Alexandria: The Oxford Undergraduate Classics Journal - First Issue

2 ALEXANDRIA

E D I TO R I A L T E A M Edi t or -In - C hief Edi t or s

Charlie Willis Evie Atmore Dominic Kane Nicholas Kenny Jason Webber

Cre ati ve Di rec t o r

Liam Frahm

I N T RO D U C T I O N TO T H E J O U R N A L The first of many, this issue of Alexandria: The Undergraduate Classics Journal was made possible by the flourishing Classics community at Oxford. The journal is written for students of all subjects, but will have special relevance for Classicists, both at Mods and Greats; the first part of the journal for the former, and second for the latter. This term we have a wide array of pieces, from Platonic philosophy to Latin composition, Greek historiography to Roman archaeology, and naturally four articles on Homer.

If you enjoy this journal and are interested, we welcome submissions from all years and subjects, and our team is always recruiting. We all hope to establish Alexandria among the publications of Oxford University for years to come, and provide opportunities for students to publish early in their careers, explore their interests and support a network of shared knowledge across the undergraduate cohort.

Charlie Willis, Editor-In-Chief

T H E U N D E RG R A D U AT E C L A S S I C S J O U R N A L 3

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S EURYPYLOS, SON OF EUAIMON Jason Webber

4-11 M1 HOMER, ILIAD

ATHENIAN IDENTITY AND POLITICS IN THE EXCURSUS OF THUCYDIDES 6 12-22 Charlie Willis M6.C.1 THUCYDIDES AND THE WEST RELIGIOUS MOTIVATION AND POLITICS FOR 5TH CENTURY GREEKS 23-29 Molly Willett M6.C.1 THUCYDIDES AND THE WEST GRENDEL COMES TO HEOROT: A L ATIN TRANSL ATION OF BEOWULF 30-31 Benjamin Towle M10 LATIN LANGUAGE APOLLONIAN RESONANCES AND POETIC AUTHORITY IN THE ODYSSEY 32-41 Nicholas Kenny G3.5 EARLY GREEK HEXAMETER POETRY JOURNEY TO MUNIGUA Laura Plumley

42-45 G4.4 ROMAN ARCHAEOLOGY

‘ART IS INSPIRING, NOT CORRUPTING’: AN ADDENDUM TO REPUBLIC 10 46-55 Miranda Davies G130 PLATO’S REPUBLIC

4 EURYPYLOS, SON OF EUAIMON

E U RY P Y L O S , S O N O F E U A I M O N Jas on Web b er Exet e r Co l l e g e One of the less famous characters of the Iliad is Eurypylos, the son of Euaimon. A participant in various Greek activities of the first half of the Iliad, Eurypylos’ most famous appearance comes after he is wounded in the thigh

by Paris in Book 11: Patroclus is distracted from going to Achilles, and instead nurses Eurypylos until 15.404. Thereafter, apart from a brief mention among other wounded Greeks as part of Patroclus’ appeal to Achilles (16.27), Eurypylos entirely disappears from the Iliad, and is absent from the rest of the fighting and the funeral games for Patroclus. Eurypylos is a minor presence in later literature, except for a few mentions in Strabo and Pausanias.1 In this article I shall look more closely at Eurypylos, both in the Iliad and the scattered later appearances of the character, and investigate the position of the character in the traditions of antiquity. My hope is to ascertain what the traditional background to Eurypylos’ appearances in the Iliad is, or at least (given the limits of the evidence), what possibilities we need to bear in mind for this background. I shall first look at what the Iliad can tell us, and then look at the more substantial mentions of the character in later writings.

In the Iliad, Eurypylos is more of a plot device than a character. The longest section devoted to him in the poem acts as a delay of Patroclus’ 1 Eurypylos’ main appearances: Il. 2.734-7, 5.76-83, 6.35-6, 7.167, 8.265, 11.575-92, 11.662, 11.806-12.2, 15.390-404, 16.27-9; Akousilaos, fr. 41; [Aristotle] Peplos fr. 22; Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi 17 (an error for Euryalos); Strabo 9.7, 9.10, 9.14, 9.18; Ps-Apollodorus, Library 3.8; Herodian, de Prosodia Catholica s.v. Πέλη; Pausanias 7.16.2, 7.19, 7.21.7, 9.41.2, 10.27.2=Little Iliad fr. 26 ; Athenaios, Deipnosophistai 2.14; Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica 4.502, 4.538, 11.353, 12.319; Hyginus 81, 97, 114; Tzetzes, Theogonia 688-9.

JASON WEBBER 5

plea to Achilles. Eurypylos’ other actions similarly lack individuality (killing Trojans when other Greeks do, and participating in group actions).2 But a limited amount of evidence suggests that Eurypylos is not a creation of the Iliad poet, but a traditional figure.3 First, Eurypylos appears in other early Greek epic, including the Little Iliad.4 Second, despite not achieving anything of note, Eurypylos’ mentions at 7.167 and 8.265 include the character in lists of nine foremost Greeks. Singor has shown that lists of nine fighters are fairly common in the Iliad, but that the lists of Greeks vary considerably in who they include.5 As such, we should not suppose that there was an original, fixed and canonical list of nine warriors fighting against Troy, which might include Eurypylos. However, the fact that he is present in the Iliad lists - alongside more well-known Greeks, like Diomedes, Aias and Odysseus - seems a reliable indication that the character did have a traditional background of some kind.

Eurypylos’ entry in the Catalogue of Ships identifies him as the leader of the inhabitants of Ormenion, the Hypereian spring, Asterion, and Mount 2 He is among several lists of Greeks who kill Trojans: Il. 5.76-83, 6.35-6. He is also one of the volunteers to fight against Hector (7.167) and one of the Greeks who return across the trench when the Greeks are pinned down (8.265).

3 Note that Eurypylos’ name and the formulae he is described with add little to his individuality. The character’s formulae (except for the patronymic Εὐαιμονίδης) are not unique: ἀγλαὸς υἱός (‘splendid son’, 5x) with the father’s name is also used of Pandaros, Sthenelos, and others; διογενὴς (‘sprung from/ordained by Zeus’, διογενὴς Εὐαιμονίδης, Il. 11.810) is used of other heroes and in particular of Odysseus as part of the phrase διογενὲς Λαερτιάδη Il. 2.173; διοτρεφὲς (‘nourished by Zeus’, Il. 11.819) is a common epithet in the vocative; ἥρως (‘hero’, Il. 11.819, 11.838) is also used of Meriones, Automedon, Patroclus and so on; ἀγαπήνωρ (‘manly’, genitive, Il. 15.392) of Eurymedon, Poulydamas, Idomeneus.

There are several other Homeric characters named Eurypylos (the king of Kos, Il. 2.677; the son of Telephos, Od. 11.520). On the etymology cf. Εὐρυπύλη and Ὑψιπύλη, and see n. 17 for Robertson’s speculative suggestion; ‘wide gate’ (or ‘high gate’) is a strange meaning for a personal name, but it could have originated by analogy with a compound like Ἐμπύλος ‘in the gate’ (ie. ‘defender of the gate’ - attested at Thera in the 6th C BCE). There is a wide variety of names in -πύλος in the LGPN, although none are very common; note in particular Δαΐπυλος (mid-6th C BCE, Corinth), Δρωπύλος (6th C BCE, Oinoe).

4

Pausanias 7.27.2=Ilias Mikra fr. 26 (West): Eurypylos kills the Trojan Axion.

5 See Henk W. Singor, ‘Nine against Troy. On Epic ΦΑΛΑΓΓΕΣ, ΠΡΟΜΑXΟΙ, and an Old Structure in the Story of the Iliad’, Mnemosyne 44 (Fourth Series) Fasc. 1/2 (Jan 1991): 51.

6 EURYPYLOS, SON OF EUAIMON

Titanos, all presumably in Thessaly.6 Nevertheless, this is not as straightforward as it might appear, as Ormenion did not exist in the historical period; there was a settlement called Orminion, in the east of Thessaly near Iolkos, but this region is assigned to Eumelos or Prothoos in the Catalogue.7 There was also a Hypereian spring in Pherai, but this town is also assigned to Eumelos (Il. 2.711). Note, however, that Il. 6.457 identifies a spring called Hypereia in Argos, and Strabo (9.5.6) reports such a stream in a town near Pharsalos. So Hypereia might be a fairly widespread name for springs in Thessaly. Asterion was identified with the later Peirasiai (Steph. Byz. s.v. Ἀστέριον), which is near Mount Titanos. Kullmann has shown that the confusion over Eurypylos’ region is in fact part of a more general problem over the Thessalian entries in the Catalogue, and argues that the poet had no very clear idea of the kingdoms of the Thessalian heroes, but assigned them from a list of cities.8 The difficulties are even more severe in other cases, such as that of Philoktetes; for Eurypylos, the spring and Ormenion can probably be explained away. This does not mean, however, that Thessaly in the Catalogue is a random assignment of people and places: the inconsistencies might result from an attempt to fill in the gaps after a poet divided Thessaly between traditional mythological figures without knowing the geography in much detail.

Strabo reports that the 2nd century grammarian Demetrios of Skepsis linked Ormenion with Ormenos, the father of Amyntor.9 ‘Amyntor, son of Ormenos’ is the father of Phoinix,10 and also named as the victim of Autolykos’ theft, as described at Il. 10.266-7, although Phoinix’s father lived in Hellas, and the theft occurred in Eleon, a Boiotian town between Thebes 6

Il. 2.734-7.

7 Strabo 9.19: Orminion is about 3km from Iolkos (assigned to Eumelos at Il. 2.715) at the foot of mount Pelion (assigned to Prothoos at Il. 2.756-7).

8 Wolfgang Kullmann, ‘The relative chronology of the Homeric Catalogue of Ships and of the lists of heroes and cities within the Catalogue’, in Relative Chronology in Early Greek Poetry, eds. Øivind Andersen and Dag Haug (Cambridge, 2012): 218.

9

Strabo 9.5.18.

10

Il. 9.448.

JASON WEBBER 7

and Tanagra. Demetrios appears to have amended the text of Iliad 9.447 to avoid the inconsistency, and to have given both Euaimon and Amyntor as sons of Ormenos - but this ad hoc approach does not explain why Amyntor was living in Boiotia, not Thessaly. Whilst we cannot exclude the possibility that Demetrios might have followed an old local tradition in Orminion, it seems more likely that the grammarian was simply trying to make sense of the contradictory references in the Iliad, and gives us no independent evidence for a local tradition concerning Eurypylos.

An epitaph for Eurypylos survives from the Peplos attributed to Aristotle (fr. 22) which states that Eurypylos was buried in Ormenion (πάτρῃ ἐν Ὀρμενίῳ). Gutzwiller has argued that many of the epitaphs from the Peplos go back to compositions of the Classical period, which arose in the context of hero cult.11 However, there is an obvious difficulty with the belief that the epitaph of Eurypylos reflects hero cult at Ormenion in the Classical period: if Ormenion no longer existed, hero cult could not have taken place there.

Thus we must attribute the epitaph to the Hellenistic or Classical author of the Peplos (or an antecedent work). Of course, it is not impossible that the inhabitants of Orminion identified their city with the Homeric Ormenion, but if they did (and this is the source of the epitaph) then this cult must be a later development, inspired by Homeric poetry. Again, it provides no evidence for an earlier tradition.12 The oldest source that could testify to a local tradition is a fragment of the 6th-5th C logographer Akousilaos, quoted by a scholiast on Pindar Olympian 7.20-4. The passage of Pindar is about the figure Tlepolemos, and the scholiast notes that Pindar follows Akousilaos’ genealogy on Tlepolemos’ ancestry: ‘Eurypylos, father to Ormenos, father to Pheres, father to 11 Kathryn Gurtzwiller, ‘Heroic Epitaphs of the Classical Age: The Aristotelian Peplos and Beyond’, in Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram, eds. Manuel Baumbach, Andrej Petrovic, and Ivana Petrovic (Cambridge, 2010): 226-7 (followed by further arguments based on their style and content) 12 Unless, of course, the historical Orminion really was the Homeric Ormenion, but in view of the geographical difficulties, this seems unlikely.

8 EURYPYLOS, SON OF EUAIMON

Amyntor, father to Astydameia, the mother of Tlepolemos; and this Amyntor traces his origin back to Zeus’.13 This is probably the same Eurypylos, but it is difficult to see how the genealogy works. In the Homeric citations above, Amyntor is the son, not grandson, of Ormenos, and much older than the time of the Trojan war (so unlikely to be Eurypylos’ great-grandson).14 Pheres is the name of the founder of Pherai, who is elsewhere the son of Kretheus (Od. 11.259) and the father of Alkestis. In some traditions Astyokhe, not Astydameia, is the name of the mother of Tlepolemos (Il. 2.658) and Astydameia is elsewhere the daughter of Ormenios, the king of Pelasgiotis.15 How Zeus fits into Amyntor’s ancestry is also unclear. In short, all these figures are from similar geographical locations (Thessaly), but the genealogy of Akousilaos presupposes radically different traditions from what we find in the Homeric texts. This is good evidence that Eurypylos did have some presence in traditions outside the Iliad at an earlier period.

Moreover, hero cult did occur for Eurypylos in the time of Pausanias in the 2nd century CE, but not at Ormenion. Pausanias describes a legend from Patrai in Achaea which describes how Eurypylos receives a chest containing an effigy of Dionysus in the division of spoils from Troy; but when it is opened, Eurypylos is afflicted with sporadic bouts of madness. An oracle from Delphi prophesies that he should settle in a place with an unusual sacrifice. When he arrives in the region of Patrai and finds the inhabitants carrying out human sacrifice (as the result of a past offence against Artemis), the oracle is fulfilled and Eurypylos’ arrival marks the end of their sacrifices and his madness. During the festival of Dionysus at Patrai, the chest which contained the effigy was displayed and Eurypylos received a sacrifice as a hero.16 The legend of Eurypylos’ arrival, therefore, was a part of local tradition which existed in connection with the religious rites of Dionysus, Artemis, 13 ῾Υπερόχης Εὐρύπυλος, οὗ ῎Ορμενος, οὗ Φέρης, οὗ ᾿Αμύντωρ, οὗ ᾿Αστυδάμεια ἡ Τληπολέμου μήτηρ· καὶ αὐτὸς δὲ ᾿Αμύντωρ εἰς Δία τὸ γένος ἀνάγει. The meaning of Υπερόχης is unclear.

14

Amyntor would be a contemporary of Autolykos, Odysseus’ grandfather.

15

Diodorus Siculus Library 4.37.4.

16

Pausanias 7.19-20.

JASON WEBBER 9

and Eurypylos.17 The question is how far back this local tradition originates. It seems a priori unlikely that such a tradition could be an accurate survival of traditions as old as the Homeric poems, over 800 years before. The story is made up of motifs shared with different traditions: the box that should not be opened is like the jar of Pandora, the sporadic bouts of madness like Orestes’ affliction after his matricide, and the theme of human sacrifice to Artemis ended by the arrival of an exile is similar to Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris (this does not necessarily mean that one of the traditions was derived from the other; these may simply be common motifs). In theory it might be possible to use archaeological evidence, if we could identify the site of the relevant sanctuary of Dionysus, but the area is now covered by modern Patras. Moreover, the establishment of the sanctuary would only be a terminus post quem for the tradition itself.

Why should Eurypylos, a figure from Thessaly, appear in an origin story for a festival in Patrai and gain a hero cult there? There is no evidence for population movements between Thessaly and Patrai. It seems more likely that the tomb mentioned by Pausanias - perhaps a Mycenaean structure became the focus of cult, and that this became associated with Eurypylos.

That Eurypylos was chosen may be related to the character’s presence in the 17 François de Polignac, Cults, territory, and the origins of the Greek city-state, trans. Janet Lloyd (Chicago, 1995): 69-71 argues that this story and the other legends of Patrai represent the foundation of Dionysus’ cult as the founding act of the city. However, this does not help determine when such a story began. Noel Robertson, Religion and reconciliation in Greek cities: the sacred laws of Selinus and Cyrene (Oxford, 2010): 326-7 argues convincingly that the human sacrifice part of the story was an innovation of the Alexandrian writer Hermesianax.

Robertson, ibid. 326 n.22 also adds a more speculative suggestion, linking the arrival of Eurypylos and the statue of Dionysus to other instances where Dionysus was received by a ruler. In particular, Robertson compares Eurypylos with Hypsipyle, arguing that ‘the ‘wide/high gate’ is associated with ‘the city center to which... the statue is conveyed’. If this were true, then Eurypylos’ presence in the Patrai myth would be old, and if it were the etymology of the name, this part of the tradition would be the origin of Eurypylos. But given that there is no actual attestation of a story of wine/Dionysus being introduced by Hypsipyle, and the link between a ‘wide gate’ and the reception of Dionysus is weak, this seems to be taking the inference too far.

10 E U R Y P Y L O S , S O N O F E U A I M O N

Iliad, especially if the disappearance of Ormenion meant that there was no other place which might dispute the identification with Eurypylos’ tomb.

This does not rule out the possibility that the choice of Eurypylos was inspired by the character’s presence in the epic tradition more generally in the Archaic period or before, but there is no direct evidence for this.

Reviewing this evidence, then, what can we say about the traditional background to Eurypylos in relation to the Iliad? He had a hero cult associated with Patrai in Achaea, but at a much later date, which means it is quite likely to be a post-Homeric development. The appearance in a Cyclic poem and the genealogy of Akousilaos strongly suggest that Eurypylos was an established figure in traditions of the Archaic period. It seems probable, therefore, that the poet of the Iliad was making use of a character from the poetic tradition. However, as we have noted, there are striking chronological inconsistencies between Akousilaos and Homeric tradition. This might reflect the tendency of the Trojan War legend (or even the poet of the Iliad) to include figures who were originally independent and from different generations.18 In conclusion, we have evidence that tradition likely existed about Eurypylos, but little idea of what this tradition might have been. Nor, for that matter, do Eurypylos’ appearances in the Iliad give any indication of what the character might have done outside the Trojan War. If we view the characters of the Iliad as originally arising in local traditions associated with their place of origin, this is hardly surprising: the towns associated with Eurypylos fall into obscurity, and the same may well have happened to their mythological traditions. As to why Eurypylos is chosen by the poet to distract Patroclus, the explanation may be geographical origin: Eurypylos is, after all, associated with a region in Thessaly, which is close to the home of Achilles and Patroclus at Phthia. The poet may have assumed that Patroclus was more likely to know and sympathise with Eurypylos enough to treat him.19 18

cf. also Martin Litchfield West, The Making of the Iliad (Oxford, 2011): 41.

19

In favour of this explanation, note that Eurypylos and Patroclus know each others’ names

J A S O N W E B B E R 11

The local origin of this minor character, therefore, is not completely ignored by the poet of the Iliad.

BIBLIOGRAPHY W. Kullmann, ‘The relative chronology of the Homeric Catalogue of Ships and of the lists of heroes and cities within the Catalogue’, in Ø. Andersen and D. Haug, Relative Chronology in Early Greek Poetry 210-223 (Cambridge, 2012) K. Gurtzwiller, ‘Heroic Epitaphs of the Classical Age: The Aristotelian Peplos and Beyond’, in M. Baumbach, A Petrovic and I Petrovic, Archaic and Classical Greek Epigram 219-49 (Cambridge, 2010) F. de Polignac, La naissance de la cité grecque : cultes, espace et société, VIIIe-VIIe siècles avant J.-C., (Paris, 1984), trans. J. Lloyd, Cults, territory, and the origins of the Greek city-state (Chicago, 1995) N. Robertson, Religion and reconciliation in Greek cities: the sacred laws of Selinus and Cyrene (Oxford, 2010) H. W. Singor, ‘Nine against Troy. On Epic ΦΑΛΑΓΓΕΣ, ΠΡΟΜΑXΟΙ, and an Old Structure in the Story of the Iliad’, Mnemosyne 44 (1991), 17-62 M. L. West, The Making of the Iliad: disquisition and analytical commentary (Oxford, 2011)

when they meet (11.819, 11.823) and Eurypylos is familiar with Achilles’ education by Kheiron (11.831-2).

12 AT H E N I A N I D E N T I T Y A N D P O L I T I C S I N T H E E X C U R S U S OF THUCYDIDES 6

AT H E N I A N I D E N T I T Y A N D P O L I T I C S I N T H E E XC U R S U S O F T H U C Y D I D E S 6 Ch ar l i e Wi l l i s Wa d ha m C o l l e g e Embedded within the narrative of Book 6, Thucydides’ account of the Sicilian Expedition, is the secondary narrative of events at Athens, in which the mutilation of the Hermae and the profanation of the Eleusinian Mysteries cause a furious manhunt for the perpetrators, ultimately driving Alcibiades away from Athens. The culmination of this is a seemingly only tangentially related excursus concerning the tyrannicides, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and their murder of Hipparchus. The prominence of these narrative threads indicates great importance to the book, but also raises many questions. Here I hope to pick out some of the complications, offer context and resolve some of the difficulties surrounding them.

Thucydides first addresses the Hermae at 6.27, when the mutilation is discovered. It is obvious from the Athenians’ reaction that this is a disturbing event: they cast their net wide in seeking eye-witnesses, whether citizen, metic or slave, offer large rewards for information, and take the mutilation as ‘ominous for the expedition’ (ἔκπλου οἰωνὸς) and ‘the beginnings of a conspiracy to revolt and overthrow the democracy’ (ἐπὶ ξυνωμοσίᾳ ἅμα νεωτέρων πραγμάτων καὶ δήμου καταλύσεως). Why, then, was the mutilation of the Hermae so catastrophic to the Athenians (I), and what did the Hermae have to do with the Sicilian Expedition or anti-democratic revolution (II)?

I To explain the Athenians’ strong reaction, some context on the Hermae’s relevance is useful. The Hermae were square-based pillars, often tapered, with a bust at the top and a phallus on the front side. They were

C H A R L I E W I L L I S 13

sacred to the god Hermes, and frequently depicted him. According to McDowell,1 the Hermae were originally simply heaps or pillars of stone, set up to denote an important place – a meeting-place, private home, crossroads or grave – and from these Hermes developed as a deity: first the god of stone markers and later god of the agora, private property, travellers, and guide of the dead. This naturally made the Hermae prominent symbols of the deity: sacred as well as functional objects.

This sacred status therefore makes the mutilation of the Hermae sacrilegious. The city’s direct involvement in this sacrilege is to some extent a consequence of Greek belief, which held that an insult by an individual or small group to a god could bring down their anger on the whole populace.

Demonstrations of the prominence of this belief can be seen in the Iliad, where Apollo’s plague on the Achaeans is due to Agamemnon’s blasphemy,2 and Oedipus Rex, where Oedipus’ crime of incest causes another plague.3 A general fear for Athens is understandable, then, but the mutilation’s specific relevance to the Sicilian Expedition needs more explanation.

Plutarch’s Nicias provides useful information about other omens for the expedition which Thucydides omits. He not only mentions the mutilation of the Hermae but also a man castrating himself on the altar of the Twelve Gods; crows damaging a statue at Delphi dedicated by the Athenians after the Persian Wars; the appearance of a priestess named Peace; and the festival of Adonis, which in mourning the death of a young man was foreboding for the Athenian fleet.4 We can see clearly from this that to many, the mutilation of the Hermae fitted into a wider framework of fear and prophecy specifical1

D. McDowell, Andocides: On the Mysteries (Oxford, 1962)

2 See Il.1.94, 97-8, “[the god is angry] because of the priest whom Agamemnon dishonoured… and he will not drive away terrible ruin from the Danaans until we give back the brighteyed girl to her dear father”. Note the interchange of the singular instigator (Agamemnon) and plural responsible for resolving the matter (first person plural).

3 See Soph.OT.100-1, “[we must] banish the man, or repay murder with murder, since this blood rocks the city”, in reference to banishing or killing the man who murdered Laius (Oedipus).

4 Plut.Nic.13

14 AT H E N I A N I D E N T I T Y A N D P O L I T I C S I N T H E E X C U R S U S OF THUCYDIDES 6

ly surrounding the Sicilian Expedition.

II How, then, is the mutilation related to the democracy? This can be explained by the relation between the mutilation and Athenian symposia.

Thucydides gives us reason to suppose that the mutilation of the Hermae was carried out during a κῶμος, a ritualistic procession of those attending a symposium involving music, dancing and masks.5 Mutilations of other images occurred ‘during sport and drinking’ (μετὰ παιδιᾶς καὶ οἴνου, Thuc.6.28), a reading supported by Andocides’ De Mysteriis, in which he defends himself against charges of impiety through his involvement with the mutilation and profanation. Andocides says that the plan to mutilate the Hermae was devised ‘while we were drinking’ (πινόντων ἡμῶν, Andoc.1.61). This implies that not only the secondary mutilations but also that of the Hermae were both conceived and carried out in the context of symposia.

How the mutilation came about is based on the role of hetaireiai, clubs with political leanings which formed from drinking groups in symposia.

Their primary function was social, and they had a tendency to become extremely close-knit. Andocides’ account elucidates this too, as Euphiletus is said to have proposed the idea during a symposium of members of his hetaireia,6 and such an impious and illegal act would not be suggested in anything less than trustworthy company.

The hetaireiai of Athens also had serious political clout; elsewhere in Thucydides, Peisander seeks their support in elections, lawsuits and eventually overthrowing the democracy.7 As evidenced by the last point, they also tended towards the oligarchic. In this case, the fears of the Athenians are 5 For this section I am indebted to O. Murray, ‘The Affair of the Mysteries: democracy and the drinking-group’, in Sympotica: a symposium on the Symposion (Oxford, 1990) 6 Andoc.1.61 7 Thuc.3.82

C H A R L I E W I L L I S 15

in line with Peisander’s actions previously; in both cases Thucydides uses συνωμοσία, which one can translate ‘conspiracy’, ‘collaboration’ or simply ‘group of hetaireiai’.8 Similarly-minded hetaireiai binding together was evidently seen as a danger to the Athenians.

McDowell demonstrates the link between aristocracy, oligarchy and sentiments against the Sicilian Expedition.9 The aristocracy by and large flourished in times of peace, as their wealth originated in the city, and this made it beneficial to pursue their own interests. They would also be pressed into providing funds from their personal coffers for any fighting that occurred. The common people on the other hand benefited greatly from war, as the enormous demand for rowers in the Athenian fleet meant consistent pay for the duration of the fighting. Within the context of the Sicilian Expedition, it is entirely plausible that aristocratic, oligarchic hetaireiai would be angled against the expedition and in turn against the demos.

The attribution of blame to hetaireiai is worth exploring. Impiety during the symposium was a well-known occurrence: Murray cites ‘a fragment of Lysias [accusing] Kinesias of belonging to a group who deliberately dined together on days of ill omen… a deliberate reference to religious groups’, and Demosthenes describing the ‘Triballoi, who would steal and eat the portions of victims… laid out at shrines of Hekate’.10 There was clearly a link between symposia and impious acts, one well-known and scandalised in Athenian literature.

The mutilation of the Hermae was therefore understandably, if not correctly or justly,11 attributed to an anti-democratic conspiracy of hetaireiai. It 8

Murray, 1990

9

McDowell, 1962

10 Dem.54.39 11 It is worth noting that McDowell shows it unlikely that the mutilation was actually part of a greater plot against the democracy; if a group of oligarchs had intended such a plot, it would have been much more advantageous to wait for the fleet to sail, at which point the bulk of the city’s democrats would be away. Murray goes so far as to allege that the mutilation was only a pistis,

16 AT H E N I A N I D E N T I T Y A N D P O L I T I C S I N T H E E X C U R S U S OF THUCYDIDES 6

was a purposeful impiety, commonly taken as ominous for the expedition, and therefore the perpetrators would naturally be assumed to be oligarchs, following the political divides explained above; hetaireiai fit the bill, had a motive in that stopping the expedition was advantageous, and had a precedent in the former mutilation and Murray’s examples.

III We have explained Thucydides’ language surrounding the mutilation of the Hermae, but what of the profanation of the Eleusinian Mysteries?

Thucydides deals with them only briefly, and the connection is not immediately clear.

Some explanation of their importance to Athens as a whole is useful.

The Mysteries were part of a festival of Demeter and Persephone lasting ten days, involving feasts at Athens and Eleusis and celebrations of figures related to the pair in myth, including Iacchus and Baubo. The Mysteries themselves were rites performed at Eleusis by the initiated, including a re-enactment of their main myth (δρώμενα), the displaying of sacred objects by the hierophant (δεικνύμενα), and the speaking of sacred words (λεγόμενα).

Secrecy was paramount, as these were not allowed to be seen by anyone who was not part of the cult; revealing the Mysteries to the uninitiated was punishable by death.

Their profanation took the form of imitations carried out in private by initiates in front of the uninitiated. We have evidence for five occasions on which the Mysteries were imitated, and it was evidently a complex re-enactment, with individuals playing the role of torch-bearer, hierophant and herald, and speaking the sacred words. The sacrilege was in individuals assuming roles which they did not hold, and revealing the Mysteries to the uninitiated.

pledging the members of the club together through shared guilt.

C H A R L I E W I L L I S 17

The profanation of the Mysteries was therefore a severe crime, but not a political one. McDowell expresses that ‘it could be said to have a political purpose only if it were intended to influence public opinion in some way’, which a private enactment could not have achieved – indeed, the enactors attempted to keep it out of public knowledge. Murray instead attributes it to a desire for ‘acting undemocratically above the law’; an act of hubris for its own sake. This parallels his interpretation of the mutilation as a pistis: in both cases, aristocratic young men performing sacrilege precisely because it was forbidden, as a solidification and expression of their bond and spurred on by the influence of the Sophists.

IV This leaves the excursus regarding Harmodius and Aristogeiton. This has many parallels with the main narrative of the mutilation and profanation, but also has reason to be present for Thucydides’ wider work.

Throughout this excursus, the key themes are misunderstanding, eros and daring, and the contrast between public and private and democracy and oligarchy. The misunderstanding is primarily of Hippias’ regime on the part of the Athenians. Apart from the obvious misunderstanding that Hipparchus was not actually a tyrant, they also did not correctly estimate the nature of Hippias’ tyranny. At the core of the excursus is another ‘mini-excursus’, which shows a very different picture than the Athenians had. Hippias’ rule was marked by ἀρετὴν καὶ ξύνεσιν, virtue and reason (Thuc.6.54.5), words which Thucydides uses together very infrequently – they thus have a special impact here. Moreover, the citizenship benefited hugely from the tyranny, with low taxes, building programmes, excellent military strategy, and the utmost respect for the rites of the gods. The Athens which Thucydides presents here is one ‘which, before the intervention of the ‘tyrannicides’, was enjoying the blessings of domestic peace and order’.12

12

H. P. Stahl, Thucydides: Man’s Place in History (2009)

18 AT H E N I A N I D E N T I T Y A N D P O L I T I C S I N T H E E X C U R S U S OF THUCYDIDES 6

Misunderstanding is also found elsewhere in the wider excursus, particularly on the parts of Harmodius, Aristogeiton and Hippias. Harmodius and Aristogeiton in their moment of glory thought (falsely) that they had been betrayed, and abandoned their plan because of it; Hippias became an oppressive tyrant because of his fear for his security, believing that there was plotting against his rule and a revolution was imminent. In both cases their ruin was brought about by their actions resulting from a misunderstanding of the situation, and the feeling that they were being moved against.

Contrary to the strong democratic ideals the Athenians of 415 BC attributed to him, Aristogeiton’s actual motivations were thought through far less. Stahl perceives parallels between his first motivations and his last; εὐθὺς is repeated both at 54.3 and 57.3, where both his desire to overthrow the tyranny and his murder of Hipparchus himself are conceived on the spot, and his ‘daring act’, τόλμημα, of 54.1 echoes the ‘unreasonable daring’, ἡ ἀλόγιστος τόλμα, of 59.1. There is also a strong undercurrent of eros throughout the excursus, picked up by Meyer. She notes that Aristogeiton was ‘erotically cut to the quick’,13 ἐρωτικῶς περιαλγήσας (54.3), at Hipparchus’ approach of Harmodius; he later attacked Hipparchus ‘out of erotic rage’, δι᾽ ὀργῆς… ἐρωτικῆς (57.3). The supposed bastion of democracy against the tyrant was actually driven by spontaneity, desire, daring, and most of all irrationality.

The third and last theme of this excursus which I would like to pick out is justice and the contrast between public and private, and democracy and oligarchy. Hipparchus and Aristogeiton’s respective insults were both private, and Hipparchus dealt with it privately, indirectly harming Harmodius through his sister. Aristogeiton on the other hand made his private issues public. As Stahl puts it, ‘the private motive of jealousy… becomes a dangerous political factor’. Here he notices the potential for this going wrong, as it well did, in upsetting the political sphere of Athens and turning the tyrant 13 (2008)

E. A. Meyer, ‘Thucydides on Harmodius and Aristogeiton, Tyranny, and History’, CQ 58

C H A R L I E W I L L I S 19

harsh. Furthermore Meyer points out that Hipparchus’ desire for revenge was ‘well within the world of Greek popular morality – whereas the fear and fury of an erastes (Aristogeiton) on behalf of his eromenos (Harmodius) is not’. The action of Aristogeiton, not only unreasonably made political, was also immoral by Greek standards. Lastly comes the idea of justice – Hipparchus was part of the kind and favourable family of Hippias, whom Thucydides has established as a positive influence on Athens. He acted justly in the senses both of his justification and in his method, because if he had acted otherwise, ‘such an abuse would have interfered with and derogated from his family’s governing principles’. Aristogeiton was unjust, and his injustice was picked up by Hippias, who after the murder of his brother began to execute many citizens (ὢν τῶν τε πολιτῶν πολλοὺς ἔκτεινε, 59.2).

I have thus explained the broad merits of the Harmodius and Aristogeiton excursus, and this goes some way towards showing why the story is dealt with at such length. I shall here briefly draw out some of the parallels between this excursus and the excursus concerning the Mysteries and Hermae, and the relevance of this to the wider work and purpose of Thucydides.

The parallels to be drawn between the characters of the Harmodius and Aristogeiton excursus and its frame are dealt with prominently by Meyer. She shows frequent parallel between the Athenians and the troublemakers of the smaller excursus; most usefully, they were similar to Hippias after the murder of Hipparchus, brought out by Thucydides himself in the use of χαλεπός, ‘harsh’, to apply to both. In both cases they became suspicious and put to death many citizens whose guilt was either clearly false or unknown.

Here the theme of misunderstanding comes to fore again, as in thinking they had the truth, τὸ σαφὲς (60.4), they sentenced to death potential innocents. Like Hippias, and indeed like Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the Athenians’ misunderstanding of the situation led to death and downfall. This is particularly easy to bring out when comparing Plutarch’s Alcibiades, which focuses heavily on the persecution of Alcibiades based on factors which were in no way concrete or relevant, such as his dress and way of life. In much the same way as the Athenians attacked him for this, Hippias executed those

20 AT H E N I A N I D E N T I T Y A N D P O L I T I C S I N T H E E X C U R S U S OF THUCYDIDES 6

who merely seemed to oppose his rule.

The parallels with Aristogeiton in particular are also worth looking at; the Athenians compared themselves to him and Harmodius thinking that they were fighters for democracy against tyranny. Thucydides explains that in reality the two supposed freedom fighters were actually selfishly driven and not, in the end, fighters for any particular ideology. In much the same way the Athenians were not what they supposed themselves to be. Far from the fair and just democrats they thought themselves, Meyer shows that they were actually more like Hippias.

In addition, Aristogeiton’s quarrel with Hipparchus transitioned from the private to the public and the political. This finds its most pertinent parallel in how the Athenians treated Alcibiades. While they thought that the secretive and self-serving designs of Hipparchus against Harmodius found their repeat in the mutilation of the Hermae and profanation of the Mysteries, in reality the actions of Aristogeiton were repeated in those Athenians with personal vendettas against Alcibiades, who turned their private vendettas into political machinations. In both cases a private affair became public without actually having any impact on who was the ruling group, but in both cases it still led to the downfall of prominent heads of state, and, later in the narrative, of the state itself.

V The Harmodius and Aristogeiton excursus therefore has its place within the Mysteries and Hermae excursus which frames it. I shall now show its purpose in Thucydides’ wider work. Much of the central excursus is devoted to Thucydides’ proof of his accuracy. He cites three inscriptions which he addresses consecutively in further detail, culminating in the pillar proving beyond reasonable doubt that Hippias was the eldest son of Peisistratus and the inheritor of the tyranny. He gives three reasons: that he was the only one to be married and have children listed; that his name was inscribed directly after his father’s; and the reasoned final point that his control of the citizens

C H A R L I E W I L L I S 21

and bodyguards, and his seeming confidence in controlling power, makes it highly unlikely that he was not already tyrant upon Hipparchus’ death. This depth of analysis and proof is highly unusual even for Thucydides.

Meyer brings this into parallel with 1.20, where Thucydides uses this very story as an example of why one should not accept hearsay, and should be more critical of historical events as one understands them. She argues that the present excursus is paradigmatic of Thucydides’ own goals in writing history. The three aspects of his aims are all addressed in this excursus; he is different to other authors, in the simple fact that this is a uniquely detailed and assessed passage; he is following his method painstakingly; and ‘his assertion of his own achievement’ is exhibited in the masterpiece of history which is the proof of Hipparchus’ non-tyranny.

The relevance of this passage to the aims of his work is most clear in his treatment of ἀκοή, hearsay. Meyer highlights that in the excursus Thucydides attributes the Athenians’ lack of understanding to unexamined hearsay, and this is also an issue in the wider Sicilian Expedition. They were ignorant of Sicily, they were persuaded by Egestan speakers to join the conflict, and the only piece of visual evidence, the talents sent ahead and the silver plate which the envoys saw, were proved deceptive. It is a recurrent issue for the Athenians that they do not examine information with any precision.

This becomes later in the narrative a most pertinent issue, considering the repercussions for Alcibiades of their misunderstanding.

I have thus shown that the excursus of Thucydides Book 6 are not only important to the narrative of Athens at the time of the Sicilian Expedition, but also thematically linked to both the Expedition and the Athenians’ actions in the wider context of his narrative. The mutilation of the Hermae and profanation of the Mysteries are explicable, relevant and linked; the description of the tyrannicides is useful, thematic and insightful. This section of the book is therefore critical for our understanding of the rest of his account.

22 AT H E N I A N I D E N T I T Y A N D P O L I T I C S I N T H E E X C U R S U S OF THUCYDIDES 6

BIBLIOGRAPHY D. McDowell, Andocides: On the Mysteries (Oxford, 1962) O. Murray, ‘The Affair of the Mysteries: democracy and the drinking-group’, in Sympotica: a symposium on the Symposion (Oxford, 1990) H. P. Stahl, Thucydides: Man’s Place in History (2009) E. A. Meyer, ‘Thucydides on Harmodius and Aristogeiton, Tyranny, and History’, CQ 58 (2008)

M O L L Y W I L L E T T 23

R E L I G I O U S M OT I VAT I O N A N D P O L I T I C S F O R 5 T H C E N T U RY G R E E K S Mol l y Wi l l ett C orp us C hr i s t i C o llege “Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?”- Plato Euthyphro1 This question put by Plato’s Socrates illustrates an interesting problem for Greek religion; neither of these cases seem to represent the nature of piety in Greek religion. If we take piety to be what is loved by the gods, the inconsistency of the gods means that an action in one case could be considered pious and at another a heinous crime. If, on the other hand, we take piety to be a thing in and of itself, an objective characteristic, loved by the gods, then the inconsistency of the gods makes little sense. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of scripture that characterises this ancient religion; there is no prescription about what is pious.2 If, therefore, it is hard to act in a consistently pious way towards the gods, is motivation the right way of looking at the way in which the Greeks conceived of their actions in relation to the gods?

Without a clear notion of what would be pleasing to the gods it is hard to conceive religious motivations for actions beyond those rituals that tradition dictates the gods found pleasing. It is not comparable to modern religions, which have sets of prescriptive rules used to govern, or at least explain, foreign relations.

That is not to say that religious sentiment and values were not taken seriously in the political arena. Views of Greek religion have been coloured by the assumption that it is mistaken: it was merely a consciously man-made

1

10a Trans. Grube

2

R. Buxton (ed), Oxford readings in Greek religion (Oxford, 2000) 4

24 R E L I G I O U S M O T I V A T I O N A N D P O L I T I C S F O R 5 T H CENTURY GREEKS

phenomenon used by the ancients as a pretext for other actions.3 Indeed, the writings of Thucydides do little to help this perception of ancient religion as ‘nonsensical even to educated Greeks’.4 Thucydides largely ignored elements of religious life, such as the amphikyony (a religiously-motivated alliance of city states), despite its importance in the histories of Herodotus, Diodorus, and others.5 However, this is an unhelpful way of looking at religious life. While I will argue that the idea of religious motivation is a hard one to square with the un-codified nature of the religion, I do think that awareness of religion pervaded society. I will further argue that despite Thucydides’ silences on some issues, it stems rather from a view that religion was not the driving force behind actions taking place than a rejection of religion altogether.

Thucydides 2.17.1-2 details the occupation of the Pelargikon during the sunoikism at Athens in 431. Thucydides highlights an oracle given in the past, to the effect that it would be better to leave the Pelargikon uninhabited. An oracle is a case in which we can see the reduction of the problem of divine intention; the god is delivering a message through an oracle, which ought then to be followed. Indeed, this does seem to have been the case here as the Athenians had kept it uninhabited until this point. With reasonably clear instructions from the god, the Greeks were able to act with religious motivation. We see this type of religious motivation, or obedience, in the foundation stories of the apoikiai in Herodotus.

However, it would be a mistake to think that an oracle is firm proof of religious motivation in political matters. It is important to look at the mode of consultation with the oracle. In many cases a decision would already have been made regarding the matter at hand. For example, someone may have already decided to found an apoikia (colony), it was simply the loca3 J. Gould, ‘On making sense of Greek religion’ in P. Easterling and J. Muir eds. Greek Religion and Society (Cambridge, 1985) 1 4

Gould (1985) 2

5 S. Hornblower, ‘The religious dimension to the Peloponnesian War, or, what Thucydides does not tell us’ Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 94 (1992) 178

M O L L Y W I L L E T T 25

tion that they required from the oracle. Indeed, in Xenophon’s Anabasis we see Xenophon chastised for not asking the oracle whether he should go on his proposed journey, instead inquiring as to how he should go about that journey. Here Xenophon’s Socrates is implying that deciding to go in the first place was impious, or at the very least foolish. However, this seems to have been an acceptable and normal way of conducting oracular consultations. The stele of pentelic marble found in Eleusis from 352/1 is the most detailed contemporary description of an actual oracular consultation. The inscription describes a process in which the Athenians place two identical pieces of tin, with differing answers to the question they wish to ask the oracle, into two different jugs. These are sealed and taken to Delphi where the oracle is asked to choose which of the two jugs contains the correct course of action. As this oracle is a contentious one about the borders with Megara,6 a matter of ‘high politics’, it was presumably meant to offer proof that the Athenians sought the oracle properly and thus their subsequent actions were legitimate. This limitation of the oracular responses indicates that the consultation of the oracle, at least in the mid 4th century, was motivated by a desire for legitimacy in political action. When they had advice from the oracle they would follow it, but it is less likely that they would have been inspired to action by the oracle.

Furthermore, the oracular warning given in Thuc.2.17 is not presented as more important than the need of the people moving into Athens. When the time of necessity arose, they were forced to go against the oracle, seemingly disregarding their religious motivations. However, it is important to note that Thucydides does not say that this meant this oracle was worthless to the Athenians. He simply states an alternative explanation for the fulfilment of the oracle, as he also does in the case of Cylon’s unsuccessful attempt to take the Athenian acropolis in 632, despite apparent oracular support.7 Thucydides argues that the negative occurrences for Athens were not the result of the Pelargikon being inhabited, but rather the need to 6

P.J. Rhodes & R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404-323 BC (Oxford 2003) 58

7 Thuc.1.126.4-6

26 R E L I G I O U S M O T I V A T I O N A N D P O L I T I C S F O R 5 T H CENTURY GREEKS

inhabit the land was symptomatic of the negative position of Athens. The oracle is not seen to be wrong; this is an inconceivable idea. Even Thucydides, who is held to be a religious sceptic, still facilitates the understanding of an oracle when one could so easily have said it was mistaken. Because the oracle did not expressly ban the inhabitancy of the land, it seems that the Athenians had misunderstood what was meant by the god. Thucydides here, along with Herodotus, highlights this recurring theme of the cryptic nature of the oracle. The ‘misunderstandings’ that arise from the cryptic nature of the oracle are in part what inspires modern scholars, inclined to scepticism, to question the legitimacy of the oracles’ predictions. This, however, does not seem to be the case for the ancient perception of the oracle. Rather, the gods were seen to be speaking in a way that people were not able to fully understand.8 However, this conception of the oracle, and prophetic speech more generally, as ambiguous does offer an explanation of why it would have been hard for the Greeks to have expressly religious motivations for political actions; they would have been basing policy on uncertainty. Here we can see that they tried to follow advice of the oracle but this did not help them in any meaningful way.

It has been argued that the decree regarding the First fruits at Eleusis9 was a reaction to the sunoikism at Athens presented in this passage of Thucydides, although dating the inscription as such a reaction is a contentious issue. The decree is one to regulate the offerings of first fruits to the sanctuary at Eleusis. One position is that the request for 1/600th of the barley and 1/1200th of the wheat yields indicates that the Athenians were seeking to gain food from the sanctuary; if they did not need grain, then surely silver would have sufficed. The sunoikism at Athens provides a good context for this. The increased pressure on imported grain coming from the mass movement into the city would have been significant, especially considering the reduction of produce which would have been the result of the evacuation 8

Gould (1985) 17

9 R. Meiggs & D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford, 1989) 73

M O L L Y W I L L E T T 27

and subsequent ravaging of the Attic farmlands. Although, throughout the war, the Athenian wish to prevent over reliance on imported grain from the Black Sea area, as evidenced by their desire to campaign in the grain-rich Sicily, provides an equally compelling motivation to increase available grain.

Here we can see an example that would fit well with the perception of Greek religion as a pretext for ulterior socio-political motivations: worship and honour of goddesses, along with obedience to the Delphic oracle, is used as pretext to help the Athenians get the grain that they need for the period of the Peloponnesian War. However, the picture is more complex than this. While I do not deny that one of the primary motives for this decree would have been to increase the amount of grain available to the Athenians, one cannot entirely discount religious sentiment, especially when the project in question is the enriching of a sanctuary. After all, the decree was not commanding them but encouraging them to give grain to the sanctuary. As the leader of powerful league, particularly if one gives this inscription an early date, it would have been within the scope of their power to simply conscript their allies into providing them with more grain. The benefit of this method is that the allies do not necessarily feel that this is an additional tax placed upon them, and therefore any bad feeling towards the Athenians, potentially aroused because of such a tax, is avoided. Furthermore, we cannot discount genuine religious motivation. In collecting the grain needed for their survival, they are able to offer gifts to the goddess in return for blessings for Athens. Divine blessing was also considered particularly important for a good harvest, something with which the Athenians had struggled with due to the Peloponnesian attacks on their crops before they could be harvested.10 This suggests that, rather than religion being used as a false pretext, religious consideration was an integral part of the act. While it may not have been the primary motivation for the collecting of grain at Eleusis, it certainly was not a fabricated motivation.

10

Thuc.3.1.1, 4.6.1

28 R E L I G I O U S M O T I V A T I O N A N D P O L I T I C S F O R 5 T H CENTURY GREEKS

In the context of the Peloponnesian War, another reason that the Athenians may have wanted to get people to donate grain to Eleusis was to establish a religious centre near to Athens, just as the Ionian cities in Asia formed the Panionion for their religious festival. With Delphi and Olympia firmly in Peloponnesian territory, consulting oracles and honouring the Panhellenic gods would have been made very difficult for the Athenians, even if they were not banned from doing so entirely.11 Aristophanes’ Birds12 suggests that the Athenians would have needed Boeotian permission to get to Delphi.

The interstate nature of sanctuaries mean that they function as political centres, and are open to political manipulation especially in times of conflict.13 Indeed, we can see this complex interchange of politics and religion within sanctuaries more generally. Dedications to the gods both serve the religious function of honouring the gods and act as status symbols, presenting the wealth and power of the dedicator to others using the sanctuaries. By attempting to establish Eleusis as a religious centre the Athenians seem to have been trying to open up their access to a religious centre whilst simultaneously gaining political influence and leverage over others who wished to use the site. Again, we see the recurring idea of political motivation integrated with religious consideration.

Ultimately, high politics and religion cannot necessarily be separated from each other in a distinct and simple way. The pervasive nature of Greek religion means that it cannot be discounted as having an effect of the decisions of the Greeks in the 5th century. However, I would argue that it is not easy to see religious motives as a driving force behind Greek actions in the Peloponnesian War. This is not because religion is being ignored in favour of high politics. Rather, the complex concept of piety and divine utterance means that religious motivation, as opposed to consideration, is an incongruous notion in the context of Greek religion.

11 C. Sourvinou-Inwood ‘What is polis religion?’ in O. Murray and S. Price ed. The Greek City from Homer to Aristotle (Oxford, 1990) 297; Hornblower (1992) 185 12 Aristoph.Birds.188 13

Morgan, as quoted in Hornblower (1992) 177

M O L L Y W I L L E T T 29

BIBLIOGRAPHY R. Buxton (ed), Oxford readings in Greek religion (Oxford, 2000) J. Gould, ‘On making sense of Greek religion’ in P. Easterling and J. Muir eds. Greek Religion and Society (Cambridge, 1985) S. Hornblower, ‘The religious dimension to the Peloponnesian War, or, what Thucydides does not tell us’ Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 94 (1992) C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘What is polis religion?’ in O. Murray and S. Price ed. The Greek City from Homer to Aristotle (Oxford, 1990) P.J. Rhodes & R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404-323 BC (Oxford 2003) R. Meiggs & D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford, 1989)

30 G R E N D E L C O M E S T O H E O R O T: A L AT I N T R A N S L AT I O N O F B E OW U L F

G R E N D E L C O M E S TO H E O ROT: A L AT I N T R A N S L AT I O N O F B E OW U L F B e n j a m i n Tow l e St . Jo h n’s C o l l e g e

Per nebulas iamiam deserto e calle regressus Geryones infit gressus glomerare superbos invisus divis, pestis mortalibus atrox. aedibus in magnis vadit captatque rapinas. hic, postquam umbrosas per nubes appetit aulam, turribus aurigeris castellum apparuit alte. quamquam haud ignotis regis spatiatur in arvis, non alias, quoad vita fuit, processit ad illum durior eventus, tanta et custodia castri.

-

B E N J A M I N T O W L E 31

In off the moors, down through the mist-bands God-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.

The bane of the race of men roamed forth, Hunting for a prey in the high hall.

Under the cloud-murk he moved towards it Until it shone above him, a sheer keep Of fortified gold. Nor was that the first time He had scouted the grounds of Hrothgar’s dwelling – Although never in his life, before or since, Did he find harder fortune or hall-defenders.

32 A P O L L O N I A N R E S O N A N C E S A N D P O E T I C A U T H O R I T Y IN THE ODYSSEY

APOLLONIAN RESONANCES AND POETIC AU T H O R I T Y I N T H E O D Y S S E Y Nic h o l a s Ken n y Trin i t y Co l l e g e Apollo’s hostility to the Greeks in the Iliad is substantial; he is the author of the pestilence and arrows which ravage the Achaeans at the outset of the narrative, and he is one of the most significant advocates of the Trojan cause throughout the poem. Apollo seems to be barely present in the Odyssey, however; he does not physically appear, except in the embedded narrative of Demodocus’ song of Ares and Aphrodite, where his only contribution is to tee-up Hermes’ explicit joke (Od. 8.335-7).1 Despite this apparent absence, the presence of the god of lyre and bow can be felt at certain key points in the poetic narrative. This article will try to sketch out some of these.

Two of Apollo’s core spheres of expertise are poetry and archery; hence the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, Εἴη μοι κίθαρίς τε φίλη καὶ καμπύλα τόξα2 (HHAp. 131). Over the course of the poem Odysseus demonstrates his prowess in these two areas to the extent that he takes on a partly Apollonian role during the feast of Apollo on Ithaca, at which he kills the suitors.3 Odysseus’ bardic prowess is well-known; four books are given over to his narrative in Alcinous’ palace, during which the voice of the poet and the hero merge. The Phaeacians react with awe and praise on hearing his tales (11.362-76, 13.1-2), and Eumaeus praises him as a bard at 17.518-20: 1 We should note that a variety of deaths in the poem are attributed to Apollo, e.g. Menelaus’ steersman at 3.279, Rhexenor at 7.64, Eurytus at 7.227-8; these are usually within embedded narrative, and do not constitute serious interaction with the poetic narrative by Apollo.

2

“The lyre and the curved bow shall be dear to me”

3 The third ‘core competency’ of Apollo, prophesy (cf. HHAp. 132), is something Odysseus does not partake in, though he does encounter Teresias the prophet of Apollo on his journeys (11.90-151). In recounting Teiresias’ prophesy to Penelope at 23.264-84, one could perhaps argue that he acts as a kind of pseudo-prophet, foretelling his own future.

N I C H O L A S K E N N Y 33

ὡς δ᾽ ὅτ᾽ ἀοιδὸν ἀνὴρ ποτιδέρκεται, ὅς τε θεῶν ἒξ ἀείδει δεδαὼς ἔπε᾽ ἱμερόεντα βροτοῖσι, τοῦ δ᾽ ἄμοτον μεμάασιν ἀκουέμεν, ὁππότ᾽ ἀείδῃ However, it is Odysseus’ expertise with the bow that allows him to attain the goal of his poetic journey. These two competencies of the bow and lyre are combined at two points towards the end of Book 21. First, in the famous simile at 21.406-11, comparing Odysseus’ stringing of the bow to a bard stringing his lyre: ὡς ὅτ᾽ ἀνὴρ φόρμιγγος ἐπιστάμενος καὶ ἀοιδῆς ῥηϊδίως ἐτάνυσσε νέῳ περὶ κόλλοπι χορδήν, ἅψας ἀμφοτέρωθεν ἐϋστρεφὲς ἔντερον οἰός, ὣς ἄρ᾽ ἄτερ σπουδῆς τάνυσεν μέγα τόξον Ὀδυσσεύς. δεξιτερῇ ἄρα χειρὶ λαβὼν πειρήσατο νευρῆς: ἡ δ᾽ ὑπὸ καλὸν ἄεισε, χελιδόνι εἰκέλη αὐδήν.

The second confluence of bow and lyre occurs a few lines later, in the irony of Odysseus’ words to Telemachus. After his victory, Odysseus notes his strength and his success in the contest, and then declares that it is time for dinner and entertainment, including μολπῇ καὶ φόρμιγγι: τὰ γάρ τ᾽ ἀναθήματα δαιτός4 (430). The feast of the suitors that comes will be marked not with the lyre, as in Book 1, but with the bow; note how it is just as Antinous is taking a drink of wine that he is shot down (22.9-12). With the simile of the bow, we had a bow that seems like a lyre. Now, we have a lyre replaced by a bow.

A variety of different details around these moments confirm that this convergence of the two skills of Apollo is no coincidence. Odysseus’ success in the contest and in the fight against the suitors is specified as being in the hands of Apollo; Penelope states at 21.338 that that Odysseus’ victory in the contest will be contingent on the favour of Apollo. Odysseus goes on 4

“With song and lyre, for they are the delights of a feast”

34 A P O L L O N I A N R E S O N A N C E S A N D P O E T I C A U T H O R I T Y IN THE ODYSSEY

to pray to Apollo immediately before beginning the battle (22.5-7). His imminent victory could naturally be attributed to the success of this prayer.

Furthermore, Odysseus is himself fulfilling the role of Apollo as according to Penelope’s wish at 17.494, where she expresses the hope that Antinous be shot down by Apollo.

Most significant of all is that the contest of the bow and the subsequent slaughter takes place on a feast day to Apollo (cf. 20.276-8). Indeed, for that reason Antinous refuses to take part in the contest (21.257-9). Perhaps we could even go so far to say that this typifies Odysseus as a kind of priest of Apollo, sacrificing the suitors as victims instead of the three pigs one would normally slaughter (17.600, cf. 20.162-3).5 Certain details, such as the story of the Pandareids that Penelope tells at 20.61-72, have also been shown to tie in to the Apollonian context of the feast, and indeed it has been argued that the myths in the dialogue of Penelope and Odysseus in Book 19 feed into the Apollonian ritual context.6 The specific feast they are celebrating has been identified by Austin as a celebration of spring and the change of a new year – a Chelidonismos, which celebrates among other things the return of the swallow and occurs at the dark of the moon, cf. 14.457 and 19.306-7.7 The return of the swallow gives even greater significance to the twanging of the bow at 21.411 which ‘sang sweetly beneath his touch, like a swallow in tone’. Note also that Athena perches in the rafters as a swallow at 22.240. This festival was a celebration of renewal and optimism as the winter passed and one looked towards the summer. On Ithaca, after the winter of Odysseus’ absence where affairs on Ithaca seem to have been frozen in time, Odysseus returns to herald the new year, and his bow sounds the first cry of the swallow, whilst Athena, 5 Peter Jones, Homer’s Odyssey: a companion to the English translation of Richard Lattimore (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1988), ad 17.600 6 Olga Levaniouk, Eve of the festival: making myth in Odyssey 19 (London: Harvard University Press, 2011), passim; for the Pandareids’ link to Apollo, see chapter 16.

7 Norman Austin, Archery at the Dark of the Moon (London: University of California Press, 1975), 245ff.

N I C H O L A S K E N N Y 35

perched in the rafters, is the first swallow.8 All of this is highly appropriate for this moment in the poem; as Odysseus regains his authority in his house in an act of supreme heroic strength and violence, Apollonian resonances accumulate and Odysseus seems to enact the role of Apollo, demonstrating his prowess in bow just as he has already shown his skill as a bard. As the song reaches its poetic goal, so too is moral and political authority reasserted in Ithaca, which for so long a power vacuum had frozen in a political limbo: note how the expulsion of the bard left by Agamemnon in Mycenae to guard Clytemnestra was followed by political disorder analogous to the suitors on Ithaca.9 The favour of Apollo at this moment demonstrates the poetic authority of Odysseus, whose safe return, and thus his heroic glory and poetic identity, had up until this moment been in doubt.10 Apollo’s favour at this point also means that the three gods who are so often invoked together in oaths, Zeus, Athena, and Apollo, come together in support of Odysseus at this crucial moment in the poem (e.g. 4.341, 8.311, 17.132, 18.235). Unlike at Troy, where there were gods ranged on both sides, here Odysseus wields supreme divine and moral authority.

There is another significant way Apollo is brought into the poem.

While sacking Ismarus, Odysseus protects the priest of Apollo from harm.

Maron, the priest, gives to Odysseus some wine as a gift in return, the quality of which is described at length by the poet (9.196-212). This wine allows Odysseus to continue his journey and therefore continue the poem, as it provides Odysseus with the opportunity to blind the cyclops Polyphemus at 8 For more on the ‘freezing’ of activity on Ithaca, and especially the role of Penelope within that, see Helene Foley, ““Reverse Similes” and Sex Roles in the “Odyssey””, Arethusa 11 (1978), 1011.

9 Charles Segal, “Kleos and its ironies” in Seth Schein (Ed.) Reading the Odyssey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 213; for more on the analogy between the story of Agamemnon’s return and the return of Odysseus, see S. D. Olson, “The Stories of Agamemnon in Homer’s Odyssey”, TAPA 120 (1990), 57-71.

10

Note how Odysseus is ‘ἀκλειως’, inglorious, (1.241) for as long as he is away.

36 A P O L L O N I A N R E S O N A N C E S A N D P O E T I C A U T H O R I T Y IN THE ODYSSEY

9.345-74. It is of further interest to note how the treatment of the priest of Apollo significantly distinguishes Odysseus from Agamemnon, so often elsewhere compared to each other in the poem.11 Agamemnon’s cruel treatment of Chryses, another priest of Apollo, is a crucial part of the opening of the Iliad. Unlike Agamemnon, who takes the daughter of the priest for himself and rudely refuses Chryses’ ransom (cf. Iliad 1.26-32), Odysseus protects Maron and his family even as he sacks his town (9.199-200). Furthermore, the names of both priests are etymologically linked to the names of their respective cities.12 In general, the Iliadic qualities of the Cicones episode in the Apologoi have been commented on, and it is not too much to suppose that the poet of the Odyssey may be inviting us to compare Odysseus’ reverence of the priest on Ismarus with stories of Agamemnon’s treatment of priests at Troy.13 Note also Odysseus’ careful division of the booty among his men at Od. 9.40-3, which draws a stark contrast with Agamemnon in Iliad 1 (cf. Il. 1.122-9). Indeed, what soon follows in the poem serves to mark out Odysseus from the Iliadic Agamemnon further. Odysseus’ men believe that he has hoarded up wealth for himself without caring for his men, (Od. 10.34-45), which encourages them to open Aeolus’ bag of winds, with disastrous consequences. This is in spite of the fact that Odysseus’ fairness in apportioning reward to his men has been stressed repeatedly in the preceding book (9.403 and 548-9).14 It is also possible that Apollo’s favour attaches itself to Telemachus as well as Odysseus. Most notably, in the omen at 15.525-8 of a hawk attacking a dove, which (according to Theoclymenus) indicates divine support 11 Olson, “The Stories of Agamemnon in Homer’s Odyssey”, passim; Pura Nieto Hernández, “Odysseus, Agamemnon and Apollo”, The Classical Journal 97 (2002), 323ff.

12 Hernández, “Odysseus, Agamemnon and Apollo”, 324; cf Heubeck & Hoekstra, A commentary on Homer’s Odyssey Vol II. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), ad 9.197-8; Maron seems to be derived from Maroneia, a town on the South coast of Thrace which was famous for its wines, cf. Archilochus fr. 2: ‘οἰνος Ἰσμαρικος’. Note the Hesiodic Catalogue gives Dionysus as the great-grandson of Dionysus (fr. 238 M-W).

13 For Iliadic resonances of the sacking of Ismarus, see e.g. Jones, Homer’s Odyssey: a companion to the English translation of Richard Lattimore, ad 9.40 14

Hernández, “Odysseus, Agamemnon and Apollo”, 326

N I C H O L A S K E N N Y 37

for Telemachus, the hawk is described as Ἀπόλλωνος ταχὺς ἄγγελος, ‘the swift messenger of Apollo’. Furthermore, Apollo is – perhaps surprisingly, given his personal absence from the narrative – put down as responsible for Telemachus safe return at 19.86. It seems likely that this notion of Apollo safeguarding Telemachus’ return derives from Apollo’s duty as kourotrophos, the nurturer of youths, which was one of his cult-titles.15 It is, of course, the poem that makes Telemachus grow up and fulfil the heroic precedent of his father, cf. Athena at 1.94; she helps Telemachus ἵνα μιν κλέος ἐσθλὸν ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἔχῃσιν, ‘so that he may have repute’, i.e. ‘so that he may be part of the poem’. It is thus from his participation in the poem that he is able to mature and take part in the Apollonian and heroic slaughter of the suitors. The poem, Apollo’s sphere, therefore serves Apollo’s function as kourotrophos by fast-tracking Telemachus to maturity.

There is one further point to be made about bows and lyres. As noted above, they are presented at certain points as analogous to each other, e.g. in the simile at 21.406-11. On a physical level, they both have strings, and they both hang on pegs. It is this last point, though prima facie mundane, which perhaps signals a poetic interaction between hymnic narratives about Apollo and one particular moment in the Odyssey.

The expertise of Demodocus is emphasised again and again in Book 8; he is first described in the words of Alcinous as the θεῖον ἀοιδὸν, ‘godly singer’, for ‘to him above all others the god has granted skill in song’ (8.435). The god here must surely not be impersonal but indicate Apollo (cf.

8.488 below). He is then described by the narrator as one ‘whom the Muse loved above all others’ (8.63); he is λαοῖσι τετιμένον, ‘honoured by the people’ (8.472), and Odysseus honours him a rich portion of meat (8.474-81).

Indeed Odysseus even feels the need to address him during the feast and praise him as ἢ σέ γε μοῦσ᾽ ἐδίδαξε, Διὸς πάϊς, ἢ σέ γ᾽ Ἀπόλλων16 (8.488).

15 Jones, Homer’s Odyssey: a companion to the English translation of Richard Lattimore, ad 19.86 16

“You whom the Muse taught, child of Zeus, or Apollo”

38 A P O L L O N I A N R E S O N A N C E S A N D P O E T I C A U T H O R I T Y IN THE ODYSSEY

His own name stresses the respect he has among his people. The point is reiterated across the book, that Demodocus is a paradigmatic example of bardic excellence, and to emphasise this the author stresses his connection to the divine authorities in song, either Apollo or the Muses (e.g. 8.43, 63, 488).

The point I wish to make rests on the details of the entrance of Demodocus, his first appearance in the poem, from lines 8.62ff. The herald approaches leading the minstrel, a silver-studded chair is set in the middle of the hall, leant against a tall pillar, and his lyre is hung from a peg above. The herald places next to Demodocus a table, basket, and cup of wine to drink. Such a description bears a striking similarity to the entrance of Apollo in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, especially lines 7ff. In the Hymn, Apollo arrives at Zeus’ hall, has his bow taken from him and hung on a peg on a pillar inside the hall, and is given a golden cup of nectar to drink, before being toasted by all the other gods. Note also that there are generalising elements in these opening lines of the Hymn, for example the present tenses and the use of ὅν τε... καί ῥά τε… (2-3) that indicate this scene as a typical description of a god’s characteristic activity.17 In both scenarios a figure who has special honour in the community is brought into the gathering, given a spot of honour, has the symbol of their expertise, the lyre or bow, hung up on a peg, and is given a drink of either wine or nectar.

The similarities only go so far, and may not convince everyone; for example, the pillar in the Hymn is what the bow is hung on, but in the Odyssey it is what Demodocus’ seat rests against. However, it is not without the bounds of possibility that there is some link between the two. Note that there is no indication of shared formulaic language that would explain the similarity, nor does it seem to be a typical scene that can be applied to a range of contexts. It seems plausible that this kind of entrance scene was a common element of hymns to Apollo, and therefore it is possible that in the description of the appearance of Demodocus the poet of the Odyssey wished to echo the appearance of Apollo among the gods. This would have 17 N. J. Richardson, Three Homeric Hymns: To Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) ad HHAp. 1-18

N I C H O L A S K E N N Y 39

the effect of heightening our sense of the bard’s poetic expertise and affinity with the god of song; not only is he described as being taught by Apollo at 8.488, but he enacts the role of Apollo during his entrance to the palace. A transference in the other direction, from Odyssey to Hymn, seems less likely; it would be more natural for the author of the Odyssey to want to imbue Demodocus with the aura of Apollo than for the author of the Hymn to want to imbue Apollo with the aura of Demodocus. The version of the appearance of Apollo among the gods which the poet of the Odyssey is looking towards does not, of course, have to be the same as our Hymn; it is quite possible that the appearance of Apollo he was thinking of bore a closer resemblance to the appearance of Demodocus in Odyssey 8 than the version recorded in our Hymn. Whether such specific intertextuality is possible within the poetic milieu of early Greek hexameter is, of course, much-disputed territory, and beyond the scope of this article.18 The purpose of this article was to explore the variety of ways the authority of Apollo is implied at various points during the Odyssey. Despite his general absence from the narrative, he nevertheless lends authority to Odysseus, Telemachus, and Demodocus, and the Apollonian context of the slaughter of the suitors is the ideal setting for the poetic conclusion of a narrative whose hero himself has such poetic prowess.

BIBLIOGRAPHY N. Austin, Archery at the Dark of the Moon (London, 1975).

18 See e.g. Bruno Currie, Homer’s Allusive Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), Christos Tsagalis, The Oral Palimpsest (Washington D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2008), and “Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis”, Trends in Classics 3 (2011), 209-244, Pietro Pucci, Odysseus Polutropos (London: Cornell University Press, 1987), and F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, C. Tsagalis (Edd.) Homeric Contexts, Neoanalysis and the Interpretation of Oral Poetry (Boston: De Gruyter, 2011).

40 A P O L L O N I A N R E S O N A N C E S A N D P O E T I C A U T H O R I T Y IN THE ODYSSEY

B. Currie, Homer’s Allusive Art (Oxford, 2016).

H. Foley, ““Reverse Similes” and Sex Roles in the “Odyssey””, Arethusa 11 (1978), 7-26.

P. N. Hernández, “Odysseus, Agamemnon and Apollo”, The Classical Journal 97 (2002), 319-334.

Heubeck & Hoekstra, A commentary on Homer’s Odyssey Vol II. (Oxford, 1989).

P. Jones, Homer’s Odyssey: a companion to the English translation of Richard Lattimore (Bristol, 1988).

O. Levaniouk, Eve of the festival: making myth in Odyssey 19 (London, 2011).

F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, C. Tsagalis (Edd.) Homeric Contexts, Neoanalysis and the Interpretation of Oral Poetry (Boston, 2011).

S. D. Olson, “The Stories of Agamemnon in Homer’s Odyssey”, TAPA 120 (1990), 57-71.

P. Pucci, Odysseus Polutropos (London, 1987).

N. J. Richardson, Three Homeric Hymns: To Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite (Cambridge, 2010).

C. Segal, “Kleos and its ironies” in Seth Schein (Ed.) Reading the Odyssey (Princeton, 1996), 201-221.

C. Tsagalis, The Oral Palimpsest (Washington D.C., 2008).

N I C H O L A S K E N N Y 41

C. Tsagalis, “Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis”, Trends in Classics 3 (2011), 209-244.

42 J O U R N E Y T O M U N I G U A

J O U R N E Y TO M U N I G U A L au ra Pl um l ey St . A n n e’s C o l l e ge I first decided to visit Munigua in Andalucia, Spain, in March 2017 after seeing a news item about it. Archaeologists working on a Roman site there had uncovered copper mining operations dating from 4,000 years ago.

These mines were constructed by the Turdetani, the original inhabitants of the area. It emerged that copper mining ensured the region’s growth and attracted people from many parts of the ancient world, including Greece, Carthage and Rome.

Archaeologists at Munigua have found a surprisingly advanced mining network, complete with ventilation shafts and mining floors beneath the city, dating from the 1st century BC. My first sight of the remains of the Roman city of Munigua was unexpected and breathtaking. We had driven for miles along a winding, rough track through abandoned olive groves, when a massive, terraced brick structure suddenly reared up immediately ahead. This was the Sanctuary of Terraces, built by the Romans between the 1st century BC and the mid-1st century AD, consisting of several tiered terraces with access ramps and steps on either side of the building’s axis. At the same time, the existing Iberian village had been razed and the forum, baths and dwellings constructed.

View from the tra c k

L A U R A P L U M L E Y 43

The Romans under Cornelius Publius Scipio had captured the prosperous copper mining town of Munigua from the Carthaginians, and developed advanced mining techniques there in their search for valuable metals to exploit.

The Romans established their own architectural style here, including temples, sanctuaries, a two story hall, a vast necropolis, a Roman forum, thermal baths, and, of course, walls.

The remaining outer walls are reinforced by thirteen buttresses, and the sanctuary walls were originally covered in coloured marble. This structure was restored in the 1950s.

The Podium Temple, built in the early 2nd century was a square block structure supported by four buttresses on its eastern side. The walls rest on a podium, supporting another smaller podium which formed the base of the temple proper. It was decorated with marble slabs and reached by a flight of steps.

The Forum was built on an artificial terrace consisting of (1) the Forum Temple; (2) the Curia, where probably the municipal senate met; (3) the Shrine of Dis Pater, god of miners; (4) the Tabularium (municipal archives); (5) the Basilica.

Re m a i n s of t h e For um The small Temple of Mercury has been partly rebuilt. The original building was entirely rendered in stucco and was probably painted. On the hillside, several residential zones have been identified with the remains of houses carved out of the rock. Their back walls were about 2 metres high and some houses had two stories.

44 J O U R N E Y T O M U N I G U A

The baths have an L-shaped floor plan and seven different rooms, including the apsidal hall and the nymphaeum. The excavation of these baths has revealed detailed under floor chambers, and seating areas which may have been used for steam rooms, or bathing areas. There are also the remains of decorative mosaics in a niche adjacent to the bathing areas.

Re constr uc ted str uc tures in t h e ba thhouse This compact Roman settlement had two Necropolises – the East and the South. The eastern one was built inside the perimeter of Munigua’s defensive wall. Part of the southern Necropolis is located beyond the wall. One hundred and seventy graves have been found in total and these were mainly burials or cremations. They were grouped either by family or profession, according to the Roman custom.

The Mausoleum discovered at Munigua had a square plan and remains of its walls still reach 2.7 metres in height in some places. Inside, five burials were found – two burials and three cremations in situ. The structure has been dated to early or mid 2nd century AD and although some grave goods have been found on site, many have been lost since the graves were looted in the 4th or 5th century. By that time, the Romans had long returned to Rome, having fully exploited Munigua’s mines.

Wate r c h a n n e l , le ad ing fro m t h e bat h s a t t h e e nd of t h e for t re ss

L A U R A P L U M L E Y 45

Munigua flourished under the Emperor Hadrian but declined towards the end of the 3rd century AD. Under the Romans Munigua became established as a typical Roman city with the Roman architectural style; the laying out of the city including the incredible network of terraces; a podium; a Roman forum; baths and drainage system; houses; temples. Yet, once the copper supply was exhausted, the city quickly declined so that by the 3rd century AD it fell into ruins. Much of the Roman architecture was damaged by an earthquake.

For um

Bat hho u s e

Housing By the end of the 6th century AD, the only signs of human occupation were a few pieces of Islamic ceramics.

46 ‘A R T I S I N S P I R I N G , N O T C O R R U P T I N G ’ : A N A D D E N D U M TO REPUBLIC 10

‘A RT I S I N S P I R I N G , N OT C O R RU P T I N G ’: A N A D D E N D U M TO R E P U B L I C 10 Mir a n d a Da v i es Oriel Co l l e g e ‘So we must banish art from our city, and send artists on their way with due honours and respect, but with the warning that they may not stay in our city as producers of something corrupting, that will harm the justice of our city.’

At this point I thought the matter concluded, but Adeimantus spoke up, showing his typical courage.

‘But Socrates,’ he said, ‘many would say that art inspires, rather than corrupts. This indeed is a common saying among lovers of art. Take poetry, for example. Lovers of art might say that the characters portrayed in poetry are of secondary importance to the poetic style itself, in which music and metre and language combine and lead the soul through appreciation of their fineness to appreciate the wider beauty of all things, and then beauty itself.

The poet able to produce beautiful poetry cannot be ignorant of beauty, and looking to beauty itself composes poetry, and so we too by hearing and appreciating what is beautiful in their poetry are inspired to seek further beauty. And as we continue to hear poetry, sometimes bad, sometimes good, our souls are puzzled by our perceptions of the same poetry as sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, and by people’s disagreements on these matters, and summon calculation and reason to determine whether in fact the poetry is beautiful or ugly, and thus move our search for beauty from the perceptible to the intelligible. So, while a poem about a chair may be mere imitation of appearance with respect to the chair, the poet is like a craftsman with respect to the Form of beauty, and makes an instance of beauty when they look to the Form of beauty to create their art.

‘The same can be said of all beautiful art, be it the painter’s art or the

M I R A N D A D A V I E S 47

sculptor’s art or the musician’s art. In each case the artist creates beautiful art by beholding the Form of beauty and producing the best imitation that they can, and in each case our souls follow the process I have just described, and thus are inspired to seek to understand Beauty itself. And indeed, its search for the Form of beauty seems to take the soul closer to the Form of the good than does the search for the Form of a bed or couch, and so art could be said to be beneficial for our Guardians and our city, far more so than the work of a craftsman. So long as art is beautiful, then, its banishment from our city seems to hinder rather than help the development and education of our citizens.

‘One might say that the beauty of art is dependent on it having subject matter and formal features such as we have deemed appropriate, so that a work showing the gods as misbehaving cannot be considered beautiful.

However, lovers of art would greatly disagree with this, saying that Homer is widely considered to be composing beautiful poetry when he says τοὺς δὲ ἰδὼν ἐλέησε Κρόνου πάϊς ἀγκυλομήτεω, Ἥρην δὲ προσέειπε κασιγνήτην ἄλοχόν τε: ‘ὤ μοι ἐγών, ὅ τέ μοι Σαρπηδόνα φίλτατον ἀνδρῶν μοῖρ᾽ ὑπὸ Πατρόκλοιο Μενοιτιάδαο δαμῆναι. διχθὰ δέ μοι κραδίη μέμονε φρεσὶν ὁρμαίνοντι, ἤ μιν ζωὸν ἐόντα μάχης ἄπο δακρυοέσσης θείω ἀναρπάξας Λυκίης ἐν πίονι δήμῳ, ἦ ἤδη ὑπὸ χερσὶ Μενοιτιάδαο δαμάσσω.

- although here he shows the King of the gods publicly bewailing the prospect of his son’s death and considering changing fate to assuage his own feeling, and further shows the god as able to bring good and bad to mortals.

Equally, they might point to the sculptures on the Parthenon that show the gods and the giants at war, and say that these sculptures are not shameful but beautiful, despite their subject matter.

‘It may be true that if we take too seriously artists’ subject matter

48 ‘A R T I S I N S P I R I N G , N O T C O R R U P T I N G ’ : A N A D D E N D U M TO REPUBLIC 10

then we can be misled, and think that because an artist who produces beautiful art has true opinion about Beauty, they have true opinion on their art’s subject matter too. But this is a fault against which we can educate our citizens, and by taking this approach we do not force them to go without the benefits that art can bring to the soul. Indeed, it seems that the feelings of pleasure we gain from art, felt by our whole soul, bring further unity to the soul, pausing for a moment the conflict between the desires of the appetites and of reason to let the soul as a whole long for and appreciate the beautiful.

The emotion an artist’s work can inspire in us does not cause the appetitive part of our soul to strengthen and grow, and therefore the soul’s rational part to weaken and decline, but rather as we witness the art the appetitive part is placated by the satisfaction of its desires, allowing the rational part to appreciate the art’s beauty.’

At Adeimantus’ outpouring I was stunned.

‘And do you agree with them?’ I asked.

‘I would like to hear your views on the matter.’

‘Very well,’ I said, ‘let us examine what you have said, to see if we have perhaps stumbled upon a true defence of art after all. We had agreed that art creates imitations of appearances, and that the part of the soul with which these imitations consort is the part that opposes the rational part, and so the baser part. We agreed this because the rational part of our soul perceives these imitations and calculates that they are not the appearances they imitate, but the irrational part of our soul on perceiving them thinks that they really are the appearances they purport to be. Do you still agree with this?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Perhaps, then, you would say that it is not only art that produces these conflicts in the soul, but in fact nature too produces them when for example we see a stick that appears bent in water, but that we know is straight, and

M I R A N D A D A V I E S 49

that we have therefore been too hasty in pinning these faults to art alone, and therefore in banning art from our city?’

‘Indeed. ‘ ‘And further that such illusions can lead us closer to understanding the nature of things by causing our soul to perceive a contradiction in its perceptions and understanding of things, so that it is forced to use reason to resolve this conflict and thus come closer to a true understanding of them?’

‘Certainly.’

‘But when you hear a passage such as the one you mentioned, does it lead you to wonder about what the true nature of the king of the gods must be? Or does rather the emotion it inspires in you carry you forward, so that your judgment is entirely suspended and you think of little but the plight of the characters, the tragedy of the war, and the pitiful nature of the human condition?’

‘It does.’

‘So then does it seem that the rational and irrational parts of the soul truly come together in unity when perceiving art, so that art lets the soul work together in harmony, and thus the rational part to best use reckoning to weigh up the contradictions in its perceptions so that it is able to better form true opinion of things, or even ascend with reason and dialectic to appreciating their Forms? Or does it seem rather that the irrational part overpowers the rational, and the rational part is checked and overcome and unable to use its rational faculties, and the irrational rejoices as does the poet when he says στέργω δ᾽ ὄμματα Πειθοῦς, ὅτι μοι γλῶσσαν καὶ στόμ᾽ ἐπωπᾷ?’

‘I don’t know.’

50 ‘A R T I S I N S P I R I N G , N O T C O R R U P T I N G ’ : A N A D D E N D U M TO REPUBLIC 10

‘Well, let us examine this then, using tragedy as an example. You agree that as we watch what we would call ‘good’ tragedy, we are tossed about upon a sea of emotions and unable to form in that moment rational judgment?’

‘Yes.’ ‘And the action moves swiftly, and is gilded with song and dance and poetic language, and so the further we watch the more entirely absorbed we become so that we have neither time nor inclination to reckon about how the characters and action we watch fit with what such characters and actions should be like?’

‘Certainly.’

‘And, for one in the drama, a chorus-leader or actor, they too are so focussed on their work that all their rational energies are spent on speaking and moving and singing correctly, so that they too are not given a moment to reckon as to whether the people they imitate are just and good?’

‘It seems so.’

‘Do you agree that people are most reluctant to let go of something they have already loved without issue?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean this. If a man loves a boy and reason tells him of nothing that means that he should stop loving this boy, then he will go on loving this boy I suppose?’

‘Certainly.’

‘But then if he has loved him in this way for a while, and then reason

M I R A N D A D A V I E S 51

tells him of some fault that means that he should cease to love the boy, will he find this easy? Or will he rather resist reason and deny it, telling himself that he has loved the boy for a long time and there have been no problems so reason must be at fault, and continue to indulge his love, chaining reason and fighting against it?’

‘He will act in this way.’ lem?’

‘And do you think that we love things that bring us joy without prob‘Yes.’

‘Then do you not see that we are just the same as this man when it comes to tragedy, or indeed any art that seduces the senses and leaves no time for reason to work out whether it is really good and just, or only seductive. We are drawn into the art and rejoice at its power to satisfy our appetites for lamenting and sorrowing, and thus come to love it, and so when later we have time to reason about whether it is good and just, even if reason tells us it is not just and not good we are unable to lay aside our love for it, but rather say instead that reason is wrong and teach our souls to restrain reason and allow the judgments of the baser parts to take primacy.

‘This too is why we are not driven by the contradictions our soul perceives between the judgments our rational and irrational parts form about the objects art presents us with to come closer to a true understanding of these things. Our love of art teaches us to reject reason’s calculations as incorrect, and thus we are unable to proceed by argument to an understanding of the true nature of things, because we are already accustomed to ignoring reason.’

For a moment there was silence, but then Glaucon spoke up.

‘Socrates, you have shown that the soul is not unified as it perceives

52 ‘A R T I S I N S P I R I N G , N O T C O R R U P T I N G ’ : A N A D D E N D U M TO REPUBLIC 10

art, but rather that it is the irrational part that dominates the rational and leaves it unable to form judgment. However, you have not argued against the idea that an appreciation of art as good or bad, and the questioning of what makes art good or bad that is caused by witnessing many works of art, lead the soul closer to beauty. Further, though you have shown art hinders reason, you have not shown that there is any difference between the effects of the hymns you allow in our city and the tragedies and other such poetry that you don’t. So please explain further, or risk appearing unable to justify excluding art from our city.’

‘I am not surprised you ask me to further defend the exclusion of something we all love from our city,’ I said, ‘and I may not be able to provide such a defence. But I shall do my best to argue things as I see them. First, then, let me ask you this, whether you think that what is pleasant is necessarily beautiful. Or rather, does it seem that something can be pleasant but not in any way beautiful, such as a shrivelled date, which is pleasant to taste but is in fact the fruit in decay?’

‘It seems so.’

‘And do you agree too that what people find pleasant they tend to call beautiful, though in fact this is due to their inability to understand what it means for something to truly be in any way beautiful?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Then do you think that art that people generally consider pleasant might come to be called beautiful, though it is not in fact beautiful but merely pleasant?’

‘Indeed.’

‘And do people generally consider the art that we have banned from our city to be pleasant?’

M I R A N D A D A V I E S 53

‘Yes.’ ‘So it is possible at least that the creators of this art observe not the Form of beauty, but rather are experts in creating what is pleasant, and learn what is pleasant from what people generally find to be pleasant?’

‘Indeed.’

‘And a feeling of such unaccountable pleasure comes from satisfaction of the appetites of our souls’ baser parts, rather than those of our rational part?’

‘So it seems.’

‘And it is therefore possible that art is not beautiful but pleasant, and that ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when applied to art mean nothing more than ‘pleasant to most’ or ‘unpleasant to most’?’

‘Yes.’ ‘And if this is so, to reason about what makes good art good or bad art bad is to do nothing more than weigh up the opinions of the masses, and see what best fulfils their appetites and what fails to?’

‘Indeed.’

‘And how do we tend to judge whether art is good or bad? Is Homer not considered a creator of good art because many people take pleasure at his poetry, and Phrynichus a creator of bad art because few do? Do we not struggle to persuade ourselves to like art that many consider pleasant even if we think it unpleasant, because we believe it must be good?’

‘Yes.’

54 ‘A R T I S I N S P I R I N G , N O T C O R R U P T I N G ’ : A N A D D E N D U M TO REPUBLIC 10

‘So it seems that our conceptions of good or bad art are based on whether the majority think it pleasant or unpleasant.’

‘So it seems.’

‘And therefore contemplation of art turns us not towards the Form of beauty, but rather towards an understanding of the opinion of the masses as to what is pleasant, which we have shown anchors our souls in the realm of the perceptible, as we spend our time making calculations based on opinion about the perceptible realm?’

‘Yes.’ ‘Next, would you say that hymns to the gods are primarily art, or primarily acts of piety?’

‘They are primarily acts of piety.’

‘And is art that shows good people acting well, or the gods acting justly as they in fact must, primarily a tool for education or art?’

‘It is primarily a tool for education.’

‘And songs of praise for good deeds and the like? These are primarily produced to educate people and encourage good behaviour, rather than as works of art.’

‘Certainly.’

‘But tragedies and comedies and elaborate poems and sculptures showing men and gods in a shameful light? Are these primarily made for worship?’

‘How could they be?’

M I R A N D A D A V I E S 55

ion?’

‘Or indeed, do they educate people, bringing them closer to true opin‘Certainly not, for they show what is false or must be discouraged.’

‘But they are created as art, for the primary purpose of being art?’

‘Yes.’

‘So it seems that the difference between the art we have excluded from our city and art we have not is this, that we have allowed tools for education or worship that happen to have an artistic element to remain in our city, but not art that is created for its own sake. And we agree that this art must be excluded from our city, because contemplation of it weakens the best part of our soul and strengthens the worst part, and because it teaches us to cater to mass opinion and grounds us in the perceptible rather than encouraging the soul upwards on its path to contemplate the true nature of things?’

‘So it seems.’

BIBLIOGRAPHY M. F. Burnyeat, ‘Culture and Society in Plato‘s Republic’, Tanner Lectures on Human Values vol. 20 (1999) N. Pappas, ‘Plato’s Aesthetics’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2016) J. Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (Oxford, 1981)

WRITE FOR ALEXANDRIA MICHAELMAS 2018 SU B M I T AN A RT I C LE TO : al e xand r ia c l a s s ic s j o u r n a l @gm ail.co m

WE ARE

RECRUITING

A P P LY N OW TO JO IN OUR E D I TO R I A L T E AM