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The Reception of Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Popular Culture

Metaforms Studies in the reception of classical antiquity

Editors-in-Chief Almut-Barbara Renger (Freie Universität Berlin) Jon Solomon (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) John T. Hamilton (Harvard University) Editorial Board Kyriakos Demetriou (University of Cyprus) Constanze Güthenke (Oxford University) Miriam Leonard (University College London) Mira Seo (Yale-nus College)

VOLUME 11

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/srca

The Reception of Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Popular Culture Beauty, Bravery, Blood and Glory Edited by

Eran Almagor and Lisa Maurice

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Photographing the chariot race in Ben-Hur (1925) - The cameraman records Francis X. Bushman on a chariot, 1 January 1925. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Originally from A History of the Movies by Benjamin B. Hampton (New York: Benjamin Bowles, 1931), illustration 90b. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov lc record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2017021292

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2212-9405 isbn 978-90-04-34771-7 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-34772-4 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents List of Figures ix Notes on Contributors xi Introduction: Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Popular Culture 1 Eran Almagor and Lisa Maurice

part 1 Re-enacting Ancient Virtues and Vices Section 1 Staging Ancient Virtues and Vices 1 The House of Atreus as a Reflection of Contemporary Evil: Performance Reception and The Oresteia 37 Lisa Maurice 2 Thornton Wilder’s The Alcestiad or A Life in the Sun 60 Hanna M. Roisman 3 Herodotus on Stage: The Modern Greek Play “Candaules’ Wife” by Margarita Liberaki 77 Ariadne Konstantinou

Section 2 Screening Ancient Virtues and Vices 4 Can You Dig It? Heroes and Villains from Xenophon’s Anabasis to Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979) 103 Eran Almagor 5 Hercules’ Choice: Virtue, Vice and the Hero of the Twentieth-Century Screen 140 Emma Stafford

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6 Deconstructing Oedipus: Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite and the Classical Tradition 167 Anna Foka 7

Caligula and Drusilla in the Modern Imagination 187 Emma Southon

8

“Salome, Nice Girl”: Rita Hayworth and the Problem of the Hollywood Biblical Vamp 206 Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

9

Representations of the Christian Female Virtue in Roman Film Epics: The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Quo Vadis (1951) 231 Panayiota Mini

part 2 Ancient Virtues and Vices in the Modern World Section 1 Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Greece 10

Philip, Alexander and Macedonia: Between Greek Virtue and Barbarian Pleasure 257 Maria Pretzler

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From Giscard d’Estaing to Syntagma Square: The Use and Abuse of Ancient Greece in the Debate on Greece’s eu Membership 281 Luca Asmonti

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The Great God Pan Never Dies! 304 Aggeliki Koumanoudi

Section 2 Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Jewish Existence 13

In These Days, in That Season: The Nationalization of the Maccabees 325 David M. Schaps

Contents

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A Double Edged Sword—The Power of Bar-Kosibah: From Rabbinic Literature to Popular Culture 341 Haim Weiss

15

What Has Rome to Do with Jerusalem? The Reception of Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akivah in the Talmud and in Contemporary Israel 357 Gabriel Danzig

Bibliography 379 Index 416

List of Figures 3.1 Lydia Fotopoulou as the Queen in the 1997 performance of H γπλαίθα ηνπ Kαλδαύιε by the Πεηξακαηηθή Σθελή ηεο Tέρλεο in Thessaloniki, directed by Nikos Chatzipapas. Photo: Vassilis Bozikis 85 4.1 Ajax (James Remar) fights the “Baseball Furies” 110 4.2 From the opening sequence of The Warriors: The ultimate director’s cut edition 114 4.3 Cyrus (Roger Hill) 118 4.4 Luther (David Patrick Kelly) 124 4.5 Swan (Michael Beck) and The Warriors look at defeated Luther (David Patrick Kelly) near the sea 131 5.1 Paolo de Matteis, The Choice of Hercules, 1712 (Temple Newsam House, Leeds). Photo: Temple Newsam House (Leeds Museums and Art Galleries); Photographic Survey, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London 147 5.2 Poster for the French release of Hercules Unchained, featuring Steve Reeve’s Hercules between Omphale (Sylvia Lopez) and Iole (Sylva Koscina) 157 8.1 Advertising image from ‘Life Magazine’, 1953. Rita’s Hayworth’s Salome ­superimposed onto a background of Aubrey Beardsley’s print of Salome kissing the head of John the Baptist (from the private collection of the author) 223 9.1 Mercia sending sweet glances and smiles to Prefect Marcus Superbus in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross (1932) 239 9.2 Mercia as a frightened girl in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross (1932) 240 9.3–9.5 Mercia staged with household items in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross (1932) 241 9.6 Lygia as a fearless, mature and confident woman before Marcus Vinicius in Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis (1951) 246 9.7 Lygia does not raise her right arm to salute Nero in Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis (1951) 248 10.1  Alexander (1956). Our first glimpse of Athens: Aischines (left, on podium) challenged by Demosthenes 263 10.2  Alexander (1956). Philip’s first closeup. Barbarian in furs? 263 10.3  Alexander (1956). Philip’s Palace in Pella—Greek, but rural and archaic 264 10.4  Alexander (1956). Philip and Alexander at Mieza: a barbarian king and his Greek son 266

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10.5  Alexander (2004). Alexander and Aristotle in Mieza. Broken columns as signature for classical Greece 269 10.6  Alexander (2004). Hellenised Macedonian crowd (later on in the film) 270 10.7  Alexander (2004). Increasing orientalisation of ­Alexander. Note ­lengthening hair, changes in clothing and accessories 272 10.8  Alexander (2004). Hephaistion and Parmenion—different ­degrees of orientalisation among Alexander’s companions 273 10.9  Alexander (2004). Philip and Alexander in Pella: Macedonians at their most Greek 274 12.1–12.2 Carnival festivities in Polygiros. Photos: Rosa Vasilaki 313 12.3–12.4 The annual phallic festival in Tyrnavos. Photos: Yoav Me Bar 315 13.1 Caricature showing the Jews as Grimms’ Seven Swabians 327 13.2 The Wicked Son as muscleman. Eisenstein, Hagada (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1920) 328 13.3 The Maccabees logo 336

Notes on Contributors Eran Almagor is the co-editor of Ancient Ethnography: New Approaches (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). He is the author of papers and chapters on the history of the Achaemenid Empire, its image in Greek literature (especially in Herodotus and Ctesias), the Lives of Plutarch and Greek Imperial writers (in particular Strabo and Josephus). Among his interests is the reception of antiquity in modern popular culture, including movies and comics. Luca Asmonti is a Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at Massey University, Auckland (NZ). He is a historian of ancient Greek politics and warfare. His recent publications include Athenian Democracy: A Sourcebook (London: Bloomsbury, 2014) and Conon the Athenian: Politics and Warfare in the Aegean, 414–386 bc (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2015). Gabriel Danzig is a senior lecturer in the department of Classical Studies at Bar -Ilan University. He is the author of Apologizing for Socrates: How Plato and Xenophon Created the Myth of Socrates (Lanham, md: Lexington, 2010), and has published widely on Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon, as well as on Greek themes in Jewish literature. Anna Foka is Associate Professor in Information Technology and the Humanities at Umeå University in Sweden and a CESTA fellow at Stanford. She has ­published on cultural history, classical reception, digital technologies for the  humanities. Her most recent piece is ‘Experiential Analogies: A Sonic Digital Ekphrasis as a Digital Humanities Project’ for the Digital Humanities Quarterly. Ariadne Konstantinou currently teaches at Bar -Ilan University. Her research focuses on Greek literature and culture, with special interests in epic poetry and tragedy, Greek ­mythology and religions, women and gender in antiquity, mobility and space, and the relation between text and image. She has published several articles and is now completing a book on Female Mobility and Gendered Space in Ancient Greek Myth, which is under contract with Bloomsbury Academic.

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Aggeliki Koumanoudi is a guest lecturer at the Byzantine and Modern Hellenic Studies Program of Haifa University. She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Paris iv (France). Her areas of specialization concern language teaching, French and Greek Literature, mythoanalysis, musical trends and traditions. Recent articles include “Jews and Greek folk songs” (2013), “La Poésie-monde de Théo Crassas” (2013) and “Teaching Modern Greek as a second / foreign language” (2008). Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is Professor of Ancient History at Cardiff University. His research interests include ancient Greek socio-cultural history, especially women’s history and gender-issues, dress, visual culture and the history and culture of the Achaemenid period in Iran (559–331 bce). He has published widely on these subjects as well as on the theme of antiquity in popular culture, especially Hollywood cinema. He is the Editor of Edinburgh Studies in Ancient Persia and co-editor of Screening Antiquity (both for Edinburgh University Press). Lisa Maurice is senior lecturer at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Her research interests centre on the reception of the ancient world in modern popular culture and on Roman comedy, particularly the structure of Plautine plays. She is the author of The Teacher in Ancient Rome: The Magister and His World (Lanham, md: ­Lexington 2013) as well as many articles on Plautus and on the reception of the ancient world in modern popular culture. She is the editor of The Reception of Ancient Greece and Rome in Children’s Literature: Heroes and Eagles (Leiden: Brill 2015) and Rewriting the Ancient World: Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians in Modern Popular Fiction (Leiden: Brill 2017). At present she is working on a monograph on the reception of divinity on screen, and, through an erc-funded project entitled Our Mythical Childhood, an investigation of the ways in which classical mythology has been utilised in education. Panayiota Mini is Assistant Professor of Film History in the Department of Philology at the University of Crete, Greece. She holds a Ph.D. in film studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has published numerous essays on Greek cinema and on Soviet cinema. Her monograph on modernist filmmaker Takis Kanellopoulos is shortly to be published by the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation (miet). As a fellow in Comparative Cultural Studies from the

Notes on Contributors

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Center of Hellenic Studies of Harvard University in 2012, she developed an interest in the reception of Roman antiquity. Maria Pretzler is Associate Professor in Ancient History at Swansea University. She has wide interests in Greek history and culture, with publications on ancient travel writing and authors of the Second Sophistic (particularly on Pausanias), and on Peloponnesian history. She has recently edited a volume on Aineias Tacticus (Leiden: Brill), and her main current research project focuses on the Peloponnesian League. When she watches films set in antiquity, she is particularly interested in the visual choices directors and designers make in order to communicate their interpretation of the ancient world. Hanna M. Roisman is Arnold Bernhard Professor in Arts and Humanities at Colby College. In addition to articles and book chapters, she has published Loyalty in Early Greek Epic and Tragedy (Frankfurt: Hain, 1984), Nothing Is As It Seems: The Tragedy of the Implicit in Euripides’ Hippolytus (Lanham, md: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), Sophocles: Philoctetes (London: Duckworth, 2005) and Sophocles: Electra (Newburyport, ma: Focus Publishing, 2009). She is editor of the Encyclopedia of Greek Tragedy (Chichester/ Malden, ma/ Oxford: Wiley–Blackwell, 2013), and co‐author with F. Ahl of The Odyssey Re‐Formed (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), with C.A.E Luschnig of Euripides: Alcestis (Norman, ok: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), and of Euripides: Electra (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010). David M. Schaps Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at Bar-Ilan University, was educated at Swarthmore College and Harvard University. He is the author of Women’s Property Rights in Ancient Greece (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1979), ­Yofyuto shel Yefet (a Hebrew-language primer for Ancient Greek), The Invention of Coinage and the Monetization of Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor, mi: University of Michigan Press, 2004), Handbook for Classical Research (London/ New York: Routledge, 2011) and dozens of articles on various aspects of ancient culture. He is currently the President of the Israel Society for the Promotion of Classical Studies.

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Emma Southon completed her Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham. Her first monograph will be published as Marriage, Sex, and Death: The Family in the Post Imperial West by aup in 2017. She is currently an independent researcher and writer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland and is working on a biography of Agrippina the Younger, modern representations of Caligula, and the uses and abuses of historical fiction. Emma Stafford is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Leeds. She is author of numerous works on Greek myth, religion and iconography, including Worshipping Virtues: Personification and the Divine in Ancient Greece (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales/ Duckworth) and Herakles (Routledge 2012). She is also coordinator of the Leeds-based project Hercules: a Hero for All Ages. Haim Weiss is senior lecturer of rabbinic literature at the department of Hebrew literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His work focuses on the literary as well as folkloristic aspects of rabbinic literature. He is also interested in the representation of rabbinic literature in modern Jewish and Israeli culture. In this framework he published two books (in Hebrew) on dreams in the Talmud. His current project is the image of Shimon Bar-Kosibah in Jewish culture.

Introduction: Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Popular Culture Eran Almagor and Lisa Maurice It is not surprising to find moral concerns, ethical questions and the issue of values in the field of Classical Reception Studies. Since the current, gradually growing, scholarly field was recast as one of ‘reception’ in the 1990s,1 its working assumption—almost by definition—is that there is a gap between the ‘giving’ era and the ‘receiving’ one.2 This hiatus is precisely the subject matter of this fascinating scholarly field, and values play an important role in this difference.3 The concern with morality was also predominant when this field 1 See Maarten De Pourcq, “Classical Reception Studies: Reconceptualizing the Study of the Classical Tradition”, International Journal of the Humanities 9 (2012) 219–225. The term “Reception” comes from literary studies to emphasise the fact that the meaning of works of art is constructed and imparted by the readers. See Charles Martindale, “Introduction: Thinking Through Reception”, in Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) 3–4, who refers to the influence of the theory of Hans Robert Jauss, Literaturgeschichte als Provokation (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970). See Felix Budelmann and Johannes Haubold, “Reception and Tradition”, in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008b) 13–25 [13–14]. 2 See Duncan F. Kennedy, “Afterword: The Uses of ‘Reception’” in Charles Martindale and ­Richard F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) 288–293 [288]: “A constitutive move of reception theory is that there is always a gap between a text (or utterance) and its reception. This gap introduces difference, and it is in this gap that history operates”. See Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray, “Introduction” in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008b) 1–12 [1–2]: “By ‘receptions’ we mean the ways in which Greek and Roman material has been transmitted, translated, excerpted, interpreted, rewritten, reimaged and represented … [distinction] between the different traditions and contexts from which they have emerged”. See the criticism against the use of this term as implying a passive reception: Simon Goldhill, Who Needs Greek? Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 297. Cf. Tim Whitmarsh, “True Histories: Lucian, Bakhtin, and the Pragmatics of Reception” in Martindale and Thomas (2006) 104–115. 3 See Lorna Hardwick, Reception Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) 3: “The diversity of ancient culture itself is now more widely recognised and interest has focused on ways in which some aspects were selected and used (‘appropriated’) in order to give value and

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_002

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assumed the model of ‘influence’ or ‘legacy’ in works dealing with the Classical Tradition,4 or in 18th and 19th centuries’ discussions on the relevance of the classical values to the modern period.5 As an instance of cultural reception studies,6 Classical Reception deals with the appropriation of phenomena belonging to one culture by another or with the appreciation of one society by another; it addresses the ways phenomena gained new cultural meanings, functions and forms as they were absorbed in new ethical settings.7 Yet, this field stands outside cultural studies proper in its corresponding interest with the Classical past, assuming that the classical set of values is the object of study worthy of itself.8

status to subsequent cultures and societies and to inspire new creative work. This kind of study has proved valuable in that it has enabled people to distinguish more readily between the ancient texts, ideas and values and those of the societies that appropriate them”. See also Hardwick and Stray (2008a) 5. 4 See Gilbert Murray, The Classical Tradition in Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927); Gilbert Highet, The Classical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949). Budelmann and Haubold (2008) 24: “classicists give themselves a particular role by placing themselves in a continuous and value-laden tradition that reaches from antiquity to their own day”. 5 A few examples will suffice. See Neville Morley, Antiquity and modernity (Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell 2009) passim and 23–24: “Antiquity was the great exemplar of the disastrous consequences of luxuriousness for military prowess, sexual continence, and political liberty, and hence the obvious model for understanding contemporary developments and their likely terminus. On the other hand, antiquity was also the yardstick for frugality, virtue, and the philosophical denunciation of luxury”. Cf. Frank Stack, Pope and Horace: Studies in Imitation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) 6–7 on an 18th century appreciation of Horace. See Alastair J.L. Blanshard, Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity (Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) 145 on Richard St. John Tyrwhitt’s attack on the imitation of Hellenic culture (“The Greek Spirit in Modern Literature”, 1887, 558): “Hellenism means, at the present day and when you come to work it, the total denial of any moral restraint on any human impulses”. Cf. Frank M. Turner, The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain (New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 1981) 264–83 on the relation to the sophists. See Kenneth Haynes, “Text, Theory, and Reception”, in Martindale and Thomas (2006) 44–54, and Katie Fleming, “The Use and Abuse of Antiquity: The Politics and Morality of Appropriation” in Martindale and Thomas (2006) 127–137. 6 Cf. Richard K. Simon, Trash Culture: Popular Culture and the Great Tradition (Berkeley—Los Angeles—London: University of California Press, 1999); Karen Bassi and Peter Euben, “DeClassifying Hellenism: Untimely Mediations”, Parallax 9 (2003) 1–7. 7 Cf. Salvatore Settis, The Future of the ‘Classical’ (Tr. A. Cameron. Cambridge and Malden, ma 2006) (translation of Futuro del ‘Classico’) (Turin: Einaudi, 2004) on the relevance of the classical to current social, political, and moral values that it helps to legitimate. 8 De Pourcq (2012) 223.

Introduction

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In fact, Classical Reception Studies are about the Classical as well as about the modern.9 By “Classical” we refer to the ancient Greek and Roman world, and include here examples from mythology and history, as well as examples from what ancient contemporaries would term “barbarian” culture, namely, Jewish ancient history. By “modern” we mean roughly the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, although the early modern period (approximately the 17th to 18th centuries) is sometimes mentioned as well. The working model of Reception Studies we adopt in this volume is largely that of a meeting of these two worlds, contiguous in various points and especially in the plane of values. In order to understand the way these two worlds interact in our volume, let us examine first the key concepts addressed or alluded to in the following contributions: the features of ancient morality, or what was considered virtue or vice; the meaning of modern popular culture and modern reception. At the end of this introduction we shall explore how the following chapters contribute to a better understanding of the issue at hand.

Ancient Virtues and Vices

As we shall see, the studies presented in this volume trace the interaction between two sets of values, the modern and the ancient, in various means and modes. The ancient and modern periods display a wide diversity of popular value systems. These include not only ethical attitudes and codes of conduct or systems of values delineating good and bad, but also the interweaving of artistic and literary appreciation of artefacts and narratives (e.g., attitudes towards heroes and villains, their traits and character) and aesthetic judgment of what is considered beautiful, complete, grotesque or ugly. There are many different ideas about, and approaches to, the nature of morality. These include popular notions of morality, and philosophical or theoretical ideas on the subject,10 as well as philosophical ideas of morality 9 See Duncan F. Kennedy, “Review of Literature in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A New Perspective, ed. Oliver Taplin (Oxford, 2000)”, Greece and Rome 48 (2001) 87–8: “is as much about eventuation as it is about original context … that is what ‘Reception Studies’ seeks to capture …” 10 See, for instance, Albert P. Brogan, “A Study in Statistical Ethics”, International Journal of Ethics 33 (1923), 119–134 [121]: “By popular morality is meant especially the moral opinions of those who have never had any set training in systematic ethics”. See Stephen R. ­Blum-West, “The Seriousness of Crime: A Study of Popular Morality”, Deviant Behavior 6 (1985) 83–98. These attitudes were important to Mill, as shown by David Lyons, “Mill’s Theory of Morality”, Noûs 10 (1976) 101–20 [107]: “Informal social rules—the elements of

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and ­religious notions, both of which may prescribe proper ways of conduct to adopt and reject. When it comes to reception, there is a variety of ways in which these approaches can interact. Thus, a philosophical or religious ethical notion from one period could be appreciated and acclimated in a popular way at a later period, and vice versa: an exemplum of popular morality typifying an older historical community could be integrated into philosophical or religious notions in a later society. Of course, two other possibilities of adaptation (historical popular morality in a later popular notion and an ancient philosophical ethical reasoning taken on by later religious or philosophical theorists) may exist as well. In this volume we examine the reception of the ancient world in modern popular presentations, which by definition applies more to popular morality than well-argued and systematised philosophical reasoning. Unfortunately, our knowledge of ancient Classical ethical notions is impaired by the meagre sources we possess of the great civilisations of the past. We are still in the dark concerning the “Dark Age”, the time before writing became an essential means for communication and recording thoughts and impressions. Due to acts of chance, such as the demise and disappearance of libraries or political and natural upheavals, entire centuries are under-represented in the extant corpus of texts. With the coming of Christianity, Pagan religious and cultural values (reflected in ancient works of philosophy, drama, oratory, poetry, art, legality and more), now identified as “Hellene”, were deemed utterly repugnant to the extent that complete volumes and artefacts were purged and destroyed.11 Although this Early Christian form of reception (religious-theoretical

11

popular or conventional morality—can also be conceived of as coercive commands and prohibitions. These are generally accepted standards for minimally acceptable behavior, whose existence is a matter of general knowledge before the acts they concern are contemplated or performed”. This difference partially matches that between “morality” in a narrow sense, restricted to deontological moralism or philosophical systems concerned with duty or obligation, and “ethics”, which is more practical. See Kenneth J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974) 1–5. Cf.  Stephen Halliwell, “Popular morality, philosophical ethics and the rhetoric”, in Alexander Nehamas and David J. Furley (eds.), Aristotle’s “Rhetoric”: Philosophical Essays” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2015) 211–230. See Anthony Kaldellis, Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007) 121–143. A notable case is the destruction of the Serapion Temple and library in Alexandria (ad June 391) by the local mob, instigated by the Emperor Theodosius i (Cod. Theod. 16.10.10-11) and the patriarch Theophilus. See Rufinus, he 2.23, Socrates Scholasticus, he, 5.26-27, Sozomen, he, 7.15, 20. Other temples were destroyed (Eunap. vs 472.; Theodoret, he 5.22). Cf. Oros. 6.15.31. For the murder of the Neoplatonist philosopher and mathematician Hypatia, by a Christian mob in Alexandria (ad 415), see Nancy Nietupski,

Introduction

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as well as popular) was admittedly not conducive to the preservation of the ancient world, it was thanks to the Christian espousal of Greek texts that not a few of them have been preserved, so that a canon of pagan, non-representative body of texts was maintained in a new curriculum.12 Among other hindrances in the study of ancient morality is the fact that many of the philosophical ideas and texts concerning morality (both before Plato and in the Hellenistic period) are lost, and only fragmentarily preserved in later texts.13 The fact that almost all extant sources are literary, that is, artistically (and even artificially) created, is also an obstacle to understanding popular morality; these sources may not reflect authentic popular attitudes. In his well-known volume on Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle, Kenneth Dover attempted to bypass certain of these problems and arrive at what “most people” say and think.14 While his methodology is to be commended, there are still various problems that must be acknowledged in attempting to fathom a better understanding of this facet of ancient life.15 Of course, the value judgments and attitudes of philosophers may reflect popular morality or even influence it, either immediately or after a great period of time, but the two are notionally dissimilar.

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“Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician, Astronomer and Philosopher”, in David Fideler (ed.), Alexandria 2 (Grand Rapids, mi: Phanes Press, 1993) 45–56. See Doron Mendels, Memory in Jewish, Pagan and Christian Societies of the Graeco-Roman World (London: T & T Clark, 2004) 1–29. For discussions on what is to be adopted and what discarded by Christians from pagan culture see Tertulian, De Idol. 10.5-7; St. Basil, Advice to the Young on Reading Greek Literature, 1–2; St. Augustine, On Christian Teaching (= De doctrina christiana) 2.139-46. See Gerard L. Ellspermann, The Attitude of the Early Christian Latin Writers toward Pagan Literature and Learning (Washington, dc: Catholic University Press, 1949) 23–42, 174–247. The basis for the initial appropriation of elements of Greek culture by early Christians was the fiction (first voiced by Hellenistic Jews) that the Greeks stole all the respectable facets of their culture from the Old testament (a play on the barbarian wisdom motif). Later, in the 4th century, the religious character of Greek art and literature had to be artificially forgotten in order for it to survive in form and to serve the new faith in instruction. See Kaldellis (2007) 154–170. See Jaap Mansfeld, “Sources”, in Anthony A. Long (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge University Press 1999) 22–44; Jaap Mansfeld, “Sources”, in Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfeld and Malcolm Schofield (eds.), The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge University Press 1999) 3–30. Dover (1974) 5–7, 43–4, 58–60. Cf. Christopher Charles Whiston Taylor, “Popular Morality and Unpopular Philosophy”, in Elizabeth M. Craik (ed.), Owls to Athens: Essays on Classical Subjects Presented to Sir Kenneth Dover (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1990) 233–43. Arthur William Hope Adkins, “Problems in Greek Popular Morality”, Review of K.J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle”, CPh 73 (1978) 143–158.

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Scholars have noted other methodological problems involved in the study of ancient pagan religion or ancient aesthetic values from the sources we possess.16 Even the different semantic fields of concepts like “Beauty”, “Bravery” or “Glory” are not phenomenologically given in our ancient texts and must be discovered and defined by scholars.17 There is no unanimous scholarly opinion on these matters or indeed on the vexed question whether the ancients even defined the notions of “religion” or “sexuality/gender” or aesthetic appreciation as we do. Without even attempting to encompass the entire vexed and vast issue comprehensively, or to assume that the ancient value system could ever be condensed into a series of brief observations, we may note three important marks of ancient Classical mentality concerning what is morally (and aesthetically) prescribed. This last vague concept (“ancient Classical mentality”) is taken here as broadly as possible in terms of periodisation (8th century bce till the 4th or 5th centuries ce), geography (Greek and Latin speaking world, mainly Mediterranean and in areas where cultural Greek and Roman influence extended) and the agents/social strata involved (from various sectors and groups, mostly from free members of society).18 The first of these three characteristics is the idea of balance, whereby a balance of character is to be achieved between extremes, deemed as vices. This line of thought is most characteristic of the Platonic idea of (mild, not utter) suppression of passions/irrational side by reason19 or the Aristotelian 16

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Religion: Thomas Harrison, “Greek Religion and Literature”, in Daniel Ogden (ed.), A Companion to Greek Religion (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell 2007) 373–84. See Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, Vol. 1: A History (Cambridge University Press 1996) 4: “Judged by our own Standards of historical ‘accuracy’, these ancient accounts of early Rome and its religion are inadequate and misleading”; 9: “Some of the documents … are almost certainly fictional reconstructions or inventions”. Ancient aesthetics: Eleonora Rocconi, “Music and Dance in Greece and Rome” in Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell 2015) 81–93. See Umberto Eco, History of Beauty, translated by A. McEwen (New York: Rizzoli 2004) 39; David Konstan, “Beauty”, in Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell 2015) 366–80; yet, cf. Drew A. Hyland, Plato and the Question of Beauty (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press 2006) 3–4. Cf. Hardwick (2003) 3. For a different presentation, listing eight characteristic points in the ethical thought of Aristotle, see Rosalind Hursthouse, “Aristotle’s Ethics, Old and New” in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, ma: WileyBlackwell, 2008b) 428–39. Plato on balance between parts of the soul and finding the right measure: see Plat. Tim. 41cd, Phaedr. 247c-e, Polit. 284e, Rep. 4.441e-442b, 443c–e, 444de, 9.589ab, Leg. 632a–643a;

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“doctrine of the mean” (i.e., that excellence of character is a state between two vices).20 This also applies to finding the right measure between the individual and society, the private and public, man and nature and so forth. One might say that this idea has a classical formulation in the dictum written on the Delphic temple of Apollo: meden agan (‘nothing in excess’). Vice would generally be construed as the opposite of this balance, but in certain unique contexts and circumstances it is the un-balanced which is admired and noteworthy; this is as a rule applies to mythological situations and heroes, who almost by definition have to be “larger than life” figures and serve as models because of their uniqueness. The second sign of virtue entails completeness, both in the sense of excluding partiality or isolation (unity) and in the sense of fulfillment of nature (entirety). This is true of the place of the person in larger units, like his or her family, community and natural surroundings or the cosmos.21 One form of this mark of virtue stresses the completeness of life-span.22 This attitude also

20

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22

See Terry Penner, “The Unity of Virtue”, Philosophical Review 82 (1973) 35–68; John M. Cooper, Reason and Emotion. Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1999) chs. 4–5; Gábor Betegh, “Cosmological Ethics in the Timaeus and early Stoicism”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 24 (2003) 273–302; Giovanni R.F. Ferrari, “The Three-Part Soul”, in Giovanni R.F. Ferrari (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 165–201 [181]. Cf. Plut. Mor. Virt. 443d. Aristotelian Doctrine of the Mean: Arist. ne 2.3.1.1104b3-8, 2.6.7.1106b6–2.7.2.1107a31, 2.7.9. 1108b11-2.9.2.1109a23, 3.6.1.1115a26-3.11.8.1119b18, 4.5.1-2.1125b21-25; ee 2.31220b21–1221a12, 2.3-4.1222a22-b4, 3.1.1228a26-b38, 1229a11-b25, 1230b9-20, 3.2.1230b21-1231b2, 3.5.1233a16-30, 3.7.1234a34-b13. See William Francis Ross Hardie, “Aristotle’s Doctrine That Virtue Is a ‘Mean’”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 65 (1964–1965) 183–204; James O. Urmson, “Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean”, American Philosophical Quarterly 10 (1973) 223–30; Anselm Winfried Müller, “Aristotle’s Conception of Ethical and Natural Virtue: How the Unity Thesis Sheds Light on the Doctrine of the Mean”, in Jan Szaif and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (eds.), Was Ist Das Für den Menschen Gute? / What is Good for a Human Being? (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1986) 18–53; Douglas S. Hutchinson, “Doctrines of the Mean and the Debate concerning Skills in Fourth century Medicine, Rhetoric and Ethics”, in Robert J. Hankinson (ed.), Method, Medicine and Metaphysics (Edmonton: ­Academic, 1988) 17–52. See the Stoic ideal of life in accordance or in agreement with nature as a criterion of selection (Diog. Laert. 7.87-8, Chrysippus), Epict. Diss. 2.6.9-10, Marc. Aurel. 5.3.2, 7.11, 56, 9.1.9. Cf. Cic. Fin. 3.6.20, 3.9.31. See Gisela Striker, “Following Nature: A Study in Stoic Ethics”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 9 (1991) 1–73; John M. Cooper, “Eudaimonism, the Appeal to Nature, and ‘Moral Duty’ in Stoicism”, in Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting (eds.), Aristotle, Kant and the Stoics (Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Press, 1996) 261–84. See “Solon” in Hdt. 1.30-32. Arist. ne 1098a: “to be happy takes a complete lifetime”. On the Epicurean ideal of complete life with the attainment of highest pleasure, and that ­living

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a­ dvocates taking into account the entirety of the human person, that is, either the rational capacity alone or his or her rational, physical, sensual and emotional aspects all at once, so that one element should not come at the complete expense of another—which also links this feature with the idea of balance. As above, there were instances where it was the incomplete or the fragmentary which was underscored as virtuous, having ideological or artistic significance. One famous example is the Olympieum, or the Temple of Olympian Zeus, in the city of Athens, begun by the Peisistratids, around 520 bce. Only the platform and columns were completed when Hippias was ousted (510 bce) and work on it was discontinued. For centuries (till the reign of Hadrian in the 2nd century ce), the foundations of the Temple of Zeus were still laid bare and unfinished, a memory of the failed Athenian tyranny.23 A third aspect of ancient virtue concerns the notion of happiness (eudaimonia) as the aim of life.24 Virtue was considered linked with happiness, whether as a necessary and sufficient requirement to attain it (Plato’s Socrates; the Stoics who believed virtue to be identical with happiness); necessary, but with insufficient means to attain it (Aristotle); generating it (Epicurus) or its major constituent (Plato).25 One unique aspect to the ancient moral thought is

23 24 25

prudently goes together with living pleasurably see Letter to Menoeceus 132, Principal Doctrines 5, 20–21. See Julia Annas, “Epicurus on Pleasure and Happiness”, Philosophical Topics, 15 (1987) 5–21; Stephen E. Rosenbaum, “Epicurus on Pleasure and the Complete Life”, Monist 73 (1990) 21–41 [36–7]; Glenn Lesses, “Happiness, Completeness, and Indifference to Death in Epicurean Ethical Theory”, Apeiron 35 (2002) 57–68; Benjamin A. Rider, “Epicurus on the Fear of Death and the Relative Value of Lives”, Apeiron 47 (2014) 461–84. Cf. Lucret. 3.951–63. Failed Tyranny: See Arist. Polit. 5.1313b23. Hadrian: Pausanias, 1.18.6; Philostratus, vs 533; Cassius Dio 69.16.1. See Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1993); Mark Andrew Holowchak, Happiness and Greek Ethical Thought (New York: Continuum 2004). Plato’s Socrates: Meno 88c, Crito 47e-48b; Gorgias 470e. See Gregory Vlastos, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press) 204, 231. But cf. Terence H. Irwin, “Socrates the Epicurean?” Illinois Classical Studies 11 (1986a) 85–112 and Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith, Plato’s Socrates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) 104–36. The extreme position of the Stoics (Diog. Laert. 7.89, 127–8) ignored the value of external goods, as health, wealth or friends to obtain happiness, and cast them as “indifferents” (adiaphora): Cic. Acad. 1.36–7, Off. 3.21-28, Fin. 3.45-8, Stoic Paradoxes 6-19; Diog. Laert. 7.102-3; Arius Didymus ap. Stobaeus, Ecl, 2.77.16-19; Epict. 3.24.17. See Terence H. Irwin, “Stoic and Aristotelian conceptions of happiness”, in Malcolm Schofield and Gisela Striker (eds.), The Norms of Nature: Studies in Hellenistic Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press/Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de L’Homme, 1986b) 205–44; Anthony A. Long, “The Logical Basis of Stoic Ethics”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 71 (1970–71) 95–6; Annas (1993) 388–411. Aristotle emphasised the significance

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the use of the model of the virtuous; that is, what virtuous behaviour the virtuous agent (“the wise man”) would adopt in order to be happy. There were certainly other moral theories and popular approaches which tended to disregard these precepts and to adopt an intentionally contrary and provocative position. For instance the so-called Cynic, Cyrenaic or Sceptic schools, either challenged the idea of balance and completeness or denied that happiness is the end of life (and that virtue is required for it).26 Whether intellectually or psychologically stimulated, these attitudes are to be seen as confrontationally introduced against the background of the three earlier ­notions,

26

of these external elements: en 1099b5-6; see Julia Annas, “Aristotle on Virtue and Happiness”, in Nancy Sherman (ed.), Aristotle’s Ethics: Critical Essays (Lanham, md: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999) 35–56. See Zeno’s definition of happiness as the “good flow of life” (Stob. Ecl. 2.77.20–1). For Epicurus, happiness was in the freedom from pain and distress (an endurable state of detached tranquility = ataraxia), and a by-result for the virtuous life of pleasure: Letter to Menoeceus, 122, 129–130, 132; Diog. Laert. 10.138. This freedom from anxiety will outweigh bodily pain (see Diog. Laert. 10.22, 118; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.41). See Annas (1987) 5–21. In his Republic, Plato attempts to show that the just is happier: see Richard D. Parry, “The Unhappy Tyrant and the Craft of Inner Rule” in Giovanni R.F. Ferrari (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 386–414. See Donald Morrison, “The Happiness of the City and the Happiness of the Individual in Plato’s Republic”, Ancient Philosophy 21 (2001) 1–24. Even the Cynic school asserted that virtue, in living according to nature, i.e., simple life, is conducive to happiness (Diog. Laert. 6.70-71). Cf. Max. Tyr. Diss. 3.9; cf. Dio Chr. 6.8-15. William Desmond, Cynics (Stocksfield: Acumen, 2008) 149, 157–8, 161. Thus, Diogenes the Cynic preferred nature against convention (Diog. Laert. 6.22, 6.38, 6.54, 6.71-2 etc.); see Desmond (2008) 71–161. Cf. Farrand Sayre, The Greek Cynics (Baltimore, MD: J.H. Furst Company, 1948) 68–83 on the legend of Diogenes. The Pyrrhonian Sceptics called for an epistemic suspension of judgment about what is good by nature (Diog. Laert. 9.62), and thus adopted and avoided certain cultural dogmatic precepts only as they appeared (Diog. Laert. 9.108, Sext. Emp. Outlines of Pyrrhonism 1.21-24). See Mark McPherran, “Ataraxia and Eudaimonia in Ancient Pyrrhonism: Is the Sceptic Really Happy?” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 5 (1989) 135–71; id. “Pyrrhonism’s Arguments against Value”, Philosophical Studies 60 (1990) 127–42; Gisela Striker, “Ataraxia: Happiness as Tranquillity”, Monist 73 (1990) 97–110. The Cyrenaics aimed at satisfying the immediate, particular pleasures (Diog. Laert. 2.87), and not at happiness per se, which was at best the by-product or the sum of these pleasures (Ath. 12.544a; Eus. pe 14.18.31). See Terence H. Irwin, “Aristippus against Happiness”, The Monist 74 (1991) 55–82; cf. the opposite view of Voula Tsouna, “Is There an Exception to Greek Eudaemonism?”, in Monique Canto-Sperber and Pierre Pellegrin (eds.), Le style de la pensée (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2002) 464–89. Cf. Tim O’Keefe, “The Cyrenaics on Pleasure, Happiness, and Future-­Concern”, Phronesis 47 (2002) 395–41 and Ugo Zilioli, The Cyrenaics (Durham: Acumen, 2012) 149, 163–4.

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and their existence should also be taken into account when ancient set of values are treated. To these features of the Classical ancient thought, we should add ancient Jewish attitude and thought, which are also included in the present study of reception. Again, the concept “Jewish” should be taken as broadly as possible, as a belief and cult system that ultimately stems from the divine commandments prescribed in the Bible, especially the ethical Decalogue (Exodus 20:2–17, Deuteronomy 5:6–21).27 It applies to Jews in the areas mentioned above, as well as in territories of the Achaemenid and Sassanian Persian Empires or the Seleucid and Parthian kingdoms in the east; the locations relevant to this volume would be the Land of Israel, Egyptian Alexandria and Babylon (broadly defined), and the period is that of the so called Second Temple era (largely extended to cover the years 516 bce to 135 ce).28 The notions of virtue and vice applicable here ultimately go to the biblical injunctions and their interpretations in the period signaling the beginning of Rabbinic literature.29 This introduction of the ancient Jewish example into discussions of reception of antiquity thus broadens the concept of the “Classical”. On this point, it should also be noted that this is far from new. Hellenized Jews (especially from Alexandria) attempted to find parallels and points of contact between Jewish beliefs and the ethics, if not the

27

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Again, the literature is vast. See Alan L. Mittleman, A Short History of Jewish Ethics: ­Conduct and Character in the Context of Covenant (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) 16–51. For pre-exilic ethics, see the classic treatment of Max Weber, Ancient Judaism (Trans. and ed. H.H. Gerth And D. Martindale) (New York: Free Press, 1952) 235–50. This period saw the intense debate between the Pharisees and Sadducees religious sects centered on the question of authority and values. While the former claimed that the Oral Law was part of the Mosaic Law, equal to the written one (cf. Talmud, Bava Batra 12b; Yoma 80a; Menachot 35a), the latter have been typically portrayed as considering obligatory only the observances which are contained in the Torah (Josephus, Ant. 13.10.6). See Lee I. Levine, “The Political Struggle between Pharisees and Sadducees in the Hasmonean Period”, in Aharon Oppenheimer, Uriel Rappaport, and Menahem Stern (eds.), Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period, Abraham Schalit Memorial Volume (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute/ Ministry of Defence, 1980) 61–83. Out of the ruins of the Second Temple in the year 70 ce emerged a new Judaism, which had to come to terms with the crisis in spiritual renewal, which initiated the Midrashic, Mishnaic and Talmudic literature. See Alexander Guttmann, Rabbinic Judaism in the Making (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1970); Jacob Neusner, Early Rabbinic Judaism: Historical Studies in Religion, Literature and Art (Brill: Leiden, 1975); Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish Sectarianism”, Hebrew Union College Annual 55 (1984) 27–53. See Mittleman (2012) 52–87.

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religious-philosophical principles held by polytheistic Greeks.30 Since ancient Judaism, even in its Hellenized form, was strictly speaking a different culture than the classical pagan one, these attempts may thus be construed as an early example of reception of Greek philosophy and culture.

Modern Popular Culture and Reception Studies

The last example brings us to the forms of reception studied here. What exactly is the relation between the past and the present in Classical Reception Studies? One approach would privilege the past, and interpret modern modes of reception as merely influenced by the past event. This approach lays weight on the historical settings of that moment in the past (historicism); among its assumptions would be that the paths to the ancient period are given, and that the past can be established as it really was (positivism), before tracing its influence on the later period.31 On the other extreme there lies the view that privileges the present (presentism, as Martindale calls it).32 According to this approach, the past always changes in accordance with the current modern perceptions, which are in a better position to lend it its real significance.33 According to the former view, the concept of “modern” may in a narrow sense simply 30

Thus, in the Letter to Aristeas (2nd century bc), the Jewish Law (Torah) is said to moderate action, which is taken to signify “the middle course”, “the best course to pursue” (122); it enhances principles of piety and righteousness (131), promote pure contemplation of the one God (158–160, 286) and dietary laws which are aimed to advance thought on the meaning of life (154); the Torah is designed to promote justice, and the Bible has not been written thoughtlessly or without due reason (168). See Victor Tcherikover, “The Ideology of the Letter of Aristeas”, Harvard Theological Review 51 (1958) 59–85. Philo of Alexandria (d. c. ad 50) adapted the Platonic idea of soul likened to the divine (Philo, Leg. 2. 95; Det. 29; Ebr. 70; Her. 84; Mut. 184; Somn. 1. 34), confined inside the material body and whose goal is to return to its source through the moral instruction found in the bible, interpreted allegorically (e.g., Abraham, the immigrant symbolising the departure from sensuality to reason: De Migratione Abrahami, 4) to commend life in agreement with nature. See David T. Runia, “God and man in Philo of Alexandria”,  JThS 39 (1988) 48–75. 31 See the criticism of Charles Martindale, Redeeming the Text: Latin Poetry and the Hermeneutics of Reception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993). 32 See Martindale (2006) 3, 5. 33 William W. Batstone, “Provocation: The Point of Reception Theory”, in Martindale and ­Thomas (2006) (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) 19: “while the material text remains the same, the received text always changes”. See Kennedy (2006) 289: “The writer’s text is refashioned in its reception in the name of understanding”; 290: “The effect of this is to grant an epistemological confidence to the here and

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mean the accidental feature of its postdating the ancient, being postclassical, and the recent period under consideration (from the Latin modo, modernus). According to the latter approach, there is something unique to the modern era which defines itself by the notion of newness or novelty, in areas of technology or scientific progress. This feature marks this period as better.34 One well known understanding of the modern period as allegedly superior to the past is its association with notion of “secular”.35 Yet, this association does not necessarily imply “better” and it may not be the only one. The present volume is concerned with the culture that has emerged in Europe and America and hence described as “Western”.36 When we speak of modern Western civilisation, we have to concede that according to one dominant view, its origins come from principles held by pious followers of the sacred books and from the injunctions or stories told within them (the so called “Judeo-Christian” precepts, which go back to the example of Hellenized Jews mentioned above).37

34 35

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now in relation to the past”. Kennedy connects this view with realism, the belief that there is a “real” meaning in the ancient text, hidden but “discovered” in the act of reception. In the terminology of Martindale (2006) 8, it “supersedes” the past. See Kennedy (2006) 289: “supersedes” suggests “later and superior”, maybe even “later and thereby superior”. This was a belief common among leading 19th (and 20th) century intellectuals like Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud, namely, that with the features of modernity (bureaucratisation, rationalisation, waning of the community, scientific progress, advancement in technology, the rise of education or urbanisation), religion will universally and increasingly weaken and lose its authority, social power and cultural importance, and religious beliefs, practices or religiosity will fade in face of rationality. See Steve Bruce, Religion and Modernization: Sociologists and Historians Debate the Secularization Thesis (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1992) 170–194. Cf. Charles Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959) 32–33 (brought by Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004) 3): “Once the world was filled with the sacred—in thought, practice, and institutional form. After … the forces of modernization swept across the globe and secularization, a corollary historical process, loosened the dominance of the sacred. In due course, the sacred shall disappear altogether except, possibly, in the private realm”. See Jeffrey Cox, “Secularization and other master narratives of religion in modern Europe”, Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 14 (2001) 24–35. For non-western examples of classical reception, see, e.g., Lorna Hardwick and Carol Gillespie (eds.), Classics in Post-colonial Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Emily Greenwood, Afro-Greeks: Dialogues Between Anglophone Caribbean Literature and Classics in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). The concept “Jewish-Christian” is already found in the 17th century (William Rathband’s A Briefe Narration of Some Church Courses held in opinion and practise in the churches lately erected in New England (London, 1644), described as “one bride”, cf. Rev. 19:7), but

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Indeed, among the interesting variants of the secularisation theory, the model of Karl Löwith stresses that progress is in fact a secularisation of these Jewish and Christian beliefs: “philosophy of history is … entirely dependent on theology of history, in particular on the theological concept of history as a history of fulfillment and salvation”,38 so that there is no rupture between the modern mind and the past, although there is a break between paganism and Jewish-Christian faith.39 This model still presents a linear scheme concerning modernity, in which there is an unbreakable chain between our modern western culture and its beginnings (Jewish/Christian in Löwith’s scheme) in ancient times. An alternative model would be that proposed by Hans Blumenberg, to the effect that the modern and ancient (coupled with medieval) cultures are two distinct and independent epochs, without historical continuity, the modern characterised by a reaction to theological absolutism.40 Löwith and Blumenberg therefore display two variants of “presentism”, but define the notion of “present” differently and draw the dividing line between the epochs at different points. The concept of “popularity” adds another dimension to the understanding of the relation between the past and the present. It has two aspects which should be considered. One is formal, the means which enables widespread access to a varied and manifold people (populus). Modernity has introduced various sophisticated modes of communication and transportation, which make it distinct from ancient, pre-modern channels of interaction.41 One notable means is the use of mass media (newspapers, film, theater, radio, t­ elevision, Internet gained currency in the 19th century as a theological term, and a cultural and ethical significance in the 20th. See Mark Silk, “Notes on the Judeo-Christian Tradition in America”, American Quarterly 36 (1984) 65–85. 38 Karl Löwith, Meaning in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957) 1. See Karl Löwith, “Mensch und Menschenwelt”, in Karl Löwith, Gesammelte Abhandlungen. Zur Kritik der geschichtlichen Existenz (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1960) 254: the modern attitude is only a secularisation of the Christian saeculum, turning worldly the world that Christianity had rendered un-wordly [“Verweltlichung der entweltlichten Welt”]. See Rodolphe Gasché, “The Remainders of Faith: On Karl Löwith’s Conception of Secularization”, in Babette Babich and Dimitri Ginev (eds.), The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology (New York: Springer, 2014) 339–58. 39 Löwith (1957) 221–2. See Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age ([1966] trans. Robert M. Wallace; Cambridge, ma : mit Press, 1983) 27–29. 40 See Blumenberg (1983) 125–228. Cf. Hans Blumenberg, The Genesis of the Copernican World ([1975] trans. Robert M. Wallace; Cambridge, ma : mit Press, 1987) 157. 41 See Laszlo Solymar, Getting the Message: A History of Communications (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999) 7–19.

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etc.).42 Other descriptions stress the components of widespread consumption in a market-based economy.43 Another facet of “formal” popularity is the active participation of a larger number of people in the reception than in the premodern society. The massive participation in or reaction to art works/events have changed the very notion of “popular” to be flexible and all-­encompassing, so that sometimes the very presence of an artefact in a context which in theory could be reachable to a wide audience makes it popular, regardless of actual figures of spectators.44 It was this aspect that came under attack in the moral criticism of the Neo Marxist Frankfurt School, which even used the terms “culture industry” and “mass culture” instead of “popular culture”. This was because in their opinion, the current culture did not come from the people, but was rather manufactured, market-tested and spread in the interest of capitalist market mechanism, by means of manipulating mass consciousness.45 A different view was introduced by Walter Benjamin,46 who saw popular culture as a positive development, in that the masses’ accessibility made the exclusive “aura” component accompanying works of art disappear, and thus no longer limited to the hands of higher social classes; this process was regarded as tantamount to a democratisation of arts and the liberation of imagination. The second aspect concerns the content of the popular work or event. In order for its substance to be accessible and understandable to as many people as possible, the content should be simplified. In the field of reception, it signifies that the message has to be clear and direct for it to reach its audience. This fact means that some complexity is lost by an appeal to the lower common denominator. This trait accounts for the aspect of visualisation and a­ ccessibility, 42 43

44

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46

See Ken Ward, Mass Communication and the Modern World (London: Palgrave, 1989) 1­ 0–12, 25–26, 39–40, 49–50, 58–60, 128, 137, 142, 184. See Raymond F. Betts, A History of Popular Culture: More of Everything, Faster and Brighter (London and New York: Routledge, 2004) ix, 1–4, 145–7. See Bernard Waites, Tony Bennett and Graham Martin (eds.), Popular Culture: Past and Present (London: Croom Helm and Open University Press, 1982) 15: “specific to societies where the market economy has penetrated most forms of cultural production and consumption”. This fact is not far from Marshall McLuhan’s famous aphorism that “medium is the message” (Understanding Media (Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1964) 7–23). See the overview in Deepak Nayyar, Modern Mass Communication (Concepts and Processes) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 99–106. Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “The Schema of Mass Culture”, in Jay Bernstein (ed.), The Culture Industry (London: Routledge 1991) 61–97; See Robert W. Witkin, Adorno on Popular Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 2003) 2, 47. Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, in Walter Benjamin, Illuminations (London: Fontana 1992) 211–44.

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stressed by several scholars as the sign of popular culture.47 It was this simplification, closely related to standardisation and repetition, which led Adorno and the Frankfurt School to castigate this culture as “pseudo-culture”, where the artefacts produced in it were not coherent vital “organisms”, as in high-culture, but merely collections of separate contents generating atomised effects on the souls of desociated individuals.48 One of the criticisms levelled against popular media was thus this charge of lowering standards.49 It has been extended against modern adaptations of Classical works, and is voiced as a warning against the present scholarly field, in that the study of these forms of acclimatisation seems to aim at an audience unfamiliar with the ancient texts,50 or in media which was alien to the ancients.51 On the other hand, some scholars have approved of what is termed as the “democratic turn”, in which the Classics were taken down from a cultural Mount Olympus, as it were, and from the connotation of elitist Classics and the superior scriptores classici (Aul. Gel. na 19.8.15), to be discussed in modern new contexts and as received by less privileged groups.52 Without commenting on the political or moral side of popularity introduced by mass media, it is our belief that there is in fact no grim vision of lowering of standards in culture when it comes to Classical reception: while the spectators/readers may not all be familiar with nuances of the classical allusions, they may be aware of the reference; similarly, while some form of complexity is lost, another is 47

Cf. Jean Baudrillard, America (trans. Chris Turner, New York: Verso, 1988), who mentions the dominant qualities of contemporary American culture as “kinetic” and “cinematic”, i.e., fast and visual. Betts (2004) xi, terms this culture “kaleidoscopic”. 48 In the process, people becomes dependent and conformist consumers, geared towards fetishisation, without autonomy. Theodor W. Adorno, “Theory of Pseudo-Culture”, Telos 95 (1993[1959]) 15–39. Witkin (2003) 22–4, 29–31, 43–4, 47, 59, 65, 134, 177. See Theodor W. Adorno, “On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening”, in Jay Bernstein (ed.), The Culture Industry (London: Routledge 1991) 26–52. 49 This was a moral charge against the ‘commodification (marketability) of art and culture’. See Nayyar (2007) 88–93 on Marcuse’s criticism: the media makes the public into “a clientele by the suppliers of popular culture”, annul the public sphere, deprive the individual of his or her autonomy and will leave the public out of political discussion. Common to all these approaches is the view that culture is destroyed in order to make entertainment. 50 See Hardwick and Stray (2008a) 2–3. Martindale (2006) 11: “in general material of high quality is better company for our intellects and hearts than the banal or the quotidian”. 51 Cf. Hardwick and Stray (2008a) 9. 52 Ibid. 3. Less privileged groups: see Edith Hall, “Putting the Class into Classical Reception” in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008b) 386–97.

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introduced. Hence, the study of the reception of the Classical world in popular culture is an intellectually enriching and fascinating field.53 The classical heritage remains pivotal, and indeed in many modern examples, the issue of belonging to Western cultural heritage is central. As we shall see in the studies presented in our volume, the question of belonging appears in various forms in the subject matter of the adaptations and is reflected in the very media, involving the participation or appreciation of the spectators/ readers. Nevertheless, there is more than one way of studying the interactions of the ancient and modern value systems.54 One means of research is tracing a diachronic or developmental process from the old era to the modern popular one, however intricate this historical approach might be. Historicism properly belongs here, as the focus is on the original past moment of the creation and the subsequent history as stemming from it. The “tradition” approach may easily fit in here as well.55 The second is by a synchronic comparison, which takes into account “ideal types” (to use a Weberian sociological notion)56 of the two cultures (the old and 53

Peter Burke, “The classical tradition and popular culture in early modern Europe”, in Les intermédiaires culturels: actes du Colloque du Centre méridional d’histoire social, des mentalités et des cultures, 1978 (Aix-en-Provencem 1981) 237–44; Siobhán McElduff, “Fractured Understanding: Towards a History of Classical Reception Among Non-Elite Groups”, in Martindale and Thomas (2006) 180–191. 54 See Hardwick and Stray (2008a) 5. 55 Note the image of Highet (1949) 541: “We have traced the river of Greek and Roman influence in literature”. The river flows in one direction only. 56 According to Weber, the ideal type (Idealtypus) is a generic concept, a clear model, which is formed by the one-sided accentuation of a certain point of view which arranges many concrete individual phenomena into one, unified construct (Gedankenbild). It is a concept which relates to phenomena with value or meaning (to ideas believed to exist in a certain particular culture), complicated historical patterns, and as such not subsumed under laws. This heuristic analytical tool is not to be found in reality, but in proximity to it; as an ideal limiting concept, reality is compared with it to gain understanding of the uniqueness and significance of cultural events. See Thomas Burger, Max Weber’s Theory of Concept Formation (Durham, nc: Duke University Press 1987). See also Rolf Rogers, Max Weber’s Ideal Type Theory (New York: Philosophical Library, 1969); Susan J. Hekman, “Weber’s Ideal Type: A Contemporary Reassessment”, Polity 16 (1983) 119–37; Tore Lindbekk, “The Weberian Ideal-Type: Development and Continuities”, Acta Sociologica 35 (1992) 285–97. See John W.N. Watkins, “Ideal Types and Historical Explanation”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 3 (1952) 22–43. On an application of this methodology in an ethnographic study, see Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Ethnography: Principles in Practice (London and New York: Routledge 1983) 195–97.

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the modern one), and sees the parallel approaches in the two value ­systems. This last method does not imply a cyclical historical perception known in antiquity,57 or a “natural” approach to civilisation introduced by Spengler or Toynbee,58 in which cultures are the same in that they begin, rise, reach their apex and then decline and disappear. The latter approaches, however, may be interesting to think with, given the (temporal) gap between the two sets of values, the analogical parallels which are found in the comparison between them, and the focus on the receiving culture and not on any cross-cultural “tradition”. In a way, this comparative approach goes well with “presentism”. The model to be prescribed in Classical Reception Studies is perhaps a combination of these two, which provides us with a “golden mean”, as it were.59 The scholarly field deals not only with the manner ancient images and texts are disseminated in modern culture, but also with the way these very images and texts are transformed, and are in constant change, because of this dissemination.60 There is a reciprocal dimension between the ancient and modern that exists in the reception of the Classical world, by which the gap between the two worlds 57

E.g., Thuc. 1.22.4, 3.82.2, Plat. Polit. 269cd, Laws 3.67ab, Arist. Polit. 5, Polyb. 6.2-10, 51, 57. See Robert Marchal, “Le retour éternel”, Archives Philosophiques, 3 (1925) 55–91; Arnaldo Momigliano, “Time in Ancient Historiography”, History and Theory 6 (1966) 1–23; Chester G. Starr, “Historical and Philosophical Time”, History and Theory 6 (1966) 24–35. 58 Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (vol. 1: 1918, vol 2: 1923, The Decline of The West) (trans. C.F. Atkinson) (New York: Knopf, 1932) 1.104–113, 424 and tables; 2.35– 37, 435), rejected the linear paradigm of historical epochs in favour of (eight) cultures (1.36–7), perceived as living organisms with their own pattern of growth and decay (a life cycle of childhood, youth, maturity [“Civilisation”] and old age), each culture with a span of a thousand years and each with the same stages. Spengler denied a diachronic approach to the relation between cultures, in which one is trying to absorb alien ideas from another (which he termed as “historical pseudomorphosis”, 2.189–94). Toynbee has 21 civilisations, each with a similar pattern of rise, decline (when faced with external and internal threats) and fall; yet, he seems to hope there is a way (for man or God) to break the cycle. Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History, 12 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934–61) vol, 6, 320, vol. 8, 525, vol. 9, 630. See James Joll, “Two Prophets of the Twentieth Century: Spengler and Toynbee”, Review of International Studies 11 (1985) 91–104; David L. McNaughton, “Spengler’s philosophy, and its implication that Europe has ‘lost its way’”, Comparative Civilizations Review 67 (2012) 7–15. 59 See Martindale (2006) 9: “value from different times and places in the past are available in the here and now, with the result we are not doomed either to a narrow and relentless presentism or to any form of historical teleology”. 60 Cf. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

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is largely diminished.61 The way modern society treats the distant culture of the past resembles an “ethnographic” investigation and the “translation” of one society to the other. Since one feature of ethnography is that of perspective and vantage point,62 and since descriptions are always told of one group from the viewpoint of the other, theoretically, the two sides can interchange, so that one group objectified in an “etic” account can in its turn describe the other.63 The combined approaches of presentism and historicism may be analogically presented in an interesting interpretation of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives (Paralleloi Bioi), in which a hero from Greek history (or mythology) is paired with one from Roman history (or mythology). In one sense, the two Lives, which artistically should be read as one work, imply a diachronic approach, as most pairs begin with the previous Greek protagonist and move on to the Roman one, thereby signalling the heritage of Greece in Rome. In the transition between the two, we see how the Greek hero is received in Rome (for instance, Alexander by Caesar, Demosthenes by Cicero). Yet, the two Lives are also separate, and insinuate a repetition of history in the recurrence of character.64 In another important sense, the two Lives present a unified Greco-Roman culture (since the Romans adopt and absorb Greek culture and paideia in various degrees), thus displaying the two histories as part of the same tradition, same set of values (in the same Greek moral vocabulary, yet still varied according to ethnicity) and the same components of the imperial identity.65 Moreover, 61 See Martindale (2006) 5: “Antiquity and modernity, present and past, are always implicated in each other, always in dialogue”. See Hardwick and Stray (2008a) 5: “dialogical relationships between reception and the analysis of the ancient contexts … the relationship between ancient and modern is reciprocal” See James I. Porter, “Reception studies: Future prospects”, in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008b) 469–81, who speaks of the constant change of the objects of reception: “Traditions of reception are dynamic processes that flow in two directions at once, both forward and backward” [474]. 62 Cf. John D. Brewer, Ethnography (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000) 49–50; Mike Crang and Ian Cook, Doing Ethnographies (London: Sage Publications Limited, 2007) 5–16. 63 Attempts at an ironic inverted ethnography are probably as old as these depictions themselves. They can be seen in Herodotus (Hdt. 7.9, cf. 7.102) or Lucian (Anach. 6). 64 For Plutarch’s complex views of history see Simon Swain, “Plutarch: Chance, Providence, and History”, AJPh 110 (1989) 272–302; Jackson P. Hershbell, “Plutarch’s Concept of History: Philosophy from Examples”, AnSoc 28 (1997) 241–43. 65 See the section entitled “Two Peoples-One Culture”, in Simon Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World ad 50–250 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) 137–44, focusing on the Parallel Lives, which contain the most obvious expression of “the notion of comparability between Greece and Rome”. See also 9, 143, 418–20. For the aim of displaying a composite picture of Greco-Roman “global history” in the Lives see Christopher B.R. Pelling, “Plutarch’s ‘Tale of Two Cities’: Do the Parallel Lives

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the two heroes may display a joint personality, each highlighting positive and negative traits, which together make an ethical model to be followed (an AlexanderCaesar or a DemosthenesCicero, so to speak).66 This is a model worth considering in Reception Studies, in which both the old and modern cultures are not treated as entirely separate, but as co-existing and affecting each other. In this model, both the historically old and the present sets of values share in the creation of the identity of the modern person who also acknowledges the significance of the past in today’s world.67

Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Popular Culture

The impetus for the conference from which this book developed was a growing recognition that ancient Greece and Rome (as well as ancient Judaism and Christianity) are rarely depicted objectively in modern popular culture, and that these ancient cultures are idealised and glorified, or demonised, according to the constantly changing needs and attitudes and the contemporary society that produces that interpretation. Our starting point was to reflect on how relevant the ancient past is to modern society, both as the heritage from which modern beliefs have evolved, and as a medium for projecting contemporary visions, not only about the ancient world, but also about ourselves. As society changes, so its ideas of morality, vice and virtue change, and depictions of the ancient world, now laden with new meanings, are one of the vehicles used to convey these altering values. Accordingly, the papers in this volume address the place of ancient morality and ancient values in modern popular culture in two contexts. The first context is the appearance of ancient virtues and vices within forms of mimetic

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combine as global histories?” in Noreen Humble (ed.), Plutarch’s Lives: Parallelism and Purpose (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales 2010) 217: “… the Lives do come together to depict ‘global history’ … [b]ut that history is valuable not for its own sake, but for the light it sheds on the individuals …”. Jacques Boulogne, “Les synkriseis de Plutarque. Une rhétorique de la synkrisis”, in Luc van der Stockt (ed.), Rhetorical Theory and Praxis in Plutarch (Louvain: Peeters, 2000) 33–44 [33–34, 41–44]. Addressing the formal comparisons (synkriseis) Boulogne proposes that they are to present an ideal picture of a “third man”, combining the two excellences of the two heroes. Thus, the paired statesmen display two embodiments of the same soul of interpersonal “self”. This may be related to Martindale’s use of Plutarch and his claim (2006) 10–11: “Plutarch could be truly alive again for us, other than as part of a purely historical inquiry … for some reader who dares break through the Zeitgeist, somewhere, who knows? Plutarch might yet change the world again”.

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performance, which re-enact the past, as it were, in the present. The first section in the first part deals with performances on stage, and the second section is concerned with the media of the screen, namely, cinema and television. The structure of the first part thus moves from a rather direct representation of the action before a relatively small audience to mass media, which involve larger crowds and in which the relationship of the action and the audience is indirect. Thus, the media addressed in the first part progress with respect of the popularity involved. It is surely no wonder that the reception of ancient values in modern performance on stage, the subject matter of the first three studies of this volume, can be more easily traced, since the medium is not new and has close connections with ancient theatrical presentation, making the contrast with modern morality more evident. Thus, in the first chapter, Lisa Maurice examines stagings of the Oresteia over the last two and a half decades, demonstrating how issues such as translation, adaptation and staging are used to promote agendas that address contemporary attitudes. Showing how different elements are emphasised as virtues or vices in accordance with current ideas, Maurice traces the influence of feminism, warfare, imperialism and fears about changing values, through the varying depictions of the House of Atreus, topics which reflect on the understanding of the Oresteia. Similarly, Hannah Roisman investigates in her study the strengths and flaws of Thornton Wilder’s play, The Alcestiad or A Life in the Sun, showing how his attempt to infuse it with Kierkegaardian philosophy leads to a subordination of character and plot that weakens the production. Thus, ironically, this rendition of the tale of sacrifice, retold by Wilder with overtones of a modern morality, sacrifices plot and characters, thereby leaving the work with little moral punch or impact. Ariadne Konstantinou shows how the Greek playwright Margarita Liberaki, in her play Candaules’ Wife, uses the Herodotean episode of Candaules, his wife and Gyges, to create a play that is a vehicle for tackling contemporary issues of gender and myth in the modern society of post-war Greece. This chapter thus plays upon the modern attempt to marry the ancient medium of the poetic drama with an ancient theme of prosaic historiography. Broadly speaking, this group of studies point at the artistic practice of instilling new content in an old form, and more precisely, of turning an ancient moralistic context into a modern moralistic product, with varying degrees of sophistication, while interweaving the old and the new. The second section in the first part of the volume is more firmly rooted in the modern period, since by definition the medium addressed is a more recent invention. The six studies included in this section progress from m ­ odern

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r­ eception of ancient texts to modern reception of ancient characters and ideas, thus paving the way towards the more notional forms of reception in Part ii. The first four studies deal with the classical Greco-Roman world, while the last two tackle Christian Biblical reality and stories. The first chapter is ostensibly a simple case of reception. Eran Almagor looks at Walter Hill’s movie The Warriors (1979), based on Sol Yurick’s novel of the same name (1965), and more importantly on Xenophon’s Anabasis. The fact that both the ancient work and the novel are significant for the understanding of the movie is demonstrated in various manners, and also by an examination of the moralistic themes noticeable in the movie and its depiction of heroes and villains. Examining how the three works interact with each other, Almagor shows how the virtues and vices of Xenophon’s original protagonists are reconstructed by both Yurick and Hill, and reinterpreted against the background of ancient and modern ideas of individualism and community. Thus, through the combined study of the two works, the ancient text and the new modern interpretation receive layers of meaning not immediately observable by the separate audiences. The next two cases address not a specific ancient text, but ancient stories. These stories are found in a group of ancient texts which respectively created images of a (semi-)divine hero and a mortal hero, namely, Hercules and Oedipus. The chapter of Emma Stafford looks at the well-known late fifth-century tale told by Prodicus of Ceos. This is the story of Hercules’ choice between two ways of life—symbolised by female figures who personify Virtue and Vice. Stafford demonstrates how the tale has exercised an unconscious influence on the genre of the peplum (or sword-and-sandal) movie. Stafford focuses on four movies, two by Pietro Francisci—Le fatiche di Ercole (1958) and Ercole e la regina di Lidia (1959)—as well as Vittorio Cottafavi’s Ercole alla Conquista di Atlantide (1961) and Giorgio Capitani’s Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibile (1964). Continuing and representing the ancient image of Prodicus, Hercules is depicted in these cinematic artifacts as facing a choice between the paths of virtue and vice, each path being embodied by a female figure. Some of Woody Allen’s films and movie segments based upon Greek tragedies are studied in Anna Foka’s chapter. The end result of these modern interpretations is a reconstruction of the myths, a dismantling of Classical Hellenic culture and a rearrangement intended for a modern 20th century (mostly New York) setting. In this manner, the Greek tragic content is transformed into a contemporary moral context, in which the comic is enhanced and with which a Jewish setting is merged. Emma Southon’s chapter turns from Greece to Imperial Rome. Southon considers two different depictions of Caligula and Drusilla: the 1976 bbc

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­adaptation of Robert Graves’s I, Claudius (1934) and the controversial pornographic movie Caligula (1979). The chapter shows the manner in which the modern popular fictional depiction develops ancient innuendos and suggestive images, brings to the fore implicit notions and thus complicates the moral problems of the ancient texts. In his chapter, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones outlines the historical reception of the figure of Salome on screen, and focuses on the portrayal of the character by Rita Hayworth in Salome (1953). Llewellyn-Jones demonstrates how the superficial morality of Hollywood star system and Hayworth’s virginal depiction of Salome, a necessary by-product of the actress’ wholesome image, conflicted with the historical tradition, influenced by Greek historiographic motifs, and the moral import of the ancient story found in the Greek biblical text. Panayiota Mini’s chapter, which concludes the first part of the volume, addresses an ancient image rather than an ancient text in two popular representations rather than one. She examines two landmark epic movies and shows how the portrayal of the female leads in The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Quo Vadis (1951) reflects important shifts in the popular discourse on female virtue in two eras of American history, the Great Depression and the aftermath of World War ii. This study in the development of modern moral ideals and values with ancient themes as the backdrop for such an exploration brings us to the second part of the volume. In all the case studies of this section we may see how old content is incorporated in a new medium and is transformed thereby. The second part of the book looks at ways in which ancient vices and virtues help shape contemporary ideas and contemporary existence. The studies in this section relate to modern moral notions and values in which the ancient world is not seen as a dead past but rather as continuing to live within modern experience. It is divided into two parts, each with three chapters, concerned with modern Greek and Jewish perspectives respectively. This division in itself highlights the tension between Judaism and ancient Greece, with “Hellenism” (in the sense of adopting the Hellenic system of values), being seen as opposed to the Jewish set of values, an important notion in the religious identity of ancient Jewish existence and a concept which still finds currency today. The first chapter in this part addresses the complex and contemporary volatile issue of Macedonian identity. Maria Pretzler deals with the influence of ancient rhetoric and images on modern cinematic depictions of Philip ii and Alexander the Great, and thus provides a link between this section and the previous one. Pretzler uses the fascinating question of the portrayal of ancient Macedonia as between barbarian and Greek values in Robert Rossen’s Alexander the Great (1956), Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004) and the tv miniseries directed by Peter Sykes, The Search for Alexander the Great (1981). In her study,

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Pretzler addresses contemporary attitudes and observes the effect of the excavations in the two royal Macedonian c​ ities of Pella and Aigai and the political upheavals surrounding the area as a result of the dispute between Greece and the now independent, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In the next chapter, Luca Asmonti examines how the topos of the Greek origins of European values has been with relation to Greece’s admittance into, and role within, the European Union. Asmonti shows how the very notion of democracy as an underlying and central value of the European Union, was flagged by Greece in the process of her entry into the European community, being the birthplace of democracy. Further, Asmonti goes beyond Greece to show the relevance of classical Athens to the modern crisis-ridden European Union, as an extraordinary model of a political space of outspoken debate and confrontation. In the final chapter of this section, Aggeliki Koumanoudi looks at the reception and continuation of Greek religious ideals and values in modern day Greece. Outlining the portrayals of the Greek God Pan in festivals and carnivals, as well as the adoption of the god by secret societies and even by political figures, Koumanoudi shows that the pagan deity is still alive and well in the modern world, where he is exploited, as he has always been, for his qualities that may be regarded variously as virtues or vices. The last three chapters address the reception of ancient Jewish values in modern Judaism and in Israel. Second Temple Judaism (a term broadly understood here) has dealt with the surrounding pagan (mostly Greek) society, culture, religion and values in two ways: a partial or entire assimilation and debate or confrontation. These two manners can be seen in the studies presented here. We start with reception modes which largely assimilate ancient Jewish traditions, memories and notions of virtue and vice to modern values. Here, more than the counterpart reception of ancient Hellenic culture and values in modern Greece, the Jewish or Israeli reception of ancient Judaism at times involves an outright and visible reversal of the ancient values. Thus, David Schaps looks at the transformation of the ancient Maccabees into Jewish musclemen and heroes in recent history. Looking at various receptions and incarnations of the Maccabees, particularly in light of Zionism, he argues that the varied depictions in the modern world each reflect the pressures and requirements of individual Jewish communities in contemporary environment. Haim Weiss, following a similar trajectory, examines the reception of the figure of Bar-Kosibah (or Bar Kochba), the leader of the Jewish revolt against Rome (132–135 ce). Weiss demonstrates the theological, nationalistic, and political significance of the depiction of this person as having unique p ­ hysical

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prowess, from ancient rabbinic times to contemporary popular literature, showing that the early rabbinical ambivalence to Bar-Kosibah is toned down in contemporary popular discourse, as he consciously became a model for the modern, strong “warrior” Jew. Finally, Gabriel Danzig examines the reception of a disputation concerning the respective values of Judaism and paganism, between Rabbi Akivah and Tineius (Turnus) Rufus, the governor of Judaea during the period leading up to the Bar-Kosibah / Bar-Kokhba revolt. Danzig discusses both the reception of Tineius Rufus and this debate in ancient Jewish literature (mostly the Talmud) and in modern day Israel. Danzig argues that both sets of receptions stem from attacks by hostile foreign nations who were depicted as polar opposites of Judaism, but also that the attacks themselves on Jewish practices influenced the response in similar ways, stimulating Jewish thinkers to be creative in their efforts to find intellectual justifications for their practices. It is with this study concerning ancient and modern receptions that we choose to end this section and indeed the volume. Not only does it show that the occupation with the ancient past and values is relevant to modern notions of identity and popular morality, but it also demonstrates the modern awareness of this very reception. Indeed, one of issues presented in the debate in the final chapter (concerning Jewish circumcision) addresses the merits of an original form (here, of nature) vs. an adapted form (conventional practice), a variant of the physis vs. nomos debate, as it were. Arguments have been voiced on both sides. Yet, the merit of the adaptation, revision or variation should not be discarded. We believe that this volume shows the value of the study of popular reception of ancient values, and the virtues of Reception Studies as a legitimate scholarly field. Bibliography Adkins, Arthur William Hope, “Problems in Greek Popular Popular Morality", Review of K.J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle”, CPh 73 (1978) 143–158. Adorno, Theodor W., “On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening”, in Jay Bernstein (ed.), The Culture Industry (London: Routledge, 1991) 26–52. Adorno, Theodor W., “Theory of Pseudo-Culture”, Telos 95 (1993 [1959]) 15–39. Adorno, Theodor W. and Max Horkheimer, “The Schema of Mass Culture”, in Jay Bernstein (ed.), The ) 61–97. Annas, Julia, “Epicurus on Pleasure and Happiness”, Philosophical Topics 15 (1987) 5–21.

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Annas, Julia, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Annas, Julia, “Aristotle on Virtue and Happiness”, in Nancy Sherman (ed.), Aristotle’s Ethics: Critical Essays (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999) 35–56. Bassi, Karen, and Peter Euben, “De-Classifying Hellenism: Untimely Mediations”, Parallax 9 (2003) 1–7. Batstone, William W., “Provocation: The Point of Reception Theory”, in Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) 14–20. Baudrillard, Jean, America (trans. Chris Turner, New York: Verso, 1988). Beard, Mary, North, John and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, Vol. 1: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations (London: Fontana, 1992). Betegh, Gábor, “Cosmological Ethics in the Timaeus and Early Stoicism”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 24 (2003) 273–302. Betts, Raymond F., A History of Popular Culture: More of Everything, Faster and Brighter (London and New York: Routledge: 2004). Blanshard, Alastair, J. L., Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity (Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) Blumenberg, Hans, The Genesis of the Copernican World ([1975] trans. Robert M. Wallace) (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987). Blumenberg, Hans, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age ([1966] trans. Robert M. Wallace; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983). Blum-West, Stephen R., “The Seriousness of Crime: A Study of Popular Morality”, Deviant Behavior 6 (1985) 83–98. Boulogne, Jacques, “Les synkriseis de Plutarque. Une rhétorique de la synkrisis”, in Luc van der Stockt (ed.), Rhetorical Theory and Praxis in Plutarch (Louvain: Peeters, 2000) 33–44. Brewer, John D., Ethnography (Buckingham, PA: Open University Press, 2000). Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith, Plato’s Socrates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). Brogan, Albert P., “A Study in Statistical Ethics”, International Journal of Ethics, 33 (1923) 119–34. Bruce, Steve, Religion and Modernization: Sociologists and Historians Debate the Secularization Thesis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). Budelmann, Felix, and Johannes Haubold, “Reception and Tradition”, in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008) 13–25. Burger, Thomas, Max Weber’s Theory of Concept Formation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 1987).

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Burke, Peter, “The Classical Tradition and Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe”, in Les intermédiaires culturels: actes du Colloque du Centre méridional d’histoire social, des mentalités et des cultures, 1978 (Aix-en-Provence: Publications de l’Université d’Aix-en-Provence, 1981) 237–44. Cohen, Shaye J.D., “The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish Sectarianism”, Hebrew Union College Annual 55 (1984) 27–53. Cooper, John M., “Eudaimonism, the Appeal to Nature, and ‘Moral Duty’ in Stoicism”, in Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting (eds.), Aristotle, Kant and the Stoics, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Press, 1996) 261–84. Cooper, John M., Reason and Emotion. Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). Cox, Jeffrey, “Secularization and Other Master Narratives of Religion in Modern Europe”, Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 14 (2001) 24–35. Crang, Mike and Ian Cook, Doing Ethnographies (London: Sage Publications Limited, 2007). Desmond, William, Cynics (Stocksfield: Acumen, 2008). Dover, Kenneth, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Oxford: ­Wiley-Blackwell, 1974). Eco, Umberto, History of Beauty (trans. A. McEwen), (New York: Rizzoli, 2004). Ellspermann, Gerard L., The Attitude of the Early Christian Latin Writers toward Pagan Literature and Learning (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1949). Ferrari, Giovanni R.F., “The Three-Part Soul”, in Giovanni R.F. Ferrari (ed.), The ­Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 165–201. Fleming, Katie, “The Use and Abuse of Antiquity: The Politics and Morality of Appropriation” in Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) 127–37. Gasché, Rodolphe, “The Remainders of Faith: On Karl Löwith’s Conception of Secularization”, in Babette Babich and Dimitri Ginev (eds.), The Multidimensionality of Hermeneutic Phenomenology (New York: Springer, 2014) 339–58. Goldhill, Simon, Who Needs Greek? Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Greenwood, Emily, Afro-Greeks: Dialogues Between Anglophone Caribbean Literature and Classics in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Guttmann, Alexander, Rabbinic Judaism in the Making (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1970). Hall, Edith, “Putting the Class into Classical Reception” in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, MA: Wiley-­ Blackwell, 2008) 386–97.

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Halliwell, Stephen, “Popular morality, Philosophical Ethics and the Rhetoric”, in Alexander Nehamas & David J. Furley (eds.), Aristotle’s “Rhetoric”: Philosophical Essays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015) 211–30. Hammersley, Martyn, and Paul Atkinson, Ethnography: Principles in Practice (London and New York: Routledge, 1983). Hardie, William Francis Ross, “Aristotle’s Doctrine That Virtue Is a ‘Mean’”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, n.s. 65 (1964–1965) 183–204. Hardwick, Lorna, Reception Studies: Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics 33 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Hardwick, Lorna and Carol Gillespie (eds.), Classics in Post-colonial Worlds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Hardwick, Lorna and Christopher Stray, “Introduction” in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray, A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). Hardwick, Lorna and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). Harrison, Thomas, “Greek Religion and Literature”, in Daniel Ogden (ed.), A Companion to Greek Religion (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) 373–84. Haynes, Kenneth, “Text, Theory, and Reception”, in Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) 44–54. Hekman, Susan J., “Weber’s Ideal Type: A Contemporary Reassessment”, Polity 16 (1983) 119–37. Hershbell, Jackson P., “Plutarch’s Concept of History: Philosophy from Examples”, Ancient Society 28 (1997) 225–43. Highet, Gilbert, The Classical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949). Hobsbawm, Eric and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Holowchak, Mark Andrew, Happiness and Greek Ethical Thought (New York: Continuum, 2004). Hursthouse, Rosalind, “Aristotle’s Ethics, Old and New” in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, MA: Wiley-­ Blackwell, 2008) 428–39. Hutchinson, Douglas S., “Doctrines of the Mean and the Debate Concerning Skills in Fourth century Medicine, Rhetoric and Ethics,” in Robert J. Hankinson (ed.), Method, Medicine and Metaphysics (Edmonton: Academic, 1988) 17–52. Hyland, Drew A., Plato and the Question of Beauty (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2006). Irwin, Terence H., “Socrates the Epicurean?” Illinois Classical Studies 11 (1986a) 85–112.

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Irwin, Terence H., “Stoic and Aristotelian Conceptions of Happiness”, in Malcolm Schofield and Gisela Striker (eds.), The Norms of Nature: Studies in Hellenistic Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press/Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de L’Homme 1986b) 205–44. Irwin, Terence H., “Aristippus against Happiness”, The Monist 74 (1991) 55–82. Jauss, Hans Robert, Literaturgeschichte als Provokation (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970). Joll, James, “Two Prophets of the Twentieth Century: Spengler and Toynbee”, Review of International Studies 11 (1985) 91–104. Kaldellis, Anthony, Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Kennedy, Duncan F., “Review of Literature in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A New Perspective, ed. Oliver Taplin (Oxford, 2000)”, Greece and Rome 48 (2001) 87–8. Kennedy, Duncan F., “Afterword: The Uses of ‘Reception’” in Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell, 2006) 288–293. Konstan, David, “Beauty”, in Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015) 366–80. Lauterbach, Jacob Z., “The Sadducees and Pharisees: A Study of Their ­Respective ­Attitudes Towards the Law”, in David Philipson, David Neumark, and J­ulian ­Morgenstern (eds.), Studies in Jewish literature: Issued in Honor of Professor Kaufmann Kohler (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1913) 176–98. Lesses, Glenn, “Happiness, Completeness, and Indifference to Death in Epicurean Ethical Theory,” Apeiron 35 (2002) 57–68. Levine, Lee I., “The Political Struggle between Pharisees and Sadducees in the Hasmonean Period”, in Aharon Oppenheimer, Uriel Rappaport and Menahem Stern (eds.), Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period, Abraham Schalit Memorial Volume (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute/ Ministry of Defence, 1980) 61–83. Lindbekk, Tore, “The Weberian Ideal-Type: Development and Continuities”, Acta Sociologica 35 (1992) 285–97. Long, Anthony A., “The Logical Basis of Stoic Ethics”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 71 (1970–71) 85–104. Löwith, Karl, “Mensch und Menschenwelt,” in Karl Löwith, Gesammelte Abhandlungen. Zur Kritik der geschichtlichen Existenz (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960). Löwith, Karl, Meaning in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957). Lyons, David, “Mill’s Theory of Morality”, Noûs 10 (1976) 101–20. Mansfeld, Jaap, “Sources”, in Anthony A. Long (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999a) 22–44. Mansfeld, Jaap, “Sources”, in Keimpe Algra, Jonathan Barnes, Jaap Mansfeld and Malcolm Schofield (eds.), The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999b) 3–30.

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Marchal, Robert S.J., “Le retour éternel”, Archives Philosophiques 3 (1925) 55–91. Martindale, Charles, Redeeming the Text: Latin Poetry and the Hermeneutics of Reception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Martindale, Charles, “Introduction: Thinking Through Reception”, in Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006) 1–13. McElduff, Siobhán, “Fractured Understanding: Towards a History of Classical Reception Among Non-Elite Groups”, in Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) 180–91. McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1964). McNaughton, David L., “Spengler’s philosophy, and its Implication that Europe has ‘Lost its Way’”, Comparative Civilizations Review 67 (2012) 7–15. McPherran, Mark, “Ataraxia and Eudaimonia in Ancient Pyrrhonism: Is the Sceptic Really Happy?” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 5 (1989) 135–71. McPherran, Mark, “Pyrrhonism’s Arguments against Value”, Philosophical Studies 60 (1990) 127–42. Mendels, Doron, Memory in Jewish, Pagan and Christian Societies of the Graeco-Roman World (London: T & T Clark, 2004). Mittleman, Alan L., A Short History of Jewish Ethics: Conduct and Character in the Context of Covenant (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012). Momigliano, Arnaldo, “Time in Ancient Historiography”, History and Theory 6 (1966) 1–23. Morley, Neville, Antiquity and modernity (Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). Morrison, Donald, “The Happiness of the City and the Happiness of the Individual in Plato’s Republic”, Ancient Philosophy 21 (2001) 1–24. Müller, Anselm Winfried, “Aristotle’s Conception of Ethical and Natural Virtue: How the Unity Thesis Sheds Light on the Doctrine of the Mean”, in Jan Szaif and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (eds.), Was Ist Das Für den Menschen Gute?/What is Good for a Human Being? (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1986) 18–53. Murray, Gilbert, The Classical Tradition in Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927). Nayyar, Deepak, Modern Mass Communication (Concepts and Processes) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Neusner, Jacob, Early Rabbinic Judaism: Historical Studies in Religion, Literature and Art (Brill: Leiden, 1975). Nietupski, Nancy, “Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician, Astronomer and Philosopher”, in David Fideler (ed.), Alexandria 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1993) 45–56.

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Norris, Pippa and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). O’Keefe, Tim, “The Cyrenaics on Pleasure, Happiness, and Future-Concern”, Phronesis 47 (2002) 395–41. Parry, Richard D., “The Unhappy Tyrant and the Craft of Inner Rule”, in Giovanni R.F. Ferrari (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 386–414. Pelling, Christopher, B.R. “Plutarch’s ‘Tale of Two Cities’: Do the Parallel Lives Combine as Global Histories?” in Noreen Humble (ed.), Plutarch’s Lives: Parallelism and Purpose (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2010) 217–35. Penner, Terry, “The Unity of Virtue”, Philosophical Review 82 (1973) 35–68. Porter, James I., “Reception studies: Future prospects”, in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, MA: Wiley-­ Blackwell, 2008) 469–81. Pourcq, Maarten De, “Classical Reception Studies: Reconceptualizing the Study of the Classical Tradition”, International Journal of the Humanities 9 (2012) 219–25. Rider, Benjamin A., “Epicurus on the Fear of Death and the Relative Value of Lives”, Apeiron 47 (2014) 461–84. Rocconi, Eleonora, “Music and Dance in Greece and Rome” in Pierre Destrée and Penelope Murray (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics (Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell, 2015) 81–93. Rogers, Rolf, Max Weber’s Ideal Type Theory (New York: Philosophical Library, 1969). Rosenbaum, Stephen E., “Epicurus on Pleasure and the Complete Life”, Monist 73 (1990) 21–41. Runia, David T., “God and man in Philo of Alexandria”, JThS 39 (1988) 48–75. Sayre, Farrand, The Greek Cynics (Baltimore, MD: J.H. Furst Company, 1948). Settis, Salvatore, The Future of the ‘Classical’ (trans. A. Cameron) (Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2006), translation of Futuro del ‘Classico’ (Turin: Einaudi, 2004). Silk, Mark, “Notes on the Judeo-Christian Tradition in America”, American Quarterly 36 (1984) 65–85. Simon, Richard K., Trash Culture: Popular Culture and the Great Tradition (Berkeley— Los Angeles—London: University of California Press, 1999). Solymar, Laszlo, Getting the Message: A History of Communications (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Spengler, Oswald, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (vol. 1: 1918, vol 2: 1923, The Decline of The West) (trans. C.F. Atkinson) (New York: Knopf, 1932). Stack, Frank, Pope and Horace: Studies in Imitation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

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Starr, Chester G., “Historical and Philosophical Time”, History and Theory 6 (1966) 24–35. Striker, Gisela, “Ataraxia: Happiness as Tranquillity”, Monist 73 (1990) 97–110. Striker, Gisela, “Following Nature: A Study in Stoic Ethics”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 9 (1991) 1–73. Swain, Simon, “Plutarch: Chance, Providence, and History”, AJPh 110 (1989) 272–302. Swain, Simon, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World AD 50–250 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). Taylor, Christopher Charles Whiston, “Popular Morality and Unpopular Philosophy”, in Elizabeth M. Craik (ed.), Owls to Athens: Essays on Classical Subjects Presented to Sir Kenneth Dover (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1990) 233–43. Tcherikover, Victor, “The Ideology of the Letter of Aristeas”, Harvard Theological Review 51 (1958) 59–85. Toynbee, Arnold J., A Study of History, 12 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934–61). Tsouna, Voula, “Is There an Exception to Greek Eudaemonism?” in Monique CantoSperber and Pierre Pellegrin (eds.), Le style de la pensée (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2002) 464–89. Turner, Frank M., The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981). Urmson, James O., “Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 10 (1973) 223–30. Vlastos, Gregory, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991). Waites, Bernard, Bennett, Tony and Graham Martin (eds.), Popular Culture: Past and Present (London: Croom Helm and Open University Press, 1982). Ward, Ken, Mass Communication and the Modern World (London: Palgrave, 1989). Watkins, John W.N., “Ideal Types and Historical Explanation”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 3 (1952) 22–43. Weber, Max, Ancient Judaism (Trans. and ed. H.H. Gerth And D. Martindale) (New York: Free Press, 1952). Whitmarsh, Tim, “True Histories: Lucian, Bakhtin, and the Pragmatics of Reception” in Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) 104–15. Witkin, Robert W., Adorno on Popular Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 2003). Wright Mills, Charles, The Sociological Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959). Zilioli, Ugo, The Cyrenaics (Durham: Acumen, 2012).

part 1 Re-enacting Ancient Virtues and Vices



Section 1 Staging Ancient Virtues and Vices



chapter 1

The House of Atreus as a Reflection of Contemporary Evil: Performance Reception and The Oresteia Lisa Maurice Aeschylus’ Oresteia has been interpreted and staged in a number of ways, from antiquity onwards, and these receptions have been coloured by the particular concerns of each generation.1 Edith Hall, in a recent article, raised some theoretical issues involved in studying performance reception with regard to the ancient world.2 She suggested some ways in which performance reception differs from other forms of classical reception, and highlighted how it can prove an enlightening tool in illuminating the society in which performances are produced. In this paper, I would like to apply these theories to the stagings of The Oresteia over the last fifteen years, using the trilogy as a case study, and focussing in particular on the figures of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, in order to highlight how the recent performance reception of the plays reveals some trends and concerns in contemporary Western society.3 i

Theories of Performance Reception

As Hall has argued, there are a number of ways in which Performance reception is unique within Classical Reception Studies. Firstly, translation is i­ nextricably 1 See Edith Hall, “Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra versus her Senecan Tradition”, in Fiona Macintosh, Pantelis Michelakis, Edith Hall, Oliver Taplin, Agamemnon in Performance: 458 bc to ad 2004 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 53–76. 2 Edith Hall, “Towards a Theory of Performance Reception”, in Edith Hall and Stephe Harrop (eds), Theorising Performance: Greek Drama, Cultural History and Critical Practice (London: Duckworth, 2010) 10–28. 3 In a paper of this length it is of course not possible to deal with every production of The Oresteia, and I will confine my remarks to some of the most representative versions, including those productions that also include all or part of the Iphigeneia in Aulis, and I will concentrate almost exclusively on English language performances. Space constrains also prevent me for discussing other staged genres such as opera and dance, despite the undoubted importance of productions such as Martha Graham’s Clytemestra and the 2013 staging of Taneyev’s Oresteia. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_003

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intertwined with performance reception, in that the ancient dramas are almost always performed in translation, and the translations themselves employed vary widely according to need. Thus the translations themselves are independent creative works of art, related to, but distinct from, the source text. Indeed, these versions for the stage, especially those from the past half century, may often be broad adaptations, far further removed from the original than a written translation of a classical text.4 The very act of adaptation in such cases involves, in Hall’s words, “a baseline ideological ‘fixing’ of meaning”, which then undergoes a second form of translation as it is subjected to realisation in performance, so that “in the theatre even more than in other media, classical material is subject less to ‘Reception’ than to wholesale Appropriation”.5 These new ‘appropriations’, then, go on to influence later versions, through great acting or significant production elements, so that reception takes place at what Hall describes as “the intersection of the diachronic history of a text … and the synchronic reconstruction of what the text will have meant at the time of the production being investigated”.6 With regard to poetry, David Hopkins has argued for a dialogic relationship between ancient sources and modern reception, whereby the artists are engaged in transhistorical conversation with the ancients, in which self-discovery and self-transcendence are as important as any simple ‘accommodation’ of ancient texts to modern tastes.7 I would maintain that such a dialogue is an intrinsic element in any performance of ancient drama, and that it occurs not only between modern artist and ancient, but between multiple artists on the path between the two. The performance reception of a particular dramatic text involves a chain of developing and interwoven aspects that both relate back to earlier productions and create new pathways to be continued and developed through the current construction under consideration. The concept that, as Charles Martindale has emphasized, understanding of ancient literature is inextricably entwined with its receptions in the form of “imitations, translations and so forth”, and that interpretations of ancient texts are constructed by the very chain of receptions they have undergone, is even truer in the case of drama.8 4 On this see Lisa Maurice, “Contaminatio and Adaptation: the Modern Reception of Ancient Drama as an aid to understanding Roman Comedy”, in Anastasia Bakogianni (ed.), Dialogues with the Past (2): Reception Theory and Practice, Proceedings of the Reception of Ancient Greek and Roman Drama Conference, bics Supplement series (London: ics, 2013) 444–493. 5 Hall (2010) 15. 6 Ibid. 18. 7 David Hopkins, Conversing With Antiquity: English Poets and the Classics, from Shakespeare to Pope. Classical Presences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 1–14. 8 Charles Martindale, Redeeming the Text: Latin Poetry and the Hermeneutics of Reception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 7.

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The impact of performance reception is not limited to the world of the theatre. Indeed, certain factors make the reception of theatre especially suitable for providing insight into wider society. Hall, for example, stresses the somatic quality of theatre, quoting Eric Bentley’s views on the centrality of the body to theatre, and, in the context of ancient drama, emphasising the unchanging nature of physical agony as its core. This aspect enables the theatre to signal society’s attitudes towards “aspects of human experience such as the body, gender, sexual desire, injury and suffering, in addition to the physical rites of passage (mating, birth and death)”.9 Following Goldman, she also argues that the role of the actor in creating a role allows for identification of the audience with the character, leading to a claim that “Performance Reception deals with nothing less than the way in which successive generations have projected and explored their own identities”. In particular, since ancient tragedy centred round the family, reception of tragedy “offers the potential for discovering the most intimate sites of affective identification”. On occasion, entire nations, rather than individuals, have explored and even changed ideas through theatrical performances, an eventuality made possible by the political potency of the theatre.10 It has also been argued that because of the artificiality of theatre, paradoxically it has a deep inherent element of truth.11 This is particularly true because of the role theatre plays in dramatizing dreams and fantasies, as argued by Freud.12 The impact of theatre as an experience was also brought out as a defining and unique characteristic by Hall, who points out that “a compelling theatrical experience can leave a deeper impression on the memory than the printed word or painted image”.13 While great works of art or literature undoubtedly have an impact on those exposed to them, theatre is able to impact on the spectator with even greater power, since it involves a wider range of senses, as well as being a shared experience as part of an audience. One of the reasons for this effect is the vibrancy of live theatre, in which every performance, although scripted and rehearsed, is also a unique and unrepeatable event, lying, as Hall puts it, between the two poles of contingency and non-contingency.14 Performance reception then, by examining the new and creative adaptations of ancient drama, provides insight into the human experience at a particular time and place in history, on a personal, familial and national level, as 9 10 11 12 13 14

Hall (2010) 16. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 18: “Theatre can never ‘masquerade’ as the truth because it is masquerade”. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 22.

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acted out through theatre. The impact of this experience is both profound and revealing, and has far-reaching consequences which have the potential to change society, as well as impacting both on our understanding of earlier dramatic performances and on later interpretations. ii

Case Study: The Oresteia, 1992–2015

More than twenty years ago John Chioles pointed out, “the genre of Greek Tragedy for today … has been appropriated by the avant-garde in performance”,15 and that “the avant-garde in the performance of Greek Tragedy has moved to contextualize each enactment”. It has done this with “a persistent ‘as if’ clause. Each performance of The Oresteia occurs as if it must contain in its enactment the origins of the theatrical art, and as if it must also show (and tell) its purpose as performance”. Chioles examined the landmark 1992 production by Mnouchkine, together with those of Tyrone Guthrie, Peter Hall, Peter Stein, Karolos Koun and the ballet by Martha Graham, to consider the different ways in which directors had interacted with Aeschylus’ Oresteia in the previous two decades. Chioles also suggested that “this rare cultural transformation (from the ritual and timeless to real time enactment) may well count as the demise of the ancient Greek theatre”. Yet this has resoundingly not been the case. Performances of Greek Tragedy have increased in number and range, as a brief examination of the Classical Receptions Drama Database16 will quickly demonstrate, with Aeschylus’ trilogy proving a recurrent and frequent entry. In 2015, most notably, three different versions of The Oresteia appeared on the British stage. Clearly Greek tragedy in general, and The Oresteia in particular, are as popular as ever. 1 Translation, Adaptation, Appropriation Unless a play is being performed in the original language, the first question that arises is that of translation, or more often, as discussed above, of adaptation or even appropriation. Once the decision is made to stage a production of some or all parts of the myths of the House of Atreus,17 decisions must be 15 16 17

“The Oresteia and the Avant-Garde: Three Decades of Discourse”, Performing Arts Journal 15.3 (1993) 3. http://www2.open.ac.uk/ClassicalStudies/GreekPlays/ (accessed 8 April 2017). See Lorna Hardwick, “Agamemnon Solo”, in David Stuttard and Tamsin Shasha, Essays on Agamemnon (Brighton, uk: aod, 2002) 106–118 on the effect of staging the Agamemnon in isolation from the other parts of the trilogy.

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made about which translations will provide the text. Despite the avant -garde approach emphasized by Chioles, there have been some productions that are straight translations, rather than adaptations, of the Agamemnon. Even these, however, will involve subjectivity, value judgements and creativity, as the written text is developed or adapted for performance. A translation for stage performance will inevitably not be the same as, or have the same requirements as, one produced for reading, and such versions are heavily influenced by performance needs. The translation by David Stuttard, for example, for the Actors of Dionysus productions staged in 1999 and 2003, was strongly performance based; Stuttard’s priority in translation, naturally as a theatre practitioner and the director of the production, was speakability. He aimed “to convey the monumentality of Aeschylus, with all the richness of his imagery and poetic vocabulary, without losing the dramatic momentum”.18 Peter Meineck too, who was the producing artistic director as well as the translator of the version used by the Aquila Theatre company, declared that his objective was to produce a work that was “accessible, performable and dramatic, while retaining a fidelity to the Greek”, and that transmits the “power, passion, tension and beauty of the Greek in a form that is both immediately understandable and dramatically compelling”.19 Fourscore Theatre’s 2004 production of the Agamemnon used the close and accurate translation by Philip de May which was published simultaneously. According to director, Dorinda Hulton, the decision to use this “illuminating” translation was influenced by the expressed interest by the publisher of the translation in the results of this investigation being documented onto dvdroms to accompany the publications. Despite the choice of such a translation, this production did not restrict itself entirely and rigidly to de May’s text, but also included elements of other languages, with the chorus of mixed ethnic origins singing the odes in Gujerati, Spanish, Turkish and Jamaican patois.20 18

19

20

See Lorna Hardwick, “Playing around Cultural Faultlines”, in Ashley Chantler and Carla Dente, Translation Practices: Through Language to Culture (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2009) 175–8 for a discussion of this translation and Stuttard’s working methods. Peter Meineck, The Oresteia (Indianapolis, in: Hackett, 1998) xlviii. Karelisa Hartigan says of the translation, that it is “a text accessible to the Greekless audience while still preserving the vocabulary of Aeschylus”, adding in praise, “Those of us who have seen Peter Meineck’s performances have long marveled at his ability to turn Greek into clear English, how he does not do ‘versions’ of the plays, how he does not rewrite the ancients into modern jargon” (The Classical Outlook 76 (1998) 149). Lorna Hardwick, “Remodeling Receptions: Greek Drama as Diaspora in performance”, in Charles Martindale and Richard F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) 211–212; “Greek Drama and Theatre for the Oppressed”, in Jan Nelis, Receptions of Antiquity (Gent: Academia Press, 2011) 86.

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Clearly, even when a more literal translation is chosen, or the decision made to render a specific and unaltered play such as the Agamemnon, the text becomes fluid, a tool in the hand of director and actors, as it becomes a performance. Other productions translate and adapt far more freely to create new versions of the ancient plays, in order to emphasise particular elements.21 An extreme approach can be seen in the example of the play Bad Women (2002), in which elements from different tragedies and myths were combined in order to explore contemporary female roles. Helene Foley described the production as: an explicitly metatheatrical piece in which two actors and four actresses, playing Clytemnestra, Phaedra, Medea, Agave, Deinara and Cassandra performed certain diverging or intersecting aspects and high points of their roles before a chorus of gossiping teenage girls in modern dress holding cell phones.22 Other versions plunder a range of ancient texts in translation to create a new piece. Swallow Song, performed in 2004 at the J. Paul Getty Centre in Los Angeles, and then in Oxford and London in 2006, includes translated verses from Ion, Trojan Women, Iphigeneia among the Taurians and Iphigeneia at Aulis by Euripides, Agamemnon and Choephoroi by Aeschylus, Oedipus the King by Sophocles, poetry by Sappho, Simonides, Pindar and Theognis, and fragments from Homer’s Iliad.23 Kenneth Cavander’s 2001 translation/adaptation, Agamemnon and His Daughters, combined a number of Greek originals (Iphigeneia at Aulis, Iphigeneia Among the Taurians, the Oresteia and the Electras of both Sophocles and Euripides) to create a new tetralogy.24 Nicholas Kamtsis used a similar method when writing his Ancient Pathos—The Atrides, first performed in Athens in 2007.25 Combining passages of five Greek tragedies (Iphigenia in Aulis, Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Sophocles’ Electra, Euripides’ Orestes and Aeschylus’ Eumenides) with his own original poetry, Kamtsis, to create an

21 22

23 24 25

On this process, see Maurice (2013) 445–465. Helene P. Foley, “Bad women: Gender Politics in Late Twentieth-Century Performance and Revision of Greek Tragedy”, in Edith Hall, Fiona Macintosh and Amanda Wrigley (eds.), Dionysus since ’69 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004) 78. http://www.didaskalia.net/issues/vol6no3/banfi.html (accessed 8 May 2017). See the review by Helene P. Foley, Theatre Journal 54. 1 (March 2002) 143–145. See Sanna-Ilaria Kittelä, “The Queen Ancient and Modern: Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra”, New Voices in Classical Reception Studies 4 (2009) 123–137.

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hour long production that retold the story of the cycle of revenge within the house of Atreus. Charles Mee’s modern adaptations go even further, utilising a range of texts and sources to create a performance that remains recognizable as classical in origin, but one that is also a radically new interpretation of the story. He himself explains this ideology in The (re)making project’,26 an internet database of classical texts and new works modelled on them as well as from other sources: Please feel free to take the plays from this website and use them freely as a resource for your own work: that is to say, don’t just make some cuts or rewrite a few passages or re-arrange them or put in a few texts that you like better, but pillage the plays as I have pillaged the structures and contents of the plays of Euripides and Brecht and stuff out of Soap Opera Digest and the evening news and the internet, and build your own, entirely new, piece—and then, please, put your own name to the work that results.27 Many productions have reinterpreted the plays through the use of modern dress and props. More recent versions have gone further; rewriting the dramas and setting them in modern or future settings. Robert Icke’s Oresteia (Almeida 2015) is set in “an abstract 21st century, framed as part of an investigation, in which the son, Orestes, is questioned by a therapeutic inquisitor, piecing together evidence”.28 Rory Mullarky described his 2015 adaptation for the Globe as a “contemporary distillation” of the trilogy. Gwynneth Lewis set her Clytemnestra (2012) in a future in which oil has run out and people are reduced to warfare in their search for food and survival. In this version, Agamemnon, the tribal leader, travels abroad in order to secure new trade routes and gives his daughter, Iphigenia, in marriage to an eastern tribe as part of this political agreement. The foreign tribe, however, rape and kill Iphigenia, whose ashes Agamemnon sends back home to his wife Clytemnestra. It is inevitable that such processes in adapting ancient tragedy will result in productions that owe much not only the original texts, but to each other, as later stagings react to ideas, performances and depictions of roles by particular

26 27 28

Reviewed in Didaskalia 6.2: www.didaskalia.net/issues/vol6no2/donegan.htm (accessed 8 May 2017). http://charlesmee.com/html/about.html (accessed 8 May 2017). http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jun/07/oresteia-almeida-review-lia-williamsangus-wright (accessed 8 May 2017).

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actors. It is important therefore to consider how this chain of performance reception can be observed with regard to The Oresteia. 2 The Chain of Performance Reception Perhaps the most important link in the modern chain of reception is the addition of Iphigenia segments to The Oresteia. Ever since Mnouchkine’s 1992 landmark production, Les Atrides, which attached the Iphigenia at Aulis to the trilogy, thus providing a justification for Clytemnestra’s murder of her husband, later productions have been coloured by this innovation.29 Most famously, the influence of Mnouchkine’s adaptation can be seen in Katie Mitchell’s 2000 production of the Oresteia, which took things a stage yet further. In this staging, the motif of Iphigeneia was made central by a range of techniques. A young girl, gagged by a handkerchief, represented her ghost, and was present on stage throughout the play, running around or watching, or even, in a final twist, meeting with her father again as he reached out for her while he lay dying in the bath. Particularly powerfully, the red carpet upon which this Agamemnon strode to the palace and his death was composed of blood-soaked dresses of little girls, representing Iphigenia and her death. Thus Mitchell linked the two deaths in a far more clear relationship of cause and effect than was evident in the ancient texts. Mnouchkine’s and Mitchell’s productions in turn influenced later stagings. Examples include Kirtsen Brandt’s Furious Blood (2000), Triche Kehoe’s Children of Clytemnestra (2000), Katharine Noon’s Clyt at Home: The Clytemnestra Project (2001), All Clytemnestra on the Western Front: a techno-feminist reconstruction of The Iliad (2001) and Robert Icke’s Oresteia (2015), all of which combined parts of the Iphigeneia in Aulis with the tale of the murder of Agamemnon.30 In Robert Icke’s Oresteia of 2015, Iphigeneia is especially central; her murder by Agamemnon is portrayed not as sacrifice but clinical slaughter, the brutality emphasized by the part being played by a child. Other productions show even more direct influence. Dorinda Hulton’s Agamemnon for the Foursight Theatre Company, for example, used contemporary photographic images of child victims of war from all over the world to represent the cloth upon which Agamemnon walked. Hulton herself states 29

30

See Helene P. Foley, “The Millenium Project: Agamemnon in the United States”, in Fiona Macintosh, Pantelis Michelakis, Edith Hall, Oliver Taplin, Agamemnon in Performance: 458 BC to AD 2004 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 316. Garland Wright’s The Clytemnestra Project of 1992 also had the Agamemnon following Iphigeneia in Aulis. Although this preceded Mnouchkine’s American production of Les Atrides by a few months, the production had been on tour worldwide for a year, and Wright may well have been influenced by it as well.

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that this was a form of “an allusion or perhaps an answer to the cloth used in Katie Mitchell’s production of The Home Guard”.31 Iphigeneia herself is given a prominence that owes much to both Mitchell and Mnouchkine. Represented by a blonde Caucasian puppet, Iphigeneia takes the part of the “‘watch girl’ waiting for Daddy to come home” in place of the usual palace watchman.32 Her sacrifice is played out graphically on stage during the speech describing the event, and she herself ‘speaks’ only one word, namely “Father”, in a powerful dramatic moment.33 The puppet itself, representing the body of Iphigeneia was then placed before a structure at one end of the transverse stage that represented a “home altar”. Similarly, in Kenneth Cavander’s 2001 translation/adaptation, Agamemnon and His Daughters, again, influenced by Mnouchkine, the Iphigeneia at Aulis serves as a prologue to the Agamemnnon, an element that is the starting point for the reshaping of the piece as a whole. As one review explained, Cavander alleviates the burden of interpretation from the viewer by breaking his play into five scenes clearly depicting the effects of Agamemnon’s sacrifice on each of the other family members. Following the initial scene, where Iphigeneia is tricked into coming to the sacrificial altar by being told that it was her wedding altar, the second scene focuses on the grief of Iphigeneia’s mother, which quickly changes into a murderous and unforgiving rage. This anger in turn impresses on her remaining children a chilling and violent insanity that leads to their own destruction.34 Clearly Mnouchkine’s Les Atrides has been enormously influential, so much so that it is hard to comprehend of a production over the last twenty years that has not subsumed elements of it in some way. Yet another production is commonly cited as landmark and the most influential of the past half-decade, namely Peter Hall’s 1981 masked, all-male, four and a half hour Oresteia, the product of six months of research and rehearsal, which ran for 65 sell-out p ­ erformances at the Olivier and was broadcast on 31

32 33 34

Dorinda Hulton, “An Investigation into Ways of Addressing and Embodying Questions of Character in Foursight Theatre’s 2004 Production of Agamemnon”, Practitioners Voices in Classical Reception Studies Issue 1 (November 2007) 3. (http://www.open.ac.uk/arts/ research/pvcrs/2007/hulton, accessed 8 May 2017). In Nicholas Kamtsis’ Ancient Pathos—The Atrides, Iphigeneia was represented by a puppet, although it is not clear whether Kamtsis saw, or was aware of, the earlier play. The relevant clip may be seen at http://podcast.open.ac.uk/pod/practitioners#!30139f57cf (accessed 8 May 2017). http://www.gwhatchet.com/2001/09/13/arena-stage-retells-agamemnon-and-his-daugh ters/ (accessed 8 May 2017).

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British television by Channel Four in 1982. Masks were fundamental to Hall’s staging and ideology,35 and the production was received with great acclaim; yet no one since has attempted to depict Clytemnestra in a way that shows the influence of this version. We see no chain of performance reception in the way that is so clear with Mnouchkine. Indeed, it could be argued that the very dearth of such influence is actually a conscious and glaring rejection, that the approach of Hall is conspicuous by its absence in a way that is an example of just as strong an influence, but in a negative way. This attitude was verbalized by Katie Mitchel in 2007, in an interview, where she said, “There’s something about dressing actors in tunics and Jesus sandals, or about an attempt to do a reconstruction with masks, which I think distances the viewer from the reality contained in the material. You go ‘Thank heavens we don’t behave like that now’”.36 3 Issues of Contemporary Society The reason for the lack of productions influenced by Hall’s Oresteia is surely the fundamental ideas underlying his approach, based on Brechtian ideals, far removed from the Stanislavski approach favoured by the contemporary world. Hall himself states, I’ve seen umpteen Greek tragedies, I’ve seen them with a masked chorus and the protagonist unmasked. I’ve seen it in modern dress, I’ve seen the Chorus reduced to two or three people wearing bowler hats and mackintoshes. But throughout all those experiments the actors are desperately trying to make it real and naturalistic, as if it were something you could see on television tomorrow night. And it isn’t. In its form it isn’t. The speech form, the length of it, the use of the messenger, the use of the Chorus—it is completely unnaturalistic.37 This attitude seems very out of step with contemporary thinking, in which theatre is continually reinterpreted in order to make it relevant and meaningful to the audience, allowing them to identify with the characters, and to perceive commentary on current events and issues. Such an element seems to be the 35 36 37

See David Wiles, Mask and Performance in Greek Tragedy: From Ancient Festival to Modern Experimentation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) (2nd edn.) 125–152. http://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/katie-mitchell-interview (accessed 8 May 2017). http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/discover-more/platforms/platform-papers/peter-hall (accessed 25 August 2015, but no longer active).

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greatest attraction for the modern director, who delights in using the ancient drama to shed light on or investigate contemporary social issues. 3.1 The Oresteia and Feminism: The Rehabilitation of Clytemnestra As mentioned above, Edith Hall argues that tragedy, as family-based drama, provides a vehicle for examining society’s views on and identification with, family roles. This is particularly striking with regard to The Oresteia since Clytemnestra is primarily defined in terms of her roles as wife and mother.38 Clytemnestra’s role as a bad mother has been examined by a number of scholars;39 as Chesi puts it, in Aeschylus’ Oresteia, there is a repudiation of her maternal role, as “We are faced with a successful separation of her role as mother, wife and queen: she is not a mother giving and nurturing life, but an adulterous wife, tyrant and a foolish female”.40 While such a depiction has not been ­constant over the centuries, it is clear that in recent years, far from denying Clytemnestra’s maternal role, her motherhood frequently becomes the prime motivating factor for her actions. One recent study on the subject of “daughtering and mothering”, albeit with regard to the basic myth rather than its theatrical receptions, even describes Clytemnestra as an archetype “ideal mother”, pairing her with Demeter in her devotion to her child.41 The inclusion, or added prominence, of Iphigeneia obviously strengthens the maternal element of her character. Similarly the exclusion of Electra detracts from a negative perception of Clytemnestra as maternal figure. Very few of the recent productions follow Aeschylus in joining the Agamemnon to the 38 39

40 41

The depiction of Electra is also fascinating, but such a discussion falls beyond the scope of this paper. See e.g. Froma Zeitlin, “The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Mythmaking in the Oresteia”, Arethusa 2 (1978) 149–84 (reprinted in John Peradotto and J.P. Sullivan (eds.), Women in the Ancient World: The Arethusa Papers (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984) 170–82,) and in Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek l­ iterature (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1996) 87–119; Simon Goldhill, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: The Oresteia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Laura McClure, “Logos Gunaikos: Speech, Gender, and Spectatorship in the Oresteia”, Helios 24 (1997) ­112–35; Laura McClure, Spoken Like a Woman: Speech and Gender in Athenian Drama (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); Wohl, Victoria, The Intimate C ­ ommerce: Exchange, Gender, and Subjectivity in Greek Tragedy (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998); Helene P. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). Giulia Maria Chesi, The Play of Words: Blood Ties and Power Relations in Aeschylus’ “Oresteia” (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014) 1–2. Halldis Leira and Madelien Krips, “Revealing Cultural Myths on Motherhood”, in Karlein M.G. Schreurs, Liesbeth Woerton, Janneke van Mens-Verhulst (eds.), Daughtering and Mothering: Female Subjectivity Reanalysed (London and ny: Routledge, 1993) 84–87.

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Electra, preferring either to stage the former alone, or to combine it, as already discussed, with the story of Iphigeneia. The absence of the accusations of unnatural mothering and cruelty voiced by another child of Clytemnestra goes a long way to presenting her as a loving maternal figure. Clytemnestra’s other traditional role, apart from maternal murderess, is that of treacherous wife to Agamemnon. Here again, modern productions turn this approach on its head, striving to portray her as an abused wife rather than a perfidious adulteress. A demonization of Agamemnon as abusive husband and warmonger, as will be discussed below, does much to alter the perception of his wife, but another of the ways in which this is done is by removing or weakening Aegisthus’ role. Just as the deletion of Electra’s accusations detract from Clytemnestra’s negative image as a mother, so the elimination of her lover contributes to a picture of her as a perfect wife. Thus, in Triche Kehoe’s Children of Clytemnestra (2000), Aegisthus was missing, meaning that an element of wickedness in Clytemnestra’s personality was removed—no longer was she the wicked, adulterous, power-hungry queen, but rather the wronged mother of Iphigeneia, a wife misunderstood by his husband. In Charles Mee’s Agamemnon 2.0, Clytemnestra has waited patiently for her husband’s return, growing steadily more mad with her hunger to revenge the murder of their daughter, and his betrayal with Cassandra. Even more than Iphigeneia, however, Clytemnestra is a victim, not only of Agamemnon, but even of Aegisthus, who is described in the text as “a gigolo, and a homicidal maniac”, who has a sheet wrapped around his naked body, and who talks triumphantly of justice, now that Atreus’ crimes against Thyestes have been avenged. Despite the description of him as gigolo, he is the controlling force in the relationship with Clytemnestra, as becomes clear from the rest of his speech, which has the stage direction, “pornographic, not tender- or tender, and also pornographic”, and which is filled with explicit descriptions of sexual behaviour as he urges her to come inside with him. The audience is left with the impression that Clytemnestra has been exploited, abused and manipulated by both Aegisthus and Agamemnon, both of whose self-interest and cruel actions have driven her both to adultery and madness. Similarly, other productions, such as that by Kamtsis, portray the queen as acting under the influence of Aegisthus, thus excusing her actions.42 These changes stem from an underlying desire in many cases to rehabilitate Clytemnestra and view her as victim rather than perpetrator of crime, driven to murder by strong emotion and spousal abuse. One such example is Michelle Spencer Ellsworth’s, All Clytemnestra on the Western Front: A Techno-Feminist 42 See Kittelä (2009) 136.

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Reconstruction of The Iliad. This was a production containing various elements: dance, poetry, a strong element of stand-up comedy and modern technology. During the performance, in which all the parts were played by Ellsworth herself, Clytemnestra carried out a series of videophone calls from her friends and family, whose side of the conversations were pre-recorded and displayed on a large screen suspended at the back of the stage. In this way, Clytemnestra held a dialogue with a lecherous Aegisthus, a pompous and dense Agamemnon, a sexy and knowingly manipulative Helen, a sanctimonious Penelope and ­another persona who appeared to be a kind of therapist or Clytemnestra’s own conscience, speaking to her in modern language. Clytemnestra herself was depicted as a stay-at-home wife, busy with housework, whose appearance of contentment and happiness gradually disappeared as she reacted to the conversations with the various characters who conditioned her own mental state and behaviour. Despite the initial appearance of control and contentment, Clytemnestra quickly owns to being “pissed, bored and trying very hard to keep it together”, and she whirls through the gamut of exaggerated emotions as she talks with the other characters, until she finally goes insane, smearing mud over her face and whirling around madly with a crazed look on her face. According to this interpretation, it was Agamemnon, oblivious, chauvinistic, and power-crazed in his bid for world domination and conquest, prepared even to sacrifice his own daughter, who drove his wife to this condition; she is more of a blameless victim of his patriarchal dictatorship than the murdering adulteress of so many earlier traditions. Ellsworth is by no means unique in such a presentation. Katherine Noon’s The Clytemnestra Project: Clyt at Home emphasises Clytemnestra’s maternal aspect; a press release for the production stated that “Clytemnestra, wife of King Agamemnon, is seen here not as a villain, but as a woman struggling with a collapsing household and the death of a child’’.43 Kirsten Brandt (Furious Blood, 2000), saw her as a strong woman and grieving mother who exacts the only kind of justice she can.44 Dorrinda Hulton’s production for the Foursight Theatre, a company dedicated to exploring the situations of marginalised and oppressed groups, aimed to bring out Clytemnestra’s situation as a betrayed wife and bereaved mother, determined to exact revenge on her husband.45 In Swallow Song (2006 Oxford), as Iphigeneia walked to her death, modern

43 44 45

Cited by Carl R. Mueller in a review of the play, available at http://www.didaskalia.net/ reviews/2001_09_09_01.html (accessed on 9 May 2017). Review by Jennifer de Poyen, San Diego Union—Tribune (February 15, 2000). See n.23 above.

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photographs of mothers and child victims of war were displayed, creating a sense of Clytemnestra and her daughter as universal symbols or maternal-filial suffering. Nicholas Kamtsis, author of Ancient Pathos, also explained that for him the most important aspect of the Oresteia was the question of the matricide and the conflict between archaic mother earth cults and Aeschylus’ male-­ dominated culture. It was important to him to examine the question of what was worse, killing a mother or justice for a father.46 As Kittelä emphasizes, one of the first things the audience is told about Clytemnestra is that she loved Iphigenia “more than anything”. This scene includes a dialogue between ­Clytemnestra  and Agamemnon in which she begs desperately for her husband to save Iphigenia, declares that she never loved Agamemnon, who had murdered her first husband Tantalos and their baby-boy, setting the tone for Agamemnon as child killer. Despite this, she argues that has been a perfect wife to Agamemnon and that he should save their first-born child, a request that Agamemnon rejects, even when faced with a heart rending plea from Iphigeneia herself. One of the reasons for portraying Clytemnestra as the victim of spousal abuse is the influence of feminism in the modern world. Over the last few decades, Clytemnestra, as a strong woman, has been portrayed as a feminist symbol struggling against patriarchal oppression. Mnouchkine’s Les Atrides had a clear and strong feminist slant, that has resulted in a large amount of scholarly discussion.47 Kathleen L. Komar has discussed how the myth of Clytemnestra was manipulated differently in the 1980s and 1990s. She demonstrates that in the 1980s, Clytemnestra’s story is used to highlight the subjugation and abuse of women by a patriarchal society, and to justify, or at least understand, their resulting violent acts. In the 1990s, however, writers, and in particular female writers concentrated more on the other women in the Clytemnestra legend, in particular her daughters, Iphigeneia and Electra, as feminist studies developed into more sophisticated research about the effect of oppression upon both 46 47

In an interview with Sanna-Ilaria Kittelä, quoted in Kittelä (2009) 133. See e.g. Sarah Bryant-Bertail, “Gender, Empire and Body Politic as Mise en Scène: Mnouchkine’s Les Atrides”, Theatre journal (1994) 1–30; Marianne McDonald, “The Atrocities of Les Atrides: Mnouchkine’s Tragic Vision”, Theatre Forum 1 (1992) 12–19; Mary-Kay Gamel, “Staging Ancient Drama: The Difference Women Make”, Syllecta Classica 10 (1999) 22–42; Sharon Friedman, “Feminist Revisions of Classic Texts on the American Stage”, in Barbara Ozieblo-Rajkowska and María Dolores Narbona-Carrión (eds.), Codifying the ­National Self: Spectators, Actors, and the American Dramatic Text (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2006) 87–90.

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men and women. During these years, the issue of central interest was the effect of Agamemnon’s murder by Clytemnestra on their children.48 At the beginning of the second millennium, feminism was still a subject of great importance on the tragic stage. Nicholas Kamtsis’ Clytemnestra is a “‘she-man’ who possesses an intelligence that is the equal of any man, but is oppressed because of her gender”.49 Michelle Ellsworth’s Clytemnestra centred productions, Clyt at Home and Phone Homer are both influenced by her feminism; the performance prospectus to Phone Homer includes a short article by Ruby Blondell entitled “Meat, Men and a Mythological Murderess”, which describes the conflict between Agamemnon and Clytemnestra as “a war between the sexes”, and states: Clytemnestra—especially as portrayed by the tragic dramatist Aeschylus—threatens not only the authority of the male but the fundamental distinction between the genders on which it is based. She evinces a “masculine” personality and behavior, culminating in an appropriation of the male prerogative of bloody slaughter.50 Sledgehammer’s 2000 production of Furious Blood, also had a feminist agenda, as playwright Kelly Stuart states when outlining her reading of the text: “I just want people to hear what’s actually in the (original) text … All the commentary on ‘The Eumenides’ is about how it represents the birth of civilization. It is, but it’s also the birth of patriarchy”. This agenda is realized through the portrayal of male and female characters as “bumbling and stumbling stick figures” and “brave and courageous, wise and virtuous” respectively. The end of the play, in which the two Clytemnestras, one young and one old, depicted as a raped and abused wife is on trial, while “even though Apollo is a ridiculous figure, he’s still in control”, despite Clytemnestra’s protests that half of the human race is on the verge of subjugation. One review described the powerful final moments of the play: For her efforts, both versions of her self are bound to statues onstage, a sign hung on the younger one reading, “Cunt”, and a sign on her older 48 49 50

Kathleen L. Komar, Reclaiming Klytemnestra: Revenge or Reconciliation (Champaign, il: University of Illinois Press, 2003). Kittelä (2009) 136. http://www.ontheboards.org/sites/default/files/Michelle_prospectus.pdf (accessed 27 August 2015).

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self reading, “Bitch”. There the characters stand, motionless, through the curtain call and when the house lights come up. There they stand as the audience uncomfortably realizes the actresses aren’t leaving the stage until it leaves the theater.51 3.2 The Oresteia and War Feminism is not the only social issue highlighted by the depictions of Clytemnestra, however. Over the last fifteen years, war has come to the fore as a troubling central concern for the modern Western society. Katie Mitchell’s intention in her Oresteia was also to make the staging evoke images of war; she has stated that it was a response to the Bosnian War.52 Thus, the costumes and various gimmicks in the play had an Eastern European feel, with music from the Balkan tradition, Cassandra’s bruised and abused body reminiscent of a victim of modern war, and the choruses in the two plays that comprised Mitchell’s version composed of war veterans in The Home Guard, and Balkan Women in the The Daughters of Darkness. Agamemnon was dressed as a merceneray, or Bosnian warlord, but Clytemnestra herself had an Eva Peron hairstyle and New Look full-skirted summer cocktail dress, patterned with poppies, and announced the victorious ending of the war to the background of projections showing “national jubilations”. The combination of this look with the images of the dead Iphigeneia served to show this powerful woman constrained by the war-mongering men and possibly even implied that she was driven to murder her husband for the sake of world peace as much as from maternal grief. Mitchell’s Iphigeneia in Aulis, of 2004, displayed a similar staging and ideology. This time it was the Iraq war that was described as being the stimulus for the production, and here the chorus and Clytemnestra herself were dressed as women of the 1940’s. Mitchell described this choice as follows: We wanted to bring the production as close to our time as possible. However, we could not bring the action any further forwards than 1940 because the arguments made by a woman (Clytemnestra) to save a child include womanly virtues, like good housekeeping, which are anathema now. The 1940s was the latest we could set it. The gender politics in the play would not be credible if we set it after the 1940s … Also, I think that the visual 51

52

Joel Beers, oc Weekly 5. 25 (Feb 25–Mar 2, 2000), quoted at the Classical Receptions Drama Database: http://www4.open.ac.uk/csdb/ASP/ViewDetails.asp?ProductionID=2581 (­accessed 26 August 2015). Maria Shevtsova, “On Directing: a Conversation with Katie Mitchell”, New Theatre Quarterly 22 (2006) 6.

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language of the 1940s is still very powerful. We simply cannot leave the Second World War alone. It still has quite strong meaning for us.53 War was also the central theme in Triche Kehoe’s Children of Clytemnestra, presented at the Edinburgh festival in 2000. Despite its title, this was a loose adaptation of the Agamemnon. The staging employed grainy, flickering, 20th century news clips of battle scenes projected onto the rear backcloth to emphasise the theme of war. The Chorus dressed in military style garb included two members in wheelchairs, and utilised long sticks as weapons in various scenes. Agamemnon himself seemed to be a victim of battle trauma and fatigue, despite his army greatcoat and speech justifying the war. Clytemnestra was dressed in sombre colours, a long navy skirt and greenish top. She addressed her husband in a powerful speech full of irony, demonstrating her anguish over the murder of Iphigeneia, distress that her husband rejected, ordering her to behave calmly, as befits a queen. Despite the power of this speech, which leads to an element of justification for the murder, this was not, however, the final message and point of the play. When the performance ended with Clytemnestra’s boast that she would rule while Agamemnon rotted in hell, the triumphant message was undercut by the fact that the remainder of the characters were walking slowly about the stage, whispering about their experiences, apparently dislocated from one another. The message here was the horror of war that dehumanises and numbs the individuals who suffer it.54 In Clyt at Home: The Clytemnestra Project, war was the backdrop for the events of the story seen through the eyes of the one who stayed at home, Clytemnestra. Again, a modern spin is placed on the ancient story, as the audience follow the development of Clytemnestra through the events of the play. Like so many other productions from the last twenty years, Clyt at Home placed an emphasis on the horrors of war, and the role that such wars play in destroying society and the family unit. In particular the role of the modern politician in controlling and exploiting war was explored by this play. Clytemnestra was not just the wife left at home to cope with the strains of a war abroad, but was also the dutiful political wife, trapped in a loveless marriage to a powerful leader, in a world where spin and smokescreen are what hold society together. Following Clyt at Home the Ghost Road Company went on to produce adaptations of the rest of the Oresteia, with their plays Elektra-La-la and Orestes Remembered: The Fury Project. All three plays were subsequently presented as a trilogy named Home Siege Home in a revised version of the Oresteia at the Ford 53 54

Ibid. 12–13. http://www2.open.ac.uk/ClassicalStudies/GreekPlays/e_archive/2001/may.htm (access­ ed 9 May 2017).

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Theatre in Los Angeles. Tellingly, the press release for the trilogy describes it as “playing out the fall of the House of Atreus against the backdrop of an unpopular war overseas and the social, political and emotional impact of such a war on those left at home”.55 While it is still the murder of Iphigeneia that pushes Clytemnestra to act, the death of her daughter is only a trigger for the queen caught in a world of power-hungry politicians and warmongers. Charles Mee’s productions demonstrate similar concerns. In 2006, both his Agamemnon 2.0 and his Iphigenia 2.0 enjoyed runs in Los Angeles, and another production of the Iphigenia 2.0 played in New York in 2007. Mee’s Iphigenia and Agamemnon form half of a tetralogy in his repertoire, a tetralogy whose other elements are Orestes 2.0 and Trojan Women 2.0. The tetralogy is entitled “Imperial Dreams”, a title that reveals Mee’s agenda, namely to critique modern American society, and in particular its attitude to war, specifically the war in Iraq. Thus Mee says in his description of his Iphigenia 2.0, The play by Euripid­es, set in the world today, in which a great imperial power steps into the world to go to war—taking an action so wrong that it sets the empire on the road to complete self-destruction. Proving, as Agamemnon himself says on the brink of the Trojan War, “we see from the histories of empires that none will last forever and all are brought down finally not by others but by themselves”.56 A review of Agamemnon 2.0 similarly states that, “Agamemnon the hero, red with blood, has returned to discover that the only thing he has accomplished is the destruction of his own society and ultimately, of himself”.57 Clytemnestra’s madness in this production, and the ultimate responsibility for all, is laid squarely at the feet of Agamemnon, who will go to any lengths to carry out the war he so desires. Indeed, after she has killed him, Clytemnestra declares, “This man was a murderer, sacrificing his own daughter to his ambition and his cowardice”, and continues “Whose life was safe at home with a man who would murder his own defenseless daughter?” implying even that she acted to protect her other children. The message seems to be that if a man is war and power hungry, then even the Trojan War might not satisfy him, and

55 56 57

http://fordtheatres.org/en/pressroom/announcements/hsh_release.pdf (accessed on 21 April 2009 but no longer active). http://www.charlesmee.org/plays.shtml#tragedieshttp://www.charlesmee.org/plays .shtml#tragedies (accessed 9 May 2017). Santa Monica Daily Press, June 09, 2006, available at https://issuu.com/smdp/ docs/060906https://issuu.com/smdp/docs/060906 (accessed 8 May 2017).

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a repeat adventure could occur; and Agamemnon, according to this portrayal, is the greatest warmonger of all. 3.3 The Oresteia: 2015 Bearing in mind the frequency and strength of the messages about war in stagings of the myth in the first decade of the second millennium, it is striking to note a new change of emphasis with the three productions of the Oresteia from 2015. In none of them was war the central motif; instead new concerns took their place. In Robert Icke’s Oresteia, the most important element was the plays’ significance as family drama. In the words of one review, “Icke … asserts the domestic setting and his adaptation will beckon us into this family’s interior world”.58 With a much more personal retelling of the myth, the emphasis was on, “the contrast between private and public utterance … The individual life versus the greater good. The inescapable consequences of foreign wars and of individual violence. The multiple accounts of one story”,59 and on war’s impact on the personal and on family dynamics, rather than the national. Despite the difference in staging and production, the Globe’s version of The Oresteia had a comparable focus. Rory Mullarkey, who adapted and translated the work, described it as “a huge, epic trilogy about how we live together”. This was a much more traditional production than Icke’s, and was primarily concerned with justice, mercy and revenge. It was a graphic depiction, featuring a Clytemnestra who “flourishes in this blood covered embodiment of murder, power, and bare-fleshed sex”,60 and “the occasional blood-covered actor triumphantly shouting a monologue over a pile of body parts”.61 Overall, however, it was concerned, not with the horrors of warfare, but with the roles of vengeance and justice as they perform within the family,62 and more extensively within society (the whole summer season at the Globe was entitled “Justice and Mercy”). These wider contemporary concerns were reflected in the modern elements of the staging. With regard to the set, the backdrop was made of graffiti covered chipboard, intended to represent the boarded-up shops and streets of modern, austerity-stricken Athens. In a similar bid to connect 58 59 60 61 62

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/may/22/blood-oresteia-aeschylus-tragedy-­ almeida-globe-home-theatre (accessed 9 May 2017). http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jun/07/oresteia-almeida-review-lia-williamsangus-wright (accessed 9 May 2017). http://www.thepublicreviews.com/the-oresteia-shakespeares-globe-london/ (accessed 9 May 2017). http://www.theupcoming.co.uk/2015/09/04/the-oresteia-at-the-globe-theatre-review/ (accessed 9 May 2017). One review highlighted thus “familial revenge” as the central theme of the production. See http://londonist.com/2015/09/oresteia (accessed 7 September 2015).

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ancient and modern, the chorus was costumed as modern businessmen and women, complete with briefcases and laptops, while Aegisthus was flanked by helmeted heavies armed with truncheons, who faced the audience and chorus threateningly. In the words of one review, “the chorus’ contemporary dress at this moment is particularly resonant: they meld with the groundlings as though they could all alternatively be protesting unheeded against ruthless immigration policies or increased tuition fees”.63 The relevance of such staging is clear. At a time when society is in a state of flux as a result of recent changes (the technological advances of the past few decades, the new globalisation, European recession to name just a few) there is a feeling that “the foundations of democracy are being re-shaped in front of our eyes”.64 As the trilogy progresses to the conversion of the Furies, into agents of civic order and civil obedience, with the birth of democracy, the ancient cycle of revenge has been replaced with a law and justice. Yet, as one review commented, “But of course they haven’t. The way the world is now we’re right back there with Aeschylus and his audience”.65 This m ­ essage was strengthened by the addition of a short satyr play to the end of the ­performance complete with a huge phallic model, which undercut the seriousness of the role of the Eumenides, reducing them, and the message of the play, to a status that was somewhat ridiculous, and rather bewildering for the audience. The recent productions therefore show a swing away from presentations of war to more contemporary issues of the changing society and the place of the family within that society. While at the time of writing this article, it was too early to say what exactly would be the focus of Manchester Home’s production, its featuring of a chorus composed of citizens of Manchester was been described as “an intriguing prospect, given the civic questions the plays poses about how societies accommodate their most unruly and frightening elements”.66 The inclusion of this element would make it likely that this version of the Oresteia also continues the trend seen in the other productions presented on the London stage in 2015.

63 Ibid. 64 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/oresteiathe-current-greek-crisis-proves-that-the-tragedy-is-as-politically-charged-as-­ ever-10473829.html (accessed 9 May 2017). 65 http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/reviews/the-oresteia-shakespearesglobe_38654.html (accessed 9 May 2017). 66 http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/may/22/blood-oresteia-aeschylus-tragedy-­ almeida-globe-home-theatre (accessed 27 August 2015, 9 May 2017).

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Conclusion

An examination of the performance reception of The Oresteia over the past quarter century therefore demonstrates how issues such as translation, ­adaptation and staging can be used to promote particular agendas. These agendas themselves reflect changing concerns, fears and views concerning contemporary evils. Where feminism was a key concern at the end of the first millennium, with Clytemnestra being rehabilitated and portrayed as a victim of spousal abuse by her wicked husband, the early years of the twentieth century, against the background of hostilities in the Middle East and Afghanistan, saw warfare as the central topic of concern. Thus Agamemnon was portrayed as an imperialist warmonger, and armed conflict was portrayed as the principal danger and evil. The most recent productions feature yet another shift. In a world that perhaps feels increasingly uncertain, the erosion of democracy, and civic and family values has become the focus. Despite its ancient origins, The Oresteia has yet again become a vehicle through which to explore the anxieties of modern society, a process that will surely continue as long as drama itself endures. Bibliography Bryant-Bertail, Sarah, “Gender, Empire and Body Politic as Mise en Scène: Mnouchkine’s Les Atrides”, Theatre Journal (1994) 1–30. Chesi, Giulia Maria, The Play of Words: Blood Ties and Power Relations in Aeschylus’ “Oresteia” (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014). Chioles, John, “The Oresteia and the Avant-Garde: Three Decades of Discourse”, Performing Arts Journal 15.3 (1993) 1–28. Foley, Helene, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). Foley, Helene, “Agamemnon and His Daughters”, Theatre Journal 54. 1 (2002) 143–45. Foley, Helene, “Bad women: Gender Politics in Late Twentieth-Century Performance and Revision of Greek Tragedy”, in Edith Hall, Fiona Macintosh and Amanda Wrigley (eds.), Dionysus since ’69 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 77–111. Foley, Helene, “The Millenium Project: Agamemnon in the United States”, in Fiona Macintosh, Pantelis Michelakis, Edith Hall and Oliver Taplin (eds.), Agamemnon in Performance 458 BC to AD 2004 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 307–42. Friedman, Sharon, “Feminist Revisions of Classic Texts on the American Stage”, in Barbara Ozieblo-Rajkowska and María Dolores Narbona-Carrión (eds.), Codifying the National Self: Spectators, Actors, and the American Dramatic Text 17 (2006) 87–90.

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Gamel, Mary-Kay, “Staging Ancient Drama: The Difference Women Make”, Syllecta Classica 10 (1999) 22–42. Goldhill, Simon, Language, Sexuality, Narrative: The Oresteia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Hall, Edith, “Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra versus her Senecan Tradition”, in Fiona Macintosh, Pantelis Michelakis, Edith Hall and Oliver Taplin (eds.), Agamemnon in Performance: 458 BC to AD 2004 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 53–76. Hall, Edith, “Towards a Theory of Performance Reception”, in Edith Hall and Stephe Harrop (eds), Theorising Performance: Greek Drama, Cultural History and Critical Practice (London: Duckworth, 2010) 10–28. Hardwick, Lorna, “Agamemnon Solo”, in David Stuttard and Tamsin Shasha (eds.), Essays on Agamemnon (Brighton, UK: Actors Of Dionysus, 2002) 106–18. Hardwick, Lorna, “Remodeling Receptions: Greek Drama as Diaspora in performance,” in C. Martindale and R.F. Thomas (eds.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) 211–12. Hardwick, Lorna, “Playing around Cultural Faultlines”, in Ashley Chantler and Carla Dente (eds.), Translation Practices: Through Language to Culture (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2009) 175–78. Hardwick, Lorna, “Greek Drama and Theatre for the Oppressed”, in Jan Nelis (ed.), Receptions of Antiquity (Gent: Academia Press, 2011) 81–91. Hopkins, David, Conversing With Antiquity: English Poets and the Classics, from Shakespeare to Pope. Classical Presences (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 1–14. Hulton, Dorinda, “An Investigation into Ways of Addressing and Embodying Questions of Character in Foursight Theatre’s 2004 Production of Agamemnon”, Practitioners Voices in Classical Reception Studies Issue 1 (Nov. 2007) (http://www.open.ac.uk/ arts/research/pvcrs/2007/hulton) (accessed 9 May 2017). Kittelä, Sanna-Ilaria, “The Queen Ancient and Modern: Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra”, New Voices in Classical Reception Studies 4 (2009) 123–41. Komar, Kathleen L., Reclaiming Klytemnestra: Revenge or Reconciliation (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003). Leira, Halldis and Madelien Krips, “Revealing Cultural Myths on Motherhood”, in KMG Schreurs, L. Woerton, J. van Mens-Verhulst (eds.), Daughtering and Mothering: Female Subjectivity Reanalysed (London and NY: Routledge, 1993) 83–93. Martindale, Charles, Redeeming the Text: Latin Poetry and the Hermeneutics of Reception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Maurice, Lisa, “Contaminatio and Adaptation: the Modern Reception of Ancient Drama as an aid to understanding Roman Comedy”, in Anastasia Bakogianni (ed.), Dialogues with the Past (2): Reception Theory and Practice, Proceedings of the Reception of Ancient Greek and Roman Drama Conference, BICS Supplement series (London: ICS, 2013) 444–93.

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McClure, Laura, “Logos Gunaikos: Speech, Gender, and Spectatorship in the Oresteia”, Helios 24 (1997) 112–35. McClure, Laura, Spoken Like a Woman: Speech and Gender in Athenian Drama (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). McDonald, Marianne, “The Atrocities of Les Atrides: Mnouchkine’s Tragic Vision”, Theatre Forum 1 (1992) 12–19. Meineck, Peter, The Oresteia (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1998). Shevtsova, Maria, “On Directing: a Conversation with Katie Mitchell”, New Theatre Quarterly 22 (2006) 3–18. Wiles, David, Mask and Performance in Greek Tragedy: From Ancient Festival to Modern Experimentation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) (2nd edn.). Wohl, Victoria, The Intimate Commerce: Exchange, Gender, and Subjectivity in Greek Tragedy (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998). Zeitlin, Froma, “The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Mythmaking in the Oresteia”, Arethusa 2 (1978) 149–84 (reprinted in John Peradotto and J.P. Sullivan (eds.), Women in the Ancient World: The Arethusa Papers (Albany: SUNY Press, 1984) 159–94); revised and reprinted in Froma Zeitlin, Playing the Other: Theater, Theatricality, and the Feminine in Greek Drama (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) 87–119.

chapter 2

Thornton Wilder’s The Alcestiad or A Life in the Sun Hanna M. Roisman Euripides’s Alcestis was first performed in Athens at the Great Dionysia in 438 bce. Presented as the fourth drama in the place of the customary satyr-play, it defies genre categorization and is sometimes termed ‘prosatyric’. On the one hand, it deals with life and death, which are serious subjects; on the other, it includes comic elements, such as non-sequiturs, absurdity, ambiguous exchanges, sexual innuendos, and the inebriated Heracles.1 Later treatments of the play are numerous, including drama, poetry, and prose. One could divide them into two categories: adaptations, which follow the original themes of the plot but refocus a theme or idea while being in a dialogue with the original; and reworkings, which by using the plot’s themes to explore an idea absent from the original, employ the original play as a springboard for further reflection. For the most part authors adapted the Alcestis, focusing on one or two of the many themes the play offers: conjugal relationship, hospitality, courage, self-sacrifice, death, as well as the spectacle offered by the appearance of the inebriated Heracles. Victorian Burlesque, for example, elaborated on the key elements of Euripides’s original but approached the questions of marital relationship, self-sacrifice, life and death with great levity.2 The burlesques inspired more serious treatments of the same themes by William Morris “The Love of Alcestis” (1868); Francis Turner Palgrave “Alcestis” (1871); and Robert Browning Balaustion’s Adventure (1871). All three versions are imbued with a moral fervor. Marguerite Yourcenar’s Le mystère d’ Alceste (1944) attributes to Alcestis’s self-sacrifice a mixture of love and hatred for her husband. T.S. Eliot used the Greek play as a “point of departure” for his drawing room comedy The Cocktail Party (1949), in which he too addresses the themes of conjugal love 1 For discussion see for example Hanna M. Roisman “Meter and Meaning”, New England C ­ lassical Journal 27 (2000) 182–199; Cecelia Eaton Luschnig and Hanna M. Roisman Euripides’ Alcestis. With Notes and Commentary (Norman, OK: Oklahoma University Press, 2003) 166–172, 178–190. 2 See Issachar Styrke’s Alcestis Burlesqued (London: Longman and Co., 1816); Francis Talfourd’s Alcestis, the Original Strong-Minded Woman A Classical Burlesque, A Most Shameless Misinterpretation of the Greek Drama of Euripides (Oxford: E.T. Spiers; London: T.H. Lacy, 1950); the anonymous Alcestis or Euripides Destroyed (1866).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_004

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and death by self-sacrifice.3 Lastly, Ted Hughes in the final version of his translation/adaptation Alcestis (1999) focuses mostly on the spectacle of Heracles’s twelve labors. Thornton Wilder is unique in basing his work on the ancient play (and the myth in general) but using a composite of all the original themes in order to advance a topic absent in Euripides’ play. Influenced at the time of writing by Søren Kiergegaard, he wanted to focus on the difficulty of any dialogue between heaven and earth.4 For him the original play served only as a springboard for the kind of philosophical contemplation current in his time, and unlike any other author using the original play, he did not intend to engage in a dialogue with Euripides. In his journal entry of January 25, 1955, written shortly after he completed the first draft of The Alcestiad, Wilder concluded that “the vast undertaking … has fallen conspicuously short”.5 And on November 18, 1963, eight years after the first performance, in a letter to Harold Freedman, he writes: It puts me in a very funny position to have to repeat to kind well-wishers that I think The Alcestiad is not a workable play. It makes me look like someone wishing for more and more compliments. I don’t mind having a failure, but I hate to involve others in a failure … it’s a pan of rolls that didn’t get cooked through in the oven.6 3 T.S. Eliot, Poetry and Drama (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1951) 38. 4 Martin Blank, “The Alcestiad: The Play and the Opera”, in Martin Blank (ed.), Critical Essays on Thornton Wilder. (New York: G.K. Hall; London: Prentice Hall International, 1996) 88–89; R.G. Wilder and J.R. Bryer, The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder (New York: Harper Collins, 2008) 406–7; letter to Sibyl Colefax, October 9, 1942. 5 That he expected that the play wouldn’t be very successful in Edinburgh, and apparently having been warned about it, see his letter to Irene Worth, who played Alcestis, Jan. 23, 1955 before the start of the production, Wilder and Bryer (2008) 528–9: it “Is the play so off-beat as all that? So intimidatingly high-brow?” For more positive views, see Mary Koutsoudaki, “Thornton Wilder’s The Alcestiad and Minor Plays”, Classical and Modern Literature 14 (1994) 349–359; Owen E. Brady, “The Alcestiad: Wilder’s Herculean Labor to Solve the Riddle of Identity”, in Martin Blank, D.H. Brunauer, D.G. Izzo (eds.), Thornton Wilder: New Essays (West Cornwall, ct: Locust Hill Press, 1999) 441–442: “The Alcestiad is a remarkable work of art, and original, something old made vitally new again, typically Wilder”; Mary C. English “The A ­ lcestiad: Wilder and the ‘Incommensurability of Things Human and Divine’”, in J.R. Bryer and L. Konkle (eds.), Thornton Wilder: New Perspectives (Evanston, il: Northwestern University Press, 2013) 334–59. 6 Wilder and Bryer (2008) 626–7. According to Niven, Thornton Wilder. A Life (New York, ny: Harper Collins Publishers, 2012) 640, he was disappointed with The Alcestiad as a stage play and decided to withdraw it; cf. 629.

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Despite its success in both Switzerland and Germany, manifested in rave audiences, and a request for an opera version, history has concurred with Wilder’s harsh judgment.7 Slater, at the end of his act-by-act plot summary of the play in his chapter on the afterlife of Euripides’s Alcestis, observes that “The sparse production history of the play in the English–speaking world suggests that Wilder’s case has not proved particularly compelling … ”.8 The weakness of the play must have been particularly disappointing for Wilder in view of its long gestation period and the emotional hold that the story apparently had on him. In her foreword to the published text, his sister, Isabel Wilder, writes that his interest in the story goes back to his boyhood, when at age eight he read or was read Bulfinch’s The Age of Fable, and the tale “captured his imagination—and his heart”.9 He began work on the play in 7 First performed on August 22, 1955 at the Edinburgh Festival, it was given the title A Life in the Sun over Wilder’s objection, cf. Wilder and Bryer (2008) 546: “hateful title”, letter to Eileen Roland, and Julian Le Grand, December 19, 1956. It was directed by Tyrone Guthrie with Irene Worth as Alcestis. The reception of the play was lukewarm, see Blank (1996) 91; English (201) 348–9; critics disliked the play’s lack of unity, Niven (2012) 630. Wilder knew he should make revisions, but didn’t. In 1957 he added what he called a satyr-play, The Drunken Sisters, published in the Atlantic Monthly, and also signed a contract to have revisions followed in the German play script translated by Herberth E. Herlitschka, published as Die Alkestiade in a German edition in 1960 by Fischer Verlag in Frankfurt am Main. It included the satyr-play Die beschwipsten Schwestern. After a great success the play was performed throughout Germany, and also in Vienna. Wilder also wrote a libretto for an opera The Alcestiad performed in Frankfurt on March 1, 1962. Later it was performed in concert form, and arias from it have been sung in various recitals to thunderous applause. In a letter to Ruth Gordon, Jan. 23, 1957, R. Wilder and Bryer 2008: 548, Wilder comments: “The Germans like to hear behind the play Destiny-and-Fate—and vague philosophical allusions to Last Questions (my Alcestiad is going on at the Zürich Festival in June and will go like wildfire all over the German municipal theaters)”. This success, however, would benefit from further examination in the light of the familiarity of the German audiences with the dramaturgy of the non-Aristotelian theater of Bertolt Brecht and others, which rejected the idea of emotional identification with characters as well as emotional catharsis, instead looked for rational self-reflection and critical view of the action on the stage. The play was published in full in English only in 1977, after Wilder’s death (1975). For full production account see A.T. Wilder (ed.), The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder. Vol. ii (New York: Theatre Communication Group, 1997) 275–277; cf. Blank (1996). 8 Niall Slater, Euripides: Alcestis. (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) 91. For more positive views, see Koutsoudaki (1994) 349–359; Brady (1999) 441–442: “The Alcestiad is a remarkable work of art, and original, something old made vitally new again, typically Wilder”. 9 See foreword by Isabel Wilder in Thorton Wilder The Alcestiad, or A Life in the Sun. A Play in Three Acts with a Satyr Play. The Drunken Sisters (New York: Harper & Row, 1977) xiv.

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1938,10 but its writing was interrupted by his service in World War ii. He took the sketches he had made of Act One, including the Teiresias scene, with him to Europe, intending to write a one-act play. The material was lost in 1945, just as he returned to the States at the end of the war. For several years, he occupied himself with other projects, but the story stayed with him. He finally restarted work on the play in the latter part of 1953, when he began from scratch.11 Wilder locates the play’s weakness in its failure to convey his main idea and in the quality of the idea it does convey. As he accurately observes in his journal entry of January 25, 1955, the actions of the play “tend to persuade the auditor that the supernatural order is in loving relation with us—though the relation is rendered difficult through the ‘incommensurability’” (cf. journal entry of September 18, 1953). That, however, he states, was not his intention: I had planned to … exhibit that series of actions … in such a way that we could never be certain that the Supernatural was, truly speaking, ­hovering—nay, existing to devise every sign and message and intrusion of the Other in such a way that it could be interpreted as action, delusion, mirage … . The physical presence of Apollo from the beginning, however, establishes the existence of the divine and undercuts any such interpretation, he observes. With respect to the quality of the idea, he faults the play for the tepidity of its religious conviction. It “is not a very good or radiant or convinced play of faith …”, he determines. “What strength it has would have been all the more compelling in a framework of clearer, harder intellectual structure”. He is more specific in his entry of August 14, 1955: “I am ashamed of this lukewarm imitative dilettante religiosity. Pfui!” Although these judgments are on target, it is questionable whether the tepidness of the idea is what mainly accounts for the play’s deficiencies. Had the religious conviction been firmer, would the play have been better? Would it have been better if it had succeeded in conveying the uncertainty of a divine presence? In the remainder of this paper I would like to show that the core problem of the Alcestiad lies not in the quality of the idea, or in the failure to convey the idea, that Wilder originally had in mind, but in the very notion that the function of a play is solely to convey an idea. 10 11

Blank (1996) 88. Wilder (1977), in the foreword by Isabel Wilder xvii–xviii; D. Gallup (ed.), The journals of Thornton Wilder, 1939–1961 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985) 39, 189, and passim.

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Wilder put forth this notion in his essay “Some Thoughts on Playwrighting”, published in 1941. A play, as Wilder conceived it, is “a succession of events illustrating a general idea—the stirring of the idea; the gradual feeding out of information; the shock and countershock of circumstances … ”.12 His emphasis on illustrating an idea is intertwined with his subordination of characterization and, more insidiously, of plot. Characterization, according to Wilder, is not in the playwright’s control, but determined by the actors and directors, who may distort the playwright’s intentions and even ignore his explicit directions.13 As examples, he points to widely differing presentations of Shylock and Hedda Gabler. The antidote is “to organize the play in such a way that its strength lies not in appearances [i.e., character] beyond his [the playwright’s] control, but in the succession of events and in the unfolding of an idea, in narration”.14 On first impression, Wilder seems to be asserting the importance of plot, in keeping with Aristotle’s view that plot, or mythos, is the most important element of tragedy. A succession of events, however, does not make up a plot. As Aristotle points out, the events of the tragic plot must be connected to one another either through necessity or probability.15 Creating a succession of events to carry an idea undercuts this principle as well as the anticipation—the “what happens next?”—that is the mark of a good story.16 Wilder has used this vignette narrative strategy rather than a suspenseful story line in his iconic play Our Town, in which the passage of time alone propels the play. However, unlike the Alcestiad, Our Town offers realistic characters with whose thoughts, culture and experiences we can easily identify.17 Indeed 12

13 14 15 16

17

Wilder (1941) 85–86 = A. Tappan Wilder (1997) 263–264. He struggled however with having one idea underlie the entire plot, as he states in his letter to Sibyl Colefax: “The whole play must be subtended by one idea, which is not an idea but a question … And no two minutes of it must be too romantic, and none too pedestrian, and none too comic, and none too grandiose”. (August 20, 1945), Wilder and Bryer (2008) 434; Niven (2012) 368–9. Thorton Wilder, “Some Thoughts of Playwrighting”, in A. Centeno (ed.), “The Intent of the Artist” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941) 89. Wilder (1941) 85 = A. Tappan Wilder (1997) 263. Poetics 23. 1459a. Donald Haberman The Plays of Thornton Wilder. A Critical Study (Middletown, ct: Wesleyan University Press, 1967) 74–92 observes that Wilder subordinates characterization “in favor of an arbitrary and artificial arrangement of events … . Characters, therefore, are created to convey ideas, and they will naturally make their appearance as symbols” (74). As Amos Tappan Wilder, Thornton Wilder’s nephew and estate executor, comments in the recent Samuel French acting edition (March, 2014): “Our Town evokes inspiration and questions about love, life and death in a mythic New England village we can identify with

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we know what it means when Mrs. Gibbs tries to get her children on time to school, or what it means for George to wish to become a successful football player, etc. Wilder was able to create such familiar figures, because the characters of Our Town are of our immediate milieu, and the idea that he wanted to convey, that people should try to find value and priceless joy in the smallest events in our daily lives, is easily grasped and subtly implied rather than explicitly stated in the acts of the characters, and made quasi-explicit only at the end of the last act. It does not hover over the play from its very beginning, as does the Kierkegaardian question of whether or not humans can be in dialogue with the divine. The weakness of the Alcestiad is not the quality of the idea, as Wilder thought, but having the idea dominate the play, subsuming the plot, and undermining the psychological verity of the characters. The subordination of character and plot to idea is at the core of the play’s weaknesses. As I will attempt show in the following pages, this approach produces characters with whom it is difficult to identify, and offers a string of vignettes in place of a compelling plot. It should also be noted that the play is weighted by a stupefying quantity of abstruse Kierkegaardian philosophy, which Wilder was reading at the time he was writing it (journal entry, ­December 7, 1954). Since this and other aspects of Wilder’s thinking have been well treated, e.g., by Haberman (1967), Miller (1983), Porter (1985), Brady (1999), Corrigan (1996), English (2013), I will not deal with them.18 Nor will I discuss the satyr-play, The Drunken Sisters, that Wilder published in 1957, to form a

18

even if we have never been within a thousand miles of New Hampshire” (my emphasis). He suggests that the Alcestiad and Our Town are ‘sister plays’. In fact, nothing connects the two plays. Unlike Our Town where the existentialist questions posed by Emily appear only towards the end of the last act, the question of whether we can converse with the divine is posed at the very beginning of the Alcestiad with Alcestis’ first appearance. Haberman (1967) discusses the religious thrust of the play and the influence of Kierkegaard on the play, which he claims to be “almost alone as a serious religious play written by a contemporary American” (40); Rhea B. Miller, “Berdyaev’s Eschatological Vision in Wilder’s Last Works”, Renascence 35.3 (1983) 154–166, focuses on the eschatological vision of Nicholas Berdyaev appearing in Thornton Wilder’s late works. David H. Porter, “MacLeish’s herakles and Wilder’s alcestiad”, cj 80 (1985) 147–149, focuses on the classical sources of the play, especially the gods, and on the comparative religious aspect. Brady (1999) asserts that the motif of disguise and, by implication, identity connects the three acts of the play. Robert W. Corrigan, “Thornton Wilder and the Tragic Sense of Life”, in Martin Blank (ed.), Critical Essays on Thornton Wilder (New York: G.K. Hall/ London: Prentice Hall International, 1996) 77–83, focuses on Kierkegaard’s philosophy and the tragic sense of life in Wilder’s works; English (2013) attempts to find thematic parallels to the Alcestiad in other works by Wilder.

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complete tetralogy, on the model of those mounted on the tragedy days of the annual Great Dionysia in 5th century Athens. Before elaborating on my thesis, I will briefly summarize the play for those who are not familiar with it. The Alcestiad consists of three acts, to which Wilder later added a short satyr-play. As Wilder explains in his “Notes on The Alcestiad”, each act draws on a different part of the myth. Only the second act deals with Alcestis’s death and resurrection, made famous by Euripides’ eponymous play. The play is framed by two confrontations between Apollo, god of light, and Death, depicted as a figure resembling a bat or a beetle. They first face off takes place at the opening of the play, in a scene that bears some resemblance to the Prologue of Euripides’s Alcestis and the only scene in Wilder’s play that owes anything to Euripides’s rendition. The encounter introduces the play’s key issue and motifs. The issue, raised by Death, is the paradox at the heart of JudeoChristian belief namely that the reputedly loving God causes those he loves so much suffering. As Death puts it, “When the gods come near to men, sooner or later someone is killed”. Much of the extensive philosophizing in the play wrestles with this conundrum. The motifs are introduced by Apollo, who functions as a stand-in for the Christian deity. These are that he has come to set a story in motion, that the story will have a lesson, and that it will effect or show a “change” of which Death has no conception. The second face-off is in Act Three, after Alcestis has been brought back from the Underworld. Although the encounter takes place in the midst of a pestilence, Apollo declares that he has set his story in motion, taught his lesson, and brought about the change he had promised. Along with the play’s extensive philosophizing, this framing device gives The Alcestiad something of the flavor of a medieval morality play, in which God and the devil compete for the soul of man. In his journal entry of November 17, 1953, which deals with this scene, Wilder expresses the concern that he is inadvertently writing a “mysterium”. The remainder of Act One establishes the grounds for, and antecedents of, Alcestis’s sacrifice. The beginning of the act shows Alcestis as a girl enamored of Apollo and longing to show her love by giving her life to him. Her statement that she has “one life to live, one life to give” intimates that she would be willing to die for Apollo, not only be his priestess. In the course of the act, she moves from the love of the god to the love of Admetus, whose wife she agrees to become. By connecting her love with a desire to sacrifice herself, the first act enables us to see her sacrifice for Admetus in Act Two as the fulfillment of her love and rooted in a deep spirituality. Act Two, twelve years later, traces the shift from the impending death of ­Admetus, as he sits exhausted and semi-paralyzed awaiting his fate, to the

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death of Alcestis. Although Wilder was familiar with Euripides’s rendition both from his classical education and his work in the theater, the act owes nothing whatsoever to Euripides’ play. In place of Euripides’s egotistical ruler, terrified of dying and clinging to life at all costs, Wilder drew Admetus as anticipating his death with equanimity and unaware, until the last moment, that Alcestis has opted to replace him. Also in contrast to Euripides, Wilder depicted other people volunteering to die for Admetus. Act Three, following the passage of another twelve years, provides an answer to the inevitable question “What happened after Alcestis was brought back from the Underworld?” This Act shows Alcestis dressed in rags, a widow and a slave in Thessaly, ruled by the Thracian tyrant Agis who had deposed and murdered Admetus. The act opens with the city beset by a plague and the Watchman trying to incite the clamoring populace against Alcestis, whom Agis blames for the pestilence. It ends with Agis chastened by the death of his beloved daughter and Apollo returning to take Alcestis off to his paradise. I will now proceed to look more closely at the play. My discussion will show three inter-related problems that arise from Wilder’s attempt to make its actions a vehicle for an idea. First, the question arises of what moves the plot. What propels the succession of events? The Greek tragedies, although they attribute events to the workings of fate, usually show how the heroes’ passions and the thoughts that arise from those passions drive their actions. In The Alcestiad, events simply happen, strung together in vignette fashion to illustrate a point. Second, when character is downplayed, it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify with the dramatis persona. Third, the ideas take over, and their weight in the play becomes stupefying. I will now make these points act by act. As stated above, the main movement in Act One is Alcestis’s transition from the desire to give her life to Apollo to her whole-hearted agreement to be the wife of Admetus. Thematically, the act traces her movement from the love of the divine to her love of a human being. At the beginning of the act, she views living at Delphi as a priestess of Apollo as living “in the real … where the Truth is”. At the end, we may assume that she has come to see that living in the real is living in the here and now, and that this is where the “Truth is”—though this is never quite said in the play. But what drives her change? In the early part of the act, she longs for a sure sign that she should marry Admetus even though she loves Apollo more. It is a longing for a sign of the divine intention that, the act makes one feel, all people share. Aglaia, (Alcestis’s maid) and the Watchman also ask Apollo for a sign; but the act seems to imply that clarity and certainty may never be attained. First, Aglaia tells Alcestis that the sign has already been given, in Admetus’s

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success in meeting the challenge of yoking a lion and a boar that her father had placed before all her suitors. But then she goes on to scoff about certainties, or the clear, open presence of the god “Clear? Open? Even at Delphi the sibyl is delirious; she raves, she is beside herself. Who ever heard of them speaking clearly?” (Act i, p. 26). The need to make do with much less than certainty is underscored in the next two scenes. Teiresias, who brings the news that Apollo will be coming down to live among them as a herdsman, is depicted as a senile and cantankerous old man. The four herdsmen who arrive meet Alcestis’s question of whether Apollo is truly among them with silence, leading her to ask, “Are we human beings to be left without any sign, any word? Are we abandoned?” The sense of abandonment leads her to despair “Then we must find our way by ourselves … and life is a meaningless grasping at this and that; it is a passionate nonsense” (Act 1, p. 40). Thus far, the plot has moved logically, the incidents tracing Alcestis’s progress to despair. The problem, as Wilder himself noted (journal entry of November 17, 1953), is that the scene between Death and Apollo which opens Act One establishes both the existence of the deity and its place in the lives of human beings. After seeing this, how can the audience identify with that despair? The emotional power of Alcestis’s despair is thus undercut; her despair becomes merely an illustration of a temporary state. The plot becomes even less convincing in the remainder of the act, in which Alcestis’s despair abates and she agrees to marry Admetus. The shift occurs in two steps. The first is philosophical one of the Herdsmen puts forth the Kier­ kegaardian idea that the huge gulf between the gods and man makes connecting difficult. “In what language would they talk to us?” he asks. “Compared to them, we are diseased and dying and deaf and blind and as busy as clowns”. He goes further “What kind of love is that, Princess, when there is so great a gulf between the lovers?” (Act 1, p. 43). These assertions are aimed at weaning Alcestis away from her demand for certainty and the expectation of God’s love, and reconciling her—and the audience—to the flitting, ambiguous intimations of the divine in human life. The philosophizing, however, is divorced both from what has come before and the character pronouncing it. The play has shown good people caring for one another and searching for meaning, not moribund characters frenetically engaged in foolish activities. It is also at odds with the speaker. If the Herdsman is Apollo, then his words deny his actions. If he is not Apollo, but a simple herdsman, where would he find the depth of thought and vocabulary for such pronouncements? The second step occurs in Alcestis’s meeting with Admetus. The meeting is preceded by the Herdsman’s proposition that the gods may bridge the gulf

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between themselves and humanity not by coming down to the human level but by bringing those they love up nearer to themselves.19 Admetus, he suggests, has been elevated thus (Act 1, pp. 43–44). Therefore, when Admetus enters, both Alcestis and the audience are prepared to meet an individual of a higher order. Admetus does not disappoint. Having learned that Alcestis is still determined to go to Delphi to become Apollo’s priestess, he magnanimously releases her from her pledge to marry him and tells her that he has ordered that her drivers and maids be prepared for the journey. But before she leaves, he declares his great love for her in a moving speech. With raised head but lowered eyes, Alcestis puts out her hand and says, “Admetus, ask me again to marry you”. The dramatization of the moment of change and the encounter in which it occurs is clearly the work of a skilled playwright. Nonetheless, the change is abrupt and the lead-up to it inadequate. We are shown the externals that prompt the change: Alcestis’s unsatisfied longing for a sign of the divine will; the Herdsman’s explanation that the gods cannot appear among us and his suggestion that something of the godhead lodges in Admetus; and Admetus’s own magnanimity and love. However, we have been shown nothing of what has gone on in Alcestis’s heart and mind. The play doesn’t tell us how the Herdsman’s revelations affected her—the train of thoughts or feelings it prompted, not to mention any doubts it may have raised. As a result, there is something serendipitous in the transformation. In Act Two, the problem is less with lapses in the plot than with the thinness and one-dimensionality of Alcestis’s characterization and the divorce between her character and the plot. Alcestis’s sacrifice is presented as “an act of love” (Act 2, p. 60) that is especially meritorious because she is the youngest of the persons—Aglaia, the Watchman, and the Herdsman—who vie for the privilege of giving their life for Admetus. Being the youngest, she has the most to live for and is the most afraid to die. “You long to die. I dread, fear, hate to die” (Act 2, p. 61). She also has no sin or offense to expiate by her death. It is her youth and innocence that give her sacrifice special value, this scene tells us. Given the play’s mythological roots and fairy tale ambiance, it is not difficult to suspend the disbelief that would greet such a decision in a more realistic drama. We do not ask what deep psychological motives or external pressures drove Alcestis to her decision or expect the playwright to provide them. Euripides’s play does not refer to them either. However, we do want to be able to emotionally identify with Alcestis. Such identification is the basis of the 19

Wilder says in his entry on December 7, 1954 (Gallup [1985] 226) that one of the basic themes of the play is that “Gods come among men by implanting themselves within men”.

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c­ atharsis, the pity and fear, that Aristotle described as the purpose of tragedy and is essential to our experience of all plays. Two things prevent our identification with Alcestis. One is the incessant philosophizing. Having asserted her right to make the ultimate sacrifice, ­Alcestis seeks to understand why “I know now what I have to do and how to do it. But I do not know … why this has been asked of me” (Act 2, p. 61). The purpose of the question is not only to show Alcestis’s musings. More importantly, it is to enable the Herdsman’s philosophical dilations. Much as Aglaia had told Alcestis that no sure sign is to be expected from Delphi, the Herdsman now tells her that there is no answer to her question “ … to understand means to see the whole of a thing. Do we men ever see the whole of a story, the end of a story?” Nor does he stop there. He goes on to distinguish between two types of death “one which is an end, and one which is a going forward”. The latter, he says, is the type of death laid out by Delphi, “a death that leads to something”. Further elaborating, he declares “For if the gods exist, that is their sign that whatever they do is an unfolding, a part of something larger than we can see” (Act 2, p. 62). This answer satisfies Alcestis and her mood lightens, much as it had after Aglaia’s statement that whatever signs the gods gave were unclear. But the abstruseness of his reply cannot but frustrate the audience. Moreover, Alcestis’s philosophical musings as she is about to die and the comfort she takes in the Herdsman’s answer are situationally implausible. They are so far from what we expect a wife and mother on the verge of voluntary death to be concerned with that it is impossible to identify with her as a character. Wilder’s Alcestis, unlike her Euripidean namesake, speaks neither to her husband or children about the act she is about to commit. She instructs Aglaia to tell her son Epimenes to forgive the Herdsman for having unintentionally wounded Admetus and, echoing the concern of Euripides’s heroine that a stepmother will mistreat her children, commands her to “stay by them” (Act 2, p. 64). However, unlike Euripides’s heroine, she doesn’t part from her children in person and shows no grief at the prospect of leaving them, or, for that matter, the husband she loves or the sweetness and pleasures of life. In a single line, she says she is afraid to die, but she doesn’t show fear. Her removal from all the material attachments of our physical being makes her a saintly exemplum, impossible to identify with or even to believe. Wilder himself seems to have lost patience with her. In his journal entry of November 17, 1953, he wrote “Something within me is bored with writing a ‘beautiful’ saint’s legend … ”. Admetus’ characterization makes it equally impossible to identify with him. Reconciled to his impending death, Admetus tells the Watchman that his ­demise must be hidden from Heracles, who is coming to visit. He tells Alcestis

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“I do not need hope. My life was short, but a single hour can hold the whole fullness of time. The fullness of time was given to me. A man who has been happy is no longer the subject of time” (Act 2, p. 71). Can such ungrieving acceptance in the face of one’s premature death find resonance in the emotions that we know in ourselves? It may be an ideal, but can it move us, or even inspire us? The heroes and heroines of the Greek tragedies were removed from the audience by their divine origins and social positions. They belonged to another world, but without exception they were driven by passions that each and every one of us can recognize in ourselves, if not quite in the extreme forms shown in the plays. The unimpeachable goodness of Wilder’s Admetus and Alcestis and their lack of grief, fear, and even ambivalence, place them in the realm of the emotionally unreal. These qualities suggest their origin more in the child’s reading of Bulfinch’s The Age of Fable than in the grown man’s firsthand familiarity with the ancient texts. Their idealized depiction also results in in a lack of tension or conflict between husband and wife. They spend their last moments together, declaring their love and recollecting their youthful behavior. This scene demonstrates the love that fires Alcestis’s sacrifice. It also shows Alcestis’s ecstasy as, moments before her death, she finally attains certainty of connection with the divine “Living or dead, we are watched, we are guided, we are understood” (Act 2, p. 75). But how believable—or interesting or relevant—is the depiction of a marital relationship untouched by disagreement, of a life without regret or remorse, and of the attainment moments before dying of the longed for certainty of divine love? The second part of the act, dramatizing Heracles’s arrival and his retrieval of Alcestis from the Underworld, provides a comic counterpoint to the heavy philosophical weight of the preceding scenes. There is a good deal of comic busyness around the revelation of Alcestis’s whereabouts, which Admetus had wanted to hide from his friend, and around the spectacle of Admetus and Heracles almost coming to blows when Heracles learns that his friend has kept the news of Alcestis’s death from him. Heracles’s decision to bring Alcestis back from the Underworld is handled as an ironic reversal of his declaration that, despite all of his other great feats, he will never descend into the Underworld to bring back someone who has died. “Rising in terrified repudiation” the text tells us, he shouts, “No! No! That I will not do. God or man, no one may ask that of me!” (Act 2, p. 88). The irony—and comedy—are that this is exactly what he does, and on his own initiative. It is one of the better scenes in the play. As a comic scene it does not require emotional identification with

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the characters, but rather the distance that weakens the impact of the more serious scenes.20 The beginning of Act Three completes the treatment of key themes set out in the encounter between Apollo and Death at the opening of the play. In his conversation with Death at the beginning of the act, Apollo declares that he has made himself known to humanity, set his story in motion, and taught his lesson. The lesson, he states, is that “I can bring back from the dead only those who have offered their lives for others” (Act 3, p. 103). The change, which is not clearly labeled, seems to be the possibility of resurrection, as Death accuses Apollo of “breaking the ancient law and order of the world that the living are the living and the dead are the dead” (Act 3, p. 103). The encounter rounds out the plot and brings closure, but creates two problems. One concerns its content. How applicable to the audience is the idea that the deity can give eternal life only to those who sacrifice their life for another person? How many of us are ever asked to do this or have the opportunity to do it? Does it mean that almost all of us are doomed to perdition? Is this degree of self-sacrifice really a moral imperative or even a moral good? Does Wilder really want the audience to come away with the impression that the omnipotent deity of the Judeo-Christian faith is subject to such limitations? The other problem is that, once this closure has been attained, most of the rest of the act seems superfluous. The only scene that seems relevant is that of Apollo’s re-entry at the end of the act to take Alcestis to eternal life in his grove, which provides a concrete representation of the immortality she wins by her self-sacrifice. Having planned a three-act play, however, Wilder has to fill up the third act. Yet if the purpose of the action is to carry the idea of the play and the idea has been pretty much conveyed, what is there left to show? Lacking in material to dramatize what is organically related to his main story, Wilder fills Act Three with a frenetic succession of events with new protagonists and new themes, played out on a stage littered with the unburied corpses of those who have died in the plague. Alcestis’s long lost son Epimenes arrives incognito in Pherai with his friend Cheriander to avenge his father’s death. Mother and son recognize one another after some initial confusion. Alcestis persuades Epimenes not to kill the king. The Townspeople, frantic in the face of the plague, break into the palace courtyard, demanding water. The tyrannical King Agis grills Alcestis on her trip to the Underworld, from where it is believed she brought the plague. While he is interrogating her, he receives 20

Haberman (1967) 42 views Heracles’s forced descent to Hell as “dramatization of Kierkegaard’s idea that from submitting in fear and trembling to what seems to be the loss of everything, paradoxically everything is returned, and, further, it is given a meaning”.

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news of the death of his beloved daughter Laodamia. With this news, Alcestis, the slave, regains her authoritative status and advises the grieving and chastened king on the meaning of his daughter’s death and his own obligations as a father and ruler. The quick-fire pace, the enlarged cast of characters, and the corpse-littered stage make for an act whose constituent events are strung along with little development and which is so different in tone and tempo from the preceding two that it seems tacked on. Moreover, for the event that sets the action in motion, the arrival of Epimenes and Cheriander in Thessaly, Wilder borrows heavily from Aeschylus’s Libation Bearers and Sophocles’s Electra.21 The anonymity of the young men’s arrival, their pretense that Epimenes has died, their intention to avenge the death of the father, and the recognition scene, all hearken back to the classical dramatists. The differences have to do with the import of the events: Wilder uses the anonymous arrival of the would-be avengers as an opportunity for Alcestis to repudiate the wisdom and morality of vengeance and offer an alternative view that “A man who has known the joys of revenge may never know any other joy” (Act 3, p. 129). Whereas Sophocles’s recognition scene, for example, underscores Electra’s hankering for revenge and her absolute unhappiness, Wilder’s provides Alcestis with the opportunity to correct Epimenes’ misconception that she is unhappy “Great happiness was given to me once, yes … but shall I forget that now?” (Act 3, p. 114). Nonetheless, the heavy reliance on Aeschylus and Sophocles here conveys the sense that Wilder simply did not have enough material of his own to fill the act. Despite the frenetic pace of events, the act serves primarily as a platform for philosophizing. The plague and Alcestis’s fall into slavery provide the background for further contemplation of the question raised in Act One how can a loving god cause or allow such suffering. The answer offered at various points in the act is that the suffering is meant to enlarge our understanding, the known Aeschylean principle of pathei mathos “learning by suffering”, stated in the Oresteia,22 Wilder thus has Alcestis make statements like “We ask them for health … and riches … and our happiness. But they are trying to give us 21

22

Koutsoudaki (1994) 354–355 points out that the “theme of the plague and purification process is older than literature and present myth and the ritual throughout the world”. The article, R.G. Wilder and J.R. Bryer (2008) 406–7; letter to Sibyl Colefax, October 9, 1942, also points to Sophocles’s Oedipus Tyrannus as a possible source for the plague in Wilder’s play. For discussion see Rabel “Suffering and Learning in the Oresteia”, in Hanna M. Roisman (ed.), Encyclopedia of Greek Tragedy. Vol. iii (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014 ) 1374–1375.

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something else, and better understanding”, and to explain that the pestilence “has been sent … to call our attention to … to make us sing, to open our eyes … ” (Act 3, pp. 123–124) though she admits not knowing to what. The answer is interesting. However, while it may be natural enough to wonder about why one is made to suffer when one is in difficulty, is this calm contemplation believable when the ground is covered with corpses and the townspeople are demanding one’s death? Is it natural or believable that a high-born woman who has been forced into slavery, with all its privations and ignominies, is not bitter or unhappy and does not wonder, even for a single moment, whether god has abandoned her? In these and other instances, the philosophizing in this act, as in Act One, occurs without attention to the human emotions of the situation in which the pronouncements are made. It beggars belief, prevents identification, and becomes positively stupefying, both in its abundance and in its disconnection from the situations in which it is uttered. I have focused in this paper on the weaknesses of The Alcestiad that arise from its being a play whose actions were meant to convey an idea. I’d like to end with a few words in recognition of the play’s craft. After all, Wilder was a threetime Pulitzer Prize winner. In many respects, The Alcestiad is a well -crafted play. As described above, both the play as a whole and each act individually have their own movements, tracing a progression from one point to another. The three acts are well connected structurally, bridging the twelve-year gaps in time between them. All three acts start at dawn. In all three, the Watchman, serving as a one-person chorus and narrator, appears towards the beginning with the information that sets the act in motion. The key themes introduced in Act One, namely love, self-sacrifice, and longing for a sure sign of the divine existence and purpose, are developed in Act Two and closed at the beginning of Act Three. Moreover, some of the scenes are quite compelling: for example, Admetus’s declaration of love for Alcestis at the end of Act One and their meeting in Act Two, where the illness and pain that precede death pass from Admetus’s body into Alcestis’s. There are also good comic scenes: the appearance of Teiresias, cantankerous and addled, with the news of Apollo’s imminent arrival; Heracles’s reversal of his adamant declaration that he will never descend into the Underworld; and the element of comedy that courses through the exchanges between Apollo and Death. In his forward to the text of the play published in 1997: 168, Wilder writes that he was drawn to the Greek tragedies because of their ambiguity. This accords with the ambiguity of the divine presence he hoped to present in the Alcestiad. It is unfortunate that he did not show an equal appreciation of their deep characterization and cohesive, compelling plots. Because the p ­ hilosophical

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­discussion circumnavigates the human factors and does not encourage the audience to identify with the characters, we must instead work to understand the ideas Wilder has presented, and thus he has perhaps achieved what he set out to do, although he himself was less than satisfied with the result.23 Bibliography Blank, Martin, “The Alcestiad: The Play and the Opera”, in Martin Blank (ed.), Critical Essays on Thornton Wilder (New York: G.K. Hall; London: Prentice Hall International, 1996) 88–98. Blank, Martin, Brunauer, Dalma Hunyadi and David Garrett Izzo, (eds.), Thornton Wilder: New Essays (West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill Press, 1999). Brady, Owen E., “The Alcestiad: Wilder’s Herculean Labor to Solve the Riddle of Identity”, in Martin Blank, Dalma Hunyadi Brunauer, and David Garrett Izzo (eds.), Thornton Wilder: New Essays (West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill Press, 1999) 417–42. Bryer, Jackson R. and Lincoln Konkle, (eds.), Thornton Wilder: New Perspectives (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2013). Corrigan Robert W., “Thornton Wilder and the Tragic Sense of Life”, in Martin Blank (ed.), Critical Essays on Thornton Wilder (New York: G.K. Hall; London: Prentice Hall International, 1996) 77–83. Eliot, Thomas Stearns, Poetry and Drama (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951). Eliot, Thomas Stearns, The Cocktail Party. A Comedy (New York: Harcourt Books, 1978). English, Mary C., “The Alcestiad: Wilder and the ‘Incommensurability of Things Human and Divine’”, in Jackson R. Bryer and Lincoln Konkle (eds.), Thornton Wilder: New Perspectives (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2013) 334–59. Gallup, Donald C. (ed.), The Journals of Thornton Wilder, 1939–1961. With Two Scenes of An Uncompleted Play, “The Emporium” (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1985).

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Wilder was painfully aware that he has distanced his audience. About seven months before the first performance in Edinburgh, he writes Irene Worth, who played Alcestis: ­“Apparently you and I are the only persons who believe that the Suburbanite could become absorbed in this play and recommend it to his or her neighbors … I love men and women so much—and the ordinary man and woman (to whom the play is sort of a hymn)—that I should be very confused, if I woke up at 57 to discover that I was writing works in which they were unable to see themselves reflected. Oh, Lord! Have I become library-dusty and out-of-reach cultured!!” See Wilder and Bryer (2008) 529 (January 10, 1955).

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Gallup, Donald C. and Wilder, Amos Tappan (ed.), The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder. Vol. II (New York: Theatre Communication Group, 1997). Haberman, Donald, The Plays of Thornton Wilder. A Critical Study (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1967). Koutsoudaki, Mary, “Thornton Wilder’s The Alcestiad and Minor Plays”, Classical and Modern Literature 14 (1994) 345–59. Luschnig, Cecelia Eaton and Hanna M. Roisman, Euripides’ Alcestis. With Notes and Commentary (Norman, OK: Oklahoma University Press, 2003). Miller, Rhea B., “Berdyaev’s Eschatological Vision in Wilder’s Last Works”, Renascence 35.3 (1983) 154–66. Niven, Penelope, Thornton Wilder. A Life (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2012). Palgrave, Francis Turner, Lyrical Poems (London and New York: Macmillan and Co., 1871). Porter, David H., “MacLeish’s herakles and Wilder’s alcestiad”, The Classical Journal 80 (1985) 145–50. Rabel, Robert J., “Suffering and Learning in the Oresteia”, in Hanna M. Roisman (ed.), Encyclopedia of Greek Tragedy.Vol. III (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014) 1374–75. Roisman, Hanna M., “Meter and Meaning”, New England Classical Journal 27 (2000) 182–99. Roisman, Hanna M. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Geek Tragedy (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014). Slater, Niall, W., Euripides: Alcestis (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). Styrke, Issachar, Euripides’s Alcestis Burlesqued (London: Longman and Co., 1816). Talfourd, F., Alcestis, The Original Strong Minded Woman: A Classical Burlesque, A Most Shameless Misinterpretation of the Greek Drama of Euripides. In one act. (First Performed at the Strand Theatre, July 4, 1850) (Oxford: E.T. Spiers; London: T.H. Lacy, 1850). Wilder, A. T. (ed.), The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder. Vol. II. (New York: Theatre Communication Group, 1997). Wilder, Robin Gibbs and Jackson R. Bryer, The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder (New York: Harper Collins, 2008). Wilder, Thorton, “Some Thoughts of Playwrighting”, in Augusto Centeno (ed.), The Intent of the Artist (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941) 83–98; reprinted in Amos Tappan Wilder (ed.), The Collected Short Plays of Thornton Wilder. Vol. II (New York: Theatre Communication Group, 1997) 261–72. Wilder, Thorton, The Alcestiad, or A Life in the Sun. A Play in Three Acts with a Satyr Play. The Drunken Sisters (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). Wilder, Thorton, The Alcestiad. Samuel French (an “acting edition” which includes a brief note by Amos Tappan Wilder) (2014) (accessed 6 December 2016). Yourcenar, Marguerite, Le Mystère d’ Alceste, suivi de Qui n’a pas son Minotaure? (Paris: Plon, 1963).

chapter 3

Herodotus on Stage: The Modern Greek Play “Candaules’ Wife” by Margarita Liberaki Ariadne Konstantinou1 While the Greek historian Herodotus is no doubt remembered today as the “father of history”, having bequeathed us with his Histories in nine books, narrating the events that culminate with the war between the Greeks and the Persians, it requires no professional reader of the Histories today to recognize that the work is infused with digressions that a modern historian might choose not to include in a historiographical work. These stories are often of geographical, ethnological, anthropological or similar nature. The digressions have long been thought as central enough to merit an independent discussion on their role within the Herodotean oeuvre as a whole. One such story, in fact the first one in the Histories, is also the story about the Lydian king Candaules, his wife, and his bodyguard Gyges. The story appears after the proem in book one (1.6-12), as the first story of the Lydian logos (1.6-94), which focuses on King Croesus.2 Candaules, the Lydian king of the Heraclid dynasty, falls in love with his own wife.3 He urges Gyges, his favorite bodyguard, to see her naked so he may believe his claim. At Candaules’ orders, Gyges hides behind the door of the royal bedchamber. Yet, after he has seen the queen naked, the queen catches sight of Gyges while he exits. She recognizes the plot against her, and decides to get back at her husband. The following day she summons Gyges and gives him the option to either die, or kill Candaules, take her as his new wife, and become the Lydian 1 All translations from Ancient and Modern Greek are my own. Translations from Liberaki’s play aim at clarity rather than elegance, and by no means attempt to convey literary and theatrical nuances of the original. I am thankful to Nikiforos Papandreou for supplying me with a copy of Theatrika Tetradia 31 and the permission to reproduce a photo from the 1997 performance of Η γυναίκα του Κανδαύλη by the Πειραματική Σκηνή της Τέχνης in Thessaloniki http://www.piramatikiskini.gr, directed by Nikos Chatzipapas. 2 For a concise introduction to Herodotus’ Book 1, see David Asheri, Alan Lloyd, and Aldo Corcella, A Commentary on Herodotus. Books i–iv (trans. Barbara Graziosi, Matteo Rossetti, Carlotta Dus, and Vanessa Cazzato) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 59–71, including a summary at 69–71. 3 Herodotus 1.8.1: οὗτος δὴ ὦν ὁ Kανδαύλης ἠράσθη τῆς ἑωυτοῦ γυναικός, “Now this Candaules fell in love with his own wife”. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_005

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ruler. After some hesitation, Gyges chooses to murder his master. According to the queen’s plan, he is to hide in their bedchamber, behind the same door he was hidden the night before, and kill Candaules in his sleep with a knife. And thus was done. Gyges took the queen as his wife, became the ruler of Lydia for thirty-eight years, and the power passed on to the dynasty of the Mermnadae, who ruled for five generations, until the reign of Croesus. The story of Candaules, his wife and Gyges has been popular from antiquity onwards. It is a story of voyeurism and vengeance, and the main figures are placed before a moral choice, whose outcome exposes both the virtues and the vices of their characters. As such, the story has sparkled the imagination of generations of readers and artists, and Herodotus’ narrative served as the source for many subsequent treatments from antiquity until today. A somewhat different version of the story, in which only Gyges appears, is also told in Plato’s Republic (359d-360b), and other ancient authors treated the subject as well.4 In 1950, scholars identified a papyrus fragment unearthed in Egypt as belonging to a “Gyges-tragedy”.5 While some classicists argue that the play may be from the period of Aeschylus, and hence might predate Herodotus, others date it to the fourth century bce or the Hellenistic period, in which case Herodotus might have served as one of its sources. This later dating seems to have become the consensus view today, though some scholars still prefer not to take a stance on the debate, mainly because the preserved fragment is so short. The story as it appears in Herodotus is of course written in prose, yet, as it has already been argued, its direct speeches, structure, and moral dilemma seem to resemble ancient Greek tragedies and their division into episodes.6

4 On Plato’s version, see Andrew Laird, “Ringing the Changes on Gyges: Philosophy and the Formation of Fiction in Plato’s Republic”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 121 (2001) 12–29. Additional ancient references to Gyges include Archilochus fr. 19 (quoted by Plutarch), Nicolaus of Damascus FGrHist 90 F 47, and Photius, Bibliotheca, codex 190, which preserves several alternative names for Herodotus’ unnamed queen: Nysia, Klytia, and Abro. 5 For the text and its dating, see TrGF ii Adespota F 664. For a comparison of the fragment and Herodotus’ story, see Roger Travis, “The Spectation of Gyges in P. Oxy. 2382 and Herodotus Book 1”, Classical Antiquity 19 (2000) 330–59. On Herodotus and tragedy more generally, see Suzanne Said, “Herodotus and Tragedy”, in Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (eds.), Egbert J. Bakker, Irene J.F. De Jong, and Hans Van Wees (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 117–47, especially at 132–4 (on the “Gyges-tragedy”), and Jasper Griffin, “Herodotus and Tragedy”, in Carolyn Dewald and John Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 46–59. 6 On dramatic elements in the Lydian logos, including in the story of Candaules and Gyges, see Charles C. Chiasson, “Herodotus’ Use of Attic Tragedy in the Lydian Logos”, Classical Antiquity 22 (2003) 5–35, especially at 19–24.

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Yet, not only the ancients found the story of Candaules fascinating: prose, pictorial, and theater renderings of the story kept being produced. One of these includes Théophile Gautier’s version (Le roi Candaule, 1844). Among the visual renderings of the story worth mentioning here is one by the early nineteenthcentury English artist William Etty, entitled Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, as She Goes to Bed, today at the Tate Gallery in London (exhibited 1830).7 An additional one is by the French artist Edgar Degas, who worked on this theme in his early days, but never completed the composition (La femme de Candaules, ca. 1855–6). In this case, it has been argued that Degas might have drawn more on Gautier than straightaway from Herodotus.8 Regarding adaptations of the story for the stage, the German poet and dramatist Friedrich Hebbel wrote a tragedy Gyges und sein Ring (1856), and the French André Gide also wrote a play based on this story (Le roi Candaule, 1901). The story also sparked the imagination of Modern Greek artists. The reception of Greek antiquity in Modern Greek culture and its literature production, both elite and popular, is a complex and dynamic process, which lies beyond the scope of this article.9 Within this vast field, it is interesting to note some recent works focusing on the reworking of Classical myths for the Modern Greek theatre.10 In the context of Modern Greek theatrical production, the story of Candaules was first dramatized by nineteenth-century author Δημήτριος Kορομηλάς [Dimitrios Koromilas] in the play Kλυτία [Klytia] (1886), where both Herodotus and Gautier must have served as his sources.11 The Modern Greek female author Mαργαρίτα Λυμπεράκη (1919–2001) [Margarita ­Lymperaki or 7 8 9 10

11

For a photo, see http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/etty-candaules-king-of-lydia-shews -his-wife-by-stealth-to-gyges-one-of-his-ministers-as-n00358 (accessed 5 February 2016). See Theodore Reff, Degas: The Artist’s Mind (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976) 149–52, with photographs of sketches from Degas’ notebooks. See now Dimitris Tziovas (ed.), Re-Imagining the Past: Antiquity and Modern Greek Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Eusevia Chassapi-Christodoulou, “H Αρχαιοελληνική Mυθολογία στο Nεοελληνικό Δράμα” [Ancient Greek Mythology in Modern Greek Drama] (PhD Diss., National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 1997), available online at http://phdtheses.ekt.gr/eadd/handle/ 10442/8887 (accessed 5 February 2016), Georges Pefanis, “Sur la présence du mythe Grec ancien dans la dramaturgie Grecque moderne”, Revue des Études Néo-Helleniques 6 (2010) 121–33, and the synopsis of a conference organized by the Eumenides project (http://eumenides.ouc.ac.cy/) on the reception of Greek tragedy in Modern Greek theater and literature, held in Cyprus in December 2014, whose proceedings will be published at a later stage: https://antonispetrides.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/eumenides -project-conference/ (accessed 5 February 2016). See Rea Grigoriou, “H γυναίκα του Kανδαύλη στο έργο του Δ. Kορομηλά”, [Candaules’ Wife in the work of D. Koromilas] Theatrika Tetradia 31 (1997) 16–20. I am thankful to Nikiforos Papandreou for supplying me with a copy of Theatrika Tetradia 31.

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­Liberaki, the article follows the latter transliteration] also drew on this Herodotean story in one of her plays. Liberaki is best known today for her novel Tα Ψάθινα Kαπέλα, first published in 1946 and with dozens subsequent editions in Greek.12 It was popular enough that a tv series based on it was produced in 1995 by the Greek national television (ert).13 A year after the novel’s publication the author divorced her husband and moved from Athens to Paris.14 She would spend most of her life in between the two countries and her subsequent work was to be heavily influenced by French intellectual avant-garde thinking of the time. Other prose works she wrote include Tα Δένδρα ([The Trees], 1945), O Άλλος Aλέξανδρος ([The Other Alexander], 1950),15 as well as Tο Mυστήριο ([The Mystery], 1976). The play H γυναίκα του Kανδαύλη [Candaules’ Wife] was Liberaki’s first debut in the theater and she dedicated all her subsequent work to this genre. Her work is often identified as being close to the expressionism movement that developed at the first part of the twentieth century, while at the same her style is somewhat differentiated from that movement.16 Her plays were sometimes first written in French and staged in France soon after they were published. Occasionally the writing process was the other way round.17 Candaules’ Wife 12

13 14

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17

Gallimard published the novel in French in 1950 under the title Trois étés (trans. Jacqueline Peltier). An English translation with the title Three summers appeared by Kedros in 1996 (trans. Karen van Dyck). Available through the digital archive of ert: http://www.ert-archives.gr/V3/public/main/ page-assetview.aspx?tid=6744&autostart=0 (accessed 28 January 2016). On the author’s biography, see Georgia Farinou-Malamatari, “Mαργαρίτα Λυμπεράκη” [Margarita Liberaki] in Alexandros Argyriou (ed.), H μεταπολεμική πεζογραφία. Aπό τον πόλεμο του ’40 ως τη δικτατορία του ’67 [The Post-War Prose: From the War of 1940 to the Dictatorship of 1967] (Athens: Sokolis, 1988) 5: 130–77. It was translated in French as L’autre Alexandre (trans. Jacqueline Peltier and the author, Gallimard, 1953) and in English as The Other Alexander (trans. Willis and Helle Tzalopoulou Barnstone) (ny: The Noonday Press, 1959). See Giorgos Pefanis, “Tα νήματα του εξπρεσιονισμού στο υφάδι της τελετουργίας. Για τη Mαργαρίτα Λυμπεράκη” [Threads of Expressionism in the Weft of Ritual. About Margarita Liberaki] in Θέματα του μεταπολεμικού και σύγχρονου Eλληνικού θεάτρου [Themes of Post-war and Contemporary Greek Theater] (Athens: Kedros, 2001) 98–103 and Walter Puchner, H σύγκρουση των φύλων στον αρχετυπικό κόσμο της Mαργαρίτας Λυμπεράκη. Aνθρωπολογικός και θεατρικός εξπρεσιονισμός στη γαλλική και ελληνική δραματουργία της [Gender Conflict in the Archetypical World of Margarita Liberaki: Anthropological and Theatrical Expressionism in her French and Greek Dramaturgy] (Athens: Diavlos, 2003). For a list of the author’s works, see Farinou-Malamatari (1988) 133 and Theatrika Tetradia 31 (1997) 4. On the interchange of languages and identities, see Efstratia OktapodaLu, “Diaspora grecque et francophonie aux XXe et XXIe siècles: une littérature de la ­migration”, Babel: littératures plurielles 11 (2004) 69–102, Olympia Antoniadou, “Mythe

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was the last of her plays to be produced for the stage. Its only production in Greece to date was in 1997 by the Πειραματική Σκηνή της Tέχνης in Thessaloniki (www.piramatikiskini.gr), directed by Nikos Chatzipapas.18 It is also the only one of Liberaki’s plays that was never translated into other languages. As the author reminisces, “Eventually, Candaules’ Wife is my ‘virginal’ play, both because it is the first, and because it was never translated”.19 These facts, in my view, make the play stand out in comparison to the rest of the author’s theatrical production. Having been written only in Greek, the play is somehow inherently “Greek”, even in comparison to the rest of her mythical plays, and opens a window to how the author chooses to situate herself, her work, and Greece at the point where East and West meet.20 Nevertheless, it is hard to identify the play as belonging to Modern Greek popular culture or its typical national theater production. Nor does it seem safe to assume that it may reflect mainstream culture of current Greek society, since the author lived at the time in Paris. This Modern Greek play will be compared in this article to Herodotus’ ancient narrative. At the same time, it will be regarded as a work in its own right, in an attempt to explore how the play refashions Herodotus, whilst throwing light on Liberaki as a modern author as well. The play is thus assessed in the wider methodological framework of reception studies as a form of cultural history, initializing a dialogue with antiquity as a two-way process.21 Since Candaules’ Wife has not been translated so far to other languages, I will provide a longer than what is customary summary, including some t­ ranslated

18 19 20

21

personnel et/ou le mythe de la mondialisation: le cas des deux auteurs francophones grecs du XXe ­siècle”, Revista Romana di Studii Culturale 2 (2005) 45–59, and Vassiliki Lalagianni and Marita Paparoussi, “La diaspora néo-hellénique en Europe: le cas de Margarita Lymperaki”, in Efstratia Oktapoda-Lu (ed.), Francophonie et multiculturalisme dans les Balkans (Paris: Publishud, 2006) 163–74. Puchner (2003) 68 also mentions radio readings of the play conducted in 1954. Theatrika Tetradia 31 (1997) 3. On this point, see Farinou-Malamatari (1988) 132. Also, from the author’s autobiographical note in Theatrika Tetradia (1997) 3: “I turned to Myth because, living in France, I was in need of tools that were both Greek and European. And because Greece took wonderful mythical dimensions from afar. And because I felt—and still do—that I don’t belong neither to western culture nor to picturesque Greece. Perhaps I’m at a point between East and West, which is for me Greece”. See, among others, the recent article by Charles Martindale, “Reception—a New Humanism? Receptivity, Pedagogy, the Transhistorical”, Classical Receptions Journal 5 (2013) 169– 83, in a volume marking the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Charles Martindale, Redeeming the Text: Latin Poetry and the Hermeneutics of Reception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). On reception studies more generally, see Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008).

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quotations. I will then continue to discuss some points that distinguish the play from the Herodotean narrative, by focusing on the interplay between historical and mythical elements. Finally, I will consider three themes related to the characterization of the Queen as a female character at the background of an archetypical gender conflict. The play is divided in two parts. The first part opens at the inner yard of the palace at Sardis. In addition to king Candaules, Gyges, and the unnamed Queen, Liberaki introduces the character Magnes, who is the kitharis player, and six women, who serve as the chorus. One of the first things we hear concerns the Queen’s love for Candaules and his love for her. The first reference to Gyges places him firmly in the battlefield, where his successes make him much-adored in Sardis.22 Also evident from the start is the close relationship between Candaules and Gyges. Candaules’ love for Gyges is like that of a father towards a son. At the opening of the play, it is even compared to a motherly love, “First Woman: The king loves Gyges as if he felt him growing inside him, and as if he kept the weight for nine months, and gave birth in the middle of the night with terrible pains”.23 When Candaules and Gyges enter the stage triumphantly after their successful battle, the king lets Gyges sit in his throne.24 The female chorus admires Gyges and his accomplishments,25 and the king soon decides to hand over his sword to Gyges, the very sword that belonged to Hercules and is a symbol of the royal dynasty.26 The queen reacts to this gesture, also providing the audience with an opportunity to realize the extent to which the king identifies with his bodyguard.27 After the king and queen hand over their presents to Gyges, Candaules urges the women of the chorus to visit the altar of Zeus,28 while he starts playing a game of dice with Gyges. Through the game, Candaules exposes again his identification with Gyges.29 Yet soon enough he urges Gyges to play dice against the Queen.30 He is aware that the Queen and Gyges are not very familiar with each 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Liberaki (1980) 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 22. Ibid. 26–7. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 27: Candaules: “When Gyges has it [i.e. the sword] it is as if I have it … I’m telling you, my queen, it’s not proper for a stranger to have it. Gyges is not a stranger”. Ibid. 28. Ibid. 28: Candaules: “Though I don’t like playing with you. I don’t know which of the two of us I want to win”. Ibid. 29: Candaules: “I want to have both of you together. Play, play a bit so I may see you”.

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other.31 Candaules aims at bringing them closer; such an intimate moment of communication among the three, and according to the author’s notes, perhaps the only one in the play, is soon accomplished.32 At this peak moment, the women return to report that Zeus has declined the sacrifice they offered, only to be told by the king to repeat the sacrifice with a hundred animals to Zeus and another hundred to Cybele.33 The Queen sees in this failed sacrifice a bad omen and goes to the altar with them, while the two men continue their game of dice.34 During their game, Candaules suggests that Gyges should go out to the country, to the river, to the olive grove, to the vineyard; at this point he also unexpectedly suggests that he should see the Queen naked by hiding behind the door, “If you won’t know her, you won’t know me well”.35 His wish is to break all barriers, to have no secrets with him, so Gyges may truly understand him when he tells him that the Queen is the most beautiful woman on earth, since words and language are not adequate in this case: “When I tell this to you, you must know what it means, to have seen her and to know”.36 He wants them to truly know each other: “Every person is a stranger to the other and you’re a stranger to the queen and the queen is a stranger to you. This frightens me. I love you, and I also love the queen, so how come you two? … You must know each other”.37 Gyges of course declines at first to see the king’s wife naked, afraid that it may hinder his war achievements. He is also concerned that should he see her, he would only visualize her at the battlefield instead of focusing on fighting.38 Candaules repeats the order, but Gyges tries to warn him through a dream he saw the night before.39 Candaules 31

Ibid. 30–1: Candaules: “If he’s away for a month, you will forget the sound of his footsteps on the yards’ slabs. Nor have you ever recognized from this sound whether he’s leaving for war or for the hunt. And you, you never opened your eyes to see her beauty. How can it be that you’re such strangers between you? … But can’t you see the queen’s grace, Gyges? She begins talking slowly and seriously, and then gains momentum like a little horse in an open road. And her voice? Have you noticed her voice? It also goes up, goes up”. 32 Ibid. 33–4: Candaules: “Come closer. I want to have you very near me, both of you. To see the veins of your hands: they glow”. 33 Ibid. 34–5. 34 Ibid. 36–7. 35 Ibid. 37. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 38. 39 Ibid. 40: Gyges: “Beware, Candaules, if this might happen, perhaps the fate of Lydia may change. Tonight I saw a strange dream. (I saw) the Persian king getting taller and taller on his horse, and his foot became longer all of a sudden and spread from Sousa till Sardis”.

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insists again, ordering Gyges to hide behind the door, where he would be able to see the Queen getting slowly undressed, close enough to notice how each garment that she takes off also changes the expression of her face. When soon afterwards she is to turn towards the bed, Gyges is to slowly exit the room.40 The next scene involves Candaules and the Queen. The Queen reminisces how, instead of Candaules, Gyges was the one to fetch her to the palace on a chariot drawn by six horses prior to their wedding.41 After Candaules leaves to call the female attendants to help her prepare for bed, Gyges enters shortly looking for him. Perhaps he has some second thoughts about the plan, yet he already shows signs that he starts seeing the Queen.42 A lyrical interlude between the Queen and the chorus follows, which includes some impressionistic recollections about their lack of movement and travels, the love they receive from men during the night, the sea and its corals, and their fear that “the wind is changing”.43 Candaules and the Queen are left alone in the room. Yet with Gyges hiding behind the door, Candaules soon goes out to fetch some aromatic lemon leaves for the Queen, while she undresses herself.44 He leaves one candle lit, supposedly so he may see her,45 but in reality so that Gyges may be able to see her. A game of shades and shadows begins to unfold on stage; the shadows of the Queen and Gyges sometimes come closer, and the Queen even hugs the shadow of Gyges thinking at first it might be Candaules playing games with her.46 The shadows then hug again, while the Queen murmurs “Whether you look like Candaules or not, you’re a tender shadow. I’m also a shadow now. I’m not the queen, I’m her shadow”.47 The shadows hug and kiss, while the bodies of the actors never touch. At this point, the author’s notes take a leading role, mentioning that: “The shadows hug and kiss, while the real bodies, properly lit, each hug the void. Gyges, after kissing the shadow of the Queen, perhaps because he did something more than he should, starts screaming and runs to the door at the back, from where he disappears”.48 It is at this point that the Queen realizes that the presence she felt all along was that of Gyges (figure 3.1). His dreadful shout followed by the Queen’s own shouts of realization closes the first part of the play. 40 Ibid. 41. 41 Ibid. 42–3. 42 Ibid. 43–4: “It suits you to be happy. Candaules is right about your eyes. How they glow!”. 43 Ibid. 44–7. 44 Ibid. 50. 45 Ibid. 51. 46 Ibid. 53. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid.

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Figure 3.1 Lydia Fotopoulou as the Queen in the 1997 performance of H γυναίκα του Kανδαύλη by the Πειραματική Σκηνή της Tέχνης in Thessaloniki, directed by Nikos Chatzipapas. Photo: Vassilis Bozikis.

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The second part opens with the Queen and women on stage. The Queen asks one of them to fetch Gyges, for she now knows how to handle the situation.49 Of course, it is clear to her at this point that Candaules planned for the incident to happen50 and this makes her feel left without a master.51 While the women wait for Gyges to come, Candaules enters instead,52 and once he exits, Gyges comes in. He admits to her that Candaules hid him behind the door.53 They talk shortly about the previous night. Yet when Gyges says that he kissed the Queen, the Queen corrects him that it was her shadow that kissed his shadow, and that she didn’t kiss him.54 She then informs him that he has until sunset to decide who must die. Gyges must either kill Candaules, thus taking over the kingdom and her, or he will find a painful and slow death at her orders.55 The women are then left alone with the Queen onstage,56 deliberating whether Gyges’ bravery will lead him to die or kill, and advising the Queen to forget about the whole incident. Yet she is determined to proceed, since Gyges has seen her naked, and nothing in her view separates Candaules and Gyges any longer.57 In the end, each of the women gives her support to the Queen.58 The next scene is between Candaules and Gyges. While discussing some details about the council meeting and the reaction of the participants there, Candaules asks Gyges to try out the royal crown, sit at the throne, and even put on the royal purple robe. It is all a game to him,59 whereas Gyges is evidently preoccupied with his impending decision. He wavers what to do, once talking to himself about perhaps becoming the king the day after,60 and the next moment asking the Queen to kill him quickly.61 The Queen for her part urges him to look at her and seems to be looking at him for the first time.62 Candaules’ wish is starting to realize itself, only to the king’s own dismay. 49 50 51

Ibid. 56. Ibid. 58. Liberaki (1980) 56: Queen: “Freedom suffocates me. The earth and the sky belong to me, this shiny fabric belongs to me, I have hair and eyes which are mine, but I’m nobody’s”. 52 Ibid. 58. 53 Ibid. 60. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 62. 56 Ibid. 64–8. 57 Ibid. 66. 58 Ibid. 68. 59 Ibid. 71. 60 Ibid. 72. 61 Ibid. 73. 62 Ibid. 74.

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We move on to a short intimate scene between Candaules and the Queen, in which the music of Magnes helps the king fall asleep.63 The Queen recognizes her influence over Gyges and realizes that soon her power will allow her to move outside the palace to the city.64 In the next tableau between the Queen and Gyges, Gyges first tells her in anger that she was the obstacle, the only secret, in his special friendship with Candaules. For, as he says, what could someone possibly discuss with a woman? He asks her to let him go, but soon enough changes his mind, thinking it might be easier to kill than get killed. In the Queen’s mind, it seems preferable that Candaules should find his death betrayed by his loved one Gyges, for if Gyges were the one to die, Candaules would never forget him.65 In the final scene, Candaules lies down in bed, while the Queen combs her hair and is supposedly getting ready for bed. The two talk, but no real discussion is taking place any longer. According to the author’s notes: “It is as if she is absent, as if she does not hear anything from what Candaules says. The two figures play apart, as if they were playing in two scenes”.66 And after a last failed attempt by the Queen to change Gyges’ mind, the shouts of Candaules resound onstage. In between the women’s questions, the Queen slowly realizes what has been done: “The king is dead. … The king betrayed me. … My king is dead”.67 While Gyges tells her in sorrow that the king opened his eyes at the very last moment, the Queen interrupts him and starts preparing for the following day: Gyges must talk to the people and give instructions that his opponents may be killed. She has even put a list with their names under the pillow.68 At the same time, she will send messengers to Delphi so that the oracle may confirm his enthronement. The play ends with Gyges about to become the Queen’s new husband and king of Lydia. While numerous scholars have noted the dramatic elements in Herodotus’ narrative, such as the use of direct speech, the division of the action into what looks like tragedy’s “episodes”, and a moral crisis like the one of a tragedy, a basic difference between the ancient and modern text is that in the latter we are dealing with a theatrical play, with all the implications that the choice of this literary genre entails. Moreover, it is a theatrical play written by a female author and which seems to lay much emphasis on presenting the story from 63 64 65 66 67 68

Ibid. 75–7. Ibid. 77–8. Ibid. 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid. 86. Ibid. 87–8.

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the point of view of the Queen. Like in Herodotus, Candaules’ wife remains unnamed and is referred to as the Queen. Yet, unlike Herodotus, Liberaki introduces a chorus of six women, in addition to the musician Magnes. The role of this modern chorus of six women is somewhat similar to the role of an ancient Greek chorus. Sometimes they speak as a group, sometimes individually. Sometimes they advise the Queen; sometimes they act as witnesses or precursors of things about to happen. They may admonish her but ultimately accept the Queen’s decision. The chorus and the seamless alternation between dialogues and more lyrical passages furnish the play with the aura of an ancient Greek tragedy.69 The mythical background, which Liberaki constructs for the Herodotean story, also allows her to develop a complex and dynamic relationship among the three main characters, as compared to Herodotus. In the Histories, the relationship between the three characters is quite straightforward. The king favors Gyges above all his men.70 He does not only discuss important state matters with him, but also shares topics of more intimate nature, such as praises of his wife’s beauty. Yet he remains in doubt whether Gyges truly understands and believes him, and this uncertainty together with his passion for his own wife is what leads him to plan the scheme. The Queen, while left unnamed, plays an active role in the story. She is quick to realize what her husband has done, but remains quiet about it until her revenge is ready. Since, as Herodotus writes, it is considered indecent among the Lydians even for a man to be seen naked (1.10.3), her reaction may be considered a result of her being offended. Also, the saying that Gyges repeats to Candaules is that a woman puts off shame when she puts off her garments (1.8.3). Her scheme thus seems to be primarily aimed at protecting her position and authority. It is not portrayed as an irrational revenge of a female character, like that of a Medea or a Clytaemnestra, but as a punishment for the king’s overstepping of moral boundaries. Lastly, Gyges is presented as a loyal bodyguard. While he refuses at first Candaules’ plan as contrary to custom, his inferior position in relation to the Lydian monarch makes it impossible for him to decline.71 He is astonished and left speechless once the Queen summons him and presents him with the choice to kill the king or find his own death. He chooses to live in the end, but manages to accomplish the murder only with the Queen’s help. 69 70 71

See also Puchner (2003) 65; 68. Herodotus 1.8.1: ἦν γάρ οἱ τῶν αἰχμοφόρων Γύγης ὁ Δασκύλου ἀρεσκόμενος μάλιστα, “For among his bodyguards he had Gyges, the son of Daskylos, who pleased him above all”. Herodotus 1.10.1: ὁ μὲν δὴ ὡς οὐκ ἐδὐνατο διαφυγεῖν, ἦν ἕτοιμος, “And since he (i.e. Gyges) was not able to escape it, he was ready”.

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In Liberaki, the relationship among the three becomes more complex and is presented as an erotic triangle. The childless king appears to have fatherly feelings towards Gyges, but which are also to some extent unconsciously erotic. He admires him but is also somewhat jealous. In any case, Candaules identifies with his bodyguard, wants to share everything with him, and considers his request to be a means to improve his relationship both with him and his wife. In the course of the play, the king seems to gradually and symbolically hand over his authority to Gyges: he gives him the dynasty’s sword72 and later on makes him sit on his throne, wearing the crown and the purple robe.73 During the council meeting, Candaules appoints Gyges as his commander-in-chief and even gives him the power to hold the royal seal while he is away.74 The scene in which the two play dice also suggests their non-hierarchical relationship. At the same time, however, Candaules clearly also loves the Queen passionately. She loves him back, but is determined to kill him because she feels betrayed after her exposure, even appearing to be somewhat jealous of the intimate relation between the two men. Her gender and, as a result, her everyday trivial occupations within the confines of the palace exclude her from the familiar world of battle and politics that the two men share. Her erotic attraction towards Gyges is materialized in the play only through their shadows at the end of Part 1, but does not become the driving force for the murder. And after making Gyges accomplish the murder, her power becomes paramount, almost as if revealing a dormant primitive stage of matriarchy. Till the end, however, the Queen’s love and loyalty is incongruously placed with the king. As she herself admits, she will never love Gyges.75 Gyges for his part has no attraction towards Candaules, though he realizes their relationship is special and excludes the Queen. He also appears to develop an erotic gaze towards the Queen after having seen her naked. Yet, in the end, he seems to be standing powerless in-between king and queen and is submissively led to act according to their wishes and commands. How do the historical and mythical elements of the story unfold in Herodotus and Liberaki? While nobody would seriously question the classification of Herodotus within the framework of historiographical writing, Liberaki not only writes for the stage, but, in the 1980 edition which is the one used and quoted in this article, the play becomes part of what she names the “Mythical Theater”

72 73 74 75

Ibid. 22. Ibid. 70–1. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 85.

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series (Tο Mυθικό Θέατρο), together with two more plays. The second play is called Δαναΐδες [Danaids], and draws its theme from the myth of the Danaids.76 The third play in the book is Tο Mυστικό Kρεβάτι [The secret bed], centering on Odysseus’ murder by an otherwise unknown son Telegonos.77 According to the author, the common thread that connects the three plays is “that in the myth of every play there is a murder. The one murdered is the man. The one who survives is the woman, and life itself, which continues triumphantly”.78 The story of the Danaids and of Odysseus may be easily classified under the category of myth. Yet placing the Herodotean story of Candaules’ wife in the realm of myth is not automatic and requires some further elaboration.79 While some scholars approach Herodotus as a historian—however imaginative he may have been—others tend to underline his capacity as a storyteller in creating the narrative of the Histories.80 Indeed, his historiographical work is infused with numerous tales that would fall today under the categories of myth, folktale and fables, creating a kaleidoscopic effect.81 Yet this also means that the inserted stories, like the one under discussion here, should not only be regarded as mere digressions, but as “instances signifying the meaning of the whole”.82 Seen in this light, it is likely that Herodotus transformed the story by posing before Gyges a strong moral dilemma, which has “tragic” associations. There is no place here for the magical elements we find in Plato’s version. Moreover, as Dewald and other scholars have noted, the story of Candaules’ wife should not only be read as a frivolous story of domestic revenge.83 On 76 77 78 79 80 81

82 83

It was written in 1954 in French, published in 1963 by Gallimard (Les Danaïdes), and produced in France in 1973. This last play was first written in French in 1967, with the Greek version dating to 1972. Liberaki (1980) 9. The play is excluded, for example, in Chassapi-Christodoulou (1997) 795–806 from Liberaki’s Modern Greek plays that draw on myth. Josine Blok, “Women in Herodotus’ Histories”, in Egbert J. Bakker, Irene J.F. De Jong, and Hans Van Wees (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 229–30. See Allan Griffiths, “Stories and Storytelling in the Histories”, in Carolyn Dewald and John Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 130–44. Blok (2002) 232. See Carolyn Dewald, “Women and Culture in Herodotus’ Histories”, Women’s Studies 8 (1981) 93–127, especially at 107–9; reprinted in Helene P. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1981) 91–125. For a more recent assessment of women in the work of Herodotus, including a balanced discussion of previous scholarship on the topic, see Blok (2002).

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the contrary, its positioning as the first story to open the Lydian logos seems to grant it with programmatic weight. Indeed, this story from the first book is often compared to the final story of female revenge in the Histories. In book 9 (108–13), Herodotus narrates that Xerxes fell in love with the wife of his brother Masistes. Unable to come close to her, he gave his son Darius in marriage to her daughter Artaÿnte, with whom he eventually had a relationship. Xerxes’ wife Amestris found out about it and devised a plan to injure brutally Masistes’ wife. In both stories, strategically placed at the beginning and the end of the Histories, we follow the pattern of an absolute monarch, who, due to his passion, transgresses moral customs and hurts his wife, only to discover that she is in fact able to plan a crafty scheme of revenge on her own.84 Liberaki, for her part, chooses to minimize the historical setting of the story in Lydia and transposes it instead to the realm of myth. The mythical background allows the author to turn the characters into archetypical and to address some modern preoccupations, offering in particular a fertile ground for the author to engage with gender roles, a theme that recurs in her plays. Gender conflict, love, power, and irrational passion that leads to revenge are among the play’s basic motifs. Commenting upon the author’s turn from prose to drama and her use of myth for the theater, Margarita Megapanou, her daughter and also a renowned author in Greece, notes: At some point she (i.e. Liberaki) felt the vital need to enter the space of Myth. And having entered this space she started writing for the theater, since the theater is the space of Myth par excellence. There was not even a choice, since Myth and theater are interrelated. She felt the desire to enter the mythical space of the theater, and if one penetrates completely to the mythical, it is no longer possible to go back and write prose. It is as if one has cut an umbilical cord and is forever set free from prose, from the mother language, from the boundless womb of speech.85 Megapanou interprets Liberaki’s turn from prose to the theater as also a necessary turn to myth. Myth therefore becomes a tool to communicate what Liberaki finds to be archetypal elements in the relationship between men and 84

85

On the anonymity of the two female figures, see Stephanie Larson, “Kandaules’ Wife, Masistes’ Wife: Herodotus’ Narrative Strategy in Suppressing Names of Women (Hdt. 1.8-12 and 9.108-13)”, The Classical Journal 101 (2006) 225–44. Margarita Megapanou, “O μύθος, το θέατρο και ο φόνος”, [Myth, Theater and Murder] Theatrika Tetradia 31 (1997) 5–8, reproduced from the journal H Λέξη 31 (1984).

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women. We are still located in Sardis, but at the same time the atmosphere also strives to be universal, perhaps even beyond time and place. Scant and obscure references to events from recent Modern Greek history seem to bridge the gap between the historical/mythical time on stage and the time of writing. The names of Smyrna, Phokaea and Ephesos cannot but also echo the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922. Also, the fear of civil war following Candaules’ death, as expressed by the female chorus, may serve as a reminder of Greece’s civil war following the Second World War.86 And still, Liberaki’s main focus is not on the ancient Lydian court or on Modern Greek recent historical events. With a complex love triangle unfolding on stage between the three protagonists, her focus lays instead on presenting the act of a murder, the murder of a man, thus allowing the woman to survive and prevail. Indeed, the author shall turn this into a story-pattern with mythical dimensions, which will be repeated with variations in her subsequent work as well. To put it again in the words of her daughter Megapanou: Myth is the theater, because it doesn’t narrate, but places us in front of an Act, a “Dromenon”, which does not explain, but shows. The word “Myth” has taken all the properties that do not belong to it: it is not a parable, not a symbol, not a representation (αναπαράσταση). It is a Presentation (Παράσταση), it is the raw, violent, stripped off moment, not of the truth, but of the Act, it is a mathematical equation, with the Murder as factor. Murder is the mythical element, the raw material of Myth. And theater is this link, the ringer: Myth-Theater-Murder.87 It is in this sense that the historiographical element of Herodotus seems to move to the background in Liberaki’s play. It may be therefore considered that the play has little to contribute to the reception of Classical historiography in general and Herodotus as a historian in particular, an otherwise growing field of study.88 But it may throw some light on the fact that the digressions in the Herodotean oeuvre sometimes seem to come close to mythical narratives, thus 86 87 88

See, for example, Liberaki (1980) 18, 29–31, 74; 78–9 (on civil war). Megapanou (1997) 6. On the reception of Herodotus, see now Jessica Priestley and Vasiliki Zali (eds.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Herodotus in Antiquity and Beyond (Leiden: Brill, 2016). Additional publications on the historian’s reception in antiquity and in the Renaissance include Jessica Priestley, Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture: Literary Studies in the Reception of the Histories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) and Susanna Gambino Longo (ed.), Hérodote à la Renaissance (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012).

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potentially also challenging our understanding of Herodotus and his text. It is on this mythical dimension of the story on which Liberaki ponders, understood as operating before and beyond historical time. At the same time, the play reflects the cultural and intellectual currents at the time of its composition, and may be used as a source to discuss the themes that this Modern Greek female author, writing during the 1950s, chooses to raise in her engagement with an ancient Greek story, especially her stance vis-à-vis gender (and of course feminist) concerns of her time. This is in itself of some importance, since we are talking about one of the most renowned Modern Greek female authors, and one whose prose work Three Summers has entered the mainstream “canon” of Modern Greek popular fiction. Indicative of the author’s popularity is the inclusion of her novel in the Greek and Cypriot school curriculum.89 In the remaining part, I would like to address three themes which Liberaki employs to promote the Queen’s characterization: repeated references to her body as the object of the king’s passion, and in particular to her hair, spatial references to her immobility in the palace, and the alternation of night and day in relation to her mood and role. Through these themes the author portrays traditional gender roles and questions them at the same time, letting the Queen prevail in the end. The bodies of all three major characters are mentioned in the play. The bodies of Gyges and Candaules come into focus before the culmination of the drama. In order to commit the murder, Gyges must disentangle himself from his own body: Gyges: “Call your people, I’m telling you I’m ready. From now on my body has left me; I’m light and I’m ready”.90 Candaules’s body is also light and loosened as he is lured to sleep just before his death.91 Yet it is the Queen’s body and the male gaze as it lingers over the curves of her exposed body that are addressed more often in the play. She loves Candaules for what he is, yet he seems to love her objectified body: Queen: “You love my feet, my mouth, my ears. While I … I love you. And your shadow in the garden when the sun sets down, and your place near the table, when you’re away, and the warm dent that you leave on the bed in the morning. That’s where I shrink my feet

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In Greece, abstracts of the novel are taught in 6th grade Elementary School as well as in the 3rd grade of High School. The novel was also taught in the Cypriot 3th grade of Junior High School (Gymnasium). Explanatory notes by the Cypriot Ministry of Education and Culture, addressed to the teacher of this module, are available online at http://www.pi.ac .cy/pi/files/yap/anakoinoseis/logotexnia/ G_C1_PSATHINA_KAPELA.pdf (accessed 18 January 2016). Liberaki (1980) 73. Ibid. 83–4.

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and warm them for the whole day”.92 After Gyges has seen her naked, he also develops a passion for her body: “ … I don’t want to die! I want to see you. I want to touch you, my fingers are burning. If I kill the king? … ”93 Liberaki seems to focus often on the Queen’s hair, its washing or combing, as evocative of her whole body. At the opening scene, the Queen has just washed her hair and the women comb it. It is juxtaposed to her heart, and she wants it to shine so that her heart may shine as well. Hair as a key element of her adornment is also the object of Candaules’ love for her. He mixes aromatic lemontree leaves in the Queen’s hair94 and the Queen routinely sits down to comb her hair even the night of Candaules’ murder.95 This preoccupation with her hair is intertwined with the Queen’s everyday activities in the palace. While the king and Gyges fight, the Queen describes her life in dull terms, and in relation to washing her hair: “You win and I live and wash my hair. … for I only live and wash my hair, and don’t know what battle means”.96 This is a way to expose her unfamiliarity towards matters of war and the emptiness of her daily routine: “I do not look forward to anything. In this courtyard I wait for the moon to come out and then I wait for it to set”.97 Like a hunting net gradually falling upon Candaules, the end of the Queen’s hair also seems to designate the end of her realm of influence and authority: “Tonight I will dream that this courtyard grew and spread to all the kingdom, that my hair got longer and covered the courtyard, that the air changed … ”98 Indeed, once her power over Candaules’ fate grows, so does her hair. Towards the end of Part 1, Candaules notices that her hair reaches down to her knees,99 and the Queen herself becomes terrified of her long hair, as if unable to realize her actual strength.100 However, once she feels free from her master after his betrayal, and is flirting with the idea to go out of the palace, to see some of the real world and people, she also decides: “I will stop washing my hair so often”.101 Becoming independent, powerful and mobile also means ceasing 92

Ibid. 49. Note the probable allusion to Hdt. 1.8, which refers to the relative reliability of the eye and the ear. 93 Ibid. 80. 94 Ibid. 58. 95 Ibid. 82. 96 Ibid. 24. 97 Ibid. 25. 98 Ibid. 47. The Queen’s vision is echoed in the women’s reply “The Queen’s hair is getting longer and covers the courtyard”. 99 Ibid. 48. 100 Ibid. 52. 101 Ibid. 78.

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some of her everyday dull occupations, such as washing her hair. She is no longer the object of Candaules’ love, but an agent in her own right, and there seems to be no longer a need to constantly take care of her hair. A second theme related to the Queen has to do with her relation to space in general, and the palace in particular. From her descriptions, it seems that she does not often leave the palace to see the people and the world outside it. “I don’t know what happens in our city day and night. But some day I will wake up early and will go around the houses one by one; afterwards I will go to the rivers, where there’s a bridge and where there’s metal and people look for it. Perhaps they bend differently from those who pick up flowers”.102 Her sphere of everyday movement remains within the palace, fluctuating between her bedchamber and the courtyard, since her main occupation is to wait for Candaules to come back from the battle. She repeats variations of the same sentence, “I do not travel. In this very courtyard, I wait for the moon to rise and then I wait for it to set”.103 From the opening scene, Candaules and Gyges share the experience and space of the battlefield, and all this is way beyond her reach. She remains in bed, in the palace bedchamber, when her husband leaves for battle at the break of down. And yet, once it is clear to her that Gyges is about to kill Candaules, it is as if she wakes up from this dreamlike sedated state. She now realizes it is time for her to go out, learn about the people of the kingdom, loose her naivety towards other women’s lives: “It’s time for me to go to the rivers, where there’s a bridge and where there’s metal and people look for it. Perhaps they bend differently from those who pick up flowers. It’s time to find out that in our city, once it gets dark, the girls go out and fornicate in order to prepare their dowry. When they are little girls, their mother shouts from the threshold: ‘Careful, lest you scratch your knees’.”104 This passage on the Queen’s intention to go out echoes the passage from the first part of the play, quoted above. By acquiring power and authority in the second part of the play, the Queen is ready to break the confines of her everyday domestic space. This possibly also holds true for many other women of the generation of Liberaki, who gradually engage at that time in duties or activities other than their traditional household ones, and as a consequence manage to change their fates. It is perhaps even meant to be a self-referential comment about Liberaki’s own life in Greece as compared to her life in Paris later on. A third theme in the play that also advances the characterization of the Queen has to do with the alternation of night and day in relation to her mood, 102 Ibid. 24. 103 Ibid. 44. 104 Ibid. 78.

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occupation, and role. This alternation is also materialized on stage with several staging directions regarding the alternation of light and darkness, culminating with the erotic scene between the shadows of the Queen and Gyges. It is clear that the Queen is lonely in the palace during daylight, perhaps even bored. She waits in anticipation for the night to come, as if to awaken with Candaules’ presence in her bedchamber. While she looks more beautiful at sunset,105 she is still left alone in bed at sunrise, once Candaules leaves for the battlefield,106 only to wait for the next night to come, “I wait for the moon to rise and then I wait for it to set”.107 Towards the end of Part 1, the female chorus engages in a lyrical dialogue with the Queen.108 They wish they were able to leave the courtyard at night, to see the moon rise in the plain. Night and day, darkness and light, the courtyard and the plain, fig trees and sea corals, several opposites seem to momentarily merge in the impressionistic recollections of the women. “All day our mind is in the night … The night is a perfect cycle. The day is a line that always lacks a part … The night we are ourselves. The day we are strangers … At night the eyes rest whether they’re closed or open”.109 These are some of the women’s associations with the night, and this image is close to the Queen’s own experience in the palace. In place of a conclusion, I would like to recall in this context the movie “The English Patient” (Anthony Minghella, 1996), with which the Anglophone readership is much more familiar than with Liberaki’s mythical play.110 In one of the most memorable scenes of the movie, the heroine Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Smith) sits around the campfire somewhere at the Libyan desert, the sole woman incongruously placed among a company of men, who are part of a desert exploration team. It is under the dim light of the campfire, at night, that she narrates the Herodotean story of Candaules’ wife.111 The movie’s audience is invited to discover structural and thematic parallels between the story of the Lydian queen and the strong and independent heroine soon to fall in love with a man other than her own husband. Indeed, an old copy of Herodotus, filled with numerous memorabilia, plays an important role in the movie, creating a common link between the heroine, the “English” patient, and the Canadian 105 106 107 108 109 110 111

Ibid. 17. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 25; 44. Ibid. 44–7. Ibid. 46. The movie is based on the 1992 novel with the same title by Michael Ondaatje. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dCLQWW7GQo (accessed 20 September 2016).

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nurse that takes care of him after his dire accident. Yet, unlike in Liberaki’s play, or for that matter, in Herodotus as well, in the case of the movie the end is catastrophic for all three protagonists: The heroine will die in a cave after her husband will attempt to kill them both in a plane crash, while the “English patient” is doomed, after yet another plane accident, to live in a sick and estranged body, under a false identity, left only with memories of his previous tragic love. The integration of the story of Candaules’ wife in the movie, in comparison to Liberaki’s play, reveals that the Herodotean narrative cannot by itself prescribe subsequent adaptations of the story; later writers (including the cinematic adaptation of the novel) constantly refashion Classical texts, casting new light on them and revealing some of the broader currents of their time and their creators’ individual artistic concerns. In Liberaki’s play, while Gyges is the murderer of Candaules, the Queen in the end takes control of the power and chooses herself the continuator of the dynasty. In this theatrical microcosm, which is special and unique to Liberaki’s theatrical adaptations of Greek myths, the woman always prevails in the end. Yet this mythical dimension is ultimately Liberaki’s own creation, allowing her to delve on the relationship between the genders, conceived in archetypal terms. Bibliography Asheri, David, Alan Lloyd, and Aldo Corcella, A Commentary on Herodotus. Books I–IV (trans. Barbara Graziosi, Matteo Rossetti, Carlotta Dus and Vanessa Cazzato) ­(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Blok, Josine, “Women in Herodotus’ Histories”, in Egbert J. Bakker, Irene J.F. De Jong and Hans Van Wees (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 225–42. Chassapi-Christodoulou, Eusevia, “H Aρχαιοελληνική Mυθολογία στο Nεοελληνικό Δράμα” [Ancient Greek Mythology in Modern Greek Drama]. (PhD Diss., National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 1997). Chiasson, Charles C., “Herodotus’ Use of Attic Tragedy in the Lydian Logos”, Classical Antiquity 22 (2003) 5–35. Dewald, Carolyn, “Women and Culture in Herodotus’ Histories”, Women’s Studies 8 (1981) 93–127, reprinted in Helene P. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity. (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1981) 91–125. Farinou-Malamatari, Georgia, “Mαργαρίτα Λυμπεράκη” [Margarita Liberaki] in Alexandros Argyriou (ed.), H μεταπολεμική πεζογραφία. Aπό τον πόλεμο του ’40 ως τη δικτατορία του ’67 [The Post-War Prose: From the War of 1940 to the Dictatorship of 1967] (­Athens: Sokolis, 1988) 5: 130–77.

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Gambino Longo, Susanna (ed.), Hérodote à la Renaissance (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012). Griffin, Jasper, “Herodotus and Tragedy”, in Carolyn Dewald and John Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 46–59. Griffiths, Allan, “Stories and Storytelling in the Histories”, in Carolyn Dewald and John Marincola (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 130–44. Grigoriou, Rea, “H γυναίκα του Kανδαύλη στο έργο του Δ. Kορομηλά” [Candaules’ Wife in the work of D. Koromilas], Theatrika Tetradia 31 (1997) 16–20. Hardwick, Lorna and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). Laird, Andrew, “Ringing the Changes on Gyges: Philosophy and the Formation of Fiction in Plato’s Republic”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 121 (2001) 12–29. Larson, Stephanie “Kandaules’ Wife, Masistes’ Wife: Herodotus’ Narrative Strategy in Suppressing Names of Women (Hdt. 1.8-12 and 9.108-13)”, The Classical Journal 101 (2006) 225–44. Liberaki, Margarita, H γυναίκα του Kανδαύλη, Oι Δαναΐδες, Tο μυστικό κρεβάτι. [Candaules’ Wife, The Danaids, The secret Bed] (Athens: Ermis, 1980). Liberaki, Margarita, L’autre Alexandre (trans. Jacqueline Peltier and Margarita Liberaki) (Paris: Gallimard, 1953). Liberaki, Margarita, Les Danaïdes (Paris: Gallimard, 1963). Liberaki, Margarita, The Other Alexander (trans. Willis and Helle Tzalopoulou) (New York: The Noonday Press, 1959). Liberaki, Margarita, Three summers (trans. Karen van Dyck) (Athens: Kedros, 1996). Liberaki, Margarita, Trois étés (trans. Jacqueline Peltier) (Paris: Gallimard, 1950). Martindale, Charles, “Reception—a New Humanism? Receptivity, Pedagogy, the Transhistorical”, Classical Receptions Journal 5 (2013) 169–83. Martindale, Charles, Redeeming the Text: Latin Poetry and the Hermeneutics of Reception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Megapanou, Margarita, “O μύθος, το θέατρο και ο φόνος” [Myth, Theater and Murder] Theatrika Tetradia 31 (1997) 5–8, reproduced from the journal H Λέξη 31 (1984). Pefanis, Georges, “Sur la présence du mythe Grec ancien dans la dramaturgie Grecque moderne”, Revue des Études Néo-Helleniques 6 (2010) 121–33. Pefanis, Giorgos, “Tα νήματα του εξπρεσιονισμού στο υφάδι της τελετουργίας. Για τη Mαργαρίτα Λυμπεράκη” [Threads of expressionism in the weft of ritual. About Margarita Liberaki], in Θέματα του μεταπολεμικού και σύγχρονου Eλληνικού θεάτρου [Themes of Post-war and Contemporary Greek Theater] (Athens: Kedros, 2001) 98–103. Priestley, Jessica, Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture: Literary Studies in the Reception of the Histories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

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Priestley, Jessica and Vasiliki Zali (eds.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Herodotus in Antiquity and Beyond (Leiden: Brill, 2016). Puchner, Walter, H σύγκρουση των φύλων στον αρχετυπικό κόσμο της Mαργαρίτας Λυμπεράκη. Aνθρωπολογικός και θεατρικός εξπρεσιονισμός στη γαλλική και ελληνική δραματουργία της. [Gender Conflict in the Archetypical World of Margarita Liberaki: Anthropological and Theatrical Expressionism in her French and Greek Dramaturgy] (Athens: Diavlos, 2003). Reff, Theodore, Degas: The Artist’s Mind (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976). Said, Suzanne, “Herodotus and Tragedy”, in Egbert J. Bakker, Irene J.F. De Jong, and Hans Van Wees (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Herodotus (Leiden: Brill, 2002) 117–47. Travis, Roger, “The Spectation of Gyges in P. Oxy. 2382 and Herodotus Book 1”, Classical Antiquity 19 (2000) 330–59. Tziovas, Dimitris (ed.), Re-Imagining the Past: Antiquity and Modern Greek Culture ­(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

Section 2 Screening Ancient Virtues and Vices



chapter 4

Can You Dig It? Heroes and Villains from Xenophon’s Anabasis to Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979) Eran Almagor Walter Hill’s movie The Warriors has been engaging spectators ever since its release (9th of February 1979) in more than one manner.1 It is not only an a­ ction thriller focusing on a New York City gang returning to its home turf in C ­ oney Island after being falsely accused for the murder of another gang leader. It is also a cinematic rendition of the thought-provoking (and some would say revolutionary) novel by Sol Yurick (1925–2013) of the same name (1965).2 As Yurick’s book is itself an adaptation of Xenophon’s Anabasis, Hill’s movie is thus an interpretation of the ancient classical text and an instance of its modern reception. The audience watching the adventures of the movie’s heroes also unconsciously follows the tracks of Yurick’s protagonists and Xenophon’s mercenaries, potentially making the movie an experience to be understood by viewers on several levels simultaneously. The Warriors’ heroes therefore not only face the screen’s villains, rogues and gangsters, but also have to be constantly compared with the textual counterparts, as the plot paves its way between two books (Xenophon’s and Yurick’s).3 This chapter aims to study the reception of the ancient text of Xenophon on the big screen (and ­consequently 1 Cf. the lively discussions in imdb boards (, accessed November 2016, now sadly closed). I thank Silvia Barbantani for going over a previous ­version of this paper. 2 First published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. On the novel see Eran Almagor, “Going Home: Xenophon’s Anabasis in Sol Yurick’s The Warriors (1965)”, in Lisa Maurice (ed.) Rewriting the Ancient World: Greece and Rome in Modern Popular Fiction (Leiden: 2017) 87–113. According to Don B. Graham, “Naturalism and the Revolutionary Imperative: Sol Yurick’s The Warriors”, Critique, 18 (1976) 119–28 [127], “If the novel converts the reader to the gang’s side … it has wrought a revolution in consciousness”. Graham also finds political revolution in the ideals; he sees the failed attempt of the leader Ismael to organize the gangs towards a form of a collective power as akin to Lenin’s strategy [123]. 3 Walter Hill and David Shaber are responsible for the cinematic screenplay. See the useful site  (accessed November 2016), including the movie transcript. See Allen Barra, “‘The Warriors’ Fights On”, Salon.com (November 28, 2005, , accessed November 2016): “Yurick’s novel is the basis, but not the Ana-basis”. 4 Famously, the soldiers numbered approximately ten thousand (Xen. Anab. 1.7.10, Diod. 14.19.7, Plut. Art. 6.5: 12,9000/ 13,000) and were thus called the “Cyreans” (Xen. Hell. 3.2.7) or the Ten Thousand (Plut. Ages. 9.2; Ant. 45.6; Arr. Anab. 1.12.3, 2.7.8, 4.11.9; Polyaenus 1.49.1; Ath. 11.505a; Them. Or. 33.10.2). See Robert J. Bonner, “The name ‘Ten Thousand’”, CPh 5 (1910) 97–99; Paul Masqueray, “Origine de l’expression les ‘Dix-Mille’”, crai 72 (1928) 111–15; James Roy, “The Mercenaries of Cyrus”, Historia 16 (1967) 287–323 [287, 296–302]; Ludmila Petrovna Marinovic, Le Mercenariat grec au IVe siècle avant notre ère et la crise de la Polis, Trans. J. and Y. Garlan (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1988) 28–32. The Greeks were secretly enlisted under various pretexts in separate units, and were not told the real goal for the recruitment till they reached the Euphrates (Xen. Anab. 3.1.10, 1.4.11). 5 Cf. Vincent Azoulay, “Exchange as Entrapment: Mercenary Xenophon?” In Robin Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March. Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 2004a) 289–304. 6 See Plut. Ant. 45.6. For reception of Xenophon in antiquity see Diod. 14.37.1–3 and 14.19–31 with Panico J. Stylianou, “One Anabasis or Two?” in Lane Fox (2004a) 68–96; Arrian’s Anabasis Alexandrou (homage to the work in the title, language and style) with Ewen L. Bowie, “Greeks and Their Past in the Second Sophistic”, Past & Present 46 (1970) 3–41 [27]; Albert Brian Bosworth, From Arrian to Alexander (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 135–156; Eunapius, vps, 452–3. See in general Karl Münscher, Xenophon in der ­griechisch-römischen Literatur, Philologus Suppl. 13/2 (Leipzig: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1920).

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and the soldiers became Greek cultural heroes for generations to  come.7 In the novel, which is viewed by its author as partially a “post-rumble odyssey of black-faced, teenaged ‘Greeks’” returning to their cherished turf,8 Yurick’s ­narrative purposely echoes the adversities described in the Anabasis:9 … [the small gang] would have to, like the Greek ten thousand, fight their way through hostile territories ruled by other gangs to their home grounds … Like the Greeks, they would finally reach the ‘Black Sea’, only, in this case, it was the Atlantic Ocean off Coney Island … 10 Yet Yurick’s transposition of the Ten Thousand to a setting of gang warfare removes the ideal veil from the Greek soldiers and brings them back to real, fierce, ground: “What, I thought, were those mercenaries (kids, really) but the result of overpopulation … after all, were the Greeks really so noble?”11 Yurick, in fact, retells the original story by reconstructing it. By including scenes of murder of an innocent bystander and gang rape of a girl (98–102, 135–149),12 Yurick dissociates the gang’s bravery, underscored as analogous to that of the Greek Ten Thousand, from any display of moral virtue.13 These “warriors” in no way serve as models for conduct, as the realistic novel presents its protagonists’ cruel demeanour and dissolves the very boundary between heroes and villains. These protagonists are not virtuous also when one considers the etymological root of “Virtue” in virtus (manly valor), since they are not men. The gang members are fourteen to sixteen years old (52, 134), though they like to be considered men (18, 97, 113, 134); most telling is the last scene in which the 7

Diog. Laert. 2.58. Inmaculada Pérez Martín, “The Reception of Xenophon in Byzantium: The Macedonian Period”, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 53 (2013) 812–855; Laurent Pernot, “La reception antique de Xénophon : quel modèle pour quels orateurs?” in Pierre Pontier (ed.), Xénophon et la rhétorique (Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2014), 281–294. 8 John Leonard, “The Lip of the Apocalypse”, New York Magazine 1 (July 1968) 69. 9 “I wanted the book to be exciting and popular, but to parallel the Greek classic, Anabasis”: Al Auster and Dan Georgakas, “The Warriors: An Interview with Sol Yurick”, Cinéaste 9 (1979) 22–24 [22]. 10 Sol Yurick, “Afterward: How I Came to Write The Warriors and What Happened After” in Sol Yurick, The Warriors (New York: Grove Press/Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003) 183–192 [198–9]. 11 Yurick (2003) 205. 12 The page numbers refer to the 2003 paperback reprint edition. 13 E.g. Anab. 2.1.12, 2.6.18, 30, 3.1.24, 43, 3.2.39. On Yurick’s depiction of violence as ritualistic association, see Graham (1976) 125.

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hero, Hinton, falls asleep almost in a fetal position with his thumb in his mouth (181). Xenophon’s work, conversely, describes a society of men and the hardships they encounter together.14 The Anabasis is written by an older man, years after his experiences as a young soldier.15 Yurick also problematizes the position of the Ten Thousand as Greek cultural heroes through his characters. Racial and cultural unity is important to Xenophon and this criterion is stressed, not to say forced, even when in reality there may have been some room for doubt. Of special interest is the unique case of Apollonides, the officer who spoke the Boeotian dialect and was the only one who did not ask Xenophon to take the lead, but rather maintained that safety could be gained by persuading the king and not by using arms (Anab. 3.1.26). Agasias claims him to be a Lydian (since he allegedly had both his ears bored), and to have “nothing to do either with Boeotia or with any part of Greece”; Xenophon proposes to treat him as a beast of burden (Xen. Anab. 3.1.26–32).16 It is the Hellenic shared identity that the mercenaries of Xenophon have in common with the society in their homeland and the presumed immediate readership.17 Yurick deconstructs the message of the ­Anabasis again and highlights the complex realistic racial differentiation both within the gang (mixed African American/Hispanic),18 and between the gang and the

14

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Cf. Xen. Anab. 3.1.36, 3.1.44, 3.2.11; John Dillery, Xenophon and the History of His Times (London: Routledge, 1995) 93–94. See Cf. Clifford Hindley, “Xenophon on Male Love”, cq n.s. 49 (1999) 74–99. For the date of the publication of the Anabasis after the late 380’s or early 360’s (post 371) bce, see Malcolm Jr. MacLaren, “Xenophon and Themistogenes”, tapa 15 (1934) 240–47; Edouard Delebecque, Essai sur la vie de Xénophon (Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1957) 199–206; Hans Rudolf Breitenbach, “Xenophon” , re 9 A 2 (1967) 1567–2052 [1641–42]; George Law Cawkwell, “Introduction”, in Rex Warner (tr.), Xenophon. The Persian Expedition (London: Penguin, 1972) 16; Dillery (1995) 59, 94; Noreen Humble, Xenophon’s View of Sparta (PhD Diss., McMaster University, Hamilton, 1997) 26–31. See Rosie Harmann, “Looking at the Other: Visual Mediation and Greek Identity in ­Xenophon’s Anabasis”, in Eran Almagor and Joseph Skinner (eds.) (2013), Ancient Ethnography: New Approaches (London: Bloomsbury) 79–96. On the Panhellenic message of the Anabasis see Dillery (1995) 60, 62, 70–71, 76, 78, 83–84, 89, 94. Yet, cf. Tim Rood, “Panhellenism and ­Self-Presentation: Xenophon’s Speeches” in Lane Fox (2004a) 305–29. Through the eyes of a drunken nurse some of the gang member later encounter, the ­narrator clearly demarcates them: “She opened her eyes and dimly saw the three standing in front of her … Only the one in the middle seemed to have any light on his face … She saw, over her glasses, that he had a beautiful face and blond, wavy hair curling down from his set-back hat … This time she noticed his two friends. They were darker-skinned. The

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surrounding world.19 While the novel takes place during and slightly after the national celebrations of the Fourth of July, the gang members are deliberately left outside mainstream society.20 Their gang is envisioned as forming an ­alternative association.21 Furthermore, the Anabasis is consciously meant to serve as a deferred literary version of the events, as opposed to other accounts that have already been circulating (most particularly, one would imagine, that of Ctesias, the king’s physician, who was also present during the military clash).22 Xenophon’s desire was to make his own version both the predominant (in its simplicity) and the canonical one (in its reliability and authoritativeness).23 Yurick again deconstructs the impact of the Anabasis. Within the novel, one of the gang members (Junior) reads a comic book version of the Anabasis (106–7, 114, 133–4), a ­format which stresses the variance between the two modes of remembrance: the so-called elite “high culture” format of art/literature, which Yurick’s ­readers experience, or the so-called “low”, popular culture, involving

19 20

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short, squat one was a muddy light brown and had a little fuzzy mustache and looked Indian-faced. The other one was bulky-big dark, ugly, Negro-faced” (140). See n. 41 below. “[T]hey were all white men, the Other” (125). See Auster and Georgakas (1979) 22–3. The society (non-gang) is simply called the “Other” (16, 39, 70, 78–9, 112, 125, 151, 163). ­Hinton entertains the thought of being part of this society, but realizes he would never be: “It would be nice to have a girl. It would be nice to cut out from the Family, to retire from bopping. Hinton felt wearier. Maybe he could get a girl, not exactly like this one— blonde, yet not really blonde; white, but not white—light-colored, long-haired. She would be innocent, sweet, from some other part of town, dressed clean, beautiful, slender—go steady—marry—a family. He would have a job, a chance. Having someone like her to marry would give him ambition. They would have a home and a dog … And he knew now that he’s never have this dream; not that way” (168–9). Graham (1976) 122–5: “the novel is about the need to create a value structure inside the circle of lostness … [the value structure] represents the creation of a circle of warmth and brotherhood within the larger circle of the surrounding society … the gang comes into being as a surrogate family”. See Eran Almagor, “Ctesias and the Importance of His Writings Revisited”, Electrum 19 (2012) 9–40 [28–29]. See Felix Jacoby, “Ktesias” re 11 (1922) 2032–2073; Robert Drews, The Greek Accounts of Eastern History (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press 1973), 116–119; Dominique Lenfant, Ctésias de Cnide. La Perse, L’Inde, Autres Fragments (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2004); Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and James Robson, Ctesias’ History of Persia: Tales of the Orient (London: Routledge 2010); Jan P. Stronk, Ctesias’ Persian History: ­Introduction, Text, and Translation (Düsseldorf: Wellem Verlag, 2010). Cf. Xen. Apol. 1. The text of Ctesias was composed approximately one or two decades ­previously; see Lenfant (2004) viii, xxiv n. 72, 159n. 728. Cf. Plut. Art. 13.5–7 with Xen. Anab. 2.1.7.

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wider ­circulation.24 In the case of the Ten Thousand, the variance would be between the classical text of the Anabasis and the popular, material culture with which at least some of the Greek soldiers themselves could identify. The failure of Yurick’s characters to notice the similarity between their own experience and that of the figures in the comic book (133–4) highlights in an ironic way the difference between the real, violent dimension of Xenophon’s story and its literary and artistic, ostensibly detached, existence.25 The transition to the cinematic medium was one of the ways by which Xenophon’s story was introduced into popular culture.26 It was a matter of time until Yurick’s novel would reach the big screen. As the author later claimed, his publisher was less than 24 hours away from accepting another offer of a small, independent filmmaker, but at the last minute preferred that of Lawrence Gordon to the other, which might have been more truthful to the text.27 With Paramount Pictures financing the movie (in May 1978), shooting took several weeks (June–September 1978) on various New York locations.28 The movie did 24

See Yurick’s reference to his own work in (2003) 200: “­whatever I thought about rhetorical devices, parallels, literary references, I was determined to bury them in such a way that they would work subliminally on the minds of the literate reader. If you missed the references, then you had, I hoped, a good story”. Conversely, according to him (198), the comic book medium was the “the only material gang members might have read”, “the immediate mediational ground upon which fighting gangs met The ­Anabasis … ”. 25 Cf. Graham (1976) 121. Cf. Tim Rood, The Sea! The Sea! The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination (London: Duckworth, 2004a) 187 on this metaleptic self-reference as an instance of a mise en abyme. 26 For other instances see See Rood (2004a); Tim Rood, American Anabasis: Xenophon and the Idea of America from the Mexican War to Iraq (London: Duckworth, 2010); Tim Rood, “A Delightful Retreat: Xenophon and the Picturesque” in Fiona Hobden, Christopher J. ­Tuplin (eds.), Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry (Leiden: Brill 2012) ­89–112. See Verne, Voyage au centre de la Terre (1864); Saint-John Perse’s Anabase (1924); Andre Norton’s Star Guard (1955); Iris Murdoch’s The Sea, The Sea (1978). 27 The film rights for the novel were already bought in 1969 by American International ­Pictures (Shane Stevens was assigned to work on the screenplay, Robert Fresco and Denis Sanders were scheduled to produce and Sanders scheduled to direct), but no movie was directed or shot. Other producers were interested in making Yurick’s book into a movie, among them Otto Preminger. See Yurick (2003) 206 and Betty, Martin, “New Leaf for Weston”, Los Angeles Times (April 25, 1969). 28 “Interview with Walter Hill—Chapter 5”, Directors Guild of America (, accessed November 2016). A remake of the movie by the late director Tony Scott was planned  in November 2006. The action would have been transferred to the streets of Los  Angeles, (, accessed November 2016) but unfortunately the project was disbanded with his death

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well initially at the box-office, grossing $3.5 million on its opening weekend,29 eventually rivaling Grease as the biggest hit of the year.30 But soon the movie was associated with cases of vandalism and three killings of moviegoers (in Southern California and Boston).31 It was followed by charges of “excessive ­violence” (see figure 4.1), inducing Paramount to tone down the advertising which had p ­ reviously glorified the armies of the night, “all out to get the Warriors” (as the posters said)—rather than withdraw the movie completely.32 Yet, some theatres did not show the film as a consequence, and others added security ­personnel. Whether or not the movie really incited these acts of aggression and bloodshed, it would seem that the violence inherent in Xenophon’s original story was now brought to the foreground. The movie handled Yurick’s novel in the same way that Xenophon dealt with real events. The Anabasis tones down morally problematic deeds and behavioral failures.33 Similarly, in 2012. Another remake project has been mentioned (July 21, 2015) by the team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (, accessed November 2016). Recently, Los Angeles Times confirmed that an adaptation of film cult classic “The Warriors” is in development as a tv one hour drama for Hulu in collaboration with Paramount tv by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo as executive producers. See Libby Hill, “Our Modern-day Gang Suggestions for ‘The Warriors’ tv remake—One Word: Beyhive”, Los Angeles Times (5 July 2016  (accessed November 2016). 29 Gary Arnold, “The Warriors—Surly Kids Pack a Box-Office Wallop”, Washing Post (18 March 1979). 30 Auster and Georgakas (1979) 22. In its sixth week, The Warriors grossed $16.4 million (“The Flick of Violence”, Time, March 19, 1979). 31 Robin Herman, “Ads Resumed for a Gang Movie after Sporadic Violence at Theaters: ­Protest at Loew’s State”, New York Times (23 Feb 1979) p. A18 on the Rock Brigade, an ­alleged “good” gang from the Bronx protesting against the movie. A Massachusetts ­Legislator ­proposed to change the rating of the movie from R to X; Elliot Stein, “In ­Dubious Battle”, Film Comment 15 (May/June 1979) 31–2. 32 See Charles Schreger, “Extra Security: Keeping an Eye on ‘Warriors’”, Los Angeles Times (26 Feb 1979). Fears of another wave of gang violence to follow an attempted remake are mentioned in the interview with Mark Neveldine (n. 28). 33 Cf. Azoulay (2004) 289–294. Failures: more in the katabasis part, that is, march down country to the sea, less in the parabasis, the adventures in Asia Minor (e.g., 5.8.1–26, 6.5.15–20, 7.3.26–33). Xenophon tones down the death descriptions; see John W.I. Lee, “Xenophon’s Anabasis and the Origins of Military Autobiography”, in Alex Vernon (ed.), Arms and the Self: War, the Military, and Autobiographical Discourse (Kent: Kent State ­University Press, 2005) 41–60 [52]: “Death in the Anabasis appears fleetingly and quietly  … Xenophon ­rarely depicts individual death, and when he does it is with restraint”.

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Figure 4.1 Ajax ( James Remar) fights the “Baseball Furies”.

instances of immoral acts within the movie’s storyline were beautified by a guise of stylistic refinement. To some movie critics of the first wave of reviews, this seemed out of place in the cinematic rendition. Leading reviewers spotted “a ballet of stylized male violence”,34 or “banal dialogue”,35 chastised its being “not lively enough to be cheap fun or thoughtful enough to be serious”,36 and claiming it is “a setting without a diamond … The Warriors’ trouble is not its ‘Excessive violence’—that charge is patently absurd—but its lack of (apparently) real violence in the right place. Is catharsis a dirty word?”37 It would seem that the mimetic—realistic cinematic medium,38 acts in the same way that Xenophon’s descriptions were viewed by the ancients. For 34

35 36 37

38

Roger Ebert, “The Warriors Movie Review & Film Summary (1979)”, Chicago Sun-Times (February 13, 1979). This was apparently intentional as Frank Marshall (the executive ­producer of the movie) claims in The Warriors Documentaries (written, directed and ­produced by Laurent Bouzereau) for the 2005 dvd edition: “[the fighting scenes] were choreographed to be like a ballet, like a dance”. David Ansen, “Gang War”, Newsweek (February 26, 1979). Frank Rich, “Dead End”, Time (February 26, 1979). Stein (1979). Cf. Gary Arnold, “Abstracted Epic of Gang Warfare”, Washington Post (­February 10, 1979): “ghastly folly”. Cf. Rood (2004a) 188: “a sort of ‘Woodstock exoticism’— a festive array of improbable gang costumes”. Films have the capacity to record images of the world directly, and reproduce them. See James Monaco, How to Read a Film: the Art, Technology,. Language, History, and. Theory of Film and Media (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977) 29, 39, 43, 263, 266,

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­instance, Plutarch (Art. 8.1) writes on the one hand, “Xenophon brings it all before our eyes, and by the vigour of his description makes his reader always a participant in the emotions and perils of the struggle, as though it belonged, not to the past, but to the present”, and acknowledges, on the other hand, that Xenophon passes over some details “worthy of mention”.39 Likewise, the movie is able to combine these two apparently distinct features: to convey a realistic image of violence that is so strong as to spill over from the artistic medium to real life, while at the same time to display ostensibly stately artistic measures of control. The second wave of criticism of the movie was more appreciative of this latter aspect.40 The two traits would seem to be somewhat affiliated with the different forms of reception mentioned above, respectively, that of “low”, popular, culture and of “high”, artistic, selective, culture. Two aspects in the movie’s adaptation of the novel parallel ways in which Xenophon beautifies reality in his written work. First, to compensate, as it were, for the fact that the cinematic Warriors are not a black-hispanic group, but include white/ Caucasian members as well,41 the movie sets a unifying Native American theme for the gang, in appearance, outfit (especially the character Cochise) and titles (e.g., “Warlord”, “War Chief”). In this manner, the gang members are given some say on cultural/value issues, a depiction which

39

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283. See the realistic approach of Siegfried Kracauer, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960). The Translation is from B. Perrin’s Loeb Classical Library edition (1914–1926). Testifying to Xenophon’s popular appeal, see Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De comp. verb. 10 (“his style is pleasing but not beautiful”) with Dirk M. Schenkenveld, “Theories of Evaluation in the Rhetorical Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus”, Museum Philologum Londiniense 1 (1975) 93–107. Cf. Italo Calvino, Why Read the Classics? (trans. J. Cape, New York: Pantheon 1999) 19, who likened the Anabasis to watching a television war documentary. On the other hand, Xenophon was dubbed the “Attic Bee” (Suda, s.v. “Xenophon”) or “Attic Muse” (Diog. Laert. 2.57) for his high style. See Pauline Kael, “Rumbling”, New Yorker (March 5, 1979): “The Warriors … has in visual terms the kind of impact that ‘Rock Around the Clock’ did behind the titles of Blackboard Jungle. ‘The Warriors’ is like visual rock … The physical action is so stylized that it has a wild cartoon kick to it … ”; Roger Ebert, “Southern Comfort”, Chicago Sun-Times (­January 1, 1981). Cf. Vernon Young, “Film Chronicle: Trash and Poetry”, The Hudson Review 32 (1979) 411–17 [415]: “Hill’s unfailing sense of beauty”. Yurick (2003) 208–9, was not pleased with this feature: “In the movie the Warriors were racially mixed; almost an impossibility. My warriors had all been black. The hero of the movie story was white. (I have to admit that I doubt the movie have been as popular—back then in 1979, the date of its release—if the protagonist were black)”. Hill claimed (­Interview with Walter Hill), that Paramount did not want an all-black group for “­commercial reasons”.

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provides them with a certain ideological depth, and more than a mere presentation of their brute contest for power, honour and survival. This Native American touch may subtly correspond to Xenophon’s fascination with Greek Archaic values, and the presentation (mainly in the Cyropaedia) of some of these as subsisting in Persian (lost or current) culture and practice.42 As in the movie, Xenophon’s emphasis on a set of values, including Cyrus the Younger’s aims, masks the grim reality of the mercenary life and materialistic narrow aspirations which were presumably very strong during the actual expedition.43 Second, as opposed to the novel, in which the depicted gang members are all between fourteen to sixteen years old, by an accidental trait the actors in the movie are older, in their twenties or thirties, an age close to those of the generals (Xen. Anab. 2.6.20, 30). The age difference between the novel’s heroes and those of the movie forces the plot of the latter to have more mature themes as compared with the book. This difference is analogous to the fact that as an older person composing with hindsight, Xenophon almost apologetically tends to portray his younger self and the other soldiers as more mature and experienced than they presumably were back then.44 Famously, Xenophon has the Ten Thousand cry “Thalatta! Thalatta!” (“The Sea! The Sea!”, Xen. Anab. 4.7.24), in excitement upon the sight of the Black Sea (from Mt. Theches). The Greek soldiers are depicted as immediately e­ recting a great trophy (4.7.25–26), as if symbolizing their triumph in persisting and ­arriving home.45 This is the pinnacle of Xenophon’s emphasis on survival, which serves to eclipse the futility of the soldiers’ presence in the east and their 42

On Xenophon and archaic values, cf. Steven Johnstone, “Virtuous Toil, Vicious Work: ­ enophon on Aristocratic Style”, cph 89 (1994) 219–240. On these values in the presentaX tion of Persia see Robin Lane Fox, “Ancient Hunting: from Homer to Polybius”, in ­Graham Shipley and John Salmon (eds.), Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity (London: ­Routledge, 1996) 119–53 [121–22]. On Cyrus the Great as ideal and exemplary model for imitation see William E. Higgins, Xenophon the Athenian. The Problem of the Individual and the Society of the Polis (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1977) 47–8, 53–5, 57–8, 65; Bodil Due, The Cyropaedia: Xenophon’s Aims and Methods (­Aarhus: ­Aarhus ­University Press, 1989) 25, 234; James Tatum, Xenophon’s Imperial Fiction (­Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), xv, 62, 68, 82, 88, 228, 232–3; Deborah Levine Gera, ­Xenophon’s Cyropaedia: Style, Genre, and Literary Technique (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 7, 26–7, 122, 280, 284, 289–90, 296, 300. 43 Azoulay (2004). 44 See Anab. 3.1.25. Yet cf. 3.1.10, 3.2.37, 3.4.42. See Lee (2005) 46: “[Xenophon] comes off as implausibly competent for a relatively inexperienced young man”. 45 See Dillery (1995) 76–77.

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mishap, and to bestow the entire adventure with importance well beyond the bare story. On a certain level, an immediate message that the movie conveys, with which the audience can easily identify, is likewise one’s ability to hold on amid great difficulties.46 When the Warriors make it to the ocean and succeed in surviving—albeit with diminished numbers, as in the novel and in Xenophon’s account (Anab. 5.3.3)—and in defeating the villain, the ensuing brief dialogue with one of the gang members who has been chasing them so far are the penultimate words in the movie: Masai: You Warriors are good, real good. Swan: The best. Masai: The rest is ours. With this notion of excellence, which combines accomplishment47 with moral virtue (“good”), the movie obscures the depressing tone and message of the novel. The movie’s ending is perhaps why setting the Anabasis on screen, in a ­modern desperate and harsh urban environment with its violent aspects, did not harm its popularity, but did quite the opposite.48 The cinematic depiction of street gangs proved to be extremely popular in the Hip-Hop culture of the following g­ eneration. With lyrics such as “Tried to get yo the hood, and you might guess/ That a fool like me woulda shot Cyrus” (Ice Cube, “Ghetto Bird”, 1993), the a­ncient text of the Anabasis thus virtually made an imprint on a modern a­ udience, so far removed from the traditional context in which  it  was  ­composed  and received.49 This may be no coincidence, as the 46 47 48

49

Perhaps its only message, according to some. Cf. David L. Pike, “Urban Nightmares and Future Visions: Life Beneath New York”, Wide Angle 20 (1998) 9–50 [14]. This may go back to Anab. 1.1.6, Cyrus enlisting the best soldiers. Rood (2004a) 188 sees it as “heroic status”. In the ranking of Entertainment Weekly (August 27, 2008), The Warriors is the 16th g­ reatest cult film in the “Top 50 Greatest Cult Films” list, and 14th in the “25 Most Controversial Movies Ever” list. President Ronald Reagan is said to have been a fan of the film. See Barra (2005). See also “Abuse niggaz verbally so call Dyfus/ I’m a warrior to the heart but I didn’t kill Cyrus” (Redman, “Noorotic”, 1994). See also Wu-Tang Clan, “Shame On A Nigga” (1993): “Crews be acting like they gangs anyway/ Be like, ‘Warriors, come out and playayyyyy!’”. In the music video of Craig Mack feat. the Notorious B.I.G. and LL Cool J, “Flava In Ya Ear” (1994), Puff Daddy clinking empty bottles calls “bad boys” to come out and play; the music video of 2Pac featuring Dr. Dre, “California Love” (1996), refers to the movie

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theme of victory by p ­ erseverance may be the point where Xenophon’s story meets the essence of ­Hip-Hop culture.50 The movie eventually became the theme of two popular video games by Rockstar Games for Xbox and P ­ layStation 2 (2005)51 and by Paramount Digital Entertainment for Xbox 360 (2009), taking ­Xenophon to other audiences still, where the cinematic violence was further stylized.

Figure 4.2 From the opening sequence of The Warriors: The ultimate director’s cut edition.

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(through the character acted out by George Clinton) in the video’s introduction sequence; also M.O.P., “Warriorz” (2000). Eastsidaz, “I Luv It” (2001), includes (through the character of rapper Snoop Dogg) the reference “Eastsidaz, come out and play”; and Aesop Rock, “Maintenance” (2002): “I keep my ghoul spirit concealed/ Until The Warriors return to the Coney Isle Wonder Wheel”; see also the music video of The Diplomats, “Crunk Muzik” (2004). See , accessed November 2016. See Brian Cross, It’s Not About a Salary ...: Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles (London, New York: Verso, 1993), 64 (“Soundtracks for urban survival”); Greg Dimitriadis, “Hip Hop: From Live Performance to Mediated Narrative”, Popular Music 15 (1996) 179–94 [180, 191]; Geneva Smitherman, “The Chain Remain the Same: Communicative Practices in the Hip Hop Nation”, Journal of Black Studies 28 (1997) 3–25 [12, 21]; Y.A. Payne, “A Gangster and a Gentleman: How Street Life-oriented, u.s. Born African Men Negotiate Issues of Survival in Relation to their Masculinity”, Men and Masculinities 8 (2006) 288–297. Levels 1 through 13 contain the background to the film. Levels 14 to 18 basically remake the movie.

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Screening Xenophon

Having dealt with the parallels between the movie and the Anabasis in their general treatment of harsh reality by infusing it with values, subsuming it to a struggle for survival and portraying it as a virtuous achievement, let us see now how the movie consciously goes back to Xenophon’s description, or rather combines it with the novel’s images. Hill and Shaber distance their creation from Yurick’s novel and bring it closer to Xenophon’s Anabasis. That the movie is made to oscillate between these two worlds can be seen in the original version of 1979, where the transitions between scenes make use of the technique called “wipes”,52 and in the ultimate director’s cut edition (2005 dvd, Paramount Home Video), whereby each chapter begins with a movie still frame in a comic panel form, and then turns to the action (see figure 4.2). It is as if the cinematic outcome moves between two extremes, the realistic and the surreal/ virtual.53 In the novel, the Anabasis is referred to explicitly. It begins (p. v) with two epigrams from Xenophon (5.4.19 and Anab. 4.8.14),54 which Yurick later claimed were supplied by the publisher, but are apparently designed to be an allusion that gives a clearer key to decipher the text.55 Like the novel’s epigrams which explicitly refer to Xenophon, the 2005 director’s cut includes an overt reference to ancient Greek history. The comic book sequence, showing the panel “Battle of Cunaxa 401 bc” is supplied with an over-voice narrated by Walter Hill himself:

52 53

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As David Helden (movie editor) asserts in the 2005 dvd version documentaries: “The artificiality of the ‘wipes’ was part of the notion that this isn’t real-life”. Cf. Jake Horsley, The Blood Poets: A Cinema of Savagery, 1958–1989, Vol. 1: American chaosfrom Touch of Evil to The Terminator (Lanham, md: Scarecrow Press, 1999) 37: “one of the first American movies to come up with a genuine comic book nihilism, to sell us the sheer joy of destruction”. Hill, in the 2005 dvd version documentaries, claims: “the film is almost explicable in comic-book terms”. The latter quotation (“these people whom you see are the last obstacle which stops us from being where we have so long struggled to be. We ought, if we could, to eat them up alive”), comes within the context of Xenophon’s advice that the Greeks pass through the territory of the Colchians in spaced columns. The use of this citation is subtly inventive, since it portrays the Greeks as “others”, “outsiders” (cf. Dillery (1995) 76), presumably like the gang members would be viewed by the surrounding society. Graham (1976) 120. Cf. Yurick (2003) 205: “My editor did serve one useful, indeed vital, function: he chose the introductory quotes from Xenophon. At the time I couldn’t realize how important these quotes were to the making of the reputation of the book. Without these quotes, how would anyone know about its classical parallel”.

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Over two millenniums ago, an army of Greek soldiers found themselves isolated in the middle of the Persian Empire. One thousand miles from safety, One thousand miles from the sea. One thousand miles with ­enemies on all sides. Theirs was a story of a desperate forced march. Theirs was a story of courage. This too is a story of courage. The numerous changes that Hill and Shaber introduced into the plot of the novel caused Yurick to criticize the movie severely and to claim it “an evisceration and distortion of my book”.56 While the movie focuses on a Coney Island gang as in the novel, it is no longer called the Dominators (also referred to as “the Family”), but simply “The Warriors”, as opposed to this being the collective name for all the gangs in the novel. The names of the characters have also changed. Yurick’s story includes the figures Papa Arnold (Father = first in command), Hector (Uncle = second in command), Bimbo (Bearer, i.e., the one who carries alcohol), Lunkface (Eldest Son), The Junior (Kid Brother), Dewey (Second Brother), and Hinton (Third Brother, the artist, the one who leaves the gang’s sign on various places)—the latter being the central figure of the novel. If the name of Yurick’s Hector (a Trojan) is significant, of similar importance is Hill’s change to Ajax (a Greek hero of the Trojan War, paralleling Yurick’s Lunkface). This is symptomatic of the way Yurick focuses on the gang as outsiders (Trojans, the “others” par excellence of the Greek narrative),57 while the ­cinematic version tries to make them more mainstream (as seen from the Greek point of view). Hill and Shaber introduce another figure called Cleon to parallel Arnold. This is not only a Greek-sounding name, but it is also one that echoes Xenophon’s Clearchus.58 The cinematic version thus emphasizes the original Greek component of the group’s identity and brings it closer to the Anabasis. Cyrus the younger may be said to be the hero of the first book of Xenophon’s Anabasis; it details his aspiration, gives reasoning and justification for his moves, laments his eventual failure and includes an obituary for the prince who convened the mercenaries together (Anab. 1.9). Yet Xenophon does not dwell on the effect the fulfillment of Cyrus’ promises might have had on the

56 57 58

Auster and Georgakas (1979) 22. Cf. Edith Hall, Inventing the Barbarian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 21–25. Cf. David Desser, “When We See the Ocean, We Figure We’re Home”, in Murray ­Pomerance (ed.), City That Never Sleeps: New York and the Filmic Imagination (New Brunswick: ­Rutgers University Press, 2007), 123–35 [124].

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Greeks.59 In his work one may find a vision of Greek unity against Persia, and a call for collective action against the weak Empire, projects which might be seen as affiliated to Cyrus’ project against the central authority of his brother.60 The basis for this vision is intimated in the words Xenophon puts in Cyrus’ mouth addressed to the Greek generals and captains (Anab. 1.7.3–4): Men of Greece, it is not because I have not barbarians enough that I have brought you hither to fight for me; but because I believe that you are braver and stronger than many barbarians, for this reason I took you also … And now, in order that you may know what sort of a contest it is into which you are going, I who do know will tell you. Our enemies have great numbers and they will come on with a great outcry; for the rest, however, if you can hold out against these things, I am ashamed, I assure you, to think what sorry fellows you will find the people of our country to be. But if you be men and if my undertaking turn out well, I shall make anyone among you who wishes to return home an object of envy to his friends at home upon his return, while I shall cause many of you, I imagine, to choose life with me in preference to life at home.61 While the message of the new order is only hinted at by Xenophon, Yurick goes a step further to voice these ideas. In the novel, the Dominators are summoned, together with representatives of other gangs, by Ismael R ­ ivera, the leader of the largest street gang in New York (the Delancey Thrones, 7–43). Ismael’s words are spoken to only a small group and then relayed to people at the back; the speech is delivered in the novel in reported (indirect) speech (35–9). This leader proposes a general truce between the gangs, in ­order to unite against “the Other”, so that “[o]ne gang could, in time, run the city”. Yurick reverses Xenophon’s Cyrus’ massage to emphasize the gangs’ s­ uperior numbers (“There were only about twenty thousand fuzz”), and there is no notion of personal gain displayed upon returning home, but rather of collective action of all gangs remaining in their territories (“There were one hundred thousand brothers and sisters”). The assembly, however, breaks up in chaos, and Ismael is shot twice by other gang members, in the belief that he led them into a trap. Again, Hill and Shaber take this fictional figure and move it closer 59

For the promises see Xen. Anab. 1.3.20–1, 1.4.13, 1.7.7; Diod. 14.21.6; Plut. Art. 6.1–5. Cf. Anab. 3.2.25. See Roy (1967) 312–3. 60 See Dillery (1995) 61. Cf. Xen. Hell. 3.4.2; Isoc. 4.148, 5.90; Polyb. 3.6.9–12; Plut. Art. 20; Arr. Anab. 2.7.8–9. 61 The translation is that of C.L. Brownson for the Loeb Classical Library (1922).

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to ­Xenophon’s depiction. Significantly, in the movie his name is not Ismael but Cyrus (see figure 4.3).62 The movie scene in which he addresses the gangs’ representatives betrays a synthesis of both texts: Can you count, suckers? I say the future is ours if you can count … You’re standing right now with a hundred delegates, from a hundred gangs and there’s over a hundred more. That’s 20,000 hardcore members, 40,000 counting affiliates and 20,000 more not organised but ready to fight. 60,000 soldiers! Now there ain’t but 20,000 police in the whole town. Can you dig it? … Now here’s the sum total. One gang could run this city. One gang! Nothing would move, without us allowing it to happen! We could tax the crime syndicates, the police, because we got the streets suckers! Can you dig it? The problem in the past has been the man turning us against one another. We have been unable to see the truth, because we’ve been fighting for ten square feet of ground. Our turf, our little piece of turf. That’s crap, brothers. The turf is ours by right, because it’s our turf. All we have to do is keep up the general truce. We take over one borough at a time. Secure our territory, secure our turf, because it’s all our turf! The insinuation of gaining something more than “the little piece of turf” competes with the notion of securing the territory by right during a general truce,

Figure 4.3 Cyrus (Roger Hill). 62

The allusion to Persian royalty had already appeared in the novel: “ … Ismael had the impassive face of a Spanish grandee, the purple-black color of an uncontaminated African, and the dreams of an Alexander, a Cyrus, a Napoleon” (8).

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and may thus revert back to the words of Xenophon’s Cyrus concerning a greater prize by the choice of life with the prince rather than returning home. Paralleling Xenophon’s implicit call for collective action against the weak Empire are the words voiced by one of the movie characters: Cochise: “Cyrus was right about one thing. It’s all out there. All we got to do is just figure a way to go steal it”. In Cyrus’ speech (in the movie), the echoes of the imperialistic/expansionistic talk found in Xenophon’s Cyrus, together with an awareness of a hiatus between an overt presentation of shared goals and the reality of an impending mass exploitation that will mostly benefit the leader, as well as the spectacle of the multitude of members of gangs who hail at the charismatic individual—all evoke an image of a cult of personality.63 In the opening minutes of the movie there is a montage sequence of brief dialogues between The Warriors, intercut with footage of the gang talking on the subway and shots of the subway map. It begins with Cleon telling the others: “Now everybody says that Cyrus is the one and only. I think we’d better go have a look for ourself (sic)”. Similarly, when the figure Cowboy asks other gang members “What do you know about Cyrus?” he does not get a straight answer, but rather automatic replies, as if from people who have been brainwashed. Cochise says: “Magic, whole lot o’ magic”, while Rembrandt asserts: “He’s the one and only”. The circumstances are reminiscent of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes and not of open societies. Given this setting, the audience is not entirely certain whether the revolutionary ideas put in the mouth of Cyrus are to be taken at face value, as if presented by a virtuous hero, or whether they are a string of clichés aimed to cover blatant desire for power and exploitation, sadly unknown to the following masses, but familiar from the twentieth century experience.64 Like Yurick’s Ismael, the cinematic Cyrus is shot during the assembly. ­Ironically, his vision of union is materialized when all the gangs are out to get the Warriors. The focus on the question of the identity of Cyrus’ killer and the libel against the Warriors that they are responsible for the deed lends a ­certain 63

64

Mention should be made here of the effect of this scene on actor James Remar (“Ajax”), as he reports in the 2005 dvd documentaries: “It was supremely exciting. He [actor Roger Hill, ‘Cyrus’] was so good and so charismatic that it actually started to seem almost ­believable for a minute”. It is surely not surprising that Yurick’s communist ideologically laden text receives this twist by a big corporate studio.

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immediacy to the movie and forms an essential part of it till the shore scene at the end (quoted above), in which the Warriors are officially acquitted by Cyrus’ gang members, the Gramercy Riffs. This “Whodunit” theme cannot but evoke the ancient descriptions of the battle of Cunaxa, and the vexed issue of the responsibility for the death of Cyrus the Younger which appeared prominently in Ctesias’ account (Plut. Art. 11.5, 9–10, 14.8–10, 16.1–7; FGrH 688 F 16.67, cf. Deinon ap. Plut. Art. 10), and only hinted at in Xenophon’s rendition (Anab. 1.8.27).65 Xenophon adapts Ctesias’ narrative in a way that keeps the identity of the person who slayed Cyrus a mystery: “someone hit him”. Interestingly, Cyrus’ death is depicted in the movie in slow motion,66 an artistic disruption of reality, similar to the interrupted impression we now have of Cyrus the Younger’s death in the Anabasis because of two interpolations in the mss we possess. Disrupting the dramatic scene almost like an intermission, a note appears (Anab. 1.8.26) “and he wounded him through the corselet, according to Ctesias, and he states that he himself healed the wound”.67 In the novel, the leader of the Dominators, Papa Arnold, disappears in the confusion that follows the breakup of the assembly (he returns home safely, unbeknown to the others till the end), leaving the gang to be led back home by ­Hector. The movie is more in line with Xenophon, in that the leader of the ­Coney Island group, here Cleon, is seen beaten to death, similar to the ­execution of Clearchus and the Greek commanders.68 The flight of the Warriors,  ­pursued by all other gangs, brings back the Xenophontic situation, in which the Greeks are few against the many, a situation which infuses virtue to their perseverance. Hill and Shaber make another important transition. The novel’s central ­figure is that of Hinton (the artist). The movie sets a different character as its 65 66 67 68

Almagor (2012) 31–32. “Peckinpah syndrome”, as aptly described by Stein (1979) 32. See Félix Dürrbach, “L’apologie de Xenophon dans l’Anabase”, reg 6 (1893) 343–386 [363 n.1]; Almagor (2012) 32–4. In order to clear the air of suspicion and distrust between Tissaphernes and the Greeks, Clearchus desired to punish those who had made false charges against the quarrel mongers. For this reason the Greek generals Clearchus, Proxenus the Boeotian, Menon the Thessalian, Agias the Arcadian and Socrates the Achaean were invited into Tissaphernes’ tent while twenty captains waited outside. Then, despite his vows vouchsafing their safety, at a given signal, Tissaphernes had the generals seized inside and the captains killed outside. See Xen. Anab. 2.5.25–31 and Diod. 14.26.6–7. Cf. Dio Chrys. 74.14. In Xen. Cyr. 8.8.2, where the breach of this promise is seen as a watershed, representing the beginning of the loosening of Persian morals. See S.R. Bassett, “Innocent Victims or Perjurers Betrayed? The Arrest of the Generals in Xenophon’s Anabasis”, cq n.s. 52 (2002), 447–461.

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hero, that is, Swan, the novel’s Hector counterpart, and a name that might echo a shortened form of ‘Xenophon’. It is extremely interesting that the transition between the figures, both respectively taking charge of the group, almost parallels what happened to Xenophon’s Anabasis at the hands of Diodorus, when the Spartan Cheirisophus (Xen. Anab. e.g. 3.4–5, 4.3, 5–7, 6.1–2, 4), unexpectedly becomes central (Diod. 14.19, 14.27–29, 14.31).69 Swan’s authority as successor is not universally accepted at first, and is challenged by Ajax, who is presumably as taken by surprise at this shift as the external audience who is in the know.70 No clear answer is given to Ajax’ objection “I only got one question. Who named you leader? I got as much right to take over as you”. The audience is left to reflect upon this. Broadly speaking, it would seem that the ability of Swan to combine two conflicting features, both traceable to Xenophon, makes him ready to assume the role of the leader. One feature is his capacity for independent thought, not immediately perceived as defiant. In the opening ­deliberations, the leader of the gang Cleon orders Rembrandt to hit with his spray “everything in sight. I want everybody to know that the Warriors were there”, while Swan tells Rembrandt “When we get there, you stick close by, okay?” Indeed, it is this series of exchanges at the outset that marks the Warriors as the heroes of the movie, with whom the audience can identify. Not only do they speak their mind, but they also ponder over courses of action, in which different personalities are noticed. The members of other gangs are purposely seen to be displayed as kinds of clones, with little or no variation in 69 70

Cf. Almagor (2012) 28–9, H.D. Westlake, “Diodorus and the Expedition of Cyrus”, Phoenix 41 (1987) 241–254 [251–2] on Sophaenetus. One should also notice, as does Anna Marasso, Ashes of Gold: Loss of Innocence and Rites of Passage: Selected Tales from 1950’s Hollywood Rebels to 1960’s Youth Gangs (ma Thesis, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, 2015) 49, that the name of Ajax may allude to Greek myths. Cf. Thomas Newhouse, The Beat Generation and the Popular Novel in the United States, 1945–1970 (Jefferson, n.c.: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2000), 46, who explicitly calls Swan “[s]ensitive and intelligent, a teenage Odysseus, more the clever survivor than the fearless warrior”. After the death of Achilles, the two warriors Odysseus the ­resourceful and Ajax the brave, son of Telamon, compete for his arms (Od. 11.543–62; cf. Il. 23.700–739 for their contest over the prize in Patroclus’ funeral games). This situation is roughly what happens in the movie. In the Greek myth, Odysseus wins, causing the humiliated Ajax to act in ways he is ashamed of the following morning (he slaughters his flocks), and to kill himself as a result (Pind. N. 7.36; Soph. Aj. 42, 277, 852; Ov. Met. 13.1–398; cf. Hyg. Fab. 107) with the sword of Hector. See Dyfri Williams, “Ajax, Odysseus and the Arms of Achilles”, Antike Kunst 23 (1980) 137–45. The cinematic figure of “Ajax” is indeed also portrayed as having an apparent death wish in his actions.

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their ­disciplined demeanour or appearance. This opening, cast as a series of flashbacks that precede shots of the passing train taking the Warriors to the assembly, is reminiscent of the formal introduction of the character of Xenophon in the Anabasis (3.1.4–7).71 In this passage, Xenophon goes back in time to the situation before he joined the campaign, and to his deliberation with Socrates and his consultation in Delphi whether he should go. The personal differentiation we encounter among the Warriors in these brief dialogues may resemble Xenophon’s presentation of his own character in the third person. Xenophon’s claim that he had no idea of the real purpose of the campaign stamps the entire section as apologetic, as an effort to remove this vice from him.72 By presenting the movie’s opening, the Warriors are likewise absolved from any ill-intent falsely attributed to them in the movie.73 Swan’s other trait is his restraint, visible in a cool appearance, almost devoid of any facial expressions.74 His is not a stance of complete individualism, adopted by the gang member Ajax, who is seen on the verge of subordination. In the opening scene Cleon even chides Ajax’ desire “to waste a few heads along the way” and tells him “You’re just a soldier and keep your mouth shut”. Later on, Ajax would be so self-centered as to split from the group during their nocturnal escape in his wish to “get a little exercise” with a woman he noticed sitting alone on a park bench; but this woman turns out to be an undercover cop, who arrests him. Swan’s strength is thus in the golden mean he finds between disciplined conformity and individualism. One important deviation of the movie from the novel is the existence of a figure identified as the villain, i.e., Luther of the leather-attired Rogues, who not only kills Cyrus (see figure 4.4), but also frames the Warriors for the killing, and incites the lethal beating of Cleon. Luther is crucial for the progression of the plot till the final duel between him and Swan. Xenophon also has a villain for  the first three books of the Anabasis, the Persian satrap of Sardis, and at one time the ­commander of the armies of the coastlands (cf. Thuc. 8.5.4),

71

72 73 74

On the changes this passage introduces to the figure of Xenophon and to the narration see Jonas Grethlein, “Xenophon’s Anabasis from Character to Narrator”, jhs 132 (2012) 23–40 [25]. In a similar fashion, this cinematic sequence was shot to replace the original ­opening, which contained an exchange of Cleon and the Warriors in daylight. On the apologetic aspect see J.K. Anderson, Xenophon (London: Duckworth, 1974) 80–84; Higgins (1977) 93–96. Cf. the words of Swan: “We ain’t never even been to the Bronx before”. See Desser (2007) 128. Cf. Stein (1979) 31 (“Swan’s cool makes him a natural leader”).

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namely, ­Tissaphernes (454/45–395 bce).75 In several other passages, Tissaphernes appears as the arch-enemy of the Greeks.76 One would imagine that the movie’s screenplay opted for a figure that would reflect this classical villain. First, the satrap falsely accuses Cyrus, Xenophon’s protagonist, of a plotting to kill the king (Anab. 1.1.3; cf. Plut. Art. 3.4–6; Xenophon apparently borrowed this detail from Ctesias, FGrH 688 F 16.59).77 Second, Tissaphernes is responsible for tricking the Greek commanders and causing their execution (Anab. 2.25–31; Diod. 14.21.6–7; Plut. Art. 18.1, again from Ctesias, FGrH 688 F 27.68).78 Third, the Greeks’ suspicion that Tissaphernes is following them and plotting against them as they proceed (2.3.25, 2.4.17, 24, 2.5.29, 3.1.35, 3.4.13–15, 18, 39, 3.5.3) is made real by Luther and his Rogues, who are in effect on the Warriors’ tracks, desirous to kill them; “the Riffs sent out the word, they want ‘em alive. We don’t”, he says to a fellow gang member. Luther has an accomplice, with whom he talks over the phone in a certain scene, but whose identity is not disclosed to the audience. Apparently, the uncertainty felt by the viewers brilliantly echoes the fears and anxieties of Xenophon’s Greek mercenaries. Fourth, Luther’s end, implied at the end of the movie, but curiously effected by the Riffs offstage,79 might recall the end of ­Tissaphernes beyond the Anabasis, described by Xenophon elsewhere (­Hell. 3.4.25 ~ Ages. 1.35).80 What marks Luther as a typical villain is perhaps not his contrary agenda, but his complete lack of one, as can be gleaned from the dialogue between him and Swan before their duel:

75

76

77 78 79 80

Tissaphernes’ vacillating policy and involvement in Greece during the Peloponnesian War is detailed in Thucydides (8.5–109) and Xenophon (Hell. 1.1.1–2.1, 15). See Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948) 358–64, 367–9; David M. Lewis, Sparta and Persia (Leiden: Brill, 1977) 119 n. 78. Following his defeat in the Battle of Sardis (395 bce), he was executed. See Hans Schäfer, “Tissaphernes”, re Suppl. 7 (1940) 1579–99. Xenophon has the satrap Tithraustes describing Tissaphernes as enemy of the Spartan king Agesilaus (Hell. 3.4.26); cf. Plut. Ages. 10.8: common enemy of the Greeks. See Donald Richard Shipley, A Commentary on Plutarch’s Life of Agesilaus: Response to Sources in the Presentation of Character (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 162. Cf. Plut. Alc. 24.5–6, Lys. 4.2. See Lewis (1977) 91–6, 142, 150. See Almagor (2012) 30. See H.D. Westlake, “Decline and Fall of Tissaphernes”, Historia 30 (1981) 257–79. This parallel may explain the peculiar detail of the plot, criticized by some (see Stein (1979) 32). Cf. Diod. 14.80.7–8; Nepos, Con. 2.2; Plut. Art. 23.1; Polyaen. 7.16.1.

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Swan: Why’d you do it? Why’d you waste Cyrus? Luther: No reason, I just like doing things like that. In character with this nihilistic attitude is probably Luther’s approach that this is all “a play”, the most famous line from the movie being “Warriors, come out to play!” accompanied by Luther’s clinking three bottles in his right hand— and in fact a line improvised on the spot by the actor David Patrick Kelly. The figure of Luther is thus characterized by what appears as overacting and stylized excessive tone peaks and facial gestures, harping on the association between aesthetic and moral vices. Moreover, when Luther is hit at the end he whines and once again cowardly blames the Warriors for Cyrus’ death—not the behaviour we expect from a leader or a hero.81 (The choice of the name “Luther” in connection with an assassin might seem like a tongue in cheek allusion to the Baptist minister, civil rights activist and visionary Martin Luther King Jr. (shot in 1968) who preached for a nonviolent civil disobedience; if this is true, the cynicism in using this name would emphasize Luther’s nihilism). Xenophon mentions Tissaphernes at the beginning and the end of the work (Anab. 1.1.2–7.8.24, as the target of the new Spartan force),82 signaling a closure

Figure 4.4 Luther (David Patrick Kelly).

81 82

Compare the reaction to a similar wound inflicted by the Lizzies gang on Rembrandt’s arm. Assuming that the passage 7.8.25–26 recounting the names of the satraps and the length of the entire campaign is an interpolation. See Iordanis K. Paradeisopoulos, “A ­Chronology Model for Xenophon’s Anabasis”, GRBS 53 (2013) 645–86. Yet, see Otto Lendle, Kommentar zu Xenophons Anabasis (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995) 486–7.

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of the entire work through this figure, although Tissaphernes is absent from a large portion of it (books 4 to 7).83 The movie, however, cannot do without the figure of a villain.84 Probably for the same reasons many gangs are visible in the movie as opposed to the novel. In the latter, after the Dominators disperse in various directions (116–120), Hinton leads Dewey and Junior from the Times Square station to Coney Island, where he wishes to provoke a clash with a rival gang, the Lords. Since his challenge remains unanswered and The Lords refrain from responding, Hinton declares victory by drawing on the wall of the rival gang’s hangout place (166–172). This scene in particular may point out that Yurick meant the title of his novel to be taken ironically. The movie version, however, takes the title seriously and in a step closer to Xenophon’s army.85 The enemy is on display in the movie, as there are 21 street gangs which are seen and mentioned86 and there are more violent fights; the only scene that closely parallels the novel is the marching through the territory of the Borinquen Blazers (83–92), “The Orphans” in the movie. This is closer to Xenophon’s depiction of the various groups the Greeks encounter.87 In both the movie and the Anabasis the need for the “other” is felt. Although it may not appear so at first sight, the role of women in the movie seems to sophisticatedly echo their position in Xenophon’s account. Overall,

83

See Stephen Ruzicka, “Cyrus and Tissaphernes, 407–401 bc”, CJ 80 (1985) 204–11; John O. Hyland, Tissaphernes and the Achaemenid Empire in Thucydides and Xenophon (PhD Diss., The University of Chicago, 2005). 84 Cf. the application of the structures Vladimir Propp describes in his Morphology of the Folktale, (Leningrad 1928, Eng. trans. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1968) to movies: Robert Lapsley and Michael Westlake, Film Theory: An Introduction (Manchester : ­Manchester University Press, 1988) 131–3. Cf. Andy Clarke and Grethe Mitchell, “Film and the ­Development of Interactive Narrative”, in Olivier Balet, Gerard Subsol and Patrice Torguet (eds.), Virtual Storytelling (Berlin: Springer 2001) 81–9 [83–4]. 85 See Barra (2005), who beautifully sums up the difference: if in Yurick’s novel, a man yells at the gang: “You punks think you own the street!” (see p. 99 in the novel), in the movie, the gangs indeed own all the streets. 86 See (accessed November 2016). 87 For the treatment of other groups in the Anabasis see Louis L’Allier, “La parole et le geste: danse et communication chez Xénophon”, Phoenix 58 (2004) 229–40; James Roy, “­Xenophon’s Anabasis as a Traveller’s Memoir”, in Colin Adams and James Roy (eds.), Travel, Geography and Culture in Ancient Greece, Egypt and the Near East (Oxford: Oxbow, 2007),] 66–77; Robin Lane Fox, “Sex, Gender and the Other in Xenophon’s Anabasis” in Lane Fox (2004a) 184–214. The image of the Ten Thousand as facing hostile groups in Asia appears in ancient sources (Polyb. 3.6.10).

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Xenophon has no place for female protagonists in his manly adventure.88 Yet, in the three occurrences where women appear, they are significant. Xenophon’s work begins with a barbarian deceitful woman, the queen mother Parysatis (Anab. 1.1.3–4, 8), who arouses Cyrus to revolt against his brother, and who lulls Artaxerxes’ awareness of the rebellion until it is too late; this description was borrowed from Ctesias (Plut. Art. 4.3, 6.6–7; cf. FGrH 688 F 16.59).89 Near the end of the work we find the powerful Hellas in Mysia, who gives tactical advice to Xenophon (7.8.8–9)90 and who seems to counter Parysatis at the beginning.91 In her incitement of her son’s personal insubordination, Parysatis would appear to exemplify moral vice at the beginning of the campaign (regardless of Xenophon’s opinions concerning Cyrus), while Hellas acts in a dissimilar manner by ultimately enhancing Xenophon’s military virtue on the way back (or at least on the verge of the recruitment of the Greeks by Thibron); furthermore, her name, of course, serves to accentuate unified Greek action. In between these two there is the figure of queen Epyaxa (Anab. 1.2.12, 14– 18), wife of the Syennesis, ruler of Cilicia. She gives Cyrus large sums of money that are enough to pay the troops four months’ wage (resembling the role of his chief supporter, Parysatis), and requests that the Persian prince display his Greek army to her and demonstrate the men’s valour in a great show during the review (ultimately close to Hellas’ influence). Like the policy of Cilicia in general, wavering as it did between the Great King and his brother,92 Epyaxa is artistically made to occupy a middle path between the two other significant women of the work, the one disrupting established order, the other instrumental in establishing a new force. According to rumours, Xenophon tells us, Epyaxa and Cyrus had intimate relations (Anab. 1.2.12). Similarly, Yurick’s novel introduces three important women: one virtually pushes the hero to lead a life of adventure; this is Hinton’s mother Minnie, who neglects him, his brother and a new born baby (177–181). Another is a figure who does the exact opposite 88 89 90 91

92

See Stewart Irvin Oost, “Xenophon’s Attitude toward Women”, cw 71 (1977/8) 225–236. Almagor (2012) 30–31. Cf. Herodotus’ Pheretime (4.162). Cf. 9.109 with Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, “A Typically Persian Gift (Hdt. ix 109)”, Historia 37 (1988) 372–374. This structure echoes Ctesias’ positioning of Parysatis at the end of the work to answer the strong female character of Semiramis at its beginning; see Llewellyn-Jones and Robson (2010) 76; Almagor (2012) 25. See Olivier Casabonne, “Le syennésis cilicien et Cyrus: l’apport des sources numismatiques”, in Pierre Briant, Dans les Pas des Dix-Mille: Peuples et pays du Proche Orient vus par un Grec, (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1995) 147–172. The local ruler (the Syennesis) appears to have wavered between the conflicting sides: Ctesias, FGrH 688 F 16.63, Diod. 14.20.1–3.

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and eventually restrains three gang members; she is a drunken nurse who cries rape against Hector, Lunkface and Bimbo and causes the police to arrest them (135–149). There is, however, no interim figure, as the third woman is a girl of the Blazers, who incites the gang to stab a bystander and is the object of their passion in an ensuing gang-rape (98–102). The absence of a message of moderation is rather conspicuous in the novel. It is momentous that in the movie there are again three instances where women appear. The first is the undercover cop, who through deceit arrests Ajax and symbolizes established order. The second is the interesting all-female mixed race gang The Lizzies (presumably, a quasi-lesbian gang),93 who seduce Vermin, Cochise, and Rembrandt and try to kill them in their hideout. This insinuated sexuality of the gang is subtly set as an alternative to the prevailing order, both mainstream society and the macho codes of male gang warfare; the very existence of this gang challenges virtus, in its most narrow definition. Contrary to the novel, the girl of the Blazers, here called Mercy and affiliated with the Orphans, follows the Warriors, and is a pivotal figure, who develops a romance with Swan (a faint echo of Epyaxa’s intimate relationship with the hero Cyrus?).94 Mercy thus parallels Xenophon’s female (and male) ­non-combatants followers of the Ten Thousand.95 At the beginning of Mercy’s encounter with the gang, she challenges their reputation and manhood, exactly like her counterpart in the novel,96 but near the end, she is shown to be eventually restrained and, together with Swan, to be led to a possible different way of life, so that she is also thought to be placed at a middle position.97

93

94 95 96

97

See Auster and Georgakas (1979) 24; Stein (1979) 32. This impression is strengthened by the choreography; as Craig Baxley (stunt coordinator) claims in the 2005 dvd documentaries: “My instinct was to keep them [the Lizzies] on par with the guys and to … have them taken out like guys”. The original script had Mercy and the character of Fox develop a love interest. This was changed during the shooting. Anab. 4.1.12–14, 4.3.19, 4.6.1–3, 7.4.7–11. See John W.I. Lee, “For There Were Many Hetairai in the Army: Women in Xenophon’s Anabasis”, Ancient World 35 (2004) 145–165. See Marasso (2015) 72–3. She maintains the same degree of freedom; it is restrained in the novel by the gang rape, which is only threatened in the movie (Swan: “Maybe we ought to put a train on you. You look like you might even like it”). Swan earlier objects to Mercy’s way of life (“Swan: You want me to tell you the truth? Mercy: Yeah sure, go ahead; Swan: I don’t like the way you live; Mercy: The way I live? … Swan: Yeah, I keep hoping I’m gonna run into something a little better; Mercy: What kind of crap is this? Who are you? You ain’t any better than me”) and at the end ostensibly takes her on the route to change it.

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This brings us to the final scene and the last point. The movie ends with a High Noon style duel between the hero Swan and the villain Luther, itself an adaptation of an arcade duel in the novel between Hinton and a machine (sheriff) in an amusement arcade on 42nd street (160–5).98 Luther fires his gun with his left hand but Swan’s switchblade hits Luther’s arm (see figure 4.5). This closely resembles the duel in Xenophon’s account (Anab. 1.8.26–27, presumably from Ctesias again, FGrH 688 F 20, 20a): “on the instant he [Cyrus] rushed upon him [king Artaxerxes] and struck him in the breast and wounded him through his breastplate … While Cyrus was delivering his stroke, however, someone hit him a hard blow under the eye with a javelin”.99 Xenophon (and not Ctesias, as we learn from Plutarch) made the hit simultaneous with the throw, and the movie seems to revert to this feature.100 That this Homeric style monomachia (single combat)101 was perceived by the ancients themselves as indicative of a clash of good and evil is seen in Plutarch’s adaptation of a preceding scene in Ctesias (Art. 9.2), in which Artagerses, the leader of the royal cavalry guard reproaches Cyrus and clearly opposes “evil Greeks” to “the good things of the Persians”.102 One should also notice the cinematic allusion to an archaic period by the use of archaic weapons, like clubs (baseball bats) and knives.103 This depiction has several elements related to the Anabasis which are important for the understanding of the entire movie. Already before the duel, home suddenly bears a different meaning to Swan. When the surviving members of the Warriors get off the train in Coney Island, he is not happy. Swan looks at the city and asks, as if realizing something: “this is what we fought all 98

Cf. Graham (1976) 126. The scene was perhaps filmed but later cut out. Yurick (2003) 209: “In the movie, you see the sheriff but nothing comes of it. The apparition is ­puzzling”. Note that Luther is wearing a sheriff’s badge on his vest. In fact, Hill and Gordon were trying to put together a western project called Last Gun, but their financial backing pulled out and so they turned to The Warriors (Lawrence Gordon for the 2005 dvd version documentaries). 99 Translation by C.L. Brownson, Xenophon (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, ma, 1922). 100 Diodorus (14.23.6) makes Cyrus the first to throw the spear, which presumably echoes Xen. Anab. 1.8.26. 101 Cf. passages where spears miss their supposed victims: Il. 11.232–3, 13.604–5, 14.488. cf. 13.502–4, 17.525–8, 22.273–6. 102 See Eran Almagor, “Parallel narratives and possible worlds in Plutarch’s Life of Artaxerxes” in Koen De Temmerman and Kristoffel Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016) 65–79 [71–72]. Cf. Diod. 14.23.5. 103 See Desser (2007) 125, who also mentions the movie’s use of pistols (by Luther and the Lizzies) in an age of automatic weapons. See David Harris (“Cochise”) for the 2005 dvd version documentaries, describing baseball bats used in the fight scenes as swords.

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night to get back to?”104 The question closely echoes the novel’s last scene.105 When Hinton returns home, it is depicted as “prison” (174).106 Even the sea cannot be seen from his window, when Hinton’s eyes stare out over the trees and through the laundry lines toward “where the sea would be if it wasn’t blocked off by a big hotel” (181).107 The portrayal is, of course, in stark contrast to the Ten Thousand’s famous cry and its triumphal significance. After the duel, as mentioned above, the Warriors are branded “good” by the Riffs; correspondingly, the Radio D.J. (voice of Lynn Thigpen), who serves as a kind of Greek dramatic chorus,108 testifies to the “good” ambiance: Good news boppers, the big alert has been called off. It turns out that the early reports were wrong, all wrong. Now for that group out there that had such a hard time getting home, sorry about that. I guess the only thing we can do is play you a song.109 Alongside the remaining gang members, Swan and Mercy are walking on the beach, presumably with a view to their joint future.110 This picture adopts the Anabasis’ atmosphere at the ending marking a new start, in the mention only of the future campaign against Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus, and is opposed to the claustrophobic representation in the novel.111 How did the transition from the recognition of the grim reality to this optimistic ending come about? 104 See Marasso (2015) 24, who ingeniously interprets (91) the Ferris wheel seen at the beginning of the movie (and at its end), “which turns over and over again” as symbolic of the characters’ status of immobility. Cf. Rood (2004a) 188. 105 Although it goes back to his novel, Yurick dismisses this cinematic scene: “that kind of stuff isn’t well defined and doesn’t stand out”: Auster and Georgakas (1979) 23. 106 “It was a four-story brick apartment house. They lived on the top floor. Their apartment had been found for them, as always, by the Department of Welfare, and it was the ­twentieth place he had lived since he had been born, or five more places than he was old”. 107 Cf. Rood (2004a) 187. 108 As also described by Billy Weber (movie editor) for the 2005 documentaries: “She became like a Greek chorus for the movie”. In Yurick’s novel, the signal for the gangs to convene was a Beatles song played on the Radio (11, 14). 109 The song is “In the City” (by Joe Walsh), which contains the lyrics: “Somewhere out on that horizon || Far away from the neon sky || I know there must be somethin’ better || And I can’t stay another night || In the city … ”. Cf. Rood (2004a) 188 who in this connection mentions “escape”. 110 Cf. Marasso (2015) 76–77: “the film offers a possible positive resolution for Swan and Mercy”. 111 Cf. Desser (2007) 124: “Walter Hill vastly underplayed the social problem elements of the book and moved it closer to Xenophon’s tale of heroic grace and adventure”. This image

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Together with the victory over Luther, there was apparently an internal change experienced by Swan. The Ten Thousand’s cry of the Anabasis is anticlimactically flashed out in the movie when The Warriors meet The Rogues on the beach: Swan: When we see the ocean, we figure we’re home, we’re safe. Luther: This time you got it wrong! The logic of American cinematic storylines of different genres (and p ­ articularly the Western) is that something else is involved in a depiction of triumph other than simply a victory over an external enemy. The hero has to go through an internal process of comprehension as well, akin to an initiation of the manner of the Bildungsroman, i.e., a story of formation, education or coming of age, in which the protagonist grows and changes morally and psychologically.112 In this fashion, the hero gains virtue. The 2005 director’s cut version, where the emphasis is laid upon the “courage” aspect of the story, has been mentioned above. This does not necessarily mean that instances of bravery achieve their completion with the arrival at the ocean and Swan’s overcoming Luther. Courage may also reside in changing the perspective, in the concession of being wrong in interpretation and in finding happiness and values to live by even in a harsh and almost impossible reality. The most dramatic change is that of Swan’s character, in terms of both his feelings for Mercy and maturity and manhood.113 Thus, while conceding the existence of the bleak world the heroes return to, the movie nevertheless harks back at Xenophon’s account with its emphasis on the opportunities that still lie ahead. In both cases, these continues: “The Warriors utilizes then-current images of New York as a city in decline— dangerous, dirty, decaying—to recast and re-imagine the city as a mythic realm of transcendent action and redemptive romance”. 112 Cf. Desser (2007) 124. See Murray Pomerance and Frances K. Gateward, “introduction”, in Murray Pomerance, and Frances K. Gateward (eds.), Where the Boys Are: Cinemas of M ­ asculinity and Youth (Detroit: Wayne State University Press 2005) 1–18 [6–7]. 113 See Desser (2007) 127, 134–5. The change is gradual, and eventually affects the two characters of Swan and Mercy. It is first visible in his joint journey with Mercy through the subway tunnel (the liminal situation already seen in the novel, cf. Graham (1976) 125: “Hades-like tunnel”), the last part of the subway ride to Coney Island, when the two face two prom-night couples, and the flower Swan gives Mercy as they get off the train in morning light. There may also be an allusion to Hans Christian Andersen’s Ugly Duckling story in the choice of the name Swan. See Paul A. Roth, “The Virtue of Violence: Dimensions of Development in Walter Hill’s The Warriors”,  Journal of Popular Culture, 24:3 (1990) 131–145 [138–141].

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Figure 4.5 Swan (Michael Beck) and the Warriors look at defeated Luther (David Patrick Kelly) near the sea.

o­ pportunities exist beyond the sight of the sea: the Anabasis continues to ­describe the adventures of the Ten Thousand in the next books (properly, the section called the parabasis, or march alongside the Black Sea), and the movie concludes in an open-ended finale. It would appear that in order to defeat the villain, Swan has to adopt something of his traits. This can be seen not only before the duel, in Swan’s sudden grimace, in imitation of Luther, against the backdrop of hardly any facial ­expressions on his part, but also in the subtle change of approach after the duel, hinting at a process that already began previously. We see Swan the ­Warrior, the member of a gang life, so bleakly depicted in the novel, walks on the beach with his new love Mercy, about to begin a new individual Bourgeoistype life style shared with the surrounding society.114 Indeed, Yurick was not convinced by this ending, as indicative of its plot: The novel’s conclusion is quite different from that of the movie … what in effect happens [in the novel—E.A.] is that life has become almost ­hopeless for these kids. They can’t even join the criminal underworld.

114 Earlier on, Mercy fear having to lead a dull life (“I see what’s happening next door and down the block. Belly hanging down, five kids, cockroaches in the cupboard. I’ll tell you what I want. I want something now. This is the life I got left. You know what I mean? You get it Warrior, huh? Get it?”). Yet, the movie does give us reason to believe she is now going in this well charted course.

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The return home is a downer. There’s no walk along the beach, no hope. It’s home to a welfare setup and the worst that that can mean.115 One of the reviewers called this ending a “coitus interruptus … sentimental downer finale”.116 Yet, if one is to follow the subtle hints at the end, a different picture emerges which ties this scene with the previous story. While not adopting the extreme nihilistic form of Luther’s individualism, Swan apparently is swayed towards this extreme within his personality. This choice is observable in his challenge to Luther: Swan: Let’s do it, me and you. Luther: One on one? You’re crazy. Swan’s retort to the Riffs that the Warriors are “the best” implies that he does not accept the judgmental assertions from a group he deems inferior. Its bold innuendo is that the Warriors are better than the former head of the Riffs, Cyrus. If this is so, then a strange picture begins to come into view, in which a surprising collaboration between Luther and Swan serves as the movie’s closure. While Luther killed Cyrus and destroyed him physically, Swan, by his turn to an individualistic course of action and the adoption of the bourgeois ideal of a family, has finally diminished Cyrus’ ideal of building an alternative to society and its values. Eventually, and ironically, Swan really “killed Cyrus”, by killing his ideal. It would appear that the way Hill and Shaber present this interesting change of character is by making the cinematic Swan assume the behaviour associated with persons responsible to the death of Cyrus the Younger in Xenophon’s Anabasis. The injury that Luther suffers which is cotemporaneous with his throw is exactly like that of Xenophon’s Cyrus (above). Swan hits Luther’s hand, as Cyrus the Younger’s was mutilated by severing his right arm (Anab. 1.10.1, 3.1.17; from Ctesias: FGrH 688 F 16.64: the hand which Cyrus used to wound Artaxerxes). Swan cleans the knife on Luther’s hair, in what appears at first as scalping; it is a needless gesture, but presumably one that evokes the mutilation and beheading of Cyrus the Younger’s body (Anab. 1.10.1, 3.1.17; from Ctesias: Plut. Art. 13.2, FGrH 688 F 16.64, 67). This allusion provides a ­ritualistic dimension to the final scene; similarly, associated with beheading

115 Auster and Georgakas (1979) 22. Cf. Yurick (2003) 208: “I looked for my novel on the screen. I found the skeleton of it intact. Its revolutionary content was missing; no Fourth of July”. In the novel, there is no love story. 116 Stein (1979) 31–2.

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was an ­apotropaic purpose, designed to expel evil spirits.117 It also bears on the question of virtue, as the act of severing the head from a corpse aimed to show the bravery of the surviving warrior (cf. Hdt. 4.64),118 as well as intended to adopt the heroic power or bravery of the enemy by the winning side;119 here, of the villain by the hero. Conclusion Xenophon’s Anabasis is significant for the understanding of the movie The Warriors as one of the two principal texts upon which the screenplay is established, the other being Sol Yurick’s The Warriors. There are too many s­ imilarities of plot, characterization and details between the Greek text and the modern movie for these to be discarded as coincidental. Even Yurick himself admitted this fact concerning one element (the name of Cyrus): “someone had done their Xenophontic homework”.120 Important as it is for the encoding of the plot, it is also of significance to the decoding of it, done only by viewers in the know. To distill doubts, Shaber and Hill include various hints, like Luther’s response to Swan that “this time” he is wrong: arriving at the ocean does not spell the return to safety and home. The insinuation is that there was a former time in which spotting the sea meant precisely these things (and that Swan was there). The movie not only takes the narrative of the Anabasis, but also adopts this work’s approach toward the rendition of the harsh reality of the constant contest for survival in an artistic/triumphalist manner. There is not only similarity in aesthetic attitude but also in the values underlined. The movie follows the group of protagonists, the members of the gang, in their flight from danger and their brave handling of adversities and foes. The clash between the hero and the villain, an opposition admittedly more pronounced in the cinematic version, also goes back to the Anabasis. We saw that this conflict is related to the variance between unrestrained individualism and disciplined community. The Anabasis begins with the former (Cyrus the Younger’s personal desire 117 This explains the placement of severed heads on a wall or on a door (1 Chronicles 10: 10; Judith, 14: 1, 11; 2 Macc. 15: 35; Strabo, 4.4.5; see Diod. 5.29.5). 118 The Celts placed the heads of their enemies on the horses’ necks (see Diod. 5.29.5 and Strabo 4.4.5, quoting Posidonius). Cf. 1 Samuel 17: 54, 57. 119 Herodotus says this explicitly (4.103) of the Taoroi. Cf. Hdt. 5.114 on the people of Amathos and the head of Onesilus. 120 Yurick (2003) 207. In fact, the text reads “xenophobic” (sic!).

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to ­disrupt common imperial order) and ends with a form of Greek unity to face the barbarian commanders of the Persian King in Asia Minor. The movie does the reverse progression: it begins with a strong sense of the group and a ­utopian idea of Cyrus to unite all gangs together, but ends with a conformist individualistic approach—the seeming adoption of a Bourgeois-type format of family bonds. In fact, the movie might be said to begin from the very ending point of Xenophon’s work and to complete a full circle. In this way, and in accordance with the way reception should be studied, the modern work sheds new light on the old one, the film’s Cyrus on his textual counterpart, and the modern cinematic heroes on the story of the Greek mercenary warriors. Bibliography Almagor, Eran, “Ctesias and the Importance of His Writings Revisited”, Electrum 19 (2012) 9–40. Almagor, Eran, “Parallel Narratives and Possible Worlds in Plutarch’s Life of Artaxerxes” in Koen De Temmerman and Kristoffel Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016) 65–79. Almagor, Eran, “Going Home: Xenophon’s Anabasis in Sol Yurick’s The Warriors (1965)” in Lisa Maurice (ed.), Rewriting the Ancient World: Greece and Rome in Modern Popular Fiction (Leiden: Brill, 2017) 87–113. Anderson, John Kinlich, Xenophon (London: Duckworth, 1974). Arnold, Gary, “Abstracted Epic of Gang Warfare”, Washington Post (10 February 1979). Arnold, Gary, “The Warriors—Surly Kids Pack a Box-Office Wallop”, Washington Post (18 March 1979). Auster, Al and Dan Georgakas, “The Warriors: An Interview with Sol Yurick”, Cinéaste 9 (1979) 22–24. Azoulay, Vincent, “Exchange as Entrapment: Mercenary Xenophon?” in Robin Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March. Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004) 289–304. Barra, Allen, “‘The Warriors’ Fights On”, Salon.com (November 28, 2005) (accessed 5 December 2016). Bassett, Sherylee R., “Innocent Victims or Perjurers Betrayed? The Arrest of the Generals in Xenophon’s Anabasis”, CQ n.s. 52 (2002) 447–61. Bonner, Robert J., “The name ‘Ten Thousand’”, CPh 5 (1910) 97–9. Bosworth, Albert Brian, From Arrian to Alexander (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 135–56. Bowie, Ewen Lyall, “Greeks and Their Past in the Second Sophistic“, Past & Present 46 (1970) 3–41.

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Breitenbach, Hans Rudolf, “Xenophon”, RE 9 A 2 (1967) 1567–2052. Brulé, Pierre, “Un nouveau monde ou le même monde?” in Pierre Briant (ed.), Dans les pas des Dix-Mille: Peuple et pays du Proche-Orient vus par un Grec [= Pallas 43] (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1995) 3–20. Calvino, Italo, Why Read the Classics? (trans. J. Cape, New York: Pantheon 1999). Casabonne, Olivier, “Le syennésis cilicien et Cyrus: l’apport des sources numismatiques”, in P. Briant, Dans les Pas des Dix-Mille: Pays et Peuples du Proche Orient vus par un Grec [= Pallas 43] (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 1995) 147–72. Cawkwell, George Law, “Introduction”, in R. Warner (tr.), Xenophon. The Persian Expedition (London: Penguin, 1972). Clarke, Andy and Grethe Mitchell, “Film and the Development of Interactive Narrative”, in Olivier Balet, Gerard Subsol and Patrice Torguet (eds.), Virtual Storytelling (Berlin: Springer, 2001) 81–9. Cross, Brian, It’s Not About a Salary...: Rap, Race and Resistance in Los Angeles (London, New York: Verso, 1993). Delebecque, Edouard, Essai sur la vie de Xénophon (Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1957). Desser, David, “When We See the Ocean, We Figure We’re Home”, in Murray Pomerance (ed.), City That Never Sleeps: New York and the Filmic Imagination (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007) 123–35. Dillery, John, Xenophon and the History of His Times (London: Routledge, 1995). Dimitriadis, Greg, “Hip Hop: From Live Performance to Mediated Narrative”, Popular Music, 15 (1996) 179–94. Drews, Robert, The Greek Accounts of Eastern History (Cambridge MA: Harvard ­University Press, 1973). Due, Bodil, The Cyropaedia: Xenophon’s Aims and Methods (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press 1989). Dürrbach, Félix, “L’apologie de Xénophon dans l’Anabase”, REG 6 (1893) 343–86. Ebert, Roger, “The Warriors Movie Review & Film Summary (1979)”, Chicago Sun-Times (February 13, 1979). Ebert, Roger, “Southern Comfort”, Chicago Sun-Times (January 1, 1981). Gera, Deborah Levine, Xenophon’s Cyropaedia: Style, Genre, and Literary Technique (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Graham, Don B., “Naturalism and the Revolutionary Imperative: Sol Yurick’s The W ­ arriors”, Critique 18 (1976) 119–28. Grethlein, Jonas, “Xenophon’s Anabasis from Character to Narrator”, JHS 132 (2012) 23–40. Hall, Edith, Inventing the Barbarian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ­1 989). Hall, Edith, “Putting the Class into Classical Reception” in Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray (eds.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (Malden, MA: ­ ­Wiley-Blackwell, 2008) 386–97.

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Harmann, Rosie, “Looking at the Other: Visual Mediation and Greek Identity in Xenophon’s Anabasis” in Eran Almagor and Joseph Skinner (eds.), Ancient Ethnography: New Approaches (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) 79–96. Herman, Robin, “Ads Resumed for a Gang Movie after Sporadic Violence at Theaters: Protest at Loew’s State”, New York Times (23 Feb 1979). Higgins, William E., Xenophon the Athenian. The Problem of the Individual and the Society of the Polis (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1977). Hill, Libby, “Our Modern-day Gang Suggestions for ‘The Warriors’ TV Remake—One Word: Beyhive”, Los Angeles Times, 5 July 2016 (accessed 5 December 2016). Hindley, Clifford, “Xenophon on Male Love”, CQ n.s. 49 (1999) 74–99. Horsley, Jake, The Blood Poets: A Cinema of Savagery, 1958–1989, Vol. 1: American Chaosfrom Touch of Evil to The Terminator (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1999). Humble, Noreen M., Xenophon’s View of Sparta (PhD Diss., McMaster University, Hamilton, 1997). Hyland, John O., Tissaphernes and the Achaemenid Empire in Thucydides and Xenophon (PhD Diss., The University of Chicago, 2005). Jacoby, Felix, “Ktesias” RE 11 (1922) 2032–2073. Johnstone, Steven, “Virtuous Toil, Vicious Work: Xenophon on Aristocratic Style”, CPh 89 (1994) 219–40. Kael, Pauline, “Rumbling”, New Yorker (March 5, 1979). Kracauer, Siegfried, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960). L’Allier, Louis, “La parole et le geste: danse et communication chez Xénophon”, Phoenix 58 (2004) 229–40. Lane Fox, Robin, “Ancient Hunting: from Homer to Polybius”, in Graham Shipley and John Salmon (eds.), Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1996) 119–53. Lane Fox, Robin, “Sex, Gender and the Other in Xenophon’s Anabasis”, in Robin Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March. Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004a) 184–214. Lapsley, Robert and Michael Westlake, Film Theory: An Introduction (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988). Lee, John W.I., “For There Were Many Hetairai in the Army: Women in Xenophon’s Anabasis”, Ancient World 35 (2004) 145–65. Lee, John W.I., “Xenophon’s Anabasis and the Origins of Military Autobiography”, in Alex Vernon (ed.), Arms and the Self: War, the Military, and Autobiographical Discourse (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2005) 41–60. Lendle, Otto, Kommentar zu Xenophons Anabasis (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche ­Buchgesellschaft, 1995).

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Lenfant, Dominique, Ctésias de Cnide. La Perse, L’Inde, Autres Fragments (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2004). Leonard, John, “The Lip of the Apocalypse”, New York Magazine (15 July 1968) 68–9. Lewis, David M., Sparta and Persia (Leiden: Brill, 1977). Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd and James Robson, Ctesias’ History of Persia: Tales of the Orient (London: Routledge, 2010). MacLaren, Malcolm Jr., “Xenophon and Themistogenes”, TAPA 15 (1934) 240–47. Marasso, Anna, Ashes of Gold: Loss of Innocence and Rites of Passage: Selected Tales from 1950’s Hollywood Rebels to 1960’s Youth Gangs (MA Thesis, Università Ca’ ­Foscari Venezia, 2013/4). Marinovic, Ludmila Petrovna, Le Mercenariat grec au IVe siècle avant notre ère et la crise de la Polis (trans. J. and Y. Garlan) (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1988). Masqueray, Paul, “Origine de l’expression les ‘Dix-Mille’”, CRAI 72 (1928) 111–14. Monaco, James, How to Read a Film: the Art, Technology,. Language, History, and Theory of Film and Media (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977). Münscher, Karl, Xenophon in der griechisch-römischen Literatur, Philologus Suppl. 13/2 (Leipzig: Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1920). Newhouse, Thomas, The Beat Generation and the Popular Novel in the United States, 1945–1970 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2000). Olmstead, Albert Ten Eyck, History of the Persian Empire (Chicago: University of ­Chicago Press, 1948). Oost, Stewart Irvin, “Xenophon’s Attitude toward Women”, CW 71 (1977/8) 225–36. Paradeisopoulos, Iordanis K., “A Chronology Model for Xenophon’s Anabasis”, GRBS 53 (2013) 645–86. Payne, Yasser Arafat, “‘A gangster and a gentleman’: How Street Life-oriented, U.S. Born African Men Negotiate Issues of Survival in Relation to Their Masculinity”, Men and Masculinities 8 (2006) 288–97. Pérez Martín, Inmaculada, “The Reception of Xenophon in Byzantium: The Macedonian Period”, GRBS 53 (2013) 812–55. Pernot, Laurent, “La reception antique de Xénophon : quel modèle pour quels orateurs?” in Pierre Pontier (ed.), Xénophon et la rhétorique, (Paris: Presses de l’Université ­Paris-Sorbonne, 2014) 281–94. Pike, David L., “Urban Nightmares and Future Visions: Life Beneath New York”, Wide Angle 20 (1998) 9–50. Pomerance, Murray and Frances K. Gateward, “Introduction”, in Murray Pomerance and Frances K. Gateward, (eds.), Where the Boys Are: Cinemas of Masculinity and Youth (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2005) 1–18. Propp, Valdimir, Morfologiya skazki [Mopфoлoгия cкaзки] (Leningrad: Academia, 1928), Morphology of the Folktale (ed. & intr. Svatava Pirkova-Jakobson, trans. Laurence Scott) (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1968). Rich, Frank, “Dead End”, Time (February 26, 1979).

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Rood, Tim, The Sea! The Sea! The Shout of the Ten Thousand in the Modern Imagination (London: Duckworth, 2004a). Rood, Tim, “Panhellenism and Self-Presentation: Xenophon’s Speeches” in Robin Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March. Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004b) 305–29. Rood, Tim, American Anabasis: Xenophon and the Idea of America from the Mexican War to Iraq (London: Duckworth, 2010). Rood, Tim, “A Delightful Retreat: Xenophon and the Picturesque” in Fiona Hobden and Christopher. J. Tuplin (eds.), Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry (Leiden: Brill, 2012) 89–112. Roth, Paul A., “The Virtue of Violence: Dimensions of Development in Walter Hill’s The Warriors”, Journal of Popular Culture, 24 (1990) 131–45. Roy, James, “The Mercenaries of Cyrus”, Historia 16 (1967) 287–323. Roy, James, “Xenophon’s Anabasis as a Traveller’s Memoir”, in Colin Adams and James Roy (eds.), Travel, Geography and Culture in Ancient Greece, Egypt and the Near East ­(Oxford: Oxbow, 2007) 66–77. Ruzicka, Stephen, “Cyrus and Tissaphernes, 407–401 BC”, CJ 80 (1985) 204–11. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Heleen, “A Typically Persian Gift (Hdt. IX 109)”, Historia 37 (1988) 372–74. Schäfer, Hans, “Tissaphernes”, RE Suppl. 7 (1940) 1579–99. Schenkenveld, Dirk M., “Theories of Evaluation in the Rhetorical Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus”, Museum Philologum Londiniense 1 (1975) 93–107. Schreger, Charles, “Extra Security: Keeping an Eye on ‘Warriors’”, Los Angeles Times (26 Feb 1979). Shipley, Donald Richard, A Commentary on Plutarch’s Life of Agesilaus: Response to Sources in the Presentation of Character (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Smitherman, Geneva, “The Chain Remain the Same: Communicative Practices in the Hip Hop Nation”, Journal of Black Studies 28 (1997) 3–25. Stein, Elliot, “In Dubious Battle”, Film Comment 15 (May/June 1979) 31–2. Stronk, Jan P., Ctesias’ Persian History: Introduction, Text, and Translation (Düsseldorf: Wellem Verlag, 2010). Stylianou, Panico J., “One Anabasis or Two?” in Robin Lane Fox (ed.), The Long March.  Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004) 68–96. Tatum, James, Xenophon’s Imperial Fiction (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). Westlake, Henry Dickinson, “Decline and Fall of Tissaphernes”, Historia 30 (1981) 257–79. Westlake, Henry Dickinson, “Diodorus and the Expedition of Cyrus”, Phoenix 41 (1987) 241–54.

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Williams, Dyfri , “Ajax, Odysseus and the Arms of Achilles”, Antike Kunst 23 (1980) 137–45. Young, Vernon, “Film Chronicle: Trash and Poetry”, The Hudson Review 32 (1979) 411–17. Yurick, Sol, “Afterward: How I Came to Write The Warriors and What Happened After” in Sol Yurick, The Warriors (New York: Grove Press/Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003) 183–92.

chapter 5

Hercules’ Choice: Virtue, Vice and the Hero of the Twentieth-Century Screen Emma Stafford Introduction The predominant image of Hercules on the modern screen is that of the strong-man monster-slayer. No Hercules film is complete without spectacular feats of strength and reference to the Labours, often exemplified by the killing of the Nemean lion, whether the episode is directly narrated or simply alluded to via the presence of the lionskin. This can be seen all the way from Francisci’s Hercules (1958–9, below), to the neat summary of the Labours in the ‘Zero to Hero’ sequence of Disney’s Hercules (1997), and to the tale-telling which opens Brett Ratner’s Hercules (2014), in which Dwayne Johnson sports a particularly fine lionskin throughout.1 To a significant extent monster-slaying dominates the hero’s image in ancient art and literature, too. In Greek sculpture and vasepainting of the archaic period (c. 700–500 bce), in particular, we have literally hundreds of representations of Herakles (to use his Greek name in this Greek context) killing the Nemean lion and others of the canonical twelve labours, as well as a whole raft of other exploits which involve killing or subduing monstrous enemies. The hero is not so omnipresent in Greek art of later periods and Roman art, but when he does appear he is still most frequently depicted in monster-slayer mode. In literature, too, several of the Labours are referenced as early as Homer’s Iliad and Hesiod’s Theogony, composed in the eighth century bce, and deeds of strength remain a staple feature of Herakles-Hercules’ treatment in later Greek and Roman epic.2 1 On this and two other 2014 Hercules films—Renny Harlin’s The Legend of Hercules (starring Kellan Lutz), and Nick Lyon’s Hercules Reborn (starring John Hennigan)—see my forthcoming paper “Hercules: a hero for the 2010s?”, in Antony Augoustakis and Stacie Raucci (eds.), Epic Heroes on Screen (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). For an excellent introduction to Disney’s Hercules, see Alastair Blanshard and Kim Shahabudin, Classics on Screen: ancient Greece and Rome on film (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press 2011) 194–215. 2 For a survey of the ancient material, with further bibliography, see Emma Stafford, Herakles (Gods and Heroes in the Ancient World) (London: Routledge, 2012), especially 23–78 on monster-slaying.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_007

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There are, however, other sides to the hero’s character, which begin to be elaborated in Athenian drama of the fifth century bce, when tragedy and comedy push Herakles to extremes of behaviour both positive and negative. Philosophical reflection on this polarisation is epitomised in the tale, attributed to the late fifth-century sophist Prodikos of Keos, of Herakles’ choice between two ways of life, symbolised by female figures who personify Virtue and Vice. The contention of this paper is that the dichotomy represented by Prodikos is reflected in twentieth-century screen versions of the hero. I shall not be denying the significance of other factors—commercial pressures to conform with contemporary moral codes, the narrative potential of a polarisation between good and evil—but rather proposing that the ancient scenario of the Choice, mediated by its popularity in the Renaissance, is an underlying influence. This is not an entirely original proposition: Ruby Blondell makes the connection between Prodikos’ virtuous Herakles and the abstemious title character of the 1990s Hercules: the Legendary Journeys (Kevin Sorbo), noting that both figures “eschew pleasures, specifically the pleasures of food, drink, and sex”;3 Kim Shahabudin compares Prodikos’ Herakles with the ‘virtuous’ Hercules of Pietro Francisci’s Hercules (1958–9), and contrasts both with the more ambiguous hero of Vittorio Cottafavi’s Hercules Conquers Atlantis (1961).4 However, there is scope for a more in-depth exploration of the idea, especially in connection with the Hercules-themed films of the late 1950s and early 1960s. I shall begin, then, with a reminder of the original story, and a brief look at its transmission in the Renaissance, to establish the basis for comparison with both the general Choice scenario and some significant points of detail in the representation of Virtue and Vice. My focus will then be on expressions of the Choice in the

3 Ruby Blondell, “How to kill an Amazon”, Helios 32.2 (2005) 183–213 (quote from 188); ideas from this are more briefly reprised in Blondell’s “Hercules psychotherapist”, in Angela Ndalianis, Chris Mackie and Wendy Haslam (eds.), Super/Heroes: from Hercules to Superman (­Washington dc: New Academia Publishing 2007) 239–49. Bibliography on Hercules the Legendary Journeys is not abundant, but see e.g. Gideon Nisbet, Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture (2nd ed.) [1st ed. 2006] (Bristol and Exeter: Bristol Phoenix Press, 2008) 55–66; on the spin-off Young Hercules series, see Angeline Chiu, “Labors and Lesson plans: educating young Hercules in two 1990s children’s television programs”, Amphora 11.1 (2014) 1 and 6–7; Chiu notes (6) Prodikos’ story as an instance of moral education in the ancient tradition, but rightly distinguishes between the solitary experience and the communal, school context of the 1990s hero’s learning. 4 Kim Shahabudin, “Ancient mythology and modern myths: Hercules Conquers Atlantis (1961)”, in Dunstan Lowe and Kim Shahabudin (eds.), Classics For All (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 196–216 (see 204–5).

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so-called “peplum”,5 or “sword-and-sandals” films produced in Italy c. 1958–65, with particular attention to the two foundational pieces of the genre, Francisci’s Hercules (1958–9) and Hercules Unchained (1959–60).

The Tradition of the Choice

Prodikos’s story of “The Choice of Herakles” presents the hero in contemplative mode and explicitly makes virtue (aretē) the motivation for his deeds.6 We do not have a text by Prodikos himself, but the story is preserved by a re-telling (in the mouth of Sokrates) in Xenophon’s Memorabilia (2.1.21-2), written some thirty years or more after the deaths of both Sokrates and Prodikos: They say that when Herakles was setting out from childhood into his prime, a time when the young, now becoming their own masters, show whether they will take the path of virtue (aretē) in life or the path of vice (kakia), he went out to a quiet place and sat not knowing which of the roads to take. There appeared two tall women approaching him, one pretty to look at and of free-born nature, her body adorned with purity, her eyes with modesty, her figure with reserve, and with white clothes. The other was grown into plumpness and softness, her face made up so that it looked whiter and rosier in appearance than it actually was, her figure so that it looked straighter than it was by nature, and she had wide-open eyes, and clothes, so that her charms would shine right through. Often

5 The term was coined by French scholars in the early 1960s, in (inaccurate) reference to the short tunics worn by both male and female characters: see e.g. several essays in the May 1962 edition of Cahiers du cinéma. The term is discussed at some length by Claude Aziza in (ed.) Le péplum: l’antiquité au cinema (CinémAction no.89) (Condé-sur-Noireau: Éditions Corlet, 1998), 7–11, and in Le péplum, un mauvais genre (50 Questions) (Paris, Klincksieck, 2009), 13–19. 6 On Prodikos’ story, see e.g. Mary Kuntz, “The Prodikean ‘Choice of Herakles’: a reshaping of myth”, Classical Journal 89 (1994) 163–81, and David Sansone, “Heracles at the Y”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 124 (2004) 125–42. For the place of the story in a broader ‘intellectualisation’ of Herakles, see Karl Galinsky, The Herakles Theme: the Adaptations of the Hero in Literature from Homer to the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972) 101–25. I also discuss the story in “Vice or Virtue?: Herakles and the Art of Allegory”, in Louis Rawlings (ed.), Herakles and Hercules: exploring a Greco-Roman divinity (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales 2005b) 71–96; and see Alastair J.L. Blanshard, Hercules: a heroic life (London: Granta Books, 2005) 32–8 on the story’s long-lasting structural appeal.

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she looked herself over, and looked to see whether anyone was watching her, and she often took a glance at her own shadow. The women turn out to be Virtue (Aretē) and Vice (Kakia) personified, appropriately characterised by their contrasting physical appearances. The two figures are represented as women in the first place because the nouns they personify are grammatically feminine,7 but the elaboration of their appearance owes much to social conventions about “good” and “bad” women in classical Athens. Virtue is “pretty to look at”, but her prettiness is natural, her whole body expressive of “purity”, “modesty” and “reserve”, virtues of the citizen wife, all set off by her “white clothes”. The association of white clothing with virtue can be traced right back to Hesiod’s Works and Days (c. 700 bce), in which the personifications of Righteous Indignation (Nemesis) and Shame or Modesty (Aidōs) abandon earth at the end of the Age of Iron in protest against mankind’s wickedness, “their fair forms wrapped in white robes” (lines 197–201). Vice, on the other hand, is described in terms one would expect to be applied to the courtesan: her face is made up and her figure made “straighter than it was by nature”, while her clothes reveal, rather than cover, a body which shows signs of an over-indulgent lifestyle.8 This calls to mind a fragment of the fourth-century Athenian comic writer Alexis (fr. 103 pcg) in which a character complains of the activities of the madam or pimp in remodelling their girls, adjusting their height with the right footwear, padding small breasts, using lamp-black to accentuate fair eyebrows and adjusting facial complexions with white lead and rouge. Though it is not explicitly stated that Vice is beautiful, it is to be assumed that her appearance is superficially attractive, to reflect the superficial attractions of the way of life she offers. Each outlines to Herakles a different road he might take in life. The way offered by Vice is suitably appealing (Memorabilia 2.1.23-4): … you will always be considering what tasty food or drink you can find, what sight or sound may please you, what scent or touch you may 7 I consider this question of gender elsewhere: Emma Stafford, “Masculine values, feminine forms: on the gender of personified abstractions”, in Lin Foxhall and John Salmon (eds.), Thinking Men: masculinity and its self-representation in the Classical Tradition (London: Routledge, 1998) 43–56; and Worshipping Virtues: personification and the divine in ancient Greece (Swansea and London: Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth, 2000) 27–35. 8 On the physical description of the two personifications, see Olof Gigon, Kommentar zum zweiten Buch von Xenophons Memorabilien (Schweizerische Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft 7) (Basel: Reinhardt, 1956) 64–7.

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e­ njoy, which boyfriend’s society will gratify you most, how you can sleep most  comfortably, and how you can come by all these with the least trouble. The road of Virtue is predictably more like hard work (Memorabilia 2.1.27-8): I shall not deceive you with a pleasant preamble, but I shall explain the facts truthfully as the gods have ordained them. For the gods grant men nothing of the things that are really good and admirable without effort and application … There follows a long list of prerequisites for winning the good opinion of gods and men such as “if you expect to be admired for your virtue (aretē) by the whole of Greece, you must strive to benefit Greece …” and “if you want to be physically able, you must accustom your body to be subject to your mind, and train it with hard work and sweat”. We are not given Herakles’ reaction to either speech, but the conclusion—“such, as Prodikos tells it, was Virtue’s education of Herakles”—suggests that Herakles chose to follow the path of aretē. Prodikos is said to have performed his “speech on Herakles” to very large audiences in late fifth-century Athens (Memorabilia 2.1.21). To such audiences the tale must have evoked contrasting images of Herakles on the tragic and comic stage.9 In tragedy, the hero’s aretē is closely identified with his monsterslaying, for example by the chorus of Euripides’ Herakles (697–77): “But surpassing even his nobility of birth in virtue (aretē), he has made life calm for mortals by his labours, by destroying fearful beasts”. This civilising activity is associated with the particular virtue of piety, recognised even by the goddess Madness (Lyssa), as she prepares to destroy Herakles (851–3): He has tamed the trackless land and savage sea, and single-handedly ­restored the gods’ honours when they had been destroyed by sacrilegious men. By contrast, the Herakles of comedy is characterised by just such a list of vices as held out by Prodikos’ Vice as temptations. Passing references in Aristophanes show that our hero must have been a stock figure of the genre, r­ egularly shown “being tricked out of his dinner” (Wasps 60) or “kneading dough and

9 For a detailed survey of Herakles in tragedy and comedy, see Galinsky (1972) 40–125; Stafford ((2012) 79–136) provides updated bibliography.

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being hungry” (Peace 741), with a penchant for hot baths (Clouds 1045–54). He actually appears towards the end of Birds, where Poseidon describes him as “stupid and a glutton” (Birds 1604), and he is fixated on food throughout the scene. Likewise in Frogs (107–15) Dionysos assumes that Herakles will be able to advise him on food in general, and the provisions for fleshly comforts in the Underworld—the “bakeries, brothels, inns, rest-stops, springs, roads, towns, rooms, the landladies, where there are fewest bedbugs”. The ongoing popularity of Prodikos’ moral tale is attested by its reappearance in a variety of contexts in later antiquity.10 Cicero explicitly cites Xenophon’s version of the story when advising his son on career choices in the De Officiis (1.118), though he specifies that Virtue’s opposite number is the ­particular vice of Pleasure (Voluptas). He concedes that such goddesses might have appeared to the divine Hercules, although mere mortals have to look to human role-models when choosing a path in life. It is again Pleasure (Voluptas) who appears with Virtue (Virtus) in Silius Italicus’ Punica (15.18-128), where the young Scipio is cast as Hercules, faced with a choice between escape from the dangers and hardships of war, and victory over the Carthaginians. Silius’ figures are close to their models in appearance, Virtue again modest and dressed in white, Pleasure smelling of Persian perfume and attired in extravagant Tyrian purple and gold (Punica 15.23-31). The story is greatly elaborated up on by Dio Chysostom in his advice to Trajan On Kingship (1.52-84), where Hercules’ choice is between Royalty (attended by such figures as Justice, Peace, Civic Order and Law) and Tyranny (whose courtiers include Cruelty, Insolence, Lawlessness, Faction and Flattery), while Lucian (The Dream, or Lucian’s Life 6–9) humorously presents his younger self as faced with a career choice between the beautiful Education (Paideia) and the rough, unkempt Sculpture (Hermoglyphikē). In the fourth century, yet another variation on the theme appears in the emperor Julian’s Orations (7.229c-34c), with Julian himself playing the part of Hercules, but most significantly the story is selected by St Basil, bishop of Caesarea, as an example of the possible Christian moral values to be extracted from pagan literature (On the Value of Greek Literature 5.55-77; quote 5.61-5): When Herakles was quite a young man, and close to being in his very prime, as you are now, as he was deliberating which road to turn his steps to, the one leading through labours towards virtue, or the easier path, two women approached him, and these were Virtue and Vice … 10

On these later versions of the story, see Bruno Rochette, “Héraclès à la croissé des chemins: un topos dans la literature gréco-latine”, Études Classiques 66 (1998) 105–13.

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St. Basil’s Vice is considerably less attractive than her Xenophontic model, “withered up”, “squalid” and “severe” to look at (5.71-2), a modification conforming with Cynic ideals.11 The post-classical revival of Prodikos’ tale begins with two brief allusions in Petrarch’s Life of Solitude (1.4.2 and 2.9.4) of 1346, followed at the beginning of the fifteenth century by a more substantial account in Salutati’s De Laboribus Herculis (3.7.1-4).12 Neither scholar would have read Xenophon’s Greek, but they accessed the story via Cicero’s Latin version, and combined it with the Pythagorean idea of the letter Y symbolising a parting of the ways in life. This led to the establishment of the motif of Hercules in bivium, “at the cross-roads”, followed by all subsequent visual and literary representations of the Choice, despite the lack of such a specific location in the ancient accounts. Modern scholarship, too, almost invariably speaks of “Hercules at the cross-roads”, following Panofsky’s influential 1930 study of the same name which traces the theme’s huge popularity in paintings and engravings in the Renaissance and beyond, discussing more than 50 examples.13 The success of the theme was promoted by a number of influential sixteenth- and seventeenth-century handbooks of myth and iconography which associated Hercules with virtue. In Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (1593), for example, ‘Heroic Virtue’ (no. 317) is represented by an image of Hercules, with lionskin, club and three apples of the Hesperides, accompanied by the text: The Lion and Club denote the Strength of Virtue, that is immovable; secondly, the Apples, bridling Anger, Temperance in Riches; thirdly, the generous Despising of Pleasure, which is heroic. The Club is knotty, to shew the great Difficulties to be met with in living virtuously. Geoffrey Whitney’s Choice of Emblemes (1586) includes an entry specifically on Bivium virtutis et vitii (“The crossroads of virtue and vice”, no. 40), which consists of a woodcut of the scene accompanied by a poem which briefly tells the story before reflecting on the relative merits of pleasure and vice, concluding:

11 12

13

See Nigel Guy Wilson (ed.), Saint Basil on Greek Literature (London: Duckworth 1975) ad 5.71. The re-emergence of the Choice story is traced by Theodor Mommsen, “Petrarch and the story of the Choice of Hercules”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953) 178–92. See also Galinsky (1972) 185–229, especially 198–201 and 213–14. Erwin Panofsky, Hercules am Scheidewege und andere antike Bildstoffe in der neueren Kunst (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg 18) (Leipzig: Teubner, 1930).

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But heare, I yeelde oh vertue to thie will, And vowe my selfe, all labour to indure, For to ascende the steepe, and craggie hill, The toppe whereof, whoe so attaines, is sure For his rewarde, to have a crowne of fame: Thus hercules, obey’d this sacred dame. The Renaissance artists had no ancient visual prototype to follow,14 but invariably pick up on the original narrative’s interest in characterising Vice and Virtue by their contrasting appearance. This can be seen, for example, in Paolo de Matteis’ Choice of Hercules (Fig.  5.1), commissioned by Anthony

Figure 5.1 Paolo de Matteis, The Choice of Hercules, 1712 (Temple Newsam House, Leeds). Photo: Temple Newsam House (Leeds Museums and Art Galleries); Photographic Survey, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. 14

Picard’s identification of the Choice as the subject of the name vase of the Painter of Louvre G508 (Attic red-figure bell krater, c. 400 bc) (Charles Picard, “Nouvelles remarques sur l’apologue dit de Prodicos: Héraclès entre le vice et la vertu”, Revue Archéologique 42 (1953) 33–7, pls 5–6) is unconvincing, as I have argued elsewhere: Emma Stafford, “Héraklès: encore et toujours le problème du heros theos”, Kernos 18 (2005a) 391–406.

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Ashley-Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury, to illustrate the vision for a ‘history painting’ outlined in his A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgement of Hercules according to Prodicus, Lib.II. Xen. de Mem. Soc. (1713, first published in French in 1712).15 Here the contrast is accentuated by the fact that Virtue is standing, holding a sword in her right hand and with the left pointing, presumably indicating the hard path of which she is speaking, while Vice reclines on the ground next to an amphora, plate and goblet, indicative of a bibulous picnic, looking amorously at Hercules, wearing a flowery garland and with her invitingly loose drapery already revealing both legs and most of one breast. Hercules himself is standing (rather than seated, as in Xenophon’s account), draped in his trademark lionskin and resting heavily on his club, facing Virtue although his body leans towards Vice.

The Choice in the Peplum

With this tradition in mind, let us now turn to twentieth-century film, and specifically the peplum. Though not highly regarded by critics at the time,16 the genre has received a good deal of scholarly attention, especially in recent years. This scholarship falls roughly into three categories: work focusing on the peplum’s place in the history of Italian cinema;17 work concerned with its cultural significance;18 and work considering the genre in the context of 15

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The version illustrated here is a small-scale contemporary copy of the Ashmolean’s original, made for Shaftsbury’s friend Sir John Copley: James Lomax, Temple Newsam Paintings (Leeds: Leeds Museums and Galleries, 2000) 17 no.22. Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011) 61–2 discuss the contemporary reception of Hercules (1958–9): see e.g. Richard Nason, “Screen: Weak ‘Hercules’: Italian-made spectacle opens at 135 theatres”, New York Times (23/7/1959) 32. See also Mark Jancovich, “‘An Italianmade spectacle film dubbed in English’: cultural distinctions, national cinema, and the critical reception of the postwar historical epic”, in Robert Burgoyne (ed.), The Epic Film in World Culture (London and New York: Routledge 2011) 161–75. Domenico Cammarota, Il cinema peplum: la prima guida critica ai film di Conan, Ercole, Goliath, Maciste, Sansone, Spartaco, Thaur, Ursus (Rome: Fanucci, 1987); Michele Giordano, Giganti Buoni. Da Ercole a Piedone (e oltre) il mito dell’uomo forte ne cinema italiano (Rome: Gremese Editore, 1998); Peter Bondanella, A History of Italian Cinema (New York: Continuum, 2009) 159–79; Gian Piero Brunetta, The History of Italian Cinema: a guide to Italian films from its origins to the twenty-first century (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009) 161–4; Peter Bondanella, A History of Italian Cinema (New York: Continuum, 2009) 159–79. Michèle Lagny, ‘Popular taste: the peplum’, in Richard Dyer and Ginette Vicendeau (eds.), Popular European Cinema (London and New York: Routledge 1992) 163–80; Richard Dyer,

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cinematic receptions of the classical world.19 There is of course some overlap between these approaches, and one might add the further categories of the catalogue,20 and of ‘scholarly journalism’, not aimed at an academic audience though replete with useful detail.21 Despite this wealth of discussion, however, very few commentators make explicit reference to the Prodikean Choice: apart from Shahabudin (above), I have only found one brief reference in a footnote of James Clauss’ paper on Hercules Unchained, and Luigi Spina’s comment on the significance of the Choice as “a crucial feature” of the hero’s ancient career, which is not developed by any specific reference to the films.22 Indeed, some commentators appear to be unaware not just of the particular story, but of the whole tradition of a more reflective, even philosophical hero—Bondanella, for example, summarises the mythological background by listing the twelve labours, concluding that Hercules was “considered to be more brawn than

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White (London and New York: Routledge, 1997) 145–83; Maggie Günsberg, “Heroic bodies: the cult of masculinity in the peplum”, in Italian Cinema: gender and genre (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) 97–132; Robert Rushing, “Gentlemen prefer Hercules: desire/ identification/beefcake”, Camera Obscura 23.3 (2008) 158–91; Frank Burke, “The Italian sword-and-sandal film from Fabiola to Hercules and the Captive Women: texts and contexts”, in Flavia Brizio-Skov (ed.), Popular Italian Cinema: culture and politics in a postwar society (London and New York: IB Tauris, 2011) 17–5. Derek Elley, The Epic Film: myth and history (London: Routledge, 1984) 13–24 and 52–66; Maria Wyke, “Herculean Muscle! The classicizing rhetoric of body-building”, Arion 4.3 (1997) 51–79; Jon Solomon, The Ancient World in the Cinema, 2nd ed. [1st ed. 1978] (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001) 117–23 and 306–323; Blanshard (2005) 157–66; Martin M. Winkler, “Greek myth on the screen”, in Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2007) 453–79; Nisbet (2008) ­45–55; Arthur J. Pomeroy, Then It Was Destroyed by the Volcano: the ancient world in film and on television (London: Duckworth, 2008) 29–59; Luigi Spina, “By Heracles! From satyrplay to peplum”, in Irene Berti and Marta García Morcillo (eds.), Hellas on Screen (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2008) 57–64; Shahabudin (2009); Fernando Lillo Redonet, Héroes de Grecia y Roma en la Pantalla (Madrid: Evohé, 2010) ­85–105; Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011) 58–76; Stafford (2012) 232–6; Arthur J. Pomeroy, “The women of Ercole”, in Konstantinos P Nikoloutsos (ed.), Ancient Greek Women in Film (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 189–206. Gary A. Smith, Epic Films: casts, credits and commentary on over 250 historical spectacle movies (Jefferson, nc: McFarland, 1991); Patrick Lucanio, With Fire and Sword: Italian spectacles on American screens 1958–1968 (Metuchen and London: Scarecrow Press, 1994); the latter includes some useful comment on the genre as a whole (12–56). Notably the essays gathered in Aziza (1998) and Aziza’s monograph (2009). James J. Clauss, “Hercules Unchained: contaminatio, nostos, katabasis, and the surreal”, Arethusa 41 (2008) 51–66 [58 n20]; Spina (2008) 57–64 (see 58–9 on Prodikos).

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brain”.23 While such an understanding of the tradition is reasonable in terms of the dominance of the monster-slaying motif across all periods, it overlooks some notable correspondences between the genre’s characterisation of Hercules and his ancient incarnations. Both continuity and discontinuity with the mythological tradition are exemplified already in Pietro Francisci’s Le fatiche di Ercole, released in Italy in 1958 and, as Hercules, the following year in the United States and uk, heavily promoted by Joseph E. Levine.24 The plot is very loosely based on the ancient Argonautika story, in which Hercules traditionally plays only a subsidiary role, with two of his better known labours worked into the story early on to demonstrate, first, the superhuman strength of a demigod in despatching the Nemean lion and, second, the still-impressive achievement of the hero in vanquishing the Cretan bull after he has renounced his immortality. There is also an oblique reference to ancient tradition in the naming of the heroine as Iole, though her position is in most respects far removed from Iole the princess of Oichalia portrayed in Sophokles’ Women of Trachis. The plot, in this and subsequent pepla, is secondary to requirements of the performance context for which the films were designed. This is generally assumed to be the terza visione cinemas which had sprung up in Italy after wwii in rural and peripheral urban areas, especially in the South, as celebrated in Giuseppe Tornatori’s Cinema Paradiso (1988), where the viewing experience was chaotic: such a context promoted variety and episodic spectacle over complex plot and sustained characterisation.25 The casualness of the viewing experience was replicated in the American drive-in-movie context, and the broad nature of the audience is reflected in a comment made by Joseph Levine to an interviewer in 1961 about Hercules:26 23 24

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Bondanella (2009) 167. As the film which initiated the whole genre, Hercules features in all discussions of peplum. On the original Italian production costs, Levine’s $1-million publicity campaign and the film’s impressive profits, see Günsberg (2005) 98–9; Brunetta (2009) 161–4; Pomeroy (2013) 189–90. A particularly detailed account of the promotional campaign is provided by Anthony McKenna, Joseph E. Levine: showmanship, reputation and industrial practice 1945–1977 (diss. University of Nottingham, 2008) 87–116. On the viewing context, see Dyer (1997) 165–9; Günsberg (2005) 7–13; Shahabudin (2009) 201–2; Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011) 58–9. On the Italian audiences’ post-WWII immersion in American film, see Gian Piero Brunetta, “The long march of American cinema in Italy: from Fascism to the Cold War”, in David Ellwood and Rob Croes (eds.), Hollywood in Europe: Experiences of Cultural Hegemony (Amsterdam: vu University Press, 1994) 139–54. Gay Talese, “Joe Levine unchained: a candid portrait of a spectacular showman”, Esquire (1st January 1961) 68. Quoted in McKenna (2008) 108; as McKenna notes, in a 1974

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It had something for everybody. It had a dragon for the kids, musclemen for growing boys, a shipwreck scene for waiters and clerks. Who doesn’t dream of getting stuck on an island with some broads? And the picture had Steve Reeves. He appealed to women. The American bodybuilder Steve Reeves did indeed appeal to women, and to men too, for a variety of reasons. Reeves had previously had a number of minor acting roles since achieving his ‘Mr Universe’ title in 1950, but it was his impressive physique which earnt him the role and set the standard for later stars of the genre.27 The film builds in plenty of opportunities for the display of Reeves’ muscles, in poses borrowed from the bodybuilding repertoire: in addition to his fights with the lion and the bull, his first action in the film is to uproot an entire tree to throw in the way of Iole’s out-of-control chariot, he must bend an iron bar to prove his identity on arrival at Pelias’ court, and towards the end he “exhibits a prize-winning V-shaped flex before Samsonesquely destroying the palace of Jolco”.28 As Dyer and others have discussed, the hero’s phenomenal strength would have appealed especially to the rural working class in Italy, and to a new urban working class, (re)asserting the value of their physical strength, as well as placing him in the popular tradition of the cinematic strongman, a popular figure especially since the first appearance of Maciste in Giovane Pastroni’s Cabiria (2014).29 It is also significant that Reeves was American, unlike the rest of the cast and crew, an exceptionality which would be replicated in the stars of most subsequent pepla. As the outsider who comes to the defence of the oppressed, Reeves’ Hercules might be read as symbolising American intervention in wwii, while being distanced from Mussolini, whose appropriation of athletic imagery had potentially compromised the strongman figure.30 In addition to these socio-political considerations, the potential for Hercules’ erotic appeal (for viewers of either sex) is clear: Reeves’ costume, a very short brown tunic rather cursorily pinned over just one shoulder, leaves more

27 28 29

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i­ nterview (Pat O’Haire, “This Levine guy—he’s a real Joe”, Sunday News, New York’s Picture Newspaper (29/9/74)) Levine repeated this soundbite with the significant addition “and some men”. Giordano (1998) devotes a whole chapter to ‘Steve il magnifico’ (73–85). Solomon (2001) 122 (caption to fig. 79). Dyer (1997) 168–9; Günsberg (2005) 101–2. On the cinematic tradition of the ‘gentle giant’, see Giordano (1998); Wyke (1997) traces the story back further, to nineteenth-century strongman acts. Specifically on Maciste, detailed discussion is now available in Jacqueline Reich, The Maciste Films of Italian Silent Cinema (Bloomington, in: Indiana University Press 2015). Dyer (1997) 170–6; Burke (2011) 28–9; Pomeroy (2013) 191; Reich (2015) 187–237.

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than half of his glorious upper torso on display throughout the film, and he periodically strips down to an even skimpier loincloth. The loincloth-clad male body is particularly foregrounded early on in the film in the training scene in which Hercules supervises the youth of Jolco as they practise a variety of sports, the link with both classical athletics and the modern Olympics being signalled by the opening shot of our hero, flanked by Castor and Pollux, arranged on a hillock like Olympic victors on the medal stand.31 As Günsberg and Rushing have argued, the viewer may identify with Iole as she watches the subsequent display of male bodies, or with the young Ulysses (Gabriele Antonini) as he both craves Hercules’ approval and aspires to emulate him (“I want to be like you!”); the scene thus maintains a superficial heteronormativity though allowing of ‘deviant’ responses.32 Hercules’ character in the film has attracted comment for its naive cheerfulness and lack of political ambition.33 Only Shahabudin, however, has remarked upon this Hercules’ kinship with his Prodikean ancestor, and then only in general terms of his virtuous character.34 I would argue that a further correspondence can be seen in his reflection upon different ways of life. This can most clearly be seen in the sequence which follows the death of Iole’s arrogant brother Iphitus, mauled by the Nemean lion, for which Hercules is (rather unreasonably) blamed: in search of atonement, the hero sets himself a kind of Choice, visiting ‘the Sibyl’ in an anachronistically ruined Greek temple on the cliff-tops: Hercules: I can’t stand being superior. Let me experience the real things—love, or hate. Sibyl: Those are mortal states, Hercules. Hercules: If it’s my immortality making me unhappy, then I’ll do without it! Sibyl: That’s dangerous, Hercules. Don’t you know how foolish you’d be to renounce it? To be born a man and see everything die is not to be immortal. Stay as you are, be a god—don’t exchange immortality for fear, pain and sorrow. 31

32 33 34

Rushing (2008) 170 notes that this shot also “presents a camp vision of gay erotica”. Wyke (1997, 59–63) links Hercules with the classicising rhetoric of 1950s homoerotic photography. Günsberg (2005) 131; Rushing (2008) 170–5; see also Wyke (1997) 66–7, and Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011) 70–3. Günsberg (2005) 174; Pomeroy (2013) 191. Shahbudin (2009).

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Hercules: I want to live like any other mortal man. It is my prayer to have a family. I want children of my own. To see the children growing up. Sibyl: Enough, Hercules. As you chose. Hercules: I accept! This rejection of immortality in favour of domesticity is, of course, dependent on a very modern conception of the superiority of decent humanity to the dubious attractions of a supernatural existence,35 and a traditional twentiethcentury vision of the ideal nuclear family. However, the scene does present us with a reflective hero alone in a quiet place, hearing at least one side of the argument from a divinely-inspired woman. Hercules’ subsequent adventures in search of the Golden Fleece in fact take him away from the creature-comforts of domesticity, and he steadfastly refuses to indulge in the alternative pleasures offered during the course of the quest, willingly facing hard work and physical danger: in effect he follows the Prodikean path of virtue, despite his apparent choice of a softer life. The film’s other notable correspondence with the Choice story is in its personification of Virtue and Vice in its female leads, Iole (Sylva Koscina) and Antea, Queen of the Amazons (Gianna Maria Canale), on whose island the expedition takes refuge after a storm, unaware of the inhabitants’ penchant for killing the men of whom they make use. The casting and costuming of the two women is often noted by commentators, but is most thoroughly discussed by Günsberg and Pomeroy:36 Koscina’s blonde hair and sporty figure, as well as her youth and relative obscurity, fitted her for the role of innocent Good Girl, in contrast to the Bad Girl of Canale, a “statuesque, raven-haired beauty”,37 six years older than Koscina, who had already appeared in femme fatale roles in Riccardo Freda’s Sins of Rome (Spartaco 1953) and Theodora, 35

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The immortality insisted upon by ancient myth as Herakles’ reward for his labours is a ­ erennial problem for modern story-telling, potentially a barrier to audience identificap tion with the hero, and certainly complicating his relationship with any mortal heroine. Disney’s Hercules (1997), like Francisci’s, resorts to the tactic of having the hero renounce his immortality, but only at the last minute. On the radical solution adopted by nbc’s made-for-TV Hercules (2005), see Meredith E. Safran, “Re-conceiving Hercules: divine paternity and Christian anxiety in Hercules (2005)”, in Monica S. Cyrino and Meredith E. Safran (eds.), Classical Myth on Screen (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) 133–46. Günsberg (2005) 104–32; Pomeroy (2013) 193–99. Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011) 74 cite a “Display advertisement” in the New York Times (22/7/59 p. 7) for an opposition in the film’s marketing between the “classical beauty of Sylva Koscina” (Iole) and the “lethal loveliness of Gianna Maria Canale”. Lucanio (1994) 26.

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Slave Empress (Teodoro imperatrice di Bisanzio 1954).38 The opposition worked well for different audiences: the original Italian audiences would read Koscina as American or upper-class Italian (she was actually born in Zagreb, of Polish and Greek parents, but moved to Italy as a child), while appreciating Canale as the southern-Italian maggiorata fisica type of beauty; subsequent American(−influenced) audiences could easily identify Koscina as the wholesome ‘girl next door’, while revelling in Canale’s seductively-dangerous, foreign otherness. The polarisation of female types was of course already well established in cinematic convention, the figure of the ‘vamp’ having been developed in the silent era by such stars as Theda Bara, her opposition to the virtuous heroine quickly becoming something of a commonplace, with notable incarnations in de Mille’s Cleopatra (1934) and Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis (1951).39 The idea is even enshrined in one of the rules for peplum production drawn up by the screenwriter/director Duccio Tessari: rule number 3 states that there should be an older (evil) and a younger woman (good).40 It could therefore be objected that the opposition in Hercules is quite independent of the Greek mythological theme—and yet the neatness of the correlation between the two women’s appearance and that of Prodikos’ figures is striking. Like Prodikos’ Virtue, Koscina is relatively lightly made up and dressed in white: Dyer discusses the tradition of the equation between white clothing and virtue from the Renaissance onwards,41 but Xenophon’s account and the Hesiod passage (cited above) demonstrate that the association is in fact older still. Canale, meanwhile, like Prodikos’s Vice, is immaculately made-up, her first outfit being little more than a low-cut black and silver swimsuit, displaying shapely legs with one shoulder completely bare, a leopard-print cloak pinned to the other; she later appears in a long dress, black with a silver bodice, set off by a red scarf, but still with one shoulder bare; throughout her black hair 38 As Pomeroy (2013) 203 n.43 notes, Canale would go on to play Antea again in La regina delle Amazone (1961) and she takes another vamp role (as Astra) in Maciste contro il vampiro (1961). 39 On the development of female types in early film, see Brunetta (2009) 43–50; see also Shahabudin (2009) 207–11, and Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011) 22–3. Cf. Reich (2015) 238–43 on the opposition in the final Maciste film, Il gigante delle Dolomiti (1926). On the “Madonna/whore gender dichotomy” in peplum, see Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011) 73–5. 40 Günsberg (2005) 103, citing G. Ghigi, “Come si spiegano le fortune dei pepla su cui sembra si ritorni a puntare”, Cineforum 17.12 (December 1977) 733–46. Tessari appears in the credits of Hercules and the Captive Women, amongst other pepla. 41 Dyer (1997) 70–81; see also the discussion of blonde hair in Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde (London: Chatto and Windus 1994) 362–86.

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is elaborately adorned with gold. The comparison is slightly weakened by the fact that it is Jason, rather than Hercules himself, who is the subject of Antea’s attention, his youth adding to the impression of the queen’s predatory nature. But the strength of Hercules’ opposition to the Amazons is remarkable— Günsberg comments on his “violent forbidding of illicit heterosexual desire”,42 as he beats the drum to keep the men to their task of rowing away from Lemnos as quickly as possible—suggesting that he too feels the attraction. My equation of Iole with Virtue is also complicated by the film’s—and indeed the whole genre’s—ambivalence towards domesticity: it is at once the goal the hero pursues, shared by all right-thinking men, and the state on which he must turn his back if wrongs are to be righted. The motif of the hero’s departure from home, repeated in most pepla, may reflect contemporary concerns with South–north migration in Italy,43 but it is driven by the narrative requirements of the genre: ‘happily ever after’ and adventure do not mix.44 Thus domesticity is at once the virtue Iole embodies and the pleasurable vice Hercules must reject. The vicious quality of domesticity is underlined early on in Francisci’s Ercole e la regina di Lidia (1959), released in the usa as Hercules Unchained (1960).45 While the first film’s main plot had some connection with the ancient Herakles’ story, the sequel’s framing narrative is based on a myth with which the hero had no connection at all in antiquity: the Seven Against Thebes story, in which Oedipus’ sons Eteocles and Polyneices fight over the kingship of Thebes. At the beginning, Hercules (Reeves again) and Iole (Koscina again) are presented as newly-weds travelling home to Thebes, accompanied by their young friend Ulysses (Antonini again). Hercules has retired to sleep in the back of their proto-­Spaghetti-Western-style waggon46 when they encounter the giant Anteus (Primo Carnera), and takes a long time to be roused in spite of the threat to those he should be protecting: as Günsberg remarks, this shows the “debilitating effects of domesticity on masculinity”, “masculinity is literally put to sleep by marriage”.47 The scene is also interesting for its possible political overtones, elaborating on the potential identification we noted above between Mussolini 42 43 44 45 46

47

Günsberg (2005) 126. Günsberg (2005) 116. Cf. Clauss (2008) for a reading of Hercules Unchained, from a more American point of view, as dealing with the theme of the homecoming soldier. Pomeroy (2013) 204. Blondell (2005) 186 comments on the same problem in Legendary Journeys, solved at the beginning of the tv series by having Hera kill off Hercules’ family. In addition to discussion in works on the genre as a whole, see Clauss (2008). The first Spaghetti Western appeared in 1964: Christopher Wagstaff, “A forkful of Westerns: industry, audiences and the Italian western”, in Richard Dyer and Ginette Vicendeau (eds.), Popular European Cinema (London and New York: Routledge 1992) 246. Günsberg (2005) 115.

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and the cinematic strong man. As Bondanella suggests, noting Carnera’s floruit as World Heavyweight champion 1933–7: “Thus, the strong man from America overcomes the strong man of the Fascist era, at least in the movies”.48 From a narrative point of view, the scene provides a link to the ancient mythological tradition, in which the fight with Antaios is one of Herakles’ more famous parerga (exploits beside the twelve labours), including the motif of the hero’s victory by holding the giant away from strength-giving contact with his mother Earth. This exploit was particularly popular in the post-classical tradition, having being promoted to the status of a labour by the medieval poet Boethius and being a popular subject in Renaissance art.49 The episode heralds Hercules’ metaphorical awakening and fresh rejection of the domestic sphere. After an encounter in a cave with Polynices, travelling with his Argive allies, and his father Oedipus, Hercules volunteers to intercede with Eteocles and proceeds to Thebes, only to leave again after extracting the king’s unreliable agreement to abdicate. Despite Iole’s reluctance to let Hercules go, he himself characterises the decision as inevitable: “I have no choice, Thebes is in danger”. Iole is left behind at Thebes, under the dubious protection of Eteocles (Sergio Fantoni “in top villainous form”),50 a tyrant clearly modelled on the cinematic tradition of the Bad Roman emperor, with an effeminate hairstyle, a maniacal look (Ulysses: “Did you ever see a man so close to madness?”), and an amphitheatre full of tigers.51 Meanwhile, Hercules sets out with Ulysses to negotiate with Polynices, but not far into the journey makes the mistake of drinking the Waters of Forgetfulness, debilitated by which he is carried away by red-cloaked soldiers to Omphale’s island. Although this is really a sub-plot, with no relation to the film’s main narrative except insofar as it delays Hercules’ intervention at Thebes, it is arguably substantial enough to justify the film’s original Italian title. Omphale is played by Sylvia Lopez, whose “flaming red hair, ample figure, and implied wild sexuality”52 once again make her the perfect foil for Koscina’s Iole, with whom she is here in direct competition for Hercules’ allegiance (the opposition is well illustrated in Fig. 5.2). Her characterisation as a vamp-ish Vice is effected not only by her make-up (lusciouslypainted lips, carefuly delineated eyebrows, heavily mascara’ed lashes), lavish 48 Bondanella (2009) 169. 49 Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy Book 4 poem 7.13-35. On the tradition of Antaios, see Stafford (2012) 55–6 (ancient sources) and 203–6 (post-classical tradition). 50 Elley (1984) 55. 51 Pomeroy (2013) 200 notes a scene in which the Thebans imprisoned below this arena look up through the bars, in a “stock portrayal of Christian martyrs awaiting their doom”. 52 Pomeroy (2013) 202; see 199–202 on the Iole-Omphale opposition in Unchained. This was one of Lopez’s last films, released in the year of her untimely death from leukemia, aged just 26 years.

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Figure 5.2 Poster for the French release of Hercules Unchained, featuring Steve Reeve’s Hercules between Omphale (Sylvia Lopez) and Iole (Sylva Koscina).

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costumes and jewellery, but by the setting: her palace is marked as exotic by elements reminiscent of both Ankor Wat and Egyptian art, and she reclines on her bed petting a lion cub. Omphale’s importance is signalled by the fact that we first see her in a pre-title sequence, taking delivery of a new male victim while her soldiers despatch the current incumbent—a scene repeated almost exactly on Hercules’ arrival. A period of enslavement to Omphale is genuinely part of the ancient Hercules’ story, but the queen’s characterisation as a seductive enchantress owes much to Homer’s Circe, perhaps influenced by Mario Camerini’s Ulysses (1954). The point is surprisingly rarely noted,53 but in fact the Odyssey story is evoked throughout the film by the constant presence of the young Ulysses as Hercules’ faithful companion, by several brief shots of his home on Ithaca, and by the fact that his father Laertes leads the expedition which comes to Hercules’ rescue. Like Circe’s Aiaia, Omphale’s kingdom of Lydia is an island, rather than a section of Asia Minor, and like Circe Omphale bewitches the men who come to her realm—although, rather than turning them into animals, she has them embalmed and turned into statues in classically Greek poses. Like both Circe and Calypso, the other divine female who detains Odysseus, Omphale offers Hercules a life of luxury and ease, with all the pleasures of the flesh proffered by Prodikos’ Vice.54 And like Odysseus, Hercules enjoys this distraction for some time before being brought back to his senses and remembering his home: we see him kissing Omphale and then the next day lounging on a couch, his joking with Ulysses that “You should sleep in the daytime and stay awake at night!” clearly implying a night of passion, and having copious quantitites of food and drink delivered by Omphale’s retinue of pretty girls. Even Vice’s offer of a boyfriend (paidikos, the junior partner in a typical ancient Greek pederastic relationship) is hinted at by the young Ulysses’ daily task of giving Hercules a massage. The emasculating effect of all this pleasure is neatly signalled by Hercules’ inability, when challenged to do so by Ulysses, to bend an iron lampstand, a stock strongman feat seen in most pepla. While there is little indication of the ancient motif of Hercules and Omphale swapping clothing, Hercules’ awakening is portrayed in a scene in which he gazes into a mirror where he sees himself wearing a very feminine garland of flowers while hearing reminders of his proper masculine identity.55 A last twist is given to 53 54 55

Bondanella (2009) 169 calls Omphale a “Circe-like temptress”, but only Clauss (2008) 5­ 8–61 develops the comparison. As briefly noted by Clauss (2008) 58 n.19. Günsberg (2005) 127 reads this as “a classic repetition of the Lacanian mirror episode”. On the ancient Omphale tradition, see Stafford (2012) 132–4.

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the question of identity as Hercules escapes through “the gloomy womb-like cave with its vagina dentata-style entrance, and into the sunlight”:56 he sees an empty plinth with the name ‘Herakles’ written (rather badly) in Greek letters. A final important respect in which Omphale is unlike her ancient forebears is her reaction to Hercules’ eventual escape from her clutches: she throws herself into the vat of embalming fluid usually employed on her victims.57 The moment is quickly past, but it brings ‘closure’ to Omphale’s affair with Hercules, allowing him to return to the pursuit of virtue back in Thebes, battling tigers in Eteocles’ private amphitheatre and toppling siege-engines in the final spectacular battle around the city walls. His reunion with Iole is uncomplicated by any reference to his dalliance, and the couple are last seen with Iole declaring, to soaring orchestral accompaniment, “Somehow the gods will be kind if we just love one another!” Several features of the two Francisci films are usefully thrown into relief by brief comparison with Vittorio Cottafavi’s Hercules and the Captive Women (us title) or Hercules Conquers Atlantis (uk title) (Ercole all Conquista di Atlantide, 1961). Burke discusses this alongside Sergio Leone’s Colossus of Rhodes (1961), both of which “avail themselves of the subvervise energy potential within the absurdities and contradictions of Hercules and turn it into sustained parody”.58 Shahabudin likewise comments on the film’s parodic qualities, but she also explores the scope for more serious readings, such as an anti-nuclear-weapons message in its narrative concerning the danger “out of the west” and the Atlantideans’ worship of Uranus, and the nightmarish vision of an army of identical blonde super-warriors bred by Atlantis’ evil queen; she also traces the influence of Pierre Benoit’s popular novel L’Atlantide (Paris: Albin Michel 1919).59 The film stars another bodybuilder, the English (Leeds-born) Reg Parke, who had won the ‘Mr Universe’ title in 1958 and would do so again in 1965. In contrast to the Francisci films, as remarked by various commentators, it presents Hercules as a hero who is reluctant to the point of laziness:60 near the start of the film he is seen reclining on a leopard-skin at the council of Greek leaders, and refusing to join the expedition to be led by his friend Androcles, king of Thebes, against the unknown “peril from afar” because he wants to stay in his 56 57 58 59 60

Günsberg (2005) 128 and fig. 6. Clauss (2008) 60 suggests Dido and Jocasta as possible referents for the suicide. Burke (2011) 33; see 38–46 on Captive Women. Shahabudin (2009) (not noted by Burke (2011)). See also Elley (1984) 58; Giordano (1998) 46–7; and Pomeroy (2008) 52–3 fig. 4. Elley (1984) 58; Giordano (1998) 45–6; Pomeroy (2008) 52; Bondanella (2009) 171; Shahabudin (2009) 204–5.

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c­ omfortable home with his family (here Deinaneira and a teenage son Hylus); he actually has to be drugged and bundled onto the ship, where, on waking to discover his friends’ deceit, he promptly goes back to sleep; when a party goes ashore in search of water, he stays on the beach, asleep once again. He does, however, reassert his virtuous credentials by feats of strength, such as preventing the mutinous crew from rowing the ship away by hauling on its ­anchor-chains, battling the shape-shifting monster Proteus (another borrowing from the Odyssey), and driving a chariot pulled by more than a dozen ­horses. Unlike Reeves’ Hercules, Parke’s also easily resists seduction by Antinea, Queen of Atlantis (Fay Spain), whose black wig, heavy make-up and fabulous silver dress make her every bit as Vice-like as Canale’s Antea or Lopez’s Omphale, as does the cruelty of her reign. Pomeroy suggests that “the plotline of voluptuous vamp seducing the hero is close to being played out”,61 but in 1961 there were still a fair few such plots to run. Rather, the whore/wife dichotomy is complicated by the film’s introduction of ‘doubles’ for Hercules and Antinea, their respective son Hylus and daughter Ismene—not to mention their diminutive companion Timoteo (Salvatore Furnari).62 The opposition here, then, is not so much between Antinea and Deianeira (who is only seen briefly in the early stages of the film) but between Antinea and Ismene—who duly dresses in virtuous white, plays the damsel in distress to be rescued by Hercules or Hyllus, and eventually sails away into the sunset in the latter’s embrace. The extent to which the makers of these films were aware of, or interested in, the details of the ancient Greek and Roman versions of Hercules’ story is of course debatable. Even those educated at a liceo classico or with a relevant university degree (Cottafavi studied Law, Philosophy and Literature) would not necessarily have been concerned to follow the ancient sources in their films. Indeed, Giordano records an interview with Ennio de Concini, sole scriptwriter for Hercules Unchained, and one of the team who worked on Hercules, in which he describes a rather chaotic-sounding process with several writers gathered in his home, working on three or four films at once.63 However, as we have noted, there are always some details of plot and/or characterisation which seem to fit with classical precedent. The credits for Francisci’s Hercules also include acknowledgement, albeit slightly inaccurate, of “The Argonauts by Appollonius of Rhodes (Third Century bc)”, while Hercules Unchained is apparently “based on the legends of Hercules and Omphale from the works of Sophocles, A ­ eschylus”—even if slightly tongue-in-cheek, these references 61 62 63

Pomeroy (2011) 203. Günsberg (2005) 118; Rushing (2008) 178. Giordano (1998) 38–40.

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show some recognition of the value of associating the film with the ancient literary tradition.64 Final proof that at least one film’s makers knew of Prodikos’ Choice story is provided in Giorgio Capitani’s Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibile (aka Combatei dei giganti, Samson and His Mighty Challenge, Le grand défi, 1964). The plot is preposterous even by the standards of peplum, driven by the unlikely premise of strongmen from four different traditions being brought together to fight. The film is indeed best known for its use in the Australian cult classic Hercules Returns (1993), in which the dialogue is comically overdubbed—but the original is already quite clearly parodic.65 Various conventions of the genre are gently subverted: the wicked queen Nemea is blond, and played by an actress (Lia Zoppelli) known for her comedy roles; the innocent princess Omphale (Elisa Montés) has black hair and too much makeup, preferring the physically-unimpressive Inor (Luciano Marin) to Hercules; the young couple are helped by a dwarf ironically named Goliath (Arnaldo Fabrizio); Samson (Nadir Moretti) is of orthodox Jewish appearance—with appropriate facial hair66 and a hat which resembles the Lubavitch or Yeshivish-style hat— and spends much of the film as a weakling, having had his hair cut by jealous wife Delilah (Moira Orfei, a peplum regular); dramatic moments are signalled in the score by the ‘Fate motif’ from Beethoven’s fifth symphony. All four of the strongmen have previous peplum credits, especially Hercules, played by Alan Steel (Sergio Ciani), an Italian bodybuilder who had started his acting career as a body double for Reeves in Hercules Unchained before appearing in a dozen pepla. The tone of the film is set by the opening scene, in which Hercules, on horseback, arrives at a crossroads, where he is brought up short by a clap of thunder: Hercules: Zeus, my father! Zeus: You are at a crossroads, Hercules. 64

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Space here does not permit a discussion of the films’ use of the ancient visual tradition, but see e.g. Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011) 65–9 and Nacho Garcia, “Classic sceneries: ancient Greece in film architecture”, in Irene Berti and Marta García Morcillo (eds.), Hellas on Screen (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2008) 21–38. Blanshard and Shahabudin (2011) 174 mention the film in passing as an example of the later peplum’s tendency to parody, and see 192–3 on Hercules Returns. The film is otherwise largely unremarked by commentators except Lucanio (1994) 270–2 and Giordano (1998) 45 both of whom note its ‘spoof’ credentials. I am indebted to Kim Shahabudin for loan of the dvd. Resembling the Hebrew Peot/Yiddish payis, Heb. “sidelocks”, the growth of hair in accordance with the command of Leviticus 19:27.

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Hercules (looking around him): I’m aware of that. Zeus: Hercules, my son, there are two roads ahead of you. The one on the left is the path of virtue, and the other will lead you to pleasure. Hercules: I understand, father. Then I’ll take the right one. (Begins to gallop along the path to the right, but is stopped by a thunderbolt.) Zeus: Hercules, the path of virtue is on the left! Hercules: I know that, father, but am I choosing or are you? For years I’ve walked the road of virtue, and now I’ll try the road of pleasure. The kingdom of Lydia is famous for having the world’s most beautiful women. Zeus: I warn you, Hercules, if your decision leads you into grave trouble, do not invoke my aid. You shall not have it. Hercules: When it comes to women, father, I don’t think I need anyone’s help. That’s my decision, father—and thanks for the advice. (Gallops away as Zeus calls after him.) Zeus: Hercules, I gave you fair warning! Hercules’ ‘wrong’ choice here does indeed lead to trouble, which Zeus eventually intervenes to resolve, if only for a quiet life—“And do not disturb the gods again!”. But the film’s final shot is of the four strongmen riding off into the sunset together, unencumbered by any women, in an overt demonstration of the genre’s underlying theme of the primacy of male comradeship: “the main agenda of these films is to reaffirm patriarchy’s baseline of homosocial relations”.67 Conclusion As I said at the outset, I am not claiming that the majority of the film-makers concerned were consciously drawing on Prodikos. There is more work to be done in demonstrating the precise routes by which classical motifs have made their way not only to the peplum but to other cinematic genres and other modern media, too. However, the popularity of the Choice story in the Renaissance assured its transmission to later periods alongside the traditional image of Hercules as the monster-slayer, so that there is certainly scope for it to have exercised an unconscious influence on the peplum. While the requirement of such a popular genre to include a happily-concluded romance complicates the issue, I hope to have shown that the twentieth-century Hercules can be seen facing a choice between the paths of virtue and vice in every film, the two ways 67

Günsberg (2005) 130; cf. Pomeroy (2013) 199 (on the escape from Lemnos in Hercules).

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being embodied in female figures whose appearance echoes that of the Prodikean figures, as do the lives they offer. The hero must always ultimately chose Virtue, for the sake of both contemporary morality and the continuance of the story—but his flirtation with Vice along the way provides the audience with vicarious indulgent pleasure. Ironically, it is the comic subversion of the Choice scenario in Samson and His Mighty Challenge, with Hercules explicitly opting for the path of pleasure/vice, which demonstrates the story’s fundamental significance for the peplum genre. Bibliography Aziza, Claude, Le péplum, un mauvais genre (50 Questions) (Paris, Klincksieck, 2009). Aziza, Claude, (ed.) Le péplum: l’antiquité au cinema (CinémAction no.89) (Condé-surNoireau: Éditions Corlet, 1998). Blanshard, Alastair, Hercules: a heroic life (London: Granta Books, 2005). Blanshard, Alastair, “‘Pain for which there ain’t no ointment’: Philoctetes and the ­problematics of reception in Disney’s Hercules (1997)”, in Antony Augoustakis and Stacie Raucci (eds.), Epic Heroes on Screen (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming). Blanshard, Alastair and Kim Shahabudin, Classics on Screen: ancient Greece and Rome on film (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 2011). Blondell, Ruby, “How to kill an Amazon”, Helios 32.2 (2005) 183–213. Blondell, Ruby, “Hercules psychotherapist”, in Angela Ndalianis, Chris Mackie and Wendy Haslam (eds.), Super/Heroes: from Hercules to Superman (Washington DC: New Academia Publishing, 2007) 239–49. Bondanella, Peter, A History of Italian Cinema (New York: Continuum, 2009). Brunetta, Gian Piero, “The long march of American cinema in Italy: from Fascism to the Cold War”, in David Ellwood and Rob Croes (eds.), Hollywood in Europe: Experiences of Cultural Hegemony, (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 1994) 139–54. Brunetta, Gian Piero, The History of Italian Cinema: A guide to Italian films from its origins to the twenty-first century (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009). Burke, Frank, “The Italian sword-and-sandal film from Fabiola to Hercules and the Captive Women: texts and contexts”, in Flavia Brizio-Skov (ed.), Popular Italian Cinema: culture and politics in a postwar society (London and New York: IB Tauris, 2011) 17–51. Cammarota, Domenico, Il cinema peplum: la prima guida critica ai film di Conan, Ercole, Goliath, Maciste, Sansone, Spartaco, Thaur, Ursus (Rome: Fanucci, 1987). Chiu, Angeline, “Labors and Lesson plans: educating young Hercules in two 1990s children’s television programs”, Amphora 11.1 (2014) 1 and 6–7.

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Clauss, James J., “Hercules Unchained: contaminatio, nostos, katabasis, and the surreal”, Arethusa 41 (2008) 51–66. Dyer, Richard, White (London and New York: Routledge, 1997). Elley, Derek, The Epic Film: myth and history (London: Routledge, 1984). Galinsky, Karl, The Herakles Theme: the adaptations of the hero in literature from Homer to the twentieth century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972). Garcia, Nacho, “Classic sceneries: ancient Greece in film architecture”, in Irene Berti and Marta García Morcillo (eds.), Hellas on Screen (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2008) 21–38. Gigon, Olof, Kommentar zum zweiten Buch von Xenophons Memorabilien (Schweizerische Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft 7) (Basel: Reinhardt, 1956). Giordano, Michele, Giganti Buoni. Da Ercole a Piedone (e oltre) il mito dell’uomo forte ne cinema italiano (Rome: Gremese Editore, 1998). Günsberg, Maggie, “Heroic bodies: the cult of masculinity in the peplum”, in idem., Italian Cinema: gender and genre (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) 97–132. Jancovich, Mark, “‘An Italianmade spectacle film dubbed in English’: cultural distinctions, national cinema, and the critical reception of the postwar historical epic”, in Robert Burgoyne (ed.), The Epic Film in World Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 2011) 161–75. Kuntz, Mary, “The Prodikean ‘Choice of Herakles’: a reshaping of myth”, Classical Journal 89 (1994) 163–81. Lagny, Michèle, ‘Popular taste: the peplum’, in Richard Dyer and Ginette Vicendeau (eds.), Popular European Cinema (London and New York: Routledge, 1992) 163–80. Lomax, James, Temple Newsam Paintings (Leeds: Leeds Museums and Galleries, 2000). Lucanio, Patrick, With Fire and Sword: Italian spectacles on American screens 1958–1968 (Metuchen and London: Scarecrow Press, 1994). Maurice, Lisa, “Hercules according to Disney and Hallmark: a modern role-model for mini-heroes”, in Alastair Blanshard and Emma Stafford (eds.), The Modern Hercules (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). McKenna, Anthony, Joseph E. Levine: showmanship, reputation and industrial practice 1945–1977 (diss. University of Nottingham, 2008). Mommsen, Theodor, “Petrarch and the story of the Choice of Hercules”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953) 178–92. Nason, Richard, “Screen: Weak ‘Hercules’: Italian-made spectacle opens at 135 theatres”, New York Times (23/7/1959) 32. Nisbet, Gideon, Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture (2nd ed.) (Bristol and Exeter: Bristol Phoenix Press, 2008). Panofsky, Erwin, Hercules am Scheidewege und andere antike Bildstoffe in der neueren Kunst (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg 18) (Leipzig: Teubner, 1930).

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Picard, Charles, “Nouvelles remarques sur l’apologue dit de Prodicos: Héraclès entre le vice et la vertu”, Revue Archéologique 42 (1953) 33–7, pls 5–6. Pomeroy, Arthur J., Then It Was Destroyed by the Volcano: the ancient world in film and on television (London: Duckworth, 2008). Pomeroy, Arthur J., “The women of Ercole”, in Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos (ed.), Ancient Greek Women in Film (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 189–206. Reich, Jacqueline, “Slave to fashion: masculinity, suits, and the Maciste films of Italian silent cinema”, in Adrienne Munich (ed.), Fashion in Film (Bloomington, IN: Indian University Press, 2011) 236–59. Reich, Jacqueline, “The metamorphosis of Maciste in Italian silent cinema”, Film History 25 (2013) 32–56. Reich, Jacqueline, The Maciste Films of Italian Silent Cinema (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015). Redonet, Fernando Lillo, Héroes de Grecia y Roma en la Pantalla (Madrid: Evohé, 2010). Rochette, Bruno, “Héraclès à la croissé des chemins: un topos dans la literature grécolatine”, Études Classiques 66 (1998) 105–13. Rushing, Robert A., “Gentlemen prefer Hercules: desire/identification/beefcake”, Camera Obscura 23.3 (2008) 158–91. Rushing, Robert A., Descended from Hercules: biopolitcs and the muscled male body on screen (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2016). Safran, Meredith E., “Re-conceiving Hercules: divine paternity and Christian anxiety in Hercules (2005)”, in Monica S. Cyrino and Meredith E. Safran (eds.), Classical Myth on Screen (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) 133–46. Sansone, David, “Heracles at the Y”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 124 (2004) 125–42. Shahabudin, Kim, “Ancient mythology and modern myths: Hercules Conquers Atlantis (1961)”, in Dunstan Lowe and Kim Shahabudin (eds.), Classics For All (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 196–216. Smith, Gary A., Epic Films: casts, credits and commentary on over 250 historical spectacle movies (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1991). Solomon, Jon, The Ancient World in the Cinema (2nd ed.) (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001). Spina, Luigi, “By Heracles! From satyr-play to peplum”, in Irene Berti and Marta García Morcillo (eds.), Hellas on Screen (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2008) 57–64. Stafford, Emma, “Masculine values, feminine forms: on the gender of personified abstractions”, in Lin Foxhall and John Salmon (eds.), Thinking Men: masculinity and its self-representation in the Classical Tradition (London: Routledge, 1998) 43–56. Stafford, Emma, Worshipping Virtues: personification and the divine in ancient Greece (Swansea and London: Classical Press of Wales and Duckworth, 2000). Stafford, Emma, “Héraklès: encore et toujours le problème du heros theos”, Kernos 18 (2005a) 391–406.

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Stafford, Emma, “Vice or Virtue?: Herakles and the art of allegory”, in Louis Rawlings (ed.), Herakles and Hercules: exploring a Greco-Roman divinity (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2005b) 71–96. Stafford, Emma, Herakles (Gods and Heroes in the Ancient World) (London: Routledge, 2012). Stafford, Emma, “Hercules: a hero for the 2010s?”, in Antony Augoustakis and Stacie Raucci (eds.), Epic Heroes on Screen (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming). Talese, Gay, “Joe Levine unchained: a candid portrait of a spectacular showman” Esquire 1st (January 1961) 68. Wagstaff, Christopher, “A forkful of Westerns: industry, audiences and the Italian western”, in Richard Dyer and Ginette Vicendeau (eds.), Popular European Cinema (London and New York: Routledge, 1992) 245–61. Warner, Marina, From the Beast to the Blonde (London: Chatto and Windus, 1994). Wilson, Nigel Guy (ed.), Saint Basil on Greek Literature (London: Duckworth, 1975). Winkler, Martin M., “Greek myth on the screen”, in Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 453–79. Wyke, Maria, “Herculean Muscle! The classicizing rhetoric of body-building”, Arion 4.3 (1997) 51–79.

chapter 6

Deconstructing Oedipus: Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite and the Classical Tradition Anna Foka1 1

Introduction: Oedipus in the 20th Century

Mighty Aphrodite (1995) revolves around the adoption of a child in New York city and the adoptive father’s quest to discover the biological mother. Although the film features a Greek chorus, tragic characters and a deus ex machina, film criticism indicates that the majority of classical references have been largely unrealized by audiences. Roger Ebert described the film as ‘A sunny comedy’ that ‘skirts the pitfalls of cynicism and becomes something the Greeks could never quite manage, a potential tragedy with a happy ending’.2 Similarly, Todd McCarthy considered the chorus as ‘a bit too much, delivering their increasingly colloquial admonitions and too few convulsive laughs, but the writer-director has generally pitched the humour at a pleasing and relatively consistent level’. Contemporary film criticism then has overlooked the centrality and function of classical tradition in the film. Classical reception scholarship has moved a step further; Mighty Aphrodite has been singled out as an example of Oedipal imagery, specifically a parody of Oedipus’ Complex.3 Based on film and narrative analysis, I argue instead that Mighty Aphrodite is built upon a multidimensional reception of classical tradition that reaches beyond a mere parody of Freudian psychoanalysis. Mighty Aphrodite both t­ argets and d­ econstructs classical tradition by creating a ludicrous parody of the Freudian reception of Oedipus’ Rex. 1 Most of this paper originally appeared in the catalogue Studia Oliveriana, 1 (2015) 55–76. I would like to thank Angelos Koutsourakis and Ioli Andreadi for their intelligent input on cinematography and Greek Tragedy in performance respectively, and the editors for their hard effort to put ancient virtues and vices together. 2 Roger Ebert, “Mighty Aphrodite Film Review” (Chicago: Chicago Sun Times, 1995). The dramaturgical statement is, however, incorrect if one considers Euripides’ Iphigeneia en Tauris and Ion: tragedies that feature a happy ending. 3 Jon Solomon, The Ancient World in the Cinema (New Haven: Yale up, 2001) 24–25. See also Martin Winkler Cinema and Classical Texts: Apollo’s New Light (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 146–153. Note that while Mighty Aphrodite is the most implicit example of Allen’s preoccupation with antiquity, fragments of classical culture can also be found in his filmography before and after Mighty Aphrodite (see Foka 2015). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_008

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Illustrating this argument, I first introduce the widespread 18th century philosophical dichotomy between Hellenism and Hebraism in order to show how Mighty Aphrodite may be seen as a contemporary example of merging cultural identities, previously thought in contradiction to one another. Against this backdrop, I focus on Freud’s cultural appropriation of Hellenic myth and tragedy, specifically Oedipus Rex, thus establishing the scientific method of psychoanalysis. I then move onto discussing its very ideological attack by the 20th Century post-war French school of thought. I argue that Allen’s reiteration of Oedipal references in Mighty Aphrodite may be read as a dismantling of Classical Hellenic culture and a rearrangement intended for a 21st century New York setting. I then move on to show how Allen constructs a fictional tragic space that is embedded in the main plot and that manifests itself in the form of tragic dramaturgy and scenic conventions. Against this backdrop, Allen’s overall use of classical tradition may be considered self-referential: it points out to the director’s own understanding of classical culture as a twenty first century Jewish New York film director. Ancient cultural forms mingle with contemporary film and mirror ‘the twoway relationship between the source text or culture and the new work and receiving elements’.4 Abort of their original context of antiquity, ritual, drama and myth, tragedy and the very figure of Oedipus are (paradoxically) cinematically deconstructed as humorous, and are granted a place within contemporaneity, finding a specific leeway of expression in classical Hollywood film narratives. I conclude that the film is a commentary on the potentials of reinstating dominant structures of classical reception per se: Oedipus may become Anti-­Oedipus, tragedy may turn into comedy and binary structures such as Hellenism and Hebraism may mingle together in perfect harmony. 2

Oedipus or Anti-Oedipus? Individual, Familial Ties and Normativity

Tertullian, in the 3rd century ce, while focusing on the question of rationality, polarized the relationship between Athens and Jerusalem, thus inspiring Enlightenment debates about the (in)compability of faith and reason, Hellenic and Hebraic identity.5 Scholarly production, accordingly, concentrated on a 4 Lorna Hardwick, Reception Studies: Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics 33 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 5 Miriam Leonard, Socrates and the Jews: Hellenism and Hebraism from Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012) 2.

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number of ironies on the contemporary (modern) Jew and Greek antithesis. Classicists pointed out how the Hellenic and Hebraic roots of the European civilization has served ‘both as a sophisticated scholarly tool and a commonplace’.6 Conversely, the terms Hebraism and Hellenism constitute a convenient and conventional dichotomy, yet they rarely appear in text as distinguished concepts.7 In any case, the Jew/Greek opposition is an exemplary case of how symbolic structures have consequences in the ‘real’ world.8 One outcome of the preoccupation and cultural appropriation of Hellenic and Hebraic identities, at least in academic terms, was that many thinkers turned to classical antiquity to explain, legitimize and establish new scientific thinking, often in opposition to Hebraism. During the nineteenth century, several German thinkers incorporated either/ or both in their understanding of the world. One of the most prominent examples that became embraced by intellectual thought was Freud’s utilization of the figure of Oedipus to coin his Oedipus Complex which eventually led to the establishment of psychoanalysis as a scientific method. For several decades after Freud, his Oedipus Complex became a largely influential­ scientific explanation of the unconscious desires of human psyche, establishing the new method of understanding one’s self. Since then, psychoanalysis­ has been contested territory: there have been numerous articles critiquing the very method; the Oedipus Complex as a concept has been questioned accordingly. Freud’s understanding of society and culture was an oversimplified appropriation of antiquity—a consequence of the generalized ‘historical malaise of his age’.9 For Freud, Judaism and Hellenism are two separate entities but as a ‘Godless Jew’ he had ‘turned in hope on Hellenic culture only to find it impotent in fending off the violence of cultural and political forces of European history’.10 In opposition to Freud’s canonization of the figure of Oedipus and the cultural appropriation of classical myth and tragedy came the post-war French School of Thought. Vernant launched an explicit attack on the psychoanalytical ‘reception’ of Sophocles. He polemically asks ‘how it is possible that a 6

7

8 9 10

Tessa Rajak, “Jews and Greeks: the Invention and Exploitation of Polarities in the 19th Century”, in Tessa Rajak (ed.), The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 535. Erich Gruen, “Hellenism and Hebraism”, in George Boys-Stones, Barbara Graziosi, and Phiroze Vasunia (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 129–31. Leonard (2012) 12. Richard Terdiman, Present Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). Leonard (2012) 216.

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l­iterary work from fifth century Athens, a Theban legend from the institution of a polis should confirm the observations of a doctor at the beginning of the 20th century’.11 Similarly, Foucault’s Oedipus uses a Freudian Oedipus as a paradigm and a criticism of contemporary bourgeois democracy represented in a post ’68 Paris. The highly influential reading of Oedipus as Anti-Oedipus (AntiOedipe) by Deleuze and Guattari is further hailed by Foucault; Oedipus is not anymore a ‘secret content of the unconscious but the form of constraint that psychoanalysis seeks to impose to our desire and our unconscious through cure. Oedipus is an instrument of power’.12 Foucault outright targets not the myth but the Freudian interpretation of it, and returns back to Sophocles’ text. For Foucault and his contemporaries, searching for the self in realms of unconscious is identified with politics of repressive power. For revolutionary thinkers Deleuze and Guattari an abstracted distilment of the Oedipus myth showed how the familialism of Freud’s psychoanalysis served as way of domesticating social structures which govern modern capitalist society.13 Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus can be then placed within the context of the wider history (and attack) of psychoanalysis in post-war French Thought.14 In any case, most importantly, from Freud onwards, the myth of Oedipus deviates from its original(?) context of myth, tragedy and performance in classical Athens and becomes a universally acclaimed cultural, social, and literary topos, meant to inspire a number of scholarly treatises, ideologies, and works of art. A metareception and a criticism of Freud’s reception of the myth of Oedipus, is also found in Allen’s cinematography. Oedipal references are found in Oedipus Wrecks (1989), Match Point (2005) as well as Mighty Aphrodite. Previous scholarship has correctly interpreted some of Allen’s output in relation to his personal experience of psychoanalysis,15

11 12 13 14 15

J. Vernant, “Oedipe sans Complexe”, in P. Vidal-Naquet and J.P. Vernant (eds.), Mythe et Tragedié en Grèce Ancient (Paris: Flammarion, 1972) 77. Michel Foucault, “La Vérité et les Formes Juridiques”, in D. Defert and F. Ewald (eds.), Dits et Écrits 1954–1988 (Paris: Gallimard, 1994) 609. Deleuze and Guatari (1983) 57. Miriam Leonard, Athens in Paris: Ancient Greece and the Political in Post-War French Thought (Oxford University Press, 2005) 86. Allen spent at least 37 years doing psychoanalysis (see Baxter 2000). For psychoanalysis as a filming narrative device in Allen’s work see Frodon (2002), S.B. Cirgus, The Films of Woody Allen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), and M.A. Huerta-Floriano, “The Cinema as Therapy: Psychoanalysis in the Work of Woody Allen”, Journal of Medicine and Movies 4.1 (2008) 17–26.

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specifically concentrating on Oedipus Complex.16 Beyond pure psychoanalysis, the mythical character of Oedipus is indeed reiterated in Allen’s work. While Oedipal elements relate to certain (normative) social and moral values thus indeed echoing Freudian contexts, Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite seems to embrace the Anti-­Oedipal model. In Mighty Aphrodite Allen’s stance is rather anti-­ Oedipal17 in the sense that he portrays the nuclear family not as the norm but rather as a form of psychological repression of desire that gives rise to a consequent neurotic desire, the perversion of incestuous drives and desiring selfrepression. Anti-Oedipal dimensions within Allen’s film are in par with mid 1970s French theories criticizing psychoanalysis and the Freudian utilization of Oedipus by arguing that it arises from a double operation: it is within one and the same movement that the repressive social production is replaced by the repressing family, and that the latter offers a displaced image of desiringproduction that represents the repressed as incestuous familial drives. Fragments of Anti-Oedipal societal behavior(s) and ideologies do not solely appear in Mighty Aphrodite. An indirect reference to (anti) Oedipus is Allen’s contribution to New York Stories (1989), the short film Oedipus Wrecks; a humorous reiteration of the Oedipus Complex.18 In 1980s New York, the lawyer Sheldon (Allen) complains to his therapist about his overly critical mother (Questel) who had disappeared from his life but reappears in the sky over New York to publicly embarrass him. The title is a pun on Oedipus Rex, the film is a comic pastiche of the relationship between mother and son in a New York Jewish family: Sheldon is embarrassed publicly by his mother, which alludes to Oedipus’ own embarrassment and consequent self-inflicting punishment after he learns the truth about Jocasta. Allen’s reception of the myth of Oedipus through the intermediation of psychoanalytical theory is here used as a way to criticize the social conditions dictated by an older, rigid family model. His stance is anti-Oedipal because he portrays the nuclear family (dictated by his mother and psychotherapist) as a psychological repression of desire and consequentially as neurotic desire and self-repression: ironically, however, the choice of his sexual partner is almost identical to his mother. 16

For Oedipus complex see S. Bennett and R.B. Blass, “The development of vicissitudes of Freud’s ideas on the Oedipus complex”, in J. Neu. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Freud (California: University of California Press, 1991) 161–74. 17 For a criticism of Freudian psychoanalysis and the societal models it supports see Deleuze and Guattari (1983). Some discussions on desire and power are influenced by Foucault’s preface, loving power and desiring ‘the very thing that dominates and exploit us’. 18 See Solomon (2001) 24–25, Winkler (2009) 146–53.

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Allen’s drama Match Point (2005) displays the conflict between individual desires and the nuclear family model. Poorer characters mix with London’s upper class, and secret love affairs result in murder. The Irish immigrant tennis pro Chris (Meyers) marries into a wealthy family, but his social position is threatened by an affair and the pregnancy of his brother-in-law’s ex-girlfriend, Nola (Johansson), whom he murders. Although unpunished by law, Chris is tormented by guilt. Similar to the Interiors, family (marriage, internal struggles), morality, individual desire and social status are in focus; the interior monologue, which is delivered by Chris at the beginning of the film, introduces the themes of fate and luck issues with which Greek tragedy is also preoccupied with.19 This scene establishes the protagonist as a man who is meditating on his world experience. Toward the end of the film, when Chris is filled with guilt about the people he has killed, Nola and her landlady appear to him in the dark in the form of spirits. The lens zooms on Nola’s face in the dark while Chris quotes Sophocles: ‘The greatest boon is to never have been born’. This is in fact a line of the chorus from Oedipus at Colonus (1224–27: ‘Mὴ φῦναι ἅπαντα νι κᾷ λόγον’). Chris’ quotation of Oedipus at Colonus denotes the consequences of his choice: although unpunished by law, he has to deal with his personal feelings of guilt. The chorus lines are therefore integrated as the unconscious here, as Chris comments on his own deeds and position. In both Oedipus Wrecks and Match Point, then, the use of Oedipus as figure of introspection for Sheldon and Chris respectively reflects Allen’s preoccupation with the mythical character. Mighty Aphrodite, is more explicit in its reception of Oedipus as the entire film alludes to the myth and runs parallel to a contemporary adoption narrative. Mighty Aphrodite features the characters of Jocasta, Oedipus and Teiresias.20 These characters apply an overall Anti-Oedipal subtext to the film, on par with the previously mentioned films (Oedipus Wrecks, Match Point). In Mighty Aphrodite Oedipus features as character that alludes to Lenny. It is placed to discuss issues of kinship and the implications of adoption and nuclear family models versus individual desires. The first New York establishing shot photographs Lenny, Amanda and a friendly couple at eye level in a New York restaurant. Amanda states that she would like to adopt a child, while Lenny expresses his concern on raising an adopted child who is ‘a bad seed’ and ‘kills them in their sleep’. This is an ­indirect allusion to the tale of Oedipus, confirmed through a follow up Taormina scene 19

20

For a discussion on the theme of fate in Woody Allen’s films see P. Gilabert “New York versus la tragedia y Edipo: El legado de Sófocles y los sofistas en Crimes and Misdemeanors de Woody Allen”, in Actas del Congreso Sófocles Hoy: Veinticinco siglos de tragedia (Córdoba: El Almendro, 2006) 183–98. Solomon (2001) 24–25.

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that features the series of tragic dramatis personae. The first tragic character is Laius, father of Oedipus. Laius speaks directly to the audience developing the theatrical illusion further. Laius describes his son as ‘fair, clear-headed and brave’ but points out that in spite of his good qualities, he ended up killing him and sleeping with his own mother. This is a very direct reference to Oedipus that relates ideologically to Lenny’s fears; the mythical character of Laius embodies Lenny’s concerns regarding adoption. The scene then zooms in on contemporary family issues through the lens of tragedy: it is an unexpected comparison between Lenny and Laius. During the film, Oedipal imagery and narrative orchestrates visual and verbal humour. Jocasta appears behind Laius, addressing the audience directly in order to talk about her ‘loving son’ in an almost Freudian slip. This is a humorous double entendre, with connotations that go beyond their family ties. The comic instance is further enhanced through an anti-realist verbal mingling of contemporary New York and ancient myth. Jocasta adds: ‘I hate to tell you what they call my son in Harlem’. The clash and relation between antiquity and contemporaneity results in comedy, as the implied word is motherfucker, a vulgar slang term used in abundance in the u.s. to describe men in contemporary ghetto cultures, thus creating an off color joke.21 In the background, while Jocasta speaks, a blind Oedipus (with patches over his eyes) wanders around, looking rather lost. New York slang and figures from Greek tragedy deconstruct the tragic tale of Oedipus in a contemporary setting, thus transforming the tragic, ancient taboo of Oedipal incest into a humorous remark. These and many more Oedipal (or rather, anti-Oedipal) subtexts then indeed humorously target the Freudian complex theory. The original model’s articulation of society based on the family triangle of the father, mother and child is deconstructed through the very myth of Oedipus, reiterated. While Lenny and Linda’s respective families are, in reality, beyond the nuclear model, the rigid, ‘archetypal’ example of Oedipus is still operating inside Lenny’s mind and is visible only to him and the audience. Lenny, in effect, projects the Oedipal model of the family as a kind of organization that must colonize its members and repress their desires if it is to function as an organizing principle of society. Instead of conceiving the family as a sphere contained by a larger social sphere, giving a logical preeminence to the family triangle (Oedipus’ Complex), families are in the end opened onto the social (anti-Oedipus). Near the 21

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, motherfucker is (1) A person regarded as thoroughly despicable and (2) Something regarded as thoroughly unpleasant, frustrating, or despicable. The term alternatively may be used to mean someone that is or has something formidable and admirable, according to the latest update in the Oxford Living Dictionary.

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end of the film, and while the chorus is singing ‘When you’re Smiling’, dramatis personae are, in turn, placed in the koilon of the Theatre in Taormina, acting as spectators. The following scenes are composed by close-ups on the contemporary families of the film: Linda, Lenny and Kevin with respective partners and children. In the final sequence, the lens moves towards Jocasta and Oedipus who appear in the background of the koilon, kissing passionately, an absurd, taboo image that is found nowhere in ‘authentic’ versions of tragedy, nor approved by Freud. 3

Oedipus Rex and Tragedy as Comedy

Fictionality is a cooperative art of communication between creator and audience, a formation of a propositional content which becomes the focus of a special kind of imaginative effort among participants.22 Drama and film may also mediate space and place between audience and director; the audience decodes (fictional) concepts, that may be culturally, socially, geographically, historically remote from their own reality. As a film-maker that is often preoccupied with historical cultures within contemporary settings—specifically contemporary Jewish identity,23 Allen further utilizes elements of classical ­tradition in Mighty Aphrodite, specifically tragic form as performance in a ­contemporary New York setting. Several authors have stressed the intricate ­nature of reproducing tragedy in contemporary theatre and film.24 Mighty Aphrodite, a “love story with a twist reminiscent of the entanglements of classical myth and drama,25” offers a paradigm of deconstructive reception of the very reception of the genre of tragedy as performance, since it humorously targets the very dramatic form of tragedy per se. By placing narrative and form of an ancient myth in 1990s New 22 23

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Lamarque and Olsen (1994) 74. For example: Jewish culture in North America. Allen is of Jewish descent (third generation). Some examples of Jewish identity include Zelig, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Oedipus Wrecks etc. See also: Andy Newman and Corey Kilgannon, “Curse of the jaded audience: Woody Allen in Art and Life” (The New York Times, June 5, 2002). “‘I think he’s slacked off (Jewish identity) the last few movies’, said Norman Brown, 70, a retired draftsman from Mr. Allen’s old neighborhood, Midwood, Brooklyn, who said he had seen nearly all of Mr. Allen’s 33 films”. Simon Goldhill, “Naked and O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Politics and Poetics of Epic Cinema”, in B. Graziosi, B. and E. Greenwood (eds.), Homer in the Twentieth Century: Between Literature and the Western Canon, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007a) 245–67; How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007b). Winkler (2009) 146.

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York, Allen bridges antiquity and contemporaneity, tragedy and comedy, Hellenism and Hebraism. In Mighty Aphrodite Allen constructs a fictional tragic space within 1990s New York that is embedded in the main plot and that manifests itself in the form of tragic dramaturgy and scenic conventions. These components seem to largely operate in the unconscious of the protagonist (Lenny) and they in fact voice and embody his mental processes via tragic imagery and narrative. In Mighty Aphrodite, there is a larger scope of engagement with classical tradition that is not necessarily limited to the portrayal of Lenny’s unconscious. Instead, Allen displays a preoccupation with form and tragedy and he draws upon his knowledge of theatrical production and classical culture through culturally relative factors (to him). The train of thought of a contemporary Jewish New York sports’ writer is then communicated through the formal features of tragedy, tragic formalism that is removed from its original context of antiquity, and while echoing tragedy’s psychoanalytic reception it further constructs a meta-dramatic realm that is further deconstructed as comic effect. Allen has expressed a preoccupation with the forms of tragedy and comedy in both films and interviews.26 For Allen, both genres examine the same serious themes. The difference is that comedy involves ‘distance’ whereas tragedy occurs when remorse and self-punishment take place. Allen’s definition of the tragic and comic relies on how the use of distance (chronological, cultural or geographical) create an ‘out of context’ environment that may precisely help us to define a film as comic, even if it, paradoxically, uses elements of tragedy. In this sense, Allen’s film may be read as a way of creating humour from ‘serious matters’ by invoking (mental) distance through an out-of-context strict tragic formalism, and conventions. This genre-transforming distance describes humour instead of defining it and relates to relief theories, where humour is considered a way to release or save energy generated by repression. Allen then concentrates on the essential structures and psychological processes that produce laughter. Hence, humour in Mighty Aphrodite is, among other things, created by the inverted metatragic elements of the film.

26

See Lee, Woody Allen’s angst: philosophical commentaries on his serious films (Jefferson, nc: McFarland, 1997) for Allen’s definition of comedy and tragedy. For example Lester’s description of New York in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) is clearly a reference to Allen’s own empirical notion of the relationship between tragedy and comedy: ‘See what I mean? (Comedy) is tragedy plus time … Think of Oedipus. Oedipus is funny. That’s the structure of funny, right there: who did this terrible thing? Oh, God, it was me. That’s funny.

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Allen chose two geographical locations for filming Mighty Aphrodite. The first location is the ancient theatre of Taormina, Sicily, an original backdrop for the performance of Greek Drama. The establishing shot of the chorus positions the audience as spectators in a performance of tragedy. The chorus is photographed inside the orchestra from a spectator-distance—as if the cameraman is located in the koilon; or later, during close-ups from below, looking taller and more impressive, a filming technique used also in the Purple Rose of Cairo (1985).27 In contrast, characters of the contemporary plot—Lenny, Amanda and a friendly couple—are photographed at eye level in New York restaurants, ateliers and their home. The cinematic contrast between the two spaces refers to the act of viewing itself by reproducing the theatrical experience of a tragedy for the big screen. The chorus is distanced from contemporaneity, echoing the special position of the chorus in ancient dramaturgy. The transition between real-plot space and tragic space (New York and the theatre in Taormina) is at first abrupt. While location transitions in the film occur periodically with little warning to the audience these transitions become increasingly smooth and the two locations even intertwine at times as the movie progresses. For example, Lenny appears at the theatre in Taormina once. Similarly, the chorus shows up in New York half way through the film and remains there until the closing credits. The implication is that while the tragic space is first represented within its original context, it is later placed in a New York backdrop. While impossible and dislocating at first, it ultimately becomes merged with contemporary New York. Allen in effect, sustains tragedy within a film: his contemporary narratives are infiltrated through performance space and formal features of tragedy. A New York story is commented on in a different cultural context and time that is eventually as related to the plot as remote from it. This shifting of cultural and geographical contexts is paradoxical, unexpected, thus creating comic surprise—what Tractatus Coinsilianus defined as para prosdokian jokes, actions that operate against the audience’s expectations.28 The parallel worlds of a Jewish man in New York and the mythical realm of ancient Thebes, ‘real life’ and art, collide and intermingle. Humour 27

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The same filming technique has been used by Allen in the Purple Rose of Cairo (1985). The film deals with the heroine Cecilia (Farrow) and the everyday reality of Jersey during the time of the Great Depression. Everything is presented as the simulation of a historical reality. This is opposed to the representation of Tom Baxter, a character of a film within a film who is mainly photographed from below in order to look more impressive. On the filming technique of photography from below see also Schwartz, Referred Pain and Other Stories (New York: Counterpoint, 2004) 20. Richard Janko, Aristotle’s Poetics, Hackett Classics, (Hackett Publishing: Indianapolis, 1987) on typology of jokes (treating Aristotle with scepticism). Cf Ian Ruffell, Politics and

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is in this sense then introduced through the impossibility of a remote tragic space embedded in a contemporary story. Aside from creating a tragic space that is parallel to the story, Allen reproduces some stereotypical techniques of tragic theatre on film. These include the extensive use of a tragic chorus, a leader, and a messenger, who intervene in the plot. By applying culturally relative factors such as masks, costumes, a serious, theatrical and bold manner of speech, and the orchestra of the theatre of Taormina, Allen leads an audience to perceive a fictive stance further; they are, in effect, the audience of both a film and a tragedy. The chorus’ dramatic function, however, varies. In its first appearance, members of the chorus wear pepla and impressive, almost grotesque, tragic masks with exaggerated features.29 Their identities are undefined and they act as a collective. Judging from their voices, occasional close ups and the appearances they are perhaps a chorus of elders, similar to the chorus in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. As with most tragic choruses made up of elderly male members, they seem to take stands that are representative of the political and social community.30 As Greek chorus is a term used also in musical theatre, a New York audience may be familiar with such uses of the chorus as well.31 The chorus is featured in the first establishing shot of the film. Allen’s maximizes their impact on screen by filming them from a slightly lower position, especially during occasional close-ups. The chorus delivers a prologue, a stereotypical technique in tragedy to contextualize plot and protagonist (see for example: Oedipus Rex and the Bacchae). In this prologue, Lenny is placed

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Anti-realism in Athenian Old Comedy: the Art of the Impossible. Oxford classical monographs (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2011) 40–43. For tragedy as adopted for stages and screens see P. Burian “Tragedy Adapted for Stages and Screens: the Renaissance to the Present”, in Pat Easterling, Paul Cartledge and Simon Goldhill (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 228–83 and Fiona Macintosh “Tragedy in Performance: 19th and 20th Century Productions”, in Pat Easterling, Paul Cartledge and Simon Goldhill (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 284–323. For a discussion on tragic performance see Easterling, Cartledge and Goldhill (1997) 151–177. For a discussion of the chorus in tragedy, its functions and Identity, see Helene Foley “Choral Identity in Greek Tragedy”, CPhil, 98 (2003) 21. See for example, Legally Blonde (2001–2008 for the musical), Mamma Mia (1999–2012 musical productions), Sweeney Todd (notable 1989 Broadway musical) etc.; it has been used by Max Frisch in the Arsonists (1953 as a radio play and 1958 as a musical). In Legally Blonde the chorus is also visible only to the protagonist: they are her sorority sisters that she sees in her mind’s eye.

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among famous heroes in Greek mythology.32 Allen contextualizes the use of the chorus and comically singles out Lenny as a potentially tragic protagonist—the tragic prologue then turns into a comic device. Part of the joke here is that a middle-aged New Yorker, a character of a contemporary champagne comedy, is mentioned among tragic heroes. These characters are indirectly described by the chorus in relation to their kin. This hints to the centrality of the family and kinship theme in tragedy where tragic action and plot are conducted within the social hub of a (royal) oikos and its interaction with the wider community, alluding to the preoccupation of the film with contemporary social issues.33 The chorus members describe Lenny’s story as ‘Greek and timeless as fate itself’, a further indication that the film is preoccupied with the hero’s family and social life.34 As the chorus assumes its traditional role of contextualizing the protagonist in the prologue, the audience is adopting a fictive stance, expecting to see a tragic plot unfolding. Allen then applies a tragic form, the chorus’ prologue, in order to explore the theme of kinship in two parallel contexts: his contemporary New York as well as a timeless, fictional, tragic space. The bold entrance of the chorus is interrupted by a distinctly different scene, shot in a New York café, which establishes the central themes of the film. Here, Lenny and Amanda are discussing adoption and they appear disconnected to the previous Taormina scene. While this technique of interchanging characters and plot with a chorus is reminiscent of the form of an actual tragedy, these New York scenes, however, lack the over-dramatization and ancient cultural factors found in the chorus scenes and New York characters other than

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CHORUS: Brave Achilles, slain in trial by blood. For prize, the bride of Menelaus and father of Antigone, ruler of Thebes, self-rendered sightless by lust for expiation, lost victim of bewildered desire. Nor has Jason’s wife fared better, giving life, only to reclaim it, in vengeful fury. For to understand the ways of the heart is to grasp as clearly the malice or ineptitude of the gods. Who in their vain and clumsy labours to create a flawless surrogate have left mankind but dazed and incomplete. Take for instance the case of Lenny Weinrib, a tale as Greek and timeless as fate itself. Family theme in tragedy: Bennett Simon, Tragic Drama and the Family (New Haven: Yale up, 1988) and Edith Hall, “The Sociology of Athenian Tragedy”, in Pat Easterling, Paul Cartledge and Simon Goldhill (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 104–5 and 110. For a study of luck and fate in Greek tragedy in connection to philosophy see Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

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Lenny seem unaware of the chorus’ existence.35 Similarly, the chorus is visible to Lenny, but not to the other characters within the New York space. Its theatricality is impossible and dislocating in relation to the main plot, yet also captivating and intensifying. The chorus acts as a commentator for Lenny’s story, and as they are only visible and audible to him, they seem to embody his unconscious thoughts: specifically, his repressed inhibitions. The chorus leader, an essential element of Greek tragedy, converses directly with the protagonist, a Jewish New York sports writer, while remaining invisible to other characters. The leader appears in New York several times to verbally interact with Lenny in a style that is reminiscent of the tragic form of an agōn, when two tragic characters (or a leader and a protagonist, in this case) come into conflict.36 In the first ‘agōn’ Lenny is investigating the adoption office files in order to discover the identity of his son’s biological mother, the leader of the chorus (MurrayAbraham) interferes, attempting to convince him to do otherwise. Lenny is offensive to the leader, implying that he, himself, is the one who acts, while the leader is ‘simply observing’. Allen’s approach recalls Aristotles’ Poetics, where acting is privileged over spectating (opsis) (Poet. 6.1450b16–20).37 For the duration of this agōn, the chorus leader indeed displays some sort of morality that is opposed to that of the protagonist. He repeatedly scorns Lenny for keeping a secret from Amanda and for his infatuation with Max’s biological mother. Later, when Lenny actually meets Linda’s panderer in a crowded sports bar, the leader shows up (again, only visible to Lenny) and urges him to act with bravery, like Achilles.38 Lenny replies that ‘Achilles only had an Achilles heel. I have a full Achilles body’ thus creating an off color joke that refers back to the very reception of classical tradition in modern English language. These examples 35

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Chorus’ techniques: R. Rehm, Greek Tragic Theatre (Routledge: London, 1992) 26, Eric Csapo and Niall Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama (Ann Arbor, mi: University of Michigan Press, 1995); Chorus’ role: Easterling, Cartledge and Goldhill (1997) 42–4 and 128–140. For example the interrogation of Teiresias by Oedipus. For the dramatic function of the tragic agōn scene in Sophocles’ Electra see G. Swart, “Dramatic function of the Agon scene in the Electra of Sophocles”, AClass, 27 (1984) 23–9. Choruses are not by any generic definition incapable of action and important initiatives (even in late Euripides); on the visual importance of the chorus in detail see Foley (2003) 14, specifically drawing upon the dramatization of tragedies by contemporary Ariane Mnouchkine in her 1991–92 Les Atrides. See also Goldhill (2007) 45–80. The joke here is based on the proverbial use, since 1840, of the expression Achilles’ heel to describe an ‘area of weakness, vulnerable spot’, with its implied use in S.T. Coleridge’s ‘Ireland, that vulnerable heel of the British Achilles!’ dating back to 1810 (Oxford English Dictionary).

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of conversation between leader and protagonist serve a twofold purpose. The very cinematic use of the leader targets the reception of tragedy by psychoanalysis. The leader, detached from his original context of tragedy, and invisible to other characters, voices Allen’s internal dialogues and embodies a variety of unconscious emotional responses to his actions. The tragic leader exists only in Lenny’s fantasy, is detached from tragedy and becomes a modern filming device that, again, refers back to Allen’s empirical knowledge of theatre.39 In addition to the chorus and leader, Allen adopts another theatrical device in Mighty Aphrodite, namely the use of a messenger. The tragic messenger is a dramatic convention that facilitates the advancement of plot by providing information that cannot be demonstrated in real time on stage. Two examples of the herald/messenger device in tragedy are the beginning of Aeschylus’ Agamennon, when the messenger brings Clytemnestra news about the war, and towards the end of Oedipus Rex, when a messenger enters the stage to announce the death of King Polybus. In Mighty Aphrodite, however, the messenger is a tragic device unnecessarily reproduced as it merely narrates to the chorus a scene between Lenny and Linda. The messengers states with a dramatic voice that ‘Lenny’s passions too overwhelming to regulate’ and how he spotted Linda ‘heading for the laundromat’. Lenny’s story is assuming tragic proportions denoted by the messenger’s serious tone of voice and manner of entrance dramatically announced by Cassandra, while he is rushing in the orchestra. The information brought by the messenger in Mighty Aphrodite could be screened instead yet it serves as a metapoetic point on the medium of film and its relation to the text and ancient theatre. The scene is thus self-reflexive: the messenger device serves as a comic reference to a specific dramatic convention found in tragedy by applying it to the process of film-making. Moreover, the Messenger character comically dramatizes Lenny’s story by narrating in a form that is reminiscent of tragedy: he rushes into the orchestra and adopts a bold manner of speech. The combination of modern language and the very employment of otherwise unnecessary tragic theatrical conventions marks the presence of the messenger as comic. The term deus ex machina is taken from Plato,40 and refers to a theatrical machine similar to a crane that is meant to introduce an actor portraying a

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This is a filming technique that Allen has used subsequently in Match Point, when the earthbound spirits of Nola and her landlady appear as the representation of the protagonist’s guilt. Latin calque from Greek: ἀπὸ μηχανῆς θεός. Plato Crat. 425d; Clit. 407a.

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d­ ivinity on stage in order to intervene and eventually resolve the plot.41 A few ancient dramatists have been criticized for using the device because it was considered a poor resolution.42 Allen reproduces the concept of deus ex machina in two different ways. First, when Lenny discovers that Amanda is leaving him, he consoles to Linda and they become intimate. The chorus then implores to Zeus for help, a god who could potentially facilitate the plot’s outcome. To the surprise of the chorus, and the audience, Zeus has an answering machine: Zeus voice: This is Zeus. I’m not home right now, but you can leave me a message and I’ll get back to you. Please, start speaking at the tone. There is a play on words (god from a machine, answering machine). The conventional tragic device of a deus ex machina is made comically contemporary. Second, as Linda drives away from Lenny, pregnant with his child, the same tragic convention is deployed: a deus ex machina here appears from the skies in a machine, in fact, a helicopter. The helicopter is, again, as with the chorus, photographed from the ground, thus entering the scene abruptly, randomly, granting Allen’s audience with the expected resolution. In Mighty Aphrodite, then, Allen facilitates a positive resolution to the story through a contemporary reconstruction of an ancient theatrical device. Both instances add selfreflexivity to the scene as they speak of the film, and how Allen recreates a tragic convention by subverting it. Overall in Mighty Aphrodite, Allen thus uses tragic formalism to narrate a quotidian New York Story. Lenny’s story, similar to a comedy of manners, assumes tragic proportions only within Lenny’s mind, and is indeed portraying his unconscious, in the broader psychoanalytical sense. However, the recreation of tragic forms within the film goes beyond psychoanalysis. It inevitably involves meta-dramatic action that is manifested via theatrical illusion in the 41 42

On ancient use of a mechanē see D. Mastronarde “Actors on High: The Skene roof, the Crane and the Gods in Attic Drama”, Classical Antiquity 9 (1990) 247–94. Aristotle displays the basic formula for a successful deus ex machina: ‘It is obvious that the solutions of plots too should come about as a result of the plot itself, and not from a contrivance, as in the Medea and in the passage about sailing home in the Iliad. A contrivance must be used for matters outside the drama—either previous events which are beyond human knowledge, or later ones that need to be foretold or announced. For we grant that the gods can see everything. There should be nothing improbable in the incidents; otherwise, it should be outside the tragedy, e.g., that in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex’. Aristotle, Poetics (1454a33-1454b9). For an ancient and subsequent criticism, see Rehm (1992) 72.

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film. Although the term meta-drama is, in itself, problematic,43 it is clear that Allen, within the film, constructs an alternative universe that is self-reflexive, referring back to the very process of dramatic arts; it is a combination of fiction with a meta-critique of the processes of representation from tragedy to contemporary film. Furthermore, Allen’s reception of tragedy in Mighty Aphrodite is first characterized by lack of specific time and is presented to gradually move away from its original context and space. The Greek chorus, leader, messenger and divine characters precisely, have an overt narrative function, passing commentary on the action without necessarily intruding upon it. This deprives the potential New York tragedy of guilt, remorse and irreversibility, as tragedy and its serious implications are distanced, placed in and out of context, overdramatized and therefore transformed into comedy. In Lenny’s imagination, tragedy blends in his contemporary environment. Expressing contemporary societal issues through tragic form intensifies precisely how Lenny’s story, although serious and very contemporary, infiltrated through a traditional theatrical form can achieve a new, wider spectrum of interpretations: from the actual embodiment of his internal thoughts to a metadramatic comparative study of the modes of representation of societal issues from Greek tragedy to contemporary New York. 4

Conclusion: Anti-Oedipus, Tragedy as Comedy, and a Case of Hebraic Hellenism

Allen’s reception of the classical world is manifested via visual and verbal allusions, form and plot. In Mighty Aphrodite classical tradition operates in many layers: there is a multitude of expression as well as an intertwining of Greek Tragedy, its own psychoanalytical reception with contemporaneity. Allen’s work is self-referential and infiltrated though his personal experience of 43

Frances Muecke “Playing with the play: Theatrical self-consciousness in Aristophanes”, Antichthon 11 (1977) 52–6, where metatheater is used for fictionality and effect through tragedy; T. Kowzan “Les Comédies d’Aristophane, véhicule de la critique dramatique”, Dionyso 54 (1983) 83, who refers specifically to theatre semiotics, uses the term metatheater to denote the reflection of dramatic arts and the art of spectacle within another spectacle. Kowzan singles out techniques such as criticism, dramatic parody, allusion to contemporary theatrical customs, and direct referencing to the audience. Oliver Taplin “Fifth-century Tragedy and Comedy: a Synkrisis”,  jhs 106 (1986) 164 popularized the term metatheater, specifically among critics of Old Comedy. Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon (London: Heinemann, 1999) 509, finally pointed out that meta- and para- are systems of human classification and difficult to establish strictly.

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c­ lassical tradition as a New Yorker. The director shows how elements of tragedy can indeed transmit specific messages to a contemporary audience and therefore facilitate contemporary characterization and plot. This interesting cultural mix alludes back to North American multicultural social environments and is therefore transformed into a new experience for his audience. Allen’s empirical knowledge of theatre and its conventions44 facilitates the composition of a fictional tragic universe that is parallel and complementary to the main plot. It is a self-reflexive piece of work that reflects on the process of its own making as well as on strategies of representation from antiquity to modern Hollywood. More specifically, in Mighty Aphrodite, Allen’s novelty is that he reproduces and exceeds his filming casualties and premeditates a comic representation of tragedy through several anti-realist tragic conventions. These illustrate a vast knowledge of ancient dramaturgy and the practicalities associated with staging tragedy and comedy, a preoccupation with their fumction and form. Although Oedipal imagery is a recurring theme in Allen’s filmography, in Mighty Aphrodite, tragic form and dramaturgy are deployed as cinematic devices and offer the audience a rich cultural experience of metatragedy that is extended beyond contemporary applications of psychoanalytical theory. These direct and indirect classical elements—i.e. a filming style that imitates a theatrical experience, visual surroundings and quotations45—are, in their majority, associated with the specific conflicts between individual desire and normative societal structures, issues, however, that, as the director reminds us, Greek tragedy is also preoccupied with. In Mighty Aphrodite, classical elements are more direct and although gradually detached cinematically from their original time and space they become predominant as the film progresses; the protagonist’s inner struggle is transformed into a modern comedy that features tragic elements, such as classical surroundings, dramatis personae and chorus. In Mighty Aphrodite Allen deconstructs tragedy into comedy by distancing it from its original context and modernizing it, stripping of psychological tension via the media of humour. In the same vein, the figure of Oedipus is reiterated and reinvented in Allen’s filmography an anti-Oedipal comic deconstruction. Indeed, Oedipal references are internalized in Mighty Aphrodite; they are only visible and audible to Lenny and are gradually merging with his current cultural and societal framework. Last but not least, Mighty Aphrodite is a commentary on the faultlines of classical reception itself: it bespeaks of the recreation and popularization of tragic characters through the more modern lens of psychoanalysis. At the 44 45

Broadway League in the Internet Broadway Database. See also Cassandra’s Dream (2002).

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same time, Allen uses humour to question more modern frameworks of classical reception including the very movie itself.46 Therefore, classics outside their original context as well as their psychoanalytic and meta-dramatic reception and understanding within Allen’s films focuses critical attention and, to paraphrase Hardwick (2003: 4), promotes Allen’s classical reception as a way ‘to frame new questions or retrieve aspects of tragedy which have been marginalized or forgotten’. Both importance and appeal of Allen’s tragic reception reside in this duality. With Greek tragedy infiltrated through the eyes of a New York Jew, Mighty Aphrodite then may be singled out as an example of merging the Hellenic and Hebraic in effect with film art directly disapproving of the binary structures of the so-called Old World. Bibliography Baxter, John W., Allen: A Biography (London: Harper & Collins, 1998). Bennett, Simon and Rachel B. Blass “The development of vicissitudes of Freud’s ideas on the Oedipus complex”, in J. Neu. (ed.) (California: UCP, 1991) 161–74. Berti, Irene and Marta Garcia Morcillo, Hellas on Screen: Cinematic Receptions of Ancient History, Literature and Myth. Heidelberger althistorische Beiträge und epigraphische Studien (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2008). Buijzen, Moniek and P.M. Valkenburg, “Developing a Typology of Humor in Audiovisual Media”, Media Psychology 6 (2004) 147–67. Burian, Peter, “Tragedy Adapted for Stages and Screens: the Renaissance to the Present”, in Pat Easterling (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 228–83. Carlà, Filippo, “Pasolini, Aristotle and Freud: Filmed Drama between psychoanalysis and ‘neoclassicism’”, in Irene Berti, and Marta Garcia Mortillo (eds.), Hellas on Screen: Cinematic Receptions of Ancient History, Literature and Myth (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2008). Cirgus Sam B., The Films of Woody Allen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Csapo, Eric and William J. Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama (Ann Arbor, MI: ­University of Michigan Press, 1995). Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (trans. Hurley et al) (London: Penguin, 1983).

46

For relief theory in media and communication see: M. Buijzen and P.M. Valkenburg, “Developing a Typology of Humor in Audiovisual Media”, Media Psychology, 6 (2004) 147–167; John C. Meyer, “Humor as a double-edged sword: Four functions of humor in communication”, Communication Theory 10 (2000) 310–31.

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Easterling, Pat E., Paul Cartledge and Simon Goldhill, (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Ebert, Roger, “Mighty Aphrodite Film Review”, (Chicago: Chicago Sun Times, 1995). Foka, Anna, “Woody Allen and the Classical Tradition”, (Pesaro: Studia Oliveriana Online- 2015). Foley, Helene, “Choral Identity in Greek Tragedy”, CPhil, 98 (2003) 1–30. Foucault, Michel, “La Vérité et les Formes Juridiques”, in D. Defert, and F. Ewald, (eds.), Dits et Écrits 1954–1988 (Paris: Gallimard, 1994) 538–646. Frodon, Jean Michel, Conversaciones con Woody Allen (Barcelona, Buenos Aires, México: Paidós, 2002). Gilabert, Pau Barberà, “New York versus la tragedia y Edipo: El legado de Sófocles y los sofistas en Crimes and Misdemeanors de Woody Allen”, Actas del Congreso Sófocles Hoy: Veinticinco siglos de tragedia (Córdoba: El Almendro, 2006) 183–98. Goldhill, Simon, “Naked and O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Politics and Poetics of Epic Cinema”, in Barbara Graziosi, and Emily Greenwood (eds.), Homer in the Twentieth Century: Between Literature and the Western Canon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007a) 245–67. Goldhill, Simon, How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007b). Gruen, Erich S., “Hellenism and Hebraism”, in George Boys-Stones, Barbara Graziosi, and Phiroze Vasunia (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 129–39. Hall, Edith, “The Sociology of Athenian Tragedy”, in Pat E. Easterling (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 93–126. Hardwick, Lorna, Reception Studies: Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics 33. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Huerta-Floriano, Miguel Ángles, “The Cinema as Therapy: Psychoanalysis in the Work of Woody Allen”,  Journal of Medicine and Movies 4.1 (2008) 17–26. Janko, Richard, (trans.) Aristotle’s Poetics with Tractatus Coislinianus, Reconstruction of Poetics II and the Fragments of the On Poets (Cambridge: Hackett, 1987). Kowzan, Tadeusz, “Les Comédies d’Aristophane, véhicule de la critique dramatique”, Dionyso 54 (1983) 83–100. Lamarque, Peter and S. Olsen, Truth, Fiction and Literature, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). Lee, Sander H., Woody Allen’s angst: philosophical commentaries on his serious films (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997). Leonard, Miriam, Athens in Paris: Ancient Greece and the political in Post-War French Thought. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Leonard, Miriam, Socrates and the Jews: Hellenism and Hebraism from Moses Mendelssohn to Sigmund Freud (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).

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Macintosh, Fiona, “Tragedy in Performance: 19th and 20th Century Productions”, in Pat Easterling, (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) 284–323. Mastronarde, Donald, “Actors on High: The Skene roof, the Crane and the Gods in Attic Drama”, Classical Antiquity 9 (1990) 247–94. Meyer, John C., “Humor as a double-edged sword: Four functions of humor in communication”, Communication Theory 10 (2000) 310–31. Muecke, Frances, “Playing with the play: Theatrical self-consciousness in Aristophanes”. Antichthon 11 (1977) 52–6. Nussbaum, Martha C., The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Rajak, Tessa “Jews and Greeks: the Invention and Exploitation of Polarities in the 19th Century”, in idem, (ed.), The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome (Leiden: Brill, 2001). Rehm, Rush, Greek Tragic Theatre (London: Routledge, 1992). Ruffell, Ian, Politics and Anti-realism in Athenian Old Comedy: the Art of the Impossible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Schironi, Francesca, “Tiresias, Oedipus, and Pasolini: the Figure of the Intellectual in the Edipo Re”, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 16, No. 3/4 (2009) 484–500. Schwartz, Lynne Sharon, Referred Pain and Other Stories (New York: Counterpoint, 2004). Simon, Bennett, Tragic Drama and the Family (New Haven: Yale UP, 1988). Solomon, Jon, The Ancient World in the Cinema (New Haven: Yale UP, 2001). Stephenson, Neal, Cryptonomicon (London: Heinemann, 1999). Swart, Gerhard, “Dramatic function of the Agon scene in the Electra of Sophocles”, AClass 27 (1984) 23–29. Taplin, Oliver, “Fifth-century Tragedy and Comedy: a Synkrisis”, JHS 106 (1986) 163–74. Terdiman, Richard, Present Past: Modernity and the Memory Crisis. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). Vernant, Jean-Pierre, “Oedipe sans Complexe”, in P. Vidal-Naquet and J.P. Vernant (eds.), Mythe et Tragedié en Grèce Ancient (Paris: Flammarion, 1972) 75–98. Winkler, Martin M., Cinema and Classical Texts: Apollo’s New Light (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

chapter 7

Caligula and Drusilla in the Modern Imagination Emma Southon1 History tends to be what you make it, each generation has its own view of Roman emperors.2

⸪ The emperor Gaius, better known as Caligula, remains one of the most enduring characters of the imperial Roman world. He has been the subject of a variety of modern day works in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from hardcore pornography, to burlesque shows, to comic books, to musicals.3 Throughout this process of interpretation and reinterpretation, Gaius has been reduced from a complex human being to a compilation of the set pieces and anecdotes that form his modern biography. At the centre of these set pieces lies his relationship with his sister Drusilla, said to be incestuous. This relationship has been portrayed in every twentieth and twenty-first century representation of Caligula’s life, but these portrayals have not been consistent. The changes in the representation of Caligula and Drusilla though can be useful, and can offer a perspective on the changing nature of the relationship between the modern West and classical Rome. At the Beauty, Bravery, Blood and Glory conference that gave rise to this volume, Monica Cyrino asked of images of

1 Thanks go to all those who attended the Beauty, Bravery, Blood and Glory conference in Ramat Gan and Beer Sheeva, 2013 for their comments and suggestions. Also I extend my gratitude to Conor Sally for reading and commenting on early drafts. 2 Gore Vidal in The Making of Caligula, directed by Giancarlo Lui (Shenley, Arrow Films, 2007), dvd. 3 Caligula and Messalina, directed by Bruno Mattei (New-Anspach, Laser Paradise, 1981), dvd; Caligula’s Spawn, directed by Lloyd A. Simandi (Hilversum, Three Line Pictures, 2009), dvd; Caligula Maximus, directed by Alfred Preisser (New York, 2011), Burlesque Performace; John Wagner, Judge Caligula (London: Titan Books, 1991); David Lapham, Caligula (Rantoul, il: Avatar Press, 2013–2016); Caligula the Musical: An Ancient Glam Rock Epic, directed by Eric Svejcar (New York: ny Musical Theatre Festival, 2004), Broadway Musical.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_009

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Rome “Are we the striving, determined Romans on screen?”4 and Caligula offers us a lens through which to find answers to this question. The incest at the centre of characterisations of Caligula is a single point of reference for—in different works—his madness, his brutality, his Romanness and his vulnerability. This paper explores three twentieth century representations of Caligula and Drusilla: Robert Graves’s 1934 I, Claudius, the 1976 bbc adaptation of the same, and the 1979 Penthouse production Caligula.5 Each approaches Caligula’s incest differently, and thus each presents the viewer with a different relationship with Rome and Roman morality. The life of Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, third emperor of the Roman empire (37–41 ad) and better known as Caligula, is recorded in very limited sources, and mainly survives in the biography written 70 years after his death by Suetonius. This biography, which focuses on the sensational and the shocking, documents a great many alleged crimes by Caligula, including a paragraph in which he is accused of living in “habitual incest with all his sisters … Of these he is believed to have violated Drusilla when he was still a minor … The rest of his sisters he did not love with so great affection, nor honour so highly”.6 In addition, Suetonius notes that when Drusilla died Gaius mourned so heavily that he instituted a strict public mourning period, left the city to mourn and added his sister’s name to his oaths.7 Given the lack of other accounts of Gaius’s life, and the sensational popularity of Suetonius’s biographies, this account of Gaius’s relationship with his sister has been read as the immutable and rigid “history” of Caligula and Drusilla, frozen into a series of set pieces. The childhood incest, the desperate mourning and the notion that he “loved” her above his other sisters are fundamental to the story of Caligula. Moreover, this is one of the few extracts of Suetonius’s biography that seems to offer an insight into Gaius’s inner life, and so this relationship has been seen by 4 Monica Cyrino, “Virtuous Vices of the House of Batiatus”, paper presented at the Beauty, Bravery Blood and Glory conference, Israel, June 2013. 5 All references to the film here refer to the Uncut, 2 hour and 36, minute version released on dvd by Arrow Films as the “Imperial Edition”. There are 42 known versions of Caligula, many of which are now lost, and this is considered to be the most comprehensive edition. Details of the differences can be found at the excellent website Caligula.org. “Caligula: The Multiple Version”, (accessed 13 September 2015). 6 Suetonius, “Gaius Caligula” in The Twelve Caesars (trans. John Rolfe) (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1914) 24. It is worth noting that incest—usually with a mother—is a common accusation levied at tyrants and despots from Caligula to Napoleon. Caligula’s mother, however, was not available and so his sisters are the next best thing. See Antony Barrett, Caligula: The Corruption of Power (London: Routledge, 1989) 85. 7 Suetonius, Caligula, 24.

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modern readers as the “key” to understanding Caligula, as Suetonius’s monster, a madman or a victim. Thus, it also offers us an insight into the construction of the Romans as a wider society as the presentation of Caligula’s incestuous motives and the reactions of those around him offer a convenient lens through which to view the construction of Rome in relation to the viewer.

“Caligula is a Monster and Drusilla is a She-Monster!”—I, Claudius (1936)8

The earliest of the twentieth century portrayals by Robert Graves marginalises the relationship between his Caligula and Drusilla to a very minor facet of his character. In the novel, which dedicates six chapters to Caligula’s reign, there are but two obscure references to an unusual relationship between Caligula and Drusilla, neither of which conclusively states that it was incestuous. The first has the young Caligula and Drusilla being possibly caught in bed by their great-grandmother Antonia. It is told by Claudius, who is not present at the incident and only hears about it through Antonia. The incident is presented third hand, as an account of alleged and unproven incest that Claudius appears not to fully believe. Drusilla is 13 and Caligula 12 and Antonia describes them both as “monsters” as a result of what she has caught them doing.9 She is cagey about their behaviour, and Claudius tries to defend the children as Caligula describes what she has seen as “a game”. Claudius tells mother “if you, as their grandmother, accuse these children of incest …” and this is our only glimpse into what Antonia may have caught them doing, their game.10 The implications of this scene are clear: Drusilla and Caligula as minors (in the modern view at least. Caligula, described by Claudius as “a boy of twelve”, highlighting his youth),11 and Drusilla have been caught engaging in apparently consensual sexual contact. Antonia’s dismissal of Drusilla as a “she-monster” alongside Caligula’s “monster” frames Antonia’s understanding of what she has witnessed as consensual. Caligula then swears on his father’s honour (whom we later find out he murdered) that Antonia was mistaken, though we know that she was not. Thus Caligula is revealed to be a liar who takes his father’s name and honour in vain, and manipulates his trusting uncle, and a child who is sexually active at an inappropriate age and with extremely inappropriate 8 Robert Graves, I, Claudius (London: Penguin, 1936; repr. 2006) 267. 9 Ibid. 267–68. 10 Ibid. 267. 11 Ibid.

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partners. There is no subtlety in this portrayal and it adheres to the portrayal of Caligula throughout the book as a pure, unadulterated monster, referred to by both his grandmother and great grandmother Livia as just “the monster”.12 This first glimpse at Caligula’s relationship with Drusilla is our first true glimpse of how monstrous Graves’s Caligula is, to the reader and to his family. This portrayal continues throughout I, Claudius. Every set piece of the relationship as told by Suetonius is constructed by Graves to reveal Caligula’s inhumanity and grotesque wickedness. Even when Drusilla dies, Claudius as narrator tells his audience: Drusilla died. I am certain in my own mind that Caligula killed her … In the case of Drusilla I think he struck the blow himself. At all events, nobody was allowed to see the corpse and … and [he] gave her a most extraordinarily rich funeral.13 Alone of all the modern works, Graves, through Claudius, depicts Caligula’s mourning for Drusilla as unreal, his honours to her as atonement for her murder, and his flight from Rome as flight from the consequences of his actions in the “resulting gloom” that pervaded Rome in the wake of his enforced period of public mourning. Although Graves’s Caligula claims to love Drusilla at the height of his madness, Graves does not allow him the humanity to genuinely love her; Graves’s Caligula is selfish and declares his love for Drusilla at the point of his most manic and delusional phase. In the same breath that he declares himself to be better than Jove, makes an allusion to a Jewish saviour from the East, and admits to murdering his father, he declares “Oh how I love Drusilla! Almost as much as she loves me!”14 Caligula’s only true interest is himself and Claudius—our lens into Rome—and the rest of the Roman elite are horrified by his behaviour. This Caligula is an aberration, not just from Roman society but from humanity in general. Drusilla, for her part, is not portrayed as a wholly unwilling partner, but she is shown to be frightened of her brother and his actions, which subtly suggests coercion on Caligula’s part.15 However, she is only shown to be scared at the point where he has fully departed from his pretence of humanity, when he has become completely delirious and irrational. She is not developed any further as a character, and so it is possible to read their relationship as being 12 13 14 15

Ibid. 187; 190–1; 284–89; 299. Ibid. 342. Ibid. 334–35. Ibid. 332.

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initially consensual and becoming frightening for her as her brother’s madness increases and she remains merely a “she-monster”. Graves’s Caligula is inhuman, aberrant and monstrous and his dispassionate stance towards his sister is emblematic of that monstrousness; while she gives him everything, he toys with her, controls her and finally kills her. This is a presentation of their relationship that closely echoes Suetonius’ original account—although Suetonius makes no claim that Drusilla was a consenting partner, but displays their sexual relationship as being molestation. Nonetheless, Graves’s Caligula is a madman, a man who believes he is a god and a violent and unpredictable murderer, but he is not a sexual man. In this he undermines his assertion that he is true to his sources, which give salacious details of his heterosexual, homosexual and incestuous encounters.16 Caligula in Graves’s novel is a representation of the destruction of empire and of good manliness, of the ultimate corruption, a representation that is designed to be read by against the backdrop of a crumbling British empire after the First World War.17 However, Graves’s Claudius offers hope that good men still exist, and the wider Roman elite, outside of the Julio-Claudian family and their court, are honourable victims of tyranny. Even within this corrupt family, Caligula is viewed as especially appalling; Livia—a great villain herself—can only “tolerate” him because he promises her divinity, while the wicked Tiberius keeps Caligula in his company in order to feel virtuous in comparison.18 Thus, Graves’s incestuous Caligula is abnormal, monstrous and intolerable, not just to us but to his own society.

“Sometimes I Think that I’m Going Mad”—I, Claudius (1976)19

By the time of the 1976 bbc television adaptation of Graves’s novel, there had been significant shifts in social and cultural ideas concerning both people in general and society in Britain. One of these shifts was that the idea of a child born evil had long gone out of fashion. Instead, in a post-Freudian world, 16 Suetonius, Caligula, 24; 2; 33; 36; 55. 17 Martin Seymour-Smith, Robert Graves: His Life and Works (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1982) 229–31; Sandra R. Joshel, “I, Claudius: Projection and Imperial Soap Opera” in Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire (eds.), Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) 122. 18 Graves (1936) 289; 317. 19 Jack Pulman, “Hail Who?”, I, Claudius episode 8, directed by Herbie Wise, aired 8th November 1976 (London, bbc, 2002) dvd.

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­audiences (and historians) now demanded explanations for apparently monstrous behaviour. Hence, the writers and producers for the adaptation decided to develop a character with more “depth” than Graves’s monster. The bbc adaptation was a seminal series in many ways, and the producers impressively exploited the bbc’s reputation as a sober producer of serious and trustworthy programs and Graves’s career as a classicist and translator to frame I, Claudius as a historical piece, as being authentic and accurate. It aims to be “serious” and “high quality” rather than “popular” television.20 The show is presented as a small, intimate family drama within a very specific, idealised vision of Rome, one which adheres to the “white pillars and white togas” vision of what Jonathan Stamp called HollyRome.21 It is what cultural theorists describe as a pastiche of Rome, a flat, instantly recognisable mask of Roman-ness without any critical distance.22 This “white pillars and white togas” vision of Rome is presented as though it were fact rather than interpretation and without any sense of criticality. It attempts to mimic the Rome that is seen in western museums: white, cultured and marble. Thus, the bbc’s I, Claudius also gives itself the cultural capital of museums. This is also a vision of Rome that is sanitised and clean, associated with civilisation, high culture, and refinement. It is a version of Rome with which we can empathise and which feels historically accurate. This sense of accuracy is emphasised by the greater focus on family and relationships rather than big set pieces or action; the filming, which consisted primarily of interior shots, long shots and close ups throughout the series; and the lack of music or soundtrack for the majority of the show. Through these means, the series feels real and intimate. Within this setting, Caligula is an extreme. He is theatrical, unpredictable and extravagant from the start and his relationship with Drusilla both highlights his outlier role and offers an explanation for his extravagance. The very first appearance of Caligula as a child in the episode Some Justice has him waking from a nightmare and going to his mother during a dinner party. Claudius offers to take him to sleep in his cousin Drusus’ room if he is afraid of the dark, and Caligula shoots back quickly, to the horror of his great-grandmother, “I’d rather sleep with Drusilla”. Later in the episode, the scene from the novel 20 21 22

Trisha Dunleavy, Television Drama: Form, Agency, Innovation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) 28–9. Jerome de Groot, Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture (London: Routledge, 2009) 199. Frederic Jameson, “Postmodernism and the Consumer Society” in Ann Gray and Jim McGuigan (eds.), Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader (London: Bloomsbury, 1997) 192–205.

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where Antonia discovers the children in bed together is re-enacted, but this time there is no doubt as to their actions: “I found him in Drusilla’s bed, naked! And so was she!” The young Caligula admits the incident and declares Drusilla a willing participant: Claudius: ‘A sister is a sister and she’s not to be played with … you can’t play with her and you can’t marry her.’ Caligula: ‘But she wanted …’ Claudius: ‘I don’t care what she wanted. You’re disgusting the pair of you.’23 This is notably different from Graves’s original, and more modest, presentation. There is no third hand account and no ambiguity in Claudius’s reading of the situation but the characterisation is broadly the same: Caligula is described as a monster, he is cruel to Antonia and manipulates Claudius. However, this version has Agrippina, his mother, enter the scene and defend him, giving the impression of a spoiled and indulged child and providing a little more depth to his manipulative and cruel character, and possibly an explanation. Two episodes later, in Zeus, By Jove!, Caligula becomes emperor and, from his very first audience with the senate, Drusilla is beside him behaving as his wife and only confidant. From this scene, the characterisation of Caligula changes from a two-dimensional monster, who has burnt down his great-­grandmother’s house (Some Justice), had implied sexual relations with his e­ lderly grand-­ mother and then tormented her on her deathbed (Queen of Heaven) and who shows no compassion or humanity in the face of the destruction of his family (Reign of Terror). Instead we are shown a childlike man tormented by his mental illness. This illness is represented as a constant, oppressive galloping sound in his head and paralysing headaches.24 He is still a frightening and cruel character, but the director’s decision to force the audience to listen to the sounds that Caligula cannot escape from in his head makes his madness a mitigating factor, rather than something that Caligula is ultimately responsible for, as Graves implies. Throughout the rest of the I, Claudius series, naturalism is emphasised, along with a “filmed theatre” focus which means there is no other soundtrack at any other point.25 This serves to further emphasise the 23 24 25

Jack Pulman, “Some Justice”, I, Claudius episode 5, directed by Herbie Wise, aired 18 October 1976 (London, bbc, 2002) dvd. Jack Pulman, “Zeus, By Jove!”, I, Claudius episode 7, directed by Herbie Wise, aired 1st November 1976 (London, bbc, 2002) dvd. Dunleavy (2009) 68.

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g­ alloping as something unique; it is a frightening and overpowering nightmare from which Caligula cannot escape and which is presented as an explanation and justification for his deeds during the episode. The first of these deeds is his sexual relationship with Drusilla, her constant presence being interpreted as comfort to Caligula. In Caligula’s first official meeting, where he vacillates between mania and head pain, she is behind him in every shot and offers to soothe him several times in an explicitly sexual reference: “come to my room and I’ll soothe it [your headache] for you” she purrs three times. This is very shortly followed by a close-up, lingering shot of an open mouthed kiss between them that leaves no doubt about the nature of their relationship. This scene ends with Caligula brought to the floor screaming in pain and distress as the galloping in his head increases and the viewer is left in no doubt that Caligula is not an unambiguous evil, but is a man suffering extreme mental illness. Against this, his love for Drusilla and her love for him is portrayed as real emotion and dependency. When he falls ill and is in a coma, it is Drusilla who is by his bedside, and when he wakes, believing he is a god, she is there. When Caligula shares his metamorphosis into a god with Claudius, as in the book, he is primarily concerned with the belief that his newly discovered divinity means he will be able to marry Drusilla as Zeus did Hera. However, here there is none of the selfishness of Graves’s version, and instead he seems to have deified Drusilla out of care for her. Moreover, Drusilla is presented throughout the remaining episode as being both consenting to the relationship—and the deification. When Claudius tells her that the manic Caligula wants her, she runs to him with concern, while he is portrayed as being only happy when with her, and tormented without her. For example, after he has had Gemellus murdered, he runs to Drusilla for comfort. At the climax of their relationship, she announces that she is pregnant with Caligula’s child while they are frolicking together in a temple, tormenting the statues of the gods together in joy. Her news delights Caligula and simultaneously seals her fate to die at his hands. Throughout the episode, Drusilla appears to be a willing participant in the relationship. The scene in which she declares her pregnancy in particular marks the relationship as mutually desired. Drusilla is not, however, a fully realised character. She only has one scene without Caligula, and it is the only scene in which the viewer is given an insight into her motivations. Towards the end of episode Zeus, by Jove! she is seen looking for Caligula while heavily under the influence of a ‘divine potion’, and she tells Claudius that she maintains the relationship in order to survive: “You play the fool, I play the goddess”.26 26

Pulman, “Zeus, By Jove!” (2002).

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However, having uttered this line, while laughing and intoxicated, she immediately enters Caligula’s bedroom to “play the goddess” only to be murdered by Gaius in a scene that is denoted as the apex of his insanity. The murder is an imitation of Zeus’ treatment of Thetis and Athena, as he has become terrified that her child will be stronger than him. The scene is accompanied, again, by the galloping soundtrack, which becomes louder and more intense as the scene climaxes, and is placed at the very end of the episode—the very centre of Caligula’s story in I, Claudius. The actual mutuality of the relationship is, therefore, deeply ambiguous. The audience is left to wonder if her flirting and acquiescence was masking a coercion never shown on-screen, or if she too desired the relationship. His feelings are less ambiguous; he is truly delighted by the relationship, and appears to love her, albeit as a result of a debilitating madness. It is clear however that her death has been a turning point in his characterisation. He is no longer as sympathetic as a character; in particular, the galloping is no longer heard by the audience. He is still portrayed as being a scared and damaged man—he is terrified of the rain in Germany which he attributes to a feud between himself and Neptune, and refuses to sail lest Neptune harm him.27 However, there is no longer any sense the viewer should care for him or his paranoia after the murder of Drusilla and the ingestion of her unborn child; it is an act so horrific that it denies him the luxury of sympathy. His actions remain the same, but are no longer balanced by either the soundtrack or the desperate conversations in which he reveals the depth of his madness that were frequent in the preceding episode. This is in keeping with the overall ambiguous portrayal of Caligula throughout the series. During his childhood, he is spoilt, angry and wilful with a precocious sexual appetite (at the time of his statement that he would rather sleep with Drusilla, he is approximately eight years old). He murders his father, proclaims himself a god from infancy and burns down Antonia’s house. These incidents are entirely in keeping with the characterisation in Graves’s novel, and Young Caligula is played by Robert Morgan as a wholly wicked character without subtlety or nuance. This continues through his first—brief, but powerful—appearances played by John Hurt in Queen of Heaven and Reign of Terror, where he is again shown as deeply unpleasant and with little nuance.28 It is only once he has become emperor and had Drusilla introduced as a character and his lover that his character changes, that the audience is asked through a 27 28

Jack Pulman, “Hail Who?” (2002). Jack Pulman, “Queen of Heaven”, I, Claudius episode 6, directed by Herbie Wise, aired 25th October 1976 (London: bbc, 2002) dvd; Pulman, “Zeus, By Jove!”, (2002).

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combination of Hurt’s performance and Wise’s direction that makes his pain audible to the viewer and places Drusilla constantly at his side, to feel pity for Caligula as he destroys Rome, and to view Drusilla as his only comfort, even while the characters around him refuse to pity him. It is only through the presence of Drusilla that the viewer is exposed to the “human” and troubled Caligula, and once she is dead, he becomes unsympathetic once more. In this presentation, despite the differences and desire to explain Caligula, we are none the less still viewing the relationship through the morally correct eyes of Claudius and expected to see his interpretation as the correct one. Furthermore, we are seeing Caligula in the mostly white and clean pastiched Roman backdrop. Therefore, we read Caligula as being a deviation from Roman norms, as Claudius and the sensible men around him are appalled at the behaviour of the emperor. From this perspective it is the Julio-Claudian family who are an aberration, and Caligula is the most aberrant and abhorrent of them all. His consensual incest with Drusilla is at the centre of his deviancy, insanity and unfitness for rule while Claudius’s disgust at the relationship is equally the audience’s reaction.

“The Great Love of His Life is His Sister, Drusilla”— Caligula (1979)29

The next version of Caligula to appear was in the now notorious 1979 pornographic film Caligula, a version which takes a dramatically different approach from either Graves or Pulman to Caligula and Drusilla. Although Caligula was not popular on its release, it has gained a cult status; a very limited re-release in 1999 took $23 million dollars and in 2007 a 4 disc Imperial Edition of the film was released.30 Originally scripted in 1976 by Gore Vidal, who paradoxically viewed Caligula as “perhaps the most wicked young man who ever lived”, and at the same time “a pretty normal average young man put in an abnormal extraordinary situation”, the film attempts (somewhat clumsily) to construct

29

Gore Vidal in The Making of Caligula, directed by Giancarlo Lui (Shenley: Arrow, 2007) dvd. 30 “Caligula Box Office, 1999” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080491/business?ref_=tt_dt _bus (accessed March 29, 2016). On the impact of Caligula see also Martin Lindner, “Power Beyond Measure—Caligula, Corruption and Pop Culture”, in Sikle Knippschild and Marta Garcia Morcillo (eds.), Seduction and Power: Antiquity in the Visual and Performing Arts (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) 211–224.

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a nuanced character in Caligula within an authentic vision of pagan Rome.31 Vidal as the original writer, and the original director Tinto Brass have both stated (prior to their legal disputes with producer Bob Guccione over the final edit) that in making Caligula they aimed to find the “real person”, to inject some empathy and humanity into his monstrous reputation, and to demonstrate the corrupting influence of absolute power. Both interpret Caligula as being a generally normal young man who is corrupted and influenced by the fact of his own power. As Brass says: I am trying to make a film about the effects of power … I am deeply convinced that power is absolutely immoral. The morality of power is immorality. It is the duty of an artist to show the danger that is implicit in power and the men of power … I did a spiritual meeting and I invoked the spirit of Caligula and he said that I was right to 65% in my interpretation of his character …32 Malcolm McDowell, who played Caligula, broadly concurred and stated at the time of filming that his “interpretation of the character is not quite like that [as a madman]. We wanted to give Caligula a definite point of view, a reason for the so called madness”.33 Their Caligula is not the wholly wicked Caligula of Graves, but is a man changed—inevitably—by his situation, with Tiberius presented as the prime corrupter—a one dimensional syphilitic paedophile without nuance or humanity. The final characterisation of Caligula is remarkably sympathetic; he is referred to throughout as ‘Little Boots,’ or ‘Caesar’ (except by Tiberius), which serves to disassociate him from the symbolic meaning that the name ‘Caligula’ carries in the modern world, and from the opening scene to his death, a vast majority of his actions are explained and mitigated by his upbringing, his power or his perpetual fear of death.34 Alongside this ideology of Caligula, the film aimed to be the first mainstream pornographic feature, capitalising on the name “Caligula”. Bob Guccione, who was the owner of Penthouse magazine, the financier and producer of Caligula and the man responsible for the final cuts, was very clear in his aim for the film: to combine “the traditional over-ground side of the film industry and the underground, x-rated side”.35 This aim required the employment 31 32 33 34 35

Vidal in Lui (2007). Brass in Lui (2007). McDowell in Lui (2007). Caligula, directed by Tinto Brass, released 14th August 1979 (Shenley: Arrow, 2007) dvd. Guccione in Lui (2007).

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of both mainstream actors (Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’Toole, John Gielgud), a mainstream plot and a considerable amount of extreme sexual content. The Roman world was therefore chosen by the production team, led by Guccione, to meet all these criteria. The epic Hollywood toga movies of the 1950s such as Quo Vadis (1951), Julius Caesar (1953), The Robe (1953), Ben Hur (1959) Spartacus (1960) and Cleopatra (1963), had given the Roman world a cultural capital of depth, quality and tradition in film and source material terms that is immediately conferred onto Caligula.36 The Roman world, especially that depicted in those films which highlight a Pagan/Christian dichotomy, also gave Guccione in particular a way to depict his ideas about human sexuality and authenticity. Guccione is clear in interviews that he believes that the Roman world was a more sexually authentic one, and that sexuality has been repressed in the modern world by Christianity: The film is explicit, sexually explicit to be sure. And I don’t want to make any apology or offer any rationale for the film. In order to make this film historically accurate, that was an important part of the original concept, we decided to show Rome exactly as it originally was. Which meant taking into consideration a new kind of morality, a kind of morality that was particular to the Romans, a part of their mores. The film indicates nothing more than we see Rome as accurately as possible in the historic sense and we think that this is vital to the success of the film …37 Caligula and Drusilla’s relationship therefore provided a perfect focal point for the film. It is a controversial topic, it provides a platform for Caligula’s childhood traumas to be played out without explicitly showing them, and at the same time is a perfect excuse for a great many scenes of a pornographic nature. Furthermore, Guccione and Vidal are able to make their incestuous relationship a central point of their effort to depict an “authentic” and “accurate” Rome. As Guccione says: There are things in Caligula that will shock, surprise and no doubt offend a lot of people, but the rationale is that it is not pornography, but paganography. This is the morality of pagan Rome, where one can see the liaison, the relationship, the profound love that existed between Caligula and his sister, and we can show this love affair in all of its beauty and 36 De Groot (2009). 37 Guccione in Lui (2007).

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all of its tragedy because that’s the way it was and that’s the way it was accepted.38 It is this last sentence which is the most significant, and it mirrors Vidal’s vision that Drusilla was Caligula’s one great love. Vidal and Guccione both aim to portray a different kind of authenticity from the producers of I, Claudius. While they aimed for a pastiche of a museum Rome, Guccione and Vidal aimed to demonstrate authenticity through deliberate differentiation between the modern world and the past.39 The Rome of Caligula is full of colour, darkness and filth, and the morality on display is designed to shock, horrify and titillate in equal measure. Having an incestuous relationship as the emotional centre of the film serves this aim well. It is, therefore, a relationship that is entirely central to the film and to Caligula’s character. Much as with the 1976 I, Claudius portrayal, Drusilla is  Caligula’s only solace from the corrupt world in which he lives and from his continual fear. It is worth noting that McDowell’s Caligula is never portrayed as mentally ill as he had been in I, Claudius. Instead he is merely traumatised by his childhood and the deaths of his parents and brothers at Tiberius’ hand. He is therefore seen to be in a state of constant, and warranted, paranoia. Drusilla is depicted as mothering him, protecting him from himself and defending him from the Senate and people of Rome. She forces him to marry a Roman woman, and is on hand to take care of him like a mother when he is terrified by a bird or a thunderstorm. Their relationship is affective and emotional and Caligula uses every trick to make it clear to the viewer that it is characterised by love. From the very opening scene this is clear, as Caligula and Drusilla frolic semi-naked in an idyllic springtime forest, surrounded by lush, fertile flora and fauna and with a light, beautiful soundtrack of the first movement of the adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia from Khachaturian’s ballet Spartacus. This piece of music soundtracks their entire relationship on screen, and is played whenever they are alone together, including a slower, more sombre version played while Drusilla dies.40 In the Khachaturian ballet, the adagio is the point at which Spartacus and Phrygia are reunited after having been torn apart by the cruel Roman consul Crassus and Spartacus has had to rescue her from a

38 Ibid. 39 De Groot (2009). 40 Brass (1979).

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terrible orgy.41 It is therefore a track filled with emotional weight and cultural capital that emphasises the affection and importance of the relationship. The soundtrack and shooting techniques serve throughout to highlight a true love and tenderness between them. Drusilla shows no fear of him, nor is there any sense of coercion. The relationship is, from the start, extremely sexual. Indeed, even her death scene is sexual in nature and culminates in Caligula stripping her corpse naked and fondling and kissing it. However, the soundtrack, combined with the soft focus framing used, and (with the exception of the opening scene) the bedroom location of their every sexual encounter, come together to legitimise the transgressive sex as romantic, to present it as “lovemaking”.42 In every way, the filmmakers have worked to present the incest as explicable and acceptable within the narrative of Caligula’s life. In contrast, it is his sexual encounters with his legal wife Caesonia that are presented as transgressive. Their first meeting is consummated with a semiconsensual sexual act, performed in a kitchen during a lesbian orgy (over which Caesonia has been presiding). While every encounter with Drusilla is face to face (“missionary”), with Caesonia she is kneeling on a table while he stands behind her. There is no soundtrack, and both their faces are impassive. There is no tenderness or sense of mutual pleasure in their sexual encounters. The film contains only one other sexual encounter between Caesonia and Caligula: a group sex scene which includes Drusilla. In this encounter Caligula faces Drusilla, and initiates sexual contact with her alone, while Caesonia stands behind him and remains a secondary player in the scene. There are several scenes which demonstrate Caesonia’s place in Caligula’s mind in relation to his sister, firstly in the knowledge that he has married her on Drusilla’s recommendation (both the fact of the marriage, and the person whom he married); secondly in the scene preceding the group sex scene between them, Caligula is shown to be driven to a frenzy by a thunderstorm from which Caesonia is unable to calm him, and she is forced to call Drusilla to deal with him; finally Drusilla falls ill just as Caesonia has given birth to her daughter, but Caligula leaves the postpartum Caesonia to be with Drusilla as she is dying. While he lies by her bedside whispering “It’s me, your Little Boots. It’s your Little Boots”, his wife appears and, having seen them, flees the room weeping at the realisation that Caligula loves Drusilla more than he does her.43 While the relationship with Drusilla is presented as normal and mainstream, the relationship 41

Aram Kachaturian, Spartacus performed by the St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra (Naxos: 1994) Audio cd. 42 Brass (1979). 43 Ibid.

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between Caligula and his wife is portrayed as the transgression; she is implied to be a corrupting influence on him, for example, in the wedding rape scene, where Caesonia is highly amused, while Drusilla looks on in disapproval. In this way, Vidal/Guccione/Brass provide a break from the earlier characterisations of the relationship as being a manifestation of his depravity or insanity. Instead, they present it as an acceptable love, a “profound love that existed between Caligula and his sister … this love affair in all of its beauty and all of its tragedy”.44 It is not designed to elicit revulsion from the audience, but sympathy, empathy and, given its pornographic nature, arousal—an impressive feat for the graphic depiction of incest. This depiction of the relationship draws heavily (if unconsciously) on pseudo-Freudian notions, that childhood encounters form neuroses and compulsions in the adult, notions which are now mainstream pop-psychology. Caligula’s childhood, growing up under the tyrant Tiberius, and watching his immediate family be destroyed, forces him to develop his terror of death, and to find comfort in Drusilla, the one surviving member of his family, alone. This relationship, then, forms the emotional core of the film, providing the only moments of innocence, joy, sadness or emotional authenticity for Caligula. Drusilla moreover forms the moral heart of the film, the only person who disapproves openly of Caligula’s excessive behaviours, such as the double rape, and tries to control him. But she loves her brother in a sexual way, and she participates happily in a lifelong incestuous relationship with him. She also giggles and encourages his smaller acts of irrationality and cruelty. She cannot therefore be seen as moral in a modern sense. She serves to reinforce Guccione and Vidal’s insistence that the Roman world is fundamentally other; it is brutal, dark, hyper-sexual and depraved and Romans are apparently naked constantly. This is the authentic Rome that is far removed from the clean white togas and marble of museums, Shakespeare, and I, Claudius. This is a new, postmodern form of authenticity and accuracy that sees the Romans not as our moral equivalent but as a moral other. Guccione and McDowell in particular desired to see Rome as other in order to critique what they saw as an inauthentic and repressed modern world, and the Christian tradition that Guccione believed to be responsible for the sexual repression of the 1970s society he was responding to.45 As McDowell and Penthouse Pet Lori Wagner explicitly state, their interpretation of the Roman world is that: 44 45

Guccione in Lui (2007). Ernest Volkman, “Bob Guccione: Penthouse Interview” Penthouse Special Caligula Issue (May 1980) 116–18; 146–50; McDowell in Lui (2007).

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At that time, sex was used as a pleasurable exercise and not frowned upon, and it was only when the Christian ethic came into play that the traditional roman orgy was frowned upon. Everyone does it [sex] all the time; the Romans admitted it, but we don’t. We have hang ups about it.46 It seems then that Wagner and Guccione, as professionals in the porn industry, idealised Roman morality as their own and wished to portray it in this way. Given the conflicting interpretation between Brass, Vidal and Guccione, and the extremely fraught production and post-production, however, the film does not adhere to this interpretation. Instead, Rome appears deeply depraved, oppressive and appalling. It is characterised by Brass’s vision of Rome as a place of darkness, violence, disfigurement and horror. This is, unlike the Rome of I, Claudius, not a world that a modern audience can imagine themselves inhabiting.

The Fall of White Toga Rome

In 2001, Martin M. Winkler offered an overview of the tropes of ancient Rome found in post-1945 American cinema. In these tropes, he particularly sees analogues to Hitler’s Nazi Germany being raised in toga epics time and time again.47 Until the 1960s, he argues, this is the dominant portrayal of the Roman world on film. The portrayal of imperial Rome analysed here offers bookends to this assessment of Rome on film in the west. I, Claudius is a British production that draws on pre-Second World War sentiment of Rome. Caligula on the other hand is produced in a world that is forgetting the Second World War and is emerging from the cultural and sexual revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s. Neither fits these classic Hollywood tropes of Roman morality, and each offers a different perspective on the Roman world. They can bring us back to Monica Cyrino’s question: “Are we the striving, determined Romans on screen?”48 and we can extend it further.

46 47

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McDowell and Wagner in Lui (2007). Martin M. Winkler, “The Roman Empire in American Cinema after 1945” in Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire (eds.), Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 2001) 51. Cyrino (see above n. 4).

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In I, Claudius, both the book and television series, we see virtuous Romans oppressed and cowed by the corrupt and insane Julio-Claudian family. The family are harbingers of the fall of Rome from its glorious, civilised heights, while Claudius acts as the viewer and the representative of civilised Rome in his shock and horror. Within this, Caligula’s incest is a pinnacle of the demonstration of how appalling the Julio-Claudians and the idea of a tyrannical family are. We, the viewer, are expected to align with the morality of classical Rome, and see ourselves in them. In Caligula, however, we see an entirely different presentation of Roman morality. In this world, Rome has already fallen; it is a depraved and luxurious place into which Caligula and his incest fit. Caligula and Drusilla are not monsters here, they are the natural product of a monstrous world, and there is no Claudius to guide us through it. In this vision of Rome, we as viewer have no relationship with Roman morality; we are not the Romans on screen and we are shocked by what we see. We see then, between 1936 and 1979, a dramatic change in the perception of imperial Rome and its morality on screen, punctuated by the transitional 1976 I, Claudius. We can perhaps ascribe this change to the western cultural shifts driven by Second World War and their impact on our relationship with Rome. The war and its aftermath had two extreme impacts on the western relationship with ancient Rome. First, the emergence of the truth about Nazi ideology and the holocaust sparked a need to explain evil, to categorise and control it, to solve the “problem of evil”.49 Evil could no longer be allowed to exist as an incomprehensible constant that could threaten the world, but must be explicable. Secondly, the use of the Romans as a hegemonic analogue for Nazi fascism on film throughout the 1950s meant that they were fundamentally associated with an all—encompassing and irredeemable wickedness by the time of the 1970s, especially in American media.50 The Roman Empire is constructed in American film as the antithesis of all that is good, and is no longer viewed as the moral and ideological pinnacle on which the British empire and the American governmental system were established. It is the latter of these visions that underpins Graves’s pre-war version of Rome, and from which the bbc adaptation struggles to get away. And it is the former notion of a rotten, fascist Nazi analogue to which Guccione and Vidal are responding, with both joy and repulsion. 49

50

Susan Neiman, Evil in Modern Thought (Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 2015) 9; Hannah Arendt, “Nightmare and Flight”, in Jerome Kohn (ed.), Essays in Understanding (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1994) 134. Winkler (2001).

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These different presentations of a single incestuous relationship therefore give us a lens through which to view different constructions of Roman morality in popular culture and to track changes across time. Whether this incest is depicted as an aberration from, or a natural part of, the Roman moral landscape tells us much about the version of Rome that is being constructed and how the viewer is seen to relate to what they see on screen. The versions of Caligula and Drusilla explored here show significant shifts in the view of Roman morality across the mid-twentieth century and consequently significant shifts in the viewer’s perceived relationship to Rome. As the social and cultural revolutions of the twentieth century and the moral lessons learnt from the Second World War sunk in, the West decided that they no longer wanted to be the Romans on screen. Bibliography Arendt, Hannah, “Nightmare and Flight”, in Jerome Kohn (ed.), Essays in Understanding (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 1994) 133–35. Barrett, Antony, Caligula: The Corruption of Power (London: Routledge, 1989). Dunleavy, Trisha, Television Drama: Form, Agency, Innovation (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). Graves, Robert, I, Claudius (London: Penguin, 1936; repr. 2006). Groot, Jerome de, Consuming History: Historians and Heritage in Contemporary Popular Culture (London: Routledge, 2009). Jameson, Frederic, “Postmodernism and the Consumer Society” in Ann Gray and Jim McGuigan (eds.), Studying Culture: An Introductory Reader (London: Bloomsbury, 1997) 192–205. Joshel, Sandra R., “I, Claudius: Projection and Imperial Soap Opera”, in Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire (eds.), Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) 119–61. Lapham, David, Caligula (Rantoul, IL: Avatar Press, 2013–2016). Lindner, Martin, “Power Beyond Measure—Caligula, Corruption and Pop Culture”, in Sikle Knippschild and Marta Garcia Morcillo (eds.), Seduction and Power: Antiquity in the Visual and Performing Arts (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) 211–24. Lui, Giancarlo, The Making of Caligula (Shenley, Arrow Films, 2007) (DVD). Neiman, Susan, Evil in Modern Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015). Rolfe, John, Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914).

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Seymour-Smith, Martin, Robert Graves: His Life and Works (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1982). Volkman, Ernest, “Bob Guccione: Penthouse Interview” Penthouse Special Caligula Issue (May 1980) 116–118; 146–50. Wagner, John, Judge Caligula (London: Titan Books, 1991). Winkler, Martin M., “The Roman Empire in American Cinema after 1945” in Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire (eds.), Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 2001) 50–76.

chapter 8

“Salome, Nice Girl”: Rita Hayworth and the Problem of the Hollywood Biblical Vamp Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones On 25th March 1953, Rita Hayworth—movie star, real-life princess, pin-up girl extraordinaire, America’s sweetheart—2 stunning in a mink-trimmed off-theshoulder evening gown, her trademark red hair teased and curled to shinny perfection—attended New York’s Rivoli Theatre for the premiere of her movie, Salome. Her appearance at the premiere caused something of a sensation, as crowds of loyal fans gathered to glimpse their screen idol. So huge was the mob that police were called to hold them back the crowd so that Hayworth could enter the building: A sudden onrush of spectators who broke through the Broadway police lines and descended upon Rita Hayworth on her arrival at the Rivoli Theatre last night came very close to marring the gala premiere of Salome. It was a miracle … that no one—especially Miss Hayworth—was hurt in the crush. Not only the star and her escorts but a score or more of theatrical celebrities who were awaiting the arrival of the honoured guest were roughly pushed into the lobby of the theatre and were pinned there before the police were able to check the excited crowd.1 Once safely ensconced inside the lobby Hayworth was sought by hordes of journalists, calling on her to offer a snippet of information about her role as Salome or, better yet, to reveal something about the on-off relationship with her current husband, Prince Ali Khan, playboy-prince, millionaire, and lothario.2 Throughout her career this level of publicity baffled Hayworth and often alarmed her. “I’m a Spanish peasant”, she would say, with genuine selfdepreciating honesty.

1 ‘Throng Endangers Star’, The New York Times, March 25th 1953. 2 The American press routinely spelled the name ‘Aly’.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_010

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Creating Salome But by 1953 the “Spanish peasant” who had been born Margarita Carmen Cansino in 1918 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of a Spanish immigrant father and a mother of Anglo-Irish descent, had been transformed into “America’s Love Goddess”, a term dreamed up by the press after she had become the most glamorous screen idol of the 1940s.3 When Salome opened that March night, Rita Hayworth had given up her crown as the world’s reigning movie queen, had divorced two husbands, had found a new love, and had been crowned as a genuine princess; she had, though, lost the love of her prince charming, and, returning from Europe, had re-entered Hollywood on a cloud of even greater celebrity. No wonder the press and the armies of fans clamoured for a view of her. Columbia Pictures, the Studio that had financed, marketed, and exhibited Salome happily capitalized on Hayworth’s return and eulogised about the on-screen/off-screen resonances between the real-life princess-actress and the biblical character she portrayed: Probably never in the history of Hollywood has there been a more apt casting of a star than Rita Hayworth as Salome, that seductive princess whose dancing has held the imagination of the world, whose personality and temperament have absorbed the creative minds of writers and artists throughout time. Miss Hayworth is a renowned beauty, a dramatic actress of importance, a dancer of exceptional ability. She combines in her screen person all that is exciting, whether she is playing the good-bad girl as in Gilda … or [the] romantic young woman as in … Cover Girl.4 3 Hayworth has not been well-served by biographers, but there are some notable studies. For her life see Edward Z. Epstein and Joseph Morella, Rita: The Life of Rita Hayworth (London: W.H. Allen, 1983) and to Barbara Leaming, If This Was Happiness. A Biography of Rita H ­ ayworth (New York: Viking, 1989). A lavish photographic biography is provided by Caren Roberts-Frenzel, Rita Hayworth. A Photographic Retrospective (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001). A filmography and potted biography can be found in Gene Ringgold, The Films of Rita Hayworth. The Legend and Career of a Love Goddess (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974). A more interpretative account of the Hayworth life and legend is provided by Adrienne L. McLean, Being Rita Hayworth. Labor, Identity and Hollywood Stardom (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2004). 4 Salome pressbook (1953). Pressbooks (or Campaign Books) were folio-sized glossy magazines (released as part of a press kit) sent to exhibitors (cinema owners or managers); they contained information about a film about to be released. Pressbooks and related press materials date back to 1910s when Hollywood studios released certain information about a film so that cinemas and exhibitors might disseminate details to the press but by the 1950s the major

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In the words of the glossy advertising brochure which accompanied the screening: Miss Hayworth is one of those rarities among Hollywood’s reigning beauties: a top-flight dramatic actress, a top-flight dancer, a fabled woman of the world. There could be no possible alternative in the role of Salome, that proud, passionate, seductive princess whose graceful dancing steps left her impress on the world for all time.5 At the age of 33 Rita Hayworth was far too old for the role of Herodias’ teenage daughter, and in reality the part did not interest her at all; nevertheless much of Salome’s pre-premiere marketing focused on projecting the connections between the actress’s obvious beauty and dance-talent and the legendary beauty and infamous dance moves of the biblical character she was contracted to play. Indeed, the whole concept of putting the Salome story on screen only worked because of its link to Hayworth. Based on the religious novella, The Good ­Tidings by William Sidney, the script had been written by Jesse Lasky Jr., Harry Kleiner, and Robert Ardrey for Hayworth’s own company, Beckworth Productions, for a Columbia Pictures release. The autocratic and tyrannical Studio head, Harry Cohn, urged them to write a vehicle for Hayworth, “that has balls and is big”.6 Columbia Pictures, which had earned a reputation for crafting witty and urbane screwball comedies and glamorous ‘night-life’ movies such as It H ­ appened One Night (dir. Capra, 1934) and His Girl Friday (dir. Hawkes, 1940), was anxious to capitalize upon the growing popularity for colourful biblical ­ ollywood studios routinely designed and distributed carefully constructed advertising to H help in the overall promotion of a film. Most included background information about the film, the actors, the crew and other titbits about the film’s creation as well as a breakdown of the advertising materials and merchandising tie-in products that are available to the cinemas. Exhibitors could order publicity materials from the pressbooks—lobby cards, posters, press releases, were all included. Pressbooks are a vital source for analysing the official Hollywood rhetoric which accompanied a film’s release. Similarly, film brochures were distributed or sold to movie theatre audiences, and were popular souvenirs of a visit to the cinema. Lavishly illustrated, these glossy publications detailed stories of the making of the film, of the lives of the actors, and images of sets and costumes. Like the pressbooks, the film brochures provide important information on Hollywood’s official marketing of the movie. For further discussion see Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Designs on the Past. How Hollywood Created the Ancient World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, Forthcoming). 5 Salome film brochure, 1953. 6 John Lasky Jr., Whatever Happened to Hollywood? (London: W.H. Allen, 1973) 251.

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movies of epic pretentions, such as Paramount’s successful Samson and Delilah (dir. DeMille) of 1949, mgm’s Quo Vadis (dir. LeRoy, 1951), and Twentieth Century Fox’s David and Bathsheba (dir. King, 1951).7 Columbia sponsored and encouraged fine craftsmanship both in front of and behind the camera, but of all its stable of stars (which included A-listers like William Holden, Rosalind ­Russell, Glenn Ford, and Judy Holliday), none was worth more to the Studio than Rita Hayworth. Cohn, who had crafted Hayworth’s early career, insisted that finding a vehicle to suit Hayworth’s talents to promote her return to Hollywood and to capitalize on the popularity of the biblical epic was essential to  Columbia Pictures’ survival. Only Hayworth, he insisted, was capable of making the leap into epic pictures because only she had the guaranteed ­box-office pull. To secure the picture’s success, Academy Award Winner William Dieterle was appointed as director, in spite of his alleged communist sympathies which brought him to the attention of the McCarthy enquiry (although he was never blacklisted as such). With cinematography by Charles Lang, a music score by George Duning and Daniele Amfitheatrof, and Hayworth’s costumes designed by Jean Louis, Salome was given Columbia Pictures’ full attention and a lavish budget to match (and to recoup the cost, the elaborate costumes and monumental sets were reused in Columbia’s ‘B’ pictures, Serpent of the Nile and Slaves of Babylon). Moreover, Cohn spared no expense in hiring Hayworth’s on-screen co-stars, each of them considered by Hollywood to be acting royalty: Stewart Granger as Hayworth’s love-interest, Centurion Claudius, Charles Laughton as Herod, Dame Judith Anderson as Herodias, and Sir Cedric ­Hardwicke in a cameo role as the Emperor Tiberius. Of course, Hayworth had little room for manoeuvre in her acceptance of the role of Princess Salome. She had renewed her contract with Columbia for seven years and besides, her relationship with Cohn had always been fraught and had operated on one founding principle: Cohn had discovered and created Hayworth and felt that he owned her. His ownership of Hayworth operated on both a professional and a sexual level. Expecting intimate favours from actresses in exchange for picture contracts was part of the Cohn style and although similar allegations of sexual harassment could be made of many Hollywood producers of the time, Cohn’s casting couch was considered the most notorious in Hollywood. But Hayworth managed to hold off his many advances ­decade after decade although her marriages (first to Edward Judson, then to

7 See discussion by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, “Hollywood’s Ancient World”, in A. Erskine (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient World (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) 564–79.

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Orson Wells, and subsequently to Ali Khan) never stopped Cohn’s e­ ndeavours.8 Inevitably this unwholesome situation led to high tension between the actress and the producer and as Cohn’s bullying increased, his grip on Hayworth’s career became only tighter. Hayworth was Columbia’s most valuable property and Cohn kept her under contract because she made the studio a lot of money. During the many years they worked together, each did their best to aggravate the other and make each other’s lives miserable, yet in spite of their hostilities, the lengthy work-relationship they shared produced financially lucrative and artistically acclaimed results. As Cohn had anticipated, critics could not fail to see the clearly promoted synergies between Rita Hayworth and the character of the biblical Salome. As Bosley Crowther duly noted in his opening-night review: Considering the popular reputation of a girl named Salome, who had something to do with the unhinging of John the Baptist’s head, and considering the wide-eyed admiration in which Rita Hayworth is held, it is not surprising to find the two young ladies brought together and exploited in a film … Salome … is a flamboyant Technicolored romance, based vaguely on a biblical tale wherein the highly regarded Miss Hayworth plays the legendary dancer at Herod’s court … the climate is mainly saturated with the elegance of the heroine and the fascination of her. She is the object of all eyes.9 By and large the press regarded Salome as a colourful, entertaining, spectacle; and if the movie was not profound, deep, or cutting-edge it was at least, in the words of Orval Hopkins, “a gee-whiz picture”: Gee-whiz what sets; gosh, what costumes; holy smokes, what Technicolor … The panoramic shots in color are tremendous; the scenes aboard a Roman galley, the slaves seating in their manacles, are startling; the acting, some of it at any rate is of the scenery-chewing variety. Altogether, this is a whale of a spectacle.10 8

In fact, Judson was keen to pimp out his wife to Cohn. He saw his wife as an investment. According to Leaming (1989) 102, Harry Cohn “developed an obsession” with the beautiful young Rita Hayworth. But in a rare, explicit show of strength, Hayworth refused her husband’s order to sleep with “the notoriously crude movie mogul”. 9 “Salome at Rivoli Stars Rita Hayworth as Enchantress of the Biblical Story”, The New York Times, March 25th 1953. 10 “Rita’s Back to her Dancing in a Spectacular Salome”, The Washington Post, April 8th 1953.

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And yet beyond the thrill of the visuals, Hopkins expressed some doubt as to  ­rationale of the storyline. “The matter of the dance and the death of John the Baptist are out of sequence with the biblical account”, he puzzled, ­adding that ultimately, “the picture is … a confused and muddy business”. Crowther saw something similar: “In aggrandizing the lady [Hayworth]”, no noted, “the gentlemen who wrote the script have taken considerable liberties with the biblical story of the fate of John the Baptist and also with later fables of Salome”.11 What gave rise to this this critical consternation? It was perfectly acceptable for epic movies, especially biblical ones, to take liberties with their source materials (Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah is a fine case in point).12 In what way, then, was the 1953 film more egregious in its miscalculation of the use of the plot line and in what way was Hayworth’s princess out of step with the S­ alome tradition? The answer is simple: in 1953 Rita Hayworth’s Salome performs the Dance of the Seven Veils not to secure the execution of John the Baptist, but in order to save his life; she dances not out of vice, but out of virtue. The Salome film-brochure provides a brief scenario: In the time of Christ, Galilee is ruled by licentious King Herod (Charles Laughton) and his scheming wife, Herodias (Judith Anderson), both of whom fear the preaching of the prophet John the Baptist (Alan Badel). Salome (Rita Hayworth), daughter of Herodias by her first marriage, is returned from Rome to Galilee by Tiberius (Sir Cedric Hardwicke), under escort of Claudius (Stewart Granger), commander of the Roman legions in Galilee and a secret disciple of John the Baptist. When Herod imprisons John, Claudius tries and fails to obtain assistance for him from Roman governor Pontius Pilate (Basil Sidney). Salome, convinced by Claudius of John’s message, determines to ask his life for a boon after she dances the Dance of the Seven Veils for Herod. Salome’s performance does excite the lustful king; Herodias, watching, wins Herod’s consent for John’s execution before the girl’s sensuous dance is completed. When the Head of John the Baptist is brought into the hall, Salome denounces her mother as a murderess and, with Claudius, quits the palace. Aware of the enormity of his own crime, Herod seeks cringing 11 “Salome at Rivoli”. 12 See Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, “The Fashioning of Delilah. Costume Design, Historicism and Fantasy in Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949)” in Mary Harlow and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones (eds.), The Clothed Body in the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxbow, 2005) 14–29.

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comfort from his High Priest Ezra (Maurice Schwartz), who prays instead for John the Baptist.13 The final scene is particularly crucial: Claudius and Salome, having fled the chaos and carnage of Herod’s court are seen listening to Jesus (shot only from the rear) preach the Sermon on the Mount. The camera moves in on them, showing Salome dressed all in white, her head modestly veiled, her eyes misty with tears.14 The final title appears: “This was the Beginning”. We are left in no doubt that Salome was amongst the first of all Christians. For some critics, Salome was, “a bizarre and even disquieting ­experience … wholly fake; even its vulgarity strik[ing] one as lifeless”.15 Variety even ­reported a London-based campaign which called for Salome to be withdrawn from ­cinemas because it was “a shameful perversion of the bible and a blot on ­Hollywood’s record”.16 In his masterful biography of Charles Laughton, ­Simon Callow declares Salome to be “madly misconceived”, largely because H ­ arry Cohn had “insisted that the star, Miss Hayworth, be (a) virginal, and (b) Christian”.17

“That’s Not a Bus’ness for a Lady!”—A Quick Flit through the Salome Tradition

In what way, then, was Hayworth’s Salome out of synch with the established Salome tradition? The tradition is, of course, more legend than fact; that must come as no surprise.18 In this tradition, Salome, civilization’s most sensational ecdysiast, does one essential thing: she sheds her clothes in a striptease routine which ends in decapitation, destruction, and death. Salome becomes, therefore, through her dance the ultimate femme fatale, a vamp, a beautiful but deadly succubus. However, the ‘real’ Salome story—if we wish to give it an historical ­grounding—occurs only briefly, and plainly, in two of the canonical Christian Gospels, and her name appears not at all. That is only mentioned in passing by 13 “salome—the story of an era”, Salome film brochure, 1953. 14 A smart precis of the plot is also provided by Jeffrey Richards, Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds (London: Continuum, 2008) 76. 15 “Salome; usa, 1952”, Monthly Film Bulletin, January 1st 1953. 16 “London Tab Tabs Salome ‘Shameful’, ‘H’wood blot’”, Variety, July 22nd 1953. 17 Simon Callow, Charles Laughton. A Difficult Actor (London: Vintage, 2012) 225. 18 See especially Paul-André Claudel, Salomé: Destinées imaginaires d’une figure biblique (Paris: Ellipses Marketing, 2013).

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Josephus in trying to untangle the matrimonial complexities of the Herodian house: “Herodias was married to Herod [Antipas]; she had a daughter [by a former marriage], Salome”.19 Mark’s Gospel is the earliest account of a performing princess (let us call her Salome) which we possess: On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you”. And he promised her with an oath, “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom”. She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?” “The head of John the Baptist”, she answered. At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter”. The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. So he immediately sent an ­executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother.20 Matthew’s is a later and briefer, albeit still effective, version: On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist”. The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a ­platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.21 It is Mark who, noticeably, lingers over the detail of Herod’s pledge to give half his kingdom to the dancing-girl—a kind of fairy-tale trope, perhaps

19 Josephus, Antiquities 18: 5.4. Even then, the girl was not consistently called Salome until 1877 when Gustave Flaubert named her Salome in his novella Herodias. 20 Mark 6: 21–28. 21 Matthew 14: 6–11.

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(­reminiscent of Esther 5:3, 5:6, 7:2, 9:12)22—and it is Mark too who affords Herodias a more prominent role by having her unnamed daughter solicit her advice; it is Herodias who cuts to the chase and asks for John’s death.23 And no wonder—both gospel writers note that Herod feared the Baptist and that Herodias’ ire against John had been roused by his criticism of her marriage to Herod, the brother of her first husband (Salome’s father), Philip.24 Salome’s dance itself, it must be noted, is not described. Moreover, the Greek word used by both Mark and Matthew to describe Salome throughout his account is korasion, a diminutive of kore (“young woman”, “virgin on the brink of marriage”); the term means something like “a little girl”. The Salome of the Gospels is actually a child—and this best explains Salome’s dependence on her mother acting as a conduit to express her desire. As René Girard expresses it, in Mark, “the child asks the adult, not to fulfil some desire that would be hers, but to provide her with the desire she lacks”. But Girard furthers this, noting that, “This is too elliptical for Matthew, who deletes the exchange between mother and daughter. He sees only the awkwardness of it, not the genius. He tells simply and reasonably that the daughter is ‘instructed’ or ‘prompted’ by her mother. He feels he must interpret Mark. His interpretation is correct, but less vivid, less dramatic than Mark. We do not see Salome transformed in one instant, mimetically, into a second Herodias”.25 It is important to consider that in the Gospel accounts we see Herodias watching Herod watching Salome, and that while it is the daughter who dances, she is merely the instrument of her mother. Salome is a child performer. Like Iphigeneia of the Greek tragic tradition, Salome is set before the assembled throng of men to entertain them. ­Iphigeneia 22 23

24 25

Cf. Plut. Art. 26.5, Hdt. 9.111. To ask for somebody’s head, in English and in Greek, means merely to as for someone’s death; it does not necessarily mean that Herodias envisaged John’s decapitation. It is ­Salome who takes this literally and asks for the decapitated head of John to be delivered to her on a platter. Matthew 14: 4; Mark 6: 17–18. René Girard, “Scandal and the Dance: Salome in the Gospel of Mark”, New Literary History 15, No. 2, Interrelation of Interpretation and Creation (1984) 314. A critique of Girard’s ­reading is offered by Françoise Meltzer, “A Response to René Girard’s Reading of Salome”, New Literary History 15. 2, Interrelation of Interpretation and Creation (1984) 325–32; Meltzer is ultimately unsuccessful in debunking Girard’s thesis. The accounts of Mark and Matthew are compared by Françoise Meltzer, Salome and the Dance of Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) 29–46. Further discussion of the Gospel tradition can be found in Alice Bach, “Calling the Shots: Directing Salome’s Dance of Death”, Semeia (74), Biblical Glamor and Hollywood Glitz (1996) 103–26.

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is, famously, the apple of her father’s eye, an agalmata (“treasure”) no less, and Agamemnon delights in the beauty of her singing voice and, as odd as this may strike us, he takes pride in her public appearance, showing her off to his guests. Iphigeneia’s youthful innocence therefore side-lines the rules of female decorum. Salome fulfils the same function for Herod during his banquet or symposium, and it is best to think of Salome as a precocious child star, more Shirley Temple than Rita Hayworth. Ruth Webb notes, though, that the Greek terms employed by the Gospel do play with the language of performance and theatricality (as facet too of the ‘performance’ of the Shulammite in Song of Songs 7: 1) so that, whatever her age, it is correct to regard Salome as a public entertainer, with all the ­pejorative notions which that title conjured up in Greco-Roman and Jewish antiquity.26 “Where there is dance, there is the devil”, John Chrysostom warned, but “if you must dance”, said Gregory Nazianzenus, “then dance like David not like Salome”.27 Early Christians saw only bad in the daughter of Herodias and any sense of her childish innocence rooted within the Gospel accounts was ignored. Her dance was a debauchery and Salome was clearly moulded in the hetaira or courtesan role. Only courtesans, after all, would have been permitted to exhibit themselves in public: “the presence of a respectable woman, particularly a daughter of a noble family, at an ancient stag dinner is quite unlikely”.28 Not surprisingly, the Early Church Fathers used the figure of Salome as a cautionary note in warning the women of their congregations not to indulge in the indignities of dance and castigating men who, like Herod, succumb to the pleasures of the gaze.29 This tradition continued uninterrupted into the ­Renaissance and in his illuminating study of Salome in the Medieval period, William Chester Jordan notes that, “No one, so far as I have been able to establish, imagined [Salome], like Pontius Pilate, for example, as a convert to Christianity or a saint in later life. Salome, the flesh and blood woman, never achieved moral regeneration at any stage in her life in the Roman Catholic tradition”.30 In the artistic tradition of Medieval and Renaissance Christianity, Salome plays a prominent role. Highlights of the convention might include a fourteenth century mosaic known as The Feast of Herod in San Marco, ­Venice, in which 26

27 28 29 30

Ruth Webb, “Where There is Dance, There is the Devil: Ancient and Modern Representations of Salome” in F. Macintosh (ed.), The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 130. John Chrysostum, pg 58.489; Gregory Nazianzenus, Or. v Contra Julianum 2.35. Carl Kraeling, John the Baptist (New York: : Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951) 87. Webb (2010) 131–34. William Chester Jordan, “Salome in the Middle Ages”, Jewish History 26 (2012) 5–15.

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Salome dances wildly while holding John’s severed head on the platter above her head, Giotto’s Feast of Herod (c. 1320) in Florence’s Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce, which shows a more stately Salome, and Filippo Lippi’s painted a cycle of the life of John the Baptist for the choir chapel of the church of Santo Stefano in Prato, 1453–64, which has at its centre a youthful and b­ eautiful ­Salome, wearing only her chemise in a theatrical device to suggest the costume of antiquity. She gathers her skirt as she performs on tip-toe, showing too much leg for decorum; she is frivolous and clearly behaving very badly.31 Continuing as a trope throughout the baroque and rococo periods, the bad girl Salome is given a more fulsome wickedness in the latter part of the nineteenth century where, subsumed within the Orientalist movement, her depravity is merged with an unrestrained eastern sensuality and an aggressive sexuality. Henri Regnault’s 1870 painting Salomé has been identified as offering the first hint of the Salomania that erupted in the closing decades of the century.32 With ruffled hair, her clothes in disarray, this bare-footed, gypsy-like Salome has already danced for her stepfather and the platter and knife clasped to her lap wait to do their grisly missions, to bring her reward: the decapitated head of the Baptist. There is something coarse and vulgar about this Salome (Regnault actually employed an Italian, Maria Latini, the fiancée of one of Regnault’s friends as a model), and her direct gaze is as confrontational as her smile is triumphant.33 It was Gustave Moreau’s depiction of Salome though, painted between 1874 and 1876, which established her as the femme fatale pin-up of the fin-de-siècle. Entitled L’Apparition, the scene depicts the end of the dance when Salome ­demands John’s head, which is shown as a vision in front of her. It is an ­opium-infused creation and has, quite rightly, been regarded as one of the most extraordinary works of French nineteenth century art.34 The artist himself described Salome as a “bored and fantastic woman, animal by nature and so disgusted with the complete satisfaction of her desires (that she) gives herself the sad pleasure of seeing her enemy degraded”.35 Taking Moreau’s painting as his inspiration, for Joris-Karl Huysmans, Salome was nothing short of 31

32 33 34 35

For a full discussion of the Medieval and Renaissance tradition see Jane C. Long, “Dangerous Women. Observations on the Feast of Herod in Early Florentine Art”, Renaissance Quarterly 66.4 (December 2013) 1153–205. Bach (1996) 116. For a good, clear image of the work see Nathalie Bondil, Benjamin-Constant. Marvels and Mirages of Orientalism (Paris: Editions Hazan, 2015) 53. Geneviève Lacambre, Gustave Moreau. Between Epic and Dream (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1999) 167 with colour reproductions 168–69. Jeffry Meyers, Painting and the Novel (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975) 34.

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“the symbolic incarnation of world-old Vice, the goddess of immortal Hysteria, the Curse of Beauty supreme above all other beauties by the cataleptic spasm that stirs her flesh and steels her muscles—a monstrous Beast of the Apocalypse, indifferent, irresponsible, insensible, poisoning”.36 The culmination of the Salome obsession, however, was witnessed in her two most famous incarnations: Oscar Wilde’s 1899 sublime, erotic, and highlycharged one-act play, Salomé, and its brilliant and bold 1905 operatic adaptation by Richard Strauss.37 Both artists made the princess the focal point of the action and it was the perversion of lust and desire of Salome rather than Herodias vengeance on John the Baptist that took centre stage in both renditions of the tradition. The kissing of John’s severed head, which occurs in both stage accounts, testifies to the enduring notion of the virgin whore complex, a ­perversion of Salome’s purity tainted by lustful desires. It was Wilde and Strauss who also introduced the world to the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’, a phenomenon which quickly grew in popularity thanks to the performances of Maude Allen, billed as ‘The Salomé Dancer’ whose 1912 dance-show, The Vision of Salomé, took Europe by storm.38 She was praised for, amongst other things, the authentic ‘eastern spirit’ of her performance without the “­vulgarities ­familiar to the tourists in Cairo or Tangier”.39 It was the Dance of the Seven Veils that ushered the vampish Salome into the modern era and in 1908 it was Vitograph who first put her on dance show screen in a production entitled simply Salome, or the Dance of the Seven Veils. Thereafter, on-screen dancing Salome’s were churned out with monotonous regularity, although most of them are forgettable, until, that is, the great Theda Bara, Hollywood’s silent-era sex-bomb cornered the Salome market in 1918 in 36 37

38

39

Joris-Karl Huysmans, À rebours, cited in Toni Bentley (2002) Sisters of Salome (New ­Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2002) 24. For the importance and legacy of these two works see especially Bentley (2002) 17–49. For the production history of Wilde’s play see William Tydeman, Oscar Wilde: Salomé (­Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) and Petra Dierkes-Thrun, Salome’s Modernity: Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetics of Transgression (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2011). For Strauss’ opera see especially Jana Wolf, Richard Strauss: Salome—ein anderes Geschlecht: Strauss’ Oper im Kontext des Geschlechterkampfes in der Wiener Moderne (Düsseldorf: ­Saarbrücken, 2011). Bentley (2002) 47–72; Wendy Bonaventura, Serpent of the Nile: Women and Dance in the Arab World (London: Interlink Pub Group, 2010); Maria Strova, Salome: The myth, the Dance of the Seven Veils (New York: Createspace, 2013); Dierkes-Thrun (2011) 122. Shireen Malik, “‘She Freed and Floated on the Air’: Salome and her Dance of the Seven Veils”, in Jennifer Heath, The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008) 134–53.

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the Fox production of Salome. Theda Bara (whose name, incidentally, was deliberately coined by Fox to be an anagram of ‘Arab Death’) gave the screen a Salome who, dressed in George Hopkins’ bizarre concoctions of gauze veils, chiffon scarves, and strategically strung ropes of pearls, was “every minute the vampire, in manner, movement and expression”.40 The 1910s was the age of the cinematic sex-kitten and bad girls were all the rage, but especially the bad girls of history—Bara’s forte. Variety’s review of her performance noted that the “scarcity of her attire … makes it most fascinating”, and, indeed, it was in her peek-a-boo wickedness that Bara’s Judean princess found lasting effect by inspiring a myriad of imitations—even some of a comic nature.41 Sadie ­Salome (Go Home), for instance, was a hit ragtime song written by Irving Berlin in 1919 for Fanny Brice to perform; it was directly inspired by Theda Bara’s exotic screen cavortings but made funny by the relocation of a latter-day Salome in Brooklyn, New York City.42 If follows the story of a homely Jewish boy, Mose, upset to find that Sadie, his sweetheart, has left home to take up a most unorthodox of all professions—stripping. Seeing her perform on the burlesque stage in the style of Salome, Mose is compelled to shout out from the auditorium, in a catchy, jaunty, tune: Don’t do that dance, I tell you Sadie That’s not a bus’ness for a lady! Most ev’rybody knows That I’m your loving Mose Oy! Oy! Oy! Oy! Where is your clothes? You better go and get your dresses Ev’ryone’s got the op’ra glasses Oy! such a sad disgrace No one looks in your face Sadie Salome, go home! By the 1920s Salome had secured herself a place not only on-screen but also in vaudeville and burlesque and ‘Salome sets’ were popularly performed by striptease artists throughout America and in Europe where cabarets and Music 40 Unnamed, New York Times; October 7th 1918. For Bara’s Salome costumes see Eve Golden, Vamp. The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara (New York: : Emprise, 1996) 165–67. 41 Cited in Ronald Genini, Theda Bara. A Biography of the Silent Screen Vamp, with a F­ ilmography (Jefferson/London: McFarland, 1996) 47. 42 Herbert G. Goldman, Fanny Brice: The Original Funny Girl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) 166.

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Hall competed with Cinemas for audiences.43 When the famous Russian actress Alla Nazimova came to film her straight adaptation of Wilde’s play in 1923 (dir. Bryant), with costumes and sets based closely on the decadent d­ rawings which Aubrey Beardsley had created for the published edition of Wilde’s drama, she nevertheless could not resist the temptation to lampoon the excesses of the story. Her cast, allegedly all homosexuals and lesbians, were carefully chosen to pervert the stereotypes that had developed in the retelling of the Salome  tradition over the previous half-century.44 However in Nazimova’s ­Salome the polarized image of Salome as killer and youthful entertainer was still realized. We should not forget that the silent-screen Salomes are the focal point, in 1950, of Billy Wilder’s brilliant, acidic, study of old Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard.45 Norma Desmond, in her gloomy old mansion, dreams of her screen comeback in the role of Salome and, in one of her desperate bids to reclaim her past, gushes out her plans to her unwilling gigolo: This is to be a very important picture. I have written it myself … It’s the story of Salome. I think I’ll have DeMille direct it. We’ve made a lot of pictures together … Salome! What a woman! What a part! The Princess in love with a Holy Man. She dances the Dance of the Seven Veils. He rejects her, so she demands his head on a golden tray, kissing his cold, dead lips. The final, tragic, scene of Sunset Boulevard merges seamlessly with the ­climactic scene of Norma’s longed-for Salome and it is as Salome, dressed in a makeshift costume of scarves and trailing sashes, that Norma descends the staircase of her house (and into custardy for certain). As she does so though, Wilder does an extraordinary thing: suddenly, he switches style from film noir to epic, and for a brief moment the audience are transported inside Norma’s imagination. As Norma-Salome makes her stately descent of the palace staircase, the film score (brilliantly composed by Franz Waxman) takes on epic proportions too: steady orientalist rhythms (lifted by Waxman to ‘The Dance of the Seven Veils’ from Strauss’s Salome) merge with a distorted sultry habanera previously 43

44 45

Mary Simonson, Body Knowledge: Performance, Intermediality and American Entertainment At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). See also Rachel Shteir, Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) 49–60. Richard A. Lindsay, Hollywood Biblical Epics: Camp Spectacle and Queer Style from the ­Silent Era to the Modern Day (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2015) 25–9. On the creation and impact of this movie see Sam Staggs, Close-up on Sunset Boulevard (London: St. Martin’s Press, 2003).

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a­ ssociated in the film with Norma’s hedonism; Norma finally hears the music of the Salome she wanted Cecil B. DeMille to direct for her comeback. Then, at the foot of the stairs, ready for her close-up, Norma forgets everything around her, walks towards the camera, and breaks all on-screen conventions by looking straight into the lens at the audience, as she disappears into a haze of her own Salome-fuelled madness.

“Dance for Me, Rita!”

There is little doubt that in 1953 William Dieterle and Harry Cohn created a Salome that looked back to the Biblical silent-movies of the 1910s and the early 1920s. It is inconceivable that Cohn was unaware of the Theda Bara version of the story, and if he knew of Nazimova’s adaptation, then he probably knew too that it was a box-office flop that left the movie star bankrupt. The 1953 film, however, although informed by the Salome bad-girl tradition of the 1910s, instinctively moves away from it since both Bara’s and Nazimova’s Salomes were flapper-princesses-cum-vamps out for good times and murderous ends, and such blatant displays of on-screen degeneracy were no longer permissible (or wanted) in Post-War Hollywood. The Hays Code (the informal name for The Motion Picture Production Code, named after Will Hays, its enforcer), adopted in 1930 but not seriously enforced until 1934, had established a set of rules ­governing American filmmaking that shaped—and in many ways stifled— American cinema for over three decades, coinciding with Hollywood’s Golden Age.46 The ‘General Principles’ of the Code insisted that, “No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin” and that “Correct standards of life … shall be presented”. Moreover, “Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall sympathy be created for its violation”.47 Hollywood’s epic movies of the early 1950s were both timely and lucrative antidotes to the creative oppression of 46

47

On the Production Code see Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930–1934 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Nora Gilbert, Better Left Unsaid: Victorian Novels, Hays Code Films, and the Benefits of Censorship (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015); Gregory Black, Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Cited in Leonard J. Jeff and Jerold Simmons (eds.), The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code from the 1920s to the 1960s (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990) 283–86; see also Doherty (1999) 347–68.

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the Code, r­ eflecting as they did America’s Post-War commitment to Christianity and moral rectitude.48 In this climate of self-censorship and the promotion of wholesome American family values, Columbia Pictures could not afford to tamper with Rita Hayworth’s lucrative box-office appeal which had been so carefully crafted during the 1940s. In spite of Hayworth’s divorce from Eddie Judson, her marriage to Orson Wells (the press nicknamed the couple “Beauty and the Brain”), the breakdown of that relationship, subsequent affairs with David Niven, Victor Mature, Howard Hughes (amongst others), and her marriage to the playboy prince Ali Khan, Rita’s public image remained remarkably untarnished. The 1940s saw her reach superstardom with a string of screen hits and whilst ­Hayworth’s romances were covered in the gossip columns, so were her war ­effort contributions, such as her charity work for the British War Relief ­Association of ­Southern California and her work at the Hollywood Canteen; she even toured with uso to military hospitals and training camps.49 During World War ii Rita Hayworth’s wholesome image was carefully ­utilized by the us government in a major publicity campaign, in which she became a much-loved household name bringing comfort to the boys at on the front line of the war effort and inspiration to their wives and girlfriends at home. Regular mass exposure in magazines and newspapers and public appearances helped create her wartime role (alongside Betty Grable) as America’s Sweetheart, every soldier’s girlfriend. For her part, Hayworth enjoyed lucrative advertising contracts promoting a myriad of consumer products: household goods and products including toffee, cola, margarine, and, of course, cosmetics. The employment of her image in these wholesome family-focused campaigns was matched in glossy fan-magazines such as Silver Screen or Photoplay which promoted Rita as glamour girl, the most desired woman in the world, the “American Love Goddess”. As Salome went into pre-production it became clear that Rita Hayworth could not be molded a latter day vamp. In spite of her glamour image and the romantic vicissitudes of her off-screen life, to have molded Hayworth, at this junction of her career, to fit the expectations of a femme-fatale Salome would have been detrimental to Rita’s carefully constructed and monitored ­star-persona. As Alice Bach succinctly puts it, “an out of control d­ ominating 48

49

See importantly Maria Wyke, Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History (­London: Routledge, 1997) 34–72. See further, Melanie J. Wright, Moses in America. The Cultural Uses of Biblical Narrative (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) and Aubrey Malone, Sacred ­Profanity. Spirituality at the Movies (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010). Ringgold (1974) 34–5.

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sex goddess was the subject of horror films [and] hardly the domain of a box office star like Rita, who was not the sort to be cast against audience sympathy”.50 In the public consciousness Rita Hayworth could, seemingly, do no wrong. It figured that her Salome would have to follow suit. Thus in a piece of ­advance-publicity published in March 1953, life Magazine ran an article entitled “­Salome, Nice Girl”. The full-page image which accompanies the story (figure 8.1) is a telling testimony of the power of the Salome tradition: Hayworth, in veil number seven, the flesh-coloured body suit designed for her by Jean Louis, is shown shedding veil number six with obvious abandon. Her image is set against Aubrey Beardsley’s striking black and white print depicting the gory climax of the Wildian play, as the princess takes the severed head of the Baptist into her hands, lifts it eye-level, and kisses its blood-dripping mouth. Hayworth’s pose seems flippant in contrast to the cruel starkness of Beardsley’s image; flinging her yellow veil into the air, she appears to cast off the weight of two millennia’s-worth of the Salome tradition. She is setting the record straight, as the accompanying text duly emphasizes: Most authorities since St Mark regarded Salome as at least a willing accessory in the killing of John the Baptist … but the record is being set straight by a new movie called Salome. Its heroine, played by Rita ­Hayworth [is a] nice … Idumean girl who … strips off her seven veils … in an effort to save John not to do him in. This egregious overwriting of the ingrained Salome tradition was given its most fluent articulation in a host of advance-publicity articles gathered together in the Salome pressbook, all of which were intended for mass distribution in newspapers and magazines. Typically, one such article notes that Hayworth’s Salome was simply “a girl from Galilee”, although, unable to free itself completely of the old Salome-stereotype, it admits that she was also “a tantalising princess whose dancing enthralled a king and his court”. It continues by emphasising that Salome’s life story witnessed the momentous shift in civilization from pagan idolatry into Christian sanctity: Salome lived in an era when a new civilization, a new way of life, was coming into being. Product of the past, Salome embodied in her person all the savagery, all the sensuous passion of the barbaric time which was to disappear. Alive to beauty and to love and to the promise before her, 50

Bach (1996) 117.

“Salome, Nice Girl”

Figure 8.1 Advertising image from ‘Life Magazine’, 1953. Rita’s Hayworth’s Salome ­superimposed onto a background of Aubrey Beardsley’s print of Salome kissing the head of John the Baptist ( from the private collection of the author).

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Salome today personifies the eternal contradiction, a disturbing, delightful embodiment of all that is good and bad in mankind … Long before filming began … Dieterle [was] discussing both the girl and her time with historians, research workers and religionists. Was she good? Was she bad? Was she both? Was Herodias, her mother, the evil genius behind those 26 lines in Matthew and Mark? Neither … the Vulgate … or the King James Version provided the answers … Writers and artist [have all] differed in their interpretations; Salome was seductive, no question of that. But was Salome a victim of court intrigues, of maternal jealousies? Was Salome herself a figure of evil or was she the lover and the beloved, a woman who minspired and returned a soldier’s passion?51 For her part, and by emphasising the Salome-Claudius romance, Hayworth, “gave numerous publicity interviews in which she portrayed Salome as a nice girl who’d gotten a raw deal from love”, thereby essentially telling her own sorry story of failed romances.52 Virginal, (proto-) Christian, simply a “girl from Galilee”, a “nice Idumean girl” (whose Jewishness is completely overlooked both in the movie and in its ­marketing), Rita Hayworth’s “Salome, nice girl”, is, of course, an abstraction masterminded by a Hollywood publicity campaign. And yet the construction was worth the effort: to bring the legendary biblical dance-seductress into the orbit of Hollywood’s hottest dancing Love Goddess was, for Harry Cohn, nonetheless a sure-fire route to success. “Miss Hayworth”, the publicity insisted, “is one of those rarities amongst Hollywood’s reigning beauties: a top-flight dramatic actress, a top-flight dances, a fabled woman of the world. There could be no possible alternative in the role of Salome”.53 By 1953 cinema audiences had become familiar with Rita Hayworth in two on-screen personas. First, there was Hayworth the Hoofer, a superlatively gifted dancer with a string of musical box-office hits to her name including The Strawberry Blonde (dir. Walsh, 1941), You’ll Never Get Rich (dir. Landfield, 1941), You Were Never Lovelier (dir. Seiter, 1942) and, most successfully, Cover Girl (dir, Vidor, 1942), in which she tripped the light fantastic with the likes of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Then there was Hayworth the troubled Femme Fatale in Film Noir classics such as Blood and Sand (dir., Mamoulian1941), ­Gilda (dir. Vidor, 1946), The Lady From Shanghai (dir. Wells, 1947), and Affair in 51 52 53

Salome Pressbook, 1953. Diana McLellan, The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000) 122. Salome Pressbook, 1953.

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Trinidad (dir, Sherman, 1952). In this incarnation Hayworth played a series of women tormented by the trials of love; none were wicked, merely damaged. Even ­Gilda, Hayworth’s most iconic role, “wasn’t really crooked, just a little out of line”.54 Both of Hayworth’s public incarnations contained something of the real off-screen Rita—her natural beauty, her raw talent, her commitment to hard work, her friendliness and openness—although neither of them came close to expressing the deep insecurities and neuroses she experienced as a wife, a mother, and as a working woman. Hayworth, making reference to her most famous femme-fatale role, famously lamented that, “It’s hard being Gilda for twenty-four hours at a time … Men may go to bed with Gilda, but they wake up with me.” It was hard being Rita Hayworth, one of Hollywood’s most manufactured movie stars, and yet, nonetheless, as Adrienne McLean has perceptively observed, while “there was an element of passivity in Hayworth’s image”, she also functioned as a woman who had overcome her ‘type’ as a Latino starlet, “but also her own shyness, lack of confidence, domination by men, [and] diffidence” to prove that the Post War period was a time of social change and complexity.55 The synergy between Haworth the Love Goddess and Hayworth the Hoofer explains why Salome went into production. In many respects the Dance of the Seven Veils sequence was the movie’s only raison d’être. After all, the striptease had become central to the Salome tradition, and Columbia Pictures, like all other post-Wildean adapters, was happy to follow suit with that most beguiling of myths. Accordingly Dieterle hired the modern-dance choreographer Valerie Bettis to create Hayworth’s dance: In Salome, Miss Hayworth dances the Dance of the Seven Veils, the most expressive performance she has ever given on the screen. This dance, ­created for the film by Broadway choreographer Valerie Bettis, demanded the utmost in voluptuous movement, in bodily freedom  … Rita in her dance must discard those veils without a hint of awkwardness which attends upon buttons and straps. Her dancing costume had to flow.56 54 55 56

Bach (1996) 117. McLean (2004) 63. Salome pressbook, 1953. Bettis also choreographed Hayworth’s Affair in Trinidad dances; see Larry E. Billman, Film Choreographers and Dance Directors: A Heavily-illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia with a History and Filmographies, 1893 through 1995 (New York: ­Mcfarland & Company, 1996), s.v. ‘Bettis, Valerie’.

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In many respects, however, Hayworth’s Dance of the Seven Veils is an anticlimax, a safe affair that pales into insignificance besides the memory of her ‘Put the Blame on Mame’ routine from Gilda. In that infamous dance number (choreographed by Jack Cole and probably the most famous striptease in all cinema), Hayworth struts, shimmies, tosses her red hair, wiggles her derriere, and slowly unpeels a pair of black satin evening-gloves (but nothing else) in the perfect illusion of erotic abandon; she teases the audience into “imagining her revealing much more than her supple beckoning arms”.57 Gilda easily out-Salomes Salome. Bettis’ choreography insisted upon Hayworth disrobing, veil by veil, and although the routine is expertly constructed, and excellently performed, with Salome artfully removing each veil as the number builds to its climax, the dance fails to entertain let alone arouse. Hayworth is oddly, disconcertingly, wooden as a coquette and, as Bach observes, “in Salome the actress seems to be focusing on a choreographer’s instructions. One can imagine her counting the steps rather than the admiring glances from the men of the court”.58 Roland Barthes once noted that a striptease routine is based on a single paradox: “Woman is desexualized at the very moment when she is stripped naked”; by the time the stripper lets slip her last item of her clothing she has regained, “a perfectly chaste state of the flesh”.59 An effective striptease follows a law of diminishing returns so that the ‘ritual’ of disrobing, as Barthes sees it, makes the body “more remote”. But, as the Gilda dance routine shows, even the ritual might be imaginary; ‘Put the Blame on Mame’ exposes nothing of Hayworth body other than two white arms, yet the illusion of complete sexual abandonment is tantamount to its success. The bodystocking worn by Hayworth as Salome at the climax of her dance may have caused a sensation in the American press, which alleged that no actress, had ever shown so much flesh, but in reality the girl-next-door in her Technicolor veils fails to ignite the passions. As Alice Bach wryly notes, “Rita’s dance compared with the other cinematic Salomes, whose task is to seduce Herod, is as salacious as the heroine of a hygiene film made for bored seventh graders”.60 Having shed her garments, Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils ultimately renders Hayworth’s sex appeal coldly redundant.

57 58 59 60

Bach (1996) 117. Ibid. 119. Roland Barthes, “Striptease”, in Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972) 84–87, quotation on 84. Bach (1996) 117.

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Concluding Thought

The glamour which was provided by the casting of Hollywood movie stars like Rita Hayworth as Salome had to be outweighed against the inherent difficulties of casting movie stars in historical roles. It is impossible to think of the historical Cleopatra without visualizing Elizabeth Taylor; she outlives history just as Charlton Heston outlives Ben-Hur and Moses and Kirk Douglas outlives Spartacus. Peter Ustinov will perpetually be seen in the guise of Nero, just as Nero will always be envisaged as Peter Ustinov. The use of an actor to ‘be’ any character, but especially an historical figure, will always be a kind of fiction—a film attempts to say what cannot ever truly be said: that this is how this person looked, moved and sounded. However, when famous movie stars appear in historical roles, they still tend to be more themselves than the historical individuals they present. There is, therefore, a risk of confusing historic figures with movie stars and although films might be promoted on this conceit, as was the case with the 1953 Salome, the result is rarely successful. The presence of the star actor pulls against the rhetoric of experiencing the ‘reality’ of the historical past. Thus, when Rita Hayworth dances as Salome, she is nonetheless both promoting and echoing her back catalogue of on-screen dance routines. She is a Gilda-want-to-be in biblical fancy dress. The Hollywood star-system was the sore spot of history on film and, in many respects, it was the casting of Rita Hayworth as Salome that created the problems for the 1953 movie. Rita Hayworth’s virginal Salome says far more about 1950s America and the Hollywood star system than it does about the deep cultural resonances of the longestablished Salome tradition, and Columbia’s marketing ambition to offer a synergy of Hayworth’s on-screen personas turned out to be a garbled amalgam which, in the end, de-sexed the American Love Goddess. Salome, nice girl, ­ultimately wins out so that, as one reviewer put it, “Salome was a good girl—just a ­wide-eyed cutie”.61 Bibliography Bach, Alice, “Calling the Shots: Directing Salome’s Dance of Death”, Semeia (74), ­Biblical Glamor and Hollywood Glitz (1996) 103–26. Barthes, Roland, Mythologies (trans. Annette Lavers) (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972). 61

Unnamed, “Salome was a good girl—just a wide-eyed cutie: Hollywood interprets the Bible again”, The Manchester Guardian, July 18th 1953.

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Bentley, Toni, Sisters of Salome (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2002). Billman, Larry E., Film Choreographers and Dance Directors: A Heavily-illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia with a History and Filmographies, 1893 through 1995 (New York: McFarland & Company, 1996). Black, Gregory, Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies (­Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Bonaventura, Wendy, Serpent of the Nile: Women and Dance in the Arab World (London: Interlink Pub Group, 2010). Bondil, Nathalie, Benjamin-Constant. Marvels and Mirages of Orientalism (Paris: ­Editions Hazan, 2015). Callow, Simon, Charles Laughton. A Difficult Actor (London: Vintage, 2012). Claudel, Paul-André, Salomé: Destinées imaginaires d’une figure biblique (Paris: Ellipses Marketing, 2013). Dierkes-Thrun, Petra, Salome’s Modernity: Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetics of Transgression (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2011). Doherty, Thomas, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930–1934 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). Epstein, Edward Z. and Joseph Morella, Rita. The Life of Rita Hayworth (London: W.H. Allen, 1983). Genini, Ronald, Theda Bara. A Biography of the Silent Screen Vamp, with a Filmography (Jefferson/London: McFarland, 1996). Gilbert, Nora, Better Left Unsaid: Victorian Novels, Hays Code Films, and the Benefits of Censorship (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015). Girard, René, “Scandal and the Dance: Salome in the Gospel of Mark”, New Literary History 15, No. 2, Interrelation of Interpretation and Creation (1984) 311–24. Golden, Eve, Vamp. The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara (New York: Emprise, 1996). Goldman, Herbert G., Fanny Brice: The Original Funny Girl (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). Jeff, Leonard J. and Jerold Simmons (eds.), The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood, Censorship, and the Production Code from the 1920s to the 1960s (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990). Jordan, William Chester, “Salome in the Middle Ages”,  Jewish History 26 (2012) 5–15. Kraeling, Carl, John the Baptist (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951). Lacambre, Geneviève, Gustave Moreau. Between Epic and Dream (Chicago: Art I­ nstitute of Chicago, 1999). Lasky Jr., John, Whatever Happened to Hollywood? (London: W.H. Allen, 1973). Leaming, Barbara, If This Was Happiness. A Biography of Rita Hayworth (New York: ­Viking, 1989). Lindsay, Richard A., Hollywood Biblical Epics: Camp Spectacle and Queer Style from the Silent Era to the Modern Day (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2015).

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Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd, “The Fashioning of Delilah. Costume Design, Historicism and Fantasy in Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949)”, in Mary Harlow and LLoyd Llewellyn-Jones (eds.), The Clothed Body in the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxbow, 2005) 14–29. Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd, “Hollywood’s Ancient World”, in Andrew Erskine (ed.), A Companion to the Ancient World (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) 564–79. Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd, Designs on the Past. How Hollywood Created the Ancient World (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming). Long, Jane C., “Dangerous Women. Observations on the Feast of Herod in Early Florentine Art”, Renaissance Quarterly 66.4 (December 2013) 1153–205. Malik, Shireen, “‘She Freed and Floated on the Air’: Salome and her Dance of the Seven Veils”, in Jennifer Heath (ed.), The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008) 134–53. Malone, Aubrey, Sacred Profanity. Spirituality at the Movies (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010). McLean, Adrienne L., Being Rita Hayworth. Labor, Identity and Hollywood Stardom (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2004). McLellan, Diana, The Girls: Sappho Goes to Hollywood (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Meltzer, Françoise, “A Response to René Girard’s Reading of Salome”, New Literary H ­ istory 15. 2, Interrelation of Interpretation and Creation (1984) 325–32. Meltzer, Françoise, Salome and the Dance of Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). Meyers, Jeffry, Painting and the Novel (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975). Richards, Jeffrey, Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds (London: Continuum, 2008). Ringgold, Gene, The Films of Rita Hayworth. The Legend and Career of a Love Goddess (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974). Roberts-Frenzel, Caren, Rita Hayworth. A Photographic Retrospective (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001). Shteir, Rachel, Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show (Oxford: Oxford ­University Press, 2006). Simonson, Mary, Body Knowledge: Performance, Intermediality and American Entertainment At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Staggs, Sam, Close-up on Sunset Boulevard (London: St. Martin’s Press, 2003). Strova, Maria, Salome: The myth, the Dance of the Seven Veils (New York: Createspace, 2013). Tydeman, William, Oscar Wilde: Salomé (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). Webb, Ruth, “Where There is Dance, There is the Devil: Ancient and Modern Representations of Salome” in F. Macintosh (ed.), The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 123–44.

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Wolf, Jana, Richard Strauss: Salome—ein anderes Geschlecht: Strauss’ Oper im Kontext des Geschlechterkampfes in der Wiener Moderne (Düsseldorf: Saarbrücken, 2011). Wright, Melanie J., Moses in America. The Cultural Uses of Biblical Narrative (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). Wyke, Maria, Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History (London: Routledge, 1997).

chapter 9

Representations of the Christian Female Virtue in Roman Film Epics: The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Quo Vadis (1951) Panayiota Mini 1 Scholars of the reception of ancient world in popular culture have lately turned their attention to gender representation.2 Regarding the representation of ancient women on the screen, in particular, a key study is Maria Wyke’s 2007 monograph The Roman Mistress: Ancient and Modern Representations. In addition to discussing classical texts, Wyke has documented Cleopatra’s portrayal in a range of films and television productions and shown the ways in which in different countries and periods the image of Cleopatra changed to reflect contemporary concerns.3 Since then, Martin M. Winkler has made a signal contribution to the investigation of television portrayals of the women of the ancient world. In his article “Three Queens: Helen, Penelope and Dido in Franco Rossi’s Odissea and Eneide”, Winkler demonstrates how Rossi’s visual techniques (including camera distance, lighting, staging, and use of lenses) and alterations of the epics of Homer and Virgil produce memorable female characters projecting a modern sensibility.4 An ever-increasing number of studies shed further light on ancient filmic representations of the women of antiquity, ranging from cinema’s early years to the Hollywood epics of the 21st century.5 1 I thank the editors of this volume, Eran Almagor and Lisa Maurice, for their helpful comments on this essay. 2 A major such collection of essays is Almut-Barbara Renger and Jon Solomon (eds.), Ancient Worlds in Film and Television: Gender and Politics (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013). 3 Maria Wyke, The Roman Mistress: Ancient and Modern Representations (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). 4 Martin M. Winkler, “Three Queens: Helen, Penelope and Dido in Franco Rossi’s Odissea and Eneide”, in Silke Knippschild and Marta Garcia Morcillo (eds.), Seduction and Power: Antiquity in the Visual and Performing Arts (London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2013) 133–54. 5 For female representations in silent cinema and recent Hollywood epics, see, respectively, Margaret Malamud, “Consuming Passions: Helen of Troy in the Jazz Age”, in Pantelis Michelakis and Maria Wyke (eds.), The Ancient World in Silent Cinema (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 2013) 330–46, and Monica S. Cyrino’s reading of Lucilla in

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_011

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This article contributes to the discussion by examining the depiction of the Christian female virtue in two American films with similar plots: Cecil B. DeMille’s (1881–1959) The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Mervyn LeRoy’s (1900– 1987) Quo Vadis (1951). DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross is based on the toga play of the same title (premiered in March 1895 in St. Louis, Missouri) and novel (1896) by Wilson Barrett (1846–1904), the British actor-manager who helped the toga play to flourish. LeRoy’s 1951 film is an adaptation of Polish Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz’s (1846–1916) novel Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero (1896, known as Quo Vadis). The plots of Barrett’s The Sign of the Cross and Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis resemble one another to such an extent that some consider The Sign of the Cross to be an adaptation of the Polish novel or discuss the two works as if they were the same.6 Barrett’s The Sign and of the Cross and Sienkiewicz’s Quo Vadis have been transferred to the big screen more than once;7 nevertheless DeMille’s and LeRoy’s adaptations are considered landmarks in the history of the Hollywood “Gladiator and Contemporary American Society”, in Martin M. Winkler (ed.), Gladiator: Film and History (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004) 134–5. See also Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos (ed.), ­Ancient Greek Women in Film (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 6 See, for instance, Constantine Santas, James M. Wilson, Maria Colavito and Djoymi Baker, The Encyclopedia of Epic Films (Lanham, Boulder, New Work, Toronto, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014) 444. In addition, reviewers frequently compared the two films. See Anne Morey, “Home or Away? Words and Things in Quo Vadis (1951)”, in Richard Wrigley (ed.), C ­ inematic Rome (Series: Troubador Italian Studies) (Leicester: Troubador Publishing, 2008) 47, 50. In fact, evidence suggests that Barrett’s work preceded Sienkiewicz’s. Quo Vadis first appeared in March 1895 in daily installments of Gazeta Polska (David J. Welsh, “Serialization and Structure in the Novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz”, The Polish Review 9, no.3 (summer 1964) 53), the same month that Barrett’s play premiered in St. Louis; the play had been completed in 1894. Some years later Barrett did adapt Quo Vadis to a toga play, keeping though Sienkiewicz’s original title. For Barrett’s The Sign of the Cross see David Mayer, Playing out the Empire. Ben-Hur and Other Toga Plays and Films: A Critical Anthology (1994; repr. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); James Thomas, The Art of the Actor-Manager: Wilson Barrett and the Victorian Theatre (Series: Theater and Dramatic Studies no. 15) (Ann Arbor, MI: umi Research Press, 1984) 130. I thank theater historian Constantina Georgiadi, Assistant Researcher at the Institute of Mediterranean Studies in Rethimno, Crete, for helping me with my research on the toga play. 7 An American silent film adaptation of The Sign of the Cross, directed by Frederick A. Thomson, was released in 1914. In addition to LeRoy’s adaptation, Quo Vadis was transferred to the big screen in 1912 (a ‘Società Italiana Cines’ silent film directed by Enrico Guazzoni), in 1925 (a ‘Unione Cinematografica Italiana’ silent film directed by Gabriellino D’Annunzio and Georg Jacoby), and in 2001 (a Polish film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz). See Ruth Scodel and Anja Bettenworth, Whither Quo Vadis?: Sienkiewicz’s Novel in Film and Television (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell/John Wiley & Sons, 2009) and Ewa Skwara, “Quo

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epic given their spectacular character and box-office success. Despite its limited budget, DeMille’s film, a Paramount Pictures production, stunned its ­audience with its lavish depiction of Roman imperial life and both brutal and sensational arena scenes. It became one of the top-grossing films of the 1932/33 season and one of Paramount’s few hits at the time, re-establishing DeMille’s fame in Hollywood after a series of flops.8 LeRoy’s Quo Vadis, a Metro-­ Goldwyn-Mayer production shot in Rome on location and in Cinecittà as the studio’s first color film, took six months to be made at a cost of almost 7 million dollars. It proved to be an enormous box-office hit, “the second all-time grosser after Gone with the Wind” to that time and opened the way for similar Hollywood spectacles.9 In addition to their significance for the Hollywood epic, The Sign of the Cross and Quo Vadis were made in decisive periods of American history. Released in 1932, The Sign of the Cross appeared in one of the worst years of the Great Depression. Planned to be made since 1948, Quo Vadis was completed in the early 1950s, at a time of prosperity but also of bitter memories from World War ii. Thus, comparing these films’ female protagonists, Mercia in The Sign of the Cross and Lygia in Quo Vadis, will help us appreciate important shifts in the popular discourse on female virtue in two eras of American history, the Great Depression and the aftermath of World War ii. The virtuous Mercia in The Sign of the Cross, I contend, is associated with ­female passivity, domesticity and housekeeping. The virtuous Lygia in Quo V ­ adis emerges as a champion of the American post-war ideals of liberty, peace and equality.10 To accomplish their tasks, the filmmakers, I further suggest, made extensive changes to Barrett’s strong Mercia and Sienkiewicz’s childlike Lygia. Our examination helps us to understand the gender ideology of two popular films, but also to reflect on the way Hollywood reconstructed the women of antiquity, even to the point of drastically altering their original representations.

8 9

10

Vadis on Film (1912, 1925, 1951, 1985, 2001) the Many Faces of Antiquity”, Classica— Revista Brasileira de Estudos Clássicos 26, no. 2 (2013) 163–74. Robert S. Birchard, Cecil DeMille’s Hollywood (Lexington, KY: The University Press of ­Kentucky, 2004) 259. James Monaco, A Comprehensive Alphabetical Listing of the Most Important Movies Ever Made (New York: Perigee Books, 1992) 745. On the film’s production and success see also Jon Solomon, The Ancient World in the Cinema (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2001 revised edition) 217–9. My analysis of LeRoy’s Lygia develops and elaborates upon some of Scodel and Bettenworth’ s observations in Whither Quo Vadis?(2009).

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Barrett’s and DeMille’s Virtuous Mercia

Following its March 1895 premiere in St. Louis, Barrett’s play The Sign of the Cross became a huge popular success in the United States, the playwright’s native England and other countries, including Holland, Germany, Austria, Canada and New Zealand. By 1904 The Sign of the Cross had been staged over 10,000 times.11 Still, as Barrett never published this play, there is no definitive text of it. The Sign of the Cross is known to us through two other versions: the novel that Barrett produced from the play in 1896 and “an acting text” that David Mayer published in 1994 based on the Library of Congress copy, the British licensing copy, subsequent revisions and descriptive material from the novel.12 DeMille definitely used the novel as his source. According to Robert Birchard, who has consulted archival documents, before shooting The Sign of the Cross DeMille asked actress and screenwriter Jeanie MacPherson (1887–1946) “to read the 1907 novelization” of it.13 It is not unlikely that DeMille was also familiar with some unpublished copies of the play since he had been in contact with Barrett’s estate in order to acquire the dialogue rights to The Sign of the Cross.14 In any case, in both the acting text (which for brevity I will hereafter call “the play”) and the novel, Barrett presents Mercia as a dynamic figure. Instead, the film’s narrative situations and iconography present Mercia as a submissive and considerate housewife, adjusting Barrett’s heroine to the ideal of the virtuous American woman of the early 1930s. The story of DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross goes as follows. The Roman ­Emperor Nero (Charles Laughton) has just burnt Rome and spreads rumors that the Christians are to blame, in order to deflect suspicions away from him. During the arrests of the Christians, Nero’s highest military official, Prefect 11 12

13 14

Thomas (1984) 131–34. See, respectively, Wilson Barrett, The Sign of the Cross (London: John Macqueen, 1897) and Wilson Barrett, “The Sign of the Cross”, in Mayer (2002) 104–87. For Mayer’s editorial strategy see Mayer (2002) 112. Birchard (2004) 253. Scott Eyman, Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille (New York: Simon and Schuster 2010) 289. DeMille bought the silent rights to the property from Mary Pickford who had acquired them in 1924 from the Famous Players Film Company, producer of the 1914 silent version of The Sign of The Cross. See Eyman (2010) 289; Birchard (2004) 251. According to the director’s granddaughter, Cecilia De Mille Presley, and w ­ riter-photographer Mark A. Vieira, in 1895, at the age of thirteen, the future director saw a performance of the play starring Barrett and was impressed by it. Cecilia De Mille Presley and Mark A. Vieira, Cecil B. DeMille: The Art of the Hollywood Epic (Philadelphia, PA and London: Running Press, 2014) 179.

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Marcus Superbus (Fredric March), meets the Christian girl Mercia (Elissa Landi) and falls in love with her. He hides her at his home, where he unsuccessfully tries to seduce her. However, Nero’s wife, Poppaea (Claudette Colbert), who lusts for Marcus, discovers Marcus’s attraction to Mercia and persuades Nero to arrest the girl and kill her in the arena along with other Christians. The last lengthy part of the film takes place in the arena, where people are killed in brutal ways. In the dungeon, Marcus begs Mercia to renounce her faith and live as his wife. Although she loves him too, she rejects his proposal. Then, Marcus feels what he describes as a “strange strength”, believes in an eternal life shared with Mercia, and follows her to death. Film literature has discussed The Sign of the Cross primarily in relation to three issues. It has described DeMille’s knotty deals with Paramount and skillful production solutions that kept the cost at about 694,000 dollars while the film required, among others, a set of ancient Rome, hundreds of extras, and many wild animals for the arena scenes.15 Second, it has commented on the film’s sensational elements, including the appearance of semi-nude male and female characters and a provocative dance with lesbian overtones (performed by Joyzelle Joyner) that caused a controversy in 1932 and was deleted when the film was reissued in 1938.16 Finally, it has pinpointed the film’s allusions to the Great Depression. As Maria Wyke and Margaret Malamud have shown, for both DeMille and Paramount The Sign of the Cross functioned as a religious parable on the Great Depression. The souvenir booklet of The Sign of the Cross explained that its spectators would find in the film “one of the most startling parallels to modern times. For life in ancient Rome is singularly similar in many of its aspects to life in modern America. The story of luxury and extravagance of Rome finds striking reflection in our own easy life prior to the fatal autumn of 1929”. In addition, in June 1932, DeMille told a reporter: “Do you realize the close analogy between conditions today in the United States and the Roman Empire prior 15 16

Charles Higham, Cecil B. DeMille (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973) 213–22. Birchard (2004) 251–60. Eyman (2010) 288–94. Presley and Vieira (2014) 176–203. Birchard (2004) 259. Eyman (2010) 294–7. David M. Lugowski, “Queering the (New) Deal: Lesbian and Gay Representation and the Depression-Era Cultural Politics of Hollywood’s Production Code”, Cinema Journal 38, no. 2 (Winter 1999) 3–35. Gabe Essoe and Raymond Lee, DeMille: The Man and his Pictures (South Brunswick and New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, London: Thomas Yoseloff ltd, 1970) 126–28. The film was first trimmed by 760 feet for its 1938 reissue, and then by another 800 feet for its second reissue in 1944, to which a prologue related to wwii was added (Birchard (2004) 259–60). Here I analyze the film’s full-length original version, restored by the ucla Film and Television Archive in the early 1990s.

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to the fall? Multitudes in Rome were then oppressed by distressing laws, overtaxed and ruled by a chosen few. Unless America returns to the pure ideals of our legendary forebears, it will pass into oblivion as Rome did”.17 These quotes relate The Sign of the Cross to its contemporary times in two ways. First, the Roman luxury that the film depicts is linked to the pre-1929 American consumerism and supposed decadence; thus, as the Roman excesses led to the fall of the ancient Empire, the pre-1929 American excesses are blamed for the Great Depression. Second, the Roman commanders are paralleled to the government officials of the Depression era who “overtaxed” the people. DeMille must have had in mind President Herbert Hoover, who introduced high taxes that, according to popular belief, instead of bettering people’s lives, led to further difficulties and moral laxity, including a rise in gambling and illegal liquor sales. At the same time, therefore, the film castigates materialism, state cruelty and moral decadence of the late 1920s and early 1930s. DeMille and his scenarists, Waldemar Young (1878–1938) and Sidney Buchman (1902–1975), found ready material in Barrett’s The Sign of the Cross. Barrett depicts Nero and Poppaea in the most unflattering ways, condemns the extravagance and orgies of Marcus’s world, and shows the details of the decadent banquet during which Marcus tries to seduce Mercia. Barrett also provided filmmakers with images of gambling and alcohol consumption, which helped them to link their film with the Depression. Between Barrett’s The Sign of the Cross and the film two major changes are made. First, certain figures and situations are deleted from the film, some of them obviously for the sake of narrative economy. Second the character and appearance of Mercia are altered. In Barrett’s novel Mercia is introduced as a five-year-old child “with large, brown, lustrous, wondering eyes, and a mass of dark-brown curls, glinted with threads of gold in the sunshine”.18 Soon, the plot moves ahead more than a decade. At sixteen, she has “eyes of a deep, rich, velvety dark-brown—eyes that glassed a soul of absolute purity”.19 Mercia’s dark hair and eyes are again mentioned later; when a Roman man talks about her, for example, he ­whispers

17

18 19

Both quoted in Maria Wyke, “Nero: Spectacles of Persecutions and Excess”, Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema, and History (Series: New Ancient World) (New York and London: Routledge 1997) 132. See also Margaret Malamud, “Swords-and-Scandals: Hollywood’s Rome during the Great Depression”, Arethusa 41, no.1 (winter 2008) 162–63, and Highham (1973) 216. Barrett (1897) 1. Ibid. 5.

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as if mesmerized: “black eyes”.20 Mercia’s black eyes are also emphasized in the play.21 Maud Jeffries (1869–1946), the leading lady of Barrett’s company who played Mercia, supported the description of a dark-haired and black-eyed heroine. In the novel, Mercia is the daughter of a merchant and is surrounded by a few servants. After her parents’ death, she lives in a small house, with her faithful servant, Decima.22 Not surprisingly, Barrett’s Mercia does not do any manual labor. She appears only once working at her loom in the atrium, spinning and humming a hymn. Furthermore, she is depicted as brave, energetic and fearless, and admired by everyone who knows her. When Rome burns, ignoring orders to stay home, she rushes into the streets and saves a helpless woman from being crushed to death by a falling wall. Mercia and Marcus meet when Mercia tries to protect her teacher Favius from a Roman attack. Barrett describes the scene as follows: Clad in pure white, she [Mercia] seemed to the brutal mob a daughter of the gods rather than of earth, and, for the moment they slunk back, awed and ashamed (…). With a force and energy amazing in one so seemingly slight and frail, she pushed the men away, and stood protecting the fallen Favius, braving the mob (…). This weak girl, whom any man there could have brushed aside with ease, cowed them all. As they gazed upon her with mingled fear, wonder, and admiration, her sweet voice rang out clear and strong, and her words cut some of them as might the lash of a whip.23 The second meeting of Marcus and Mercia in both the play and the novel o­ ccurs in the streets, where the girl fearlessly avoids Marcus. Later, when Roman soldiers attack the Christians who are holding a secret meeting, Mercia alone raises the cross high, crying “Stay, brethren! By the Cross, I implore you! Meet your enemies like Christians. Be not afraid!”24 In the novel, her bravery is fully demonstrated when she escapes from her cell in Marcus’s mansion, by jumping from a small casement at least eleven feet from the ground. Here Barrett creates one of his most suspenseful scenes: Mercia draws a couch to the 20 21 22 23 24

Ibid. 65, 66. Barrett, (2002) 136. The play suggests that she lives alone. Barrett (2002) 138–9, 141. Barrett (1897) 48–9. See also Barrett (2002) 130: “the crowd fall back and gaze with awe at her, as if at some spirit”. Barrett (1897) 113; Barrett (2002) 151.

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wall beneath the casement, places on it a small three-legged table, climbs upon the unsteady table, grabs an iron bar in the centre of the casement, squeezes between the bar and the wall, wraps a drape around the bar of the window, throws the ends of the cloth outside the casement, lowers herself to within a few feet of the ground, drops to the pavement and runs across the courtyard towards the street.25 Since 1894, before the play’s completion, Barrett had described Mercia as follows: “My heroine is emblematic of Christianity (…). She is strong with the faith of the woman (…). Steadfast in her faith, she resists all temptation, and he [Marcus] is driven in spite of himself to seek a reason for her sovereign power and his crushing defeat”.26 Barrett’s depiction of Mercia as a strong woman did not derive from any proto-feminist concerns. On the contrary, his objective was “to counteract the secular modern trend”, and especially the new school dramatists.27 As the playwright himself explained, he wrote The Sign of the Cross “by prolonged reflection upon the best way of combating the unwholesome tendencies of the so-called ‘problem play’. These ‘sex pieces’ were frightening family people from the theatres. I wanted to bring wives and daughters to it”.28 Thus he produced a play “about a woman with a future instead of a past; someone who would be admired, not censured”.29 In the film, Mercia retains some characteristics of Barrett’s heroine. She is pure, simple in her lifestyle, loyal to her faith and has a profound effect on Marcus. However, the film transforms Barrett’s Mercia. DeMille’s Mercia is not an earthly angel with brown hair and black eyes. Played by Elissa Landi (1904– 1948), Mercia conforms to the ideal Anglo-Saxon Protestant beauty—white, blond, innocent, and pure.30 She thus seems to embody those “legendary forebears” whom DeMille, a conservative man proud of his family’s Protestant background,31 talked about in his 1932 interview. Moreover, the film deprives Mercia of her strength and independence and changes her into a frightened girl who turns to Marcus for help and protection. When Mercia tries to save Favius from his attackers, no one steps back in admiration or awe. On the contrary, the mob rushes Mercia, who appears terrified 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Barrett (1897) 155–6. [Jerome K. Jerome], “The History of ‘The Sign of the Cross’: A Play by Wilson Barrett”, The Idler 9, no.2 (March 1896) 264, 266. Thomas (1984) 129. Quoted in Thomas (1984) 129. Thomas (1984) 129. In fact Landi was born in Italy, and was considered to have aristocratic Austrian ancestors. For DeMille’s views and background see Malamud (2008) 159–60.

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and does not utter a word but “Favius”. It is only when a Roman man tries to strike Favius with an object that Mercia finds the strength to hit the Roman back. Afterwards, as Marcus arrives, she is depicted as a vulnerable girl in front of a strong man. The filming accentuates this disparity. In a long shot, Marcus stands by Favius and Mercia, who has not seen him, and wants to know what is going on. Mercia starts explaining but as soon as she sees Marcus she pauses, impressed by his physique. DeMille cuts to a medium shot of her, filmed from above, as if from Marcus’s vantage point. A medium of Marcus shows him looking at her as if at prey, while after a couple of more shots, she is again filmed from above, looking at him in awe and embarrassment, smiling and talking softly, hardly able to utter a coherent sentence. She implores Marcus to let Favius leave, while Marcus pushes her towards his side and grips her hand. When he lets the Christians go, Mercia thanks her savior, while music plays in the background. As she leaves the scene she sends sweet glances and smiles to him (fig. 9.1). Mercia has found in Marcus her prince. At the Christians’ secret meeting, DeMille’s Mercia never holds the cross aloft nor does she urge the Christians to be brave. Instead, it is a man, Favius, who reminds them that “death is nothing to fear”, while Mercia appears frightened (fig. 9.2). In Marcus’s mansion, she does not try to escape since she is not there against her will. She is happy to be with Marcus; she wonders why he

Figure 9.1 Mercia sending sweet glances and smiles to Prefect Marcus Superbus in Cecil B. DeMille‘s The Sign of the Cross (1932).

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Figure 9.2 Mercia as a frightened girl in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross (1932).

had not come to see her earlier and refers to an earlier meeting during which she told him that her “life means more now … Everything changed. I wanted to live”. When she realizes that Marcus wants to seduce her, she leaves his arms saying, “I was very simple. I thought there’d be something better for you and me (…). It doesn’t matter to you what I think or feel, so long as I’m here. It never did matter”. With tears in her eyes she concludes that all he wanted was to make her one of his slaves. Clearly this Mercia is a girl who expects to fall in love and get married. Even at film’s end, when Marcus decides to join her in the arena, DeMille implies Marcus’s superiority by making small but telling changes to Barrett’s The Sign of the Cross. For Barrett, Mercia suggests that Marcus follow her to the arena.32 The couple goes to their death as equals, “hand in hand”.33 In the film, Marcus proposes to follow her to death. As they climb the dungeon steps to the arena, he moves a couple of steps ahead of Mercia as if leading her, stops on the top step, and, when she reaches him, places his cloak over her shoulders. Above all, the film’s Mercia is a good housekeeper. DeMille’s heroine does not live with her family (as the film’s plot starts after her parents’ death), ­neither does she live alone. She resides at the home of Favius, along with a 32 33

Barrett (2002) 187. Barrett (1897) 290. Barrett (2002) 187.

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Christian boy, Stephanus, who is a surrogate son. Mercia does not have a servant, but she herself constantly takes care of other people. She cooks for her Christian stepfamily, cleans the dishes and draws water from a well. When Mercia first appears in the film, she purchases bread from the bakery, like a housewife. Even one of the film’s promotional cards associates her with bread—both a symbol of Christian spiritual food and a dietary staple. Moreover, the second meeting between Mercia and Marcus does not take place in the streets as in Barrett’s works, but by a fountain where she has gone to collect water. The scene is built upon her depiction as a conscientious housewife. She holds the jug, Marcus pretends he is thirsty, and she twice pours some water into his cup.34 The next time we see her, she is in Favius’s place where Favius and Titus, an old Christian sent by the Apostle Paul, do the thinking—writing Holy Scriptures. At the same time, she cooks some soup for the two men, for Stephanus and for the dog, washes the dishes, and chops some carrots. Her chopping disturbs the men, who gently ask her to finish her work after they are done with theirs. Even in the arena’s dungeon she acts like a surrogate mother by offering the prisoners water which she collects from the dungeon well in a broken ceramic dish. Throughout the film DeMille carefully stages Mercia so as to appear next to pottery and bronze household items: jugs, jars, bowls, casseroles, pans, dishes, and kitchen utensils (figs. 9.3, 9.4, 9.5). In contrast to Barrett’s brave and energetic brunette, DeMille’s Mercia is a frightened blonde housewife. This depiction of Mercia has topical significance. When The Sign of the Cross was made, America was experiencing a backlash against feminism. More than a decade earlier, in 1920, the 19th Amendment had given American women the right to vote; and in 1923 the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced to Congress. Soon, however, most women’s organizations became conservative, a tendency which was reinforced during the

Figures 9.3, 9.4 & 9.5 Mercia staged with household items in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Sign of the Cross (1932). 34

According to Presley and Vieira, DeMille also wanted to associate Mercia with “symbolically pure water” in contrast to lustful Poppaea, introduced in the film while bathing in asses’ milk. Presley and Vieira (2014) 187.

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Great Depression.35 In the early 1930s, when men lost their status as breadwinners; when the number of women in the workforce remained steady and increased in certain groups, giving the impression that women “were taking jobs from men”;36 and when prostitution became of topic of widespread concern,37 popular discourse wanted American women to be confined to the home. Women were expected to civilize society not by being active in the public sphere, but by taking care of their households, raising their children and prodding their husbands toward responsible action.38 Women’s magazines promoted the virtues of motherhood and homemaking, and even influential women condemned those who became involved in areas outside these realms.39 Mary M. Dewson, head of the Women’s Division of the Democratic National Committee, believed in the “distinctive attributes of women and in the sanctity and security of the home”,40 and Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, denounced married women for holding jobs that men needed.41 Cinema contributed to this discourse. One of the most popular movies of the Great Depression, The Sign of the Cross, presented a virtuous woman as someone who was an obedient stepdaughter, a substitute mother, a thoughtful housewife and completely dependent on men.

Sienkiewicz’s and LeRoy’s Lygia

The story of LeRoy’s Quo Vadis resembles The Sign of the Cross in some ways. The plot starts in ad 64 when Roman commander Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor), the nephew of Nero’s (Peter Ustinov) close advisor Petronius (Leo  Genn), 35 36 37 38

39

40 41

Olive Banks, Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism as a Social Movement (Oxford: Martin Robertson & Co., 1981) 155, 159. Robert S. McElvaine, The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941 (New York: Times Books, 1993) 183. Holly Allen, “Prostitution”, in Encyclopedia of the Great Depression, editor in chief Robert S. McElvaine, vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2004) 775–77. Moran Mickey, “1930s America—Feminist Void? The Status of the Equal Rights Movement during the Great Depression”, The Student Historical Journal 20 (1988–1989) 7–14, available at http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1988-9/documents/1930sAmericaFe ministVoid.pdf (accessed 6 December 2016). Mary Frances Berry, Why era Failed: Politics, Women’s Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution (Everywoman: Studies in History, Literature & Culture) (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988) 58. Banks (1981) 160. Berry (1988) 58.

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returns victorious to Rome after his three-year military expeditions. At the house of a retired Roman general, Aulus Plautius (Felix Aylmer), and his wife, Pomponia Graecina (Nora Swinburne), Vinicius meets their adopted daughter, Lygia (Deborah Kerr), and falls in love with her. Vinicius takes Lygia by imperial order, but he fails to make her succumb to his will. After he finds out that she is a Christian, he asks her to renounce her faith in order to marry him but she refuses. Later, when Nero burns Rome, Vinicius rescues Lygia and other Christians. Nero blames the Christians for the fire and wants them killed in the arena. Many Christians are indeed murdered, but the killing of Lygia by a bull is prevented at the last moment when her devoted guard, Ursus (Buddy Baer), overpowers the animal. The people revolt, and Nero commits suicide. A foreign general, Galba, enters Rome as the new ruler, and Lygia and Vinicius live happily together. In Sienkiewicz’s novel, on which the film was based, Lygia is the epitome of virtue, raised in Plautius and Pomponia’s house where, according to Petronius, “everything—beginning with the masters and ending with the poultry in the hen-house—are virtuous”.42 A biological daughter of a Lygian king, Sienkiewicz’s virtuous heroine has “eyes blue as the azure of the sea” and a “wealth of her dark hair with the reflection of amber or Corinthian bronze gleaming in its folds”. (qv, 25)43 In terms of character, she is submissive. As Scodel and Betterworth have noted, Lygia is “a loving and obedient daughter who does not resist when her foster parents tell her to follow the imperial order and continue her life at the imperial court (…). [O]nly rarely does she proclaim her views openly or take actions of her own”.44 To these points, one could add that Lygia is depicted as a diffident child. The first time she appears in the novel, she is playing in her garden. Vinicius bends his head before her. She stands “with a ball in her hand, her hair blown apart a little. She was somewhat out of breath, and flushed”.45 As Petronius pays her a compliment through some verses by Homer, she listens “confused and flushed, without boldness to raise her eyes”, and as soon as she finds the courage to respond back with another Homeric verse, she runs out “as a frightened bird runs”.46 Lygia appears helpless before attending Nero’s banquet.

42 43 44 45 46

Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero (trans. Jeremiah Curtin) (Boston, ma: Little, Brown and Co, 1897) 9–10. Ibid. 25. Scodel and Bettenworth (2009) 56. Sienkiewicz (1897) 23. Ibid. 24.

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Fear, uncertainty, and a dazed feeling, not to be wondered at after the sudden change, were struggling in her with a wish to resist. She feared Nero; she feared the people and the palace whose uproar deprived her of presence of mind; she feared the feasts, of whose shamelessness she had heard from Aulus, Pomponia Graecina, and their friends. Though young, she was not without knowledge, for knowledge of evil in those times reached even children’s ears early.47 Upon seeing Nero for the first time, she catches “at Vinicius’s hand as a frightened child would”,48 and later, when Vinicius tries to kiss her, “with a voice in which terror and grief were quivering” implores him to have pity on her.49 Her childish qualities are further underscored when Vinicius finds her during the fire. “Like a child who after days of fear and sorrow had found father or mother, she threw herself into his open arms”, Sienkiewicz writes50 In such a female character, desire for a man emerges as a mysterious, novel feeling that both alarms and delights her. To Vinicius’s confession of his love, she reacts like an innocent adolescent: It seemed to her at moments that Vinicius was singing a kind of wonderful song, which was instilling itself into her ears, moving the blood in her, and penetrating her heart with a faintness, a fear, and a kind of uncomprehended delight. It seemed to her also that he was telling ­something which was in her before, but of which she could not give account to ­herself. She felt that he was rousing in her something which had  been  sleeping ­hitherto, and that in that moment a hazy dream was changing into a form more and more definite, more pleasing, more beautiful.51 As a well-bred adolescent, Lygia is often in the company of people who serve and/or protect her. At Plautius’s she has several servants and slaves. When she is taken to Nero’s palace, Pomponia surrounds her “with servants of her own choice”, including an old tire-woman, two maidens from Cyprus who were 47 48 49 50 51

Ibid. 49. Ibid. 61. Ibid. 71. Ibid. 363. Ibid. 27. See also p. 59: “and she, feeling the heat that issued from him, felt both delight and shame. A kind of sweet weakness, a kind of faintness and forgetfulness seized her; it was as if drowsiness tortured her”.

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skillful hair-dressers, and two German girls for the bath.52 In her room at the palace, she receives maternal comfort and protection from Nero’s former mistress, Acte. And throughout her adventures, she is shielded by her gigantic ­servant Ursus, also a Lygian and a converted Christian. Sienkiewicz’s description of Lygia fit the novel’s premise. As Maria Wyke has noted, the novel was not just a Christian reading, but also a “patriotic manifesto for more contemporary concerns”.53 Coming from Lygia, an area that is now most of Poland, Lygia and Ursus were meant to be seen by Polish readers as “Polish”, with the girl representing Catholic Poland and Ursus its people who protect and save their country from oppression by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, symbolized by the raging bull in the arena scene.54 Lygia would help the Polish readers identify with the protection of their homeland; and the girl’s dark hair and blue eyes could suggest a Polish identity, differentiating her from the oppressors’ blondness. Unlike the novel, the film “creates a relatively strong Lygia who compensates for her outer helplessness with wit and self-confidence”, a role that was ideal for the thirty-year-old Deborah Kerr.55 The film’s most important innovation in Lygia’s character, Scodel and Bettenworth argue, “is a sense of irony which she cleverly uses to reproach Marcus Vinicius”.56 I would add that a consistent feature of LeRoy’s Lygia is her anger. Marcus describes her to Petronius as “a ­fiery young Lygian. She throws flames at you”, and when Lygia prays, she asks forgiveness for her “anger and spite”. Lygia’s anger is directed at Vinicius’s ideas of women, including herself, and his political views. Vinicius insists in his first meeting with the Apostle Paul, that lovely women should not preoccupy themselves with deep thoughts; considers Lygia his property; and once calls her a “merchandize”. Lygia, however, does preoccupy herself with deep thoughts, participating as an equal at the meeting of her adopted parents with Paul. In defending herself as a free and equal human being, she makes clear that she does not want to be transferred to Vinicius’s estate “like an unresisting beast” and challenges his presumed 52 53 54

55 56

Ibid. 37. Wyke (1997) 117. Wyke (1997) 117. Scodel and Bettenworth (2009) 55–6, 59, 109. Monica Silveira Cyrino, Big Screen Rome (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005) 17–18. For Sienkiewicz’s political activism and Quo Vadis’s patriotic message see Andrzej Karcz, “Introduction to the New Edition”, in Henryk K. Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis, trans. Jeremiah Curtin (New York: Barnes & Nobles Books, 2004) xv–xvi, xxi. Scodel and Bettenworth (2009) 65, 66. See also p. 82. Ibid. 65.

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s­ uperiority by chiding him, “what an insecurity you must have in your heart and soul (…), what hidden scorn you must have on yourself”. When he asserts that he owns her, she replies that “love has no value under ownership”. Lygia defends other women as well. When Marcus tells her that in contrast to her the women he had met abroad were barbarians, although she appears rather flattered, she responds: “Barbarians? I heard that the women of Britain and Gaul are most beautiful”. When he says that “women of Britain cover themselves with deer fat”, she takes this to be “an understandable desire to be warm”. And when he likens the palms of the women of Gaul to “the hide of a wild hog”, she replies that this proves their diligence. As a mature woman, Lygia is also comfortable flirting with Vinicius.57 Early on, she states that she would be lying if she said she were not attracted to him, and midway through the film, she expresses her deep love for him and accepts his proposal, hoping that one day Christ will appear in his heart. Lygia’s fearlessness, maturity and sense of self are also suggested in her upright posture (fig. 9.6), but also her

Figure 9.6 Lygia as a fearless, mature and confident woman before Marcus Vinicius in Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis (1951).

57

Ibid. 66.

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clothing that underlines a fecund female body suggesting a “good sexuality”,58 rather than any childish, Christian innocence as the novel’s Lygia. In addition, LeRoy’s Lygia openly objects to Marcus’s military methods and political stance. Martin M. Winkler has demonstrated that like other postwar Hollywood epics, Quo Vadis presents Rome as a metaphor for fascist Germany. Without denying that the postwar film epics could suggest other totalitarian systems, Winkler argues that postwar epics’ portrayal of ancient Rome bears “more specific resemblances to Hitler’s Germany than to Mussolini’s Italy or the Soviet Union”.59 Regarding Quo Vadis, Winkler points to numerous analogies between the film’s ancient Rome and Hitler’s Germany, including a totalitarian rhetoric about one state’s domination by conquest over other nations; the staging of Vinicius’s Triumph in a manner reminiscent of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935); visual and verbal similarities between Nero and Hitler; and parallels between the persecution of the Christians in the film and the Holocaust.60 In contrast to the film’s Romans, its protagonists, W ­ inkler says, fight for ideals that Americans regard as their own: political independence, spiritual freedom, democracy, and absence of slavery, ideals that American cultural productions during World War ii, such as the Why We Fight (1942–1945) documentary film series, had promoted.61 Interestingly, in Quo Vadis it is Lygia who expresses the film’s anti-Nazi, anti-militarist and democratic views. “They are no slaves in this house”, she declares to Vinicius regarding Plautius’s home, reiterating the Christian message of the film’s Apostle Paul for a world without slaves. She characterizes Vinicius’s military expeditions as “ugly stories of conquests and bloodshed”. To his comment that in order to unite and civilize the world, there must be a little blood, she objects that “there is a gentler and more powerful way of doing 58 59

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Bruce Babington and Peter Williams Evans, Biblical Epics: Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1993) 189. Martin Winkler, “The Roman Empire in American Cinema after 1945”, in Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire, Jr. (eds.), Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture (Baltimore, MD and London: Hopkins University Press, 2001) 51. Winkler (2001) 50–76. See also Martin M. Winkler, The Roman Salute: Cinema, History, Ideology (Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 2009) Ch. 6. Wyke interprets Nero as an analogue to Italy’s Mussolini, and the film in general as conditioned by America’s anti-communism during the Cold War. Wyke (1997) 140–46. According to Scodel and Bettenworth, the film could be considered critical of any totalitarian regime, including communism, blurs “fascist and communist elements” and is “ambiguous about politics as a realm of action”. Scodel and Bettenworth (2009) 94–5. Winkler (2001) 53–4, 56–7.

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Figure 9.7 Lygia does not raise her right arm to salute Nero in Mervyn LeRoy’s Quo Vadis (1951).

that. Without bloodshed and war. Without slaves and captives bound in chains to your t­ riumphal chariot”. During Vinicius’s Triumph, Lygia appears happy to see him but also seems to disapprove of the event. At Nero’s palace, a cut to her amidst other Romans turns the spectator’s attention to the fact that Lygia does not raise her right arm to salute the Emperor (fig. 9.7). Concerning Vinicius’s enemies in his military expeditions, Lygia considers them people who were defending their homes. Taking into account that Lygia also supports the women of Britain and Gaul, one concludes that she sides with the World War ii coalition against the Nazis. In relation to this, it seems important that Lygia is played by the British actress Deborah Kerr. Born in Helensburgh, Scotland, Kerr had made a name in British theater and cinema before joining Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she became established as an elegant and refined protagonist. Kerr’s screen personality, encompassing “outward delicacy and inward strength”,62 comported with LeRoy’s strong and pure Christian woman. Furthermore, Kerr’s screen persona was associated

62

Celestino Deleyto, “The Nun’s Story: Femininity and Englishness in the films of Deborah Kerr”, in Bruce Babington (ed.), British Stars and Stardom: From Alma Taylor to Sean Connery (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001) 120.

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with her “Britishness”. The press frequently described her as “an English rose”63 (despite her Scottish origins) and commented on her long red hair.64 Retaining her ladylike qualities and red hair in LeRoy’s film, Kerr reminds her viewers of the Europeans who fought with the Americans against the Nazis, while distinguishing herself from both the novel’s dark-haired girl and DeMille’s blond beauty. In 1951, shortly after a war in which freedom, peace and democracy had been at stake, Hollywood’s virtuous Christian woman spoke out against bloodshed and for respect for all nations and all people, including women. In terms of its female representation, Quo Vadis thus departed from the stereotype of the post-war American woman as “middle-class, domestic, and suburban”.65 No doubt, the film’s Lygia is not a subversive figure. She is loyal to marriage and family; just before going to her death she tells Vinicius that she would love to have given him a son;66 and early on she appears as an object of Vinicius’s desire. Still, during an era of conservatism on gender issues and anti-feminism, LeRoy’s Lygia distanced herself from the dominant ideal of female domesticity. Instead, she presented an alternative discourse that appeared in post-war American popular books, articles and films.67 Some mass-circulation female magazines, for example, endorsed women’s combination of home and career and engagement in politics and considered the active woman as a reaffirmation of the American woman’s role in a democratic society.68 Conclusion In two periods of American history, Hollywood produced two quite different images of Christian female virtue, conditioned by the broader contexts within 63 64 65

66 67

68

Deleyto (2001) 120. See also Michelangelo Capuo, Deborah Kerr: A Biography (Jefferson, ca: McFarland &Co, 2010) 1. See, for instance, “The Perils of Deborah: Kerr’s British Grit Overcomes Horrors of savage Africa”, Life 13 (November 1950) 149–50, 153–54. For this stereotype see Joanne Meyerowitz, “Introduction: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960”, in Joanne Meyerowitz (ed.), Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1994) 3. Babington and Evans (1993) 197. As Scodel and Bettenworth put it, Lygia is one of the film’s “subordinate yet morally independent women”. See Scodel and Bettenworth (2009) 82. Joanne Meyerowitz, “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Popular Mass Culture, 1946–1958”, in Meyerowitz (1994) 230–41. For America’s conservatism on gender issues at that time see also William H. Chafe, Women and Equality: Changing Patterns in American Culture (Oxford, London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1978) 94–5. Meyerowitz (1994) 233, 240–1.

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which the films were made. As we saw, during the Great Depression, DeMille’s extravagant The Sign of the Cross promoted female submissiveness, domesticity and dependence on men. After World War ii, the Hollywood epic Quo Vadis presented an independent female character, a supporter of equality, peace and respect for all people. While creating their female protagonists, the filmmakers made extensive changes in the heroines of the original literary sources, who themselves had been created to reflect their own times. In each case, the virtuous woman emerges as an element of a cultural product designed to serve particular ideological purposes. To identify the characteristics of the female virtue in modern reconstructions of the ancient past and to examine the changes that this image underwent in similar cultural products help us to understand the way popular culture is shaped by ideology and, in turn, contributes to the dissemination of beliefs about gender issues. They also help us to reflect on the ways in which our interpretations and visualizations of the ancient world are constantly filtered through contemporary concerns and through accumulated layers of adaptation processes. Bibliography Allen, Holly, “Prostitution”, in Robert S. McElvaine (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Great Depression. Vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan Reference, 2004) 775–77. Babington, Bruce, and Peter Williams Evans, Biblical Epics: Sacred Narrative in the Hollywood Cinema (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1993). Banks, Olive, Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism as a Social Movement (Oxford: Martin Robertson & Co., 1981). Barrett, Wilson, “The Sign of the Cross”, in David Mayer, (ed.) Playing out the Empire. Ben-Hur and Other Toga Plays and Films: A Critical Anthology (1994; repr. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) 104–87. Barrett, Wilson, The Sign of the Cross (London: John Macqueen, 1897). Berry, Mary Frances, Why ERA Failed: Politics, Women’s Rights, and the Amending Process of the Constitution (Everywoman: Studies in History, Literature & Culture) (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988). Birchard, Robert S., Cecil DeMille’s Hollywood (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004). Capuo, Michelangelo, Deborah Kerr: A Biography (Jefferson, CA: McFarland &Co, 2010). Chafe, William H., Women and Equality: Changing Patterns in American Culture (Oxford, London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).

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Cyrino, Monica S., “Gladiator and Contemporary American Society”, in Martin M. Winkler (ed.), Gladiator: Film and History (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004) 124–49. Cyrino, Monica S., Big Screen Rome (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005). De Mille Presley, Cecilia, and Mark A. Vieira, Cecil B. DeMille: The Art of the Hollywood Epic (Philadelphia, PA and London: Running Press, 2014). Deleyto, Celestino, “The Nun’s Story: Femininity and Englishness in the films of Deborah Kerr”, in Bruce Babington (ed.), British Stars and Stardom: From Alma Taylor to Sean Connery (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001) 120–31. Essoe, Gabe, and Raymond Lee, DeMille: The Man and his Pictures (South Brunswick and New York: A.S. Barnes and Company, London: Thomas Yoseloff LTD, 1970). Eyman, Scott, Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010). Higham, Charles, Cecil B. DeMille (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973). [Jerome, Jerome K.], “The History of ‘The Sign of the Cross’: A Play by Wilson Barrett”, The Idler 9, no.2 (March 1896) 262–76. Lugowski, David M., “Queering the (New) Deal: Lesbian and Gay Representation and the Depression-Era Cultural Politics of Hollywood’s Production Code”, Cinema Journal 38, no. 2 (1999) 3–35. Malamud, Margaret, “Consuming Passions: Helen of Troy in the Jazz Age”, in Pantelis Michelakis and Maria Wyke (eds.), The Ancient World in Silent Cinema (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 330–46. Malamud, Margaret, “Swords-and-Scandals: Hollywood’s Rome during the Great Depression”, Arethusa 41.1 (winter 2008) 157–83. Mayer, David, Playing out the Empire. Ben-Hur and Other Toga Plays and Films: A Critical Anthology (1994; repr. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). McElvaine, Robert S., The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941 (New York: Times Books, 1993). Meyerowitz, Joanne (ed.), Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960 (Critical Perspectives on the Past Series) (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1994) 1–16. Meyerowitz, Joanne, “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Popular Mass Culture, 1949–1958”, in Joanne Meyerowitz (ed.), Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945–1960 (Critical Perspectives on the Past Series) (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994) 229–62. Mickey, Moran, “1930s America—Feminist Void? The Status of the Equal Rights Movement during the Great Depression”, The Student Historical Journal 20 (1988–1989) 7–14, available at http://www.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1988-9/documents/1930s AmericaFeministVoid.pdf (accessed 6 December 2016).

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Monaco, James, A Comprehensive Alphabetical Listing of the Most Important Movies Ever Made (New York: Perigee Books, 1992). Morey, Anne, “Home or Away? Words and Things in Quo Vadis (1951)”, in Richard Wrigley (ed.), Cinematic Rome (Series: Troubador Italian Studies) (Leicester: Troubador Publishing, 2008) 43–52. Nikoloutsos, Konstantinos P., (ed.), Ancient Greek Women in Film (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Renger, Almut-Barbara and Jon Solomon (eds.), Ancient Worlds in Film and Television: Gender and Politics (Series: Metaforms no. 1) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013). Santas, Constantine, James M. Wilson, Maria Colavito and Djoymi Baker, The Encyclopedia of Epic Films (Lanham, Boulder, New Work, Toronto, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). Scodel, Ruth and Anja Bettenworth, Whither Quo Vadis?: Sienkiewicz’s Novel in Film and Television (Chichester, West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing/John Wiley & Sons, 2009). Sienkiewicz, Henryk, Quo Vadis, trans. Jeremiah Curtin (New York: Barnes & Nobles Books, 2004). Sienkiewicz, Henryk, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero, trans. Jeremiah Curtin (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co, 1897). Skwara, Ewa, “Quo Vadis on Film (1912, 1925, 1951, 1985, 2001), the Many Faces of Antiquity”, Classica—Revista Brasileira de Estudos Clássicos 26, no. 2 (2013) 163–74. Solomon, Jon, The Ancient World in the Cinema (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2001 revised edition). Thomas, James, The Art of the Actor-Manager: Wilson Barrett and the Victorian Theatre (Series: Theater and Dramatic Studies no. 15) (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1984). Welsh, David J., “Serialization and Structure in the Novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz”, The Polish Review 9.3 (1964) 51–62. Winkler, Martin M., “The Roman Empire in American Cinema after 1945”, in Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire Jr. (eds.), Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture (Series: Arethusa Books) (Baltimore, MD and London: Hopkins University Press, 2001) 50–76. Winkler, Martin M., The Roman Salute: Cinema, History, Ideology (Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 2009). Winkler, Martin M., “Three Queens: Helen, Penelope and Dido in Franco Rossi’s Odissea and Eneide”, in Silke Knippschild and Marta Garcia Morcillo (eds.), Seduction and Power: Antiquity in the Visual and Performing Arts (London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2013) 133–54. Wyke, Maria, “Nero: Spectacles of Persecutions and Excess”, Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema, and History (Series: New Ancient World) (New York and London: Routledge, 1997) 110–46. Wyke, Maria, The Roman Mistress: Ancient and Modern Representations (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

part 2 Ancient Virtues and Vices in the Modern World



Section 1 Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Greece



chapter 10

Philip, Alexander and Macedonia: Between Greek Virtue and Barbarian Pleasure Maria Pretzler This chapter deals with the depiction of Alexander the Great and the complex problem of where exactly this important historical figure should be situated in terms of culture and ethnicity so that a modern audience can understand them. Anybody telling the story of the great conqueror has to deal with a Macedonian by birth who is widely known as bringing Greek culture to the East; a further integral part of the story is concerned with Alexander’s increasing adoption of eastern, or more specifically Persian, customs which leads to friction with his Macedonian and Greek companions. These categories and their exact definition are already problematic in the ancient sources, and Alexander’s cultural context and identity is so integral to the story that anybody attempting to take the story and its main character seriously would find it difficult to ignore it altogether. Large-scale movie treatments of Alexander’s life, therefore, have to find a way of dealing with these issues. In analysing Alexander on screen it is very important to remember that visuals, especially costumes and sets, are at least as important as dialogue and plot when it comes to defining a character’s cultural identity. After all, a lot of thought and research usually goes into these details, and it tends to be harder to fudge matters with respect to these designs: somebody has to make a decision about the look of characters and backdrop and what they are meant to convey to the viewer. Historical accuracy is a lot less important in this respect than visual tropes which will suggest to a general audience how to interpret the cultural setting of a scene.1 Film makers’ interpretation of Macedonia causes particular dilemmas: while audiences can be expected to be able to draw on visual conventions and clichés by which to recognise an imaginary Greece or Persia, Macedonia is rather an unknown entity. Film makers therefore have to find their own way of describing Alexander’s background while also allowing viewers to make sense 1 Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, “‘Help me, Aphrodite!’ Depicting the Royal Women of Persia in A ­ lexander”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, wi: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 247–51.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_012

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of his later character development when he encounters Persia and other cultures of the ‘East’. As king of Macedonia, Philip ii, Alexander’s father, plays a crucial role in defining the region and its identity, while his mother’s role as a foreigner at the Macedonian court presents yet another challenge. For this paper, I concentrate on the two major Hollywood productions which focus on Alexander the Great, namely Robert Rossen’s Alexander the Great (1956) with Richard Burton in the title role, and Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004) with Colin Farrell.2 I shall also discuss the 1981 tv miniseries of four one-hour episodes directed by Peter Sykes, The Search for Alexander the Great, which combines documentary-style commentary with fictional scenes of historical characters discussing Alexander’s life and some dramatized scenes featuring Nicholas Clay as Alexander. It is, in fact, striking how rarely this grand subject has been attempted for the cinema or for tv, and a number of planned projects have failed.3 The earliest big-screen treatment is, rather remarkably, an Indian production, Sikandar (1941), directed by Sohrab Modi with Prithviraj Kapoor in the main role; but since it focuses exclusively on Alexander’s campaigns in India, it is not relevant to this particular discussion. David Rattigan’s play, An Adventure Story, was broadcast by the bbc in 1959, with Sean Connery in the lead.4 A pilot for a tv series, directed in 1964 by Phil Karlson with William Shatner as Alexander, but broadcast only in 1968, is set after the battle of Issos; further episodes were never made. Since Oliver Stone’s film, there have been three more productions: Alexander, Hero of Heroes (2006) looks like a low-tech video of a theatrical production; Alexander the Great (2006) is a 3D-animation aimed at children; and Young Alexander (2010) combines a multi-ethnic cast with fantasy elements and a teen adventure story. These films have little to contribute to the question of Macedonia on screen. Filmmakers inherit problems with defining Macedonia from the ancient sources, which do not add up to a clear cultural definition. Reports of Alexander’s life first show us Macedonians in opposition to Greece, while later on, Alexander claims to be a champion of the Greek cause against the Persians, 2 Oliver Stone produced three different cuts of his film, namely the theatrical cut (2004), on which the argument in this chapter is based, the Director’s Cut (2005) with slight changes, and Alexander Revisited. The Final Cut (2007) which presents the story in a different order. 3 Kim Shahabudin, “The Appearance of History: Robert Rossen’s Alexander the Great”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, wi: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 92. 4 Jeffrey Richards, Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds (London and New York, 2008) 133–4; Robin Lane  Fox, “Alexander on Stage: A Critical Appraisal of Rattigan’s Adventure Story”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, wi: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 55–91.

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and finally adopts Persian customs, to the consternation of his Macedonian companions. A film maker has to grapple with the question of how to depict Macedonians: are they Greeks or not, and how should they be distinguished first from their Greek enemies, and then from various ‘eastern’ peoples Alexander encounters? And, if the term is to be used, who, in different parts of the story, gets to call whom a ‘barbarian’? There are no ancient Macedonian sources who tell us how they would have defined their own culture. All available contemporary comments on Philip ii come from Athenians, while most of the extant information about Alexander was written much later, between the first century bce and the second century ce. Macedonia remained a known entity, but cultural differences between Macedonia and Greece had become blurred by changes throughout the Hellenistic period and the Roman conquest. How Greek were the Macedonians? As far as we can tell, they spoke a dialect of Greek different enough to make writers comment when Alexander switches from (probably Attic) Greek to Macedonian.5 Macedonian names and inscriptions are Greek, with some influence from their Illyrian and Thracian neighbours.6 They worshipped Greek gods combined with local heroes according to local traditions,7 and wealthy Macedonians’ tombs suggest distinct local burial practices. In a Greek world where each city state found its own unique cultural expression, especially through customs and religion, and where there were significant differences between dialects, the Macedonians were one of many groups with their own variation on a Greek cultural theme. Where Macedonians differed from a ‘Greek norm’ was that their identity, culture and civic lives were not focused on cities and, most significantly, that they were ruled by kings. ‘Objective’ criteria such as language or customs are, however, not enough to settle the question of ethnic identity: self-definition and definition by others also matters. In this respect, the picture is ambiguous. It seems clear that in the Classical period Macedonians were not always recognised as Greeks, and that 5 E.g. Plutarch, Alexander 51.4; Curtius Rufus 6.9.35. 6 Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond and Guy Thompson Griffith, A History of Macedonia, volume 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979) 47–49; Robert Malcolm Errington, A History of Macedonia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990) 3; for a more sceptical view see Ernst Badian, “Greeks and Macedonians”, in Beryl Barr-Sharrar and Eugene N. Borza (eds.), Macedonia and Greece in late Classical and Early Hellenistic Times, eds. (Washington dc: National Gallery of Art, 1982) 33–51 and Eugene N. Borza, In the Shadow of Olympus: the Emergence of Macedon (Princeton nj: Princeton University Press, 1990) 90–94. 7 Manuela Mari, “Traditional Cults and Beliefs”, in Robin J. Lane Fox (ed.), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Macedon. Studies in the Archaeology and History of Macedon, 650 bc–300 ad (Leiden: Brill, 2011) 453–65.

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individual Macedonians were, at times, happy to define themselves as other than Greek; however, on occasion, the kings at least were eager to stake a claim to Greekness.8 Around the time of the Persian Wars Alexander i was eager to establish that the royal house of Macedonia, the Argeadae, were descended from Argive ancestors and ultimately from Heracles; Herodotus b­ elieved that this needed to be established before the king could be accepted as Greek enough to compete at the Olympic Games.9 The debate finally came to a head when, in the 350s and 340s bce, Macedonians under Philip ii began to represent a real threat to the independence of the Greek city states in the southern mainland of Greece. Philip ii became involved in traditional Greek interstate institutions, particularly the Delphic Amphictyony, which presumably required him to represent himself as Greek; he also championed Panhellenic policies and rhetoric.10 By this stage, cities had developed in Macedonia;11 earlier Argead kings had invested significantly in Greek culture and arts,12 and Philip ii did so, as well.13 Nevertheless, it was long the image created by a hostile Athenian politician which dominated later ideas about Macedonia under Philip. For Demosthenes, Philip was a barbarian, who, as a king, needed to be resisted by Greeks just as they had resisted the kings of Persia. In his Third Philippic he goes so far as to say that Philip was not only no Greek, he was not even related to Greeks, and in fact was a barbarian from Macedonia, a region which did not even produce decent slaves.14 Philip’s approach to warfare and diplomacy is also singled out as so fierce and e­ ffective that a Greek city state, let alone a democracy, could never have matched his

8 9

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12 13 14

Badian (1982) esp. 34–41; see also Borza (1990) 90–97. Herodotus 5.22; for other Macedonian kings at the Olympic Games: see list in Nicolaos K. Martis, The Falsification of Macedonian History (Athens: A.S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, 1984) 29–30, which includes one (probably) non-royal Macedonian contestant in 384 bce, based on Pausanias 5.8.11. Michael B. Sakellariou, “Panhellenism: From Concept to Policy”, in Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1980) 135–45. Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos, “Macedonians and Greeks”, in Robin J. Lane Fox (ed.), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Macedon. Studies in the Archaeology and History of Macedon, 650 bc–300 ad (Leiden: Brill, 2011) 66–7. This includes patronage for a number of poets, including Pindar and Euripides, the painter Zeuxis, the architect Callimachus, and many more. See Hatzopoulos (2011) 58–9. John R. Ellis, “Macedonia under Philip”, in Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1980) 146–65. Demosthenes 9.31; cf. 3.17, 3.24, 19.305, 19.308.

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outlandish autocratic efficiency.15 Add to this stories about lavish feasts at Philip’s court which spoke of barbarian drunken excess and debauchery,16 and you have an image that became very difficult to shake off for centuries to come. But Demosthenes represents only one extreme viewpoint: another Athenian, Isocrates, understood the rise of Macedonia as an opportunity. In his Panegyricus, Isocrates gives us some of the most aggressive rhetoric about the inferiority of barbarian Persians, not least because they are ruled by a king,17 but in later works, he expresses great admiration for Philip ii, and recognises him as the best potential leader for a Greek attack on Persia.18 This image, too, had some staying power, not least because both Philip and Alexander presented their campaigns into Asia as an enterprise of all Greeks to take revenge for the Persian Wars.19 Later on, the difference between Macedonians and Greeks became ever more blurred in the minds of ancient writers, as the differences between Greek-speaking neighbours shrunk into insignificance compared with the contrast with various Asian cultures. This means that very different aspects of Macedonian culture mattered to ancient reports on different moments in Alexander’s life; and Philip and Alexander end up as literary characters with very different cultural identities. Even in antiquity, Philip ii never quite shook off Demosthenes’ barbarian label, while Alexander became the Greek hero par excellence. His Macedonian background was less ignored than eclipsed by his association with Greek culture once he has reached the East. Alexander’s final years are characterised by his increased adoption of Persian customs in the face of criticism which mainly comes from his Macedonian companions, but is often measured against Greek ideas about freedom and political power. In reality, both Alexander and Philip probably negotiated their identities depending on their audience and aims at any given point. Arrian has Alexander himself paint a picture of Macedonians as primitive herdsmen, civilised only by Philip, who found them as shepherds, dressed in sheepskins scraping a living off the mountain sides and brought them down into the plains to a more civilised life.20 By the Roman period, when all these reports were written, the difference between Greeks and Macedonians may have been quite difficult to 15 16

Demosthenes 18. 235–6. E.g. Demosthenes 2.18–19; Pierre Lévêque, “Philip’s Personality”, in Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1980) 176–7. 17 Isocrates 4.133–66, esp. 150–2. 18 Isocrates 5, esp. 5.154; Sakellariou (1980) 129–134; Hatzopoulos (2011) 67–9. 19 Sakellariou (1980) 144–5. 20 Arrian, Anabasis 7.9.2.

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fathom, certainly compared with the clear contrast between Greeks and Persians which remained relevant due to continued conflicts with the Parthians. How did the ambiguity of Macedonia’s cultural identity affect the depiction of Alexander’s background in films? Robert Rossen stated that he did three years’ worth of research before writing his script for Alexander the Great. This research featured in the film’s publicity and critics also praised the historical accuracy of the film. Rossen’s research is evident on screen, with dialogue and narrative details which are clearly based on Demosthenes, Plutarch and other ancient sources, and also with nods to material evidence, such as coin images and the Alexander mosaic.21 Oliver Stone relied on leading academics as historical advisers, particularly Robin Lane Fox, but several other scholars were consulted on various details.22 Nevertheless, the two films’ interpretations of Macedonia, and of Philip’s and Alexander’s identity as Macedonians, differ considerably. We shall first take a look at the details in both films, and then consider the background behind this change in Macedonia’s image.

Alexander the Great (1956)

Robert Rossen’s Alexander the Great opens with a crowd listening to a debate. A caption tells us ‘356 bc. Divided Greece’, and the visuals establish a ‘Greek standard’ for the viewer. The backdrop features a double row of Doric columns with a Doric frieze; two main characters are engaged in debate: they are Aeschines and Demosthenes, and we are in Athens (fig. 10.1). The speakers and the crowd are draped in garments with patterns reminiscent of Greek vases along the edges; the colour palette includes whites, yellows, greys and earthy browns. A few men wear armour and helmets with the stereotypical horsehair crest. Demosthenes warns of barbarian attacks, and we see scenes of a marching army and a burning city. Our first close-up of Philip follows, as he receives a messenger who tells him that he has a new-born son. We see a bearded man on his bed, his ­shoulders are bare, but otherwise he is wrapped in furs; the backdrop behind him is lined with fur, too (fig. 10.2). The contrast is striking: if the audience missed the 21 22

Shahabudin (2010) 108–9; Jon Solomon, The Ancient World in the Cinema, revised edition (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2001) 42. Alastair J.L. Blanshard and Kim Shahabudin (eds.), Classics on Screen: Ancient Greece and Rome on Film (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 2011) 104–5; Robin Lane Fox, The Making of Alexander (Lanham, md: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004c) 87–8, 94–7, 124.

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Figure 10.1

Alexander (1956). Our first glimpse of Athes: Aischines (left, on ­podium) challenged by Demosthenes.

Figure 10.2

Alexander (1956). Philip’s first closeup. Barbarian in furs?

b­ arbarian ­references in the earlier scene, just the visual cues given here would indicate a stereotypical ‘northern’ barbarian, who would seem more at home in a Dark Age Northern Europe than in Greece. In the next scene, we return to Macedonia, as Philip visits his wife to see his son. Here we see Philip’s image adjusted to an extent: his palace in Pella ­suggests considerable aspiration to Greek culture. The exterior features very large columns—but these columns are made of grey stone and are not fluted: they look archaic and unsophisticated compared to the image of ­Athens we have already seen. The replica of the late seventh-century Naxian lionterrace at Delos which has been incorporated in the palace exterior s­ uggests that this  archaic look is deliberate. In the background we see the roofs of a

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Figure 10.3

Alexander (1956). Philip’s Palace in Pella—Greek, but rural and archaic.

­ editerranean ­village; stone houses with tiled roofs and small irregular streets M (fig. 10.3).23 The crowd here is mixed—there are soldiers in fur-lined armour, but we also see Greek-style himatia and tunics. After we were introduced to Philip the barbarian, our first glimpse of Macedonia proper suggests some affinity with Greek culture, albeit in a rough, rather archaic mode. Following the two initial scenes in Athens and Philip’s camp, the audience needs no expertise to interpret these differences. Our impression changes again when Philip enters the palace: the ­interior reverts to ‘Greek mode’, with fluted columns and statues. Later on we also see Etruscan wall paintings: this was before the discovery of the painted ­decoration of the Vergina tombs, and at the time, Etruscan tomb paintings provided the best guess for Greek wall decoration. Olympias appears dressed in a ­saffron-coloured chiton, a colour-co-ordinated shawl draped over her left shoulder and gold jewellery, which suggests a Greek sophistication; Philip enters, his armed, armoured and fur-clad companions in tow, without even taking off his helmet. This scene conveys effectively that in this relationship, Olympias has Greek culture, while Philip is the barbarian who merely affects the trappings of civilisation and looks out of place in his own palace. Statues in the background emphasise the contrast further. Nevertheless, Philip ­complains about Olympias’s ‘strange gods’ whilst ramming his knife into a table, thereby confirming that not just his dress-sense is out of place, his manners are, too. 23

The exterior of the set was built on a hill above El Molar, close to Madrid, and the village, with minor modifications, was used for shots of Macedonians riding through the city of Pella; http://www.western-locations-spain.com/hollywood/alexander/index.htm (accessed 16 February 2016).

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The next scene brings us back to a very Greek-looking setting: this is Mieza, as it turns out after a while. Young men wrestle surrounded by fluted marble columns and statues, although this vision of Greece carefully excludes nudity, with athletes in shorts and statues either dressed or carefully turned away from the viewer. Alexander enters, leading his horse and carrying a dead lion over his shoulder. With his golden locks and (very) short tunic which leaves one shoulder free he could not look more different from his father. As he approaches Aristotle, his first close-up features him in front of marble columns and the three-quarter back view of an (almost) nude athlete statue. Aristotle lectures him on the ‘Greek dream’ of conquering Persia, and on the danger of Philip’s barbarian image, which will prevent Greeks from following him. The whole speech culminates in this astonishing statement: “we Greeks are the best … our culture is the best … our civilization the best, our men the best—all others are barbarians, and it is our moral duty to conquer them and to enslave them, and if necessary, destroy them”. He gets rapturous attention from Alexander and his companions, and we see no sign that these Macedonians feel excluded from this idea of Greek superiority. A training montage showing the young men in athletic pursuits and a short scene with Alexander reading from the Iliad further help to establish Alexander’s Greek credentials and the importance of the Greek/barbarian divide in the audience’s mind. When Philip visits Mieza, we first see the Macedonian king and his son together, and the contrast between Alexander in his Greek tunic and Philip in his fur-lined armour could not be more striking (fig. 10.4). The difference between father and son is emphasised, although at this point, they agree that Alexander is ready to rule in Pella while Philip is on campaign, both opposing Aristotle together. As Alexander rides through the narrow streets of Pella (El Molar, Spain), yet again, the audience can appreciate the contrast between sophisticated, colonnaded Mieza and his actual home in Macedonia. What follows are various scenes which show Alexander interacting with his parents; and the cultural differences continue to be emphasised, even if we get to see that Philip’s civilian clothes are rather more Greek in style than his warrior gear. When Alexander rides to war with Macedonian troops, all wear tunics with their armour rather than fur, and later, after the battle of Chaeronea and during his last wedding feast, even Philip will be seen in clothes that look more Greek than northern barbarian: Alexander’s mere presence Hellenises his Macedonian surroundings, at least as far as the design of the props and costumes goes. Alexander’s return to Pella brings a number of disagreements with his parents. He sends away Olympias’s friends in a scene which is quite ambiguous: we cannot be sure whether he disapproves of all those men around her, or whether he is suspicious of her plotting against Philip. Most of the ­disagreements

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Figure 10.4

Alexander (1956). Philip and Alexander at Mieza: a barbarian king and his Greek son.

are, however, with his father, who comes across as a ruthless pragmatist ready to use torture to get confessions or to kill relatives to secure his position. Alexander argues against both, and after the battle of Chaeronea he makes it clear that he disapproves both of his father’s drinking and his plan to marry a much younger woman. The barbarian theme is yet again made explicit during the celebrations after the victory over the Greeks at Chaeronea. Philip first invites the Athenians to attend, suggesting that this is the behaviour of a proper gentleman; then he states that he would not destroy Athens, ‘because that would be the act of a barbarian—and that Philip is not!’, followed by a sip from a wine skin, while Alexander looks on disapprovingly. Once Philip is drunk, he leaves the tent and daunts an (imaginary) Demosthenes, repeatedly singing ‘Philip the Barbarian’; we are again reminded of the image that has been imposed on him by his Athenian contemporaries and modern film makers. At Philip’s wedding feast, Alexander refuses a drink offered by his father. Dressed in a Greek himation, Attalus, Philip’s new father-in-law, boasts that the king’s new wife is a proper Macedonian, not an Athenian or Epirote, and he challenges Alexander’s legitimacy, too, which leads Alexander to attack him: in this case, pure Macedonian identity actually becomes a threat to Alexander.24 After Philip’s assassination, about halfway through the film, Alexander’s campaign against Persia starts, and we are shown the Persian reaction. The Persian king discusses the situation, seemingly in a very elaborate tent. Later on we see Darius in his palace, too, but the full extent of the building only becomes clear when we see wide-angle shots after Alexander has conquered it 24

Closely based on Plutarch, Alexander 9.4–5 (the same scene also appears in Stone’s Alexander).

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and it is in flames: Persian wealth and civilisation becomes more monumental as we go on. Persian costumes and sets are clearly influenced by ancient Persian art, and are also distinguished by a vivid colour scheme. The main Persian characters are played by British theatre actors, especially Harry Andrews as Darius, just like all the important Macedonians, with the exception of Frederic March as Philip, who was American.25 Accents or language play no role at all in distinguishing different ethnicities: the viewer is allowed to listen to conversations in any language or dialect ‘translated’ into standard English without being asked to consider those differences, although this device was certainly used in Hollywood at the time, often with Americans playing the heroes and British actors as their antagonists.26 The Persians also have a map with English captions which is used to inform the viewer about the route of Alexander’s campaign. Persian strangeness is therefore on display, but emphasised rather less than would have been possible; and the first we see of Persians is a rational discussion of what they should do against Alexander focusing on suggestions of their Greek collaborator, Memnon. As Alexander moves towards the East, his Greekness is first further emphasised, for example after the battle at the Granicus, when he accuses Memnon of treason because he, as a Greek, chose to fight against Alexander as commander of all Greeks. Barsine says to Alexander “Greece is where you are … where you walk, where you talk, breathe, live”, just as he has declared that his mission now includes many peoples, as long as they are willing to follow. But soon Alexander is seduced by Persian ways, while his companions now represent a Greek—rather than Macedonian—resistance against his attempts to unite Asia and Europe, as (remarkably!) recommended to him in a letter by the dying Darius. Now it is the Macedonians who sport himatia with vase patterns as we first saw in Athens, while Alexander dresses like a (barbarian) Persian. We see Alexander torturing Philotas to force a confession—following his father’s (barbarian?) example which he criticised earlier, and Cleitus challenges him for being drunk and for claiming to be a son of a god. At the same time, the Persians are still surprised that Alexander is unable to kill a man who contradicted him without regrets and doubt his suitability for Persian kingship. In the end, Alexander discovers that he must conquer the hearts of all his peoples (or so Ptolemy tells us in a voice-over) and organises the wedding of Susa to unite them all. In a final prayer, he talks about all peoples in his empire in peace and harmony, under one quasi-Christian god who is ‘the father of all’.

25 26

Richards (2008) 135. Shahabudin (2010) 104.

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Rossen’s Macedonians undergo a striking transformation during the film— from barbarians in clear conflict with Greek culture to defenders of Greek values against Persian barbarians. However, Macedonian barbarity is emphasised much more explicitly, both in the dialogue and through visual cues which point to barbarians of a north-west European kind. Persians clearly have different customs, but also an elaborate culture represented by large buildings with columns and lavish interiors. They are shown to have their own discourse about cultural differences, and in the end, Alexander follows the advice of the Persian king to strive for unity between all his peoples, and Darius becomes a kind of substitute father/rival figure for Alexander.27 Alexander remains a cultural outsider: in the first half of the film, he represents a Greek, civilised outlook in contrast with his barbarian father; towards the end, he is increasingly in opposition to his now Hellenised companions because he himself is becoming ever more foreign. Rossen’s interpretation illustrates the dilemma posed by the ambiguity of ancient Macedonian identity, from Demosthenes’ barbarians to champions of Greek culture in Asia: seeing this shift depicted in a two-hour film emphasises the contradiction in the ancient tradition, particularly when we watch barbarian Philip and his Greek son who is so utterly different, or when we see Macedonians becoming representatives of Hellenism.

Alexander (2004)28

Oliver Stone decided to draw the line between barbarian vices and Greek virtues rather differently. Right at the beginning, Ptolemy’s voiceover, channelling Arrian’s Alexander,29 tells us that Philip turned the Macedonians from shepherds in the mountains into an organised, militarily successful kingdom which was able to ‘bring the devious Greeks to their knees’. The first we see of Macedonia is Olympias with her son, as Philip bursts into the room and rapes her. Nevertheless, Olympias does not only sound foreign, with her illdefined ‘Eastern European’ accent,30 she also complains that Philip calls her a 27 28

Ibid. 99–100. My discussion focuses on the theatrical cut of the film. The Director’s cut (2005) has a very similar timeline, although some of the flashbacks have been inserted in different places. There were two more versions: Alexander Revisited: the Final Unrated Cut (2007) and ­Alexander the Ultimate Cut (2014), which are structured differently. These different versions were not included in this discussion. 29 Arrian, Anabasis 7.9.2. 30 Elizabeth D. Carney, “Olympias and Oliver: Sex, Sexual Stereotyping, and Women in Oliver Stone’s Alexander”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to

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b­ arbarian. The snakes in Olympias’s bedroom also emphasise her foreign ways, but nevertheless, she claims descent from Achilles, while Philip reminds us that his ancestor is Heracles. The next scene is yet again set in a wrestling ground surrounded by Greek columns, and the trainer talks about fighting northern barbarians. A mere twelve minutes in, and we have already heard of two places Macedonians call barbarian. Next we visit Aristotle at Mieza, where he teaches a young Alexander and his companions surrounded by broken columns: in the modern imagination, nothing looks more Greek than a ruined Greek temple (fig. 10.5). It is here where the ‘Celtic fringe’ accents of Stone’s Macedonians first become obvious, particularly in contrast to Aristotle’s (Christopher Plummer’s) British English as ‘standard Greek’. This decision to let Alexander and his compatriots use Irish, Welsh and Scottish accents was rather controversial, but it does give us a clear idea how Stone wanted to define Alexander’s cultural background.31 By using English regional accents, and by contrasting this with the foreign, non-native speaker accents of Epirote Olympias and later Persians or Bactrians, Macedonians are located within the Greek-speaking world. The fact that the people of Epirus also spoke a Greek dialect was deliberately ignored, emphasising the decision to characterise Olympias as barbarian. Aristotle discusses the superiority of Greeks over Persians, suggesting that ‘we Greeks’ are superior. Is he including the Macedonian boys around him? When Alexander asks about the Persians “Why do we not rule them? It has always been our

Figure 10.5

31

Alexander (2004). Alexander and Aristotle in Mieza. Broken columns as signature for classical Greece.

Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, wi: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 154; Robin Lane Fox (2004c) 70 reports that the accent is based on ‘school children learning English in north-western Greece’. Lane Fox (2004c) 70–1.

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Greek dream to go east”, Stone’s intention becomes clear: these Macedonians define themselves as Greek, too. Back in Pella, Macedonians watch Alexander tame Bucephalus. The crowd is predominantly dressed in white, conforming to established ‘Grecian’ expectations (fig. 10.6). Philip wears a tunic pinned at the shoulders, a style which fits the Greek stereotype, while the colour, black, does not; throughout the film, black fabrics are used to underline a specifically Macedonian identity, as well as helping us to recall Philip specifically. Philip is also wearing the diadem which was found in tomb ii at Vergina and Val Kilmer was made up to resemble, at least superficially, the face reconstructed on the basis of the male skull which was also found there. The city in the background no longer looks like Rossen’s Mediterranean village, but we see white columns and the low pitched roofs associated with Greek temples. The palace interiors were also designed to look Greek, featuring more white marble colonnades and pebble mosaics we know from major Macedonian archaeological sites.32 The next scene shows us Philip and Alexander in the caves beneath the palace at Pella, looking at paintings which the audience is expected to interpret as very ancient. The Macedonian king, now sporting the cuirass found in his tomb, and occasionally sipping from a wine skin, gives Alexander a lesson in the risks and sacrifices of kingship as he discusses the myths of Achilles, Prometheus, Oedipus, Medea and Heracles. This scene was widely criticised, yet it adds to our picture of how we should see Macedonians.33 Despite Ptolemy’s

Figure 10.6 32 33

Alexander (2004). Hellenised Macedonian crowd (later on in the film).

Ibid. 82. Verity Platt, “Viewing the Past: Cinematic Exegesis in the Caverns of Macedon”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, wi: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 285–304, esp. 289–93.

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initial story about Philip’s efforts to civilise the Macedonians, the Greek roots of the royal palace go deep into a very early period, signalled to the viewer both by the idea of cave paintings and the archaic design of the images. If myths, such a quintessential aspect of what we generally remember about the ancient Greeks, were painted on the walls of caves in Macedonia, we surely have to assume that these Macedonians have shared Greek culture for a long time. Another few years are passed over, and we arrive at Philip’s wedding to Eurydice. Again, most of the Macedonians are draped in white, just like the Greek guests. The room with its marble columns and the whole scene recall nineteenth-century history paintings; Macedonian excavations contribute silver vessels and gold wreaths. Although the film is less explicit about Greek homosexuality than ancient sources about Alexander would allow, this scene also shows us (albeit in the background) Philip raping Pausanias, the man who will later assassinate him. At this point the film cuts straight to the eve of the battle of Gaugamela. Parmenion mentions Darius’ offer of his daughter in marriage, asking “when has a Greek ever been given such honours?”, but while Alexander fantasises about Darius coming to him and bowing down to Greece, he also proclaims that Babylon will be his new home. In his speech to the troops the next morning, he contrasts his army, who are Macedonian free men and fight for the freedom and glory of Greece, with Persians who are enslaved by their king and who fight only because their king tells them that they must. Coming from a Macedonian king, who has ordered his troops to follow him so far, this sounds rather odd,34 and yet again this whole sequence emphasises that the difference between Macedonians and Greeks is rather blurred in this film. After victory in battle, Alexander enters Babylon and soon ends up in the orientalising fantasy that is the palace of Darius, with a harem depicted along the lines of nineteenth-century visions of the Orient.35 This also marks the beginning of the transformation of Alexander and his companions towards more eastern cultural expression. Costumes become more colourful, fabrics more structured, patterned and extravagant, and some of the men begin to wear jewellery and make-up, all features which a modern western audience would tend to read as increasing effeminacy (fig. 10.7). Dialogue between Alexander and his companions alerts us to the danger that the immense wealth of the East will corrupt noble Macedonians.

34 35

The idea may be based on Isocrates 5.154. Llewellyn-Jones (2010) esp. 251–8.

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Figure 10.7

Alexander (2004). Increasing orientalisation of A ­ lexander. Note lengthening hair, changes in clothing and accessories.

Alexander clearly admires the grandeur of Babylon, contrasting it with what Aristotle said about the inferiority of eastern barbarians. But then, still in Babylon, Alexander describes those he conquered as people who “leave their dead unburied, (…) smash their enemies’ skulls and drink them as dust, they mate in public”, and asks: “what can they think, or sing or write, when none can read?” Alexander’s city foundations and conquests are presented as civilising mission. Freeing all these people, Alexander states, would be beyond the glory of Achilles. As Alexander moves further east, his hair grows longer, his jewellery becomes bigger and the eye makeup darker.36 We see orientalisation to different degrees among his companions, from Hephaistion whose style becomes more pronouncedly ‘eastern’ than Alexander’s to Parmenion who retains his Greek armour and white tunic. In a scene where they discuss Alexander’s plan to marry Rhoxane, styling seems to map onto opinions (fig. 10.8). Parmenion demands that Alexander should produce a fully Macedonian heir, while Alexander angrily criticises their “contempt for a world much older than ours”. Later, the conflict fully escalates when Cleitus, now dressed in simple Macedonian black, challenges Alexander, contrasting his own “Macedonian rags” with “Eastern pomp”, and criticising the king for demanding Persian bowing and for accepting offerings as a son of Zeus. He complains about Alexander’s barbarian friends and barbarian wife, he calls him a despot (implying Persian excess) and finally also refers to Alexander’s barbarian mother, which prompts Alexander to run him through with a spear. Even here, so far from home, the Macedonian (Greek?) concept of what is barbarian lets emotion 36

Lane Fox (2004c) 121–2.

Philip, Alexander and Macedonia

Figure 10.8

273

Alexander (2004). Hephaistion and Parmenion—different degrees of orientalisation among Alexander’s companions.

boil over into murder. Two minutes later, the film cuts from Alexander racked with guilt and unwell back to Macedonia eight years earlier. This flashback is a particularly striking moment. Revisiting the younger, Greek selves of Alexander and his companions emphasises the change they have gone through. We find ourselves in the theatre of Pella, where an audience predominantly dressed in Grecian white (Figure 10.6) looks on as statues of Greek gods are paraded in front of them. Alexander and Philip ride along, both dressed in white and gold, Philip wearing another artefact from ‘his’ tomb, a golden oak wreath (fig. 10.9). As they ride, Philip expresses his pride that Greeks finally respect Macedonia. What follows is Philip’s assassination and Alexander’s accession to the kingship. As we arrive back in Asia, Alexander argues with disillusioned Macedonians at the river Hyphasis, and is forced to turn back. The campaign descends into massacres in unfamiliar tropical terrain which almost cost Alexander his life. The final retreat through the desert brings more disasters, and Alexander’s return to Babylon is not triumphant as his first arrival. As Hephaistion lies dying, Alexander gives a last great speech about uniting East and West, but then he descends into rage and paranoia, and dies soon after. Ptolemy’s epilogue suggests that Alexander’s dream of uniting East and West was too big for his men; in fact, Ptolemy says, he never believed in the idea in the first place.37 37

In his introduction to Lane Fox (2004c), Oliver Stone emphasises the idea that ­Alexander’s ‘vision of reconciling barbarian and Greek races was too much for many Greeks’. The idea of Alexander as a unifier of East and West was particularly promoted by ­William Woodthorpe Tarn, Alexander the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948) but is now widely dismissed by scholars, starting with Ernst Badian “Alexander the Great and

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Figure 10.9

Alexander (2004). Philip and Alexander in Pella: Macedonians at their most Greek.

Oliver Stone found a rather different way of depicting cultural contrast in the story of the Macedonian conqueror. Here Macedonians call others barbarians and are essentially a subset of Greeks, people who identify as both Greek and Macedonian, even if there are some political tensions, too. The tension between Greeks/Macedonians on one hand and barbarians on the other is emphasised, be they Epirotes, northern tribes, Persians, Bactrians or Indians; and the ‘orientalisation’ of Alexander has consequently also become much more striking. In fact, Oliver Stone’s East seems to have taken a step backwards into the nineteenth century—a mix between beguiling orientalism, corrupting ­influences and sometimes incomprehensible otherness, where in 1956, ­boundaries between East and West seem a lot less clearly defined.

The Search for Alexander the Great (1981)

Filmmakers might have many reasons to come to different interpretations of ambiguous source material, especially when it comes to ethnic stereotyping, but in the case of ancient Macedonia, we can look at a specific turning point. Excavations in the two royal cities of Pella and Aigai (modern Vergina) made all the difference. At both sites, modern excavation work started in earnest the Unity of Mankind”, Historia 7 (1958) 425–444. See Thomas Harrison, “Oliver Stone, Alexander, and the Unity of Mankind”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, wi: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 224–32. (Lane Fox himself dismisses Tarn, too: Lane Fox (2004c) 26).

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in the 1950s, and no high-profile finds had been made yet as Robert Rossen’s Alexander the Great went into production. A large royal place was uncovered in Pella and, more significantly for the public image of Macedonia, some of the most luxurious ancient private houses known anywhere in Greece, with distinctive pebble mosaics and elaborate wall paintings. But this alone would probably not have shifted the old ideas of barbarian Macedonia. At Vergina, too, royal palaces were uncovered first, starting in the 1950s. In 1977, Manolis Andronikos uncovered four royal tombs under a large tumulus; two had not been looted. He identified the most elaborate of these tombs (ii) as that of Philip ii. This identification of Philip’s grave is widely accepted, while attempts to link members of the Argead family with other tombs, as even more were still found, proved more difficult. It was Philip’s tomb which really caught the international imagination. By 1980, a group of leading scholars had produced chapters for a lavishly illustrated book on Philip ii. In the introduction, the editors state: ‘The purpose of the present volume is to make a contribution to the reappraisal of the personality and achievement of Philip that has become a matter of urgency in the light of the discovery of the royal tombs at Vergina.’38 These discoveries also gave new energy to a dispute which had long been latent, namely whether a group of Slavonic-speakers in the south of what was then Yugoslavia had the ‘right’ to call themselves Macedonian. During the 1980s, a number of publications came out to ‘prove’ the exclusive Greekness of ancient Macedonians.39 Nicolaos Martis’ 1984 monograph The Falsification of Macedonian History is a particularly striking example. It is not a particularly scholarly volume by ‘a Macedonian and former Minister for Northern Greece’, with an introduction which speaks of a ‘duty to inform both Greek and international public opinion of the groundlessness of such counterfeit contentions’, namely ‘the falsification of Macedonian history by the Socialist Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)’.40 That this book-length political pamphlet was awarded

38

39

40

Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos, “Preface”, in Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1980) 8. E.g. Michael Sakellariou (ed.), Macedonia: 4000 Years of Greek History and Civilization (­Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1983); cf. Loring M. Danforth, “Ancient Macedonia, Alexander the Great and the Star or Sun of Vergina: National Symbols and the Conflict between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia”, in Joseph Roisman and Ian Worthington (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Macedonia (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) 579–80; Loring M. Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict. Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World (­Princeton, nj: Princeton University Press, 1995) 167–72. Martis (1984) 11.

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a prize by the Academy of Athens, with a commendation stating that the work ‘with reliable proofs clearly demonstrates the Hellenic origin and national feeling of the Macedonians’, shows how much the Greek government and public had riding on this question even by 1985.41 Peter Sykes’s 1981 tv docu-drama miniseries, The Search for Alexander the Great, provides a fascinating insight into the impact merely four years after the discoveries in Vergina. James Mason’s commentary and the scenes with characters discussing the story are shot in the archaeological site of Aegeira in the northern Peloponnese, and some scenes were filmed in Delphi, including inside the temple of Apollo and the Athenian Treasury. This suggests a large degree of Greek government support, which would almost certainly mean influence on the script.42 Macedonian archaeology clearly had an impact: while the documentary does not feature replicas of specific artefacts from the royal tombs of Vergina, we see pebble mosaics, silver drinking vessels and gold ­jewellery reminiscent of finds from Macedonian tombs. These details provide some background to the interpretation of Macedonia we see in Sykes’ version. This Philip is dressed like the Greeks, and while he is a pragmatic military man who says that he prefers war to music and poetry, there is no suggestion that he is a barbarian. Demosthenes is among the characters who comment on the story; he is used as a critical voice, but the barbarian theme does not come up even once: the conflict between Greeks and Macedonians is purely a political matter. While Olympias is not represented as a barbarian, as in Oliver Stone’s Alexander, there is still a conflict between her and Philip over Alexander’s education, and Philip here states that he wants a civilised son. This ‘civilised’ education, we soon find out, consists of a distinctly Spartan regime of sport, physical discomfort, little food and just one tunic, as opposed to Olympias’ interest in music, poetry and religion. While the cultural divide between Greeks and Macedonians has been played down significantly, the contrast between Greeks and Persians is strongly emphasised. In the second episode, we first meet Darius, played by ­Robert Stephens in a pantomime wig, beard and dark brown make-up, with exaggerated mannerisms and a stereotypical ‘eastern foreigner’ accent. Accents are used to illustrate ethnic differences—but only in so far as the Persians have foreign a­ ccents, while Greeks and Macedonians all use British English. 41 42

Ibid. Page inserted before the title page. Lane Fox (2004c) 19–20 describes a project titled The Search for Alexander the Great with Greek government support and influence on the script, which was derailed by the Vergina finds in 1977. He does not make clear whether the 1981 production was what became of that project after the whole production team was sacked.

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The ­introduction to the Persians features medieval Persian paintings of turbaned figures, and music reminiscent of Muslim religious chanting. The dispute over Alexander’s adoption of eastern culture is defined as pitching Greeks against Persian Barbarians: even Cleitus calls himself Greek and complains about barbarian customs, rather than, as we see in the sources, presenting a Macedonian nobleman’s complaint about his king’s inappropriate behaviour. Some of the Greeks (Macedonians?) at Alexander’s court are heard to complain about Alexander’s barbarian ways, using Modern Greek. Thus, the continuity between ancient Macedonians and modern Greeks is made completely explicit. The political historical debate which informed Sykes’s interpretation of Macedonia only intensified in the 1990s, when Greece entered into a lengthy dispute (still not resolved) with the now independent ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’. By this point, the archaeological finds from Vergina, particularly the golden urn with the ‘star of Vergina’ on its lid, had become central to defining Macedonian identity; crucially, there was a dispute over who was allowed to use these symbols. Oliver Stone’s 2004 film is clearly also influenced by this debate. As Nisbet has shown,43 elaborate lobbying behind the scenes is likely to have had an impact on the line the film took. Views on the cultural divide between East and West had also changed significantly since 1956. It is well known that Oliver Stone’s outlook has been significantly influenced by his experiences in the Vietnam War,44 which had only just started when Robert Rossen’s Alexander the Great was released. Stone’s downbeat eastern campaign in the Indian Jungle as an end to the dream of uniting East and West shows such influences; but by 2004, new western intervention in the Middle East and Afghanistan had started to colour the public’s outlook, too. In this context it is striking that in Stone’s version, we hardly get to see Persia proper: Alexander’s campaign focuses on Babylon (with Darius’ main palace) in modern Iraq and later Bactria and the Indian campaign, which map, roughly, on modern ­Afghanistan and Pakistan.

43

44

Gideon Nisbet, Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture (Bristol: Bristol Phoenix, 2006) 117–19; cf. Joanna Paul, “Oliver Stone’s Alexander and the Cinematic Epic Tradition”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, wi: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 18–19. Carol Cadwalladr, “Oliver Stone and the Politics of Filmmaking”, The Observer 18/07/2010. http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jul/18/oliver-stone-chavez-wall-street (accessed 6 December 2016).

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Conclusions Alexander’s story, with its clash between different identities and ambiguous ancient categories, is an excellent example of ancient material which might be shaped according to our own ideas about ‘civilised virtues’ and ‘barbarian vices’. The impact of the archaeological finds at Vergina on the public image of Macedonia can hardly be overstated: film is, after all, a visual medium. Actual Macedonian material, and specifically very striking, sophisticated artefacts which may have been owned and selected by the king himself, fired up the imagination, while the political discourse around these finds clearly steered filmmakers towards a particular interpretation. After the Vergina excavation of 1977, Philip’s image could hardly return to the barbarian furs considered appropriate in 1956. In fact, Stone’s Alexander puts almost the whole inventory of ‘Philip’s grave’ on display, not least as part of Val Kilmer’s props and costumes. Looking at Alexander in 1956, 1981 and 2004, it is clear that the relevant ethnic categories, Greek, Macedonian and Persian/Eastern/Asian have become more problematic, and filmmakers probably have less leeway now than Robert Rossen had in 1956. In the context of politics in the southern Balkans and in the Middle East, ancient Macedonia’s place in the ancient world and the identities of Philip and Alexander still need to shift and adapt as deftly as they ever did back in the fourth century bce. Bibliography Badian, Ernst, “Alexander the Great and the Unity of Mankind”, Historia 7 (1958) 425–44. Badian, Ernst, “Greeks and Macedonians”, in Beryl Barr-Sharrar and Eugene N. Borza (eds.), Macedonia and Greece in Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Times (Washington DC: National Gallery of Art, 1982) 33–51. Blanshard, Alastair J.L. and Kim Shahabudin (eds.), Classics on Screen: Ancient Greece and Rome on Film (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013). Borza, Eugene N., In the Shadow of Olympus: the Emergence of Macedon (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). Cadwalladr, Carol, “Oliver Stone and the Politics of Filmmaking”, The Observer 18/07/2010 (last accessed 6 December 2016). Carney, Elizabeth D., “Olympias and Oliver: Sex, Sexual Stereotyping, and Women in Oliver Stone’s Alexander”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 135–67.

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Danforth, Loring M., “Ancient Macedonia, Alexander the Great and the Star or Sun of Vergina: National Symbols and the Conflict Between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia”, in Joseph Roisman and Ian Worthington (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Macedonia (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) 572–98. Danforth, Loring M., The Macedonian Conflict. Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995). Ellis, John R., “Macedonia under Philip”, in Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1980) 146–65. Errington, Robert Malcolm, A History of Macedonia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière and Griffith, Guy Thompson, A History of Macedonia, volume II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979). Harrison, Thomas, “Oliver Stone, Alexander, and the Unity of Mankind”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 219–42. Hatzopoulos, Miltiades B. and Loukopoulos, Louisa D. “Preface”, in Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1980) 8–9. Hatzopoulos, Miltiades. B., “Macedonians and Other Greeks”, in Robin Lane Fox (ed.), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Macedon. Studies in the Archaeology and History of Macedon, 650 BC–300 AD (Leiden: Brill, 2011) 51–77. Lane Fox, Robin, The Making of Alexander (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004c). Lane Fox, Robin, “Alexander on Stage: A Critical Appraisal of Rattigan’s Adventure S­ tory”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 55–91. Lévêque, Pierre, “Philip’s Personality”, in Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. ­Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1980) 176–87. Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd, “‘Help me, Aphrodite!’ Depicting the Royal Women of Persia in Alexander”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 243–83. Mari, Manuela, “Traditional Cults and Beliefs”, in Robin Lane Fox (ed.), Brill’s Companion to Ancient Macedon. Studies in the Archaeology and History of Macedon, 650 BC–300 AD (Leiden: Brill, 2011) 453–65. Martis, Nicolaos K., The Falsification of Macedonian History (Athens: A.S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, 1984). Nisbet, Gideon, Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture (Bristol: Bristol Phoenix, 2006).

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Paul, Joanna, “Oliver Stone’s Alexander and the Cinematic Epic Tradition”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 15–35. Platt, Verity, “Viewing the Past: Cinematic Exegesis in the Caverns of Macedon”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 285–304. Richards, Jeffrey, Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds (London and New York: Continuum, 2008). Sakellariou, Michael B. (ed.), Macedonia: 4000 Years of Greek History and Civilization (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1983). Sakellariou, Michael B., “Panhellenism: From Concept to Policy”, in Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1980) 128–45. Shahabudin, Kim, “The Appearance of History: Robert Rossen’s Alexander the Great”, in Paul Cartledge and Fiona Rose Greenland (eds.), Responses to Oliver Stone’s Alexander: Film, History and Cultural Studies (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 92–117. Solomon, Jon, The Ancient World in the Cinema, revised edition (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2001). Tarn, William Woodthorpe, Alexander the Great (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948).

chapter 11

From Giscard d’Estaing to Syntagma Square: The Use and Abuse of Ancient Greece in the Debate on Greece’s eu Membership Luca Asmonti 1 Introduction This chapter will discuss how the topos of the Greek origins of European values has been used to justify Greece’s admittance into the European Union and its role in it. Drawing on scholarly debates on the interactions between “Western” and “indigenous” of Hellenism, it will highlight three key lines of interpretation of the legacy of ancient Greece within modern Europe: firstly, European leaders and institutions using it to strengthen the idea of Europe as a “value-based” community; secondly, the Greek government stressing the Greek ­origins of Europe’s defining values to justify and celebrate Greece’s role in the European conclave; and finally a new, grassroots interpretation of the direct democracy of the ancient polis, which emerged at the time of the anti-austerity protests in 2010–2012. The broader context of this analysis will be the “identity crisis” of Europe engendered by the continent’s economic problems and the global crisis of democracy: the debate surrounding the Greek origins of European values will be therefore used as a case-study to highlight the difficulty of defining Europe as  a  community of values. At the same time, it will be argued that ancient Greece today can provide a useful example of how a democratic system can elaborate an open and frank discourse of its internal and external threats. 2

Why It is Difficult to Understand Ancient Democracy

On 23rd September 1915, Australian journalist Keith Murdoch cabled a long ­letter from the Australian High Commission in London to his Prime Minister Andrew Fisher. The document was a crude account of the ongoing anzac ­campaign in Turkey. Written in a very Australian frank and informal style, the letter bitterly complains about the overall disorganisation of the campaign, and the amateurism and inadequacy of the commanding officers. In M ­ urdoch’s own words, © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_013

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It is undoubtedly one of the most terrible chapters in our history. Your fears have been justified. I have not military knowledge to say whether the enterprise ever had a chance of succeeding. Certainly there has been a series of disastrous underestimations. And again, “I am of course only repeating what I have been told on all hands. But you will trust me when I say that the work of the general staff in Gallipoli has been deplorable”.1 To the student of ancient Greece, this request for trust from a man reporting what he was told by others might recall a famous passage from Thucydides’ first book, in which the historian details his method of reporting events: Far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible.2 Thucydides and Keith Murdoch would make an interesting pair of parallel lives. On 23rd September 2015, one century after Murdoch’s famous “Gallipoli Letter”, Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia, unveiled a new memorial for war correspondents in Canberra. In his speech, Turnbull remembered Thucydides as the “world’s first war correspondent”. In fact, he was a very special kind of correspondent, owing to his direct involvement in the conflict which he narrated: Arguably, the first war correspondent, arguably the world’s first historian, was of course Thucydides who wrote and who was a participant in the Peloponnesian War. Although, I’d say to the Admirals and the Generals, he was also a General so he was multi-tasking—perhaps that wouldn’t be allowed, wouldn’t be acceptable nowadays.3 Turnbull’s words are interesting because they capture rather well our difficult relationship with the heritage of classical antiquity, and of ancient Greece in particular. On the one hand we acknowledge the essential contribution of our Greco-Roman ancestors to today’s world and culture. On the other one, we feel 1 National Library of Australia, Papers of Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch, ms 2823, 1, 6. 2 Thuc. 1.22.2. 3 http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/tribute-to-war-correspondents (accessed 14 March 2016).

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the need to mark the distance between us and them—in particular when it comes to the problem of democracy. The debate on the similarities and differences between ancient and modern democracy is hardly new. According to Robert Dahl’s classic analysis, ancient Greek democracy was defined by some inherent limits both in theory and practice, which would eventually determine its fall. In particular, when compared to modern democratic systems, ancient forms of popular government appear extremely exclusive, both internally and externally. Internally because citizenship and political participation were conceived as privileges from which large sections of the populations, such as women and slaves, were excluded; ­externally because, while a democratic constitution may have operated within the boundaries of a polis, the Greeks never conceived the democratic entitlements of freedom and equality as universal rights. As a consequence of these two ­limits, ancient Greek democracy was confined to the small-scale ­system of the city-state.4 Turnbull, however, a man who, it is worth remembering, was a rather successful entrepreneur before getting into politics, seems less ­concerned with the great ideals of liberty and equality than the amateurish nature of ancient Greek democracy: a complex organisation where many o­ ffices of high responsibility were entrusted to private citizens selected by ­ballot, ­without a specific certified knowledge, would be absolutely ­unthinkable in today’s world obsessed with expertise and specialization, even in the field of politics.5 For someone like Turnbull, Thucydides’ combined historical and military ­activity would be even more surprising when considering that the ­former was not simply an armchair pastime for the busy officer. Indeed, the study of history was considered an essential part of the formation of the ­military and political elites of the ancient world. Indeed, some of the great statesmen of the Roman ­republic, like Cato Maior, Scipio the Younger, were also ­authors of H ­ istoriae. In a famous passage of the De Oratore, Cicero stresses the ­importance of the study of history, and other disciplines, in the education of the Roman statesman:

4 Robert Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 1989) 18–22. 5 On these matters see the recent discussion in Robert Babe, Wilbur Schramm and Noam Chomsky Meet Harold Innis: Media, Power, and Democracy (Lanham, md: Lexington, 2015) 36–37, 68–69. On rule by amateurs in democratic Athens, see Mogens Herman Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Structure, Principles and Ideology ­(London: ­Duckworth, 1999) 341–342 and Josiah Ober, Democracy and Knowledge. Innovation and ­Learning in Classical Athens (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008) in particular 75–76, 123.

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The poets must also be studied; an acquaintance must be formed with history; the writers and teachers in all the liberal arts and sciences must be read, and turned over, and must, for the sake of exercise, be praised, interpreted, corrected, censured, refuted; you must dispute on both sides of every question; and whatever may seem maintainable on any point, must be brought forward and illustrated.6 Getting back to Thucydides, the historian envisaged a very useful endeavour, a possession for all times, ktema es aei:7 that knowing the past is important to understand the present and to prepare for the future. These lessons from the past, as recently argued by Kurt Raaflaub, are also important to learn the “qualities needed for successful leadership in democracy”.8 If learning about the past is important for understanding the present, the opposite idea may also be true: to engage with the events of the present is essential to make more sense of our study of the past. Europe, and the long struggle for the continent’s integration, provides an ideal ground to test this. 3

A New Language of Division and Conflict in Europe

In 2012, the European Union was awarded the Noble Peace Prize. This acknowledgement, as we can read in the Award Ceremony Speech, was deemed as “both deserved and necessary”.9 For it was both a reward for the process of reconciliation and democratization, inspired by a “new internationalism”, and a boost to the eu in front of the political difficulties ignited by the financial crisis.10 The political and social landscape of Europe is still defined by what historian William Hitchcock called “the persistence of division”.11 Europe is a place where the traumas, and controversies of history are very tangible. Historians in 6 Cic. Or. 1.36.158. 7 Thuc. 1.22.4. 8 See Kurt Raaflaub, “Ktēma es aiei: Thucydides’ concept of ‘learning through history’ and its realization in its work”, in Antonis Tsamakis and Melina Tamiolaki (eds.), Thucydides between History and Literature ed (Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2013) 3–21. 9 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2012/presentation-speech .html (accessed 14 March 2016). 10 See Luca Asmonti, “The pitfalls of envisaging a Europe without wars: History, Democracy and the European Union”, Il Pensiero politico 44 (2013b) 233–234. 11 William Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe. The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945 to the Present (New York: Doubleday, 2003) 5.

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a way do not have to chase for stories, but are somehow overwhelmed by them. The long years of economic and financial crisis in the Continent have undermined the democratic credibility and legitimacy of political process within the eu as well as its member States.12 The “democratic deficit” of the European Union is a problem thoroughly investigated by scholars.13 The problem, however, does not solely concern the involvement of Europe’s citizens in decisionmaking procedures at continental and national level.14 The events of the last years, from the harsh austerity measures voted by the Greek Parliament, and the heated demonstrations and anti-German sentiment which they sparked,15 to the refugee crisis of the Summer 2015, have called into question the very essence of European integration as a process driven by common values and a shared cultural identity. As a new “rhetoric of exclusion” is becoming more and more pervasive in national political discourses,16 political leaders have warned of the serious political dangers of a collapse of the Euro.17 Addressing the European Parliament on 14th September 2011, Jacek Rostowski, then Poland’s Finance Minister, went so far as to say that, were the eu to collapse, a new European conflict would break out within ten years.18 War had long been a taboo word in the European discourse. In the aftermath of World War ii, the Europeans thought that in order to create a future of peace it was necessary to move beyond their history of national contrasts and 12

Agustin José Menéndez, “The Existential Crisis of the European Union”, German Law R ­ eview 14 (2013) 462. 13 For recent discussions, see Henrik Bang, Mads Dagnis Jensen, Peter Nedergaard, “‘We the People’ versus ‘We the Heads of States’: the Debate on the Democratic Deficit of the ­European Union”, Policy Studies 36 (2015) 196–216; Marija Bartl “The Way We Do Europe: Subsidiarity and the Substantive Democratic Deficit”, European Law Journal 21 (2015) 23–43; Jürgen Habermas, “Democracy in Europe: Why the Development of the eu into a Transnational Democracy is Necessary and How it is Possible”, European Law Journal 21 (2015) 546–557; Nicole Scicluna, European Union: Constitutionalism in Crisis (London and New York: Routledge, 2015) 98–119. 14 See Habermas (2015) 547–50. 15 See Luca Asmonti, “‘From Athens to Athens’. Europe, Crisis and Democracy: Suggestion for a Debate”, in Kyriakos Demetriou (ed.), Democracy in Transition. Political Participation in the European Union (New York: Springer, 2013a) 135–38. 16 Ruth Wodak, Salomi Boukala, “European Identities and the Revival of Nationalism in the European Union: A Discourse Historical Approach”, Journal of Language and Politics 14 (2015) 89. 17 Douglas Webber, “How Likely is it that the European Union will Disintegrate? A C ­ ritical Analysis of Competing Theoretical Perspectives”, European Journal of International R ­ elations 20 (2014) 341–42. 18 Asmonti (2013a) 140.

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violence, and create a united continent. Now the political tensions engendered by the financial crisis seem to have brought back a language of division and, to some extent, belligerence. For all these reasons, ancient historians should devote as much attention as they can to the events in Europe and in particularly in Greece, and to consider the cultural implications of the current political and economic crisis. For issues such as the role and the position of Greece within Europe and the influence of its cultural legacy are just as relevant now as they were, say, at the time of the expansion of Rome into the Eastern Mediterranean. 4

Europe and Greece: Interpretations and Appropriations of Hellenism

It is frequently said that membership in the Euro led to financial crisis in Greece, as well as other countries such as Italy, Spain, and Portugal, with France being next on the list. This, as is generally assumed, has happened because lower interest rates and an increase in wages fuelled in those less than disciplined countries what is known as “consumer-led growth”, and a ballooning of the state sector and of public expenditure in general, to the detriment of the country’s competitiveness.19 On the other hand, many have been arguing that the austerity measures enforced in those debt-ridden countries have proved ultimately counterproductive.20 This has stirred a recrudescence of antiEurope and anti-German sentiments, which revealed how, behind the surface of the financial turmoil lay deeper cultural, political and social issues concerning the relationship between the European Union and its member states.21 These issues are firstly, the distribution of sovereignty and authority between central eu Institutions and national governments, secondly, and the problem of the so-called democratic deficit within the Union. Other very profound but too often overlooked issues concern the Union and the problem with identifying the tenets of a common European identity. A particularly low point was reached in the days between 30th October and 3rd November 2011, when Greek 19 20

21

See e.g. Vicky Pryce, Greekonomics. The Euro Crisis and Why Politicians Don’t Get It (­London: Biteback publishing, 2012) 9–12. See David Kelly, “Investing in a world of more balance”, cfa Institute Conference Proceedings Quarterly 31 (2014) 17–18; Pinninti Krishna Rao, Government Austerity and Socioeconomic Sustainability (New York and London: Springer, 2015) 21, 25, 33. Asmonti (2013a) 136; Philomena Murray and Michael Longo, “The Crisis-Legitimacy ­Nexus in the European Union”, in Kyriakos Demetriou (ed.), The European Union in Crisis. Explorations in Representation and Democratic Legitimacy (New York and London: Springer, 2014) 64–65.

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Prime Minister George Papandreou first called a referendum on the tough conditions laid down by the troika for a 50% ‘haircut’ on the country’s debt, and then decided to cancel it following pressure from some members of his cabinet, chiefly Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, and other international leaders, gathered in Cannes for an emergency G20 meeting. The withdrawal of the referendum prompted a very unequivocal headline from the Frankfuerter Allgemeine Zeitung: Demokratie ist Ramsch, “democracy is junk”.22 Greece has been the eye of the cyclone of the Euro crisis. In the last years, the world media have consolidated a deeply negative view of Greece at ­international level, whose dominant themes are political as well as moral corruption, lack of credibility and even faineance.23 Greece is often seen as the country where certain typically southern European vices, most prominently as an excessive reliance on the welfare state, are at their most ridiculous zenith. Within Europe and in the us, observers from less faltering countries have taken the self-consolatory and self-forgiving path of questioning whether disgraced Greece is in fact part of Europe proper. Robert D. Kaplan, Chief Geopolitical Analyst of geo-political intelligence firm Stratfor, argued for a link between Greece’ financial woes and its liminal geopolitical position: It is not entirely an accident that Greece is the most economically troubled country in the European Union. The fact that it is located at Europe’s southeastern back door also has something to do with it. For Greece’s economic and political development bear marks of a legacy not wholly in the modern West.24 If we are to follow Kaplan’s train of thought, Greece is not simply Europe’s worst financial rascal. The case of Greece is important because it highlights the cultural repercussions of the current crisis of the European Union, as well as certain intrinsic flaws of the whole continental integration project. On a broader perspective, the history of Greece’s bid to join what was then called European Economic Community (eec) highlights the difficulty of defining the identity of this multinational organisation, which was meant to help Europe to move beyond national divisions.

22 See Asmonti (2013a) 135–136. 23 Andreas Antoniades, “At the Eye of the Cyclone: the Greek crisis in the Global Media”, in Pantelis Sklias and Nikolaos Tzifakis, (eds.), Greece’s Horizons: Reflecting on the Country’s Assets and Capabilities (London: Springer, 2013) 20–24. 24 https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/greece-european (accessed 14 March 2016).

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Greece is a country on the border between different cultures, where national identity is a very important and sensitive issue. The glory of ancient Hellas is of course a fundamental theme in the shaping of the modern Greek identity since the War of Independence of 1821–1823. Then, as brilliantly discussed by Yannis Hamilakis, the glorification and monumetalization of ancient Greece contributed to create a “nation apart”, and “divorced” the country for the other nationalist movements of the nineteenth century. This process also brought about the emancipation of an “indigenous” narrative of ancient Greece, which at the same time drew on and marked a difference from Western interpretation of Hellenism.25 Even now, Greece is a “nation apart”, from a number of different perspectives. As things stand, Greece is the only Balkan and Orthodox nation to be member of the eu: Greeks can therefore claim a difference from both other eu members and their Balkan neighbours. This sense of a special cultural-geographic position is shared by modern and ancient Greeks alike. In the Politics, Aristotle famously described as a nation located between a North and a South, the high-spirited but unintelligent peoples of Europe and the idle decadence of Asia.26 In the early twentieth century Greece was still seen as a boundary between an East and a West, and to many a visitor, this liminal identity appeared neither completely Western nor Eastern. As an American traveller wrote in 1911, The Greek is racially and geographically European but he is not a Western […]. He is Oriental in a hundred of ways, but his Orientalism is not Asiatic. He is the bridge between the East and the West.27 If foreign visitors have indulged in highlighting the liminal nature of Greece, the Greeks are generally very clear when it comes to state their belonging to the  Western European tradition.28 At the same time, as we are going to see, they are always eager to point out the huge debt of the Western tradition to the legacy of ancient Greece. This is why Greece provides an ideal standpoint to address the political and cultural crisis of Europe. To understand these cultural and political dynamics, it is interesting to look at the controversies surrounding the idea that the defining values of Europe, most notably, democracy, were born in ancient Greece. As the following pages will hopefully demonstrate, these controversies 25

Yannis Hamilakis, The Nations and Its Ruins. Antiquity, Archaeology, and National I­ magination in Greece (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) 112–123. 26 Arist. Pol. 1258a. 27 See Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (2nd edition) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 16. 28 Todorova (2009) 43–44.

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are a reflection of the political and cultural challenges faced by the European project and of a global crisis of democracy. Then, the final part of this chapter will try to suggest how the experience of the ancient polis can help to address the current problems of democracy. 5

Greek Roots of European Values?

In March 2013, Paul Eliadis, a prominent Brisbane oncologist and philanthropist, made a generous donation to the University of Queensland to establish a new Chair of Classics and Ancient History. As he declared in a press release, “To me any Western university that doesn’t have a Department that teaches the Classics doesn’t have a birth certificate”.29 Although Eliadis’ words referred to classical antiquity in general, they had a quintessentially Hellenic flavour. In particular, Eliadis’ statement echoed a famous aphorism commonly attributed to former French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing: “Europe without Greece would be like a child without birth certificate”. Giscard d’Estaing had a long-established reputation as a ‘philhellene’, which dated back to the years 1974–1975, when Greece began its journey to eec membership with France as its main supporter.30 In those days, playing the part of the philhellene was apparently easy, and certainly easier than it is now. The country was just coming out of one of the darkest periods of its modern history, the military junta of 1967–1974, which had drawn the ­country into the humiliating experience of the conflict with Turkey over Cyprus. Once the junta was overthrown, Europe seemed to be very eager to take that s­ toried country by hand and guide it towards democracy and prosperity. From a perspective of political opportunism, the enthusiasm for the Greek “roots” of European identity was conveniently meant to overshadow the economic and geopolitical ­implications of Greece joining the European Community. For Giscard d’Estaing the issue was one of principles. Rather, it was not an issue at all: “it was impossible to exclude Greece, the mother of all democracies, from Europe”.31 29 30

31

http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=26175 (accessed 14 March 2016). Gisela Hendricks and Annette Morgan, The Franco-German Axis in European Integration (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001) 137; Wilfried Loth, Building Europe. A History of E­ uropean Unification (Oldenbourg: de Gruyter, 2015) 242–244. Francis Haran, “Leaders and Followers: European Pre-understanding and Prejudice in  the  Greek Financial Crisis” Journal of Intercultural Communication 37 (2015) http:// www.immi.se/intercultural/nr37/haran.html (accessed 6 December 2016).

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Today the situation appears completely different: since the Greek debtgovernment crisis broke out in September 2009, being a philhellene seems to have become a much harder exercise, the number of its practitioners constantly declining. In November 2011, French newspaper Le Monde published a ­headline defining Greece a “less European country than it seemed”. In ­response to it, Etienne Roland, former director of the French School at Athens, wrote a  letter to the same newspaper, saying that he felt humiliated in his philhellenism, and remembered that Giscard d’Estaing “brought Greece into the European Community because, as he said, democracy and culture come from that country”.32 Once again, Giscard d’Estaing was celebrated as the great philhellene. ­Unfortunately, though, his views on Greece’s European credentials had dramatically changed since the exciting days following the overthrown of the Colonels. Ten months after Roland’s letter to Le Monde, German newsmagazine Der Spiegel published an interesting and indeed revelatory interview/conversation between Giscard d’Estaing and former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt.33 Back in 1974, the Frenchman did all he could to persuade the sceptical Schmidt of the importance of having Greece on board of the European project.34 In 2012, with the benefit of insight, Giscard d’Estaing could safely declare that bringing Greece into the eec had been a mistake. In fact, he went so far as to question whether Greece is a European country at all:35 To be perfectly frank, it was a mistake to accept Greece. Greece simply wasn’t ready. Greece is basically an Oriental country. Helmut, I recall that you expressed skepticism before Greece was accepted into the European Community in 1981. You were wiser than me. The Euro Group cannot be allowed to expand endlessly.36 Coming from someone like Giscard d’Estaing, these words sound rather surprising. Once, again, Greece was placed in a liminal position between an eastern world, “Ottoman” and “Orthodox”, and “proper” Europe, which was supposed 32 33

Etienne Roland, “Ellada, agapi mou”, Le Monde (11 November 2011). http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/spiegel-interview-with-helmut-schmidt -and-valery-giscard-d-estaing-a-855127.html (accessed 16 November 2016). 34 See Loth (2015) 243–244. 35 http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/spiegel-interview-with-helmut-schmidt -and-valery-giscard-d-estaing-a-855127-2.html (accessed 16 November 2016). 36 http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/spiegel-interview-with-helmut-schmidt -and-valery-giscard-d-estaing-a-855127.html (accessed 16 November 2016).

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to have become redundant following the country’s admission to the European Community. Interestingly, as well as understandably, Giscard d’Estaing does not follow up on the implications of his questioning the “Europeanness” of Greece for that idea of Europe as a “value-based community”37 to which he had given a fundamental contribution. This idea came into being at the Copenhagen European Summit of December 1973, at which the leaders of the eec countries agreed to introduce the concept of “European identity” into their foreign relations. A “Declaration on European Identity” was therefore published, where Europe was envisaged as a community of nations united by “the cherished values of their legal, political and moral order”.38 A few months later, in July 1974, the fall of Greece’s military dictatorship paved the way to the country’s bid to join the eec. Greece was the cradle of the values that defined Europe, most notably democracy. This and the Greek people’s desire to become part of Europe were the main arguments supporting the case for Greece’s European bid.39 In 1979, when an accession agreement was finally signed, Giscard d’Estaing said that, by welcoming Greece, Europe was returning “to its roots”.40 Now, as we have seen, even this père noble of the European Union has taken to question this privileged, central position of Greece in defining what Europe is and what it stands for. As trust in the European integration process seems to have reached its nadir, its roots seem to have become the object of question and contention. How Greek is Europe, and how European is Greece? At least  three different answers have been laid on the table. On the one hand, we have the  official position of the eu. If one has a look at Greece’s country profile on the European Union website, it is still possible to read there that Greece is “one of the cradles of European civilisation”, whose “city-states were pioneers in developing democratic forms of government”.41 On the other hand, and in stark contrast with this official view, we see mounting doubts on Greece’s European 37 38

39

40 41

Erik Oddvar Eriksen and John Erik Fossum, “Europe in Search of Legitimacy: Strategies of Legitimation Assessed”, International Political Science Review 25 (2004) 441–445. For the complete text of the declaration, see http://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/ 1999/1/1/02798dc9-9c69-4b7d-b2c9-f03a8db7da32/publishable_en.pdf (accessed 14 March 2016). On the issue of “demand”, see Susannah Verney, “Justifying the Second Enlargement. Promoting Interests, Consolidating Democracy, or Returning to the Roots?” in Helene Sjursen (ed.), Questioning eu enlargement. Europe in Search of Identity (London: Routledge, 2007) 19–43. On these matters, see Verney (2007) 27–33. http://europa.eu/about-eu/countries/member-countries/greece/index_en.htm (accessed 14 March 2016).

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credentials, rising even from very unexpected quarters. Between these two positions, and in contrast to both of them, a new re-appropriation of Hellenism, and in particular of the experience of the democratic city-state, took place. This happened between May 2010 and April 2012, when Syntagma Square in central Athens became the stage of a series of demonstrations against the austerity package imposed on Greece. The overarching discourse of the movement was a juxtaposition of direct democracy and citizen participation on one side, and the distant bureaucracies of the European Union on the other. The Greek movement was to an extent inspired by and part of the wider wave of protest commonly known as indignados, or Outraged. Once again, however, the Greek demonstrations developed specific features and methods, with a strong emphasis on grassroots participation: The tone of the movement was set in the first spontaneous public meeting taking place in Syntagma Square, ‘the People’s Assembly, a quasiinstitutional form’ that would soon become the soul of the movement. The assembly came up with the target of not only ‘real’ democracy, which was the slogan of the Spanish indignados, but of ‘direct democracy’. This syntactical change is anything but trivial, for it reflects a radicalization in terms of political prescription: the demand for a ‘real democracy’, although it definitely assumes that there is a democratic deficit, is vague enough not to pose a direct challenge to the contemporary form of ­liberal-parliamentary democracy. In contrast, ‘direct democracy’ connotes a more concrete model of democracy that is antagonistic to the current representative democracy and that calls for a far more radical reconfiguration of political power and relations.42 Drawing on the experience of ancient democracy,43 which was born just a few ­kilometres from Syntagma Square, the movement was intended to express, in the words of one of its supporters, a “demand for collective resistance, dignity and public resistance”.44 42 43

44

Nikos Sotirakopoulos and George Sotiropoulos, “Direct Democracy Now! The Greek I­ ndignados and the Present Cycle of Struggles”, Current Sociology (17 April 2013) 4. See Costas Douzinas, “In Greece, We See Democracy in Action”, The Guardian (16 June 2011); George Mavrommatis, “Hannah Arendt in the Streets of Athens”, Current Sociology 63 (2015) 438–39. See Panagiotis Sotiris, “Rethinking the Notions of ‘People’ and ‘Popular Sovereignty”, Greek Left Review (15 November 2011) https://greekleftreview.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/rethinking-the-notions-of-‘people’-and-‘popular-sovereignty’ (accessed 6 December 2016).

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293

European Membership and Greek Identity

This sense of distinctiveness is very important to define the image and position of Greece in Europe. According to historian William Hitchcock, there has always been a tendency amongst the wealthy countries of Northern and Western Europe to group together and look down at the new democracies of Mediterranean Europe—Greece, Portugal, and Spain—as the Continent’s “laggards”, owing to their economic backwardness and political marginality.45 Greece, however, seems to have often been able to occupy the agenda of postwar Europe and excite political and cultural debate well beyond its limited economic weight. For Greece was an extraordinary country with an extraordinary history, to which ordinary standards and procedures apparently could not be applied. Greece’s journey to Europe began in 1961, when Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis entered in negotiations with the original six members of the European Economic Community to obtain for his country the status of associate member.46 The negotiations were brought to a halt by the military coup of 1967, and were resumed only seven years later, after the fall of the junta. Karamanlis was appointed Prime Minister. Europe had embarked upon an expansion process since 1969,47 and the new Greek republic was eager to embrace the project with particular enthusiasm.48 ecc membership as a key step to consolidate democracy, strengthen external security and modernise the economy. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that anti-American sentiments were running high in Greece after the fall of the Colonels, owing to the us’ rather ambiguous stance towards the regime. Therefore, for the Karamanlis government joining the eec was the least controversial path towards Westernisation and democracy.49 Greece was inclined towards democracy as authoritarian regimes were also collapsing in the other two “laggards” of Europe, Spain and Portugal.50 All three countries applied for eec membership soon after the establishment of  democratic governments. In the case of Greece, however, the accession 45 46 47 48 49 50

Hitchcock (2003) 287. John Koliopoulos and Thanos Verenis, Modern Greece: A History Since 1821 (Malden, ma: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) 136–37. Loth (2015) 170–221. Ibid. 242–244. See Spyros Economides, “The Europeanization of Greek Foreign Policy”, Western European Politics 28 (2005) 474. Hitchcock (2003) 269–70.

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­process was particularly swift, in spite of its difficult economic situation.51 The reasons for this were historical, political, and geopolitical. In the mid-1970s, as the European project was losing momentum since the imperative of pacifying the continent after the destruction of wwii was fortunately becoming less urgent, the fast-tracked admission of Greece was seen as instrumental to foster a new legitimising strategy of the integration process, based on a supposed shared identity of values, as outlined in the Copenhagen declaration of December 1973. The debate on Greece’s ec membership was dominated by a “language of rights and values”, which outshone other more practical concerns. Most importantly, as observed by Susannah Verney, “Greece’s European identity appeared to have been absolutely unquestioned”.52 At the European Parliament, the Greek bid enjoyed enthusiastic cross-party support. Greece was to be welcomed in the Community because it was the “fountain head of Europe” and “the part of the world where the idea of Europe first showed its true face”.53 The fast-tracked admission of Greece to the eec was instrumental to an idea of Europe as the true heart of the Western world, as opposed to the United States of America. As General de Gaulle once said, “Western Europe, despite its dissensions and its distresses, is essential to the West. Nothing can replace the shining examples of these ancient peoples”.54 In typical European-Community fashion, the mid-1970s rhetoric of the Greek roots of European civilisation was as grand as it was vague, and seemed to eschew, in fact quite deliberately, some decisive questions: what exactly did Europe owe to Greece? On the 1st of January 1981, as Greece celebrated its formal entry into the eec, Karamanlis answered this question in the most uncompromising terms. As he said, “Europe is an area with which Greece is familiar, since its civilisation is a synthesis to which […] the Greek mind has contributed the concepts of liberty, truth and beauty”.55 The language of Karamanlis was attuned to the solemn occasion of Greece’s eec admission. His words also betrayed some pride, as Greece had managed to attain this important goal ahead of Europe’s other two new democracies, Spain and Portugal.56 A long journey, which had begun in 1961, with the dramatic

51 52 53 54 55 56

Verney (2007) 22. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 32–33. See David Calleo, “De Gaulle’s Visions for Europe”, in Benjamin Rowland (ed.), Charles de Gaulle’s Legacy of Ideas (Lanham, md: Lexington, 2011) 2. http://www.ellopos.net/politics/eu_karamanlis.html (accessed 16 November 2016). See Takis Pappas, “Why Greece failed”, Journal of Democracy 24 (2013) 31.

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intermission of the military junta, was now complete. Greece was now ­joining Europe, and did so through another re-appropriation of its legacy: at the beginning of the process of Greece’s admission to the eec, from the perspective of Brussels, the language of “grand gestures” served to strengthen a new legitimising strategy for the Community.57 Once the process was completed, the ­language of Karamanlis served the purpose of legitimising the presence of Greece in the European conclave. The Greek President singled out three pillars which at the same time were the essential contributions of Greece to the shared values of Europe, and defined the country’s identity within it: artistic beauty, the philosophical strife for truth, and the democratic sense of liberty. From the Greek perspective, therefore, the question was not what Europe owed to Greece. Europe, like its founding values, was born in Greece, and there could not be Europe without Greece. The acquisition of Greece to democracy and Europe paved the way to the admission of Portugal and Spain. In the early 1990s, the process of European integration reached its peak following the fall of the Iron Curtain, which marked the most acute phase of the so-called third wave of democratization.58 At this crucial juncture, the countries of the former Eastern bloc, as observed by ­Joseph Nye, “oriented” themselves “towards Brussels”, and took to reform their governance according to the political standards of Western Europe with the view of applying for ec membership.59 Back then, the coincidence b­ etween “democratisation” and “Europeanisation” was striking. Drawing on this momentum, throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Europe moved towards a tighter integration, but this proved to be a far from straightforward path. The ambition of giving a constitution to the rebranded European Union clashed against the outcome of popular referenda held in France and Holland, which prompted the cancellation or postponement of other consultations in Denmark, Ireland, Poland, and Portugal.60 Interestingly, as the constitutional process faltered, and the gap between  the peoples of Europe and eu institutions grew wider, calling into question the  democratic credentials of the European project, that is its founding myth, the theme of the Greek roots of European democracy also became the object of intellectual debate and political contention. Controversy began as soon as 57 58 59 60

Verney (2007) 27. Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (­Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991) 23–24, 40. See Asmonti (2013a) 141; Joseph Nye, Soft Power. The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004) 77–78. Erik O. Eriksen The Unfinished Democracy of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 150.

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the first “Draft Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe” was presented to the President of the European Council, on the 18th of July 2003. In its original version, the document included a vaguely pompous preamble, which opened with a passage from the funeral speech of Pericles (Thuc. ii.37): “Our constitution […] is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the greatest number”. This choice of epigram proved to be a very ill-fated one. To start with, the original version of the document presented a rather misleading, if not plainly erroneous translation of the Greek word polloi as “the whole of the people”. Later on, the Thucydidean quotation was scrapped from the final version of the constitutional charter, together with most of the preamble, because it was judged to be “too wordy”. The text, however, hung around long enough to e­ ngender debate amongst ancient historians. In his controversial book ­Democracy in Europe (2004), Luciano Canfora questioned whether Pericles’ Funeral Speech was a suitable text to represent the democratic values of Europe. A ­ ccording to Canfora, the choice of this “Greco-classical stamp” to define democratic values was a “falsification”, and so was the “deeply rooted belief” that “democracy was a Greek invention”.61 If the “belief” in the Greek origins of democracy has been cause of political and cultural controversy within the discourse of European identity, in the last years, as we have said, the direct democracy of ancient of the ancient Greek city-states has also been recalled to mark a distinction from Europe, and to highlight the failure of the European Union to answer the demands of the peoples of Europe. As thousands of Greek citizens joined in the anti-austerity protests, which culminated with the permanent assembly in Syntagma Square, some commentators drew parallels between this movement and the ancient forms of political participation. Costas Douzinas, a Greek-born Law Professor at Birkbeck College in London, and Guardian columnist, was particularly enthusiastic: This is democracy in action […]. The parallels with the classical Athenian agora, which met a few hundred metres away, are striking. Aspiring speakers are given a number and called to the platform if that number is drawn, a reminder that many office-holders in classical Athens were selected by lots.62

61 62

See Luciano Canfora, Democracy in Europe. A History of an Ideology (trans. Simon Jones) (Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006) 207–20. Douzinas (2011).

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The minutes of the first of the Syntagma Square meetings celebrated by Pr. Douzinas are still available online. The Internet, one might say, is the twentyfirst-century version of the altar of the Eponymous Heroes. These minutes reveal that many of the speakers were quite keen, like Douzinas, on stressing the similarities between their grassroots movement and the direct democracy of the ancient polis. As one of them declared: “Democracy began from here, in Athens. Politics is not something bad. To improve it, let’s take it back into our hands”. And again: “In Pnyka in ancient years there were assemblies that would solidify Democracy. We must change our lives, our history”.63 7

Greece, Europe and the Problem with Democracy

The theme of the Greek origins of democracy has hardly been an area of convergence in the debate on the political roots of European integration. While the institutional discourse of the eu has always generically recognised the importance of the cultural legacy of ancient Greece, the experience of the classical polis has not been singled out as one of the sources of the Union’s democratic values. In the forty years between the ‘Declaration on the Identity of Europe’ to the Syntagma Square protests, the idea of the Greek roots of European identity and democracy has been used and interpreted in a number of different ways, reflecting very closely the travails of the integration process. In the mid-1970s, the admission of Greece, “cradle of Europe”, to the European Economic Community was meant to enforce the vision of a body politic built on shared values. In 1981, Karamanlis pinpointed the Greek roots of Europe’s intellectual and political heritage to define and legitimise the international position of his country. At the dawn of the xxi century, as the enthusiasm of the early 1990s faded away, the project of giving a Constitution to Europe met with substantial failure, highlighting the problem of the lack of a “pre-political identity”64 ­within the eu. The Union struggled to define its roots and identity beyond some vague references to a common political heritage. The problem of defining what it means to be European has been discussed with particular animosity in relation to the debate on whether a European constitution should recognise the Christian roots of the Continent’s identity, but the obliteration of any reference to the classical origins of European 63 64

http://blog.occupiedlondon.org/2011/05/27/600-minutes-from-the-open-assembly-of -syntagma-square-may-25-2011/ (accessed 14 March 2016). Eriksen (2009) 220.

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d­ emocracy also testifies to the difficulty of defining the shared values of the Union. In this context of crisis of European democracy, the Syntagma Square activists recalled the experience of ancient democracy to underscore the difference between what they saw as genuine, direct democracy and the false democracy of the Brussels bureaucrats. The reference to ancient Greece, however, was used not just as the mark of a national identity. The sentiment of belonging to a specific cultural, political and territorial community, Europe, has become less relevant than the sense of a “horizontal”,65 transnational struggle, characterised by the emergence of new political and social subjects, and by the symbolic centrality of the places of the protest, from Syntagma Square to Zuccotti Park, from Rotschild Boulevard to Puerta del Sol.66 8

Conclusion: Moving from Greece to Rethink Democracy

Greece’s admission into the eec was the crowning of a remarkable process of democratisation of Southern Europe, which followed that of Germany, France and Italy, and preceded that of many countries of Eastern Europe following the fall of the Iron Curtain, when the western values of Europe began to attract like a “magnet” the countries of the former Eastern bloc.67 Democracy is the staple value of Europe. Since the pioneering days of the Hague Congress, in 1948, when Winston Churchill envisaged a “movement for European unity” inspired by “a common spiritual value” of democracy and liberty, the process of European integration has been also and primarily a process of democratisation. The way in which the Syntagma Square movement has taken possession of the imagery of ancient direct democracy to stress the growing gulf between eu institutions and the continent’s peoples is the symptom of a crisis of the integration process which is not just economic or political, but also cultural and historical, and concerns the loss of momentum of the democratisation process, which has inevitably affected the Europeanisation process as well, at a time when democratisation is no longer necessarily supposed to coincide with Westernisation. If ancient Greek democracy has failed to gain a mention in the eu ­Constitution, it seems to have done a beautiful job to highlight the fallacies of 65

Ronald Walter Greene and Kevin Douglas Kuswa, “From the Arab Spring to Athens, from Occupy Wall Street to Moscow: regional accents and the rhetorical cartography of power”, Rhetorical Society Quarterly 42 (2012). 280. 66 Ibid. 272. 67 See Nye (2004) 73–81; see also Asmonti (2013a) 141.

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the integration process. Greece, as observed by Michael Hezfeld, is at the same time “the spiritual ancestor and the orientalised client-state of the modern European powers”, and as such perfectly embodies the controversies which have underpinned the the European democratic project.68 Greece is also the core of a wider discussion on the changing face of democracy in the 21st century. In his book 2010 Victorious and Vulnerable, Azar Gat analysed the emergence of anti-democratic powers in the early decades of the twenty-first century and argued that the triumph of democracy in the second half of the twentieth one was so spectacular that it outshone the reasons that had determined it.69 The time, therefore, is ripe to historicise the global expansion of democracy in the aftermath of wwii and if every crisis is also an opportunity, the current crisis of democracy might help us to remove it from the pedestal upon which it was placed and to analyse it from a more disenchanted perspective. Political scientist Matthew Flinders, for one, has called for a return to a “more muscular and honest form of democratic politics”, in which politicians should have the nerve to take unpopular decisions and show some bravery, a political environment of debate and engagement, where citizens are active players. Flinders also says that, in order to lay this new democratic path, we need to “return not to Plato’s faith in philosophers and an enlightened elite but to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s faith in the social contract”.70 Flinder’s argument might recall what Canfor’s criticism of the idea of a s­ ingle “Atlantic revolution”, arguing that the source of the whole successive history of Europe, and the “matrix” that “shaped” its political culture was the French Revolution.71 Canfora, as we have said, was extremely critical as to whether the ancient city-state makes a good example for modern democracy, and judgements like his and Flinders’ seems to pose the question whether the experience of the classical polis, had it been or not the birthplace of democracy, and entrenched as it seems to be in a political and cultural sphere which is exclusively “white” and “western”, still has a place in shaping our ­understanding of democracy in this global age.

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69 70 71

Michael Herzfeld, “The European Self: Rethinking an Attitude”, in Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Idea of Europe: from Antiquity to the European Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) 157. Azar Gat, Victorious and Vulnerable. Why Democracy Won in the 20th Century and How It is Still Imperiled (Lanham, md: Lexington, 2010) 2. Matthew Flinders, Defending Politics. Why Democracy Matters in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 131–35. Canfora (2006) 19–20.

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The answer ought to be yes. If we are to rethink democracy after its t­wentieth-century triumph as “vulnerable” and “imperilled”, classical Athens offers an extraordinary example of an entrenched regime in which crisis, opposition, and divisions were not dealt with as threats external to the d­ emocratic order, but rather were incorporated into the democratic discourse. If it is true, as argued by Kurt Raaflaub, that the Greek world developed a surprisingly public discourse about war and peace, the same can be said about the problems of constitutional order and the threats to it.72 The ancient Athenians might have ignored Rousseau’s “faith in the social contract”, but they knew very well that democracy is a rough path, it is should be never taken for granted, and is constantly called into question. An example of this ability to engage with crisis and opposition is the restoration of Athenian democracy following the fall of the Thirty Tyrants, when an enclave was created within the territory of the city, at Eleusis, for those who did not want to partake of popular government. In these days of crisis, the ancient polis should be seen as a political space of outspoken debate and confrontation, where the established order was constantly called into question and subject to the risks of internal stasis or attack from the exterior. Crisis was and still is the normal condition of a democratic regime, but this idea is difficult to harmonise with that sense of Winckelmanian classicism which still seem to inform our understanding of the ­Greco-Roman world. And when we celebrate the cultural heritage of ancient Greece but struggle to understand the place of democracy in that heritage, we are in fact echoing a passage from Plutarch’s Life of Pericles where it is mentioned that the greatest achievement of that great leader, that is his building ­programme, was also the “most maligned and slandered”, as though the serendipity of those splendid marbles could not fit in with the toughness and roughness of ­democratic politics.73 Bibliography Antoniades, Andreas, “At the Eye of the Cyclone: the Greek Crisis in the Global Media”, in Pantelis Sklias and Nikolaos Tzifakis (eds.), Greece’s Horizons: Reflecting on the Country’s Assets and Capabilities (London: Springer, 2013) 11–25. 72

Kurt Raaflaub, “Introduction: searching for peace in the ancient world”, in Kurt Raaflaub (ed.), War and Peace in the Ancient World (Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007) 24–25. 73 Plut. Per. 12.1–2.

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Asmonti, Luca, “‘From Athens to Athens’. Europe, Crisis and Democracy: Suggestion for a Debate”, in Kyriakos N. Demetriou (ed.), Democracy in Transition. Political ­Participation in the European Union (New York: Springer, 2013a) 135–57. Asmonti, Luca, “The Pitfalls of Envisaging a Europe Without Wars: History, Democracy and the European Union”, Il pensiero politico 44.2 (2013b) 228–35. Babe, Robert E., Wilbur Schramm and Noam Chomsky Meet Harold Innis: Media, Power, and Democracy (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2015). Bang, Henrik, Mads Dagnis Jensen and Peter Nedergaard, “‘We the People’ versus ‘We the Heads of States’: the Debate on the Democratic Deficit of the European Union”, Policy Studies 36.2 (2015) 196–216. Bartl, Marija, “The Way We Do Europe: Subsidiarity and the Substantive Democratic Deficit”, European Law Journal 21.1 (2015) 23–43. Calleo, David P., “De Gaulle’s Visions for Europe”, in Benjamin Rowland (ed.), Charles de Gaulle’s Legacy of Ideas (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2011) 1–10. Canfora, Luciano, Democracy in Europe. A History of an Ideology (trans. Simon Jones) (Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006). Dahl, Robert, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989). Douzinas, Costas, “In Greece, We See Democracy in Action”, The Guardian (16 June, 2011). Economides, Spyros, “The Europeanization of Greek Foreign Policy”, Western European Politics 28.2 (2005) 471–91. Eriksen, Erik O., The Unfinished Democracy of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Eriksen, Erik O. and John E. Fossum, “Europe in Search of Legitimacy: Strategies of Legitimation Assessed”, International Political Science Review 25.4 (2004) 435–59. Flinders, Matthew, Defending Politics. Why Democracy Matters in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). Gat, Azar, Victorious and Vulnerable. Why Democracy Won in the 20th Century and How It is Still Imperiled (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2010). Greene, Ronald Walter and Kevin Douglas Kuswa, “‘From the Arab Spring to Athens, from Occupy Wall Street to Moscow’: Regional Accents and the Rhetorical Cartography of Power”, Rhetorical Society Quarterly 42.3 (2012) 271–88. Habermas, Jürgen, “Democracy in Europe: Why the Development of the EU into a Transnational Democracy is Necessary and How it is Possible”, European Law J­ ournal 21.4 (2015) 546–57. Hamilakis, Yannis, The Nations and Its Ruins. Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Hansen, Mogens Herman, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. ­Structure, Principles and Ideology (London: Duckworth, 1999).

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Haran, Francis, “Leaders and Followers: European Pre-understanding and Prejudice in the Greek Financial Crisis”, Journal of Intercultural Communication (2015) 37 (accessed 6 December 2016). Hendricks, Gisela and Morgan, Annette, The Franco-German Axis in European Integration (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001). Herzfeld, Michael, “The European Self: Rethinking an Attitude”, in Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Idea of Europe: from Antiquity of the European Union (Cambridge: ­Cambridge University Press, 2002). Hitchcock, William, The Struggle for Europe. The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945 to the Present (New York: Doubleday, 2003). Huntington, Samuel P., The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). Kelly, David P., “Investing in a World of More Balance”, CFA Institute Conference P­ roceedings Quarterly 31.2 (2014) 16–23. Koliopoulos, John S. and Thanos M. Verenis, Modern Greece: A History Since 1821 (­Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Krishna Rao, Pinninti, Government Austerity and Socioeconomic Sustainability (New York and London: Springer, 2015). Loth, Wilfried, Building Europe. A History of European Unification (Oldenbourg: de Gruyter, 2015). Mavrommatis, George, “Hannah Arendt in the Streets of Athens”, Current Sociology 63.3 (2015) 432–49. Menéndez, Agustín José, “The Existential Crisis of the European Union”, German Law Review 14 (2013) 453–526. Murray, Philomena and Michael Longo, “The Crisis-Legitimacy Nexus in the European Union”, in Kyriakos N. Demetriou (ed.), The European Union in Crisis. Explorations in Representation and Democratic Legitimacy (New York and London: Springer, 2014) 59–74. Nye, Joseph, Soft Power. The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004). Ober, Josiah, Democracy and Knowledge. Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens (Princeton: Princeton, NJ University Press, 2008). Pappas, Takis S., “Why Greece Failed”, Journal of Democracy 24.2 (2013) 31–45. Pryce, Vicky, Greekonomics. The Euro Crisis and Why Politicians Don’t Get It (London: Biteback publishing, 2012). Raaflaub, Kurt, “Introduction: Searching for Peace in the Ancient World”, in Kurt ­Raaflaub (ed.), War and Peace in the Ancient World (Oxford and Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell, 2007) 1–33. Raaflaub, Kurt, “Ktēma es aiei: Thucydides’ Concept of ‘Learning through History’ and its Realization in its Work”, in Antonis Tsamakis, and Melina Tamiolaki (eds.), Thucydides between History and Literature (Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2013) 3–21.

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Roland, Etienne, “Ellada, agapi mou”, Le Monde (November 11, 2011). Scicluna, N., European Union: Constitutionalism in Crisis (London and New York: Routledge, 2015). Sotirakopoulos, Nikos and George Sotiropoulos, “‘Direct Democracy Now!’: The Greek indignados and the Present Cycle of Struggles”, Current Sociology (17 April 2013). Sotiris, P., “Rethinking the Notions of ‘People’ and ‘Popular Sovereignty’”, Greek Left Review (2011) (accessed 6 December 2016). Todorova, Maria, Imagining the Balkans (2nd edition) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Verney, Susannah, “Justifying the Second Enlargement. Promoting Interests, Consolidating Democracy, or Returning to the Roots?” in Helene Sjursen (ed.), Questioning EU enlargement. Europe in Search of Identity (London: Routledge, 2007) 19–43. Webber, Douglas, “How likely is it that the European Union will disintegrate? A Critical Analysis of Competing Theoretical Perspectives”, European Journal of International Relations 20.2 (2014) 341–65. Wodak, Ruth and Salomi Boukala, “European Identities and the Revival of Nationalism in the European Union: A Discourse Historical Approach”, Journal of Language and Politics 14.1 (2015) 87–109.

chapter 12

The Great God Pan Never Dies! Aggeliki Koumanoudi The myth of the goat-god Pan is deeply rooted in the Arcadian heights of the Peloponnesian peninsula. According to the predominant legend, Pan was the  offspring of Hermes and an Arcadian forest nymph called Penelope.1 From the very beginning of his life, in fact right after he was born, he suffered rejection by his own mother who abandoned him, being horrified by his ugliness. Most of his attempts to meet female companions ended in violence. Still, from one particular fatal love affair he got the inspiration for fashioning his flute—known as “syrinx”. Despite his invention he remained, all along, an ­outsider, a marginal figure and a vagabond, haunting forests, mountain heights, dark and secluded places, natural cavities—all symbolizing metaphorically the world of desires, fears, and nightmares.2 Gradually, Pan’s reputation grew outside the confinements of his homeland. He joined Dionysus3 and together they became an inseparable duo, complementing one another. With Dionysus’ wine and with Pan’s music and fondness of noise and riot, the civilized world of that time might have looked sometimes in some people’s eyes like taken over by frenzy and disorder. Indeed, in ancient Athens, Plato claimed that musical sounds have a direct influence on human behavior. Furthermore, he wrote in his book of Laws, that it was through music that the spirit of revolution was born and liberal culture ensuing.4 The same 1 “According to an Aeschylus’ scholiast, Pan was the son of Zeus and the Nymph Callisto and the twin brother of Arcas, the eponymous ancestor of the Arcadians. According to another genealogy, mentioned by Aeschylus again, Pan was the son of Cronus, and therefore appeared as having the same age as Zeus”. Philippe Borgeaud, Recherces sur le mythe de Pan [Research on Pan’s myth] (Genève: Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana, 1979) 66. In Antiquity, there were some 14 different genealogies regarding Pan. Still, around the 5th century, when the veneration of Pan spreads outside the Peloponnese, Herodotus’ version according to which Pan was the son of Hermes and Penelope prevailed. Herodotus 2. 145. See Borgeaud (1979) 84. 2 See James Hillman, Pan and the nightmare (New York: Spring Publications, 2007) (originally published 1972). 3 Dionysus’ cult was established in the city of Athens around the seventh century and Pan’s cult around the time of the battle of Marathon. 4 “for that which leads mankind in general into the wildest pleasure and licence, and every other folly”, Plato, Laws iii 701b. (trans. Benjamin Jowett) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1892) 15.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_014

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idea is rephrased a few chapters further on, to the effect that these uncivilized practices were incited by certain musical modes, the Lydian and the Mixolydian in particular, that accompanied dances imitating nymphs, Pans and satyrs during rites of purification and initiation. For that reason, according to Plato, these dances, together with the music, were unsuited for any civilized state.5 Aristotle shared Plato’s beliefs about the link between moral decline and ­certain types of music. He says for instance about the music of the flute—the most common instrument used in the ecstatic rites of Dionysus and Pan—that it “is not a moral instrument, but rather one that will inflame the passions”.6 Indeed, in antiquity, chaos, anarchy, anti-establishment trends and antisocial tendencies were sometimes triggered in ritual gatherings related to the Pan-Dionysian cult. This was the case in the Bacchanalia rites, the Latin ­version of the Greek cult. While spreading rapidly from the ancient Greek colonies of Southern Italy to Rome, the cult indulged in all kinds of crimes and political conspiracies at its nocturnal meetings, until the Senate issued in 186 ad a decree by which the Bacchanalia were prohibited throughout Italy.7 In spite of the severe punishments inflicted—there were more executions than imprisonment, the Bacchanalia survived in Southern Italy long past the repression measures.8 In the first century ad, a few decades before the Bacchanalia repression, a rumor started spreading, as Plutarch mentions in his De Defectu Oraculorum, that the goat-god Pan was dead.9 One might assume that this rumor would 5 “There are dances of the Bacchic sort, both those in which, as they say, they imitate drunken men, and which are named after the Nymphs, and Pan, and Silenuses, and Satyrs; and also those in which purifications are made or mysteries celebrated-all this sort of dancing cannot be rightly defined as having either a peaceful or a warlike character, or indeed as having any meaning whatever and may, I think, be most truly described as distinct from the warlike dance, and distinct from the peaceful, and not suited for a city at all”. Plato, Laws vii 814–815 c & d. (trans. Benjamin Jowett) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1892) 172. http://pinkmonkey .com/dl/library1/laws.pdf (accessed 2 December 2016). 6 Aristotle: Politics viii. 6.1341a. (trans. William Ellis) A Treatise on Government by Aristotle (London &. Toronto J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd.,1912). 7 Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 39:9-19 and 39:41. 8 Georges Lapassade, Essai sur la transe (Paris : Encyclopédie Universitaire, 1976) 53–56. 9 Pan is one of the very few Greek gods who actually dies. According to Plutarch, during the reign of the emperor Tiberius (14–37 ad), the news of Pan’s death came to one Thamus, a sailor on his way to Italy by way of the island of Paxi. “Twice he was called and made no reply, but the third time he answered; and the caller, raising his voice, said, “When you come opposite to Palodes, announce that Great Pan is dead”. Plutarch, Περί των Eκλελοιπότων Χρηστηρίων [The Obsolescence of Oracles], V, 17; (trans. F.C. Babbit) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library, 1936).

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terminate Pan’s popularity once and for all but the opposite occurred. The ­repercussions of this rumor spread beyond Tiberius’ time, and the myth of Pan, whether seeing him as dead or alive, continued to thrive during the Renaissance era when he became the “enfant gâté” of artists and poets. According to Gilbert Highet, Pan was at that time the most popular ancient Greek god.10 Since then, many11 are those who claim that, in fact, Pan never died and that he is very much alive to this very day. In this paper we intend to substantiate their claim, by looking at manifestations of Pan’s myth, especially in today’s Greece. But for doing so, it will be helpful to begin by examining Pan’s very essence so as to understand his exceptional popularity.

Pan’s Appearance

Among the Greek gods of the upper realm, all sharing a human-like appearance, Pan is the only one with a half-human half-animal look. Evidently this particular human-goat combination didn’t prevent him from being counted among the Olympian gods,12 instead of being ranked together with all the minor divinities and demons. There is something awkward, even unintelligible, at first, in granting him such an honor. But the ancient Greeks must have surely acknowledged his omnipotence to the point of dedicating to him a place of worship—though a humble cave—right at the foothill of the Parthenon.13 One of the keys to understand Pan’s long lasting popularity lies in his singular appearance, which Plato described as “smooth in his upper parts, rough and goat-like in his lower parts”.14 Starting from his lower body parts, one can see his hairy goat-feet that keep him grounded and at the same time allow him to reach summits no one else can scale without risk. Unlike the biblical Adam of the lost Garden of Eden, Pan’s phallus is not covered. Even more, it is often in erection and exposed to all, in the most obvious way, as a representation of 10

See Gilbert Highet, The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949) 174. 11 For more on the theme of Pan’s death in the European Letters see Maria Mandouvalou Όψεις του Aρκαδικού Iδεώδους, Συνέκδημος Φιλολογικός [Aspects of the Arcadian Ideal, ­Literary Travel Companion], (Athens: Tolidis 1990) 165–248. 12 Pan, according to Aeschylus, was the son of Cronus. Therefore he had the same age as Zeus. Furthermore he had contributed to Zeus’ victory over the Titans thanks to the panic attack he instigated. 13 About the cult of Pan in Athens in Antiquity, see Borgeaud (1979) 195–237. 14 Plato, Cratylus 400d, 408b.

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the source of existence, of the libidinal force of life. Without any trace of the shame or the guilt we encounter in the Judeo-Christian world, Pan represents in the most explicit manner the world of the wild untamed nature from which we all originate from. His upper body is human. This is where his heart beats, his soul breathes and his spirit takes shape. With his self-made flute he symbolically displays the possibility of transforming wild untamed desires into powerful art. Instead of ending in complete disaster, with the irreversible death of his beloved nymph Syrinx, the animalistic drive he represents is transformed into a meaningful, long-lasting alternate existence that has a place in the civilized world. Rather than annihilating sexuality, the flute, an instrument made for artistic creation, becomes a substitute for the instrument of procreation (the phallus) through the power of transformation (metamorphosis) that is leading to the realm of the Ideal. Finally, when looking at the top of his human head, one wonders what the horns are for, if the sublimation and the perfection of his human side have been achieved more or less with the contribution of art. Perhaps these horns, functioning as a graphic representation of our hidden amygdala, are a reminder, sometimes bitter, of humanity’s liminal essence between the world of the animals and the world of humans; no matter how much humanity evolves, it will always be an integral part of nature. It will never be able to free itself completely from it. If this is true, then we may have here the key for the understanding of the longevity and notoriety of Pan’s myth. With the rise of Christianity, the pagan world gradually began declining and the temples, the statues and the rites slowly fell into destruction and decay. Still, during the transitional period from paganism to monotheism that extends over many centuries, syncretism became a common phenomenon.15 Pan 15

Conventionally, the Christian era starts in 1 ad. but effectively it begins in 330 ad, with the inauguration of Constantinople. Nonetheless, in 691 begins a period known as “the ­Dionysian Prohibition Era”. The Holy Synod in its 102 canons condemns many pagan customs, some directly linked to the Pan-Dionysian cult, like masquerading: “no man should dress as a woman and no woman should wear men’s clothes, nor any one should wear comic or satiric masks” (Canon lxii). It seems that this canon did not concern the Orthodox flock exclusively but also clergymen who during the Carnival festivities were seen j­ umping and balling about, even inside St. Sophia’s Church, disguised as warriors, women or animals (goats, camels, deer). See George Papadakis, “Έχει και η Aποκριά παρελθόν” [­ Carnival has its past as well] Περιοδικό Δίφωνο [Magazine Difono] 6 (1996). The Synode also forbade to pronounce Dionysos’ name while making wine. The ancient Greek word “οίνος” (wine) became a taboo. Instead, the Greek speaking population had to pronounce the word, still in use today: “κρασί” [krasi] in reference to the tolerated quantity of wine i­ ntake per capita.

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reappeared initially through the Christian religious art; especially of Gothic style where Satan has been often depicted as a horned and hoofed goat-like creature.16 Medieval iconography, architecture and sculpture in fact used Pan’s features in order to represent the Anti-Christ.17 During the Crusades most probably, this imagery infiltrated the Byzantine Christian Orthodox iconography18 as well, making Pan the most popular and recognizable representation of the Devil—which still holds today. Thus, although introduced through the backdoor of the western Christian civilization, Pan remained alive in the collective memory; still as an outsider like in antiquity, but with all his ancient characteristics turned entirely into negative values. This fact alone should be enough to convince us that Pan’s spirit is alive, and, even more, that he, of all pagan gods, is perceived, by some at least, even today, as an almost concrete and palpitating entity that can influence the world with its inexorable grip on life.19

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In spite of the Dionysian prohibition the pagan practices persisted among Greeks. Nicolaos Mouzalon (1070–1152), Archbishop of Cyprus, denounced in a satirical composition the moral decline and lack of Christian discipline of the ­Cypriote population, clergymen included. Few decades later, Kωνσταντίνος Mανασσής (c. ­1130–1187) who also visited Cyprus comes up with similar impressions. In his correspondence Theodore Balsamon (c. 1130– 1195), Patriarch of Antioch, refers to pagan practices among the peasantry. But instead of denouncing them like his predecessors, he suggested to “baptize” them, by saying “Kύριε Eλέησον” every time the people would pour wine in a jar, instead of laughter and jokes. After four centuries of prohibition the Church was still fighting paganism. At the same period, considered as the end of the prohibition era, there reappeared in Greek literature what became known as the “scholar” Dionysus. Michael Psellos (1018–1080), with his essay “Eγκώμιο εις τον οίνο” [Praise to the wine] inaugurates this new literary trend while the Byzantine society was entering a period where wine, entertainments and liberal values prevailed. See Michalis Kopidakis, Elias Anagnostakis and Athena Georganda, O οίνος στην ποίηση [The wine in poetry] (Athens: Foundation Fany Boutari, 1995) in 4 volumes. The use of goat horns is a recurrent motif in antiquity that passed on in the Plastic Arts of the Hellenistic period, with the representation of Alexander as a goat-horned figure and of the Seleucid’s Zeus-Amon. It is an undercurrent found later in the Medieval notion of the devil (cf. the Alexander Romance). Michelangelo had created a statue of Moses with Goat horns. Margaret Murray, in her book The god of the Witches (London: Sampson Low, 1933) said that the god of the old religion became the devil of the new. Cf. The Heavenly Ladder Byzantine icon, from the 12th Century, where the demons are represented as half goat and half human creatures. When asked if they believed in the devil, 61% of Greek respondents replied ‘yes’. See: Charles Stewart, ‘Le diable chez les Grecs à l’époque contemporaine: cosmologie ou rhétorique’, Terrain 50 (Mars 2008) 100–113. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/studying/

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The Traditional Pan

But if the survival of Pan in the realm of religion and superstition is not convincing enough, a visit to Greece may well persuade us, since Pan appears in Greece outside the confinements of the Church as well. Due to the historical idiosyncrasies of the people, certain ancient pagan customs related to Pan and his companion Dionysus show strong signs of endurance, especially in the countryside. And if sometimes the anthropomorphic Dionysus seems to prevail, as opposed to the goat-like Pan, as we are about to see, the spirit in these modern festivities is still, like in ancient days, inspired mainly by Pan,20 ­particularly in reference to laughter, music and sexuality. During Christmas and New Year’s holidays, from December 25th,21 the day of Christ’s birth, to January 6th, the day of his christening, the day of ­Epiphany, a very colorful custom,22 which can be traced back to antiquity,23 is being ­revived all over Greece. People, mostly in rural areas, wear costumes representing animals, usually sheep and goats, but also ugly demons or repulsive monsters depending on the region. Often carrying bells or other objects to produce

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suggested-readings/papers/Stewart-The_Modern_Greek_Devil.pdf (accessed 8 D ­ ecember 2016). Ancient Greeks when they spoke about possession (theolepsia) they referred to Pan and not to Dionysus who basically was the god of wine. Dionysus’ effect is felt within the context of a rite whereas Pan’s effect is felt in life. See Philippe Borgeaud (1979) 170. The Roman celebration of the Saturnalia was on the same days (on December 17th in the Julian calendar). Also, from 1 to 8 January, mostly in regions of Western Macedonia, masquerade fiestas and festivals take place. The most known is the “Ragoutsaria” festival in the town of Kastoria of ancient pagan origin. During the Byzantine period this festival was called “Vavoutsikarios”, see Phaedon Koukoules, Bυζαντινών βίος και πολιτισμός [Life and civilization of the Byzantines] (Athens: Papazisis, 1949) 1.1:153. “Put forth by Nicholas Polites the model identifies the Kallikantzaroi as the collective memories of a pagan festival of the winter solstice that was celebrated in antiquity under the aegis of the Chronia and the Dionysia and involved dressing up in costume, drinking oneself into a stupor and behaving in frivolous and wicked ways. For Polites, the ­Kallikantzaroi are nothing more than psychic interpolations ensouled by themes and images belonging to a primordial pagan masquerade”. Paul Kiritsis, Christmas goblins: The Greek Kallikantzaroi, from his blog “Down the Rabbit Hole”, http://www.paulkiritsis .net/_blog/Down_The_Rabbit_Hole/post/Christmas_Goblins_The_Greek_Kallikantzaroi/ (accessed 7 March, 2016). See also Nicholas Polites, Nεοελληνική μυθολογία (1871) [­Neo-Hellenic mythology] (Athens: Bibliopoleio ton bibliofilon, 1979) 5: 66–80. Online in Greek: http://36dimotiko.blogspot.gr/2012/09/blog-post_5634.html (accessed 7 March 2016).

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noise, they go around spreading a joyful confusion. Every year this masquerade reenacts the return of some pagan demons, the Kallikantzaroi, that are supposed to dwell underground. All year long they spend their time trying to cut down the Tree holding the World in its branches that is growing under the surface of the earth. Seizing the opportunity presented by the fact that Jesus has not yet been christened, meaning that the world has not surrendered yet to Christianity, for almost twelve days the Kallikantzaroi abandon their sawing project and climb up to the surface of the earth. And while they run loose, spreading havoc in people’s homes,24 the Tree of the World can start healing. They have no fixed appearance, but generally speaking they are male creatures, often with protruding sexual organs, and their shape resembles that of Pan and the satyrs. Each one’s name describes the personality or the action of the specific Kallikantzaro. There is “Katsikopodaros”25 who is bald-headed and has hairy goat’s feet, just like Pan. He commits many naughty tricks and is the first suspect for the missing cookies in the house as well as for any spoiled food, on which he is said to have urinated! There is “Paganos”26 who is known to limp because of an old wound he got after a donkey kicked him to protect its owner

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They are night creatures; so, during the day, people take measures in order to protect themselves and their property. They leave a colander on their doorstep because it is known that the Kallikantzaroi cannot count above two, since three is a holy number, and by pronouncing it, they would kill themselves. So, if a Kallikantzaros approaches the doorstep for his evildoings, he will instead decide to sit and count the holes until sunrise and then he will be forced to hide. Another method of protection is to leave the fire burning in the fireplace all night so that they do not enter through the chimney. Even more, it is believed that they love hiding in the cold ashes of the extinguished fireplaces—and this is why it is recommended to keep fireplaces burning all twelve days and nights, and even, to burn something that will give a bad smell (like old shoes or cooking oil). They steal pancakes or cooked sausages. This is why food must always be kept covered. They dirty the laundry, they spoil the newly-made flour and distract women in their needlework. This is why it is highly recommended to avoid working too much on those days. It is also strongly advised not to go out alone, especially in the night, because the Kalikantzaroi can make you dance non-stop until you cannot stand on your feet anymore. Legend has it also that any child born during these twelve days is in danger of being transformed to a Kallikantzaros in every Christmas season, starting from adulthood. The antidote: binding the baby in tresses of garlic or straw, or singeing the child’s toenails. See Afentra G. Moutzali, Oι καλικάντζαροι του Δωδεκαημέρου·Δοξασίες και έθιμα [The kallikantzaroi of the Twelve Days; Popular beliefs and customs] http://www.archaiologia.gr/blog/2015/12/22/ οι-καλικάντζαροι-του-δωδεκαημέρου/ (accessed 7 December 2016). Kατσικοπόδαρος ή Mέγας Kαλικάντζαρος. Παγανός ή Πρώτος ή Mεγάλος.

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who was being sexually assaulted by him. There is “Mandrakoukos”,27 their leader. He holds a shepherd’s cane and spends a lot of time in the sheepfolds. He hides during the day, like all the Kallikantzaroi, and comes out at night to harass women who walk alone in the dark. He is bald-headed and extremely ugly, short and fat, with big donkey ears, a long nose that looks like an elephant’s trunk and goat’s feet. He is the most dangerous of all. There is “Kolovelonis”28 who looks like a spaghetti strand. He can pass through small cracks in the walls or tiny holes like the ones of a colander as well as through keyholes. We also have a Kallikantzaros that originates from the island of Rhodes (Dodecanese) called “Kantharos”.29 His name is borrowed from the name of an ancient vase used almost exclusively in the Dionysian wine festivities. Some also claim that the etymology of “Kallikantzaros” comes from the words “kalos” (good) and “kantharos” (an ancient vase).30 Despite all their efforts, these twelve days pass and the morning of Epiphany finally arrives. In a religious ceremony celebrated everywhere in Greece, the blessing of the waters takes place, by which rite Mother Nature is finally subjugated and all pagan deities must run back to hide underground or die. In the meanwhile, during their absence, the Tree of the World has healed completely and the Kallikantzaroi have to start their sawing project from scratch. Priests throw a cross into the water (the sea, rivers, lakes, pools, cisterns or any water reservoir available in the proximity) and young men jump into the water to find and retrieve the cross.31 With the help of the church and some old witchcraft, according to which a certain bulb plant called Scilla Maritima32 can keep the Kallikantzaroi away, the world reverts to order: the yearly clock in the sun’s cycle is set back to zero33 and the community can return to its routine duties. Not for long though! February arrives and, for several days, Greeks put on disguises once more and take to the streets. All through the centuries, from the

27 Mαντρακούκος ή Πρώτος ή Kουτσός. 28 Kωλοβελόνης ή Ψιλοβελίνης. 29 Kάνθαρος. 30 See Moutzali (2015). 31 For more on Epiphany in antiquity, see Georgia Petridou, Divine Epiphany in Greek Literature and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 32 In antiquity, when the quantity of meat was scanty the Arcadians used to beat Pan’s effigies with the “scilla maritima”, a plant supposed to have the virtue of driving away all evils. See Borgeaud (1979) 107. 33 During the winter solstice, for a fortnight, the seasonal movement of the sun seems to stop before it resumes again.

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beginning of the Christianization of the Eastern Roman Empire until today,34 despite repeated attempts by the dignitaries of the church and members of the clergy35 to ban Carnival celebrations, the Greek people refuse to abandon the custom, keeping it alive almost religiously. A search in the Internet reveals many sites in which clergymen and fervent believers condemn these practices every year as obscene and immoral.36 Today’s Carnival celebration in Greece is the resulting accumulated mutations of several ancient festivities37 that were related to the Pan-Dionysian cult 34 “The city of Thessaloniki as well as all the rest of the cities that do not organize Carnival festivities should be proud, because they do not pollute their atmosphere with shameful acts and obscenities of the Carnival and therefore do not banish God’s grace and the Saints’ protection. The public servants should also know that the Christian believers take into consideration and judge positively or negatively all their deeds, strongly condemning whatever the Church already considers reprehensible”, Father Theodoros Zisis https://vatopaidi .wordpress.com/2011/02/27το-καρναβάλι-και-η-ορθοδοξία/ and http://www.orthodoxia-ellh nismos.gr/2011/02/blog-post_4433.html (accessed 7 December 2016). 35 Eκκλησία και Aπόκριες: Mια διελκυστίνδα αιώνων. http://www.24grammata.com/?p=10294 (accessed 7 March 2015). 36 “The Carnival celebrations are a continuation of ancient pagan practices. Therefore we can say without a doubt that they are processions and practices of Satan. It is in short satanic worshipping. Adoring means I honor God, I love, I take care etc. What else are those timeconsuming preparations, the exaggerated amounts of money spent and the festival atmosphere that reigns during that period, with, as a pick, the carts’ parade lead by a man who holds a glass of wine—symbolizing the god Dionysus? Aren’t all those things a procession and a worship of Satan? Isn’t it a violation of all those promises done during our christening? At least, this is how our Holy Church considers it, and this is why in 1957 in a circular the Holy Synode condemns it and advises its flock to abstain from such events…”. Archebishop Cyrillos Kostopoulos, Preacher of the city of Patras, Tο Kαρναβάλι [The Carnival] (Athens, Orthodoxos kypseli, 1986) from: http://www.impantokratoros.gr/49C7D396.el.aspx. 37 In antiquity, in Athens, there were at least four important festivals related to the Pan-Dionysian cult: The Lenaea, the Anthesteria, the Grand or Urban Dionysia and the Small or the Agrarian Dionysia. The Lenaea, which was held at the coldest time of year, in January, was for Dionysos Lenaeos, and celebrated his birth from Zeus’s thigh and his emergence from the Underworld. It was also a festival of Comedy. The Anthesteria, the oldest festival, lasted three days and was held in February. On the first days the opening of the pithoi (jars) in which the wine had fermented, was celebrated. The second day was known as “Beakers”, on which they blessed the new wine and competed in drinking from it to the sound of trumpets. Probably on the evening of the third day the hieros gamos, the sacred marriage was celebrated. A procession took place symbolizing the coming of Dionysus from the sea in a ship-chariot to his sanctuary. The procession included musicians and bearers of the ritual instruments, and other men, riding in carts with the shape of a boat, some masked as Satyrs, merrily hurling insults at bystanders. Another important festival,

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Figures 12.1 and 12.2 Carnival festivities in Polygiros. photos: rosa vasiliki.

and to the celebration of the seasonal phases of the vine till it becomes wine. In ancient times, Dionysus’ role during processions was enacted by a leader who was called “basileus”—a term that has the meaning of “king” in Modern Greek. Nowadays Carnival parades are still lead by the “basileus of the Carnival”.38 And, like in antiquity, today’s Greeks celebrate Carnival until the beginning of Lent, the seven- weeks fasting period during which abstinence from meat is imposed until Easter Sunday. Unlike the big cities where a western style of celebration has dominated, on the islands and in many regions like Macedonia, Thrace and the Peloponnese,

38

the Great Dionysia, was held annually in March, during which phallic processions escorted Dionysus and his goat-legged companions again on a boat-shaped cart dressed up as satyrs (the goat-like avatars of Pan in full erection). This festival also marked the beginning of the navigation season. Finally, in the rural Dionysia, celebrated in early January, the central event was once again around the procession, in which phalloi (φαλλοί) were carried by phallophoroi (φαλλοφόροι). Also participating in the pompe were kanephoroi (κανηφόροι—young girls carrying baskets), obeliaphoroi (ὀβελιαφόροι—who carried long loaves of bread), skaphephoroi (σκαφηφόροι—who carried other offerings), hydriaphoroi (ὑδριαφόροι—who carried jars of water), and askophoroi (ἀσκοφόροι—who carried jars of wine). For more on the ancient Dionysian cult see Henri Jeanmaire, Dionysos: Histoire du culte de Bacchus (Paris: Payot, 1970). The city of Patras, in the Peloponnese, holds the largest annual Carnival; a three-day ­spectacle replete with concerts, masked balls, parading troupes, floats, a treasure hunt, and events for children. The grand parade of masked troupes and floats culminates in the ceremonial burning of the effigy of King Carnival.

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Carnival festivities have preserved more or less their traditional Pan-Dionysian character. Near Thessaloniki for instance, in a small town called Polygiros, two individuals caught on camera (figures 12.1 and 12.2), disguised from top to bottom so as to keep their anonymity, lift their skirts and reveal self-made phalluses. In fact, under their disguises were two 80-year-old respectable housewives! The sexual implications of Pan in the traditional Carnival festivities become even more obvious in Tyrnavos, a small town near Larissa (Thessaly). There, a yearly phallic festival is held on the first Monday of Lent (figures 12.3 and 12.4). It is one of the most famous folkloric events where giant, gaudily painted effigies of phalluses made of papier maché are paraded. This is how a report of Spiegel Online describes it: If you want to eat phallus-shaped bread, drink through phallus-shaped straws from phallus-shaped cups, kiss ceramic phalluses, sit on a phallusshaped throne and sing dirty Greek songs about the phallus, then you should visit the little Greek town of Tyrnavos each year on “Clean ­Monday”. Until the 1940s, the penis party was reserved for the town’s men folk. Over the years women gradually joined it and even children enjoy it these days, along with many tourists. But the local church isn’t especially keen on it. Come prepared. Passersby tend to be grabbed and rocked over a pot of boiling “bourani” spinach soup while a ceramic penis is placed between their legs. They must kiss the phallus, then drink tsipouro—a strong local spirit—from its tip, and then stir the soup before they’re let go. Phalluskissers are rewarded with ash-streaks on their face, which presumably absolves them from having to go through the procedure again, unless of course they would like to. If you want to come prepared, find some ceramic phalluses and dangle them from your waist. But make sure you come on the right day because this town is perfectly normal the other 364 days of the year. The raunchy, lewd songs that echo round its streets on “Clean Monday” aren’t sung at any other time either.39 Anyone not accustomed to such a sight can understand why happenings like these can raise more than one eyebrow. But also, it can be argued that they have served throughout the centuries more purposes than just entertaining 39

Members Only: The Annual Phallus Festival in Greece (Spiegel online) June 03, 2008 http:// www.spiegel.de/international/europe/members-only-the-annual-phallus-festival-in -greece-a-553070.html (accessed 7 March 2015).

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Figures 12.3 and 12.4 The annual phallic festival in Tyrnavos. photos: yoav me bar.

the masses. Such events create social bonding and function as psychological booster. But they are also educative, especially in conservative societies where much remains taboo the rest of the year. The younger generations are initiated into the secrets of physical love and the older generations find the space to mock everything and everyone and taste for a limited time a semblance of sexual freedom. Like today, in antiquity too these festivities were open to everyone in the community, irrespective of age, gender or social origin. Women and children participated, as did slaves. Since its very inception, there has always existed an egalitarian element about the Carnival—being classless and liberating. Such festivities, with their multiple functions, are still today a valuable contribution to a healthy society.40 And in a way, thanks to Carnival, the community can reset the clock back to zero and start a new cycle again: the Christian cycle of passion, of death and resurrection, the cycle of Easter.

The Modern Pan

In the Roman Catholic Europe, on the other hand, Pan’s reputation remained for several centuries overshadowed by Satan’s resonance. His rehabilitation occurred only in the Renaissance period when in France, Rabelais protested 40

Phallic worship was popular in ancient Rome and Egypt, and they are still practiced today, apart Greece, in India and Japan too.

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against regarding Pan as evil.41 Moreover, he claimed that Pan, the shepherds’ god, was in fact Jesus Christ himself, the Good Shepherd of the Christian flock. During the Renaissance, Pan and his homeland Arcadia came to represent the ideal place where art meets nature and human beings live side by side with the gods; an idea deeply rooted in the pastoral literary tradition and in Theocritus’, Ovid’s and Virgil’s legacies. From then on, the Arcadian myth was transformed into an everlasting source of inspiration for various artists, writers, poets, musicians and intellectuals; all sharing a feeling of nostalgia, a desire to return to the origins, to revisit the past of Western civilization and lead humanity to a golden era once again.42 After the Renaissance the myth of Pan did not disappear. It became the favorite of Romanticists, Symbolists and Surrealists, especially in Greece where he also came, over time, to personify the immortal rebellious spirit of the Greek world.43 Still, any modern and post-modernistic attempt to revive and reinstate the Arcadian ideal necessarily takes place out of the confines of folk tradition. Pan is the favorite of ecological organizations, of trekking associations,44 of naturists and generally of those who support a green approach to life. Nowadays, one can discover Pan in the most unexpected places and find traces of his presence under the most unconventional forms and shapes. He has become, like almost everything else, a “product”. His name and his picture appear on magazines, on club, restaurant and hotel signs, on Retsina wine bottles, but also on dairy products, on cosmetics, on clothes, jewelry and bibelots. Pan lurks in almost every corner, according to various mystical circles, who base their claim on the fact that the word “παν” (p-a-n) in Greek means 41 42

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François Rabelais, Le Quart Livre (1552, repr. Paris: p.o.l., 1993) 28:136–137. In French literature for instance we find references to Pan in Th. Gautier, Pascal, Rabelais, Dacier, Fontenelle, Clemenceau, Apollinaire, Contesse de Noaille, Hugo, Barthelemy among others. For more on the subject see: Angelique Marie Koumanoudis, Le mythe de Pan dans la littérature grecque et française des XIXe et XXe siècles (France: Septentrion, 2002). In the English literature we find references in Hawthorne’s famous romance The Marble Faun. Besides this romance, Pan is the subject of Landor’s Pan and Pitys as well as in Cupid and Pan, in Buchanan’s Pan, in Browning’s Pan and Luna, in Swinburne’s Pan and Thalassius and in Oscar Wilde’s Pan. For more references regarding the use of the Arcadian myth in English literature, see Patricia Merivale, Pan the Goat-God: His Myth in Modern Times (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969). By shouting out loud that the Great god Pan is not dead, Greeks demonstrate that the Arcadian spirit is still alive today, even in our modern urban environments. See Koumanoudis (2002). In antiquity he was the patron of runners. See Borgeaud (1979) 133–134.

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“­ everything”. Since late antiquity, Pan represents the spirit of the universe. He is the whole Cosmos conceived as one and multiple: human-animal-divine at the same time. Neo-Platonic but also some early Christian philosophers see in him the allegory of Paganism. The rumor spread by Plutarch, that the great god Pan was dead, became the catchphrase in a long-lasting debate on whether the old world is really dead or whether the spirits live on.45 Secret fraternities use Pan as their “insignia”, often identifying him with the Anglo-Saxon Herne, or Cernunos and Baphomet46 of the Celtic mythology or the ancient Egyptian Mendes.47 Thus we read that “to medieval occultists, especially Rosicrucians, the goat symbolized the elemental energies of the earth”.48 One masonic site49 declares: the Templars were accused of worshipping a Goat Headed deity, formed of both male and female principles, with a Caduceus of Mercury for its phallus […] This is not the Christian devil but a symbol of the ancient alchemists representing the fact that nature is a combination and a balance of male and female forces, light and darkness […] Freemasonry in its past, like its predecessor the Knights Templar, has been accused of being in league with the Devil, being a satanic tool. But, as the Freemasons claim, their goat symbolism50 is related to the universal51 Pan, rather than to the Christian spirit of evil. 45

In the 19th century, this expression came to mean the end of any good epoch; for instance Pierre Joseph Proudhon in his De la Justice dans la Révolution et dans l’Église [On Justice in the Revolution and in the Church] exclaims: “Le Grand Pan est mort […] la société tombe en dissolution!” (“The Great Pan is dead […] the society is being dissolved!”) (Paris, 1838) 2.61:102. 46 “O θεός Πάνας των 12θεϊστών είναι ο Mπαφόμετ των Mασόνων!”, 30 December 2011, from the blog KATOXIKA: http://www.katohika.gr/2011/12/12_30.html (accessed 8 December 2016). 47 Herodotus 2.47.1: “καλέεται δὲ ὅ τε τράγος καὶ ὁ Πὰν αἰγυπτιστὶ Mένδης. ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν τῷ νομῷ τούτῳ ἐπ᾽ ἐμεῦ τοῦτο τὸ τέρας· γυναικὶ τράγος ἐμίσγετο ἀναφανδόν· τοῦτο ἐς ἐπίδεξιν ἀνθρώπων ἀπίκετο”. 48 http://www.masonicinfo.com/thegoat.htm (accessed 8 December 2016). 49 http://www.masonicinfo.com/baphomet.htm (accessed 8 December 2016). 50 The Goat-God was accepted by the later Greek Mystery Schools as the symbol of the Temple Builders. In fact the Dionysian Artificers was such a mystery school. They viewed practical temple construction as a source of understanding the mystery of Nature and God. http://www.masonicinfo.com/thegoat.htm (accessed 8 December 2016). 51 “Masonry is not a religion. But because it is open to all men who believe in a Supreme Being, it is one of the few platforms where men of all faiths—Christians (including Catholics), Jews,

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New Age followers and neo-pagan groups in Greece too speak of the goat-god. The choice of Pan, however, as their emblem takes the meaning of “­affiliation” a bit further. They claim that they are affiliated to the ancient ­Arcadians52—the oldest (“older than the moon”) native tribe on Greek soil— not just ideologically or spiritually but also genetically. The neo-pagan movement of Greece is a relatively new player in the international scene. It appeared around the 80s, a few years after the fall of the last dictatorship in 1974. It was the first time after decades of censorship that the religious establishment was challenged53 and Christianity defied on Greek soil. It is argued by some that this neo-pagan trend came to be as a reaction54 to the ambiguous position taken by members of the clergy towards the various oppressors and undemocratic regimes that the country experienced during the 20th century.55 Though this opinion might be true to some extent, there are certain groups for whom the conversion to paganism and the growing interest in resurrecting the ancient Greek religion by way of paganism is part of a bigger political master plan to reshape Greece. In the 80s, when Greece celebrated its admission to the European Union (1981) hoping that it would finally secure political stability and economic prosperity for its nation, a new magazine called The Golden Dawn (H Χρυσή Aυγή) made its debut in the sub-political circles of the capital. With this name, ­obviously inspired by “The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn”56—a Muslims, and men of every other faith, can come together”. http://www.askafreemason.org/ topten/index.htm (accessed 8 December 2016). 52 According to Curtis N. Runnels in the March 1995 issue of Scientific American, it is believed that they appeared, according to sources, before the Dorian invasions, or as mythology says, before “the birth of Jupiter”, before the establishment of the Olympian Pantheon. They may have inhabited the area as early as 50,000 years ago some even say. They were considered in antiquity as the only native tribe of Greece together with the Athenians. http://www.parnasse.com/etpnt.htm (accessed 8 December 2016). 53 Neo-pagan wedding celebration: . First neo-pagan temple in Northern Greece: . Modern Dionysian procession (Macedonia-Greece): http://prometheia.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/procession12/ (accessed 8 December 2016). 54 (accessed 7 March 2016). 55 Stavros Zouboulakis, Χρυσή Aυγή και Eκκλησία [The Golden Dawn and the Church] (Athens: Polis, 2013) 49. 56 Secret Order from Great Britain active since late 19th and all along the 20th century which practiced theurgy and spiritual development. It has largely influenced Western occultism, inspiring various secret societies such as Wicca and Thelema. Known

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highly influential secret society among European mystic circles since late 19th ­century -, the founders of this magazine wanted to assert publicly their ­ideological ties with the broader international neo-pagan movement and proclaim eventual affiliation to the secretive world of Freemasonry, since ­William Wynn Westcott (1848–1925), founder of the original Golden Dawn order, was also a Master ­Mason.57 In one of its first issues, in an article titled “Racial ­Tradition: ­Mythological Continuity of Earth and Blood”, it stated that the ancient gods were not dead and that Pan, in particular, was last seen in the open in Arcadia in 1872!58 The author of the article, Nikos Michaloliakos, the current leader of the Golden Dawn neo-fascist party, explained that only those who are true believers are able to see the goat-god. It is possible that the author bases himself here on Alain de Benoist,59 who at that time also campaigned in France for the return to the ideals of European Paganism as a remedy for the current malaise of Western society; but the influence stops somwhere here.60 For de Benoist, paganism represented the way to eradicate

57 58

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a­ uthors like Arthur Machen (1863–1947), a leading London writer of the 1890s, author of acclaimed works of imaginative and occult fiction, such as “The Great God Pan”, was allegedly a member of the Golden Dawn Lodge. Dion Fortune (1890–1946) was a member of the Golden Dawn too before founding the Society of Inner Light. She was a prominent British occultist, author, psychologist, teacher, artist, and mystic. She is considered as very influential in the modern revival of the magical arts. She was also a prolific writer of the supernatural and the occult in novels and non-fiction books. From 1919 she began writing a number of novels and short stories that explored various aspects of magic and mysticism, including The Demon Lover (1927) and The Goat-Foot God (1936). For a concise history of the Secret Order of the Golden Dawn see Dennis Denisoff, “The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 1888–1901”, Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History, ed. Dino Franco Felluga, Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Web. (accessed 20 March 2016). . and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ William_Wynn_Westcott (accessed 8 December 2016). Nikos Michaloliakos Φυλετική Παράδοσις, H μυθολογική συνέχεια της γης και του αίματος [Racial Tradition, The mythological continuity of land and blood], Χρυσή Aυγή 236 (aug.-sept. 1982) 24 https://elegxos.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/period-xa-_6_aug-sept -1982-24_megaspan_b.jpg (accessed 8 December 2016). Founder of the Nouvelle Droite movement. One of his books is titled Comment peut-on être païen? [On Being a Pagan] (Paris: Albin Michel, 1981) In English: Alain de Benoist, On Being a Pagan, trans. Jon Graham (Atlanta, Ultra, Greg Johnson, 2004). On the possible ideological affinities between Alain de Benoist’s ideas and the Greek Golden Dawn, see http://emmanouilpapas.blogspot.co.il/2012/05/blog-post_10.html (accessed 6 December 2016).

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peacefully racial intolerance towards others; whereas Michaloliakos reaches different ­conclusions. Nikos Michaloliakos, brought up among nostalgists61 of the Colonels’ regime in an environment that admired far right organizations,62 and with a father who worked for the police force during the Junta, he could not have been suspected that (back then in the 80’s) he would occupy the front page of all national newspapers, let alone the international media! It is not clear whether Michaloliakos’ notoriety should be tied directly to Pan, for whom he, and his collaborators, possess a great admiration (the Golden Dawn organizes frequently events in Arcadia),63 and to whom Michaloliakos dedicated even a poem.64 Yet one thing is certain: that this man, as the leader of the Golden Dawn neo-fascist party, spread panic—a function that in antiquity was directly attributed to Pan—and brought significant changes in the current political landscape of Greece, receiving between 2012 and 2015, in three different parliamentary elections, 7% of the vote and occupying between 21 and 17 seats in the Greek parliament. In a way, the “infiltration” of Pan in modern politics should not come totally as a surprise since the Arcadian god has been involved several times in the past in Greece’s public affairs. He backed Zeus over the Titans65 and fought, by means of his offspring, the Panes, on Dionysus’ side in his campaign in India.66 During the Trojan War he brought agitation and fear over Hector’s soldiers.67 61

Like Kostas Plevris, collaborator of the 1967–1974 Junta and leader of a political party called “4th of August”—the date of the establishment of the pre-wwii fascist dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas. Michaloliakos soon joined him and started his involvement in Greek politics on Plevris’ side. 62 like the Italian Ordine Nuovo forcibly dissolved by the Italian government in 1973. 63 Wedding of a Golden Dawn party member in Arcadia: http://www.newsbomb.gr/koinwnia/story/236976/hpanagiotaros-anoihtos-gamos-stin-arkadia-mono-gia-ellines (accessed 6 December 2016). 64 Here is the translation of the poem The Great Pan: “Silence in the forest, frozen odor of crime / Conception of the moment and human sacrifice / Looking like a goat he showed up, nostalgic of the myth, / Satanically amazing, the Great Pan. / It’s sunset time, darkness rises / And the exiled of the day, the Lucifers / The poets wake up, / Hedonically with a red look in their eyes, blurry and tormented / They are watching a yellow rising moon / The demons of the night live again / The gladiators, those hung and the conspirators, / And he, in the middle of the temple, / In the center of the huge bloodstain, / On the podium of the altar, / Looking like a goat, satanically amazing / He glorifies the time of the sacrifice / Of the noble instincts and violence / He who is the eternal governor, the Great Pan”, in Nikos Michaloliakos, H εξομολόγηση ενός εθνικού [Confession of a Nationalist] (Athens: Elefteri Skepsi, 1982). 65 See n. 1 above. 66 Nonnus, Dionysiaca 17. 136. 67 Euripides, Rhesos, 34–37.

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He supported the Greeks against the Persians in Marathon, by spreading panic in the enemy’s military ranks.68 But also, beside his involvement in military operations, Pan is a major player in the establishment of Democracy. It was through the satirical drama, one of the ancient Athenians’ most favorite pastimes, that Democracy sprang up when actors dressed as satyrs publicly and humorously criticized and ridiculed for the benefit of the demos (people) the deeds of gods, heroes and policymakers. In concluding this chapter on the only surviving god of the ancient Greek world, it is important to note the fundamental difference between the ­traditional and the modern ways by which the Arcadian myth persists to this very day. The traditional way preserved and transmitted the ancient customs encompassing the whole of society, whereas the modern way proceeds usually secretively, keeping away all those people that do not meet the Arcadian/Panic criteria—as defined by these neo-pagan societies. The traditional old way of perceiving Pan was and still is public domain while the current neo-pagan vogue relates only to a few “initiated”. Bibliography Aristotle, Politics VIII. 6.1341a. Ellis, William, (trans) A Treatise on Government by Aristotle (London &. Toronto J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd., 1912). Borgeaud, Philippe, Recherces sur le mythe de Pan [Research on Pan’s myth] (Genève: Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana, 1979). Highet, Gilbert, The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1949). Hillman, James, Pan and the nightmare (New York: Spring Publications, 1972, repr. 2007). Jeanmaire, Henri, Dionysos: Histoire du culte de Bacchus [The History of Bacchus’ cult] (Paris: Payot, 1970). Kiritsis, Paul, Christmas Goblins: The Greek Kallikantzaroi, from his blog “Down the Rabbit Hole”, http://www.paulkiritsis.net/_blog/Down_The_Rabbit_Hole/post/Christmas_Goblins_The_Greek_Kallikantzaroi/ (accessed 7 March 2016). Kopidakis, Michalis, Elias Anagnostakis and Athena Georganda, O οίνος στην ποίηση [The wine in poetry] (Athens: Foundation Fany Boutari, 1995) in 4 volumes. Kostopoulos, Cyrillos, Tο Kαρναβάλι, [The Carnival] (Athens: Orthodoxos kypseli, 1986). http://www.impantokratoros.gr/49C7D396.el.aspx (accessed May 2017). Koukoules, Phaedon, Bυζαντινών βίος και πολιτισμός [Life and civilization of the ­Byzantines] (Athens: Papazisis, 1949) in 6 volumes.

68

Herodotus, 6. 105.

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Koumanoudis, Angelique Marie, Le mythe de Pan dans la littérature grecque et française des XIXe et XXe siècles [Pan’s Myth in the Greek and French Literature of the 19th and 20th centuries] (France: Septentrion, 2002). Lapassade, Georges, Essai sur la transe [Essay on trance] (Paris: Encyclopédie ­Universitaire, 1976). Mandouvalou, Maria, Όψεις του Aρκαδικού Iδεώδους, Συνέκδημος Φιλολογικός [Aspects of the Arcadian Ideal, Literary Travel Companion], (Athens: Tolidis, 1990). Merivale, Patricia, Pan the Goat-God: His Myth in Modern Times (Cambridge, MA: ­Harvard University Press, 1969). Michaloliakos, Nikos, H εξομολόγηση ενός εθνικού [The confession of a Nationalist] (­Athens: Elefteri Skepsi, 1982). Michaloliakos, Nikos, Φυλετική Παράδοσις, H μυθολογική συνέχεια της γης και του αίματος [Racial Tradition, The mythological continuity of land and blood], Χρυσή Aυγή 236 (Aug.–Sep. 1982) 24. Moutzali, Afentra G., Oι καλικάντζαροι του Δωδεκαημέρου·Δοξασίες και έθιμα [The kallikantzaroi of the Twelve Days; Popular beliefs and customs] http://www.archaiologia.gr/blog/2015/12/22/οι-καλικάντζαροι-του-δωδεκαημέρου/ (accessed May 2017). Papadakis, George, “Έχει και η Aποκριά παρελθόν” [Carnival has its past as well] Περιοδικό Δίφωνο [Magazine Difono] 6 (1996) 92–94. Petridou, Georgia, Divine Epiphany in Greek Literature and Culture, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Plato, Laws III 701b. Jowett, Benjamin, (trans.), Laws: Plato (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1892). Plutarch, Περί των Eκλελοιπότων Χρηστηρίων [The Obsolescence of Oracles]; trans. Babbit, Frank Cole, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library, 1936). Polites, Nicholas, Nεοελληνική μυθολογία (1871) [Neo-Hellenic mythology] (Athens: ­Bibliopoleio ton bibliofilon, 1979). Rabelais, François, Le Quart Livre (1552, repr. Paris: P.O.L., 1993). Stewart, Charles ‘Le diable chez les Grecs à l’époque contemporaine: cosmologie ou rhétorique’, ­Terrain 50 (Mars 2008) 100–13. Zouboulakis, Stavros, Χρυσή Aυγή και Eκκλησία [The Golden Dawn and the Church] (Athens: Polis, 2013).

Section 2 Ancient Virtues and Vices in Modern Jewish Existence



chapter 13

In These Days, in That Season: The Nationalization of the Maccabees David M. Schaps “In those days”, the first book of Maccabees tells us: there went out of Israel criminal sons, and they persuaded many people, saying, ‘Let us go and make a covenant with the nations around us, for from the time that we separated from them, many evils have found us.’ And the word was good in their eyes, and some of the people were willing and went to the king, and he gave them permission to do the judgments of the nations. And they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem according to the custom of the nations, and they made foreskins for themselves, and they rebelled against the holy covenant and were joined to the nations and were sold to do evil…. In those days there arose Mattathias, the son of Yohanan, the son of Symeon, priest of the sons of Yehoyariv, from Jerusalem, and dwelt in Modiin….1 i macc. 1.11-16, 2.1

The beginning of Mattathias’ rebellion, when he slaughtered the Jew who came forth to offer a pagan sacrifice (ibid. 2.15-28), is too famous to recount, but it is worth mentioning the sequel: And Mattathias and his friends went around, and took down the altars and circumcised by force as many uncircumcised children as they found in the boundaries of Israel, and they pursued the sons of arrogance, and the work prospered in their hands. And they took hold of the law from the hand of the nations and the kings and they did not give a horn to the sinner (ibid. 2.45-8). The author leaves no uncertainty as to the religious zeal of the Maccabees, nor as to what they thought about gymnasia.2 1 All translations, except of Biblical passages labeled kjv (=King James Version), are my own. 2 This is not the place to discuss the various scholarly opinions about the historical roots of the Maccabean revolt and the differing attitudes of the authors of the four books of Maccabees. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_015

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The books of the Maccabees were not preserved by the Jews, but the picture that the Jews had of their occupation was no less clear: You handed over the powerful into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the arrogant into the hands of those who occupied themselves with Your Torah. al hanissim, added into the daily prayers during Chanukkah

What the Maccabees would have thought of the various Israeli soccer and basketball teams that carry, in almost every city of note, the name Maccabi and play their games on the Sabbath before boisterous crowds, or of the Maccabian Games, promoted with no sense of irony as “the Jewish Olympics”, can be readily imagined; but what has brought it about that these things are ­connected with the name of the Maccabees is a subject that requires some historical inquiry. The answer to the question, “Whodunit?” is well known: the Maccabees, along with Bar Kochba, were co-opted by Max Nordau at the Second Zionist Congress in Basel in 1898. “Zionism”, said Nordau, awakens Judaism to a new life. In this I place my confidence. It does this morally through the refreshing of the national ideals, bodily through the physical upbringing of a new generation, that will once again create for us the lost muscular Judaism…. For the first time since the desperate battles of the great Bar Kochba, whom only the base idolization of success can consider inferior to the magnificent Hasmonaeans, there comes again to the fore Judaism’s claim to make a general effort to show to itself and to the world how much it still contains.3 “Muscular” is not the way one would have described the Jews of Nordau’s time. A caricature from five years later (figure 13.1) is nearer the point, showing the Their hostility to gymnasia, and to Greek culture in general, is not disputed; and in any event what interests us is not what happened in the year 168 bce but how later Jews understood those events. 3 Max Nordau, Zionistische Schriften (Köln/Leipzig: Jüdischer Verlag, 1909) 72. On the relationship of Nordau’s Muskeljudentum to the then-popular English ideal of “muscular Christianity” see Petra Zudrell, Der Kulturkritiker und Schriftsteller Max Nordau: zwischen Zionismus, Deutschtum und Judentum (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2003) 147–53. Closer to the ideas advanced here is the analysis of Christoph Kasten, “Zionism as anti-liberal Liberalism. The Case of Muscle Judaism within the Context of Antisemitism in the Bourgeois ­German society”, Constelaciones: Revista de Teoría Crítica 7 (2012) 265–81.

In These Days, in that Season

Figure 13.1

327

Caricature showing the Jews as Grimms’ Seven Swabians.

Jews in the guise of the Grimms’ Seven Swabians, a cowardly and comical group who wandered through the world looking for adventure with a single sword that took all of them to carry, until they all drowned, fooled by the call of a frog.4 4 The caricature, originally from the Viennese satirical—and by this time extremely anti-­ Semitic—magazine Kikeriki (“Cock-a-doodle-doo”), is reproduced from Todd Samuel Presner, Muscular Judaism (London/New York: Routledge, 2007) 6.

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Figure 13.2

The Wicked Son as muscleman. Eisenstein, Hagada (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1920)

The Jews themselves had little respect for physical prowess; a 1920 Haggadah is not alone in portraying the “wicked son” as a muscleman5 (figure 13.2). The entire Chanukkah story seemed an incredible dream: “Yid”, said a melancholy Chanukkah song of later times, “du hast gekrigt a mol; Yid, du hast gezigt a mol; Gott! Es gloibt sich koim”. (“Jew, you once fought glorious; Jew, you were victorious. G-d! It is hardly credible)”.6 Though Nordau’s “muscular Judaism”, must have seemed to most an oxymoron, it was an idea whose time had come. As early as 1886, the founders of Viadrina, the first explicitly Jewish student organization in Germany, had written in their founding manifesto: Our association is to be, first of all, a place for physical training of every kind: gymnastics, fencing, rowing, swimming. We have to fight with all our energy against the odium of cowardice and weakness which is cast on us. We want to show that every member of our association is equal to every Christian fellow-student in any physical exercise and chivalry. Physical 5 The illustration is that of Lola (Leon Israel) in Julius D. Eisenstein, Hagada (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1920) 7. The wise son wears glasses and supports his head with his hand. The boxer, of course, is a character of 1920 New York; older (and many newer) Haggadot showed the wicked son as a soldier or hunter. For examples see Joshua Kulp and David Golinkin, The Schechter Haggadah (Jerusalem: Schechter Institute, 2009) 128–51. 6 The song is Ir Kleine Lichtelach by Morris Rosenfeld, available at איר_קליינע_ליכטעטלעך‬sic) (accessed September 8, 2015). The translation is based on that of Rachel Pomerantz, Wings Above the Flames (New York: cis, 1992) 181.

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strength and agility will increase self-confidence and self-­respect, and in future nobody will be ashamed of being a Jew.7 The members lived up to their words, picking fights with opponents to force them into duels, which they often won.8 A few years later,9 a group of Jews in Constantinople, refused membership in the “Teutonic” gymnastic club, had formed their own “Israelite Gymnastic Organization”, and by 1900 Nordau could announce, in an article called “Muscular Judaism” in the second edition of the “Jewish Gymnastic Journal” (Jüdische Turnzeitung),10 the founding of a Jewish gymnastic organization in Berlin, that bore, however, not the name of the Maccabees but that of the slightly more appropriate11 Bar Kochba. Three years later, at the sixth Zionist conference, attendees were invited to a gymnastic exhibition, with participants from various cities in Germany and ­Austria-Hungary.12 In 1932, the first Maccabian games, held in Tel Aviv under 7

Quoted in Adolph Asch and Johanna Philippson, “Self-Defence at the Turn of the C ­ entury: The Emergence of the K.C.”, Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 3 (1958) 124. The manifesto mentions neither the Maccabees nor any other Jews by name, but its next sentence may hint at things to come: “We hope to acquire a firm foundation for this self-respect and self-­confidence by studying Jewish history, the deeds and sufferings of our ancestors” (ibid. 125). 8 Ibid. 135–6 with n. 27. The local Jewish community was by no means comfortable with this behavior. 9 In 1894, according to David Ramon, Maccabi: Fifty Years of “Maccabi” in the World ­(Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Presidium of the Maccabi World Union, 1944) 11, who gives the original name as Agudah Yisraelit l’Hit‘amlut; 1895, according to the official website of Maccabi World Union http://maccabi.org/brief-history (accessed June 4, 2013), which gives the name as “Jewish Sports Club”. From these two translations I would presume the name to have been Israelitische Turnverein, but I have no original document at my disposal; nor does either source record when the name was changed to “Maccabee”, a question more germane to this paper. 10 “Muskeljudentum”: Nordau (1909) 379–81. An English translation is available in Paul R. Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World: a Documentary History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011) 616–7; the dating there to 1903, though repeated throughout the three editions of this book, is an error. The date is given correctly in the German version, and in the first words of the article Nordau refers to the 1898 Second Zionist Congress as having been “two years ago”. 11 More appropriate, that is, if we take literally the statements of Eichah Rabba 2:2 [4] that he used to catch Roman catapult missiles and fling them back, and that nobody could serve in his army who could not uproot a cedar. For both of those statements, however, a metaphorical interpretation is easily at hand, and I know of nothing to indicate that Nordau or the founders of the Jüdische Turnverein were aware of these texts. 12 Ramon (1944) 11.

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the British m ­ andatory government, attracted four hundred athletes from eighteen countries;13 the nineteenth games, held in 2013, hosted more seven thousand athletes14 from more than seventy countries,15 a larger sporting event than any except the Olympics and the World Cup.16 The rise of the “muscular Jew” and his direct descendants, the chalutz, the Sabra17 and the idf soldier, is one of the major revolutions in modern Jewish history. It is not irrelevant that Nordau himself was a physician, nor that both anti-Semites and Zionists, under the influence of racial thinking, considered the well-documented physical weakness of the European Jews to be a major argument against the Jews’ capacity for self-government.18 A good deal of research has gone into the reasons that drove the movement and contributed to its success. My own interest here, however, is not in muscular Judaism as such, but in the use it made of the Maccabees’ name and image, and the effect it has had on them. Why the Maccabees? Perhaps it would be unnecessarily ingenuous to ask why the muscular Jews needed a precedent; revolutionaries regularly deflect 13

So according to (accessed June 4, 2013); other sources give slightly different figures, but none of them close to the “nearly 5,000 ‘Maccabi’ athletes who came from 22 countries” of Ramon (1944) 22. 14 And two thousand coaches, according to (accessed November 20, 2015). 15 Seventy-one were expected as of http://www.maccabiah.com/news-item/opening -­ceremony (accessed June 4, 2013 and November 20, 2015); seventy-seven participated according to (accessed ­November 20, 2015), citing the televised opening ceremony at where, however, the commentator says that there are ­seventy-eight, and only seventy-three actually appear; some were apparently ­hidden by commercials or lost behind larger delegations. lists eighty. The official site of the Maccabiah has not been updated since the games, and I could find no official summary except for the brief one at the end of its last news update, http://www.maccabiah.com/news-item/maccabiah-news-update---29-7-2- (accessed November 20, 2015). 16 (accessed November 20, 2015). 17 A chalutz (usually translated “pioneer”) was a settler in the early period of Zionism; a Sabra is a native-born Israeli, so called after the succulent cactus fruits once sold by the thousands in Israel. The name was meant to imply that the pioneers’ children were prickly on the outside but sweet on the inside. 18 It was this claim that Max Mandelstamm attempted to address in his speech at the Fourth Zionist Congress (below, n. 28); his answer was not to deny the claim—on the contrary, he admitted it—but to argue for a physical regeneration that would remove the stigma of physical unfitness from the Jews. See further Presner (2007) Chapter 1.

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hostility by claiming that they are not fighting for something new and unproven, but restoring an ancient and successful situation that has been corrupted. So the Protestant reformers claimed to be restoring the church of the early Christians; so the roundhead regicides claimed to be defending the ancient rights of Englishmen; so the American revolutionaries claimed to be restoring the Roman republican system. The Jews of Europe had long since ceased to be ashamed of their physical weakness; on the contrary, overbearing physical strength was a trait of Esau, not of Jacob,19 and could even be considered the defining mark of an evildoer.20 Those who urged the Jews to engage in bodybuilding athletics had to find a precedent to show that there was nothing unJewish about such behavior; but why the Maccabees, who were perhaps the only ancient Jews on record as being downright hostile to athletics? There were other candidates. Nordau himself preferred Bar Kochba (this form was in use rather than Bar Kosibah), and that was what the Berlin sports club called itself, and another, still active in Tel Aviv, named itself after Samson.21 Resh Lakish, one of the most important of the Talmudic sages, had once been a gladiator, and began his rabbinical career by a jump into the Jordan that no rabbi could match.22 The twenty-third chapter of Second Samuel lists various heroes in King David’s army; and if they were, perhaps, too obscure for the muscular Jews—Bible study, as opposed to Talmud study, was not a major part of a Jewish education—there was always King David himself, who said: He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and setteth me upon my high places. He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms…. Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip. I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed. Ps. 18:34-5, 37-8 kjv

Surely David was a more accurate eponym for the muscular Jews than the ­Maccabees, who were driven to rebellion by the building of a gymnasium? To understand why it was the Maccabees more than any others who became the emblem of Jewish sports we have to understand the relationship between 19 20 21 22

This had not always been the image of Jacob: see Rashi on Gen. 29:10. Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997) 76–8. Ramon (1944) 11. Not even Resh Lakish himself, once he had decided to study Torah: T. Bab. Baba Metzia 84a.

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sports and Zionism, a relationship much more intimate than it would seem today. The Jewish heroes of sports—Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax, Mark Spitz, even the Maccabi Tel-Aviv basketball team that is regularly a major competitor for the European championship by virtue of a number of non-Jewish, and for that matter non-Israeli, stars—have undoubtedly been a source of pride to Jews around the world, but nobody today thinks that our national existence is in any way caught up with their success. In 1898 things looked different, for more than one reason. First of all, it was not taken for granted that every nation has a right to selfdetermination, much less to independence; on the contrary, the entire thrust of the European adventures in Africa and Asia was based upon the idea that the Europeans, superior in culture and morality no less than in warfare and technology, ruled the lesser races by right—many claimed, and even many non-Europeans believed, that European rule was good for the subjugated peoples themselves.23 If the Jews were, as both anti-Semites and Zionists claimed, a nation unto themselves, it did not follow automatically that they were deserving of self-government. Another difference between the fin-de-siècle and our time is racial science. The Nazis, of unblessed memory, have given the study of race such a bad name that it is now considered not only politically but scientifically incorrect; when moderns speak of the racial theories of the late nineteenth century they usually refer to them as “pseudoscience”. But at the time, with the increasing acceptance of Darwinian evolution by the scientific community, the study of race was cutting-edge science.24 The doctrine of “survival of the fittest” means that a group that is not fit will not survive, and if so there is nothing irrational in considering genetic fitness a national imperative. The science of eugenics was

23

“11. During the afternoon, accompanied by the Interpreter, I visited the native dwellings on the west side of the cover; they appeared to be kept neat and clean. I noticed that most, if not all, of the dwellings had a cement flooring raised about 1 foot from the ground. 12. The natives quickly gathered round me, and one and all declared that they were happy and content and that they had no complaint to make. 13. Crime is unknown on the Island” (“Report by His Honour Mr. Justice Leach, deputed … to visit the Christmas and Keeling-Cocos Islands”, British Parliamentary Papers: Colonies: General vol. 36 [Shannon: Irish University Press, 1970] 577, reporting a visit in 1897). Modern scholarship, of course, takes these reports with more than a grain of salt; but they were offered, and at home often taken, quite at face value. 24 See, inter alia, Philip Blom, The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900–1914 (New York: Basic Books, 2008) 334–59.

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actively advocated by the many of the most enlightened minds of the generation. Modern genetics regards such policies with skepticism if not d­ ownright scorn, but at the time, when the mechanism of genetics was unknown,25 the word “gene” had not yet been coined,26 and acquired traits were generally considered to be inheritable,27 it was quite reasonable to believe that a onceindependent people could have degenerated to the point where they would no longer be capable of national survival. As it applied to the Jews, this was a testable hypothesis: straightforward statistics could identify such easily quantifiable matters as size, musculature, and incidence of disease. And the data were forthcoming: at the Fourth Zionist Congress in London in 1900, Max Mandelstamm offered statistics: the average size of an adult Jew was 162.7 centimeters, as opposed to 165–170 cm for a gentile. Jews had less developed chest bones and musculature, with a chest size 60 percent smaller than the norm. They were more susceptible to tuberculosis, skin diseases, eye infections, myopia, nervous and psychological disorders, and hernias.28 Before a people like this could fight for their independence, they would have to compete with the strength and the stamina of their competitors. Muscular Judaism was not simply an ornament of Zionism; it was its essential precondition. Although the largest Jewish sports associations were international— the one that interests us has borne the name “Maccabi World Union” since 1921—their connection with Zionism has always been taken for granted. The first Maccabiah was held in 1932 in Tel Aviv; another was held in 1935; but 25

26

27

28

Gregor Mendel’s “Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden” had been published in the Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereins Brünn 4 (1866) 3–47, but it was generally ignored for a generation (an English translation appeared in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 26 (1901) 1–32), and Mendel himself did not think it was generally applicable. The dominant theory of the time held that traits of the two parents were blended in the offspring, so that genetic traits could be diluted over time but not lost. The word first appears in English, according to oed2, in Wilhelm Johanssen, American Naturalist 45 (1911) 132, translating the German term Gen he had coined two years earlier in Elemente der exacten Erblichkeitslehre (Jena: G. Fischer, 1909) 124. This theory, associated with the name of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, became untenable only with the general acceptance of Mendelian genetics; Johanssen’s book mentioned in the previous footnote was one of the important milestones in the demise of Lamarckism. “Der vierte Zionisten-Congress. Rede Dr. Max Mandelstamms”, Die Welt (the official weekly of the Zionist movement) 4.35 (August 31, 1900), 1–7. The point of Mandelstamm’s speech was that the weakness of the Jews—and he was explicitly speaking only of the “Ghettojuden” of the East—was due to their downtrodden economic condition: he recommended sports and military service as a way of strengthening them.

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when the Arab revolt of 1936–9 made it impossible to hold the 1938 games in Palestine, they were simply canceled (till 1950, when they resumed). There has never been a Maccabiah outside of the land of Israel. The Maccabees had little to recommend them as musclemen and athletes, but as proto-Zionists they were almost the only choice. Twice the Jews had taken over the land of Israel, once in the days of Joshua and again in those of Ezra and Nehemiah. Joshua’s conquest was miraculous, and the Zionists could hardly expect the sultan’s walls to come tumbling down at the blast of a shofar; Ezra and Nehemiah came by the permission of the king of Persia—a route, indeed, parallel to the negotiations that Herzl hoped to establish with the Sultan, but not a good precedent if the Sultan should turn them down, as he did when Herzl finally met with him in 1901. The Maccabees, on the other hand, had successfully fought against their Seleucid overlords and established a state whose independence, however nominal (and most Jews were not then and are not now well-informed about the degree to which the Hasmonean kings were beholden to the Seleucids, the Romans, and at the end to the Parthians), lasted more than two hundred years and was maintained in the face of the most powerful nations of the day. They were the only Jewish independence movement who could offer a precedent, whatever the differences, to the movement that Herzl and Nordau were building. Other candidates failed the Zionist test. Samson was a mighty man, but he ended his days “eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves”,29 and died a suicide. Bar Kochba fought the Romans valiantly but not, in the end, successfully. King Saul’s general, Abner, was killed by David’s general Joab; Joab was executed by Solomon; and Solomon’s reign was one of peace. King David’s champions— Adino the Eznite, who “lift up his spear against eight hundred, whom he slew at one time”, or Eleazar the son of Dodo the Ahohite, who “arose, and smote the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clave unto the sword” (2 Samuel 23:8-10 kjv), were little known in the general world. And King David himself, although the Bible is not reticent about his physical prowess—when presenting himself to Saul and offering to fight Goliath, he bragged that he had killed a lion and a bear, “caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him” (1 Samuel 17:35 kjv), and when the battle was over the women of Israel sang, to Saul’s great displeasure, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands”—popular memory has always presented him as the “but a youth” who could not wear Saul’s armor (1 Samuel 17:33, 38-9 kjv). Zionists have been willing, on occasion, to exploit this image—Ephraim Kishon, ­Israel’s greatest satiric journalist, published his articles on the Six-Day War under the title 29

John Milton, Samson Agonistes 41.

In These Days, in that Season

335

­ nfair to Goliath30—but it was not the one that the proponents of Muscular U Judaism were looking for.31 The vision of the muscular Maccabees has by now won the day, and not only in secular circles. The athletic teams of Yeshiva University are called ­Maccabees—their jerseys shorten it to “Macs”—and their logo [figure  13.3] shows a warrior in hoplite armor with bulging muscles in his forearm. The design is consciously distinguished from the more aggressive symbols: “The ­warrior”, explained the yu News when the logo was introduced: intentionally features a spear as opposed to a sword. The spear is symbolic of the lower-grade weaponry the Maccabees used to defeat the better-armed and much larger Syrian Greek army. The defensive posture is indicative of the Jewish fighters’ desire to protect their land and way of life and symbolic of the Jewish people’s feelings toward the purpose of military confrontation.32 All the more revealing that the logo, claimed to be “a historically accurate depiction of soldiers at that time and how the Maccabean army would most probably have dressed”,33 shows a person whose dress and physical build would once have symbolized the wicked son of the Haggadah. It is no news that ancient people and ideas are regularly, and even unconsciously, recreated in accordance with the assumptions and the intellectual needs of a later period. The reinvention of the Maccabees as musclemen is no more remarkable than other reinterpretations of Jewish history, some of which I would blush to mention. In our case, however, the story goes further. If it was the Zionist connection that made the Maccabees convenient adoptive fathers for the muscular Jews, the converse was also true: the new, muscular 30

Ephraim Kishon, Unfair to Goliath (London: A. Deutsch, 1968; reprinted Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971). 31 There was, of course, no absolute requirement that anybody at all be adopted as a precedent; when the Jewish worker’s association, the Histadrut, organized a worker’s athletic union, it was called simply HaPoel, “the worker”. For workers, too, athletic organization had a political purpose, for claims of “unfitness” could be used to buttress attacks on the political rights of workers no less than on those of Jews—and doubly, of course, on Jewish workers. To this day Maccabi and HaPoel are the two largest Jewish athletic associations. 32 “Maccabees Get a Makeover”, yu News, August 4, 2011, available at (accessed February 26, 2016). The most telling difference, which the article does not point out, is that the soldier is defending himself not with a shield but with an open book. 33 Ibid.

336

Figure 13.3

SCHAPS

The Maccabees logo.

Maccabees were much more congenial ancestors for the secular Zionists than the real ones could ever have been. It was easy to tell the story of the guerilla tactics of Judah and his brothers; better ignored were the statements of how he “searched out and pursued those who broke the law”, how “lawbreakers shrank back for fear of him”, and how “he went through the cities of Judah; he destroyed the ungodly out of the land” (1 Maccabees 3:5-8). The Israeli Judah the Maccabee appears in kindergartens with the words, “We have come to drive out darkness”: not a religious zealot, but a hero of enlightenment. A maskil.34 The verses that contradict this picture form no part of the Jewish Bible, and have been preserved only in Greek. They have long since been translated, but schoolchildren do not study them. The prayers, however, are harder to hide. Even those who do not pray were once likely to know the Chanukah prayers quoted at the beginning of this article, and expressions like “the mighty into the hand of the weak … and the arrogant into the hand of those who study your law” are surprising ones to a person brought up on the muscular Maccabees. The reaction is no less striking: the sources are concealing the truth from us.35 34 A maskil was a Jew who followed the “enlightenment”—a term that referred, among Jews of the late nineteenth century, to the study of non-Jewish learning and was generally presumed to go along with religious laxness. Their opponents often called the maskilim ­“Hellenists”, and it is more than ironic to find Judah the Maccabee lined up on their side. 35 The rabbis, according to this understanding, consciously tried to obliterate the memory of the Maccabees—because they were not of the house of David, or because the later Hasmonean kings were Hellenized, or because they supported the Sadducees. This claim

In These Days, in that Season

337

To evaluate this claim would take us into a discussion of the actual history of the Maccabean revolt, which is not the purpose of this article. But the intensity of the modern dissatisfaction with the sources tells us something about the discontinuity between the ancient and the modern attitudes. The idea that the Maccabees succeeded by virtue of their religious zealotry is not one with which a modern historian need be uncomfortable. It is hard to imagine the early success of Muslim arms or the crusades without their religious motivation, and other, non-religious ideologies, not excluding the Red Army after the revolution, have also had striking successes. It is partly with this in mind that the American army has generally tended to encourage the practice of religion,36 and the identification of religion with patriotism, among its soldiers, an approach, indeed, by no means limited to the military: “For G-d, for country, and for Yale”.37 But this approach, too, imports our own ideology to the ancient world. The Maccabees did not think that it was their enthusiasm that brought about their victory, but the direct intervention of G-d, for Whose cause they were fighting. Not being religious pluralists, they would have disdained the comparison with the early Muslims, the crusaders, or the communists. So they were not secular Zionists; were they religious Zionists? This comparison, too, is misleading. Zionists, religious or not, are fighting in the first place for the Jewish people. or perhaps the Israeli people—I do not mean to raise the question, sometimes hotly debated on the fringes38 of Israeli society,

36 37 38

was refuted many years ago in the short but incisive article of Gedalyahu Alon, “Did the Jewish People and its Sages Cause the Hasmoneans to be Forgotten?” in id., Jews, Judaism, and the classical world: studies in Jewish history in the times of the Second Temple and Talmud (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1977) 1–17. Alon dismantles the claims one by one, but the simplest demonstration can be stated in a few words: we do not need a conspiracy theory, because the rabbis were perfectly open about abolishing the holidays. There was an entire religious calendar of holidays and semi-holidays that were observed in the time of the second Temple, and the rabbis explicitly abolished all of them except for Chanukkah and Purim. So far from trying to hide the Maccabees, they considered their revolt one of only two occasions so important that they transcended the destruction of the Temple and the Jewish polity. They undoubtedly saw the Maccabees in a very religious light, and ascribed their victory to Divine assistance; but the sources are unanimous that the Maccabees, too, saw things that way. I do not doubt that Judah the Maccabee tried to have his soldiers as strong, as brave, and as well-trained as he could make them; but his faith in victory was a religious faith with which only a subset of modern Israelis can feel comfortable. Cf. Michael Snape, God and Uncle Sam: Religion and America’s Armed Forces in World War ii (Rochester, ny: Boydell & Brewer, 2015). “Bright College Years”, H.S. Durand (1881). I do not mean by this comment to disparage the ideological importance of the question, only to admit that the debate has not, so far, taken central stage in the political life of most Israelis.

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as to the extent to which the two may be considered identical. The Maccabees, however, were fighting not for their independence but for their ancestral religion. They may have seen the Hellenized Jews as more immediate adversaries than the Greeks themselves;39 they certainly accepted the Seleucid kings as overlords once the latter agreed to respect their autonomy. Religious Zionists think, like religious soldiers the world over, that G-d is on their side; but this is not the same as fighting for G-d. How about the ultra-orthodox? Would they be modern-day Maccabees if they were to take up arms to enforce orthodoxy on Israel? Again, there is a radical difference: the Maccabees were defending a religion and a way of life practiced by the overwhelming majority of the Jews from time immemorial, and as such they were liberators. An ultra-orthodox revolutionary army, if such were to be established today, would have to impose upon the population a religion and way of life that the overwhelming majority does not support. They would not be liberators, but oppressors, and their leaders are perceptive enough to recognize this. Those who follow Israeli politics know that at this very moment, the impetus to train ultra-orthodox youth in the use of modern weapons is being pushed by outsiders, and resisted by the ultra-orthodox themselves with all their might. So if the Maccabi World Union are not true Maccabees, neither, it seems, is anyone in the twenty-first century. But if we see the term not as a role to be played but as a metaphor, the situation looks very different. As Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin put it,40 when the psalmist said that he was “like a pelican of the wilderness … like an owl of the desert” (Ps. 102:6 kjv), he didn’t mean that he had grown wings and a beak. A metaphor means that two things have something, but hardly ever everything, in common. The Jews of Eastern Europe at the turn of the century still had plenty of religious devotion and willingness for self-sacrifice. That was the part of the Chanukah story with which it was easy to identify. The muscular Jews and the Zionists seized on the Maccabees for a single moral: it was not necessary for a Jew to be weak or downtrodden. “Jew, you once fought glorious, / Jew, you were victorious. / G-d! It hardly seems credible” (see above, p. 328). Theodor Herzl, an assimilated Jew, and Max Nordau, an assimilationist Jew, felt no need for and had no truck with the religious motivation of the Maccabees. They seized on it for one moral, and drove it home.

39 40

This is the impression one gets from I Maccabees 1–3, less so from 2 Maccabees, and some sources (such as Al HaNissim) do not mention the Hellenized Jews at all. Nefesh HaChaim, 1.1.

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It was not the only moral that the Maccabees could offer. Dr. Solomon S­ chonfeld (1912–1984), a charismatic British rabbi who personally rescued thousands of Jews during the holocaust, founded an orthodox secondary school in 1944, in a London where Jewish orthodoxy was almost as foreign as muscular Judaism had been in Eastern Europe and at a time when Jewish survival seemed much more uncertain. His rescue activity had begun with the rescue of 300 Jewish children after Kristallnacht in 1938. The children had arrived around the time of Chanukkah,41 and for Dr. Schonfeld the Maccabees showed that religious devotion and Divine help could overcome the worst persecution. He called his school the Hasmonean School;42 today it has been ranked the top non-selective comprehensive school in the country.43 There were more sides to the Maccabees than muscles. Perhaps the Maccabees, as Italo Calvino said of classic books,44 have never finished saying what they have to say. Bibliography Alon, Gedalyahu, “Did the Jewish People and its Sages Cause the Hasmoneans to be Forgotten?” in id., Jews, Judaism, and the classical world: studies in Jewish history in the times of the Second Temple and Talmud (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1977) 1–17. Asch, Adolph and Johanna Philippson, “Self-Defence at the Turn of the Century: The Emergence of the K.C.”, Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 3 (1958) 122–39. Blom, Philip, The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900–1914 (New York: Basic Books, 2008). Boyarin, Daniel, Unheroic Conduct (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997). Calvino, Italo, The Uses of Literature (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968). Eisenstein, Julius David, Hagada (New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1920). Griffiths, Sian, “A Comprehensive Leap of Faith”, Sunday Times, 22 November 2015. Johanssen, Wilhelm, Elemente der exacten Erblichkeitslehre (Jena: G. Fischer, 1909). Johanssen, Wilhelm, “The Genotype Conception of Heredity”, American Naturalist 45 (1911) 129–59.

41 42 43 44

David Kranzler, Holocaust Hero: The Untold Story of Solomon Schonfeld, an Orthodox British Rabbi (Jersey City, nj: Ktav, 2004) 56–7. Derek Taylor, Solomon Schonfeld: a Purpose in Life (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2009) 95, 103, 112, 134–141, 146–50, 154–8, 188–192. Sian Griffiths, “A Comprehensive Leap of Faith”, Sunday Times, 22 November 2015. Italo Calvino, The Uses of Literature (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1968) 128.

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Kasten, Christoph, “Zionism as anti-liberal liberalism. The Case of Muscle Judaism within the Context of Antisemitism in the Bourgeois German society”, Constelaciones: Revista de Teoría Crítica 7 (2012) 265–81. Kishon, Ephraim, Unfair to Goliath (London: A. Deutsch, 1968; reprinted Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971). Kranzler, David, Holocaust Hero: The Untold Story of Solomon Schonfeld, an Orthodox British Rabbi (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2004). Kulp, Joshua and David Golinkin, The Schechter Haggadah (Jerusalem: Schechter ­Institute, 2009). Mendes-Flohr, Paul R., and Jehuda Reinharz, The Jew in the Modern World: a Documentary History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). Nordau, Max, Zionistische Schriften (Köln/Leipzig: Jüdischer Verlag, 1909). Pomerantz, Rachel, Wings Above the Flames (New York: CIS, 1992). Presner, Todd Samuel, Muscular Judaism (London/New York: Routledge, 2007). Ramon, David, Maccabi: Fifty Years of “Maccabi” in the World (Tel Aviv: Presidium of the Maccabi World Union, 1944) (in Hebrew). Snape, Michael, God and Uncle Sam: Religion and America’s Armed Forces in World War II (Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2015). Taylor, Derek, Solomon Schonfeld: a Purpose in Life (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2009). Zudrell, Petra, Der Kulturkritiker und Schriftsteller Max Nordau: zwischen Zionismus, Deutschtum und Judentum (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2003) 147–53.

chapter 14

A Double Edged Sword—The Power of Bar-Kosibah: From Rabbinic Literature to Popular Culture Haim Weiss Items of false news, in all the multiplicity of their forms—simple gossip, deceptions, legends—have filled the life of humanity. […] No question should fascinate anyone who loves to reflect on history more than these.1

∵ During the reign of Caesar Hadrian, between 132 and 135/136 ce, a revolt against the Romans broke out in the Land of Israel,2 led by Shimon Bar-­Kosibah (‫ּכוֹס ָבה‬-‫בר‬ ִ ‫)שמעון‬, better known in modern Jewish culture as Shimon Bar Kokhva (‫)שמעון בר כוכבא‬. 3 This revolt, apparently commencing in a string of 1 2 3

1 Marc Bloch, “Reflections of a Historian on the False News of the War” (trans. James P. Holoka) Michigan War Studies Review (July 2013) 2. This article is part of a larger research project on the image of Shimon Bar-kosibah in Jewish culture. This research is supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 1258/11). I wish to thank Eran Almagor and Lisa Maurice, the editors of this volume, as well as the enthusiastic organizers of the conference where this paper was firstly presented. In addition I wish to thank Galit Hasan-Rokem, Dina Stein and Tzahi Weiss, who have read drafts of the paper, for their helpful comments. 2 There is some debate as to whether the revolt ended in 135 or 136 ce. Some scholars argue that the revolt ended in 135; see, for instance, Samuel Yevin, Milchemet Bar-Kokhva (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1946) (Hebrew) 53, 116; Shmuel Abramski, Bar-Kokhva Nesi Yisrael (Tel Aviv: Masada, 1961) (Hebrew) 52; Menachem Mor, The Bar-Kochba Revolt: Its Extent and Effect (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1991) (Hebrew) 7. As opposed to these scholars, however, Werner Eck claims that the revolt ended in 136 ce; see Werner Eck, “The Bar-Kokhba Revolt: The Roman Point of View”, Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999) 76–89, esp. 87–88, and the bibliographical references in n. 92. Instead of offering his own authoritative view on this point, Aharon Oppenheimer presented the two aforementioned approaches in “Developments in the Study of the Bar-Kokhva Revolt During the Sixty Years of the State of Israel”, Zion 74 (2009) 65–94, see esp. n. 1. 3 Regarding the different names of Bar-Kosibah and their significance, see Haim Weiss, “There Was a Man in Israel—Bar-Kosibah Was His Name!”, Jewish Studies Quarterly 21.2 (2014) 99–115. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_016

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successes, was eventually cruelly and decisively suppressed by the Roman legions under the command of Julius Severus. Unlike the great revolt against Rome, which had taken place sixty-five years earlier, and which was relatively well-documented by Josephus Flavius, the “historically”, or “factually” accurate data, depicting what transpired during Bar Kosibah’s revolt is sparse. Indeed, the information of the revolt which we possess today, its course, and its significant events, is fragmentary at best, and even fundamental questions such as why the revolt broke out in the first place, how it progressed, and what were its final outcomes remain sources of a neverending dispute among historians studying the period.4 The meager amount we know is constructed from a complex, and politically-charged, mixture of history, folklore, literature, and theology.5 In this article, I would like to address a fascinating aspect of Bar-Kosibah’s characterization: his unique physical prowess and its theological, nationalistic, and political significance, as it represented in rabbinic literature and in contemporary Zionist and Israeli popular literature. In rabbinic literature we find an ambivalent and complex attitude toward Bar-Kosibah’s strength: on one hand they admire his enormous bodily abilities but, on the other hand they fear from that very same power especially from its theological ramifications. In contemporary Zionist and Israeli popular discourse this ambivalent perception of Bar-Kosibah is silenced almost completely and replaced, for nationalistic purposes, by the strong and fearless character of the “New Jew” and the “Warrior Jew”. In order to illustrate the rabbis’ complex attitude towards Bar Kosibah’s physical prowess, I wish to briefly analyze a Midrashic passage from

4 5

4 See, for instance, Peter Schäfer’s general assertion: “Unlike the First War to which a multivolume book by an eyewitness, the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, is dedicated, the Second War did not find its contemporary historian. […] Many questions regarding the precise circumstances of the war remain unanswered”; Peter Schäfer, “Preface”, in Peter Schäfer (ed.), The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Second Jewish Revolt Against Rome (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) vii. Within the context of this article, I do not intend to engage in the complex historical debate over the reasons for the revolt. However, a few basic reasons may be adduced: (a) the ploughing of Jerusalem in preparation for its rebirth as Aelia Capitolina; (b) the prohibition against performing circumcision; and, (c) the peasants’ revolt. Eck’s overview speaks volumes in this regard: “The papyrological finds in the Judean Desert, the large scale archaeological surveys resulting in the discovery of the scores of ‘hiding places’ at different sites, and the evaluation of the coinage and the coin-hoards all extended our knowledge, but failed to create more unanimity regarding different aspects of the revolt—its causes, its course, and finally its result for the history of Judaism and that of Rome” (Eck (1999) 76, and bibliographical references). 5 See also Samuel Krauss, “The Armies of Bar-Kokhva”, in Saul Lieberman (ed.), Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950) 391–92 (Hebrew).

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Lamentations­Rabbah, a sixth century ce Palestinian text. This passage is excerpted from a lengthy and complex passage in which the rabbis address Bar Kosibah’s rebellion.6 Translation7

Text (Buber edition)

Rabbi interpreted the verse “The voice is the voice of Jacob but the hands are the hands of Esau” the voice of Jacob cries out because of what the hands of Esau did in Bethar. R. Yohannan interpreted the verse in this way: The voice is the voice of Caesar Hadrian who killed eighty thousand myriads in B ­ etar. Said R. Yohannan: Eighty thousand pairs of trumpeters besieged Bethar, each commanding several companies and Ben-Kozbah commanded two hundred ­ thousand men with amputated fingers. The sages sent word to him: “Till when will you go on mutilating the men of ­Israel?” Said he: “How else shall I test them?” They answered: “Do not enlist anyone who cannot pull up a cedar from Lebanon”. He had done so and had two hundred thousand men of one sort and two hundred thousand of the other.

‫רבי היה דורש “הקול קול יעקב והידים ידי‬ ‫ קולו של יעקב‬,)‫עשו” (בראשית כז כב‬ ‫ ור’ יוחנן‬,‫צווחת ממה שעשו ידי עשו בביתר‬ ‫היה דורש קול אדריינוס קיסר שהרג בביתר‬ ‫ א”ר יוחנן‬.‫שמונים אלף רבוא בני אדם‬ ‫שמונים אלף זוגות של תוקעי קרנות היו‬ ‫ וכל אחד מהם היה ממונה‬,‫צרים על ביתר‬ ‫ והיה שם בן כוזבא והיו לו‬,‫על כמה חיילות‬ ‫ שלחו חכמים‬,‫מאתים אלף מטיפי אצבע‬ ‫ואמרו לו עד מתי אתה מעמיד בעלי מומין‬ ‫ שלחו לו‬,‫ א”ל ואיך אעשה לבודקן‬,‫בישראל‬ ‫ והיו לו‬,‫ עבד כן‬.‫תכתבהו באיסטרטיא שלך‬ .‫ ומאתים אלף מכאן‬,‫מאתים אלף מכאן‬

When going into battle, he said: “Lord of the Universe, do not help us and do not shame us as it is written: ‘Is it not you, God, you who have now rejected us and no longer go out with our armies’” (Psalms 60).

‫ובשעה שיוצא למלחמה היה אומר רבון כל‬ ‫ הה”ד‬,‫העולמים לא תסעדינן ולא תכספינן‬ ‫“הלא אלהים זנחתנו ולא תצא אלהים‬ (‫בצבאותינו” (תהלים ס יב‬

6 7

6 This textual unit has parallels in the Palestinian Talmud (Yerushalmi) pt Ta’anit 4:5; as well as in other manuscripts of Lamentation Rabbah. For a more detailed literary and cultural discussion of this unit, see Galit Hasan-Rokem, Web of Life (trans. Batya Stein) (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000) 160–169. 7 The translation made by Batya Stein and Galit Hasan-Rokem and I wish to thank them for allowing me to use it, see: Hasan-Rokem (2000) 161–162.

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What was Ben-Kozbah strength? They said: “When going into battle, he caught the catapults with one of his knees and hurled them back, killing several people”.

‫ אמרו בשעה‬,‫מה היה כחו של בן כוזבא‬ ‫שיוצא למלחמה היה מקבל אבני בליסטרא‬ ‫ והיה ניתזת ממנו‬,‫באחד מארכובותיו‬ .‫והולכת והורגת כמה אנשים‬

Said R. Yohannan: “When R. Akiva looked at Ben-Kozbah he said, ‘There shall come a star out of Jacob’ (Numbers 24:17). ‘A star of Jacob,’ this refers to the king Messiah”. R. Yohannan b. Toratha said: “Akiva, grass will grow on your cheeks and still the son of David will not have come”.

‫א”ר יוחנן כד הוה חזי ר’ עקיבה לבן כוזבא‬ ‫הוה אמר “דרך כוכב מיעקב” (במדבר כד‬ ,‫ זה מלך המשיח‬,‫ דרך כוכבא מיעקב‬,)‫יז‬ ‫א”ר יוחנן בן תורתא עקיבא יעלו עשבים‬ .‫ ועדיין בן דוד אינו בא‬,‫בלחייך‬

This is the first half of the longer passage from Lamentation Rabbah, which delineates the rabbis’ complex attitude to the revolt and, especially, to the physical prowess of its leader, Bar Kosibah. The section opens with some totally unrealistic, hyperbolic figures: hundreds of thousands of Roman soldiers besieged Beitar, while Bar Kosibah himself had a least 400,000 soldiers at his disposal,8 half of them with amputated fingers, and half of them possessing the ability to uproot a cedar of Lebanon.9 Bar Kosibah himself is depicted as an 8 9

8 The use of hyperbolic figures suggests that, rather than providing the exact number of participants in the battles, they serve as a tool emphasizing the enormity of the destruction. This description unites with numerous others in the Talmud and Midrashim, as well as in Roman and Christian sources recounting the horrors of death and intensity of slaughter, which was transpired in Bethar and throughout the Land of Israel following the suppression of the revolt. See, for instance, the description of Dio Cassius’ account of the rebellion outcome: “Fifty of their most important outpost and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had forewarning before the war” (Dio’s Roman History, book lxix, (trans. Earnest Cary) (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1925) 449–451). 9 Self-mutilation and endurance tests entailing physical suffering have long been known and documented as part of the initiation and passage rites undergone by adolescents seeking to enter the adult group. We find, even in Greek and Roman writings, evidences of warriors who enlarged their wounds in order to obtain more respectable and impressive scars to be shown-off when they returned home from battle. This notwithstanding, the trial of courage demanded by Bar Kosibah is odd because it required his soldiers to diminish their military effectiveness, turning them into, as the Rabbis state, ba-alei mumim, mutilated or, in this

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arrogant leader, defying Heaven by addressing God and telling him to withhold participation in the war. Bar Kosibah’s strange prayer begins with the familiar phrase “Lord of the Universe”, followed by his demanding appeal to God to refrain from interfering in the battle itself, given that He cannot be relied upon: one can never predict whether He will provide assistance in winning the battle, or will, conversely, disgrace Himself, and, in turn, the warriors as well. The midrash editor uses a verse from Psalms 60: “Is it not you, God, you who have now rejected us and no longer go out with our armies” (60:12). However, dissimilarly to the biblical author, who immediately continues by beseeching God to protect him and aid him in future battles (“Give us aid against the enemy, for human help is worthless”) (60:13), the editor here seems to turn the Bible’s words on their head, preferring man’s help to that of God’s. Bar-Kosibah’s arrogance towards God is inherently connected to his enormous physical prowess, which is described in the next sub-section: “When going into battle, he caught the catapults with one of his knees and hurled them back, killing several people”. The catapult was one of the most efficient and powerful siege weapons at the Roman army’s disposal. It is a large and complex weapon, and one which requires an extensive maintenance and a regular large crew of mem to operate it.10 Therefore, Such a weapon could only be used by a steady, well-organized army, as opposed to a cohort of rebel guerilla fighters who were unlikely to possess such large weapons in the first place.11 A survey of the various mentions of catapults 10 11



10 11

case, handicapped persons. Armando Favazza has argued that self-mutilating of limbs, and especially the amputating of fingers, is an act of self-castration, symbolizing the willingness to relinquish one’s individual identity in order to become part of the group to which one belongs. See Armando R. Favazza, Bodies Under Siege: Self-Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture (Baltimore, MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) 132–135. See Israel Shatzman, “Stone-Balls from Tel Dor and the Artillery of the Hellenistic World”, Scripta Classica Israelica 14 (1995) 52–72. In Josephus’ description of the Great Revolt it is clear that the catapult created great terror and anxiety among the rebels: “With so many skilled hands available, the earthwork were soon completed and the engines brought into position. Chares and Joseph, the most effective generals in the town, drew-up their troops, though the men had lost heart at the thought that they could not withstand the siege for long, since they were short of water and other necessities. However, Their generals encouraged them and led them out to the ramparts, where, for the time they beat back the enemies who were bringing up the engine, but when they became the targets of the catapults and stone-throwers they withdrew into the town. The Romans then brought up the battering-rams in three points, broke through the wall …” (Josephus, The Jewish War, 4. 17–20) (Trans. Gaalya Cornfeld) (Grand Rapids, mi: Zondervan, 1982).

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in rabbinic literature reveals that the catapult usually do not appear as an actual weapon in use, but as a metaphor for the enormous power of mythical creatures, specifically as a metaphor for the power of God Himself or of his emissaries, sent to fight their enemies.12 One of the spheres in which catapults are most heavily used to metaphorically illustrate God’s power is in the depiction of the Ten Plagues. This aspect is largely illustrated in the following passage from the Mekhilta describing the plague of darkness: … for the Egyptians who were enshrouded in darkness saw the Israelites who were in the light eating and drinking and rejoicing and they flung darts and catapult stones at them, but the angel and the cloud would absorb them, as it says: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward” (Gen 15:1).13 It seems that our story about Bar Kosibah’s enormous physical prowess also mirrors the midrash in the Mekhilta. Bar Kosibah’s gigantic body, a body described as free of boundaries or limitations, becomes a manifestation of divine might. Neither God nor any other divine emissary is capable of catching the projectiles hurled at the people, and yet, Bar Kosibah does. Furthermore, he does not, simply and passively, catch the ballista stones; he himself becomes a human catapult, and, by the use of his knee caps, he hurls back the projectiles, demolishing several Romans in the process, similarly to Samson, whose overwhelming physicality dominates his persona and is connected to his messianic identity, so, too, Bar Kosibah’s strength transcends the human and enters the sphere of divine might.14 In a case such as this, where Bar Kosibah takes over God’s role, there is no need to thank God for his protection, given Bar Kosibah has adopted the role of the divine. Therefore, it is also possible to address God—as Bar Kosibah did in the previous sub-section—and communicate to Him that His presence is not needed on the battle field, for here it is Bar Kosibah who stands to fulfill the role hitherto relegated to God by protecting his people from being battered by the catapulted stones. 12 13 14

12 13 14

See, for instansah A; Lamentation-Rabbah, Ptichtah 23. Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Be-Shalach, 4. Shimon Fogel, “Samson’s Shoulders were Sixty Cubits”: Three Issues about Samson’s Image in the Eyes of the Rabbis (M. A. Thesis, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev) (Beersheva, 2009) 89–130 (Hebrew).

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The Sages choice to represent Bar Kosibah via a series of images, which includes, among other things, finger amputation, blasphemy and the inhuman capability to fend-off ballista stones, reveals their ambivalence toward his exceptional physical prowess. Through these highlighted descriptions unfold both the sages’ admiration for the military force he represents, famously expressed in Rabbi Akiva’s declaration, appearing in the fourth section of the Lamentation Rabbah text stating that he is the King Messiah, as well as their fear of that very same force.15 This ambivalent attitude, validated by the Sages towards Bar-Kosibah physical abilities, alters dramatically in the nineteenth century with the emergence of nationalism in Europe, specifically in Germany, but also, later on, with the rise of Zionism.16 As Nitsa Ben-Ari has shown, the German Jews at that time were faced with a complex dilemma: “It [German Jewry] saw itself as a partner in forging a sense of German nationalism and in Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, but it wished to join this process as a unique and equally valuable culture”.17 Given the isolationist and nationalistic character of the German historical novel, the Jews were excluded, despite their fervent wish to become an integral part of the German culture. As a response, the Jews adopted the spirit of nationalism and the literary model from the Germans, but endowed them with ­idiosyncratic 15 16 17

15

16

17

Daniel Boyarin, in accordance with his perception regarding the ideal male body featuring in Rabbinic literature as weak and effeminate, perceives Bar Kosibah’s extreme physicality’s representations as an expression of his externality in this culture; more of a Roman soldier, or, for that matter, body, within the culture of the sages: “The majority of the sages—those who opposed Bar Kosibah’s activism—portrayed him in a manner which, to us, can be perceived today as “Pseudo-Jewish” only; namely, a Jew, yet one behaving like ‘them’. And, indeed, his ‘non-Jewishness’ is represented principally via his distinctive physicality, his definitive ‘masculinity’ and his ‘highly Roman’ ethos”. Daniel Boyarin, “Tricksters, Martyrs, and Appeasers: ‘Hidden Transcripts’ and the Diaspora Art of Resistance”, Theory and Criticism 10 (1997) 145–162 (Hebrew) [149]. I am jumping from Late-antiquity to the nineteenth century since, during the Middle Ages, Bar Kosibah was largely forgotten, sporadically resurfacing on occasion in an historical chronicle or in the course of a public debate between Christians and Jews. However, even in such isolated cases, his physical prowess went unmentioned. For elaborated discussions on the image of Bar Kosibah in Jewish and Christian writing, see: Richard G. Marks, The Image of Bar-Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature: False Messiah and National Hero (University Park, pa: Pennsylvania University Press, 1994) 57–134; Ram Ben-Shalom, Facing Christian Culture (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2007) 251–276 (Hebrew). On the historical novel in Germany see Nitsa Ben-Ari, Romance with the Past (Tel Aviv: Dvir/Makhon Leo Baeck 1997) 23–33 (Hebrew) and the attached bibliography. The quote is from p. 33.

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contents: the Jewish people’s golden eras in the Middle Ages and in Antiquity were recreated by means of bringing stellar individuals and constitutive events to life. Authors, amongst whom are found the popular writers Marcus (Meyer) Lehmann and Ludwig Philippson, began publishing serialized novels in chapter format in subscription magazines. These chapter-format serialized novels were later published as independent and complete literary works. Using colorful and flowery language they featured leading Sages from Late-Antiquity such as Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai, and military leader such as Shimon Bar Kosibah.18 In these literary works Bar Kosibah’s body was presented as a representation of the “New Jew”. This new individual began to take shape, hesitantly and partially at first, but, later on, with the rise of Zionism, with great clarity. In order to do so, I wish to focus on one of a number of possible elements constitutive of his character: that of the story of Bar Kosibah’s fight with the lion in the arena.19 Here it is important to note that neither Bar Kosibah’s capture nor any battle of his with a lion is mentioned in any source dating earlier to mid-nineteenth century: no tale of Bar Kosibah fighting a lion—and most certainly not one taking place in a Roman arena—is even hinted at in any earlier sources, and, as Yael Zerubavel claims, it is an invented historical tradition.20 In fact, this story occupies an entirely imaginary literary space which attempts to conscript the rabbis’ revelation at Bar Kosibah’s enormous physical prowess to aid in the construction of a new model of the Jewish man. The first source mentioning Bar Kosibah’s fight with the lion was written by an unknown author, Shmuel Maier. In 1840 Maier published Simon Barcoeheba, der Messias-König (Simon Bar Kokhba, the King-Messiah) in the first (and only) issue of the journal Israelitischer Musenalmanach. In order to enhance the literary value of Bar Kosibah’ story, which, as I mentioned, is lacking in historical detail, the author had to introduce many, variegated forms of 18 19 20

18

19

20

Marcus Lehmann published primarily in the neo-orthodox journal Der Israelit, and Ludwig Philippson, one of the Jewish Reform movement’s leading figures in Germany, ­published in azj (Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums) and in JüdischeVolksblatt, see Ben Ari (1997) 13. For detailed discussion regarding the sources of the story of Bar-Kosibah and the lion see: Haim Weiss, “Shimon Bar-Kosibah and the Lion”, in Eliezer Papo et al. (eds.), Mikan v’ElPresenti: Studies in Honour of Tamar Alexander (Beer-Sheva 2015) 221–246 (Hebrew) and the bibliography there. Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995) 103–113. See also Eli Eshed, “How Horrible is this Cage”, Et-Mol 183 (1995) 6–9 (Hebrew).

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additions,­the most obvious being the story of Bar Kosibah’s fight with the lion in the arena. In addition the author also introduces a character with the Biblical name of Ketura,21 Bar Kosibah’s love-interest and the daughter of R. Elazar Hamoda’i, Bar Kosibah’s uncle.22 Maier relates that Tinius Rufus, the Roman governor at the time of the revolt,23 imprisoned her, thus using her as leverage in future negotiations. Upon hearing that his beloved had been captured, Bar Kosibah immediately turned himself in to the Romans in order to secure her release. Realizing his plan had succeeded, Tinius Rufus decided to throw Bar Kosibah into the arena for the famished lions to finish him off. Tinius Rufus’ plan, however, goes awry at this point, as Bar Kosibah’s unmitigated exploits in the arena crown him as the undisputed leader of the revolt. Thus, the event in which he was supposed to be extinguished becomes his de facto coronation: Shimon is led into the arena by Roman soldiers armed with spears. […] The Romans are impatient. They are barely able to contain their anticipation for the spectacle they find so beautifully and horrifyingly exciting. The Jews are even more impatient. They consider this fight to be a matter of divine judgment. It is their belief that, same as Daniel’s heavenly protection in the lion’s den, so, too, would the Heavens protect their Bar Kokhva when he leaps into the arena, and that he indeed is the KingMessiah and savior of Zion to come. After all these things transpire, the governor gives the signal. The gate opens and Shimon enters the arena, 21 22 23

21 22

23

Ketura was the wife od Abraham see Gen. 25: 1–2 In reference to the aspect of the relation between Bar Kosibah and Elazar ha-Moda’i, we need to make a distinction on two levels: the first one refers to Elazar ha-Moda’i’s presence in Betar during the revolt, an assertion embedded in the Erets-Israel traditions. Regarding the revolt see Palestinian Talmud, Ta’anit, 68; Lamentations Rabbah, Parasha 2. According to those traditions Elazar ha-Moda’i was indeed in Betar during the revolt, praying to God for mercy on the city. Eventfully, it is believed, Bar Kosibah kicked him to death, suspecting him to be a Roman collaborator, which, in consequence, eventually assisted the Romans in overtaking the city. The second aspect in question deals with their familial relation. This claim is based on the expression, “your favorite, Elazar ha-Moda’i”, uttered by Bar Kosibah’s warriors to him. This expression appears in the two above-mentioned references and is usually interpreted as “uncle” see Marcus Jastrow, Dictionary of Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature (ny: Choreb Shapiro Vallentin, 1926) 418. This is the name of the Roman governor during the time of the revolt, known throughout Rabbinic literature as Tornoserofos (see, for instance: bt [Babylonian Talmud], Ta’anit, 29b; Nedarim, 50b; Bava-Batra, 10a); Shimon Appelbaum, “Tinius Rufus and Julius Severus”, in Aharon Oppenheimer and Uriel Rappaport (eds.), The Bar Kokhva Revolt: a new approach (Ben-Zvi Institute: Jerusalem, 1984) 147–152 (Hebrew).

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naked and bearing no bodily protection. The enraged lion leaps towards him, but retreats upon seeing the tranquil, confident youth standing before him, solid as a rock, staring straight into his eyes, all ablaze with homicidal ardor. The beast of prey quickly recovers its composure, circles its prey, opens its mouth with a roar, and attacks its opponent. The latter feels the lion’s burning breath, yet manages to elude it. He spins around in the blink of an eye, hops on the wild animal’s back, and pounds on the nape of its neck until it wobbles on its feet. The lion struggles in vain to shake off its rider. It seems now to be realizing its defeat, for it becomes gentle and restrained, allowing its rider to guide it. The children of Israels’ hearts overflow with joy, and they whisper to one another: The donkey metamorphosed into a lion! Abraham rode to Mount Moriah on a donkey’s back;24 likewise, even Balaam came to Moab riding a donkey.25 And see: the King-Messiah is coming to Jerusalem on the back of a lion, and he, like Samson in his time, will rescue us from hands of the Philistines […].26 In order to lend credence to the story about Bar Kosibah’s fight with the lion, which, as I have previously mentioned, has no source in the classical period, Maier was forced to rely primarily on the similarities between Bar Kosibah and the biblical Samson. This measure might almost be taken for granted, since, in addition to the phonetic similarity between their Hebrew names (Shimon and Shimshon), both are portrayed as leaders whose enormous physical prowess distinctively identified them. Notably, however, the most significant differences between them lie in their relationships with women and their sexual libidos. Thus, while the biblical Samson is illustrated as someone attracted to women who lead to his downfall, none of the sources about Bar Kosibah mention any women. Therefore, by introducing Katura into the Bar Kosibah story, Maier actually strengthens the connection between the two heroes by establishing that there seems to be an association between physical and sexual prowess in both of them.27 24 25 26 27

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27

According to Genesis 22. According to the Book of Numbers the linking between the story of Bil’am and Bar Kosibah’s also emanates from the fact that Rabbi Akiva, when crowning Bar Kosibah as a Messiah, quotes a Biblical verse from the Blessing of Bil’am, in which the Israelites are addressed as “‘There shall come a star out of Jacob’” (Numbers, 24:17). Samuel Mayer, “Simon Barcocheba, der Messias-König”, Israelitischer Musenalmanach 1 (1840) 90–216 [143–145]. I wish to thank Roy Greenwald for his kind help with the translation. For a more extensive reference regarding the linking between Samson and Bar Kosibah, please refer to Fogel (2009), who closely examines the manifestations of Samson’s

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In 1858, some eighteen years after Maier’s publication, Kalman Schulman, a notable writer and translator, published Harisot Beitar (“The ruins of Beitar”), in Vilna.28 Schulman did not compose an original work, as he himself acknowledges, but made ample use of Maier’s work. However, unlike Maier’s work, which was not disseminated widely and was familiar only to few, Schulman’s work was distributed to a broader reading circle. Schulman’s depiction is very similar to Maier’s, and it contains the same two central elements: Bar Kosibah’s tremendous physical prowess, which enabled him to defeat the lion, and the people’s interpretation of Bar Kosibah’s victory in messianic-­ theological terms. As Eli Eshed claimed, the popularity of Harisot Beitar promoted the lion’s motif to be the most identified one with Bar Kosibah.29 In May 1883, Abraham Goldfaden produced the Yiddish play “Bar Kokhba”, which had a very successful run.30 In 1903, Shaul Tchernichovsky published the poem “Beitara”, in which the battle with the lion and Bar Kosibah’s heroic exit from the arena are briefly described.31 In 1905, Israel Benjamin Levner, failing to even mention, let 28 29 30 31

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prowess across Rabbinic literature. It is via this context that Fogel conducts a discussion concerning the obvious and subtle connections between these two leading protagonists. See Fogel (2009) 106–109 and the selected bibliography in the mentioned pages. See Eli Eshed (1995). Kalman Shulman was a highly-prolific translator and author. Among other things he also translated Josephus Flavius’ writings into Hebrew, and Eugène Sue’s “Les Mystères de Paris”. In addition Shulman delved also in popular historical fiction of the Jewish people, a subject in which he also explored the character of Bar Kosibah. Kalman Shulman’s contribution to the scope of his contemporary literature is summed up by Klausner as follows: “Shulman was not an originator in the field of Hebrew literature, nor was he a great inventor in the field of linguistics. Yet he is quite unsurpassed as a distributor of Hebrew language and enlightenment alike in the scope of our literature. He was the one to encompass general-knowledge subjects while accustoming our tongue to a large variety of topics unfamiliar until his time. (…) Kalman Shulman is, thus, a step in the ladder of Ha-tchiya literature which cannot be ignored or passed over”. (See Yosef Klausner, History of the New Hebrew Literature, vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Shiloach, 1939) 430 (Hebrew)). For a more extensive overview of Kalman Shulman and his contribution to Enlightenment literature, please see Shmuel Feiner, Haskalah and history :the Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness (Oxford: Littmaan, 2002) 247–273. Eshed (1995). On the play see Alyssa Quint, “Abraham Goldfaden’s Play Bar-Kokhba”, Chulyot: Journal of Yiddish Researchl 6 (2000) 79–90 (Hebrew); Eshed (1995). The Complete Works of Shaul Tschernichowsky, vol. 1 (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1990) 149–150 (Hebrew). In the play “Bar Kokhba”, published by Tschernichowsky in the 1920s, the battle scene with the lion does not even exist. See: The Complete Works of Shaul Tschernichowsky, vol. 5 (Plays) (Tel Aviv: Va’ad hayovel, 1932) 9–136 (Hebrew).

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alone credit, Schulman at all, published a reworking of Schulman’s book.32 In it he included a description of Bar Kosibah’s battle with the lion in the arena which is highly similar to Schulman and Maier’s, with the glaring exception of his choosing to omit any element of Messianism in connection with Bar Kosibah. According to Levner, Bar Kosibah manages to subdue the lion the first time with his steady gaze, and the second time by the use of his fists. Given that Levner’s entire novel is based on the work of Schulman and Maier, his omission of the theological-messianic dimension, as well as stressing the physical one, is by no means accidental. His revision allowed the story to fit in with Zionist ideology that redemption is not bound to be the result of a theological process but of a physical one, namely, fighting wars and defeating the enemy. To utilize Carl Schmitt’s language, in this process theological power is adopted and transformed into a secular, political power, highly crucial in the process of creating a modern national identity. In 1930, Levin Kipnis, a famous children’s author, published the song “Bar Kokhva”, which quickly became inseparably linked to Bar Kosibah’s character.33 From the time of its publication and onward Israeli preschoolers and kindergarteners have never stopped learning and singing that song: Levin Kipnis, “There was a man in Israel” (1930); translation: Yael Zerubavel34

There was a man in Israel, His name was Bar Kokhva. 32 33 34

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,‫ִאיׁש ָהיָ ה ְּביִ ְׂש ָר ֵאל‬ .‫ּכֹוכ ָבא ְׁשמֹו‬-‫ר‬ ְ ‫ַּב‬

Zerubavel claims that Levner was, supposedly, the first one to include the story of the encounter with the lion in modern Hebrew literature: “Levner’s work appears to be the first narrative in modern Hebrew literature to include the encounter between the hero and the lion” (Zerubavel (1995) 105). In fact, as I have previously demonstrated, it was Shmuel Maier who first published this story some 65 years previous to this. As a result of this mistake, claims Zerubavel, the narrative of the hero and the lion is a bi-product of the Zionist discourse, which intended to magnify Bar Kosibah’s image as a national heroic warrior. Although Zerubavel’s general premise is justified, it is important to note that, in this case, the story of Bar Kosibah and the lion predates Zionism, and is, thus, attached, as I pointed out earlier, to the rise of Jewish nationality in Germany, as well to the desire for a parallel construction of Jewish heroes, or, conversely, against the backdrop of their contemporary German national heroes rising at the same time. This poem was first published in the journal Gilyonot, by The Union of Kindergarten and Nursery School Teachers in Palestine (Tel Aviv 1930) 60 (Hebrew). Since then this poem has been published, on occasion with slight alterations, in various collections of poetry intended for early-childhood education. For a complete publications’ list please see: Eliyahu ha-Kohen, Levin Kipnis: Bibliography (Tel Aviv: Levinsky, 1999) 75 (Hebrew). For aspects of the poem’s public recognition and acceptance, see also Zerubavel (1995) and Eshed (1995). translation: Yael Zerubavel (1995) 104–105.

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A tall, well-built, young man With glowing, radiant eyes. He was a hero He yearned for freedom The whole nation loved him He was a hero Hero

,‫קֹומה‬ ָ ‫ִאיׁש ָצ ִעיר ּגְ ַבּה‬ .‫ֵעינֵ י ז ַֹהר לֹו‬ ,‫הּוא ָהיָ ה ּגִ ּבֹור‬ ,‫הּוא ָק ָרא ִל ְדרֹור‬ ,‫ָּכל ָה ָעם ָא ַהב אֹותֹו‬ !‫זֶ ה ָהיָ ה ּגִ ּבֹור‬ !‫ּגִ ּבֹור‬

One day an incident occurred What a sad incident [it was] Bar-Kokhva was taken captive And was put in a cage How horrible was this cage In which a lion raged

–‫יֹום ֶא ָחד ָק ָרה ִמ ְק ֶרה‬ –‫ ִמ ְק ֶרה ָעצּוב‬,‫ָהּה‬ ‫ּכֹוכ ָבא נָ ַפל ַּב ְּׁש ִבי‬-‫ר‬ ְ ‫ַּב‬ .‫הּוׂשם ַּב ְּכלּוב‬ ַ ְ‫ו‬ ,‫ּנֹורא ְּכלּוב זֶ ה‬ ָ ‫ַמה‬ !‫ּבֹו ָׁש ַאג ַא ְריֵ ה‬

As soon as it spotted Bar-Kokhva The lion assaulted [him] A lion!

–‫ּכֹוכ ָבא‬ ְ ‫ַאְך ָר ָאה ֶאת ַּבר‬ !‫ִה ְתנַ ֵּפל ָה ַא ְריֵ ה‬ !‫ַא ְריֵ ה‬

But you should know Bar Kokhva How courageous and daring he was He dashed and jumped on the lion And raced [out] as fast as an eagle Over mountains and valleys he cruised Raising the banner of liberty The whole nation applauded him: Bar-Kokhva hurrah! Hurrah!

‫ּכֹוכ ָבא‬ ְ ‫ ַּבר‬,‫ַאְך ְּדעּו נָ א‬ !‫ַמה ּגִ ּבֹור וָ ַעז‬ ‫ָאץ ָק ַפץ ַעל ָה ַא ְריֵ ה‬ .‫וְ ַקל ַּכּנֶ ֶׁשר ָטס‬ ,‫ַעל ַהר וָ גַ יְ א הּוא ָׁשט‬ ,‫וְ ֶדגֶ ל ְּדרֹור ַּבּיָ ד‬ :‫ָּכל ָה ָעם ָמ ָחא לֹו ַּכף‬ !‫ ֵה ָידד‬,‫ּכֹוכ ָבא‬ ְ ‫ַּבר‬ !‫ֵה ָידד‬

Taking advantage of the format of this simple song, Levin Kipnis managed to bestow Bar Kosibah’s many heroic traits, all of which were featured in earlier versions of the story, into one brief song. He describes Bar Kosibah as a young, tall hero, with shining eyes, beloved by all the people. Following this basic description, he focuses on one incident in Bar Kosibah’s life: his fight with the lion. Kipnis provided a “child-friendly” version of the fight, presumably because the song was primarily intended for young children. The Roman arena teeming with people and wild animals is transformed into an isolated cage, and, in place of describing the fight in its entirety, Kipnis finds it sufficient to state that the lion attacked Bar Kosibah. Furthermore, instead of portraying Bar Kosibah as fighting with the lion, Kipnis depicts him as, firstly, obtaining miraculously-gained control of the lion, and then, while riding on its back, galloping out of the cage. ***

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In the second part of this article I wanted to isolate and illustrate a moment of birth; a single moment in which a new literary and cultural tradition was created from obscurity: that of Bar Kosibah’s interaction with, and overcoming of, the lion. The mere fact that a story lacking any basis in any historical or literal foundations, has turned into a major, most identified characteristics of Bar Kosibah in the Israeli popular cultural image reveals the complexity of the community’s discourse with its past, as well as the seminal, composite role placed on literature and folklore, in the process of shaping an awareness of national community. Thus, the quick amalgamation of the lion’s story, and its transformation into Bar Kosibah’s most identified characteristics in the Israeli Zionist discourse anthropomorphizes further the complex dialectic relationship of 19th century Jewish nationalism, and, later on, between Zionism and its past. On the one hand there lies a desire, or a necessity, to recruit the past in order to create an illusion of a continuation of uninterrupted Jewish existence. This existence would be one skipping over and beyond Diaspora and on her way to create a Jewish identity originating in ancient Israel, whose occupation and sources of vigor were, for the most part, dedicated to the constant, obstinate struggle against the current interpolating conqueror. On the other hand, it is the same necessity which undermines the existing historical data, thus forcing, not just the usage of ancient cultural traditions, but also the creation of new literary traditions, which, though seemingly familiar, are still prototyping past-heroes into new national Zionist paradigms. Bibliography Abramski, Shmuel, Bar-Kokhva Nesi Yisrael (Tel Aviv: Masada, 1961) (Hebrew). Appelbaum, Shimon, “Tinius Rufus and Julius Severus”, in Aharon Oppenheimer and Uriel Rappaport (eds.), The Bar Kokhva Revolt: a New Approach (Ben-Zvi Jerusalem, 1984) 147–152 (Hebrew). Ben-Ari, Nitsa, Romance with the Past (Tel –Aviv: Dvir/Makhon Leo Baeck 1997) 23–33 (Hebrew). Ben-Shalom, Ram, Facing Christian Culture (Ben-Zvi Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: Jerusalem, 2007) 251–76 (Hebrew). Bloch, Marc, “Reflections of a Historian on the False News of the War”, (trans. James P. Holoka) Michigan War Studies Review (July 2013) 1–11. Boyarin, Daniel, “Tricksters, Martyrs, and Appeasers: ‘Hidden Transcripts’ and the Diaspora Art of Resistance”, Theory and Criticism 10 (1997) 145–62 (Hebrew).

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Eck, Werner, “The Bar-Kokhba Revolt: The Roman Point of View”, Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999) 76–89. Eshed, Eli, “How Horrible is this Cage”, Et-Mol 183 (1995) 6–9. (Hebrew). Favazza, Armando R., Bodies Under Siege: Self-Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture (Baltimore, MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). Feiner, Shmuel, Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness (Oxford: Littmaan Library of Jewish Civilization, 2002) . Fogel, Shimon, “Samson’s Shoulders were Sixty Cubits”: Three Issues about Samson’s Image in the Eyes of the Rabbis, M.A. Thesis, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Beersheva 2009) (Hebrew). Ha-Kohen, Eliyahu, Levin Kipnis: Bibliography (Tel Aviv: Levinsky, 1999) (Hebrew). Hasan-Rokem, Galit, Web of Life (trans. Batya Stein) (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000). Jastrow, Marcus, A Dictionary of Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature (London and New York, 1886–1903) (2nd edn. NY: Choreb Shapiro Vallentin, 1926). Klausner, Yosef, History of the New Hebrew Literature, vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Shiloach, 1939) (Hebrew). Krauss, Samuel, “The Armies of Bar-Kokhva”, in Saul Lieberman (ed.), A ­ lexander Marx Jubilee Volume (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950) 391–92 (Hebrew). Marks, Richard G., The Image of Bar-Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature: False Messiah and National Hero (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1994). Mayer, Samuel, “Simon Barcocheba, der Messias-König”, Israelitischer Musenalmanach 1 (1840) 90–216. Mor, Menachem, The Bar-Kochba Revolt: Its Extent and Effect (Ben-Zvi Institute: Jerusalem, 1991) (Hebrew). Oppenheimer, Aharon, “Developments in the Study of the Bar-Kokhva Revolt During the Sixty Years of the State of Israel”, Zion 74 (2009) 65–94. Quint, Alyssa, “Abraham Goldfaden’s Play Bar-Kokhba”, Chulyot: Journal of Yiddish Research l 6 (2000) 79–90 (Hebrew). Schäfer, Peter, The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Second Jewish Revolt Against Rome (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003). Shatzman, Israel, “Stone-Balls from Tel Dor and the Artillery of the Hellenistic World”, Scripta Classica Israelica 14 (1995) 52–72. Tschernichowsky, Saul, The Complete Works of Saul Tschernichowsky, vol. 5 (Plays) (Tel Aviv: Va’ad hayovel, 1932) (Hebrew). Tschernichowsky, Saul, The Complete Works of Saul Tschernichowsky, vol. 1 (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 1990) (Hebrew).

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Weiss, Haim, “There Was a Man in Israel—Bar-Kosibah Was His Name!”, Jewish Studies Quarterly 21.2 (2014) 99–115. Weiss, Haim, “Shimon Bar-Kosibah and the Lion”, in Eliezer Papo et al. (eds.), ­Mikan v’El-Presenti: Studies in Honour of Tamar Alexander (Beer-Sheva 2015) 221–46 (Hebrew). Yevin, Samuel, Milchemet Bar-Kokhva (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1946) (Hebrew). Zerubavel, Yael, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

chapter 15

What Has Rome to Do with Jerusalem? The Reception of Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akivah in the Talmud and in Contemporary Israel Gabriel Danzig1 Rabbinic literature is among the most widely read literatures in the world today. Every day, tens of thousands of people participate in informal classes on the Talmud, study it in school or with learning partners, or read it on their own. Although written in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic, it has been translated into many modern languages including English (at least four times), French, Russian and modern Hebrew. Compendiums of Talmudic material in Korean translation have become popular best-sellers in South Korea,2 and the Talmud as a whole has been translated into Arabic.3 The Rabbinic writings contain records of conversations and debates on ­Jewish law that occurred in the academies of ancient Israel and Babylon in the centuries after the destruction of Jerusalem and prior to the Muslim conquest. In the Talmud and in Rabbinic compilations of Midrash we find, aside from legal material, discussions of Jewish theology and human behavior in the form of stories or aggadoth. We also find anecdotes about leading sages and reports of conversations between Jewish sages and Roman leaders, prominent matrons, philosophers, and others. It is this last category, reported conversations between Jewish sages and prominent Romans in the Talmud and their reception today, that is the subject of this paper. The form in which conversation with non-Jews appear is not the original form in which such conversation would have occurred. Conversations between Jews and Romans in ancient Judaea would have taken place in Greek, not ­Hebrew or Aramaic. Some of the recorded conversations, however, contain 1 I thank Dr. Yonatan Feintuch for reading a draft of this paper and offering valuable comments and refinements. He bears no responsibility for any impurities that remain. 2 See Ross Arbes, “How the Talmud became a best-seller in South Korea” (The New Yorker, June 23, 2015) (accessed 1 December 2016). 3 I was not able to find a balanced account of this translation, but the following site offers some information about the controversy surrounding it. (accessed 1 December 2016).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004347724_017

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puns on Hebrew words, which would not have been part of a conversation in Greek. So these conversations have undergone significant revision from their historical form, if they are not complete fiction. But although they are recorded in Hebrew and Aramaic, these conversations do reflect something of the ­Hellenistic presence in Israel. Rabbinic literature contains numerous Greek and Latin terms in transliteration, and one often senses that a Hebrew or Aramaic word has acquired some of the connotations of a Greek parallel. There are also thematic parallels to Hellenistic writings and occasional quotations from Hellenistic Greek literature or even from classical sources.4 Although the reported conversations with non-Jews often fail to preserve the name of the non-Jew, in some cases they do. So there may well be an historical basis for at least some of these conversations.5 In this paper, I will examine the reception of a disputation between Rabbi Akivah and Tineius (Turnus) Rufus, the governor of Judaea during the period leading up to the Bar-Kokhba revolt (about 132–136). Turnus Rufus appears several times in Rabbinic literature, often in conversation with Rabbi Akivah.6 Rufus and Akivah are historical figures; but while our records of these disputations may descend ultimately from historical conversations, I will treat them here in their current form as historical fiction. The conversations between these two men deal with fundamental ideological questions about Jewish belief and behavior, and as a result they feature commonly in Jewish educational activities, both in schools and in extra-curricular contexts. After I studied one of the disputations with my son, he was asked, quite coincidentally, to teach a class on it in for his high-school youth group. Afterwards, I attended a lecture at his school in which the head of the school, Rabbi Avinoam Horowitz, discussed the Turnus Rufus’ role in the destruction of Jerusalem (11/2/16).

4 See the seminal writings of Saul Lieberman, especially his volumes Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1942) and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950). 5 The disputation between Rabbi Hoshaya and an anonymous philosopher concerning the circumcision (Br. Rabbah 11) has a strong claim to historicity. See Gabriel Danzig, “What to say when you don’t have a good answer: Rabbi Hoshaya and the philosopher”, Revue des Études Juives (forthcoming). For the historicity of these disputations in general, see Moshe David Herr, “The Historical Significance of the Dialogues between Jewish Sages and Roman Dignitaries”, in Joseph Heinneman and Dov Noy (eds.), Studies in Aggadah and Folk-Literature, ­( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1971) 123–150. 6 Circumcision: Tanhuma Tazria 7 (Buber); Shabat: Sanhedrin 65b, Br. Rabbah 11.5, see Tanhuma, Ki Tisa 33, Pesikta Rabati 23.8: Charity: Bava Batra 10b; Hatred for Rome: Tanhuma, Truma 3; Meeting Rufina: Avodah Zarah 20a, see Nedarim 50b; Killing Akivah: Yer. Sota 25a-b, Yer. Brachot 14b; Plowing Jerusalem: Yer. Ta’anit 25b; Bavli Ta`anit 29a.

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Rufus’ role in this destruction earned him the appellation harasha` (the wicked), an appellation similar to that applied to the Biblical Haman (i.e. ­Esther, 7.6). There is some further similarity between the two figures: both were serving under the authority of a supreme non-Jewish ruler (king or emperor) and both made war against the Jews. Together with the Biblical Pharaoh, these are the major villains in ancient Jewish historical literature. The Biblical story affected the Rabbinic portrayal of Rufus: the scene in which Rufus consults with his wife on ways to handle Rabbi Akivah (see Rabbeinu Nissim’s commentary on Nedarim 50b) seems based on a similar scene in the Book of Esther (5.10-14). But although the Rabbinic source compares these two stories, it also moves in creative new directions. There is a fundamental difference between the outcomes of the two stories, and this affects their theological orientation. Whereas Haman was defeated and hanged, Rufus is credited in Jewish tradition with both plowing up the Temple grounds in Jerusalem and killing Rabbi Akivah.7 And here we find a new spirit in Jewish theology. In his address to the students, Rabbi Horowitz noted that it was not Turnus Rufus who destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, but the Jews themselves, by failing to live up to their full moral potential. When moral sensitivity is lacking, he said, there is no sanctity left in the Temple and nothing of significance to destroy. “He destroyed a Temple that was already destroyed. He ground flour that was already ground”. This description was obviously meant to encourage the students to work harder on their moral sensitivity and other virtues, but it also reflects a theological change from the Book of Esther. In Rabbi Horowitz’s interpretation of the story of Rufus, political defeat still represents a sign of divine disfavor; but the defeat is not to the credit of the victor—it is a message to the defeated. Rather than a tribute to the superiority of the powerful, defeat becomes a spur to renewed devotion to moral and spiritual perfection. 1

Circumcision as Rebellion

Circumcision has become a subject of serious controversy in recent years for both medical and legal-moral reasons.8 In several countries questions have 7 See previous note. 8 For the history of medical objections see Douglas M. Gairdner, “The fate of the foreskin: a study of circumcision”. British Medical Journal 2 (1949) 1433–7, Jakob Øster, “Further fate of the foreskin”, Archives of Disease in Childhood 43 (1968) 200–202, Marilyn Fayre Milos, and Donna Macris, “Circumcision: A Medical or a Human Rights Issue?” Journal of ­NurseMidwifery 37.2 (1992) (Suppl.) 87S–96S.

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been raised as to whether it is legally permissible to perform this operation. The most dramatic development was the banning of religious circumcision by a German court in 2012.9 Circumcision can be considered a form of assault, and it has been compared to the practice of female circumcision. But while female circumcision is required by no religion, male circumcision is an obligation for male members of the Jewish and Muslim faiths. Although it does not cause the kind of serious and irreversible damage to the child that is often the result of female circumcision, it still faces the basic moral challenge that it represents a violation of the rights of the infant and presents a threat to the infant’s heath.10 In 2007, Dr. Ido Hevroni published an article in the journal Azure offering an interpretation of a disputation between Turnus Rufus and Rabbi Akivah concerning the practice of circumcision.11 The Talmudic text Hevroni examines does not address the contemporary controversy over circumcision directly. One could not expect Romans, who tolerated infanticide, to object to the circumcision on these modern grounds. But the Talmudic text does address the substantive philosophical question underlying the practice of circumcision. In some ways the objections recorded in the Talmud are more forceful than the objections familiar to us today. Assuming that there are no medical, legal or moral obstacles, Turnus Rufus asks why should circumcision be practiced in the first place? In offering an interpretation of the Talmudic disputation, Hevroni sets forth an understanding of circumcision that offers a new answer to this question. In this paper I will examine Hevroni’s presentation of this debate and offer some correctives to his account. Who was Turnus Rufus? According to historians, he is to be identified with Quintus Tineius Rufus, the Roman governor of the province of Judaea from 132–136, at the time of the outbreak of the Bar-Kokhba rebellion. When Rufus proved incapable of quelling the rebellion, Julius Severus, the governor of Britain, was brought in as Rufus’ successor, and it was he who brought the conflict

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For a recent discussion of the issues surrounding the decision of a German court to ban circumcision, see Stephen R. Munzer, “Secularization, Anti-Minority Sentiment, and Cultural Norms in the German Circumcision Controversy”, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law (2015) 503–81. For a contemporary defense of the practice, with references to alternative views, see Allan J. Jacobs and Kavita Shah Arora, “Ritual Male Infant Circumcision and Human Rights”, The American Journal of Bioethics 15.2 (2015) 30–39. Ido Hevroni, “Circumcision as rebellion”, Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation 28 (2007) 107– 122. Azure was a quarterly Israeli journal published by Shalem Press from 1996 to 2012 in both Hebrew and English, serving in part as a vehicle for considering contemporary issues in light of traditional Jewish literature.

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to a successful conclusion.12 Jewish and non-Jewish literature remembered ­Tineius, however, portraying him as the promoter of cruel decrees against the Jews, as putting Akivah to death, and as responsible for plowing up the area of Temple.13 He appears several times in Rabbinic literature in conversations and conflicts with Rabbi Akivah. In our earliest source, Breishit Rabbah, his name is given relatively accurately as Tenus Rufus (‫)טנוסרופוס‬.14 In printed editions of later sources, including the Babylonian Talmud and other compilations, he is referred to by letters that are commonly pronounced Turnus Rufus (‫)טורנוסרופוס‬. Why did these sources garble his name? It appears that this is no mere mistake but was done in a spirit of hostility: the correct pronunciation of these letters may be not Turnus Rufus, but Tyranos Rufus.15 In the Jerusalem Talmud Rufus is referred to as “Tunus Terufus the wicked”. This also seems to be a pejorative alteration of his name, since teruf in Hebrew means insane. One may compare the treatment of the Greek ruler Antiochos iv who gave himself the epithet Epiphanes (“the manifest god”) but was referred to by his opponents as Epimanes (“the mad”).16 But despite these appellations, the portrait of Rufus is not slanderous or defamatory. I will refer to him in this paper as Rufus. Rabbi Akivah was a leading Rabbinic authority in the early second century. According to tradition he did not begin the study of the Torah until age forty.17 His teacher was Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos, the greatest authority of his time. Akivah was principally involved in traditional Jewish legal studies, systematizing much of the Jewish legal material and providing innovative rulings. He is also credited with developing a mode of interpretation based on finding ­significance in the most casual irregularities in the Biblical text. This mode of 12

13 14

15 16 17

See Werner Eck, “The bar Kokhba Revolt: The Roman Point of View”, in Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999) 76–89. See also Shimon Appelbaum, “Tineius Rufus and Julius Severus”, in idem, Judaea in Hellenistic and Roman Times: Historical and Archaeological Essays, Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 40 (Leiden: Brill, 1989) 117–123. For the decrees, see Yer. Ta`anit 69a; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 4.6.1; Chronicon (ed. Schoene) 2.166. For the other issues see above note 6. Breishit Rabbah is a collection of homiletic interpretive comments on the book of G ­ enesis, compiled in the land of Israel between 300–500 ce. I quote from Yehuda Theodor and Chanoch ­Albeck (eds.), Midrash Rabbah (Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1965) (2nd edn.) (in Hebrew). This spelling also appears in a Geniza fragment. Because the Hebrew language does not contain written vowels, the pronunciation of words is sometimes not obvious. See Polybius, 26.10. Avot de Rabbi Nathan 6.2.

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interpretation created a hermeneutically unique field of intellectual activity which helped insulate Jewish learning from Hellenistic influence. He was also the author of maxims recorded in Mesechet Avot (3.13-16) and elsewhere. His students became the leaders of the next generation of legal scholars and his influence on subsequent collections of legal and aggadic material was immense. These two figures are said to have met during a period of severe crisis between Rome and Judaea, the period leading up the great revolt. The Roman governor had a strong interest in weakening the unity and determination of the Jews, and his attacks on Jewish practice would have played an obvious role in such an effort. There is evidence that Akivah supported the Bar-Kochba rebellion against Rome (Yer. Ta`anit 24a). If Rufus could induce a prominent ­Jewish leader like Akivah to acknowledge the folly of Jewish practices, he would have a much easier time managing the Jewish population. As in today’s culture of political activism, the Roman attack on Akivah was an effort to accomplish something, not to reach a common understanding. For these same reasons, Akivah is under intense pressure to emerge from these debates unscathed. He needs not only to offer an effective defense, but also to measure his words carefully and avoid misstatements that would be influential in his time and beyond. Although the disputations are at least partly fictional, they preserve these qualities of an actual disputation. The chief subjects of the disputations are the circumcision, the Sabbath and the practice of charity. In all of these cases, Rufus attacks the Jewish practice as contrary to the laws of nature: by nature, men are not circumcised; by nature, there is no difference between one day of the week and another; by nature, it is right for the powerful to win and the weak to lose. In response, Akivah defends Jewish practices by challenging the assumptions of Rufus’ arguments rather than offering a full defense or explanation of the practice in question. Because of the role these texts play in contemporary Jewish education, the portraits of the disputations of Rufus and Akivah influence Jewish attitudes not only towards ancient Roman authorities, but also towards contemporary antagonists. In this paper I will explore the disputation recorded in Tanhuma concerning the circumcision.18 Ido Hevroni presents an interpretation of Akivah’s response to Rufus that also serves to counter modern ­critiques—not by refuting them but by providing a rationale for circumcision that appeals to other values in contemporary society. He argues that the ­debate between Rufus and Akivah presents the circumcision as a form of rebellion against a fatalistic conception of nature, and that the Jewish insistence on ­altering the natural 18 The Tanhuma is a collection of homiletic interpretations and stories thought to have been compiled in the fifth century ce.

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form of man finds its political parallel in the refusal to accept the hegemony of the powerful Romans. Hevroni distinguishes between three levels on which the debate may be interpreted. On the simplest level it represents a dispute on circumcision and the issue of man’s relationship to nature. On a deeper level it reflects Roman and Jewish ideas about fate and willful action. On the deepest level it reflects contradictory philosophical assumptions stemming from the civilizations of Rome and Jerusalem: “Instead of a closed world ruled by the blind forces of nature, [Rabbi Akivah offers] an image of man who alters, even creates, a world of his own”. (p. 108). Here is the debate in Hevroni’s English translation: Turanus Rufus the wicked asked R. Akiva: “Whose works are superior? Those of the Holy One or those of flesh and blood?” He replied: “Those of flesh and blood are superior”. Turanus Rufus the wicked said to him: “Look at the heavens and the earth; can you make them?” R. Akiva said to him: “Do not speak to me of that which is beyond human beings, who have no control over them; but speak about things which are to be found among men”. [Turanus Rufus] said to him: “Why are you circumcised?” He said to him: “I knew you were going to ask me that; therefore at the outset I told you that the works of flesh and blood are superior to those of the Holy One”. R. Akiva brought him sheaves of wheat and white bread, and said to him: “These are the works of the Holy One, and these are the works of flesh and blood. Are the latter not superior?” He then brought him bundles of flax and garments from Beit She’an, and said to him: “These are the works of the Holy One, and these are made by man. Are the latter not superior?” Turanus Rufus said to him: “If he [God] desires circumcision, why does a person not exit his mother’s womb circumcised?” R. Akiva said to him: “And why does he exit with his umbilical cord attached? Does his mother not sever it? And why is he not born circumcised? Because the Holy One only gave us the commandments in order to refine us through them, and so said David, ‘[Every] word of God is refined’”. In Hevroni’s presentation, each disputant in this clash represents the ideological viewpoint of his own nation. Although he is a Roman, Hevroni treats Rufus as a representative of Hellenism on the grounds that the views he espouses have more connection with Greek than Roman civilization (n. 2 p. 121):

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In the eyes of the Hellenist, there is nothing more exalted than that which nature has given us. To him, the supreme art is that of mimesis, or imitation of the natural world: When the philosopher wishes to extol a certain painter, he relates how birds would come to peck at the grapes on the canvas; so, too, does the athlete exhibit his naked body at the Gymnasium in the belief that his is the epitome of the natural form. To the Hellenist, clearly, bodily mutilation is unforgivable (p. 110). Rabbi Akivah responds with the rebellious theology of the Jews, arguing that man’s works can be superior to those of God. He offers as proof the evident superiority of baked bread over raw grain. Rufus does not accept this explanation, however, and for a good reason: the example of the bread shows only that culture has an important role to play in man’s life. But, “the rabbi’s final answer explains that altering nature is not simply a cultural matter, but is rather a well-established phenomenon in the natural world, as well” (p. 111). Not only does man create useful items for his own benefit, nature itself is deficient and in need of correction, as Akivah illustrates with the examples of the umbilical cord and the metallic ore. Not only does Hevroni see the conflict as representing the ideologies of the two civilizations, he also sees it as reflecting an older conflict between two Biblical figures, Jacob and Esau. The name Akivah is an Aramaic version of the Hebrew name Jacob. And while the name Rufus does not resemble the name Esau, it actually means red-haired in Latin—and Esau himself was red-haired (Gen. 25.25). It is certainly possible, as Hevroni suggests (p. 115), that Rufus was given this cognomen because he was born with red hair, a feature that would have invited, in Jewish circles, a comparison between him and Esau. For Hevroni, this speculative formal parallel reflects a deeper ideational parallel. The clash between Akivah and Rufus represents the same clash between nature and culture that he finds in the clash between Jacob and his brother Esau. Hevroni argues that Esau the hunter behaved in accordance with the laws of nature, while Jacob, dwelling in tents and occupied with shepherding, was engaged in mastering nature (pp. 116–117). Jacob displays his determination to control his fate both in the moment of birth, when he grasps his brother’s foot in an effort to overcome him, and in his purchase of his brother’s birthright. Thus interpreted, the confrontation between Rufus and Akivah is a repetition or continuation of the primordial conflict between the principle of nature and the principle of rebellion, instantiated in the production of culture or technology. The parallel Hevroni develops between Akivah/Jacob and Rufus/Esau is ingenious but somewhat problematic. In the Biblical text we often find a contrast between farmers and shepherds and between city-dwellers and tent-dwellers,

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but on both of these scales, Jacob is on the side of nature. One could probably find a better parallel to the nature-culture conflict in the conflict between Cain and Able. Hevroni suggests that the authors of the disputation may have chosen Akivah and Rufus as fictional interlocutors in order to signal the clash between Jacob and Esau. But there is no clear signal of the parallel in the stories. Not all of the stories about confrontations between these two individuals can be read as reflecting the conflict between Jacob and Esau. And the fact that some of these stories occur in early sources such as Bereishit Rabbah and the Jerusalem Talmud suggest that there is a real historical basis to the confrontation. Akivah and Rufus were historical figures; and while the disputes as we have them are not historical documents, they probably do reflect an historical confrontation, not a merely literary one. So what is the significance of the fact that the names of the disputants recall some Biblical protagonists? The idea that human society is so constructed that similar confrontations occur between similar-named representatives of similar ideologies at regular intervals would take us far beyond the realm of historical science.19 Hevroni reads into the debate on circumcision a much broader question about man’s relationship to fate, including man’s relationship to the political powers that hold him down: “The arguments of the Roman ruler carry a powerful resonance. To the Judean rebels he asks: Do you not accept the authority of heaven? Do you not recognize—stiff-necked people that you are—that the desire of your own God is that you submit to the power of the mighty Roman Empire?” (p. 113). Hevroni celebrates the unwillingness of the Jews to accept this authoritarian theology, this justification of the rule of the powerful over the weak. Although he does not discuss this aspect of the contemporary debate about the legitimacy of circumcision, his explanation of circumcision serves to reverse the terms of that criticism: whereas circumcision today is often portrayed as a violation of the rights of the infant, Hevroni portrays it as a form of rebellion against the authority of the powerful. Although I will challenge Hevroni’s portrayal of this debate as a conflict between Hellenic and Judaic conceptions, there may be some truth in his claim that Akivah adopts a theology of rebellion against the hegemony of nature. 19

What goes unsaid in Hevroni’s paper is that the connection between red-haired Esau and Rome is a well-known feature of Talmudic literature. The fact that the representative of Rome is named Rufus and may well have had Esavian red hair may be merely a coincidence. The other possibility, cautiously suggested to me by Dr. Yonatan Feintuch, is that Rufus’ hypothetical red hair was itself a factor in the identification of Rome with redhaired Esau. We should note that the appearance of the cognomen Rufus at this time is by no means a proof or even strong evidence for red hair.

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The prohibition of circumcision was one factor in the revolt against Rome, and so performing it was in fact a form of rebellion.20 Moreover, the idea of the rebellion against Rome as a rebellion against a natural force is expressed by Rabbi Akivah in another debate with Turnus Rufus. In the disputation on charity (Bava Batra 10b), Rufus argues that poverty is a form of divine punishment, and hence that God is angry at those who relieve the suffering of the poor. Here again, Rufus makes use of a Judaic conception of God in order to reinforce the idea of the natural supremacy of the stronger—I am aware of no Greco-Roman source that treats charity as a crime against the gods. In his response, Akivah does not deny the general principle that material success is a sign of superiority, but he argues that there are cases in which God does not allow this paradigm to rule. The tendency of Akivah’s argument on charity is to deny the normative status of material success and failure in some exceptional cases. He allows for exceptions to the general principle invoked by Rufus, and he argues that Israel is one such exceptional case. So regardless of whether this idea stems from a Judaic source prior to Akivah, Hevroni is right about Akivah’s endorsement of it and may be right to suspect that it underlies the dispute on circumcision as well. 2

The Mixture of Sources

In the second half of this paper, I will take a closer look at the idea that the two figures represent the ideologies of their respective nations. Although it may seem intuitively obvious that they do, in fact this is a highly doubtful proposition. Obviously, Romans did not practice circumcision, so Rufus is attacking a Jewish custom from a Roman point of view. But that does not mean that the arguments he uses in objecting to circumcision, or those Akivah gives in defending it, are drawn faithfully from the traditions of the two respective nations. The confrontation between Rufus and Akivah is not an inquiry into the significance of the circumcision, it is a verbal battle between enemies. So we should not be surprised to find that the disputants distort traditions and make use of arguments drawn from their opponents’ cultures. What makes this confrontation most interesting is that it provides us with an opportunity to examine the mixture of Judaic and Hellenic elements in the portrayal of conflicts between Rome and Judea in the Rabbinic mind. In examining this question, 20 See Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Vita Hadriani 14.2. I thank Eran Almagor for suggesting this point.

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I am investigating a second case of reception, namely the reception of Akivah and Rufus within Talmudic literature. Rufus does not open with a direct question about circumcision. Instead, he lays the ground for an attack on the practice by invoking the concept of God as the creator. Although the Greeks and Romans were capable of speaking of a god or gods as creators of the world as early as Plato (e.g. Protagoras 320c– 322a), the reference to God as creator of heaven and earth shows that Rufus is portrayed as invoking the Biblical account of creation. He invokes Judaic conceptions in order to involve Akivah in a self-contradiction: by inducing ­Akivah to profess his admiration for God’s creations Rufus hopes to force him to acknowledge the foreskin as a divine creation. He enlists Judaic theology to support the Greco-Roman belief in the perfection of the natural world, and then uses that belief to reject a fundamental element of Jewish practice by arguing that God must disapprove of the disfigurement of man’s natural form. In essence, he is enlisting the Judaic deity in a battle against the Judaic religion by privileging the role of this deity as the source of the natural world. Rufus is right to think that Akivah admires the works of God more than those of man. But, as he says, Akivah does not answer the question in accordance with his real opinion. He may not know that Rufus will ask about the circumcision specifically, but he can suspect that he will make a hostile argument on the basis of the generalized superiority of God’s works. He claims therefore that man’s works are greater. Akivah defends this counter-intuitive notion in response to Rufus’ challenge (“can you make anything like the heavens and the earth?”) by limiting it to the realm in which man is capable of acting. This distinction between the realm in which man is powerless and the realm in which things are under his control recalls the Stoic distinction between the things that are eph’ hēmin (up to us) and the things that are not eph’ hēmin. Epictetus limited the things that are up to us to an extreme degree, such that only our own opinions, pursuits, desires and aversions are up to us. He acknowledged that our actions are up to us, but not necessarily the results of those actions (The Enchiridion, 1). Akivah limits the realm under consideration to things that are within human ability, in other words to the realm of technology. This is more in line with Aristotle’s concept of the things that are “up to us” as those which we perform by our own initiative (e.g. Rhetoric 1.4.3). By limiting the question in this way, Akivah is able to affirm his opinion that God’s work of cosmic creation is greater than anything man can do, but at the same time to argue that within a limited framework man’s works represent an improvement on God’s. Indeed, this is self-evident: men would not make changes to nature if there were nothing to be gained by it.

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As we can see, from the very outset this dispute is a study in misdirection. Rufus offers a blend of Greco-Roman and Judaic beliefs, producing an argument in favor of nature that is more powerful than any purely Greco-Roman position: the invocation of a cosmic creator grants a greater normative force to the ideal of nature than is possible without it.21 And Akivah replies with arguments based on Hellenic thought. The needs of disputation contribute to new theological positions forged out of materials borrowed from both cultures. 2.1 Judaic Monotheism The theological position Rufus articulates is not merely an artificial combination of Judaic and Greco-Roman notions, it is a combination of notions that are already distortions. While Judaic tradition regards God as the creator, it more often invokes him as the source of miraculous intervention in history. Miracles, history and covenant are arguably the most important areas in which God acts in both the Biblical and the Rabbinic writings. And there is no contradiction between the conception of God as a partner to a covenant and the practice of circumcision as an expression of that covenant. Akivah might have objected to Rufus’ misuse of the Judaic concept of God if he were holding a genuine conversation or debate. However, in the context of a disputation, ­Akivah accepts this nature-god for the sake of argument and replies to Rufus on a non-theological level by challenging his view of man’s relation to nature. In doing so, he does not invoke Judaic conceptions, but rather reminds Rufus of the broader traditions of Greece and Rome which Rufus had omitted. 2.2 The Perfection of Nature The idea that nature is perfect and provides a standard for judging and rejecting human conventions is familiar from Greco-Roman sources.22 The notion that the Greeks idealized the human body in its natural state is a familiar theme, still articulated by scholars of art history.23 The Greek statues provided idealized images far removed from abstract expressionism and other artistic traditions. But the Greeks were not the only people in ancient or m ­ odern 21

22 23

Alcidamas the rhetorician laid the path for this when he exclaimed in his Messenian Speech: “God has left all men free; Nature has made none a slave” (Scholiast to Aristotle’s Rhetoric 1373b). There we see both the apparent identity of God and nature, and the use of nature as a normative standard, but God is not yet described as a creator. See Gerard Naddaf, The Greek Concept of Nature (Albany, ny: State University of New York Press Press, 2006). See recently Ian Dennis Jenkins and Victoria Turner, The Greek Body (London and ny: British Museum and Getty Publications, 2009).

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times who admired the natural form of men and women and they were not as extreme or univocal on this theme as they are often represented. In his ­Cyropaedia, for example, Xenophon presents a lively defense of the practice of castration (7.5.58-65). Plato had to work hard to present a positive image of a Socrates who was not very good looking, but the fact is that he and many others did admire Socrates despite his looks. Sophocles presented a portrait of a repulsive old man, Philoctetes, whose inner worth more than compensated for his physical deformation. Nature also played an important role in the moral thought of the sophistic movement. Sophistic thinkers argued that law and morality were artificial creations of man and that the law of nature represented a more valuable source of normative behavior.24 The Cynics made animal nature into the fundamental principle of their way of life. Socratic thinkers also granted a normative status to nature, but they elaborated conceptions of nature that demand a highly developed cultural and educational apparatus. Both Plato and Aristotle argued that human nature could reach its fulfillment only through the cultivation and practice of moral and intellectual virtue by means of human institutions. Moreover, the idea of the perfection of nature was balanced by another trend in Greek thought. The sophists themselves recognized that man has a special relationship with art or techne. Men engage in agriculture, build houses and cities, invent and utilize technologies. Sophistic thinkers emphasized that by nature man is deficient in the basic means of survival and in need of artificial supports. Physically, he does not have the natural weapons—claws, fangs or horns—that other animals use to survive; he lacks the warm fur that enables them to survive the cold; and he also lacks the gifts of flight and copious offspring that enable other species to survive predators (see Plato, Protagoras 320d–321b). In order to remedy his natural deficiency, man acquires gifts that enable him to develop technology, including agricultural tools and the weapons used in hunting other animals and defending against them. They also develop political and military cooperation as tools of survival (Plato, Protagoras 321c–322d; Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.1). The idea that man’s distinctive quality is his technological ability can be traced back as far as Homer who in describing the Cyclopes connected their lack of civilization and law with their lack of agricultural technology (Odyssey 9, 187–192). Man’s unique relationship to nature is recognized also in the Biblical text in which God creates man in order to tend to a garden (Gen. 2.15). But the Biblical 24

See Antiphon DK 87 A44, Plato’s Gorgias, 482e–484c; a similar passage in Republic 1 (338d–339a) argues not that there is a natural standard that conflicts with conventional conceptions of justice, but simply that all forms of justice are conventional.

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text also reflects a discomfort with technology: the first farmer and builder of a city was the fratricidal Cain. The tower of Babel was a technological achievement symbolic of man’s alienation from God. In general, shepherds are ­valorized over farmers in the Biblical narrative. Laws of the Sabbath and the Sabbatical year remind man to observe limits in his mastery of nature. So when Akivah defends the circumcision by comparing it to the preparation of fine loaves of bread by technological means he is making use of an argument that has deep roots in Greek thought, not Judaic thought. 2.3 Improving on Nature Circumcision is certainly a technological act, but in what sense does it produce an improvement? By asking about the beauty of the works of God, Rufus implies, in common with the general opinion of Greco-Roman antiquity, that the uncircumcised male organ is more beautiful than the circumcised.25 By replying that the loaves are more beautiful than the grain, Akivah implies that the circumcised organ can, on the contrary, be considered more beautiful than the uncircumcised. In Biblical Hebrew, the term naeh refers almost exclusively to an aesthetically pleasing appearance. It can refer to the physical beauty of a woman or a building (Song of songs 1.5, 6.4), or be used in a more abstract way to refer to the appropriateness of praise (Psalms 33.1). It is possible that in this context the term beautiful does not refer exclusively to aesthetic quality. In praising the bread, Rabbi Akivah seems to be referring not merely to its aesthetic quality, but to its greater desirability and usefulness as food. Although such a connotation of naeh does not appear in the dictionaries of Jastrow or Ben Yehudah, it is possible that, if the conversation was held in Greek, the term naeh reflects the Greek word kalos which does carry the connotation of useful.26 But such a connotation plays no role in the argument. Akivah points to no way in which the circumcision provides a practical improvement over the noncircumcised member. Strictly speaking, the example of the bread only shows that there are cases in which the alteration of the natural form can be an ­improvement, thus refuting the assumption, implicit in Rufus’ argument, that 25

26

Galen refers to the prepuce (posthe) as an ornamental feature of the male body (Galen, De usu partium corporis humani 11.13). See also Aristophanes, Clouds, 1009–14, Herodotus, Histories, 2.37. See Morris Jastrow, A dictionary of the Targumim etc. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1903) p. 865; Eliezer Ben Yehudah, A complete dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew (New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1960) 3464; H.G. Liddell and R, Scott, revised by H.S. Jones, A GreekEnglish Lexicon, ninth edition with supplement, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) kalos ii p. 870.

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its being an alteration is, in and of itself, proof that the circumcision is a deformation. Akivah’s argument shows that technology can improve on nature, but offers no insight into what makes a circumcision an improvement. Here Rufus might have challenged Akivah directly, by asking what improvement can be found in the circumcised state.27 Instead he offers a hypothetical challenge: if circumcision is an improvement, why is man not born circumcised?28 Although phrased as a question, this statement should be seen as a counterargument: there cannot be any benefit to circumcision, because if there were God would create men already circumcised. This claim relies on the assumption that if something can exist in a perfect or less perfect state, God must create it in the perfect state. Akivah responds by arguing that in other cases God creates things in imperfect states. This may seem to be implicit in the previous example of the bread, but there is a subtle difference. No one would say that wheat is imperfect bread, since wheat is a substance in its own right. One cannot ask about wheat, Why does God make bread in an imperfect form? But this is the question that Rufus is asking about the circumcision: why does God make man in an imperfect form? The example of the bread shows only that man can make things that are better than those made by God. It does not show that God makes imperfect things, since God does not make bread in the first place. But God does make men, and he makes them with a foreskin. If the uncircumcised state is an inferior state for a man, asks Rufus, why does God not create men circumcised? why does God not create men this way? The example of the umbilical cord is designed to answer this question. It is not a perfect example, since the umbilical cord, unlike the foreskin, serves an obvious and necessary purpose prior to its being cut off. But it is does show that man is created with physical imperfections that need to be removed. 3

The Meaning of Circumcision

Akivah could end the argument here, having denied the validity of Rufus’ criticisms. But he volunteers a further explanation for the circumcision by offering a third analogy. In what sense is the circumcised state better than the 27

28

We may imagine that Rufus refrains from asking because he does not want to offer Akivah an opportunity to answer this question. In any case, his failure to ask shows again that his purpose is not to learn but to denigrate. Hypothetical arguments appear frequently in the disputations. In this discussion of the Shabat Rufus asks why God makes rain on Shabat if it is a day of rest, and in the discussion of charity he asks why God ford not provide a livelihood for the poor if he loves them. These are both best understood not as questions but as attempted refutations.

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­ ncircumcised? Akivah argues that, in common with all the commandments, u the commandment of circumcision was given to men to purify or refine them. This claim can be understood in two ways: (a) The state of being circumcised is a better state, and since God has not created us in that state, man must do it himself. In this case it would resemble the cases of the bread and the umbilical cord. (b) The very process of undergoing or performing the circumcision has some beneficial effect. This would make it resemble Akivah’s argument for the practice of charity (Bava Batra 10b). The second interpretation would provide an explanation why God does not create men already circumcised: he wishes to allow them the opportunity to benefit by performing the circumcision or having it performed on them. This makes sense of Akivah’s claim that all the commandments provide purification or refinement: while that laws of purity and alimentary regulations affect man’s bodily purity directly, other laws, such as agricultural restriction and criminal statutes, could only be said to provide purification in an indirect way, perhaps by the effort involved in performing them. In another context, Akivah argues that the act of giving charity brings valuable benefit to the giver aside from the positive effects it has on the recipient (Bava Batra 10b). He may be saying, then, that there is some purification effect on the parents in performing the circumcision. Alternatively, we might imagine that there is some benefit to the child in undergoing the circumcision. Elsewhere we find R. Akiva holding the view that suffering can be beneficial (e.g. Sifre, Deut. Parshat Va-Ethanan, 32). Possibly, Akivah is suggesting that the circumcision effects some improvement on man’s sexual impulse. Indeed, Akivah will prove himself superior to sexual temptation in his encounter with the wife of Rufus (see Rabbeinu Nissim’s commentary on Nedarim 50b). But Akivah never makes this point; and even Philo, who makes a similar point, never claims that the circumcision has an actual effect on the sexual impulse, but rather that it symbolizes such an effect.29 It is not clear then in what sense the performance of the commandment plays a role in the purification process. Despite the reference to the other ­commandments, some of which could only provide purification­in a completely different way, it 29

See Philo, “The Special Laws”, 1.9 (trans. F.H. Colson) The Works of Philo vol. vii, (Cambridge ma: Harvard University Press, 1905) 105. See Maren Niehoff, “Circumcision as a Marker of Identity: Philo, Origen and the Rabbis on Gen. 17:1–14”. Jewish Studies Quarterly 10 (2003) 89–123.

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seems easier to understand circumcision as providing purification in a physical sense to the child. Overall, it seems easiest to understand Akivah’s argument in accordance with the first interpretation I offered above. The term that Akivah uses for purification (letsaref) refers to the process of purifying or refining metals by smelting. Smelting is a process by which impurities or dross found in metallic ore are eliminated by subjecting the ore to extreme heat. One could say in an analogous fashion that male human beings are born with an impurity (the foreskin) that needs to be removed by surgery. The circumcised person is purified in the sense that a physical deformity is removed. This analogy is better than the previous analogies since the impurities found in metallic ore do not serve any obvious or necessary purpose. This understanding resonates with other Rabbinic sources which describe the foreskin as an impurity, a blemish or a repulsive feature, including a midrashic passage that compares the foreskin to the stem of a fig or to the fingernail of a beautiful Roman matron that needs trimming.30 Just as there is no reason to think that the metal, the fig, or the woman benefits from the process of refinement, so too there is no reason to think that the child benefits from the process of circumcision. It is the result that counts. This interpretation fits with other texts which represent the circumcised state as a superior state in itself. In Avot deRabbi Natan 2:5 we find a list of excellent people who were born already circumcised. These individuals lose nothing from the fact that they are not forced to undergo the circumcision. What is important is the state of being circumcised; but since God does not create most men in that state, we must effect it through technology. Given the lack of mention of any practical benefit, it seems that Akivah is claiming a quasi-aesthetic superiority for the circumcision. If so, he is responding directly to the common Hellenistic belief that the uncircumcised male member is aesthetically superior to the circumcised (see above note 26), claiming that, on the contrary, the foreskin is a repulsive impurity that should be removed, a kind of universal birth defect. His response is as insulting to the Roman as the Roman derision was to the Jew. But what basis does Akivah’s response have in the Judaic tradition? Certainly, Akivah ignores most of the descriptions of the circumcision found in the Biblical text. The circumcision is regularly described as a sign of a brit or covenant between God and man (Gen. 17; see also Nedarim 31b–32a, Menachot 30

Br. Rabbah 46.1–2. See also Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer (28 in Higger; 29 in printed editions). For further references to the impure nature of the foreskin see Sacha Stern, Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings (Leiden: Brill, 1994) 59–60. On a similar note, Herodotus reports that the Egyptians circumcise themselves for the sake of cleanliness (kathariotes: 2.37.2).

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43b). For this reason it is referred to as the brit milah, the covenant of circumcision. It can function as a sign of tribal identity (Gen. 34),31 or as a means of ­protection from supernatural death (Ex. 4.24-26 and Ex. 12). In the book of Joshua (5.2-9) it seems to function as a kind of military initiation rite. It is connected, both in the case of Abraham and in the case of Joshua, with the conquest of the land of Israel. In all these cases the circumcision is described as a sign of the covenant with God. Akivah mentions none of this. His refraining from claiming the circumcision as a sign of divine favor does not derive from any fear of offending Rufus, because his argument that the foreskin is an impurity is even more offensive. In other disputations, too, Akivah is represented as speaking harshly to Rufus (see especially Sanhedrin 65b, Tanhuma, Truma 3). He has no reluctance to claim a special status for the Jews: in his discussion of charity (Bava Batra 10b) he claims that the Jews are children of God. It seems that the unspoken rules of the disputation demand that this aspect of the circumcision be ignored, and that it be defended as a practice that would be beneficial in itself for any male. Although the idea that the circumcision provides a purification or refinement for the body of man does not appear explicitly in any Biblical text, one could derive it from some of them. The Biblical chapter in which the circumcision is first commanded begins with God’s demand that Abraham “Walk before me and be whole-hearted/perfect (tamim)”. Gen. 17. While this phrase does not seem to refer to the physical effect of the circumcision, some rabbinic interpretations do treat it as such (Br. Rabbah 46.1, 46.4, 46.5). In the book of Joshua, there is an unclear reference to the foreskin as the “shame of Egypt” (herpat mizraim: Joshua 5.9). The idea that the foreskin is an offensive organ seems to be reflected in derogatory references to non-Jews as the “uncircumcised” (e.g. Ezekiel 32: 25). There is a single reference in the Bible to circumcision without a mention of the covenant, and this occurs in the context of the purification rites of a woman who has given birth (Lev. 12.3). The idea that the foreskin is a deformity may be implicit in the fact that the fruit of trees is considered ar`el (the term used for the foreskin) for the first three years, a state that may reflect its being defective in quality. But none of the Biblical sources describes the foreskin as an aesthetically offensive physical imperfection or deformity in the 31

Whether it constituted a significant part of Jewish identity or not in Rabbinic times, it is striking how rarely the Rabbinic literature attribute to it any such role. See José Costa, “Le marquer identitaire de la circoncision chez les rabbins de l’Antiquité”, in Simon Claude Mimouni and Bernard Pouderon (eds.), La croisée des chemins revisitée (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2012) 161–194. He attributes such a role to the circumcision, arguing that it is implicit in the Rabbinic discussion.

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creation of man. Any reader aware of the Biblical texts will have noticed the novelty of Akivah’s argument. Did this approach arise in an historical confrontation between Akivah and Rufus? It is notoriously difficult to determine the origins of Rabbinic opinions. The general idea that the commandments provide purification appears also in the words of Rav Abba Arika (known as Rav in the Talmud) as a way of explaining all the commandments that have no rational basis (Br. Rabbah 44). Rav was active in the first half of the third century (died 247 ce), which means he lived a few generations after Akivah. But the source in which his statement is found (Br. Rabbah: fourth to fifth century) is probably earlier than the Tanhuma ­(fifth century or later) in which Akivah’s confrontation with Rufus is recorded. So it is possible that the idea originated with Rav and was later attributed back to Akivah. It is also possible that the idea originated with Akivah and was passed down to Rav by oral transmission or texts that have been lost. A similar idea is attributed to Rabbi Eliezer, in Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer (above note 30). If that attribution is correct, Akivah would have heard the idea from Rabbi Eliezer, who was his teacher. But Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer also contains late material so it is also possible that an idea that originated with Akivah was later attributed to his teacher. It is impossible to say which if any of these three sages first formulated the idea of the circumcision as a physical deformity in the body of man. But ­regardless of its exact origin, it functions perfectly as a response to the ­Hellenistic denigration of the aesthetic quality of the circumcision.32 Given its obscurity in the Biblical narrative, and its usefulness in this polemic context, it seems likely that this claim arose in the context of interaction between Jews and their non-Jewish antagonists. In the context of a disputation with antagonists one may be forced to justify the commandments in innovative ways, and this is what is portrayed in the disputation between Akivah and Rufus. By ­attacking Jewish practice Rufus forces Akivah to explain that practice in innovative ways that provide it with a meaningful role in the Hellenistic cultural context, this making it more intelligible and potentially attractive to wider groups of non-Jews.33 32

33

Connecting a disputation at Br. Rabbah 46.5 with statements by Origen claiming that the circumcision has only a spiritual significance, Niehoff (2003) argues that this emphasis on the physical aspect of the circumcision is a response to Christian polemics. While this is certainly a possibility, I hope I have shown that there is no need of this hypothesis to fully explain either of these disputations (see Danzig, forthcoming). Perhaps for this reason, the Talmud portrays Rufus’ wife Rufina converting to Judaism and marrying Akivah (see Rabbeinu Nissim’s commentary on Ned. 50b) and jokes about his father having converted after death (Br. Rabbah 11.5).

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Conclusion As I have tried to show, the arguments offered by the two disputants do not represent the pure ideologies of their own national cultures, but rather are arguments they adopt in debate in order to achieve their respective goals of humiliation or self-assertion. The disputes thus bear more resemblance to political posturing than to philosophical investigation. But precisely for this reason they created new ideological positions that would prove influential for generations. A separate question is whether the Rabbinic passage self-consciously presents the two antagonists as making use of eclectic arguments. Were the a­ uthors and editors aware or unaware of the mixing of traditions that I have noted? While it is impossible to answer this question with great confidence, the fact that Rufus invokes a Jewish conception of a monotheistic creator is one sign of such awareness. Monotheism is not a belief that the Talmud generally attributes to hostile gentiles. In another discussion with Rufus, Akivah explains God’s hatred for Rome by arguing that it is caused by the practice of idolatry (Tanhuma, Truma 3). So there is certainly room to believe that Talmudic authors and editors, as well as readers, would have perceived Rufus as adopting a Judaic belief for the sake of argument. Whether they would have perceived Akivah as adopting Hellenic beliefs for a similar purpose is a more difficult question, although as I have noted his failure to refer to the circumcision as a sign of the covenant suggests they did. My assignment was to investigate the reception of ancient culture in the modern world. But in pursuing this, I have discussed two instances of reception: both the modern reception of the Talmudic debates in Israel and the earlier reception of Tineius Rufus and Rabbi Akivah in Rabbinic literature. There is an undeniable parallel between them. On one level, the fact that in both cases criticisms were offered by hostile foreign nationals led to the creation of ideational polarities between the two national groups. But on another level the criticisms were more productive. As I have argued, intolerant attacks on Jewish practices forced Rabbinic leaders like Akivah to formulate new explanations for circumcision based on a mixture of national sources. Similarly, attacks on Jewish practice today34 elicited Hevroni’s interpretation of Akivah’s views. Just as Akivah sought universal grounds for his defense of circumcision, grounds that would be understandable to contemporary Roman society, so too Hevroni sought ways in which Jewish practice resonates with contemporary cultural values. While these creative endeavors do not in any way excuse the 34

See above notes 8, 9 and 10.

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i­ ntolerance that brings them about, they do provide illustrations of how Jewish writers have responded to attacks by exploring new avenues of Jewish thought. Bibliography Appelbaum, Shimon, “Tineius Rufus and Julius Severus”, in Shimon Appelbaum, Judaea in Hellenistic and Roman Times: Historical and Archaeological Essays, Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 40 (Leiden: Brill, 1989) 117–23. Arbes, Ross, “How the Talmud became a best-seller in South Korea”, (The New Yorker, 23 June, 2015) (http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-the-talmudbecame-a-best-seller-in-south-korea) (accessed 5 December 2016). Costa, José, “Le marquer identitaire de la circoncision chez les rabbins de l’Antiquité”, in Simon Claude Mimouni and Bernard Pouderon (eds.), La croisée des chemins revisitée (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2012) 161–94. Danzig, Gabriel, “What to Say When you Don’t have a Good Answer: Rabbi Hoshaya and the Philosopher”, Revue des Études Juives (forthcoming). Eck, Werner, “The Bar-Kokhba Revolt: The Roman Point of View”, Journal of Roman Studies 89 (1999) 76–89. Gairdner, Douglas M., “The Fate of the Foreskin: A Study of Circumcision”, British Medical Journal 2 (1949) 1433–37. Herr, Moshe David, “The Historical Significance of the Dialogues between Jewish Sages and Roman Dignitaries”, in Joseph Heinneman and Dov Noy (eds.), Studies in Aggadah and Folk-Literature (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1971) 123–50. Hevroni, Ido, “Circumcision as Rebellion”, Azure: Ideas for the Jewish Nation 28 (2007) 107–22. Jacobs, Allan J., and Arora Kavita Shah, “Ritual Male Infant Circumcision and Human Rights”, The American Journal of Bioethics 15.2 (2015) 30–39. Jastrow, Marcus, A Dictionary of Targumim , Talmud and Midrashic Literature, (London and New York, 1886–1903) (2nd edn. NY: Choreb Shapiro Vallentin, 1926). Jenkins, Ian Dennis and Victoria Turner, The Greek Body (London and NY: British Museum and Getty Publications, 2009). Lieberman, Saul, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1942). Lieberman, Saul, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950). Milos, Marilyn Fayre, and Donna Macris, “Circumcision: A Medical or a Human Rights Issue?” Journal of Nurse-Midwifery 37: 2 (Suppl.) 875–965. Munzer, Stephen R., “Secularization, Anti-Minority Sentiment, and Cultural Norms in the German Circumcision Controversy”, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law (2015) 503–81.

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Naddaf, Gerard, The Greek Concept of Nature (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006). Niehoff, Maren R., “Circumcision as a Marker of Identity: Philo, Origen and the Rabbis on Gen. 17:1-14”, Jewish Studies Quarterly 10 (2003) 89–123. Øster, Jakob, “Further fate of the foreskin”, Archives of Disease in Childhood 43 (1968) 200–202. Philo, The Works of Philo (trans. F.H. Colson) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1905). Stern, Sacha, Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings (Leiden: Brill, 1994). Theodor, Yehuda and Chanoch Albeck (eds.), Midrash Rabbah (Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1965) (2nd edn.) (in Hebrew).

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Index 19th Amendment 241 Abraham 374 accents 267, 269, 276 Admetus 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 74 Adorno, Theodor W. 15 Aegisthus 48, 49, 55 Aeschylus 20, 37, 38, 41, 42, 47, 50, 51, 56, 73 Agamemnon 37, 43, 44, 45, 48 as abusive husband 48–50 as warmonger 48, 52, 54 Agamemnon 2.0 48, 54 Agamemnon and His Daughters 42, 45 Aglaia 67, 69, 70, 71 Aigai see Vergina Aesthetic vice 124 Ajax 116, 121n70 Ajax (a fictional character) 110, 116, 121–2, 127; see also Warriors, The (1979), Lunkface (a fictional character) Alcestis 60, 61n5, 62n7, 62n8, 65n17, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 Alcestiad (1995, play) 20, 61–67, 74 Alexander (2004, film) 22, 258, 268–74, 277 Alexander I of Macedon 260 Alexander iii of Macedon (the Great) 257–78 in ancient sources 259 campaign 266–7, 271–3 costume 265, 267, 271 films 258 as Greek 261, 265, 267, 269, 273 as Macedonian 259 becoming Persian 261, 267–8, 271–2, 274, 277 uniting East and West 267–8, 273 Alexander mosaic 262 Alexander the Great 22 Alexander the Great (1956, film) 22, 158, 262–8, 275 Alexandria 10–11 Al HaNissim 326, 336, 338n39 Alan Steel (Sergio Ciani) 161 All Clytemnestra on the Western Front (2001, play) 44, 48 Allen, Woody 21, 168–86 Interiors 172

Mighty Aphrodite 168–85 Oedipus Wrecks 170–74 The Purple Rose of Cairo 176 Alon, Gedalyahu 337n35. Ancient aesthetics 6 Ancient Judaism, Jewish religion 10–11, 22 Ancient morality 3–4, 19 Ancient ethical thought 3, 6; see also Happiness (eudaimonia) Balance 6–7 Completeness 7 Moral model 8–9 Ancient Pathos 42, 45n32, 50 Andrews, Harry 267 Andronikos Manolis 275 Antiphon 369n antisemitism 330, 332 Apollonides 106 Aquila Theatre Company 41 Anti-Oedipus 168, 170–4, 184 Apollo 7, 63, 66, 67, 68, 69, 72 archetypes 91 Aristophanes 144–5 Aristotle 6, 62n7, 64, 70, 265, 269, 288, 367 Doctrine of the mean 7 Arrian 261, 268 Artagerses 128 Artaxerxes II 104, 126, 128, 132 Asia 288 Asia Minor 109n33, 134 Athens 283n, 285n, 290, 292, 296–298, 300 Eleusis 300 Pnyka 297 Syntagma Square 292, 296–298 Thirty Tyrants 300 Athenians 259 Atreus 20 ataraxia 9 avant-garde 40–41 Babylon 271–2, 273, 277 Bad Women (2002, play) 42 Barbarian stereotype 262–3 Bar-Kochba 23–4, 326, 329, 331, 334, 341–354, 360, 362 Bar Kosiba, Bar Kosibah, see Bar Kochba

Index Barrett, Wilson 232, 232n6, 233, 234, 234n14, 236, 237, 238, 241 Barsine 267 Baseball Furies, the (fictional group) 110; see also Warriors, The (1979) Bara, Theda (actress) 218, 220 Baudrillard, Jean 15n47 Beck, Michael (actor) 131; see also Warriors, The (1979) Benjamin, Walter 14 Berlin, Irvin 218 betrayal 48–9, 87, 89 Bettis, Valerie 225 Bildungsroman 130 Bimbo (a fictional character) 116, 127; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol Blumenberg, Hans 13 body 93–5 Borinquen Blazers, the (fictional group) 125, 127 ; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol; Orphans, The (a fictional group) Brandt, Kirtsen 44, 49 Brecht, Bertolt 43, 46 British Empire 191, 203 burlesque 60 Burton, Richard 258 Cain and Abel 365, 370 Caligula 21 and Caesonia 200–1 as a monster 191, 193, 195 as troubled 196, 199 childhood incest 189, 192–3, 195, 199 love 199–200 madness of 195, 197 film (1979) 21, 196–202 trauma of 199–201 Calvino, Italo 339 Candaules 20, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96 Candaules’ Wife [H γυναίκα του Kανδαύλη]  80, 81 historical and mythical elements 89–90 motifs 93–6 mythical background 89 summary of play 81–7 Candaules’ Wife/Queen 93–6, 77, 78, 82, 83, 84, 85 (figure), 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97

417 Canfora, Luciano 296, 299 Capitani, Giorgio 21 Carnival 312, 313, 314, 315 Cavander, Kenneth 42, 45 Chaeronea, battle of 265, 266 Chanukkah, see Maccabees characterization 62n7, 63, 64, 64n16, 64n17, 65, 65n17, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74 Cheirisophus of Sparta 121 Children of Clytemnestra 44, 48, 53 Chioles, John 40–41 chorus 88, 172–182 Cicero 283 Cinecittà 233 Clay, Nicholas 258 Clearchus 116, 120 Cleitus 257, 272, 277 Cleon (a fictional character) 116, 119, 120, 121, 122 ; see also Warriors, The (1979), Papa Arnold Clyt at Home: The Clytemnestra Project (2001, play) 44, 49, 51, 53 Clytemnestra as mother 47–48 as murderess 48, 51 as victim 48–50 as wife 48 rehabilitation of 47–52 Cochise (a fictional character) 111, 119, 127, 128n103; see also Warriors, The (1979) Cohn, Harry 208–10 Colchians 115n54 Cold War, The 247n60 Columbia Pictures 207–227 columns 262, 263–4, 265, 269, 270, 271 comedy 71, 165–182 Comics, comic book 107 Coney Island 103, 105, 116, 120, 125, 128 Costa, José 374n Cottafavi, Vittorio 21 Classical Reception Studies 1–3, 10–11, 15, 17, 20–24 Cinema 21–22 ‘Democratic turn’ 15 Dramatic performances 20 Historicism 11, 16 Presentism 11, 13, 17 Classical tradition 2–3 Cowboy (fictional character) 119; see also Warriors, The (1979)

418 Croesus 77 Ctesias 107, 120, 123, 126, 128, 132 Cunaxa, Battle of 115, 120; see also Cyrus the Younger Cyclical vision of history 17 Cynics 9, 369 Cyprus 289 Cyrenaics 9 Cyrus the Younger 104, 112, 113n47, 116–7, 119, 120, 123, 126, 127–8, 132, 133–4; see also Cyrus the Great; Cyrus (fictional character) Cyrus the Great 112n42, 118n62; see also Cyrus the Younger; Cyrus (fictional character) Cyrus (fictional character) 113, 118–120, 122, 124, 132, 133, 134; see also Warriors, The (1979), Rivera, Ismael (fictional character); Cyrus the Younger; Cyrus the Great Dahl, Robert 283 Dance of the Seven Veils 211, 217, 225, 226 Darius III 266, 268, 271, 276 Daughters of Darkness, The see Mitchell, Katie David, King 331, 334 death 66, 68, 72 Degas, Edgar 78 De Gaulle, Charles 284 Delancey Thrones, the (fictional group) 117; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol Deleuze, Gilles 170–81 Delphi 7, 67–70, 87, 122, 276 DeMille, Cecil B. 232, 233, 234, 234n14, 235, 236, 238, 238n31, 239, 240, 241, 241n, 249, 250 Demosthenes 260–1, 262, 266, 276 deus ex machina 181–5 Dewey (fictional character) 116, 125; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol Dewson, Mary M. 242 dice, game 89 Dionysus 304, 305, 309, 312, 313, 320 Dominators (fictional group) 116–7, 120; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol Douzinas, Costas 296–297 Dover, Kenneth 5 drunkenness 261, 266 Drunken Sisters (1955, play) 62n7, 62n9, 65 Drusilla 21, 187–204

Index Early Christianity 4–5 Eck, Werner 361n Electra 42, 47, 48, 50 Eliezer ben Yehudah 370n Ellsworth, Michelle Spencer 48, 49, 51 El Molar (Spain) 264n23, 265 English Patient, The (1996, film) 96–7 Epicurus, Epicureans 7n22, 8 Epictetus 367 Epyaxa 126–7 Equal Rights Amendment, the 241 erotic triangle 89 Esau 331 Ethnography 18 Euripides 60, 61, 67, 70 Alcestis 60, 60n1, 61, 62, 66, 67, 69 Europe 283–286, 288–290, 292–200 Euro 285–287 European Council 296 European Economic Community (eec) 283, 287, 293, 297 Euro Group 290 European Union 23, 281, 284–287, 291–292, 295–296, 299n Eusebius 361n evil, problem of 191 203 expressionism 80 Ezra 334 Farrell, Colin 258 Fascism 202–3 Feintuch, Yonatan 365 fiction, historical 189–91, 232, 234, 236, 237, 240, 242, 243–245, 245n54, 347, First World War 191 Fisher, Andrew 281 Foley, Helene 42, 44n29, 47n39 Foucault, Michel 170–4 Fourscore Theatre Company 41 Fox (fictional character) 127n94; see also Warriors, The (1979) France 286, 289, 295, 298 Francisci, Pietro 21 Frankfurt School 14 ‘Culture Industry’ 14 ‘Pseudo-culture’ 15 Freud, Sigmund 168–74 function of a play 63, 64

Index Fur 262–3, 265 Furious Blood (2000, play) 44, 48, 49, 51 Gallipoli 282 Gat, Azar 299 Gautier, Théophile 78 gender roles 91 genetics 332–3 Germany 298 Ghost Road Theatre Company 53 Gianna Maria Canale 153–5 Gilda (1946, film) 226 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry 289–291 Globe Theatre, The 43, 55–56 Goliath 334–5 Golden Dawn 318, 319, 320 Gramercy Riffs (fictional group) 120, 123, 132; see also Warriors, The (1979) Great Depression, The 233, 235, 236, 242, 250 Great Dionysia 60, 66 Greece 281–300, 286–296 Colonels 290, 293 Greek culture 106, 108, 265 dress 262, 264, 265 Parliament 285 stereotypes 262, 265, 269, 270–1, 273 Greek tragedy 180–4 reception of 37 masks 45–46 Guattari Pier-Félix 170–1 Gyges 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 “Gyges-tragedy”, the 78 gymnasia 325 Haggadah 328, 335 hair 93–5 Hall, Edith 37–38, 39, 47 Hall, Peter 40, 45–46 Hamilakis, Yannis 288 Happiness (eudaimonia) 8 Harris, David (actor) 128n103; see also Warriors, The (1979) haskalah 336 Hasmonaeans, see Maccabees Hasmonean School 339 Hayworth, Rita 22, 206–227

419 Hebbel, Friedrich 78 Hebraism 169–75 Hector (fictional character) 116, 120, 121; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol Hellas 126 Hellene 4 Hellenism 168–75 Hephaestion 272, 273 Heracles 60, 61, 70, 71, 72, 72n20, 74, 21, 140–66 passim Herakles, see Heracles Hercules, see Heracles Hercules, Pietro Francisci (1958–9, film)  140–42, 150–5, 159–60 Hercules, Disney (1997, film) 140 Hercules, Brett Ratner (2014, film) 140 Hercules Conquers Atlantis, Vittorio Cottafavi (1961) 141, 159–60 Hercules: the Legendary Journeys 141 Hercules Unchained 142, 149, 155–61 Pietro Francisci (1959–60) 140, 141, 142, 149, 150, 153, 155–61 Hero, heroes 103–5, 106, 111n41, 112, 113n47, 116, 119, 120–1, 124, 126–8, 130, 133–4 Herod Antipas 211–215, 226 Herodias 211, 213–215 Herodotus 20, 77, 90–91, 373n as storyteller 90–1 digressions in 77, 90–1 Lydian logos 77 story of Candaules 77–8, 88 Herr, Moshe David 358n Herzl, Theodor 334, 338 Hesiod 140, 143, 154 Hevroni, Ido 360, 360n, 362–6, 376 Holocaust, The 247 Hill, Roger 118, 119n63; see also Warriors, The (1979); Shaber, David Hill, Walter 21, 103, 115–7, 120, 128n98, 132–3; see also Warriors, The (1979) Hinton (fictional character) 105–6, 116, 120, 125–6, 128; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol hip-hop culture 113–4 Hitchcock, William 284, 293 Home Guard, The, see Katie Mitchell Home Siege Home 53–4 Homer 369

420 Iliad, The 128 Odyssey, The 158, 160 Hoover, Herbert 236 Horowitz, Avinoam (Rabbi) 358–9 Hulton, Dorinda 41, 44–45, 49 I, Claudius (1936, novel) 189–91 I, Claudius (1976, tv) 191–6 Icke, Robert 43, 44, 55 Ideal Types 16 Iliad, The, see Homer Imperialism 54, 57 infidelity 266 Iphigeneia 44, 45, 47–48, 50, 52, 53, 54 Iphigeneia in Aulis 37n3, 44, 52 See also Mitchell, Katie Ir Kleine Lichtelach 328, 338 Isocrates 261 Israel (state) 326, 332, 336–7 Israelite Gymnastic Organization 329 Italy 286, 298 Jacob 331 and Esau 364–5 Jastrow, Morris 370n jealousy 89 Jeffries, Maud 237 Jewish Gymnastic Journal (Jüdische Turnzeitung) 329 Jocasta 171–4 John the Baptist 211, 217, 222 Joshua 334, 374 Judeo-Christian 12, 19 Julius Severus 360 Junior (fictional character) 107, 116, 125; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol Kallikantzaros / Kallikantzaroi 310, 311 Kamtsis, Nicholas 42, 45n23, 48, 50, 51 Kaplan, Robert D. 287 Karamanlis, Konstantinos 293, 295 Kehoe, Triche 44, 48, 53 Kelly, David Patrick 124, 131; see also Warriors, The (1979) Kerr, Deborah 243, 245, 248, 249 Kiergegaard 61, 65, 65n18, 66, 67, 68 Kilmer, Val 270, 278 King, Martin Luther, Jr. 124 Kipnis, Levin 352, 353

Index Kishon, Ephraim 334–5 Komar, Kathleen L. 50 Koromilas, Dimitrios 78 Koscina, Sylva 153–7, 159 Landi, Elissa 235, 238 Lane Fox, Robin 262 Laughton, Charles 209 LeRoy, Mervyn 232, 242, 246, 247, 248, 249 Les Atrides, see Mnouchkine Letter of Aristeas 11 n.30 Lewis, Gwynneth 43 Liberaki, Margarita 20, 77–97 Candaules’ Wife, see Candaules’ Wife Danaids [Δαναΐδες] 90 Mythical Theater 89–90 The Mystery [Tο Mυστήριο] 80 The Other Alexander [O Άλλος Aλέξανδρος] 80 The secret bed [Tο Mυστικό Kρεβάτι] 90 Three Summers [Tα ψάθινα καπέλα]  80, 93 light and darkness 96 Liddell and Scott 370n lion 68, 348–354 Lieberman, Saul 358n Lizzies, the (fictional group) 127; see also Warriors, The (1979) Lopez, Sylvia 156–60 Löwith, Karl 13 Lunkface (fictional character) 116, 127; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol Luther (fictional character) 122–4, 128, 130–33; see also Warriors, The (1979); Rogues (fictional group) Maccabees 23, 325–40 Maccabees, books of 325, 336 Maccabi World Union 329n9, 333, 335n31, 338 Maccabian Games 326, 329–30, 333–4 Macedonia, Former Yugoslavian Republic of  275, 277 Macedonians as barbarians 259, 268 as backward 261, 263–4 as Greeks 259–60, 267–8, 269–70, 273, 274, 276–7 and Greek culture 259–60, 263–4

Index identity 259–60 kingship 259 language 259, 269 modern definition 275–7 MacPherson, Jeanie 234 Maier, Shmuel 348–352 male gaze 93 Manchester Home Theatre Company 56 Mandelstamm, Max 330n18, 333 March, Frederic 267 Martindale, Charles 38 Martis, Nicolaos 275 Masistes 91 Mason, James 276 Mass media 13–14, 20 matriarchy 89 matricide 50 Mattathias 325 Mee, Charles 43, 48, 54 Meineck, Peter 41 Memnon 267 mercenaries 103–5, 112, 116, 134; see also Ten Thousand, the Mercy (a fictional character) 127, 129–31; see also Warriors, The (1979) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 233, 248 Mieza 265, 269 Minnie (a fictional character) 126; see also Warriors, The (1965) Military virtue 126 mise en abyme 108n25 Mitchell, Katie Daughters of Darkness, The 52 Home Guard, The 45, 52 Iphigeneia in Aulis 52 Mnouchkine, Ariane 40, 44–46 Les Atrides 44–45, 50 modern Greek theater 78 modernity 11–13 Western civilization 13, 16 monomachia 128 moral boundaries 88 choice 78 crisis 87 dilemma 78, 90 transgression of customs 91 vice 7, 122, 124, 126 virtue 8, 104–5, 113, 120, 130, 133

421 mosaics 270, 276 Mullarky, Rory 43 Murdoch, Keith 281–282 Muscular Judaism 326, 328–30, 333, 335–338 music video 113–4 Naddaf, Gerard 368n nakedness, nudity 77, 83, 86, 88–9, 94, 193, 199–201, 226, 350, 364 Native American symbols 111–2 Nehemiah 334 New York 168, 171–84 street gangs 103–5, 113, 116–21, 125, 129, 131, 133–4; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol; Warriors, The (1979); Hill, Walter night and day 95–6 Noon, Katharine 44, 49 Nordau, Max 326, 328–31, 334, 338 Nye, Joseph 295 Odyssey, see Homer Oedipus 21, 168–84 Oikos 178 Olympias 258, 264, 265, 268, 276 accent 268 as barbarian 268–9 foreignness 264 Oresteia, The 20, 37–57 and feminism 47–52 and war 52–54 in 21st century 55–56 translation of 37–38, 40–46 vengeance and justice in 55–56 Orientalism 271, 274 Origen 375n Orphans, the (fictional group) 125, 127; see also Warriors, The (1979); Borinquen Blazers, the (fictional group) Orthodox Judaism 337–9 Our Town see Wilder, Thornton Paganism 4, 6 Pagan/Christian dichotomy 198–9 201–2 palace 95 Pan 23, 304–321 passim Papa Arnold (fictional character) 116, 120; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol Papandreou, George 287

422 Paramount Pictures 233, 235 Parmenion 271, 272 Parysatis 126 passion 6–8, 88, 89, 91, 93, 94 Pella 23, 263–4, 265, 270 Excavations 274–5 peplum 21, 142, 148–63 passim performance reception 37–57 theories of 37–40 Perkins, Frances 242 . Persians 112, 116, 117, 120n68, 126, 134, 266–7, 277 as barbarians 261 culture 267, 268 customs 259 dress 267 kingship 261 palaces 266–7 wealth 267 Persian Wars 260, 61 phallus 306, 307, 314, 317 Pharnabazus 129 Philip ii of Macedon 22, 258, 259–61, 262–4, 265, 268–9, 270–1, 273, 275, 276, 278 in ancient sources 260–1 assassination 266, 273 as barbarian 260, 261, 262–4, 265 costume 262–3, 264, 265, 270, 276 foreign policy 260 as Greek 263–4, 265, 273, 276 tomb (tomb ii at Vergina) 270 wedding 266, 271, 273, 275 Philo 11n3, 372, 372n Philosophizing 61, 62n7, 65, 65n18, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74 Philotas 267 Pickford, Mary 234n14 Piramatiki Skini tis Technis (Πειραματική Σκηνή της Tέχνης) 81 Plato 5, 6, 8, 11n30, 78, 304, 305, 306, 369 plot 64, 65, 68 Plummer, Christopher 269 Plutarch 18–19, 111, 128, 262, 305, 317 Polybius 361n Popular, popularity 13–14 formal 13 content 14

Index popular culture 1, 3, 11, 14–16, 19, 104, 107–8, 111 popular morality 3, 5 pornography 198–9 202 positivism 11 Portugal 286, 293–295 Prodikos of Keos 141–4, 149, 152–4, 158, 162 Ptolemy 267, 268, 273 Quo Vadis (1896, novel) 232, 232n6, 242, 243–245, 245n54 Quo Vadis (1912, film) 232n7 Quo Vadis (1925, film) 232n7 Quo Vadis (1951, film) 22, 231, 232, 233, 242, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250 Quo Vadis (2001, film) 232 Rabbi Abba Arika (Rav) 375 Rabbi Akivah 24, 357–378 Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos 361 Rabbi Hoshaya 358n racial science 332–3 Rabbinic literature 10, 24 Reason, rationality 6, 8 rebellion 362–366 Reception 1 n.2, 14, see also Classical Reception Studies Reeves, Steve 151–3, 155–61 Reg Parke 159–60 Remar, James 110, 119n63; see also Warriors, The (1979) Rembrandt (fictional character) 119, 121, 124n81, 127; see also Warriors, The (1979) Resh Lakish 331 revenge 43, 48–9, 55–6, 73, 88, 90, 91, 261 Riefenstahl, Leni 247 Rivera, Ismael (fictional character) 103n2, 117–9; see also Warriors, The (1965); Yurick, Sol Rogues (fictional group) 122, 123, 130; see also Warriors, The (1979) Roland, Etienne 290 Rome 286, 342 and authenticity 198–9, 201 and HollyRome 192, 196, 203 as depraved 201 Rossen, Robert 22, 258, 262 Rossi, Franco 232

Index Rostowski, Jacek 285 Rufina 375n Salome (film, 1953) 207–227 Salome 213–15 Salome tradition 215–20 Samson 331, 334 Samson and His Mighty Challenge Giorgio Capitani (1964) 161–3 Satan 308, 315 satyr-play 60 Saul, King of Israel 334 Sceptics 9 Schonfeld, Solomon 339 Second Temple era 10, 23 Second World War 202–4, 233, 247, 248, 250 Secular 12 Seuthes 104 Shaber, David 103n3, 115, 116, 117, 120, 132, 133; see also Warriors, The (1979); Hill, Walter shadows 89 Shulman, Kalman 352 Sienkiewicz, Henryk 232, 232n6, 233, 242, 243, 244, 45, 245n54 Sign of the Cross, The (1895, play) 232, 232n6, 234, 236, 237, 238, 240 Sign of the Cross, The (1896, novel) 232, 234, 236, 237, 240 Sign of the Cross, The (1914, film) 232n7, 234n14 Sign of the Cross, The (1932, film) 22, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 250 Six-Day War 334–5 Sledgehammer Theatre 51 Socrates 8, 369 Solomon, King of Israel 334 Sophists 369 Sophocles 73, 150, 160 Sophokles, see Sophocles space 95 Spain 286, 293–294 Spengler, Oswald 17 Stanislavski, Konstantin 46 statues 264, 265 Stephens, Robert 276 Stern, Sacha 373n

423 Stoics 8 Stone, Oliver 22, 258, 268, 269–70, 274, 277 striptease 212, 218, 225–6 Stuart, Kelly 51 Suetonius 188–9 Sunset Boulevard (1950, film) 219 Swallow Song 42, 49 Swan (fictional character) 121–3, 127–33; see also Warriors, The (1979); Hector (fictional character) Syennesis 126 Sykes, Peter 258, 276 Taormina 172–74 technology (techne) 368–71 Thebes 173–8 Teiresias 63, 68, 74 Temple, Shirley 215 Ten Thousand, the 104–6, 108, 112, 125n87, 127, 129–31; see also Cyrus the Younger; mercenaries; Xenophon The Search for Alexander the Great (1981, miniseries) 258, 274–7 theatre experiential nature of 39–40 somatic quality of 39 versus prose 87–8 Thibron 126 Thucydides 282–284 Tissaphernes 120n68, 123–5, 129 toga play 232, 232n6 Toynbee, Arnold J. 17 tragedy, see Greek tragedy Triumph of the Will (1935, film) 247 Turkey 282, 289 Turnbull, Malcolm 282 Turnus Rufus 24, 357–378 vengeance 78 Venizelos, Evangelos 287 Vergina 270, 274–5, 276, 277–8 Vermin (a fictional character) 127; see also Warriors, The (1979) Viadrina 328–9 video games 114 Vietnam War 277 villain 103–5, 113, 122–3, 125, 128, 131, 133 violence 104, 105n13, 108, 109–11, 113, 114, 125

424 Virtue and Vice personified 141–148, 153–6, 158, 160, 163 virtus 105, 127 voyeurism 78 Warriors, The (1965, novel) 21, 103, 105–9, 111–3, 115–7, 120–2, 125–7, 129, 130n113, 133–134 ; see also Yurick, Sol Warriors, The (1979, film) 21, 103–139; see also Hill, Walter Why We Fight 247 Wilde, Oscar 217 Wilder, Thornton 20, 60–76 Our Town 64, 64–65n17 self-criticism 61, 61n5, 63, 66, 68, 75n23 World War I, see First World War World War ii, see Second World War Xenophon 21, 103–4, 106–114, 115–128, 129n111, 130, 132–4, 142–8, 154, 369; see

Index also Cyrus the Younger; Mercenaries; Ten Thousand, the Anabasis 21, 103–109, 111n39, 115–6, 120–23, 124n82, 125, 128–133 Hellenica 123 Xerxes 91 Yeshiva University 335 Yurick, Sol 21, 103–109, 111n41, 115–117, 119, 125–6, 128n98, 129 n105 and n108, 131, 133; see also Warriors, The (1965); ­Warriors, The (1979) Zionism 23, 325–40, 343, 347, 348, 349, 352, 354 Zionist Congresses second (Basel 1898) 326 fourth (London 1900) 330 n18, 333 sixth (Basel 1903) 329