He certainly thought that authors left much thinking for their readers to do on their own (and for Moles it was much more readers than listeners, another insistence that puts him at odds with many other scholars: cf. below, p. 395); such a demand on the reader is indeed implied by his readiness to find ‘figured speech’, cases where an audience needs to penetrate below the surface to find the meaning that could not be openly expressed (below, pp. 259, 308–11, 327–9, 470, 483). But for him those meanings remain clear and emphatic. Serious authors had serious things to say, knew their own mind, and

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wanted to point their audience in the direction that they were convinced was right—to use another Molesian phrase, ‘both morally and intellectually’ right (below, pp. 477, 480, 485). He is clear, too, that good will win in the end. ‘In the flux of history there is one great constant: the end for imperialists is always the same, the whole enterprise is wrong and doubly so. It is immoral and it will always fail’ (p. 268). (8) Finally, and very engagingly, his enthusiasm for his authors. He is refreshingly ready to state firmly that a passage or an analysis is simply very good indeed. Herodotus’ epilogue ‘contrives a brilliant and fitting conclusion’ (p. 262); Tacitus’ contrast of Republic and Empire is ‘dense, brilliant, illuminating, and true’ (p. 280); several factors combine to demonstrate the ‘excellence’ of Socles’ speech in Herodotus (p. 472); and ‘Thucydides’ causality narrative is a work of towering and intimidating brilliance. It is also, of course, supremely arrogant, but sometimes arrogance can be both justified and inspiring’ (below, p. 505). The papers are not always easy reads, though they become easier once one becomes accustomed to John Moles’ mindset. They are seasoned too by that interjection of self-deprecating wryness: ‘no doubt there are many objections to this objectionable paper’ (below, p. 355). Those who knew him will often hear the words spoken in his Northern Irish accent; even those who did not will get a firm idea of the personality behind the words. He enjoyed being mildly outrageous, and it is typical that in a seminar he could pronounce ancient literary criticism to be simply ‘no good’ (p. 367). One sometimes suspects that provocative remarks were included as a deliberate and slightly self-parodying tease: ‘of course, if the History is so conceived [i.e., as a ‘text for any context’] (both by Thucydides and his readers), some of the usual criticisms of Thucydides will necessarily be misconceived’ (p. 434 n. 83). Did he really think that all his own readers would immediately grasp exactly how he would have expanded on that? He loved the give and take of oral discussion, showing something of the ‘agreeable pugnacity’ he admired in Tony Woodman (p. 150); in his obituary Woodman himself leaves a memorable picture of their late-night conversations amid clouds of cigar smoke,8 and I was one of the many people he liked to phone up for immediate consultation, and usually argument, about whatever problem was in his mind. Though he tended to regard his readings as evidently true once they were pointed out (e.g., p. 173 n. 19, ironically an interpretation which he later retracted, p. 422 n. 43), that is far from saying that he expected everyone to be convinced or took any offence when they were not: he 8 Woodman (2015) 313 = above, p. xxix.

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laughed uproariously when I told him that I could believe about 45% of one of his articles, and just said that next time he hoped to raise it to a pass-mark. His original conception of Histos envisaged it as a forum for free and open debate, with each paper serving as a prompt for animated discussion-threads; and free and open debate was close to his heart, in the classical community as much as in the anti-tyrannical and anti-imperialist systems to which his authors, he was convinced, were as committed as he was himself. He died far too young. Bibliography Macleod, C. (1983) Collected Essays (Oxford). Moles, J. L. (1984) ‘Review of A. J. Woodman, Velleius Paterculus: The Caesarian and Augustan Narrative (Cambridge, 1983)’, JRS 74: 242–4. Moles, J. L., ed. (1988) Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). Moles, J. L. (1994) ‘Review of T. J. Figueira, Excursions in Epichoric History: Aiginetan Essays (Lanham, Md., 1993)’, CR 44: 331–3. Moles, J. L. (2017) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus, edited with notes and bibliography by C. Pelling (Histos Supplement 7; Newcastle). Woodman, A. J. (2015) ‘Professor J. L. Moles’, Histos 9: 312–18 = above, pp. xxviii–xxxiv.

Part 4 Studies in Greco-Roman Biography

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Chapter 31

Plutarch, Crassus 13.4–5 and Cicero’s de consiliis suis In the course of a stimulating study of Cicero’s de consiliis suis E. Rawson argues that the reference in Plutarch, Crassus 13.4–5 {= FRHist 39 F 7 + F 1} cannot be to that work.1 Plutarch writes: ὅμως δὲ ὁ Κικέρων ἔν τινι λόγῳ φανερὸς ἦν Κράσσῳ καὶ Καίσαρι τὴν αἰτίαν προστριβόμενος. ἀλλ᾽οὗτος μὲν ὁ λόγος ἐξεδόθη μετὰ τὴν ἀμφοῖν τελευτήν, ἐν δὲ τῷ Περὶ ὑπατείας ὁ Κικέρων νύκτωρ φησὶ τὸν Κράσσον ἀφικέσθαι πρὸς αὐτὸν, κ.τ.λ. Plutarch is here concerned with Crassus’ role in the Catilinarian Conspiracy. The sequel of his narrative does not concern us here. Ms Rawson comments on this passage:2 It has been customary since Schwartz … to identify this too with our work. But the fact is that λόγος must be translated as ‘speech’. The word recurs frequently in Plutarch, for example, obviously enough, in the life of Cicero, where it always means either an actual speech, spoken or published, or the like…. The expositio would surely have come under the head of τὰ βιβλία … καὶ τὰ συγγράμματα full of self praise (ch. 24), if not of συντάξεις (Comp. Dem. et Cic. 1); Octavian’s memoirs are ὐπομνήματα (ibid. 3). Dio … calls the de consiliis suis a βιβλίον. This argument is very forced. It would, indeed, be equally forced to draw precisely the opposite conclusion from Plutarch’s language and infer from the μὲν … δὲ contrast that, since the first work is a λόγος, the second must be too, and, since the Περὶ ὑπατείας was not a speech, that λόγος must here have a broad application (‘work’, ‘treatise’) covering different types of literature: μὲν … δὲ contrasts do not require complete symmetry between the two elements. Both arguments, in fact, press Plutarch’s language too hard. A basic point should be that, while λόγος with reference to the works of an orator will of 1 Rawson (1982). 2 Rawson (1982) 121 {= (1991) 409}.

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course normally mean ‘speech’, this cannot be regarded as a certain translation in every case when the orator in question produced other works besides speeches, as Plutarch knew Cicero to have done. The term λόγος is often given precise definition by context (the contrasts λόγος/ἔργον, λόγος/μῦθος, λόγος/ποίησις; also λόγος in discussions of oratory or of philosophy), but it has a very wide range of meaning, and by itself and in isolation (as in Plut. Crass. 13) it can be a very vague word, even when applied to categories of literature. Λόγος is a perfectly acceptable way of referring to practically any literary ‘work’ (poetry excluded). So, for example, Aristotle in Poetics 1454b18 refers to fuller discussion of a topic ἐν τοῖς ἐκδεδομένοις λόγοις: the work(s) here alluded to may in fact have been written in dialogue form (see Lucas {1968} ad loc.), but all ἐν τοῖς ἐκδεδομένοις λόγοις means in context is ‘my published works’. Similarly, in Dion 2.7 our author Plutarch proposes further treatment of ‘demonological’ problems in ἄλλος λόγος, ‘another work’. And, following the example of Herodotus, λόγος or λόγοι can readily be applied to historiographical works. So Arrian describes his Indica as a λόγος (Ind. 43.14.) and his Anabasis as λόγοι (Anab. 1.12.5). Plutarch himself refers to a pair of Parallel Lives as a λόγος (Dion. 2.7 [by implication]; Thes. 1.4: λόγον ἐκδόντες) besides the terms βιβλίον (Alex. 1.1; Dem. 3.1; Per. 2.5; etc.) and γραφή (Dion 1.1). The notion that Plutarch should have carefully restricted the application of so elastic ⟦137⟧ a word as λόγος to a single sense in all his references to Cicero is bizarre. Consequently, the argument ‘the word  … always means either a speech … or the like’, has no formal validity, even if we concede, as perhaps we should not,3 that this is a true statement of Plutarch’s usage in the Cicero itself. Similarly, the argument ‘the expositio would surely have come under the head of’ βιβλία, συγγράμματα, or whatever, lacks force: these are relatively precise terms, each of which could be glossed in general terms by the word λόγος (just as in English, ‘work’ can cover such different literary categories as novels, short stories, essays, articles, etc.). If, then, Plutarch has in mind Cicero’s de consiliis suis in Crassus 13.4–5, he could certainly have referred to it as a λόγος, using the term either quite vaguely or (possibly) with a mild historiographical flavour. That he does not have the de consiliis suis in mind is, indeed, not absolutely certain, but it is extremely likely, as the material presented by Ms Rawson herself shows. Like 3 Ms Rawson presumably means ‘λόγος with reference to a literary work’: otherwise the statement is absurd. But in Cicero 2.3 λόγος is more than just ‘eloquence’ and in 16.5 λόγοι are ‘words’, not ‘speeches’. Plutarchean usage elsewhere (see text) shows that λόγος in Plutarch, even of a literary work, does not necessarily denote ‘speech’, which of course is in line with normal Greek practice.

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the expositio, the λόγος openly accused Caesar and Crassus of complicity in the Catilinarian Conspiracy, it was also, like the expositio, a βιβλίον ἀπόρρητον, and it was, or was to be, published only μετὰ τελευτήν. These are telling correspondences. The only slight discrepancy is that in Plutarch the λόγος was published μετὰ τὴν ἀμφοῖν τελευτήν, which presumably (although perhaps not certainly) means ‘after the deaths of Crassus and Caesar’, whereas in Dio 39.10.2–3 the expositio was to be published after Cicero’s own death. But this small difficulty could be explained by any of several easy hypotheses; inaccuracy of detail on the part of Plutarch or of Dio,4 or the possibility that sometime after Caesar’s death the work was indeed circulated privately among a few of Cicero’s friends but not as yet formally ‘published’.5 In any case, Schwartz’s identification of the λόγος of Crassus 13 with the de consiliis remains convincing. This conclusion is important not only for Quellenforschung in Plutarch’s Lives: it also supports other indications6 that the de consiliis, whether rightly or wrongly, but apparently sincerely,7 was sharply critical of the machinations of Crassus and Caesar in 63. Bibliography Büchner, K. (1939) ‘Tullius (28)’, RE VIIA: 827–1274. Lucas, D. W., ed. (1968) Aristotle: Poetics (Oxford). Rawson, E. (1982) ‘History, Historiography and Cicero’s expositio consiliorum suorum’, LCM 7: 121–4; repr. in ead., Roman Culture and Society: Collected Papers (Oxford, 1991) 408–15.

4 Whose dating of the expositio to 57 is anyway faulty: Rawson (1982) 124 {= (1991) 415}. 5 Cf. Att. 14.17.6: fuller discussion by Büchner (1939) 1268, who thinks it was published in the period of the Philippics; Rawson (1982) 124 {= (1991) 415} is agnostic as to whether it ‘was ever polished to its author’s satisfaction’; one might as well believe Plutarch. 6 Rawson (1982) 123 {= (1991) 413–14}. 7 Rawson (1982) 123 {= (1991) 414}.

Chapter 32

The Ides of March and Anna Perenna J. Cressey’s suggestion1 that the fact that the Ides of March coincided with the festival of Anna Perenna may have influenced the calculations of the Liberators is not new: J. Hubaux2 argued that the time of the festival, the first full moon in the old calendar, had important religious significance for the Liberators’ purposes (cf. Cressey), and N. Horsfall3 emphasised the practical advantages of the absence of large numbers of the urban proletariat from the centre of the city (cf. Cressey). J. M. Carter, taking a quite different tack, suggested that ‘the festival must have been the reason why Caesar chose the Curia Pompei as the senate’s meeting-place on this particular day’;4 the suggestion is implausible, since according to Appian, BC 2.115, it was the custom for the Senate to meet in the Curia Pompei when games were taking place in the adjacent theatre, as they were on the Ides. No doubt the absence of large numbers of the plebs was of practical advantage to the Liberators, but all the indications are that neither this nor any specious religious associations of the festival of Anna Perenna influenced the decision to kill Caesar on the Ides. The instigator of the conspiracy was Cassius.5 He was openly hostile to Caesar since c. the end of 45, when he and a few others (apparently not including Brutus) voted against the Senate’s final batch of honours to Caesar.6 But when Cassius sounded out some of his friends (Plut. Brut. 10.1–3), it was agreed that Brutus’ participation was essential, to guarantee the moral respectability of the deed. But Cassius and Brutus had been on bad terms because of rivalry over the urban praetorship,7 i.e., since towards the end of 45 (the elections for 44 were apparently held in December 45: Cic. Fam. 7.30.1–2). Brutus’ slumbering Republican conscience was stirred by the pasquinades on L. Brutus’ and Caesar’s statues on the Capitol, Brutus’ tribunal, and elsewhere.8 These 1 2 3 4 5

Cressey (1982). Hubaux (1957). Horsfall (1974) 196f. Carter (1970) 2. Plut. Brut. 8.5 and 10.1–7; Caes. 62.8; Appian, BC 2.113; Syme (1958) II.557 n. 7: Cass. Dio 44.14.2, assigning Brutus the primacy, is worthless, pace Fröhlich (1899) 1730, and Gelzer (1917) 998f. 6 Cass. Dio 44.8.1, with Gelzer (1968) 316f. and nn. 1 and 2 on 317. 7 Plut. Brut. 7.1–5 and 10.3ff.; App. BC 2.112 and 113. 8 Plut. Brut. 9.5–8; Caes. 62.7; Cass. Dio 44.12.1–3; Appian, BC 2.112; Suet. Iul. 80.3.

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appeared sometime after the loss of tribunician ⟦90⟧ power by Caesetius Flavus and Epidius Marullus (Suet. Iul. 80.3), i.e., post the beginning of February, and in the aftermath of the Lupercalia incident (Cass. Dio 44.12.1–3), i.e., post February 15. Cassius then had to become reconciled with Brutus and persuade him to join the conspiracy (Plut. Brut. 10.3–7; App. BC 2.113). This must already have been towards the end of February. Once Brutus had been won over, other conspirators had to be enlisted (Plut. Brut. 11–12; App. BC 2.113). This must have taken some time, given that the conspiracy eventually numbered over sixty persons (Suet. Iul. 80.4; cf. Eutr. 6.25 and Oros. 6.17.2, both presumably Livian). It follows that the conspiracy was only finally formed end-February to beginning-March. This dating is consistent with the evidence of Suetonius (Iul. 80.4), according to which the conspirators considered murdering Caesar when he was involved in the comitia held for the purposes of electing the consuls of 43 and 42; these elections should probably be dated late-February to early-March.9 The attempt had to be made quickly, both for security reasons (cf. Plut. Brut. 12.2) and because Caesar was due to leave Rome on March 18 (App. BC 2.111 and 114). The conspirators considered several locations for the assassination (Suet. Iul. 80.4; Nic. Damasc. {FGrHist 90 F 130} 23.81), but postquam senatus Idibus Martiis in Pompei curiam edictus est, facile tempus et locum praetulerunt (Suet. ibid.; cf. Plut. Brut. 14.1). Thus the final decision to kill Caesar in the Senate-house was dictated by the circumstances, and the choice had less to do with the precise date than with the practical advantages of doing the deed in the Senate. In the detailed and circumstantial ancient accounts of these advantages (Nic. Damasc. {FGrHist 90 F 130} 23.81; Plut. Brut. 14.1–2; App. BC 2.114; Cass. Dio 44.16.1–2), no mention is made of the fact that the Ides of March coincided with the festival of Anna Perenna. If this had been of significance, Asinius Pollio or Empylus, the latter a friend of Brutus and author of a σύγγραμμα περὶ τῆς Καίσαρος ἀναιρέσεως, ὃ βροῦτος ἐπιγέγραπται (Plut. Brut. 2.4), would have recorded it and the item would have found its way into the historical tradition. Modern speculations, therefore, about the significance of the coincidence of the festival of Anna Perenna overlook the facts that (a) the choice of time and location was in effect made for the conspirators, who were working to a very tight schedule, (b) there were numerous obvious advantages in doing the deed in the Senate-house, and (c) in the well-informed ancient accounts of the conspirators’ calculations there is not a squeak about Anna Perenna.

9 Cf. Horsfall (1974) 193.

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Bibliography Carter, J. M. (1970) The Battle of Actium: the Rise and Triumph of Augustus Caesar (London). Cressey, J. (1982) ‘Why the Ides of March?’, LCM 7: 60. Fröhlich, E. (1899) ‘C. Cassius Longinus (59)’, RE III: 1727–36. Gelzer, M. (1917) ‘Iunius (53)’, RE X.1: 973–1020. Gelzer, M. (1968) Caesar: Politician and Statesman (Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.); Eng. trans. by P. Needham of Caesar: der Politiker und Staatsmann6 (Wiesbaden, 1960). Horsfall, N. (1974) ‘The Ides of March: Some New Problems’, G&R 21: 191–9. Hubaux, J. (1957) ‘Sur la mort de Jules César’, BAB 43: 76–87. Syme, R. (1958) Tacitus, 2 vols. (Oxford).

Chapter 33

Some ‘Last Words’ of M. Iunius Brutus Classical biographers are fond of proclaiming that a man’s character may be revealed not only by what he does (his πράξεις), but also by what he says (his λόγοι). Particular stress may be put on what a man says before death: such utterances are thought to be especially informative. Naturally this general ancient interest in apophthegmata creates problems for the modern historian. Where documentation was lacking, many ancient biographers and historiographers had little scruple in supplying their own material. Moreover, apophthegmata inevitably tend to cluster round the personalities of great men. But of course such data may have value for the revelation of character, provided they are carefully sifted for authenticity. In the present paper I shall discuss some of the last sayings (and writings) attributed to the tyrannicide M. Iunius Brutus, all of a controversial nature, with a view to assessing their genuineness and the insights they may or may not give us into Brutus’ character and thought. The exercise has a further value: even bogus material can tell us something about the sort of political propaganda that was circulated both for and against the memory of Brutus.

…

Plut. Brut. 29.8–11: ὅθεν Βροῦτος οὐ τῇ δυνάμει τοσοῦτον ὅσον τῇ ἀρετῇ δῆλός ἐστιν ἐξ ὧν γράφει πεποιθώς. γράφει δὲ πρὸς Ἀττικόν, ἤδη τῷ κινδύνῳ πλησιάζων ἐν τῷ καλλίστῳ τῆς τύχης εἶναι τὰ καθ᾽ αὑτόν· ἢ γὰρ νικήσας ἐλευθερώσειν τὸν Ῥωμαίων δῆμον ἢ δουλείας ἀποθανὼν ἀπαλλαγήσεσθαι, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀσφαλῶς αὐτοῖς καὶ βεβαίως ἐχόντων, ἓν ἄδηλον εἶναι, πότερον βιώσονται μετ᾽ ἐλευθερίας ἢ τεθνήξονται. Μᾶρκον δ᾽ Ἀντώνιον ἀξίαν φησὶ τῆς ἀνοίας διδόναι δίκην, ὃς ἐν Βρούτοις καὶ Κασσίοις καὶ Κάτωσι συναριθμεῖσθαι δυνάμενος, προσθήκην ἑαυτὸν Ὀκταβίῳ δέδωκε· κἂν μὴ νῦν ἡττηθῇ μετ᾽ ἐκείνου, μικρὸν ὕστερον ἐκείνῳ μαχεῖται. ταῦτα μὲν οὖν ἀποθεσπίσαι καλῶς πρὸς τὸ μέλλον ἔοικεν. Plutarch is the only source for this letter. which he cites to support the proposition that Brutus relied upon ἀρετή rather than δύναμις. Is it ⟦764⟧ authentic?

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Some scholars have thought so, others not.1 Although in this case, authenticity is, as we shall see, certain, the investigation of the question raises several interesting points. The ostensible date of the letter cannot be exactly determined—obviously before one of the two battles of Philippi in October–November 42, but Plutarch’s dating—ἤδη τῷ κινδύνῳ πλησιάζων—is studiously vague. The sentiments expressed might seem to fit a context before the first battle rather than the second, since Brutus was keen to fight the first battle and reluctant to fight the second,2 but this can hardly be pressed: the sentiments could apply to a situation where Brutus did not intend to fight in the immediate future, but nevertheless assumed that he would have to fight sooner or later. And with his philosophical views, Brutus could have expressed contentment with his lot at practically any time.3 Nor, on the other hand, can Brutus’ preoccupation with his own feelings and use of the singular number be pressed to imply that Cassius was dead when the letter was written. The impossibility of dating the letter exactly, however, is not an argument against authenticity. Nor does Brutus’ ‘prophecy’ of future dissension between Antony and Octavian seem impossibly prescient. Anyone who had lived through the 50s in Rome could have made such a prophecy, especially if they knew—as who did not?—of the past differences between Antony and Octavian.4 There are also positive arguments for the genuineness of the letter. (i) It seems clear that Plutarch found the letter in a collection of Brutus’ letters extant in the first century AD. He cites several other letters of ⟦765⟧ Brutus in his Brutus and in all these cases there are no grounds for doubting authenticity.5 1 Here, as elsewhere, I print Ziegler’s revised Teubner text (1964) of the Brutus. The authenticity of the letter is accepted by (e.g.) Gelzer (1917) 1003; Syme (1939) 206; it is doubted by (e.g.) Flacelière–Chambry (1978) 175. 2 Plut. Brut. 39.7–8; App. BC 4.123–4; Cass. Dio 47.48.1–2 (suspect are Plut. Caes. 69.13, where Plutarch is adapting Brutus’ frame of mind to fit his own theology, and Val. Max. 6.4.5, which is discussed below, pp. 19–20). 3 Cf., e.g., among Brutus’ own works, the De uirtute, which was Stoic in tone (Hendrickson [1939]) and of which ‘la morale … était que pour vivre heureux on n’a besoin que de soi’ (Boissier [1899]; cf. also Brutus’ sentiments after his final defeat as reported in Plut. Brut. 52.4–5 (discussion on pp. 31–3 below). 4 For another ‘prophecy’ about Antony cf. Vell. 2.71.2 (Varro). I believe that the apparently peculiar dictum attested in Plut. Brut. 24.6 conceals a rather similar plea for the future downfall of Octavian, but this requires detailed argument. See my forthcoming paper, Moles (1983). 5 Excepting, of course, the notorious Greek letters, which are almost certainly all forgeries (cf. Smith (1936)). For the genuine letters cf. Plut. Brut. 21.6; 22.4–6; 24.3; 28.2; 53.6–7; discussion in Moles (1979) 1 {= (2017) 32–3}; Pelling (1979) 87 and n. 93 {= (2002) 15, 37 n. 93}. On the authenticity of Ad Brut. 1.16 and 1.17 see below, n. 6. {For more on Brutus’ letters, see below, Ch. 44.}

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(ii) The content of the letter is consistent with Brutan authorship in several respects. The general sentiments, though conventional enough, are similar to the proud utterances of the famous (and authentic)6 Ad Brut. 1.16 and 1.17, where the thought that slavery is the worst evil of all is repeatedly stressed, and to the fragment of Brutus’ De dictatura Pompei quoted by Quintilian.7 More specifically, the reference to Ὀκαταβίῳ accords with Brutus’ practice, for Brutus, like Antony, refused to concede Octavian’s right to the name ‘Caesar’.8 Finally, the view expressed of Antony fits well with the reasons Plutarch records for Brutus’ insistence on sparing Antony’s life on the Ides of March, which show a similarly ambivalent estimate of Antony’s character.9 (iii) There are interesting parallels between the letter and two items in the historical tradition: (a) Val. Max. 6.4.5 (under the rubric grauiter dicta aut facta): M. Brutus suarum prius uirtutum quam patriae parentis parricida—uno ⟦766⟧ enim facto et illas in profundum praecipitauit et omnem sui nominis memoriam inexpiabili detestatione perfudit—ultimum proelium initurus negantibus quibusdam id committi oportere ‘fidenter’, inquit, ‘in aciem descendo: hodie enim aut recte erit aut nihil curabo.’ Praesumpserat uidelicet neque uiuere se sine uictoria neque mori sine securitate posse. Since other, and more reliable, accounts of the second battle of Philippi make it clear that Brutus wished to avoid fighting (n. 2), this is presumably a bogus apologetic version of Brutus’ feelings before the battle. Although the general 6 The case for authenticity advanced by Tyrrell and Purser (1904–33) VI.cxxvff., remains excellent and has been widely accepted. Shackleton Bailey (1980) 10–14, now argues (contrary to his former views) against authenticity, but his arguments are not (in my view) compelling. In particular, his judgement that the letters are of poor quality as regards both literary style and political content seems unreasonable: Gelzer and Syme, among others, have judged very differently. 7 Quint. 9.3.95: ‘praestat enim nemini imperare quam alicui seruire: sine illo enim uiuere honeste licet, cum hoc uiuendi nulla condicio est.’ 8 Ad Brut. 1.16.1–2, 7–8, 11; Ad Brut. 1.17.5–6; the use of ‘Caesar’ in Ad Brut. 1.4a.2–3 and 1.16.6 is sarcastic; cf. Stockton (1971) 324 n. 64. Shackleton Bailey’s note on this point ([1980] 251) is inadequate. 9 Plut. Brut. 18.4–6: ἀλλὰ Βροῦτος ἐνέστη πρὸς τὸ βούλευμα, πρῶτον μὲν ἰσχυριζόμενος τῷ δικαίῳ, δεύτερον δ᾽ ὑποθεὶς ἐλπίδα τῆς μεταβολῆς. οὐ γὰρ ἀπεγίνωσκεν εὐφυᾶ καὶ φιλότιμον ἄνδρα καὶ δόξης ἐραστὴν τὸν Ἀντώνιον ἐκποδὼν Καίσαρος γενομένου συνεφάψεσθαι τῇ πατρίδι τῆς ἐλευθερίας, ἐπισπασθέντα τῷ ζήλῳ πρὸς τὸ καλὸν ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν. οὕτω μὲν Ἀντώνιον Βροῦτος περιεποίησεν· There are no grounds for suspecting the authenticity of this evidence, which may well derive from Empylus, the Rhodian rhetorician and friend of Brutus (cf. Moles [1979] xxxiv, liv {= (2017) 20, 35–6}).

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sentiments are again conventional, one may suspect that in the particular case they have been inspired by Brutus’ sentiments in his letter to Atticus.10 (b) App. BC 4.546f.: καί φασιν αὐτὸν ἐς τοὺς ἀστέρας ἀναβλέποντα εἰπεῖν· ‘Ζεῦ, μὴ λάθοι σε τῶνδ᾽ ὃς αἴτιος κακῶν’, ἐνσημαινόμενον ἄρα τὸν Ἀντώνιον. ὃ καὶ αὐτὸν Ἀντώνιόν φασιν ὕστερον ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις κινδύνοις μεταγινώσκοντα εἰπεῖν, ὅτι συνεξετάζεσθαι Κασσίῳ καὶ Βρούτῳ δυνάμενος ὑπηρέτης γένοιτο Ὀκταουίου. Brutus’ citation of this verse of tragedy (Eur. Med. 332) is historical,11 but Antony’s later alleged citation of it is too good to be true, and is obviously a tradition invented in order to suggest a ‘tragic pattern’ of cause and effect between the downfall of Brutus and that of Antony. The explanation given for Antony’s citation of the verse is clearly based on Brutus’ remarks in the letter to Atticus. Val. Max. 6.4.5 and App. BC 4.546f. (in so far as it relates to Antony’s alleged quotation and reflections), then, are both bogus, and in Valerius’ case probably, in Appian’s case certainly, based on Brutus’ observations to Atticus. The presumption is strong that these two fabrications, set as they are in different contexts, derive from something that is itself authentic. Moreover, if the fabrication in Appian goes back to Asinius Pollio, which on both general and specific grounds is very likely,12 the letter to Atticus must already have been extant in the decade or so after Brutus’ death. This in itself argues for the letter’s authenticity. ⟦767⟧ To sum up. The authenticity of this letter is beyond dispute. It provides important evidence both for Brutus’ view of himself and for his assessment of the character of Mark Antony.

…

Plut. Brut. 40.5–11: 10

The relationship between Val. Max. 6.4.5 and Plut. Brut. 29.8–11 is widely recognised: cf. Ziegler (1964) II.1.159; Flacelière–Chambry (1978) 125 n. 1. For the sentiments cf. especially Plut. Brut. 22.5 (for which there is no exact parallel in the letters Ad Brut. 1.16 and 1.17) and 40.9 (Cassius, in Plutarch’s paraphrase of Messalla’s account). 11 Cf. Plut. Brut. 51.1 (discussed below, pp. 26–7). 12 General, because Asinius Pollio is Appian’s main source: cf. Kornemann (1896) 555ff. (an analysis which has rightly found general acceptance); specific, because such manipulation of his material for literary and thematic gains seems to have been a Pollionian trademark: cf. App. BC 4.124.520 with discussion below, pp. 24–5.

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ἅμα δ᾽ ἡμέρᾳ προὔκειτο μὲν τῷ Βρούτου χάρακι καὶ τῷ Κασσίου σύμβολον ἀγῶνος φοινικοῦς χιτών, αὐτοὶ δὲ συνῆλθον εἰς τὸ μέσον τῶν στρατοπέδων καὶ λέγει Κάσσιος· ‘εἴη μὲν, ὦ Βροῦτε, νικᾶν καὶ συνεῖναι τὸν πάντα χρόνον ἀλλήλοις εὖ πράξαντας. ἐπεὶ δὲ τὰ μέγιστα τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ἀδηλότατα, καὶ τῆς μάχης παρὰ γνώμην κριθείσης οὐ ῥᾴδιον αὖθις ἀλλήλους ἰδεῖν, τί γινώσκεις περὶ φυγῆς καὶ τελευτῆς;’ καὶ ὁ Βροῦτος ἀπεκρίνατο· ‘νέος ὢν ἐγὼ, Κάσσιε, καὶ πραγμάτων ἄπειρος, οὐκ οἶδ᾽ ὅπως ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ λόγον ἀφῆκα μέγαν· ᾐτιασάμην Κάτωνα διαχρησάμενον ἑαυτόν, ὡς οὐχ ὅσιον οὐδ᾽ ἀνδρὸς ἔργον ὑποχωρεῖν τῷ δαίμονι καὶ μὴ δέχεσθαι τὸ συμπῖπτον ἀδεῶς, ἀλλ᾽ ἀποδιδράσκειν. νυνὶ δ᾽ ἀλλοῖος ἐν ταῖς τύχαις γίνομαι, καὶ θεοῦ καλῶς τὰ παρόντα μὴ βραβεύσαντος οὐ δέομαι πάλιν ἄλλας ἐλπίδας ἐξελέγχειν καὶ παρασκευάς, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπαλλάξομαι τὴν τύχην ἐπαινῶν, ὅτι Μαρτίαις εἰδοῖς δοὺς τῇ πατρίδι τὸν ἐμαυτοῦ βίον, ἄλλον ἔζησα δι᾽ ἐκείνην ἐλεύθερον καὶ ἔνδοξον.’ ἐπὶ τούτοις Κάσσιος ἐμειδίασε, καὶ τὸν Βροῦτον ἀσπασάμενος, ‘ταῦτ’’, ἔφη, ‘φρονοῦντες ἴωμεν ἐπὶ τοὺς πολεμίους, ἢ γὰρ νικήσομεν ἢ νικῶντας οὐ φοβηθησόμεθα.’ μετὰ ταῦτα περὶ τάξεως αὐτοῖς λόγος ἐγένετο, τῶν φίλων παρόντων. καὶ Βροῦτος ᾐτεῖτο Κάσσιον αὐτὸς ἡγεῖσθαι τοῦ δεξιοῦ κέρατος, ὃ δι᾽ ἐμπειρίαν καὶ ἡλικίαν μᾶλλον ᾤοντο Κασσίῳ προσήκειν. οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦτο Κάσσιος ἔδωκε, καὶ τῶν ταγμάτων τὸ μαχιμώτατον ἔχοντα Μεσσάλαν ἐκέλευσεν ἐπὶ τοῦ δεξιοῦ καταστῆναι. This conversation between Brutus and Cassius on the morning of the first battle of Philippi (probably 23 October, 42)13 and the subsequent discussion about the order of battle are elsewhere unattested. Are they historical?14 The question is very difficult to decide, for numerous different factors have to be taken into account: (i) The whole passage presupposes that Brutus and Cassius had made a considered decision to fight the Caesarians. This was evidently the version of ⟦768⟧ Messalla, from whom Plutarch is working directly in his narrative of the Philippi campaign. But according to Appian, who must be following Asinius Pollio, the Republicans were forced into battle against their will as a result of Antony’s daring sallies. Thus if the usual view of events is right and Asinius Pollio’s account is authoritative, Plut. Brut. 40.5–11 is immediately condemned as unhistorical. If, on the other hand, Messalla’s version is correct, or if some sort of reconciliation of the two apparently contradictory accounts is possible, the passage need not be rejected out of 13 I follow the dating of Hülsen (1924) 193ff. 14 Some degree of historicity is accepted by Bengtson (1970) 12 and Clarke (1981) 67f., but neither begins to discuss the difficulties involved.

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hand.15 Leaving aside for the moment the question whether or not Brutus and Cassius had decided on battle, I turn to the other relevant factors. (ii) Some allowance has to be made for the philosophical martyrological flavour of Plutarch’s narrative. In the general literary context, where Brutus and Cassius are cast in the role of high-minded tyrannicides and Cassius’ suicide is imminent, the conversation inevitably takes on something of the colouring of the conversations about life and death engaged in by Socrates, and, following his example, Cato, Seneca, Thrasea Paetus, and others before their suicides. But this does not necessarily mean that it is without historical foundation, since Brutus and Cassius, perhaps even more than Cato, were acutely conscious of acting under the influence of Greek philosophical thought, especially in relation to the problem of the correct philosophical response to tyranny. Moreover, when the frills are stripped away, the basic question with which Plut. Brut. 40.5–9 is concerned is: ‘what shall we do if we lose?’. In the circumstances that would have been a natural question to raise, the more so if Cassius really was apprehensive about the outcome of the battle and ⟦769⟧ had only agreed to fight against his better judgement, as Messalla maintained.16 Nor is it impossible that Brutus should subsequently have told his friends of the content of his last conversation with Cassius, particularly when in the event Cassius did commit suicide, and in that way a source close to Brutus (the obvious candidate is again Messalla) might have got hold of the essential content of Plut. Brut. 40.5–9. (iii) Florus 2.17.14 gives Plutarch’s account some support. According to Florus, Brutus and Cassius had agreed a suicide pact in the event of defeat. Florus is independent of Plutarch only in the sense that neither writer is working from the other. On general grounds one expects Florus to go back to Livy. In that case he may well be drawing ultimately upon the account of 15 Messalla’s version: Plut. Brut. 40.1–4 (cf. 39.8–11); the attempt to dismiss this as a confusion on Plutarch’s part with the situation before the second battle (so Collart [1937] 211f. n. 1) is wholly unconvincing; Plutarch’s use of Messalla for the Philippi campaign: cf. Moles (1979) lviiff. {= (2017) 37ff.}; Pelling (1979) 87 {= (2002) 15}; Pollio’s version: App. BC 4.109ff. Appian (Pollio) is followed by (e.g.) Kromayer and Veith (1929) 116ff.; Rice Holmes (1928–31) I.85f.; Fuller (1954) 207ff.; Bengtson (1970) 40; Clarke (1981) 68; cf. Collart (1937) 210f. Plutarch (Messalla) is followed by (e.g.) Ferrero (1907–9) III.203ff. Gelzer (1917) 1018 and Kniely (1973) 232 n. 1 attempt to reconcile the two accounts. In my view this is the correct approach in principle, though reconstruction of detail remains difficult (cf. Moles [1979] 418ff. {= (2017) 333ff.}). 16 Plut. Brut. 39.8ff. (clearly part of Messalla’s account, pace Gelzer [1917] 1018 and Collart [1937] 211f. n. 1); 40.1–4 (explicitly Messalla).

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Messalla, which had got into Livy. Since Plutarch’s general narrative of the Philippi campaign is based on Messalla, Florus and Plutarch are not, in the last resort, independent. Nevertheless, Florus’ evidence does indicate that Plut. Brut. 40.6–9 is not totally made up by Plutarch: Messalla seems to have had something about a suicide pact. (iv) The emphasis in Cassius’ remarks εἴη … πράξαντας looks apologetic: although Republican sources strove to conceal, or underplay, the fact, it is clear that Brutus and Cassius had had some radical policy disagreements during their Eastern campaigns.17 But this is a relatively trivial element in the passage as a whole. (v) Whether or not Brutus and Cassius had some such conversation as Plut. Brut. 40.5–9 attests, it is scarcely credible (a) that they should have had it on the very morning of the battle, and (b) in τὸ μέσον τῶν στρατοπέδων (40.5). This at least is ‘dramatic history’, not fact. (vi) Plut. Brut. 40.10 is doubly suspect: (a) discussion about so major a decision would hardly have taken place only on the morning of the battle; (b) it is in any case completely redundant, being ‘an attempt to explain an arrangement which needs none: for as they were encamped Brutus already commanded the right’.18 Of these factors (v) and (vi) are the most crucial. (v) is enough to show that the precise context given the conversation by Plutarch is unhistorical, ⟦770⟧ but not enough to prove that the conversation itself is bogus: Plut. Brut. 40.5 could simply be a typical Plutarchean ‘chronological displacement’, made for obvious literary gains.19 (vi) is much more serious, but not in itself sufficient to discredit the whole Messallan account of the battle. Brut. 40.10 could be Plutarch’s own contribution, either completely invented, or—conceivably—transferred from the context of the original arrangements of the Republican encampment. Alternatively, Messalla himself might have distorted the record to a limited extent, exaggerating the preparedness of the Republicans (for even by Messalla’s account of the battle, it appears that the Republicans were caught off guard by Antony’s onslaught).20 That hypothesis is perhaps more likely in view of the mention of Messalla’s role in 40.11. Thus factor (i) remains crucial. Unless one simply assumes the authority of Pollio’s version of the battle (an assumption which I do not believe to be 17 Cf., e.g., Plut. Brut. 28.3–5; 34.1–7; 35.1–6; 39.7–11; App. BC 4.270; Cass. Dio 47.35.1. 18 So, rightly, Wilson (1956) 221. 19 For such ‘chronological displacements’ in Plutarch see most recently Pelling (1980) 128f. {= (2002) 92f.}. 20 Cf. Plut. Brut. 41.1–4.

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justifiable), the essential authenticity of Plut. Brut. 40.5–9 must remain an open question, pending final resolution of the historical problem of the circumstances under which battle was joined. Nevertheless, despite all the uncertainties, Plut. Brut. 40.5–9 may still preserve something of historical value. Firstly, Brutus and Cassius may well, at some stage before the battle, have agreed a suicide pact. Florus supports this, as does Cassius’ actual behaviour when he was defeated. And when Brutus stood over Cassius’ dead body, he reproached him for his haste.21 Secondly, the arguments used by the ‘young’ Brutus in 40.7 in criticism of Cato’s suicide may well be authentic. They are standard Platonic/Academic arguments, and whatever the precise character of Brutus’ philosophy, his label was ‘Academic’.22 The rightness or wrongness of Cato’s suicide was debated in the immediate aftermath of his death. In his Republic Cicero had condemned suicide along traditional Academic lines,23 but in Tusculan Disputations 1.74 he justifies Cato’s suicide by the parallel with Socrates. The Tusculan Disputations were dedicated to Brutus, so Cicero’s defence of Cato may be an implicit reply to Brutus. Brutus himself may have discussed the issue in his Cato and/or in private ⟦771⟧ conversation with his friends. Plut. Brut. 40.7 may therefore accurately reflect the views of the historical Brutus in 46.24

…

Appian, 4.520: χαλεπήνας ὁ Βροῦτος τοῖσδε μάλιστα ἡγεμόσιν οὖσι καὶ περιαλγήσας, ὅτι τὸν αὐτόν οἱ κίνδυνον ἐπικείμενοι συμφέρονται τῷ στρατῷ κουφόνως, ἀμφίβολον καὶ ὀξεῖαν τύχην προτιθέντι νίκης ἀκινδύνου, εἶξεν ἐπ᾽ οἰκείῳ καὶ σφῶν ἐκείνων ὀλέθρῳ, τοσόνδε ἐπιμεμψάμενος αὐτοῖς· ‘ἐοίκαμεν ὡς Πομπήιος Μάγνος πολεμήσειν, οὐ στρατηγοῦντες ἔτι μᾶλλον ἢ στρατηγούμενοι.’ In this passage Appian is describing the circumstances under which Brutus agreed to the second battle of Philippi. Can we believe that Brutus’ dictum is authentic?25 It is certainly true that there were close parallels between the military situation at Pharsalus and at the second battle of Philippi: in both 21 App. BC 4.476f. 22 Platonic/Academic arguments: cf., e.g., Phaedo, 61b–62d; Laws 873c–d; Brutus as Academic: e.g., Cic. Brut. 120, 149, 332. 23 Rep. 6.15. 24 For similar arguments cf. Griffin (1976) 375 and n. 6; Clarke (1981) 27f. 25 It is accepted by (e.g.) Collart (1937) 212 (n. 1 from 211); Clarke (1981) 69.

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cases the Republicans were in a far superior position strategically—in the siting of their camp, their food supply, and their control of the sea; in both cases also the Republican general gave way to pressure from his subordinates and mistakenly agreed to join battle against his better judgement. But in the civil war narratives of both Plutarch and Appian one repeatedly finds items which can hardly be historical but which are designed to suggest a pattern of cause and effect between one critical moment and another. Appian 4.546f. (discussed above) is a typical example of the technique.26 Against this general background Brutus’ alleged comparison of himself with Pompey at Pharsalus looks a little too neat. The case for rejecting this dictum becomes overwhelming in the light of the fact that according to Messalla Cassius said something very similar before the first battle of Philippi.27 However one looks at it, this item counts against the authenticity of Appian 4.520. If Messalla’s testimony regarding Cassius is authentic, the coincidence of Brutus also making a similar observation ⟦772⟧ before the second battle is too great. Even if Messalla’s testimony is not authentic, it still goes against Appian’s version, for it then becomes a good indicator of the sort of literary manipulation in which contemporary sources engaged, in which case Appian 4.520 comes equally under suspicion. The least likely hypothesis by far is that Messalla, purporting to record Cassius’ last words to himself, transferred to Cassius a dictum actually uttered by Brutus before the second battle of Philippi. It is much easier to suppose that Messalla’s testimony, whether authentic or not, gave Asinius Pollio the idea of further reinforcing the parallel between Pharsalus and the second battle of Philippi by an appropriate dictum. That would suit both relative chronology (Messalla seems to have written before Pollio) and Pollio’s literary technique. Brutus’ dictum in Appian 4.124.520 is, surely, simply a literary reworking of Pompey’s behaviour before the battle of Pharsalus.28

…

Plut. Brut. 51.1 (HRR II.53 {= FRHist 47 F 2}): 26 App. BC 4.546 is a literary reworking of two separate items: (i) Brutus’ citation of Med. 332; (ii) Brutus’ remarks about Antony in his letter to Atticus. In Plutarch note, for example, the description of Pompey’s behaviour at his death (Pomp. 79.5), which is almost word for word identical to the description of the behaviour of Caesar in Suet. Iul. 82.2 and Cass. Dio 44.19.5; or Cassius’ use of ‘let the die be cast’ Caesarian phraseology before the first battle of Philippi (Brut. 40.3). 27 Plut. Brut. 40.3. 28 Relative chronology: Syme (1939) 484; Pollio’s literary technique: cf. p. 20 above. For a further possible trace of Pollio’s Pompey σύγκρισις cf. below, n. 53.

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Βροῦτος δὲ διαβάς τι ῥεῖθρον ὑλῶδες καὶ παράκρημνον ἤδη σκότους ὄντος οὐ πολὺ προῆλθεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τόπῳ κοίλῳ καὶ πέτραν ἔχοντι μεγάλην προκειμένην καθίσας, ὀλίγων περὶ αὐτὸν ἡγεμόνων καὶ φίλων ὄντων, πρῶτα μὲν ἀποβλέψας εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀστέρων ὄντα μεστόν, ἀνεφθέγξατο δύο στίχους, ὧν τὸν ἕτερον Βολούμνιος ἀνέγραψε· Ζεῦ, μὴ λάθοι σε τῶνδ᾽ ὃς αἴτιος κακῶν, τοῦ δ᾽ ἑτέρου φησὶν ἐπιλαθέσθαι. App. 4.546 (quoted above, p. 20). The context is the immediate aftermath of the second battle of Philippi (perhaps November 16, 42). The quotation is from Eur. Med. 332 (Medea referring to Jason). Plutarch’s version is explicitly from P. Volumnius, ‘philosopher’, friend, and fellow student of Brutus, who had been with Brutus from the start of his campaigns. Although Volumnius did record dubious supernatural material, there seems no reason to suspect the authenticity of this relatively straightforward eye-witness account.29 Appian’s version is very similar to Plutarch’s, but Appian is clearly not working from Plutarch, as he does not mention the second quotation from Greek tragedy but does record the (spurious) tradition that Med. 332 was later also quoted by Antony in dire straits. One infers that ⟦773⟧ Volumnius’ account of Brutus’ last hours has got into a main-line historical source (i.e., Asinius Pollio). Who was Brutus referring to? The two theoretical possibilities are Antony, as one formerly close to Brutus (as Jason had been to Medea), who had (arguably) betrayed him, and Octavian as (arguably) ultimately responsible for the renewal of civil war after the assassination of Caesar. Appian, presumably reflecting the indication of his source (cf. the reworking of the idea of Antony as Octavian’s ‘appendage’), is clear that it was Antony. Plutarch says nothing, perhaps because he was unsure, or perhaps—if he believed the reference to be to Octavian—to avoid rupturing the mood of reconciliation between Caesarism and Republicanism that he is beginning to create in this part of the Life of Brutus.30 Should we accept the interpretation of Appian, which seems in fact to be that of Pollio? There is certainly no reason why it should be regarded as intrinsically authoritative: the reworking of the ‘appendage’ idea and the bogus attribution of Med. 332 to Antony as well as Brutus show that Pollio was not above manipulating his material to suggest that the downfall of Antony was directly linked to the downfall of the Republicans. And Brutus 29 Plut. Brut. 48.2–4; 52.2. 30 Cf. Plut. Brut. 50.1–9; 53.1–4; 56(= Comp. 3).11; 58(= Comp. 5).1–4; discussion in Moles (1979) xivff., 467, 483f. {= (2017) 5ff., 371f., 385}.

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himself will hardly have interpreted his remark to his companions. We are thus at liberty to decide for ourselves. It seems far more likely that Brutus was thinking of Octavian. He had consistently seen that Octavian was the greater ultimate threat to the Republic.31 Moreover, as we have seen, Plut. Brut. 29.10 authentically attests Brutus’ view of Antony during the Philippi campaign. Brutus is indeed critical of Antony, but the tone is more one of sorrow than of anger, and it is not a description of one whom one believes to be αἴτιος τῶν κακῶν. After the second battle of Philippi, Brutus was praying for vengeance against Octavian.32

…

Plut. Brut. 51.2–4: μετὰ δὲ μικρὸν τῶν ἐν τῇ μάχῃ πρὸ αὐτοῦ πεσόντων ἑταίρων ἕκαστον ὀνομάζων, μάλιστα τῇ Φλαβίου μνήμῃ καὶ τῇ Λαβεῶνος ἐπεστέναξεν· ἦν δ᾽ αὐτοῦ πρεσβευτὴς ὁ Λαβεών, ὁ δὲ Φλάβιος ἔπαρχος τῶν τεχνιτῶν· ἐν τούτῳ δέ τις, αὐτός τε διψήσας καὶ τὸν Βροῦτον ὁρῶν ὁμοίως ἔχοντα, ⟦774⟧ λαβὼν κράνος ἐπὶ τὸν ποταμὸν κατέδραμε. ψόφου δὲ κατὰ θάτερα προσπεσόντος, Βολούμνιος προῆλθε κατοψόμενος καὶ σὺν αὐτῷ Δάρδανος ὁ ὑπασπιστής. ἐπανελθόντες δὲ μετὰ μικρὸν ἠρώτησαν περὶ τοῦ πόματος. ἠθικῶς δὲ σφόδρα μειδιάσας ὁ Βροῦτος πρὸς τὸν Βολούμνιον ‘ἐκπέποται’, εἶπεν, ‘ἀλλ᾽ ἕτερον ὑμῖν κομισθήσεται.’ Plutarch’s beautifully written narrative obviously still comes straight from Volumnius, whose account must again, in context, be regarded as authentic. What did Brutus mean by this dictum? Was it merely a mundane statement of fact? Why did Brutus smile as he spoke? The nature of Brutus’ smile is difficult to gauge. Perrin renders ἠθικῶς σφόδρα as ‘with a very expressive smile’ (cf. Flacelière’s ‘avec un sourire très expressif’), others have translated as ‘very characteristically’.33 These interpretations may be right, but it is, I think, perhaps better to interpret ἠθικῶς as ‘tranquilly’, ‘calmly’: the point may be that after Brutus’ anguished, almost ‘tragic’, reactions at 51.1 (ἀνεφθέγξατο) and 51.2 (ἐπεστέναξεν), he is now at peace with himself.34 At any rate, Plutarch seems to imply that Brutus’ smile was in some 31 Cf., e.g., Cic. Ad Brut. 1.4.2–3; 1.4a.2–3; 1.17; 1.16; Syme (1939) 184f. 32 The dictum attested in Plut. Brut. 24.6, Val. Max. 1.5.7, and App. BC 4.564 may conceal a similar plea for divine retribution against Octavian: cf. above, n. 4. 33 Perrin (1918) 243; Flacelière–Chambry (1978) 149; others: e.g., MacMullen (1966) 17. 34 For this later meaning of ἠθικός see Russell (1968) 99; Lucas (1968) 187; ἐπιστενάζω is a tragic word: LSJ, s.v.

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way significant. Why then did Brutus smile? Is it simply a matter of ‘I’m sorry I’ve finished off the water’? Plutarch seems to suggest something rather less mundane than this. The narrative as a whole has a distinct flavour of the philosophical martyrological tradition. Perhaps in the emphasis on the drink one may sense a certain light invocation of the last pages of the Phaedo, but in general the more or less detailed description of the last food or drink ingested by the philosopher in question is a standard item of the tradition. Nor are we dealing with a purely literary tradition: Cato, Seneca, Thrasea Paetus, and the rest were themselves conscious of the parallels between their own deaths and that of Socrates. Some such thoughts may well have been in the mind of the philosophical Brutus. His behaviour here should, I suggest, be interpreted in the following way. His smile indicates a calm recognition that his own life is over; his dictum is not only a literal, but also a metaphorical, statement. He himself has ‘drunk up’ his life, his friends will live to drink again. The analogy between drinking and various ⟦775⟧ experiences in life, or life itself, is common in Classical thought. One thinks at once of the Greek idiom ἐξαντλέω or the Latin exhaurio. Life is commonly equated with various forms of liquid, notably water or wine.35 Now in theory Brutus could have spoken in either Greek or Latin, for he was bilingual, and, like Cassius, sometimes spoke Greek to his Roman friends in intimate moments.36 But Plutarch usually signals when this is the case with his Roman heroes,37 and Brutus’ actual words may have been exhausta est. Exhausta what? Potio, aqua, or uita? For anyone brought up in the Christian tradition it is difficult to read this beautiful narrative without being reminded of Ev. Joh. 19.28–30: Μετὰ τοῦτο εἰδὼς ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὅτι ἤδη πάντα τετέλεσται, ἵνα τελειωθῇ ἡ γραφὴ, λέγει, ‘διψῶ’. σκεῦος ἔκειτο ὄξους μεστόν· σπόγγον οὖν μεστὸν τοῦ ὄξους ὑσσώπῳ περιθέντες προσήνεγκαν αὐτοῦ τῷ στόματι. ὅτε οὖν ἔλαβεν τὸ ὄξος ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν, ‘τετέλεσται’, καὶ κλίνας τὴν κεφαλὴν παρέδωκεν τὸ πνεῦμα. There has of course been much discussion among theologians and New Testament scholars about the precise meaning, or meanings, of this passage, 35 ἐξαντλέω: LSJ, s.v.; exhaurio: cf. esp. Cic. Sest. 48 (e. uitam), 80 (e. spiritum). For the equation of life with liquid see the extensive documentation in Onians (1951) 216–23, 289ff., 429f. 36 Later, when attempting to persuade Volumnius to assist him in his suicide, Brutus spoke in Greek (Plut. Brut. 52.2); on Cassius’ habit of speaking Greek to intimates see Plut. Brut. 40.2. 37 E.g., Brutus and Cassius—see above; Casca: Plut. Brut. 17.5; Caes. 66.8; Caesar: Pomp. 60.4.

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but all that is relevant to the present enquiry is the clear link here implied between the τέλος of the drinking of the wine and the τέλος of πάντα. Although Brutus subsequently went through the motions of trying to find out the state of his defeated army,38 the words ἐκπέποται/exhausta est (uel sim.) show that he knew that his life was at an end.

…

Cassius Dio 47.49.1–2: ὁ οὖν Βροῦτος ἐπεχείρησε μὲν ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδόν πῃ διαπεσεῖν (ἐς γὰρ χωρίον τι ἐρυμνὸν ἀναπεφευγὼς ἦν), μὴ δυνηθεὶς δέ, καὶ προσέτι καὶ μαθὼν ὅτι τινὲς τῶν στρατιωτῶν τοῖς νικήσασιν ὡμολογήκασιν, οὐδεμίαν ἔτ᾽ ἐλπίδα ἔσχεν, ἀλλὰ ἀπογνοὺς μὲν τὴν σωτηρίαν ἀπαξιώσας δὲ τὴν ἅλωσιν ἐς τὸν θάνατον καὶ αὐτὸς κατέφυγεν. καὶ ἀναβοήσας τοῦτο δὴ τὸ Ἡράκλειον, ⟦776⟧ ὦ τλῆμον ἀρετή, λόγος ἄρ᾽ ἦσθ᾽, ἐγὼ δέ σε ὡς ἔργον ἤσκουν· σὺ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐδούλευες τύχῃ, παρεκάλεσέ τινα τῶν συνόντων, ἵνα αὐτὸν ἀποκτείνῃ. Florus. 2.17.10–11: Sed quanto efficacior est fortuna, quam uirtus! et quam uerum est, quod moriens < Brutus> efflauit, non in re sed in uerbo tantum esse uirtutem! Zonaras. 10.20 (simply a paraphrase of Dio). Florus and Dio reflect the same ultimate source, presumably Livy.39 The quotation is from an unknown tragedy, in which it was spoken by Heracles, and may come from 4th-century Cynic writing.40 Two questions arise: (i) can this quotation be identified with the ἕτερος στῖχος of Plut. Brut. 51.1 (quoted above, p. 26)? (ii) is it credible that Brutus uttered such a sentiment as this in any case?

38 Plut. Brut. 51.5–6; App. BC 4.131, 132. 39 Clarke (1981) 142 n. 26 suggests that the supplement ‘Brutus’ in Florus is arbitrary and that ‘Hercules’ is the subject of efflauit, hence that Florus does not ‘confirm’ Cassius Dio. The suggestion is clearly wrong: (i) it would be too much of a coincidence if Florus quoted this couplet independently of the tradition reflected by Dio; and (ii) on general grounds Florus is likely to reflect the Livian tradition and so is Dio (cf. Schwartz [1899] 1697–714); that reinforces the supposition that they must be saying essentially the same thing. 40 Trag. adesp. 374N2 {= TGrF 88 F 3 (I.256)}; its possible Cynic origin: Wilamowitz (1895) II.103 (n. 186 from II.102).

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(i) The identification is often posited.41 Plutarch’s use of the term στίχος is no great objection to it:42 it could simply be a small inaccuracy of either Volumnius or Plutarch himself, but στίχος can anyway be used of a couplet.43 More seriously, in Florus the lines are spoken by Brutus with his dying breath and in Dio, although his account is less melodramatic, the implication still is that they were spoken only just before Brutus committed suicide, whereas in Plutarch Brutus utters his ἕτερος στίχος some hours before. Thus for the identification to be viable, one would have to suppose that the couplet was transferred from its proper place to form Brutus’ ultima uerba, and that it came from a source other than Volumnius, who could not remember, or perhaps pretended not to be able to remember, a sentiment which showed his hero in a less than heroic light. This hypothesis is of course a theoretically possible ⟦777⟧ reconstruction of events, but it is very elaborate, and in practice the identification may be rejected. (ii) Almost all modern scholars seem to accept without question the authenticity of the tradition that Brutus used this quotation. So for detractors of Brutus like Tyrrell and Purser the quotation reveals that at the last even Brutus himself realised the futility of his much vaunted pursuit of virtue, while for an admirer like Syme it represents a final bitter acknowledgement of the debasement of values in contemporary Roman politics.44 Early editors of Plutarch’s Brutus like Coraes and Voegelin, however, took a very different view. They argued that under no circumstances whatsoever would the noble Brutus have uttered such a pessima sententia. Of course this is naive: whether or not Brutus was as noble as they supposed, there are parallels in history for equally despairing utterances by better men than Brutus in extremis (e.g., ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’). Nevertheless, the case that the quotation was falsely attributed to Brutus can be made out. This case has, indeed, recently been reasserted by M. L. Clarke, but Clarke’s analysis contains some errors and his arguments can be considerably improved.45 Volumnius, it seems clear (above), did not record the quotation. That in itself does not count against its authenticity, since (a) he might have suppressed it, or (b) he might not even have known of it, since he was not actually near Brutus when he killed himself.46 But Volumnius’ account of Brutus’ last words does 41 42 43 44 45 46

Cf. Voegelin (1833) 106; Rice Holmes (1928–31) I.88 n. 3. Pace Flacelière–Chambry (1978) 149 n. 2; Clarke (1981) 71. LSJ, s.v. II. cl. B. Mus. Inscr. 1074. Tyrrell and Purser (1904–33) VI.cxxii; Syme (1939) 206 and n. 2. Clarke (1981) 71; errors: cf. above, nn. 39 and 42. Clarke misses this important point, but it is clear from the narrative of Plut. Brut. 52.6–53.1: Volumnius was with Brutus at the last until ἀνεχώρησεν [Βροῦτος] ἀπωτέρω μετὰ δυεῖν ἢ

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record one remark by Brutus about τύχη, which, if authentic, would certainly rule out the use of the quotation. It also records a remark by Brutus about his uirtus which is clearly incompatible with the implications of the quotation. The relevant passage, in Plutarch’s rendering (Brut. 52.3–5), runs: τοῦ δὲ Βολουμνίου διωσαμένου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ὁμοίως ἐχόντων, εἰπόντος δέ τινος ὡς δεῖ μὴ μένειν ἀλλὰ φεύγειν, ἐξαναστὰς ‘πάνυ μὲν οὖν’, ἔφη, ‘φευκτέον, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῶν χειρῶν, οὐ διὰ τῶν ποδῶν’. ἐμβαλὼν δὲ τὴν δεξιὰν ἑκάστῳ μάλα φαιδρός, ἥδεσθαι μὲν ἔφη μεγάλην ἡδονήν, ὅτι τῶν φίλων αὐτὸν οὐδεὶς ἐψεύσατο· τῇ τύχῃ δ᾽ ⟦778⟧ ἐγκαλεῖν ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος, ἑαυτὸν δὲ τῶν νενικηκότων μακαριώτερον νομίζειν, οὐκ ἐχθὲς οὐδὲ πρώην μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ νῦν, ἀπολείποντα δόξαν ἀρετῆς, ἣν οὔθ’ ὅπλοις οὔτε χρήμασιν ἀπολείψουσιν οἱ κεκρατηκότες, ὡς μὴ δοκεῖν, ὅτι δικαίους ἄνδρας ἄδικοι καὶ κακοὶ χρηστοὺς ἀπολέσαντες οὐ προσηκόντως ἄρχουσι.47 Of course one may object that Volumnius may be a partial witness where the integrity of Brutus is concerned. But the evidence he provides is at least as likely to be authentic as the tradition attesting the use of the quotation. His pro-Brutus view is no more suspect than the anti-Brutus view implicit in the tradition, and in fact the sentiments he gives Brutus in his last moments are precisely the kind of sentiments which one would expect from the philosophically self-conscious (and, it must be said, extremely self-righteous) tyrannicide.48 Moreover, although there must have been people other than Volumnius able to preserve Brutus’ ultima uerba, it is significant that Plutarch does not know of the quotation: that seems to rule out the testimony of the Greek Straton, who stood beside Brutus at the very end and held the sword upon which Brutus

τριῶν (Brut. 52.6): Volumnius’ version of Brutus’ suicide (Brut. 52.7) differs from (and is less accurate than) the one recorded by Messalla, who got it from Straton, who actually assisted Brutus in his suicide (52.8–53.1). I.e., Volumnius did not hear Brutus’ last words. 47 In 52.5, L2’s ἀπαλείψουσιν, favoured by Coraes and printed by Flacelière–Chambry, is a very good reading and gives better sense than Ziegler’s choice ἀπολείψουσιν. The point of 52.5 τῇ τύχῃ … πατρίδος is that Brutus blames Fortune for favouring the Caesarians politically, but this does not affect his own personal ἀρετή: the thought is absolutely incompatible with the Florus/Dio tradition. 48 For Brutus’ confidence in his own virtue cf., e.g., Ad Brut. 1.16.8; Plut. Brut. 28.4–5; 35.1–6.

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killed himself.49 And apart from these difficulties, there is no corroboratory evidence for the Florus/Dio tradition.50 One may go further. The content of the quotation is revealing. Whether or not the quotation comes from 4th-century Cynic writings (a hypothesis not susceptible of proof), the view of Heracles implicit in it is intriguing. Heracles’ suicide posed certain difficulties for the Cynics and, by extension, the Stoics. How could they explain or justify the suicide of their ⟦779⟧ great exemplar, the embodiment of virtue and steadfastness?51 Brutus was an Academic, but an Academic with a strong Stoic tinge, and he was popularly, although inaccurately, regarded as a sort of Stoic sage in his own lifetime.52 Now Plut. Brut. 56 (= Comp. 3).2–3 shows that detractors of Brutus had criticised him for faintheartedness in resorting to suicide.53 We thus have the following pattern: Heracles, the Cynic-Stoic hero, hitherto the model of virtue and steadfastness, commits suicide, weakly admitting the superiority of τύχη to ἀρετή; Brutus the Stoic (as popularly regarded), renowned for his virtue and consistency of

49 Straton: cf. above, n. 46; had Plutarch known of the Florus/Dio tradition, he would, I think (see Moles [1979] 474f. {= (2017) 377–8}), have used it. The probable Livian provenance of that tradition (above, n. 39) does not tell against this, since the indications are that in the Brutus, as in other Roman Lives of the Late Republic, Plutarch did not use Livy systematically (cf. Moles [1979] lv, lvi, lix {= (2017) 36, 37, 39}; the same conclusion in Pelling (1979) 88 {= (2002) 16}). 50 Hor. C. 2.7.11 and Epist. 1.6.31 and 1.17.41 yield nothing: cf. Nisbet–Hubbard (1978) 114 (though C. 2.7.11 may well allude in general terms to the idea that Brutus’ much-vaunted uirtus cracked at Philippi—see Nisbet–Hubbard ad loc.). Even if there were any such evidence it would prove only the existence of the story in Augustan Rome—which may be assumed anyway: cf. below. 51 General discussion in Höistad (1948) 54f., 61, 66f. Cf. SVF II.306.6f. = Sen. De benef. 4.8 (Chrysippus) for an interesting Stoic rationalisation of Heracles’ suicide; interesting also is the treatment of the theme in the doubtfully Senecan Hercules Oetaeus: see Galinsky (1972) 174ff. 52 As a follower of Antiochus of Ascalon (cf. above, n. 22), Brutus must have been influenced by Stoicism; of his attested philosophical works the De uirtute seems Stoic in tone (cf. above, n. 3); for Brutus as (loosely) a Stoic sage figure cf. Cic. Ad Brut. 1.15.5; Plut. Brut. 50.5; Hor. C. 2.7.11 (with Nisbet–Hubbard (1978) ad loc.). Plutarch, with poetic truth, attributes to Brutus an essentially Stoic justification of suicide in Brut. 40.8. On Brutus as ‘Stoic’ see also my forthcoming paper, Moles (1987). 53 ὁ δὲ Βροῦτος τὸν ἔσχατον ἀγῶνα ὑπὲρ τῶν ὅλων οὔθ᾽ ὑποστῆναι δοκεῖ φρονίμως, οὔτε σφαλεὶς ἐπανόρθωσιν εὑρεῖν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπεῖπε καὶ προεῖτο τὰς ἐλπίδας, οὐδ᾽ ὅσον Πομπήϊος ἐπιτολμήσας τῇ τύχῃ· καὶ ταῦτα πολλῆς μὲν αὐτόθι λειπομένης ἐλπίδος ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις, ταῖς δὲ ναυσὶ κρατῶν πάσης βεβαίως τῆς θαλάσσης.

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purpose,54 yields prematurely to τύχη, committing suicide with the quotation from Heracles on his lips. A highly suggestive parallel. To sum up. This quotation was fraudulently attributed to Brutus in order to demonstrate that Brutus himself finally recognised the bankruptcy of his code of life. The quotation must have been well known and would have suited this purpose excellently. The whole tradition, therefore, should be seen as the invention of Caesarian propaganda against Brutus, of the same type as all the bogus omens and apparitions that heralded the doom of the Liberators. Unlike the others, however, this was a sophisticated and literate piece of propaganda. Caesarian magnanimity towards the memory of Brutus could go so far,55 but what it could not concede was that the great Republican died with his virtue intact. Bibliography Bengtson, H. (1970) Zur Geschichte des Brutus, SBAW Heft 1 (Munich). Boissier, G. (1899) Cicéron et ses amis11 (Paris). Clarke, M. L. (1981) The Noblest Roman: Marcus Brutus and his Reputation (London and Ithaca). Collart, P. (1937) Philippes: Ville de Macedoine depuis ses origines jusqu’à la fin de l’époque romaine (Paris). Ferrero, G. (1907–9) The Greatness and Decline of Rome, 5 vols. (London); Eng. trans. by A. E. Zimmern and H. J. Chaytor of Grandezza e decadenza di Roma, 5 vols. (Milan, 1906–7). Flacelière, R. and E. Chambry, edd. (1978) Plutarque: Vies XIV: Dion–Brutus (Paris). Fuller, J. F. C. (1954) The Decisive Battles of the Western World and their Influence upon History (London). Galinsky, G. K. (1972) The Herakles Theme (London). Gelzer, M. (1917) ‘Iunius (53)’, RE X.1: 973–1020. Griffin, M. T. (1976) Seneca: a Philosopher in Politics (Oxford; repr. with addenda, 1992). Hendrickson, G. L. (1939) ‘Brutus de Virtute’, AJPh 60: 401–13. Höistad, R. (1948) Cynic Hero and Cynic King: Studies in the Cynic Conception of Man (Uppsala). Hülsen, C. (1924) ‘Zum Kalender der Arvalbrüder: Das Datum der Schlacht bei Philippi’, in M. Abramić and V. Hoffiller, edd., Strena Buliciana (Zagreb) 193–7. 54 Cf., e.g., for Brutus’ ‘virtue’, Cic. Fam. 9.14.5; Orat. 10.33 and see also n. 48 above; Brutus’ singularis constantia is attested by Ad Fam. 9.14.5; cf. also Plut. Brut. 29.3–4. 55 Cf. especially Plut. Brut. 53.1–3, 58(= Comp. 5).1–4; App. BC 4.223; Cass. Dio 53.32.

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Kniely, E. M. (1973) Quellenkritische Studien zur Tätigkeit des M. Brutus im Osten (44–42 v. Chr.) (Vienna). Kornemann, E. (1896) ‘Die historische Schriftstellerei des C. Asinius Pollio’, JKPh Suppl. 22: 555–692. Kromayer, J. and G. Veith (1929) Schlachtenatlas (Leipzig). Lucas, D. W., ed. (1968) Aristotle: Poetics (Oxford). MacMullen, R. (1966) Enemies of the Roman Order: Treason, Alienation and Unrest in the Roman Empire (Cambridge, Mass.). Moles, J. L. (1979) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus (diss. Oxford). Moles, J. L. (1983) ‘Fate, Apollo, and M. Junius Brutus’, AJPh 104: 249–56 [below, Ch. 34]. Moles, J. L. (1987) ‘Politics, Philosophy and Friendship in Horace Odes 2.7’, QUCC 25: 59–72 [below, Ch. 67]. Moles, J. L. (2017) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus, with updated bibliographical notes by C. Pelling (Histos Supplement 7; Newcastle). Nisbet, R. G. M. and M. Hubbard (1978) A Commentary on Horace’s Odes II (Oxford). Onians, R. B. (1951) The Origins of European Thought (Cambridge). Pelling, C. B. R. (1979) ‘Plutarch’s Method of Work in the Roman Lives’, JHS 99: 74–96; repr. in id. (2002) 1–44. Pelling, C. B. R. (1980) ‘Plutarch’s Adaptation of his Source Material’, JHS 100: 127–40; repr. in id. (2002) 91–116. Pelling, C. B. R. (2002) Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London and Swansea). Perrin, B. (1918) Plutarch: Lives VI (London and Cambridge, Mass.). Rice Holmes, T. (1928–31) The Architect of the Roman Empire, 2 vols. (Oxford). Russell, D. A., ed. (1968) Longinus: On the Sublime (Oxford). Schwartz, E. (1899) ‘Cassius (40)’, RE III: 1684–1722; repr. in id., Griechische Geschicht­ schreiber (Leipzig, 1959) 394–450. Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. (1980) Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem et M. Brutum (Cambridge). Smith, R. E. (1936) ‘The Greek Letters of M. Junius Brutus’, CQ 30: 194–203. Stockton, D. (1971) Cicero: a Political Biography (Oxford). Syme, R. (1939) The Roman Revolution (Oxford). Tyrrell, R. Y. and L. C. Purser (1904–33) The Correspondence of M. Tullius Cicero2 (vol. I3), 7 vols. (Dublin). Voegelin, A. S. (1833) Plutarchi Vita M. Bruti (Zurich). von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. (1895) Euripides: Herakles, 2 vols. (Berlin). Wilson, F. M. (1956) A Historical Commentary on Plutarch’s Life of Brutus (diss. London). Ziegler, K., ed. (1964) Plutarchus: Vitae Parallelae I.23 (Leipzig).

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Fate, Apollo, and M. Junius Brutus Plut. Brut. 24.4–7: ἀρξάμενος δὲ τῶν πραγμάτων ἀναφανδὸν ἅπτεσθαι, καί πυθόμενος πλοῖα Ῥωμαϊκὰ μεστὰ χρημάτων ἐξ Ἀσίας προσφέρεσθαι καί στρατηγὸν ἐπιπλεῖν , ἄνδρα χαρίεντα καί γνώριμον, ἀπήντησεν αὐτῷ περὶ Κάρυστον. (5) ἐντυχὼν δὲ καί πείσας καὶ παραλαβὼν τὰ πλοῖα, λαμπροτέραν ὑποδοχὴν ἐποιεῖτο· καί γὰρ ἦν ἡμέρα καθ᾽ ἣν ἐγεγόνει πρῶτον ὁ Βροῦτος. (6) ὡς οὖν ἐλθόντες εἰς τὸ πίνειν ἐπιχύσεις ἐποιοῦντο νίκης τε Βρούτου καὶ Ῥωμαίων ἐλευθερίας, ἔτι μᾶλλον αὐτοὺς ῥῶσαι βουλόμενος, ᾔτησε ποτήριον μεῖζον, καὶ λαβὼν ἀπ᾽ οὐδεμιᾶς προφάσεως ἀνεφώνησε τὸν στίχον τοῦτον [Il. 16.849] ἀλλά με μοῖρ’ ὀλοὴ καὶ Λητοῦς ἔκτανεν υἱός. (7) ἔτι δὲ καί πρὸς τούτοις ἱστοροῦσιν, ὅτε τὴν τελευταίαν ἐν Φιλίπποις μαχούμενος ἐξῄει μάχην, σύνθημα παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ τοῖς στρατιώταις Ἀπόλλωνα δοθῆναι. διὸ καὶ τῆς συμφορᾶς τίθενται σημεῖον ἐκείνην τὴν ἀναφώνησιν. Appian 4.134.564: Βροῦτον δὲ ἐν Σάμῳ γενεθλιάζοντά φασι παρὰ τὸν πότον, οὐδὲ εὐχερῆ πρὸς τὰ τοιαῦτα ὄντα, ἀλόγως τόδε τὸ ἔπος ἀναβοῆσαι· ‘ἀλλά με μοῖρ᾽ ὀλοὴ καὶ Λητοῦς ἔκτανεν υἱός.’ Val. Max. 1.5.7: M. etiam Bruti dignus admisso parricidio euentus omine designatus est, si quidem post illud nefarium opus natalem suum celebrans, cum Graecum uersum expromere uellet, ad illud potissimum Homericum referendum animo tetendit: ἀλλά με μοῖρ᾽ ὀλοὴ καὶ Λητοῦς ἔκτανεν υἱός, qui deus Philippensi acie a Caesare et Antonio signo datus in eum tela conuertit. The quotation attributed to Brutus in these passages comes from Il. 16.849 (the speech of the dying Patroclus to Hector). The passages are the only indication

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we have (however vague) of the date of Brutus’ birthday. Allusions to the role of Fate are quite common in birthday contexts.1 ⟦250⟧ Three questions arise: (i) Is the incident historical? (ii) If so, what did Brutus mean? (iii) When should the incident be dated? These questions are interrelated. In this paper I shall argue that the incident is indeed historical, that it should be dated to about December 44, and that it provides a revealing insight into Brutus’ state of mind at that time. The investigation will also shed light both on problems of Quellenforschung and on the literary techniques of Valerius Maximus, Plutarch, and Appian. On the face of it, the incident looks like a fabrication of Caesarian propaganda, a post euentum demonstration of the inevitability of the Republican defeat at the hands of the divinely inspired forces of Caesarism. The emphases of all three sources show that the incident was in fact exploited by Caesarian propaganda, and the coincidence between Brutus’ quotation of Il. 16.849 and the use of Apollo as a password at the decisive battle of Philippi (whoever used it) seems too good to be true. So it is tempting to dismiss the incident as a transparent fiction, of the same general type as the stories of the apparitions that appeared to Brutus, Cassius, and Cassius of Parma.2 But closer examination suggests that this may be a superficial view. In the first place, there is every reason to believe that ‘Apollo’ was the password of one or the other of the two sides at the second battle of Philippi. Apollo was an important deity in the political propaganda of the 40s. Julius Caesar may have been the first to revive interest in the cult. Brutus himself had set great store by the celebration of the Ludi Apollinares in July 44, and in Greece both he and Cassius issued coins with the bust and symbols of Apollo. After Philippi Octavian seems to have claimed Apollo for himself.3 But which side used ‘Apollo’ at Philippi? Valerius Maximus and Plutarch apparently disagree on this point. It is true that Schaefer tried to harmonise the two by reading ⟦251⟧ in Brut. 24.7 παρ’ Ἀντωνίου instead of παρ’ αὐτοῦ. But this is unsatisfactory. Not only is the sequence envisaged (‘when Brutus went forth to battle, 1 As the Journal’s reader kindly reminds me. In both Greek and Roman religion, the Fates are often seen as birth-spirits (Hom. Il. 20.127f.; Od. 7.197f.; Hes. Theog. 904ff.; Gell. 3.16.9–11, etc.; see Eitrem [1932] 2485ff.); for the Fates in connection with birthdays, cf., e.g., Cat. 64.321ff.; Tib. 1.7.1ff.; Ov. Met. 8.451ff.; Tr. 5.3.25f. 2 Apparitions: Plut. Brut. 36.1–7; Caes. 69.6–13; App. BC 4.565; Florus 2.17.8; Zonaras 10.20; Val. Max. 1.8.8; 1.7.7. The incident is dismissed by (e.g.) Weinstock (1971) 14; neither Gelzer (1917) 974 nor Kniely (1973) 83f. attempts to interpret it, though both apparently accept its authenticity; it is not discussed by Bengtson (1970) or Clarke (1981). 3 Cf. Weinstock (1971) 14f.; Crawford (1974), nos. 503–4, 506; II.741 (better than Clarke [1981] 66 and 142 n. 15).

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the password given by Antony was Apollo’) stylistically unhappy, but also, as Voegelin points out,4 Valerius makes Apollo the password of both Caesarian commanders. The discrepancy therefore is real. On general grounds Valerius is more likely to be reliable on such a point of detail. His literary art, such as it is, consists of bravura rhetoric, not manipulation of his basic material, whereas Plutarch would be perfectly capable of transferring the password to Brutus in order to sharpen the parallelism between 24.6 and 24.7 for ominous effect.5 Moreover, it is known that the password used by Brutus and Cassius in the first battle of Philippi, and indeed the propaganda keynote of their entire campaign, was ‘Libertas’. Hence it seems safe to accept that ‘Apollo’ was the Caesarian password at the second battle of Philippi.6 In the second place, there are grounds for supposing at least some degree of historicity in the incident. Although the accounts of Valerius Maximus and Appian are brief, Plutarch’s looks full and circumstantial. From a purely methodological point of view, it is better to try to make some sort of sense of the story of Brutus’ quotation than to reject it out of hand. And if Plutarch’s account can be shown to derive from a good contemporary source, the case for taking the incident seriously is naturally strengthened. What source, then, lies behind Brut. 24.4–7? In order to clear the ground, two other questions must first be answered: (i) Is Appian merely following Plutarch? (ii) Is Plutarch merely following Valerius Maximus? The extent of Appian’s use of Plutarch is debatable.7 But even if firm general conclusions could be reached, they would be of little help in resolving a particular problem such as this. In 4.134, which ⟦252⟧ comes after his narrative proper of the Philippi campaign, Appian is trying to substantiate the proposition that the heavenly powers were against Brutus and Cassius by documenting various omens and peculiar circumstances. All have their parallel in Plutarch’s Brutus.8 In the present case, Appian differs from Plutarch in setting 4 In his edition of the Brutus (1833). 5 Valerius’ version is generally accepted (Clarke [1981] 66 follows Plutarch but overlooks Val. Max.); for such ‘transferences’ in Plutarch, cf. recently Pelling (1980) 129 {= (2002) 93 with 110 n. 9} (who uses Brut. 24.7 to exemplify the technique). 6 The Republicans and ‘Libertas’: Cass. Dio 47.38.3, 42.2–4, 43.1; App. BC 4.90ff. The Journal’s reader ingeniously suggests that Antony and Octavian might actually have chosen ‘Apollo’ as their password because they had heard of Brutus’ ominous quotation. In the nature of things this can only remain an ingenious suggestion. If they did know of the quotation, this would have given their choice of Apollo an added edge, but, given the general political struggle between Republicans and Caesarians for the propaganda rights to Apollo, they might well have chosen ‘Apollo’ anyway. 7 See Gabba (1956) 225ff. 8 Cf. Plut. Brut. 39.3–4, 5–6; 36.1–7; 48.5; 47.6–7.

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the incident in Samos, which would presumably date it to sometime in 42.9 In itself this does not prove that Appian is using a source other than Plutarch. The discrepancy could be explained as an example of Appian’s notorious carelessness about places and names. A more creditable explanation might also be advanced. Whatever his shortcomings as a historian in the strict sense, Appian is a skillful artist, adroit at the manipulation of his material for literary effect. Appian himself might have post-dated the incident in order to increase the impact of the omen by bringing it nearer in time to the event it was meant to foreshadow. Certainly Appian’s wording ἀλόγως is very close to Plutarch’s ἀπ’ οὐδεμιᾶς προφάσεως. As against this, the description of Brutus as οὐδὲ εὐχερῆ πρὸς τὰ τοιαῦτα ὄντα is not at all the impression that a reader would get from Plutarch’s Brutus. Taken in conjunction with the discrepancy over the placing, and by extension the dating, of the incident, this tends to argue that Appian is here not following Plutarch. Appian’s apparent independence of Plutarch and the fact that the story has also found its way into Valerius Maximus combine to indicate the latent presence of a main-line historical source. On general grounds that source is likely to be Asinius Pollio, Appian’s basic narrative source in this part of his History. But, although Asinius Pollio is also Plutarch’s basic narrative source in the Roman Lives of the Late Republican period, it does not necessarily follow that he is using him (or only him) here. Cases can be demonstrated where Plutarch uses a minor source directly whose version has also got into Pollio.10 (ii) Plutarch certainly knew, and apparently sometimes used, Valerius Maximus.11 In the present case, the discrepancy between Valerius and Plutarch over the question of who adopted Apollo as a ⟦253⟧ password is not sufficient to prove that Plutarch is not following Valerius, since Plutarch has probably transferred the item for literary reasons (cf. above), whatever his source. Nor should too much be made of the attractive and apparently circumstantial detail of Brut. 24.6: the invention of vivid detail is a Plutarchean specialty.12 But scepticism can be carried too far. Plutarch certainly seems to be well informed about the broader circumstances of the incident: neither Valerius Maximus nor Appian connect it with Brutus’ reception of Apuleius at Carystus, and indeed Plutarch’s whole account of Brutus’ dealings with Apuleius is more detailed 9 Though autumn 42 (Weinstock [1971] 14) is too late. 10 Appian’s use of Pollio: Kornemann (1896) is basic and widely accepted; Plutarch’s use of Pollio: Kornemann (1896) 672ff.; Peter (1865) 124ff., and many others; minor source used directly by Plutarch but appearing also in Pollio: Plut. Brut. 51.1 (Volumnius) ~ App. BC 4.546 is one example of many. 11 Cf., e.g., Brut. 53.5. 12 Cf. in general Pelling (1980) 129f. {= (2002) 94–5}.

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than that of any other source.13 While almost any conclusion in the field of Quellenforschung falls theoretically short of proof, in the absence of explicit attestation, it seems clear enough that Plutarch is following his own source and not Valerius Maximus nor the main-line historical source underlying Valerius Maximus and Appian. In trying to determine the identity of Plutarch’s source, speculation is inevitable. But speculation can be controlled. The general feel of the incident, with its vivid, dramatic character and concentration upon the personality of Brutus, itself suggests Bibulus’ Ἀπομνημονεύματα Βρούτου, extensively used by Plutarch in the Brutus. Moreover, Bibulus was probably with Brutus in the winter of 44, Plutarch’s dating for the incident. Bibulus’ work did contain information about this stage of Brutus’ career: Plutarch’s description of Brutus’ leave-taking of Italy in Brut. 23.2–7 is explicitly from Bibulus (Brut. 23.7), and his account of Brutus’ activities in Greece (Brut. 24.1ff.) may well also derive from the same source.14 The probable Bibulan provenance of Brut. 24.4–7 provides a further reason for taking the incident seriously. The next step, therefore, ⟦254⟧ is to find an interpretation of Brutus’ citation of Il. 16.849 which does not involve the supernatural.15 Early editors of the Brutus, accepting the historicity of the incident, conjectured that Brutus meant that Caesar was killed not by men but by God. But this interpretation is very implausible. It seems, firstly, far too oblique: Brutus does seem to be referring to himself. One might indeed argue that though Brutus was in fact referring to Caesar, his quotation was subsequently turned against 13 App. BC 3.259; 4.316; Cass. Dio 47.21.3; Cic. Phil. 10.11.24; 13.16.32; Ad Brut. 1.7.2; the contention of Perrin (1918) 181 n. 1, that in his subsequent narrative (Brut. 25.1) Plutarch has confused Apuleius and Antistius Vetus, is incorrect: Brut. 25.1 is wholly consistent with Cic. Ad Brut. 2.3.5 and 1.11. 14 Bibulus’ work: Plut. Brut. 13.3; Peter (1865) 139; HRR II.lxvii {= FRHist 49 T 1}; Theander (1959) 120ff.; Pelling (1979) 88f. {= (2002) 14f.}; cf. also Moles (1979) xxxii, liv {= (2017) 19, 35f.}; Flacelière–Chambry (1978) 86. Bibulus with Brutus in winter 44: Plut. Brut. 23.7 with Brut. 24.1 and Cic. Ad Att. 12.32.2; cf. also Clarke (1981) 139 n. 25. Bibulus as the source for Plut. Brut. 24.1ff.: Theander (1959) 123; Moles (1979) xxxvi–vii {= (2017) 22}; Bibulus as the source for Brut. 24.5–7: cf. also Peter (1865) 140. 15 If Bibulus was the source for Brut. 24.5–7, this need not imply that Bibulus gave the incident a supernatural colouring: he could have retailed the incident straight (i.e., along the lines I advocate below), but his version might then have been adjusted by Caesarian propaganda. Alternatively, Bibulus may have given the incident a certain supernatural colouring, without going as far as Caesarian propaganda: Brutus’ friend P. Volumnius recorded omens unfavourable to Brutus (Brut. 48.2ff.) and an incident such as Brutus’ leave-taking of Porcia, which was recorded by Bibulus (Brut. 23.2ff.), and at which Brutus and his friends were themselves conscious of a parallel with Hector’s leave-taking of Andromache, might obviously have lent itself to tragic foreshadowing.

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him for ominous effect. But that seems unlikely, at least in the case of Plutarch’s version if we suppose his source to be Bibulus. Secondly, this interpretation distorts the meaning of Patroclus’ speech. Patroclus is arguing that Hector has no justification for boasting since he has only succeeded because the real work was done by Μοῖρα, Apollo, and, among men, Euphorbus. It would have been very inapposite for Brutus to have used the quotation with reference to Caesar, for Patroclus’ words imply a contemptuous dismissal of human agency. Of course on any interpretation we may admit that Brutus made a very inopportune remark, but that is perfectly feasible: the ability to say the right thing at the right time was not always a characteristic of Brutus, who could be a very tactless man. If we make allowance for this fact, it is relatively easy to understand the quotation on a commonsense level. Plutarch’s detailed and well informed narrative (as it appears) of Brutus’ activities in Athens and Greece seems to go back to Bibulus. This narrative dates the incident to December 44.16 This dating is in any case intrinsically preferable to a dating in 42 (if that is the dating offered by Appian), because it is less sensational. Brutus was then already having considerable success in amassing support from various quarters, but from a normal political point of view his position remained very unsatisfactory and constitutionally highly anomalous. When he and ⟦255⟧ Cassius were virtually forced to leave Italy in the summer of 44, it was precisely because in normal political terms they had completely failed. Hence, despite the successes that they rapidly gained in Greece and the East, Brutus might well still have been feeling depressed about his political future. His last properly constitutional attempt to reverse the inexorable decline of the Republican cause in Rome and Italy had been his staging of the Ludi Apollinares in July.17 Brutus’ apparently inappropriate quotation of Il. 16.849 can be understood as an expression of his deep continuing distress at the political failure of those games, on whose success he had staked so much. Brutus would be saying that the collapse of his fortunes should be put down to the fortuitous failure of the Ludi Apollinares, not to the superior abilities of the Caesarians. Patroclus’ words could have had a further application to Brutus’ situation:18 Brutus might also, like Patroclus, have scoffed at the ‘great boasts’ of his enemies, and, again like Patroclus, have prophesied their downfall. Brutus was a ready man with detailed Homeric quotation and such a 16 17 18

Or thereabouts (cf. Gelzer [1917] 974; Kniely [1973] 83 and n. 4), because of the link with Apuleius’ return from Asia. Valerius Maximus’ wording also perhaps supports a 44 dating. For Brutus and his great hopes of these Ludi, see Cic. Ad Att. 15.10.1, 15.11.3, 15.12.1, 15.18.2, 15.26.1, 15.28, 15.29, 16.2.3, 16.4.1, 16.5.1, and 16.5.3; Phil. 1.15.36; 2.13.31; App. BC 3.87 and 90; Cass. Dio 47.20.2; Weinstock [1971] 156f. I owe this further suggestion to Dr Pelling.

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‘prophecy’ would have been very much in the manner of the Brutus who later bitterly foretold war between Antony and Octavian (Brut. 29.11).19 So interpreted, the story of Brutus’ quotation of Il. 16.849 can be accepted as historical. The quotation, while doubtless unnerving at the time for his friends, was indeed apposite to Brutus’ situation from several points of view: in the propaganda battle for the favour of Apollo he had been decisively defeated and the failure of his Ludi Apollinares had effectively sent him into exile, yet he could comfort himself with the thought that his enemies were not better men than himself but merely more fortunate, and he could look forward to their downfall. So too after the second battle of Philippi, when all was lost, Brutus echoed the words of Medea (Eur. Med. 332) in her prayer for vengeance against Jason (Plut. Brut. 51.1),20 and just before he committed suicide he reproached τῇ τύχῃ … ὑπὲρ τῆς πατρίδος (i.e., for favouring the cause of the Caesarians) but asserted his moral superiority over his enemies ⟦256⟧ (Brut. 52.5). The thought pattern is essentially the same. As a politician and a soldier Brutus was unsuccessful, but in his own opinion at any rate he was always a man of consummate uirtus, impregnable against the blows of Fate.21

Brutus Revisited22

Apropos of ‘Fate, Apollo, and M. Junius Brutus’, Professor M. L. Clarke asks how one should take οὐδὲ εὐχερῆ πρὸς τὰ τοιαῦτα ὄντα in App. BC 4.564 (Βροῦτον δὲ ἐν Σάμῳ γενεθλιάζοντά φασι παρὰ τὸν πότον, οὐδὲ εὐχερῆ πρὸς τὰ τοιαῦτα ὄντα, ἀλόγως τόδε τὸ ἔπος ἀναβοῆσαι· “ἀλλά με μοῖρ᾽ ὀλοὴ καὶ Λητοῦς ἔκτανεν υἱός.”). At 252 {above, p. 40}, I implicitly followed the Loeb translation (‘although not a ready man with such quotations’), but Professor Clarke suggests that Appian means that Brutus could not cope with heavy drinking (which might be historically true: for his ascetic way of life cf. Plut. Brut. 4.6–8; 29.2–3; 36.2–4). This interpretation gives a more natural sense to εὐχερῆ and an appropriate point to ἀλόγως, and suits the word order better. If Brutus was indeed tipsy at his 19 Brutus and Homeric quotation: Brut. 23.6; Flacelière–Chambry (1978) 175 doubt the authenticity of Brut. 29.9–11, but App. BC 4.547—a clearly bogus reworking of Brutus’ sentiments—confirms authenticity. 20 According to App. BC 4.547, Brutus was referring to Antony; in fact Octavian seems much more likely. 21 The tradition that Brutus’ dying words took the form of the quotation of a tragic couplet in reproach of Virtue (Cass. Dio 47.49.1–2; cf. Florus 2.17.11) should be rejected: cf. Moles (1979) 473f. {= (2017) 377f.}; Clarke (1981) 71f. {Cf. Moles (1983).} 22 {This appeared as the first part of Moles (1984).}

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birthday celebrations in the winter of 44, this increases the likelihood that he did in fact utter the inopportune but (in my view) profoundly apposite quotation from the Iliad attributed to him by Appian, Valerius Maximus 1.5.7, and Plutarch, Brut. 24.4–7. Bibliography Bengtson, H. (1970) Zur Geschichte des Brutus, SBAW Heft 1 (Munich). Clarke, M. L. (1981) The Noblest Roman: Marcus Brutus and his Reputation (London and Ithaca). Crawford, M. H. (1974) Roman Republican Coinage, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Eitrem, S. (1932) ‘Moira’, RE XV: 2449–97. Flacelière, R. and E. Chambry, edd. (1978) Plutarque: Vies XIV: Dion–Brutus (Paris). Gabba, E. (1956) Appiano e la storia delle guerre civili (Florence). Gelzer, M. (1917) ‘Iunius (53)’, RE X.1: 973–1020. Kniely, E. M. (1973) Quellenkritische Studien zur Tätigkeit des M. Brutus im Osten (44–42 v. Chr.) (Vienna). Kornemann, E. (1896) ‘Die historische Schriftstellerei des C. Asinius Pollio’, JKPh Suppl. 22: 555–692. Moles, J. L. (1979) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus (diss. Oxford). Moles, J. L. (1983) ‘Some “Last Words” of M. Iunius Brutus’, Latomus 42: 763–79 [above, Ch. 33]. Moles, J. L. (1984) ‘Brutus and Dido Revisited’, LCM 9: 156. Moles, J. L. (2017) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus, with updated bibliographical notes by C. Pelling (Histos Supplement 7; Newcastle). Pelling, C. B. R. (1979) ‘Plutarch’s Method of Work in the Roman Lives’, JHS 99: 74–96; repr. in id. (2002) 1–44. Pelling, C. B. R. (1980) ‘Plutarch’s Adaptation of his Source Material’, JHS 100: 127–40; repr. in id. (2002) 91–116. Pelling, C. B. R. (2002) Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London and Swansea). Perrin, B. (1918) Plutarch: Lives VI (London and Cambridge, Mass.). Peter, H. (1865) Die Quellen Plutarchs in den Biographien der Römer (Halle; repr. Amsterdam, 1965). Theander, C. (1951) Plutarch und die Geschichte (Lund). Voegelin, A. S. (1833) Plutarchi Vita M. Bruti (Zurich). Weinstock, S. (1971) Divus Julius (Oxford).

Chapter 35

Plutarch, Brutus, and the Ghost of Caesar The story of Brutus and the apparition is told by Plutarch (both in the Caesar and Brutus), Florus, and Appian. Though some scholars believe that Brutus hallucinated, the story is a crude propaganda fabrication, which seeks to discredit Brutus by representing Caesar’s assassination as a dreadful crime avenged by the gods (Shakespeare’s ‘ghost of Caesar’ is true to the spirit of the tradition). Plutarch’s treatments, however, are complex and reveal much about his art and the nature of ancient historiography generally. ⟦20⟧ The Caesar version accepts the story, even employing chronological distortion to emphasise that the apparition was a manifestation of Caesar’s guardian-genius. But the Dion–Brutus introduction debates whether such apparitions are credible or explicable by psychological factors. Plutarch seems to adopt the dualistic and specifically Zoroastrian doctrine that evil spirits exist which assault the virtue of good men. But the subsequent narrative is thoroughly ambiguous. Dion fails the test of his virtue but the fact that the apparition appears only once sounds a sceptical note. Brutus passes the test triumphantly, yet details in the description suggest that he may have hallucinated—an impression reinforced by Cassius’ long speech, which, though billed as Epicurean, advances the arguments of the Sceptical Academy (the tradition which Plutarch himself espouses) and thus seems to confirm the psychological interpretation. But Cassius’ speech is in turn undercut by omens portending the Liberators’ doom. Was the apparition an evil spirit, the hallucination of an exhausted and troubled man, or an emissary of the gods? The question is posed insistently but made very difficult to resolve. But it is vital, for it affects our answers to important general questions about Brutus: was he a truly good man? Was Caesar’s assassination morally right? Was Brutus’ downfall engineered by malign Fate or just divine punishment? Did Brutus ever really free himself from the spell of the man he had murdered? Finally, however, Plutarch’s dismissal of the apparition’s second visitation implies rejection of the supernatural interpretation: Brutus had indeed hallucinated. Historically, this is incorrect: the whole tradition is false. But Plutarch is not simply a historian. As a literary artist he is bound to include so evocative a story. As a moralist he uses it to compare the virtues of Dion and Brutus and to explore the psychology of Brutus in depth. As a philosopher he uses it to investigate the problem of evil. And the fact that he never makes his reject­ ion of the supernatural interpretation explicit enables him to create a range

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of effects which can co-exist even though they are logically incompatible. The story seems simultaneously dramatically ominous, an indication of divine displeasure at Caesar’s murder and of the divine plan of the institution of monarchy, a sign of psychological disturbance in Brutus, and an illustration of his philosophical superiority to adversity. Similarly, Cassius seems at once the spokesman for a rationalism of which Plutarch approves and a symbol of the superficiality of the Epicureanism which Plutarch detests. Thus Plutarch’s treatment of the apparition stories in the Dion–Brutus does not set out to be a precise historical enquiry: it is a combination of the theological, the philosophical, the moral, the historical, and the literary—a magnificently complex piece of writing which shows Plutarch at his formidable best and which makes correspondingly complex demands upon us, his readers.

Chapter 36

The Attacks on L. Cornelius Cinna, Praetor in 44 bc C. Helvius Cinna, tribune in 44 and celebrated neoteric poet,1 was torn to pieces by the Roman mob after the funeral of Julius Caesar on March 20, 44, in mistake for the praetor L. Cornelius Cinna, who was known to have approved of Caesar’s assassination. In the present paper I shall try to document precisely Cornelius Cinna’s actions on, and in the immediate aftermath of, ⟦125⟧ the Ides. There is a major disagreement in our sources and the conventional scholarly view of the problem can be shown to be incorrect. It may indeed be said that this is a matter of small historical moment. But when so much in late Republican history is uncertain, any increase in precision should be welcome. Resolution of this particular problem also sheds light on the workings of our sources, particularly Plutarch and Appian. The investigation can therefore be justified. Cornelius Cinna was not himself a member of the conspiracy against Caesar,2 but when the deed was done, he advanced unexpectedly into the forum, laid aside his praetorian robe, as being the gift of a tyrant, called Caesar a tyrant and his killers tyrannicides, declared that the assassination was in accordance with ancestral custom, and proposed public honours for the assassins. This is the account of Appian 2.509f. That Cornelius Cinna did indeed make a speech in the forum on the Ides in support of the conspirators is confirmed by the evidence of Plutarch, Brutus 18.13.3 But Appian and Plutarch disagree in detail. According to Appian Cinna made his speech after the conspirators had ascended to the Capitol for the first time and before Brutus and Cassius descended to address the populace; the speech failed to win popular approval, but there is no implication in Appian that Cinna got into trouble with the populace at this stage because of it. According to Plutarch, however, 1 The identification is certain: see Wiseman (1974) 44ff. 2 Pace Plut. Caes. 68.6; Cass. Dio 44.50.4: cf. Garzetti (1954) 246, on Caes. 68.6. 3 ὅτι δ’ οὐ πᾶσι πρὸς ἡδονὴν ἐγεγόνει τὸ ἔργον, ἐδήλωσαν ἀρξαμένου λέγειν Κίννα καὶ κατηγορεῖν Καίσαρος, ἀναρρηγνύμενοι πρὸς ὀργὴν καὶ κακῶς τὸν Κίνναν λέγοντες, ὥστε πάλιν τοὺς ἄνδρας εἰς τὸ Καπετώλιον ἀπελθεῖν. Cinna’s speech in favour of the tyrannicides is also attested in Val. Max. 9.9.1; Suet. Caes. 85; Appian 2.147, but these references occur in the accounts of the lynching of Cinna the poet and give no details of the circumstances of the speech. (Suetonius’ pridie contionatum is an error, unless (a) it is possible to take pridie as = ‘a short time before’—cf. the very similar Brut. 20.11 ἐκεῖνος … ἔναγχος λοιδορήσας, or (b) one should emend to pridem.)

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Cinna made his speech after Brutus and the others had descended from the Capitol to address the people, but though Brutus’ speech gained a respectful hearing ‘that all were not pleased with the deed they made clear when Cinna began to speak and to denounce Caesar: they broke into a rage and reviled Cinna so bitterly that the conspirators withdrew again to the Capitol.’ ⟦126⟧ Further complications are introduced by the fact that, according to Appian 2.526f., on the day of the first meeting of the senate after Caesar’s murder, i.e. March 17, Cornelius Cinna, now back in his praetorian robe, was nearly lynched and burnt to death by the Roman mob, and only saved by the armed intervention of Lepidus and his troops. Although this incident is only attested by Appian, its historicity must be accepted, for Appian clearly distinguishes it from Cinna’s activities on the Ides and his account here seems credible and circumstantial. But again the detail of Appian’s account conflicts disturbingly with Plutarch’s narrative of events after the Ides, for according to Appian this second incident was the first clear expression of public opinion in favour of the dead Caesar and greatly worried the conspirators. The similarities and differences between Appian and Plutarch in their accounts of the adventures of Cornelius Cinna can thus be summarised as follows: (1) Both agree that Cinna made a speech on the Ides in favour of the conspirators; this must be historical; but they disagree over (a) the precise circumstances under which the speech was made (were the conspirators present or not?), and (b) the reception that the speech got; in Appian Cinna is apparently not abused, whereas in Plutarch the reception is so hostile that the conspirators retreat to the Capitol (for the second time). (2) Appian records Cinna’s near lynching of March 17, whereas Plutarch does not. But Plutarch’s omission could be explained in terms of narrative technique—his account of the complex series of events after Caesar’s murder is necessarily selective. It is more important that Appian’s gloss on this incident (it was the first public expression of hostility to the conspirators and greatly frightened them) is suspiciously similar to Plutarch’s gloss on Cinna’s speech on the Ides. Which version is correct? Scholars have generally supposed that it is Plutarch’s account in Brut. 18.13 that is at fault.4 On this view Brut. 18.13 can be seen as a conflation of two separate events: (1) Cinna’s speech on the Ides and (2) Cinna’s near lynching on the 17th and its effect on the morale of the conspirators. In itself such an interpretation seems not implausible, for conflations of two (or 4 So, e.g., P. Groebe ap. Drumann (1899) 415; Münzer (1901) 1287; Horsfall (1974) 197 n. 3 is agnostic (and inaccurate in his formulation of the alternatives).

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⟦127⟧ even more) separate items, whether through simple incompetence or (sometimes) through deliberate literary technique5 are common in Plutarch’s Lives. Yet closer investigation makes it quite clear that in this case it is Appian, not Plutarch, who is at fault. It seems to have escaped notice that Appian’s account of Cinna’s activities is self-contradictory. Brutus made a speech on the Capitol on March 16, whose content is recorded by Appian 2.570ff.6 There Brutus says that he and the rest of the conspirators went to the Capitol because ‘the sudden and unexpected attack made upon Cinna compelled us to do so’. He is not saying why they intend to stay on the Capitol: he is explaining why they took refuge there in the first place. ‘The sudden and unexpected attack made upon Cinna’ cannot therefore be the attack on Cinna on the 17th. The pattern of cause (attack on Cinna) and effect (conspirators retreat to the Capitol) is identical to that in Plutarch. In other words, in his narrative Appian has incorrectly referred ‘the sudden and unexpected attack upon Cinna’ to the events of March 17. In fact, Cinna got into trouble with the Roman mob twice. On the Ides he made an anti-Caesar speech, throwing away his praetorian robe, and was roughly handled by the crowd, and it was this that impelled the conspirators to take refuge on the Capitol. On the 17th Cinna had learnt his lesson and put his robe back on, but he was again attacked. Plutarch’s version of events is correct, Appian’s incorrect, despite the fact that it is clear that, so far as their basic information is concerned, the two writers are following the same source (almost certainly Asinius Pollio).7 Whether it is necessary to convict Appian of incompetence tout court may be debated. Appian, like Plutarch, is a skilled literary artist and often avoids the duplication of similar items in the interests of narrative clarity.8 Here, however, it must be said that he has failed to synthesise his material successfully, for the evidence of ⟦128⟧ 2.570ff. (Brutus’ speech) cannot be reconciled with the narrative of 2.509f. and 2.526f. App. BC 2.570ff. and Plutarch, Brutus 18.13 preserve the correct account of Cinna’s speech on the Ides, and Appian has glossed Cinna’s near lynching on the 17th with comments that are properly appropriate to the effect of that speech. 5 See most recently Pelling (1980) 127f. {= (2002) 91f.}. 6 In fact Appian wrongly dates Brutus’ contio Capitolina (Cic. Ad Att. 15.1a.2) to the same day as the first meeting of the senate, which was in fact March 17 (Ad Att. 14.10.1, 14.2; Phil. 2.35.89); this is because Appian, like Plutarch and Cassius Dio, misdates the first meeting of the senate to March 16, simply skipping a day. The actual contents of Appian’s version of Brutus’ contio Capitolina are decisive for the dating March 16 (cf. 2.570: ‘Here, citizens, we meet you, we who yesterday met together with you in the forum’). 7 Asinius Pollio is Appian’s main historical source for the Civil Wars from 60 BC, and Plutarch’s also: cf. recently and trenchantly Pelling (1979) 84f. {= (2002) 12f.}. This is common ground among those who take Quellenforschung seriously. 8 Cf. Pelling (1974) 437f. {Cf. Pelling (2011) 56–7}.

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Bibliography Drumann, W. (1899) Geschichte Roms I2 (Berlin). Garzetti, A. (1954) Plutarchi Vita Caesaris (Florence). Horsfall, N. (1974) ‘The Ides of March: Some New Problems’, G&R 21: 191–9. Münzer, F. (1901) ‘Cornelius (107)’, RE IV: 1287–8. Pelling, C. B. R. (1974) Plutarch’s Life of Caesar (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford). Pelling, C. B. R.(1979) ‘Plutarch’s Method of Work in the Roman Lives’, JHS 99: 74–96; repr. in id. (2002) 1–44. Pelling, C. B. R.(1980) ‘Plutarch’s Adaptation of his Source Material’, JHS 100: 127–40; repr. in id. (2002) 91–116. Pelling, C. B. R.(2002) Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London and Swansea). Pelling, C. B. R., ed. (2011) Plutarch: Caesar (Oxford). Wiseman, T. P. (1974) Cinna the Poet (Leicester).

Chapter 37

Review Joseph Geiger, Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography. (Historia Einzelschriften, 47.) Pp. 128. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1985.

Geiger’s meticulous documentation and analysis of Nepos’ literary production provide a sure foundation for further research. (Millar [1988] and Dionisotti [1988] build further on the relationship between Nepos’ work and contemporary politics.) But this review (for whose lateness I apologise) examines Geiger’s main thesis (which, if right, is of major importance): namely, that there was no such thing as Hellenistic political biography (Nicolaus reflecting not Hellenistic but Roman practice), and hence that Nepos’ biographies were a major ⟦230⟧ innovation and the greatest single influence upon Plutarch. (In fact Geiger denies the existence also of fifth-century and pre-Hellenistic fourth-century political biography but does not argue this in detail, relying upon the general theoretical considerations discussed below.) Geiger insists that political biography be distinguished from literary and philosophical biography, the prose encomium, individual-centred historiography, and the many different literary contexts which contain biographical information; finds, in the testimonia concerning Hellenistic authors who wrote about individuals, no certain evidence of political biography; and argues that this argument from silence is decisively strengthened by additional factors such as the contrasting abundance of evidence about other sorts of biography, the plethora of suitable political subjects (above all, Alexander), the apparent reliance of later biographers like Nepos and Plutarch on historians rather than biographers, the apparent failure of such biographers and of Polybius to cite Hellenistic biographers, in contrast with Polybius’ extensive discussions of Hellenistic historians and Plutarch’s free citation of Roman biographers. If these additional factors can be explained other than by the non-existence of Hellenistic political biography, Geiger’s case is not made out, since he concedes that in vacuo many of the testimonia could be consistent with its existence; if after all some of the testimonia do attest its existence, his case fails, since the additional factors, while needing explanation, could not themselves constitute a counter-argument of any real weight. In my opinion his case does fail. (1) Though in general political biography is formally distinct from the other types mentioned, there may nevertheless be far more overlap between them

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than Geiger allows. Historiography is certainly not the only possible source (pp. 23ff., 115) for the moralistic emphasis of extant biography: what of the far-reaching importance of Socrates as a moral exemplar, the prose encomium, or Xenophon, seminal figure in the development of historiography, prose encomium, and (in some sense at least [below]) biography? ‘Flashback’ personalia such as Alexander’s taming of Bucephalas (p. 48) could certainly be accommodated in some types of historiography (e.g., Herodotean). Neither in theory nor in practice does Plutarch always maintain his distinction between biography and history. Though Polybius’ Philopoemen was formally an encomium (pp. 35f.), his description of the differences between his treatments of Philopoemen there and in the Histories (10.21.7–8) is close to the distinctions between historiography and biography made by Nepos at Pelop. 1 and Plutarch at Alex. 1.1–2. The influence of the prose encomium on some of Nepos’ and Plutarch’s Lives is quite apparent. When political biography adopts Socratic, Platonic, or Peripatetic categories, it necessarily overlaps with philosophical biography. Geiger’s sharp generic distinctions are difficult to reconcile with titular variation (cf., e.g., Xenophon’s Cyropaedia (below), Nicanor’s work on Alexander (p. 49 n. 43), Nicolaus’ on Augustus (below), Diogenes Laertius’ description (6.84) of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Onesicritus’ work as encomia, Jerome’s of Tacitus’ Histories and Annals as uitas Caesarum (Comm. ad Zach. 3.14)), which indicates generic fluidity. If political biography sometimes in practice turned out to be little different from encomium or individual-centred historiography, its ‘invention’, at whatever date, as a separate genre would not have been a momentous step. (2) Geiger overstresses the other factors. Thus Plutarch’s failure to cite any Hellenistic biography as such hardly signifies: he generally only cites sources by author’s name and the question whether his citations of Demetrius of Phaleron or Pha(e)nias (to ⟦231⟧ take two much-canvassed ‘possibles’ as Hellenistic political biographers) are in fact to biographies must be decided on other grounds. Nor is Nepos’ and Plutarch’s apparent general reliance on historians particularly striking: even when demonstrably using biographies Plutarch also uses historians or other primary sources. (3) Geiger’s treatment of Nepos’ own evidence is too simple. No credence can be given the arguments (pp. 114f.) that Nepos’ use of the term uitae indicates the non-existence of political biography hitherto (poets wrote ‘epyllia’ without having the name) or that he distinguishes political biography from historiography because he has just invented the former (why then does Plutarch do so too? Hardly through literary imitatio of Nepos!). Geiger also ignores Momigliano’s embarrassing (and to me persuasive) suggestion (Momigliano

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[1971] 98f. and n. 40) that Nepos’ and Plutarch’s distinction between Lives and History represents a simplification of the sophisticated Hellenistic rhetorical theorising found in Ad Her. 1.13, Cic. De invent. 1.27, and Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. 1.253 (Asclepiades), which distinguishes narratives concerned with history and those concerned with persons (cf. also Pol. 10.21.7–8, above). Particularly problematic are Geiger’s discussions of (a) Epam. 4.6 ‘plurima quidem proferre possimus, sed modus adhibendus est, quoniam uno hoc uolumine uitam excellentium uirorum complurium concludere constituimus, quorum separatim multis milibus uersuum complures scriptores ante nos explicarunt’, and (b) Praef. 1 ‘non dubito quin fore plerosque, Attice, qui hoc genus scripturae leue et non satis dignum summorum uirorum personis iudicent, cum relatum legent, quis musicam docuerit Epaminondam, aut in eius uirtutibus commemorari, saltasse eum commode scienterque tibiis cantasse’. (a) Against the view that the works of the previous writers are biographies Geiger argues (pp. 34f.) that their very length precludes this and that the existence of so many ‘unnamed, unknown, unattested, and unidentified biographical sources’ cannot be reconciled with the general picture of Nepos’ sources. But these objections are in part circular, in part inappropriately literalist, ignoring Nepos’ manifest rhetorical αὔξησις. Even if Geiger’s own interpretation—that the reference is to encomia and individual-centred histories—were right, it would further weaken the distinction between such works and political biographies, since uitam or uitas has to be understood after quorum. But it is in fact difficult to see how uitas could gloss individual-centred histories of any but kings or men who could be regarded as of equivalent status, which would exclude the majority of Nepos’ subjects, and there would also be a sharp contradiction with De regibus 1.1 ‘hi fere fuerunt Graecae gentis duces, qui memoria digni uideantur, praeter reges. Namque eos attingere nolumus, quod omnium res gestae separatim sunt relatae’. In short, the implication that Nepos is contrasting his own practice of including many biographies within a single volume with his predecessors’ practice of producing single biographies of great length seems virtually inescapable. (b) According to Geiger (pp. 21f., 103, 113f.) Praef. 1 justifies Nepos’ novel application of biography (hitherto restricted to philosophers or literary men) to summi uiri. But Nepos here handles four well-known themes: (1) the general ethical debate about the viability of σχολή/otium; (2) the consequent literary question of the appropriateness of recording the activities of great men in their lighter moments (cf. esp. Xen. Symp. 1.1 Ἀλλ’ ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ τῶν καλῶν κἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν ἔργα οὐ μόνον τὰ μετὰ σπουδῆς πραττόμενα ἀξιομνημονευτὰ εἶναι ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ ἐν ταῖς παιδιαῖς; (3) the concern—both ethical and literary—with the

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maintenance of τὸ πρέπον/decorum (Nepos’ terminology here looks specifically Panaetian); (4) the need to justify Greek values in a Roman context (developed in Praef. 2–8; cf., e.g., Cic. Acad. 1.2.4–5). ⟦232⟧ Nepos’ remarks on biography again resemble Plutarch’s at Alex. 1.2 (itself derivative from Xen. Symp. 1.1) and contrast with the historiographical justification of the treatment of otium at Cato, Origines F 2 Peter {= FRHist 5 F 2} = Cic. Planc. 66 (‘clarorum uirorum atque magnorum non minus otii quam negotii rationem exstare oportere’; cf. Cic. Off. 3.1.1: ‘P. Scipionem, M. Fili, eum, qui primus Africanus appellatus est, dicere solitum scripsit Cato, qui fuit eius fere aequalis, numquam se minus otiosum esse, quam cum otiosus’, which significantly modifies Xenophon); the notion of Epaminondas at play also contrasts markedly with the sombrely historiographical Epaminondas of Cic. Fam. 5.12.5. That is, political biography of great men, which frequently concerns itself with ‘small things’/‘leisure’/‘play’, always poses a problem of decorum because of the contrast with the characteristic ‘greatness’ of its big brother, historiography (and of course a still acuter problem of decorum arises when historiography itself assimilates biographical categories: cf., e.g., Liv. 27.15.9 leue dictu momentum, Tac. Ann. 4.32.1 parua forsitan et leuia memoratu uideri non nescius sum). This problem is compounded when political biography treats of Greek politicians, whose otium-activities were alien, and culpably lightweight, to conventional Roman sentiment. Nepos’ innovation, therefore, lies not in writing political biography for the first time, but in introducing political biography of Greek statesmen to a Roman audience. Like Pelop. 1 and Epam. 4.6, this passage presupposes not the non-existence of Hellenistic political biography but its pre-existence. Indeed, the really significant argument from silence is Nepos’ failure in any of his programmatic/methodological statements to claim originality in writing political biography tout court, a claim he surely would have made had it been justified (Cat. 1.5 unus Italorum suggests that he was not backward in claiming originality for the Chronica). His innovations, rather, consisted in (1) bringing Greek-style political biography to Rome and (2) uno … uolumine uitam excellentium uirorum complurium concludere (Epam. 4.6 above). (4) Geiger’s discussion of the testimonia concerning the existence of Hellenistic political biography is dogmatic and selective. The reason for his eagerness (pp. 48f. n. 43) to rebut any parallel between Onesicritus’ work on Alexander and Xenophon’s Cyropaedia can only be that the latter (dubbed Cyri uitam et disciplinam by Cicero [Brut. 112] and ‘the most accomplished biography … in classical Greek literature’ by Momigliano [1971] 55) looks uncomfortably like a bios; but if so, what of the claimed non-existence of pre-Hellenistic fourth-century political biography? Moreover, it is simply untrue that ‘the supposed parallelism … depends solely on Diogenes Laertius 6.84’ (T. S. Brown

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and Höistad have shown other interesting points of contact) and that ‘there are no grounds whatsoever to believe that Onesicritus’ work was basically different from that of other historians of Alexander’. Further, the received title of Onesicritus’ work puts it in the same category as Nicolaus’ work on Augustus, which Geiger happily labels biography, and also brings under biography’s capacious umbrella several other Hellenistic works whose biographical status Geiger denies. Again, (p. 53 and n. 71) he writes ‘most revealing is the case of Demetrius of Phaleron … there is no hint that he tried to adapt and blend Peripatetic biography and historiography to produce Lives of statesmen … there is absolutely no indication of the contents of these works [the list given by Diogenes Laertius]’ without even mentioning the much-cited remark of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Dem. 53) ὡς Δημήτριός τε ὁ Φαληρεύς φησι καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι πάντες οἱ τὸν βίον αὐτοῦ συγγράψαντες. Whether or not Dionysius means to include Demetrius in the category of οἱ ἄλλοι (the Greek admits either possibility), he certainly does attest the existence of a plurality of biographers of Demosthenes. (5) Though Geiger supplements the evidence of Plutarch’s explicit citations of Nepos with several interesting arguments designed to establish a more general influence, he ⟦233⟧ exaggerates this element in his case also. No allowance is made for the common-source explanation ably put by Russell (1973) 106–8; the hypothesis (p. 105) of a Life of Antony used by Plutarch is implausible (Pelling [1988] 30); above all, Plutarch’s wording at Dem. 2.2–3 does not allow the possibility (pp. 105, 118) that he derived his preliminary knowledge of Roman history from Nepos: he had some knowledge of τὰ πράγματα (stemming from general knowledge or, in certain well-known cases, oral tradition) before he tackled Latin sources. The rigour with which Geiger sifts the evidence and builds his own cumulative argument has convinced some scholars (notably Wiseman [1987]) of the correctness of his case. But this rigour, while real and impressive, is too clear-cut, too black-and-white, too intolerant of ambiguity, complexity, and nuance. Valuable though Geiger’s monograph is, its main thesis is mistaken. Bibliography Dionisotti, A. C. (1988) ‘Nepos and the Generals’, JRS 78: 35–49. Millar, F. (1988) ‘Cornelius Nepos, “Atticus” and the Roman Revolution’, G&R 35: 40–55; repr. in id., Rome, the Greek World and the East, volume I: the Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution, edd. H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers (Chapel Hill and London, 2002–6) 183–99.

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Momigliano, A. D. (1971) The Development of Greek Biography (Cambridge, Mass.; repr. with addenda, 1993). Pelling, C. B. R., ed. (1988) Plutarch: Life of Antony (Cambridge). Wiseman, T. P. (1987) ‘Review of J. Geiger, Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography’, JRS 77: 250.

Chapter 38

Review Philip A. Stadter, A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles. Pp. lxxxvii + 419; frontispiece, 3 figs. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989.

This highly ambitious book comprises a wide-ranging introduction, a photographic reproduction of Ziegler’s text, 300 pages of commentary, three illustrations, two appendices, full bibliography, index locorum, Greek and general indices. It addresses all sorts of reader (even the Greekless can benefit, particularly from the introduction and the historical discussions). Hence great variation not only of material but also of level, from elementary (grammatical and vocabulary aids) to the highest. The introductory discussion of Plutarch’s life and works is warm and sympathetic, though lacking ‘edge’: Plutarch’s ornamenta consularia and imperial procuratorship are implausible (Swain [1989] 17), the translations loose to the point of inaccuracy, the differences between political biography and historiography overstated (cf. not only Wardman [1974] 1–37, but also now Moles [1988]; Pelling [1990]; inter alia historiography’s ‘exemplary’ purpose (Sall. BJ 4.5 [cited by Stadter on p. 60], etc.) is exactly the same as biography’s); the reconstruction of the Lives’ relative chronology neglects the persuasive ‘simultaneous preparation’ thesis of Gomme ([1945] 83 n. 3) and Brožek ([1963] 70, 76), fruitfully developed by Pelling ([1979] 80ff. {= (2002) 2ff.}), which further destabilises the cross-references, and it is not quite correct that ‘there are no specific indications of [absolute] chronology’ (p. xxix; cf. Jones (1966) 69–70). Stadter sees Pericles’ purpose as threefold: ‘to demonstrate through a presentation of his actions that Pericles in fact possessed and exercised the virtues of praotēs and dikaiosynē, to refute those who hold the contrary opinion, and to lead the reader to make a decision to put these virtues into practice in his own life’ (p. xxx). The first and third of these are obviously true. The second reflects Stadter’s important ⟦290⟧ insight (first in Stadter [1987]) that Pericles deploys a range of rhetorical techniques in systematic refutation of the various charges made against Pericles by Plato, comic poets, and rhetoricians. More could be said: e.g., the linkage of Pericles’ ‘loftiness’ with Anaxagoras’ μετεωρολογίας and μεταρσιολεσχίας (5.1) reappropriates the logic of such comic burlesques as Clouds 223ff.; 9.1, summarising Plato’s criticisms of Pericles, disingenuously cites only ἄλλοι πολλοί; 10.7 and 13.16 exploit rhetorical δείνωσις/indignatio (on

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which Stadter’s note on p. 260 slightly misleads); 33.5 (δεινὸν ἐφαίνετο) turns Athenian outrage at the ravaging of their land into Pericles’ outrage at the prospect of fighting the Peloponnesians in Attica. And while it is true that chs. 1–8 prepare the reader both for the key question of 9.1 and its answer, they also provide an overview of Pericles’ career, so that the rest of the Life constitutes a more detailed θεωρία of the same material and sometimes ‘redefines’ the initial conclusions. Thus 9.3–5 offers a different interpretation of the reform of the Areopagus from 7.8; 10.5 on the ‘division of power’ between Cimon and Pericles expands 7.3; 11.1 develops the wrestling metaphor of 8.3; 38.1 (on the λαβή of the plague on Pericles) ‘corrects’ the inability of Thucydides, most formidable of Pericles’ political antagonists, decisively to ‘throw’ Pericles (8.5); 38.4 (Pericles’ claim to have spared his fellow-citizens civil bloodshed) ‘trumps’ 8.9 (immortalising of the dead of the Samian war); 39.1 gives the truest reasons why Pericles deserves θαῦμα (cf. and contrast 5.1; 7.1; 7.6); 39.2–3 offers a final ‘solution’ to the problematics of the title ‘Olympian’ (8.3). Stadter also misses 9.1’s full complexity. The contrast is not only between ‘aristocratic’ and ‘democratic’/‘demagogic’ (‘good’ and ‘bad’ rule) but also between ‘democracy’ and ‘monarchy’ (shared and monarchical rule). Plutarch has to demonstrate (a) that Pericles’ initial ‘democratic’ policies were only a means to an end; (b) that he moved from being merely a democratic leader to a ‘monarch’; (c) that he achieved this through ‘demagogic’ means; hence (d) that his final ‘monarchy’ discarded ‘demagogy’, so that it was indeed ‘aristocratic’. In effect, Plutarch’s solution to the problem posed by the disagreement between Thucydides and Plato is to present Pericles, once ‘monarch’, as an Aristotelian king (Pol. 1288b2). Stadter’s helpful treatment of the Pericles–Fabius pair (summarising Stadter [1975]) is somewhat weakened by perfunctory commentary on the synkrisis (the latter is poor enough but better than Stadter suggests) and by his interpretation of πρᾳότης (which follows H. Martin [1960]): ‘their great similarity … was their ability … to endure the stupidities of the mass of common citizens and of their own colleagues, that is [my italics], their praotes’ (p. xxx). This is not quite right: Per. 2.5 καὶ … γενομένων does not define πρᾳότης (any more than δικαιοσύνη); πρᾳότης means ‘mildness’ (hence its applicability to weather, etc.), which can be exhibited in numerous areas (including toleration). Thus, e.g., it is Pericles’ πρᾳότης (not his ‘philosophic calm’ or ‘common humanity’ [p. 259]) which excludes the cruelty of 28.2. Other illuminating discussions concern the parallels between Pericles and Politica praecepta, Pericles’ structure, Plutarch’s historical method, general principles for reading the Lives, the Pericles’ value, Plutarch’s style, and Pericles’ sources (a particularly strong section).

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The commentary contains many excellent observations on Plutarch’s use of language, style, and thematic organisation of material. Yet the general emphasis is much more on historical matters, which receive formidably full documentation and discussion, of tremendous utility to historians. The perspective is indeed sometimes disconcertingly historical (e.g., the anachronistic solar eclipse of 35.2 is an ‘error’, the conflation at ⟦291⟧ 35.3 of the attack on Epidaurus with Hagnon’s reinforcements at Potidaea lacks ‘any literary purpose’ [pp. 320–1]). By contrast, there is rather little on matters such as verbal patterns and repetitions, and structures both small and large, which are an essential part of a writer’s ‘style’ and greatly affect interpretation, and many opportunities for useful literary comment are passed over:










1.1–2.5: the introduction is like a rhetorical (προ)λαλία (Swain [1990] 77). 1.1–2.3: images of love and growth pervade the Life with important moral implications. 1.1: the Caesar story takes standard chreia form. The very first word ξένους establishes the key contrast between natural/unnatural, ‘foreign’/οἰκεῖον (1.3). Stadter does not discuss the force of the qualifying ὡς ἔοικεν (vel sim.) here or elsewhere. 2.5: Ἔδοξεν picks up 1.2 τὸ δοκοῦν (Plutarch’s ‘moral decision’ is to continue the Lives), καὶ ἡμῖν ἐνδιατρίψαι τῇ περὶ τοὺς βίους ἀναγραφῇ picks up 1.6 ἂν βασιλεὺς ἀκροᾶσθαι ψαλλόντων σχολάζῃ (below). With εἰ δ’ … γραφομένων cf., e.g., Ag.-Cle.–Gracch. 2.9; Arat. 10.5; Quaest. conv. 697E. τοῦ δέοντος and κρίνειν are Thucydidean (1.22.1, 4), with interesting and complex consequences. 3.2: the approval of Cleisthenes’ constitution demands discussion, given the Life’s thesis. 4.2: athletic imagery is important in the Life (8.5; 11.1; 14.3; 38.1). 4.6: συγγενόμενος picks up 4.2 συνῆν (Anaxagoras the most influential of all Pericles’ associates). There is tension between ἐμβριθέστερον and μετεωρίσας while δημαγωγίας ἐμβριθέστερον ‘corrects’ 3.7 δημαγωγῶν. The emphasis on Anaxagoran νοῦς reflects on Pericles himself. θαυμάσαντες picks up 1.4 and 2.2 and anticipates 5.1 (bis), suggesting a hierarchy and reciprocity of ‘admiration’. 5.3: pace Stadter, περιφοραῖς (MSS.) is clever and sound, contrasting (i) with Pericles’ περιφρόνησιν and (ii) with his ‘Olympian’ demeanour (i.e., Cimon’s behaviour is περιφοραί redefined positively). Zeno the Stoic is impossible after 4.5, especially as the advice (whose terms recall the proem) must be contemporary with Pericles. 6.1: συνουσίας rings with 4.5 (συγγενόμενος)–5.1. Δεισιδαιμονίας … καθυπέρτερος exemplifies the general principle of 4.6–5.1. There is a contrast between bad and good forms of ‘wonder’.

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6.2: on the scientific and religious levels the anecdote illustrates precisely what Plutarch claims in lines 21–3. 6.3: θαυμασθῆναι rings with 4.5 (and following). 7.1: ἐξεπλήττοντο picks up 5.1 ἐξέπληττε (people are ‘struck’ both by Pericles’ virtues and by his tyrannical potential). 7.2: nothing on ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός εἰμι/γίγνομαι. 7.4: ὐπῆλθε is formally critical, but Plutarch is not fundamentally critical, Pericles’ long-term purpose justifying such demagogy; cf. 9.2. 7.5: the description of Pericles’ ‘change of life’ picks up 5.1, i.e., 7.5 integrates the ‘timeless’ material of 5.1 into a precise political context; similarly 7.6 picks up 4.5 and 5.1. 7.6: θαυμάσιον links, and contrasts, with 5.1, etc., further emphasising the contrast between Pericles’ great merits and ideal virtue. 7.7: ἐπλησίαζεν, etc., of Pericles’ relations with the δῆμος, is sexual imagery (no doubt evoking Thuc. 2.43.1 but reflecting also a general tradition of rulers and ruled as ‘lovers’); Pericles’ ‘restraint’ also contrasts with the ‘sexual licence’ unleashed by Ephialtes. 8.1: ὑποχεόμενος contrasts Periclean restraint with Ephialtean excess (7.8 οἰνοχοῶν). 8.4: use of ἀφεικότων (against ‘Olympian’ Pericles) is piquant. 8.6: αὐτός (MSS.), correctly retained by Stadter, also links back to αὐτός of Thucydides, son of Melesias, in 8.5. εὐλαβής rings with 7.1 εὐλαβεῖτο, ἐκπεσεῖν links to 8.5 πέπτωκε, ἀνάρμοστον rings with 8.1 ἁρμόζοντα. 8.9: Pericles’ use of the quasi-technical τεκμαίρομαι deserves comment (cf., e.g., Hornblower [1987] 100ff.). 9.1: note that Plutarch (rightly) takes Thucydides’ ἐγένετο as ‘was’. θεωρείσθω links back to the proem (1.2): ‘regarding the cause of the change’ is a moral, as well as intellectual, process. Thucydidean working (διὰ τῶν πραγμάτων αὐτῶν [cf. 1.21.2] ἡ αἰτία τῆς μεταβολῆς) introduces a Thucydidean defence of Pericles. 9.2: ὑποποιεῖτο τὸν δῆμον (which Stadter correctly renders ‘curried their favour’) picks up 7.4 ὑπῆλθε τοὺς πολλούς, confirming that phrase’s nominally pejorative implications (cf. also 15.1). 9.5: μισόδημον and πλούτῳ ring with 9.2, κράτος ἐν τῷ δήμῳ rings pointedly with 9.1 δημοκρατίαν. 10.3: πόθος (itself deserving a note) links with 7.7–8 and 10.4 (Cimon and Pericles are rival lovers of the people). 10.4: οὐκ ὤκνησε marks Pericles’ increasing confidence (after the εὐλαβεία of chs. 7–8) in handling the people. 10.6: διαπράσσειν (a probably correct emendation) is itself sexual.

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10.7: προβέβληκε (MSS.) is supported not only by Brut. 29.7 but by 10.6 προβολήν and προβεβλημένος (the tables are turned but the way in which Pericles discharged his προβολή disproves the charges Idomeneus προβέβληκε). εὐγενὲς … θηριῶδες recalls the proem, especially 1.1. 10.8: there is a σύγκρισις between Ephialtes, implacable to his enemies and ‘secretly’ killed, and Pericles, who did not ‘guilefully slay’ Ephialtes, was conciliatory towards Cimon, and lived. 11.1: ἀριστοκρατικοί is wider than 10.8 ὀλιγαρχικοῖς (cf. Cic. 9.7; 10.1). 11.1–4: the succession of images requires comment. 11.1: ἀντιτασσόμενον picks up 9.2 ἀντιταττόμενος (Pericles the ‘opposer’ now faces an ‘opposer’). 11.1–2: the interaction of imagery is clever: (i) Thucydides ‘swiftly made his πολιτεία a rival’ (Stadter, ἀντίπαλον ⟦292⟧ linking to the preceding wrestling imagery), but the Greek can also mean ‘swiftly brought the state into even poise’ (Perrin [adapted], ἀντίπαλον linking to the following ‘balance’ imagery); (ii) ‘he made … a counterweight on the scale’. The first image contains in embryo the meaning of the second: it was through Thucydides’ and Pericles’ rivalry that the state attained a tense equilibrium. 11.2: ἐμβριθῆ suggests that Thucydides is turning Pericles’ own attributes against him. 11.3: the prefix of ὑποσημαίνουσα does carry weight (‘faintly indicated’, Perrin), linking with ὕπουλος and contrasting with the very deep cut inflicted by the two men’s rivalry. The horse imagery links directly to 7.8: Pericles now adopts more ‘Ephialtean’ policies. 11.6: πολυπραγμοσύνη was of course regarded as characteristically Athenian (cf. 21.1; Comp. 2.3). 12.1: ἡδονήν links back not only to the proem but also (and more directly) to 11.4; similarly, κόσμον picks up, and develops, 8.3, while ἔκπληξιν looks back to 7.1, 5.1, etc. μαρτυρεῖ κ. τ. λ. clearly echoes Thuc. 2.41.4 directly, as well (surely) as confuting Roman belittlers of Greece. εὐπρεπεστάτη τῶν προφάσεων (cf. Cic. 41.3) is Thucydidean (1.23.6; 6.76.3). 13.1: θαυμάσιον links back to 12.1. 13.7–8: Cratinus is being obscene. 14.3: the imagery is both legal and wrestling, linking back to 8.5 (Pericles finally ‘outwrestles’ Thucydides). ἀντιτεταγμένην picks up 11.1 ἀντιτασσόμενον. 15.1: the Alcibiades is spurious. οὐκέθ’ ὁ αὐτὸς ἦν responds precisely to 9.1 τῆς μεταβολῆς, οὐδ’ ὁμοίως χειροήθης τῷ δήμῳ reverses 11.4 (and hence 7.8), ὑπείκειν picks up 9.2 ὑπεποιεῖτο and 7.4 ὑπῆλθε, ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις picks up 11.4 and 10.4, ἀνειμένης picks up 11.4 ἀνείς, ἁρμονίας … ἐντεινάμενος picks up 8.1 directly, ἀρισοκρατικὴν … βασιλικήν echoes 9.1 directly (with βασιλικήν bringing out the

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full implications of ὑπὸ τοῦ πρώτου ἀνδρὸς ἀρχήν), ἦγε echoes Thuc. 2.65.8 directly and ἦγε πείθων already suggests horse imagery, κατατείνων links the horse and musical metaphors (ἐντεινάμενος), ἐχειροῦτο links with οὐδ’ … χειροήθης, and the medical imagery reverses the butchery of 11.3. 15.2: ἐμμελῶς links horse, medical, and musical images, διαχειρίσασθαι links with ἐχειροῦντο, ἀνιείς contrasts with ἀνειμένης. 16.3: the imagery recalls 7.7–8 and 10.3–4: Pericles’ ‘affair’ with Athens was no mere youthful fling. The imagery of ἀνάλωτον ὑπὸ χρημάτων, in tension with δυναστείαν and ἐφύλαξεν is ‘live’. 16.7: ἀπᾴδοντα ‘corrects’ the musical imagery of 8.1. ἀργήν contrasts with 16.3 οὐ παντάπασιν ἀργῶς (of Pericles). The ‘kingly’ Pericles can now aid the poor in the manner of Cimon (9.2). 16.8: Anaxagoras’ role as political/philosophical σύμβουλος is noteworthy. 17.1: the temporal link is with 15.1. 18.1: the thematic logic is: though Pericles ‘thought big’, his generalship was distinguished by ἀσφάλεια. Ch. 18 is framed around elaborate contrasts between true and false ‘reputation’/‘honour’/‘wonder’, between true and false ‘bigness’/‘greatness’, and between (mere) ‘good fortune’ and real worth; there are also four ring structures: 18.1 εὐδοκίμει … 18.3 εὐδοκίμησε; 18.1 εὐδοκίμει … 18.3 δόξαν; 18.1 χρόνον … 18.2 χρόνον; 18.1 πρὸς τοὺς πολίτας … 18.3 φιλοπολίτῃ. The dictum of 18.1 reverses the usual ‘immortality-through-distinguished-death’ motif (cf. 8.9) and anticipates the boast of 38.4. 19.1–2: of the two outstanding examples of Pericles’ generalship, the first wins wonder from Greeks, the second even from barbarians. 19.3: ἀσφαλής rings with 18.1, πολίταις with 18.3 and 18.1, while οὐδ’ ἀπὸ τύχης looks back to 18.1–2. 20.1: μεγάλῳ and μέγεθος exemplify Pericles’ ‘big’ conceptions (17.1), but the verbal parallels with the Sicilian expedition establish the soundness of Pericles’ generalship by contrast. 20.3: Pericles’ resistance to excessive Athenian expansionism exemplifies the general principle of 15.1, τύχης recalls the general theme of 19.3 and 18.1–2, ἐπαιρομένων contrasts false ‘arousal’ with true (17.1). 20.4: there is an ‘erotic’ struggle for Athens between Pericles, her old lover, and Sicily, her new. The end of the section recalls 17.1: this excessive imperialist lust in some sense results from Pericles’ policy at 17.1. 21.1: κατεῖχε plays on 20.4 εἶχεν. There is tension and paradox in μέγα ἔργον … ἀνείργειν. 22.2: συνεῖχεν picks up 21.1 κατεῖχε. 23.1: μὴ πολυπραγμονήσας illustrates Pericles’ success in 21.1. 24.2: διαπορῆσαι is a t.t. for specific philosophical questions.

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24.4: ὑπέσπειρεν links to the sexual theme and suggests Thargelia’s ‘male dominance’. 24.7: ὁμιλεῖν contains a sexual metaphor. 26.3: ἐχρῶντο τῇ θαλάσσῃ picks up from 25.4 (the Samians seem to achieve thalassocracy). 28.4–7: the unifying theme is θαῦμα in relation to Pericles. 28.8: Athens regains thalassocracy. 30.2: ὑπῆν does mean ‘there was secretly’, since it contrasts with φανηρὰν … αἰτίαν. (is Plutarch transferring Thucydides’ famous distinction concerning αἰτία/πρόφασις to Pericles?), while κοινήν contrasts with ἰδία. 31.1: Plutarch seems to give the φιλονικία view some weight (cf. 29.8). 32.6: the contrast between αἱ … αἰτίαι … αὗται λέγονται and τὸ … ἀληθὲς ἄδηλον piquantly reworks Thuc. 1.23.5–6. 33.1: μαλακωτέροις χρήσονται recalls the first of the two explanations of Pericles’ unyieldingness in 31.1. 33.2: πεῖρα links back to 31.1 πεῖραν. 34.4: τοῖς ἀνθρωπίνοις λογισμοῖς picks up 33.6 τοῖς αὑτοῦ λογισμοῖς. 34.5: παντάπασιν ἠγριώθησαν marks the Athenians as (a) utterly ‘estranged’ from Pericles, (b) made ‘inhuman’ (cf. 34.4, 37.5, and 1.1–2). 35.1: μεγάλην … πολεμίοις looks back to 19.3 (Pericles hopes to repeat the success of his Chersonese campaign). 36.6–8: there is a ring with 36.1. 37.1: the image recalls Pericles’ younger ⟦293⟧ days at 11.1–2. ποθούσης marks the resumption of the love affair between Athens and Pericles. 37.4: the Athenians are ‘broken-hearted’, like Pericles himself at the loss of the last of his legitimate sons (36.9). 37.5: ἀνθρωπίνων … δεῖσθαι (excellently translated by Perrin as ‘what he asked became a man to ask and men to grant’) links back to 34.5 ἠγριώθησαν, 34.4 τοῖς ἀνθρωπίνοις λογισμοῖς, and 33.6 τοῖς αὑτοῦ λογισμοῖς: the Athenians are ‘humanised’, recognising that Pericles himself has been brought down to ‘human’ level. 38.2: the question of ‘change’, applied before to politics (9.1), now applies to moral character. τὰς τύχας picks up 37.5 δυστυχία. 38.4: Pericles’ dismissal of his military achievements recalls the terms not only of 2.3 but also of 18.1. 39.1: τῆς ἐπιεικείας … διετήρησεν rings with 2.5. 39.2: καθαρωτάτῳ picks up καθαρόν, πρεπούσης picks up 39.2 πρέπουσαν, thus accentuating Pericles’ ‘apotheosis’. 39.3: πόθος recurs, even after Pericles’ death, far sharper than that felt for Pericles’ erstwhile rival Cimon (10.3). ἀμαυροῦσαν picks up σαφῆ, εὐθύς picks up ταχεῖαν.

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A certain lack of interpretative intensity produces some more general disappointments. Stadter registers little of the density and complexity of the language and thought of the proem (Stadter [1988] does not help) and by-passes the questions: (i) how does the discussion of the arts, and the contrast between attention paid to the arts and that paid to virtuous actions (which Stadter dismisses as a ‘digression’ [p. 60]) relate to the glorification of the artistic achievements, especially the buildings, of Periclean Athens in chs. 12–14? (ii) what exactly is the τέλος of Pericles, Plutarch’s γραφόμενα (his own’ work of art’) in 2.5, and how would its success be measured? For τὸ δέον is both the convincing representation of Pericles’ and Fabius’ virtues and the purpose of that representation. The answer to (i) is that those great—described as ἔργα (13.1), as ἀναθήματα (8.3; 12.1), with which ἐκόσμησεν ὁ Περικλῆς τὰς Ἀθήνας (Comp. 3.7; Per. 8.3), as τὰ Περικλέος ἔργα (13.4), as incomparably superior to πάντα τὰ πρὸ τῶν Καισάρων φιλοτιμήματα τῆς Ῥώμης (Comp. 3.7), and as possessing βάρος μόνιμον, like Pericles himself (13.4), and ὥσπερ ἀειθαλὲς πνεῦμα καὶ ψυχὴν ἀγήρω (13.5), as produced with the cooperation of Athene herself (13.12–13)—somehow transcend the limitations of ordinary works of art and the ordinary divides between artistic and moral/political ἔργα and between human and divine. Thus while artistic and moral ἔργα can be distinguished (1.4), artistic ἔργα divide into lesser works of art and buildings, which can themselves be categorised as moral/political ἔργα (cf. the thesis of De gloria Atheniensium, especially 348C, 349D). Hence Ameling’s idea ([1985], esp. 61–3), partially accepted by Stadter on p. 130, that Plutarch’s stress on Pericles’ building programme contains a plea for contemporary euergetism, emerges as a central element of Pericles’ purpose. As to (ii), Stadter sees several analogies between Pericles and the Roman emperor or between fifth-century Athens and contemporary Rome (e.g., pp. xxxiv, 130, 165, 167, 347). But there is more. The proem begins with a chreia wherein ‘Caesar’ ἡγεμονικῶς recognises the difference between the natural and unnatural, and the following discussion concerning our natural attraction to both moral and artistic ἔργα emphasises ‘it suffices if a king has leisure to listen to others plucking the strings, and he pays great deference to the Muses if he be but a spectator of such contests’ (1.6); Plutarch’s Lives provide the ἱστορία which creates the appropriate moral προαίρεσις for virtuous action, and Pericles, Plutarch’s own ‘work of art’, has its own τέλος, whose effectiveness the reader must judge. The whole introduction is like a rhetorical λαλία/προλαλία before an extended performance. The σύγκρισις ends by contrasting the splendour of Pericles’ public works with those of the Romans ‘before the Caesars’, so that the whole pair is ring-structured with allusions to Caesars. Pericles, nominally

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operating in a democracy/republic, is actually a ‘monarch’ or βασιλεύς; his public works rival, but exceed, those of Rome, and should inspire contemporaries ⟦294⟧ to similar large-scale euergetism; his ‘Olympian’ ‘monarchy’ parallels that of the gods who rule as kings over the universe, hence also the ‘divine’ rule of Roman emperors (39.1–2). While Pericles has other purposes, its main target is the Roman emperor Trajan, to whom Plutarch had earlier directed Ad principem ineruditum (Moles [1990] 367 {vol. 1, p. 115} n. 18) and to whose great marshal Sosius Senecio the Lives were dedicated, and who is both complimented and exhorted by the opening chreia, and then urged to emulate Pericles’ building programme. (Note that Pericles–Fabius, the tenth pair, falls within the right general period.) Hence Pericles’ success will above all be judged by Trajan’s response. (Other elements of Pericles might also be relevant to the great ‘populist’—and soldier-emperor—the need for philosophical counsel and military ἀσφάλεια, especially in a man of the highest ambition; the dangers of opposing the diplomatic resolution of a great war; the proper techniques for controlling the δῆμος. Clearly Fabius would also give Trajan food for thought.) Another key question is that of Pericles’ ‘decline’. For Stadter, Pericles’ dying dictum ‘corrects’ the anecdote recorded by Theophrastus (p. 345). Certainly, the dictum provides Pericles with a fine death and Plutarch with a handle for the generalising encomium of Pericles in ch. 39. But the anecdote and dictum do not quite intersect. The anecdote does not charge Pericles with gross superstition, merely with rueful capitulation to the superstition of others, and it illustrates the general proposition of 38.1 (that the λαβή of the plague ‘used up his body slowly and [slowly] undermined the loftiness of his spirit’), which Plutarch seems to accept (especially if the imagery of 38.1 responds to that of 8.5). So Plutarch can say (with typical equivocalness) that on the one hand the anecdote indicates some decline in that spirit, but on the other hand his final dictum concerning a different matter illustrates his admirable spirit. And while Pericles’ constancy of purpose and attitude through all vicissitudes is a major theme of the Life, the narrative of 28–38 has a general architecture of μετάβασις from ἀκμή/εὐτυχία to δύστυχία, with the customary tragic ambiguities, which convey not only sympathy but some sense of decline and of divine retribution (cf. especially 28.5–6; 29.1 (after 28.7); 29.5; 30.2; 32.5; 34.4 with 33.6 and 37.6; 35.4; 36.9; 37.1, 3, 5). Note that after Pericles’ death the people experience a corresponding περιπέτεια/ἀναγνώρισις (39.3–4), which forms part of the generalising ‘rehabilitation’ of Pericles in the last chapter, itself a common tragic technique cf., e.g., Stinton [1975] 240–1 {= [1990] 168–9}; Moles [1988] 200). The length of this review reflects the importance of Stadter’s work, the apparent preponderance of criticism the intensity of the instruction, stimulation, and pleasure obtainable from reading Pericles with Stadter as one’s

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guide. This is a major commentary on what Stadter’s fine advocacy establishes as a major text. Like Plutarch’s Pericles himself, Stadter is ‘not perhaps in all respects irreproachable but possesses a noble disposition and an ambitious spirit, in which [I hope] no savage and bestial feelings can have their abode’ and his great ἔργον will excite admiration for generations. Bibliography Ameling, W. (1985) ‘Plutarch, Perikles 12–14’, Historia 34: 47–63. Brožek, M. (1963) ‘Noch über die Selbstzitate als chronologischen Wegweiser in Plutarchs Parallelbiographien’, Eos 53: 63–80. Gomme, A. W. (1945) A Historical Commentary on Thucydides I: Book I (Oxford). Hornblower, S. (1987) Thucydides (London and Baltimore). Jones, C. P. (1966) ‘Towards a Chronology of Plutarch’s Works’, JRS 56: 61–74; repr. in B. Scardigli, ed., Essays on Plutarch’s Lives (Oxford, 1995) 95–123. Martin, H., Jr. (1960) ‘The Concept of Prāotēs in Plutarch’, GRBS 3: 65–73. Moles, J. L., ed. (1988) Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). Moles, J. L. (1990) ‘The Kingship Orations of Dio Chrysostom’, PLLS 6: 297–375 [vol. 1, Ch. 5]. Pelling, C. B. R. (1979) ‘Plutarch’s Method of Work in the Roman Lives’, JHS 99: 74–96; repr. in id. (2002) 1–44. Pelling, C. B. R. (1990) ‘Truth and Fiction in Plutarch’s Lives’, in Russell (1990) 19–51; repr. in id. (2002) 143–70. Pelling, C. B. R. (2002) Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London and Swansea). Stadter, P. A. (1975) ‘Plutarch’s Comparison of Pericles and Fabius Maximus’, GRBS 16: 77–85. Stadter, P. A. (1987) ‘The Rhetoric of Plutarch’s Pericles’, AncSoc 18: 251–69. Stadter, P. A. (1988) ‘The Proems of Plutarch’s Lives’, ICS 13: 275–95. Stinton, T. C. W. (1975) ‘Hamartia in Aristotle and Greek Tragedy’, CQ 25: 221–54; repr. in id., Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1990) 143–86. Swain, S. (1989) ‘Plutarch and Rome: Friends and Offices’, Ploutarchos 6.1: 17. Swain, S. (1990) ‘Review of P. A. Stadter, A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles’, Ploutarchos 6.2: 76–9. Wardman, A. (1974) Plutarch’s Lives (London and New York).

Chapter 39

Review Nicholas Horsfall, Cornelius Nepos, a Selection, Including the Lives of Cato and

Atticus. (Clarendon Ancient History Series.) Pp. xxi + 132. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.

Besides the two Lives, the collection includes selected fragments of Cato, of Atticus, and of Nepos himself, the preface to the Lives of the Foreign Generals, and the ‘Letter of Cornelia’. There is a general introduction to Nepos and his work and detailed introductions to the Cato and Atticus. The translation largely follows Marshall’s Teubner edition. Horsfall has two main aims: first, building on the research of Elizabeth Rawson and Joseph Geiger, to illuminate further the byways of Roman history, biography, and antiquarian writing in the late republic through close study of the central texts; second, to provide the first detailed commentary on the Atticus by a distinguished scholar. The recent resurgence of interest in Nepos and two important studies by Millar (1988) and Dionisotti (1988), both of which appeared too late for Horsfall to integrate into his analysis, make this book particularly timely. Presentation and style are typical of Horsfall in the enormous scholarly ‘bottom’, wide bibliographical knowledge, generally high level of accuracy, engaging bumptiousness, μικροψυχία towards scholars he disapproves, μεγαλοψυχία towards scholars he approves, quirky English, sometimes very entertaining (p. 114: ‘Sparta’s many wars and few whores created endemic oddities in sexual mores’). User-friendliness varies: many of the notes on the texts are extremely useful and the index is excellent, yet there are unfulfilled notes and inadequate cross-referencing, the clipped English can obscure meaning, and the sometimes disjointed arrangement of material can involve the reader in frustrating page-hopping. On the detailed reconstruction of Nepos’ works, H. accepts most of the conclusions of Geiger and Rawson, though he expresses well-founded reservations about Geiger’s claim for Nepos as the inventor of political biography (I believe the case against Geiger can be made out (Moles [1989]). In his assessment of Nepos’ worth, this book represents something of a palinode for Horsfall after his disdainful treatment in CHCL {Horsfall (1982)}. Still unconvinced of the quality of Nepos’ Latin and having in the interim discovered new follies and

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_011

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vices, he now hails Nepos as an honest biographer and a man at once in tune with current intellectual tastes and an innovator, though one whose desire always outstrips his performance. Horsfall’s translation is on the whole an excellent one, rarely succumbing to that misguided desire for smoothness which misinterprets the original, and combining quite adequate readability with very close adherence to Nepos’ syntax and language. Without wishing to carp, I feel that quite a lot more could have been achieved in this direction and that this is an important matter, given the ever-increasing numbers of unLatinate students (and scholars). Nor is the translation entirely error-free. Much of the material in the commentary is similarly excellent, especially that ⟦315⟧ concerned with historical, political, and social matters, where Horsfall seems to me to achieve exactly the right density and balance for a book of this type. Of course, everybody makes mistakes and there are quite a few errors of various kinds. There is a much more fundamental weakness in this book. Surprisingly, for an avowedly literary man, Horsfall is far stronger on the historical than on the literary side. He says very little about the aims and conventions of biography and historiography, or about their use as a mirror for contemporary politics (cf. Dionisotti), or about verbal, structural, and thematic patterns (his schema of the Atticus’ structure, claimed to be ‘a good deal more complex and less clear-cut than those offered elsewhere’, is the merest beginning). Above all, he seems completely indifferent to ring structure, a vital compositional device in Nepos as in practically all classical authors. No doubt he knows these things (his translation indicates some awareness of verbal patterning), but he does not say them. Yet it is, or surely should be, a central aim of a series of this kind to demonstrate to ancient historians, far too many of whom remain sublimely untouched by the exciting advances made by literary scholars in our understanding of the nature of ancient biography and historiography, how exactly such texts work. Moreover, while Horsfall’s judgement of Nepos’ ‘style’ in a narrow sense may be correct (though it strikes me as over-harsh), his neglect of these broader factors results in some thoroughly crude literary assessments: ‘follies and vices’, ‘his graceless language augments our sense of his essential honesty’, ‘disorganised, repetitive, schematic, priggish’, ‘those drably written pages’, ‘easily carried away, and lacking a sober controlling judgement’. Yet at the same time, with little explanation, he proclaims the Atticus ‘a central text’ and ‘a complex work’. In my view, several factors do indeed support this latter assessment.

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First, the work was written at the cusp between republic and monarchy and thus, purely as a historical document, reflects the manifold ambiguities of that uneasy era, as Millar has shown. Second, its nature is complex. It is partly the commemoration of a personal friend, partly an apologia for the character and behaviour of a man whom many obviously regarded as a toad, partly a conventional moral biography with timeless moral lessons, partly (especially from ch. 16) a formal encomium, hence again both paradeigmatic and apologetic. Most interestingly of all, it is a study of how a man who had close relations with many of the leading politicians and generals of the late republic managed to survive the ever increasing violence, the ever greater swings of fortune, and the ever stronger tendency towards monarchy, of the period, and not only to survive but to prosper, to maintain good relations with all sides, even down to the inception of monarchy, and with all this to preserve his ancestral Roman dignitas and his personal control over his destiny. It surely also has future reference—as a sort of manual of how to do it. Both the seriousness of the political concern and the advocacy of a compromise, ‘middle’, position make the Atticus a not unworthy forerunner of Tacitus, both in the Agricola (cf. especially 6.3; 40.4; 42.4) and the Annals (cf. especially the famous judgement on M. Lepidus at 4.20.2–3, which interestingly parallels Nepos’ analysis in several particulars). It also foreshadows the imperial period in its endorsement of quies and tranquillitas and its insistence that maintenance of such a stance is no soft option but a difficult task, requiring constant vigilance and effort (cf., e.g., Agr. 6.3; 40.4; 42.4; Liebeschuetz [1966] 130; Woodman [1983] on Vell. 2.88.2; mutatis mutandis, there are also some analogies with Hor. Epist. 1.17, cf. Moles [1985] 43–7 {vol. 1, pp. 375–81}). Although the precise solution offered by the Atticus (political non-involvement ⟦316⟧ coupled with close personal association with the principes based on a system of mutual beneficia) obviously differs from Tacitus’, as it also differs from the perspective of Nepos’ own Lives of the Foreign Generals, it is an equally valid, equally honourable, ‘middle’ solution. Not only does such an interpretation of the Atticus, like Dionisotti’s interpretation of the Lives of the Foreign Generals, increase the work’s political significance; it also must have important implications for the nature of Nepos’ audience. Third, proper literary analysis would reveal the Atticus as an extremely accomplished work of literature, with thematic and structural complexities worthy of Plutarch himself. Inevitably, therefore, one feels some disappointment at the very considerable inconcinnity between Horsfall’s positive evaluations of Nepos and his

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actual comments on the texts. (I hope to publish elsewhere some notes on Nepos which will illustrate this in detail.1) All in all, the scholarship of this book is a good deal more fallible, and less acute, than we might have expected from a scholar of Horsfall’s distinction. Despite these reservations, however, I want to stress that the book is an extremely useful and stimulating introduct­ ion to Nepos, which taught me a lot. Bibliography Dionisotti, A. C. (1988) ‘Nepos and the Generals’, JRS 78: 35–49. Geiger, J. (1985) Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography (Stuttgart). Horsfall, N. (1982) ‘Cornelius Nepos’, in E. J. Kenney and W. V. Clausen, edd., Cambridge History of Classical Literature II: Latin Literature (Cambridge) 290–2. Liebeschuetz, W. (1966) ‘The Theme of Liberty in the Agricola of Tacitus’, CQ 16: 126–39. Millar, F. (1988) ‘Cornelius Nepos, “Atticus”, and the Roman Revolution’, G&R 35: 40–55; repr. in id., Rome, the Greek World and the East, volume I: the Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution, edd. H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers (Chapel Hill and London, 2002–6) 183–99. Moles, J. L. (1985) ‘Cynicism in Horace Epistles I’, PLLS 5: 33–60 [Vol. 1, Ch. 14]. Moles, J. L. (1989) ‘Review of Geiger (1985)’, CR 39: 229–33 [Ch. 37]. Woodman, A. J., ed. (1983) Velleius Paterculus: The Caesarian and Augustan Narrative (Cambridge).

1 {See below, Ch. 42.}

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The Text and Interpretation of Plutarch, Vit. Cic. 45.1 Αὗται μὲν οὖν ἴσως προφάσεις ἦσαν λεγόμεναι· τὸ δὲ πρὸς Ἀντώνιον μῖσος Κικέρωνα πρῶτον, εἶτα ἡ φύσις ἥττων οὖσα τιμῆς προσεποίησε Καίσαρι, νομίζοντα προσλαμβάνειν τῇ πολιτείᾳ τὴν ἐκείνου δύναμιν. αἱ λεγόμεναι Reiske1 νομίζοντι N The text printed is that of K. Ziegler, Plutarchus: Vitae Parallelae I.23, Leipzig 1964. In his seminal article on synkrisis in the Parallel Lives H. Erbse insisted that N’s νομίζοντι was the correct reading in this passage.2 As far as I know, no scholar has followed him or even discussed the problem: Ziegler does not record Erbse’s advocacy, Magnino and Flacelière do not even record νομίζοντι, and Scardigli omits the item from her textkritische Bibliographie on the Cicero.3 Although I believe νομίζοντι to be untenable, the problem deserves proper discussion, both because of Erbse’s distinguished advocacy and because of the questions it raises about the precision of Plutarch’s language and hence of his whole analysis of Cicero’s relations with Octavian. ⟦241⟧ In support of νομίζοντι Erbse writes: ‘Es handelt sich um die δύναμις des Redners, vgl. 44,1, 45,4 und vor allem 52,1 (= Comp. 3,1). Folglich steht das Richtige in N (Octavian hält es für vorteilhaft, sich den Einfluss Ciceros zunutze zu machen).’ The passages cited read as follows: 44.1: Ἐκ δὲ τούτου Φίλιππος ὁ τὴν μητέρα τοῦ νέου Καίσαρος ἔχων καὶ Μάρκελλος ὁ τὴν ἀδελφὴν ἀφικόμενοι μετὰ τοῦ νεανίσκου πρὸς τὸν Κικέρωνα συνέθεντο, Κικέρωνα μὲν ἐκείνῳ τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ λόγου καὶ τῆς πολιτείας δύναμιν

1 The insertion of the article (Reiske, Bekker, Perrin), with an important allusion to Thuc. 1.23.5–6 and a significant parallel to Cic. 41.3, is necessary: see Moles (1993). I thank Simon Swain and Tony Woodman for helpful comments on this note. 2 Erbse (1956) at 411 n. 6. 3 Magnino (1963) 157; Flacelière–Chambry (1976) 118; Scardigli (1979) 119; limitations of space precluded proper discussion in Moles (1988), though the present arguments are implicit on 52 and the notes on 44.1, 45.1, 45.4, and 46.1; conversely, it would be inappropriate here to explore all the detailed implications of Plutarch’s narrative in chs 45–6, though the footnotes below provide some guide.

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ἔν τε τῇ βουλῇ καὶ τῷ δήμῳ παρέχειν, ἐκεῖνον δὲ Κικέρωνι τὴν ἀπὸ τῶν χρημάτων καὶ τῶν ὅπλων ἀσφάλειαν. 45.4: τοῦ δὲ Κικέρωνος ἀκμὴν ἔσχεν ἡ δύναμις ἐν τῇ πόλει τότε μεγίστην, καὶ κρατῶν ὅσον ἐβούλετο τὸν μὲν Ἀντώνιον ἐξέκρουσε καὶ κατεστασίασε καὶ πολεμήσοντας αὐτῷ τοὺς δύο ὑπάτους, Ἵρτιον καὶ Πάνσαν, ἐξέπεμψε, Καίσαρι δὲ ῥαβδούχους καὶ στρατηγικὸν κόσμον, ὡς δὴ προπολεμοῦντι τῆς πατρίδος, ἔπεισε ψηφίσασθαι τὴν σύγκλητον. Comp. 3.1: ἡ μὲν οὖν ἐν τῷ δημηγορεῖν καὶ πολιτεύεσθαι δύναμις ὁμαλῶς ἀμφοτέροις ὑπῆρξεν, ὥστε καὶ τοὺς τῶν ὅπλων καὶ στρατοπέδων κυρίους δεῖσθαι, Δημοσθένους μὲν Χάρητα καὶ Διοπείθη καὶ Λεωσθένην, Κικέρωνος δὲ Πομπήιον καὶ Καίσαρα τὸν νέον, ὡς αὐτὸς ὁ Καῖσαρ ἐν τοῖς πρὸς Ἀγρίππαν καὶ Μαικήναν ὑπομνήμασιν εἴρηκεν. Clearly these passages are related to 45.1 and on the face of it they do seem to guarantee the link between δύναμις and Cicero. Erbse might also have invoked 52.4 (= Comp. 3.4) and Demosth. 18.2 and 20.3: Comp. 3.4: ἐν αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ Ῥώμῃ λόγῳ μὲν ἀποδειχθεὶς ὕπατος, ἐξουσίαν δὲ λαβὼν αὐτοκράτορος καὶ δικτάτορος ἐπὶ τοὺς περὶ Κατιλίναν, ἐμαρτύρησε τῷ Πλάτωνι μαντευομένῳ παῦλαν ἕξειν κακῶν τὰς πόλεις, ὅταν εἰς ταὐτὸ δύναμίς τε μεγάλη καὶ φρόνησις ἔκ τινος τύχης χρηστῆς ἀπαντήσῃ μετὰ δικαιοσύνης. Vit. Dem. 18.2: ἡ δὲ τοῦ ῥήτορος δύναμις, ὥς φησι Θεόπομπος, ἐκριπίζουσα τὸν θυμὸν αὐτῶν καὶ διακαίουσα τὴν φιλοτιμίαν ἐπεσκότησε τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν, ὥστε καὶ φόβον καὶ λογισμὸν καὶ χάριν ἐκβαλεῖν αὐτούς, ἐνθουσιῶντας ὑπὸ τοῦ λόγου πρὸς τὸ καλόν. Vit. Dem. 20.3: ἔφριττε [sc. ὁ Φίλιππος] τὴν δεινότητα καὶ τὴν δύναμιν τοῦ ῥήτορος, ἐν μέρει μικρῷ μιᾶς ἡμέρας τὸν ὑπὲρ τῆς ἡγεμονίας καὶ τοῦ σώματος ἀναρρῖψαι κίνδυνον ἀναγκασθεὶς ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ. The latter two passages are relevant because the parallel between Demosthenes’ coordination of Athenian and Theban resistance to Philip of Macedon and Cicero’s coordination of Octavian, senate, and armies against Antony is one of the most important of the very numerous parallels between the Demosthenes and Cicero narratives.4 But the problem of the correct reading at Vit. Cic. 45.1 4 Cf. Moles (1988) 19–26, developing Erbse (1956) 406–13.

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can only be resolved by detailed analysis of Plutarch’s account of Cicero’s relations with Octavian. At 44.1 Octavian, accompanied by suitable family representatives, comes to Cicero and makes a pact. Cicero, the political figure par excellence, agrees to ‘give’ Octavian the δύναμις deriving from his oratory and political influence, Octavian, the essentially military figure who is already recruiting Caesarian veterans, agrees to ‘give’ Cicero the ἀσφάλεια deriving from his money and armed forces. (The parallel and contrast between the two different sorts of power—⟦242⟧ political and military—is one of the great unifying themes of the Demosthenes–Cicero pair.)5 The two men make this pact because relations between Cicero and Antony have broken down at a point just short of extreme physical violence (43.7) and Octavian for his part is in dispute with Antony over the monies from Caesar’s will (43.8). Military ἀσφάλεια is therefore precisely what Cicero needs, political δύναμις precisely what Octavian needs and the pact seems to be a wholly equitable arrangement. Plutarch then at 44.2–7 considers the notion that Cicero’s enthusiastic acceptance of Octavian’s friendship was due to his dreaming of Octavian as the divine saviour of Rome, that this led to Cicero (rather than Octavian as in the 44.1 account) taking the initiative in beginning their association, that Octavian reciprocated, and that the friendly, almost family, relationship which developed was enhanced by the coincidence of Octavian’s birth during Cicero’s consulship. It is to these items that Plutarch refers, and which he implicitly rejects, in the sentence Αὗται μὲν οὖν ἴσως προφάσεις ἦσαν αἱ λεγόμεναι at 45.1.6 Plutarch then makes explicit his own view of Cicero’s behaviour: ‘But it was in the first place his hatred for Antony, then his nature, which was a prisoner of honour, which attached Cicero to Caesar’. Morally, Plutarch is extremely critical of Cicero (ἡ φύσις ἥττων οὖσα τιμῆς) and he seems also to imply that in his excessive desire for τιμή he gave Octavian too much; Octavian responded by flattering him to the point of calling him father, and on his side Cicero courted Octavian as, in effect, a δεσπότης (45.2).7 Where does this leave the problem of the correct reading in 45.1? 5 Cf. Comp. 3.1 and 4 (quoted in the text) and Erbse (1956) 409, 412; Moles (1988) 2 and 150 (ad 3.1). 6 The material of 44.3–7 derives from Augustus’ Autobiography; Plutarch’s attitude to it is in fact rather ambiguous (Moles (1988) ad loc.), but he certainly rejects it as an explanation of Cicero’s conduct. 7 Plutarch clearly accepts Brutus’ criticisms of Cicero: (a) Octavian’s behaviour forms part of a pattern throughout the Life of apparent complaisance which deceives Cicero; (b) Cicero’s behaviour recalls his flattery of the elder Caesar; (c) Brutus, like Cato earlier, fulfils the role of Cicero’s philosophical mentor or critic; on all these points see Moles (1988) ad loc.

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Two negative considerations weaken Erbse’s case. First, if νομίζοντι is read, Plutarch would merely be repeating the original formulation of 44.1: Octavian the military man wanted to supplement his political efforts with the political ‘power’ of Cicero. Second, as a counterpoise to the passages associating δύναμις with Cicero, it should be observed that after 45.1 δύναμις is associated both with Cicero (45.4) and Octavian (45.5 δείσασα … ἡ βουλὴ νέον ἄνδρα καὶ τύχῃ λαμπρᾷ κεχρημένον, ἐπειρᾶτο … περισπᾶν τὴν δύναμιν); there is also the allusion to the military δυνάμεις in 45.4 (πρὸς Καίσαρα συνέστησαν αἱ δυνάμεις) where δύναμις is again something external to Cicero. Other considerations make a positive case for νομίζοντα. In general, the whole context is about Cicero’s motivation, not Octavian’s. 44.1 has given the terms of the compact externally, 44.2–7 rejects one explanation of Cicero’s inner motivation, 45.1 gives the true explanation of Cicero’s inner motivation; we therefore expect the participial phrase to be about Cicero, amplifying the description of his φύσις as ἥττων οὖσα τιμῆς and the implication that he conceded Octavian too much. The emphasis on Cicero’s motivation is then maintained: though the following sentence concerns Octavian’s behaviour to Cicero, it is Cicero’s reaction to this that is important. Furthermore, in 45.1 Plutarch already seems to be suggesting what he later makes explicit in 45.6–46.1: namely that simultaneously Cicero hoped to get more from the bargain than Octavian—he ⟦243⟧ hopes for great τιμή and Octavian flatters him—and in effect abased himself before Octavian (hence Brutus’ justified criticisms in 45.2); this suggestion would be neatly pointed if both προς-compounds applied to Cicero: Cicero ‘attached himself to Octavian’ (προσεποίησε Καίσαρι) while hoping to ‘attach’ the latter’s power to his own political base: the first πρός would connote subjection, the second intemperate ambition. Moreover, it is hard to see how Plutarch could condemn Cicero’s excessive ambition and imply excessive concessions to Octavian if Cicero were merely fulfilling the stated terms of 44.1: there surely must be something extra in 45.1 to justify these criticisms and the extra can only be contained in the participial phrase. The point then is that Cicero secretly hopes to get more than the terms of 44.1: he hopes not just for military ‘security’ from Octavian but actual military power: political δύναμις Cicero already has; to keep Antony at bay he also needs military ἀσφάλεια; actually to crush Antony, whom he unreasonably hates, and to achieve his own ambitions, which are excessive, he needs a different sort of δύναμις—the military δύναμις of Octavian, which will of course also increase his political power. ἀσφάλειαν of 44.1 is replaced by δύναμιν in 45.1 and the substitution is pointed. The need to take δύναμιν in a different sense, or with a different reference, from that of 44.1, so far from weakening this interpretation, actually strengthens it: Plutarch is exploiting the rhetorical figure variously known as

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ἀντανάκλασις (Quint. 9.3.68), διαφορά (Rutilius Lupus 8.12 Halm) and traductio (Quint. 9.3.71), whereby ‘the same word is used in two different meanings … [the figure has] greater elegance when it is employed to distinguish the exact meanings of things’ (Quint. loc. cit.).8 The sequel bears out this analysis. The γάρ-clause explains Cicero’s grounds for supposing that he will be able to exploit Octavian’s military δύναμις: Octavian makes up to him and seems to regard Cicero as a father-figure;9 in fact, however, Cicero’s policy necessarily involves elevating Octavian to unacceptable heights, which is why Brutus can rightly accuse Cicero of ‘wooing a humane master for himself’; Brutus’ behaviour to Cicero’s son (Cicero’s true son, as opposed to Octavian) forms an instructive contrast to Cicero’s behaviour to Octavian; Brutus does elevate the young man but through him achieves genuine successes. But for the moment all seems to go well with Cicero (45.4). His power in the city is the greatest it has ever been,10 he has secured κράτος and control also of the πόλεμος against Antony. In short, he seems to possess the ultimate both in political and in military δύναμις (the latter through his agents, Hirtius and Pansa and Octavian). Then, however, Antony is defeated and the two consuls killed, men whose probity, goodwill towards Cicero, and stated policy of overthrowing Antony Plutarch has earlier underlined (43.3). The result is πρὸς Καίσαρα συνέστησαν αἱ δυνάμεις: the entire military δύναμις transfers to Octavian, and Cicero’s ⟦244⟧ political δύναμις is thereby greatly weakened. The senate (in implicit contrast to Cicero)11 tries to circumscribe Octavian’s δύναμις. In response Octavian seeks a renewal of his pact with Cicero: ὑπατείαν μὲν ἀμφοτέροις ὁμοῦ πράττειν, χρῆσθαι δὲ τοῖς πράγμασιν ὅπως αὐτὸς ἔγνωκε παραλαβόντα τὴν ἀρχήν, καὶ τὸ μειράκιον διοικεῖν, ὀνόματος καὶ δόξης γλιχόμενον (45.5). Both will be consuls, but Cicero will be able to ‘use the situation of power as he himself decided and to direct the young man, who greatly desired a name and fame.’ In the terms of 44.1 and 45.1 Octavian will get Cicero’s support (his oratorical and political δύναμις) in the realm of πολιτεία, but Cicero will have the ultimate δύναμις. The reality of

8 9

Cf. also Cic. 10.1–2 with my discussion in Moles (1993). Cicero’s own family disasters (41.2–7), Octavian’s adoption by Caesar (43.8), and political support from his relatives Philippus and Marcellus (44.1) make this item thematically significant: to the emotionally vulnerable Cicero Octavian seems as it were to be transferring his family loyalties to him (see Moles [1988] 52). 10 For the concept of ἀκμή see Polman (1974) 169; thematically 45.4 is very important in the overall Cicero narrative, for Plutarch has carefully emphasised the various moments in Cicero’s career when he has ‘great power’ (Moles [1988] on 24.1). 11 Moles (1988) on 45.5.

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the proposal, as Octavian himself admitted, was that he was ‘using’12 Cicero’s φιλαρχία (cf. τιμῆς in 45.1). Poor old Cicero is utterly duped by the dream of a second consulship (46.1) and ‘gives’ Octavian the support of the senate (παρασχών, cf. 44.1);13 Octavian then dumps Cicero and forms a military alliance with Antony and Lepidus: τὴν δύναμιν εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ συνενεγκών (46.2). Octavian has triumphed—he has δύναμις in both political and military spheres and Cicero is left with none in either. This analysis makes it clear that 45.1 and 45.4 are pivotal passages: in 45.1 Cicero overreaches himself by trying to supplement his political δύναμις with Octavian’s military δύναμις; in 45.4 he seems to have achieved the potent combination of the two δυνάμεις, but through sheer mischance he loses control of the military δύναμις and he then blindly helps Octavian to δύναμις in the political sphere, so that in the event it is Octavian who achieves and maintains the combination of the two types, with catastrophic consequences both for Roman liberty and for Cicero himself. In sum, in 45.1 νομίζοντα forms an essential part of Plutarch’s analysis of Cicero’s relations with Octavian and that analysis is both far more detailed and far more penetrating than modern scholars (particularly historians) have comprehended.14 Bibliography Erbse, H. (1956) ‘Die Bedeutung der Synkrisis in den Parallelbiographen Plutarchs’, Hermes 84: 398–424. Flacelière, R. and E. Chambry, edd. (1976) Plutarque: Vies XII: Demosthène–Cicéron (Paris). Magnino, D. (1963) Plutarchi: Vita Ciceronis (Florence). Moles, J. L., ed. (1988) Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). 12 The play on, and reversal of, the word ‘use’ is important (Moles [1988] on 45.6); also in 45.5 Octavian’s plea to Cicero for ‘a name and fame’ (a plea which historically he would certainly not have made) is a brilliant psychological stroke by Plutarch: see Moles (1988) ad loc. 13 In Aristotelian terms this is the great ἁμαρτία in the ‘tragedy’ of Cicero: see Moles (1988) on 41.1 and 46.1. 14 It will be clear why I cannot accept such observations as ‘Plutarch shows no understanding of Cicero’s policy’ (Seager ap. Seager–Warner [1972] 311, or ‘Plutarch probably had little idea of Cicero’s motives’ (Pelling [1988] 160): Plutarch understood Cicero’s policy: he just thought it was wrong, both morally and politically—in both respects like Brutus; and in my opinion, for what it is worth, their criticisms were absolutely correct; the historical questions are, however, too great to treat in detail here; for a brief summary see Moles (1988) 52 and 45.1 and 45.5–6 nn.

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Moles, J. L. (1993) ‘Textual and Interpretative Notes on Plutarch’s Cicero’, in H. D. Jocelyn and H. Hurt, edd., Tria Lustra: Essays and Notes Presented to John Pinsent, etc. (Liverpool) 151–6 [below, Ch. 43]. Pelling, C. B. R., ed. (1988) Plutarch: Life of Antony (Cambridge). Polman, G. H. (1974) ‘Chronological Biography and Ἀκμή in Plutarch’, CPh 69: 169–77. Scardigli, B. (1979) Die Römerbiographien Plutarchs (Munich). Seager, R. and R. Warner (1972) Plutarch: Fall of the Roman Republic, revised edition (Harmondsworth).

Chapter 41

Plutarch, Vit. Ant. 31.3 and Suetonius, Aug. 69.2 When reviewing the circumstances conducive to the marriage of Antony and Octavia in 40 BC Plutarch writes of Antony’s marital status as follows (Ant. 31.3):* ἐδόκει δὲ καὶ Φουλβίας ἀποιχομένης χηρεύειν Ἀντώνιος, ἔχειν μὲν οὐκ ἀρνούμενος Κλεοπάτραν, γάμῳ δ’ οὐκ ὁμολογῶν ἀλλ’ ἔτι τῷ λόγῳ περί γε τούτου πρὸς τὸν ἔρωτα τῆς Αἰγυπτίας μαχόμενος. In his excellent recent commentary,1 Pelling makes the point that ἀλλ’ ἔτι … μαχόμενος should literally be translated ‘but still, in this [matter of] description, about this at least struggling against his love for the Egyptian woman’, λόγῳ referring not to Antony’s ‘reason’ as opposed to his ‘passion’ (as usually interpreted) but to the question how his relationship with Cleopatra should be described. But a second, and more important, question is this: where and when did Antony make this declaration? In the spring of 33 Antony wrote a letter to Octavian, which is recorded verbatim by Suetonius, Aug. 69.2: quid te mutauit? quod reginam ineo? uxor mea est? nunc coepi, an abhinc annos nouem? tu deinde solam Drusillam inis? ita ualeas, uti tu, hanc epistulam cum leges, non inieris Tertullam aut Terentillam aut Rufillam aut Saluiam Titiseniam aut omnes, an refert, ubi et in qua arrigas? The correct interpretation and punctuation of this letter, with the vital question mark after the words uxor mea est, were first established in modern scholarship by Kraft in 1967:2 Antony is denying that Cleopatra is his wife; their relationship is an extra-marital affair, which does not affect the status of his marriage with Octavia any more than Octavian’s affairs affect his marriage with Livia (‘Drusillam’). Although no scholar hitherto seems to have made the connexion, Plutarch’s version of Antony’s observations in 40 is intriguingly like the second and third sentences of this letter: ἔχειν (‘have sexual relations with’ * I thank Tony Woodman and Simon Swain for helpful comments on this note. 1 Pelling (1988) 202. 2 Kraft (1967); Carter (1982) 191.

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[LSJ s.v. A.1.4]) parallels ineo, οὐκ ἀρνούμενος parallels the crudity of quod reginam ineo, γάμῳ … οὐκ ὁμολογῶν parallels uxor mea est? (= ‘she’s not my wife’). The sentiment and language are extremely close. The situation is similar (in both cases Cleopatra’s claims are in competition with Octavia’s; the letter is addressed to Octavian and Plutarch presumably envisages Antony making the remark to Octavian or Octavian’s friends). And the remark is historically less apposite in 40 than in 33 (for in 40 the liaison with Cleopatra was as yet short-lived and had not called into question the legal status of Antony’s previous marriage, that to Fulvia)3. These considerations, in my opinion, make it virtually certain that the source, whether ultimate or direct, of Ant. 31.3 is Antony’s letter to Octavian of 33.4 This conclusion not only confirms Kraft’s interpretation of Suetonius, Aug. 69.2, but also entails that Plutarch has displaced an item properly belonging to the year 33 to 40, with the necessary deletion of the material fixing the original to ⟦246⟧ 33 and a gloss appropriate to the new setting; these circumstances do not of course invalidate the initial conclusion, ‘displacement of items’ being one of Plutarch’s most favoured devices in his creative reworking of his historical material.5 Although Antony’s remark is historically less apposite in the year 40, thematically and dramatically its displacement into Plutarch’s narrative of 41–40 is highly appropriate. Elaborate and protracted descriptions of Antony and Cleopatra’s meeting in Cilicia (chs 25–7) and of their life in Alexandria (chs 28–9), the latter of which moves out of strict chronological sequence,6 are followed by a summary account of Labienus and the Parthians’ successes, the Perusine war, and the treaty of Brundisium (ch. 30). Now (ch. 31) Plutarch turns to that treaty’s guarantee, the marriage of Antony and Octavia, a figure whom he represents as the hoped-for salvation of both Antony and Rome (31.4), develops as a foil to Cleopatra, and characterises to a far greater extent than do other sources:7 Antony’s statement of his relationship to Cleopatra slots perfectly into a context which is at once one of Antony’s finest hours, ominously anticipatory of future events, and timelessly emblematic of Antony’s greatest moral struggle. Since the displacement itself is evidently Plutarchean, Plutarch seems to have used Antony’s letters, or at least one of them, as a historical source directly, 3 Cf. Pelling (1988) on Ant. 30.3: ‘This whole picture of A.’s captivation in 41–40 is over-stated. True, his exchanges with Cl. were already more than diplomatic: their twins were born in 40 … But he left her in the spring, and did not see her again for nearly four years.’ 4 Ant. 31.3 is not considered in the recent article of De Wet (1990). 5 Cf., e.g., Pelling (1980) 128–9 {= (2002) 92–3}; Moles (1988) 37. 6 Cf. Pelling (1988) 192 on Ant. 28–9. 7 Cf. Pelling (1988) on Ant. 31.2.

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not via any intermediary. It is true that this conclusion conflicts with the best modern reconstruction of Plutarch’s sources in the Lives, that of Pelling, in two respects: (a) on Pelling’s general analysis an essential difference between the early Life of Cicero and the later Lives is that the former deploys non-narrative primary sources very extensively, the latter not at all, or only very occasionally (the difference being explained by Plutarch’s discovery of Asinius Pollio in the interim); (b) Pelling is crisply specific: ‘Letters of … Antony were available: Plutarch makes no use of them’.8 As to (a), Pelling himself allows one or two exceptions to his general principle,9 which can surely therefore be stretched to accommodate a third. As to (b), it would clearly be circular simply to argue ‘Plutarch does not use Antony’s letters, therefore the passage at Ant. 31.3 cannot derive from one of them’, since Ant. 31.3 may itself constitute evidence of such use; on the other hand, Plutarch’s seeming failure to use the letters elsewhere might seem to make Ant. 31.3 an implausible case.

…

Fundamental questions of Quellenforschung are at issue here. Granted that certain source reconstructions are generally convincing, how far do they restrict the range of possibilities in detail? There is a danger that they may become excessively schematic. Rather than employ such source reconstructions to pre-empt detailed source analysis, we should not exclude the possibility of individual items which may require us to make slight modifications to our generally true source reconstructions. This principle can (I believe) be well illustrated by source analysis of the Life of Cicero. Geiger, for example, in his important discussion of Plutarch’s use of ⟦247⟧ Thrasea Paetus’ biography in the Life of Cato the Younger excludes use of it in the Cicero on the ground that ‘Plutarch certainly used Thrasea Paetus’ biography of Cato only when he came to write that Life’10 (my italics). The assumption here is the same as in Pelling’s point (a), namely that Plutarch’s use of sources shows marked progression or development. Yet there are several important passages in the Cicero which either (a) closely parallel the corresponding Cato Minor accounts and (b) are not themselves the sources of those accounts, or (c) seem Cato- rather than Cicero-centred. The undoubtedly true proposition ‘Thrasea Paetus was Plutarch’s main source in the late Cato Minor 8 Pelling (1979) 88–9 {= (2002) 16–17}; (1988) 27, 30. 9 Pelling (1979) 89 and n. 113 {= (2002) 17, 39 n. 113}. 10 Geiger (1979) 61.

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should not preclude the possibility (in my opinion the strong probability) that when preparing the early Cicero Plutarch had already dipped into Thrasea Paetus’ biography, for the specific occasions when he needed additional material on Cato.11 Again, Pelling has argued, as part of his general picture of Plutarch’s ‘increasing knowledge’ between writing the Cicero and writing the late Lives, that the former, in contrast to the Crassus, does not use Cicero’s secret De consiliis suis. Yet use of that work is, I believe, demonstrable at Cic. 20.6–7 and 33.8.12 A final case: Cic. 32.6 is based on Cicero Orator 12—the only example, or possibly one of only two examples, of use of the Orator in the whole of the Cicero.13 In Quellenforschung one swallow doesn’t make a summer, yet absence of a summer doesn’t preclude a single swallow.

…

‘Use’ of sources, then, is a phenomenon which covers a wide range of possibilities, from full-scale, systematic, exploitation, to deployment in a supplementary capacity, to purely ad hoc use. Plutarch’s use in Ant. 31.3 of Antony’s letter to Octavian does not prove wholescale use of Antony’s letters, of which there are no indications; conversely, however, this dearth of indications does not disprove use of that particular letter in Ant. 31.3, use which, as I have tried to show, is patent. Finally and perhaps most important of all: we must face up to the fact that until Kraft’s paper of 1967 Plutarch was the only scholar τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν to interpret Antony’s letter correctly: a salutary and sobering reflection both on the fallibility of modern historical scholarship and on Plutarch’s virtues as a historian, which are indeed variable, uneven, and intermittent, yet sometimes considerable.14 Bibliography Carter, J. M., ed. (1982) Suetonius: Divus Augustus (Bristol). Geiger, J. (1979) ‘Munatius Rufus and Thrasea Paetus on Cato the Younger’, Athenaeum 57: 48–72.

11 12 13 14

Cic. 23.5–6; 34.1–3; 38.1; 39.1–2 with Moles (1988) 29–30. Pelling (1979) 75 {= (2002) 2}; Moles (1988) 28 and (1993). Moles (1988) 29, 172, 180. Cf., e.g., Pelling (1986); Moles (1988) 46–53.

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Kraft, K. (1967) ‘Zu Sueton, Divus Augustus 69.2: M. Anton und Kleopatra’, Hermes 95: 496–9. Moles, J. L., ed. (1988) Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). Moles, J. L. (1993) ‘Textual and Interpretative Notes on Plutarch’s Cicero’, in H. D. Jocelyn and H. Hurt, edd. (1993) Tria Lustra: Essays and Notes Presented to John Pinsent, etc. (Liverpool) 151–6 [below, Ch. 43]. Pelling, C. B. R. (1979) ‘Plutarch’s Method of Work in the Roman Lives’, JHS 99: 74–96; repr. in id. (2002) 1–44. Pelling, C. B. R. (1980) ‘Plutarch’s Adaptation of his Source Material’, JHS 100: 127–40; repr. in id. (2002) 91–116. Pelling, C. B. R. (1986) ‘Plutarch and Roman Politics’, in I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, edd., Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge) 159–87; repr. in id. (2002) 207–36. Pelling, C. B. R., ed. (1988) Plutarch: Life of Antony (Cambridge). Pelling, C. B. R. (2002) Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London and Swansea). de Wet, B. X. (1990) ‘Contemporary Sources in Plutarch’s Life of Antony’, Hermes 118: 80–90.

Chapter 42

On Reading Cornelius Nepos with Nicholas Horsfall There are few activities in classical scholarship as pleasurable as reading a good author in the company of other scholars (whether in the flesh or mediated through commentaries). Some would go even further: ‘in the eighteen years since I began to study this inexhaustible poem in earnest … I do not think any other activity has given me such sustained pleasure and satisfaction’.1 Publication of the following notes is intended to share ‘the pleasure (but not, alas, total satisfaction) that I have received from Nicholas Horsfall, Cornelius Nepos: a Selection, including the lives of Cato and Atticus, translated with Introductions and Commentary, Clarendon Ancient History Series, Oxford 1989), as well as to supplement my more general review of this book,2 and (I hope) to convey something utile to other lovers of Nepos, a small, but swelling, band. Cato 1.1: the translation ‘originated’ rather than ‘a native’ (H.) for ortus would preserve the implicit analogy between man and work (3.3 unde quaeque ciuitas orta sit … Origines uidetur appellasse), cf. Att. 1.1 (below). Neither here nor elsewhere does H. say anything about ‘young man’, ‘boy’, etc. as standard biographical chronological and thematic categories. This and other similar omissions are presumably due to the fact that H. cannot bring himself to an absolute rejection of Geiger’s thesis3 that Nepos actually invented ancient political biography (cf. H. pp. 10–11): the result is a general failure to situate Nepos convincingly within the ancient biographical tradition. 1.2: H. has nothing on ‘first campaigns’ as standard biographical category. inde is left untranslated. 1.4: ex Africa … Ennium poetam deduxerat parallels 2.1 ex eaque triumphum deportauit, thus sharpening the idea that the former action was more valuable than any Sardinian triumph: hence the Ennian reference is no ‘awkward flashback’ (H.), but a carefully contrived juxtaposition. H. says nothing here or elsewhere on the biographical and encomiastic technique of the explicit moral intrusion of the author. There is surely here a reference to Cato’s alleged

1 West (1978) vii. 2 Moles (1992). 3 Geiger (1985), challenged by me in Moles (1989).

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Sardinian triumph and also to others’ Sardinian triumphs (quemlibet) of which there were plenty.4 2.3: H. has nothing on the implicit Scipio–Cato σύγκρισις or the use of this technique elsewhere in Nepos or elsewhere in biography. The translation ‘office’ for potestati clashes with ‘holding no office’ for priuatus in 2.2 (why not ‘as a private citizen’?) and obscures the key contrast between legal potestas and the illegitimate potentia of 2.2 (no doubt we should see here contemporary resonances of the kind so persuasively discerned in Nepos’ Lives by Dionisotti [1988]). H. makes no comment on the ambiguous nature of ‘severity’ (a cross reference to Att. 15.1 would have been apposite). ‘Suppressed’ is a better translation than ‘repressed’ (H.), since reprimeretur is part of the agricultural metaphor. 2.4: ‘reputation’ (H.) for existimationis obscures the verbal and thematic links with 1.2 existimata and 1.4 aestimamus. In context, ‘grew’ continues the agricultural metaphor (Cato’s sustained ‘growth’ is linked to his ‘suppression’ of ‘sprouting’ luxury). 3.1: ‘hard-working’ (H.) for industria obscures the ring with 3.4 industria, there translated as ‘industry’. 3.3: ‘survive’ (H.) is misleading for sunt (the Origines were in 7 books). 3.4: ‘summarily’ for capitulatim, which is clearly right, should include a reference to Woodman (1975), and a cross-reference to Att. 18.6 (where there is no note) and Praef. 8 (where the note is inadequate). ‘Recounted’ is better than ‘recounts’ for persecutus est (Nepos’ tenses alternate). ‘Written’ for persecuti obscures the double analogy between writer and subject (Nepos the writer persecutus est the life and character of Cato, himself a writer who persecutus est his subject). Is the use of delegamus (an authority word) mildly humorous? Whether or not Nepos possesses a sense of humour is an interesting, if minor, question (cf. on Att. 14.1), which has some bearing on the question of his competence. Atticus 1.1: perpetuo surely goes with obtinuit and with a maioribus acceptam: Atticus’ dignitas extends both forward and backwards in time. Perpetuo also makes a ring with perpetua in 1.4: his friendships were as ‘uninterrupted’ as his dignitas (Atticus’ constancy towards his friends ⟦77⟧ is an important theme throughout the uita [4.4, 5.1, 10.3, 11.5, 12.3, 5]). Translation could easily convey these points. ‘Equestrian rank’ is anodyne for equestrem dignitatem: it is strikingly paradoxical that Atticus’ equestrian status can confer dignitas. The suggestion that Nepos may ‘hint at a fine flourish of genealogical inventiveness’ is 4 Cf., e.g., Harris (1979) 192.

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bizarre, nor could Atticus have regarded such genealogies as ‘fantasies’ (cf. his researches on behalf of Brutus and others), nor could descent ‘from the remotest origins of the Roman race’ be compatible with ‘long and credible equestrian pedigrees’. Rather, the first sentence anticipates basic themes: the compatibility of equestrian rank (and hence Atticus’ policy of non-commitment) with ancestral Roman dignitas; Atticus’ antiquarian interests; and the unity of man and work (cf. 13.2, 18.1–2). 1.2: H. says nothing on the similarities between father and son (a common interest also in Plutarch). inprimis is untranslated. 1.3: ‘expression’ for oris is inappropriately ambiguous. in pueritia (echoing in puero) is untranslated, which presumably explains H.’s misconception that ‘there is no hint that Atticus went anywhere between domestic instruction and joining the illustrious circle of adolescents whose studies were overseen by L. Licinius Crassus the orator’ (10.3 also rules this out). H. has nothing on ‘meritorious performance at school’ as a biographical τόπος (e.g., Jos. Vit. 9). Note that the closely parallel Plut. Cic. 2.2 (extending to exsplendescebat/ἐκλάμψας) suggests Nepos as Plutarch’s source there.5 Translation ought to bring out the link between generosi and 1.1 generatus (Atticus’ superior genus enabled him to outstrip those who seemed more generosi [cf. 11.6–12.1]). ‘Captivated’ is unacceptable translationese for deuinxit (and does the word contain a characteristically suppressed allusion to the Epicurean foedus amicitae?). 2.1: failure to translate ipse obscures the logic of the transition (after his father’s death Atticus is on his own). 2.1 marks Atticus’ first political periculum. The note on Sulpicius’ brother should include a reference to Mattingly (1975) 265 and n. 14. There is again some parallel with Plut. Cic. 3.3 and 3.6. Tumultu is clearly being used in its technical sense, whatever the historical facts. ‘Romans’ is bland and weakening translationese for ciuium. This is the first case of Atticus caught in the middle between two opposing parties (cf. 4.2, 5.4, 7.1–3, 20.4, etc.). Translation should use the same word for the repeated partem … partibus. The English should read ‘the state’ (as in the commentary) not ‘that state’. 2.3–4.5: the sojourn in Athens obviously anticipates several important themes of the Roman narrative. 2.3: ‘very dear’ (rather than ‘greatly beloved’) would maintain the clear verbal link with 1.4, 3.3, and 6.5. 2.4: praeter gratiam … in adulescentulo: note the parallel with 1.3. suis opibus … leuauit: note the clear verbal parallels (having obvious interpretative consequences) with 2.3. 5 Pace Moles (1988) 29.

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2.5: salutare … inueterascere … crescere: the translation (‘good’, ‘become established’) does not convey the health imagery. 3.2: Wagner’s effigies is clearly right: some word for ‘statues’ is indispensable (aliquot/qua … statua, posuerunt/poneretur) and an allusion to any other honorand intrusive and incompatible with the following enim-clause. 3.2 and 4.3: it is striking that, though he refuses all honours, Atticus does participate in Athenian res publica. 3.3: primum goes with illud, not munus, there should be some discussion of fortuna, an important theme in the uita (9.5, 10.1–2, 10.5, 11.2, 11.6, 14.2, 19.1, etc.), and its relation to character, and some explication of the challenging eandem et patriam et domum, which implies that Atticus was fortunate because: (a) he had as his home the place where he was born; (b) he had as his home Rome, the capital of the world (domum/domicilium), hence he was the most Roman of Romans, which again highlights the paradox of his political non-commitment; the description of Rome also functions as a marker for 20.5, suggesting another key theme of the uita, the transition from Republic to monarchy; and perhaps (c) on the principle πᾶσα γῆ πατρίς/οἶκος, because he was supremely a citizen of the world in being a citizen of the world capital. H. has nothing here, nor at 10.3, 16.1, 16.3, and 17.2, on biographical/encomiastic use of ‘proofs’ etc. 3.3 and 4.1: ‘culture’ is here much too narrow for humanitas (cf. 16.1). 4.1: H. makes no comment on the striking paradox that the native of Rome seems to be a native Greek speaker and that the charm of his Latin seems native, not learnt; so challenging an endorsement of bi-culturalism requires proper discussion both for its own sake and as an important theme of the uita (as at 3.3 Nepos is like Plutarch in advocating the humanising effects of [particularly Greek] culture). 4.2: Nepos’ use of factum est ut constructions is unattractive, but translation should bring out the obvious verbal and thematic links with 3.1, which shows Atticus’ relations with the Athenians. There his ability to do two things ⟦78⟧ (to get on with both lowly and mighty) wins honour from the state at large; 4.2 shows Atticus’ relations with Sulla, where his facility in the two languages makes Sulla equally possessive of him. Of course his capacity to ‘do the splits’ in all areas of life is central to the Life’s thesis. 4.5: H. says nothing about the ring structure with 2.2; ‘absence’ is weakening and misleading translationese for desiderium, especially as desiderium (Greek πόθος) appropriates to Atticus, the Epicurean non-participator, the mutual ‘sexual attraction’ characteristic of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. 5.1: summam is untranslated.

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5.4: H. has nothing on the fact that Atticus’ success in winning the regard of the emulous Cicero and Hortensius and preventing obtrectatio between them reflects his general success as ‘middle-man’ (2.2, 4.1–2, 7.1–3, 9.2–3, etc.) and specifically foreshadows his relations with both Antony and Octavian (cf. especially 20.5, the wording of which picks up, and contrasts with, 5.4 in detail). 6.1: sua (untranslated) is a vital emphasis throughout the uita (Atticus is always able to retain control over his own destiny). 6.2: the dismissive comment ‘trite moralising’ (on more maiorum) is misguided: Atticus’ devotion to mos maiorum (also 1.1, 18.1) is a serious reason for political uninvolvement in a period marked by ever more violent political disturbance as the nominal republic slides into effective monarchy. 6.5: tranquillitati should be translated by the same word as tranquillitatis in 3.5 (‘calm’ would do), thereby bringing out the basic logic of the narrative from 2.2 to 6.5 (Atticus leaves Rome because of the lack of tranquillitas caused by civil strife and returns when tranquillitas is restored, but even then avoids direct political involvement, because this is the only way of preserving his own tranquillitas), and contrasting with the storm imagery of 6.1. Better ‘the dearer’ for carior, making the link with 1.4, 2.3, and 3.3. 7.1: the comment that ‘7.1–11.4 is the only section of the life organised on a clear chronological basis’ is misconceived: the organisation is not so much chronological as thematic: a series of new crises/changes of fortune confronting Atticus. quoquam is untranslated, which is an important omission: as a youth Atticus escaped a tumultus by going to Athens (2.1), as a senex he can escape outright civil war without going anywhere. Here, as at 2.2 and 4.5, one senses in embryo the ‘two-lives’ theme which Plutarch develops so richly in the Cicero, which is again perhaps suggestive of Nepos’ influence on that uita. 7.3: ‘requesting’ is too weak for imperaret and also clashes with the following ‘at his request’. The neat final formula marks the end of the first phase of Atticus’ trials, with ch. 8 transitional and the real challenges beginning in ch. 9. 8.1: pace H. the ‘Brutus-and-Cassius-on-top’ motif is paralleled in the historians App. BC 2.142 and Cass. Dio 44.35.4: the translation does not bring out the pointed verbal contests centring on princeps and consilium. 8.3: there is no authenticity problem with the first of the ad Brutum letters cited, and it is in any case irrelevant to the question of the equestrian fund. 8.6: ‘in desperate straits’ for abiecto creates a non-existent ring structure with the following ‘in despair’; abiecto in fact contrasts with 8.5 superior … Antonius. Desperatos must be translated in such a way as to link it not only with 8.5 but also with 9.2 spes and sperabant (e.g., ‘without expectations’): spes is inferior to foresight (below).

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9.1: H. does not seem to see the point, which is that Atticus was both farsighted (he realised that apparently final outcomes were not final at all) and truly good (he was not a time-server). prudentem and diuinatio must be interpreted, and translated, in such a way as to link with 9.6 (‘no one believed that Antony would triumph’), 10.6 prudentia, which marks a clear ring structure with the present passage, and 16.4, where similar, but still more inspired qualities are attributed to Cicero, and diuinatio is explicitly defined by futura praedixit and cecinit ut uates. diuinatio therefore conveys both ‘character of a seer’ and ‘godlike character’. ‘Wise’, ‘divine’, and ‘divine foresight’ would do. Note in 9.1 Nepos’ clever pun on praedicare and praedicere, confirmed by 16.4 praedixit. 9.2: cesserat is a true pluperfect. spes here is not ‘hope’, but ‘expectation’ (above, and cf. 9.6). 9.3: the note on the apparent cessation of correspondence between Cicero and Atticus neglects 16.3 usque ad extremum tempus ad Atticum missarum, which, pace many scholars, is surely decisive (cf. quae qui legat). 9.5: this passage is thematically parallel to 2.4. 10.1: this represents not just a ‘change in fortune’ but a περιπέτεια plus ἀναγνώρισις (no one except the divine Atticus had expected Antony’s return). 10.2: the translation should read ‘generals’ not ‘general’s’. timens proscriptionem is untranslated. 10.5: not ‘at a time of great danger’ but ‘in a state of the greatest fear’ for in summo timore (ring with 10.2). 10.6 and 11.1: there is a ring not only with 9.1 (above) but also with 6.1, which clarifies the narrative logic of 6.1–11.1: ⟦79⟧ even during the relative ‘calm’, political life is like a storm at sea, so Atticus avoids it; during outright civil war, even Atticus cannot avoid ‘immersion’ in political storms, but he survives to reach safety, in the first instance for himself, but also for others. The imagery of 10.6 also parallels and contrasts Atticus with the fully involved gubernator of the storm-tossed ship of state. 11.2: 23 October is the date of the second battle of Philippi.6 etiam goes with post proelium Philippense, not with L. Iulium Mocillam. 11.3: H. has nothing on biography’s claim to selectivity (Pelop. 1.1; Plut. Alex. 1.1–2, etc.); there is a ring with 9.6 and 9.1. 11.4: H. has nothing on the ‘character-through-deeds’ biographical doctrine; florentibus and florentem should be translated by the same word. 11.6: there is a ring with 10.1 (Atticus’ ability to mould his own fortune in the face of capricious Fortune is thus a main theme of chapters 10–11). 6 Ehrenberg and Jones (1976) 34.

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12.1: H. has nothing on the idea that even generally encomiastic frameworks must observe some limits to the encomium (cf., e.g., Woodman [1988] 42, 68 n. 262). 12.2 suas, again an important emphasis, is untranslated. Millar (1988) 45 here comments percipiently: ‘power was now held by non-responsible rulers to whom the appropriate form of address was a deprecatio, a “begging-off” as a matter or favour, or clemency, on behalf of those in danger or disfavour’. 12.5: there is a ring with 12.3, hence laboriosius and labore should be linked in translation. 13.1: this certainly marks ‘the one major break in the first edition of the life … what follows covers habits and written works’ (H.), but the theme formally goes back to, and develops, 4.3. The whole material on Atticus’ way of life, detailed, informative, encomiastic, and somewhat distorted as it is, again suggests Nepos as Plutarch’s source for the corresponding material on Cicero (Cic. 8.3–6). 13.6: here and at Praef. 1 the discussion of leve of political biography is inadequate: cf. Moles (1989) 232 {above, p. 52}. 13.7: Nepos surely does imply autopsy of Atticus’ ledgers (if he were merely told, even within Atticus’ house, that would be auditum). 14.1: this is not ‘the one modest jest’ in Atticus, since H. detects ‘a mild pleasantry’ at 13.3 (and cf. also Cato 3.5; Praefatio 7). 14.2: this is another illustration (after chs 10–11) of Atticus’ mastery of fortuna. 15.1: the stress on Atticus’ seueritas and his friends’ uerecundia for him introduces a new element in Nepos’ characterisation which corrects, or refines, the rather simple impression given by the first chapters (amarent picks up carus, etc.). 16.1–4: H.’s strictures on Nepos’ repetitiousness (also at 19.1 and 2) and exaggeration completely ignore the change of literary mode, influenced as it obviously and importantly is by Xenophon’s Agesilaus (which Nepos knew intimately: it is his main source for the Agesilaus,7 as H. seems not to know). 16.3: H. says nothing about chronological order as a desideratum of historiography (Woodman [1988] 79–80, 83–5). One wonders if Nepos’ comments on Cicero’s letters (de studiis principum, uitiis ducum, mutationes rei publicae, cf., e.g., Hor. C. 2.1.2–4), taken together with the mutatio-based analysis of chs. 7–10 and the unillusioned assessments of the Bruti and Cassius (8.1) and of Antony and Octavian (20.3), raise the exciting possibility that he has read, or heard, some Asinius Pollio (whom he must have known). 7 Bradley (1991) 121ff.

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16.4: also links with 9.1 (above), and the implicit σύγκρισις invites the thoughts that Cicero’s diuinatio was in one respect greater than Antony’s (he saw beyond his own lifetime), in another less great (he failed to save himself). What, also, is the reference here? War between Antony and Octavian? The latter’s ultimate triumph? (‘Current use’ is too restrictive for usu ueniunt.) In any event, the elegiac stress on Cicero’s divine foresight surely indicates where Nepos’ political heart lay. H. has nothing either on the important literary motif of the Republican Cassandra figure (e.g., Plut. Brut. 24.6–7, 29.10–11; Caes. 4.8–9, 13.3–6; Vell. 2.71.3). 17.3: one explanation for Nepos’ silence about Atticus’ Epicureanism is surely its disreputable associations. 18.1–4: there is an implicit σύγκρισις between Atticus’ historical works and Cicero’s letters: the former extending from the remote past to the present and individual-orientated, the latter concerned rather with the recent past, the present, and even the future, and with continuous history (note the verbal contrast between subtexuit and contextam). 18.1: etiam is untranslated (the point is that mos maiorum is another great influence on Atticus). 18.2: originem … clarorum uirorum propagines is Catonian colouring; here and elsewhere one wonders whether Nepos, like Plutarch, extended the process of σύγκρισις beyond individual uitae (or, in Plutarch’s case, pairs of uitae) to other uitae within the continuous series. 19.1–3: H. makes no comment on the two types, or two aspects, of fortuna (cf. on 11.6 above), the first capricious, the second the product of ⟦80⟧ individual character. The translation fails to convey the important verbal parallel and contrast between 19.1 conciliare and 19.3 conciliarit (‘secure’ twice would do), which (a) articulate the difference between the two fortunae and (b) establish Atticus’ moral superiority to Octavian. 19.2–3, cf. also 20.5 and perhaps 16.4: as H.’s translation and note on 19.2 imply, it looks almost certain that Nepos is writing when Octavian has supreme power, i.e., post-Actium (though pre-27). This would be a conclusion of major import for our general interpretation of the Atticus, and would also mean that the weight given to Atticus’ relations with Octavian, so far from being disproportionate (as H. seems to think), is integral to the political concerns of the final uita. 20.3: the Romulan foundation of the temple of Jupiter Feretrius is of course unhistorical. 20.5: for this transitional, or anticipatory, use of Princeps cf. Vell. 2.66.4, 68.5. 21.4: the subjunctive with priusquam is surely purposive (another instance of Atticus’ foresight), with hoc used loosely.

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22.1: writers, even those formally antipathetic to Stoicism, often imbue heroic contexts with a light Stoic color (cf. Plutarch), for obvious reasons. The ‘moving-house’ image is not distinctively Platonic: cf. Collard (1975) on Eur. Supp. 534–6, Kindstrand (1976) 281. 22.4: the description of Atticus’ funeral makes three satisfying ring structures, with 4.5, 5.1, and 1.1: we see Atticus at the beginning and end of his career, in both his Greek and Roman worlds, beloved of all, high and low, even those themselves unlovely, united at last with his ancestors. Praefatio 1–8: H’s discussion of this interesting and important passage is perfunctory; for further interpretation see Moles (1989) 231–2 {above, pp. 50–3}. 1: H.’s note is confusing: (a) while there is ‘no dispraise of biography in general’, there certainly is of political biography in general, but (b) this is an attitude Nepos himself is concerned to combat (nor does he here accept Roman ‘prejudice’ against music, etc.). Epam. 1.1 and Pelop. 1.1 should also be cited. All three passages are of great importance for the question of the existence or non-existence of political biography before Nepos. Personis, with 2 conueniat and 6 decora looks very like Panaetian terminology (and if so, a revealing pointer to Nepos’ philosophical knowledge, despite his hostility to formal philosophy). 4: Nepos’ meaning in the Spartan example is absolutely clear, especially given the Roman counter-example in 6. 7: H.’s comment on Nepos’ alleged lack of understanding Greek custom seems out of place. He is surely indulging in some pardonable and entertaining Herodotean ‘topsy-turvydom’ (Hdt. 2.35.2–3, etc.). Bibliography Bradley, J. R. (1991) The Sources of Cornelius Nepos: Selected Lives (New York and London). Collard, C., ed. (1975) Euripides: Supplices, 2 vols. (Groningen). Dionisotti, A. C. (1988) ‘Nepos and the Generals’, JRS 78: 35–49. Ehrenberg, V. and A. H. M. Jones, edd. (1976) Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius2 (Oxford). Geiger, J. (1985) Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography (Stuttgart). Harris, W. V. (1979) War and Imperialism in Republican Rome (Oxford; repr. with corrections, 1985). Horsfall, N., ed. (1989) Cornelius Nepos: a Selection, including the Lives of Cato and Atticus (Oxford).

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Kindstrand, J. F. (1976) Bion of Borysthenes: a Collection of the Fragments with Introduction and Commentary (Uppsala). Mattingly, H. (1975) ‘The Consilium of Cn. Pompeius Strabo in 89 B.C.’, Athenaeum 53: 262–6. Millar, F. (1988) ‘Cornelius Nepos, “Atticus”, and the Roman Revolution’, G&R 35: 40–55; repr. in id., Rome, the Greek World and the East, volume I: the Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution, edd. H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers (Chapel Hill and London) 183–99. Moles, J. L., ed. (1988) Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). Moles, J. L. (1989) ‘Review of Geiger (1985)’, CR 39: 229–33 [above, Ch. 37]. Moles, J. L. (1992) ‘Review of Horsfall (1989)’, CR 42: 314–6 [above, Ch. 39]. West, M. L., ed. (1978) Hesiod: Works and Days (Oxford). Woodman, A. J. (1975) ‘Questions of Date, Genre, and Style in Velleius: Some Literary Answers’, CQ 25: 272–306. Woodman, A. J. (1988) Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Portland, and Sydney).

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Textual and Interpretative Notes on Plutarch’s Cicero It is a pleasure to take this opportunity of discussing some passages which either could not be, or were not, properly discussed in Plutarch: Cicero, hereafter PC, as a very small thank-offering to John Pinsent, editor of one of the liveliest and most individual classics journals in English and a humane and cultivated man who has been unfailingly kind to me. The text printed is that of Ziegler (1964).{*} 4.4 ἐπεὶ δ᾽ αὐτῷ Σύλλας τε προσηγγέλθη τεθνηκώς, καὶ τὸ σῶμα τοῖς γυμνασίοις ἀναρρωννύμενον εἰς ἕξιν ἐβάδιζε νεανικήν, ἥ τε φωνὴ λαμβάνουσα πλάσιν ἡδεῖα μὲν πρὸς ἀκοὴν ἐτέθραπτο καὶ πολλή, μετρίως δὲ πρὸς τὴν ἕξιν τοῦ σώματος ἥρμοστο, πολλὰ μὲν τῶν ἀπὸ Ῥώμης φίλων γραφόντων καὶ δεομένων, πολλὰ δ᾽ Ἀντιόχου παρακελευομένου τοῖς κοινοῖς ἐπιβαλεῖν πράγμασιν, … Though the MSS πολλή is retained by Ziegler, Magnino, and Flacelière– Chambry, it is untenable, since ‘the words contradict c. 3 ἡ φωνὴ πολλὴ μὲν καὶ ἀγαθή.1 The reference is to 3.7, which runs as follows: καί γὰρ ἦν ὄντως ἕξιν ἰσχνὸς καί ἄσαρκος, ἀρρωστίᾳ τοῦ στομάχου μικρὰ καί γλίσχρα μόλις ὀψὲ τῆς ὥρας προσφερόμενος· ἡ δὲ φωνὴ πολλὴ μὲν καί ἀγαθή, σκληρὰ δὲ καί ἄπλαστος, ὑπὸ δὲ τοῦ λόγου σφοδρότητα καί πάθος ἔχοντος ἀεὶ διὰ τῶν ἄνω τόνων ἐλαυνομένη, φόβον παρεῖχεν ὑπὲρ τοῦ σώματος. 3.7 and 4.4 are indeed related passages, the former describing Cicero’s defective physique and voice before ‘therapy’ in Greece, the latter after, with close verbal links. πολλή clearly belongs to the former condition. Gudeman (1902) is no doubt right that ‘the double πολλά … is probably responsible’ for the intrusion of πολλή in 4.4. Simple deletion (Gudeman, followed by Perrin) is rather bald; both ποικίλη (Hanov) and ἀπαλή (Reiske, Kronenberg, PC) contrast effectively with σκληρὰ … καὶ ἄπλαστος, but ἀπαλή makes the sharper contrast and

{* The editions referred to in this piece are: Flacelière–Chambry (1976); Graux (1882); Magnino (1963); Moles (1988); Perrin (1919); Sintenis (1853); Ziegler (1964).} 1 Gudeman (1902) 65, followed by Perrin (1919) 90 n. 1.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2022 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_015

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fits more euphoniously with the rest of the sentence, especially πλάσιν ἡδεῖα (Plutarch allows hiatus after καί). 6.3–4 συντυχὼν γὰρ ἀνδρὶ τῶν ἐπιφανῶν φίλῳ δοκοῦντι περὶ Καμπανίαν, ἐρέσθαι τίνα δὴ τῶν πεπραγμένων ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ λόγον ἔχουσι Ῥωμαῖοι καὶ τί φρονοῦσιν, ὡς ὀνόματος καὶ δόξης τῶν πεπραγμένων αὑτῷ τὴν πόλιν ἅπασαν ἐμπεπληκώς· τὸν δ᾽ εἰπεῖν· ‘ποῦ γὰρ ἦς ὦ Κικέρων τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον;’ τότε μὲν οὖν ἐξαθυμῆσαι παντάπασιν εἴ γε καθάπερ εἰς πέλαγος ἀχανὲς τὴν πόλιν ἐμπεσὼν ὁ περὶ αὐτοῦ λόγος οὐδὲν εἰς δόξαν ἐπίδηλον πεποίηκεν. λόγον ἔχουσι is generally taken as a periphrasis for ‘say’; so Perrin, Flacelière–Chambry, and Warner (1972) 317; Magnino oddly takes it as a doublet of τί φρονοῦσιν (‘quale opinione i Romani avessero’). But τῶν πεπραγμένων ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ λόγον must have the same reference as ὀνόματος καὶ δόξης τῶν πεπραγμένων αὐτῷ and ὁ περὶ αὐτοῦ λόγος, that is, as the ‘external’ λόγος about his exploits which comes to Rome from Sicily. Correct therefore PC’s ‘report of his achievements’. 10.1–2 Ἐπὶ δὲ τὴν ὑπατείαν οὐχ ἧττον ὑπὸ τῶν ἀριστοκρατικῶν ἢ τῶν πολλῶν προ­ ήχθη, διὰ τὴν πόλιν ἐξ αἰτίας αὐτῷ τοιᾶσδε συναγωνισαμένων. τῆς ὑπὸ Σύλλα γενομένης μεταβολῆς περὶ τὴν πολιτείαν ἐν ἀρχῇ μὲν ἀτόπου φανείσης τοῖς πολλοῖς, ⟦152⟧ τότε δ’ ὑπὸ χρόνου καὶ συνηθείας ἤδη τινὰ κατάστασιν ἔχειν οὐ φαύλην δοκούσης, ἦσαν οἱ τὰ παρόντα διασεῖσαι καὶ μεταθεῖναι ζητοῦντες ἰδίων ἕνεκα πλεονεξιῶν … The general context concerns Cicero’s relations with the various powerblocks in the state: ὁ δῆμος (9.4–7) here = the plebs, οἱ ὀλιγαρχικοί (9.7) here = the narrow clique within the general aristocracy, οἱ ἀριστοκρατικοί (10. 1), and οἱ πολλοί (10. 1) here = the δῆμος or plebs. In this context Plutarch distinguishes ὀλιγαρχικοί and ἀριστοκρατικοί:2 see the revised formulation at 11.2 (which makes a ring with 10.1) ταῦτα δὴ τῶν καλῶν καὶ ἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν οἱ πλεῖστοι προαισθόμενοι. The MSS read φανείσης τότε δὲ τοῖς πολλοῖς. Ziegler’s transposition is accepted by Magnino (following Ziegler’s second edition) but not by Flacelière– Chambry. While it may be factually true that Sulla’s reforms were opposed by ‘the many’ (in the sense of ‘the common people’), the transposition misses the clarity of Plutarch’s argument: (a) Cicero won the support of the common people; (b) he attacked ‘the oligarchs’; (c) his campaign for the consulship, however, won the support of both ‘aristocrats’ and ‘many’ (the common people; ‘however’, because ‘oligarchs’ are subsumed within ‘aristocrats’); (d) although Sulla’s reforms seemed bizarre initially, they had the support of ‘the many’ in 63 (hence there was widespread opposition to Catiline’s attacks on the Sullan 2 Pace Pelling (1986) 167 {= (2002) 212f.}.

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constitution). ‘The many’ now = ‘the majority of people’, transcending the aristocrat–‘many’ divide. The necessity of taking τοῖς πολλοῖς in a different sense from that of τῶν πολλῶν in 10.1, so far from weakening this interpretation, actually strengthens it: Plutarch is exploiting the rhetorical figure variously known as ἀντανάκλασις (Quint. 9.3.68), διαφορά (Rutilius Lupus 8.12 Halm) and traductio (Quint. 9.3.71), whereby ‘the same word is used in two different meanings … [the figure has] greater elegance when it is employed to distinguish the exact meanings of things’ (Quint. loc. cit.). 12.6 ἐπεὶ δ᾽ αὖθις ἐπεχείρουν καὶ παρασκευασάμενοι προεκαλοῦντο τοὺς ὑπάτους ἐπὶ τὸν δῆμον, οὐδὲν ὑποδείσας ὁ Κικέρων, ἀλλὰ τὴν βουλὴν ἕπεσθαι κελεύσας καὶ προελθών, οὐ μόνον ἐκεῖνον ἐξέβαλε τὸν νόμον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀπογνῶναι τοὺς δημάρχους ἐποίησε, παρὰ τοσοῦτον τῷ λόγῳ κρατηθέντας ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ. Since the allusion is neither to the third speech De lege agraria (as Gudeman {1902} 76 n. 6) nor to the second (as Magnino) but to the fourth (PC ad loc.), this passage should be added to the discussion in Crawford (1984) 79–81. 19.1 ἔφη δὲ καὶ Σιλανὸς Ἰούνιος ἀκηκοέναι τινὰς Κεθήγου λέγοντος, ὡς ὕπατοί τε τρεῖς καὶ στρατηγοί τέτταρες ἀναιρεῖσθαι μέλλουσι. τοιαῦτα δ᾽ ἕτερα καὶ Πείσων, ἀνὴρ ὑπατικός, εἰσήγγειλε. Translators (PC included) usually render ὕπατοι τρεῖς as ‘three consuls’, with reference to Cicero himself and the consuls-elect Silanus and Murena. But according to H. J. Mason,3 ‘the very number shows that consulares must be meant’. This claim follows the observation ‘ὕπατος could be used to describe a man [as well as an office], and mean both consul and consularis. This confusing situation can only be explained by a desire on the part of certain authors to avoid the neologism ὑπατικός’. But Mason’s interpretation is visibly incorrect: in 19.1 the ὕπατοι are distinguished precisely from the ὑπατικός. Hence the passage may well be related to Sall. BC 26.5 and 27.2 and Cic. Cat. 1.11, thereby providing further attestation of Catiline’s (alleged) murderous plots against Silanus and Murena.4 ⟦153⟧ 19.4–5 ἤδη δ᾽ ἑσπέρας οὔσης καὶ τοῦ δήμου παραμένοντος ἀθρόως, προελθὼν ὁ

Κικέρων καὶ φράσας τὸ πρᾶγμα τοῖς πολίταις καὶ προπεμφθείς, παρῆλθεν εἰς οἰκίαν φίλου γειτνιῶντος, ἐπεὶ τὴν ἐκείνου γυναῖκες κατεῖχον ἱεροῖς ἀπορρήτοις ὀργιάζουσαι θεόν, ἣν Ῥωμαῖοι μὲν Ἀγαθήν, Ἕλληνες δὲ Γυναικείαν ὀνομάζουσι. θύεται δ᾽ αὐτῇ κατ᾽ ἐνιαυτὸν ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ τοῦ ὑπάτου διὰ γυναικὸς ἢ μητρὸς αὐτοῦ, τῶν Ἑστιάδων

3 Mason (1974) 167. 4 Cf. Vretska (1976) II.362 and Moles (1989) 394, reviewing McGushin (1987).

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παρθένων παρουσῶν. εἰσελθὼν οὖν ὁ Κικέρων καὶ γενόμενος καθ᾽ αὑτόν, ὀλίγων παντάπασιν αὐτῷ παρόντων, ἐφρόντιζεν ὅπως χρήσαιτο τοῖς ἀνδράσι. In 19.5 Ziegler’s retention of καὶ γενόμενος is followed by Magnino and Flacelière (who, however, omits it from his translation). It is omitted by Y, followed by Sintenis, Gudeman (1902), and PC, surely rightly, for it sits very awkwardly with ὀλίγων παντάπασιν αὐτῷ παρόντων. The question then is whether καθ᾽ αὑτόν goes with εἰσελθὼν or ἐφρόντιζεν. In the former case a slight inconsistency remains; the latter makes excellent sense: Cicero now has very few people with him (in sharp contrast to the crowds surrounding him outside) and in his agonising decision is quite on his own. 20.6–7 τότε δὲ νέος ὢν ἔτι καὶ τὰς πρώτας ἔχων τῆς αὐξήσεως ἀρχάς, ἤδη δὲ τῇ πολιτείᾳ καὶ ταῖς ἐλπίσιν εἰς ἐκείνην τὴν ὁδὸν ἐμβεβηκὼς ᾗ τὰ Ῥωμαίων εἰς μοναρχίαν μετέστησε πράγματα, τοὺς μὲν ἄλλους ἐλάνθανε, τῷ δὲ Κικέρωνι πολλὰς μὲν ὑποψίας, λαβὴν δ᾽ εἰς ἔλεγχον οὐδεμίαν παρέδωκεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ λεγόντων ἦν ἐνίων ἀκούειν, ὡς ἐγγὺς ἐλθὼν ἁλῶναι διεκφύγοι τὸν ἄνδρα. τινὲς δέ φασι περιιδεῖν ἑκόντα καὶ παραλιπεῖν τὴν κατ᾽ ἐκείνου μήνυσιν φόβῳ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ καὶ τῆς δυνάμεως· παντὶ γὰρ εἶναι πρόδηλον, ὅτι μᾶλλον ἂν ἐκεῖνοι γένοιντο προσθήκη Καίσαρι σωτηρίας ἢ Καῖσαρ ἐκείνοις κολάσεως. Commentators and translators are united in taking ἐκεῖνοι in 20.7 as ‘the conspirators’, i.e., the conspirators already captured, whose punishment is under discussion in the Senate. How can this be? ἐκεῖνοι must refer to the preceding plural noun τῶν φίλων and ‘the thought, somewhat obscured by the complex and economical stylistic balance, is: proceeding against Caesar would not help Cicero unmask and punish his backers; rather, their support would help Caesar get off’ (PC ad loc.). Admittedly, PC may be wrong in translating ‘their power’ (which would convict Plutarch of careless writing, when he could easily have written φόβῳ τῶν φίλων καὶ τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτῶν), yet it surely is implied that the δύναμις derives more from Caesar’s friends than from Caesar himself, who is after all only ‘at the start of his rise to power’. (Note also that at 19.6 Plutarch has already referred to the captured Catilinarians’ ‘powerful friends’.) This interpretation of ἐκεῖνοι has important consequences. First, as regards source. Both on general grounds5 and in the context of Cicero (cf. 15.3 referring to Crassus’ friendship with Catiline, 19.6 above), the ‘friends’ of Caesar the Catilinarian must primarily be Crassus. Now in the later Life of Crassus (13.3–5) Plutarch also discusses Crassus’ alleged involvement in the conspiracy:

5 Cf., e.g., Rawson (1982) 123f. {= (1991) 413f.}.

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ἐν δὲ τοῖς περὶ Κατιλίναν πράγμασι μεγάλοις καὶ μικροῦ δεήσασιν ἀνατρέψαι τὴν Ῥώμην ἥψατο μέν τις ὑπόνοια τοῦ Κράσσου, καὶ προσῆλθεν ἄνθρωπος ὀνομάζων ἀπὸ τῆς συνωμοσίας, οὐδεὶς δὲ ἐπίστευσεν. ὅμως δ᾽ ὁ Κικέρων ἔν τινι λόγῳ φανερός ἐστι Κράσσῳ καὶ Καίσαρι τὴν αἰτίαν προστριβόμενος. ἀλλ᾽ οὗτος μέν ὁ λόγος ἐξεδόθη μετὰ τὴν ἀμφοῖν τελευτήν, ἐν δὲ τῷ Περὶ τῆς ὑπατείας ὁ Κικέρων νύκτωρ φησὶ τὸν Κράσσον ἀφικέσθαι πρὸς αὐτόν, ἐπιστολὴν κομίζοντα περὶ τὸν Κατιλίναν ἐξηγουμένην, ὡς ἤδη βεβαιοῦντα τὴν συνωμοσίαν. ὁ δ᾽ οὖν Κράσσος ἀεὶ μὲν ἐμίσει τὸν Κικέρωνα διὰ τοῦτο, τοῦ δὲ βλάπτειν ἀναφανδὸν ἐμποδὼν εἶχε τὸν υἱόν. ὁ γὰρ Πόπλιος ὢν φιλολόγος καὶ φιλομαθὴς ἐξήρτητο τοῦ Κικέρωνος, ὥστε καὶ συμμεταβαλεῖν αὐτῷ τὴν ἐσθῆτα κρινομένῳ καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους νέους ταὐτὸ ποιοῦντας παρασχεῖν. τέλος δὲ τὸν πατέρα πείσας φίλον ἐποίησεν.

⟦154⟧ Here ἀλλ’ οὗτος … συνωμοσίαν is parenthetic, and though the reference of

διὰ τοῦτο in 13.5 is loose, the general point is clear enough: whatever the precise truth of the allegations against Crassus in connexion with Catiline, Crassus always thereafter hated Cicero because at least the possibility of his guilt had been raised. The parallels between the versions in Cic. 20.7 and Cicero’s ‘certain work’ are marked: Crassus and Caesar were guilty and Crassus was the senior party. The development in Crassus—that Crassus thereafter hated Cicero but his son restrained him and engineered a reconciliation after Cicero’s exile—is also paralleled in Cicero at 33.8 (‘there even Crassus, who was his enemy before the exile, met him enthusiastically on that occasion and was reconciled with him, doing a favour, as he said, to his son Publius, who was a zealous follower of Cicero’). The ‘certain work’ is undoubtedly Cicero’s secret De consiliis suis,6 which accused Crassus and Caesar of complicity in the Catilinarian conspiracy and extended to the year 57 and Cicero’s return from exile. Thus Cic. 20.7 and 33.8 seem based on the De consiliis suis.7 Further, the deployment of the items—in 20.7 in a conflict of sources, in 33.8 in amalgamation with a quite different source—points to Plutarch’s using the work at first hand. Since the De consiliis suis also accused Caesar and Crassus of responsibility for Cicero’s exile (Cass. Dio 39.10.1–3), there should be other traces of it in Plutarch’s narrative; Cic. 6 Moles (1982). 7 It is not a difficulty that Plutarch fails to quote this work at 20.7; he is aiming for as smooth a narrative as possible and since his main source was Cicero’s Greek monograph on his consulship (PC 28), he avoids the complication of admitting that the rival 20.7 source was also Ciceronian, introducing it instead with a bland ‘but some say’; circumstances are different at Crass. 13.3–5, where the question of Crassus’ guilt or innocence is central and it is appropriate to cite Cicero’s conflicting testimony.

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30.3–5 (on the attitude of ‘the big three’ to Cicero and the reasons for Caesar’s hostility) is a likely candidate, perhaps also the related 31.2–3 (Pompey’s betrayal of Cicero under pressure from Caesar). Thus8 Plutarch is using the De consiliis suis as a significant supplementary source as early as the Cicero. Second, as regards historical content. Elizabeth Rawson (art. cit.) tried to rehabilitate the essential honesty and reliability of the De consiliis suis, the question of Crassus and Caesar’s involvement with Catiline being the test case. We may concede the honesty but not the reliability, for Crass. 13.4 and Cic. 20.7 make a precise allegation of guilt, not merely a general accusation of ultimate ‘responsibility’ for Catiline’s revolutionary schemes (a much more reasonable proposition). In this matter, as in so many others, Cicero’s basic judgement was unsound. 22.2 καὶ πρῶτον ἐκ Παλατίου παραλαβὼν τὸν Λέντλον ἦγε διὰ τῆς ἱερᾶς ὁδοῦ καὶ τῆς ἀγορᾶς μέσης, τῶν μὲν ἡγεμονικωτάτων ἀνδρῶν κύκλῳ περιεσπειραμένων καὶ δορυφορούντων, τοῦ δὲ δήμου φρίττοντος τὰ δρώμενα καὶ παριέντος σιωπῇ, μάλιστα δὲ τῶν νέων, ὥσπερ ἱεροῖς τισι πατρίοις ἀριστοκρατικῆς τινος ἐξουσίας τελεῖσθαι μετὰ φόβου καὶ θάμβους δοκούντων. παριέντος (‘acquiescing’) is Coraes’ emendation, accepted by Bekker, Graux, Ziegler, and Magnino; Sintenis, Gudeman, Perrin, and Flacelière keep the MSS παριόντος (‘passing along’); PC prints παριέντος but translates παριόντος. In fact παριόντος is demonstrably correct. Firstly, τῶν νέων, rather than being a separate third category, are clearly a sub-category within τοῦ δήμου (μάλιστα, μετὰ φόβου καὶ θάμβους ~ φρίττοντας τὰ δρώμενα), and if the young regard themselves as being (as it were) initiates into some kind of ancestral rites led by Cicero, they too should be in motion. Secondly, the following description (22.5) of Cicero’s triumphant procession through the forum clearly reverses that of 22.2: ⟦155⟧ ἤδη δ᾽ ἦν ἑσπέρα, καὶ δι᾽ ἀγορᾶς ἀνέβαινεν εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν, οὐκέτι σιωπῇ

τῶν πολιτῶν οὐδὲ τάξει προπεμπόντων αὐτόν, ἀλλὰ φωναῖς καὶ κρότοις δεχομένων καθ᾽ οὓς γένοιτο, σωτῆρα καὶ κτίστην ἀνακαλούντων τῆς πατρίδος. τῶν πολίτων (the united citizen body) contrasts with the fragmented groups of 22.2, οὐκέτι σιωπῇ with σιωπῇ, οὐδὲ τάξει with περιεσπειραμένων καὶ δορυφορούντων. To complete the picture, προπεμπόντων should contrast not only with περιεσπειραμένων καὶ δορυφορούντων but also with whatever verb is applied to the people, which must therefore be a verb of motion, hence again παριόντος. 8 Pace Pelling (1979) 75 {= (2002) 2f.}.

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36.7 πλέων δ᾽ ἀπὸ τῆς ἐπαρχίας τοῦτο μὲν Ῥόδῳ προσέσχε, τοῦτο δ᾽ Ἀθήναις ἐνδιέτριψεν, ἄσμενος πόθῳ τῶν πάλαι διατριβῶν. ἀνδράσι δὲ τοῖς πρώτοις ἀπὸ παιδείας συγγενόμενος καὶ τούς [τό]τε φίλους καὶ συνήθεις ἀσπασάμενος, καὶ τὰ πρέποντα θαυμασθεὶς ὑπὸ τῆς Ἑλλάδος, εἰς τὴν πόλιν ἐπανῆλθεν, ἤδη τῶν πραγμάτων ὥσπερ ὑπὸ φλεγμονῆς διισταμένων ἐπὶ τὸν ἐμφύλιον πόλεμον. Coraes’ τε is accepted by Ziegler, Magnino, and Flacelière—incomprehens­ ibly: τοὺς τότε … (‘his friends and companions of the past’) is defined by τῶν πάλαι διατριβῶν. In this Indian summer of Cicero’s career before the catastrophes of the Civil Wars past and present, political and intellectual lives harmonise fleetingly and unsustainably. 37.1 ἐν μὲν οὖν τῇ βουλῇ ψηφιζομένων αὐτῷ θρίαμβον, ἥδιον ἂν ἔφη παρακολουθῆσαι Καῖσαρι θριαμβεύοντι συμβάσεων γενομένων· ἰδίᾳ δὲ συνεβούλευε πολλὰ μὲν Καίσαρι γράφων, πολλὰ δ᾽ αὖ τοῦ Πομπηίου δεόμενος, πραΰνων ἑκάτερον καὶ παραμυθούμενος. Solanus’ αὖ τοῦ is accepted by Ziegler, Magnino, and Flacelière, but the MSS αὐτοῦ is retained by Perrin; PC prints αὖ τοῦ but translates αὐτοῦ. αὐτοῦ (‘in person’ as opposed to ‘by writing’) seems clearly right. 39.7 ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ἀρξάμενος λέγειν ὁ Κικέρων ὑπερφυῶς ἐκίνει, καὶ προὔβαινεν αὐτῷ πάθει τε ποικίλος καὶ χάριτι θαυμαστὸς ὁ λόγος, πολλὰς μὲν ἱέναι χρόας ἐπὶ τοῦ προσώπου τὸν Καίσαρα, πάσας δὲ τῆς ψυχῆς τρεπόμενον τροπὰς κατάδηλον εἶναι, τέλος δὲ τῶν Φάρσαλον ἁψαμένου τοῦ ῥήτορος ἀγώνων, ἐκπαθῆ γενόμενον τιναχθῆναι τῷ σώματι καὶ τῆς χειρὸς ἐκβαλεῖν ἔνια τῶν γραμματείων. τὸν δ’ οὖν ἄνθρωπον ἀπέλυσε τῆς αἰτίας βεβιασμένος. This famous description of Caesar’s reaction to the Pro Ligario is dismissed as ‘historically untrue’, ‘suspect’, and ‘exaggerated’ (PC 49, 188f.), echoing the scholarly consensus hitherto, but it apparently makes good sense as an account of an epileptic fit9 (though Plutarch of course does not realise this). 41.8 καὶ συνῆλθον μὲν ἐπὶ τὴν παραμυθίαν τῷ Κικέρωνι πανταχόθεν οἱ φίλοσοφοι, βαρέως δ᾽ ἄγαν ἤνεγκε τὸ συμβεβηκός, ὥστε καὶ τὴν γαμηθεῖσαν ἀποπέμψασθαι, δόξασαν ἡσθῆναι τῇ τελευτῇ τῆς Τυλλίας. Volkmann’s φίλοι is accepted by Graux, Perrin, Warner, and Flacelière, presumably on the grounds that ‘the philosophers’ did not in fact descend en masse to console Cicero, and that various friends (e.g., Caesar, Brutus, Lucceius, Sulpicius) did at least write to console him. But φιλόσοφοι can readily be 9 So Benediktson (1989), summarising a paper given in Oxford before the International Plutarch Society on September 5, 1989 {cf. Benediktson (1994) for the published version}.

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explained as Plutarch’s ‘improving’ upon the truth (which is that Cicero sought consolation in philosophical works and wrote his own [self-] Consolation— cf. PC 192), and the reading is sure, since it highlights Cicero’s final philosophical failure under Caesar’s dictatorship both in his private emotional life (41.1–8) and in his private intellectual life (40.1–2, esp. 40.1 φιλοσοφεῖν).

⟦156⟧ 45.1 Αὗται μὲν οὖν ἴσως προφάσεις ἦσαν αἱ λεγόμεναι· τὸ δὲ πρὸς Ἀντώνιον μῖσος Κικέρωνα πρῶτον, εἶθ’ ἡ φύσις ἥττων οὖσα τιμῆς προσεποίησε Καίσαρι, νομίζοντα προσλαμβάνειν τῇ πολιτείᾳ τὴν ἐκείνου δύναμιν. Reiske’s αἱ λεγόμεναι, accepted by Bekker, Perrin, and PC, is not even recorded by Ziegler and Flacelière. Yet the insertion of the article is clearly right, since ‘the contrast between stated and true reasons comes from Thuc. 1.23 on the causes of the Peloponnesian War’ (PC ad loc.). Another important point (missed by PC) is the parallel at 41.3, where Plutarch, discussing Cicero’s rift with Terentia, distinguishes between αἱ λεγόμεναι … προφάσεις and less reputable but truer explanations. Now at 41.1 Plutarch introduced the final phase of Cicero’s career with the formula πολλοῖς μὲν δημοσίοις, πολλοῖς δὲ ἰδίοις κατελήφθη πράγμασιν ἀβουλήτοις καὶ πάθεσιν, ὧν αὐθαίρετα δοκεῖ τὰ πλεῖστα συμβῆναι. A significant pattern is thus created: both in the public and in the private πράγματα and πάθη Cicero’s misfortunes can be explained in two ways: by ‘stated’ and less dishonourable reasons and by ‘unstated’ but truer and more dishonourable reasons. Hence not only do Cicero’s domestic misfortunes psychologically predispose him to error in his political dealings with Antony and Octavian (PC 52), they also provide an ‘action foreplay’ of them.

46.1 Ἐνταῦθα μέντοι μάλιστα Κικέρων ἐπαρθεὶς ὑπὸ νέου γέρων καὶ φενακισθεὶς καὶ συναρχαιρεσιάσας καὶ παρασχὼν αὐτῷ τὴν σύγκλητον, εὐθὺς μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν φίλων αἰτίαν ἔσχεν, ὀλίγῳ δ᾽ ὕστερον αὑτὸν ἀπολωλεκὼς ᾔσθετο καὶ τοῦ δήμου προέμενος τὴν ἐλευθερίαν. PC uniquely reads αὐτὸς αὑτὸν ἀπολωλεκώς, an interpolation which is surely necessary. Not only does it sharpen the contrast between Cicero’s friends and himself, but it is the culmination of two major themes in the Life. First, Cicero’s halting progression towards self-knowledge (cf. PC on 6.4 and 43.4); note especially the parallel at 43.4 καταμεμψάμενος αὐτὸς αὑτοῦ τὴν πολλὴν εὐλάβειαν. There Cicero’s fault is his excessive caution (PC ad loc.), here its opposite, his fatal ambition. Second, the tragic framework which Plutarch has imposed on the narrative of the final phase of Cicero’s career (from 46–43—see PC on 41.1). Here, in the manner of tragedy, disaster coincides with true (self-) knowledge, περιπέτεια with ἀναγνώρισις (Arist. Poet. 11, 1452a22–23, 29–33; Rutherford [1982] 147ff.).

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Bibliography Benediktson, D. (1989) ‘Plutarch on the Epilepsy of Julius Caesar’, Ploutarchos 6.1: 18–19. Benediktson, D. (1994) ‘Plutarch on the Epilepsy of Julius Caesar’, AncW 25: 159–64. Crawford, J. W., ed. (1984) M. Tullius Cicero: the Lost and Unpublished Orations (Göttingen). Flacelière, R. and E. Chambry, edd. (1976) Plutarque: Vies XII: Demosthène–Cicéron (Paris). Graux, C. H., ed. (1882) Vie de Cicéron (Paris). Gudeman, A. (1902) The Sources of Plutarch’s Life of Cicero (Philadelphia; repr. Rome, 1971). Magnino, D. (1963) Plutarchi: Vita Ciceronis (Florence). Mason, H. J. (1974) Greek Terms for Roman Institutions: a Lexicon and Analysis (Toronto). McGushin, P. (1987) Sallust: the Conspiracy of Catiline: a Companion to the Penguin Translation of S. A. Handford (Bristol). Moles, J. L. (1982) ‘Plutarch, Crassus 13.4–5, and Cicero’s de consiliis suis’, LCM 7: 136–7 [above, Ch. 31]. Moles, J. L., ed. (1988) Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). Moles, J. L. (1989) ‘Review of McGushin (1987)’, CR 39: 393–4. Pelling, C. B. R. (1979) ‘Plutarch’s Method of Work in the Roman Lives’, JHS 99: 74–96; repr. in Pelling (2002) 1–44. Pelling, C. B. R. (1986) ‘Plutarch and Roman Politics’, in I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, edd., Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge) 159–87; repr. in Pelling (2002) 207–36. Pelling, C. B. R. (2002) Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London and Swansea). Perrin, B. (1919) Plutarch: Lives VII (London and Cambridge, Mass.). Rawson, E. (1982) ‘History, Historiography and Cicero’s expositio consiliorum suorum’, LCM 7: 121–4; repr. in ead., Roman Culture and Society: Collected Papers (Oxford, 1991) 408–15. Rutherford, R. B. (1982) ‘Tragic Form and Feeling in the Iliad’, JHS 102: 145–60. Sintenis, C., ed. (1853) Plutarchi Vitae Parallelae IV (Leipzig). Vretska, K., ed. (1976) Sallust: De Catilinae Coniuratione, 2 vols. (Heidelberg). Warner, R. and R. Seager (1972) Plutarch: Fall of the Roman Republic, revised edition (Harmondsworth). Ziegler, K., ed. (1964) Plutarchus: Vitae Parallelae I.23 (Leipzig).

Chapter 44

Plutarch, Brutus, and Brutus’ Greek and Latin Letters Plutarch’s Brutus sources1—which exhibit the richness, diversity, and conscientious recourse to contemporary evidence that are thoroughly characteristic of the late Republican Lives2—include letters, both Greek and Latin, purportedly written by Brutus.3 No evidence concerning the subject of a biography should be more revelatory. In the words of the Greek rhetorician and literary critic Demetrius, ‘a letter should be very largely an expression of character, just like the dialogue. Perhaps everyone reflects his own soul in writing a letter. It is possible to discern a writer’s character in every other form of literature, but in none so fully as in the letter’ (On Style 227).4 These letters bear on Brutus’ public and private lives, and it is above all on letters that the moralising Plutarch rests his claim for Brutus’ great virtue. There are two key passages. (i) Brut. 22.4–6 When Cicero acted on Caesar’s [i.e., Octavian’s]5 side, Brutus rebuked him strongly, writing that Cicero did not find a despot intolerable but 1 ⟦161⟧ This rather oral text fairly reflects the paper delivered as ‘The Greek and Latin Letters of Brutus’ at the International Plutarch Society Conference in Dublin on September 9, 1994, but it has been expanded and modified to accommodate criticisms and increase its application to Plutarch. I thank: all those who commented at the time; Michael Crawford for his magnanimity; Miriam Griffin for written comments and other kindnesses; Tony Woodman for his customary rigour ⟦162⟧ and penetration; Donald Russell, most urbane of chairs; and Judith Mossman, most humane of editors. In accordance with editorial policy, all Greek and Latin is translated; the Greek translations adapt (and correct) Perrin (1918). Although translations are not ideal for close textual interpretation, I have tried to convey all important nuances of the Greek (as I see them), in the belief that meaning matters more than elegance; linguistic Hellenists will decide for themselves whether these nuances exist. 2 Pelling (1979), esp. 78–9 and 86–7 {= (2002) 6–7, 14–15} (on Brutus); Moles (1979) xxvii–lxi {= (2017) 15–40}; (1988) 26–32. 3 2.4, 5–8 (the Greek letters); 21.6, 22.4–6, 24.3 (by implication); 28.1, 2 (by implication); 29.9–11; 53.6–7; letters probably also underly 28.4–5 (cf. 29.5) and 38.6–7, and perhaps more of ch. 21: Moles (1979) l {= (2017) 32–3} and nn. ad loc. 4 Trans. by D. C. Innes ap. Russell–Winterbottom (1972) 211; the judgement is also exploited by Harrison (1995) 59. 5 Octavian who became Augustus was born C. Octavius; ‘Octavianus’ is the modified gentilicium (clan name) of ‘Octavius’, acquired when, under Julius Caesar’s will, he got the name © Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_016

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feared a despot who hated him, and pursued policies which meant the choice of humane slavery, when he declared in letters and speeches that Caesar was a good man. ‘Our ancestors, however’, he says, ‘would not endure even gentle despots.’ (5) He himself, up to this point in time, had not definitely decided whether to fight or remain quiet, but of one thing only he was determined—not to be a slave. (6) He was amazed that Cicero dreaded a civil war with all its perils but did not fear a shameful and ignoble peace, and that, as the price of expelling Antony from the tyranny, he requested the establishment of Caesar as tyrant. This passage reworks sentiments from Ad Brutum 1.16 and 1.17.6 The allusions to ‘Caesar’ within the letters as quoted naturally follow the allusion to ‘Caesar’ in the introductory comment, which itself follows allusion to ‘the young Caesar’ in the preceding narrative (22.1). ‘Caesar’ glosses the originals’ problematic ‘Octavius’.7 The different ⟦142⟧ ordering of the material in Plutarch from the originals might indicate use of memory,8 but more likely conscious re-writing, since the passage is in fact well structured.9 The quotation echoes, but adapts to Plutarch’s re-ordering, Ad Brutum 1.17.6 ‘but our forefathers were not willing that even a parent should be a master’. Thus ‘gentle despots’ picks up from ‘humane slavery’.10 In one section Plutarch’s rendering surpasses the existing manuscript readings: ‘he declared in letters … that Caesar was a good man’ glosses Ad Brutum 1.17.6, where (a) the manuscripts’ ‘Antonius’ should be corrected to ‘Octavius’; (b) the manuscripts’ ‘scribis’ (‘you’ [Atticus, addressee

 ‘Caesar’. In modern usage ‘Octavian’, while retaining an allusion to his birth name, usefully distinguishes him (a) from Julius Caesar; (b) from his own ‘reinvention’ as Augustus in 27 BC. Although others applied the name Octavianus to him in the early period after his formal acceptance of Caesar’s will, whether he himself ever did is unclear: cf. Syme (1939) 112, ‘it will be understood that the aspirant to Caesar’s power preferred to drop the name that betrayed his origin’; contra, Shackleton Bailey (1991) 60 (cf. 75): ‘that he did not combine [the name Caesar] with … “Octavianus” is sometimes asserted but for this period not proved’; cf. also below, p. 119 and n. 74. Nomenclature becomes crucial in Ad Brut. 1.16 and 1.17 (below, p. 116), but ‘Octavian’ remains a convenient term. 6 Which are too long for quotation but will need to be consulted (for a convenient translation see below, n. 11). 7 See below, p. 116. 8 Pelling (1979) 93 and n. 140 {= (2002) 21 and 42 n. 140}. 9 Moles (1979) 298 {= (2017) 244} (requiring modification in the light of n. 11 [‘scribit’]). 10 Unless in Plutarch πατέρας (Coraes, Ziegler) is read, glossing ‘parentem’; the decision is delicate, but I (now) think it is better to retain the MSS reading, especially as ‘gentle despots’ seems to interact with the emphasis in 1.2–3 (p. 108) on Brutus’ own ‘gentleness’, which contrasts with his ancestor’s ⟦163⟧ ‘hardness’ in his rage against ‘the tyrants’.

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of this particular letter] write’) should be corrected to ‘scribit’ (‘he [Cicero] writes’). That is: ‘however good a man, as he writes, Octavius may be’.11 Plutarch had already exploited these two letters in Cicero (45.2 ‘The youth [Octavian] made up to him [Cicero] to such an extent as actually to call him father. Brutus was extremely indignant at this and in his letters to Atticus12 attacked Cicero, saying that in courting Caesar through fear of Antony he was clearly not trying to achieve freedom for his country but wooing a humane master for himself’; also Comparison 4.4 ‘Brutus also wrote to him, accusing him of having reared a greater and more grievous tyranny than the one which had been overthrown by himself’). (ii) Brut. 29.8–11 That Brutus trusted not so much in his power as in his virtue is clear from what he writes. (9) When he was already nearing the moment of danger, he wrote to Atticus that his affairs were in the fairest position that fortune could bestow, for he would either conquer and free the Roman people, or die and be released from slavery; while all their other circumstances were safe and secure, only one thing was uncertain—whether they would live with freedom or die. (10) He says that Mark Antony was paying a fitting penalty for his folly, inasmuch as, when he could have been numbered with men such as Brutus and Cassius and Cato, he had given himself to Octavius as a mere appendage; (11) and that if he should not now be defeated with him, in a little while he would fight against him. In these things, then, he seems to have prophesied excellently as regards the future. The letter quoted here is otherwise unattested (though it influenced the historical tradition).13 Note that Octavian is explicitly ‘Octavius’. There are, however, major problems. First, the authenticity of the Greek collection and of the three Latin letters here attributed to Brutus has been questioned by some modern scholars; if these scholars are right, the objective

11 ‘Octavius’ (Tunstall) is accepted by most editors (allusion to Octavian is certain); ‘scribit’ is Shackleton Bailey’s emendation (1980) 143 and 254, bettering his translation (1978) II.370. 12 A slip, since the following sentiment glosses Ad Brut. 1.16.7 (to Cicero); explained by the fact that the information about Octavian’s calling Cicero ‘father’ derives from Ad Brut. 1.17.5, which is addressed to Atticus: Moles (1988) 196. 13 See n. 68 below.

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foundation of Plutarch’s interpretation of Brutus is weakened.14 Secondly, Plutarch’s own words (53.7)15 indicate ⟦143⟧ the existence of scholarly debate about some of the letters already in the first and second centuries AD; the Greek letters certainly aroused scepticism in the ancient world;16 and, as we shall see, the Latin manuscript tradition has also been invoked as evidence of ancient rejection of the two Latin letters quoted in 22.4–6. Hence the still more embarrassing possibility that even by the critical standards of his own age Plutarch was building his interpretation upon unsound material. This paper is concerned alike with the question of the authenticity of the letters and with Plutarch’s handling of them. The two topics are not finally separable. As regards the authenticity question, it will be argued that in several key respects the significance of Plutarch’s evidence has been overlooked, indeed that the whole authenticity question (the question, that is, of both the Greek and the Latin letters) hinges crucially on a single passage of Brutus. Conversely, assessment of the validity of Plutarch’s interpretation of Brutus involves the authenticity question; here it will be claimed that (with the importation of some obvious and necessary qualifications) Plutarch was essentially right. 1

The Greek Letters17

There is extant a collection of seventy Greek letters attributed to Brutus, with avowedly invented replies from the various recipients. The collection is effectively undatable and the introductory wording implies the prior existence of at least one other such collection. Plutarch quotes three of these letters in Brutus 2.6–8; despite small textual divergences, he is using the extant collection or something very like it.18 The letters’ authenticity has been discussed quite extensively. Believers in varying degrees of authenticity (ranging from the whole collection to a small core) include some very distinguished scholars: Gelzer, Ramsay MacMullen, Wardman, M. L. Clarke, and Torraca in his full edition and commentary of

14 Naturally, disputed letters are not Plutarch’s only evidence for Brutus’ character. 15 See p. 105. 16 Philostratus II.258K = nr. IV, p. 14 Hercher; Photius Ep., nr. VI, p. 16 Hercher, with Smith (1936) 194–5. 17 Smith (1936); Meucci (1942); Torraca (1959); Deininger (1966); Moles (1979) 44–55 {= (2017) 69–76} (anticipating some of the following arguments); Rawson (1986) 107 {= (1991) 494–5}. 18 Details (here irrelevant) in Moles (1979) 44–55 {= (2017) 69–76}.

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1959.19 However, in 1936 R. E. Smith argued strongly for complete forgery, largely on the basis of conflict between the historical data of the letters and those of ‘the historical sources’ (the narratives of Appian, Dio, and Plutarch; the Latin letters of Cicero and Brutus).20 These days, thanks to the work of such scholars as Fehling, Hartog, Woodman, and Pelling, we should be less impressed by the notion of the objectivity of so-called historical sources; nevertheless, given the problematic status of many ancient letter-collections, Smith’s basic criterion retains validity. Even more trenchantly, Elizabeth Rawson emphasised the discrepancy between ‘the exaggeratedly brief, unremittingly gnomic and antithetic Brutan ⟦144⟧ letters’ and real contemporary letters from Roman generals to Greek cities as preserved on stone.21 Personally, I am convinced that all the letters are spurious. They are rhetorical exercises of a familiar kind—the invented letters of great political figures of the past.22 Yet Plutarch’s treatment of the Greek letters deserves detailed consideration. For there remain a few scholars who believe that, as regards the authenticity of the three Greek letters cited—which happen to be invulnerable to Smith’s criterion of incompatibility with the historical record—Plutarch’s evidence has ‘an incontestable value’.23 On the contrary, when analysed in detail, Plutarch’s subtle treatment shows that he believes not in the letters’ authenticity but in their spuriousness. Brut. 2.5–8 runs as follows: In Latin, then, Brutus was competently trained for narrative and pleading cases, but in Greek he is sometimes in his letters [ἐπιστολαῖς] remarkable [παράσημος]24 in his practice of apophthegmatic and Spartan brevity. (6) He writes, for example, when he had already embarked on the war, to the Pergamenes: ‘I hear that you have given money to Dolabella; if you gave it 19 Gelzer (1917) 1011–12; MacMullen (1966) 6; Wardman (1974) 227; Clarke (1981) 61, 141 n. 4; Torraca (1959). 20 Smith has no occasion to use the disputed Ad Brut. 1.16 and 17. 21 Rawson (1986). 22 At the conference John Dillon suggested that the letters might be authentic in the sense of being fictional compositions in aphoristic ‘Seven-Sages’ style by Brutus himself. But, although this suggestion coheres with one element of the epistolary style, with Brutus’ general philosophical interests, and (to some extent) with his style of utterance, it sits ill with the political Realien of the letters and with what might appear to be the menacing unpleasantness of their tone. 23 Torraca (1959) XXII. 24 The characterisation applies only to some of the Greek letters, not to Brutus’ general Greek style, pace the translations of Perrin (1918) 131 and Flacelière–Chambry (1978) 96; on the Greek construction and the translation ‘remarkable’ see the text.

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willingly, confess that you have been wronging me; if unwillingly, prove it by giving willingly to me.’ (7) Again, to the Samians: ‘Your plans are paltry, your services slow. What do you envisage as the end of this?’ And another: ‘The Xanthians, looking down on my benefactions, have made their country a grave for their madness, but the Patareans, entrusting themselves to me, lack nothing in administering every detail of their freedom. So it is possible for you to choose either the decision of the Patareans or the fate of the Xanthians.’ (8) Such, then, is the type (γένος) of his remarkable (little) letters [ἐπιστολιῶν]. A preliminary point already noted is that Plutarch elsewhere (53.5–7) reveals full awareness that there was an authenticity problem about some of the letters attributed to Brutus, and indeed that some of them were inauthentic. The passage comes at the very end of the Life, just before the commencement of the formal Comparison, and requires full quotation: As for Porcia, Brutus’ wife, Nicolaus the philosopher [FGrHist 90 F 99] and also Valerius Maximus [4.6.5] record that, when she wished to die, none of her friends would allow her to do so but stayed with her and kept close watch; so she snatched coals from the fire, swallowed them, kept her mouth fast closed and so perished. (6) And yet there is extant a letter [ἐπιστολή] of Brutus to his friends blaming them and lamenting concerning Porcia, on the ground that she had been neglected by them and had chosen to depart from life because of illness. (7) So Nicolaus seems to have been ignorant of the chronology, since the (little) letter [ἐπιστόλιον] ⟦145⟧ actually allows one to infer the suffering25 and the love of the wife and the manner of her end, if, that is, it is one of the genuine [γνησίων] ones. Plutarch’s meaning at 2.5 seems straightforward: Brutus’ Greek epistolary style is sometimes παράσημος, ‘remarkable’, a term which alludes to the common idea of style as χαρακτήρ (‘stamp’; LSJ II.5). The basic image is one of coinage or metal-engraving. The syntax of the sentence works like φανερῶς/δῆλός εἰμι + participle (= ‘I am clear[ly] doing’). I have chosen the translation ‘remarkable’ (‘remarquable’ [Flacelière–Chambry]), because it retains the notion of ‘marking’; it can be applied to a person or his activities or literary products, and it 25 ‘Suffering’ essays a double reference: to Porcia’s mental and emotional ‘suffering’ and to her ‘suffering’ through illness; Perrin’s out-dated ‘distemper’ suggests the same effect. There are other ways of interpreting πάθος.

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can be used ironically (‘a remarkable coincidence’ can mean what it says, or, facetiously, the opposite). The introduction to the letter to the Pergamenes maintains the innocent tone. But in sections 6 and 7 Plutarch’s own staccato phrasing seems almost to outdo, or parody, Brutus’ ‘Laconic’ style, exceeding the requirements of the ‘trick of style … by which one imitates the writer one is talking about.’26 He then repeats the word παράσημος, but now attaches it to the letters themselves. In contrast to the first use, where the sentence structure is such as to render the word relatively innocuous, it is here thrust into prominence. Moreover, whereas at the beginning Brutus was only ‘sometimes’ παράσημος in the letters, now the letters in general are παράσημα. The effect, surely, is to suggest another, and extremely common, application of the word: ‘counterfeit’.27 The letters have also changed from ἐπιστολαί in 2.5 to ἐπιστόλια in 2.8. At first sight, this is simply explained: whereas ἐπιστολαί refers to a genre, ἐπιστόλια is descriptive, and the diminutive form matches both Brutus’ and Plutarch’s own stylistic brevity. But Plutarch, like other ancient writers, often uses diminutives to convey distance or irony,28 and the diminutive strengthens the effect suggested by παρασήμων. Chapter 2.5–8 is also a passage whose full meaning only becomes clear later, or through re-reading. The reader whose suspicions have been aroused by the phrasing of 2.5–8 can only have them confirmed by the explicit admission at 53.7 that some of Brutus’ letters were inauthentic. And chapter 53 makes exactly the same move from the seemingly neutral ‘letter’/ἐπιστολή (53.6), to the playful (53.7) ‘the (little) letter/ἐπιστόλιον … if, that is, it is one of the genuine ones’, from the apparently authentic to the possibly spurious. There will be more to say about the function of 53.7. Wider structural considerations support this reading of chapters 2 and 53. First, chapters 1 and 2 are thematically intertwined. Chapter 1 focuses on the debate over the authenticity of Brutus’ claimed ‘birth’/‘family’ ⟦146⟧ (γένος): was he descended from the first consul? The end of 2 treats ‘the type [γένος] of his striking (little) letters (ἐπιστολίων)’. The debate about γένος in 1 activates the possibility of debate about γένος ἐπιστολίων in 2. This possibility is then explicitly mentioned in 53.7; it is also worth recalling the literal meaning of ‘genuine’ (γνησίων) in 53.7: ‘truly belonging to the γένος’. Another link between chapters 1 and 2 consists of metallic imagery. In 1.1–8 Plutarch richly develops the moral implications of L. Brutus’ bronze statue:

26 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) xii. 27 ⟦164⟧ LSJ s.v.; for a good Plutarchean parallel see p. 107. 28 Cf. Brut. 5.3, 4; 13.3; 53.7 (text).

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The ancestor [πρόγονος] of Marcus Brutus was Junius Brutus whom the ancient Romans set up in bronze on the Capitol in the middle of the kings with drawn sword, as having most steadfastly overthrown the Tarquins. (2) But that Brutus, like cold-forged swords,29 having a character which was hard by nature and not softened by reason, ran aground to the extent of son-slaying in his passion against the tyrants, but this one, with whom this writing is concerned, thoroughly mixing his character with education and reason by means of philosophy … seems to have been most harmoniously attempered for the good, (4) so that even those who hated him because of the conspiracy against Caesar attached to Brutus whatever noble [γενναῖον] thing the deed bore, but ascribed the more unpleasant features of what was done to Cassius, who was a kinsman of Brutus and a friend but who was not so unalloyed30 and pure in his disposition. Brutus does belong to the γένος of his claimed πρόγονος, L. Brutus, but he is of better metal than he and of better metal also than Cassius, another kinsman, and consequently his participation in the assassination of Caesar is truly ‘noble’ (γενναῖος). The argument moves from mere nobility of birth to true nobility, that of character. It is then shocking to learn in 2 that Brutus is ‘counterfeit’/παράσημος—or rather that some of his letters are. Those letters, then, are of base metal. How to Distinguish the Flatterer from the Friend 65B illustrates the same use of παράσημος within a mixture of metallic and ‘genetic’ imagery: ‘but the flatterer is false, illegitimate, and debased, inasmuch as he fully understands that he is committing a crime against friendship, which in his hands becomes a counterfeit [παράσημον] coin, as it were.’ Secondly, as usual, ring structure contributes vitally to the creation of meaning.31 The reference at the beginning and end of chapter 1 to L. Brutus’ statue is ringed by the reference to Brutus’ statue at the end of the Comparison, i.e., at the end of the whole Dion–Brutus pair;32 similarly, the reference in 2 29 Perrin’s ‘like the tempered steel of swords’ misses the point: ‘cold-forged’ metal is unyielding and brittle. 30 ἁπλοῦς used of metal: LSJ III.d; the inspiration of the general psychology of ch. 1 is Plat. Rep. 410c–12b, which also contains the germ of Plutarch’s metallic imagery (411a10–b1): a further indication of how integral this imagery is to Plutarch’s thought. 31 Cf. Moles (1988) 12–16 for a quasi-theoretical discussion. 32 Comp. 5.2–4: ‘A bronze statue of Brutus stood in Mediolanum in Cisalpine Gaul. This statue Caesar [Augustus] later saw, as it was a good likeness and charmingly worked, and passed by; then, having stopped, after a little in the hearing of many he called the magistrates, claiming that their city had been caught violating its treaty, since it had an enemy in its midst. (3) At first, then, as was natural, they denied it, and looked at each other at a loss as to whom he meant. Caesar turned towards the statue and knitting his brows said:

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to letters of Brutus is ringed by the reference to possibly inauthentic letters of Brutus at the end of the Brutus narrative; similarly also, the word πρόγονος of Brutus’ family γένος in 1.1 is ringed by the word γνησίων (or not-γνησίων) of Brutus’ letters in 53.6. By 53.7, then, the reader should be in no doubt about ⟦147⟧ Plutarch’s view of the authenticity problem presented by Brutus’ ‘remarkable’ Greek letters. What, then, does 2.5–8 do? The section has some justification in formal terms (a statesman’s literary and oratorical abilities being a standard element of Plutarchean biography); its particular flavour is rather similar to the many passages in the Lives collecting notable dicta.33 Plutarch himself greatly approves of ‘brevity’ (βραχυλογία) as a rhetorical mode (as the opposite of mere rhetorical flummery).34 The section has still other thematic implications: it evokes Brutus’ philolaconism35 and helps to maintain the central theme of the struggle against tyranny (for which the Spartans were proverbially famous; cf. also 2.7 ‘freedom’). It also intersects with a genuine and important aspect of Brutus’ character, well illustrated in the Life36—his penchant for brief, pregnant, utterances. But there is more. Just as we are already in the age of a post-modernist Thucydides, so we are now perhaps entering the age of a post-modernist Plutarch.37 This is, I believe, a promising, but perilous, road. Nevertheless, I would maintain that Brutus is rather more complex and ambivalent morally than is generally supposed. Chapter 2 contributes to this process. For it seems to provide evidence that casts Brutus in rather a harsh light (if letters naturally reveal character [Eum. 11.3; cf. the introductory passage from Demetrius], brevity of utterance is particularly revelatory: Lyc. 20). What price the Brutus upon whose ‘mildness’/πραότης Plutarch lays such stress (1.3, 29.3)? Is Brutus truly of the true metal of chapter 1, or is he in some latent sense ‘debased’? At the end of the Life, at 53.7, one of the functions of the renewed doubt over one of

33 34 35 36 37

“But is not this our enemy who stands here?” All the more dumbfounded, they fell silent. (4) But he, smiling, praised the Gauls for being steadfast to their friends even in adversity, and ordered the statue to remain in place’ (note the further ring between ‘steadfast’ [βεβαίους] here and ‘most steadfastly’ [βεβαιότατα] in Brut. 1.1). On Plutarch’s rich and evocative use of statues in the Lives see Mossman (1991). E.g., Lyc. 19–20; Them. 18; Cat. mai. 8–9; Lys. 22; Gracc. 25.4–6; Flam. 17; Dem. 11.5–7; Cic. 25, 38; Phoc. 9.8. Wardman (1974) 227–8. Ad Att. 15.9.1; this theme will be chillingly reversed at 46.1–5, where Brutus promises that, if they fight well, his men can plunder Sparta. Moles (1983). Connor (1977); in Plutarchean scholarship I think, for example, of Duff (1997) and Pelling (1997).

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Brutus’ letters is to reactivate the question of Brutus’ ‘nobility’ (γενναιότης) just before the formal Comparison, in which Brutus’ merits are re-weighed by comparison with those of Dion.38 It is true that on my earlier analysis the evidence of the Greek letters is finally rejected, the letters themselves being counterfeit, but these troubling questions about Brutus have been raised and they link with other questionings in the narrative, and in any case Plutarch’s rejection of the authenticity of the Greek letters is not formally unequivocal.39 Finally, chapter 2 enables Plutarch to introduce some remarkable and (even in his own day) controversial material and to imply his own opinion of its authenticity. All in all, the function of 2.5–8 is extremely complex and such complex ambiguity is, I would maintain, not untypical of Plutarch’s art. To return to the historical problem. In so far as there remains any authenticity question about the Greek letters attributed to Brutus, this ⟦148⟧ analysis of 2.5–8 disposes of any lingering appeals to the incontestable value of Plutarch’s evidence on the side of the authenticity of even a few of the letters: rather, it is his evidence which drives home the case for the spuriousness of the entire collection. 2

The Latin Letters

Since the end of the nineteenth century most scholars have held the Cicero– Brutus collection as a whole to be authentic40 and controversy has confined itself to two letters: Ad Brutum 1.16 (Brutus to Cicero) and 1.17 (Brutus to Atticus). In order to sidestep the irritating complexities of numeration spawned by numerous different editorial recensions, I shall refer to the two letters together as ‘the letters in question’ and separately to ‘1.16 (to Cicero)’ and ‘1.17 (to Atticus)’. As we have seen, these letters are extensively quoted or paraphrased by Plutarch, in Cicero, as well as in Brutus. The best argued and most influential rejectionist case of the nineteenth century was that of O. E. Schmidt in 1884.41 From 1899 for about eighty years most Anglo-Saxon and Irish scholars relied upon Tyrrell and Purser’s great Trinity edition of Cicero’s correspondence for a sober, though mostly negative, 38

For the Comparisons’ role in reactivating and reinterpreting the moral problems of the narratives see Pelling (1997), making the best possible case for them. 39 The ‘Caesar’s ghost’/δαίμων story in Brutus achieves even greater complexity through similar indeterminacy of truth status: cf., briefly, Moles (1985). 40 A rare recent exception is Vozza (1976/77), whose arguments have attracted little attention and less assent. 41 Schmidt (1884), ⟦165⟧ esp. 630–5.

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defence of authenticity, even though Tyrrell and Purser held both Brutus and the letters in question in low esteem.42 But in 1980 the leading Ciceronian scholar Shackleton Bailey, who had first accepted the letters as genuine and then become agnostic, pronounced them to be unquestionably spurious, a pronouncement which he has since reiterated.43 Recently Harvey and Beaujeu have argued in his support, though both largely summarise his treatment.44 Otherwise there have been occasional squeaks of protest from unreconstructed believers such as Miriam Griffin and myself;45 Shackleton Bailey’s pronouncement also impelled three distinguished Oxford historians, Miriam Griffin, Elizabeth Rawson, and David Stockton (hereafter referred to as ‘the Oxford triumvirate’), to meet informally to decide whether the letters in question should be abolished from the Oxford ancient history syllabus. They decided that the letters were genuine.46 Nevertheless, in print there has hitherto been no systematic statement of the case for authenticity. To rejectionists the letters in question are rhetorical ‘blow-ups’ of two genuine Brutan letters, Ad Brut. 1.4 and 1.4a, with which they have clear conceptual and verbal similarities. On the rejectionist view the letters are of poor quality, alike on literary, political, and moral planes. Believers, however, differ widely in their qualitative assessments. ⟦149⟧ Tyrrell and Purser’s negative judgement is not shared by the greatest Roman historian of this century, who invests the letters with an almost choric solemnity to bring out the deeper realities (as he sees them) of the struggle between Octavian, Antony, and Cicero.47 Rejectionists and believers alike hold that the two letters in question stand or fall together, which is clearly correct (most of the concrete arguments in fact concern the letter to Atticus). As we assess the arguments, we should 42 Tyrrell–Purser (1904–33) VI.cxxv–cxxviii; cxxxi; (~ 18991 VI.cxi–vii; 153–4). 43 Acceptance: Shackleton Bailey (1991) 75 (piquantly, therefore, Shackleton Bailey is in print in 1991 as accepting letters whose authenticity he himself had rejected in 1980, the explanation being incomplete revision of the first edition); agnostic: Shackleton Bailey (1978) II.343; pronouncement: (1980) 10–14; (1988), ‘praefatio’; (1993) 547. 44 Harvey (1991), esp. 22–9; Beaujeu (1991) 251–5; cf. also Gowing (1992) 152–3 (nn. 29 and 31). 45 Moles (1982) 138–9; (1983) 765 {above, p. 19} and nn. 6–8; (1988) 196; Griffin (1989) 19 n. 32 {= (2018) 351 n. 32}; Mitchell (1991) 321; Rawson (1994) 487 and n. 111; Habicht (1990) 79 and 128 n. 55 (apparently unaware of current controversy) and Sedley (1997) also believe the letters authentic. I thank Dr Sedley for sending me this important paper, which strengthens the case for substantive philosophical influence upon both Brutus and Cassius. 46 Miriam Griffin kindly sent me a copy of the brief summary of the triumvirate’s deliberations which she gives her students, and I have taken the liberty of citing it hereafter. 47 Syme (1939) 184: ‘Octavianus was a greater danger to the Republic than Antonius: that was the argument of the sombre and perspicacious Brutus. Two letters reveal his insight …’ Indeed, in Syme (1939) Brutus plays a role rather like that of Asinius Pollio, albeit much smaller (cf. 58–9, 138, 143, 203, 320).

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remember that the writer of both letters is supposedly angry and that the historical Brutus did have a temper, though he lost it only occasionally (e.g., Brut. 34.3, 45.9). Consequently, while appeals to writers’ (or speakers’) subjective emotions as explanations for inconsistency are easily overplayed, we should not be disconcerted by a little exaggeration or distortion. The main arguments, most of which involve consideration of Plutarch’s evidence, are as follows: (i) Transmission. Rejectionists find two peculiarities. First, in two manuscripts one or both of the letters is/are found apart from the rest of the collect­ ion: Bodleianus Canonicus Lat. 244 has both after Ad familiares; Bodleianus 197 has only 1.17 (to Atticus), between Somnium Scipionis and an Ars metrica. Secondly, why is a letter to Atticus found in a collection of Ciceronian letters ‘To and from Brutus’?48 The latter point seems trivial: Atticus might easily have sent a copy to Cicero, just as, according to the letter to Cicero (1.16.1), he sent Brutus a copy of Cicero’s letter to Octavian, or Cicero sent Atticus a copy of Antony’s letter, which duly appears in the Ad Atticum collection (Att. 14.13a); and/or Tiro or a later editor might have been responsible for introducing into the collection a letter so closely parallel to the letter to Cicero, borrowing the letter to Atticus from a collection of letters not in Cicero’s name but in Brutus’ (below). The first argument is even weaker. Non-textual critics can only marvel that rejectionists apparently give greater weight to the dislocation of the letters in question in only two minor manuscripts than to their presence in the tradition as a whole. The Oxford triumvirate rightly emphasises that even in the manuscript tradition as we have it the two letters always occur with genuine Ciceronian material, and that they also occur along with the others (except the first five) in manuscripts transmitting the letters to Quintus and the letters to Atticus. Still more important is the fact that Plutarch’s evidence shows that the letters in question were part of a collection of letters attributed to Brutus already in the early second century.49 This collection must have been quite extensive and looks perfectly reliable. Not only does ⟦150⟧ Plutarch’s summary ‘such was Brutus in his first letters’ (Brut. 23.1) indicate access to more such letters, but he elsewhere cites several otherwise unknown letters of Brutus, presumably Latin, whose content appears entirely unobjectionable, and whose authenticity (with the single exception, to which I shall return, of the already-quoted Brut. 29.9–11) is freely conceded by rejectionists of the two

48 Schmidt (1884); Shackleton Bailey (1980) 11; Harvey (1991) 29 n. 67. 49 For such collections see Schanz–Hosius (1927) 397.

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letters in question.50 He also cites (Brut. 21.6) a letter from Brutus to Cicero which is lost but to which Cicero himself refers (Ad Att. 15.26.1). Use by Plutarch of Cicero’s letters to Brutus seems excluded by Brut. 26.6: ‘For a long time, then, he held Gaius [Antonius] in honour and would not take away the insignia of his command, although, so they say, many, including Cicero, wrote and told him to kill him.’51 Furthermore, as we have seen, Plutarch knows and acknowledges the existence of inauthentic Brutan letters, but is absolutely committed to the two letters in question, whose authenticity is one of the bedrocks of his claims for Brutus’ moral integrity. No doubt it would be naïve to uphold Plutarch himself as any sort of authority in such questions of authenticity. But not only did Brutus’ works survive up to Plutarch’s own day, they were widely read,52 and would have had particular appeal to the sort of Roman philosophical or ‘philosophical-opposition’ circles with which Plutarch was personally acquainted.53 So it is not a matter of Plutarch’s individual judgement, but of an ancient consensus on the authenticity of these letters. It may be said that such an ancient consensus carries little weight, but this particular consensus is fully cognisant that other letters attributed to Brutus were spurious. There is no parallel between Plutarch’s use of the two letters in question and his use of the (as we have seen, obviously spurious) Greek letters, since (as we have also seen) Plutarch does not naively accept the authenticity of the latter. Moreover, the letters in question were attested in at least two separate ancient manuscript traditions: one, under Cicero’s name, which Plutarch did not use but which issued in the surviving collection; another, under Brutus’, which Plutarch did use (and which, incidentally, as we have seen, twice provided a better reading than the surviving collection).54 Thus transmission supports authenticity, not inauthenticity. (ii) Dating. This difficult and technical question cannot be totally ignored: one of Schmidt’s arguments for the letters’ spuriousness was that they could not be fitted chronologically into the series, and Schmidt made major contributions to the establishment of the chronology of the whole Ciceronian collection. Plutarch’s contextualisations, though sometimes adduced, are of course chronologically ⟦151⟧ worthless, as usual. I imply here no criticism: he is motivated by thematic considerations, though, of course, also as usual, he 50 Brut. 2.4; 21.6; 24.3 (concerning Cicero’s son); 28.1–2, 4–5; 38.6–7; above, n. 3. 51 Pelling (1979) 87 n. 93 {= (2002) 15, 37–8 n. 93}. 52 Philosophy: Sen. Cons. Helv. 9.4–8; Quint. 10.1.123; Tac. Dial. 18.2–5; oratory: Quint. 10.1.123; 12.10.11; Tac. Dial. 18.2–5; 21.2–6. 53 Jones (1971) 23–4. 54 See p. 102 and n. 11.

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provides a specious chronological framework.55 On various internal grounds, 1.17 (to Atticus) implies May/June 43; 1.16 (to Cicero) c. mid-July.56 The chronology and interrelationships with undisputed letters are tight (as is natural), but in my opinion possible, and Shackleton Bailey and his followers have in fact not invoked the chronological argument.57 But one important point should be made: the later the letters, the better their political analysis. For it was in this period that Cicero’s policy of elevating Octavian allegedly only in order to crush Antony was beginning to unravel, as Octavian proved ever less malleable and ever more ambitious; and it looks as if Cicero himself was in shady negotiations with Octavian (which he could never reveal to Brutus) over a joint consulship. This latter point is controversial. Suffice it to say that the evidence of Plutarch, Appian, and Cassius Dio cannot be dismissed (as it often is) as a concoction of ‘late sources’, since one of the ultimate sources was Augustus’ own Autobiography, and, almost certainly, Asinius Pollio’s Histories agreed.58 This background gives particular urgency to 1.16 (to Cicero) in mid-July, whose starting-point is the pleading letter Cicero allegedly wrote to Octavian about the position of Caesar’s assassins, a letter which naturally outraged ‘Brutus’/Brutus (1.16.1). Cicero was in a very difficult position: Octavian was out of control, demanding a consulship, Cicero wanted to be consul himself and would have to have Octavian as his colleague, he was still officially allied with the Liberators and was urging Brutus to return to Italy, and yet Octavian had already broken with D. Brutus and the first thing he did when he actually became consul by force on 19 August was to establish a court to try Caesar’s assassins. At that point, who had proved the better judge of Octavian: Cicero, or the writer of these allegedly forged letters? The question of political insight naturally involves the letters’ judgement of Cicero, as well as Octavian. Here we must consider a charge commonly made by modern scholars (rejectionists and believers alike) against Brutus, and against his biographer Plutarch, a charge which does not necessarily affect the authenticity of the letters but certainly does influence scholars’ attitudes to 55 Cic. 45.2 implies end-44: Moles (1988) 194 (on 44. 1); Comp. 4.4 is effectively timeless; Brut. 22.4–6 implies post-October 44, but the chronology, even on its own terms, fails: Moles (1979) 290–2 {= (2017) 239–41}. These datings are anyway untenable. 56 ⟦166⟧ Lucid observations (shackled only by failure to integrate the vital Porcia evidence [pp. 122–4]) in Shackleton Bailey (1980) 250; 251–2. 57 Harvey (1991) 29 even concedes that ‘both letters fit the chronological context of the authentic letters’. 58 Plut. Cic. 45.5–6, cf. Comp. 3.1, 4.4; App. BC 3.82; Cass. Dio 46.42.2; Moles (1988) 52, 197; Gowing (1992) 151–3. Mitchell’s argument (1991) 321 that Cicero’s evidence excludes this possibility seems credulous.

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their quality, and their assessment of Plutarch’s political understanding. The charge is that simple souls like Brutus and Plutarch did not comprehend the wonderful subtleties of Cicero’s policy towards Octavian. But we are surely all familiar with the experience of having quarrels where one person claims: ‘You don’t understand what I’m saying’, when we know (and they know) that ⟦152⟧ what’s actually happening is that we understand them perfectly well but simply don’t agree with them. So here. Plutarch understood Cicero’s policy of distinguishing Octavian in order to extinguish him, as I think I showed in a 1992 article,59 but he thought it was wrong, because it gave Octavian too much power and was in any case compromised by Cicero’s own ambition for a second consulship. Cicero was doing too many splits and the inevitable result was an unseemly and fatal rupture. Similarly, the historical Brutus writes in Ad Brut. 1.4a.3 (in Shackleton Bailey’s superb translation): ‘I only wish you could see into my heart, how I fear that young man.’ The judgement is all the more penetrating because Brutus, unlike Cicero, had no personal contact with Octavian in 44–43. And in 1.17.2 (to Atticus) the writer clearly understands that Cicero has used Octavian to crush Antony, but fears that the ‘price’ (merces) is too high (danegeld never works). Finally, who can dispute the writer’s insistent allegation that Cicero was a dreadful sycophant? So we should not accept Shackleton Bailey’s claim that, if genuine, the letters give ‘a poor impression of Brutus’ intellect and personality’.60 On the contrary, they throw a harsh and penetrating light on Cicero’s folly. If their relentless moralising produces a rather chilling detachment from Cicero, this is consistent with the character and epistolary style of the historical Brutus, who responded to the news of Cicero’s murder with the sentiment that ‘he felt shame at the responsibility61 for Cicero’s end rather than a shared sense of grief at the disaster itself, and he blamed his friends in Rome; for they were slaves through their own responsibility rather than the tyrants’ and tolerated being eye-witnesses of things of which even to hear was unendurable’ (Brut. 28.2). (iii) Style.62 This is also a difficult and technical area which exceeds the bounds of the present discussion. There are, however, obvious points. One is pragmatic: scholars of wonderful Latinity (Gelzer, Syme) have accepted the letters; scholars of wonderful Latinity (Schmidt, Shackleton Bailey) have rejected them. Our aesthetic response to the letters is necessarily to some 59 60 61 62

Moles (1992). Shackleton Bailey (1980) 10. As often, αἰτία pivots between ‘objective cause’ and ‘moral responsibility’/‘blame’. Schmidt (1884); Shackleton Bailey (1980) 11; Beaujeu (1991) 253; Harvey (1991) 24–6 (with useful detail). I doubt whether the surviving specimens of Brutus’ Latin suffice to make a computer analysis profitable.

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extent subjective and does not allow of conclusive judgements. However, one must agree that there are objective anomalies of language and usage in the collection of Brutus’ letters as a whole, but that they are much more numerous and concentrated in the letters in question. This discrepancy can theoretically be explained in two ways: the letters in question are spurious; or they are legitimately different, because they are long, manifesto-like, letters, in which Brutus naturally adopts the periodic style which he does not elsewhere employ. In itself, the manifesto character of the letters is not ⟦153⟧ implausible, as the leading actors of the drama moved ever closer to the crises which would resolve their various policies—witness Cicero’s own ‘manifesto’ of Ad Brutum 1.15 (July 43) or Plutarch’s contextualisation of the letter of Brut. 29.9–11: ‘when he was already nearing the moment of danger’. In my view, the linguistic arguments are insufficient to prove forgery, and I would like to cite for the defence the observations about the writer’s use of the participle in Laughton’s study of the participle in Cicero.63 He writes: The seven letters from Brutus reveal a strikingly similar tendency [sc. to those of Cicero]; participles are infrequent except in two letters, in both of which Brutus is writing about the subject which most preoccupies him—Cicero’s attitude to Octavian. In 12 [sc. one of the undisputed letters], the letter in which the anxiety first appears, there are 7 participles in little more than a page. Later Brutus devotes to the theme a whole letter [sc. 1.16 (to Cicero)], the five pages of which contain 20 participles … Brutus is genuinely convinced of the falsity of Cicero’s position, and tries every means to demonstrate it. It is this concentration of thought which is reflected in the style of the letter … and particularly in the large number of participles, which … Brutus uses more effectively than any other of Cicero’s correspondents [my italics]. That is an interesting judgement—and it is not just a subjective judgement; it is a quasi-technical observation, and one should set it against the contempt for the style of the letters exhibited by Shackleton Bailey and his followers. Note that Laughton, consciously or not, here echoes ancient estimates of Brutus’ style,64 that, in the case of the participle, he finds the discrepancy in usage between the rest of Brutus’ letters and the manifesto letter exactly paralleled 63 Laughton (1964) 154–6. 64 Ad Att. 14.1.2 (‘whatever he wants, he wants it badly’), cf. Plut. Brut. 6.7; Quint. 12.10.11 (‘gravitas’/weight Brutus’ distinguishing characteristic); Quint. 10.1.123 (on Brutus’ philosophical works: ‘you know that he really feels what he’s saying’).

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in Cicero’s letters,65 and that he is able to give positive value to what others denigrate as mere repetitiveness. The polarisation in the scholarly response to the literary quality of the letters is similar to the situation regarding other Latin authors such as Sallust, Seneca, and Lucan: what for some is tedious repetitiveness for others is density and intensity of meaning. (iv) The use of the name ‘Octavius’ for Octavian, which occurs in 1.16 (to Cicero) in 1, 2, 7, 8, and 11, and in 1.17 (to Atticus) in 5 and 6. Rejectionists raise three objections: (a) the usage is inconsistent with the descriptions of Octavian as ‘Caesari tuo’ and ‘Caesari’ in 1.16 (to Cicero) in 6 and 7, and as ‘Caesar tuus’ and ‘Caesarem’ in Ad Brut. 1.4a.2–3; (b) it has no parallel in Brutus’ genuine letters; (c) it is anyway incomprehensible and hence the work of an incompetent forger.66 ⟦154⟧ In fact, believers from Tyrrell and Purser on have provided at least the rudiments of a satisfactory answer to all three objections. (a) The description of Octavian as ‘Caesar tuus’ is not objective: it is sarcastic—many times over, in fact,67 and, because the references to ‘Caesar’ follow, they remain as it were in inverted commas. These references, two of which are authentically Brutan, actually support the use of a name for Octavian which does not concede his status as Caesar. (b) There is a parallel for ‘Octavius’: the letter of Brut. 29.10–11. Rejectionists have to reject this letter also, in a telling forced escalation of their case. In 1983 I argued for the authenticity of this letter, partly on the ground that it is consistent with the letters in question (which is true, but here circular), but partly also on independent grounds. The arguments are too fiddly for discussion here, but they have not been addressed by the rejectionists and, in my opinion, remain strong.68 (c) The use of ‘Octavius’ seems much more 65 Harvey’s remark ([1991] 25) that ‘Laughton did not comment on the authenticity of this letter’ is misleading. 66 Shackleton Bailey (1980) 11 and 251; Harvey (1991) 26–7; Beaujeu (1991) 253. Alone among rejectionists Shackleton Bailey omits (c), whether because he thinks the case sufficiently proved already, or (I suspect) because he thinks it valueless (p. 118). 67 Sarcastic: Tyrrell and Purser on 1.16.1 {VI.181}; Stockton (1971) 324 n. 64; many times: (a) it is anomalous that Cicero of all people should champion a ‘Caesar’, hence ‘tuus Caesar’ is practically an oxymoron; (b) Octavius/Octavian is of course trying to be another Caesar; (c) he is not properly a ‘Caesar’ at all (see on ‘Octavius’). 68 Shackleton Bailey (1980) 251 does not consider this letter (though citing it as genuine in [1991] 75: cf. n. 43); Harvey (1991) 26 n. 56 notes the problem. Authenticity: Moles (1983) 763–7 {above, pp. 17–20}. Note especially the argument that Val. Max. 6.4.5 and App. BC 4.546f. (the latter based on Asinius Pollio and including the form ‘Octavius’), which are both in their different ways unhistorical, both rework the letter attributed to Brutus. Hence: (a) the letter is very early (because available not only to Val. Max. but also to Pollio); (b) ‘the presumption is strong that these two fabrications, set as they are in

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problematic, because it introduces the vexed topics of so-called ‘testamentary adoption’ and Caesar’s will.69 Yet we should note two preliminary, pragmatic, points: (i) whoever wrote the letters, ‘Octavius’ is a problem requiring explanation; (ii) the ‘incompetent-forger’ hypothesis entails an extraordinarily stupid forger, who could not grasp that on taking Caesar’s name ‘Octavius’ would have become ‘Octavianus’. Could such a forger have been a Roman at all?70 To brave the legal controversies. On the current communis opinio (Weinrib, Schmitthenner, Champlin) ‘testamentary adoption’ is a misconception for ‘the institution of an heir under a condicio nominis ferendi, a condition that the heir take the testator’s name. As with regular adoption … there was no change in agnatic position, that is, the new heir did not enter the testator’s family. Testators did not want such heirs to carry on their family, they wanted them to perpetuate their own name.’71 How does this model affect the various arguments about ‘Octavius’? On one view (Harvey, Beaujeu) ‘Octavius’ cannot be justified by the hypothesis that Brutus did not accept Octavian’s adoption (Tyrrell and Purser, Stockton), because that adoption was ratified by Octavian’s formal acceptance of the inheritance in May 44, after which Octavian became, and (according to Harvey and Beaujeu) was universally referred to as, Caesar (or Octavianus, conceding ‘Caesar’). This view, however, fails to take account of the communis opinio concerning ‘testamentary adoption’. For, on Schmitthenner’s reconstruction, Octavian’s adoption was not entailed by the condicio nominis ferendi: rather, it was a political master-stroke of questionable legality. Hence on this reconstruction it ⟦155⟧ might appear that Brutus could reasonably deny the legality of the adoption and refer to Octavian as Octavius. Nevertheless, there is a big problem with this claim also: on Schmitthenner’s reconstruction denial of the legality of the adoption has strictly nothing to do with the legality of the name, which (again on that reconstruction) was not in question at all. So much on the implications of the communis opinio.

different contexts, derive from something that is itself authentic’ (766). If I were a rejectionist, this letter would make me uneasy. 69 Weinrib (1967); Schmitthenner (1973), with useful earlier analytical bibliography at 104–5; Syme (1982); ⟦167⟧ Shackleton Bailey (1991) 60–4; Champlin (1991) 144–6; Salway (1994) 132. 70 Harvey’s observation ([1991] 26–7): ‘we may suspect that the author of 25 and 26 [i.e., the letters in question], unlike others who concocted literature purporting to be of this age, simply did not know the precise onomastic history of C. Iulius Caesar Octavianus’, is disingenuous: ‘precise onomastic history’ is not in question. 71 Champlin (1991) 144–6.

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Shackleton Bailey, however, has challenged the communis opinio and argued that ‘testamentary adoption’ (which concept he maintains) did, at least sometimes, and in some important practical senses, involve ‘change in agnatic position’, and that in Octavian’s case this was recognised by Cicero, Antony, Plancus, and many others.72 But even more important, Shackleton Bailey notes that in his letter to Cicero (Fam. 10.24.5) Plancus observes that it would have been ‘turpe’ (‘dishonourable’) for him not have recognised Octavian as Caesar’s son. From this Shackleton Bailey draws a key inference: The Dictator deliberately chose Octavian as his son. The Senate … had ratified the choice, along with the rest of Caesar’s acta, or, if this as a private matter did not come under the general ratification, by their acceptance of his new name in their decrees, etc. But it seems to be implied that they could have ignored it, and that Plancus himself could ignore it, though it would be dishonourable … to do so. Are we to conclude that the consequences of a testamentary adoption might be greater or less according to the view of the persons most concerned, primarily the heir but also the family and friends [I would add, the enemies] of the deceased? That is all the more believable because even inter uiuos the usual consequences could be ignored in practice, as Clodius and others go to show. Further, Shackleton Bailey produces a case of ‘testamentary adoption’ where the adoptee’s vulgar and over-precipitate display of his illustrious new family’s imagines aroused aristocratic hostility.73 Now, whether or not Shackleton Bailey’s continuing defence of the concept of ‘testamentary adoption’ is justified, he has certainly demonstrated the possibility of fluidity in other people’s response to legatees’ changes of name (whatever precisely those changes imply), and of a fluidity of response which could be diversely motivated. 72 Shackleton Bailey (1991) 60–4. Champlin’s counter-argument—‘Shackleton Bailey’s lingering fears that the adoption might have had a legal basis are dealt a serious blow by the fact that women were legally incapable of adoption, yet a certain Livia is recorded as “adopting” Dolabella testamentarily’ ([1991] 145 n. 60)—does not seem (to me) quite to intersect with Shackleton Bailey’s arguments, which (as I read them) are concerned with practical, de facto, consequences (which, nevertheless, are recognised by Romans as real and important) rather than strictly legal considerations. Shackleton Bailey’s case naturally coheres with Suetonius’ words: DJ 83.2 ‘Gaium Octauium etiam in familiam nomenque adoptauit’; Schmitthenner and his followers necessarily dismiss as inaccurate such source formulations, and, still more, those formulations only mentioning adoption (listed in Schmitthenner [1973] 59). 73 Cornelius Scipio Pomponianus Salvitto: Shackleton Bailey (1991) 63, 73–4.

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Against this background, Brutus, as Octavian’s enemy, could surely have refused to dignify him as Caesar, thereby behaving ‘dishonourably’ in the eyes of Caesarians, and taking a radically different position from that of those non-Caesarians such as Cicero who had compromised with the new Caesar, but exploiting the fact that the consequences of such changes of name were in practice open to diverse response. There seems indeed to be a good parallel for such behaviour ⟦156⟧ (even though Shackleton Bailey’s material itself suffices). Obscenities hurled by L. Antonius’ troops against Octavian during the siege of Perusia refer to him both as ‘Octavianus’ and as ‘Octavius’. The former is pejorative (because, while technically entailing ‘Caesar’, it avoids direct use of that august name), the latter, obviously, still more so.74 Shackleton Bailey’s admirably empiricist discussion allows us to some extent to bypass questions of strict legality. It also allows the writer of the disputed letters to refer to Octavian variously, and perfectly consistently, as ‘your Caesar’, ‘Caesar’ (not really a Caesar), and ‘Octavius’ (a miserable parvenu), and to attack ‘Octavius’ for using ‘Caesar’s name’ against ‘Caesar’s assassins’ (1.16.5–6). The implication that Octavius is a miserable parvenu is surely also part of the point in the letter of Brut. 29.9–11. ‘Bruti, Cassii, Catones’—great Roman names, rich in historical association; ‘Antonius’, whose name and character should have put him in the same illustrious company, has attached himself not even to ‘Caesar’, a hateful name but a great one, but to … ‘Octavius’—mere dirt. (I do not pretend that the attitude is attractive, though it is not simply snobbish, and Brutus famously promoted a freedman’s son). The stance in the letters in question is not far from Antony’s furious and contemptuous ‘and you, boy, who owe everything to a name’ (Cic. Phil. 13.24–5), but more nuanced and more complicatedly expressed: Octavian both does, and does not, have the name Caesar; he has it in the sense that he uses it and abuses it; he does not have it in the sense that he does not deserve it and is a mere Octavius.75 The stance is also not merely contemptuous: the writer fully recognises Octavian’s

74 CIL XI 6721.6–11, cited by Schmitthenner (1973) 74 n. 1, cf. also ILLRP II.1107 (p. 303); on ‘Octavianus’ see n. 5 above; intriguingly, ‘Octavius’ is far better attested in the manuscripts of Ad Fam. 16.24.2 (Cicero to Tiro) and retained by Shackleton Bailey, who comments ([1991] 75); ‘the paradosis Octavius need not be wrong’. This example, if accepted, is hardly pejorative but reinforces the arguments for general fluidity of nomenclature, and would show that even Cicero, even after Octavian’s formal acceptance of his legacy, could describe him as Octavius. 75 David Levene reminds me of a lovely modern parallel: Churchill’s allusions (derived from anti-Nazi Viennese journalists of the 30s) to Hitler as Schicklgruber (the former family name).

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formidableness. So interpreted, the writer’s onomastics are alike rhetorically, politically, and socially pointed. The use, then, of the name Octavius is quadruply validated: it is consistent (a) with the fact that, whoever he is, the writer of the letters cannot be an idiot; (b) with the withholding of the name Caesar implicit in the ‘inverted-commas’ use of Caesar; (c) with the letter of Brut. 29.9–11, which has strong claims to be genuine; (d) with contemptuous rejection of Octavian’s status as a Caesar. So far from counting against the authenticity of the letters in question, ‘Octavius’ strongly supports it. (v) Shackleton Bailey’s big argument, which he regards as decisive,76 is the implication in 1.17.1 (to Atticus) that Cicero had called Casca, one of Caesar’s assassins, a sicarius (‘assassin’, ‘murderer’: the term is opprobrious). Shackleton Bailey argues that Cicero could never have done this, since he regarded the assassination as a pulcherrimum factum ⟦157⟧ (‘most beautiful deed’), and that there is, moreover, no external evidence for a quarrel with Casca. The Oxford triumvirate replies that Brutus could, in anger, have exaggerated what Cicero does say in Phil. 2.31, where he uses the word sicarios, and in 10.16, where, in order to praise Octavian more, he implies that he was better because untainted by murder. These suggestions seem to me unhappy. How could Brutus have misinterpreted Phil. 2.31?77 And 10.16 does not carry the implication alleged. Moreover, neither passage explains the allusion to Casca. The objection to Shackleton Bailey’s argument is more fundamental. His starting-point is misconceived. What matters is not Cicero’s true attitude to the assassination but whether one can conceive of a context where for reasons of his own Cicero the chameleon might have found it politic so to blacken one of the assassins. And this is easy—and explicit in the letter: it is when Cicero is flattering Octavian. Tyrrell and Purser are absolutely on target: ‘We must suppose that Cicero had on some occasion, when wishing to ingratiate himself with Octavian, said that Casca was a murderer.’ Of course, we cannot know what Cicero said to Octavian about Caesar’s assassination, but of one thing we can be certain: he did not describe it as a pulcherrimum factum (in which case, by his own unwise logic, he was even bound to describe it as ‘murder’).

76 Shackleton Bailey (1980) 11–12; Harvey (1991) 23–4; Beaujeu (1991) 253–4. 77 ‘I, who am those men’s friend, as I myself admit, or ally, as I am accused by you, say that there is no middle course; I confess that they, if they are not liberators of the Roman people and saviours of the Republic, are worse than murderers (sicarios), worse than assassins, worse even than parricides … What do you, wise and thoughtful fellow, call them?’ Cicero is trying to force Antony into a dilemma, so that Antony’s honouring of Caesar’s assassins should entail his regarding them as liberators and saviours.

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Why Casca? The answer is that Casca was in Rome at the time and, like many of the liberators, including the historical Brutus, may well have felt that Cicero’s elevation of Octavian was altogether excessive; he may indeed have been one of Brutus’ partisans whom Cicero records as having opposed Octavian’s ouatio (Ad Brut. 1.15.9). There is another interesting aspect of this passage: the writer’s allusion to Cicero’s dubious legal position in having the captured Catilinarians executed. For in Ad Brut. 1.4 (c. May 43) the historical Brutus, in justifying his own refusal to execute C. Antonius without proper legal sanction, is clearly needling Cicero by implicit allusion to 63, even though he in fact approved of the Catilinarians’ execution.78 Furthermore, if Brutus could chide Cicero in this way against his considered view, the reverse could surely happen. All in all, the rejectionist argument based on the allusion to Casca is easily parried. (vi) In the same passage the writer complains of Cicero’s excessive boastings about his consulship in contrast to the Liberators’ relative restraint about the Ides of March. Shackleton Bailey argues that Cicero did not so boast in 43 and that this complaint reflects the perspective of imperial times, when Cicero’s boasting became a commonplace of his portrayal.79 The Oxford triumvirate reasonably responds ⟦158⟧ that in Phil. 2.28 the comparison of the two deeds is explicitly made and that this is what will have irked Brutus. Cicero also boasts of his deed in De officiis written in late 44. There are other references too in the Philippics. There is nothing here for the rejectionists, or nothing that could not be explained as pardonable exaggeration. (vii) Shackleton Bailey next writes: ‘§3 alludes to the unsuccessful attempt by Flavius to get Atticus’ support for a republican party fund! A forger would know of this from Cornelius Nepos’ biography of Atticus [Att. 8.3–4], an obvious source, and be sure to drag it in.’ The triumvirate rightly replies that a forger eager to ‘drag it in’ would surely have been more explicit about it. If anything, the very allusive allusion points to authenticity. (viii) Shackleton Bailey finds the sentiment of section 580 incompatible with Brutan authorship on the ground that Brutus himself was a philosopher and had written philosophical works.81 The Oxford scholars reply: ‘But Brutus here wants to convict Cicero of hypocrisy, as the next sentence shows. In any case, he seems to be alluding particularly to Stoic moral philosophy, which 78 ⟦168⟧ Habicht (1990) 115 n. 12; Att. 12.21.1; cf. Brutus’ defence of Milo for the murder of Clodius (Quint. 3.6.93). 79 Shackleton Bailey (1980) 12–13, cl. Plut. Cic. 24, Quint. 11.1.24, and [Sall.] Invect. 6–7. 80 ‘For myself, I no longer allow any value to those arts in which I know Cicero is so well versed. What do they do for him, all his copious writings in defence of national freedom, on dignity, on death, banishment, and poverty?’ 81 Shackleton Bailey (1980) 13; Beaujeu (1991) 254.

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Cicero tended to favour, whereas Brutus was a member of the old Academy, whose ethical theory was less extreme.’ This latter point assumes strict correspondence between the doctrines ancient philosophers expound and the school affiliations they so vigorously assert. In my view, the relationship was not always so tight: Brutus’ formal Academicism, based on the teachings of Antiochus of Ascalon, was in some respects very close to Stoicism, especially in ethics; he himself sometimes adopted Stoic positions; and he could indeed be described loosely, but with some truth, as effectively Stoic.82 Nor does the context of the letter suggest a ‘school’ disagreement. But the wider point is right. The historical Brutus, himself a writer of philosophical works who believed in the efficacy of his philosophy, could surely have thus scorned the inefficacy of Cicero’s philosophical writings; the attack is not on philosophy per se but on the fraudulence of Cicero’s philosophy, voluminous as it was: cf. artibus (pejorative of skills without real moral content), prosunt, copiosissime. Indeed, Cicero had found Brutus’ letter of philosophical consolation on the death (which Cicero took very badly) of his beloved daughter Tullia a ‘scolding letter’ (Att. 13.6.3). (ix) Shackleton Bailey argues that the subsequent contrast between Philippus’ restraint and Cicero’s prodigality in honouring Octavian reflects the situation of May 44, not of 43: ‘Brutus would surely have known and remembered that in the same session of the senate at which ⟦159⟧ Cicero proposed imperium for Octavian, Philippus had proposed a statue’, facts recorded in Cicero’s own manifesto/apologia to Brutus in 1.15, written in mid-July.83 This is a positively bad argument: on any view the date, genuine or dramatic, of the letter to Atticus is before Cicero’s manifesto letter; and, even if Brutus did know of Philippus’ proposal, a statue is not an imperium or an army—the point would still be valid. (x) The reference in 1.17.7 (to Atticus) to the serious ill health of Brutus’ wife Porcia. This raises the question of the date and circumstances of her death.84 82 Moles (1987) 64–5 {below, pp. 622–4}; I should say that Dr Sedley does not at the moment agree that Brutus sometimes adopted Stoic positions; these are difficult areas, involving both the controversial question of how to understand Antiochan ‘syncretism’ and the reconstruction of Brutus’ own philosophical works; but, for example, if the evidence of Cicero and Seneca is right, Brutus’ De uirtute was Stoic rather than Antiochan Academic: see Rawson (1985) 285, to which I would add the observation that Seneca’s account (Ad Helv. 8.1, 9.4–6) does not look like a superficial ‘Stoicisation’ but makes Stoic thinking absolutely integral to the work. 83 Shackleton Bailey (1980) 13–14; Beaujeu (1991) 254. 84 I here resuscitate and, I hope, greatly strengthen, an argument which has disappeared from modern discussion, although its germ is already present in Tyrrell and Purser’s introductory comments on Ad Brutum 1.9 and notes on 1.17.7 {VI. 281–2 and 195}.

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Shackleton Bailey is here at his most cavalier, though, unlike Harvey and Beaujeu, he at least grasps that there is a problem. He writes: ‘Plutarch (Brut. 53) says that in a letter of doubtful authenticity “Brutus” wrote of disease as the cause of Porcia’s suicide. That her death was suicide (by swallowing hot coals) is stated in several later sources and need not be doubted, though some of them erroneously place the event after Philippi.’ We note an immediate paradox: to sustain the case that the letters in question are gross rhetorical forgeries, rejectionists are committed to accepting a version of Porcia’s suicide which has traditionally been regarded as a gross rhetorical invention. But there are more concrete objections. First, it is a misreading of Brut. 53.5–7 to infer that this otherwise unattested letter was in fact of doubtful authenticity. Rather, Plutarch starts off with the juicy version of Porcia’s death, which makes it (a) post-Philippi (hence a suitable pendant to Brutus’ suicide in ch. 52) and (b) highly dramatic (hence worth retailing in its own right and of a piece with Porcia’s characterisation in the Life [cf. 13.3–11; 15.5–9; 23.2–7]). He shores the story up with a characteristic emphasis on ‘Nicolaus the philosopher’ (for philosophers as reliable witnesses cf., e.g., Dion 2.5; Them. 13.5). He then cites contrary, and seemingly superior, evidence: the letter attributed to Brutus (who might be expected to know the facts), which is less juicy in making the suicide (a) pre-Philippi and (b) presumably less heroic—the implication is that Porcia simply abandoned her fight against disease, weakened as she was by longing for Brutus. The citation of the letter is, as it were, the voice of Plutarch the historian, but for moral and artistic reasons he does not want formally to ditch the Nicolaan version, so in turn he raises a question-mark over the letter. But his motive is artistic convenience, even artistic opportunism, not historical scepticism. There is a rather similar messy confusion of Plutarchean roles at the end of Cicero, though there Plutarch jumps the other way—in the direction of historicity.85 Also, as we have seen, the dubiety about the letter links back to the discussion about Brutus’ Greek letters in chapter 2 and ⟦160⟧ thus contributes to a much wider discourse. In short, Plutarch’s evidence does not in fact cast doubt on the letter—rather the reverse. Plutarch actually thinks the letter genuine, but cannot admit it. Second, Shackleton Bailey is simply wrong in claiming that some of the suicide-by-coal versions (besides Nicolaus and Valerius, Martial 1.42, App. BC 85 Cic. 48.2–49.4, with Moles (1988) 200–1; Cat. min. 73.6, where Porcia gives up her life ‘in a manner worthy of her good birth and virtue, as has been written in the Life of Brutus’, is not evidence for ‘what Plutarch really believed’ about Porcia’s death: the moral and artistic requirement there is for a heroic death parallel to that of Cato’s son (73.1–5).

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4.574, Cass. Dio 47.49.3, Polyaen. 8.32) make the suicide pre-Philippi: they all make it post-Philippi, which is clearly in the spirit of the story (the grand suicide after the catastrophe). Clearly, too, Nicolaus is the ultimate source and Plutarch is emphatic that he made it post-Philippi. But Porcia died in c. May 43, as proved by Cicero’s Consolation to Brutus in June (Ad Brut. 1.9). Hence the ‘suicide-by-coal’ version is wrong on chronology. Its account of the manner of Porcia’s death is therefore already suspect (above), even though the viability of suicide by coal has been disputed by scholars.86 Some think it virtually impossible, others (including Shackleton Bailey) find no problem. I find it incredible. One might suggest that the coal story has something to do with the association of Stoics and fire (this is the ultimate personal ‘conflagration’/ἐκπύρωσις, as in Heracles’ suicide), and/or something to do with Nicolaus’ Jewish background (because coals in the mouth purify Moses and other prophets). But the origins of the unhistorical Nicolaan story are irrelevant. It comes to this. The suicide-by-coal version is wrong on the date and surely, on any reasonable view, rather over-heated in its account of the manner of the suicide. By contrast, the letter cited by Plutarch is broadly right on the date, it is far less sensational, and it includes an element absent from the suicide-by-coal versions—namely, the role of sickness in Porcia’s suicide. Now 1.17 (to Atticus) refers to Brutus’ and Atticus’ anxieties about Porcia’s health; it is of the right general dramatic date for Porcia’s illness; there was a plague in Italy at that time (Cass. Dio 45.17.8); and neither this letter nor the letter cited by Plutarch exploits the exciting but unhistorical Nicolaan version (as they could easily have done by antedating the suicide), even though that version became rapidly and widely available. For rejectionists the only possible conclusion is that the forger of these two letters is a better historian than ⟦161⟧ Shackleton Bailey and his followers. For the rest of us, the conclusion is easier: the writer in both cases is Brutus. The argument from the allusion to Porcia’s ill health in 1.17.7 is itself, therefore, virtually decisive for authenticity.87 Note that it is the much maligned Plutarch who provides the final evidence to puncture the rejectionist balloon. Note also that Plutarch has a better nose for distinguishing fictional tragic history from historical fact than have Shackleton Bailey and 86 Howell (1980) 199–200; Woodman (1983) 246–7. 87 Unless, most desperate of expedients, 7 is detached from the rest of the letter; true, Gurlitt wanted this, arguing that 7 is the letter from Brutus to Cicero referred to in Ad Brutum 1.14.1, but, quite apart from the arbitrariness of the severance (7 makes the familiar epistolary transition from public affairs to private), his detailed reconstruction fails: see both Tyrrell–Purser and Shackleton Bailey on 1.17.7.

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his followers.88 Note, finally, that Brut. 53.7 is the single passage which enables us to resolve the remaining authenticity problems concerning both Brutus’ alleged Greek letters and the Latin letters in question.

…

I conclude that the case for the authenticity of the letters in question is overwhelming; it is not just an arid ‘burden-of-proof’ stand-off; there are strong positive arguments for authenticity (nos. i, iv, and x). So what? What does it matter? After all, many scholars, both rejectionists and believers, think that these letters have little or no historical value. But I have already mentioned one reason why they are valuable: namely, that they show, on the part of one of the key actors in the political and military drama, and one usually dismissed as rather obtuse (B/brutus), a far shrewder appreciation of Octavian, of the dangers he represented, and of the aggravation of those dangers by Cicero’s misguided policies, than Cicero himself ever achieved—at least until he was proscribed, when he did indeed attain to tragic recognition of his folly.89 But there is an even more important and fundamental point, and it is a point that has implications both for our understanding of the historical Brutus and for our assessment of the quality of Plutarch’s portrayal of him. The point is this: when Plutarch appeals to these letters as evidence for the serious and profound moral grounding of Brutus’ political activity, he is absolutely right. To say this is not to discount Brutus’ personal ambitions, or the many dreadful things that he did, which do not include his assassination of Caesar, or the various moral agendas and biases and distortions of the moralising Plutarch, or the contrary tendency, his interest in tracing Brutus’ shortcomings and, perhaps, his decline in the period before the battles of Philippi. But the essential point remains: for all his faults, Brutus was a man of formidable political virtue, and Plutarch does right to emphasise it, for such virtue can be a fact of history as important as any other.

88 Plutarch of course has views about ‘tragic history’ and some discrimination therein: de Lacy (1952); Mossman (1988), esp. nn. 6 and 8; which is not to deny (a) that he himself is fully capable of writing ‘tragic history’ when he wishes; (b) that the distinction between ‘tragic history’ and ‘serious’ ancient historiography is itself less than absolute. 89 Cf. Plut. Cic. 46.1, with Moles (1988) 198, and indeed the whole harrowing narrative of chs. 47–8.

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Moles, J. L. (1987) ‘Politics, Philosophy and Friendship in Horace Odes 2.7’, QUCC 25: 59–72 [below, Ch. 67]. Moles, J. L., ed. (1988) Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). Moles, J. L. (1992) ‘The Text and Interpretation of Plutarch, Vit. Cic. 45.1’, Hermes 120: 240–4 [above, Ch. 40]. Moles, J. L. (2017) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus, with updated bibliographical notes by C. Pelling (Histos Supplement 7; Newcastle). Mossman, J. M. (1988) ‘Tragedy and Epic in Plutarch’s Alexander’, JHS 108: 83–93. Mossman, J. M. (1991) ‘Plutarch’s Use of Statues’, in M. A. Flower and M. Toher, edd., Georgica: Greek Studies in Honour of George Cawkwell (BICS Suppl. 58) 98–119. Nisbet, R. G. M. and M. Hubbard (1970) A Commentary on Horace Odes I (Oxford). Pelling, C. B. R. (1979) ‘Plutarch’s Method of Work in the Roman Lives’, JHS 99: 74–96; repr. in id. (2002) 1–44. Pelling, C. B. R. (1997) ‘Is Death the End? Closure in Plutarch’s Lives’, in D. H. Roberts, F. Dunn, and D. P. Fowler, Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (Princeton) 228–50; repr. in id. (2002) 365–86. Pelling, C. B. R. (2002) Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London and Swansea). Perrin, B. (1918) Plutarch: Lives VI (London and Cambridge, Mass.). Rawson, E. (1985) Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (London and Baltimore). Rawson, E. (1986) ‘Cassius and Brutus: the Memory of the Liberators’, in I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, edd., Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge) 101–19; repr. in ead., Roman Culture and Society: Collected Papers (Oxford, 1991) 488–507. Rawson, E. (1994) ‘Caesar: Civil War and Dictatorship’, CAH2 IX: 424–67. Russell, D. A. and M. Winterbottom, edd. (1972) Ancient Literary Criticism: the Principal Texts in New Translations (Oxford). Salway, B. (1994) ‘What’s in a Name? A Survey of Roman Onomastic Practice from c. 700 BC to AD 700’, JRS 84: 124–45. Schanz, M. and C. Hosius (1927) Geschichte der römischen Literatur I4 (Munich). Schmidt, O. E. (1884) ‘Zur Kritik und Erklärung der Briefe Ciceros an M. Brutus’, Jahrbücher für classische Philologie 30: 617–44. Schmitthenner, W. (1973) Oktavian und das Testament Cäsars2 (Munich). Sedley, D. N. (1997) ‘The Ethics of Brutus and Cassius’, JRS 87: 41–53. Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. (1978) Cicero: Letters to his Friends, 2 vols. (Harmondsworth; repr. in one volume, Atlanta, 1989). Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. (1980) Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem et M. Brutum (Cambridge). Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. (1988) M. Tulli Ciceronis Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem, Epistulae ad M. Brutum (Stuttgart).

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Shackleton Bailey, D. R. (1991) Two Studies in Roman Nomenclature2 (Atlanta; first ed. State College, Pa., 1976). Shackleton Bailey, D. R. (1993) ‘Review of Beaujeu (1991)’, Gnomon 65: 546–7. Smith, R. E. (1936) ‘The Greek Letters of M. Junius Brutus’, CQ 30: 194–203. Stockton, D. (1971) Cicero: a Political Biography (Oxford). Syme, R. (1939) The Roman Revolution (Oxford). Syme, R. (1982) ‘Clues to Testamentary Adoption’, Epigrafia e ordine senatorio 1 = Tituli 4 (Rome) 397–412; repr. in id., Roman Papers IV, ed. A. R. Birley (Oxford, 1988) 159–73. Torraca, L. (1959) Marco Giunio Bruto: epistole greche (Naples). Tyrrell, R. Y. and L. C. Purser (1904–33) The Correspondence of M. Tullius Cicero2 (vol. I3), 7 vols. (Dublin). Vozza, P. (1976–7) ‘Sul II libro delle lettere a Bruto’, AFLB 19–20: 117–28. Wardman, A. (1974) Plutarch’s Lives (London and New York). Weinrib, E. J. (1967) ‘The Family Connections of M. Livius Drusus Libo’, HSCPh 72: 247–78. Woodman, A. J., ed. (1983) Velleius Paterculus: The Caesarian and Augustan Narrative (Cambridge).

Part 5 Studies in Greco-Roman Historiography

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Virgil, Pompey, and the Histories of Asinius Pollio Aen. 2.554–8: haec finis Priami fatorum, hic exitus illum sorte tulit Troiam incensam et prolapsa uidentem Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superbum regnatorem Asiae. iacet ingens litore truncus, auulsumque umeris caput et sine nomine corpus.

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Many distinguished Virgilian scholars—among them Conington, Page, Austin, Camps, and R. D. Williams—have accepted Servius’ view that in 2.557–8 of this famous passage Virgil ‘Pompei tangit historiam’.1 In the present paper I intend to demonstrate that when Virgil wrote the whole passage 2.554–8 he had in mind the account of Pompey’s death given by the historian Asinius Pollio. As Austin rightly remarks,2 the wording ‘hic exitus’ is ‘a formula which brings Virgil very close to the historians’ manner’. Austin further correctly observes that ‘the moralizing on a notable peripeteia’ which we find in 2.555–7 also belongs to historiography (particularly ‘tragic’ history), so that ‘any Roman reader would recognise in Virgil’s lines the ethos of history in an epic guise’. Now of course such an historiographical summing-up formula is appropriate to the present context in several ways. Aeneas in effect gives Dido his considered view—his epitaph—on the dead Priam; the historiographical quality of the writing aids realism;3 and it contributes to the idea that Troy and her fortunes are now firmly a thing of the past. But there may still be a direct literary relationship between Aen. 2.554–8 and the death of Pompey as recorded in the historical accounts. The main accounts of Pompey’s death are Velleius 2.53.1–3, Lucan 8.560ff., Plutarch, Pomp. 78ff., Appian, BC 2.84ff., and Cassius Dio 42.3ff. Now Plutarch’s and Appian’s main historical source for the Civil War is generally thought to be Asinius Pollio.4 Cassius Dio’s main source for the same period appears to be Livy and the same 1 For a succinct exposition of this interpretation see Camps (1969) 97f.; cf. also the suggestive comments of Mills (1978) 165f. 2 Austin (1964) 213. 3 Cf. the use of historiographical style in 2.195–8 (with Austin [1964] ad loc.). 4 Cf. most recently Pelling (1979) 84f. {= (2002) 12f.}.

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is probably true of Velleius, but in many cases Livy seems to have incorporated Pollio’s material into his own account on a large scale.5 Lucan’s sources are less clear-cut. His use of Livy seems certain, but he seems also to have exploited Asinius Pollio.6 Comparison of the accounts of Pompey’s death in all five authorities, ⟦288⟧ all very similar, clearly indicates the presence (at some level) of a single common source, which on general grounds should be Asinius Pollio. What, then, to judge from these five closely parallel accounts, did Pollio say about Pompey’s death? The main elements seem to have been as follows: 1. He almost certainly used the formula hic exitus, or something very similar: cf. Vell. 2.53.3: uitae fuit exitus; Plut. Pomp. 80.5: τοῦτο Πομπηΐου τέλος; Appian 2.86: τόδε … τοῦ βίου τέλος Πομπηΐου; Cass. Dio 42.5.1: τοιοῦτον τὸ τέλος τῷ Πομπηΐῳ (τέλος = exitus). 2. He emphasised the facts that Pompey was decapitated and that his body ended up on the shore (this element is prominent in Lucan, Plutarch, and Appian). 3. He discoursed at some length about Pompey’s great peripeteia (all sources except Plutarch have this element). 4. He emphasised that this peripeteia was in accordance with Fate (Velleius, Lucan, Cassius Dio; cf. Plut. Pomp. 2.1). 5. He may have suggested a parallel between Pompey’s fate and the Trojan War; Cass. Dio 42.5.3–4 notes that Pompey had been ‘master of 1,000 ships’ and had been nicknamed ‘Agamemnon’. The general analogy between Pompey and Priam as regnator Asiae would of course be an easy one: the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar had something of the character of an East–West struggle, Pompey had conquered the East, and his army at Pharsalus contained contingents from ‘almost all the nations of the Levant’ (App. BC 2.71). 6. He probably emphasised that Pompey had not been properly buried: cf. Vell. 2.53.3 ‘cui … ad uictoriam terra defuerat deesset ad sepulturam’; the idea is implicit in the accounts of Lucan, Plutarch, and Appian, who describe the ‘burial’ of Pompey’s headless corpse but stress the mutilated state of the body and the makeshift character of the burial. 7. He perhaps described the corpse as a ‘nameless corpse’ or something very similar: cf. Lucan 8.711 ‘una nota est Magno capitis iactura reuolsi’; 8.820ff.; App. BC 2.86 also records that the funeral monument was subsequently covered by sand. 5 Cf. Pelling (1979) 84 n. 73 {= (2002) 12 with 35–6 n. 73}; Hellegouarc’h (1982) I.xxx, esp. xxxvif. 6 For a useful summary of scholarly views on Lucan’s sources see Lintott (1971) 488f. n. 6. For Lucan’s use of Pollio see Syndikus (1958) 1ff.; cf. Ahl (1976) 23.

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All these elements can be paralleled in Virgil’s reflections on the death of Priam in Aen. 2.554–8. Several are conventional (the formula ‘hic exitus’, the emphasis on the peripeteia and the fate that caused it; the Fate of Priam was also itself a conventional topic, to judge from Arist. EN 1.10.14), but cumulatively they are striking. It seems clear that when Virgil wrote the whole passage 2.554–8, he was influenced by the account of, and the reflections on, the death of Pompey the Great to be found in the Histories of his friend and former patron Asinius Pollio. Bibliography Ahl, F. M. (1976) Lucan: an Introduction (Ithaca and London). Austin, R. G., ed. (1964) P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber Secundus (Oxford). Camps, W. A. (1969) An Introduction to Virgil’s Aeneid (Oxford). Hellegouarc’h, J. (1982) Velleius Paterculus: Histoire Romaine, 2 vols. (Paris). Lintott, A. W. (1971) ‘Lucan and the History of the Civil War’, CQ 21: 488–505. Mills, D. H. (1978) ‘Vergil’s Tragic Vision: the Death of Priam’, CW 72: 159–66. Pelling, C. B. R. (1979) ‘Plutarch’s Method of Work in the Roman Lives’, JHS 99: 74–96; repr. in id., Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London and Swansea, 2002) 1–44. Syndikus, H. P. (1958) Lucans Gedicht vom Bürgerkrieg: Untersuchungen zur epischen Technik und zu den Grundlagen des Werkes (diss. Munich).

Chapter 46

The Interpretation of the ‘Second Preface’ in Arrian’s Anabasis The so-called Second Preface in Arrian’s Anabasis is an important statement of both his conception of the work and its place in his intellectual biography.* Despite extensive scholarly discussion,1 interpretative problems remain. Close literary analysis furthers understanding. 1

The Text

Controversy centres on Anab. 1.12.4–5, but the whole context of ch. 12 requires consideration. I print A. G. Roos’ Teubner text, revised by G. Wirth (Leipzig, 1968): 12. ἀνιόντα δ᾽ αὐτὸν ἐς Ἴλιον Μενοίτιός τε ὁ κυβερνήτης χρυσῷ στεφάνῳ ἐστεφάνωσε καὶ ἐπὶ τούτῳ Χάρης ὁ Ἀθηναῖος ἐκ Σιγείου ἐλθὼν καί τινες καὶ ἄλλοι, οἱ μὲν Ἕλληνες, οἱ δὲ ἐπιχώριοι· … οἱ δὲ, ὅτι καὶ τὸν Ἀχιλλέως ἄρα τάφον ἐστεφάνωσεν· Ἡφαιστίωνα δὲ λέγουσιν ὅτι τοῦ Πατρόκλου τὸν τάφον ἐστεφάνωσε· καὶ εὐδαιμόνισεν ἄρα, ὡς λόγος, Ἀλέξανδρος Ἀχιλλέα, ὅτι Ὁμήρου κήρυκος ἐς τὴν ἔπειτα μνήμην ἔτυχε. (2) καὶ μέντοι καὶ ἦν Ἀλεξάνδρῳ οὐχ ἥκιστα τούτου ἕνεκα εὐδαιμονιστέος Ἀχιλλεύς, ὅτι αὐτῷ γε Ἀλεξάνδρῳ, οὐ κατὰ τὴν ⟦163⟧ ἄλλην ἐπιτυχίαν, τὸ χωρίον τοῦτο ἐκλιπὲς ξυνέβη οὐδὲ ἐξηνέχθη ἐς ἀνθρώπους τὰ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἔργα ἐπαξίως, οὔτ᾽ οὖν καταλογάδην, οὔτε τις ἐν μέτρῳ ἐποίησεν· ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ ἐν μέλει ᾔσθη Ἀλέξανδρος, ἐν ὅτῳ Ἱέρων τε καὶ Γέλων καὶ Θήρων καὶ πολλοὶ ἄλλοι οὐδέν τι Ἀλεξάνδρῳ ἐπεοικότες, ὥστε πολὺ μεῖον γιγνώσκεται τὰ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἢ τὰ φαυλότατα τῶν πάλαι ἔργων· (3) ὁπότε καὶ ἡ τῶν μυρίων ξὺν Κύρῳ ἄνοδος ἐπὶ βασιλέα Ἀρτοξέρξην καὶ τὰ Κλεάρχου τε καὶ τῶν ἅμα αὐτῷ ἁλόντων παθήματα καὶ ἡ κατάβασις αὐτῶν ἐκείνων, ἣν * I thank Prof. P. A. Brunt, Mr E. L. Bowie, and an anonymous referee for comments on an earlier draft. 1 Bosworth (1972) 167f., 174f.; (1980) 11, 104ff.; Breebaart (1960) 23–7; Brunt (1976–83) I.53, II.534–41; Schepens (1971); Stadter (1980) 61ff. (cf. my review, Moles [1982], which anticipates some of the arguments of the present paper); Stadter (1981); Wirth (1964) 224. I cannot accept the new idea of Bosworth (1980) 7f., that Anabasis may not even be the work’s correct title, though this hardly matters here.

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Ξενοφῶν αὐτοὺς κατήγαγε, πολύ τι ἐπιφανέστερα ἐς ἀνθρώπους Ξενοφῶντος ἕνεκά ἐστιν ἢ Ἀλέξανδρός τε καὶ τὰ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἔργα. (4) καίτοι Ἀλέξανδρος οὔτε ξὺν ἄλλῳ ἐστράτευσεν, οὔτε φεύγων μέγαν βασιλέα τοὺς τῇ καθόδῳ τῇ ἐπὶ θάλασσαν ἐμποδὼν γιγνομένους ἐκράτησεν· ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἔστιν ὅστις ἄλλος εἷς ἀνὴρ τοσαῦτα ἢ τηλικαῦτα ἔργα κατὰ πλῆθος ἢ μέγεθος ἐν Ἕλλησιν ἢ βαρβάροις ἀπεδείξατο. ἔνθεν καὶ αὐτὸς ὁρμηθῆναί φημι ἐς τήνδε τὴν ξυγγραφήν, οὐκ ἀπαξιώσας ἐμαυτὸν φανερὰ καταστήσειν ἐς ἀνθρώπους τὰ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἔργα. (5) ὅστις δὲ ὢν ταῦτα ὑπὲρ ἐμαυτοῦ γιγνώσκω, τὸ μὲν ὄνομα οὐδὲν δέομαι ἀναγράψαι, οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδὲ ἄγνωστον ἐς ἀνθρώπους ἐστίν, οὐδὲ πατρίδα ἥτις μοί ἐστιν οὐδὲ γένος τὸ ἐμόν, οὐδὲ εἰ δή τινα ἀρχὴν ἐν τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ ἦρξα· ἀλλ᾽ ἐκεῖνο ἀναγράφω, ὅτι ἐμοὶ πατρίς τε καὶ γένος καὶ ἀρχαὶ οἵδε οἱ λόγοι εἰσί τε καὶ ἀπὸ νέου ἔτι ἐγένοντο. καὶ ἐπὶ τῷδε οὐκ ἀπαξιῶ ἐμαυτὸν τῶν πρώτων ἐν τῇ φωνῇ τῇ Ἑλλάδι, εἴπερ οὖν καὶ Ἀλέξανδρον τῶν ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις.2 2 Translation 12. When Alexander reached Troy Menoetius the pilot crowned him with a golden wreath and thereupon Chares the Athenian arriving from Sigeum and some others, some Greeks, some natives … others [say], that he then crowned the tomb of Achilles as well; but they say that it was Hephaestion who placed a wreath on Patroclus’ tomb; and Alexander, then, as the story goes, blessed Achilles on the ground that he had obtained Homer as herald for his future commemoration. (2) And indeed from Alexander’s point of view Achilles really was to be counted blessed, not least for this reason, that, for Alexander himself, not in accordance with his general good fortune, this area happened to be left free and Alexander’s deeds were not published to mankind worthily, neither certainly in prose nor did anyone compose them in verse [worthily]. But Alexander was not even sung in lyric, in which Hieron and Gelon and Theron and many others not at all like Alexander [were sung], so that Alexander’s deeds are much less known than the most insignificant of the deeds of old. (3) Since both the march up country of the Ten Thousand with Cyrus against King Artaxerxes and the sufferings of Clearchus and those captured with him and the descent to the sea of those very men [i.e., the Ten Thousand], under the command of Xenophon, are much better known to mankind on account of Xenophon than Alexander and Alexander’s achievements. (4) Yet Alexander did not mount a campaign with another, nor, fleeing 2 On the text see Bosworth (1980) 102–7.

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from the Great King, did he defeat those who tried to stop the march down to the sea; but there is no other single man who performed so many or so great deeds in number or magnitude among Greeks or barbarians. Wherefore I declare that I myself set out on this history, not judging myself unworthy to make Alexander’s deeds known to men. (5) And as to who I am that I make this judgement in my favour, I do not need to inscribe my name, for it is not at all unknown to men, nor what my native land is, nor my family, nor if I have held any office in my own land; but this I do inscribe, that my native land, family, and offices are this work and have been even from my youth. And for this reason I count myself not unworthy of the first place3 in Greek speech, just as I hold Alexander to have been in arms. 3 Interpretation The preceding narrative foreshadows two ideas important in ch. 12:4 (a) Alexander’s conception of himself as a Homeric hero (1.11.5–12.1). (b) Alexander’s great achievements require correspondingly great literary commemoration (1.1.1–2, cf. praef. 1–3). The argument of 1.12.2–5 is straightforward: Alexander’s achievements dwarfed those of others, yet he has not yet been worthily commemorated, hence the need for Arrian himself to do so. The style reveals several distinct literary influences, all relevant to Arrian’s own claims: (i) Homer. The emphasis on Homer’s commemoration of Achilles (1.12.1–2) suggests that Arrian’s task, on an equally heroic scale, is to commemorate Alexander, the second Achilles: the Anabasis is to be a second Iliad.5 (ii) Herodotus. The sentence ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἔστιν … ἀπεδείξατο echoes Herodotus’ proem: ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν ῞Ελλησι, τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα. The effect is both to emphasise the magnitude of Alexander’s achievements (the achievements of an individual are described in terms applied by Herodotus to those of Greeks and barbarians generally) and to site Arrian within the Herodotean tradition of historiography. As in Herodotus, the use of ἀποδείκνυμι is felicitous. ἀπεδείξατο primarily means ‘performed’, but in context, Arrian having lamented that Alexander’s achievements are ‘unknown’ and have not been ‘made 3 τῶν πρώτων is certainly neuter: Bosworth (1980) 107. 4 Cf. Bosworth (1980) 100f.; Stadter (1981) 166. 5 Cf. Breebaart (1960) 25; Schepens (1971) 263; Stadter (1980) 63.

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clear’, the root meaning ‘displayed’ is also felt. It is as if Arrian is saying: ‘Alexander did “display” magnificent achievements, but these have not been adequately “displayed” by historians.’ The pun heightens the injustice done to Alexander. (iii) Thucydides. The use of the archaic Attic form ξ is a Thucydidean mannerism and τὸ χωρίον τοῦτο ἐκλιπὲς ξυνέβη (1.12.2) imitates Thucydides’ justification for his Pentecontaetia excursus (1.97.2, ἐκλιπὲς … τοῦτο τὸ χωρίον).6 The Anabasis, like Thucydides’ excursus, fills a need, since the subject has hitherto not been properly treated; as a historian Arrian will rival the authoritativeness of Thucydides. (iv) Xenophon. The σύγκρισις between the achievements of Alexander and those of the Ten Thousand ⟦164⟧ suggests a comparison also between Xenophon’s Anabasis and Arrian’s and between Xenophon and Arrian as historians.7 (v) The prose encomium. Alexander pronounced a μακρισμός of Achilles but has not yet himself had a suitable μακρισμός; Alexander’s achievements have not been ‘worthily commemorated’; those of the Ten Thousand, unlike Alexander’s, have been ‘made clear’; Arrian formally compares the achievements of Alexander with those of other contenders for greatness (1.12.2, 4). All these are characteristic elements of the prose encomium: Arrian’s work will be biographical in orientation and fundamentally encomiastic.8 The Anabasis, then, follows the tradition of not only Homeric epic, but also the major Greek historians—Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, and the prose biographical encomium. Its theme is as great as the theme of each and all of these, and so too will be Arrian’s treatment of it. The provocative juxtaposition of these five literary influences within so small a compass highlights the different facets of the Anabasis. It is an epic (because of the nature of Alexander and the grandeur of his achievements), yet also a work of historiography (because of Arrian’s devotion to the truth and determination to improve on previous Alexander histories—cf. praef. 1–3). As a work of historiography, it imitates not only Herodotus, grandest and most epic of the classical historians, but also Thucydides, the most rigorous and authoritative historian, and 6 Cf. Bosworth (1980) 104. 7 Cf. Wirth (1964) 225; Stadter (1980) 63. 8 μακαρισμός: cf., e.g., Isocr. Evag. 70ff.; Xen. Ages. 10.3–4; ‘worthy commemoration’: Evag. 2, 40; Ages. 1.1; ‘making clear’: Evag. 33, 65; Ages. 1.6; σύγκρισις: Evag. 37ff.; Ages. 1.6; Men. Rhet. 2.377. General discussion: Bosworth (1980) 14ff., 30f. Arrian does not invoke the tradition of Pindar and Bacchylides (pace Stadter [1980] 63; Bosworth [1980] 104): 1.12.2 οὐδὲ ἐν μέλει is dismissive (à la Thucydides 1.20?)

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Xenophon, master of vivid and harrowing military narrative. Historiography on a Herodotean scale (Alexander’s achievements matching those of Greeks and barbarians generally), the Anabasis is also biographical (the achievements being an individual’s). Rigorous and objective in the Thucydidean manner, it is also encomiastic (the immensity of Alexander’s achievements means that even an objective treatment must be encomiastic, a point Arrian again emphasises at 7.30.13). From ἔνθεν καὶ αὐτός Arrian develops the thought that he is uniquely qualified to tackle the history of Alexander. Again the wording reinforces his literary claims. The phraseology φανερὰ καταστήσειν ἐς ἀνθρώπους τὰ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἔργα emphasises the Anabasis’ encomiastic aspect. ξυγγραφήν is another Thucydidean touch, again linking the work, qua history, with Thucydidean historiography. τήνδε looks forward, as I shall argue, to οἵδε οἱ λόγοι (1.12.5). ὁρμηθῆναι is also telling. The metaphorical use of ὁρμάω/ὁρμάομαι is not uncommon, but Arrian’s description of the achievements of the Ten Thousand notes that Xenophon both led them and commemorated them. Arrian has deliberately chosen a word that can mean literally ‘set out’ on military expeditions, thus further stressing the parallel between himself and Xenophon and between the greatness of Alexander’s expedition against Persia and his own role as Alexander historian.9 Finally, οὐκ ἀπαξιώσας ἐμαυτόν sounds a strikingly self-confident note. Whereas encomiasts normally excuse their own unworthiness vis-à-vis their material,10 Arrian claims to be ‘not unworthy’ of his task, proudly reversing the norm. Next the notorious sentence: ὅστις δὲ ὢν … ἦρξα (1.12.5). The first problem is the translation of the first clause. Stadter gives ‘I who make this decision (to write about Alexander), whoever I might be’; Brunt, ‘Whoever I may be, this I know in my favour; I need not write my name’ (i.e., taking ταῦτα as referring forward); Bosworth, ‘As to who I am who make this claim about myself, I have no need’.11 Stadter’s and Brunt’s rendering of ὅστις ὤν can hardly be justified. Stadter also simply fails to translate ὑπὲρ ἐμαυτοῦ, words indeed incompatible with his version of ταῦτα γιγνώσκω. Brunt’s interpretation involves an unacceptably harsh asyndeton before τὸ μὲν ὄνομα: one would expect ὅτι after

9

Metaphorical use: LSJ, s.v. A.II.2 and B.2; note that ὁρμηθῆναι is picked up at 7.30.3 (ring-composition: Breebaart [1960] 27). Arrian’s play on ὁρμάομαι perhaps owes something to Herodotus’ analogy (1.5.3) between the ‘progression’ of his History and Odysseus’ ‘travels’. 10 Cf., e.g., Xen. Ages. 1.1 and often in λόγοι ἐπιτάφιοι. 11 Stadter (1980) 64; Brunt (1976–83) I.53; Bosworth (1980) 106; a survey of earlier versions in Schepens (1971) 258ff.

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γιγνώσκω.12 Bosworth’s translation is correct. ταῦτα refers back, glossing οὐκ ἀπαξιώσας ἐμαυτὸν φανερὰ καταστήσειν ἐς ἀνθρώπους τὰ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἔργα. ταῦτα ὑπὲρ ἐμαυτοῦ γιγνώσκω means ‘I know this/make this judgement about/on behalf of myself’ (‘on behalf of’ better suiting the self-justificatory tone). The basic sense is again clear. Arrian does not need to state his identity, background and achievements, since they are well-known, and—more important—οἵδε οἱ λόγοι are his ‘real’ country, family, and offices, and have been since youth, so that it is upon them that his claim to competence as an Alexander historian rests. This is, of course, a formal recusatio of the traditional historiographical τόπος whereby the historian announces his name and various particulars about himself, such as his city, family, and public career.13 But this fact does not explain the difficulties of the sentence. One point is the word play between γιγνώσκω and οὐδὲ ἄγνωστον (picking up γιγνώσκεται at 1.12.2). One reason why Arrian knows that he is worthy to commemorate Alexander is that his name (and, by implication, his country, family, and offices) is not unknown. His great reputation gives him confidence in his ability, and his knowledge of his worth in turn qualifies him to make Alexander’s achievements known. ⟦165⟧ A further, subtler, implication: Arrian’s wording evokes the characteristic genealogical boast of the Homeric hero, e.g., Il. 6.150f. (cf. 20.213f.): εἰ δ’ ἐθέλεις καὶ ταῦτα δαήμεναι, ὄφρ’ ἐΰ εἰδῇς ἡμετέρην γενεήν, πολλοὶ δέ μιν ἄνδρες ἴσασιν and Il. 20.203f.: ἴδμεν δ’ ἀλλήλων γενεήν, ἴδμεν δὲ τοκῆας, πρόκλυτ’ ἀκούοντες ἔπεα θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων. 12 Cf. below ἐκεῖνο ἀναγράφω, ὅτι and Dem. 1.19: περὶ … τῆς βοηθείας ταῦτα γιγνώσκω (ταῦτα referring back). 13 Cf. Schepens (1971) 265f., Bosworth (1980) 106; Stadter (1980) 64. Arrian is presumably also polemicising against the excessive self-advertisement of some contemporary historians (Lucian Quom. hist. conscr. 14ff.), perhaps specifically Appian (below). He can hardly suppose personalia irrelevant when a historian records the remote past (pace Breebaart [1960] 17; Schepens (1971) 266): he cites them in the Bithyniaca proem (cf. n. 37); nor is he in this respect imitating Homer and Xenophon (pace Breebaart [1960] 24f.): their matter-of-fact omission of personalia is quite different from his ostentatious recusatio. Nor is he proudly silent because his Roman career ended abruptly (pace Schwartz [1895] 1231 {= [1959] 132}): he boasts, implicitly, of his political eminence (below), no Roman allusion is required in context at all (below), nor is there evidence of such an abrupt end: Bosworth (1980) 4; Syme (1982) 206 {= (1988) 44}.

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The Homeric boast, like Arrian’s, contains a sort of suppressed recusatio, for it takes the form ‘I am well known and many men know my genealogy [implication: so I don’t need to tell it to you], but I shall tell it to you anyway’. Appian praef. 15.62 provides a clear parallel for a historian’s claim to ‘heroic’ status: τίς δὲ ὤν ταῦτα συνέγραψα, πολλοὶ μὲν ἴσασι καὶ αὐτὸς προέφηνα … καὶ εἰ τῳ σπουδὴ καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ μαθεῖν, ἔστι μοι καὶ περὶ τούτου συγγραφή (the reworking of Il. 6.150f. is unmistakable. I discuss below whether there may even be a direct relationship between Arrian and Appian here). By this further Homeric reminiscence Arrian re-emphasises the heroic nature of his attempt to write a history worthy of the Homeric Alexander. Next the words οὐδὲ πατρίδα ἥτις μοί ἐστιν οὐδὲ γένος τὸ ἐμόν, οὐδὲ εἰ δή τινα ἀρχὴν ἐν τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ ἤρξα. (I defer discussion of Arrian’s use of ἀναγράφω.) A crucial question: what is the reference of τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ? Three answers have been given: (i) Rome, or—more broadly—the Roman Empire; (ii) Athens; (iii) Nicomedia. On (i) and (ii) Arrian distinguishes τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ from his πατρίδα, Nicomedia. On (i) the ἀρχή which Arrian has apparently held might, but need not, be his consulship (c. AD 129), but would certainly be a Roman office; on (ii) it would be his Athenian archonship (AD 145/6). On (iii) τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ is mere stylistic variatio on πατρίδα, and the ἀρχή a Nicomedian office.14 Πατρίς is the most emotive Greek word for native land, but expressions like ἡ ἐμαυτοῦ, ἡ ἑαυτῶν, ἡ ἰδία, etc. are acceptable substitutes. As all these terms are normally interchangeable, they can be varied to avoid unstylish repetition (e.g., in Lys. 2.6 we find τὴν ἑαυτῶν πατρίδα and τὴν ἑαυτῶν, and in 2.53f. τὴν ἑαυτῶν and τὴν ἑαυτῶν πατρίδα). All can also be used of countries other than one’s native land with which one is somehow closely connected. Thus Dio of Prusa calls Apamea, with which he had family ties and of which he was an adoptive citizen, his πατρίς (41.2, 3, 5) and applies the description ἡ χῶρα ἡ ἡμετέρα to a city other than Prusa, possibly Rome (79.5).15 Teles the Cynic apparently uses ἡ ἰδία of a city not his by birth.16 When he had settled in Athens, Arrian himself says that he was of the same πόλις as Xenophon (Cyn. 1.4). Cassius Dio refers to Rome as ‘the land we dwell in’ (F 1) and Rome, legally, was the proper domicile of senators (Digest 1.9.11; 50.1.22.6).17 Lucian uses ‘we’ of inhabitants of the Roman Empire.18 Greek usage, then, shows that all three interpretations 14 Rome: Stadter (1980) 181, 212 n. 19; Brunt (1976–83) II.538f.; Athens: Wirth (1964) 224; Nicomedia: Bosworth (1972) 174; id. (1980) 106. 15 Cf. Moles (1983) 130f. {vol. 1, pp. 63–7}. 16 Teles 23.9 Hense with O’Neil (1977) xiv. 17 Brunt (1976–83) II.538. 18 Alex. 48; Quom. hist. conscr. 5, 17, 29.

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of τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ are theoretically possible.19 Critical, therefore, are the demands of the context. πατρίδα clearly means Nicomedia (ὄνομα, πατρίδα, γένος).20 The general style favours the equivalence of πατρίδα and τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ. Bosworth rightly observes: ‘if Arrian meant to draw a distinction here between his birthplace and his city of residence, he could hardly have expressed himself more obscurely.’21 More positively, the phrase οὐδὲ πατρίδα … ἦρξα contains a triad of ‘my’ expressions: ‘my country’, ‘my family’, ‘any office I may have held in my own land’. This directly follows the emphasis on ‘me’ at the start of the sentence (ὅστις δὲ ὦν ταῦτα ὑπὲρ ἐμαυτοῦ γιγνώσκω, which in turn picks up οὐκ ἀπαξιώσας ἐμαυτόν). The triad is repeated in the second clause of the next sentence—ὅτι ἐμοὶ πατρίς τε καὶ γένος καὶ ἀρχαί—where ἐμοί goes with all three elements. ‘Country’, ‘family’, ‘offices’—these are three related components of Arrian’s person and career and there is no implication that the ‘offices’ have been held in a ‘land’ different from Arrian’s ‘country’—rather the reverse. The words ‘in my own land’ are added simply to complete the triad of ‘my’ expressions and the addition is a necessary part of the stylistic balance which Arrian seeks. Thus ‘my own land’ seems merely to be elegant variation on ‘my country’ (as in the Lysias parallels cited above). Against this, it is argued: (i) If the Anabasis was actually written after Arrian’s consulship or Athenian archonship, might not the informed reader naturally suppose that Arrian was trying to distinguish τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ from his πατρίδα? (ii) Since, despite his formal recusatio, Arrian is in fact tacitly claiming considerable public repute, can he be adducing purely local achievement in Nicomedia: how could he expect ἄνθρωποι to know of such relatively trivial matters?22

19 Bosworth (1972) 174 n. 6; (1980) 11, argues that τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ cannot be Rome because no contemporary Greek would describe Rome as his πατρίς, but this ignores the fact that most of those who argue for a reference to Rome distinguish τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ from Arrian’s πατρίς. 20 Brunt’s view (1976–83) II.538f. that not only τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ but also πατρίδα denotes Rome is obviously untenable: while a Greek might perhaps describe Rome as his πατρίς in certain circumstances, he would certainly not do so in answer to the question: ‘who are you, what is your πατρίς and γένος?’ That question is about ‘roots’. 21 Bosworth (1972) 174 n. 6. 22 Brunt (1976–83) II.539 emphasises this point. Bosworth’s argument ([1980] 106) that Arrian’s ‘name is perfectly familiar. He assumes that the reading public already knows his work and the simple fact of the name Ἀρριανός upon the title will recommend the book without further need for self-advertisement’ does not meet the difficulty, since (a) though ἄγνωστον formally only applies to ὄνομα, its implications clearly carry over to οὐδὲ

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Both arguments make insufficient allowance for Arrian’s local Greek patriotism and the tone of the ‘second preface’. An obvious point: in the Anabasis (as elsewhere) Arrian writes as a Greek, not Roman, and he takes it for granted that he is writing predominantly for Greeks.23 ⟦166⟧ His subject is Alexander, a Greek.24 In discussing his choice of subject, he thinks in purely Greek terms: Alexander’s achievements are compared with those of Achilles, the Sicilian tyrants, the Ten Thousand, not those of (say) Julius Caesar (though that comparison was available),25 and his own work with the Greek literary treatments of these Greek rivals of Alexander. If Arrian here shows any consciousness at all of things Roman it is in the sentence ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἔστιν … ἀπεδείξατο, which may perhaps contain an implicit dismissal of Roman rivalry with Alexander. Either, then, Arrian is simply oblivious of Roman achievements here, or he tacitly discounts them. It would have been culturally intrusive, even harmful to his case, for him to have alluded, even by implication, to his own Roman career. The fact that Appian and Cassius Dio refer to their Roman careers is irrelevant:26 they are writing Roman histories and their Roman careers form part of their qualifications as historians. As a parallel for Arrian’s behaviour, we may note that the Pergamene historian A. Claudius Charax (cos. suff. 147) apparently said nothing about his Roman career in his Universal History.27 Even supposing a late date for the Anabasis there is no reason why Arrian should have alluded to Roman ἀρχαί in this context and good reason why he should not.28 The second argument is inappropriately literalist. Of course ἄνθρωποι in general would not have heard of Arrian’s achievements in Nicomedia, but this misses the point. As a proud Greek aristocrat Arrian takes his Nicomedian ἀρχαί extremely seriously and it is they—not any Roman appointments he may or may not have had at the time of writing—that support his claim of high status in a Greek cultural context. Moreover, he is striking a self-consciously heroic

23 24 25 26 27 28

πατρίδα … ἦρξα, and (b) ‘not at all unknown among men’ entails ‘celebrated for rank’ (Brunt [1976–83] II.539). Cf. Stadter (1980) 186 n. 6; Bosworth (1980) 106; Breebaart (1982) 26. To later Greeks, that is. Arrian’s historical narrative properly distinguishes Greeks and Macedonians (Brunt [1976–83] I.xxxvii and n. 33). E.g., in the (lost) σύγκρισις of Plutarch’s Alexander–Caesar (for which cf. App. BC 2.149–54). Pace Bosworth (1972) 175. Bosworth (1972) 170 n. 7, 175 n. 2 (not seeing that this undermines his argument). Naturally I do not deny that in certain contexts Greeks might parade their Roman qualifications, even above their Greek ones (Brunt [1976–83] II.539, citing C. Iulius Severus, OGIS 543/544). But some contexts make such behaviour inappropriate, just as in Britain today patriotic Scots, Irishmen, and Welshmen who have won both local and national distinctions will often not mention the latter when appealing for favour on home ground.

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pose, boasting of his genealogy and achievements in the style of a Homeric hero, who simply assumes that πολλοὶ ἄνδρες know all about him (Odysseus even claims to be known πᾶσι … ἀνθρώποισι, Od. 9.19f.). Arrian’s exaggerated claim to a considerable public reputation in the world at large on the basis of purely local achievement fits the exaggerated tone of the whole passage. It was certainly not literally true, in the second century, that πολὺ μείον γιγνώσκεται τὰ Ἀλεξάνδρου ἢ τὰ φαυλότατα τῶν πάλαι ἔργων (1.12.2), or that the achievements of the Ten Thousand were πολύ τι ἐπιφανέστερα … ἢ Ἀλέξανδρός τε καὶ τὰ Ἀλεξάνδου ἔργα. Since Arrian’s argument is that the Homeric Alexander was supremely great and requires correspondingly great commemoration, which the Anabasis will supply, Arrian is bound to inflate his own claims to ‘heroic’ status. Proper literary analysis, therefore, demonstrates, I believe, conclusively that ‘my own land’ denotes Nicomedia. Interpretation of the next sentence (ἀλλ’ … ἐγένοντο) is equally disputed. To begin with ἀναγράφω (picking up ἀναγράψαι). This can be a relatively colourless historiographical term (‘record’, ‘give an account of’), but can also mean ‘inscribe’ on a monument,29 as the names and honours of prominent people regularly were ‘inscribed’ in the ancient world. Arrian, then, does not need ἀναγράψαι his name, country, family, or offices as if on an inscription: his claim to commemoration, which he will ‘inscribe’, lies in his emotional commitment from youth to οἵδε οἱ λόγοι. Delicately, but unmistakably, Arrian is implying that οἵδε οἱ λόγοι will be an imperishable artefact, just as Thucydides’ history was ‘a possession for ever’, Pindar’s poetry a ‘treasury’, and Horace’s odes a ‘monument’.30 This in turn implies a judgement on the relative importance of public achievement and literature in Arrian’s life. The former is important in its own right, but trivial compared with the glory that comes from literary endeavour (an idea to which Arrian returns at the end of the Anabasis: 7.30.1). Next, the sentiment ὅτι ἐμοὶ … ἐγένοντο. (I defer discussion of the reference of οἵδε οἱ λόγοι.) According to Stadter, this derives from Epictetan philosophy. For Epictetus things like magistracies, honours, friends, children, and native city are external to the individual: they are not really his and their possession or loss is ultimately irrelevant to his moral well-being. Indeed, Arrian attributes to Epictetus very similar phraseology in Diss. 2.22.16: οὐδὲν γὰρ οὕτως φιλεῖν πέφυκεν ὡς τὸ αὑτοῦ συμφέρον. τοῦτο πατὴρ καὶ ἀδελφὸς καὶ συγγενεῖς καὶ πατρὶς καὶ θεός. Hence Arrian declines to record his name and other ordinarily

29 Colourless term: Praef. 1; LSJ, s.v. II.1; ‘inscribe’: LSJ, s.v. {See also below, Ch. 16.} 30 Thuc. 1.22.4; Pind. Pyth. 6.6ff.; Hor. C. 3.30.1ff.

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relevant information as not being his, whereas οἵδε οἱ λόγοι are his and he can legitimately claim credit for them.31 How far the Anabasis is influenced by Epictetus and Stoicism is debated, but each case must be decided individually. Here Arrian may well have so expressed himself as to recall Epictetus’ insistence on the irrelevance of ‘externals’ like magistracies and native city and perhaps particularly the striking dictum of the Discourses. But his stance is not properly philosophical: while he puts much greater stress on his commitment to οἵδε οἱ λόγοι, he still does boast, by implication, of his social status and public achievements. Moreover, Epictetus considered even historiography and the glories accruing from it external and irrelevant (Diss. 4.8–33).32 Here, then, as elsewhere in the Anabasis, Arrian may be formally or verbally influenced by Epictetus, but his attitude is not truly Epictetan. The real inspiration behind Arrian’s sentiment is Andromache’s famous plea to Hector in Il. 6.429f.:33 Ἕκτορ, ἀτὰρ σύ μοί ἐσσι πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ ἠδὲ κασίγνητος, σὺ δέ μοι θαλερὸς παρακοίτης. This further Homeric parallel poignantly expresses Arrian’s emotional commitment to οἵδε οἱ λόγοι above all else.34 ⟦167⟧ Finally, οἵδε οἱ λόγοι. Does this mean: (i) ‘these works of mine’, i.e., the Anabasis and other previous works or (ii) ‘this work’, i.e., the Anabasis alone?35 In favour of (i) it is argued (a) λόγοι is plural; (b) Arrian elsewhere describes the Anabasis as a ξυγγραφή, and though he does use the singular λόγος of other works, he does not use the plural;36 (c) this suits his argument better; (d) Arrian cannot be saying that the Anabasis has been his first love from youth because he makes virtually the same claim for the Bithyniaca.37 Nevertheless, (ii) is correct. 31 32 33 34

Stadter (1980) 64f. and 212 n. 18; Diss. 2.22.16: Bosworth (1980) 106f. Bosworth (1982) 178. Bowie ap. Brunt (1976–83) I.53 n. 4. Note also how the verbal paradox γένος … οἵδε οἱ λόγοι … ἀπὸ νέου ἐγένοντο further emphasises Arrian’s disavowal of γένος in the usual sense. 35 (i) Bosworth (1972) 168 (less dogmatic in [1980] 107); Stadter (1980) 64f., 212 n. 21; Brunt (1976–83) II.538; (ii) Bowie (1970) 26f.; Schepens (1971) 264. 36 ξυγγραφή: Anab. praef. 3; 1.12.4; 6.28.6; 7.3.1, 30.3; λόγος: Ind. 19.9, 32.1, 43.14; Cyn. 1.4; Tac. 32.3. 37 Phot. cod. 93 p. 73b11ff.: ἥδε αὐτῷ ἡ συγγραφὴ ἐξεπονήθη, καὶ ἐξ ἀρχῆς μέν, ἀφ’ οὗ γράφειν ἴσχυσε, ταύτην ἐνστήσασθαι καὶ συντάξαι τὴν ὑπόθεσιν βουληθέντι {= FGrHist 156 F 14}.

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(a) and (b) miss the point of Arrian’s use of λόγοι (below) and (d) is pedantic. Proemial statements are often rather exaggerated and anyway a writer may entertain several projects at the start of his career.38 (c) is also unconvincing. Certainly it would make sense if Arrian were arguing that his lifelong devotion to literature equipped him to write an Alexander history, but it would make even better sense if he were saying that his lifelong devotion to the Alexander project equipped him actually to carry it out. The argument from 1.12.4 is tighter if τήνδε τὴν ξυγγραφήν and οἵδε οἱ λόγοι are identical. Any allusion to works other than the Anabasis would spoil the exact parallelisms which Arrian has been drawing between his subject, himself, and his work. The parallel from Il. 6.429f. also supports reference to a single entity. Stylistic factors confirm this interpretation. οἵδε οἱ λόγοι picks up τοῖσδε τοῖς ἡμετέροις in the ‘first preface’ (praef. 3), which is there clearly simply a variation on ἥδε ἡ συγγραφή. In our passage οἵδε οἱ λόγοι balances τήνδε τὴν ξυγγραφήν, just as οὐκ ἀπαξιώσας balances οὐκ ἀπαξιῶ and τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ balances πατρίδα ἥτις μοί ἐστιν. The deictic οἵδε and the plural λόγοι are also significant. 1.12.4 echoes Herodotus’ proem (above). Herodotus’ History consisting of individual λόγοι, a history written in Herodotean style could well be described as λόγοι plural. Herodotus also begins his proem with just such a deictic ‘this’ (ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε). Indeed, the sustained parallelisms which Arrian draws in the ‘second preface’ are simply an elaborate reworking of the Herodotean parallelism ἀπόδεξις and ἔργα … ἀποδεχθέντα. οἵδε οἱ λόγοι, then, = the Anabasis. Great deeds can only be properly commemorated by great literature. Alexander did the greatest deeds; therefore the Anabasis must be a supremely great work of literature. Arrian’s qualifications to write it depend partly on his ‘heroic’ status and achievements, which parallel Alexander’s however faintly,39 but mostly on the fact that the Anabasis is, and has been from youth, all in all to him. As his life’s work it will put him in the forefront of Greek literature and thus commemorate both Arrian, its writer, and Alexander, its subject, each pre-eminent in his own field. That is the claim (however defective the reality), and the subtlety and complexity of the literary allusion with which Arrian expresses it compel admiration.

38 Cyn. 1.4: ἀμφὶ ταὐτὰ [sc. τῷ Ξενοφώντι] ἀπὸ νέου ἐσπουδακώς, κυνηγέσια καὶ στρατηγίαν καὶ σοφίαν makes a similar claim to both Bithyniaca and Anabasis. 39 Note also that the wording ὄνομα … οὐδὲ ἄγνωστον ἐς ἀνθρώπους (1.12.5) seems to be picked up at 7.30.2 (referring to Alexander).

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The Device of the ‘Second Preface’

Why a ‘second preface’ at all? Stadter40 rightly argues that Arrian’s arrangement of material at the start of the Anabasis—preface, military narrative, and second preface—deliberately imitates Herodotus and Thucydides, both of whom begin with a formal preface (Hdt. praef.; Thuc. 1.1–3), proceed with an account of earlier history, and then round off their introductory material with a ‘second preface’ (Hdt. 1.5.3–4; Thuc. 1.22.1–23.3). But this does not explain several differences between Arrian and his great predecessors: his ‘first preface’ (subject and sources—nothing about the subject’s significance) is strikingly oblique; he discusses sources in his first preface, Thucydides in his second; he imitates Herodotus’ first preface in his own second preface; and in general his second preface is far the more informative about the scope and qualities of his work. The explanation is partly that the dramatic context (Alexander at Troy about to embark on his great expedition against Persia) is ideally suited to exposition of all the different historical and literary traditions with which Arrian wishes to align the Anabasis: Achilles, Greeks vs Trojans and the Iliad; Greeks vs Persians and Herodotus; a neglected period of history and Thucydides; the Ten Thousand and Xenophon’s Anabasis; Alexander, Achilles, and the biographical encomium. Important as the preceding narrative is, Alexander at Troy is appropriately the real beginning of the work. It is also relevant that the dramatic context, though so early in the narrative, is thematically analogous to Hdt. 7.20 (Xerxes about to march against Greece) and Thuc. 6.31 (the Athenians sailing against Sicily), both passages with formal new prefaces. Thus Arrian’s arrangement of his programmatic statements combines imitation of the first books of Herodotus and Thucydides and of their treatment of the ‘greatest expeditions’ in their histories with creative re-ordering of their material in order to bring out the special qualities of Alexander and the Anabasis. The device of the second preface is itself a complex piece of literary imitation. 5

The Second Preface and the Date of the Anabasis

Historians pillage literature for chronological data with scant regard for a text’s internal logic. Most of the chronological inferences made from our passage are unsound. Since both πατρίδα and τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ denote Nicomedia, Arrian does 40 Stadter (1981).

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not refer either to his consulship or his Athenian archonship. His boasts about his status do not entail his having had a Roman career. On the other hand, ‘the qualification ἐν τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ’ is not ‘unnecessary and misleading if he had held office outside Nicomedia’:41 it is an essential ingredient of the stylistic balance. Since οἵδε οἱ λόγοι = the Anabasis, the phrase does not imply that Arrian has already written other works. What of ἀπὸ νέου? Νέος, a flexible term, can have an ⟦168⟧ upper limit of 30 or even 40.42 Arrian uses the same phrase in the Cynegeticus, written in Athens post c.140, when he was c. 55+.43 It is stretching plausibility to have Arrian claim that the Anabasis has been his all from youth when still in his 30s.44 Arrian’s tremendous self-confidence both about his worldly status and the supreme literary merit of the Anabasis,45 which will assure his place in the forefront of Greek literature, also points to a relatively late dating. A final, tantalising, item. Appian Praef. 15.62 runs: τίς δὲ ὢν ταῦτα συνέγραψα, πολλοὶ μὲν ἴσασι καὶ αὐτὸς προέφηνα, σαφέστερον δ᾽ εἰπεῖν, ᾽Αππιανὸς ᾽Αλεξανδρεύς, ἐς τὰ πρῶτα ἥκων ἐν τῇ πατρίδι, καὶ δίκαις ἐν ῾Ρώμῃ συναγορεύσας ἐπὶ τῶν βασιλέων, μέχρι με σφῶν ἐπιτροπεύειν ἠξίωσαν. καὶ εἴ τῳ σπουδὴ καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ μαθεῖν, ἔστι μοι καὶ περὶ τούτου συγγραφή. If there is a direct relationship between this and our passage,46 Appian must be prior, with Arrian delivering a stinging riposte: whereas Appian vaingloriously celebrated his name, country, τὰ πρῶτα ἐν τῇ πατρίδι, and his Roman achievements, and even referred the interested reader to his autobiography for further information, Arrian pointedly declines to record his name, famous though it is, country, family, or local offices, suppresses all mention of his Roman career, emphasises that he will be judged by his work, not his social status, and claims τὰ πρῶτα not ἐν τῇ πατρίδι but ἐν τῇ φωνῇ τῇ Ἑλλάδι. Such literary polemic would be in character, and would give the Anabasis a terminus post of the late 150s or early 160s.47 The difficulty is that other parallels between Arrian and Appian 41 Bosworth (1980) 106. 42 30: Xen. Mem. 1.2.35, 40; Pl. Leg. 951e; cf. 666b. 43 Cyn. 1.4 (n. 38); 140 and 55 are round figures; on the chronology of Arrian’s life see now Syme (1982). 44 Bosworth (1972) 168 n. 1 (especially as ἀπὸ νέου does not mean ‘right from childhood’). 45 Bosworth’s contention ([1972] 168) that it ‘was only a parergon, one of the works he undertook for practice in handling non-contemporary material’ is wholly untenable. 46 As Mr E. L. Bowie suggests to me. 47 Literary polemic: general discussion in Bosworth (1980) 12; date of Appian’s Emphylia: Gabba (1958) x–xi; Bosworth (1972) 178 (c.161–3); Bowie prefers an earlier date.

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are usually thought to show the priority of the Anabasis.48 Arrian’s language in the second preface can also be adequately explained internally, without reference to Appian. On the other hand, would Appian have written as he did, had the Anabasis already been published? I suspect that Arrian is indeed sniping at Appian. Nevertheless, the safe conclusion is non liquet. Ἀπὸ νέου and the general tone of the passage remain. In my opinion they do support a relatively late dating. Bibliography Bosworth, A. B. (1972) ‘Arrian’s Literary Development’, CQ 22: 163–85. Bosworth, A. B. (1980) A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander I (Oxford). Bosworth, A. B. (1982) ‘Review of Stadter (1980)’, Phoenix 36: 176–80. Bowie, E. L. (1970) ‘Greeks and their Past in the Second Sophistic’, P&P 46: 3–41. Breebaart, A. B. (1960) Enige historiografische aspecten van Arrianus’ Anabasis Alexandri (Leiden). Breebaart, A. B. (1982) ‘Review of Stadter (1980)’, Gnomon 54: 24–8. Brunt, P. A. (1976–83) Arrian: History of Alexander and Indica, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass. and London). Gabba, E. (1958) Appiani Bellorum Civilium Liber Primus (Florence). Moles, J. L. (1982) ‘Review of Stadter (1980)’, JHS 102: 254–5 [above, Ch. 38]. Moles, J. L. (1983) ‘Dio Chrysostom: Exile, Tarsus, Nero, and Domitian’, LCM 8: 130–4 [vol. 1, Ch. 2]. O’Neil, E. N. (1977) Teles: the Cynic Teacher (Missoula, Mont.). Schepens, G. (1971) ‘Arrian’s View of his Task as Alexander-Historian’, AncSoc 2: 254–68. Schwartz, E. (1895) ‘Arrianus (9)’, RE II.1: 1230–47; repr. in id., Griechische Geschichtschreiber (Leipzig, 1959) 130–55. Stadter, P. A. (1980) Arrian of Nicomedia (Chapel Hill and London). Stadter, P. A. (1981) ‘Arrian’s Extended Preface’, ICS 6: 157–71. Syme, R. (1982) ‘The Career of Arrian’, HSCPh 86: 181–211; repr. in id., Roman Papers, ed. A. R. Birley (Oxford, 1988) IV.21–49. Wirth, G. (1964) ‘Anmerkungen zur Arrianbiographie: Appian–Arrian–Lukian’, Historia 13: 209–45. 48 Cf. Bosworth (1972) 176ff. (Bowie disagrees).

Chapter 47

Review A. J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies. Pp. xiii + 236. London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1988.

This book confronts the question: is classical historiography different in kind from modern historiography? The first of four long studies tackles the great test case: the Athenian historian Thucydides, conventionally regarded as a paradigm of the modern scientific historian and to a greater or lesser extent contrasted with other ancient historians. Woodman argues that on the contrary Thucydides (like his predecessor Herodotus) sites himself within the Homeric epic tradition, is acutely conscious of literary rivalry with Herodotus and Homer, does not even claim to be providing the truth of the events of the Peloponnesian war, but merely a realistic representation of them, and throughout his work practises the techniques of emotional arousal, rhetorical embellishment, and literary manipulation of factual data, which are everywhere found in ancient historiography. The second study analyses the historiographical theories of Cicero, again conventionally adduced as proof of the essential unity of ancient and modern historiography. Woodman argues that, properly interpreted, Cicero’s discussions reveal quite a different view: the historian begins with only a small factual core, which he ‘elaborates’; this ‘elaboration’ is not a matter of mere stylistic embellishment but of ‘invention’ of rhetorically plausible material; in the case of both the factual core and the ‘elaboration’, ‘truth’ is the product not of painstaking research on the part of the historian but of his impartiality (the balance between encomium and derogation). The third study argues that since ancient historiography is regarded as a branch of rhetoric, the ancient historian’s choice of style indicates to which of the two main tendencies of all ancient rhetoric and literature—the encomiastic and the derogatory—he adheres; whereas Cicero champions Herodotean optimism and a correspondingly ample style, his younger contemporary Sallust opts for historical pessimism and the complexities and angularities of Thucydidean style. Later Livy, beginning his work before the Augustan settlement, in the first instance chooses Sallustian pessimism, but changes over to Ciceronian optimism as his appreciation of Augustus develops, a change of attitude mirrored in a change of style. Style, attitude, and indeed content in ancient historiography are therefore indissolubly interconnected.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_019

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The fourth study examines the complexities and ambiguities of Tacitus in relation to the topics of optimism and pessimism, imitation of Cicero or Sallust, ‘grand’ or ‘inglorious’ history. In his Histories, Tacitus proclaims allegiance to Ciceronian and ‘optimistic’ canons of pleasurable excitement and drama in historiography. His stance in the Annals is much more complex: the first preface ⟦318⟧ espouses Sallustian pessimism but the narrative of Book 1 exhibits all the excitements of classical, ‘optimistic’, historiography; then the preface to Book 4 argues that the political realities of the period covered preclude the grandeurs of conventional historiography, necessitating something small-scale and ignoble; but then in turn the narrative does in fact provide conventional historiographical elements but in metaphorical form. An epilogue draws together the main threads of these separate but related, and to some extent interdependent, studies. From these complex studies and the mass of information contained within them there emerges a general theory of ancient historiography. In the ancient world historiography is classified as a species of the genus of rhetoric (though there is disagreement over its detailed classification, historiography being variously classed as epideictic [formal display] literature, forensic oratory, deliberative oratory, or even a form of poetry). It aims at truth but truth is conceived largely in terms of the absence of prejudice, and consists only of a factual core, sometimes very small, which it is the historian’s job to build up in a rhetorically persuasive manner; within limits, the historian may choose whether to angle his work towards the encomiastic or derogatory; both are legitimate rhetorical stances, and criticism in the sense of derogation should not be confused with criticism in the sense of discrimination (this confusion lies at the root of exaggeratedly favourable modern estimates of the historical accuracy and acumen of Thucydides). Thus ancient historiography’s conception of truth is in several ways quite different from that of modern historiography. This is a very impressive work. Presentation is excellent. Woodman writes with great precision and incisiveness, as well as agreeable pugnacity. The argumentation is intense and unremitting but the arguments are built up in such a way that the reader (even the non-classicist) is led from basic principles to the very heart of the central problems. Almost all important passages of Greek and Latin discussed are equipped with translations and these, while of course often controversial in detail, not only are generally very accurate but make a real attempt to convey both the structures and the verbal nuances of the originals. There are also some very strong stylistic analyses which will be comprehensible even to those without the original languages. In general, non-classicists will find this book enormously illuminating on what it is like

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to read and interpret ancient works and on the characteristic structures of ancient writing (recurrent patterns, ring structures, etc.). Immensely thorough footnoting, cross-referencing, and indexing reveal Woodman’s formidable general grasp of the subject, greatly facilitate consultation, and provide the scholar with a gold-mine of information. The basic method employed—in-depth analysis of key passages to establish the theoretical principles of ancient historiography followed by practical demonstrations of those principles at work in the narratives—is clearly the only correct way to proceed, since the prefaces of ancient historians, like those of other ancient writers, have a programmatic function and provide the reader with more ⟦319⟧ or less detailed guidelines to the author’s intentions and his position within the general tradition, and ancient theoretical discussions of historiography, both those of the historians themselves and of rhetoricians and literary critics, do indeed reveal perspectives which are in some ways alarmingly different from modern ones. As for the general conclusions reached, in my view (there remain dissenting traditionalists) Woodman is certainly right to stress that Herodotus and Thucydides align themselves with the epic tradition, that Thucydides is at least far closer to other ancient historians than conventional scholarship allows, that one must give full weight to his evocations of epic and tragedy and evident intent to stimulate and satisfy ancient readers’ desire for emotional arousal, that in ancient historiography generally the rhetorical, the stylistic, and the literary are not simply superimposed upon the factual but interpenetrate it, that to a large extent ancient historians do indeed see truth as a matter of impartiality. The book also contains some brilliantly successful specific analyses: notably that of Cicero’s theoretical discussions, an analysis which completely overthrows the traditional interpretation; that of Livy’s preface, which convincingly re-dates it to the pre-Actium period and thus radically affects our reading of Livy’s first five books; and that of Tacitus’ ‘delayed preface’ in Annals 4. Are there any fundamental objections to Woodman’s analysis? One possible response (already made by some reviewers) is to question the initial question: all language is rhetorical and distorting, all writing a form of fiction, all historiography a type of rhetoric and fiction; thus Woodman’s whole project is misconceived. In reality this self-consciously sophisticated response is glib: distortion from fact (however fact be defined) clearly begins at a much lower level in ancient historiography than in modern, and the quantitative difference between the two in this respect is so great that it requires explanation and can indeed be accounted qualitative. Thus modern historians do not see their works as being in the same tradition as, and competing with, Shakespearean

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tragedy; they do not employ tragic or epic diction and narrative patterns; they do not reorder the historical facts while at the same time fostering the illusion of chronological sequence. The key question rather is how far Woodman’s analysis can be generalised. This indeed raises the whole vexed problem of ‘generic’ interpretation of ancient writing. Do ancient works fall into more or less rigid ‘genres’, each with its own more or less rigid ‘rules’ of composition, these ‘rules’ having been formulated in the first instance by rhetoricians? Or was there a gulf between the theories of the rhetoricians and the practice of creative writers and if so, how wide was it? The intrinsic difficulty of these questions is compounded by the facts that in the classical period writers often do seem to have been familiar with the rhetorical theories and in some cases were themselves rhetoricians (Cicero and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, for example, among historians). One may well concede a certain general validity to such ‘generic’ interpretations, but insist that they may not explain everything, or even the most ⟦320⟧ important things, in particular texts. For instance, Woodman’s arguments in favour of the proposition that Thucydides does not claim to present factual truth but merely a realistic representation of it (a proposition in accord with his general ‘rhetorical’ view of ancient historiography) seem to me untenable, so that though he has rightly emphasised aspects of Thucydides which conventional scholarship dismisses or at least downplays and has also pointed to key difficulties in the conventional interpretation, he has not dethroned Thucydides from his position as a historian with a profound concern for truth in its several aspects. Again, against every single proposition in Woodman’s analysis it is possible to cite heavyweight counter-theoretical statements: rhetorical as he is, Thucydides himself nevertheless sharply distinguishes his work from rhetorical displays, Aristotle’s conception of historiography in Poetics 9 is prosaically matter-of-fact, Lucian insists on the differences between historiography and oratory or poetry. And, even granted that the analysis has considerable general validity, there are important things which it fails to explain. What of the strong opposing tendencies in historians classified as broadly encomiastic or derogatory: Herodotus’ generally positive stance permits severe criticism, of Greeks as well as barbarians, and this criticism is no mere rhetorical device to create plausibility (because unremitting encomium is unpersuasive) but integral to his moral and political thought. The same is true of the positive tendency in Thucydides (evident in his portrayals of Pericles, Brasidas, Hermocrates, etc.). Again, the thesis that for ancient historians truth is only a matter of the avoidance of prejudice cannot explain the many passages where truth is assessed by

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such solid historical criteria as eye-witness testimony, paucity or excess of evidence, conflict of sources, incompetence, chronological inaccuracy, emotional and dramatic exaggeration, etc. At the least, then, several of Woodman’s key contentions require considerable qualification: his own rhetoric impels him constantly towards the superlative and the excessively generalised. Here is a representative example: ‘If my analysis [of Cicero’s theoretical discussions] is correct, it means that there is no theoretical basis whatsoever for the view that classical historiography resembles its modern namesake. Historiography was regarded by the ancients as not essentially different from poetry: each was a branch of rhetoric, and therefore historiography, like poetry, employs the concepts associated with, and relies upon the expectations generated by, a rhetorical genre’ (x). While such rhetoric contributes to the verve and impact of this book, it cannot command our uncritical assent. Indeed, more than anything else it is Woodman’s insistence on the importance of rhetoric in the ancient historians that alerts us to the rhetoric in his analysis of them. In short, ancient historiography in general is simply too rich and varied, and its greatest exponents themselves too complex, to be explicable by any single series of theoretical propositions. Nevertheless, this book is by a long way the best ⟦321⟧ available treatment of this difficult topic and beside it the efforts of some so-called ‘big names’ (of the ‘I-refuse-to-believe-Thucydides-is-a-liar’ school) look merely naïve.

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Review Vivienne Gray, The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica. Pp. x + 219. London: Duckworth, 1989.

Gray’s approach to Hellenica, most problematic of historiographical texts, organises close reading of long translated excerpts into three large sections on Xenophon’s three narrative modes: conversationalised narrative, speech, and plain narrative. Traditional problems (such as the beginning, the relationship of ‘continuation’ to the rest, the character of ‘the continuation’, dating, the relationship of Agesilaus to Hellenica, and Xenophon’s omissions) lack full-scale treatment and are answered rather through an extended cumulative argument, which aims to establish Hellenica’s nature and unity, as follows. As Dionysius and Demetrius recognised, Xenophon followed Herodotus rather than Thucydides. His conversationalised narratives exhibit ‘charm’, both thematic (generally encomiastic stance, accentuation of positive over negative, love stories) and stylistic (well-structured story-lines, simple and economical expression, wit, vividness, deft postponement of key ideas, ‘punch-lines’). Herodotean influence includes conversation types, narrative patterns, direct modelling of whole episodes, though other possible influences are the traditions of Spartan βραχυλογία and of Spartan and Greek story-telling generally. Xenophon focuses on ethical achievement (commemoration of outstanding virtue, revelation of hidden virtue or virtue in small things, qualities of the good leader, demands and problematics of friendship), often illustrating virtues by contrast. The consistent use of conversationalised narrative indicates the Hellenica’s unity and Xenophon’s lack of interest in ‘proper’ military and political history, and disproves the ‘memoir’ theory (that personal recollection largely determined his material). Such narrative also promotes variety and Xenophon’s self-image as successful leader and witty Socratic moralist. Xenophon’s formal speeches, like Herodotus’ and unlike Thucydides’, observe ‘propriety’ and focus on moral issues. Callicratidas’ speeches (1.6.5–11) reflect his egoism, tactlessness, and poor leadership, Euryptolemus’ commemorates his φιλανθρωπία, which he had already displayed towards the returning Alcibiades, whereas the Athenians at large betray their ancestral φιλανθρωπία until too late, though they had displayed it to excess towards Alcibiades (1.7, 4.19, 4.8–20). Theramenes’ and Critias’ speeches (2.3.9–56) are a study of

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treachery vs. friendship (for once the moral message allows inconsistent characterisation). Thrasybulus’ first speech, superficially a Thucydidean military analysis (a type rare in Hellenica), Cleocritus’ speech, and Thrasybulus’ second speech combine to convey the superiority of pardon and reconciliation to strict justice (2.4.13–17, 20–2, 40–2). A series of speeches concerning relations between the three superpowers and with a strong Athenian focus explores questions of inter-state morality. Though the Thebans lack the moral credit to justify their appeal to Athens in the Corinthian war, the Athenians repay inadequate past favours with interest (3.5.8–15). They display the same magnanimity to the Spartans after Leuctra in response to Procles’ speech, though they fail to match ⟦282⟧ action to sentiment, and the words of the man from the small city prove greater than the great city’s actions (6.5.33–48), a pattern also illustrated by Polydamas’ appeal to Sparta against Jason (6.1). Procles’ second speech and Cephisodotus’ speech reflect noble Pan-Hellenic statesmanship and narrow national honour, with Athens again failing her ideals (7.1.1–14). The three Athenian speeches for peace in 371 emphasise respectively traditional Athenian-Spartan ties, Spartan crimes, and pardon and reconciliation (6.3), the same moral movement as that created within Athens by Thrasybulus’ and Cleocritus’ speeches. Finally, the trial of Euphron’s assassins reveals hidden virtue (7.3.5–11). Xenophon’s use of speeches is consistent and reflects his own imperatives rather than those of authenticity. Xenophon’s military narratives have the same qualities and aims as his conversationalised narratives, exhibiting variety of mood and style consonant with ‘propriety’. Stratagem stories reveal set patterns (breaking military deadlocks, changing bad news to good, reacting positively to bad news). The lengthy and vivid narrative of Corinth’s liberation (4.4.1–13) eschews political and military analysis in favour of a theological lesson; that of the disaster at Lechaion (4.5.3–19) involves numerous reversals of mood within a general reversal of fortune (a pattern also evident in the Jason-narrative [6.4.27–37]). The narrative of the campaigns of the Phliasians (7.2) contains five episodes marked by lightness and wit, each illustrative of the great virtues of ‘little men’. Finally, the vivid and detailed narrative of Mantinea (7.5), which celebrates the virtues of Thebes, Sparta, and Athens, is dominated by the theme of limit, with divine fortune thwarting all Epaminondas’ best efforts. A unified Hellenica focuses not on military or political history but on moral lessons for all Greeks, particularly the fragility of success, the futility of imperialist ambitions, and the virtues of magnanimity and reconciliation. Gray’s weaknesses of style and presentation (especially laborious and repetitious exposition), numerous small translation errors, and a few alarming

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misconceptions do not undermine her general thesis, which is surely largely right, or her detailed analysis, much of which seems to me unsurpassably excellent. Gray’s nose for Xenophon’s thought patterns is very sensitive. Naturally, scope for disagreement or elaboration remains. It is not true (p. 17) that Xenophon neglects the effects of the pay rise secured by Lysander (1.5.7–8, 1.6.6ff.). Gray seems unduly hard on Callicratidas (cf. also Tuplin [1991] and Anderson [1991], both reviewing Krentz (1989); {cf. also Moles (1994)}): Lysander initiates hostilities (1.6.2 θαλαττοκράτωρ and his friends πολυπραγμονοῦσι. Callicratidas’ Pan-Hellenic sentiment is not (p. 83) mere personal pique: cf. 1.6.8, 11, 14; 7.1.37–8. An important part of the effect in the Dercylidas–Meidias story (p. 34) is the reader’s expectation that justice will require Meidias’ death. Cinadon’s personal motivation weakens his moral credentials (p. 43) and the whole story surely conveys the fragility at the heart of Sparta even as she embarks on her most imperialist phase. It is not true that Xenophon ignores the political implications of Sphodrias’ acquittal (p. 62): cf. 5.4.20, 30, 34. It is inconceivable after 5.4.1 that Xenophon is not evoking Seven against Thebes (p. 65). 5.4.1, 9 and 46 do emphasise the theme of democracy (p. 69). As the set-piece in the ‘continuation’ and a study of φιλανθρωπία, the trial of the generals (p. 83) surely invites comparison with the Mytilene and Melian debates. The military analysis in Thrasybulus’ first speech (pp. 99–100) has to be given some value: Xenophon does not need to labour the point, and having made it, moves on to another. Similarly, ⟦283⟧ emphasis on Athenian desire for ἀρχή (pp. 108, 178) is not erased when it is displaced by the moral question of repayment of favours; it is not that Xenophon is uninterested in political questions: rather, he is suggesting that moral considerations prevailed (or should have prevailed) over political, or, to put it another way, that noble political considerations prevailed over narrow political advantage. Cases such as this raise fundamental questions about the real meaning of Hellenica (below). The parallel between Agesilaus and Xerxes (p. 162) is extremely significant as one of the means whereby Xenophon reconciles the apparent contradiction between the exemplary Agesilaus and the criminality (5.4.1) of Spartan imperialism. More radically, those traditional problems really do require full-scale and hard-edged treatment. Gray downplays and caricatures the case for relatively greater Thucydidean influence on the ‘continuation’: it is not an objection that ‘the continuation’ is also characteristically Xenophontic or that by Thucydidean standards it falls short, or that the narrative organisation is more thematic than annalistic/seasonal (which to some extent applies to Thucydides also). 2.3.56 does ‘apologise’ for infringement of some canon, surely Thucydidean,

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even though it is also a ‘rhetorical flourish’ and is hardly ‘sincere’; 2.3.56, 5.1.4, and 7.2.1 seem to represent a progression suggestive of a stronger Thucydidean color at the start. Finally, 1.1.1 links not simply with a period of time, but (however imperfectly) with a particular text, and if indeed there is no lacuna, the claim must be that 1.1.1 is in some sense part of the same text as Thucydides. None of which is to deny that Xenophon subsequently integrated ‘the continuation’ into the larger conception of Hellenica. More fundamental still is the question of the relationship between ‘literature’, ‘moral philosophy’, ‘history’, and ‘politics’. Throughout, Gray is interested not in ‘the facts’ but in Xenophon’s narrative and his moral purpose, and many of her analyses (stressing, e.g., standard or Herodotean story-telling patterns, conventional numbers, etc.) should shake historians’ confidence in the possibility of reconstructing the events for which Xenophon is the only, or the major, ‘source’. Nevertheless, even Gray finds herself unable to exclude such ‘external’ factors as Xenophon’s bias towards Agesilaus and against the Thebans. Nor in the last analysis can she evade these questions: if Xenophon is commemorating virtue, is he commemorating ‘facts’? Is commemoration of virtue merely an end in itself? If Hellenica is a μίμησις, what exactly is it a μίμησις of? ‘Xenophon is consciously exploring the morality of the democrats through his use of speeches’ (p. 103) and ‘the Athenians proved themselves most remarkable in the philanthropy they revealed on this occasion and not on others’ (p. 131). Yes, indeed, but these formulations prompt the questions: what degree, what sort, of truth is Xenophon here portraying? And why is he so particularly interested in Athenian morality? In both cases, what he is portraying is surely a historical fact but one exaggerated for paradeigmatic purposes. Conversely, omission (however startling) of political facts does not prove lack of interest in the larger political issues exemplified by those facts (such as the struggle between tyranny and democracy or Athenian interest in ἀρχή/ἡγεμονία). In short, what is required is a more nuanced description of this highly complex work, stressing the literary and the moral, but making more systematic allowance for political and factual distortions and omissions, narrowing the dichotomy between the ‘moral’ and the ‘political’, acknowledging both the timelessness and the topicality of Hellenica, and confronting more directly the question: does Hellenica have a political message? (Here Tuplin [1977], seemingly missed by Gray, is suggestive.) ⟦284⟧ For all that, this book remains an essential contribution to interpretation of Hellenica and is particularly welcome to people such as myself who have always thought Xenophon a major writer (even historian), without quite knowing why.

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Bibliography Anderson, J. K. (1991) ‘Review of Krentz (1989)’, JHS 111: 225. Krentz, P., ed. (1989) Xenophon: Hellenika I–II.3.10 (Warminster). Moles, J. L. (1994) ‘Xenophon and Callicratidas’, JHS 114: 70–84 [below, Ch. 51]. Tuplin, C. J. (1977) ‘Xenophon a Didactic Historian?’, PCA 74: 26–7. Tuplin, C. J. (1991) ‘Review of Krentz (1989)’, LCM 16: 25–6.

Chapter 49

Truth and Untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides 1 There was considerable debate in the Classical world about the nature of historiography, a debate which took several forms;* there were major theoretical discussions, of which the most important surviving are those interspersed throughout his work by the Greek historian Polybius; those of Cicero, a historian among many other things; of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, historian, critic, and rhetorician; of Plutarch, biographer and historian among many other things; and Lucian, who though not a historian was a highly educated and intelligent man and shrewd literary critic.1 We hear of many other such discussions—by rhetoricians, philosophers, ⟦89⟧ and practising historians. There is also much debate within ancient historiography itself and some material in the writings of rhetoricians and literary critics. There is a correspondingly lively modern debate, which is fuelled by several different factors: historians’ need to use ancient historiographical works as sources; the difficulty of interpreting ancient views on historiography; modern theories of historiography; and, to an ever-increasing extent, modern literary theory.2 The debate raises fundamental questions. What, if any, is the relationship between literature and life? Is literature self-sufficient, self-contained, and purely fictional? Or does it reflect, and is it governed by, external reality? In the case of historiography, the answer appears simple: history, in ancient terminology, relates things that were done or things that happened (ἔργα/res gestae), and so the historian’s job is to reproduce these things. In the words of Lucian, Hist. conscr. 51: ‘Above all, let him bring a mind like a mirror, clear, gleaming-bright, accurately centred, displaying the shape of things just as he receives them, free from distortion, false colouring, and misrepresentation.’ * This chapter is based on a paper given at Florida State University, Tallahassee, on March 2nd 1989 and (in revised form) at the Crossmead Conference {University of Exeter, April 27–28, 1991}. 1 Pol. 1.14.1–9; 2.56.1–16; 8.8.3–11; 12.1.2–28a.10; 16.14.1–20.9; 29.12.1–12; Sacks (1981); Cic. Fam. 5.12 (the letter to Lucceius); De oratore 2.51–64; Woodman (1988) 70–116; D. Hal. Pomp. and Thuc.; Pritchett (1975); Plut. Her. mal.; Pearson (1965); Lucian, Hist. conscr.; Avenarius (1956). 2 Wiseman (1979) and (1981); Fornara (1983); Moxon–Smart–Woodman (1986); Woodman (1988); Cameron (1989); useful reviews of Woodman’s controversial but indispensable book by Moles (1990) and Brock (1991); sustained practical application of Woodman’s theory in Martin–Woodman (1989).

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Surely mimesis through the medium of a mirror is as close to reality as one can get? So simple a notion, however, is soon dispelled by exposure to the ancient historiographical texts and the ancient and modern debates about them. I postpone discussion about the details of these debates until the end, and for the moment merely say that, at least until very recently, when it became much more sophisticated, the modern debate has tended to polarise between historians and literary critics. For the former, ancient historiography aims, or should aim, to tell the truth, by which is meant: to relate things that actually happened and establish their causes. Accordingly, if an ancient historiographer does not ⟦90⟧ tell the truth in that sense, there can be only three explanations: error, dishonesty, or misconception of history’s true function.3 For the literary critics, by contrast, ancient historiography may aim to tell the truth, but there are many sorts of truth; or it may not aim to tell the truth: it can, quite legitimately, approach the status of fiction, hence accusations of ‘lying’ are fundamentally misconceived. To quote A. J. Woodman (whose arguments I shall be debating, implicitly or explicitly, throughout this paper): Our primary response to the texts of the ancient historians should be literary rather than historical since the nature of the texts themselves is literary. Only when literary analysis has been carried out can we begin to use these texts as evidence for history; and by that time … such analysis will have revealed that there is precious little historical evidence left.4 Modern historians naturally dislike such views, because they challenge the very basis of ancient history as an intellectual discipline, since the ‘evidence’, at almost all periods, consists overwhelmingly of literary texts. While most historians concede that ancient historiographical texts are in some senses ‘literary’, they nevertheless insist that this ‘literary’ aspect is detachable and there is solid fact underneath. On this view, ancient works of historiography are like Christmas cakes: if you don’t like almond icing, you slice it off, and you’ve still got a cake—a substantial object uncontaminated by icing. The traditional terminology of this debate—‘historical’ and ‘literary’—and the implied polarisation between the two are crude and, in important ways, question-begging, but they obviously have some substance, so I shall employ them provisionally. In this discussion, I want to mediate between ‘literary’ and ‘historical’ approaches to the question, primarily through a close reading of the prefaces 3 Thus, e.g., Dover (1983) 55 {= (1988) 54}: ‘if Thucydides tried to achieve something incompatible with the factual record, he would be a liar’ (quotation slightly adapted). 4 Woodman (1983) at 120 {= (1998) 18}.

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of Herodotus and Thucydides (presented in my own very literal, and sometimes controversial, translations). What emerges, I think, from the content and form of these programmatic ⟦91⟧ statements is the way in which ‘literary’ and ‘historical’ objectives are alike present and deeply interfused. On the one hand, both writers see themselves as inheritors of the tradition of epic narrative, especially as expressed in Homer’s commemoration of a great war in the Iliad. Both writers also see themselves as developing the project built into Homer’s poem (a project itself not without a certain ‘historical’ concern), namely that of analysing the causation and process of war and conflict, and of doing so by the invention of significant speeches and by the selection and presentation of concrete events. On the other hand, both writers also see themselves as engaged in a project which is distinctive from that of the poetic tradition in its attempt to establish factual truth and to distinguish this from factual ‘untruth’ or ‘falsehood’.5 Thucydides is more explicit about the nature and methodology of this project than Herodotus, and also about the kind of history (that is, primarily, recent history) in which this project can be pursued effectively. Indeed, in this respect especially, he presents himself as a critic, and rival, of Herodotus as well as a successor. But, in the prefaces of both historians, as in their full-scale narratives, we can recognise the combination of objectives (the perpetuation of epic narrative and interpretation and the innovative search for factual truth) that makes it so difficult to characterise their writings either in terms of ‘literature’ or ‘history’. This combination also makes it difficult to characterise their work in terms of ‘truth’, ‘falsehood’, or ‘fiction’, ⟦92⟧ though if we examine their own descriptions of their project, we have a better chance of seeing how these concepts match with theirs. 2 Herodotus’ History has two formal prefaces, the first (1.1–5) introducing the work as a whole, the second (7.20.2–21.1), over two-thirds the way through the work, introducing Xerxes’ Persian expedition against Greece. The first preface 5 Herodotus’ concern for truth has recently come under renewed attack at the most basic level: did he really see the things he said he had seen? See, e.g., Fehling (1989); Armayor (1978a), (1978b), and (1985); a related, though less radical, position in West (1985) and (1991). I do not accept all Armayor’s and Fehling’s claims, which are rejected by Hornblower (1987) 13–25 and Gould (1989) 136–7, 151–2, and soberly assessed by Dewald–Marincola (1987) 26–33. In fact, Herodotus’ concern for truth is complex and ambivalent (pp. 162–5 below). For a particular ‘test case’ see pp. 184–5.

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falls into three parts and is constructed like a sandwich: initial preface, narrative about the remote past, resumed preface. The initial preface (traditionally dated to the early 420s BC) reads as follows:6 This is a demonstration [ἀπόδεξις] of the enquiry [ἱστορίη] of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, in order that neither should the things done by men fade away through time, nor should great and wonderful achievements [ἔργα], some performed/demonstrated [ἀποδεχθέντα] by Greeks, some by barbarians, become without glory, both in other respects and for what cause they waged war on each other. Herodotus begins by emphasising his theme’s greatness, and this became standard practice in ancient historiography. The enormously wide scope of the theme, however, is quite untypical: ‘things done by men’ (any men), ‘great and wonderful achievements’ (the word ‘achievements’ covering both deeds and buildings, works of art, and the like, done by Greeks and barbarians, not just Persians). Only at the end does he state a specific theme: war between Greeks and Persians, though even then he says ‘barbarians’ to keep it nice and broad. The theme is so widely defined—in fact it is hardly defined at all—as to pre-empt accusations of irrelevance: hence such later protestations as, ‘My account has sought additions from the beginning’ (4.30.1). ⟦93⟧ There is a general implication that he is concerned with truth—the things have been done, the great achievements demonstrated, his work is the product of ‘enquiry’,7 causation is stressed—but he certainly does not emphasise truth, which makes a striking contrast to his immediate predecessor Hecataeus, who had prefaced his Historia with the iconoclastic claim (FGrHist 1 F 1a): Hecataeus of Miletus gives the following account. I write these things, as they seem to me to be true. For the stories of the Greeks are many and ludicrous, as they appear to me. Herodotus promises to record ‘wonderful’ achievements. He will appeal to his readers’ emotions, their sense of wonder—much of his material is indeed mind-boggling—and appeal perhaps also to their moral sense, since 6 Erbse (1956); Krischer (1965); Immerwahr (1966) 17–19, 43–4, 80–1; Stadter (1981) 158–9; Nagy (1987); Woodman (1988) 2–3; Lateiner (1989) 8–15. 7 On the complex implications of Herodotean ‘enquiry’ see, e.g., Dewald (1987); Gould (1989) 8–12.

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‘wonderful’ can include ‘admirable’ and, as we shall see, Herodotus is an overt moralist. There may also be a veiled implication that some of the material will be untrue (fabulous monsters and peoples, the sort of material one finds in the Odyssey)—as indeed some of it is. ‘The wonderful’ becomes the normal classification for such material.8 Herodotus’ work has commemorative value (a standard historiographical claim) but the wording ‘to avoid great achievements becoming without glory’ echoes a famous passage in the Iliad (9.189), where the great hero Achilles is described as ‘singing of the glorious deeds of men’. Thus, Herodotus’ theme is of epic greatness, and his own role is, perhaps, correspondingly heroic (as will certainly be implied soon). The analogy with Homeric epic is reinforced by the wording of the last clause, which reflects Homer’s search for the ‘first cause’ both of the disastrous quarrel of Agamemnon and Achilles in the Iliad (Il. 1.8 ‘Which of the gods, then, set them together to fight in strife?’) and of the whole dispute between Achaeans and Trojans (cf. Il. 22.116; 24.27–8; Od. 8.81–2). So the father of history aligns his theme, war—and war between two great racial groupings—and by extension, himself, with Homeric epic and Homer the poet, as ancient critics recognised by ⟦94⟧ describing Herodotus as ‘most Homeric’ (e.g., D. Hal. Pomp. 3; [Long.] Subl. 13.3). Given that the achievements are wonderful, given the general tone and associations of Homeric epic, it is implied that his work will have an encomiastic slant, as ancient critics also recognised (e.g. D. Hal. Pomp. 3; Plut. Her. mal. 826A, 867C). It became a normal expectation that historiography would have this slant (e.g. Pol. 16.14.6; D. Hal. Pomp. 3, AR 1.1.2–3, 2.1; Lucian, Hist. conscr. 45, 7–14). Both the Homeric and the encomiastic aspects must affect the truthfulness of Herodotus’ representation of history. Quite unhomeric, however, is the proud obtrusion of the historian’s identity in the first two words—a pattern already set by Hecataeus and followed by Thucydides and many later historians. The effect is double: the naming suggests that Herodotus himself will be an important figure in his History (as indeed he is); the use of the third person suggests objectivity and detachment. The logic of the ‘in-order-that-not’ clauses is that the great deeds of history actually depend on Herodotus’ own work for their continued existence, and this proud claim is emphasised by word play: his theme is deeds ‘demonstrated’ (great deeds are only great if publicly acknowledged), his work a ‘demonstration’. Theme and work are parallel and interdependent: if the deeds are great and immortal, so too is Herodotus’ history. It is a common ancient assumption, usually implying no criticism, that the ancient historian seeks personal glory 8 E.g., Arist. Poet. 2.4, 1460a12ff.; D. Hal. AR 1.77.2–3; 2.60.4–5; Tac. Ann. 4.11.3, 66.2; 11.27.

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from his work.9 The ‘demonstration’/‘demonstrated’ play opens the possibility that Herodotus is not just commemorating history: he is creating it. Finally, we have Herodotus’ stress on historical causation: a Homeric formulation, of course, but one that is fundamental to Herodotus’ historical concerns. Again and again, his narrative pinpoints, and explains, key moments of change. Here at least, the ‘literary’ and the ‘historical’ are indissoluble. Then follows the ‘sandwiched material’, summarising previous accounts of the causes of Greek-barbarian enmity, allegedly given ⟦95⟧ by learned Persians and Phoenicians, which is followed, in turn, by the resumed preface (1.5.3–4): This, then, is what the Persians and Phoenicians say. But I am not going to say that these things happened this way or otherwise, rather I shall indicate the man whom I myself know to have begun unjust deeds towards the Greeks, and I shall then advance forwards into my account, going through small and great cities of men alike. (4) For of the cities that were great in the past, the majority have become small, and the cities that were great in my day were small formerly. Knowing, therefore, that human prosperity never remains in the same place I shall make mention of both alike. Herodotus ostentatiously refuses to pass judgement on the truth or falsity of the previous accounts of the causes of enmity between Greeks and barbarians: he himself will start with the man whom he knows to have begun unjust deeds towards the Greeks. The ambiguity is typical. Throughout his work he claims the right to retail material without judging its historicity—‘My duty is to say what is said, but it is not at all my duty to believe it, and let this statement hold for my entire account’ (7.152.3). This non-committal stance takes several forms—genuinely non-committal, or implying the untruth of the material, or implying, if not its untruth, at least its relative insignificance. But the formal stance allows him to retail all sorts of material without exposing himself to the charge of untruth. On the other hand, there are countless passages which do reveal a concern for establishing the truth, or where he does proclaim things as true. But he chooses his ground. In general, no ancient historian is more alive to the problem of truth, or (on the whole) more dextrous at protecting his own position, than Herodotus.

9 Cf., e.g., Thuc. 1.22.4 (below); Sall. BC 1.1–4; 3.1–2, BJ 1.3; 2.4; 4.1; Liv. praef. 1, 3; Plin. Ep. 5.8.1–2; Lucian, Hist. conscr. 5.

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The sandwiched material is an intriguing mixture—a long series of mythical ‘snatchings’ of women (including that of Helen by Paris), which is risqué, entertaining, and further enlivened by snide Herodotean asides. Although billed as ‘Persian’ and ‘Phoenician’, as if Herodotus had meticulously consulted oriental sources, its content is solidly Greek. The ‘invented source’ will become commonplace in ancient historiography and related genres of ⟦96⟧ literature.10 Yet the section has serious undertones; it suggests a concern with causation, with recurrent patterns in events, especially the reciprocal pattern of crime and counter-crime and punishment, with what is constant in history and what changes, with historical method, especially the weighing of sources. In all respects it is utterly typical of much of Herodotus’ own material. Herodotus has it all possible ways: he uses the sandwiched material to begin his work in great style, to maintain the association between that work and Homer’s Iliad, to entertain his readers, to suggest ideas dear to himself—yet he also distances himself from it and makes a distinction between myth and solid, verifiable history. Such ambiguity of attitude both to myth and ‘things that are said’ is characteristic of the ancient historian, yet rarely articulated with such flair. So Herodotus will start his narrative with ‘the man whom I myself know to have begun unjust deeds towards the Greeks’. As the sandwiched material anticipated, concern with historical causation now expands to include allocation of blame. History is not only about the documentation of events and analysis of causes: it has overt moral concern, which must inevitably affect the presentation of fact. History may have an encomiastic slant, but this still permits negative moral judgements. This is the same combination of concerns as in epic, an analogy again suggested by the allusion to the Homeric ‘beginning-of-evils’ motif (cf. Il. 1.6, 8; 5.62–3; 11.604; 22.116; 24.27–8; Od. 8.81–2), and in tragedy, as we shall see shortly. ‘I shall then advance forwards in my account, going through small and great cities of men alike’: note again the close nexus between theme and work: Herodotus’ work is like the journeys he undertook in his research to produce it. There is another pointed Homeric reminiscence, to Od. 1.3 (‘he saw the cities of many men and knew their minds’): Herodotus the historian is an alter ego of the great Odysseus, intrepid traveller, spinner of tales, dispassionate observer and judge of men in all their various manifestations; theme, work, writer form an indissoluble union. Herodotus will go through small cities as well as great, because of the instability of human prosperity. This serious moral and theological note sounds constantly ⟦97⟧ throughout his work, but also justifies a 10

Fehling (1989) 51–9, 154–74.

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further extension to his already vast original edifice: he will treat not just great things, but small too. Finally, the second preface in Book 7 (7.20.2–21.1) argues for the supreme greatness of Xerxes’ expedition, as compared with previous ones: Of the expeditions which we know of, this was much the greatest, so that neither Darius’ against the Scythians seems an expedition by comparison with this one … nor the Scythian one … nor the one (according to what is said) of the Atreidae against Troy … All these campaigns and others which happened like them are not worthy of this single one. Here, the Trojan expedition gets particularly short shrift; this emphasis, together with the distinction in the resumed preface between the myths that are ‘said’ and what ‘we can know’ (a distinction Herodotus upholds throughout his history) suggests a critical attitude to Homeric material, and critical in both senses, depreciatory and discriminating. Let us briefly explore the implications of Herodotus’ extensive imitation of, but apparent rivalry with, Homer and Homeric epic. The question is important both for Herodotus and for many ancient historians. The imitation reveals itself in such things as the choice of theme: war; the characterisation of the theme; the mask or persona of the historian (a complex amalgam of epic poet, epic hero in general, and Odysseus in particular, hence both ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ the narrative); the size of the work; the expansiveness and digressiveness of treatment; language, vocabulary, rhythms; introduction into the narrative of dramatised conferences and conversations; epic representation of battle scenes; formal ‘catalogues’ of opposing forces; direct divine input into human affairs; general moral and theological stance. If a historian imitates not history itself but another historian, even if only in abstracting data from him, factual distortion is likely. His work at that point is an imitation not of external reality but of another work, which is itself an imitation. If a historian imitates a non-historian (as, in one sense, Herodotus regards Homer), whether for purposes of homage, rivalry, evocative effect, or supplementation ⟦98⟧ of deficient material according to received stereotypes, factual distortion is certain, though it may vary greatly according to circumstances. This tendency, however, is to some extent counterbalanced by Herodotus’ rationalist detachment from, sometimes amounting almost to rejection of, Homeric material. Herodotus’ prefatory discussions, then, written with marvellous subtlety and ambiguity, show us that his work, so far from being a mere mirror

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of history, is a glorious mixture: partly history, partly literature, partly prose, partly ‘verse’; an immortal prose epic which will immortalise its (in some ways) epic theme; embracing true things, false things, things of indeterminate status, great things and small things, things both of the remote past and of historical times, things both Greek and barbarian; vast in scope yet with an ever narrowing focus, concerned with both the documentation of a great mass of specifics and the tracing of universals, its tone Homerically objective, intensely personal, dispassionate, involved, uncritical, rigorous, serious, entertaining. Who said Herodotus was simple? 3 Thucydides’ History contains two formal prefaces, the first introducing the work as a whole (1.1–23), the second, about two-thirds the way through the work (5.26), introducing the second phase of the war. The first preface has a ‘sandwich’ structure, consisting of initial preface, narrative of past events, resumed preface. Thus, the architecture of Thucydides’ prefaces is exactly the same as Herodotus’, which is no accident, as becomes clear from the initial preface11 (written some twenty-five years after Herodotus’):

⟦99⟧ Thucydides the Athenian wrote up the war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians, how they waged war on each other, beginning immediately it started and expecting that it would be great and more worthy of record than those which had happened before it, going on the indication [tekmairomenos] that both sides went to it with their whole preparation in their prime and seeing the rest of the Greeks joining one side or the other, some immediately, others having it in mind to do so. [1.1.2] For this was the greatest upheaval to occur among the Greeks and some part of the barbarians, and extending virtually over the majority of mankind. [1.1.3] For to discover clearly the things before it and the things still more ancient was impossible because of the quantity of time intervening, but from indications which I trust as I look back [skopounti] over as long a period as possible, I consider them not to have been great either in wars or in other respects.

The echoes of Herodotus’ preface and second preface are unmistakable: 11 Gomme (1945) 89–157; Hammond (1952); Erbse (1970); Connor (1984), 20–32; Loraux (1986); Woodman (1988) 5–32; Hornblower (1991), 3–66; Bowie (1993).

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Thucydides the Athenian quantity of time intervening great / greatest Peloponnesians … Athenians Greeks … barbarians war … they waged war on each other they waged war on each other this [expedition] was much the greatest this was the greatest upheaval worthy of record worthy Herodotus of Halicarnassus through time great / greatest Greeks … barbarians

It is immediately apparent that while Thucydides is certainly engaged in the imitation of external reality, he is at least equally engaged in the imitation of another text. The verbal echoes make it plain that he is (in some ways) following in Herodotus’ footsteps, just as Herodotus (in some ways) followed in Homer’s. But Thucydides insists on the supreme greatness of his theme—his superlatives assault the ear—implicitly confuting Herodotus, just as Herodotus had confuted Homer. There is the same pattern of imitation-plus-rebuttal, but this time it poses even acuter interpretative problems, because this is historian vs historian. Is this an example of literary rivalry for its own sake or serious intellectual disagreement? ⟦100⟧ Disagreement, explicit or implicit, with one’s predecessors is standard in ancient historiography.12 Of course serious issues are often at stake (the nature of history, problems of historical method, and so on), but the ancient historian’s characteristic stance towards his predecessors is one of disparagement (the stance of Herodotus towards Hecataeus; cf. 2.143.1).13 The exaggeration and tetchiness of many such attacks often indicate literary rivalry for its own sake, which Livy indeed takes for granted as a sufficient motive for writing history (Praef. 2). Thucydides’ imitation of Herodotus is so extensive and so detailed (as subsequent analysis will show even more clearly) that it must partly convey homage to an acknowledged master, yet it is obvious that rivalry is also important: his stress on his theme’s supreme greatness is exaggerated. The Peloponnesian war was not the greatest upheaval and certainly did not extend virtually over the majority of mankind; this is a crude attempt to attain Herodotean universality. Literary rivalry can distort historical fact. But at the same time Thucydides, unlike Herodotus, has an overt concern with the establishment of fact; he wants to prove his case (dubious though it is) to the hilt. His war is also not just a war: it is an ‘upheaval’ (κίνησις). War is the great catalyst of 12 Cf., e.g., Woodman (1988) 131 on Livy’s preface as a debate with his predecessor Sallust. 13 See West (1991).

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change, creating all sorts of other changes—social, economic, political, physical, moral: Thucydides is concerned with all of these. There follows a long historical retrospect designed to prove a historical fact: that earlier periods were not great. Thucydides’ reconstruction of these very murky periods may or may not be historically brilliant, but it certainly is a further imitation of Herodotus: it too is a narrative of earlier periods, sandwiched between initial and resumed prefaces. Like Herodotus also, Thucydides is concerned to depreciate Homeric subject matter and the historical accuracy of Homer (1.9.3, 10.1, 10.3–5, 11.1–2). Thucydides precedes this historical retrospect with the observation that you cannot ‘discover the past clearly’—you can only reconstruct it through ‘indications’ (1.1.3). At the end of the retrospect in 1.20, he re-emphasises this difficulty, but then (1.21.1) asserts the ⟦101⟧ superiority of his account of the past and his methods to those of two groups, poets and prose writers or logographers: [1.20.1] I have discovered ancient things to be like this [‘ancient things’ picks up the wording ‘the things before it and the things still more ancient’ in 1.1.3], though it is difficult to trust every single indication [τεκμήριον]. People’s uncritical attitudes to facts are then illustrated in two areas: (a) hearsay material about the traditions of one’s native land (Athenian example); (b) ‘things that still are now and are not forgotten through time’ (two examples, both Spartan and both of which Herodotus had got wrong).14 [1.20.3] So unpainstaking for most people is the search for the truth; they turn rather to what lies ready to hand. [1.21.1] But anyone who considered from the aforesaid indications [τεκμήρια] that things were more or less what I have described would not go wrong, neither trusting what the poets have eulogised about them, embellishing them for the purpose of exaggeration, nor what the prose writers [λογογράφοι] have put together for the purpose of enticement to the audience rather than the truth, things that cannot be checked and the majority of them having prevailed owing to time untrustworthily to the point of myth, but believing that they have been discovered from the clearest signs sufficiently in so far as they are ancient things. [1.21.2] And this war, even though people always judge the present war when they are fighting it to be the greatest, but when they have ceased fighting wonder rather at the old, will nevertheless from the 14 I.e., Herodotus says the opposite of what Thucydides says; in both cases historians dispute which of the two is really right (see Hornblower [1991] 57–8).

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deeds themselves reveal itself to those who look at it [σκοποῦσι] to have been greater than them. The apparent vagueness of reference in 1.21.1 masks polemic against Homer and Herodotus: the criticism of poets recalls the earlier criticism of Homer within the ‘sandwiched material’ (1.10.3: Homer ‘as a poet embellishes for the purpose of exaggeration’); that of prose writers recalls the refutation of Herodotus’ views in 1.20. ⟦102⟧ But people’s uncritical attitudes are partly illustrated in relation to contemporary facts; and the things which distort their perception of truth—laziness, myth content—apply to both past and contemporary history. (The categories of chapters 20–1 recur in chapter 22, where Thucydides discusses his historical method regarding the Peloponnesian war.) Thus although on one level Thucydides rejects his ‘sandwiched material’ as not properly historical, he also links it with his treatment of the contemporary war. To some extent, the material functions as a demonstration of correct critical method and suggests ideas that will become important in the main narrative: the ceaseless struggle for dominance, competition between sea and land powers, the contrast between Athenian and Spartan ways of life, the rule of the stronger over the weaker, and so on. Serious discussion of the nature of history and of correct historical method goes hand in hand with further extensive imitation of Herodotus, in whom we have seen the same ambiguity. But different from Herodotus is the renewed insistence that history seeks the truth, ‘truth’ here clearly implying factual truth. Yet the very emphasis discloses the existence of an alternative view: that the aim of history was rather to give pleasure—and pleasure not of any refined, cognitive, Aristotelian kind, but pleasure in exciting events, great dramas, bizarre exotica, and so on, material particularly found in, though not restricted to, myths. That alternative view of the aim of historiography is widely attested—for example, in Polybius, Cicero, Livy, and Lucian15—and widely exemplified in practice, and, as we shall see, even Thucydides hints that his readers can obtain something of that sort of thing from him. But the pleasure principle in this form must, as Thucydides implies, militate against factual accuracy. By contrast with the ‘indications’ or ‘signs’ (τεκμήρια) one must use to recover the past, the supreme greatness of the present war can be established from the deeds themselves, though one must allow for two contrary sources of distortion: people’s lack of perspective about the size of whatever war they 15 Woodman (1988) 72–3, 183–5; Martin–Woodman (1989) 1–5.

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are currently fighting and their tendency to ‘wonder rather at the old’ (surely another criticism of Herodotus’ ‘wonderful’ ‘old’ history). We note Thucydides’ concern with history both as a continuum and as something divisible into ⟦103⟧ present and past. This seems to sound a solidly historical note; but, even as it sounds, another note is heard, that of the dactylic rhythm of epic poetry. The Greek of ‘will nevertheless reveal itself to have been greater than them’, the last words of this section [dēlōseǐ hŏmōs mēizōn gĕgĕnēmĕnŏs aūtōn], sounds like a line of an epic hexameter, the aural effect being all the greater for the contrast with Thucydides’ usual inspissated and unlovely style. On the one hand, Thucydides distances himself from Homeric material, on the other, he implicitly aligns himself with it. We have seen the same ambiguity in Herodotus and it is widespread in ancient historiography. Both Appian (praef. 15.62) and Arrian (Anab. 1.12.5)16 strike recognisably heroic poses in their prefaces. Livy begins his History with a dactylic reminiscence of epic, but then distinguishes the uncertain truth status of epic from the solid truth of history, yet then in turn ambiguously reiterates the link (praef. 1, 6, 13). Even Sallust and Tacitus begin their works with similar dactylic flourishes (Sall. BJ 1.1; 5.1; Tac. Ann. 1.1.1). Generally speaking, the more ancient their material, the more classical historians avail themselves of the epic tradition; but there are obvious exceptions. All ancient treatments of Alexander use quasi-epic treatment, and, even in Thucydides, the technique of contrasting the characters of Pericles and Cleon by means of precise verbal echoes is based on, and seems designed to evoke, Homer’s contrast between Achilles and Thersites.17 Such a technique illuminates, but may also distort; the distortive potential in the mere act of comparison is increased by the Homeric reminiscence. A final point in 1.21.2 is the bold personification, ‘this war will reveal itself’, which sets the scene for chapter 23, where the historian’s ability to circumscribe the war and its attendant calamities through language and reason seems to be put in doubt. But that is later. In chapter 22 Thucydides discusses his historical method regarding the war, the rhetorical point being that if the supreme greatness of the Peloponnesian war is revealed by ‘the deeds themselves’ (1.21.2), ⟦104⟧ he needs to demonstrate that his account of ‘the deeds’ is soundly based. No passage in Greek literature has generated greater interpretative controversy, yet none is so important for our understanding of ancient historiography. 16 Moles (1985). 17 Cairns (1982); also Bowie (1993).

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[1.22.1] As for all the things that each side said in speech [λόγος], either when they were going to war or when they were already in it, it was difficult both for me in the case of the things I heard myself and for those who reported to me from various different places to remember exactly the accurate content of the things that were said. But as it seemed to me, keeping as closely to the general drift of what truly was said, that each speaker would most say what was necessary concerning the always present things, so I have rendered the speeches. [1.22.2] But as regards the deeds of the things that were done in the war, I did not think it a worthy procedure to write by asking for information from the chance passer-by [contra Herodotus], nor just in accordance with what seemed to me to be so, but both in the case of things at which I myself was present and of things which I learnt about from others, by going through them in each case with accuracy as far as possible. [1.22.3] Things were discovered with much labour, because those who were present at each particular deed did not say the same things about the same things, but in accordance with the individual’s sympathy for one side or the other or his memory. [1.22.4] And perhaps the lack of the mythical element in my history will appear rather unpleasing to an audience, but if those who wish to look at [σκοπεῖν] the clearness [τὸ σαφές: (clear) truth or plausible representation?] both of the things that have happened and of those which, in accordance with human nature, are going to happen again some time like this and in similar form, should judge it useful, that will be sufficient. It is set down as a possession for always rather than as a competitive display for instant hearing. Thucydides treats speeches first,18 because speech precedes, and issues in, action or ‘deeds’. He regards the ideal to be accurate ⟦105⟧ reportage of speeches, as of deeds. But this is impracticable, so his speeches will be an amalgam of a solid factual core and an inevitably subjective reconstruction of ‘what was necessary concerning the always present things’. ‘What was necessary’, even if they did not say it. This may, and often does, produce material that is in one sense historically implausible: diplomats and negotiators may be made to say grossly undiplomatic and offensive things or things of which they could hardly have had knowledge, yet things which are, on another level, historically true, in that they reflect the real logic of their position. ‘The always present 18

A small selection of the bibliography on this much-debated topic: Gomme (1945) 140–8; Ste Croix (1972) 7–16; Stadter (1973); Rokeah (1982); Wilson (1982); Woodman (1988) 11–15; Hornblower (1987) 45–72.

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things’19 are the real issues, which remained the same: the rights and wrongs of empire, and the struggle between expediency and morality; also, more broadly, the constants of human behaviour. The latter point explains the high degree of abstraction and generalisation in the speeches, which is no doubt historically implausible, but which focuses on the eternal questions of human behaviour, that transcend past and present. Such licence in reporting speeches became accepted historiographical principle.20 The only later historian to dispute it was Polybius (36.1.7); but even he adopted it in practice, and the only later historian to include verbatim speeches was Cato, whose speeches were his own. In many later historians the licence is extended to allow the actual invention of the fact of a speech, in which practice the Homeric Herodotus had already indulged.21 But the important point here is that Thucydides’ conception of truth is ⟦106⟧ becoming something much more complex than mere factual truth. His speech material is a mixture of factual truth and imaginative truth, specific truth and general truth. Thucydides now turns to his reportage of ‘deeds’, using the same word (ἔργα) as Herodotus had used in his Preface. But, whereas in Herodotus, the word has the broad sense ‘achievements’ (not only ‘deeds’ but all ‘works’ of men), in Thucydides it has the narrow sense of ‘deeds’, the restriction in meaning itself suggesting that his treatment of history will be much tighter and more closely focused than that of the expansive Herodotus. With the reportage of deeds there is no place for subjective reconstruction. Thucydides’ wording here contrasts what is proper for speeches and what is proper for deeds, and also, surely, attacks Hecataeus, who had written things ‘as they seem to me to be true’. There can be no reliance, either, on chance passers-by. (This is another jibe at Herodotus, unfair in that Herodotus generally claimed no more than that. Note the brutal economy of Thucydides’ targeting, here as in 1.21.1: he blasts Hecataeus with one barrel, Herodotus with the other.) 19 Non-classicists are warned that this translation is totally heterodox (the orthodox rendering is ‘the particular circumstances’), and is propounded (so far as I know) by only two classicists in the world: Rokeah and (independently) myself. I believe that it is one of those interpretations which are self-evidently true once you see it, and its logic is implicit in my general discussion of Thucydides’ prefatory material, but I shall reserve detailed arguments for a more specialised context {see Moles [2001] and [2010]}. Hammond (1973) comes close to this interpretation in practice, but without rendering the Greek in quite this way. 20 Occasionally, we can see the licence working in practice, when we have the original text of a speech, as in Tacitus’ version of Claudius’ speech on the Gallic Senators (Ann. 11.24; CIL XIII.1668): see Griffin (1982). 21 See, in general, Walbank (1965).

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Instead, you need eye-witness testimony, you need to sift even eye-witness testimony, even your own, discounting prejudice and defective memory. This obsessive stress on truth, on the difficulty of reconstructing it and on the deficiencies of Thucydides’ predecessors, sounds pretty grim to an ancient audience expecting pleasure, so Thucydides now states his position on the pleasure principle: ‘perhaps the lack of the mythical element in my history will appear rather unpleasing to an audience’; another implicit attack on Herodotus, an enormously successful public performer, unfair in that Herodotus had unified his public lectures into his great history. By contrast, Thucydides’ work is less for public performance than for the select and—it is implied—for readers (a small minority even in literate Athens). The emphasis falls on the ‘usefulness’ of his history—a criterion which many later historians upheld or to which they at least paid lip service.22 Yet again, Thucydides’ stance is ambiguous: he rejects the vulgar pleasure of myth, but hints at pleasure through other channels; he disdains popular acclaim, but modestly says he will be content with … his work’s immortality. ⟦107⟧ In what sense will his work be ‘useful’? It provides ‘“the clearness” both of the things which have happened and of those which, in accordance with human nature, are going some time to happen again like this and in similar form’. The ‘clearness’ has recently been interpreted by A. J. Woodman as ‘a plausible representation’.23 I believe that this interpretation is untenable. Thucydides’ basic argument in the first preface goes like this: in reconstructing past history you cannot discover things clearly (you have to rely on ‘indications’), and Thucydides then considers the difficulties of that process. In reconstructing the Peloponnesian War, you can get at the deeds themselves; that is difficult too, of course, but Thucydides’ insistence on the supreme greatness of the war depends on its being possible. ‘The clearness’ of the things that have happened is precisely what you cannot discover in past history, but what Thucydides has ‘discovered’, though with difficulty, about the Peloponnesian war. ‘The clearness’ therefore equals the truth—a very common meaning of the Greek word σαφές. But, while one can obviously talk of the clear truth of things that have happened, how can one talk of the clear truth of things that are going to happen? Human nature is constant—as Thucydides says here and repeatedly elsewhere (e.g. 1.76.2–3; 2.50.1; 3.39.5, 45.7, 82.2; 4.19.4), so that things will occur in the future ‘like this and in similar form’. Yet there is obviously a difference between 22 Cf., e.g., Pol. 1.4.11; 2.56.10; Liv. praef. 10; Tac. Ann. 4.32.2; Lucian, Hist. conscr. 42. 23 Woodman (1988) 23–8.

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the clear truth of things that have happened and the clear truth of things that are going to happen: things that are going to happen will not be precisely the same as the things that have happened. That is, there is a ‘slide’ in the reference of ‘clear truth’ in this sentence. Thucydides is grappling with one of the fundamental problems of history—a problem analysed with characteristic acuity by Aristotle in chapter 9 of the Poetics.24 Aristotle draws a key distinction between the truth of poetry (particularly tragedy) and that of historiography. On the face of it, historiography is much more truthful. But in Aristotle’s opinion this kind of truth is trivial: history is about ‘what Alcibiades did or what happened to him’—specific truths, what happened to a particular ⟦108⟧ individual at a particular time. Poetry, on the other hand, is about ‘universal truths’ (‘what sort of person would, as a matter of probability or necessity, say or do what sort of thing’). The tragic poet, while working with material which is broadly historical, yet has freedom to manipulate the material in detail, in order to explore universal truths about human behaviour. Admittedly, Aristotle’s critique of historiography is unfair: he chooses Alcibiades as the archetypal historiographical subject because Alcibiades was a supreme individualist, about whom it was indeed difficult to make useful generalisations. But the basic point is important. If it is to have any meaning beyond the mere recording of specific facts, historiography needs to strike a balance between establishing those facts (so that its raw material is sound) and moving outwards from them to useful generalisations.25 This fundamental tension in historiography is exemplified throughout Thucydides’ narrative, which records masses of specifics in inordinate detail yet strives constantly to extrapolate general truths. In some ways, the latter requirement pulls against multiplication of material—so that, for example, Pericles to some extent represents the typical Ideal Statesman, Cleon the typical Unprincipled Demagogue, while the politically important Hyperbolus is dismissed parenthetically (8.73.3). Thucydides sometimes resorts also to shorthand formulations such as ‘every form of death ensued and whatever is accustomed to happen in such a situation’ (3.81.5). In other ways, it pulls towards repetition (hence the endless and shifting debate in the speeches concerning the rights and wrongs of empire, the relationship between expediency and 24 I here repeat the discussion in Moles (1988) 41. 25 See, for instance, on the prefaces to Sallust’s monographs, Earl (1972) 856: ‘Sallust was announcing that what followed was not straight history but a philosophical disquisition on politics and public affairs of which the historical facts were, so to speak, extended exempla’.

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morality, etc.) and towards the establishment of recurrent patterns (thus the events of the second half of the history, from 5.25 onwards, in some respects reprise those of the first).26 This tension has another aspect: history is concerned both with what is timeless and universal and with what is (in some ways) ⟦109⟧ distinctively different. This explains both the general anxiety of ancient historians to establish the uniqueness of their specific theme and the particular insistence of Thucydides that the Peloponnesian war was the greatest ‘upheaval’ (κίνησις) ever. Thucydides, then, aims to establish solid factual truth about the war; this allows the deduction of general truths about human behaviour, the contemplation of which will promote understanding of future events, even though they have not yet occurred. At the same time, what is distinctively different about this war facilitates the establishment of what is generally true. The very extraordinariness of the war illustrates human affairs writ large and at their most extreme. Thucydides’ views here (and indeed Herodotus’) seem to anticipate Aristotelian theory about the supreme cognitive value of tragedy, which is also simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary,27 though Aristotle, of course, denies this value to historiography. Thus, Thucydides’ ‘“clear truth” both of the things that have happened and of those which are going to happen’ represents an amalgam of solid fact with less solid generalising material which is parallel to the amalgam of solid truth and generalising material in the speeches. History is composed of tensions: specific factual truths, general truths, what is the same, what is different, what is typical, what is extraordinary, the past, the present, and the future. In so far as Thucydides’ main theme is both the present and the future, his work is coextensive with them and thus truly a possession for always. As with Herodotus, theme and work are one, but Thucydides’ work seems to range through time itself. Indeed, his concern with time as divisible into past-time, present-time, future-time, and ‘always’-time, and the analogy between his ‘always’-theme and his ‘always’-work are reminiscent of, and perhaps directly influenced by, the terms in which, some three hundred years before, the poet Hesiod had claimed the Muses’ inspiration for his account of the birth of the gods (Theog. 31–4): ‘They breathed into me a voice divine, that I might celebrate the things that are to be and were before, and they told me to hymn the race of the blessed ones that are for always, but themselves both first and last to sing for always.’ If indeed this ⟦110⟧ parallel is directly felt, Thucydides yet again blurs the polarity between the poet and the historian. 26 Rawlings (1981), esp. 38–57. 27 Belfiore (1985) 360.

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This paper began with Lucian’s image of the ‘mirror’ of the historian, an apparently simple image, but one which modern scholars have shown to be capable of fruitful and complex development. Thucydides’ remarks at 1.22.4 illustrate some of these complexities.28 Truth is ‘the clearness’, what has been seen by the historian himself or reliable eye-witnesses (1.22.2–3). Both the historian (1.1.3, 22.2–3 by implication) and his readers (1.21.2, 22.4) are engaged in a process of ‘looking’ (σκοπεῖν). Thus the historian’s μίμησις of events, the product of his ‘seeing’ and ‘looking’, is like a mirror, at which he invites his readers to ‘look’. But for the readers, as for the historian himself, the process of ‘looking’ is complex: to ‘look’ is not only to ‘see’ in a physical sense, but to ‘contemplate’, to ‘attempt to understand’, to ‘reflect on’.29 Hence what the readers see in Thucydides’ mirror is not a simple reflection of events but a reflection of specific and general truths, and of the past, the present, and the future. And even this is too simple a picture, as the next section shows. Having demonstrated the soundness of his historical method for establishing ‘the deeds’ (1.22.2–3), Thucydides now argues that these ‘deeds’ prove the supreme greatness of the Peloponnesian war and he ends his first preface by dating the outbreak of war and explaining its causes: [1.23.1] Of the deeds before, the greatest that was done was the Median war [the Persian war of 481–479], yet this had a speedy decision through two naval battles and land battles. But in the case of this war, its length advanced to a great size and also it happened that disasters [παθήματα] occurred to Greece during it such as did not otherwise occur in the same space of time. ⟦111⟧ [1.23.2] For neither were so many cities captured and made desolate, some by barbarians, some by the people themselves as they waged counter-war (some also changed inhabitants when they were captured), nor so many exiles of people and killing, some of it in the war itself, some because of civil strife. [1.23.3] And the things that were before this said by hearsay, but rather rarely substantiated in deed, were established to be not untrustworthy—about earthquakes, which held sway over a very great part of the land and were at the same time most powerful, and eclipses of the sun, which occurred more frequently by comparison with what was remembered from former times, and there 28

For stimulating exploration of the image see especially Hartog (1988) and (1982). Like Lucian, I am not here concerned with the fact (exploited by Hartog) that if one looks directly into a mirror, one sees, above all, oneself. 29 See, e.g., Knox (1957) 120–1.

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were great droughts, and from them both famines and that which did most damage and which did not least destroy: the plaguey sickness. For all these made a simultaneous attack along with this war. [1.23.4] The Athenians and Peloponnesians began it after dissolving the thirty years’ truce which they had made after the capture of Euboea. [1.23.5] As to why they dissolved it, I have written first the causes and the discords, so that no one need seek from what so great a war as this came upon the Greeks. The truest cause, though least apparent in men’s speech, I believe to have been the fact that the Athenians, becoming great and making the Peloponnesians fearful, pressured them towards going to war. But the causes said in the open on each side were as follows, as a result of which they dissolved the truce and came to the war. In order to establish the supreme greatness of his war, Thucydides confronts the counter-claims of the Persian war, which (in terms of numbers of men, size of battles, international implications, etc.) was in fact greater than the Peloponnesian. So, inevitably, Thucydides’ argument here is untenable—it is like arguing that the Hundred Years War was greater than World War I; again, rivalry with Herodotus produces factual distortion. The greatness of the war is also manifested in the unprecedented disasters—both man-made and natural—that came with it. The specific claim that ‘it happened that disasters occurred to Greece during it such as did not otherwise occur in the same space of time’ yet again echoes, and trumps, Herodotus. For Herodotus had maintained (6.98.2) that ‘in the time of Darius, son of Hystaspes, and of Xerxes, son of Darius, and of Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, three successive generations, there occurred more evils to Greece than during the twenty generations before Darius, some done to her by ⟦112⟧ the Persians, others by her own leaders warring for empire.’ Not only, then, is Thucydides’ war greater than Herodotus’, his ‘disasters’ are relatively more numerous and more concentrated in time. Moreover, Thucydides’ description is highly rhetorical, his tone highly emotional, the content itself—disasters, cities captured and made desolate, natural calamities culminating in a great plague—typical of epic or tragedy. Clearly, Thucydides is at least in part here trying to stimulate his readers’ emotions with the promise of pleasurable ‘tragic history’, a useful, if imprecise, term.30 This is a counterpoise (hinted at in chapter 22) to his austere emphasis on the cognitive value of his work. We may even sense a

30 Woodman (1988) 28–32; in general: Ullman (1942); Walbank (1955) and (1960); Sacks (1981) 144–70.

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general contrast in chapters 22 and 23 between λόγος in the sense of ‘reason’ and παθήματα in the sense of ‘emotions’. Exploitation of tragedy is widespread in ancient historiography. In Herodotus we sometimes find tragic language, tragic sentiments, tragic narrative patterning—individuals striving to penetrate the opaque will of the gods, facing great moral dilemmas, moving from ignorance to knowledge, even ‘facts’ derived from tragedies.31 In Thucydides’ narrative we find harrowing descriptions evocative of pity and fear (for example, in Book 7 on the Athenian disaster in Sicily) and tragic narrative patterning (for example, in the account of the Plague and its relationship to the Funeral Speech) and, in the extraordinary Melian Dialogue, something that is virtually formal tragic drama.32 From Polybius and Plutarch we hear much of the excesses of Hellenistic historians like Duris and Cleitarchus, who ⟦113⟧ specialised in extreme emotional arousal through protracted and extravagant descriptions of all manner of horrors; such historians were much read. In fact, virtually all ancient historians, even those who claim to be critical of tragic history, exploit tragedy to some degree.33 But Thucydides’ stress on natural calamities as well as man-made ones conveys a solidly historical point: men are not the only agents of change: they can face forces beyond rational calculation or foresight—a point powerfully demonstrated in the plague narrative. This point is presumably also to some extent directed against Herodotus, whose universe is largely anthropocentric. Moreover, the scale of the disasters meant that ‘the things that were before this said by hearsay, but rather rarely substantiated in deed, were established to be not untrustworthy’. Yet Thucydides himself has underlined the difficulty of trusting evidence from the past and distinguished the greater accuracy possible with deeds than with words or speeches: these tremendous events seem to defy historical canons and the historian’s attempts to impose order on them. This is very different from the ‘clear truth’ of ch. 22. Here historiography ruefully contemplates its own inability to comprehend reality. Then (1.23.4), Thucydides seems to revert to sober history, precisely dating the war’s outbreak; he is proud of his chronological accuracy (cf. 1.97.2; 2.1.1; 5.20), which does indeed make a great advance upon any of his predecessors, Herodotus included. He undertakes first to document ‘the causes and the 31 See, e.g., How–Wells (1928) I.21; Myres (1914); Chiasson (1982). 32 Book 7: Finley (1942) 321–2 and (1967) 46–9; Woodman (1988) 27 and 60–1 n. 157; plague: Woodman (1988) 32–40; Melian Dialogue: Liebeschuetz (1968) 76–7; more generally: Macleod (1983); for the whole approach Cornford (1907) remains important. 33 See Wiseman (1993) 133–5. For a particular case (Plutarch’s Lives) see Mossman (1988); Moles (1988) 34, 190.

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discords’. The wording again reflects Herodotus, whose initial preface promised to investigate ‘for what cause Greeks and barbarians waged war on each other’ and who began his ‘sandwiched material’ with the words ‘among the Persians the learned say that the Phoenicians were the cause of the discord’; it therefore also reflects the beginning of Homer’s Iliad. Thucydides does this ‘so that no one need seek from what so great a war as this came upon the Greeks’, the wording of which reflects precisely Il. 1.6–7: ‘From what [time] Atreides king of men and divine Achilles first stood apart in strife’. Precise historical analysis ⟦114⟧ and precise literary imitation here go hand in hand. Again, as in Homer and Herodotus, the search for causation implies investigation of blame. Thucydides would have been astonished by modern claims that he was not a moralist. The famous distinction between stated causes and the truest cause represents another aspect of the deficiency of speech to express reality, but now qua deceptiveness rather than (as in chapter 22) incapacity. Rigorously historical and intellectually penetrating as the distinction may be, it is yet another imitation of Herodotus, who had given the ‘causes’ that were ‘said’ before stating what he ‘knew’ to be true. In the last words of the section, ‘they came to the war’; earlier, ‘the war came upon them’: we see again the tension between human beings as agents and as passive before the agency of inhuman things, but for the moment, and deceptively, the agency lies with humans. Finally, the narrative begins (1.24.1, ‘There is a city Epidamnus’), its syntax echoing both Homeric formulations (e.g., Il. 6.152, ‘there is a city Ephyre’) and the beginning of Herodotus’ narrative (1.6.1, ‘Croesus was Lydian by race’). Later, the formal second preface also imitates Herodotus’. So is Thucydides’ work history or literature, dispassionate analysis or emotional arousal, impersonal or highly personalised, objective or subjective, unbiased or prejudiced, plain or rhetorical, true or untrue? The answer has to be: it is all of these, though Thucydides clearly has a serious concern with truth, and with different kinds of truth at that. 4 Some questions and conclusions, or inconclusions. Can the literary aspect of ancient historiography be sliced off like icing from Christmas cake? Emphatically, no. You can try to extract factual material from an ancient historiographical text, but (to change the metaphor) it is like cutting a vital organ from the body. You may or may not succeed (that depends on your surgical skill and the constitution of the individual body), but it will always be a

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messy business: you may take out more than you bargained for, and you cannot always be sure even which organ you should be pulling out. That is not to say that such surgery is unnecessary: modern historians are bound to try to abstract factual data from ancient historiographical texts, their main source of evidence, however recalcitrant; ⟦115⟧ and for their part modern literary critics cannot properly gauge the originality and creativity of those texts without trying to establish the raw material upon which they are based. Do ancient historiographers sometimes say things they know to be factually untrue? Emphatically, yes. The accusation of deliberate fabrication is made repeatedly. Herodotus is dubbed the father, not only of history, but of lies; Polybius castigates historians not only for incompetence, but falsehood; Lucian tells of historians who claimed to be eye-witnesses of things they could not possibly have seen; invention and manipulation of factual material is (I believe) demonstrable in Herodotus and Plutarch,34 as well as Hellenistic tragic historians. The motives vary: some, of course, crudely political—propaganda, flattery, denigration; literary rivalry (to trump one’s predecessors, of which we have seen examples even in Thucydides); the desire to spin a good yarn (often important in Herodotus and other historians of the exotic); sometimes (surely) historiographical parody; sheer emotional arousal or entertainment; the need to make moral points or bring out broader patterns or causes behind complicated sequences of events. Was the whole conception of truth in ancient historiography different from ours? Or, to put it another way, can we produce a theory which will explain untruth in ancient historiography in terms other than lying (excluding, of course, simple error, which poses no theoretical problem)? One increasingly popular approach is to see Herodotus, in particular, as the product of an essentially oral culture, in which literacy, though it existed, was only an aid to oral communication. Despite his deployment of a wide range of historical evidence, Herodotus clearly believes in the paramountcy of oral tradition; and oral cultures preserve the past, even the recent past, through stories and anecdotes, all far more fluid and far less concerned with logic and accuracy than the written products of literate societies. Yet such stories themselves embody in some senses ‘truths’ about the societies that produce them (ways of ‘mapping the past’, ‘structuring reality’, and so on). Against such a general perspective, traditional ⟦116⟧ accusations against Herodotus of ‘lying’ may seem inappropriate, because based on cultural misunderstanding.35 34 Cf., e.g., Moles (1988) 32–45 and Pelling (1990). 35 Gould (1989) 19–41, 112–34; Murray (1987); West (1985) 304–5; interestingly, West is much less receptive to this approach in her later study ([1991] 148–9 and n. 28).

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The ‘oral’ approach to Herodotus does not seem to me to make traditional questions about his truthfulness nearly as inappropriate as its proponents allege or imply. Oral cultures can be just as concerned as literate societies with basic questions of truth: ‘we know how to speak many false things like true things, but we know, when we wish, to utter true things’, sang Hesiod’s Muses (Theog. 27–8); ‘you sing of the fate of the Achaeans excellently well, all that they did and suffered and toiled, as if you had been present yourself or heard it from someone who had,’ said Odysseus to the bard Demodocus (Od. 8.489–91). Such passages and many others like them focus on key historical questions concerning truth, falsehood, plausible falsehood, the reliability of eye-witness testimony, and the importance of learning from eye-witnesses. Eschewing any great distinction between Herodotus and his successors, Woodman argues that in the Classical world historiography is generally seen as a species of the genus rhetoric.36 Its detailed categorisation varies—it is sometimes categorised as a form of epideictic (formal display) literature, sometimes in terms of forensic, sometimes deliberative oratory, sometimes likened to poetry—but this does not affect the overall picture. Though historiography aims at truth, truth is conceived largely as a matter of the absence of prejudice. It is accepted that truth resides only in a factual core, sometimes very small, which it is the historian’s job to build up in a rhetorically persuasive manner; and that the historian may choose (within limits) whether to angle his work towards the encomiastic or the derogatory, these two things representing the main tendencies in ancient literature generally. How to assess this whole theory? There are obviously things to be said for it. Some people did regard historiography as a rhetorical genre; some rhetoricians did analyse it in this way; poetry can be ⟦117⟧ part of historiography, as we have seen; rhetorical influence is everywhere in ancient historiography, including Herodotus and Thucydides, as it is in almost all ancient literature. It is broadly true that ancient historiographers fall into two camps: positive and optimistic or negative and pessimistic, and that this is reflected in both content and style. Some historiographers undoubtedly did proceed according to these rhetorical prescriptions. Almost all ancient historiographers would adopt such prescriptions in particular situations which were regarded as fair game for ‘big-scene’ treatment (e.g., battle narratives or descriptions of sieges or captures of cities).37 One big problem is the question of how far this theory can be generalised. (In fact this raises the whole generic problem—how far ancient literature was 36 37

I here repeat my discussion in Moles (1990) 319–21 {above, pp. 151–3}. Instructive material in Paul (1982); Woodman (1988) 168–79.

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written according to generic prescription.) Against every single proposition of the theory it is possible to quote programmatic theoretical statements from the ancient writers themselves, some very heavy-weight. Rhetorical though he is, Thucydides makes a firm, though not absolute, distinction between his ‘possession for always’ and ‘competitive displays for instant hearing’ (1.22.4). Aristotle’s conception of historiography is quite unrhetorical, at least in Poetics 9. Lucian insists on the difference between historiography and oratory or poetry (Hist. conscr. 8, 39, 45, 50). The rhetorical analysis of historiography seems to have begun in the late fourth century, and while formal rhetoric attempted to engulf historiography, like everything else, its success was never total. Of course, it is possible to argue that in this area, as elsewhere, rhetorical theory merely systematised and developed existing practice; so that, while in one sense it may be anachronistic to apply it to fifth-century historiography, in another sense it may be perfectly justifiable. The question then is how well the theory describes the practice. In my view, the theory requires at least substantial modification. We have seen that Herodotus’ broadly encomiastic stance allows moral criticism of Greeks as well as barbarians. In general terms Thucydides is negative and pessimistic, but we are not dealing with a systematic rhetoricising tendency. As I have tried to suggest, the richness and complexity of both Herodotus and Thucydides makes generalisation about them extremely difficult. ⟦118⟧ More important, the theory does not actually engage with two key aspects of the truth problem: those cases where ancient historians proclaim the truth of things they know to be untrue (two examples of which I shall consider below), and the many passages where truth is seen not in terms of prejudice but of solid historical criteria such as eye-witness testimony or its absence, paucity or excess of evidence, conflict of sources, carelessness, chronological inaccuracy, dramatic exaggeration, and so on. There are many different types of ancient historians. Some write historiography according to rhetorical prescriptions, some do not, or not to the extent claimed by the theory. Some see truth very largely in terms of prejudice. Some are not interested in truth at all, writing purely and simply to entertain. These latter may fairly be considered as writers of fiction, at least to the extent that historical novelists are engaged in fiction. Whether we say that they are not true historians or allow that ancient historiography is not necessarily concerned with truth, is an almost semantic question, like the question whether untragic happy-ending tragedies are tragedies. We must also admit that even the most serious and ‘historical’ ancient historians share characteristics with the most purely ‘literary’. The difference between the two is a matter of degree, though there may come a point where

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quantitative differences become qualitative. Thucydides does differ from Cleitarchus, even though there is tragic history in both, because in Thucydides there is also a serious concern with truth, an awareness of the different sorts of truth, an acute appreciation of the difficulties in attaining them, yet a constant effort to do so. The last problem: why do serious and ‘historical’ ancient historians sometimes actually proclaim the truth of what they know, or suspect, to be untrue? Two instructive examples may be cited (with the melancholy but inevitable proviso that some scholars would not accept them as examples). One is from Herodotus: the famous constitutional debate on the merits of democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy allegedly conducted between the Persian nobles Otanes, Megabyzus, and Darius after the death in 522 BC of the mad king Cambyses. Herodotus introduces it with the words (3.80.1): ‘speeches were said which are unbelievable to some of the Greeks, but nevertheless they were said.’ This defiant note recurs in his statement that some thirty ⟦119⟧ years later, after the failure of the Ionian revolt against Persian rule, the Persian Mardonius introduced democracy into the Ionian cities (6.43.3): ‘when Mardonius sailing along Asia reached Ionia, then I shall describe a great wonder to those of the Greeks who do not accept that Otanes declared his opinion to the seven that the Persians should have a democracy: Mardonius suppressed all the tyrants of the Ionians and established democracies in the cities’. It is intrinsically improbable that the constitutional debate was recorded in any written source, or publicised in any form, before Herodotus himself, a conclusion which seems to be supported by the defiant tone in which Herodotus defends the item, as if his personal honour were at stake. If so, the previous occasion when it excited disbelief was presumably one of Herodotus’ own oral performances. This item poses the most fundamental historical questions of all: did the event take place or not? Is the historian who proclaims the truth actually telling the truth or not? Neither Woodman’s conception of truth as the absence of prejudice nor the ‘oral-culture’ view of Herodotus can cope with the radical challenge posed by these two passages. There remain scholars who believe either in the historicity of the constitutional debate itself or at any rate that its historicity was believed by Herodotus, despite the obvious impossibility of advocacy by a Persian of democracy at a time when it had not even been invented in Greece. Even such a conservative admirer of Herodotus as A. R. Burn was driven to say that ‘if we wish to pillory him as a liar, this is the strongest ground,’38 while even to argue the weaker 38 Burn (1972) 238 n. 1.

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case—that Herodotus believed the story—demeans him by making him a much less intelligent man than he was, and much less intelligent than those of his contemporaries who, as he himself admitted, disbelieved in the debate. Since even the information about Mardonius is either at least greatly exaggerated or totally fictitious,39 we should be emboldened by the open disbelief of those contemporaries, bite the bullet, and say either that Herodotus invented the Persian constitutional debate on the basis of Mardonius’ selectively conciliatory attitude to democracy in Ionia, or that he invented both items. Abandonment of ⟦120⟧ historicity is counterbalanced by other factors. The fictitious Persian constitutional debate after the death of the tyrannical and deranged Cambyses, in several ways the precursor of Xerxes, invader of Greece, provides an excellent focus for the exploration of several of Herodotus’ major themes: the key moment of moral choice; the constituents of good government; the rise and fall of Persian power; the interrelationship between the success or failure of imperial powers and their respective constitutions.40 The other example is Plutarch’s handling of the certainly unhistorical meeting of Solon the Athenian and Croesus, king of Lydia (a meeting first attested, of course, by Herodotus). Plutarch’s discomfort is plain but he cannot formally abandon the story, which he narrates at some length, and he resorts to some obviously desperate expedients to shore up its historicity (Solon 27.1): ‘As for his meeting with Croesus, some think to refute it by chronology as made up. But for my part, when a story is so famous and has so many witnesses and—what is a greater consideration—is so appropriate to Solon’s character and so worthy of his greatness of soul and wisdom, I do not think it right to sacrifice it to any so-called chronological canons, which thousands are to this day trying to correct, without being able to bring their contradictions to any agreed result.’ It is the other way round: here historical fact is sacrificed to Plutarch’s need to expound universal moral truths.41 Why then do Herodotus and Plutarch behave in this way? Serious ancient historians (which both Herodotus and Plutarch intermittently are) face the problem of the eternal see-saw of history: the need to generalise from specifics. No serious ancient historian was so tied to specific factual truth that he would not sometimes help general truths along by manipulating, even inventing, ‘facts’. Of course, the requisite manipulation could sometimes be achieved 39 How–Wells (1928) II.80 remains a sharp discussion. 40 Full discussion in Lateiner (1989) 147–70 (who does not, however, accept its fictitiousness). 41 Similarly, as Peter Wiseman reminds me, Plutarch refuses to allow chronological considerations to exclude the alleged link between the Roman king Numa and the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (Numa 1.2–4; 8.9–10; 22.3–4).

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through the medium of ‘what-is-said’ material, to whose historicity the ancient historian did not commit himself. But there were some occasions when the issues were so serious that it was rhetorically ⟦121⟧ necessary, even at the risk of attack, to maintain the illusion of strict historicity. On those occasions the historian could never admit to manipulation or invention. Such is the tyranny of factual truth.42 To return to our initial question: the relationship of ancient historiography to external reality is shifting, ambiguous, multifaceted, messy: in those respects at least, like life itself. Bibliography Armayor, O. K. (1978a) ‘Did Herodotus Ever Go to the Black Sea?’, HSCPh 82: 45–62. Armayor, O. K. (1978b) ‘Did Herodotus Ever Go to Egypt?’, JARCE 15: 59–73. Armayor, O. K. (1985) Herodotus’ Autopsy of the Fayoum: Lake Moeris and the Labyrinth of Egypt (Amsterdam). Avenarius, G. (1956) Lukians Schrift zur Geschichtsschreibung (Meisenheim am Glan). Belfiore, E. (1985) ‘Pleasure, Tragedy, and Aristotelian Psychology’, CQ 35: 349–61. Boedeker, D., ed. (1987) Herodotus and the Invention of History (Special Arethusa Issue 20). Bowie, A. M. (1993) ‘Homer, Herodotus and the “Beginnings” of Thucydides’ History’, in H. D. Jocelyn and H. Hurt, edd., Tria Lustra: Essays and Notes Presented to John Pinsent, etc. (Liverpool) 141–7. Brock, R. (1991) ‘Review of Woodman (1988)’, LCM 16: 97–102. Burn, A. R. (1972) ‘Introduction’ in Herodotus: the Histories, trans. by A. de Sélincourt (Harmondsworth) 7–37. Cairns, F. (1982) ‘Cleon and Pericles: a Suggestion’, JHS 102: 203–4. Cameron, A., ed. (1989) History as Text: the Writing of Ancient History (London and Chapel Hill). Chiasson, C. C. (1982) ‘Tragic Diction in Herodotus: Some Possibilities’, Phoenix 36: 156–61. Connor, W. R. (1984) Thucydides (Princeton). Cornford, F. M. (1907) Thucydides Mythistoricus (London). Dewald, C. J. (1987) ‘Narrative Surface and Authorial Voice in Herodotus’ Histories’, in Boedeker (1987) 147–70. Dewald, C. J. and J. Marincola (1987) ‘A Selective Introduction to Herodotean Studies’, in Boedeker (1987) 9–40. 42 Plutarch’s wrigglings on these problems are discussed in Moles (1988) 35–6, 200.

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Dover, K. J. (1983) ‘Thucydides “as History” and Thucydides “as Literature”’, H&T 22: 54–63; repr. in id., The Greeks and their Legacy: Collected Papers Volume II (Oxford, 1988) 53–64. Earl, D. C. (1972) ‘Prologue-Form in Ancient Historiography’, ANRW I.2: 842–56. Erbse, H. (1956) ‘Der erste Satz im Werke Herodots’, in Festschrift Bruno Snell (Munich) 209–22. Erbse, H. (1970) ‘Über das Prooimion (1.1.–23) des thukydideischen Geschichtswerkes’, RhMus 113: 43–69. Fehling, D. (1989) Herodotus and his ‘Sources’ (Liverpool); rev. trans. by J. G. Howie of Die Quellenangaben bei Herodot (Berlin and New York, 1971). Finley, J. H. (1942) Thucydides (Cambridge, Mass. and London). Finley, J. H. (1967) Three Essays on Thucydides (Cambridge, Mass.). Fornara, C. W. (1983) The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London). Gomme, A. W. (1945) A Historical Commentary on Thucydides I: Book I (Oxford). Gould, J. (1989) Herodotus (London and New York). Griffin, M. T. (1982) ‘The Lyons Tablet and Tacitean Hindsight’, CQ 32: 404–18; repr. in ead., Politics and Philosophy at Rome: Collected Papers, ed. C. Balmaceda (Oxford, 2018) 172–86. Hammond, N. G. L. (1952) ‘The Arrangement of Thought in the Proem and other Parts of Thucydides I’, CQ 2: 127–41. Hammond, N. G. L. (1973) ‘The Particular and the Universal in the Speeches of Thucydides, with Special Reference to that of Hermocrates at Gela’, in Stadter (1973) 49–59. Hartog, F. (1982) ‘L’oeil de Thucydide et l’histoire “veritable”’, Poétique 49: 22–30; repr. in id., Évidence de l’histoire: ce que voient les historiens (Paris, 2005) 91–108. Hartog, F. (1988) The Mirror of Herodotus: the Representation of the Other in the Writing of History (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London); trans. by J. Lloyd of Le Miroir d’Hérodote: essai sur la representation de l’autre (Paris, 1980). Hornblower, S. (1987) Thucydides (London and Baltimore). Hornblower, S. (1991) A Commentary on Thucydides I (Oxford). How, W. W. and J. Wells (1928) A Commentary on Herodotus2, 2 vols. (Oxford). Immerwahr, H. (1966) Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland). Knox, B. M. W. (1957) Oedipus at Thebes (New Haven and Oxford; repr. with new introd., New Haven, 1998). Krischer, T. (1965) ‘Herodots Prooimion’, Hermes 93: 159–67. Lateiner, D. (1989) The Historical Method of Herodotus (Toronto). Liebeschuetz, W. (1968) ‘The Structure and Function of the Melian Dialogue’, JHS 88: 73–7. Loraux, N. (1986) ‘Thucydide a écrit la guerre de Péloponnèse’, Mètis 1: 139–61.

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Macleod, C. W. (1983) ‘Thucydides and Tragedy’, in id., Collected Essays (Oxford) 140–58. Martin, R. H. and A. J. Woodman, edd. (1989) Tacitus: Annals IV (Cambridge). Moles, J. L. (1985) ‘The Interpretation of the “Second Preface” in Arrian’s Anabasis’, JHS 105: 162–8 [above, Ch. 46]. Moles, J. L., ed. (1988) Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). Moles, J. L. (1990) ‘Review of Woodman (1988)’, History of the Human Sciences 3.2: 317–21 [above, Ch. 47]. Moles, J. L. (2001) ‘A False Dilemma: Thucydides’ History and Historicism’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., Texts, Ideas, and the Classics: Scholarship, Theory, and Classical Literature (Oxford) 195–219 [below, Ch. 55]. Moles, J. L. (2010) ‘Narrative and Speech Problems in Thucydides Book I’, in C. S. Kraus, J. Marincola, and C. Pelling, edd., Ancient Historiography and its Contexts: Studies … A. J. Woodman (Oxford) 15–39 [below, Ch. 58]. Mossman, J. M. (1988) ‘Tragedy and Epic in Plutarch’s Alexander’, JHS 108: 83–93. Moxon, I. S., J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, edd. (1986) Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge). Murray, O. (1987) ‘Herodotus and Oral History’, in A. Kuhrt and H. Sancisi-Weerdenberg, edd., Achaemenid History 2: Method and Theory (Leiden) 93–115; repr. in N. Luraghi, ed., The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus (Oxford, 2001) 16–44. Myres, J. L. (1914) ‘Herodotus the Tragedian’, in A Miscellany, Presented to J. M. MacKay, LL.D. (Liverpool) 88–96. Nagy, G. (1987) ‘Herodotus the Logios’, in Boedeker (1987) 175–84. Paul, G. M. (1982) ‘Urbs capta: Sketch of an Ancient Literary Motif’, Phoenix 36: 144–55. Pearson, L. (1965) ‘On the Malice of Herodotus’, in id. and F. H. Sandbach, edd., Plutarch: Moralia XI (Cambridge, Mass. and London) 1–129. Pelling, C. B. R. (1990) ‘Truth and Fiction in Plutarch’s Lives’, in D. A. Russell, ed., Antonine Literature (Oxford, 1990) 19–51; repr. in C. Pelling, Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London and Swansea, 2002) 143–70. Pritchett, W. K. (1975) Dionysius of Halicarnassus: On Thucydides (Berkeley and Los Angeles). Rawlings, H. R. III (1981) The Structure of Thucydides’ History (Princeton). Rokeah, D. (1982) ‘Τὰ δέοντα περὶ τῶν ἀεὶ παρόντων: Speeches in Thucydides: Factual Reporting or Creative Writing?’, Athenaeum 60: 386–401. Sacks, K. S. (1981) Polybius on the Writing of History (Berkeley and Los Angeles). de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. (1972) The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London and Ithaca). Stadter, P. A. (1981) ‘Arrian’s Extended Preface’, ICS 6: 157–71. Stadter, P. A., ed. (1973) The Speeches in Thucydides: a Collection of Original Studies with Bibliography (Chapel Hill). Ullman, B. L. (1942) ‘History and Tragedy’, TAPhA 73: 25–53.

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Walbank, F. W. (1955) ‘Tragic History: a Reconsideration’, BICS 2: 4–14. Walbank, F. W. (1960) ‘History and Tragedy’, Historia 9: 216–34; repr. in id. (1985) 144–70. Walbank, F. W. (1965) Speeches in Greek Historians (J. L. Myres Memorial Lecture; Oxford); repr. in id. (1985) 242–61. Walbank, F. W. (1985) Selected Papers: Studies in Greek and Roman History and Historiography (Cambridge). West, S. (1985) ‘Herodotus’ Epigraphical Interests’, CQ 35: 278–305. West, S. (1991) ‘Herodotus’ Portrait of Hecataeus’, JHS 111: 144–60. Wilson, J. (1982) ‘The Customary Meanings of Words Were Changed—Or Were They? A Note on Thucydides 3.82.4’, CQ 32: 18–20. Wiseman, T. P. (1979) Clio’s Cosmetics: Three Studies in Greco-Roman Literature (Leicester and Totowa, N.J.). Wiseman, T. P. (1981) ‘Practice and Theory in Roman Historiography’, History 66: 375–93; repr. in id., Roman Studies, Literary and Historical (Liverpool, 1987) 244–62. Wiseman, T. P. (1993) ‘Lying Historians: Seven Types of Mendacity’, in C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman, edd. Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter and Austin) 122–46. Woodman, A. J. (1983) ‘From Hannibal to Hitler: the Literature of War’, University of Leeds Review 26: 107–24; repr. in id., Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford, 1998) 1–20. Woodman, A. J. (1988) Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Portland, and Sydney).

Chapter 50

Livy’s Preface Few of the many treatments of this famous preface1 seem to recognise the need for close reading of the text.2 The present paper sets out to remedy this deficiency in the hope of achieving three main aims: (1) to demonstrate the coherence and power of Livy’s argument, as well as the subtlety of its exposition and the richness of its language; (2) to resolve certain specific problems; (3) to further the continuing debate on important general questions in ancient historiography. Facturusne operae pretium sim si a primordio urbis res populi Romani perscripserim nec satis scio nec, si sciam, dicere ausim, (2) quippe qui cum ueterem tum uolgatam esse rem uideam, dum noui semper scriptores aut in rebus certius aliquid allaturos se aut scribendi arte rudem uetustatem superaturos credunt. The dactylic rhythm of the first words facturusne … sim poses an immediate challenge: why does Livy begin by writing poetry? Indeed, as is well known, ancient readers found the challenge so overwhelming that they emended the text to remove the rhythm, and only Quintilian (9.4.74) preserved the original reading.3

1 This is a revised version of a paper given to the Cambridge Philological Society in October 1992 and to a seminar in All Souls, Oxford, in November 1992. I thank all those who made helpful comments on those occasions and Chris Kraus, Ruth Morello, an anonymous referee, and (as always) Tony Woodman for valuable criticisms of written versions. 2 E.g., Dessau (1903); Ferrero (1949); Leggewie (1953); Vretska (1954); Oppermann (1955 [1967]); Walsh (1955); Leeman (1961); Janson (1964) 64–74; Ogilvie (1965) 23–9; Weissenborn–Müller (1965) 75–82; Mazza (1966); Ruch (1967); Heurgon (1970) 21–6; Paschalis (1982); Korpanty (1983); Coppola (1983–4) 67–70; Woodman (1988) 128–40; Wheeldon (1989), esp. 56–9; Henderson (1989); Cizek (1992); there is a bibliography for the years 1933–78 by Kissel (1982) 931–2, and a brief overview by Phillips (1982) 1001–2. The normally valuable Herkommer (1968) is unhelpful on Livy’s preface. 3 The suggestion of Luce (1965) 234–7 that the emendation is Livy’s own response to criticism seems to me untenable: as Luce admits, (1) it runs counter to Quintilian’s testimony and (2) hardly ⟦163⟧ accords with Livy’s known opinionatedness; more important (3), the hexameter opening forcefully introduces a debate about the relationship between poetry and historiography which is integral to the preface.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_022

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What of the general sentiment? If he writes a history of the Roman people from the first beginnings of the city,4 Livy is not sure whether he will make/achieve operae pretium, nor, if he were sure, would he dare say so. Most ancient historians, even those (like Livy) who emphasise the difficulty of their task, make great claims for themselves and their work. Livy’s apparent diffidence is strikingly at variance with the historiographical norm,5 and he himself makes this point explicit, by contrasting his own unassertiveness (nec satis scio nec, si sciam, dicere ausim) with the confidence (credunt) and competitiveness (superaturos) of the noui semper scriptores. Livy’s diffidence is further emphasised by his disavowal of the audacia/τόλμα normally regarded as indispensable to high literary endeavour.6 The effect, then, of the general sentiment is in its way as surprising as that of the poetic opening rhythm. Immediately we are faced with a paradox: a modesty which forms part of a captatio beneuolentiae designed to disarm the reader, but which is yet striking and even assertive: ‘by contrast with both Tacitus and Sallust, Livy draws attention to himself straightaway: of the fourteen instances of the first-person verb, six come in the first sentence’.7 The familiar phrase operae pretium est literally means ‘there is a return on the work’ or ‘there is a reward for trouble’, but reference varies according to speaker and addressee. In the case of ‘I find it worthwhile’, it is my while; in ‘it is worth your while’, it is your while. Whose opera and whose pretium, then, are envisaged here? ⟦142⟧ On one level, the answer seems to be Livy’s. §§1–4 make play with a standard ‘work’–‘pleasure’ or utile–dulce contrast and so Livy’s ‘pleasure’ (3 iuuabit) compensates for the uncertainty of his operae pretium (1). There are also clear verbal parallels between lines 1–2 ( facturusne … perscripserim) and the start of §4, and, even more so, between lines 1–2 and the start of §5. In the first case, operae in 1 parallels operis in 4; in lines 1–2 Livy’s project consists of writing up the res of the Roman people from the very beginnings of the city and in §4 the res is immensi operis, and though in this latter case the 4 A primordio urbis begins the story before the foundation of the city (cf. 7 primordia urbium and p. 201). 5 E.g., Hdt. praef.; Thuc. 1.1.1–2, 22.4; Polyb. 1.1.4, 2.8; Sall. BC 3.1–2; 4.3; BJ 4.1–4; 5.1; Diod. 1.1.1. Despite imprecise formulations, Ogilvie (1965) 24 is essentially right on Livy’s deviation from the norm, pace Henderson (1989) 69 {= [1998] 303–4}, even though the emphasis on the task’s magnitude is itself a commonplace (e.g. Thuc. 1.22.3; Sall. BC 3.2; Ogilvie (1965) addenda). In fact the closest parallels for Livy’s sentiment are in various works of Cicero, especially the preface to the Orator (1.1–3), which conceivably influenced Livy directly (Janson [1964] 70). 6 TLL II.1243.8ff., 1248.3ff., 1256.22ff.; Brink (1971) 92; Macleod (1977) 362 n. 14 = (1983) 265 n. 14. 7 Wheeldon (1989) 56.

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res is in the first instance the historian’s subject, it soon ‘slides’ into being the thing itself—the Roman empire, so that it has similar reference to res in line 1. Thus the opus/opera seems to be Livy’s.8 In the case of the verbal parallels between lines 1–2 and the start of  §5, operae pretium and laboris praemium look very similar, and analysis seems to substantiate the similarity. In §5 Livy’s additional (cf. quoque) praemium for his labor will be escape from the miseries of the present; his first praemium is the sheer joy he will get from the task—iuuabit in §3. The certainty of this joy compensates for the uncertainty of his prospects of success in §1. So operae pretium in 1 must also refer to the question of what recompense Livy will get for his opera: a concern that he makes explicit in §3—will he win fama or not? On another level, however, the answer seems to be the reader’s opera and pretium: the general context is one of appeal for the favour of the reader, and later (4) Livy considers the question of the reader’s pleasure. So the ‘work’—‘pleasure’ contrast cuts both ways: there is Livy’s pleasure in  §3, but also the reader’s pleasure in  §4. And this pleasure itself contrasts with the immensum opus of the subject matter. Both parties seem to be involved in ‘work’ (opera/opus/labor), just as both may obtain ‘pleasure’. Further support for this interpretation is provided, if we accept, as we should, that in this highly poetic opening passage Livy’s use of operae pretium evokes Ennius, one of whose fragments from the Annals reads audire est operae pretium procedere recte | qui rem Romanam Latiumque augescere uoltis (494(465) **xlvi Sk.), where it is the audience’s opera and pretium.9 In 1 operae pretium we may also hear, at any rate retrospectively, yet another voice: that of Sall. BC 12.3 (operae pretium est, quom domos atque uillas cognoueris in urbium modum exaedificatas, uisere templa deorum, quae nostri maiores, religiosissimi mortales, fecere),10 where again it is the reader’s operae pretium. Hence facturus … operae pretium conveys two distinct meanings: (1) Will Livy get a worthwhile return (in glory) on all the work he will have put into writing his vast History? (2) Will his readers get a worthwhile return on the work they will have to put into reading it? While distinct, these meanings are complementary: a writer is rewarded when his readers feel rewarded: if they like his work, they reward him with glory. This ambiguous phraseology suggests the ideal relationship between the historian and his readers, when they are, as it were, at one. Having at the start 8 9 10

As also in 5.21.9 (quoted pp. 201–2). For Livy’s opening words as a quotation from Ennius see Lundstrom (1915); cf. also Liv. 3.26.7 operae pretium est audire qui omnia prae diuitiis humana spernunt. See below, n. 60.

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of the preface suggested this ideal union of historian and readers, Livy will go on to emphasise ⟦143⟧ the current gulf between the two parties and then progressively narrow that gulf. Thus the relationship of historian and readers is a vital element in the overall argument of the preface and it is signposted from the very start in accordance with a common technique in classical literature, variously called ‘suspension of thought’, ‘putting down a marker’, or even ‘anticipating a solution’.11 Livy explains his uncertainty about his prospects of success by the fact that he ‘sees’ that the res, here clearly ‘the subject’, is both uetus and uolgata. The general implications are clear enough. The res is uolgata because many people have treated it (a notion reinforced by 3 turba); it is uetus because it is an ‘old theme’, and it largely concerns what is literally ‘ancient’ history. With such material it is hard to do anything fresh12 or worthwhile. Here again, Livy’s situation seems to be the reverse of the norm (usually indicated by a prefatory boast of primacy or novelty: cf., e.g., Vitruv. 5 praef. 1 on the novelty of historiography). The following dum-clause, however, has been taken in three distinct ways: (a) as a gloss on the description ueterem … uolgatam (the usual interpretation);13 (b) as a further point: Livy’s difficulties (quippe … uideam) are compounded by the fact that there will be competition in the future from noui scriptores in AUC history (Woodman’s interpretation);14 (c) as a further point: Livy’s difficulties are compounded by the continuing competition from noui scriptores in any historiographical field.15 Interpretation (c) has many advocates but can be dismissed out of hand: rebus echoes rem and res, uetustatem echoes ueterem. The noui scriptores are engaged with the same res as Livy himself, i.e., AUC history. Interpretation (b) seems to gain support from the temporal shift from ueterem to noui, but there are numerous considerations against it: (i) the link between ueterem rem and uetustatem; (ii) the very reference to rudem 11 ‘Suspension of thought’: e.g., the scholars cited by Woodman (1988) 147 n. 13; ‘putting down a marker’/‘anticipating a solution’: Moles (1985) 37–8, 56 n. 29 {vol. 1, pp. 366–9, 368}; (1990) 373 {vol. 1, p. 155} n. 125. 12 Note that literary audacia (which Livy claims to lack) characteristically concerns originality (n. 6). 13 E.g., Weissenborn–Müller (1965) 76: ‘dum] ist hier nicht reine Zeit-partikel, sondern bildet die begründende Erläuterung … des unbestimmten uulgatam rem’. 14 Woodman (1988) 130 and 151 n. 56. 15 This interpretation is entailed by the suggestions that noui … scriptores alludes to Nepos and Cicero (Bayet–Baillet [1940] 1 n. 1), or Pollio (Mazza [1966] 72; Heurgon [1970] 22), or Sallust (Mazza [1966] 72; Girod [1980] 69, cf. Cizek [1992] 359). In fact, as we shall see, the idea that noui scriptores makes any specific references is excluded by semper.

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uetustatem (Livy would have to be looking far into the future before that description could be applied, even pejoratively, to himself); (iii) the use of et in iuuabit tamen rerum gestarum memoriae principis terrarum populi pro uirili parte et ipsum consuluisse (3), which seems to imply ‘I myself also’, i.e., besides the mass of noui semper scriptores; (iv) the phrase in tanta scriptorum turba (3), which obviously picks up noui semper scriptores, and seems to refer to a turba which already to some extent exists and which in some sense includes Livy; (v) the reference to the nobilitate ac magnitudine of those who may overshadow Livy, which reads like an allusion to the social distinction of Livy’s predecessors among historians;16 (vi) the clause utcumque erit at the start of 3, which is naturally taken as ‘whether or not I achieve operae pretium’, the two future tenses facturus … sim and erit going together. This reading is also supported by the seemingly parallel use of utcumque in §8.17 On interpretation (b), however, it would have to mean ‘whether or not my suspicions of future rivalry are justified’ (Woodman), which seems very forced. What, then, of the temporal shift from ueterem to noui? The key is Livy’s use of semper. As its arresting position suggests, semper here functions like the Greek ἀεί ⟦144⟧ or ἑξῆς sandwiched between definite article and noun. An excellent parallel is Livy 5.42.6 nec ullum erat tempus quod a nouae semper cladis alicuius spectaculo cessaret (cited by Weissenborn–Müller). At any point in time there are always ‘new writers’ of Roman history from the very beginnings. They are ‘new’ in relation both to the res itself (‘ancient history’) and to their predecessors. We can thus define the implications of the dum-clause more precisely. The res is uolgata because ‘new writers’ in a perpetual sequence attempt to tackle it; for the same reason it is ‘old hat’. Because it is uetus in the sense of being ancient history, one of the things the noui can try to do is to establish the facts more securely; because it is pretty hoary, the other thing they can do is to try to give it some modern polish. This analysis raises another point. uetustatem must cover both ‘old history’ in the sense of ancient history—that meaning is validated by the link with ueterem—and ‘old history’ in the sense of what earlier historians have written—that meaning is validated by the contrast with noui scriptores. Thus uetustatem has a double aspect: it implies the union of theme and writer, just as operae pretium implied the union of writer and reader. This slippage or doubleness of reference is an important aspect of the language, and hence of the thought, of the whole preface.

16 Ogilvie (1965) 25–6; cf. in general Badian (1966). 17 Cf. below, n. 42.

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Livy, then, envisages three diverse ways in which historians attempt to improve on previous histories of Rome from the beginning: (1) adducing more accurate facts. This is widely recognised in ancient historiography as a standard method whereby a historian may surpass his predecessors;18 (2) writing about old things in modern style; (3) improving upon the literary style of older historians. An important question, however, arises: to what extent does Livy identify himself with the attitudes and techniques of the noui semper scriptores? In a literal sense Livy is a nouus scriptor and obviously (as the reader will soon discover) his History does do the three things which the noui semper scriptores try to do. The very project of writing a history of Rome from the beginning implicates Livy in a tradition where his work comes into comparison with all the other treatments, past, present, and future, of this hackneyed theme, and where it must justify itself to its potential readership (hence the et of §3 and Livy’s presence in tanta scriptorum turba). Yet at the same time Livy contrives some distance between himself and the noui semper scriptores. He is something of an outsider looking in upon the historiographical rat-race (uideam); as we have seen, his stated diffidence and modesty contrast sharply with the historiographical norm; and his motivation (3 rerum gestarum memoriae … consuluisse) is public-spirited rather than competitive and individualistic (superaturos). Moreover, later in the preface Livy will register alienation from the sheer idea of nouitas, and the frenetic endeavours of the noui semper scriptores will find their counterpart in the perverse taste of the majority of Livy’s readers for haec noua (4) and indeed in the accelerating collapse of the Roman state itself (9). Inevitably himself a nouus scriptor and hence needing to impress his readers, Livy is nevertheless outside and above the general run of historians: his motivation is loftier and he will ⟦145⟧ give his readers something different and something better. That is the implication beneath the surface modesty and diffidence. The argument proceeds (3): Utcumque erit, iuuabit tamen rerum gestarum memoriae principis terrarum populi pro uirili parte et ipsum consuluisse; et si in tanta scriptorum turba mea fama in obscuro sit, nobilitate ac magnitudine eorum me qui nomini officient meo consoler.

18 E.g. Hecataeus, FGrHist 1 F 1a; Thuc. 1.20.3, 22.2–3; Sall. BJ 94.2; Tac. Hist. 1.1.2–3; Ann. 1.1.2–3. Note that Livy assumes that this is a central purpose of some historians, pace the general argument of Woodman (1988).

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Whether or not Livy will achieve operae pretium, he will still derive joy from having made his own personal effort to the best of his ability to foster the memoria of the res gestae of the pre-eminent nation of the world: that in itself will be a pretium in the absence of the more tangible pretium of fama (which is assumed to be the ancient historian’s usual goal).19 This thought is neatly pointed by ring-structure, 3 officient picking up 1 facturusne: if Livy does not ‘make a return on his work’ (by achieving fama), it will be because more successful historians ‘make against’ his nomen. This is the first of several verbal plays whereby facio-compounds articulate various factors ‘making against’ Livy’s prospects of ‘making a return on his work’. And if he does not get his fama, he can also console himself with the thought of the nobilitas and magnitudo of his successful rivals. As with the description of the noui semper scriptores, it is difficult to resist the feeling that Livy is here being somewhat ironic, even sarcastic, about other AUC historians. For while on one level in tanta scriptorum turba echoes a phrase in Sallust’s preface to the Histories (Hist. 1.3 M {= 1.11 L–F} nos in tanta doctissumorum hominum copia) and while turba is not necessarily a pejorative term, Livy’s wording lacks the positively respectful tone of Sallust’s and also picks up, and takes colour from, the somewhat ironic noui semper scriptores. Moreover, magnitudine, as it were within the light imagery, creates the slightly bizarre notion that these writers’ sheer size will put him in the shade, and outside the light imagery it must, because of the link with tanta turba, suggest volume or bulk, as well as greatness. And the associations of magnitudo seem further undermined by the following sentence (4 magnitudine laboret sua).20 There is, further, an agreeable tension in the mere idea of nobiles and magni uiri comprising a turba. Finally, the whole sentiment nobilitate ac magnitudine eorum me qui nomini officient meo consoler evokes the topic of epic poetry whereby dying warriors console themselves with the thought of the greatness of their vanquishers.21 While this evocation serves to reinforce both the analogy between Livy’s History and epic poetry and the analogy (already suggested by uetustatem) between the writer of history and his theme (because Livy as historian is like the warriors about whom he is writing), it also makes another contrast with traditional historiographical claims and one not devoid of wry 19 Cf., e.g. (besides the present passage), Hdt. praef.; Thuc. 1.22.4; Sall. BC 1.1–4; 3.1–2; BJ 1.3; 2.4; 4.1; Plin. Ep. 5.8.1–2; Lucian, Hist. Conscr. 5. Ultimately, of course, Livy got that fama and freely admitted that gloria was part of his motivation: Plin. NH praef. 16. 20 I disagree therefore with Phillips (1982) 1002 and with Wheeldon (1989) 58, who sees in magnitudine the implication ‘greatness of value’. See also ibid. 55 on 11 maior. 21 For the epic topic see Harrison (1991) 268 on Aen. 10.829–31 and Bömer (1976) on Ov. Met. 5.191 and (1980) on 10.80–1.

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humour: instead of achieving immortality through his immortal work Livy runs the risk of achieving complete annihilation through failure.22 ⟦146⟧ Yet at the same time this sentence also implies positive claims. Quite apart from the general analogies between Livy’s History and epic and between historian and theme, the fact that, if Livy’s rivals overshadow him, they will do so nobilitate ac magnitudine helps to give more colour to the parallel phrase pro uirili parte, of Livy’s own efforts: he has played not just his own individual part but a positively manly one (this is quite a common ambiguity of uirilis). There is, then, much more of an analogy between the heroic quality of the subject matter and the qualities of Livy the historian than his modest protestations at first sight convey. This analogy will be further strengthened by Livy’s exhortation to his readers in §9. There the reader must pay his own individual attention (pro se quisque) to great Roman uiri. Livy’s historical project is itself exemplary of ‘virile’ individual public service and, moreover, unites the normally opposed utile (rerum gestarum memoriae principis terrarum populi … consuluisse) and dulce (iuuabit), though as yet the ‘pleasure’ is felt only by Livy the writer. The first reason for Livy’s uncertainty about his success was the view that the res is uetus and uolgata; the second (praeterea) is the immense size of the res, which obviously poses severe practical difficulties for him as historian. In §4 the res is in the first instance the historian’s subject-matter but it then ‘slides’ into being the Roman state itself, which from small beginnings has now grown to the point that magnitudine laboret sua,23 an unenthusiastic description that foreshadows the explicitly critical remarks at the end of this section (se ipsae conficiunt). Then comes a third reason for Livy’s uncertainty: the majority of 22 ⟦164⟧ 1 noui semper scriptores and 3 nobilitate … consoler themselves suffice to disprove Ogilvie’s celebrated contention ([1965] 4) that ‘no touches of humour are to be found in the history’. 23 On the slide see Weissenborn–Müller (1965) 77 and cf. 7.29.2 quanta rerum moles! quotiens in extrema periculorum uentum, ut in hanc magnitudinem quae uix sustinetur erigi imperium posset! Note also that iam magnitudine laboret sua, with reference to the Roman state, subverts Sall. BC 53.5 res publica magnitudine sui imperatorum atque magistratuum uitia sustentabat. Some scholars seem to see in quae ab exigui … laboret sua an allusion to the physical text (e.g., Wheeldon [1989] 58; Henderson [1989] 69 {= (1998) 301–2}); because of iam laboret such a reading seems to me impossible at the time when Livy was at the beginning of his vast project (even though 4 festinantibus ad haec noua has a (looser) proleptic function in relation to Livy’s History), but perfectly plausible once Livy had produced several decades and indeed inevitable by the time Livy’s History had reached the period described in magnitudine laboret sua. On the interpretative point see p. 204. On the general theme of Rome’s organic growth see Ruch (1968).

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his readers will get less pleasure from the first origins24 than from contemporary history, their taste for the latter clearly in Livy’s opinion being altogether perverse. In the light of the Sallustian echoes and allusions throughout the preface, of the stress in the immediate context on Rome’s self-destruction and of the use of festinare (below), there may well be an implicit allusion here to Sallust’s Histories,25 though this does not exclude the general contrast between ancient and contemporary history. The use of festinare requires careful consideration. There are two main implications: first, that Livy’s readers are readers ‘in a hurry’, hence the size of the res poses difficulties for readers as well as historian; second, that they greatly prefer to read about haec noua. The word also has interesting associations. It is a favourite of Sallust in the sense of speedy military or political activity and it can also imply excessive speed.26 Hence the whole phrase festinantibus ad haec noua has almost Gadarene swine-like implications, as if of the actual participants in the civil wars, i.e., here again there is an implied slide, this time between the historical theme (specifically the real-life agents in the contemporary political drama) and its readers. Another possible resonance stems from Cicero’s use of festinatio in reference to his own importunate desire that his achievements of the years 63 to 58 be commemorated by the historian Lucceius (Fam. 5.12.1, 9).27 Livy’s acquaintance with the letter to Lucceius seems plausible, given his general interest in Cicero and in historiographical theory and given that the expression tota mente (5) is paralleled not only in Cic. Clu. 190 and Phil. 10.23 but also in Fam. 5.12.2 (mens tota),28 i.e. in a context shortly after ⟦147⟧ Cicero’s allusion to his festinatio. Indeed, tota mente could be read as a ‘flag’ for a Ciceronian context. There would then be an analogy between Cicero’s ‘hasty desire’ for the commemoration of his own recent achievements (as opposed to Lucceius’ treatment of the more remote period of the Italian and Civil wars of 90–81) and that of the majority of Livy’s readers for haec noua (as opposed to primae origines, 24

In primae origines proximaque originibus one might detect a sly allusion to an alreadyexisting treatment, Cato’s Origines, whose aesthetic merits were disparaged by Cicero (Leg. 1.6; De or. 2.53). 25 Oppermann (1955) 171. Cf. also n. 23. 26 Sallust: e.g., BC 6.5; 27.2; BJ 39.2; 55.3; 66.1; 76.4; 102.9; Hist. FF 2.46 M; 4.34 M; excessive speech: TLL VI.1.617ff. 27 I owe this suggestion to Ruth Morello. 28 As noted by Woodman (1988) 151 n. 55. The availability of Cicero’s correspondence in Livy’s time and later is an old problem, but (a) Shackleton Bailey’s case ([1965–70] I.59–73) for Neronian publication of Ad Atticum seems (to me) over-dismissive of earlier evidence; (b) Velleius certainly used Cicero’s correspondence directly (Woodman [1983] 115); (c) even Shackleton Bailey finds the availability of Ad fam. much less problematic ([1977] I.24).

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etc.; note also Cicero’s criticism of the tedium of annales [Fam. 5.12.6]). This analogy would suggest a series of contrasts with Livy’s position, which in turn would bear on fundamental questions about historiography and its purpose that are highly germane to the whole argument of the preface. Thus Cicero, like the festinantes and like most of the noui semper scriptores, seeks the gloria of self-commemoration in, and by, history; Livy affects not to care if his personal fama is overshadowed, and he proclaims history’s value to be the provision of exempla which will make his readers better men and save the state (10). Cicero, like the festinantes, has an unhealthy preoccupation with the present or recent past; Livy upholds the value of the past from the very beginning. Cicero, like the festinantes, is a reader in a hurry, obsessed with hot news, and wants a relatively brief, self-contained, work, rather than a long one; Livy will advocate (9) critical and slow reading commensurate with the size of his subject-matter—the past from the very beginning all the way down to the present. Cicero, like the festinantes, derives perverse pleasure from the contemplation of mala, both present and past; Livy will avert his gaze from present horrors for as long as possible and will actually try to rectify them, and his pleasure will be of a loftier kind. One might even see Livy as playing the serious ‘Lucceian’ role as opposed to the self-interested and frivolous role of Cicero, for Livy’s stress on the difficulty of his task (3 res est … immensi operis) has its counterpart in Cicero’s description of Lucceius’ project (Fam. 5.12.2 neque … eram nescius quantis oneribus premerere susceptarum rerum et iam institutarum), a description which may well reflect Lucceius’ own wording (cf. Horace’s Pollio ode, C. 2.1). The cumulative case for allusion to Cicero’s letter to Lucceius thus seems attractive and its consequences for the definition of Livy’s own historical project considerable.29 The allusion could also be given value in the context of Livy’s implicit debate throughout the preface with Sallust.30 The description of haec noua contains another facio-compound: haec noua quibus iam pridem praeualentis populi uires se ipsae conficiunt. This element of Livy’s subject-matter ‘makes against’ his prospects of success. This is not

29 The letter to Lucceius raises questions about the nature of ancient historiography too large for proper consideration here. Nevertheless, whether or not Livy is responding to the letter, enough has been said to show that a major ancient historian could entertain conceptions of historiography altogether more serious and profound, alike on an intellectual, moral, and emotional plane, than anything there suggested by Cicero. This analysis also suggests that the conventional picture of Livy ‘the Ciceronian’ requires considerable modification. 30 See p. 219.

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because it will offend his readers, who actually like the disastrous haec noua, but because it pains Livy himself, a thought which the sequel makes explicit. Livy is absolutely confident of this unfortunate prejudice for contemporary history on the part of the majority of his potential readers, and his confidence on this point contrasts sharply with his hesitations about his history’s prospects of success in §1. It seems now as if a great gulf has opened up between historian and readers, in contrast to the ideal union adumbrated in operae pretium. His readers’ perverse pleasure in contemporary history also seems diametrically opposed to the disinterested ⟦148⟧ ‘joy’ which Livy feels in his task. Livy emphasises this gulf with a further forthright pronouncement (5 ego contra) on a further point of difference between him and the majority of his readers: his additional reward for his task, with the latter’s undoubtedly unpleasant aspects (laboris is coloured by laboret in 4, cf. conficiunt (above)), is a temporary escape from the present to ‘those old things’ (prisca illa). The fact that the res is uetus, which in §2 seemed a disadvantage to be overcome, has now turned into a positive blessing. The imagery of §5, which is imagery of sight (a conspectu … uidit), also finds its counterpart in §3: the public glory, the limelight, that Livy might win if his History proves a success means much less to him emotionally than this immersion in the past, temporary though it must be. Indeed, at this point the two parties to the historical enterprise are, as it were, travelling in precisely opposite directions, Livy towards the very beginning of the Roman past (prisca illa … repeto, cf. 3 res … quae supra septingentesimum annum repetatur) and his readers towards the present (ad haec noua), and at very different speeds, his readers ‘rushing’, he lingering ‘a wee while’.31 It is another bonus that (unlike contemporary history) early history will not be politically dangerous for him as writer—a consideration that obviously does not apply to his readers, so again historian and readers seem poles apart.32 It is true that the phrase used of Livy’s readers, legentium plerisque, allows for the possibility of a select minority which does share Livy’s tastes, but this implication is relatively trivial: Livy is not proclaiming a Callimachean elitism: he is concerned to achieve a large readership (9). We note also here that Livy the 31 Ogilvie’s folksy rendering ([1965] 26) of the colloquial tantisper. 32 Wheeldon (1989) 56 interprets this section rather differently: Livy creates ‘in the authorial persona itself a model of the kind of reader he would wish his audience to imitate’; while there is something in this formulation (since Livy certainly represents his attitude here as superior to that of the majority of his readers and since his whole ‘virile’ historical project has itself exemplary value [p. 197]), it neglects (a) the illusory quality of the escapism here envisaged, and (b) the fact that Livy’s own ‘definition’ of ‘the past’ is modified as the preface progresses.

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historian proposes to record the truth33 and that his qualification of Sallust’s proud boast (Hist. 1.6 M {= 1.12 L–F} neque me diuersa pars in ciuilibus armis mouit a uero) has the effect of re-emphasising his ‘modesty’.34 In this section, too, the use of efficere suggests another factor ‘making against’ Livy’s prospects of success: the danger attendant upon writing contemporary history. Finally, scribentis rings with 1 perscripserim, marking the end of that part of the preface which is devoted to Livy’s project in general before he moves on to enumerate the contents of the History (6),35 beginning with the pre-AUC material. Livy intends neither to affirm nor to refute traditions about the prefoundation period, which are more decora to poeticae fabulae than to history. Decora is used of what is generically appropriate, though connotations of beauty are also relevant. The contrast here between poetry and historiography seems to reactivate the problem posed by Livy’s opening words, with their dactylic rhythm and apparent allusion to Ennius. There is a fundamental implication here: the history, as opposed to the fabulae, will be true, and true in the most basic sense: factually true.36 This implication is confirmed by 5.21.9, where Livy introduces a fabula into the narrative in words that echo the present section of the preface: sed in rebus tam antiquis si quae similia ueris sint pro ueris accipiantur, satis habeam; haec ad 33

On the face of it omnis expers curae quae scribentis animum, etsi non flectere a uero, sollicitum tamen efficere posset supports the thesis that truth in ancient historiography consisted largely in impartiality (Woodman [1988] 71–4, 79–80, 82–3, 86, 93, 101–2, 105–6, 111, 194; cf. also Cizek [1988] 18–20), but (a) the impartiality requirement does not exclude other requirements such as accuracy, judicious assessment of sources, etc.; (b) it is itself largely invoked in connection with contemporary or near-contemporary history (Luce [1989]), ⟦165⟧ as by Livy here, and therefore does not apply to remoter periods. A different attempt to play down Livy’s emphasis on truth is that of Wheeldon (1989) 56 n. 63: ‘Livy’s claim to veracity arises almost en passant, perhaps indicating a desire to seem not to protest the claim too much.’ But, as will become clear, Livy’s truth claim is given ever more weight as the preface proceeds. 34 In the event Livy may have been deterred by sollicitudo to the extent of postponing publication of Books 121–42 until after Augustus’ death, but I cannot go into that insoluble question. What matters in this context is that the preface does commit Livy to going down to ‘the present’ at the time of writing. 35 While §6 begins the enumeration of contents, it is linked thematically in a number of ways with 4–5. The discussion of pre-AUC material arises naturally from the allusion in 4 to the distaste of the majority of his readers for primae origines (if not pleasurable, such material has at least the positive quality of making augustiora the primordia urbium), from the allusion to prisca illa in 5, and from the implication, in his allusion to contemporary history (5), that he is concerned to record the truth (so is the pre-AUC material true and does its truth matter?). 36 Cf. also n. 33.

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ostentationem scenae gaudentis miraculis aptiora quam ad fidem neque adfirmare neque refellere est operae pretium. The basic distinction between poeticae fabulae and incorrupta rerum gestarum monumenta has been acclaimed by some scholars as novel and original.37 It is certainly ⟦149⟧ different from the robust dismissiveness of Sempronius Asellio (HRR F 2 {= FRHist 20 F 2} id fabulas pueris narrare, non historias scribere). But Livy’s stance is recognisably part-Thucydidean—in the distinction between ‘myth’/poetry and history (Thuc. 1.21.2, 22.4)—and part-Herodotean—in the refusal to pass judgement on ‘what is said’/fabulae (Hdt. 1.5.3; 7.152.3). This invocation of the two greatest historians among Livy’s predecessors in the whole field of historiography already implies great claims for his own history. Livy’s description of historical works—6 incorruptis rerum gestarum monumentis—also has important implications. Though the description is general, clearly Livy’s own History belongs in this category, and in so far as incorruptis suggests both imperishable and truthful, Livy approaches the Herodotean claim of an immortal ἀπόδεξις and the Thucydidean claim of a κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί: his initial modesty is further undermined. And in so far as incorruptis … monumentis also suggests ‘uncontaminated’ in a medical sense, it anticipates both the medical imagery and the crucial historical and historiographical claims of §§9–10. As for the fabulae, they should be viewed with indulgence (7), an indulgence which allows two licences, the second a particularisation of the first: (1) ancient history38 has the right to make foundings of cities more august39 by mingling human and divine. Within the economy of Livy’s use of facio and facio-compounds in this preface, faciat here has real force. Granted the relative insignificance of such material in truly historical terms, it remains a plus if a historical work can include the mingling of human and divine.40 (2) If any people has the right to trace its origins back to divine authors, all-conquering Rome has the right to trace its origin back to Mars, so that the nations of the 37 E.g., Ferrero (1949) 19 n. 1; Mazza (1966) 91 n. 18. 38 Antiquitati has the same double reference as 3 uetustatem = both ‘ancient history’ and ‘ancient historians’. 39 The thesis of Coppola (1983–4) 67–70, that 7 augustiora … auctores and 9 auctum allude to Augustus must be rejected, not only because an honorific allusion to Augustus in the preface would sit ill with the emphasis on contemporary crisis, but also because of the explicit reference to Augustus in 1.19.3, especially if that reference is a later insertion (p. 205), which would entail a pre-27 date for the preface. 40 Cic. De inv. 1.23 recommends this mingling as a way of securing the favourable attention of readers (Ogilvie [1965] 27).

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world may as well bear (patiantur) this, just as they bear (patiuntur) the Roman imperium itself. The second of these licences may seem curiously emphatic, but it foregrounds the ‘martial’ element of the Roman character and it sets up a hierarchy: humans in general; the rest of the human race; the Roman imperial race; the gods; and it also provides a thumb-nail sketch of the history of Rome from its divine origins to the foundation, its expansion, and present position as mistress of the world apparently under divine protection. (So in one sense it is a spelling-out of the implications of the phrase principis terrarum populi in §3.) A problem remains with this section: what is the relationship between Livy’s principle for dealing with pre-AUC41 fabulae (nec adfirmare nec refellere) and the belief of some of the noui semper scriptores (in rebus certius aliquid allaturos)? That Livy himself is generally committed to the recording of certiora is explicit in the second preface at the beginning of Book 6 (6.1.3 certiora … exponentur) and consistent with the various truth claims made in this preface (5, 6, 10). But this passage makes it clear that the attainment of certius aliquid is impossible with pre-AUC material and Livy re-emphasises the point in 1.3.2, in connection with the question of the relationship between Ascanius/Iulus and the gens Iulia, in words that recall §2 of the preface: haud ambigam—quis enim rem tam ueterem pro certo adfirmet?—hicine fuerit Ascanius an maior quam hic. Of course to say that certius aliquid is unattainable ⟦150⟧ in pre-AUC history is not to deny the validity of the whole process. Nevertheless, one of the rhetorical effects of this section must be to suggest that the quest for certius aliquid is a secondary consideration. In this respect also Livy contrives to present himself as different from some of the conventional noui scriptores. Livy then (8), in one of the many ring structures of the preface, reaffirms his relative indifference to the truth question about these pre-foundation traditions and others like them.42 The heavy stress in this section on the truth question about pre-AUC fabulae and Livy’s elaborate profession of non-judgement on it combine to create another rhetorical effect: that is, to make readers forget that they simply dislike all this old stuff (4). They will thus pay greater heed to Livy’s exhortation to ignore the truth question and to turn their individual attention43 to illa … quae uita, qui mores fuerint etc. (another Ennian 41 And sometimes post-AUC fabulae: 5.21.9 (quoted pp. 201–2). 42 8 Utcumque corresponds structurally to 3 utcumque and fulfils the same function: to characterise the preceding material as relatively unimportant by comparison with what follows. 43 9 Intendat animum and sequatur animo contrast with 8 animaduersa and 6 nec … in animo, thus distinguishing between the things to which one should direct one’s mind and those to which one should not. Pace Cizek (1992) 352, these animus-contrasts, and

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allusion).44 In so doing, the reader will be behaving like Livy himself, for Livy has withdrawn temporarily from the contemplation of modern horrors to prisca illa (§5) and made his own individual effort (pro se quisque in §9 balances the pro uirili parte et ipsum of §3). Thus by a sort of sleight of hand Livy has conned the unsympathetic reader into adopting his own viewpoint. This effect is further assisted by the following survey of the whole Aufstieg und Niedergang, which, through its elaborate building metaphor, invites the reader to see Roman history as a continuous process, without the polarised distinction between old and new. Yet by the end of this survey Livy has himself to some extent shifted his own ground, in as much as his whole historical analysis will be geared to demonstrating the differences between the past and the present and highlighting the various stages of decline down to the present day: the past will be a mirror for the present, the present for the past—Livy will not in fact be shying away from full engagement with contemporary history. The escapism of §5 has turned out to be a feint. Thus a sort of compromise has been achieved between the initially sharply divergent tastes of the historian and the majority of his readers. The description of the disastrous present (quibus … peruentum est) re-employs, and develops, the medical metaphor of §4. Problems of interpretation and dating now become acute. What period does haec tempora refer to? What are the remedia for the uitia? These questions raise fundamental issues about the interpretation of ancient texts ‘in their historical context’. Henderson has had legitimate fun with traditionalist attempts to reconstruct, date, and thereby interpret, various stages of composition in Livy’s Ab urbe condita, and with the various circularities often implicit in such attempts, particularly in relation to the lost books.45 I agree—and I disagree. If Livy 1–5 has a given set of implications for its first readership and cannot have exactly the same implications for later readers, this is not to say that the implications it will have for the latter are valueless: a text is a text is a text. But if we can show that a particular portion of text was written at a particular time, then it may be the case that at that time it would have had to be read in a particular way. And such a finding would be of some interest and some value: it would be part of the text’s meaning—part of its the parallel and contrast between pro se quisque and 3 pro uirili parte et ipsum consuluisse, exclude any formal allusion here to the historian (though of course Livy the historian will in fact have to do this). 44 To the famous moribus antiquis res stat Romana uirisque (156(500) **i Sk.). This allusion helps to anticipate the subsequent Rome/building imagery. On the four pillars of Roman greatness—uita, mores, uiri, and artes—see Ruch (1967) and (1968). 45 Henderson (1989).

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meaning, ⟦151⟧ because it would be absurd to claim that a text could only have meaning at a particular point in time. On the other hand, we can surely say that a particular piece of text has more meaning at a particular time: in a disquisition on British politics a passing allusion to toe-jobs meant more in 1992 than it would have done to earlier or later readers.46 And in ‘perpetual’ works, like Livy’s Ab urbe condita or Plutarch’s Lives, there are bound to be tensions between topical and timeless meanings, and there are bound to be occasions when the writer redefines his earlier prospectuses (as, e.g., in the second preface at 6.1.1–3).47 Livy’s first pentad falls within the broad termini of c.35 (when Sallust died, leaving his Histories unfinished) and 25 (when Augustus closed the temple of Janus for the second time). The traditional view is that 27 is a terminus post, because of Livy’s allusions to Augustus at 1.19.3 (his first closing of Janus) and 4.20.5–11 (the discussion of the spolia opima), but Luce,48 following some earlier scholars, has argued that these two passages are later insertions. On the other hand, many scholars have seen implicit post-Actium allusions in the narrative of 1–5. What, then, are the possibilities? On the traditional dating, remedia is generally taken as a reference to Augustus’ failed marriage legislation of 28,49 but Badian50 has argued against that legislation’s historicity. Woodman argues that haec tempora here denotes the civil-war period, that the preface and 1–5 are pre-Actium, and that the remedia are code for one-man rule, which is often imaged as the only cure for Rome’s civil-war ills.51 Unlike Woodman, Haehling accepts the traditional post-27 dating, but like him, he rejects any allusion to Augustus’ alleged marriage legislation (though he believes it historical), and like Woodman he sees a reference to one-man rule.52 One has to choose. Luce’s arguments for 1.19.3 and 4.20.5–11 as later insertions seem to me convincing. On the other hand, there are other, apparently non-detachable, passages in 1–5 which look post-27: 3.66–70 (the speech of T. Quinctius Capitolinus and the subsequent agreement by his colleague, Agrippa Furius, that Quinctius should have the chief imperium), a case 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

I deliberately leave this reference unexplained: the fact that it will mean nothing to those unfamiliar with ‘revelations’ made in 1992 by the British gutter press is precisely the point. Kraus (1994), ‘Introduction’. Luce (1965). Following Dessau (1903) and Weissenborn–Müller (1965) 80. ⟦166⟧ Badian (1985). Woodman (1988) 132–4 and nn. 65–79 on 152–4; Woodman does not commit himself on the question of the historicity of the attempted marriage legislation. von Haehling (1989) 19, 213–15.

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analysed by von Haehling and Briscoe,53 is particularly challenging, and of course the portrayal of Camillus has often been seen as suggestively Augustan. Personally, I am not convinced by Badian’s claimed demolition of Augustan marriage legislation in 28.54 On the other hand, in our text haec tempora picks up the apocalyptic iam and ad haec noua of §4, and a reference in any of these contexts to the failure of Augustus’ marriage legislation would be both pathetic and bathetic. But this need not entail an actual civil-war dating. Livy surely could have written in such pessimistic terms even after Actium, just as Horace does, for example in Odes 3.6, because ‘the present’ can be a fairly elastic term when the perspective is the whole of Roman history from the foundation of the city,55 and because, although Actium was indeed a decisive turning-point, the 20s were in fact a very tense political era. If, then, reference to Augustan marriage legislation is excluded, the only concrete possibility that remains is one-man rule. Woodman and von Haehling have produced positive arguments for this interpretation: (a) remedium is explicitly used of one-man rule in 3.20.8 and 22.8.5, both of which appear closely parallel to the present context; ⟦152⟧ (b) Tac. Ann. 1.9.4 non aliud discordantis patriae remedium fuisse quam ut ab uno regeretur suggests that Tacitus understood Livy’s preface in this way; (c) the metaphor of the sickness of the state and the consequent need for a single ‘doctor’ was extensively employed in the civil-war period. The case is a good one and can in my view be decisively strengthened from within the preface. For Livy’s use of the verb pati surely links with §7: patiantur … patiuntur. That section, as we have seen, sketched a hierarchical pyramid: gods and humans in general intermixed at the beginning of time; foundation of Rome; humans ruled by Rome, rule which they must ‘bear’; Rome the ruling power; the gods above them and validating Roman rule. But in §9 the Roman state and the whole Roman empire are falling to bits, there seems no prospect of divine aid, and yet the Romans cannot ‘bear’ the remedia which would cure their sickness. What is required, then, is another tier in the hierarchical pyramid, which the Romans must ‘bear’, just as their subjects ‘bear’ the Roman empire. A reference to monarchy provides the requisite final link in the chain

53 von Haehling (1989) 191–215; Briscoe (1990), reviewing von Haehling. 54 Nor is Williams (1990) 267 n. 19: ‘his [Badian’s] argument needs (and will receive) a reply’. 55 von Haehling (1989) 20 (without specific reference to the present passage) reasonably regards ‘the present’ for Livy as consisting of the period between Caesar’s dictatorship and the late 20s.

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of command. The repetitions of the verb patior seem to me to guarantee this interpretation.56 Yet an important question remains (though it is rarely asked by scholars): is monarchy the only remedy Livy has in mind, i.e., is remedia a true plural or not? §10 gives the answer. Hoc illud; hoc refers forward, illud back in a general way to §9, whose moral implications Livy now brings out in detail. The juxtaposition and similarity of reference of ‘this’ and ‘that’, pronouns which normally contrast and which have indeed been pointedly differentiated earlier in the preface (4–5, 8–9), suggest the coherence and unity of the moral programme to be announced. Livy now addresses the reader in 2nd-person singulars, which replace the 3rd-persons of §4. We note the progression from the matter-of-fact 3rd-person plurals of §4, to 3rd-person singulars of the individual in §9, to 1st-person plurals at the end of 9, and now to 2nd-person singular. Thus Livy stresses the moral implications for his readers in a direct personal appeal to the individual, an appeal, moreover, so framed as to overturn the distinction between self-interest and national interest (in tibi tuaeque rei publicae, publicae unexpectedly redefines tuae rei; we remember Kitchener’s notorious appeal: YOUR country needs YOU). While the view of the function of history here—the provision of useful exempla, the good to imitate, the bad to shun—is conventional (e.g., Pol. 2.61.3, Diod. 1.1.2–4, Tac. Ann. 3.65.1, and often in biography),57 it is integral to the whole argument of the preface. Pleasure is a legitimate part of historiography—both for the writer (§3) and for the reader (§4)—but there is another operae pretium for the reader in the salubre ac frugiferum of AUC history. This imagery contrasts starkly with the imagery applied to the sick Roman state, but Livy is not now saying, as he seemed to be saying in §5, that history provides salutary escapism: rather, history provides the healthful lessons which, along with the 56 This paper is concerned with the interpretation of the preface rather than with problems of dating, but, since the former cannot be entirely divorced from the latter, I should perhaps clarify my position on chronology: (a) Book 1 and hence the preface are pre-27 (because 1.19.3 is an insertion); (b) the references in the preface to haec tempora and the remedium of monarchy do not guarantee a pre-Actium dating; (c) Book 1 cannot be much earlier than Books 2–5 (1–5 being in some sense a unit); (d) there are post-27 elements in 2–5; (e) I have to conclude that Book 1 was originally published separately, in (say) 29–28. A less messy picture emerges if one jettisons (d), but I do not think one can. 57 Chronology prevents Livy’s monumentum from being influenced by the Forum Augustum, with its statues and elogia of great Romans of the past; rather, these elogia in some respects contested Livy’s version of events: Luce (1990). On the other hand, the common observation that Livy’s ‘exemplary’ History accords with the general Zeitgeist is reasonable, provided that it does not obscure the fact that §10 is the culmination of a complex argument.

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therapeutic imposition of monarchy, will cure the Roman state, provided that each individual plays his part. Again, Livy has ⟦153⟧ greatly modified his own initial stance. It is now also clear that remedia in 9 was a true plural, alluding both to one-man rule and to the moral value of AUC history. The claim that ‘we cannot bear the remedium of the knowledge of AUC history’ might seem implausible, but that this is Livy’s implication is supported not only by the imagery of salubre ac frugiferum, but also by the verbal parallel between praecipites … ad haec tempora in §9 and §4’s festinantibus ad haec noua. The immoral identification of readers with the narratives of contemporary political disasters, and hence with the disasters themselves, must give way to identification with good exempla and alienation from bad ones. This will represent the right union of writer, reader, and subject-matter.58 The imagery omnis … intueri is also rich in implication. In so far as AUC history is a monumentum (the imagery picks up §6), its ‘commemorative’ aspect has two functions: (a) to ‘commemorate’ the achievements of past generations; (b) to ‘admonish’ present and future generations.59 In so far as it is an abiding monument, its solidity will help shore up the collapsing edifice of the Roman state—the message is the same as that conveyed by the health imagery.60 And the fact that it is a monumentum which displays every kind of exemplum and to which every individual among Livy’s readers should direct his gaze creates several implications: (a) the monumentum has to be taken as a whole: it allows neither self-indulgent escapism into the past, nor concentration only on what is good (this in implicit rejection of Livy’s own attitude in §5: ut me a conspectu malorum quae nostra tot per annos uidit aetas … dum prisca illa tota mente repeto, auertam), nor an unhealthy preoccupation with haec noua (§4). (b) It makes a moral demand of each and every individual. (c) It should also evoke an intense emotional response, as in Sallust, BJ 4.5 nam saepe ego audiui Q. Maxumum, P. Scipionem, praeterea ciuitatis nostrae praeclaros uiros solitos ita dicere, quom maiorum imagines intuerentur, uehementissime sibi animum ad uirtutem adcendi, a passage surely in Livy’s mind.61 (d) This monumentum, in 58 10.31.15 quinam sit ille, quem pigeat longinquitatis bellorum scribendo legendoque, quae gerentes non fatigauerunt is a good parallel for the tripartite union of writer, reader, and historical agent. 59 Mazza (1966) 92 n. 19 well cites Cicero ap. Non. 47 L: sed ego quae monumenti ratio sit, nomine ipso admoneor, ad memoriam magis spectare debet posteritatis, quam ad praesentis temporis gratiam. 60 We should also, I believe, at some level hear the voice of Sall. BC 12.3 (quoted p. 192), with its contrast between ‘decadent’ modern buildings and the temples of old. 61 Note also Cicero’s use of intueor in the letter to Lucceius (Fam. 5.12.5 ceteris uero nulla perfunctis propria molestia, casus autem alienos sine ullo dolore intuentibus, etiam ipsa misericordia est iuncunda): if Livy’s allusion to the letter is granted (p. 198), there would

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all its diversity, is the thing towards which one should direct one’s gaze—not just prisca illa after withdrawal from conspectu malorum quae nostra tot per annos uidit aetas (§5), nor just the ‘bright light’ of glory which the successful historian can expect to achieve (§3): those things are legitimate but trivial and partial: one should be looking at the whole picture, and in this context ‘the whole picture’ is AUC history. Finally, this monumentum has a double aspect.62 On the one hand, it is AUC history in the abstract, whose moral lessons the present corrupt generation must ‘bear’ if they are to be cured of their ills; on the other hand, as we have all learned, ‘il n’y a pas d’hors-texte’, or in Livy’s own words (6.1.2) litterae … una custodia fidelis memoriae rerum gestarum. The monumentum, then, is also Livy’s Ab urbe condita itself, product of the process rerum gestarum memoriae principis terrarum populi consuluisse (§3), exemplar of the general category incorruptis rerum gestarum monumentis (§6) and Livy’s own negotium (§11) or opus (13; cf. 4), a term which itself can gloss monumentum, or res (12, where rei = both ‘Roman history’ and ‘my History’). ⟦154⟧ Word play based on capio seems to delineate the again separate but complementary roles of historian and reader. Each has made his ‘choice of life’. The historian has chosen (11 suscepti) litterae (which, however, in this context, represent not otium, but negotium); the reader has chosen an active life within the res publica (10); within the life of the res publica, the reader has further crucial moral ‘choices’ to make, based on the material the historian has provided for him. In the first place, he must ‘choose’ to rank history’s exemplary value highest among its various qualities (10 praecipue); in the second place, he must direct his own behaviour by the examples of history, ‘choosing’ (capias) examples beneficial to himself and the res publica, avoiding examples repugnant both in their initial ‘moral choice’ (inceptu) and in their consequences. The historian for his part has turned the monumentum of AUC history in the abstract, the raw material of §4 (res … quae … sua), into a monumentum which teaches (documenta) by providing paradigms of behaviour, which exhibits order (posita), and is illustre not only because it is the ‘big picture’, the subject most worthy of contemplation, not only because for him the ‘light’ of his history matters far more than the ‘bright light’ of personal glory, but because the historian’s essential task is to uncover—and to create—light, or clarity. For this process too has a double aspect. Ultimately, truth is a matter of sight, what can be further contrasts between Livy’s conception of history and that there advocated by Cicero: serious moral contemplation and intense moral identification replace an emotional arousal which is merely pleasurable and which partly depends on alienation. 62 Cf. Wheeldon (1989) 59; Cizek (1992) 356.

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be seen by the historian himself and his contemporaries (cf. 2 uideam, 5 nostra … uidit aetas), or what has been seen by reliable witnesses in the past and faithfully transmitted in the historical tradition (6 incorruptis rerum gestarum monumentis traduntur). But to convey this truth to his readers the historian has to put it under the light, to highlight it, so that they in turn can see it, or, sometimes, feel it, more clearly. It is important in this context to resist Woodman’s exclusively ‘aesthetic’ interpretation of historiographical canons such as σαφής, ἐνάργεια, clarus.63 Livy here is surely imitating Thucydides, who applies the process of σκοπεῖν both to himself (explicitly at 1.1.3, implicitly at 1.22.2–3) and to his readers (1.21.2 and 1.22.4), and behind the words inlustri monumento intueri lie (besides Sall. BC 4.5)64 τὸ σαφὲς σκοπεῖν … κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί. Similarly, the second preface at the beginning of book 6 (6.1.1–3) uses the vocabulary of light and darkness to make a strong truth-claim in direct imitation of Thucydides.65 In important senses, therefore, it may be said that for Livy AUC history is his own work, the Ab urbe condita, and that in reconstructing Roman history he is in a moral sense reconstructing contemporary Rome.66 By this stage Livy is in effect making tremendous claims not only for the value of AUC history in general but also for his work in particular, a κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί of Thucydidean

63 Woodman (1988) 25–8, 30, 59–60, 89–90, 108 (restricting such ideas to ‘vivid’, ‘probable’, ‘realistic’). I do not deny that descriptions exhibiting such qualities are in fact very often merely imaginative reconstructions or that sub oculos subiectio (uel. sim.) was a recognised rhetorical technique often exploited by ancient historians, as by others, or that the implications of ancient historians’ rendering their narratives in visual terms can be very complex, cf., e.g., Hartog (1988); Davidson (1991) (whose insights could usefully be retrojected to earlier historians and applied also to aspects of Livy); Feldherr (1991) {≈ Feldherr (1998)}; Morgan (1993) ⟦167⟧ 184–5 (on Duris of Samos). I do, however, argue that sometimes (as in Livy here and in 6.1.1–3 (n. 65) and in Thuc. 1.22.4) the use of light/sight words makes a strong and serious truth-claim. See Moles (1993) 107, 109–10 {above, pp. 174, 176–7}. 64 Cf. Kraus (1994) on 6.14.2 for other historiographical examples of intueri. 65 Quae ab condita urbe Roma ad captam eandem Romani sub regibus primum, consulibus deinde ac dictatoribus decemuirisque ac tribunis consularibus gessere, foris bella, domi seditiones, quinque libris exposui, res cum uetustate nimia obscuras, uelut quae magno ex interuallo loci uix cernuntur [cf. Thuc. 1.1.3], tum quod paruae et rarae per eadem tempora litterae fuere, una custodia fidelis memoriae rerum gestarum, et quod, etiam si quae in commentariis pontificum aliisque publicis priuatisque erant monumentis, incensa urbe pleraeque interiere. clarioraque deinceps certioraque ab secunda origine uelut ab stirpibus laetius feraciusque renatae urbis gesta domi militiaeque exponentur. For discussion sec Weissenborn–Müller (1924) and Kraus (1994) ad loc. It is important to understand the nature of Livy’s ‘redefinition’ of his project in this passage: he has changed the application of his terminology, not the terminology itself, whose implications remain constant. 66 Cf. Wheeldon (1989) 59.

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greatness on several levels, but incomparably greater than Thucydides’ work in the enormity of its moral and political potential. So much in purely historiographical terms. But the marked poetic and Ennian aspects of the preface (1, 9, 13 [below]) must suggest the possibility of another important resonance. And it seems virtually certain that in Book 16 of his Annales Ennius (in Skutsch’s words) ‘contrasted the transient nature of fame based on the ⟦155⟧ monuments with the eternal glory which his poetry would bestow on his heroes’.67 Moreover, there is a strong possibility that in some context Ennius actually used the word monumentum of that immortal poetry.68 It is, therefore, exceedingly likely that in characterising his work as an imperishable monumentum (10, 6), Livy is imitating—and trumping—Ennius’ claims for his Annales. But because these tremendous claims for his own work are only one element, although a complex element, in a dense, composite, overall meaning, they are much less strident, much less vainglorious, than the historiographical norm, and they are therefore both more insidious and more persuasive. (More persuasive, that is, if you see that they are being made, as many scholars do not.) Nevertheless, the majesty of Livy’s claims and the deep seriousness of his purpose dwarf the petty ambitions and concerns of the noui semper scriptores of §2: Livy has indeed something profoundly different and incomparably greater to offer his readers. While noui semper scriptores come and go, his history will be a monumentum for ever. Ceterum (11): the logic is: ‘I ended §10 by stressing the foul deterrent examples provided by history, especially recent history, but in fact Roman history provides an overwhelming preponderance of good examples and it is only recently that vices have predominated.’ Here Livy tacitly rejects the possibility that love of his task has distorted his view of Rome’s virtues. All the stress falls on the second aut-clause, which introduces the theme of Rome’s moral greatness—moral greatness, for maior redefines the negative implications of 4 magnitudine laboret sua, just as bonis exemplis ditior offers, proleptically, a moral redefinition of ‘riches’ in place of diuitiae (12) in the literal sense. Nevertheless, in  §11 Sallustian pessimism has the last word and by the middle of §12 we are back on the theme of universal Roman self-destruction and destruction (the wording picking up that of  §4). There is of course no 67 Skutsch (1985) 568. 68 Cf. Lucr. 5.311 monimenta uirum dilapsa; 328–9 facta uirum … aeternis famae monimentis (cited by Skutsch [1985] 568 as illustrative of the Ennian motif), Hor. C. 3.30.1 exegi monumentum aere perennius (!), with Lucr. 1.117–18 Ennius … perenni fronde coronam, 121 Ennius aeternis … uersibus.

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inconsistency here: it is precisely because of the dreadful present that everybody has to direct their attention to the whole expanse of Roman history, which can provide the necessary bona exempla. But there has again been something of a shift in the argument: olden times have again been redefined: they began as a disadvantage for the historian to overcome (ueterem rem … rudem uetustatem), they then became a source of escapist comfort (§5), they now have positive moral value as being particularly rich in good exempla, and their scope has been considerably enlarged: §11 is about Rome’s past but it is a past which extends nearly into the present. So there has been a yet further blurring of the initial prisca (uetus) ~ noua polarity. This heavily Sallustian context69 seems to crystallise the earlier Sallustian ‘markers’. Why, then, is ambitio, so prominent in Sallust’s analysis of Roman decline, absent from the list of recent ‘immigrant’ vices? Is this a case of imitatio cum aemulatione?70 Doubtless, but an explanation which in itself has no content. Is it because Livy was a hill-billy who did not, could not, attach much significance to ambitio?71 That would make him an imbecile. The real reason is that on Livy’s historical analysis ambitio came, not sera, but as early as the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, an immigrant into Rome ⟦156⟧ (cf. 11 immigrauerint, 12 inuexere), who, amidst other demagogic behaviour, primus … petiise ambitiose regnum (1.35.2): the absence of ambitio from the preface and its presence in the body of Book 1 is itself, therefore, a fine illustration of the historical programme set out in  §10, which requires Roman history to be seen as a continuous process, past illuminating present and vice versa. The ambitio which was a major factor in the revolutions of the late Republic came early, and so even early history may reflect upon contemporary history. This pointed transference of Sallust’s ambitio-motif also functions as a cogent proof of the gross oversimplification in Sallust’s analysis of Roman decline: Livy is engaging in a sharp implicit debate with Sallust, and this too is important to the overall argument. The preface ends (12–13): Sed querellae, ne tum quidem gratae futurae cum forsitan necessariae erunt, ab initio certe tantae ordiendae rei absint: cum bonis potius ominibus uotisque et precationibus deorum dearumque, si, ut poetis, nobis quoque mos esset, libentius inciperemus, ut orsis tantum operis successus prosperos darent. 69 Ogilvie (1965) 27–8; Sall. BC 7–12; BJ 4.5, 41.2, etc. 70 Woodman (1988) 131. 71 Ogilvie (1965) 24 (his second paragraph: this is strangely inconsistent with his first paragraph, which states the essential truth).

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The thought of the first sentence is perfectly clear: enough of querellae, especially at the beginning of the History: they may be necessary to emphasise the dreadful dangers of the present political situation but they will not give pleasure (gratae); instead—and there follows the last sentence of the preface. Such an invocation to the gods, even if hypothetical, is unparalleled in historical prefaces and hence highly challenging.72 Livy makes a sort of link between poetry and history—si, ut poetis, nobis quoque mos esset, then we would start off with good omens, prayers, etc. He does not say that is the mos (because it was not) nor does he say that he is beginning with the prayers (he does not). On the other hand, he has expressed enough querellae (a characteristic, as Woodman has shown, of a certain general tradition in ancient historiography, and one to which Sallust, imitated in §§11–12, certainly belongs);73 and the hypothetical alternative to querellae receives considerable stress. Up to dearumque the reader must suppose that Livy is actually going to begin with prayers, and a lot of them, not just a quick invocation to the Muse, but then the si-clause raises a doubt, yet then in turn the ut-clause seems to give the hypothetical a certain substantiality.74 Indeed, it is precisely because this sentence hovers between the hypothetical and the actual that it is so rich in implication. Besides the obvious parallel with the practice of epic poets, there are other formal considerations to take into account: Livy is alluding to the religious formula absit/abesto omen—the querellae are ‘bad omens’. It may also be relevant that it was the mos antiquus of early Roman orators to begin speeches with invocations to the gods (Servius on Aen. 11.301) and it is certainly relevant that such invocations were regular practice at the start of great enterprises.75 Furthermore, the sentence obviously makes a neat transition from the bad present to the good beginning of Roman history. None of this, however, addresses the essential problems. ⟦157⟧ Livy cannot align poetry and historiography directly because they are different things: in §6 he himself has distinguished them. On the other hand, there was an ancient debate about their relationship and some critics all but

72

Oppermann’s widely accepted interpretation ([1955] 179), that Livy is appealing, via Virg. Geo. 1.21–40, to Octavian, is untenable, (a) because of the plurality of reference of deorum dearumque (which echoes §7), (b) because of 1.19.3 (pp. 216–17): Augustus is distinct from the gods. 73 Woodman (1988) 40–4, 125–8, 205–6; cf., e.g., Sall. BJ 4.9. 74 Cf. Cizek (1992) 358: ‘bien qu’il dise qu’il n’invoque pas les dieux, Tite-Live le fait, précisément parce qu’il exprime ses regrets à ce propose’. 75 Ogilvie (1965) 29; cf. Livy 22.9.7; 38.48.14; 45.39.10.

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asserted their identity.76 Livy himself begins the preface with a virtual hexameter, as Sallust had done in the Jugurthine War (BJ 1.5, 5.1) and Tacitus was to do in the Annals (1.1.1), and Thucydides had done at 1.21.1 (a passage which picks up the beginning of the preface through ring structure). Hexameters are the metre of epic, epics are about war, Thucydides, Livy, and Tacitus write about war, Thucydides, like Herodotus, to some extent sees Homer as his literary model, etc., etc.77 One can make some sense of the poetry–historiography link in general terms. More specifically, almost certainly in Livy and perhaps also in Tacitus, at the precise point when they are talking about very early Rome, there is direct imitation of Ennius, the great epic poet of early Roman history; the Roman annalistic tradition was much influenced by the epics of Ennius and Naevius; and in Livy this Ennian imitation also helps bring out the double application of operae pretium. But none of this really explains §13, especially after the distinction made in §6. One point must be that Livy is making something of the old distinction, already prominent in the preface, between usefulness/work and pleasure. querellae are more characteristic of gritty Sallustian contemporary history—perhaps indispensable but certainly depressing; let us at least begin with a bit more pleasure (for it is implied that Livy’s alternative procedure will promote gratia): hence the associations of poetry, a more ‘literary’ form than historiography, more beautiful, more pleasurable, etc.; cf. 6 decora. It is true that historiography is both pleasurable and useful, but if you want to play up the pleasurable element, it is appropriate to invoke poetry, the form more naturally associated with it. In one sense, then, Livy is here readjusting the balance slightly towards the ‘escapist’ pleasure of history that he treated in §§3 and 5, a pleasure which is obviously more legitimate when one is dealing with very early history. We should note, however, that yet again Livy is manipulating his readers’ tastes: they want lots of pleasure: Livy makes something of a concession to this, but he is going to give them this by his treatment of early history or of prehistory, which actually they rather dislike (§4), though traditionally such fabulae were regarded as highly pleasurable (Thuc. 1.21.1, 22.4). Gratae therefore in the first instance reflects, rather, Livy’s own perspective (and perhaps his personal dislike of the doom and gloom of Sallustian prefaces), which he tacitly invites his readers to accept. Another point is that, because §6 has made some distinction between poetry’s free use of fabulae and historiography’s more solid concern with truth, Livy seems to be extending, or redefining, the licences he claimed in §6. Maybe his 76 Woodman (1988) 99–100, 114–16. 77 Cf., e.g., Strasburger (1972); Woodman (1988) 1–7, 23–4, 40–51.

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History is going to be rather more ‘poetic’ than it earlier seemed: maybe this poetic element is going to extend into the post-foundation narrative as well, as it surely does. And it is appropriate that just as licence is granted to antiquitas ut miscendo humana diuinis primordia urbium augustoria faciat (7), so Livy invokes the gods ab initio … tantae ordiendae rei. ⟦158⟧ Another point surely is that the epic poet is acutely conscious of the magnitude of his task, asks the gods for help, and acts only as their mouthpiece.78 Thus the poetic analogy reinforces the reader’s sense of the magnitude of Livy’s task and his personal modesty (however disingenuous), and, taken together with the poetic opening words of the first sentence and the other verbal parallels between the beginning and end of the preface, it frames the preface in a sort of poetic ring structure, a ring structure which further increases the impact of Livy’s already unconventional captatio beneuolentiae. There are still other things to be said about this marvellous sentence. It foregrounds the moral importance of religious observance. And, by evoking §7’s link between the gods and primeval Rome, it reinforces the idea that moral regeneration means precisely that.79 But most important of all, the final sentence of the preface helps to define more precisely the nature of Livy’s opus. Clearly, the last sentence rings in various ways with the beginning of the preface: ab initio tantae ordiendae rei picks up a primordio … res of §1 and res … est … immensi operis of §4; orsis tantum operis, in the second half of the last sentence, picks up not only ab initio … tantae ordiendae rei in the first half, but also a primordio urbis and res est … immensi operis. But the rings are not merely repetitions: the nature and implications of the res or opus/opera upon which Livy is engaged are progressively redefined as the preface proceeds. Hence the successus prosperi for which Livy prays (or might pray) are not merely the physical completion of a huge assignment but the successful promotion of the moral lessons of §10: Livy’s History will ultimately be a success only if it actually works, if his readers make the right moral choices in public life and Rome is cured. The use of the first-person plurals (nobis … orsis) is also noteworthy. Of course nobis can be understood as ‘me, Livy the historian’. But it can also be understood as ‘us historians’, rather than ‘me, Livy the historian’. On that reading, the generalising plural seems to direct our attention away from the intense historiographical debate which has characterised the preface so far, lifting our

78 Formally: in practice the epic poet’s voice is far more complex: see, e.g., Goldhill (1991), esp. 56–68. 79 On this general theme see Miles (1986) and (1988); Serres (1991).

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gaze to a higher plane: the importance of the enterprise itself and of its achieving a successful outcome. But also, given the preface’s concern to create a unity between the tastes and interests of readers and writer and given also its pointed variation of person in its references to readers, the 1st-person plural here should surely be understood not merely as ‘us historians’ but as ‘us, who both are engaged with history, writer and reader alike’. This move from the singular to the plural, from the poet/writer to poet/writer and audience/readers has an impeccable epic precedent: Ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα … θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν (Od. 1.1, 10). At the end of the preface the moral interests of the two groups are one, as they both look hopefully to the future, when the success of Livy’s gigantic Ab urbe condita would go hand in hand with a successful cure of Rome. It is this, not the pleasure of historian or reader, not the glory that accrues to the historian who pleases his readers, not even the fact that history provides moral exempla for emulation or rejection, that will be the ultimate successus. Or indeed the ultimate operae pretium, for the words successus prosperos provide the final ‘solution’ to the ⟦159⟧ original problematics of operae pretium. Of course, if this is the criterion by which Livy’s History is to be judged, it was a failure, since the Roman Empire fell in AD 476! But Livy himself recognises that his own efforts cannot guarantee those ultimate successus, and in this sense also the hypothetical form of the final sentence rings with the indeterminate first sentence. Only the gods can guarantee the salvation of Rome. Did they? Not ultimately, but at one point in Livy’s lifetime they seemed to go some way to doing so. Following Luce, I see 1.19.3 as a later insertion: Bis deinde post Numae regnum clausus fuit, semel T. Manlio consule post Punicum primum perfectum bellum, iterum, quod nostrae aetati di dederunt ut uideremus, post bellum Actiacum ab imperatore Caesare Augusto pace terra marique parta. But it is one that is directly linked to the preface. The wording nostrae aetati di dederunt ut uideremus seems to pick up, and contrast with, §5 of the preface: malorum quae nostra tot per annos uidit aetas. So also imperatore … Augusto pace terra marique parta echoes 9 domi militiaeque et partum et auctum imperium sit, and seems to suggest that Augustus was the culminating instantiation of the whole augeo-process of Roman history as outlined in the preface. Contrary to the sickness of the civil-war period, the gods have now intervened beneficently, as they did at the beginning of Rome’s history; not only has the imperium been saved but universal peace achieved, and this through the agency of the imperator Augustus, the word imperator, as often, hovering

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between the meanings ‘C-in-C’ and ‘emperor’,80 and here suggesting that this imperator has saved the imperium. 1.19.3 is thus no mere chronological updating for a rudimentary second edition: it suggests a significantly different perspective, so that readers of the ‘second edition’, as opposed to readers of the original, must see the current political situation in a very positive light. It seems also as if peace through the agency of Augustus, quod nostrae aetati di dederunt, must be an element of the successus prosperi for which Livy and his readers invoked the gods ut darent. Augustus is in part the answer to their prayers. So, if one-man rule is one of the two indispensable remedia for contemporary ills, do the preface and 1.19.3 suggest that Livy’s whole narrative of Roman history will be directed towards advocacy—of course a nuanced and critical advocacy—of one-man rule? The answer, surely, is yes. I should like to pull this analysis together by posing the simple question: what is Livy’s main aim in this preface? Three factors must be taken into account. First, Livy’s protracted negotiations with the reader to agree on the proper subject-matter of history. Second, Livy’s ambiguous, disingenuous, but formally striking, modesty. Thirdly, Livy’s relationship to Sallust. There are the close verbal parallels with Sallust’s Histories, which come thick and fast from the very beginning and continue all the way through; there is also the Sallustian analysis of Rome’s decline in ⟦160⟧ §§9 and 12, perhaps the idea in §§4 and 12 of Rome collapsing under the weight of her own greatness,81 and indeed the general rather confessional tone of the preface, somewhat reminiscent of Sallustian prefaces.82 Also, as we have seen, Livy is engaging in fashionable ‘double allusion’, looking back as well to the programmatic remarks of Sallust’s own model, Thucydides. For Cizek the explanation for this heavy evocation of Sallust lies in irony. ‘Tite-Live ironise, s’amuse au sujet de ces tirades rhétoriques sur les moeurs, de ce conuicium saeculi.’ While Livy recognises the moral crisis of the first century BC, he thinks that ‘Salluste avait exagéré les maux réels’, he is fundamentally hostile to Sallust’s approach to history, as the ancient tradition averred, and in contrast to Sallust manifests ‘un optimisme nuancé’. From this initial ironic reading Cizek develops an eloquent and complex interpretation, which need not detain us here.83 For its starting-point is wholly unconvincing. Where, for 80 Syme (1958); Horsfall (1989) 103. 81 ⟦168⟧ Though cf. n. 23. 82 On the whole topic see Ogilvie (1965) 23–9; Mazza (1966) 70–5; Paschalis (1982); Korpanty (1983); Woodman (1988) 130–40. 83 Cizek (1992) 361–4.

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example, is the irony in the Sallustian ‘collapsing-building’ metaphor of §9? If the moral analysis of §§9 and 12 is not completely serious, then the moral justification of Livy’s whole enterprise is badly undermined. Woodman’s interpretation is very different. Ancient historiography falls into two main categories: positive, optimistic, encomiastic, as represented by Herodotus; negative, pessimistic, critical, as represented by Thucydides and his follower Sallust. By imitating Sallust Livy underlines his pessimistic attitude to Roman history, whereas later, when he saw the benefits of Augustus’ rule, he became a Herodotean/Ciceronian optimist.84 This categorisation of ancient historiography seems to me broadly acceptable. But its application here does not sufficiently explain the sharp differences between Livy and Sallust: (a) Livy’s formal modesty, which is much greater than the nearest Sallustian equivalents in BJ 4.2 and Hist. 1.3 M {= 1.11 L–F}. (b) The essential fact that Livy is writing an AUC history; the verbal reminiscences of Sallust’s Histories, which went from 78 to perhaps 40, and his Bellum Catilinae, are thus very challenging: e.g., while Livy’s a primordio urbis recalls Sallust’s a principio urbis (Hist. 1.8 M {= 1.6 L–F}) and res gestas populi Romani carptim perscribere (BC 4.2), it emphasises that Livy is doing the exact opposite. (c) The exclusion (§12) of ambitio from the list of recent vicious immigrants into Rome, which is strikingly divergent from Sallust’s analysis. (d) The proportions of optimism and pessimism in the two writers. In one way Livy’s attitude is more pessimistic (ambitio was a very early import), in other ways more optimistic: there is Livy’s very positive emphasis in §§10–11 on the sheer length of time when Rome was uncontaminated by vices, his tremendous stress on the usefulness of history in §10, his belief that contemporary ills can be cured, if only the Romans will take their double dose of medicine (monarchy and AUC history) like men. Of course Sallust suggests history’s value in providing worthy exempla (BJ 4.4–6), but in Sallust it is far from being the climax of the argument. Interpretation of the Sallustian influence must form part of the interpretation of the preface as a whole. So we return to the basic question: what is Livy’s main aim? ⟦161⟧ Livy wants to argue that knowledge of AUC history down to the present day is one of the two indispensable cures for a nearly terminal Rome. However, there are two problems: (1) there have always been, and always will be, too many AUC histories; (2) most readers prefer contemporary history anyway. The latter problem becomes the more urgent the earlier we date the preface, because Livy would be in very direct competition with Sallust, but it 84 Woodman (1988) 124–40.

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remains acute on any dating, because Livy is certainly going against recent trends. Besides Sallust, we may think of Caesar, Asinius Pollio, the mass of literature about Cato in 46–45, Oppius on Caesar and perhaps Cassius, Bibulus, and Volumnius on Brutus, Messalla’s memoirs, the memoirs of other military men, etc., etc. The only major exceptions to this general picture, apart from Livy himself, are Tubero, and, earlier, Varro and maybe Valerius. Livy’s solution to these problems is first to soft-soap his reader: instead of saying ‘my subject is supremely great: I am too’ (the usual opening gambit), he resorts to captatio beneuolentiae, here the ‘inadequacy-of-the-speaker’ commonplace, particularly suited to great but hackneyed themes.85 He also describes the whole business of historiographical rivalry with irony and a degree of detachment—a further ingratiating device no doubt, but also preparing for the thought that it is not particular histories that matter but AUC History itself. Yet he obviously has to justify himself to some extent—to convey his own merits—otherwise why should the reader be reading Livy (as opposed to anyone else) at all? These merits consist above all in the greatness and seriousness of his purpose. Secondly, he employs extensive Sallustian parallels. On one level these convey homage to a distinguished predecessor, whose intense moral engagement with the political crisis of his age Livy clearly approves and whose moralising analysis of the causes of Roman decline Livy substantially accepts. Yet, as usual in ancient literature, the extensive parallels suggest not only the close similarities but also the sharp differences between the two writers. To Livy Sallust is the most distinguished recent exponent of contemporary history and thus a suitable opponent for anyone who wants to argue the merits of AUC history. From that point of view, the essential differences between the two historians are as follows: while both are concerned with contemporary history and the fact of Rome’s near-catastrophic decline, Sallust writes only contemporary history, and, as it were, only writes about it; whereas Livy will treat the past extensively from the very beginning (even before the foundation), but this whole treatment will have a direct bearing upon contemporary history, and he will also treat contemporary history directly; furthermore, his whole history will help towards the resolution of contemporary problems: he will not merely write about them—his writings will help to cure them. 85

Perhaps with specific allusion to the preface of Cicero’s Orator (n. 5). It is sometimes suggested (e.g., by Ogilvie [1965] 26) that Livy’s ‘modesty’ is to be explained by the august senatorial tradition of historiography, to which he himself does not belong. But while §3 alludes to this tradition, it does so with irony and it is in any case only a single reference: the real motivation for Livy’s ‘modesty’ lies elsewhere.

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For Livy, therefore, Sallust’s stance as critic and moralist has three weaknesses. First, while he proclaims the moral value of Rome’s great past, he does not actually write about it, unlike Livy. Second, and partly as a consequence of his failure to write about that past, his emphasis is much too negative, unlike Livy’s, whose choice of AUC history enables him to maximise good exempla. Third, his conception of the ⟦162⟧ moral value of that past is itself excessively rosy, unlike Livy’s, who recognises the destructiveness of ambitio from very early in Roman history. So, in so far as he is a rival (rather than a follower) of Sallust, Livy defeats Sallust in every single particular.86 Thirdly, Livy frankly and disarmingly acknowledges the apparently vast gulf between his own tastes and those of most of his potential readers—but he then proceeds with a good deal of adroitness progressively to narrow this gulf. His ambiguous modesty, his extensive imitation of Sallust, his manipulation of the readers’ prejudices—all these are simply the tools of his essential argument: that knowledge of AUC history down to the present is one of the only two things that can save Rome from disaster. Whether he really means this—whether, that is, his primary motive in writing his history was moral rather than literary or self-interested87—is a question about Livy the man which is not very important: what is important is to unravel the complexities of the formal argument of this great historiographical preface. Bibliography Badian, E. (1966) ‘The Early Historians’, in T. A. Dorey, ed., Latin Historians (London) 1–38. Badian, E. (1985) ‘A Phantom Marriage Law’, Philologus 129: 82–98. Bayet, J. and G. Baillet, edd. (1940) Tite-Live: Histoire Romaine Livre I (Paris). Bömer, F. (1976) P. Ovidius Naso Metamorphosen: Buch IV–V (Heidelberg). Bömer, F. (1980) P. Ovidius Naso Metamorphosen: Buch X–XI (Heidelberg). 86 Livy’s rivalry with Sallust acquires even more resonances if we accept Livy’s engagement with Cicero’s letter to Lucceius. For while Lucceius did not respond to Cicero’s request for a monograph treatment of the Catilinarian affair and its aftermath, Sallust did produce a monograph on that theme but with an entirely different color from that requested by Cicero. Whether or not Sallust had read the letter (Woodman [1988] 125: ‘it is almost as if Sallust had read Cicero’s letter and, in the standard rhetorical manner, treated the same subject with a different color …’ [my italics; I take it that this means ‘I think he did but I cannot prove it’]), from Livy’s point of view Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae is, as it were, the wrong ‘answer’ to Cicero’s letter. 87 Cf. n. 19.

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Brink, C. O. (1971) Horace on Poetry II: the Ars Poetica (Cambridge). Briscoe, J. (1990) ‘Review of von Haehling (1989)’, GGA 242: 195–7. Burck, E., ed. (1967) Wege zu Livius (Darmstadt). Cameron, A., ed. (1989) History as Text: the Writing of Ancient History (London and Chapel Hill). Cizek, E. (1988) ‘La poétique cicéronienne de l’histoire’, BAGB: 16–25. Cizek, E. (1992) ‘À propos de la poétique de l’histoire chez Tite-Live’, Latomus 51: 355–64. Coppola, M. (1983–4) ‘Augusto nella praefatio liviana?’, AFLN 26: 67–70. Davidson, J. (1991) ‘The Gaze in Polybius’ Histories’, JRS 81: 10–24. Dessau, H. (1903) ‘Die Vorrede des Livius’, in Festschrift Otto Hirschfeld (Berlin) 461–6. Feldherr, A. (1991) ‘Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History’ (diss. Berkeley). Feldherr, A. (1998) Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London). Ferrero, L. (1949) ‘Attualità e tradizione nella praefatio liviana’, RFIC 77: 1–47. Gill, C. and T. P. Wiseman, edd. (1993) Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter and Austin). Girod, M. R. (1980) ‘Caton l’Ancien et Catilina’, in R. Chevallier, ed., Colloque, Histoire et historiographie (Paris) 61–9. Goldhill, S. (1991) The Poet’s Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge). von Haehling, R. (1989) Zeitbezüge des T. Livius in der ersten Dekade seines Geschichtswerkes: nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus (Stuttgart). Harrison, S. J., ed. (1991) Vergil: Aeneid 10 (Oxford). Hartog, F. (1988) The Mirror of Herodotus: the Representation of the Other in the Writing of History (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London); trans. by J. Lloyd of Le Miroir d’Hérodote: essai sur la representation de l’autre (Paris, 1980). Henderson, John (1989) ‘Livy and the Invention of History’, in Cameron (1989) 64–85; revised version in id., Fighting for Rome: Poets & Caesars, History & Civil War (Cambridge, 1998) 301–19. Herkommer, E. (1968) Die Topoi in den Proömien der römischen Geschichtswerke (Stuttgart). Heurgon, J., ed. (1970) Tite-Live: Histoires. Livre I2 (Paris). Horsfall, N., ed. (1989) Cornelius Nepos: a Selection, including the Lives of Cato and Atticus (Oxford). Janson, T. (1964) Latin Prose Prefaces: Studies in Literary Conventions (Stockholm). Kissel, W. (1982) ‘Livius 1933–1978: eine Gesamtbibliographie’, ANRW II.30.2: 899–997. Korpanty, J. (1983) ‘Sallust, Livius und ambitio’, Philologus 127: 61–71. Kraus, C. S., ed. (1994) Livy: Ab Urbe Condita Book VI (Cambridge). Leeman, A. D. (1961) ‘Are We Fair to Livy? Some Thoughts on Livy’s Prologue’, Helikon 1: 28–39; repr. as ‘Werden wir Livius Gerecht? Einige Gedanken zu der Praefatio des

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Livius’, in Burck (1967) 200–14; and as ‘Einige Gedanken zu der Praefatio des Livius’, in A. D. Leeman, Form und Sinn: Studien zur römischen Literatur (Frankfurt am Main, 1985) 99–109. Leggewie, O. (1953) ‘Die Geisteshaltung der Geschichtsschreiber Sallust und Livius’, Gymnasium 60: 343–55. Luce, T. J. (1965) ‘The Dating of Livy’s First Decade’, TAPhA 96: 209–40. Luce, T. J. (1989) ‘Ancient Views on the Causes of Bias in Historical Writing’, CPh 84: 16–31; repr. in J. Marincola, ed., Greek and Roman Historiography (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies; Oxford, 2011) 291–313. Luce, T. J. (1990) ‘Livy, Augustus, and the Forum Augustum’, in Raaflaub and Toher (1990) 123–38. Lundström, V. (1915) ‘Nya Enniusfragment’, Eranos 15: 1–24. Macleod, C. W. (1977) ‘The Poet, the Critic, and the Moralist: Horace, Epistles 1.19’, CQ 27: 359–76; repr. in id., Collected Essays (Oxford, 1983) 262–79. Mazza, M. (1966) Storia e ideologia in Tito Livio: per un’analisi storiografica della praefatio ai libri ab Urbe Condita (Catania). Miles, G. B. (1986) ‘The Cycle of Roman History in Livy’s First Pentad’, AJPh 107: 1–33. Miles, G. B. (1988) ‘Maiores, Conditores and Livy’s Perspective on the Past’, TAPhA 118: 185–208. Moles, J. L. (1985) ‘Cynicism in Horace Epistles I’, PLLS 5: 33–60 [vol. 1, Ch. 14]. Moles, J. L. (1990) ‘The Kingship Orations of Dio Chrysostom’, PLLS 6: 297–375 [vol. 1, Ch. 5]. Moles, J. L. (1993) ‘Truth and Untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’, in Gill and Wiseman (1993) 88–121 [above, Ch. 49]. Morgan, J. (1993) ‘Make-Believe and Make Believe: the Fictionality of the Greek Novels’, in Gill and Wiseman (1993) 175–229. Ogilvie, R. M. (1965) A Commentary on Livy Books 1–5 (Oxford 1965; repr. with addenda, 1969). Oppermann, H. (1955) ‘Die Einleitung zum Geschichtswerk des Livius’, AU 7: 87–98; repr. in and cited from Burck (1967) 169–80. Paschalis, M. (1982) ‘Livy’s Praefatio and Sallust’ (diss., Columbus, Ohio). Phillips, J. E. (1982) ‘Current Research in Livy’s First Decade: 1959–1979’, ANRW II.30.2: 998–1057. Raaflaub, K. A. and M. Toher, edd. (1990) Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London). Ruch, M. (1967) ‘Tite-Live, Histoire Romaine: points de vue sur la préface’, Didactica Classica Gandensia 7: 74–80. Ruch, M. (1968) ‘Le thème de la croissance organique dans le livre I de Tite-Live’, Studii Clasice 10: 123–31.

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Serres, M. (1991) Rome: the Book of Foundations (Stanford); trans. by F. McCarren of Rome: le livre des fondations (Paris, 1983). Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. (1965–70) Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, 7 vols. (Cambridge). Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. (1977) Cicero: Epistulae ad Familiares, 2 vols. (Cambridge). Skutsch, O., ed. (1985) The Annals of Q. Ennius (Oxford). Strasburger, H. (1972) Homer und die Geschichtsschreibung (SB Heid. Ph.-hist. Kl.); repr. in id., Studien zur alten Geschichte II, edd. W. Schmitthenner and R. Zoepffel (Hildesheim and New York 1982) 1057–97. Syme, R. (1958) ‘Imperator Caesar: a Study in Imperial Nomenclature’, Historia 7: 172–88; repr. in id., Roman Papers I, ed. E. Badian (Oxford, 1979) 361–77. Vretska, K. (1954) ‘Die Geisteshaltung der Geschichtsschreiber Sallust und Livius’, Gymnasium 61: 191–203. Walsh, P. G. (1955) ‘Livy’s Preface and the Distortion of History’, AJPh 76: 369–83; repr. as ‘Die Vorrede des Livius und die Verzerrung der Geschichte’, in Burck (1967) 181–99. Weissenborn, W. and H. J. Müller, edd. (1924) Titi Livi Ab urbe condita (Libri 6–8)6 (Berlin, Dublin, and Zürich). Weissenborn, W. and H. J. Müller (1965) Titi Livi Ab urbe condita (Libri 1–2)12 (Berlin, Dublin, and Zürich). Wheeldon, M. J. (1989) ‘“True Stories”: the Reception of Historiography in Antiquity’, in Cameron (1989) 33–63. Williams, G. (1990) ‘Did Maecenas “Fall from Favor”? Augustan Literary Patronage’, in Raaflaub and Toher (1990) 258–75. Woodman, A. J., ed. (1983) Velleius Paterculus: The Caesarian and Augustan Narrative (Cambridge). Woodman, A. J. (1988) Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Portland, and Sydney).

Chapter 51

Xenophon and Callicratidas Despite increasingly sophisticated theoretical debate, scholars concerned with ancient historiography effectively still divide into two camps:* historians, who want to use the texts as sources and assess them by criteria of accuracy, reliability, completeness of record, and presence or absence of prejudice according to their presumed relationship to the facts which they purport to represent; and literary scholars, who want to interpret the texts as texts, with their own internal logic.1 Thus historians generally still view Xenophon’s Hellenica as a very poor relation of Thucydides’ History (regarded as the supreme masterpiece of ancient historiography), on the ground that the Hellenica is seriously distorted by pre­ judice, indifference to establishing facts, narrow perspective, moralising, etc.2 By contrast, literary scholars see it as a work of literary distinction, whose concern with the representation of ‘the facts’ is far from straightforward.3 Both camps, however, agree on the work’s strong moralising tendency. Xenophon’s portrayal in Book 1 of the Spartan navarch Callicratidas has evoked particularly diverse responses. Grote, Underhill, Breitenbach, Westlake, J. K. Anderson, Cawkwell, Bommelaer, Ronnet, and Cartledge regard it as strongly favourable, whereas Higgins, Gray, and Krentz regard it as strongly unfavourable. Somewhere in the middle are Tuplin, who regards the portrayal as mixed, and Proietti, who sees rather a study of practicalities, in which traditional Spartan values (some genuinely noble) cannot cope with the new complexities posed by Sparta’s need to wage a naval war in the east and to finance it with Persian help.4 Three points emerge. * I thank Professors A. J. Woodman and P. J. Rhodes and referees for helpful comments. 1 E.g., Woodman (1988), with the reviews by myself (Moles [1990b]) and Brock [1991]; and Moles (1993). 2 Typical are Cawkwell (1979) and Cartledge (1987) 61–6 (both, however, provide excellent introductions to the problems and exhibit exasperated affection for Xenophon). 3 E.g., Henry (1967); Higgins (1977), esp. 99–127; Proietti (1987); Gray (1989) (see my review, Moles [1992]); Tuplin (1993) (both ‘historical’ and ‘literary’). 4 Grote (1851) 218–37; Underhill (1900) xxiv–xxv, 24; Breitenbach (1950) 108; Westlake (1966); Anderson (1974) 70–1, and (1991), reviewing Krentz (below); Cawkwell (1979) 43, 79 n.; cf. also id. (1975) 63–4 {= (2011) 144–5}; Bommelaer (1981) 86–7; Ronnet (1981); Cartledge (1987) 190; Higgins (1977) 10–12; Gray (1989) 22–4, 81–3; Krentz (1989) 145–56; Tuplin (1991) 25–6 (reviewing Krentz); Proietti (1987) 11–25; 106–7.

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First, it is almost exclusively literary scholars who expound the antiCallicratidas view.5 Second, historians generally read the text in a very ‘external’ way. Thus Westlake: ‘Xenophon shows warm admiration for Callicratidas, whose forthrightness, chivalry and ⟦71⟧ impatience of subservience to Persia he found far more attractive than the shrewd realism of Lysander’, or Cawkwell: ‘[Callicratidas] was not an especially prominent figure, as far as we know, but he interested Xenophon who recorded with Panhellenist zest the succession in command’.6 Such scholars scarcely seem to realise that Xenophon’s own attitudes and feelings are not hard external criteria for interpreting the text but are inferences from the text. Nor do they concede the text its own logic, with the portrayal of Callicratidas one strand in a complex nexus of relationships: rather, Xenophon’s Panhellenism seems virtually the sole determining factor. Third, Callicratidas seems to inspire historians to romantic heights. Thus Grote: ‘Kallikratidas, unfortunately only shown by the Fates and not suffered to continue in the Grecian world, was one of the noblest characters of his age. Besides perfect courage, energy, and incorruptibility, he was distinguished for two qualities, both of them very rare among eminent Greeks; entire straightforwardness of dealing—and a Pan-hellenic patriotism alike comprehensive, exalted, and merciful’.7 Though detractors of Callicratidas are greatly in the minority, they have produced the most critical and detailed interpretations, so with these I shall be largely concerned. Whatever the conclusion, the problem is clearly well worth discussing. The story begins when the Spartans send Callicratidas to succeed Lysander as navarch near the end of the Peloponnesian war (406).8 Lysander hands over the ships saying that ‘he was handing them over as master of the sea [θαλαττοκράτωρ] and victor in a sea-battle’. Callicratidas replies that he will agree that Lysander ‘is master of the sea’ if he sails along the coast from Ephesus on the left of Samos (where the Athenian ships are) and hands over the ships in Miletus. Lysander replies that he will not meddle (πολυπραγμονεῖν) when another is in command, and Callicratidas then himself mans fifty ships from Chios, Rhodes, and other allies, in addition to the ships he takes from Lysander, and prepares to meet the enemy (1.6.1–3).

5 6 7 8

Except Lotze (1964) 15–26. Westlake (1966) 217; Cawkwell (1975) 64 {= (2011) 144}. Grote (1851) 218; cf. Ronnet (1981) 111; Anderson (1991) 225. The possible political implications (e.g., Cartledge [1987] 81) are here irrelevant.

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It is immediately apparent that there are severe tensions and problems in the situation, and in the two men’s contrasting personalities, and that Xenophon has shaped his material to emphasise these. But, while he has created an interpretative problem, he has not facilitated its resolution. His failure to provide interpretative sign-posts contrasts sharply with the technique of his successors, Diodorus (13.76.2) and Plutarch (Lys. 5.7), both of whom expatiate on Callicratidas’ virtues. Lysander has been highly successful. His skilful, tactful, and unselfish hand­ ling of the Persian Cyrus9 has resolved the Spartan navy’s pay problems: Cyrus has increased the pay from three to four obols, settled arrears, and given the crews a month’s advance, thereby boosting morale (1.5.1–7). Lysander has also defeated the Athenians at Notium, a victory leading to Alcibiades’ eclipse and withdrawal, and, ultimately, to disaster for the Athenians (1.5.11–17). ‘Victor in a sea-battle’ is simply the truth. Lysander’s boast, however, is a challenge, as Plutarch appreciated (Lys. 6.1–3): will Callicratidas be able to match his achievements? (Xenophon foreshadows the key military problem of the subsequent narrative: the wisdom of the Spartan policy of changing navarchs annually.) And it is so understood by Callicratidas, when he counter-challenges that Lysander should justify his boast of mastery of the sea by sailing along the coast and exposing himself to the Athenian fleet. This counter-challenge does not recklessly endanger the Spartan ⟦72⟧ fleet to uphold his own honour:10 the point is that both know that Lysander cannot accept. Lysander’s response does not meet the counter-challenge directly, for as the new commander Callicratidas is entitled to ‘order’ or ‘tell’ (ἐκέλευσεν) Lysander to make this voyage. His denial of meddling refers not to anything he might or might not now do but to what has already occurred. Lysander backs down when his own implicit challenge to a superior is counter-challenged, a pattern which reappears in his dealings with Agesilaus.11 Lysander’s declining of Callicratidas’ counter-challenge effectively concedes the falsity of the other element of his boast, mastery of the sea. How should we interpret this? Has Callicratidas prettily called Lysander’s bluff, as Plutarch thought?12 Or is the boast, while objectively excessive, a good sign, indicating desire to do praiseworthy deeds?13

9 10 11 12 13

Gray (1989) 14–22; Krentz (1989) 135–7; Higgins (1977) 11; Proietti (1987) 10–11. Pace Gray (1989) 23–4; Krentz (1989) 145–6. Hell. 3.4.7–10 with Gray (1989) 46–9 (conceding Lysander’s insubordinate behaviour). Lys. 6.2; cf. Tuplin (1993) 25. Gray (1989) 23 and nn. 6 and 7 on 199; cf. Krentz (1989) 145, cl. Xen. Ages. 8.2.

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On balance, we should interpret it negatively. Mastery of the sea is an enormous claim, especially for a Spartan, given the august Greek tradition of ‘thalassocrats’ and ‘thalassocracies’.14 And it is falsified by Callicratidas’ response. θαλαττοκράτωρ itself is a rare word, previously applied only to cities (Hdt. 5.83; Thuc. 8.63.1):15 Lysander appears as an outsize individual, who arrogates to himself much wider power than the norm. Still more important, Lysander puns derisively against Callicratidas’ name, and hence—by ancient assumptions—attacks his very self. Callicratidas’ name proclaims him a ‘fine victor’, but Lysander is the real ‘victor of the sea’. The pun intensifies Lysander’s challenge: hence Callicratidas’ reaction, which takes full measure of the challenge, cannot be regarded as excessive. None of this detracts from Lysander’s great merits as navarch, which remain a standard for Callicratidas’ own naval competence. Nor can we easily forget that after Aegospotami Lysander will justify his claim. The claim has yet another resonance: before Lysander, the great thalassocrats were Minos and Polycrates, both monarchs. In as much as Lysander is a thalassocrat, whether actual or potential, his status is immeasurably greater than that of a traditional Spartan commander.16 The following narrative will be partly concerned with the contrast between Lysander, the ‘unspartan’ Spartan, and Callicratidas, the traditional Spartan par excellence, a contrast which has moral elements but which also forms part of an ‘objective’ political analysis.17 Having amalgamated the ninety ships from Lysander with the fifty he himself manned, Callicratidas prepares to meet the enemy. We cannot yet tell whether this activity is meritorious (prompt and purposeful action) or ill-judged (impetuous zeal to engage with insufficient naval experience). Now a further complication arises: Callicratidas calls an assembly of the Spartans in the area because he ‘learns that he is being intrigued against by Lysander’s friends’ (and cannot pursue the war immediately). Lysander’s friends (1.6.4): not only served Callicratidas unenthusiastically but they spread the report in the cities that the Spartans made a very great mistake in changing their 14 Hdt. 3.122.2; 5.83.2; Thuc. 1.4.1; 8.63.1; Hornblower (1991) 18ff.; Figueira (1993) 46–50. 15 Krentz (1989) 146 (without drawing my conclusion). 16 Presumably Lysander intended another resonance: challenge to Athenian claims to thalassocracy, but this is scarcely relevant to Xenophon here, though it becomes relevant at 1.6.15 (Callicratidas’ own boast [below]). 17 This contrast, well explored by Proietti (1987) 11–21, is already implicit in Diodorus (13.76.2) and Plutarch (Lys. 5.7, 7.1), both varyingly dependent upon Ephorus. I write ‘objective’, because it may be Xenophon’s considered view that ‘unSpartan’ Spartans ultimately ruined Sparta; if so, ‘objective’ analysis has moral implications.

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admirals; for in place of men who were becoming suitable and just ⟦73⟧ beginning to understand naval matters and who knew well how to handle people, they frequently sent out men unacquainted with the sea and unknown to the people there; and they ran the risk of suffering some disaster because of this.18

This complication invalidates any simple pro- or anti-reading of the situation. The narrative implies that Lysander’s power exceeds normal constitutional limits and that his friends’19 ‘intriguing’, ‘unenthusiastic service’, and public questioning of a Spartan policy outside the control of Callicratidas, the new constitutional commander, are all reprehensible and undermine Lysander’s denial of meddling. Yet the criticisms of Spartan policy have validity. The previous narrative has shown Lysander as ‘suitable’, ‘understanding of naval matters’, and ‘skilful in handling people’ (his own and Cyrus; his initially less successful handling of Callicratidas avoided open confrontation). Callicratidas, however, a Spartan from home, is ‘unacquainted with the sea’ and ‘unknown to the people there’; and the Spartans later ‘suffer some disaster’ under him. Thus the question of his competence becomes increasingly pressing. Callicratidas makes a formal speech to the assembled Spartans. Xenophontic speeches (it is agreed) characteristically explore ἦθος (‘character’) and moral questions (1.6.5):20 ἐμοὶ μὲν ἀρκεῖ οἴκοι μένειν, καὶ εἴτε Λύσανδρος εἴτε ἄλλος τις ἐμπειρότερος περὶ τὰ ναυτικὰ βούλεται εἶναι, οὐ κωλύω τὸ κατ᾽ ἐμέ· ἐγὼ δ᾽ ὑπὸ τῆς πόλεως ἐπὶ τὰς ναῦς πεμφθεὶς οὐκ ἔχω τί ἄλλο ποιῶ ἢ τὰ κελευόμενα ὡς ἂν δύνωμαι κράτιστα. ὑμεῖς δὲ πρὸς ἃ ἐγώ τε φιλοτιμοῦμαι καὶ ἡ πόλις ἡμῶν αἰτιάζεται, ἴστε γὰρ αὐτὰ ὥσπερ καὶ ἐγώ, συμβουλεύετε τὰ ἄριστα ὑμῖν δοκοῦντα εἶναι περὶ τοῦ ἐμὲ ἐνθάδε μένειν ἢ οἴκαδε ἀποπλεῖν ἐροῦντα τὰ καθεστῶτα ἐνθάδε. ‘I for my part am content to stay at home, and if Lysander or anyone else claims to be more experienced in naval matters, I do not hinder him as far as I am concerned; but it is I who have been sent by the city to the ships and I cannot do anything other than carry out my orders as best I can. But you for your part, with regard both to my ambition and to the accusations made against our city—for you know them just as I do—give me

18 There are textual problems: the Loeb {= Brownson (1918) 51} gives good sense. 19 Cf. Diod. 13.70.4; Plut. Lys. 5.3–5; 22.3–4; they underpinned the notorious decarchies. 20 Gray (1989) 79–140; Krentz (1989) 146; Hatzfeld (1954) 11.

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whatever advice seems best to you concerning my staying here or sailing away home to report the situation here.’ Whereupon ‘no one dared say anything other than that he should obey the people at home and do the things for which he had come’ (1.6.6; the wording echoes Callicratidas’). Callicratidas’ detractors think the speech shows inability to handle people. First, they argue that despite the normal association of ambition with obedience to the orders of the city21 Callicratidas’ exchange with Lysander suggests a more personal ambition, hence his professed unconcern about Lysander’s claims rings hollow. Not only, however, does this interpretation depend on a suspect reading of that earlier exchange, but it misses the argument’s logic: on a purely personal level Callicratidas does not care about Lysander’s claim, but, given that he has been appointed commander, he is naturally ‘ambitious’ to fulfil orders. Secondly, they argue that the speech employs threats instead of persuasion. This criticism seems misguided. Why should obeying orders not be regarded as normal and desirable? And Callicratidas does not tell the Spartans that he has to obey orders, therefore they must too; rather, he asks them to give what they regard as the best advice in the light of two factors: first, his ambition to fulfil orders to the best of his ability, second, the accusation that the Spartan policy of changing admirals is wrong. The former provides some reassurance as regards the wisdom of his appointment (he is keen to perform well), the latter explicitly permits the Spartans to take account of the wisdom of that policy in their advice. Nor does Callicratidas ⟦74⟧ ‘threaten’ them: of course, if he returns home, he will report the situation at sea. It is true that Callicratidas is suggesting to the Spartans the logic of their discontent, but that is in the nature of things. Naturally enough, none of the Spartans ‘dared’ to advise Callicratidas anything other than to fulfil his orders, but it is a gross misrepresentation to ascribe this to threats. Rather, by suggesting to the Spartans the logical consequence of their behaviour and thus securing their compliance, Callicratidas repeats his success over Lysander. The pattern of events is essentially the same. Thirdly, Callicratidas’ critics find the style (brief, terse sentences unlike the surrounding narrative, insistent use of the personal pronoun, emphatic repetition of the word ‘here’ in the final statement) harsh and egotistical. This judgement, too, seems misguided. Like many speeches in Greek literature, Callicratidas’ is simply constructed out of a series of contrasts: the first between ‘I’ and ‘you’ (Ἐμοὶ μὲν … ὑμεῖς δέ), the second, within the ‘I’ section, 21 Gray (1989) 81 n. 1 cites Dover (1974) 230–2.

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between Callicratidas’ own feelings and the orders he has received from Sparta (Ἐμοὶ μὲν … ἐγὼ δ’), the third between ‘I’ and ‘the city’ (ἐγώ τε … ἡ πόλις). The whole is ring-structured. The speech’s brevity and syntactical simplicity reflect the speaker’s Spartan identity. The general construction and ring structure, with the variation between ‘stay at home’ at the beginning and ‘staying here or sailing off home’ at the end, are far from maladroit. The extensive use of the personal pronoun is not offensive but inevitable when Callicratidas’ own status is at issue, and, so far from obtruding his own ego, Callicratidas expressly minimises his own claims to competence by comparison with Lysander’s or anyone else’s. It is true that there is a certain irony in the fact that he has to assert his own determination to fulfil the orders of the city, but this irony arises primarily from the refusal of others to subordinate their individualistic policies to the policies of the city. The repeated ‘here’ partly contributes to the variation within the ring structure, and partly contrasts with ‘home’. Though simple in outline, the speech is elegant, and achieves its purpose, for the Spartans advise Callicratidas to obey his orders; their advice coincides with the only course of action open to him personally once he has been sent out as navarch. The initial division between ‘I’ and ‘you’ has been resolved and unity of purpose achieved. Callicratidas’ modern critics also miss the speech’s positive elements. Callicratidas goes far to meeting his opponents’ objections. He tackles the question of the relative experience of himself and Lysander directly. The very fact that he makes a speech to ‘the Spartans present there’ (1.6.4) acknowledges that he is one of those ‘unknown to the people there’ (ibid.) and begins the process of becoming ‘known’; his self-description as a ‘stay-at-home’ also concedes some force to the criticisms of Lysander’s friends, and his words ‘more experienced’ pick up 1.6.4 ‘inexperienced’. He recognises that his practical ability to fulfil orders depends on a favourable response from the Spartans in the fleet, and his failure to spell out the ground on which Sparta is criticised is tactful (avoiding public unpleasantness). He invites the Spartans present to act as his advisers and he explicitly tells them to take account of their criticisms of Spartan policy in reaching their decision. This analysis does not exhaust the implications of this excellent speech. It also reveals Callicratidas as a traditional Spartan par excellence (again in implicit contrast with Lysander): Callicratidas is a ‘stay-at-home’ (as his first words show) and utterly obedient to lawful authority.22

22 Proietti (1987) 11–13, cl. Xen. Lac. 14.2, 4 and Thuc. 1.70.4 (Spartan ‘home-lovers’); Xen. Lac. 2.2, 10; 4.6; 8.1–5; Mem. 4.4.15 (Spartan obedience).

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Once accepted in the command, Callicratidas goes to Cyrus to ask for pay for the sailors (1.6.6–8): Cyrus, however, told him to wait for two days. But Callicratidas, indignant at the putting-off and angry at the visitings at his gates, declaring that the Greeks were most wretched in that they ⟦75⟧ flattered barbarians for the sake of money, and saying that if he reached home in safety he would reconcile the Athenians and the Spartans to the best of his ability, sailed away to Miletus; and after sending triremes from there to Sparta for money, he gathered the Milesians in assembly … Is Callicratidas criticised here for his intemperate response to Cyrus, by contrast with Lysander’s skilful, tactful, and successful handling of the Persian paymaster,23 or is he commended for his lofty anti-Persian Panhellenism?24 Or is the point practical: ‘this proud indignation of Callicratidas is a luxury that the Spartan can little afford’, and in general ‘the Spartan failure (in Hell. 1.1–3) to use effectively the wealth available to them was the result not of discouragement or simple ignorance but of a noble denial of the necessity of money and a noble ignorance of its uses’?25 Clearly, Xenophon intends a comparison with Lysander’s relations with Cyrus, and since those were so successful, it is easily assumed that Callicratidas must be implicitly criticised. But the two situations differ in that Cyrus met Lysander immediately, whereas he tells Callicratidas to wait two days, so Callicratidas has a harder task. It is true that even though Lysander meets Cyrus immediately, he has to await the right moment, and exploit it, to secure the money, but he has an initial advantage. Callicratidas’ reaction to the delay may seem excessive. He is motivated partly by anger, which may expel judgement (so Higgins, Gray, and Krentz).26 But anger does not necessarily do this, even in the moralistic Xenophon (cf., e.g., Hell. 3.4.8). Nor is the charge that ‘Kallikratidas’ impatience … again reveals his failure to put his troops’ well-being above his own ego’27 necessarily compelling: if attending Cyrus’ pleasure is demeaning and unhellenic, that could be legitimate reason for seeking help elsewhere. 23 Higgins (1977) 11; Gray (1989) 82–3; Krentz (1989) 147. 24 Grote (1851) 221; Breitenbach (1950) 108; Westlake (1966) 217; Cawkwell (1975) 64; (1979) 79; Ronnet (1981) 112; and indeed Plut. Lys. 6.4–7. 25 Proietti (1987) 13–14. 26 Cf. Xenophon’s criticism of Teleutias, whom he otherwise portrays so favourably, as guided by ‘anger’ rather than ‘judgement’ at Olynthus (5.3.7). 27 Krentz (1989) 147; similarly Gray (1989) 83.

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What, then, of the quality of Callicratidas’ sentiment? While it is true that the topic of the reconciliation of Athens and Sparta never recurs within Xenophon’s account of the Peloponnesian war, it is a major theme of several of the big speeches later in the work.28 Of course any link with these later passages raises the question of the Hellenica’s unity. But even if one thinks (as I do) that ‘the continuation’ was originally separate,29 one must allow (a) for the possibility of general consistency in Xenophon’s views over the years, and (b) for the fact that as it stands the ‘continuation’ is part of the same text as the rest, and Xenophon himself made this join, so that (on one level) the text must be interpreted as a whole. The later emphasis on the need for reconciliation between Athens and Sparta reinforces Callicratidas’ sentiment. There are other considerations against dismissing Callicratidas’ sentiment as mere personal pique. First, Callicratidas several times repeats Panhellenic anti-barbarian sentiments (1.6.8, 10, 11, 14). Second, Callicratidas’ refusal to ‘flatter’ Cyrus seems ultimately to be vindicated (below). Third, Callicratidas’ contempt for flattering barbarians for the sake of silver is paralleled by Teleutias at 5.1.17 (‘what would be pleasanter than to flatter no one, neither Greek ⟦76⟧ nor barbarian, for the sake of pay?’).30 Xenophon clearly represents Teleutias’ speech as admirable (cf. 5.1.4, 14, 18) and appropriate to ‘the ideal commander’ whom Teleutias generally represents. Moreover, Teleutias’ rejection of ‘flattering … for the sake of pay’ contrasts directly with, and implicitly sneers at, the policy of Antalcidas, who advocated and practised full co-operation with Persia (i.e., ‘neither Greek’ is a foil to emphasise rejection of ‘flattering barbarians’). If, then, the parallel is designed, it must validate Callicratidas’ sentiment retrospectively; but even if it is not, it may still illustrate a general attitude of which Xenophon (sometimes) approved. Naturally Xenophon’s own chequered career makes it unlikely that his attitudes both to the Persians and to Athenian–Spartan relations are simple; nevertheless, Callicratidas’ Panhellenic sentiments find an echo in a strand of Xenophon’s thought, one particularly strong in the last years of his life, when the bulk of the Hellenica was probably composed.31 28 Hell. 6.3, 5.33–48; 7.1.1–14; cf. 7.1.37–8; on these Gray (1989) 112–31 is excellent. 29 Cawkwell (1979) 28–33 is an excellent statement of this case, Gray’s book (Gray [1989]) an excellent statement of the case for the Hellenica’s overall unity, though she does not tackle the problem of 1.1.1–2.3.10 properly. Krentz (1989) 5 surveys the problem succinctly; cf. also Tuplin (1993) 11–12. 30 Cawkwell (1979) 249–50; Cartledge (1987) 195. 31 Xenophon’s Panhellenism: e.g., Cawkwell (1979) 39–41, 249–50 and (1976) 66–71, esp. 71 {= (2011) 247–55, esp. 255}; Cartledge (1987) 180ff.; contra, Hirsch (1985), concluding (141): ‘Panhellenism is not [outside the Agesilaus] a significant component of Xenophon’s

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Other criticisms of Callicratidas’ behaviour seem artificial. It is true that Callicratidas does not make Teleutias’ further point, that it is best to take what you need from your enemies,32 but he implies this to the Milesians (below) and he certainly practises it. Nor is there any inconsistency between Callicratidas’ Panhellenic sentiments and his behaviour: he will try to reconcile Athens and Sparta if he gets home safely;33 meanwhile his job remains the same—to fight the Athenians in the eastern Aegean.34 At the Milesian assembly Callicratidas makes another speech (1.6.8–11): ἐμοὶ μέν, ὦ Μιλήσιοι, ἀνάγκη τοῖς οἴκοι ἄρχουσι πείθεσθαι· ὑμᾶς δὲ ἐγὼ ἀξιῶ προθυμοτάτους εἶναι εἰς τὸν πόλεμον διὰ τὸ οἰκοῦντας ἐν βαρβάροις πλεῖστα κακὰ ἤδη ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν πεπονθέναι. δεῖ δ᾽ ὑμᾶς ἐξηγεῖσθαι τοῖς ἄλλοις συμμάχοις ὅπως ἂν τάχιστά τε καὶ μάλιστα βλάπτωμεν τοὺς πολεμίους, ἕως ἂν οἱ ἐκ Λακεδαίμονος ἥκωσιν, οὓς ἐγὼ ἔπεμψα χρήματα ἄξοντας, ἐπεὶ τὰ ἐνθάδε ὑπάρχοντα Λύσανδρος Κύρῳ ἀποδοὺς ὡς περιττὰ ὄντα οἴχεται· Κῦρος δὲ ἐλθόντος ἐμοῦ ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν ἀεὶ ἀνεβάλλετό μοι διαλεχθῆναι, ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἐπὶ τὰς ἐκείνου θύρας φοιτᾶν οὐκ ἐδυνάμην ἐμαυτὸν πεῖσαι. ὑπισχνοῦμαι δ᾽ ὑμῖν ἀντὶ τῶν συμβάντων ἡμῖν ἀγαθῶν ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ ᾧ ἂν ἐκεῖνα προσδεχώμεθα χάριν ἀξίαν ἀποδώσειν. ἀλλὰ σὺν τοῖς θεοῖς δείξωμεν τοῖς βαρβάροις ὅτι καὶ ἄνευ τοῦ ἐκείνους θαυμάζειν δυνάμεθα τοὺς ἐχθροὺς τιμωρεῖσθαι. I for my part, Milesians, must obey the rulers at home; but I think it proper that you for your part should be most enthusiastic for the war because of the fact that you live among barbarians and have already suffered very many evils from them. And you should as leaders show the other allies35 how we may most quickly and most effectively harm the enemy, until those whom I sent to bring money have come from Sparta, since Lysander has gone away having given back to Cyrus the money that was here as if it were superfluous. When I went to Cyrus he kept putting off talking with me, and I could not persuade myself to keep visiting his

32 33 34 35

thought’. It depends on ‘significant’; Panhellenism plays some role in Xenophon’s thought. The Hellenica’s dating is controversial (and connected with the problem of unity), but for a late dating of c.355 for most of it see, e.g., Cawkwell (1979) 17f.; Higgins (1977) 101; Tuplin (1993) 31. Krentz (1989) 147; for the Spartan ideal of waging war at enemy expense Proietti (1987) 17 n. 15 cites not only Hell. 5.1.17, but also Ages. 1.8; Lac. 12.6–9; Cyr. 3.3.16; and Oec. 1.1.8. Krentz (1989) 147 comments: ‘Kallikratidas’ attitude makes his safe return seem doubtful’, which I find excessive; of course, Kallikratidas’ ‘if’ may acquire retrospective tragic irony, especially as tragedy becomes the model for his ultimate failure (below). Tuplin (1993) 25, contra, Krentz (1989) 147. Brownson’s excellent Loeb translation ([1918] 55) of ἐξηγεῖσθαι.

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gates. But I promise you that I will make proper recompense for the good results that accrue to us in the time during which we are awaiting that money. Let us, with the help of the gods, show the barbarians that we can punish our enemies without paying court to them.

⟦77⟧ Here again, the claim that Callicratidas deploys terror36 is misconceived. His opening remark has two purposes: first, to reiterate the reasonable point that as commander he has no choice but to obey the authorities at home (a position just endorsed by the Spartan assembly); second, to distinguish between his role and the Milesians’: he has to prosecute the war and so he needs their enthusiastic cooperation. The wording echoes the earlier description of Lysander’s friends as ‘serving unenthusiastically’: Callicratidas has again to deal with the problem of virtual mutiny. It is true37 that as allies the Milesians are in one sense in a different category from the Spartans under Callicratidas’ command, but in another sense they are not, since, as immediately emerges, they include some of Lysander’s friends, who are known to be actively opposing Callicratidas. The Milesians ought to show enthusiasm because they are Greeks living among barbarians and have in the past suffered very many ills from them. The reference here is primarily the Persian capture of Miletus in 494; in a Greek political speech there is nothing odd about invoking an event so long ago, especially in the context of τὰ Μηδικά, as many examples in both Thucydides and Xenophon show. Clearly, there is an implication that the Persians may again be a threat, nor is the implication unreasonable, given the equivocal behaviour of Tissaphernes and other Persians (cf., e.g., 1.5.9).38 But Callicratidas also appeals positively to Greek patriotism. This appeal is no more inconsistent than at 1.6.7 and it is coupled with the promise of proper material compensation when the money comes from Sparta (though it is implied that successful action against the enemy will also produce funds; note the reciprocal ‘proper’ compensation for ‘proper’ Milesian behaviour). Is this promise, apparently so reasonable, deconstructed by earlier or later events? Proietti39 invokes Thuc. 8.57, 83, and 89: ‘we know … that the Milesians have had experience of harboring the Spartans when the latter were without constant support from the Persians: money never came from Sparta, and there had been danger that the unpaid sailors would turn to robbing their hosts’. But

36 Gray (1989) 83; Krentz (1989) 147. 37 Proietti (1987) 14. 38 Ionian attitudes to the Persians at this period: Lewis (1977) 115–23, for whom Callicratidas’ speech may reflect reality. 39 Proietti (1987) 15.

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it is doubtful that we should recall the details of Thucydides VIII as we read Hellenica I (as the opening words notoriously indicate). It appears also that the requested money from Sparta never came,40 but it seems unreasonable to blame Callicratidas. We here learn (and must accept) that Lysander still had money, which he returned to Cyrus. Krentz comments: ‘Kallikratidas’ ungenerous attitude towards Lysandros cost him (and, more importantly, his men) financially’. But we do not know that Lysander returned this money after meeting Callicratidas.41 Even if it was after, it was Lysander who initiated hostilities. This information, anyway, reflects poorly on Lysander, for regarding the connection with Cyrus as his own private connection rather than Sparta’s.42 Why does Callicratidas reveal this information? Proietti refers to ‘Callicratidas’ startling accusation of what amounts to treachery on Lysander’s part’, which in his view alerts the Milesians to the danger of reprisals should they fail to support the Spartan cause. This seems ⟦78⟧ implausible: in the first instance Callicratidas is simply explaining why one of his two possible sources of money has proved unavailing, though there is of course also some denigration of his rival. As for his other possible source, it is true43 that Callicratidas’ version of his dealings with Cyrus is exaggerated by comparison with the narrative, an exaggeration intensified by verbal parallels. But the exaggeration is not simply dishonest or blinkered; it forms part of Callicratidas’ general thesis about the unreliability of the Persian barbarians, and thus has a certain persuasive force. Hence Callicratidas can project himself as a model of financial probity by contrast both with Lysander and Cyrus.44 Two other persuasive elements in the speech are Callicratidas’ appeal to the Milesians’ pride as leaders of the allies and the final appeal to the help of the gods (so typical of the Xenophontic ideal general). The speech ends with a concentratedly satisfying triple (!) ring structure: τοῖς βαρβάροις picks up ἐν βαρβάροις, ἄνευ τοῦ ἐκείνους θαυμάζειν picks up section 10, τοὺς ἐχθροὺς τιμωρεῖσθαι picks up βλάπτωμεν τοὺς πολεμίους. The initial division between ‘me’ and ‘you’ has been resolved into a unifying ‘us’ 40 Krentz (1989) 147. 41 Krentz (1989) 148; Tuplin (1993) 25. 42 Proietti (1987) 15; Plut. Lys. 6.1 makes Lysander return the money before meeting Callicratidas, but this cannot be used to interpret Xenophon (though it may have historical value). Of course the tensions between patriotism and international aristocratic relationships raised difficult issues historically: Herman (1987), esp. 156–61; I doubt their difficulty in Xenophon’s text here. 43 Gray (1989) 82. 44 Both Diodorus and Plutarch stress Callicratidas’ extreme financial probity.

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(in this, as in other respects, Callicratidas’ second speech resembles his first). The Greek which Xenophon gives Callicratidas is enormously better than his modern detractors realise. And it works: ‘when he had said this, many arose, particularly those who were accused of opposing him, and, fearful, proposed a grant of money, offering private contributions as well’. Why are they ‘fearful’? Partly no doubt because of Callicratidas’ reminder of the potential Persian threat, partly also because some of them are ‘those accused of opposing’ Callicratidas, whose speech has again put them on the spot. But to describe the speech as an exercise in ‘terror’ is a gross misrepresentation. With this money and money from Chios, Callicratidas can give his men five drachmae each (about a week’s pay). For the moment he seems to have solved the financial problem, and that without further recourse to Cyrus. It is difficult to interpret this description as unfavourable: the good commander secures pay for his soldiers. It is true that by comparison with the large sums obtained from Cyrus by Lysander, five drachmae is very little, and we may well sense this.45 But this money is only a downpayment; the real money will come, in accordance with Teleutias’ policy, from ‘punishing the enemy’. It is also true, as Proietti points out, that ‘Callicratidas’ want of ample funds compels him to wage war vigorously’, but it is equally true, and emphasised by Xenophon from the beginning, that Callicratidas would always have waged war vigorously: hence his military activity is not compromised by suspect motivation. The capture of Methymna, which had an Athenian garrison and an ‘atticising’ government, illustrates Callicratidas’ military vigour. We sense another pun: Callicratidas, named in 1.6.14, captures Methymna κατὰ κράτος (1.6.13). This brings the required money but the prisoners present a problem (1.6.14–15): … all the captives46 Callicratidas assembled in the market-place; and when his allies urged him to sell into slavery the Methymnaeans as well as the Athenians, he said that while he was commander no Greek would be enslaved if he could help it. On the next day he let the Methymnaeans go free, but sold the members of the Athenian garrison and such of the captives as were slaves; then he sent word to Conon that he would stop him committing adultery with the sea.

45 Proietti (1987) 16. 46 Proietti (1987) 17 n. 16 has an excellent note on the ambiguous ἀνδράποδα.

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⟦79⟧ How is this to be interpreted? On one view,47 Callicratidas’ response to his allies shows great nobility; on another,48 there is a disturbing gulf between the apparent nobility of his sentiments and his behaviour. It is anyway noteworthy that both Callicratidas’ sentiment and behaviour are more philanthropic than the attitude of ‘the allies’, who simply want the Methymnaeans enslaved.49 This superiority remains, whatever we think of the sequel, and renders still more implausible the contention that Callicratidas has ‘terrorised’ those allies. They are now certainly ‘enthusiastically’ engaged in ‘punishing the enemy’, as exhorted by Callicratidas. The enslavement of the Athenian garrison coheres with normal military practice, yet there remains a discrepancy between this practice and Callicratidas’ Panhellenist sentiment, especially when delivered with such personal emphasis. As throughout the narrative, but especially at 1.6.6, Callicratidas is highly conscious of his own role. The effect of the incident is mixed: Callicratidas utters a noble sentiment and one which naturally coheres with a strand of Xenophon’s own thinking, and he behaves better than the allies; on the other hand, there is some disparity between sentiment and behaviour. Callicratidas’ message to Conon has suggested to scholars intemperate vulgarity50 or even sexual repression.51 The remark is certainly boastful and somewhat vulgar, especially by contrast with the civilised ‘charm’ of Xenophon’s own style. One might say that Callicratidas’ ἦθος as here revealed is very different from Xenophon’s own. More important, the implication is that the sea belongs to Callicratidas (being his ‘lawful bride’). Hence Callicratidas has now arrived at the position of regarding himself as θαλαττοκράτωρ.52 If Lysander was implicitly criticised for this boast, is Callicratidas also criticised? There is at least pronounced irony here. The remark is also a challenge to Conon, and one which will introduce a military duel between the commanders of the opposing forces. The element of challenge and competition that marked the relations of Callicratidas and Lysander is now transferred to a still more tense and serious context. So the question now is: how will Callicratidas’ claim to naval dominance hold up in practice? For a long time the answer is: extremely well. Through Callicratidas’ swift action, Conon loses thirty ships and is blockaded within Mytilene. ‘Callicratidas 47 Especially Grote (1851) 224. 48 Higgins (1977) 11; Krentz (1989) 148. 49 Diod. 13.76.5 regards Callicratidas’ behaviour at Methymna as clement, though (again) the evidence of another text cannot be used to interpret Xenophon. 50 Higgins (1977) 11; Gray (1989) 24; Krentz (1989) 149. 51 Tuplin (1993) 26. 52 Proietti (1987) 18.

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summoned the Methymnaeans to come to his aid with their entire force and brought his army from Chios; and money came to him from Cyrus’ (1.6.18). Thanks to his success at Methymna Callicratidas is able to mobilise the whole people of Methymna (now united after the civil strife which allowed the Athenians control of the city); and even Cyrus finally produces the money originally requested and does so unprompted. The inference that Callicratidas has mishandled Spartan finances is untenable. It seems too that Callicratidas has been further vindicated in that it was not after all necessary to flatter Cyrus. The build-up to the battle of Arginusae is described at length and in detail and with ever greater expectation. This could be the decisive moment of the Peloponnesian war; it is hard for the reader not to regard this campaign as comparable to, and anticipating, the Aegospotami campaign. With extreme difficulty Conon succeeds in getting word to Athens, because ‘the ⟦80⟧ blockaders were careless’ (1.6.20). Had Conon failed, the war would have been over.53 Yet Callicratidas immediately scores another success: again moving with remarkable speed, he captures ten ships from one of Conon’s commanders. The Athenians mount a desperate and extraordinary mobilisation of ships and men, including slaves and knights, to a total of 150 ships. Callicratidas responds by leaving 50 ships at Mytilene under Eteonicus,54 and himself anchoring at Cape Malea in Lesbos55 with 120 ships. We now know that Callicratidas’ navy is numerically inferior to the Athenian. Callicratidas plans an unexpected midnight attack but a thunderstorm intervenes. This is his first setback since he began actual military operations, but Krentz56 is hardly right that the detail ‘contrasts Kallikratidas with Alcibiades, who used a storm successfully at Kyzikos’ (1.1.16): no commander, however good, can be expected to control the weather. At daybreak Callicratidas sets sail for Arginusae.57 Xenophon describes the formations of each side, emphasising that Athenian strategy was to prevent a διέκπλους, that Spartan strategy was to achieve διέκπλους and περίπλους, that the Athenian ships sailed worse and that the Spartan ships sailed better. The detailed description further increases tension, as well preparing for the important political consequences of the battle, the trial of the generals. 53 Proietti (1987) 19. 54 Henderson (1927) 456 opines: ‘Callicratidas made his one fatal error … the Spartan divided his great fleet’. But this was an error only if Callicratidas was certain to fight. One must anyway distinguish between interpretation of the historical facts and interpretation of Xenophon, whose tone seems neutral. 55 The vexed textual problem (Krentz [1989] 152–3) is here irrelevant. 56 Krentz (1989) 153. 57 Scholarly debate about this battle does not concern this paper.

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Before battle begins, ‘Hermon the Megarian, Callicratidas’ pilot, said to him that it was well to sail away; for the triremes of the Athenians were far more numerous. But Callicratidas said that ἡ Σπάρτη οὐδὲν μὴ κάκιον οἰκεῖται58 if he were killed, but to flee he said would be a disgrace’ (1.6.32). After a lengthy engagement, when his ship rams an enemy, Callicratidas falls into the sea and disappears, the Spartans flee, and the Athenians win a speedy victory. They lose twenty-five ships, the Spartans lose nine out of ten Spartan ships and more than sixty allied ships. When Eteonicus hears of the disaster, he pretends that Callicratidas has won an overwhelming victory, thus averting a collapse of morale and further losses and saving the ships and infantry under his command (1.6.29–38). Until Callicratidas commits himself to battle, the only implication of incompetence comes in the detail ‘the blockaders were careless’, but the consequences of that carelessness are great. Yet there is still all to play for: Callicratidas has been continuously successful and has displayed several of the characteristics of ‘the good commander’, notably the ‘speed’ of his operations. But by recording the exchange with Hermon, Xenophon raises the question whether Callicratidas was right to fight. There are points on both sides. The exchange might reflect the well-known pattern of the ignored warning, familiar from epic and tragedy and from historiography influenced by them,59 and, if so, Callicratidas must be behaving in an impetuous and ill-considered manner and his objective failure must be his fault. The exchange also emphasises what we already know, that the Spartan fleet was smaller. On the other hand, we also know that Hermon misconceives the ⟦81⟧ size of the disparity (120 against 150 is not a great short-fall), and that the Spartan ships sail better (a point Xenophon has tautologically stressed by saying first that the Athenian ships sailed worse, then that the Spartan ships sailed better). The decision to fight is not wholly irrational. Callicratidas’ reply consists of two elements: first, the statement about the effect on Sparta should he die, second the statement about the ‘disgrace’ of ‘flight’. The Greek of the first is often translated ‘Sparta would fare just the same if he died’ (Krentz and many others). If οἰκεῖται means this, Callicratidas’ claim is falsified by the event: when he dies, the Spartans are defeated and incur the considerable loss of nine Spartan ships and more than sixty allied ships. This reading makes Callicratidas irresponsible. Anderson, however, 58 The small textual problem here (Krentz [1989] 156) does not affect interpretation. 59 Rutherford (1982) 156–7 (on the Iliad); Bischoff (1932); Lattimore (1939); Fehling (1989) 203–9; Gray (1989) 148.

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insists that οἰκεῖται should be interpreted literally and Callicratidas is saying: ‘what recks the death of ane? Sparta will be none the worse populated’. This interpretation may well be right and would maintain the distinction between ‘here’ in the eastern Aegean and ‘home’ that Callicratidas has always asserted. Nevertheless, criticism of Callicratidas would still be implied: substantial losses in the Aegean do affect Spartan ‘population’ at home, especially given chronic Spartan ‘shortage of people’. In any case, Callicratidas views the moral problem purely with reference to himself, without regard for the Spartans under his command. This inappropriate perspective is reinforced by the second element of his response to Hermon, which concerns only his own reputation. There has been a decline from his attitude at the earlier assembly of the Spartans, where he was indeed ‘ambitious’ but his ‘ambition’ was to do well for Sparta. The unity between himself and Sparta has been replaced by an inappropriate distinction between Sparta’s interests and his own. The tension between Callicratidas’ devotion to his duty to Sparta and his strong consciousness of his own individual role now inclines too heavily towards individualism. The nobility of the sentiment ‘flight is disgraceful’ is therefore only apparent. And the sentiment is further undermined by the contrast with Hermon’s view. At first sight, Hermon is merely saying that it would be ‘expedient’ or ‘timely’60 to sail away. But the wider moral implications mentioned help to suggest the stronger meaning: ‘it is morally good to sail away’. Thus the contrast between the two views is not, as might appear, a contrast between Hermon’s expediency and Callicratidas’ concern (however inexpedient) with morality, but between the true morality of Hermon and the flawed morality of Callicratidas. Finally, there is the question whether it is right to characterise the declining of battle against a more numerous enemy as ‘flight’. Earlier in the narrative (1.5.15) the highly successful Lysander had declined battle with the full Athenian fleet even after success at Notium ‘because of having many fewer ships’.61 In short, while Xenophon allows Callicratidas’ decision to fight a certain justification (because the Spartans’ ships sail better), the analysis is predominantly negative. That this interpretation is not coloured by anachronistic, modern misconceptions is proved by Cicero’s remarks in De officiis 1.84:

60 Καλός of time: LSJ, s.v. II.1. 61 Proietti (1987) 20; Krentz (1989) 156.

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When Callicratidas, as Spartan admiral in the Peloponnesian War, had won many signal successes, he spoiled everything at the end by refusing to listen to the proposal of those who thought he ought to withdraw his fleet from Arginusae and not risk an engagement with the Athenians. His answer to them was that ‘the Spartans could build another fleet, if they lost that one, but he could not retreat without dishonour to himself’ (translation by W. Miller).

After this, Callicratidas’ abrupt and ignominious fall into the sea seems poetically appropriate: not only does he meet ‘a fate ironically befitting a Spartan—drowning’ (Higgins), but he finally seems indeed ‘unacquainted with the sea’, or even becomes ‘acquainted with it’ in a ludicrous and humiliating fashion, and, as a man excessively concerned with his own repute, he achieves not glory but its reverse: disappearance (ἠφανίσθη). He even suffers a syntactical indignity: after dominating the narrative for so long, he dies suddenly within a subordinate clause. Callicratidas’ death is immediately followed by Spartan ‘flight’, which represents another ironic περιπέτεια (‘reversal’): far from Callicratidas’ death not mattering, it is crucial to the Spartan defeat; far from it being ‘disgraceful’ to ‘flee’62 (as Callicratidas mistakenly regarded prudent withdrawal), ‘disgraceful flight’ ensues precisely because of Callicratidas’ refusal to ‘flee’. Callicratidas’ story now emerges as a typical tragic pattern of ‘change’ from ‘good fortune’ to ‘bad’ because of a hamartia (specifically the decision to fight at Arginusae, though as usual with hamartia-analyses, the analysis radiates well beyond the specific hamartia). I say ‘typical’, though the lightness and deftness with which Xenophon evokes it have blinded many scholars to its presence. The spotlight now turns on Eteonicus. His adroit use of deceit against his troops in order to save them63 seems to contrast with Callicratidas’ directness, or, as it has now been revealed, inappropriate impetuosity. And so the Callicratidas narrative ends as it began, with a contrast between Callicratidas and another Spartan, but whereas the initial contrast between Lysander and Callicratidas worked in Callicratidas’ favour, the present contrast confirms that there is indeed a critical element in Xenophon’s portrayal of Callicratidas; the present contrast also seems to recall the contrast between Lysander’s and 62 Proietti (1987) 20 adumbrates these points. 63 On this type of stratagem, also employed by Agesilaus, see the useful analysis of Gray (1989) 149–53; Xenophon undoubtedly approves. Agesilaus’ stratagem at 4.3.13–14 is significantly parallel to Eteonicus’ (below).

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Callicratidas’ handling of Cyrus: in both cases directness is seen to be less efficacious than adroit obliquity. Two later passages confirm the defectiveness of Callicratidas’ leadership at Arginusae. First, the narrative of the naval defeat and death of Peisander (4.3.10–12) offers striking parallels to the Arginusae narrative, and Peisander has earlier (3.4.29) been characterised as ‘a man loving honour [φιλότιμον] and stout of spirit but rather inexperienced [ἀπειρότερον] at making preparations as necessary’. Further, Agesilaus responds to the news of Peisander’s defeat with a ruse of the same type as Eteonicus’ (4.3.13–14): the evocations of Callicratidas’ failure seem clear.64 Second, after lengthy treatments of the trial of the Athenian generals (1.7.1–35) and Eteonicus’ suppression of a conspiracy in Chios (another instance of success achieved by indirect means [2.1.1–5]), Xenophon reverts to his naval narrative at 2.1.6. The items highlighted, and the wording used, could scarcely be more pointed. The Spartan allies gather en masse at Ephesus and ‘they took counsel about the existing situation’ (as Callicratidas at 1.6.5 had exhorted the Spartans to do); they decide to report the facts to Sparta (as Callicratidas would have done had the Spartans counselled against him), and (like Lysander’s friends earlier) to request the reinstatement of Lysander, who retains a good reputation among the allies because of his victory at Notium. The problem of the Spartan policy of changing navarchs recurs, but now the Spartans accede to the allies’ illegal request by appointing Aracus navarch, with Lysander as vice-admiral. Then, ‘the ships, however, they handed over to Lysander’ (2.1.7). The narrative is back to the point ‘when Lysander handed over the ships, he said that he was handing them over as master of the sea and victor in a sea-battle’ (1.6.2). For all his merits, ⟦83⟧ Callicratidas as a commander was not in the same class as Lysander: there is a sense in which his command was a mere interlude. What conclusions can we draw? First, Xenophon writes extremely well. Quietly, unobtrusively, and without explicit moralising, this narrative continually poses delicate interpretative questions, whose difficulty the very diversity of scholarly response attests. Second, the narrative is far from a straightforward representation of ‘the facts’: rather, the facts are selected and shaped so as to bear constantly on the problem of our military, political, and moral assessment of Callicratidas.

64 Proietti (1987) 105–7.

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Third, if there are from the modern historian’s point of view deficiencies in Xenophon’s factual record, these ‘deficiencies’ result not from incompetence but from artistic purpose, which, as usual in Xenophon, is also a moral purpose. Fourth, Xenophon’s portrayal of Callicratidas is mixed: by the end Callicratidas appears as over-eager to fight and over-motivated by personal considerations. But this ‘conclusion’ does not erase the earlier positive elements in his characterisation—the relative purity of his motivation by comparison with Lysander and his friends, his ability to achieve results through speeches, his noble Panhellenic conception, his energy, and (until the end) high military competence, though those positive elements are the other side of the same coin. Xenophon’s portrayal of Callicratidas is ‘consistent’, but the consistency resides not in consistent criticism65 but in a consistent overall view of a man whose virtues and vices were of a piece. I believe that this is the only possible interpretation of Xenophon, but perhaps now it is after all legitimate to invoke the ‘authority’ of Diodorus and Plutarch. There is something intrinsically implausible about the intensely critical view of Callicratidas which Higgins, Gray, and Krentz attribute to Xenophon, when it is so very far from the view of Diodorus and Plutarch, whose factual material is extremely close to Xenophon’s. Rather, the ancient view of Callicratidas is basically unified, even though Xenophon’s is far subtler than Diodorus’ or Plutarch’s. It is interesting also to speculate whether Cicero’s view of Callicratidas reflects his interpretation of Xenophon. Fifth, Xenophon is greatly interested in the contrast between the traditional Spartan type represented by Callicratidas and the unspartan Spartan Lysander, and in its political and military consequences; these consequences seem highly ambiguous: Lysander emerges at the end as the more effective commander, but Callicratidas is also highly effective up to a point; conversely, Callicratidas is in general the nobler figure, but at the end the diminution of his moral status is accompanied by a diminution of his military effectiveness; yet Lysander himself remains a deeply ambiguous, even a sinister, figure. Sixth, Xenophon is profoundly concerned with a certain sort of truth, namely the Aristotelian truth ‘what sort of man was Callicratidas?’.66 We may even hope to have disinterred the historical Callicratidas from Xenophon’s text. The seventh factor concerns the ultimate purpose of Xenophon’s portrayal. Of course, to some extent in Xenophon’s brand of historiography commemoration, especially of virtuous behaviour, is its own justification. The study of 65 Pace Gray (1989) 83. 66 I discuss ancient historical writers’ preoccupation with ‘universal truths’ in Moles (1988) 41–2, and in (1993).

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Callicratidas also forms part of Xenophon’s continuous quest to analyse and define the qualities of the good commander. But more, Callicratidas appears as a kind of inchoate figure, a man of high ambition whose performance does not quite measure up, a man of noble sentiment, who cannot implement the sentiment to the last degree, a man in some respects before his time. Now the ultimate ‘meaning’ of the Hellenica remains elusive, but many scholars agree that at least the end of the work strongly ⟦84⟧ conveys the moral and political bankruptcy of the endless quest for ‘empire’ and ‘hegemony’ on the part of the three leading Greek states, Thebes, Sparta, and Athens: hence the overriding need for peace and reconciliation within Greece.67 If this interpretation is sound, as I believe it is, then in the architecture of the Hellenica as a whole Callicratidas stands as a sort of prophetic or anticipatory figure who articulates, imperfectly, Xenophon’s final views on the best way forward for Greece. One might even analyse his sentiment about the need for reconciliation between Sparta and Athens as ‘suspension of thought’, the technique (a very important one in ancient literature) ‘of putting an idea into the reader’s mind only to return to it later’.68 Those historians, both ancient and modern, who hopelessly romanticise Callicratidas are responding to something real and inspiring in Xenophon’s portrait. To conclude: Xenophon’s portrayal of Callicratidas contains both positive and negative elements; the former preponderate overall, but the latter predominate at the end. Both contribute to a portrait which is multi-layered and multi-functional, a superb example of Xenophon’s mastery in creating complexity and density of meaning out of apparent simplicity. Bibliography Anderson, J. K. (1974) Xenophon (London and New York). Anderson, J. K. (1991) ‘Review of Krentz (1989)’, JHS 111: 225. Bischoff, H. (1932) Der Warner bei Herodot (diss., Marburg). Bommelaer, J.-F. (1981) Lysandre de Sparte: histoire et traditions (Paris). Breitenbach, H. R. (1950) Historiographische Anschauungsformen Xenophons (Freiburg). 67 Higgins (1977) 115–18; Cartledge (1987) 63; Proietti (1987) 108–11; Gray (1989) 179–81, and, rather differently, Tuplin (1977) and (1993) 163–8. 68 Woodman (1988) 122 (with bibliography on 147 n. 13); cf. also my own (brief) discussions in Moles (1990a) 373 {vol. 1, p. 155} n. 125, and (1985) 37f. and 56 n. 29 {vol. 1, pp. 366–9}, where it is argued that such ‘marker references’ can have the function of anticipating final interpretative ‘solutions’.

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Brock, R. (1991) ‘Review of Woodman (1988)’, LCM 16: 97–102. Brownson, C. L. (1918) Xenophon: Hellenica, 2 vols. (London and Cambridge, Mass.). Cartledge, P. A. (1987) Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (London and Baltimore). Cawkwell, G. L. (1975) ‘Thucydides’ Judgement of Periclean Strategy’, YCS 24: 53–70; repr. in id. (2011) 134–50. Cawkwell, G. L. (1976) ‘Agesilaus and Sparta’, CQ 26: 62–84; repr. in id. (2011) 241–74. Cawkwell, G. L. (1979) ‘Introduction’ and ‘Notes’, in A History of My Times, trans. by Rex Warner (Harmondsworth). Cawkwell, G. L. (2011) Cyrene to Chaeronea: Selected Essays on Ancient Greek History (Oxford). Dover, K. J. (1974) Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Oxford and Berkeley). Fehling, D. (1989) Herodotus and his ‘Sources’ (Liverpool); rev. trans. by J. G. Howie of Die Quellenangaben bei Herodot (Berlin and New York, 1971). Figueira, T. J. (1993) Excursions in Epichoric History: Aiginetan Essays (Lanham, Md.). Gray, V. J. (1989) The Character of Xenophon’s Hellenica (London and Baltimore). Grote, G. (1851) History of Greece VIII2 (London). Hatzfeld, J., ed. (1954) Xénophon: Hélleniques I (Paris). Henderson, B. W. (1927) The Great War between Athens and Sparta (London). Henry, W. P. (1967) Greek Historical Writing: a Historiographical Essay based on Xenophon’s Hellenica (Chicago). Herman, G. (1987) Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge). Higgins, W. E. (1977) Xenophon the Athenian: the Problem of the Individual and the Society of the Polis (Albany, N.Y.). Hirsch, S. W. (1985) The Friendship of the Barbarians: Xenophon and the Persian Empire (Hanover, N.H.). Hornblower, S. (1991) A Commentary on Thucydides I (Oxford). Krentz, P., ed. (1989) Xenophon: Hellenika I–II.3.10 (Warminster). Lattimore, R. (1939) ‘The Wise Adviser in Herodotus’, CPh 34: 24–35. Lewis, D. M. (1977) Sparta and Persia (Leiden). Lotze, D. (1964) Lysander und der peloponnesische Krieg (Berlin). Moles, J. L. (1985) ‘Cynicism in Horace Epistles I’, PLLS 5: 33–60 [vol. 1, Ch. 14]. Moles, J. L., ed. (1988) Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). Moles, J. L. (1990a) ‘The Kingship Orations of Dio Chrysostom’, PLLS 6: 297–375 [vol. 1, Ch. 5]. Moles, J. L. (1990b) ‘Review of Woodman (1988)’, History of the Human Sciences 3.2: 317–21 [above, Ch. 47]. Moles, J. L. (1992) ‘Review of Gray (1989)’, CR 42: 281–4 [above, Ch. 48].

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Moles, J. L. (1993) ‘Truth and Untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’, in C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman, edd., Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter and Austin, 1993) 88–121 [above, Ch. 49]. Proietti, G. (1987) Xenophon’s Sparta: an Introduction (Leiden). Ronnet, G. (1981) ‘La figure de Callicratidas et la composition des Hélleniques,’ RPh 55: 111–21. Rutherford, R. B. (1982) ‘Tragic Form and Feeling in the Iliad’, JHS 102: 145–60. Tuplin, C. J. (1977) ‘Xenophon a Didactic Historian?’, PCA 74: 26–7. Tuplin, C. J. (1991) ‘Review of Krentz (1989)’, LCM 16: 25–6. Tuplin, C. J. (1993) The Failings of Empire: a Reading of Xenophon Hellenica 2.3.11–7.5.27 (Stuttgart). Underhill, G. E. (1900) Xenophon: Hellenica (Oxford). Westlake, H. D. (1966) ‘Individuals in Xenophon, Hellenica’, BJRL 49: 249–69; repr. in and cited from id., Essays on Greek Historians and Greek History (Manchester and New York, 1969) 203–25. Woodman, A. J. (1988) Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Portland, and Sydney).

Chapter 52

Herodotus Warns the Athenians Herodotus’ Histories trace the conflict between Greeks and barbarians from Croesus of Lydia to the aftermath of Xerxes’ defeat, when Ionia and the eastern Greek islands revolted from Persia.1 Herodotus emphasises that the conflict was between tyranny and imperialism and freedom and autonomy, and clearly regards the former as immoral (which does not necessarily make the unfree blameless).2 He believes that human prosperity is transient and the rise and fall of states and empires inevitable (1.5.3f.). This process, however, is not automatic, nor merely a matter of mistakes made by imperialists: it entails moral transgression not only in the initial acquisition of empire but also in the degeneration which causes its fall. Most scholars see in the Histories a concern also with recurrent historical patterns.3 The narrative contains numerous ‘prospective allusions’ (explicit references to events after 478).4 Do these prospective allusions have purely local significance, or do they suggest organic connexions between the remote and recent past? Should Herodotus’ audience and readers recall the empire that replaced the Persian empire in the Greek world? If so, are the Athenians being warned of inevitable disaster if they maintain their imperialist course?5 Some scholars deny implicit contemporary allusion; most accept it.6 However, the case for contemporary allusion has not been properly argued, 1 This paper is dedicated to the memory of John Smart, a lovely man and a profoundly original scholar, who had exciting ideas about Herodotus and Thucydides. These included contemporary political allusion in Herodotus, though the present arguments are my own. For John’s numerous classicist friends, the only consolation for his untimely death was the thought of his haranguing Herodotus in the afterlife, trying to persuade him that he had written his Histories several decades later than he in fact had (n. 9). I thank Francis Cairns, Paul Cartledge, Alan Griffiths, Malcolm Heath, Chris Pelling, and Simon Swain for helpful criticism. 2 Tyranny: Ferrill (1978); Asheri (1988) lv–lvii {= (2007) 45–9}; Lateiner (1989) 169–71; imperialism: Lateiner (1989) 181; unfree blameworthy: cf., e.g., 3.143.2; 6.11f.; Stadter (1992), esp. 803–6. 3 Lateiner (1989) 165f. (with bibliography). 4 Listed in Schmid–Stählin (1934) 590–1 n. 9. 5 Herodotus’ audience/readership included Athenians and Greeks from all over the Greek world: cf., e.g., 4.99; Momigliano (1978) 60f. {= (1980) 362f.}; Raaflaub (1987) 235; Gould (1989) 15–17; Stadter (1992) 783 and n. 6 (useful bibliography). 6 Denial: e.g., Gould (1989) 119; acceptance: Strasburger (1955); Momigliano (1978); Raaflaub (1987); Stadter (1992); and most of the contributors to Arethusa 20 (1987), a volume devoted to Herodotus.

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nor, granted such allusion, has its function been agreed. This paper argues that Book 1, which is programmatic,7 employs the device of ‘temporal dislocation’ as a ‘signal’8 to suggest ⟦260⟧ connexions between past and present, explores the implications of those connexions, and correlates them with the end of the Histories. My sole initial assumption is that the monumental written Histories should be put after c.426; whether immediately after, some years after, or many years after is immaterial,9 though my argument itself has dating implications.10 1 Herodotus’ preface raises the question ‘for what reason Greeks and barbarians went to war against each other’; his narrative starts with Croesus of Lydia, ‘the man whom I myself know to have begun unjust deeds towards the Greeks’ (1.5.3; cf. 130.3). The formal introduction of Croesus describes him as a ‘tyrant’, sketches his imperial possessions, and emphasises that he was the first barbarian ‘whom we know’ to have subjected some Greeks (the Ionians, Aeolians, and Asian Dorians) to the payment of tribute and to have made friends of others (the Spartans), and that before him all Greeks were free (1.6.1–3). Is τύραννος (probably in origin a Lydian word) neutral or pejorative? The emphasis on Croesus’ ‘unjust deeds’, systematic imperialism, and suppression of freedom suggests the latter. Later, in Herodotus’ account of Gyges’ murder of Candaules and seizure of the throne (1.11.2–13.14), βασιληΐη/βασιλεύς seems to be used of the constitutional position, and τυραννίς/τυραννεύω with moral disapproval. Indeed, τύραννος seems pejorative throughout the Histories.11 Many scholars assume that contemporary readers would already sense an allusion to the Athenian empire; the case is yet to be proved. After complex retrospectives explaining how Croesus’ family, the Mermnadae, won the throne, in 1.16 Herodotus brings the narrative down to Croesus’ father Alyattes. The ‘things in his rule most worth telling’ come in 1.17.1–3: 7 8 9

Fornara (1971b) 18, with the qualifications of Lateiner (1989) 259 n. 45. On this concept see Raaflaub (1987) 241. Post-426 derives from (i) references to events of the first two years of the Peloponnesian war: How–Wells (1928) I.9; (ii) the allusion to Artaxerxes in 6.98.2, quoted on p. 265 (with How–Wells [1928] II.104f.). For ‘late’ datings (post-421 and even later) see, e.g., Fornara (1971a) and (1981); Raaflaub (1987) ⟦281⟧ 236 n. 40; Smart (1988) 186 (‘as late as the 390s BC’). 10 See p. 265 below. 11 Ferrill (1978); contra, Asheri (1988) 266 {= (2007) 78}.

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he went to war against the Milesians, taking over the war from his father. In his invasion he besieged Miletus in the following manner. When the crops were ripe, he brought in his army. He marched to the sound of flutes, harps, and the female and male oboe. When he reached Miletus, he did not throw down or burn the houses in the fields or pull off the doors: he let them stand in place. Whenever he destroyed the trees and the crops in the land, he retired. For the Milesians had power over the sea, so that a sustained siege would have been useless for his army … he made war in this fashion for eleven years.

Every year the army marches into ⟦261⟧ enemy territory, and wastes the crops, encountering no serious resistance on land, but eschews a full-scale siege because of enemy sea-power. Herodotus’ narrative has its own logic as it traces the steady westwards expansion of Lydian imperialism, focuses on the war against Miletus, which encompassed several generations (1.16–25), and adumbrates the idea of the natural boundaries between land and sea which is so fundamental to Herodotus’ political and moral thought. Nevertheless, it seems inconceivable that an audience/readership of the 420s or later would not have been reminded of the annual Spartan invasions of Athens from 431 onwards and that Herodotus did not intend this. For his account of Alyattes’ reign concentrates on these operations against Miletus, and the main elements of the description exactly parallel Spartan operations against Athens in the Archidamian war. Miletus, also, was an Athenian foundation (5.97.2), whose fall in the Ionian Revolt the Athenians lamented as their own (6.21.2). Moreover, Herodotus gives the episode an impressive unity by representing the operations as all belonging to Alyattes and being undertaken by him over an eleven-year period. But this unity is artificial, as he then qualifies his account by noting that Sadyattes was responsible for the first six years and his son Alyattes for the subsequent five years (1.18.2). This, then, is the first ‘temporal dislocation’. Its effect is double: it makes the general point that the past is sometimes re-enacted in the present, and it brings contemporary Athens into the conceptual frame. When Croesus succeeds his father Alyattes (1.26), he continues the imperialist drive. After subjugating Ephesus, he attacks each of the Ionian and Aeolian cities in turn, ‘bringing different accusations against different ones, bigger ones when he could discover them, trivial ones against others’ (1.26.3). In an emphatic echo of 1.6.2 the Greeks are described as having been ‘subjected to the payment of tribute’ (1.27.1). Should the audience/readership now think of the Athenian empire, which was based on tribute and included these Greek cities in Asia, and of the energy and ingenuity with which Athens picked them

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off? Is the point of Herodotus’ having introduced Croesus as a ‘tyrant’ (1.6.2) now to suggest a parallel between the tyrannical Lydian imperialist of the previous century and Athens, the present-day ‘tyrant-city’, as she was widely known?12 I would still describe any allusion to Athenian imperialism as potential rather than realised; but it has been brought closer to realisation by the earlier evocation of the Peloponnesian war. ⟦262⟧ The dexterous intervention of the wise Bias (or, in another version, Pittacus) dissuades Croesus from attacking the islanders, but be continues his land imperialism and 1.28 provides an impressive summary of his imperial conquests in another echo and expansion of the introductory 1.6.13 Now (1.29) ‘there arrived in Sardis, which was at the height of her wealth, many, all the great sophistai from Greece who were alive during that time, and above all Solon, an Athenian.’ This first explicit mention of Athens crystallises the implicit allusion of 1.17.1–3. The scene is set for the great encounter between Solon and Croesus, which is generally and rightly seen as central to Herodotus’ thought. The opening sentence is challenging. The critical terms in which Croesus was introduced (1.5.3, 6.2) and the continuing emphasis on his aggression against Greeks (1.26.1–28.1) make it shocking that Greek intellectuals should flock to Sardis. The Histories will explore Greeks’ readiness to collaborate with their oppressors; conversely, the subsequent narrative will stress, and document, Croesus’ phil-hellenism. In terms of the oppositions between Greeks and barbarians and between East and West, Lydia will appear as an ‘in-between’ country, and Croesus himself as a figure hard to place, who resists description in the easy formulations of Greek/barbarian discourse.14 Thus this sentence creates a geographical dislocation: the West joins the East and vice-versa. We now have spatial dislocation as well as temporal dislocation; this narrative’s frame is comprehensively skewed. Moreover, while Sardis was indeed a considerable centre of Hellenism, the statement that all the σοφισταί from Greece arrived at Sardis at one time or another must be Herodotean exaggeration. One motive is to create a crescendo of ‘wise men’ descending upon Croesus, beginning with Bias/Pittacus and climaxing in Solon; another is to raise disturbing questions about Greeks’ response to eastern temptation. But there is more. What are σοφισταί? On one level, ‘wise men’. But already in the late fifth century σοφισταί can mean 12 Cf. Knox (1954); Raaflaub (1987) 224; Tuplin (1985). 13 This undermines Stein’s contention, accepted by How–Wells (1928) I.66, that the summary is an intrusive gloss. The inclusion of the Lydians economically conveys that autocrats count their countrymen as slaves (see the typology of Lateiner [1989] 179 [without this example]); cf. also Asheri (1988) 281 {= (2007) 97}. 14 Pelling (1997).

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‘sophist’ in the modern sense.15 This interpretation is supported by How and Wells’ note: ‘the order of the words ἄλλοι τε οἱ (not οἵ τε ἄλλοι) shows H. did not consider Solon a σοφιστής … The word here has, of course, no bad sense, though the causal participle (ἀκμαζούσας πλούτῳ) reminds us of the reproach of venality made against the sophists.’ The point about the τε is strictly correct, though it could be loose usage.16 The point about the causal participle is also nice. True, the narrative movement requires that ⟦263⟧ Sardis be at her ἀκμή (hence ripe for decline)17 and the stress on Sardis’ wealth explains Greek corruptibility. Nevertheless, contemporary usage and sophistic venality import the additional implication, ‘sophists’.18 Thus, if all the σοφισταί (both ‘wise men’ and ‘sophists’) and Solon, wisest of them all, arrived in the dominant imperial city of its time at the zenith of its wealth, that city was not only sixth-century Sardis: it was also fifth-century Athens, ‘the very shrine of wisdom of all Greece’, as Hippias described it (Pl. Prot. 337d). This reading entails that Solon in some sense represents Herodotus, which the sequel confirms, and coheres with the careers of the great sophists and Herodotus, all of whom visited Athens extensively.19 The ambiguity of Solon’s being at once inside and outside the category of σοφισταί fairly reflects Herodotus’ own position vis-à-vis the sophists. He travelled and lectured widely, was accused of venality,20 and shows acquaintance with sophistic thought, yet in the debate between ‘old’ and ‘new’ morality favoured ‘the old’. The opening sentence, therefore, has three meanings. (1) Many Greek ‘wise men’ visited Croesus’ court; these wise men represent that Greek philosophical wisdom which should have restrained Croesus’ imperial ambitions but succeeded only in deflecting him from the islands. (2) Many Greek intellectuals were attracted by Croesus’ imperial wealth; these intellectuals represent Greeks’ culpable vulnerability to eastern wealth and their readiness to collaborate with their imperialist oppressors, as well as suggesting counter-ambiguities in Croesus and the Lydians. (3) Many sophists and Herodotus himself visited Athens at her imperial zenith, the former for base materialistic reasons, the latter to educate the Athenians. This remarkable sentence is marked by internal incongruities, dislocations of time and space, and fusion of text and context. The three separate meanings cannot logically co-exist; Solon the sixth-century 15 Guthrie (1969) 27–36; Kerferd (1981) 24–41; Griffith (1983) 95. 16 Cf. Denniston (1954) 515–18 for displaced τε in τε … καί combinations (without this example). 17 See de Romilly (1977) 42. 18 Pace Asheri (1988) 283 {= (2007) 99}. 19 Guthrie (1969) 263, 270, 274, 281; Kerferd (1981) 42, 45; How–Wells (1928) I.6–7. 20 How–Wells (1928) I.6.

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Athenian leaves Athens for the east only to arrive in Athens and the fifth century; Solon the Athenian ‘becomes’ Herodotus of Halicarnassus; Herodotus the historian outside the text intervenes directly in the text; his physical arrival in Athens in the 440s is re-enacted in his text of the 420s or later; the context (his performances to the Athenians and other Greeks) is translated into the text itself. This, then, is another, and an intensely provocative, ‘signal’. Solon left Athens after his legislation. His stated reason for leaving was κατὰ θεωρίης πρόφασιν, ‘for sight-seeing’; i.e., he gives the ⟦264⟧ Athenians a relatively frivolous reason in contrast to the true one given by Herodotus: that he might not be forced to annul any of his laws. Solon upholds law, which the tyrannical Croesus does not, and in the late fifth century Solon’s laws can evoke an older, idealised, Athens as against the radically democratic and aggressively imperialist Athens of the present. Before becoming a traveller Herodotus fought tyranny in Halicarnassus.21 His restatement of Solon’s motives (1.30.1 ‘for these reasons and also for the sake of sight-seeing’) seems slyly to reinstate the less worthy of Solon’s motives. The combination of the serious and frivolous as explanations for Solon’s travels suggests the same possible combination in relation to Herodotus’ own travels; the serio-comic is also an essential aspect of the written Histories. Thus the equivocations of θεωρίη highlight one of the central difficulties of ‘reading’ Herodotus, both man and text. Solon first visits Egypt, as Herodotus had visited Egypt,22 perhaps before visiting Athens, and then Sardis/Athens. On arrival he becomes the guest of king Croesus. Thucydides, Herodotus, and Herodotus’ friend Sophocles regarded Pericles as a virtual king.23 In Athens Herodotus surely met Pericles, friend of sophists and intellectuals and a likely source of Herodotus’ Alcmaeonid bias.24 After showing Solon his treasury (we recall the greed of the sophists, Athens’ wealth and imperial treasury), Croesus speaks (1.30.2): ‘Athenian guest-stranger, great account (λόγος) has come to us concerning you both because of your wisdom and your wandering, how you have traversed much of the earth in your love of wisdom and θεωρίης εἵνεκεν. So now a desire has come upon me to ask you if you have now seen anyone whom you consider the most blessed of all.’ At this point the identification of Solon with Herodotus becomes (as Redfield notes)25 effectively explicit. Not only is a close connexion made between the 21 How–Wells (1928) I.1–4. 22 It does not matter whether Herodotus in fact visited Egypt (cf. Armayor [1978]), only that he so claimed. 23 Thuc. 2.65.9; Hornblower (1991) 346 on Hdt. 3.82.4; 6.131.2 (the lion-portent concerning Pericles’ birth); Knox (1954). 24 Plut. Per. 36.4; Kerferd (1981) 18f.; I do not imply that Herodotus admired Pericles. 25 Redfield (1985) 102.

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processes of wandering and of acquiring wisdom, thereby reinforcing the association between Solon and the wandering Herodotus, but the initial epic-style compliment and the association of wandering, acquiring wisdom, and seeing evoke the great Odysseus, with whom Herodotus had already associated himself in the ‘resumed preface’ at 1.5.3, directly after undertaking to identify the man ultimately responsible for Greek-barbarian conflict, Croesus. There the words ‘going through small and great cities of men alike’ echo Odyssey 1.3 and suggest analogies between Odysseus’ travels, Herodotus’ travels, and Herodotus’ work itself.26 The source of such analogies is the Homeric ‘path of song’ (Od. 8.74, 481; 22.347), which further strengthens the linkages between Odysseus and ⟦265⟧ Herodotus and between the poet/writer and his subject. The connexion between 1.30.2 and 1.5.3 creates yet more implications. Herodotus’ world-wide travels have uniquely qualified him to locate true blessedness and his work itself, like Solon’s words, represents a sort of moral odyssey.27 It is indeed a profoundly serious work: Croesus takes the process of θεωρίη seriously, and its association with ‘seeing’, both literal and metaphorical (cf. also 1.30.2 θεησάμενον εἶδες; 1.32.9 σκοπέειν), now brings out a further and final implication: ‘pilgrimage’. For all their humour (abundantly clear in the present episode), Herodotus’ Histories are ultimately serious. Further support for the identification of Solon with Herodotus comes in the subsequent debate between Solon and Croesus, in which both men switch from the word ὄλβιος to εὐδαιμονίη (1.32.1), the word used by Herodotus himself at 1.5.4, and Solon closes with the doctrine (1.32.9) ‘to many god shows prosperity and then upturns them by the roots’, a theological restatement of the political reversals of 1.5.3f.28 The interaction of Herodotus’ Solonian persona with his Odyssean persona announces a direct Homeric model for the whole episode: Odysseus and the Phaeacians. In both cases, a stranger-guest is ‘entertained in the palace’ (Od. 7.190 ξεῖνον ἐνὶ μεγάροις ξεινίσσομεν; Hdt. 1.30.1 ἐξεινίζετο ἐν τοῖσι βασιληίοισι); ‘observes everything’ (Od. 7.134 πάντα … θηήσατο, of Odysseus before Alcinous’ 26 Moles (1993) 96–7 {above, pp. 165–6}. Alan Griffiths (n. 1) stimulatingly suggests a rationale for Herodotus’ story of Arion (1.23–24.6): ‘in so far as he is a wandering wordsmith and a kind of shipwreck victim saved by divine intervention … he’s strongly reminiscent of both Odysseus and Herodotos himself, and could be seen as preparing the way for the wisdom figures who are to follow.’ 27 ⟦282⟧ Ancient moralising and quasi-allegorical interpretations of the Odyssey: Buffière (1956) 365–91; Stanford (1968) ch. 9; Rutherford (1986) 145f. This passage of Herodotus confirms their fifth-century availability. 28 For this divine attribute cf. e.g. Hes. Erg. 5–7 with West (1978) ad loc. For the text of 1.5.3f. see p. 267 below.

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palace; Hdt. 1.30.2 θεησάμεον … τὰ πάντα, of Solon in Croesus’ treasury); delivers an ‘inserted’ narrative with implicit advice and warnings for his host;29 and is finally ‘escorted’ or ‘sent off’ (Od. 7.151, 191, 193, 317, etc.; Hdt. 1.33.1). In both cases, his host or hosts claim pre-eminence in some area or areas (Od. 8.102f.; Hdt. 1.30.3), a claim progressively disproved in a series of ‘contests’ (Od. 8.100ff.; Hdt. 1.32.1 δευτερεῖα); and, on the stranger-guest’s departure, the hosts experience the ‘fulfilment’ (τέλος) of a divine vengeance delayed over generations (Od. 8.564–71; 13.125–87; Hdt. 1.13.1–2, 34.1, 91.1–6). This Homeric model has several interpretative consequences. (1) Further weight is given to the equation of Solon, Odysseus, and Herodotus, increasing the mythic and universalising quality of the encounter. (2) Croesus and Lydia acquire the morally negative associations of the Phaeacians, especially their ‘softness’.30 It may be objected that the aggressively imperialist Lydians cannot yet be ‘soft’: they only become so when conquered and Cyrus accepts ⟦266⟧ Croesus’ advice to ‘feminise’ them (1.155.4). But in the Histories any imperialist power is potentially ‘soft’, so that the implication of ‘softness’ has proleptic force, as in the ambiguous temporal implications of Cyrus’ warnings to the Persians against ‘softness’ at the end of the Histories (9.122).31 Here is yet another temporal dislocation. And any great culture invites the charge of ‘softness’, as Athens herself did (hence the implicit defence by Pericles in Thuc. 2.40.1). (3) Croesus and Lydia are further characterised as transitional, ‘in-between’ phenomena,32 and ‘in-between’ alike in time, space, culture, politics, and morality. (4) Since the Phaeacians focus questions of otherness, autarchy, and the relations between land and sea powers (cf. esp. Od. 6.201–5), we can be confident that the Solon–Croesus encounter is Herodotus’ own invention, as ancient chronographers alleged (Plut. Solon 27.1). A fortiori the same applies to the Bias/Pittacus story, which acts as a ‘feed’ for the larger encounter. Solon’s meditations on human mortality and the instability of human prosperity have particular appositeness for Croesus at this critical moment of his reign, but must include Athens. First, Solon’s teaching has universal application. ‘You must look to the end of every thing, to see how it will turn out’ is Solon’s famous conclusion, immediately echoed in the narrative by Herodotus 29 Most (1989). 30 The important discussion of Dickie (1983) establishes that: (a) the ancient interpretation of the Phaeacians was predominantly negative, centring on ‘softness’; (b) this interpretation is correct. 31 Pp. 262ff. On the ‘hard–soft’ theme in the Histories generally see e.g. Redfield (1985); Lateiner (1989) 49; Gould (1989) 59f. 32 A commonplace of modern interpretation of the Phaeacian episode: Rutherford (1986) 154.

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in propria persona (1.32.9): there can be no theoretical justification for excluding the Athenian empire from Solon/Herodotus’ critical gaze. Second, as Chiasson has shown,33 Solon’s speeches are a skilful amalgam of sentiments derived from Solon’s poetry and Herodotus’ own thoughts; Herodotus seems to engage in direct debate with the Athenians through the mouth of one of their most hallowed poets, thinkers, and statesmen. Third, Croesus himself facilitates allusion to Athens. Besides the objective parallels between Croesus and Athens, Croesus’ philhellenism and munificence towards Greek shrines were honoured in fifth-century Athens.34 ‘Croesus’ is found as a name in the Alcmaeonid family in the sixth and fifth centuries, whether or not because of their association with the Lydian dynasty.35 Thus the general associations of Croesus and his particular association with the Alcmaeonids support the ideas that Sardis evokes Athens and Sardis’ king evokes Pericles, contemporary ‘king’ of Athens and Alcmaeonid on his mother’s side. Moreover, in 6.125.2–5 Herodotus explains the origins of Alcmaeonid wealth. The wonderfully amusing picture of Alcmeon helping himself to gold in Croesus’ treasury contrasts, surely deliberately, with Solon’s incorruptibility in the ⟦267⟧ identical situation. An Athenian ancestor of Pericles who succumbs to eastern wealth and political values; an Athenian, representative of ‘old Athens’, who rejects them: again Athens is in the frame. Fourth, the man who comes first in the contest for blessedness is Tellus the Athenian, who appropriately features in the initial προτρεπτικὸς λόγος (1.31.1 ὡς δὲ τὰ κατὰ τὸν Τέλλον προετρέψατο ὁ Σόλων τὸν Κροῖσον) of the attempt by Solon the philosophical Athenian to alert Croesus to the precariousness of his prosperity. Moreover, Tellus’ name and death (τέλος) alike anticipate the propositions ‘call no man happy until he is dead’ and ‘look to the end of every thing’; they must also suggest the question: ‘what will be the end for Athenian imperialism?’, a question to which Herodotus’ credo in the related passage of 1.5.3f. allows only one answer. The Tellus example suggests the ultimate logic of Herodotus’ belief in the transience of human εὐδαιμονίη. Human beings are born, flourish (if they are virtuous, pious, and lucky), and die; the prosperity of states has a similar natural cycle. In the praefatio τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων (‘things “born” from human beings’), which include ἔργα μεγάλα, naturally die (ἐξίτηλα γένηται), but are ‘kept alive’ through the posthumous κλέος conferred by Herodotus’ Histories. ἐξίτηλος is frequently used in fertility contexts, and 33 Chiasson (1986). 34 Gould (1989) 148 n. 24 (cf. Hdt. 6.125.2–5). 35 IG i3 1240 (c.540–530, tombstone of an Alcmaeonid who fought at Pallene?); IG i3 1183 (c.430–425, casualty list); Davies (1971) 370f., 374.

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γένηται is used in paradoxical conjunction with γενόμενα, suggesting: ‘birth is but a preparation for death’.36 So in the story of Cleobis and Biton (1.31.1–5), while it is intensely paradoxical that Hera should give death as her greatest blessing to man, this very death accords with the programme of the praefatio: the logos of Cleobis and Biton lives on in Herodotus’ Histories. Cities are like human beings in that they are born, become μεγάλα, ‘flourish’ (1.29.1 Σάρδις ἀκμαζούσας), and decline (1.5.3f.).37 Thus in Herodotus we find the seeds of the kind of elaborate biological analogy for political and constitutional change that are so elaborately developed by later historians such as Polybius.38 In the present context, the biological analogy reinforces the absolute inevitability of states’ decline. Fifth, Solon’s denial of the possibility of complete self-sufficiency (αὐτάρκεια), whether of an individual or land (1.32.8f.), is echoed and capped in Pericles’ Funeral Speech in Thucydides: τὰ πάντα μέν νυν ταῦτα συλλαβεῖν ἄνθρωπον ἐόντα ἀδύνατόν ἐστι, ὥσπερ χώρη οὐδεμία καταρκέει πάντα ἑωυτῇ παρέχουσα, ἀλλὰ ἄλλο μὲν ἔχει, ἑτέρου δὲ ἐπιδέεται· ἣ δὲ ἂν τὰ πλεῖστα ἔχῃ, αὕτη ἀρίστη. ὣς δὲ καὶ ἀνθρώπου σῶμα ἓν οὐδὲν αὔταρκές ἐστι· τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἔχει, ⟦268⟧ ἄλλου δὲ ἐνδεές ἐστι· (Hdt. 1.32.8f.) It is impossible for a human being to have all these things together, just as no land is self-sufficient, providing everything for itself; rather it has one thing and lacks another. The land that has the most things is the best. So no single human body is self-sufficient, for it has one thing, but is lacking in another. τὰ δὲ πλείω αὐτῆς αὐτοὶ ἡμεῖς οἵδε οἱ νῦν ἔτι ὄντες μάλιστα ἐν τῇ καθεστηκυίᾳ ἡλικίᾳ ἐπηυξήσαμεν καὶ τὴν πόλιν τοῖς πᾶσι παρεσκευάσαμεν καὶ ἐς πόλεμον καὶ ἐς εἰρήνην αὐταρκεστάτην. (Thuc. 2.36.3) We ourselves here, those who are still alive, more or less in the established time of life, have augmented most parts of it and we have equipped the city in all respects to be most self-sufficient both for war and peace. 36 ἐξίτηλος: LSJ s.v.; cf., e.g., Pl. Crit. 121a; Hdt. 5.39.2 γένος τὸ Εὐρυσθένεος γενέσθαι ἐξίτηλον (the only other occurrence in Herodotus, which illustrates the same paradoxical use of γενέσθαι); Pelliccia (1992) 75: the word ‘recognizably belonged to the vocabulary of genealogy’; might a Greek also hear τέλος in ἐξίτηλος? 37 3.80.3 (on the dangers of monarchy) is similarly ‘biological’; for contemporary parallels see Hornblower (1991) 339 on Thuc. 2.64.3. 38 See, e.g., Hahm (1995), esp. 11 and 15.

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ξυνελών τε λέγω τήν τε πᾶσαν πόλιν τῆς Ἑλλάδος παίδευσιν εἶναι καὶ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον δοκεῖν ἄν μοι τὸν αὐτὸν ἄνδρα παρ᾽ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ πλεῖστ᾽ ἂν εἴδη καὶ μετὰ χαρίτων μάλιστ᾽ ἂν εὐτραπέλως τὸ σῶμα αὔταρκες παρέχεσθαι. (Thuc. 2.41.1) Summing up, I say both that the city as a whole is an education to Greece and that it seems to me that each individual man among us can make his person (‘body’) self-sufficient for very many types of life and with the most versatile grace. For Macleod, Pericles is claiming that Athenian self-sufficiency, both of state and individual citizen, transcends the limitations of Solon/Herodotus’ general archaic model: Pericles’ ideal citizen is ‘independent’ because he lives in the ‘most independent’ … city in Greece. That city gives him, and can afford to give him, personal liberty and security. Solon’s ideal was a man who has as much as possible and whose death is a fortunate one: Pericles praises a man who expresses himself in as many forms of action as possible and whose style of life is felicitous. Athens seemed to have created a man who was more than the fragile creature, tied to his human weaknesses or folly and his mortal destiny, that Solon and archaic Greek thought took as the type of humanity.39 This penetrating analysis misses a key element of the relationship between Thucydides and Herodotus: Pericles/Thucydides reads Solon/ Herodotus both as making a general statement and as alluding to Athens in particular. For the historical Pericles surely did boast of Athenian self-sufficiency. Not only does Thucydides’ theory of speeches (1.22.1) entail the inclusion of a proportion of ‘what truly was said’, but the well-known fact that many of Pericles’ claims in the Funeral Speech are undermined in the plague narrative40 ⟦269⟧ would lose much of its significance were those claims merely fictional. Moreover, other Athenian sources of the late fifth and early fourth centuries say similar, if less elevated, things, and, while they may have been influenced by Pericles, some of them cannot have been influenced by Thucydides.41 The Athenian claim

39 Macleod (1983) 151f. {emphases original}; cf. Loraux (1986) 153f. 40 Cf., e.g., Woodman (1988) 34f. 41 Cf. Loraux (1986) 86f.; Raaflaub (1987) 236 n.40.

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was a remarkable paradox, since Athens imported extensively.42 Moreover, in both Herodotus and Thucydides self-sufficiency takes a double form: selfsufficiency of state and individual. Since Pericles had made his remarkable double claim earlier than any conceivable publication date for the Histories, Solon/Herodotus’ denial of the possibility of the complete self-sufficiency of any country or persons must imply a denial of Athenian self-sufficiency in particular. Solon’s teachings give Croesus no pleasure: a pointed contrast to his ‘pleasure’ at Bias/Pittacus’ pithily expressed advice (1.27.5); having passed the first philosophical test, Croesus fails the second. He sends Solon away, convinced that he is ‘of no account’: the wording reverses Croesus’ initial greeting (‘great account has come to us’) and echoes Herodotus’ own comment on the failure of the Lydians in general to ‘take account’ of Delphi’s prophecy of vengeance for Candaules’ murder in the fifth generation after Gyges (1.13.2). Both Croesus within his life-time and the Lydians over the generations are unable to ‘look to the end’. Indeed, Croesus’ failure in his life-time stands for, and encapsulates, the Lydians’ failure over the generations. Again, a particular time-frame, that of Croesus’ life-time, covers another, much longer, time-frame. Upon Solon’s departure, a great nemesis from the gods overtakes Croesus, because of his mistaken belief that he is the most blessed of all men. Will the Athenians, at the height of their prosperity, also fail the test of listening to Herodotus and undergo a corresponding fall? At this point we may pause to register the tact and skill with which Herodotus has conveyed his warning to the Athenians. He emphasises that Solon did not flatter Croesus at all (1.30.3), but at the same time Solon addresses Croesus courteously and answers his question at first obliquely. Similarly, Herodotus’ warning to the Athenians is fundamentally parrhesiastic, but obliquely conveyed through the filter of a historical analogy and softened by compliments: he argues against the Athenians through the mouth of a great and revered Athenian, and he uses a heroic Athenian as one of the examples of blessedness. This interpretation is not undermined by Herodotus’ extravagant praise of the energising effect which the acquisition of democracy had upon Athens (5.78), or by his ⟦270⟧ insistence, unpopular as it is, that the Athenians saved Greece from Xerxes (7.139.1–5). One can well hold—one should hold—that internal democracy is 42

On the logic see Loraux (1986) 87: ‘Pericles integrates the prosperity of Athens into the theme, which is dominant in his speech, of the self-sufficiency of the city; thus the other is assimilated by Athens even in its produce.’ Alan Griffiths suggests that ‘the Polykrates story [3.39–46, 120–6] … is a re-run of the Kroisos template’; this is surely right, but beyond my scope.

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an excellent thing and incompatible with the suppression of other people’s liberty. And frankness towards everybody, Athenians and non-Athenians alike, lends moral authority to specific criticisms. Greek rhetoricians evolved elaborate theories of ‘figured speech’ as a device for conveying advice or criticism to powerful persons or peoples. These included the use of historical analogy and tactful and ingratiating compliment, and they were (arguably) put into practice by skilful poets and orators;43 but they had nothing to teach Herodotus. Herodotus’ use of ‘figured speech’ in this episode already suggests one reason for his resort to ‘signals’ rather than explicit statement: the requirements of tact. Just as Solon left Sardis, so Herodotus left Athens after his initial failure to convince the Athenians of their self-delusion, and went to Thurii. But unlike Solon he returned to the scene of his failure44 and redoubled his efforts to warn the Athenians, both in person (since, presumably, his oral performances continued) and in his monumental written work. Equally, Herodotus’ text continues on its ‘travels’ after the Solon–Croesus encounter. At the end of the Lydian logos Herodotus writes (1.95.1): ‘My account from this point seeks to explain who Cyrus was who brought down Croesus’ empire and in what way the Persians became leaders of Asia. I shall write in agreement with some of the Persians, those who do not wish to inflate Cyrus’ achievements but to tell the true story, though I know how to set forth three other ways of words.’ This suggests yet another implication of the linkage between 1.30.2 and 1.5.3f. 1.5.3f. maps out the entire ‘journey’ of the text; the first ‘stop’ will be with Croesus, ultimately the guilty man; the rest of the journey will stop at small and big cities alike, human prosperity being transient. The Solon–Croesus encounter then is that first stop, with Solon representing Herodotus himself both on his physical and on his literary travels; Solon–Herodotus’ teaching is essentially the same as that of 1.5.4, which is explicitly the moral underpinning of the entire work. The Solon–Croesus encounter, therefore, offers not merely one way of reading the entire text: it combines with 1.5.3f. to provide the fundamental interpretative guide. Athens is firmly established in that encounter as the main sub-text.

43 Cf., e.g., Ahl (1984a) and (1984b); Moles (1990). Note for the particular claim of parrhēsia conveyed through ‘allegory’ Dio 45.1; cf. 50.8, with Moles (1983) ⟦283⟧ 130–4, 133f. {vol. 1, pp. 63–72}. 44 How–Wells (1928) I.8f.

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⟦271⟧ 2

If it is natural to look for signals pointing towards contemporary events at the beginning of the Histories, it is also natural to look for them at the end. For not only are the beginning and end linked by complex ring structures,45 but the end comes close in time to the beginnings of the Athenian empire. It is true that the end has occasioned much scholarly debate without producing any firm consensus, but I believe that it supports my interpretation of the beginning. However, in the first instance, I shall try to analyse the end without prejudice. The last major battle of the war, a great Greek victory, is at Mycale, during which the Ionian Greeks change sides. ‘In this way Ionia revolted from Persia for the second time’ (9.105.1). The narrative seems to be returning to the status quo before the initial unjust subjugation of Ionia by Croesus. Herodotus’ customary listing after a battle of the bravest fighters lays greatest emphasis on an Athenian who died in the war between Athens and Carystus (9.105). Is this detail simply part of his biography, or does it suggest a discordant contrast between the panhellenic endeavours and the apparent restoration of Ionian freedom in the present context and Athens’ drive to subjugate fellow Greeks a few years later?46 For the moment, we have to reserve judgement. Formally, however, this reference provides an explicit prospective allusion. After the battle the Greeks debate the Ionians’ situation: the Peloponnesians propose their resettlement in Greece and the abandonment of Ionia to Persia; the Athenians do not wish Ionia to be depopulated or the Peloponnesians to make proposals concerning their own (Athenian) colonies. The Peloponnesians yield, and the Samians, Chians, Lesbians, and the other inhabitants of the eastern islands join the Greek alliance and swear oaths to remain in it and not to revolt (9.106.2), whereupon the Greeks sail for the Hellespont to destroy the Persian bridges. The status quo ante of Book 1 seems further confirmed, for the failure of the Peloponnesian proposal means the rejection of the alternative interpretation of the boundary between Greece/west and Asia/east: namely, that it lay to the west of Samos, Chios, and Lesbos. Yet mention of the Peloponnesian proposal reminds us that an alternative view of the boundary between east and west was possible.47 And did Herodotus need to say the Ionians swore not to revolt? Would the contemporary readership/audience think of subsequent occasions when they did so? This ⟦272⟧ question, too, must remain open. 45 Wolff (1964); Beck (1971); Boedeker (1988); Herington (1991); Pelling (1997); Dewald (1997). 46 Stadter (1992) 802; Pelling (1997) {60}. 47 On the boundary question see especially Stadter (1992) 785–95; 798–801.

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The focus now turns on the Persians. The narrative of Xerxes’ retreat closes with the story of his unrequited passion for the wife of Masistes, his brother; of his seduction of the wife of his son, Darius; of the horrible mutilation of Masistes’ wife; and of Masistes’ death after failure to raise a revolt (9.108.1–114.1). It is generally recognised that this story of palace sexual intrigue and murder balances the Candaules–Gyges story at the beginning of Book 1, that it serves to re-emphasise the barbarity of Xerxes’ tyrannical eastern mores, and that it anticipates his assassination fifteen years later.48 This, then, is the first implicit prospective allusion in the closing narrative. The moral clarity of this story contrasts with the absence of clear moral pointers in the surrounding narratives about the Greeks. The narrative reverts to the Greeks. On reaching the Hellespont they find the bridges already destroyed; the Peloponnesians return home but the Athenians under Xanthippus besiege Sestos, the greatest Persian stronghold in the area. For the second time in this narrative, the Peloponnesians and Athenians differ on fundamental matters of policy. Is this item recorded merely because it is true, or as part of Herodotus’ long-running analysis of differences between Peloponnesians and Athenians, or because he is anticipating the fragmentation of Peloponnesian and Athenian interests which occurred a few years later? Again, we have no firm criteria to make a decision, beyond noting that this narrative seems continually to raise such questions. After Sestos falls, its wicked and sacrilegious governor Artaÿctes is captured, along with his son (9.114.1–119.2). Herodotus then tells the story of a portent: the salt fish being cooked by a Greek guard begin to leap and gasp like fish newly caught. Artaÿctes tries unsuccessfully to interpret the portent in his own interest (9.120.1–4). Ceccarelli49 has pointed out that the portent must link with the story told by Cyrus to the Ionian Greeks in Book 1 (another ‘ring’ with the beginning of the Histories). When Cyrus defeated Croesus the Ionians requested from him the same terms as they had had under Croesus. He replied with the story of an aulos-player who saw some fish in the sea and played to them in the hope that they would come ashore; deceived in his hope, he took a net, netted a large catch, and hauled them out; seeing the fish leaping about, he said to them: ‘Stop dancing for me, since you refused to come out when I played the aulos’. The point of the story, Herodotus informs us, was that the Ionians had refused Cyrus’ request that they revolt from Croesus and ⟦273⟧ were only ready to obey him when he had won (1.141.1–4). The portent, therefore, must refer to the Ionians, and one obvious reading is that the Ionians, having ‘died’, 48 Wolff (1964); Lateiner (1989) 141f.; Pelling (1997); Dewald (1997). 49 Ceccarelli (1993).

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are now ‘alive’ again, because freed from the Persians. Still, granted the difference between newly-caught fish and salt fish, one may wonder just how free ‘newly caught’ fish are as they are being cooked, especially as in Cyrus’ story ‘leaping’ points not towards ‘life’ but towards ‘death’, and ‘gasping’ can denote gasping for breath before death, as it always does in Homer.50 Does the portent, then, hint not only at renewed life but also at political death under the Athenian empire? The narrative proceeds: the Greeks under Xanthippus the Athenian inflict the capital punishment of apotympanismos (‘binding to planks’)51 on Artaÿctes at the very spot where Protesilaus had died at the very beginning of warfare between West and East, and return home carrying both the spoils of war and the remains of the Persian bridges for dedication in their shrines. The narrative ends (9.120.4–121). Justice seems to have been done, divine vengeance exacted, the boundaries, alike geographical, political, and moral, between Greece and Asia decisively rectified. But there is an epilogue: a story concerning one of Artaÿctes’ ancestors named Artembares. This makes yet another ring structure: the genealogical relationship between Artaÿctes and Artembares recalls that between Croesus and Gyges. According to the story Artembares had made the Persians a proposal, which they had accepted and relayed to Cyrus, that the Persians should leave their barren land and occupy a better, as was natural for a people ruling over many nations and all Asia. But Cyrus had persuaded the Persians that this would make them subjects rather than rulers, since soft countries bred soft men. Thus the Persians chose to remain in their hard land rather than cultivate rich plains and become slaves (9.122.1–4). As many modern scholars have argued, this epilogue, so far from being a trivial and unsatisfactory end or even a sign of incompleteness, contrives a brilliant and fitting conclusion, although debate about ultimate interpretation continues.52 The epilogue recapitulates major themes of the Histories: the influence of environment upon national character, the positive values of liberty, modest homelands, and self-restraint; the association between ‘soft’ national character and subjugation to ‘hard’ imperialists; the danger ever-present to empires that their own expansion will soften them and cause their decline. The final words (‘be slaves to others’) emphasise the central struggle between liberty and empire. Further, Cyrus’ appearance at ⟦274⟧ the end of the Histories has been prepared by the fish omen (9.120.1–4), with its linkage to the story 50 LSJ s.v. ἀσπαίρω. 51 On this harsh punishment see Stadter (1989) 258f. 52 For good discussions see, e.g., Bischoff (1932) 78–83; Raaflaub (1987) 244f.; Lateiner (1989) 48–50; Pelling (1997); Dewald (1997), though see n. 65 below.

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of Book 1, creates yet further ring structures, and belongs to the pattern of the warner or wise adviser (9.122.3 παραίνεε). In so far as the epilogue bears on the Persians in general, the implications are complex. Since Cyrus wins the debate and Artembares is Artaÿctes’ ancestor, it must be implied: (a) that the old Persian ways as exemplified by Cyrus were superior to those of the Persians who invaded Greece, as exemplified by Artaÿctes and already, proleptically, by Artembares; (b) that this superiority has to do with the avoidance of imperial expansion and the consequent danger of ‘softening’; (c) that this danger, though on this occasion averted by Cyrus, was always present, once Persia had become an imperial power; (d) that it came still closer to realisation, once the Persians moved from their original lands. As regards (b) and the ‘softness’ of the Persians who invaded Greece, this implication is generally consistent with the portrayal of the Persians elsewhere in the Histories, but even the Persian invaders retain marks of ‘hardness’;53 implication (b), therefore, also has a certain prospective force, anticipating the further decline of the Persians entailed by Herodotus’ credo of 1.5.3f. This prospective allusion to Persian decline matches the earlier prospective allusion to the decline and fall of Xerxes, current Persian king. What relationship is there between this Cyrus and the Cyrus of Book 1, who persuades the Persians to revolt against the Medes by exposing them to successive days of toil and feasting, the latter representing life if they gain their freedom (1.125.1–126.6)? Are the two pictures simply inconsistent,54 reflecting an unresolvedness in Herodotus’ views about empire? Or does their consistency derive not from the consistency of Cyrus’ views but from his consistent ability to respond to the needs of the moment?55 Both these interpretations fail to account for the ambiguous nature of Cyrus’ own career: the epilogue reflects the historical truth that Cyrus did maintain the upland Pasargadai as his capital;56 but Cyrus’ own conquests, which included the flat and rich land of Babylonia, obviously paved the way for the ‘softening’ of Persian character under Darius and Xerxes.57 There is no inconsistency between Herodotus’ using the epilogue to contrast the ‘hard’ Cyrus with his ‘softer’ descendants and his using the story of Book 1 to suggest that Cyrus’ conquests ultimately triggered Persian decadence. Indeed, in the light both of the wider implications of 53 54 55 56 57

Pelling (1997). Gould (1989) 59. Pelling (1997). See Burn (1984) 61. Cf. the Herodotean sentiments of Olmstead (1948) 56: ‘the Persian monarchs escaped to winter in Babylon; that the luxury there enjoyed might prove insidious they never suspected.’

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58

So also (e.g.) Aly (1921); Schmid–Stählin (1934) 597; Glaser (1935) 12–20; Cobet (1971) 175f.; Pelling (1997).

Cyrus’ career and of the apparent contrast with the ⟦275⟧ story of Book 1, the epilogue acquires a sharp irony: the last warner of the Histories disregarded his own warnings. Since Cyrus’ observations, like Solon’s teachings in Book 1, are of universal application and resume general themes of the Histories, the epilogue must, logically, have implications for others besides Persians. Croesus re-enters the picture. The theme of the struggle between ruling and being ruled, of freedom and slavery, recalls the very beginning: the man who, in the historical period, began it all. The epilogue features a warner, like Solon in relation to Croesus. Cyrus fears the dangers of ‘softness’; Croesus and Lydia evoke the soft Phaeacians; Cyrus denies that the same land can produce remarkable fruit and fine soldiers; Solon denies the possibility of the completely self-sufficient land or individual. Allusion to Croesus entails allusion also to the Ionians, subjugated first by Croesus, then by the Persians. The Ionians strikingly exemplify the dangers of ‘softness’: their softness proved disastrous in the Ionian Revolt (6.11.2–17), and in the present narrative they have just revolted against Persia for the second time (9.105.1). Allusion to Croesus entails allusion also to the Athenians, because in the Solon–Croesus encounter Croesus reflected fifth-century Athens. Allusion to the Ionians is also likely to stimulate allusion to the Athenians, because the Athenians are Ionians (of a kind) and have just asserted that relationship. There is also the warning element in Cyrus’ observations. Although this pinpoints, retrospectively, the ultimate cause of Persian decline, as a practical warning to the Persians it is useless, since they do not receive it at the proper moment of the narrative. Indeed, as we have seen, the Cyrus of the narrative of Persian expansion gives precisely contrary advice. In short, the warning serves as another warning to the Athenians, who do need it: Cyrus’ warning, formally to the Persians, functions as an implicit warning to the new imperialists,58 whose ἀρχή is in the narrative just beginning and still flourishing, although under pressure, at the time that Herodotus was writing. Warnings point forwards: and the warning-element in Cyrus’ homily is reinforced by the implicit parallel with, and allusion to, Solon’s warning to Croesus. The injunction to ‘look to the end of every thing’ inevitably carries the narrative beyond its formal ending, especially since the narrative itself contains references, both explicit and implicit, to later events. It is true that in the case of Cyrus’ warning an Athenian audience has to work harder to see that it is the ‘real’, almost in effect the ‘internal’, audience than it does in the case of Solon’s warning.

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Nevertheless, ⟦276⟧ the parallels between the two warnings and the suggested parallels between the Athenians and other groups in Cyrus’ warning make that uncomfortable conclusion certain. An important consequence of this interpretation is to exclude late datings of the Histories; a warning after the fall of Athens, or even after the failure of the Sicilian expedition, would have been pointless, even tasteless. The two great warnings, Solon’s and Cyrus’, frame the entire narrative and complement each other in yet another ring structure. Moreover, at the end of the Histories we see the beginnings of the Athenian empire and, in a sense, its end; at the beginning of the Histories we see Athens both under pressure (the siege of Miletus) and at her ἀκμή (Croesus’ Sardis). These larger chronological dislocations are paralleled in the epilogue and in the earlier narrative of Mycale and its consequences, in both of which there is a strong sense of a narrative that zig-zags both forwards and backwards in time, advancing in a linear chronological manner, pin-pointing crucial moments of transition, looking back to the past and adumbrating the future. Against this shifting temporal background, the prospective allusions to the war between Athens and Carystus, to the fall of Xerxes and the general decline of Persian power, and the emphasis upon disagreement between Peloponnesians and Athenians and upon the energy with which the Athenians press upon the existing geographical boundaries are bound to generate reflections about what will happen next. Croesus, the Persians, the Athenians … plus ça change … The allusion to the war between Athens and Carystus shows that the function of prospective allusions is sometimes to suggest profound connexions between past and present. Hence a prospective allusion such as 6.9859 (‘in the reigns of Darius, son of Hystaspes, and Xerxes, son of Darius, and Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, three successive generations, Greece suffered more evils than in the twenty generations preceding Darius, some coming to it from the Persians, some from their own leaders, as they fought for ἀρχή’) cannot be dismissed as merely ad hoc: rather, in its moral weight, resonance, and expansiveness of temporal reference, it is as organic to the Histories as choral odes to Aeschylean tragedy. There is another way in which the end of the Histories elides the apparent distinction between the Greeks, particularly the Athenians, and the Persians.60 While the apotympanismos of Artaÿctes is, as it were, geometrically fitting, re-establishing the division between west and east, it is also a barbarous 59 Like 8.3.1f., 5.93.1f., and 7.139.1, an interpretative ‘test-case’: Gould (1989) 117; Stadter (1992) 788. 60 Pelling (1997).

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punishment, parallel to Xerxes’ ⟦277⟧ punishment of Masistes and his children, the more so in including the stoning of Artaÿctes’ son before his father’s eyes. The moral boundaries too—between Greek civilisation and Persian brutality—are beginning to dissolve. Indeed, the numerous ring structures linking the end of the Histories to the beginning create their own implications. On one level, they help to mark the end of the ‘cycle’ (κύκλος) begun in historical times by Croesus and, in some senses, even earlier, in mythical times. On another level, however, they contribute to the suggestions that the end is not the end: the end (for the time being) of the conflict between Greeks and Persians is the beginning of a new imperialist project. The structure of Herodotus’ Histories, a κύκλος created by ring structures, itself expresses both the κύκλος of human affairs so resonantly expounded by Croesus to Cyrus (1.207.2), and the fact that at the end of the Histories this κύκλος is once again rotating. The Persians’ good fortune is now turning for the worse, the Athenians’ for the better, but the wheel will always turn. Somewhere beyond the last pages of the Histories Nemesis awaits the Athenians, as she did Croesus. 3 I finish by considering possible theoretical objections to my interpretation of Herodotus and by summarising its implications. Is such a quasi-allegorising reading of Herodotus intrinsically implausible? No: it is immediately validated by the Solon-Herodotus linkage, and similar contemporary political allusion can be found in tragedy (especially the Oresteia). Is contemporary allusion incompatible with Herodotus’ main project of epic commemoration (praefatio)?61 No: they co-exist; epic commemoration can serve exemplary or deterrent functions (as in the use of the story of Meleager to admonish Achilles in Iliad 9),62 and the resumed preface (1.5.3f.) sketches universal patterns of rise and fall which transcend particular time-frames. Croesus is Croesus the Lydian, Periclean Athens, any aggressive imperialist: there is no problem. Is it trivialising to see allusion to the Athenian empire as central to the Histories? No, for three reasons. First, allusion to the Athenian empire does not exclude allusion to other contemporary empires, or quasi-empires.63 Second, the Athenian empire was the most important Greek 61 Gould (1989) 116–20. 62 Stadter (1992) 782 n. 2. 63 Thus Raaflaub (1987) 243 n. 56 and Stadter (1992) 809 n. 68 on the Spartans; 6.98 ⟦284⟧ (quoted on p. 265) is important.

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empire in Herodotus’ time and the most striking example of the phenomenon of empire. Third, in serious historiography the specific and the universal can, and must, co-exist. So far ⟦278⟧ from being incompatible, they reinforce each other.64 Does Herodotus approve or disapprove of the Athenian empire? He disapproves: if it is unjust for Croesus to subjugate the Ionians and impose tribute and if Croesus’ imperialism evokes Athenian imperialism, that imperialism is necessarily unjust. It is also brutal, because the end of the Histories makes an implicit analogy between Persian brutality and Athenian treatment of Artaÿctes and his son. Does Herodotus know that the Athenian empire will fall? Certainly: ‘knowing that human prosperity never remains in the same place’ (1.5.4). What sentiment could be less equivocal?65 In this connexion the significance of a final ring structure between the end and the beginning of the Histories has been overlooked. The end of the Histories achieves an ending which is at once a proper end (marking the final failure of the Persian invasion of Greece) and an ending which points forward to the new empire, that of the Athenians; nor of course would Herodotus have been surprised by subsequent movements from west to east and east to west, down to our own time and beyond, into an infinity of time. 1.5.3f. runs as follows: τὸν δὲ οἶδα αὐτὸς πρῶτον ὑπάρξαντα ἀδίκων ἔργων ἐς τοὺς Ἕλληνας, τοῦτον σημήνας προβήσομαι ἐς τὸ πρόσω τοῦ λόγου, ὁμοίως σμικρὰ καὶ μεγάλα ἄστεα ἀνθρώπων ἐπεξιών. (4) τὰ γὰρ τὸ πάλαι μεγάλα ἦν, τὰ πολλὰ αὐτῶν σμικρὰ γέγονε, τὰ δὲ ἐπ᾽ ἐμεῦ ἦν μεγάλα, πρότερον ἦν σμικρά. τὴν ἀνθρωπηίην ὦν ἐπιστάμενος εὐδαιμονίην οὐδαμὰ ἐν τὠυτῷ μένουσαν, ἐπιμνήσομαι ἀμφοτέρων ὁμοίως. The constituents of this enormously complex and self-reflexive passage are as follows: the writer; his audience/readership (implicitly addressed); his text; the writer at the present moment in the text, in the future in the text and the future both short-term (the Croesus narrative), medium and long-term; the writer’s ‘journey’ throughout the text (a ‘journey’ which will end at 9.122); the writer’s theme: small and great cities; cities great in the past, but now, most of them, small; cities previously small, but cities that ‘ἦν μεγάλα in my time’ (the writer not at the present moment in the text but as a person in his own time). The second ἦν is almost always66 translated as ‘are’. But it is an imperfect: Herodotus did not write ἐστι, as he would have done, had he meant to convey ‘are’; the 64 Moles (1993) 107–9 {above, pp. 174–6}. 65 Dewald’s (1997) ‘open-ended’ analysis of 9.122 founders on this point. 66 Exceptions are Antelami ap. Asheri (1988) 11 and Moles (1993) 95 {above, p. 164}.

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present tense would have made sense as parallel to the perfect γέγονε, but the sense would have been different. How can an imperfect be used with reference to ‘my time’? Only if the time frame is focalised by the future reader; this imperfect ⟦279⟧ is therefore analogous to the epistolary imperfect. Herodotus thus extends the time frame of his enquiries into the future, and the reference to cities ‘that were great in my time’ allows, indeed entails, that the cities great in Herodotus’ time will in the future be small. Hence the pointers to the future which are found at the end of the Histories, pointers which point in the first instance to the rise of Athenian imperial power, ring with the pointer to the future which is found in 1.5.4, a pointer which points ultimately to the collapse of the currently great cities, which include Athens (and Sparta, Corinth, and all the rest). Paradoxically, temporal and geographical dislocation signals sameness, rather than difference. The temporal dislocations whereby the encounter between Solon and Croesus stands for Herodotus’ moral reproof of imperialist Athens, and whereby the final narrative of the year 479/8 is crowned by a retrospective warning that looks back to the very beginnings of eastern imperialist expansion and yet also has ominous prospective force; the geographical dislocations whereby the west joins the east as Greek intellectuals flock to wealthy Sardis and whereby the Athenians push and push against existing geographical boundaries: these disturbing temporal and geographical dislocations emphasise the universal truth of Solon’s message. In the flux of history there is one great constant: the end for imperialists is always the same, the whole enterprise is wrong and doubly so. It is immoral and it will always fail. The end of history and the Histories is not the triumph of any particular power or ideology but the certainty that all powers will fall. Why, then, does Herodotus use signals rather than explicit statement? Partly, as we have seen, because a moral message is more persuasive if it is delivered tactfully and in good will (Herodotus rightly admired some aspects of fifth-century Athens). More fundamentally, because signals are things which his readers, contemporary and modern, must interpret for themselves, just as the great figures within the narrative repeatedly face interpretative challenges and choices. The need to create interpretative challenges for the readers explains why the moral implications of Persian behaviour at the end are relatively clear-cut, whereas the moral implications of Athenian behaviour require serious thought. Reading Herodotus’ History is itself a moral and political act, and imperialists, or those crazed by power in any context, will never learn its lessons. Such a perspective supplies an answer to the question of the function of contemporary allusion. The goal is of course cognitive and practical: ‘[Herodotus], ⟦280⟧ like Socles [5.92], says to his audience, “if you

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had experience of it, as we do, you would be able to offer better judgements than you do now”’,67 but for Herodotus (in some contrast to Thucydides) cognition involves the understanding, and correct application, of universal moral principles. Bibliography Ahl, F. M. (1984a) ‘The Art of Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome’, AJPh 105: 174–208. Ahl, F. M. (1984b) ‘The Rider and the Horse: Politics and Power in Roman Poetry from Horace to Statius’, ANRW II.32.1: 40–110. Aly, W. (1921) Volksmärchen, Sage und Novellen bei Herodot und seinen Zeitgenossen: eine Untersuchung über die volkstümlichen Elemente der altgriechischen Prosaerzählung (Göttingen); repr. 1969 with corrections and afterword by L. Huber. Armayor, O. K. (1978) ‘Did Herodotus Ever Go to Egypt?’, JARCE 15: 59–73. Asheri, D., ed. (1988) Erodoto: Le Storie I (Milan); revised English version in id., A. Lloyd, and A. Corcella, A Commentary on Herodotus Books I–IV (Oxford, 2007) 1–218. Beck, I. (1971) Die Ringkomposition bei Herodot und ihre Bedeutung für die Beweistechnik (Hildesheim). Bischoff, H. (1932) Der Warner bei Herodot (diss., Marburg); partially repr. in Marg (1982) 302–19, 681–7. Boedeker, D., ed. (1987) Herodotus and the Invention of History (Special Arethusa Issue 20). Boedeker, D. (1988) ‘Protesilaus and the End of Herodotus’ Histories’, ClAnt 7: 30–48; repr. in Munson (2013) I.359–78. Buffière, F. (1956) Les mythes d’Homère et la pensée grecque (Paris). Burn, A. R. (1984) Persia and the Greeks2, with a postscript by D. M. Lewis (London and Stanford; orig. ed., London, 1962). Ceccarelli, P. (1993) ‘La fable des poissons de Cyrus (Hdt. I, 141): son origine et sa function dans l’économie des Histoires d’Hérodote’, Mètis 8: 29–57. Chiasson, C. C. (1986) ‘The Herodotean Solon’, GRBS 27: 249–62. Cobet, J. (1971) Herodots Exkurse und die Frage der Einheit seines Werkes (Wiesbaden). Davies, J. K. (1971) Athenian Propertied Families 600–300 B.C. (Oxford). Denniston, J. D. (1954) The Greek Particles, 2nd ed. rev. by K. J. Dover (Oxford). Dewald, C. J. (1997) ‘Wanton Kings, Pickled Heroes, and Gnomic Founding Fathers: Strategies of Meaning at the End of Herodotus’ Histories’, in D. Roberts, D. Fowler, 67 Stadter (1992) 782; similarly Strasburger (1955) 7–14 and Raaflaub (1987) 232 (all, in my view, making Herodotus rather too much like Thucydides). {For more on Socles’ speech, see Moles (2007).}

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and F. Dunn, edd., Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (Princeton) 62–82; repr. in Munson (2013) I.379–401. Dickie, M. W. (1983) ‘Phaeacian Athletes’, PLLS 4: 237–76. Ferrill, A. (1978) ‘Herodotus on Tyranny’, Historia 27: 385–98. Fornara, C. W. (1971a) ‘Evidence for the Date of Herodotus’ Publication’, JHS 91: 25–34. Fornara, C. W. (1971b) Herodotus: an Interpretative Essay (Oxford). Fornara, C. W. (1981) ‘Herodotus’ Knowledge of the Archidamian War’, Hermes 109: 149–56. Glaser, K. (1935) ‘Das Schlusswort des Herodot’, Commentationes Vindobonenses 1: 12–20. Gould, J. (1989) Herodotus (London and New York). Griffith, M., ed. (1983) Aeschylus: Prometheus Bound (Cambridge). Guthrie, W. K. C. (1969) ‘The World of the Sophists’, in A History of Greek Philosophy III: The Fifth-Century Enlightenment (Cambridge) 3–319 = The Sophists (Cambridge, 1971). Hahm, D. E. (1995) ‘Polybius’ Applied Political Theory’, in A. Laks and M. Schofield, edd. Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy (Cambridge) 7–47. Herington, J. (1991) ‘The Closure of Herodotus’ Histories’, ICS 16: 149–60. Hornblower, S. (1991) A Commentary on Thucydides I (Oxford). How, W. W. and J. Wells (1928) A Commentary on Herodotus2, 2 vols. (Oxford). Kerferd, G. B. (1981) The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge). Knox, B. M. W. (1954) ‘Why is Oedipus Called Tyrannos?’, CJ 50: 97–102; repr. in id., Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient Theater (Baltimore and London, 1979) 87–95. Lateiner, D. (1989) The Historical Method of Herodotus (Toronto). Loraux, N. (1986) The Invention of Athens (Cambridge, Mass. and London); trans. by A. Sheridan of L’invention d’Athènes (Paris, 1981). Macleod, C. W. (1983) ‘Thucydides and Tragedy’, in id., Collected Essays (Oxford) 140–58. Marg, W., ed. (1982) Herodot: eine Auswahl aus der neueren Forschung3 (Darmstadt). Moles, J. L. (1983) ‘Dio Chrysostom: Exile, Tarsus, Nero and Domitian’, LCM 8: 130–4 [vol. 1, Ch. 2]. Moles, J. L. (1990) ‘The Kingship Orations of Dio Chrysostom’, PLLS 6: 297–375 [vol. 1, Ch. 5]. Moles, J. L. (1993) ‘Truth and Untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’, in C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman, edd., Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter and Austin) 88–121 [above, Ch. 49]. Moles, J. L. (2007) ‘“Saving” Greece from the “Ignominy” of Tyranny? The “Famous” and “Wonderful” Speech of Socles (5.92)’, in E. Irwin and E. Greenwood, edd., Reading Herodotus: A Study of the Logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus’ Histories (Cambridge) 245–68 [below, Ch. 57].

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Momigliano, A. D. (1978) ‘The Historians of the Classical World and their Audiences: Some Suggestions’, ASNP 8: 59–75; repr. in id., Sesto Contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico (Rome, 1980) 361–76. Most, G. W. (1989) ‘The Structure and Function of Odysseus’ Apologoi’, TAPhA 119: 15–30. Munson, R. V., ed. (2013) Herodotus, 2 vols. (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies; Oxford). Olmstead, A. T. (1948) A History of the Persian Empire (Chicago). Pelliccia, H. (1992) ‘Sappho 16, Gorgias’ Helen, and the Preface to Herodotus’ Histories’, YCS 29: 63–84. Pelling, C. B. R. (1997) ‘East is East and West is West—or are They? National Stereotypes in Herodotus’, Histos 1: 51–66; updated version in Munson (2013) II.360–79. Raaflaub, K. A. (1987) ‘Herodotus, Political Thought and the Meaning of History’, in Boedeker (1987) 221–48. Redfield, J. (1985) ‘Herodotus the Tourist’, CPh 80: 97–118; repr. in Munson (2013) II.267–91. de Romilly, J. (1977) The Rise and Fall of States according to Greek Authors (Ann Arbor). Rutherford, R. B. (1986) ‘The Philosophy of the Odyssey’, JHS 106: 145–62. Schmid, W. and O. Stählin (1934) Geschichte der griechischen Literatur I.2: Die griechische Literatur in der Zeit der attischen Hegemonie vor dem Eingreifen der Sophistik (Munich). Smart, J. D. (1988) ‘Herodotus’, in J. Cannon et al., edd., The Blackwell Dictionary of Historians (Oxford) 185–7. Stadter, P. A. (1989) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles (Chapel Hill and London). Stadter, P. A. (1992) ‘Herodotus and the Athenian Arche’, ASNP 22: 781–809; repr. in Munson (2013) I.334–56. Stanford, W. B. (1968) The Ulysses Theme: a Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero2 (Oxford and Ann Arbor). Strasburger, H. (1955) ‘Herodot und das perikleische Athen’, Historia 4: 1–25; repr. in id., Studien zur alten Geschichte II (Hildesheim and New York, 1982) 592–626; Eng. trans. in Munson (2013) I.295–320. Tuplin, C. J. (1985) ‘Imperial Tyranny: Some Reflections on a Classical Greek Political Metaphor’, in P. A. Cartledge and P. Harvey, edd., CRUX: Essays in Greek History Presented to G. E. M. de Ste. Croix on his 75th Birthday (Exeter) 348–75. West, M. L., ed. (1978) Hesiod: Works & Days (Oxford). Wolff, E. (1964) ‘Das Weib des Masistes’, Hermes 92: 51–8; repr. in Marg (1982) 668–80. Woodman, A. J. (1988) Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Portland, and Sydney).

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Cry Freedom: Tacitus, Annals 4.32–5 Plan* 1

2 3

4

The text of the digression (4.32–3) 1.1 Latin text 1.2 translation 1.3 parallel text Existing scholarship 2.1 Woodman and Martin’s analysis An alternative reading 3.1 Historiographical influences 3.1.1 Xenophon 3.1.2 Biography and encomium 3.1.3 Thucydides 3.1.3.1 The textual problem of 33.2 3.1.4 Herodotus 3.1.5 Polybius 3.1.6 Livy 3.1.7 Cicero 3.1.8 Virgil 3.1.9 Sallust A sequential reading of the digression 4.1 Digressions 4.2 Literary and political freedom and constraint 4.3 Who or what is restricting Tacitus’ freedom? 4.4 The political argument

4.4.1

The swerve in the argument 4.4.2 The emperors as unconstitutional tyrants 4.4.3 Gaps and figured speech 5 The narrative of Cordus’ trial and death (4.34–5) 5.1 The preliminaries to the trial 5.2 Cordus’ speech 5.2.1 Interpretative principles 5.2.2 Cordus’ arguments 5.2.3 Critical interactions with Tacitus’ own arguments and other inconsistencies 5.2.4 Interpretation of Cordus’ speech 5.3 Cordus’ death and legacy 5.4 Cordus and a pre-eminent?/ the pre-eminent? / duty of history?/annals? 6 Conclusion: libertarian responses to Caesarism 7 Appendix: objections to this paper.

* A first version of this paper was given at a seminar in the Department of Greek and Latin at Manchester University on April 22nd, 1998. I thank: those participants of the seminar who made useful comments; David Levene, Damien Nelis, and Tony Woodman for sharp criticisms of the oral script; Tony Woodman for exemplary endurance of further oral badgerings and kindness in making available the proofs of his forthcoming collection of Tacitean papers (Woodman [1998]); and Clemence Schultze for enriching conversation. My great debts to the writings of Ronald Martin and Tony Woodman and to Ellen O’Gorman’s recent Bristol thesis on Tacitus (which she has kindly allowed me to cite) are acknowledged in the main text. As will rapidly become apparent, the usual disclaimers concerning advisors’ innocence of responsibility apply with quite unusual force. These debts apart, the paper was substantially written before consultation of any other bibliography (it probably shows).

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_025

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The Text of the Digression

⟦96⟧ For readers’ convenience I print: (1.1) a Latin text; (1.2) a translation; and (1.3) a Loeb-style parallel text.

1.1 Latin Text1 (4.32.1) Pleraque eorum quae rettuli quaeque referam parua forsitan et leuia memoratu uideri non nescius sum; set nemo annales nostros cum scriptura eorum contenderit qui ueteres populi Romani res composuere. Ingentia illi bella, expugnationes urbium, fusos captosque reges aut, si quando ad interna praeuerterent, discordias consulum aduersum tribunos, agrarias frumentariasque leges, plebis et optimatium certamina libero egressu memorabant. (32.2) Nobis in arto et inglorius labor: immota quippe aut modice lacessita pax, maestae urbis res, et princeps proferendi imperi incuriosus erat. Non tamen sine usu fuerit introspicere illa primo aspectu leuia, ex quis magnarum saepe rerum motus oriuntur. (33.1) Nam cunctas nationes et urbes populus aut primores aut singuli regunt: delecta ex iis et conflata rei publicae forma laudari facilius quam euenire, uel si euenit, haud diuturna esse potest. (33.2) Igitur ut olim plebe ualida, uel cum patres pollerent, noscenda uulgi natura et quibus modis temperanter haberetur, senatusque et optimatium ingenia qui maxime perdidicerant, callidi temporum et sapientes credebantur, sic conuerso statu neque alia re Romana quam si unus imperitet, haec conquiri tradique in rem fuerit, quia pauci prudentia honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis, discernunt, plures aliorum euentis docentur. (33.3) Ceterum ut profutura, ita minimum oblectationis adferunt. Nam situs gentium, uarietates proeliorum, clari ducum exitus retinent ac redintegrant legentium animum: nos saeua iussa, continuas accusationes, fallaces amicitias, perniciem innocentium et easdem exitii causas coniungimus, obuia rerum similitudine et satietate. (33.4) Tum quod antiquis scriptoribus rarus obtrectator, neque refert cuiusquam Punicas Romanasne acies laetius extuleris: at multorum qui Tiberio regente poenam uel infamias subiere, posteri manent. Utque familiae ipsae iam extinctae sint, reperies qui ob similitudinem morum aliena malefacta sibi obiectari putent. Etiam gloria ac uirtus infensos habet, ut nimis ex propinquo diuersa arguens. Sed ad inceptum redeo.

1 Texts: Furneaux (1896); Fisher (1906); Jackson (1937); Wuilleumier (1974); Heubner (1983); Martin–Woodman (1989); Borzsák (1992).

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⟦97⟧ The text is generally unproblematic. The main problem concerns the phrase before quam si unus imperitet in 33.2; in 33.1 the currently popular conflata is (in my view) probably not right, though this is not of much interpretative consequence. On these textual points see §§1.3; 3.1.3.1; and note.2

1.2 Translation (4.32.1) I am not ignorant of the fact that many of the things which I have reported back and which I shall report perhaps seem small and slight in the commemoration, but let no one compare our annals with the writing of those who composed the old things of the Roman people. Those men commemorated with free digressiveness gigantic wars, stormings of cities, kings routed and captured, or, if they ever turned their prior attention to internal things, discords of consuls against tribunes, agrarian and corn laws, struggles between people and optimates. (32.2) But our labour is in a narrow area and it is inglorious: for there was unmoved or only moderately challenged peace, things in the city were gloomy, and the first man had no care for carrying forward the empire. Nevertheless, it will not have been without usefulness to look within those things at first sight slight, from which the movements of great events often arise. (33.1) For all nations and cities are ruled either by the people, or by leading men, or by single individuals: a form of state selected and conflated from these is easier to praise than to happen or if it does happen it cannot be long-lasting. (33.2) Therefore, just as when formerly the common people being strong or when the senatorial fathers had power, the thing to understand was the nature of the masses and the means by which they might be controlled temperately and those who had most thoroughly learned the inner talents of the senate and the optimates were credited to be shrewd assessors of their times 2 I discuss the main textual problem, that of 33.2, in the main text, in §3.1.3.1. As for the other textual problem, in the remarks about the ‘mixed’ constitution at 33.1, conflata (Kiessling, Harrison; accepted by Martin–Woodman and Borzsák) is an emendation of the meaningless MSS consciata, on the basis of Cic. Rep. 1.54 formam rei publicae maxime laudant; probo anteponoque singulis illud quod conflatum fuerit ex omnibus, a passage which Tacitus is certainly echoing (see §3.1.7 and n. 46); Ernesti’s consociata (accepted by Heubner and most earlier scholars) is a very small change to consciata. Martin–Woodman’s claim that ‘consociata gives an unacceptable meaning to that verb’ seems wrong: cf. the famous Agr. 3.1 Nerva Caesar res olim dissociabiles miscuerit, principatum ac libertatem, where note that miscuerit glosses μικτή. Might, therefore, 4.33.1 be Tacitus implicitly ‘taking back’ his endorsement (or apparent endorsement: on these questions see §7) of Nerva and Trajan in the Agricola after the ‘honeymoon’ of the first years was over? In that case, consociata would be highly pointed. The decision between conflata and consociata is in any case a nice one; on balance, I think consociata preferable.

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and wise, so the state of affairs having changed and the Roman thing being virtually no different than if ⟦98⟧ one man were to give the orders, it will have been ad rem that these things be collected together and handed down, because few men distinguish honourable things from worse things, useful things from noxious, by intelligence, but many learn from the things that happen to others. (33.3) But just as these things will be advantageous, so they bring a minimum of oblectation. For descriptions of races, vicissitudes of battles, and the glorious exits of generals hold and refresh the mind of readers: we by contrast conjoin savage orders, continual accusations, false friendships, the destruction of innocent people, and the same causes of their extirpation, an obvious obstacle by similarity and saturation of things. (33.4) Then the fact that to ancient writers the objector is rare, and it is of no import to anyone whether you exalt the Punic or the Roman battle-lines more joyfully: but of many who underwent punishment or disgrace when Tiberius was ruler there remain descendants. And granted that the families themselves are now extinguished, you will find those to whom similarity of character is an objection which makes them think that they are the subject when other people’s wrong-doings are recorded. Even glory and virtue have their enemies, as arraigning their opposites by excessive propinquity. But I return to my start. This translation, which is obviously not a thing of beauty, tries to reflect as much as possible of the Latin’s verbal patterning, above all by the use of consistent English equivalents. The logic of some of the renderings will become clear in subsequent discussion.3 The translation also seeks to avoid the prejudging of interpretative controversies, hence, for example, the rendering of nostros (4.32.1) as ‘our’ supposedly allows the word to be understood either as a true plural or as an authorial one (see n. 55).

3 For theoretical attempts to justify this kind of translation see Martindale (1984); Moles (1988) 16–17; Tony Woodman is currently completing a translation of the Annals {= Woodman (2004)} which will elevate these principles and their implementation to unprecedented heights of virtuosity. The present translations are my own and carry ‘literalist’ principles further than (even) I would normally do, in order to maximise the transference of meaning from Latin to English in an interpretative context.

276 ⟦99⟧ 1.3 Parallel Text (4.32.1) Pleraque eorum quae rettuli quaeque referam parua forsitan et leuia memoratu uideri non nescius sum; set nemo annales nostros cum scriptura eorum contenderit qui ueteres populi Romani res composuere. Ingentia illi bella, expugnationes urbium, fusos captosque reges aut, si quando ad interna praeuerterent, discordias consulum aduersum tribunos, agrarias frumentariasque leges, plebis et optimatium certamina libero egressu memorabant.

(32.2) Nobis in arto et inglorius labor: immota quippe aut modice lacessita pax, maestae urbis res, et princeps proferendi imperi incuriosus erat. Non tamen sine usu fuerit introspicere illa primo aspectu leuia, ex quis magnarum saepe rerum motus oriuntur.

(33.1) Nam cunctas nationes et urbes populus aut primores aut singuli regunt: delecta ex iis et conflata rei publicae forma laudari facilius quam euenire, uel si euenit, haud diuturna esse potest. (33.2) Igitur ut olim plebe ualida, uel cum patres pollerent, noscenda uulgi natura et quibus modis temperanter haberetur, senatusque et optimatium

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I am not ignorant of the fact that many of the things which I have reported back and which I shall report perhaps seem small and slight in the commemoration, but let no one compare our annals with the writing of those who composed the old things of the Roman people. Those men commemorated with free digressiveness gigantic wars, stormings of cities, kings routed and captured, or, if they ever turned their prior attention to internal things, discords of consuls against tribunes, agrarian and corn laws, struggles between people and optimates. But our labour is in a narrow area and it is inglorious: for there was unmoved or only moderately challenged peace, things in the city were gloomy and the first man had no care for carrying forward the empire. Nevertheless, it will not have been without usefulness to look within those things at first sight slight, from which the movements of great things often arise. For all nations and cities are ruled either by the people, or by leading men, or by single individuals: a form of state selected and conflated from these is easier to praise than to happen or if it does happen it cannot be long-lived. Therefore, just as when formerly the common people being strong or when the senatorial fathers had power, the thing to know was the

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ingenia qui maxime perdidicerant, callidi temporum et sapientes ⟦100⟧ credebantur, sic conuerso statu … [The inserted dots are for visual convenience: they do not represent anything in the text.]

nature of the masses and the means by which they might be controlled temperately, and ⟦100⟧ those who had most thoroughly learned the inner talents of the senate and the optimates were credited to be shrewd assessors of their times and wise, so the state of affairs having changed …

Textual problem: MSS: neque alia rerum Bringmann: neque alia rerum quam si unus imperitet,

MSS reading leaves alia ‘hanging’

Lipsius: neque alia re Romana, quam si unus imperitet, haec conquiri tradique in rem fuerit, quia pauci prudentia honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis, discernunt, plures aliorum euentis docentur.

(33.3) Ceterum ut profutura, ita minimum oblectationis adferunt. Nam situs gentium, uarietates proeliorum, clari ducum exitus retinent ac redintegrant legentium animum: nos saeua iussa, continuas accusationes, fallaces amicitias, perniciem innocentium et easdem exitii causas coniungimus, obuia rerum similitudine et satietate.

= and there being no other salvation for the state than if one man should give the orders, = and the Roman thing being virtually no different than if one man were to give the orders (subjunctive of formally unreal comparison), it will have been ad rem that these things be collected together and handed down, because few men distinguish honourable things from worse things, useful things from noxious, by intelligence, but many learn from the things that happen to others. But just as these things will be advantageous, so they bring a minimum of oblectation. For descriptions of races, vicissitudes of battles, and the glorious exits of generals hold and refresh the mind of readers: we by contrast conjoin savage orders, continual accusations, false friendships, the destruction of innocent people, and the same causes of their extirpation, an obvious obstacle by similarity and saturation of things.

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(33.4) Tum quod antiquis scriptoribus rarus obtrectator, neque refert cuiusquam Punicas Romanasne acies laetius extuleris: at multorum qui Tiberio regente poenam uel infamias subiere, posteri manent. Utque familiae ipsae iam extinctae sint, ⟦101⟧ reperies qui ob similitudinem morum aliena malefacta sibi obiectari putent. Etiam gloria ac uirtus infensos habet, ut nimis ex propinquo diuersa arguens. Sed ad inceptum redeo.

2

Then the fact that to ancient writers the objector is rare, and it is of no import to anyone whether you exalt the Punic or the Roman battle-lines more joyfully: but of many who underwent punishment or disgrace when Tiberius was ruler there remain ⟦101⟧ descendants. And granted that the families themselves are now extinguished, you will find those to whom similarity of character is an objection which makes them think that they are the subject when other people’s wrong-doings are recorded. Even glory and virtue have their enemies, as arraigning their opposites by excessive propinquity. But I return to my start.

Existing Scholarship

This famous and difficult passage has been endlessly quoted and much discussed. The best contributions have come in Tony Woodman’s seminal book, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography, and in the acclaimed joint commentary on Annals 4 by Tony Woodman and Ronald Martin, both of whom rank among the most distinguished living Taciteans (the commentary summarises the discussion contained in the book and makes additional points appropriate to the different context). T. J. Luce’s 1991 paper on Tacitus contains many suggestive remarks. Patrick Sinclair’s 1995 book on Tacitus has some interesting pages on the digression.4 Important new observations, both about the passage itself and (especially) about the parallel passages in Book 1, are to be found in a 1997 Bristol doctoral thesis on Tacitus’ Annals by Ellen O’Gorman, which naturally has not yet had time to make much impact upon Tacitean scholarship but of which I was fortunate enough to be external examiner in February of this year.5 There have been two perceptive studies of Cremutius Cordus’ speech 4 Woodman (1988) 160–96, esp. 180–90, substantially reprinted in Woodman (1998) 104–41; Martin–Woodman (1989) 169–84; Luce (1991) obiter; Sinclair (1995) 56–64. 5 O’Gorman (1997) 18–19, 64–5, 142–5 {cf. O’Gorman (2000) 99–100, 101–3, 145–6}.

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in chs. 34–5, respectively by W. Suerbaum and by H. Cancik-Lindemaier and H. Cancik. John Marincola’s magisterial 1997 book on ancient historiography makes some valuable comments on the whole sequence, though the book’s thematic organisation precludes systematic treatment.6 To the insights of these scholars and of course of many others as well this paper is heavily indebted, but, obviously, it claims that there is much more to be said, and the title of the paper already indicates the general line of argument. ⟦102⟧ That argument is by no means new in its broad thrust; but it will, I hope, be new in its understanding of the many different implications, and the sometimes radical character, of this freedom, and new also in the depth and detail of the demonstration. I shall begin by summarising (with some re-ordering and some slight inject­ ion of non-controversial matter from elsewhere) Woodman and Martin’s ana­ lysis of the digression. I shall then suggest some shortcomings or omissions in that analysis taken as a whole and proceed to offer my own interpretation, which will make use of certain of Ellen O’Gorman’s observations while offering a radically different general perspective from hers. 2.1 Woodman and Martin’s Analysis Annals 4 covers the years AD 23–8 in the reign of the emperor Tiberius. The Book begins the second part of Tacitus’ account of that reign, at the point when it changed for the worse under the influence of the powerful and sinister Sejanus. Within Book 4, chs. 32–3 are formally a digression, as the conventional ‘signing-off’ formula sed ad inceptum redeo (33.4) indicates. This digression, like most digressions, separates one section of narrative from another; in this case, both sections are narratives of treason trials (chs. 28–31; chs. 34–5). The digression also makes a chronological separation between the years 24 and 25. There must obviously be some relationship between the digression of Tacitus the historian, which includes a defence of his way of writing history at this point in the Annals, and his subsequent narrative in chs. 34–5 of the trial, defence, and suicide of the historian Cremutius Cordus in CE 25. (Cordus is charged with a new and unheard of charge, that of praising Brutus and describing Cassius as the last of the Romans, as in some sense Tacitus himself had done at Ann. 3.76.2;7 his condemnation is certain because the prosecutors are clients of Sejanus and because Tiberius receives his defence with ferocious expression;

6 Suerbaum (1971); Cancik-Lindemaier and Cancik (1986); Marincola (1997); cf. also Steidle (1965) 105–14. 7 Cf. also McCulloch (1991) 2932–3; Ann. 3.76.2 is quoted in §§4.4.3 and 5.2.3.

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he defends himself and his history in a formal speech, goes out of the senate, and starves himself to death.)8 Interpretation of the digression needs to take account alike of its contextualisation within Book 4, of its contextualisation within the Annals as a whole, and of its own paradoxical and challenging character. The latter is evinced in many ways. It is striking in itself that a passage which has much of the flavour of a historiographical ‘second preface’ (marking another stage of the historiographical project) should not occupy the beginning of a book and should take the form of a digression; formal justification for this procedure can be found in rhetorical theory, which recommended that when a ⟦103⟧ writer’s material was unattractive, he should use not a direct opening but the technique of insinuatio or ‘disguised opening’. The very placement of the digression, therefore, conveys the unattractiveness of Tacitus’ material. It is even more paradoxical that a digression should focus on unattractive material, since digressions were conventionally supposed to be entertaining. Tacitus’ stress on the apparent unattractiveness of his material itself contrasts (as he points out) with normal expectations that historiography should be about big things, should bring the historian glory, and should offer the reader excitement, variety and pleasure. The contrast is all the greater because his own earlier work, the Histories, had proclaimed such conventional historiographical aims (Hist. 1.2.1–3). It is true that the stress on the apparent unattractiveness of the material is something of a feint, for the subsequent Tiberius narrative will provide in metatextual form some of the very things (such as wars and sieges) whose absence from that narrative he here bemoans. Or to put it another way, the ‘internal–external’ and the Republican–imperial boundaries of 4.32.1 are not in the event maintained. All these challenges and paradoxes combine to emphasise the completely different kind of historiography which is appropriate for the second half of Tiberius’ reign. This analysis is dense, brilliant, illuminating, and true. Nevertheless, it is, I believe, open to serious criticism, both for its emphasis and for its omissions. As regards emphasis, the analysis seems excessively literary in a rather narrow sense of that elusive term. It is hard to resist the feeling that the analysis is essentially driven by Woodman’s general views on the nature of ancient historiography, which risks being seen as a sort of closed system, a literary game (particularly a generic game) played largely for its own sake and with largely aesthetic ends, with little reference to ‘things out there’. Hence, for example, the claim that ‘Tacitus could hardly have written the digression in Book 4 if he and his readers had not regarded historiography as primarily [my italics] a 8 I give the Latin and a translation of this sequence in the main text, in §5.

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literary activity’.9 It is true that Woodman and Martin do give this sophisticated ‘literary activity’ a purpose beyond itself, that of ‘[doing] justice to abnormal events’,10 but that is not where the emphasis of their analysis lies. So they write of 4.33.3: ‘this statement indicates a basic truth about the works of ancient historians: they were not written to be read as text-books or as source-material for a modern discipline called “history”: they were written to be enjoyed as works of literature in their own right, containing ⟦104⟧ the same kinds of compulsive topic which today we associate more readily with historical novels or war films’ [my italics].11 This general emphasis results in an undervaluing of the moral and political seriousness of Tacitus’ argument (see §4) and of its intense contemporary relevance, indeed of its intense relevance to any conceivable ‘now’. With this undervaluing goes a rather too simple construction of Tacitus’ immediate readership (see §§4.4 and 4.4.1). Perhaps more surprisingly, the general emphasis also results in insufficient attention being given to some literary aspects of the passage, such as its extreme structural and verbal complexity,12 its detailed 9

Woodman (1988) 185. Cf. Henderson (1990) 194 on the unviability of ‘scholastic attempts to appropriate Tacitus for an anodyne “Literature”’ and 196–7 n. 16 for a considered critique. 10 Woodman (1988) 186; cf. Martin–Woodman (1989) 169 ‘T. is now tracing on the domestic front a disintegration of the moral order which is comparable with that accompanying civil war’. 11 Martin–Woodman (1989) 1. 12 Woodman (1988) 181–4 provides a lucid structural analysis of the alphabetical type; Martin–Woodman (1989) 170 also makes useful observations. Nevertheless, the structure is more complex than either of these analyses suggests. A quasi-structuralist analysis might look something like this: Reader vs historian (implicit) Smallness vs bigness Seeming vs reality My Annals (marked by smallness of theme) vs Republican histories (marked by bigness of theme) Digressiveness vs orderly narratives Newness (implicit) vs oldness (Republican themes) Lack of freedom (implicit) vs free digressiveness Lack of glory vs glory (implicit) Lack of movement vs movement Usefulness vs pleasure (implicit) Potential mediation of all these polarities: seemingly small things often in reality generate movements of great things. The various possible political power structures (theory vs …): (a) people power (b) oligarchic power (c) monarchical power

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links (both verbal and conceptual) with the subsequent narrative, and its many historiographical allusions or intertexts. ⟦105⟧ These criticisms are not of course all self-evidently true; their justification must depend on the plausibility of an alternative reading which addresses these alleged shortcomings.

(d) the mixed constitution (admirable but effectively irrelevant) Our response to these power structures (practice) (a) knowing and controlling the people (b) learning the inner talents of the oligarchs (c) learning the character of the monarch (unexpressed) (d) since the state of affairs has changed and the Roman Republic effectively = a monarchy (e) history’s function is to teach by vicarious examples the ability to distinguish: honourable things vs worse things (one’s relations with others) Useful things vs noxious things (one’s self-preservation) Advantage (~ usefulness) vs delight (~ pleasure) Great usefulness vs small pleasure Entertaining themes (movement, variety, difference, glorious deaths) vs tedious, repetitive themes; involuntary deaths The journey of the historian and/vs the journey of the reader The various ‘obstacles’ on/to that journey: Lack of oblectatio Obviousness and similarity of historian’s themes The ‘objector’ Similarity of character (~ similarity of theme) Unimportance of allocating praise or blame in Republican history vs its inevitable potential for offence in Tiberian history: Tiberius’ victims ~ their descendants Infamy vs glory (implicit) Descendants vs extinction of families Similarity of character where no descent Glory vs infamy (moral) Horizontal propinquity vs vertical descent Similarity vs dissimilarity Digressions vs narrative. Most of this is obvious enough (and the analysis could no doubt be improved and refined); for more detail cf., e.g., below, n. 39 on the text as a journey and below, n. 25 on the ‘obstacles’ to/on that journey. Both the Woodman and the Martin–Woodman analyses miss a great deal of the passage’s quite prodigious verbal complexity; nor can the present paper hope to follow this through to any real depth; nevertheless, both the translation and the discussion should help to bring to light many verbal interrelationships unnoticed, or at least seemingly ignored, by previous discussions.

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An Alternative Reading

I shall begin by isolating in sequence the main historiographical influences upon the passage (very few of which seem to have been noted hitherto) and, where applicable, follow each one through as it were vertically. I shall then bring them all together in a sequential reading of the whole passage (§4). I hope that this method may enable each of the separate strands to be fully proved and may promote overall clarity, at the price, it is true, of a certain repetitiveness. Alternatively, for those who do not find each of the separate strands to be fully proved, the method may be regarded as advancing a series of separate and provisional hypotheses which are then revisited and checked to see if they combine to produce a convincing overall interpretation.13 3.1 ⟦106⟧ Historiographical Influences 3.1.1 Xenophon The first sentence alludes to a famous14 sequence in a work of ancient historiography disdained by many modern historians but rightly accounted great by ancient readers: Hellenica 2.3.23–56, Xenophon’s account of the trial and death of Theramenes as engineered by the tyrant Critias. In this account Critias accuses Theramenes before the Council of treason (2.3.23–34); Theramenes defends himself (2.3.35–49); the Council shows signs of favouring Theramenes; Critias removes Theramenes’ immunity by striking him off the list of 3,000; Theramenes leaps to the altar, fully aware that he will die but determined to make a ‘demonstration’ of the impiety and injustice of Critias and the other tyrants; Critias’ armed thugs seize hold of him. Then (2.3.56), they led the man away through the agora indicating in a very loud voice what he was suffering. One saying of his is preserved, the following: when Satyrus said that he would rue it, if he were not silent, Theramenes asked: 13

For the methodology cf. (mutatis mutandis) Plat. Tim. 61c–d: ‘we need at every step in our discourse to appeal to the existence of sense-perception, but we have so far discussed neither the coming to be of flesh, or of what pertains to flesh, nor the part of the soul that is mortal. It so happens, however, that we cannot give an adequate account of these matters without referring to perceptible properties, but neither can we give an account of the latter without referring to the former, and to treat them simultaneously is all but impossible. So we must start by assuming the one or the other, and later revisit what we have assumed’. I owe my knowledge of this important statement of method (acknowledging the inevitability of circularity but attempting to get round it) to Johansen (1998). 14 Cf. Cic. Tusc. 1.40.96 (an ancient citation missed by Tuplin (1993) 190). In view of §5.3, one has to wonder if cum iam praecordiis conceptam mortem contineret gave Tacitus the idea for Theramenes as the ‘progenitor’ of Cremutius Cordus.

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“and if I am silent, shall I not then rue it?” And when being compelled to die he had drunk the hemlock, they say that having jerked out the remnants he said; “let this be for the lovely Critias”. I am not ignorant of this, that these sayings are not worthy of account, but this I do judge admirable in the man, that when his death stood close at hand, neither his intelligence nor his playfulness [παιγνιῶδες] deserted his soul. Tacitus’ first words in the digression, ‘I am not ignorant of the fact that many of the things which I have reported back and which I shall report perhaps seem small and slight in the commemoration, but’, pick up Xenophon’s ‘I am not ignorant of this, that these sayings are not worthy of account, but’, with direct verbal parallels (non nescius sum ~ οὐκ ἀγνοῶ, leuia memoratu ~ οὐκ ἀξιόλογα). There are obvious thematic correspondences: both historians are writing formally apologetic digressions triggered by treason trial contexts which are symptomatic of civil strife; in both trials the accused is ⟦107⟧ innocent, speaks out, and meets an unjust death, and does so heroically. Both historians convey the same ambiguous attitude to the ‘bigness’ of conventional historiography, represented, implicitly, by Thucydides, a canon of ‘bigness’ which both simultaneously acknowledge and dispute. In so far as they dispute it, both imply two counter-claims: that the seemingly trivial can actually be important and that virtuous behaviour matters more than worldly success. In Xenophon, there is a strong Socratic colouring,15 and I shall try to show that this is relevant to Tacitus too. Further, both historians extend the judicial terminology of the surrounding narratives into the digressions: cf. Xenophon’s ‘I judge’ and Tacitus’ wording in 33.4. Both give this vocabulary a twist: Xenophon’s ‘I judge’ (κρίνω) puns on Kritias’ name,16 with the deft implication that Critias’ false judgement against Theramenes is overturned by Xenophon’s true judgement; similarly in Tacitus the use of arguens in 33.4 implies the ultimate victory of gloria and uirtus.17 15 Besides the manner of Theramenes’ death, Socratic are the ironic graveyard humour (cf. Pl. Apol. 27–8), the general ‘playfulness’, the combination of the serious and the playful (Xen. Mem 1.3.8; 4.1.1) and the ethical justification of play (Xen. Smp. 1.1.1 ‘it seems to me that not only are the serious acts of virtuous men worthy of commemoration but also those done in their times of play’). Tuplin’s comments on the passage ([1993] 37) are excessively grudging. 16 On name-plays in Tacitus and ancient historiography see Woodman–Martin (1996) 491–2; Harrison (1998) 37–9 with nn. 144–7; subsequent analysis will argue that the whole Cordus sequence is shot through with name-plays; there are of course, as here, significant thematic implications, but naming names is also vital to Tacitus’ entire historiographical enterprise: see §5.4 and n. 103. 17 Especially when a fuller reading of the passage reveals the pivotal position of 33.4 between 32.2 inglorius labor and 35.5 illis gloriam peperere.

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Beyond the false judgements of worldly courts lies the judgement of history. And texts are not just texts: they profoundly affect both Leben and Nachleben. Tacitus’ use of Xenophon here, then, seems to me certain.18 The implications of the allusion are obviously already rich and they are easily extendible ⟦108⟧ (for example, Theramenes’ speaking out even under Satyrus’ threats of immediate punishment could be understood as a metaphor for the whole question of whether you speak out or keep silent under tyranny; the fact that in Xenophon the material ‘not worthy of account’ takes the form of sayings anticipates both the charge against Cordus (4.34.1 laudato M. Bruto C. Cassium

18

Tony Woodman does not accept this, suggesting that: (a) the verbal and thematic parallels are unconvincing; (b) Theramenes is an implausible analogue for Cordus, because (b1) he was a very prominent politician whereas Cordus, although a senator, evidently was not; (b2) he was an ambiguous figure, guilty, in Xenophon’s opinion, of ‘orchestrating [a] miscarriage of justice’ (Rhodes [1996]). As to (a), if there were such seeming verbal and thematic parallels between any two other classical texts, scholars would regard the intertextual relationship as proved beyond doubt: I cannot see why Tacitus should be different (or worse). As to (b1), the difference of political importance does not affect the broad parallels between their fates or their shared Socratic heroism. As to (b2), this objection falls into David West’s ‘fallacy of unrestricted allusion’: though Xenophon’s general estimate of Theramenes is indeed ambivalent, he explicitly admires Theramenes’ behaviour at the end, invests that behaviour with philosophical resonances, and in so doing challenges Thucydidean canons, all of which provides Tacitus with rich material for allusion but does not entail that everything about Theramenes is relevant to the interpretation of the passage or the succeeding narrative. Intriguingly, Henderson (1990) 194 {= (1998) 298} characterises Thrasea Paetus’ libation to Iuppiter Liberator (16.35) as ‘a traditional “Theramenes”-style toast’ and interprets Iuppiter Liberator as a sardonic allusion to Nero, so called on his post-Pisonian coins (Huss [1978] 142 n. 100; Mattingly [1920] 38 already offered this interpretation). If the interpretation is right, it would have to apply to Seneca’s libation (15.64) as well (cf. Mattingly; pace Henderson). A toast to Nero would neatly correspond to Theramenes’ toast to Critias. This interpretation does not exclude other interpretations: the libation could have (and surely already does have) a range of meanings. For obvious reasons, I find the interpretation tempting: not only would it give a sharp additional point to the general Theramenes–Socrates–Cremutius–Seneca–Thrasea diadochê, but we would have further reason for admiring Tacitus’ architectural distribution of the Theramenes material. Griffin (1976) 371 n. 1, however, rejects the interpretation on the ground of the coins’ being issued after Seneca’s and Thrasea’s deaths (nor do the divine thanksgivings attested in Ann. 15.74 support Nero’s identification with Iuppiter Liberator). Some may find the coincidence with Nero’s coinage too great but the chronological argument has force, as has the lack of ‘feed’ material within Tacitus’ text. Nevertheless, the general Theramenes–Socrates–Cremutius–Seneca–Thrasea diadochê is sure, and one might argue for the retention of a certain Theramenean element in the behaviour of both Seneca and Thrasea because, unlike Socrates (Phaedo 117b), they actually make their libations.

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Romanorum ultimum dixisset and his defence speech;19 the fact that Critias is the power-figure in Xenophon provisionally casts Tiberius in a tyrannical role, a role he immediately assumes in the narrative when he appears truci uultu, 34.2;20 Critias’ striking Theramenes off the list prefigures Cordus’ damnatio memoriae; Tacitus also, as we shall see, later takes over and adapts the notion of Theramenes’ ‘playfulness’; Theramenes’ Socratically heroic death prefigures all the ‘Socratic’ suicides of the Annals [cf. also n. 18], etc.). In what follows I shall try to show that Xenophon’s influence goes very deep, that in fact Hellenica 2.3.56 functions as the textual archetype both for the digression and for the subsequent narrative. Although I am less concerned than are Woodman and Martin with the question of the digression’s subversion of generic expectations and with the ⟦109⟧ consequent ‘shock’ to the ancient reader, it is worth pointing out en passant that any reader, ancient or modern, who spots the Xenophontic allusion (and indeed several of the other allusions discussed below) is likely to find the development of Tacitus’ argument rather less ‘shocking’ than Woodman and Martin claim it to be, though it certainly remains challenging, and challenging on several different levels. One of the many reasons why the Hellenica was so influential within ancient historiography is its great generic diversity: part-Thucydidean, partHerodotean, partly events-driven history, partly individual-centred history, sometimes closely linked to the prose encomium, of which Xenophon was a pioneer, sometimes closely linked to political biography, of which Xenophon was also a pioneer.21 3.1.2 Biography and Encomium In view of the Hellenica’s pluralist generic character, then, it is no great surprise that Tacitus’ wording in the first sentence echoes not only Hellenica 2.3.56 but also related contrasts between biography’s and encomium’s ‘little things’ and historiography’s ‘big things’. Thus, for example, Plutarch’s famous claim concerning the difference between biography and historiography: Alex. 1.2: ‘It is not histories that I am writing but lives, nor is there always a manifestation of 19

This anticipation is strengthened by the fact that the wording of 4.32.1 also invokes biography’s criterion of ‘little things’, a criterion which often includes sayings; see §3.1.2 and n. 22. 20 Martin–Woodman (1989) 178: ‘The ideal ruler was supposed to look with benevolence on his people but T. regards Tib.’s as the uultus instantis tyranni’. 21 I hope that this characterisation of the Hellenica is sufficiently plausible, though it is not so easy to parallel in current Xenophontic scholarship. For an overview of the problem (a shade negative for my taste) see Tuplin (1993) 11–41.

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virtue or vice in the most conspicuous achievements; rather, a small thing—a remark, a jest—often makes a greater revelation of character than battles with thousands of dead, or the greatest battle-lines or sieges of cities’.22 Again, there are useful general implications: greater emphasis on the individual, on questions of morality, on exemplary or paradigmatic figures, whether good or bad, on the historian’s right and duty to concern himself with moral judgement. 3.1.3 Thucydides Since both Xenophon and, by extension, Tacitus are engaging with Thucydidean historiography, we should expect direct Thucydidean traces. These are indeed everywhere in the digression: the obvious ones are the gigantic wars;23 the central contrast between ‘usefulness’ and ‘pleasure’; the ambiguous ⟦110⟧ attitude towards the criterion of historiographical ‘pleasure’, on one level decried, on another assuaged; the contrasts between mere sight and insight and between seeming and the real truth; the interest in causality; the concern with change or lack of change. Once these are seen, we can discern other Thucydidean trademarks: the interest in power relationships and, concomitant with the contrasts between seeming and truth, the concern with language and its distortion. There are some clear verbal echoes of Thucydides. Tacitus’ very conception of the function of history in 33.2 echoes and reworks Thucydides’. Thucydides’ aim is to teach his readers practical political wisdom and his famous characterisation of the untaught Themistocles offers a paradoxical paradigm of his political ideal. Tacitus has the same emphasis on judging and discrimination, on the rarity of autonomous, unmediated, native intelligence, on the need for the majority to learn from paradigmatic examples as set out in the pages of history (of course the particular history of this author).24 22 Cf. also Nep. praef.; Pelop. 1.1; etc., with Moles (1989) 231–2 {above, pp. 50–3}; for a similar formulation within encomium cf. Pol. 10.21.5–8 (Polybius’ Encomium of Philopoemen [see below, n. 41]). 23 Ingentia seems slightly sardonic, hence anticipatory of the main argument, namely that Tacitus’ material is by no means as trivial and unimportant as it at first sight appears to be. 24 Gigantic wars: ‘great war’/‘greatest upheaval/convulsion/change’ (κίνησις): Thuc. 1.1.1–3, 21.2, 23.1; usefulness vs pleasure: Thuc. 1.22.4; ambiguous attitude towards historiographical ‘pleasure’: Thuc. 1.22.4 (with, e.g., Woodman [1988] 28–32); sight vs insight: Thuc. 1.22.2–4; causality: Thuc. 1.23.5–6; change: Thuc. 1.1.2 (κίνησις); 3.82.1 (στάσις as κίνησις); seeming vs real truth: Thuc. 1.22.4: ‘and perhaps the lack of the muthos element will appear rather unpleasing to an audience’ (~ Tac.’s ‘perhaps seem’); 23.6: ‘the truest cause least apparent’; language and its distortion: Thuc. 1.23.5–6; 3.82.4 (in connexion with στάσις [huge bibliography]); on distortion of language and στάσις in Tacitus cf., e.g., Keitel (1984); Martin–Woodman (1989) 148 and O’Gorman (1997) 18, 64–5 (quoted in the main text); practical political wisdom: controversial, but see Moles (2001); Thucydides’ characterisation

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It will be noted that Tacitus deploys some of his Thucydidean allusions to teasing effect. For example, the first sentence of the digression reflects both Xenophon’s ‘rejection’ of Thucydidean canons (as we have seen) and Thucydides’ ⟦111⟧ own distinction between what ‘perhaps seems’ and what ‘truly is’. And whereas Thucydides applies the category of what ‘perhaps seems’ to the alleged lack of the mythical element and its associated pleasure and contrasts this with his main historiographical purpose, Tacitus applies that category to ‘small and slight things’ which actually often eventuate in ‘great’, Thucydidean, ‘movements’. Similarly, whereas Thucydides associates trivial things (as he regards them) with pleasure, Tacitus ostensibly associates pleasure with ‘great things’. One may admire the literary ingenuity at work here; on the other hand, it is very obvious that these redeployments of Thucydidean motifs help to underpin various elements of Tacitus’ argument in ways that essentially ‘correct’ Thucydides. Thucydides’ concern with linguistic distortion, especially under abnormal political circumstances like stasis, is instantiated in Tacitus’ own kaleidoscopically shifting language, e.g., the switch from the correlative ut sic to the adversative ut ita, the near sound identity of oblectatio and obtrectatio to denote polar opposites, and the sustained play with different senses and meanings of the syllable ob.25 Such plays are not mere play: as in of the untaught Themistocles: 1.138.3: ‘Themistocles most clearly revealed the strength of natural ability and was particularly worthy to be admired in this respect, more than any other man: for by his native intelligence and neither having learned anything in advance towards it nor having learned afterwards, he was both the best knower of things present by means of the least deliberation, and the best conjecturer of the things that were going to happen, to the greatest extent of what would be; and the things which he took in hand he was able to expound and the things of which he had no experience he did not fall short of judging competently; and the better or worse course in what was yet obscure he foresaw the most. To sum up, by power of natural ability and by brevity of study this was the best man at improvising what was necessary’ (with obvious and important parallels both with Thucydides’ ideal in 1.22 and Tac.’s project in 4.33.2). I suspect also 33.2 conquiri of Thucydidean colouring: -quiri ~ Thucydidean ζήτησις; con- ~ Thucydidean ξυγγράφω. On 32.2 illa primo aspectu leuia, ex quis magnarum saepe rerum motus oriuntur see further below, n. 38. I emphasise ‘of course the particular history of this author’ because ancient historians are less concerned with the value of history in general than with the especial value of their history, and the distinction is important: see §6. 25 33.3 ‘oblectationis adferunt. Nam situs gentium, uarietates proeliorum, clari ducum exitus retinent ac redintegrant legentium animum: nos saeua iussa, continuas accusationes, fallaces amicitias, perniciem innocentium et easdem exitii causas coniungimus, obuia rerum similitudine et satietate. 33.4 Tum quod antiquis scriptoribus rarus obtrectator, neque refert cuiusquam Punicas Romanasne acies laetius extuleris: at multorum qui Tiberio regente poenam uel infamias subiere, posteri manent. Utque familiae ipsae

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Thucydides, their ludic paradoxicalness itself forces us to probe similarities/ dissimilarities/appearances/reality/gaps, in a quest for truth sensitised by our constant awareness of the difficulty of attaining it. This complex educative process sets us on the road towards Tacitus’ historiographical goal of distinguishing honourable things from worse things, useful things from noxious. The Thucydidean strand in the texture underpins a crucial element of the political analysis. In 33.1 Tacitus distinguishes between rule by the people (democracy), by leading men (oligarchy), by individuals (monarchy). He then discusses the consequences of these distinctions for the kind of history one should write at a particular time; history, no doubt, has timeless didactic value, but what people may most usefully learn at a particular period varies according to the political system current. I shall return to this double aspect in §6. After the enumeration of the different types of constitution, the phrase conuerso statu in 33.2 must describe the great political ‘change’ to monarchy under Augustus and his successors. Furthermore, the phrase clearly echoes ⟦112⟧ 1.4.1 uerso ciuitatis statu, of Augustus’ rule as opposed to the res publica (1.3.7), a phrase which in context must connote ‘the republic’.26 This is one of iam extinctae sint, reperies qui ob similitudinem morum aliena malefacta sibi obiectari putent. Etiam gloria ac uirtus infensos habet, ut nimis ex propinquo diuersa arguens. Sed ad inceptum redeo.’ For the text as a journey see below, n. 39. 26 Both the sentiment itself (‘how many were left who had seen the res publica?’), its immediate contextualisation (the contrast with the rule of Augustus, itself described as a ‘change’), and its broader contextualisation within the whole account of the changes in Roman history between libertas and kingship (1.1.1–3.7) assure rem publicam the meaning (in context) of ‘the Republic’: so, e.g., Furneaux (1896) 184; Goodyear (1972) 118; Brunt (1988) 299 n. 42; O’Gorman (1995) 104–8; this is an available meaning of res publica in Tacitus: Furneaux and Brunt, locc. citt. (Ann. 4.19.3 is an especially clear example); Lacey (1996) 2 offers: ‘public business in public hands’, a rendering not incompatible with the notion of ‘the Republic’ as I understand it (below) but adopted by Lacey precisely to avoid that term. Lacey (1996) 15 claims himself as one of a growing number of scholars for whom ‘the Republic is a modern idea with modern baggage, much of it imported from the French and American revolutions against monarchies’. Now it is true that much recent scholarship has rightly stressed the ambiguity and fluidity of the term res publica and the scope it afforded for quite different sorts of ‘party-political’ interpretations and appropriations: cf., e.g., Morgan (1997) 27 and n. 30. Nevertheless, all that is required for my argument here and elsewhere is that: (a) res publica can sometimes be contrasted with monarchy or equivalent terms in such a way as to contrast a monarchical state (or ambition) with a pluralist one (in which application ‘Republic’ is not at all ‘a modern idea with modern baggage’); (b) this contrast is sometimes regarded as constituting the essential difference between all Roman history after the expulsion of the Tarquins down to Augustus (with some grey areas) and the system implemented by Augustus and his successors; (c) Tacitus (like Seneca and

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a cluster of echoes linking 4.32–3 to the opening chapters of Book 1,27 where Tacitus ⟦113⟧ had summarised the main features of Augustus’ rule before embarking on his narrative proper, from the accession of Tiberius. Ellen O’Gorman has made some very stimulating and penetrating observations about 1.4. After discussing Thucydides 3.82.3–4 (on the perversion of language under conditions of stasis), she writes: Thucydides is, of course, a very Tacitean historian in general terms, and the stasis episode in particular has important resonances for the whole of Tacitus’ Annals, hence the extent of my attention to this passage. Syme cites it as ‘highly relevant to the phraseology of the revolutionary age’; Tacitus’ narrative of the Julio-Claudian emperors begins by setting up this era as not Republican—quotus quisque reliquus, qui rem publicam uidisset? (1.3.7) What instead characterises this period is a Latinised stasis, a perverse combination of unchanging, static and inverted, revolutionised elements. The Greek stasis embodies this contrast (and is therefore an intrinsically ironic term); Tacitus in effect translates it when he follows quotus quisque with igitur uerso ciuitatis statu nihil usquam prisci et integri moris. (1.4.1) Indeed, the term uersus status could be read as ‘translated stasis’, under the sense of uertere as ‘to translate’ (OLD 24a). As with stasis, under uersus status the accustomed evaluations of words change, Lucan) conceptualises Roman history and the Roman political system in terms of (a) and (b). These three propositions seem to me (and evidently also to Henderson [1990] and O’Gorman [1995] and [1997]) demonstrably true (cf. also below, n. 61): they are not in the least undermined by the undoubted facts that res publica can be used in many other ways and that Tacitus himself does not restrict his usage of res publica to ‘the republic’ (though these facts are often, and quite illogically, adduced as ‘refutations’ of propositions (a)–(c)). It is not required for my argument that (a) and (b) should embody a correct description of political or constitutional realities (though I do as a matter of fact think that, with due qualifications, they do in fact do so [cf. below, n. 125]). Cf. also below, n. 31. 27 Thus: 4.32.1 qui ueteres populi Romani res composuere ~ 1.1.2 ueteris populi Romani prospera uel aduersa claris scriptoribus memorata sunt; 32.2 immota quippe aut modice lacessita pax, maestae urbis res, et princeps proferendi imperi incuriosus erat ~ 1.3.6–7 bellum ea tempestate nullum nisi aduersus Germanos supererat, abolendae magis infamiae ob amissum cum Quinctilio Varo exercitum quam cupidine proferendi imperii aut dignum ob praemium. Domi res tranquillae, …; 33.2 conuerso statu neque alia re Romana quam si unus imperitet ~ 1.9.4 non aliud discordantis patriae remedium fuisse quam ut ab uno regeretur ~ 1.6.3 eam condicionem esse imperandi, ut non aliter ratio constet quam si uni reddatur ~ 1.16.1 hic rerum urbanarum status erat, cum Pannonicas legiones seditio incessit, nullis nouis causis, nisi quod mutatus princeps licentiam turbarum et ex ciuili bello praemiorum ostendebat ~ 1.4.1 uerso ciuitatis statu. All these echoings are discussed in the main text. There are also echoings of Book 1 in Cordus’ speech in the matter of the application of the maiestas law: see §5.2.

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and the tortuous, obscure, difficult narrative both draws attention to and enacts the strain upon meaning. As I have already argued, understanding the text may be missing the point (or fatally getting the point). And in a footnote she smartly adds: ‘arguably uersus status is translated into English as “The Roman Revolution”’.28 From a formal point of view, this analysis may be regarded as insufficiently grounded (one needs to show that Thucydides is ‘in play’ in 1.4.1; which indeed could be done easily enough). But it receives strong support from 1.16.1 hic rerum urbanarum status erat, cum Pannonicas legiones seditio incessit, nullis nouis causis, nisi quod mutatus princeps licentiam turbarum et ex ciuili bello spem praemiorum ostendebat. O’Gorman’s comments are again highly stimulating (I excerpt): ‘The causes of both mutinies are linked to the transition of power from Augustus to Tiberius—mutatus princeps …’ Augustus (seems to be ⟦114⟧ set up) as a moderating influence, as limit embodied, … (but) [t]his limit is blurred … by the accompanying statement that the causes of the mutiny are not new, except for mutatus princeps, since this is the first transition of power of this sort … the summarising status of 1.16.1 is coloured by the uersus status that is Augustan and post-Augustan Rome, a state that is not only displaced but translated … from Thucydidean stasis or sedition.29

Or to put it in simpler terms, the vaunted Augustan status inevitably involves stasis, because (a) it was inaugurated by stasis, and (b) the succession principle which is part and parcel of the Augustan system entails ‘change’ and further stasis. These analyses of 1.4.1 and 1.16.1 point forward to an important layer of meaning in 4.33.2, a layer of meaning which is there thoroughly grounded in a 28 O’Gorman (1997) 18 {cf. O’Gorman (2000) 20}; similar points are sharply adumbrated in Galinsky’s analysis of Tacitus’ opening chapters ([1996] 78 [cf. 9]): ‘instead of being, in his own words, auctor optimi status (Suet., Aug. 28.2), Augustus perverted it (uerso ciuitatis statu, 4.1) … opportunistic nobles disclaimed the old ways and preferred the security of the present, “increased as they were” (2.1: aucti, from the verb etymologically related to Augustus and auctor) by the new “state of affairs” (nouis rebus); the phrase res nouae in Latin is almost always pejorative and usually means something like “overthrow”’ (cf. also Ducos [1991] 3189–90); contra, Galinsky ([!]1996) 9 (!): ‘the only writer who speaks of a “revolution” in the Augustan context is Dionysius’. The seminal insights into these matters (without the verbal detail) are provided by Keitel (1984). 29 O’Gorman (1997) 64–5.

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Thucydidean environment (whose presence we have just proved in detail) and which itself reflects back on the two earlier passages. In 4.33.2 conuerso statu the ‘change’ is by no means a neutral change: con­ uerso links back to motus (32.2): both terms gloss Thucydidean κίνησις: war, revolution. Conuerto itself can be a very violent term.30 And, as Woodman–Martin note {[1989] 173}, ‘status, used by republican writers to describe the political state of affairs, had subsequently been exploited by Augustus to suggest the continuity of his regime with the republic. … T.’s reference to “change” is thus pointed’; further, in context the collocation conuerso statu directly glosses the stasis of Thucydides’ famous analysis of 3.82. The implications are powerfully subversive. The republican term status was appropriated by Augustus to disguise the fact that his rule marked a radical constitutional change; Tacitus alludes to Augustus’ celebrated but fraudulent claim to have restored the Republic after the civil wars.31 Augustus’ ⟦115⟧ abuse 30 OLD 2a. Mellor (1993) 88 translates conuerso statu as ‘now, after a revolution’. 31 Cf. Koestermann (1965) 115: ‘Tacitus leuchtet auch hier hinter die scheinkonstitutionelle Fassade des Prinzipates, hinter der sich die reine Monarchie verberge’. Of course modern scholars divide over the question of whether Augustus should be understood as making a claim to have ‘restored the Republic’ (cf. RG 34.1; Ehrenberg–Jones [1976] 45; Ov. Fast 1.589; Vell. 2.89.3–4, etc.): for: (e.g.) Brunt–Moore (1967) 9; Ducos (1991) 3186; against: e.g., Millar (1973); Judge (1974); cf. also above, n. 26. The debate seems to have withered somewhat in recent years (it is effectively, and regrettably, ignored in CAH2 X [1996]), though cf. Galinsky [1996] 64–5 (with useful bibliography). All that is strictly required for my argument in the text is that some ancient authors should have interpreted, or represented, Augustus as claiming to have restored the Republic, and it seems to me patent that some did (Ovid, Velleius, Valerius Maximus; cf. Brunt–Moore [1967] 9; Ste. Croix [1981] 621 n. 1; Moles [1984] 244; cf. also Suet. Aug. 28.1 with, e.g., Wallace-Hadrill [1983] 111 rather than Carter [1982] 127). Of course, the argument acquires greater force, and Tacitus’ analysis greater intellectual and moral power, if Velleius et al. are thought to be reflecting official ideology (if not, what are they doing?) and/or correctly interpreting RG 34.1, and if, thus evidenced, the claim to have restored the Republic is thought duplicitously at variance with reality. There is also, and importantly, the evidence of Tacitus himself. Not only 4.32.2 and 1.4.1 as here interpreted but the general thrust of Tacitus’ treatment of Augustus in Book 1 make little sense unless Tacitus regards himself as unmasking a deceit: ‘for Cornelius Tacitus the essential falsity of the Principate lay in the fiction that the supreme authority in the Roman State was voluntarily offered and legally conveyed, or at least ratified. The opening chapters of the Annales deny the Republic of Augustus, reveal the workings of dynastic politics, and demonstrate that Tiberius was already in possession of authority before the Senate was invited to express an opinion’ (Syme [1958] 412). It is true that two of Tony Woodman’s most iconoclastic recent papers ([1995a]; cf. Kraus–Woodman [1997] 105; and [1998] 40–69) provide perspectives to some extent at odds with Syme’s assessment, but the problems with which these papers are concerned are extremely complicated (for measured dissent from Woodman [1995a] see Feldherr [1997]); the perspectives largely impinge on the Tiberian end of the equation; and the papers might even be said

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of language, abuse characteristic, as Thucydides saw, of stasis, is stripped bare by Tacitus’ own linguistic virtuosity: the fraudulent Augustan status was actually a Thucydidean kinēsis (conuerso) or stasis. The Greek stasis and the Latin status are etymologically identical but in a political context mean precisely opposite things. Augustan status is ‘destabilised’ by Greek stasis.32 And conuerto, like uerto in 1.4.1, can mean ‘translate’, so that conuerso statu also implies ‘status having been translated into stasis’; further, conuerto can be a rhetorical term for the ‘transposition’ or ‘substitution’ of words (OLD 2d); again, conuersus status, like the simple uersus status, is Latin for the Roman revolution.33 The bilingual and rhetorical word play, emblematic of Tacitus’ own position both as the Roman Thucydides and Republican constitutionalist, exposes the linguistic and rhetorical deceit and the concomitant constitutional illegitimacy of the political system enforced by Octavian. 3.1.3.1 The Textual Problem of 33.2 This brings us to the textual problem of 33.2 (I reproduce the parallel text for readers’ convenience): ⟦116⟧ (33.2) Igitur ut olim plebe ualida, uel cum patres pollerent, noscenda uulgi natura et quibus modis temperanter haberetur, senatusque et optimatium ingenia qui maxime perdidicerant, callidi temporum et sapientes credebantur, sic conuerso statu … [The inserted dots are for visual convenience: they do not represent anything in the text.]

Therefore, just as when formerly the common people being strong or when the senatorial fathers had power, the thing to know was the nature of the masses and the means by which they might be controlled temperately, and those who had most thoroughly learned the inner talents of the senate and the optimates were credited to be shrewd assessors of their times and wise, so the state of affairs having changed …

to provide support for the claim that the framework within which Tiberius was trying (or affecting) to operate was a formally Republican one. In any event, Galinsky (1996) 64—‘nor do later writers, such as Tacitus, employ a terminology that denotes “Republic”’—is (to put it at its mildest) highly misleading: Tacitus constantly employs a terminology that denotes ‘phoney Republic’. 32 The creation of the bilingual play must have been facilitated by the fact that the rhetorical and legal term status corresponded to, and translated, the Greek stasis (in its ‘stable’ rhetorical and legal sense). 33 So Tacitus in effect gives us a succinct (and to my mind by no means contemptible) definition of that much-disputed term: ‘the violent overthrow of the Roman Republic by the Caesarian monarchists’.

294 Textual problem: MSS: neque alia rerum Bringmann: neque alia rerum quam si unus imperitet, Lipsius: neque alia re Romana, quam si unus imperitet,

haec conquiri tradique in rem fuerit, quia pauci prudentia honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis, discernunt, plures aliorum euentis docentur.

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MSS reading leaves alia ‘hanging’ = and there being no other salvation for the state than if one man should give the orders, = and the Roman thing being virtually no different than if one man were to give the orders (subjunctive of formally unreal comparison), it will have been ad rem that these things be collected together and handed down, because few men distinguish honourable things from worse things, useful things from noxious, by intelligence, but many learn from the things that happen to others.

The MSS reading, with its hanging alia, requires supplementation. Bringmann’s salute, approved by Goodyear, printed by Wuilleumier, Heubner, and Woodman–Martin, and accepted also by Sinclair and O’Gorman, evokes the idea that the Roman Republic was so sick that the only remedy was one-man rule (indeed, so supplemented, 33.2 becomes key evidence for the proposition that Tacitus himself conceded the necessity of monarchy).34 This common idea is implicit in Livy’s preface, a passage, as we shall see, of direct relevance to our digression, and explicit in Annals 1.9.4, ‘non aliud discordantis patriae remedium fuisse quam ut ab uno regeretur’, a sentence of exactly the ⟦117⟧ same structure as the one here, one of the series of verbal parallels between the start of Book 1 and the digression (cf. n. 27) and probably itself an echo of Livy.35

34 E.g., Martin (1996) 1470. For other relevant passages see §7. 35 Liv. praef. 9 (with, e.g., Woodman [1988] 132–4 and 152–4 nn. 65–79; von Haehling [1989] 19, 213–15; Moles [1993] 151–2 {above, pp. 205–8}; cf. Liv. 3.20.8; 22.8.5, etc. Ann. 1.9.4 may well echo Livy (Moles [1993]); for the thought cf. also Ann. 1.6.3 (quoted above, n. 27). This interpretation of Liv. praef. 9 (which in itself I regard as certain) does not necessarily entail that Livy supported the established/permanent monarchy of Augustus, only that he supported monarchy as a relatively short-term solution; on the question of Livy’s libertas see Syme (1959); Woodman (1988) 136–40; Badian (1993); Galinsky (1996) 280–87;

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But, while in 4.33.2 Tacitus is clearly engaging with the views of Livy and of the imagined speakers of 1.9.4, he does not have to be saying the same thing as they are: he could be saying, or implying, the exact opposite. In the context of 4.32–3, salute must, I think, be wrong, despite the distinction of its modern advocates. It is a quite extraordinarily prejudicial supplement, and, if there is anything in the arguments so far advanced, the whole tenor of the passage goes against it, as do Tacitus’ exposure of the Augustan status as Thucydidean stasis and the very uncomfortable fact that in Thucydides stasis is figured as sickness.36 Lipsius’ very neat re Romana, accepted by Furneaux, Koestermann, Shotter, Mellor, and most earlier scholars,37 is palaeographically much easier and far less intrusive; it creates an appropriate ring structure with the first mention of Roman Republican history in 32.1; and it reinforces the point that under Augustus the long-established Roman Republic was violently changed into unconstitutional monarchy. It also, as we shall see, interacts pointedly with in rem (an interaction I have tried to retain by translating ad rem, even though ‘advantageous’ gives a better ‘local’ meaning). Further, given the prominence of Thucydides in the digression, the sentiment ‘the Roman constitution being virtually no different than if one man were to give the orders’ must be read as ‘turning’ the famous Thucydidean aperçu on Athenian democracy under Pericles: ‘the result was in word rule by the people, but in deed rule by the first man’ (Thuc. 2.65.9). While Thucydides celebrated this paradoxical Athenian reality, Tacitus stresses the illegitimacy and failure of its Roman equivalent. Failure, because the subsequent trial of CORDUS illustrates the continuing civil DISCORDIA even under the monarchy which was supposed to have removed it: monarchy did ⟦118⟧ not remedy a ‘discordant’ patria (1.9.4, quoted above): it introduced further discord, further ‘sickness’: the internal–external, Republican–monarchical, boundaries of 4.32.1 are again (cf. §2.1) breached (cf. discordias consulum aduersum tribunos). 3.1.4 Herodotus We return to Xenophon, Hellenica 2.3.23–56 as the archetype of Annals 4.32–35. After Thucydides, the other big historiographical influence upon Xenophon’s Hellenica was Herodotus. So we might expect to find Herodotus too in Tacitus’ digression. We do. Herodotus provocatively claimed to treat small things as well Marincola (1997) 172; in general on this question, I favour Badian and Marincola; the question again becomes important at 4.34.3 (see §5.2.3 and n. 84). 36 Thuc. 3.82.1–2 (with huge bibliography). Tacitus himself exploits this figure in Ann. 2.27.1 and 6.7.3 (of the maiestas trials, themselves a manifestation of stasis): Keitel (1984) 320. 37 Furneaux (1896) 528; Koestermann (1965) 115; Shotter (1989) 162; Mellor (1993) 88.

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as big, on the basis that human prosperity never remained in the same place, all things being subject to a biological and cyclical process of birth, growth, prime, and decay. These ideas underlie Tacitus’ emphasis on the organic development of great things from small and other instances in the passage of ‘biological’ terminology. Herodotus also was renowned for the amplitude of his treatment and famously championed digressiveness. The ‘free digressiveness’ of Republican historians has a Herodotean ring, the tighter, narrower, more concentrated character of Tacitus’ work aligns it in this respect also with Thucydides. Herodotus also figured his Histories as a journey, a sort of moral and intellectual Odyssey.38 The figure ⟦119⟧ is brilliantly developed by Tacitus.39 His text is a journey both for himself and his readers, who are thereby drawn still further into the interpretative quest. Note also that this journey involves 38 Small things as well as big things: Hdt. 1.5.3–4: ‘I shall then advance forwards into my account, going through small and great cities of men [~ Od. 1.3] alike. For of the cities that were great in the past, the majority have become small, and the cities that were great in my day were small formerly. Knowing, therefore, that human prosperity never remains in the same place I shall make mention of both alike’; Herodotean ‘biological’ concepts also > 35.4–5 (noble vs illegitimate parentage); Herodotean digressiveness: Hdt. 4.30.1; 7.171.1; Herodotus’ Histories as journey/Odyssey: 1.5.3–4 above; Moles (1996) 264–5, 270 {above, pp. 252–4, 259}; Marincola (1996) §1 {= (2007) 3–20}. To describe 32.2 ex quis magnarum saepe rerum motus oriuntur as a ‘commonplace’ (Martin–Woodman [1989] 172; cf. Kraus [1991] 322 n. 33; Sinclair [1995] 60, following Koesterman, misleadingly restricts the sentiment to Roman/Republican contexts) is on one level, and only on one level, correct, for to imply that its being a ‘commonplace’ drains it of argumentative significance is quite wrong. The sentiment combines: (a) the ‘commonplace’; (b) the Herodotean concern with small things and big things and their interrelationship; (c) the Thucydidean emphasis on change; (d) the Thucydidean distinction between ‘what seems’ and what really is (cf. n. 24). In short, it is difficult to see how any sentiment could be more meaningful. Again on the question of the frustration of generic expectation, any reader who spots the Herodotean concern with change from small to great (and vice versa) will not be so surprised by the development of the argument. For the biological political and historical model in Tacitus see Havas (1991), esp. 2973–86. 39 Text as journey in Tacitus (already implicit in concept of ‘digression’): rettuli, referam (Tacitus ‘reports back’ as one who has gone first); praeuerterent, libero egressu, in arto, immota (material can’t ‘progress’); proferendi (ditto); motus (< immota, possibility after all of ‘movement’ of the material); adferunt, exitus (figure ‘leaves’ the path of the text); retinent, obuia (and other ob- examples [n. 25], which create ‘obstacles’ to the joint ‘progression’ of historian and reader); refert, extuleris (different ‘levels’ of path); ex propinquo, diuersa (of those who have taken the wrong moral path); ad inceptum redeo (back to main narrative path after ‘digression’). Moral/political journeys of individuals within text: above, but also, and very relevantly, 4.20.3, ‘inter abruptam contumaciam et deforme obsequium pergere iter ambitione ac periculis uacuum (discussed in §6).

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awkward trading between historian and readers not only about the means of satisfying readers’ desire for pleasure but also about the competing demands of delight and serious moral judgement (cf. n. 25). Note also that the figure of the text as a journey intersects with the moral, political, and indeed physical journeys made by paradigmatic individuals within the text. Journeying through the text, with all the problems of that journey, instructs one in negotiating the tricky political geography of monarchical Rome.40 3.1.5 Polybius What other Greek historians? Polybius, encomiast of Philopoemen, may well be in the frame.41 Polybius the historian, constitutional theorist, and enthusiast of the mixed constitution, must be in the constitutional analysis of 33.1; his advocacy of the mixed constitution is elegantly skewered by a name-pun: haud diuturna: exit the pretensions of the interminable and excessively long-lived Poly-bios, whose claims for the durability of the Roman ⟦120⟧ μικτή were so spectacularly short-sighted.42 The demolition of Polybius will play its part in the overall argument: see §§4.4 and 4.4.2. 3.1.6 Livy We turn now to the Romans. Since our passage, besides being a digression, also functions as a second preface, indeed as Tacitus’ single most significant prefatory statement in the Annals, we should expect interaction with the preface of 40 Cf. the relationship between the idea of narrative as space and the physical spaces that the narrative describes (and in a sense creates), a relationship explored in connexion with Livy by (e.g.) C. S. Kraus and M. Jaeger and in connexion with Suetonius by J. W. Burke: discussion and references in Burke (1998), esp. n. 10. 41 I say this because: (a) the ‘little–big’ contrast of 32.1 is found within encomium as well as biography (n. 22); (b) Polybius’ Philopoemen presumably recorded the famous description of Philopoemen as ‘the last of the Greeks’; (c) Cremutius Cordus called Cassius ‘the last of the Romans’ (Ann. 4.34.1); (d) Brutus had so hailed Cassius after the first battle of Philippi (Plut. Brut. 44.2); (e) Brutus knew his Polybius (Plut. Brut. 4.8), and so, surely, did Tacitus. All of which seems to me to make it unlikely that Polybius’ Philopoemen is not somewhere present in 32.1. But this may be too roundabout for some. 42 Cf. also McCulloch (1991) 2932, who writes of ‘Tacitus’ almost contemptuous derailment of Polybius’ facile interpretation of the Roman constitution’. Against my gloss on haud diuturna Professor David Bain objects that the Greek for ‘long-lived’ is μακρόβιος, not πολύβιος, which means ‘very wealthy’. But in etymologising contexts the ‘correct’ meaning of words is generally irrelevant; πολύς both by itself and in compounds can certainly be used of quantity of time; and I do not believe that at [Lucian] Macr. 22 the author of the Makrobioi was unconscious of interplay between Μακρόβιοι and Κτησίβιος and Πολύβιος. On the textual problem of 33.1 and the possibility of implicit ‘recantation’ of Agr. 3.1 see n. 2 and §7.

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Tacitus’ greatest Roman annalistic predecessor, especially as Livy too had used Herodotus and Thucydides in defining his historiographical project.43 The parallels and interaction between Tacitus and Livy are indeed very extensive. Both historians are concerned with the current condition of Rome, which they regard as bad; with the type of historiography best suited to that condition; with the contrasts between ‘old’ history and ‘new’ or ‘contemporary’ history and between ‘old’ or ‘ancient’ historians and ‘new’ or ‘contemporary’ ones; with negotiations between historian and readers over the constituents of historiographical pleasure and the trade-offs between pleasure and usefulness; with readers as third-persons and as second-person singular; with the paucity of ‘glory’ likely to accrue from their own historiographical labor;44 with the inuidia to which their historiography exposes them; with the ‘documentary’ or paradigmatic value of history, including exempla both positive and negative (see  §5.4); with the reader’s need to know and to discriminate. Tacitus’ use of antiquis (33.4) in the double sense of ‘ancient writers’ and ‘writers about ancient things’ and his extremely polysemous use of res convey implicit homage to the great AUC historian, who had done the same things in his preface. ⟦121⟧ But the fact that Livy wrote AUC and largely Republican history, whereas Tacitus writes monarchical history, creates major differences between their histories and purposes. Above all, where Livy prescribed monarchy as one of the two remedia for the sickness of contemporary Rome,45 for Tacitus that monarchy is a major cause of the sickness, hence the description of the Roman thing as being virtually no different than if one man were to give the orders countermands Livy’s hasty prescription. And whereas Livy directly exhorted each and every individual to join in the task of saving the Roman state, Tacitus’ historiographical goal is ostensibly much narrower: to help individuals save themselves and other individuals within the treacherous state of monarchical Rome. I say ‘ostensibly’, because I shall argue that Tacitus has an extremely broad, ambitious, and multi-pronged libertarian project (see §6). Indeed, the ambition of this project is immediately suggested by the interaction between re Romana and in rem: in some sense as yet undefined, his Annals will help the res Romana. Tacitus also suggests the greater critical penetration of his historiographical enterprise: 4.33.2 introspicere as it were ‘trumps’ Livy’s less demanding intueri (praef. 10). 43 Moles (1993); cf. Luce (1991) 2908, 2914–16 for general remarks on Tacitus’ engagement with Livy in the digression. The key section of Livy’s Preface, praef. 10, is quoted in §5.4. 44 On historiographical πόνος/labor see Marincola (1996) §2 {= (2007) 20–8}; (1997) 148–56; cf. also Ann. 4.61 with Martin–Woodman (1989) 232. 45 See above, n. 35.

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3.1.7 Cicero ⟦122⟧ Our next Roman historian is Cicero, whose ideas about the themes most conducive to historiographical pleasure underlie 32.1 and 33.3, as Martin– Woodman note, with some direct verbal echoes.46 But, pace Woodman and Martin, while Tacitus concedes something to historiographical pleasure, for him it is subordinate to history’s ‘usefulness’: it is an ob-factor of which he has to take account if he is to keep his readers with him on their joint journey through the text.47 The same nuanced criticism of Ciceronian canons appears in his description of the mixed constitution in 33.1. The wording directly echoes Cicero’s, as Martin–Woodman note, glosses Cicero’s preference with laudari, but dismisses the mixed Polybian/Ciceronian constitution as irrelevant to the real world of power relationships. Important here is the verbal interaction between euenit and euentis in 33.2: the experiences that happen to other people in the Rome of the Caesars are the things that matter, not highfalutin theoretical constructs, which hardly happen, or if they do happen, cannot last. 3.1.8 Virgil Our next Roman historian is more surprising. Editors note that 32.2, ‘nobis in arto et inglorius labor’ recalls Georgics 4.6, ‘in tenui labor; at tenuis non gloria’.48 There is a parallel: both writers work in restricted/trivial spheres, and a contrast: Virgil’s labor wins gloria, Tacitus’ does not. With the Aeneid, Virgil became the court historian of the Caesars. But he was already bidding for that role in the Georgics.49 In Book 4 the bees represent the Roman state, and while the theme, qua bees, is tenuis, Virgil’s gloria is not tenuis, inasmuch as he is celebrating the gloria of Octavian, victor in the civil wars and new ruler of the state. What are the implications of this parallel and contrast between Virgil and Tacitus? One implication would seem to be that there is a difference between commemorating Octavian/Augustus and commemorating Tiberius. But, as we shall see, this distinction between the first two emperors cannot be absolutely maintained. Moreover, since the ‘ingloriousness’ of Tacitus’ labour is formally contrasted with the (implicit) glory available to Republican historians, there is 46 4.32.1 and 33.3 ~ Cic. Fam. 5.12.4–5; 4.33.1 ~ Cic. Rep. 1.53–4 (quoted in n. 2, with discussion of the textual problem). 47 Cf. above, n. 25. For a similar emphasis to mine see Sinclair (quoted below, n. 55), and Luce (1991) 2915–16. 48 Tacitus’ inglorius also interacts both with Livy (as already noted) and with Sallust (§3.1.9; Woodman [1988] 183 and n. 51 below). 49 On the politics of the Georgics: e.g., Kraggerud (1998). (And of course Aristaeus ~ Octavian, Orpheus ~ Virgil, etc.)

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some sense that the text is making a broad contrast between Republican and imperial history, with little allowance for any distinction within imperial history between writing about different emperors. From the point of view of this broad contrast, the implication of the particular parallel and contrast between Virgil and Tacitus would seem to be that Tacitus fails to get gloria because, unlike Virgil, he is not an encomiast of the victorious Caesars, but rather an apologist of the defeated Republicans. 3.1.9 Sallust Our passage has the flavour of a Sallustian digression: the concluding words, as editors note, echo Sallust’s formula for ending digressions.50 The contrasts between the superior past and the inferior present and the historical survey of constitutional change are thereby invested with a Sallustian flavour. Sallustian too is the general tone of pessimism and disillusion. Tacitus’ observations about the problems of reader response (33.4) and his implicit concern with his own gloria (or lack of it) echo Sallust’s in BC 3.2.51 There are also broader interactions with the preface of the BJ (see §§5.2.3, 5.2.4, and 5.3). As we shall see, Cremutius’ speech is also part of a wider Sallustian pattern (see §§5.2 and 5.2.2). On the other hand, by the very density of his ⟦123⟧ own engagement with Thucydides, Tacitus is simultaneously wresting the mantle of Thucydides off Sallust’s shoulders. This completes our laborious excavations of the main historiographical allusions in the passage (though there must be more [I hereby nominate Theopompus]). Some aspects of some of the allusions have already been given interpretative point; for more general comments see §§5.2.3 init. and 5.2.4 fin. Since the most interesting question about Sallustian digressions is their relevance to their surrounding narratives,52 we too may now return to the interpretation of the whole. 4

A Sequential Reading of the Digression

4.1 Digressions The passage is formally a digression, a turning away from the main path of a narrative; the passage itself employs the metaphor of a road or journey for 50 E.g., BJ 4.9; 42.5. 51 Kraus–Woodman (1997) 93. 52 There are stimulating remarks about Sallustian digressions in Kraus–Woodman (1997) 28–30, 39–41.

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the main narrative.53 The closing formula (33.4) makes plain the return to the main narrative path. This formal status, however, is challenged by the clear thematic links between the digression and its surrounds, both the preceding trial narrative and the subsequent narrative of the trial of Cordus. As in Sallust, the question arises: is a digression a digression? The passage’s status as digression must also be brought into relation with the ‘free digressiveness’ enjoyed by Republican historians. What sense does it make that the concept of ‘free digressiveness’ (libero egressu) is applied to whole histories, whereas Tacitus apologises within a ‘digression’ (a passage that is itself recognisably an egressus) for the apparent triviality and restrictedness of the subject-matter of his historical narrative? 4.2 Literary and Political Freedom and Constraint On the face of it, the Republican historians could freely digress for three reasons: their themes were vast and varied; they could treat them in extenso; they could choose whether to write about external or internal things. (These three freedoms were different ways of implementing the qualified literary ‘freedom’ permitted within ‘digressions’.54) Although the Republican historians’ freedom was in the first instance literary, it was also political: Republican history had such a vast canvas precisely because historical events were ⟦124⟧ not controlled by a single ruler. So the historical actors could do great things and win glory, and the historian by appropriately commemorating these great and glorious things could thereby attain literary glory for himself. But the application of the concept of ‘free digressiveness’ to whole histories pulls in different directions: on the one hand, it emphasises those histories’ huge size; on the other, if whole histories are ‘digressions’, from what do they digress? Is the overriding narrative path that of monarchical history? Was the Republic just a digression, albeit a very extensive one, within the history of monarchy? The answer is a depressing yes: the Romans began and ended with kings: see the preface to Annals 1. It is a post-modern commonplace, however suspect, that there is no history ‘out there’: there is only textualised history. Tacitus makes a much more intelligent and interesting point: textualised history does not create history: it is a metaphor for it. In contrast with the republican historians, Tacitus55 is locked into apparent ‘smallness’ of theme, the reasons being absence of wars, stagnation, and 53 Cf. above, n. 39. 54 E.g., Pl. Rep. 394d; Theaet. 172dff.; Dio 12.38; Sall. BJ 4.9; Quint. 4.3.17. 55 Sinclair (1995) 56–7, 60, building on the three neglected studies of Slotty ([1927a], [1927b], and [1928]), takes the plurals nostros (4.32.1), nobis (32.3) and nos (33.3) as ‘associative’

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oppressiveness in Rome, and Tiberius’ lack of interest in extending the empire. The effect of parua and leuia is the reverse of encomiastic. There is a link between the ‘smallness’ and ‘narrowness’ of Tacitus’ historical writing and the ruler, or the type of ruling power, at the period which he is writing about at this point in his text. Again, literary freedom or its lack links into political freedom or its lack. This link is powerfully reinforced by the first sentence’s evocation of Theramenes’ inspiring assertion of the right of free speech in extremis

(so perhaps also Henderson [1990] 168, 194 [I’m not sure]); thus, e.g., ‘in this digression Tacitus refers to himself and his reader as the type of people who are interested in history for intellectual rather than merely aesthetic reasons, and he uses the associative “we” in conjunction with gnomic generalizations for much the same purpose that Aristotle advocates their use to broach a view contrary to common opinion’ (60). These plurals are customarily taken as ‘authorial’: e.g., Martin–Woodman (1988) 170, 129. Granted that: (a) as will become clear, I basically agree with Sinclair’s eloquently expressed interpretative conclusion about this passage (62): ‘the “laws” governing social and political life at Rome apply equally to the writing of history: the overriding self-interest of those in power under the Principate makes singling out true glory and virtue in others virtually as dangerous for the historian as exercising them oneself in political life. For to recognise and celebrate true virtue may mean criticizing the Principate, which time and again rewards obsequious opportunism and calls it virtuous’; (b) Slotty has certainly demonstrated the existence of the pluralis sociatiuus; (c) Sinclair himself elsewhere demonstrates great Tacitean subtlety in variation of person; (d) Livy’s preface uses (at the end) an ‘associative’ first-person plural (praef. 13 with Moles [1993] 158 {above, pp. 215–6}); (e) Tacitus’ digression does envisage two types of reader: unthinking sensation-seekers (sc. Martin–Woodman) and serious/sophisticated, fellow-members of the senatorial elite whose value system is necessarily threatened by the monarchy (sc. Sinclair and Moles); (f) Sinclair is right to interpret Tacitus as subordinating purely aesthetic considerations to intellectual ones. Granted all these points, I do not believe that these particular plurals are ‘associative’: (a) the move from a simple singular to an authorial plural is certain at Ann. 4.11.3 and 71.1 (Martin–Woodman [1989] 129), passages which Sinclair does not seem to consider; (b) since on any view annales nostros must at least include Tacitus’ particular annales (which being so, it is impossible to exclude the titular implication annales = Annales), and since 4.32.1 uses first person singulars and uideri immediately introduces the notion of ‘the reader’, it is very difficult to jump from ‘I, Tacitus’ to ‘our annals’, in the sense of ‘the type of annals which I Tacitus am offering you in the form of my Annals and of which you, my intelligent readers (as opposed to conventional sensation-seekers), are my fellow, senatorial, historians’; (c) the contrast between the individual historian, writer of the present work, and his plural predecessors is utterly standard; (d) inglorius in 32.2 interacts with three historiographical individuals: Livy, Virgil, and Sallust; (e) 4.33.3 is not generalising or gnomic but rigorously specific in its application to Tacitus’ particular narrative, as the detailed verbal pick-ups (most of which are mentioned somewhere in this paper) demonstrate. Note also that the overt (in effect) naming of Tacitus’ ideal readership would spoil the implicit challenge Tacitus issues to that readership to define itself (see §4.4).

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under tyranny. The parallel and contrast with Virgil also seems, from one point of view, to put Tacitus in the anti-Caesarian camp (as we have seen). But as far as free speech is concerned, the implications of these allusions seem opposed: the Theramenes allusion seems to say: even under tyranny we can be free and cry freedom; the Virgil allusion to say: no, we are beaten, we have to maintain inglorious, constricted silence. The latter implication coheres with the size of Tacitus’ digression, which, especially compared with the vast digressiveness of Republican history, is very small. The digression also makes play with the interplay between the paths of narrative and the moral and political paths of life. Thus the literary form of the digression itself dramatises simultaneously the literary and political restrictions under which Tacitus now labours, and his desire—and ability—to exercise something of the literary and political freedom enjoyed by the freely digressive republican historians (in accordance with the qualified ‘freedom’ permitted within digressions [n. 54]). This latter project is evidently a supremely worthwhile one. Not only will it enable Tacitus to transcend (to a degree) his literary and political restrictions, but there is also a sense in which it is actually more important than that of the Republican historians. Their themes, however ‘great’ (etc.), represented only a ‘digression’ within the dominant narrative of Roman history; his themes, however restricted, are part of that dominant narrative, the narrative of monarchy.56 A fundamental interpretative question posed by ⟦126⟧ the digression, therefore, is: how does Tacitus achieve his admittedly restricted literary and political freedom? (Impatient readers can here skip to §6.) 4.3 Who or What is Restricting Tacitus’ Freedom? But there is a key preliminary question: who or what is the force restricting Tacitus’ freedom here: is it just Tiberius, or is it Tiberius and other emperors like him, or is it the emperors in general, Tiberius functioning merely as a particularly nasty specimen of the genus monarchicum? At first sight, the answer seems to be just Tiberius: there are clear thematic links between this digression and its surrounds (the accounts of the maiestas 56

It is also true that: ‘the author seems to despair of true emulation with those earlier writers. Yet clearly this is emulation and a covert challenge to his predecessors: the lack of “suitable” material makes Tacitus’ task a greater challenge, and his achievement—a worthwhile history that will win for its subjects and its author immortality—is all the more admirable because achieved with a dearth of what was traditionally ennobling material. So the author equals, and in some ways exceeds, his predecessors’ (Marincola [1997] 251). Yet for reasons explicit or implicit throughout this paper I find such ‘pure lit.’ formulations, while on one level true, rather misleading, and, in the last resort, trivialising. For a similar emphasis to mine see Luce (1991) 2915–16; cf. also above, n. 9.

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trials in chs. 28–31 and 34–5); the sort of history that Tacitus writes in Book 4 is formally different from that which he wrote in Books 1–3; at the start of the digression Tacitus is explicitly talking about Tiberius and some characteristic features of his reign (predominant peace abroad, gloomy internal affairs, lack of concern for extending the empire). Yet the digression itself teaches us that what ‘seems’ ‘at first sight’ is likely to be wrong and emphasises the gap between ‘seeming’ and truth. Moreover, the argument in 32.2 and 33.2 for the utility of history will not work if Tacitus is constrained only by Tiberius. It will have been useful to ‘hand down’ an account of Tiberius’ reign only if there is some prospect of the recurrence of emperors like Tiberius.57 Of course, Tacitus and his contemporary readers had already experienced such an emperor: Domitian, whose reign had imposed similar constraints upon literary and political freedom, as the narrative of Cordus’ trial will itself remind us (see  §5.1). When, at this point in the text, Tacitus propounds the future utility of his Tiberius narrative, that utility has already been retrospectively validated by the grim experience of his own generation.58 So far, then, the answer to the preliminary question must be: ‘Tiberius and other emperors like him’. ⟦127⟧ But it is difficult to restrict the answer even to ‘Tiberius and other emperors like him’. The description of Tiberius in 32.2 brings Augustus himself within the frame. When we read that Tiberius had no care for extending the empire, we cannot forget that he was here following the policy of Augustus in his final years.59 Indeed, the whole description of 32.2 forms another echo 57 Martin–Woodman’s note here ([1989] 174)—‘T.’s point is that since the constitution has remained unchanged since Tib.’s day, the events of the latter’s reign are relevant to his readers’—is thus a little bland. 58 Tacitus’ shifting temporal and as it were spatial focalisations in the digression are very adroit and would repay close analysis. For some general observations on their significance see §5.4. For more general (but obviously correct) insistence on the necessary relevance of Tacitus’ commemoration/(re)construction of the past to his and his readers’ construction of the present see, e.g., Syme (1958) 301–3, 447–8, 470–4, 478–80, 483–8, 495–8, 517–19, 524, 583–4; Classen (1988) 116; Henderson (1990) 167 and passim; and below, n. 59. Kraus–Woodman (1997) 92–3 offer a more cautious formulation. 59 Commentators note the historical fact, without registering the interpretative implications. The obvious contrast with the grandly expansionist Trajan, under whom Tacitus was writing Book 4 (Martin–Woodman [1988] 102), allows space for the qualification of ‘relatively good and bad emperors’ within the generic contention of ‘all emperors bad’. For this qualification see §§4.4.2, 4.4.3, and 5.2.4; for a possible counter-balance see §7. Kraus–Woodman (1997) 92 argue the hypothesis that ‘since the tone of Tacitean historiography is largely critical, his account of the years ad 14–96 is intended as implicit praise of Trajan … seems excluded by the author himself, since Tacitus prefaces each work by testifying to the impartiality of his treatment (H. 1.1.3, A. 1.1.3): there is thus no professedly critical stance from which approval of the present may be inferred’. This argument, if

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(cf. n. 27) of the Augustan summary of Book 1: ‘immota quippe aut modice lacessita pax, maestae urbis res, et princeps proferendi imperi incuriosus erat’ ~ 1.3.6–7 ‘bellum ea tempestate nullum nisi aduersus Germanos supererat, abolendae magis infamiae ob amissum cum Quinctilio Varo exercitum quam cupidine proferendi imperii aut dignum ob praemium. Domi res tranquillae’. Tiberius and Augustus are different (Tiberius is obviously, from Tacitus’ point of view, worse), yet essentially the same.60 Further complexities derive from the way in which Tacitus proceeds to unpack the little vs big distinction: things may seem little but actually produce big movements. What are these movements? Are they movements within an existing political system or within a particular manifestation of an existing political system, that is, instances of stasis or war within Tiberius’ reign? Partly that, certainly, stasis being inbuilt into the Augustan system. But could they also be movements between different manifestations of a particular political system—that is, civil wars with violent changes of emperors? It is hard to see how that possibility can be excluded. If so, Tacitus’ focus is again not confined to Tiberius. Or could they even be movements between different political systems altogether? Why not? Indeed, the presence of the constitutional analysis is bound to raise this possibility, especially because of the interaction between conuerso statu and Thucydidean ideas of κίνησις/motus. Similarly, the moral and political implications of the story of the death of Theramenes are so powerful that they are not easily confined to a single period ⟦128⟧ of history. Our passage conveys this: Tacitus’ arguens redeploys Xenophon’s Kritias/κρίνω play, at the very end, in a context which links past, present, and future. Indeed, it is difficult to suppress the sense of a broad generic contrast between Republican and imperial history, the former associated with literary and political freedom, the latter with literary and political constraint. The contrast between Tacitus and the Republican historians implies a broad Republic–monarchy contrast. Tacitus does not say: ‘let no one compare this part of my Annals with the writing of those who composed the old things of the Roman people’. This broad contrast again echoes Book 1: in both cases, ‘the old’ denotes the Republic (4.32.1 ueteres populi Romani res ~ 1.1.2 ueteris populi Romani, which is there contrasted with the temporibus Augusti). The Virgil allusion too conveys (on one level) a general contrast between Caesarism and Republicanism. Again, if Tacitus is indeed implying that Republican history correct, would hardly exclude ad hoc allusions, and even as a general argument it goes wrong (or becomes too simple) at ‘professedly’. 60 This is a recurrent theme of O’Gorman’s thesis (though naturally expressed with much more nuance and sophistication).

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was simply a digression within the story of monarchical history (§4.2), the contrast between the Republican historians and Tacitus must be a generic contrast between Republican freedom and monarchical oppression. The description of the activities of the Republican historians as liber reinforces this, evoking the Libertas/Republic–slavery/principate/monarchy dichotomy fundamental to the political thinking of Tacitus, as of Seneca and Lucan.61 Finally, if the previous analysis of conuerso statu is right, Augustus himself, author of the Roman revolution (not Syme, you see), comes crashing into the frame. The conclusion seems to me certain: the essential focus is on the monarchical system. 4.4 The Political Argument How precisely does this relate to the overall argument? Tacitus’ analysis of different constitutions concentrates on power relationships and disparages the theoretical vapourings of Polybius and Cicero. The analysis is designed to have practical value. Who for? The answer must be: people who are in a sense themselves outside whatever is the power-base at the particular time, i.e., the political elite.62 Here sounds the voice of Tacitus ‘the senatorial historian’. But it is a nice touch that this readership is unexpressed (noscenda does not acquire a dative of agent): we have to identify ourselves as the requisite readership (see §4.4.1). ⟦129⟧ 4.4.1 The Swerve in the Argument Tacitus runs the sequence. Under democracy, you had to know and be able to control the people. Under oligarchy, you had to understand the senate and the optimates. Under monarchy, what? We expect Tacitus to say, you have to understand the monarch, but he does not do so. Instead, the argument swerves63 (so in a sense the argument within the digression mirrors the place of the digression itself within the surrounding narratives) and Tacitus uses Thucydidean analyses of κίνησις, στάσις, and linguistic distortion under 61 E.g., Tac. Ann. 1.4.2; Agr. 3.1 (quoted in n. 2 and discussed in §7); Luc. 7.695–6; Griffin (1976) 191–5. 62 In this respect Sinclair’s analysis is right (see above, n. 55); cf. also Häussler (1965) 236–38; Luce (1991) 2914–16. 63 This ‘swerve in the argument’ is noted by O’Gorman (1997) 143–4 {cf. O’Gorman [2000] 99–100}, though she develops its implications along quite different lines from my own; the ‘swerve’ is seemingly missed (or at any rate insufficiently investigated) by Lana (1989) 31 and Martin–Woodman (1989) 172, 174. O’Gorman’s interpretation of the swerve cannot be dissociated from her complicated linkage of the digression with Ann. 6.21–2 (astrological interpretation as analogous to reading and historical interpretation), but in any case to my mind she plumps much too readily for deconstruction of the Annals’ utility: on all this see §6.

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distorted political conditions to characterise the whole Augustan system as fraudulent and unconstitutional. But to see that he is doing this, you have to separate what seems from what actually is, you have to be able to distinguish honourable things from worse things, useful things from noxious, you have to be intelligent, but you need to supplement your intelligence with the lessons of Tacitus’ history, with the lessons of the digression, which is itself progressively didactic. In a word, you have to introspicere, with Thucydidean (and no doubt also Sallustian) penetration and insight. This process involves another transgression, or redefinition, of category boundaries. Whereas the Republican historians distinguished between ‘external’ and ‘internal’ things on a horizontal or spatial level (4.32.1), Tacitus’ introspicere is as it were vertical: ‘looking within those things at first sight slight’. Now Sinclair has glossed 4.32.2 as follows: ‘by formulating his statement in purely general terms—people easily misdiagnose political situations—Tacitus thereby challenges his readers to ask themselves to which of the two categories they belong: the hoi polloi, or the discerning few’.64 Any reader who decodes the swerve in the argument in the manner above suggested is well on the way to inclusion in the latter category. We may congratulate ourselves on our perspicacity so far. 4.4.2 The Emperors as Unconstitutional Tyrants At this point in his argument, Tacitus’ derisive dismissal of the Polybian mixed constitution acquires its full force. If the Roman world is now a monarchy, ⟦130⟧ and both the product and promoter of stasis, so much for Polybius’ double claim for the mixed constitution as (a) durable and (b) the unique underpinning of the enduring Roman republic. At this point also, the political analyses of Thucydides and Xenophon coalesce with devastating power. The Roman emperors were all tyrants, both in a constitutional sense (because they had no legitimacy) and in a moral sense (because they behaved like tyrants). Of course there are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Caesars and the difference matters, but they are all Caesars. As Lucan so memorably puts it, par quod semper habemus | Libertas et Caesar (7.695–6): while different, they are all the same. Note that Tiberius’ status as princeps (another deceptive Augustan naming, cf. Ann. 1.1.1, 9.5) has also now been collapsed. He is not a princeps but a rex. For rex is etymologically connected with rego and when singuli control the state, they are reges.65 Note the potential interaction between the ideas of singuli who regunt (> reges) and 64 Sinclair (1995) 61. 65 Griffin’s comment ([1976] 145–6) on this very passage—‘Tacitus uses periphrases to avoid the word rex’—is thus misconceived. It is no objection to this interpretation that Tacitus

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of the reges routed and captured who are one element of the great themes of Republican history—of politically legitimate history. (I shall return to this interaction of ideas in §6.) At this point also, we see (introspicere) why Tacitus does not say, as he logically ought to, that under one-man rule one has to understand the inner character of the monarch. For since that monarchy is multiply (adv.) flawed—in that it dishonestly pretends to be a republic, it is itself a form of stasis and itself promotes stasis, and it goes beyond monarchy into tyranny—it would be positively dangerous for the historian explicitly to exhort his readers to understand the inner character of the monarch. Instead, Tacitus sidesteps into a formally different and more generalised statement of the function of history (haec conquiri, etc.). But this formally different statement is implicitly relevant to the task of understanding the tyrannical and destabilising nature of the political system and the inner character of the particular monarch. Firstly, as we have seen, if we acquire the capacity of discrimination, we will be able to uncover the true nature of the multiple Augustan deceit; secondly, the apparently general prescription about the need to distinguish honourable things from worse things, useful things from noxious, has rather precise application to life under dangerous and treacherous tyranny. Distinguishing honourable things from worse things applies to one’s relations with other people (behaving justly towards them), distinguishing useful things from noxious applies to one’s self-preservation. The latter implication is guaranteed by the verbal interaction between noxiis and innocentium in 33.3. ⟦131⟧ 4.4.3 Gaps and Figured Speech On this analysis, then, if the reader is properly to interpret this text, she has to fill in a number of crucial gaps in the argument—implied statements about the dangers and deceptions of the reality of Roman monarchy and about the necessity of understanding the true nature both of the constitution and of any particular Roman monarch. Again on this analysis, Tacitus gives the reader a number of aids towards such interpretative moves: the fact that the narrative before the digression ends precisely with an example of imperial deceit (4.31.4 Tiberius alia praetendens); the Thucydidean emphases on the gaps between appearance and reality and the distortions of language; the raising of the possibility of obtrectatio in an apparently different context; the stress on the process of introspicere, a word, as Woodman–Martin note,66 characteristically used of himself sometimes uses princeps quite neutrally: context defines usage. Again on these fundamental issues Keitel (1984) is seminal. 66 Martin–Woodman (1989) 172; cf. Lana (1989).

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‘introspection’ into inner character; it is significant that when the narrative resumes, great emphasis is placed on Tiberius’ uultus (4.34.2). But, with all these aids, the reader has to fill in the gaps for himself. Can such an interpretative claim be theoretically justified? No doubt one could simply and robustly reply that no theoretical justification is required, if the text itself seems to enjoin such an interpretative approach. Nevertheless, there is a sure theoretical justification. The last two decades have seen much interpretation of imperial literature grounded in ‘figured-speech’ rhetorical theory.67 As is now well known, this theory, called, among other things, emphasis by Greek and Roman rhetoricians (confusingly, since it means the opposite of the English emphasis), discusses the covert expression of criticism or admonition under autocratic political systems. Because the criticism is covert, wrapped up in compliment and always capable of positive interpretation, the autocrat cannot take it badly: to do so would be to acknowledge the criticism. Any base suspicions that the theory is just the wish-fulfilment fantasy of impotent rhetoricians are dispelled by the fact that the theory was known to and canvassed by such accomplished political survivors as Pliny the Younger (Pan. 3.4) and Ammianus Marcellinus (15.5.38). Further, as Woodman–Martin note, Tacitus himself implies readers’ awareness of it in this very passage, at 33.4.68 Indeed, the maiestas accusation ⟦132⟧ against Cordus itself rests on a figured-speech interpretation of his history; we shall also see later that Cordus himself registers close awareness of ‘figured speech’ theory (see §5.2.4). So again, Tacitus gives us a strong clue: emphasis is relevant to the interpretation of this passage but it is up to us to see that it applies not only in the context where it is explicitly located but also to the gaps in the argument which I have been probing. Gaps may speak as explicitly as what is said in words. Absent signifiers may signify just as much as present. So Tacitus himself at Annals 3.76.2: at the funeral of Junia, ‘Cassius and Brutus shone with pre-eminent brightness for the very fact that their portraits were not seen’: non-existent imagines, absent presents, sub-presents that cannot be suppressed. Note that the embedding in the digression of an interpretative mode called emphasis itself

67 E.g., Ahl (1984a) and (1984b); Dyer (1990); Moles (1990) 304 {vol. 1, p. 119}; Bartsch (1994) 65–71, 93–7; for Tacitus cf. especially Sinclair (1991). The only weakness of Ahl’s brilliant and influential analyses is that he gives insufficient weight to the obvious fact (very relevant to Tacitus, as we shall see) that (even) figured-speech criticism often failed in the sense that the autocrat punished it. 68 Martin–Woodman (1989) 175: ‘readers were evidently alive to hidden meanings, innuendo or—to use the technical term—emphasis’; cf. 183 (on 35.2); on 4.33.4 cf. also Sinclair (1991) 2817.

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nicely dramatises the digression’s central concern: the gap between seeming and reality. Now some might be tempted to argue that Tacitus’ introduction of ‘figured speech’ interpretation in this context is conditioned solely by the temporal and textual focalisations of the digression and the subsequent narrative. Or to put it more simply, Tacitus thinks that the use of, and the ability to interpret, figured speech is suitable under Tiberius or a monarch like him and in historiographical treatments of such monarchs, whereas they would be redundant under emperors such as Nerva and Trajan, under whom, famously, ‘it is permitted to feel what you wish and to say what you feel’ (Hist. 1.1.2). If so, in our context one might detect another implicit compliment of Trajan. But quite apart from the facts that the reigns of Nerva and Trajan were allegedly times of ‘rare felicity’ and that the timeless project of the Annals must, as we have seen, allow for the recrudescence of monarchs such as Tiberius, much of the political argument of the digression is set in a generalised, post-Republic, ‘now’ (33.2 conuerso statu … imperitet; pauci prudentia … docentur). In any case, the freedom allowed by Trajan can be exaggerated, and, as Ahl shrewdly comments on Hist. 1.1.2, ‘we should beware of taking Tacitus “at his word”’. There is at least a possibility that Hist. 1.1.2 is itself ‘figured’.69 We resume explication of Tacitus’ argument. Tacitus’ stress in 33.3 on the tediousness of his themes cannot be confined to the literary and aesthetic: that tediousness itself signifies political repression and powerfully underscores—in Hannah Arendt’s memorable phrase—the banality of evil. Formally, of course, Tacitus is moving back to where he began: the particular repressions and oppressions of Tiberius. But once again, the text cannot ⟦133⟧ be confined to the evils of Tiberius’ reign: all history is contemporary history (Croce): for descendants of Tiberius’ victims, the past is the present, history may hold up an accusatory mirror to contemporary wrong-doers, praise of virtue cannot be separated from castigation of vice,70 the historian’s act of praising virtue in 69 Ahl (1984a) 207. Figured speech is extensively exploited in Dio Chrysostom’s Kingship Orations, directly addressed to Trajan at the very beginning of his reign (Moles [1990]); on Pliny’s heroic efforts in the Panegyricus to make language ‘stick’ (against all the odds under the imperial system) see Bartsch (1994) 148–87. 70 Such I believe to be the implication of 33.4 (though the manner of expression is of course characteristically, and entirely appropriately, a little slippery). Kraus–Woodman (1997) 93 gloss the passage somewhat differently: ‘Tacitus … says … that readers for their part often suspect double meanings even when they are not intended. … Here [4.33.4] Tacitus … implicitly claims a lack of intent on his own part; but many readers may feel that the claim is disingenuous’. But Tacitus moves from focalisation by a/the reader (reperies putent) to an objective statement about the antipathy of virtue and vice, when the latter is convicted by being put into too close a chronological relationship (Woodman–Martin [1989]

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order to confer glory may win glory for himself but both the performance of glorious deeds in political life and the historian’s celebration of those deeds which gets him his glory are politically dangerous under the monarchy. Nevertheless, contrary to 32.2 inglorius, it seems that both politician and historian may after all be able to secure such glory. All categories, then, vertical and horizontal, collapse into one another. Nor, even at the end of the digression, are emperors excluded from the process of judgement: ‘that cap might fit both Tacitus’ senatorial colleagues and the emperor himself’ (Martin)71 (and one might add: any senators at any subsequent period). The judging power of history is timeless and panoptic. Arguens picks up Xenophon’s κρίνω/Kritias play and thus extends Tacitus’ gaze to Critias’ tyrannical Roman equivalents; all Roman monarchs come before the court of history, and from Tacitus’ point of view, though their individual guilt varies greatly, their collective guilt as unconstitutional monarchs and tyrants is sure. Of course, even as Tacitus claims the right to dispense the judgement of history, thereby seemingly transcending the grim political realities illustrated by the narrative of the trial and death of Theramenes, he simultaneously implies that he himself is ‘on trial’: the historian’s task too is a perilous one—⟦134⟧ a politically perilous one. So the trial metaphor is again translated into grim reality in the next chapter. 5

The Narrative of Cordus’ Trial and Death

As we have already seen, the trial and death of Cordus (4.34.1–5) themselves signify civil strife and discordia.

176: ‘the comparison is with the heroism (implied in extuleris above) of the Punic Wars, which, unlike more recent examples, is too far distant to produce significant comparisons with contemporary criminality’), and the ut phrase implies that vice is actually convicted. Furthermore, since (as we have seen) arguens corresponds to Xenophon’s κρίνω, Tacitus himself is implicitly but necessarily involved in this judging process. There are also numerous verbal pick-ups of 33.4 in the narrative of Cordus’ death and legacy; these seem to validate the correctness of the reader response in 33.4. Finally, the implication—praise of virtue and castigation of vice—sits well (arguably) with (one aspect of) Tacitus’ historiographical project: see §5.4. The question whether praise of virtue does indeed imply castigation of vice becomes important in relation to the arguments of Cordus’ speech (see §5.2.3). 71 Martin (1994) 38.

312 5.1 The Preliminaries to the Trial (4.34.1) Cornelio Cosso Asinio Agrippa consulibus Cremutius Cordus postulatur, nouo ac tunc primum audito crimine, quod editis annalibus laudatoque M. Bruto C. Cassium Romanorum ultimum dixisset. Accusabant Satrius Secundus et Pinarius Natta, Seiani clientes. (34.2) Id perniciabile reo et Caesar truci uultu defensionem accipiens, quam Cremutius, relinquendae uitae certus, in hunc modum exorsus est.

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When Cornelius Cossus and Asinius Agrippa were consuls Cremutius Cordus was summoned, on a new and then for the first time heard charge, namely that bringing out his annals and praising M. Brutus he had said that C. Cassius was the last of the Romans. The accusers were Satrius Secundus and Pinarius Natta, clients of Sejanus. That was destructive to the accused, and Caesar receiving the defence with ferocious expression, which Cremutius, sure of leaving life, began in this fashion.

The biological world (or perhaps just this analysis) goes haywire: enter in sequence a worm (OLD s.v. ‘cossus’ b), a silly ass, a difficult feet-first birth (OLD s.v. ‘Agrippa’ 3), a late-born lamb (OLD s.v. ‘cordus’), offered as a burnt-offering (OLD s.v. ‘cremare’ 1c). The emphasis on the charge as being ‘new and then for the first time heard’ echoes the opening words of Cicero’s Pro Ligario (‘a new charge before this day unheard’),72 thereby marking this trial as a further instance of the ongoing conflict between Caesarism and Republicanism, though also, implicitly and proleptically, contrasting Caesar’s relative clemency with Tiberius’ tyrannical ferocity. The emphasis also implicitly recalls later examples within the imperial period of similar charges, trials, and outcomes: again, the narrative focus cannot be restricted to this one incident in the particular reign of Tiberius. Readers are bound to recall the cases of Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio under Domitian as cited by Tacitus himself in the Agricola (2.1–3 [quoted in §7]). Indeed, it is difficult not to ⟦135⟧ see Tacitus as here constructing a further intertextual relationship with his own earlier writings. Tacitus’ account of the charge is of course rather selective but hardly fundamentally misleading.73 In any case, we are interpreting a text, not reconstruct72 Kraus–Woodman (1997) 97. 73 Suerbaum (1971) 68–71; Martin–Woodman (1989) 177; Tacitus’ ‘selectivity’ with regard to the charge is of course an important part of his creativity but space forbids; note, incidentally, that in his history Cremutius ‘proscribed the proscribers’ (Sen. Marc. 26.1); this factor and the requirement that one of Appian’s sources for the proscriptions should have written post 19 BC (Gowing [1992] 263 n. 47) provide some support for old contentions that Cremutius was a source for Appian (and hence also for Henderson [1997]), despite the

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ing history. Perniciabile (34.2) picks up perniciem (33.3): Cremutius’ ‘destruction’ is an example of the ‘destruction of innocent people’ under Tiberius (and emperors like him). There are two immediate implications: first, Cremutius (like Theramenes) must be regarded as wholly innocent; second, death is the only possible outcome of this trial: nothing Cremutius can say will make any difference (again like Theramenes). Nor, therefore, is Cordus’ suicide premature (and in 35.4 its appropriateness is immediately further confirmed by the senate’s decree concerning his books). The next sentence turns to Cremutius himself. Relinquendae uitae certus is generally taken to mean ‘resolved on suicide’ (so, e.g., OLD, TLL, Furneaux, Jackson, Koestermann, Martin–Woodman), which in itself the Latin could of course mean. But in context this interpretation is rather praecox. The Latin could equally well mean ‘sure of leaving life’ (by whatever mechanism),74 and this gives a sharper and cleaner narrative sequence: (1) Cremutius’ trial illustrates the ‘destruction of innocent people’; (2) the accusers’ being clients of Sejanus and Tiberius’ ferocious expression guarantee this ‘destructive’ outcome; (3) Cremutius himself becomes ‘sure’ of this; (4) he makes his speech; (5) he then ‘finishes his life by starvation’ (becoming master of the process of relinquendae uitae by ‘voluntary’ suicide). This latter interpretation also fits the Theramenes paradigm (§3.1.1) better, Cremutius’ being ‘sure of leaving life’ corresponding to Theramenes’ clear-sighted awareness that his various physical and verbal demonstrations can have no possible effect on the outcome. 5.2 Cordus’ Speech This raises extremely difficult interpretative problems but a discussion of the digression and the narrative of Cordus’ trial and death can hardly ignore ⟦136⟧ them. A crucial preliminary point is that when Tacitus the historian includes within his narrative the speech of a fellow historian he is imitating Sallust, Histories 3.48, where the historian Licinius Macer, tribune in 73 bc, makes a speech to the plebeian assembly.75 This is part of his continuing imitation of, and rivalry with, Sallust (see §3.1.9), but, as we shall see (§5.2.2), there are also important thematic implications.

agnosticism about Appian’s sources exhibited by Gowing loc. cit. and Henderson [1997] 99–100 {= (1998) 21}. 74 So Shotter (1989) 81; this usage can certainly be paralleled; cf., e.g., Ann. 1.27.2 exitii certus with Goodyear ad loc. 75 Marincola (1997) 251, ‘tacitly’ correcting Martin–Woodman (1988) 176–7 (‘[Cordus] is the only historian in the whole of classical historiography to play so active a role or deliver a speech. T.’s unique presentation of a fellow historian in the context of his historiography is thus memorable and suggestive’).

314 (4.34.2) ‘Verba mea, patres conscripti, arguuntur: adeo factorum innocens sum. Sed neque haec in principem aut principis parentem, quos lex maiestatis amplectitur: Brutum et Cassium laudauisse dicor, quorum res gestas cum plurimi composuerint, nemo sine honore memorauit. (4.34.3) Titus Liuius, eloquentiae ac fidei praeclarus in primis,77 Cn. Pompeium tantis laudibus tulit ut “Pompeianum” eum Augustus appellaret; neque id amicitiae eorum offecit. Scipionem, Afranium, hunc ipsum Cassium, hunc Brutum nusquam latrones et parricidas (quae nunc uocabula imponuntur), saepe ut insignis uiros nominat. (34.4) Asinii Pollionis scripta egregiam eorundem memoriam tradunt, Messalla Coruinus imperatorem suum Cassium praedicabat; et uterque opibus ⟦137⟧ atque honoribus peruiguere. Marci Ciceronis libro, quo Catonem caelo aequauit, quid aliud dictator Caesar quam rescripta oratione, uelut apud iudices, respondit?

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‘My words, conscript fathers, are arraigned: so innocent am I of deeds. But not even these words were directed against the first man or the first man’s parent,76 whom the law of “majesty” embraces: I am said to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose achievements, although very many have composed, no one has commemorated without honour. Titus Livius, outstandingly and pre-eminently illustrious in eloquence and trustworthiness, exalted Gnaeus Pompeius with such great praises that Augustus called him a “Pompeian”; nor did that obstruct their friendship. Scipio, Afranius, this very Cassius, this Brutus, he nowhere names brigands and parricides (the appellations now imposed on them), but often as distinguished men. Asinius Pollio’s writings hand down an outstanding memory of the same men, Messalla Corvinus used to pronounce ⟦137⟧ Cassius his own commander; and each flourished completely in wealth and honours. To Marcus Cicero’s book, in which he made Cato equal to heaven, what other reply did dictator Caesar make than a written speech in reply, as if before jurymen?

76 Shotter (1989) 164 takes this as ambiguous between Augustus and Livia (his translation in fact has ‘mother’); similarly some other commentators and translators. But in context allusion to Livia would be very intrusive and would spoil the implicit monarchical diadochê of Julius Caesar, Augustus, and Tiberius; cf. also Ann. 2.50.2. 77 Thus the usual punctuation; Woodman, in Martin–Woodman (1989) 179, prefers putting the comma after praeclarus, thereby linking in primis with Cn. Pompeium. The question is immaterial here.

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(4.34.5) Antonii epistulae, Bruti contiones falsa quidem in Augustum probra, sed multa cum acerbitate habent; carmina Bibaculi et Catulli referta contumeliis Caesarum leguntur; sed ipse diuus Iulius, ipse diuus Augustus et tulere ista et reliquere, haud facile dixerim moderatione magis an sapientia; namque spreta exolescunt; si irascare, adgnita uidentur. (35.1) Non attingo Graecos, quorum non modo libertas, etiam libido impunita; aut si quis aduertit, dictis dicta ultus est.

Sed maxime solutum et sine obtrectatore fuit prodere de iis quos mors odio aut gratiae exemisset. (35.2) Num enim armatis Cassio et Bruto ac Philippenses campos obtinentibus belli ciuilis causa populum per contiones incendo? An illi quidem septuagesimum ante annum perempti, ⟦138⟧ quomodo imaginibus suis noscuntur (quas ne uictor quidem aboleuit), sic partem memoriae apud scriptores retinent? Suum cuique decus posteritas rependit; nec

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315 Antony’s letters, Brutus’ popular speeches contain many libels against Augustus, false indeed but expressed with much sharpness; the poems of Bibaculus and Catullus replete with abuse of the Caesars are read; but the divine Julius himself, the divine Augustus himself both bore them and left them alone, whether more through moderation or wisdom I should not find it easy to say, for things spurned grow into oblivion; if you become angry, they seem to be recognised. I do not touch on the Greeks, among whom not only liberty but also licence78 was unpunished; or if anyone turned to punitive action, he avenged words with words. But what was most exempt from punishment and without a detractor was to transmit an opinion concerning those whom death had removed from hatred or favour. For surely I am not inflaming the people by popular speeches for the cause of civil war Cassius and Brutus being armed and occupying the plains of ⟦138⟧ Philippi?79 Or do those men, carried off seventy years before, just as they are recognised by their images (which not even the victor

Editors remark on the very rare use of libido = licentia, for which cf. Ann. 1.72.3 libidine qua uiros feminasque diffamauerat (of the charge against Cassius Severus under the maiestas law), and, with the same sound play as 4.35.1, Cic. De Or. 3.4 libidinem tuam libertas mea refutabit. It is to retain that sound play that I translate libertas here by ‘liberty’ and libido by ‘licence’; see further §5.3. 79 The strained translation seeks to avoid prejudging an interpretative dispute (see below, n. 82).

316 derunt, si damnatio ingruit, qui non modo Cassii et Bruti sed etiam mei meminerint.’

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abolished), so retain a part of their memory among writers? Posterity recompenses each individual his own honour; nor will there be lacking, if damnatio assails me, those who will remember not only Cassius and Brutus but also me.’

5.2.1 Interpretative Principles Certain broad interpretative principles seem secure: (1) Cordus’ speech is Tacitus’ own invention.80 (2) Given that the narrative is set up in such a way as to guarantee Cordus’ innocence and to convey his Theramenean/Socratic philosophical heroism, it is implausible to suppose that any of Cordus’ arguments should be of low quality (though they might be tricky, and, as we shall see, some of them in fact are). (3) Given that death is the only possible outcome of this trial and that nothing Cordus can say will make any difference, the fact that he fails to persuade does not create any presumption that he has made any mistakes in his arguments. (4) On the contrary, given (2) above and (5) below, the presumption must be that his arguments are of high quality. (5) Given the intrinsic parallels between Cordus and Tacitus (both being historians, annalists, encomiasts of Brutus and Cassius, in some sense anti-imperial and on trial, Cordus literally so, Tacitus metaphorically [4.33.4]), Cordus’ arguments must say something about Tacitus’ own position and about the general tradition to which both belong. (6) Given all the foregoing considerations, any apparent differences, whether of tone or substance, between Cordus’ arguments and Tacitus’, or any internal inconsistencies, require careful attention. ⟦139⟧ 5.2.2 Cordus’ Argument Cordus does not deny the charge itself (34.1 quod dixisset); he denies that his having said/written these things is in any way treasonable.81 The essential heads of his argument are as follows (Martin and Woodman provide a 80 Syme (1958) 337 n. 10; Martin–Woodman (1989) 178. 81 4.34.2 dicor does not deny that he praised Brutus and Cassius; rather, it picks up arguuntur, uerba mea, and 34.1 dixisset, and by linking the idea of ‘saying’ to a charge of ‘saying’ reinforces the general implication that the charge is ‘just words’.

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characteristically clear analysis, though there are points on which I disagree with them). I append a few comments on the legalities, without going into the notoriously vexed legal problems surrounding the maiestas law. Of course, for the purpose of interpreting Tacitus’ meaning, what matters is the way Tacitus represents these legalities. (1) The charge of treason arraigns Cordus’ words, not his deeds, so clearly innocent is he in the latter area (34.2; cf. 35.2). There is also some implication here that not even things said or written should come under the maiestas law. This implication is strengthened by the fact that Cordus’ wording uerba mea arguuntur: adeo factorum innocens sum pointedly contrasts with Tacitus’ own comment at 1.72.2 on the general application of the law until the end of Augustus’ reign: facta arguebantur, dicta impune erant. On the other hand, in 1.72.3 Tacitus himself notes that Augustus was the first to employ the law with regard to ‘libellous writings’, those of Cassius Severus against illustrious men and women, Cassius Severus has recently reappeared in the narrative (4.21.3), and one of the sequence of maiestas trials before the digression concerns a libellous poem against Tiberius, the composer of which Tiberius pardoned (31.1). So the implication that the maiestas law should not be applied to the word appeals to majority precedent but the reader knows that Augustus had already controverted that precedent and that under Tiberius the maiestas law was understood to cover words. (2) Cordus’ words involved no attack on/criticism of Tiberius or Augustus, the only people to whom the maiestas law applies (34.2) (therefore the charge has no legal basis). Again, 1.72.3 both supports this restriction in a general way and provides the information that Augustus had again already deviated from precedent. (3) Cordus’ words did not attack but praised (so again the charge has no legal basis). Clearly, in so far as the maiestas law could be applied to words, they ought to be words of criticism or libel. (4) Granted that Cordus praised Brutus and Cassius, all historians who have written about their deeds honoured them (therefore he is no different and deserves no punishment for it). ⟦140⟧ (5) The facts bear out this latter claim: historians contemporary with Augustus who honoured Brutus and Cassius or other Republicans did not suffer for it and indeed prospered under Augustus. (6) In the case of Cicero’s encomium of Cato (by implication, a more extreme case, in that (a) Cicero praised Cato so highly and (b) Caesar was then dictator), Julius Caesar contented himself with a written response. (7) Both Julius Caesar and Augustus tolerated and allowed to remain before the reading public written material which was genuinely libellous and strongly

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hostile or thoroughly abusive; this policy showed both political moderation and wisdom, even more of the latter: ignore things and their effect wanes; register anger, and they acquire recognition (i.e., they attract public attention and they look as if they are justified). The legal point here is that if the maiestas law could be applied to the word, the words should be defamatory or libellous. But in fact neither Julius Caesar nor Augustus took legal redress. (8) A subsidiary argument: among the Greeks, liberty, even licence, of speech either went unpunished or was avenged in words only. (9) The greatest freedom was accorded in the expression of opinion about the dead, regarded as beyond hatred or favour, the more so the longer ago their death. (10) Favourable representation of Brutus and Cassius, even in their military campaigns, does not amount to fomentation of civil war in the present day, since (a) words are not actions (cf. 1 above); (b) Brutus and Cassius have been dead for 70 years.82 ⟦141⟧ (11) Rather, just as Brutus and Cassius’ images (which Augustus did not abolish) preserve their ‘recognition’, so writers who write about them preserve part of their memory. (12) Everyone is entitled to commemoration according to his deserts. (13) If he himself is condemned he, like Brutus and Cassius, will be remembered. 82

Interpretation disputed: see Martin–Woodman (1989) 182–3 (with divergence between the two editors). The usual interpretation is: ‘for surely it is not the case that I am inflaming the people in support of civil war by public speeches at the very moment when C. and B. are holding the field in full armour at Philippi?’, i.e., they are long dead and so is their cause. Woodman, however, argues for: ‘for surely it is not the case that, just because C. and B. hold the field in full armour at Philippi [sc. in my history], I am inflaming the people by public speeches with civil war as my motive?’ The arguments are complicated, but I think that: (a) pace Woodman, given the preceding sentence, the enim and the objective chronological distance between Brutus and Cassius at Philippi and Cordus haranguing (or not haranguing) the people (now), this sentence must be making something of the ‘time lag’ argument; (b) pace Woodman, Cordus cannot be implying that his representation of Brutus and Cassius simply (neutrally) exemplified the ‘immediacy [i.e., vividness] at which all ancient historians aimed’: there is no question but that his representation was favourable (he praised Brutus and called Cassius the last of the Romans): the question is what that favourable representation implies now, under the Tiberian monarchy; (c) Woodman must, however, be right to think that the allusion to Brutus and Cassius refers to Cordus’ representation of them, both for some of the reasons that he gives, and because this sentence needs to supply a reference for prodere in the previous sentence, and because the parallel and contrast with Macer (in Sallust), who does harangue the people, conveys a contrast between words and actions (hence the requisite words must be Cordus’ verbal representation of Brutus and Cassius in full civil-war mode).

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The overall logic of the argument is sufficiently clear. Cordus upholds the general right of free speech (cf. 8, 9), here specifically the right of praising those defeated by the Caesars. As a defence of libertas, the speech echoes Licinius Macer’s speech in Sallust, for Macer had called the plebs to libertas. This parallel gives Cordus’ plea real power and underlines that fundamental issues of libertas are at stake. Both historians also speak like historians, citing numerous past precedents on the side of libertas. But Cordus consistently denies that praise of Republicans entails active resistance to the Caesars or advocacy of civil war (1, 10): words are different from actions. This makes a sharp contrast with Macer’s overt political activism and gives particular point to Cordus’ denial that his activity amounts to stirring up the people in contiones (35.2). After propositions 2 and 3, propositions 4–6 might seem redundant but are designed to forestall the contention that praise of Brutus and Cassius implies criticism of the Caesars, hence it is important for him to show that such praise was tolerated by earlier Caesars. Proposition 7 extends the evidence of Caesarian precedent to material which was actively hostile to the Caesars and offers moral (‘moderation’) and prudential (rather than strictly legal) justifications for Julius Caesar’s and Augustus’ policy of toleration. Proposition 8 covers all categories (praise, criticism, and abuse) in the Greek context. Libertas glosses ἐλευθερία/παρρησία of ‘free speech’, libido ‘licensed abuse’/λοιδορία (e.g., abuse of the great in comedy), a Greek equivalent of the lampoons of Bibaculus and Catullus. Propositions 9–12 add to the claim that praise of Brutus and Cassius and their ilk does not entail active opposition to the Caesars the argument from lapse of time: Brutus and Cassius are beyond political hatred or favour and everybody is entitled to commemoration, whether good or bad. Proposition 13 ends triumphantly with the prophecy that his own condemnation will assure his commemoration (in accordance with the prudential argument of proposition 7). Of course, given that the trial of Cordus the historian enacts in real life the metaphorical ‘trials’ of the historian Tacitus (34.4), the debate about the interpretation of Cordus’ history can be read as a debate about principles of literary criticism, especially the validity of ‘figured speech’ interpretation of ⟦142⟧ historiography, but equally of course, this literary criticism is (as always) a matter of life or death. 5.2.3

Critical Interactions with Tacitus’ Own Arguments and Other Inconsistencies Qua Republican historian and advocate of libertas, Cordus aligns himself with the (relatively) libertarian historiographical tradition of Livy, Pollio, and Messalla. Inasmuch as the situations of Cordus and Tacitus are parallel and Cordus himself is Tacitus’ historiographical precursor and inasmuch as

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Cordus’ case implicitly recalls others such as those of Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio (§5.1), Tacitus implicitly aligns himself with this essentially Republican libertarian tradition.83 Of course, there is a pleasing irony here: ‘let no one compare our annals with the writing of those who composed the old things of the Roman people’ (4.32.1), quoth Tacitus in propria persona, formal contradiction neatly avoided by the fact that the speaker now is Cordus speaking about his annals. Political heir to the Republican historiographical tradition, Tacitus yet offers his readers a type of history more suited to the conditions under monarchy (4.32.2, 33.2). Cordus’ claim that he is transparently ‘innocent of deeds’ is endorsed by Tacitus (34.2 innocens > 33.3 innocentium; cf. 34.2 perniciabile < 33.3 perniciem). His statement that the maiestas law properly applied only to Tiberius and Augustus (among individuals) accords with Tacitus’ own view (above). His claim that previous historians who had praised Brutus and Cassius did not suffer for it is supported not only by his own examples but also by Tacitus’ description of the charge against him as ‘new and then for the first time heard’ (34.1). When he claims that Livy ‘exalted Gnaeus Pompeius with such great praises that Augustus called him a “Pompeian”; nor did that obstruct their friendship’, we recall Tacitus’ observation in the digression that ‘to ancient writers the objector is rare, and it is of no import whether you exalt the Punic or the Roman battle-lines more joyfully’ (33.4).84 83

For development of this implication see Marincola (1997) 252–3; cf. also the prefaces to the Histories and Annals with Marincola (1997) 252: ‘the preface is an attempt to align himself with the great line of republican historians: thus he mentions in each preface the magna ingenia or the clari scriptores who once flourished at Rome, precisely in order to suggest that he himself, under different circumstances, and maybe against greater odds, will now continue that tradition’. In hailing Cassius as ‘the last of the Romans’, Cordus was himself in fact imitating Brutus (above, n. 41), as Tacitus surely knew, but we probably should not ‘feel’ Brutus’ presence here in the diadochê of libertarian historiography, especially given his explicit mention in the different context of 4.34.5. For Livy as ‘libertarian’ see above, n. 35 and below, n. 84. 84 How anyway does Augustus’ remark work? Martin–Woodman (1989) 179–80 comment: ‘since the evidence suggests that Livy supported Augustus whole-heartedly (RICH {= Woodman (1988)} 136–9), it seems that Cordus has chosen to take literally a joking suggestion by Aug. that admiration for Pompey meant sympathy for his supporters too (Pompeianus being capable of either interpretation)’. If so, Cordus/Tacitus (since it is Tacitus who is writing the speech) is twisting the facts. But the Martin–Woodman argument is too sharp: (a) it remains controversial whether ‘Livy supported Augustus whole-heartedly’ (see above, n. 35); (b) granted that Augustus’ remark must have been something of a joke (representing praise of the long dead Pompey as tantamount to active political support of him or his faction), it is a joke with an edge, because in Caesarian-speak the main point of calling people Pompeiani is to deny them political principle; (c) Livy’s extreme praise of Pompey must have entailed disapprobation of

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⟦143⟧ Cordus’ allusion to the false appellations now imposed on Brutus and Cassius (34.3) reflects Tacitus’ own Thucydidean concern in the digression and elsewhere with the abuse of language under distorted political conditions and thereby implies that it is rabid Caesarians who engage in civil war, not himself (proposition 10). Tacitus affirms this implication in his own comments at 35.5 (see §5.3). Cordus’ appeal to lapse of time as removing the ground for hatred or favour (35.1) coheres with Tacitus’ own fundamental claim at Ann. 1.1.3 sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo. Similarly, his allusion to Brutus’ and Cassius’ images stands in some relationship to Tacitus’ own remark at the end of Book 3 (3.76.2) praefulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso quod effigies eorum non uisebantur. Cordus’ defiant concluding prophecy of his own memoria, should he suffer damnatio (as he knows he will), is validated by Tacitus’ text, both by the mere fact that he is commemorated within it and by verbal parallels between Cordus’ remarks at 35.2–3 and Tacitus’ own final comments on the whole episode at 35.5 (35.2 decus > 35.5 dedecus; 35.3 meminerint > 35.5 memoriam). Indeed, Cordus seems to be playing in a sort of ‘silent’, ‘figured’, way upon his own name: suum cuique decus posteritas rependit: nec derunt, si damnatio ingruit, qui non modo Cassii et Bruti sed etiam mei meminerint. For damnatio seems to cover both ‘condemnation’ and damnatio memoriae and posteritas rependit and mei meminerint remind us of the process of reCORDatio and the name CORDUS, which his damnatio will seek to repress but in the very repression preserve. Cordus’ name is both absent and present (like Brutus and Cassius’ effigies). Cordus’ clear-sighted prophecy of what is to come also appeals to ‘the verdict of history’, just as Tacitus had done in the digression. Lastly, Cordus’ pregnant ‘posterity recompenses each individual his own glory’ (where decus includes the possibility of dedecus [see §5.4]) implies that history praises the good and condemns the bad and deploys this implication to protreptic and deterrent effect; many scholars would regard this as reflecting Tacitus’ ⟦144⟧ own historiographical programme, or at least an important element of it (see again §5.4). So far so good. Other aspects of Cordus’ speech seem harder to reconcile with Tacitus’ own arguments and/or are problematic in themselves. There are problems of tone. Why, for example, is Cordus seemingly so respectful of the memories of Augustus and Julius Caesar, more so, apparently, than the historical Cordus in his history (Cass. Dio 57.24.3), and certainly Julius Caesar, hence large questions of civil-war responsibility, etc. So Livy and Augustus do here appear on opposite sides politically and Cordus’/Tacitus’ observation is reasonable enough.

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more so than Tacitus himself? (With this respect goes the otherwise surprising admission that Brutus’ popular speeches contained ‘false libels’ against Augustus.) Granted that Cordus is partly addressing Tiberius, the current Caesar; granted also that Augustus and Julius Caesar did behave objectively better in their response to published praise of enemies of the Caesars than Tiberius is now behaving (truci uultu) and will behave (35.5); why this apparent respect, especially since Cordus has nothing to lose, his fate having already been decided? This respect even goes beyond tone, since the impression Cordus gives of Augustus’ response to intellectual dissent is also rather rosy as to the facts, at least with regard to Augustus’ later years. Why also Cordus’ implicit ad hominem appeals, exhibited not only in the seeming respect for earlier Caesars but also in the commendation of moderatio, a virtue on which Tiberius prided himself,85 in the appeal to posterity’s verdict, an appeal of particular weight to Tiberius, pre-occupied as he was with his own fama,86 and in the citation of Asinius Pollio, grandfather of one of the consuls, Asinius Agrippa, who was presumably present at the trial? These ad hominem appeals are the more striking for the elegant sarcasm of 34.4 ‘what other reply did dictator Caesar make than a written speech in reply, as if before jurymen?’—as if a trial were a civilised civil procedure: the dictator Julius Caesar urbanely submits the question of Cato’s worth to the judgement of history; on a similar question, Cordus is on trial for his life in a mockery of justice. Even the appeal to Julius Caesar and Augustus’ toleration of abuse is double-edged in its relation to Tiberius. The reader knows that, on the one hand, Tiberius publicly refused to have verbal insults to himself or Livia treated as maiestas (2.50.2) and that he has just unexpectedly pardoned the composer of a libellous poem against himself (4.31.1 [a passage to which we shall return]) but that, on the other hand, Tiberius was, in Tacitus’ opinion, enraged by anonymous poetic attacks on his savagery, arrogance, and discord with his mother (1.72.4). There are also problems with the arguments.87 Despite Tacitus’ own endorsement of Cordus’ plea of transparent innocence of deeds, how can Cordus ⟦145⟧ maintain an absolute distinction between words and deeds, when Tacitus himself has emphasised that ‘small and slight things’, which, as we have seen, can certainly include words (cf.  §3.1.1 and n. 19), can be important and can generate ‘movements of great events’? How can a historian committed to the power of the verdict of history take the position that historical judgements 85 Martin–Woodman (1989) 182 and 192. 86 Cf. Martin–Woodman (1989) 186; §5.4, below, nn. 101 and 111. 87 Martin–Woodman (1989) 182–4 point to some of these problems.

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have no practical import? How can Cordus imply that praise of Brutus and Cassius (praise, fundamentally, of their pre-eminent political uirtus) does not imply criticism of their political opponents, when Tacitus himself seems to have endorsed the proposition that the opponents of virtue are right to see themselves as rebuked by its celebration (33.4)? How can Cordus in effect deny the validity of figured-speech interpretation of history, when Tacitus himself has in the digression upheld it and even himself exploited it? These seeming inconsistencies seem to issue in a thoroughly illogical situation: on the one hand, Tiberius is damned for tyrannically interpreting mere words as tantamount to action and for adopting a figured-speech interpretation of a historical work; on the other hand, words are not mere words: they have real political power, and figured-speech interpretations are valid. Damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Very Tacitean, many would say, but that, if so, is hardly an adequate explanation. One answer to the seeming inconsistencies is of course one of the answers given: that the contentious history was all a long time ago. Another, also given, is that everyone is entitled to their memoria in proportion to their deserts. But this latter answer reaffirms the pre-eminent virtue of Brutus and Cassius. And the salutation of Cassius as the last of the Romans actually implies the most radical of political claims, namely that the Republic was Rome and that with the fall of the Republic Rome is spiritually and politically dead, a claim with which Tacitus in the digression has already registered some sympathy (4.33.2). Nor is the former answer, lapse of time, immune from deconstruction: ‘you will find those to whom similarity of character is an objection which makes them think that they are the subject when other people’s wrong-doings are recorded’ (4.33.4): the boundaries between old things and new things are transgressed by Tacitus himself; time does not necessarily remove the dead from hatred or favour. The deaths of Brutus and Cassius were not even that long ago: while Cordus’ words about Livy, Pompey, and Augustus recall Tacitus’ comment in the digression, they remind us that there is a crucial difference: from the point of view of the republic/empire, old/new dichotomy, the Punic Wars belong decisively with the old, whereas Pompey, Brutus, and Cassius all come within the same broad temporal frame, the ‘new’ times of Caesarian monarchy. Indeed, when Cordus notes that Brutus and Cassius are nowadays misnamed as ‘brigands and parricides’, he implicitly concedes a continuing ⟦146⟧ political debate. The allusion to Brutus and Cassius’ statues and the analogy between statuary commemoration and historiography are also double-edged, because of the ambiguities of 3.76.2: Brutus and Cassius were conspicuous by their absence: it was judged too dangerous to exhibit their effigies, yet the very absence of their

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effigies ensured Brutus’ and Cassius’ presence. This edge acquires still sharper point from the verbal interaction between 34.5 adgnita uidentur and imaginibus suis noscuntur. Brutus and Cassius’ images maintain their ‘recognition’ and do so even when they are not displayed. It is not, then, always the case that ‘things spurned grow into oblivion’; nor does an emperor’s avoidance of anger at material which criticises him, whether explicitly (as in the case of Bibaculus and Catullus’ poems) or implicitly (as in the case of Brutus and Cassius’ statues), guarantee its non-recognition. Mere scurrilous abuse an emperor should and can shrug off; other material (Brutus and Cassius’ statues or their honorific commemoration in historiography) is so powerful in its political implications that it is difficult to sanitise it within the monarchical system. This latter implication is heightened by further intertextual allusion to Sallust. In BJ 4.1, 5–6 Sallust discusses the usus (cf. Ann. 4.32.2) or uirtus of historiography. His main point is the encouragement it provides to virtue, which he illustrates by analogy with the effect of ancestors’ imagines (5–6): Nam saepe ego audiui Q. Maxumum, P. Scipionem, praeterea ciuitatis nostrae praeclaros uiros solitos ita dicere, cum maiorum imagines intuerentur, uehementissume sibi animum ad uirtutem accendi. Scilicet non ceram illam neque figuram tantam uim in sese habere, sed memoria rerum gestarum eam flammam egregiis uiris in pectore crescere neque prius sedari, quam uirtus eorum famam atque gloriam adaequauerit. For I have often heard that Quintus Maximus, Publius Scipio, and other pre-eminently distinguished men of our state were accustomed to say that when they looked upon the images of their ancestors their minds were very strongly fired towards virtue. It is evident that that wax or figure did not have such great power in themselves but that that flame grew in the breasts of outstanding men through the memory of deeds done and that it did not subside before the virtue equalled those men’s fame and glory. This analogy is ironised, because Sallust immediately states that in the present degenerate days everybody vies with their ancestors not in uprightness and industry but in riches and extravagance (4.7–8). Nevertheless, the encouragement of virtue through history remains the ideal. ⟦147⟧ By taking over Sallust’s analogy between historiography and imagines, Tacitus implies the continuing energy of Brutus and Cassius as representations of uirtus; he also retains Sallust’s division of time between the virtuous

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past and the degenerate present but whereas for Sallust that past had lost its potency, for Tacitus it is still puissant (for Tacitus’ further development of BJ 4.7–8 see §5.3). 5.2.4 Interpretation of Cordus’ Speech Final interpretation of Cordus’ speech (if such a thing is possible) needs to factor in its interrelationships not only with the digression but also with the preceding narrative (see §5.4) and with the closing narrative of Cordus’ death and legacy (§5.3). Nevertheless, it is reasonable to attempt some preliminary observations at this point. The difficulties and inconsistencies in Cordus’ arguments fundamentally derive from the conceptualisation of Liberty/the Republic and monarchy/the Caesars as polar opposites and from different practical responses to that conceptualisation. On one level, the conceptualisation is correct, on another it is susceptible of varying interpretation. Some useful practical distinctions and compromises can be made. While praising Brutus and characterising Cassius as the last of the Romans logically entails regret for the fall of the Republic and denial of the legitimacy of the present monarchical dispensation, it is (1) one thing to state and imply these things in a book (as part of one’s considered historical judgement on the past), (2) another thing to state them in a contio (with intent actually to stir up the people against the monarchy), and (3) yet another thing actually to take up arms against the current Caesar, thereby running the risk of civil war. (It had always been possible for people of Republican views to view the latter as the greatest evil.) These three positions are all Republican yet obviously profoundly different in practice. It is wrong to characterise the first as merely intellectual or emotional or hypocritical Republicanism: it has content, there are implications, it affects attitudes and behaviour (see §7); nevertheless, it does not pose a direct and immediate threat to Caesarism. Republicanism position 1 can reasonably maintain a distinction between words and deeds to some extent. Conversely, on the Caesarian side, there is scope for a range of responses to Republicanism position 1. Tiberius and his henchmen (or any emperor and his henchmen) can choose amicitia with (a) Cordus (as Augustus did with Livy); or they can tolerate him, just as he, in general, tolerates them, and just as Augustus and Julius Caesar, in general, tolerated similar intellectual dissent. Or they can crush him. In choosing the last course, they elevate ideology above humanity, ultimate disagreements over immediate practical coexistence. People who do this are rightly damned as cruel tyrants. ⟦148⟧ People of radically different ideological persuasions, persuasions which logically imply hopes of radically

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different final outcomes, can agree in a civilised way to coexist in the here and now, if they regard the cost of non-coexistence as being too high. Such coexistence involves the toleration of radically different opinions about the past and, by implication, about the present and the future. So today, for example, western liberal democracies at their best tolerate the presence of individuals and groups (certain sorts of Marxists or Islamic radicals, for example) who reject the values and politics of western liberalism but who are allowed to maintain and even, provided they stay within the law and eschew violence, to prosely­ tise for their views. If western liberal democracies do not tolerate such people, they are rightly accused by civil rights groups of unjustifiable intolerance. The distinction between words and deeds has again a certain validity. Within this general scenario, what is the point of Cordus’ apparent (and seemingly unhistorical) respect for Augustus and Julius Caesar and of his somewhat rosy depiction of Augustus’ response to intellectual dissent? No doubt they are partly to be explained in terms of Tacitus’ belief that in one’s dealings with emperors one should avoid contumacia (‘abuse’), which only provokes and achieves nothing useful (Agr. 42.3; Ann. 4.20.3 [cited in  §6]). Here of course there is no prospect that Cordus’ avoidance of contumacia will mollify Tiberius, who is already determined on Cordus’ death. But the effect of Cordus’ courtesy towards the Caesarian line of Tiberius’ ancestry is to increase the sense of Tiberius’ unreasonableness, especially when it is pointed out that Julius and Augustus Caesar actually tolerated ‘abuse’. Even Caesarism does not have to be interpreted in such a cruel way as it was on this occasion: Augustus and ‘dictator Caesar’, while basically autocratic and monarchical, were less tyrannical than Tiberius. Tiberius could have chosen to follow their example. Much the same applies to the apparent ad hominem appeals: Tiberius and Asinius Agrippa could have followed better courses, which would have been consistent both with their political and with their personal lineages. Neither Cordus’ apparent respect for Augustus and Julius Caesar nor his over-rosy picture of Augustus is designed to persuade (the outcome of the trial is a foregone conclusion), but rather, through offering a vision of Caesarism at its best, to make a demonstration of the implacable tyranny of the Tiberian regime (and of the regime of any emperor like Tiberius). In its quality as a demonstration, Cordus’ speech makes another parallel with Theramenes. Or to put it another way, Tiberius and his henchmen are shown to behave in such a way as to undermine still further the Augustan claim to have restored the Republic. They are incapable of implementing the tolerant pluralism of Augustan rhetoric and, to a limited extent, of Augustan reality. A more ‘Republican’ monarchy could have lived with Cordus, not only because ⟦149⟧ of the demands of tolerant pluralism, but because the Republican past was after all the large part

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of the past, the largest constituent of the collective memoria of the res publica. A somewhat more ‘Republican’ monarchy, that of Augustus, did succeed in living with Cordus. But in a case that could not be more testing for the toleration of Republican feeling, Tiberius’ parade of constitutional Republicanism is exposed as a complete sham. One main function of Cordus’ speech, therefore, is to re-emphasise the fact that although a monarchical system always and necessarily creates problems for freedom of thought and freedom of speech, the distinction between relatively moderate monarchs and outright tyrants matters. And since there is no infringement of freedom of speech or of thought under a Republic, the guarantor, even the epitome, of Freedom (see above, n. 61), the monarch best fitted to cope with such freedom is the most Republican one—best fitted to cope with it, but also, and necessarily, least vulnerable to attack (explicit or implicit) from Republican thinking or other Republican manifestations. Further, his response to such attacks can itself lessen the force of the attack: if an emperor responds with Republican moderation, this in itself makes the nominal Republic that even the monarchy claims to be somewhat more of a reality. In this context Tacitus’ contemporary readers could hardly fail to think of their own current emperor, Trajan, who celebrated Liberty and reissued the ‘Liberty’ coinage of Brutus and other Republicans88 and from a libertarian point of view was undoubtedly a great improvement upon Domitian. This hardly justifies Martin’s interpretation:89 Cremutius too was a historian, who had written fearlessly about events that seemed to have a particular relevance for his contemporaries. The reader is left to apply the moral as he will. Cremutius’ outspokenness had cost him his life. Perhaps Tacitus, while asking the reader to admire his own outspokenness, is paying a deft compliment to his own times when such freedom of speech need not bring with it the fate of a Cremutius Cordus. While some emperors are better than others, all emperors are monarchs/ tyrants, and the deceptions and dishonesties of the whole Augustan system can only properly be exposed through figured speech, as in the digression. 88 Cass. Dio 68.15.31; cf. the typically jaundiced comment of Syme (1958) I.250: ‘the design is manifest—to recall and solemnize the ancient glory of the Free State, to assert and demonstrate the continuity between past and present. It proved the contrast. The demise of Republic and Republicanism could not have been more clearly ratified’. How does he know? 89 Martin (1994) 137.

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Within such a system, commemoration of Brutus and Cassius and their ilk is always problematic. ⟦150⟧ In effect, then, Cordus’ speech aims to embarrass Tiberius qua monarch by conveying that the right way to respond to Republican manifestations is to be less monarchical, as Caesar and Augustus, Tiberius’ predecessors, had managed to be under similar circumstances, but that this is a response of which the tyrannical Tiberius of the ferocious expression is largely incapable, despite all the pluralist, even Republican, rhetoric of the Augustan system, despite the example of Augustus and despite even Tiberius’ own better self (4.33.1). As always, for ‘Tiberius’ read ‘Tiberius or any emperor like him’ (like Domitian of the angry flush). The notion of embarrassing an emperor also comes into play precisely at the point where the words–deeds distinction becomes untenable. For, in another clear parallel with Tacitus himself in the digression, Cordus registers awareness of ‘figured-speech’ rhetorical theory: 34.5 ‘for things spurned grow into oblivion; if you become angry, they seem to be recognised’. Now of course Tiberius is already angry and beyond such advice, so that the phrase ‘if you become angry’, where ‘you’ is ambiguous between ‘one’ and Tiberius, the principal addressee, adds further force to the demonstration of Tiberius’ tyrannical behaviour. Nevertheless, figured-speech theory maximises the possibility of safe criticism or admonition of kings or tyrants, under whom direct political opposition of the kind represented by Macer’s speech to the plebs is hardly a realistic option. Even though the king or tyrant knows that he is being implicitly criticised he will lose face if he shows his knowledge by a violent reaction. Cordus, therefore, can maintain a sharp distinction between Republican words and Republican deeds, because (a) this distinction is obviously valid to some extent; (b) to the extent that it is not, a reasonably self-controlled emperor cannot admit that verbal (or other) commemoration of the great Republicans does indeed constitute an implicit but still potent (see  §5.2.3) criticism of himself and of Caesarism in general.90 As regards its central claim that words 90

My analysis of Cordus’ speech therefore has some parallels with Dyer’s (1990) analysis of the Pro Marcello, e.g., 23–6 on ‘the dilemma of clemency’ (lack of clemency is despotic; implementation of clemency is despotic; despots should be killed; the way out of the bind is to restore the Republic). Is Dyer right? At the least he shows (developing the analyses of Ahl [1984a] and [1984b]) that there is a mass of ancient rhetorical theory which can be enlisted in support of such an interpretation, and this is enough for my purposes. Levene (1997) 68–9 scores some points against Dyer but does not seem to me to dispose of Dyer’s central claim: that from a Republican point of view Caesar’s position is intrinsically anomalous, irrespective of whether he behaves well or badly on a particular occasion. On the other hand, Cicero’s dreadful personal capacity for shameless sycophancy frustrates sure interpretation.

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are wholly distinct from deeds, therefore, Cordus’ speech is an exercise in ‘figured speech’—again like Tacitus’ digression. And again ⟦151⟧ figured speech emerges as a key vehicle for relatively free expression. This is emphasised by the parallel and contrast with Sallust’s Macer: Macer has complete freedom of speech and he can use it to argue for a radical interpretation of political freedom. Of course, even figured speech may not work with an out-and-out tyrant, who may allow his anger to override all other considerations (including his reputation). So Tiberius on this occasion or Domitian later. But even when figured speech fails in this sense, on another level, admittedly at a high cost to its practitioner, it scores a success, because the tyrant’s behaviour demonstrates the truth of the criticisms. Thus figured speech opens the possibility of damage to a king or tyrant’s reputation in a way that is analogous to the historian’s power of conferring infamy on malefactors. So far Cordus’ speech, both in itself and in its relationship with earlier material, seems to be about the restraint of liberty, whether about restraints imposed or relaxed by Caesarian monarchs or about the restrained expression of liberty through figured speech. The interaction between Cordus’ speech and the earlier narrative, however, creates a certain sense that Liberty cannot always be restrained, that she is as it were a force outside anybody’s control: the suppression of Brutus and Cassius’ effigies at Junia’s funeral represented a restraint upon Liberty which was as it were tacitly agreed by both Republicans and Caesarians. But in the event Liberty burst free. One last point for the moment. None of the above observations entails that Tacitus’ position be the same as Cordus’ in all respects (as scholars too readily assume). To point up the tyranny of Tiberius, Cordus is made to adopt a relatively benign portrayal of Augustus; Tacitus accepts that Augustus is less bad than Tiberius, but his portrayal of Augustus is less benign than Cordus’ (see further §6). And although Cordus should not be regarded as making any mistakes either in his speech or in his history (he could not know that in praising Brutus and Cassius he would fare worse under Tiberius Caesar than he had under Augustus or than Pollio and Livy also had under Augustus), it is open to Tacitus, with the benefit of historical hindsight and much greater political experience, to write a type of history more suited to the dangers of life under the established Caesarian monarchy and more politically adept. In some respects that history is of its time, the reign of Trajan, which was markedly less oppressive than those of Domitian or Tiberius, hence it can be more open in its condemnation of tyranny; in other respects, however, it aims to be a guidebook for life under a monarchy which is both always dangerous and deceptive and necessarily more or less oppressive according to the character of the current incumbent. Cordus uses the device of figured speech with some adroitness:

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Tacitus’ use, and exploration, of ambiguity, double-speak, linguistic distortion, gaps between appearance and reality, etc., etc. is far more wide-ranging and profound. Cordus’ ⟦152⟧ handling of Brutus and Cassius was straightforwardly and obviously Republican: Tacitus’ is subtler and more oblique (3.76.2). Cordus’ history was also profoundly pessimistic: Cassius was the last of the Romans, the Republic, Rome, is dead. Despite the searing realism of the political analysis of the digression, of the preface to the Annals, and of his continuous narrative, Tacitus’ political vision, surprisingly enough is not actually so bleak (see §6). There is, then, an important sense in which, although he is on several levels Tacitus’ alter ego (for one level as yet unconsidered see §5.4), Cordus also should be added to the long list of Tacitus’ historiographical models in the digression and the surrounding narratives. Cordus, like Xenophon, Thucydides, Herodotus, and all the rest, makes important contributions to Tacitus’ historiographical conception, but ultimately the Annals is the single most useful historiographical text for the understanding of the problems raised by the never-ending struggle between Liberty and monarchy. 5.3 Cordus’ Death and Legacy (4.35.4) Egressus dein senatu uitam abstinentia finiuit. Libros per aediles cremandos censuere patres; set manserunt, occultati et editi. (35.5) Quo magis socordiam eorum inridere libet qui praesenti potentia credunt exstingui posse etiam sequentis aeui memoriam. Nam contra punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas, neque aliud externi reges aut qui eadem saeuitia usi sunt nisi dedecus sibi atque illis gloriam peperere.

Then going out of the senate he finished his life by abstinence from food. The Fathers decreed that his books be cremated by the aediles but they remained, hidden and brought out. Wherefore we have the more the licence to laugh at the stupidity of those who believe that the memory also of a subsequent age can be extinguished by present power. For on the contrary the authority of punished talents grows, nor have alien kings or those who have used the same savagery begotten anything other than dishonour for themselves and glory for them.

After making his speech, Cordus ‘goes out’ of the senate to finish his life. In this super-charged narrative the seemingly innocuous word egressus links back to the digression (itself an egressus) and to the ‘free digressiveness’ of the Republican historians. Cordus’ egressus is literal but also metaphorical and metatextual: it is a ‘digression’ from what would have been the normal path

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of life had he not lived under tyranny and offended the tyrant and his henchmen; it instantiates the moral and political values of Tacitus’ own ‘digression’; ⟦153⟧ also, of course, Cordus now ‘leaves’ the path of Tacitus’ own text. Cordus’ digression is also, given the tyrannical context, for him now a true moral path: an expression of the ‘free digressiveness’ of Republicanism: an assertion of Socrates’ and Theramenes’ philosophical freedom. His death is also an example simultaneously of the exitia enforced by tyranny and of the clari ducum exitus of Republicanism as commemorated by the digression (4.33.3; cf. 4.30.3 publico exitio). Actions as glorious as any done under the Republic are still possible under the monarchy/tyranny. Since Cordus had been accused of political ‘incendiarism’ (4.35.2), the Fathers’ decree operates the lex talionis of cremating his books.91 This ‘cremation’ aims also to obliterate his very nomen: Cremutius. Again, distortion and control of language are at issue, and again, they matter, profoundly. To obliterate Cremutius’ nomen would be to obliterate him, to destroy his legacy, his moral progeny, his books of Annals, which like Tacitus’ Annals, praised Republican libertas. Or in another sense, to cremate ‘Cremutius’, both man and text, is an attempt to ‘extinguish’ his family: hence the ‘also’ in the next sentence and the further parallel with the digression (33.4 familiae extinctae). Of course Tacitus too is engaged in suppression: the suppression of Cordus’ literal progeny (his daughter Marcia, dedicatee of Seneca’s Consolatio). He too is controlling Cordus’ legacy but this is control in the cause of liberty. It is not, then, Cordus who is the political incendiary but the senate. In addition to the other implications of their act of ‘cremation’, the parallel with Sallust, BJ 4.7–8 (quoted in  §5.2.3. fin.), brands the senate as attempting to extinguish the flame of virtue itself. Despite these multifarious assaults, Cremutius’ books ‘remained’, just as in 33.4 there ‘remain’ descendants of Tiberius’ victims, and, after being hidden, were ‘brought out’, just as in 34.1 Cremutius had originally ‘brought out’ his annals. The historical tradition remains unimpaired, indeed strengthened, by repression. Implicit in all this are two crucial puns, namely that between liber/liber: books are guarantors of freedom—and that between liber/liberi: books are a person’s children. These puns powerfully underpin the assertion of intellectual and political liberty, the fight for the control of memoria, the construction of an unbreakable libertarian diadochê, and the articulation of all these things through the enduring philosophical tradition of Socrates. Horace used both these puns in his profoundly philosophical and overtly Socratic Epistles, 91 Martin–Woodman (1989) 184.

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and Socrates, at least as Platonised, claimed that literary works are a person’s children.92 ⟦154⟧ The concluding sentiment quo magis socordiam inridere libet, which I have translated (of course inelegantly) as ‘wherefore we have the more the licence to laugh at the stupidity’ (etc.), is also crucial and packed with implication. Given the philosophical and Socratic underpinning of the context, we may recall that Socrates was the laughing philosopher par excellence and that the last act of the Socratic and Xenophontic laughing Theramenes was to laugh at a murderous tyrant who was the Greek equivalent of Tiberius. Inridere corresponds to παιγνιῶδες in Hellenica 2.3.56 and marks (for the moment: see n. 18) the final parallel between Annals 4.32–5 and its great Xenophontic archetype. The correspondence between inridere and παιγνιῶδες and the twin puns on liber/liber and liber/liberi evoke the further Socratic association of παίζειν/παῖδες/παιδία/παιδεία (play [verb], children, play [noun], education).93 Socrates and Theramenes died laughing, even in a sense died for their laughter, but their laughter cascades down the generations, cheering us but also ‘educating’ us to the sheer stupidity of autocracy: its humourlessness (cf. Tiberius’ grimly unSocratic visage), its false values, its objective transience, its congenital incapacity to take the Herodotean long view (cf. praesenti potentia). Tacitus’ imitation of Xenophon here involves the pointed transference of the process of inridere from Socrates and Theramenes to ‘us’, Tacitus, and the more perspicacious of his readers. From their heroic and inspiring example we learn to laugh. Laughter is profoundly subversive:94 tyrants hate being laughed at (cf. again Tiberius’ ferocious expression). And, like Theramenes and Socrates, we, the oppressed, have the last laugh. The very word libet is also highly significant. Often colourless enough (‘I’m inclined to do such and such’), it can be understood (by Roman writers) as etymologically related to liber, libertas, etc.95 This possible link is activated in this context both by the proximity of libros (with its own contextual associations of liberi and libertas) and by the link back to Cordus’ wording in 35.1: non attingo 92 Books ~ freedom: Hor. Epist. 1.20.1 (with, e.g., Johnson [1993] 69); relevant (at least at one remove) are Isid. Orig. 17.6.16 liber est corticis pars interior, dictus a liberato cortice; Cassiod. Inst. 2 praef. 4 liber dictus est a libro, id est arboris cortice dempto atque liberato (from Maltby [1991] 337). Books (vel. sim.) ~ children: Pl. Phaedr. 275e; Smp. 209d. 93 E.g., Pl. Leg. 2.656c; Dio 4.30; Hor. Epist. 1.1.59–60 (at pueri ludentes, ‘rex eris’, aiunt, | ‘si recte facies.’). 94 Cf. in general Plass (1988) 3–25 (with, however, no mention of the Theramenean-Socratic type). 95 Cf., e.g., Inst. Iust. 1.3.1 libertas quidem est, ex qua etiam liberi uocantur, naturalis facultas eius quod cuique facere libet; Isid. Orig. 10.160 libidinosus a Libero (these examples are filched from Maltby [1991] 337–8).

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Graecos, quorum non modo libertas, etiam libido impunita; aut si quis aduertit, dictis dicta ultus est. Tacitus has already, as it were, set up a link between libertas and libido. For all these reasons, libet in 35.5 conveys, not only ⟦155⟧ ‘we may be pleased to’, but also, and more importantly, ‘we have the freedom to’: even in extremis, hounded to death by a tyrant, we are free because like Socrates and Theramenes we can laugh at him and his utter stupidity. A further function, then, of Cordus’ appeal in 35.1 to Greek practice in relation to libertas is to anticipate some fairly fancy Greek associations in 35.4–5. More prosaically, the verbal link between impunita in 35.1 and punitis in 35.5 reinforces yet again the injustice of punishing freedom of speech. So libet in effect conveys the idea of ‘licensed freedom’ or ‘free licence’. In a sense this principled and permitted laughter is a higher form of the libellous abuse of emperors (< 35.1, 34.5, 31.1). The attribution in 35.5 of socordia to Tiberius and his henchmen also requires consideration. In the immediate context it seems to be explicit and unproblematic wherein their ‘stupidity’ consists (and presumably there is a particular side-swipe at the ‘asinine’ Asinius Agrippa of 34.1). But what is the relationship between this attribution of socordia in 35.5 and the statement in 31.2: neque enim socordia peccabat [sc. Tiberius]? That comment arose from Tiberius’ pardoning of C. Cominius (who had composed a libellous poem against the emperor), an incident described by Tacitus as a ‘modest joy interjection’ into otherwise unremittingly gloomy things.96 Tacitus (I think) is punning on different senses of socordia, or (and this is perhaps a better way of looking at it) ‘redefining’ socordia in 35.5.97 The sequence of thought seems to be: (1) Tiberius did not go astray through ‘carelessness’ (i.e., when he committed those acts, he thought he knew what he was doing); (2) although his unjust punishment of Cordus was thus carefully considered, it was actually profoundly, and criminally, ‘stupid’. The effect of this shift in meaning is of course to emphasise that crowning criminal stupidity but it is also to direct our attention to the word socordia itself. Tiberius and co try to annihilate CORDUS; their attempt to do so is foredoomed to failure and is therefore SO- (or SE-) CORDIA. But it is also SOCORDIA because they are trying to kill the Republican COR of 96 31.2 is a rhetorical ‘interjection’ (OLD, s.v. interiectio 2), and since adsiduis maestis > 33.3 continuas accusationes and maestis > 32.2 maestae urbis res, it is an ‘interjection’ which contrasts with a ‘digression’ which is tantamount to the whole narrative, an ‘interjection’, therefore, within that ‘whole narrative’; the literary form again represents the essential nature of the things imitated. 97 Tacitus can be regarded as exploiting the rhetorical figure variously known as ἀντανάκλασις (Quint. 9.3.68), διάφορα (Rutilius Lupus 8.12 Halm), or traductio (Quint. 9.3.71), whereby ‘the same word is used in two different meanings … [the figure has] greater elegance when it is employed to distinguish the exact meanings of things’ (Quint. loc. cit.).

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the bleeding res publica. (The next sentence will develop this biological theme.) So much for CONCORDIA. DISCORDIA rules. Yet the living fire of CREMUTIUS cannot be extinguished (cremandos/exstingui). Historical/historiographical RECORDATIO survives (< 35.3). ⟦156⟧ The children of liberty (libros) cannot be extinguished; ‘hidden’ for a time, they are yet ‘brought out’ (alike ‘begotten’, ‘brought to birth’, ‘brought into public’, ‘published’). The ‘heart’ (COR) of the res publica cannot be extinguished. Libertas lives. Cassius was not after all ‘the last of the Romans’. Cremutius himself carries forward the torch of freedom, and after him Tacitus. The linkage between 31.2 and 35.5 also obliges us to consider the relationship between laetitia in 31.1 and inridere in 35.5. If an emperor behaves unexpectedly well, one can feel simple ‘joy’; if he behaves like an unadulterated tyrant, one can ‘laugh’ at his stupidity. Even under the unlovely Roman monarchy, the freedom represented by joy and laughter are always possible. Thus libros, cremandos, socordiam, and libet all illustrate a process of multiply (adv.) punning redefinition of language, in all cases to pointed libertarian effect and in all cases to the discomfiture of the Caesarian monarchy. Tacitus trumps repeatedly, and turns to good ends, the systematic linguistic distortion practised by Augustus and his successors. The final sentence drives a multiplicity of nails into the coffin of Caesarian autocracy and its wretched collaborators. ‘The authority of punished talents grows.’ Authority–author-ity. The historian Cremutius is one such auctor, ‘punished’ for his libertas (as we have seen, punitis < 35.1 non attingo Graecos, quorum non modo libertas, etiam libido impunita). Tacitus himself is another, Cremutius’ fellow-historian and in several senses the figure for whom Cremutius stands. Because of these parallelisms, Tacitus can at once be (as it were) ‘attracted’ into the category of ‘punished talents’, but it is also objectively true that his own libertarian historiographical writings were silenced during the tyranny of Domitian, the recent tyrannical equivalent of Tiberius, and that such fellow-historians as Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius Senecio who did produce work under Domitian were indeed punished. The ‘punished talents’ are also the books themselves, Cordus’ ‘cremated children’.98 The liberating auctoritas of auctores such as the historians Cremutius and Tacitus and of the books which they produce contrasts with worldly power (praesenti potentia, externi reges, etc.). But there is also an implicit contrast between this sort of auctoritas, an auctoritas which grows over the generations, and political auctoritas in the conventional sense, which is necessarily 98 Ingenium of literary compositions (rather than the quality that informs them) is not easily paralleled (though Ov. Trist. 2.1–2 is not far), but the imagery makes the usage easy.

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more circumscribed in time. Thus although worldly power and auctoritas are in the first instance represented by the tyrannical Tiberius and his henchmen, a more general contrast is suggested between fundamentally different types of ⟦157⟧ auctoritas, between fundamentally different value systems (some such contrast is of course already implicit in the philosophical underpinning of the passage). It becomes difficult therefore not to sense, beyond the immediate contrast between Cremutius and Tacitus on the one hand and Tiberius and his like on the other, a more radical, and general, contrast between the auctoritas of the whole libertarian historiographical tradition and the auctoritas of the whole oppressive monarchical system as represented by Augustus, thrice mentioned in Cordus’ speech. Now although Cordus’ mentions of Augustus are formally complimentary and serve, as we have seen, to demonstrate a difference between Augustus and Tiberius, we have also seen that Tacitus himself does not take nearly as positive a view of Augustus as that attributed to Cordus. On the contrary, Tacitus’ view, as conveyed through the figured speech of the digression, is that the Augustan monarchy brought not growth and fecundity (auctoritas) but stasis, decay, and perpetual death (4.33.2–3). While the natural processes entail cyclical change (kings rising as well as falling), there seems to be a pattern of growth to some extent independent of that cycle: the growth of the power and influence of libertarian historical tradition, subject of course to a key condition to which I shall soon return. As in the digression, therefore, Republican liberty is contrasted not just with Tiberian tyranny but with the whole monarchical system, which is necessarily anti-libertarian and anti-growth. And given that the auctoritas of Cordus and Tacitus (and their like) is literally that of auctores in the sense of ‘literary authors’, it also becomes difficult not to recall the rival historiographical tradition of the Caesars, that of Augustus, whose historiographical disagreement with Livy Cordus has mentioned (34.3), Julius Caesar, whose literary attack on Cato Cordus has explicitly cited (34.4), and Valerius Maximus.99 So far, Tacitus’ use of ingeniis remains unconsidered. The word obviously takes its place within the general imagery of death, birth, growth. More important, ingeniis is here given its strong personalised sense of ‘persons of talent/ genius’ (OLD 5b), whose ingenium has acquired ‘external’ recognition (cf., for example, Sen. Ep. 21.5 profunda super nos altitudo temporis ueniet, pauca ingenia caput inserent). In this strong ‘external’ sense ingeniis contrasts with 99 34.3 latrones et parricidas (quae nunc uocabula imponuntur) surely contains a swipe at Valerius Maximus, who applied the term ‘parricide’ to Brutus and Cassius and Caesar’s assassins generally (Val. Max. 1.5.7, 6.13, 8.8; etc.) and of Caesarian authors was much the most hostile to the memory of the Liberators: Rawson (1986) 105–6 {= (1991) 493}.

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the ingenia of the senate and optimates, understanding of which was the desideratum when the senatorial fathers had power (33.2) and which were ‘inner’. In the present context, too, the fathers have power (Tacitus here again implicitly collapses another chronological boundary between Republic and Empire), ⟦158⟧ and their wretched decree externalises their ingenia. Contextualised within biological imagery, the fathers attract Tacitus’ withering contempt: they behave not as true fathers but as fathers who try to destroy their children, not as fathers of liberty but fathers of damnatio. Their very name is a misnomer (another distortion of language). The ingenia of Cordus and Tacitus are of the higher, ‘external’, class, and they are vastly superior morally. Cordus manifested his inner talent by his external praise of Brutus and Cassius and by the nature of his egressus. This narrative again enacts a central concern of the digression: the relation between outer and inner and the need to penetrate beneath the former. How does Tacitus manifest his ingenium? Firstly, of course, by preserving the memory of Cordus. This preservation of memory is itself an act of libertas. But secondly, we have to see into (introspicere) the inner nature of Tacitus’ libertas and discern its emphasis: its figured-speech libertarianism. We too are ‘on trial’ (cf. 4.33.4). We are in this text, though we have as it were to put ourselves there (see §4.4). Our ingenia are also at stake. To interpret this text rightly we need to love liberty, or at least to be able to respond to its moral power. Only thus will the statement that ‘the authority of punished talents grows’ be validated. Just as Cordus looked forward to the commemoration of himself as well as Cassius and Brutus and was indeed commemorated both by those who hid copies of his books and published them and by Tacitus in the Annals, so we have a duty to commemorate Tacitus by reading and interpreting him rightly, that is, through the libertarian historiographical tradition of Cremutius Cordus and the historians to whom both he and Tacitus appeal. It may be worthwhile at this point to reflect upon some of the salient characteristics of this whole sequence. The sequence is permeated with contrasts between appearance and reality, verbal plays and distortions, and continual name-play. Its archetype is Hellenica 2.3.56, where the verb σιωπάω—be silent—occurs twice in the context of freedom of speech under tyranny. Within the sequence the historian repeatedly speaks in the first-person and repeatedly plays on the name of his fellow-historian, Cremutius Cordus. The sequence alludes intertextually to Agricola 2.1–3, a passage in which Tacitus glosses the general suppression of freedom of speech under Domitian with an ironic personal sphragis: 2.3 memoriam quoque ipsam cum uoce perdidissemus, si tam in nostra potestate esset obliuisci quam tacere (the next paragraph alludes to the silentium of the survivors of Domitian’s reign). So Tertullian was to attack

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Tacitus with the scornful idem Cornelius Tacitus, sane ille mendaciorum loquacissimus (Apol. 16.3). (I owe this reference to Tony Woodman, who got it from Michael Reeve.) Other possible self-puns occur at Ann. 3.65.1 ne uirtutes sileantur (a passage discussed in §5.4) and 4.64.3 neque tamen silebimus si quod senatus consultum adulatione nouum aut patientia postremum fuit. The ⟦159⟧ crucial political argument both of the digression and of Cordus’ speech is articulated through ‘figured speech’, a rhetorical mode naturally associated with ‘silence’ (Quint. 9.2.68). The ‘silence’ imposed by Domitianic tyranny becomes itself a sort of figured speech. So in this sequence Tacitus challenges us to penetrate his own claim to political greatness: Caesarian tyranny cannot render Tacitum tacitum. Conversely, of course, Tacitus sometimes speaks tacite (in the sense ‘tacitly’ [OLD 6]). The voice of Tacitus/the voice of Libertas: same difference.100 We move on. ‘Nor have alien kings or those who have used the same savagery begotten anything other than dishonour for themselves and glory for them.’ The virtuous beget virtuous children—their moral legacy, their libertarian writings, the vicious misbeget disgrace (by attempting to disgrace their virtuous victims), but this very misbegetting begets glory for the virtuous. Cordus’ challenging ‘posterity recompenses each individual his own honour’ is exactly fulfilled. Note the reactivated vocabulary of the ‘illegitimacy’ of tyranny (characteristically implicated in unnatural sex/growths/children, etc.) and the strong evocation of the life-affirming procreative imagery of the Symposium. The moral reversals begotten by tyranny are themselves reversed and redressed. Justice wins out. This sort of paradoxical play with moral reversals in such a way as to convey virtue’s final triumph is again profoundly Socratic. So, despite 32.2, Tacitus the historian gets/begets glory after all. By contrast, as Woodman and Martin note, externi reges glosses Tiberius, later metatexted as an alien king, while qui eadem saeuitia usi sunt glosses Sejanus and his savage accomplices. It is they, like the incendiarist senate, who wage civil war, not Cordus. But civil war was intrinsic to the Augustan system and reges are nothing other than singuli who regunt (4.33.1), so there is an even more basic point: ‘kings’ are

100 Henderson (1990) 195 n. 4 {cf. (1998) 260} seems to see this name-play as generally implicit in the Annals: ‘“Tacitus” is not silent on the doublebind knotted in his writing, though as with other declamatory writers, most obviously Juvenal, readers are ill-advised to search his work for the editorial comment, the emotional outburst, the forced interpretation which betrays the historian’s true-sincere-underlying-deep “View”, so do not expect to catch him with his rhetorical trousers down, his work is ironized beyond anything so crude’. This paper is confessedly ill-advised and crude (but actually, despite all the hype, Henderson’s own reading of the Annals is fundamentally libertarian: see below, n. 117).

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always alien to the res Romana (cf. 4.33.2): long live Republican libertas, which alone guarantees the true health and ‘growth’ of the res publica. Cordus and a Pre-eminent?/the Pre-eminent? Duty of History?/Annals? ⟦160⟧ The digression, the narrative of Cordus’ trial and death, and Cordus’ own speech all bear on central questions of commemoration: what is worth commemorating: small things or big things? How are they defined? What readership should one be appealing to? Can the historian avoid giving offence? Does praise of some imply blame of others? What are the implications of Cordus’ having praised Brutus and Cassius? What effect does history have upon later generations? Will Cordus’ own memory be damned or celebrated? Since Cordus is himself a historian and in some sense an analogue of Tacitus himself, these questions grow progressively more intense. Questions of memory and fame or infamy are again focused by Tiberius’ speech in response to the proposal of further divine honours (4.38.1–3). In this speech, as elsewhere, Tiberius shows himself acutely concerned with his own fama, both contemporary and posthumous, and as aware as Tacitus himself that ceremonies and honours do not necessarily indicate a person’s true reputation.101 How, if at all, does any or all of this sequence relate to the famous and much discussed passage in Ann. 3.65.1? There Tacitus states his practice concerning the recording of senatorial motions: 5.4

exsequi sententias haud institui nisi insignes per honestum aut notabili dedecore quod praecipuum munus annalium reor ne uirtutes sileantur utque prauis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamia metus sit. This has been interpreted in three different ways:102 1. The pre-eminent (praecipuum) duty of history is to commemorate virtue and stigmatise vice, so that: (1a) people may be stimulated towards great virtue by seeing it celebrated in history; and (1b) people may be deterred from vicious behaviour by seeing it stigmatised in history; in both cases because they know that future histories may pass judgement on them. 101 Ginsburg (1981) 48–9; Martin–Woodman (1989) 186–93; Luce (1991) 2922–6; this of course affects the question of how one thinks Tiberius’ speech in 4.38.1–3 ‘plays’ (see below, n. 111). 102 The major recent discussions are Luce (1991) and Woodman (1995b), both tough articles which present their own interpretative difficulties; Woodman–Martin (1996) 451–6 resumes the controversy very fully; cf. also Kraus–Woodman (1997) 109–10; Marincola (1997) 31 accepts Woodman’s interpretation.

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2. The pre-eminent duty of history is to commemorate virtue and stigmatise vice, so that people may be deterred from vicious behaviour by seeing it stigmatised in history. ⟦161⟧ On this interpretation, the prospective aspect of history is limited to deterrence of vice: commemoration of virtue is ipso facto a good thing and a memorial so constituted will survive into future ages.103 A conventional translation which allows either of these interpretations would be that of Church and Brodribb: My purpose is not to relate at length every motion, but only such as were conspicuous for excellence or notorious for infamy. This I regard as history’s highest function, to let no worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a terror to evil words and deeds. There is some variation among exponents of interpretations 1 and 2 in their detailed understanding of the Latin syntax. 3. A duty of history, particularly annals, is to be selective. Thus Tony Woodman, who takes the quod-clause as parenthetical and praecipuum munus as ‘a very great responsibility’ (not ‘the greatest responsibility’). He punctuates the Latin as follows: exsequi sententias haud institui nisi insignes per honestum aut notabili dedecore (quod praecipuum munus annalium reor), ne uirtutes sileantur utque prauis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamia metus sit. And translates as follows: It has not been my practice to go through senatorial motions in detail except those conspicuous for honour or of notable shame (which I reckon to be a very great responsibility of annals), lest virtues be silenced and so that crooked words and deeds should, in the light of posterity and infamy, attract dread.

103 Thus Luce (1991) 2911: ‘the moral excellence of men of the past must be brought to light and receive a place of honor in a memorial whose own high qualities will ensure its survival in future ages’. For both the commemoration of virtue and (even more) for the condemnation of vice, ‘naming names’ is a vital strategy: Luce (1991) 2908–14; 2919–22; Woodman–Martin (1996) 445–6.

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On this view Tacitus’ statement is apologetic of his necessary selectivity in the face of the extended senatorial material of previous chapters. It is important not to confuse the initial interpretative question with questions of a different order—the plausibility of interpretation 1, say, is not weakened by the fact ‘that the lessons that Tacitus is supposed to inculcate ⟦162⟧ are by no means unequivocal’ (Syme), or by difficulties one may well have with Goodyear’s idea that Tacitus’ moral criteria led him ‘to see various historical figures as types, embodying good or evil, rather than as individuals’.104 It is also important to note that, despite their differences, all three interpretations agree that: (a) Tacitus is undertaking to be selective; (b) his remark arises from its immediate context; (c) he does commit himself to the proposition that documentation of conspicuous vice has a deterrent purpose and that the deterrence is achieved by the thought that future histories can stigmatise one’s own misbehaviour. Disagreement on these three points is about relative emphasis. On interpretations 1 and 2, (a) is implicit but not central to Tacitus’ conception of history; on interpretation 3, (a) is explicit and very important but not the most important thing, which is simply not under discussion. On interpretations 1 and 2, (c) is central to Tacitus’ historical purpose; on interpretation 3, it is something he does and it is important but it is not part of his historical purpose. As for (b), on interpretations 1 and 2, Tacitus moves out from the immediate context to a general statement of his history’s pre-eminent duty; on interpretation 3, the immediate context remains the focus, although Tacitus does give a general rationale for what he has done. One might say that on interpretation 3 Tacitus’ statement remains primarily local and ad hoc, whereas on interpretations 1 and 2 it broadens into a programmatic statement. As for the areas of dispute, much debate has centred on the validity of parallels. Proponents of interpretation 1 adduce Sallust, BJ 4.5–6 (already cited and translated in §5.2.3): Nam saepe ego audiui Q. Maxumum, P. Scipionem, praeterea ciuitatis nostrae praeclaros uiros solitos ita dicere, cum maiorum imagines intuerentur, uehementissume sibi animum ad uirtutem accendi. Scilicet non ceram illam neque figuram tantam uim in sese habere, sed memoria rerum gestarum eam flammam egregiis uiris in pectore crescere neque prius sedari, quam uirtus eorum famam atque gloriam adaequauerit … and Livy, praef. 10: 104 Syme (1958) II.520–1; Goodyear (1972) 27, 34–7.

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hoc illud est praecipue in cognitione rerum salubre ac frugiferum, omnis te exempli documenta in inlustri posita monumento intueri; inde tibi tuaeque rei publicae quod imitere capias, inde foedum inceptu foedum exitu quod uites …

⟦163⟧ in support of the idea that commemoration of virtue inspires appropriate emulation in the reader, and the Livy passage also for the reverse idea, namely that commemoration of vice deters. Opponents of interpretation 1 deny that Sallust and Livy are parallel, on the grounds (a) that in 3.65 Tacitus is not explicit that commemoration of virtue inspires its emulation, and (b) that Sallust and Livy lack the idea that readers will be inspired or deterred by the thought of their commemoration in future histories. It is also argued that, while Tacitus occasionally emphasises the ‘exemplary’ character of events or behaviour, this does not encourage the view that this is central to his purpose. The search for parallels for the idea that vicious behaviour may be deterred by fear of exposure in future histories is in one respect necessarily less urgent since, parallels or not, Tacitus is certainly saying this. But parallels might help to influence the decision whether this is a central claim (as in interpretations 1 and 2). Diodorus Siculus has three passages where it is (1.1.5; 14.1.1–3; 15.1.1); he is an altogether unlikely source for Tacitus; on the other hand, he could suggest some more distinguished common source. As regards other considerations, opponents of interpretation 1 have emphasised that 1a is not explicit; Woodman has urged against both 1 and 2 their exponents’ disarray as to how exactly the syntax should be understood; Woodman has also argued that only his interpretation takes proper account of the immediate context. One can only briefly give one’s own reactions to this intricate debate. As regards the contextualisation of Tacitus’ statement, I do not see that Woodman has demonstrated the superiority of his interpretation (even though exponents of interpretations 1 and 2 would be better advised to translate institui by a perfect tense, to emphasise that Tacitus’ statement at least takes its point of departure from the immediate context). Even on Woodman’s interpretation Tacitus’ statement must have some general implication, both for the specific question of the recording of senatorial motions (for it would be odd if Tacitus did not subsequently maintain 3.65.1 as a general principle) and for the larger business of commemorating virtue and stigmatising vice. Hence Woodman’s convincing demonstration that 3.65.1 perfectly describes what Tacitus has actually done in his treatment of senatorial motions does not shut the interpretative question down. Note here that factis immediately extends

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the focus beyond the commemoration of senatorial motions. It is not, therefore, wrong to describe 3.65.1 as at least partly ‘programmatic’105 or to see links between it and the subsequent narrative. 3.65.1 would then work in the same way as 4.32–3: an initial apology broadens out into a programmatic statement. Woodman indeed admits, even stresses, the ⟦164⟧ similar status of the two passages but (mistakenly, in my view) tries to restrict 4.32–3 to the apologetic (see below, n. 108). As regards the alleged syntax problems inherent in interpretations 1 and 2, the fact that scholars disagree over the interpretation of the syntax does not necessarily indicate the error of their general approach: one understanding of the syntax may be better than others or the syntax may genuinely be somewhat fluid. Here, taking quod as ‘because’ and the subsequent ne- and ut-clauses as epexegetic of the munus (= ‘because I consider the pre-eminent duty of history to be that virtues should not be uncommemorated and that to crooked words and deeds there should be fear arising from posterity and bad repute’) is undoubtedly the ‘cleanest’ interpretation and one which produces unobjectionable Latin, as Woodman and Woodman–Martin admit. Taking the quod as ‘which’ with both backward and forward reference (that is, glossing insignes dedecore, and then receiving further definition in the ne- and ut-clauses), is also possible and is in fact the way I personally ‘feel’ the sentence. I also believe that this interpretation is ultimately truer to the broader implications of the statement or of the statement in its relationship to the subsequent narrative.106 But one’s ‘feelings’ in such a matter, while perhaps not utterly valueless, can have no persuasive force (other people don’t share them), and the more important point is that if one is committed to rendering praecipuum as ‘the pre-eminent’, it is possible, one way or the other, to construe the Latin in a way that yields acceptable Latin. As regards the respective merits of interpretations 1 and 2, 2’s notion of ‘pure commemoration’ of virtue in historiography (without any paraenetic or prospective force) seems, within the agonistic societies of Greece and Rome, not very plausible. Luce here relies heavily on the parallel with Herodotus, but this parallel is by no means unproblematic, since there is in fact scholarly debate as to whether Herodotean commemoration excludes or includes contemporary or prospective allusion, hence in effect warning or advice for current and future readers.107 The Sallust passage (to which we shall return) also militates 105 Pace Woodman (1995b) 119 {= (1998) 95}. 106 There is sufficient discussion of these matters of Latinity in Woodman (1995b) 112–13 {= (1998) 87–9} and extremely full documentation in Woodman–Martin (1996) 451–2. 107 Luce (1991) 2910–11; Moles (1996) 277 {above, p. 266}.

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against the notion of ‘pure commemoration’: the essential idea being that history inspires those who come after to rivalrous imitation. Here, surely, a link with epic (the hero competes with his peers but also with his predecessors) and hence also a link with the Homeric Herodotus, who thus again emerges as not simply commemorative. And several of the objections levelled against interpretation 1 seem invalid because too narrowly focused. For example, the idea that interpretation 1 locks Tacitus in to a moralistic purpose which is implausibly and uncharacteristically ⟦165⟧ naïve fails to take proper account of 4.33.2 haec conquiri tradique in rem fuerit, quia pauci prudentia honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis, discernunt, plures aliorum euentis docentur. Here an explicitly moralising purpose (honesta, deterioribus, noxiis) is given depth and complexity by the addition of Thucydidean intellectual penetration (see §3.1.3). Such a moralising purpose allows for, indeed builds in, extreme interpretative difficulties. This same passage also gives short shrift to the claim that exemplary history is not a fundamental part of Tacitus’ programme (plures aliorum euentis docentur).108 As for the objection that the wording of 3.65.1 (exsequi sententias haud institui nisi insignes per honestum aut notabili dedecore quod praecipuum munus annalium reor ne uirtutes sileantur utque prauis dictis factisque ex posteritate et infamia metus sit) does not make explicit that the commemoration of virtue works in the same way as the commemoration of vice, that is, by stimulating the reader into the appropriate response by reminding him that he too may come before the judgement of history, Cordus’ words of warning in 4.35.2 could not be more germane: suum cuique decus posteritas rependit: ‘posterity recompenses each individual his own honour’. Cordus’ use of decus is in the first instance positive, since decus is itself almost always a positive term and Cordus is arguing for the positive commemoration of Brutus and Cassius, though it also allows for the negative, since it cannot be the case that every individual deserves positive commemoration and this negative decus is indeed what Tiberius and Sejanus receive, when they beget for themselves dedecus. The punning or ambiguous use of the single word decus in 4.35.2 covers both 108 This passage refutes Luce’s claim ([1991] 2911) that Tacitus ‘nowhere states that one of his purposes in writing is to incite the reader to model his conduct on that of the personages who appear in his history’, a claim the more surprising because Luce does discuss 4.33.2; nor (I think) could it be argued by anyone (like Luce) who takes praecipuum munus as ‘the highest function’ that the exemplarity of 4.33.2 can be dissociated from ‘the highest function’: 4.33.2 defines history’s ‘usefulness’. Equally unavailing is Woodman’s dismissal of the relevance of 4.33.2 ([1995b] 115 n. 1 {= (1998) 90 n. 21}) on the ground that ‘so far from being assertive, the tone of the passage is apologetic throughout’: it is not apologetic ‘throughout’ and the ‘apology’ is anyway superficial.

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the honestum and the dedecus of 3.65.1 and envisages posterity’s judgement on both. It is difficult, therefore, to resist the impression that 3.65.1 bears some relationship both to 4.33.2 and to 4.35.2 and that it belongs within the larger question of historiographical commemoration and its purposes. Tacitus’ use of praecipuum also requires consideration. Woodman’s rendering of praecipuum munus as a pre-eminent duty seems difficult: how can Latin thus distinguish between the definite and indefinite article? why does Tacitus use such a superlative-looking word?109 More positively, since 3.65.1 ⟦166⟧ has some programmatic quality, Tacitus (I believe) is indeed echoing Livy praef. 10 (just as the digression intertexts complexly with the Preface): praecipuum ~ praecipue. If so, there would be rich implications: Livy’s history is explicitly ‘exemplary’ and praecipue links with ‘moral choice’ words (~ capias, inceptu);110 the theme of moral choice would be highly appropriate to the Tacitean context (there might even be a sort of reciprocal implication, typical enough in historiographical programmes, that just as Tacitus qua historian has chosen to select his material in such a way as to highlight great virtue and great vice, so his readers must choose between them). One could then see 4.33.2 and 4.35.2 as developing these potential implications. Nor (it seems to me) are Luce and Woodman right to dismiss the relevance of Sallust, BJ 4.5–6 (itself one of the concatenation of influences on Livy’s Preface), this passage forming part of the texture of the sequence at least from 3.75 (Brutus and Cassius’ effigies) to 4.35.5, as §5.2.3 has argued. Finally, if, in a first-person statement, 3.65.1 ne uirtutues sileantur ironically glosses Tacitus (or not-Tacitus, which comes to the same thing; see §5.3 fin.), that is appropriate to a programmatic statement. In my opinion, then, interpretation 1 of 3.65.1 is correct (and certainly the most fruitful in implication). The ways in which the programme of 3.65.1 is worked through by the digression and the whole Cordus sequence require more positive investigation. A crucial factor is Tacitus’ manipulation of temporal focalisation. In the digression present time covers a whole range of times: the moment of writing, the moment of reading, the precise time described in the text (the reign of Tiberius), a more generalised, post-republic, ‘now’. These different presents may clash; for example, commemoration of Tiberius’ reign is complicated by the different possible reader responses (4.33.4), and, although the dominant political ‘now’ is a general, post-republic, ‘now’, the reader is invited to make comparisons and contrasts between different emperors 109 There is some admission of this in Woodman–Martin (1996) 453; cf. Mayer (1997) 315. 110 Moles (1993) 158 {above, p. 215}.

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(Augustus, Tiberius, Domitian, Trajan). More complicatedly, the usefulness of Tacitus’ historiographical project, a usefulness which is as it were future in the text, has already been validated by the reader’s past experience in life (for example, the similarity between Tiberius and Domitian, or the fact that Cordus’ prosecution anticipated those of Rusticus and Senecio). Again, intertextual allusions to Tacitus’ own earlier works, the Agricola and the Histories, raise the question: what does Tacitus think ‘now’? Has he changed his position? Even more radically, thanks to the Herodotean perspective and the possibility of great political movements’ including further constitutional change, the time frame is also projected into the future. ⟦167⟧ In short, Tacitus’ past is brought into a shifting, questioning, relationship with other pasts, with the present, and even with the future. His project is not one of simple, inert commemoration. A concrete example: the digression seems to say that the glorious exits of generals belonged decisively to the Republican past and the historians who wrote under the Republic. Nothing like that is possible under the monarchy: that is a consequence of our loss of liberty. In the event, however, Cordus’ heroic behaviour enacts such a glorious exit (appropriately tailored to the new conditions). Tacitus’ description of his behaviour is not simply commemorative: it points to one possible solution to a still existent problem, a solution that is of course to some extent validated by the fact that it has already happened (on the Aristotelian psychological principle that what has happened is persuasive [Poet. 9, 1451b17–19]). The commemoration of Cordus’ behaviour thus has exemplary value. Clearly, Cordus’ status as a historian must have some bearing on this shifting temporal framework, especially with regard to the validation of 3.65.1 and interpretation 1 thereof. Any historian such as Tacitus who holds out to his readers, as an incentive to virtue and a deterrent from vice, the future judgement of history has to show that such judgements have some chance of standing. His own judgements on figures within his historical narrative, whether these judgements are explicit or implicit, laudatory or condemnatory, have a certain persuasive force, especially since they are underpinned by his practice of ‘naming names’ (see above, n. 103). Readers will know that there is some prospect that they too will undergo similar scrutiny in the future. Nature precludes (though imaginative literature entertains) the most persuasive scenario of all: acquisition of knowledge of one’s posthumous reputation. But will the vicious succeed in excising adverse judgements from the historical record? The Cordus narrative goes some way to dealing with these problems. Cordus the historian praised Brutus and Cassius, praise which implied criticism of the Caesars. His judgements stood until threatened by his prosecution for treason. The last words of Cordus’ speech remind Tiberius, Sejanus, Sejanus’

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accomplices, and the senate at large that they too are on trial: the trial represented by the judgement of history. If they condemn him, they will be condemned and his fame guaranteed. The fact that they have already condemned him in their minds already condemns them. But will Cordus’ death and the burning of his books destroy his memory and the chances of history making their condemnation stick? No—because Cordus’ successor and commemorator, Tacitus himself, ‘records’ the whole story. Then Tiberius’ speech again raises the question of his memory. His rejection of divine honours and desire for unfeigned approbation closes with the words (4.38.3) quandoque concessero, cum laude et bonis recordationibus facta atque famam nominis mei prosequantur (sc. allies and citizens). The wording interlinks with ⟦168⟧ 4.35.5 and 35.3 and all the way back to 3.65.1. Not only will any reader recall the rejoicing with which Tiberius’ death was actually greeted (rejoicing no doubt described by Tacitus himself in the lost Book 7) but bonis recordationibus is undermined by our memory of Tiberius’ treatment of CORDUS (with all Cordus’ many different aspects). Cordus’ decus again underlines Tiberius’ dedecus.111 The memory of the virtuous triumphs. 111 Interpretation of Tiberius’ speech lies beyond the scope of the present paper but the speech is part of the whole sequence from 3.65.1 and something must be said. It is common ground that the apparent nobility of Tiberius’ speech is at least to some degree threatened by the Cordus narrative: Ginsburg (1981) 48–9; Martin–Woodman (1989) 186; Luce (1991) 2925 (though I do not think that any of these scholars register the full extent of Tacitus’ demolition of Tiberius in this narrative); all the same, Martin–Woodman see the narrative movement as characterised by ‘manipulation of [Tacitus’] readers’ sympathies, first in one direction and then in another’, and they speak of Tacitus’ ‘reluctant admiration’ for Tiberius and of ‘the nobility of the emperor’s sentiments’ (187, 186). The ambiguities of Tacitus’ general portrayal of Tiberius are indeed real and well recognised; nevertheless, I think that Tiberius’ speech can be deconstructed to a high degree and bonis recordationibus < Cordus is only a beginning. E.g.: 37.2 defensionem (Tiberius is ‘on trial’; cf. and contrast Cordus); 37.3 omnia facta dictaque eius [sc. Augusti] uice legis obseruem < 33.2 conuerso statu; 38.1 principem locum < 33.1 singuli regunt (etc.); meminisse memoriae meae < 35.5; 35.3–4 (etc.); posteros < 35.3 suum cuique posteritas rependit; maioribus meis dignum < 34.3–5; 38.2 effigies < 37.3 effigie < 35.3 imaginibus < 35.2 effigies; mansurae < 35.5 manserunt; iudicium posterorum < 37.2 defensionem (etc.); in odium uertit, with Martin–Woodman’s note (deleting the first clause and substituting: ‘Tib. dishonestly slides over the fact’); 38.3 nominis mei < 35.4 cremandos (etc.); 38.4 degeneris animi (with Martin–Woodman’s note); 38.5 optimos (with Martin–Woodman’s note); Liberum < 35.5 libet, 35.1 non modo libertas, etiam libido, 32.1 libero egressu; 38.5 contemptu uirtutes < 3.65.1. Speeches of course can be morally good or bad according to the character of the speakers (Quint. 11.1.37), and practically everything that Tiberius here says is undermined by the enormity of his own earlier behaviour; the fact, emphasised by Woodman and Martin,

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On this analysis, then, one of the many functions of the Cordus narrative is to illustrate the historiographical project of 3.65.1 in action; that project is to record notable examples of virtue and vice in order to inspire readers to emulation and rejection respectively and to do so in both cases by reminding them that they in turn are subject to historical judgement; and that project is indeed the pre-eminent duty of history. Nevertheless, it would be possible to see the Cordus narrative as illustrating this double prospective function and 3.65.1 as implying it without committing oneself to the view ⟦169⟧ that 3.65.1 makes this history’s ‘pre-eminent duty’: even the Woodman interpretation of 3.65.1 does (or should) imply that history does as a matter of fact do these two things. 6

Conclusion: Libertarian Responses to Caesarism

I shall now try to pull together the diverse but interrelated threads of this ridiculously long paper. The sequence as a whole is fundamentally concerned with liberty: 4.32.1 libero egressu, 4.35.1 non modo libertas, etiam libido, 4.35.5 libet (as decoded in  §5.3). How does this concern relate to the concerns of 3.65.1? Quite simply, because virtue and vice are largely seen in terms of the fundamental liberty–kingship struggle. Tacitus’ complaint at the beginning of the digression looks purely literary: as a historian of Tiberius and of the Caesarian monarchs in general, he is excluded from the great historiographical themes open to historians who wrote under the Republic. But it soon becomes apparent that the question of political freedom is also involved. Since the regime of Augustus and his successors is effectively a monarchy, even a tyranny, liberty in general is severely restricted. There exists (as there has from the beginning of Roman history—cf. the preface to Annals 1) an existential struggle between Liberty and Kingship, though the degree of restriction varies according to the particular emperor (Tiberius was more overtly tyrannical than Augustus or Trajan). Freedom of speech is additionally difficult because Augustus and his successors fraudulently claimed that their system of government was not a monarchy but a restored Republic, hence linguistic distortion and deceit permeated that the criticisms supposedly voiced by contemporary opinion do not hit home (38.4–5) does not exonerate Tiberius: rather, we, the discerning, discriminating, readership, are called to interpret more deeply (for example, the deification argument of 38.5 is not a good argument in itself but the inevitable interaction between Liberum and the main theme of the Cordus narrative (indeed the main theme of the Annals) counts strongly against Tiberius). In short, I find this speech hypocritical and malign.

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public discourse. Under such circumstances, ‘figured speech’ is generally the most recommendable way (not the only way) of obtaining a degree of free expression (thus Tacitus’ ‘figured-speech’ unmasking of the multiple Augustan deceit and ‘figured-speech’ swerve in the argument or Cordus’ use of figured speech in contrast to the public political activism available to Macer under the Republic). The literary form itself of the digression embodies both the restrictions on freedom and the possibility of relatively free expression. For a digression is at once a circumscribed locus within a text and an opportunity for free expression: libero egressu. Its doubleness—its restrictedness and its freedom—is itself a metatextual expression of the figured-speech libertas, the restricted but real libertas, that remains possible under tyranny. Within the digression, the political argument is itself an exercise in figured speech and in its swerve it even imitates the relationship between narrative and digression. The literary forms themselves represent both the essential political problem and one of its solutions. ⟦170⟧ Tacitus achieves the alleged literary freedom from which he is supposedly excluded by means of comparable obliquity of expression and comparable manipulation of literary forms. He imports sieges and captures of cities into his narrative in metatextual form. But this literary freedom is also of course political freedom (Tacitus has not in the event been barred absolutely from writing what he likes). It is also political in a more direct sense, since (for example) the analogy between Tiberius and a besieging enemy forms part of Tacitus’ judgement upon the emperor Tiberius. Of course, this literary freedom is itself somewhat restricted. But this corresponds with the ‘figured-speech’ expression of political libertas within the digression. In its doubleness—its restrictedness and its freedom—the digression stands for the whole text of the Annals (and not just the second half of the Tiberian narrative). Not only does the digression explain and justify Tacitus’ general historiographical procedures but since Republican history is explicitly a digression, there is a sense in which Tacitus’ ‘digression’ is ‘the main narrative’. So the digression, its immediately surrounding narratives, its interaction with those narratives, its interaction with related narratives (Xenophon’s Theramenes narrative, for example) and the whole narrative of the Annals all combine to express Tacitus’ response to the existential struggle between Liberty and Kingship/Tyranny. Tacitus claims that his Annals will be ‘useful’, and ‘usefulness’ is defined as ‘distinguishing honourable things from worse things, useful things from noxious [because] many learn from the things that happen to others’. His formal aim, then, is to provide his readers with morally useful vicarious responses to the monarchy/tyranny of the Caesars. But it is also an implicit requirement

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that one should be seeking the maximum libertas and the maximum political distinction possible under the monarchy. Before we consider the range of vicarious responses that Tacitus puts forward, we need to bear in mind the typically modernist contention of O’Gorman that Tacitus’ formal aims and claims are nullified by his narrative. Thus for example she writes:112

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this claim (that of distinguishing honourable things from worse things, useful things from noxious from the things that happen to others) is immediately undermined by Tacitus’ characterisation of his subject matter as easdem exitii causas obuia rerum similitudine et satietate … history’s utility is undermined not only by the immediately subsequent fate of Cremutius Cordus (who) exemplifies the fate of good men under a bad emperor but also by the overall concerns of the narrative. The fate of the historian undermines the idea of reading one’s way to safety, not only because his interpretation of history causes his own downfall, but also because he foresees his own imminent death.

There seem to be five points here: (1) since Tacitus’ subject matter includes ‘the same causes of extirpation’ (etc.), there is little room for useful discrimination; (2) since that subject matter focuses on continual deaths, who here is learning any useful survival techniques? (3) Cordus is explicitly a good man who meets his death under a bad emperor (contrast Agr. 42.4); (4) since he is a historian, one might expect his understanding of history to save him but in fact it brings him down; (5) Cordus does achieve foreknowledge but it is foreknowledge of his death, not knowledge of how to survive. All these points raise a more general question: is Tacitus committed to the view that it is always possible for the intelligent and virtuous to survive bad emperors? The famous passage in Agricola 42.4 says: let those whose habit is to admire what is not allowed know that it is possible113 for there to be great men even under bad princes and for obedience (obsequium) and moderation, if industry and energy are added, 112 O’Gorman (1997) 144–5 {cf. (2000) 101–2}. 113 Translators divide, but emphasis and word order indicate that the syntax is either posse (impersonal) + accusative and infinitive or posse as the infinitive of an accusative and infinitive subject, rather than posse as the infinitive after magnos viros. The syntactical question affects whether Tacitus is talking about a phenomenon that is always possible under any circumstances or (only) sometimes possible.

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to come out at that point of praise to which many have come out over precipitous places but have gained their glory by an ambitious death and with no usefulness to the state. This passage asserts only that this can happen, not that it is always possible under any circumstances. The passage cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the Annals: it is in fact one of at least two passages in the Agricola seemingly intertextually related to passages in the Annals. The relevant related passage is the equally famous Ann. 4.20.3. Following his praise of M. Lepidus, who was principled and successful in mitigating the harsh operation of the maiestas law yet retained Tiberius’ favour, Tacitus comments (the italics mark the parallels): wherefore I am compelled to be in doubt114 whether princes’ inclination for some men and antipathy towards others occur, like everything else, through fate and lot of birth, or whether there is something in our plans and we are allowed to pursue a road empty of ambition and dangers between precipitous abuse and dreary obedience. Martin and Woodman take the first alternative here as merely a foil for the second: ‘T. is no more seriously concerned with fate and astrological determinism here than at 6.22.1–3’.115 Perhaps, but only if 6.22.1–3 can itself be discounted. Otherwise, greater weight is put on the second alternative; there ⟦172⟧ seems to be some correlation between the rationality of ‘our plans’ and the praise of Lepidus; and, as we have seen, the road imagery relates to the journey imagery of the digression, which has such rich moral and political implications. On the other hand, Tacitus is at least formally undecided between the two alternatives; the question is re-opened in 6.22.1–3; the two passages have therefore to be taken together; and furthermore, as O’Gorman insists, 6.22.1–6 is parallel to, and interactive with, the digression of 4.32–3.116 Ann. 6.22 is complicated. It is itself a digression prompted by mention of Tiberius’ apparently genuine prophetic and astrological skills, learnt from Thrasyllus, and the apparently true story of how Tiberius had first tested Thrasyllus’ credentials in Rhodes (he was led up the pathless and precipitous 114 To translate dubitare by ‘doubt’, as many do, implies that the first possibility is the less likely of the two, but dubitare does not necessarily imply this. 115 Martin–Woodman (1989) 151. 116 O’Gorman (1997) 139–46 {cf. (2000) 98–9}.

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heights to Tiberius’ house by a trusted freedman, who was to hurl him into the sea on the return journey should he prove fraudulent; challenged over his own horoscope, he deeply ‘introspected’, foresaw impending disaster, and became one of Tiberius’ intimates). But then Tacitus expresses uncertainty: are human affairs governed by fate or chance? There is no consensus among the wise. The Epicureans believe the world to be of no concern to the gods, hence good people suffer and bad prosper. The Stoics uphold fate, but allow choice of life but once that choice is made there is a fixed order of future events; also good and evil are not as vulgarly conceived. Most people believe that all individuals’ fates are predestined from birth, though false prophecies discredit the many true prophecies of ancient and modern times. Tacitus closes the digression by promising to record in its proper temporal setting the prophecy of Thrasyllus’ son concerning Nero’s rule. As O’Gorman well shows, the description of Thrasyllus’ ascent to Tiberius’ house; the whole business of prophecy; the question whether foreknowledge helps avert disaster; the dangers of close contact with Tiberius; the problems of whether human affairs exhibit fixed patterns or not and whether good and bad people receive their respective deserts: all these things offer suggestive analogies with the problems of writing, interpreting, and making history. Hence neither 6.22.1–5 nor the first, quasi-astrological, alternative of 4.20.3 can be dismissed as mere irrational flummery or Tacitean sarcasm about such matters: they have some value as metaphors for historical problems. The answer to the general question, therefore, is thus far rather unclear: if Ann. 4.20.3 pulls towards the proposition that, generally speaking, it should be possible to survive bad emperors with dignity, Agricola 42.3 allows only that this can happen, Ann. 6.22 is very problematic, and O’Gorman’s difficulties with 4.32–5 remain. On grounds of common sense, however, we may ⟦173⟧ surely agree that it would be absurd for Tacitus to contend that it is always possible for the intelligent and virtuous to survive bad emperors: experience shows otherwise, as Tacitus himself notes (4.33.3) and Cremutius himself enacts. But this, as we shall see, does not necessarily vitiate the historiographical project. We return, therefore, to the range of vicarious responses put forward by Tacitus to the problem of political life under Caesarian monarchy/tyranny. A fundamental prerequisite is proper understanding both of the nature and workings of the dangerous, deceptive, essentially illegitimate Augustan system and of the character of the particular emperor. So one needs to be intelligent, and reading Tacitus’ history will help to develop that intelligence. Interpretation of the ‘figured-speech’ complexities of the digression and of Cordus’ speech and of all the difficult implications of the whole sequence is itself a training in

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political intelligence. But this intelligence is to be deployed in one’s relations with monarchs/tyrants. How does one achieve success/glory/freedom under effective tyranny? One extreme possibility is represented by the cries of Theramenes: heroic, inspiring, and, in several solid senses, genuinely useful. If through no fault of your own (whether moral or practical) you find yourself compelled to die by a tyrant, both Theramenes and Cordus provide excellent exemplars of what to say and how to die. They even themselves illustrate the process of learning from history. By Xenophon’s anachronistic sleight of hand, Theramenes has as it were learnt from Socrates (who actually died four years later); Cordus, himself a historian and fully conversant with the historical tradition concerning Cato, Cassius, and Brutus, recognises a tyrant when he sees one, immediately realises his death is certain, publicly convicts Tiberius of tyranny, assures his own commemoration as a symbol of liberty (a commemoration that has so far endured until September 1998), contributes mightily to the great tradition of libertarian historiography, knows how to make a noble death, and continues to baffle sophisticated modern classical scholars with the subtle elusiveness of his rhetoric. May we all achieve as much.117 ⟦174⟧ But there is here also an obvious distinction (obscured by those critics who see the inner workings of the text as undermining the value of ‘history’ without asking themselves whether those workings undermine the value of Tacitus’ history): neither Theramenes nor Cordus had the benefit of reading Tacitus and those who have read the Annals will necessarily be in a better survival posture than any previous generations. They will almost certainly achieve far less than Cordus but they (or most of them) will achieve something different and safer. The opposite response to tyranny, excellent if you can do it and if the cost (for example, in civil war) is not too high, is to overthrow it. As Woodman has emphasised and as we have seen in more detail, Tacitus contrives to include within his narrative in metahistorical form several of the historiographical staples whose absence from his narrative he formally laments. These ingredients 117 I labour the point that Cremutius learns, because the contention that figures within historiographical texts do not learn, a contention then used as an argument for reductionist or minimalist interpretations of historiographical ‘usefulness’, is depressingly widespread (and often depressingly crude in its conception of the process of learning). On the heroic martyr cf. Henderson (1990) 194 and 210 n. 165: ‘this is the kind of “exemplarity” the Consular Muse offers: a rejoinder to anyone who agrees that “Since the execution of Cicero, no man had been free to speak against the dynast with power of life and death, except to the extent that he permitted it” (Wallace-Hadrill). The political martyr refutes any prescription or proscription of freedom.’ But this is not the only freedom.

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are the ‘gigantic wars’ (metamorphosed into the civil war endemic in the Augustan system), ‘stormings of cities’ (the tyrannical Tiberius effectively besieges Rome), ‘discords of consuls against tribunes’ (the political discord represented by the trial of Cordus) and the ‘glorious exits of generals’ (metamorphosed into Cordus’ exitium/exitus). The inclusion of these items is part of Tacitus’ general collapsing of the apparent boundaries between Republican and monarchical and internal and external. But the inclusion of all these other staples, the general collapsing of boundaries, the verbal interaction between singuli regunt and reges, and the specific association of Tiberius with externi reges (35.5) inevitably remind us that the Annals also commemorates, and paradigmatically promotes, Roman kings routed and captured. This is not an anachronistic or impossibilist Republican dream: of the twelve Roman emperors with whom Tacitus is concerned, seven (or possibly eight) died violent or unnatural deaths, and of these seven, three—Gaius, Nero, and Domitian—lost their lives to the forces of liberty (in some quite strong sense of the word). It is worth remembering that even as Tacitus’ contemporaries, Pliny and Dio, praise Trajan as the good ruler, they remind him that if he is not, he will go the way of Domitian.118 Between the extremes of heroism in the face of sometimes unavoidable death and the overthrow of tyranny lies a third way, which Tacitus famously describes in Ann. 4.20.3 (translated above). Although this option is defined in relation to polar oppositions which cannot possibly qualify as ‘useful’ within the terms of the digression, its significance is validated both by Tacitus’ editorial commendation of it, by parallels in other Tacitean passages, by its integration into the road or travel imagery upon which the digression is based, and by its location within the discourse of liberty and monarchy: this middle way still represents an attempt to maximise liberty within the constraints of ⟦175⟧ monarchy. For it is important to see that this third way explicitly excludes the ethic of obsequium, upheld by Tacitus in the Agricola and, following Syme, excessively canvassed in modern Tacitean scholarship. Here obsequium is intrinsically deforme.119 Figured speech will naturally form a large part of the armoury of such a third way. Figured speech is itself an important means of securing qualified freedom of expression. 118 Cf. Moles (1990) 331, 345–6 {vol. 1, pp. 147–8, 161–3}. 119 Agr. 42.4; Syme (1958) I.28; and (e.g.) Classen (1988) 100–3; also McCulloch (1991) 2932–3 sees Lepidus and Cremutius as paralleling Agricola and Tacitus qua historical actors and historians respectively and all as ideal representatives of their respective roles. Valid to a degree, this interpretation nevertheless greatly diminishes the complexity of Cremutius’ libertarianism and the even greater complexity of Tacitus’. Syme (1958) II.547 concedes the possible inappropriateness of obsequium to the post-Agricola world.

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Other useful responses to tyranny involve larger perspectives. One such response is Theramenean/Socratic laughter (preferably private: no emperor ever forgets a joke against himself; public or semi-public only if survival no longer matters).120 Laughter involves at least four important insights which provide real consolation even when tyranny seems to triumph. The first is that we can despise tyrants’ value systems. We are their superiors. The second is that the judgement of history can reverse injustices (Theramenes and Cordus are finally vindicated). The third derives from this: a historian of moral integrity and literary genius has practical power: his ability to reward virtue and castigate vice by conferring decus or indecus may influence the future behaviour both of monarchs and of those who live under them (33.4, 35.5; cf. Ann. 3.65.1). History is the ultimate judge. The fourth is that the change that is built in to Herodotean and Thucydidean models of history will inevitably bring about some changes for the better. Not only are some monarchs better/less bad than others but if one takes a long view, a Herodotean view, one knows that, just as we ourselves die, so one day New Labour will die, American hegemony will fall, Bristol Classics will perish. So Tacitus knew that one day there would be no more Roman emperors or tyrants. He foresaw the fall of Romulus Augustulus in 476, the final κίνησις or motus when Caesarism was expunged (or 1453, it doesn’t matter). Such large-scale political changes are not of course independent of people’s responses to monarchy. Leavisite claims for the supreme moral value of great literature and of great literary criticism are easily derided. But not only do we need to love liberty to interpret this inspirational text rightly, the text itself will only actually work, the authority of punished men of talent will only grow, if we its readers enact the text: if we ourselves become both auctores and actores, promoters, writers, enactors, and advocates of libertas. If enough of us do this for long enough, then perhaps there is a chance that in ⟦176⟧ the fullness of time the current proportions of digression and narrative can be flipped and monarchy will become a digression within the great narrative of Liberty. ‘Those things at first sight slight, from which the movements of great things often arise.’ The Annals itself, at first sight ‘slight’ in much of its subject-matter, in its Xenophontic, Herodotean, biographical, and encomiastic character, which contrasts with the ‘biggism’ of conventional historiography: this ‘slight’ text can change our life/the world—but only if we let it. We all have a great libertarian responsibility. But equally, of course, one knows also (and Tacitus too knew it) that just as Caesarism died in 476, so also it came alive under Charlemagne, the Kaiser, the 120 Admirable in its way was the behaviour of Petronius (Ann. 16.19).

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Vice-Chancellor of Durham University. Hence the Annals are always useful: par quod semper habemus | Libertas et Caesar. Only clever fools announce the end of history. The Annals, then, is a radically and profoundly libertarian text, which dramatises and enacts both the restrictions upon liberty imposed by monarchy and the diverse means by which those restrictions can to some extent be overcome. But it also celebrates liberty in a more positive sense. For liberty always speaks. Sometimes she shouts aloud (Theramenes), but even if she seems to be silenced by tyranny, either she speaks through emphasis (tacite), as in the digression, or through the whole libertarian historiographical tradition, or that silence itself speaks (the silence under Domitian, the absent effigies of Cassius and Brutus). While the circumscribed digression represents both the restriction and the expression of freedom, all digressions are transgressions, the boundaries cannot hold, sooner or later Liberty will always break free. Ultimately, Libertas cannot be circumscribed. Tacitus the deconstructionist. So the text of the Annals is: under the ipso facto tyranny of the Caesars, even at their most tyrannous, we can be free, and there many different roads to that freedom. Cry freedom. 7

Appendix: Objections to this Paper

No doubt there are many objections to this objectionable paper. Here I briefly consider two (which are in fact closely interrelated). 1. If Tacitus’ voice is the voice of ‘the senatorial historian’ (§4.4), how plausible is it to claim the Annals as ‘a radically and profoundly libertarian text’? There are several good answers, themselves of ascending radicalness: (a) If Cordus represents the cry of the human spirit against despotism, what does it matter if the celebrant is a narrow-minded elitist? (Cf. the motley crew of Tories (as well as principled left-wingers) who rightly opposed the recent emergency powers act at Westminster.) ⟦177⟧ (b) There is the ‘narrow but noble’ defence. Thus the cynical romantic Syme:121 Once again the Balkan lands witnessed a Roman disaster and entombed the armies of the Republic—‘Romani bustum populi’. This time the decision was final and irrevocable, the last struggle of the Free State. Henceforth nothing but a contest of despots over the corpse of liberty. 121 Syme (1939) 205.

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The men who fell at Philippi fought for a principle, a tradition, and a class—narrow, imperfect, and outworn, but for all that the soul and spirit of Rome. (c) There is the thin-end-of-the-wedge, ratchet, defence. Thus the hard-headed but not unprincipled Brunt:122 while the higher orders retained a share in the government [sc. under the Principate], if only as servants of the monarch, and the new system respected their material class-interests, the people forfeited not only its electoral, judicial, and legislative rights, but eventually ‘equal liberty’ before the laws. It is symptomatic that … Augustus (or Tiberius) would invest the consular prefect of the city with arbitrary powers of coercion not only over slaves but over ‘that disorderly element among the citizens whose audacity could be deterred only by force’ (Ann. vi. 11). This was one step along the path that would lead to the imposition on the humble of penalties once thought appropriate only to slaves, and bind them to the soil in the interests of treasury and landowners. The optimate critics of the Gracchi were proved right; attempts to ‘restore’ the power of the people led on to monarchy, and monarchy destroyed popular freedom more completely than senatorial. (And one might stress that it was monarchy, not senatorial power, that destroyed popular freedom). (d) There is the seemingly objective fact that actually the Roman elite under the Republic wasn’t actually that elite.123 (e) There is the fact that Tacitus’ voice is not only the voice of the senatorial elite (however defined). Thus Ann. 1.4 laments the loss of aequalitas (‘equal rights’), and it is a mistake to restrict Tacitus’ understanding of libertas to libertas senatus, and this for two reasons: (1) like Seneca and Lucan, he sometimes uses it as a virtual synonym for ‘the Republic’ (see Agr. 3.1, discussed below and n. 61); (2) explicit concern for libertas senatus does not entail concern only for libertas senatus; one may be concerned for it precisely because it represents one of the last vestiges of the overall libertas of the Republic. This implication is quite clear in the Agricola and in the Annals.124

122 Brunt (1988) 350. 123 Brunt (1982); Hopkins (1983) 31–119 (co-authored with G. P. Burton). 124 For the Agricola see the main text; for the Annals, e.g., 1.74; 13.49.

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(f) there are reasons for characterising the Republic as in some quite strong sense a democracy.125 ⟦178⟧ (g) Tacitus can envisage the possibility of a motus (or motus plural) which will overthrow monarchy itself (§§4.3 and 6). 2. Is this paper committed to the proposition that Tacitus ‘rejected’ the principate/monarchy, and, if so, how does it explain those passages (mostly in works other than the Annals) which seem to show him ‘accepting’ the principate/monarchy? The two most important passages are:126 (a) Agr. 3.1 nunc demum redit animus; et quamquam primo statim beatissimi saeculi ortu Nerua Caesar res olim dissociabiles miscuerit, principatum ac libertatem, augeatque cotidie felicitatem temporum Nerua Traianus … (b) Hist. 1.1.1 postquam bellatum apud Actium atque omnem potentiam ad unum conferri pacis interfuit, magna illa ingenia cessere … Passage (a) requires full contextualisation (Agricola 2.1–3.1): Legimus, cum Aruleno Rustico Paetus Thrasea, Herennio Senecioni Priscus Heluidius laudati essent, capitale fuisse, neque in ipsos modo auctores, sed in libros quoque eorum saeuitum, delegato triumuiris ministerio ut monumenta clarissimorum ingeniorum in comitio ac foro urerentur. (2.2) scilicet illo igne uocem populi Romani et libertatem senatus et conscientiam generis humani aboleri arbitrabantur, expulsis insuper sapientiae professoribus atque omni bona arte in exilium acta, ne quid honestum usquam occurreret. (2.3) dedimus profecto grande patientiae documentum; et sicut uetus aetas uidit quid ultimum in libertate esset, ita nos quid in seruitute, adempto per inquisitiones etiam loquendi audiendique commercio. memoriam quoque ipsam cum uoce perdidissemus, si tam in nostra potestate esset obliuisci quam tacere. (3.1) Nunc demum redit animus; et quamquam primo statim beatissimi saeculi ortu Nerua Caesar res olim dissociabiles miscuerit, principatum ac libertatem, augeatque cotidie felicitatem temporum Nerua Traianus …

125 Millar (1998) with bibliography at 1 n. 1. 126 On the assumption that Ann. 4.33.2 does not qualify (§3.1.3.1).

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Passage (a) attests a paradox: Nerva has ‘mixed’ two long irreconcilable things: the Principate and Libertas. Ogilvie and Richmond interpret libertas here as ‘freedom of judgement’/‘the right of a senator to make his own contribution in the senate and in the service of the state’, on the ground that ‘at this period the principate was accepted as inevitable and republicanism, except once after the death of Caligula, was never seriously envisaged’.127 This argument, while of a type all too common within attempts to define libertas under the empire/monarchy, is grossly circular. Shotter, by contrast, does at ⟦179⟧ least try to find solid content in the attribution of libertas to Nerva’s rule,128 but he cannot be right to restrict the paradoxical principatus–libertas package to Nerva’s reign: augeatque cotidie etc. (building on Nerva’s lead, Trajan does even better). In fact, Tacitus is deploying an utterly commonplace polar contrast between the Principate and the Republic,129 so as to make the paradoxical point that Nerva has blended them together in a remarkable new μικτή,130 a true Mommsenian dyarchy. Such is the meaning conveyed by the language itself, if read without prejudice (that is, prejudice concerning the ‘real’ historical circumstances). But analysis of the context also supports this interpretation. 2.3 ultimum in libertate and quid (ultimum) in seruitute correspond (chiastically) to libertatem and principatum, the worst manifestations of particular phenomena as compared to ones that are better in themselves and have now become better still because ‘mixed’ together. Thus the Republic at its most anarchic and outright tyranny have been replaced by a combination of Republic and Principate. These two pairs of polar oppositions themselves look back to the contrast in 2.2 between the tyrannical Domitian and his henchmen and the Roman state at large: uocem populi Romani et libertatem senatus etc., a sort of hyped-up libertarian gloss on the traditional formula senatus populusque Romanus. The phrase libertatem senatus does not in the least validate a restricted, senatorial interpretation of libertatem in 3.1: the phrase is used with specific reference to the senatorial libertas of Arulenus Rusticus, Herennius Senecio, et al., but their senatorial libertas is one component of a composite whole. Thus the broad contrast in 2.2 is between everybody else and the tyranny of Domitian, and in 3.1 everybody else is glossed by libertas, while the tyranny of Domitian is replaced by the principate-Republic ‘mix’ of Nerva and Trajan, to the unprecedented felicity of all.

127 Ogilvie–Richmond (1967) 136–67 (following Wirszubski). 128 Shotter (1978). 129 Cf. above, n. 61. 130 Cf. above, n. 2.

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How does this passage, then, affect any claim that Tacitus ‘rejected’ the principate/monarchy? ‘Rejection’ is itself an ambiguous term, but if ‘reject’ means ‘disapprove of’, then, on the one hand, this passage might seem to make against the claim that Tacitus ‘rejected’ the monarchy. On the other hand, strictly interpreted, the passage implies that only with Nerva and Trajan did Tacitus accept the principate. When living under earlier emperors or writing about them, he did not accept it, nor, presumably, would he accept it in the future, in the event of bad emperors holding power, as they assuredly would. The passage, then, as it stands, entails three important things: (1) Tacitus’ attitude to the principate is bound to be affected to some extent by the character of the particular ‘prince’ (any sensible person naturally ⟦180⟧ prefers Nerva or Trajan to Domitian); (2) he is concerned with liberty in a strong Republican sense; (3) other things being equal, the best ‘prince’ is the most Republican one. Or rather, the passage entails these three things, if it is ‘sincere’: one must of course make some allowance for the obvious fact that Agr. 3.1 reflects the official line under Nerva and Trajan. Moreover, Ann. 4.33.1 spells out crisp abandonment of the μικτή concept (the more pointedly if consociata is read).131 There are other signs of a hardening attitude, e.g., the rejection of the obsequium policy towards bad princes advocated in the Agricola. Passage (b) briskly adduces the utilitarian justification for the principate. It does not mark constitutional acceptance of the principate. Again, there are some signs of a hardening attitude, e.g., Tacitus’ ‘rejection’ in the digression of Ann. 4.32–3 of the Histories’ ‘pleasure/excitement’ view of historiography in favour of nitty-gritty engagement with the severe political problems posed by effective one-man rule. Finally, of course, there is the matter of Tacitus’ unfulfilled promises. Despite several protestations, he does not write a separate historical work about Nerva and Trajan. A question is raised: it is unanswerable. Kraus–Woodman make a poised comment: Tacitus’ repeated retreat from his own age in favour of ever more distant material carries the suggestion (which may of course be as false as it is intentional) that the reigns of Nerva and Trajan did not justify in practice one of the very grounds on which the historian had commended them in theory: namely that the reigns contrasted with that of Domitian and offered the opportunity for free speech and thought.132

131 Cf. above, n. 2. 132 Kraus–Woodman (1997) 92.

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Does this paper, then, entail Tacitus’ ‘rejection’ of the principate? The answer, of course, is yes and no. His concern for freedom spawns a whole range of possibilities: from a strong conviction that the monarchy was illegitimate, to contemplation of the disappearance of monarchy in the ebb and flow of historical change, to removal of particularly obnoxious monarchs, to philosophical and heroic defiance of monarchs, to principled practical compromise, to advocacy of the sort of monarch who is hardly a monarch at all, because his behaviour is as Republican as it can be, to a general implicit exhortation to his readers to ‘think libertarian’. All this, of course, with a cool recognition of the practical inadequacies of the late Republic (e.g., Ann. 1.2.2). Yes and no, then, but far more ‘yes’ than ‘no’. Bibliography Ahl, F. M. (1984a) ‘The Art of Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome’, AJPh 105: 174–208. Ahl, F. M. (1984b) ‘The Rider and the Horse: Politics and Power in Roman Poetry from Horace to Statius’, ANRW II.32.1: 40–110. Badian, E. (1993) ‘Livy and Augustus’, in W. Schuller, ed., Livius: Aspekte seines Werkes (Konstanz) 9–38. Bartsch, S. (1994) Actors in the Audience (Cambridge, Mass. and London). Borzsák, S. (1992) Cornelius Tacitus I.1: Annales I–VI (Stuttgart and Leipzig). Bringmann, K. (1971) ‘Tacitus Ann. 4,33,2 über der Scheinkonstitutionalismus’, Historia 20: 376–9. Brunt, P. A. (1982) ‘Nobilitas and Novitas’, JRS 72: 1–17. Brunt, P. A. (1988) ‘Libertas in the Republic’, in id., The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (Oxford) 281–350. Brunt, P. A. and J. M. Moore, edd. (1967) Res Gestae Divi Augusti (Oxford). Burke, J. W. (1998) ‘Emblematic Scenes in Suetonius’ Vitellius’, Histos 2: 83–94. Cancik-Lindemaier, H. and H. Cancik (1986) ‘Zensur und Gedächtnis: zu Tacitus, Annales IV.32–38’, Der altsprachliche Unterricht 29.4: 16–35. Carter, J. M., ed. (1982) Suetonius: Divus Augustus (Bristol). Classen, C. J. (1988) ‘Tacitus—Historian between Republic and Principate’, Mnemosyne 41: 93–116. Ducos, M. (1991) ‘Les problèmes de droit dans l’oeuvre de Tacite’, ANRW II.33.4: 3183–259. Dyer, R. R. (1990) ‘Rhetoric and Intention in Cicero’s Pro Marcello’, JRS 80: 17–30. Ehrenberg, V. and A. H. M. Jones, edd. (1976) Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius2 (Oxford). Feldherr, A. (1997) ‘Review of Kraus and Woodman (1997)’, Histos 1: 240–6. Fisher, C. D. (1906) Cornelii Taciti Annalium Libri (Oxford).

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Furneaux, H. (1896) The Annals of Tacitus: I. Volume I, 2nd ed., revised by H. F. Pelham and C. D. Fisher (Oxford). Galinsky, G. K. (1996) Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton). Ginsburg, J. (1981) Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus (New York). Goodyear, F. R. D. (1972) The Annals of Tacitus Volume I (Cambridge). Gowing, A. M. (1992) The Triumviral Narratives of Appian and Cassius Dio (Ann Arbor). Griffin, M. T. (1976) Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford; repr. with addenda, 1992). von Haehling, R. (1989) Zeitbezüge des T. Livius in der ersten Dekade seines Geschicht­s­ werkes: nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus (Stuttgart). Häussler, R. (1965) Tacitus und das historische Bewusstsein (Heidelberg). Harrison, T. (1998) ‘Herodotus’ Conception of Foreign Languages’, Histos 2: 1–45. Havas, L. (1991) ‘Elements du biologisme dans la conception historique de Tacite’, ANRW II.33.4: 2949–86. Henderson, J. (1990) ‘Tacitus/The World in Pieces’, in A. J. Boyle, ed., The Imperial Muse: Ramus Essays on Roman Literature of the Empire: Flavian Epicist to Claudian (Victoria) 167–210; revised version in id. (1998) 257–300. Henderson, J. (1997) ‘Three Men in a Vote: Proscription and the Power of the Text (Appian, Bellum Civile 4.1.1–6.51)’, Histos 1: 93–112; revised version in id. (1998) 11–36. Henderson, J. (1998) Fighting for Rome: Poets & Caesars, History & Civil War (Cambridge). Heubner, H. (1983) P. Cornelii Taciti, Tom. I Annales (Leipzig). Hopkins, K. (1983) Death and Renewal (Cambridge). Huss, W. (1978) ‘Die Propaganda Neros’, AC 47: 129–48. Jackson, J. (1937) Tacitus: Annals IV–XII (London and Cambridge, Mass.). Johansen, T. K. (1998) ‘Truth, Lies, and History in Plato’s Timaeus–Critias’, Histos 2: 192–215. Johnson, W. R. (1993) Horace and the Dialectic of Freedom: Readings in Epistles I (Ithaca and London). Judge, E. A. (1974) ‘Res Publica Restituta: A Modern Illusion?’, in J. A. S. Evans, ed., Polis and Imperium: Studies in Honour of Edward Togo Salmon (Toronto) 279–311. Keitel, E. (1984) ‘Principate and Civil War in the Annals of Tacitus’, AJPh 105: 306–25. Koestermann, E. (1965) Cornelius Tacitus: Annalen: Band II, Buch 4–6 (Heidelberg). Kraggerud, E. (1998) ‘Vergil Announcing the Aeneid: On Georg. 3.1–48’, in H.-P. Stahl, ed., Vergil’s Aeneid: Augustan Epic and Political Context (London and Swansea) 1–20. Kraus, C. S. (1991) ‘Initium turbandi omnia a femina ortum est: Fabia Minor and the Election of 367 B.C.’, Phoenix 45: 314–25. Kraus, C. S. and A. J. Woodman (1997) Latin Historians (Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics 27; Oxford). Lacey, W. K. (1996) Augustus and the Principate (Leeds). Lana, I. (1989) ‘Introspicere in Tacito’, Orpheus 10: 26–57. Levene, D. S. (1997) ‘God and Man in the Classical Latin Panegyric’, PCPhS 43: 66–103.

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Luce, T. J. (1991) ‘Tacitus on “History’s Highest Function”: praecipuum munus annalium (Ann. 3.65)’, ANRW II.33.4: 2904–27. Maltby, R. (1991) A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds). Marincola, J. (1996) ‘Odysseus and the Historians’, Histos 1 (electronic publication; now in SyllClas 18 (2007) 1–79). Marincola, J. (1997) Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge). Martin, R. H. (1994) Tacitus2 (Bristol; first ed. London and Berkeley, 1981). Martin, R. H. (1996) ‘Tacitus’, OCD3: 1469–71. Martin, R. H. and A. J. Woodman, edd. (1989) Tacitus: Annals IV (Cambridge). Martindale, C. (1984) ‘Unlocking the Word-Hoard: in Praise of Metaphrase’, Comparative Criticism 6: 47–72. Mattingly, H. (1920) ‘Some Historical Roman Coins of the First Century AD’, JRS 10: 37–41. Mayer, R. (1997) ‘Review of Woodman and Martin (1996)’, CR 47: 314–16. McCulloch, H. Y. (1991) ‘The Historical Process and Theories of History in the “Annals” and “Histories” of Tacitus’, ANRW II.33.4: 2928–48. Mellor, R. (1993) Tacitus (London and New York). Millar, F. (1973) ‘Triumvirate and Principate’, JRS 63: 50–67; repr. in id., Rome, the Greek World and the East, I: The Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution, edd. H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers (Chapel Hill and London, 2002) 241–70. Millar, F. (1998) The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (Ann Arbor). Moles, J. L. (1984) ‘Review of A. J. Woodman, Velleius Paterculus: The Caesarian and Augustan Narrative (Cambridge, 1983)’, JRS 74: 242–4. Moles, J. L., ed. (1988) Plutarch: The Life of Cicero (Warminster). Moles, J. L. (1989) ‘Review of J. Geiger, Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography (1985)’, CR 39: 229–33 [above, Ch. 37]. Moles, J. L. (1990) ‘The Kingship Orations of Dio Chrysostom’, PLLS 6: 297–375 [vol. 1, Ch. 5]. Moles, J. L. (1993) ‘Livy’s Preface’, PCPhS 39: 141–68; repr. in J. Chaplin and C. S. Kraus, edd., Livy (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies; Oxford, 2009) 49–86 [above, Ch. 50]. Moles, J. L. (1996) ‘Herodotus Warns the Athenians’, PLLS 9: 259–84 [above, Ch. 52]. Moles, J. L. (2001) ‘A False Dilemma: Thucydides’ History and Historicism’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., Texts, Ideas and the Classics: Scholarship, Theory, and Classical Literature (Oxford) 195–219 [below, Ch. 55]. Morgan, Ll. (1997) ‘“Levi quidem de re”: Julius Caesar as Tyrant and Pedant’, JRS 87: 23–40. O’Gorman, E. C. (1995) ‘On Writing about Augustus: Tacitus’ Annals Book I’, MD 35: 91–114.

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O’Gorman, E. C. (1997) Alienation and Misreading: Narrative Dissent in the Annals of Tacitus (Ph.D. Thesis, Bristol). O’Gorman, E. C. (2000) Irony and Misreading in the Annals of Tacitus (Cambridge). Ogilvie, R. M. and I. Richmond, edd. (1967) Cornelii Taciti De Vita Agricolae (Oxford). Plass, P. (1988) Wit and the Writing of History: The Rhetoric of Historiography in Imperial Rome (Madison and London). Rawson, E. (1986) ‘Cassius and Brutus: the Memory of the Liberators’, in I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, edd., Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge) 101–19; repr. in ead., Roman Culture and Society: Collected Papers (Oxford, 1991) 488–507. Rhodes, P. J. (1996) ‘Theramenes’, OCD3: 1507. de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. (1981) The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London and Ithaca). Shotter, D. C. A. (1978) ‘Principatus ac libertas’, AC 9: 235–55. Shotter, D. C. A., ed. (1989) Tacitus: Annals IV (Warminster). Sinclair, P. (1991) ‘Rhetorical Generalizations in Annales 1–6: A Review of the Problem of Innuendo and Tacitus’ Integrity’, ANRW II.33.4: 2795–831. Sinclair, P. (1995) Tacitus the Sententious Historian: A Sociology of Rhetoric in Annales 1–6 (University Park, Pa.). Slotty, F. (1927a) ‘Der sogenannte Pluralis modestiae’, IF 44: 155–90. Slotty, F. (1927b) ‘Der soziative und affektische Plural der ersten Person im Lateinischen’, IF 44: 264–305. Slotty, F. (1928) ‘Der soziative und affektische Gebrauch des Plurals der ersten Person und das Subjektspronomen im Lateinischen’, Glotta 16: 253–74. Steidle, W. (1965) ‘Tacitusprobleme’, MH 22: 81–114. Suerbaum, W. (1971) ‘Der Historiker und die Freiheit des Wortes: Die Rede des Cremutius Cordus bei Tacitus, Ann. 4,34/35’, in G. Radke, ed., Politik und Literarische Kunst im Werke des Tacitus (Stuttgart) 61–99; repr. in In Klios und Kalliopes Diensten: Kleine Schriften von Werner Suerbaum, edd. C. Leidel and S. Döpp (Bamberg, 1993) 9–47. Syme, R. (1939) The Roman Revolution (Oxford). Syme, R. (1958) Tacitus, 2 vols. (Oxford). Syme, R. (1959) ‘Livy and Augustus’, HSCPh 64: 27–87; repr. in id., Roman Papers I, ed. E. Badian (Oxford, 1979) 400–54. Tuplin, C. J. (1993) The Failings of Empire: a Reading of Xenophon Hellenica 2.3.11–7.5.27 (Stuttgart). Wallace-Hadrill, A. W. (1983) Suetonius (London and New York). Woodman, A. J. (1988) Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Portland, and Sydney).

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Woodman, A. J. (1995a) ‘A Death in the First Act: Tacitus, Annals 1.6’, PLLS 8: 257–73; repr. in id. (1998) 23–39. Woodman, A. J. (1995b) ‘Praecipuum munus annalium: the Construction, Convention and Context of Tacitus, Annals 3.65.1’, MH 52: 111–26; repr. in id. (1998) 86–103. Woodman, A. J. (1998) Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford). Woodman, A. J. (2004) Tacitus: the Annals. Translated with Introduction and Notes (Indianapolis and Cambridge). Woodman, A. J. and R. H. Martin, edd. (1996) The Annals of Tacitus, Book 3 (Cambridge). Wuilleumier, P. (1974) Tacite: Annales Tome 2 (Paris).

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Ἀνάθημα Καὶ Κτῆμα: the Inscriptional Inheritance of Ancient Historiography Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On the Style of Demosthenes 10:1 … but the orator aims at the sufficient and gauges his opportunities accordingly, adapting his style not to a memorial and possession only, as the historian does, but also to advantage. So that he has never exceeded the bounds of clearness, the first requirement in competitive forensic speeches, and he has obtained the goal of seeming to be powerfully eloquent, for which above all he is zealous. No single passage in ancient historiography has been more discussed by modern scholars than Thucydides’ exposition of his historical method in 1.22; no single statement in ancient historiography is more famous than that exposition’s culminating claim: ‘it is set down as a possession for always rather than as a competition piece for present hearing’ (1.22.4).2 This paper has six, interlocking, aims: (1) to highlight two important allusions in Thucydides’ wording, which seem to have been missed by previous scholarship (including my own):

1 This paper originally aspired to be a proper demonstration of points that might otherwise lie buried in footnotes of Moles (2001), but like many a paper, in the writing ‘it just growed’. I thank: the following whom I badgered by phone or e-mail: Simon Hornblower, Gordon Howie, Chris Kraus, John Marincola, Chris Pelling, Peter Rhodes, Simon Swain, Rosalind Thomas, and Tim Rood; Clemence Schultze and Stephen Wheeler for discussion of Polybius (§11 and nn. 68 and 71); Damien Nelis for oral soundings; and Tony Woodman both for oral soundings and comments on a preliminary written draft; above all, I am indebted to Franco Basso for his generosity in sharing his enormous bibliographical expertise, especially with regard to the earliest modern classical scholarship and to the Italian bibliography which both British and American scholars neglect at their peril (nn. 8 and 32), and for detailed discussion, by letter as well as by phone. He will himself be contributing to one aspect of the debate (n. 39). The Greek of the Dionysius passage which forms the superscription to the paper is given in n. 17, along with fairly full literary exegesis; the passage is also cited in §4. 2 The slightly non-standard translation is my own: for its theoretical rationale and practical implications see n. 14.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_026

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(1a) the phrase ‘those who wish to look (at)’ (ὅσοι … βουλήσονται σκοπεῖν) recalls a formula used in Athenian inscriptions; and (1b) ⟦28⟧ the phrase ‘it is set down as a possession’ (κτῆμα … ξύγκειται) recalls a Homeric phrase; (2) to explore the implications of these two allusions; (3) to explore the relationship between Thucydides’ preface and Hecataeus’ and Herodotus’, especially in the light of the question whether those historians too imaged their Histories as inscriptions; (4) to attempt to show that, with regard to Thucydides’ representation of his History both as an ‘inscription’ and as a ‘possession’, some of Thucydides’ historiographical successors (or, from another point of view, his ancient critics) understood the claim of 1.22.4 far better than do modern scholars (all modern scholars? certainly all but a very few); (5) to advance the interpretation of the relevant passages in these successors of Thucydides by taking fuller account of this further Thucydidean dimension, without, however, offering a full interpretation of what in all cases are rich and complicated passages; (6) to reaffirm (yet again) the absolute necessity of proper literary analysis of ancient historiographical texts.3 These aims require some comment and contextualisation within existing scholarship. As for aim (1a), the case that Hecataeus, Herodotus, and Thucydides (and indeed other early Greek authors, historiographical and other) represent their works as monumental inscriptions has been variously propounded and goes back to the very beginnings of modern study of Greek historiography (bibliographical references in n. 32). Nevertheless, not only has this case failed to invoke Thucydides’ use of the Athenian inscriptional formula (which is actually the single strongest piece of evidence), but it has made little impact upon mainstream Thucydidean scholarship; its fullest expositions are very recent; and the arguments advanced in its support, diverse as they are, require careful assessment; furthermore, there has been even less consideration of the consequences for the interpretation of Thucydides, particularly as regards his relationship with his predecessors; finally, the first historians’ use of the image of the monumental inscription must have implications for three important questions about ancient historiography generally: first, the question of origins, self-definition, and genre; second, the question of the historians’ attitude to

3 In this respect the paper may be regarded as an implicit response to two of Peter Rhodes’ (in the current climate, iconoclastic) papers: Rhodes (1994) and (1998); to the latter John Marincola will be making an explicit response (also on Histos) {never published}.

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inscriptions as a form of evidence; third, the question whether they are projecting their works primarily as reading texts. ⟦29⟧ Though aim 3 reflects my general conviction that ancient writers see far more in one another’s texts than do modern critics, it had its immediate origin in the discussion at the end of the conference, held in the University of Leeds on 16 April, 1999, on the theme of narrative issues in classical historiography. One of the questions raised by the Chairman, Simon Hornblower, was why ancient literary critics seem to say so little that is genuinely useful even about passages whose greatness they rightly proclaim (in this case Thucydides’ account of the sea battle at Syracuse). To which (with characteristic subtlety) I replied that, seeing that ancient literary critics were ‘no good’ in general (pained expressions appeared on the faces of some of the participants), it was not at all surprising that they should be ‘no good’ on ancient historiography, and that just as the best ancient critics of Homer, Apollonius, and Virgil, were their poet successors, so the best ancient criticism of historiography was to be found in ancient historians themselves. Both parties to the debate were using the term ‘criticism’ in its neutral sense. For although most of the historiographical ‘criticism’ in the works of the ancient historians takes the form of negative criticism and this negative criticism is often, indeed characteristically, captious and unfair, the criticism is not always or wholly negative: it may bear on issues of real substance or involve real insight into the procedures and thinking of a predecessor, and this even when its main purpose is to demonstrate the super­ iority of the historian writing. Even more revelatory, however, is the implicit criticism involved in ancient historians’ implicit allusions to, or intertextual debate with, their predecessors. To such ancient readings modern criticism of ancient historiography needs to be particularly responsive. For, while it is true that modern criticism of classical literature in general is greatly concerned with the revaluation or recuperation of ancient authors, to such an extent that it is nowadays extremely rare to find an article arguing that such-and-such is a bad poem or author, this humane and generally productive (if sometimes highly implausible) principle has not been absorbed to nearly the same degree in the criticism of ancient historiography. The main reason for this is that many of the modern critics of ancient historiography are primarily historians and fail to recognise the need for proper literary criticism of historiographical texts, or at least, while formally recognising that need, fail properly to implement it in their practical criticism. If the present paper can show (inter alia) that Polybius, Livy, and Arrian, and, still more alarmingly, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Thucydides’ biographer, Marcellinus (n. 17), were superior readers of Thucydides 1.22.4 to (seemingly) all modern scholars concerned with Thucydides, this ought to constitute a salutary and humbling lesson. It is true that existing scholarship has shown some

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awareness of the interpretative value of ancient authors’ responses to 1.22.4 (see e.g. §4 below and n. 72), but ⟦30⟧ I shall try to show that the three great historians mentioned display far greater acumen than has yet been recognised. Of course, such an appeal to the ‘authority’ of ancient historians’ readings of other ancient historians is but another aspect of the single greatest advance in the interpretation of ancient historiography made in recent years: the insistence (à la school of Wiseman, Woodman, and Marincola) on reading ancient historiography in the first instance by ancient criteria, not by inappropriate (and frequently unsubtle) modern ones. Although the six aims of this paper are necessarily interwoven, the difficult problems that arise necessitate a good deal of weaving back and forwards and stopping and starting, but I hope that the main threads of the argument can readily be followed. The paper is organised into the following sections (with some interlinking passages): 1. The context: Thucydides’ wording at 1.22.4. 2. The two missed allusions. 3. Thucydides’ work as a ‘possession’. 4. ‘Possession’ = ‘monument’? 5. The Homeric quality of Thucydides’ ‘possession’. 6. The general implications of Thucydides’ ‘inscription’. 7. ‘Inscription’ as underwriting the idea of the History as a written text. 8. Do Hecataeus and Herodotus represent their works as ‘inscriptions’? 9. Is Thucydides targeting Herodotus in the phrase ‘a competition piece for present hearing?’ 10. The superiority of Thucydides’ work qua both ‘inscription’ and reading text to Hecataeus’ and Herodotus’ inscriptions and to all physical inscriptions. 11. Polybius’ superior reading of Thucydides (3.31.12–32.10). 12. Livy’s superior reading of Thucydides (praef. 10). 13. Arrian’s superior reading of Herodotus and Thucydides (Anab. 1.12.2–5). 14. Conclusion. In items 11–13, ‘superior’ means ‘superior to any offered by modern scholarship’. 1

The Context: Thucydides’ Wording at 1.22.4

I begin by putting Thucydides’ claim in its context of the first of the two chapters which he devotes to his historical method in writing up the Peloponnesian War (1.22.1–4):

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⟦31⟧ As for all the things that each side said in speech [λόγος], either when they were going to war or when they were already in it, it was difficult both for me in the case of the things that I heard myself and for those who reported to me from various different places to remember completely the accurate content of the things that were said. But as it seemed to me, keeping as closely as possible to the general drift of what truly was said, that each speaker would most say what was necessary concerning the always presents, so I have rendered the speeches. (2) But as regards the deeds of the things that were done in the war, I did not think it a worthy procedure to write by asking for information from anyone who chanced to be present, nor just in accordance with what seemed to me to be so, but both in the case of things at which I myself was present and of things which I learnt about from others, by going through them in each case with accuracy as far as possible. (3) They were discovered with much labour, because those who were present at each particular deed did not say the same things about the same things, but in accordance with the individual’s sympathy for one side or the other or his memory. (4) And perhaps the lack of the muthos element in my history will appear rather unpleasing to an audience, but if those who wish to look at [ὅσοι δὲ βουλήσονται σκοπεῖν] the clearness [τὸ σαφές] both of the things that happened and of those which, in accordance with the human thing, are going to happen again some time like this and near the present ones, should judge it helpful, that will be sufficient. It is set down as a possession for always rather than as a competition piece for present hearing.

The extremely literal translation aspires (in the interests of maximum comprehensibility but at the cost of considerable inelegance) to convey as many as possible of the implications and of the verbal interrelationships of the original.4 A wholly English exposition, however, is impossible, owing to the extreme verbal density of Thucydides’ Greek, and the analysis must sometimes have recourse to transliterated words. Naturally, readers with Greek and Latin should read this paper with the originals before them.

4 On the critical principles involved see: Moles (1998) 98 {above, p. 275} at n. 3; two practical implications are: (i) αἰεί is always rendered by ‘always’, in order to convey the interplay between the different applications (cf. n. 43 below) of αἰεί (n. 35); (ii) παρα- is always (with one impossible exception) rendered by ‘present’. An immediate and decisive validation of the principles of ‘literalist translation’ is provided by n. 5. The translation is, however, ‘tweaked’ in detail to suit the concerns of this particular paper: e.g. ὠφέλιμα is translated as ‘helpful’ (rather than ‘useful’) in order to bring out the verbal parallel with Polybius 3.31.12 ὠφελεῖ (§11).

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⟦32⟧ 2 The Two Missed Allusions (a) Thucydides’ wording ‘those who wish to look (at)’ (ὅσοι … βουλήσονται σκοπεῖν) is very similar to a formula used in Athenian inscriptions from the fifth century onwards: namely that the inscription is set up ‘for anyone who wishes to look’ (τῷ βουλομένῳ σκοπεῖν).5 Is this a real (‘deliberate’)6 echo? Peter Rhodes observes that Thucydides uses a verb (βουλήσονται) instead of a participle (βουλομένῳ), but this does not seem a significant objection: ὅσοι βουλήσονται is a pretty close gloss on τῷ βουλομένῳ, and Thucydides needs a relative clause to supply an antecedent for the implied subject of the accusative and infinitive construction ὠφέλιμα κρίνειν αὐτά. Allusions do not have to be absolutely identical with their original: indeed, from the point of view of literary creativity, it is an almost universal rule that it is better that they should modify the original. Hence the immediate context of 22.4 seems (to me) enough to guarantee the conclusion that Thucydides images his History as being (among other things) an inscription, although, as we shall see (§§8 and 10), that conclusion might already have been reached from Thucydides’ opening words at 1.1.1 and from their interaction with earlier historiographical prefaces. Before exploring the implications of this image it is first necessary to establish the second allusion in Thucydides’ wording which has been missed and to explore its implications. (b) The claim that Thucydides’ wording ‘it is set down as a possession’ (κτῆμα … ξύγκειται) recalls a Homeric phrase, specifically one used of ancestral wealth, δόμοις ἐν κτήματα κεῖται = ‘possessions are laid down in the house’ (Il. 9.382; Od. 4.127), is much less self-evidently true than (a) and ⟦33⟧ requires fairly protracted argument and demonstration.7 5 For the formula see the discussions and examples adduced in Meritt (1940) 90 and Thomas (1989) 60–1 and n. 151; as far as I can find out, no modern historian or literary critic has made the connection between this formula and 1.22.4, although, as we shall see (below,  §4 and nn. 15, 16, and 17), some ancient readers took κτῆμα as connoting ‘monument’ and some modern scholars have also done so. Of course, if I have missed some crucial bibliography or some esoteric e-mail lore, I shall be grateful for correction from Histos readers. Note that the parallel with the inscriptional formula refutes out of hand the great majority of modern translations, which render σκοπεῖν by something other than ‘look at’; there are other reasons why σκοπεῖν connotes in the first instance ‘look at’; see also n. 29 for the implications of this visual terminology. 6 The inverted commas are for the benefit of those scholars who continue to fight shy of the notion of authorial intention, although nowadays the theoretical arguments against ‘intention’ are looking under increasing strain (cf., e.g., Burke [1998]) and (despite intertextuality) nowhere more so than in cases of literary allusion. 7 As far as I can find out, this is a new claim (which I made public in my Leeds paper and its handout to be published in a collection of papers edited by John Marincola {Moles (2010)}, though Franco Basso alerts me to Crane (1996) 13, as a sort of anticipation. I cite and discuss

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Thucydides’ Work as a ‘Possession’

What is the logic of Thucydides’ description of his work as a ‘possession’ (κτῆμα)? Commentators and critics (modern ones at any rate) generally fail to consider this simple question,8 yet the implications of Thucydides’ claim require careful teasing out. At the most basic level, terminology proper to one sphere may be transferred to another in order to buttress the claims of the latter. Such appropriation of terminology may occur in moral, philosophical, political, or (as here) literary discourse. Material ‘possessions’ have solid value; to describe a literary work as a ‘possession’ is to imbue it with a corresponding value, or indeed a greater one, since the application to works of literature of the terminology of worldly wealth necessarily implies an assertive paradox. Similar in this respect to Thucydides’ ‘possession set down for always’ are Pindar’s ‘treasury of song’ (Pyth. 6.6ff.) and Horace’s poetic ‘monument more lasting than bronze’ (C. 3.30.1ff). This last example raises the possibility that Thucydides’ ‘possession set down for always’ should be conceived as a literary ‘monument’ (see §4), as indeed Thucydides’ evocation of the Athenian inscriptional formula already entails, but at the moment we are trying to reconstruct the implications of ‘possession’ considered in isolation. In context, the substantiality of Thucydides’ ‘possession’ is also increased by a neat verbal contrast with ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν (‘a ⟦34⟧ competition piece for present hearing’): Thucydides’ work is a substantial κτῆμα (‘possession’) rather than a mere χρῆμα (‘thing’/‘money’).9 There is another fairly obvious, but important, aspect to the notion of ‘possession’ qua ‘possession’, but this requires preliminary establishment of the Homeric quality of Thucydides’ ‘possession’, as in §5. The next question for the moment: how can Thucydides claim that his work is a ‘possession set down for always’? Some scholars seem to think that Thucydides means merely: ‘my treatment of the Peloponnesian War will be Crane’s remarks in §5. Again, I would welcome any bibliographical correction from Histos readers. 8 Honourable exceptions are Lendle (1990) and Nicolai (1995), though I disagree with much in their respective arguments; also interesting is Hornblower (1991) 61: ‘the words κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί, “everlasting possession”, should be taken to mean, in a general way, “having permanent value”, in the sense of being ὠφέλιμον, “useful” … Problems arise if we take “possession for ever” too literally: Th. is not systematic about explaining technical terms … and takes a great deal for granted’. Nevertheless, these observations of the brilliant but capricious Oxford editor seem to me highly questionable. The italicised phrases seem either question-begging (e.g., why should we regard κτῆμα ἐς αἰεί as a ‘technical term’ [which it clearly isn’t]?) or circular (e.g., it is always erroneous to interpret ‘too literally’). 9 Because the proliferation of παρα- compounds in ch. 22 (see n. 4) encourages one to hear the -χρημα in παραχρῆμα separately. For χρημα ~ ‘money’ see nn. 27 and 61.

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the standard treatment for a very long time’.10 But this anyway banal reading neglects the implicit temporal logic of the context. Thucydides’ work is a ‘possession set down for always’ because it transcends its own time frame, providing coverage both of ‘the things that happened’ (the events of the Peloponnesian War) and of ‘those which, in accordance with the human thing, are going to happen again some time like this and near the present ones’.11 Is the immortality of Thucydides’ work also promoted by its being a written text to be received primarily by readers? The matter of reception requires separate treatment (§7) and, moreover, Thucydides’ relationship with Hecataeus and Herodotus (§§8 and 9) must also be taken into account before a final answer to this question can be given. There is another, slightly more oblique, implication. Thucydides describes his work as a ‘possession set down for always rather than a competition piece for present hearing’. Now, although his primary concern is with his work as received by his audience/readers, i.e., with what it will be to them, he is obviously also claiming immortality for it on his own behalf.12 And since the Greek word κτῆμα (here translated ‘possession’) can also be ⟦35⟧ used of ‘prizes’ won in war or in any agonistic context,13 there is another terminological and conceptual transference in play:14 the ‘prize’ that Thucydides wants is not the ‘prize’ that might accrue from the success of a ‘competition piece’ but the ‘prize’ of everlasting usefulness. In this way Thucydides absorbs and transcends the oral/aural agonistic culture which he formally consigns to second

10 So, apparently (e.g.), Gomme (1945) 150 and Hornblower (1991) 61. 11 Thucydides’ work explicitly provides ‘the clearness’ both of the things that happened and of those which, in accordance with the human thing, are going to happen again some time like this and near the present ones’: on the necessary force of the Greek τε … καί see Woodman (1988) 24 (yet many scholars continue to mistranslate, taking the τῶν μελλόντων … ἔσεσθαι phrase as merely a gloss on τῶν … γενομένων); on Thucydides’ profound and complex concern with time see Moles (2001) and (2010). 12 I here use the alternatives ‘audience/readers’ without prejudice, though in  §§7 and 10 I shall argue primarily for ‘readers’. That Thucydides was also claiming his own immortality was well understood by ancient critics, e.g. Marcell. Vit. Thuc. 35 (cited in §4); see also further §6 on the necessary implications of Thucydides’ ‘inscribing’ himself and his name within his ‘monumental inscription’ and §13 on the general principle. 13 LSJ s.v.; note also that κεῖμαι (or compounds) can be used of prizes, as, e.g., in Pericles’ words at 2.46.1 ἆθλα γὰρ οἷς κεῖται ἀρετῆς μέγιστα, τοῖς δὲ καὶ ἄνδρες ἄριστοι πολιτεύουσιν (= ‘the things for which the greatest prizes of excellence are laid down, for these the best men engage in politics’ [?—I’m not sure]), though this usage shades into the ‘permanent property’ usage which I go on to discuss in the main text. 14 This ‘transference’ is recognised (whether consciously or intuitively) by those older translators who rendered κτῆμα by ‘prize’.

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place. This association with ‘prizes’ and ‘agonistic’ contexts naturally facilitates the Homeric allusion for which I shall argue positively in §5. 4

‘Possession’ = ‘Monument’?

A few modern scholars have taken the term κτῆμα as (in context) sufficient in itself to denote ‘monument’, and I shall now consider these interpretations one by one. Gentili and Cerri, comparing the Latin use of monumentum, see both terms as referring to the ‘materialità della parola scritta’ (‘the materiality of the written word’).15 Although this interpretation points, I believe, in the (or a) right direction, it is, as stated, insufficiently grounded and excessively abstract. More interestingly, Svenbro claims that when Thucydides describes his work as a κτῆμα … ἐς ἀεί, ‘the idea of a μνῆμα, “(funerary) monument”, is not far off’.16 The bases of this claim are, firstly, the prior claim (resting on Thuc. 1.1.1 and its Hecataean and Herodotean parallels) that Thucydides presents his History as a monumental inscription; secondly, Svenbro’s belief that there is (always?) a strong felt association between κτῆμα and μνῆμα. To the validity of the first claim we shall return (see §8, which includes discussion of Svenbro’s arguments on this point). The second claim seems to me speculative and certainly cannot be resolved here, though it might seem a point in its favour that Thucydides is undoubtedly indulging in some rhyming verbal play in this sentence (κτῆμα … ξύγκειται, κτῆμα … (παρα)χρῆμα [n. 9]). On the other hand, the specific implication ‘funerary monument’ ⟦36⟧ would seem to make Thucydides’ project inertly commemorative, rather than timelessly relevant. Finally, the parallel with the Athenian inscriptional formula already suggests that Thucydides here has a different sort of ‘inscription’ in mind. Without himself endorsing the claimed association between κτῆμα and ‘monument’, Nicolai has adduced some passages from ancient authors which make this move. The two most striking passages are as follows: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On the Style of Demosthenes 10; this clever passage is quoted as the superscription to this paper. Dionysius, clearly alluding to Thucydides 1.22.4, equally clearly understands κτῆμα as involving ἀνάθημα, that is, in context, a literary ‘memorial’. Marcellinus, Life of Thucydides 35; after stating that Thucydides wrote for the very clever/wise, Marcellinus generalises: ‘for the man who is praised by 15 Gentili–Cerri (1983) 11 n. 23 {= (1988) 13 n. 23}. 16 Svenbro (1993) 150 n. 17.

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the best men and has won an adjudged reputation wins honour inscribed for future time, not honour that risks being obliterated by subsequent judges’. This generalisation clearly derives from an inscriptional reading of 1.22.4.17 ⟦37⟧ Nicolai also contextualises such an understanding of Thucydides’ ‘possession’ within the general application of imagery based on statues, inscriptions, and monuments to be found in ancient poetry (including Ennius and Horace) and in ancient discussions of historiography, biography, and poetry. 17 Nicolai (1995) 21–6. Some of the other passages cited by Nicolai do not obviously support the construction he puts upon them. Dionysius’ verbal cleverness and interpretative acuity are indeed noteworthy. The Greek goes: ὁ δὲ ῥήτωρ τοῦ τε ἀρκοῦντος στοχάζεται καὶ τοὺς καιροὺς συμμετρεῖται οὐκ εἰς ἀνάθημα καὶ κτῆμα κα τὴν λέξιν μόνον ὥσπερ ὁ συγγραφεύς, ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰς χρῆσιν. ὥστε οὔτε τὸ σαφὲς ἐκβέβηκεν, οὗ πρώτου τοῖς ἐναγωνίοις λόγοις δεῖ, τό τε δεινὸς εἶναι δοκεῖν, ἐφ’ ᾧ μάλιστα φαίνεται σπουδάζων, προσείληφε. For a translation see the superscription to this paper. The translations of Usher (1974) 275–7, and Aujac (1988) 66, while no doubt suited to their respective purposes, convey little of that verbal cleverness and interpretative acuity. Nor does Nicolai’s discussion ([1995] 21) do more than register Dionysius’ understanding of κτῆμα as implying ‘inscription/monument’. In fact, Dionyius plays off Thucydidean vocabulary and syntax with great skill. Essentially, he inverts Thucydides’ sentiment, in favour of the orator (who thus substitutes for ‘the sophist’ implicit in Thucydides) rather than the historian, privileging the activity of the former, while not absolutely rejecting that of the latter. The broad structure ‘not only …, as the historian …, but …’ reworks, in positive form, Thucydides’ ‘“x” rather than “y”’. The superiority of the orator’s activity is underpinned by systematic appropriation, and ‘turning’, of the vocabulary that Thucydides applied to his historiographical activity: ἀρκοῦντος ~ Thucydides’ ἀρκούντως, but now ‘the sufficient’ has precise and immediate reference; οὐκ εἰς ἀνάθημα καὶ κτῆμα … μόνον ~ Thucydides’ ‘inscriptional’ κτῆμα, but the orator’s activity is more than a κτῆμα; ὁ συγγραφεύς ~ Thucydides’ ξυνέγραψεν (1.1.1); χρῆσιν ~ Thucydides’ παραχρῆμα (real ‘advantage’, not trivial ‘gain’); τὸ σαφές ~ Thucydides’ τὸ σαφές, but Dionysius substitutes a readily comprehensible notion of oratorical ‘clarity’ for Thucydides’ actually rather murky notion of ‘clearness’; τοῖς ἐναγωνίοις λόγοις ~ Thucydides’ ἀγώνισμα, but again Dionysius gives a positive interpretation to a notion of ‘competition’ which in Thucydides is in part negative; δοκεῖν ~ Thucydides’ ‘rejection’ of δοκεῖν in 1.22.2, but Dionysius redefines δοκεῖν in a positive way. In sum, one might be tempted to say that Dionysius’ response to Thucydides 1.22 is just as sophisticated and creative as those of Polybius, Livy, and Arrian (in §§11–13, cf. also n. 40 for another Dionysian aperçu), except that: (a) the point has already been made, at least potentially, by Nicolai; (b) Dionysius’ quasi-‘glossing’ of κτῆμα by ἀνάθημα is in itself somewhat cruder than anything in the creative reinterpretations offered by those greater names; (c) many other aspects of Dionysius’ response to Thucydides are, notoriously, vulnerable to rather severe criticism. It is fair also to say that Marcellinus’ (re)interpretation of Thucydides 1.22.4 has its own considerable merits (I hope the translation is right), but of course Marcellinus enjoys the considerable practical advantage of coming late in the tradition.

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Nicolai’s citation of these ancient interpretations is valuable (although, as we shall see, there are even more useful ancient examples [§§12 and 13]). But it is of course open to us not to accept this ancient interpretation, and, given the inadequacy of the modern arguments of Gentili and Cerri and Svenbro, the case for the interpretation cannot properly be assessed outside the whole question of the prooemial form of Thucydides’ work (and Hecataeus’ and Herodotus’), which will be treated later, in  §8. For the moment, therefore, I revert to the Homeric quality of Thucydides’ ‘possession’. 5

The Homeric Quality of Thucydides’ ‘Possession’

It is well recognised that Thucydides’ extended first preface (1.1–23) contains numerous literary allusions, a main purpose of which is to establish Thucydides’ authority/author-ity by comparison with predecessors or contemporaries who could be regarded as rivals in his field.18 22.4 is particularly dense ⟦38⟧ in this respect, containing (at least) allusions to poets (including Hesiod and Homer), seers, doctors, sophists, and logographers (including Hecataeus and Herodotus), the main point of these allusions being to convey the ‘divinatory’ superiority of Thucydides’ work to all of these.19 At this juncture it becomes necessary to consider the force of the ξυγ- prefix in the verb ξύγκειται, the last word of ch. 22. A minimalist interpretation of ξύγκειται would appeal to the fact that ξύγκειμαι is a standard word for literary composition20 and naturally this is part of the meaning at 22.4, but Thucydides’ deployment of the word at this particular moment in his text is also strategic, helping to articulate the architecture of the whole argument of the extended preface.

18 John Marincola’s important recent book (Marincola [1997]) has greatly advanced our understanding of this function of literary allusions in ancient historiography (which is of course not the only function: for a fruitful range of possibilities see, e.g., Rood [1998]; [1999]; and Howie [2005]). It is of course a matter of scholarly debate what Thucydides’ ‘field’ is: I would myself define it very broadly as the understanding, and acquisition, of political and military competence through the case studies provided by the Peloponnesian War (cf. §11 and n. 72). ‘Field’ here is something different from genre (on which see §14 and n. 79). On the debate concerning the ‘helpfulness’/‘usefulness’ of Thucydides’ History see n. 72. 19 Documentation and discussion in Moles (2001). For the particular case of Herodotus see n. 33; for Hesiod see n. 35; for another implicit competitor see n. 29. 20 LSJ s.v. Although Thucydides is the earliest example cited, it is unthinkable that subsequent examples derived from him.

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Thucydides begins his History with the words: ‘Thucydides the Athenian wrote up [ξυνέγραψε] the war of the Peloponnesians and Athenians’ (1.1.1). He then claims that this war was the greatest κίνησις of all (1.1.2). He then attempts to prove this claim, firstly by a negative (‘earlier periods were not great’: 1.1.3–21.1), secondly by a positive (‘this war was the greatest’: 1.21.2, 23.1–3). The first, negative, part of the proof ends with a justification of Thucydides’ historical method regarding the reconstruction of the periods before the Peloponnesian War (20.1–21.1). The second, positive, part of the proof (1.21.2), begins with a justification of Thucydides’ historical method regarding the writing up of the war (1.22.1–3); both these methodological sections provide the necessary underpinnings for his factual claims. Although it is a formal error to invoke the contents of chs. 20 and 21 as direct evidence for Thucydides’ reconstruction of the war itself,21 it is nevertheless true and important that the methodology of ch. 22 is given increased definition by a series of parallels and contrasts between chs. 20–1 and 22. Then 23.1–3 makes the positive case; then Thucydides goes back in time to ‘pre-write’ (προγράφειν) the causes of the war (23.5 ‘I pre-wrote’ picks up, and contrasts with, 1.1.1 ‘Thucydides wrote up the war’). Thus one point of 22.4 ξύγκειται is to respond to 1.1.1 ξυνέγραψε: ξυνέγραψε makes the initial statement, ξύγκειται describes the end of the process, incorporating the methodological principles of 22.1–3 (Thucydides’ handling of the speeches and the deeds of the war). But since these methodological principles involve implicit comparison and contrast with Thucydides’ ⟦39⟧ various rivals in the sort of exercise he is engaged in, ξύγκειται also includes this process of comparison and contrast. Moreover, when contrasting his reconstruction of events before the Peloponnesian War with those of rivals in that field, Thucydides stated (1.21.1): But anyone who considered from the aforesaid indications that things were more or less what I have described would not go wrong, neither trusting what the poets have eulogised about them, nor what the prose writers have put together (ξυνέθεσαν) for the purpose of enticement to the audience rather than the truth, things that cannot be checked and the majority of them having prevailed owing to time untrustworthily to the point of myth, but believing that they have been discovered from the clearest signs sufficiently in so far as they are ancient things.

21

As Woodman (1988) 8–9, rightly insists, though this insistence (like many of Woodman’s correct ‘insistences’) continues to be widely ignored.

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Hence, because of the implicit parallels and contrasts between chs. 20–1 and 22, ξύγκειται ‘trumps’ ξυνέθεσαν, of the logographers’ inferior efforts: Thucydides is involved in a superior exercise of ‘putting things together’. In sum, Thucydides represents his History as the work in his field, which ‘synthesises’ (ξυνέθεσαν) and ‘compounds’ (ξύγκειται) all other relevant works. Given also the already discussed transference of ‘possession’/‘prize’ terminology to Thucydides’ History (end of §3), a literary allusion to the Homeric ‘ancestral wealth’ phrase is thoroughly apposite, clinching the case for the overwhelming superiority of Thucydides’ work. Within the whole tradition of literature concerned with war and politics, Homer must be regarded as Thucydides’ greatest single rival—but Thucydides comprehensively surpasses him. In Homer the expression ‘possessions laid down in the house’ describes the literal ancestral wealth of a favoured few (the accumulation of all the individual ‘possessions’ or ‘prizes’ won by members of those families). In Thucydides, by contrast, the ‘possession’ is Thucydides’ work itself; it has greater value than any mere physical possession or prize; its value, while like the ancestral possessions described by Homer in passing down the generations, is immeasurably greater in that it will last ‘for always’; and it can be acquired by—it is (as it were) ‘free’ to—‘anybody who wishes to look at it’; finally, the shift from the Homeric plural κτήματα to the singular κτῆμα neatly reinforces the idea that Thucydides’ is the single work, which renders all others (relevant to the field) redundant. Of course, our hypothetical minimalising critic might again respond to all this by saying that the hyperbaton involved in reading κτῆμα … ξύγκειται as a gloss on the Homeric κτήματα κεῖται is too great to render the reading plausible. Yet not only does the reading make a thoroughly fitting culmination to Thucydides’ dense literary allusions and historiographical claims in this passage, but the hyperbaton itself can be given a double value. In the first place, the hyperbaton does indeed pose an interpretative problem: one has to see it (and, as we have seen, it has seemingly been seen by no ⟦40⟧ modern critic hitherto); by its very nature hyperbaton involves perceiving and then filling in a gap, and it can be argued that such filling of gaps is one of the great interpretative challenges that Thucydides imposes upon us.22 In the second place, the enclosing word order actually enacts the all-embracing quality of Thucydides’ ‘possession’ and so itself contributes to the meaning. Interesting, though not initially straightforward, further confirmation of the Homeric allusion at 1.22.4 is provided by the language of the (alleged) letter of 22

See Moles (2001) and (2010).

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the Persian king Xerxes to the Spartan Pausanias, of which Thucydides gives an allegedly verbatim version (1.129.3):23 ‘King Xerxes speaks as follows (ὧδε λέγει): “for the men whom you saved for me beyond the sea from Byzantium your good service will be laid up (κείσεται) for you in our house for ever inscribed (ἀνάγραπτος)”’ On this letter Crane has written:24 the inscribed monument can formally place a written utterance in the public domain, citing its authors and presenting its contents for all to see. The solemnity and authority of such monumental writing for fifth-century Hellas is clear in Thucydides. He quotes a letter in which Xerxes acknowledges his indebtedness to the Spartan Pausanias: ‘for the men whom you have saved for me across the sea from Byzantium, your good service (εὐεργεσία) will be deposited (κείσεται) for you in our house, written down (ἀνάγραπτος) forever’ … A ‘good service,’ εὐεργεσία, is typical of the language of traditional ritualized friendship and points backwards to the bonds which link Glaukos with Diomedes in Iliad 6, and Mentes with Odysseus in Odyssey 1. The verb κείσεται belongs to the language of wealth: heirlooms or precious metals ‘are stored away.’ The adjective ἀνάγραπτος, ‘written down,’ points, however, towards the recent (for the Greeks, anyway) language of financial accounts. The Great King not only acknowledges a debt, but emphasizes the value which he places on it through the metaphor of writing. Pausanias’ εὐεργεσία is converted metaphorically to a monetary sum, but this conversion enhances ⟦41⟧ rather than reduces its value. Written down in the accounts of the Great King, Pausanias’ εὐεργεσία will never be forgotten. This analysis is penetrating and perceptive, but, from my point of view, it fails to make the requisite connection with 1.22.4, and this despite the use of significantly similar wording (‘for all to see’). Also, the analysis rather overplays the Greekness of the concepts and downplays the Persian ones: Persians could also acknowledge ‘good service’, and ‘our house’ (vel sim.) is a stock phrase of 23

The authenticity of the letter, as also of much (or even all) of Pausanias’ medising, is naturally controversial; at least Thucydides is making a good fist at authentic phraseology, which is all that matters here: Hornblower (1991) 216 (with bibliography); see also my discussion in the main text; on the other hand, as we shall see, this Persian phraseology is also being passed through a Greek filter. 24 Crane (1996) 13–14.

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the Persian king.25 As regards both these matters and Crane’s comment on κείσεται, account must be taken of the much-discussed Letter of Darius to the satrap Gadatas (preserved in a Greek inscription of the second century AD), lines 15–17 of which read: ‘because of these things there will be laid up (κείσεται) for you great gratitude in the King’s house’. But this letter does not make against a Homeric reading of κεῖμαι. On the contrary, the natural inference is that translations of Persian kings’ letters into Greek readily resorted to the Homeric notion of ‘goods laid up’, the more so because of the convenient switch from the Greek conception of the family ‘house’ to the Persian King’s and the piquant transference of context thus entailed: instead of the beneficiary’s having riches laid up in his own house, they are laid up in the Great King’s. In sum, Xerxes’ letter of Thucydides 1.129.3 supports a Homeric interpretation of κτῆμα … ξύγκειται, especially given the further parallels ἐς αἰεί and (as we shall see) ἀνάγραπτος. It is indeed difficult not to feel that Thucydides’ mind is working with the same sorts of concepts in 1.22.4 as in 1.129.3.26 We may now go back to that other aspect of the notion of ‘possession’ anticipated at the end of the first paragraph in §3. It is simply this: among all the competing claims of different authors and different types of work and all the sorts of ‘possession’ an individual may reasonably hope to have, Thucydides’ ‘possession’ is the one thing you’ve got to have. 6

The General Implications of the ‘Inscription’

We may now also return at last to the fact that ὅσοι … βουλήσονται evokes the Athenian inscriptional formula τῷ βουλομένῳ σκοπεῖν and begin to take account of its implications. It is easy to see that the image of the History as an inscription effectively and economically reinforces some of Thucydides’ historiographical ⟦42⟧ claims in 22.4. An inscription stands for authority (it is written in a durable medium; it permits no rivals), truth (purported at any rate), and permanence (in contrast to any ‘competition piece for present hearing’), and its ‘open-access’ quality (‘for anyone who wishes to look’) underlines the fact that Thucydides’ ‘possession’ is ‘free’ to all who want it.27 An inscription is 25

See Hornblower (1991) 216 and Meiggs–Lewis (1969) 20–2 (on the Letter of Darius; I discuss this latter inscription in the immediately subsequent main text). 26 Presumably it might be possible also to give 1.129.3 some metaliterary force, more complex than, but along the same lines as, Croesus’ reference in Hdt. 1.207 to ἀπόδεξις ἔργων μεγάλων. 27 This notion of its being ‘free’ (relatively: some will have to buy their own copy) is reinforced by the contrast with the ‘prize competition’ (§3) and with sophistic venality (§9 and

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also by its very nature a public memorial, and thus a suitable image for a historical work concerned with public events: war and politics. And an inscription that names the inscriber (Thuc. 1.1.1) obviously commemorates him as well as its subject matter, thereby reinforcing that other dimension of the immortality of Thucydides’ work. 7

‘Inscription’ as Underwriting the Idea of the History as a Written Text

Does the image of the inscription also help to underscore the idea that the History is primarily a written text, to be received primarily by readers?28 This very idea is, admittedly, a matter of scholarly dispute, yet the arguments of those who wish either to deny that Thucydides is presenting his History as a ⟦43⟧ written text for reading or at least to allow considerable space for oral delivery and aural reception perversely resist the clear implications of Thucydides’ words. His work is ‘set down as a possession for always rather than as a competitive display for present hearing’. Although ‘rather than’ does not absolutely exclude oral delivery and aural reception, it certainly privileges ‘looking’ over ‘hearing’, and, given that ‘hearing’ covers the whole medium of oral performance and aural reception, what exactly is the recipient of Thucydides’ work

n. 61). Note that in itself Thucydides’ phrasing here gives little comfort to those (including Moles [1993b] 106 {above, pp. 173–4}) who suppose that he is writing for a select reading public: the implication, rather, is that more or less everyone is literate but they can choose whether or not to read Thucydides. Of course, those who might be in a position to make this choice might already be a select group, and of course also the extent and degree of literacy in fifth-century Athens continue to be highly controversial matters: see most recently Morgan (1999). Nevertheless, for what it is worth, I feel that in general the many discussions of Athenian literacy take altogether insufficient account of the sheer fact of the fifth-century appearance of such huge texts as Herodotus and Thucydides. Thucydides’ representation of his work as an inscription might also seem at first sight consistent with the hypothesis that he constructed his work as a mnemonic text, a hypothesis advanced by Shrimpton (1997) 191–8, but this hypothesis involves misinterpretation of key elements of 1.22 (as I have argued in Moles [2001]), and fails also to take proper account: (a) of the History as a reading text (§7); and (b) of the extent to which this reading text demands that the reader involve himself in (inter-)active interpretation (and not, therefore, in passive memorisation). 28 For this idea see, e.g. (and rather diversely), Havelock (1964) 53–4; Hunter (1982) 287–96; Svenbro (1993) 148 n. 10; Crane (1996) xi–xiii; 1–26; dissent of the ‘it ain’t necessarily so’ variety in Hornblower (1991) 60–1 (hypothesising selective Thucydidean recitation); Marincola (1997) 21.

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supposed to be ‘looking at’, if not at a text and its contents?29 The textual quality of the History is indeed reinforced by its being compared to an inscription, itself a text at which people look. Nor is it irrelevant at this point to reflect on the sheer proliferation of inscriptions in fifth-century Greece and on (as it were) their psychological impact. One of the areas which modern studies of literacy and orality in that period have naturally considered is historians’ use of inscriptions. The majority opinion has been that the use of inscriptions and similar material by at least the fifth-century Greek historians is relatively small and such as to indicate no great esteem for inscriptions as a form of historical evidence.30 But such analyses ought to take into account the imaging of history as a monumental inscription, which clearly does indicate a certain esteem for the very concept of inscriptions. But of course, in the same way as Thucydides’ work transcends its more general physical equivalent, the ‘possession’, so it enormously transcends any conceivable physical inscription. Thus Thucydides is arguing for the superiority of engagement with a great written text to oral/aural media and this argument is itself an important element of his overall argument for the superiority of his work to all other possible rivals. I shall return to this aspect of 1.22.4 below in §10 and there try to import some further refinements in the light of the question of Thucydides’ relationship with Hecataeus and Herodotus. Now the above interpretation may seem to run into two, related, difficulties. First, if any of Thucydides’ predecessors and rivals likened their works to inscriptions, where does this leave Thucydides’ claim to superiority on the basis of his work’s being like a written inscription? The problem here is one both of logic and of literary originality and creativity. ⟦44⟧ Secondly, if, as has been traditionally supposed, Thucydides is targeting Herodotus, whether primarily or exclusively, in his critical allusion to ‘competition pieces for present hearing’, how can his argument sustain itself, given that Herodotus had certainly produced a ‘monumental’ written text before Thucydides? (I here use the term ‘monumental’ in the sense of ‘composite’, as G. S. Kirk, though an oralist, refers to ‘the monumental composer’ of the Iliad.) This second difficulty would seem to be compounded, if it can be shown that Herodotus also had likened his written text to a monumental inscription. In my opinion, however, these two factors are not so much difficulties as additional 29 Note the strong contrast between ‘hearing’ and ‘looking’ (cf. also n. 5): the History is a sort of ‘seeing text’, with multiple implications: see Moles (2001). This conception itself suggests yet another rival to Thucydides’ claims in ch. 22: the visual arts. 30 E.g., Thomas (1989) 89–90; (1992) 14; S. West (1985); the perspective of Crane (e.g., as cited in n. 28 and quoted in §5) seems to me nearer the mark.

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complexities which need to be factored into a more nuanced interpretation of Thucydides’ argument. 8

Do Hecataeus and Herodotus Represent Their Works as ‘Inscriptions’?

As we noted at the beginning of the paper, the claim that they represent their historical works as monumental inscriptions has been variously made for Hecataeus, Herodotus, and Thucydides. This claim has very largely been made on the basis of the author’s initial prefaces, although, as we have also seen (§4), a few scholars have read κτῆμα in 1.22.4 in a ‘monumental’ way. The respective prefaces begin as follows:31 (1) Hecataeus the Milesian speaks thus: I write these things as they seem to me to be true. For the accounts of the Greeks are many and ludicrous, as they appear to me. (2) Of Herodotus the Halicarnassian this [is—the verb ‘to be’ is understood] the demonstration of his enquiry, in order that neither should the things that came to be by human beings become faded away (ἐξίτηλα) through time nor should great and wonderful deeds, some demonstrated by Greeks, some by barbarians, come to be without fame, and especially for what reason they made war against each other.

⟦45⟧ The most difficult element here is the understanding of

ἐξίτηλα. The rendering ‘faded away’ is intended to keep open two possibilities, which will be assessed below. The rendering ‘came to be’/‘come to be’ is intended to highlight a paradox in the use of γίγνομαι (used both of ‘birth’ and of ‘death’). (3) Thucydides the Athenian wrote up the war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians, how they waged war on each other…. As their prefaces develop, both Herodotus and Thucydides make the same move as does Hecataeus in his opening words: that is, they switch from referring 31 The translations are my own, ‘tweaked’ for local purposes. Interpretation of Hecataeus’ ὡς-clauses is controversial, but in the present context this does not matter. The suggestion sometimes made that the words ‘Hecataeus the Milesian speaks thus’ are not Hecataeus’ but the quoter’s founders: (a) on the parallels with Herodotus and Thucydides (and others, including Antiochus {FGrHist 555 F 2}); (b) on the epistolary and inscriptional parallels; (c) on the Homeric quality of μυθεῖται. (I am aware there are circles here, but some circles are better, and more mutually-reinforcing, than others!)

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to themselves in the third person to first-person references (Hdt. 1.5.3–4; Thuc. 1.1.3; etc.). The scholarship on this topic is not easy to summarise. Some of it is excessively brief, some of it excessively long-winded. Of the scholars who read (either one, or two, or all, of) these prefaces as likening the works to monumental inscriptions, some do little more than state the interpretation but others provide arguments. The arguments vary. I first present a mélange of the arguments in list form (adding one or two of my own): – the mere act of commemoration (all three authors); – the avowed purpose of commemoration, that is, a statement of the function of the text (Hecataeus/Herodotus); – the use of writing (all three authors); – the stated use of writing (Hecataeus, Thucydides); – the fact that συγγράφω, Thucydides’ word for his ‘writing up’ his History, can be used of decrees, etc., as can προγράφω, Thucydides’ word for his ‘pre-writing’ of the causes of the war (1.23.5); – the naming of the maker of the artefact; – the combination of named third person (outside the main text); – announcement of the presence of the text (Hecataeus: ‘I write these things’; Herodotus: ‘this is the demonstration’); – the use of the deictic ‘this’ (Hecataeus/Herodotus); – the use of the deictic ‘this’ as the subject of the sentence with the verb ‘to be’ unexpressed (Herodotus); – then enunciation of the text itself with a switch from the ‘external’ third-person to the first-person of the actual speaker/writer and assertion of its truth content; – in this switch some have seen the influence of official letters (perhaps particularly letters from the Persian king), which could be memorialised in inscriptional form, and/or of Persian historiography (two influences which might have been particularly strong on Hecataeus of Miletus, ⟦46⟧ especially given the space he creates between himself and ‘the Greeks’); – Herodotus’ use of the term ἐξίτηλος; – Thucydides’ use of the past tense, his phrase ‘for always’ and his use of the verb κεῖμαι; – the evident familiarity of both Herodotus and Thucydides (and undoubtedly also of Hecataeus) with inscriptions of every kind, including the official letter.32 32 E.g.: Conz {1794} 127 (Who Conz? non vidi; Conz is cited by Creuzer in the next reference); Creuzer (1847) 642; Diels (1887) 118 n. 1; Myres (1953) 82; Svenbro (1993) 149–50; Corcella

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It will be noticed that this mélange of arguments seems to canvass two different types of inscription: the funeral memorial or inscription and the governmental inscription. This is not in itself a problem: one might align a particular historian more with one of the two (Hecataeus with the governmental one, Herodotus with the funeral memorial), or one might allow for the possibility of a sort of composite conception of an inscription (this could be true of Thucydides, in his opening words rather like Hecataeus, but at 1.22.4 ὅσοι … βουλήσονται σκοπεῖν invoking a specifically Athenian inscriptional formula). In the evaluation of such readings, several other factors need to be taken into account. First, it is widely agreed (and is clearly true) that Herodotus is imitating Hecataeus’ preface and Thucydides in turn is imitating Herodotus’.33 That ⟦47⟧ Thucydides is also imitating, or reacting against, Hecataeus is indicated not only by the general similarity of the initial prefatory statements but by the common use of the verb ‘write’ and also by Thucydides’ dismissive wording at 22.2 ‘nor just with what seemed to me to be so’, which looks like a confutation of Hecataeus’ ‘as they seem to be so’ and ‘as they appear to me’.34 Thus a successful case for a ‘monumental inscription’ reading of the preface of any one of these authors might in itself support the case for such a reading of the other two. (1996) (disciplined discussion, with useful bibliography); Porciani (1997), esp. 5–6; 27–33; 34–7; 70–8; 160–2 (diffuse and repetitive but with masses of information); Luce (1997) 26; Sancisi-Weerdenburg (1999) does not consider the question of the relationship between Persian historiography and Greek; ‘for always’ in inscriptions: e.g., Meiggs–Lewis (1969) nos. 10, 47, 63, and 64; use of κεῖμαι occurs in funerary inscriptions (‘here lies so-and-so’), but given Thucydides’ formal suppression of himself (in 1.22.4) in favour of his work, which κεῖται, this resonance is not necessarily inapposite; Herodotus’ familiarity: extensive documentation in Corcella (1996) 297; Thucydides’ familiarity: Xerxes’ alleged letter to Pausanias (§5). No single discussion offers the sort of cumulative case that I put together in the main text, even though it should be obvious that only a cumulative case has any chance of carrying conviction. 33 Herodotus ~ Hecataeus: see, e.g., Jacoby (1909) 99–100 = (1956) 37–9 {= (2015) 31–5}; Pelliccia (1992) 74–5; Pelling (1999) 331–2 (stimulating observations with useful bibliography); Thucydides ~ Herodotus: fairly full discussion and documentation (missing, however, some tricks) in Moles (1993b); also the useful list of parallels, real or alleged, in Hornblower (1996) 19–38 (likewise missing important tricks) and Hornblower’s extended (but highly restricted) discussion, ‘Thucydides’ use of Herodotus’ ([1996] 122–45). 34 So, for example, Pohlenz (1920) 74f. {= (1965) II.272f.}; Moles (1993b) 106; Shrimpton (1997) 170; the fact that Thucydides’ wording has internal logic (contrasting with his reconstruction of the speeches ‘as it seemed to me’) does not preclude this additional resonance, which is thoroughly compatible with the density of Thucydides’ literary allusions in ch. 22; Gomme’s objections ([1945] 141) to Pohlenz seem to me pedantically misconceived.

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Second, as a counter-balance to the official letter or to any Persian parallel, the precedent of Hesiod in the Theogony could be urged: there, as in the three historians, the author moves from third-person self-naming, to mention of his literary product, to first-person reference, to the claim of his own truth as opposed to others’ falsehoods (Theog. 22–35). And Hesiod was certainly generally influential upon both Hecataeus and Herodotus and also (I believe) influential upon Thucydides both in his prefatory material and in the main body of Book 1.35 Third, the preface of Herodotus has of course stimulated other interpretations, most of which focus particularly on Herodotus’ use of the term ἀπό­ δεξις (‘demonstration’). These interpretations may be divided into three main categories: (a) ⟦48⟧ those which take Herodotus to be stressing the oral nature of his work: his work as an oral ‘demonstration’, a force ἀπόδεξις can certainly have (shading into ἐπίδειξις); (b) those which see ἀπόδεξις as dramatising the transition from oral (as in the acquisition of the bulk of his material, the oral performances preceding the construction of the unified text, or the fiction of Herodotus as the voice of the actual text) to the written text as it is read (hence ‘this is the demonstration’); (c) those which appeal to alleged parallels in other ‘wise men’ or sophists for the claim, even the obligation, to dispense superior knowledge.36

35 In 21.2, 22.1, and 22.4 Thucydides evokes the Hesiodic play on αἰεί/ἀείδειν: Moles (1993b) 109f. Hesiod should also be seen as an influence upon Thucydides’ complex analysis of causality in Book 1: Moles (2010). Svenbro (1993) 150, quoted below in this section, notes the parallel with Hesiod as regards the prefaces. M. L. West (1997) 287 adduces two Babylonian parallels for divine revelation of a poem, one of which mentions a ‘tablet’, so if this sort of ‘parallel’ was real to Hesiod, he might have been suggesting the written quality of his own poem; to me, however, the parallels look distinctly strained. (One can think this while still supposing that Hesiod himself did use writing.) 36 E.g., (a): Nagy (1987) 175–8; (b): Lateiner (1989) 9 (a notably pregnant formulation); (c): Pelliccia (1992) 80–4, adducing Gorgias, Helen 5; this parallel seems to me certain in itself, but Pelliccia formally leaves open the question of relative priority, though in n. 45 he teases us with the possibility of Gorgianic priority; however, alike on general grounds (known literary activity); because the arrangement of material has richer interpretative implications in Herodotus (e.g., in making the key parallel with Odysseus [n. 59]); because imitation of Herodotus does more for Gorgias (imparting a pleasingly specious ‘historiographical’ tone) than imitation of Gorgias would for Herodotus, I think Herodotus must be prior, in which case the Gorgianic parallel, though interesting, has no interpretative consequences for Herodotus; also Fowler (1996) 86–7, adducing Theogn. 769–72 and Pl. Prot. 320b.

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Of these categories, (a) would be incompatible with a monumental inscription reading; (b) would be quite compatible (since the writer of an inscription is characteristically represented as speaking); and (c) would be indifferent. Although the question is much debated by very distinguished scholars of all persuasions, an investigation such as the present one cannot take refuge in endless deferrals, and I shall here simply state my own opinion that: (a) is quite perverse (in what oral context would the preface make any sense?); the parallels adduced for (c) are (with one immaterial exception, that of Gorgias’ Helen—see n. 36) unimpressive; and (b), which takes proper account both of Herodotean usage within the text, of the numerous oral encounters which provided most of the raw material of the text, of the fiction of ‘the speaking text’, and of the indubitable fact that the History in its final form is a text constructed by Herodotus himself, the interpretation, in short, which has the widest explanatory power, is clearly right. And (b) is, as I have said, quite compatible with a monumental inscription reading of Herodotus’ Preface. As for the second factor to be taken into account, the parallel with Hesiod, there are several interpretative possibilities. One could say that Hesiod is not an active influence upon any of the historians’ prefaces but merely illustrates a common process of validation. I personally think that Hesiod is an active influence, certainly on Hecataeus (with his distinction between ⟦49⟧ truth and (relative) untruth) and on Thucydides. If one says that Hesiod is an active influence, one can then, if one is happy with the notion of Hesiod’s using writing (as I am), talk of Hesiod’s ‘inscription’ in a broader sense of that term. If one rejects Hesiod’s having used writing, one can say that the historians have transmuted Hesiod’s oral technique of validation into inscriptional validation. A final point: acceptance of Hesiod as an active influence upon the historians’ prefaces in no way entails his having been the only influence, and indeed in all three historians plurality of influences is readily demonstrable. The way is now cleared for return to the evaluation of the arguments for some sort of inscriptional reading of the various prefaces. I shall consider what seem to me to be the three most crucial separate questions: (1) the case as based on the overall format of the three prefaces; (2) the argument from Herodotus’ use of ἐξίτηλα; (3) possible differences between the three prefaces. (1) Svenbro makes a gratifyingly clear formal statement:37 the works of all these historians thus bear monumental inscriptions in the sense that, seen ‘from outside’ (this is the first phrase that permits the reader to enter into the work), they refer to their authors in 37 Svenbro (1993) 150.

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the third person, as if they are absent. The authors are no longer there. Only through a fiction—a fiction that for us has become a rule—do they refer to themselves in the first person inside their works, just as if they were present in the text. After the introductory sentence, their works thus assume the form of a transcription of a living voice, as if they had first existed orally and only later were faithfully transcribed. In contrast, where Hesiod uses the form of a transcription, referring to himself as ἐγώ, or even ὅδε ἐγώ, thereby setting himself up as an interlocutor who is present, it probably was a real transcription, whether made by Hesiod himself or by someone else. But this statement falls considerably short of proving the case that such ‘monumental inscriptions’ are the literary equivalent of actual monumental inscriptions. The case can be strengthened as regards Hecataeus by the clear parallel between his format and those of official letters,38 but is perhaps in itself as yet not decisive, especially given the clear formal parallel between Hecataeus and Hesiod. (2) Herodotus’ use of ἐξίτηλα can be argued to be ‘inscriptional’ in two ways: (a) if ἐξίτηλα is a recognisably genealogical term (= ‘extinct’), this might align Herodotus’ work with funerary inscriptions; (b) if ἐξίτηλα conveys, rather, ‘fading’, this might suggest (in some sense) the ‘fading’ of an inscription. ⟦50⟧ (a) The case for ἐξίτηλα’s being a recognisably genealogical term39 rests on several factors: (i) Herodotus’ only other use of the term at 5.39.2 (γένος τὸ Εὐρυσθένεος γενέσθαι ἐξίτηλον = ‘Eurysthenes’ family became extinct’); (ii) the possibility that the wording of the Preface is itself to be understood ‘genealogically’ or ‘biologically’, with τὰ γεμόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων suggesting ‘things born from men’ and with ἐξίτηλα suggesting τέλος (‘end’/‘death’);40 (iii) the (possible) broader parallel between the Preface and 5.39.2: ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται ~ γένος τὸ Εὐρυσθένεος γενέσθαι ἐξίτηλον (where the similarity consists not only in the bolded wording but also in 38 Corcella (1996). 39 Pelliccia (1992) 75, followed by Moles (1996) 282 {above, p. 256} n. 36. Franco Basso will shortly be publishing a paper (destination as yet unknown) which will thoroughly examine ἐξίτηλα and its possible implications and will indeed offer what seems to be a distinctively new interpretation. In what follows I am particularly grateful to discussion with Franco Basso. 40 Note Pelling (1999) 334, ‘things originating from humans’ (with exegesis in n. 32), though Pelling might not regard this as ‘biological’; ‘biologically’/ ἐξίτηλα ~ τέλος: Moles (1996) 282 {above, p. 256} n. 36. Franco Basso alerts me to D. Hal. Pomp. 2, ‘the very proem is both beginning and end [τέλος] of the History’, which suggests that the estimable Dionysius (n. 17) here anticipated Moles.

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the paradoxical use of γενέσθαι/γένος, as applied both to ‘birth’ and ‘death’); (ii) and (iii) can be regarded as being mutually reinforcing; (iv) the fact that later writers seem to have understood Herodotus’ use of ἐξίτηλα in the Preface ‘genealogically’.41 This seems to me a good cumulative case. (b) Luce writes: ‘the metaphor in the first clause suggests a stone inscription whose letters fade with weathering’, thereby apparently suggesting: ‘Herodotus represents his History as a superior sort of inscription, for a literary text which can be copied and circulated widely can achieve the permanence denied to stone inscriptions located in one place and anyway subject to physical decay’ (as indeed Herodotus’ History has, to date, achieved permanence).42 It seems that in ancient usage generally the predominant application43 of the word ἐξίτηλος is to ‘fading’ (of colours, etc.).44 But what sort of ‘fading’ would apply to a stone inscription? Later examples talk of the ‘fading’ ⟦51⟧ of the paint inside the letters of inscriptions. They also apply the notion of ‘fading’ to non-inscriptional written texts45 and to paintings themselves.46 The former category is obviously excluded as Herodotus’ analogy here, but might he be contrasting his work with pictorial representations of the Persian Wars such as those on the Stoa Poikile? In that case, ἐξίτηλα would give no clue to the nature of his own metaphorical representation of the past. To our logic, it would seem to make little sense if Herodotus were referring to the ‘fading’ of letters on a stone inscription, since (a) letters themselves do not ‘fade’ in the same way as colour does, and (b) if the colour of letters fades, the letters themselves remain (at least for a very long time) readable. This difficulty, however, can be overcome by the interesting case of Thucydides 6.54.6, who refers to the ‘faint’ (ἀμυδροῖς) letters of an inscription of which the letters are still clear today and who must therefore be referring to the disappearance of the paint.47 It is true that ἀμυδρός rather than ἐξίτηλος seems to be the mot juste for such ‘fading’ of inscriptional letters, but ἐξίτηλος is also attested in this sense.48 41 Documentation in Basso (n. 39). 42 Luce (1997). The gloss is my own, partly founded on a reported conversation between Jim Luce and Tony Woodman. 43 Cf. Stinton (1975) 226 {= (1990) 149}: ‘it is not a question of ἁμαρτία having different senses … ἁμαρτία is a word which covers a range of situations, and will be interpreted in each case according to the situation to which it is applied {emphasis added}’ (a crucial point about language and its interpretation and one which has enormous general application). 44 LSJ, s.v.; Pollux 1.44 (re dye). 45 E.g. Cass. Dio 57.16.2, an example which shows that ἐξίτηλος can be used in contrast to (altogether) ‘dead’, ‘destroyed’. 46 E.g., Paus. 10.38.9. 47 Meiggs–Lewis (1969) 20; Gomme–Andrewes–Dover (1970) 331 (less trenchant). 48 Pollux 5.150.

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There are, then, things to be said for both interpretations and no decisive arguments against either. One might even attempt to combine the two, for on the usual etymology, which seems correct, ἐξίτηλος simply derives from ἔξειμι = ‘go out’,49 and both letters (or their colours) and families/‘things born’ can reasonably be said to ‘fade away’/‘fade out’. Indeed, Aeschylus’ allusion to the ‘fading’ of blood (TGrF F 162.4) may perhaps even bestraddle the colour and the genealogical usages. My own feeling, however, is that (a) is the stronger case, because it seems to me more organically integrated both into the wording of the Preface and into (if one may so put it) Herodotus’ general philosophy of life, and because in the Greek it is difficult not to take ἐξ ἀνθρώπων as affecting not only τὰ γενόμενα but also ἐξίτηλα, which is rather easier if ἐξίτηλα refers to genealogical ‘fading out’. Nevertheless, (b) can hardly be excluded (particularly if there are other reasons for regarding the History as an ‘inscription’). Both interpretations, therefore, provide some support for an ‘inscriptional reading’ of the Preface. (3) Hecataeus is certainly evoking an epistolary form. But the fact that he follows up the epistolary formula ‘so-and-so says’ with ‘I write’ emphasises the ⟦52⟧ written nature of his work. The combination of verbs of saying with those of writing is of course commonplace in inscriptions. It would be easy to read Hecataeus’ work as an ‘inscription’ of an official governmental letter, especially given Hecataeus’ extremely lordly tone, and even as a specifically Persian letter, given his dismissive allusion to ‘the Greeks’, though allowance must also be made for Hesiodic influence. If Hecataeus is considered in isolation from the rest of the historiographical tradition, the case for an inscriptional reading, though pretty plausible, is perhaps not quite made out. Despite some obvious differences from Hecataeus, the case for an inscriptional reading of Herodotus’ Preface (again considered in isolation from the rest of the historiographical tradition) is of approximately the same weight, based as it is on general format (the move from ‘external’ third person to ‘internal’ first person, etc.), explicit commemorative purpose, deictic ‘this’ as subject without expressed verb ‘to be’, and use of ἐξίτηλος. There are no strong negatives: as we have seen, strongly non-inscriptional readings of ἀπόδεξις fail and the oral residue implicit in ἀπόδεξις may always be part of an inscription, nor does Herodotus’ general narrative tone preclude an ‘inscriptional’ claim.50 49 LSJ, s.v.; Chantraine (1933) 241. 50 Herodotus’ general ‘openness’ can be (and often is) exaggerated; certainly at the beginning of his work he is fairly (albeit also ambiguously and ironically) authoritative: after undertaking to investigate the ‘cause’ of Greco–barbarian warring, he gives other accounts, which if not necessarily untrue are at least relatively trivial and unverifiable,

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At 1.22.4 ὅσοι … βουλήσονται σκοπεῖν Thucydides is clearly imaging his History as an inscription (§2). We may now essay a general conclusion on this question. Given that 1.22.4 is decisive for Thucydides, given that all three works actually are texts and that the formats of their prefaces are formally the same as those of inscriptions as well as of other media (non-inscriptional letters; Hesiodic poetry), and given the close patterns of imitation which exist among the three historians, there seems to me a persuasive cumulative case alike for the initial prefaces of Hecataeus, Herodotus, and Thucydides. One might perhaps water this down by saying merely that Thucydides could have chosen to read his forerunners’ prefaces as inscriptional, but I think the case for their actually being so is objectively strong. We may also at this point take account of two further factors: that, as we have already seen (§4), some ancient authors understood Thucydides’ κτῆμα as a monument, and that, as we shall see (§§12 and 13), Livy too understood the κτῆμα as a monument and Arrian understood the whole business of beginning historiographical prefaces with one’s name and particulars as inscriptional. Hence ⟦53⟧ the case for an inscriptional reading of Hecataeus’, Herodotus’, and Thucydides’ prefaces seems effectively decisive. As already suggested, however, this conclusion does not entail their being all ‘inscriptions’ of the same type. Herodotus’ ‘inscription’ is somewhat different from Hecataeus’, an honorific commemoration of great deeds, a funerary monument set up by Herodotus, rather than a peremptory epistolary inscription asserting its writer’s superior authority to deluded fools, an inscription, moreover, whose racial even-handedness implies a generous contrast both with the narrow nationalism characteristic of physical inscriptions and with Hecataean racially-defined arrogance (cf. also n. 80). Thucydides’ ‘inscription’ is more for information and the promotion of understanding ‘for anyone who wishes to look’. Such apparent diversity of conception does not invalidate the general reading: indeed, from the point of view of the competitive literary creativity which is so marked a feature of ancient historiography, it is positively better if these historiographical ‘inscriptions’ are seen to differ in their nature. I shall return to these matters in §14. We may therefore now revisit (temporarily!) the two related problems arising from Thucydides’ use of the monumental inscription image: (1) in what does his ‘inscriptional’ superiority to his historiographical predecessors consist, when they too had presented their works as inscriptions? (2) what sense before commencing his narrative proper with ‘the man I know to have begun unjust deeds to the Greeks’ (1.5.3).

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can be made of his claim that his work is a ‘possession set down for always rather than a competition piece for present hearing’, when Herodotus had already imaged his History as an ‘inscription’, especially if Thucydides is targeting Herodotus, whether primarily or exclusively, in his allusion to ‘a competition piece for present hearing’? 9

Is Thucydides Targeting Herodotus in the Phrase ‘a Competition Piece for Present Hearing?’

That if immediately necessitates yet another detour. The case that Thucydides is targeting Herodotus51 is (again), at its best, a cumulative one: (a) Provided relevance and logic in the immediate context of 1.22.4 can be satisfied, such targeting of Herodotus would fit Thucydides’ general procedure in his extended Preface (1.1–23), built as it is on an extended parallel and contrast between himself and Herodotus, and containing detailed allusions and criticisms in chs. 20, 21, 22 (our chapter), and 23.52 I shall return to the appropriateness of an allusion to Herodotus in 1.22.4 in more detail below in connection with items (b), (d), and (g). (b) ⟦54⟧ There is an ancient tradition that Herodotus delivered oral lectures throughout Greece but especially in Athens; this tradition is admittedly ‘late’ and therefore distrusted by some scholars,53 yet it harmonises well enough both with general reconstructions of the cultural milieu of the period and with more specific hypotheses about how Herodotus projected himself before he finally produced his complete text, e.g., that he was the last of the old Ionian story-tellers (Murray), or that he gave numerous ‘pre-publication’ lectures or readings (Evans), or that his public deportment would not have been unlike that of a sophist (Thomas).54 And, like the sophists, Herodotus, according to the literary tradition, received money for his performances. Of course all of these hypotheses depend largely on evidence from within the text, some of which will be mentioned below.

51 The traditional view, e.g.: Gomme (1945) 148 (qualified); Hornblower (1991) 61; Moles (1993b) 106 {above, p. 174}; contra, e.g., Marincola (1997) 21. 52 See n. 33. 53 Critical discussion (a little too critical for my taste) in Flory (1980) 14–15. 54 Murray (1987); Evans (1991) 90, 100; Thomas (1992) 125–6; (1993).

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(c) If Antigone 904–20 is authentic (there is scholarly debate),55 the passage provides external evidence that Hdt. 3.119 was in some form available in Athens in c.442, and in a form that must have been distinct from its expression in the complete text. (d) As we have seen in §8, ἀπόδεξις in the Preface may very well allude (in some way) to oral performance by Herodotus. (e) The most natural explanation of Herodotus’ comment concerning the historicity of the Persian Constitutional Debate (3.80.1 ‘speeches were said which are unbelievable to some of the Greeks but nevertheless they were said’) is that he had already tried his version out orally, encountered some disbelief, and felt bound to reassert its historicity in his written version.56 (f) The History contains several wandering wise-men figures—notably Arion (1.23–4), Solon (1.29–33), and Anacharsis (4.76.2)—who dispense their ⟦55⟧ wisdom orally and look very much like alter egos of Herodotus himself.57 Of course to say this is no doubt to some extent circular—these figures look like one’s preconceptions of Herodotus, but it is far from totally circular (in all cases there are other textual indications). It should be needless by now to say that to interpret the figures in this way is not to restrict them to this interpretation. (g) Herodotus’ description of the arrival at Sardis of the most important of these figures, Solon the Athenian (1.29 ‘there arrived at Sardis at the peak of her wealth all the “sophists” from Greece … and above all Solon the Athenian’), can be argued (among many other things) to dramatise Herodotus’ arrival in Athens and his own ambiguous relations with the sophists.58 This passage seems to me to provide solid evidence from Herodotus himself for Thomas’ hypothesis (item (b) above), although such a judgement is of course very much a ‘literary’ one. (h) The ultimate mythical ancestor of all such figures is Odysseus, and Odysseus provides the single most important paradigm for Herodotus’ 55 E.g., Kamerbeek (1978) 158–60; Brown (1987) 199–200; Lloyd-Jones–Wilson (1990) 138. I accept authenticity and find the arguments of the ‘antis’ rather crude. 56 Evans (1991) 100; Moles (1993b) 119 {above, p. 184} (independently). 57 Arion: Moles (1996) 281 {above, p. 253} n. 26 (accepting a suggestion of Alan Griffiths); Solon: Moles (ibid.); Pelling (1999) 332 (with bibliography); Anacharsis clearly comes into the same general category as the other two and Herodotus’ language in relation to him is surely suggestive: 4.76.2 γῆν πολλὴν θεωρήσας καὶ ἀποδεξάμενος κατ’ αὐτὴν σοφίην πολλήν. 58 Moles (1996) 262–5 {above, pp. 250–3}. In the translation, the inverted commas enclosing the word ‘sophists’ register the fact that the Greek word is σοφισταί, ordinarily here translated as ‘wise men’ (vel sim.) but already in the fifth century capable of the resonance ‘sophists’ (which has of course to be justified in context: see my arguments).

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role, both with regard to the construction of the text and to the various activities preparatory to that construction.59 The specific role of the wandering oral performer could hardly be more fittingly represented than by Odysseus. As a cumulative case for Herodotus’ having been celebrated in his lifetime as an oral performer and hence being alluded to in 1.22.4, this case seems to me a strong one. Of course, there are objections over and above the two central problems which have yet to be faced. One objection might be that ‘competition piece for present hearing’ looks more like an allusion to sophistic performances,60 and venal ones at that,61 but this objection is well met by three counters: (i) as usual, the case for an allusion to one author does not entail the exclusion of allusion to others as well; (ii) items (b), (d), and (g) actually support a contemporary association between Herodotus and sophists; (iii) analysis of the thought patterns created by Thucydides’ arrangement ⟦56⟧ of his material in chs. 21–2 positively reinforces this association, for in ch. 22 ‘a competition piece for present hearing’ picks up the idea of the relative unpleasurableness of Thucydides’ History due to the absence of ‘the muthos-element’, an element which explicitly conduces to pleasure, and, whatever the muthos-element is, it is surely something that Herodotus has, and the allusion to the muthos-element in turn clearly echoes 21.1’s allusion to ‘what the prose-writers have put together for the purpose of enticement to the audience rather than the truth, things that cannot be checked and the majority of them having won out owing to time untrustworthily to the point of τὸ μυθῶδες’, an allusion which must include the ‘prose-writer’ Herodotus. 10

The Superiority of Thucydides’ Work qua both ‘Inscription’ and Reading Text to Hecataeus’ and Herodotus’ Inscriptions and to all Physical Inscriptions

There remain, then, the two original problems as first set out at the end of §7 (how is Thucydides’ ‘inscription’ superior? how can he associate Herodotus with ‘competition pieces for present hearing’ once Herodotus had produced his own complete text?). In itself, the first problem is easy enough to deal with. Thucydides can claim that his inscription is better than Hecataeus’ or 59 Moles (1993b) 96 {above, p. 165} and (1996) 264–6 {above, pp. 252–5}; Marincola (1996). 60 Hornblower (1991) 62; cf. Thuc. 3.38.3–4 (a passage which in fact has metaliterary implications for the general interpretation of 1.22). 61 Cf. nn. 9 and 27.

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Herodotus’ because Hecataeus’ was purely commemorative of the past and, formally speaking, Herodotus’ was too. By contrast, Thucydides’ inscription commemorates not only the past but also, paradoxically, the future and any conceivable time frame. Of course, in reality Herodotus’ does this as well,62 but that is not Herodotus’ formal claim, not at least in his initial prefatory remarks, and that is sufficient for Thucydides’ agonistic purpose here. There are other points of difference, e.g., whereas Herodotus’ ‘inscription’ is formally encomiastic, Thucydides’ is grittily realistic and unflinchingly directed towards knowledge and understanding. But of course the first difficulty cannot really be divorced from the second, since, as we have seen, the claim to be producing an inscription is necessarily bound up with, indeed reinforces, the claim for the use, and superiority, of writing. And the second difficulty seems less superable:63 not only had Herodotus unified his multifaceted ‘enquiry’ into his great monumental text, but Thucydides’ own detailed and intense engagement with Herodotus in 1.1–23 is clearly at least mainly with that text, rather than with Herodotus’ oral performances or even his readings (if he gave readings). But the fact that ⟦57⟧ Herodotus was celebrated as an oral performer and that oral performance was at least the primary means of his presentation and of his reception at least before he finally presented his complete text in c.426,64 presumably not long before his death, makes it not unreasonable for Thucydides to make a broad distinction between a written text designed primarily for reading and oral productions, and implicitly to locate Herodotus on the oral side of the distinction. The same procedure would be not unreasonable in the case of the sophists, primarily associated with oral performances yet in many cases also having produced written works. The business of reception (Thucydides’ main concern in 1.22.4) gives the distinction still more validity. As we have seen, even Thucydides does not wholly exclude oral performance and aural reception of his own work and some scholars have maintained, reasonably enough, that there are segments of Thucydides perfectly well suited to recitation (though a considerate host might jib at a performance of ‘The Corcyraean Stasis’ at his symposium) (cf. n. 28). Of course audiences are capable of responding to oral productions with considerable insight and subtlety, and fifth-century Greek audiences were (no 62 Moles (1996) 277–9 {above, pp. 266–8}. 63 And was indeed forcefully urged as insuperable by Franco Basso in conversation with me at the Leeds Conference. 64 I accept the traditional modern dating and believe that there are good reasons for rejecting later datings: Moles (1996) 276 {above, p. 265}.

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doubt?) better than we are today. Nevertheless, we may still suppose that the reading experience would have offered more. Pleasant and instructive as it is to listen to ‘A Book at Bedtime’, one gets far less out of it than by reading the book oneself. Moreover, the notion of ‘segments’ of a work introduces a crucial qualification. It is one thing to hear a single performance or even a string of performances, quite another to have the opportunity (which only reading can provide) for engagement with a great work of literature in its complex totality. Modern analyses of the texts of both Herodotus and Thucydides have uncovered numerous subtleties which simply could not be detected in oral performance and whose existence cannot be denied by claims that the conception and reception of these texts were predominantly oral. For these claims are simply circular and in any case fail adequately to explain the very existence of the complete text. To take two simple and surely indisputable65 examples of such subtleties. The links between the beginning and end of Herodotus’ History or between Pericles’ speeches and Cleon’s are only detectable through the medium of ⟦58⟧ reading (and careful ‘close reading’) of the monumental text.66 Thucydides’ distinction in 1.22.4, then, is not an absolute one and obviously never can be: someone who owns even a complete work may choose to read it himself in excerpted fashion or to read it to, or with, friends in excerpts; moreover, Thucydides’ History never achieved completion and must have been issued piece-meal. Nevertheless, the distinction remains a real and vital one. Nor is the distinction exactly a statement of the superiority of ‘a written culture’ (as some scholars have put it): rather, it says that ultimately the reading experience offers far more. In the age of the Internet, Thucydides remains absolutely and importantly right.67 65

66 67

I am aware that they have been disputed, e.g., by those modern scholars (including so distinguished a Herodotean as Stephanie West) who continue to believe that the ending of Herodotus is incomplete; for a partial disclaimer of the Pericles–Cleon parallel/contrast see Rhodes (1998) 71. Beginning and end of Herodotus: Moles (1996) 271–7 {above, pp. 260–6} (with bibliography at 283 n. 45 {above, p. 260 n. 45}); Dewald (1997). The apparent paradox that the editor of an Internet journal should hold this conviction is only apparent: readers of Histos need only to download to enjoy most of the advantages of conventional publication (nevertheless, Histos will soon go ‘hard-copy’. {This idea was later abandoned.}). Some of the issues raised for classicists by the Internet are explored by Champion (1999). Excellent as that review is, I think that it does not fully register the extreme radicalness of the threats to learning and understanding—even to what it is to be an intelligent and fully sentient human being—posed by the Internet. As literary classicists, we should never abandon our belief in the supreme intellectual value of reading

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In one of our many recent phone conversations about Thucydidean matters Gordon Howie suggested an agreeable scenario (with notable 19th- and 20th-century parallels) whereby oral performance or recitation by the author, reception by an audience, reception by a readership, acknowledgement by the author of the possibility of oral performance and aural reception, and his assertion of the superiority of the reading experience might all be plausibly combined: a recitation or reading after which the audience was invited to acquire the book. Why not? I conclude, then, that Thucydides is indeed targeting Herodotus in the phrase ‘a competition piece for present hearing’, though the targeting includes sophists and analogous figures with whom Herodotus might not altogether unreasonably be associated; that the distinction between Thucydides’ ‘possession for always’ and ‘competition pieces’ involves a distinction between writing/reading and oral/aural; and that his use of the image of the inscription reinforces both his use of writing and his claim for superiority over Hecataeus and Herodotus, because his inscription records past, present, future, and all time. But even as the image of the inscription registers respect ⟦59⟧ for inscriptions as a medium, it also conveys the supremacy of Thucydides’ inscription over mere physical inscriptions, in just the same way as Thucydides’ ‘possession’ transcends any conceivable materialist possession. Some modern historians and archaeologists affect to believe that in the study of the past physical evidence is more valuable than literary texts, but no inscription, no collection of inscriptions, however large, will ever remotely approach the value of Thucydides’ work, which appropriates such value as inscriptions possess and then multiplies it to an infinite degree. We are now also in a position to answer the final question left pending in §3, that is, whether the immortality of Thucydides’ work is promoted by its being a written text, to be received primarily by readers. The answer, it should now be obvious, is ‘yes’. Indeed, on the Howie scenario mentioned above, prospective buyers are given the opportunity to make their own contribution to the work’s immortality (and the more who do so, the ‘more immortal’ that work will be!). Now it is true that Herodotus’ preface must be understood as making the same sort of claim: cf. my gloss in §8 on Luce’s interpretation of ἐξίτηλα: ‘Herodotus represents his History as a superior sort of inscription, for a literary text which can be copied and circulated widely can achieve the permanence denied to stone inscriptions located in one place and anyway subject to physical decay’. But Thucydides’ claim for his work’s immortality does not rest exclusively on great texts, an activity to which all the paraphernalia of the resources of the Internet, great and ever-increasing as they are, should always remain strictly ancillary.

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either its intrinsic quality (its coverage of past, present, and future) or on its being a written text designed primarily for reading: it rests on the combination of the two aspects. That is, the vehicle of writing and reading (with all the advantages of close, interactive reading) makes possible the work’s timeless explorations. So Thucydides can still say: ‘my work is the only work you need to understand political life and to engage in it competently, no matter what your own context or time, hence it will be immortal’, especially since he is able (with both justice and injustice) to represent Herodotus as primarily an ‘oralist’/‘auralist’. I turn now to aim 4 of the paper: the attempt to show that qua readers and critics of 1.22.4, some of Thucydides’ historiographical successors understood Thucydides’ claims better than modern scholars do. That is (of course), I have to show that these successors understood Thucydides in the same ways as this paper does. The superscription adumbrates the point: Dionysius of Halicarnassus saw that Thucydides’ ‘possession’ was a ‘memorial’ (and indeed incorporated this insight into a rather clever and elegant turning of the tables upon Thucydides [n. 17]). So too did Thucydides’ biographer Marcellinus (§4). There will be dispute about the quality of such writers as literary critics, especially in the case of Marcellinus: it is at least of some interest and importance that two ancient writers not normally considered as of the first rank saw a great deal more (in this respect) than did Pohlenz, Gomme, Walbank, Andrewes, Dover, Canfora, de Romilly, Macleod, ⟦60⟧ Lateiner, de Ste. Croix, Stadter, Lewis, Wiseman, Woodman, Lendle, Hornblower, Thomas, Badian, Moles, Rhodes, Pelling, Rutherford, Crane, Rood, Marincola … (fill in any names you like). But the case will be more interestingly made through consideration of three acknowledged heavyweights in the agonistic tradition of ancient historiography. 11

Polybius’ Superior Reading of Thucydides (3.31.12–32.10)

In the several passages where Polybius invokes Thucydides 1.22–3 generally and 1.22.4 in particular none is more important than 3.31.12–32.10.68 In the context (3.31.1–11) Polybius has been justifying his elaborate analysis of causation regarding the conflict between Rome and Carthage. He then writes (3.31.12) as follows (I have italicised the words and phrases which directly echo Thucydides, whether tendentiously or not, whether in the same sense or 68

I thank Stephen Wheeler for drawing my attention to this passage.

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through adaptation, and bolded those which gloss Thucydides, whether correctly, incorrectly, or tendentiously): (31.12) If one takes away from history the why, how, and wherefore69 the thing that was done was done70 and whether the end it had was logical, what is left of it is a competition piece, but no learning accrues, (13) and it gives pleasure for the present but does not help at all for the future. (32.1) Therefore one must consider those people to be ignorant who assume our work to be difficult to acquire [δύσκτητον] and difficult to read because of the number and size of the books. (2) For how much easier is it both to acquire and read through forty books as it were woven together thread by thread and to follow along clearly the actions in Italy, Sicily, and Libya from the times of Pyrrhus to the taking of Carthage, (3) and those in the rest of the inhabited world from the flight of Cleomenes the Spartan continuously until the battle disposition of the Achaeans and Romans at the Isthmus, than to read or acquire the compositions of those who write by separate topics? (4) For apart from their being many times as long as our History, it is quite impossible for their readers to get anything securely from them, firstly because of the fact that the great majority of them do not write the same things about the same things, (5) then because they leave out the contemporary actions, of which when reviewed and judged together by means of comparison each event receives a different estimation than it would by separate ⟦61⟧ assessment, and they are altogether unable even to touch on the most essential things. (6) For crucially we assert that the most necessary parts of history are the things that come after the deeds and that the things that follow concurrently with them and above all the things to do with the causes. (7) We see that the war with Antiochus took its departure-points from the war with Philip, and the war with Philip from the war against Hannibal, and the war with Hannibal from the war about Sicily, and the things between these events had many and varied characters but all tending to the same underlying purpose. (8) It is possible to recognise and learn all these things through those who write a whole history but through those who write the wars themselves, … impossible, (9) unless indeed anyone reading the battle disposition themselves takes it that he has got a clear knowledge both 69 70

One manifestation of Polybius’ elaborate development of Thucydidean causality (1.23.5–6). An echo of Thucydides 1.22.2 (quoted in §1).

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of the management and character of the entire war. (10) But none of this is at all possible: rather I take it that, as much as learning differs from mere hearing, so our History differs from the compositions by separate topics. Interpretation of this passage has greatly benefited from the discussions of highly distinguished modern scholars. But while these discussions have said important things about Polybius’ general debt to Thucydides, about his theory of causality, and about his notion of ‘interwoven history’,71 they seem to miss most of the intelligence and subtlety of the argumentation and all of the verbal cleverness deployed in the underpinning of that argument. An important preliminary point (seemingly ignored hitherto) is the elegant verbal play in 31.12–13 centred on 31.12 ἀφέλῃ and 31.13 ὠφελεῖ. To ‘take way’ (ἀφελεῖν) from history the complex analysis of causality deprives it of the ability to ‘help’ (ὠφελεῖν) for the future. It is as if the ἀπο-prefix in ἀφέλῃ functions as an α-privative, itself taking away the omega of ὠφελεῖ: the ⟦62⟧ result deprivation, not increase. Moreover, the use of the term ἀφελεῖν glosses the stylistic term ἀφέλεια: that simplicity of style from which unnecessary excrescences are ‘taken away’; for Polybius, however, such a ‘take away’ style (‘taking away’ elaborate analysis of causality) is to ‘take away’ history’s greatest value. This complex verbal elegance should alert us to the sophistication of Polybius’ writing in this passage. Here, as elsewhere, Polybius clearly interprets Thucydides’ ‘helpful’/‘useful’ (1.22.4) as implying ‘practical usefulness based on political understanding’ rather than merely ‘political understanding’. That, of course, is a matter of modern scholarly debate, too intricate to broach here; I shall simply state here my opinion that Polybius is right.72 As for the insistence on the importance of causality, thus far it looks sufficiently Thucydidean (~ 1.23.5–6), though developed in detail.

71 Walbank (1957) 358–61; (1975); Sacks (1981) 110–14; Wheeler (2002). For Polybian συμπλοκή cf. also Pol. 1.3.4 and 1.4.11; Diod. 4.60 and 4.63, with Clarke (1999) 265–6; and (so Wheeler) Ov. Met. 1.1.4 perpetuum deducite … carmen. Incidentally, given that the ‘actions’ of 3.22.2 are presumably the ‘threads’ of the ‘weaving’ of ‘universal’ history, does ‘follow along clearly’ image Polybius’ History as (also) a labyrinth, negotiable by (as it were) ‘following Ariadne’s thread’? For history as a labyrinth see Jaeger (1999). 72 So also Ste. Croix (1972) 29–33 (with both substantial arguments of his own and final appeal to Lucian); contra, e.g., Marincola (1997) 21. I hope to have validated this interpretation in Moles (2001).

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But the following justification of his historiographical programme utilises Thucydidean motifs to define both the similarity and dissimilarity of that programme to Thucydides’. The confrontation with the difficulties felt by some of his readers at 32.1 (‘therefore one must consider those people to be ignorant who take our work to be difficult to acquire [δύσκτητον] and difficult to read because of the number and size of the books’) echoes Thucydides’ remark at 1.1.3: ‘to discover clearly the things before it [the Peloponnesian War] and the things still more ancient was impossible because of the quantity of time intervening’. But whereas Thucydides was there talking about events before the Peloponnesian War, i.e., things strictly outside his proper sphere of ‘the present war’, Polybius’ proper concern is precisely with the past and with a very extended and complexly interconnected past at that. Polybius’ project is in this sense fundamentally un-Thucydidean. The nature of the difficulty experienced by those readers also repays consideration. The difficulty is a double one. Obviously, readers might find Polybius ‘hard to read’ (δυσανάγνωστον)—though Polybius will go on to argue the contrary, but, apparently mundanely, Polybius also mentions that some have found his work ‘hard to acquire’ (δύσκτητον), it being of forty books. The next sentence twice repeats this double motif. The effect is to put great emphasis on the notion of ‘acquiring’, the same word (whether in adjectival or verbal form) as Thucydides had used for his ‘possession set down for always’. Thus Polybius creates an intertextual implication based on a sort of ‘absent present’: are the apparent ‘difficulties’ of his own History so great as to disqualify it from being a Thucydidean κτῆμα? Do those difficulties ⟦63⟧ make it a δυσ-κτῆμα, a misacquisition? He here also clearly registers one important aspect of Thucydides’ κτῆμα, namely that it is a transference from, or appropriation of, materialist terminology. But for him there is a genuine materialist difficulty—the practical difficulty some readers have in getting hold of all forty books—and the concomitant fact that they regard this as a ‘difficulty’ in the way of their reading him. He also begins to broach the question of the relationship between a κτῆμα and its size. The sequel deploys some fairly obvious Thucydidean motifs. (1) There is the Thucydidean criterion of ‘clearness’ (32.2, 9 ~ Thuc. 1.1.3, 22.4). (2) The criticism at 32.4–5 of ‘most’ of the historians of single wars clearly echoes Thucydides 1.22.3 on the difficulty of finding out the truth of the deeds: ‘they were discovered with much labour, because those who were present at each particular deed did not say the same things about the same things’. Polybius, however, transfers this difficulty from the historian to the readers of these separate histories as a way of boosting the credentials of his single, continuous History. (3) Polybius maintains Thucydidean causation terminology. (4) The

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whole section closes, in a formally and logically satisfying ring structure, with a reformulation of the Thucydidean claim of 1.22.4. But there is again a more subtle debate going on beneath the surface. It is Polybius’ contention that, despite the two apparent difficulties posed by the length of his work (that of readers’ getting hold of the books and that of their reading and understanding them), his work is thoroughly unified (32.2) and secures the complex unity of understanding of historical events which the medium of separate histories of individual wars simply cannot provide. To underpin this case Polybius consistently uses συν-compounds (the normal Greek equivalent of Thucydides’ archaising ξυν-compounds) of his work, its historical methods, its subject-matter, and its goals: 32.3 τὸ συνεχές, 32.5 συνθεορούμενον … συγκρινόμενον, 32.7 συννευούσας, 32.9 σύμπαντος. This complex is sharply contrasted with the ‘partial’ treatments of those who write about single wars: 32.3, 5, 10. Thus the application of the term σύνταξις (32.3, 10) to their ‘partial’ histories acquires an ironic edge. Given Polybius’ systematic allusion in this passage to Thucydides 1.22, this play on the contrast between the writer’s properly συν-treatment and others’ partial and inferior efforts and the ironic application of a συν-compound to those inferior efforts must recall Thucydides’ claim that his work ξύγκειται in contrast to the logographers’ inferior ξυνέθεσαν. In other words, Polybius clearly sees that another aspect of Thucydides’ κτῆμα claim is its transcendingly ‘synthetic’ quality. Yet his own stance is again simultaneously both Thucydidean and out-Thucydidesing Thucydides. Polybius’ History is much longer than Thucydides’ (40 books as against 8); this length is necessary because only so can one incorporate the developed Thucydidean analysis of causation that Polybius holds to be indispensable for true historical understanding; ⟦64⟧ but this length allows a far more unified treatment and far more systematic understanding than accrues from individual treatments of wars. At this point, one cannot fail to recall that Thucydides too comes into the misguided category of ‘those who write the wars themselves’ (32.8). In sum, this is a brilliant piece of writing by Polybius, whose articulation of his own historiographical claims involves a thoroughly astute reading of Thucydides 1.22 and an appropriation of his great predecessor’s terminology which out-Thucydideses Thucydides himself. Not Thucydides’ κτῆμα, but Polybius’ own vastly longer and more complex but nevertheless still more unified κτῆμα, is ‘the one thing you’ve got to have’. From the point of view of this paper, the single most significant thing is the complexity of Polybius’ understanding of Thucydides’ conception of ‘possession’, a complexity which (I categorically state) dwarfs that of any modern scholar’s interpretation of that concept.

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Livy’s Superior Reading of Thucydides (Praef. 10)

Thucydides is one of the many predecessors whom Livy uses to define his own project in the Preface, which accordingly is shot through with Thucydidean ideas.73 I here concentrate on one particular section (10), where Livy defines the purpose of History: Hoc illud est praecipue in cognitione rerum salubre ac frugiferum omnis te exempli documenta in inlustri posita monumento intueri; inde tibi tuaeque rei publicae quod imitere capias, inde foedum inceptu, foedum exitu, quod uites. No English translation can hope to convey all the implications of the Latin. The following translation tries to convey those that are relevant to the present enquiry: This is the thing that is most takingly wholesome and fruitful in the getting to know of history: the fact that you look upon the lessons of every kind of example placed on a conspicuous monument; from these you may take for yourself and for your own (e)state/the public state, what you should imitate, from these, disgusting in the undertaking, disgusting in the outcome, what you should avoid.

⟦65⟧ From our point of view, this passage is significant in two respects: (1) Livy clearly sees that at 1.22.4 Thucydides images his History as an inscription; (2) Livy understands very well the main implications of Thucydides’ appropriation of ‘property’/‘possession’ vocabulary (κτῆμα) and of his application of it to his History, though Livy himself ‘redefines’ this vocabulary in a new way appropriate to his own historiographical purpose. (1) Livy’s ‘monument’ is at once Roman history itself and his own textual version of it, the Ab urbe condita. This monument contains ‘lessons’ of men’s deeds; it is ‘conspicuous/illustrious’; one has to ‘look at’ it. The wording therefore glosses, indeed almost translates, Thucydides’ ‘look at the clearness’ of his History as imaged as a monumental inscription. (2) In the ‘inde’/‘from these’ clause Livy spells out in more detail the benefit the individual reader will gain from reading his History. He initially seems to appeal the reader’s self-interest—‘for you and for your own (e)state’. Tuae 73 Moles (1993a) 154 {above, p. 210}.

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rei draws on the vocabulary of personal property and advantage, but then the appended publicae (by the rhetorical figure known as correctio) sharply redefines personal advantage as indistinguishable from that of the state at large. Tuae rei glosses Thucydides’ κτῆμα. Livy sees that it is part of Thucydides’ claim for his κτῆμα that it has generalising exemplary power and transcends the time scale of its narrative. And like Thucydides (but as it were in competition with him), Livy implicitly claims that his History is ‘the one thing you’ve got to have’, sc. for the salvation of Rome. 13

Arrian’s Superior Reading of Herodotus and Thucydides (Anab. 1.12.2–5)

In the so-called ‘Second Preface’ of his Anabasis (1.12.2–5), Arrian, like Livy, uses allusions to Herodotus, Thucydides, other historiographical predecessors, and other literary modes as a way of defining the distinctiveness of his own project.74 The Preface culminates in a famous statement of Arrian’s worthiness to make the deeds of Alexander known to men (1.12.5): As to who I am that I make this judgement on my behalf, I do not need to inscribe [ἀναγράψαι] my name, for it is not at all unknown to men, nor what my native land is, nor my family, nor if I have held any office in my own land; but this I do inscribe [ἀναγράφω], that my native land, ⟦66⟧ family, and offices are these accounts and have been even from my youth. And for this reason I count myself not unworthy of the first place in Greek speech, just as I hold Alexander to have been in arms.75 Arrian’s declining to give his names, land, family, and offices has aroused scholarly debate. On one reading, this declining pointedly subverts historiographical convention (no doubt with additional polemic against the excessive self-advertisement of some contemporary historians); on another, there are certain literary contexts where (à la Homer) the suppression of one’s name, etc. is a matter of literary modesty or decorum, properly diverting attention from the author to his subject-matter.76 74 Bosworth (1980) 104ff.; Moles (1985); Marincola (1989); Gray (1990); Marincola (1997) 253–4. 75 Translation by Moles (1985) 163 {above, p. 136} (slightly adapted). 76 Besides the references in n. 74, Marincola (1997) 271–5 = Appendix II discusses the historiographical convention of naming (or not-naming oneself); the ‘one reading’ is Moles

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The first thing to note is that the use of ἀναγράφω (picking up ἀναγράψαι) is in context very pointed. This can be a relatively colourless historiographical term (‘record’, ‘give an account of’), but can also mean ‘inscribe’ on a monument, as the names and honours of prominent people regularly were ‘inscribed’ in the ancient world. Arrian, then, does not need ἀναγράψαι his name, country, family or offices as if on an inscription: his claim to commemoration, which he will ‘inscribe’, lies in his emotional commitment from youth to οἵδε οἱ λόγοι. Delicately, but unmistakably, Arrian is implying that οἵδε οἱ λόγοι will be an imperishable artefact, just as Thucydides’ history was ‘a possession for ever’, Pindar’s poetry a ‘treasury’, and Horace’s odes a ‘monument’. This in turn implies a judgement on the relative importance of public achievement and literature in Arrian’s life. The former is important in its own right, but trivial compared with the glory that comes from literary endeavour (an idea to which Arrian returns at the end of the Anabasis: vii 30.1).77 This analysis, fair enough as far as it goes, is subtly developed by Marincola:78 like Homer, Arrian wishes the deeds to be considered foremost, but unlike Homer his anonymity calls attention to itself, and in this sense Arrian’s self-display remains well within (and plays upon) the historiographical tradition. One suspects too that something more is at stake ⟦67⟧ when we look at the actual opening of the Anabasis: ‘Ptolemy, son of Lagus, and Aristobulus—whatever these two say in common about Alexander the son of Philip, these things I have written as entirely true’. The form of the names in the nominative hearkens back to the early historiographical openings and these explicitly named sources stand in stark contrast to the narrator’s anonymity. For Arrian’s original audience, however, we must assume that there was, of course, not confusion, but rather admiration for the clever exploitation of an old convention.

(1985) 164 {above, pp. 138–9} (with earlier bibliography in n. 13), followed by Marincola (1989) 146 n. 80; ‘another’ is Gray (1990). 77 Moles (1985) 166 {above, p. 143} (as we shall see, wrongly citing ἀναγράφω in praef. 1 as an example of the ‘colourless’ usage). 78 Marincola (1997) 275.

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But there is more. The Greek word translated by Marincola as ‘I have written’ is ἀναγράφω. It should be translated ‘I inscribe’. For there is a clear and significant pattern: in the initial preface Arrian uses ἀναγράφω with reference to the names of his primary sources; in the ‘Second Preface’ he uses ἀναγράφω of his declining to ‘inscribe’ his own names and particulars. That is, Arrian is putting to the service of his own ambiguous non-self-glorification the fact that the traditional prefaces of Herodotus, Thucydides, etc., in which historians named themselves and gave details about themselves, are to be read as ‘inscriptions’, one of whose acknowledged functions was self-glorification. 14 Conclusion When Hecataeus wrote his preface, Greek historiography was in its infancy, indeed as a genre it did not yet exist. Even when it did become a recognisable genre (certainly by the time of Aristotle, Poetics 9, 1450a36–51b11, who uses ἱστορία as a broad generic term, but surely also in some sense post-Thucydides, even post-Herodotus, even post-Hecataeus), it was of an extremely flexible and capacious type.79 Self-definition and self-conscious ⟦68⟧ alignment with, or distancing from, previous traditions and authors are thus intrinsic to any ancient historiographical project; to these is added the spirit of agonistic competitiveness characteristic of all ancient literature, a spirit perhaps particularly acute when a genre is beginning to find its feet and in the intellectual ferment of fifth-century Ionia and Athens. One of the ways in which Hecataeus attempted to establish his authority/ author-ity within the Greek tradition of his day was to fashion his history as 79 The questions of beginnings and genre (along with other questions) are treated in two excellent contributions to Kraus (1999): Marincola (1999) and the already much-cited Pelling (1999). From the point of view of this paper, however, their impressive insights need to be supplemented by recognition: (a) of the influence of Persia and Persian (in some sense) historiographical modes; (b) of the impact of writing and reading and the immense interpretative possibilities that they offer; (c) of the impact of the physical inscription as a metaphor for historical writing. I say ‘post-Thucydides’ because of the several writers (‘historians’) who were in some sense continuators of Thucydides; ‘post-Herodotus’ because Thucydides was in some obvious senses a continuator of Herodotus; ‘post-Hecataeus’ because Herodotus was in some obvious senses a continuator of Hecataeus; it is also worth recalling that on one occasion (7.96.1) Herodotus comes very close to using ἱστορίη of a distinctive form of intellectual activity, which we might well call ‘history’, even though Thucydides avoided the use of ἱστορία to describe his own activity, because it would make him look too like Herodotus (Hornblower [1991] 1).

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an inscription written under his own name (in implicit contrast of course with Homeric anonymity) and an inscription reminiscent of a governmental edict, even, it seems, a specifically Persian one, directed towards, to some extent against, ‘the Greeks’. His immediate successors Herodotus and Thucydides adopted the same image of the inscription in their agonistic competitiveness both with their historiographical predecessors (respectively, Hecataeus and Hecataeus and Herodotus) and with the very medium of physical commemoration itself, but they did so with creative variation. Herodotus made his ‘inscription’ like that of a funeral memorial but a memorial both of Greeks and barbarians, and he combined the inscriptional quality of his work with the illusion of oral recitation (ἀπόδεξις).80 In these ways, he outdid Hecataeus. Thucydides, in turn, made his ‘inscription’ a double one, Hecataean in its assertive authoritativeness concerning its truth content but at the same time, in an intellectual sense, ‘democratically’ open to all who wished to look at it. He further combined this double image of the inscription with that of a ‘possession’, itself an idea of multiple implications, one of the most important of which was that of an ‘inheritance’. He also outdid both Hecataeus and Herodotus in the overarching timelessness of his ‘inscription’. All three of these early Greek historians can also be seen to be registering the relatively new importance of large-scale writing as a medium of intellectual exposition and exploration and to be reacting to, and in a sense against, the relatively new phenomenon of the widespread erection of inscriptions in the Greek world. ⟦69⟧ Polybius, Livy, and Arrian apprehended the implications of the prooemial images used by these first great historians and developed their implications in suggestively different ways. Polybius probed the implications of the Thucydidean concept of the ‘possession’ and appropriated it for his own self-presentation as a Thucydidean historian superior to Thucydides himself. Livy turned Thucydides’ intellectual monument and possession into a moral one. By refusing to inscribe his own name and particulars, Arrian cleverly conveyed the impression of repudiating the self-glorification necessarily implicit in recording oneself as the ‘inscriber’ of a historiographical ‘inscription’. 80

I suspect that Herodotus’ (certainly to some extent) ambiguous and ironic appeal to the authority of Persian and Phoenician λόγιοι for previous accounts of Greek–barbarian enmity (1.1.1, 5.3), λόγιοι in whose existence many modern Herodoteans (including myself) devoutly disbelieve, cocks a snook at Hecataeus’ implicitly ‘Persian’ stance; for nuanced formulations of the well-aired hypothesis that 1.1.1–5.3 alludes to/targets Hecataean material (or at least Hecataeus’ manner) see Pelliccia (1992) and Pelling (1999). I note in passing that any serious attempt to engage with ‘the liar school of Herodotus’ must factor in Herodotus’ irony, ambiguity, humour, and sheer sense of fun.

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Thus from the very beginnings of classical historiography down to the ‘late’ Arrian, imagery of apparent permanence and fixity proved, in the hands of skilful and ambitious practitioners, capable of rich and flexible redeployment. As usual (perhaps as always), however, in the case of such literary creativity, it would be a mistake to interpret these diverse developments of the image of the inscriptional inheritance merely in terms of literary one-up-manship (important as that element certainly is): all the developments help to articulate differences of substance between the programmes of the various historians. Within ancient historiography generally, therefore, the image of the inscript­ ional inheritance is one of extraordinary richness. The image of the inscription may stand for ancient historiography itself, the child (as it were) of the written inscription (among many other parents). It may also stand for the fecundity, vitality, and intellectual power of ancient historiography and its developing and innovative traditions. And it may also stand for the highly superior literary criticism contained within ancient historiography: the best critics, ancient and modern, of ancient historiography are the ancient historians themselves. We should try to learn more from them.81 Bibliography Aujac, G., ed. and trans. (1988) Denys d’Halicarnasse: Opuscules Rhétoriques Tome II (Paris). Bosworth, A. B. (1980) A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander I (Oxford). Brown, A., ed. (1987) Sophocles: Antigone (Warminster). Burke, S. (1998) The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault and Derrida2 (Edinburgh). Champion, C. (1999) ‘Review of J. J. O’Donnell, Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace (1998)’, Histos 3: 133–9. Chantraine, P. (1933) La formation des noms en grec ancien (Paris 1933). Clarke, K. (1999) ‘Universal Perspectives in Historiography’, in Kraus (1999) 249–79. Conz, E. (1794) ‘Einige Bemerkungen über die historische Kunst der Alten, vorzüglich über Herodotus, Thucidides und Tazitus’ Museum für griechische und römische Literatur 2: 125–65. Corcella, A. (1996) ‘Ecateo di Mileto così dice’, QS 43: 295–301.

81 {A subsequently published ‘exchange and reply’ to this article, featuring JLM, Charles Hedrick, John Marincola, and Ellen O’Gorman, can be found in Histos 3 (1999) 109–32.}

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Pelliccia, H. (1992) ‘Sappho 16, Gorgias’ Helen, and the Preface to Herodotus’ Histories’, YClS 29: 63–84. Pelling, C. B. R. (1999) ‘Epilogue’, in Kraus (1999) 325–57. Pohlenz, M. (1920) ‘Thukydidesstudien II/III’, Nachr. Ges. Wiss. zu Göttingen 56–82; repr. in id., Kleine Schriften, 2 vols., ed H. Dörrie (Hildesheim, 1965) II.254–80. Porciani, L. (1997) La forma proemiale: storiografia e pubblico nel mondo antico (Pisa). Rhodes, P. J. (1994) ‘In Defence of the Greek Historians’, G&R 41: 156–71. Rhodes, P. J. (1998) ‘“Epidamnus is a City”: On Not Over-Interpreting Thucydides’, Histos 2: 64–71. Rood, T. C. B. (1998) ‘Thucydides and his Predecessors’, Histos 2: 230–67. Rood, T. C. B. (1999) ‘Thucydides’ Persian Wars’, in Kraus (1999) 141–68. Sacks, K. S. (1981) Polybius on the Writing of History (Berkeley and Los Angeles). de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. (1972) The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London and Ithaca). Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H. (1999) ‘The Persian Kings and History’, in Kraus (1999) 91–112. Shrimpton, G. S. (1997) History and Memory in Ancient Greece (Montreal and London). Stinton, T. C. W. (1975) ‘Hamartia in Aristotle and Greek Tragedy’, CQ 25: 221–54; repr. in id., Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1990) 143–86. Svenbro, J. (1993) Phrasikleia: An Anthropology of Reading in Ancient Greece (Ithaca and London); trans. by J. Lloyd of Phrasikleia: anthropologie de la lecture en Grèce ancienne (Paris, 1988). Thomas, R. (1989) Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge). Thomas, R. (1992) Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge). Thomas, R. (1993) ‘Performance and Written Publication in Herodotus and the Sophistic Generation’, in W. Kullmann and J. Althoff, edd., Vermittlung und Tradierung von Wissen in der griechischen Kultur (Tübingen) 225–44. Usher, S., ed. and trans. (1974) Dionysius of Halicarnassus: Critical Essays, vol. 1 (Cambridge, Mass. and London). Walbank, F. W. (1957) A Historical Commentary on Polybius: Volume I: Commentary on Books I–VI (Oxford). Walbank, F. W. (1975) ‘Symploke: its Role in Polybius’ Histories’, YClS 24: 197–212; repr. in id., Selected Papers: Studies in Greek and Roman History and Historiography (Cambridge, 1985) 313–24. West, M. L. (1997) The East Face of Helicon (Oxford). West, S. (1985) ‘Herodotus’ Epigraphical Interests’, CQ 35: 278–305. Wheeler, S. M. (2002) ‘Time in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Ancient Historiography’, in D. S. Levene and D. P. Nelis, edd., Clio and the Poets: Augustan Poetry & the Traditions of Ancient Historiography (Leiden 2002) 163–90. Woodman, A. J. (1988) Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Portland, and Sydney).

Chapter 55

A False Dilemma: Thucydides’ History and Historicism 1

The Problem

For a laboratory on historicism, Thucydides, greatest and most influential of ancient historians, yet still today an immensely controversial figure, seemed an appropriate case-study.* This participant had only murky notions about ‘historicism’, and consultation of a range of colleagues elicited two (and only two) responses: ‘Historicism? I’m confused’; ‘Historicist? That’s what Don Fowler calls people he disagrees with.’ Nor are such reactions confined to the ignorant. E. H. Carr complained that ‘Popper uses the word historicism as a catch-all for any opinion he dislikes’ and as late as 1988 John Cannon dismissed historicism as ‘a confused and confusing word, which should be abandoned, since it obscures more than it illuminates’. Such typically British poverty of response to theory was fecund ground for the conference’s educative work. Necessarily brief immersion in writings about historicism1 brought inchoate illumination. The German historismus was first translated into English as ‘historism’, later as ‘historicism’, which has prevailed. Historicist thought concerns all aspects of human life, but ‘historical’ and ‘literary’ historicism may be usefully, if artificially, distinguished. ⟦196⟧ Historical historicism was originally an assertion of the supreme importance of historical explanation. Diverse developments followed: – The belief that history is a human product (hence rejection of divine agency in history);

* I thank the conference organisers and, as readers, Simon Hornblower, Damien Nelis, Peter Rhodes, Malcolm Schofield, and Tony Woodman. 1 Dictionary entries: Iggers (1973); Cannon (1988); McCanles (1993); Fowler–Fowler (1996); guide: Hamilton (1996); works on/including, ‘historical’ historicism: Meinecke (1972); Aron (1938); Lee–Beck (1954); Popper (1957); History and Theory Beiheft 14 (1975); Momigliano (1974); Cameron (1989); Le Goff (1992); Jenkins (1995); Evans (1997); ‘literary’ historicism: Greenblatt (1980) and (1988); Veeser (1989); B. Thomas (1991); Perkins (1992); Martindale (1993); Hawthorn (1996); Ryan (1996); Fowler (2000) {1–34}, whose writings and talkings have done so much to educate British classicists.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_027

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– The necessity of establishing history wie es eigentlich gewesen ist (Ranke)— history as it really happened (facts, chronology, etc.); – The application of so-called scientific method to the study of history; – The belief that, like the sciences, history exhibits laws and principles; – The belief that explaining the past enables, by extrapolation, prediction of the future; – A genetic or teleological view of history; – Emphasis on understanding the particular historical context; – Denial of the Enlightenment proposition that all history is essentially the same; – Insistence on distinctive differences between different periods and cultures, precise historical circumstances greatly influencing or even dictating human attitudes and behaviour; – Changes of moral attitude to the study of history, older claims for its universal moral value being replaced variously by moral relativism, exculpation of the past (understanding the past on its own terms), or denial of the relevance of any moral response; – The belief that if historical circumstances condition human behaviour, this must equally apply to the historian, who is ‘always already’ implicated/ complicit in history and its discourses and hence must study the past either through his own cultural presuppositions or through those of the period studied or in recognition of the futility of either of these projects; – Denial that history can be scientific or predictive. Literary historicism similarly views texts as human products, with, again, many diverse developments: – The claim that literary texts are products of their culture or period; – The claim that the meaning of literary texts can be delimited by the establishment of the cultural presuppositions of the writer and his contemporary readers; – ⟦197⟧ The claim that literary texts are products not simply of their culture and period but of their formal structures (which may be intrinsic and timeless or themselves products of their culture) or of their codes (which are intrinsic to their cultures and therefore require cracking by later readers); – The claim that texts are products not simply of their culture and period and of their formal structures and/or of their codes but of the creative originality of the individual writer; – The claim that ‘literary’ texts are no different from non-literary texts in being the products of their own cultures; – The claim that literary and other texts are producers as well as products of their cultures, and therein bridge the gap between internal (formal) and external (cultural) factors in their production;

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– The claim that literary texts are simply one element of the plethora of different media which comprise human verbal productions and which constitute the general ‘discourse’ of a culture or its particular ‘discourses’ about specific areas of life. This last definition, characteristic of the ‘New Historicism’ of the 1980s onwards, may involve: (a) insistence that texts’ historical context (in the broadest sense) overrides their formal aspects; (b) the idea that all culture is essentially ‘textual’; (c) the downgrading of literary texts within the overall contextualised culture (no particular kinds of texts being particularly worthy of study); (d) interest less in the contents of texts than in the discourses that produce them; (e) transference of the idea of authorship from individual texts to the discourses that constitute the culture; (f) contextualisation of individual texts within the context of all other texts which constitute the culture (hence elision of the distinction between text and external cultural factors); (g) contention of radical decentring (arising from sharp and unpredictable cultural shifts); (h) definition of historical context in terms of hierarchies of power (of gender, race, or class); (i) investigation of whether literary texts within a culture tend to subvert or (even when apparently subverting) to collude with those hierarchies of power; (j) use of literary study to subvert contemporary hierarchies of power. These various perspectives tend to bring historical and literary historicism together. Although context determines the precise application of the term ⟦198⟧ ‘historicist’, two questions remain fundamental: the extent to which a period/text can be understood within its own historical context, and the extent to which later interpreters can bridge the gap between their own context and that of the period/texts they are studying. 2

The Interaction of Theory and Practice

Thucydides can be viewed under three aspects: as historian writing the past; as textual product of the past; as text whereby we try to write the past. All three aspects interact with historicist concerns. The sequel therefore correlates these concerns with major Thucydidean problems. While Thucydides’ preface2 justifies his choice of the Peloponnesian War by its supreme greatness (1.1.1–3), it is an important sub-claim3 that only contemporary history can be done properly: he wrote up the war, beginning immediately 2 Moles (1993c), here revised and redirected; valuable observations in Hornblower (1991) 3–66 and Marincola (1997) passim. 3 Wrongly denied by Woodman (1988a) 149ff.

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it started (1.1.1); to discover clearly the things before it and the things still more ancient was impossible because of the quantity of time intervening (1.1.3; cf. 20.1); such ‘things’ can only be discovered by means of ‘indications’ (τεκμήρια, 1.1.3, 20.1, 21.1) or ‘signs’ (σημεῖα, 21.1), ‘sufficiently’ (21.1) to establish that they were not great (1.3), but necessarily less accurately inasmuch as they are ‘ancient things’ (21.1). By contrast, rigorous scrutiny of eyewitness testimony (22.2–3) makes it possible to discover ‘the deeds themselves’ of ‘this war’ (21.2).4 Thus Thucydides’ choice of contemporary history collapses one of historicism’s key dilemmas: the gap between ⟦199⟧ historian and period.5 Yet this contemporary history ‘is set down as a possession for always’ (22.4). There could be no more radical challenge to historicism in any of its forms. The seemingly endlessly discussed 1.22 remains crucial for Thucydides’ conception of history and his History. There is no interpretative consensus, and existing treatments are error-strewn (largely through neglect of the organic complexity of Thucydides’ argument) and insensitive to his densely brilliant language and literary allusion (1.22): As for all the things that each side said in speech [λόγος], either when they were going to war or when they were already in it, it was difficult both for me in the case of the things that I heard myself and for those who reported to me from various different places to remember completely the accurate content of the things that were said. But as it seemed to me, keeping as closely as possible to the general drift of what truly was said, that each speaker would most say what was necessary concerning the always presents, so I have rendered the speeches. [2] But as regards the deeds of the things that were done in the war, I did not think it a worthy procedure to write by asking for information from the person who chanced to be present, nor just in accordance with what seemed to me to be so, but both in the case of things at which I myself was present and of 4 This summary immediately invalidates Shrimpton’s radical claims ([1997] 45–6, 198) that (a) ‘in this system there can be no conceptual distinction between historical facts and their description … [and] no room for a sophisticated historical method’: 1.1.1 ξυνέγραψε τὸν πόλεμον is proleptic of chs. 22–3 and the ‘identification’ of the war with the History Thucydides has composed incorporates the methodological rigour of 1.22 and 23.5–6; and (b) ‘heuriskō cannot mean “find out by investigation or enquiry” … [but] evokes the ancient, rhetorical concept of heurēsis, which means the discovery … of the appropriate narrative procedure’; note especially the contrast (n. 15) between 22.3 ‘things were discovered with much labour’ and 20.3 ‘so unpainstaking for most people is the search for the truth’: unlike ‘most people, who merely seek without pain’, Thucydides ‘takes pains’ and ‘finds’. (All the extremely literalist translations in this paper are my own and essay verbal relationships customarily ignored.) 5 Ancient discussions of the pros/cons of contemporary history: Marincola (1997) 66–95.

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things which I learnt about from others, by going through them in each case with accuracy as far as possible. [3] They were discovered with much labour, because those who were present at each particular deed did not say the same things about the same things, but in accordance with the individual’s sympathy for one side or the other or his memory. [4] And perhaps the lack of the μῦθος element in my History will appear rather unpleasing to an audience, but if those who wish to look at [σκοπεῖν] the clearness [τὸ σαφές] both of the things that happened and of those which, in accordance with the human thing, are going to happen again some time like this and near the present ones, should judge it useful, that will be sufficient. It is set down as a possession for always rather than as a competition piece for present hearing. How can the History be ‘a possession set down for always’? This is the single most important question about Thucydides, from which all other questions flow. The claim follows the statement that the History covers ‘both … the things that happened and … those which, in accordance with the human thing, are going to happen ⟦200⟧ again some time like this and near the present ones’. And from the perspective of the preface’s architecture, the apparently strongly closural ‘it is set down [ξύγκειται] as a possession for always rather than as a competition piece for present hearing’ rings with 1.1.1: ‘Thucydides … wrote up [ξυνέγραψε] the war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians, how they waged war on each other, beginning immediately it started and expecting that it would be great and more worthy of record than those which had happened before it’, this ring reinforcing the work’s timelessness.6 Interpretation of the claim of timelessness involves the prior concept of ‘the clearness’, which has itself been variously interpreted: ‘the (clear) truth’ (the traditional view), ‘a clear picture’ (Hornblower), ‘a clear account’ (Rhodes), ‘a realistic view’ (Woodman).7 But simple logic8 excludes anything less than ‘the truth’. First, if Thucydides does not provide the truth of the things that 6 Then, after 23.1–4 on the war’s supreme greatness, 23.5–6 treats Thucydides’ ‘pre-writing’ of the causes of the war: 23.5 προύγραψα < 1.1 ξυνέγραψε. 7 Traditional: e.g., Lesky (1966) 459; Ste. Croix (1972) 31; Dover (1973) 43; Hornblower (1994b) 102; (1991) 61; Rhodes (1988) 5 (and subsequent commentaries); Woodman (1988b) 11, 62 n. 162. ‘Clarity’ (Marincola [1997] 117) is suitably visual but insufficiently explicit. ‘Clearness’ could underlie a mnemonic system based on ‘clear images’ (cf., e.g., Cic. De orat. 2.358 locis … illustribus; Liv. 6.1.2 (perhaps also praef. 10) with Kraus (1994) 85 cl. Rhet. Her. 3.32, a possibility unexploited by Shrimpton (1997) 192–8 in his argument for Thucydidean mnemonics, but this argument is already untenable (n. 4). 8 Moles (1993c) 107 {above, p. 174}; (1993b) 15.

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have happened, he cannot make his case that ‘this war will … from the deeds themselves reveal itself to those who look at it to have been greater than preceding wars’ (1.21.2). Secondly, the use of σαφές picks up and contrasts with σαφῶς in 1.1.3: periods before the Peloponnesian War ‘cannot be discovered clearly’. But Thucydides has ‘discovered the clearness’ of the Peloponnesian War. So far from the concepts of ‘clearness’ in 1.1.3 and 1.22.4 being different, as Hornblower states, they are the same.9 Τὸ σαφές, ‘the clear truth’, as visually verifiable, comes from the rigorous assessment of eyewitness testimony on which Thucydides has just insisted (22.2–3).10 Enter the proto-historical-historicist, the oft-hailed ‘Thucydides, ⟦201⟧ the scientific historian’ (‘scientific’ in its traditional, positivist, sense).11 This impression is supported by the implicit parallel between Thucydidean and Hippocratic method12 and by Thucydides’ omission of ‘the μῦθος-element’ (since on any interpretation μῦθος implies some sort of ‘story’, and some modern historicists claim that history is effectively the ‘stories’ that we tell about the past, a claim which would have been anathema to the first historicists). But what exactly is ‘the μῦθος-element’? Scholarship divides: ‘the story-telling element’ (of Herodotus, logographers, and historical romance generally); ‘story pattern’ (in contrast with Thucydides’ own year-by-year, summer–winter, narrative); ‘the mythical or legendary element’; ‘the fabulous element’; ‘the sorts of patriotic stories that please audiences’.13 9 10 11 12

13

Hornblower (1991) 7, 58. Precisely, they are the same in relation to periods before the Peloponnesian War (there unattainable) and to the Peloponnesian War (there attainable); the ‘clearness’ of similar future events will necessarily be more generalised (p. 427). The ‘second preface’ (5.26) restates the truth claim: Marincola (1997) 133–4. Cf., e.g., Cochrane (1929); Gomme (1954); de Romilly (1990) 105–37; Shrimpton (1997) 104. Controversial as to extent and implications; certainly, 1.22.4, 23.5–6 [n. 58] and 138.3 [pp. 429–30]) ~ 2.48.3 (aetiology, diagnosis, and prognosis of the plague) ‘so let each individual, doctor or layman, speak about it as he knows: from what origin it was likely to have arisen and what causes of so great a change he considers to be sufficient to have the power for change [note the ambiguous dismissiveness]. But I, having myself fallen sick and having myself seen others suffering, shall reveal what kind of thing it was and the things by which anyone looking and knowing them in advance might most be able not to be ignorant of it, if it should ever again befall’ ~ e.g., Epid. 1.11 (II.634–6 L) ‘tell what has happened before, know the present, foretell the things to be: study these things’; cf. also 3.82.2 (stasis like ravaging disease); 6.14 (statesman as doctor); 8.97.2; etc.; discussion: Cochrane (1929); Weidauer (1954); Ste. Croix (1972) 29–32; Hornblower (1994b) 110–12, 131–5; (1991) 61, 320–1; Swain (1994); T. E. Morgan (1994); on the possibility, but unlikelihood, that ‘what kind of thing it was’ inspired Ranke’s ‘wie es eigentlich gewesen ist’: Hornblower (1991) 321 with bibliography; on the medical analogy in Herodotus: R. Thomas (1997). Story-telling element: Gomme (1945) 149, influentially; story pattern: Shrimpton (1997) 266, 285; mythical/legendary element: Woodman (1988b) 11; Moles (1993c) 104 {above,

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Precise analysis is needed. Thucydides’ exclusion of ‘stories’ reinforces the truth of his account, an implication that is strengthened by his use of τὸ μυθῶδες in 1.21.1:14 But anyone who considered from the aforesaid indications that things ⟦202⟧ were more or less what I have described would not go wrong, neither trusting what the poets have eulogised about them, embellishing them for the purposes of exaggeration, nor what the prose-writers have put together for the purpose of enticement to the audience rather than the truth, things that cannot be checked and the majority of them having won out owing to time untrustworthily to the point of τὸ μυθῶδες, but believing that they have been discovered from the clearest signs sufficiently in so far as they are ancient things. Thucydides asserts the superiority of his version of pre-war events and of his historical methods in reconstructing them to those of the poets and prose-writers.15 As in 22, the μῦθος-element implies audience-pleasing and suspect historicity (the stories being ‘uncheckable’). But such material has acquired a spurious authority (having ‘won out’). Translations such as ‘the story-telling element’ or ‘the fabulous’ are thus excluded. Thucydides explicitly links such material to the passage of (considerable) time. Hence he must be referring to myths or legends (some of which would of course be ‘patriotic stories’). Chs. 1.21–2, therefore, distinguish between ‘myth’ (more or less in our sense) and history, as Livy (among several later historians) interpreted Thucydides.16 Moreover, Thucydides points the paradox that qua old, myths or legends from the past can be viewed alternatively as authoritative or as suspect.17 But there

p. 172}; fabulous element: Rhodes (1988) 5; patriotic stories: Flory (1990), accepted by Hornblower (1991) 61; Marincola (1997) 117–18 formally accepts Gomme but effectively endorses ‘the mythic(al)’. 14 Woodman (1988b) 8, 10, and 51 n. 47 emphasises that 20–2 are not a single passage on ‘method’, as many have misinterpreted (and, despite Woodman, still do): 20–1 cover method re pre-war events, 22 method re the war. Nevertheless, 22 receives increased definition from a series of parallels and contrasts with 1 and 20–1, and 23 further redefines 22 (p. 419). 15 Primarily Herodotus and ‘logographers’, also encomiastic orators: Marincola (1997) 21; also certain sophists (~ 22.4). 16 Praef. 6 (cf. 5.21.9) Quae ante conditam condendamue urbem poeticis magis decora fabulis quam incorruptis rerum gestarum monumentis traduntur (Moles (1993a) 149 {above, pp. 202–3}); the general distinction: Marincola (1997) 117–27. 17 Tony Woodman discerns similar paradox in prisca fides facto, sed fama perennis (Aen. 9.79).

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is a further paradox:18 these stories only become ‘myths’ or ‘legends’ when ‘put together’ by the logographers: there can be ‘myths’ or ‘legends’ about contemporary events, which (as it were) overleap their proper chronological context and immediately acquire spurious authority. Thus the absence of ‘mythical’ material from the History need not be due only to Thucydides’ writing contemporary history: he rigorously excludes that kind of ‘uncheckable’ material as generically incompatible with the quest for truth: further proof, seemingly, of his Rankean credentials. But another problem arises: how does Thucydides’ ‘clear truth’ ⟦203⟧ relate to the phrase ‘those [things] which, in accordance with the human thing, are going to happen again some time like this and near the present ones’? That phrase cannot simply gloss ‘the things that happened’ (Rhodes/Hornblower),19 because, as Woodman insists,20 it is ‘the clear truth’ both of ‘the things that happened and of ‘those which, in accordance with the human thing, are going to happen again some time like this and near the present ones’. Thucydides will provide both the clear truth of the events of the Peloponnesian War and the more generalised truths which underlie both those events and the similar events of the future,21 hence in his narrative the pervasive tension between documentation of a mass of particulars and the need to generalise (illustrated, for example, by representative figures, recurrent patterns, avoidance of merely repetitive detail, use of short-cut formulae).22 Not that ch. 22 itself concedes selectivity:23 for present purposes the great war and the great History must seem one (Thucydides relaxes later: 3.81.5, 90.1; 4.23.1). 18 19 20 21 22 23

Found in later historians: Liv. 5.21.9 (with Moles [1993a] 148 {above, pp. 201–2}); Tac. Ann. 4.10–11 with Martin–Woodman (1989) 123–5, 127–32; Wiseman (1997). Cf. our ‘a legend in his own lifetime’. Rhodes (1988) 5; Hornblower (1991) 61. Woodman (1988b) 24. Moles (1993c) 107–10 {above, pp. 174–7}. Moles (1993c) 108 {above, p. 175}; Hornblower (1994b) 34–44. 22.2 cannot mean ‘the ἔργα which I have chosen to describe’ (thus, reluctantly, Hornblower (1994b) 37; cf. also Swain [1993] 40; Shrimpton [1997] 45–6, 196–8): (a) the Greek discourages this; Parry’s claim ([1957] 92, cf. Shrimpton [1997] 45, 197) that 1.17 ἐπράχθη … ουδὲν … ἔργον ἀξιόλογον makes an ἔργον necessarily an ἀξιόλογον πραχθέν, i.e., ἔργον = ‘factual report/reported event’, logically fails (1.17 concedes the existence of non-ἀξιόλογα ἔργα and makes no distinction between ἔργα and πραχθέντα; cf. also 23.1 ‘of the deeds before, the greatest that was done’); nor does 1.17 entail selectivity in 1.22: the Archaeology is necessarily selective; (b) the parallel formulation about λόγοι is comprehensive; (c) ‘the deeds’ picks up 21.2 and is picked up by 23.1 ‘of the deeds before’, both of the raw deeds, otherwise Thucydides’ argument for the war’s supreme greatness fails; (d) 22.2–fin. suggests detailed comprehensiveness (Hornblower [1991] 60); (e) other literary devices imply total coverage (n. 49); (f) in ‘the deeds of the things done’, which Shrimpton interprets as

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How do these various tensions relate to historicist concerns? The criterion ‘in accordance with the human thing’, that is, ‘given that human nature is constant’,24 parallels historicist insistence on ⟦204⟧ history as a human product, conceding little or nothing to divine agency.25 It might, however, seem incompatible with historicist claims that different cultures and periods produce, and are produced by, distinctively different types of human behaviour. Yet κίνησις (‘upheaval’, ‘change’) is endemic to Thucydides’ world26 and he recognises and explores differences of period, race, and culture. Such variation can be accommodated within a basic model of the constancy of human nature provided that constancy is defined in sufficiently broad terms. So in 21.2: ‘people always judge the present war to be the greatest’: different wars, different periods, the same basic human reaction. Ch. 23, however, does deepen the conception of ‘in accordance with the human thing’: Of the deeds before, the greatest that was done was the Median war [the Persian war of 481–79], yet this had a speedy decision through two naval battles and land battles. But in the case of this war, its length advanced to a great size and also it happened that disasters [παθήματα] occurred to Greece during it such as did not otherwise occur in the same space of time. [2] For neither were so many cities captured and made desolate, some by barbarians, some by the people themselves as they waged counter-war (some also changed inhabitants when they were captured), nor so many exiles of people and killing, some of it in the war itself, some because of civil strife. [3] And the things that were before this were said ‘the factual reports arising from the things done’, ‘the things done’ can be explained either as genitive of definition (strengthening the contrasts with 22.1’s λόγοι) or (better) as glossing 21.2 ‘the deeds themselves’ (Gomme [1945] 139); (g) 22.4 ‘the things that happened’ are ‘objective’ yet gloss 21.2 ‘the deeds themselves’ (readers ‘look at’ both). 24 Rival interpretations: ‘human nature’: Ste. Croix (1972) 29–33; Swain (1994) (constancy of human nature and Hippocratic ‘prognosis’); ‘human condition’ or ‘situation’ (including its uncertainties): Stahl (1966) 33 {= [2003] 28–9} followed by Hornblower (1991) 61. But Ste. Croix (1972) 32 correctly argues that ch. 22 requires ‘a factor making for constancy’. I suspect interaction with Herodotus’ ‘things done by men’ (praef.), with Thucydides characteristically ‘trumping’ Herodotus by his limitless time frame (and equally characteristically, unfairly, since Hdt. 1.5.4 is just as limitless as 1.22.4). 25 That Thucydides makes some concessions is argued by Oost (1975), Marinatos (1981), Dover (1988), Swain (1994) 313, and Cawkwell (1997) 4; contested by Hornblower (1991) 206–7; (1992); Rutherford (1994) 63–4 (the better emphasis). Cf. n. 27 and further discussion in the text, pp. 420–1. 26 Moles (1993c) 100 {above, pp. 168–9}.

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by hearsay, but rather rarely substantiated in deed, were established to be not untrustworthy—about earthquakes, which held sway over a very great part of the land and were at the same time most powerful, and eclipses of the sun, which occurred more frequently by comparison with what was remembered from former times, and there were great droughts, and from them both famines and that which did most damage and which did not least destroy: the plaguey sickness. For all these made a simultaneous attack along with this war. [4] The Athenians and Peloponnesians began it after dissolving the thirty years’ truce which they had made after the capture of Euboea. [5] As to why they dissolved it, I have pre-written ⟦205⟧ first the causes [αἰτίαι] and the differences, so that no one need seek from what so great a war as this came upon the Greeks. [6] The truest pre-cause [ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις], though least apparent in men’s speech, I believe to have been the fact that the Athenians, becoming great and making the Peloponnesians fearful, compelled them towards going to war. But the causes said in the open on each side were as follows, as a result of which they dissolved the truce and came to the war. First, while man can be active, performing ‘deeds’ (ἔργα), he can also be passive, ‘suffering disasters’ (παθήματα); the latter are of two types: man-made (history is a human product but the product of interaction of different humans) and natural (earthquakes, etc.). The interplay of active/passive, human/natural is pointed by the metaphor ‘for all these made a simultaneous attack along with this war’ (23.3), and by the variation between ‘so great a war as this came upon the Greeks’ (23.5) and ‘they came to the war’ (23.6). Second, while man strives to be rational, the world contains gigantic forces of irrationalism (both in man and nature). The contrast between chs. 22 and 23 is not only between active and passive but between reason (λόγος) and unreason (πάθος).27 Ch. 23’s multiple perspective might seem pessimistic by comparison with certain sorts of historicism and indeed informs the great ‘Thucydides, optimist or pessimist?’ debate,28 but the perspective is, rather, realistic, and it allows significance to human response to ‘disasters’ (e.g., the Athenians’ irrational response to the plague and Pericles’ rallying of them: 2.51.4–54.5; 59.1–64.6). How does the idea of ‘the things which, in accordance with the human thing, are going to happen again some time like this and near the present ones’ (22.4) relate to historicist assertion or denial of history’s predictive power? Thucydides eschews the crudities of cyclical history but ‘in accordance with 27 Pace many scholars, 23.3’s eclipses, triggers of human irrationalism, do not make Thucydides himself superstitious; discussion in Stephenson (1999). 28 E.g., de Romilly (1963) 357; Ste. Croix (1972) 31; Rutherford (1994) 54.

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the human thing’ entails similar things happening in the future; the medical parallel has similar implications; Thucydides’ own narrative contains some repeated patterning29 and many temporal contexts which evoke later ones (the Archaeology at once explanatory and programmatic, the Themistocles and Pausanias narratives anticipatory of Alcibiades ⟦206⟧ and Lysander, the Funeral Speech at once 430 and 403, Athens’ defeat in Sicily proleptic of her fall, and so on);30 and for Thucydides foresight is a pre-eminent political virtue.31 On the historicist divide between predictive and non-predictive history Thucydides compromises intelligently, leaning towards the predictive but avoiding crudity. He also (like Herodotus but unlike Marx or Fukuyama) avoids the fatuity of teleological historicism: 2.64.3 ‘all things naturally decline’.32 Underlying everything thus far is Thucydides’ profoundly historicist concern with the relationship between different periods of time: past, present, and future. This relationship is pointed by repetition, and variation in application, of the term ‘always’: 21.2 τὸν παρόντα αἰεί; 22.1 τῶν αἰεὶ παρόντων, 22.4 ἐς αἰεί: there are repeated presents, there are always different presents, and since Thucydides’ work covers both, it is an always possession. Moreover, 22.4 echoes the profound musings of the poet Hesiod on beginnings, linear time, timeless time, and his own transcendental poetry (Theog. 31–4):33 [The Muses] breathed into me a divine voice that I might celebrate the things to be and the things before and they bade me hymn the race of the blessed ones who are for always and always to sing of themselves first and last. But Thucydides’ ‘possession … for always’ ‘caps’ Hesiod’s claim for the immortality of his poetry (αἰεί/ἀείδειν). Thus 22.4 compares Thucydides’ timeless project with those of poets (including Hesiod and Homer),34 seers,35 doctors,36

29 Cf., e.g., Rawlings (1981) (the second half of the History, from 5.25, in some respects reprises the first). 30 Space precludes validation of these claims here. 31 Ste. Croix (1972) 30, 177. 32 Like Herodotus, Thucydides propounds biological models of growth and decline: Hornblower (1991) 6, 339. 33 Moles (1993c) 109f. {above, pp. 176f.} 34 Ξύγκειται (of literary composition, LSJ II.2) < 1.1.1 ξυνέγραψε but also (ξύγ)κειται with κτῆμα (in contrast to -χρῆμα) suggests ‘to be stored up’ (LSJ s.v. κεῖμαι III), hence κτῆμα … ξύγκειται ‘trumps’ Homeric property phrases such as κτήματα κεῖται (Il. 9.382), figuring the History as a ‘free inheritance’ for all generations; discussion in Moles (1999). 35 Besides Hesiod, cf. Il. 1.70 (Calchas ‘knew what is, what will be, and what was before’). 36 Cf. n. 12.

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sophists,37 and logographers (including Herodotus),38 and asserts its ‘divinatory’ ⟦207⟧ superiority to them all. Thucydides’ History is the work, which ‘synthesises’ (ξυνέθεσαν) and ‘compounds’ (ξύγκειται) all other relevant works.39 And, importantly, it is a text: ‘set down as a possession for always rather than as a competition piece for present hearing’. Although ‘rather than’ does not absolutely exclude oral delivery and aural reception, it privileges ‘looking’ over ‘hearing’, and ‘looking at’ (what else?) a text and its contents. Moreover, the earlier phrase ‘those who wish to look’ evokes the formula ‘for anyone who wishes to look’ used in Athenian inscriptions,40 with further implications for authority, textuality, openness of access, and permanence. While there had been texts and readers before Thucydides, he is the first to insist on the intellectual super­ iority of engagement with a great written text to oral performance and aural reception.41 This insistence can be viewed alternatively as historicist—in its advocacy of a potentially major cultural shift—and unhistoricist—in its elevation of a reading text over other verbal productions. The Hesiodic intertext conveyed by the play on ‘always’ introduces the problem of Thucydides’ speeches.42 The links between 22.1 and 21.2 and between 22.1 and 22.4 bind ‘the always presents’ (= the immediate presents)43 into a conceptual relationship with other types of time: the repeated presents of 21.2 and the ‘always’ transcendental time of 22.4. Thucydides implies that the content of the speeches he attributes to the various speakers is less close to historical 37 ‘Competition piece’ must include allusion to sophistic performances (cf. 3.38.7 [p. 432]), which implied venality (n. 38) reinforces. 38 That ‘competition piece for present hearing’ (< 21.1 ‘enticement to the audience’, just as ξύγκειται < 21.1 ξυνέθεσαν) attacks logographers generally and Herodotus particularly is well understood (n. 15); but also, given the ‘property’ imagery (n. 34), τὸ παραχρῆμα glosses χρῆμα = ‘money’ (one ‘hears’ παρα separately [n. 49]), underscoring Herodotean and logographic venality in contrast to Thucydides’ timeless munificence (n. 34). 39 Fifth-century claims of various professionals to a secularised form of ‘divination’: Lloyd (1979) 45; the general ‘agonistic’ culture: Lloyd (1987) 58–9, 85–91, 97–101. Thucydides’ simultaneous acknowledgement of, and claim to transcend, his agonistic culture finds parallels in Liv., praef. 2 (Moles [1993a] 144 {above, pp. 194–5}) and Tac. Ann. 4.32.1 (Martin– Woodman [1989] 169–70). Note how Thucydides’ singular κτῆμα ‘trumps’ the Homeric plural κτήματα (n. 34), thereby implying the comprehensiveness of Thucydides’ singular text. 40 Examples (already fifth century) in R. Thomas (1989) 61 n. 151; discussion in Moles (1999). 41 Havelock (1964) 53–4; Hunter (1982) 287–96; measured dissent in Marincola (1997) 21 and Hornblower (1991) 60–1; here and in Moles (1999) I hope to have strengthened and refined the Havelock/Hunter position. 42 This discussion seeks to short-circuit the enormous bibliography. 43 Not ‘the always present things’/‘the constants’ (Moles [1993c] 105 {above, pp. 172–3}; [1993b] 15f.), which ἕκαστοι undermines (cf. e.g. 1.2.1).

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fact than is the content of the ‘deeds’ he records.44 This relative unhistoricity operates in the sphere of ‘the ⟦208⟧ necessary things’ (τὰ δέοντα), a term which has been interpreted in two main ways: ‘the rhetorically appropriate’ and ‘the objectively best arguments’. To dismiss the latter interpretation on the ground that some speeches come in opposed pairs45 is fallacious: Thucydides never writes τὰ δέοντα, tout court, but τὰ δέοντα superimposed on what individual speakers actually said. ‘The best arguments’ finds strong support in the use of τὰ δέοντα at 1.138.3, where Themistocles is ‘the best at improvising what was necessary’ (‘improvisation’ includes both action and speech), and at 2.60.5, where Pericles is ‘inferior to none in both knowing and expounding what is necessary’.46 The Themistocles parallel will prove decisive for this interpretation of τὰ δέοντα.47 Thus the latitude that Thucydides claims for his speeches is due partly to the difficulty of remembering the detail, partly to a positive need to make individual speakers say the necessary things about the relationship between particular presents and generals and universals.48 The fact that not all the speeches reflect on universals matters little: sometimes the connection between immediate circumstances and universals may legitimately be nil. It is also true that ‘universals’ are ‘always already’ deconstructible, but this too is part of the dynamic debate. Moreover, human beings are circumscribed in space as well as time: παρών covers both dimensions, and while 22.1 τῶν ἀεὶ παρόντων interacts with the temporal implications of 21.2 and 22.4, it also interacts with the spatial implications of 22.2–3 παρατυχόντος, παρῆν, παρά, and παρόντες; note also 1.1.3 ἐπὶ μακρότατον σκοποῦντι, where time is imaged spatially and Thucydides approaches historicist conceptions of the past (for example, Robertson’s

44 Cf. esp. Rusten (1989) 12. 45 Rusten (1989) 13. Gomme’s different objection ([1945] 140) is met in n. 48. 46 Similarly 1.139.4 ‘most able both in speaking and acting’, Thucydides’ Themistoclean description of Pericles (Ste. Croix [1972] 178; Hornblower [1991] 223), echoing 1.138.3 particularly; also Isocr. 13.8 and Demosth. 6.1: other politicians neither speak nor do ‘the right things’. 47 See pp. 429–30 below. 48 There is no self-contradiction (pace many): ‘keeping as closely as possible’ and providing ‘the necessary things’ are in tension: both are needed, the former to ground the speeches historically, the latter to maximise the best arguments for the case of the particular speaker; both are subject to variables: the former to the difficulty of precise remembrance and the need to supply ‘the necessary things’; the latter to the need to maintain a historical basis and Thucydides’ own (presumably considerable) difficulty in supplying what he thought ‘the necessary things’.

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‘what we call the past is, in effect, a series of foreign countries inhabited by strangers’).49 ⟦209⟧ The speeches’ role, therefore, is to bridge the gaps between different circumstances, contexts, periods, and times, thereby constructing the ‘always-ness’ of Thucydides’ History. To the extent that the licence claimed by Thucydides for his speeches reflects the information deficit of a predominantly oral society, it supports one historicist claim. To the extent that the licence is exploited by Thucydides, it is incompatible with the conception of history as it actually happened, but the speeches’ predominant fictionality subserves profoundly historical and historicist purposes. For modern historians who wish to use the speeches as evidence for what was actually said there is one ironic consolation: where speakers argue badly, this is historical. The speeches also involve Thucydides’ discussion of causality (23.5–6), a basic historicist concern. The essential distinction here is between the various ‘causes’, ‘differences’, and ‘accusations’ that triggered the war, which were publicly stated and have some explanatory force, and the much more important, longer-term, psychological, hence ‘truest’, cause, which was very little stated.50 But three aspects of Thucydides’ wording remain under-valued. First, the clamant intertext with Herodotus on the causes of Greek-barbarian enmity: 1.5.3, ‘This is what the Persians and Phoenicians say. But I am not going to say that these things happened this way or otherwise, rather I shall indicate the man whom I myself know to have begun unjust deeds towards the Greeks’.51 This intertext, itself only one element in Thucydides’ sustained imitation of, and rivalry with, Herodotus throughout the preface,52 the Homeric imitation/rivalry also present in ch. 23 and also sustained throughout the preface,53 and the Hesiodic echo of 22.4 again point the question of ancient historiography’s extensive intertextuality within itself and with other literary genres, a question ⟦210⟧ hugely challenging to the concept of ‘history as it really happened’. Second, the paradoxical application of πρόφασις (often ‘stated cause’, even [false] 49 Also παρών = ‘be present to/at’ (21.2, 22.2, > ch. 23 [active ~ passive]), παρα = ‘at’/‘from’ (22.2), 22.4 παραπλήσιον (‘things near the present ones’) and 22.4 παρα/χρῆμα (n. 38). Hence 22 is totally comprehensive (n. 23) both horizontally and vertically: words, deeds (including ἕκαστα), ὄψις, ἀκοή, participation, Thucydides and others, space and time (past, present, future). 50 Ste. Croix (1972) 50–63, Hornblower (1991) 64–5, Derow (1994) 80, and Cawkwell (1997) 20–2 are variously flawed; better Gomme (1945) 152–4; Heath (1986); Rood (1998) 208–10; I hope to have advanced understanding of 23.5–6 in a forthcoming paper {Moles (2010)}. 51 Richardson (1990) 160–1; Moles (1993c) 114 {above, p. 180}; not in Hornblower (1991) 65 or (1996) 19–38 (‘Thucydides and Herodotus’), 122–45 (‘Thucydides’ use of Herodotus’). 52 Moles (1993c) 98–114 {above, pp. 167–80}; also nn. 16 and 39. 53 Moles (1993c) 98–114 {above, pp. 167–80}; also n. 35.

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‘excuse’)54 to ‘true cause little stated’, paradox sharpened by verbal clashes (ἀληθεστάτην/ἀφανεστάτην, φάσιν/ἀφαν/φανερόν, φάσιν/λόγοι/λεγόμεναι):55 language inverted as what should have been public becomes private and truth unuttered. Thucydides exposes and ruthlessly probes the gap within public discourse between signifier and signified.56 Third, the continuing medical analogy in the ‘diagnosed causations’,57 which again deepens Thucydides’ ‘scientific’ approach. In the rest of Book 1 the various αἰτίαι loom large in the speeches,58 while the ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις is mentioned twice in Thucydides’ own historical analysis (1.88 and 118.2) and repeatedly in the speeches, whether explicitly (by the Corcyraeans: 33.3 ‘if anyone among you thinks that the war … will not happen, he is mistaken, failing to realise that the Spartans desire war through fear of you’, and the ephor Sthenelaidas: 86.5 ‘do not allow the Athenians to become greater’) or implicitly (in the two Corinthian speeches and in the Athenian speech). This seeming discrepancy with ‘the truest cause least apparent in speech’ is a problem only if Thucydides’ speeches are historical documents. In reality, the emphasis in the speeches on the ‘truest cause least apparent in speech’ exemplifies the things which the historical speakers did not say (or hardly), but which Thucydides thinks a necessary element of the situation which speakers ought to have mentioned; Spartan fear of Athenian imperialist expansion was one of the constants of the Pentecontaetia and should have been discussed ‘on particular occasions’ by speakers alert to the interplay between those particulars ⟦211⟧ and that constant. Hence the Corcyraeans’ allegedly public proclamation of the πρόφασις in the first full speech of the narrative is at once unhistorical and profoundly historicist, boldly transcending ‘history as it really happened’ in order to underline deeper historical causation. 54 Thuc. 3.82.4, 86.4, 111.1; 4.47.2; 5.80.3; 6.8.4, 33.2, 76.2; 8.87.5. 55 Πρόφασις: e.g., Pearson (1952); (1972); Rawlings (1975); Heubeck (1980); Richardson (1990); Hornblower (1991) 64–5; demarcation of the ‘true’ derivation (prophemi/prophaino?) cannot repress the verbal clashes. 56 Cf. 3.82.4 ‘they changed the accustomed evaluation of words to deeds in self-justification’; interpretation: Wilson (1982); Worthington (1982); Hornblower (1991) 483; Swain (1993) 36–7. Moles (1993c) probes the intricate wordplays of Thucydides’ analysis of causality. 57 Guaranteed by (i) the available medical resonance of πρόφασις (Rawlings [1975]); (ii) the verbal parallel with 2.48.3 (n. 12); note the irony: Thucydides applies medical aetiology to the war but decries its usefulness in the medical context; (iii) the parallel distinction between necessary and concomitant causes and recognition of double causation in medical writings (Swain [1994] 318); (iv) the parallel medical distinction between apparent and un-apparent processes (Swain [1994] 316); (v) the contextualisation of the war among disasters which include plague. 58 Rhodes (1987) 154–6; Heath (1986) 104–5; Rood (1998) 208ff.; Moles {2010}.

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Inherent in chs. 22–3 is Thucydides’ intense interest in language, its possibilities, limitations, and distortions.59 Besides the discussion of the speeches and the problematics of ἀληθεστάτη πρόφασις, there is stress on the inadequacy both of ordinary λόγοι as purveyors of fact (22.3) and of Thucydides’ own language in comprehending the natural disasters which accompanied the war (23.3).60 Chs. 22–3 begin and end with discussion of λόγοι. Ch. 22.1 contrasts what, as it seemed to Thucydides, should have been said but was not with what truly was said; 23.6 contrasts what was very little said but what Thucydides believed to be truest with what was said but was relatively unimportant. There is truth and Truth. Only Thucydides’ speeches can properly explore the True issues of a particular situation. If, as most commentators hold, the speeches exhibit profound and wide-ranging political analysis and thought, the latter are Thucydides’. Everything said so far credits ch. 23 with historical profundity. But 23 is a main weapon of Woodman’s attack on the concept of ‘Thucydides the scientific historian’: the emphasis on disasters and sufferings reflects the perspective of epic and tragedy, hence Thucydides’ continuing evocation of, and rivalry with, Homer; the emphasis is sustained throughout the History; and it prefigures the manner of later ‘tragic’61 historians; Thucydides deploys extensive rhetorical ‘amplification’ to ‘prove’ the war’s supreme greatness; both content and style subserve the ‘pleasure’ (for Woodman, ‘entertainment’) which Thucydides had only ambiguously disclaimed in 22.4 and contrast markedly with ‘scientific history’.62 Individually, these claims are correct and important. Nevertheless, the resultant picture of Thucydides is one-dimensional. First, ⟦212⟧ it neglects the ‘scientific’ elements of 23 itself (the chronological precision, rigorous causality, deepening conception of ‘the human thing’). Second, it radically fissures ‘literature’ and ‘history’: there is no recognition that ‘the literary’ (the echoes of Homer in 23.5 [~ Il. 1.6–7] or of Herodotus in 23.6) can function as a vehicle for the historical, and ‘pleasure’ (an indispensable element of reader response even to tragic narrative) degenerates into ‘entertainment’. Third, it ignores 59 Loraux (1986); Swain (1993); Moles (2010). 60 Moles (1993c) 113 {above, p. 179}: ‘these tremendous events seem to defy historical canons and the historian’s attempts to impose order on them. This is very different from the “clear truth” of ch. 22. Here historiography ruefully contemplates its own inability to comprehend reality’. 61 Still a useful term (with ancient justification), provided (a) it acknowledges the influence of tragedy throughout ancient historiography; (b) it does not entail a ‘school’. That is, ‘tragic’ historians take to extremes a general tendency of ancient historiography. 62 Woodman (1988b) 28–32; cf. also nn. 26–7.

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Thucydides’ preoccupation with the problem of finding language—and different sorts of language—which will encompass the war in all its different facets. Thucydides’ conception of history-writing is far richer and profounder than either the ‘literature’ or ‘scientific-history’ model, and includes both. Even rhetorical excess is double-edged: while it may produce unjustifiable exaggeration (for example, the claim that the Peloponnesian War was greater than the Persian), it may also convey the sheer impossibility of representing extreme things adequately in language. Λόγος/language can express λόγος/reason: unreason (τὸ ἄλογον) is ‘logically’ inexpressible.63 Some of these points become clearer when we return yet again to the marvellous complexities of 22.4. For the crucial phrase ‘to look at the clearness’ was understood by later ancient historians such as Duris and Livy, as implying that Thucydides’ History would be an as far as possible unmediated mimesis.64 This understanding seems right, explaining alike the general ancient emphasis on Thucydides’ unparalleled ‘vividness’;65 the narrative start (1.24.1 ‘there is a city Epidamnus’), with its present tense, insider/outsider figure (ἐσπλέοντι), and asyndetic prologue-feel; the very high proportion of speech-material; the strong influence of drama and tragedy, both in tragic patterning (the Plague narrative of Book 2, the Nicias-focused narrative of Book 7, whose obituary (7.86.5) so startlingly anticipates Poetics 13), the use of dramatic dialogue (Melos), and tragic vocabulary, tragic emotions, and internal audience in Book 7.66 ⟦213⟧ The device of the effectively unmediated mimesis has major consequences. First, on narrative organisation, not only tragic patterning but also the various narrative dislocations and omissions in Book 1 documented and discussed by Badian and Hornblower.67 For Badian these are cunning ploys to minimise evidence detrimental to Athens in the question of war-guilt; for Hornblower they are narratologically intriguing but remain duplicitous. In fact, however, they illustrate the drip-feed, as-and-when release of information necessitated by unmediated mimesis (cf. drama):68 again not history as it actually happened but something tighter and more economical (nearer

63 Cf. 2.50.1 ‘the form of the disease was κρείσσων λόγου’ (‘stronger than language/reason’). 64 Duris, FGrHist 76 F 1; Woodman (1988b) 25 and 59 n. 140; J. Morgan (1993) 184–5; Walker (1993) 356–7; Leigh (1997) 34–6; Liv. praef. 10 with Moles (1993a) 154 {above, p. 209}. 65 D. Hal. Thuc. 15; Plut. Glor. Ath. 347A; historiographical enargeia generally: Woodman (1988b) 25–8, 59–60, 89–90; Davidson (1991); Walker (1993); Leigh (1997) 10–15, 30–40. 66 Moles (1993c) 112 {above, p. 179} with bibliography; Rood (1998) 198–9. 67 Badian (1993a) 125–62; Hornblower (1994), esp. 140–6. 68 Moles (1995).

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Aristotelian notions of unity).69 Second, if only contemporary history is properly doable, what more appropriate vehicle than the unmediated mimesis, the time-machine whereby Thucydides transports his own and every succeeding generation into a contemporary world? Here is an excellent practical answer to historicism’s central dilemma (even though it was abused by the ‘tragic’ historians). Thirdly, the unmediated mimesis raises the external audience’s, or reader’s, role.70 The roles of reader and historian are both separate and complementary; truth is ‘clear truth’, what has been ‘seen’ by the historian or eye-witnesses (1.1.3, 22.2–3) and rigorously sifted. The historian also ‘looks’ (1.1.3, 22.2–3), and then constructs his mimesis, at which the reader ‘looks’. ‘Seeing’ is prior, ‘looking’ involves contemplation and understanding. The correct response by the reader is suggested by Thucydides’ description of his own behaviour at the start of the preface—he ‘sees’ and works from ‘indications’ (1.1.1)—and by various ‘internal readers’, e.g., at 7.42.3: Demosthenes, seeing how things were and considering that it was impossible to delay and suffer what Nicias had suffered (—for Nicias, an object of fear when he first arrived, when he did not immediately attack Syracuse but wintered in Catana, was despised and Gylippus anticipated him by arriving from the Peloponnese with an army, which the Syracusans would not have sent for if Nicias had attacked immediately. For thinking that they were sufficient of themselves they would simultaneously ⟦214⟧ have realised that they were weaker and been walled in, so that, even if they had sent for it, it would no longer have helped them to the same degree)—Demosthenes, then, examining these things thoroughly, and realising that he himself also was most formidable to their opponents on the first day above all … Demosthenes begins by seeing in a quasi-literal sense (ἰδών), then moves to ‘considering’, then to ‘insight’ (ἀνασκοπών), and the bracketed narrative summary (of events from 6.50ff.) is simultaneously ‘objective’ and focalised by Demosthenes. His analysis’ ‘authority’ derives from his being (one) ‘author’ of the summary.71 69 70

For qualification of the much-invoked Aristotelian parallel see p. 429 below. Fourthly, presumably, the so-called mise en abyme problematises seeing, reading, interpretation, text, etc. (Walker [1993] 361–3), but that is later in the process. 71 Contra, Hornblower (1994) 134–5, with bibliography. Dover’s argument, ambiguously endorsed by Hornblower, that the nominatives and finite tenses of the summary exclude Demosthenes from being the one (more precisely, one of the two) ‘who sees’ is

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A key question now arises: how is the History ‘useful’ for the reader (22.4)? There are two views: (1) it promotes purely theoretical understanding of political affairs;72 (2) it promotes such understanding as a pre-requisite of competent participation in politics (so already Polybius, Livy, and Lucian).73 We need first to understand the business of understanding. Readers ‘look at the clearness both of the things that have happened and of those which are going to happen’. Subject to broad historical fact, speakers within the text say ‘the necessary things’ about the relations between past, present, and future, between present and more remote circumstances, between particulars and universals. The time frames of the narrative evoke future contexts. Foresight, commended within the text, is promoted by its very organisation. Thucydides’ concern with universals and particulars is a scholarly commonplace, but is Thucydides’ concern with deriving universals from particulars or is it, rather, with the interaction, or dialectic, between the two? The latter emphasis is preferable. If particular truths are in themselves trivial and uninformative (Poetics 9), universal truths are little better. It is the dialectic between the two and between all the gradations in ⟦215⟧ between which matters. So 1.22 implies, and the interpretation is confirmed by the most perspicuous and successful of all the ‘internal readers’ (1.138.3): Themistocles most clearly revealed the strength of natural ability and was particularly worthy to be admired in this respect, more than any other man: for by his native intelligence and neither having learned anything in advance towards it nor having learned afterwards [sc. neither like Prometheus nor like Epimetheus], he was both the best knower of things present by means of the least deliberation, and the best conjecturer of the things that were going to happen, to the greatest extent of what would be; and the things which he took in hand he was able to expound and the things of which he had no experience he did not fall short of judging appositely;74 and the better or worse course in what was yet obscure he theoretically inconclusive: examples in classical literature of ‘deviant focalisation’ (where things said by the narrator contain focalisation by figures in the text (Fowler [1990]), are legion. 72 E.g., Gomme (1945) 149–50 (slightly ambiguous); Stahl (1966) 15–19 {= (2003) 15–18}; Macleod (1978) 77–8 = (1983c) 101–2, 146–7. 73 Ste. Croix (1972) 29–33; Hornblower (1994b) 133–4; (1991) 61 (formulations muddied by the introduction of the question of ‘morality’, which is important but (here) subsidiary); Pol. 3.31.12; Liv. praef. 10 with Moles (1993a) 154 {above, p. 209}; Lucian, Hist. Conscr. 42. Rutherford (1994) sidesteps the question. 74 ‘Fall short of’ and ‘appositely’ essay the Greek’s spatial imagery.

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foresaw the most. To sum up, by power of natural ability and by brevity of study this was the best man at improvising what was necessary. The conceptual frame echoes 1.22: past, present, future, immediate things, action/speech; there are verbal echoes: τῶν μελλόντων ~ τῶν μελλόντων, τοῦ γενησημένου ~ τῶν γενομένων, κρῖναι ~ κρίνειν, τὰ δέοντα ~ τὰ δέοντα. Themistocles’ special skill (αὐτοσχεδιάζειν τὰ δέοντα) mediates everything: all the different types of time, action, and speech. He instantiates the full programme of 1.22: understanding, judgement, forethought, excellence in both speech and action, the ability to bring different time scales and contexts into the right perspective and thus at any given moment to speak and implement the necessary things, his achievement the more remarkable because he ‘studied’ little (Oxford μελέτη would not have benefited him).75 Many scholars interpret the medical analogy negatively: Thucydides diagnoses the problems but offers no cure. Of course brute ‘human nature’ is ‘incurable’ (3.82.2). But the prescription of rational thought and behaviour in politics and warfare as represented by Themistocles, Pericles, Hermocrates, Demosthenes ⟦216⟧ (partially), and so on is a cure; the ideal is itself a constant, universally applicable, but in any given situation entailing a complex balancing-act between varying temporal and spatial perspectives. Yet the context of individual politicians, even brilliant ones like Themistocles who instantiate the political ideal, is necessarily limited by their particular time and circumstances; hence the text must give the reader a representative collection of case-studies, to illustrate the full range of the mix of temporal and spatial perspectives which may confront individual politicians at particular moments. The reader: any reader at any time. For if political competence resides in juggling γενόμενα and μέλλοντα to decide what to do now, the γενόμενα of the Peloponnesian War and their interaction with universals have timeless illustrative value. Again Thucydides seems at once to recognise the key historicist dilemma and at least partially to resolve it. Such complex interaction does not diminish the war’s distinctive greatness: understanding and judgement require discrimination about the relative greatness and significance of things. The haphazard subjectivity of 21.2 (‘people always judge the present war to be the greatest’) must yield to the informed judgement of 22.4 and 138.2. 75 Pace Macleod (1983b) 146; Rutherford (1994) 63; Hornblower (1991) 223 describes the portrait as sophistic; but its dismissal of Promethean sophistic cleverness and of the influence of Mnesiphilus, ‘a kind of proto-sophist’ (Ste. Croix [1972] 177), and its concession that μελέτη is not absolutely indispensable make it anti-sophistic—appropriately (n. 37); on the metaliterary implications of Themistocles’ lack of education see pp. 431–2.

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This analysis already makes purely theoretical understanding an implausible goal. What would be the point of Thucydides’ insistence that ideal politicians such as Themistocles and Pericles possessed not only understanding and forethought but the ability to express them persuasively and to enact them? Competent internal readers are particularly eloquent cases: they not only see and interpret, they act, rightly. Similarly Thucydides himself: he sees, makes inferences, acts (in writing his History), and indeed in participating in it (in 1.22 and elsewhere πάρειμι can cover not only witnessing but participation and experience).76 Relevant also is Thucydides’ stress on his position vis-à-vis the plague—both ‘participant’ and ‘eye-witness’ (n. 12)—and on his own CV in 5.26.4–5,77 where he almost becomes his own ‘internal reader’. Similarly the device of the unmediated mimesis, ancient theory of which makes readers not merely on-lookers but imaginative participants.78 And whatever theory of tragedy one adopts, it will surely be one implication that contemplation, even in a sense, experience, ⟦217⟧ of suffering, teaches the audience endurance of the sufferings of life.79 The effects on the reader of ch. 23 and 7.71 (the famous depiction of the emotional reactions of the non-combatants on both sides to the decisive sea battle) cannot be confined to intellectual understanding. Here too the History straddles both its own and any other time. Thucydides, then, wrote his History primarily to teach his readers how to become competent politicians. To the question: ‘why doesn’t he say so?’ (with the usual deadening implication that because he doesn’t, he can’t mean it), Fats Waller gave one good answer. Asked by an earnest woman musicologist: ‘What is this thing called swing, Mr Waller?’, he riddlingly replied: ‘Lady, if you gotta ask, you ain’t got it’ (‘gotta’/‘got’, ‘got’ = ‘need’, ‘possess’, ‘understand’). Even to ask certain questions is stupid: the artistic representation itself questions the reader’s response. So Thucydides leaves a gap for readers to fill. He gives some help, by emphasising the supreme importance of the Peloponnesian War and by stressing its unprecedented ‘disasters’, thereby reinforcing their ‘wish’ to ‘look’ and providing an ‘enticement’ that parallels, but in its moral and intellectual seriousness far surpasses, the ‘enticements’ of the logographers (1.21.1); but readers have to work out for themselves what it is all for. By bridging this gap within the text, readers are set on the process of bridging the gap between the ‘act’ of reading and political action outside the text. The same point is implicit in the 76 77 78 79

As, e.g., 1.29.1. Marincola (1997) 133–4. Demetr. Eloc. 216; Liv. 10.31.15; Sen. De ira 2.2.3–6; Plut. Art. 8.1. Macleod (1983a) 11–12; Gribble (1998) 51.

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piquant irony that Themistocles, most perspicuous of Thucydides’ internal readers and the embodiment of the full programme of 1.22, achieves this status ‘by his native intelligence  …, by power of natural ability, and by brevity of study’ (= without reading Thucydides). The usefulness of even a text such as Thucydides’ varies from individual to individual, according both to innate ability and political position.80 But there is another good answer. In the Mytilene Debate Cleon is made to attack specious oratory (3.38.3–7): as a result of such oratorical competitions the city gives the prizes to others but herself assumes the dangers. You are the cause, running the competition badly, you who customarily become spectators of speeches and hearers of deeds, looking on the possibility of the deeds that are going ⟦218⟧ to happen from the point of view of those who speak well, and the things that have already been done, not taking the deed seen with your eyes as more trustworthy than the one which you have heard of, from the point of view of those who are clever verbal critics … Simply put, you are overcome by the pleasure of listening and resemble seated spectators of the sophists rather than decision-makers for the city. However misguided his present policy, however unattractive an internal reader, ‘Cleon’ warns against misreading, against ‘mis-seeing’, the History: it is not a sophistic ‘competition piece’, a source of ‘mere pleasure’, ‘looking’ requires active discrimination, not passive acceptance of other people’s focalisations, readers have to think about the relations between past and future, to act, not just sit back. 3 Conclusion Many-headed historicism provides useful practical approaches to traditional Thucydidean interpretative problems. But more significantly, the supreme ambition of Thucydides’ project entails multiple engagement with historicism’s fundamental concerns. As ‘a possession set down for always’, whose utility consists in promoting understanding of, and competent participation in, political processes, Thucydides’ History must:

80 Cf. 2.40.2 (Pericles, with Rusten [1989] 154); 6.39.1 (Aristagoras); 3.38.3–7 (text); Gomme (1945) 443.

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(a) persuade his contemporaries of the pre-eminence both of the theme (the war’s supreme greatness) and of Thucydides’ treatment of this kind of material; hence the sustained intertextual relationships with Homer and Herodotus and the agonistic attacks on various groups and individuals, the aim of which is to establish Thucydides’ superiority both to compar­ able authors/texts of the past and to various contemporary rivals. This superiority partly derives from the superior intensity of engagement permitted by a reading text. From this perspective, Thucydides History is ‘of its time’, and his multiple literary allusions do not so much align historiography with other genres as appropriate those genres, thereby establishing his own ‘authority’;81 (b) persuade all readers of the war’s greatness (for contemporary readers, supreme greatness; for later readers, supreme greatness up to Thucydides’ own time), since, for various obvious reasons, ⟦219⟧ ‘great things’ promote greater understanding of ‘the human thing’;82 (c) provide both contemporary and later readers with a scrupulously accurate account of the ‘things that happened’ in the Peloponnesian War as the solid historical case-work base of the dialectic across the full range of spatial and temporal perspectives, that base constituting not ‘history as text’ in the sense of ‘merely text’ but ‘history as text’ in the sense that Thucydides has textualised the war in such a way as to incorporate rigorous historical method and suggest comprehensive treatment (the war ‘becomes’ the text), thereby allowing readers to concentrate undistractedly on the business of understanding; (d) create various mechanisms (especially the speeches) to engage the case-work base in those wider dialectics, which extend throughout space and throughout time; (e) put readers (all readers) inside the text, so that that text is always in a sense contemporary and they see and experience the problems, as they unfold, for themselves; (f) in contrast to (a), harness the language and techniques of epic, tragedy, and formal rhetoric for various purposes: generalisation of material; readers’ emotional arousal and imaginative participation; linguistic and literary diversity mimetic of a many-faceted war; (g) create a gap between the text, its own context, and all possible contexts, so that the wider dialectic will include dialectic precisely between text and context(s). 81 Cf. Marincola (1997) 226–7. 82 Moles (1993c) 109 {above, p. 176}.

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Whatever its practical deficiencies, therefore, Thucydides’ History is brilliantly conceived as a text for any context,83 or, as another contributor to this collection might say: a productively proleptic ecphrasis within the text or texts of life.84 Bibliography Aron, R. (1938) Introduction à la philosophie de l’histoire: essais sur les limites de l’objectivité historique3 (Paris). Badian, E. (1993) From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentecontaetia (Baltimore and London). Cameron, A., ed. (1989) History as Text: the Writing of Ancient History (London and Chapel Hill). Cannon, J. (1988) ‘Historicism’, in id., ed., The Blackwell Dictionary of Historians (Oxford) 192–4. Cawkwell, G. L. (1997) Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (London and New York). Cochrane, C. N. (1929) Thucydides and the Science of History (London). Davidson, J. (1991) ‘The Gaze in Polybius’ Histories’, JRS 81: 10–24. Derow, P. S. (1994) ‘Historical Explanation: Polybius and his Predecessors’, in Hornblower (1994c) 73–90; repr. in P. S. Derow, Rome, Polybius, and the East, edd. A. Erskine and J. C. Quinn (Oxford, 2015) 107–24. Dover, K. J. (1973) Thucydides (Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics, no. 7; Oxford). Dover, K. J. (1988) ‘Thucydides on Oracles’, in id., The Greeks and their Legacy: Collected Papers Volume II (Oxford) 65–73; orig. pub. ‘Tucidide e gli oracoli’, in Miscellanea di Studi di Filologia Classica in Onore di Giusto Monaco (Palermo, 1987) 303–11. Evans, R. J. (1997) In Defence of History (London; New York, 1999). Flory, S. (1990) ‘The Meaning of τὸ μὴ μυθῶδες (1.22.4) and the Usefulness of Thucydides’ History’, CJ 85: 193–208. Fowler, D. P. (1990) ‘Deviant Focalisation in Virgil’s Aeneid’, PCPhS n.s. 36: 42–63; repr. in Fowler (2000) 40–63. Fowler, D. P. (2000) Roman Constructions: Readings in Postmodern Latin (Oxford). Fowler, D. P. and P. G. Fowler (1996) ‘Literary Theory and Classical Studies’, OCD3: 871–5. 83 84

Of course, if the History is so conceived (both by Thucydides and his readers), some of the usual criticisms of Thucydides will necessarily be misconceived. One might add that Thucydides’ many-layered conception provides (never more relevantly than at a time of IT and Internet revolution) a powerful defence of ‘the book’ as supreme vehicle for the exploration of the human condition.

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Gill, C. and T. P. Wiseman, edd. (1993) Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter and Austin). Gomme, A. W. (1945) A Historical Commentary on Thucydides I: Book I (Oxford). Gomme, A. W. (1954) The Greek Attitude to Poetry and History (Berkeley and Los Angeles). Greenblatt, S. (1980) Renaissance Self-Fashioning: from More to Shakespeare (Chicago and London). Greenblatt, S. (1988) Shakespearean Negotiations: the Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England (Berkeley and Los Angeles). Gribble, D. (1998) ‘Narrator Interventions in Thucydides’ JHS 118: 41–67. Hamilton, P. (1996) Historicism (London; 22003). Havelock, E. (1964) Preface to Plato (New Haven). Hawthorn, J. (1996) Cunning Passages: New Historicism, Cultural Materialism and Marxism in the Contemporary Literary Debate (London and New York). Heath, M. (1986) ‘Thucydides 1.23.5–6’, LCM 11: 104–5. Heubeck, A. (1980) ‘Πρόφασις und kein Ende (zu Thuk. I 23)’, Glotta 58: 222–36. Hornblower, S. (1991) A Commentary on Thucydides I (Oxford). Hornblower, S. (1992) ‘The Religious Dimension of the Peloponnesian War, or What Thucydides does not Tell Us’, HSCPh 94: 169–97; repr. in id. (2011) 25–53. Hornblower, S. (1994) ‘Narratology and Narrative Techniques in Thucydides’, in id., ed., Greek Historiography (Oxford) 131–66; repr. in id. (2011) 59–99. Hornblower, S. (1994b) Thucydides² (London). Hornblower, S. (1996) A Commentary on Thucydides: Volume II: Books IV–V.24 (Oxford). Hornblower, S. (2011) Thucydidean Themes (Oxford). Hunter, V. (1982) Past and Process in Herodotus and Thucydides (Princeton). Iggers, G. G. (1973) ‘Historicism’, in P. P. Wiener, ed. Dictionary of the History of Ideas, 6 vols. (New York) II.456–64. Jenkins, K. (1995) On ‘What is History?’ (London and New York). Kraus, C. S., ed. (1994) Livy: Ab Urbe Condita Book VI (Cambridge). Le Goff, J. (1992) History and Memory (New York); trans. by S. Rendall and E. Claman of Storia e memoria (Turin, 1982). Lee, D. E. and R. N. Beck (1954) ‘The Meaning of “Historicism”’, AHR 59: 568–77. Leigh, M. (1997) Lucan: Spectacle and Engagement (Oxford). Lesky, A. (1966) A History of Greek Literature (London and New York); trans. by J. Willis and C. de Heer of Geschichte der griechischen Literatur2 (Bern, 1963). Lloyd, G. E. R. (1979) Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origin and Develop­ ment of Greek Science (Cambridge). Lloyd, G. E. R. (1987) The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Science (Berkeley and Los Angeles).

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Loraux, N. (1986) ‘Thucydide et la sédition dans les mots’, QS 23: 95–134; Eng. trans. in J. Rusten, ed., Thucydides (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies; Oxford, 2009) 261–92. Macleod, C. W. (1978) ‘Reason and Necessity: Thucydides III 9–14, 37–48’, JHS 98: 64–78; repr. in (1983c) 88–102. Macleod, C. W. (1983a) ‘Homer on Poetry and the Poetry of Homer’, in Macleod (1983c) 1–15. Macleod, C. W. (1983b) ‘Thucydides and Tragedy’, in Macleod (1983c) 140–58. Macleod, C. W. (1983c) Collected Papers (Oxford). Marinatos, N. (1981) Thucydides and Religion (Königstein). Marincola, J. (1997) Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge). Martin, R. H. and A. J. Woodman, edd. (1989) Tacitus: Annals IV (Cambridge). Martindale, C. (1993) Redeeming the Text: Latin Poetry and the Hermeneutics of Reception (Cambridge). McCanles, M. (1993) ‘Historicism’, in A. Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan, edd., The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton) 529–33. Meinecke, F. (1972) Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook (London); trans. by J. E. Anderson of Die Entstehung des Historismus (Munich and Berlin, 1936). Moles, J. L. (1993a) ‘Livy’s Preface’, PCPhS 39: 141–68; repr. in J. Chaplin and C. S. Kraus, edd., Livy (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies; Oxford, 2009) 49–86 [above, Ch. 50]. Moles, J. L. (1993b) ‘Thucydides’, JACT Review 10: 14–18. Moles, J. L. (1993c) ‘Truth and Untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’, in Gill and Wiseman (1993) 88–121 [above, Ch. 49]. Moles, J. L. (1995) ‘Review of Badian (1993)’, JHS 115: 213–15. Moles, J. L. (1999) ‘ΑΝΑΘΗΜΑ ΚΑΙ ΚΤΗΜΑ: the Inscriptional Inheritance of Ancient Historiography’, Histos 3: 27–69 [above, Ch. 54]. Moles, J. L. (2010) ‘Narrative and Speech Problems in Thucydides’ History Book I’, in C. S. Kraus, J. Marincola, and C. Pelling, edd., Ancient Historiography and its Contexts: Studies … A. J. Woodman (Oxford) 15–39 [below, Ch. 58]. Momigliano, A. D. (1974) ‘Historicism Revisited’, Med. Kon. Ned. Akad. Wetensch. Afd. Letterkunde, 37.3: 63–70; repr. in id., Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Oxford, 1977) 365–73; and in id., Sesto contributo alla storia degli studi classici e del mondo antico, 2 vols. (Rome, 1980) I.23–32. Morgan, J. (1993) ‘Make-Believe and Make Believe: the Fictionality of the Greek Novels’, in Gill and Wiseman (1993) 175–229. Morgan, T. E. (1994) ‘Plague or Poetry? Thucydides on the Epidemic at Athens’, TAPhA 124: 197–209. Oost, S. I. (1975) ‘Thucydides and the Irrational: Sundry Passages’, CPh 70: 186–96. Parry, A. M. (1957) Logos and Ergon in Thucydides (diss. Harvard; repr. New York, 1981).

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Pearson, L. (1952) ‘Prophasis and Aitia’, TAPhA 83: 205–23; repr. in id. (1983) 91–109. Pearson, L. (1972) ‘Prophasis: A Clarification’, TAPhA 103: 381–94; repr. in id. (1983) 120–33. Pearson, L. (1983) Selected Papers, edd. D. Lateiner and S. A. Stephens (Atlanta). Perkins, D. (1992) Is Literary History Possible? (Baltimore and London). Popper, K. (1957) The Poverty of Historicism (London). Rawlings, H. R. III (1975) A Semantic Study of Prophasis to 400 BC (Wiesbaden). Rawlings, H. R. III (1981) The Structure of Thucydides’ History (Princeton). Rhodes, P. J. (1987) ‘Thucydides on the Causes of the Peloponnesian War’, Hermes 115: 154–65. Rhodes, P. J., ed. (1988) Thucydides: History II (Warminster). Richardson, J. S. (1990) ‘Thucydides 1.23.6 and the Debate about the Peloponnesian War’, in E. M. Craik, ed., ‘Owls to Athens’: Essays in Classical Studies Presented to Sir Kenneth Dover (Oxford) 155–61. de Romilly, J. (1963) Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism (Oxford); trans. by P. Thody of Thucydide et l’impérialism athénienne: la pensée de l’historien et la genèse de l’œuvre (Paris, 1947). de Romilly, J. (1990) La construction de la vérité chez Thucydide (Paris). Rood, T. C. B. (1998) Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation (Oxford). Rusten, J. S., ed. (1989) Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War Book II (Cambridge). Rutherford, R. B. (1994) ‘Learning from History: Categories and Case-Histories’, in R. G. Osborne and S. Hornblower, edd. Ritual, Finance, Politics: Athenian Democratic Accounts Presented to David Lewis (Oxford) 53–68. Ryan, K., ed. (1996) New Historicism and Cultural Materialism: a Reader (London and New York). de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. (1972) The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London and Ithaca). Shrimpton, G. S. (1997) History and Memory in Ancient Greece (Montreal and London). Stahl, H.-P. (1966), Thukydides: Die Stellung des Menschen im geschichtlichen Prozess (Munich). Stahl, H.-P. (2003) Thucydides: Man’s Place in History (London and Swansea). Stephenson, F. R. (1999) ‘Records of Eclipses in Greek and Roman Historians and other Classical Authors’ (forthcoming) {article never published; cf. Historical Eclipses and Earth’s Rotation (Cambridge, 1997) 334ff.}. Swain, S. (1993) ‘Thucydides 1.22.1 and 3.82.4’, Mnemosyne 46: 33–45. Swain, S. (1994) ‘Man and Medicine in Thucydides’, Arethusa 27: 303–27. Thomas, B. (1991) The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics (Princeton and Oxford). Thomas, R. (1989) Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge). Thomas, R. (1997) ‘Ethnography, Proof and Argument in Herodotus’ Histories’, PCPhS 43: 128–48.

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Veeser, H. A., ed. (1989) The New Historicism (London). Walker, A. D. (1993) ‘Enargeia and the Spectator in Greek Historiography’, TAPhA 123: 353–77. Weidauer, K. (1954) Thukydides und die hippokratischen Schriften (Heidelberg). Wilson, J. (1982) ‘The Customary Meanings of Words Were Changed—Or Were They? A Note on Thucydides 3.82.4’, CQ 32: 18–20. Wiseman, T. P. (1997) ‘Thucydides on Logographoi: A Modern Parallel?’, Histos 1: 82–4. Woodman, A. J. (1988a) ‘Contemporary History in the Classical World’, in A. Seldon, ed., Contemporary History (Oxford) 149–64. Woodman, A. J. (1988b) Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Portland, and Sydney). Worthington, I. (1982) ‘A Note on Thucydides 3.82.4’, LCM 7: 124.

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Herodotus and Athens Most older scholarship considered Herodotus an admirer both of Persian-war and contemporary Athens.1 This view2 had diverse props: Herodotus’ presence in Athens in the 440s and perhaps later; an ancient tradition that he was a supporter, even flatterer, of Athens, which allegedly paid him; his knowledge of the city, its history (hypothetically largely Alcmaeonid-derived and Alcmaeonid and ‘Periclean’ in sympathy), and its political terminology and gossip; his supposed membership of ‘Pericles’ intellectual circle’; Pericles’ alleged Panhellenic appeal; and Herodotus’ praises of Athens.3 Strasburger and others4 attacked some of these props, whose quality certainly varies. But the question involves all the problems of interpreting Herodotus. Modern critics seek to interpret texts rather than uncover their writers’ beliefs. Notwithstanding theories of ‘constructed’ or ‘implied’ authors, Herodotus problematises the distinction. His is the ‘voice’ of the text:5 he repeatedly obtrudes his own person.6 The uncertainties of Herodotus’ work multiply the problems. His final production was ⟦34⟧ a unified text,7 designed primarily for reading.8 But, as with Thucydides, the Kompositions-Frage9 dis-

1 Basic studies: Jacoby (1913) 226–42; Wells (1923) 151–61; Kleinknecht (1940); Strasburger (1955); Harvey (1966); Legrand (1966) 104–13; Fornara (1971b) 37–58, 75–91; Gillis (1979) 1–13, 45–58; Hart (1982) 168–74; Evans (1979b); (1991) 92–4; Forrest (1984); Raaflaub (1987); Ostwald (1991); Stadter (1992); Derow (1995); Moles (1996); Romm (1998) 52–5, 185–90. 2 Meyer (1899) 198; Jacoby (1913) 240, 357–60; Schmid–Stählin (1934) 580; Pohlenz (1937) 185; Powell (1939) 81, 88; Myres (1953) 12; Ehrenberg (1954) 137; dissentient older scholarship: How–Wells (1928) I.7–8, 447–8; Focke (1927) 27–8. 3 Jacoby (1913) 226–42; How–Wells (1928) I.6–7, 41–3; Myres (1953) 10–13; Legrand (1966) 29–37; Evans (1979b); Gould (1989) 14–18; Podlecki (1977)—Herodotus never in Athens—is untenable. 4 Strasburger (1955); Fornara (1971b) 37–58; Forrest (1984); Raaflaub (1987); Thomas (1989); Ostwald (1991); Stadter (1992); Derow (1995); Moles (1996); contra, Harvey (1966); Evans (1979b). 5 Svenbro (1993) 150; Moles (1999). 6 Marincola (1987) 122 n. 5, 137; Dewald (1987); (2002). 7 How–Wells (1928) I.15–16; Focke (1927); Regenbogen (1930); Bornitz (1968); Cobet (1971); Lateiner (1989) 4–5; cf. also n. 9 and de Jong (2002). 8 Flory (1980); Moles (1999); Rösler (2002). 9 Jacoby (1913); How–Wells (1928) I.9–15, 447–8; von Fritz (1936); Pohlenz (1937); Powell (1939); Myres (1953) 20–31; Lattimore (1958); Fornara (1971b) 1–23; 75–91; Marincola (1999).

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turbs. Herodotus gave oral performances and readings in different places;10 his sources were predominantly oral. How organic is this text? How ‘oral’ in outlook and style is his writing?11 How independent is he? Does he ever fabricate? Most crucially, does Herodotus’ narrative reflect implicitly on political developments from 479/8 to contemporary times?12 The text’s dating is itself controversial;13 some datings invoke alleged contemporary allusion. Such allusion is not theoretically excluded: commemoration can allow contemporary application.14 Explicit allusions to events from 478 to the early 420s15 indicate no ‘generic’ ban on post-478 events. Positive arguments or criteria canvassed include:16 the influence of contemporary events on Herodotus’ becoming a ‘historian’; his conception of the Persian Wars to the present as a continuous period;17 need to appeal to contemporaries; devices that put audience/readership ‘within the text’18 (text as journey; metaliterary elements; ‘tragic’ narratives; ‘internal audiences’); recurrent patterns that logically should include contemporary audience(s)/readers; the sense that the text ⟦35⟧ variously anticipates the future; contemporary political vocabulary, slogans, debates, and national stereotypes; parallels and contrasts with contemporary events; temporal and spatial narrative dislocations; validation of implicit allusion by culminating explicit allusion; cumulative force of all these criteria. But implicit allusion requires both demonstration (through such criteria’s practical implementation) and explanation of function. This survey considers sections individually before comparing others, and, where isolated contemporary allusions are merely possible, it uses the verb ‘might’ (admitting ‘might not’); but it also takes the sections sequentially, to 10 How–Wells (1928) I.6; Thuc. 1.22.4; Moles (1999); and Bakker (2002). 11 For this question, see Bakker (2002). 12 Meyer (1899) 196–8; Fornara (1971b) 40–7, 60–74, 79–91; (1981) 152–3, 6; Redfield (1985) 115; Konstan (1987) 72; Lateiner (1987) 100; (1989) 47–8; Stadter (1992); Moles (1996); contra, de Ste. Croix (1973); Gould (1989) 116–20; Pritchett (1993) 328–53; van der Veen (1996) 71 n. 180, 91, 105 n. 266. 13 Jacoby (1913) 229–32; How–Wells (1928) I.9, 448; Legrand (1966) 18–23; Fornara (1971b) 43 n. 13; (1971a); (1981); Cobet (1977); Smart (1977) 251–2; Evans (1979a), (1981), (1982), (1987), and (1991) 89–90; Flory (1980) 23–6; MacDowell (1983) 151; Sansone (1985); Raaflaub (1987) 236 n. 40; Gould (1989) 18; Moles (1996) 280 {above, p. 248} n. 9; Pelling (2000) 154–5; both c.426 and c.415 have arguments (post-404 [Smart] is untenable). 14 Stadter (1992) 782 n. 2; Moles (1996) 277 {above, p. 266}; pace Gould (1989) 116–20. 15 Schmid–Stählin (1934) 590 n. 9; Fornara (1971b) 32–4; (1981) 149–51. 16 Raaflaub (1987); Stadter (1992); Moles (1996). 17 6.98.1–3; Pohlenz (1937) 175–6; Fornara (1971b) 82 n. 10; Stadter (1992) 788–91; Moles (1996) 276 {above, p. 265}. 18 Lateiner (1989) 30–3.

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allow the possibilities of organic interaction, consistent contemporary implication, and coherent interpretation. 1

Croesus and Solon (1.5–33)19

In response to the prefatory question, ‘for what cause (αἰτίη) Greeks and barbarians went to war against each other’, Herodotus ‘signals’ ‘the man whom I myself know to have “first-begun” (ὑπάρξαντα) unjust deeds towards the Greeks’: causality involves moral judgements. Then, ‘I shall advance forwards in the account, going through small and great cities of men alike. For those that were anciently great, the majority of them have become small, and those that were20 great in my time, were previously small’ (1.5.3–4); this timeless concern with political rise and fall encourages perception of historical parallels, as well as suggesting a Panhellenic readership.21 The man ‘signalled’ is Croesus, Lydian by race, son of Alyattes, turannos of the tribes this side of the Halys, … the first of the barbarians whom we know to have subjugated some of the Greeks to payment of tribute but to have befriended others. He subjugated the Ionians and Aeolians and the Dorians in Asia but befriended the Spartans; for before Croesus’ ‘first-rule’ (ἀρχῆς), all the Greeks were free (1.6). The struggle between freedom and tyranny/slavery is foregrounded, the former (seemingly) quintessentially Greek, the latter barbarian; ⟦36⟧ and ἀρχή seems intrinsically unjust, cf. the interaction between ὑπάρξαντα and ἀρχῆς.22 Does this paradigm evoke the tribute-defined descendant of Croesus’ empire, the contemporary ‘tyrant city’, Athens?23 Herodotus’ description of Alyattes’ annual operations against Miletus (1.17.1–3), a sea power invulnerable to siege, might recall Spartan invasions of Attica.24 The summary of the peoples ‘subjugated’ by Croesus (1.28.3) includes ‘the Lydians’: Croesus’ tyranny is also ‘internal’. Now, ‘there arrive in Sardis, at the peak of her wealth, all the 19 Stadter (1992) 795–8; Moles (1996); Pelling (1997). 20 Temporally crucial: Moles (1996) 278–9 {above, pp. 267–8} and Slings (2002). 21 Cf., e.g., 4.99; 7.139; Momigliano (1978) 60–1; Flory (1980); Raaflaub (1987) 235; Stadter (1992) 783 and n. 6. 22 For the play, cf. 8.142.2; Raaflaub (1987) 241–2. 23 3.89–97; 6.42; Thuc. 1.121.5, 122.2, 124.3; 2.8, 71.3; 3.63.3; Redfield (1985) 115; Raaflaub (1987) 224; Stadter (1992); Derow (1995) 45–6. 24 Herodotus and the Archidamian War: Fornara (1971b) 75–91; (1981).

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sophistai there happened to be at this time … and above all Solon, an Athenian’ (1.29). This setting involves both spatial and temporal dislocations. Corrupt Greek ‘sophists’ flock east, to the capital that subjugates Greeks. Their numbers are vastly exaggerated. They are ambiguously associated with the incorruptible Solon, who represents (among much else) Herodotus himself, Odyssean wanderer, sightseer, visitor to Egypt, and Solonian moralist. This anachronistic encounter is fabricated after Odysseus and the Phaeacians25 and dramatises the arrival of Herodotus and numerous sophists in Athens, self-proclaimed imperial and cultural capital of Greece. Since Solon’s teaching is universal and its conclusion, ‘you must look to the end of everything, to see how it will turn out’ (1.32.9), is echoed by Herodotus (1.33), Athens comes within the frame. But more: Solon is Athenian; likewise ‘the most blessed of humans’, Tellos; ‘Croesus’ is an Athenian (Alcmaeonid) name; Solon’s/Herodotus’ denial of the possibility of total self-sufficiency, whether of individual or land (1.32.8), rebuts Athenian claims (made, e.g., in the Epitaphios, including Pericles’).26 Croesus himself, arch-imperialist, treasurer, possessor of an Alcmaeonid name, king and tyrant, evokes Pericles, ‘monarch’ or ‘tyrant’,27 of Athens. If Solon met Croesus, Herodotus met Pericles and judged him deluded. In this programmatic episode Herodotus warns the Athenians at their peak, his attitude to their empire radically negative.28 ⟦37⟧ 2 Peisistratus’ Tyranny (1.56–64)29 Herodotus’ history of mainland Greece begins by comparing Athens and Sparta. Seeking allies, Croesus ‘inquires’ who are the most powerful Greeks; Croesus’ playing the historian invests his findings with Herodotus’ own ‘author-ity’30 and brings the past closer. Anachronistically, Croesus ‘finds’ the most powerful to be the Lacedaemonians and Athenians (1.56), leaders respectively of the Dorians and Ionians, the former originally Greek and ‘much-wandering’, the latter Pelasgian, indigenous, and non-Greek. Athens, under Peisistratus’ tyranny, is militarily ineffective; Sparta, once worst governed of the Greeks, 25 Od. 7.134–13.87. 26 Name: Moles (1996) 266 {above, p. 255}; self-sufficiency: Thuc. 2.36.3, 41.1; Raaflaub (1987) 236 n. 40; Scanlon (1994) 145–56; Moles (1996) 267–9 {above, pp. 255–8}. 27 ‘Monarch’: Thuc. 2.65.9; ‘tyrant’: Plut. Per. 3.5. 28 For a different view, see van Wees (2002) 342–3 with n. 45. 29 Gray (1997), bettering Lavelle (1993) 87–106; and see Forsdyke (2002). 30 Naturally, Croesus misunderstands his ‘findings’. On Croesus’ ἱστορίη, see also Bakker (2002).

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having obtained Lycurgan eunomia, is militarily strong. This reconstruction contrasts with the Epitaphios tradition (which Herodotus knew),31 whereby the Athenians were always Greek, militarily superior to the Spartans, and victorious over foreigners, having enjoyed democratic government since Theseus (the Peisistratid tyranny being a brief intermission), and must have surprised contemporaries. The Peisistratus narrative utilises standard motifs: triadic patterns (Chilon’s three warnings to Peisistratus’ father; the three rivals, of whom the youngest and seemingly weakest triumphs; Peisistratus’ three coups); the trickster-figure whose deceptions include a beautiful woman; and contests between intelligence and stupidity. Details underscore Herodotus’ typology of tyranny: perversion of nature32 (the ‘rending’ of the body politic, the ‘rooting’ of the tyranny, the omen of Peisistratus’ birth, the woman’s name, Phue [‘growth’],33 Peisistratus’ ‘unlawful’ intercourse); deception; popular gullibility; acquisition of a bodyguard; general military inactivity; co-operation with fellow tyrants. These stock elements do not so much indicate poverty of information about sixth-century Athens (there are some hard facts, while others Herodotus deploys elsewhere) as reinforce the political analysis. Nor does the account, doubtless partly Alcmaeonid derived, evince Alcmaeonid bias: Peisistratus’ tyranny is not represented, apologetically, as irresistible, nor Megacles’ co-operation with Peisistratus’ second coup concealed. The Peisistratus narrative subverts the Athenians’ ⟦38⟧ self-image: Peisistratus’ and Megacles’ trick with Phue was ‘far the most simple-minded ever since the Greeks were judged cleverer than barbarians’, and this ‘against the Athenians … said to be first of the Greeks in cleverness’. Throughout, Athenian credulity and inability to read signs contrast, implicitly, with Spartan cleverness. If the History is post-425 Peisistratus’ purification of Delos (1.64) might evoke the Athenian purification of 426/5, itself modelled on Peisistratus’,34 the culminating contemporary allusion validating general ‘contemporary’ interpretation.35 Certainly, contemporary preconceptions are systematically challenged.

31 32 33 34 35

7.161.3; 9.27. Vernant (1982); Ogden (1997). Name-plays: Harrison (1998) 38 n. 147. Hornblower (1991) 519. Parallels between Peisistratid and Periclean Athens: Plut. Per. 7.1; 16.1.

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The Peisistratids’ Expulsion (5.55–78)36

Herodotus agrees with Thucydides37 that Athens was not liberated by Harmodius and Aristogeiton but by Spartan intervention orchestrated by the Alcmaeonids, who bribed the Pythia to tell the Spartans to liberate Athens. Nevertheless, the liberation is unequivocally good (5.62.1, 66.1) and causes an increase in Athenian greatness (5.66.1, 78.1). Yet Herodotus’ account of Cleisthenes, ‘founder of Athenian democracy’, is unenamoured.38 Reputedly the briber of the Pythia, Cleisthenes essayed reform only because, worsted in ‘dynastic’ struggle, he took the people into his ‘party’. Moreover (5.67.1, 69.1), his reforms imitated his grandfather and namesake, the Sicyonian tyrant. As in the accounts of Peisistratus and Solon and Croesus, Alcmaeonid connections with tyranny are clear. At Isagoras’ appeal, Cleomenes demands the expulsion of ‘the Accursed’, the Alcmaeonids and their allies who sacrilegiously killed Cylon, would-be tyrant before Peisistratus. Contemporaries might recall similar Spartan demands before the Peloponnesian War. After Cleomenes’ repulse, Herodotus enumerates the various Spartan invasions of Attica (5.76); readers might recall contemporary invasions. The continuous Athenian successes inspire Herodotus’ celebration of ‘equality of speech’ (ἰσηγορίη, 5.78): So the Athenians had ⟦39⟧ grown. Equality of speech shows not in one thing only but everywhere that it is a worthwhile thing, if the Athenians too when tyrannised were better in matters of war than none of those who lived around them, but when they were freed of tyrants became far the first. These things show that when repressed they deliberately behaved basely, as working for a master, but when they were freed each himself wished to work for himself.

This passage praises ‘equality’, exemplified by Athens, but does not privilege Athenian democracy among forms of ‘equality’.39 As in the Peisistratus narrative, the links between internal political freedom and external power and between internal tyranny and external weakness are emphasised.

36 37 38 39

Strasburger (1955) 7–15, 18–19; Thomas (1989) 242–51, 261–82; Asheri (1997) 165–6. 1.20.2; 6.53–9. Strasburger (1955) 15; Fornara (1971b) 54–5. Jacoby (1913) 357; How–Wells (1928) II.44; Strasburger (1955) 10; Fornara (1971b) 48–50; Romm (1998) 185–7; cf. 5.97.2 and 3.80; van der Veen (1996) 90ff.

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After discovering Alcmaeonid impiety, the Spartans feel that they have suffered doubly—having exiled their friends without securing Athenian gratitude, and they are disturbed by prophecies of many misfortunes from the Athenians; also, ‘they saw the Athenians growing and not at all ready to obey them, considering that if the Attic race were free it would become of equal weight to their own, but if held down by tyranny weak and ready to obey their rule’ (5.91). The consistent political analysis now includes Spartan–Athenian rivalry. The Spartans decide to reinstate Hippias with allied support. Only So(si)cles of Corinth voices disapproval, in the History’s longest single speech, evidently strategically placed.40 He argues that promotion of tyranny would overturn previous Spartan policy and experience; Corinth had actually experienced tyranny. This account contains standard items of tyrannical typology: political repression, reversal of nature, physical abnormality, and sexual misdemeanour; and an oracular comparison of Cypselus to a ravening lion. The otherwise unrecorded So(si)cles ‘saves’ the ‘good fame’ both of himself and Sparta, upholding ‘equality of speech’ and ‘equal governments’ against tyranny. Then Hippias, understanding the prophecies best, swears that one day the Corinthians above all will long for the Peisistratids. But the allies agree with So(si)cles, and deter Sparta from further intervention (5.92–3). The prophecies anticipate future events. Uncomfortable ironies accrue: had the Spartans been allowed to reinstate Athenian tyranny, ⟦40⟧ they would have avoided the injustices inflicted on them by a free Athens; by behaving justly, the Corinthians incur, long-term, Athenian injustice. Readers might contrast the Peloponnesian conferences before the Peloponnesian War, when pre-eminently Corinth advocated war against a tyrannical Athens.41 Certainly, Herodotus implies a paradox: a free Athens herself inflicted tyranny upon other Greek states. Further, these anticipations invest So(si)cles’ admonition (5.92α.2 ‘if you had experience of it like us, you would be able to make better decisions about it’) with metaliterary force,42 itself conducive to contemporary allusion.

40 Strasburger (1955) 7–15, 18–19; Stahl (1983); Raaflaub (1987) 223–4; Gray (1997); van der Veen (1996) 68–89; and see Forsdyke (2002). {On So(si)cles’ speech, see below, Ch. 57.} 41 Thuc. 1.68–71, 119–24. 42 Stadter (1992) 782.

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The Alcmaeonids and Pericles (6.121–31)43

Herodotus defends the Alcmaeonids against the accusation of raising a shield to the Persians: the Alcmaeonids were pre-eminent tyrant-haters, in exile throughout the tyranny44 and orchestrators of the Peisistratids’ fall, if it was they who persuaded the Pythia to tell the Spartans to free Athens (thus Herodotus’ previous account). Their high repute rules out their having had a grudge against the people. A shield was raised, but as to who raised it, Herodotus ‘can say nothing further than these things’ (6.121–4). The allusion to the Alcmaeonids’ high repute segues (125.1) into an account of their history which proves their fame. Herodotus’ claim that the Alcmaeonids were always ‘tyrant-haters’ conflicts with his earlier account where Megacles co-operated with Peisistratus for a period (1.60–1). Is this conflict trivial? Is the earlier account forgotten? The claim also conflicts with the Alcmaeonid aspects of Croesus (1.29ff.) and Cleisthenes’ imitation of Cleisthenes of Sicyon (5.67, 69). Are these ‘oral’ inconsistencies? Is Herodotus’ defence just rhetorical? The account of Alcmaeonid history has been variously interpreted, as: ‘diversionary’ after a thin defence;45 favourable ⟦41⟧ to the Alcmaeonids;46 unfavourable;47 the allusion to Pericles, the only explicit48 allusion in Herodotus, as: ad hoc, integral, neutral, honorific, ambiguous, and hostile. The first item, Alcmaeon’s assistance to Croesus’ envoys at Delphi, recalls Alcmaeonid use of Delphi in their campaign to free Athens, but what of their association with Croesus, in the Solon–Croesus narrative ‘tyrant’ and ‘subjugator’ of Greeks? Does the story of Alcmaeon’s exploitation of Croesus’ generosity (whence Alcmaeonid wealth) recall Greek corruption at 1.29? The family was further elevated by ‘the Sicyonian tyrant’. The two most favoured suitors of Cleisthenes’ daughter are Athenians: Megacles, son of Alcmaeon, and Hippoclides, the latter through his ancestral relationship with the Cypselids. Mention of Megacles makes it harder to forget Herodotus’ account of 43 How–Wells (1928) II.115; Strasburger (1955) 15–18; Fornara (1971b) 53–6; Gillis (1979) 1–13, 45–58; Hart (1982) 1–16; Develin (1985); Thomas (1989) 247–51, 261–82; and see Forsdyke (2002). 44 Alcmaeonid pleas: Isocr. 16. 45 Gillis (1979) 51. 46 Jacoby (1913) 238, 612. 47 Strasburger (1955) 17; Thomas (1989) 271. 48 Implicit allusions: e.g., 1.173.5 with Evans (1991) 93–4; 3.82.4 with Raaflaub (1987) 244 n. 58; Hornblower (1991) 346; 7.162.1 with Fornara (1971b) 83–4, pace Gould (1989) 118; also Polycrates: Raaflaub (1987) 244 n. 58.

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Peisistratus. After Hippoclides dances away his chances, Cleisthenes chooses Megacles (6.131.1–2): in this way the Alcmaeonids became talked about throughout Greece. From their marriage was born the Cleisthenes who established the tribes and democracy for the Athenians, having the name of his maternal grandfather the Sicyonian. To Megacles was born also Hippocrates and from Hippocrates another Megacles and another Agariste, having the name of Agariste daughter of Cleisthenes, who married Xanthippus the son of Ariphron and when she was pregnant saw a vision in her sleep: she thought that she had borne a lion. And after a few days she bore Xanthippus Pericles. Alcmaeonid ‘fame’ climaxes in Pericles (‘far-famed’),49 but portents demand interpretation. The account explicitly links the ‘tyrant-hating’ Alcmaeonids with tyrants, which renders implicit links plausible. Even as a royal symbol50 the lion ill befits the Alcmaeonids qua pluralist democrats. But the oracle concerning Cypselus (5.92) also has ‘bear a lion’; in the account’s general intermixing of Alcmaeonids and tyrants ‘Cypselids’ are mentioned; images of unnaturalism suit tyrants; and in political ⟦42⟧ debate in Attic comedy the lion can symbolise the tyrant: as in the Solon–Croesus narrative, Pericles is a tyrant.51 Herodotus’ account conveys the Alcmaeonids’ long co-operation with tyrants, both Greek and barbarian, to present times. This threatens the defence. The Alcmaeonids’ role in Hippias’ deposition is unaffected, but the specific accusation is strengthened. Either defence and account are inconsistent, or the account undermines the defence, which emerges as ironic.52 Since the account is adroitly contextualised and its negative implications reinforced by interaction with earlier sections, aesthetics support the second interpretation. Hence the defence’s closing ambiguity: ‘I cannot say anything further than these things’; though ‘these things’ seemingly looks back, it also signposts the material undermining the defence.53 Herodotus subtly subverts the Alcmaeonids’ anti-tyrant credentials. 49 50 51 52 53

Forrest’s ‘Pericles was not an Alcmaeonid’ ([1984] 4) is technically correct but contextually obtuse. How–Wells (1928) II.119. Strasburger (1955) 17; Thomas (1989) 271. Hart (1982) 12. Δέ so used: Denniston (1954) 170.

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Praises of Athens54

Three strategically placed passages praise Athens: (a) 7.138–9: the Persian campaign was against all Greece. Some Greeks medised, some refused. The Persians had to be opposed at sea. Whichever side Athens joined would have won. Athens saved Greece, because she chose freedom, energised resistance and withstood the invaders, despite frightening Delphic oracles. This judgement is the more emphatic for its acknowledged unpopularity and iconoclasm;55 historically penetrating; and (like the other passages) strongly Panhellenist. Would the contemporary readership contrast the present-day tyrant-city? (b) 8.2–3: the Spartan Eurybiades became overall commander, since the allies refused Athenian leadership. The Athenians conceded, correctly realising that, if they had strife about leadership, Greece would be destroyed; for national strife is worse than concordant war to the same degree as war is worse than peace … and so long as they had strong need of them, they continued to yield. For when ⟦43⟧ having driven away the Persian they were already making the contest about his land, holding out Pausanias’ violence as a pretext, they wrested the leadership from the Spartans. This passage praises Athens’ concession but finishes critically: the Athenians, always after the leadership, act duplicitously; further Spartan–Athenian dissension is foreshadowed.56 (c) When Mardonius offers the Athenians a Persian alliance, Herodotus gives the Athenians two speeches (8.143–4). The first (to Alexander of Macedon) champions liberty and perpetual enmity to the sacrilegious Xerxes. The second (to Spartan ambassadors) is nobler still: of many deterrents to medising and enslaving Greece, the greatest is the destruction of Athens’ temples and statues, but there are also the claims of Greek identity, shared blood, language, temples, sacrifices, and customs. Is this nobility ironised by the contemporary political context: Athens’ subjugation of Greeks, peace with Persia, and her (and Sparta’s) seeking Persian help in the Peloponnesian War? The textual context 54 Kleinknecht (1940); Fornara (1971b) 46–7, 85–6; Hart (1982) 169–72; Demand (1987); Marincola (1996) 591 n. 28, 597 n. 50. 55 See Bakker (2002) 12 on Herodotus’ use of ἀπόδεξις in this connection. 56 Strasburger (1955) 20; Raaflaub (1987) 240; Herodotus doubts Pausanias’ medism: 5.32; cf. also 6.138–40: Derow (1995) 48–9.

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provides support. The Spartan remark—‘you aroused this war, we not at all wishing it, and the contest was over your “first-beginning” (ἀρχῆς)’57 brilliantly evokes the Croesean connection between ‘first-beginning’ and ‘first-rule’; then, when the Athenians, albeit as a diplomatic ploy, threaten to ally with Persia and fight Greeks, their noble sentiments are compromised,58 the inconcinnity reinforcing contemporary thoughts. 6 Themistocles Herodotus’ Themistocles is, uncontroversially, a ‘new man’, highly intelligent and far-sighted, a penetrating military analyst, persuasive, tricky, deceitful, venal, rapacious,59 minatory, and conceited. But the portrayal has been variously adjudged inconsistent (through conflicting sources),60 grudging (because of hostile sources),61 fulfilling contemporary ⟦44⟧ expectations, a ‘literary construct’, unified,62 ambiguous,63 and historically just.64 Three sections are critical. (a) Themistocles enters after Herodotus’ claim that the Athenians saved Greece, when the Athenians are debating the second Delphic oracle (7.143): ‘there was of the Athenians a man newly (νεωστί) advancing into the first men, whose name (μέν) was Themistocles, and/but (δέ) he was called the son of Neocles’. There follow Themistocles’ positive oracular interpretation, his proposal that the Athenians prepare to fight at sea, and an earlier intervention (7.144): another opinion of Themistocles before this prevailed opportunely, when, many monies having accrued to the Athenians in the public treasury, monies which came to them from the mines at Laurion, they were about to share them out amongst themselves at ten drachmas each; on that occasion Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to desist from this division and to make two hundred ships from these monies for the war, adducing the one against the Aeginetans. For the occurrence of this war 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

8.142; the paradosis convinces: Fornara (1971b) 84 n. 14; How–Wells ad loc. are unsubtle. Fornara (1971b) 85–6; van der Veen (1996) 105–8. Barth (1965); Marr (1998) 88. Bruns (1896) 89; Masaracchia (1977) xx. How–Wells (1928) I.42–3; Marr (1998) 4–5. The latter three: Fornara (1971b) 66–74. Strasburger (1955) 21–2; cf. Fornara (1971b) 66; Konstan (1987) 70–2; Romm (1998) 187–9. Hart (1982) 150–2; Evans (1991) 75–80.

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saved Greece on that occasion, compelling the Athenians to become sea people. The ships were made but were not used but in this way accrued to Greece at the necessary moment. These ships, then, having been previously made, were available to the Athenians and it was necessary to make others. They resolved in their debate after the oracle to receive the barbarian oncoming into Greece with their ships in full force, obeying the god, together with those of the Greeks who wished. Themistocles’ ‘new’ prominence allegedly depreciates Themistocles’ earlier career, from his 493 archonship, and his family.65 But why ‘whose name was Themistocles and/but he was called the son of Neocles’? Herodotus, nomen/ omen specialist, plays66 on νεωστί, name, Νεο/κλῆς, Θεμιστο/κλῆς and called (ἐκαλέετο): his arriviste name (‘son of “New-fame”’) is less true of him than ‘Themistocles’, which means ‘famed for his rightness’ or ‘rightly famed/named’. Herodotus ‘redefines’ Themistocles by his intrinsic worth, fulfilling the Preface’s project of ⟦45⟧ heroic naming/faming: κλέα ἀνδρῶν. But a new arrival’s immediately scaling the political heights is additionally praiseworthy: Herodotus also ‘redefines’ ‘New-fame’ as ‘Young-fame’.67 Doubtless, a hostile source provided misleading facts, but Herodotus’ virtuosic punning subverts their implications. Chapter 144 is also held depreciatory, on the ground that Themistocles thinks only of the Aeginetan war, whereas Thucydides has him already foreseeing the Persian threat.68 But Herodotus’ subtle wording allows the latter possibility (Aegina being Themistocles’ public argument) and 144 is wholly laudatory. Qua ideal statesman, Themistocles alone counsels ‘opportunely’. His opinion concerns the Aeginetan war,69 which ‘saved Greece, compelling the Athenians to become sea people’, just as at 139.5 ‘the Athenians were saviours of Greece’; the ships he caused to be built ‘accrued to Greece at the necessary moment’; on Themistocles’ second intervention, in 481, the Athenians accepted his interpretation, and resolved to ‘receive the barbarian oncoming into Greece’, just as at 139.6 ‘they stayed and endured to receive the oncoming invader of the land’. The interaction between Herodotus’ own claim and the narrative creates a causal chain: the Aeginetan war, the building of the navy, the Athenians’ acceptance of Themistocles’ interpretation of the oracle, and their heroic stand, a chain whose single and brilliant artificer is Themistocles. 65 How–Wells (1928) I.42; Hornblower (1991) 139; Marr (1998) 69–71; contra, Davies (1971) 213. 66 Other literary defences: Fornara (1971b) 68; Evans (1987) (parallel with Mardonius: 6.43); (1971) 75; full exposition: Moles, ‘What’s in a Name?’ {never published}. 67 Debate over the meaning of ‘Neocles’: Harvey (1980); Bicknell (1982); Romm (1998) 187. 68 Hornblower (1991) 48, 138–9. 69 Itself, paradoxically, inglorious: van der Veen (1996) 100–2.

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(b) At Salamis, when news of Athens’ sack impels some of the generals to prepare immediate departure and the rest to plan defence of the Isthmus, Mnesiphilus arrives by night, argues the decision’s folly—the Greeks, no longer fighting for one fatherland, will scatter and Greece will be destroyed—and urges Themistocles to get the decision reversed (8.56–7). Is this fictitious intervention to Themistocles’ discredit or does it create dramatic emphasis?70 Mnesiphilus’ almost divine intervention is dramatic. But his analysis is cogent, reprising the arguments of 7.138–9 (Herodotus himself) and 8.2–3 (the Athenians’ insight). (Themistocles’ reluctance to ⟦46⟧ use these arguments publicly is dictated, as Herodotus notes, by tact.) Themistocles’ reaction is exemplary. Almost uniquely, the worldly leader heeds his wise warner well, his ‘pleasure’ connotes not delusion but understanding, and there follows a contest between intelligence (Mnesiphilus/Themistocles) and mere power (‘Eurybiades’), and their successful fusion: Themistocles himself assumes the role of adviser to Eurybiades. At council, Themistocles, after initial over-enthusiasm, shows further tact in his handling of Adeimantus and appeals to Eurybiades’ military pride; his military analysis is powerful, reflecting both the experience of Artemisium and ‘good counsel’ (instead of ‘counsel-lessness’), and angled to Spartan self-interest. Only when stung by Adeimantus’ further racist jibes does Themistocles abuse him and the Corinthians, menace them with the Athenian fleet, threaten Eurybiades with Athenian migration, and again appeal to his better nature. The threat, opines Herodotus, decided Eurybiades in Themistocles’ favour (8.58–63). Themistocles judiciously blends tact, appeal, hard military analysis, and threats. His climactic words before Eurybiades ‘learns’ aright (8.62: ‘you Spartans, isolated from allies such as us, will remember my words’) emphasise that the philia that should bind all Greece, not just individual πατρίδες, is the key to success. His effective assimilation with ‘Mnesiphilus’ (‘remembering φίλοι’) clinches his credit. Again, Herodotus, accepting a hostile source’s ‘facts’, overturns their implications. The sole negative is the threatened use of Athenian sea-power against other Greek states, particularly Corinth, which, while a rhetorical ploy, might have uncomfortable contemporary resonances. When the Greeks again lose resolve, Themistocles employs another trick, secretly sending Sicinnus to urge immediate Persian attack. The trick is justified by results, but might recall Themistocles’ future dealings with Persia. The intervention of Aristides, with his news of Persian encirclement, enacts the historian’s own role, enhancing Aristides’ ‘authority’, and replays Mnesiphilus’ 70 How–Wells (1928) I.42; II.254, 378; Hignett (1963) 204; Fornara (1971b) 72 n. 19; Marincola (1996) 595–6 n. 18; Pelling (1997); Marr (1998) 74.

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intervention. Aristides’ insistence, welcomed by Themistocles, that the two sublimate their personal stasis into (as it were) patriotic stasis, enacts on the personal and Athenian levels the need to overcome stasis within Greece against the common enemy. Herodotus’ judgement (8.79) that Aristides (‘best in appearance’) was ‘the best and most just man ever produced by Athens’71 underlines his moral superiority. Nevertheless, Themistocles ⟦47⟧ again responds excellently to external intervention. Then, at embarkation, Themistocles ‘of all spoke right sentiments’ in a speech of notable moral and philosophical weight. His logos everywhere excels (8.74–83). (c) Themistocles dominates the debate whether to cut Xerxes off.72 Themistocles advocates this but when Eurybiades’ counter-argument, that it would be safer to let Xerxes escape and fight over Xerxes’ own land, wins Peloponnesian support, Themistocles addresses the Athenians, the most annoyed at the enemy’s escape and the keenest to sail to the Hellespont, if necessary alone. He switches, arguing that the defeated are dangerous, that the Greek victory was lucky, and that not they but the gods defeated the impious Xerxes. They should return home and sail for the Hellespont in the spring. When he then contacts Xerxes (unhistorically), claiming to have dissuaded the Greeks from cutting him off, his ‘intention was to make a deposit to the Persian, in order that if any disaster should overtake him from the Athenians, he should have a refuge to turn to; which indeed occurred’: clearly glossing73 his ostracism and flight to Persia (8.108–10). Themistocles’ behaviour embraces the patriotic and militarily penetrating, the pragmatic, the self-interested, and the duplicitous, but this duplicity reflects foresight, not yet treachery to Greece (the campaign will resume). The Athenians are persuaded: now that ‘having in the past been thought clever and of good counsel, he had been shown to be truly clever and of good counsel, they were ready to be persuaded by him in all circumstances’ (8.110). Themistocles’ name again speaks true. The siege of Andros, a Panhellenic operation, as Herodotus belatedly implies, is dominated by Themistocles, his rapacity, the largely Athenian fleet, and secret exactions from other islands (8.111–12). After the allusion to his ostracism and flight to Persia, these activities must reflect Athenian brutalities towards the Delian League and the speed of their inception.74 Nevertheless, Themistocles receives due honour, both at the Isthmus (implicitly) and at Sparta (unequivocally): Themistocles, rightly named both at the beginning and 71 72 73 74

Cf. also Plut. Arist. 3; Timocrates, PMG 727. Marr (1998) 112–13. Pace Fornara (1971b) 71–2. Strasburger (1955) 21; Immerwahr (1966) 200 n. 29; Raaflaub (1987) 227, 239.

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end of his narrative (8.123–4). Herodotus’ text, triumphing over his sources’ bias, acclaims Themistocles cleverest of all Greeks and saviour of ⟦48⟧ Greece against Persia. But the genuinely negative elements—the bribery, rapacity, self-interest, incipient medism, proto-imperialist bully-boy tactics—though source-derived, are not source-driven. Herodotus’ Themistocles is a unity, the negatives the obverse of the positive, an Odyssean or Promethean figure,75 Athens’ outstanding leader, seen both in his time and in his future, paradigmatic also of Persian-War and later Athens.76 7

Athens at the End of the War77

At Mycale, the last battle, ‘Ionia revolted from the Persians for the second time’ (9.104); the narrative rings back, via the Ionian Revolt, to Croesus’ original conquest. But closure fails. Herodotus’ enumeration of the best fighters includes Hermolycus, killed a few years later in war with Carystus (9.105): a possible contrast between the Panhellenic struggle and Athenian imperialism. The debate about whether to transplant the Ionians or protect them in situ problematises Greece’s boundaries (9.106) and rings back to Bias’ ‘most useful’ proposal after the Persian conquest,78 but again the narrative advances: the Athenians asserting their rights over their colonists, and the Samians, Chians, Lesbians, and other islanders joining the alliance and swearing not to revolt: from one ἀρχή into another…. The story of Masistes79—one of sexual and political intrigues and misdemeanours and barbarous cruelty—reaffirms Xerxes as tyrant, rings back to Gyges and Candaules, and anticipates Xerxes’ downfall (9.108–13). The allusion to Protesilaus (9.116) rings back to the very beginnings of Greek–barbarian conflict,80 and again problematises boundaries. The omen of the leaping salt fish (9.120) rings back to Cyrus’ negotiations with the Ionians and portends Ionia’s escape ⟦49⟧ from Persian enslavement: but the fish are cooked. The punishment of the cruel and sacrilegious Persian governor 75 Fornara (1971b) 72–3; Evans (1991) 78, 80. 76 Konstan (1987) 72. 77 Lateiner (1989) 46–50, 132–5; Herington (1991); Stadter (1992) 791–4, 798; Derow (1995) 34–51; Moles (1996); Dewald (1997); Pelling (1997); (2000) 354. Space and dating imponderables marginalise the case that the Persians sometimes reflect the later Athenians: e.g., Fornara (1971b) 84 n. 13; Hunter (1982) 254–7; Raaflaub (1987) 228–9, 236 n. 40; cf. Rood (1999) 150. 78 1.170.1; cf. 5.106, 124; 6.22. 79 Wolff (1964); Marincola (1996) 601 n. 51. 80 Boedeker (1988); Marincola (1996) 601 n. 52.

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of Sestus, Artaÿctes, itself just and precisely calibrated both spatially (on Xerxes’ bridges into Europe) and temporally (as requital for Persian sacrilege from Artaÿctes and Xerxes back to the original maltreatment of Protesilaus), is conducted by Xanthippus in a form that might pre-echo Pericles’ vengeance against Samos in 44081 and includes his son’s stoning before Artaÿctes’ eyes (9.120): shades of Xerxes. Nor will the Athenians accept this geographical division. The narrative close—‘and in this year nothing further than these things was done’—intimates that ‘further’ things will be done. The concluding story of Artembares, Artaÿctes’ grandfather, and the advice or warning of Cyrus (9.122),82 recapitulates major themes and rings multiply with the beginning: back to the beginning of Persian expansion to empire from poor beginnings, to Croesus, to the eternal struggle between ruling and slavery. But Cyrus’ warning is flawed—he himself ignored it—and in one sense misdirected, because he does not give it to the Persians at the proper narrative moment. So, implicitly, the warning is Herodotus’ and includes Athens,83 the coming imperial power, already at the History’s end pushing against the re-established and natural geographical boundaries, already erupting beyond the textual boundaries. The series of ring structures enacts the close of one ‘cycle’ and the beginning of another. 8 Conclusions While emphasising that Athenian support of the Ionian Revolt ultimately caused the Persian invasion,84 Herodotus hails the Athenians—particularly Themistocles—as Greece’s saviours and Athenian greatness as deriving from political freedom. Both judgements attest admiration for Persian-war Athens, as well as remarkable historical penetration, independence, and impartiality, particularly in contemporary circumstances. Admiration includes objectivity. Herodotus does not ⟦50⟧ conceal—he underlines—Athens’ early jostling for Greek hegemony; his portrait of city and leader contains negatives and ominous prefigurations. Not only does Athens contribute most to Persia’s defeat: she is foregrounded in the History’s architecture. Initially, Sardis, Lydia, and Croesus represent (inter multa alia) Athens, her empire, and Pericles; Herodotus’ first treatment 81 82 83 84

Plut. Per. 28.2; also Hdt. 7.33: Derow (1995) 38. Gould (1989) 58–60; Raaflaub (1987) 244–6. Moles (1996) 275 {above, p. 264}. 5.97.3, 105.1; 7.1.1; 8.142.2; van der Veen (1996) 90ff.

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of mainland Greece, a sustained comparison of Athens and Sparta, subverts contemporary preconceptions; the History ends with Athens driving the Greek war-effort and herself reaching towards empire. Prospective allusions, explicit and implicit, establish the contemporary political world as an important sub-text and a dominant context for the text’s reception. Why? The question becomes more urgent because Herodotus’ history of events between c.560 and 479/8 (with retrospects) and their causes, is also a timeless examination of the political process of rise and fall. Herein, the History concerns the Athenian empire as much as Lydia or Persia, and So(si)cles’ remarks apply to any readers. Solon’s/Herodotus’ advice to ‘look to the end of everything’ logically includes ‘things’ beyond the ‘end’ of the History, an ‘end’ which, appropriately, is both an end and not an ‘end’. The timeless frame necessarily encompasses contemporary Athens, and the History’s timelessness is immediately validated by its relevance to a context outside its chronological limits. But since this relevance is conveyed by implicit rather than explicit allusions, it poses readers interpretative challenges, like those faced by figures within the text, thereby reinforcing another important aspect of Herodotus’ project: its practical usefulness. The implicit prospective allusions also extend Herodotus’ investigation of causality, from ‘why things happened then’ to ‘why we are where we are now’. (Herodotus preempts Thucydides 1!) But why is Athens so important? Fundamental to the History is the struggle between political freedom and enslavement. Freedom is initially conceptualised as Greek and good, slavery/ tyranny as barbarian and bad. The History is full of tyrants, so named or of similar type, and tyranny features in the Constitutional Debate. True, most of the tyrants in the History are Greek; not all tyrants are bad or not always; some produce ‘great and wonderful achievements’; and there is debate whether ‘tyrant’ and cognates are necessarily pejorative in Herodotus.85 Hence some ⟦51⟧ see the initial conceptualisations as problematised: wrongly. That ideals are compromised in practice, while ‘disturbing’, ‘challenging’, etc., does not impugn the ideals. Herodotus’ theoretical position is radically anti-tyrant: tyrants subjugate their own people and stunt their growth; they are a perversion of nature; they, or their descendants, are appropriately overthrown (e.g., 3.142.1; 7.164). Many contemporary Greeks saw the Athenian empire as Persia’s tyrannical successor. Hence the paradoxical concept of ‘the tyrant city’; a concept which Herodotus applies, implicitly, to Athens. Herodotus admires Athens qua 85 How–Wells (1926) II.338–47; Ferrill (1978); Vernant (1982); Gammie (1986); Hartog (1988) 322–89; Lateiner (1989) 154–5, 166–7, 170–85; Ogden (1997); contra, Waters (1971); Gray (1997) 364–6; van der Veen (1996) 66–89; Dewald (2003).

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saviour of Greece but condemns the empire: a position consistent with two other aspects of his thinking: hatred of war86 (for which Athens bore most responsibility in fifth-century Greece) and genuine Panhellenism.87 True also, Herodotus celebrates the growth of Athenian power after the Peisistratids’ expulsion; such ‘growth’ led to ‘tyranny’; and the History repeatedly allows a voice to the ‘rule-or-be-ruled’ existential choice so familiar from Thucydides.88 The answer remains the same: the Athenian ‘tyranny’ was different because it controlled systematically and exacted tribute; Sparta’s control over her allies was much looser.89 Nor is tyranny’s ‘growth’ inevitable: it is a perverted growth. Herodotus does not himself endorse the rule-or-be-ruled apologia beloved of tyrants. It is not ‘tragically inevitable’ that people should aggressively impose servitude on others90 (or that others let them):91 they choose to do so, when, Herodotus rightly thinks, they are wrong.92 Two further factors inform Herodotus’ judgement of contemporary Athens. Firstly, Athens’ tyranny is also ‘internal’. If that estimation of Pericles’ power underestimates Athens’ democratic mechanisms, it ⟦52⟧ was a widespread contemporary view, although, as by Thucydides, it could be glossed positively. Nor was it naïve to associate Pericles with Athenian imperial tyranny. Secondly, both Solon’s encounter with Croesus and the History’s end include implicit warnings to the Athenians. Why warn an established imperialist, especially when, like Thucydides, the History acknowledges the practical dangers of relinquishing tyranny?93 But such warnings (paralleling the numerous explicit warnings to more or less tyrannical figures throughout the text) matter. They may prevent greater excesses: it would have been worthwhile averting Melos or the Sicilian Expedition, both for Athens’ suffering enemies and for herself; it is something if even the profoundly deluded make some moral progress (as Croesus, even Xerxes, do, before their falls). The obliquity with which the warnings are conveyed also signifies: both to provoke thought and to illustrate the relatively safest and best way of warning tyrants.94 Should the warnings fail, they may deter future readers, because they can learn from the Athenians’ 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

E.g., 5.97.3; 6.98; 8.3.1; Cobet (1986). E.g., 1.6; 7.138–9; 8.3.1–2, 143–4. E.g., 5.105.2; Hdt. 1.46.1, 71.4, 207.3; 6.98.2; 7.11.2–3; Asheri (1997). Not that Sparta is ‘innocent’: cf. 1.6 (friendship with Croesus); 1.68.6; §3 (above, pp. 444); 6.98.2 ‘the leaders warring over the ἀρχή’; Lateiner (1989) 133; Stadter (1992) 809; van der Veen (1996) 108–10; Herodotus on Sparta is another, less critical, story. Pace Fornara (1971b) 78. E.g., 3.143.2; 6.11–12; Stadter (1992) 803–8. E.g., 1.5.3, 206; 3.21.2; 6.98.2. E.g., 3.143; Thuc. 2.63.1f.; Raaflaub (1987) 226. Hohti (1974); Lateiner (1989) 184; Moles (1996) 269–70 {above, pp. 257–9}.

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demonstrated folly and consequent overthrow. The process will also validate both the History’s usefulness and Herodotus’ prescience. It is astonishing, but morally pregnant, that when the Athenians first appear, they are stupid.95 Athens is in the History’s conception: the Athenian empire/tyranny turned Herodotus to history-writing.96 Among the many sources of the History’s greatness is its moral seriousness, including advocacy of political freedom, at least within the Greek world. Athens is not thereby the History’s central concern: she is a paradigm of universal processes, albeit for contemporaries the sharpest one.97 Bibliography Asheri, D. (1997) ‘Lotte per l’egemonia e l’indipendenza nel V e IV secolo a.C.’, in S. Settis, ed., I Greci: Storia, cultura, arte, società II.2 (Turin) 163–89. Bakker, E. J. (2002) ‘The Making of History: Herodotus’ Historiēs Apodexis’, in Bakker–de Jong–van Wees (2002) 3–32. Bakker, E. J., I. J. F. de Jong, and H. van Wees, edd. (2002) Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden and Boston). Barth, H. (1965) ‘Das Verhalten des Themistokles gegenüber dem Gelde: οὐ γὰρ ἐπαύετο πλεονεκτέων (Herodot VIII 112)’, Klio 43–45: 30–7. Bicknell, P. J. (1982) ‘Themistocles’ Father and Mother’, Historia 31: 161–73. Boedeker, D., ed. (1987) Herodotus and the Invention of History (Special Arethusa Issue 20). Boedeker, D. (1988) ‘Protesilaus and the End of Herodotus’ Histories’, ClAnt 7: 30–48. Bornitz, H.-F. (1968) Herodot-Studien: Beiträge zum Verständnis der Einheit des Geschichtswerks (Berlin). Bruns, I. (1896) Das literarische Porträt der Griechen im fünften und vierten Jahrhundert vor Christi Geburt (Berlin). Cobet, J. (1971) Herodots Exkurse und die Frage der Einheit seines Werkes (Wiesbaden). Cobet, J. (1986) ‘Herodotus and Thucydides on War’, in I. S. Moxon, J. D. Smart, and A. J. Woodman, edd., Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge) 1–18. Davies, J. K. (1971) Athenian Propertied Families 600–300 B.C. (Oxford). 95 The more strikingly, if the History dates to c. 415. 96 Meyer (1899) 198; Fornara (1971b) 44–5, 86–91; Meier (1973) 427ff.; (1987) 51–4. 97 I thank: the Liverpool Seminar (7/12/99); North-East Classical Research Seminar (8/12/99); Franco Basso; Bob Fowler; Lynette Mitchell; Chris Pelling; Peter Rhodes; Tony Woodman; and Irene de Jong.

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Schmid, W. and O. Stählin (1934) Geschichte der griechischen Literatur I.2: Die griechische Literatur in der Zeit der attischen Hegemonie vor dem Eingreifen der Sophistik (Munich). Slings, S. R. (2002) ‘Oral Strategies in the Language of Herodotus’, in Bakker–de Jong–van Wees (2002) 53–77. Smart, J. D. (1977) ‘Review Article: the Athenian Empire’, Phoenix 31: 245–57. Stadter, P. A. (1992) ‘Herodotus and the Athenian Arche’, ASNP 22: 781–809; repr. in Munson (2013) I.334–56. Stahl, M. (1983) ‘Tyrannis und das Problem der Macht: die Geschichten Herodots über Kypselos und Periander von Korinth’, Hermes 111: 202–20. Strasburger, H. (1955) ‘Herodot und das perikleische Athen’, Historia 4: 1–25; Eng. trans. in Munson (2013) I.295–320. Svenbro, J. (1993) Phrasikleia: An Anthropology of Reading in Ancient Greece (Ithaca and London); trans. by J. Lloyd of Phrasikleia: anthropologie de la lecture en Grèce ancienne (Paris, 1988). Thomas, R. (1989) Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge). Van der Veen, J. E. (1996) The Significant and the Insignificant: Five Studies in Herodotus’ View of History (Amsterdam). Vernant, J.-P. (1982) ‘From Oedipus to Periander: Lameness, Tyranny, Incest in Legend and History’, Arethusa 15: 19–38. Von Fritz, K. (1936) ‘Herodotus and the Growth of Greek Historiography’, TAPhA 67: 315–40. Waters, K. H. (1971) Herodotus on Tyrants and Despots: a Study in Objectivity (Wiesbaden). van Wees, H. (2002) ‘Herodotus and the Past’, in Bakker–de Jong–van Wees (2002) 321–49. Wells, J. (1923) Studies in Herodotus (Oxford). Wolff, E. (1964) ‘Das Weib des Masistes’, Hermes 92: 51–8; repr. in W. Marg, Herodot: eine Auswahl aus der neueren Forschung3 (Darmstadt, 1982) 668–80.

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‘Saving’ Greece from the ‘Ignominy’ of Tyranny? The ‘Famous’ and ‘Wonderful’ Speech of Socles (Herodotus 5.92) Scholarly responses to this most challenging speech1 fall into diverse categories:2 1. Socles’ speech is ‘incredibly inapt to the occasion’.3 2. Herodotus is just using the occasion to tell stories.4 3. The speech is a mélange of opposing political traditions: Athenian democratic, Corinthian anti-tyrant, Cypselid anti-Bacchiad, and Panhellenic, the latter propagated by Delphi.5 4. It exhibits the narrative leisureliness of inserted stories in Homer.6 5. It is one of the main statements of Herodotus the tyrant-hater, or— more sophisticatedly—one of the main items in Herodotus’ tyrannical template/typology/model.7 6. As contextualised, it serves more to prompt reflections about contemporary and recent history than to explain the historical situation of 504.8 1 I am indebted to: respondents at Cambridge {at the colloquium held in July 2002 on the topic of Book 5 of Herodotus’ Histories} and at the Newcastle Classics Research Seminar (23 October 2002); Press readers; Liz Irwin for wonderful kindness; previous discussions (few read at the time of the oral versions); and other contributors. Translations are my own. Space imposes brevity and selectivity. 2 Representative bibliography: How–Wells (1928) II.50–5; Strasburger (1955) 7–15, 18–19, 22; Andrewes (1956) 45–8; Immerwahr (1966) 194–5; Oost (1972); Hohti (1974); Raaflaub (1979) 239–41; (1987) 223–5; Stahl (1983); Lang (1984) 104–6; Salmon (1984) 186–7; 247–8; Gould (1989) 55–7; Sourvinou-Inwood (1991) 244–84; McGlew (1993) 61–72; Gray (1996); (1997); van der Veen (1996) 68–89; Węcowski (1996); Forsdyke (1999); (2002) 542–5; D. M. Johnson (2001); Moles (2002) 38–40 {above, pp. 444–5}; Dewald (2003) 30–2, 35–7; Fowler (2003) 310–13. 3 How–Wells (1928) II.51, following Macan (1895) I.235. 4 How–Wells (1928) II.51; Waters (1971) 13–14; Hart (1982) 50–2. 5 Andrewes (1956) 45–8; Zörner (1971) 261ff.; Oost (1972); Salmon (1984) 186–7; Forsdyke (2002) 542–5. 6 Gould (1989) 56–7 (though such stories are ‘tighter’ than traditionally supposed: Alden [2000]). 7 How–Wells (1928) II.340; Stahl (1983); Hartog (1988) 322–39; Lateiner (1989) 172–9; McGlew (1993) 61–74; Gray (1996); (1997); Dewald (2003) 30–2. Cf. further n. 49 below. 8 Strasburger (1955) 7–15, 18–19, 22; Raaflaub (1979) 239–41; (1987) 223–5; Lang (1984) 104–5; Stadter (1992) 781–2; Węcowski (1996); Gray (1996) 384–5; Moles (2002) 40 {above, p. 445}.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_029

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7.

Its moralising is unintelligent, because what really motivates states is self-interest, as largely applies to Sparta here, and the reinstatement of ⟦246⟧ tyranny at Athens on this occasion would ultimately have entailed less destruction than the toleration of Athenian democracy.9 8. Its emotive rhetoric aims to scare the audience into agreement.10 9. The apparent inappropriateness of some of the material is only apparent and the oblique storytelling approach matches a tricky diplomatic situation.11 Some of these views are diametrically opposed. Others differ only in degree. Some convict Herodotus of incompetence, others of literary opportunism. Some emphasise the oral Herodotus, others the written. Some see the speech as detached from its context, others as fully contextualised. Some are free-standing, others combinable. My own approach is undergirt by three simple questions: first, how good (by any relevant criteria) is Socles’ speech? Second, should listeners/readers agree with it? Third, if they do, so what? My answers will incorporate elements of positions 5, 6 (deleting ‘more’) and 9, as well as new arguments. The context is complicated. The speech is the longest single speech in Herodotus. It comes at a crucial historical moment. Pressurised by Delphi (bribed by the Athenian Alcmaeonids), the Spartans liberated Athens from Peisistratid tyranny, even though the Peisistratids were their close friends, ‘since they gave greater priority to the interests of the god than those of the men’ (63.1–65.5). Worsted in ‘dynastic struggle’ with Isagoras, the Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes ‘took the people into his party’ and became dominant (so much, Herodotus implies, for ‘Cleisthenic democracy’). Isagoras then appealed to the Spartan king Cleomenes. After the failure of his first intervention with a small band of men, Cleomenes collected a large army in order to punish the Athenian people and to establish Isagoras as tyrant, though he concealed these purposes. This second intervention also failed, partly because of Athenian resistance, partly because of the withdrawal of the other Spartan king and of the Spartan allies, led by the Corinthians, ‘giving to themselves the reason that they were not acting justly’ (75.1). Herodotus famously comments (78):

9 van der Veen (1996) 68–89. 10 Romm (1998) 122–3. 11 D. M. Johnson (2001) 1–20, 23–4.

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So the Athenians had grown. Equality of speech (isēgoriē)12 shows not in one thing only but everywhere that it is a worthwhile possession, if the Athenians too were better in matters of war than none of those who lived around them, but when they were ⟦247⟧ freed of tyrants became by far the first. These things show that when held down they deliberately behaved basely, as working for a master, but when they were freed each himself wished to work for himself. Interpretation is controversial: is the start of 78 about Athens alone or a generalisation that includes Athens? The arguments for the latter reading, strong in themselves,13 find decisive support in this sequence.14 Herodotus’ reasons for specifying ‘equality of speech’ as the defining attribute of non-tyrannical states will also become clear. And, since ‘equality of speech’ covers a wide range of states, the polar opposition between ‘equality of speech’ and tyranny is not politically simplistic. Discovering that they had been duped by the Alcmaeonids and Delphi, the Spartans felt doubly aggrieved, having exiled their friends the Peisistratids without securing Athenian gratitude. They were disturbed, too, by prophecies of many misfortunes from the Athenians, and also ‘they saw the Athenians growing and not at all ready to obey them, considering that if the Attic race were free it would become of equal weight to their own, but if held down by tyranny weak and ready to obey their rule’ (91.1). Unappealing in its aim of subjugating Athens to Spartan rule, this political analysis is, nevertheless, substantially the same as Herodotus’ own at 78,15 almost as if the Spartans have ‘read the text’ (characteristically a sign of characters’ insight). So the Spartans decided to reinstate the Peisistratid Hippias with the help of their allies. This is the first instance in Herodotus of consultation by Sparta of her allies in the so-called Peloponnesian League and, indeed, the first 12

Sole occurrence in Herodotus; recent discussions of the political concept: Balot (2004); Carter (2004); McInerney (2004); translations such as ‘equality before the law’ (Marincola [1996] 307) and ‘democracy’ (Forsdyke [2002] 537) are category errors. 13 Moles (2002) 39 {above, p. 444} and n. 39 (with bibliography). 14 See p. 472 below. 15 Some regard such formulations as naïve. I use ‘Herodotus’ of: the historical figure (‘Herodotus had fought against tyranny’); the writer of the text (‘Herodotus records that’); ‘the author’s voice within the text’, as, here, of direct and (in effect) first-person comment; the larger conclusions that the text seems (to me) to reach (e.g., ‘Herodotus condemns the Athenian Empire’); and figures within the text that seem to assume Herodotus’ authorial and moral author-ity (e.g., Solon). I am not talking of Herodotus’ ‘personal views’. Such distinctions are alike elementary, difficult to sustain, and widely ignored (even by sophisticated critics).

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such recorded consultation in any source. In contrast to the earlier cases, the Spartans are now acting as a united body and they do explain their purposes to their allies. Legendarily laconic (3.46), they make a fittingly brief speech.16 Although the majority of the allies were averse to the Spartan proposal, only Socles17 the Corinthian spoke out against it (his sole appearance in Herodotus), directly addressing the Spartans. Listeners and readers recall that the Corinthians led the allied withdrawal from the assault on Athens ⟦248⟧ and their motive for doing so. Socles’ contrastingly long speech argues that it is incredible that the Spartans of all people18 should propose the restoration of tyranny, than which nothing among humans is more unjust or murderous, a claim illustrated by protracted stories about Corinth’s experience of tyranny under Cypselus and Periander. The terms of the claim are followed through—at least to some extent—in the oracular representation of Cypselus as a ‘raw-flesh-eating lion’ and in the statements that Cypselus ‘exiled many of the Corinthians and deprived many of their possessions and by far the most of their lives’, that Periander ‘at the beginning was milder than his father but when he had associated through messengers with Thrasybulus tyrant of Miletus he became much more murderous than Cypselus’, and that the Spartans’ restoration of Hippias would be ‘contrary to justice’. But, unlike Otanes’ speech in the Constitutional Debate of Book 3, Socles’ speech does not offer a formal analysis of tyranny: both in form and in content it has strong muthos qualities:19 that is, it includes narrative material which extends far into the past; which has been preserved and disseminated orally; which involves much direct contact with the divine (in the form of oracles); which is constructed out of timeless paradigmatic patterns; and which has a marked ‘storytelling’ character,20 and surely, indeed, some ‘entertainment value’.21 There are Homeric motifs at the beginning (the one person who breaks the silence of all)22 and end (Socles’ defiant concluding words, ‘know that the Corinthians at least will not agree with you’, echo Hera’s formula to Zeus at assemblies of the gods when he is enforcing a course of action with which she 16 17 18 19

See p. 467 below. Basic name clear, despite MSS variation (p. 482 below). Interpretation controversial: p. 469 below. Similarly, Herodotus’ earlier extended treatment of Periander at 3.48, 50–3: SourvinouInwood (1991) 244–84; Boedeker (2002) 112–14; pace Gray (1996) 368–70. 20 The only other ‘storytelling’ speech in Herodotus is Leotychides’ (6.86): Immerwahr (1966) 122; D. M. Johnson (2001). 21 Muthos ~ ‘entertainment’: Thuc. 1.22.4, etc. 22 Il. 3.95–6; 7.92–5, 398–9; 8.28–30; 9.29–31, 430–3, 693–6; 10.218–19, 313–18; 23.676; Gray (1996) 383; Herodotean parallel at 7.10–11 (Artabanus).

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disagrees: ‘do it, but be assured that all we other gods will not approve’);23 the ‘folksy’ initial, topsy-turvy adunata (that is, impossibilist reversals of nature as both illustrations and consequences of allegedly impossible and unnatural human behaviour); the triadic structures of the internal narrative; the generally folkloristic character of the story of Cypselus’ birth and survival,24 sharpened by a more specifically tragic intermyth with the story of Oedipus,25 by allusion ⟦249⟧ to the lion-cub fable,26 and by Dionysiac elements;27 and folktale elements in the Periander narrative about his quest to retrieve the lost object.28 After Socles’ speech, Hippias invokes the same gods as Socles, but to contrary effect: the Corinthians above all would yearn for the Peisistratids, when the appointed days came for them to be harmed by the Athenians. Throughout this narrative, Herodotus notes the political exploitation of oracles. But the rest of the allies held themselves in silence for a time, but, when they heard Socles speaking freely, each individual among them broke voice and chose Socles’ proposal, and bore witness to the Lacedaemonians not to do anything revolutionary concerning a Greek city. These matters were brought to an end in this way. (93.2–94.1) Modern historians emphasise that this ‘end’ marked a defining moment in the relations between Sparta and her allies: Spartan power turned out to be limited by the need to secure allied consent. The Homeric ‘know that the Corinthians at least will not agree with you’ plays a key role here. Whereas in Homer the supreme god Zeus can do what he likes even when all the other gods oppose him, here the Spartans were supreme and even now could presumably reinstate Hippias if Corinth were the only state to oppose this policy, but cannot do so once all the allies oppose them. But there is an eloquent ‘gap’ in the narrative (the more striking because the Spartans are Socles’ direct addressees):29 although we understand that the Spartans abandoned their proposal, it is left 23 Il. 4.29; 8.8–9; 16.443; Socles imports a significant twist: see below. 24 Similar stories about Cyrus (1.107–30), Oedipus, Perseus, Paris, Romulus and Remus, Jesus, etc.; Aly (1921) 93–5; cf. also pp. 476–7 and n. 70 below. 25 Vernant (1982); Saïd (2002) 127. 26 Cf. Aesch. Ag. 712–36; McNellen (1997) 18. 27 I think: cf. Bacchiads attempting to kill divine baby, lions, raw-flesh-eaters, ambiguous smile, change from gentleness to savagery; Corinthian tyranny and Dionysus: Hdt. 1.23; Pind. Ol. 13.18–19; How–Wells (1928) II.341; Salmon (1984) 201–2. 28 Thompson (1958) 475 (s.v. ‘Lost’) intrigues; Aly (1921) 93–5. 29 Fluffed by the Penguin translation’s ‘the Spartans abandoned their purpose’.

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unclear whether they themselves were ashamed, unmoved, or persuaded by Socles’ speech. One effect of this ‘gap’ is to refocus attention on the question of the quality of the speech.30 Although a majority of the allies always opposed the Spartan proposal to reinstate the Peisistratids, were all the allies (93.2 ~ 92.1) now right to applaud Socles? What weight should be given to Hippias’ negative response? On one level, as the Peisistratid tyrant whose reinstatement is in question, he is severely compromised; on another, he cites disturbing oracles and he is an expert in oracles. Should the external readership,31 then, take the same view as the preponderant internal audience? ⟦250⟧ Readers are also responding to this sequence under the looming shadow of Persia, the sequence being one of an elaborate series of retrospectives explaining the state of Sparta and Athens when Aristagoras of Miletus came to Greece to seek support for the Ionian Revolt (49, 55, 97). Plainly, interpretation has much to consider. Socles qua historical or dramatic figure addresses the Spartans directly. The rest of the allies turn out to be indirect addressees—witness their reaction. There is a third audience: Hippias, not directly or indirectly addressed, though alluded to, but who then himself replies to Socles directly. (This deft choreography suggests Hippias’ ambiguous locus standi in a debate between Sparta and her allies and his desperation when he sees Socles’ impact.) Readers of Herodotus form a fourth audience, whose assessment of Socles’ performance will be conditioned alike by their own judgements of the performance, by the reactions of the various internal audiences, and by any other material factors in the context.32 The Spartans had said that they (the Spartans), deceived by fraudulent oracles, had not acted rightly in expelling the Peisistratids, who were their close friends and had undertaken to make Athens subservient, with the result that the ungrateful Athenian people, having become free, had perked up, hybristically expelled the Spartans and the Spartan king, and given a harsh lesson to their neighbours, which others too were likely to have to learn. Consequently, they proposed to repair their error with the help of their allies and reinstate Hippias with ‘a common reasoning (logos) and a common expedition’ (91.3).

30 For another see p. 484 below. 31 The Histories are a reading text (Flory [1980]; W. A. Johnson [1994]; Naiden [1999]; Moles [1999]; Fowler [2001]) and thus primarily so to be interpreted, whatever their oral origins. 32 ‘Audience’ is variously handled by Lang (1984) 104–6; Gray (1996) 382–4; Romm (1998) 122–3; D. M. Johnson (2001).

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The Spartans’ tone was conciliatory (as befitting admission of error), since they wanted to win back their allies after the latter’s abandonment of the assault on Athens. Their plea that they had not acted rightly is on one level manipulative, since the Corinthians, followed by the rest of the allies, had abandoned that assault precisely because they disapproved of Cleomenes’ purpose of making Isagoras tyrant, and their account has other obviously tendentious elements. Nevertheless, five of their stated motives for their change of policy towards the Peisistratids—they had been deceived by false oracles; the Peisistratids were close friends; tyranny would keep Athens subordinate; the freed Athenians were ungrateful; and a free Athens would be ever more dangerous to other Greek states—reflect their real feelings. Several elements in their case (culminating in the plan ⟦251⟧ to ‘give back what we took away’) argue on a basis of justice. And two of those elements—tyranny would keep Athens subordinate, otherwise Athens would prove dangerous to her neighbours—are politically shrewd. Socles is described as having spoken ‘freely’ (93.2). At least some of what he says should controvert the Spartan speech directly. It does. It is not the expulsion of the Peisistratids that was ‘not right’: their restoration would be an assault upon the whole natural order (92α.2), and the Spartans’ summoning of Hippias was a ‘great wonder’, their subsequent speech ‘an even greater wonder’ (in the ironic sense of ‘something wondrously bad’, hence an illustration of the reversals of nature at the start of the speech). The Peisistratids should be seen not as ‘friends’ but as tyrants, and among humans there is nothing more unjust than tyranny, so that Hippias’ restoration would necessarily be ‘contrary to justice’. If the Spartans ‘took away’ things from the Peisistratids, tyrants ‘take away’ far more from their victims.33 And whereas the Spartans speciously invoked ‘commonness’, Socles champions what he terms ‘equal governments’ (isokratiai) and (it seems) ‘freedom’, emphasising that within the Peloponnesian League the ‘Corinthians at least will not approve’ of the Spartan proposal. ‘Equalness’ and ‘freedom’ should apply in all relevant contexts: internally within the Peloponnesian League, as demonstrated by Socles’ very speech (both in the mere fact of its delivery and in the sort of case that it argues); internally within cities, as illustrated by the ‘equal governments’ of Athens and Corinth, both free of tyranny, and—apparently—of all the other allied states, and externally between cities. Whereas earlier it is as if the Spartans have read Herodotus, here it is as if Socles has read the Spartans’ thoughts, for his espousal of ‘equalness’ seems to answer Spartan dislike of the prospect of Athens’ being of ‘equal weight’ to 33 See n. 44 below.

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themselves (91.1). The Spartans cannot morally or logically impose tyrannies on others while strenuously avoiding tyranny at home. The ‘lesson of history’ is not the danger of Athenian aggression but the wickedness of tyranny, as illustrated by the stories about the Corinthian and Milesian tyrannies. Socles crowns these stories with a challenging ambiguity: ‘such is your tyranny and such are its deeds’ (92ζ.4). Here ‘your’ (Greek ‘to you’) can connote alternatively: ‘let me tell you’ (admonitory ethic dative), ‘the tyranny you are talking about’, and ‘the tyranny you yourselves propose to exercise’. The Greek gods34 are invoked against tyranny: Greece is the ‘community’ that matters. These direct ripostes to the Spartans’ arguments are underpinned by numerous verbal contrasts. ⟦252⟧ But there are other aspects to Socles’ response to the Spartans. His application of the ‘topsy-turvy’ commonplace to the notion of the Spartans’ overthrowing ‘equal governments’ and ‘bringing back tyrannies into the cities’ trades on the Spartans’ reputation as the great opponents of tyranny35 and thus simultaneously shames them (for making their present proposal) and appeals to their (allegedly) better nature (for them to abandon it). And since appeal to the natural order was often used to underwrite treaties,36 Socles’ use of the ‘topsy-turvy’ commonplace emphasises the ‘inequality’ of Sparta’s proposed treatment of her allies. From all these points of view, his extended demonstration of the evils of tyranny is not redundant but intensificatory. But his explanation for the Spartan proposal—that they themselves had never experienced tyranny—palliates its wickedness. He also appeals to Spartan self-interest. If they persist, the Spartans will lose that great reputation and they will also lose the ‘commonness’ that they seek within the Peloponnesian League. They may even—the genie once out of the bottle—one day suffer tyranny themselves. For tyrannies grow by association: witness the ‘association’37 of Thrasybulus and Periander. Contrary to the scholarly consensus, therefore, Socles’ address to the Spartans is not merely formal: he is trying to persuade them (he could not anticipate winning the debate through the allied response alone). Increasingly odd, then, that we are not told how they reacted.

34 For the striking usage cf. 5.49.3 (Aristagoras); 9.90.2 (Hegesistratus); Harrison (2000) 215. 35 Cf. 92α: ‘you, Lacedaemonians’; Thuc. 1.18.1; contra, D. M. Johnson (2001) 8–12, this is the first appropriate occasion for the Corinthians’ expressing ‘astonishment’ at what can be rhetorically represented as dramatically reversing Spartan tradition (despite recent practice). 36 How–Wells (1928) II.51; Hdt. 4.201.2–3; D. Hal. AR 6.95. 37 Note the striking: ‘[Periander] associated with Thrasybulus by messengers’. Cf. also 8.142.5.

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What of the allies as indirect addressees?38 Socles’ championing of ‘equal governments’ and ‘freedom’ will naturally appeal. His Corinthian narrative will reinforce their pre-existent dislike of tyranny (already suggested by their withdrawal from the assault on Athens). Thrasybulus’ and Periander’s ‘pruning’ of ‘outstanding citizens’ will have particular resonance for those states, like Corinth herself, whose ‘equal governments’ take the form of oligarchies. Socles’ standing-up to Sparta will inspire the other allies to do likewise. More insidiously, Socles’ twice-stated formulation of the Spartans’ proposal in terms of a generalisation (92α ‘undoing equal governments you are preparing to bring back tyrannies into the cities’; 92η ‘do not establish tyrannies in the cities’) raises the possibility that the Spartans may sometime do to others what they now propose doing to Athens.39 Socles here comes close to modern arguments that the Corinthians’ ‘real’ concern ⟦253⟧ was not with political morality but with power politics, but his position is more sophisticated than those analyses because it links power politics with morality. Although ‘friendship’ for the Peisistratids was one of the Spartans’ motives for their proposal and although they sought the approval of their so-called ‘allies’ on the basis of ‘commonness’, ‘friendship’, ‘alliances’, and ‘commonness’ are unstable within tyrannies, because the tyrant by definition pursues his own interests only, as illustrated by Periander’s request to Thrasybulus and the practical examples of Cypselus, spared as a baby through the Bacchiads’ pity, mass murderer when he became tyrant; of Thrasybulus and Periander, systematic murderers of outstanding citizens; and of Periander, necrophiliac of his wife and stripper of all Corinthian women.40 Socles’ ‘stories’ about Cypselus, Thrasybulus, and Periander, therefore, function—among many other things—as ‘figured speech’ (a form of rhetoric which implies a meaning and which can use ‘stories’):41 warning of the dangerous generalising potential in the Spartan proposal without making this embarrassingly—or even dangerously—explicit. The allies are tacitly invited to detect analogies between their situation and situations within Socles’ narratives. Those narratives are consistently concerned with the interpretation of the riddling and the hidden (oracles and necromancy, punning names, the 38 Gray (1996) 382–5; D. M. Johnson (2001). 39 So already Macan (1895) I.236. 40 From the point of view of readers, the Spartans’ claim that the Athenian people were ‘ungrateful’ (hence ‘friendship’ with them could be dissolved) is matched by similar accusations against the people by the Sicilian tyrant Gelon (7.156.3). 41 ‘Figured speech’: Ahl (1984); ‘stories’ in Demetr. Eloc. 292; in Herodotus: Moles (1996) 270, 279 {above, pp. 259, 268}; ‘free’ or ‘frank’ speech can include ‘figured speech’ (Moles [1996] 282 {above, p. 259} n. 43).

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would-be assassins’ deceptive visit to the baby Cypselus, Labda’s concealment of Cypselus, the corn-chest hiding-place42 and the would-be assassins’ unsuccessful search for Cypselus, Thrasybulus’ coded lopping of the corn, Periander’s ultimately successful search for the lost object): can the allies interpret/‘find’ Socles’ ‘hidden meaning’? What value should they put on conflicting and (no doubt) politicised oracles? The narratives also raise questions about the right balance between speaking, not-speaking, observation, and action: the Bacchiads, warned by Delphi of Eëtion’s son, were exhorted to ‘observe these things well’, but it was when the first man ‘observed’ the baby Cypselus’ smile that he was overcome by pity, whereas Labda concealed Cypselus in the place that ‘seemed to her least observable’.43 The Bacchiads, rightly putting the two oracles together, ⟦254⟧ ‘held this matter in silence’, but it was the would-be assassins talking at the doors that warned Labda, and then their falsely telling their masters that they had fulfilled their instructions which allowed Cypselus’ growth to manhood and tyranny. Conversely, the allies’ ‘keeping silence’ now would connive in the potential growth of Spartan tyranny. The Corinthian tyrants also ‘take things away’.44 Cypselus takes away from many their fatherland, from many their money, and from by far the most their lives. Periander takes away the fatherlands and lives of all those left untouched by Cypselus and having taken everything away from the males, turns his attention to all the women, free and slave alike, from whom in a single day he publicly takes away their clothes, hence also the whole state’s last vestiges of shame and self-respect. Will the allies similarly allow the Spartans to strip them of their dignity? For, as everyone knows, ‘at the same time as taking off her underclothing a woman also takes off her shame’ (1.8). This is the paradigm of Candaules’ wife to the nth degree. And by this act the free women are reduced to the same status as slaves. This ‘stripping’ shows the capricious and grotesque lengths to which tyrants may go to oblige their guest-friends—just as the Spartans are now trying to do for Hippias. Socles intensifies the challenge to the allies’ self-respect with the words, ‘know that the Corinthians at least will not agree with you.’ Note Socles’ multi-purpose deployment of ‘shame’ as a moral and rhetorical weapon against both Spartans and allies: the former to be shamed out of an unjust proposal, the latter to be shamed into opposition 42 Κυψέλη, anciently (cf. Paus. 5.17.5) and mostly today taken as (swanky) ‘chest’, has also been understood as ‘beehive’ (Roux [1963]; Nenci [1994] 293–4) and ‘corn-chest’ (Gray [1996] 379). Criteria are: (i) linguistic usage; (ii) ‘unobservability’; (iii) ready accessibility to the lame Labda; (iv) safety for a baby. The last is best (cf. also p. 479). 43 ‘Observe’ glosses Greek φράζομαι. 44 This translation glosses a series of verbal relationships centring on the prefix ἀπο-.

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to that proposal by the thought of the extreme shame to which tyranny would expose them.45 So far, then, Socles’ speech seems excellently suited to its complex context, combining direct address to the Spartans with indirect address to the allies, controverting the Spartans’ case systematically, mixing in appeals both to their better nature and to their self-interest, establishing the indivisibility of moral and utilitarian considerations and of internal and external tyranny, conveying, while disguising, the most immediately dangerous threat, and tacitly exhorting the other allies to resist the nascent Spartan tyranny. Several other factors seem to confirm the speech’s excellence. If the speech is to be judged by its results, it is a triumph. Before it, a majority of the allies are opposed to the Spartan proposal (92), but all but Socles keep silence. Socles is the one man brave enough to articulate the silent disapproval of the allies at large. But after the speech, he has ⟦255⟧ persuaded all the allies and not only that: every single one of them now breaks voice46 in his support: he has literally given them all a voice (with which, indeed, they echo his own climactic phrases). From his ‘figured speech’ they have detected the necessity of their speaking out. It is the Spartans who are silent now (if enigmatically so). Doubtless, we should here sense another narrative pattern potent both in myth (e.g., Croesus’ son [1.85.4]) and in tragedy (the notorious ‘silent figures’ of Aeschylus): the climactic and validating speech of the hitherto conspicuously silent. The speech also embodies some of the wider political values of the narrative. Book 5 is centrally concerned with the struggle between freedom and despotism. Socles supports freedom and speaks ‘freely’. Socles’ speech and the allies’ reaction seem to exemplify Herodotus’ own political analysis at 78 and in exact detail. Socles champions ‘equal governments’ in general against tyranny. Herodotus praises the universal value of ‘equality speech’. In speaking freely Socles instantiates that ‘equality of speech’. When the rest of the allies break voice in Socles’ support, they also instantiate that ‘equality of speech’. It is now clear why Herodotus used that term in 78. And ‘each individual among them’ does so, just as when Athens was freed from tyranny ‘each himself wished to work for himself’ and the result was an increase in corporate growth. Similarly, with the removal of the threat of Spartan ‘tyranny’, the allies are individually 45 Pace Hart (1982) 52 and Waters (1971) 14, the end of Socles’ narrative could not be less bathetic. 46 The striking φωνὴν ῥήξας, otherwise only at 1.85.4 (of Croesus’ hitherto silent son) and 2.2.3 (of the children isolated by Psammetichus in order to discover the oldest language [D. M. Johnson (2001) 7]), creates further emphasis.

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energised to produce the best genuinely ‘common’ policy, a policy which preserves alike the interests of the individual allied states, of the allies en bloc, of the whole Peloponnesian League, including Sparta, of Athens (spared the reintroduction of tyranny)—in short, of all Greece. This apparent parallel between Socles’ views and Herodotus’ can be pursued. This episode seems to have a certain ‘meta’-quality: to invite reflections about the status and purpose of the Histories itself. There is a speaker and an internal audience or audiences. Socles is a sort of historian of Corinthian history à la Herodotus, even supplying material about Corinth which Herodotus in propria persona does not. Socles’ observation ‘but had you such experience of that thing [tyranny] as we have, you would be sager advisers concerning it than you are now’ is rightly taken by many scholars as a key statement of the Histories’ main practical function.47 And, when Socles makes it, he is assuming the role of ‘the advisor’, a role sometimes ⟦256⟧ taken by figures within the narrative that are in some sense analogous to Herodotus himself.48 Socles’ representation of tyranny corresponds in many respects to Herodotus’ own typology:49 the pervasive imagery of unnaturalism, animalism, and sexual excess (the topsy-turvydom, eagles, lions, the lame Labda, Periander’s necrophilia, and stripping of all Corinthian women); tyrants’ preternatural skill at reading signs;50 familial disfunctionalism; illegitimacy both political and quasi-literal; killings and exiles; waste of substance in order to maintain power (Thrasybulus’ destruction of the corn; Periander’s misuse of his seed; the burning of the Corinthian women’s clothes); bad counsel; subjects’ loss of initiative and self-respect and virtual enslavement; the problem of succession. Many of these themes also interact, in, as it were, seesaw fashion, with Herodotus’ own treatment of Periander in 3.48–53. Periander’s interpretation and implementation of Thrasybulus’ advice in 5.92, where he kills the prominent citizens, corresponds to 3.48, where he aims to castrate 300 Corcyrean noble youths (even if he does not in fact succeed).51 5.92 gives a further layer of explanation to the enmity between Periander and his son, Lycophron, as being also the product of 47 E.g., Strasburger (1955) 7–14; Raaflaub (1987) 232; Stadter (1992) 782; cf. Thuc. 1.22.4 with Moles (2001) 214–18 {above, pp. 429–32}. 48 Pre-eminently Solon (1.30–2), with Moles (1996) 263–5 {above, pp. 251–4}. 49 References in n. 7 above. ‘Typology’ is a controversial term. Of the scholars cited in n. 7, Hartog and Lateiner come closest to straightforward acceptance of the notion, whereas Gray (1996) stresses adaptation of models to different contexts and Dewald (2003) 47 and 49 claims ‘a profound bifurcation’ and ‘doubleness’ between model and practice, at least as regards the Greek tyrants. Nevertheless, all attribute to Herodotus far more ‘modelling’ than Waters (1971). 50 Steiner (1994) 128; Gray (1996) 380–1. 51 This was the subject of Alan Griffiths’ paper at the Colloquium {see above, n. 1}.

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a family curse.52 Equally, the narrative of 3.48–53 fills out the final impression of sexual nullity left by 5.92. Socles’ insistence on the need to resist tyranny also fits Herodotus’ belief that tyranny results partly from the passivity of the tyrannised.53 In short, Socles’ superficially loose muthoi embody an analysis of tyranny and an analysis which, while undoubtedly emotive, is also detailed, sophisticated, and (apparently) consonant with Herodotus’ own. There are other important echoes of wider Herodotean concepts. The whole narrative of the Corinthian tyranny enacts the Herodotean movements of small things becoming great and vice versa: as an individual Cypselus starts as a baby and then becomes great; as an institution, the Cypselid tyranny moves from smallness to greatness, to—proleptically—annihilation (and within this ‘imagery’, the child/son Periander is ‘always already’ an ‘outsize man’).54 ⟦257⟧ So far, then, the case for Socles’ speech seems overwhelmingly positive. Are there any negatives?55 What, first, of Socles’ representation of Periander’s tyranny? Historically, of course, it is a travesty.56 Its broad outlines, nevertheless, have to be accepted, partly because, as we have seen, they have so many resonances with Herodotus’ own thinking, partly because they form an important element of a case which seems on so many levels to be rightly persuasive. But how does this representation square with the allusion, in the immediately subsequent narrative, to Periander as arbitrator between Mytilene and Athens (95)? What, too, of Socles’ treatment of Cypselus? Socles had claimed that tyranny was supremely unjust and described Bacchiad rule as an ‘oligarchy’, hence, presumably, from a Corinthian point of view in 504 (or the 420s), an ‘equal form of government’ (similarly, the oracle given to the Bacchiads addresses ‘Corinthians’ generically).57 But Delphi told Eëtion that his son would ‘bring justice to Corinth’, and justice falling not on ‘oligarchs’ but on ‘monarchical men’. It is true that Socles takes this oracle’s meaning to be the same as the earlier one 52 53 54 55

Saïd (2002) 127. 1.59–6, 62.2, 63.1, 96.2–98.3; 3.80.3; 6.11.2; 7.155.2, etc. van der Veen (1996) 86–9. For organisational simplicity, I defer consideration of what to many is the greatest negative—the contemporary perspective—until pp. 479–80. 56 Itself explicable in terms (a) of how folk memory tended to demonise the tyrants over time (Liz Irwin at the colloquium) and (b) of Herodotus’ own parallelism between Greek tyrants and eastern potentates. 57 Notoriously (despite Megabyzus’ advocacy at 3.81), Herodotus has little interest in oligarchy per se (Giraudeau [1984] 107; Lateiner [1989] 169 n. 18; Dewald [2003] 29–30), whether because as the commonest form of Greek government in his own day it required least explication or because within the historical period of his narrative it created relatively little political disruption.

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given to the Bacchiads (prophesying the birth of a ‘mighty, flesh-eating lion’), that is, that Eëtion’s son would overthrow the Bacchiads, but the perspectives both on the Bacchiads and on Cypselus are radically different.58 Further, the oracle given to Cypselus himself addresses him as ‘king’. Clearly, these different oracles reflect anti- and pro-Cypselus and anti- and pro-Bacchiad traditions, as well as the general tendency of oracles to tailor their emphases to individual consulters.59 It is no doubt also historically true that ‘pro-tyrant’ oracles provided an apologetic fig-leaf for those who failed to resist tyranny (‘the tyrants had the gods ⟦258⟧ on their side’),60 and this has been argued to play a role in the present narrative.61 But these factors do not in context render the different perspectives less jarring.62 The narrative also brings out the fact that Cypselus and the Bacchiads were ambiguously related, so that, while on one level he is the typical tyrannical usurper, on another level, he is, quite literally, ‘one of the family’.63 At the least, then, Herodotus (so to speak, as opposed to Socles) is conveying that one man’s tyrant can be another man’s king and one man’s oligarchy another man’s monarchy, and reminding us that even tyrants can play a positive role in the imposition of law over previous disorder64—even, perhaps, in the development, within ultimately ‘equal governments’, of ‘equality of law’.65 Arrestingly also, the oracle given to Cypselus (‘blessed this man who comes down into my house’) and the concluding statement that he ‘wove his life successfully to the end’ exemplify the Solonian/Herodotean principle ‘call no man happy/blessed until he is dead’ (1.30–2).66 58 Cf. McGlew (1993) 63–74. Gray (1996) 374–5 argues that δικαιώσει means (only) ‘punish’ or ‘pass judgement on Corinth without the usual connotations of justice’. But the usage cannot be divorced from the initial ‘more unjust’ or the concluding ‘contrary to justice’ and the context implies that the activity involves combating monarchical rule, itself, in context, implicitly unjust. Note Gray (1996) 375, conceding ‘[Cypselus] may have been right to attack the [Bacchiads]’. It is true that this is ‘rough justice’ (ὀλοοίτροχον … πέτρησι evokes Il. 13.137 ὡς ἀπὸ πέτρης: Vernant [1982] 36 n. 23; Gray [1996] 373), but a form of justice it remains. It is also true—and important—that ‘chastise’ is another level of meaning (pp. 479–80 below). 59 Węcowski (1996) 220–8. 60 Lavelle (1991) 324. 61 Wrongly, as I believe. 62 Pace the scholars cited in n. 5. 63 Sourvinou-Inwood (1991) 266 (‘Kypselos is, through his birth, both central and marginal’), 282–3 n. 122; also Murray (1993) 148–9. 64 Cf. 1.96–100 (Deioces). 65 Cf. Peisistratus at 1.59. 66 van der Veen (1996) 75–6; note the contrast with the equally leonine tyrant Hipparchus (5.56).

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The episode of the baby Cypselus requires particular consideration. He is in the first instance saved by the ‘divine chance’ of his smiling at the first of his would-be assassins and by the resultant ‘pity’ of that man and then of all the others as he is passed from hand to hand, and when his mother overhears their conversation as they renew their determination to kill him it is because ‘it had to be that evils should spring up from Eëtion’s issue’. Is the pity virtuous? On one level, yes, because it contrasts with Cypselus qua raw-flesh-eating lion and subsequent mass murderer.67 On another level, no, because—as often in Greek ethics—it is a source of weakness which prevents the proper ‘observation’ of the task in hand—an error for which the would-be assassins themselves soon upbraid one another. Nor is it clear whether Socles takes the ‘divine chance’ in a strong religious sense or ‘it had to be’ as denoting active divine will.68 But the reader must consider these at least to be possibilities, especially in conjunction with the oracles given to Eëtion and Cypselus, with the general ‘divine child’ overtones of this episode,69 and with the arresting detail of the smile (which, since ⟦259⟧ newborn babies do not smile, marks the divine child).70 Does that smile also denote recognition of kinship?71 But, simultaneously, the smile, while ‘divine’ and hardly consciously willed by Cypselus qua baby, is also deceptive, because it successfully diverts attention from Cypselus qua raw-flesh-eating lion, just as the lion-cub in Aeschylus’ Agamemon beguiles by its soft glance.72 There is another complexity. While the Cypselus-baby narrative has its place in a clear chronological sequence, it is also proleptic of the behaviour of the adult tyrant, who characteristically wins power by deception,73 at the beginning of his rule smiles on all and sundry,74 and secures his position by dividing the opposition. Within this perspective, the ‘divine chance’ of Cypselus’ smile suggests the capricious ‘smile of Fortune’, which moves from person to person.75 Only united action can dislodge such a tyrant (as proleptically conveyed by the would-be assassins’ second plan—that ‘all should have a share 67 Cf. Gray (1996) 376. 68 Discussion of these difficult glosses: Hohti (1975); Gould (1989) 68–78; Munson (2001a) 34 n. 23; (2001b) 42 n. 64; Mikalson (2002) 192–3; (2003) 148–9; Harrison (2003) 231–3. 69 Immerwahr (1966) 194–5; D. M. Johnson (2001) 13; p. 466 above. 70 Immerwahr (1966) 195; D. M. Johnson (2001) 13; Virg. Ecl. 4.60–3, with Coleman (1977) 149; Lateiner (1977) 176 n. 9 is wrong to describe Cypselus’ smile as ‘innocent’: see p. 485 below. 71 As in Cat. 61.212–13; Virg. Ecl. 4.60–3. 72 McNellen (1997) 18; D. M. Johnson (2001) 13–14. 73 Cf. 1.59 (Peisistratus); 1.96–8 (Deioces). 74 D. M. Johnson (2001) 14 well cites Pl. Rep. 8.566d5–e1. 75 E.g., Ov. Tr. 1.5.27; Apul. Met. 10.16.

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in the murder’). Tyranny also can seem dangerously ‘attractive’.76 This doubleness of temporal perspective in the muthoi is also reflected in the notion of the child/son Periander as ‘always already’ an ‘outsize man’. There are also elements in the wider narrative that give pause. How can ‘equality of speech’ be the wonderful thing that Socles, the allies, the Athenians, and, apparently, Herodotus himself think it is, when the narrative attests its failures as well as its successes? One of the putative tyrants of this very sequence is Isagoras (= ‘equal/just speaker’). Aristagoras (= ‘best speaker’) is doing well in his efforts to persuade Cleomenes but then makes a crucial error (50.2), and when he resorts to bribery he is seen off by Cleomenes’ little girl (51.2). With the Athenian assembly, however, he succeeds, ‘for it seems to be much easier to string along77 many than one, if he was unable to string along Cleomenes the Spartan alone but did do this to thirty thousand Athenians’ (97.2). And Athenian ‘equality of speech’ led eventually to the Athenian Empire, as the context surrounding Socles’ speech reminds us. Again, if ‘the Greek gods’ and ‘Greece’ generically oppose tyranny, how could Hippias invoke the very same gods as Socles, why did Delphi sometimes favour tyrants such as Cypselus and, later, the Persians, how can the ⟦260⟧ Spartans propose to reinstate Hippias, and why did so many Greek states either medise or wobble in their opposition to medism? Is Socles’ case therefore ‘sapped’, ‘undercut’, ‘deconstructed’, or ‘problematised’? Do these circumstances illustrate ‘a profound bifurcation’ and ‘doubleness’ in Herodotus’ narrative of tyranny?78 Irrespective of the general validity of such interpretations of ancient literature, in this case at any rate I think they are wrong, both intellectually and morally (!)—as Socles’ own speech teaches us. In the first place, there is ‘the principle of proportional meaning’. A simple illustration: with one or two exceptions, Mahler’s nine symphonies drip with angst. There is some angst in Haydn’s 104 symphonies. But a critical discourse that says that the proportion is the same in both composers perpetrates a gross mathematical error. The number and the seriousness of the factors in favour of Socles’ speech heavily outweigh the negatives. Second, in so far as Socles’ speech and its interaction with the surrounding narrative make general claims about the efficacy of ‘equality of speech’ and

76

As Herodotus sardonically conveys at 1.29 (‘there arrived in Sardis [~ Athens] all the great sophistai from Greece who were alive during that time’: Moles (1996) 262 {above, p. 250}). 77 Cf. Pelling (2007) 179–87. 78 Dewald (2003) 47, 49.

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‘equal governments’, these claims are not undermined when from time to time the practice goes wrong. Third, in so far as Socles’ speech and its interaction with the surrounding narrative champion ideals, these ideals are not undermined when people (or even gods) fail to live up to them. On the contrary, the ideals provide the fundamental touchstone for the evaluation of the failures and themselves remain unchallenged.79 It is of course the job of a serious historian to highlight and analyse the failures both of competence and of morality. But because of the principle of proportional meaning the overall emphasis is not ‘there are these general principles but they are continually undermined in practice’, but rather ‘despite the shortcomings in practice, the general principles are the things to aim at’. Fourth, while Socles’ speech and its interaction with the surrounding narrative make factual and moral claims, these claims themselves acknowledge the difficulties of their implementation. Socles’ own analysis does not duck hard issues. It emphasises tyranny’s sheer power.80 It concedes that tyrants can be ‘successful’ (both Cypselus and Periander are ‘blessed’; Cypselus ‘brought the thread of his life to an end well’), even attractive (the baby Cypselus), and that tyranny can introduce a sort of justice, even play a part in the long-term development of justice. But the initial attractions of ⟦261⟧ tyranny will always in the end prove deceptive,81 hence the mythic power of the lion-cub fable and the systematic demonstration of the progressive moral deterioration of the Cypselid tyranny, culminating in the ‘stripping’ of the Corinthian women. Any serious analysis of tyranny has to confront its apparent advantages before arguing their ultimate falsity. The Cypselus narrative is not an inconsistency within the overall analysis but a proof of that analysis’ intellectual cogency. Socles’ analysis also acknowledges the role of the contingent: the ‘accidental factor’ which throws things out of what seems to be their natural course, here the ‘smile’ of the ‘divine baby’. Many critics—with an almost indecent lack of discrimination—have leaped upon this apparent manifestation of Herodotus the determinist or pessimist.82 Even if this is a correct interpretation, it still subserves Socles’ general position (as one of those things whose very difficulty reinforces the need to uphold the general principle as far as possible). But I do not think it is correct: the would-be assassins’ pity constitutes a failure of 79 Pace the attractive Pelling (1997). 80 Eëtion is son of ‘Have/Get Power’; Cypselus is the ‘powerful’ lion; finally, Cypselus ‘got power over’ Corinth. 81 Similarly, 1.96–100 (Deioces); 3.80 (Otanes’ analysis). 82 E.g., Dewald (2003) 44, 47; Harrison (2003) 249.

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‘observation’, as they crucially ‘misread’ the smile; when they reconsider the situation, they speak unwisely in allowing themselves to be overheard; they fail to ‘observe’ Cypselus’ hiding-place; and finally, they tell their masters that they have killed Cypselus, who unsurprisingly then grows up to manhood and tyranny. The narrative acknowledges difficulty, not impossibility. Similarly, while Socles’ own performance instantiates ‘equality of speech’ and ‘equality of government’, the desired result has to be achieved with effort. There remains a factor which, on some interpretations, considerably undermines or ironises Socles’ speech. Socles’ speech moves beyond the particular to generalisations about tyranny and about its ever-present threat, alike within states, within alliances and imposed on states by other states. The speech is framed by: an allusion to prophecies of many evils the Spartans would suffer from the Athenians (90.2); the Spartans’ fear of Athenian growth (91.1); their claim that others besides Athens’ neighbours are likely to suffer from Athenian arrogance and power (91.2); and the allusion of Hippias, oracle expert, to prophecies of future Athenian harassment of Corinthians (93.1). Although all these items make sense in the immediate context, emphasising motivation and political exploitation of oracles,83 they also coincide with later developments known to Herodotus’ contemporaries, and Herodotus did not have to record these items or so arrange ⟦262⟧ them. The sequence thus creates implicit contemporary/recent-past allusions and ‘Athens the tyrant city’ comes within the interpretative frame.84 Socles’ own speech intensifies this perspective. Given the framing forward allusions, the speech’s evocation of the Herodotean/Solonian principles of ‘looking to the end of every thing’ and of ‘small things becoming great’ raises the question: where does the nascent growth (5.66.1, 78.1) of Athens fit here? Indeed, from a listener/reader point of view, Cypselus, besides being the historical Cypselus or any tyrant, also actually represents tyrannical Athens, currently fluffy lion-cub but destined to mutate into the ‘chastiser’ of the Corinthians

83 D. M. Johnson (2001) 16–17 (resisting any contemporary implication). 84 Main statements of this ‘school’: Strasburger (1955); Fornara (1971); French (1972); Raaflaub (1979); (1987); Stadter (1992); Węcowski (1996); Moles (1996); Munson (2001b) 58; Moles (2002); unconvincing objections in Gould (1989) 116–20; crude misrepresentation in Harrison (2000) 242; nuanced reservations in Fowler (2003) 311–12, though conceding (311): ‘I do not dispute the substance of these observations’; the dimension can, of course, be overplayed; to the references in n. 7 add Stahl (1983) 218–20; Dewald (2003) 31, 48.

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under the ‘leonine’ Pericles.85 Herodotus trails this equivalence at 91.2: Athens ‘perked up’ = Greek ἀνέκυψε: a witty proleptic pun on Κύψελος.86 What are the consequences? Certainly, Herodotus signals historical ironies. At this meeting of the Peloponnesian League Corinth saved the newly democratic Athens from tyranny; within about 30 years, that ‘internal’ democracy will be exercising ‘external’ tyranny; later still, it will inflict ‘chastisement’ on Corinth; and only recently, at another meeting of the Peloponnesian League, Corinth took the lead in demanding action against Athens the tyrant city. Doubtless, these ironies, combined with the speech’s Herodotean/Solonian principles, have some causative implication and, qua ironies, perhaps suggest some limitation in human foresight. Is there more? It is at this point that one must consider van der Veen’s reading, which may be summarised as follows. Socles and the allies had enough information—from Spartan forebodings, based both on their own perception and on oracles, from Athenian behaviour already, and from the oracular interpretations of Hippias—to foresee that the long-term consequences of the preservation, on this occasion, of Athenian democracy, would be worse than those of the restoration of the Peisistratids.87 Herodotus is here dramatising one of the great ‘might-have-beens’ of history (504 offered the last chance for action against Athens). Just as the Bacchiads fluffed the chance ⟦263⟧ to kill the baby Cypselus, so Socles and the allies fluffed the chance to kill the ‘infant’ of Athenian tyranny. Herodotus is advocating a form of statecraft which, while not quite oblivious to moral considerations, ultimately privileges cool and long-sighted calculation of interest, a form of statecraft here illustrated by the ‘readings’ of the Spartans and Hippias, not those of Socles and the allies. (This Herodotus looks very like Thucydides.) But there are huge objections to these conclusions. It staggers belief that a historian with such a complex conception of causality and so acute an appreciation of the role of contingency as Herodotus could be saying that this single decision predetermined the course of Greek history for the next seventy years. Further, on Herodotus’ view of the innate self-destructiveness of tyranny, reinstatement of Hippias could only have been a stop-gap: it could not have stopped the clock. Most crucially, not only do these 85 6.131, often, and I think rightly, interpreted as figuring Pericles as tyrant: Strasburger (1955) 17; Thomas (1989) 270–1; Moles (2002) 41–2 {above, pp. 446–7}. 86 Cf. also Gray (1996) 386. 87 Cf. Herodotus’ celebrated lament at 6.98: in the three successive generations of Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes Greece suffered more evils than in the twenty generations before Darius, partly at the hands of the Persians, partly at the hands of the leading Greek states, warring over supremacy.

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conclusions give insufficient value to the intelligence and multi-layeredness of Socles’ analysis but they miss its evocation, within a universal model of tyranny, of the threat from Sparta. Had that threat been allowed to materialise, there might have been an alternative history just as oppressive and just as disastrous as the history that did occur. Cypselus qua baby and lion-cub stands for the tyrannical Sparta that might have been, just as much as for the tyrannical Athens that was to be. It would have been proportionately wrong to ‘kill’ Athenian democracy at this point, even though that Athenian internal democracy eventually grew into external Athenian tyranny, because democracy as a form of ‘equality of speech’ or ‘equal government’ is intrinsically good and does not inevitably lead to empire, because tyrannical intervention in other states is intrinsically bad, and because the essential thing in context was to kill the Spartan baby. And finally, eloquent as the framing oracles are, the run of the text gives ‘the last word’ not to Hippias but to the allies, the many positive implications of whose ‘breaking voice’ have already been shown. In short, van der Veen is right that his reading is one that the text raises: but the text also shows that it is wrong. Wrong. If Socles’ speech is correct, that wrongness will be both intellectual and moral. I finish by arguing the centrality of Socles’ speech to the purposes of the Histories. The Histories begin with the ‘unjust deeds’ towards the Greeks of Croesus, ‘tyrant’ of Lydia. That ‘injustice’ consists in the imposition of a tribute-based empire.88 The successors of Croesus’ empire, the Persian and Athenian ⟦264⟧ tribute-based empires, are, therefore, also unjust. The Histories end ominously with Athens, tyrant-city, on the threshold of her unjust and tyrannical empire.89 Socles’ speech comes roughly halfway through the Histories, at the centre, or ‘crossing’, of the narrative, when the Persians, tyrannical imperialists, are ‘crossing’ into Greece.90 This ‘crucial’ speech prevents the reimposition of tyranny in Athens, averts the establishment of Spartan tyranny over the Peloponnesian League, and promotes the freedom of all Greece. Narrative and thematic architecture buttress the strength of the speech.91 Herodotus’ own related polarity between tyranny and equality of speech (78) is one of a series

88 89 90 91

1.5.3–4, 6; Moles (2002) 35–6 {above, pp. 441–2}. Moles (1996) 271–7 {above, pp. 260–6}; Dewald (1997). Cf. Greenwood (2007) 128. Cf. also Fowler (2003) 315.

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of contrasts between tyranny and various forms of freedom which punctuates and animates key moments in the historical narrative.92 That the Corinthians aborted the reinstatement of Hippias, as they had earlier withdrawn from Cleomenes’ assault on Athens, need not be doubted. Most scholars accept (unenthusiastically enough) the historicity of Socles. But it is not just Socles’ speech that speaks: his name also speaks. In a sequence thick with name- and word-plays, Socles is doubly significant: So/cles ‘saves his own fame’ (this being his only appearance in Herodotus) and he ‘saves the anti-tyrant fame of the Spartans’. This double action comes within the category of the ‘famous deeds of men’, whose encomiastic commemoration is the Histories’ main purpose (Preface).93 And since Socles argues the opposite case to the Spartans’, which is ‘wonderful’ in a bad sense, his own should be ‘wonderful’ in a good, hence again categorisable among those ‘great and wonderful’ deeds. Further, his ‘advice’ counters the ‘tyrannical’ advice not only of the Spartans but implicitly also the bloodthirsty advice of the outright tyrant Thrasybulus, ‘adviser of brazen actions’: Socles’ advice, then, should be subtle and humane, as the above analysis shows it to be. If Socles was a historical figure, it is highly improbable that Herodotus had access to his actual arguments.94 Indeed, Socles’ arguments look like Herodotus’ own, and not just in the sense that he has invented rhetorically appropriate arguments but also in the sense that he thinks them right, right in general but especially right at this crucial historical and narrative ⟦265⟧ moment. On either view of Socles’ historicity, then, Socles isn’t really Socles: he’s Herodotus (though of course, if Socles did not exist, Herodotus’ ‘commemoration’ of him piquantly proclaims the inadequacy of ‘history as fact’). Socles, then, speaks with unique ‘author-ity’. Those Histories name famous deeds and names and—at least sometimes— suppress the names of the authors of infamous deeds.95 They also incorporate contemporary or recent-past allusions as a device to jolt contemporary listeners and readers into reflection on their own situations and on the connections between those situations and the historical period down to 479. Socles is not only a speaker, he is an adviser, and the reward he himself both advocates and instantiates for virtuous behaviour is ‘naming and faming’, while the punishment for vicious behaviour is ‘naming and shaming’. Paradoxically, however, 92 E.g. 1.6.1–3, 62.1; 3.80.6, 142.3; 4.137.1–2; 5.37.2; 6.5.1, 43.3, 123.1–2. 93 Cf. Herodotus’ elaborate punning on Themistocles as ‘rightly named/famed’, ‘famed for his rightness’: 7.143 with Moles (2002) 44–5 {above, pp. 449–50}; and his simpler punning on Pericles (6.131) as ‘far-famed’: Moles (2002) 41 {above, p. 447}. 94 Pace Salmon (1984) 249. 95 4.43.7, 1.51.4, and cf. 2.128; Lateiner (1989) 75.

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Socles does some of this implicitly, through the device of ‘figured speech’. He challenges his audiences to penetrate his meaning. How does this relate to historiographical tradition? Later historiography sometimes explicitly states that its function is to commemorate virtuous behaviour and damn vicious behaviour.96 The former element is effectively explicit in Herodotus (since ‘wonderful’ deeds include virtuous deeds). The latter is only implicit but it is there (in the device of non-naming the vicious). Later historiography also sometimes explicitly proffers virtuous and vicious behaviour as examples of what to imitate and what to avoid.97 Later historiography also sometimes explicitly proffers praise for virtuous behaviour and damnation of vicious behaviour as incentives and disincentives for contemporary and subsequent readers.98 How can such a programme ‘work’? In the case of so-called ‘contemporary history’, the praise and dispraise affects some contemporaries directly and others potentially. In the case of past history, historiography demonstrates that it has the power to determine people’s ultimate reputation, hence both contemporaries and people of the future will also eventually come under the verdict of history, as delivered by future historians. Most modern scholars exclude any such perspectives in Herodotus, emphasising his commemorative purpose. But, as in Homer, telling stories about the past is not incompatible with moral exhortation of the people to whom those stories are told.99 In the present case, Socles qua ‘historian’, opponent of tyranny, and adviser, commemorates Corinthian tyranny ⟦266⟧ in order to deter the Spartans from tyrannical action, to encourage the allies to reject both Spartan tyranny and the restoration of tyranny in Athens, and to promote a common Greekness. His speech as contextualised makes Herodotus’ contemporaries think of their own present and recent past. His speech is also a ‘meta’-speech for the Histories as a whole and it provides all its listeners, those of the 420s as well as of 504, with the ‘experience’ of tyranny which should promote ‘good counsel’. As they listened to Socles/Herodotus, Herodotus’ contemporaries could hardly have failed to remember that Herodotus himself had

96 97 98 99

E.g., Diod. 1.1.5. E.g., Diod. 1.1.2, 4, 5; Liv. praef. 10. E.g., Diod. 1.1.5; Tac. Ann. 3.65.1–2 with Moles (1998), pace Woodman (1995). Cf. the story of Meleager (Il. 9.527–605), often adduced as a parallel to Socles’ procedure.

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had direct experience of tyranny and fought against it.100 Nor do the Histories speak only to contemporary listeners or readers.101 The ‘gap’ in the narrative—the failure to record the Spartans’ reaction to Socles’ speech—prompts the question: what was their reaction? They were shamed but were they ashamed? Whatever, they were deterred and in that sense they got their reward: the saving, for the moment, of their anti-tyrannical reputation. Was that reputation sustained? What of later Spartans? Sparta’s championship of freedom and Panhellenism at the start of the Peloponnesian War looks hypocritical. Archidamus’ view that Sparta should seek Persian support against Athens102 looks cynical. Lysander’s decarchies, precisely ‘the establishment of tyrannies in the cities’, look terrible. Pausanias’ intervention into Athens in 403 to overthrow the Thirty and re-establish Athenian democracy looks virtuous. Of course, these last two examples post-date Herodotus, but the plasticity of his historical imagination projects his moral-political judgements into the future. It would be interesting to run Herodotus’ account of the events of 506–504 against the year 403. What of the Corinthians? They covered themselves with glory on this occasion and Herodotus commemorates the fact. But they didn’t care when Athens crushed her ally Samos with spectacular brutality103 and history would take a dim view of their desire to destroy Athens in 404. What of the Athenians? Saved from tyranny on this occasion, they would go on to establish their own tyranny, which in Herodotus’ own lifetime and slightly later would grow ever more unjust and murderous (Scione, Melos). ⟦267⟧ And what of us, silent readers, like the silent Spartan listeners? To do anything like justice to the richness of the Histories, we must of course see that they incorporate competing narratives, competing rhetorics, competing realities, competing potentialities, competing growths, and competing readings. But to respond to Socles’/Herodotus’ moral challenge, we must also see that among all these competing entities there is a master narrative, a master reading, a master growth, a master potentiality: the one that inscribes freedom as opposed to tyranny. The tyrannical readings and writings of history by Cypselus and Periander (or even Thucydides and van der Veen) are all 100 The tradition is reasonably solid: How–Wells (1928) I.3–4; for the general theme of the historian’s character as an aid to persuasion see Marincola (1997) 128–74, though the claim that ‘for Herodotus, the first historian, the only experience in the narrative is that of enquiry’ (133) is incorrect: see text and Moles (1996) 264–5, 270 {above, pp. 252–3, 259}. I do not think that this item falls into ‘the biographical fallacy’. 101 1.5.3–4; Moles (1996) 278–9 {above, pp. 267–8}; Naiden (1999). 102 Thuc. 1.82.1. 103 Cf. 9.120.4 with Stadter (1989) 51.

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very clever and demand scrutiny because one has to know how to deal with them, but they are wrong, both intellectually and morally. Implementation of the master narrative poses immense difficulties, but it is an ideal to which we should aspire and it is also an ideal sometimes capable of implementation. For in their eventually victorious struggle against the Persians, the Greeks, albeit hesitantly, fitfully, fleetingly, did achieve that ideal. And so did Socles, which is why Herodotus commemorates him (or invents him).104 Children loom large in Socles’ speech. Did Herodotus have any children? We don’t know, but one child at least he did father (or mother): ‘this is the production of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, in order that neither should the things born from men come to an end nor should great and wonderful deeds, some produced by Greeks, some by barbarians, be without name/fame’ (Preface). The master imagery (there are others)105 is biological: ‘born from men’, ‘come to an end’ (as of a family dying out),106 ‘production’ (as of children),107 ‘Herodotus’ (yet again, a name speaks: ‘the gift of Hera’, goddess of marriage). Herodotus’ Histories is his baby, and it was not for nothing that in the ancient world Herodotus himself was named the Father of History. Herodotus’ baby had many babies, but one was pre-eminent. Whatever his historicity, ‘Socles’ is ultimately nothing more than the nom de plume of ‘Herodotus’, mother-creator of the text of the Histories (Socles’ quotation of Hera is additionally apposite). Socles’ ‘wonderful’ speech itself births, saves, and matures a baby whose virtues far outshine the sinister babyhoods of the Dionysiac and leonine Cypselus, of the potential Spartan tyranny, and of the tyrannical Athens that was to be: that is, the ‘baby’ variously named ‘democratic Athens’, ‘equality of speech’, and ‘equality of government’: the baby ⟦268⟧ of freedom, a baby to be loved and cherished but—of course—prevented from becoming a bad baby. Modern scholarship generally maintains a rather embarrassed silence about this matter, but it is right that one contribution to this collection107a should save the reputation of the Histories as a great libertarian text.108

104 Which of course is what I think but cannot prove. 105 Notably, the ‘inscriptional’: Moles (1999). 106 Cf. 5.39.2. 107 LSJ s.v. ἀποδείκνυμι, I.2. 107a {I.e., the collection of papers from the Cambridge conference in which this chapter appeared.} 108 Cf. Moles (1998) on Annals 4.32–5: Herodotus certainly influenced that sequence, which offers many parallels to the Socles episode; I now think Tacitus had actually read Socles’ speech and interpreted it as I do. Of course, neither Herodotus’ nor Tacitus’ ideas of ‘liberty’ are above criticism.

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Bibliography Ahl, F. M. (1984) ‘The Art of Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome’, AJPh 105: 174–208. Alden, M. J. (2000) Homer Beside Himself: Para-narratives in the Iliad (Oxford). Aly, W. (1921) Volksmärchen, Sage und Novellen bei Herodot und seinen Zeitgenossen: eine Untersuchung über die volkstümlichen Elemente der altgriechischen Prosaerzählung (Göttingen; repr. with corrections and afterword by L. Huber, 1969). Andrewes, A. (1956) The Greek Tyrants (London). Bakker, E. J., I. J. F. de Jong, and H. van Wees, edd. (2002) Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden). Balot, R. K. (2004) ‘Free Speech, Courage, and Democratic Collaboration’, in Sluiter and Rosen (2004) 233–59. Boedeker, D. (2002) ‘Epic Heritage and Mythical Patterns in Herodotus’, in Bakker–de Jong–van Wees (2002) 97–116. Boedeker, D., ed. (1987) Herodotus and the Invention of History (Special Arethusa Issue 20). Carter, D. M. (2004) ‘Citizen Attribute, Negative Right: a Conceptual Difference between Ancient and Modern Ideas of Freedom of Speech’, in Sluiter and Rosen (2004) 197–220. Coleman, R., ed. (1977) Vergil: Eclogues (Cambridge). Derow, P. S. and R. Parker, edd. (2003) Herodotus and his World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest (Oxford). Dewald, C. J. (1997) ‘Wanton Kings, Pickled Heroes, and Gnomic Founding Fathers: Strategies of Meaning at the End of Herodotus’ Histories’, in D. Roberts, D. Fowler, and F. Dunn, edd., Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature (Princeton) 62–82; repr. in Munson (2013) I.379–401. Dewald, C. J. (2003) ‘Form and Content: the Question of Tyranny in Herodotus’, in K. Morgan, ed., Popular Tyranny: Sovereignty and its Discontents (Austin) 25–58. Flory, S. (1980) ‘Who Read Herodotus’ Histories?’, AJPh 101: 12–28. Fornara, C. W. (1971) Herodotus: an Interpretative Essay (Oxford). Forsdyke, S. (1999) ‘From Aristocratic to Democratic Ideology and Back Again: the Thrasybulus Anecdote in Herodotus’ Histories and Aristotle’s Politics’, CPh 94: 361–72. Forsdyke, S. (2002) ‘Greek History, c.525–480 BC’, in Bakker–de Jong–van Wees (2002) 521–49. Fowler, R. L. (2001) ‘Early Historiē and Literacy’, in N. Luraghi, ed., The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus (Oxford) 95–115. Fowler, R. L. (2003) ‘Herodotus in Athens’, in Derow and Parker (2003) 305–18. French, A. (1972) ‘Topical Influences on Herodotos’ Narrative’, Mnemosyne 25: 9–27.

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Giraudeau, M. (1984) Les notions juridiques et sociales chez Hérodote: études sur le vocabulaire (Paris). Gould, J. (1989) Herodotus (London and New York). Gray, V. J. (1996) ‘Herodotus and Images of Tyranny: the Tyrants of Corinth’, AJPh 117: 361–89. Gray, V. J. (1997) ‘Reading the Rise of Pisistratus: Herodotus 1.56–68’, Histos 1: 128–53. Greenwood, E. (2007) ‘Bridging the Narrative (5.23–7)’, in Irwin and Greenwood (2007) 128–45. Harrison, T. (2000) Divinity and History: the Religion of Herodotus (Oxford). Harrison, T. (2003) ‘“Prophecy in Reverse”?: Herodotus and the Origins of History’, in Derow and Parker (2003) 237–55. Hart, J. (1982) Herodotus and Greek History (London). Hartog, F. (1988) The Mirror of Herodotus: the Representation of the Other in the Writing of History (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London); trans. by J. Lloyd of Le Miroir d’Hérodote: essai sur la representation de l’autre (Paris, 1980). Hohti, P. (1974) ‘Freedom of Speech in the Speech Sections of the Histories of Herodotus’, Arctos 8: 19–27. Hohti, P. (1975) ‘Über die Notwendigkeit bei Herodot’, Arctos 9: 31–7. How, W. W. and J. Wells (1928) A Commentary on Herodotus2, 2 vols. (Oxford). Immerwahr, H. (1966) Form and Thought in Herodotus (Cleveland). Irwin, E. and E. Greenwood, edd. (2007) Reading Herodotus: a Study of the Logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus’ Histories (Cambridge). Johnson, D. M. (2001) ‘Herodotus’ Story-Telling Speeches: Socles (5.92) and Leotychidas (6.86)’, CJ 97: 1–26. Johnson, W. A. (1994) ‘Oral Performance and the Composition of Herodotus’ Histories’, GRBS 35: 229–54. Lang, M. L. (1984) Herodotean Narrative and Discourse (Cambridge, Mass. and London). Lateiner, D. (1977) ‘No Laughing Matter: a Literary Tactic in Herodotus’, TAPhA 107: 173–82. Lateiner, D. (1989) The Historical Method of Herodotus (Toronto). Lavelle, B. (1991) ‘The Compleat Angler: Observations on the Rise of Peisistratus in Herodotus (1.59–64)’, CQ 41: 317–24. Macan, R. W. (1895) Herodotus: the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Books, 2 vols. (London). Marincola, J., ed. (1996) Herodotus: the Histories, revised edition (Harmondsworth). Marincola, J. (1997) Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge). McGlew, J. F. (1993) Tyranny and Political Culture in Ancient Greece (Ithaca and London). McInerney, J. (2004) ‘Nereids, Colonies and the Origins of Isēgoria’, in Sluiter and Rosen (2004) 21–40. McNellen, B. (1997) ‘Herodotean Symbolism: Pericles as Lion Cub’, ICS 22: 11–23.

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Mikalson, J. D. (2002) ‘Religion in Herodotus’, in Bakker–de Jong–van Wees (2002) 187–98. Mikalson, J. D. (2003) Herodotus and Religion in the Persian Wars (Chapel Hill and London). Moles, J. L. (1996) ‘Herodotus Warns the Athenians’, PLLS 9: 259–84 [above, Ch. 52]. Moles, J. L. (1998) ‘Cry Freedom: Tacitus Annals 4.32–35’, Histos 2 (1998) 95–184 [above, Ch. 53]. Moles, J. L. (1999) ‘ΑΝΑΘΗΜΑ ΚΑΙ ΚΤΗΜΑ: the Inscriptional Inheritance of Ancient Historiography’, Histos 3: 27–69 [above, Ch. 54]. Moles, J. L. (2001) ‘A False Dilemma: Thucydides’ History and Historicism’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., Texts, Ideas and the Classics: Scholarship, Theory and Classical Literature (Oxford) 195–219 [above, Ch. 55]. Moles, J. L. (2002) ‘Herodotus and Athens’, in Bakker–de Jong–van Wees (2002) 33–52 [above, Ch. 56]. Munson, R. V. (2001a) ‘Ananke in Herodotus’, JHS 121: 30–50. Munson, R. V. (2001b) Telling Wonders: Ethnographic and Political Discourse in the Work of Herodotus (Ann Arbor). Munson, R. V., ed. (2013) Herodotus, 2 vols. (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies; Oxford). Murray, O. (1993) Early Greece2 (London and Cambridge, Mass.). Naiden, F. S. (1999) ‘The Prospective Imperfect in Herodotus’, HSCPh 99: 135–49. Nenci, G. (1994) Erodoto: Le Storie, Libro V: La rivolta della Ionia (Milan). Oost, S. I. (1972) ‘Cypselus the Bacchiad’, CPh 67: 10–30. Pelling, C. B. R. (1997) ‘East is East and West is West—or are They? National Stereotypes in Herodotus’, Histos 1: 51–66; updated version in Munson (2013) II.360–79. Pelling, C. B. R. (2007) ‘Aristagoras (5.49–55, 97)’, in Irwin and Greenwood (2007) 179–201. Raaflaub, K. A. (1979) ‘Polis Tyrannos: zur Entstehung einer politischen Metapher’, in G. W. Bowersock, W. Burkert, and M. C. J. Putnam, edd., Arktouros: Hellenic Studies Presented to Bernard Knox (Berlin and New York) 237–52. Raaflaub, K. A. (1987) ‘Herodotus, Political Thought and the Meaning of History’, in Boedeker (1987) 221–48. Romm, J. (1998) Herodotus (New Haven and London). Roux, G. (1963) ‘Κυψελή: où avait-on caché le petit Kypsélos?’, REA 65: 279–89. Saïd, S. (2002) ‘Herodotus and Tragedy’, in Bakker–de Jong–van Wees (2002) 117–47. Salmon, J. B. (1984) Wealthy Corinth: a History of the City to 338 BC (Oxford). Sluiter, I. and R. M. Rosen, edd. (2004) Free Speech in Classical Antiquity (Leiden). Sourvinou-Inwood, C. (1991) ‘Reading’ Greek Culture: Texts and Images, Rituals and Myths (Oxford).

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Stadter, P. A. (1989) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Pericles (Chapel Hill and London). Stadter, P. A. (1992) ‘Herodotus and the Athenian Arche’, ASNP 22: 781–809; repr. in Munson (2013) 334–56. Stahl, M. (1983) ‘Tyrannis und das Problem der Macht: die Geschichten Herodots über Kypselos und Periander von Korinth’, Hermes 111: 202–20. Steiner, D. T. (1994) The Tyrant’s Writ: Myths and Images of Writing in Ancient Greece (Princeton). Strasburger, H. (1955) ‘Herodot und das perikleische Athen’, Historia 4: 1–25; repr. in id., Studien zur alten Geschichte, 2 vols. (Hildesheim and New York, 1982) II.592–626; Eng. trans. in Munson (2013) I.295–320. Thomas, R. (1989) Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge). Thompson, S. (1958) Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, vol. VI: Index (Copenhagen and Bloomington). Van der Veen, J. E. (1996) The Significant and the Insignificant: Five Studies in Herodotus’ View of History (Amsterdam). Vernant, J.-P. (1982) ‘From Oedipus to Periander: Lameness, Tyranny, Incest in Legend and History’, Arethusa 15: 19–38. Waters, K. H. (1971) Herodotus on Tyrants and Despots: a Study in Objectivity (Wiesbaden). Węcowski, M. (1996) ‘Ironie et histoire: le discours de Soclès (Hérodote V 92)’, AncSoc 27: 205–58. Woodman, A. J. (1995) ‘Praecipuum munus annalium: the Construction, Convention and Context of Tacitus, Annals 3.65.1’, MH 52: 111–26; repr. in id., Tacitus Reviewed (Oxford, 1998) 86–103. Zörner, G. (1971) Kypselos und Pheidon von Argos: Untersuchungen zur frühen griechischen Tyrannis (Marburg).

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Narrative and Speech Problems in Thucydides Book 1 Beginnings and endings* are notoriously difficult.1 Thucydides solved the latter with summary brilliance: he died.2 I focus on beginnings, but also say things about endings and ‘closure’. The narrative of Thucydides 1 has attracted more attention than any other book’s. A bad reason for this is ‘the Iliad 1 syndrome’ (that Homeric book being the most referenced by ancients and moderns). But there are good reasons too. The book appears to be unified by its focus on causes and events before the war.3 It is a ‘pre-write’ (23.5) within the total ‘writing-up’ (1.1),4 and the programmatic character of the prefatory material (1–23) extends into the narratives, which herald many of the Thucydides questions. Moreover, the intuition that Iliad 1 has extensive resonance is richly fulfilled.5 These narratives also pose their own, juicy problems, which have produced very different interpretations, including radical claims of profound disunity, different compositional strata, and authorial changes of mind.6 Badian’s revival of Schwartz’s thesis that the narrative is systematically skewed against Sparta has further energised debate, especially regarding narrative ⟦16⟧ omissions and displacements.7 These have also inspired sophisticated narratology.8

* ‘Hoc tibi, quod potui …’ Snow prevented Tony’s presence at this paper’s first outing (Leeds, 16 April 1999). Progressively elaborated versions were given over the years at Newcastle and Columbia. I gratefully thank Chris Pelling as ‘nurse’. Space circumscribes bibliography. 1 Arist. Poet. 7, 1450b26–31; White (1987) 44; Roberts–Dunn–Fowler (1997). 2 Even Canfora’s (2006) radical re-write of Thucydides’ biography concedes untimely death. 3 The non-Thucydidean book-divisions and problematics of 2.1 (e.g., Price [2001] 277–82) here matter little. 4 Immaterial here the nuances of ξυγγράφω argued by Bakker (2006). 5 Bowie (1993). 6 Surveys: Gomme–Andrewes–Dover (1981) 379–82; 405–23; Pelling (2000) 82ff.; Stahl (2003) 37–64; (2006) 301–20; Zagorin (2005) 40–56. 7 Schwartz (1929) 154–67; Badian (1990) 46ff.; (1993); positive responses: Hornblower (1991) 65, 84; (1994), esp. 140–5; (1997) 270–2; negative: Stadter (1993); Moles (1995); Pritchett (1995); Cawkwell (1997) 34–7; Meyer (1997); Rood (1998) 215–19, 221–2. 8 Hornblower (1994); Rood (1998); Gribble (1998); contra, Stahl (2006) 329–33.

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Despite important advances by Walker, Stahl, Stadter, Rood, Pelling, Price, and others,9 there remain things to say. The book may be summarised as follows, with ‘l’ = linking passages; ‘n’ = immediate pre-war narrative; and ‘r’ = retrospective narratives. The latter are usually styled ‘digressions’ or ‘excursuses’: not unreasonably and not un-Thucydideanly (cf. 97.2). But to reconstruct the past is to ‘look back’ (1.3); and ‘sight’, extending to ‘insight’, is fundamental to Thucydidean historiography:10 ‘retrospective narratives’ reflects this essential focus. I translate archē (and cognates) in the sense of ‘beginning’ as ‘first-beginning’, and ἀρχή (and cognates) in the sense of ‘rule’ or ‘empire’ as ‘first-rule’, to allow possible punning. 1–23 Extended proem 2–19 (r) The ‘Archaeology’/‘Account of ancient/first-beginning things’ 20–1 Historical method re ‘Archaeology’ 22–3 Historical method re Peloponnesian War 23.5–6  (l) T. distinguishes between the aitiai and the prophasis of the war and will first relate the aitiai that induced the two sides to undo the treaty and go to war. 24–55 (n) Corcyra narrative (first aitia of the war) 56–66 (n) Potidaea narrative (second aitia of the war) 67–88 (n) First Conference at Sparta 88  (l) Spartans decide the treaty undone and they must go to war, ‘not so much persuaded by the logoi of their allies as fearing the Athenians, lest they get greater power, seeing that the greater part of Greece was already under their hands’. ⟦17⟧

89–117 (r) The Pentecontaetia 89.1  (l) ‘The Athenians came to the situation in which they grew [to power] in the following way’. 89–95 (1) Athenian rise to hegemonia 96–97 (2) Establishment of Delian League; transition to empire

9

Walker (1957); Stahl (2003) 37–64; Stadter (1993); Rood (1998) 205–48; Pelling (2000) 82–111; Price (2001) 127–31; 147–55; 161–4; 171–8; 191–5; 274–6; 333–71; recently: Stahl (2006) 301–20; Kallet (2006) 345–50; Dewald (2005) omits Book 1 as narratologically untypical (25). 10 Moles (2001) 213–17 {above, pp. 427–32}; Greenwood (2006) 19–41.

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97.2  (l) ‘I wrote these things and made this diversion from my logos for this reason, namely that this place was left out by all those before me and either they put together Hellenic things before the Median things or the Median things themselves. But the one who indeed touched on these things in his Attic Writing-up, Hellanicus, recalled them both briefly and not accurately in his timings. And they also contain a demonstration of the manner in which the Athenian first-rule was established.’ 98–117 (3) Development of Athenian first-rule 118–25 (n) Second Conference at Sparta 126–8  (n) Spartan and Athenian embassies demanding expulsion of curses 126–8 (r) Curse of Cylon 128–35 (r) Curse of Taenarum (‘triggering’ Pausanias retrospect) 135–8  (r) Themistocles retrospect (‘trigger’: accusation of medising along with Pausanias) 138.3 Themistocles’ obituary 139 (n) Further Spartan embassies 140–4 (n) Pericles’ speech 145–6 (n) Athenians stand firm; peace broken. I treat: (1) the aitia–prophasis distinction of 23.5–6 and its consequences; (2) the Pentecontaetia retrospect; and (3) the Pausanias–Themistocles retrospects. I cover the usual questions. How does the aitiai–prophasis distinction work? Is it coherent? Why are the retrospects placed where they are? What is Thucydides’ relationship to his predecessors? How good is his historical judgement? Is there a ‘composition-question’? Are Badian’s claims tenable? Above all, is Thucydides’ text, or at least this part, ‘open’ or ‘closed’? Pelling judges: ‘Where Herodotus opens questions up, Thucydides’ tendency is to close them down, to impose a single “monologic” view imperiously on his readers. His causal questions have answers, and he cares that his audience should get them right’.11

11 Pelling (2000) 83; contra (somewhat), Morrison (2006) 254 and Bakker (2006) (both stressing the reader’s responsibility to make connexions).

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1 ⟦18⟧

23.4–6 runs: The Athenians and Peloponnesians first-began … [the war] after undoing the thirty years’ truce which they had made after the capture of Euboea. (5) As to why they undid it, I pre-wrote first the causes [aitiai] and the differences [diaphorai], so that no one need seek from what so great a war as this came upon the Greeks. (6) The truest pre-cause [alethestate prophasis], though most un-apparent in speech, I hold to have been the fact that the Athenians, becoming great and making the Peloponnesians fearful, compelled them towards going to war. But the causes said in the open on each side were as follows, from which they undid the truce and came to the war. I consistently render διαφοραί and cognates by ‘difference’, as (1) implying estrangement and rifts; (2) cognate (via the Latin) with the Greek; and (3) most conducive to Thucydidean word play. I consistently render aitia and cognates by ‘cause’. This perhaps underplays the ‘grievance’ element,12 but any choice involves trade-offs; ‘cause’ can have negative implications; it is important to reproduce ‘double causality’; and maintenance of consistent vocabulary is thoroughly desirable. It is vital to read 23.4–6 as integral to chapters 22–3 (though space—or ennui—precludes discussion of that section)13 and, indeed, to chapters 1–23, or, at least, to test its integrality, since some scholars hold it a late addition. The salient points are these: (a) 23.4–6 combines the main thrusts of 23.1–3 (παθήματα as implying both passivity and emotion)14 and of 22.1–23.1 (action and speech aspiring towards ‘reason’) into emotional reaction to pressure. (b) 23.5–6’s focus on causation corresponds to the last clause of Herodotus’ Preface (‘for what cause they went to war against one another’).15 (c) 23.5–6 echoes Herodotus’ ‘resumed preface’ (1.5.3): ‘This is what the Persians and Phoenicians say. But I am not going to say that these things happened this way or otherwise, rather I shall indicate the man whom 12 Cf. also n. 24. 13 Moles (2001) 199–218 {above, pp. 414–33}. 14 23.1–3 not merely ‘rhetorical’: Moles (2001) 205, 211–12 {above, pp. 420, 426–7}; contra, Woodman (1988) 28–32; Hornblower (1991) 63; ‘suffering’ in Book 1: Stadter (1993) 61–2; Rood (1998) 8, 57; Price (2001) 359–61. 15 General imitation of Herodotus: Moles (1993) 98–114 {above, pp. 167–80}.

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(d) (e) (f)

(g)

(h)

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I myself know to have begun unjust deeds towards the Greeks’. Naturally, Thucydides’ much more complex formulation implies a much more complex causality. 23.4–5 ‘first-began … [the war] … I pre-wrote first’, picking up on 1.1 ‘I wrote up … first-beginning’, echoes Hesiod’s Theogony (1, 115) in paralleling the author’s ‘beginning’ with his theme of ‘beginnings’. 23.5–6 exemplifies 22.1–2’s distinction between logoi and erga, again implying that the former are less solid historically. Since 23.4–6 entails a narrative not only about the war’s beginning and progression but also about its pre-beginnings, its causes, and its responsibilities, the spatium historicum, austerely confined in 21.1–2 and 22.2 to contemporary, or near-contemporary, history, is now somewhat extended, although Thucydides cannot be as committed to the factual truth of the Pentecontaetia as to that of the main war narrative from 2.1. This ‘pre’-narrative corresponds structurally to the ‘Archaeology’, whose close (18.2–19) sketches the Peloponnesian–Athenian dissension which will be treated at length in 89–117. This constant narrative regressiveness again imitates Herodotus. Thucydides already conceives of ἀρχή (‘first-beginning’) in a very complex way, cf. the verbal interactions between ἤρξαντο, δι’ ὅ τι, τὰς αἰτίας, προύγραψα πρῶτον, ζητῆσαί … ἐξ ὅτου and 1.1 ξυνέγραψε and ἀρξάμενος. Like Herodotus (praef.; 1.1.1) and the Hippocratics, he views ἀρχή and aitia as interlinked. Like Herodotus (1.5.3), he sees aitia as covering both objective causality and human blameworthiness. The distinction between aitiai/diaphorai and prophasis entails careful and multiple calibration. It is not simply polar: the characterisation of the prophasis as ‘truest’ indicates that the aitiai contain some truth—that there is indeed a level on which there is no distinction between aitia and prophasis as words (they can be synonyms). But aitiai also includes ‘allegations, complaints’ (as shown by the partly epexegetic diaphorai and by the emphasis on their being said); there is also a temporal distinction between aitiai as specific causes and prophasis as a protracted process; this temporal distinction is underlined by the interaction between πρόφασιν and προύγραψα: the prophasis is a ‘pre’-cause (hence ἡγοῦμαι is particularly good for ‘think’). The emphasis, consistent with 1.22’s concern with the interaction between specifics and generals,16 already anticipates the Pentecontaetia. Importantly, also, the prophasis is a psychological pre-cause.

16 Moles (2001) 209–19 {above, pp. 424–33}.

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(j) The distinction between different sorts and levels of causality should be read as Hippocratic, hence the available Hippocratic colouring of prophasis also becomes active.17 But the Hippocratics characteristically use the ⟦20⟧ terms prophasis and aitia the other way round, and prophasis commonly means ‘excuse’. Thus Thucydides is challenging the linguistic expectations both of medical language18 and of ordinary usage (as also, implicitly, the Hippocratics’ ‘diagnostic’ skills).19 (k) Discussion of aitiai often neglects διαφοράς. Partly epexegetic of aitiai, the word also has positive implications: (1) in the Archaeology (18.2–3) δια-compounds convey the ‘split’ between Athenians and Spartans after the Persian wars. (2) 23.5 reworks Il. 1.6–7 ‘from what [time] Atreides king of men and divine Achilles first stood apart in strife’, διαφοράς glossing διαστήτην. Thus διαφοράς and πρόφασιν echo chapter 22’s important horizontal/spatial and vertical/chronological concerns.20 (3) It is Herodotean (1.1.1). These implications extend the range of diaphorai into the physical. (l) Debate whether πρόφασις comes from προφαίνω or πρόφημι is otiose, because πρόφασιν interacts both with ἀφανεστάτην/φανερόν and with ἀφανεστάτην/λόγῳ/λεγόμεναι. Thucydides again emphasises the instability of language and the inadequacy of logos or logoi (as in 22.1 on the speeches): his formulation is challenging, paradoxical, problematic. Significantly, also, prophasis itself embodies both the spatial and temporal: both saying or showing forth and fore-saying or -showing. (m) The language of the aitiai/diaphorai–prophasis distinction implies larger contrasts: between appearance, or words, and reality; between concealment and openness; between subtlety and crudity; and between specific contexts and longer time frames (again like chapter 22). Thus 23.4–6 creates an extraordinarily rich discourse, and one thoroughly embedded in chapters 22–23 and 1–23. The narrative material falls into the following categories:21 (a) use of aitiai/diaphorai vocabulary in relation to the immediate context. The asyndetic 24.1 makes the Corcyra affair the first ‘cause’; the narrative contains speeches wherein that ‘cause’ is ‘said’ and closes summarily (55.2): ‘this was the first cause’. Then the Potidaea affair is introduced: 56.1 ‘after this 17 18 19 20 21

Moles (2001) 210 {above, p. 425} n. 57, with bibliography. Pelling (2000) 268 n. 9; Moles (2001) 210 {above, p. 425}. Jouanna (2005) 21–2 sees nothing of this. Moles (2001) 207–8 {above, pp. 422–3}; Greenwood (2006) 42–56. For economy, I omit the ‘charges’ (egklēmata), which overlap with, and sometimes gloss, aitiai/diaphorai (26.1, 34.2, 42.3, 67.4, 68.2, 72.1, 73.1, 78.1, 79.1, 82.5–6, 121.1, 126.1, 140.2, 145).

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immediately these things also happened to the Athenians and Peloponnesians as a difference impelling towards warring’. 57.2 notes that the Corinthians were already ‘quite apparently at difference’, in contrast to the ⟦21⟧ ‘most un-apparent’ ‘truest cause’. The narrative closes (66): ‘the Athenians and the Peloponnesians had had these causes against each other’, and notes that the Athenians had fought ‘quite apparently’. The debate at Sparta (67–88) focuses on the aitiai. In 67.4 the Megarians ‘show not small differences’, especially that of the Megarian Decree. 68.2–3 alludes to ‘differences’ and to the Athenians’ not being ‘un-apparent’ in their unjust behaviour. Similarly, the end of the Athenian ambassadors’ speech (78.4) proposes arbitration of ‘the differences’. The Spartan king Archidamus speaks of ‘advancing causes’ against the Athenians. The Corinthians find no further ‘cause’ to blame the Spartans (120.1): this example, with others, illustrates how the lexicon of 23.5–6 can naturally be extended into intra-alliance relations. They then argue that their ‘differences’ with the Athenians are not merely as between individual states (122.2). The book ends (146) with the summarising ‘these were the causes and differences for both sides before the war, first-beginning immediately from the events in Epidamnus and Corcyra’. The reference to the Megarians at 67.4 is picked up in the Spartan ultimatum of 139.1, whose chief point and ‘clearest forth-saying’ was that the rescinding of the Decree would avert war. But Pericles argues (140.4) that the Athenians would be wrong to regard it, ‘which [the Spartans] hold forth most’, as a slight ‘cause’. While this category is dense, its relationship to 23.4–6 is unproblematic. (b) use of prophasis of the larger context and of the process. At 60.1 the Corinthians are ‘fearful for the place and consider the danger their own’ (a description repeated at 67.1): this reaction foreshadows, indeed influences, the eventual Spartan fear that their interests are directly threatened. The same applies to the description of the Aeginetans at 67.2, who ‘did not send an embassy apparently, fearing the Athenians, but secretly drove on the war in company with the Corinthians’. This category too fulfils the programme of 23.4–6 unproblematically. (c) the two editorial passages linking aitiai/diaphorai and prophasis. 88 has already been quoted.22 At 118 the Spartans, not previously having gone to war, unless pressured to do so (an allusion to the prophasis), decide that the Athenians have clearly become so powerful and are laying hands on their alliance (an allusion to the aitiai), that they must go to war. This category reiterates the overt programme. 22 P. 491 above.

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(d) allusions to the prophasis in speeches. The Corcyraeans (33.3): ‘if any of you thinks that the war … will not happen, he errs in judgement and does not perceive that the Spartans want to go to war through fear of you’. ⟦22⟧ Sthenelaidas the ephor (86.5): ‘do not let the Athenians become greater’. This category seems to conflict with the programme. On 33.3, Hornblower comments: ‘the … passage shows that, whatever ἀφανεστάτην … λόγῳ means, it cannot mean that the “true [sic] cause” was not mentioned at Athens’.23 Now, many scholars have speculated that the truest cause may or may not have been said in Athens or Sparta or Timbuktu, but such speculations smack of ‘How many children had Lady Macbeth?’, or ‘What time was it when Aeneas left the Underworld?’ Moreover, the allusion only ‘shows’ what Hornblower claims, if it is historical. It has, of course, often been claimed that, since ‘most un-apparent in speech’ (23.6) does not necessarily entail ‘no mention at all’, allusions to the prophasis in the speeches are not necessarily unhistorical. But it is a narrative surprise when the ‘truest’ prophasis ‘most un-apparent in speech’ is so prominently flagged in the first formal speech. Yet, if the τὰ δεόντα element (‘the necessary things’) in the speeches is fictional, as Thucydides himself states (22.1),24 the Corcyraean remark is no problem: it exemplifies τὰ δεόντα as supplied by Thucydides. It is indeed so counter-realistic as to re-emphasise the fictionality of that element.25 The same applies to Sthenelaidas. Note that, since τὰ δεόντα are fictional, unhistorical allusions to the prophasis in the speeches are actually required. Other cases where speech material alludes to the prophasis, though the credibility gap is less, are 36.1, where the Corcyraeans argue that ‘fear [of breaking the treaty] which acquires strength [derived from alliance between Athens and Corcyra] will cause fear rather to our opponents’;26 40.5, where the Corinthians claim to the Athenians that ‘we spoke against it [the proposal that the Peloponnesians help Samos against Athens] quite apparently’; 68.3, where they reject the notion that the Athenians ‘were wronging Greece un-apparently’; and 123.1, where they claim that the rest of Greece will fight alongside the Peloponnesians ‘through fear’ (cf. also 141.1 [below, (f)]), and 77.6, where the Athenians allude to the fear they inspire).

23 24 25 26

Hornblower (1991) 78. Moles (2001) 207–8 {above, pp. 422–3}. Moles (2001) 210–11 {above, pp. 425–6}; Stahl (2003) 61 n. 7. Discussion: Price (2001) 84–5; Gomme (1945) 170–1 (better).

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(e) use in speeches of aitiai/diaphorai terminology in ways that extend their reference and blur the distinction of 23.4–6. At 68.2, the Corinthians say that, when they repeatedly warned the Spartans of prospective harm from the Athenians, the Spartans imputed the warnings ‘to their own private differences’; at 69.1, that the Spartans are ‘the cause’ ⟦23⟧ of Athenian imperial expansion since the Persian Wars; at 69.6, that they are criticising the Spartans ‘not for enmity but for a cause’; and at 70.1, that ‘the differences [between Spartans and Athens] are great … the contest will be against those wholly different from you’. Similarly, the Athenians at 75.4: ‘you Spartans no longer being friends with us but at difference’. ‘Difference’ is thus brought within a general debate about ethnic characteristics, whose validity is denied by Archidamus (84.4: ‘one must not consider that a human being differs much from another human being’). At 123.1 ‘cause’ vocabulary links past and present. The ‘blurring’ problem is compounded by the fact that many of these allusions interact with themes and events treated in the Pentecontaetia, whose explicit purpose is to explain not only how the Athenians became great and subjugated most of Greece to their empire but also the growth of Spartan fear, which eventually compelled them to war (88). (f) Application of prophasis vocabulary to the immediate causes. Thucydides himself twice seems to ‘misapply’ the distinction of 23.4–6: 118.1: ‘After this already happened not many years later the aforesaid things: the Corcyra and Potidaea affairs and all the things which were established as a prophasis of this war’. 146: ‘these were the causes and differences for both sides before the war, first-beginning immediately from the events in Epidamnus and Corcyra [so far so good] … for the things that were happening were the annulment of the truce and the prophasis of the going to war’. Prophasis is also twice so ‘misapplied’ by the participants. At 126.1 the Spartans make continual charges ‘in order that they might have the greatest prophasis of going to war’. At 141.1 Pericles urges resistance ‘whether the prophasis [of the Spartans] be great or small’, and discourages the Athenians’ from holding what they have ‘in fear’. The first element uses prophasis in the sense of ‘pretext’; the second integrates ‘fear’ into Athenian motivation as well as Spartan. The general effect is to reinforce the problematics of 23.5–6. These difficulties cannot be resolved separately from the Pentecontaetia. 2 Literary interpreters such as Walker, Stahl, Heath, Stadter, Rood, and Pelling emphasise that the composite formulation of 88 explains why the Spartans

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found Corcyra and Potidaea so threatening; why the Pentecontaetia comes here in the narrative; and why it exhibits the selectivity, emphases, and ⟦24⟧ (Spartan) focalisation that it does.27 Their excellent discussions, however, do not fully gauge the intensity of Thucydides’ punning, and hence of his analysis of causality, or the significance either of the interaction of aitia and prophasis in this section or of the interaction, throughout Book 1, between the three different narrative modes: narrative, speech, and retrospective narrative. After the Persian defeat, when the Athenians under Themistocles prepare to rebuild their walls, the Spartans try to frustrate them, largely incited by their allies, who were ‘fearing … the number of their fleet, which before did not exist/first-begin’ (90.1). Here is the first case of Peloponnesian ‘fear’, though felt not by the Spartans but by their allies. The punning ὑπῆρχε is noteworthy (effectively pre-figuring the Athenian ἀρχή). Themistocles goes to Sparta for deceptive diplomatic ends (the incident pre-plays the negotiations of 432, when the Athenians made representations at Sparta): ‘he did not go to the “first-rulers” but … kept putting forward pre-causes’ (προυφασίζετο [90.5]). The verb recalls the cognate prophasis. Themistocles’ ‘pre-texts’ contribute to that prophasis but also here avert any outright rift. Again we see interaction between the ideas of ‘beginning’ and ‘ruling’. In all the talk of ἀρχή and αἰτία, etc. in the first half of the book, the book’s ἀρχή, Thucydides never uses ἀρχή and cognates of the Athenian empire, until the Athenians do so in their speech at Sparta in 75–8: in the narrative context immediately preceding the Pentecontaetia. Now Thucydides himself pointedly brings the two senses into conjunction and conflict, thereby further deepening the already very complex causal analysis of 23.4–6. In this, as in much else, he is building elaborate structures from a Herodotean basis (1.5–6; 8.142.2).28 91.3 (‘Themistocles sent secretly to the Athenians telling them to keep them [the Spartan informants] not in the least apparently … he feared that the Spartans, when they heard clearly, would not let them [the Athenian ambassadors] go’) and 4 (‘Themistocles said quite apparently that their city was already walled’) maintain prophasis vocabulary, though the ‘fear’ element is again displaced from the Spartans. After the rebuilding, ‘the Spartans did not make their anger apparent to the Athenians … but they secretly took it hard’ (92.1): this is the first-beginning of the ‘un-apparent’ prophasis. Then Themistocles promotes the building of the Piraeus, which ‘had been first-begun before in his first-rule which he first-ruled for a year over the Athenians, considering that … they having themselves become naval people 27 Walker (1957); Heath (1986); Stadter (1993); Rood (1998) 225–48; Pelling (2000) 90; Price (2001) 346–63; Stahl (2006). 28 Moles (2002) 35–6; 43 {above, pp. 440–2, 448–9}.

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would greatly progress (προφέρειν) towards the acquisition of power (for he was the first to dare to say of the sea that it was necessary to lay hold of it), and ⟦25⟧ he straightaway helped in equipping the ἀρχή’ (93.3–4). The punning here (largely unregistered by commentators) is peculiarly insistent. Not only is there an initial association between ‘beginning’ and ‘ruling’, but προφέρειν recalls διαφέρειν: the Athenians’ becoming naval people constitutes a decisive ‘difference’ which ‘profers’ their acquisition of power.29 Further, Hornblower among others30 debates whether ἀρχή means ‘beginning of the work’ or ‘empire’ and chooses the latter. But both are meant: the ἀρχή of the building eventually produces, but also proleptically describes, the foundation of empire (the conceptual and temporal ‘slide’ eased by that nifty ‘straightaway’). Themistocles’ archonship was the ἀρχή of the ἀρχή of the ἀρχή (and the ultimate ἀρχή of the war). And, pace Hornblower and others,31 to deny that Themistocles foresaw that his ἀρχή (in however many senses) was the ἀρχή of the empire is an interpretative failure unimaginable by Themistocles himself,32 whom in 90.5 we have already seen pre-echoing the Peloponnesian war, and whose unparalleled foresight his obituary will emphasise (138.3). 94–5 trace the Athenians’ advance to hegemony, 96–7 the beginning of their ἀρχή. Like Themistocles at 90.5, like the Spartans before the Peloponnesian war (126.1), the Athenians (96.1) make a ‘pre-text’ (πρόσχημα) for the ἀρχή of their ἀρχή. And ‘the Greek treasurers were then first established to/for/by [ambiguous dative] the Athenians as an ἀρχή’ (96.2). More paradox: an all-Greek office is an Athenian one: this is a further ἀρχή (in two senses) in the establishment of the Athenian ἀρχή. These treasurers ‘received the tribute/φόρος’. Tribute is the marker of empire, and the notice recalls that the Athenian φόρος succeeded those of Croesus and Persia, as in Hdt. 1.6.2: ‘Croesus … subjugated some of the Greeks to payment of phoros’. And this Athenian φόρος, supposedly a sign of pan-Hellenic ‘togetherness’ (note the three ξυν-compounds) signifies separation (διαχειρίσει) (97.1): cf. the δια-compounds marking the separation of Athenians and Spartans in the Archaeology (18.2–3). Or, in the terms of 23.4–6, this φόρος is a crucial διαφορά, and a διαφορά at once spatial/territorial, temporal, and textual. Hence, at precisely the right point, Thucydides’ ‘showing forth’ (ἀπόδειξις) of the Athenian ἀρχή (97.2). The Herodotean echo (praef.) marks the point at which Thucydides’ narrative road (cf. ‘diversion’) takes over from Herodotus’ 29 Thucydides here sharpens the generalised 18.2–3 of the Archaeology, which, as noted, uses δια-compounds. 30 Hornblower (1991) 140. 31 E.g., Price (2001) 350. 32 Here, as throughout, I mean the Thucydidean representation, not the historical agent.

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(e.g., 1.5.3), which stopped in 478. The echo is an act of aggressive ⟦26⟧ appropriation, with a further pointed implication: whereas Herodotus frequently alludes to the Athenian empire, he generally does so covertly, as, precisely, in 1.6.2 on Croesus’ φόρος.33 Contrarily, Thucydides can discuss that empire openly, and this openness allows him to trump Herodotus’ ἀπόδειξις of causality with the power, precision, complexity, and explicitness (relative, of course) of his own. This play on openness and covertness itself replays the contrasts of 23.5–6. But the allusion to Hellanicus by name (97.2) is a breach of decorum that contrasts with the silent allusion to Herodotus. The effect is even more polemical. As it begins the story of empire, Thucydides’ imperialist text captures the last remaining literary ‘place’, zapping his only faint rival for it, who had the cheek to write an ‘Attic writing-up’ and call himself ‘Victor of Greece’. Here narrative space maps territorial space and temporal space, and the paradoxical ‘this space was left out’ reinforces the sense of confusion of chronology: as if previous writers left out this place without ever occupying it. Thucydides’ ‘conquest’ of Herodotus and Hellanicus is ingenious and absolute (though, naturally, very tendentious). The remainder of the Pentecontaetia maintains the lexicon of 23.5–6. Allies’ failures to meet contributions were the ‘greatest causes’ of revolts (99.1); the allies themselves ‘caused’ Athenian expansion (99.3). The Spartans ‘secretly’ promised the Thasians military support (101.1). From the joint campaign against Ithome occurred ‘an apparent difference for the first time’ (102.3), with the Spartans ‘fearing’ Athenian daring and innovativeness. About the same time, the Athenians ‘first-began’ the Long Walls (107.1), following Themistocles’ lead (90–1). Then at 118.2 Thucydides sharply juxtaposes the two clashing senses of arche: ‘All these things which the Greeks did towards each other and the barbarian (note the renewed ‘trumping’ of Herodotus; ~ praef.) happened in fifty years more or less between the retreat of Xerxes and the first-beginning of this war; in which years the Athenians established their first-rule as stronger’. As often, the ancient writer pats his reader on the back for decoding an interpretative problem. My conclusions so far, therefore, are as follows: 1) The distinction between aitiai/diaphorai and prophasis is organic to the narrative: pace scholars such as Andrewes and Cawkwell,34 there is no case for 23.6’s being a later insertion. The Pentecontaetia, presaged at 23.6, is also organic. No support here for different compositional strata.

33 Moles (1996); (2002) 33ff. {above, pp. 439ff.}. 34 Andrewes (1959); Cawkwell (1997) 20–1.

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2) 3)

4)

5) 6) 7)

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The distinction does, however, pose problems, pace Dover: aitiai and prophasis are ‘harmoniously interconnected throughout Book 1’.35 Since the prophasis is a process and Thucydides’ analysis of the war’s causes extends right back to the archonship of Themistocles and involves many complexities, the prophasis is the agglomeration of all the archai, aitiai, diaphorai, and ‘fears’ documented all the way from 493 down to 432. This explains the apparently paradoxical application of aitiai and diaphorai terminology to the concerns of the prophasis. These individual cases are part of the total package—but only part. It is important to see that the formulation of the prophasis in 23.6 is itself a brachylogy, requiring interpretative teasing out by readers and both fragmentation and expansion by Thucydides. Since the prophasis is a process that starts in 493 and culminates only in 432, the arguments and behaviour of the Corinthians and other Peloponnesians at that time constitute part of the prophasis; their allies pressurise the Spartans, who already feel pressurised by the Athenians; the Athenian ambassadors at the first conference up the pressure, because in order to deter the Spartans from war they emphasise the greatness of their power, fear of which is precisely the pre-cause for the Spartans’ considering war; Pericles piles on further pressure (127.3). It is therefore reasonable for Thucydides both to distinguish between aitiai and prophasis and to some extent to assimilate them. Since the prophasis is the long and complex process that it is, Thucydides can rightly describe it as ‘most un-apparent in speech’. His own ‘apparently’ contradictory application of prophasis to the immediate aitiai of 432 serves to emphasise the inadequacy of those short-term analyses in contrast to his own. The flipping of categories, returning prophasis to normal usage, underlines sameness and difference: Thucydides uses the same terminology as others but does so with proper discrimination (23.5–6), yet without technical pedantry (118.1; 146). Granted language’s slipperiness (23.5–6), it can still do analytical work. His characterisation of the prophasis as ‘most un-apparent in speech’ is slyly self-referential: the only logos (including all modern discussions) that propounds the prophasis in all its complexity is Thucydides’ own logos and even then largely through a deceptive ἐκβολὴ τοῦ λόγου, characterised as an ἀπόδειξις (an ἀπόδειξις which from another focalisation is ἀφανεστάτη—Thucydides keeps testing our perception). He can characterise the prophasis as ‘least apparent’, not only because no one else

35 Gomme–Andrewes–Dover (1981) 423.

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9)

10)

11)

12)

13)

36

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had ever set it out, but because the correct interpretation of 23.4–6 and of its working-out in the narrative requires interpretative discernment and penetration. Thucydides can, however, still say that his documentation of the specific aitiai will free his readers from searching for causes because these aitiai provide an immediate explanation. But that sort of ‘search’ remains relatively trivial (so much for interminable disquisitions on ‘The Causes of the Peloponnesian War’). By contrast, the interpretative search required by the prophasis requires readers to probe the gaps and spaces within words, between words, between causes and pre-causes, between speeches and narratives, between narratives and retrospects, and between different places and times: in short, to probe causality in all its aspects. Thus literary penetration promotes political understanding. Formally speaking, the straight narrative plus the speeches puts the reader in a preliminary unmediated mimesis posture;36 but because the question of causality is so complex, he needs additional help: first, the unhistorical allusions to the prophasis within the speeches, second, the full-scale analysis of causality in the Pentecontaetia retrospect; the combination of these three modes puts the reader at the critical intersection of spatial/horizontal and chronological/vertical which enables himself to understand everything and himself to face the question faced by the Spartans and Athenians at the time: what to do now? The criticism voiced by historians and conceded by some literary interpreters37 that Thucydides says insufficient about Megara and Aegina is misconceived: 67.2 subsumes Aegina under the prophasis, and the pressure exerted on the Spartans both by the Megarians and by the Aeginetans is part of the general pressure which compelled the Spartans to war. It accords with the programme of 23.5–6 that they get the attention they do: it is important and sufficient. Historians’ criticisms of the Pentecontaetia similarly misconceive its purpose. The allusion to Hellanicus in the Pentecontaetia is integral.38 But the integrality of the Pentecontaetia itself within the architecture of the prophasis analysis and the intensity of its exploration of causality preclude the

Fundamental to Thucydides’ historiographical model: Moles (2001) 212–13 {above, pp. 426–8}; Greenwood (2006) 19–41. 37 Rood (1998) 214–15; Price (2001) 274–5. 38 Pace many, e.g., (even) Price (2001) 356 n. 49.

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15)

16)

17) 18)

19) 20)

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hypothesis that Thucydides wrote the Pentecontaetia primarily to correct Hellanicus. The Pentecontaetia promotes detailed understanding of the complexities of causality in 432 by taking the reader all the way back to 493; within the retrospect the reader finds that in 493 Themistocles had already seen all ⟦29⟧ the way forward to 431. Already in the Pentecontaetia Themistocles exemplifies political insight and foresight: he is a sort of ideal reader translated into ideal judgment and ideal action.39 Many other elements in the retrospect have two-way force, both retrospective/explanatory and prospective/anticipatory.40 Thucydides’ investigations of causality are influenced by Homer, Herodotus, and the Hippocratics. But inasmuch as these investigations zigzag through narrative, space, and time, I sense (again)41 the influence also of one of the deepest thinkers of all Thucydides’ literary predecessors: Hesiod, though the transcendental principle of Thucydides’ causality narrative is not Zeus ~ δια in the sense of ‘throughness’ (Theog. 465), or Zeus as supreme power (Il. 1.5), but δια in the sense of ‘separation’. The intensity, complexity, and ‘th(o)roughness’ of this analysis leave little space for modern notions that Thucydides is trivially ‘taking sides’ in contemporary debates, especially as (12) he does give proper weight to Megara and Aegina, still less for Badian’s un-contextualised accusations of pro-Athenian bias.42 All these narratives, but especially the Pentecontaetia, substantiate Thucydides’ claim to better Herodotus’ analysis of causality. They make Thucydides’ an ‘imperialist’ text, not only in that it centrally concerns Athenian imperialism, or that it ‘orders’ its readers ‘around’,43 or that it sometimes applies imperialist language to its own procedures (97.2), but that it absorbs and ‘conquers’ all possible rivals (97.2).44 Thucydides’ use of language is intensely creative. The aitia/prophasis distinction and its intricate working-out in the narrative is a propaedeutic for understanding causality in the rest of the History, notably in Books 5 and 6,45 but everywhere else too.

Moles (2001) 215, 217 {above, pp. 429–30, 431–2}; p. 509 below. E.g., the Corinthian (106) and Athenian disasters (109); Stadter (1993) 61–2. Cf. Moles (2001) 206 {above, p. 421} on the play on αἰεί in 21–2 as ~ Theog. 31–4. On ‘the Peace of Callias’ see p. 511 below. Cf. Pelling, quoted p. 492 above. Further: Moles (2001) 206–7 {above, pp. 421–2}; more generally, Marincola (1997), esp. 3–12; Corcella (2006) 52–6; for ‘imperialist’ texts cf. esp. Virg. Geo. 3.9–36. 45 5.25; 6.6.1; Rawlings (1981).

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21) Internally (irrespective of the question of ‘historical omissions’), these narratives could hardly better fulfil Aristotelian criteria of organic unity (Poet. 7, 1450b26–31), although, piquantly, this unity consists in ‘separation’ ((15) above).46 22) It is important to register a judgement of quality. Thucydides’ causality narrative is a work of towering and intimidating brilliance. It is also, of course, supremely arrogant, but sometimes arrogance can be both justified and inspiring. If, of the aitia-prophasis analysis and the Pentecontaetia, we ask whether Thucydides’ text is ‘open’ or ‘closed’, the answer is that, while it is very difficult and makes great demands of the reader, it is not ultimately ‘open’. 3 The paired Pausanias and Themistocles retrospects raise similar questions. How relevant are they? Is their inclusion source-driven47 (Thucydides inertly following an earlier source or writing to correct one)?48 Is he just taking time out to ‘do a Herodotus’, or, again, to ‘do Herodotus in’?49 Are these retrospects even his own first steps in historiography, subsequently pasted in? What of his political and historical judgement? Is he simply more naive than Herodotus (5.32) in accepting Pausanias’ medism (95.5; 128.3)? Does he underestimate the significance of Persia? This is a real question,50 yet there are mentions of Persia throughout Book 1: in the Archaeology (the synchronisation between Greek navies and Persian kings in 13–14), chapter 23 (23.1), the speeches, the Pentecontaetia (which begins with the Persian defeat, records many clashes between Athens and Persia or her allies and ends (118.2) with a formula evocative of Herodotus’ Preface), and the Pausanias–Themistocles retrospects themselves. Archidamus’ allusion to possible recourse to barbarian subventions (82.1) is particularly telling, precisely because it is veiled. This narrative does not ‘fore-ground’ Persia, it ‘back-grounds’ Persia, but that background is very substantial. Pericles’ obituary (2.65) registers the Persian role in Athens’ defeat. And in the second half of the work there is much on Persians, not only explicitly, in Book 8, but also implicitly, in Books 6 and 7, which create parallels 46 47 48 49 50

This as Thucydides’ ‘master narrative’: Price (2001), esp. 344ff. (very interestingly). Westlake (1977). Carawan (1989). Cf. Hornblower (1991) 214. Variously: Andrewes (1961); Hornblower (1991) 179–81; Cawkwell (1997) 15–16, 46–9; Rood (1998) 153–4; 229 n. 14, 239–40, 268–9; Price (2001) 363–71; Wiesehöfer (2006).

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between the Athenian expedition against Sicily and the Persian against Greece, and sporadically in other books.51 The usual ⟦31⟧ assumption that Thucydides and his characters are largely uninterested in Persia seems dubious. I shall return to this. In terms of narrative architecture, the Herodotean parallel is again striking and itself indicative of organic unity. Hornblower writes:52 ‘Like Hdt. in his first book (i. 59–68, the Lycurgan and Pisistratid digressions), Th. is here introducing [sic] us to the two great protagonists, Sparta and Athens, via a sketch of a great citizen of each … But it is also significant that, like some of the prominent individuals on both sides in the Peloponnesian War itself, these two commanding personalities fell foul of their fellow-citizens’. So: questions of difference of national character (yet again) and the relations between prominent individuals and their societies and political structures (both also almost kingly figures, to be compared and contrasted with Archidamus, Spartan king; Cylon, would-be tyrant within what would become the tyrant-city [122.3; 124.3]; and Pericles, virtual monarch of Athens, as Book 2 will further reveal [2.65.9], but already experiencing his own difficulties with his people). Both are also eventual eastern-looking medisers (though the nature of their respective medising requires scrutiny). It was at least convenient for Thucydides to accept Pausanias’ medising: not political naïveté, then, but a tactical decision promoting the investigation of wider historical issues. In serious ancient historiography there is Truth and Truth.53 The Herodotean parallel can be developed, since, in his Book 1, the corresponding elements, the Lycurgus–Pisistratus and Sparta–Athens inserts, bear not only on the fifth century’s reception of the sixth but also on the sixth century’s anticipation of the fifth.54 Further, in Herodotus Croesus and Lydia stand not only for Croesus and Lydia but also for Pericles, the Alcmaeonids, and the Athenian empire.55 By analogy, therefore, in Thucydides Pausanias and Themistocles prequel Lysander and Alcibiades, with many fruitful parallels and contrasts prefigured. Further literary structures accrue. At the beginning of his Book 1 (23.5), Thucydides pluralises Homer’s διαστήτην of two great individuals, Achilles and Agamemnon, into the diaphorai between two great peoples, Athenians and Peloponnesians (diaphorai which correspond to Herodotus’ diaphora between 51 Rood (1999); Rogkotis (2006); Price (2001) 364–9. 52 Hornblower (1991) 211–12; other thematic readings: Schwartz (1929) 154–62; Rood (1998) 138. 53 Moles (1993). 54 Gray (1997) 1. 55 Moles (1996) 260–70 {above, pp. 248–59}; (2002) 35–6 {above, pp. 440–2}.

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Greeks and barbarians [1.1.1]); towards the end of the book those plural peoples dissolve again into two great individuals, Pausanias and Themistocles. Pausanias should correspond to the east-corrupted Agamemnon: ⟦32⟧ a correspondence seemingly already suggested in Aeschylus.56 Themistocles cannot evoke Achilles: from the points of view both of Herodotus’ pre-existent treatment and of contemporary perception (he was nicknamed Odysseus), he evokes that mythical paragon of intelligence and adaptability (Od. 1.1, 83; 21.274).57 Who, then, in this epic drama plays unreconstructed bia, as opposed to Odyssean mētis? In Book 3, obviously, Cleon, ‘the most violent of the citizens’ (36.6). In Book 1, not the Spartans en masse, whose hesitant, introspective, intelligence Thucydides, like Herodotus, respects. Nor Archidamus, their king, the intelligence (79.2) of whose rule over his people manifests itself in his advice not to begin the war (82.1 [further play on ἀρχή]). But Archidamus’ ἀρχή (or non-ἀρχή) is sabotaged by the forceful Sthenelaidas, bia writ large (85.3). Also representative of bia are the Athenian ambassadors, whose appeal to their own power (72.1) so stupidly misreads Spartan psychology:58 not like the subtle, Odyssean, Themistocles, who in a like situation προυφασίζετο (90.5) and averted hostilities. This intensely detailed and circumstantial historical narrative is underpinned by archetypal and timeless mythic figures and elemental mythic struggles59 between force and cunning, the unadaptable and the flexible: the never-ending dialectic between the transcendental αἰεί and the αἰεί of the particular (21.2, 22.1, 22.4).60 Given these mythic universals: again, what to do now? Concretely, Pausanias and Themistocles illustrate how to handle (or not) politics and diplomacy, especially in relation to Persians. Pausanias begins intrigue with the Persian King by deceptive and secret actions (128.3, 5), which recall the Herodotean Themistocles and find analogies in Thucydides’ account of Themistocles’ intrigues with Persian kings (137.3–138.2), but, on receiving proof of Xerxes’ good-will, he becomes corrupted and arrogant, hence ‘he showed forth/pre-showed his intentions’: προυδήλου (130.1): the verb evoking the distinctions of 23.5–6.

56 Crane (1993) 124–5 (unnecessarily diffident); cf. Sophocles, TrGF 887 (IV.572). 57 Moles (2002) 48 {above, p. 453}; Plut. Mal. Her. 869F; Detienne–Vernant (1978) 313–14; p. 509 below. 58 Similarly Price (2001) 194–5. 59 Another case of Herodotean influence (Boedeker [2002]), although, pointedly, without religious underpinning. 60 Moles (2001) 206 {above, p. 421}; n. 43 above.

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Contrariwise, Themistocles keeps showing foresight (136.1) and keeps learning—even from a woman (136.3)—big concession from the sexist Thucydides.61 He learns—something that some men never learn—how to hold a ⟦33⟧ baby; how to treat with kings, even Persian kings; how to conciliate former enemies (136.2; 137.4); how to speak the Persian tongue (138.1). With the Molossians (136.2ff.), Themistocles goes back in time to ‘old Greece’, but is he going back in time? Is this leisurely Homeric and Herodotean—even Xenophontic!—narrative (complete with tragic supplication and nod towards Telephus)62 a different narrative, or is it part of the same multi-layered, multi-literary, multi-temporal, story? Themistocles’ supplication of Admetus pre-figures his supplication of Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes and new king of Persia. When he journeys west, he stops first at Corcyra (source of the first aitia of the Peloponnesian War). His journey from west to east brings him to Naxos (137.2), first allied city to be enslaved (98.4), already besieged by the Athenians; he secretly and perilously intersects again with his own architectural role in the archai of the arche.63 He keeps learning and foreseeing, keeps re-orientating himself in space and time and across the generations. And when Thucydides notes that Themistocles’ standing with Artaxerxes (138.2) depended partly on his ‘pre-existing/pre-eminent worthiness’, no qualifier could be more eloquent. At the end, in an arresting narrative displacement, his obituary comes not after his death but before it (138.3): Themistocles most securely revealed the strength of natural ability and differently and more than any other man was worthy to be admired in this respect; for by his native intelligence and neither having learned anything in advance towards it nor having learned afterwards, he was both the best knower of things present by means of the least deliberation, and the best conjecturer of the things that were going to happen, to the greatest extent of what would be; and the things which he took in hand he was able to expound and the things of which he had no experience he did not fall short of judging appositely; and the better or worse course in what was yet un-apparent he foresaw the most. To say the whole: by power of natural ability and by brevity of study this was the best man at improvising the necessary things.

61 Wiedemann (1983). 62 Hornblower (1991) 221. 63 On the text: Hornblower (1991) 221–2; ‘Naxos’ makes far better literary (as well as nautical) sense.

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From several aspects,64 this obituary is brilliantly positioned and expressed. ‘Cued’ by Themistocles’ ‘pre-existing/pre-eminent worthiness’, it provides a confirmatory filter for our ‘reading’ of Themistocles, alike in the Pentecontaetia and in the Themistocles excursus. Besides the explicit generalisations, the emphasis on difference brings out the facts that, as an individual, Themistocles really ‘made a difference’, and that this ‘difference’ contributed greatly to the ‘truest pre-cause’ of the Peloponnesian War. The implicit ⟦34⟧ contrast between Themistocles and two mythical figures, Pro-metheus and Epi-metheus (‘neither having learned anything in advance towards it [προμαθών] nor having learned afterwards [ἐπιμαθών])’, confirms alike the general importance of Hesiod to Book 1’s literary texture, the mythical patterning that underpins the narrative, and the inference that Themistocles exhibits Odysseus’ true mētis (~ ‘-metheus’). Coming near the close of the book, the obituary confirms both how Thucydides’ historiographical programme is to be understood and how completely Themistocles fulfils it. He exhibits understanding, judgement, forethought, excellence both in speech and action, and the ability to bring different time scales and contexts into the right perspective and thus at any given moment to ‘improvise the necessary things’ (αὐτοσχεδιάζειν τὰ δέοντα). Themistocles is Thucydides’ ideal statesman, even—in rich paradox—his ideal reader. Along with others, this highly ‘meta’-passage disposes of ideas that the ‘usefulness’ of Thucydides’ work is purely intellectual.65 Further, since ‘improvise’ applies both as a metaphor to action and, literally, to speech, we find confirmation of the interpretation of τὰ δέοντα (22.1) as ‘the best arguments’, supplied paradigmatically by Thucydides himself and superimposed on a basic historical core of ‘what truly was said’ (‘the best arguments’, that is, for the particular historical position of the particular speaker), and of the consequent interpretations of crucial speeches in Book 1.66 But if Themistocles is Thucydides’ ideal statesman, where does this leave Pericles, fellow-Athenian, and dominant individual at the actual close of the book? Thucydides’ overall judgement of Pericles seems highly positive. There are significant parallels between Themistocles’ and Pericles’ policies and strategies, here emphasised by the obituary’s juxtaposition with the formal introduction of Pericles, characterised as ‘most able at speaking and also at acting’ (139.4 ~ 138.3). Nevertheless, elements in the Themistocles retrospect, in the obituary, and in the Pentecontaetia might suggest some negatives. 64 Inchoately, Moles (2001) 215 {above, pp. 429–30}. 65 7.42.3; 3.38.3–7; Ste. Croix (1972) 29–33; Moles (2001) 216–18 {above, pp. 430–3}. 66 P. 497 above.

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Initially, if Themistocles was ‘more than any other man worthy to be admired’ for revelation of natural brilliance (138.3), he would seem to be Pericles’ superior, at least in this respect. Their very names invite speculation. Herodotus had punned on ‘Themistocles’ as ‘Rightly-famed’/‘Famed for his rightness’, thereby underwriting his highly favourable estimate of Themistocles’ political and strategic abilities.67 He had also punned on ‘Pericles’, as meaning ⟦35⟧ ‘Exceedingly famous’, thereby underwriting his subtle denigration of Pericles and the Alcmeonids.68 Such punning would not be alien to Thucydides’ narrative, with its many intricate verbal plays; nor to the evocation, in the Themistocles obituary, of Prometheus and Epimetheus; nor to the constant competitiveness with Herodotus, especially in the Pentecontaetia but also in the Themistocles obituary, ‘corrective’ of Herodotus not in its high estimate of Themistocles’ abilities (which is essentially the same as Herodotus’)69 but in its powerful economy and resolute exclusion of moral issues; nor to the narrative juxtaposition of the two men. Thucydides, indeed, seems to pun on Themistocles’ ‘narrative partner’, Pausanias (= ‘Stopper’), as a man who could not ‘stop himself’, cf. 130.1 οὐκέτι ἐδύνατο … κατέχειν τὴν διάνοιαν οὐκ ἐδύνατο. And two passages suggest active punning on Themistocles. Thucydides’ account of his initial soundings of Artaxerxes (137.3)—‘the king Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, who was newly king’—looks to rework Herodotus’ punning (7.143): ‘there was a certain man of the Athenians who had newly advanced into the first men, whose name was Themistocles [“Rightly-named”/“Famed for his rightness”], but he was called the son of Neocles [“New-name”]’. Parallel are the repeated ‘newly’, the similarity of the names of father and son; and the punning relationships between ‘newly’ and ‘new-name’ and ‘newly’ and ‘Artaxerxes’ (where Ἀρτ- [~ ἄρτι] seems to interact with νεωστί: Artaxerxes is the ‘new’ Xerxes). Not only is Herodotus’ pun referenced: there is an implicit contrast between the beginning and end of Themistocles’ career: a contrast both poignant and positive (he is still displaying resourceful intelligence). And when Themistocles’ high standing with Artaxerxes is partly explained by his ‘pre-existing worthiness/reputation’ and Thucydides immediately begins his obituary with the name of Themistocles (138.2–3), the pun, surely active, serves the same validating function as in Herodotus. But all this only intensifies the question: how does Pericles’ ‘fame’ compare with Themistocles’?

67 Moles (2002) 44–5 {above, pp. 449–51}; cf. main text. 68 Hdt. 6.125.1, 131.1–2; Moles (2002) 40–1 {above, pp. 446–7}. 69 Moles (2002) 43–8 {above, pp. 449–53}; Baragwanath (2008) 289–322.

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Further, if, in this epic drama, Themistocles plays Odysseus and Pausanias Agamemnon, who is Achilles? In Book 3 Pericles certainly plays Achilles to Cleon’s Thersites,70 and this Achilles analogy extends back to Book 1 because of the verbal parallels between Cleon’s speech (3.38.1) and Pericles’ first speech (140.1). When the contrast is with Thersites, the Achilles figure is admirable, but is the same true in Book 1? Thucydides does not conceal—he emphasises—that the majority of the Spartans wanted peace and it was ⟦36⟧ Pericles who blocked the Spartan embassies (127.3)71—even the only demand on which the Spartans unequivocally insisted, repeal of the Megarian Decree (139.1–3), intoning ‘I always hold on to the same purpose, not to yield to the Peloponnesians’ (140.1; cf. 127.3). Should one sense an evocation of the Achilles who, unlike Meleager (Il. 9.598), did not ‘yield’ and rejected the Greek embassy, and of that Achilles’ most marked characteristic (stubborn immutability), and a contrast with the subtle, Odyssean Themistocles, who in a like situation προυφασίζετο (90.5) and averted war, and who could conciliate former enemies? Another important question is: what are we expected to make, within the work as a whole, of Pausanias’ and Themistocles’ medising? Their examples— especially given Themistocles’ unparalleled foresight, which extended down to the Peloponnesian War—must bear on the question of the Persians’ role in that war. One obvious sub-question is that of Greek commanders’ competence in soliciting Persians, whose subventions greatly affected the war’s outcome, as Thucydides himself notes in his obituary of Pericles (2.65.12). Themistocles shows how to do it, Pausanias how not to do it, just as later Lysander handled the Persians well, Callicratidas badly,72 and Alcibiades a mixture of the two. But there seems to be a much more radical sub-question: did it remain a real possibility, even after the defeat of their attempt in 481–479 to ‘enslave’ Greece (18.2), that the Persians could ‘enslave’ Greece, and did they effectively do so by 404? Was this one of the things that Themistocles’ unparalleled foresight foresaw? Might this question explain Thucydides’ notorious omission from the Pentecontaetia retrospect of Athens’ peace with Persia? That peace seems historical, whether or not formalised in a ‘Peace (or two) of Callias’, and must certainly have contributed to Spartan ‘fear’ of an Athens that no longer 70 Cairns (1982). 71 Tritle (2006) 476; Price (2001) 172 misinterprets 126.1 (‘that they might have the greatest prophasis of going to war’) as window-dressing by irredeemably bellicose Peloponnesians, ignoring the qualification: ‘if they [the Athenians] did not listen to them in any respect’. Contrariwise, Price (2001) 177, 186, 189, 279 detects (I think, rightly) some Thucydidean ‘sapping’ of Pericles’ strategic, civic, and Hellenic visions. 72 Moles (1994).

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bothered to justify ‘first-rule’ by any Persian threat.73 Omission of the peace would, however, extend the story of Persian hostility to Greece to the end of the Peloponnesian War and thus keep it in play as a major factor, uniting that end with Thucydides’ ‘pre-writing’ in Book 1. With great perspicuity, though little acclaim, the Persian historian A. T. E. Olmstead adjudged: ⟦37⟧ ‘Persia had won the second great war with the European Greeks’.74 That verdict would not have seemed absurd in 404, still less in 387, with the Persian-imposed Peace of Antalcidas. By then, presumably, Thucydides himself was dead, but death is no excuse for the suspension of foresight, as Themistocles strikingly demonstrated in relation to the Peloponnesian War itself. The verdict is actually reached at the beginning of the second century CE by Dio Chrysostom, inter multa alia one of the better ancient literary critics, in a speech that registers Thucydidean influence, including Book 1.75 Admittedly, Thucydides’ text poses further ticklish sub-questions. For example, Pausanias promised the Persian king enslavement of Greece (128.3, 7), but what of Themistocles? In one of the versions of his death, ‘some say that he died willingly by poison, considering it impossible to fulfil what he had promised the King’ (138.4). On the other hand, Thucydides himself has stated: ‘he ended his life after falling ill’. But he makes Themistocles say something to the Persian king about enslavement of Greece: ‘he became great by his side and as no Hellene had never been because of his pre-existing worthiness and the expectation concerning Greece which he suggested to him of his enslaving it, but most of all from his showing himself intelligent when he gave proof’ (138.2). On the other hand, this element is given less importance than others, and should we anyway understand Themistocles as in this respect merely stringing Artaxerxes along, rather as he explicitly lied to his father about his role in the Greeks’ not-cutting the bridges over the Hellespont (137.4)? Again, although Thucydides stresses Themistocles’ sumptuous estate in Magnesia (138.5), he ends with his relatives’ claim that his bones were, on his orders, secretly buried in Attica (138.6). On the other hand, when the Spartan ambassadors accuse Themistocles of medism, in consequence of their enquiries about Pausanias (135.2), there is no implication that they are acting mistakenly or duplicitously. In regard, then, to this sub-question Thucydides seems to equivocate. Naturally, the historical Themistocles might very well have so equivocated to his Persian master. 73 Cawkwell (1997) 38—a factor ignored in the apologies of Stadter (1993) 66; Rood (1998) 229; Price (2001) 368–9. 74 Olmstead (1948) 371. 75 Dio 13.25; Moles (2005) 114–15, 132 n. 187, 134 {vol. 1, pp. 253–4, 281, 284}.

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Again, what is the effect of the displacement of Themistocles’ obituary to before his actual death? Is it to deflect attention from Themistocles’ unsuccessful ‘suggestion’, or is it on the contrary to allow Thucydides to ‘suggest’ that Themistocles’ ‘story’—including his dealings with Persia—continued after his death, just as Pericles’ own story is going to continue for most of the work? How truly ‘closural’ is the closural ‘the things concerning Pausanias the Lacedaemonian and Themistocles the Athenian, who were the most brilliant of the Greeks of their time, ended in this way’ (138.6)? Does it ⟦38⟧ imply: that was then, what matters now is Pericles, ‘the first man of the Athenians at that time’ (139.4), that of the Peloponnesian War? Nevertheless, although Thucydides dangles these imponderables, on the principle of ‘proportional meaning’,76 Pausanias and Themistocles do raise questions of continuing relevance, including that of Greek ‘enslavement’. How do this question and its apparent answer (as foreshadowed by Pausanias and Themistocles) relate to Pericles’ strategic vision? Are Themistoclean and Periclean forethought in conflict? It would appear so. Pericles’ allusion to his ‘expectation of successful survival’ in the Peloponnesian War (144.1) even echoes ‘the expectation concerning Greece which [Themistocles] suggested to [Artaxerxes] of his enslaving it’ (138.2). And, as argued, the interaction between the Pentecontaetia and the immediate pre-war narrative also raises the possibility that Pericles was too inflexible, too like Achilles, in rebuffing the continual Spartan embassies. Was his ‘expectation’, then, too ‘previous’? Despite all this, Thucydides’ elaborate obituary of Pericles in 2.65 (paralleling his obituary of Themistocles at 1.138) decisively endorses Pericles’ war strategy.77 The Persian factor is only one of many. The Athenians were only defeated with immense difficulty, after many years and because of their own errors and differences (here internalised within Athens). In sum: ‘so exceedingly abundant (ἐπερίσσευσε) at that time to “Exceedingly famous” (Περικλεῖ) were the resources from which he foresaw that the city would altogether easily successfully survive (περιγενέσθαι) against the Peloponnesians themselves in the war’ (65.13; cf. 65.7, echoing Pericles at 1.144.1). The punning (predictably ignored by commentators) is clamorous. The ‘hanging’ question of Book 1—how to evaluate Pericles’ name?—is resolved, and suggestions of conflict between Themistoclean and Periclean foresight, and between Themistoclean flexibility and Periclean immutability, are engulfed in this post-war imprimatur.

76 Moles (2007) 260 {above, p. 477}. 77 Subsequent narrative ‘deconstructions’ (Hornblower [1991] 341–2) are few and minor, especially on ‘proportional meaning’.

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Readers, however, can always argue with their text. Periclean strategy was (arguably) untenable;78 certainly, ‘altogether easily’ exaggerates. This, however, is not the same as a text’s being ‘open’. With Pericles’ obituary, Thucydides shuts down the competing ‘fore-sights’ of the two greatest Athenians. Yet there is a specific issue: ‘themselves’ (65.13) re-emphasises that Pericles’ strategy would have contained the conflict to the original combatants. But the question of whether the Persians could have been kept out is one that Thucydides ⟦39⟧ himself had opened up in Book 1, just as he himself had also there provided grounds for reservations about Pericles. In that sense, the text itself allows readers to disagree with its conclusions. In so doing, readers themselves will be responding to the challenge of choosing whether to follow Themistocles or Pericles. There is an important sense in which even the ‘imperious’ Thucydides cannot ‘close’ his text (this, surely, being one of the main reasons why it will ‘always’ be ‘useful’). But that is not a point that Thucydides himself would yield. In the end, he and Pericles were too alike. Bibliography Andrewes, A. (1959) ‘Thucydides on the Causes of the War’, CQ 9: 223–39. Andrewes, A. (1961) ‘Thucydides and the Persians’, Historia 10: 1–18. Badian, E. (1990) ‘Thucydides and the Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War: A Historian’s Brief’, in J. W. Allison, ed., Conflict, Antithesis and the Ancient Historian (Columbus) 46–91; rev. version in Badian (1993) 125–62. Badian, E. (1993) From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentecontaetia (Baltimore and London). Bakker, E. J. (2006) ‘Contract and Design: Thucydides’ Writing’, in Rengakos and Tsakmakis (2006) 109–29. Bakker, E. J., I. J. F. de Jong, and H. van Wees, edd. (2002) Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden and Boston). Baragwanath, E. (2008) Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford). Boedeker, D. (2002) ‘Epic Heritage and Mythical Patterns in Herodotus’, in Bakker–de Jong–van Wees (2002) 97–116. Bowie, A. M. (1993) ‘Homer, Herodotus and the “Beginnings” of Thucydides’ History’, in H. D. Jocelyn and H. Hurt, edd., Tria Lustra: Essays and Notes Presented to John Pinsent, etc. (Liverpool) 141–7. Cairns, F. (1982) ‘Cleon and Pericles: a Suggestion’, JHS 102: 203–4.

78 Tritle (2006) 478–9; Cawkwell (1997) 45.

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Canfora, L. (2006) ‘Biographical Obscurities and Problems of Composition’, in Rengakos and Tsakmakis (2006) 3–31. Carawan, E. (1989) ‘Thucydides and Stesimbrotus on the Exile of Themistocles’, Historia 38: 144–61. Cawkwell, G. L. (1997) Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (London and New York). Corcella, A. (2006) ‘The New Genre and Its Boundaries’, in Rengakos and Tsakmakis (2006) 33–56. Crane, G. (1993) ‘Politics of Consumption and Generosity in the Carpet Scene in the Agamemnon’, CPh 88: 117–36. Detienne, M. and J.-P. Vernant (1978) Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society (Hassocks and Atlantic Highlands, N.J.); trans. by J. Lloyd of Les Ruses de l’Intelligence: la Mètis des grecs (Paris, 1974). Dewald, C. J. (2005) Thucydides’ War Narrative: a Structural Study (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London). Gomme, A. W. (1945) A Historical Commentary on Thucydides I: Book I (Oxford). Gomme, A. W., A. Andrewes, and K. J. Dover (1981) A Historical Commentary on Thucydides V: Book VIII (Oxford). Gray, V. J. (1997) ‘Reading the Rise of Pisistratus: Herodotus 1.56-68’, Histos 1: 128–53. Greenwood, E. (2006) Thucydides and the Shaping of History (London and New York). Gribble, D. (1998) ‘Narrator Interventions in Thucydides’ JHS 118: 41–67. Heath, M. (1986) ‘Thucydides 1.23.5–6’, LCM 11: 104–5. Hornblower, S. (1991) A Commentary on Thucydides I: Books I–III (Oxford). Hornblower, S. (1994) ‘Narratology and Narrative Techniques in Thucydides’, in id., ed., Greek Historiography (Oxford) 131–66; repr. in id., Thucydidean Themes (Oxford, 2011) 59–99. Hornblower, S. (1997) ‘Odium Thucydideum [Review of Pritchett (1995)]’, CR 47: 270–2. Jouanna, J. (2005) ‘Cause and Crisis in Historians and Medical Writers’, in P. J. van der Eijk, ed., Hippocrates in Context (Leiden and Boston) 3–27. Kallet, L. (2006) ‘Thucydides’ Workshop of History and Utility outside the Text’, in Rengakos and Tsakmakis (2006) 335–68. Marincola, J. (1997) Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge). Meyer, E. A. (1997) ‘The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War After Twenty-Five Years’, in C. D. Hamilton and P. Krentz, edd., Polis and Polemos: Essays on Politics, War and History in Ancient Greece, in Honor of Donald Kagan (Claremont, Cal.) 23–54. Moles, J. L. (1993) ‘Truth and Untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’, in C. Gill and T. P. Wiseman, edd., Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World (Exeter and Austin, 1993) 88–121 [above, Ch. 49]. Moles, J. L. (1994) ‘Xenophon and Callicratidas’, JHS 114: 70–84 [above, Ch. 51]. Moles, J. L. (1995) ‘Review of Badian (1993)’, JHS 115: 213–15.

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Moles, J. L. (1996) ‘Herodotus Warns the Athenians’, PLLS 9: 259–84 [above, Ch. 52]. Moles, J. L. (2001) ‘A False Dilemma: Thucydides’ History and Historicism’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., Texts, Ideas and the Classics: Scholarship, Theory, and Classical Literature (Oxford) 195–219 [above, Ch. 55]. Moles, J. L. (2002) ‘Herodotus and Athens’, in Bakker–de Jong–van Wees (2002) 33–52 [above, Ch. 56]. Moles, J. L. (2005) ‘The Thirteenth Oration of Dio Chrysostom: Complexity and Simplicity, Rhetoric and Moralism, Literature and Life’, JHS 125: 112–38 [vol. 1, Ch. 10]. Moles, J. L. (2007) ‘“Saving” Greece from the ‘Ignominy’ of Tyranny? The “Famous and “Wonderful” Speech of Socles (5.92)’, in E. Irwin and E. Greenwood, edd., Reading Herodotus: A Study of the Logoi in Book 5 of Herodotus’ Histories (Cambridge, 2007) 245–68 [above, Ch. 57]. Morrison, J. V. (2006) ‘Interaction of Speech and Narrative in Thucydides’, in Rengakos and Tsakmakis (2006) 251–77. Olmstead, A. T. E. (1948) A History of the Persian Empire (Chicago). Pelling, C. (2000) Literary Texts and the Greek Historian (London and New York). Price, J. J. (2001) Thucydides and Internal War (Cambridge). Pritchett, W. K. (1995) Thucydides’ Pentekontaetia and Other Essays (Amsterdam). Rawlings, H. R. III (1981) The Structure of Thucydides’ History (Princeton). Rengakos, A. and A. Tsakmakis, edd. (2006) Brill’s Companion to Thucydides (Leiden and Boston). Roberts, D. H., F. M. Dunn, and D. Fowler, edd. (1997) Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Roman Literature (Princeton). Rogkotis, Z. (2006) ‘Thucydides and Herodotus: Aspects of their Intertextual Relation­ ship’, in Rengakos and Tsakmakis (2006) 57–86. Rood, T. C. B. (1998) Thucydides: Narrative and Explanation (Oxford). Rood, T. (1999) ‘Thucydides’ Persian Wars’, in C. S. Kraus, ed., The Limits of Historio­ graphy: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts (Leiden and Boston) 141–68. de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. (1972) The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London and Ithaca). Schwartz, E. (1929) Das Geschichtswerk des Thukydides2 (Bonn). Stadter, P. A. (1993) ‘The Form and Content of Thucydides’ Pentecontaetia (1.89–117)’, GRBS 34: 35–72. Stahl, H.-P. (2003) Thucydides: Man’s Place in History (London and Swansea). Stahl, H.-P. (2006) ‘Narrative Unity and Consistency of Thought: Composition of Event Sequences in Thucydides’, in Rengakos and Tsakmakis (2006) 301–34. Tritle, L. A. (2006) ‘Thucydides and Power Politics’, in Rengakos and Tsakmakis (2006) 469–91. Walker, P. K. (1957) ‘The Purpose and Method of “the Pentekontaetia” in Thucydides, Book I’, CQ 7: 27–38.

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Westlake, H. D. (1977) ‘Thucydides on Pausanias and Themistocles: a Written Source?’, CQ 27: 95–110; repr. in id., Studies in Thucydides and Greek History (Bristol, 1989) 1–18. White, H. (1987) The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore and London). Wiedemann, T. (1983) ‘ἐλάχιστον… ἐν τοῖς ἄρσεσι κλέος: Thucydides, Women, and the Limits of Rational Analysis’, G&R 30: 163–70. Wiesehöfer, J. (2006) ‘“… Keeping the Two Sides Equal”: Thucydides, the Persians and the Peloponnesian War’, in Rengakos and Tsakmakis (2006) 657–67. Woodman, A. J. (1988) Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Portland, and Sydney). Zagorin, P. (2005) Thucydides: an Introduction for the Common Reader (Princeton).

Introduction to Parts 6 and 7 John Marincola The sixteen papers in these sections form something of a miscellany, but nonetheless cover topics dear to John’s heart, ones that engaged him from his earliest scholarship to the end of his life. John’s DPhil thesis at Oxford was a commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus,1 and one could see already in the ways that he approached that work the signs of what would become characteristic features of his scholarship. John was interdisciplinary from the start, and that is why it is sometimes difficult to describe any individual piece by him as being solely about this or that topic. In John’s hands biography can be illuminated by philosophy, philosophy by poetry, poetry by history, history by philosophy, and so on. One encounters many genres in each particular genre. At the same time as he was working on his thesis, John was engaged in a major study of Dio Chrysostom, like Plutarch a Greek author of the early empire. This marked the beginning of his long engagement both with Dio the author and with the manifold philosophical currents that underlay his work, which eventually resulted in a series of distinctive studies on Dio himself, but perhaps just as importantly a long and deep engagement with philosophy, the study of which became an integral part of his literary studies. A number of his earliest pieces here engage with Greek tragedy. As time went on, John’s interests were directed elsewhere, but these early pieces nonetheless make significant contributions to our understanding of the texts they study. The two studies of the Agamemnon (Chs. 60, 62) seek to bring out the sexual imagery which had been neglected in previous scholarship and to explain how such imagery harmonises with themes of general importance in the play. The note on the Antigone (Ch. 61) suggests that that same imagery is also appropriate within the very different context of that play. Tragedy is also front and centre in the two studies of Aristotle’s Poetics, where again the concentration on a few ‘small’ aspects of the text is a vehicle for analysis of its larger arguments and interests. The focus on the ‘small’ was to remain one of the main ways in which John approached texts. It seems clear that John’s interest in the Poetics was stimulated by T. C. W. Stinton’s study of hamartia in that work. (John was to cite the article throughout his career, no matter whether he was working in biography, historiography, poetry, or even the New Testament). He sought to build on Stinton’s important findings by engaging with the exempla that 1 Moles (1997/2017).

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Aristotle used and by facing head-on the contradictions between chapters 13 and 14 of the Poetics. This led him to consider as well Aristotle’s notion of the ways in which the tragic figure is like (ὅμοιος) us, the audience, notions that were to figure prominently in his two studies of Vergil’s Dido (Chs. 66, 68). Whether or not one agrees with the individual conclusions expressed in these chapters, one can see here already the most important and indeed characteristic features of John’s scholarship: close textual analysis; consistent and insistent consideration of context, which allowed one to establish the meanings especially of larger abstract or philosophical terms; close attention to form, the ways in which the author has chosen to express his ideas; and careful consideration and implementation of earlier scholarship without being exclusively directed by that scholarship. Since John writes in a clear, straightforward, and carefully sign-posted manner (he is a great lover of lists), there is no need to go through the papers in this section one by one. It may be more useful to say a bit more about the characteristics of John’s work which motivate and undergird his scholarly approach. John once said to me, ‘I grind texts’, and the metaphor is appropriate, since John put texts to the test, so to say, and he used pretty much every technique available to get at their meaning. He began, of course, with a close and careful reading of the text itself, and this was informed by an immense knowledge gained from other texts. As mentioned above, he sought to explicate a text by considering its contexts, those various relationships that worked together to make up its meaning(s). Genre mattered and needed to be considered, but genre was not to be used as a straightjacket, and appeal to genre could never by itself explain a text or any particular aspect of it. One needed to consider also the writer’s place in a tradition, the ways in which authors could simultaneously invoke and ‘supersede’ (or ‘trump’, as Jane Heath notes in her introduction, a favourite word of his) the works of their predecessors. Audience expectations also had to play a role, since this too was a part of the work’s context: texts came into the world at a particular time and place, and even if they were ultimately directed at a future audience, they had to make sense in the author’s own time and place. For John, form is absolutely essential in establishing the meaning of a text, and he is always carefully alert to the ways in which lines of poetry or sentences in prose are structured. He is everywhere observant of ring-composition on the small and large scale, and he calls attention repeatedly to its importance not only or not merely as a structural device, but also and importantly as an aid in establishing the meaning of a text. He listens carefully to the sounds of words and is alert to the ‘music’, so to say, of the text. Not incidentally, then, he is intensely alive to verbal play, to meaningful repetitions, to puns, and (later)

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to anagrams and acrostics. There is an abiding sense of play in his scholarship, and a sense of real joy in the work, even when the subjects are of serious interest. Although form was important, it was not enough to approach the text as a literary artefact alone. One also needed to consider the work’s predecessors. Here it is important to note John’s consistent defence and implementation of Quellenforschung, that form of scholarship which once reigned supreme but which began to be largely eschewed in the latter years of the twentieth century, both because of the influence of the New Criticism, where texts came to be seen as independent entities capable of being studied on their own terms, and because many thought that a century’s worth of Quellenforschung by a series of outstanding scholars had yielded few secure results. Yet it is clear that beginning with his thesis on the Brutus (where John devoted many pages to assigning particular sources for particular passages of the Life)2 he believed that it was important for scholars to try to determine what raw materials (i.e., previous sources) had been at an author’s disposal, because only in this way could one try to isolate more carefully and more exactly what a particular author had done with those sources, and therefore what kinds of things the author emphasised, thought important, or wished to convey: in other words, where the author’s individual achievement lay. Nor is it only in historical or biographical texts that one needs to understand an author’s sources. The vast philosophical background that John sees, for example, in Horace’s poetry is essential to explicating his texts in a deeper and more accurate manner. Once again, in contrast to more ‘literary’ critics, John believes that the philosophy in Horace’s work is not adornment but is everywhere, and meant for a serious purpose. Whether in the Odes or the Epistles, Horace is aware of (and sometimes dramatises) the important differences in the Stoic or Epicurean or Cynic approach to life, and his work is engaged with helping his contemporaries negotiate the various pitfalls and challenges of life in the late Republic, where violence and strife are everywhere and everywhere threaten human achievement. In one of his final pieces on Virgil and virginity, John explores the verbal play by which the poet alludes to his predecessors and marks out his own accomplishments. The emphasis on word play, acrostics, and punning might be—indeed, almost certainly is—too much for some readers, but the points that John makes about poetic achievement—for poets too make moral choices, not least in their selection of topics—are profound. In John’s reading, Virgil’s movement from pastoral to didactic to martial epic is not unrelated to 2 See Moles (1979) xxvii–lxi = (2017) 15–40.

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the ‘real’ world, and mirrors the very movement of Roman history at the time. Epic made different demands of the author, demands that were sometimes at odds with his earlier work and (perhaps) with his personal philosophy. Here the tension brings out important aspects. John’s textual notes in general give a good sense of the ways in which he approached literature and tried to discern meaning through form.3 He employs both intratextuality and intertextuality. Some readings can be rejected because they contradict what is said elsewhere in the text, while (conversely) others are made likelier by the fact that they reinforce verbal and thematic links elsewhere. ‘Technical’ terms must (again) be read in context, such that slight differences of emphasis—as in the difference between ‘aristocrats’ and ‘oligarchs’—must be given their due, for words that may seem to be synonyms make important discriminations upon closer inspection. One must recognise rhetorical figures as building blocks which the author uses to communicate his meaning. And, where relevant, one can look for reinforcement from texts by other authors. A pragmatic and contextual approach is everywhere evident. I noted above John’s love of verbal play, and in the hands of another scholar one might easily mistake this sense of play for frivolity, for participation in what is after all only an academic game. This, however, would be in John’s case a completely misguided notion of what he was about. Even when he offers a novel interpretation, or takes a certain pride in his own one-upmanship, he does so not in pursuit of some game or at the expense of others. He sees himself as engaged in a spirited conversation with contemporary scholars. His criticism of others is straightforward and often blunt. But this is not because he saw the explication of texts as a zero-sum activity. He enjoyed the hunt, but his sense of play and his delight in the text always coexist with a deep and abiding belief in the moral importance of the text he is studying. He certainly thought that literary analysis was absolutely essential to understanding all types of texts (including historical and philosophical ones), but he saw such analysis as only one step in the process, and he had little time (and sometimes harsh words) for those engaged exclusively in literary analysis. Here his interest in philosophy was activated, again regardless of the genre of the text. He did not see literature as hermetically sealed off from the ‘real world’; on the contrary, he believed that the texts he studied engaged with what it meant to be a human being, with the challenges and achievements that human beings faced and accomplished. Since, then, texts are meant to engage us in important questions of human life and behaviour, we are well within our rights to pose moral questions of them. In the two chapters here on Dido, for instance, John uses Aristotle’s 3 Aside from Chs. 60–62 and 65 in this section, see above, Chs. 33, 40, 41, and 43.

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Poetics as a framework within which to ask what motivates the tragedy of Dido: what, in Aristotelian terms, is the hamartia that causes her fall into tragedy? Though John is sympathetic to Dido’s plight, recognising the malignant role played by the gods and the incommensurability of her ‘punishment’, he nevertheless asserts the importance of Dido’s choices in bringing about her own downfall, and is insistent that Virgil gives us clear signs to evaluate her in this way, just as elsewhere we must evaluate Cicero’s political machinations or Brutus’ ‘virtue’ in the real world. It is in some sense this continuing engagement with the larger questions raised by literature that gives all of John’s work its immediacy and importance. Pleasure and utility co-exist for him as they did for the Greek and Roman writers themselves. Although alive to the individual contextualisation of these works as productions of a particular time and place, John saw as well the ways in which such writings could continue to speak to readers of very different contexts and backgrounds today. The study of their specifics reveals as well the value of their universals. In the end this is perhaps his most import­ ant contribution. Bibliography Moles, J. L. (1979) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus (diss. Oxford). Moles, J. L. (2017) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus; with updated bibliographical notes by C. Pelling (Histos Supplement 7; Newcastle).

Part 6 Greek Literature

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Notes on Aristotle, Poetics 13 and 14 In an important recent article* T. C. W. Stinton reaffirmed the case that ἁμαρτία in Aristotle’s Poetics, ch. 13, has a wide range of application.1 I do not wish to dispute the general conclusion of what seems to me a masterly analysis of the question but simply to discuss two areas where Stinton’s argument may be thought defective—the interpretation of the examples given by Aristotle in Poetics 13, 53a11 and 53a20–1 and the problem of the contradiction between 13, 53a13–15 and 14, 54a4–9. 1

The Examples of Poetics 13

The critical passage runs as follows (I print Kassel’s Oxford Text): ὁ μεταξὺ ἄρα τούτων λοιπός. ἔστι δὲ τοιοῦτος ὁ μήτε ἀρετῇ διαφέρων καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ μήτε διὰ κακίαν καὶ μοχθηρίαν μεταβάλλων εἰς τὴν δυστυχίαν ἀλλὰ δι᾽ [10] ἁμαρτίαν τινά, τῶν ἐν μεγάλῃ δόξῃ ὄντων καὶ εὐτυχίᾳ, οἷον Οἰδίπους καὶ Θυέστης καὶ οἱ ἐκ τῶν τοιούτων γενῶν ἐπιφανεῖς ἄνδρες. ἀνάγκη ἄρα τὸν καλῶς ἔχοντα μῦθον ἁπλοῦν εἶναι μᾶλλον ἢ διπλοῦν, ὥσπερ τινές φασι, καὶ μεταβάλλειν οὐκ εἰς εὐτυχίαν ἐκ δυστυχίας ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον [15] ἐξ εὐτυχίας εἰς δυστυχίαν μὴ διὰ μοχθηρίαν ἀλλὰ δι᾽ ἁμαρτίαν μεγάλην ἢ οἵου εἴρηται ἢ βελτίονος μᾶλλον ἢ χείρονος. σημεῖον δὲ καὶ τὸ γιγνόμενον· πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ οἱ ποιηταὶ τοὺς τυχόντας μύθους ἀπηρίθμουν, νῦν δὲ περὶ ὀλίγας οἰκίας αἱ κάλλισται τραγῳδίαι συντίθενται, οἷον [20] περὶ Ἀλκμέωνα καὶ Οἰδίπουν καὶ Ὀρέστην καὶ Μελέαγρον καὶ Θυέστην καὶ Τήλεφον καὶ ὅσοις ἄλλοις συμβέβηκεν ἢ παθεῖν δεινὰ ἢ ποιῆσαι. ἡ μὲν οὖν κατὰ τὴν τέχνην καλλίστη τραγῳδία ἐκ ταύτης τῆς συστάσεώς ἐστι. Stinton argued2 (a) that the examples do not support the view that ἁμαρτία should be restricted to the sense of ‘mistake of fact’ and (b) that in any case * I thank Professors D. W. Gooding and M. J. McGann for helpful criticism of an earlier draft of this paper. I am extremely grateful to Mr. T. C. W. Stinton for detailed discussion by letter of many of the problems. I need hardly stress that he does not agree with all my arguments though he has persuaded me to modify many of them. 1 Stinton (1975). 2 Stinton (1975) 226f. {= (1990) 143f.}.

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the second set of examples is not necessarily meant to illustrate ἁμαρτία at all. Both arguments represent a major attack upon the prevailing modern orthodoxy3 and in particular the second, if correct, would completely demolish most recent discussion of the problem. Stinton’s second argument seems to have been anticipated by G. M. A. Grube,4 ⟦78⟧ who maintains that the first set of examples (Oedipus and Thyestes) is intended as a comment only upon the phrase τῶν ἐν μεγάλῃ δόξῃ ὄντων καὶ εὐτυχίᾳ. (Grube does not say what he thinks is the application of the second set of examples, but we are presumably meant to infer that, if the first set of examples is irrelevant to the question, then a fortiori the second is too.) Grube’s argument has a certain prima-facie plausibility, because καὶ ἐκ τῶν τοιούτων ἐπιφανεῖς ἄνδρες (13, 53a11–12) clearly picks up τῶν ἐν μεγάλῃ δόξῃ ὄντων καὶ εὐτυχίᾳ (13, 53a10). But it does not follow from this that the whole phrase οἷον Οἰδίπους … ἄνδρες exemplifies τῶν ἐν μεγάλῃ … εὐτυχίᾳ only. τῶν ἐν μεγάλῃ … εὐτυχίᾳ is not a separate category of hero—it is only one element in the composite prescription ἔστι δὲ … εὐτυχίᾳ, and it would be surprising if Aristotle felt it necessary to give examples of a category that is so completely the norm in Greek tragedy. The flow of the sentence suggests that these examples are meant to apply to the entire prescription ἔστι δὲ … εὐτυχίᾳ. Of course, on the usual assumption that the second set of examples embodies ἁμαρτίᾳ, another argument against Grube’s view would be the fact that Oedipus and Thyestes reappear in the second set, since the sentence ἀνάγκη ἄρα … χείρονος looks to be simply a recapitulation of ἔστι δὲ … ἄνδρες with only slight qualifications. This makes it doubly necessary to scrutinise Stinton’s contention that the second set of examples is not necessarily intended to illustrate ἁμαρτία. Although Stinton, unlike Grube, accepts the relevance of the first set of examples to the problem, he asserts that in the second set ‘these heroes are chosen as especially suitable for tragedy simply because of the dreadful things they do and suffer, so that the poets gradually narrowed down their choice to such stories … there is no reason to suppose … that the stories connected with these names are meant to illustrate all the features of the ideal prescription.’ In other words, these examples are meant primarily to illustrate stories of dreadful things done or suffered, and not necessarily to satisfy the whole prescription, so that they cannot safely be used as evidence for the application of ἁμαρτία. Yet it seems clear from the flow of the argument from 13, 53a12ff. 3 E.g., Else (1957), 391–8; Bremer (1968); Lucas (1968) 144–6 and 304. Full references in Stinton’s article. 4 Grube (1965) 80 n. 3. So far as I know, this is an original suggestion, though Grube makes it with absolute confidence.

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that the second set of examples is intended both to illustrate stories of dreadful deeds or sufferings and to satisfy the composite prescription as a whole. They do not merely exemplify ‘those to whom it has befallen to suffer or inflict terrible experiences’: they also back up the assertion ‘this is borne out by existing practice’ (σημεῖον δὲ καὶ τὸ γιγνόμενον), and that assertion in turn is made to back up the particular formulation of the plot approved by Aristotle (μεταβάλλειν … δι’ ἁμαρτίαν μεγάλην—a restatement of 13, 53a8–12), which includes ἁμαρτία. Experience has taught the poets that ‘those to whom it has befallen to suffer or inflict terrible experiences’ provide the best material for tragedy, because the stories of such heroes will naturally illustrate a change from good to ill fortune δι’ ἁμαρτίαν μεγάλην. The point is driven home by the sequel (13, 53a22–5) ἡ μὲν οὖν ... δρᾷ, where μὲν οὖν fulfils its usual function of summing up the preceding discussion before the introduction of a new theme, and ταύτης ... συστάσεως must refer back to 13, 53a12ff. and cover the intervening material as well.5 This provides a further argument for rejecting Grube’s interpretation of the first set of examples: the two sets of examples are mutually corroborative, and both can be used as evidence for the application of ἁμαρτία. ⟦79⟧ Stinton lays some stress on Aristotle’s known laxity in the use of examples.6 This is an important point, because, even if it could be shown that all the examples referred to mistakes of fact, this would not of itself prove that ἁμαρτία was restricted to that application; if Aristotle intended ἁμαρτία to have a wide range of application and only gave examples of ‘mistakes of fact’, he would still be giving examples of a particular aspect of that range, and though such a procedure might be misleading, it would not necessarily be un-Aristotelian. A more positive general consideration in favour of the argument for giving ἁμαρτία a wide range of application is simply the vague phraseology at the end of both sets of examples, especially the second. This wording does not necessarily mean that Aristotle does not have in mind some specific type or types of ἁμαρτία in the named examples, but it surely does raise the possibility that he could have envisaged other types of ἁμαρτίαι from those suggested by the stories of the heroes explicitly mentioned. On two counts, then, even if all the named examples yielded the result ἁμαρτία = ‘mistake of fact’, this would not prove the case that this was the only meaning Aristotle wished 5 Cf. also Else (1957) 391, for similar arguments. Stinton has now kindly agreed that it is wrong to detach the second set of examples from the prescription as a whole. 6 Stinton (1975) 227 n. 1 {= (1990) 150 n. 22}, cl. Met. 948a14. Possible instances in the Poetics are, e.g., 1, 47b17–23 (perhaps rather a case of sophistic argument); 8, 51a25–6; 11, 52b12–13 (see Lucas (1968) ad loc.; contra, Rees (1972) 7f.); 11, 52a24–6 (if περιπέτεια = ‘reversal of character expectation’. Cf. n. 43 below).

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to attribute to the term. Nevertheless, it is still worth while to attempt an analysis of the named examples to see if any consistent picture emerges. Stinton accepts the usual view that Oedipus’ ἁμαρτία is a mistake of fact, but correctly implies that it would be circular to assume that this means that Thyestes’ must be of the same type. Of the various possibilities for Thyestes’ ἁμαρτία, the banquet and unwitting7 seduction of his daughter would give ‘mistake of fact’, but the seduction of Aerope and the theft of the golden lamb would both be examples of ἁμαρτία brought about by ἀκρασία. Stinton rightly insists that there are no a priori grounds for giving preference to one or other of these interpretations. There remain four names in the second set of examples. The case of Orestes is critical. Stinton is of course right to dismiss as quite unconvincing the argument advanced by Else: namely that the Orestes story Aristotle has in mind is likely to be the Iphigeneia in Tauris, because he admired the plot of this play.8 This argument is not only weak in itself: it is also vulnerable to several objections, cumulatively decisive: (i) as Stinton points out, ‘Alcmeon and Orestes are standard examples of a particular kind of horrific episode, viz. matricide, the essentials of which are given in the tradition.’9 This naturally suggests that the reference is the obvious one—to Orestes’ killing of Clytemnestra; (ii) in the general context of ch. 13, where it is required that the tragic figure should be to some extent responsible for his fate, it is extremely ⟦80⟧ improbable that Aristotle should have in mind a story where Orestes is not the agent; (iii) the Iphigeneia in Tauris does not fit the composite prescription of ch. 13 at all in an important respect, since it is a case of τὸ μέλλοντα ποιεῖν τι τῶν ἀνηκέστων δι’ ἄγνοιαν ἀναγνωρίσαι πρὶν ποιῆσαι (14, 53b34–5), where the μετάβασις is εἰς εὐτυχίαν; (iv) the general parallelism of thought between 13, 53a17–22 and 14, 53b22–610 implies that Aristotle has Clytemnestra’s murder 7

See Lucas (1968) on 13, 53a11. But even in this example Sophocles’ Thyestes in Sicyon apparently had Thyestes commit incest with his daughter deliberately (references in Else [1957] 395–6). 8 Stinton’s somewhat unkind paraphrase of Else (1957) 394 and n. 97. But it is what Else’s argument amounts to. 9 Stinton (1975) 227 {= (1990) 151} cl. Poetics 13; E.N. 3.1, 1110a28; the sophistic Dissoi Logoi, DK II.410 {= Laks–Most IX.184}. Cf. Antiphanes, F 191 K {= F 189 PCG (II.418)}. E.N. 3.1, 1110a28 does not exclude Orestes’ matricide from consideration in Poetics 13: for the arguments see Stinton (1975) 229–35 {= (1990) 152–61}. One may wonder, in any case, whether too much stress has not been laid upon E.N. 3.1, 1110a28. Is it not possible that Aristotle is intemperately rejecting the possibility of justifiable deliberate matricide simply because he finds the arguments used by the Euripidean Alcmeon so offensive? Moralists often condemn the general principle because they are outraged by the particular indefensible instance. 10 πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ οἱ ποιηταὶ τοὺς τυχόντας μύθους ἀπηρίθμουν, νῦν δὲ περὶ ὀλίγας οἰκίας αἱ κάλλισται τραγῳδίαι συντίθενται, οἷον περὶ Ἀλκμέωνα καὶ Οἰδίπουν καὶ Ὀρέστην … τοὺς μὲν οὖν

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in mind in ch. 13 as in ch. 14. If, then, the reference is to Orestes’ killing of his mother, it is hard to see how it can be interpreted as anything other than ἁμαρτία of compulsion.11 The Stories of Meleager and Telephus12 offer plenty of scope for ἁμαρτίαι other than mistakes of fact which would still satisfy the requirements for the best type of tragic hero. More difficult is the case of Alcmeon. Stinton’s analysis here seems less persuasive. If ‘Aristotle himself cites Alcmeon’s matricide as an example of a deed too horrible for the agent to plead that he acted under compulsion’ (E.N. 3.1, 1110a28), as Stinton points out, then perhaps versions where Alcmeon’s matricide was a mistake of fact, whether through madness (Antiphanes, F 191 K {= F 189.10 PCG (II.418)}), or ignorance (as in Astydamas, ? the Younger) are what is required.13 In any case Astydamas’ version must come into consideration, simply because it is cited in ch. 14. Stinton objects that the reference in ch. 14 is part of a different argument, and maintains that ‘it is improbable that we should be meant to think here of Astydamas’ idiosyncratic version.’ There seem to be several suspect elements in this argument: (i) though the mention of Astydamas’ version in ch. 14 is indeed part of a different argument, the common use of examples in similar contexts in chs. 13 and 14 (Sophocles’ Oedipus, Orestes’ matricide, Alcmeon’s matricide) may suggest that the reference in ch. 14 to Alcmeon’s matricide as treated by Astydamas can be back-referenced to ch. 13; (ii) it is tendentious to speak of ‘Astydamas’

παρειλημμένους μύθους λύειν οὐκ ἔστιν, λέγω δὲ οἷον τὴν Κλυταιμήστραν ἀποθανοῦσαν ὑπὸ τοῦ Ὀρέστου καὶ τὴν Ἐριφύλην ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀλκμέωνος. 11 Lucas (1968) on 13, 53a20, following Else (1957) 394 n. 97, remarks: ‘Since he returned unrecognized to his own country, he was certainly a cause of ἁμαρτία in others.’ But it is hard to believe that Aristotle could have meant that Orestes fell into misfortune because of other people’s failure to recognise him. The fact that Clytemnestra and Aegisthus do not recognise Orestes until too late certainly facilitates Orestes’ killing of them, but it is not the cause of his misfortune. Stinton agrees with me that ‘Orestes is certainly there as an example of deliberate matricide.’ 12 Meleager: Else (1957) 394–5, Lucas (1968) 146 and 304. Telephus’ murder of his uncles (treated in Sophocles’ Aleadae and probably also Aeschylus’ Mysians), among other possibilities, could not have been a ‘mistake of fact’. 13 In itself a reference to conscious matricide is not precluded by E.N. 3.1, 1110a28 (cf. above, p. 528 n. 4) but Aristotle seems to have been particularly struck by the inadequacy of Alcmeon’s plea of compulsion. Of course I do not put much weight on this argument in isolation, since as Stinton points out to me ‘Aristotle might say that it was ridiculous for Alcmeon to claim that his act was compulsory, and therefore worthy of (full) pardon, but might still allow that the command of Ampharaus, which presumably carried with it a curse and the threat of his Erinyes if it was disobeyed, would be a mitigating circumstance’, which on Stinton’s analysis (with which I am in general agreement) is a sufficient condition for hamartia.

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idiosyncratic version’. Astydamas, though little more than a name to us, was clearly a prolific and famous tragedian in his own times, and one, moreover, apparently ⟦81⟧ respected by Aristotle. The madness version of Alcmeon’s matricide was well known (to judge from Antiphanes), and it is quite possible that in Astydamas’ treatment of the story Alcmeon’s ignorance was the result of madness;14 (iii) the phraseology ‘it is improbable that we should be meant here to think of Astydamas’ idiosyncratic version’ (my italics) introduces a false note. This is hardly the right way to approach the examples. The Poetics belongs to the class of ἀκροαματικά, and it is in any case unfinished and incomplete. Consequently we should not be thinking in terms of reader-reaction (as Stinton seems to imply) but in terms of what Aristotle, writing almost in note form, himself appears to have in mind. It is misleading to argue from the fact that a reader would probably not think of Astydamas when he came to 13, 53a20–1. If we try instead to penetrate Aristotle’s admittedly elusive thought processes, then the explicit reference to Astydamas’ treatment of Alcmeon’s matricide in ch. 14, the fact that Aristotle was apparently rather shocked by versions of the story where Alcmeon pleaded compulsion, the fact that the same examples seem to be used in similar contexts in ch. 13 and ch. 14, and the obvious fact that throughout the Poetics Aristotle relies on a relatively small sample of tragedies for purposes of illustration—all these considerations combine to make quite a good case for supposing that Aristotle is thinking of Alcmeon’s matricide as a ‘mistake of fact’.15 14 Webster (1954) 305; Else (1957) 391 n. 86. See further my text note. 15 I hope this is not ‘implausible special pleading’ (Stinton on the Else/Bremer approach to the examples). After all, Stinton himself takes it for granted that the reference to Oedipus in ch. 13 is to the Sophoclean Oedipus, not merely the Oedipus of Greek tragedy in general. In his letter to me Stinton agrees that Aristotle must have been thinking of particular versions of the stories, but argues that this does not necessarily mean that he was referring to particular plays, despite the reference to Sophocles’ Oedipus, since it was famous in a way that Astydamas’ Alcmeon could not have been. He also points out that if the version in which Alcmeon killed his mother when he was mad was Astydamas’ version, then Aristotle in ch. 14 of the Poetics would be regarding Alcmeon as acting δι’ ἄγνοιαν, whereas by the terminology of E.N. 3.1, he ought to be acting ἀγνοῶν διὰ πάθος. He further argues that, although Aristotle is lax about examples and it might be thought that the precise distinctions of E.N. 3.1 are irrelevant to Poet. 14, there is no hint in Poet. 14 that Aristotle is thinking of acts done in a fit of madness rather than just ignorance, hence prima facie Astydamas’ version was peculiar to himself, whereas the standard version, despite Antiphanes, was presumably that of Sophocles’ Epigoni, and therefore the most likely reference in ch. 13 is to the version where Alcmeon killed his mother deliberately, under compulsion. Against this I would argue that if the distinction between δι’ ἄγνοιαν and ἀγνοῶν διὰ πάθος means anything in the context of Poet. 14, then it only knocks out the equation of Astydamas’ version with that mentioned by Antiphanes. But I do not in

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To sum up. Of the six names Aristotle gives, only one (Oedipus) can confidently be interpreted as illustrating a ‘mistake of fact’, though Alcmeon may also be intended to do so. Three (Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus) are simply unclear. One (Orestes) seems a clear case of compulsion. Consequently, there is ⟦82⟧ no need to invoke Aristotle’s carelessness in use of examples to avoid the interpretation advocated by Else and his followers—that ἁμαρτία is restricted to the sense of mistake of fact. At the same time, the vague, open-ended, phraseology in the two sets of examples at 53a11 and 53a21 is itself a strong indication that it would be rash to try to circumscribe the application of ἁμαρτία. Thus Stinton’s approach to the interpretation of the examples is broadly persuasive, even if some of the detail is unconvincing. 2

Contradiction between 13, 53a13–15 and 14, 54a4–9

14, 54a4–9 runs as follows in Kassel’s Oxford Text: κράτιστον δὲ [5] τὸ τελευταῖον, λέγω δὲ οἷον ἐν τῷ Κρεσφόντῃ ἡ Μερόπη μέλλει τὸν υἱὸν ἀποκτείνειν, ἀποκτείνει δὲ οὔ, ἀλλ᾽ ἀνεγνώρισε, καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἰφιγενείᾳ ἡ ἀδελφὴ τὸν ἀδελφόν, καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἕλλῃ ὁ υἱὸς τὴν μητέρα ἐκδιδόναι μέλλων ἀνεγνώρισεν. In the same article16 Stinton offered some fresh observations on the apparent contradiction between 13, 53a13–15 and 14, 54a4–9. He implicitly rejects the usual attempt17 to save Aristotle from the charge of inconsistency: namely that in ch. 13 Aristotle is concerned with the whole plot, but in ch. 14 only the critical scene, so that there is no necessary contradiction between his preference for a μετάβασις from good to bad fortune and his approval of a critical scene in which the deed of violence is averted at the last possible moment. The implications of such a rationalisation are awkward. As Lucas (on 14, 54a8) points any case accept that the distinction could be important, since in ch. 14 Aristotle is only operating within the frame of εἰδότας ἢ μὴ εἰδότας. And given Antiphanes’ evidence, I do not see that for Aristotle, writing towards the end of the fourth century, from an emphatically fourth-century standpoint, the ‘standard version’ could not have been one where Alcmeon killed his mother ἀγνοῶν διὰ πάθος. Of course after a certain point such detailed arguments as these cease to have much contact with the reality of Aristotle’s rather sparse text. None the less, I believe that the cumulative case for taking the example of Alcmeon as a reference to Astydamas’ version is quite good. 16 Stinton (1975) 252–4 {= (1990) 182–5}. 17 Originally suggested by Lessing and accepted by, e.g., Vahlen (1914) 53–4, de Montmollin (1951) 338–9, Else (1957) 450–1, Lucas (1968) 155 (tentatively).

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out, though the scene of realisation before action might be combined with ultimate misfortune in theory, this is extremely unlikely (there are no known examples of such a plot), and we would be left to conclude that the best scene could not be got into the best plot. It is in any case quite artificial to try to make such a distinction between the best scene and the best plot: although Aristotle does indeed spend most of ch. 14 considering the critical scene, he is in effect considering it in relation to the whole plot18 (14, 53b3ff. makes this clear. And the formula τὸ ἀγνοοῦντα μὲν πράξαι, πράξαντα δὲ ἀναγνωρίσαι [14, 54a2–3] practically covers the whole plot of the Oedipus—not just Oedipus’ confrontation with Laius). So we must conclude that Aristotle changed his mind between writing 13, 53a13–15 and 14, 54a4–9.19 Why? ⟦83⟧ The most popular explanation has been Bywater’s. He suggested that the explanation lay in Aristotle’s ‘somewhat tardy recognition of the necessity of avoiding the morally outraging’ at all costs, on the ground that there must be an element of τὸ μιαρόν even in a play like the Oedipus Tyrannus. This is crisply refuted by Miss Hubbard:20 ‘the recognition is so far from tardy that it has dominated the discussion from the beginning of ch. 13, and in any case the tragic situation where the deed is done in ignorance is expressly said to involve no feeling of outrage.’21 Thus the only way to salvage Bywater’s theory is to 18

This is not to exclude the possibility that some of the discrepancies between chs. 13 and 14 can be explained by distortion due to difference of emphases: cf. n. 21 below. 19 The fact that the mode recommended as best in ch. 14 is not mentioned at all in ch. 13 might seem to suggest that the final preference of ch. 14 is an afterthought, rather than a properly considered change of mind. But it is hardly likely that when writing ch. 13 Aristotle should have forgotten of the existence of plays like the Ion, Cresphontes, and Iphigeneia in Tauris, and the emphatic phraseology of 13, 53a14–15 οὐκ εἰς εὐτυχίαν ἐκ δυστυχίας ἀλλὰ τοὐνάντιον ἐξ εὐτυχίας εἰς δυστυχίαν and 21–30 must be intended to reject more than the mode τοὺς μοχθηροὺς ἐξ ἀτυχίας εἰς εὐτυχίαν (13, 52b36–7), and must in fact also contain an implicit polemic against the Cresphontes schema. 20 Hubbard (1972) 109 n. 5. Cf. Glanville (1949) 47. 21 14, 54a3–4; it is quite clear in ch. 14 that whether or not τὸ μιαρόν comes into play depends on the motivation of the agent, not on whether the deed is done or not. Cf. also 14, 53b38–9, where the situation where someone in possession of the facts is about to act, but fails to do so, is stigmatised for having τὸ μιαρόν. The same accusation is levelled implicitly against the situation where the agent acts knowingly (14, 54a2). It is misleading to say ‘Aristotle passes no judgement on class (2), acts done knowingly’ (Stinton [1975] 234 {= (1990) 159–60}), or ‘The schema is not uncommon … it is not excluded as untragic by Aristotle, but simply not preferred, as belonging to the simple not the complex plot’ (ibid. 252 { = (1990) 183}). Although the superiority of the complex plot is certainly of some relevance, in the first instance Aristotle is assessing the various possibilities according to the criteria of τὸ μιαρόν and arousal of the tragic emotions. The situation where the agent acts knowingly clearly involves τὸ μιαρόν and equally clearly the structure of Aristotle’s argument implies that this is so, even though the text at this point is little more than a series

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suppose a further change of mind between 14, 54a2–3 and 14, 54a4–5, a more than dubious procedure! Miss Hubbard herself makes a characteristically cool suggestion: ‘There seems nothing to be done with the change of mind but to accept it. However surprising it may seem to people in full strength, Aristotle is not after all the only great man to pass in later years from a preference for tragedy to a preference for tragicomedy; Shakespeare and Sophocles [sic: ? Euripides] are notable examples.’ This presupposes a considerable interval between the writing of ch. 13 and at least part of ch. 14, which is of course not impossible. More important, while it provides a very general explanation for Aristotle’s change of mind, it does nothing to explain on what precise grounds Aristotle finally preferred realisation before action to realisation after action. Though realisation before action naturally implies a ‘happy ending’, it is not on that account, in the first instance at any rate, that it is preferred. The question why Aristotle changed his mind can only be answered (if at all) by first establishing the detailed reasons for his preference in ch. 14 for realisation before action. In ch. 14 Aristotle is weighing up the various ways of handling the πάθος,22 ⟦84⟧ the critical act of violence, in order to secure the most effective arousal of the tragic emotions, pity and fear. One important criterion for deciding the relative merits of the different possibilities is the avoidance of τὸ μιαρόν. It is easy to see that realisation before action avoids τὸ μιαρόν: in this case, as in the case of realisation after action, moral outrage is avoided because the agent is ignorant of the true identity of the victim. Thus, in the case of realisation before action, the original intent to kill does not cause revulsion in the audience, and when the identity of the victim is revealed, the fact that the agent does not carry his purpose through ensures that the feeling of revulsion is finally avoided. In the case of realisation after action, moral revulsion does not occur because, although the agent does commit the murder, he is ignorant of the identity of his victim and thus unaware of the full enormity of the

22

of jottings. But, though Stinton overlooks this important fact, it does not necessarily go against his argument for a wide-ranging application for ἁμαρτία in ch. 13. See ibid. 234–5 {= (1990) 159–61}. To the objection: ‘Why does Aristotle here pointedly reject acts done knowingly as having τὸ μιαρόν if he is prepared to allow them as ἁμαρτίαι in ch. 13?’, the answer might be that the distortion of emphasis occurs because Aristotle has effectively forgotten that he is supposed to be assessing the πάθος in the light of the whole πρᾶξις and has simply become interested in calculating the relative merits of the various πάθη for their own sake (this goes some way to explaining the preference for a ‘happy ending’ plot in ch. 14, as argued below). Stinton, however, is right that Aristotle does not exclude schema (2) (Medea) as ‘untragic’. The term πάθος is carefully analysed by Rees (1972), though he does not deal directly with the problems of ch. 14.

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deed. The real problem is why realisation before action should be thought by Aristotle to produce more effective arousal of the tragic emotions than realisation after action. For, on the face of it, as Stinton emphasises, it would seem that if the tragic act is left undone, the emotion aroused must be less great. Realisation after action is a prescription that appears to have everything possible in its favour: pity and fear are aroused because the deed is actually done, τὸ μιαρόν is avoided because the agent does not appreciate the nature of his action, and ἔκπληξις occurs when the realisation comes after the deed (I defer for the moment discussion of ἔκπληξις). Why should this formula be less good than realisation before action? Stinton is undoubtedly right to see part of the explanation in Aristotle’s belief that as much emotion was generated by an event still in the future as by a past event, provided it was πρὸ ὀμμάτων.23 But this can only be part of the explanation, since, though it gets around the apparent deficiency of non-action, it does not of itself explain why realisation before action should be more efficient in arousing pity and fear.24 One factor in favour of realisation before action, pointed out by Miss Hubbard and accepted as valid by Stinton, is that ‘It might even be argued that a fear which is to be averted by rescue could be worked up to a higher pitch, and still be tolerable, than a fear which is fulfilled’ {Stinton (1975) 253 = (1990) 184}. By analogy, much the same argument could be applied to the arousal of pity. Stinton offers a rather different explanation of why Aristotle might have supposed that the non-occurrence of the disaster allows increased scope for the arousal of pity. He argues as follows:25 Ἔλεος, pity or sympathy (Mitleid), depends on undeserved misfortune; and the more ἐπιεικής the victim, the greater the sympathy—up to a point: beyond that point his downfall becomes μιαρόν. So his ἐπιείκεια must have a limit … If there is no downfall, however, this limit is unnecessary: he can be as ἐπιεικής as we like, and our pity will still be heightened and not diminished. At the vital moment, then, before the actual disaster,

23 Stinton (1975) 253–4 {= (1990) 183–5}, working from Glanville (1949) 55 nn. 6, 7, cl. Rhet. 1385b13, 1386a34, 1382a21 (below, n. 32). The point was already made by Vahlen (1914) 53ff., and accepted by Else (1957) 451. That it is relevant to Poetics 14 is suggested by 14, 53b18 οὔτε ποιῶν οὔτε μέλλων. 24 Rees (1972) 5 does not come to grips with this difficulty. Glanville (1949) 52ff. argues that realisation before action ‘rescues both man and God from a moral condemnation through which pity is roused for what is human only at the cost of misrepresenting what is divine.’ On the unlikelihood of this explanation see Stinton (1975) 253 {= (1990) 183–4}. 25 Stinton (1975) 253 {= (1990) 184}.

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we shall pity him more than we should pity the actual downfall of a less good (and less sympathetic) character.

⟦85⟧ This ingenious argument runs counter to what is normally considered to be the most basic requirement of all for the arousal of the tragic emotions. According to the usual view, Aristotle does indeed recognise that to a certain extent the downfall of a man is the more pitiable the more virtuous he is (13, 53a4 ὁ μὲν [ἔλεος] περὶ τὸν ἀνάξιόν ἐστιν δυστυχοῦντα. This is presumably also the point of the qualification at 13, 53a16 ἢ οἵου εἴρηται ἢ βελτίονος μᾶλλον ἢ χείρονος. But an important control on the ἐπιείκεια of the tragic character is exerted by the basic requirement that, to allow the audience to identify with him at all, he must be ὅμοιος. His ἐπιείκεια must have a limit, even when disaster does not occur, because we feel fear περὶ τὸν ὅμοιον (13, 53a6), and, although Aristotle does not say so explicitly in the Poetics, the same is true of pity (Rhet. 2.8, 1385b13, 1386a24).26 Thus on the usual interpretation of ὅμοιος, Stinton’s argument here would fall foul of an essential condition for the operation of the tragic emotions. But Stinton believes that the usual interpretation of ὅμοιος is wrong and that the term does not imply an upper limit of goodness. This is too large a question to deal with properly here, so I merely emphasise that Stinton’s argument does conflict with the usual interpretation of ὅμοιος, which I believe to be right, and suggest that in any case such an argument is too theoretical to do justice to the demands of the general context of ch. 14.27 Nevertheless, there are arguments which might plausibly be advanced in favour of the scheme of ⟦86⟧ realisation before action. Apart from the argument suggested by Miss Hubbard, there is another, fairly obvious, factor which might be urged in favour of this scheme: a matter of practical stage-craft. An important characteristic of plays like the Cresphontes, Helle (presumably),28 Iphigeneia in Tauris, and Ion is that the critical confrontation scene, complete with near-murder, could be enacted in its entirety on stage, simply because the murder does not finally occur, whereas, owing to the conventions of Greek tragedy, representations of actual killings on stage were exceedingly rare.29 Hence the critical scene could be placed quite literally, and at extended length, 26

As Bywater {(1909) 215} remarks on 13, 53a5–6, ‘The antithesis in the text … is too strongly put’, cf. also Else (1957) 373. 27 See end-note, pp. 544–6 below. 28 Nothing more is known of this play. 29 For deaths etc. on stage see Lucas (1968) on 11, 52b10. The nearest thing to the representation of an actual killing is Ajax’ suicide, which occurs (arguably) only just out of sight of the audience. Later such restraints were relaxed, as the fame of Timotheus of Zacynthus (Schol. Ai. 864) attests.

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πρὸ ὀμμάτων, and the dramatist could exploit the emotions of his audience in a more direct way than was possible by relating the details of the killing in a speech or choral ode, or even by putting the confrontation on stage and then making its murderous outcome take place just off stage. It is true that this rather conflicts with Aristotle’s emphatic assertion at the start of ch. 14 that the mere reading of a plot should be sufficient to arouse pity and fear and to a certain extent with his generally cool attitude to ὄψις (14, 53b2–8),30 but any explanation is bound to conflict with something (since Aristotle changed his mind), and the harshness of the contradiction is alleviated if we accept Bywater’s suggestion (made for other reasons) that 14, 53b22–54a9, and not the whole of ch. 14, is the later accretion. It could also be argued that, from the point of view of Aristotle in his role of apologist for tragedy against the moralistic attacks of Plato, the scheme of realisation before action would obviously be a highly efficient mechanism (arguably a more efficient mechanism than realisation after action) for securing tragic catharsis. In a ‘tragic’ tragedy the emotions of pity and fear are purged away by their own excess, but in a ‘happy ending’ tragedy the dramatist himself brings about their purgation by working them up to an almost intolerable pitch, and then relieving them by averting the catastrophe at the last possible moment. The therapeutic value of a play like the Cresphontes is obvious. But whether this is a factor which would weigh with Aristotle the aesthetic theorist is a moot point. It presumably would not, if (as I should argue) ‘Catharsis is not something the tragic poet aims to produce … Catharsis is a therapeutic by-product, not something the poet either does or should intend.’31 The weakness of all the arguments considered so far is that they make little attempt to see Aristotle’s preference for realisation before action in relation to the whole argument from 14, 53b37ff. I suggest that it is possible to interpret the argument in such a way as to show that it is quite logical for Aristotle to describe realisation before action as κράτιστον, even though we may think that he is mistaken to do so. This interpretation is hardly revolutionary and is to a certain extent implicit in some of the arguments already considered, especially the perception that a πάθος that has yet to occur can generate as much 30 Note, however, that Aristotle does seem to accept as a useful criterion whether a thing comes off on stage: 13, 53a27–8; cf. 17, 55a22ff. 31 This is not the place to become embroiled in discussion of catharsis. The formula in the text is Hubbard (1972) 88–9. Else (1957) 423–50, while denying that catharsis is the ‘end’ of tragedy (439), still manages to make it relevant to Aristotle’s preference for realisation before action. But his analysis depends not only on an idiosyncratic interpretation of catharsis, and an argument that is not easy to follow, but also upon an erroneous acceptance of Bywater’s view that recognition after action still involves an element of τὸ μιαρόν.

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emotion as a πάθος that has occurred. Yet so far as I am aware, it has not been argued explicitly before. One of the reasons why a future πάθος can generate as much emotion as an actual πάθος is that, from the point of view of the onlooker, the danger of its occurrence appears to be in some sense a real one.32 In describing the formula of realisation before action Aristotle seems to concentrate on the critical moment when it looks as if disaster is just about to strike: 14, 54a5–7 ἡ Μερόπη μέλλει τὸν υἱὸν ἀποκτείνειν, ἀποκτείνει δὲ οὔ, ἀλλ’ ἀνεγνώρισε. Might it not be that Aristotle prefers realisation before action simply because he thinks it affords greater opportunity for the creation of dramatic tension and suspense, which serve to heighten the tragic emotions? We know from Plutarch’s description that the audience in his day found the suspense of the critical scene in the Cresphontes almost unbearable.33 Aristotle admittedly does not say much about dramatic tension, but it is clear that he was well aware of its effectiveness as a means of arousing audience emotion. Tales of narrow escapes are θαυμαστά (Rhet. 1.11, ⟦87⟧ 1371b10–11). People add τὸ θαυμαστόν to their stories because τὸ θαυμαστόν ἡδύ (Poet. 24, 60a17). Περιπέτεια is a ‘change’ involving τὸ θαυμαστόν (Rhet. 1.11, 1371b10–11). The best form of ἀναγνώρισις also necessarily involves τὸ θαυμαστόν (Poet. 11, 52a32–3). In all these cases the arousal of the audience’s emotions depends on either the gradual build-up of suspense or its resolution.34 That Aristotle is thinking in terms of tension or suspense in ch. 14 is shown, I think, by his criticism of the scheme where the agent is about to act knowingly but refrains (14, 53b37–9). That this is censured for incurring τὸ μιαρόν is simple to understand and has already been discussed. But there is a second ground for criticism: such a scheme is οὐ τραγικόν· ἀπαθὲς γάρ. The difficulty here lies in explaining why such a scheme should be ‘not tragic’ (i.e., incapable of arousing the tragic emotions of pity and fear): the explanation is ἀπαθὲς γάρ; but what exactly does ἀπαθές mean? Scholars have mainly divided into two camps, some taking it as = ‘without a πάθος’, others as = ‘lacking in (not productive of) emotion’ (i.e., the tragic emotions). If we were compelled 32 Cf. Rhet. 1385b13ff. ἔστω δὴ ἔλεος λύπη τις ἐπὶ φαινομένῳ κακῷ … ὃ κἂν αὐτὸς προσδοκήσειεν ἂν παθεῖν … καὶ τοῦτο ὅταν πλήσιον φαίνηται· δῆλον γὰρ ὅτι ἀνάγκη τὸν μέλλοντα ἐλεήσειν ὑπάρχειν τοιοῦτον οἷον οἴεσθαι παθεῖν … 1386a34ff. ἐγγὺς γὰρ ποιοῦσι φαίνεσθαι [τὸ κακὸν] πρὸ ὀμμάτων ποιοῦντες, ἢ ὡς μέλλοντα ἢ ὡς γεγονότα. καὶ γεγονότα ἄρτι ἢ μέλλοντα διὰ ταχέων ἐλεεινότερα. 1382a21f. ἔστω δὴ φόβος λύπη τις ἢ ταραχὴ ἐκ φαντασίας μέλλοντος κακοῦ. We should also bear in mind the simple fact that fear is προσδοκία κακοῦ. 33 De Esu Carnium 998E σκόπει δὲ καὶ τὴν ἐν τῇ τραγωδίᾳ Μερόπην ἐπὶ τὸν υἱὸν αὐτὸν ὡς φονέα τοῦ υἱοῦ πέλεκυν ἀραμένην καὶ λέγουσαν ‘ὠνητέραν δὴ τήνδ’ ἐγὼ δίδωμί σοι | πληγήν’, ὅσον ἐν τῷ θεάτρῳ κίνημα ποιεῖ, συνεξορθιάζουσα φόβῳ μὴ φθάσῃ τὸν ἐπιλαμβανόμενον γέροντα καὶ τρώσῃ τὸ μειράκιον. 34 τὸ θαυμάζειν is the desire to understand: Rhet. 1371a31–4 (cf. b5–11), Met. 982b17–19.

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to choose between these two alternatives, then we would have to prefer the former, simply because Aristotle’s usage in the Poetics at large, and certainly in ch. 14 (14, 53b18, 54a13), generally supports the interpretation of πάθος as = ‘a destructive or painful act’. But in context ἀπαθές cannot simply mean ‘without a πάθος’ since the mere fact that a πάθος does not occur is not in itself a deficiency (cf. above, p. 533). Such a scheme also self-evidently does raise the ‘idea of a pathos, the intention of performing one’.35 It seems to me that this riddling phrase in effect combines both senses of πάθος, and means ‘without a πάθος in the real sense’, or even, ‘without a πάθος that can arouse πάθη’ (i.e., in the present context, pity and fear).36 If we compare this scheme with that of realisation before action, in both of which the idea of the pathos is canvassed, but the pathos itself does not materialise, it is surely clear that the superiority of the latter (avoidance of τὸ μιαρόν aside) must lie in the fact that the πάθος at least seems to be a real possibility, whereas in the case of the former, though the idea of the πάθος is indeed broached, nothing is made of it—there is no tension, and the agent simply fails to carry his plan out. (This scheme is natur­ ally inferior to the one where the agent acts knowingly, because there the fact that the πάθος does occur guarantees the arousal of at least some emotion.) We may distinguish, generally speaking, several distinct conditions under which dramatic tension may operate. If the audience do not already know the story, there may be suspense of a very simple kind: what happened/whodunit? If the audience do know the story in advance (whether because the story itself is a very familiar one, or they have seen or read the play before, or the dramatist himself in effect tells them the story at the beginning, as in an explicit Euripidean prologue), tension may be generated in different ways. The dramatist can frustrate the audience’s expectations in detail, while at the same time keeping to the broad outlines of the story (this is a favourite technique of Euripides’).37 It can also happen that, although the audience know the story in ⟦88⟧ advance, they yet identify so strongly with the characters of the play that to some extent they suspend their own superior knowledge, and enter into the emotions of the tragic characters who do not possess that knowledge. In addition, if the ending of the story is tragic, it is only human nature to wish that it might not be so, and tension will occur even with regard to the outcome because of the operation of the so-called ‘principle of hope’. Conversely, if the 35 36 37

The formulation is Else (1957) 420. See also Rees (1972) 4 for a similar interpretation. See Dodds (1960) on Bacch. 52, W. S. Barrett (1964) on Hipp. 41–50, and Owen (1939) on Ion 70–1. Broader studies of Euripides’ partiality for teasing the expectations of his audience are Winnington-Ingram (1969) and Arnott (1973).

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ending of the story is ‘happy’, it is, equally, only human nature to be apprehensive about the outcome. This applies even when the audience has been told explicitly that there is no real cause for alarm (thus in the prologue to the Ion Euripides makes it clear that there will be a happy ending, yet clearly in the crucial scenes he plays with his audience’s apprehensions that Creusa will in fact kill Ion and vice versa), or even when they know that the conventions of the particular genre presuppose a happy ending (most old-fashioned adventure stories and practically all ‘telly-cop’ plots depend on the exploitation of this kind of suspense, though of course suspense of the ‘how-was-it-done?’ kind may also be operative). It may be agreed without argument that all these types of tension except the first (tension arising from total, or almost total, ignorance of the outcome) were possible in the Greek theatre. Could tension of the first kind have been operative? Most scholars would deny this possibility on the ground that the degree of knowledge about the central stories of Greek myth possessed by the Athenian audience of certainly the fifth, and probably also most of the fourth, centuries would rule out tension of so basic a kind. But even if they are right about the degree of knowledge in the Athenian audience,38 this in itself does not rule out the possibility that Aristotle could have entertained such a view of dramatic tension: the only relevant evidence here is Aristotle’s own opinion about the knowledgeability of the audience. Throughout the Poetics he is writing from a fourth-century perspective: he frequently cites the work of fourth-century tragedians, the fifth-century tragedians in whom he is chiefly interested, Sophocles and Euripides, retained great popularity in the fourth century, and his relative neglect of Aeschylus must be attributed to the sharp decline of interest in Aeschylus in the fourth century. He attacks the decadent taste of the contemporary audience, the artistic compromises of contemporary tragedians, and the modern tendency towards irrelevance in the choral odes.39 Most important for our purposes, he asserts that ‘even the familiar stories are familiar only to a few’ (9, 51b26). How is this statement to be assessed? The problem, for the purposes of this argument, is not so much whether Aristotle is right or not (though if the statement could be shown to be flagrantly at odds with the external evidence, then there would be the beginnings of a case for dismissing it as rhetorical bravura, not seriously meant), but whether he himself believed it. And the answer must be that he 38 Eur. Hipp. 451–6 must give pause—see Barrett (1964) ad loc. Lloyd-Jones (1971) 198 n. 124 is not (in my opinion) an adequate reply. One of the most commonly used arguments—that use of ironic effects necessarily presupposes audience foreknowledge—is unconvincing. See n. 45 below. 39 13, 53a34; 9, 51b36–9; 13, 53a34–5; 18, 56a27–32.

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did: the context shows that this is not rhetorical exaggeration, but a serious statement, meant to carry conviction, to prove a serious point. Aristotle is appealing to what he takes to be a self-evident fact.40 (We should also remember that Aristotle praises Agathon’s ⟦89⟧ Antheus, which was completely made up, and points out that there is no need for dramatists to keep to the traditional stories [9, 51b21–5].) Consequently, we may conclude that Aristotle could have conceived of dramatic tension of the most basic kind. All types of dramatic tension, then, may be of relevance to Aristotle’s discussion in ch. 14. In assessing the fourth possible way of handling the critical confrontation Aristotle merely says that it is κράτιστον. The fact that he does not specify the exact grounds of his approval suggests that they must be clearly implicit in the immediate context. The third possibility, realisation after action, has an ἀναγνώρισις that is ἐκπληκτικόν. The two possibilities are equal as regards the avoidance of τὸ μιαρόν. Both possibilities have an ἀναγνώρισις. It is therefore only reasonable to infer that the superior πάθος of the fourth possibility must have something to do with the manner in which the ἀναγνώρισις is achieved. To resolve this problem we must first of all decide the rationale of Aristotle’s judgement on the third possibility. What are the implications of ἔκπληξις? The word can be used of the onset of any strong emotion. But Aristotle defines it as ὑπερβολὴ θαυμασιότητος (Top. 126b14) and a connection with τὸ θαυμαστόν in the Poetics seems assured by the fact that Aristotle describes Achilles’ pursuit of Hector as ἐκπληκτικόν in 25, 60b25 and θαυμαστόν in 24, 60a14. And περιπέτειαι are θαυμαστά at Rhet. 1371b11, as they also are in the Poetics,41 while ἀναγνωρίσεις are ἐκπληκτικά (vid. the present passage and 16, 55a17), so that the link between ἔκπληξις and τὸ θαυμαστόν is again confirmed, in the light of the close connection between ἀναγνώρισις and περιπέτεια.42 It is clear from the general context of ch. 14, where Aristotle is concentrating on the means a dramatist may employ for arousing pity and fear while avoiding moral revulsion, that he has in mind the ἔκπληξις felt by the audience. Although it is practically impossible to find an adequate English equivalent 40 9, 51b23–6: ὥστ’ οὐ πάντως εἶναι ζητητέον τῶν παραδεδομένων μύθων, περὶ οὓς αἱ τραγῳδίαι εἰσιν, ἀντέχεσθαι. καὶ γὰρ γελοῖον τοῦτο ζητεῖν, ἐπεὶ καὶ τὰ γνώριμα ὀλίγοις γνώριμά ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ ὅμως εὐφραίνει πάντας. The external evidence is inconclusive. The best discussion is Else (1957) 318ff. though his interpretation of καὶ τὰ γνώριμα as ‘even the familiar names’ is strained (but does not affect the argument). 41 In the first sentence of ch. 11 καθάπερ εἴρηται refers back to 9, 52a4: so Rostagni (1945) 60, Glanville (1947) {73} (on the basis of an unpublished paper by F. M. Cornford), Else (1957) 344, Lucas (1968) 129. Rhet. 1371b11 helps the case. 42 This analysis is essentially Bywater’s.

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for ἔκπληξις, it seems clear (or at any rate as clear as anything in the Poetics can be) that Aristotle intends the term to include a feeling of ‘wonder’ or ‘surprise’, whether or not this can be said to be its ‘meaning’. It is also clear from the immediate context that ‘wonder’ or ‘surprise’ is thought to be particularly conducive to the arousal of pity and fear (this idea is explicit at 9, 52a3–4). Why should the audience feel ‘wonder’ or ‘surprise’ in Greek tragedy? Wonder or surprise is felt when things turn out logically but unexpectedly, as Aristotle makes clear in his discussion of τὸ θαυμαστόν at the end of ch. 9 (9, 52a3–4 ταῦτα δὲ γίνεται … ὅταν γένηται παρὰ τὴν δόξαν). In this passage also the surprise is naturally taken to be the surprise of the audience, when things turn out contrary to their expectations.43 ⟦90⟧ But Aristotle, in common with most Greeks of his time, assumes a very high degree of identification between audience and tragic characters.44 Consequently an audience may feel wonder or surprise in two main ways. In cases where they do not know the story in advance, and it is not revealed to them in an explicit prologue, they may feel surprise on their own account, independently of the tragic characters (though their surprise will be enhanced by the consternation of the tragic characters). In cases where they do know the story in advance or it is revealed to them in an explicit prologue, they may still feel surprise because they identify so strongly with the shocked tragic characters, and/or because the plot is given a particular twist, surprising in itself, even when the outcome is known. It is now time to apply this general theorising to the ἀναγνώρισις of the Oedipus, the third category of play considered in ch. 14. Because the full identity of the principal parties is not revealed to the audience before the ἀναγνώρισις the ἀναγνώρισις itself will come as a ‘surprise’ in something of the same way as the solution of a detective story,45 though the surprise of the audience ⟦91⟧ 43 So, emphatically, Else (1957) 330 n. 103; the immediate context and the θαυμαστόν and ἔκπληξις contexts discussed above combine to make this interpretation practically certain. But this interpretation, because of the link between 11, 52a23 and 9, 52a4 (n. 41 above), implies that περιπέτεια in ch. 11 should be taken as ‘reversal of audience expectation’. Although I agree with this view (see, e.g., Else [1957] 345, Turner [1959], Hubbard [1972] 104 n. 5), which is consistent with Aristotle’s belief in the ignorance of the contemporary audience (p. 539 above), it hardly affects the argument which view of περιπέτεια is preferred . Even if περιπέτεια means ‘reversal of character expectation’, the significance of this reversal lies in the transference of the emotions of the characters to the audience. Cf. next note. 44 Lucas (1962), esp. 54 ff. 45 Lucas (1962) 53 appears to concede this possibility (following Else [1957] 346), but rejects it in his edition [{1968} 133] on the ground that ‘Even with regard to Oedipus the audience is clearly assumed to know from the start all that in the course of the play Oedipus discovers

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will certainly be augmented by their identification with the shocked Oedipus. In the case of plays where (given their general ignorance) the audience do not know what is going to happen, and are not told the outcome by the dramatist himself, but are given the full identity of the persons who are to come into conflict,46 the ἔκπληξις generated by the ἀναγνώρισις will derive largely from the audience’s identification with the shocked tragic character. In the case of plays where the plot is set out in advance, the ἔκπληξις felt by the audience will be of a similar kind. In all three cases the ἔκπληξις results from the final and unexpected rupture of the dramatic tension and is the culminating emotion which stuns the audience and arouses pity and fear to a high degree. In the fourth category, however, that of realisation before action, the dramatic tension mainly springs from the fact that the dramatist could create about himself (cf. Glanville [1947] 77). But this argument simply ignores the possibility that as far as Aristotle was concerned the audience could feel surprise of a detective-story type. Not only, as Else points out, can it be argued that ‘Our knowledge that Oedipus’ situation is going to be reversed is “accidental” in Aristotle’s sense. It is not an expectation based on the facts as they are given in the course of the play’, but also Aristotle’s belief that ‘even the familiar stories are familiar only to a few’ means that from his point of view the whole question of advance knowledge of a given plot is simply irrelevant (cf. Else [1957] 346 n. 10). I may add that the natural interpretation of 11, 52a24–6 is that the audience is assumed not to know the Oedipus story (cf. Hubbard [1972] ad loc.). None of this necessarily means that Aristotle is insensitive to ironic effects in tragedy, as both Else and Lucas imply, though admittedly he says nothing about them. It is often argued that the mere presence of ironic effects of the kind used so extensively throughout the Oedipus necessarily presupposes audience foreknowledge of the story, but although I do not doubt that some of Sophocles’ audience had that foreknowledge, or that he exploited it to the full by the use of ironic effects, their mere presence does not prove audience foreknowledge. Irony of course can work retrospectively. This is a familiar enough technique in Greek and Latin poetry (e.g., Anacreon 358 PMG, as interpreted by Harvey (1957) 213). It should also be familiar enough to any follower of modern theatre or cinema or indeed to anyone who reads a detective story. One does not deny the existence of the clues Hitchcock gives his viewers in the first part of Psycho simply because their significance is not appreciated when they actually appear on screen, or the ironic light thrown on everything that precedes the solution by the solution itself in Agatha Christie’s classic detective story, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. The criterion: would the audience appreciate it at the time?—is altogether too crude a critical tool. Thus Aristotle’s emphasis on the techniques of suspense is in theory by no means incompatible with an awareness of the significance of ironic effects. In fact, if the ἔκπληξις felt by the audience at the ἀναγνώρισις of the Oedipus is of a detective-story kind, it is actually enhanced by the previous ironic effects, whose true meaning is only made clear by the ἀναγνώρισις itself. Aristotle’s way of looking at the Oedipus, which assumes an audience without advance knowledge of the story, therefore gives the ironic effects a somewhat different value than they would have had for some of the fifth-century audience, but it need not be taken to devalue them completely. 46 E.g., Euripides’ Bacchae and Heracles; probably Astydamas’ Alcmeon and Sophocles’ Odysseus Akanthoplex.

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tremendous suspense by posing the audience the question: will the πάθος take place or not—will the πάθος be averted by a life-saving ἀναγνώρισις?47—and dramatising the critical moment on stage. In the case of plays where the audience is not told the outcome in advance, like the Cresphontes48 and Iphigeneia in Tauris, the dramatic tension would be particularly acute: Plutarch’s testimony is sufficient proof of this. But even in a play like the Ion, with its explicit prologue,49 an audience will necessarily be gripped with suspense in the critical scenes. Aristotle could reasonably have supposed that the dramatic tension generated by realisation before action was greater, and hence the arousal of emotion more intense, because, whereas the emotions aroused by realisation after action depend on the unexpected rupture of a gradually established dramatic tension, those aroused by realisation before action operate by putting an audience’s fears and apprehensions on a knife-edge in a critical scene (or scenes) of tremendous suspense. Ch. 14 of the Poetics undoubtedly contains a flat contradiction of the approved formula of ch. 13. Why Aristotle changed his mind must remain a matter for speculation. Perhaps it was simply that he saw a performance of the Iphigeneia in Tauris or Cresphontes, and like Plutarch, was tremendously impressed by the effect the climactic critical scene had upon the audience. Both plays were popular in Athens towards the end of the fourth century.50 A more likely explanation lies in the different emphases of chs. 13 and 14. Although ch. 14 is theoretically concerned with the handling of the πάθος in relation to the whole plot it is easy to suppose that once Aristotle had ⟦92⟧ embarked upon his detailed comparison of the different ways of handling the πάθος, he was induced to change his preference because at that particular point in his work his more detailed approach necessarily involved taking a more restricted perspective. Whether he was right to do so is another question. Stinton’s view that the formula of realisation before action is ‘the typical schema for melodrama’51 47 This seems to have been appreciated by Glanville (1947) 77 n. 1: ‘In plays with a happy ending, the tragic emotion … depends on the outcome not being a foregone conclusion’, though her parallel argument (77) that ‘the whole emotional effect of the play’ (viz. the Oedipus) ‘depends on their knowing the outcome from the first, since fear is προσδοκία κακοῦ’ ignores Aristotle’s belief in the ignorance of the audience and the possible role of retrospective irony (n. 45 above), and also seems to imply quite wrongly that προσδοκία κακοῦ is not a significant factor in ‘happy ending’ plays. 48 The Cresphontes did not have an explicit prologue. See Musso (1974) XXIV. 49 It is not quite explicit—see n. 37 above—but presumably the audience would feel fairly sure of a happy ending after it, though they would undoubtedly get some shocks along the way. 50 Documentation in Haigh (1898) 99–102, cf. id. (1896) 448 n. 4. 51 Stinton (1975) 254 {= (1990) 185}.

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is perhaps a little harsh. Elsewhere in the Poetics it is not, after all, a necessary requirement, though it is a preferred element, in a tragedy that it should have an ‘unhappy’ ending, and it is arbitrary to deny the appellation ‘tragedy’ to plays which rely for their effect upon the creation of a more immediate form of excitement. But of course it is true that the fear and pity evoked by a ‘tragic’ tragedy are of a more profound and lasting kind, that the scheme of realisation before action necessarily puts greater emphasis upon a single climactic scene (or scenes), however skilfully led up to, somewhat at the expense of the πρᾶξις as a whole, and that such a formula can hardly produce great tragedy. Stinton is therefore right to see a falling off from the profound insights of ch. 13 and we may speculate that Aristotle’s final preference for that formula is the manifestation of a jaded critical palate, just as today the intellectually blasé may have recourse to the reading of detective stories, thrillers, and Science Fiction (experto credite). Nevertheless, the theory that Aristotle is thinking in terms of suspense and excitement in ch. 14 does at least provide a rational basis for his preference for the formula of realisation before action. And his general emphasis upon suspense, excitement, surprise does show an acute awareness of one level at which even the greatest of tragedies work upon the emotions of the audience, a level increasingly recognised by modern scholarship.52 3

End-Note

I am grateful to Mr. Stinton for making his position on ὅμοιος clear to me (I had not realised that it is implicit on pp. 239 and 253 {= (1990) 166–7 and 184} of his article). He believes that the usual assumptions that (i) Aristotle means by ὅμοιος to imply an upper limit of goodness; that is, that a completely good person would be unlike ourselves, and so we could not identify with him, and (ii) that this is a correct account of how the tragic emotions work, are both wrong. Briefly, his arguments are as follows: (i) The limitation ὁ μήτε ἀρετῇ διαφέρων καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ (13, 53a8) refers back to οὔτε τοὺς ἐπιεικεῖς, etc. (13, 52b34 ff.), not to ὅμοιον (13, 53a6). (Commentators since Twining have realised that it must be the antithesis of ἐπιεικεῖς, otherwise ἐπιεικεῖς cannot have the sense ‘very good’ required by the context. It follows that ἐπιεικεῖς is what it refers to.) That is: the central figure must not be very good, not because he would then be unlike ourselves, so that we could 52 E.g., the studies of Euripides’ dramatic technique cited above, p. 538 n. 4, or Taplin (1977). Note, e.g., Taplin’s contention that the so-called ‘carpet scene’ in the Agamemnon ‘is meant to be puzzling’ (316).

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not identify/sympathise with him, but because his downfall would be μιαρόν. Stinton finds confirmation for this interpretation in the qualification ἢ βελτίονος μᾶλλον ἢ χείρονος (13, 53a16–17), which he takes to mean that the central figure should be as good as possible, provided he is not perfect, and in the observations ἤτοι βελτίονας ἢ καθ’ ἡμᾶς (2, 48a4) and ἡ μὲν [κωμῳδία] … χείρους ἡ δὲ βελτίονας … τῶν νῦν (2, 48a17f.). He also maintains that in the initial prescription οὔτε τοὺς ἐπιεικεῖς ἄνδρας δεῖ μεταβάλλοντας φαίνεσθαι ἐξ εὐτυχίας εἰς δυστυχίαν, οὐ γὰρ φοβερὸν οὐδὲ ἐλεεινὸν τοῦτο ἀλλὰ μιαρόν ἐστιν (13, 52b34–6) it is wrong to explain οὐ φοβερόν by the theory that the agent is too good to be like ourselves (as is done, e.g., by Lucas [1968] ad loc.) because οὐδὲ ἐλεεινόν cannot be explained in the same way, since the ἐπιεικής in this situation clearly is ἀνάξιος δυστυχῶν. οὐδὲ ἐλεεινόν has therefore to be explained by the fact that the sense of outrage annuls that of pity and the same applies, in his opinion, to οὐ φοβερόν. (ii) We do not in fact find the stage portrayal of very good people unsympathetic unless the dramatist takes care that we should by making their very virtues contribute to a defect such as priggishness or spiritual pride (as, e.g., Hippolytus). Generosity or altruism or love or courage are not per se unsympathetic. We identify with people who have the qualities we admire, or think we should admire, whether or not we have them ourselves. Thus we can identify with Robert Powell’s Jesus Christ or with Socrates in the Phaedo. These are powerful arguments, which deserve the most careful consideration. I should tentatively reply: (i) Stinton’s analysis of the critical passage in ch. 13 seems to me to do more justice to the strict letter of Aristotle’s rather schematically organised argument than to its general spirit. It is true that at no single point does the argument require ὅμοιος to imply an upper limit of goodness. Yet surely that implication is built into the very word itself. The ὁμοιότης in question must, in context, be moral. We feel fear for someone ‘like’ (ourselves). ‘Likeness’ to ourselves would seem to imply more than just absence of moral depravity. Stinton’s interpretation in effect gives little (or perhaps rather an extremely strained) meaning to ὅμοιος. Further, it must be true that we also feel pity for the ὅμοιος (see above, n. 26), even though the form of Aristotle’s argument at 13, 53a5–6 tends to obscure this. Now the scheme of a fall from good to bad fortune of a σφόδρα πονηρός, who is not ὅμοιος, is unsatisfactory, because, although it satisfies ‘human feeling’ (τὸ φιλάνθρωπον), it does not arouse pity or fear. Pity is not aroused by undeserved suffering only: it is an implicit requirement that the subject of the pity should also be ὅμοιος to some degree. Fear is also felt for the ὅμοιος. The best scheme involves the fall from good to bad fortune of ὁ μήτε ἀρετῇ διαφέρων καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ. Although Stinton is right to say

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that this phrase does not refer to ὅμοιον it is clearly implied by the argument that such a man will be ὅμοιος, since the arousal of both pity and fear depends on ὁμοιότης. Ch. 13 is in effect concerned with three classes of persons: the very bad man, the very good man, and the man in between the two extremes. The best tragic character has to be ‘like ourselves’ in that he is neither very good nor very bad, so that we can identify with him. But he has to be ‘better rather than worse’ (13, 53a16–17 does not justify the inference that ‘he should be as good as possible’) because we feel pity for undeserved suffering. These two requirements pull in different directions, so that it comes as no surprise if Aristotle from time to time emphasises the one at the expense of the other. (iii) Stinton’s observations here are a valuable corrective to the too easily made assumption that great virtue is unsympathetic, an assumption which, as he suggests to me, probably owes much to modern sensibilities alert to hypocrisy and pretension. It is true that we can identify with Christ as played by Robert ⟦94⟧ Powell and with Socrates in the Phaedo. But this, I would maintain, is because their great goodness is a dynamic quality, maintained by constant effort and struggle. It is not therefore ‘inhuman’. By contrast, I would argue, the correct critical response to the typical Dickensian heroine is one of alienation (even though this was not the contemporary response, nor the one intended by the artist), and this is because their goodness is static, and so unadulterated as to be quite inhuman. Aristotle of course does not discuss such distinctions. But as a general statement, the requirement that a stage character should be ‘like ourselves’ in being neither very good, nor very bad, seems to me to have sufficient truth for Aristotle to have been satisfied with it in his analysis in Poetics 13. It may be objected that this whole discussion is academic on the ground that the question is only important when the πάθος does not occur. (Where it does occur, the tragic hero certainly cannot be of consummate virtue because his fall would be morally revolting.) I have dwelt upon it because it raises very important general questions about the conditions necessary for audience identification and because it is also critical for Stinton’s suggested explanation for the preference in ch. 14 for a ‘happy ending’ plot. Bibliography Arnott, W. G. (1973) ‘Euripides and the Unexpected’, G&R 20: 49–64. Barrett, W. S., ed. (1964) Euripides: Hippolytus (Oxford). Bremer, J. M. (1968) Hamartia: Tragic Error in the Poetics of Aristotle and in Greek Tragedy (Amsterdam).

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Bywater, I. (1909) Ἀριστοτέλους Περὶ Ποιητικῆς: Aristotle, On the art of poetry; a revised text, with critical introduction, translation, and commentary (Oxford). Dodds, E. R., ed. (1960) Euripides: Bacchae2 (Oxford). Else, G. F. (1957) Aristotle’s Poetics: the Argument (Cambridge, Mass.). Glanville, I. M. (1947) ‘Note on Περιπέτεια’, CQ 41: 73–8. Glanville, I. M. (1949) ‘Tragic Error’, CQ 43: 47–56. Grube, G. M. A. (1965) The Greek and Roman Critics (London). Haigh, A. E. (1896) The Tragic Drama of the Greeks (Oxford). Haigh, A. E. (1898) The Attic Theatre2 (Oxford). Harvey, A. E. (1957) ‘Homeric Epithets in Greek Lyric Poetry’, CQ 7: 206–23. Hubbard, M. E., trans. (1972) ‘Aristotle’s Poetics’, in D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom, edd., Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford, 1972) 85–132. Lloyd-Jones, H. (1971) The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley and Los Angeles; repr. with addenda, 1983). Lucas, D. W. (1962) ‘Pity, Terror, and Peripeteia’, CQ 12: 52–60. Lucas, D. W., ed. (1968) Aristotle: Poetics (Oxford). de Montmollin, D. (1951) La Poétique d’Aristote: texte primitif et additions ultérieurs (Neuchâtel). Musso, O., ed. (1974) Euripide, Cresfonte (Milan). Owen, A. S., ed. (1939) Euripides: Ion (Oxford). Rees, B. R. (1972) ‘Pathos in the Poetics of Aristotle’, G&R 19: 1–11. Rostagni, A., ed. (1945) Aristotele Poetica2 (Turin). Stinton, T. C. W. (1975) ‘Hamartia in Aristotle and Greek Tragedy’, CQ 25: 221–54; repr. in id., Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1990) 143–86. Taplin, O. (1977) The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford). Turner, P. (1959) ‘The Reverse of Vahlen’, CQ 9: 207–15. Vahlen, J. (1914) Beiträge zu Aristoteles Poetik, ed. H. Schöne (Leipzig and Berlin). Webster, T. B. L. (1954) ‘Fourth-Century Tragedy and the Poetics’, Hermes 82: 294–308. Winnington-Ingram, R. P. (1969) ‘Euripides: Poiêtês Sophos’, Arethusa 2: 127–42.

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A Neglected Aspect of Agamemnon 1389–92 1

The Text* κἀκφυσιῶν ὀξεῖαν αἵματος σφαγὴν βάλλει μ’ ἐρεμνῇ ψακάδι φοινίας δρόσου, 1390 χαίρουσαν οὐδὲν ἧσσον ἢ διοσδότῷ γάνει σπορητὸς κάλυκος ἐν λοχεύμασιν. 1389 σφυγήν Wilamowitz : ῥαγήν Fraenkel : αἵμαδα σφαγῆς A. Y. Campbell 1391 seq. διοσδότῷ γάνει Porson : διὸς νότῳ γᾶν εἰ codd. : Διὸς νότῳ γαίει Lawson : Διὸς νότῳ γαθεῖ Lloyd-Jones

I print Page’s Oxford text, which is here identical to Murray’s first and second edition. The apparatus criticus is drawn from the texts of Campbell, Murray, and Page, and the commentaries of Lawson, Fraenkel, and Denniston and Page.1 The text has been much disputed. αἵματος σφαγήν can be justified technically by reference to Euripides, Rhesus 790–1:2 θερμὸς δὲ κρουνὸς δεσπότου πάρα σφαγαῖς βάλλει με δυσθνῄσκοντος αἵματος νέον. None of the conjectures are satisfactory (see Page). But the Euripidean parallel does not explain the usage. Although the physical situation in the two passages is essentially the same, the imagery behind Clytemnestra’s words is strikingly different and αἵματος σφαγήν is particularly appropriate to its context in the Agamemnon, as I argue below. Lloyd-Jones’ and Lawson’s conjectures in 1391f. are both good, but Porson’s remains the best: it is marginally closer to the MSS

* My thanks to Professor M. J. McGann and Mr E. L. Bowie for constructive and astringent criticism of this paper. 1 Page (1972); Murray (1937); (1955); Campbell (1936); Lawson (1932); Fraenkel (1950); Denniston and Page (1957). 2 Headlam ap. Thomson (1938), with Thomson’s own remarks, and Page in Denniston and Page (1957).

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_033

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reading and the cult associations of γάνος are relevant and important,3 while the colour contrast between διοσδότῳ γάνει and ἐρεμνῇ ψακάδι may also be significant (see below). 2

Analysis and Interpretation

Many of the most important aspects of this passage are widely recognised. Clytemnestra’s words are a perversion of the simile of Iliad 23.597–9: τοῖο δὲ θυμὸς ἰάνθη ὡς εἴ τε περὶ σταχύεσσιν ἐέρση ληίου ἀλδήσκοντος, ὅτε φρίσσουσιν ἄρουραι·

The rejoicing of Clytemnestra, in contrast with that of Menelaus, is ⟦180⟧ hideously out of tune with the natural order. They are also a perversion of the famous words of Aphrodite in the Danaids:4 ἐρᾷ μὲν ἁγνὸς Οὐρανὸς τρῶσαι Χθόνα, ἔρως δὲ Γαῖαν λαμβάνει γάμου τυχεῖν· ὄμβρος δ᾽ ἀπ᾽ εὐνάεντος Οὐρανοῦ πεσὼν ἔκυσε Γαῖαν, ἡ δὲ τίκτεται βροτοῖς μήλων τε βοσκὰς καὶ βίον Δημήτριον, δενδρῶντις ὥρα δ’ ἐκ νοτίζοντος γάμου τέλειός ἐστι· τῶν δ᾽ ἐγὼ παραίτιος. The unnaturalness of Clytemnestra’s act and of her feelings about it is reinforced by the implicit contrast with the joyful and fruitful conjunction of Earth and Sky. (Of course, the conjunction of Earth and Sky is not always joyful in myth, but it usually is, and this is relevant to the present passage, even though the more complex associations of the marriage of Earth and Sky in the Theogony are also important, as I argue below). Her rejoicing over a fallen foe is in defiance of the humane code of Odyssey 22.411–12: 3 For which see Schadewaldt (1926) 44 n. 1; Fraenkel on Ag. 1392. But I accept M. L. West’s arguments for dividing γᾶν | ὃς in the Dictaean hymn to the Kouros ([1965] 151), even though this rules out an otherwise tempting parallel. 4 F 44 N {TrGF 44 (III.159–60)} = 25 Weir-Smith (1926) = 125 Mette (1959) {= 41 Sommerstein}; cf. POxy. 2255, fr. 14 (vol. 20 [1952] 21f.).

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ἐν θύμῳ, γηρῦ, χαῖρε καὶ ἴσχεο μηδ’ ὀλόλυζε· οὐχ ὁσίη κταμένοισιν ἐπ’ ἀνδράσιν εὐχετάασθαι —a defiance obviously all the more abhorrent for the identity of her enemy. In fact, the whole speech 1372–98 is that of a warrior exulting boastfully over an adversary killed on the battlefield; cf. esp. 1379, 1384, 1387 εὐκταίαν, 1394 (and also 1382f., because nets can be used in war). This goes some way to explaining the choice of words in 1389f., but it does not (in my view) explain everything. The blasphemous horror of the scene is further enhanced by the fact that Clytemnestra has described the murder of Agamemnon in the language of ritual sacrifice (1386ff.), and the analogy is here continued, because the blood spurting from the third blow corresponds to the customary libation to Zeus the Saviour. Some excellent recent studies of Aeschylean imagery have also helped to throw light on the passage within a wider context. The theme of corrupted sacrifice is one of the central symbols in the Oresteia, particularly the Agamemnon, and it is closely linked with the pervasive hunting imagery.5 The theme of sacrifice is also linked with the imagery surrounding the ambiguous use of the term τέλος, particularly the τέλος of marriage and the τέλος of death. Both aspects are relevant here, since sacrifice is part of the wedding ceremony.6 Agamemnon 1389–92 can also be analysed in terms of such important themes as blood flowing to the ground,7 libations poured to earth,8 evil breeding evil,9 trampling under foot,10 darkness and light,11 ⟦181⟧ and of a whole series of images denoting abnormality and perversion of nature, particularly perverted fecundity.12 But commentators and critics appear to have overlooked the obvious and very strong erotic overtones of Clytemnestra’s words. I say ‘appear’, because I am unsure whether they have been recognised, though not made explicit, by, e.g., Lebeck and Fagles and Stanford in their stimulating discussions of the passage.13 At any rate, a full exposition seems worthwhile, though it has been suggested to me that such an interpretation of Agamemnon 1389–92 is 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

For corrupted sacrifice see Zeitlin (1965), esp. 474, and (1966); Lebeck (1971) 60–3, esp. 62, and 176 n. 15; for the link between sacrifice and hunting, Vidal-Naquet (1969). Lebeck (1971) 48, 68–73, and esp. 188 n. 48. Lebeck (1971) 80–91 and 100f. Lebeck (1971) 86f. Lebeck (1971) 49–51, 130 and 162f. Lebeck (1971) 38–40, 68 and 74–9. Lebeck (1971) 43 and 100; Peradotto (1964), esp. 388–93; cf. Gantz (1977). Goheen (1955); Peradotto (1964) 379–83; Zeitlin (1965) 499ff. and (1966) 650ff. Lebeck (1971) 71f. and 188 n. 48; Fagles and Stanford (1975) 30f. and 313 = (1977) 40f. and 303.

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unconvincing ab initio, on the ground that sexual imagery is not common in tragedy and needs to be well pointed in the language (as in the Danaids fragment). To this I would reply that I do find it pointed in the language here, and that scholars have long recognised the Danaids fragment as a parallel of sorts, even if they have failed to pursue the implications. Clytemnestra describes her feelings when she was showered by the blood of Agamemnon: she rejoiced ‘no less than the crop rejoices in the γάνος given by Zeus, during the κάλυκος λοχεύμασιν’. The idea of the earth rejoicing in the visitations of Zeus, the sky and rain god, is a very familiar one, and the underlying concept is one of sexual visitation. For this ‘Marriage of Earth and Sky’ cf., e.g., Hesiod, Theog. 133, Aeschylus F 44 N {= TrGF F 44 (III.159)} (the Danaids fragment), and Euripides F 898 N {= TrGF F 898 (V.2.908)}, partly modelled on it, Proclus, in Tim. 3.176.28, Lucretius, 1.250 and 2.992, Virgil, Ecl. 7.60 and Georg. 2.324ff., Horace, Epod. 13.2, Pervigilium Veneris 8ff. This does not of course, entail taking λοχεύμασιν as ‘fertilisation’, rather than as ‘birth’. Even if a reference to ‘birth’ were illogical, this would not prevent the description from being evocative of Marriage of Earth and Sky: the illogicality is more apparent than real. The chronological gap between impregnation and parturition is telescoped simply because the process of generation is regarded as a unity; cf. Agamemnon 1417–18, αὑτοῦ παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ | ὠδῖν’, and 1525, ἀλλ’ ἐμὸν ἐκ τοῦδ’ ἔρνος ἀερθέν. The double reference of the snake in Clytemnestra’s dream in the Choephori must also be explained in this way. Note also Virgil, Georg. 2.324ff., where Heaven, after impregnating Earth, is said (326f.) to nourish omnes … fetus. The point was evidently appreciated by Fraenkel on 1391f. (p. 656): ‘the loving detail … in which, as in the words of Aphrodite in the Danaids, the birth of all created life is seen as a homogeneous process’ (my italics). γάνος, sometimes a difficult word, here at 1392 clearly refers to the moisture of Zeus. The application of the simile is not restricted to the single point of comparison (between Clytemnestra’s rejoicing and the rejoicing of the crop): there is multiple correspondence of detail. Not only does Clytemnestra correspond to the crop and Agamemnon’s blood to the fertilising moisture of Zeus, but the sexual flavour of the ⟦182⟧ simile is reflected in the narrative. Like many other languages, Greek often uses imagery drawn from sowing to refer to sexual congress. The term σπορητός suggests a close parallelism between image and narrative: Clytemnestra is the ‘field’ ‘sown’ by Agamemnon’s blood. Agamemnon’s blood is compared directly to the fertilising rain sent by Zeus upon the waiting crop. H. J. Rose thinks, indeed, that γάνος refers to dew, not rain (as usually interpreted), because of Iliad 23.597–9 (quoted above, p. 549).14 14 Rose (1958) II.100.

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But this is not Aeschylus’ only model, and in the Marriage of Earth and Sky it is rain, not dew, that is the seed of heaven. Rain also makes a better comparison with the violence implied by βάλλει in 1390, and better suits the general implication of the simile: the whole point is that the moisture has been a long time coming. δρόσος, as will be seen below, is not incompatible with this interpretation, and the relevant parallels are Iliad 11.52ff.,15 where Zeus hurls down rains of blood, and Agamemnon 1015–21, also naturally taken to refer to rain. In myth, blood is often credited with fertilising properties.16 The combination of the theme of the Marriage of Earth and Sky and the idea of blood as a fertilising agent gives the whole description something of the feel of the myth of the castration of Uranus (Theog. 154–210), as Fagles and Stanford imply. The sexual suggestiveness is further heightened by the detail κάλυκος ἐν λοχεύμασιν. The phrase has sometimes caused difficulty, but in context (σπορητός) the κάλυξ must be the husk of the corn and κάλυκος λοχεύμασιν therefore refers to the bursting of the ear from the husk. It is of course true, as Fraenkel remarks, that Aeschylus ‘often communicates horror by recalling something friendly and harmless’.17 But the detail does more than that: it emphasises the feeling of release experienced by Earth in her marriage with Sky, and thus reinforces the implicit sexuality of the previous description. So much may be suggested merely by the analogy between simile and narrative. But the language Clytemnestra uses to describe how she was showered by Agamemnon’s blood itself strongly suggests a sexual metaphor. δρόσος can be applied to practically any moisture, but it is particularly suitable here for two reasons. One obviously is that it helps to prepare for the simile of the crops visited by the moisture of Zeus. The simile is anticipated because δρόσος often refers to dew. It does not mean dew here, but the association facilitates the transition to the simile: ψακάδι does the same, as Fraenkel saw, and compared Aristophanes, Peace 1140–1, τυχεῖν μὲν ἤδη ’σπαρμένα, | τὸν θεὸν δ’ ἐπιψακάζειν.18 It has been suggested to me that the simile is also foreshadowed by the reference to the ἐρεμνῇ ψακάδι, because earth struck by rain is darker than dry earth, and hence that most of the simile may be an example of a familiar phenomenon: the extension of a simile beyond the essential point of the comparison (as, e.g., Sappho 96.12–14 L–P, and Homer, passim). In so far as this ⟦183⟧ suggestion may shed light on the workings of Aeschylus’ pictorial imagination, I welcome it (though it seems to me that δρόσου and ψακάδι are both themselves more 15 16 17 18

Fagles and Stanford (1975) 30f. and 313 = (1977) 40f. and 303. See West (1966) 220 on Theog. 183. Fraenkel (1950) III.656 on Ag. 1391f. Fraenkel (1950) III.655 on Ag. 1390.

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likely ‘triggers’), but I do not believe that the correspondence between simile and narrative is anything less than extremely tight, for the reasons set out here. The other reason why δρόσος is particularly suitable here is that it can be used with overt sexual reference.19 1389 is crucial for this reading of Clytemnestra’s words. In general terms, it is, of course, a natural and necessary part of her speech: she is gloating over her fallen enemy, and she now describes his death agonies as he chokes with blood, which spurts out and showers her. But precise interpretation is difficult. In particular, the phrase αἵματος σφαγήν has perplexed commentators.20 It can perhaps be justified to some extent by the fact that σφαγή is often used of sacrifice,21 But while this gives a certain point to σφαγήν, it does not explain the syntactical difficulty, or the use of the epithet ὀξεῖαν. Literally translated, the sentence runs: ‘blowing out a sharp wounding of blood he strikes me with a dark spray of bloody moisture’. σφαγήν is simultaneously both ‘passive’—because Agamemnon has been wounded—and ‘active’—because his blood ‘wounds’ Clytemnestra. His blood is in effect characterised as a weapon: ὀξεῖαν, σφαγήν, βάλλει. ὀξεῖαν must mean ‘sharp’ (not ‘swift’, as Page takes it). This is the better rendering for two reasons: (1) it is more in keeping with the violence of the imagery contained in αἵματος σφαγήν and βάλλει; (2) it is also more appropriate to the simple literal meaning of what is being described, for in the present passage, as in Sophocles, Antigone 1238f., ὀξεῖαν surely refers to a person ‘spurting … blood’—to ‘the sharp spurt’ of blood, as argued by J. H. Kells.22 I labour this obvious point because it is precisely the point at which some readers have felt my interpretation of these lines to be most vulnerable. Yet the meaning of ὀξεῖαν, whatever the interpretation of the imagery of which it is a part, should not be in dispute. In itself βάλλει is a straight-forward enough usage, for a gush of liquid can quite naturally be said to ‘strike’ a person. βάλλω is also used of blood at Iliad 11.536, Sophocles, Antigone 1238f., and Euripides, Rhesus 790f. (quoted above, p. 548): cf. Iliad 5.113, αἵμα δ’ ἀνηκόντιζε, for a related idiom. But in all these cases the application is quite different (even though the Sophoclean and Euripidean passages are both clearly modelled on Agamemnon 1389ff.), and the cumulative case for taking Agamemnon 1389ff. as an erotic metaphor is unaffected. But the implications of σφαγήν taken in conjunction with ὀξεῖαν are much stronger. 19

See Dover (1968) {217} on Clouds 977, with evidence also for the general use; Henderson (1975) 145 n. 194; Pfeiffer (1949–53) on Call. F 260.19; cf. Agamemnon 141 as interpreted by Dover {ibid.}, surely rightly. 20 See Fraenkel (1950) {III.654–5} and Denniston and Page (1957) {198}. 21 So Zeitlin (1965) 474 and 479 n. 26. 22 Kells (1961) 193 and n. 1.

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If ὀξεῖαν αἵματος σφαγήν were meant to refer to a violent gush of blood only, then it would indeed be hard to justify, even given the general battle context, which only explains the ‘passive’ use of σφαγήν. The explanation is surely that the phrase suggests a sexual image. ⟦184⟧ βάλλω/βέλος, ‘fighting’, ‘wounding’, and ‘weapons’ are all familiar ideas in erotic and sexual contexts. The whole sentence contains a sexual metaphor drawn from fighting and wounding. Thus the Danaids fragment, ἐρᾷ μὲν ἁγνὸς Οὐρανὸς τρῶσαι Χθόνα, etc., is a very close parallel.23 It is important to emphasise that this does not restrict the application of βάλλει to ‘penetrate’. βάλλει means ‘strikes’, ‘hits’. But it has two applications: on the literal level, that of liquid ‘striking’ an object; on the symbolic, that of a male ‘penetrating’ a female (for such direct sexual reference of ‘striking’ cf., e.g., [Lucian] Asin. 9, among many examples in Greek and Latin erotic literature). This brings me to another objection: does not βάλλει με … ψακάδι sound more as if the male is ejaculating on to the female’s body, rather than consummating naturally? This difficulty, such as it is, is lessened by the analogy with sky/rain/earth. But the difficulty is unreal. The fighting, wounding, and striking suggest a sexual image, but there then occurs a conflation of time scale in the imagery between ‘penetration’ and ‘ejaculation’, just as there is between impregnation and parturition in 1391–2 (above, p. 551). This is readily comprehensible. For Aeschylus’ imagery is not to be interpreted with mathematical precision. The use of ἐκφυσιῶν with σφαγήν is also partly to be explained in terms of sexual imagery. It is clearly conditioned by the epic usages θυμὸν ἀποπνείων (Iliad 4.524 and 13.654), θυμὸν ἀίσθων (16.468 and 20.403), and the like: cf. Agamemnon 1388, θυμὸν ὁρμαίνει, which must be a similar idiom, whether or not ὁρμαίνει is justifiable.24 ‘Sets in motion’ makes quite good sense because of the military connotations of ὁρμάω, etc. Similarly, μεθῆκεν αὐτοῦ κῶλα (1385) perhaps also prepares for the erotic imagery of 1389ff. by looking forward to a sort of λυσιμελὴς ἔρως context. On one level Agamemnon’s blood is being equated with his soul (his life-blood), on another with semen. Both implications are covered by ἐκφυσιῶν. The sound suggested by the verb is obviously appropriate to an erotic context: ‘heavy breathing’ is naturally a not uncommon motif in realistic descriptions of love-making (parallels, if needed, include Afranius 243 [Ribbeck], Achilles Tatius 2.37.9, Apuleius, Met. 2.17.4, Claudian, Carm. min. 29.33 and Ovid, AA 3.803). Furthermore, ‘expiring’ is itself a term which can clearly be used with 23 24

And for erotic βάλλω/βέλος in general see Barrett (1964) 260 on Hipp. 530–4. For the difficulty there see Fraenkel (1950) {III.653} and Denniston and Page ad loc. {(1957) 197–8} (but note that Page no longer daggers it in his OCT {(1972) 187}).

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double reference, because of the comparison of love with warfare, and the equally common related equation of the extremes of sexual desire with death (Sappho 31.15 L–P, etc.). Apuleius, Met. 2.17, where animam anhelo is used of sexual orgasm, provides a convincing parallel (again if one is needed at all). Finally, how does ἐρεμνῇ fit into this pattern? Perhaps no special explanation is needed: ἐρεμνός is a natural epithet for blood (μέλας is the colour of blood in Homer; cf. Ag. 1020; Eum. 183 and 980; Sept. 737). But Aeschylus is fond of employing colour imagery for striking symbolic effect (cf. the so-called ‘carpet’ scene, and the Furies’ donning of ⟦185⟧ purple robes). ἐρεμνῇ may therefore have a particular point. The perversion of the sexual imagery seems to be emphasised by a reference to a dark liquid when it should be white, an implication underlined by the colour contrast between the ἐρεμνῇ ψακάδι and the διοσδότῳ γάνει. Lines 1389–92 are therefore (among many other things) a clear parody of the sexual act: Clytemnestra represents the dying Agamemnon as having an ejaculation—of dark blood—and herself as rejoicing in reciprocal climax as her husband bespatters her—with his blood. This interpretation springs directly from the immediate context, but also harmonises with themes of general importance in the play. The joyful sexual reunion of the long separated husband and wife is a theme much celebrated in literature.25 In the Agamemnon this idea is first brought into prominence by Clytemnestra’s boasts of scrupulous fidelity to her husband in his absence (600–14) and again emphasised in her false welcome of Agamemnon (887–902 and 966–72). But the theme is implicit in the plot from the very beginning, and is naturally already given a sour note by the numerous obscure hints of Clytemnestra’s adultery with Aegisthus, from the Watchman (18–21, 26–7, 36–9), the chorus (83–4—in context the address Τυνδάρεω θυγάτηρ is significant—, 260, 542–50, 782–809), and Clytemnestra herself (in the brazen irony of her remarks at 600–14, which do not deceive the chorus—615–16, 855–60, and 887–902). Lines 1389–92 are therefore, in a sense, the logical culmination of Clytemnestra’s obscene parody of the role of the faithful and devoted wife. This idea is kept alive by her words at 1438–47, where she maintains that it is just and proper that Agamemnon and Cassandra should lie together in death as they did in life, and by Choephori 975–6, where the tables are turned and Orestes makes the same point in relation to Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

25 Od. 23.232ff., where 232–5 are cited by Fagles and Stanford (1975) = (1977) as a direct model for Ag. 1391ff.; but this seems a very long shot, though the simile does lie behind Ag. 899, and the general theme is certainly relevant.

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Lines 1389–92 are also obviously a hideous reversal of the sexual norm: note the first response of the chorus at 1399–1400: θαυμάζομέν σου γλῶσσαν, ὡς θρασύστομος, ἥτις τοιόνδ’ ἐπ’ ἀνδρὶ κομπάζεις λόγον. This too accords with the relative roles of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon as presented by Aeschylus earlier in the play. Clytemnestra is mannish: she thinks like a man and demands the rights and respect due to a man. In her first meeting with Agamemnon, the ‘carpet’ scene, Agamemnon is ‘womanised’ (918–19 and 940) and ‘subjugated’ (953 ~ 943 and 956), and the point is emphasised by the parallel scene with Cassandra, where Clytemnestra fails to coerce her, and where ‘the slave proves herself superior to the conqueror, the barbarian to the Greek, the woman to the man’.26 ⟦186⟧ A series of grotesque animal images helps to stress the reversal of the norm (1125–6, 1224–5, 1228–30, 1231–6, 1258–9; cf. 1116–7). The transition from implicit to all but explicit sexual perversion at 1389–92 is prepared for, and facilitated by, the preceding description of the woven robe (1382ff.), which sets up a general context of encirclement, entanglement, immobility:27 one almost wonders if Odyssey 8.272ff., the Ballad of Ares and Aphrodite, was at the back of Aeschylus’ mind, and if Agamemnon 1382ff. gains another gruesomely incongruous resonance from an implicit contrast with that beguiling episode. Here, ἄπειρον ἀμφίβληστρον, ὥσπερ ἰχθύων (1382) recalls the hunting imagery so prevalent throughout the Oresteia, but also brings to mind the important inverted animal imagery. For this ‘woven’ robe is also referred to as a spider’s web (1492 and 1516) and a net (868 and 1115; Cho. 999). The mention of the woven robe, with its hunting, inverted animal, and spiderish overtones, is followed by our passage, where the female kills the male in a grotesque ‘sexual’ encounter. Aeschylus has perhaps given the passage something of the flavour of the bizarre mating habits of certain female spiders or snakes.28 At any rate, the fact that the female brutally triumphs over the male, 26 Winnington-Ingram (1948), esp. 132–4 {= (1983) 104–7}: the recent analysis of the ‘carpet’ scene by Simpson (1971) ignores its wider implications for the relationship between the sexes, and (to my mind) does scant justice to the ‘psychological’ aspect, well discerned by Winnington-Ingram. See now Taplin (1977) 321, where the ‘psychological’ aspect is at least not dismissed. 27 On the general connotations of such imagery see Devereux (1976) 330 and n. 40. 28 For spider imagery in the Agamemnon, Fagles and Stanford (1975) 39f. = (1977) 50f., and in general, Devereux (1976) 319–44 (on the Danaids’ dream in the Supplices, with full and useful references); for murderous female snakes, e.g. Hdt. 3.109.1–2, on which How

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in a context where male superiority is usually taken for granted, forms a fitting climax to the general theme of the reversal of the sexual norm. The interpretation of 1389–92 as embodying a sexual metaphor also coheres excellently with the pattern of imagery surrounding the ambiguous use of τέλος. The lines reflect not only the sacrificial feast of the wedding ceremony, but also—by a typically Aeschylean blurring of time scale—the wedding night and the physical consummation of the marriage. Taken together with the recurrent theme that evil ever begets evil, the passage helps to suggest that the unnatural murderous Orestes (as opposed to the normal human Orestes already born) was begotten by Clytemnestra’s unholy conjunction with Agamemnon. This idea is perhaps pointed up by the reference to the κάλυκος … λοχεύμασιν (1392), and by Electra’s unconsciously ominous words, just before Orestes appears before her, at Cho. 211: πάρεστι δ’ ὠδὶς καὶ φρενῶν καταφθορά. Thomson and Lebeck also detect ominous implications here, though of a rather different kind.29 I do not, of course, wish to make much of this point, since the order of the lines, Cho. 201–11, is highly ⟦187⟧ controversial.30 Two further resonances suggest themselves. Clytemnestra’s imagery is couched in the language of a typical description of the Marriage of Earth and Sky. One of the central concerns of the Oresteia is the resolution of the conflicting claims of the ‘old’, ‘female’, ‘chthonic’ divinities and the ‘young’, ‘male’, ‘sky’ divinities. It is therefore legitimate to universalise the imagery and analyse it along the lines suggested by Fagles and Stanford:31 Clytemnestra represents the Earth, the Great Mother, and while the present passage puts Earth and Sky in conflict, it still hints at their eventual reconciliation. This hint is strengthened by the association of the myth in the Theogony, where the drops of Uranus’ blood give birth not only to the Erinyes but also to Aphrodite. The combination of ritual sacrifice and sexual intercourse in a general fertility context emphasises Clytemnestra’s chthonic qualities in another way.32 Clytemnestra engages in a sense in a sexual act with Agamemnon, and imagines herself to be in harmony with a natural world where the crops have been sown and where the corn and Wells (1928) I.291 ad loc. remark that ‘H.’s vivid imagination conceives the serpent pair as a sort of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra’. 29 Thomson (1946) 267; Lebeck (1971) 109. 30 See now Taplin (1977) 337f. 31 Fagles and Stanford (1975) = (1977). 32 On which see in general Fraenkel (1950) 569–72 on Ag. 1235, Αἵδου μητέρ’; Zeitlin (1966) 649ff., and Harris (1973).

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ear is bursting from the husk. In certain cults designed to further the growth of crops an essential element was the act of sexual intercourse—as ritual enactment of the sacred marriage and sympathetic magic. But Clytemnestra also ‘sacrifices’ Agamemnon. In other primitive and barbarous fertility cults the sexual act, or acts, was followed by the sacrifice of a human victim (whether king, ‘god’, or chosen female). The mythical correlate is the union of Demeter and Iasion.33 Fertility cults of this kind operate on the basic assumptions that the sacrificed human is in a sense reborn, and that it is necessary to repeat the sacrifice continually. Hence this particular cult association may also help to suggest that Agamemnon will be reborn in the person of his son Orestes (a theme made explicit in the Choephori), and to underline the bankruptcy of the hope that in an ethic dependent on automatic retributive justice the last killing will be the final one. So much for the significance of the passage in formal and symbolic terms. But in Aeschylus formalism and symbolism are not necessarily incompatible with naturalism. Aeschylus (arguably) is greatly interested in isolating and analysing the climactic psychological moment. The ⟦188⟧ character and psychology of Clytemnestra have been studied in depth by (among others) Winnington-Ingram and Devereux, with sufficiently encouraging results to suggest that the whole approach is soundly based.34 The methodological problem—is it right to ‘psychologise’ characters in Greek tragedy?—is clearly stated by Winnington-Ingram:35 ‘Some, indeed, will deprecate the psychological approach to an Aeschylean character. But there are no a priori grounds on which we can decide up to what point the poet’s interest in character developed, as develop it admittedly did. Clytemnestra is the test-case, and we must judge by what we find’. Hence it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that when Aeschylus makes Clytemnestra describe her feelings, at this moment of all moments, he should have gone to considerable lengths to analyse the meaning of her act to her. On a mundane level, 1389–92 obviously emphasises the strength of her desire for vengeance, which has had to wait so long for its fulfilment, and the corruption of her character wrought by it. But it is also clearly susceptible to 33 Apollod. 3.12.1, with Frazer (1921) II.34–5; Theog. 969–74, with West (1966) 423, on 971. For both types of cult see Frazer (1911–15) II.97–104; III.153–6, 157–61; VII.236–69; XI.32f., 42–4; cf. V.39 and 67, and, for the fertilising power of human blood, I.85ff., 90ff., 105, and West (1966) 220 on Theog. 183. More sober documentation in Farnell (1896–1909) I.28, 41, 92 and 203; II.439 and 455; III.19 and 93; IV.151, 208 and 271; V.16, 30, 105, 112 and 170; cf. Willetts (1962) 110f., 113, and 149ff.—restricted to sexual rites. 34 Winnington-Ingram (1948) and Devereux (1976) 181–218 (Clytemnestra’s dream). 35 Winnington-Ingram (1948) 130 {= (1983) 101–2}.

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psychological or psychoanalytical interpretation, within the guidelines set out by Winnington-Ingram and greatly extended by Devereux. There is a case for taking the sexual implications of the narrative at face value. Fagles’ rendering, however, of κάλευκος ἐν λοχεύμασιν (1392) as ‘and the new green spear | splits the sheath and rips to birth in glory!’36 suggests to me (perhaps wrongly) that he sees a phallic implication in the phrase (a nuance in no way incompatible with a suppressed reference to Orestes). Of course the possible phallic associations of sprigs, shoots, etc. are well known, and the fact that women, particularly masculine women, and particularly during love-making, may fantasise that they have acquired a phallus is by now notorious, but it is perhaps going a bit far to detect this implication in κάλυκος … λοχεύμασι—Fagle’s translation is certainly grossly overstated. One does not need to labour the fact that masculine women desire to dominate, especially in a sexual context. One may also note that Earth Mother fantasies during intercourse are apparently quite common.37 But the connexion between the shedding of blood and sexual arousal in certain disturbed personalities is too well-known to require documentation. Of course Clytemnestra is represented as having a continuing sexual relationship with Aegisthus (Cho. 132ff., 594ff., 893, 905ff. and 917; cf. Ag. 1654 and Cho. 893, and the reference to her adultery above, p. 555), but crimes of sexual violence, as is now widely recognised, are not necessarily linked to sexual deprivation. It is psychologically convincing that Clytemnestra, the dominant ‘man-woman’, should experience a greater sexual ‘kick’ from her bloody encounter with Agamemnon, the great king, the personification of male supremacy, than from her normal relations with Aegisthus, the ‘woman-man’, and that her final triumph as she exults over the prone body of Agamemnon should find expression in a powerful feeling of sexual release. Such a reading of the ⟦189⟧ passage is consistent with Devereux’s interpretation of Clytemnestra’s dream in the Choephori (where indeed a psychoanalytical approach is hard to resist). For Clytemnestra the murder of Agamemnon is linked with sexual subjugation, but in the event she discovers that she has not subjugated him in this sense at all: his sexuality is still potent in the person of Orestes, for the snake represents both Orestes and Agamemnon. Thus Clytemnestra’s words at Agamemnon 1389–92 can be analysed on many different levels—as a perversion of normality, a mockery of accepted morality, an image whose complex associations connect with many of the most important themes of the Agamemnon and the Oresteia as a whole, and as an 36 37

Fagles and Stanford (1975) = (1977). Popular documentation in Friday (1973/1975) 151–4.

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expression of Clytemnestra’s inmost feelings—but all these possible readings are given added depth once it is recognised that the primary image is erotic. Bibliography Barrett, W. S., ed. (1964) Euripides: Hippolytus (Oxford). Campbell, A. Y., ed. (1936) The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (Liverpool and London). Denniston, J. D. and D. L. Page, edd. (1957) Aeschylus: Agamemnon (Oxford). Devereux, G. (1976) Dreams in Greek Tragedy (Oxford). Dover, K. J., ed. (1968) Aristophanes: Clouds (Oxford). Fagles, R. and W. B. Stanford, trans. and ed. (1975) Aeschylus: The Oresteia (New York). Fagles, R. and W. B. Stanford, trans. and ed. (1977) Aeschylus: The Oresteia (Harmondsworth). Farnell, L. R. (1896–1909) The Cults of the Greek States, 5 vols. (Oxford). Fraenkel, E., ed. (1950) Aeschylus: Agamemnon, 3 vols. (Oxford). Frazer, J. G. (1911–15) The Golden Bough3, 12 vols. (London). Frazer, J. G., ed. (1921) Apollodorus: Library, 2 vols. (London and Cambridge, Mass.). Friday, N. (1973) My Secret Garden (New York; London, 1975). Gantz, T. N. (1977) ‘The Fires of the Oresteia’, JHS 97: 28–38. Goheen, R. F. (1955) ‘Aspects of Dramatic Symbolism: Three Studies in the Oresteia’, AJPh 76: 113–37. Harris, G. (1973) ‘Furies, Witches and Mothers’, in J. Goody, ed., The Character of Kinship (Cambridge) 145–60. Henderson, J. (1975) The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy (New Haven; repr. with addenda, New York and Oxford, 1991). How, W. W. and J. Wells (1928) A Commentary on Herodotus2, 2 vols. (Oxford). Kells, J. H. (1961) ‘Hyperbaton in Sophocles’, CR 11: 188–95. Lawson, J. C. (1932) The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (Cambridge). Lebeck, A. (1971) The Oresteia: a Study in Language and Structure (Washington, D.C.). Mette, H. J. (1959) Die Fragmente der Tragödien des Aischylos (Berlin). Murray, G., ed. (1937) Aeschyli Septem quae supersunt Tragoediae (Oxford). Murray, G. (1955) Aeschyli Septem quae supersunt Tragoediae2 (Oxford). Page, D. L., ed. (1972) Aeschyli Septem quae supersunt Tragoediae (Oxford). Peradotto, J. J. (1964) ‘Some Patterns of Nature Imagery in the Oresteia’, AJPh 85: 378–93. Pfeiffer, R., ed. (1949–53) Callimachus, 2 vols. (Oxford). Rose, H. J. (1958) A Commentary on the Surviving Plays of Aeschylus, 2 vols. (Amsterdam). Schadewaldt, W. (1926) Monolog und Selbstgespräch: Untersuchungen zur Formge­ schichte der griechischen Tragödie (Berlin).

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Simpson, M. (1971) ‘Why Does Agamemnon Yield?’, PdP 26: 94–101. Taplin, O. (1977) The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford). Thomson, G. (1938) The Oresteia of Aeschylus (Cambridge). Thomson, G. (1946) Aeschylus and Athens2 (London). Vidal-Naquet, P. (1969) ‘Chasse et sacrifice dans l’Orestie d’Eschyle’, PdP 129: 401–25 = J. P. Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet, Mythe et tragédie en grèce ancienne (Paris, 1973) 135–58; Eng. trans., Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece, trans. J. Lloyd (New York, 1990) 141–59. Weir-Smith, H. (1926) Aeschylus, vol. 2 (London and Cambridge, Mass.). West, M. L. (1965) ‘The Dictaean Hymn to the Kouros’ JHS 85: 149–59. West, M. L., ed. (1966) Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford). Willetts, R. F. (1962) Cretan Cults and Festivals (London). Winnington-Ingram, R. P. (1948) ‘Clytemnestra and the Vote of Athena’, JHS 68: 130–47; repr. in id., Studies in Aeschylus (Cambridge, 1983) 101–31. Zeitlin, F. I. (1965) ‘The Motif of the Corrupted Sacrifice in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon’, TAPhA 96: 463–508. Zeitlin, F. I. (1966) ‘Postscript to Sacrificial Imagery in the Oresteia (Ag. 1235–37)’, TAPhA 97: 645–53.

Chapter 61

A Note on Antigone 1238f. In the light of ‘A Neglected Aspect of Agamemnon 1389–92’,1 Mr T. C. W. Stinton asks me whether I think that in Antigone 1238f. Sophocles took over the erotic connotation, as well as the wording, of Agamemnon 1389f. To be honest, my excessive concern in the earlier article with αἵματος σφαγήν, the distinctive phrase of the Agamemnon passage, and with the textual problem which was the starting-point of the enquiry, led me to assume that Antigone 1238f. was in no way erotic.2 Upon reflexion, after Mr Stinton’s kind prompting, I now think that Antigone 1238f. has an obvious erotic connotation, and I suggest here that this is a point of some relevance, both to the immediate context and—more important—(for the benefit of sceptics) to the interpretation of Agamemnon 1389ff. advocated in my previous article.3 It is first necessary to put Antigone 1238f. against a wider perspective. The sense of a close parallel between Marriage and Death is quite often expressed in Greek literature, as for example in the θάλαμος/τάφος motif in the Novel or the analogous ‘Bride of Death’ theme in Tragedy.4 Though the idea is sometimes a mere literary conceit (hence the Aristophanic parody), it clearly has deep psychological roots,5 and in the Antigone, as in the Agamemnon,6 it fulfills an important thematic function. To avoid laborious documentation of the build-up to the relevant part of the Messenger’s Speech (1204–41), I give an extremely simplified analysis of the theme. Antigone and Haemon are engaged to be married, but Antigone will die because of her defiance of Creon, hence her marriage prospects can be classified as follows:

1 Moles (1979). 2 Moles (1979) 183 {above, p. 553}. 3 This erotic connotation, like that of the Agamemnon, seems to have been generally overlooked: Goheen (1951) 155 n. 16, indeed, condemns Fitts and Fitzgerald (1939) for missing the sexual connotation in 833, but his own general discussion of such passages, pp. 37–41, is headed ‘The Marriage Motif’, and contains no specific treatment of lines 1238–9: cf. also 146 n. 41). 4 Cf. in general Bolkestein (1933); Collard (1975) II.360; Kamerbeek (1978) 148 and 199. 5 Cf. Onians (1951) 426ff., esp. 431f., 446ff. 6 Cf. Moles (1979) 180 {above, p. 550}, with references.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_034

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(a) if Haemon remains alive, either (a1) Antigone will have no marriage at all, or (a2) she will become the Bride of Hades (the two things amount to the same, but are expressed differently); (b) if Haemon decides to kill himself, Antigone and Haemon will be ‘united’ in death. Thus:  575—(a1); 654—(a2); 750f.—(b); 761ff.—(b); 804f.—(a2); 810ff.—(a2); ?832f.—(a2); 876ff.—(a1); 891—(a2); 917ff.—(a1); 947ff.—(a2) The whole theme becomes extremely important in the Messenger’s Speech (1192ff.). Antigone’s prison is seen as a λιθόστρωτον … | ⟦194⟧ νυμφεῖον κοῖλον … (1204–5), where, as Jebb points outs, λιθόστρωτον suggests an implied pathetic contrast with a real νυμφεῖον, which contained a λέχος εὔστρωτον. Haemon, clinging to Antigone’s body, is then described in terms which foreshadow the eroticism of their final embrace (1223–5): τὸν δ’ ἀμφὶ μέσσῃ περιπετῆ προσκείμενον, εὐνῆς ἀποιμώζοντα τῆς κάτω φθορὰν καὶ πατρὸς ἔργα καὶ τὸ δύστηνον λέχος. περιπετῆ, since περιπίπτω can easily = ‘embrace’ (cf., e.g., Xen. Anab. 1.8.28), is naturally appropriate to an erotic context, and for προσκείμενος of close embraces, cf. Collard (1975) II.370. Then Haemon impales himself upon his sword (1234ff.), and (1236–7): ἐς δ’ ὑγρὸν ἀγκῶν’ ἔτ’ ἔμφρων παρθένῳ προσπτύσσεται. It is obvious that this description continues the analogy with marital union in general terms, but the details can be pressed, with interesting results. Commentators, following Hermann, generally explain ὑγρόν as = ‘languescentem, languidum’, citing Euripides, Phoen. 1439–41 (the dying Eteocles): ἤκουσε μητρός, κἀπιθεὶς ὑγρὰν χέρα φωνὴν μὲν οὐκ ἀφῆκεν, ὀμμάτων δ’ ἄπο προσεῖπε δακρύοις. A rather more precise variant of this type of interpretation is offered by Paley on Phoen. 1439–41 (‘clammy with the damp of death’) {(1872–80) III.203} and Onians (1951) 254 (the reference is to ‘the sweat that comes out of the dying’). On the other hand, the rendering ‘mollem, flexilem’ is given by Ellendt (1872) 749. At first sight, the interpretation ‘languescentem, languidum’, with a sort

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of contrast to ἔτ’ ἔμφρων, is quite attractive. A reference to sweat is more obviously appropriate in the Phoenissae passage, where the hand, rather than the arm, is in question, for the former gets clammier than the latter. In great tragic poetry, it is often a mistake to think in terms of precise ‘translation’, yet the main reference of ὑγρόν is surely to the softness and tenderness of a pair of loving arms. For ὑγρός so used, cf. the celebrated Euripidean fragment 941N {= TrGF F 941 (VI.2.936)}: ὁρᾷς τὸν ὑψοῦ τόνδ’ ἄπειρον αἰθέρα καὶ γῆν πέριξ ἔχονθ’ ὑγραῖς ἐν ἀγκάλαις; τοῦτον νόμιζε Ζῆνα, τόνδ’ ἡγοῦ θεόν. —a description with clear overtones of the Marriage of Earth and Sky (Cicero, ND 2.65, translates ὑγραῖς ἐν ἀγκάλαις excellently by ‘tenero … circumiectu amplectitur’)—, and Babrius, 34.7, ἐφ’ ὑγραῖς μητρὸς ἀγκάλαις, of a little boy being comforted in his mother’s arms. The use of παρθένῳ is also not merely conventional. There is an obvious pathetic point—the dead Antigone will necessarily be ἀειπάρθενος—but this is movingly reinforced by the latent picture of a husband on the wedding night taking his wife into his arms at the moment when she is about to lose her παρθενία. The passage continues (1238–43): καὶ φυσιῶν ὀξεῖαν ἐκβάλλει ῥοὴν λευκῇ παρειᾷ φοινίου σταλάγματος. ⟦195⟧ κεῖται δὲ νεκρὸς περὶ νεκρῷ, τὰ νυμφικὰ τέλη λαχὼν δείλαιος εἰν Ἅιδου δόμοις, δείξας ἐν ἀνθρώποισι τὴν ἀβουλίαν ὅσῳ μέγιστον ἀνδρὶ πρόσκειται κακόν. Some points both in the text and its interpretation call for mention, though none are important for the present argument. 1238f. is of course an imitation, or reminiscence, of Agamemnon 1389f. κἀκφυσιῶν ὀξεῖαν αἵματος σφαγὴν βάλλει μ’ ἐρεμνῇ ψακάδι φοινίας δρόσου. The λευκῇ παρειᾷ is ‘indubitably Antigone’s’.7 πνοήν, instead of ῥοήν, is stigmatised by Jebb as a ‘bad variant’, but defended in various ways by Campbell, 7 Kamerbeek (1978) 199.

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Müller, Dain/Mazon, and Kamerbeek.{8} It is clearly defensible, though ῥοήν is more natural. The point is unimportant in the present context. More substantially, Kells finds φυσιῶν a little colourless and the locative dative (as it presumably is) λευκῇ παρειᾷ rather vague, and proposes κἀκφυσιῶν and ἐμβάλλει.9 Again, the point is of no significance here, though personally I find Kells’ reading rather contrived. The really important point is that after 1204f. (Antigone’s bridal bower), 1223ff. (Haemon and Antigone in close embrace), and 1238f. (Haemon takes his virgin wife into his loving arms) 1238f. surely suggests the idea of a male orgasm.10 I would accept the criticism of several scholars that an allusion to ‘heavy breathing’ is too undignified for tragedy, but would hold to the idea that (ἐκ)φυσιῶν reflects the ‘last gasp’ common to violent death and sexual orgasm. This interpretation seems to be confirmed by the following κεῖται δὲ νεκρὸς περὶ νεκρῷ (1240) which suggests a picture of bodies still lying together after love-making,11 and the significance of the entire description seems firmly underlined by the final (1240–1): τὰ νυμφικὰ τέλη λαχὼν δείλαιος εἰν Ἅιδου δόμοις. Attempts to analyse poetic imagery often seem forced and crude, simply because one is trying to make explicit something that is necessarily implicit and understated. Documentation of sexual imagery is a pursuit particularly vulnerable to critical attack, because one may seem to be attributing to the poet something at best grotesque and at worst offensive. This is especially true in the case of Greek tragedy. But there is nothing grotesque or offensive about Sophocles’ use of sexual imagery in the Messenger Speech of the Antigone—the pity of it is that one has to argue so baldly and cold-bloodedly simply in order to demonstrate that the sexual imagery is there. Obviously, the contrast between the image and the reality heightens the pathetic effect and emphasises the greatness of the sacrifice Antigone has made in remaining true to her principles, as well as illustrating the strength of Haemon’s love for her: the detail with which the imagery is worked out is not bizarre or repulsive but painful and poignant in the extreme. 8 9 10 11

{Campbell (1871–81) I.488; Müller (1967) 261, Dain/Mazon (1955) 118 n. 2 and Kamerbeek (1978) 199.} Kells (1961) 192f. For documentation of the erotic resonances of (ἐκ)φυσιῶν, ὀξεῖαν, and (ἐκ)βάλλει see Moles (1979) 183f. {above, pp. 553–5}. For the general type of expression see Collard (1975) II.370f.

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To sum up. Antigone 1238f., which is modelled on Agamemnon 1389f., ⟦196⟧ a remarkably different context (one of hate, as opposed to love), came into Sophocles’ mind at this point precisely because he understood Aeschylus’ lines to contain the appropriate sexual imagery. It would be pleasant to think that the interpretation of Agamemnon 1389ff. advanced in Moles (1979) numbered Sophocles among its adherents! Bibliography Bolkestein, H. (1933) Τέλος ὁ γάμος (Amsterdam). Campbell, L. (1871–81) Sophocles: the Plays and Fragments, 2 vols. (Oxford). Collard, C., ed. (1975) Euripides: Supplices, 2 vols. (Groningen). Dain, A., J. Irigoin, and P. Mazon, edd. (1955) Sophocle: Tragédies I: Les Trachiniennes, Antigone (Paris). Ellendt, F. (1872) Lexicon Sophocleum, 2nd ed. rev. by H. Genthe (Berlin). Fitts, D. and R. Fitzgerald, trans. (1939) The Antigone of Sophocles: An English Version (New York). Goheen, R. F. (1951) The Imagery of Sophocles’ Antigone: a Study of Poetic Language and Structure (Princeton). Kamerbeek, J. C., ed. (1978) The Plays of Sophocles. Part III. The Antigone (Leiden). Kells, J. H. (1961) ‘Hyperbaton in Sophocles’, CR 11: 188–95. Moles, J. L. (1979) ‘A Neglected Aspect of Agamemnon 1389–92’, LCM 4: 179–89 [above, Ch. 60]. Müller, G., ed. (1967) Sophokles: Antigone (Heidelberg). Onians, R. B. (1951) The Origins of European Thought (Cambridge). Paley, F. A., ed. (1872–80) Euripides with an English commentary2, 3 vols. (Cambridge).

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Aeschylus, Agamemnon 36–7 Again Professor Ferguson’s discussion of Agamemnon 36–7, though it raises an interesting point, seems unsatisfactory.1 It is fundamentally misleading to imply (as he appears to do) that the ‘proverb’ and ‘cult formula’ interpretations are mutually exclusive. That the watchman’s words are a proverb is proved by the standard parallels quoted by commentators, Menander’s parody, and Hesychius’ comments, but equally the cult reference of the phrase, whatever its precise rationale, is clear from Julian, Or. 7.217d–218a: ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν ἀμφὶ τὸν μέγαν Διόνυσον οὐκ οἶδ᾽ ὅπως ἐπῆλθε μοι βακχεύοντι μανῆναι· τὸν βοῦν δὲ ἐπιτίθημι τῇ γλώττῃ· περὶ τῶν ἀρρήτων γὰρ οὐδὲν χρῆ λέγειν,2 and from several closely similar phrases, all of cult application, which use the different images of a key, seal, or door, especially Sophocles, OC 1050–3:3 οὗ πότνιαι σεμνὰ τιθηνοῦνται τέλη θνατοῖσιν, ὧν καὶ χρυσέα κλῂς ἐπὶ γλώσσᾳ βέβακε προσπόλων Εὐμολπιδᾶν· Further support (given the link between Pythagorean doctrine and religious mysticism) comes from Philostratus, VA 6.11.3, which seems to imply that Pythagoras used the expression βοῦς ἐπ᾽αὐτῇ to describe his practice of silence:4 γλῶττάν τε ὡς πρῶτος ἀνθρώπων ξυνέσχε βοῦν ἐπ᾽ αὐτῇ σιωπῆς εὑρὼν δόγμα. Several scholars (Schneidewin, Ahrens, Thomson) have therefore reached the obviously correct conclusion that the watchman’s phrase is a cult formula referring to ritual silence and that it had proverbial status in everyday speech (whether cult formula or proverb came first depends on how exactly 1 Ferguson (1983). 2 A parallel cited by LSJ, s.v. βοῦς, VIII, but not by any editor of the Agamemnon, so far as I can ascertain. 3 Best documentation in Thomson (1938) II.7f., cf. id. (1935) 21. 4 A parallel noted by Hudson-Williams (1910) 227, and by Thomson, locc. citt.

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the phrase is explained). Fraenkel5 did not dissent from this general conclusion, nor did Cook: the watchman ‘was, I take it, simply repeating a formula of the Cretan mysteries that had passed into a proverb for sworn secrecy’ (my italics).{6} In broad terms, therefore, there is nothing exciting or different about Cook’s interpretation (nor indeed has it been totally neglected in literary discussions: Fraenkel considers it and rejects it). And since proverbs, particularly those with religious associations, can be both weightily portentous and quaintly old-fashioned, the watchman’s words possess simultaneously the ‘homely’ characteristics discerned by Denniston and Page (which are appropriate to his character) and a pronounced mystical quality (which emphasises the dreadfulness of the secrets he cannot utter—the language of ritual initiation is of course maintained in lines 38–9.7 What, then, of Cook’s idea, resurrected by Ferguson but already accepted by such scholars of Greek religion as W. K. C. Guthrie and J. R. T. Pollard,8 that βοῦς μέγας denotes specifically the Zan/Zeus of Cretan mystic cult, and that the whole phrase therefore means ‘I have eaten the bull-god’? (I take it this is what Cook has in mind, though neither he nor Ferguson quite spells it out.) As formulated the idea is rather odd, depending as it does on a single variant reading, the second hand’s βοῦς instead of Ζᾶν in AP 7.746, whereas Ζᾶν is found (mutatis mutandis) not only as the main reading in AP 7.746, but also in Chrysostom, in ep. Paul. ad Tit. 3.1 (Migne 62.676f.), Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. 17, and Kyrillos of Alexandria, contra Iulianum 10.342 (Migne 76.1028b), and there is even a variant with Πῖκος (Kedrenos, Hist. comp. 15d) or Πῆκος (the Suda, s.v). Even if we take the second hand’s βοῦς seriously, it only tells us what we already know—that the Cretan Zeus was a bull god, who was slain as a bull by his votaries. We might indeed speculate that the motive behind both the second hand’s βοῦς and Cook’s sense of a parallel with Agamemnon 36f. was unconscious recollection either of the use of the verb κεῖμαι in some of the cult phrases analogous to βοῦς … βέβηκεν (e.g., AP 10.42; Theognis 421) and/or of the tradition linking Pythagoras with the phrase βοῦς ἐπ᾽ αὐτῇ (AP 7.746 being allegedly the work of Pythagoras). However, one might try to argue in favour of Cook’s hypothesis independently of AP 7.746. Our phrase and related variants are found in the context of the Eleusinian mysteries (Soph. OC 1050–3), Pythagorean mystical silence 5 6 7 8

Fraenkel (1950) II.23 and n. 2. {Cook (1914–40) II.1.345.} {Denniston–Page (1957) 70.} Cf. Thomson ad loc. and Bollack (1981) I.40f. Guthrie (1935) 146 n. 35; Pollard (1948) 359 n. 45.

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(Philostr. VA 6.11), and the Dionysiac mysteries (Julian, Or. 7.217d–18a). Might the common denominator therefore be the bull-god Dionysus, who is of course the same as the Cretan Zeus? The use of the phrase, suitably modified, in the Eleusinian mysteries could then be explained as a throw-back to more primitive forms of Dionysiac cult, while the Pythagoreans might have borrowed the phrase from the Orphics, in whose mythology the rending of Dionysus was an important element, even though they themselves abhorred the taking of life. Obviously, in Dionysus/Zeus bull cult, the consumption of the flesh of the bull can be part of the initiation ceremony (cf., e.g., Euripides, FF 472, 475 N2 {= TrGF FF 472, 475 (V.1.505–7, 521)}. And might Aristophanes, Frogs 357 μηδὲ Κρατίνου τοῦ ταυροφάγου γλώττης Βακχεῖ᾽ ἐτελέσθη ⟦6⟧ cohere with Cook’s reading of Agamemnon 36f.? Only a little reflexion, however, is needed to show that all such speculations are wrong. βοῦς ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ μέγας βέβηκεν would be an extremely odd way of saying ‘I have eaten the bull-god’. Moreover, in the parallel cult expressions the application of the object (whatever it is) to the tongue is clearly meant as a symbol, not a literal reality.9 Finally, and most important, the parallels at Theognis 815–6, βοῦς μοι ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ κρατερῷ ποδὶ λὰξ ἐπιβαίνων ἴσχει κωτίλλειν καίπερ ἐπιστάμενον, and Menander, Hal. fr. 21, παχὺς γὰρ ὗς ἔκειτ᾽ ἐπὶ στόμα, surely make it quite clear how the watchman’s words are to be understood. An ox is a strong, heavy beast, whose application to the tongue prevents it from moving, hence no sound emerges. Theognis stresses the physical constraint exerted by the ox, Menander the massive dead weight of the pig. μέγας in our passage is not therefore an epithet of a god but simply describes the bulk of the ox. To sum up, ‘the great ox’ symbolises a heavy weight. Presumably, the expression has its origin in primitive common speech, though it was also taken over by religious ritual. It has a proverbial quality, but its ritual associations can be relevant in particular contexts. Both aspects of the phrase are important in Agamemnon 36f. That such a primitive turn of phrase should have become a 9 The key: Aesch. F 316 N2 {= TrGF F 316 (III.401)}; Soph. OC 1052ff.; the seal: AP 10.42; the door: Theogn. 413; cf. on this point Thomson (1935) 21 n. 6.

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cult formula in various mystery religions should be no surprise, given the primitive origins of these religions (in this respect the comparison drawn by Lobeck and Fraenkel with εὐκαμία is illuminating).10 Bibliography Bollack, J. (1981) L’Agamemnon d’Eschyle: le texte et ses interprétations, 2 vols. (Lille). Cook, A. B. (1914–40) Zeus: a Study in Ancient Religion, 3 vols. in 5 (Cambridge). Denniston, J. D. and D. L. Page, edd. (1957) Aeschylus: Agamemnon (Oxford). Ferguson, J. (1983) ‘Aeschylus Agamemnon 36–37’, LCM 8: 80–4. Fraenkel, E., ed. (1950) Aeschylus: Agamemnon, 3 vols. (Oxford). Guthrie, W. K. C. (1935) Orpheus and Greek Religion: a Study of the Orphic Movement (London). Hudson-Williams, T. (1910) The Elegies of Theognis (London). Pollard, J. R. T. (1948) ‘The Birds of Aristophanes—a Source-Book for Old Beliefs’, AJPh 69: 353–76. Thomson, G. (1935) ‘Mystical Allusions in the Oresteia’, JHS 55: 20–34. Thomson, G. (1938) The Oresteia of Aeschylus (Cambridge). 10 {See Fraenkel (1950) II.23 n. 4.}

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Philanthropia in the Poetics In an interesting and ingenious article recently published in this journal,1 Robert D. Lamberton argued that (a) fifth-century tragedy and comedy achieve their effect by denying the audience satisfaction of the emotion φιλανθρωπία, (b) in chapter 13 of the Poetics Aristotle correspondingly rejects τὸ φιλάνθρωπον as an aesthetic criterion of tragedy, associating it with defective audience taste, but (c) the New Comedy of Menander adopts a positive valuation of φιλανθρωπία. Aristotle’s dismissal of τὸ φιλάνθρωπον, therefore, marks a significant turning-point in the evolution of dramatic taste, just before the final triumph of φιλανθρωπία in New Comedy. Of the three basic contentions in Lamberton’s case, (c) I take to be obviously true and (a) is too big a topic to treat here. My concern is with (b). In this paper I intend to show that, on the contrary, τὸ φιλάνθρωπον is an indispensable element of Aristotle’s model of tragedy, and that this has important consequences for Aristotle’s attitude to the moral aspect of tragedy. My arguments will, I hope, help to dispel some still current misconceptions about Aristotle’s thinking on the relationship between morals and aesthetics. Close analysis of the text is necessary if we are fully to appreciate the function of τὸ φιλάνθρωπον in Aristotle’s model, but I shall try to make my case as simply as possible without exploring all the complexities of Poetics 13. For, though recent research has greatly advanced our understanding of this key portion of the Poetics, some points remain controversial and either fall completely outside the scope of the present enquiry or else, while marginally relevant, would require such minute discussion as to obscure the more important general truths which I wish to establish.2 My ⟦326⟧ disagreement with Lamberton is profound, but I trust that it will be clear that the present paper is motivated by φιλαλήθεια not φιλονικία. 1 Lamberton (1983). 2 The modern commentaries of Else (1957), Lucas (1968), and Dupont-Roc and Lallot (1980)—a work to which I have had only limited access—all contain much of value. The best recent synthetic treatment of Aristotle’s model of tragedy is perhaps that of Stinton (1975) (intellectually a very tough article); cf. also Moles (1979) and (1984). I do not accept the views of Armstrong and Peterson (1980), though their exposition is lucid and their position apparently attractive (cf. also n. 27 below). Points I deliberately sidestep in the present discussion include the exact implications of ὅμοιος in Poetics 13, 1453a5 (cf. n. 8 below) and the precise reference(s) of ἁμαρτία (cf. n. 27 below).

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Chapter 13 analyses possible plot structures from the point of view of the most efficient arousal of pity and fear. Tragedy concerns itself with a change of fortune (μετάβασις), a change either from bad to good fortune or vice versa. This μετάβασις is typically (though not invariably) that of a single central tragic figure. The character of this figure is conceived in moral terms, along the range very good3 to very bad. Thus Aristotle’s analysis here basically works with two sets of polarities: (1) good and bad fortune; (2) very good and very bad men.4 So the following four main permutations seem theoretically possible: A: very good man passes from good to bad fortune B: very good man passes from bad to good fortune C: very bad man passes from good to bad fortune D: very bad man passes from bad to good fortune.5 In fact Aristotle does not mention B—presumably as being so obviously untragic as to be unworthy of consideration.6 The others he treats in the order A, D, C. After rejecting these three, he concludes that the best formulation, which we may designate E, is: E: ‘in-between man’ passes from good to bad fortune because of a hamartia. Aristotle excludes A because οὐ … φοβερὸν οὐδὲ ἐλεεινὸν τοῦτο ἀλλὰ μιαρόν ἐστιν (1452b35–6). At first sight it seems surprising that A is not ‘pitiable’, since pity, as Aristotle tells us later in the chapter (1453a4), is aroused by undeserved 3 ἐπιεικεῖς in 1452b34 must denote ‘very good’, since its polar opposite is σφόδρα πονηρόν (1453a1) and the ‘in-between man’ is fixed in relation to the polarities ἀρετῇ διαφέρων καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ and κακίαν καὶ μοχθηρίαν (1453a8–9), even though this is not a normal or natural meaning of ἐπιεικής: on this see Stinton (1975) 237 {= (1990) 164}. (I wonder if Aristotle is perhaps thinking of the tripartite division of mankind found in Pl. Phaedo 90a: τοὺς μὲν χρηστοὺς καὶ πονηροὺς σφόδρα ὀλίγους εἶναι ἑκατέρους, τοὺς δὲ μεταξὺ πλειστούς, and if his use of ἐπιεικεῖς reflects the ‘displaced’ use of σφόδρα in Plato? Note also that when Plutarch paraphrases the Platonic division in Non posse 1104A he refers to the class of the very good as τὸ τῶν ἐπιεικῶν καὶ νοῦν ἐχόντων. Is he in turn thinking of Poetics 13, as well as Phaedo 90a?) Lamberton misses the force of ἐπιεικεῖς, though the point is fundamental. 4 As we shall see, a third polarity is also important—that between τὸ μιαρόν and τὸ φιλάνθρωπον, but this requires detailed discussion (below). 5 I use the same lettering as Else (1957) 367 for the convenience of readers who wish to refer to his discussion. 6 In chapter 14, discussing the best way of handling the πάθος, Aristotle actually prefers a scheme similar to B (1454a4–9). This represents (I believe) a clear change of mind from chapter 13. On the possible reasons see Moles (1979) 82–92 {above, pp. 531–44}.

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suffering (περὶ τὸν ἀνάξιόν ἐστιν δυστυχοῦντα). The explanation is that our sense of moral outrage (τὸ μιαρόν) at the downfall of a very good man erases the pity we normally feel at undeserved misfortune. Aristotle’s ⟦327⟧ view on this point is well illustrated by his discussions of ‘justified indignation’ (τὸ νεμεσᾶν) in Rhet. 2.9, 1386b8–87b21, EN 2.7, 1108a35–b6, and EE 3.7, 1233b23–7. This emotion has three basic aspects: (1) pain at the undeserved misfortune of the good; (2) pain at the undeserved good fortune of the bad; (3) pleasure at the deserved misfortune of the bad (the clearest statement is EE 3.7, 1233b24–6). The arousal of ‘justified indignation’ expels pity (Rhet. 2.9, 1387a2). Hence, while up to a certain point undeserved suffering is pitiable, when a very good man passes to bad fortune, as in scheme A, we feel ‘justified indignation’, not pity.7 The failure of this scheme to arouse fear can also be sufficiently explained in the same way.8 Before proceeding with our analysis, we should note here two points of cardinal importance for the correct interpretation of Poetics 13: (1) the extreme casualness with which Aristotle introduces the key concept τὸ μιαρόν. Though the concept is fundamental to his discussion not only of the best plot structure in chapter 13 but also of the best pathos (πάθος) in chapter 14,9 he does not give us so much as a word of explanation for it. (2) In Aristotle’s model of tragedy the successful arousal of pity and fear depends on the satisfaction (more or less)10 of the audience’s moral sense: if it is flouted, as in scheme A, pity and fear are ousted by τὸ μιαρόν and the tragic effect is lost. Aristotle stigmatises D as ἀτραγῳδότατον … πάντων, οὐδὲν γὰρ ἔχει ὧν δεῖ, οὔτε γὰρ φιλάνθρωπον οὔτε ἐλεεινὸν οὔτε φοβερόν ἐστιν (1452b37–9). Here we have the first allusion in the Poetics to the concept τὸ φιλάνθρωπον, which, like τὸ μιαρόν, is introduced completely out of the blue. Scheme D produces neither pity—because there is no suffering, still less any undeserved suffering—nor fear—because (again) there is no suffering, and also the very bad man is by definition not ‘like us’ (ὅμοιος), and fear, Aristotle states later in the chapter (1453a5), is only felt περὶ τὸν ὅμοιον. 7 8

9 10

For clear expositions of the role of τὸ μιαρόν see Hubbard (1972) 106–7 n. 2; Stinton (1975) 238 and n. 2 {= (1990) 165 and n. 46}; Else (1957) 368 grasps the essential point without citing the relevant τὸ νεμεσᾶν discussions. It may also be the case that fear cannot be felt for a ‘very good man’ because he is by definition not ὅμοιος, but this raises the difficult question of the exact implications of ὅμοιος (for discussion see Moles [1979] 92–3 {above, pp. 544–6}), which for present purposes I wish to avoid. ὅμοιος certainly implies ‘not very bad’ (1453a1–6); whether it also implies ‘not very good’ is hard to decide but relatively unimportant to the present argument. Poet. 14, 1453b39, 1454a3 (discussion in Moles [1979] 84 {above, pp. 533–4}). The qualification is important, because, as we shall see, Aristotle’s model requires that this satisfaction should be less than total.

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Why is D not φιλάνθρωπον? This question needs very precise consideration. To begin with, there is no warrant for downplaying the importance of ⟦328⟧ the criterion τὸ φιλάνθρωπον, as Lamberton does (‘φιλάνθρωπον belongs in this list only as a concession to contemporary bad taste’ 97). For Aristotle is absolutely explicit about the necessity of satisfying this criterion (οὐδὲν … ὧν δεῖ, οὔτε … οὔτε … οὔτε). The mere fact that he does ‘not discuss it at length’ does not, pace Lamberton, entitle us to regard it as relatively unimportant. The Poetics is a highly condensed text, probably in lecture-note form, and Aristotle throughout is tantalisingly economical in his allusions to key concepts (κάθαρσις gets one word, ἁμαρτία one word—or two, if we include the comic ἁμάρτημα, τὸ μιαρόν, as we have seen, gets no discussion, etc.).11 We must therefore try to give the criterion τὸ φιλάνθρωπον full value in Aristotle’s model of tragedy, and any interpretation of it, like Lamberton’s, which tries to avoid doing so can be ruled out. τὸ φιλάνθρωπον has been taken in two different ways as denoting either (1) a general feeling of sympathy with our fellow men, which comes into operation at the downfall of any human being, no matter whether his suffering is deserved or undeserved (being in this respect distinct from pity),12 or (2) moral sense—that sense of natural justice which finds satisfaction in deserved suffering or deserved prosperity.13 Here Lamberton actually uses the term ‘poetic justice’. This is too specific. ‘Poetic justice’ occurs when somebody is punished (or, occasionally, rewarded) in a way that seems particularly fitting to his character or behaviour (as, for example, in the story that the bibulous Anacreon choked to death on a grape pip). It is therefore a special kind of justice. ‘Moral sense’ is something much broader than the sense of ‘poetic justice’, though the latter may be an aspect of the former,14 and this is indeed relevant to Aristotle’s discussion of τὸ φιλάνθρωπον in chapter 18, as I shall show below. We must be careful in our approach to this problem or any definitional problem of the exact ‘meaning’ of a word. The basic meaning of φιλανθρωπία/τὸ φιλάνθρωπον is clear: ‘love’ or ‘regard for’ (the φιλ- prefix does not necessarily 11 Poet. 6, 1449b28; 13, 1453a10, 16; 5, 1449a34–5; 13, 1452b36. 12 So, for example, Gudeman (1934) 239–40; Else (1957) 369–71; Stark (1972) 98. 13 So, for example, Hubbard (1972) 106–7 n. 2; Stinton (1975) 238 and n. 2 {= (1990) 145 and n. 46}, and many others including Twining and Schadewaldt. Some scholars, including Lamberton (1983) 97, Pohlenz (1956) 58–9 {= (1965) II.571–2}, and Lucas (1968) 142, have tried to reconcile the two opposing views of τὸ φιλάνθρωπον. My arguments below will show that this compromise is untenable. 14 Stinton (1975) 238 and 241 {= (1990) 164–5 and 168} argues this, but his arguments are unconvincing. In particular, his contention (241) that ‘the principle of poetic justice … can do nothing for tragedy but trivialize it’ overlooks the fact that in Aristotle’s model τὸ φιλάνθρωπον is not, and must not be, fully satisfied.

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imply emotional warmth) ‘human beings’. But this basic meaning may have different applications in different contexts.15 The question ⟦329⟧ we must therefore face is: what is the precise application both in the immediate context and elsewhere in the Poetics? When the question is posed in this way, it immediately becomes obvious that the citation of ‘parallels’ for either interpretation is of limited value. Parallels can be cited on both sides;16 this does not help to resolve the particular problem. What, then, does the context require? On the face of it, both interpretations seem to fit the immediate context. Scheme D could be οὐ φιλάνθρωπον in sense (1), because there is no downfall and hence no suffering of any kind, deserved or undeserved, or in sense (2), because it is unjust that a bad man should prosper. Nevertheless, preference should be given to the second interpretation on two grounds: (a) it is in fact truer to the spirit of the context as a whole; (b) in the second discussion of τὸ φιλάνθρωπον at 1456a Aristotle clearly has in mind ‘moral sense’ rather than ‘general sympathy’. (a) τὸ φιλάνθρωπον in sense (1) would be an intrusive element in Aristotle’s tightly knit analysis in chapter 13. Why should Aristotle bother with the satisfaction of an emotion which is both trivial in itself and unrelated to the tragic emotions, pity and fear? By contrast, φιλάνθρωπον in sense (2) would be subsidiary to pity and fear, being, in effect, a prerequisite of their arousal, and functioning analogously to the avoidance of τὸ μιαρόν. From the very beginning of Aristotle’s analysis of the possible plot structures, satisfaction, or non-satisfaction, of the audience’s moral sense has been a basic criterion for assessing the merits of the various schemes. Pity is aroused by undeserved misfortune: the audience has to make a judgement that the sufferings of the central figure are undeserved. Fear is felt for someone who is ‘like ourselves’ (ὅμοιος): we have to locate the central figure somewhere on a scale of virtue so that we may regard him as ‘like us’. The downfall of a very good man is ‘morally revolting’ (μιαρόν). Against this general background, we should expect τὸ φιλάνθρωπον to be a criterion appealing to our moral sense, especially when the statement that the prosperity of a very bad man is οὐ φιλάνθρωπον is immediately preceded by the statement that the downfall of a very good man is ‘morally revolting’. μιαρόν and οὐ φιλάνθρωπον both seem to refer to the flouting of the audience’s moral sense. τὸ μιαρόν and τὸ φιλάνθρωπον seem therefore to be 15 φιλάνθρωπος can denote, for example, according to context, ‘nice’, ‘courteous’, ‘kindly’, ‘public-spirited’, ‘merciful’, etc. Cf. LSJ s.v. 16 For φιλάνθρωπος in sense (1) cf., for example, Else (1957) 370. For φιλάνθρωπος in association with justice see Lamberton (1983) 100–2 and de Romilly (1979) 49–52. Else (1957) 369–70 denies that this sense is found in Aristotle, but the discussion of φιλία in EN 8.1, 1115a16–31 certainly contains the general implication.

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opposites.17 Aristotle’s thinking in scheme D, so interpreted, again finds apt illustration in the discussion of ‘just indignation’ in Rhet. 2.9, where we learn that ‘we ought ⟦330⟧ to be indignant with those who prosper undeservedly’. Thus scheme D, like scheme A, arouses ‘just indignation’, which is detrimental to the arousal of pity and fear. D in fact is even worse than A (ἀτραγῳδότατον … πάντων) because in D pity is, as it were, doubly erased, not only by the lack of suffering, but also by the intervention of οὐ φιλάνθρωπον, whereas A does at least have an ἀνάξιος δυστυχῶν. (b) Poetics 18, 1456a19–25 runs as follows in Kassel’s OCT: ἐν δὲ ταῖς περιπετείαις καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἁπλοῖς πράγμασι στοχάζονται ὧν βούλονται θαυμαστῶς· τραγικὸν γὰρ τοῦτο καὶ φιλάνθρωπον. ἔστιν δὲ τοῦτο, ὅταν ὁ σοφὸς μὲν μετὰ πονηρίας δ᾽ ἐξαπατηθῇ, ὥσπερ Σίσυφος, καὶ ὁ ἀνδρεῖος μὲν ἄδικος δὲ ἡττηθῇ. ἔστιν δὲ τοῦτο καὶ εἰκὸς ὥσπερ Ἀγάθων λέγει, εἰκὸς γὰρ γίνεσθαι πολλὰ καὶ παρὰ τὸ εἰκός. Lamberton, following Gudeman and Else, argues that this passage presents various oddities and also contradicts chapter 13, hence that it cannot ‘constitute a basis on which to incorporate a positive valuation of τὸ φιλάνθρωπον into Aristotle’s esthetics of drama’. But the oddities have been much exaggerated. Aristotle is here obviously talking about the function of surprise in tragedy,18 which he reconciles with the requirement that things should happen in accordance with the criterion of εἰκός by the characteristically paradoxical observation ‘this is … likely in the way described by Agathon, when he said that it is likely that many things should happen contrary to likelihood’.19 It is surprising that a clever man should be deceived or that a courageous man should be worsted.20 The easy change from θαυμαστῶς to τῷ θαυμαστῷ (Castelvetro) therefore solves the textual difficulty in 1456a20. The argument then goes: ‘In peripeteiai and also in simple plots poets aim at the effects they want by means of surprise, as surprise is tragic and φιλάνθρωπον. This happens when a clever 17 So, for example, Hubbard (1972) 107 (n. 2 from 106); Stinton (1975) 238 and n. 2 {= (1990) 165 and n. 46}. Else (1957) 369 argues that τὸ μιαρόν and τὸ φιλάνθρωπον cannot be opposites because φιλάνθρωπον must be implicit in scheme A, but A is explicitly μιαρόν. This argument is wholly misconceived: what is implicit in A is οὐ φιλάνθρωπον, which is tantamount to μιαρόν. 18 Much of Else’s perplexity stems from his mistaken efforts to link 1456a19–25 with the preceding discussion of the selection of tragic material, but these are, quite simply, different topics: see the lucid analysis of Aristotle’s arrangement of his material in Hubbard (1972) 111–16. 19 For the thought cf. Poet. 9, 1452a1–9. 20 ἡττηθῇ in context must imply ‘in physical combat’ or the like.

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scoundrel is deceived, like Sisyphus, and a courageous wrongdoer worsted.’ The statement that surprise is ‘tragic’ causes no great difficulty, since Aristotle has already devoted a whole section to surprise as a requirement of tragedy and in his discussions of περιπέτεια and ἀναγνώρισις he also emphasises the role of surprise (ἔκπληξις, τὸ θαυμαστόν) in stimulating audience emotion.21 It is true that in these other discussions he sees surprise not as a thing of value in ⟦331⟧ itself but rather as a facilitator of the arousal of pity and fear, which does not seem to apply in the present context. ‘Tragic’ here therefore does not mean ‘conducive to pity and fear’, but just ‘tragic’ in the weaker sense ‘surprise is a useful technique in tragedy’. But this is a perfectly reasonable thing for Aristotle to say22 and we do not have to force this general statement into exact conformity with the other discussions of surprise. In what way are the deception of a clever wicked man and the worsting of a courageous unjust man φιλάνθρωπον? As in chapter 13 φιλάνθρωπον in sense (1) offers a barely acceptable meaning: something bad befalls a human being and since τὸ φιλάνθρωπον in sense (1) can be felt for the downfall of any man, it can come into play here. Yet this gives extraordinarily weak sense—Aristotle seems to be thinking of something much more concrete. His first example is a man who is not only σοφός (so that his downfall is θαυμαστόν) but also μετὰ πονηρίας. His second example is a man who is not only ἀνδρεῖος (so that his being worsted is θαυμαστόν) but also ἄδικος.23 What Aristotle has in mind here is surely ‘poetic justice’—it is peculiarly fitting that a clever bad man should meet his comeuppance by deception or that a courageous unjust man should be worsted. The sense of ‘poetic justice’ is, as I have already argued, an aspect of τὸ φιλάνθρωπον in sense (2). There is nothing remotely ‘Platonic, if not Christian’ about this way of thinking, as Else, in his efforts to discredit the sentence, alleges. The attitude is again wholly in line with Rhet. 2.9, where we are 21 Surprise as a general requirement: Poet. 9, 1452a1–11; surprise in connexion with ἀναγνώρισις and περιπέτεια: Poet. 11, 1152a32–33, 14, 1454a4 (discussion in Moles [1979] 84ff. {above, pp. 553ff.}). 22 Cf. the equally general observation about surprise in Poet. 24, 1460a11–12: δεῖ … ἐν ταῖς τραγῳδίαις ποιεῖν τὸ θαυμαστόν. In our passage I take τραγικός to mean ‘appropriate to tragedy’ (sc. as a form of literature). This ‘weak’ use of τραγικός is very common (LSJ s.v.). Of course, Aristotle elsewhere uses τραγικός in the stronger sense ‘conducive to pity and fear’ (e.g., Poet. 13, 1453a27–30, 14, 1453b39), but this stronger sense is brought out by context: it is not necessary (and it is indeed untrue to Aristotle’s often casual use of terminology) to suppose that τραγικός should have exactly the same reference in every case. 23 Lamberton (1983) 96 misunderstands these examples when he writes of ‘devious or criminal characters endowed with some redeeming positive quality’ (my italics). The point is that the two villains have different kinds of competence (σοφία, ἀνδρεία) and then meet their downfalls in areas where one would have expected their competence to save them.

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told that ‘he who is pained at the sight of those who are undeservedly unfortunate will rejoice or will at least not be pained at the sight of those who are deservedly so; for instance, no good man would be pained at seeing parricides or assassins punished; we should rather rejoice at their lot’ (1386b26–30). So much for the alleged oddities of this passage. Lamberton, Else, and others also claim a contradiction between the passage and the analysis in chapter 13, in two respects: (1) Whereas here Aristotle seems to accept the portrayal in tragedy of πονηροί and ἄδικοι, in chapter 13 he argues (or assumes) that we cannot identify at all with the bad or very bad. ⟦332⟧ (2) In chapter 13 Aristotle rejects plot scheme C (very bad man passes to bad fortune), yet this seems to correspond to the two examples cited here. These contradictions, however, are unreal. As for (1), one could argue that in chapter 13 Aristotle is only setting out in general terms the broad conditions for audience identification with the stage figures and therefore that, although he there excludes the possibility of identification with a very bad man, he could nevertheless conceive that under certain circumstances such identification might be possible. It is interesting to note that in Poetics 15, 1454a29 and 25, 1461b21 he censures Euripides’ portrayal of Menelaus in the Orestes not because Menelaus is πονηρός but because he is unnecessarily πονηρός.24 If this argument is unacceptable, one might instead suggest, as Lucas does,25 that perhaps in 18, 1456a Aristotle is not thinking of the σοφὸς μετὰ πονηρίας or the ἀνδρεῖος ἄδικος as the central tragic figure in the change of fortune. But the really important point, which meets both difficulties, is that in chapter 18 all Aristotle is trying to illustrate is the effectiveness of τὸ θαυμαστόν and the way in which it may be combined with τὸ φιλάνθρωπον. His illustrations are specific and restricted in scope and he need not be taken to be endorsing a whole plot structure of tragedy. After all, the example he cites of the σοφὸς μετὰ πονηρίας is Sisyphus, a figure of satyric drama!26 In similar fashion he goes outside tragedy in chapter 15 to illustrate failure to satisfy the requirement ‘the appropriate’ (τὸ ἁρμόττον), by citing Odysseus’ lament in Timotheus’ Scylla—a dithyramb.

24

Of course Menelaus is not the central figure of the Orestes, but the theory of audience identification in chapter 13 requires the audience to calculate the virtue of the central figure and the justice or injustice of his fate, and this necessarily involves similar calculations about other major figures in the drama (Orestes’ ‘case’ must be assessed against that of Menelaus and others). But I do not wish to press this point, if only because Aristotle himself has not developed it. 25 Lucas (1968) 192. 26 Documentation in Else (1957) 548 n. 105; Lucas (1968) 192–3.

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The oddities and contradictions, then, which scholars have found in this passage are of no consequence. Rather, both the chapter 18 examples and scheme C in chapter 13 share the salient characteristic of being φιλάνθρωπον in that the downfall of a πονηρός is just. In chapter 18 φιλάνθρωπον clearly denotes ‘our sense of poetic justice’ and this supports the interpretation of τὸ φιλάνθρωπον in chapter 13 as ‘our moral sense’, the sense of ‘poetic justice’ being a particular manifestation of that broader moral sense. To return to chapter 13, scheme C, according to Aristotle, τὸ … φιλάνθρωπον ἔχοι ἂν ἀλλ’ οὔτε ἔλεον οὔτε φόβον (1453a2–4). It is φιλάνθρωπον in satisfying our moral sense, but does not inspire pity—since the very bad man suffers justly, nor fear—since the very bad man is not ‘like us’ (ὅμοιος). In being φιλάνθρωπον, it fits the analysis of τὸ νεμεσᾶν in Rhet. 2.9, for τὸ ⟦333⟧ νεμεσᾶν involves a feeling of satisfaction at the just punishment of the bad (above). Thus we can see that Aristotle’s exclusion of all three schemes, A, D, and C, depends to a considerable extent on the kind of analysis that he gives in Rhet. 2.9 (and the other two discussions of τὸ νεμεσᾶν in EN 2.7 and EE 3.7), designed to show how the arousal of emotion is affected by our moral sense. Let us now briefly consider his analysis of scheme E: the case of the ‘in-between man’ who passes from good to bad fortune because of a hamartia—briefly, because I do not wish to obfuscate the τὸ φιλάνθρωπον question by becoming embroiled in the notorious problem of the correct interpretation of hamartia.27 From the argument so far in chapter 13 it is required that scheme E should satisfy our moral sense (τὸ φιλάνθρωπον) and avoid moral outrage at the downfall of a very good man (τὸ μιαρόν). But it must also of course arouse pity and fear, and pity is aroused by undeserved misfortune. From the moral point of view, therefore, the best plot must strike a balance somewhere between ‘moral outrage’ at one extreme and exact retribution at the other. ‘Moral outrage’ erases pity and so does exact retribution, pity depending on undeserved suffering. The need to arouse fear also affects the moral equation, fear being felt for someone ‘like us’ and ‘like us’ entailing ‘not very bad’ (and perhaps also ‘not very good’).28 Hence scheme E satisfies all the various requirements. In so far 27

Recent discussion in Stinton (1975), whose arguments I accept in essentials; Moles (1979), who offers some slight modifications of Stinton’s analysis; and Armstrong and Peterson (1980), who (I believe) misconceive the function of the phrase τῶν ἐν μεγάλῃ δόξῃ ὄντων καὶ εὐτυχίᾳ (1453a10). If Stinton’s analysis were universally accepted, I could show in greater detail how moral considerations affect the working of Aristotle’s model of tragedy, but as it is not, and the great ἁμαρτία debate shows no signs of exhaustion, it is better to leave the problem out of consideration here. 28 Arguable—cf. n. 8, above.

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as the central figure is ‘between’ the polarities ‘very good’ and ‘very bad,’ (a) we can identify with him, because, in not being very bad (and perhaps also in not being very good), he is ‘like us’, (b) his downfall is not morally outraging, since he is not very good, and (c) his downfall does, however, arouse pity, since he is not very bad. (Indeed Aristotle later adjusts the point μεταξύ upwards on the scale of virtue, to increase the arousal of pity: 1453a16–17, βελτίονος μᾶλλον ἤ χείρονος.) In so far as his change of fortune goes from good to bad, not the other way round, pity and fear are aroused (other conditions having been satisfied). In so far as he commits a hamartia, he is to some extent responsible for his fate—it is not arbitrary or gratuitous—hence moral outrage is avoided, but his action is also venial to some extent: it is not characterised by vice or depravity, so pity is aroused. ⟦334⟧ In short, the plot of tragedy must broadly satisfy our moral sense, but there must be some imbalance between the tragic figure’s actions and his fate, to arouse our pity.29 To sum up so far: τὸ φιλάνθρωπον is absolutely crucial to Aristotle’s analysis of the best plot in Poetics 13, it means ‘moral sense’, and the tragedian must take it into account if he is successfully to arouse pity and fear. τὸ φιλάνθρωπον is not an independent criterion: its function, though indispensable, is subsidiary to the proper arousal of pity and fear. Thus when Lamberton writes: ‘τὸ φιλάνθρωπον … is the antithesis of the tragic’, ‘Aristotle gives us no sure basis for distinguishing between the extreme type in which a good man goes from good to bad fortune, and the ideal type, where a better-than-average man goes from good to bad fortune’, and ‘these passages underline the radical separation Aristotle maintains between moral and esthetic demands’ (my italics), he has, I believe, failed to come to grips with Aristotle’s subtle and complex analysis of the nature of tragedy. Before I conclude with some general remarks about Aristotle’s views on the relationship between morals and aesthetics, let us see exactly why he rejects the so called ‘double plot’, in which the good are rewarded and the bad punished (1453a30–6), and which, he says, poets only use to gratify the poor taste of the audience (τὴν τῶν θεάτρων ἀσθενίαν, 1453a34). By his criteria, it falls down in three respects: (1) because of the dissipation of emotional effect arising from the ‘double’ story-line; (2) because it has a ‘happy ending’—so that pity and fear are aroused but poorly; (3) because it satisfies τὸ φιλάνθρωπον too much: there is no tragic imbalance between fault and fate to arouse our pity. Let us now draw some general conclusions from this discussion. In chapter 13, as in the rest of the Poetics, what Aristotle is concerned with is the arousal 29 Stinton, admirable though his discussion is in general, does not do full justice to this vitally important requirement in Aristotle’s model.

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of pity and fear. This is an aesthetic purpose, which in itself has nothing to do with morality. But human beings naturally possess ‘moral sense’, which dramatists have to take account of when they construct their plots. So, although Aristotle in chapter 13 does indeed discuss moral issues, his position is fundamentally different from that of a moralist like Plato. Aristotle does not say: ‘tragedy should improve morals’; what he says is: ‘if the plot of a tragedy outrages our moral sense, it will not do its proper job, which is to arouse pity and fear, but it has to disturb our moral sense to some extent, so as to arouse our pity’. Many modern discussions of Aristotle’s views on the relationship between aesthetics and morality in Poetics 13 have been thoroughly misconceived. Some scholars have emphasised that the terminology used in chapter 13—ἐπιεικής, μιαρόν, μοχθηρός, ἀρετή, κακία, etc.—is moral terminology, and inferred from this that Aristotle ⟦335⟧ regards tragedy as having a moral purpose.30 Others have denied that the terminology is properly moral at all.31 Both positions are wrong, but in different ways. The terminology quite obviously is moral, but, as we have seen, this does not entail Aristotle taking a moral attitude to the purpose of tragedy. What, then, of Aristotle’s contention that μίμησις is educative (Poet. 4, 1448b13–14), his doctrine of κάθαρσις (Poet. 6, 1449b27–28), and his argument that poetry is concerned with ‘universal truths’ (Poet. 9, 1451a36–1452a11)? In all these cases, he is of course, to some extent at least, concerned to rebut the moralistic attacks on tragedy of Plato. But none of these commits him to the proposition that tragedy should be morally improving and that this is its purpose. He is quite explicit that ‘the poet’s job is to produce the pleasure arising from pity and fear via mimesis’ (14, 1453b11–13) and that ‘correctness in poetry is not the same thing as correctness in morals’ (24, 1460b23). Nevertheless, he does not deny, indeed he asserts, what is obviously true, that tragedy in fact has moral effect, but he then argues that this moral effect is beneficial. Tragedy does arouse emotions, but, pace Plato, this is a good thing because the emotions thus aroused are brought into a better and more healthy balance (κάθαρσις). Tragedy is indeed a form of mimesis, but, pace Plato, mimesis is educative. And, again pace Plato, poetry, while apparently dealing with untruth, is actually concerned with truth at a very high level—much more significant that the mere ‘literal’ truth of the historian. In sum, then, Aristotle’s position is as follows: (1) the purpose of the traged­ ian is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear. This involves taking into account our natural moral feelings but does not imply that the tragedian is a moralist 30 31

For example, Grube (1965) 80. For example, Verdenius (1983) 37.

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in the sense that he seeks to improve morals: satisfaction of τὸ φιλάνθρωπον is only a means to the end, that of the arousal of pity and fear, and in any case the satisfaction cannot be total, or pity is not aroused. (2) Of course in practice tragedy, of all forms of art, does have moral effect, so that to that extent the moralists are right to be worried about it. In the final analysis, therefore, it is not sufficient to rebut moralists’ objections with the statement that art is a matter of aesthetics, not morals. But the moral effect of tragedy is, on the whole, contrary to the views of Plato, for various reasons beneficial. Thus tragedy can be defended against the attacks of moralists even, as it were, on their own ground, despite the fact that its primary purpose is aesthetic, not moral. Obviously, whether or not we agree with this position is ultimately up to us as individuals, but we should recognise that Aristotle’s views on this subject, as on practically all others, are at least well thought out and eminently reasonable. Bibliography Armstrong, D. and C. W. Peterson (1980) ‘Rhetorical Balance in Aristotle’s Definition of the Tragic Agent: Poetics 13’, CQ 30: 62–71. Dupont-Roc, R. and K. Lallot, edd. (1980) Aristote: La Poétique (Paris). Else, G. F. (1957) Aristotle’s Poetics: the Argument (Cambridge, Mass.). Grube, G. M. A. (1965) The Greek and Roman Critics (London). Gudeman, A. (1934) Aristoteles Περὶ Ποιητικῆς (Berlin). Hubbard, M. E., trans. (1972) ‘Aristotle’s Poetics’, in D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom, edd., Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford) 85–132. Lamberton, R. D. (1983) ‘Philanthropia and the Evolution of Dramatic Taste’, Phoenix 37: 95–103. Lucas, D. W., ed. (1968) Aristotle: Poetics (Oxford). Moles, J. L. (1979) ‘Notes on Aristotle’s Poetics 13 and 14’, CQ n.s. 29: 77–94 [above, Ch. 59]. Moles, J. L. (1984) ‘Aristotle and Dido’s Hamartia’, G&R 31: 48–54 [below, Ch. 66]. Pohlenz, M. (1956) ‘Furcht und Mitleid? Ein Nachwort’, Hermes 84: 49–74; repr. in id., Kleine Schriften, ed. H. Dörrie, 2 vols. (Hildesheim, 1965) II.562–87. Romilly, J. de (1979) La douceur dans la pensée grecque (Paris). Stark, R. (1972) Aristotelesstudien: philologische Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der aristotelischen Ethik2 (Munich). Stinton, T. C. W. (1975) ‘Hamartia in Aristotle and Greek Tragedy’, CQ 25: 221–54; repr. in id., Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1990) 143–86. Verdenius, W. J. (1983) ‘The Principles of Greek Literary Criticism’, Mnemosyne 36: 14–59.

Chapter 64

Review Simon Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: The Oresteia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Pp. x + 315. ISBN 0-521-26535-5.

Several factors make this a forbidding book: its theoretical stance, specialised vocabulary and involved style, and the sheer density of its analysis of the language of the Oresteia, itself among the most difficult Greek ever written. Greekless readers will only be able to glean the general drift of the book and the main lines of the various extended methodological discussions; of traditional Classicists only the most gifted sixth-formers and undergraduates could cope with the detailed analysis. This is a book for professionals and many of them will find it tough going, at least initially (experto credite). G. holds that conventional approaches (commentaries, literary studies, even specialised treatments of particular themes and problems) fall into the error of ‘the violence of simplification’ (p. 6). By contrast, LSN is ‘a reading of the Oresteia’ (p. 1) ‘concerned with how the text means’, with meaning as ‘a process, not an immanence (which negates the possibility of a simple distinction between meaning of words and narrative)’ (p. 3). For example, in Cho. 663f. (ἐξελθέτω τις δωμάτων τελεσφόρος | γυνὴ τόπαρχος, ἄνδρα δ’ εὐπρεπέστερον) τελεσφόρος can mean (a) ‘bearing authority’, (b) constituting the aim of Orestes’ actions’, (c) ‘bringing the initiation’ (sc. of Orestes), (d) ‘bringing the sacrificial rite’, (e) ‘bringing completion, consummation’, (f) ‘bringing death’, and (g) ‘bringing tax, that which is paid’, and each of these in turn raises a multitude of interpretative problems.1 So in theory ‘only an infinite thematics, open to endless nomination, can respect the enduring character of language, the production of reading, and no longer its products’ (Barthes)—an impossible ideal of course, but G.’s reading will at least try ‘to recognise the “metonymic production of language” (hence “how it means”), dis-covering the text’s plurality, its openness to the production of meaning, its “textuality”’ (p. 4). It will analyse the difficulties ‘of restricting the echoing play of meaning’, ‘of placing defined limits to the text’s meaning’ and show ‘how the … search for meaning is outplayed (eluded) by the play’s own working’ (p. 4). Fundamental to G.’s reading are ‘the viewing of language as language, rather than as a transparent veil through which we pass 1 Cf. also p. 163 and Goldhill (1984).

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_037

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to “meaning”’ and the recognition ‘of the production of meaning in difference’ and that ‘there can be no “innocent reading”; there can (because of the production of meaning in reading) be no reading separated from the interplay between discourse of the text and discourse of the reader’: traditional criteria such as ‘natural’, ‘likely’, or ‘probable’ are simply question-begging (p. 5). G.’s theoretical stance, then, though he himself would reject the label (p. 4), is basically post-structuralist/deconstructionist. For him the apparent meaning of a text must always be undermined by the inherent instability of language. Texts consist of language and meaning is created by the interplay of language with itself, not with some external ‘reality’. While the language of the Oresteia can allude to ‘externals’ (e.g., on p. 227 n. 16 G. concedes that Eum. 291 alludes to the Argive alliance), these externals have, as it were, no independent authority (e.g., on pp. 275f. G. does not regard the actual application of the Vote of Athene in Athenian law as usable evidence for resolving the voting problem in the Eumenides). The text creates its own meaning—it has ‘a self-produced level of referentiality’ (p. 69). And since the text is by definition an ‘unstable verbal object’ (p. 69), its meaning ultimately can never be defined: any meaning will always be open to deconstruction. Thus by an amusing paradox the deconstructionist turns out to be as keen to demonstrate a conclusion as any of the traditionalists to whom he imputes such naïveté. For all his lip-service to the role of the reader in the production of meaning, G. uses first-person plurals (‘we have seen’, etc.) to suggest the objective truth of his ‘reading’ in exactly the same way a traditionalist like Jasper Griffin, who was savagely criticised for this by another deconstructionist, M. Lynn-George.2 But of course the conclusion of the deconstructionist is that no conclusion is possible. The tone of G.’s book is unremittingly didactic, proselytising, and combative. It rams home the deconstructionist message not only by the specialised critical vocabulary beloved of its practitioners (heuristics, hermeneutics, the gap between the signifier and the signified, second-level referents, glissement, etc.), but by elaborate puns illustrating the instability of language (e.g., ‘the floating text-ile’, p. 66; ‘sees, seems, semes: signs and sight’, p. 110; ‘suit and pursuit’, ⟦56⟧ p. 244; ‘binding promises’, p. 228 ‘Just-ification’, p. 233), various teasing formulations which seem to question the validity of his own approach (‘Sho, my wife, was always there, to help see it through to the end’, p. ix: but was that end purely arbitrary? [cf. p. 283]; ‘the natural syntagmatic force of the sentence’, p. 11), and numerous provocative references to ‘Aeschylus’ and other authors (those on pp. 20, 28, 34, 41 n. 77, 105 n. 9, 108, 121 n. 32, and 128 n. 45 are opportunist in that they serve to support the case of the moment, those on pp. 82 2 Lynn-George (1982) 241.

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n. 133, 125, 184, and 208 seemingly ingenuous, those on pp. 70, 104 and n. 5, and 283 intensely challenging). The treatment of rival approaches is nearly always unfair: either they are misrepresented, as in G.’s comment on Cho. 461 (Ἄρης Ἄρει ξυμβαλεῖ, Δίκᾳ Δίκα): ‘this tension in the discourse of δίκη … is repressed by those who wish to read a simple developmental structure towards enlightened “Justice”’ (p. 149; cf. p. 245), whereas in fact the line is a cornerstone of such interpretations, or their best arguments are ignored (examples below), or their feeblest formulations chosen for attack: there are no prizes for refuting Dawe (pp. 70ff.) on ‘no character’ in Agamemnon and Clytemnestra or Gagarin (pp. 257ff.) on the ‘visual meaning’ of the voting in the Eumenides. Legitimate scholarly debate sometimes degenerates into unseemly polemic (e.g., pp. 104 n. 5, 128 n. 45, 187, 204). In several respects also, this book is not well written. G. seems to have almost no sense of prose rhythm (a typical sentence, from p. 43: ‘the long first stasimon which follows the beacon-speeches scene, further retells a narrative of the events surrounding the Trojan War in the light of the information that the queen has forwarded, as the chorus attempt again to order a pattern of events’), cross-referencing is vague, line-references are frequently omitted, scholars’ interpretations causally mentioned in such a way as to be comprehensible only to those already familiar with them (e.g., pp. 41, 50, 62, 92). Perhaps some of these things are pedagogic devices to involve the reader in the creation of meaning, but they are also unmistakable signs (!) of hasty composition. Faults in presentation, however, do not entitle us to dismiss G.’s work. Nor do the theoretical approach and the accompanying terminology present an insuperable obstacle; the initial shock/horror wears off: after 50 pages or so, one’s eye is in and the technical language presents no further problems and after another 100 pages one can largely anticipate the kinds of things that G. is likely to say about practically anything, since indeed, however detailed the analysis, he is saying basically the same thing all the time. So we cannot simply ignore Goldhill and hope that he will go away. Assessment of the general claims of deconstructionism is quite beyond me. But there are, I think, sound pragmatic reasons for giving G.’s deconstructionist approach to the Oresteia a hearing: 1. Deconstructionism has already become a major critical movement in Classical scholarship, making its presence felt in numerous articles in American periodicals (notably Arethusa), and some reviews,3 and several books, e.g., on tragedy.4 That deconstructionist writing should have appeared 3 Famously, Lynn-George (1982), already cited. 4 Zeitlin (1982); Segal (1982).

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in enterprising and outgoing British journals such as JHS and LCM is perhaps no cause for wonder, but that it should recently have penetrated the pages of JRS5 suggests new-found respectability. Even if it had nothing else to commend it, LSN would be useful as a sustained and rigorous demonstration of deconstructionist method (G. is far less eclectic than Segal, far more disciplined than Zeitlin, and far less wild than {John} Henderson). 2. There are of course some partial anticipations of deconstructionist thinking in ancient theories, e.g., Gorgias’ claims that λόγος is a δυνάστης μέγας (Helen 8) and that when we communicate, we communicate not reality but language (D–K 82 B 3 {= D26b, R1a, R26 L–M}), or the famous passage in Phaedrus 275 where writers are seen as ‘fathers’ and words as their offspring, who cannot make their meaning clear without parental authority. Deconstructionists often cite these texts6 by way of illustration, without claiming any great support from them, but traditionalists may be reassured—or dismayed—by these ancient ‘parallels’. 3. Of all works of Classical literature the Oresteia seems almost tailormade for a deconstructionist approach. This text clearly does repeatedly, even obsessively, raise such questions as the correct use of language, the search for ultimate meaning, and the right interpretation of signs. ⟦57⟧ 4. The theoretical gulf between deconstructionism and more orthodox forms of literary criticism can be exaggerated. Many conventional critics would concede (e.g.) that, ideally, we should be concerned with the total meaning of the language of a work of literature as it unfolds, that analysis of particular aspects of the work is only a short-cut and can never provide more than a partial interpretation, that many works resist the imposition of a single final meaning, that the doctrine of authorial intentionalism is dangerous and to be handled with care, if at all. 5. Deconstructionist criticism seems excessively intellectual, abstract, divorced from the real issues raised by a text, and largely oblivious to the fact that great literature, tragedy above all, engages the emotions. The conventional ‘lit. crit.’ judgements in this book are few and grudging7 and although their very paucity gives to them an impact out of all proportion to their quality, G. clearly attaches little value to them. Thus for example when he describes the dialogue between Clytemnestra and Orestes as ‘immensely dramatic’, he immediately redefines ‘dramatic’ in a deconstructionist way: ‘the interplay of terms which constitute the dramatic action, the opposition of Orestes’ and Clytemnestra’s 5 Vessey (1985). 6 Cf. p. 7 and nn. 16–17, 51 n. 88, 61 n. 98, 152 n. 101. 7 Cf. pp. 47, 110, 123, 183, 210, 214, 215, 217.

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language, form a dialectic which constitutes the drama: it is “the theatre of language”’ (p. 183; cf. p. 34). Nonetheless, despite their very different approaches, deconstructionists and ‘ordinary’ critics inevitably end up in practice by probing similar concerns and—sometimes—even reaching similar conclusions. For example, G.’s in-depth analyses of ‘the series of shifting sites of … the vocabulary of familial and societal relationships’ in the Choephori (p. 206), of the ‘tension in the discourse of δίκη’ (p. 149), of the ‘search for an origin’ (p. 211), obviously bear on such familiar concerns as the relative justice of the various killings and the problem of individual responsibility (cf. especially p. 149 and n. 92). Literally pages and pages of this book should be broadly acceptable to Classicists of all critical persuasions. Again, G.’s conclusions that the trial in the Eumenides is ‘a culmination, but not a telos’ (p. 261) and that ‘the final meaning remains undetermined’ (p. 283) are not substantially different even from those of scholars as anxious to establish meaning as Brooks Otis, for whom ‘the fundamental problems … are not given what we would call a satisfactory solution’8 and Colin Macleod, who wrote ‘Athena’s words in 734–40 correspond to the will of Zeus …, but they are not meant to be a solution’.9 Indeed, the view that the Eumenides brings an end, but not a solution, is almost a critical commonplace (though wrong). We should, then, not allow ourselves to become paralysed by intractable theoretical problems but should rather be content to regard deconstructionism as an available method of approach which, like any other, may or may not be useful in practice and which should be judged simply by its results. In what follows, I (1) take G.’s discussion (pp. 8–12) of the Watchman scene in the Agamemnon as a test case of his method,10 (2) consider his arguments against rival critical approaches, and (3) test his conclusion that ‘the final meaning remains undetermined’. Such dense analyses as G.’s are not easily summar­ ised: I hope my summaries will not mislead and I shall quote fairly extensively. 1

The Watchman Scene

The watchman prays for release from toils. The stars seem to be clear, un­equivocal, signs and absolute controllers of the seasons, hence of time itself. But while the beacon seems to indicate a control analogous to that of the stars 8 Otis (1981) 86. 9 Macleod (1982) 142 n. 80. 10 Not, it turns out, an original move, but this critique is independent of those of Parker (1985) 210f., and Heath (1985) 243.

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(φέρουσαν, 9 ~ φέροντας, 5), it ‘is a symbol for a communication which itself needs interpreting’: it ‘brings’ φάτιν—not certainty but speech, with all its difficulties and ambiguities. Thus the apparent sureness of the first visible signs, the stars, is undermined by the difficulty of interpreting the second visible sign, the beacon. And while ὧδε γὰρ κρατεῖ | γυναικὸς ἀνδροβόλου ἐλπίζον κέαρ (10–11) formally explains 8–10, the explanation brings new problems: power is wielded by a woman, the woman is ἀνδρόβουλος, her heart ἐλπίζον; the object of her ‘hope’ itself is less sure than knowledge. The watchman is fearful (14)—again an uncertain state—and miserable (18) over the συμφορά of the house; συμφορά can be good or bad and οὐχ ὡς τὰ πρόσθ’ ἄριστα διαπονουμένου (19) picks up ἀπαλλαγὴν πόνων (1), so that ‘the prayer for release from πόνων is being redefined in a less than absolute, definite sense through this play of active and passive moods, and through the qualification of πον- by ἄριστα … The absolute first prayer needs modification’ and there is a ‘movement from assurance (in language, desire, control) to ⟦58⟧ misgiving, uncertainty, doubt’. The problematics of the different modes of communication—the visible and that of language—recur in 21: εὐαγγέλου φανέντος ὀρφναίου πυρός. So the ‘solution of the πόνων is constituted in the opposition of these terms—language/showing: dark/light’. Even when the beacon shines forth (22f.), its meaning is equivocal: it is a visible sign, a light, which suggests salvation. But it consists of/comes from darkness (νυκτός can go with both λαμπτήρ and ἡμερήσιον φάος); it also ‘shows light’ and such tautology does not advance the meaning. Again, the separate modes of communication—sign/light and speech—are confused (30: ὡς ὁ φρυκτὸς ἀγγέλλων πρέπει—πρέπει also picks up ἐμπρέποντας (6) of the stars). Hence the watchman’s interpretation of the beacon slips progressively from certainty (26–9), into the conditional (29f.: εἴπερ Ἰλίου πόλις | ἑάλωκεν), into the optative (34f.), a refusal to communicate (36–8), and finally complete silence. With 38f. (ὡς ἑκὼν ἐγὼ | μαθοῦσιν αὐδῶ κοὐ μαθοῦσι λήθομαι) ‘the system of language becomes tautologous, negated, unusable as a system of communication’, for it ‘is used only to those who already know what it says’. In conclusion: ‘the prologue opens with a desire for solution, and although the πόνοι are in the watchman’s fear and reticence not clearly defined or explained they are constituted within various polarities and referents: showing/saying (centred on clarity and the gap between signifier and signified); male/female (centred on power and the house); light/dark’ (p. 12). Assessment? G.’s analysis shows sensitivity to detail of all kinds (e.g., in the observation that the ritual language of ἀπαλλαγὴν πόνων ‘suggests that the solution of the πόνων will be connected with some form of divine epiphany’), especially verbal parallels (e.g., between 30 and 6), complexities (e.g., the fusion

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of light and speech in 30), and ambiguities (it seems pointed to take ἁλώσιμον in 10 as both ‘of an (easy) capturing’ and ‘easily comprehended’ or νυκτός in 22 with both λαμπτήρ and ἡμερήσιον φάος). He convinces me that this scene is at least partly about communication, the various forms it may take, and the difficulties of interpreting them. Elements which seem on the face of it merely decorative, like the apparently euphuistic description of the stars, make sense within this larger pattern. On the other hand, the deconstructionist’s urge to establish indeterminacy of meaning at every juncture produces distortions, even absurdities. First, what, if any, is the relationship between ἀπαλλαγὴν πόνων (1) and οὐχ ὡς τὰ πρόσθ’ ἄριστα διαπονουμένου (19)? A traditionalist might consider the possibility that this was a mere sound jingle due to ancient writers’ relative indifference to iteration. A deconstructionist cannot accept such an interpretation and in this case he is certainly right: the repeated ἀπαλλαγὴν πόνων in 20 clinches a relationship between 1 and 19. But should one not then say that the lines envisage two kinds of πόνοι, one bad, the other good (a common Greek thought) and hence the proper order of the οἶκος as consisting in a dynamic balance between ἀπαλλαγὴν πόνων (κακῶν) and the total absence of hardship of any kind (cf. the final role of the Furies at Athens), so that the verbal relationship hints ultimately at ‘closure’ rather than indeterminacy? More important, a sign is not always equivocal: if, like the beacon, it is a pre-arranged signal, the mere fact that it occurs conveys a clear message. Nor does 29 entail doubt: though formally a conditional, εἴπερ is very often, indeed most often, used in Greek to express certainty (‘if, as is the case’). In 29ff. the watchman’s apprehensions focus not on the unreliability of the beacon but on the future, precisely because he knows that the beacon is reliable and that Agamemnon will soon be home. And 37ff. do not throw doubt on the usefulness of language itself as a medium of communication: the watchman simply dare not say more because he fears Clytemnestra. The analysis, then, is interesting, illuminating, and persuasive up to a point, but beyond that point it tries to explain too much, ignoring basic things like ordinary linguistic usage, dramatic context, and common sense: deconstructionism is no longer being used as a tool to uncover the meaning (or non-meaning) of the text; rather, the text is being forced into conformity with a preconceived model. Many readers, I imagine, will have the same experience as me: they will feel happy to follow G.’s analyses quite far, they will find the journey generally educational and certainly packed with incidental illumination, but repeatedly there will come a point where they will want to get off.

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{Rival Critical Approaches}

Throughout the book G. pits his deconstructionist method against other critical approaches and a number of interesting discussions, at once methodological and interpretative, result. The following seem to me the most important: ⟦59⟧ (a) Deconstructionism v. Textual Criticism Deconstructionists naturally see traditional textual criticism, which tries on the whole to establish single, finite meanings, as fundamentally misguided. For G. ‘textual critic’ seems to count as a term of abuse (p. 70). The general attitude was anticipated by the ‘imagery analysts’ of the 60s and 70s (Lebeck, et al.), who had already insisted on the almost boundless complexity of Aeschylean language.11 Of course there are grave difficulties (to which G. does not begin to face up) with the whole concept of the sacrosanct text when one is dealing with texts from the ancient world. All the same, G.’s approach to alleged textual cruces often proves fruitful in practice. His exegeses of (e.g.) Ag. 22 νυκτός (p. 11, cf. above), 262 εὐαγγέλοισιν ἐλπίσιν (p. 34), 485 ὁ θῆλυς ὄρος (pp. 40f.), Eum. 104f. εὕδουσα γὰρ φρὴν ὄμμασιν λαμπρύνεται | ἐν ἡμέρᾳ δὲ μοῖρ’ ἀπρόσκοπος βροτῶν (p. 214 and n. 6) and 490f. νῦν καταστροφαὶ νέων | θεσμίων (p. 240) are both stimulating and (in my view) persuasive. (b) Deconstructionism and the Problem of Character in Tragedy G. is quite receptive to the general notion of character.12 He talks of Clytemnestra’s ‘deliberate recognition of the play in the construction of language’ (p. 35—my italics) and of ‘her hypocrisy, her falsehoods’ (p. 75) and sees her as a typical ‘villain’ figure, whose alienation from society is marked by her distortion and manipulation of language (p. 35 n. 70), while on pp. 96ff. he offers what amounts to a good old-fashioned character sketch of Aegisthus, though, predictably, Aegisthus’ character emerges from his unsophisticated use of language. He also concedes that the text sometimes poses problems of character assessment: e.g., on p. 175 ‘our expectation … is challenged’ by Aegisthus’ reaction to the news of Orestes’ death. He even accepts (p. 238) that ‘broken sentences’ may indicate inner disturbance in a stage-figure, and toys (p. 55) with a psychological explanation for Clytemnestra’s use of πόσις in Ag. 604. Freudian ideas are at least considered (cf., e.g., pp. 35 and n. 70, 181 n. 149, 189). But he rejects the notion that particular scenes are primarily ‘about’ character

11 Though naturally even they do not go far enough for Goldhill: Goldhill (1984) 173f. 12 Taplin (1985) seems to me misleading on this point.

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or that problems of character assessment are ever fully resolved, citing with approval the judgement of Barthes (p. 168): From a critical point of view … it is as wrong to suppress a character as it is to take him off the page in order to turn him into a psychological character (endowed with possible motives): the character and the discourse are each other’s accomplices: the discourse creates in the character its own accomplice: a form of theurgical detachment by which, mythically, God has given himself a subject, man a helpmate, etc., whose relative independence, once they have been created, allows for playing … Psychoanalytical interpretation is wrong since it reaches finite conclusions (p. 140 n. 76). Two obvious points may be made here: (1) G.’s position is self-contradictory: talk of a stage-figure’s ‘deliberate recognition’ and ‘hypocrisy’ immediately concedes some degree of motivation; several of G.’s formulations also involve ‘psychology’. Indeed, in his treatment of this and other problems, there is an unresolved tension between the G. who says nice normal things and the G. who gets on his critical high horse and takes a hard deconstructionist line (which presumably only goes to show that G.’s ultimate meaning is indeterminate!). (2) In the case of the Oresteia (and countless other texts) Barthes’ absolute denial of motivation to literary characters just does not stand up: cf., e.g., Clytemnestra’s justification of her murder of Agamemnon at Ag. 1417f., 1432f., 1525ff. This text explicitly does endow characters with possible motives. Pontifications (of which there are too many in this book) are no substitute for observation and argument. But I consider in more detail G.’s discussions of (i) the character of Clytemnestra and (ii) the ‘carpet’ scene. (i) On this much-debated topic G. ducks several of the problems. For example, he analyses (pp. 34ff.) in great detail Clytemnestra’s two long speeches (Ag. 281–316; 320–50) to the chorus interpreting the beacon signal, emphasises that the second, being only an imaginative visualisation of the sack of Troy, falls far short of the chorus’ description of it (πιστὰ … τεκμήρια, 352) and goes on to discuss their continuing doubts (475–87), but provides no real answer to the question: why do the chorus accept Clytemnestra’s second speech, when (a) it is not a ‘proof’, (b) they have previously doubted the meaning of the beacon signal, and (c) they subsequently still doubt it. I do not see how it is possible to avoid invoking Clytemnestra’s character, saying (e.g.) that in the second speech she impresses her interpretation of the signal on the chorus through the sheer force of ⟦60⟧ her ‘manly’ personality, but that they relapse into

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doubt once that pressure is removed. G.’s handling of Clytemnestra’s dream (pp. 153ff.) is also unsatisfactory. He does not even consider what is after all the jewel in the crown of the psychoanalytical approach: Devereux’s remarkable thesis13 that we should understand from the Nurse’s speech that Clytemnestra never breast-fed Orestes. Whether this thesis is right or not,14 its implications are so radical that it should certainly be discussed. Nor does G. comment on the chorus’ remark at Cho. 523ff. (οἶδ’, ὦ τέκνον, παρῆ γάρ· ἔκ τ’ ὀνειράτων | καὶ νυκτιπλάγκτων δειμάτων πεπαλμένη | χοὰς ἔπεμψε τάσδε δύσθεος γυνή), which clearly gives colour to some kind of guilty conscience interpretation, especially in the light of the contrast between Clytemnestra’s behaviour and that of the Nurse (751 ~ 523ff.; note also that the Nurse is πρόμαντις, 758 ~ 33). G. does at least confront the problem of Clytemnestra’s reaction to the news of Orestes’ death directly (pp. 72f., 167ff.), but he is too quick to plump for indeterminacy (p. 167, my italics): This speech … cannot be read as simply separate from the scene (play, trilogy) of which it is a part. For the juxtaposition of Clytemnestra’s react­ ion to Orestes’ speech of deceit and her own first speech of welcome seems to be playing significantly on the problem of truth in language, on a sense of referentiality: after Clytemnestra’s speech of welcome where the excess of signification undercuts the possibility of a simple reference, and Orestes’ deceit, which is depicted as language without truth content, with no referentiality, this speech of reaction, while seeming to challenge the reader to ground the language in a referentiality, to judge its truth content (as the critics and the nurse attempt), resists by the suggestive juxtaposition to such non-referential language and ironic excess the possibility of the certainty of the criteria of such judgements. I do not see the force of this argument: the mere fact that it may be difficult to arrive at the truth does not necessarily mean that it is impossible. In the text we find that (i) before she hears the news, Clytemnestra maintains that counsel is not for her, but for men (672f.), though the reader knows (or thinks he knows) from the Agamemnon that it is Clytemnestra, not Aegisthus, who is the ‘man’ and has been reminded of this by Orestes’ sneer at Cho. 304f. (δυοῖν γυναικοῖν), while Orestes’ immediately preceding words (653ff.) bring to the fore the ideas of the male–female struggle for authority and of female manipulation of language; (ii) on hearing the news, Clytemnestra exclaims φίλων ἀποψιλοῖς [sc. Ἀρά] με τὴν παναθλίαν (695); and (iii) after promising due hospitality to the 13 14

{Devereux (1976) 199 n. 70.} But cf. also Vickers (1973) 404f. I believe it is, pace Clark (1985).

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‘messenger’ (a ‘womanly’ concern—cf. 668ff.), announces ἡμεῖς δὲ ταῦτα τοῖς κρατοῦσι δωμάτων | κοινώσομέν τε κού σπανίζοντες φίλων | βουλευσόμεσθα τῆσδε συμφορᾶς πέρι (716ff.). So it becomes clear that even after Orestes’ death she has φίλοι and that she will be involved in the business of counsel. Something wrong here! Some degree of hypocrisy seems to me undeniable. Such an interpretation (pace G.) does not in the least commit us to the propositions that (a) Clytemnestra’s speech is ‘simply separate from the scene (play, trilogy) of which it is a part’ and (b) Clytemnestra is a person with ‘a future, an unconscious, a soul’. For there is no logical reason why stage-figures should not say things which are both part of the scene/play/trilogy and indicative of their character (the same is true mutatis mutandis of people in life) nor does attributing hypocrisy to a stage-figure (as G. himself does elsewhere to Clytemnestra) entail regarding him/her as a ‘real person’. (ii) G. devotes over 13 closely argued pages to this most-discussed scene in Aeschylus (pp. 66–79). Many of the points he makes against other scholars’ interpretations are astute: Fraenkel’s appeal to ‘the general picture’ of Agamemnon’s personality is circular, his concept of ‘clear evidence’ naïve, Dawe thinks in crudely intentionalist terms and nowhere defines what he means by an ‘appropriate reading’, Easterling’s ‘human intelligibility’ invokes a ‘reality’ independent of the text itself, Gould, for all his methodological sophistication, still introduces the notion of ‘personality’ without arguing his assumptions, and so on. For G. himself, inevitably, the scene is about language, manipulation of signs, the shifting relationships between signifier and signified, etc., etc. Again, however, he speaks with two voices. On the one hand, he clearly concedes quite a large role to character—e.g., ‘Clytemnestra’s word play, like her beacon lights, depends on a recognition and manipulation of the signifier, as does her hypocrisy, her falsehoods’ (p. 75); ‘her faith in continuing prosperity seems more than somewhat hybristic’ (p. 78); ‘it is the weapon of deceitful language that ⟦61⟧ is depicted as Clytemnestra’s force’ (p. 79). On the other hand (p. 78), the manipulation of language by Clytemnestra, her disruption of communicational exchange, itself signifies in the carpet scene. And the argument of potentialities, redefining the significance of the act of stepping on the tapestries by refining contexts and connotations, opens the text to the complex over-determination often noted by critics and, moreover, such openness, such over-determination, undercuts attempts (the critics’ and Agamemnon’s) to control the signification absolutely. The floating text-ile cannot be pinned down.

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But one cannot argue both that Clytemnestra produces deceptive arguments to persuade Agamemnon to walk on the tapestries and that the meaning of the act is ultimately indeterminate. If (as G. seems to concede) it is the deceitful Clytemnestra’s purpose to persuade Agamemnon ‘that the act of walking on the tapestries has differing, variable significances; that the act of walking on the tapestries has a floating significance’, then the one thing that act does not have is a freely ‘floating significance’. G. is as mesmerised by his own rhetoric as Agamemnon by Clytemnestra’s. Moreover, he fails even to consider all the standard arguments of those who claim that the scene (granted, among other things) illustrates Agamemnon’s character in contrast to those of Clytemnestra and Cassandra: the fact that Agamemnon, after being warned by the chorus against false friends (795ff.) and after himself boasting of his capacity to distinguish sincerity and insincerity (838ff.), comprehensively fails the tests posed him by the deceitful Clytemnestra, the fact that the carpet scene mirrors the scene at Aulis (953 ~ 1071 ~ 218f.), the parallel and contrast between Agamemnon’s entrance into the palace and Cassandra’s, etc., etc. Instead, like many others (not just deconstructionists) G. stresses ‘the marked lack of explicit motivation’ in the carpet scene (p. 78; cf. also p. 269 n. 56). But by that argument only absolutely explicit statements by stage-figures are allowed to qualify as indicators of character and motivation. Like these perhaps: (Clytemnestra) ‘I am trying to persuade Agamemnon to walk on the tapestries in order to establish a psychological domination over him, to make him commit an act, which if not itself flagrantly hybristic, will remind others of his hybristic murder of Iphigeneia, and thus to put him in the wrong so as to establish a specious justification for my murdering him’; (Agamemnon) ‘I am walking on the tapestries because I am a weak man who cannot withstand strong pressure (cf. my failure at Aulis) and besides I am greatly attracted by the idea of behaving like a hybristic oriental, though of course I know in my heart of hearts it is wrong’. Such naked affirmations of purpose would be risible in any work of literature (and scarcely less so, indeed, in real life, though presumably in real life we do not doubt that such motives can exist). Even as it is, however, the final judgements that the stage-figures make on the meaning of this scene for them as individual stage-figures do seem pretty explicit: κατ­ έστραμμαι (956—Agamemnon knows he has been ‘subjugated’), Ζεῦ Ζεῦ τέλειε, τὰς ἐμὰς εὐχὰς τέλει (973—Clytemnestra knows she has won—in both cases that ‘psychological’ ‘knows’ seems to me entirely justifiable) and the sequel validates their interpretations. In sum, G.’s discussions of the problem of character in tragedy are both self-contradictory and unconvincing.

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(c) Deconstructionism v. ‘Stagecraft’ and ‘Visual Meaning’ Here G. takes an even more radical position, but his arguments seem to me altogether more worthwhile (though they will appal many). The Oresteia is a trilogy of plays, which was performed in Athens in 458 BC Hence many scholars,15 have attempted detailed reconstructions of its staging. But since the Oresteia is also a text, timeless, autonomous, with a self-produced level of referentiality (etc., etc.), G. steadfastly refuses to grant such reconstruct­ions any real interpretative validity (cf., e.g., p. 203: true, he himself twice appeals—pp. 242, 253—to the fact that this text was performed before the Athenian polis, but these ad hoc appeals cohere ill with his general position). The most he will allow is that in a given performance ‘it may prove advantageous’ to take a particular line of interpretation (pp. 77f.; this of character motivation but presumably of staging as well). That would apply even to the first performance staged by Aeschylus (p. 203). In general, the attempt to use staging as an interpretative criterion falls foul of ‘the favoured stagecraft circularity of discovering action from the ambiguities of the text to limit the ambiguities of the text—interpretation to efface the work of interpretation in a supposed easy clarity’ (p. 258). Even non-deconstructionists must, ⟦62⟧ I believe, concede this position considerable force. Though the Oresteia was indeed performed in Athens in 458, it began life as a text, and if its ‘visual meaning’ is consistently problematic, one has to face up to that fact. So the key question is: how problematic is this text’s ‘visual meaning’? Unsurprisingly, G. goes too far. For example, he argues that there is no way of telling whether νιν in Cho. 997 τί νιν προσείπω, κἂν τύχω μάλ’ εὐστομῶν; refers to Clytemnestra or the net used to entangle Agamemnon (p. 100). But νιν must refer forward, otherwise 998f. (ἄγρευμα θηρός, ἢ νεκροῦ ποδένδυτον | δροίτης κατασκήνωμα) are simply left in the air, and this interpretation is confirmed by the corrective δίκτυον μὲν οὖν (999), which gives the answer to the original question (none of which is to say that the MSS line order is right). Again, the attempt to detect ambiguity of reference in αὐτὸν in 1014 (νῦν αὐτὸν αἰνῶ, νῦν ἀποιμώζω παρών—p. 198) is desperate. Nevertheless, such excesses, typical though they are, should not blind us to the general strength of G.’s position. He is right to insist that many scholarly attempts to establish a fixed visual meaning are crudely circular (cf., e.g., pp. 16–17 n. 20; pp. 257ff.), that in these plays visual reference can be ambiguous, even when deictics are used (cf., e.g., his remarks on τῶνδε in Cho. 931 on p. 183), and that the plays themselves sometimes challenge the authority, the truth content, of the visual (Orestes ‘sees’ the 15

Notably recently Taplin {1977} and Brown {1983}.

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Furies at the end of the Choephori—to him they are ‘clearly’ visible, but the chorus do not see them and regard them as doxai; Clytemnestra’s ghost in the Eumenides appears as a dream, in a dream, and so on: cf. pp. 99ff., 213ff.). Even the text’s status as a play sometimes points not to a simple, clear-cut visual meaning but to a questioning of the visual (cf. pp. 134, 204, 277 n. 65): here in fact G. arrives by a deconstructionist route at conclusions similar to those of many a conventional study of the effects of theatrical self-reference. 3

The Final Meaning

Whatever we think of the theory or G.’s application of it, we should accept that, broadly speaking, the Agamemnon and Choephori respond quite well to a deconstructionist approach: at the end of the Choephori all important questions remain explicitly unanswered. But what of the Eumenides? G.’s position is again rather inconsistent: throughout the book he makes numerous statements16 that come within a whisker of conceding that the end of the trilogy does achieve some kind of resolution—some, indeed, do formally concede this (e.g. p. 278: ‘the wait for ἀπαλλαγὴ πόνων as imaged by light is in some ways fulfilled’), but eventually he decides (p. 283) that ‘the final meaning remains undetermined’. It seems to me that he (and others like him, not by any means all deconstructionists) can only reach this position by (a) overstressing the apparently problematic; (b) insisting on equivocation where there is none; (c) failing to make simple distinctions; and (d) ignoring, or at least strenuously soft-pedalling, those elements which point to resolution or ‘closure’. These categories naturally overlap. (a) A typical example: at Eum. 898 the chorus ask: καί μοι πρόπαντος ἐγγύην θήσῃ χρόνου; and Athene replies (899): ἔξεστι γάρ μοι μὴ λέγειν ἃ μὴ τελῶ. G. comments:17 ‘The negative statement both opens the possibility of saying what will not happen—which points back to the numerous occasions of different sorts of fulfilled and unfulfilled prophecy in the trilogy; but also the double negative of Athene’s expression does not prove the positive statement that the chorus seeks (and seems to accept …)’. Which is all very well, except for the obvious fact that the positive interpretation of Athene’s words is explicitly ‘cashed out’ (as they say) in 975 διὰ παντός, 1031 τὸ λοιπόν and 1044 ἐς τὸ πᾶν. Similarly, G. argues (attractively, I believe) that καταστροφαὶ νέων | θεσμίων 16 E.g., on pp. 56, 140 n. 77, 213, 216, 217, 218, 228, 231, 259, 264, 265, 267, 269, 270, 271, 272, 275, 278. 17 P. 270; cf. Goldhill (1984) 173.

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(Eum. 490f.) means both ‘overthrow of new laws’ and ‘overthrow consisting in new laws’; the ambiguity reflecting the ambiguity in the chorus’ whole attitude to the trial (p. 240) produces a characteristic analysis of the chorus’ initial reaction to the result of the trial (p. 262): ‘The word of the law, rather than extinguishing the force of opposition  …, is, like Agamemnon’s decision, the cause of further opposition in its very act of decision: such is the logic of the double-bind’, and at the end of the book (p. 283) G. still finds ‘a continuing doubling and opposition’. Yet, as soon as the chorus accept the τιμαί ‘package’ offered by Athene (900), they have necessarily accepted both the institution of the court, a court established, like their new honours, εἰς ἅπαντ’ … χρόνον (484), and which they themselves have correctly described as νέος (490), and the result of the first trial held under it: this is at least one thing exempt from ‘the continuing doubling and opposition’. ⟦63⟧ (b) Two examples: (i) when Athene describes the various powers of the Furies, she says: περὶ τ’ ἀνθρώπων φανέρ’ ὡς τελέως | διαπράσσουσιν, τοῖς μὲν ἀοιδάς, | τοῖς δ’ αὖ δακρύων | βίον ἀμβλωπὸν παρέχουσαι (Eum. 952–5), upon which G. comments as follows:18 ‘But the ends expressed are double … “for some songs” (and we may recall the changing songs of woe, songs of marriage, the kommos etc., a series of songs which doubles into ambiguity one part of the possibility μέν … δέ!); “for some the dimmed life of tears” … Even the promised ends are only the dimmed vision of life or the ambiguities of song!’. But (1) this kind of ‘doubleness’ has nothing to do with the ‘double-bind’ and therefore does not undermine the finality of the Furies’ ordinances: of course Justice deals differently with the just and the unjust; (2) βίον ἀμβλωπόν does not point to general ‘lack of clarity in the sublunary world’ but precisely to the blindness of wrongdoers; (3) ‘songs’ must here be ‘good songs’, since (a) ἀοιδάς is in polar opposition to δακρύων (perhaps also ἀοιδάς v. δακρύων here conveys ἀ-οιζύς?) and (b) Athene’s speech here validates the Furies’ prayer for blessings on Athens in 937ff. by pointing out their powers among the immortals, those in the Underworld, and men, who are divided into two classes. Now the blessings for which the Furies have prayed fall into two classes also: things to be avoided and positive blessings; these blessings come from Heaven, the Earth, or beneath the Earth; they are to be conferred on the just Athenians. The things to be avoided are of course appropriate to wrong-doers and there is a clear link between these things and the unfortunate τοῖς δ’ of 954: ἀμβλωπόν ~ ὀμματοστερεῖς (939). The ἀοιδάς therefore correspond to the positive blessings conferred on the just Athenians: they are ‘good songs’ for good people. 18 P. 274; cf. Goldhill (1984) 173.

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(ii) G. contends (pp. 276f.) that Athene’s comment at Eum. 988f. (ἆρα φρονοῦσιν γλώσσης ἀγαθῆς | ὁδὸν εὑρίσκειν;) ‘questions with “irony or bitterness” the capability … of finding that γλώσσης ἀγαθῆς’. But the case for ‘irony and bitterness’ depends completely on G.’s acceptance of Verrall’s suggestion that ἆρα is ironic or bitter. Of course it can be, but by insisting that it is in this context G. is as ‘arbitrary’ as he accuses others of being. And why should there be irony here? The context, particularly the parallel with the question at 984f. ἦ τάδ’ ἀκούετε, πόλεως φρούριον, | οἷ’ ἐπικραίνει;, which is clearly straight, and the immediate sequel ἐκ τῶν φοβερῶν τῶνδε προσώπων | μέγα κέρδος ὁρῶ τοῖσδε πολίταις (990f.), whose asyndeton emphasises the tight logical connexion between the two utterances, rule it out. It is true that in theory a deconstructionist can argue that any possible meaning of a word can come into play in any context, but in practice even deconstructionists recognise the disciplines imposed by context (I doubt, for example, if even a deconstructionist analysis of Euripides IT 265 κἀπεχώρεσεν πάλιν [= ‘he went back’] would find it relevant that ἀποχωρέω can be used of excrement [LSJ s.v. II]). (c) G.’s failure to make two simple distinctions (or at least to make them consistently, for he is perfectly well aware of them) ties him to a crude theoretical model which can envisage only two possibilities: simple determinacy and simple indeterminacy. (c1) In general, for G., if an apparently positive formulation is phrased in such a way as to recall its negative counterpart, the positive formulation is thereby ‘undercut’ or at any rate there is a possibility of its being ‘undercut’. For example, G. comments (p. 274) on Eum. 958ff.: ‘they request ἀνδροτυχεῖς βιότους for young girls, that is, marriage, the foundation of society, the structure for human fertility, the initiation into society for women. (But is it undercut by a reminiscence of Clytemnestra’s φιλάνορας τρόπους Aga. 856? Does the hope for marriage recall its transgression in adultery?).’ This kind of argument tries to get round the obvious fact that the same thing can take good or bad forms: male–female relationships can be bad (Agamemnon–Clytemnestra) or good (ἀνδροτυχεῖς contrasting with ἀνδροκμῆτας), so can Persuasion, Victory, and Strife: an elementary distinction emphasised in the text (e.g., Eum. 974f.) and indeed from time to time by G. himself (e.g., pp. 213, 270, 275, 278). This does not of course mean that it is necessarily easy to distinguish the two, but it does mean that at the end of the Eumenides, when the ‘good forms’ of so many different things are ushered in by gods who have been at variance but who are now actively cooperating under the authority of Zeus, we just have to accept it. (c2) In general (again, even he himself makes exceptions: cf., e.g., p. 278 n. 66), G. refuses to acknowledge the theoretical possibility of solutions based

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on dynamic compromise or tension. He assumes (pp. 280ff.) that if the end of the trilogy achieves a resolution, it can only be through Athene, and then argues at length ⟦64⟧ that in that case one cannot properly talk of ‘reconciliation’ since ‘through Athene the boundaries of society and language are always already transgressed’ (p. 281). But of course Athene cannot offer a final reconciliation: her contribution, though vitally important, can only be partial: though a goddess, she cannot decide the trial by herself—she needs mortals to vote with her (470ff.), she implements legal justice in opposition to the Furies but, like them, stresses the continuing need for the deterrent effect of Fear (690ff. ~ 517ff.), she favours the male in all things (737) πλὴν γαμοῦ τυχεῖν, hence she must enlist the Furies to secure fertility in marriage (913) and general fertility. The reconciliation at the end of the Eumenides is based on a series of tensions—between Athene and the Furies, between the polis and the Furies, who become metics, at once of the city and outside it, between divine and human justice, between human free will and divine compulsion (550ff.), between maleness and femaleness, even between the ideal and the actual—Athens as she might be and Athens as she was; it remains nevertheless a reconciliation. (d) Here I simply discuss G.’s treatment of nearly the last words of the trilogy, which have of course traditionally been seen as the ultimate statement of reconciliation: (1044–6) σπονδαὶ δ’ †ἐς τὸ πᾶν ἔνδαιδες οἴκων† | Παλλάδος ἀστοῖς Ζεὺς παντόπτας | οὕτω Μοῖρά τε συγκατέβα. G. p. 282: So Zeus ‘who overlooks all’—which refers back to the interplay of authority, responsibility and over-determination as well as the important imagery of ‘over-seeing’—is in agreement with Moira, the sister of the Erinues. Was he in opposition to her before? Thomson lists examples from other works. As female to male? In these stirring final words of the trilogy, then, the suggestion of a supplementary force of authority to Zeus ‘who sees all’, παντόπτας, recalls the tension in the power and authority of the father of the gods as it asserts such omnipotence. Questions, questions, and no answers—but no attempt to find answers. The following points seem relevant:19 (i) 1044ff. balance and contrast with Ag. 1 θεοὺς μὲν αἰτῶ τῶνδ’ ἀπαλλαγὴν πόνων: the gods have brought ‘closure’. (ii) there will now be σπονδαί in Athens, and Athene, Zeus, and Moira are all responsible for this happy state of affairs; one might therefore expect an 19

It will be clear why I do not accept the arguments of Brown (1983) 28 n. 74.

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allusion to the resolution of the conflicts, real and potential, stemming from the trial, in which all three parties have been involved. in the Eumenides Μοῖρα has been firmly associated not with Zeus but with the Furies (172, 334ff., 392, 723ff., 961f.), and Zeus and the Furies took opposite sides in the trial (implicit throughout, explicit at 797ff.) and elsewhere (e.g., 972f.). συγκαταβαίνειν literally means ‘come/go/down with/together’: σύν— ‘with’, ‘together’, not apart, κατά—‘down-ness’, ‘solidity’. So two powers, previously in this play in opposition, have ‘come down together’ and their agreement will stick. there must be some relationship between Eum. 1046 συγκατέβα and Cho. 726f. νῦν γὰρ ἀκμάζει Πειθὼ δολίαν | ξυγκαταβῆναι the only other occurrence of the word in Aeschylus); the first context is one of moral ambiguity (Πειθὼ δολίαν) and partiality; the second is unambiguously joyful and all the greatest divine powers have given their aid. συγκατέβα, a singular verb, has a double subject. ‘Two-ness’ has become ‘one-ness’. The ‘continuing doubling’ (e.g., p. 283) has explicitly been unified.

…

Fittingly enough, this uneven book resists any simple judgement. G.’s unsparing application of deconstructionist method results in much impressive and convincing analysis. Any traditionalist who grits his teeth and works his way through to the end will derive great benefit and will be forced repeatedly to examine his own preconceptions. On the other hand, G.’s insistence on—one could almost say, his profound need to believe in—indeterminacy of meaning produces some arguments and some pieces of analysis (particularly in the discussion of the Eumenides) which can only be described as perverse. Rather more care and rather less missionary zeal would have improved this book. But it has many merits; above all, it brings out, in greater depth than ever before, the tremendous verbal and indeed intellectual complexity of these texts. ‘Aeschylus the primitive’ was always an unlikely notion, but Goldhill shows it to be utterly untenable. For all its faults, this is an important book.20

20 {Goldhill responded to some of JLM’s criticisms in ‘Goldhill on Molehills’, LCM 11.10 (Dec. 1986) 163–7.}

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Bibliography Brown, A. L. (1983) ‘The Erinyes in the Oresteia: Real Life, the Supernatural, and the Stage’, JHS 103: 13–34. Clark, G. (1985) ‘Review of W. B. Tyrrell, Amazons: a Study in Athenian Mythmaking (Baltimore, 1984)’, LCM 10: 79. Devereux, G. (1976) Dreams in Greek Tragedy (Oxford). Goldhill, S. (1984) ‘Two Notes on τέλος and Related Words in the Oresteia’, JHS 104: 169–76. Heath, M. (1985) ‘A Post-Structuralist Aeschylus’, CR 35: 243–6. Lynn-George, M. (1982) ‘Review of J. Griffin, Homer on Life and Death (Oxford, 1980)’, JHS 112: 239–45. Macleod, C. W. (1982) ‘Politics and the Oresteia’, JHS 102: 124–44; repr. in id., Collected Essays (Oxford, 1983) 20–40. Otis, B. (1981) Cosmos and Tragedy: an Essay on the Meaning of Aeschylus (Chapel Hill). Parker, R. (1985) ‘Brief Reviews: Greek Literature’, G&R 32: 209–12. Segal, C. (1982) Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides’ ‘Bacchae’ (Princeton). Taplin, O. (1977) The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford). Taplin, O. (1985) ‘Crampons the Style’, TLS March 15 1985: 292. Vessey, D. W. T. (1985) ‘From Mountain to Lovers’ Tryst: Horace’s Soracte Ode’, JRS 75: 26–38. Vickers, B. (1973) Towards Greek Tragedy (London). Zeitlin, F. I. (1982) Under the Sign of the Shield: Semiotics and Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes (Rome; repr. Lanham, Md., 2009).

Part 7 Latin Literature

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A Note on Cicero, ad Quintum fratrem 2.10(9).3 Lucreti poemata ut scribis ita sunt, multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis. sed cum ueneris. uirum putabo si Sallusti Empedoclea legeris; hominem non putabo. A notorious passage. Scholars have traditionally found two main difficulties: interpretation of the judgement of Lucretius’ poetry (multis … artis) and of the sentence uirum … non putabo. It is the second difficulty that I discuss here. Many scholars have resorted to more or less radical surgery of the text, among them Ernesti, Orelli, Lachmann, Bergk, Munro, and Housman. Nearly all of these have supposed that the alleged corruption of the uirum … non putabo sentence is part of a greater corruption which includes the judgement of Lucretius’ poetry. But even some of those (like Munro) who have righty argued that the judgement of Lucretius makes excellent sense as it stands have found the uirum/hominem contrast impossible to explain. The great Housman was emphatic that the contrast made no sense: ‘If one is not a human being, one cannot be a stout-hearted man nor a man of any sort’.1 Defenders of the text have offered different interpretations of it. J. Vahlen took hominem to mean a man of taste, possessing a pulchri sensum et decori,2 a meaning which, as Housman emphasised, homo cannot have. Tyrrell and Purser cite Cicero, ad Fam. 5.17.3 and Tusc. 2.53, and interpret uirum as ‘a being possessed of the resolution of a man, and none of the weakness of humanity’.3 Although this interpretation ⟦64⟧ is on the right general lines (they might also have cited ad Brut. 1.9.1 in support of it), it does not, I think, do full justice to the implication of the uirum/hominem contrast, nor are Tyrrell and Purser able to supply a parallel for the disjunction of uir and homo. Most recently Shackleton Bailey4 has countered Housman’s objection to the text as follows: it is quite possible to say of the same performance ‘you must be a real stalwart to read it’ and ‘you must be more (or less) than a human being 1 2 3 4

Housman (1919) 72f. = (1972) III.986f. Vahlen (1869) I.154. Tyrrell and Purser (1904–33) II.125. Shackleton Bailey (1980) 191, quoting from id. (1973) 190, his review of Housman.

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to read it’. In a private letter … Cicero says these two things in the same breath, not, if I am not mistaken, because he was blind to a logical absurdity, but because he thought it mildly amusing. This too, as far as it goes, is fair comment. We may agree that Housman’s difficulty takes no account of the fact that Cicero is making a little joke. But there is, I think, more to Cicero’s wording than that. While I cannot produce an exact parallel, I think it is fairly clear that Cicero is in fact playing with a standard paradoxical jibe against the Stoics. Although Cynic-Stoic thought is, in essence, relatively non-sexist, it is common for Cynics and Stoics to describe virtue in terms of ‘manliness’. Thus, for example, both Antisthenes and Diogenes are credited with the descriptions of Sparta as the ἀνδρωνῖτις and Athens as the γυναικωνῖτις (Theon, Progymn. 33 = Antisthenes F 195 DC {= 7 Prince}; D.L. 6.59). Antisthenes is said τῆς ἀνδρω­ δεστάτης Στωικῆς κατάρξαι (D.L. 6.14 = Antisthenes F 135A DC {= 22A Prince}). Several dicta attributed to Diogenes show him using ἀνήρ in a positive sense (e.g., D.L. 6.27, 33, and 43). A similar usage of uir is quite frequent in Seneca. Cf., e.g., de tranq. anim. 5.4: immo ille uir fuerit, qui periculis undique imminentibus, armis circa et catenis frementibus non alliserit uirtutem nec absconderit; de const. sap. 1.1: Stoici uirilem ingressi uiam; de uit. beat. 13.6–7: hoc tale est, quale uir fortis stolam indutus; constat tibi pudicitia, uirilitas salua est … sed in manu tympanum est! … qui uoluptatem sequitur, uidetur eneruis, fractus, degenerans uiro. So also in Dio 4.35–8 (a basically Cynic text) the ἀνανδρία of eunuchs is a metaphor for philosophical ignorance. Vir/ἀνήρ can thus in Cynic and Stoic texts be an almost technical term for the man of virtue possessed of ἀπάθεια, καρτερία, etc. Naturally such a usage is merely an extension of the normal ‘strong’ sense of the word ‘man’, but it remains true that in certain contexts ἀνήρ or uir can have a distinctively philosophical implication. Now, although the Cynics and Stoics of course claimed that the Cynic or Stoic ideal figure was an ἄνθρωπος in the fullest sense, it was open to their philosophical opponents, taking, as it were, the side of ordinary humanity, to make the counter-claim that the ideal was, literally, inhuman. Thus Plutarch describes L. Brutus’ treatment of his sons as οὐδ᾽ ἀνθρώπινον,5 and Pliny doubts whether such Stoics can be regarded as homines at all (Ep. 8.16.3–4, quoted below). It is therefore easy to see that a Stoic (or Cynic) who in his own terms was an ἀνήρ or uir by virtue of his ἀπάθεια and καρτερία might be vulnerable to the charge of not being an ἄνθρωπος or homo at all in the opinion of other 5 Plut. Popl. 6.5; for useful discussion of this and similar passages in Plutarch see Babut (1969) 363ff.

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people. Two passages seem to me to show that such a charge might be couched in terms very similar to those of ad Quint. frat. 2.10(9).3: (a) In Ep. 8.16 Pliny reflects on his feelings at the illness or death of slaves. He confesses he feels distress, and continues (3–4): nec ignoro alios eius modi casus nihil amplius uocare quam damnum, eoque sibi magnos homines et sapientes uideri. qui an magni sapientesque sint nescio; homines non sunt. hominis est enim adfici dolore sentire, resistere tamen et solacia admittere, non solaciis non egere. The alii, very clearly, are Stoics, and not just ‘philosophers’.6 Such Stoics claim to be ‘great men’, but according to Pliny they are not ‘men’ at all. (b) In Demonax 21 Lucian records an exchange between the fanatical Cynic philosopher Peregrinus and Demonax, who is best classed as a moderate Cynic in the tradition of Crates. Peregrinus rebuked what he regarded as Demonax’ levity with the accusation οὐ κυνᾷς, to which Demonax replied οὐκ ἀνθρωπίζεις. The point? Cynics of course by definition ought to be κύνες, hence Peregrinus is accusing Demonax of not fulfilling his proper role, whereas according to Demonax Peregrinus has carried his ‘doggishness’ to such extremes that he can no longer be considered an ἄνθρωπος, even though in Cynic theory the Cynic ‘dog’ is the only true ἄνθρωπος (cf., e.g., D.L. 6.41). Like Pliny, Demonax does not so much deny the other’s description of himself as insist that he has carried his philosophical position so far that he has to be excluded from the ranks of humanity. It is clear that in itself Cicero’s wording could be a similar formulation. But how would this fit the context? Rather well. Cicero is talking about two works of philosophical literature. Lucretius’ is excellent, but Quintus will need to be a ‘real man’ and not a normal human being to cope with Sallust’s: implication—reading that work is a task requiring superhuman fortitude. An implicit allusion to Stoic ἀπάθεια/καρτερία would be highly appropriate. We may also note that Quintus may have been sympathetic to Stoicism: in Book 5 of the de Finibus he is represented as assenting to the philosophical position of Antiochus of Ascalon (though the philosophia of 5.96 is presumably specifically that of the Peripatetic school) and in de diuinatione 1.9–10ff. as taking a basically Stoic stance. The notion of ⟦64⟧ Quintus as an ideal Stoic might also have afforded Cicero some private amusement. There seems, in any case, to be every likelihood that Cicero’s words contain a playful allusion to 6 Pace Sherwin-White (1966) 467.

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a standard paradoxical jibe against the Stoics: if Quintus can make his way through Sallust’s Empedoclea he’ll be a real Stoic—not a normal human being at all. Bibliography Babut, D. (1969) Plutarque et le stoïcisme (Paris). Housman, A. E. (1919) ‘Notes on Martial’, CQ 13: 68–80; repr. in id., The Classical Papers of A. E. Housman, edd. J. Diggle and F. R. D. Goodyear, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1972) III.982–95. Shackleton Bailey, D. R. (1973) ‘Review of The Classical Papers of A. E. Housman (1972)’, Cambridge Review 94: 189–90. Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. (1980) Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem et M. Brutum (Cambridge). Sherwin-White, A. N. (1966) The Letters of Pliny (Oxford). Tyrrell, R. Y. and L. C. Purser, edd. (1904–33) The Correspondence of M. Tullius Cicero2 (vol. I3), 7 vols. (Dublin). Vahlen, J. (1869) Opuscula, vol. 1 (Vienna).

Chapter 66

Aristotle and Dido’s Hamartia Scholars have long recognised that the story of Dido in the Aeneid is structured like a Greek tragedy and that several of Aristotle’s concepts in the Poetics can profitably be applied to it. Here I return to an old question, to which no answer yet given has commanded general assent: if Dido is a tragic heroine, what, in Aristotelian terms, is her hamartia? I shall argue that Aristotle’s model of tragedy provides a useful blueprint for gauging both Dido’s moral responsibility for her downfall and the moral and emotional response to it which Virgil expects from his readers.1 These matters have indeed been very extensively discussed by very distinguished scholars, but in many areas of classical literature—and nowhere more than in the Aeneid—modern criticism has become so sophisticated and so attuned to the detection of subtleties such as irony, ambiguity, and ambivalence that it sometimes misses the significance of what is simple and obvious. Aristotle’s model of tragedy, while not a refined critical tool,2 helps us to isolate some basic truths about the tragedy of Dido. I begin with an exposition of the relevant parts of Aristotle’s analysis,3 because even today much of it is often imperfectly understood. Aristotle, quite reasonably, takes it for granted that the plot of most tragedies revolves round a single central figure, and that it is primarily his or her change of fortune or metabasis (a change usually, though not necessarily, from good fortune to bad) which arouses the requisite pity and fear in the audience. (This does not imply that other figures in the drama are of no significance. The actions and sufferings of the central figure have to be seen in relation to those of others.) The central figure must be ‘of high repute and great good fortune’ 1 For the relevance of tragedy and Aristotle’s prescriptions to the Dido story, see most recently Muecke (1983) (with full bibliography). Rudd (1976) 32–53 surveys various interpretations of Dido’s ‘culpa’/hamartia and concludes on an agnostic note. Whether Virgil had read the Poetics naturally cannot be established. It is chronologically possible that he had, even if one believes that Aristotle’s major treatises went out of general circulation in the Hellenistic period: cf. Earl (1972) 850ff. on the date of their re-emergence in Rome. On the other hand, Brink (1963) 140 finds ‘no evidence of any first-hand knowledge of Aristotle’s Poetics in Horace’s time’. What matters here is that Aristotle’s prescriptions seem to work both with Greek tragedy and the story of Dido and that they had currency in early Augustan Rome, though perhaps only through intermediaries such as Neoptolemus. 2 It is of course not meant to be: Aristotle is trying to define the essence of tragedy, necessarily a process of simplification and generalisation. 3 I here follow the views of Stinton (1975), with my own modifications in Moles (1979).

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(Poet. 13, 1453a10), so that his change of fortune may be more extreme, hence more dramatic. That apart, the successful arousal of pity and fear depends on two main factors: (1) the audience must be able to identify with the central figure, so that they are emotionally affected by his sufferings; and (2) the central figure’s change of fortune must broadly satisfy what Aristotle describes as τὸ φιλάνθρωπον (Poet. 13, 1452b38, 1453a2–3)—‘human feelings’, or, in effect, the sense of natural justice that we feel as human beings.4 These two requirements have profound implications for the characterisation of the central figure. Aristotle seems to believe that as a general rule we identify with people who are neither very good nor very bad, but somewhere in ⟦49⟧ between, people who are ‘like ourselves’ (ὅμοιος, 13, 1453a6).5 But it is desirable that the central figure should be ‘better rather than worse’ (Poet. 13, 1453a15–16): the emotion generated by the downfall of such a person will be greater because it is human nature to be more affected by the downfall of the good. Since also pity is aroused by undeserved suffering (Poet. 13, 1453a4, ἀνάξιον … δυστυχοῦντα), there must be a degree of disproportion in the sufferings of the central figure: he must suffer beyond his deserts. Yet this disproportion must have a limit, otherwise the affront to our sense of natural justice becomes too great and we feel ‘moral revulsion’ (τὸ μιαρόν, Poet. 13, 1452b36) rather than pity and fear. The ideal tragic figure is therefore ‘the man between these’ (sc. the poles ‘very good’ and ‘very bad’). ‘He is one who is not pre-eminent in moral virtue, who passes to bad fortune not through vice or wickedness, but because of some hamartia’ (Poet. 13, 1453a7–8); again, ‘the change of fortune should be produced not through wickedness, but through some great hamartia, on the part of such a person as I have described, or a better one rather than a worse’ (Poet. 13, 1453a15–17).6 Here we confront the notorious problem: what does Aristotle mean here by hamartia? The old view was that hamartia refers to a ‘flaw of character’, the modern view (at least until recently) that it means ‘error’, ‘mistake of fact’, that is, an act done in ignorance of some salient circumstances, in effect an error of identity (e.g., Oedipus’ killing of Laius in ignorance of the fact that Laius was his father). But our understanding of Aristotle’s concept of hamartia has been greatly advanced by an excellent study by T. C. W. Stinton, which appeared in 1975.7 Stinton demonstrates conclusively that hamartia can have a very wide 4 For this interpretation of τὸ φιλάνθρωπον, Hubbard (1972) 106 n. 2; Stinton (1975) 238 n. 2 {= (1990) 165 n. 46}. 5 ὅμοιος certainly implies ‘not very bad’; whether it also implies ‘not very good’ (as usually argued) is less clear: see my discussion (1979) 92–4 {above, pp. 544–6}. 6 Translated by Hubbard (1972) 106–7, except that I have left ἁμαρτία as it stands. 7 Cf. n. 3 above.

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range of application indeed. It can refer not only to ‘mistakes of fact’, but also to acts done under the influence of passion, to acts done through weakness of will (ἀκρασία), to ‘mixed acts’ (i.e., wrong acts done for the sake of a greater good), and/or to the various dispositions or characters that correspond to these various kinds of acts. So interpreted, hamartia fulfils the general requirements of Poetics 13 in the following ways: (1) There is a direct causal connection between the actions of the tragic agent and his downfall—his downfall is not arbitrary (this does not necessarily imply that he is morally culpable to any degree). (2) Whatever the precise nature of his hamartia (and, as we have seen, the range of possibilities is large), in every case it must fall short of ‘vice or wickedness’ and it must be possible to make a plea of mitigation for it. In some cases (certain kinds of ‘mistakes of fact’), no moral culpability at all may attach to the hamartia of the tragic agent. In most cases, there will be some moral culpability, which will vary ⟦50⟧ according to the particular circumstances, but in all cases there must be some exonerating factors. (3) Our sense of natural justice is satisfied, because: (a) in all cases there is a causal connection between the central figure’s actions and his downfall; (b) in cases where some moral culpability attaches to the agent, we feel that his downfall is, to some extent, just; (c) in cases where no moral culpability at all attaches to the specific hamartia of the tragic figure, he is given some unattractive qualities (e.g., Oedipus’ tyrannical bent and volcanic temper) which ensure that we are not outraged by his fall into misfortune, even if, on a cool assessment, it would seem unjust. (4) We nevertheless feel that the central figure has suffered beyond his deserts, is ἀνάξιος δυστυχῶν, because in all cases there are some mitigating circumstances for his actions. Aristotle’s model therefore takes account of many different types of tragic situation. His emphasis on the hamartia of the tragic agent also focuses on one of the most important concerns of tragedy—at any rate, of great tragedy: moral choice. For his model requires the audience in turn to make moral judgements about the rightness or wrongness of the tragic figure’s behaviour and the justice or injustice of his fate.8 This necessarily involves consideration of 8 I stress here (since this is often misunderstood) that Aristotle’s view of the moral element in tragedy is radically different from Plato’s. Aristotle does not require that tragedy should be morally improving: his point is that if the plots of tragedy do not harmonise, more or less,

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the tragic agent’s hamartia, which in turn requires scrutiny of his motivation in committing the hamartia and hence also of his character (on Aristotle’s definition, character—ethos—is ‘that which makes plain the nature of the moral choice—prohaeresis—the personages make’, Poet. 6, 1450b8–9). Let us now apply Aristotle’s prescriptions to the tragedy of Dido. In the story of Dido and Aeneas the focus is primarily upon Dido: she corresponds to the central tragic figure of the Aristotelian model. As a queen and the founder of a city, whose downfall is great, she fits into the category of ‘those who are of high repute and great good fortune’ but ‘pass to bad fortune’. Her character has of course been very variously assessed, yet most of us will agree that, in Aristotelian terms, she is ‘like us’, in being somewhere ‘between’ the poles ‘very good’ and ‘very bad’. On the one hand, she is a dutiful ruler, she treats Aeneas and the Trojans with sympathy, kindness, and hospitality, she is devoted to her sister and feels love and loyalty to the dead Sychaeus, and so on; on the other, she is over-emotional, neglects her public duties in her distraction over Aeneas (Aen. 4.86ff.), succumbs to ‘furor’, engages in dubious magical rites, and curses Aeneas at the end. Yet, on balance, she is surely ‘better rather than worse’. What is her hamartia? She has fallen in love with Aeneas, but this indeed is hardly her fault, ⟦51⟧ for it has been brought about through direct divine intervention and forced upon her. It is true that her passion for Aeneas is also psychologically plausible on the human plane, but on either level this is a love from which there is no escape—‘moral choice’ (prohaeresis) does not come into it. But, given that she has fallen in love, she now has to make a decision: what should she do about it?—and this question is extensively discussed by her and her sister. This is indeed a matter for ‘moral choice’, on the Aristotelian model. And Dido makes her choice when she and Aeneas meet in the cave (Aen. 4.165–72): speluncam Dido dux et Troianus eandem deueniunt. prima et Tellus et pronuba Iuno dant signum; fulsere ignes et conscius aether conubiis, summoque ulularunt uertice Nymphae. ille dies primus leti primusque malorum causa fuit; neque enim specie famaue mouetur nec iam furtiuum Dido meditatur amorem: coniugium uocat, hoc praetexit nomine culpam. with the audience’s moral sense, this interferes with the aesthetic purpose of tragedy—the arousal of pity and fear.

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Since the story of Dido and Aeneas as a whole is conceived as a tragedy, it seems legitimate to analyse this key scene in specifically tragic terms.9 Here we have the climactic moment, the moment of decision. The decision is made, and Virgil himself steps out of the narrative and pronounces his own judgement, almost in the style of a tragic chorus. As in tragedy, the author demands a moral response from his audience. The sentiment ‘ille dies primus … malorum causa fuit’ also reflects the ἀρχὴ κακῶν (‘beginning of evils’) motif so basic to the thought and narrative patterning of Homeric epic and Greek tragedy.10 In itself the word ‘culpa’ can cover a wide range of failings—from the trivial to the great,11 and it takes its precise meaning from its context. In both respects it resembles hamartia. Since (a) the whole story of Dido and Aeneas is a ‘tragedy’, (b) the specific context responds to ‘tragic’ analysis, and (c) ‘culpa’ is a suitable Latin equivalent for hamartia, Virgil here seems to be telling us, almost in so many words, that Dido’s ‘culpa’ was her hamartia.12 What, then, is it? In context it makes no sense to think of some general ‘moral flaw’: one cannot ‘praetexo’ a ‘moral flaw’ by calling it ‘coniugium’! Quite clearly, her ‘culpa’ is her act in giving herself to Aeneas. But in what respect is this a ‘culpa’? One popular interpretation has been that the ‘culpa’ lies in her abnegation of her oaths to Sychaeus. Yet this makes no sense in context. To defend herself against criticism Dido calls her ‘culpa’ a ‘coniugium’. Her ‘culpa’ cannot be disloyalty to Sychaeus, for any association with a man, whether licit or illicit, necessarily involves abnegation of her oaths to Sychaeus and to protest ⟦52⟧ that her association with Aeneas was a ‘coniugium’ does nothing at all to meet that charge,13 as indeed Dido herself has already recognised (Aen. 4.15–19). In a more refined version of the interpretation of ‘culpa’ as = ‘disloyalty to Sychaeus’, Gordon Williams argues that ‘the words can just as well mean this: what Dido was doing was culpable, but this fact was concealed by her regarding it as marriage’.14 But this still fails to meet the logical objection that Dido’s regarding what she was doing as marriage has no bearing on her feelings of obligation to Sychaeus. Even more important, Virgil’s words clearly imply that Dido is behaving badly and knows it: she ‘is no longer influenced by 9 Cf. the interesting observations of Foster (1973–4) 32. 10 According to Williams (1968) 379, the wording echoes ‘the last words of the Spartan ambassador at the end of the last peace conference before the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides ii. 12.3)’. Maybe so, but the colouring of the Spartan ambassador’s words is itself epic/tragic, and this colouring is what is important in our passage. 11 See TLL and OLD s.v. 12 Most scholars assume this equivalence. 13 For similar arguments, cf. Monti (1981) 106–7 n. 29. 14 Williams (1968) 379.

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appearances or reputation; no longer is it a secret love she practises. She calls it marriage—with this name she conceals her “culpa”.’ Dido, now shameless, says something (she does not just ‘regard’ it) which is not true. Virgil draws a clear contrast between Dido’s outward behaviour and the inner reality. The obvious meaning of Virgil’s words is that the ‘culpa’ consists in the illicit nature of her love-making with Aeneas, which Dido, to defend her reputation, tries to present as proper ‘coniugium’.15 ‘Culpa’ of course very often refers to sexual misbehaviour16—a thoroughly appropriate implication in a context where two people have just made love and the woman is criticised for shamelessness. Some scholars, indeed, preeminently Gordon Williams, have strenuously resisted this simple conclusion. Williams17 argues that (a) Juno refers to the union of Dido and Aeneas as a proper marriage (Aen. 4.99, 103–4, 125–7); (b) the responses of the elements, Juno, and the nymphs to the ‘wedding’ are ritually correct; (c) in Roman law and social practice cohabitation and consent were sufficient to validate a marriage; (d) Dido later regards her relationship with Aeneas as marriage; (e) in Ovid’s treatment of the incident in the cave (Heroides 7.93–6) Dido at the time sincerely regards herself as having become Aeneas’ wife. All these observations are correct in themselves, but they do not validate the conclusion that Dido is acting in good faith. For her own purposes Juno desires the union of the two lovers to be a permanent marriage: this does not amount to an objective statement of the nature of their union. While the divine responses to the ‘wedding’ are indeed ritually correct, the emotional effect is of a ghastly parody of the norm, suggesting rather that this marriage presided over by Juno is not a true marriage at all.18 As for the point about Roman marriage practice, at this juncture in the narrative Dido and Aeneas are not yet cohabiting: they have only made love once! Nor, as we learn later, even as time passed, did Aeneas ever give his consent. Nor are Dido’s subsequent thoughts about her prolonged cohabitation with Aeneas relevant to the immediate context. Finally, though Ovid is certainly recycling Virgilian material in Heroides 7, it is ⟦53⟧ wholly illegitimate to invoke his ‘authority’ in support of a contentious interpretation of Virgil’s meaning: Ovid is not bound to follow Virgil in every respect. In sum, Virgil’s wording in verses 165–72 shows quite clearly (a) that the union of Dido and Aeneas is not a proper ‘coniugium’, (b) that it is a ‘culpa’ (in the sense ‘sexual misdemeanour’), and (c) that at this point Dido knows 15 16 17 18

Cf. Monti (1981) 106–7 n. 29. TLL, s.v., IV, col. 1302.67–1303.18. Williams (1968) 378ff. Page ad loc. {(1894) 357–8} has some characteristically good observations.

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that she is not married to Aeneas but pretends to the world that she is to avoid disgrace. Dido’s ‘culpa’ or hamartia, then, consists precisely in her submitting sexually to Aeneas out of wedlock. In Aristotelian terms, this may be defined as a wrong act committed through weakness of will because of her passion for Aeneas. It is this hamartia which sets in motion the chain of events which produces her ‘change of fortune’ to ill fortune, as Virgil himself indicates (‘ille dies’). There is a direct causal link, as Aristotle requires, between Dido’s hamartia and her metabasis. Her act is culpable, but it is not an act of ‘vice or wickedness’: there are some exonerating circumstances and a fair plea of mitigation for her conduct can be made (she is in love, not fully in control of herself, and so on). But Dido’s ‘passing’ into ‘misfortune’ does fulfil the requirement of ‘human feeling’, for her downfall is to some extent the result of her own wrong-doing: it is basically just. Yet there is also the necessary tragic disproportion between fault and fate to arouse our pity (Aen. 4.696, ‘quia nec fato merita nec morte peribat’; cf. 4.693, ‘tum Iuno omnipotens, longum miserata dolorem’). All this is of course a considerable simplification of the tragedy of Dido. Nevertheless, we can see that the Aristotelian model of tragedy does enable us to pin-point the essential nature of Dido’s ‘culpa’/hamartia and to establish the broad parameters of the moral and emotional response to her downfall which Virgil wants from us. Finally, a few brief observations on the reasons why Virgil chooses to represent the liaison of Dido and Aeneas, whatever its ultimate status, as beginning in sexual misconduct. Such a detail might seem gratuitous: after all, any emotional entanglement between Dido and Aeneas is bound to end unhappily. In fact it serves several purposes. It is inconceivable that Aeneas could have considered marriage with Dido had it been offered to him in the proper way, whereas it is both realistic and psychologically convincing that he should drift into a relationship with Dido after both have succumbed to temptation in the cave. From the point of view of the plot Dido’s seduction is in fact a sine qua non of Aeneas’ staying on with her in Carthage at all. Again, the fact that their liaison begins with seduction sheds a critical light on Dido’s love for Aeneas, Aeneas’ response, and indeed upon the emotion itself: however sympathetically Virgil may portray its victims, love is a passion, often destructive in its effects and ignoble in its manifestations. The statesman ⟦54⟧ must avoid it, or, if he becomes enslaved by it, free himself from its toils as soon as possible. Hence Aen. 4.393: ‘At pius Aeneas’. Those words are no aberration but the emphatic judgement of Virgil the moralist at his most explicit.19 19

It will be clear why I completely disagree with the arguments of Farron (1980). Nor can I accept the ‘morality is irrelevant’ attitude of Feeney (1983) 205 n. 10 (‘it is not a matter of

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Dido Revisited20

Apropos of ‘Aristotle and Dido’s Hamartia’, Dr. C. Bullock-Davies enquires: ‘who seduced whom in the cave?’. Putnam (1984), reviewing Monti (1981), has no doubts: ‘we may exclaim on Aeneas’ weakness in submitting to her advances, but she is the seducer. The dux femina facti of Book 1 (364) becomes, with heavy alliteration, Dido dux who, in Juno’s words at 4.124 (confirmed by the narrator at 165), leads Aeneas to the cave and its perversion of marriage’ (surprisingly, Putnam does not point to the further ‘parallel’ between 1.365 deuenere and 4.125/165 deuenient/deueniunt). But the suggested picture of Dido eagerly leading Aeneas into the cave, her mind already intent on love-making before they have reached shelter, is quite unrealistic and little short of ludicrous. In 4.124/165 speluncam Dido dux et Troianus eandem, the et is clearly postpositive and dux goes with Troianus, as all commentators have seen (cf., e.g., Pease {(1935) 176} and Austin {(1955) 57} on 4.124). There is thus no parallel with 1.364–5. Aeneas is described as dux Troianus because Juno hopes that the union of Dido and Aeneas will bring about the union of their respective peoples (4.99–104). If the postponed et (which is common in poetry) has any particular point, then perhaps it is that it ‘seems to link the two unsuspecting subjects more closely’ (R. D. Williams ad loc. {(1972) 344}). So Virgil does not tell us ‘who seduced whom in the cave’, and indeed he surely does not intend us even to ask that question. Bibliography Austin, R. G., ed. (1955) P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber Quartus (Oxford). Brink, C. O. (1963) Horace on Poetry I: Prolegomena to the Literary Epistles (Cambridge). Earl, D. C. (1972) ‘Prologue-Form in Ancient Historiography’, ANRW I.2: 842–56. Farron, S. (1980) ‘The Aeneas-Dido Episode as an Attack on Aeneas’ Mission and Rome’, G&R 27: 34–47. Feeney, D. C. (1983) ‘The Taciturnity of Aeneas’, CQ 33: 204–19. Foster, J. (1973–4) ‘Some Devices of Drama used in Aeneid 1–4’, PVS 13: 28–41.

“judging”, still less of deciding which “side” we favour’). In Book 4, vv. 169–72 and 393 are explicit moral ‘sign-posts’. 20 {This paragraph originally appeared as the first part of Moles (1984).}

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Hubbard, M. E., trans. (1972) ‘Aristotle’s Poetics’, in D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom, edd., Ancient Literary Criticism: the Principal Texts in New Translations (Oxford) 85–132. Moles, J. L. (1979) ‘Notes on Aristotle’s Poetics 13 and 14’, CQ n.s. 29: 77–94 [above, Ch. 59]. Moles, J. L. (1984) ‘Brutus and Dido Revisited’, LCM 9: 156. Monti, R. C. (1981) The Dido Episode and the Aeneid: Roman Social and Political Values in the Epic (Leiden). Muecke, F. (1983) ‘Foreshadowing and Dramatic Irony in the Story of Dido’, AJPh 104: 134–55. Page, T. E., ed. (1894) The Aeneid of Virgil: Books I–IV (London). Pease, A. S., ed. (1935) Publi Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber quartus (Cambridge, Mass.). Putnam, M. C. J. (1984) ‘Review of Monti (1981)’, CPh 79: 72–6. Rudd, N. (1976) Lines of Enquiry: Studies in Latin Poetry (Cambridge). Stinton, T. C. W. (1975) ‘Hamartia in Aristotle and Greek Tragedy’, CQ 25: 221–54; repr. in id., Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1990) 143–86. Williams, G. (1968) Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford). Williams, R. D., ed. (1972) Virgil: Aeneid I–VI (London).

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Politics, Philosophy, and Friendship in Horace Odes 2.7 In Horace’s welcome poem to his friend Pompeius, Nisbet and Hubbard detect hints of criticism of Brutus and the Republican cause.* Similarly, Quinn writes: ‘Pompeius’ return provides an opportunity for Horace to say in effect (on behalf of others as well as Pompeius and himself) “it’s no use pretending we weren’t on the wrong side in the Civil Wars”.’ New interpretations of well-loved texts inevitably encounter resistance.1 Here I shall reaffirm the case that Horace is indeed critical of Brutus and the Republican past and I shall further argue that this criticism is an important part of the poem’s meaning. O saepe mecum tempus in ultimum deducte Bruto militiae duce, quis te redonauit Quiritem dis patriis Italoque caelo, Pompei, meorum prime sodalium cum quo morantem saepe diem mero fregi coronatus nitentis malobathro Syrio capillos? Nisbet and Hubbard comment on line 2: ‘the figura etymologica with deducte seems to imply reproach; the participle, which need mean no more ⟦60⟧ than a colourless ‘brought’, now begins to suggest incompetent manoeuvres’. But to most scholars deducte is a standard, neutral, military term, used, like mecum, tempus in ultimum, and the ablative absolute, to give Horace’s reminiscences an appropriately military flavour. Deduco in the latter sense is indeed very common, but Nisbet and Hubbard reasonably cite Bell. Alex. 7.1 ut ad extremum periculi omnes deducti uiderentur * I am grateful to Professors R. G. M. Nisbet and F. Cairns for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 1 Nisbet–Hubbard (1978) 106–21; Quinn (1980) 210; Nisbet–Hubbard’s views are sharply criticised by (e.g.) Griffin (1980) 183; McDermott (1981) 234–5. The neglected study of Edelstein (1941) contains several anticipations of the views of Nisbet–Hubbard, Quinn, and myself, though I disagree with the substance of Edelstein’s argument.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_040

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for the implication ‘lead incompetently’. We might also recall that deduco can mean ‘lead astray’ metaphorically.2 But the question cannot be decided by appeal to parallels, on one side or the other, for deducte in isolation. Deducte … duce is certainly a figura etymologica, hence Nisbet and Hubbard’s interpretation immediately comes into consideration, since in compounds the prefix de can function analogously to the Greek alpha-privative, implying reversal, negation, or defectiveness.3 It would not be inappropriate, in a poem so heavily influenced by Greek models, if Horace were employing a figura etymologica designed to recall Greek oxymorons based on negative compounds, such as γάμος ἄγαμος, ὕπνος ἄϋπνος, etc. Graecisms of this kind are infrequent in Latin, but we find funera … nec funera (Cat. 64.83), insepulta sepultura (Cic. Phil. 1.5) and innuptis nuptiis (a tragic quotation in Cic. de orat. 3.219). Most strikingly of all, Cicero, in clear imitation of the Greek idiom, describes Pompey as a dux … ἀστρατήγητος (ad Att. 7.13.1; cf. 8.16.1). As a form of words, then, deducte … duce ‘could’ mean ‘misled under the leadership of Brutus’. Is this appropriate to the context? Several considerations indicate that it is: 1. Brutus was indeed an incompetent general and was widely so regarded by his contemporaries and later tradition. Modern scholars agree.4 The Republican decision to fight the first battle of Philippi was a bad strategic error, but it had been urged by Brutus (Plut. Brut. 39.8); in that battle his troops (his discipline being poor) charged αὐτοκέλευστοι (Plut. Brut. 41.4; Appian, BC 4.110). Brutus’ decision to fight the second battle of Philippi was equally mistaken (Plut. Brut. 56.2; App. BC 4.124). When Mark Antony had heard of the death of Cassius after the first battle, he had known at once that final victory would be his (de uir. ill. 83.7). Appian, BC 4.123 and Frontinus 4.2.1 contrast Brutus’ poor discipline ⟦61⟧ with Cassius’ strict discipline and provide convincing documentation for their views. Velleius, a military man, comments illuminatingly on the differences between Brutus and Cassius (2.71.1–2): fuit … dux Cassius melior, quanto uir Brutus: e quibus Brutum amicum habere malles, inimicum magis timeres Cassium; in altero maior uis, in altero uirtus. The implication is clear: Brutus was a very good man, Cassius a rather bad one; Cassius was a very good general, Brutus a rather bad one. Horace, a military tribune under Brutus, present at the debacle of Philippi, cannot have been unaware of Brutus’ shortcomings in battle. 2 TLL V.1 276.80ff. 3 On the range of possible meanings of the prefix ‘de-’ see OLD and L&S s.v. 4 For critical modern estimates of Brutus’ generalship see, e.g., Syme (1939) 205; Clarke (1981) 67.

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2. The statement in line 1 that Brutus led his men saepe … tempus in ultimum is extremely challenging, for that, surely, is the very last thing a good general should do.5 3. Deduco literally means ‘lead down’ and ‘down’ in Latin, as in other languages, often has negative connotations (for example, of failure or defeat). A significant pattern can be detected in the prefixes of some key verbs in the ode. Brutus led his men down (deducte, cf. line 12 solum tetigere), in contrast to the anonymous quis of lines 3ff.6 who brought Pompeius back to safety in his native land (redonauit, cf. 27 recepto), and to Mercury, who lifted Horace up from the mêlee at Philippi (14 sustulit). The three external figures in the poem transport their charges in significantly different directions. Line 2, then, does indeed hint at Brutus’ well known military incompetence, Cicero’s description of Pompey’s faulty generalship being a close parallel, close both verbally (deducte … duce and dux … ἀστρατήγητος are Graecising oxymorons) and thematically (Pompey’s and Brutus’ generalship was deficient in very similar ways).7 I pass over discussion of the second stanza for the moment, for it is ⟦62⟧ part of my argument that its full meaning only becomes clear when the reader comes to the third stanza: Tecum Philippos et celerem fugam sensi relicta non bene parmula, cum fracta uirtus et minaces turpe solum tetigere mento; Before we analyse lines 11–12, which are (I believe) the crucial lines of the poem, we must again note that here, as in the first stanza, Horace is, quite simply, 5 Attempts to discern ‘irony’ or ‘parody’ in this statement (so Nisbet–Hubbard [1978], Quinn [1980]) are surely misguided; the contrast between the first two lines (dreadful dangers) and the third and fourth lines (safe return to Rome) must be real, otherwise the emotional effect is completely lost. 6 The form of the question, which expresses surprise rather than a desire for knowledge, should discourage us from seeking to identify the quis. Therefore it is inappropriate to see an allusion to Octavian, as urged by (e.g.) Wilkinson (1951) 33f.; Nisbet–Hubbard (1978) ad loc.; Nussbaum (1981) 2122–3. 7 Cf. App. BC 4.124 (an explicit comparison between Pompey’s mishandling of the Pharsalus campaign and Brutus’ mishandling of the Philippi campaign). It is interesting to note that Appian makes Brutus say, when forced to join battle by his officers, that he is οὐ στρατηγοῦν­ τες ἔτι μᾶλλον ἢ στρατηγούμενοι. Since Appian’s account of this incident derives from Asinius Pollio (as I show in Moles [1983a]), it is tempting to suppose that Pollio’s narrative contained some kind of derogatory pun on Brutus as dux. And Horace, of course, had read Pollio (C. 2.1).

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critical of the Republicans: good soldiers do not indulge in celeris fuga or throw away their shields. The ῥιψασπία is of course peculiar to Horace himself and is (no doubt) just a fictitious literary reworking of similar incidents recorded by Archilochus (IEG2 F 5 = 8 Tarditi), Alcaeus (401B Voigt) and Anacreon (381[b] Page = 85 Gentili), but it still exemplifies the general Republican military collapse, and good armies do not collapse in this way.8 Cum fracta uirtus. This cannot just mean ‘when brave men were crushed’ (the usual interpretation), for two reasons: (1) fracta picks up fregi (line 7): the tables are turned and those who ‘broke’ were ‘broken’. It follows that Horace must somehow be included in the general category fracta uirtus, but Horace, who threw away his shield non bene, was not a ‘brave man’; (2) celerem fugam, non bene, and, as we shall see, minaces | turpe solum tetigere mento are all critical observations about the Republicans: fracta uirtus cannot be a single positive element. A good many scholars, following the lead of Porphyrio (who commented ad loc.: quia uirtute se Cassius et Brutus praecipue iactabant), have detected here an allusion to the ‘virtue’ of Brutus. Nisbet and Hubbard see an even more specific point: ‘there is a paradox in Horace’s words: one does not expect uirtus to break. He is clearly alluding to Brutus’ unbending Stoicism’.9 Let us consider first the case for a general allusion to Brutus’ ‘virtue’, aside from his alleged Stoicism. ⟦63⟧ Brutus was indeed renowned for his uirtus even in his own lifetime (cf., e.g., Cic. ad Fam. 9.14.5; Orat. 10.33), and prided himself on it (cf. ad Brut. 1.16.8; Plut. Brut. 52.5). Further, the relationship between Brutus’ much-vaunted uirtus and his political and military failure was discussed after the Republican defeat at Philippi. In the rout after the second battle Brutus’ faithful friend Lucilius told Antony that Βροῦτον … οὐδεὶς ᾕρηκεν οὐδ’ ἂν ἕλοι πολέμιος· μὴ τοσοῦτον ἡ τύχη κρατήσειε τῆς ἀρετῆς (Plut. Brut. 50.1–9; cf. the closely similar account of App. BC 4.542–5). The ultimate source for this incident is almost certainly Asinius Pollio, the great contemporary historian and friend of Horace.10 Like 8

9 10

Indeed, Horace may even be exaggerating the speed of the Republicans’ collapse: Plut. Brut. 49.4–10, App. BC 4.128, and Cass. Dio 47.48.4–5, make it much more of a fight. On the other hand, all three of these accounts contain conventional literary ‘big battle’ elements and are sympathetic to the Republican side. If Horace is indeed exaggerating, his intention is not to be flippant (celerem fugam | sensi is grimly serious) but rather to intensify his criticism of the Republicans. E.g., Commager (1962) 172 (and scholars there cited); Nisbet–Hubbard (1978) 114. For Plutarch’s and Appian’s use of Pollio cf. recently Pelling (1979) 84–5 {= (2002) 12–13}; Moles (1983b) (and n. 7 above); for more detailed argument that Pollio is the source of the Lucilius story see Moles (1979) x–lvii, 467–8 {= (2017) 3–30}.

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Lucilius, Brutus himself defiantly claimed that his uirtus was wholly unaffected by worldly failure (Plut. Brut. 52.5). The source for this is P. Volumnius, ‘philosopher’ and friend of Brutus.11 On the other side, there is the tradition that the dying Brutus quoted the tragic couplet ὦ τλῆμον ἀρετή, λόγος ἄρ’ ἦσθ’, ἐγὼ δέ σε | ὡς ἔργον ἤσκουν· σὺ δ’ ἄρ’ ἐδούλευες τύχῃ (Cass. Dio 47.49.1–2; cf. Florus 2.17.11). This presumably reflects Augustan propaganda, designed to discredit Brutus.12 Brutus’ resort to suicide, instead of attempting to carry on the struggle, seems also to have aroused contemporary criticism.13 Finally, the relationship between Brutus’ ‘virtue’ and his downfall is discussed in the historians Velleius and Valerius Maximus, both of whom, of course, reflect an Augustan perspective, and seems already to have been discussed by Asinius Pollio.14 In sum, Horace’s emphatic reference to the defeat of uirtus at Philippi would surely remind a contemporary reader of Brutus’ uirtus and prompt the question: which side does Horace take in the contemporary debate about the role of that uirtus in Brutus’ failure? ⟦64⟧ What, then, of Nisbet and Hubbard’s further suggestion? Their argument seems to be this: Brutus was a Stoic, renowned for his uirtus; it is a notorious Stoic paradox that virtue is immune to physical assault of all kinds (cf. SVF III.567ff.), including ‘breaking’ (cf., e.g., Plut. Stoic. absurd. poet. dic. 1057D); thus Horace’s wording gains additional point from being itself the paradoxical contradiction of a celebrated Stoic paradox, with direct allusion to Brutus’ Stoic uirtus. In describing Brutus as ‘Stoic’ Nisbet and Hubbard are of course technically in error,15 but this does not count seriously against their suggestion, since Brutus was a follower of Antiochus of Ascalon, whose ‘Academic’ philosophy was very heavily influenced by Stoicism and was indeed popularly regarded as indistinguishable from it.16 Moreover, among his own philosophical works, Brutus’ de uirtute was strongly Stoic in tone,17 and several pieces of evidence show that even by his contemporaries he could be seen as a sort of 11 Volumnius is explicitly mentioned in Plut. Brut. 52.2–3. 12 I discuss this tradition in detail in Moles (1983a). 13 Cf. the ὦ τλῆμον ἀρετή tradition (with discussion below p. 623) and Plut. Brut. 56.2–3 ὁ δὲ Βροῦτος τὸν ἔσχατον ἀγῶνα ὑπὲρ τῶν ὅλων οὔθ’ ὑποστῆναι δοκεῖ φρονίμως, οὔτε σφαλεὶς ἐπανόρθωσιν εὑρεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἀπεῖπε καὶ προεῖτο τὰς ἐλπίδας, οὐδ’ ὅσον Πομπήϊος ἐπιτολμήσας τῇ τύχῃ. The Brutus–Pompey σύγκρισις in this passage may derive from a motif in Pollio— cf. n. 7 above. 14 Vell. 2.72.1ff.; Val. Max. 6.4.5; Pollio: cf. the Lucilius story and the long discussion of the relationship between Brutus’ and Cassius’ ‘virtue’ and their downfall in App. BC 4.132–4, which presumably reflects a similar discussion in Pollio. 15 Cf. Griffin (1980) 183. 16 Cf. Cic. Acad. prior. 2.132. 17 Cf. Hendrickson (1939) 401ff.

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Stoic sage figure (his close association—on a family, personal, and political level—with Cato the Younger will of course have contributed to this process): 1. Cic. ad Brut. 1.15.5: cedebas … Brute, cedebas, quoniam Stoici nostri negant fugere sapientis; Cicero’s jibe assumes Brutus’ status as a Stoic exemplar. 2. Plut. Brut. 50.1–9 (cf. App. BC 4.129.542–5), quoted above, p. 621. The equation here of Brutus with Virtue is distinctively Stoic, since (a) the absolute immunity of virtue to physical assault is a Stoic conception (above) and (b) the idea of the sage as Virtue incarnate is also Stoic.18 3. Cass. Dio 47.49.1–2 (cf. Florus 2.17.11), quoted above, p. 622. This tradition also makes Brutus a Stoic, since in the tragedy the couplet was spoken by Heracles, who was a Stoic hero and whose suicide, like Brutus’ (above), aroused moral controversy; the tradition, in other words, represents Brutus as a debased Stoic, whose ‘virtue’ did not stand up in practice.19 4. Vell. Pat. 2.72.1: incorrupto animo eius [sc. Bruti] in diem quae illi omnes uirtutes unius temeritate facti abstulit (cf. Val. Max. 6.4.5 uno enim facto et illas [sc. uirtutes] in profundum praecipitauit) ⟦65⟧ also makes Brutus a corrupted Stoic, the language recalling the Stoic doctrine that there are no gradations of vice.20 In the light of all this, Nisbet and Hubbard’s suggestion that Horace’s fracta uirtus sharply contradicts the famous Stoic paradox seems highly attractive. If so, the allusion must be pejorative. The point is that Brutus’ uirtus did not come up to expectations—was not in fact true uirtus at all (true uirtus cannot ‘be broken’). Virtus, then, does not here refer to what was in fact uirtus, but rather to what was claimed (as it turned out, wrongly) to be uirtus. Now, as we have seen, the word fracta picks up fregi in line 7, hence Horace and Pompeius are somehow included within the description fracta uirtus. But Horace also was not in fact a ‘brave man’ (he threw away his shield in the general celeris fuga), so that once again we have confirmation that uirtus refers to a false claim, not an objective reality. The word uirtus thus does duty for both (1) military uirtus and (2) the philosophical uirtus of Brutus, conceived as a Stoic quality. And both, Horace implies, were defective. But there is still more to the words fracta uirtus. Virtus basically means ‘manliness’ and this basic meaning is rarely forgotten in Latin, whatever the context. Soldiers (like Horace and Pompeius) claim ‘manliness’ and so do 18

For this kind of Stoic equation cf., e.g., Vell. 2.35.2 homo uirtuti simillimus (of Cato the Younger); Tac. Ann. 16.21.1 Nero uirtutem ipsam excindere concupiuit (of Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus). 19 Cf. Moles (1983a). 20 Cf. Hellegouarc’h (1982) II.218.

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Stoic philosophers, as Brutus is here conceived to be (Stoic uirtus is a ‘manly’ thing, and the words ἀνήρ and uir are almost technical terms in Stoic, or Stoic-influenced, philosophical texts).21 But the ‘manliness’ of both groups was fracta. Fractus is a very common Latin term for ‘unmanly’.22 To Roman ears, therefore, fracta uirtus would be a striking oxymoron: ‘manliness was unmanned’. Horace, Pompeius, and the rest of the Republicans, who had thought themselves to be ‘manly’, were in the event revealed as ‘unmanly’, when they fled ignobly in the second battle of Philippi. The idea of ‘unmanning’ also suits the allusion to the ‘breaking’ of Brutus’ uirtus, since in Stoicism, Stoic uirtus being ‘manly’, failure to achieve or maintain virtue can be characterised as ‘unmanliness’.23 ‘Unmanning’ ⟦66⟧ is also quite a common notion in political contexts,24 so that fracta uirtus may also refer to the political ‘emasc­ ulation’ of Republicanism at the decisive defeat at Philippi. The idea that Philippi marked the end for Republicanism is easily paralleled: even after the first battle Brutus had hailed Cassius as ‘the last of the Romans’ (Plut. Brut. 44.2; App. BC 4.114.476f.), implying that Rome was ‘dead’,25 and Lucan was later to describe Philippi as Romani bustum populi (7.862). Indeed, throughout the Odes, Horace himself shows clear awareness of the fact that, whatever the constitutional veneer, in reality Rome was now under the rule of one man.26 Interpretation of the sentence et minaces | turpe solum tetigere mento is equally vital for our understanding of Horace’s attitude to the Republican past, yet once again, whatever we make of the detail, we should note immediately that the word minaces has a critical flavour. Some scholars here see a reworking of the Homeric motif of warriors ‘biting the dust’, others a reference to proskynesis of the victors by the vanquished, and still others a fusion of both ideas.27 In my opinion, a proskynesis reference makes much the best sense. Caes. BC 3.98.2 (re Pharsalus) passisque palmis proiecti ad terram flentes ab eo salutem petiuerunt proves that proskynesis descriptions (whether literal, metaphorical, or rhetorically exaggerated) are 21 Cf., e.g., D.L. 6.14 = Antisthenes F 135A DC {= 22A Prince}; Theon, progymn. 33 = Antisthenes F 195 DC {= 7 Prince}; D.L. 6.59; Sen. tranq. anim. 5.4; uit. beat. 13.6–7. 22 For extensive documentation see TLL VI.1, 1252.26ff.; Austin (1948) 158; Bramble (1974) 44 n. 1, 76. For specific fractus–uir contrasts cf., e.g., Quint. 5.9.14; 12.10.12; Sen. ep. mor. 115.2; uit. beat. 13.4. 23 Cf., e.g., Cic. Tusc. disp. 4.30.64; Dio 4.35ff.; Plut. Stoic. absurd. poet. dic. 1058C. 24 Cf., e.g., Cic. de orat. 3.41.164; Pol. 30.30.8; Plut. Brut. 7.7; the idea is of course also implicit in accusations of ἀνανδρία, μαλακία, mollitia, etc. 25 ‘Death’ and ‘infertility’ are related ideas in this motif: cf. Plut. Philop. 1.4. 26 Cf. Millar (1973) 66, with references. 27 ‘Biting the dust’: cf. especially Nisbet–Hubbard (1978) 115; proskynesis: ps.-Acro, Heinze, Syndikus, Quinn (1980); fusion of both: e.g., Collinge (1961) 130 n. 2.

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available in contemporary literature. We know also from App. BC 4.135 that ‘proud’ Roman aristocrats did ‘submit’ to Antony and Octavian after Philippi. Tetigere is not a natural word to use of the Homeric motif but is the uox propria for proskynesis; similarly in the Homeric motif contact is not made with the ground by the chin, but this is precisely the part of the body used in formal proskynesis (on both points cf. especially Curt. 8.5.22 unum ex iis mento contingentem humum). Finally, and most important, turpe clearly implies moral degradation: just as minaces contrasts with mento and solum (the ‘high’ and ‘proud’ are ‘made low’), so turpe contrasts with uirtus. The idea of moral degradation is alien to the Homeric motif, which stresses rather the pathos of the dying warrior’s fall, but highly appropriate to an allusion to proskynesis.28 The associations of proskynesis, an Eastern ⟦67⟧ custom, also go well with the earlier notion of ‘manliness unmanned’: the fracti uiri are like orientals, ‘unmanned’, who prostrate themselves before their master. Degrading social or political customs are often described in Latin in terms of ‘unmanliness’. So, for example, Seneca (ep. mor. 47.13) attacks those who kiss the hands of the great as delicati, whose behaviour is humilis and turpis. In our passage, therefore, not only is Horace critical of the arrogance of the Republican principes but he also sees a certain poetic justice in the fact that arrogant men sued for their lives in so degrading a manner. Again, it is instructive to compare Horace’s attitude with that of Cicero, who inveighed against not only the incompetence of the Pompeians (ad Att. 7.13.1; 8.16.1; ad Fam. 7.3.2), but also their arrogance, rapacity, and cruelty (ad Att. 11.6.2; ad Fam. 7.3.2). One last point of the proskynesis allusion: like fracta uirtus, it unobtrusively conveys the thought that the Republican past is finished; for proskynesis is paid to an autocrat. In the light of our interpretation of fracta uirtus, let us now return to the second stanza. On the face of it, it simply recalls the drinking sessions Pompeius and Horace enjoyed together in their youth. But it seems to me that it also suggests that Horace and Pompeius were ‘soft’, thus linking with the notion of ‘unmanliness’ in line 11. The two friends drank heavily (mero of unmixed wine) and began carousing early in the day. The Romans disapproved of such behaviour, associating it with moral degeneracy,29 yet that is how Horace and Pompeius behaved during the Philippi campaign, when their ‘valour’ was revealed as empty ( fracta uirtus): small wonder! 28

For incisive discussion of the problem cf. especially Heinze ap. Kiessling–Heinze (1955) 188–9. 29 Cf. Nisbet–Hubbard (1978) 112 (with references).

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Horace and Pompeius also ‘broke’ the ‘lingering’ day. This use of frango with diem cannot be paralleled exactly: the use of such words as diuido, diffindo, sumo, etc. (cf. Nisbet–Hubbard on 2.7.6 and 1.1.20) is not quite the same. Consequently, some scholars have supposed that the expression fregi … diem evokes soldiers’ boastful talk of ‘breaking’ the enemy line;30 the detail morantem coheres with this picture (the enemy line ‘holds’ until ‘broken’), the description of Horace’s garland might also suggest an implicit contrast with the decoration of the soldier, and the paradoxical juxtaposition of mero/fregi (‘breaking’ with a liquid) might allude to Hannibal’s celebrated feat of splitting the rock with wine (these last two suggestions come from Nisbet and Hubbard ad loc.). How far this interpretation should be pressed may be disputed, yet it is (I think) clear that Horace is ⟦68⟧ suggesting that he and Pompeius were only playing at being soldiers (which again links with the idea fracta uirtus—the uirtus the Republicans claimed was in fact illusory). Frango is a word that can be used in military contexts and this association is brought out in line 11 fracta uirtus. Indeed, the verbal contrast between fregi and fracta forms part of a more general contrast between the symposium scene of lines 5–8, where Pompeius and Horace are active ( fregi), and the battle scene of lines 9–16, where the situation is reversed, and they are passive participants in events which they cannot control: cf. sensi relicta … parmula, fracta, tetigere, me … sustulit, te tulit, just as they were throughout the Philippi campaign (lines 1–2 saepe … tempus in ultimum | deducte).31 This general implication goes well with fracta uirtus: the friends thought that they were uiri (active), but in fact their role was purely passive. Their only real activity was … heavy drinking! The latent idea of boasting also looks forward to lines 11–12: minaces | turpe solum tetigere mento: the Republican principes who had been minaces had to perform proskynesis—again, the tables were completely turned. Finally, we should note that, as a matter of historical fact, Brutus’ army had been over-confident and ‘boastful’ about the outcome of the second battle of Philippi (App. BC 4.125: φρόνημα … μέγα καὶ θρασύτης … ἐθρασύνοντο). As participants in that battle, Horace and Pompeius must have known of this thoroughly misguided state of mind on their own side. Other details in the symposium description maintain the implication that, despite their claims, the Republicans were ‘soft’. The implied contrast between drinking and proper soldiering is further brought out by the verbal parallelism between saepe mecum (line 1) and cum quo … saepe (line 6). Although symposiasts naturally wear garlands and sleek their hair with unguent, the idea of 30 So (e.g.) Nisbet–Hubbard (1978) 111–12; Quinn (1980) 210. 31 Cf. Nussbaum (1981) 2123.

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‘crowning’ can be related to the imagery minaces | turpe solum tetigere mento (proskynesis is performed to autocrats and kings—Horace is again utilising a reversal motif), the emphasis on ‘sleekness’, besides connoting youthfulness, seems to suggest the ‘softness’ of Horace and his companions,32 and there is also an implication of oriental luxury (malobathro Syrio), which again looks forward to the proskynesis description. And we know from Plut. Brut. 38.5–7 and Pliny, nat. hist. 33.12.39 ⟦69⟧ (quoting a letter of Brutus) that the officers of the Republican army were in fact devoted to luxus. Ergo obligatam redde Ioui dapem longaque fessum militia latus depone sub lauru mea nec parce cadis tibi destinatis; obliuioso leuia Massico ciboria exple, funde capacibus unguenta de conchis; quis udo deproperare apio coronas curatue myrto? quem Venus arbitrum dicet bibendi? non ego sanius bacchabor Edonis: recepto dulce mihi furere est amico. Horace now invites Pompeius to repose his weary frame and a symposium begins in his honour. As in the description of the carousing which he and Pompeius did together in their youth during the Philippi campaign (lines 6–8), several phrases draw a contrast between the activities of drinking and soldiering: depone, sub lauru mea, nec parce, perhaps also bacchabor, furere, and the whole phrase non ego sanius | bacchabor Edonis.33 But whereas the effect of the contrasts in the second stanza was to suggest the gulf between Horace’s and 32 Cf., for this possible implication, Cic. Cat. 2.2.2 quos pexo capillo, nitidos aut imberbis aut bene barbatos uidetis, manicatis et talaribus tunicis, uelis amictos, non togis; Sen. ep. mor. 115.2 nosti comptulos iuuenes, barba coma nitidos, de capsula totos: nihil ab illis speraueris forte, nihil solidum; Hor. epist. 1.4.15–16 me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute uises, | cum ridere uoles, Epicuri de grege porcum (for Epicurean mollitia cf., e.g., Sen. epist. mor. 33.1–3). 33 Bacchari and furere can be used in military contexts, and the allusion to the Edoni may evoke not only hard drinking and Bacchic rites but also Thracians’ traditional bloodthirstiness in war (perhaps the Edoni contributed auxiliary troops to Brutus’ army).

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Pompeius’ claims and the reality of Republican military incompetence, here it is to underline the fact that for Pompeius, as for Horace himself, the days of soldiering are finally over. Not only that, it is better so: ‘now the wine is of reassuring Italian vintage … in the East the malobathrum was worthier of an adjective’ (Nisbet and Hubbard). Similarly, the coronae of line 24 are now simply the normal accoutrements of symposiasts, not, as in line 6, decoration suggestive of misguided pride, and there is a further contrast between the simplicity of the garlands34 and the luxus of the earlier symposia. The implicit rejection of the soldiering life is neatly pointed by Horace’s injunction to Pompeius in lines 18–19: longaque fessum militia latus | depone sub lauru mea. Horace’s laurel is the laurel of poetry, in implicit contrast with the laurel of military victory: there is a formal contrast with line 18 militia. It is as if Horace is saying jokingly: ‘I am your general now—⟦70⟧ I am the one you must obey’. The two friends are to drink and ‘forget’ (obliuioso) their Republican past. How should we interpret this? For one scholar: ‘the hidden pain of the Ode is momentarily bared in the final two stanzas, when the poet proposes to get himself and the friend of his lost youth royally drunk …: this is to be no celebratory toast, but a hard drinking revel whose primary purpose is to blot out the pain of the past’.35 This reading cannot command assent. Certainly, Pompeius is adjured to ‘forget’ the past, but that past has been described in terms which imply Horace’s repudiation of it: Brutus, the Republican general, was ‘no general’, the ‘manly’ Republicans turned out to be ‘unmanly’, arrogant ‘minaces’ were humbled, and there was a certain justice in their comeuppance. The stress at the end of the poem falls, rather, on the joyousness of the occasion: recepto | dulce mihi furere amico. Amicus is a warmer, more intimate, word than sodalis. But there is, I believe, still more to the meaning of the last three stanzas and the poem as a whole. The Stoic implications of the phrase fracta uirtus are very important. In this ode Horace, I suggest, is drawing a generic contrast between the Stoic and Epicurean attitudes to political participation. The bogus uirtus of the Republicans and the ‘Stoic’ Brutus, the inadequacy of which was revealed at Philippi, involved participation in political and military life. Stoics charact­ eristically advocated such participation. The second half of the poem urges Pompeius to forget his misguided past—his soldiering is over and he should instead celebrate with Horace, his friend. It is dulce to do so. Here surely we have a contrast between Stoic uirtus and Epicurean ἡδονή, that ἡδονή which 34 Cf. Nisbet–Hubbard (1978) 120. 35 McDermott (1981) 235.

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necessarily involves disengagement from public life. In philosophical texts the contrast between Stoic ‘virtue’ and Epicurean ‘pleasure’ is commonplace.36 The second half of the poem also celebrates friendship for its own sake: the sodalis—the military or symposiastic ἑταῖρος—becomes the amicus. No philosophical school attached a higher value to friendship than Epicureanism or interpreted the concept in a warmer way.37 Several touches in the last three stanzas combine to give Horace’s prescriptions a lightly Epicurean note. The two friends are to drink ⟦71⟧ in a garden (sub lauru mea) and this garden has a certain symbolic quality, since it is contrasted with the militia which Pompeius has finally put behind him. Of course symposia may take place in gardens, but Horace is also deftly alluding to the Epicurean hortus which symbolises retreat from the world of politics and war. Pompeius’ militia is described in sea imagery—conventional enough, yet we may also detect an Epicurean contrast between Epicurean ‘pleasure’ and the ‘sea of troubles’ which engulfs the non-Epicurean (as in Lucretius 2.1ff.). The two friends will drink obliuioso Massico. Wine traditionally brings λήθη, but here Pompeius is forcefully urged to ‘forget’. The word can also have philosophical implications. In Sat. 2.6.60ff. Horace laments: quando … licebit | … ducere sollicitae iucunda obliuia uitae! There, as here, it is the Epicurean life which affords obliuium from cares. To sum up. This poem is not simply an outpouring of emotion, studded with appropriate reminiscences, on the return of a long absent friend, genuine though its emotion is. Rather, Horace is concerned to give his friend some sound practical advice on the political attitude he should now take. Pompeius should not idealise the past: it was in fact much less glorious than it appeared at the time to the friends in their youth—their general was incompetent (he was), his uirtus not what it was claimed to be (debatable, but certainly a tenable position and one propagated by the Augustan regime), their leaders were arrogant (they were), the Republicans were soft (true) and brought about their own downfall (also true—over-confidence lay behind the Republican prin­ cipes’ insistence on joining battle), and it is now gone for ever—power now resides with Octavian, the sole ruler to whom the Republican survivors prostrated themselves on the field of Philippi (a correct political analysis). Better to forget, and to find true repose in private life, in the company of an old friend, with whom he had shared both happiness and suffering long ago, and with whom he is now joyously reunited. 36 Cf., e.g., Cic. ad fam. 15.16.3 (with Tyrrell–Purser ad loc. {(1904–33) IV.523}); de fin. 1.42; 1.61; 2.44 (all uirtus–uoluptas contrasts). Virtus in isolation, with, as it were, a capital v, often denotes Stoic virtue in particular: cf. p. 623 and n. 18 above. 37 For the role of friendship in Epicureanism cf. recently Rist (1980).

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As I have tried to show by my bracketed comments, there is nothing remotely implausible about such an interpretation of Horace’s views on the Republican past: in every single respect it corresponds to historical realities of which Horace must have been aware. But of course Horace expresses these views obliquely and with tact: he can hardly tell Pompeius outright that the last fifteen years or so of his life have been completely misspent. Hence the punning deducte … duce, prompting the question: ‘what sort of dux was Brutus?’, and the inevitable answer: ‘a rather poor one’, and the challenging oxymoron fracta uirtus, suggesting, to anyone with a feeling for language and contrast ( fregi/fracta), that the much-vaunted Republican uirtus was a sham. Thought-provoking also are the matter-of-fact allusions to the celeris ⟦72⟧ fuga (surely not what a man committed to the Republican past would mention? He would rather recall the splendid deeds of heroism of Lucius Cassius, Cato’s son, and Antistius Labeo)38 and to the arrogant temper of the Republican principes (minaces). Horace is indeed critical of Brutus and the Republican past and this criticism is an important element in his address to Pompeius. Bibliography Austin, R. G., ed. (1948) Quintiliani Institutionis Oratoriae Liber XII (Oxford). Bramble, J. C. (1974) Persius and the Programmatic Satire (Cambridge). Clarke, M. L. (1981) The Noblest Roman: Marcus Brutus and his Reputation (London and Ithaca). Collinge, N. E. (1961) The Structure of Horace’s Odes (London and New York). Commager, S. (1962) The Odes of Horace: a Critical Study (New Haven). Edelstein, L. (1941) ‘Horace, Odes II.7.9–10’, AJPh 62: 441–51. Griffin, J. (1980) ‘Lyrical Moralizing [Review of Nisbet and Hubbard (1978)]’, JRS 70: 182–5. Hellegouarc’h, J. (1982) Velleius Paterculus: Histoire Romaine, 2 vols. (Paris). Hendrickson, G. L. (1939) ‘Brutus de Virtute’, AJPh 60: 401–13. Kiessling, A. and R. Heinze, edd. (1955) Horaz: Oden und Epoden8 (Berlin). McDermott, E. A. (1981) ‘Review of Nisbet and Hubbard (1978)’, AJPh 102: 229–37. Millar, F. (1973) ‘Triumvirate and Principate’, JRS 63: 50–67; repr. in id., Rome, the Greek World and the East, volume I: the Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution, edd. H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers (Chapel Hill and London, 2002) 241–70. Moles, J. L. (1979) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus (diss. Oxford). 38 Plut. Brut. 49.9–10 and App. BC 4.135 show what could be done by those who wished to paint a heroic picture of the Republican defeat at the second battle of Philippi.

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Moles, J. L. (1983a) ‘Some “Last Words” of M. Junius Brutus’, Latomus 42: 763–79 [above, Ch. 33]. Moles, J. L. (1983b) ‘Virgil, Pompey and the Histories of Asinius Pollio’, CW 76: 287–8 [above, Ch. 45]. Moles, J. L. (2017) A Commentary on Plutarch’s Brutus, with updated bibliographical notes by C. Pelling (Histos Supplement 7; Newcastle). Nisbet, R. G. M. and M. Hubbard (1978) A Commentary on Horace’s Odes II (Oxford). Nussbaum, G. (1981) ‘Sympathy and Empathy in Horace’, ANRW II.31.3: 2093–158. Pelling, C. B. R. (1979) ‘Plutarch’s Method of Work in the Roman Lives’, JHS 99: 74–96; repr. in id., Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London and Swansea, 2002) 1–44. Quinn, K. (1980) Horace: the Odes (London). Rist, J. M. (1980) ‘Epicurus on Friendship’, CPh 75: 121–9. Syme, R. (1939) The Roman Revolution (Oxford). Tyrrell, R. Y. and L. C. Purser (1904–33) The Correspondence of M. Tullius Cicero2 (vol. I3), 7 vols. (Dublin). Wilkinson, L. P. (1951) Horace and his Lyric Poetry2 (Cambridge).

Chapter 68

The Tragedy and Guilt of Dido Is Dido guilty and if so, of what? How far, if at all, is her downfall just? As we read her tragedy these questions obtrude but scholars have failed to agree on the answers and indeed the tendency of much modem criticism of the Aeneid, as of other ancient texts, is almost to deny that answers are possible. This brief paper aims, at the risk of dreadful over-simplification, to go through the text and find concrete answers. The Tyrians’ treatment of the shipwrecked Trojans is initially savage (1.302–3, 525–6, 539–41)—Dido does not know that it is fated that they be hospitably received—but on Jupiter’s orders Mercury intervenes to ensure a hospitable reception (297–304). Aeneas meets his mother, goddess of love, disguised as a huntress with bow and arrows.1 He describes himself as ‘pius Aeneas’ (378). Her prologue-like recital of Dido’s past (a bloody family feud suggesting Cleopatra and the Ptolemies) and her wearing the buskin introduce a tragedy. Aeneas recognises the departing Venus and bitterly criticises her remoteness (314–410). General and specific parallels with Odyssey 6 suggest that Carthage is like Phaeacia but the city has laws, magistrates, a senate, and its people are busy as bees (426, 430–6). The last temple picture is of Penthesilea—raging in battle, archeress, female warrior, woman in a man’s world, virgin. Dido arrives, alike in every respect (490–3; 340, 364, 500–1, 507) save marital experience (493; 343ff.). But the beautiful Dido also resembles the goddess Diana, huntress, archeress, virgin, and thus Nausicaa, saviour, virgin, but potential threat to the hero’s mission (497–502). Aeneas, emotionally vulnerable, is already wounded by love’s arrows (495) as he gazes on Dido (502). Ilioneus tells Dido that the Trojans’ goal is Italy but Sicily is second best. Dido promises help whichever they choose but offers them equal shares in Carthage (522–78). Aeneas is miraculously revealed in god-like beauty like Odysseus (Od. 6.229ff., 23.156ff.), but is Dido Nausicaa or Penelope? Aeneas overflows with gratitude at Dido’s generous offer and leaves the Trojans’ goal ambiguous (586–610). Dido stresses her knowledge of Aeneas’ past (cf. 450–93, 565–8, 755–6) and their like fortune (615–30).

1 Harrison (1972–3).

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The banquet is luxuriously appointed and gold abounds:2 evocative (via Cat. 64.43ff.)3 of marriage and incipient moral decline, of Phaeacian softness, Phoenician luxury, Eastern and Egyptian decadence (637–40, 697–700, 707–8, 726–8). Aeneas’ gifts are equally luxurious and ominous: Helen’s ⟦154⟧ veil presages forbidden marriage, Ilione’s sceptre the fall of a great city, terrible personal suffering, Aeneas’ impending surrender to Dido (647–55). Venus schemes with Cupid for Dido to fall in love with Aeneas, fearing traditional Carthaginian treachery (657–62, 670ff.; cf. 302): what is the Tyrians’ true nature, can Dido really be like Nausicaa? Dido becomes the unknowing victim of divine manipulation—a figure of intense pathos (712, 718, 749). Drinking begins and Iopas sings a Lucretian song, vigorously applauded by Tyrians followed by Trojans: this court has an insidious Phaeacian and Epicurean side. Dido drinks deeply of love: wine stimulates love (736–49). Dido, like the other Tyrians, listens intently to Aeneas’ narrative. It impresses her powerfully, convinces her of Aeneas’ credentials (2.1; 3.716; 4.3–4, 11–14), and relates incidents paralleling her own experience (2.270ff. ~ 1.353ff.; cf. 1.628–9). Later she herself refers (4.597–9, 614) to its contents. This narrative contains repeated prophecies that the Trojans’ goal is Italy (2.781; 3.163ff., 182ff., 250ff., 359ff., 378, 458; cf. 477, 500ff., 523f.). The Penates’ prophecy (3.163ff.) has particular force because Ilioneus has already used their words (1.530–3) and Creusa’s ghost even prophesies to Aeneas an Italian wife (2.783). Dido is given enough information to know that Aeneas cannot marry her because the Trojans’ destiny lies elsewhere.4 Yet Ilioneus’ and Aeneas’ speeches have raised the possibility that Italy may be unattainable, Aeneas’ last words may seem to imply that after all the Trojans’ trials their god-given goal is Carthage (3.714–15—lines of multiple irony), Aeneas is a widower and powerfully attracted to Dido, she already deeply in love with him. The gulf between Dido’s understanding of her love and its real cause creates sharp pathos and a sense of injustice: Dido thinks she ‘recognises the traces of the old flame’ (4.23) but does not know that Aeneas is an arrow shot into her breast by Venus and Cupid (4–5), that this arrow is fixed there, not her immovable purpose (4, 15). In her love she is the innocent victim of heartless gods who sacrifice the guiltless to their own ends. But in dealing with her love she is a responsible moral agent. Her conversation with Anna is a typical tragic temptation scene where the hero contemplates a course of action he knows to

2 Horsfall (1973–4) 6–7; Crookes (1984) 14–16. 3 Bramble (1970) 38–9. 4 Muecke (1983) 145–6.

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be wrong, and his scruples are overborne by a confidant offering plausible, and (ultimately) immoral, advice. Dido’s analysis is explicitly ‘insane’ (8). Both sisters assume that Aeneas is free for marriage (15–16, 18, 32–3, 48). So great an impact has he made on her that Dido is strongly tempted to pursue matters (20–3) and ‘might just have succumbed to this one culpa’ had it not been for Sychaeus: that marriage’s tragic end and (presumably) the unremitting attentions of Iarbas and co. have made her weary of the whole business and her determination to remain faithful to Sychaeus prohibits remarriage absolutely (15–19). Culpa in what sense? Clearly Dido has faced a succession of culpae from a long line of suitors: ‘this one culpa’—‘this man alone’ has made an impact. Culpa concerns relationships with men, clearly (in context) not extramarital. Clearly also (contrary to the scholarly consensus) the culpa is unconnected with disloyalty to Sychaeus: Dido might just have succumbed to this culpa if it were not for Sychaeus—a relationship with Aeneas is a culpa even when the Sychaeus factor is excluded. For Dido even a legitimate marriage relationship with a man is per se a culpa: to the ⟦155⟧ puritanical any activity involving pleasure, especially sexual, is a ‘weakness’, pardonable but ideally to be avoided. One side of Dido is very like the virgins Penthesilea and Diana. But in Dido extreme purity goes with extreme sensuality—an explosive combination and the stuff of tragedy. So Dido sees two difficulties in proceeding with Aeneas: (1) the belief that any relationship with a man is a culpa; (2) the Sychaeus factor. She bolsters her wavering loyalty to Sychaeus by praying that if she violates Pudor almighty Jupiter may hurl her with his fulmen to the underworld (24–7). As in her conception of culpa, she takes a very high moral line: fidelity to a dead husband is admirable but not obligatory.5 As in tragedy the hero’s adoption of perfectionist standards makes his subsequent transgression more disastrous. Further, while it is not obligatory for Dido to maintain fidelity to Sychaeus, once she sanctions it by a solemn prayer her breach of fidelity will inevitably activate divine retribution as the prayer is fulfilled.6 Finally, Dido thinks that proceeding with Aeneas will violate Pudor only in relation to Sychaeus, ignoring the possibility that the true violation of Pudor may lie elsewhere. Anna’s arguments seem to solve the Sychaeus problem (34), play on Dido’s hopes that the gods approve the Trojans’ settling in Carthage (45–6, cf. 3.714–15), stress the political advantages of the union (39–49) and the pleasures of marriage (32–3, 38)—this for Dido Epicurean sensualist in her fight with Dido devotee of purity. Dido is persuaded and explicit criticism follows: 5 Monti (1981) 54–5. 6 Harrison (1976) 101–2.

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Anna has ‘unloosed Dido’s pudor’ (54–5). ‘As soon as a woman takes off her tunic she takes off her shame’ (Hdt. 1.8.3)—mentally Dido has already given in to Aeneas, already undone her girdle: the subsequent intervention of Juno and Venus only provides the occasion. In the sequel (56–91) equal emphasis is given to the twin elements of Dido’s tragedy: her innocence in being in love through the machinations of the gods of love (65–73, 90), her guilt in having yielded to this love, in actively fostering it and neglecting her public duties (74–89, 91). The gods again intervene as Juno and Venus make their cynical deal to secure Dido and Aeneas’ ‘marriage’. Before the hunt the emphasis falls on Dido the innocent victim (95, 100, 117), the bashful bride (133, 136), who will be hunted down by Aeneas the archer (149; cf. 69–73). But the tone changes with the cave scene (165–72): speluncam Dido dux et Troianus eandem deueniunt. prima et Tellus et pronuba Iuno dant signum; fulsere ignes et conscius Aether conubiis, summoque ulularunt uertice Nymphae. ille dies primus leti primusque malorum causa fuit. neque enim specie famaue mouetur nec iam furtiuum Dido meditatur amorem; coniugium uocat; hoc praetexit nomine culpam.7

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The irrevocable tragic act or hamartia, the beginning of evils, has been committed and the chorus comments. Victim Dido may be, but her moral response matters and is again explicitly criticised. ⟦156⟧ In what sense is Dido’s lovemaking with Aeneas a culpa (172)? Obviously something stronger than Dido originally envisaged (19). Obviously not disloyalty to Sychaeus: calling her lovemaking marriage does not meet the charge of disloyalty to Sychaeus: relations with any man, inside marriage or out, entail such disloyalty. True marriage (coniugium) v. culpam; appearance (uocat, hoc nomine, praetexit) v. reality (culpam); truth (culpam) v. falsehood (praetexit—of calculated deception as in the closely parallel 500; cf. also 339). The meaning seems plain: though she has started relations with Aeneas she is not truly married to him, so she tries to disguise her immorality with the name of marriage. Culpa is often used of illicit sex; that Dido and Aeneas are not in fact married is confirmed by 221, 338–9, 550–1 (of which more below; cf. also 193–4, 213–17). 7 Moles (1984).

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But why should Dido bother to pretend she is married, if she is no longer moved by appearances or reputation and no longer thinks about her love in secret (170–1)? The question whether her love can be spoken of assumes importance once Anna has persuaded her to yield to it. As Dido shows Aeneas round Carthage ‘she begins to speak out and stops in mid-utterance’ (76), she cuddles Ascanius in the hope of solacing her ‘unspeakable love’ (85), when she neglects public affairs ‘her reputation does not stand in the way of her mad passion’ (91). Later Jupiter looks down on the ‘lovers forgetful of their better reputation’ (221). Dido’s love is ‘unspeakable’ not because love or passion is ‘unspeakable’ per se but because Aeneas, the object of her love, is forbidden (cf. 1.651). In starting relations with him and publicising the fact Dido is flouting appearances and reputation, but she obviously cannot admit it is just an affair, so she calls it marriage.8 Now in discussion with Anna Dido held that (Sychaeus aside), a relationship with Aeneas would be a trivial culpa (19)—a mere weakness; in reality her relationship with Aeneas involves a much more serious culpa—sexual misconduct pure and simple. The shift in application of culpa pinpoints the fundamental flaw in Dido’s thinking: her refusal to admit that marriage to Aeneas is impossible. Both now forget their respective kingdoms, sunk in luxury (cf. 1.637) and the lust inevitable in such a relationship (194–5, validated by 221). The disappointed Iarbas prays to his father, asking (among other things) whether man’s fear of Jupiter’s fulmina is baseless (208–9). Jupiter sends Mercury to remind Aeneas of his duty. The moral implications are complex. It is a sad irony that Mercury, who first intervened to make the Carthaginians hospitable to the Trojans (1.302–3), should now intervene to stop the love affair for which the gods are partly responsible. Dido is like Calypso, obstructing the hero’s advance. Aeneas is unlike Odysseus in wanting to stay: Mercury finds Mark Antony, undeniably luxurious but no longer torpid, active—but for the wrong city. And Dido’s prayer nears fulfilment: Jupiter’s fulmina are a link in the causal chain activating Aeneas’ departure. Aeneas recognises the authority of this vision (as of Creusa’s ghost and the dead Polydorus:  2.774; 3.48), to whose bidding his will immediately assents (it later emerges he has been having guilty-conscience dreams: 351–3), much though he loves Dido and Carthage (281, 292). His perplexity over how to tell Dido reveals her as both formidable and pitiable, himself as both practical and considerate (283–6, 291–4). Unlike him, his men feel ⟦157⟧ unequivocal joy. A tactful approach to Dido is prevented because she gets wind of Aeneas’ necessarily furtive preparations: ‘who could deceive a lover?’ (296)—and Dido is 8 This answers Sparrow (1973) 7–9.

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especially sensitive since her ‘first love deceived her’ (17); ‘fearing even when all seemed safe’—part of her has always known the relationship was temporary (cf. 419). She rages through the city like a Bacchante (300ff.)—her affliction now one stage worse than after the conversation with Anna (68ff.), and then tackles Aeneas (305ff.) in a speech mingling outrage and appeal (cf. 283–6, 291–4).9 Aeneas wins the main points. He did not intend to leave without telling her, he never pretended marriage nor are they now married (339—Dido does not contradict this), her wholly Carthaginian perspective is selfish—what of Troy and Italy and his duty to his actual son (as opposed to the ‘little Aeneas’ Dido will never have)?—his personal wishes are irrelevant: he does not want to leave but has received sure proof that Jupiter himself insists.10 Naturally things are not that simple. Aeneas may accuse Dido of fabrication (338) in claiming he was departing secretly, but it is reasonable she should think so since the preparations were secret (305, 291). Again, while it is true they are not married (and Aeneas’ accusation of fabrication in this same line and use of praetendi recalls Dido’s pretence about the relationship in 172), nevertheless Dido has some case even here. If Roman law could recognise as marriage a relationship of mere cohabitation, their liaison was potentially a marriage, even though it was not initially, as Dido knew (172); but marriage through cohabitation (without sacrifices, celebrations, etc.) was hardly appropriate for heads of state, and the whole situation disconcertingly reflects the relationship of Antony and Cleopatra, which never was, and never could be, a legal marriage.11 The literary reminiscences of Ariadne, Medea, etc., which put Dido in the category of deserted heroines/wives, thus give her case some weight, even if in the last analysis it is untenable. Aeneas bears some responsibility for letting the situation slide and allowing her hope. What of Aeneas’ feelings and demeanour? He feels intense emotion but unlike Dido suppresses it, though with a struggle, as the good leader sometimes must (1.108f.) and certainly now if he is to fulfil Jupiter’s command (331–2). Even so, he says that he will remember Dido as long as he lives and virtually declares that Dido is as dear to him as himself (335f. ‘Elissae | … mei’). But Dido’s impassioned reproaches will only inflame them both (360). Dido rejects Aeneas’ arguments totally (362; cf. 1.482; 6.469), accuses him of utter hard-heartedness (untrue) and base ingratitude (also untrue—cf. 333–5), 9 10

Feeney (1983). I cannot accept the interpretations of Lyne (1987), 161ff. The traditional view of Aeneas’ struggle as love versus duty is somewhat simplistic (Monti [1981] 42f.; Feeney [1983] 208f.), but sufficiently true for the present analysis. 11 Suet. Aug. 69.2 (with Carter [1982] ad loc.).

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sneers at his wretched state before she helped him (as Iarbas had about herself: 211ff.), mocks, in Epicurean style and inconsistently with her own behaviour, his claim to have received a command from the gods, and promises to haunt him as an avenging fury both in life and death (a perversion of Aeneas’ sentiment in 335f.). His failure to sigh and shed tears angers her most (369–70), but Aeneas is right to suppress these manifestations of emotion in her presence (331–2; cf. 396) and tears are a ⟦158⟧ poor moral guide (413, 449, 548). She then sweeps off, rejecting now his very presence (389) and giving him no chance to reply. The parallel with Creusa (2.790f.) creates several implications: Aeneas’ great love for Dido, her imminent death (392; cf. 457), his yearning to protract the interview, the fact that she is now his past and he must go. But he is also ‘fearful’ (390) after her threats: the two sides of Dido—formidable and pitiable—are again prominent. Aeneas longs to comfort her but, though greatly distressed, fulfils the divine command and returns to the fleet. Dido gone, sighs are permissible. Both have been shaken by love (395, 22) but Aeneas, unlike Dido, now resists it out of duty, thereby regaining the pietas he last possessed in 1.378, before his capitulation to sensuality. The emphatic objective statement of 392 undercuts decisively Dido’s counter-claims on pietas (307, 314, 373, 382, 496, 596). Again in contrast to Aeneas the Trojans are all enthusiasm to go. The ant simile (402ff.) rehearses the main themes of the action, parallels the bee simile at 1.430ff. (4.407~1.436), contrasts with the decadent torpor of 86ff., thus further emphasising the rightness of the Trojans’ planned departure, while also suggesting Dido’s view of the Trojans as marauders and alluding to Aeneas’ reprehensible ‘delays’ (225, 235, 271; cf. 1.670, 569). The watching Dido is driven to another wrong course of action by love (412, 414), which can be as destructive as the hunger for gold (412 ~ 3.56f.) and to which she again, unlike Aeneas, abjectly submits (414; cf. 19). Her recourse to tears via Anna is thus condemned in advance. Her request to Anna is in flat opposition to the gods’ commands (420f. ~ 396), she still refuses to understand the reason for Aeneas’ firmness (428), and still (to Anna at least) pretends they were married (431). Aeneas rejects these supplications not through hardness of heart, as Dido maintained (428), but obedience to the declared will of heaven (439f.). He still feels great love but unlike Dido still resists it, a resistance that is explicitly heroic (447). Dido’s12 tears fall vainly (449): Aeneas has survived this last attack on his resolution. The failure of ‘soft approaches’ with Aeneas (423) indicates they would equally have failed with Dido (293): diplomacy has no place when positions are diametrically opposed. 12

Obviously (cf. 413), but for argument see Hudson-Williams (1978).

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Now at last Dido is terrified by the declared will of heaven (450 ~ 440; cf. 571):13 she realises that the gods are indeed against her, even if she does not yet concede their opposition any validity, and prays for death (450f.). Hideous portents and guilty-conscience dreams, reversing her threats to Aeneas (465ff. ~ 382ff.), reinforce this desire. She is vanquished by her pain (again unlike Aeneas but like the deluded Anna—548) but makes her own decision to die (474f.)—a decision, like Cleopatra’s, in some ways deserving of respect and which allows her to regain control of her destiny (508). Yet her recourse to magic, even though deliberate deception, is disreputable and not entirely feigned (517f.), contrasts with Aeneas’ pious reliance upon the gods (492f. ~ 356ff.), and aligns her with Medea the sorceress figure. Even now before Anna she still pretends she was married (495ff.). Night comes. Love torments the insomniac queen anew as she reviews ⟦159⟧ the alternatives to suicide, making the worst of each (534–46). She decides she deserves to die and attributes all her troubles to the fact that Anna was vanquished by her tears and gave disastrously bad advice. She now realises that her whole course of action since that conversation was wrong (550f.) and involved her in (a) an illicit sexual union, not the lawful marriage she pretended (495f., 316, 18), (b) blame (crimen) which was independent of her disloyalty to Sychaeus and was not the trivial culpa she envisaged (19) but the major culpa of sexual misconduct (172), (c) the particular anguish which illicit love brings (cf. 5.6),14 and (d) breach of her oath of fidelity to Sychaeus. Dido achieves at this point as full an understanding of her situation as is permitted her, given that she cannot know of the divine machinations behind her love, but she does not sustain this insight. Aeneas, resolved on departure, is asleep when Mercury warns him to leave before Dido does him physical harm. He is terrified by the vision—a moment of truth for him parallel to Dido’s at 450. Mercury’s sexist views and warning that Dido is dangerous are accurate (cf. 532; 5.6; 4.382ff., 590ff., 604ff.) and confirm Aeneas’ own fears (283f., 390). He has again delayed, not now through moral weakness (225, 235, 271) but insufficient vigilance: his conscience allows 13 14

On fatum/fata see Pötscher (1977) 69, Haury (1981); on 4.450: Haury (1981) 237; Muecke (1983) 150–1. On the vexed 550–1 see Pease (1935) ad loc., cf. Kinsey (1982). The key points are: (a) Dido is talking of the disastrous consequences of Anna’s bad advice (548–9, 552), so ‘non licuit’ = not ‘you didn’t allow me’, but ‘it was not permissible’; (b) Dido acknowledges a crimen independent of her disloyalty to Sychaeus—552 is a separate matter, so 550 links with 19 and 172; (c) in a context where there is talk of sexual relations, what is ‘permitted’, ‘proper marriage’ (cf. 18), and ‘blame’, ‘more ferae’ must denote ‘free like an animal’ (unshackled by conventional restraints).

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him (unlike Dido) untroubled sleep but the good leader should remain vigilant in a crisis. Hence he obeys this second command much more enthusiastically than the first (577), now united with his men in ardour to depart. Conscious of danger, he severs the moorings (and symbolically all ‘ties’ with Dido) with his fulmineus sword: his departure is causally connected to, and just punishment for, Dido’s violation of her oath to Sychaeus, sanctioned as that was by Zeus’ fulmen (25; cf. 208).15 Seeing the fleet departing Dido first thinks to rouse the Carthaginians to attack, then repents her folly, not on the ground that such violence is wrong, but that she missed her chance at the outset (cf. 1.302–3, 525–6, 539–41). All consciousness of her own responsibility has gone (contrast 550–2): she inveighs against Aeneas’ ‘facta impia’,16 expresses scepticism about his heroic achievements, though he related them himself and convinced her (598–9; 2.707, 717; 4.11–14), imagines the ghastly punishments she could have inflicted, and, though grudgingly conceding that Jupiter has pronounced Italy as Aeneas’ goal (614; contrast 45–6; 3.714–15), calls down curses upon Aeneas, the Trojans and their descendants. From one point of view Dido is here a monstrous and unsympathetic figure (Medea at her most barbarous, Atreus, the Furies, Polyphemus), the cause and emblem of Rome’s struggle with hated Carthage. Yet the prophetic status of her curses, akin to all the other prophecies in Books 1–4, the allusion in 625 to Cassandra’s words in ⟦160⟧ Ag. 1279f.,17 as well as Hannibal, and the foreshadowing of the Roman Civil Wars as well as the Punic Wars in 628f., combine to re-emphasise that Aeneas bears some responsibility for her downfall. In her suicide Dido becomes a still more complex figure—Ajax, Alcestis, Medea, Ariadne, Antony, Cleopatra, Hector, and others combined, at once deceitful, terrible, pathetic, dignified, barbarous, Roman, proud of her achievements, anguished at her failure, in love with Aeneas and bitterly resentful towards him, her city’s founder and benefactor and wholly neglectful of her obligations to it. Though she now accepts the fact of Fate’s opposition to her continuing relationship with Aeneas (651), she does not accept it emotionally or as any palliation of his conduct. Yet her death is pitiable (693) and Juno sends Iris (a divine messenger for once on an errand of mercy) to free her struggling soul (696–9): 15 No pupil of John Bramble will fail to consider the possibility that (579f.) ‘uaginaque [!] eripit ensem | fulmineum strictoque ferit retinacula ferro’ suggests also ‘withdrawal’ of a different kind; this is surely right (cf. the eroticism of Dido’s suicide) but subordinate. 16 Dido cannot possibly mean her own ‘facta impia’: cf. 597–9, 496. 17 So Fraenkel (1950) ad loc.

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nam quia nec fato merita nec morte peribat, sed misera ante diem subitoque accensa furore, nondum illi flauum Proserpina uertice crinem abstulerat Stygioque caput damnauerat Orco. Dido deserves pity because she died a wretched death before her time and fired by sudden madness (not wholly responsible for her actions): her death was not fated nor deserved (contrast her harsh self-criticism of 547). But this does not mean she was innocent or the gods were not involved. An untimely death was one of her curses on Aeneas (620). Her death was self-chosen (475) and in some ways irresponsible (682)—other courses were possible (534ff.). Above all, though not fated, her death was a consequence of her breach of her oath to Sychaeus, which was punished first by Aeneas’ departure (580), now by her descent to the shades (25–6). ‘pater omnipotens’ (25)—‘Iuno omnipotens’ (693); ‘Aeneas celsa in puppi iam certus eundi’ (554)—‘sic ait et dextra crinem secat’ (704)—‘certus iter fluctusque atros Aquilone secabat’ (5.2)—the causal connections between Dido’s breach of her oath, Aeneas’ departure, and Dido’s death show the workings both of human free will and divine justice. Dido’s death was not completely undeserved, but undeserved in the disproportion between fault and punishment—a truly tragic perspective.18 The Trojans see the flames of Dido’s pyre and (5.4–7): quae tantum accenderit ignem causa latet; duri magno sed amore dolores polluto notumque, furens quid femina possit, triste per augurium Teucrorum pectora ducunt. ‘Magno amore polluto’. As the departing Trojans, including Aeneas, reflect on the terrible things a desperate woman may do, they will hardly think that Aeneas has ‘polluted’ love by leaving Dido or even credit her with this view. Rather, Dido was ‘poisoned’ (1.688) by a love which was a ‘disease’ (1.712; 4.90) and ‘unchaste’ (4.172), involving a greater ‘violation’ of ‘shame’ (4.27) ⟦161⟧ than Dido expected (4.172), and the resultant pains are particularly acute (4.551). ‘Amore polluto’ indeed.19 18 Arist. Poet. 1453a4; ‘undeserved suffering’ does not necessarily imply complete innocence, which can indeed be untragic (Poet. 1452b34–6). This is the normal ancient perspective, e.g., Plut. Cic. 46.1 emphasises Cicero’s great responsibility for his own downfall and the loss of Roman liberty but at the end (47.10) highlights his ‘undeserved suffering’. 19 Polluto therefore has (in my view) nothing to do with ‘desecration’ of the sacred, as (e.g.) Williams ad loc. {(1972) 397}; Lyne (1987) 232f.

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In the Underworld, free from the dangers of Carthage (6.694), Aeneas can afford to weep, address Dido with sweet love, and lament her death (6.455ff.). He repeats: he did not want to leave, the gods’ commands compelled him. ‘Inuitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi.’ The allusion evokes again the court of the Ptolemies and the true nature of Aeneas’ and Dido’s union: Berenice dedicated the lock when her new husband went off to war: Aeneas fled a relationship like that of Antony and Cleopatra which could never be legitimated.20 Now it is Dido who flees and is flinty: she is in actuality what she had wrongly accused Aeneas of being (4.366f.); she flees not through duty (4.281) but total rejection of Aeneas’ pleas. ‘Illa solo fixos oculos auersa tenebat’ (469)—silent like Ajax but also Athene in the temple picture (1.482)—Dido’s resentment has attained daemonic proportions (cf. Medea at the end of Euripides’ Medea) and reflects implacable racial hatred.21 Yet Sychaeus is there to comfort her and give her love on equal terms (contrast 4.520). Even so, Aeneas is shaken by her ‘unequal fate’ (475; cf. 4.696; 1.712, 718, 749). That is the frame of Dido’s tragedy and part of the picture. But we cannot see the whole picture unless we perceive that Dido is wrong to oppose the will of Jupiter, that with this fundamental fault go others—breach of her oath to Sychaeus, involvement in an illicit sexual relationship, overvaluation of the emotions, neglect of her duties as ruler, persistent refusal to see Aeneas’ point of view—that her tragic progression from ignorance to knowledge, unlike Aeneas’, is fitful and unsustained, and that after she has fallen in love she largely brings her downfall upon herself. Bibliography Bramble, J. C. (1970) ‘Structure and Ambiguity in Catullus LXIV’, PCPhS 16: 22–41. Carter, J. M., ed. (1982) Suetonius: Divus Augustus (Bristol). Crookes, D. Z. (1984) ‘A Note on the Gold in Aeneid 1’, LCM 9: 14–16. Feeney, D. C. (1983) ‘The Taciturnity of Aeneas’, CQ 33: 204–19. Fraenkel, E., ed. (1950) Aeschylus: Agamemnon, 3 vols. (Oxford). Harrison, E. L. (1972–3) ‘Why did Venus Wear Boots?—Some Reflections on Aen. 1.314f.’, PVS 12: 10–25. Harrison, E. L. (1976) ‘Structure and Meaning in Vergil’s Aeneid’, PLLS 1: 101–12. Haury, A. (1981) ‘La faute de Didon “Extremum hunc, Arethusa, mihi concede laborem” (Ecl. X, 1)’, REA 83: 227–54. 20

For other implications (undoubtedly deepening Dido’s tragedy) see Thornton (1962), and the important discussions of Tatum (1984) and Skulsky (1985). 21 Cf. Moskalew (1982) 159.

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Horsfall, N. (1973–4) ‘Dido in the Light of History’, PVS 13: 1–13; repr. in id., Fifty Years at the Sibyl’s Heels (Oxford, 2020) 11–26. Hudson-Williams, A. (1978) ‘Lacrimae Illae Inanes’, G&R 25: 16–23. Kinsey, T. E. (1982) ‘Aeneid 4.550–1’, LCM 7: 14. Lyne, R. O. A. M. (1987) Further Voices in Vergil’s Aeneid (Oxford). Moles, J. L. (1984) ‘Aristotle and Dido’s Hamartia’, G&R 31: 48–54 [above, Ch. 66]. Monti, R. C. (1981) The Dido Episode and the Aeneid: Roman Social and Political Values in the Epic (Leiden). Moskalew, W. (1982) Formular Language and Poetic Design in the Aeneid (Leiden). Muecke, F. (1983) ‘Foreshadowing and Dramatic Irony in the Story of Dido’, AJPh 104: 134–55. Pease, A. S. (1935) Publi Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber quartus (Cambridge, Mass.). Pötscher, W. (1977) Vergil und die göttliche Mächte: Aspekte seiner Weltanschauung (Hildesheim). Skulsky, S. (1985) ‘“Inuitus Regina …”: Aeneas and the Love of Rome’, AJPh 106: 447–55. Sparrow, J. (1973) Dido v. Aeneas: the Case for the Defence (Abingdon). Tatum, J. (1984) ‘Allusion and Interpretation in Aeneid 6.440–76’, AJPh 105: 434–52. Thornton, A. (1962) ‘A Catullan Quotation in Virgil’s Aeneid Book VI’, AUMLA 17: 77–9. Williams, R. D., ed. (1972) Virgil: Aeneid I–VI (London).

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The Dramatic Coherence of Ovid, Amores 1.1 and 1.2 In his magisterial new commentary on the Amores1 J. C. McKeown alleges an ‘inconsistency’ or ‘flaw in the dramatic continuity’ between Amores 1.1 and 1.2: ‘whereas Ovid is fully aware in 1.1 that he is under Cupid’s domination, he shows no such awareness in the opening lines of 1.2.’ Previously A. Cameron had used this ‘inconsistency’, together with the evident programmatic character of 1.2, as an indication that the second poem must in fact have been the first poem of one of the original five books of Amores; then when Ovid decided to reduce the number of books from five to three, he wanted to keep Esse quid hoc dicam and had no choice but to put it as near as possible the front of the first book, immediately after that book’s own introductory poem.2 This reconstruction McKeown rightly rejects on the ground that ⟦552⟧ 1.2’s emphasis on Ovid’s newness to love makes it out of place in any book other than the first. Nevertheless, McKeown and Cameron at least agree on the ‘inconsistency’ between 1.1 and 1.2, although they disagree over its seriousness: for McKeown it ‘is not a serious flaw, and may be dismissed as symptomatic of Ovid’s lack of interest in providing the collection with a coherent framework’. Yet, as McKeown himself points out, the ‘inconsistency’ seems to be highlighted by the clear verbal parallels between the two poems (1.25f. certas habuit puer ille sagittas: | uror, et in uacuo pectore regnat Amor; 2.7f. haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae, | et possessa ferus pectora uersat Amor), nor could the fault (if such it be) be restricted to these poems: it would affect the whole opening sequence which consists of the first three poems. To be sure, there are many modern scholars who would find the very notion of ‘flaws in the dramatic continuity’ naïve: they would argue that such ‘inconsistencies’ are integral to Ovid’s poetic art.3 In many cases this must be true, but it is hard to give poetic value to the ‘inconsistency’ thus alleged between Amores 1.1 and 1.2. It is surely better in the first instance to consider the possibility that there is no inconsistency at all, or rather that Ovid teases us with an ‘inconsistency’, to which, however, he himself provides the solution. 1 McKeown (1989) 33; cf. (1987) 93 n. 13. 2 Cameron (1968). 3 Cf., e.g., Davis (1981) 2468–72, and indeed McKeown (1987) 92–102. Neither in Davis (1981) nor in his discussion of Amores 1.1 and 1.2 in Davis (1989) 67f. does Davis discuss the ‘inconsistency’ between the two poems.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_042

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In contrast to McKeown and Cameron, Barsby sees no difficulty, writing of 1.2 as follows:4 Ovid is here using, as he does several times, the obvious device of arresting the attention by an opening piece of vivid description and of withholding temporarily the true subject of the poem in order to arouse curiosity. Here, however, we are scarcely deceived, either by Ovid’s disingenuous rhetorical questions … or by his ironic expression of doubt (puto, 5); after the opening poem of the book there can only be one explanation, and this is duly given in the fourth couplet—the physical torments … are caused by the mental torments … inflicted by Love. These remarks are somewhat self-contradictory but draw attention to the formally deceptive quality of the opening lines (a factor also emphasised by McKeown),5 suggest that the poem’s initial effect depends on the interplay between the reader’s ignorance and his knowledge, and by linking that know­ ledge partly to the reading of the first poem bring 1.2 into a degree of harmony with 1.1. Barsby’s position is, I believe, basically correct, but important additional points can be made. The key lines are lines 3–4 of 1.1: risisse Cupido dicitur atque unum surripuisse pedem. McKeown comments: dicitur is problematic. It cannot be an appeal to literary authority … because the experience here is personal. Nor can we compare the slight distancing which Propertius gives to his claim to inspiration on Mount Helicon in 3.3 through his opening words Visus eram, since Ovid’s phrasing would then imply an element of scepticism not intended by Propertius and inappropriate here, where we are to be in no doubt that it was Cupid who sabotaged the epic. But Barsby again seems nearer the mark: ‘the use of dicitur, 4, suggests that he is ⟦553⟧ not entirely serious’. This observation may usefully be developed. ‘It is said’, ‘they say’, ‘there is a story’, etc. are often used as ‘distancing’ formulae 4 Barsby (1973) 45. 5 Who rightly cites Cairns (1979) 166ff. as the basic modern discussion of this technique.

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whereby the writer does not commit himself to the veracity of certain material, particularly when it is of a supernatural character. He thus avoids violation of the canons of realism or the charge of personal naïveté. (The technique is of course particularly common in, though not restricted to, historiography.)6 Here we may regard Ovid as either using such a formula directly or knowingly alluding to it in, as it were, inverted commas: ‘Cupid “is said” to have laughed.’ In either case Ovid’s application to what purports to be his own experience of a formula normally applied to material from which the writer distances himself creates an effect at once impudent, humorous, paradoxical, ironic, and spuriously rationalist. It is true that after this initial oratio obliqua the rest of the poem is cast in straight narrative form; but this pattern of initial distancing or scepticism followed by apparent acceptance or of a mixture of oratio obliqua and oratio recta is again commonplace in the recording of such material.7 Formally speaking, 1.1 remains a legomenon, as it has been so emphatically labelled in lines 3–4, a story from whose historicity the rationalising Ovid carefully distances himself; on the other hand, Ovid the dramatic character, the hapless victim of the divine epiphany, has naturally forgotten this by the end of the poem, as indeed have many of his modem readers. Esse quid hoc dicam, quod tam mihi dura uidentur strata, neque in lecto pallia nostra sedent, et uacuus somno noctem, quam longa, peregi, lassaque uersati corporis ossa dolent? nam, puto, sentirem, si quo temptarer amore— an subit et tecta callidus arte nocet? sic erit: haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae, et possessa ferus pectora uersat Amor. 1.2 finds Ovid in bed, sleepless, aching and exhausted. The description, while formally puzzling or deceptive, suggests the well-known symptoms of love,8 6 Cf., e.g., the discussions of Fehling (1989) 157ff.; Westlake (1977); Horsfall (1990), esp. 59–60. 7 Cf., e.g., Liv. 1.6.3, 7.5, 34.9, 36.6, 39.4, 55.6; Plut. Cic. 49.2–3; Brut. 36.2–37.1; App. BC 4.134; Cooper (1974); Stadter (1980) 106. 8 This, the conventional reading, seems to me clearly correct. An alternative reading is suggested to me by Professor Woodman: Ovid thinks he is suffering the rigours of life on campaign (the lover being a soldier), hoc (line 1) is both prospective (looking forward to the quod-clause) and retrospective (looking back to 1.1.25ff.), and the point is that though Ovid fully recalls the events of 1.1 he did not expect his wounding by Cupid to have this particular effect. But (a) the details of 1.2.1–4 better suit the distracted lover; (b) the ‘lover-as-a-soldier’ is a much more active figure; and (c) the economy of Amores 1 requires that this motif be kept back until 1.9 Militat omnis amans.

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and of course for us, the readers, this interpretation is confirmed by the juxtaposition of 1.2 with 1.1, with its story of Cupid’s epiphany to Ovid, and surely also by a verbal link between uacuus somno (1.2.3) and uacuo pectore (1.1.26). (Ovid is uacuus somno because his pectus is no longer uacuum but possessed by Love.)9 ⟦554⟧ Ovid, however, does not at first recognise the symptoms, not only because he is new to love (as we know from lines 19–20 and 26 of 1.1) but because to the rationalising Ovid Cupid’s epiphany in 1.1 remains at this stage just a legomenon. His initial response, therefore, is to try to analyse the situation rationally: Esse quid hoc dicam—perhaps one might even say that he tries to circumscribe τὸ ἄλογον with λόγος, and λόγος in the double sense of language and reason. Then, when he first raises, only to discount, the possibility that love is the cause, both reason and feeling come into play (nam, puto, sentirem) and reason is already a weakening force (puto).10 Only with lines 6–8 does Ovid fully accept the validity of his supernatural encounter in 1.1. Love with as it were a small ‘l’ becomes Love the god himself; Love’s arrows, allegedly discharged in 1.21–5, have in fact stuck fast; Love, allegedly king of Ovid’s pectus in 1.26, is certainly now tormenting that pectus; Love is already working his insidious harm (the process described in 1.2.6 comes after, and validates, the fact of the initial wounding). In effect, then, lines 6–8 of poem 2 mean ‘poem 1 was no mere legomenon—it was all true after all’. This analysis brings out another link between the two poems. The first poem advances as an explanation for Ovid’s writing of love poetry and falling in love a ‘what-is-said’ supernatural story; the second tries to explain perplexing physical symptoms by a rationalising process of ‘saying’; both poems, in effect, broach different explanations for the same phenomenon, and both explanations are keyed by the word dico. In the event, rationalism proves inadequate and the supernatural ‘what-is-said’ story provides the true explanation. There is then no inconsistency at all between Amores 1.1 and 1.2. Rather, the formal doubt, created by dicitur, over the veracity of Cupid’s epiphany to Ovid 9

10

Interpretation of 1.1.26 is of course vexed (see McKeown [1989] ad loc.; Davis (1981) 2468 n. 20), but the meaning ‘hitherto empty’ (not precisely ‘fancy-free’) seems to me guaranteed by the parallel 1.2.8 possessa ferus pectora uersat Amor and by the apparent legal colour of uacuo (see McKeown [1989] ad loc.), which rules out the meaning ‘still fancy-free’, since Amor is now the rex of Ovid’s pectus. (The pleasing paradox that Ovid is a lover without a beloved is not excluded by this interpretation.) Of course the sentiment of line 5 is also comically absurd, an absurdity pointed by (the often ironic) puto (surely one knows if one is in love), but that absurdity is evident only to those with some experience of love, not at this point in the narrative to Ovid the dramatic character.

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in 1.1 inaugurates an interplay between ignorance and knowledge not only on the part of the reader but also on the part of Ovid the dramatic character, who is himself a schizophrenic figure, part rationalist, unconvinced of the truth of 1.1, part lover, driven by the crazy logic of the situation to final acceptance of the irrational. Such schizophrenia of attitude is of course the source of many of the most piquant effects in the Amores, few, however, as elegant and sustained as the seeming inconsistency between 1.1 and 1.2.11 Bibliography Barsby, J. A., ed. (1973) Ovid: Amores I (Oxford). Cairns, F. (1979) Tibullus: a Hellenistic Poet at Rome (Cambridge). Cameron, A. (1968) ‘The First Edition of Ovid’s Amores’, CQ 18: 320–33. Cooper, G. L. (1974) ‘Intrusive Oblique Infinitives in Herodotus’, TAPhA 104: 23–76. Davis, J. T. (1981) ‘Risit Amor: Aspects of Literary Burlesque in Ovid’s “Amores”’, ANRW II.31.4: 2460–506. Davis, J. T. (1989) Fictus Adulter: Poet as Actor in the Amores (Amsterdam). Fehling, D. (1989) Herodotus and his ‘Sources’ (Liverpool); rev. trans. by J. G. Howie of Die Quellenangaben bei Herodot (Berlin and New York, 1971). Horsfall, N. (1990) ‘Virgil and the Illusory Footnote’, PLLS 6: 49–63; repr. in id., Fifty Years at the Sibyl’s Heels (Oxford, 2020) 285–97. McKeown, J., ed. (1987) Ovid: Amores Volume I. Text and Prolegomena (Leeds). McKeown, J. (1989) Ovid: Amores Volume II. A Commentary on Book One (Leeds). Stadter, P. A. (1980) Arrian of Nicomedia (Chapel Hill and London). Westlake, H. D. (1977) ‘Λέγεται in Thucydides’, Mnemosyne 30: 345–62.

11

I thank Tony Woodman and Trevor Fear for comments on an earlier draft of this note.

Chapter 70

Review Roland Mayer, ed., Horace: Epistles I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. viii + 291. ISBN 0-521-25898-7 (hb); 0-521-27754-X (pb).

Though Horace’s Epistles have always inspired some excellent scholarship, this is a particularly fruitful period.1 But, while there is much of value in existing commentaries (especially Kiessling–Heinze {[1914]} and Préaux {[1968]}), a proper modern commentary has been seriously needed. M(ayer)’s eloquent 52-page introduction treats: 1. the ‘epistle’ as a literary form; 2. Horace’s career; 3. addressees and date; 4. poetic style; 5. themes; 6. the book’s organisation; 7. textual transmission. 1 provides a fair general contextualisation, though it neglects ancient epist­ olographical theory,2 and, on the question of the Epistles’ fictionality, argues: (3) ‘if Horace’s verse letters were genuine and spontaneous they would cease to be imitations and, in ancient eyes, lose their status as literature’. The Epistles’ fictionality is (no doubt) certain, but requires more than circular argument. 2 is an agreeable sketch,3 though angled in support of M.’s view that the Epistles outline a dual programme of spiritual and social self-improvement illustrated by Horace’s own career and behaviour. 3 claims that, Maecenas excepted, Horace’s addressees all seem to have been young men with their careers in full flood, a reasonable general perspective, which, however, hardly accounts for Albius (IV [below]), Fuscus (X), or Horace’s bailiff (XIV). Otherwise, this discussion is disappointingly minimalist (considering the work done on the addressees’ relevance in the Odes), bland (painting an over-cosy picture of the relationship between Horace and Maecenas in I, VII, and XIX)4 and sometimes untenable in detail (e.g., on Albius in IV [below] and Lollius in XVIII [9]). 4 is an enormously strong section, which will be very useful alike for students and scholars and which I personally found very illuminating. 1 Noteworthy recent and forthcoming contributions, from scholars of very different interests and approaches, include: Kilpatrick (1986); Traina (1991); Horsfall (1993); Johnson (1993); Bowditch (1994); Ball (1994); Pearcy (1994); Harrison (1995a); and Hubbard (1995). 2 Cf. Harrison (1995a). 3 More fully developed in Mayer (1995). 4 Cf. now Seager (1993) 34–5.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_043

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5 treats the crucial interpretative questions: are the Epistles morally serious and are they in any sense philosophical? To the first, M. answers (correctly) ‘yes’ (‘the central issue of the collection … could be summed up in the phrase recte uiuere’ [39]); to the second, a qualified ‘no’.5 This position seems to me to rest on numerous misconceptions, distortions, and omissions (below). By modern standards of book-analysis, 6 is minimalist and a distinct disimprovement on Maurach (1968) and McGann (1969) 33–87, whose views have been developed and refined by intervening scholars (e.g., Johnson [1993] 66–71). Some useful additional points are made in the brief interpretative summaries appended to the commentaries, although there are discrepancies between these and the introduction (e.g., on the question of Horace’s consistency M. is himself inconsistent [218; 51]). 7 is very brief. In practice M.’s text is founded on those of Wickham and Garrod and Shackleton Bailey. In the commentary textual discussions are infrequent and perfunctory, sometimes unreasonably so (e.g., on the vexed 2.31). In the 188-page commentary M.’s policy is ‘explication from the editor’s point of view alone, with only infrequent reference to alternative interpretations’ (viii). This saves space, promotes clarity, and brings the reader closer to the text. It is therefore justifiable, especially in a series such as this, provided the commentator is reliable. Nevertheless, the near-total absence of bibliographical references entails some loss of utility, and the less satisfactory the commentary, the greater that loss. As section 4 of the introduction and M.’s general scholarly reputation would suggest, the commentary is excellent on grammar, syntax, and metre, in which areas it will be indispensable. There is also much sound and detailed literary criticism, derived both from existing discussions and from M.’s own observation, which can be acute. In my view, however, M. misses an enormous amount in key areas, including: verbal, thematic, and structural relationships (both within and between poems); verbal wit of all kinds (including name and etymological plays); analysis of thought; philosophical and literary allusions; and the relationship between poems and addressees. I choose as examples the poems where M.’s treatment seems weakest. 1 Epistle I While M., inevitably, notes many and varied philosophical allusions, he persistently minimises the centrality of philosophy to Horace’s/‘Horace’’s project, 5 Cf. Mayer (1986), and, similarly, Rudd (1993a).

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however wittily and ironically launched. (I write ‘Horace’’s, because many of those who deny the book’s philosophical status impute to their opponents a crude biographical model, to which the latter, nowadays anyway, are not committed.) Thus (according to M.) uersus 10 denotes lyrics only (n. ad loc., though the other view is taken on p. 110); decens 11 may have been devised to avoid the Stoic term decorum; Horace’s refusal to enlist under any particular philosophical master (14) indicates non-commitment to philosophy as such; hospes 15 only ‘may hint’ at Aristippus ap. Xen. Mem. 2.2.13; uirtutis uerae 17 ‘is less philosophical than Roman in sense, and refers to a man’s physical power in public life’; 19n. merely paraphrases Aristippean doctrine; his elementis 27 refer only to Horace’s moral reflections hitherto (11–12); soler 27 evokes only a note on elevated diction; 32n. says nothing about philosophical ‘road imagery’; libello (37) refers primarily to ‘booklets’ of spells, secondarily to books such as Homer; at 68–9 ‘defiance of … Fortune … was a goal of all the philosophical sects’. On the contrary, 10 rejects all verse for the concerns of 11 (uersus can be used of poetic sermo; any verse can be ludus; the polar opposition between 10 and 11 precludes an allusion to non-lyric verse in 11), thus creating multiple ambiguities whereby the Epistles are simultaneously not-poetry and poetry, not-philosophy and philosophy, the latter ambiguity being itself a philosophical ambiguity (words and writings are simultaneously nothing compared to philosophical action and a necessary preparation for it). 11 concerns not just right behaviour in general but philosophical concepts. The meaning of uerum is defined by uirtutis uerae 17 and decens is specifically Panaetian, the participial form actually being closer to Panaetius’ πρέπον than Cicero’s decorum. The Panaetian colouring of decens and cognates is confirmed as the book proceeds.6 Astonishingly, M. first mentions Panaetius at 7.98n. (one of only two references) and without acknowledgement of McGann’s important investigation. Horace’s non-commitment is certainly contrary to the philosophical norm but not unparalleled (e.g., Demonax), and his words directly recall the Academic non-commitment of Cic. Tusc. 4.7 sed defendat, quod quisque sentit; sunt enim iudicia libera: nos institutum tenebimus nullisque unius disciplinae legibus adstricti, quibus in philosophia necessario pareamus, quid sit in quaque re maxime necessario probabile, semper requiremus. The specific allusions of 18–19 guarantee the Aristippean allusion of 15. Virtutis uerae must be philosophical, because of the Stoic flavour of the rest of the line, of the allusions in 16, of the contrast with Aristippi … praecepta (18), of Virtus 41 (which even M. concedes to be philosophical) and of ueraque uirtus 18.8. 19 alludes directly, 6 McGann (1969) 10–12; on Panaetian πρέπον see further Brunt (1975) 13; 32–5 {= (2013) 283–4, 305–9}.

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via the yoking metaphor, to Aristippus’ famous dictum ἔχω ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἔχομαι (D.L. 2.75). His elementis refer to the whole project of writing about philosophy, consoler to philosophy’s well-known ‘consolations’. The booklet will bring moral recovery if thrice re-read in a pure spirit; Horace’s Epistles respond to the promptings of a Socratic inner voice in cleansed ears (7); they are a store-house for future philosophical improvement (12); any of Horace’s listeners can be cured if he lends a patient ear (40); it is Horace himself who praesens enables ‘you’ to stand free and erect against capricious Fortune (68/9). The booklet, then, is Epistles I (libellus would be a novel description of Homer!), the liber which will be despatched at the end of the collection (XX). 68–9 have a specifically Stoic colouring. Altogether, Epistle 1 broaches a specifically philosophical project, sketches alternatives in terms of recognisable philosophies with orthodox Stoicism as the ideal, introduces Horace himself in the Socratic role of philosophical mentor, and claims Epistles 1 as a philosophical text, which will benefit its readers philosophically. M. is also insensitive to philosophical detail, such as the witty oxymorons agilis fio 16 and mersor ciuilibus undis 16 (so much for Stoic εὔροια (Maurach [1968] 84 n. 33; Macleod [1979] 22); Horace’s floundering is intensified by the echo of Cat. 68A.13 merser fortunae fluctibus (cf. Woodman [1983] 102), or the implications of furtim 18, which cannot mean ‘unconsciously’ (cf. conor 19). This last example illustrates a general phenomenon throughout the commentary: the narrow demarcation of ‘meaning’ through reliance on OLD and TLL. Thus M.’s gloss on spectatum 2 as ‘proven’ annihilates the contrast with latet 5 and the ‘inverted’ ring structure created by te respicientis 105, as well as the link with VI, where spectare and related words are applied to false values. Other structural/thematic/verbal correspondences requiring discussion include: dura … custodia 22 ~ custos 17 (with rigidus ἀπὸ κοινοῦ); agendi 24 ~ agilis 16 and agendi nauiter 24 ~ 15–16 (harbour imagery; cf. Maltby [1991], s. v. nauus); regam 27 ~ rex eris | si recte facies 59–60 ~ rex … regum 107; deponere 35 ~ pono 10 ~ compono 12; ne cures 47 ~ curo 11; roget 70 ~ rogo 11 and roges 13; fugiam 72 ~ fugere 41; curatus 94 ~ curo 11; curatoris 102 ~ curatus 94; rerum tutela mearum 103 ~ tuter 13; rides 95 ~ 97 ~ 101 ~ ridendus 9 and ludicra 10 (Maecenas laughs at exactly the wrong things). M. also misses important points on a general lit. crit. level, e.g., the gladiatorial and old-horse metaphors (2–9) burlesque the lyric themes of militia amoris and the chariot of poetry; in 12 the metaphors for poetic composition remain active, thereby reinforcing the ambiguity (both poetical and philosophical) of the Epistles as texts. Finally, M.’s notes on 1 and 105 ignore the steel

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behind Horace’s rejection of Maecenas’ request for lyric and for Horace’s continued participation in his life of pleasure (steel implicit, e.g., in the relationship between 103 and 13). 2 Epistle II M. misses, or underplays, detailed links between I and II, e.g., relegi ~ ter … lecto 1.37 (which does not make Homer the ‘solution’ to 1.37; rather, the readingmatter changes); immersabilis 22 certainly recalls, and contrasts with, 1.16; in cute curanda 29 ~ 1.94 (Maecenas ~ Phaeacians); all cura-references (29, 31, 39, 49) ~ 1.102, 94, 47, 11, delineating the different sorts of curae, moral, physical, positive, negative, etc.; 52–3 ~ 1.28ff., 1.40, 1.7; puro 67 ~ pure 1.37 ~ purgatam 7; 68 puer ~ 1.59–60. More important, he does not register the fundamental structural parallelism between the two poems, which maps out the geography of the whole book. Epistle I deploys a basic philosophical polarity between Stoicism/Virtue/ constancy and Aristippus/adaptability/pleasure (15–19), and concludes by advocating a sort of compromise between the two: viz., an ironic description of the Stoic sapiens (106–8). Epistle II deploys a basic polarity between Virtue/wisdom/Odysseus (17–26) and pleasure/folly/Phaeacians (27–31) and concludes with a sort of compromise between the two (cessas 70 ~ cessatum 31 [or whatever form is read]). Again, M. minimises the formal philosophical element by failing to note that the categories of 3 are clearly Panaetian (cf. Cic. De off. 1.9; 3.7–10), as mediated by Lucilius 1329–30 (also unremarked), and that Horace’s personal compromise (nec tardum opperior nec praecedentibus insto 71) pointedly subverts a dictum attributed to Aristotle (D.L. 5.20 ἐρωτηθεὶς πῶς ἂν προκόπτοιεν οἱ μαθηταί, ἔφη, ἐὰν τοὺς προέχοντας διώκοντες τοὺς ὑστεροῦντας μὴ ἀναμένωσι) and highlights the question of philosophical προκοπή/profectus. II is a corner-stone of M.’s claim that Horace ultimately finds moral wisdom in poetry rather than philosophy. But philosophers themselves can argue this, particularly in protreptics (Zeno, Chrysippus, and Plutarch wrote such works). It is also misleading to emphasise that the case is put ‘suggestively early … in the collection’ (41): rather, (a) as in 1, Horace is still ‘setting out his stall’; (b) if the case were decisive, all subsequent epistles would be redundant. Nor is it true that ‘nowhere … does Horace press a philosophical text upon his addressees’ (124): Epistles 1 is itself such a text (above) and cf. 18.96–103 below. And the formulation ‘the epistle is a protreptic to poetry’ (124) is odd; it is a protreptic to v. 3: that is, to ethical goals expressed in formal philosophical language.

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3 Epistle III At the Horace Bimillenary Conference held in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 14–15 September 1992, M. and the reviewer both heard Margaret Hubbard’s important paper (Hubbard [1995]) on this dense and difficult poem. The paper has left no trace on M.’s treatment, except for an afterthought in the Addenda (275). The following comments are inevitably influenced by Hubbard’s insights, but observe some decorum in pillaging them and offer substantial independent observations. M. misses a great deal and does not achieve a coherent interpretation. Given the bee/flower poetic imagery of 21ff., Flore 1 must be a significant name. The first six lines make ironic play with the notion that the studiosa cohors is seriously engaged in military affairs, hence M.’s note on militet 1 (‘need not entail fighting, cf. militiae “abroad”’) is exactly wrong, operum 6 covers both military and poetical ‘works’, and diffundit 8 has double reference, as the verb can be used of removing a river barrier by diverting it into several streams (Hubbard). To translate curo 6 as ‘am interested in’, curarum 26 as ‘cares’ and curae 30 as ‘a subject for concern’, ‘dear to’ obscures the logical connexions between the three occurrences, as well as the connexions with the various sorts of curae of I and II (above). Titius’ Pindaric efforts (9–11) are implicitly criticised (pace M.), since (a) the contrast between longum in aeuum 8 and breui 9 works against him; (b) his lofty ambitions find a parallel in those of Celsus (below), who is explicitly admonished (15); and (c) in this very poem Horace himself is demonstrating what can be done in Latin with Pindar (Hubbard, who adduces several key Pindaric allusions hitherto unspotted). Celsus, another significant name (as in 8.17), is clearly aiming too high (tangere 16 of touching the untouchable). The bee/flower imagery of 21ff. echoes Virg. Geo. 4.96ff. (West [1967] 34). Whether in law or in poetic composition, Florus (by contrast with the others) will win the victor’s prize, though if he could only relinquish frigida curarum fomenta 26, he would be able to follow where caelestis sapientia led, a task which all, small and great alike, should speed, si patriae uolumus, si nobis uiuere cari 29. Exegesis of 26–7 is extremely difficult and failure to solve these lines is hardly a sin. Nevertheless: (a) M.’s interpretation of 26 is: ‘the chilling compresses your cares apply’—‘Florus’ cares—public business, perhaps love … and the pursuit of gain—chill his ingenium’ (22); on this reading the ‘cares’ are Florus’ activities (apparently not including poetry) and his ingenium is ‘his full potential both as a poet and as a man in society’. (b) M. takes caelestis sapientia 27 as ‘understanding’, ‘divine’ because reason is divine. (c) In 29 he sees a

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disjunction between the spheres of interest of the ampli and the parui (M.: ‘the ampli will attend to the state, we parui must look after ourselves’). These interpretations are untenable. (a) It is hard to see why public business, etc. should be ‘cares’ while poetry is not (seu … seu … seu 23–4). True, the victorious ivy is proper only to poetry, but it can be applied metaphorically to other activities, especially civic, and it logically must be here: Florus’ ingenium is such that he will be victor in whatever sphere he chooses. Moreover, since he will win (feres 25—simple future) the victor’s crown in poetry (thereby surpassing all his friends, whose poetic activities are variously flawed), how can his poetic ingenium be regarded as chilled? (b) Caelestis sapientia is something which everybody should pursue, not just Florus. hoc opus, hoc studium glosses 26–7. Now hoc opus, hoc studium ~ operum … studiosa 6, and similarly the image of caelestis sapientia as a general to be followed ~ militet … | Claudius Augusti priuignus 1–2. Does this mean that not only Horace’s young friends but absolutely everybody, small and great, should abandon all opera mentioned (military opera, service under Tiberius, poetry, and the law), and presumably all conceivable opera, for caelestis sapientia, whatever precisely it is? Surely not, for all normal life would come to a halt. Thus caelestis sapientia is not something that supplants the other opera; rather, it is something that can be deployed in all the various opera, which it redefines by lifting to a higher plane. Thus, e.g., Celsus, who is aiming ‘high’ in the wrong way, would benefit from caelestis sapientia: celsus in a bad sense is redefined as caelestis (the words are etymologically linked: Maltby [1991], s.v. ‘celsus’). Hence the usual rendering, ‘heavenly philosophy’, can stand, provided it is taken not to refer to full-time intellectual study but to the wider phenomenon of moral wisdom. M.’s objection that ‘“philosophy” … cannot be expected of young men’ has no force: cf. 1.24–6 id quod | aeque pauperibus prodest, locupletibus aeque, | aeque neglectum pueris senibusque nocebit, a passage which looks directly parallel. Further support for an allusion to ‘philosophy’ comes from indomita ceruice feros 34 ~ tenera … ceruice 2.64 ~ nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit, | si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem (1.39–40), in both of which ‘philosophy’ is the cure. (c) Caelestis sapientia promotes a state of affairs where all, small and great, can be dear both to themselves and to the patria. It is wrong to disjoin the spheres of the parui and ampli: the paruus Horace has been exhibiting cura for state (1–2, 7–8) and ampli (6), as he will also for ruptured friendships between individuals (30ff.), and as the ampli Florus and Munatius should for each other (30ff.). 29, then, emerges as the key proposition of the whole Epistle, for which it is tempting to seek a philosophical grounding, especially given the reference

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of caelestis sapientia itself. There is one: the philosophical doctrine that true virtue involves concord/friendship both with oneself (nobis … cari does not imply, banally, ‘we naturally love ourselves’ (M.), but that proper self-love is a philosophical goal) and with one’s fellow men. This doctrine, while widely disseminated, is found particularly in Cynicism and Stoicism.7 For Horace Panaetius is an obvious source (cf. esp. Cic. De off. 1.50–8). Perhaps, then, caelestis has a further resonance: bees, exemplars par excellence of the cooperative virtues, have a divine nature (Geo. 4.220ff.). Given all this, the frigida fomenta are something like ‘the cold/ineffective alleviations/consolations for your concerns’; the ‘concerns’ are what Florus does (law, poetry), the ‘alleviations’ false glory arising from success. Victors wear crowns of ivy (25), things applied from the outside. ‘Cold compresses’ are also external applications and ivy itself is ‘cold’ (Serv. auct. ad Ecl. 8.12 haec herba nimium frigida est). Extremes of temperature (frigida 26, calidus 33, even perhaps 26 itself, if felt as an oxymoron) promote disharmony. Only concord unites, and it unites: individuals within themselves and with their fellow men, whatever their different concerns and abilities; the great and the small; the public and the private. Note the parallel with II:  2.6–16 concern discord in Greek and Trojan camps; 3 is set (however facetiously) in a military camp. 4 Epistle IV M.’s treatment of the addressee and his place in the poem is unconvincing. Agnosticism about the identification of Albius with Tibullus is frivolous.8 The etymological pun (Albi … candide), which is a certainty, not a ‘perhaps’, has a double function: compliment of Albius’ ‘white’ behaviour as iudex of Horace’s sermones (which must be the Satires, not ‘all Horace’s hexameter writings on moral matters’ [M.]), and preparation for the idea that, despite his intrinsic ‘whiteness’ and all his advantages, his present behaviour is rather gloomy, in contrast to Horace’s own, also described by a colour/light word: nitidum 15. (Note the piquant reversal of the colour contrast in X, where the ‘dark man’ [Fuscus] is ‘light’-hearted.) As in 6.68 candidus also approaches the English ‘candid’, with the implication that, just as Albius has been Horace’s liber amicus in relation to his poetry, 7 Cf., e.g., Höistad (1948) 107–15; Schofield (1991) index, s.vv. ‘friendship’ and ‘concord’; the material in M.’s note on 18.101 is relevant. 8 See Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) on C. 1.33, Murgatroyd (1980), 2–3, and Ball (1994).

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so Horace has the duty, and the right, to be Albius’ in relation to his way of life. (I suspect also an implicit etymological allusion to Flaccus in porcum 16 (cf. Epod. 15.12; Sat. 1.9.20; 2.1.19), emphasising that by contrast with Albius Horace is true to his name and nature). Candidus can perhaps also be etymologically connected with dare (7; Maltby [1991], s.v. ‘candidus’) and is certainly often applied to gods (6–7). All this intense etymologising and verbal playing suits a poem to Tibullus, master of that art (Cairns [1979] 90–9). Though the tone is teasing (Tibullus can surely better the poetry of a dead assassin of Julius Caesar), there are philosophical resonances. That (pace M.) sapiente bonoque 5 is philosophical language is proved by the echoes of 2.17, 1.41, and 1.11 (Albius is doing the serious philosophical thing, as Horace himself was when he renounced poetry) and by the contrast with Horace’s own porcine and Epicurean behaviour (15–16). Thus the poem reworks the central philosophical contrasts of I and II: virtue/Stoicism–pleasure/Aristippeanism/Epicureanism. The Epicurean element is integral: M. misleadingly describes the sentiment of 13–14 as ‘a moralist’s commonplace’; in context and with the explicit 16, it must be read as a direct translation of a famous dictum of Epicurus (F 490 Usener ὁ τῆς αὔριον ἥκιστα δεόμενος ἥδιστα πρόσεισι πρὸς τὸν αὔριον). Similarly, M.’s contention that the emotions of 12ff. ‘need not describe Albius, they are common to all men’ ignores the verbal links between curam 12 and curantem 5 (Albius’ strong philosophical preoccupation is itself a ‘bad’ cura) and between grata 14 and gratia 10 (Albius’ gratia does not seem to give him much pleasure). Nor is it unduly ‘biographical’ to detect a link between the emotions and state of mind that Horace attributes to Albius and the somewhat plaintive notes of Tibullan elegy (cf. Ball [1994]). M. also misses numerous detailed connexions with other Epistles: Cassi Parmensis 3 ~ III (reminding us of the dangers of political dissension); curantem 5 ~ III, II, I; sapiente 5 ~ sapientia 3.27 and di tibi formam, | di tibi diuitias dederunt 6–7 (with probable additional etymological plays on di/diuitias, dederunt (Maltby [1991], s.vv. ‘deus’, ‘diues’]) ~ caelestis 3.27 (Albius has divine attributes but does not use them aright; he even has the skill (artem) to do so, but not the will); diuitias 7 ~ mitte … certamina diuitiarum 5.8; spem 12 ~ mitte leuis spes 5.8; 13–14 ~ 5.9–10 (Caesar’s birthday allows a busy man to implement Epicurus’ advice) and 11.22–3; pinguem 15 ~ pingues Asiae campi 3.5 and pinguis … Phaeax 15.24; ridere 16 ~ 1.101, 97, 95 (laughter begins to find a proper context); porcum 16 ~ sus 2.26 (the young men risk turning into Phaeacians in Asia; the Phaeacians and their like in II are now revealed as Epicureans); Epicuri … porcum also ~ V (where Horace turns out not after all to be a vulgar Epicurean).

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5 Epistle x M. seems to me to miss not only numerous felicities of detail but fundamental points about the structure and argument of this delightful and ironic but toughly-written poem. 2 hac in re scilicet una | multum dissimiles, at cetera ~ excepto quod non simul esses, cetera laetus 50. The poem is ring-structured; the initial dissimiles implicitly challenges ancient philosophical assumptions about friendship and about those with whom the virtuous can associate; cetera pointedly changes reference at the end, stressing Horace’s need of Aristius’ friendship and of his presence to complete his laetitia and the final inadequacy of his own self-sufficiency. dissimiles/simul also interact with simul 8. dissimiles ~ simul 8 builds up the picture of Horace the instant and apparently self-sufficient philosophical king once he reaches the country; ‘instant’ because philosophical conversion is instantaneous; ‘king’ because regno contrasts with the worldly ‘kings’ of 33, and the whole phrase uiuo et regno echoes and contrasts with Horace’s earlier failure at 8.4 (uiuere nec recte nec suauiter). simul 50 ~ simul 8 contributes to the final demolition of that self-sufficiency. M.’s note on uiuere naturae si conuenienter oportet 12 misses (i) the interaction with 8; (ii) that in Cynicising Stoicism and Cynicism ‘living in accordance with nature’ was held to entail a primitivist life and rejection of the city; (iii) that, consequently, the principle is here interpreted in absolutist terms. By contrast, the re-statement of the conueniens-criterion at 42 is (a) morally relativist (because it allows different interpretations according to the individual); (b) clearly Panaetian; (c) a pointed echo of 7.98 (where even M. concedes Panaetian colour). 6 Epistle XIII M. fails to note the ring-structure Augusto 2 (second line from the beginning) ~ Caesaris 18 (second line from the end), which (a) centres the poem on Horace’s relationship with Augustus; (b) does for Augustus something of what Horace does for Maecenas (prima dicta mihi, summa dicenda Camena 1.1; I ~ XIX), though Augustus is significantly ‘second’. He also misses the nicely meta-literary quality of fabula fias 9 and of 16–18. In the vexed problem of 17 he is (I believe) right to insist that carmina = the Odes, but for the wrong reason. The argument (4) that carmina cannot refer to the Epistles because of the

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literary ‘fiction that the letters are not poems’ has no force, because (a) the Epistles are both not-poetry and poetry (see above on 1.12); (b) at 19.27 and 31 carmina is used of non-lyric poetry. Rather, a reference to the Epistles would be incompatible both with the internal indications of XIII (2, 4, 6, 13) and with the dramatic economy of the book (cf. XX and libello 1.37 [above]). M. also fails to contextualise XIII adequately within the collection: it is one of a group (XII–XIV) addressed to men variously subject to others; in evoking the crisis year of 23 (3), it contrasts with the triumphs of 20 and 19 (XII); it offers a sort of anticipatory defence (praemunitio) of the literary claims of XIX (especially ingenuis oculisque legi manibusque teneri 34). 7 Epistle XVII M. seems to me to misinterpret this poem fundamentally. Against the notion that ‘Scaeua’ conveys ‘gauche’ (vel sim.) and that the addressee therefore temperamentally resembles Diogenes, he argues (a) that the name ‘also means a favourable omen … what is more Horace uses the proper name for nobody in particular at S. 2.1.53’; (b) that Scaeva must be imagined to have written to Horace asking for advice on quo … pacto deceat maioribus uti 2. But: (a) the fact that a word can be used positively in certain contexts does not preclude its being able to be used negatively in others. (b) The hypothesis that Scaeva has written to Horace depends solely on tandem 2 (‘“please” is retained from Scaeva’s implied direct question’), but tandem can function as well within the indirect question after scis. The decisive fact is that, if Scaeva is already convinced of the need maioribus uti and merely wants advice about how best to do it, then vv. 1, 3–5, and 6–42, especially utrius horum | uerba probes et facta doce, uel iunior audi | cur sit Aristippi potior sententia 15–17, make no sense. Consequently, vv. 1–5 are ironic (an irony punctured by the brusque 15–17), Scaeva is actually an admirer of Diogenes, and he is appropriately ‘gauche’, just as Diogenes himself is ineptus 32. The debate between Aristippus and Diogenes is therefore a real debate, as indeed Horace himself emphasises (17, 39), not a redundant demonstration of what Scaeva already accepts. There is also a link with XVIII: Scaeva is on the Cynic side of the debate between (alleged) complete self-sufficiency and social dependency, just as Lollius (liberrime Lolli) is on the Cynic side of the debate between libertas and scurrari within the context of social dependency. M.’s documentation of the poem’s philosophical motifs and his analysis of the argument are again lacunose. The decet-criterion (2, 23, 26) and persona-doctrine (29) are Panaetian. 10 certainly (not ‘perhaps’) recalls the Epicurean motto, λάθε βιώσας (M. obscures this by omitting uixit from the

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lemma). neque diuitibus contingunt gaudia solis 9 ~ non cuiuis homini contingit adire Corinthum (Epicureanism offers a legitimate alternative to virtuous social dependency). rectius 19 interacts with regibus 13/14 and with recte petit 42 (and also with 1.59–60) to suggest that Aristippus offers one route to a sort of philosophical kingship. Praesentibus 24 evokes the philosophical doctrine of contentment with ‘things present’ (characteristically Cynic, but applicable to Aristippus, inasmuch as he can play either role). 36 cannot simultaneously (a) provide ‘a fancied objection to the stand Horace has just taken’ and (b) suggest that ‘not everyone can succeed in associating with principes uiri; pleasing them requires its own uirtus’ (it is at 37ff. that Horace argues this). It is highly relevant that both Aristippus and Diogenes frequented Corinth, the former ‘frequenting’ Lais. In 38–42 M. fails entirely to see that the argument systematically subverts Cynic claims and terminology.9 Finally, the beggar (58–62) obviously recalls the Cynic type. 8 Epistle XVIII M. misses, or under-interprets, many of the detailed links with 17 and with earlier poems: e.g., scurrantis 2 does not just ‘forge a programmatic link between the letters’, it redefines/corrects the Aristippean role of scurror ego ipse mihi 17.19 (as 3–4 make explicit); the same applies to discolor 4 ~ color 17.21; tonsa cute 7 ~ 4.15 and 2.29 (there is a mean between Cynic-style maltreatment of the body and vulgar Epicurean self-pampering); ueraque uirtus ~ 6.15–16 and 1.17 (Horace rejects the exaggerated pursuit of virtue); 13 ~ 1.3, 10, etc. (school imagery); 14 ~ 17.29 (dramatic imagery); pretium 18 ~ 17.42; expertis/expertus 86/7 ~ experiens uir 17.42; semper inops ~ 2.56; cupido 98, pauor … spes 99 ~ 4.12; 6.5–14; 16.65f.; fallentis 103 ~ 17.10. On philosophical matters, 18 pretium aetas altera sordet evokes the Cynic doctrine λόγος ἢ βρόχος and 103 fallentis has clear Epicurean implications (above). However, the key interpretative question (which has implications for interpretation of Epistles I as a whole), concerns the section 96–103 (inter cuncta leges et percontabere doctos, | qua ratione queas traducere leniter aeuum, etc.). Who are the docti? M. argues that the ‘sense is unspecific, and points generally to the cultivated and well-read, not necessarily to the philosophical 9 Moles (1985) 44–5 {vol. 1, pp. 375–8}; to accusations of ‘wrong perspective’ (Rudd [1993a] 69), the answer is that in a debate between Cynic and anti-Cynic positions it cannot possibly be insignificant that the latter deploys against the former words spoken by the dying Heracles when he had failed to maintain Cynic standards and succumbed to luxury, words which were part of the Cynics’ own debate about Heracles’ moral decline, and perhaps even written by Diogenes himself.

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(though they are not excluded either)’; that Homer is particularly appropriate to Lollius, addressee also of 2; and that anyway the advice to read is ‘not typical of the philosophically committed’. These arguments are forced. It is difficult to see Homer as a useful guide to the precise questions asked, which are standard philosophical questions. Since the questions resume themes treated in earlier poems, one of the docti is (ironically but implicitly) Horace himself, qua philosophical teacher (in this, as in other respects, the end of the book recalls the beginning [~ 1.36–7]). Moreover, 17 lines later XIX begins Prisco si credis, Maecenas docte, Cratino. Maecenas is doctus in the sphere of poetry, not (surely) in the doctrina required in 18.96–103 (or if the latter, only because he has learned from Epistles I–XVIII). We are again back at the beginning of the collection. There Maecenas was associated with poetry as opposed to philosophy; here he is associated with poetic doc­ trina, not the doctrina of 18.96ff. One does not have to be expert in algebra to work out that the latter must = ‘philosophy’. As for the atypicality of the advice to read, it is well-known that philosophers speak with two voices on this matter, as they must (see on 1.10–12). 104ff. revert to Horace himself and his own choice of life, not permanent (cf. quotiens 104 and XIX and XX), but clearly preferred. That choice is implicitly Epicurean (103 ~ 104; 110 ~ 4.12–14), and for Horace himself the final solution to the problems raised by 1.11–19. It is quite impossible to trace his fluctuating progress throughout the collection without recourse to philosophical concepts and terminology.

…

M. (I stress) is a brilliant Latinist, whose linguistic and metrical exegeses are excellent but whose literary interpretations are seriously under-powered. The phenomenon is not uncommon, especially, perhaps, in the UK, but seems to have two specific causes. M. simply does not analyse the poems hard enough, a failure due less to incapacity than to ideology. Also, a sort of exaggerated aestheticism (‘frigidum P., mod. Palestrina, whence the name of the pleasure garden at Rousham in Oxfordshire’ [111]) enervates his critical thought. Considering the varied greatness of the Epistles, this commentary is a major missed opportunity. Bibliography Ball, R. J. (1994) ‘Albi, ne doleas: Horace and Tibullus’, CW 87: 409–14. Bowditch, L. (1994) ‘Horace’s Poetics of Political Integrity: Epistle 1.18’, AJPh 115: 409–26.

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Brunt, P. A. (1975) ‘Stoicism and the Principate’, PBSR 43: 7–35; repr. in id., Studies in Stoicism, edd. M. Griffin and A. Samuels (Oxford, 2013) 275–309. Cairns, F. (1979) Tibullus: a Hellenistic Poet at Rome (Cambridge). Harrison, S. J. (1995a) ‘Poetry, Philosophy, and Letter-Writing in Horace, Epistles I’, in D. C. Innes, H. Hine, and C. Pelling, edd., Ethics and Rhetoric: Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford, 1995) 47–61. Harrison, S. J., ed. (1995b) Homage to Horace: A Bimillenary Celebration (Oxford). Höistad, R. (1948) Cynic Hero and Cynic King: Studies in the Cynic Conception of Man (Uppsala). Horsfall, N. (1993) La villa sabina di Orazio: il galateo della gratitudine: una rilettura della settima epistola del libro primo (Venosa). Hubbard, M. E. (1995) ‘Pindarici fontis qui non expalluit haustus: Horace, Epistles 1.3’, in Harrison (1995b) 219–27. Johnson, W. R. (1993) Horace and the Dialectic of Freedom: Readings in Epistles I (Ithaca and London). Kiessling, A. and R. Heinze, edd. (1914) Q. Horatius Flaccus: Briefe4 (Berlin). Kilpatrick, R. S. (1986) The Poetry of Friendship: Horace, Epistles I (Edmonton). Macleod, C. W. (1979) ‘The Poetry of Ethics: Horace, Epistles I’ JRS 69: 16–27; repr. in id., Collected Essays (Oxford, 1983) 280–91. Maltby, R. (1991) A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds). Maurach, G. (1968) ‘Der Grundriss von Horazens erstem Epistelbuch’ AC 11: 73–124. Mayer, R. (1986) ‘Horace’s Epistles I and Philosophy’, AJPh 107: 55–73. Mayer, R. (1995) ‘Horace’s moyen de parvenir’, in Harrison (1995b) 279–95. McGann, M. J. (1969) Studies in Horace’s First Book of Epistles (Collection Latomus 100; Brussels). Moles, J. L. (1985) ‘Cynicism in Horace Epistles I’, PLLS 5: 33–60 [vol. 1, Ch. 14]. Murgatroyd, P. (1980) Tibullus I: a Commentary on the First Book of the Elegies of Albius Tibullus (Pietermaritzburg). Nisbet, R. G. M. and M. Hubbard (1970) A Commentary on Horace Odes I (Oxford). Pearcy, L. T. (1994) ‘The Personification of the Text and Augustan Poetics in Epistles 1.20’, CW 87: 457–64. Préaux, J., ed. (1968) Horace: Epistulae, liber primus: Epîtres, Livre I (Paris). Rudd, N. (1993a) ‘Horace as a Moralist’, in Rudd (1993b) 64–88. Rudd, N., ed. (1993b) Horace 2000: A Celebration: Essays for the Bimillenium (London). Schofield, M. (1991) The Stoic Idea of the City (Cambridge). Seager, R. (1993) ‘Horace and Augustus: Poetry and Policy’, in Rudd (1993b) 23–40. Traina, A. (1991) ‘Orazio e Aristippo: le “epistole” e l’arte di convivere’, RFIC 119: 285–305. West, D. (1967) Reading Horace (Edinburgh). Woodman, A. J. (1983) ‘A Reading of Catullus 68A’, PCPhS 29: 100–6.

Chapter 71

Reconstructing Plancus (Horace, C. 1.7) This paper is organised as follows: (1) text; (2) translation; (3) problems and divergent readings; (4) the ode’s literary constituents; (5) interpretation.1 1 Text Laudabunt alii claram Rhodon aut Mytilenen Aut Epheson bimarisue Corinthi Moenia uel Baccho Thebas uel Apolline Delphos Insignis aut Thessala Tempe: Sunt quibus unum opus est intactae Palladis urbem Carmine perpetuo celebrare et Undique decerptam fronti praeponere oliuam Plurimus in Iunonis honorem Aptum dicet equis Argos ditisque Mycenas Me nec tam patiens Lacedaemon Nee tam Larisae percussit campus opimae Quam domus Albuneae resonantis Et praeceps Anio ac Tiburni lucus et uda Mobilibus pomaria riuis. Albus ut obscuro deterget nubila caelo Saepe Notus neque parturit imbris

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Perpetuo, sic tu sapiens finire memento Tristitiam uitaeque labores

1 A first version was given at the Newcastle research seminar on 15 November 2000. I thank participants for reactions, David West for annotations, Graham Burton, Miriam Griffin, and Rowland Smith for prosopographical consultations, and referees for valuable and detailed comments (some of which I have resisted) on presentation, theory, and substance. Remaining errors are all my own work.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_044

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Molli, Plance, mero, seu te fulgentia signis Castra tenent seu densa tenebit

20

Tiburis umbra tui. Teucer Salamina patremque Cum fugeret, tamen uda Lyaeo Tempora populea fertur uinxisse corona, Sic tristis adfatus amicos: ‘quo nos cumque feret melior fortuna parente, 25 Ibimus, o socii comitesque. Nil desperandum Teucro duce et auspice Teucro Certus enim promisit Apollo Ambiguam tellure noua Salamina futuram. O fortes peioraque passi Mecum saepe uiri, nunc pellite curas; Cras ingens iterabimus aequor.’

30

There is one textual dispute: some argue that 7 undique confuses poetic sources and poetic crown, that it anyway requires a forced meaning (‘from anywhere and everywhere’), and that Athens’ encomiasts should seek an olive crown from Athens alone; hence ‘emendations’ such as 6–7 celebrare / indeque (Bouhier, Shackleton Bailey) or 7 Cecropiamque suae (Trappes-Lomax).2 But Horace’s inspiration is Lucr. 1.928–30 ‘iuuat … ⟦87⟧ nouos decerpere flores | insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam | unde prius nulli uelarint tempora Musae’. Lucretius keeps sources (nouos … flores) and crown (insignem … coronam) separate but conveys the logical relationship between the two (inde … unde) by closely juxtaposing them: Horace’s oliuam still more deftly elides them. 7 undique follows naturally after perpetuo: after interminable lengths, indiscriminate literary borrowing, and the quest for universal renown (all such excesses the more absurd when poets’ ‘one work’ is to celebrate Athens). These obviously Callimachean swipes are keyed by, precisely, undique, itself both a clear Callimachean echo3 and a sardonic ‘capping’ of Lucretius’ ‘exclusive’ unde (especially as undique = undeque). The simple rendering ‘from everywhere’ is wholly apposite. There are also wider literary reasons for undique, some of which will emerge later. As often, textual critics’ arguments are far too narrowly based. 2 {Bouhier (1807) 41;} Shackleton Bailey (1985) 9; Trappes-Lomax (2001) 188–90. 3 See n. 38 below.

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2 Translation Others will praise shining Rhodes or Mytilene Or Ephesus or the walls of two-sea’d Corinth Or Thebes ensigned by Bacchus or Delphi by Apollo Or Thessalian Tempe. There are those whose one work is to celebrate In perpetual song the city of intact Pallas and To place before their brow an olive culled from Everywhere. Many a one in honour of Juno Will speak of ‘Argos fit for horses’ and ‘wealthy Mycenae’. I have not been so struck by much-suffering Lacedaemon, nor by the plain of rich Larisa, As by the home of resounding Albunea

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And the headlong Anio and the grove of Tiburnus and The orchards soaked by the movable streams. As Notus is often white and wipes away the clouds from a dark  15 Sky and is not about to give birth to rain storms Perpetually: so you, if you are wise, remember To put an end to sadness, Plancus, and life’s labours With softening undiluted wine, whether the Camps refulgent with ensigns hold you, or the Dense shade of your Tibur will hold you. Teucer,

 20

When he was fleeing Salamis and his father, still Is reported to have bound his temples, soaked with The god of release, with a Poplar crown, thus addressing his sad friends: ‘Wheresoever fortune better than a parent will Transport us, we will go, o allies and companions on The road. No need to abandon hope when Teucer is Leader and Teucer is auspex. For true Apollo has Promised that there will be a double Salamis in a new Land. O brave men who have suffered worse things

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Often with me, drive away cares now; The huge sea we will plough again tomorrow.’

⟦88⟧ The translation attempts Latin verbal points and relationships.4 There are some specific points. 19 molli is adjectival rather than imperative of mollio,5 because uitaeque labores naturally accompanies tristitiam, and mollis often describes wine,6 but is here better rendered as ‘softening’, because mero has its strong sense.7 29 ambiguam means primarily ‘that may be one or the other of two’,8 but has other resonances: especially in contrast with certus,9 it suggests oracular ambiguity;10 and the actual location of their new home remains ‘uncertain’ to Teucer and his men.11 ‘Double’ aspires to as many resonances as possible. The name Plancus is italicised because it has (I believe) multiple significance.

3

Problems and Divergent Readings

C. 1.7 is generally regarded as one of the most problematic of Horace’s odes. A traditional opening question—when was the ode composed?—has been diversely answered: 32/31 BC (Nisbet and Hubbard), 31/30 BC (Elder), in the 20s BC (Quinn, Lyne), and 23 BC (West).12 But the question has itself been questioned: West insists that it is more precise to distinguish between date of composition, dramatic dating, and date of reception (2313 or 22 BC) by ‘the public’,14 the last of which should interpretatively ‘trump’ the date of composition.15 And 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15

Many of these are set out on p. 667. Discussion: Kiessling–Heinze (1958) 43. Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 103. Bliss (1960) 33 (13 uda ~ 22 uda: Teucer is drunk); for another implication of molli see p. 692 and n. 130 below. TLL I.1843; OLD 6. Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 107. Pace Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 107. For other resonances see p. 677 and 687 below. Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 91; Elder (1953) 6; Quinn (1980) 135–7; Lyne (1995) 84 n. 67; West (1995) 35; (2000) {53–6}. Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) xxxvi; some prefer 22 BC; I accept 23 BC, but the debate hardly affects this paper. Of course, a vulnerable term, given both the well-rehearsed problematics of ‘publication’ and that I shall argue that this ‘public’ included an audience/readership familiar with the Aeneid, as available both through Virgil’s readings and to privileged private readers (e.g., Prop. 2.34.61ff.). West (1995) 35; (2000), quoted in n. 140 below.

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what of the ode’s generic pluralism: why does Horace, while decrying those ‘who place before their brow an olive culled from everywhere’ (7), himself deploy (§4 below) such a battery of diverse literary elements? Is Plancus the addressee central to the ode? ‘Yes’, say Nisbet and Hubbard, Cairns, and West; ‘No’, say Davis and Lowrie.16 And to what extent, if at all, is Plancus praised? For Nisbet and Hubbard the praise is extensive: ‘the poet and panegyrist may be allowed to take at his own valuation a senior statesman, field-marshal, and founder of cities, who thanks to Hercules hegemon and his own fortune had survived many wars and other vicissitudes, and now after a prolonged absence might soon expect to return to the familiar falls of Anio and grove of Tiburnus.’ But for Lyne there is a catch: ‘the Ode is tactful, almost entirely, where it might have been barbed, bland where it might have been laudatory … [But] the myth included Teucer, beloved and loyal brother of Ajax. Was this not a tactless choice of myth, given that the man he was addressing had obtained the proscription of his brother? Of course it was: designedly so, a barb below the surface of the text.’ Lowrie, however, seeks to close off the very question: ‘praise in C. 1.7 … is not at issue … Plancus’ reputation as an opportunist made it easy for Horace to withhold praise beyond the address itself.’17 Is the ode a unity? This problem, already raised by ancient critics,18 has dominated modern debate. It is true that the most recent discussions have no difficulty in detecting extensive verbal correspondences, as for example: ⟦89⟧ 1 claram Rhodon ~ 21 Tiburis umbra; 2 bimaris … Corinthi ~ 32 ingens … aequor ~ 14 praeceps Anio; 3 Baccho ~ 22 Lyaeo ~ 19 molli … mero; 3 Apolline ~ 28 Apollo ~ 12 Albuneae; 4 insignis ~ 19 signis; 6 perpetuo ~ 17 perpetuo; 7 undique decerptam oliuam ~ 13 Tiburni lucus; 7 fronti praeponere ~ 23 tempora … uinxisse; 10 patiens Lacedaemon ~ 30 peioraque passi; 12 domus ~ 29 tellure noua; 12 Albuneae ~ 15 Albus; 13 Tiburni lucus ~ 21 Tiburis umbra; 13 uda ~ 22 uda; 16 Saepe ~ 31 saepe; 17–18 finire … / Tristitiam uitaeque labores ~ 31 pellite curas; 18 Tristitiam ~ 24 tristis; 19 mero ~ 22 Lyaeo; 19 fulgentia ~ 21 umbra; 23 fertur ~ 25 feret; 28 certus ~ 29 ambiguam; 30 passi ~ 31 nunc; 31 nunc ~ 32 Cras.19 And, as many modern scholars have stressed, there appears also to be a general movement away from Greek cities and Greek gods towards Tibur with its 16 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 90–4; Cairns (1972) 211–16; West (1995) 34–7; Davis (1991) 198–9; Lowrie (1997) 104, 107. 17 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 94; Lyne (1995) 85, 172–3; Lowrie (1997) 104, 107. 18 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 93. 19 This list, hardly exhaustive, supplements the observations of Davis (1991) 189–99, esp. 197–9; West (1995) 32–7; Lowrie (1997) 101–16, esp. 110 n. 24 and 111 n. 28.

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local Italian deities, hence, for example, 4 Thessala Tempe is ‘trumped’ by the beauties of Tibur (12–14); 12 Albuneae resonantis corresponds (somehow) to 28 Certus … Apollo; and Teucer is Romanised (27 ‘Teucro duce et auspice Teucro’) in accordance with this general movement. But whether this apparent movement can be made to stick is disputed, and there are other substantial quest­ ions about unity: how, if at all, can lines 1–14 (which seem to privilege Tibur over all named places) be reconciled with lines 19–21 (which seem to assert the irrelevance of place to freedom from unhappiness) and lines 25–9 (which likewise seem to imply that with the right attitude of mind, any place will provide a resting-place from cares)? And how, and in what ways, is the Teucer myth relevant? The difficulty of these problems is illustrated by the profound differences between three important recent readings. Davis concludes:20 the verbal and motival repetitions substantiate the claim that all three segments of the ode [i.e., 1–14; 15–21; 21–32] are closely interconnected. Teucer, our ‘remodelled’ hero from the domain of epic, provides a concrete representation of the convivial values enunciated earlier—values that, in turn, constitute the ultimate theme of a lyric laudator loci. In retrospect, therefore, the deeper relationship between Teucer’s closing speech and the prior election of Tibur as lyric locus comes more sharply into focus. Though a superficial reading of the ode might suggest a contradiction between the speaker’s attachment to a unique place (Tibur) and Teucer’s radical dislocation, the contradiction dissolves when we are made to realise that the conuiuium, as emblem of a mental outlook, is inherently mobile; the lyric sapiens may put his principles into practice wherever fortune places him. Thus the underlying message of the lyrist to Plancus in the complementary (at home/at war)21 is consonant with the admonitions of Teucer to his amici. Though alternately present and absent from the actual grove of Tibur, Plancus will come to recognise that, at a deeper level, he carries Tibur within him even when abroad in the form of lyric sapientia. In sum, C. 1.7 celebrates far more than a beautiful place. It is a self-serving, but no less magnificent, tribute to Horace’s lyric virtuosity, and to the CD [‘carpe diem’] philosophy that nurtures and sustains it. 20 Davis (1991) 198–9. 21 Davis (1991) 197 glosses: ‘a “complementary” in the formal linguistic sense … amounts to a global utterance: “wherever you may be”’.

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This neat and elegant reading has several advantages: it explains the ode’s literary debate: lyric conquers all; it provides a solution to the apparent problems of unity; and it harmonises the literary and the ethical/philosophical. But both its denial of significance to Plancus as addressee and its solution to the problems of unity should be questioned (as I shall argue). West’s reading (a development of Commager’s)22 invokes three methodological principles: (1) in the Odes Horace often writes ‘ad hominem poetry’; (2) C. 1.7 must make sense in the circumstances of 23/22 BC, the date of publication; (3) many of the Odes ‘bear an Augustan message’. All three principles are disputable. ⟦90⟧ Although DuQuesnay, Nisbet and Hubbard, and other scholars have shown that Augustan poets often tailor poems to the characters, interests, and situations of their addressees, sometimes incorporating the most subtle and detailed allusions,23 ‘ad hominem poetry’ is not so much a principle as a possibility justifiable only by its results in any particular case. The same is true of the claim for the importance of reception in 23/22 BC. And many scholars reject tout court the robust simplicities of ‘Augustan’24 and (still more) ‘message’. Yet ‘Augustan’, in the restricted sense of ‘praising Augustus and his political settlement’, may be a useful term (Velleius is obviously such an ‘Augustan’ historian; equally obviously, Tacitus is not): again, the utility of the principle depends on context. Thus West’s ‘methodology’ cannot be divorced from his practical interpretation, which goes as follows: C. 1.7 commemorates Plancus’ abandonment of Antony and adhesion to Octavian in the summer of 32 BC: a fitting parallel with Teucer, who had to abandon his old home and seek a new one; the ode has contemporary relevance because in 23 BC Plancus was censor-designate and again politically prominent; it celebrates both Plancus’ adherence to the Augustan regime and the Augustan clementia and concordia which enabled that adherence. The significance of the ode’s generic pluralism is partly that of ‘literary polemic’, partly that of literary and political appropriation: ‘one aspect of the Augustan settlement is the desire to reproduce the glories of Greece and to excel them. Horace’s poetry is part of that endeavour’. This is a coherent reading; one weakness is that it fails to confront the problem of reconciling lines 1–14 with 19–21 and 25–9.25

22 23 24 25

West (1995) 35–7; (2000); Commager (1962) 175. DuQuesnay (1976) and Nisbet–Hubbard (1978) were seminal; cf. also n. 54. E.g., Kennedy (1992); Galinsky (1996) 229–34 and passim. Although, in its closing citation of Tennyson’s recuperation of the ode, it implicitly acknowledges it.

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Like Davis, Lowrie sees the ode as centrally concerned with literary selfdefinition; unlike him, she denies any kind of closure.26 The ode’s apparent privileging of lyric over other poetic genres, of Roman over Greek, and of Tibur over all other places cannot be made to stick; the ode plays with two different notions of ‘home’,27 one as Tibur, the other as wherever one can be happy; and the myth problematises apparently antithetical categories. Thus the ode dramatises alike Horace’s attempt to define himself within established poetic categories and his failure to do so, though this self-contradiction is articulated through a style and genre which themselves represent a new form of literary integration. A strength of this reading is its full engagement with the ode’s generic pluralism. But it sedulously marginalises Plancus, and its resistance to any sort of closure seems both equivocal—if nothing can be made to stick, how can the ode’s style and genre be described as ‘integrated’?—and prejudicial. For example, the claims that ‘the Greek myth closing the poem … calls the [apparent] preference of Latin into question’ and that ‘Teucer’s example collapses the difference between apparently polar opposites’ ignores the fact that 27 ‘Teucro duce et auspice Teucro’ figures Teucer as a Roman general and hence the possibility that Teucer should be seen as transitional between Greek and Roman. My own reading (which begins from Commager and West but—I hope—goes well beyond them) may be summarised thus: Plancus is central to the ode; the myth has a triple relevance—to the death of Plancus’ brother in the proscriptions of 43 BC; to Plancus’ desertion of Antony and adhesion to Octavian in the summer of 32 BC; and to the construction of an analogy (immensely rich in its implications) between Plancus and the Aeneas of Aeneid 1; the dramatic setting is a symposium just before Plancus’ desertion of Antony; for his change of allegiance Plancus is praised and ⟦91⟧ assimilated within the Augustan programme, the praise being actually enhanced by implicit allusions to Plancus’ disreputable Antonian past, which Plancus is represented as having heroically surmounted; praise of Plancus is topical in 23 BC, the year of publication and a year of crisis in which the ex-Antonian Plancus was censor-designate; but there is another, personal, level on which Horace celebrates the survival of Plancus and himself from the storms of civil war and also advocates repeated symposiastic relief from inevitable future troubles. Finally, it is hypothesised

26 Lowrie (1997) 101–16; I hope this summary fairly represents a difficult and dense discussion from which I have learned much but with which I wholeheartedly disagree. 27 Here Lowrie follows Syndikus (1972) 95 {≈ (2001) 96–7} and Vitelli (1975) 388–91; cf. also nn. 84–5.

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that Plancus had recently remarried and that this provides yet another layer of meaning. On this reading, the ode’s unity is of a fluid, pluralist, almost all-encompassing kind: the whole political experience of the Romans between c.43 and 23/22 BC, Plancus’ individual role within that experience, his Antonian past and Augustan present, Augustanism’s absorption, even celebration, of former opponents, lament for the past, hope for the future, and recognition of past sufferings, of future sufferings, and of the consolations always available through friendship and Epicurean retreat (however temporary) from public life. The ode is poikilos and difficult because Plancus himself was poikilos and clever and the poem’s generic poikilia reflects primarily the vast range of Plancus’ experience, past, present, and future.28 Before arguing this reading, I list the ode’s literary constituents, since no discussion can progress without agreeing on their identity and attempting to explain their profusion and diversity, especially in the light of the ode’s formally lyric status and of Horace’s criticism of others (7) for doing what he is apparently doing himself. Since one of the most useful insights of recent Horatian scholarship has been the odes’ interconnectedness and the consequent need to read odes both individually and as part of the continuous text of Odes 1–3,29 the discussion makes the following distinctions: ‘internal’ of analysis of Odes 1.7 considered as an autonomous text; ‘intertextual relationship’ of the relationship between Odes 1.7 and texts outside the Odes; ‘intratextual relationship’ of the relationship between Odes 1.7 and other odes in Odes 1 and/or Odes 1–3, Odes 1 or Odes 1–3 being considered as the unitary text.30

28 Clearly, all these readings effectively aspire to completeness; Davis and Lowrie (not, obviously, West) would presumably deny this, but they actually ‘close down’ interpretative options other than their own in at least as controlling a way as allegedly more conventional critics (as I document). 29 Notably Dettmer (1983) 110–547; Santirocco (1986); Porter (1987); Lowrie (1997); also Cairns (1995a) 128–9 {= (2012) 337–8} on the possibility of 3.1–6 as ‘a single piece’; on some broad implications, Fowler (1995). 30 See now Sharrock–Morales (2000).

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The Ode’s Literary Constituents

Uncontroversial are: Priamel form (1–14).31 ‘Praise of cities’ (1–14; 20–1).32 ‘Praise of Tempe’ (4).33 Symposiastic poetry (3, 17–19, 22–3, 31), especially Archilochus’.34 Lucretius 1.928–30.35 ⟦92⟧ Locus amoenus (description of Tibur in 13–14).36 Exhortation (paraenesis) (17). Consolation (18). Pindaric Lyric.37 Callimachean polemic.38 Engagement with epic.39 31 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 2–3, 92, 94; Race (1982) 126–7; Horace’s use of the priamel is actually subtler than scholars recognise: p. 683. 32 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 92. 33 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 96–7. 34 Following earlier scholars, Stroux (1935) 321 rightly adduces Archilochus FF 9–11 IEG2; that symposium brought consolation for loss of a brother-in-law at sea, whereas (below, §5) C. 1.7 partly consoles for loss of a brother in the proscriptions, but on one level the ingens aequor (32) represents civil war (p. 692 and n. 134); for the Archilochian metre see n. 39. 35 Cf. p. 664. 36 Vitelli (1975) 387; Syndikus (1972) 99 {≈ (2001) 101}; Davis (1991) 196; allusions to earlier loci amoeni (e.g., Sappho 2.5–8 LP (Davis [1991] 196) or Archilochus, F 22 IEG2 (Davis [1991] 264)) seem (to me) unconvincing; on the other hand, Albunea’s waterfall recalls Callimachus’ sacred spring at the end of the Hymn to Apollo (108–12): Vitelli (1975) 386; Lowrie (1997) 106 (cf. also n. 38 below); presumably also 13 praeceps ~ Callimachus’ ἄκρον. 37 Variously: Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 93; Davis (1991) 193, 196; West (1995) 32; Lowrie (1997) 106 n. 17, 107–8, 111–12; cf. also nn. 120 and 123. 38 5–6 ‘unum opus est … | carmine perpetuo celebrare’ ~ Callimachus, F 1.1ff.; 7 undique ~ ἀπὸ παντός in Hymn to Apollo 110 (cf. 9; see p. 664 above); further: Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 97–8; Vitelli (1975) 382–6; Davis (1991) 191–3; Lowrie (1997) 105–6; n. 36 above; the iconoclastic Cameron (1995) does not affect Horace’s focalisation. 39 Implicit in the Callimachean literary polemic and maintained by stanza 3, where Argos, Mycenae, Sparta, and Larisa are associated with individual Greek heroes and Argos and Mycenae have translations of their Homeric epithet (9 aptum equis ~ ἱππόβοτος at Hom. Il. 2.287, etc.; ditis ~ πολύχρυσος at Il. 7.180 etc., while 11 Larisae … campus opimae ‘reinterprets’ Il. 2.841 Λάρισαν ἐριβώλακα [of the Asiatic Larisa]); and by stanzas 6–8, where Teucer’s flight from Salamis evokes both nostos (‘return home’) and ‘ktistic’ (‘foundation’) epic, and Teucer’s words at 30 echo (inter alia) Od. 12.208 (Odysseus’ encouragement of his men) and 20.18 (Odysseus’ self-encouragement) and those at 31–2 echo Od. 12.23ff.,

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Engagement with tragedy (25 ‘quo nos cumque feret melior fortuna parente’ evokes a sentiment expressed by Teucer in Pacuvius’ Teucer).40 Controversial and requiring argument are: Cairns’ analysis of the ode as an epibaterion has made little impact,41 but is clearly correct (unless one dismisses generic analysis as anachronistic).42 Intertextual relationship with Epode 13.43 There are similarities of content and structure but no clear verbal parallels. But, like Epode 13, the next ode (1.8) ends with a myth about Achilles, and the intratextually related 1.9 uides ut alta intertexts with Epode 13.44 I therefore accept an intertextual relationship. Letter.45 ‘Praise of men’. Stoic and Epicurean elements.46 Intertextual relationship with Aeneid 1.47 Intertextual relationship (in effect) with the anti-Plancus material preserved in the Tiberian historian Velleius, which must go back to the 20s BC:48

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

293. The metre (First Archilochian: dactylic hexameter alternating with dactylic tetrameter) announces the engagement: Davis (1991) 192; Morgan (2000) 111 n. 55. Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 105–6. Cairns (1972) 211–16; accepted by Lowrie (1997) 107. Debate: Russell–Wilson (1981) xi–xxxiv, esp. xxxi–xxxiv; Du Quesnay (1981), esp. 53–61; Griffin (1981); Thomas (1988); Du Quesnay’s and Thomas’ defences of generic analysis are (in my view) decisive. E.g., Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 91; Davis (1991) 16–18; Lowrie (1997) 117 n. 39. 1.9.9 permitte diuis cetera ~ Epod. 13.7 cetera mitte loqui. Elder (1953) 6. Stoic: Lowrie (1997) 111 n. 27; Epicurean: Elder (1953) 3; Davis (1991) 199. See pp. 684–5 below. Williams (1968) 83–5, 763–4 (followed (e.g.) by Cairns [1972] 215 and Lowrie [1997] 110 n. 25; Woodman [1983] 155 is non-committal) has argued that 2.67.3 (hence also Sen., Apocol. 6.1) is unhistorical, deriving from Pollio’s invective against Plancus, written after C. 1.7. But the historical inconsistencies alleged are trivial and Pollio need not have been the first to accuse Plancus; moreover, Pacuvius’ Teucer seemingly had Telamon make the same accusation against Teucer (Nisbet–Hubbard [1970] 106), and (as I shall argue) C. 1.7 itself operates with the scheme: before summer 32 BC Plancus bad, post-summer 32 BC Plancus good. Williams’ argument is an over-refinement, designed to acquit Horace of ‘tactlessness’ (below, n. 124), which (as I shall try to show) misconceives the whole basis of Horace’s praise of Plancus. Nevertheless, even if one concedes Williams’ case, one can still have a substantive parallel between Teucer’s relationship with his brother and Plancus’ with his, as Williams himself does.

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Lest any sacred tie be left inviolate, and, as it were, as a dowry49 and invitation to crime, Antony had proscribed Lucius Caesar, his uncle, and Lepidus his brother Paulus. Plancus also had sufficient influence to obtain the proscription of his brother Plancus Plotius. And so the troops who followed the triumphal car of Lepidus and Plancus kept repeating among the soldiers’ jests, but amid the execrations of the citizens, this verse: ‘Brothers-german the two consuls triumph over, not the Gauls’. (2.67.3) In the midst of these preparations for war Plancus went over to Caesar, not through a considered judgement that he was choosing the straight, nor from any love of republic or of Caesar, for he was always hostile to both, but because treachery was a disease with him. He had been the most grovelling flatterer of the queen, a client with less self-respect than a slave; he had also been secretary to Antony and was the author or the abettor of his vilest acts; for money he was ready to do all things for all men; and at a banquet he had played the role of Glaucus the Nereid, performing a dance in which his naked body was painted blue, his head encircled with reeds, at the same time wearing a fish’s tail and crawling upon his knees. Now, inasmuch as he had been coldly treated by Antony because of unmistakable evidence of his venal rapacity, he deserted to Caesar. Afterwards he even went so far as to interpret the victor’s clemency as a proof of his own merit, claiming that Caesar had approved that which he had merely pardoned. It was the example of this man, his uncle, that Titius soon afterwards followed. The retort of Coponius, who was the father-in-law of Publius Silius and a very dignified praetorian, was far from absurd when he said, as Plancus in the senate fresh from his desertion was heaping upon the absent Antony many unspeakable charges: ‘By Hercules, Antony must have done a great many things before you left him.’ (2.83) Before this had occurred the censorship of Plancus and Paulus, which, exercised as it was with mutual discord, was little credit to themselves or little benefit to the state, for the one lacked the force, the other the character, in keeping with the office; Paulus was scarcely capable of filling the censor’s office, while Plancus had only too much reason to fear it, nor was there any charge which he could make against young men, or hear others make, of which he, old though he was, could not recognise himself as guilty.50 (2.96.3) 49 Though Woodman (1983) 154 obelises uel in dotem, the meaning seems clear enough. 50 Translations, modified, are from F. W. Shipley’s Loeb (1924). The quality of Velleius’ portrait is debatable: for Woodman (1983) 137, Velleius ‘invariably treats [Plancus] with

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5 Interpretation I begin with Plancus. Cairns’ categorisation of the ode as an epibaterion implies the addressee’s importance. Lowrie, however, seeks to close off this element: ‘mention of Plancus waits until after the overtly programmatic priamel, so that it is not the dramatic situation that motivates the programmatic statement, but the other way around … the programme in C. 1.7 is made strictly on poetic grounds.’51 The argument fails. Not only does Plancus appear in the central stanza, a position which characteristically carries an ode’s main emphasis,52 but, as all agree, when one tries to make sense of this ode, one has to read backwards as well as forwards.53 The ‘ad hominem approach’ is also encouraged by the economy of the opening of Book 1. As often noted, Plancus belongs within the introductory gallery of prominent Augustans: Maecenas (and Horace himself) in 1.1; Augustus in 1.2; Virgil in 1.3; Sestius in 1.4; Agrippa (and Augustus) in 1.6. This placing already saps Lowrie’s claim that Horace ‘withhold[s] praise [from Plancus] beyond the address itself’. And in 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and 1.6 there are clear ⟦94⟧ connections between the addressees (or implied addressees) and the content of the poems.54 Some simple things may immediately be said about Plancus’ relevance to the ode. He was a prominent member of Augustus’ regime in the 20s and topical in 23 BC (because of his forthcoming censorship).55 He was something of a literary figure,56 and, if not virtuous, was (surely) highly intelligent, and thus a doubly suitable recipient of a richly complex poem. He had considerable military experience (cf. 19–20), hailed from Tibur (21), would have appreciated the detail and precision of Horace’s topographical description (12–14), was much-travelled, and had had great political vicissitudes (16–17). As for the myth, Plancus and Teucer are certainly linked by: (i) the theme of ‘home’ (12–14 and 21–2 ~ 29); (ii) sadness and suffering (18 tristitiam uitaeque labores ~ 24 tristis, 30 peioraque passi, 31 curas); (iii) the need to finish/repel

51 52 53 54 55 56

ironical contempt’, morbo proditor is ‘particularly memorable’ (216), and 83.1–3 ‘brilliant’; similarly, id. (1977) 104; for me, although Velleius’ portrait is subtler than it first appears (p. 687 below) and, within characteristic limitations, sharply written, it is vitiated by a particularly mean-spirited brand of Caesarism, underpinned by malevolence towards Munatia Plancina (Syme [1939] 512 n. 1). Lowrie (1997) 104. Collinge (1961) passim. As Lowrie herself asserts (1997) 115, citing Elder (1953) 5, and Williams (1980b) passim, for the interpretative principle praecedentia e sequentibus. Cf., e.g., Will (1982) and Cairns (1995b); also above, n. 23. Cf. also Epist. 1.3 (p. 697 below). Qua ‘smooth and eloquent’ and ‘the most smooth and elegant among the correspondents of Cicero’: Syme (1986) 38, 385.

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cares by wine (18–19 ~ 31); (iv) a symposiastic context (19 ~ 22–3); (v) military distinction (19–20 ~ 27); (vi) association with Hercules (god of Tibur; Plancus has suffered labores; Teucer wears poplar, emblem of Hercules);57 (vii) travel by sea (of which Plancus had done much). To these may be added, retrospectively at least, (viii) exile: from the perspective of Rome, Tibur was archetypically a place of exile, as Teucer’s second Salamis was for him.58 Scholars, however, have suggested three precise analogies for the myth: (a) Plancus’ expulsion from Asia and flight to the Greek islands in 40–35 BC (Kumaniecki);59 (b) the proscription and death of Plancus’ brother and the accusation against Plancus of complicity (also Kumaniecki, followed initially by West, by Williams [with a crucial modification], Cairns, Santirocco, Lyne, and Lowrie);60 and (c) Plancus’ desertion of Antony and return to Italy in 32 BC (Commager, developed by West).61 Of these, (a) is wild. With (b) the parallel is intriguingly close;62 but its viability depends on three factors: whether the ode’s time perspective is sufficiently elastic; whether Horace can allude to such an unpleasant affair (contrary to the Cairnsian principle that an addressee is wholly a laudandus, of whom no criticism can be made);63 and whether plurality of allusion is possible. But (c) looks immediately attractive. West argues: Teucer left his father as Plancus left Antony and Egypt; Plancus must have had companions (we know he had);64 Teucer is represented as a distinguished Roman general (27), as Plancus had been; Plancus thought his ‘home’ was with Antony in Egypt but then left for another home; both Teucer and Plancus left one ‘home’ and sailed across the 57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64

Further, for Hercules ~ Aeneas see p. 685 below, and for Plancus ~ Hercules see West (1995) 35–6 (Hercules on Plancus’ coinage) and n. 107. Cairns (1972) 215; the relevance of this parallel will be confirmed by the ode’s shifting focalisations (cf. p. 690 below). Kumaniecki (1947). Kumaniecki (1947) 21; West (1967) 114–17; Williams (1968) 83–5, 763–4; Cairns (1972) 215; Santirocco (1986) 37 and 191 n. 77; Lyne (1995) 172–3; Lowrie (1997) 110 and n. 25. Commager (1962) 175: ‘the promise made by a certus Apollo … that Teucer will find a new homeland might well be Horace’s assurance that Plancus will soon return from his military service (20) to his beloved Tibur. Teucer’s journey between two different Salamises is in a sense Plancus’ journey between two different Romes’; West (1995) 35–6, sharply reprised in West (2000); cf. also Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 91: ‘perhaps the ode was written soon after [Plancus’] return, and tactfully puts in the future what has already happened’. Especially if one rejects Williams’ modification (n. 48). Cairns (1972) 2; note Cairns’ circular wrigglings on this point in relation to our ode ([1972] 215). Notably his nephew M. Titius: Vell. 2.83.2 (quoted on p. 674 above); Plut. Ant. 58.4; Cass. Dio 50.3.1; one might also wonder whether Plancus had a son with him in the East, but I doubt it (for Plancus’ progeny, see pp. 697–8 below).

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sea to a new one; even 29 ambiguam can be given point as focalised by Plancus (despite Plancus’ formidable bargaining counter—revelation of Antony’s will—Augustus’ clemency was not absolutely guaranteed). ⟦95⟧ Moreover, West’s arguments can be greatly strengthened.65 That Teucer’s father thus stands for Antony is not, pace West, an incongruity, since Antony had notoriously represented himself as a ‘pater’ in his role as Liber Pater.66 Hence Antony’s Dionysiac associations are implicitly here appropriated and ‘turned’ to a celebration of the ‘true’ Dionysus, that is, in the first instance, the wine that will alleviate Plancus’ cares. Plancus’ disgraceful symposiastic and sea-god associations with Antony are similarly ‘turned’ to a celebration of the proper role of symposia, of proper use of the sea, and of the true god, Apollo, who promotes Plancus’ flight. The celebration of Dionysus as, also, god of freedom (22 Lyaeo) suggests Plancus’ ‘flight’ from the ‘tyranny’ of Antony and Cleopatra. The latter idea has already been intimated by the intratextual allusion in the previous ode (1.6.8) to Varius’ Thyestes, which was a tragic representation of Antony’s ‘tyranny’.67 We should also feel an implicit contrast between Antony qua ‘false father’ and Octavian/Augustus qua ‘true father’, for, although Horace obviously makes great play with the technique of explicit contrast, he frequently also provides one half of a contrast and leaves it to us to supply the other.68 Although Augustus did not officially become pater patriae until 2 BC, Horace in an earlier, intratextually related ode, glosses the settlement of 27 BC by the words pater atque princeps (1.2.50), and in that settlement the name/title Augustus was proposed by none other than Plancus.69 Although there is no direct attestation, we may confidently assume that Plancus on some occasions called Augustus pater, for example, when he first sued for Octavian’s clemency and when he proposed the title Augustus.70 The ode delicately alludes to Plancus’ role in the ‘first settlement’.71 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

To avoid endless potential subjunctives the sequel uses indicatives, though the interpretation is only finally accepted once all its implications seem tolerable. Vell. 2.82.4 (with Woodman [1983] ad loc.); Plut. Ant. 24.4, 26.5, 60.3–5, 75.4–6 (with Pelling [1988] ad locc.); a referee suggests (also) ‘the Freudian sense in which Antony is Plancus’ pater as authority-figure’. Leigh (1996). A referee comments: ‘cf. perhaps Epod. 9.38’ (‘curam metumque Caesaris rerum | dulci Lyaeo soluere’). Thus, e.g., 1.6.10 ‘imbellisque lyrae Musa potens uetat’ implies that Agrippa had issued haud mollia iussa, pace White (1993) 140–1. Suet. Aug. 7.2; Cass. Dio 53.16.6. Especially as Plancus was ‘synonymous with adulation’: Syme (1986), cl. Sen., NQ 4, praef. 5. One might indeed take Apollo in the ode as representing (inter alia) Octavian, but the wooziness of allegory can accommodate Augustus both as ‘good father’ and as Apollo. Lyne (1995) 84–5 and Lowrie (1997) 104 close off this possibility.

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What of the poem’s geography? The catalogue of great Greek cities, alike of the islands, the mainland, and Asia Minor, reflects not only Horace’s breadth of travel (allowing him to pronounce Tibur best) but also Plancus’.72 Perhaps also, the enumeration of Greek cities associated with the Olympian gods and the transition to Tibur and Albunea might remind the reader of Plancus’ restoration of the temple of Saturn.73 Further, the poem moves (seemingly) from ‘rejection’ of the Greek world to endorsement of the Roman. That movement itself suggests the conflict between the Roman and Italian, Augustus, and the ‘Greeks’, Antony and Cleopatra, and Plancus’ switch from the one to the other. But the geography also maps Plancus’ leave-taking of Antony with crystal precision. Teucer left Salamis, and Athens is prominent in stanza 2, in the ‘rejected’ Greek section of the poem. Antony moved from Alexandria to Athens in the summer of 32 BC, Plancus was with him, but they parted company at Athens.74 The question of the dramatic dating and setting now becomes crucial: 17–21 ‘tu sapiens finire memento | tristitiam uitaeque labores | molli, Plance, mero, seu te fulgentia signis | castra tenent seu densa tenebit | Tiburis umbra tui’. The tense variation between 20 tenent (present) and 20 tenebit (future) has often been regarded as problematic, and teneo itself has been taken in two ways: as at least primarily literal or as metaphorical (= ‘hold your affections’). On the first reading, tenent affects the dramatic dating and ⟦96⟧ setting. Characteristically enough, Davis and Lowrie seek to close off this inference: ‘switching from the present to the future tenses of the same verb universalizes over time … the juxtaposition of castra with Tibur universalizes in space, with concrete instances substituting for the abstract domi militiaeque … [these] universalizing pairs … render otiose any question of Plancus’ actual location … the message is “no matter where you are or ever will be, relieve your cares”’.75 But a ‘universal’ message can be applied to different circumstances and with accordingly different implications. If teneo is given a primarily literal force, 17–21 clearly imply that, though Plancus may in the future be in Tibur, he is ‘now’ in a military camp,76 that is, still in Antony’s camp, on the point of leaving Antony, just as Teucer 72 Nisbet–Hubbard’s comment ([1970] 92): ‘we … should not suppose that Plancus has been travelling round these cities; there are too many of them … and they are mentioned … as places famous in Greek poetry’, is (a) inappropriately literalist; (b) arbitrarily exclusive; equally arbitrary is Lowrie’s restriction ([1997] 104–5) of the places in the priamel to their generic significance. 73 Substantially in the 20s BC: Suet. Aug. 29.5; Galinsky (1996) 382 (more plausible than Eck (1984) 140). 74 Plut. Ant. 58.4. 75 Davis (1991) 197; Lowrie (1997) 108–9 (from whom the quotations are taken). 76 So, e.g., Elder (1953) 5–6; Kiessling–Heinze (1958) 43; Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 91, 103; West (1995) 35–6; (2000) {55}.

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in the myth is on the point of leaving his father. Here the questions of the dramatic dating and setting and of the relevance of the myth nicely intersect. By contrast, the metaphorical reading of teneo is advocated by Quinn and Lyne, who see Horace and Plancus as being together ‘now’ at a symposium (sometime in the 20s BC).77 The metaphorical sense conceivably might be an element of tenebit in relation to Tibur, qua Plancus’ home town, but there are strong objections to applying it to tenent: first, it is hardly plausible, given Plancus’ age,78 that Horace should even raise the possibility of his return to military life in the 20s; secondly, Teucer’s speech raises the prospect of alternative destinations (25, 29); the two seu-clauses (19–20) seem to pre-echo this possibility,79 that is, they are to be taken primarily literally; thirdly, the analogy between Plancus’ situation in the ode and Teucer’s in the myth implies that Plancus is on the point of making his great voyage but has not yet begun it; and fourthly, the metaphorical reading of teneo makes the switch of tenses difficult. Hence teneo should be taken literally. All this seems to leave Plancus in Antony’s camp in 32 BC, about to desert. Admittedly, this scenario carries certain implications, and, if any of these implications proves intolerable, we must abandon the scenario. For example, since there is no possibility of Horace’s plausibly representing himself as sharing a symposium with Plancus in Antony’s camp, it is implied that Horace is not ‘now’ with Plancus. But this implication is rather supported by Horace’s wording in the parallel seu clauses, as if he knows where Plancus now is but is not himself present, and by the distinction between the emphatic me and tu of 10 and 17. It is no objection that in this dramatic situation Horace cannot know of Plancus’ intention to desert; the second seu clause does not necessarily imply such knowledge: whatever happens, it will presumably be Plancus’ ultimate intention to return home to Tibur. The point of the Teucer paradigm then, in terms of this dramatic dating, is to encourage Plancus to desert. Plancus of course did desert and the poem must actually have been written after that desertion, after Augustus’ victory, and after the first settlement of 27 BC. Thus, on this scenario, the poem, written in full knowledge of the facts, purports to be an encouragement to Plancus in 32 BC to do what he actually did, as all contemporary readers would know.

77 Quinn (1980) 135–7; Lyne (1995) 84 n. 67 (thoroughly confused). 78 He must have been born between 90 and 85 BC: Hanslik (1933) 545. 79 Bliss (1960) 32–3.

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There are two further consequences: first, Horace is representing himself as having known Plancus at a time when he probably did not yet know him.80 But such slippage between ‘the historical facts’ and their literary representation is trivial. Second, the question arises: how is Horace to be understood as communicating with Plancus? Given their physical separation, it is not plausible to take Horace’s address to Plancus as a sort of free-floating, unlocated, address in the manner of those to Pyrrha in 1.5 or Lydia in 1.8 or as an apostrophe in the manner of epic poet or lyric moralist. Rather, the ode should be understood as a letter, perhaps even a philosophical protreptic letter.81 But that seems perfectly possible, even attractive, since not only does the ode contain a ⟦97⟧ moral paraenesis but it explicitly uses the word sapiens (17), and that in the sense ‘if you are wise’, and there are, as we shall see, other important philosophical elements. To sum up, then, so far: the arguments for Plancus’ desertion of Antony as being a crucial analogy for the Teucer myth are very strong (which does not exclude an allusion also to the proscription and death of Plancus’ brother); the best dramatic dating for the ode is 32 BC, just before Plancus’ desertion of Antony;82 and the answers to the questions of the relevance of the myth and of the dramatic dating of the ode are thus mutually reinforcing. The ode was, however, written after Plancus’ return to Italy and after ‘The First Settlement’, to both of which it implicitly alludes, hence in 27 BC or later, when Plancus was fully reintegrated into life in Rome and Tibur and must surely have been on social terms with his fellow Tiburian,83 Q. Horatius Flaccus. It follows that the ode must carry different temporal and geographical focalisations. Indeed, this is explicit in 19–21. ‘[S]eu te fulgentia signis | castra tenent’ focalises by Plancus’ presence in Antony’s camp in the summer of 32 BC (the dramatic situation, past to the Augustan reader); ‘seu densa tenebit | Tiburis umbra tui’ focalises by Plancus’ presence in Italy from the summer of 32 BC down into the 20s (future in relation to the dramatic situation, present or recent past to the Augustan reader). But there is a further geographical

80 Horace’s absence from Rome and Italy in 44–42 BC and Plancus’ absence between 40 and the summer of 32 BC make any meeting before 32 BC unlikely. 81 Cf. Elder’s (in this respect) similar hypothesis: (1953) 6. 82 At the Newcastle seminar Tony Woodman observed that some scholars give the intertext Epode 13 a similarly precise dramatic situation (before Philippi or Actium, or after Actium but before Egypt): see Mankin (1995) 214 for such possibilities. 83 Precisely, Horace’s Sabinum was in the Digentia valley beyond Tibur; Horace’s acquaintance with Plancus and his family is confirmed by Epist 1.3, however the crucial identities of that poem are cashed out: p. 698.

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focalisation (and here Syndikus, Vitelli, Davis, and Lowrie have a point of substance),84 inasmuch as the seu alternatives are picked up, within the Teucer paradigm, by 25 ‘quo nos cumque feret melior fortuna parente’, with its hint of the philosophical theme that happiness is independent of place, a theme that involves a ‘redefinition’ of ‘home’ and that was prominent in Pacuvius’ Teucer.85 Thus lines 19–21 cover three possibilities: (a) Plancus in Greece in the summer of 32 BC; (b) Plancus after his return to Italy and Tibur after the summer of 32 BC; and (c) Plancus wherever he may be. (c) logically includes (a) and (b), but, equally logically, it must include all circumstances other than (a) and (b). It again inevitably follows that the weather analogy, the symposium, Tibur, the paradigm of Teucer, and the sea must all have varying significances according to these varying focalisations. Moreover, the ode’s focalisations are further complicated by the presence of different categories of readers: (i) Plancus, the ode’s addressee or internal reader; (ii) contemporary Romans/‘us’,86 external readers in general; (iii) Maecenas, overriding addressee of Book 1 and of Books 1–3; (iv) Augustus, direct or implicit addressee of odes both before and after 1.7 in Book 1 and of odes after 1.7 in Books 2–3. Category (ii) could be sub-divided (most obviously, into Plancus’ supporters and detractors). The picture is still further complicated by the multiple personae (or ‘voices’) of Horace himself: the poet-creator of the poem and the figure within the poem who may himself have numerous different facets (poet (lyric and other)/moralist/ philosopher, public/private figure, etc.). These different focalisations and categories mean that the ode must work simultaneously on different levels and that the various ‘polarities’ or ‘antithetical categories’ highlighted by Lowrie should be understood in terms of the ode’s multi-layered and multi-temporal character and may even be resolved once that multiple character is teased into its constituent elements. The following discussion, therefore, reads the ode in the light of each of the three main focalisations.

84 Syndikus (1972) 95 {≈ (2001) 96–7}; Vitelli (1975) 388–91; Davis (1991) 198–9; Lowrie (1997) 112–13; although I shall argue below that they misconceive this point. 85 On 25’s philosophical implications see Stroux (1935) 320 ff.; Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 105 (cl. Tusc. 5.108 for Teucer’s patria est, ubicumque est bene); Lowrie (1997) 109. 86 To the extent that we should aspire to the situatedness of contemporary readers/adopt a ‘historicising’ perspective, see West (2000). I do not deny that it is also legitimate to read the ode through its many receptions (including Tennyson’s Ulysses: Martindale (1993) 8), but this is a different thing. For an attempt to understand the multifarious difficulties of ‘historicism’ see Moles (2001).

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(a) ⟦98⟧ The Ode as Focalised by the Dramatic Situation What, then, does the ode say to, and about, Plancus in Greece in summer 32 BC? First, what do Plancus’ tristitia and uitae labores (18) in that situation consist of? Plancus is ‘sad’ because he is about to abandon Antony and all his emotional investment in Antony’s service. This emphasis is, I suggest, reinforced by name play: (18–20) ‘tristitiam uitaeque labores | … Plance’. Plancus is aurally close to plango/planctus, and the resemblance is increased either by the pronunciation of Plance (with the ‘c’ equivalent to a hard ‘g’) and/or by the proximity of the triple-‘t’-ed tristitiam. It is appropriate (= both ‘natural’ and ‘fitting’) that Plancus should be ‘plangent’. Horace thus pays tribute to the emotional wrench of those who deserted Antony, whose greatest and most celebrated quality was (surely) his ability to inspire love. This tribute is complimentary to Plancus, reader (i), and paraenetic to readers (ii): in Horace’s view, while finally condemning Antony, we should also register something of his quality.87 Similarly, in 32 BC Plancus has had many uitae labores, because of the many vicissitudes that he has suffered in Antony’s service and in the whole civil-war period, a period which for him extends right back to service under Julius Caesar, to the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, and to the proscriptions. A specific reference to the proscription of Plancus’ brother (surely the single ‘saddest’ event of Plancus’ life until 32 BC) will be intimated by the Teucer paradigm. Thus a significant advantage of giving the ode a dramatic context of 32 BC is that it allows coverage of the entire civil war period.88 Moreover, by locating Plancus just before his desertion of Antony, Horace can convey allusions both to the proscription affair and to Plancus’ desertion of Antony, just as Teucer is poised between his past (his alleged abandonment of his brother) and his immediate future: his necessary abandonment of his father. In this doubleness of reference, the dramatic situation of Plancus and the mythical situation of Teucer are very similar, and it becomes clear why it is so impoverishing to read 19–21 as ‘universalising’ in the sense of ‘rendering redundant any consideration of any particular circumstances’. But our ode is not merely a consolation for Plancus: it is also a moral paraenesis. Plancus is urged to ‘put an end’ to his sadness in the summer of 32 BC through the ‘liberating’ power of wine, a power which also ‘frees’ him from the disgraceful aspects of his own past (his compromised political career, his unseemly symposiastic antics in Cleopatra’s court) and from the political 87 C. 1.37 has of course often been read in this kind of way. Generosity of response to past loyalties in the civil wars is widely advertised in the Augustan period. 88 Similarly, 1.2 has portents of 27 BC coloured by echoes from the Georgics and hence evocative of the portents before Julius Caesar’s assassination: West (1995) 12–13.

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‘tyranny’ of Antony. Since Plancus did in fact do all these things, this urging is really a paraenesis for the attitude that the second category of reader should take towards Plancus, in as much as he decisively repudiated his disreputable past. But 18 labores also acquires prospective reference from the developing allusions to Hercules, famous for his labores, especially as Hercules had travelled to Tibur: thus labores extends forwards to include the labores involved in Plancus’ dangerous desertion of Antony, his voyage to Italy, and his return to Tibur. The same process of prospective allusion is facilitated by the parallel between Plancus and Teucer, who has faced troubles in the past and will face troubles in the future as he, like Plancus, seeks a new home. Moreover, like Teucer, Plancus also has a duty to repress his own sadness and anxiety in a symposiastic context in order to provide inspiring leadership to his men: a duty that readers again know him actually to have fulfilled. From all this, it is already clear that Plancus is not merely being consoled and exhorted: he is being praised (he did spontaneously what, through a dramatic fiction, he is here being exhorted to do). This praise of Plancus is augmented by the implicit comparisons between Plancus and Hercules, Teucer, and Ulysses.89 The latter two comparisons indicate an obvious primary motive for Horace’s exploitation of tragedy ⟦99⟧ and epic in stanzas 6–8: down to 32 BC Plancus had had a ‘tragic’ career but by taking the actions that he did in the summer of 32 he acquired truly epic stature. Conceivably also, Plancus’ implicit association with these great wanderers might encourage the bilingual reader to invest the name ‘Plancus’ with further resonances—connecting it with πλάγχθη or πλάνος, especially as the great Homeric scholar Aristarchus derived πλάζομαι from πλήσσω, the Greek equivalent of plango.90 But in any event, the priamel structure of the opening stanzas executes a double movement: not merely, others praise cities ‘x’, ‘y’, ‘z’, I praise city ‘a’, but: others praise cities, I praise a man.91 In this respect 1.7 both echoes 1.6 and itself pre-echoes 1.12 (Quem uirum?). The intratextual relationship between 1.7 and 1.6 is indeed very important.92 In 1.6, addressed to Agrippa, Horace declines to praise Agrippa and Augustus in 89 In as much as 30–2 (and indeed wider considerations) evoke Odysseus (above, n. 39). 90 Bilingual punning in Horace: e.g. Cairns (1995a), esp. 91–6 {= (2012) 292–9}; (1995b); an association between Plancus and Gk. πλάνος is helped by the association between plancus and planus (below, n. 113); Aristarchus: LSJ s.v. πλάζομαι ad fin. 91 The latter movement is helped by the association of Argos, etc. with individual Greek heroes (above, n. 39). 92 Cf. also Santirocco (1986) 36–8; Porter (1987) 67; Davis (1991) 191–2; Lowrie (1997), esp. 103–5 and 113, although my reading includes much more of ‘the political’ than does any of theirs.

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epic, adopting a pose of Callimachean minimalism, and remaining true to his lyric muse. At the same time, Horace does of course implicitly praise Agrippa and Augustus. In 1.7 others praise cities in epic, a process from which Horace qua Callimachean minimalist distances himself. Instead, he praises Plancus, and his praise of Plancus is more positive and substantial than was his implicit praise of Agrippa in the previous ode.93 And he praises Plancus through the medium of symposiastic lyric; this lyric has itself epic elements (because of the Teucer myth and for many other reasons), but those epic elements have been absorbed within a predominantly lyric mode. For Horace, it is lyric that is the proper literary vehicle both for consolation and for praise: the poetical debate reinforces the political content. There is also a crucial intertextual question. Line 30 ‘o fortes peioraque passi’ closely parallels Aeneid 1.198–9 ‘o socii, neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum, | o passi grauiora’. There are common sources: the Odyssey, Naevius, and Pacuvius’ Teucer.94 The presence of Teucer in both Virgil’s Aeneid and Horace95 immediately suggests some connection in our ode between Teucer and Aeneas. But there is much more to be said. Although a few scholars have explained the parallel between Horace and Virgil simply through the common sources,96 most have rightly felt a more direct relationship. There is no consensus on the question of who is imitating whom here,97 but it is, I believe, demonstrable that Horace is imitating Virgil. The intratextual position of 1.7 within the economy of the opening of Book 1 encourages reading the parallel this way round.98 1.2 is full of allusions to the Georgics.99 1.3, addressed to the ship which will take Virgil to Greece and having Virgil as secondary addressee, is full of allusions to the Aeneid and particularly to Aeneid 1.100 Within 1.7 itself, 93 Pace Lowrie (1997) 104: ‘the step from the loyal Agrippa to Plancus is certainly down’; I am not denying that Agrippa is praised in 1.6: see also Cairns (1995b) on the rich punning on Agrippa’s name; contra, for rather unsubtle ‘anti-Agrippa’ readings: Lyne (1995) 75–9; Putnam (1995). 94 Cf. above, n. 39 and Wigodsky (1972) 39. 95 Cf. above, n. 40. 96 E.g., Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 107 (equivocal). 97 For a survey, with bibliography, see Wigodsky (1972) 39 and n. 181; others: Virgil imitating Horace: Kiessling–Heinze (1958) 44; Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 107 (again equivocal); Lowrie (1997) 113 n. 33; Horace imitating Virgil: Bliss (1960) 43–5; Porter (1987) 67 (on balance); Davis (1991) 17 (seemingly); unclear which way: Vaio (1966) 172–3. 98 I do not imply that this is always so in Odes 1–3: for example, 1.12.45–6 precedes Marcellus’ death, whereas Aen. 6.860ff. postdates it, and Virgil’s ‘Pageant of Heroes’ shows Horatian influence. 99 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 16–17; West (1995) 12–14. 100 Elder (1952); Lockyer (1967); Cairns (1972) 235; Traill (1982); Pucci (1991); Lyne (1995) 79–81; West (1995) 17–18.

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the parallels between Horace and Virgil go far beyond line 30. The Herculean colouring of the ode is relevant, because the Herculean Aeneas famously suffered labores (Aeneid 1.10 labores ~ 18 labores). There are also the allusion to Notus in 16; the search for finis laborum (17–18 ⟦100⟧ finire … labores ~ Aeneid 1.223, 241 finem … laborum); the notion of someone called ‘Teucer’ as a suitable founding figure for the Romans, called ‘Teucrians’ in the Aeneid (also, Dido knows of Aeneas’ past through our Greek Teucer: Aeneid 1.619–26); and the metaphor of ‘ploughing the sea’ in oracular instructions for journeys (32 iterabimus aequor ~ Aen. 2.780 uastum maris aequor arandum; cf. 3.495).101 Indeed, 30 ‘o fortes peioraque passi’ + 17–18 ‘finire memento | tristitiam uitaeque labores’ + 26 ‘o socii’ reads like a ‘fragmentation’ of Aeneid 1.198–9 ‘o socii, neque enim ignari sumus ante malorum, | o passi grauiora, dabit deus his quoque finem’, Aeneas’ words to his men, precisely after they have restored themselves with wine.102 Further, in Aeneid 1 Aeneas and the Trojans are hounded by Juno, champion against Rome of the counter-claims of Argos and Mycenae, and Horace emphasises that encomiasts of Argos and Mycenae act ‘in Iunonis honorem’ (8); and the ode moves, in a sort of rejectionist trajectory, away from Greek cities and Greek gods, to endorsement of the Roman. Horace’s imitation of Virgil has profound implications. In general, the Aeneid parallel encourages us to read 1.7’s generic pluralism ‘imperialistically’: in terms of ‘appropriation’ or ‘absorption’ rather than of unresolved generic tensions and of a decisive move from Greek to Roman. Still more important are the consequences for our ‘reading’ of the addressee. Clearly, Plancus becomes like Aeneas. This creates a crucial difference from Teucer and one that resonates strongly in Plancus’ favour. Aeneas, Plancus, and Teucer are all exiles: Aeneas from Troy, Teucer from Salamis, Plancus from Antony—and Tibur itself is from one focalisation a place of exile.103 But Aeneas is not only en route for a new home: that new home is ultimately the Trojans’ old home. Plancus will return to his old home in an even more direct sense. Teucer, by contrast, must find a new home. Tibur is thus again reaffirmed 101 It is also relevant that the other Teucer is a false trail for Aeneas in 3.107–9. A referee notes the Pacuvian storm of Aen. 1.87, 620 ‘finibus expulsum patriis’ and 628–9 ‘me quoque per multos similis fortuna labores | iactatam’ ~ 1.7.18 labores and 25 fortuna, and suggests in Horace ‘a comment on Virgil’s profound contamination of the epic and tragic in the Aeneid’, with the nice corollary that 32 ‘cras ingens iterabimus aequor’ might be understood as ‘this is going to be a repetition of the stormy sea-journey in 1.3 [n. 100 above], itself a repetition of the storm in Aeneid 1, itself a repetition of the storm in Pacuvius’ Teucer’. 102 At the Newcastle seminar Tony Woodman observed that on the principles of Wills (1996), this ‘fragmentation’ itself indicates Virgil’s priority. 103 See above, n. 57.

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as Plancus’ true home.104 This implication is yet further strengthened by the ur-paradigm of Odysseus, who is making for his home tout court. This dialectic about ‘home’ and ‘exile’, together with the implication that Plancus had before wrongly regarded his place with Antony as his ‘home’, conveys an allusion to the altera Roma allegation made against Antony in 32 BC,105 an allegation which Plancus, leaker of Antony’s will, must have been instrumental in promoting. But the decisive point—again—is that Plancus finally chose his true home. Plancus is also like Aeneas in that he saves his men. That in 32 BC (as opposed to 43 BC: allusion to the proscriptions again signifies) Plancus saved not only himself but members of his family constitutes another important element of Horace’s encomium. And, like both Teucer and Aeneas, Plancus is also praised for his subordinating his personal sadness and anxiety to the need to inspire his followers, so that together they may achieve salvation. But Plancus is also resoundingly assimilated into the whole Augustan programme of refoundation and reconciliation, like Sestius, the ex-Brutan addressee of 1.4, or Dellius, the ex-Antonian addressee of 2.3, or Pompeius, the die-hard Republican addressee of 2.7,106 but on a higher level than any of these: in being like Aeneas, Plancus is almost like Augustus himself, his return to Tibur an act of ‘refoundation’ parallel, though on a smaller scale, to Augustus’ ‘refoundation’ of Rome. Or rather, Plancus’ ‘refoundation’ of Tibur, like his restoration of the Temple of Saturn, ⟦101⟧ is part of the whole business of Augustan refoundation and rest­ oration. The reader may also recall Plancus’ distinguished role as a ‘founder’ in his own right.107 The intratextual relationship between 1.7 and 1.3 further deepens the analogy between Plancus and Augustus. It has been persuasively argued that 1.3 dramatises both Virgil’s planned voyage to Greece to finish the Aeneid in 19 and the composition of the Aeneid itself, imaged as a voyage.108 Hence a significant conceptual parallel between 1.7 and 1.3. 1.3 concerns a voyage made by Virgil, it is full of allusions to the Aeneid and Aeneas’ voyaging in Aeneid 1, and Virgil’s own voyage is on another level the voyage that is the composition 104 Yet further affirmation is provided by the intratext C. 2.6, where Tibur is a place of rest for one ‘tired of the sea, and of journeys, and of warfaring’ (7–8): Stroux (1935) 318; Lowrie (1997) 109–10. 105 Cass. Dio 50.4.1; Edwards (1996) 47; Ceauşescu (1976); cf. also Commager as quoted in n. 61. 106 West (2000) {55}. 107 Qua founder of Lugdunum and Raurica: another resonance closed down by Lowrie (1997) 104; note also that Plancus seemingly introduced at Raurica a form of Herculean cult modelled on Tibur’s (PIR V.22: 318). 108 References in n. 100 above.

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of the Aeneid. 1.7 concerns a voyage which is implicitly compared with Aeneas’ voyagings and labores as described in Aeneid 1. Thus 1.3 concerns Virgil, Aeneas, and the Aeneid as carrying the full freight of the Augustan programme (mediated through Horace’s own lyric poetry), whereas 1.7 concerns Plancus as a latter-day Aeneas, who represents one particularly striking manifestation of the inspiring and reconciling power of that Virgilian and Augustan programme. Clearly, if Plancus is praised in this ode, so also is Augustus, the fourth category of reader, for expediting Plancus’ reintegration into Roman political life. This creates another link between 1.7 and 1.6, with its implicit praise of Augustus as well as Agrippa.109 It is as if Augustus extends the umbrella of his approval to Plancus, attacked as he was by such rabid Caesarians as the later Velleius. Plancus himself publicly claimed that approval (Vell. 2.83.2), which had found immediate and concrete demonstration in the consulship of his nephew M. Titius in 31 BC. Impressive though the additional paradigms generated by the Aeneid are, the paradigms with which Plancus is implicitly associated are not yet exhausted. Given that (a) Hercules is important in the ode; (b) Plancus is already associated with Hercules; and (c) that the last two stanzas make great play with the idea of a journey or iter (26 ibimus, o socii comitesque, 28 promisit,110 30 ambiguam, 32 iterabimus), Horace also evokes Hercules’ famous choice between the road of virtue and the road of vice,111 and connects Plancus’ journey away from Antony with the road of virtue. It is sobering to observe that this interpretation was anticipated by the tradition found in Velleius, who pointedly excludes the possibility that Plancus deserted Antony ‘through a considered judgement that he was choosing the straight’ (Vell. 2.83.1). Here again, to the extent that Teucer functions as a philosophical paradigm for the dramatic situation of summer 32 BC, the Herculean Plancus decisively trumps him. Naturally, the image of Herculean rectitude also counteracts the charge that Plancus was a mere temporiser.112 Furthermore, in this ode Athens, Salamis, Delphic Apollo, one of Apollo’s sure prophecies, the sea, abandonment of one patria and a voyage overseas to another are all prominent themes. The name ‘Plancus’, I have suggested, can plausibly be connected with planctus or plango, with reference to Plancus’ sadness at his abandonment of Antony, and with πλάγχθη or πλάνος, further 109 And because in 1.7 Augustus is the ‘good’ pater and the poem’s implicit praise of a man pre-echoes 1.12 quem uirum?, which itself culminates in praise of Augustus, there obviously is a formal sense in which Augustus is more praised than Plancus. 110 For promitto (lit. ‘send forth’) within sustained road imagery cf., e.g., Sen. Ep. 5.4; 11.7. 111 Xen. Mem. 2.21–34. 112 Cic. ad Fam. 10.3.3; Vell. 2.83.1–2.

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aligning Plancus with the wandering Odysseus. But Plancus’ followers might also think that if they were going to make a great iter across the ingens aequor, their chances of success were greater when they had as their leader and auspex a ‘flat-footed one’, as the Romans understood ‘Plancus’ to mean: compare the comments of the grammarian Paulus: ‘plancae tabulae planae, ob quam causam et planci appellantur qui supra modum pedibus plani sunt’.113 And as Plancus’ followers took to the sea, they might also take comfort from the fact that they were led by a man whose name could be associated with ‘plank’ (planca). And if to Athens, Salamis, Delphic Apollo, etc., we add salvation via the sea through a plank, we might well recall the Delphic oracle to the Athenians, urged to abandon their fatherland and trust in their wooden walls.114 In his high intelligence Plancus could plausibly be ⟦102⟧ likened to the great Themistocles. We might recall also that some of the Athenians fled to Salamis and that the Athenians contemplated emigrating en masse to Italy.115 But in these respects, the Romanised Odysseus, Teucer, and Aeneas paradigms actually followed by Plancus ‘trump’ the Athenian emigrations, real or contemplated, in the continuing victory of Roman over Greek. At this point also, it is worth noting the ingenuity of Horace’s transition at 10–11 ‘me nec tam patiens Lacedaemon | nec tam Larisae percussit campus opimae | quam domus Albuneae’, etc. One of the most ‘striking’ manifestations of contemporary Spartan toughness was their continued practice of ‘beating’ young boys in public;116 Horace, however, is not so ‘struck’ by that ‘striking endurance’. He is ‘struck’ instead in the first instance by the delights of Tibur but in the second by the inspiring example of Plancus, ‘Mr Striker/Stricken’ (for ‘strike’ is the primary meaning of plango).117 Furthermore, patiens Lacedaemon is ‘trumped’ by 18 vitaeque labores (with reference to Plancus) and 30 peioraque passi (with formal reference to Teucer and his men but retrospective reference to Plancus and his men). Thus Plancus’ heroic suffering surpasses both that of the Athenians in their prime in 480 BC and that of the Spartans in the present. In thus surpassing the two greatest cities of classical Greece, Plancus yet again surpasses the paradigm of Teucer, in so far as Teucer represents a Greek paradigm, and yet again drives home the superiority of Roman to Greek. Still another ‘ plank’ in Plancus’ representation is provided by the anecdote recorded in Plutarch, Antony 64.3, when a faithful centurion despairingly asks 113 Paul. ex Fest. 231 Muell.; Maltby (1991) 478. 114 Hdt. 7.141–3. 115 Hdt. 8.41, 62. 116 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 100. 117 For ‘literary’ readings of percussit (which I regard as valid but subordinate to the movement patiens–percussit–Plance) see Davis (1991) 195–6 and Lowrie (1997) 105 and n. 15.

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Antony before Actium, ‘Imperator, why do you despise these wounds and this sword and place your hopes in miserable pieces of wood?’: unlike Antony, in relation to his men, Plancus is a trusty plank, even, metaphorically, the ship that will save his men.118 Thus Plancus qua ship achieves something of the same status as the ship of 1.3—the ship that transports Virgil, the ship that is the Aeneid—and that of 1.14—the storm-tossed ship of state,119 and intratextual considerations bind 1.3, 1.7, and 1.14 into a sustained ‘ship of state’ metaphor. Plancus’ maritime solidity is yet further reinforced by the association between plancus and planus: it is as if Plancus/Planus pregnantly makes the ‘huge sea’ into an aequor in its pacific sense of ‘level sea’.120 It is surely significant that Aeneid 1 makes the same move. When Neptune first senses the storm, Virgil uses aequor neutrally: 124–7 ‘Interea magno misceri murmure pontum | emissamque hiemem sensit Neptunus et imis | stagna refusa uadis, grauiter commotus; et alto | prospiciens summa placidum caput extulit unda. | disiectam Aeneae toto uidet aequore classem’. When, however, Neptune calms the storm, aequor ‘pivots’ between the neutral and the positive senses: 142 ‘sic ait et dicto citius tumida aequora placat’ (‘ringing’ with 126–7). The ‘calm’ sense is reinforced by 154–5 ‘sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor, aequora postquam | prospiciens genitor’ (further ‘ringing’ with 126–7) and by the interaction with the famous first simile of 148–53. In as much as the simile clearly evokes Aeneas and Augustus and the surrounding narrative again Augustus,121 Plancus’ credentials are once more reinforced at the very highest level. ⟦103⟧ Like Neptune, Aeneas, and Augustus, Plancus had the ability to bring order out of chaos. Thus in this ode Horace effectively renames Plancus—as it were, gives him a new passport appropriate to his new, ‘Augustan’ status, investing his name with a whole raft of new and positive resonances. Plancus, who had himself famously renamed Octavian ‘Augustus’, must have appreciated Horace’s 118 Such a usage of planca is unattested but trabs and tignum are so used (the centurion presumably used the former). 119 Whether that ship is the state or a woman or both or neither is notoriously debated: useful discussion and bibliography in Santirocco (1986) 46–9, 193–4; Lowrie (1997) 130; my argument requires only that ‘ship of state’ is a reading that must be considered. 120 Cf. the grammarian Paulus (quoted above, p. 688); planus and aequus are often connected, cf., e.g., Cic. Tim. 5; Caec. 50; in this highly Pindaric ode it is surely also significant that Pindar uses the cognate πλάξ of the sea (Pyth. 1.24); perhaps this Pindaric echo of the power of Zeus implicitly warns Plancus of the perils of amicitia Caesaris. 121 Simile Aeneas ~ Augustus: Williams (1980a) 177–8; Harrison (1985) 102, 106 n. 12; Neptune ~ Augustus: Camps (1969) 8; Austin (1971) 70 (on 156); Hardie (1986) 204–7; both aspects (and others): Galinsky (1996) 20–4; also Cairns (1989) 93–5; Weinstock (1971) 98, 116–17 (Julius Caesar’s power over storms at sea); 124–7 (Augustus’ exploitation of the idea).

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multiple positive plays upon ‘Plancus’. This insistent name play makes another link with 1.6 (and indeed earlier odes).122 At this point we may note that the many different ways in which Plancus is praised for abandoning Antony and his own disreputable political past provide a decisive answer to one of the key methodological questions raised earlier: namely, are we prepared to allow criticism of an addressee, even of an addressee who is clearly on one level a laudandus?123 Plancus is praised precisely because in abandoning Antony he virtuously turned over a new leaf (hence Velleius’ denial of the latter possibility). The more account that the reader takes of Plancus’ notoriously disreputable past, the more sustained and the more successful the praise becomes.124 This is no paradox but an eloquent tribute to the extremely systematic way in which Horace engages with, and then ‘turns’, the anti-Plancus propaganda of extreme Caesarians.125 Finally, in order both to flesh out the conclusions reached so far and to bring out further implications, it may be useful to spell out the varying significances, within focalisation (a), of the weather analogy, the symposium, Tibur, the sea, and Teucer. The weather analogy is relatively straightforward: in leaving Antony and joining Augustus, Plancus exchanges bad weather for good. But there is an important implication: at least to some extent, one can change one’s circumstances by an act of will: just as Notus, when ‘white’, ‘wipes away’ the clouds from a dark sky (as if ‘wiping away’ tears), so Plancus can act to ‘put an end to 122 Cf. Cairns (1995b); Paschalis (1994). 123 Another answer is that ‘C. 1. 7 follows Pindaric technique … in the tactful mixture of admonition and encouragement to Plancus’ (Lowrie [1997] 112); this answer, good as far as it goes, fails to register the sharpness of the problem. 124 Lyne (1995) 173, in detecting ‘a barb below the surface of the text’, could not be more wrong: not only does this ‘surface’ contain layer upon layer of implication, but it only makes full sense as praise when what is ‘below’ is taken into account. The ‘tact’ question, signalled by Williams (1968) 83–5, 763–4, and variously pursued by West (1995) 116, Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 91, Cairns (1972) 215, Lyne (1995) 85, 172–3, and Lowrie (1997) 110 n. 25, is also misguided, as is Nisbet–Hubbard’s claim ([1970] 94) that Horace blandly takes Plancus ‘at his own valuation’. 125 To be fair to Velleius’ literary art, however, he seems in turn to have ‘turned’ one element of Horace’s reconstruction of Plancus (p. 687 above). Hence a possible solution to the problem of Velleius’ remarkable failure to cite Horace among the literary luminaries of the Augustan age (2.36.3): to a Caesarian of Velleius’ relatively crude stamp, Horace must have seemed a dangerously independent subversive (even more than Ovid, whom he does cite), hence his own, extremely petty damnatio memoriae of Horace. In any event, both Horace and Velleius may be regarded as applying different colores to the same series of events, a rhetorical technique which can be used in historical reconstructions: cf., e.g., Martin–Woodman (1989) 124.

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sadness’. The symposium has immediately a double aspect, providing respite from the sufferings of the past and reassuring energy for the tasks of the future (the perils of the switch of allegiance and voyage to Italy). Tibur also has plural significance. Inasmuch as (1) the ode’s generic status as an epibaterion naturally privileges Tibur, the addressee’s home town; (2) the priamel privileges Tibur over all named cities; (3) the poem moves from the Greek world to the Roman and Italian world; and (4) Plancus himself actually made this move, when he rejected Antony for Octavian, there is a primary level on which Tibur represents Plancus’ lasting home, a level on which this ‘home’ is not in any way deconstructed. The point is emphasised by the applications to Tibur of the very word domus and of the personalising tui (12, 21, contrasting with 29 tellure noua). In as much as Tibur is also a place of exile, it contrasts with Plancus’ false home with Antony. Yet this aspect of Tibur also reminds the reader that in deserting Antony (with whom he had enjoyed high favour)126 Plancus was risking considerable loss of status (he could not have known that he would rise as high in Octavian’s favour as he did). On a more general level, Tibur ⟦104⟧ also represents (one kind of) symposiastic lyric world in contrast to the world of political activism. Tibur also has a more profound significance. A major contrast in the ode is between ‘brightness’ and ‘darkness’ or ‘shade’.127 Darkness can be negative—the darkness of sadness and labours as opposed to the ‘whiteness’ of the Sibyl Albunea and (sometimes) of Notus. But darkness can also be positive. This idea is overt in the contrast between the fulgentia signis | castra and the umbra of Tibur. Whereas Hercules, Odysseus, Teucer,128 and Aeneas imply a strenuous Stoic ideal of active political labor, the umbra of Tibur implies the ‘hidden life’ of Epicurean withdrawal, also appropriately characterised as a place of ‘exile’. This Epicurean implication is strengthened if we factor in Epode 13, with its own Epicurean colouring,129 and confirmed by intratextual considerations. For Horace mischievously turns the idea in the following ode to the courtesan Lydia, when the hapless Sybaris latet (1.8.13): not the hidden 126 At least generally; I doubt Velleius’ statement (2.83.2) that Plancus had recently lost favour with Antony because of his venal rapacity; certainly, the claim that this caused Plancus’ desertion is improbable (presumably Plancus, like other intelligent deserters, calculated the odds aright). 127 Noted by Lowrie (1997) 108, though characteristically pressed into the service of unresolved ambiguities. 128 Cf. Lowrie (1997) 111 n. 27 and n. 85 above (such sentiments particularly characterising the Cynic-Stoic tradition). 129 Epod. 13.18 ‘deformis aegrimoniae dulcibus alloquiis’, though Mankin (1995) 226 does not register this colouring.

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world of λάθε βιώσας but the loca latebrosa of the dingy brothel, themselves contrasted with public uirilitas (1.8.15), i.e., 1.8 works with a burlesqued form of the Stoic/uirilitas–Epicurean λάθε βιώσας contrast. Once the Epicurean implication in 1.7 is seen, it becomes possible to read 19 molli as proleptic of Epicurean ‘softness’.130 The Epicurean implication, too, is obviously relevant to Plancus, as he withdraws from military and political engagement under Antony to his Epicurean retreat in Tibur.131 Such a Stoic–Epicurean contrast is not inconsistent with evocation of Hercules’ choice between virtue and vice. Vice is represented by Plancus’ past life with Antony, a life characterised among other things by gross pleasure; once Plancus has made his choice of Virtue, however, Virtue can include Epicurean quietism; Horace makes the same philosophical move in his later Epistles.132 The fact that Plancus will also hold symposia in Tibur qua Epicurean retreat gives the symposium another aspect: that of Epicurean carpe diem philosophy.133 The sea, too, works on several levels. There is the literal level: the sea which Plancus had to cross to return to Italy and join Augustus. The sea also represents the sea of civil war and ‘the sea of troubles’ which besets the non-Epicurean.134 Proleptically, however, qua an aequor, it stands both for the ataraxia (‘undisturbed sea’) achieved by Plancus on his return to the Epicurean haven of Tibur and for the quies brought about by the divine Augustus out of the civil wars (as in Aeneid 1 Neptune/Aeneas/Augustus transform the turbulent sea into an aequor). Teucer is the most polysemous of all: alike responsible for his brother’s death, estranged from his father, marked by sadness and sufferings but transcending them, epic and tragic figure, symposiast, lyric figure, wanderer, sea-farer, exile, searcher for, and finder of, a new home, founder, inspirer, and saviour of his men, Stoic exemplar, analogue of Hercules and Aeneas, and transitional figure between Greek and Roman. In all these respects Teucer is a paradigm for Plancus but at least in some of them (estrangement from a father, exile, search for a new home, foundation, Aeneas-figure, transitional figure between Greek and Roman) Plancus surpasses Teucer (Plancus gets a new and better father; ‘exiled’ from Antony, he returns to his true, original, home; his assimilation with Aeneas is far more profound and aligns him with Augustus himself; his 130 Cf., e.g., Sen. Ep. 33.2 ‘mollitiam professo’ (of Epicurus). 131 C. 2.7 (to Pompeius) executes the same move from Stoicism (~ abroad in the civil wars) to Epicureanism (~ return to Italy, private life, and friendship): Moles (1987). 132 Epist. 1.1.15–18; 1.17.10, 36, with Moles (1985) 38, 47–8 {vol. 1, pp. 367–9, 380–1}. 133 Cf. Davis (1991) 199 (quoted on p. 668). 134 For both aspects cf. again C. 2.7.15–16.

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transition from Greek to Roman is complete, enacted in his reversion to his true status). ⟦105⟧ One difficulty remains: the relevance, within focalisation (a), of line 25 to Teucer’s situation and (by attraction) to Plancus’. As we have seen, ‘quo nos cumque feret melior fortuna parente’ evokes the philosophical idea that happiness is independent of place,135 hence Syndikus’, Vitelli’s, Davis’, and Lowrie’s claim136 that Horace here introduces a radically different conception of the notion of ‘home’. But neither to Teucer nor to Plancus is the concept of ‘radical dislocation’137 appropriate, as if they were perpetual wanderers or ‘cosmopolites’ in the full sense (regarding their current or future location as of no significance in itself and proclaiming instead their allegiance to the kosmos). Rather, Teucer’s words are a stirring encouragement to his sad company, as they leave their old home (= ‘we are ready for anything’); the words are especially appropriate because they are going into exile: ‘this line of argument was particularly used in philosophical consolations against the deprivations of exile’.138 They have the same implications for Plancus and his men as they face the hazards of leaving their ‘home’ with Antony. But, as the reader knows, both Teucer and Plancus attained a permanent home. The Ode as Focalised by Plancus’ Presence in Italy from the Summer of 32 into the 20s BC Plancus has also to ‘put an end to sadness and life’s labours’ through symposiastic activity when ‘the dense shade of … Tibur will hold him’ (17–21). From one point of view, focalisation (b) simply actualises what is explicit and implicit in (a). Indeed, a main function of (b) is to re-emphasise that Plancus did in fact fulfil all the implications of (a). Of course the function of the symposia that Plancus will hold in Tibur is not quite the same and the tristitia uitaeque labores will lose some of their sharpness of reference, but it remains psychologically plausible that from a broader life perspective Plancus should still need to discharge the pains of the past, especially as he continued to suffer abuse from Caesarians of Velleius’ stamp. But the date of publication, 23 (or 22) BC, gives the systematic re-enactment of Plancus’ political trajectory added impact:139 Plancus, the ex-Antonian and ex-Cleopatran, who had rightly joined Octavian in 32 BC, again rallied to the Augustan cause in the crisis of 23–22 BC, (b)

135 Cf. p. 681 and n. 85. 136 Cf. nn. 27 and 84. 137 The phrase is Davis’: (1991) 198. 138 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 106. 139 West (1995) 34–6; (2000).

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becoming censor in 22 BC, just as did Sestius, the ex-Brutan addressee of 1.4 and suffect consul in 23 BC: all hands on deck as the ship of state hits stormy weather. This implication is again complimentary to Plancus and protreptic for the second category of reader: such behaviour is exemplary for all patriotic citizens. Hence a further dating implication: either the ode was written in 23 (or 22) BC or, if first written between 27 and 23 (or 22) BC, it was refurbished for 23 (or 22) BC.140 (c) Wherever Plancus May Be As we have seen, several elements in the ode create focalisation (c).141 Further, the ode ends with the Teucer paradigm and with a future tense, so that psychologically, as it were, our imagination is (on one level) projected into the uncertainties of the future, even though our rational mind knows that (on another level) this is a future that is now past.142 And, although the primary function of the weather analogy of 15–17 is to convey ⟦106⟧ that bad weather can turn to good if one makes the appropriate act of will, the analogy also acknowledges that there is a natural cycle of good and bad weather (15–16).143 So, too, in Aeneid 1, Aeneas’ strenuous action achieves finis laborum to a degree, but not ‘finally’.144 Thus there will always be tristitia and labores and the need for symposia and vinous release, and there is a sense in which this poem is a consolation and alleviation for the inevitable cycle of success and suffering, hence that the symposiastic ‘now’ is not just 32 or, proleptically, 23 BC, but any time when an ‘end’ to suffering is required. This, too, suits Plancus. He successfully adapted to Augustus and the new Augustanism, but he was vilified by crude Caesarians, he had his further troubles—and his further successes—his role in the first settlement, his censorship of 22 BC. Praised for his abandonment of Antony and adhesion to Augustus, sometimes successful in his new political life, sometimes unsuccessful, he may sometimes need his Epicurean retreat in Tibur. And some day he will have to retire for good: tenebit allows

140 West (2000) {56} well writes: ‘these are poems of 23 BC. Horace was an operator. He did not take up an old poem and include it in a carefully judged place in this ground-breaking collection of lyric poems for the Augustan Renaissance without making sure that what it said was what he wanted said in 23 BC’. 141 See p. 681 above. 142 Cf. Lyne (1995) 84; Lowrie (1997) 116. 143 Cf. Davis (1991) 197. 144 Cf. Feeney (1991) 137 n. 32, on Aen. 1.223 ‘et iam finis erat’: ‘I give a literal translation, not knowing what the “end” refers to’; cf. also Aen. 1.279 ‘imperium sine fine dedi’, a promise which, in a search for finis laborum, is necessarily not unalloyed.

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that possibility also.145 But until that day comes, symposiastic and Epicurean relief is itself necessarily impermanent: 14 ‘Mobilibus … riuis’. The fluidities of focalisation (c) import yet another level of meaning into this most complex of odes. While we cannot know what Horace felt about Plancus, the ode at least creates the impression that he liked him and appreciated his quality, an impression intensified by the intratext with 1.6 and by the debate in the two poems about what literary genre is the right medium for praise. On a personal level, Horace (it seems) preferred Plancus to Agrippa (hardly an implausible supposition). But more than that, besides celebrating Plancus’ decision to abandon Antony, registering his pain, deflecting the gross calumnies launched against him by his enemies in Rome, and boosting the Augustan programme of reconciliation which allowed the return of men such as Plancus and even their subsequent elevation—besides all these things, 1.7 promotes a sort of worldly, lived-in, hard-won, practical wisdom: a wisdom ultimately achieved by Odysseus, the ur-paradigm of this ode. Here again, intratextual considerations reinforce the meaning. 1.6.7 ‘duplicis … Vlixei’, a minimalising rendering of Homer’s πολύτροπος which hints at Odysseus’ sexual ‘duplicity’,146 formally ‘trumps’ 1.5.5 simplex munditiis, but ironically (since Pyrrha is erotically multiplex), and interacts ‘numerically’ with 1.7.29 ambiguam and 32 iterabimus: fittingly, therefore, 1.7 addresses a πολύτροπος Odyssean figure. Plancus, after all, had survived against unpromising odds, and he had even prospered under the new regime and become a spokesman for it. He, if any Roman of his generation, most nearly embodied the ποικιλία and πολυτροπία of Odysseus.147 Horace provides a second counter to the accusation of mere opportunism. Yet there could still be reverses: times for Epicurean withdrawal to Tibur to get smashed (molli ... mero) in the company of congenial friends. So, along with all the Augustanism of this ode, which is pervasive and beneath the surface and immune from any more or less superficial deconstruction or ‘sapping’, we may sense the celebration of a theme which would become very important in imperial literature: that of ‘survival under adverse circumstances’,148 a celebration underpinned by fellow-feeling between poet and addressee. Despite their obvious differences of status and achievement, Horace and Plancus, like Horace and Pompeius (C. 2.7), had been allies and companions over the huge 145 Cf. West (1995) 35. 146 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 86; Santirocco (1996) 35; Putnam (1995) 54. 147 Or indeed of (the himself Odyssean) Aristippus, whom the Epistles commend as a model of flexibility and ability maioribus | regibus uti: Ep. 1.17.23–4, 2, 14; Traina (1991). 148 Also detectable in Nepos’ almost contemporary Vita Attici: Millar (1988) 45, 53–4; Moles (1992) 315–16 {above, pp. 66–7}; (1993) 80 {above, pp. 88–9}.

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and unnatural (ingens)149 sea of civil war. For all his many faults, Plancus was a ⟦107⟧ much less sanguinary figure than Augustus or Agrippa,150 he had survived the civil wars and saved others, he was ποίκιλος and πολύτροπος, he spoke and wrote excellent Latin, he was personally urbane and had a nice wit.151 In important respects, then, he was ‘Horace’s sort of person’.152 Consequently, when inspired—or commissioned153—to write C. 1.7, Horace really ‘pushed the boat out’ for a man about whom he had no illusions but whom at the same time he both liked and to a degree admired. One difficulty remains. Within focalisation (c), does line 25, in combination with 19–20 seu … seu, commit Horace to a radical destabilisation of the notion of ‘home’? Pace Syndikus, Vitelli, Davis, and Lowrie,154 that inference would be bizarre. In legend Teucer did not go on wandering after he had founded Salamis in Cyprus nor is there any prospect that Plancus will now again go a-wandering, except, trivially, between Tibur and Rome and, no doubt, elsewhere in Italy. It is at this point, then, and only at this point, that place becomes a metaphor for attitude of mind and the sea becomes primarily a metaphor for the ‘sea of [future] troubles’, though the remedy for such future troubles will still consist in Epicurean retreat to the physical place of Tibur, the solution (however temporary) to all Plancus’ troubles, whether within focalisations (a), (b), or (c). Horace’s treatment of the themes of home and place in this ode is not ‘inconsistent’ or ‘radically problematised’ but precisely calibrated. Not the least of this ode’s many virtues is its intellectual and philosophical rigour, the former illustrated by Horace’s virtuosic ability to achieve perfect consistency within and between each of the ode’s multiple focalisations, the latter by his creative interweavings of ‘hard’ Stoicism and ‘soft’ Epicureanism.155 149 Given that Teucer is leaving his home and people and that 32 iterabimus aequor plays with the clashing of elements, I take ‘unnatural’ to be one implication of ingens; Lewis and Short, indeed, take this as something like the basic meaning (glossing: ‘uncouth, monstrous’), deriving it from in privative and genus or genus; although no ancient grammarian agrees and the in- is normally taken as intensifying, category IV.1.a in TLL VII.1.1.1538 comes close. 150 ‘In the cool shade of Tibur Plancus could … reflect … that … he had seldom been responsible for the shedding of Roman blood’: Syme (1939) 511; cf. 158–9, 180. 151 Cf. his comment on Pollio’s invective (n. 48 above), to be published after Plancus’ death: ‘cum mortuis non nisi laruas luctari’ (Plin. HN praef. 31). 152 Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 81, with reference to Varius in 1.6. 153 Herewith an excessively large debate, though the intratext 1.6 is surely Horace’s response to a ‘commission’: Nisbet–Hubbard (1970) 82. 154 Cf. n. 84 above. 155 Of course, ‘Horace the philosopher’ is another excessively large debate; for my views see Moles (1985).

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Finally, a speculation, which, if accepted, would yet further enrich this wonderful poem. Nothing is known about Plancus’ wife or wives or about his death, but he had descendants. These include the homonymous L. Munatius L. f. Plancus, cos. AD 13, and Munatia Plancina, wife of Cn. Calpurnius Piso (cos. 7 BC). The ‘Munatius’ mentioned in Horace, Epistles 1.3.31 as a member of Tiberius’ cohors in 20 BC must be a relative of some sort; the poem also mentions a ‘Titius’ (9), which, given the presence of ‘Munatius’, immediately raises the possibility of a connection with Plancus’ nephew M. Titius, cos. 31 BC. Questions arise: (a) Are the consul and Munatia Plancina brother and sister? (b) If so, are they Plancus’ children or grandchildren? If the answer to the latter question is ‘grandchildren’, they might be the children of ‘Munatius’, who must then be Plancus’ son. On these questions scholars divide. Dessau and Syme make the consul of AD 13 Plancus’ son; Petersen makes him Plancus’ grandson, probably fathered by Horace’s Munatius;156 in regard to Munatia Plancina Dessau and others are agnostic between filia uel neptis,157 Petersen, Syme, and Eck opt for ‘granddaughter’ (hence Syme answers (a) by ‘no’),158 but Badian for ‘daughter’.159 As far as I know, the question has not been properly discussed. Now, as a nobilis (qua descendant, whether son or grandson, of Plancus cos. 42 BC) and as belonging to a family favoured by Augustus, the consul of AD 13 should have become consul suo anno, that is (under Augustus), at 32, or thereabouts.160 If so, he was born c.20 BC. As for Plancina, during Piso’s trial in AD 20, Tiberius urged Piso’s sons ⟦108⟧ to defend their mother.161 The elder son was Cn. (after the trial L.) Calpurnius Piso, cos. AD 27, the younger was M. Piso, with his father in Syria (AD 17–19), presumably either as comes or military tribune; the elder should therefore have been born c.7 BC, the younger c.1 BC. Since Roman girls married on average when they were about 15,162 Plancina was born c., or before, 22 BC. The answer to (a), therefore, pace Syme, is that the consul of AD 13 and Plancina are certainly brother and sister. How could they be Plancus’ children? Only if in the middle or late 20s, say 25 or 24, BC Plancus made a late, but fruitful, second marriage.163 His reasons (personal 156 Syme (1939) 343; L. Petersen, PIR2 V.1: 718 Munatius; 729 Munatius. 157 PIR1 M 539. 158 Petersen, PIR2 V.1: 737 Munatia; Syme (1986) 369, 429; Eck–Caballos–Fernandez (1996) 223. 159 Badian (1996). 160 Mommsen (1887) 574; Syme (1958) II.653–4; (1939) 51–2; Hopkins (1983) 146 n. 35, 154. 161 Tac. Ann. 3.17.6; it is immaterial here whether Plancina was Piso’s second wife (as, e.g., Syme [1986] 369): they were her sons. 162 Hopkins (1983) 84. 163 It would be inconceivable that he had not been married before.

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ones aside) might have included obfuscation of his unseemly past,164 pressure of Augustan moral reform,165 doing his bit de prole augenda, and his projected censorship. On the other hand, there are certainly things to be said for ‘Munatius’ as being Plancus’ son. Epistle 1.3, like several others in Book 1, addresses the coming generation in the Augustan world;166 allusion to a son might suit the elevated status of Plancus and his family in the new regime; the coincidence of a ‘Munatius’ and a ‘Titius’ being mentioned as close to the new imperial house in the same poem requires explanation; and the chronology looks sensible: ‘Munatius’, if son of Plancus (born c.90–85 BC), would himself have been the father of a son born c.20 BC; he might be a suitable comes of Tiberius, born 42 BC. And might ‘Titius’ be a son of Plancus’ nephew, M. Titius?167 That Titius, qua Plancus’ nephew, was younger than Plancus and had recently acquired a wife.168 On the other hand, as suffect consul in 31 BC, he cannot have been a young man (even if he need not have attained the then official age of 42) and might have had a son by a previous wife. But if ‘Munatius’ is Plancus’ son, he should himself have become consul but he does not. Yet he could of course have died. Non liquet, I think: Epistle 1.3 does not absolutely require that ‘Munatius’ be Plancus’ son (rather than some other younger relative) and the consul of AD 13 has Plancus’ full nomenclature. At which point, it is worth re-reading our ode. As we have seen, 1.7 has to be read intratextually as well as internally. 1.4 mixes the political and the erotic (the return of spring, Venus, Sestius’ beloved slave boy, the ‘warming-up’ of youths and virgins, the latter still virgins in the proper sense). 1.5 is all erotic (the deceitful courtesan Pyrrha). 1.6 mixes the political and the erotic (the battles of virgins and youths, where the ‘virgins’ are hardly virgins). 1.6.7 duplicis Vlixei (as we have seen, < 1.5.5 simplex munditiis) snidely canvasses Odysseus’ erotic ‘duplicity’. 1.8 laments Sybaris’ erotic incarceration by the courtesan Lydia (presumably Sybaris’ ‘first time’). 1.6.7 duplicis Vlixei looks forward to the genuinely polutropos figure of the Odyssean Plancus. 1.7.5 intactae Palladis urbem reintroduces a true virgin, and the sexual desert of Athens contrasts with the lushness of Tibur (12–14). 1.7.16–17 neque parturit imbris (an image of ‘unnaturalism’) makes a contrast with the human ‘parturition’ which is the natural and happy consequence of 164 Which according to Vell. 2.83.1 included sexual misbehaviour. 165 Marriage reform was clearly in the air in the 20s BC, whether or not 18 BC brought in the first marriage laws: West (1995) 61. 166 Mayer (1994) 8–9. 167 Mayer (1994) 8 n. 26. 168 Syme (1986) 30, 73, 417.

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human marital ‘touchings’. Putting the ‘intratextual’ and the ‘internal’ together with the hypothesis of a second marriage, we should read 1.7 as (inter multa alia) celebrating Plancus’ recent marriage, blessed by the birth of Plancina (born before 22 BC), and as a demonstration of the patriotic harmonisation of public and private, political and erotic. What a man. But all this with an affectionate smile, for not the least of the things uniting Horace and Plancus was an excellent sense of humour, and the humour is enhanced by the implicit contrast between Roman marital rectitude and the sexual cavortings of the foreign-named Lydia and Sybaris (1.8). ⟦109⟧ Clio, of course, had the last laugh: without Livia’s protection, Munatia Plancina perished wretchedly in AD 33, but that would have surprised neither Horace nor Plancus: if bad weather is not perpetual, neither is good.169 Bibliography Austin, R. G., ed. (1971) P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Primus (Oxford). Badian, E. (1996) ‘Munatius (RE 30) Plancus, Lucius’, OCD3: 1000. Bliss, F. R. (1960) ‘The Plancus Ode’, TAPhA 91: 30–46. Bouhier, J. (1807) Remarques inédites du Président Bouhier, de Breitinger et du Père Oudin, sur quelques passages d’Horace, avec une lettre sur l’Art poétique et sur la Sat. IV, liv. II (Paris). Cairns, F. (1972) Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (Edinburgh). Cairns, F. (1989) Virgil’s Augustan Epic (Cambridge). Cairns, F. (1995a) ‘Horace’s First Roman Ode (3.1)’, PLLS 8: 91–142; repr. in Cairns (2012) 292–339. Cairns, F. (1995b) ‘M. Agrippa in Horace Odes 1.6’, Hermes 123: 211–17; repr. in Cairns (2012) 182–9. Cairns, F. (2012) Roman Lyric: Collected Papers on Catullus and Horace (Berlin and Boston). Cameron, A. (1995) Callimachus and his Critics (Princeton and London). Camps, W. A. (1969) An Introduction to Virgil’s Aeneid (Oxford). Ceauşescu, P. (1976) ‘Altera Roma: histoire d’une folie politique’, Historia 25: 79–108. Collinge, N. E. (1961) The Structure of Horace’s Odes (London and New York). Commager, S. (1962) The Odes of Horace: a Critical Study (New Haven). Davis, G. (1991) Polyhymnia: The Rhetoric of Horatian Lyric Discourse (Berkeley). Dettmer, H. (1983) Horace: A Study in Structure (Hildesheim). Du Quesnay, I. M. Le M. (1976) ‘Vergil’s Fourth Eclogue’, PLLS 1: 25–99. 169 Cf. also n. 120 above.

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Du Quesnay, I. M. Le M. (1981) ‘Vergil’s First Eclogue’, PLLS 3: 29–182. Eck, W. (1984) ‘Senatorial Self-Representation: Developments in the Augustan Period’, in F. Millar and E. Segal, edd., Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects (Oxford) 129–67. Eck, W., A. Caballos, and F. Fernández, edd. (1996) Das Senatus Consultum de Cn. Pisone Patre (Munich). Edwards, C. (1996) Writing Rome: Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge). Elder, J. P. (1953) ‘Horace Carmen 1.7’, CPh 48: 1–7. Feeney, D. C. (1991) The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition (Oxford). Fowler, D. P. (1995) ‘Horace and the Aesthetics of Politics’, in Harrison (1995) 248–66. Galinsky, G. K. (1996) Augustan Culture: an Interpretive Introduction (Princeton). Griffin, J. (1981) ‘Genre and Real Life in Latin Poetry’, JRS 71: 39–49; rev. version in id. (1985) 48–64. Griffin, J. (1985) Latin Poets and Roman Life (London and Baltimore). Hanslik, R. (1933) ‘Munatius (30)’, RE XVI.1: 545–51. Hardie, P. (1986) Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford). Harrison, S. J. (1985) ‘Vergilian Similes: Some Connections’, PLLS 5: 99–107. Harrison, S. J., ed. (1995) Homage to Horace: A Bimillenary Celebration (Oxford). Hopkins, K. (1983) Death and Renewal (Cambridge). Kennedy, D. (1992) ‘“Augustan” and “Anti-Augustan”: Reflections on Terms of Reference’, in A. Powell, ed., Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus (London) 26–58. Kiessling, A. and R. Heinze, edd. (1958) Horaz: Oden und Epoden9 (Berlin). Kumaniecki, C. F. (1947) ‘De Horatii carmine ad Plancum (Carm. 1,7)’, Eos 42: 5–23. Leigh, M. (1996) ‘Varius Rufus, Thyestes and the Appetites of Antony’, PCPhS 42: 171–97. Lockyer, C. W. (1967) ‘Horace’s Propempticon and Vergil’s Voyage’, CW 61: 42–5. Lowrie, M. (1997) Horace’s Narrative Odes (Oxford). Lyne, R. O. A. M. (1995) Horace: Behind the Public Poetry (New Haven). Maltby, R. (1991) A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds). Mankin, D. (1995) Horace: Epodes (Cambridge). Martin, R. H. and A. J. Woodman, edd. (1989) Tacitus: Annals IV (Cambridge). Martindale, C. (1993) Redeeming the Text: Latin Poetry and the Hermeneutics of Reception (Cambridge). Mayer, R., ed. (1994) Horace: Epistles Book I (Cambridge). Millar, F. (1988) ‘Cornelius Nepos, “Atticus” and the Roman Revolution’, G&R 35: 40–55; repr. in id., Rome, the Greek World and the East, volume I: the Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution, edd. H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers (Chapel Hill and London, 2002) 183–99. Moles, J. L. (1985) ‘Cynicism in Horace Epistles I’, PLLS 5: 33–60 [vol. 1, Ch. 14]. Moles, J. L. (1987) ‘Politics, Philosophy and Friendship in Horace Odes 2.7’, QUCC 25: 59–72 [above, Ch. 67].

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Moles, J. L. (1992) ‘Review of N. Horsfall, ed., Cornelius Nepos a Selection, including the Lives of Cato and Atticus (1991)’, CR 42: 314–6 [above, Ch. 39]. Moles, J. L. (1993) ‘On Reading Cornelius Nepos with Nicholas Horsfall’, LCM 18: 76–80 [above, Ch. 42]. Moles, J. L. (2001) ‘A False Dilemma: Thucydides’ History and Historicism’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., Texts, Ideas and the Classics: Scholarship, Theory and Classical Literature (Oxford) 195–219 [above, Ch. 55]. Mommsen, T. (1887) Römisches Staatsrecht3, I (Leipzig). Morgan, Ll. (2000) ‘Metre Matters: Some Higher-level Metrical Play in Latin Poetry’, PCPhS 45: 99–120. Nisbet, R. G. M. and M. Hubbard (1970) A Commentary on Horace Odes I (Oxford). Nisbet, R. G. M. and M. Hubbard (1978) A Commentary on Horace Odes II (Oxford). Paschalis, M. (1994) ‘Names and Death in Horace’s Odes’, CW 88: 181–90. Pelling, C. B. R., ed. (1988) Plutarch: Life of Antony (Cambridge). Porter, D. H. (1987) Horace’s Poetic Journey: A Reading of Odes 1–3 (Princeton). Pucci, J. (1991) ‘The Dilemma of Writing: Augustine, Confessions 4.6 and Horace Odes 1.3’, Arethusa 24: 257–81. Putnam, M. C. J. (1995) ‘Design and Allusion in Horace, Odes I.6’, in Harrison (1995) 50–64. Quinn, K., ed. (1980) Horace: the Odes (London). Race, W. H. (1982) The Classical Priamel from Homer to Boethius (Leiden). Russell, D. A. and N. G. Wilson, edd. (1981) Menander Rhetor (Oxford). Santirocco, M. (1986) Unity and Design in Horace’s Odes (Chapel Hill). Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. (1985) Q. Horati Flacci Opera (Stuttgart). Sharrock, A. and H. Morales, edd. (2000) Intratextuality: Greek and Roman Textual Relations (Oxford). Shipley, F. W., ed. and trans. (1924) Velleius Paterculus: Compendium of Roman History (London and Cambridge, Mass.). Stroux, J. (1935) ‘Valerius Flaccus und Horaz’, Philologus 90: 305–30. Syme, R. (1939) The Roman Revolution (Oxford). Syme, R. (1958) Tacitus, 2 vols. (Oxford). Syme, R. (1986) The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford). Syndikus, H. P. (1972) Die Lyrik des Horaz, eine Interpretation der Oden: Band I, erstes und zweites Buch (Darmstadt). Syndikus, H. P. (2001) Die Lyrik des Horaz: eine Interpretation der Oden: Band I, erstes und Zweites Buch3 (Darmstadt). Thomas, R. (1988) ‘Review of Griffin (1985)’, CPh 83: 54–69. Traill, D. A. (1982) ‘Horace, C. 1.3: a Political Ode?’ CJ 78: 131–7. Traina, A. (1991) ‘Orazio e Aristippo: le “epistole” e l’arte di convivere’, RFIC 119: 285–305. Trappes-Lomax, J. (2001) ‘Two Notes on Horace and Juvenal’, PCPhS 47: 188–95.

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Vaio, J. V. (1966) ‘The Unity and Historical Occasion of Horace Carm. 1.7’, CPh 61: 168–75. Vitelli, C. (1975) ‘Per l’interpretazione di Hor. Carm. I 7’, RAL 30: 381–92. Weinstock, S. (1971) Divus Julius (Oxford). West, D. (1967) Reading Horace (Edinburgh). West, D., ed. (1995) Horace Odes I: Carpe Diem (Oxford). West, D. (2000) ‘Speculative Historicism’, Histos 4: 50–8. White, P. (1993) Promised Verse: Poets in the Society of Augustan Rome (Cambridge, Mass. and London). Wigodsky, M. (1972) Vergil and Early Latin Poetry (Wiesbaden). Will, E. L. (1982) ‘Ambiguity in Horace Odes I.4’, CPh 77: 240–5. Williams, G. (1968) Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford). Williams, G. (1980a) ‘The Importance of Aspect in Virgilian Similes’, in B. Marshall, ed., Vindex Humanitatis: Essays in Honour of John Huntly Bishop (Armidale) 177–95. Williams, G. (1980b) Figures of Thought in Roman Poetry (New Haven). Wills, J. (1996) Repetition in Latin Poetry: Figures of Allusion (Oxford). Woodman, A. J., ed. (1977) Velleius Paterculus: The Tiberian Narrative (2.94–131) (Cambridge). Woodman, A. J., ed. (1983) Velleius Paterculus: The Caesarian and Augustan Narrative (Cambridge).

Chapter 72

Poetry, Philosophy, Politics, and Play: Epistles 1 Scholars disagree over the philosophical and political aspects of Epistles 1.* While earlier generations (represented by Heinze, Courbaud, and Fraenkel) talked freely of ‘philosophical conversion’ and Macleod, Kilpatrick, Ferri, and Harrison still see the book as philosophical, Williams, Mayer, and Rudd deny it even formal philosophical status, although both Rudd and Mayer project Horace as a moralist.1 Similarly, where Williams and Mayer see unequivocal praise of Augustus and Maecenas, Seager, Lyne, and Oliensis detect disengagement, even disaffection.2 These questions entail general questions about Roman poetry: the relationships between literature and life, between persona and person, between literature and politics, and between poet, patron, and addressee. This chapter3 argues that the Epistles are both formally and profoundly philosophical; that the philosophical and political interrelate; and that the poems express some tensions, ambiguities, and reservations in Horace’s attitudes both to public life and to Maecenas and Augustus, tensions which inform a wide-ranging and radical debate about the pros and cons of engagement in, or withdrawal from, that public life. 1

Philosophical Poetry Prima dicte mihi, summa dicende Camena, spectatum satis et donatum iam rude quaeris, Maecenas, iterum antiquo me includere ludo? non eadem est aetas, non mens. Veianius armis Herculis ad postem fixis latet abditus agro,

5

* ⟦235⟧ I thank: helpful seminarians at Leeds International Latin Seminar (16/2/1996) and North-East Classical Research Seminar (23/11/1998); David West for oral sparrings; and Francis Cairns and the editors for criticism of written versions. 1 Kiessling–Heinze (1970) 370; Courbaud (1914) 36; Fraenkel (1957) 308; Macleod (1979); Kilpatrick (1986); Ferri (1993); Williams (1968) 1–6; Mayer (1986), endorsed by Galinsky (1996) 253, 419; Mayer (1994), esp. 39–47; Rudd (1993a). 2 Williams (1968) 14, 19–22; Mayer (1994) 143, 174, 205; Seager (1993) 34–5; Lyne (1995) 144–57; Oliensis (1998) 154–65, 168–81. 3 Inchoate earlier treatments on which I draw: Moles (1985); (1995).

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_045

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ne populum extrema totiens exoret harena. est mihi purgatam crebro qui personet aurem: ‘solue senescentem mature sanus equum, ne peccet ad extremum ridendus et ilia ducat.’ nunc itaque et uersus et cetera ludicra pono: 10 quid uerum atque decens, curo et rogo et omnis in hoc sum: condo et compono quae mox depromere possim. ⟦142⟧ ac ne forte roges, quo me duce, quo lare tuter: nullius addictus iurare in uerba magistri, quo me cumque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes. 15 nunc agilis fio et mersor ciuilibus undis uirtutis uerae custos rigidusque satelles, nunc in Aristippi furtim praecepta relabor et mihi res, non me rebus, subiungere conor. (1.1–19) When Maecenas requests more of the same (3), Horace likens his previous poetical activity to a gladiatorial ludus: that was his old school, he has retired and put all that aside (10 ludicra ~ antiquo … ludo). His new activity (11),4 necessarily also a ludus, seems to be philosophy, an activity appropriate for those of mature age (4). Rogo evokes philosophical ‘enquiry’ (what more philosophical question than ‘What is truth?’). Decens has a triple philosophical aspect: firstly, ‘the neuter sing. of adjectives … is turned into a noun to provide philosophical technical terms’;5 secondly, qua participle, decens is an even closer calque upon the Greek πρέπον than the customary decorum; thirdly, as we shall see, at least retrospectively, decens glosses the specifically Panaetian understanding of πρέπον. And omnis in hoc sum suggests the absoluteness of philosophical conversion. Since the metaphorical gladiatorial ludus subdivides into individual ludi (14), the same applies to philosophy. Thus far ludus and cognates have four applications: (a) the ludus of gladiatorial combat; (b) the rejected ludus/ludicra of Horace’s previous poetry; (c) the ludus of philosophy; (d) individual philosophical ludi. To these we may add a paradoxical (e). Inasmuch as Horace’s philosophical ludus is still expressed in poetry, some association between ludus and poetry remains (I shall return to this). Horace’s polysemous exploration of ‘play’ will be a key element in the structure, imagery, and argument of 1.1 and of the whole book. 4 Freudenburg (1993) 29 reverses the argument, as do those who see 16–17 and 18–19 as glossing Horace’s Stoic and Epicurean odes. 5 Mayer (1994) 90.

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The treatment of individual philosophies acquires definition in 13–19. The philosopher Aristippus is explicitly named in 18. His polar opposite (16–17) is also a philosopher: the orthodox Stoic, ‘active’ in political life (agilis ~ πρακτικός), emblematic of virtue in a strong sense (uirtutis uerae ~ 11 uerum), and imaged in terms of warfare (custos) and ‘hardness’ (rigidus).6 A good reason for (sometimes) attaching philosophical labels to poetry is that they are one of Horace’s own thematic categories, whether explicit (18–19) or implicit (16–17).7 Numerous allusions underpin the philosophical texture. Line 5 latet abditus glosses the Epicurean tag ‘live unnoticed’ (λάθε βιώσας). Line 7 evokes Socrates’ daimonion, appropriately ‘deterring’ Horace from poetry. Maecenas’ anticipated question in 13 assumes Horace’s adhesion to some ⟦143⟧ philosophical master. The sectarian religious imagery of 13 quo lare tuter suggests philosophical exclusiveness. Line 14 echoes the Academic non-commitment of Cicero, Tusc. 4.7 (sed defendat quod quisque sentit: sunt enim iudicia libera, nos institutum tenebimus nullisque unius legibus disciplinae adstricti), and contrasts with the Epicureans’ oath to their master’s doctrines. Line 15 echoes Acad. 2.8 (ad quamcumque sunt disciplinam quasi tempestate delati). Line 15 hospes glosses Aristippus’ claim to be a ξένος everywhere (Xen. Mem. 2.2.13). Line 17 custos and satelles image virtue as a king, glossing Stoic ‘kingship’. Line 18 adapts Acad. 2.139 (uideo quam suauiter sensibus nostris blandiatur: labor eo ut adsentiar Epicuro aut Aristippo); 18 furtim, echoing 5, nicely characterises Epicureanism. Line 19 glosses, via the yoking metaphor, Aristippus’ boast ‘I have, but I am not had’ (D.L. 2.75).8 The combination of that yoking metaphor, of the horse metaphor for Horace’s rejected earlier poetry (8–9), and of the name ‘Aristippus’ (= ‘best at horses’ or ‘best horse’) recalls the contrasting horses of Phaedrus 246bff. And beneath the polarity of 16–19 lies Hercules’ choice between Virtue and Vice/Pleasure and their corresponding roads, a choice put to Aristippus (Mem. 2.1.21–34) and alluded to in Academica 2.139. Although the primary contrast in 17–19 is between an unchanging conception of virtue and a flexible ideal, virtue–vice, hard–soft and virile–effeminate contrasts are also latent. Given this Aristippean colouring, 3 includere must be read (restrospectively) as including a (prospective) gloss on Aristippus’ refusal to ‘shut himself into’ (Mem. 2.1.13) any politeia.

6 Mayer (1994) 92 and cf. (e.g.) the sparkling exploration of this complex of ideas in Sen. Ep. 33. 7 Not discussed by the sceptical Rudd (1993a) 67–71. 8 Excepting the interpretation of 5 (confirmed by 16.15 latebrae dulces: p. 717 below), this material is garnered from Préaux (1968), Kiessling–Heinze (1970), and Mayer (1994).

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Horace’s deployment of his immense philosophical erudition9 accommodates different levels of readership: philosophically erudite readers can enjoy the depth and ingenuity of allusion, but the main philosophical divisions are spelled out, and all readers can understand both the need for some form of philosophy and the difficulties of putting it into practice. The conclusion that the Epistles’ subject matter is philosophy might be supported by certain (admittedly controversial) generic considerations.10 But the general conclusion is sure. Yet the standard objections to it11 require consideration, since they illuminate the complexity of Horace’s engagement with phil­ osophy and indeed of the very activity of philosophising. 2

Objections to a Philosophical Reading

(a) The first objection is the alleged naïveté of supposing that Horace had had a philosophical conversion, especially given his earlier philosophical poems. But the latter factor does not preclude a broad distinction between non-philosophical and philosophical matter, no doubt exaggerated to suit ⟦144⟧ the rhetoric of conversion, and the main point foists upon philosophical interpreters a crude biographical model to which they are not committed. But this objection does point an important question: the relationship between literature and life. No one still believes that the Epistles are ‘real letters’12 and many stress the presence of motifs from the Satires, a linkage strengthened by their common status as sermones.13 Yet Maecenas, like all the addressees, is a real person, and the subtlety of Horace’s allusions to addressees’ characteristics and interests is well recognised.14 Whatever the truth of Horace’s self-description in 94–7, Maecenas’ fussy reactions suit a notorious 9 Denied by Rudd (1993a) 67. 10 E.g., the influence of the philosophical letter (Dilke (1981) 1844, 1846) and other philosophical modes (Harrison [1995a] 48–57); Lucretian influence (Ferri [1993]); the Epistles’ status as sermones, with debatable links to Bionei sermones (satura) and ‘diatribe’: cf. variously Horsfall (1979); Rudd (1979); Brink (1982) 254, 299–300; Braund (1992) 25, 31 n. 61; Muecke (1993) 2–4. 11 ⟦236⟧ Culled from Williams (1968) 1–7; Mayer (1986); (1994) 39–47; Rudd (1993a) 64–5, 67, 77, 82–3. 12 Williams (1968) 1–30 vs Fraenkel (1957) 308–63; De Pretis (1998) (sophisticated reformulation). 13 Kilpatrick (1986) 2–6; Braund (1992) 25; Freudenburg (1993) 28–9; Johnson (1993) 4–5, 114–15; Lyne (1995) 186–7; n. 10 above. 14 Nisbet (1959); McGann (1963); Allen (1970); Harrison (1992); Jones (1993); Johnson (1993) 11 n. 4 and 11–17; Lyne (1995) 146–7.

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fop; Maecenas was Horace’s patron; he did request poems; Horace was pressured into producing Odes 4.15 In short, if, on the question of the relationship between the Epistles and real life, the theoretical possibilities are: (i) elaborate, self-conscious, fictionality; (ii) literal truth; and (iii) poetic truth à la Poetics 9 (allowing a degree of historicity—real people, broadly historical circumstances and events), then the world of the Epistles includes all three and rather more of (ii) than many moderns concede. If we do not attribute some substantive truth to that world, Horace’s proffering of his own life-experience and his fitful moral progress through the text will fall flat. For the poems to engage the reader emotionally, socially, and morally, there must be some recognisable relationship between ‘Horace’ (the literary construct) and Horace (the ‘real person’). This point is reinforced by the sphragis of the last poem, Horace’s farewell to his book (20.19–28): cum tibi sol tepidus plures admouerit aures, me libertino natum patre et in tenui re maiores pennas nido extendisse loqueris, ut, quantum generi demas, uirtutibus addas; me primis urbis belli placuisse domique, corporis exigui, praecanum, solibus aptum, irasci celerem, tamen ut placabilis essem. forte meum siquis te percontabitur aeuum, me quater undenos sciat impleuisse Decembres, collegam Lepidum quo dixit Lollius anno.

20

25

Line 23 echoes 17.35 principibus placuisse uiris, of Aristippus, who, as we shall see, there represents one side of Horace. Epistles 1, 7, and 19 (to Maecenas), 9 (to Tiberius), and 13 (on Augustus’ receiving the Odes)16 attest that worldly success. And 26–8 ring with 1.4: Horace has indeed changed; he is ageing. His allegedly new interest in philosophy is psychologically and chronologically plausible. An inevitable gap remains between writer and text (a gap upon which 1.20 itself elegantly plays), but the two connect. ⟦145⟧ (b) The second objection claims that Horace cannot be maintaining a distinction between poetry and philosophy: his words scan; he is writing poetry. There are self-conscious thematic overlaps with the Satires. Any poetry–philosophy distinction in favour of the latter is challenged by the 15 So I believe: Suet. Vita Hor., Loeb ed., II.486. 16 Moles (1995) 168 {above, pp. 658–9}.

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opening of Epistle 2: Homer tells us what is fine, what is base, what is useful, what is not, more clearly and better than Chrysippus and Crantor (1–5). Epistle 4’s and Epistle 13’s allusions to Satires and Odes respectively bring those poetic types closer to the Epistles. Epistle 12 (to Iccius) intertexts with Odes 1.29.17 And Horace’s defence of his poetry in Epistle 19 centres on Odes and Epodes. Now it is clearly true that Horace presents the Epistles as both different from some or all of his previous poetry and as part of his whole poetic corpus, the latter emphasis predominating in the second half of the book. Yet the paradox of the Epistles’ being both poetry and not-poetry but philosophy is created and emphasised in 1.10–11: nunc itaque et uersus et cetera ludicra pono: quid uerum atque decens, curo et rogo et omnis in hoc sum. These lines of verse make a polar opposition between verse and all other play-things and philosophy; uersus cannot be restricted to lyric, since this excludes the Satires and the term can include poetic sermo: hence 10–11 do not appeal to the prosaic status of sermo (as many argue), but to the simple idea that philosophy is something distinct from poetry—cf. Socrates and Plato18 (simple, though of course highly paradoxical when the text propounding it is itself poetry). Now if the Epistles’ subject matter is philosophy, they themselves must constitute a philosophical text. Horace says so: 12 condo and compono (‘put together’) are literary terms. The Epistles are Horace’s own ‘store-house’ now that he has ‘put aside’ uersus et cetera ludicra (12 compono ~ 10 pono). And when in 23–5 Horace envisages the eventual possibility of total commitment to philosophising (25 agendi ~ 16 agilis and 25 nauiter ~ 15),19 rather than the make-shifts of 14–19, and when he says restat ut his ego me ipse regam solerque elementis (27), his … elementis must gloss the Epistles. This reading receives confirmation from 20.17–18 hoc quoque te manet, ut pueros elementa docentem | occupet extremis in uicis balba senectus. There the book will be reduced to teaching elementa of an even more ‘elementary’ kind. Similarly, while within the sickness metaphor the ter pure lecto … libello of 37 is the booklet of spells used in propitiatory rites, outside the metaphor it is the liber which will make Horace’s readers ‘pure’, i.e., the Epistles. Furthermore, Epistle 1 rings with Epistle 20: Horace’s 17 Putnam (1995). 18 Thus, e.g., McGann (1969) 35; Macleod (1977) 360 and (1979) 16; Harrison (1995a) 49–50; Moles (1995) 162 {above, p. 651}. 19 Cf. Maltby (1991) 406 for nauus’ association with ships.

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own liber frames and instantiates the teachings of the collection. It is not true that Horace never recommends philosophical texts;20 he does: his own. ⟦146⟧ Beneath the irony, wit, self-depreciation, etc., the implicit claims for the philosophical potential of the Epistles are huge, although to derive maximum benefit both Horace and his readers will have to re-read the poems repeatedly (ter lecto …). The paradox of the Epistles’ being both poetry and not-poetry but philosophy still requires explanation. Of course, once Horace the poet decides to write philosophy, he is committed to that paradox. But this does not explain it. One factor is that the Epistles’ place in his whole poetic corpus helps to make Epistles 19 and 20 into a general apologia pro uita sua, and some aspects of that uita (e.g., Horace’s ability primis urbis … placuisse, 20.23) antedated the alleged conversion of 1.10–11, yet show one possible philosophical road. Another factor is that both the writing and reception of poetry function as a sort of metaphor for a range of moral behaviour in life. We shall see something of this in Epistles 3 and 4, and it is an important aspect of Epistle 19.21 Nor is it just a matter of metaphor: Horace moves progressively through the book towards a more philosophical conception of poetry. More radically still, some such paradox is inherent in the best philosophical writing itself. On the one hand, such writing is superior to other types of writing such as poetry, because of its philosophical commitment and rigour; on the other, it has an inevitable relationship with such writings; again, even to write about philosophy is a poor substitute for the real thing. The ambiguity of Horace’s presentation of the Epistles—poetry-not-poetry, of enormous value, merely an elementary propaedeutic—is paralleled in writings that are indubitably philosophical, such as Plato’s. The same applies to Horace’s fizzing wit and irony; many of the greatest ancient philosophers are witty and ironic (most relevantly, Socrates, Aristippus, Plato, and Diogenes). It was the Socratic daimonion that caused Horace’s conversion (7) and Socrates is important to Horace’s self-presentation22—or persona. For although 7 personet means ‘sounds through’, Horace here acknowledges the decisive influence of an identifiable philosopher; there is (as we shall see) a general Panaetian influence upon the epistle; Panaetius made much of persona-theory; and later in the collection Horace himself exploits Panaetian persona theory.23 Personet, therefore, introduces, precisely, Horace’s Socratic 20 21 22 23

Pace Mayer (1994) 124; cf. also 1.37 ∼ 2.1–2 (p. 711); 18.96ff. (pp. 720–1). Macleod (1977) 360, 363ff. Macleod (1979) 21; Mayer (1986) 72; Johnson (1993) 88–9. McGann (1969) 10–12, 22–3.

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persona. Then, Horace’s irresolute changes of philosophical position (15–19) humorously recall Socrates’ wanderings in search of knowledge (Pl. Ap. 22a) and his encounters with the Roman people in the colonnades (70ff.) suggest Socrates’ debates in the agora. The epistle even sketches a certain rudimentary Socratic elenchos: Horace ‘asks’ what is true (11), Maecenas may ‘ask’ who Horace’s philosophical master is (13), the Roman people may ‘ask’ Horace why he does not share their judgements and tastes (70), it is one of the aims ⟦147⟧ of philosophy to teach one to ‘respond’ to Fortune (68): a ‘response’ underpinned by Socratic elenchus. Socrates, too, was the paradigm of ‘the laughing philosopher’. The epistle is full of allusions to laughing (rideo), whether justified (9, 10, 91) or misplaced (95, 97; cf. 101). Moreover, in 59–60 Horace cites the children’s game of ‘kings’ as pointing the right moral lesson: at pueri ludentes ‘rex eris’ aiunt | ‘si recte facies’. On a banal level, this gives the term ludus a sixth application, that of literal children’s ‘play’ or ‘games’. But the appeal to the ludus of pueri as a moral standard is polysemous. The implicit etymological connection (more prominently trailed in 2.67–8) between puer and purus24 underpins a central paradox, which, mutatis mutandis, unites the thoughts ‘now I am become a man, I have put away childish things’ (10 ludicra; cf. 3) and ‘except you become as little children you cannot enter the kingdom of God’ (59). To begin the quest for virtue, at whatever age (26), one must become as purus as a puer. Thus the children’s ludus is at least potentially philosophical, so that ludentes suggests not just philosophy as a ludus but ludus as a way of doing philosophy. Thus ludentes glosses Socratic ‘play’ (παίζειν)25 (the seventh application of ludus). And since the concept of ludus here appears in juxtaposition with pueri, the collocation pueri ludentes glosses the Socratic/Platonic pun παιδεία/παιδιά: ‘play’ is a thing for children (παῖδες) but children point towards right moral behaviour—true ‘education’ is a form of ‘play’.26 Ludus thus acquires an eighth application: ‘education’. Even a ninth: Horace also suggests a punning allusion to the moral/philosophical idea of ‘serious play’ (spoudaiogeloion), the vehicle used by Socrates, and after him, the Cynics, and the satirical Horace himself, for philosophical teaching.27 Thus the phrase pueri ludentes is itself complexly and brilliantly philosophical. And 59 intimates a potential clarification of the 24 Maltby (1991) 506. 25 Kindstrand (1976) 47–8, 192. 26 E.g., Pl. Leg. 2.656c; Dio 4.30; Chris Rowe cites also Heraclitus D–K 22 B 52 {= D76 L–M} αἰὼν παῖς ἐστι παίζων, πεσσεύων· παιδὸς ἡ βασιληίη (‘Time is a child playing a game of draughts; the kingship is in the hands of a child’). 27 Kindstrand (1976) 47–8.

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paradox of 10–11: poetic ‘play’ will yield to philosophical ‘play’, or, rather, to ‘philosophical play’ expressed in poetic form. The tenth application of ludus is to the ‘school’ that children attend, imaged in 53–69. Horace imagines Janus teaching both young and old the supreme value of wealth. Then he himself appeals to the children’s jingle (59–62) to suggest a better lesson. This further application of ludus explains the challenge of Epistle 2: the poem is a protreptic to philosophy, and in a protreptic one returns to school, to the beginnings of moral wisdom, the teaching of Homer. This stance, which philosophers themselves could take (Antisthenes, Plutarch, etc.), is not Horace’s final word but the first step in one’s philosophical career. A poem which comes after Epistle 1 sequentially is anterior to it logically (because Epistle 1 sketches the whole philosophical process), a point made by the interaction between 2.1–2 Troiani belli scriptorem … relegi and 1.37 ter pure ⟦148⟧ lecto … libello. relegi is ‘pre-cut’ by ter lecto. The Epistles’ philosophical potential exceeds Homer’s. The complex and intricate ‘play’ element does not erase the Epistles’ philosophical seriousness, but there is an implicit challenge to readers to penetrate the ‘play’ to that underlying seriousness. They may fail. The rich philosophical potential of pure pueritia at school may degenerate into a dismal and familiar reality: 20.17–18 hoc quoque te manet, ut pueros elementa docentem | occupet extremis in uicis balba senectus. The hopes of 1.27 may never be fulfilled. Reading/interpreting/implementing philosophy requires unremitting commitment and effort by both poet and readers. There is the possibility even of an eleventh application of ludus: ‘playing a part’;28 lines 2–3 are not far from this and the idea of the Socratic persona (7) helps. This analysis may seem to give insufficient value to the self-depreciation which overlays Horace’s philosophical self-assertion. There are indeed several aspects to that self-depreciation (including the needs to respond tactfully to Maecenas and to explore the inevitable shortfalls from philosophical precepts), but self-depreciation, whether real or assumed, is an essential part of the Socratic tradition. Socrates, notoriously, knew nothing. The Socratic philosopher teaches and learns in a reciprocal relationship with his pupils: hence the interaction between Socrates, his daimonion, and Horace (7), between 7 purgatam and 37 pure, between Horace’s ear (7) and his readers’ ears (40).29 Horace’s self-depreciation simultaneously ingratiates, challenges, and teaches. 28 Cf. OLD s.v. ludo 6b. 29 I suspect that, especially after the anagrammatic play with ‘Maecenas’ (1–3), 7 purgatam … personet aurem also recalls Flaccus (as also 4.15–16 me pinguem et nitidum bene curata

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(c) The third objection is that 14–19 are philosophically unorthodox in the refusal to enlist under one master and in the appeal to Aristippus, who had no contemporary followers. Yet on one level Horace’s eclecticism (problematic but useful term) must be taken seriously, because it parallels his refusal to be ‘included within any (poetical) ludus’ (3). Such admitted eclecticism is rare in ancient philosophy but not unknown,30 and there is a carry-over from 7: no ancient philosopher more truly exemplified the principle nullius addictus iurare in uerba magistri than Socrates. Similarly, as we have seen, 15–19 playfully echo Socrates’ famous wanderings in search of knowledge at the start of his philosophical career. Moreover, as already noted, the wording of 14 extends to philosophy at large the eclecticism that is found within Academicism. As for Aristippus, contemporary philosophy could still allude to him and discuss his ethics (as did Panaetius and Cicero).31 Finally, to be philosophically unorthodox is, logically, to be philosophical (no mere sophistry, as will become clear). On another level, however, Horace’s eclecticism is vulnerable: he is making a complete hash of his philosophical options. When he tries Stoicism, mersor ciuilibus undis (16)32 then furtim … relabor (18): ⟦149⟧ compared with the Stoic ideal, however ironised, ‘Aristippeanism’ is a ‘furtive’ second best, not the ‘best philosophical horse’. Some scholars33 have seen Aristippus as Horace’s ideal: he is not, he is simply one possibility. Here his attractions are recognised but formally decried; conversely, in 1.17 he wins the debate against Diogenes over whether or not to associate with ‘kings’, in which respect he does reflect Horace’s own view and practice, but then in 1.18 Aristippus’ own claims are implicitly criticised (he is too much the scurra: 2–4). Nor does the irony of 1.1.16–17 and 10834 entail Horace’s dismissal of orthodox Stoicism: on the contrary, he has the highest respect for it (1.16), although it is not, ultimately, for him personally.35 Thus the eclecticism of 14–19 can be read alternatively as a serious eclecticism, to be justified as the book progresses, or as an eclecticism destined for refutation: one particular philosophy may after all hold the key

30 31 32 33 34 35

cute uises | cum ridere uoles Epicuri de grege porcum (Moles [1995] 167 {above, p. 657})), cf. Epod. 15.12; Sat. 1.9.20; 2.1.19), Horace’s improved aural status not so much glossing his existing cognomen as ‘renaming’ him Q. Horatius Socrates. The humour of 4.16 will be enhanced by Horace’s relapse into his customary ‘flaccidity’. E.g. Lucian, Demon. 5. Cic. Off. 1.148; 3.116. Moles (1995) 163 {above, p. 652}. Traina (1991); Rudd (1993a) 82–3; Mayer (1994) 44. Where pituita presumably includes an allusion to Horace’s lippitudo (∼ 29; cf. Sat. 1.5.30–1), i.e., dramatically speaking, Horace himself is still (unsuccessfully) aspiring to orthodox Stoicism (∼ 16–17). 1.16: p. 719 below; Horace’s ultimate Epicureanism: pp. 721–2 below.

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to right living. But, however read, Horace’s assumed eclecticism has obvious structural advantages, allowing the relatively unprejudiced exploration of a range of philosophical alternatives. (d) The fourth objection is that the Epistles are about life, not philosophy. But the dichotomy is false. The Epistles are about recte uiuere (60) as interpreted by different philosophies. The fact that a few Epistles resist philosophical categorisation does not undermine the book’s philosophical classification. General, non-doctrinaire, moralising is found extensively in philosophers such as Cicero, Seneca, Musonius, and Plutarch, and in the popular philosophical writings of the Cynic tradition, of which Horace was in some respects heir.36 In sum, the Epistles’ subject matter is philosophy; they themselves constitute a philosophical text; and they register—indeed enact—many of the problematics of writing philosophy. 3

Philosophical Arguments and Structure

The next question to consider is the philosophical argument of 1.1, beginning with its ambiguous Stoic color. Lines 16–17 imply that orthodox Stoicism is ‘best’ and the flavour of 68–9 an qui Fortunae te responsare superbae | liberum et erectum praesens hortatur et aptat?, on the gains available from philosophy, is heroically Stoic.37 The poem ends (106–8) by endorsing the Stoic rex, the ‘answer’ to the question of recte uiuere, though that endorsement is finally ironised. But there are counter-elements. There is much that is objectively consistent with the moderated Stoicism of Panaetius: decens (11), which could gloss Panaetian πρέπον; the eclecticism of 14–19; the appeal to Aristippus; the idea that some progress is better than none—32 could gloss the Panaetian concepts of profectus and proficiens; the modest definition of ⟦150⟧ uirtus in 41–2; the awareness of individual difference as frustrating universal norms (80–93); the ironisation of the sage. Should we, then, add a Panaetian label to our existing collection of orthodox Stoic, Aristippean, and Epicurean? McGann, in his seminal philosophical investigation, claims: ‘decens … can in Rome at this time, less than a quarter of a century after the publication of De officiis, point in one direction only, to the ethics of Panaetius’. This is perhaps exaggerated, but Panaetius certainly comes into the frame with the parallel definition of philosophy in 2.3 (quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non), so only a little retrospective reading (which 1.37 entails) activates his presence in 1.11. There 36 Heinze (1889); Fiske (1920); Muecke (1993) 2–8. 37 Johnson (1993) 42; 1.68–9 also ∼ 16.73–9 and 1.17 ∼ 16.67 (p. 717).

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is, then, a tension in the poem’s Stoic color. While formally the Stoic elements push towards an orthodox Stoic solution, sub-elements advocate more modest, and pluralist, Panaetian goals.38 And there are other elements. Partly in their own right (5), partly through Aristippus, the Epicureans ‘lurk’ (appropriately) in the background. Aristippus himself represents both a certain conception of pleasure and philosophical flexibility. The Socratic element promotes the claims both of non-doctrinaire pluralism and of dialectical pursuit of truth. Orthodox Stoicism re-emerges really only in Epistle 16, but it provides a convenient, indeed the obvious, initial standard of virtue with (as it were) a capital ‘v’. All other elements conduce better to the exploration in subsequent poems of a range of philosophical alternatives, to Horace’s own developing pluralist philosophical persona and to ever more direct engagement between philosophy and life. Hence the final philosophical aspect of Epistle 1: its architectural role. While there are many organising principles in this most intricate of poetry-books,39 the philosophical one is primary. Horace’s basic procedure is to provide preliminary sketches of the main figures of the philosophical landscape, which he then tries out on the real people of the Epistles, himself included, matching temperament to philosophical choice, in a series of dramatic situations, whose individual rationales and interlocking permutations are characteristically explored through recognisable philosophical positions. The concepts of ludus and persona help to articulate this shifting scenario. Lines 16–19 institute a complex polarity between orthodox Stoicism/ virtue/consistency and Aristippus/adaptability/pleasure, a polarity resolved and not resolved by the description of the sapiens at the poem’s end: qua ironic, this description suggests the Panaetian perspective otherwise implicit in the poem; the Epicureans are also in play, partly through their implicit association with Aristippus. Epistle 2 deploys a similar polarity, between Virtue/Wisdom/Odysseus (17–22), implicitly linked with the addressee Lollius, and Pleasure/Folly/Companions/Phaeacians (23–31), ⟦151⟧ and it ends by compromising between the two (70–1). This compromise looks like Panaetian profectus, and the initial philosophical formulation (3) is definitely Panaetian. By analogy with Epistle 1, Odysseus’ virtue must be broadly Stoic (or Cynic), as confirmed by the link between 2.22 immersabilis and 1.16 mersor (Odysseus and Horace are ‘swimming’ in the same philosophical ‘sea’). One naturally reads the opposing Pleasure as vulgar Epicurean, as confirmed by the link between 2.26 sus and 4.16 Epicuri de grege porcum. The lurking Epicureans of 38 McGann (1969) 10–12 (quotation from 10); Moles (1985) 37–8 {vol. 1, pp. 366–9}. 39 Maurach (1968); McGann (1969) 33–87; Johnson (1993) 66–71.

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Epistle 1 replace Aristippus as the polar opposite of Virtue, though their portrayal, unlike Aristippus’, is now straightforwardly negative.40 And the foppish Maecenas of Epistle 1 now looks rather Epicurean (2.29 ~ 1.94ff.).41 Epistle 3 is difficult, but 3.5 asks if Florus (the addressee) and his friends are behaving like Phaeacians/vulgar Epicureans, and the poem’s unifying thought is that true wisdom involves concord/friendship with oneself, one’s fellows, one’s patria, and the cosmos (28–9). This is Stoic and indeed directly Panaetian (De off. 1.50–8).42 The argument works with the same essential polarity as Epistles 1 and 2, though Panaetian Stoicism now appears in a loftier light. Epistle 4 recycles that polarity yet again but this time favours Epicureanism (notwithstanding Horace’s ironic self-description) over Albius’ austere Stoicism.43 Favourable redefinition of Epicureanism continues in Epistle 5 addressed to the Epicurean Torquatus: Augustus’ birthday allows a busy man to implement Epicurus’ advice of 4.13.44 So much, for now, for the Epistles’ philosophical architecture. To change the figure, in this poetic corpus the dramatic situations are the skin and tissue, the philosophies the bones and sinews. 4

Philosophy and Politics

Epistle 1 foregrounds programmatically the questions of political participation, linked to choice of philosophy, and of the moral well-being of the patria. But the central social/political question of the poem itself is Horace’s relationship with Maecenas. Maecenas is Horace’s alpha and omega, a compliment reflected in the structure of both poem (1, 105) and book (Epistle 1 ~ 19), though in both cases the ring that is Maecenas is outflanked by other, and larger, concerns.45 Maecenas tries to restrict Horace to his old poetic ludus; Horace responds with the Epistles, which are something new. Reproof jostles with compliment. It is para­ doxical that the Epistles can give Maecenas freedom (69) when he seeks to 40 Detail in Moles (1985) 36–9 {above, pp. 365–70}; cf. id. (1995) 164 {vol. 1, p. 653}; also Eidinow (1990) 566. 41 As he probably was: Cairns (1995) 124. 42 Moles (1995) 164–6 {above, pp. 654–6}. 43 ⟦237⟧ Moles (1995) 167 {above, pp. 656–7}; for Jones (1993) 8, Albius is ‘not looking at things philosophically’: rather, his philosophy is criticised. 44 For the Epicureanism see McGann (1969) 44–6; Moles (1995) 167 {above, p. 657}; Eidinow (1990). 45 Lyne (1995) 72–3, 139, 155.

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restrict Horace’s (3); that he laughs at Horace’s unkempt habits (95, 97), not the things that are truly ludicra (10); that he remains Horace’s tutela (103), when Horace seeks ⟦152⟧ a tutela elsewhere (13). Can it really be true that Horace still ‘looks to’ Maecenas (105), when he himself no longer wants to be ‘looked at’ (2)? Is he really still ‘dependent’ on Maecenas (105), when he himself wants freedom from his old poetry to concentrate on philosophy and freedom even within philosophy? Horace tries to bring Maecenas within the philosophical process by extensive second-person-singular addresses, some of which must at least include Maecenas. The compliments remain, including the compliment of being able to take public reproof, yet with all the urbanity and joking Maecenas’ attitudes are objectively criticised, and he is implicitly on probation.46 Maecenas the laudandus is an addressee in a philosophical book most of whose addressees are criticised or admonished. And ‘figured-speech’ theory47 admits criticism through compliment. Epistle 3 warns against strife among young careerists in a military camp, who risk the stultorum regum … aestus of Iliad and Odyssey (2.8); broaches the possibility of poetic commemoration of Augustus’ res gestae (7); and elevates devotion to the patria (29). The apparently slight and urbane epistle to Tibullus contains one jarring allusion: 4.3 scribere quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula uincat. As in Epistle 3, poetic rivalry functions partly as a metaphor for civic strife. The Epicurean Epistle 5 celebrates the birthday not of Epicurus but of Augustus: implicitly the good king, who in Epicurean political thought can be the guarantor of Epicurean quietism.48 No tension here between Epicureanism and Augustanism or between country and city. Epistle 7 reintroduces Maecenas, complaining that Horace has stayed away for a month rather than the promised five days; compliments and endearments abound but Horace maintains his position (metaphorically and literally). Panaetian relativism allows individuals to choose what is right for them (44, 98; cf. Cic. Off. 1.110), here, for Horace, a form of rural Epicureanism.49 In Epistle 10 Horace’s happiness at the crumbling shrine of Vacuna, Sabine goddess of victory whose name suggests uacare, pointedly subverts worldly values, and in Epistle 11, with the right attitude of mind, happiness is available at Ulubrae for Bullatius (29).50 By contrast, in Epistle 12 imperial successes and bumper crops in Italy point the 46 47 48 49

Similarly: McGann (1969) 34–7; Johnson (1993) 9, 55–6; Lyne (1995) 144–50. Ahl (1984). Fowler (1989) 129ff. Broadly ‘anti-Maecenas’ readings of 7: Johnson (1993) 9, 43–4; Seager (1993) 34; Lyne (1995) 150–5; Oliensis (1998) 157–65; Freudenberg (2002) 128–31. 50 Macleod (1979) 27; Ferri (1993) 112–13.

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unreasonableness of Iccius’ discontent with his managership of Agrippa’s estates (25ff.). Epistle 13 commemorates Augustus’ receiving the Odes a few years before: like Epistle 9 and others it advertises Horace’s connections with the court. Still, Augustus is nowhere addressed, as he himself was to complain (Suet. Vita Hor., Loeb ed., II.486), and, unlike Maecenas (1.1), he is not formally ‘first and last’: even in his own poem he comes in the second and penultimate lines.51 In the majestic and philosophically rigorous Epistle 1652 Horace is on his farm (1–16), master (2, 10) of his simple natural boundary, and ‘safe’ in ⟦153⟧ his Epicurean retreat: 15 hae latebrae dulces ~ 1.5 latet abditus; dulces glosses Epicureanism,53 16 incolumem that ‘security’ (ἀσφάλεια) obtained by Epicurean ‘withdrawal’ (Epic. KD 14). The addressee, Quinctius, is politically active in Rome (17–79). The poem operates with a rus/Epicurean–Rome/Stoic contrast, hence the latter’s appeal to Stoic doctrines: only the wise man is happy (20), virtue and vice are absolutes and vice is rejected through love of virtue, not fear of punishment (52–4), and all sins are equal (56). What, within this Roman context, does recte uiuere mean? Who is beatus, or sapiens and bonus? Worldly honours are no criterion: they can exaggerate a man’s worth (if he is flattered as if he were Augustus) or be removed at the donor’s whim (34). (Who he? one wonders, and, at least retrospectively, the answer must be: ‘Augustus’.)54 Loss of worldly honours does not degrade a virtuous man. Is the bonus, then, the man who does good public service (40)? Not necessarily, for his household and neighbourhood may know that he is base within (a common philosophical contrast between outer and inner). The absolute materialist (67) has deserted the post of Virtue (contrast the Stoic ideal of 1.17). The captured deserter should not be killed but sold as a slave, when he can usefully become a shepherd, ploughman, or whatever: although the complete materialist is a moral slave his immoral activity has some commercial benefit for society.55 This section highlights the qualities of the polar opposite of the moral slave, the truly free man, who, as the last lines of the poem emphasise, may face loss of all his possessions, imprisonment, or even death (73–9):

51

Note also Oliensis’ gloss ([1998] 182) on Augustus’ failure to secure Horace’s secretarial help: ‘Horace chose to write letters on his own account [i.e., the Epistles] and not on the emperor’s.’ 52 I intend fuller treatment elsewhere. {Never published.} 53 Cf., e.g., C. 2.7.28 (Moles [1987] 70 {above, pp. 628–9}); 3.2.13 (Pinsent [1976]). 54 Support from 33–5 ∼ 18.111–12 (of Jupiter). 55 Thus Mayer (1994) 229.

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uir bonus et sapiens audebit dicere ‘Pentheu, rector Thebarum, quid me perferre patique indignum coges?’ ‘adimam bona.’ ‘nempe pecus, rem, lectos, argentum: tollas licet.’ ‘in manicis et compedibus saeuo te sub custode tenebo.’ ‘ipse deus, simulatque uolam, me soluet.’ opinor, hoc sentit ‘moriar’. mors ultima linea rerum est.

75

These lines adapt the scene between Pentheus and Dionysus from Euripides, Bacchae 492–8. Philosophical exegesis of literary passages is commonplace; that Epictetus also uses this scene56 suggests a common Stoic source. The move from ‘real life’ to ‘myth’ imitates a concluding philosophical muthos. The scene also provides a concrete dramatic representation of 1.68–9 qui Fortunae te responsare superbae | liberum et erectum praesens hortatur et aptat. It also crowns the philosophical argument. The uir bonus et sapiens is finally revealed (outer and inner united), the criterion being his unflinching response to tyranny. Whereas Epicurean retreat gives ‘safety’ and autonomous self-‘mastery’, Stoic engagement risks collision with a tyrannical ‘external’ dominus. But it is impossible for the ⟦154⟧ tyrannical rector to degrade the man of virtue, whose virtue and freedom are underwritten by the freedom of suicide. Horace transmutes Euripides into pure Stoic doctrine, reinforced by the notion of ‘the god within’ (78–9): in Euripides Dionysus simply says: ‘the god will free me from imprisonment’, whereas Horace’s exegesis makes Dionysus mean: ‘I can release myself by suicide.’ The closing sententia—‘Death is the last line of things’ (like the line at the end of a race)—is no mere banality. For the man of virtue, it is consolatory: untimely death as a necessary response to tyranny is no evil since we all die sometime; for the tyrant, it is admonitory: you can compass the death of the man of virtue, but you gain nothing, since you yourself have to die. For such Stoic insouciance there are (again) good parallels in Epictetus, e.g., when (1.25.22) the philosopher Demetrius says to Nero: ‘you threaten me with death but nature threatens you’. Further, as applied to a pursuer of the philosophical rectum, the image of the line fittingly adorns a noble death. There is still another implication, again applicable both to man of virtue and tyrant, though again in different ways: ‘you can’t take it with you’: rerum also interacts with 75 rem and 68 re (both of property). Lastly, the image of the line achieves a final modification of the poem’s architecture: if the poem works, as it were, horizontally, with a polar opposition between Epicureanism and Stoicism, then, 56 1.1.22–4; 29.5–8.

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as it were, vertically, all polar oppositions are resolved in death, though the Epicurean and Stoic attitudes to death are of course different, and this also is part of the densely condensed meaning. What are the consequences for political interpretation? Formally set in legendary Thebes, the heroic final scene must also play in contemporary Rome, the setting of the whole Stoic section. Not only is the scene the culmination of the argument, but Thebes itself can function as a metaphor for civil-war Rome. It is so used by Virgil and Ovid, and, as we shall see, by Horace himself in 18.41ff. Also relevant is the Pindaric/Theban color of Epistle 3, with its warnings against intestinal and fraternal strife.57 Further, the word rector (74) recalls Cicero’s conception of the rector, which envisaged Pompey and was in some sense fulfilled by Augustus,58 who is within the frame of the poem. This rector, however, is the antithesis of recte uiuere. Thus the concluding muthos implies an analogy between the political status of Pentheus and that of Augustus, ‘monarch’59 and in certain contexts, from certain focalisations, also ‘tyrant’. Ancient theories of ‘figured speech’ easily accommodate such radical implications. No coincidence, then, that Epictetus (also) applies the Euripidean scene to tyrannical emperors. Does the man of uirtus suggest any specific allusions? Certainly not to the materialistic60 Quinctius, for whom the point of the scene is the ⟦155⟧ extremely high stakes risked by his Stoic political engagement under the new monarchy. But Cato Uticensis and Brutus must qualify:61 Cato who committed suicide rather than endure the clemency of Augustus’ father and whom Horace introduces as a paragon of Stoic virtue in a thematically related later poem (19.12–14); Brutus, Horace’s erstwhile imperator, who had recognised Stoic affiliations, whose last words before his suicide denounced Octavian,62 and who cannot be excluded from the primi of 20.23 (me primis urbis belli placuisse domique). But also Horace himself, for, while, dramatically speaking, Horace here plays the Epicurean role, it is Horace the poet who voices this existential struggle between Stoic virtue and Caesarian tyranny. Despite all the material benefits showered on him by Augustus and Maecenas, in an ultimate sense the poet-philosopher remains morally and politically free, inspired by the examples of Cato and Brutus and by Stoic ethics at their most magnificently 57 58 59 60 61 62

Hardie (1990); Hubbard (1995). E.g., Cic. Rep. 2.51.1; Ov. Tr. 2.39. Millar (1973). McGann (1969) 74; Lyne (1995) 147. Armstrong (1989) 129–31 (important). ‘Stoic’: Moles (1987) 64–5 {above, pp. 622–4}; ‘last words’: Plut. Brut. 51.1 with Moles (1983) 773 {above, pp. 26–7}.

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uncompromising. Nor does its tremendous moral power exhaust the poem’s political quality. Du Quesnay has persuasively argued that some of Horace’s poetry shows detailed inner knowledge of the political thinking of Augustus and his consilium;63 by contrast, this poem contemplates unflinchingly one of the new dispensation’s supreme costs: the death of men of true uirtus. Had it been written under Tiberius or any of the later ‘tyrant’-emperors, the poem would not, perhaps, have been in this respect very remarkable; that it was written early in Augustus’ reign and by a poet so closely involved with the imperial court is eloquent testimony to Horace’s political acumen. The worldly and practical Epistle 17 reshuffles the cards. The players are Panaetians, Epicureans, Aristippeans, and Cynics. The aim is maioribus, even regibus, uti (2, 13, 14), clearly recalling Epistle 16, though reges now include patrons as well as kings. As in 16 Epicurean withdrawal is a legitimate and virtuous option (9 ~ 36). Cynicism’s claim to a virtuous but independent life within the city is refuted by the flexible and Panaetian Aristippus. It is virtuous and onerous principibus placuisse uiris (35), and honour and reward rightly attend such success. There are strong shades of one side of Horace here: perhaps, after all, orthodox Stoic heroics are avoidable, even without Epicurean withdrawal. So Epistle 18 explores the problem of successful social engagement with the great. Cynic behaviour within society is merely boorish and does not confer uirtus, but you must not be an unprincipled parasite. You can be a true amicus of the great, thereby attaining uirtus … medium uitiorum (9).64 How? On Bowditch’s65 attractive ‘figured-speech’ reading, Horace’s mature poetic ludus plays dangerously with the covert realities of Augustan Rome—Augustus’ supremacy as dux and patronus, loss of libertas, the intestinal nature of Actium—as a way of warning the young and excessively liber ⟦156⟧ Lollius. But on any reading the tone is grim enough: 86–7 dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici: | expertus metuet, a sentiment, incidentally, applied by Pindar F 110 to war. But inter cuncta leges et percontabere doctos (96). Although simultaneous with cultivation of powerful amici, this activity is preferable: to be a friend to yourself, to be Horace’s friend, matters more.66 That the docti are at least primarily philosophers is confirmed by many things:67 96’s echo of Acad. 2.1.2 (partim in percontando a peritis, partim in rebus gestis legendis (of military 63 E.g., Du Quesnay (1995). 64 Epistles 17 and 18: Moles (1985) 43–6 {vol. 1, pp. 375–9} (rather misrepresented by Rudd [1993a] 69 and 86 n. 20). 65 Bowditch (1994). 66 McGann (1969) 80; Jones (1993) 10. 67 Moles (1995) 170 {above, p. 661} (controverting Mayer [1994] 254), adapted.

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matters) and 4 (same process in philosophical matters); the Socratic percontabere (contrasting with the nosy ‘enquirer’ of the body of the poem and ringing with Horace’s Socratic elenchos of Epistle 1); the contrast with Iccius’ high-flown philosophical interests; the thematic echoes in 98–9 of Epistles 14, 6, and 16 (all strongly philosophical); the Stoic mediocriter utilium; the question of 100; the Aristippean 102; and the Epicurean 103. And the docti must include Horace, Lollius’ present counsellor, the ironic docendus of Epistle 17, then pointedly revealed as doctus (17.16), the poet of the liber with such vast philosophical potential (1.36–7). And seventeen lines after 18.96 Epistle 19 begins: Prisco si credis, Maecenas docte, Cratino. As at the book’s beginning, Maecenas is doctus in poetry, not in the doctrina of 18.96–103, or, if the latter, only because he has learned (become doctus) from Epistles 1–18. Poets, then, are included only to the extent that Horace himself is a philosophical poet, promoting a philosophical conception of poetry. Lollius must choose which philosophy suits him best. Then he must keep at it: philosophising never stops. Back once more to Epistle 1: the cure is philosophy. But from Socratic non-commitment and the relativism which exists within Academicism, Panaetianism, and Aristippeanism, Horace has fashioned a relativism which allows individual choice between philosophies: an original and creative philosophical move, and one based on a simple but profound psychological truth: individual personality greatly influences—and should influence—philosophical, political, and intellectual choices. For Horace himself, now, the Epicurean way is most suited, it cannot be for ever (104 quotiens), because we are none of us completely free—only the liber is liber (Epistle 20),68 but may it last at least a year (109). Maecenas will have an even longer wait than Epistle 7 requested. Indeed, Horace’s final praise of Maecenas is conditional upon Maecenas’ approving of Horace’s philosophical talk, upon his allowing Horace greater freedom, and upon his trying himself to become a better person. Is, then, Epistles 1 ‘anti-Augustan’ (robustly useful term)? Are the praises of Maecenas in Epistles 1, 7, and 19 (praises themselves not unequivocal), of Augustus in Epistles 5 and 13, and of patriotism in 3 sapped by the ⟦157⟧ Epicurean 7, by the Stoic heroics of 16, and by the grimness of 18? Augustus did not find the Epistles sufficiently complimentary.69 But, logically, deconstruction must work both ways: such is the interactive economy of the circular book. And the pleas of 3 for concord seem real enough, while 5 floats the possibility of reconciliation between praise of Augustus and Epicureanism within 68 Johnson (1993) 69. 69 Suet. Vita Hor. Loeb ed., II.486–8.

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Rome. Augustus could not get angry. Nevertheless, along with Horace’s pride in ‘pleasing the principes’ and his insistence that each must choose his own philosophical road goes recognition of the increasing dangers of cultivation of the mightiest amicus (Epistle 18), of the fact that under him the truly virtuous may have to die to preserve their virtue (Epistle 16), and of the ever-greater attractions of Epicurean withdrawal (Epistles 7, 16, 18). The social and political backdrop to the Epistles’ exploration of the range of philosophical choices is not inert: Horace registers the ever-sharper challenges of the new monarchy. Ultimately, Epicurean withdrawal is where Horace’s own heart lies. But this is a conditional Epicureanism, non-doctrinaire, and untainted by the smugness which disfigures orthodox Epicureanism and enfeebles its intellectual processes. In important respects, Horace’s Epicureanism is better than the real thing. Here, too, so far from rejecting philosophy or even just moving outside it, Horace shows himself to be a philosopher and a thoroughly useful one. But individuals must make their own philosophical choices. They must balance one philosophical position against another. They must read and re-read the text, much of whose complexity derives from the poems’ kaleidoscopic shifts of viewpoint, which create an interactive dynamic which itself constitutes a kind of Socratic dialectic. And they must constantly interface this complex text with the complexities of life. The Epistles, then, are what they claim to be: both formally and profoundly philosophical, although to gauge their full philosophical profundity readers are required to penetrate the poems’ polysemous ‘play’ in an act of interpretation which itself unites the aesthetic, the moral, and the philosophical and itself promotes their philosophical growth, if, that is, they are prepared to do so (20.17–18). Bibliography Ahl, F. M. (1984) ‘The Art of Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome’, AJPh 105: 174–208. Allen, W. Jr. (1970) ‘The Addressees in Horace’s First Book of Epistles’, Studies in Philology 67: 255–66. Armstrong, D. (1989) Horace (New Haven and London). Bowditch, L. (1994) ‘Horace’s Poetics of Political Integrity: Epistle 1.18’, AJPh 115: 409–26. Braund, S. H. (1992) Roman Verse Satire (Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics 23; Oxford). Brink, C. O. (1982) Horace on Poetry III: Epistles Book II (Cambridge). Cairns, F. (1995) ‘Horace’s First Roman Ode (3.1)’, PLLS 8: 91–142; repr. in id., Roman Lyric: Collected Papers on Catullus and Horace (Berlin and Boston, 2012) 292–339.

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Courbaud, E. (1914) Horace, sa vie et sa pensée à l’époque des épîtres: étude sur le premier livre (Paris). De Pretis, A. (1998) ‘“Epistolarity” in the First Book of Horace’s Epistles’ (diss. Bristol). Dilke, O. A. W. (1981) ‘The Interpretation of Horace’s “Epistles”’, ANRW II.31.3: 1837–65. Du Quesnay, I. M. LeM. (1995) ‘Horace, Odes 4.5: Pro reditu Imperatoris Caesaris divi filii Augusti’, in Harrison (1995b) 128–87. Eidinow, J. S. C. (1990) ‘A Note on Horace, Epistles 1.1.26 and 2.2.75’, CQ 40: 566–8. Ferri, R. (1993) I dispiacieri di un epicureo: uno studio sulla poetica oraziana delle Epistole (con un capitolo su Persio) (Pisa). Fiske, G. C. (1920) Lucilius and Horace: a Study in the Classical Theory of Imitation (Madison). Fowler, D. P. (1989) ‘Lucretius and Politics’, in M. Griffin and J. Barnes, edd., Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society (Oxford) 120–50. Fraenkel, E. (1957) Horace (Oxford). Freudenberg, K. (1993) The Walking Muse: Horace on the Theory of Satire (Princeton). Freudenberg, K. (2002) ‘Solus sapiens liber est: Recommissioning Lyric in Epistles I’, in T. Woodman and D. Feeney, edd., Tradition and Contexts in the Poetry of Horace (Cambridge) 124–40, 232–5. Galinsky, G. K. (1996) Augustan Culture: an Interpretive Introduction (Princeton). Hardie, P. (1990) ‘Ovid’s Theban History: the First “Anti-Aeneid”?’, CQ 40: 224–35. Harrison, S. J. (1992) ‘Fuscus the Stoic: Horace Odes 1.22 and Epistles 1.10’, CQ 42: 543–7. Harrison, S. J. (1995a) ‘Poetry, Philosophy, and Letter-Writing in Horace, Epistles I’, in D. C. Innes, H. Hine, and C. Pelling, edd., Ethics and Rhetoric: Papers for Donald Russell on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday (Oxford) 47–61. Harrison, S. J., ed. (1995b) Homage to Horace: A Bimillenary Celebration (Oxford). Heinze, R. (1889) De Horatio Bionis imitatore (Bonn). Horsfall, N. (1979) ‘Horace, Sermones 3’, LCM 4: 117–19. Hubbard, M. E. (1995) ‘Pindarici fontis qui non expalluit haustus: Horace, Epistles 1.3’, in Harrison (1995b) 219–27. Johnson, W. R. (1993) Horace and the Dialectic of Freedom: Readings in Epistles I (Ithaca and London). Jones, F. (1993) ‘The Role of the Addressees in Horace, Epistles’, LCM 18: 7–11. Kiessling, A. and R. Heinze, edd. (1970) Q. Horatius Flaccus: Briefe10 (Berlin; = 41914). Kilpatrick, R. S. (1986) The Poetry of Friendship: Horace, Epistles I (Edmonton). Kindstrand, J. F. (1976) Bion of Borysthenes: a Collection of the Fragments with Introduction and Commentary (Uppsala). Lyne, R. O. A. M. (1995) Horace: Behind the Public Poetry (New Haven). Macleod, C. W. (1977) ‘The Poet, the Critic, and the Moralist: Horace, Epistles 1.19’, CQ 27: 359–76; repr. in id. (1983) 262–79.

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Macleod, C. W. (1979) ‘The Poetry of Ethics: Horace, Epistles I’ JRS 69: 16–27; repr. in id. (1983) 280–91. Macleod, C. W. (1983) Collected Essays (Oxford). Maltby, R. (1991) A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds). Maurach, G. (1968) ‘Der Grundriss von Horazens erstem Epistelbuch’ AC 11: 73–124. Mayer, R. (1986) ‘Horace’s Epistles I and Philosophy’, AJPh 107: 55–73. Mayer, R., ed. (1994) Horace: Epistles Book I (Cambridge). McGann, M. J. (1963) ‘Vinnius Valens, son of Vinnius Asina?’, CQ 13: 258–9. McGann, M. J. (1969) Studies in Horace’s First Book of Epistles (Collection Latomus 100; Brussels). Millar, F. (1973) ‘Triumvirate and Principate’, JRS 63: 50–67; repr. in id., Rome, the Greek World and the East volume I: the Roman Republic and the Augustan Revolution, edd. H. M. Cotton and G. M. Rogers (Chapel Hill and London) 241–70. Moles, J. L. (1983) ‘Some “Last Words” of M. Junius Brutus’, Latomus 42: 763–79 [above, Ch. 33]. Moles, J. L. (1985) ‘Cynicism in Horace Epistles I’, PLLS 5: 33–60 [vol. 1, Ch. 14]. Moles, J. L. (1987) ‘Politics, Philosophy and Friendship in Horace Odes 2.7’, QUCC 25: 59–72 [above, Ch. 67]. Moles, J. L. (1995) ‘Review of Mayer (1994)’, BMCR 6.2: 160–70 [above, Ch. 70]. Muecke, F., ed. (1993) Horace: Satires II (Warminster). Nisbet, R. G. M. (1959) ‘Notes on Horace, Epistles 1’, CQ 9: 73–6; repr. in id., Collected Papers on Latin Literature, ed. S. J. Harrison (Oxford, 1995) 1–5. Oliensis, E. (1998) Horace and the Rhetoric of Authority (Cambridge). Pinsent, J. (1976) ‘Horace, Odes 3.12.13’, LCM 1: 84. Préaux, J. (1968) Horace: Epistulae, liber primus: Epîtres, Livre I (Paris). Putnam, M. C. J. (1995) ‘From Lyric to Letter: Iccius in Horace Odes 1.29 and Epistles 1.12’, Arethusa 28: 193–207. Rudd, N. (1979) ‘Epistles and Sermones’, LCM 4: 147. Rudd, N. (1993a) ‘Horace as a Moralist’, in Rudd (1993b) 64–88. Rudd, N., ed. (1993b) Horace 2000: A Celebration: Essays for the Bimillennium (London). Seager, R. (1993) ‘Horace and Augustus: Poetry and Policy’, in Rudd (1993b) 23–40. Traina, A. (1991) ‘Orazio e Aristippo: le “epistole” e l’arte di convivere’, RFIC 119: 285–305. Williams, G. (1968) Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford).

Chapter 73

Vergil’s Loss of Virginity: Reading a Life This paper argues that ‘uirum’ (Aen. 1.1) includes crucial punning on the name ‘Vergil’.* The argument appears new, although it draws on generally agreed readings of two passages in the Georgics and finds support in some very recent claims of Castelletti about acrostic punning both in Aratus and in Vergil, including the proem of the Aeneid.1 The Aeneid, like Silius Italicus’ Punica2 and other Greek and Roman epics, represents itself as, among other things, a work of historiography.3 This paper supports the notion that the poetic, and, specifically, the epic, sphragis is one of the influences upon the historiographical sphragis.4 More substantially, it argues that Vergil’s sphragis forms part of an elaborate autobiography, alike literary and philosophical, which goes back to Vergil’s first magnum opus, the Eclogues, but which also looks beyond the Aeneid itself. 1

The Name Vergil

In Latin, Vergil’s second (‘gentile’) name is properly spelled with an ‘e’ in the first syllable (‘Vergilius’); the ‘i’ form (‘Virgilius’), from which derives the dominant English spelling of ‘Virgil’, is allegedly first attested only in 400, in some Greek attached to a Latin inscription on a statue erected in Rome in Trajan’s forum in honour of the poet Claudian.5 I stress ‘allegedly’, because, as we shall see, the fifth-century dating requires important qualification. The two forms would of course have been pronounced virtually the same. And intriguingly, * I thank Professors Elizabeth Irwin, Damien Nelis, and Tony Woodman for valuable discussion and help, Professor Nelis also for commenting on written versions and much bibliographical advice, and the anonymous readers for further comments. I thank also Dr Anton Bitel for sending me a photocopy of some pages of his Oxford doctoral dissertation (Bitel [2000]). A version of the present paper was given to the Newcastle Classics Seminar on 6th February 2013. I thank all who commented on those occasions and informally afterwards. All translations are my own (with help of course from other people’s), ‘tweaked’ for local purposes. 1 Castelletti (2012). 2 Hulls (2011). 3 Note also Di Fazio (2013) on Callimachus. 4 Discussion: Porciani (1997) 44ff.; Moles (1999). 5 CIL VI.1710 = ILS I.2949.

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according to the Vitae of Vergil,6 in his youth, some of Vergil’s friends gave him the Greek nickname of ‘Parthenias’ (Παρθενίας), which must mean ‘virginal’,7 πάρθενος being the Greek for ‘virgin’, as indeed the nickname is glossed in an eleventh-century manuscript (‘uirginalis’).8 They did so, it is implied, because of Vergil’s ‘probity’,9 which must include sexual probity. Whatever one’s general attitude to the historical value of the Vitae,10 this particular item seems to find decisive confirmation in Vergil’s own poetry, as we shall see. But since the Latin for virgin is ‘uirgo’, it would be astonishing, within the elasticities of ancient punning, if ‘Parthenias’ did not also bilingually evoke ‘Vergilius’, the different vowels in the first syllables being regarded as immaterial, and if Vergil’s Latin name was not therefore also being glossed as ‘virginal’. In fact, as we shall also see, that gloss is also guaranteed by Vergil’s own punning on his name. Vergil’s friends’ use of the nickname ‘Parthenias’ may have other implications, as we shall also see. Given all this, we can see immediately that the potential for the ‘i’ form ‘Virgilius’ is there from Vergil’s own youth. 2

The Evidence from the Georgics and Aratus: Acrostics and Sphragides

Let us now turn to Vergil himself. As we shall see,11 one could start with Vergil’s earliest magnum opus, the Eclogues, but in the interests of trying to construct a persuasive argument, I start with an example that most present-day Virgilians accept, although in the interests of the overall argument I push the detail further than most. Towards the end of the first book of his second magnum opus, the Georgics, Vergil is discussing signs (‘signa’ [394, 439]) from the moon (424–37): Si uero solem ad rapidum lunasque sequentis ordine respicies, numquam te crastina fallet hora, neque insidiis noctis capiere serenae. luna reuertentis cum primum colligit ignis, si nigrum obscuro comprenderit aëra cornu, 6

425

{Vit. Don. 38: ‘Neapoli Parthenias uulgo appellatus sit’; Vit. Serv. 8: ‘nam dicitur et “Parthenius”’.} 7 ‘Maidish’ (Thomas [1988] I.139) underplays the implications. 8 {It is added by the first hand of E, Parisinus lat. 7930.} 9 {Vit. Don. 35–6: sane uita et ore et animo tam probum constat, e.q.s.} 10 Different views: Wilkinson (1966); (1969) 24ff.; Horsfall (2000) (extremely sceptical). 11 P. 731 below.

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maximus agricolis pelagoque parabitur imber; at si uirgineum suffuderit ore ruborem, uentus erit; uento semper rubet aurea Phoebe. sin ortu quarto (namque is certissimus auctor) pura neque obtunsis per caelum cornibus ibit, totus et ille dies et qui nascentur ab illo exactum ad mensem pluuia uentisque carebunt, uotaque seruati soluent in litore nautae Glauco et Panopeae et Inoo Melicertae.

430

435

But if you look back in order at the ravishing sun and the following moons, never will the morrow’s weather deceive you, nor will you be caught by the plots of a clear night. When first the moon collects the returning fires, if she collects black air obscurely on her horn, very great will be the rain prepared for farmers and the deep sea; but if she pours virginal redness on her face, there will be wind: golden Phoebe always reddens at the wind. (432) But if at her fourth arising (for this is the most certain authority) she goes through the heavens with her horns unblunted, that whole day and the days which will be born from it will lack rain and winds until the end of the month, and the saved sailors will discharge their vows on the shore to Glaucus and Panopea and Inoan Melicerta. Here the poet inscribes and puns on his full name by means of an inverted name acrostic.12 433 gives PU, (431) VE, and (429) MA, the ‘backwards’ reading according with the initial instruction (425) ‘ordine respicies’ = ‘look back in order’ (cf. also 427 ‘reuertentis’); the reader is also ‘helped’ by the insertion of ‘uirgineum’ (430), which glosses alike the moon’s ‘virginal redness’, her general association with ‘virginity’, Vergil’s own name, as it is being acrostically communicated in context, and his Greek nickname ‘Parthenias’; hence immediate confirmation that ‘virginity’ allows punning both on the name ‘Vergilius’ with an ‘e’ (431) and on relevant words with an ‘i’ and further potential for the spelling ‘Virgilius’; and the whole process is ‘keyed’ by the reference to ‘the most certain authority’ (432), in the first place the lunar ‘sign’, in the second place the ‘most certain author’ the Hellenistic Stoic poet Aratus, Vergil’s direct source here, and in the third place ‘the most certain author’ of this text, Publius Vergilius 12

Various treatments: Brown (1963) 102–5; Thomas (1988) I.139–40; Erren (2003) 230; Feeney–Nelis (2005); Somerville (2010); on the whole topic of acrostics: Courtney (1990); Castelletti (2012); OCD4: 9. For the benefit of some readers: an acrostic is a sequence in which the first or last letter, syllable or word in a series of lines spells out a word or name.

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Maro himself. This is an implicit, third-person, sphragis or ‘seal’, the term given to ancient poets’ ‘self-naming’ within their texts.13 Its placing within a section on ‘signs’ is nice: a sphragis is itself a ‘sign’ and the Latin signum can be used of ‘seals’:14 a point which will recur.15 That the acrostic is not easy to see, until one becomes attuned to such possibilities, is attested by the facts that in modern scholarship it was first observed by E. L. Brown only in 196316 and that awareness of it has only become widespread in the last decade. It is worth emphasising the simple point that this is literally a matter of seeing, as Vergil himself stresses (425), in what we shall see is a standard type of formula for alerting readers to the presence of an acrostic. Vergil himself seems to suggest the difficulty also for ancient readers by his deployment of the vocabulary of ‘deceiving’, ‘catching’, and ‘plots’ (425–6).17 A final point is the tension between ‘auctor’ (432) and ‘uirgineum’ (430): ‘auctor’ can mean father: glossing the writer as ‘father’ of his work, hence here already potential transition from virginity to fatherhood, indeed fatherhood already fulfilled in the form of the didactic poem the Georgics itself. Vergil’s complex acrostic in this passage fittingly imitates a simpler acrostic in the Aratean original (Phaen. 778–87), an acrostic which is generally accepted by scholars:18 σκέπτεο δέ πρῶτον κεράων ἑκάτερθε σελήνην. ἄλλοτε γάρ τ᾽ ἄλλῃ μιν ἐπιγράφει ἕσπερος αἴγλῃ, ἄλλοτε δ᾽ ἀλλοῖαι μορφαὶ κερόωσι σελήνην εὐθὺς ἀεξομένην, αἱ μὲν τρίτῃ, αἱ δὲ τετάρτῃ· τάων καὶ πεπὶ μηνὸς ἐφεσταότος κε πύθοιο. λεπτὴ μὲν καθαρή τε περὶ τρίτον ἦμαρ ἐοῦσα εὔδιός κ᾽ εἴη· λεπτὴ δὲ καὶ εὖ μάλ᾽ ἐρευθὴς πνευματίη· παχίων δέ καὶ ἀμβλείῃσι κεραίαις τέτρατον ἐκ τριτάτοιο φόως ἀμενηνὸν ἔχουσα ἤ νότῳ ἄμβλυνται ἢ ὕδατος ἐγγὺς ἐόντος.

13 14 15 16 17

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OCD3: 1435 ~ OCD4: 1394. OLD s.v. 2. P. 742 below. Brown (1963) 102. Horace, C. 4.12.1 is sometimes adduced as showing that Horace saw Vergil’s acrostic here (e.g., Belmont [1980] 15). 18 E.g., Thomas (1988) I.139; Kidd (1997) 445–6 (with useful notes and bibliography). In modern scholarship the acrostic was first discussed by Jacques (1960). There have been many discussions since then; see, e.g., Hanses (2014).

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Look first at the moon on each side of her horns. For sometimes the evening light paints her one way, And at other times different shapes horn the moon As soon as she is growing, some on the third day, others on the fourth: From these you can learn about the month that has just arisen. If slender and pure about the third day, She indicates a clear sky: if slender and very red, She indicates wind: if the crescent is rather thick and with blunted horns having a feeble fourth-day light after the third day, either it is blunted by a southerly or because rain is near. Here the double λεπτή (783–4) is spelled out in the first letters of verses 783–7, and the reader is ‘helped’ by the initial instruction ‘look first’, which is echoed in Vergil’s ‘look back’ (Geo. 1.425). Aratus’ double emphasis on ‘slenderness’ emphasises his ‘Callimachean’ poetics, as Callimachus himself registered,19 and thus gives Vergil an impetus to his own ‘literariness’ in the Georgics passage, while Aratus’ use of the adjective ‘pure’ (783), which can be used of sexual purity, and his allusion to when the moon is ‘very red’, are combined by Vergil into the moon’s ‘virginal redness’ (430). Vergil clearly read Aratus very attentively. We shall return to Aratus several times. The second Vergilian example comes in the closing lines of the fourth and final book of the Georgics, a very rich passage (559–66) which I can only treat selectively but where I again push some of the detail in the interests of the overall argument. Haec super aruorum cultu pecorumque canebam et super arboribus, Caesar dum magnus ad altum fulminat Euphraten bello uictorque uolentis per populos dat iura uiamque adfectat Olympo. illo Vergilium me tempore dulcis alebat Parthenope studiis florentem ignobilis oti, carmina qui lusi pastorum audaxque iuuenta, Tityre, te patulae cecini sub tegmine fagi.

563 564

I was singing these things about the cultivation of fields and cattle and about trees, while great Caesar at the deep Euphrates was thunderbolting in war and as victor 19 Ep. 27.3–4, with, e.g., Bing (1990) 282–3.

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was giving laws throughout willing peoples and was making for the road to Olympus. At that time sweet Parthenope was nourishing me, Vergil, as I flowered in the studies of ignoble leisure, I who played the poems of shepherds and, daring in youth, sang of you, Tityrus, under the cover of a spreading beech. Here we have a first-person and explicit sphragis, ‘Vergilium’ (563), juxtaposed with the Greek name, ‘Parthenope’ (564), ‘virgin-voiced’, the Siren who killed herself after her failure to seduce Odysseus and who gave Naples her old name (note the association of virginity and death; perhaps also virgin would-be seducer of Aeneas’ Greek analogue prequels the Aeneid). There is a bilingual pun on ‘Parthenope’ and ‘Vergilium’, again the ‘e’ in the poet’s name does not matter, and there is again an implicit gloss on Vergil’s Greek nickname ‘Parthenias’. This punning is much easier than the first example:20 a factor which provides retrospective interpretative help for that first example: Vergil is educating his readers in name puns. The stress on ‘virginity’, implicit also in the ‘flowering’ imagery, helps the contrast between ‘Vergil’ and ‘great’ Caesar, to double effect: ‘virginity’ as opposed to ‘potency’ (‘great’), and ‘female-ness’ as opposed to ‘maleness’. The combination of the allusion to ‘youth’ and the ‘flowering’ imagery also evokes etymologies which connected ‘uirgo’ with ‘green-ness’ (‘uiridis’) and ‘spring’ (‘uer’);21 the name ‘Vergilius’ itself (563) can also be associated with ‘spring’ (‘uer’); Horace clearly evokes this.22 There is also a contrast between the ‘greatness’ of Stoic political activism and Epicurean quietism,23 because Parthenope evokes Naples, site of Vergil’s Epicurean studies,24 ‘dulcis’ can gloss Epicurean ‘pleasure’, ‘flowering’ can gloss the Epicurean motto ‘carpe diem’, ‘otium’ can be associated with Epicureanism, and ‘ignoble’ can gloss the Epicurean ‘unknown’ life, as presumably also can ‘youth’ and ‘cover’. Such Stoic–Epicurean contrasts often, as here, involve contrasts between ‘manliness’ or ‘greatness’ and 20

21 22 23 24

One could indeed analyse the explicitness of ‘Vergilium’ (563) is various ways: in terms of ‘e praecedentibus sequentia, e sequentibus praecedentia’ or ‘amplificatory pleonasm’ (p. 749), or as ‘the solution to a problem’, but in all cases the explicitness helps to elucidate earlier examples. Hor. C. 4.12.1 (above n. 17); cf. also Ecl. 10. Hor. C. 4.12.1; cf. also Ecl. 10.74, Geo. 1.43 and Geo. 2.315–42 below; note also the etymology of ‘uer’: (Maltby [1991] 635). Similarly, Erren (2003) 1002. Erren (2003) 1002 very attractively also connects Parthenope the Siren with Vergil’s (alleged) Epicurean teacher Siro.

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‘female-ness’ or ‘effeminacy’.25 Informed readers also know that in real life Vergil was an Epicurean.26 In effect Vergil is saying: Naples-based Epicureanism nourished me—though there is considerable paradox in such ‘nourishment’ coming from a virgin, especially one who died before the event; note also the contrast—but also the parallel—between (563) ‘alebat’ and the cognate ‘altum’ (560): small nourishment can lead to great. As is well recognised, the passage must also be contextualised within Callimachean poetics. Coming at the end of the four-book Georgics, Augustus takes the place of Berenice, who comes at the end of Callimachus’ four-book Aetia, and Augustus’ ‘thunderbolting’, in contrast to Vergil’s activities, recalls Callimachus’ manifesto in the Aetia, ‘thundering is not mine but Zeus’’. The ‘river’ imagery is also Callimachean, but the reference to the ‘deep’ Euphrates recalls also the Callimachean contrast between rivers and the sea (‘the deep’). At the same time, readers know—and the context directly reminds them—that Augustus has just defeated Egypt and the Ptolemies. The effect is double: Vergil’s current poetic activity is implicitly contrasted with epic poetry and the great deeds of epic, and thus fittingly characterised in terms of ‘virginity’, but also foreshadowed is precisely an epic in praise of Caesar—a project already pre-figured in the Georgics (3.10–39).27 The allusion to Vergil’s first magnum opus, the Eclogues, and specifically to Eclogue 1, brings that collection too under the umbrella of ‘virginity’. Readers recall the first Eclogue’s Epicureanism, cued by Lucretian allusions, and its casting of the young Octavian as a divine iuuenis (42), even as a sort of Epicurean ‘good king’ (note there the punning between iuuenis, iuuare, and ἐπικουρέω). On the other hand, Vergil’s self-description as having been in Eclogue 1 audax … iuuenta suggests a parallel between himself and Octavian as iuuenes, as if poet and person commemorated—poet and king—are potentially equals in a symbiotic relationship.28 That implication is latent elsewhere in the Georgics, for Vergil is the ‘most certain auctor’ in the first sphragis passage and Georgics 1.27 addresses Octavian Caesar as ‘auctorem frugum tempestatumque potentem’ (‘author of fruits and potentate of seasons’).29 The phraseology of ‘I who sang of you, Tityrus’ also challenges, since the figure of Tityrus in Eclogues 1 (and elsewhere) is in some sense an aspect of Vergil himself:30 as in audax … iuuenta, there is a blurring between the poet and his poetic subject; this 25 26 27 28 29

Cf. Seneca, Ep. 33.1–2. Vit. Prob. 10–11: ‘liberali in otio secutus Epicuri sectam’. For this ‘identification’ of the temple see Thomas (1988) II.36; Erren (2003) 555. There may be another aspect to this: see p. 747 below. Further, as Damien Nelis notes, the address even conceals the name/title ‘Augustus’: ‘auctorem frugum tempestatumque potentem’: Nelis (2013) 260–1. 30 Servius ad loc.: ‘Vergilius sub nomine Tityre intellegitur’; Castelletti (2012) 83, 91.

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implication is strengthened by the phraseology of ‘played the poems of shepherds’, because ‘ludo’ can refer not only to poetic and musical ‘play’ but also to ‘playing a part’, and by the phrase ‘under the covering of a spreading beech’, which describes Tityrus’ situation in Eclogue 1, but here can be read as going with ‘I who played’. Vergil’s pastoral poetry, it seems, was partly about himself. The allusions to ‘youthfulness’, ‘youthful play’, the Georgics, and the Eclogues, and the implications of ‘greenness’ and ‘spring’, imply a contrast with the next stage of life: ‘manhood’, and Vergil’s next magnum opus, his epic. Thus at the very end of the Georgics, in the most characteristic position for a sphragis, Vergil emphatically labels himself as still a virgin, still with his ‘flower’, whose ‘voice’ is appropriately virginal (‘Parthenope’). Clearly also, the two ‘virginal’ sphragides frame the Georgics as a work of Vergil’s ‘virginity’. Clearly also, Vergil is encouraging his readers to regard all three of his magna opera as belonging to the same corpus—a word that can be used alike of the body, a person, and a collection of texts. Vergil and his poetry are to some extent the same thing. By contrast, epic is a ‘manly’ genre. ‘Tell me, Muse, of the man who … etc.’, sang the poet of the Odyssey (Od. 1.1); ‘Achilles was singing of the famous deeds of men’, sang the poet of the Iliad (Il. 9.189). Similarly, Aratus wrote (1): ‘Let us begin from Zeus, whom we men never leave unspoken’. Apollonius made a plea for gender equality:31 Argonautica 1.1 ‘I shall recall the famous deeds of humans born long ago’, but he was seemingly rejected by Vergil: ‘arma uirumque cano’, seemingly subscribing to the Odyssey programme.32 From all this ‘manliness’ the rude Ovid drew the inevitable inference: Amores 1.1.17 ‘cum bene surrexit uersu nova pagina primo’:33 a line of epic is poetic Viagra (note the etymological connections with ‘uir’, ‘uis’, and ‘uirago’). To write the epic Aeneid, then, Vergil had to lose his virginity and become a man. 3

Poets’ Names in Epic

What next of poets’ names in epic? What are the traditions and resources here upon which the epic Vergil could draw and with which learned readers would be familiar? The anonymity of epic (in some sense) poets is easily exaggerated. Homer’s contemporary Hesiod had explicitly named himself in his encounter with the Muses (Theog. 22–34), and his polarisation between poets who tell things that seem true but are not and poets who tell the truth was read by

31 Goldhill (1991) 288. 32 I stress seemingly: see p. 737 below. 33 West (2010) 141–2.

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ancient readers as contrasting himself and Homer.34 That reading seems to me right because Hesiod immediately describes the Muses’ singing as ‘with voices in tune’ (ὁμηρεῦσαι, 39): Hesiod’s superiority is so complete that he appropriates Homer’s very name. Intriguingly, the name ‘Homeros’ is first attested in a fragment attributed to Hesiod.35 Hesiod, it is true, is composing a different kind of epic from Homer or Vergil, but it is still epic, of a kind that could be regarded as a rival to Homeric epic and that was undoubtedly influential alike upon Vergil’s Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid. Note that Hesiod also derives punning significances from his own name,36 and that, as so often in ancient punning and name-punning, it does not matter whether the implied etymologies are genuine or not. Hesiod’s evidence indicates that he and his contemporaries knew Homer’s name. Anton Bitel argues that Apuleius read the poet of the Odyssey as emphasising Odysseus’ thighs (meroi) in the build-up to the revelation of his identity as a way of celebrating his own identity as Homeros the poet, and he speculates that Apuleius’ reading is right.37 I believe it is. Apart from its intrinsic verbal ingenuity, it coheres alike with the undoubted facts that in the Odyssey Odysseus sometimes becomes an alter ego of the poet and that Homeros can certainly be understood by ancient people as ‘the thigh’ and with our reconstruction of Hesiod’s portrayal of his relations with Homeros. So even in Homeric epic, the poet puns on his own name, and does so through Odysseus’ beautiful thighs. The same phenomenon of punning self-naming occurs in two Hellenistic epic poets who were extremely influential upon the virginal Vergil. Aratus begins his Phaenomena as follows: Ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα, τὸν οὐδέποτ’ ἄνδρες ἐῶμεν ἄρρητον. μεσταὶ δὲ Διὸς πᾶσαι μὲν ἀγυιαί, πᾶσαι δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἀγοραί, μεστὴ δὲ θάλασσα καὶ λιμένες· πάντη δὲ Διὸς κεχρήμεθα πάντες. τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος εἰμέν.

5

Let us begin from Zeus, whom we men never leave unspoken. All the highways are full of Zeus, all the meeting-places of humans, the sea and harbours are also full [of him], everywhere we all have need of Zeus. For we are actually his offspring. 34 35 36 37

Koning (2010) 304, 310–18. F 357.1 M–W (among the fragmenta dubia), but for justification see Koning (2010) 246. M. L. West (1966) 161; Most (2006) xii–xiii. Note also Gale (2001). Bitel (2000) 239–44.

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2 ἄρρητον alludes to Aratus’ name (Ἄρητος in Doric).38 The allusion is clever (such is Zeus’ omni-presence that the ‘unspoken’ author cannot leave Zeus ‘unspoken’, and the ‘unspoken’ author here speaks his own name). Aratus also elegantly glosses two related story patterns: the encounter with the god which gives eloquence to a man without eloquence and the dumb man who breaks his silence at some critical juncture. Aratus’ pun was seen by Vergil, as we shall explore.39 Aratus is presumably also punning on ‘Zeus’, which, if so, immediately illustrates how dense name-punning can be in Hellenistic epic proems. Apollonius begins his Argonautica as follows (1–2): Ἀρχόμενος σέο, Φοῖβε, παλαιγενέων κλέα φωτῶν μνήσομαι Beginning from you, Phoibos, I shall remember the famous deeds of humans born long ago The invocation of ‘Phoibos’ contains an allusion to Apollonius’ own name. Again, the allusion is clever, as mediated not directly through the name ‘Apollo’ but through one of the god’s ‘other names’; also, while explicitly commemorating the famous deeds of humans born long ago, Apollonius is simultaneously and paradoxically commemorating himself. Very recently, Castelleti has argued, ingeniously and, I believe, persuasively, for further complexities in Aratus’ proem, which I accordingly now cite at greater length (Phaen. 1–9):40 Ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχώμεσθα, τὸν οὐδέποτ’ ἄνδρες ἐῶμεν ἄρρητον. μεσταὶ δὲ Διὸς πᾶσαι μὲν ἀγυιαί, πᾶσαι δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἀγοραί, μεστὴ δὲ θάλασσα καὶ λιμένες· πάντη δὲ Διὸς κεχρήμεθα πάντες. τοῦ γὰρ καὶ γένος εἰμέν. ὁ δ᾽ ἤπιος ἀνθρώποισιν δεξιὰ σημαίνει, λαοὺς δ᾽ ἐπὶ ἔργον ἐγείρει, μιμνῄσκων βιότοιο, λέγει δ᾽ ὅτε βῶλος ἀρίστη βουσί τε καὶ μακέλῃσι, λέγει δ᾽ ὅτε δεξιαὶ ὧραι καὶ φυτὰ γυρῶσαι καὶ σπέρματα πάντα βαλέσθαι.

5

38 Hopkinson (1988) 139 {= (2020) 146}; Bing (1990); Kidd (1997) 164. 39 Brown (1963) 102–3; Thomas (1988) I.139; Bing (1990) 284; Feeney–Nelis (2005); Nelis (2001) 22. 40 Castelletti (2012).

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Let us begin from Zeus, whom we men never leave unspoken. All the highways are full of Zeus, all the meeting-places of humans, the sea and harbours are also full [of him], everywhere we all have need of Zeus. (5) For we are actually his offspring. But he gently gives right signs to humans, and wakes peoples to work, reminding them of their livelihood, and he says when the soil is best for oxen and mattocks, and he says when seasons are best both for planting trees and for casting all kinds of seeds. The terminology of ‘right’ and ‘best’ (which also suggests ‘left’) orientates readers: the end of 6, the start of 6, the start of 7 and the end of 7 produce the boustrophedon41 acrostic ἴδμη, a very rare form of an epic word for ‘knowledge’. Aratus gives us ‘the knowledge’. The boustrophedon acrostic itself and the direct allusion to ploughing (μακέλῃσι, 8) create a second gloss on Aratus’ own name: linking it with the verb ἀρόω, ‘plough’. Aratus’ punning was again seen by Vergil, for in the very first two lines of the Georgics the phrase ‘terram/uertere’ glosses the name ‘Aratus’.42 One might also suggest that the allusion to sowing also glosses ἀρόω/Aratus in the sense of ‘sower’.43 Epic poets of all kinds, then, pun with various, and sometimes extreme, forms of ingenuity on their names in order both to seal their works with their authorship and to convey key themes. Some epic poets also pun on their predecessors’ names to register either their own superiority (Hesiod on Homer) or their indebtedness (Vergil and Aratus) or both. Some of these epic poets were Vergil’s greatest models. And so to the Aeneid. 4 The Aeneid Ancient books had a titulus attached to the scroll, giving the author’s name, the title of the work, and, where applicable, the book number,44 as in modern editions of Aeneid I: ‘P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Primus’. This titulus, the next piece of Vergil readers read after the end of the Georgics, emphasises names, including Aeneas’ and Vergil’s, and it again reminds readers of Vergil’s

41 ‘Boustrophedon’ (βουστροφηδόν) means ‘in the manner of oxen turning in ploughing’, i.e., in rows (corresponding to lines of poetry) from left to right (or vice versa) and starting the next row/line in the same position (right to left, left to right, and so on). 42 Katz (2008). 43 For the two meanings ‘plough’ and ‘sow’ see LSJ s.v. I, II. 44 The mechanics: Cavallo (1977).

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nominally ‘virginal’ status, when he is now on the ‘verge’, as it were, of his new and virile text (‘uergo’ too can be related etymologically to ‘uirgo’).45 Readers then come to the proem:46 Arma uirumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam fato profugus Lauiniaque uenit litora—multum ille et terris iactatus et alto ui superum, saeuae memorem Iunonis ob iram, multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem inferretque deos Latio—genus unde Latinum Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romae. Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso quidue dolens regina deum tot uoluere casus insignem pietate uirum, tot adire labores impulerit. tantaene animis caelestibus irae?

5

10

I sing of arms and the man who first as a fleer47 from the coasts of Troy by fate came to Italy and the Lavinian shores; that man was much buffeted both on land and on the deep/high sea by the (man-)violence of the gods above, because of the ever-remembering anger of savage Juno, and he suffered many things also in war, until he could set down48 a city and bring the gods to Latium, whence the Latin race and the Alban fathers and the walls of high Rome. Muse, remember for me the causes, what divine aspect was insulted, what pained her that the queen of the gods impelled a man of signal dutifulness49 to verse himself in so many chances, to approach so many labours.50 Can such great angers be in celestial minds? When readers see/hear the second word of the text ‘uirum’, they immediately identify the ‘man’ as ‘Aeneas’ (because they know this anyway and because 45 Maltby (1991) 648. 46 Recent treatments: Castelletti (2012); Abbott (2012); also, very succinctly: Nelis (2001) 270–4. 47 The word exists; it is ugly but I choose it in order to register the echo at 12.952 (p. 760 below). 48 It is essential to register the echo at 12.950, and, although ‘plant’ would do for both, it would not allow the allusion to poetic composition (p. 762 below); ‘set down’ is the best I can do. 49 I choose this slightly loose translation in order to register the crucial ‘sign’ language: cf. p. 742 below. 50 West’s ‘to such endless hardships and such suffering’ is incredibly perverse.

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the titulus has just reminded them). They also see that ‘arma’ glosses the Iliad and ‘uirum’ the Odyssey (1.1). They also see that Vergil here seemingly ‘corrects’ Apollonius’ gender-free φωτῶν/‘humans’ (Argon. 1.1), seemingly reinstating epic’s traditional, Homer-derived, ‘virility’.51 I spell out these obvious points in order to emphasise that ‘uirum’ does not only, or merely, translate the Odyssean ἄνδρα. Consequently, readers also see that ‘uirum’ explicitly marks the transition from the ‘virginal’ Georgics and Eclogues to the epic ‘virility’ of the Aeneid. Now, when one hears the word ‘uirgo’, one naturally ‘hears’ also the word ‘uir’: as Isidore pithily puts it, ‘uirgo est quae uirum nescit’.52 Conversely, when one hears the word ‘uir’, one naturally also hears the word ‘uirgo’, certainly if the context favours that association, as this one does (because of the titulus and the end of the Georgics), though some ancient etymologists heard it anyway.53 And since the Georgics contained two passages of elaborate punning on the name ‘Vergil’54 and the end of the Georgics both contained a punning sphragis on the name Vergil as meaning ‘virgin’ and contrasted the virgin Vergil with the ‘big’ man Caesar, readers, educated by Vergil to spot name punning, immediately see that ‘uirum’ makes a punning sphragis on the name ‘Vergil’ as meaning the ‘man’ that Vergil had to become in order to write epic—the epic man already foreshadowed in the first Georgics sphragis (‘auctor’).55 Readers are further predisposed to spot an epic poet’s name pun because they have encountered the phenomenon before in Homer, Hesiod, Aratus, and Apollonius (all of whom they readily recognise as models for Vergil). They are also predisposed to spot such literary gender-crossing because they have encountered that phenomenon too in Catullus,56 Horace,57 and even Julius Caesar.58 And for strong epic ‘virility’ in a sphragis, they have the highly relevant precedent of Homer in the Odyssey.59 They thus have no difficulty in spotting the name pun in ‘uirum’. And they immediately enjoy the story the imagery implies: not only has Vergil the ‘virgin’ lost his ‘flower’ (Geo. 4.564) and become a ‘man’, not only has Vergil the ‘Epicurean female’ become a ‘Stoic epic man’ (cf. also 2 ‘fato’), but he is now ‘entering’ what for him had been ‘virgin territory’, and if you do that 51 52 53 54 55

I qualify the initial ‘seemingly’ at pp. 748ff. below. Orig. 11.2.21. Maltby (1991) 648. Indeed, more than two (pp. 759 and 761 below), but two is enough for now. Maltby (1991) further confirms the general principle: ‘ui-’ and ‘ue-’ forms are widely exchangeable in etymologising contexts, including those concerned with ‘uirgo’ and ‘uir’. 56 See, e.g., S. Harrison (2004). 57 Woodman (2002). 58 Kraus (2005). 59 See above.

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right and things go well, a baby comes—the baby that is the Aeneid, so Vergil has also become an ‘epic dad’, in a further development of ‘auctor’ in Georgics 1.43260 and of Georgics 4.559–66. For the latter passage contained allusion to the Prologue to the Aetia,61 which itself imaged Callimachus as a ‘father’. There is of course a fun, play element to all this punning and to what I hope to show is its very elaborate development, and there is plenty of poetic ‘play’ in Book 1.62 Note that this play is also anticipated in the second Georgics passage (4.565 ‘lusi’). That is of the past, but, as we shall see, this past keeps coming back. And play, while playful, can also be very serious, as we shall also see. Vergil’s newly-acquired virility is further strengthened by the ‘who’ clause (1–6). For epic poets, including those imitated in the Aeneid, characteristically create analogies between themselves as poets and their main characters. ‘Achilles was singing of the famous deeds of men’, sang the poet of the Iliad (9.189), creating a parallel between his own ‘singing’ and Achilles’. Odysseus is sometimes an alter ego of the poet of the Odyssey, especially in Odysseus’ retrospective narrative of his adventures to the Phaeacians. Correspondingly, Aeneas is sometimes an alter ego of Vergil, as in his retrospective narrative of his adventures before the Carthaginians, a narrative requested at the end of Book 1 and realised in Books 2 and 3, that is, in the same interpretative context as the start of 1. This process of creating an analogy between the poet and his main character starts in the proem. Vergil’s highly assertive ‘I sing’, echoing Apollonius’ μνήσομαι/‘I shall remember’, and contrasting with the Iliad and Odyssey’s immediate appeal to the singing or telling of the Muse, emphasises the poet, who could surely himself be described as ‘signally dutiful’, especially as ‘dutifulness’ itself can gloss ‘chastity’,63 and ‘pius’ can be applied to a poet in the sense of devoted to his craft (as in Catullus [16.5]). Moreover, although Aeneas ‘set down’ (= ‘founded’) Lavinium, and Lavinium spawned Rome, ‘set down’ has a generic function, labelling the Aeneid as a ktistic epic, and the final emphasis falls on Rome, especially given the immediate narrative focus on the rival ‘city’ of Carthage; ‘set down’ therefore also recalls Vergil’s own ‘setting down’ of the ktistic poem, which itself later glosses the Romulus and Remus story and the actual foundation of Rome (1.273–7); ‘condo’ can be used of poetic composition.64 Again, labores can gloss the ‘labours’ of the poet or writer: so Vergil himself characterises 60 Cf. (presumably) Propert. 2.34.66 ‘nescio quid maius nascitur Iliade’; Verg. Aen. 7.43 ‘maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo’. 61 See Thomas (1988) II.239–40. 62 See especially Nelis (2015) 158–61. 63 As when applied to wives: OLD s.v. 3b. 64 OLD s.v. 14.

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Eclogue 10 as his ‘extremum laborem’ (10.1). And the implicit Herculean analogy is found in poetry, historiography, philosophy, and political ideology, as well as in myth. Nor, in context, should one forget the available resonance of ‘birth labours’.65 Note also that if ‘the man’ has some analogies with Vergil himself, then ‘I sing of the man’ is exactly parallel to ‘I sang of you, Tityrus’ at the end of the Georgics. Vergil’s virility is necessarily further increased, within the ‘who’ clause, by 4 ‘ui’ (cognate with ‘uir’ according to ancient etymologists)66 and the repeated ‘uirum’ of 10. The analogy between the ‘man’ and Augustus (see the emphasis on ‘pietas’, ‘the deep’ [~ Georgics 4.560], ‘foundation’ and on the Herculean analogy), the big man of the end of the Georgics, yet further enhances Vergil’s virility.67 And voyaging can itself be a metaphor for epic composition. Many scholars, including myself, read Horace Odes 1.3, addressed to Vergil as about to sail to Greece, as glossing the composition of the Aeneid—or as combining that composition with a physical journey to Greece.68 If so, Horace must have read the ‘who’-clause as creating an analogy between ‘the man’ and the poet. Indeed, Vergil himself strongly suggests this metaphorical level of the proem.69 The actual narrative of the Aeneid begins (1.34–5): ‘Scarcely out of sight of the land of Sicily were they joyfully setting their sails into the deep’.70 And there is a series of interesting passages in the Georgics. At the end of Georgic 1, in the passage where literal storms usher in the ‘storms’ of civil war, Vergil exclaims (456–7), with spectacular unrealism: ‘let no one admonish me to go through the deep on that night or to gather the rope from the land’. At Geo. 2.39–46, he addresses Maecenas: ‘And you be present, and run to shore together with me the labour I have begun … and flying along give sails to the yielding open sea … Be present and choose the shore of the nearest coast; the land is close at hand’. And at the end of the book he combines voyaging and horse-racing metaphors (2.541–2): ‘But we have completed an immense expanse and it is now time to release the smoking necks of the horses’. Finally, in Book 4 (116–17), he says: ‘And I for my part, if I were not now contracting my sails near the final end of my labours and hastening to turn my prow to land’. Thus the Georgics is itself

65 OLD s.v. 6b. 66 Maltby (1991) 647. 67 It also, to a degree and ambiguously, ‘reduces’ Augustus, ‘making for the road to Olympus’ at Geo. 4.561, now a ‘man’. 68 Cairns (1972) 235; D. West (1995) 14–19; Mayer (2012) 74–86 (bibliographically useful, though himself rejecting the interpretation). 69 See in general Kofler (2003). 70 I owe this point to Damien Nelis.

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a voyage but a voyage of a different kind from the Aeneid, whose voyage is (surely) foreshadowed in 1.456–7. Readers of the Aeneid proem also recall precisely that two of Vergil’s main models for the Aeneid, and specifically for the proem, pun on their names in their proems: Aratus in the second line, Apollonius in the first, and see that Vergil is here both imitating them and besting them. All three poets put their name puns into the first nouns or first noun-cluster of their text. While formally ‘remembering’ their subjects, Apollonius and Vergil both actually commemorate themselves.71 Whereas Apollonius puns on his own theophoric name, placing the emphasis on the god Apollo, Vergil puns on his own human name, placing the emphasis on the humans Aeneas and himself, and (in contrast to Apollonius) on epic virility. Similarly, whereas Aratus puns (multiply) on his own name as a way of celebrating both the supreme god and himself, Vergil puns on his own name as a way of celebrating the humans Aeneas and himself. Alert ancient readers of the proem also see a boustrophedon acrostic which also puns on the poet’s name. I simplify and adapt Castelletti’s complex and persuasive analysis72 for the purposes of this paper and I add a few points of my own. 1 Arma uirumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris 2 Italiam fato profugus Lauinaque uenit 3 litora-multum ille et terris iactatus et alto 4 ui superum, saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram,

I sing arms and the man who first from the shores of Troy as a fleer by fate came to Italy and the Lavinian shores; that man was much buffeted both on land and on the deep/high sea by the (man-)violence of the gods above, because of the ever-remembering anger of savage Juno,

Lines 1–4 yield A STILO M(aronis) V(ergili), meaning ‘from the stilus of Vergilius Maro’. The inversion of names corresponds to, and recalls, that at Georgics 1.429 and 431.73 The stilus is both ‘pen’ and ‘weapon’ (for which double application there are very good parallels in Cicero and Horace),74 in both of which senses it contrasts with the ‘reed’ (‘calamus’) which marked Vergil’s composition of the pastoral Eclogues (Ecl. 1.2), the contrast marking the great contrast of genre. 71 72 73 74

Castelletti (2012) 92 n. 39 reasonably also sees in 4 ‘memorem’ a ‘prompt’ for ‘Maro’. Castelletti (2012). Above, p. 727. Cic. Phil. 2.34; Hor. Sat. 2.1.39.

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Further, both the proemial Eclogues passage and the proemial Aeneid passage imitate one of Vergil’s key models, Aratus. In the former case, the beneficent ‘god’ (deus, 6) has given Tityrus/Vergil the right for his oxen to roam and for the poet himself to ‘play’ whatever he wants on his rustic reed ‘as you see’ (i.e., to compose the immediately preceding acrostic FONS, 5–8), just as the Aratean Zeus says, in an acrostic, what is best for oxen.75 Thus Vergil himself becomes a figure in the Eclogues narrative. And evocation of Aratus in the first poem of the Eclogues is particularly nice, because that collection’s proper title is Bucolica: poems to do with cattle cultivation. In the case of the Aeneid, Vergil constructs a complicated boustrophedon acrostic which signs his authorship, just as Aratus had signed his authorship with a complicated boustrophedon acrostic combined with a direct allusion to oxen ploughing. Conceivably also Vergil’s ‘buffeting’ knocks the acrostic from side to side, just as Aratus’ ‘ploughing’ does. In both cases, Vergil also provides a punning reference to Aratus’ name. Vergil’s one implicitly also again registers Aratus’ name as to do with ploughing. As we have seen, Vergil also imitates Aratean acrostics in the Georgics. The effect of all these complicated punnings is both to trace Vergil’s own poetic trajectory across the different genres of the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid, to register one of his main Greek poetic models for all three opera, and to demonstrate Vergil’s own mastery of acrostics and name punning. From our point of view, Vergil’s boustrophedon acrostic confirms readers in seeing the more basic name pun on ‘uirum’, indeed in spelling the implied ‘Vergili’ of 4 with an ‘i’, thus making the connexion between ‘uirum’ and Vergil’s name even tighter, and finally firming up the ‘i’ spelling. Readers also note that the combination of basic name pun and complicated acrostic occurs alike here, in Aratus’ proem here imitated by Vergil, and in the first Georgics name-playing passage. They also note that the horizontal pattern ‘arma uirumque’, which includes a name pun on Vergil/Virgil, is matched by the horizontal/vertical acrostic ‘a stilo M V’: both patterns combine weapons and name, yet further increasing the analogy between poet and character and Vergil’s virility. They also note that the elaborate Aratean presence reinforces Vergil’s new role as Stoic man. They immediately see also that the name pun in ‘uirum’ is enhanced by the mention of ‘Maronis’ both in the titulus and, abbreviated, in 4; for within ancient punning, it is absolutely inconceivable that when there are puns on Vergilius as meaning virgin and man, there is not also a pun on ‘Maro’ as fictively cognate with ‘mas, maris’, meaning ‘male’. 75 Above, p. 735.

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They note also that the Aeneid proem is a ‘sign’ passage, like both the first Georgics passage and its source in Aratus, for Aeneas is ‘insignem pietate’. Aeneas is indeed signally dutiful, but that signal dutifulness also signifies the ‘sign’, the ‘insignia’, the ‘seal’ of the now virile Vergil.76 Having spotted Vergil’s double self-naming in the boustrophedon acrostic and the word ‘uirum’ (both in v. 1 and in v. 10) and having spotted also the possible spelling of his name as ‘Virgilius’ (4), readers might see further onomastic significance in the letter patterns of verses 5–10:77 multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem inferretque deos Latio—genus unde Latinum Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romae. Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso quidue dolens regina deum, tot uoluere casus insignem pietate uirum, tot adire labores impulerit. tantaene animis caelestibus irae?

5 6 7 8 9 10

Easy enough to see/hear significant emphasis on M, MA, MU/V and V and to see/hear 10 ‘uirum’ (ringing with ‘uirum’ in 1) as visually and sonically climactic. And might one make something of the total picture of 1–10 (leaving 11 out of account as concerned with ‘heavenly minds’ as opposed to ‘the man’), which looks like this: Arma uirumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam fato profugus Lauiniaque uenit litora—multum ille et terris iactatus et alto ui superum, saeuae memorem Iunonis ob iram, multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem inferretque deos Latio—genus unde Latinum Albanique patres atque altae moenia Romae. Musa, mihi causas memora, quo numine laeso quidue dolens regina deum, tot uoluere casus insignem pietate uirum, tot adire labores

1

5 6 7 8 9 10

Could one see/read these opening lines as representing ‘the man Virgil’ in almost concrete form, imitating—within the obvious constraints of epic

76 77

This point is missed by Castelletti (2012) despite his title. I owe this suggestion—which I here develop—to my colleague Dr David Creese.

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hexameters—Hellenistic ‘shape’ poems such as Simias’ ‘Egg’?78 Might one then also make a highly controversial move? Some modern critics,79 partly inspired, no doubt, by Ovid,80 claim that it is impossible to read (or hear) ‘arma uirum’ without thinking of men’s ‘weapons’ as = genitals, especially as ‘uirum’ could itself be ‘genitive’. Is such a thought inappropriate to epic solemnity? Hardly, if our general analysis so far is correct, especially in its claims that there is an element of humour and poetic play here. Does Ovid’s burlesque entail that Vergil be read ‘straight’? Hardly—there would still be sufficient humorous distance between Vergil’s subsidiary implication and Ovid’s all but explicit sexual description. Might one object that Vergil keeps back the link between ‘weapons’ and male physique until the start of Book 4, where there is a famous crux over whether Dido is exclaiming to her sister Anna about Aeneas’ ‘weapons’ or his ‘shoulders’—his arma or his armi (4.10–11): Quis nouus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes, Quem sese ore ferens, quam forti pectore et armis! Who is this new stranger who has come under our roofs, How he bears himself in his face, with what brave chest and arms! In this passage, the meaning ‘shoulders’ can hardly be excluded. But neither can the meaning ‘genitals’, whether by the reader or (at some level) by Dido herself. For there is a visual movement from ‘face’ to ‘chest’ to ‘arms’ (of whatever kind). And Dido is thinking in pretty physical terms, as the famous 4.19 shows: Huic uni forsan potui succumbere culpae Perhaps I might have succumbed to this one … fault.81 It matters little whether this passage is regarded as confirming an implication already present in 1.1 or as effectively reifying a possibility. Given the image pattern implied by 1.1 ‘uirum’ (Vergil the virgin has become a man and had a child), ‘genitals’ does seem an appropriate additional implication. And it is 78 In general, see Luz (2010). 79 See, e.g., Hexter (1990) 129 n. 46. 80 Ov. Amor. 1.9.26; cf. Ov. Trist. 2.534: ‘contulit [sc. Vergil] in Tyrios arma uirumque toros’. For arma in a sexual sense, Adams (1982) 21. 81 Discussion: e.g., Pease (1935) 102; Clausen (2002) 77; on Dido’s physical state at the end of Book 1 see p. 752 below.

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perhaps strengthened by the ‘shape’ of lines 1–10, with the second ‘uirum’ at the bottom of the male ‘shape’ and in the middle of the line.82 One might then recall that in one of his most transgendered poems, Attis, a ‘little epic’ (epyllion) and therefore generically related to the Aeneid, Catullus uses ‘uir’ to mean ‘testicles’ (63.6). The thoughts of the last paragraph seem reasonable enough to me, especially if readers bear in mind the sheer sexiness of Homer’s self-punning through Odysseus’ thighs. To return to the proem: 1–11 forms part of an extended preface (1–33), which closes as follows (25–33): (necdum etiam causae irarum saeuique dolores exciderant animo; manet alta mente repostum iudicium Paridis spretaeque iniuria formae et genus inuisum et rapti Ganymedis honores)— his accensa super iactatos aequore toto Troas, reliquias Danaum atque inmitis Achilli, arcebat longe Latio, multosque per annos errabant acti fatis maria omnia circum. tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem.

30

(Not yet still had the causes of her angers and the savage pains fallen out of her mind; there remain stored in the depth of her mind the judgement of Paris and the injury of her spurned shapeliness, and the hated race and the honours of ravished Ganymede)—fired by these too, she buffeted over the whole sea the Trojans, the leavings of the Danai and of ungentle Achilles, and she warded them off far from Latium, and they wandered, driven by the fates around all the seas, through many years. So great a difficulty was it to set down the Roman race. Of the many rings here closed, the one that concerns us is in line 33. ‘Condere gentem’ picks up 5 ‘conderet urbem’, of both Aeneas (setting down/founding Lavinium) and Vergil (‘setting down’ the Aeneid). ‘Roman’, as usual, can be understood as meaning ‘strong’.83 Given that Vergil’s cognomen Maro is referenced in the opening lines of the proem and no doubt punned on as meaning

82 My thinking here is inspired by David Creese’s comment ‘Things seem to funnel into 10 “virum”’. 83 Maltby (1991) 529–31.

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‘male’, one wonders if 33 ‘Romanam’ plays on ‘Maro’, the entire preface being ring-structured by the name of the ‘setter down’ of the poem itself? All in all, the case that Vergil is punning on his own name in 1.1, 1.1–4, 1.1–11, and 1.1–33 seems very strong, and, as we have seen, there are immediate, and by no means trivial, implications. Let us pursue those implications further. 5

Interpretative Implications

As a word, ‘uirum’ (1) signposts and emphasises the main theme of Book I (and indeed of the rest of the Aeneid): ‘virility’. ‘Virum’ (1) is succeeded, within the proem, by ‘ui’ (4) and by the repeated ‘uirum’ (10), and within the narrative by: 87 Insequitur clamorque uirum stridorque rudentum. 91 praesentemque uiris intentant omnia mortem. 101 scuta uirum galeasque et fortia corpora 118–19 Adparent rari nantes in gurgite uasto, arma uirum, tabulaeque, et Troia gaza per undas. 151–2 tum, pietate grauem ac meritis si forte uirum quem conspexere, silent 214–15 Tum uictu reuocant uires, fusique per herbam implentur ueteris Bacchi pinguisque ferinae. 240–1 nunc eadem fortuna uiros tot casibus actos/insequitur 264 moresque uiris et moenia ponet 440 miscetque uiris, neque cernitur ulli 493 audetque uiris concurrere uirgo 507 Iura dabat legesque uiris 516–17 Dissimulant, et nube caua speculantur amicti, quae fortuna uiris 530–2 Est locus, Hesperiam Grai cognomine dicunt, terra antiqua, potens armis atque ubere glaebae; Oenotri coluere uiri 546 Quem si fata uirum seruant, si uescitur aura aetheria 565 Quis genus Aeneadum, quis Troiae nesciat urbem, uirtutesque uirosque, aut tanti incendia belli? 613–14 Obstipuit primo aspectu Sidonia Dido, casu deinde uiri tanto 640–2 caelataque in auro fortia facta patrum, series longissima rerum

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per tot ducta uiros antiqua ab origine gentis. 664–5 ‘Nate, meae uires, mea magna potentia solus, nate, patris summi qui tela Typhoëa temnis’. Some of these examples are of course rather neutral in themselves, but others are not, and the total effect is strongly ‘virile’. But since ‘uirum’ (1) is also a pun on ‘Vergil’, the poet’s name, understood as cognate with ‘uir’, functions as a signpost for the most important theme of his new epic. And there must be some sort of more organic relationship between the ‘virile’ epic subject-matter and the now ‘virile’ poet, because, as in the Eclogues, the poet Vergil is in some sense and to some degree singing about himself. The latter implication is obviously given further weight at the end of the book, by the song of Iopas, where a poet-figure sings within the text, and functions as a sort of alter ego of the poet. This implication is further supported by one of the ‘uir’ examples, which I need to contextualise more broadly (1.148–56): Ac ueluti magno in populo cum saepe coorta est seditio, saeuitque animis ignobile uolgus, iamque faces et saxa uolant—furor arma ministrat; tum, pietate grauem ac meritis si forte uirum quem conspexere, silent, arrectisque auribus adstant; ille regit dictis animos, et pectora mulcet,— sic cunctus pelagi cecidit fragor, aequora postquam prospiciens genitor caeloque inuectus aperto flectit equos, curruque uolans dat lora secundo.

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And just as in a great people when a secession has often arisen, and the ignoble commons rage in their minds, and already torches and rocks are flying—fury provides arms; then, if by chance they have caught sight of a man weighty in dutifulness and deserved honours, they fall silent and stand to attention with ears erect; that man rules their minds with words and soothes their breasts,—so the whole crashing of the sea fell quiet, after the Father looking over the level seas and carried on the clear air turns his horses and flying along applies his reins to his speedy chariot. Who is this ‘man’? The fact that ‘the man’ is formally indefinite (‘uirum … quem’) does not preclude specific allusions, and we note immediately that after 1.1 and 1.10 this is the first time that the form ‘uirum’ is being used as the accusative singular of ‘uir’ rather than the genitive plural. An allusion to Augustus, the

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‘ruler’ of the Roman people after the civil wars and whose ‘rule’ saves them from a resumption of those wars, is highly attractive, especially as ‘dutifulness’ picks up ‘dutifulness’ at 10, and, as we have seen, the who-clause of the Proem already includes an analogy with Augustus.84 There is also yet another transitional link with the sphragis at the end of the Georgics, where we see Augustus ‘as victor giving laws throughout willing peoples’ (Geo. 4.561–2). Those are ‘external’ peoples, but there are analogies between the treatment of ‘external’ and ‘internal’ peoples. The same ‘pick-up’ of ‘dutifulness’ also encourages an allusion to the ‘signally dutiful Aeneas’ himself, the ‘ruler’ (‘rex’) of the Trojans; the fact that this allusion problematises the ‘reality’ of the mythical narrative in which the same Aeneas is the central human figure is a bonus, not a difficulty.85 An allusion to Cato the Younger is also possible.86 An allusion to Vergil the poet qua teacher and educator and to the educative role of his current poem the Aeneid is also very persuasively argued by Damien Nelis. As he points out, ‘arms and the man’ (1) ‘here gives way to an adversative relationship, which may be expressed as ‘arms but the man’,87 who ‘rules’ the crowd with words. More: such an allusion is further supported by the ‘pick-up’ of ‘regit’, because, as we have also seen, that passage already includes an analogy with Vergil, and by the sphragis at the end of Georgics 4, where Augustus was already seen in relation to ‘peoples’ and where he and Vergil in some ways play complementary roles. The allusions here both to Augustus and to Vergil yet again imply the parity of the two men, though again there are tensions, for Vergil has not undertaken physical ‘labours’, whereas Augustus has. Further, read retrospectively, these lines can hardly be dissociated from ‘the Roman mission’ of Book 6 (851–3): Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento (hae tibi erunt artes), pacique imponere morem, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos. You, Roman, remember to rule the peoples with power (these will be your arts), and to impose custom on peace, to spare the subjected and to war down the uppity.

84 85 86 87

See above, p. 737. See below. Williams (1972) 68–9. Nelis (2011) 282 (emphases original).

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Admittedly, the Book 6 passage concerns the ‘rule’ of ‘the Roman’ by ‘imperium’ over external peoples, but that role can of course be conceived of as analogous to ‘internal’ ‘rule’ over the Roman People,88 and the interaction between Book 6 and Book 1, combined with the latter’s preoccupation with the theme of ‘kingship’,89 encourages the thought: ‘Vergil rules the Roman People with words, Augustus with “imperium”’. The thought bears some resemblance to Sallust’s defence of ‘dicere’ (i.e., writing history) as being of equal benefit to the state as ‘doing’ or ‘acting’, and, as in Sallust, readers are being offered an alternative definition of ‘uirtus’ (Sall. Cat. 3.1–2): It is a fine thing to do well for the state: also to speak [‘dicere’] well is not misplaced; it is allowed to become distinguished either in peace or in war; and both those who have done deeds and those who have written of the deeds of others are frequently praised. (2) And to me at least, even though by no means equal glory attends the writer and the author of achievements … Here the paradoxical application of the term ‘auctor’ to ‘achievements’ emphasises Sallust’s claim that writers and political ‘actors’ are of equal status.90 I shall return to this aspect of Vergil’s ‘virility’ later.91 For now, the ‘identification’ of this ‘man’ with (inter alios) Vergil himself re-enacts the pun between ‘Vergil’ (or ‘Virgil’) and ‘uir’, with readers again ‘helped’—but also challenged—by the visual term ‘catch sight of’ (‘conspexere’, cognate with ‘respicies’ in Georgics 1.425). They have to ‘see’ that ‘this’ ‘man’ is also ‘Vir-gil’. For some of them this would presumably have been less difficult, as they may actually have ‘seen’ Vergil reciting his poetry in public. Enough, for the moment, of ‘virility’. The theme of virility in Book 1 is, however, counter-balanced by considerable emphasis on ‘virginity’: 314–15 Cui mater media sese tulit obuia silua, uirginis os habitumque gerens, et uirginis arma Spartanae … 325–7 Sic Venus; et Veneris contra sic filius orsus: ‘Nulla tuarum audita mihi neque uisa sororum— O quam te memorem, uirgo?’ 88 89 90 91

E.g., Liv. praef. 7. Cairns (1989) 93–5. Woodman (2012) 230. See below, p. 758.

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335–6 Tum Venus: ‘Haud equidem tali me dignor honore; uirginibus Tyriis mos est gestare pharetram’ 490–3 Ducit Amazonidum lunatis agmina peltis Penthesilea furens, mediisque in milibus ardet, aurea subnectens exsertae cingula mammae, bellatrix, audetque uiris concurrere uirgo. As the last passage shows, the moon is also relevant to the virginity theme (490): ducit Amazonidum lunatis agmina peltis. Which again brings in the song of Iopas (742): hic canit errantem lunam solisque labores. These ‘virginal’ instances—in some contrast to the ‘uir’ list—are all ‘active’. Thus it now becomes clear that despite the new association between ‘Vergil’ and ‘virility’, we cannot forget the Georgics—and by extension the Eclogues—link between the name Vergilius/Virgilius and ‘uirgo’; and between Vergil and the moon. So the earlier pun is still operative, albeit formally subordinate to the ‘uir’ pun. In so far as ‘uirum’ (1) retains the link with ‘uirgo’, that earlier pun functions as a signpost for the continuing virginal element of the narrative. Thus ‘uirum’ (1) has a double aspect, signifying both ‘uir’ and ‘uirgo’, and the word functions as a sort of mesostic,92 acting as a thematic index to the two main themes—virility and virginity—of Book I (and, indeed, of the rest of the Aeneid). At this point, we may note that line 493 (‘bellatrix, audetque uiris concurrere uirgo’) provides retrospective validation of our double reading of ‘uirum’ in l. 1, in accordance either with the ancient rhetorical figure (Quint. 8.6.20) of ‘from preceding things following things, from following things preceding things’, whereby the meaning of ‘following things’ is refined by ‘preceding things’ and vice versa, and complete meaning is created by see-sawing interaction between the two, or with the modern principle, discovered and named by James Diggle, of ‘amplificatory pleonasm’.93 These two themes, while inevitably linked, are of course also in natural opposition, and this opposition is exemplified by the poet himself, who seems both to have lost his virginity and retained it, by Penthesilea in the temple 92 A mesostic is an acrostic that occurs in the middle of lines. 93 Diggle (2005).

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paintings, and within the narrative by the very young widow Dido, who is not a virgin but who has as it were recast herself as one.94 The paradoxicalness of virginity in this book is further emphasised by the insistent adoption of that role in her meeting with Aeneas by—of all beings—his mother (by definition not a virgin) the goddess Venus (most emphatically not a virgin). A further point: in Latin and Greek, as in English, ‘virgin’ can be used of men as well as women, but in these cases Vergil is likening himself to a female virgin, so that there is a double movement here: virgin to man and back again; man to woman. These permutations inevitably involve the simpler contrast between man and woman, also emphasised: 364 of Dido: ‘dux femina facti’.95 And another important category: women who behave like men. And the opposite of virginity is not only virility: it is also female sexuality, even cosmic sexuality, writ large in the beings of Venus and her son Cupid.96 At this point too, we may note that Vergil now agrees with Apollonius on epic’s being about both sexes, but that his exploratory model for this is far more complex than Apollonius’. At this point also, we may immediately align this paper with one of the classics of modern Vergilian scholarship: Adam Parry’s ‘The Two Voices of Virgil’s Aeneid’.97 That rightly very influential paper is nevertheless open to objections, not least the fact that the Aeneid has many more than two voices. Nevertheless, according to this paper, Vergil does announce himself as having two voices, and those voices are not those of public and private (Parry’s categories) but those of man and virgin and man and woman; of course there are overlaps between Parry’s two voices and mine, but it is important to identify the two voices correctly at the start; we have already seen that they immediately create challenging complexities; and of course these two main voices—man and virgin—necessarily also incorporate within themselves a whole host of other voices. Note here how extraordinarily well-placed is the mention of the ‘virgin-voiced’ Parthenope at the end of the Georgics just before the start of the Aeneid. Many modern critics, both outside and inside Classics, doubt that ‘voice’ is a sufficiently precise term or concept for the analysis of literary texts. It should be clear that in the case of Vergil their doubt is quite misconceived. As we have seen also, it is a feature of these two voices that the virgin voice as it were comes back, even when Vergil has lost his virginity and become a man, 94 95 96 97

1.336, with E. L. Harrison (1972–3) 16ff.; 4.15–19; Cf. also 4.165, where the implication, ‘Dido led’, cannot be excluded. One might see this as Vergil’s epicisation of the Lucretian Venus. Parry (1963), frequently reprinted in collections and companions; in classical scholarship cf. also (of course) Lyne (1989); Goldhill (1991).

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and there is another important aspect of this paradoxical reversal in Book I (and later). The move, between Georgics and Aeneid, from virginity to virility seemed to involve a movement from virginal and effeminate Epicureanism to virile Stoicism. But Epicureanism also comes back—not only in the fact that Vergil’s storm is a sort of re-epicisation of Lucretius’ metaphorical storm,98 but also in the essentially Epicurean portrayal of the emotions,99 and in the suggestions of Phaeacian/Epicurean elements in the Carthaginian court (and other things). All of these complexities come together in the song of Iopas at the end of the book (1.740–6): cithara crinitus Iopas personat aurata, docuit quem maximus Atlas. hic canit errantem lunam solisque labores; unde hominum genus et pecudes; unde imber et ignes; Arcturum pluuiasque Hyadas geminosque Triones; quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles 745 hiberni, uel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet. Long-haired Iopas performs on gilded lyre, whom greatest Atlas taught. This man sings the wandering moon and the labours of the sun; whence the race of men and the cattle; whence rain and fires; and Arcturus, and the rainy Hyades and the twin Triones; why the winter suns so hasten to make themselves wet in Ocean, or what delay obstructs slow nights. This song corresponds to the singing of Phemius at the end of Odyssey 1. In both cases, the figure of the internal poet suggests analogies with the external poet. And Iopas is male, very male, qua Apolline, he is both ‘performing’ and ‘playing a role’ (‘personat’), he sings both of the moon (evocative of Penthesilea, Diana, Dido and Vergil qua virgin) and of the sun (evocative of Aeneas and his labours and of Vergil qua male poet at the start of the book). The song also suggests a particular aspect of Aeneas’ virility. Consider: Aeneas is a warrior and widower, he has been without sex for seven years (1.755–6), he has just escaped death, and he has had a series of images of beautiful virgins dangled before his eyes, culminating in the very beautiful, obviously interested, and slightly tipsy queen sitting beside him: like the widowed

98 Hardie (1986) 180–3. 99 See Nelis (2015) 159–61.

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Dido, he is ‘hungry’ (or ‘thirsty’ after so long a drought),100 and when two people are hungry, they always do it. As Pöschl noted, 746 alludes to lovers’ desire to protract the night,101 and as Pöschl did not note, 745–6 alludes to the solar and Apolline Aeneas’ haste to dip his wick into Dido’s Ocean. So Book 1 is book-ended by sex, but whereas Vergil’s sex begets the Aeneid, Aeneas’ and Dido’s sex begets war to the death between Rome and Carthage and of course also between Rome and Egypt. And the cosmic concerns of Iopas’ song look Epicurean,102 an impression confirmed by the fact that lines 742 and 745–6 are virtually repeated from the Georgics where they are explicitly located in an Epicurean context.103 Among other things (his song is very complex), Iopas embodies the oppositions that we have seen within Vergil himself. Vergil’s sphragides and name puns, then, at the start of the Aeneid connect organically with the most fundamental themes of his new epic poem. There are parallels for this in ancient literature—writers such as Hesiod, Herodotus, Aristotle, Aratus, Lucretius, Horace, and Tacitus spring immediately to mind—but certainly Vergil’s linkage of his names and themes is very tight and very sustained. His name was a god-send to Vergilius Maro, as Horatius Flaccus’ was to him.104 What of broader interpretative issues? Obviously, man–virgin, man–woman polarities (with their various sub-divisions) have great explanatory and exploratory power. Add another element of Iopas’ song, Empedoclean Love and Strife (another ‘opposite’ of love) and the result is a model for the exploration of pretty well the whole human condition—even the whole cosmos. But how and where does Vergil himself fit within this complex of polarities? The complicated punning relationships between Vergil the poet as both man and virgin, both man and woman, and main figures of his narrative as gendered with similar complexity obviously suggest the intensity and empathy with which the poet will inhabit his complicated characters and give them appropriate voices. Remember for Aristotle, if a poet represents an angry person, 100 Cf. 1.749 ‘longumque bibebat [sc. Dido] amorem’. 101 Pöschl (1962) 153–4; the interpretation is guaranteed by the literal 748 ‘nec non et uario noctem sermone trahebat’. 102 Cf. in general La Penna (1995) 321–2. 103 ~ Georgics 2.478 ‘defectus solis uarios lunaeque labores’; 481–2 ‘quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles | hiberni, uel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet’; on the whole Georgics passage see pp. 762ff. below. 104 Reckford (1997); Moles (2007) 168 {vol. 1, p. 465}.

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he has himself to become angry, and correspondingly Roman love poets have themselves to become lovers. Vergil is also making claims about poetics. Virile epic is not enough. Epic needs to incorporate virginity and femaleness. Similar cross-gender stances were of course adopted by Roman poets of other genres, Catullus and Horace among them. Stoic epic is not enough—epic needs to incorporate Epicureanism. What of Vergil’s general ‘vision’? It is of course a feature of many of Vergil’s virgins that rather quickly they end up dead (think of Penthesilea, Dido, and Camilla, and on the male side Pallas, Lausus, and Euryalus). At which point, this paper may usefully be aligned with another classic of twentieth-century Vergilian scholarship, Don Fowler’s ‘Vergil on Killing Virgins’.105 Fowler famously argued that some of Vergil’s predecessors, notably of course Homer, already imaged the killing of young male warriors in terms of bloody defloration, that this technique was developed by Vergil, and that, if there were two voices in Vergil, ‘there is a sense in which the voice of triumph and domination is male, the voice of suffering and defeat female … The combination of horror and pathos that the defloration imagery adds to the killings rather places the reader, male or female, on the side of the suffering’.106 Although Fowler was obviously playing with the alliterative ‘Vergil-virgin’, in those far-off days he missed the vital role of Vergil’s punnings on his own name. But Fowler’s paper provides further confirmation that the role of ‘the virginal’ extends into males as well, and it supplies other models for Vergil’s cross-gendering besides Catullus. What of the claim that ‘the combination of horror and pathos that the defloration imagery adds to the killings rather places the reader, male or female, on the side of the suffering’, which is of course, mutatis mutandis, a very common claim. Remember that on my analysis Vergil the virgin is indeed committed to intense empathy with such virginal figures in his narrative. At which point, we might push a bit and indelicately ask: who actually deflowered Vergil, metaphorically speaking? One answer of course might be: Augustus—the ‘big’ potent male figure juxtaposed and contrasted with the virginal Vergil at the end of the Georgics. Consider the complaints of Turnus’ sister, the nymph Juturna (= ‘she who helps Turnus’) against her deflowerer Jupiter, when she realises that she must abandon her brother (12.877–8):

105 Fowler (1987). 106 Fowler (1987) 197–8.

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nec fallunt iussa superba magnanimi Iouis. Haec pro uirginitate reponit? The uppity orders of great-hearted Jupiter don’t escape me. Are these his recompense for virginity? Could this be read as Vergil’s complaint that in yielding to Augustus’ desire for epic commemoration, he, Vergil, must kill his most attractive characters? Another answer might be Augustus’ wife Livia. If Vergil himself was to some extent ‘the man who’ etc., was he ‘buffeted’ and ‘impelled’ to his (poetic) ‘labours’ by the Roman ‘queen’? Might the recitation in Books 2 and 3 by Aeneas, alter ego of Vergil, before the Carthaginian court, suggest the attested performances by Vergil before the Augustan court? Might Aeneas’ response to Dido in 2.3—‘Unspeakable the pain you bid me renew, queen’—suggest Vergil’s response (or part of it) to the haud mollia iussa of Augustus’ queen—the recitation of a narrative which inevitably recalled the Roman civil wars?107 I do not think this answer can be excluded. Another answer of course might be: Vergil himself, in an act of self-defloration. Such an act is actually perpetrated by Dido, in her male aspect: 4.27 ‘ante, Pudor, quam te uiolo’/‘before, Shame, I violate you’ (where ‘uiolo’ ~ ‘uis’–‘uir’). In committing to a sexual relationship with Aeneas Dido rapes herself. And Dido is like Vergil in having lost her virginity, having acquired a degree of virility, and having in a sense regained her virginity, until this drastic act. Is Dido also an alter ego of Vergil? Might one even align Vergil with the famous Freudian theory of the American critic Harold Bloom, that in order to gain their own creative freedom writers have to ‘kill’ their ‘paternal’ predecessors,108 with Vergil going even farther, his virile half deflowering and killing his own female half? So the answer to Fowler’s claim (above) is: it is one-sided: on the other side is the virile Vergil, the poet-figure who is like Aeneas, who has a ‘weapon’ just as Aeneas has ‘arms’, who ‘condidit’ his poem, just as Aeneas ‘condit’ his sword in Turnus, so that he could ‘condo’ his city, who had to write of these deflorations, if he was to ‘condo’ his own poem. At which point, re-enter Catullus, whose agonised trans-sexual and trans-gender self-representations must have greatly influenced Vergil, as they did Horace.109 Catullus famously argued that if a poet ‘wrote dirty’, it did not mean he himself was dirty.110 Vergil disagrees: 107 Moles (1983); Bowie (1990). 108 Bloom (1973). 109 Woodman (2002). 110 Cat. 16, with (e.g.) Sandy (1971).

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to write empathetically the bloody history of Rome is to some extent to collude with it, to be contaminated by it, to shed the blood of virgins, to rape, to kill. Here a sharp contrast with another writer with whom Vergil had intertextual relations, the relatively idealising and romanticising Livy.111 Vergil’s history of Rome is much more honest than Livy’s. But it is of course also possible to be too precious about defloration. Without it, none of us would be here. Even the violent deflorations of Dido, Camilla, and Turnus were necessary for the birth of Rome, whose history, while bloody, was also glorious—and in both respects virile. Here too Vergil extends the power and range of the sphragis: a sphragis proclaims, as if in an inscription: ‘I did this, this is mine’. Vergil’s complicated sphragides at the start of the Aeneid seem to ‘inscribe’ his ‘subscription’ to the whole Roman project warts and all. So the ‘Vergilius-uir-uirgo’ pun also says something important about the role of the Roman epic poet in Augustan Rome and something important about Vergil’s own role within his poetic trajectory as he becomes the poet of Roman history and the poet of Augustan Rome. Whether—or how far—one should go down the psycho-sexual road is unclear to me. The Romans were rightly very sensitised to the ineluctable connexions between life, sex, death, birth, killing, and re-birth. Some great classical poets were also very sensitive to gender issues. There is also a general interest in the differences and similarities between different types of love, the blurrings between maternal, paternal, and sexual love, for example. So I don’t want to commit to ‘kinkiness’. Moreover, all this isn’t just about Vergil. These states and processes, profound in themselves, are also powerful and profound metaphors, through which any of Vergil’s contemporaries—and any of his subsequent readers, including us, including men and women—could through the Aeneid relive the acute moral ambiguities inherent in Roman history—and inherent in Augustan Rome. But there are still other angles to the man–virgin paradigm and its associated complexities. It contains genuine incompatibilities, and therefore allows radically different answers to fundamental interpretative questions. Example: ‘can such great angers be in celestial minds’? The narrative answer to this fundamental question of theodicy is, of course, yes. But an answer the text itself makes available is NO! The Epicureans are right about the gods. Similarly, the Olympian pantheon, foregrounded in the proem and the narrative, is hardly compatible with the Epicurean/Empedoclean cosmology at the end of the book. Again, the facile providentialism of the Stoic Aratus is at least temporarily exploded by the first word of line 3 of Book 2: infandum—ἄρρητον—unspeakable, and 111 Woodman (1988) 128–40.

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‘renewing pain’—the pain of the civil war—is the very last thing an Epicurean should do. Similarly, when in Book 4 Dido sneers, in Epicurean style, ‘of course, this is a labour of the gods above’ (4.379–80), within the immediate narrative framework, she is wrong, but there remains the possibility that within a wider perspective, she is right. In other words, the Aeneid itself allows individual readers the option of saying: I just do not accept some of the key premises of this text, and radical interpretative problematics are throughout sustained. There is also the question of the status of the text in relation to its material. On one level, there is no space between them, and when Aeneas looks at the temple paintings, he is looking not only at his own past, not only (though he doesn’t know it) at the text of the Iliou persis, but also (though of course again he does not know it) at the Aeneid, in which Vergil the virgin is running with Vergil the man; so also the fortunes of Augustus and those of Vergil and those of the Aeneid seem to be inextricably interconnected; and the Aeneid itself is part of the whole package of Augustan Rome. On the other hand, a text also has its own beauty, its own proportions, and the question of its temporal or spatial relationship to its contents is raised in the narrative: on the one hand, ‘unspeakable the pain you bid me renew, queen’ (2.1), on the other: ‘it may be that to recall even these things will one day give pleasure’ (1.207), and readers then may correspondingly give greater weight to the ‘play’ element of the work, as well of course as responding to the sheer consolatory power of great literature. So far, this paper has concerned itself with the punning relationships between ‘Vergilius’, ‘uir’ and ‘uirgo’. These relationships, however, have wide implications and have already brought in other punning relationships, with ‘uiridis,’ ‘uer’ and ‘uis’, and with ‘mas’. Are there other punning relationships with ‘Vergilius’? ‘Virga’ is an obvious case for investigation, because of its late Latin and medieval association with the name Virgilius, as by then so spelled; because from the point of view of Roman etymologists it belongs within a complex of words such as ‘uis’, ‘uergo’, ‘uiridis’, ‘uirgo’ and ‘uirtus’;112 and because an association between Vergil’s name and the noun uirga was made in the time of Aelius Donatus, fourth-century grammarian and rhetorician and author of a Life of Vergil, and, if his evidence on this point is accepted, as it surely should be, it had been made for some time before (Vit. Donat. 3–5): When she was pregnant with him, his mother dreamed that she gave birth to a laurel branch [ramum], which struck root when it touched the 112 Maltby (1991) 648.

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earth and sprang up on the spot, so that it looked like a full-grown tree, stuffed with diverse fruits and flowers. And the following day, while she was making for the neighbouring fields with her husband, she turned aside from the path, threw herself into a ditch, and disburdened herself by delivering the child. (4) In this manner they say that the child was born, and did not cry, so mild was his countenance; that even then, he gave men no small reason to hope that his birth would prove to be auspicious. (5) Another presage was added to this, when the poplar sprout [uirga] that is immediately planted in the same place by women who have given birth (according to the custom of the region) actually grew up so fast that it stood level with the poplars sown long before. It is called on that account the ‘tree [arbor] of Vergil’, and prayers for childbirth and safe delivery are still offered with the greatest reverence there by pregnant women and new mothers. With this in mind, let us look then in Book 6. In response to Aeneas’ request that he be allowed to descend to the Underworld, the Sibyl tells Aeneas that ‘a few, whom equitable Jupiter loved or whom fiery manliness [uirtus] has carried to the sky, born from gods, have been able to do it’ (129–31), and when Aeneas persists, tells him to pluck the Golden Bough, adding (6.143–4): primo auulso non deficit alter aureus, et simili frondescit uirga metallo. When the first is wrenched off, another does not fail, golden, and the bough grows leaves of like metal. She then repeats (146–8): carpe manu; namque ipse uolens facilisque sequetur, si te fata uocant; aliter non uiribus ullis, uincere nec duro poteris conuellere ferro. Pluck it with your hand; for it itself will follow willingly and easily, if you are the one the fates are calling; otherwise, you will not be able to conquer it by any strength or by hard steel. The boatman of the Underworld Charon is persuaded by the sight of the Bough (408–10):

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ille admirans uenerabile donum fatalis uirgae longo post tempore uisum caeruleam aduertit puppim ripaeque propinquat. He, wondering at the revered gift of the fated bough seen now after a long time, turns his dark-blue prow and approaches the bank. The term ‘uirga’ is emphasised and the Sibyl is herself, emphatically, a virgin (45, 104, 318, 560), so a ‘uirgo’-‘uirga’ link is established. So is a link between ‘virga’ and ‘uires’. The whole descent to the Underworld is imaged as penetration,113 and it hardly seems outrageous to see mildly sexual imagery in lines 146–8. Furthermore, David West has rightly emphasised that the Golden Bough episode must at least include an allusion to Augustus’ initiation in the Eleusinian Mysteries in 31,114 so Augustus is among those whose ‘fiery manliness has carried them to the sky’. Is there then an allusion to the corresponding ‘manliness’ of Vergil the poet? There is another important factor in this narrative: the repeated emphasis on the ‘road’ (‘uia’) that Aeneas must traverse (96, 122, 194, 260, 295, 367, 629, 540, 796, 899), the ‘road’ largely being the one within the Underworld, though with some references to his general ‘journey’, both literal and figurative. And an association between ‘uia’ and ‘uis’ is found in the etymologists.115 In sum, then, it seems reasonable to see Vergil by a series of interlocking puns as inscribing himself as the guide to the Underworld, as late Romans, medieval people and Dante read him. This, then, is another important aspect of ‘Vergil’s virility’. Whether the episode illustrates a harmony (admittedly not struggle-free) between ‘virility’ and ‘virginity’, or a disharmony, raises huge questions about the interpretation of Book 6 which cannot be pursued here. At this point, however, we may yet again revisit the sphragis at the end of the Georgics: Haec super aruorum cultu pecorumque canebam et super arboribus, Caesar dum magnus ad altum fulminat Euphraten bello uictorque uolentis per populos dat iura uiamque adfectat Olympo. illo Vergilium me tempore dulcis alebat Parthenope studiis florentem ignobilis oti, 113 Paschalis (1997) 212–13. 114 D. West (1987) 11. 115 Maltby (1991) 642–3.

563 564

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carmina qui lusi pastorum audaxque iuuenta, Tityre, te patulae cecini sub tegmine fagi. I was singing these things about the cultivation of fields and cattle and about trees, while great Caesar was thunderbolting at the deep Euphrates in war and as victor was giving laws throughout willing peoples and was making for the road to Olympus. At that time sweet Parthenope was nourishing me as I flowered in the studies of ignoble leisure, I who played the poems of shepherds and, daring in youth, sang of you, Tityrus, under the cover of a spreading beech. Given that 563 explicitly gives us the name ‘Vergilius’; that 564 already raises the possibility of the spelling ‘Virgilius’; and that Octavian’s ‘road to Olympus’ parallels and contrasts with Vergil’s poetic ‘course’ throughout the poem (‘cursus’: 1.40, 512–14; 2.541–2), can we see a punning relationship between ‘Vergilium’/‘Virgilium’ and ‘uiam’? If granted, the relationship would in the first instance be one of contrast, though secondarily (no doubt) one of complementarity, but from our point of view its most important function would be to act as yet another pointer for readers to subsequent developments in the Aeneid. The book of the Underworld is of course also much concerned with ‘lives’ (‘uitae’), their endings and their beginnings and the choices of lives that people make: 6.168, 292, 306, 428, 433, 608, 661, 663, 728, 735, 828. And ancient etymologists—starting with the satirist Lucilius—can connect ‘uita’ with ‘uis’116—which itself is etymologically associated with ‘uir’. Thus ‘Virgil’ the man-virgin inscribes himself also as the poet of Life and Death. Since Vergil himself encourages us to think of his poetic works in terms of his life, conversely beginnings and endings of lives may make us think of beginnings and endings of works. We have already considered links between the beginning and ending of the Georgics, between the ending of the Georgics and the beginning of the Eclogues, between the ending of the Georgics and between the beginning of the Aeneid, and between the beginning of the Aeneid and the beginning of the Eclogues. I now say a very few things about the most controversial passage of the Aeneid: its ending (12.950–2): hoc dicens, ferrum aduerso sub pectore condit feruidus; ast illi soluuntur frigore membra uitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras. 116 Maltby (1991) 649.

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Saying this, he set down his steel under the breast that confronts him, Boiling; but his limbs dissolve in cold And his life fled with a groan, resentful, to the shades. Everybody knows that the Aeneid ends in anger (952 ‘indignata’, 946 ‘ira’ of Aeneas), just as it began in anger (1.11, 25), and that 950 ‘condit’ echoes 1.5 ‘conderet’. Clearly also, ‘fled’ (952) echoes ‘a fleer’ (1.1). In addition, A. J. Boyle pointed out that ‘umbras’ (last word of the last line of the Aeneid) picks up Eclogue 10.75–6: surgamus: solet esse grauis cantantibus umbra, iuniperi grauis umbra; nocent et frugibus umbrae. Let us arise: shade is accustomed to be oppressive to singers, The shade of the juniper is oppressive; shades also harm crops. These two lines have ‘shade’ as their last word and are themselves the antepenultimate and penultimate lines of the Eclogues collection. And in both positionings, they themselves pick up the last line of the first poem of the Eclogues: maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae. And greater shades fall down from the high mountains. This itself picks up the fourth line of the first poem: ‘lentus in umbra’. Consequently, the last word of the last line of the final book of the Aeneid, Vergil’s last magnum opus, also picks up both the last line and the fourth line of the first poem of Vergil’s first opus.117 Consequently, no one can deny that Vergil’s poetic corpus is ‘ringed’ and punctuated at nodal points by ‘shade’, nor that the last of these ‘shades’ spells death. These factors are usually ‘cashed out’ in a ‘pessimistic’ reading of the Aeneid—or even of Vergil’s whole corpus. Thus Boyle:118 ‘[Vergil] signals the echoic Muse’s triumph, the cyclic futility of his own poetic life’. And there are of course a lot of ‘shades’ in the book of the Underworld.

117 Boyle (1986) 12, 124, 175. 118 Boyle (1986) 176.

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Before very briefly exploring the question of ‘ultimate interpretation’, one should explore more formalist avenues. Duncan Kennedy suggested very attractively that Eclogue 10.75–6 means, in a meta-literary sense, ‘that’s enough of the Eclogues [‘umbrae’], let’s get on with the Georgics (‘frugibus’)’, ‘surgamus’ conveying the transition to the ‘higher’ genre of the latter.119 Such a ‘transitional’ reading of the end of the Eclogues fits very well with our readings of the end of the Georgics, of the beginning of Georgics 3, and of the beginning of the Aeneid. Moreover, in the light of other findings within this paper, the preceding line—‘quantum uere nouo uiridis se subicit alnus’—surely contains a sphragis on the name ‘Vergil’/‘Virgil’. The transition is then carried forward into line 43 of Georgics 1,120 at the point where Vergil begins his actual exposition of his material after his final address to Augustus: ‘Vere novo, gelidus canis cum montibus umor’. And that line itself contains a sphragis or anagram on the name Vergilius:121 Vere nouo, gelidus. This sphragis balances the direct naming of Augustus in line 25: ‘Caesar’. Which takes us back to the end of the Aeneid. It is a fact that the last line of that end—an end which in some ways echoes the beginning—contains a word whose first two letters are ‘ui’, just as the first line of the beginning contains a word whose first two letters are ‘ui’. And just as ‘uirum’ (1.1) played punningly on ‘Vergil’/‘Virgil’ as ‘uir’ and ‘uirgo’, so here ‘uita’ contains a sphragis on the name ‘Vergil’/‘Virgil’, as concerned with ‘life’ or departure from life, in the most characteristic position in a work for a sphragis and in this position parallel with the ends of the Eclogues and of the Georgics. So the end and beginning of the Aeneid are linked by sphragides (rather like the end and beginning of the Georgics). And after all this, we may surely go a step further and include the architectural ‘umbrae’ references within the panoply of the Vergilian sphragis. Thus: Aeneid 12.952: uitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras. Eclogues 10.74–6: quantum uere nouo uiridis se subicit alnus. [already setting up alternation of vowels] surgamus: solet esse grauis cantantibus umbra, iuniperi grauis umbra; nocent et frugibus umbrae. 119 Kennedy (1983) (much more subtly put). 120 I owe this point to Damien Nelis. 121 This suggestion was made by David Gregory in an Oxford seminar. {The editor is grateful to Damien Nelis and Fiachra Mac Góráin for this information.}

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Eclogues 1.79–84: Hic tamen hanc mecum poteras requiescere noctem fronde super uiridi: sunt nobis mitia poma, castaneae molles et pressi copia lactis, et iam summa procul uillarum culmina fumant, maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae. [And might ‘cadunt … umbrae’ suggest ‘uergunt’?] Eclogues 1.4: lentus in umbra. As for the ‘interpretation’ of the end of the Aeneid, one can read towards cyclicity or death but one can read positively (albeit robustly): Aeneas had to ‘set down his steel’ in Turnus’ breast, if he was to ‘set down’ his city, if, indeed, Vergil, poet of life and death, was to ‘set down’ his epic poem. One can even read Epicureanly. For the ‘shade’ of the Eclogues is not the shade of death, indeed, particularly in Eclogue 1 it is the ‘shade’ of Epicurean retirement. The ‘shade’ of the end of the Aeneid is undoubtedly the ‘shade’ of death and it is the opposite of ‘life’, but this can be an Epicurean perspective because Epicurean ethics are conditioned by the conviction that death is the end, so that life is to be lived now. Thus from the perspective of this paper—Vergil/Virgil man-virgin, poet of life and death—the final meaning of the end of the Aeneid is a matter of legitimate choice. And whatever the interpretation of the end (and its interactions with the beginning of the Aeneid and with other nodal points in Vergil’s corpus), Vergil can still claim to be a ‘uir’ in that his ‘words’ can ‘soothe’ the Roman people after—and away from—civil strife. One last thought. According to the ancient Lives of Vergil, Vergil planned, after the completion of the Aeneid, to devote the rest of his life to the study of Epicureanism.122 Is that item independent and true, or is it merely an inference from Georgics 2.475ff. or can we even take Georgics 2.475ff. itself as expressing Vergil’s genuine desire finally to devote himself to Epicureanism, that is, to return to the relatively uncompromised virginity of his youth? The text of Georgics 2.475–99 runs as follows: Me uero primum dulces ante omnia Musae, quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus amore, accipiant caelique uias et sidera monstrent, defectus solis uarios lunaeque labores; 122 Vit. Don. 125–6; Vit. Prob. 10–11.

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unde tremor terris, qua ui maria alta tumescent obicibus ruptis rursusque in se ipsa residant, quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles hiberni, uel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet. sin has ne possim naturae accedere partes frigidus obstiterit circum praecordia sanguis, rura mihi et rigui placeant in uallibus amnes, flumina amem siluasque inglorius. o ubi campi Spercheosque et uirginibus bacchata Lacaenis Taygeta! o qui me gelidis conuallibus Haemi sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra! felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas atque metus omnis et inexorabile fatum subiecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis auari; fortunatus et ille deos qui nouit agrestis Panaque Siluanumque senem Nymphasque sorores. illum non populi fasces, non purpura regum flexit et infidos agitans discordia fratres, aut coniurato descendens Dacus ab Histro, non res Romanae perituraque regna; neque ille aut doluit miserans inopem aut inuidit habenti.

480

485

490

495

But as for me [in contrast to the farmers of 458–74] first may the Muses sweet above all things, whose sacred rites I bear smitten with enormous love, accept me and show the paths of the heaven and the stars the various failings of the sun and the labours of the moon whence tremor on earth, by what force breaking their barriers the seas swell high and again of themselves sink back into themselves why the winter suns so hasten to make themselves wet in Ocean, or what delay obstructs slow nights. But if from being able to approach these parts of nature the cold blood around my heart obstructs me may the country and the irrigating streams in the valleys please me, may I love the rivers and the woods, inglorious. O, where are the plains and Spercheos and Taygeta revelled by Lycaenian virgins! O who would set me down in the cold valleys of Haemus and protect me with enormous shade of branches! Fortunate he who could get to know the causes of things

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and subjected under his feet all fears and inexorable fate and the din of greedy Acheron; [so much for Book 6!] fortunate also he who knows the country gods and Pan and old Silvanus and the sister Nymphs. That man not the fasces of the People, not the purple of kings, has swayed, nor the discord that drives brothers to treachery nor the Dacian descending from the conspiring Hister, nor the Roman state and kingdoms destined to perish; [vs the Aeneid] nor does he feel pain pitying the destitute nor does he envy the haves. This in some ways elusive passage surveys different kinds of poetry and different choices of life. Although lines 477–82 contain some material that is relevant to the Georgics themselves,123 the general ‘feel’ is Epicurean124 and this impression is supported by specific Lucretian allusions.125 Broadly speaking, therefore, these lines represent Lucretian Epicurean poetry, which Vergil himself has not written—or not to any substantial degree. The next alternative (485–9) has even less affinity with the Georgics and looks like the world of the Eclogues. As in Horace, the praise of the country life and the shade could have Epicurean resonances. It is anyway difficult to read 489 without recalling Eclogue 1.9–10 and the help given Tityrus/Vergil by Octavian: here again we encounter the ‘shade’ afforded by Epicureanism. Lines 490–2 then resume the option of 477–82, and while there is again some material relevant to the Georgics themselves,126 this is again an Epicurean and Lucretian perspective, as emphatically ‘signalled’ by line 490, which echoes Lucr. 3.1072 ‘naturam … cognoscere rerum’. At the same time, there is at least a formal difference from lines 477–82, which are conducted under the auspices of the Muses (475–6), in that 490–2 could reflect a way of life rather than a way of poetry. In a parallel movement, lines 493–4 then resume the option of 485–9, with, again, the formal difference that they could reflect a way of life rather than a way of poetry. Lines 495–9 then contrast the country life with a negative portrayal of city and civic life. The rejection of politics, greed, and social concern, the emphasis on such rejection’s guaranteeing lack of pain, and a Lucretian allusion label this section also as Epicurean, and, again, it could describe a way of life rather 123 124 125 126

Emphasised—indeed, over-emphasised—by Thomas (1988) I.251. So also La Penna (1995) 318–19. 478 ~ Lucr. 5.751; 481–2 ~ Lucr. 5.680–704; Thomas (1988) I.250–1. Emphasised—again, over-emphasised—by Thomas (1988).

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than a way of poetry. This indeed seems the better emphasis, because there is presumably no chance of Vergil’s simply repeating the Epicurean poetry of Lucretius. As we have seen, there are overlaps between that Georgics passage and the song of Iopas. The song of Iopas functions both internally in the narrative, and externally with reference to Vergil, past and present. It does seem to me that the two passages combine to suggest a Vergil in the future simply doing Epicureanism. The song of Iopas, then, while incorporating the male and female Vergils of the Aeneid, also deals Vergil himself a ‘get out of jail’ card for the future, an opportunity finally to regain his Epicurean virginity. But in the event that future life was cut off by premature death. How very Vergilian. Bibliography Abbott, J. C. (2012) ‘Arma virumque’, CJ 108: 37–63. Adams, J. N. (1982) The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (London and Baltimore). Belmont, D. E. (1980) ‘The Vergilius of Horace, Ode 4.12’, TAPhA 110: 1–20. Bing, P. (1990) ‘A Pun on Aratus’ Name in Verse 2 of the Phaenomena?’, HSCPh 93: 281–5. Bitel, A. (2000) Quis ille?: Alter Egos in Apuleius’ Golden Ass (D.Phil thesis, Oxford). Bloom, H. (1973) The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (New York and Oxford). Bowie, A. M. (1990) ‘The Death of Priam: Allegory and History in the Aeneid’, CQ 40: 470–81. Boyle, A. J. (1986) The Chaonian Dove: Studies in the Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid of Virgil (Leiden). Brown, E. L. (1963) Numeri Vergiliani: Studies in Eclogues and Georgics (Brussels). Cairns, F. (1972) Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (Edinburgh). Cairns, F. (1989) Virgil’s Augustan Epic (Cambridge). Castelletti, C. (2012) ‘Following Aratus’ Plow: Vergil’s Signature in the Aeneid’, MH 69: 83–95. Cavallo, G. (1977) ‘Aspetti della produzione libraria nell’Italia meridionale longobarda’, in id., ed., Libri e lettori nel medioevo: guida storica e critica (Bari) 109–29, 270–84. Clausen, W. V. (2002) Vergil’s Aeneid: Decorum, Illusion and Ideology (Munich). Courtney, E. (1990) ‘Greek and Latin Acrostichs’, Philologus 134: 3–13. di Fazio, M. (2013) ‘Callimachus and the Etruscans: Human Sacrifice between Myth, History, and Historiography’, Histos 7: 48–69. Diggle, J. (2005) ‘Tibullus 2.1.45–6 and “Amplificatory Pleonasm”’, CQ 55: 642–3. Erren, M. (2003) P. Vergilius Maro Georgica Band 2: Kommentar (Heidelberg). Feeney, D. and D. Nelis (2005) ‘Two Virgilian Acrostics: Certissima Signa?’, CQ 55: 644–6.

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Fowler, D. P. (1987) ‘Vergil on Killing Virgins’, in M. Whitby, P. Hardie, and M. Whitby, edd., Homo Viator: Classical Essays for John Bramble (Bedminster and Oak Park, Ill.) 185–98. Gale, M. (2001) ‘Etymological Wordplay and Poetic Succession in Lucretius’, CPh 96: 168–72. Goldhill, S. (1991) The Poet’s Voice: Essays on Poetics and Greek Literature (Cambridge). Hanses, M. (2014) ‘The Pun and the Moon in the Sky: Aratus’ ΛΕΠΤΗ Acrostic’, CQ 64: 609–14. Hardie, P. (1986) Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (Oxford). Harrison, E. L. (1972–3) ‘Why did Venus Wear Boots?—Some Reflections on Aen. 1.314f.’, PVS 12: 10–25. Harrison, S. (2004) ‘Altering Attis: Ethnicity, Gender, and Genre in Catullus 63’, Mnemosyne 57: 520–33. Hexter, R. (1990) ‘What Was the Trojan Horse Made of? Interpreting Vergil’s Aeneid’, Yale Journal of Criticism 3: 109–31. Highet, G. (1949) The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature (Oxford). Hopkinson, N., ed. (1988) A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge); 2nd ed., 2020. Horsfall, N. (2000) Aeneid VII: A Commentary (Leiden). Hulls, J.-M. (2011) ‘How the West was Won and Where it Got Us: Compressing History in Silius’ Punica’, Histos 5: 283–305. Jacques, J.-M. (1960) ‘Sur un acrostiche d’Aratos (Phén., 783–787)’, REA 62: 48–61. Katz, J. T. (2008) ‘Vergil Translates Aratus: Phaenomena 1–2 and Georgics 1.1–2’, MD 60: 105–23. Kennedy, D. (1983) ‘Shades of Meaning: Virgil, Eclogue 10.75–7’, LCM 8.8: 124. Kidd, D., ed. (1997) Aratus: Phaenomena (Cambridge). Kofler, W. (2003) Aeneas und Vergil: Untersuchungen zur poetologischen Dimension der Aeneis (Heidelberg). Koning, H. H. (2010) Hesiod: The Other Poet: Ancient Reception of a Cultural Icon (Leiden and Boston). Kraus, C. S. (2005) ‘Hair, Hegemony, and Historiography: Caesar’s Style and its Earliest Critics’, PBA 129: 97–115. La Penna, A. (1995) ‘Towards a History of the Poetic Catalogue of Philosophical Themes’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., Homage to Horace: A Bimillenary Celebration (Oxford) 314–28. Luz, C. (2010) Technopaignia: Formspiele in der griechischen Dichtung (Leiden and Boston). Lyne, R. O. A. M. (1989) Words and the Poet: Characteristic Techniques of Style in Vergil’s Aeneid (Oxford). Maltby, R. (1991) A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds).

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Mayer, R. G., ed. (2012) Horace: Odes Book I (Cambridge). Moles, J. L. (1983) ‘Virgil, Pompey, and the Histories of Asinius Pollio’, CW 76: 287–8 [above, Ch. 45]. Moles, J. L. (1999) ‘Ἀνάθημα καὶ Κτῆμα: the Inscriptional Inheritance of Ancient Historiography’, Histos 3: 27–69 [above, Ch. 54]. Moles, J. L. (2007) ‘Philosophy and Ethics’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Horace (Cambridge) 165–80 [vol. 1, Ch. 18]. Most, G. W., ed. (2006) Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia (Cambridge, Mass. and London). Nelis, D. P. (2001) Vergil’s Aeneid and the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius (Leeds). Nelis, D. P. (2011) ‘Didactic Voices in Vergil’s Aeneid’, in E. Raymond, ed., Vox poetae: Manifestations auctoriales dans l’épopée gréco-latine (Paris) 275–83. Nelis, D. P. (2013) ‘Past, Present, and Future in Virgil’s Georgics’, in J. Farrell and D. P. Nelis, edd., Augustan Poetry and the Roman Republic (Oxford) 244–62. Nelis, D. P. (2015) ‘Juno, Sea-storm, and Emotion in Virgil, Aeneid 1.1–156: Homeric and Epicurean Contexts’, in D. Cairns and L. Fulkerson, edd., Emotions between Greece and Rome (BICS Supplement 125; London) 149–61. Parry, A. M. (1963) ‘The Two Voices of Virgil’s Aeneid’, Arion 2.4: 66–80; repr. in id., The Language of Achilles and other Papers (Oxford, 1989) 78–96 Paschalis, M. (1997) Virgil’s Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names (Oxford). Pease, A. S. (1935) Publi Vergili Maronis Aeneidos liber quartus (Cambridge, Mass.). Porciani, L. (1997) La forma proemiale: storiografia e pubblico nel mondo antico (Pisa). Pöschl, V. (1962) The Art of the Aeneid (Ann Arbor); trans. by G. Seligson of Die Dichtkunst Virgils: Bild und Symbol in der Äneis (Innsbruck, 1950). Reckford, K. J. (1997) ‘Horatius: the Man and the Hour’, AJPh 118: 538–612. Sandy, G. N. (1971) ‘Catullus 16’, Phoenix 25: 51–7. Somerville, T. (2010) ‘Note on a Reversed Acrostic in Vergil Georgics 1.429–33’, CPh 105: 202–9. Thomas, R. F. (1986) ‘From Recusatio to Commitment: The Evolution of the Vergilian Programme’, PLLS 5: 61–73. Thomas, R. F., ed. (1988) Virgil: Georgics, 2 vols. (Cambridge). West, D. (1987) The Bough and the Gate (Seventeenth Jackson Knight Memorial Lecture; Exeter). West, D., ed. (1995) Horace Odes I: Carpe Diem (Oxford). West, D. (2010) ‘Amores 1.1–5’, in C. S. Kraus, J. Marincola, and C. Pelling, edd., Ancient Historiography and its Contexts: Studies in Honour of A. J. Woodman (Oxford) 139–54. West, M. L., ed. (1966) Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford). Wilkinson, L. P. (1966) ‘The Georgics in After Time’, PVS 6: 22-5. Wilkinson, L. P. (1969) The Georgics of Virgil: A Critical Survey (Cambridge).

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Williams, R. D. (1972) The Aeneid of Virgil: Books I–VI (London). Woodman, A. J. (1988) Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, Sydney, and Portland). Woodman, A. J. (2002) ‘“Biformis Vates”: the Odes, Catullus and Greek Lyric’, in id. and D. C. Feeney, edd., Traditions and Contexts in the Poetry of Horace (Cambridge) 53–64. Woodman, A. J. (2012) ‘Pliny on Writing History: Epistles 5.8’, in id., From Poetry to History: Selected Papers (Oxford) 223–42.

Envoi

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Horace: Life, Death, Friendship, and Philosophy Mr. President, my Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen:* I am delighted to be here. This has been a splendid feast. But ‘nunc est loquendum’—or ‘hora est loquendi’, since, as Professor Kenneth Reckford and others have shown, Horace puns repeatedly on his tria nomina: Quintus Horatius Flaccus. I have fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes can seem like a lifetime. Equally, for some of us, a lifetime increasingly seems like fifteen minutes. Hence this evening’s theme. I have proposed some amuse-geules on this theme on another occasion, but I here offer a more serious dish to more discriminating diners. We all have writers whom we have never met, who are mostly dead, and whom we regard as friends and companions on the road to Hades. We all think of Horace as the poet of friendship, not merely because he celebrates his own friends but because he makes friends of all his readers. It is always a pleasure to revisit Horace, but the pleasure is not always unmixed. Horace, he himself admits, is irascible. He is chippy about his origins. To read him properly you have to read everything that he has read. And sometimes he does not seem to want to write at all—but merely to get on with his own life, even to be on his own. And he can be a demanding friend, because he wants to be our ‘liber amicus’: our critical friend, who advises us and seeks to improve us. He is also an inveterate ⟦6⟧ self-improver, so he wants also to be a friend to himself. Is he, then, some sort of philosopher? We need here to think a little about philosophy generally—and about its limitations. I did not do philosophy at Greats, and ever since, on the principle decried by ancient moralists including Horace—you always want what you cannot have—I have been like Heathcliffe, glowering through the windows of Thrushcross Grange. Still, a quick survey of one’s professional colleagues shows that philosophy does not always produce happiness, still less sanity, or even niceness. Many Greeks and Romans realised this. Hence the development of short-cut forms of philosophy, which sold ‘philosophy that works’, that is self-validating. Cynicism led the way. This process could be applied even to

* Lecture delivered before the Horatian Society, The Old Hall, Lincoln’s Inn, London, 26th September 2012.

© Estate of J. L. Moles, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004538726_047

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highly developed theoretically based philosophies: follow Epicurean or Stoic ethics: forget atomism or logic. Such attitudes are disdained by theoretical philosophers, ancient and modern, not least because they make them redundant. To such disdain, one should respond robustly. One of my first academic papers—on the great Kingship Speeches of Dio Chrysostom, sophist, philosopher, and friend of the emperor Trajan—was to a philosophical seminar. I remember it well. At the end, there was a deathly silence. I knew instantly that I was the only person in the room who thought that the paper was any good. Came the first question, I trembled. The question was ‘but where is the philosophy?’. And I nearly replied—and I wish I had: ‘Only a philosopher could ask such a stupid question.’ Horace’s poetry contains much philosophical material. ⟦7⟧ Is he then deeply knowledgeable about philosophy? Scholars disagree. What does this material actually do? Is the poetry sometimes strongly philosophical, in the tradition of Lucretius, the great Roman Epicurean poet of the previous generation? Should we read from the material to the man, or is this to succumb to the so-called ‘biographical fallacy’? Or is Horace himself—both the constructed and the real Horace—because between these two figures there is always necessary interplay—to be read as moral exemplar—positive or deterrent—for the aspirant reader? In an important paper, Professor David Armstrong makes key points.1 First, Horace was an Epicurean. Like Virgil, he was a member of the Epicurean group of Philodemus, Greek poet, literary critic, and philosopher. That affects our reading of his poetry. If Horace’s famous self-description (Epistles 1.4.16) ‘Epicuri de grege porcum’ (‘a porker from Epicurus’ herd’) were the only item, it would be wrong—crudely literal, biographically fallacious—to infer that Horace was an Epicurean. Given the background that we can build up, however, it is not wrong—it is right and necessary—to read this description as an acknowledgement of a fact of Horace’s life, which must affect both the poem itself and the final calculus of the book Epistles I, even the final philosophical calculus of Horace’s ⟦8⟧ whole corpus. Horace’s punning on ‘Horatius’/‘hora’ glosses the Epicurean ‘carpe diem’ tag, the ‘now-ness’ of Epicureanism, in contrast to the virile ‘hardness’ of Cynicism or Stoicism. Much of this material of course is laced with ingratiating irony, but is not in itself unphilosophical (think of the humour of Socrates or Diogenes), and it is certainly compatible with pragmatic ‘short-cut’ philosophy. Second, there is often an Epicurean undertow to the flow of Horace’s arguments, as if to murmur: this is my ultimate stance: 1 Armstrong (2004).

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Third, Horace can be philosophically serious. Fourth, Horace knows a lot of philosophy. These points narrow the gaps between the constructed and the real Horace. But another factor pulls the other way: the ever-present possibility that Horace himself would prefer living his Epicurean life to writing about it and prefer it even more to writing about non-Epicurean things. Many scholars besides Armstrong have investigated Horace’s use of different philosophers, for a weakness of Armstrong’s position is that it is too exclusive. Epicurean as he is, Horace can don other philosophical clothes. I offer my thoughts on Horace and Bion as a pendant to a famous study of Professor Alfonso Traina on Horace, Aristippus, and ‘l’arte di ⟦9⟧ convivere’,2 because Bion provides another mode of ‘living’ and, I believe, for Horace a more organic and thoroughgoing one. Bion3 was a Cynic type, who after a chequered career ended up as one of the court philosophers of the third-century Macedonian king Antigonus Gonatas. Bion wrote moral diatribes on such themes as Poverty, Nobility, and Self-sufficiency. Like many Cynics, he derived philosophical capital from his own biography, some of whose items look fictional, imitating the biography—real or supposed—of the great Diogenes. Edgy moralist and social critic, Bion is also witty and amusing. The technique of spoudaiogeloion (with which ancient tradition links him) allows the combination of the serious and the humorous, but in the case of Bion, as of many putative Hellenistic philosophers and their descendants, it is often unclear what is philosophy and what is literary entertainment or verbal fireworks. Is Bion’s concern with the low life critical, celebratory, or just fun? The same question arises with Roman satire. Many ancient philosophers besides Horace punned tellingly on their names. ‘Bion’ evokes ‘life’ (bio-), Bion certainly ‘lived a lot’, Cynics upheld living over theorising or writing, and ⟦10⟧ Cynicism itself was ‘a way of life’. ‘Bion’ also evokes ‘buying’ (ὠνέομαι), and buying and selling are prominent in Bion’s bio­ graphy. His father supposedly began as a tax-seller (τελώνης), which looks like a punning reworking of Diogenes’ biography (or pseudo-biography), where Diogenes and his father were both moneyers. Bion of Borysthenes (which means ‘strength of the north’) must also have claimed strength (βία), thereby signalling his philosophical ‘virility’ and alien strength and wisdom. Bion was also influenced by Aristippus, one of Socrates’ most attractive followers, and Bion provides the first substantial version of an important philosophical theory, developed by the Greek Stoic philosopher Panaetius, and 2 Traina (1991); followed in Professor Roland Mayer’s sparkling commentary: Mayer (1994) 44. 3 Kindstrand (1976); Moles (1996).

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very influential in Rome, including Horace’s own Epistles.4 This is the analogy between life and drama, with individuals legitimately playing different ‘characters’ according to their social or political circumstances or their personal ‘characters’—moral relativism displaces the absolutism of ‘hard’ Cynicism and Stoicism. It is also easily superimposed upon moralising literature about the drama of life. A passage from Horace’s Ars Poetica makes the point.5 Bion also emphasised moral progress: again, like Panaetius and unlike doctrinaire Stoics. Like Aristippus again, he imitated the adaptable Odysseus. Hence he can also be aligned with hedonism. Thus Bion is both a ‘hard’ and a ‘soft’ philosopher. In a map of Hellenistic philosophy, Bion is a ⟦11⟧ crucial reference, marking the intersection of several key lines of thought. Bion influenced many Classical philosophers and writers including the already-mentioned Philodemus and Lucilius, the first great Roman satirist. All of which must have been meat and drink to a hungry Roman satirist such as Horace, who was immersed both in the Greek traditions and in the drama of life. Bion duly appears at key points in Horace’s poetic and real life. Towards the end of his career, when his poetry has a summatory, valedictory character and breathes life-weariness, Epistles 2.2 (the Epistle to Florus) cites Bion as the influence on the Satires at the beginning of his career, as if to say: ‘I don’t disown, I proudly proclaim my low-life (‘bionian’) literary origins which some snooty critics were too myopic to see some twenty years ago’ (Epist. 2.2.57–60): What do you want me to do/make/compose? Moreover, not all men admire and love the same things. You rejoice in lyric, this one delights in iambics, That one in Bionian ‘conversations’ and their black salt [Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro].

Would Florus prefer odes (‘lyric’), epodes (‘iambics’), or ⟦12⟧ satires (labelled as ‘Bionian conversations and their black salt’)? Horace here amusingly poses as a chef, offering Florus a choice of dishes and comparing his present poem to a feast. Fittingly, therefore, within the first book of Satires, written in the 30s, Satire 1.6 systematically maps the relationship between Horace and Maecenas:

4 McGann (1969). 5 A.P. 309–22. Note that on this scenario even lawyers can be virtuous.

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Bion FF 1, 2, 16 Kindstrand The philosopher Bion addresses King Antigonus Gonatas (whose names imply ‘high birth’). Antigonus asks Bion where he comes from and who his parents are. Bion, favourite of Antigonus, has been criticised by jealous rivals for low birth. Bion gives much information about his father. Bion admits that his father was a freedman and that he himself had been enslaved. Bion’s father wiped his nose ⟦13⟧ with his elbow. Bion’s father was branded on his face. Bion’s mother was of dishonourable status: a prostitute. Bion’s father was a customs officer. Bion’s master bought him for sex. Bion asks to be considered on his own merits; Bion tells Antigonus, in the case of friends, to examine not where they are from but who they are. Antigonus chooses friends. Bion boasts of his parentage. Bion: ‘these are the things concerning me’. ⟦14⟧ Antigonus rules many well, Bion himself.

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Horace The poet-philosopher Horace addresses Maecenas, himself of the noblest birth. At their first meeting, the question of Horace’s background arises. Horace, favourite of Maecenas, has been criticised by jealous rivals for low birth. Horace gives much information about his father. Horace repeatedly describes himself as son of a freedman. Maecenas does not turn up his nose at unknowns ⟦13⟧ (Maecenas is another ‘literary father’). The highborn Laevinus was ‘branded’ by the Roman people. Octavian’s public supremacy prompts the question whether he was dishonoured by an unknown mother (Octavian is another ‘father’). Horace’s father was a tax-collector. Horace’s father kept Horace pure. Maecenas holds that a man’s father does not matter, provided he himself is a free man. Maecenas chooses friends. Horace will never regret such a father. Horace: ‘now I return to myself’. ⟦14⟧ Maecenas’ ancestors commanded great legions, a Roman legion once obeyed Horace, and Horace now does as he pleases.

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Bion rejects rhetoric. Bion rejects wealth and extravagance for simplicity and ease.

Horace celebrates the education his father secured for him. Horace rejects wealth and extravagance for simplicity and ease.

Yet behind the status of Horace’s father as freedman lay complicated historical reality.6 The poem is simultaneously very ‘literary’, very philosophical, and very close to Horace’s life, even if, as in the case of Bion, some elements smell rather fishy. Bion, the literary and philosophical ‘life man’, makes the perfect source for Horace’s ‘life’. The poem casts Bion as one of Horace’s literary and philosophical ‘fathers’. Bion also nudges our interpretation. While Maecenas is applauded for overlooking Horace’s low birth, his apparent requirement that a good man be freeborn (8) falls short of the logic of the poem, of the Cynic claim that a slave can be a good man, and of Bion’s biography (or pseudo-biography), wherein ⟦15⟧ Bion himself was once a slave. Similarly, in the contemporaneous Epode 4, where most scholars assume Horace’s assent to the speaker’s disdain for the freedman upstart, this disdain is sapped by the poem’s clear relationship to Satire 1.6, by the notion that the moral ‘branding’ of satire supplants the physical branding of slaves (Sat. 1.4.5, 106), and by the upstart’s quasi-philosophical past sufferings. In Odes 1–3, written in the 20s, Bion reappears in the renewed use of the Bion-Antigonus paradigm and in some diatribe contexts. In Epistles 1, Bion’s role is fittingly taken over by the kindred, but different, Aristippus, and the kindred, but different and more advanced, Panaetius.7 Bion has seemingly played his part in a developing philosophical succession over the course of Horace’s poetry and life. Yet the late Epistle to Florus is itself a ‘Bionian conversation’. Horace tests us again: the application of ‘Bionian conversations’ to the Satires is at once correct, diversionary, and directive, since the epistle itself is as much a ‘conversation’ as the Satires. The poem is fittingly concerned with the relationships between poetry and life and between patrons and clients. Like the late Ars Poetica,8 it ends with a Bionian9 and ⟦16⟧ Epicurean10 image of departure from life that recalls the end of Horace’s very first poem, Satire 1.1, which Horace also 6 7 8 9 10

Williams (1995) Detail in Moles (2007). A.P. 476 ‘plena’ (‘full’). Cf. F 68 Kindstrand. Cf. Lucr. 3.938 ‘cur non ut PLENUS VITAE CONVIVA recedis?’ (‘why do you not withdraw like a banqueter fed full of life?’).

Horace: Life, Death, Friendship, and Philosophy

777

compares to a feast and which we are now invited to read as a serious praeparatio mortis. Thus : VIVERE si recte nescis, decede peritis. lusisti SATIS, edisti SATIS atque bibisti: tempus abire tibi est, ne potum largius aequo rideat et pulset lasciua decentius aetas. If you do not know how to live rightly, withdraw in favour of those who do / you have played enough, you have eaten and drunk enough / it is time for you to depart, lest, when you have drunk more amply than is reasonable, youth, more fittingly playful, may laugh at you and jostle you. Epistles 2.2.213–16

inde fit ut raro, qui se VIXISSE beatum dicat et exacto contentus, tempore VITA cedat uti conuiua SATUR, reperire queamus. Iam SATIS est. ne me Crispini scrinia lippi compilasse putes, uerbum non amplius addam.

⟦17⟧ Thus it comes about that rarely can we find one who says that he has

lived a happy life and who when his time is spent withdraws from life content, like a satisfied banqueter. Enough now. I won’t add a word more, lest you think I have pillaged the scroll-boxes of bleary-eyed Crispinus. Sat. 1.1.117–21 (addressed to Maecenas)

The late epistle also contains a reminiscence of Bion’s exchange with Antigonus that recalls Satire 1.6 and the beginnings of Horace’s engagement with the problematics of patronage and asymmetrical friendship: 41–5 ‘I was nourished in Rome [‘strength] and learned philosophy in Athens’ ~ Bion’s ‘I am Borysthenite [= ‘strong’] by birth and learned philosophy in Athens’ (F 1 Kindstrand). Horace himself, then, signposts Bion’s crucial importance, which is strategic and organic—linking the beginning, middle, and end of Horace’s poetic career and life. Spookily, Horace’s Bionian and Epicurean ‘satiation’ with the feast of life at the beginning and end of his poetic corpus parallels the ‘shades’ at the beginning and end of Virgil’s poetic corpus:

778

Chapter 74

maioresque cadunt altis de montibus VMBRAE and greater shadows are falling from the high mountains Ecl. 1.83

⟦18⟧ uitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub VMBRAS.

and his life fled with a groan indignantly to the shades. Aen. 12.952

Is Virgil’s world, then, forever shrouded in death and ‘shade’? That is a popular view, but it is wrong: the Epicurean consolations of Eclogue 1 are real enough, though necessarily provisional. Nor is Horace’s Epicurean life in thrall to death. Had these two Epicurean friends, then, always planned when they would stop, when they would say to Augustus and his ministers and their other elite readers: ‘Enough. I’ve had enough [‘satis’]—are you satisfied? I want to enjoy the Epicurean life, the Epicurean shade, before the shades of death’? If I myself had time, I would bring into this Bionian conversation the rueful and moving Odes 4.12, where Horace addresses the now dead Virgil, and where he harks back, as Virgil does at the end of the Aeneid, to Eclogue 1, and rehearses the two old friends’ highly compromised Epicureanism. But I have no time, indeed, I have outstayed my time, so ‘enough’ now also from me. Bibliography Armstrong, D. (2004) ‘Horace’s Epistles 1 and Philodemus’, in id., et al., edd. Vergil, Philodemus, and the Augustans (Austin) 267–98. Kindstrand, J. F. (1976) Bion of Borysthenes: a Collection of the Fragments with Introduction and Commentary (Uppsala). Mayer, R., ed. (1994) Horace: Epistles Book I (Cambridge). McGann, M. J. (1969) Studies in Horace’s First Book of Epistles (Brussels). Moles, J. L. (1996) ‘Bion (1)’, OCD3: 243. Moles, J. L. (2007) ‘Philosophy and Ethics’, in S. J. Harrison, ed., Cambridge Companion to Horace (Cambridge) 165–80 {vol. 1, Ch. 18}. Traina, A. (1991) ‘Orazio e Aristippo: le “epistole” e l’arte di convivere’, RFIC 119: 285–305. Williams, G. (1995) ‘Libertino patre natus: true or false?’ in S. J. Harrison, ed., Homage to Horace: A Bimillenary Celebration (Oxford) 296–313.

Index Locorum I. Greek and Latin Authors Achilles Tatius, Leucippe et Clitophon 2.37.9 554 Aeschylus Agamemnon 1 5 6 8–10 9 10–11 10 14 18–21 18 19 21 22 22f. 26–7 26–9 29ff. 29f. 29 30 34f. 36–9 36–8 36–7 37ff. 38–9 83–4 141 218f. 260 262 281–316 320–50 352 475–87 485 542–50 600–14

588, 599 588 588 588 588 588 589 588 555 588 588 588 589, 590 588 555 588 589 588 589 588, 589 588 555 588 567–70 589 568, 588 555 553 n. 19 594 555 590 591 591 591 591 590 555 555

604 782–809 795ff. 838ff. 855–60 856 868 887–902 899 918–19 940 943 953 956 966–72 973 1015–21 1020 1071 1115 1116–17 1125–6 1224–5 1228–30 1231–6 1235 1258–9 1279f. 1379 1382ff. 1382f. 1382 1384 1385 1386ff. 1387 1388 1389–92 1389f. 1389 1390 1391ff. 1391f. 1392 1394

590 555 594 594 555 598 556 555 555 n. 25 556 556 556 556, 594 556, 594 555 594 552 555 594 556 556 556 556 556 556 557 n. 31 556 640 550 556 550 556 550 554 550 550 554 548–60 550, 562, 564, 566 553 552 with n. 18 555 n. 25 551, 552 n. 17 551, 557, 559 550

780

Index Locorum

Aeschylus (cont.) Agamemnon (cont.) 1399–1400 556 1417f. 591 1432f. 591 1438–47 555 1492 556 1516 556 1525ff. 591 1654 559 Choephori 33 132ff. 201–11 211 304f. 461 523ff. 594ff. 653ff. 663f. 668ff. 672f. 695 716ff. 726f. 751 758 893 905ff. 917 931 975–6 997 998f. 999 1014

592 559 557 557 592 585 592 559 592 583 593 592 592 593 600 592 592 559 559 559 595 555 595 595 556, 595 595

Eumenides 63 597 104f. 590 172 600 183 555 334ff. 600 392 600 470ff. 599 484 597 490f. 590, 597

490 517ff. 690ff. 723ff. 734–40 737 797ff. 898 899 900 913 937ff. 939 952–5 954 958ff. 961f. 972f. 974f. 975 980 988f. 990f. 1031 1044ff. 1044–6 1044 1046

597 599 599 600 587 599 600 596 596 597 599 597 597 597 597 598 600 600 598 596 555 598 598 596 599 599 596 600

Fragmenta F 44 F 162.4 F 316

549 n. 4, 551 389 569 n. 9

Septem contra Thebanos 737 555 Afranius 243 Ribbeck

554

Alcaeus 401B

621

Ammianus Marcellinus 15.5.38 309 Anacreon (PMG) 358 381[b]

542 n. 45

781

Index Locorum Anonymous, de uiris illustribus 83.7 619 Anonymous, Dissoi Logoi II.410 ~ IX.184 L–M 528 n. 9 Anonymous Tragedian 374 Nauck = TGrF 88 F 3 29 n. 40 Anthologia Palatina 7.746 10.42

568 568, 569 n. 9

Antiochus of Syracuse (FGrHist 555) F 2 382 n. 31 Antiphanes F191 K ~ 189.10 PCG

529

Antisthenes F 135A DC ~ 22A Prince F 195 DC ~ 7 Prince

606, 624 n. 21 606, 624 n. 21

Appian praef. 15.62

140, 147, 171

Bellum Ciuile 2.71 132 2.84ff. 131 2.86 132 2.111 15 2.112 14 n. 8 2.113 14 n. 5, 15 2.114 15 2.115 14 2.147 45 n. 3 2.149–54 142 n. 25 2.509f. 45, 47 2.526f. 46 2.570ff. 47 2.570 47 n. 6 3.82 113 n. 58 3.87 40 n. 17 3.90 40 n. 17 3.259 39 n. 13 4.90ff. 37 n. 6 4.109ff. 22 n. 15 4.110 619

4.123–4 4.123 4.124 4.125 4.128 4.131 4.132–4 4.132 4.134 4.135 4.223 4.270 4.316 4.476f. 4.520 4.542–5 4.546ff. 4.546f. 4.546 4.547 4.564 4.565 4.574

18 n. 2 619 619, 620 n. 7 626 621 n. 8 29 n. 38 622 n. 14 29 n. 38 37, 646 n. 7 625 33 n. 55 23 n. 17 39 n. 13 24 n. 21, 624 20 n. 12, 24–5 621, 623 20 20, 116 n. 68 25 n. 26, 26, 38 n. 10 41 nn. 19 and 20 27 n. 32, 35, 41 36 n. 2 124

Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.12.1 558 n. 33 Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1.1–2 734 1.1 732, 737 Apuleius, Metamorphoses 2.17.4 554, 555 10.16 476 n. 75 Aratus, Phaenomena 1–9 734 1–5 733 1 732 2 734 6 735 7 735 8 735 778–87 728 783–7 729 783–4 729 783 729

782

Index Locorum

Archilochus F 5 FF 9–11 F 22

621 672 n. 34 672 n. 36

Aristotle Ethica Eudemia 1233b23–7

573

Ethica Nicomachea 1.10.14 2.7 3.1 3.7 1108a35–b6 1110a28 1115a16–31

133 579 530 n. 15 579 573 528 with n. 9, 529 with n. 13 575 n. 16

Metaphysica 948a14 982b17–19

527 n. 6 537 n. 34

Poetica 13 1152a32–3 1386b26–30 1387a2 1447b17–23 1448a4 1448a17f. 1448b13–14 1449a34–6 1449b27–28 1449b28 1450a36–51b11 1450b8–9 1450b26–31 1451a25–6 1451a36–1452a11 1451b17–19 1451b21–5 1451b23–6 1451b26 1451b36–9 1452a1–11 1452a1–9 1452a3–4

571–82 passim 577 n. 21 578 573 527 n. 6 545 545 581 574 n. 11 581 574 n. 11 405 612 490 n. 1, 505 527 n. 6 581 345 540 540 n. 40 539 539 n. 39 577 n. 21 576 n. 19 541

1452a4 1452a22–23 1452a24–6 1452a29–33 1452a32–3 1452b10 1452b12–13 1452b34ff. 1452b34–6 1452b34 1452b35–6 1452b36–7 1452b36 1452b37–9 1452b38 1453a1 1453a2–4 1453a2–3 1453a4 1453a5–6 1453a5 1453a6 1453a7–8 1453a8–9 1453a8–12 1453a8 1453a10 1453a11–12 1453a11 1453a12ff. 1453a13–15 1453a14–15 1453a15–16 1453a16 1453a16–17 1453a17–22 1453a20 1453a21–30 1453a21 1453a22–5 1453a23 1453a27–30 1453a27–8 1453a30–6 1453a34–5 1453a34 1453b2–8 1453b3ff

540 n. 41, 541 n. 43 98 527 n. 6 98 537 535 n. 29 527 n. 6 544 545, 641 n. 18 572 n. 3 572 532 n. 19 574 n. 11, 609 573 609 572 n. 3 579 609 535, 609, 641 n. 18 535 n. 26, 545 571 n. 2, 573 535, 544, 609 609 572 n. 3 527 544 526, 579 n. 27, 609 526 528 n. 7, 531 526 525–46 passim 532 n. 19 609 535, 574 n. 11 545, 546, 580 528 529 n. 11 532 n. 19 531 527 541 n. 43 577 n. 22 536 n. 30 580 539 n. 39 539 n. 39, 580 536 532

783

Index Locorum Poetica (cont.) 1453b11–13 1453b18 1453b22–54a9 1453b22–6 1453b34–5 1453b37ff. 1453b37–9 1453b39 1454a2–3 1454a2 1454a3–4 1454a3 1454a4–9 1454a4–5 1454a4 1454a5–7 1454a8 1454a13 1454a29 1454b18 1455a17 1455a22ff. 1456a 1456a19–25 1456a27–32 1460a11–12 1460a12ff. 1460a14 1460a17 1460b23 1461b21 1460b25

581 534 n. 23, 538 536 528 528 536 537 573 n. 9, 577 n. 22 533 532 n. 19 532 n. 19 573 n. 9 525–46 passim, 572 n. 6 533 577 n. 21 537 531 538 578 12 540 536 n. 30 575, 578 576 539 n. 39 577 n. 22 163 n. 8 540 537 581 578 540

Politica 1288b2

56

Rhetorica 2.9 1371a31–4 1371b5–11 1371b10–11 1371b11 1382a21 1385b13ff. 1385b13 1386a24 1386a34 1386b8–87b21

576, 577, 579 537 n. 34 537 n. 34 537 540 n. 41 534 n. 23 537 n. 32 534 n. 23, 535 535 534 n. 23 573

Topica 126b14

540

Aristophanes Nubes 977

553 n. 19

Pax 1140–1

552

Ranae 357

569

Fragmenta F 191K ~ 189 PCG 528 n. 9 Arrian Anabasis praef. 1–3 praef. 1 praef. 3 1.1.1–2 1.11.5–12.1 1.12.1–2 1.12.2–5 1.12.2 1.12.4–5 1.12.4 1.12.5 6.28.6 7.3.1 7.30.1 7.30.2 7.30.13

136 143 n. 29, 404 n. 77 144 n. 36, 145 136 136 136 368, 403–5 137 with n. 8, 143 134–148 passim 137, 144 n. 36, 145 12, 138, 145 n. 39, 171, 403 144 n. 36 144 n. 36 143 138 n. 9, 144 n. 36, 145 n. 39 138

Cynegeticus 1.4

140, 144 n. 36, 145 n. 38

Epicteti Dissertationes see under Epictetus Indica 19.9 32.1 43.14

144 n. 36 144 n. 36 12, 144 n. 36

784 Tactica 32.3

Index Locorum

Fragmenta(FGrHist 156) F 14 144 n. 37

63.6 64.43ff. 64.83 64.321ff 68A.13

Augustus, Res Gestae 34.1 292 n. 31

Cato, Origenes (FRHist 5) F 2 52

Babrius, Fabulae 34.7

Cassius Dio F 1 39.10.1–3 42.2–4 42.3ff. 42.5.1 42.5.3–4 43.1 44.8.1 44.12.1–3 44.14.2 44.16.2 44.19.5 44.50.5 45.17.8 46.42.2 47.20.2 47.21.3 47.35.1 47.38.3 47.48.1–2 47.48.4–5 47.49.1–2 47.49.3 50.3.1 50.4.1 53.16.5 53.32 57.16.2 57.24.3 68.15.31

140 95 37 n. 6 131 132 132 37 n. 6 14 n. 6 14 n. 8, 15 14 n. 5 15 25 n. 26 45 n. 2 124 113 n. 58 40 n. 17 39 n. 13 23 n. 17 37 n. 6 18 n. 2 621 n. 8 29–33, 41 n. 21, 622, 623 124 676 n. 64 686 n. 105 677 n. 69 33 n. 55 388 n. 45 321 327 n. 88

Cicero Academica 1.2.4–5 2.1.2 2.8 2.139 2.132

52 720 705 705 622 n. 16

144 n. 36

564

Bion of Borysthenes (Kindstrand) F 1 775, 777 F 2 775 F 16 775 F 68 776 n. 9 Chrysippus SVF III.567ff.

622

Caesar, Bellum Ciuile 3.98.2 624 [Bellum Alexandrinum] 7.1 618 Callimachus Epigrams 27.3–4

729 n. 19

Hymnus in Apollinem 108–12 672 n. 36 110 672 n. 38 Fragmenta (Pfeiffer) F 1.1ff. 672 n. 38 F 260.19 553 n. 19 Calpurnius Bibulus (FRHist 49) T1 39 n. 14 Cassiodorus, Institutiones 2 praef. 4 332 n. 92 Catullus 16 16.5 61.212–13

754 n. 110 738 476 n. 71

744 633 619 36 n. 1 652

785

Index Locorum Brutus 112 120 149 332

52 24 n. 22 24 n. 22 24 n. 22

de diuinatione 1.9–10ff.

607

de Finibus 1.42 1.61 2.44 5.96

629 n. 36 629 n. 36 629 n. 36 607

de Inuentione 1.23 1.27

202 n. 40 51

de Legibus 1.6

198 n. 24

de Natura Deorum 2.65 564 de Officiis 1.9 1.50–8 1.84 1.110 1.148 3.1.1 3.7–10 3.116

653 656, 715 240–1 716 712 n. 31 52 653 712 n. 31

de Oratore 2.51–64 159 n. 1 2.53 198 n. 24 2.358 415 n. 7 3.4 315 n. 78 3.129 619 3.164 624 n. 24 de Republica 1.53–4 1.54 2.51.1 6.15

299 n. 46 274 n. 2 719 n. 58 24 n. 23

Epistulae ad Atticum 7.13.1 619, 625 8.16.1 619, 625 11.6.2 625 12.21.1 121 n. 78 13.6.3 122 14.1.2 115 n. 64 14.2 47 n. 6 14.10.1 47 n. 6 14.13a 111 14.17.6 13 n. 5 15.1a.2 40 n. 17, 47 n. 6 15.9.1 108 n. 35 15.10.1 40 n. 17 15.11.3 40 n. 17 15.12.1 40 n. 17 15.26.1 40 n. 17, 112 15.28 40 n. 17 15.29 40 n. 17 16.2.3 40 n. 17 16.4.1 40 n. 17 16.5.1 40 n. 17 16.5.3 40 n. 17 Epistulae ad Brutum 1.4 110, 121 1.4.2–3 27 n. 31 1.4a 110 1.4a.2–3 19 n. 8, 27 n. 31, 116 1.4a.3 114 1.7.2 39 n. 13 1.9 122 n. 84, 124 1.9.1 605 1.14.1 124 n. 87 1.15 115, 122 1.15.5 32 n. 52, 623 1.15.9 121 1.16 18 n. 5, 19, 27 n. 31, 101 with n. 5, 104 n. 20, 109–25 passim 1.16.1 111, 113 1.16.1–2 19 n. 8 1.16.5–6 119 1.16.6 19 n. 8, 116 1.16.7–8 19 n. 8 1.16.7 102 n. 12, 116 1.16.8 31 n. 48, 621 1.16.11 19 n. 8

786

Index Locorum

Epistulae ad Brutum (cont.) 1.17 18 n. 5, 19, 19, 27 n. 31, 101, 104 n. 20, 109–25 passim 1.17.1 120 1.17.2 114 1.17.5–6 19 n. 8 1.17.5 102 n. 12, 116 1.17.6 101, 116 1.17.7 122 with n. 84, 124 2.3.5 39 n. 13 2.3.11 39 n. 13 Epistulae ad Familiares 4.33.1 299 n. 46 5.12 159 n. 1 5.12.1 198 5.12.2 198, 199 5.12.4–5 299 n. 46 5.12.5 52, 208 n. 61 5.12.6 199 5.12.9 198 5.17.3 605 7.3.2 625 7.30.1–2 14 9.14.5 33 n. 54, 621 10.3.3 687 n. 112 10.24.5 118 15.16.3 629 n. 36 16.24.2 119 n. 74 Epistulae ad Quintum fratrem 2.10(9).3 605–8 passim In Catilinam 1.11 93 2.2.2 627 n. 32 Orator 1.1–3 12 10.33

191 n. 5 79 33 n. 54, 621

Philippica 1.5 619 1.36 40 n. 17 2.28 121 2.31 40 n. 17, 120 2.34 740 n. 74

2.89 47 n. 6 10.11.24 39 n. 13 10.16 120 10.23 198 13.16.32 39 n. 13 13.24–5 119 Pro Caecina 50

689 n. 120

Pro Cluentio 190 198 Pro Ligurio 1 312 Pro Plancio 66

52

Pro Sestio 48 80

28 n. 45 28 n. 45

[Rhetorica ad Herennium] 1.13 51 3.32 415 n. 7 Timaeus Tim 5

689 n. 120

Tusculanae Disputationes 1.74 24 1.96 283 n. 14 2.53 605 4.7 650, 705 4.64 624 n. 23 5.108 681 n. 85 Fragmenta (FRHist 39) F 1 11 F 7 11 Claudian, Carmina minora 29.33 554 Curtius Rufus 8.5.22

625

787

Index Locorum Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Iulianum 10.342 568 Dio Chrysostom, Orationes 4.30 332 n. 93, 710 n. 26 4.35ff. 624 n. 23 4.35–8 606 12.38 301 n. 54 13.25 512 n. 75 13.76.5 237 n. 49 41.2 140 41.3 140 41.5 140 45.1 259 n. 43 50.8 259 n. 43 79.5 140 Demosthenes, Orationes 1.19 140 n. 12 6.1 423 n. 46 Demetrius, de Elocutione 216 431 n. 78 227 100 292 470 n. 41 Digest 1.9.11 50.1.22.6

140 140

Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica 1.1.1 191 n. 5 1.1.2–4 207 1.1.2 483 n. 97 1.1.4 483 n. 97 1.1.5 341, 483 nn. 96, 97, and 98 4.60 399 n. 71 4.63 399 n. 71 13.70.4 228 n. 19 13.76.2 226, 227 n. 17 14.1.1–3 341 15.1.1 341 Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum 2.75 652, 705 5.20 653 6.14 606, 624 n. 21

6.27 606 6.33 606 6.41 607 6.43 606 6.59 606, 624 n. 21 6.84 49, 52 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Antiquitates Romanae 1.1.2–3 163 1.2.1 163 1.77.2–3 163 n. 8 2.60.4–5 163 n. 8 6.95 469 n. 36 de Demosthene 10 53

365, 373, 374 n. 17 53

Epistula ad Pompeius Geminus 2 387 n. 40 3 163 de Thucydide 15

427 n. 65

Duris of Samos (FGrHist 76) F 1 427 n. 64 Ennius, Annales 156(500) **i Skutsch 204 n. 44 494(465) **xlvi Skutsch 192 Epictetus, Dissertationes 1.1.22–4 1.25.22 1.29.5–8 2.22.16 4.8–33

718 n. 56 718 718 n. 56 143, 144 n. 31 144

Epicurus Fragmenta F 490 Usener

657

Sententiae (κύριαι δόξαι) 14 717

788

Index Locorum

Euripides Bacchae 52 492–8

538 n. 37 718

Hippolytus 41–50 451–6 530–4

538 n. 37 539 n. 38 554 n. 23

Ion 70–1

538 n. 37

Iphigenia Taurensis 265 598 Medea 332

20, 25 n. 26, 26, 41

Phoenissae 1439–41

563

Rhesus 790–1

548, 553

Supplices 534–6

89

Fragmenta F 472 F 475 F 898 F 941

569 569 551 564

Eutropius, Breuiarium Historiae Romanae 6.25 15 Festus, de Verborum Significatu 231 Müller 688 n. 113 Florus, Epitome Rerum Romanorum 2.17.8 36 n. 2 2.17.10–11 29 2.17.11 41 n. 21, 622, 623 2.17.14 22 Aulus Gellius 3.16.9–11

36 n. 1

Gorgias Helena 5 8

385 n. 36 586

Fragmenta 82 B 3 ~ D26b, R1a, R26 L–M

586

Hecataeus of Miletus (FGrHist 1) F 1a 161, 195 n. 18, 382 Heraclitus 22 B 52 ~ D76 L–M 710 n. 26 Herodotus praef.

146, 161, 173, 191 n. 5, 196 n. 19, 382, 387, 389, 392, 419 n. 24, 482, 485, 494, 500, 501, 505 1.1.1–5.3 406 n. 80 1.1.1 406 n. 80, 494, 495, 507 1.5–33 441–2 1.5–6 499 1.5.3–4 146, 164, 247, 253 with n. 28, 255, 256, 259, 266, 267, 296 n. 38, 383, 441, 481 n. 88, 484 n. 101 1.5.3 138 n. 9, 202, 248, 250, 253, 390 n. 50, 406 n. 80, 456 n. 92, 493, 494, 501 1.5.4 259, 267, 268, 419 n. 24 1.5.6 481 n. 88 1.6 250, 441, 456 nn. 87 and 89 1.6.1–3 248, 482 n. 92 1.6.1 180 1.6.2 249, 250,500, 501 1.8 471 1.8.3 635 1.11.2–13.14 248 1.13.1–2 254 1.13.2 258 1.16–25 249 1.17.1–3 248–9, 250, 441 1.18.2 249 1.23–24.6 253 n. 26 1.23–4 392 1.23 466 n. 27

Index Locorum 1.26.1–28.1 1.26 1.26.3 1.27.1 1.27.5 1.28 1.28.3 1.29ff. 1.29–33 1.29 1.29.1 1.30.1 1.30.2 1.30.3 1.31.1–5 1.31.1 1.32.1 1.32.8f. 1.32.8 1.32.9 1.33 1.33.1 1.34.1 1.35.4–5 1.46.1 1.51.4 1.56–64 1.56 1.59–68 1.59–60 1.59 1.60–1 1.62.1 1.62.2 1.63.1 1.64 1.68.6 1.71.4 1.72.1 1.79.2 1.82.1 1.85.3 1.85.4 1.90.5 1.91.1–6 1.93–4

250 249 249 249 258 250 441 446 392 250, 392, 442, 446, 477 n. 76 256 252, 253 252, 253, 254, 259, 473 n. 48, 475 254, 258 256 255 253, 254 256 442 253, 255, 442 442 254 254 296 n. 38 456 n. 88 482 n. 95 442–3 442 506 474 n. 53 475 n. 65, 476 n. 73 446 482 n. 92 474 n. 53 474 n. 53 443 456 n. 89 456 n. 88 507 507 507 507 472 witn. 46 507 254 446 n. 48

789 1.95.1 259 1.96–100 475 n. 64, 478 n. 81 1.96–8 476 n. 73 1.96.2–98.3 474 n. 53 1.107–30 466 n. 24 1.125.1–126.6 263 1.130.3 248 1.141.1–4 261 1.155.4 254 1.170.1 453 n. 78 1.173.5 446 n. 48 1.206 456 n. 92 1.207.2 266 1.207.3 456 n. 88 2.2.3 472 n. 46 2.35.2–3 89 2.128 482 n. 95 2.143.1 168 3.21.2 456 n. 92 3.39–46 258 n. 42 3.48–53 473, 474 3.48 465 n. 19, 473 3.50–3 465 n. 19 3.56 465 3.80 478 n. 81 3.80.1 184, 392 3.80.3 256 n. 37, 474 n. 53 3.80.6 482 n. 92 3.81 474 n. 57 3.82.4 252 n. 23, 446 n. 48 3.89–97 441 n. 23 3.109.1–2 556 n. 28 3.119 392 3.120–6 258 n. 42 3.122.2 227 n. 14 3.142.1 455 3.142.3 482 n. 92 3.143 456 n. 93 3.143.2 247 n. 2, 456 n. 91 4.30.1 161, 296 n. 38 4.43.7 482 n. 95 4.76.2 392 witn. 57 4.99 247 n. 5, 441 n. 21 4.137.1 482 n. 92 4.201.2–3 469 n. 36 5.32 448 n. 56, 505 5.37.2 256 n. 36, 387, 482 n. 92, 485 n. 106

790 Herodotus (cont.) 5.49 5.49.3 5.50.2 5.51.2 5.55 5.55–78 5.56 5.62.1 5.63.1–65.5 5.66.1 5.67 5.67.1 5.69 5.69.1 5.75.1 5.76 5.78 5.78.1 5.83 5.83.2 5.90.2 5.91 5.91.1 5.91.2 5.91.3 5.92 5.92.1 5.92–3 5.92α 5.92α.2 5.92ζ.4 5.92η 5.93.1 5.93.2–94.1 5.93.2 5.95 5.97 5.97.2 5.97.3 5.105.1 5.106 5.124 6.5.1 6.11.2–17 6.11.2 6.21.2

Index Locorum 467 469 n. 34 477 477 467 444–5 475 n. 66 444 463 444, 479 446 444 446 444 463 444 258, 444, 463–4, 472, 481 444, 479 227 227 n. 14 479 445 464, 469, 479 479, 480 467 268, 447, 462–85 passim 467 445 469 n. 35, 470 445, 468 469 470 479 466 467, 468 474 467 249, 477 454 n. 84, 456 n. 86 454 n. 84 453 n. 78 453 n. 78 482 n. 92 264 247 n. 2, 456 n. 91, 474 n. 53 249

6.22 6.42 6.43.3 6.86 6.98.1–3 6.98 6.98.2 6.121–31 6.121–4 6.123.1–2 6.125.1 6.125.2–5 6.131 6.131.1–2 6.131.2 6.138–40 7.1.1 7.10–11 7.11.2–3 7.20 7.20.2–21.1 7.33 7.96.1 7.138–9 7.139 7.139.1–5 7.139.1 7.139.5 7.139.6 7.141–3 7.143 7.152.3 7.155.2 7.156.3 7.161.3 7.162.1 7.164 7.171.1 8.2–3 8.3.1–2 8.3.1 8.41 8.56–7 8.58–63 8.62

453 n. 78 441 n. 23 184, 482 n. 92 465 n. 20 440 n. 17 265, 266 n. 63, 456 n. 86, 480 n. 87 178, 248 n. 9, 456 nn. 88, 89, and 92 446–7 446 482 n. 92 446, 510 n. 68 255 witn. 34 482 n. 93, 480 n. 85 447, 510 n. 68 252 n. 23 448 n. 56 454 n. 84 465 n. 22 456 n. 88 146 166 454 n. 81 405 n. 79 448–9, 451, 456 n. 87 441 n. 21 258 265 n. 59 450 450 688 n. 114 449, 482 n. 93, 510, 449–50 164, 202 474 n. 53 470 n. 40 443 n. 31 446 n. 48 455 296 n. 38 448–9, 451 265 n. 59, 456 n. 87 456 n. 86 688 n. 115 451 451 451, 688 n. 115

791

Index Locorum 8.74–83 452 8.79 452 8.108–10 452 8.110 452 8.111–12 452 8.123–4 453 8.142 449 n. 57 8.142.2 441 n. 22, 454 n. 84, 499 8.142.5 469 n. 37 8.143–4 448, 456 n. 87 9.27 443 n. 31 9.90.2 469 n. 34 9.104 453 9.105 260, 453 9.105.1 260, 264 9.106 453 9.106.2 260 9.108–13 453 9.108.1–114.1 261 9.114.1–119.2 261 9.116 453 9.120 453, 454 9.120.1–4 261, 262 9.120.4–121 262 9.120.4 484 n. 103 9.122 254, 267, 454 9.122.1–4 262 9.122.3 263 Hesiod Opera et Dies 5–7

253 n. 28

Fragmenta 357.1 M–W

733 n. 35

Theogonia 1 22–35 22–34 27–8 31–4 39 115 133 154–210 183 465

494 385 732 182 176, 421, 504 n. 41 733 494 551 552 552 n. 16, 558 n. 33 504

904ff. 969–74

36 n. 1 558 n. 33

Hippocrates, Epidemiae 1.11 (II.634–6 L) 416 n. 12 Homer Iliad 1.5 504 1.6–7 180, 426, 495 1.6 165 1.8 163, 165 1.70 421 n. 35 2.287 672 n. 39 2.841 672 n. 39 3.95–6 465 n. 22 4.29 466 n. 23 4.524 554 5.62–3 165 5.113 553 6.150f. 139 6.152 180 6.429f. 144, 145 7.92–5 465 n. 22 7.180 672 n. 39 7.398–9 465 n. 22 8.8–9 466 n. 23 8.28–30 465 n. 22 9.29–31 465 n. 22 9.189 163, 732, 738 9.382 370, 421 n. 34 9.430–3 465 n. 22 9.527–605 483 n. 99 9.598 511 10.218–19 465 n. 22 10.313–18 465 n. 22 11.604 165 13.137 475 n. 58 13.654 554 15.52ff. 552 16.443 466 n. 23 16.468 554 16.849 35, 36, 39, 41 20.127f. 36 n. 1 20.203f. 139 20.213f. 139 20.403 554 22.116 163, 165

792 Homer (cont.) Iliad (cont.) 23.597–9 23.676 24.27–8

Index Locorum

549, 551 465 n. 22 163, 165

Odyssey 1.1 216, 507, 732, 737 1.10 216 1.3 165, 296 n. 38 1.5.3–4 296 n. 38 1.83 507 12.208 672 n. 39 12.23ff. 672 n. 39 12.293 673 n. 39 13.125–87 254 20.18 672 n. 39 21.274 507 22.347 253 22.411–12 549 23.156ff. 632 23.232ff 555 n. 25 4.127 370 6.201–5 254 6.229ff. 632 7.134 253 7.134–13.87 442 n. 25 7.151 254 7.190 253 7.191 254 7.197f. 36 n. 1 7.317 254 8.100ff. 254 8.102f. 254 8.272ff. 556 8.481 253 8.489–91 182 8.564–71 254 8.74 253 8.81–2 163, 165 9.19f 143 Horace Ars Poetica 309–22 476

774 n. 5 776 n. 8

Carmina 1.1 675 1.1.20 626 1.2 675, 682 n. 88, 684 1.2.50 677 1.3 685 n. 101, 675, 684, 686, 687, 689, 698, 739 1.4 675, 686 1.5 680, 698 1.5.5 695, 698 1.6 675, 683, 684 n. 93, 687, 690, 695, 696 nn. 152 and 153 1.6.10 677 n. 68 1.6.7 695, 698 1.6.8 677 1.7 663–99 passim 1.7.1–14 668, 670, 672 1.7.1 667 1.7.2 667 1.7.3 667, 672 1.7.4 667, 668, 672 1.7.5–6 672 n. 38 1.7.5 698 1.7.6–7 664 1.7.6 667 1.7.7 664, 667, 671, 672 n. 38 1.7.8 685 1.7.9 672 nn. 38 and 39, 697 1.7.10–11 688 1.7.10 667, 679 1.7.11 672 n. 39 1.7.12–14 668, 675, 698 1.7.12 667, 691 1.7.13–14 672 1.7.13 666 n. 7, 667, 672 n. 36 1.7.14 667, 695 1.7.15 667 1.7.15–21 668 1.7.15–17 694 1.7.15–16 694 1.7.16–17 675, 698 1.7.16 667, 685 1.7.17–21 678, 693 1.7.17–19 672 1.7.17–18 667, 685 1.7.17 667, 672, 679, 680 1.7.18–20 682

793

Index Locorum Carmina (cont.) 1.7.18–19 1.7.18

676 667, 672, 675, 682, 683, 685 n. 101, 688 1.7.19–21 668, 670, 680, 681 1.7.19–20 675, 676, 679, 696 1.7.19 666, 667, 676 1.7.20–1 672 1.7.20 676 n. 61, 678 1.7.21–32 668 1.7.21–2 675 1.7.21 667, 675, 691 1.7.22–3 672, 676 1.7.22 667, 677 1.7.23 666 n. 7, 667 1.7.24 667, 675 1.7.25–9 668, 670 1.7.25 667, 673, 679, 681 with n. 85, 685 n. 101, 693, 696 1.7.26 685, 687 1.7.27 668, 670, 676 1.7.28 667, 668 1.7.29 666, 667, 675, 679, 691, 695 1.7.30–2 683 n. 89 1.7.30 667, 675, 684, 685, 687, 688 1.7.31–2 672 n. 39 1.7.31 667, 672, 675, 676 1.7.32 667, 672 n. 34, 685 with n. 101, 687, 695, 696 n. 149 1.8 673, 680, 698, 699 1.8.13 691 1.9 673 1.9.9 673 n. 44 1.12 683, 687 n. 109 1.12.45–6 684 n. 98 1.14 689 1.29 708 1.33 656 n. 8 1.37 682 n. 87 2.1 199, 620 n. 7 2.1.2–4 87 2.3 686 2.6 686 n. 104 2.7 618–30 passim, 686, 692 n. 131, 695 2.7.1–2 626

2.7.1–8 2.7.3ff. 2.7.5–8 2.7.6–8 2.7.6 2.7.7 2.7.9–16 2.7.9–12 2.7.11–12 2.7.11 2.7.12 2.7.14 2.7.15–16 2.7.17–28 2.7.18–19 2.7.24 2.7.27 2.7.28 3.30.1ff. 3.30.1 4.12 4.12.1 Epistulae 1.1 1.1.1–19 1.1.1–3 1.1.1 1.1.2–9 1.1.2–4 1.1.2–3 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.4 1.1.5 1.1.7 1.1.8–9 1.1.9 1.1.10–12 1.1.10–11 1.1.10 1.1.11–19 1.1.11–12

618 620 626 627 626, 628 621 626 620 626 32 nn. 50 and 52 620 620 692 n. 134 627 628 628 620 717 n. 53 143 n. 30, 371 211 n. 68 778 728 n. 17, 730 nn. 21 and 22 649, 650–3 passim, 708, 714 703–4 711 n. 29 652, 658, 715, 717 652 712 711 652, 660 704, 705, 710, 712, 716 704, 707 652, 705 with n. 8, 714, 717 652, 653, 705, 709, 711 with n. 29 705 652, 710 661 708, 709, 711 650, 652, 660, 704, 708, 710, 716 661 650

794 Epistulae (cont.) 1.1.11 1.1.12 1.1.13–19 1.1.13 1.1.14–19 1.1.14 1.1.15–19 1.1.15–18 1.1.15–16 1.1.15 1.1.16–19 1.1.16–17 1.1.16 1.1.17–19 1.1.17 1.1.18–19 1.1.18 1.1.19 1.1.22 1.1.23–5 1.1.24–6 1.1.24 1.1.25 1.1.26 1.1.27 1.1.28ff. 1.1.29 1.1.32 1.1.35 1.1.36–7 1.1.37 1.1.39–40 1.1.40 1.1.41–2 1.1.41 1.1.47 1.1.53–69 1.1.59–60 1.1.59 1.1.60 1.1.68–9 1.1.68 1.1.69

Index Locorum 650, 652, 653, 657, 704, 705, 713 652, 659, 708 705 652, 653, 705, 716 708, 712, 713 650, 704, 705, 712 653, 710, 712 692 n. 132 652 650, 705, 708 705, 714 704 n. 4, 705, 712 with n. 34, 713 650, 652, 653, 708, 712, 714 705 650, 652, 660, 705, 712, 713 n. 37, 717 650, 704 n. 4, 705 650, 652, 705, 712 650, 652, 705 652 708 655 652 708 710 650, 652, 708, 711 653 712 n. 34 713 652 661, 721 650, 653, 659, 708, 711, 713 655 652, 653, 711 713 650, 652, 657 652, 653 711 332 n. 93, 652, 653, 660, 710, 711 710 713 652, 713 with n. 37, 718 710 715

1.1.70 1.1.70ff. 1.1.72 1.1.80–93 1.1.91 1.1.94 1.1.94–7 1.1.94ff. 1.1.95 1.1.97 1.1.101 1.1.102 1.1.103 1.1.105 1.1.106–8 1.1.107 1.1.108 1.2 1.2.1–2 1.2.3 1.2.6–16 1.2.8 1.2.17–26 1.2.17–22 1.2.17 1.2.22 1.2.23–31 1.2.26 1.2.27–31 1.2.29 1.2.31 1.2.39 1.2.49 1.2.52–3 1.2.56 1.2.64 1.2.67–8 1.2.67 1.2.68 1.2.70–1 1.2.70 1.2.71 1.3 1.3.1–2 1.3.1 1.3.5 1.3.6

710 710 652 713 710 652, 653 706 715 652, 657, 710, 716 652, 657, 710, 716 652, 657, 710 652, 653 652, 653, 716 652, 715 653, 713 652 712 653, 708, 711, 714 711 653, 713, 714 656 716 653 714 657 653, 714 714 657, 714 653 653, 660, 715 653 653 653 653 660 655 710 653 653 714 653 653 654–6 passim, 675 n. 55, 680 n. 82, 709, 715 655 654 657, 715 654, 655

795

Index Locorum Epistulae (cont.) 1.3.7–8 1.3.7 1.3.8 1.3.9–11 1.3.9 1.3.15 1.3.16 1.3.21ff. 1.3.22 1.3.23–4 1.3.25 1.3.26–7 1.3.26 1.3.27 1.3.28–9 1.3.29 1.3.30ff. 1.3.30 1.3.33 1.3.34 1.4 1.4.3 1.4.5 1.4.6–7 1.4.7 1.4.10 1.4.12ff. 1.4.12–14 1.4.12 1.4.13 1.4.14 1.4.15–16 1.4.15 1.4.16 1.5.8 1.5.9–10 1.5.13–14 1.6 1.6.5–14 1.6.15–16 1.6.31 1.6.68 1.7 1.7.44 1.7.98 1.8.4

655 716 654 654 654 654 654 654 654 655 655, 656 654, 655 654, 656 654, 657 715 654, 655, 716 655 654 656 655 649, 656–7 passim, 708, 709 657, 716 657 657 657 657 657 661 657, 660 715 657 627 n. 32, 657, 711 n. 29 656, 657, 660 657, 712 n. 29, 714, 772 657 657 657 652 660 660 32 n. 50 656 649 716 650, 658, 716 658

1.8.17 1.10 1.10.2 1.10.8 1.10.12 1.10.33 1.10.42 1.10.50 1.11.22–3 1.11.29 1.12 1.12.25ff. 1.13 1.13.2 1.13.4 1.13.6 1.13.9 1.13.13 1.13.14 1.13.16–18 1.13.17 1.13.18 1.13.31 1.13.34 1.14 1.15.24 1.16 1.16.1–16 1.16.2 1.16.9 1.16.10 1.16.15 1.16.17–79 1.16.20 1.16.33–5 1.16.34 1.16.40 1.16.52–4 1.16.56 1.16.65f. 1.16.67 1.16.68 1.16.73–9 1.16.74 1.16.75 1.16.78–9 1.17 1.17.1–5

654 649, 658 658 658 658 658 658 658 657 716 708 717 658–9, 708 658, 659 659 659 658 659 720 658 658 658 697 659 649 657 714 717 717 720 717 705 n. 8, 717 717 717 717 n. 54 717 717 717 717 660 713 n. 37, 717 718 713 n. 37, 717–18 719 718 718 67, 659–60 659

796 Epistulae (cont.) 1.17.1 659 1.17.2 659, 695 n. 147, 720 1.17.3–5 659 1.17.6–42 659 1.17.9 660 1.17.10 659, 660, 692 n. 132 1.17.13–14 660 1.17.13 720 1.17.14 695 n. 147 1.17.15–17 659 1.17.16 721 1.17.17 659 1.17.19 660 1.17.21 660 1.17.23–4 695 n. 147 1.17.23 659 1.17.26 659 1.17.29 659, 660 1.17.32 659 1.17.35 707, 720 1.17.36 660, 692 n. 132, 720 1.17.37ff. 660 1.17.38–42 660 1.17.39 659 1.17.41 32 n. 50 1.17.42 660 1.17.58–62 660 1.18 649 660–1 1.18.2 660 1.18.3–4 660 1.18.4 660 1.18.7 660 1.18.8 650 1.18.9 720 1.18.13 660 1.18.14 660 1.18.18 660 1.18.86–7 660, 720 1.18.96–103 653, 660, 661, 721 1.18.96 720, 721 1.18.98–9 721 1.18.98 660 1.18.99 660 1.18.100 721 1.18.101 656 n. 7 1.18.102 721

Index Locorum 1.18.103 660, 661, 721 1.18.104ff. 661 1.18.104 661, 721 1.18.109 721 1.18.110 661 1.18.111–12 717 n. 54 1.19 649, 708, 709 1.19.1 661, 721 1.19.12–14 719 1.19.27 659 1.19.31 659 1.20 652, 708, 709 1.20.1 332 n. 92 1.20.17–18 711, 722 1.20.19–28 707 1.20.23 709, 719 1.20.26–8 707 2.2 774 2.2.57–60 774 2.2.213–16 777 Epodi 4 9.38 13 13.2 13.7 13.18 15.12

776 677 n. 67 673, 680 n. 82, 691 551 673 n. 44 691 n. 129 657, 712 n. 29

Satirae 1.1 1.1.117–21 1.4.5 1.4.106 1.5.30–1 1.6 1.6.41–5 1.9.20 2.1.18 2.1.19 2.1.39 2.1.53 2.6.60ff.

776 777 776 776 712 n. 34 774, 777 777 657, 712 n. 29 712 n. 29 657 740 n. 74 659 629

Justinian, Institutiones 1.3.1 332 n. 95

797

Index Locorum Isidore, Origenes 10.160 11.2.21 17.6.16

332 n. 95 737 n. 52 332 n. 92

Isocrates Euagoras (9) 2 33 37ff. 40 65 70ff.

137 n. 8 137 n. 8 137 n. 8 137 n. 8 137 n. 8 137 n. 8

Aduersus Sophistas (13) 13.8 423 n. 46 de Bigis (16)

446 n. 44

Jerome, Commentarii in Zachariam 3.14 50 Gospel of John 19.28–30

28

John Chrysostom, in Epistulam ad Titum 3.1 568 Josephus Vita 9 83 Julian, Orationes 7.217d–218a

567, 569

Kedrenos, Compendium Historiarum 15d 568 Livy praef. 1–13 praef. 1–4 praef. 1–2 praef. 1 praef. 2 praef. 3

190–220 passim 191 190 164 n. 9, 171, 197 n. 22, 200, 202, 211, 215 168, 194, 195, 200, 202, 203, 210, 422 n. 39 164 n. 9, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 199, 200, 202 n. 38,

praef. 4

praef. 5 praef. 6 praef. 7 praef. 8–9 praef. 8 praef. 9–10 praef. 9

praef. 10

praef. 11 praef. 12–13 praef. 12 praef. 13 1.6.3 1.7.5 1.19.3 1.34.9 1.35.2 1.36.6 1.39.4 1.55.6 3.20.8 3.26.7 3.66–70 4.20.5–11

203 with n. 42, 204 with n. 43, 207, 209, 214, 219 n. 85 191, 192, 195, 196, 197 with n. 23, 200, 201 n. 35, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 214, 215, 217 192, 200, 201 n. 35, 203, 204, 207, 208, 209, 210, 212, 214, 216 171, 201 and n. 35, 202, 203 with n. 43, 208, 209, 210, 211, 213, 214, 417 n. 16 191 n. 4, 202 with n. 39, 206, 213 n. 72, 215, 748 n. 88 207 194, 203 with nn. 42 and 43 202 195, 197, 198, 199, 202 n. 39, 203 n. 43, 204, 206, 207, 208, 211, 216, 217, 218, 294 n. 35 174 n. 22, 199, 203, 207, 209, 211, 212, 215, 218, 298 and n. 43, 340, 344, 368, 402–3, 415 n. 7, 427 n. 64, 429 n. 73, 483 n. 97 209, 211, 212, 213 212 209, 211, 212, 213, 217, 218, 171, 209, 211, 213, 214, 302 n. 55 646 n. 7 646 n. 7 202 n. 39, 205, 207 n. 56, 213 n. 72, 216, 217 646 n. 7 212 646 n. 7 646 n. 7 646 n. 7 206, 294 n. 35 192 n. 9 205 205

798

Index Locorum

Livy (cont.) 5.21.9

192 n. 8, 201, 203 n. 41, 418 n. 18 5.42.6 194 6.1.1–3 205, 210 with n. 65 6.1.2 209, 415 n. 7 6.1.3 203 7.29.2 197 n. 23 10.31.5 208 n. 58 10.31.15 431 n. 78 22.8.5 206, 294 n. 35 22.9.7 213 n. 75 27.15.9 52 38.48.14 213 n. 75 45.39.10 213 n. 75 Longinus, de Sublimitate 13.3 163 Lucian Asinus 9

554

[Demonax] 5 21

712 n. 30 607

de historia conscribenda 5 140 n. 18, 164 n. 9, 196 n. 19 7–14 163 8 183 14ff. 140 n. 13 17 140 n. 18 29 140 n. 18 39 183 42 174 n. 22, 429 n. 73 45 163, 183 50 183 51 159 [Macrobii] 22

297 n. 42

Lucan, de Bello Ciuili 7.695–6 306 n. 61, 307 7.862 624

8.560ff. 8.711 8.820ff.

131 132 132

Lucilius 1329–30

653

Lucretius, de Rerum Natura 1.117–18 211 n. 68 1.121 211 n. 68 1.250 551 1.928–30 664, 672 2.1ff. 629 2.992 551 3.938 776 n. 10 3.1072 764 5.311 211 n. 68 5.328–9 211 n. 68 5.680–704 764 n. 125 5.751 764 n. 125 Lysias, Orationes 2.53f 2.6

140 140

Marcellinus, Vita Thucydidis 35 372 n. 12, 373 Martial 1.42

123

Menander, Piscatores F 21 569 Menander Rhetor 2.377 137 n. 8 Cornelius Nepos Praefatio 1–8 89, 287 n. 22 1 51, 87, 89 2–8 52 2 89 4 89 6 89 7 87, 89 8 82

799

Index Locorum Atticus 1.1 81, 82, 85 1.2 83 1.3 83 1.4 85 2.1 83, 85 2.2–6.5 85 2.2 85 2.3–4.5 83 2.3 83, 85 2.4 83 2.5 84 3.2 84 3.3 84, 85 3.5 85 4.1–2 85 4.1 84 4.2 83, 84 4.3 84, 87 4.4 82 4.5 84, 85 5.1 82, 84 5.4 83, 85 6.1–11.1 86 6.1 85, 86 6.2 85 6.5 85 7–10 87 7.1–3 83, 85 7.1 85 7.3 85 8.1 85, 87 8.3–4 121 8.3 85 8.5 85 8.6 85 9.1 86, 88 9.2–3 85 9.2 85, 86 9.5 84, 86 9.6 86 10–11 87 10.1–2 84 10.1 86 10.2 86 10.3 82, 83, 84 10.5 84, 86 10.6 86

11.1 86 11.2 84, 86 11.3 86 11.4 86 11.5 82 11.6–12.1 83 11.6 84, 86 12.1 87 12.2 87 12.3 82, 87 12.5 82, 87 13.1 87 13.2 83 13.3 87 13.6 87 13.7 87 14.1 82, 87 14.2 84, 87 15.1 82, 87 16.1–4 87 16.1 84 16.3 84, 86, 87 16.4 86, 88 17.2 84 17.3 88 18.1–4 88 18.1–2 83 18.1 85, 88 18.2 88 18.6 82 19.1–3 88 19.1 84, 88 19.2–3 88 19.2 88 19.3 88 20.3 87, 88 20.4 83 20.5 84, 85, 88 21.4 88 22.1 89 22.4 89 Cato 1.1 81 1.2 81, 82 1.4 81, 82 1.5 52 2.2 82

800

Index Locorum

Cato (cont.) 2.3 82 2.4 82 3.1 82 3.3 81, 82 3.4 82 3.5 87

Ars Amatoria 3.803 Fasti 1.589 Heroides 7.93–6

614

de regibus 1.1

Metamorphoses 1.1.4 5.191 8.451ff 10.80–1

399 n. 71 196 n. 21 36 n. 1 196 n. 21

Tristia 1.5.27 2.1–2 2.39 2.534 5.3.25f

476 n. 75 334 n. 98 719 n. 58 743 n. 80 36 n. 1

Pausanias 5.17.5 10.38.9

471 n. 42 388 n. 46

51

Epaminondas 1.1 89 4.6 51, 52 Pelopidas 1 1.1

49, 52 89, 287 n. 22

Nicolaus of Damascus (FGrHist 90) F 99 105 F 130 23.81 15 Orosius, Historia aduersus Paganos 6.17.2 15 Ovid Amores 1.1 1.1.17 1.1.19–20 1.1.21–5 1.1.25ff. 1.1.25f. 1.1.26 1.1.3–4 1.1.4 1.2 1.2.1–8 1.2.1–4 1.2.1 1.2.3 1.2.5 1.2.6–8 1.2.6 1.2.7f. 1.2.8 1.9 1.9.26

644–8 passim 732 647 647 646 n. 8 644 647 with n. 9 645, 646 645 644–8 passim 646 646 n. 8 646 n. 8 647 647 n. 10 647 647 644 647 n. 9 646 n. 8 743 n. 80

554 292 n. 31

Peruigilium Veneris 8ff. 551 Philostratus Epistulae II.258K = IV, p. 14 Hercher Vita Apollonii 6.11 6.11.3

569 567

Photius Bibliotheca cod 93 p. 73b11ff.

144 n. 37

103 n. 16

Epistula nr VI, p. 16 Hercher 103 n. 16 Pindar, Olympia 13.18–19

466 n. 27

Pythia 1.24 6.6ff.

689 n. 120 143 n. 30, 371

801

Index Locorum Fragmenta F 110

720

praef. 31 33.12.39

Plato Apologia Socratis 22a 27–8

710 284 n. 15

Pliny the Younger Epistulae 5.8.1–2 164 n. 9, 196 n. 19 8.16.3–4 606, 607

Crito 121a

256 n. 36

Panegyricus 3.4

Leges 656c 666b 873c–d 951e

332 n. 93, 710 n. 26 147 n. 42 24 n. 22 147 n. 42

Phaedo 61b–62d 90a 117b

24 n. 22 572 n. 3 285 n. 18

Phaedrus 246bff. 275 275e

705 586 332 n. 92

Protagoras 320b 337d

385 n. 36 251

Res publica 394d 410c–12b 411a10–b1 566d5–e1

301 n. 54 107 n. 30 107 n. 30 476 n. 74

Symposium 209d

332 n. 92

Theatetus 172dff

301 n. 54

Timaeus 61c–d

283 n. 13

Pliny the Elder, Historiae Naturalis praef. 16 196 n. 19

696 n. 151 627

309

Plutarch Moralia 65B 107 347A 427 n. 65 348C 62 349D 62 697E 57 826A 163 867C 163 869F 507 n. 57 998E 537 n. 33 1057D 622 1058C 624 n. 23 1104A 572 n. 3 Vitae Agis–Cleomenes 2.9

57

Alexander 1.1–2 49 1.1 12 1.2 52, 286 48 140 n. 18 Antonius 24.4 25–7 26.5 28–9 30 30.3 31.2 31.3 31.4 58.4 60.3–5

677 n. 66 77 677 n. 66 77 77 77 n. 3 77 n. 7 76–9 77 676 n. 64, 678 n. 74 677 n. 66

802

Index Locorum

Antonius (cont.) 64.3 75.4–6

688 677 n. 66

Aratus 10.5

57

Aristides 3

452 n. 71

Artaxerxes 8.1

431 n. 78

Brutus 1.1–8 106 1 106, 107, 108 1.1 108 with n. 32 1.2–3 101 n. 5 1.3 108 2 106, 107, 109, 123 2.4 15, 100 n. 3, 112 n. 50 2.5–8 100 n. 3, 104–109 2.5 105, 106 2.6–8 103 2.6 106 2.7 106 2.8 106 4.6–8 41 4.8 297 n. 41 4.14 619 5.3 106 n. 28 5.4 106 n. 28 6.7 115 n. 64 7.1–5 14 n. 7 7.7 624 n. 24 8.5 14 n. 5 9.5–8 14 n. 8 10.1–3 14 10.1–7 14 n. 5 10.3ff. 14 n. 7 10.3–7 15 12.2 15 13.3–11 123 13.3 39 n. 14, 106 n. 28 14.1–2 15 14.1 15 15.5–9 123 17.5 28 n. 47

18.4–6 18.13 21 21.6

19 n. 9 45 with n. 3, 46, 47 100 n. 3 18 n. 5, 100 n. 3, 112 with n. 50 22.1 101 22.4–6 18 n. 5, 100 with n. 3, 101–2, 103, 113 n. 55 22.5 20 n. 10 23.1 111 23.2ff. 39 n. 15 23.2–7 39, 123 23.6 41 n. 19 23.7 39 with n. 14 24.1ff. 39 24.1 39 n. 14 24.3 18 n. 5, 100 n. 3, 112 n. 50 24.4–7 35, 37, 39 with nn. 14 and 15, 42, 24.6–7 88 24.6 18 n. 4, 27 n. 32, 37 24.7 36, 37 with n. 5 25.1 39 n. 13 26.6 112 28.1–2 112 n. 50 28.1 100 n. 3 28.2 18 n. 5, 100 n. 3, 114 28.3–5 23 n. 17 28.4–5 31 n. 48, 100 n. 3, 112 n. 50 29.10–11 88, 116 29.10 27 29.11 41 29.2–3 41 29.3–4 33 n. 54 29.3 108 29.5 100 n. 3 29.7 59 29.8–11 17–20, 102 29.9–11 41 n. 19, 100 n. 3, 111, 115, 119, 120 34.1–7 23 n. 17 34.3 111 35.1–6 23 n. 17, 31 n. 48 36.1–7 36 n. 2, 37 n. 8 36.2–37.1 646 n. 7 36.2–4 41 38.5–7 627 38.6–7 100 n. 3, 112 n. 50

803

Index Locorum 39.3–4 37 n. 8 39.5–6 37 n. 8 39.7–11 23 n. 17 39.7–8 18 n. 2 39.8ff. 22 n. 16 39.8 619 40.1–4 22 nn. 15 and 16 40.2 28 n. 46 40.3 25 nn. 26 and 27 40.5–11 20–4 40.5–9 22, 23, 24 40.5 23 40.6–9 23 40.7 24 40.8 32 n. 52 40.9 20 n. 10 40.10 23 41.1–4 23 n. 20 44.2 297 n. 41, 624 45.9 111 46.1–5 108 n. 35 47.6–7 37 n. 8 48.2ff. 39 n. 15 48.2–4 26 n. 29 48.5 37 n. 8 49.4–10 621 n. 8 50.1–9 26 n. 30, 621, 623 50.5 32 n. 52 51.1 20 n. 11, 25–7, 29, 38 n. 10, 41, 719 n. 62 51.2–4 27–29 51.5–6 29 n. 38 52 123 52.2 26 n. 29, 28 n. 46 52.2–3 622 n. 11 52.3–5 31 52.4–5 18 n. 3 52.5 31 n. 47, 41, 621, 622 52.6 31 n. 46 52.6–53.1 30 n. 46 52.7 31 n. 46 52.8–53.1 31 n. 46 53 106, 123 53.1–4 26 n. 30 53.1–3 33 n. 55 53.5–7 105, 123 53.5 38 n. 11 53.6–7 18 n. 5, 100 n. 3

53.6 53.7 56(3).2–3 56(3).2 56(3).11 58(5).1–4 58(5).2–4

106, 108 103, 106 with n. 28, 108, 125 32 with n. 53, 622 n. 13 619 26 n. 30 26 n. 30, 33 n. 55 107 n. 32

Caesar 4.8–9 13.3–6 62.7 62.8 66.8 68.6 69.6–13 69.13

88 88 14 n. 8 14 n. 5 28 n. 47 45 n. 2 36 n. 2 18 n. 2

Cato maior 8–9

108 n. 33

Cato minor 73.1–5 73.6

123 n. 85 123 n. 85

Cicero 2.2 83 2.3 12 n. 3 3.3 83 3.6 83 3.7 91 4.3 91 4.4 91 6.3–4 92 6.4 98 8.3–6 87 9.4–7 92 9.7 59, 92 10.1–2 73 n. 9, 92 10.1 59, 92, 93 11.2 92 12.6 93 13.5 95 15.3 94 16.5 12 n. 3 19.1 93 19.4–5 93–4

804 Cicero (cont.) 19.5 94 19.6 94 20.6–7 79, 94 20.7 95 with n. 7, 96 22.2 96 22.5 96 23.5–6 79 n. 11 24 121 n. 79 25 108 n. 33 30.3–5 96 31.2–3 96 32.6 79 33.8 79, 95 34.1–3 79 n. 11 37.1 97 38 108 n. 33 38.1 79 n. 11 39.1–2 79 n. 11 39.7 97 40.1–2 98 40.1 98 41.1–8 98 41.1 74 n. 14, 98 41.2–7 73 n. 10 41.3 59, 98 41.8 97 43.3 73 43.4 98 43.7 71 43.8 71, 73 n. 10 44.1 69 with n. 4, 71, 72, 73 n. 10, 74 44.2–7 71 with n. 7, 72 45.1 69–74, 98 45.2 71, 72, 102, 113 n. 55 45.4 69, 70, 72, 73 with n. 11, 74 45.5–6 74 n. 15, 113 n. 58 45.5 72, 73 with n. 12, 74 n. 13 45.6–46.1 72 46.1 69 n. 4, 74 with n. 14, 98, 125 n. 89, 641 n. 18 46.2 74 47–8 125 n. 89 47.10 641 n. 18 48.2–49.4 123 n. 85 49.2–3 646 n. 7 Comp. 3.1 69, 70, 71 n. 6, 113 n. 58

Index Locorum Comp. 3.4 Comp. 4.4

70, 71 n. 6 102, 113 nn. 55 and 58

Crassus 13.3–5 13.4–4 13.4

94, 95 n. 7 11–13 96

Demosthenes 2.2–3 53 3.1 12 11.5–7 108 n. 33 18.2 70 20.3 70 Dion 1.1 12 2.5 123 2.7 12 Eumenes 11.3 108 Flamininus 17

108 n. 33

Ti. et C. Gracchus 25.4–6

108 n. 33

Lycurgus 19–20 108 n. 33 20 108 Lysander 5.3–5 5.7 6.1–3 6.1 6.2 6.4–7 7.1 22 22.3–4

228 n. 19 226, 227 n. 17 226 235 n. 42 226 n. 12 231 n. 24 227 n. 17 108 n. 33 228 n. 19

Numa 1.2–4 8.9–10 22.3–4

185 n. 41 185 n. 41 185 n. 41

805

Index Locorum Pericles 1.1–2.5 57 1.1–2.3 57 1.1–2 61 1.1 57 1.2 58 1.3 57 1.4 57, 62 1.6 57, 62 2.2 57 2.3 61 2.5 12, 57, 61, 62 3.2 57 3.5 442 n. 27 3.7 57 4.2 57 4.5–5.1 57 4.5 57, 58 4.6–5.1 57 5.1 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 5.3 57 6.1 57 6.2 58 6.3 58 7.1 56, 58, 59, 443 n. 35 7.3 56 7.4 58, 59 7.5 58 7.6 56, 58 7.7–8 58, 60 7.7 58 7.8 56, 58, 59 8.1 58, 59, 60 8.3 56, 59, 62 8.4 58 8.5 56, 58, 59, 63 8.6 58 8.9 56, 58, 60 9.1 55, 56, 58, 59 9.2 58, 59, 60 9.3–5 56 9.5 58 10.3–4 60 10.3 58, 61 10.4 58, 59 10.5 56 10.6 58, 59 10.7 55, 59

10.8 59 11.1–4 59 11.1–2 59, 61 11.1 56, 59 11.2 59 11.3 59, 60 11.4 59 11.6 59 12.1 59, 62 13.1 59, 62 13.4 62 13.5 62 13.7–8 59 13.12–13 62 13.16 55 14.3 59 15.1 58, 59, 60 15.2 60 16.1 443 n. 35 16.3 60 16.7 60 16.8 60 17.1 60 18.1–2 60 18.1 60, 61 18.3 60 19.1–2 60 19.3 60, 61 20.1 60 20.3 60 20.4 60 21.1 60 22.2 60 23.1 60 24.2 60 24.4 61 24.7 61 25.4 61 26.3 61 28–38 63 28.2 454 n. 81 28.4–7 61 28.5–6 63 28.7 63 28.8 61 29.1 63 29.5 63 29.8 61

806

Index Locorum

Pericles (cont.) 30.2 61, 63 31.1 61 32.5 63 32.6 61 33.1 61 33.2 61 33.5 56 33.6 61, 63 34.4 61, 63 34.5 61 35.1 61 35.2 57 35.3 57 35.4 63 36.1 61 36.4 252 n. 24 36.6–8 61 36.9 63 37.1 61, 63 37.3 63 37.4 61 37.5 61, 63 37.6 63 38.1 56, 63 38.2 61 38.4 56, 60, 61 39.1–2 63 39.1 56, 61 39.2–3 56 39.2 61 39.3–4 63 39.3 61 Comp. 3.7 62 Philopoemen 1.4

624 n. 25

Phocion 9.8

108 n. 33

Pompeius 2.1 132 60.4 28 n. 47 78ff. 131 79.5 25 n. 26 80.5 132

Poplicola 6.5

606 n. 5

Solon 27.1

185, 254

Themistocles 13.5 18

123 108 n. 33

Theseus 1.4

12

Pollux, Onomasticon 1.44 388 n. 44 5.150 388 n. 48 Polyaenus, Strategemata 8.32 124 Polybius 1.1.4 1.14.1–9 1.2.8 1.3.4 1.4.11 2.56.1–16 2.61.3 3.31.1–11 3.31.12–32.10 3.31.12–13 3.31.12

191 n. 5 159 n. 1 191 n. 5 399 n. 71 174 n. 22, 399 n. 71 159 n. 1 207 397 368, 397, 398–9 399 369 n. 4, 397, 399, 429 n. 73 3.31.13 399 3.32.1 400 3.32.2 400, 401 3.32.3 401 3.32.5 401 3.32.7 401 3.32.8 401 3.32.9 400, 401 3.32.10 401 8.8.3–11 159 n. 1 10.21.5–8 287 n. 22 10.21.7–8 49, 51 12.1.2–28a.10 159 n. 1 16.14.1–20.9 159 n. 1 16.14.6 163

807

Index Locorum 29.12.1–12 30.30.8 36.1.7

159 n. 1 624 n. 24 173

Porphyry, uita Pythagorae 17 568 P. Oxy. 2255, F 14

549 n. 4

Proclus, in Platonis Timaeum commentarii 3.176.28 551 Propertius 2.34.61ff. 2.34.66

666 n. 14 738 n. 60

Publius Volumnius (FRHist 47) F 2 25–7 Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 3.6.93 121 n. 78 4.3.17 301 n. 54 5.9.14 624 n. 22 8.6.20 749 9.2.68 337 9.3.68 73, 93, 333 n. 97 9.3.71 73, 93, 333 n. 97 9.3.95 19 n. 7 9.4.74 190 10.1.123 112 n. 52, 115 n. 64 11.1.24 121 n. 79 11.1.37 346 n. 111 12.10.11 112 n. 52, 115 n. 64 12.10.12 624 n. 22 Rutilius Lupus 8.12 Halm Sallust Bellum Catilinae 1.1–4 12.3 26.5 27.2 3.1–2

73, 93, 333 n. 97

164 n. 9, 196 n. 19 192, 208 n. 60 93 93, 198 n. 26 164 n. 9, 191 n. 5, 196 n. 19, 748

3.2 4.2 4.3 4.5 6.5 7–12 53.5

191 n. 5, 300 218 191 n. 5 210 198 n. 26 212 n. 69 197 n. 23

Bellum Iugurthinum 1.1 171 1.3 164 n. 9, 196 n. 19 1.5 214 2.4 164 n. 9, 196 n. 19 4.1–4 191 n. 5 4.1 164 n. 9, 196 n. 19, 324 4.2 218 4.4–6 218 4.5–6 324, 340, 344 4.5 208, 212 n. 69 4.7–8 324, 325, 331 4.9 213 n. 73, 300 n. 50, 301 n. 54 5.1 171, 191 n. 5, 214 39.2 198 n. 26 41.2 212 n. 69 42.5 300 n. 50 55.3 198 n. 26 66.1 198 n. 26 76.4 198 n. 26 94.2 195 n. 18 102.9 198 n. 26 Historiae (Maurenbrecher) 1.3 196, 218 1.6 201 1.8 218 2.46 198 n. 26 3.48 313 4.34 198 n. 26 [Inuectiua in Ciceronem] 6–7 121 n. 79 Sappho (Lobel–Page) 2.5–8 672 n. 36 31.15 555 96.12–14 552

808

Index Locorum

Scholia in Soph. Aias 864 535 n. 29 Sempronius Asellio (FRHist 20) F 2 202 Seneca the Younger Apocolocyntosis 6.1 673 n. 48 de beneficiis 4.8

32 n. 51

de consolatione ad Heluiam 8.1 122 n. 82 9.4–8 112 n. 52 9.4–6 122 n. 82 de consolatione ad Marciam 26.1 312 n. 73 de constantia 1.1 606 Epistulae Morales 5.4 11.7 21.5 33 33.1–3 33.1–2 33.2 47.13 115.2 de ira 2.2.3–6

687 n. 110 687 n. 110 335 705 n. 6 627 n. 32 731 n. 25 692 n. 130 625 624 n. 22, 627 n. 32 431 n. 78

Quaestiones naturales 4 praef. 5 677 n. 70 de tranquillitate animi 5.4 606, 624 n. 21 de uita beata 13.4 13.6–7

624 n. 22 606, 624 n. 21

Servius ad Aen. 11.301 ad Ecl. 1.1 auct. ad Ecl. 8.12

213 731 n. 30 656

Sextus Empiricus, Aduersos Mathematicos 1.253 51 Sophocles Antigone 575 654 750f. 761ff. 804f. 810ff. 832f. 876ff. 891 904–20 917ff. 947ff. 1204–41 1204–5 1223–5 1234ff. 1236–7 1238–43 1238f. 1240–1

563 563 563 563 563 563 563 563 563 392 563 563 562 563, 565 563 563 563 564 553, 562–5 passim 565

Oedipus Coloneus 1050–3 567, 568 1052ff. 569 n. 9 Fragmenta F 887 TrGF

507 n. 56

Suda s.v. Πῆκος

568

Suetonius Diuus Augustus 7.2 28.1 28.2

677 n. 69 292 n. 31 291 n. 28

809

Index Locorum 29.5 69.2

678 n. 73 76–9, 637 n. 11

Diuus Iulius 80.3 80.4 82.2 85

14 n. 8, 15 15 25 n. 26 45 n. 3

Vita Horatii II.486 (Loeb) II.486–8 Loeb

707 n. 15, 717 721 n. 69

Thucydides 1.1–23

167, 375, 391, 490–514 passim 1.1–3 146 1.1 415 n. 6, 490, 494 1.1.1–3 167, 287 n. 24, 413 1.1.1–2 191 n. 5 1.1.1 374 n. 17, 370, 373, 376, 380, 382, 414 with n. 4, 415, 421 n. 34 1.1.2 287 n. 24, 376 1.1.3 169, 210 with n. 65, 383, 400, 414, 416, 428 1.2–19 491 1.2.1 422 n. 43 1.3 414 1.4.1 227 n. 14 1.9.3 169 1.10.1 169 1.10.3–5 169 1.10.3 170 1.11.1–2 169 1.13–14 505 1.17 418 n. 23 1.18.1 469 n. 35 1.18.2–19 494 1.18.2–3 500 n. 29 1.18.2 511 1.20–2 417 n. 14 1.20–1 170, 377, 491 1.20 137 n. 8, 170 1.20.1–21.1 376 1.20.1 169, 414

1.20.2 1.20.3–21.2 1.20.3 1.21–2 1.21.1–2 1.21.1 1.21.2

1.22–3 1.22

1.22.1–23.3 1.22.1–23.1 1.22.1–4 1.22.1–3 1.22.1–2 1.22.1 1.22.2–4 1.22.2–3 1.22.2 1.22.3 1.22.4

1.23

444 n. 37 169 195 n. 18 393, 417, 504 n. 41 494 169, 170, 173, 214, 376, 393, 414, 417, 419 n. 23, 422 n. 38, 431 58, 171, 177, 202, 210, 287 n. 24, 376, 385 n. 35, 414, 416, 419, 421, 422, 423, 424 n. 49, 507 397, 426, 491, 493, 495 170, 179, 288 n. 24, 374 n. 17, 377, 380 n. 27, 393, 401, 414 with n. 4, 417, 418 with n. 23, 420, 430, 432, 494 146 493 172, 368–9, 414–15 376 494 57, 257, 385 n. 35, 422, 426, 495, 497, 507, 509 287 n. 24 177, 195 n. 18, 210, 414, 416, 423, 428 384, 398 n. 70, 418 n. 23, 424 n. 49, 494 191 n. 5, 400, 426 57, 143 n. 30, 164 n. 9, 177, 183, 191 n. 5, 196 n. 19, 202, 210, 214, 287 n. 24, 365, 366, 367, 368, 371, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 381, 384 n. 32, 385 n. 35, 390, 391, 393, 394, 395, 397, 399, 400, 401, 402, 414, 416 with n. 12, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424 with n. 49, 426, 427, 429, 430, 440 n. 10, 465 n. 21, 473 n. 47, 507 98, 171, 179, 419–20, 424 n. 49, 426, 431,

810 Thucydides (cont.) 1.23.1–5 1.23.1–4 1.23.1–3 1.23.1 1.23.3 1.23.4–6 1.23.4–5 1.23.4 1.23.5–6

1.23.5 1.23.6 1.24–55 1.24.1 1.26.1 1.29.1 1.33.3 1.34.2 1.36.1 1.40.5 1.42.3 1.55.2 1.56–66 1.56.1 1.57.2 1.60.1 1.66 1.67–88 1.67.1 1.67.2 1.67.4 1.68–71 1.68.2–3 1.68.2 1.68.3 1.69.1 1.69.6 1.70.1 1.70.4 1.72.1 1.73.1

Index Locorum 177–8 415 n. 6 376, 493 with n. 14 287 n. 24, 418 n. 23, 505 420 with n. 27 493, 494, 495, 396, 498, 499, 500, 503 494 179 61, 69 n. 1, 287 n. 24, 398 n. 69, 399, 414 n. 4, 415 n. 6, 416 n. 12, 424, 491, 492, 493, 494, 498, 501, 502, 503, 507 376, 383, 415 n. 6, 420, 426, 490, 495, 506 59, 287 n. 24, 420, 426, 497, 501 491 180, 427, 495 495 n. 21 431 n. 76 425, 497 495 n. 21 497 497 495 n. 21 495 491 495 496 496 496 491, 496 496 496, 503 495 n. 21, 496 445 n. 41 496 495 n. 21, 498 497 498 498 498 230 n. 22 495 n. 21 495 n. 21

1.75–8 1.75.4 1.76.2–3 1.77.6 1.78.1 1.78.4 1.82.1 1.82.5–6 1.84.4 1.86.5 1.88 1.89–117 1.89–95 1.89.1 1.90–1 1.90.1 1.90.5 1.91.3 1.91.4 1.92.1 1.93.3–4 1.94–5 1.95.5 1.96–7 1.96.1 1.96.2 1.97.1 1.97.2 1.98–117 1.98.4 1.99.1 1.99.3 1.101.1 1.102.3 1.106 1.107.1 1.109 1.118–25 1.118 1.118.1 1.118.2 1.119–24 1.120.1 1.121.1 1.121.5 1.122.2 1.122.3

499 498 174 497 495 n. 21 496 484 n. 102, 505 495 n. 21 498 425, 497 425, 491, 498 491, 494 491 491 501 499 499, 500, 511 499 499 499 500 500 505 491, 500 500 500 500 137, 179, 491, 492, 500, 501, 504 492 508 501 501 501 501 504 n. 40 501 504 n. 40 492 496 498, 502 425, 501, 505 445 n. 41 496 495 n. 21 441 n. 23 441 n. 23, 496 506

811

Index Locorum 1.123.1 1.124.3 1.126.1 1.126–8 1.127.3 1.128–35 1.128.3 1.128.5 1.129.3 1.130.1 1.135–8 1.135.2 1.136.1 1.136.2ff. 1.136.2 1.136.3 1.137.2 1.137.3–138.2 1.137.3 1.137.4 1.138 1.138.1 1.138.2–3 1.138.2 1.138.3 1.138.4 1.138.5 1.138.6 1.139 1.139.1–3 1.139.4 1.140–6 1.140.1 1.140.2 1.141.1 1.145–6 1.145 1.146 2.1 2.1.1 2.8 2.12.3 2.36.3 2.40.1 2.40.2

497, 498 441 n. 23, 506 495 n. 21, 498, 500, 511 n. 71 492 502, 511 492 505, 507 507 378, 379 with n. 26 507, 510 492 512 508 508 508 508 508 507 510 508, 512 513 508 510 430, 508, 512, 513 288 n. 24, 416 n. 12, 423 with n. 46, 429, 492, 500, 508, 509, 510 512 512 512, 513 492 511 423 n. 46, 509, 513 492 511 495 n. 21 498, 513 492 495 n. 21 496, 498, 502 490 n. 2, 494 179 441 n. 23 613 n. 10 256 254 432 n. 80

2.41.1 2.41.4 2.43.1 2.46.1 2.48.3 2.50.1 2.51.4–54.5 2.59.1–64.6 2.63.1f. 2.64.3 2.65 2.65.7 2.65.8 2.65.9

257 59 58 372 n. 13 416 n. 12, 425 n. 57 174, 427 n. 63 420 420 456 n. 93 256 n. 37, 421 505, 513 513 60 252 n. 23, 295, 442 n. 27, 506 2.65.12 511 2.65.13 513, 514 2.71.3 441 n. 23 3.36.6 507 3.38.1 511 3.38.3–7 432 with n. 80, 509 n. 65 3.38.3–4 393 n. 60 3.38.7 422 n. 37 3.39.5 174 3.45.7 174 3.63.3 441 n. 23 3.81.5 175, 418 3.82 292 3.82.1–2 295 n. 36 3.82.1 287 n. 24 3.82.2 174, 416 n. 12, 430 3.82.4 287 n. 24, 425 n. 56 3.84.2 425 n. 54 3.86.4 425 n. 54 3.90.1 418 3.111.1 425 n. 54 4.19.4 174 4.23.1 418 4.47.2 425 n. 54 5.20 179 5.25ff. 176 5.25 421 n. 29, 504 n. 45 5.26 167 5.26.4–5 431 5.80.3 425 n. 54 5.105.2 456 n. 88 6.6.1 504 n. 45 6.8.4 425 n. 54

812 Thucydides (cont.) 6.14 6.31 6.33.2 6.39.1 6.50ff. 6.53–9 6.54.6 6.76.2 6.76.3 7.42.3 7.71 7.86.5 8.57 8.63.1 8.73.3 8.83 8.87.5 8.89 8.97.2 Tacitus Agricola 2.1–3 2.1–3.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 6.3 40.4 42.3 42.4

Index Locorum 416 n. 12 146 425 n. 54 432 n. 80 428 444 n. 37 388 425 n. 54 59 428, 509 n. 65 431 427 234 227 with n. 14 175 234 425 n. 54 234 416 n. 12

312, 336 357 358 336, 358 274 n. 2, 297 n. 42, 306 n. 61, 356, 357, 358, 359 67 67 326, 351 67, 349, 353 n. 119

Annales 1.1.1–3.7 289 n. 26 1.1.1 171, 214, 307 1.1.2–3 195 n. 18 1.1.2 290 n. 27, 305 1.1.3 304 n. 59, 321 1.2.1 291 n. 28 1.2.2 360 1.3.6–7 290 n. 27, 305 1.3.7 289, 290 1.4 290 1.4.1 289, 290 with n. 27, 291 n. 28, 292 n. 31, 293 1.4.2 306 n. 61

1.6.3 1.9.4 1.9.5 1.16.1 1.72.3 1.72.4 1.74 2.27.1 2.50.2 3.17.6 3.65 3.65.1–2 3.65.1 3.75 3.76.2 3.82.3–4 4.10–11 4.11.3 4.19.3 4.20.2–3 4.20.3 4.21.3 4.28–31 4.30.3 4.31.1 4.31.2 4.31.4 4.32–5 4.32–3 4.32.1

4.32.2

4.32.3

290 n. 27, 294 n. 35 206, 290 n. 27, 294 with n. 5, 295 307 290 n. 27, 291 315 n. 78 322 356 295 n. 36 314 n. 76, 322 697 n. 161 341 483 n. 98 207, 337, 338, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346 and n. 111, 347, 354 344 279 with n. 7, 309, 321, 330 290 418 n. 18 163 n. 8, 302 n. 55 289 n. 26 67 296 n. 39, 326, 350, 351, 353 317 279, 304 331 322, 333 333 n. 96, 334 308 272–360 passim, 485 n. 108 273–4, 276–8 52, 275, 280, 286 n. 19, 290 n. 27, 295, 297 n. 41, 299 with n. 46, 301 n. 55, 305, 307, 320, 346 n. 111, 347, 422 n. 39 174 n. 22, 284 n. 17, 288 n. 24, 290 n. 27, 292 with n. 31, 296 n. 38, 299, 302 n. 55, 304, 307, 311, 320, 324, 333 n. 96 290, 295, 301 n. 55, 342, 350, 359

813

Index Locorum Annales (cont.) 4.33.1 4.33.2–3 4.33.2

4.33.3 4.33.3–4 4.33.4 4.34–5 4.34.1–5 4.34.1–2 4.34.1 4.34.2–4 4.34.2 4.34.3–5 4.34.3 4.34.4 4.34.5–35.2 4.34.5 4.35.1 4.35.2–3 4.35.2 4.35.3–4 4.35.3 4.35.4 4.35.4–5 4.35.5 4.37.2 4.37.3 4.38.1–3 4.38.1 4.38.2

274 with n. 2, 289, 297 with n. 42, 299, 328, 337, 359 335 274, 287, 288 n. 24, 289, 290 n. 27, 291, 292, 293–5, 299, 304, 310, 320, 336, 338, 343 with n. 108, 344, 346 n. 111, 357 n. 126 275, 281, 299 with n. 46, 301 n. 55, 302 n. 55, 308, 313, 331, 333 n. 96, 351 288 n. 25 275, 275, 284 n. 17, 298, 300, 301 310–11 n. 70, 320, 323, 331, 336, 344, 354 279, 304 311–47 312 285, 297 n. 41, 316 with n. 81, 320, 333 314 286, 309, 313, 316 n. 81, 317, 320 346 n. 111 295 n. 35, 321, 335 with n. 99 319, 322, 335 315 324, 328, 333 321, 333, 334, 346 n. 111, 347 321 317, 319, 331, 343, 344, 346 n. 111 346 n. 111 334, 346 with n. 111 330–8, 346 n. 111 333 284 n. 17, 321, 322, 333, 334, 346 with n. 111, 347, 353, 354 346 n. 111 346 n. 111 338 with n. 101 346 n. 111 346 n. 111

4.38.3 4.38.4 4.38.5 4.61 4.64.3 4.66.2 6.7.3 6.11 6.21–2 6.22 6.22.1–6 6.22.1–3 11.24 11.27 13.49 15.64 15.74 16.19 16.21.1 16.35

346 with n. 111 346 n. 111 346 n. 111, 347 n. 111 298 n. 44 337 163 n. 8 295 n. 36 356 306 n. 63 350, 351 350 350 173 n. 20 163 n. 8 356 285 n. 18 285 n. 18 354 n. 120 623 n. 18 285 n. 18

Dialogus 18.2–5 21.2–6

112 n. 52 112 n. 52

Historiae 1.1.2–3 195 n. 18 1.1.2 310 1.1.3 304 n. 59 1.2.1–3 280 Teles (Hense) 23.9

140 n. 16

Tertullian, Apologia 16.3 337 Theognis 413 421 769–72 815–16

569 n. 9 568 385 n. 36 569

Theon, progymasmata 33 606, 624 n. 21 Tibullus 1.7.1ff.

36 n. 1

814

Index Locorum

Timocrates (PMG) 727 452 n. 71 Valerius Maximus, Facta et Dicta Memorabilia 1.5.7 27 n. 32, 35, 42, 335 n. 99 1.6.13 335 n. 99 1.7.7 36 n. 2 1.8.8 36 n. 2, 335 n. 99 4.6.5 105 6.4.5 18 n. 2, 19, 20 with n. 10, 116 n. 68, 623, 622 n. 14 9.9.1 45 n. 3 Velleius Paterculus 2.35.2 623 n. 18 2.36.3 690 n. 125 2.53.1–3 131 2.53.3 132 2.66.4 88 2.67.3 673 n. 48, 674 2.68.5 88 2.71.1–2 619 2.71.2 18 n. 4 2.71.3 88 2.72.1ff. 622 n. 14 2.72.1 623 2.82.4 677 n. 66 2.83 674 2.83.1–3 675 n. 50 2.83.1–2 687 n. 112 2.83.1 687, 698 n. 164 2.83.2 67, 676 n. 64, 687, 691 n. 126 2.89.3–4 292 n. 31 2.96.3 674 Virgil Aeneid 1.1–33 1.1–11 1.1–10 1.1–6 1.1–4 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5–11

744, 745 736, 744, 745 742, 744 738 740, 745 737, 740 740 739, 740, 741 742

1.5 1.10

744 685, 739, 742, 744 n. 82, 746, 747 1.11 760 1.18 685 1.25–33 744 1.33 744, 745 1.34–5 739 1.87 685 n. 101, 745 1.91 745 1.101 745 1.108f. 637 1.118–19 745 1.124–7 689 1.126–7 689 1.142 689 1.148–56 746 1.148–53 689 1.151–2 745 1.154–5 689 1.198–9 684, 685 1.207 756 1.214–15 745 1.223 685, 694 n. 144 1.240–1 745 1.241 685 1.264 745 1.273–7 738 1.279 694 n. 144 1.297–304 632 1.302 633 1.302–3 632, 636, 640 1.314–410 632 1.314–15 748 1.325–7 748 1.335–6 749 1.336 750 n. 94 1.340 632 1.343ff. 632 1.353ff. 633 1.364 616, 632, 750, 1.365 616 1.378 632, 638 1.426 632 1.430–6 632 1.436 638 1.440 745 1.450–93 632

Index Locorum Virgil (cont.) Aeneid (cont.) 1.482 1.490–3 1.490 1.493 1.495 1.497–502 1.500–1 1.502 1.507 1.516–17 1.522–78 1.525–6 1.530–2 1.530–3 1.539–41 1.546 1.565–8 1.565 1.569 1.586–610 1.613–14 1.615–30 1.619–26 1.620 1.628–9 1.637–40 1.637 1.640–2 1.647–55 1.651 1.657–62 1.664–5 1.670ff. 1.670 1.688 1.697–700 1.707–8 1.712 1.718 1.726–8 1.736–49 1.740–6 1.742 1.745–6 1.746 1.748

637, 642 632, 749 749 632, 745, 749 632 632 632 632 632, 745 745 632 632, 640 745 633 632, 640 745 632 745 638 632 745 632 685 685 n. 101 633, 685 n. 101 633 636 745 633 636 633 746 633 638 641 633 633 633, 641, 642 633, 642 633 633 751 749, 752 752 752 752 n. 101

815 1.749 633, 642, 752 n. 100 1.755–6 632, 751 2.1 633 2.3 754, 755, 756 2.195–8 131 n. 3 2.270ff. 633 2.554–8 131–3 2.707 640 2.717 640 2.774 636 2.780 685 2.781 633 2.783 633 2.790f. 638 3.48 636 3.56f. 638 3.107–9 685 n. 101 3.163ff. 633 3.182ff. 633 3.250ff. 633 3.359ff. 633 3.378 633 3.458 633 3.477 633 3.495 685 3.500ff. 633 3.523f. 633 3.714–15 633, 634, 640 3.716 633 4.3–4 633 4.4 633 4.8 634 4.10–11 743 4.11–14 633, 640 4.15–19 613, 634 4.15–16 634 4.15 633 4.17 637 4.18 634, 639 with n. 14 4.19 635, 636, 638, 639 with n. 14, 743 4.20–3 634 4.22 638 4.23 633 4.24–7 634 4.25–6 641 4.25 640, 641 4.27 641, 754

816 Virgil (cont.) Aeneid (cont.) 4.32–3 4.34 4.38 4.39–49 4.45–6 4.48 4.54–5 4.56–91 4.65–73 4.68ff. 4.69–73 4.74–89 4.76 4.85 4.86ff. 4.90 4.91 4.95 4.99–104 4.99 4.100 4.103–4 4.117 4.124 4.125–7 4.125 4.133 4.136 4.149 4.165–72 4.165 4.170–1 4.172 4.193–4 4.194–5 4.208–9 4.208 4.211ff. 4.213–17 4.221 4.225 4.235 4.271 4.281 4.283–6

Index Locorum

634 634 634 634 634, 640 634 635 635 635 637 635 635 636 636 612 635, 641 635, 636 635 616 614 635 614 635 616 614 616 635 635 635 612, 614, 635 616, 750 n. 95 636 635, 6337, 639 with n. 14, 641 635 636 636 640 638 635 635, 636 638, 639 638, 639 638, 639 636, 642 636, 637

4.283f. 4.291–4 4.291 4.292 4.293 4.296 4.300ff. 4.305ff. 4.305 4.307 4.314 4.316 4.331–2 4.333–5 4.335f. 4.338–9 4.338 4.339 4.351–3 4.356ff. 4.360 4.362 4.366f. 4.369–70 4.373 4.379–80 4.382ff. 4.382 4.389 4.390 4.392 4.393 4.395 4.396 4.402ff. 4.407 4.412 4.413 4.414 4.419 4.420f. 4.423 4.428 4.439f. 4.440 4.447 4.449 4.450f.

639 636, 637 637 636 638 636 637 637 637 638 638 639 637, 638 637 637, 638 635 637 635, 637 636 639 637 637 642 638 638 756 639 638 638 638, 639 638 615 638 638 638 638 638 638 with n. 12 638 637 638 638 638 638 639 638 638 639

817

Index Locorum Virgil (cont.) Aeneid (cont.) 4.450 4.457 4.465ff. 4.474f. 4.475 4.492f. 4.495ff. 4.495f. 4.496 4.500 4.508 4.517f. 4.520 4.532 4.534ff. 4.534–46 4.547 4.548–9 4.548 4.550–2 4.550–1 4.550 4.551 4.552 4.554 4.571 4.579f. 4.580 4.590ff. 4.596 4.597–9 4.598–9 4.604ff. 4.614 4.620 4.651 4.682 4.693 4.696–9 4.696 4.704 5.2 5.4–7 5.6 6.104 6.122

639 638 639 639 641 639 639 639 638, 640 n. 16 635 639 639 642 639 641 639 641 639 n. 14 638, 639 640 635, 639 with n. 14 639 n. 14 641 639 n. 14 641 639, 640 640 n. 15 641 639 638 633, 640 n. 16 640 639 633, 640 641 640 641 615, 640, 641 640 615, 642 641 641 641 639 758 758

6.129–31 6.143–4 6.146–8 6.146–8 6.168 6.194 6.260 6.292 6.295 6.306 6.31 6.318 6.367 6.408–10 6.428 6.433 6.45 6.455ff. 6.469 6.475 6.540 6.560 6.608 6.629 6.661 6.663 6.694 6.728 6.735 6.796 6.828 6.851–3 6.860ff. 6.899 6.96 7.43 9.79 10.829–31 12.877–8 12.946 12.950 12.950–2 12.952

757 757 757 758 759 758 758 759 758 759 758 758 758 757–8 759 759 758 642 637, 642 642 758 758 759 758 759 759 642 759 759 758 759 747 684 n. 98 758 758 738 n. 60 417 n. 17 196 n. 21 753–4 760 736 n. 48, 760 759 736 n. 47, 760, 761, 778

Eclogues 1.2 1.4 1.5–8

740 760, 762 741

818

Index Locorum

Eclogues (cont.) 1.6 1.9–10 1.42 1.79–84 1.83 1.84 4.60–3 7.60 10.1 10.74–6 10.74 10.75–6

741 764 731 762 778 760 476 n. 71 551 739 761 730 n. 22, 761 760, 761

Georgics 1.21–40 1.25 1.27 1.40 1.43 1.394 1.424–37 1.425–6 1.425 1.427 1.429 1.430 1.431 1.432 1.433 1.439 1.456–7 1.512–14 2.39–46 2.315–42 2.324ff. 2.458–74 2.475ff. 2.475–99 2.475–6 2.477–82 2.478 2.481–2 2.485–9 2.489 2.490–2 2.490

213 n. 72 761 731 759 730 n. 22, 761 726 726–7 728 727, 728, 729, 748 727 727, 740 727, 728, 729 727, 740 727, 728, 738 727 726 739, 740 759 739 730 n. 22 551 763 762 762–3 764 764 752 n. 103, 764 n. 125 752 n. 103, 764 n. 125 764 764 764 764

2.493–4 2.495–9 2.541–2 3.9–36 3.10–39 4.6 4.96ff. 4.116–17 4.220ff. 4.559–66 4.560 4.561–2 4.561 4.563 4.564 4.565

764 764 739, 759 504 n. 44 731 299 654 739 656 729, 738, 758–9 731, 739 747 739 n. 67 730 and n. 20, 731, 759 730, 737 738

Vitae Virgiliae Antiquae Vita Donati 3–5 756–7 35–6 726 n. 9 38 726 n. 6 125–6 762 n. 122 Vita Probi 10–11

731 n. 26, 762 n. 122

Vitruvius, de Architectura 5 praef 1 193 Xenophon Agesilaus 1.1 1.6 1.8 8.2 10.3–4

137 n. 8, 138 n. 10 137 n. 8 233 n. 32 226 n. 13 137 n. 8

Anabasis 1.8.28

563

Cynegeticus 1.4

147 n. 43

Cyropaedia 3.3.16

233 n. 32

819

Index Locorum Hellenica 1.1.1–2.3.10 232 n. 29 1.1–3 231 1.1.1 157 1.1.16 238 1.4.19 154 1.4.20 154 1.5.1–7 226 1.5.7–8 156 1.5.9 234 1.5.11–17 226 1.5.15 240 1.6.1–3 225 1.6.2 156, 242 1.6.4 227, 230 1.6.5–11 154 1.6.5 228, 242 1.6.6–8 231 1.6.6 229 1.6.7 234 1.6.8–11 233–6 passim 1.6.8 156, 232 1.6.10 232, 235 1.6.11 156, 232 1.6.13 236 1.6.14–15 236–7 1.6.14 156, 232 1.6.15 227 n. 16 1.6.18 238 1.6.20 238 1.6.29–38 239 1.6.32 239 1.7 154 1.7.1–35 242 1.16.6ff 156 2.1.1–5 242 2.1.6 242 2.1.7 242 2.3.9–56 154 2.3.23–56 283, 295 2.3.35–49 283 2.3.56 156, 157, 283, 286, 332, 336 2.4.13–17 155 2.4.20–2 155 3.4.7–10 226 n. 11 3.4.8 231 3.4.29 242 3.5.8–15 155

4.3.10–12 4.3.13–14 4.4.1–13 4.5.3–19 5.1.4 5.1.14 5.1.17 5.1.18 5.3.7 5.4.1 5.4.9 5.4.20 5.4.30 5.4.34 5.4.46 6.1 6.3 6.4.27–37 6.5.33–48 7.1.1–14 7.1.37–8 7.2 7.2.1 7.3.5–11 7.5

242 241 n. 63, 242 155 155 157, 232 232 232, 233 n. 32 232 231 n. 26 156 156 156 156 156 156 155 155, 232 n. 28 155 155, 232 n. 28 155, 232 n. 28 156, 232 n. 28 155 157 155 155

Memorabilia 1.2.35 1.3.8 2.1.13 2.1.21–34 2.2.13 2.21–34 4.1.1 4.4.15

147 n. 42 284 n. 15 705 705 650, 705 687 n. 111 284 n. 15 230 n. 22

Oeconomicus 1.1.8

233 n. 32

Respublica Lacedaemoniorum 2.2 230 n. 22 2.10 230 n. 22 4.6 230 n. 22 8.1–5 230 n. 22 12.6–9 233 n. 32 14.2 230 n. 22 14.4 230 n. 22

820 Symposium 1.1 1.1.1

Index Locorum 51, 52 284 n. 15

Zonaras, Epitome Historiarum 10.20 29, 36 n. 2 II. Epigraphic Texts B Mus.Inscr. 1074 30 n. 43 Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VI.1710 = ILS I.2949 725 n. 5 XI 6721.6–11 119 n. 74 XIII.1668 173 n. 20 Inscriptiones Graecae, editio tertia 1183 255 n. 35 1240 255 n. 35

Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae II.1107 119 n. 74 Meiggs–Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. 10 384 n. 32 12 379 20 388 n. 47 47 384 n. 32 63 384 n. 32 64 384 n. 32 Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae 543 142 n. 28 544 142 n. 28