The Haley Classical Journal, Volume III Issue I

The Haley Classical Journal The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College

An Undergraduate Research Publication Affiliated with Hamilton College

Volume III | Issue I | February 2022 The Haley | Volume III | Issue I | February 2022

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College

Hamilton College Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Deputy Managing Editor Head Copy Editor Layout Editor Deputy Layout Editor Digital Outreach Coordinator

Jacob Hane, Hamilton College, 2022 Kayley Boddy, Hamilton College, 2022 Megan Mogauro, Hamilton College, 2024 Aidan Holmgren, Hamilton College, 2023 Eileen Cohn, Hamilton College, 2024 Alyssa Zamudio, Hamilton College, 2024 Laura Hester, Hamilton College, 2023

Peer Editors

Kayley Boddy, Hamilton College, 2022 A. M. Davis, Skidmore College, 2022 Melanie Geller, Hamilton College, 2022 Rose Griesgraber, Wellesley College, 2022 Jacob Hane, Hamilton College, 2022 Calyn Clare Liss, Hamilton College, 2022 Molly Osinoff, Hamilton College, 2022 Lydia Davis, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2023 Laura Hester, Hamilton College, 2023 Sammy Smock, Hamilton College, 2023 Eileen Cohn, Hamilton College, 2024 Emma Earls, Hamilton College, 2024 Emily Ly, Hamilton College, 2024 Megan Mogauro, Hamilton College, 2024 Julia Sinatra, Hamilton College, 2024 Alyssa Zamudio, Hamilton College, 2024 Rachael Araujo, Hamilton College, 2025 Carly Horton, Hamilton College, 2025 Alison Isko, Hamilton College, 2025

Copy Editors

Kayley Boddy, Hamilton College, 2022 Jacob Hane, Hamilton College, 2022 Sammy Smock, Hamilton College, 2023 Eileen Cohn, Hamilton College, 2024 Emily Ly, Hamilton College, 2024

Cover Art: Theo Golden, Hamilton College, 2020 | instagram, @tgoldenart Cover Image: Who’s Denilo | unsplash, @whoisdenilo

The Haley | Volume III | Issue I | February 2022

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College

Contents nota bene

The Philosopher Thecla: Plato, Methodius, and the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla Africana Receptions and their ‘Oedipal’ Love-Hate Relationship with the Classics Briseis and the Burden of Grief: On Her Famous Lament in the Iliad, Book 19 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Roman Spolia and the Practice of Islam in the Medieval Central Mediterranean Lucian’s Megilla: Transcending Time & Gender Achilles as the Master of Ceremonies: Obligations to the Living and the Dead in Iliad 18-24

Jacob Hane and Kayley Boddy

iv

Emily Aguilar

1

Basmah Ali

6

Anjali Aralikar 10 Niġel Klemenčič- 14 Puglisevich Jul LeCours 20 Amogha Lakshmi 23 Halepuram Sridhar 27

Call for Papers

Winter 2022 Issue Property of the Hamilton College Classics Club

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College

nota bene Χαίρετε Salveteque, In 2019, we – with the help and direction of our now-alumni founders – devised a plan for a new undergraduate classics journal to be named after Dr. Shelley P. Haley, whose work in the classics was wholly representative of the work we wished to do. We wished to form a publication that, above all else, would uplift and support the voices of underrepresented and underprivileged students in the field. Since our first issue in February of 2020, we have watched The Haley grow and evolve in so many ways, but our work is only beginning.

As a publication and as individuals, we first and foremost have the passionate encouragement and dedication of our authors, editors, readers, professors, family, and friends to thank for these last two years. Without you, our vision of The Haley would have remained only a vision.

To date, we’ve published work from students across three continents and from a wide array of backgrounds, experiences, and interests.

We’re surviving an ongoing pandemic. We’re finding our way through times of incredible political, social, and economic instability that have only further highlighted our need for a more inclusive field and more equitable world. We’re more committed now than ever to building a brighter future for ourselves, in and outside of this field.

This is our penultimate issue as Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of The Haley. As we write our senior theses and close out our time as undergraduates, we’re focusing our efforts on training the enthusiastic new members of our editorial board, preparing to pass on the torch to the next generation of scholars. We’re looking forward to you meeting them in the next issue’s nota bene. We’re so thankful to have had the chance to bring this journal to life, and we’re more than confident that this editorial board will push The Haley’s mission onwards and upwards, for many years to come. ex animo, Jacob Hane and Kayley Boddy

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College

The Philosopher Thecla

Plato, Methodius, and the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla Emily Aguilar (she/her), Bryn Mawr College, Class of 2022

Abstract

This paper examines the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla alongside Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus and Methodius’s Symposium. I argue that the Acts of Paul and Thecla adapts Platonic philosophy of love to show Thecla’s progression from ordinary woman to philosopher and Christian. The Symposium of Methodius presents Thecla as a fully realized philosopher and teacher. Taken together, Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, and Methodius’s Symposium present an opportunity for a young woman to follow the path of philosophy, self-control, and virtue.

In the second century apocryphal Christian text The Acts of Paul and Thecla, a young woman encounters the Apostle Paul and is forever changed by his teachings.1 Thecla, originally an ordinary young woman engaged to be married, survives two different attempted executions and becomes an established teacher who is able to baptize herself. Although she achieves these feats through Paul’s teachings and guidance, she eventually is able to stand independent of his care and teach others herself. Through her love for Paul and later love for God, Thecla follows a Platonic path to wisdom and surpasses the need for Paul. In this paper, I will compare the Acts of Paul and Thecla to Plato’s philosophy of love in the Phaedrus and Symposium, showing that each stage of Thecla’s relationship with Paul corresponds to a step on the path to wisdom in Plato’s philosophy. I will then compare Methodius’s Symposium to both the Platonic texts and the Acts of Paul and Thecla to show that after the Acts, Thecla was considered a respected philosopher with the ability to teach others. Taken together, these texts adapt Platonic philosophy to create a new path to wisdom and faith for Christian women.

It is first necessary to review the main concepts in Plato’s philosophy of love. Ferrari notes that what has most fascinated readers of Plato’s philosophy of love is “the bridge he constructs between love and philosophy.”2 In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates gives a speech on the benefits of a lover’s friendship. In this speech, he claims that the soul is immortal and has wings that enable it to fly up to the divine realm if the wings are in “perfect condition.”3 “Beauty, wisdom, goodness, and everything of the sort” nourish and strengthen the wings, enabling them to lift the soul to “where the gods all dwell.”4 This is where the soul can behold the divine Forms, which are “knowledge of what really is what it is.”5 However, “foulness and ugliness make the wings shrink and disappear.”6 Socrates likens the struggle to keep the wings in perfect condition when the soul is in love to the struggle of two different horses pulling a chariot: one horse is good, the other horse is bad, and the charioteer attempts to control them. The good horse is “a 1 J. D. McLarty, Thecla’s Devotion: Narrative, Emotion and Identity in the Acts of Paul and Thecla (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2018), 7.

2 G. R. F. Ferrari, “Platonic Love,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed.

Richard Kraut (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 248.

3 Plato, Phaedrus, 246b-c.

4 Ibid, 246d-e.

5 Ibid, 247d-e.

6 Ibid, 246d-e.

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lover of honor with modesty and self-control,” and easily responds to the charioteer.7 The bad horse ignores the charioteer’s whip and attempts to drag the chariot to “the pleasures of sex.”8 The charioteer must have control over the horses. This is because, according to Socrates, if a boy and his older male lover follow the “better elements” of the soul that lead one to philosophy over ambition and desire for sex, the lovers will enjoy a life of “bliss and shared understanding.”9 However, if the lovers ignore philosophy and consummate their love physically, they will have a weaker friendship than the pair that lives philosophically.10 Self-control and devotion to philosophy are essential in the Phaedrus.

In Plato’s Symposium, the priestess Diotima introduces Socrates to the “rites of love.”11 These rites begin with the love of one beautiful body, but, as the lover begins to realize that if he loves beauty, he must love beauty in all bodies, he becomes “a lover of all beautiful bodies.”12 Next, the lover realizes that souls are even more beautiful than bodies, and thinks “the beauty of bodies is a thing of no importance.”13 The lover then transitions to a love of the beauty of knowledge, and, after considering beauty in many “gloriously beautiful ideas and theories,” through philosophy, reaches the point where he can grasp the knowledge of the Form of Beauty itself.14 This true knowledge of Beauty is the end goal of Diotima’s staircase of love: the evolution from loving one body to knowing “just what it is to be beautiful.”15 This Beauty “neither comes to be nor passes away,” and “is always one in form,” and thus shares similarities with Paul and Thecla’s Christian God.16 Once the lover has encountered Beauty, he is able to “give birth not to images of virtue...but to true virtue,” and thus gains “the love of the gods.”17 According to Diotima, all people are pregnant; some are pregnant in body and thus turn to women and sex, and others are pregnant in soul and thus are able to bear “wisdom and the rest of virtue.”18 One who has fully encountered divine Beauty 7 Plato, Phaedrus, 253a.

8 Ibid, 253e-254a.

9 Ibid, 256a.

10 Ibid, 256b-d.

11 Plato, Symposium, 210a.

12 Ibid, 210a-b.

13 Ibid, 210b-c.

14 Ibid, 210c-e.

15 Ibid, 211c.

16 Ibid, 211a-b.

17 Ibid, 212a.

18 Ibid, 208e-209a.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College is able to give birth to the truest virtue. Diotima finishes her speech with the assertion that “if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.”19 Thecla’s relationship with Paul in The Acts of Paul and Thecla follows the sequence of the “rites” of love as explained by Diotima in Plato’s Symposium. Thecla first encounters Paul when she hears his “discourse of virginity” from her window.20 Although Thecla does not see Paul and only hears his speeches, her desire is physical and pointed towards him, and she does not “look away from the window.”21 She focuses her attention on the window because it is her link to the physical Paul. Her mother Theocila notices her attention, saying that Thecla looks out the window “as if upon some pleasant sight.”22 Later, when Paul is imprisoned, Thecla sees him in person for the first time and links her desire for his speeches with his physical form, kissing his bonds as “her faith increases.”23 When Paul is brought before the tribunal, Thecla is “riveted” to the place in which he sits.24 Thecla’s initial attraction to Paul’s words is associated with his body, making it erotic. This is further evidenced by the text’s similarities to descriptions of desire in Greek romance novels. Barrier compares Thecla’s sitting at the window to the heroine Callirhoe confined in her home in Chartion’s Callirhoe25 and Thecla’s kisses in the prison to the kisses of the lovers in Heliodorus’s Aethiopica.26 The erotic motifs are clearly intentional, but this attraction is not solely erotic.

Thecla follows the path prescribed by Diotima in Plato’s Symposium, the first step being to “love one body and beget beautiful ideas there.”27 Thecla loves Paul’s body as a conduit for the word of Christ. Lipsett notes that the desire in the prison scene is “asymmetrical” because the focus is on Thecla’s personal experience and how her desire has “dislocated her from her former identity.”28 The only mention of Paul’s experience is that he is “afraid of nothing, but trusting in God.”29 Paul assumes the role of the controlled, wise lover from Plato’s Phaedrus, leading Thecla “to follow the assigned regimen of philosophy,”30 which is, in this case, Christianity. Thecla’s physical attraction does not seem to be reciprocated, and Paul’s feelings are barely mentioned because they are unimportant for the individual journey of Thecla’s soul.

Thus, Thecla’s first encounters with Paul are her first steps into the Platonic rites of love.

Thecla’s vision of the Lord in the likeness of Paul’s body at her execution marks a transition of her love from love of Paul’s body to love of Paul’s soul. When she sees the vision, she “gazes upon him with great earnestness,” just as she did at the window 19 Plato, Symposium, 212b.

20 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 7.

21 Ibid, “οὐκ ἀπένευεν ἀπὸ τῆς θυρίδος” 22 Ibid, 8.

23 Ibid, 18.

24 Ibid, 20.

25 Jeremy W. Barrier, The Acts of Paul and Thecla: A Critical Edition and Commentary (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 88.

26 Barrier, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 115.

27 Plato, Symposium, 210a.

28 B. Diane Lipsett, Desiring Conversion: Hermes, Thecla, Aseneth (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010), 71.

29 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 18.

30 Plato, Phaedrus, 256a.

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and in the prison.31 However, the vision disappears, having “went up into heaven,” and Thecla is forced to face her execution alone.32 As the vision disappears, the body’s importance also disappears, which is represented by the failure of the fire to hurt Thecla’s body.

When Thecla climbs onto the burning pyre, God sends a thunderstorm to put out the fire. Barrier notes that Thecla’s salvation from fire by water foreshadows her eventual “submergence into water and salvation by fire”33 that will occur when she baptizes herself in the arena.34 The physical forces affecting Thecla’s body are in perfect balance, and she does not need to concern herself with them.

This represents Thecla’s transition from being concerned with the sensible, physical world and its elements to being concerned with the divine, intelligible realm. The next time Thecla sees Paul, she is prepared to renounce bodily temptation.

When Thecla arrives at the tomb where Paul and his followers are staying and sees Paul praying, for the first time in the narrative, she finally speaks. While in front of Paul, she cries out in prayer, “I praise you that you have saved me from the fire that I may see Paul again!”35 Barrier likens the prayers of Paul and Thecla to the vows of love exchanged by couples in ancient novels, arguing that the use of this trope portrays Paul and Thecla as “truly lovers of God.”36 Thecla immediately attempts to pledge her devotion to Paul, claiming that she will “follow him wherever he goes,” but she also promises that she will “cut her hair off.”37 Aubin and Lipsett both claim that Thecla’s offer to cut off her hair is an act of masculinization, but I would take this argument a step further.38 Thecla is prepared to renounce love of beautiful bodies, as seen in both her rejection of her own physical beauty and her statement that if Paul gives her the seal in Christ, “no temptation shall touch her.”39 However, Paul rejects her proposal, and asks her to “be patient” as he takes her into Antioch.40 When Thecla and Paul arrive in Antioch, a man named Alexander becomes “enamoured” with Thecla, attempts to bribe Paul for her, and assaults her in the street.41 In response, Thecla tears his cloak, pulls off his crown, and makes him “a laughing-stock.”42 Barrier argues that because Alexander’s crown is a sign of superiority, it threatens Thecla’s belief in God’s ultimate superiority.

When she knocks the crown off of Alexander’s head, she demonstrates that human superiority can easily be overpowered.43 Her action is not only a triumph over an individual symbol of human authority, but a triumph over all decorations of the body. Knowing that, as in Plato’s Symposium, “gaping after just one body” 31 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 21.

32 Ibid.

33 Barrier, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 126.

34 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 34.

35 Ibid, 24.

36 Barrier, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 132.

37 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 25.

38 Melissa Aubin, “Reversing Romance? The Acts of Thecla and the Ancient Novel,” in Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, ed. Ronald F. Hock, J. Bradley Chance, and Judith Perkins (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholar’s Press, 1998), 266. Lipsett, Desiring Conversion, 74.

39 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 25.

40 Ibid, 25-26.

41 Ibid, 26.

42 Ibid, 26.

43 Barrier, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 143.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College is something to be despised, Thecla also tears Alexander’s cloak, rejecting the idea that beautiful clothes can make a soul beautiful.44 In retaliation, Alexander brings Thecla before the governor, who commands that she be condemned to the wild beasts in the arena.

Paul is absent from the following part of the narrative. This second execution attempt is Thecla’s greatest trial, and one she must face alone.

Though Thecla faces a lioness, a bear, and a lion, the lioness defends her from the bear and lion, and Thecla simply stands and prays.45 When she sees a pool of water, she announces, “In the name of Jesus Christ I baptize myself on my last day.”46 Thecla throws herself into the water, and a flash of lightning and cloud of fire surround her so that she can neither be seen nor harmed.

Barrier explains that Thecla’s self-baptism closely follows the typical process of baptism for the time period, as she prays before stepping into the water naked, but diverts from the traditional process in one key way: there is no presbyter to baptize her.47 Barrier emphasizes Thecla’s agency in this process, explaining, “it is not God who does the baptizing, but rather after Thecla baptizes herself God provides several evidences that God does approve of these events.”48 Baptizing herself is an important step on Thecla’s individual path towards God. Although Paul led her through the beginning stages of her journey, she must complete the last step towards God on her own. After Thecla has survived every danger in the arena, she professes her faith, publicly proclaiming: “I am a servant of the living God...For he alone is the goal of salvation and the basis of immortal life.”49 As Thecla faces increasing dangers, she understands the salvation of her God, and baptizes herself in one moment of true understanding. She moves through the steps in the Platonic rites of love, and just as the Platonic lover finally catches a glimpse of true Beauty, Thecla finds the true goal of her desire: God. After Thecla’s baptism, she knows and understands God and is prepared to spread her faith.

Thecla’s last interaction with Paul in the Acts is when she comes to him in Myra, dressed in a man’s cloak and surrounded by young people. Thecla tells Paul that she has been baptized and that she is going to Iconium, and Paul responds, “Go, and teach the word of God.”50 Aubin argues that this final scene represents Paul’s rejection of Thecla because he “still apprehends her as a woman subject to temptation.”51 However, there is no evidence that Paul’s instruction to go and teach is a rejection; while Paul initially considers that Thecla is suffering from “some new temptation,” after she tells him that she has received baptism, he “greatly wonders.”52 The word used here is θαυμάζω, which means “wondering” or “marveling with admiration,” and does not have explicitly negative connotations. Paul does not send Thecla away out of rejection, but rather because he has witnessed her proclamation of faith and knows that she is now able to teach the word of God 44 Plato, Symposium, 210b.

45 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 33.

46 Ibid, 34.

47 Barrier, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 163.

48 Ibid, 164.

49 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 37.

50 Ibid, 40-41.

51 Aubin, “Reversing Romance?” 271.

52 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 40-41.

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without his assistance. Because she has been baptized and gained some of God’s knowledge, Thecla is now able to “give birth to true virtue,” as in Plato’s Symposium. She is able to begin her own ministry and lead others to God. Thecla leaves Paul and does not seek him again, replacing her desire for him with a desire for God. Thecla’s relationship with Paul follows the same steps to God as the steps to Beauty in Plato’s Symposium. She moves from initially being attracted to Paul’s body at her window and in the prison, to renouncing her love for bodies after her vision of the Lord in Paul’s body. She eventually encounters and understands God in her trials and baptism in the arena. The Acts of Paul and Thecla takes the Platonic path to Beauty and adapts it for a young Christian woman seeking God. However, this text is not the only one that presents Thecla’s story as part of a Platonic journey. Similarly, Methodius’s Symposium, written in the late third century, presents Thecla as a fully realized philosopher and Christian.

Methodius’s Symposium is modeled after Plato’s Symposium. While Plato’s Symposium is a compilation of speeches by men praising Love, Methodius’s Symposium is a compilation of speeches by women discussing chastity, marriage, and virginity.

Thecla gives a speech in praise of virginity, but before she begins speaking, she is introduced by Arete, who proclaims, “We know that you are second to none in your grasp of philosophy and universal culture.”53 Thecla is so highly regarded because, according to Arete, she was “instructed in divine and evangelical doctrine

by Paul himself.”54 Arete’s statement leads the reader to recall the story of Thecla’s origins in The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Early readers of the Acts may not have interpreted Paul’s final instruction to “Go, and teach the word of God,” as a rejection as Aubin does.55 Instead, it seems Methodius interpreted Paul’s relationship with Thecla as an instructional one that eventually enabled Thecla to speak and teach herself, not merely as an average teacher, or even a “female apostle” as Barrier calls her,56 but as “second to none” in knowledge and wisdom.

In her speech, Thecla calls virginity παρθενία and argues it is “the most sublime and blessed way of life.”57 She explains that because παρθενία becomes παρθεία58 with the changing of one letter, “virginity alone makes divine those who possess her.”59 Thecla describes virgins as those who have been “initiated into her (παρθενία) pure mysteries.”60 She uses the same language of mystery religions that Diotima uses in Plato’s Symposium to describe those who have completed the rites of love. The Platonic references continue in her next sentence, “the wings of the soul, impregnated with it (παρθενία), truly become firmer and lighter, accustomed daily to fly from the interests of men.”61 This meta53 Methodius, Symposium, Logos 8.

54 Ibid.

55 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 41. Aubin, “Reversing Romance?” 271.

56 Barrier, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 173.

57 Methodius, Symposium, Logos 8.1.

58 Παρθεία is not a word that appears in Greek, but its apparent meaning of “beside the divine” seems to fit with Thecla’s argument. Herbert Musurillo, St. Methodius: The Symposium: A Treatise on Chastity (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1958), 219.

59 Methodius, Symposium, Logos 8.1.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College phor combines two metaphors from the Phaedrus and Symposium.

Thecla states that παρθενία enables the soul’s wings to fly up and away from the “interests of men,” just as “beauty, wisdom, and goodness” strengthen the wings of the soul to fly up to the divine realm in the Phaedrus.62 Furthermore, the wings are “impregnated” with παρθενία, just as one can be pregnant in soul and give birth to virtue in Plato’s Symposium.63 Thecla expands on these metaphors throughout her speech, referring to the idea of παρθενία (virginity) giving one wings to show that those who embrace virginity are able to “see from afar things that no mortal has gazed upon.”64 Thus, virgins “care nothing for the things which the world thinks is good,” and are able to ignore physical pain.65 This, Thecla explains, is why they are able to ignore potential pain if their bodies are “condemned and punished by fire or the beasts,”66 calling to mind Thecla’s own trials in The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Methodius was familiar with The Acts of Paul and Thecla, in which Thecla survived both an attempted burning and mauling.67 Thecla uses her own experiences to prove that a virgin does not care for “the things of that world” because she is already “enjoying the company of those who are in heaven in their thoughts and their intense longing.”68 Thecla characterizes those in heaven as having both “thoughts” and “intense longing,” describing them as possessing a combination of philosophic contemplation and desire for God, merging the ideas that both the lover-philosopher in Plato and the devout Christian in Early Christian texts will receive the reward of a beautiful afterlife after death. In heaven, one is able to behold true Forms of “Justice itself, Love itself,” and others, just as one is able to do if one’s soul is able to fly to the place beyond heaven in Plato’s Phaedrus.69 Thecla’s defense of virginity incorporates Platonic ideas about the value of philosophy and self-control, combining them with her own experiences to demonstrate that those who devote themselves to virginity devote themselves to it “for the purification and perfection of the soul.”70 Thecla’s speech in Methodius’s Symposium demonstrates that she was considered an established philosopher and teacher in her own right one hundred years after the completion of The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Methodius’s Symposium also draws out and expands on the Platonic undercurrents in Thecla’s original story. It is clear that Thecla refers back to Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium multiple times in her speech on virginity, but her knowledge is credited to Paul in Arete’s introduction before her speech. Thecla uses Platonic language she presumably learned from Paul, thus completing their initial relationship of teacher and student, or, as in The Acts of Paul and Thecla, their relationship of lover-teacher and lover-student. Just as the older lover is meant to lead the younger lover to philosophy in Plato’s Phaedrus, Methodius’s Symposium implies that Paul has successfully fulfilled the role of the Platonic lover, and that now it is Thecla’s turn to teach the virtues of virgin-

ity and Christianity.

Taken together, Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, and Methodius’s Symposium present an opportunity for a young woman to follow the path of philosophy, self-control, and virtue. By recognizing the Platonic elements in The Acts of Paul and Thecla and noting their later application in Methodius’s Symposium, we can see that The Acts is not simply a Christian version of an ancient romance novel, but a text that invites the reader to follow Thecla’s path to holiness. Thecla’s story provides a roadmap for the reader to go from loving beautiful bodies to becoming a respected teacher and devoted follower of Christ, similar to the path presented in Plato’s Symposium. The Acts adapts these ideas for a Christian age, and not solely male audience. If Plato’s texts were mostly restricted to the male elite of Athens, The Acts of Paul and Thecla is its own kind of Platonic gospel, spreading ideas to a wider audience and offering a new perspective and opportunity to its readers.

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62 Plato, Phaedrus, 246d-e.

63 Plato, Symposium, 208e-209a.

64 Methodius, Symposium, Logos 8.2.

65 Ibid.

66 Ibid.

67 The Acts of Paul and Thecla, 21-22, 27-38.

68 Methodius, Symposium, Logos 8.2.

69 Ibid.

The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College Works Cited The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Translated by J. K. Elliot. In Women in Early Christianity: Translations from Greek Texts, edited by Patricia Cox Miller, 155-166. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005.

Aubin, Melissa. “Reversing Romance? The Acts of Thecla and the Ancient Novel.” In Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, edited by Ronald H. Hock, J. Bradley Chance, and Judith Perkins, 257-272. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1998.

Barrier, Jeremy W. The Acts of Paul and Thecla: A Critical Introduction and Commentary. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009.

Ferrari, G. R. F. “Platonic Love.” In The Cambridge Companion to Plato, edited by Richard Kraut, 248-276. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Lipsett, B. Diane. Desiring Conversion: Hermes, Thecla, Aseneth.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

McLarty, J. D. Thecla’s Devotion: Narrative, Emotion and Identity in the Acts of Paul and Thecla. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2018.

Methodius. Symposium. Translated by Herbert Musurillo. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1958.

Musurillo, Herbert. St. Methodius: The Symposium: A Treatise on Chastity. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1958.

Plato. Phaedrus. Translated by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. In Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, 506-557. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.

———. Symposium. Translated by Alexander Nehemas and Paul Woodruff. In Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, 457-505. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College

Africana Receptions and their ‘Oedipal’ Love-Hate Relationship with the Classics Basmah Ali (she/her), University of Warwick, Class of 2022

Abstract

Post-colonial receptions of Classical texts occupy a space weighted by the historical burden of slavery whilst using classics as a host to journey to the threshold of wider society, rather than remaining at the fringes of the community. The use of Classical archetypes to (re)construct an identity challenges the historical appropriation of the classics as a tool to justify western imperialist fantasies through claiming the Classics as a universal inheritance. Morrison’s work offers a scathing critique of the representation of classics as a solely white inheritance and tradition and advocates profusely for the recognition of an African intellectual tradition, its impact, and its similarity to the classics. Ellison’s ‘invisible man,’ however, displays an Oedipali parallel in which the unnamed narrator is seeking for a place in society, an identity, and recognition in a hostile world through the use of myth and archetypes. Ellison’s Invisible Manii is Oedipal in its exploration of questions of social status.

Sophocles’ play holds a number of possibilities for Oedipus’ heritage once it is established that he is not the legitimate son of Polybus and Merope — that he is a foundling, the descendent of slaves or even of non-human parents.1 Oedipus holds a precarious position where he is simultaneously an ‘insider’ as a naturalized citizen and legitimate heir of Thebes and an ‘outsider’ through the doubt over his parents and his unspeakable deeds which make him a pariah.2 For Oedipus, gaining his status as a naturalized citizen of Thebes was a result of his deeds and service to the city rather than his heritage. IM holds a similar position, cursed by the history of slavery whilst playing the part of a second-class citizen, he resorts to service and meekness to allow for his integration into the wider white American circles. The battle royal scenes show this effectively. IM is only concerned with the speech he must deliver to the rowdy, salacious, and crude “big shots.”3 For IM, being ‘seen’ by these white men at the beginning of his journey was the gateway to a greater position in society and a sense of self. However, it is clear through the Southern battle royal’s enactment of racial rituals and taboos that the “bigshots” cannot see IM as anything other than his race. They treat both him and the other Black men like animals — “crowded together” like cattle, pitted against each other in a brutal boxing match till they are bloodied and bruised.4 Ellison, through the vivid animal imagery, underscores that when one sex or race dehumanizes another and reduces them to animals, they are ironically disparaged themselves.5 The closed boxing ring and the forced battle between the Black teenagers is symbolic of the social confinement of Black citizens in America. Much of the i By Oedipal, I refer to the characterisation of Oedipus as a man without a home and one who is continuously searching for an identity. The use of the term “Oedipal” in this paper is divorced from its usage in Sigmund Freud’s concept of the “Oedipus complex.” ii Subsequently I will refer to the novel as IM, with the unitalicized IM referring to the unnamed narrator.

1 Ormand, 132-33; Dugdale, 8-13; For non-human parents see Sophocles Oedipus The King: Tyche 1080; Mount Cithaeron 1089-91, 1451-54; Bacchus and Nymphs 1105-9 amongst others.

2 Dugdale, 14.

3 Ellison, Invisible Man, 17.

4 Ibid, 18.

5 German, 394.

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rhetorical and political energy of the white community was used

by Ellison to justify the dehumanization and objectification of the Black community. IM adopts these imposed positions — describing himself as a “ginger cookie,” “jack in the box,” and “dishrag,” — in a perpetual quest of self-discovery.6 The novel places ostensible emphasis on the refusal of white Americans to ‘see’ Black Americans.7 However, the issue of sight goes two ways — the invisible man must not only be seen, but he must also see his position and status in society and its root causes.

Vision is the informing metaphor of race relations in America, and the book is a continual development of this, where IM first adopts the views and outlook of the white men but ultimately realizes this does not provide him with any greater social position.8 In fact, white Americans “see only [IM’s] surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination — indeed, everything and anything except [IM].”9 Like Oedipus, who is deprived of sight only to attain a characteristic of wisdom and insight, IM is able to discern the idiocy of adhering to society’s opinion only after losing his physical sight for it to be replaced by an abstract one: blurred but with ever increasing precision.10 IM ultimately gains full realization, illumined underground by artificial light, but does not progress beyond that state. His newfound sight of his place in society and his clear vision of the obstacles and veils which separate him from white American society do not empower him more than any other man — it casts light on the dire position of Black men across America.

Various classical myths and archetypes in IM offer a means to explore the struggle for Black Americans to establish an identity within the United States. IM is at once running towards an identity, just out of grasp, whilst avoiding an imposed identity which 6 Ellison, Invisible Man, 18, 21, 23; He does this throughout the book: changing his name upon entering the Brotherhood, and unwittingly becoming Rinehart when wearing sunglasses.

7 “I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone” invisible only “because people refuse to see me”; Ellison, Invisible Man, 3.

8 Millichap, 130.

9 Ellison, Invisible Man, 1.

10 Shields, 69.; Turner, 260.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College chases him.11 Myth has a universal teaching quality — delving into matters of morality, conduct, and virtues, and Ellison uses mythological paradigms to understand “the structure of American society [and what] prevented Negroes from throwing up effective leaders.”12 The objective stance which myth provides the reader allows them to view the problem of race and the plight of African Americans with a newfound sense of detachment and clarity. He employs the characters of Ulysses and Brer Rabbit, inserting parallel characteristics of the trickster archetype and injecting episodes of the Odyssey into the narrative of the novel, thus weaving them into the imagery of the text.13 The journeys of Odysseus and IM are comparative — both face a multitude of obstacles in their way, and both have the same ultimate aim: to establish an identity.14 For Odysseus, he is characterized by the ways he escapes enemies and overcomes hardships: his intelligence in passing the Sirens, his cunning in escaping the cave of Polyphemus, and his military prowess and skill in battling Penelope’s suitors.15 However, unlike IM, he begins with a semblance of an identity in his role as a hero and warrior.

IM, on the other hand, does not share the same good fortune.

He begins with no idea of who he is, and cannot navigate each circumstance that faces him with nuanced understanding. Instead, he adopts the values and attitudes projected by the characters which surround him in an attempt to forge a sense of self and belonging.

He pursues the “world in which you wore your Sunday clothes every day,” whilst battling the societal ignorance of an identity tainted by the position of a second-class citizen, where his white counterparts only see his Blackness, not him.16 When the narrator remembers the statue of his college’s founder, he describes him as “the cold Father symbol, his hands outstretched in the breath-taking gesture of lifting a veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave… [IM is] unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted or lowered more firmly in place; whether [he is] witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding.”17 This reflection strikes at the heart of the issue of reconciling an American and African identity, as well as escaping the inferior status thrust upon them by the haunting history of slavery in American society. For Ellison, the problem lies in IM’s reliance on others to provide him an identity. He relies on the “father symbol,” the white man, to lift the veil and allow him to break away from slavery, unequal rights, his undistinguished reputation, and provide him an education. Ironically, as he tries to escape his position he regresses, becoming a “Sambo” after the violent battle royal and grovelling for coins on a torturous electric rug, all the while allowing himself to be blindfolded, to have his vision restricted and the veil pulled down to keep it firmly in place.18 IM doesn’t fit into the 11 Wilner, 243.

12 Finley, 284; Ellison and Callahan, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: A Casebook, 328; Rankine, 126.

13 “…shot forward with sudden acceleration into a wet blast of black emptiness” is an allusion to the unleashing of Aeolus’ winds which throw Odysseus off course.; Ellison, Invisible Man, 230.

14 Dimock Jr, 52.

15 Homer, The Odyssey 12, 9, 21-22.

16 Ellison, Shadow and Act, 6.

17 Ellison, Invisible Man, 36.

18 Wilner, 244.

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classic heroic archetype of like Odysseus or Brer Rabbit. Instead, he forms his own heroic image as he contradicts all tenets of the hero of tradition — he is an anti-hero.19 His fundamental search for a defined place as a man and an essential role as an individual in society is what lies at the heart of his revulsion of his grandfather’s message of deceit. If disguise is the method by which he must survive, it is a negation of all identities, destroying his reality and his end goal of a stable, unchanging, and authoritative place in society.20 Unlike Odysseus, he is unable to switch between being somebody and “nobody” at will. The strategy of deception which IM’s grandfather leaves as a legacy is not one which IM is ever able to fulfill. He ultimately finds himself with understanding of who he is and his invisibility but is unable to live and to interact in mainstream society as his grandfather did. He remains in the lambent radiance of the artificial lights underground, deceiving no one and acknowledging the precarious position Black Americans hold. Myth and the trickster archetype show warring ideals and the struggle to establish an identity; Ellison’s work is not a question of a love-hate relationship with classical references, instead he uses the classics as a means to express his understanding of the displacement of the Black community and their lack of belonging in America.

The simultaneous use of both Classical and African mythology and folklore demonstrates the shared experience of humanity and pushes back against the idea of the absence of an African intellectual tradition. Instead of the Oedipal search for a single true identity, the use of established symbols and characters allow the authors to equivocate the two and show they are not mutually exclusive. Ellison’s use of European and African myth and his combination of the two is borne from his desire to forge connections; showing that the universal experience of humanity does not differ due to race.21 Instead, Ellison considers both African folklore and Classical literature to be part of the same inheritance to humanity and therefore to African Americans. Morrison takes a similar approach where Greek tragedy is used “because it is masterly — not because the civilization that is its referent was flawless or superior to all others,” and merges it with African folkloric parallels.22 Both works invoke the experience of Black people with enduring humanistic motifs present throughout classical literature.23 Morrison’s use of myth and folklore show how the issues of rape, murder, and infanticide remain pertinent due to its relevance across space and time. She recognizes the “Ulysses theme, the leaving home” and the wandering experience as a process through which the self is realised.24 To reject either Western or African heritage of literature and myth is to reject the African American identity which is a fusion of the two.25 Morrison confronts us with the horrors of the human experience, the experiences which define us, and highlights the similarities and the reliance of the Western classical tradition on African contributions. In Beloved, the ghost can 19 Wright, 106; McConnell, 34.

20 Wilner, 246-247.

21 Ellison, Invisible Man, xl.

22 Morrison, 125.

23 Rankine, 93.

24 Taylor-Guthrie, 26.; Rankine, 106.

25 Ibid, 110.

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be read as a fury, a chthonic demon of vengeance, which recalls the Yoruban concept of the abiku, the wandering spirit of a dead young child. Through her use of classical narratives, Morrison demonstrates that she is able to draw from the classical world yet write novels that are grounded in the Black experience.26 For her, the classical world is entrenched in a Black aesthetic, noting its reliance on Egyptian civilization. She leans on previous research on African contributions to the Western classical tradition27 and utilizes literary tragic features of both.28 Ellison also acknowledges the input of Africa into the Western canon. The ‘Optic White’ paint of Liberty Paints is created through the marginalization of Blackness — it is an astute parable of the production of whiteness in society and its place in history.29 Kimbro boasts of the all-American purity of the paint and its ability to whitewash even a piece of coal, whilst ignoring the reliance of its whiteness on the black drops in the paint and the Black worker, Brockway, who is the sole arbiter of the paint and its method of creation. Ellison adds an insightful similarity of Brockway to the Black folk hero Shine, the only Black man on the Titanic, who steadfastly refuses to aid anyone besides himself. His name, Shine, derives from two racial traditions — the subjectivity of Black men to the profession of shoe shining, keeping them at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy, and the effort to “shine on” — adding oils and promenades to sleek their hair prior to the 1960s civil rights movement which advocated the wearing of natural Afro hair styles.30 Like Shine, Brockway refuses to allow college-educated men to help him under the suspicion they want to usurp his job, and ends up in a fight which results in the narrator injuring himself. He shows how the disunity within the Black community plays just as pivotal a role as the white man’s refusal to credit the Black efforts which allow for progress to be made. The use of myth and folklore allows for a subtle commentary on the shared experience of man, and the central role played by Africa and its continual neglect in the creation of a cultural and literary tradition.

For Morrison, the classical tradition itself is not without unsubstantiated prominence. She holds a love for the classics and the great literature that arises from the tradition but has a dire hatred for the way it is used and what it has come to represent.

Much of her work is centered around the problematic nature of the Western canon: its exclusion of African authors and blindness towards their contribution to history and literature. Morrison’s allusions to Ovid’s Metamorphoses are often an acknowledgement of both Greco-Roman and Western or North African cultural forms, connecting the two and bringing African contributions to the Greco-Roman tradition to light.31 Her description of Ajax in

Sula is an unusual layering of colours: first black is scraped away to reveal gold, then white alabaster, and finally the “black of warm loam.”32 Ajax becomes representative of a palimpsest of cultures and traditions, metamorphosing from one to the other. Through the revelation of black beneath the white alabaster, Morrison demonstrates the vital African influences on classical tradition which have been shrewdly overlooked and eventually whitened by the dominant culture and worldview.33 The materials Morrison chooses to adorn the blackness and whiteness of Ajax’s body provide an interesting insight into this idea. The “loam” black of the center is the fertile origin of civilization — an allusion to the debt the Greco-Roman world owes Egypt as its vital generative source. The white alabaster, ideal for carving, is molded into a new outlook which disregards the debt and reliance on African contributions to the ‘white’ tradition of classics. However, it is also easy to “tap away” at the façade and uncover what lies beneath: it is simply a matter of perseverance.34 The imagery mirrors the process of Morrison’s work to insist on African presence in the classical tradition and encouraging the constant re-evaluation of the canon to include African authors not as a separate category of ‘Black classicism’ or ‘classica africana’ which enforces the pre-existing notion of the whiteness of classics and the canon, but to integrate them to provide due representation and appreciation of African texts.35 Africana receptions of the classics are much more complex and nuanced than the title’s ‘love-hate relationship’ suggests. The classics are used as a tool and means through which authors are able to express the plight of African Americans in finding their place in society. It allows them to develop an identity which reconciles the warring African and American aspects, whilst unveiling the problematic representation of the Western canon and classics as a product of solely white contributors. Africana receptions are a method to restore Africa to the classical tradition through the use of Greco-Roman texts themselves. Analyzing and adapting the archetypes, myths and folklore which form the backbone of literary culture and values allow for authors to create their own space within this domain. It allows them to construct an identity by bringing Africa into correspondence with the Western classical tradition.

32 Morrison, Sula, 135.

33 Roynon, 4.

34 Morrison, Sula, 135. The layering seen in Ajax is also conceived in Ellison’s description of the “Afro-Anglo-Saxon contour” of Tod Clifton’s cheek; Ellison, Invisible Man, 363.

35 Roynon, 14.

26 Walters, 110-113.

27 Bernal; However, Morrison’s interest in the classical tradition and its ‘Africanness’ is evident prior to the publication of Bernal’s Black Athena: See Roynon.

28 The book’s dedication to “sixty million and more” can be compared to the tragic epilogue of Oresteia’s refrain; the division of Morrison’s work into a trilogy with Beloved followed by Jazz and Paradise resembles that of traditional tragedy; Although Morrison disavowed the comparison, a link has been made by Haley (1995) between Sethe and Medea on the basis of infanticide; The motif of the house which appears to Denver “as a person rather than a structure” and its parallel with the motif of the house in the Oresteia.

29 Mullen, 74.

30 Johnson, 23-24.

31 Roynon, 2.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College Works Cited Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic roots of Classical Civilisation Volume I: The Fabrication of Ancient Greece 1785-1985. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2020.

Dugdale, Eric. “Who Named Me? Identity And Status In Sophocles’ ‘Oedipus Tyrannus.’” The American Journal of Philology 136, no. 3 (2015): 421-445.

Ellison, Ralph, and John F. Callahan. Invisible Man. London: Penguin Books, 2016.

———. Shadow and Act. New York: Vintage Books, 1972.

Ellison, Ralph and John F. Callahan. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: A Casebook. Cary: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Finley, M. “Myth, Memory, and History.” History and Theory 4, no. 3 (1965): 281-302.

G. E. Dimock, Jr. “The Name of Odysseus.” The Hudson Review 9, no. 1 (1956): 52-70.

German, N. “Imagery in the “Battle Royal” Chapter Of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man” CLA Journal 31, no. 4 (1998): 394-399.

Haley, Shelley P. “Self-Definition, Community and Resistance: Euripides’ Medea and Toni Morrison’s Beloved.” Thamyris 2, no. 2 (1995): 177–206.

Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by E. V. Rieu. London: Penguin Group, 1991.

Johnson, E. “Shine: A Black American Folk Hero.” The Langston Hughes Review 1 no. 2 (1982): 23-26.

McConnell, J. “Invisible Odysseus and the Cyclops: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” In Black Odysseys: The Homeric Odyssey in the African Diaspora Since 1939. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2013.

Millichap, J. “Fiction, Photography, and the Cultural Construction of Racial Identity in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” South Atlantic Review 76, no. 4 (2011): 129-142.

Morrison, Toni. “Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature.” Michigan Quarterly Review 28, no. 1 (1988).

———. Sula. London: Chatto & Windus, (1993).

Mullen, H. “Optic White: Blackness and the Production of Whiteness.” Diacritics 24, no. 2 (1994).

Ormand, Kirk. Exchange and the Maiden: Marriage in Sophoclean Tragedy. Austin: University of Texas Press, (1999).

Rankine, P. Ulysses in Black: Ralph Ellison, Classicism, And African American Literature. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, (2006).

Roynon, T. The Africanness of classicism in the work of Toni Morrison in African Athena: New Agendas. Edited by D. Orrells, G. K. Bhambra, and T. Roynon. Oxford Scholarship Online, (2012).

Shields, M. “Sight and Blindness Imagery in the Oedipus Coloneus.” Phoenix 15, no. 2 (1961).

Sophocles, Oedipus The King. Translated by D. Grene. London: University of Chicago Press, (1942).

Taylor-Guthrie, Danille K. Conversations with Toni Morrison.

Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, (1994).

Turner, D. “Sight in Invisible Man.” CLA Journal 13, no. 3 (1970).

Walters, T. African American Literature and the Classicist Tradition: Black Women Writers from Wheatley to Morrison.

New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Wilner, E. “The Invisible Black Thread: Identity and Nonentity in Invisible Man. CLA Journal 13, no. 3 (1970).

Wright, John S. Shadowing Ralph Ellison. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006.

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Briseis and the Burden of Grief On Her Famous Lament in the Iliad, Book 19

Anjali Aralikar (she/her), Wellesley College, Class of 2023

Abstract

The Iliad revolves around grief. Of all the reactions to it over the course of the narrative (such as rage, famously), it is the women in the poem who explicitly vocalize grief through ritual lament. Though many of these laments concentrate in the epic’s final book during the funeral for Hector (voiced by his wife, Andromache, for example), one of the first and most important laments occurs in Book 19 from Briseis, Achilles’ enslaved concubine, as she mourns Patroclus, Achilles’ dearest companion who was murdered by Hector while dressed in Achilles’ armor in Book 16. Her often overlooked cathartic reaction to Patroclus’ body evokes the memory of her own slaughtered family and her lost livelihood, allowing her lament to embody a dual purpose: performing her ritual duty to grieve for Patroclus and expressing her grief for her family and herself. This lamentation articulates the fate of the other captive women in the Iliad while also foreshadowing a grim future for the Trojan women. As this paper argues, giving Briseis’ lament its due attention and reading it in conjunction with the poem’s other laments reveals the Iliad’s true extent of and message about the experience of grief.

In Homer’s Iliad, Briseis, Achilles’ enslaved concubine, embodies a critical role within the poem’s narrative and thematic structure.1 As one of the only mortal women with a speaking role, her mournful lamentation for Patroclus in Book 19 — the only occasion where she voices her emotions — offers a rare glimpse into her soul.2 This speech is cathartic for Briseis. It marks a waterfall of emotions which she, as a woman who has lost her social standing, would not otherwise express aloud, especially not in the company of her Myrmidon enslavers. Her γόος (lamentation) becomes a double lamentation — for the loss of Patroclus as well as for the loss of her family and livelihood — tragically articulating the shared fate of captive women.3 Briseis’ anguished reaction to Patroclus’ body evokes the memory of her family’s slaughter. As Briseis approaches Patroclus, Homer describes his body as “δεδαϊγμένον ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ” (cleaved by sharp bronze, line 19.283). Briseis repeats this phrase in her lament to describe her murdered husband (“ἄνδρα μὲν ᾧ ἔδοσάν με πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ/ εἶδον πρὸ πτόλιος δεδαϊγμένον ὀξέϊ 1 All translations provided in this paper are my own. Special thanks to Sarah Gonzalez for her helpful advice and guidance during my editing process.

2 The primary text and passage I refer to in this paper is the Iliad, lines 19.282302, unless otherwise noted. I refer to the text’s author as “Homer” in the sense that he likely codified the narrative and, as a result, is credited for this in antiquity.

3 Double lamentation/mourning alludes to the notion of “double consciousness” in female speech. For an explanation of the double consciousness in Greek literature, see John J. Winkler, “Double Consciousness in Sappho’s Lyrics,” The Constraints of Desire (New York: Routledge, 1990). The phrase “double consciousness” refers to a woman’s ability to passively enter the patriarchal spheres of society and speak its language, while also recognizing and implicitly vocalizing her own alienation from it. While Homer is (quite plausibly) a male author writing with his male perspective, he still encodes the women in his narratives with this speech pattern to a certain extent (compared to that of Sappho), given the way many of these female characters display an awareness of this system of power. The word “γερας” communicates this status within the Iliad and in other works which address the fate of women in war. For further reference, see Claude Levi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, trans. James Harle Bell, John Richard Von Sturmer, and Rodney Neeham (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1969). for a discussion on the exchange of women in literature. For an application of this theory to the phenomenon of captive women in the Greek canon, see Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, Anxiety Veiled: Euripides and the Traffic in Women (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).

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χαλκῷ,” line 19.292).4 Only eight lines of poetry stand between the phrase’s two occurrences in this passage.5 This proximity draws an undeniable connection between the two men, implying that Briseis sees her dead husband when she looks upon Patroclus’ body. After she completes the physical acts of Greek female ritual lamentation, having torn at her breasts (στήθεά), throat (δειρὴν), and cheeks (πρόσωπα), the association between the bodies causes Briseis to delve deeper into her grief (line 19.285).6 The poet places “δεδαϊγμένον ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ” at an emphatic location in the lament. The phrase signals the murder of her husband, followed immediately by the deaths of her brothers (“τρεῖς τε κασιγνήτους, τούς μοι μία γείνατο μήτηρ,/ κηδείους, οἳ πάντες ὀλέθριον ἦμαρ ἐπέσπον”), both instances at the hands of Achilles (lines 19.2934).7 The rapid deaths of these men symbolize the destruction of her city and, in turn, the loss of her aristocratic status and her body’s protection.8 Briseis is defenseless and alone. By remembering her murdered family, Briseis’ lamentation takes on two meanings, embodying both her grief for Patroclus and her grief for the loss of her livelihood.

Briseis’ double lamentation results from the forced suppression of her grief. Patroclus himself forbade her to mourn when 4 ‘I saw my husband, to whom my father and lady mother gave me, cleaved by sharp bronze in front of the city.’

5 The only other occurrence of “δεδαϊγμένον ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ” is in Book 18, describing dead bodies on a bier (line 18.236).

6 “χερσὶ δ᾽ ἄμυσσε/στήθεά τ᾽ ἠδ᾽ ἁπαλὴν δειρὴν ἰδὲ καλὰ πρόσωπα” (and she tore her breasts and tender throat and lovely cheeks with her hands). See Karol Zielinski, “Women as Victims of War in Homer’s Oral Poetics,” Humanities 8, no.

3 (2019): 141, who describes the female role in traditional Greek ritual funerals. These gestures are important because they compromise a woman’s sexual attractiveness and “demonstrate that [the woman has] been deprived of a [male] defender.”

7 ‘[I saw] three beloved brothers, whom my one mother bore, [who] all fell on that destructive day.’

8 Here, the loss of Briseis’ aristocratic status relates to the loss of her male family members. Though there are tasks for enslaved women that are class-coded (i.e., weaving and spinning), her social status is nevertheless diminished because her former class cannot be regained in captivity without the help of a free and living male relation. For further reference, Rabinowitz delves into this theme in her work on Greek Tragedy, see Nancy Rabinowitz, Greek Tragedy (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College Achilles captured and enslaved her, as she reveals: “οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδέ μ᾽ ἔασκες, ὅτ᾽ ἄνδρ᾽ ἐμὸν ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεὺς/ ἔκτεινεν, πέρσεν δὲ πόλιν θείοιο Μύνητος,/ κλαίειν,” (lines 19.295-7).9 Mourning plays an important role in the culture of the Iliad and in Ancient Greece. As the sole surviving female member of her family, it was Briseis’ duty to lead the lament and ritual practices.10 In denying her the ability to complete this ritual, Patroclus prohibits Briseis from properly grieving for her family. After Patroclus’ death, Briseis physically lacerates her body and leads the γόος (line 19.284).

In this way, Patroclus’ body becomes a physical symbol and reminder of her husband’s body, allowing her to step into the role of Patroclus’ nearest kinswoman — the female relative who traditionally leads the lament.11 Through the connection between Patroclus and her family, Briseis fulfills her first ritual lamentation as she physically mourns Patroclus.

In addition to her family and Patroclus, Briseis mourns her own lost future. Patroclus had promised her a new life with the Myrmidons. As Briseis laments, “ἔφασκες Ἀχιλλῆος θείοιο/ κου ριδίην ἄλοχον θήσειν, ἄξειν τ᾽ ἐνὶ νηυσὶν/ ἐς Φθίην, δαίσειν δὲ γάμον μετὰ Μυρμιδόνεσσι,” (lines 19.297-99).12 A marriage to Achilles would have reestablished Briseis’ status in society, making her an aristocrat and giving her — and her future children — wealth and stability.13 Briseis lost these privileges when her city was destroyed and she was enslaved. However, Patroclus, the arbitrator of this future and a metaphysical symbol of Briseis’ lost male family members, alone had the power to mediate this future.

As Achilles’ most beloved companion, Patroclus enjoyed a high rank among the Myrmidons.14 Achilles trusted him to care for his son after his own death,15 and Patroclus fatefully convinces Achilles to allow him to lead the Myrmidons into battle.16 As Achilles primarily regards Briseis as a γερας [war prize] and the physical 9 ‘You did not allow me to mourn, not when quick Achiles killed my man, nor [when] he destroyed the city of divine Mynes.’

10 See Zielinski, “Women as Victims of War in Homer’s Oral Poetics.”

11 See Zielinski, “Women as Victims of War in Homer’s Oral Poetics,” and Henry Staten, “The Circulation of Bodies in the Iliad,” New Literary History 24, no. 2 (1993): 339-361, for brief mentions of this practice. Briseis’ role as chief mourner for Patroclus has puzzled many scholars. Here, I offer an interpretation which is the most plausible given the language of her lament. For comparison, see the lament for Hector in Book 24, in which Andromache (his wife) speaks first, followed by Hekabe (his mother) and Helen (his sister-in-law).

12 ‘You claimed [me] for divine Achilles to take [as a] wedded wife, to lead on the ships to Pythia, to [give a] wedding feast among the Myrmidons.’

13 Zielinski briefly mentions this interpretation in her paper (footnote 31). Casey Dué also briefly mentions Briseis’ hope for a better life, though she argues that the loss of this hope makes Briseis’ lamentation “mourn in advance her wouldbe husband Achilles,” see Casey Dué, “Learning Lessons from the Trojan War: Briseis and the Theme of Force,” College Literature 34, no. 2 (2007): 229-262.

While I agree Briseis’ lamentation is, to some degree, about Achilles, I do not entirely agree with Dué’s interpretation (I have included my own interpretation in this paper).

14 The nature of Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship has been discussed for centuries. I choose only to remark that their relationship was far closer and more intimate than either’s relationship with Briseis. This intimacy gave Patroclus the ability to mediate Briseis’ future marriage to Achilles in this way.

15 See Staten, “The Circulation of Bodies in the Iliad,” for a brief analysis of Patroclus as Achilles’ “most philos (beloved).” In the Iliad, Achilles’ lament in Book 19 (directly after Briseis’ lament) details their relationship and this plan (lines 19.303-40). His other lamentations of Patroclus delve deeper into other aspects of their relationship.

16 See the events of Book 16 in the Iliad.

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symbol of his τιμη [honor], it is hard to believe that Achilles would have proposed a marriage to Briseis on his own, especially given that he was willing to travel back to Pythia and wed a woman his father chose for him.17 Since Patroclus must have been the intermediary in this relationship, her future with Achilles vanishes with his death. Briseis understands the nature of her phantasmic social status. Patroclus’ death foreshadows Achilles’ own death, adding another layer to her lament: it is also for Achilles.18 Here, however, Achilles symbolizes Briseis’ future as a noble woman in his household — and it disappears before her eyes. Ironically, it never existed in the first place as both Patroclus and Achilles were fated to die. Therefore, in mourning for her family and past life, Briseis’ lament for her lost future contains an understanding that she will never regain her aristocratic status.

Ultimately, Briseis’ lamentation voices the collective grief of the captive women in the Myrmidon camp. Though they are neither tied to the most powerful man nor presumably all of aristocratic birth, each of these women have shared experiences: all had lives and families before being enslaved by the Greeks, and now must grieve their individual losses. Homer vocalizes their shared pain as they begin to join the ritual lament.19 Taking a cue from Briseis, each woman laments her own lost family and pain: “ὣς ἔφατο κλαίουσ᾽, ἐπὶ δὲ στενάχοντο γυναῖκες/ Πάτροκλον πρόφασιν, σφῶν δ᾽ αὐτῶν κήδε᾽ ἑκάστη,” (lines 19.301-2).20 These women do not mourn Patroclus, rather they mourn their own families. Each woman uses Patroclus’ body to symbolize their dead kin, as Briseis has done.21 Homer signifies this in the language as well: the women weep for their “κήδε” and Briseis weeps for her “κηδείους.”22 The evocation of grief in the other captive women crystalizes the significance of Briseis’ lament. It adds the voice of a woman in sexual bondage to the Iliad’s polyvalent perspectives, relying on a double consciousness to successfully capture the magnitude of Briseis’ — and subsequently the other women’s — grief.23 Within the realm of the Iliad, Briseis’ lament also foreshadows the futures of Andromache and the other Trojan women. For example, Andromache recognizes her fate, and her realization oc17 Staten, “The Circulation of Bodies in the Iliad,” analyzes this argument, including how Briseis exists in both a social and libidinal economy due to this dual identity. S. Farron, in S. Farron, “The Portrayal of Women in the Iliad,” Classical Association of South Africa 22, no. 1 (2005), analyzes Achilles’ and Briseis’ relationship and questions whether Achilles truly loved her. Dué (2002, 2007) also offers an analysis of Briseis’ lament and relationship to Achilles. For Achilles’ desire to return home, see Book 9, lines 393-444.

18 Dué mentions this idea, and her book, Casey Dué, Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis (Maryland: Roman and Littlefield, 2002), fully expands on her point. I have already stated my opinion on Dué’s argument in footnote 12, as she asserts that Briseis’ lament is metaphorically about Achilles and conflates the deaths of Achilles and Patroclus. I both agree and disagree with her argument, and I have laid out my interpretation in this paper.

19 Zielinski comments on the ritualistic nature of this part of the group lamentation. It also echoes the female lamentation of Hector in Book 24.

20 ‘So she spoke, lamenting, and the women were wailing, they spoke for Patroclus, [but] each for her own pain.’

21 In Simone Weil, The Iliad, or the Poem of Force, trans. Mary McCarthy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940), she writes “a slave will always cry whenever he can do so with impunity” using this passage as an example of the victims of force.

22 Line 19.294 (Briseis) and 302 (the other women). Both words come from “κῆδος,” meaning “care [for another].”

23 See footnote 3, cf. Winkler (1990).

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curs before she learns about the death of her husband, Hector.24 In her conversation with Hector before he goes into battle for the last time, Andromache beseeches him to stay on the walls of Troy: “ἣ τάχα χήρη σεῦ ἔσομαι: τάχα γάρ σε κατακτανέουσιν Ἀχαιοὶ/ πάντες ἐφορμηθέντες,” (lines 6.408-10).25 However, she knows that her fate will entail more than just being a widow. Andromache reveals that she, like Briseis, has lost all her family members.26 Hector, as she says, “σύ μοί ἐσσι πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ/ ἠδὲ κασίγνητος, σὺ δέ μοι θαλερὸς παρακοίτης” (lines 6.429-30).27 By losing Hector, Andromache subsequently loses any potential of a safe and stable future. Similar to Briseis’ male family members, Hector symbolically represents his city, Troy. His death preempts the destruction of the city and the slaughter and enslavement of its people.28 During her lament for Hector, Andromache mourns her tragic fate, which the other Trojan women will also experience alongside her.29 “ἔχες δ᾽ ἀλόχους κεδνὰς καὶ νήπια τέκνα,/ αἳ δή τοι τάχα νηυσὶν ὀχήσονται γλαφυρῇσι,/ καὶ μὲν ἐγὼ μετὰ τῇσι,” (lines 24.730-32).30 However, she has not yet experienced captivity and dreads it. By reading the two laments in conjunction, Briseis’ lament becomes the potential other half of Andromache’s lament.

Briseis has lived in captivity over the course of the poem, allowing her lament to glimpse into the future grief which Andromache — and the other Trojan women — will suffer. Though Andromache has lost her family and stands to lose more, Briseis’ lament exposes the extent to which Andromache’s grief will be magnified when the war ends. By placing the laments in conjunction, Homer articulates the ways in which present and future captive women experience and grieve the consequences of war and strife.

Extending beyond the realm of the Iliad, Briseis’ lament then symbolizes the plight of enslaved women during war. Her γόος is the only time in the Iliad when an enslaved woman displays any sort of subjectivity, let alone speaks. However, when, if at all, scholarship discusses her speech, the focus is on Achilles and her relationship to him alone rather than her own grief.31 Even so, the tragedy and grief saturating her words manifest the lament’s significance within the Iliad. The poem’s fame derives from its ability to present both sides of the war in the same light, and every character adds a different perspective to the epic, blurring the lines altogether. Good and evil do not exist — the narrative moves on account of action and consequence.32 Men go to war, becoming the source

of the action. Women, on the other hand, watch their husbands, fathers, children, and kin die in battle. War is a masculine act, which compels women to bear their grief alone and lead mourning rituals for their dead loved ones. Some even live to watch their cities burn and to be forced into sexual bondage. Women, then, endure the consequences of war. Homer acknowledges the human feminine perspective throughout the poem in speeches from Andromache, Hekabe, Helen, and Briseis. Briseis’ lament specifically captures the experience of enslaved women and adds it to the poem’s tapestry of perspectives. It is significant because it gives enslaved women a single moment of subjectivity which reflects the consequences of war: its tragic future and its heavy burden. It directs the bright spotlight of the Iliad to rest upon these women whom society normally relegates to the silent shadows. Here is pain, grief, and sorrow, all hanging around the necks of women victimized by war. The existence of their emotions becomes undeniable, serving as the foreshadowed fate of other women — within the poem and in reality.

The Iliad is a song of grief. This emotion rests at the heart of the poem, while other emotions — such as rage — revolve around and lead back to it. Thus, it is impossible to visualize war without accounting for grief. One instance of grief ripples out to touch every character. A single action becomes a thousand consequences, resonating throughout the realm. Herein lies the lesson of the Iliad: war affects every member of society. It is inescapable. But neglecting to consider the perspectives of women like Briseis obscures the magnitude of grief, letting the Iliad’s message go unrecognized.

By articulating Briseis’ perspective, Homer fully captures the Trojan War’s vast tragedy, emphasizing its most powerful players and its victims in the same light. Thus, grief colors the poem, shining its light upon its characters and audience alike.

24 See Andromache’s speech to Hector on lines 6.407-39.

25 ‘[Me] who will quickly be your widow. For all the roused Achaeans will kill you.’

26 See lines 6.413-28.

27 ‘[Hector] you are to me [my] father and lady mother and brother, and you are [also] a beloved spouse to me.’

28 See Christian Werner, “Wives, Widows and Children: War Victims in Iliad Book 2,” L’Antiquité Classique 77 (2008): 1-17, in which he claims that a widow’s lament signals the fall of her dead husband’s city.

29 See lines 24.725-45.

30 ‘And you held the loyal wives and infant children, who, surely, will endure [on] the hollow ships soon, and I among them.’

31 Farron and Werner focus entirely on Achilles, mentioning Briseis as it relates to him. Staten focuses on Briseis as a commodity in the Greek homosocial economy. The only scholar to thoroughly discuss Briseis was Dué (2002), whose argument I have mentioned previously.

32 See Weil’s famous argument: “the true hero, the true subject, the center of the Iliad is force.”

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College Works Cited Dué, Casey. Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis. Maryland: Roman and Littlefield, 2002.

—————. “Learning Lessons from the Trojan War: Briseis and the Theme of Force.” College Literature 34, no. 2 (2007).

Farron, S. “The Portrayal of Women in the Iliad.” Classical Association of South Africa 22, no. 1 (2005).

Homer. The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Group, (1990).

Levi-Strauss, Claude. The Elementary Structures of Kinship.

Translated by James Harle Bell, John Richard Von Sturmer, and Rodney Neeham. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, (1969).

Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin. Anxiety Veiled: Euripides and the Traffic in Women. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, (1993).

—————. Greek Tragedy. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, (2008).

Staten, Henry. “The Circulation of Bodies in the Iliad.” New Literary History 24, no. 2 (1993).

Weil, Simone. The Iliad, or the Poem of Force. Translated by Mary McCarthy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (1940).

Werner, Christian. “Wives, Widows and Children: War Victims in Iliad Book 2.” L’Antiquité Classique 77 (2008).

Winkler, John J. “Double Consciousness in Sappho’s Lyrics.” The Constraints of Desire. New York: Routledge, (1990).

Zielinski, Karol. “Women as Victims of War in Homer’s Oral Poetics.” Humanities 8, no. 3 (2019).

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Roman Spolia and the Practice of Islam in the Medieval Central Mediterranean Niġel Klemenčič-Puglisevich (he/him), Carleton University, Class of 2022

Abstract

The study of people reusing earlier materials for their own purposes, often without meaningful intention but rather for convenience, has attracted much academic focus in the last couple decades. This topic is formally known as spolia. The scope of study on this topic thus far has been largely limited to European contexts, and has only recently started to branch into studies of the medieval Islamicate’s culture of reusing existing material.

This paper aims to contribute to the emerging study of spolia in medieval Islamic contexts, namely the reuse of Roman architectural materials in locations relevant to the practice of Islam throughout the central Mediterranean, looking particularly at Tunisia, Libya, and Malta. The violent impacts of nineteenth century European colonialism on the central Mediterranean and northern Africa will be discussed in respect to the white supremacist, imperialist political agendas that have historically driven archaeology. Another aim of this paper is to highlight the lack of archaeological studies focusing on medieval Islamic Malta, which has often been observed as a mere interruption in a larger, more profound Christian history as opposed to the rich Islamic settlement that it was for centuries.

INTRODUCTION The practice of spolia, or reusing older architectural materials in contemporary building, has been employed by innumerable societies throughout history and is often difficult to avoid, yet spolia was not considered significant by many early archaeologists. Studies of spolia are nearly commonplace in art history today, but when archaeological sciences were first taking root in the Mediterranean between 1880 and 1930, evidence of reuse in ancient structures was disregarded in favor of accessing and preserving the oldest and ‘richest’ strata. Thus, much of the evidence for repurposing ancient materials in later societies is only available in anecdotal references.

The term spolia itself is the plural of the Latin word spolium, referring to the spoils of war. The word was first used to label spoils of war, such as statues and other monuments that had been taken from their home region and erected in Rome.1 After a thousand years, the term came to be used in an art historical context by sixteenth century antiquarians. They frequently canvassed Rome and referred to ornamental elements reused in contemporary architecture as spolia.2 Notably, the term was applied by the artist Raphael when instructing Pope Leo X on the subject of Roman art, commenting on the high artistic value of spoglie from Trajan and Antonius Pius.3 The definition and use of the term spolia has now expanded and is conventional in conversations surrounding repurposed art and architecture, specifically of the ancient and medieval worlds. This paper will not be discussing uses of medieval architectural spolia, but rather, like Raphael to the pope, discussing medieval uses of ancient architectural spolia.

Unlike Raphael, this paper will critique archaeological practices that have diminished, disregarded, misinterpreted, or even 1 Dale Kinney, “Roman Architectural Spolia,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145, no. 2 (2001): 138.

2 Ibid.

3 Dale Kinney, “Spolia. ‘Damnatio’ and ‘Renovatio Memoriae’,” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 42 (1997): 122.

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discarded medieval uses of ancient architectural spolia. The aim of this paper is to provide insight into the neglected studies of Roman spolia usage in respect to the practice of Islam in the medieval central Mediterranean. The geographical reach of this paper includes Tunisia, Libya, and Malta — all within the context of the violent impacts of nineteenth century European colonialism in these regions. Studies of Roman spolia, particularly in the practice of Islam, have been ignored in favor of connecting colonists to ancient Roman histories, thus intentionally dismissing historical narratives of contemporary central Mediterranean communities.

The following sections of this paper will explore each of these three regions as case studies of medieval uses of ancient Roman spolia within Islamic practice, intending to shed light on neglected medieval pasts, particularly in Malta.

TUNISIA Tunisia is most notable within studies of ancient history for being the home of the affluent ancient city of Carthage. The city first began as a Phoenician colony in the ninth century BCE but quickly grew into much more — it was the nucleus of the Punic Empire, which came to occupy much of the Western Mediterranean before the Punic Wars. After the Punic Wars and Carthage’s demise, Rome established its first African colony, Africa Proconsularis, nearly within Carthaginian territory. Roman Carthage grew to prominence under Julius Caesar, soon becoming one of Rome’s most opulent colonies.4 Evidence for Punic and Roman activities in Carthage has mostly derived from literary and archaeological sources, the latter of which has been weaponized as a tool of colonialism. The former French colony in the Maghreb composed of modern Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco was subject to intense and violent colonization beginning in the nineteenth century until the respective independences of each nation by the mid-twentieth century. Archaeology 4 H.H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome 133 BC to AD 68 (London, UK: Methuen Publishing Ltd., 1970), 150.

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in the Mediterranean, and specifically North Africa, was focused on methods of knowledge-acquisition and assertion of control over the region of interest.5 For the French, archaeology also served as a way to assert ties to Roman territory through descent. Traditionally, the French have identified themselves with the Romans in “abstract moral models, ideological or civilizational ancestors, or ‘how-to’ handbooks for military control and economic development.”6 Roman archaeological sites and abstract notions of relations do not together provide concrete evidence for land claims, but the sites provided France with tangible materials that they strategically utilized to justify their imposition on Maghrebi land.7 The narratives derived from archaeological projects in Tunisia were consciously curated to draw linear relations between Romans and the French, yet, quite purposefully, not between the Carthaginians and North Africans. In fact, Carthaginian and Punic narratives were observed as static histories with no connection to or bearing on present times.8 Even post-independence, most of the historical scholarship on the Maghreb was being conducted by Spanish, French, and Italian scholars whose work, while extensive and informative, served a colonial agenda and operated within that very framework.9 Having now established the colonial lens through which archaeological evidence has been transmitted to present day scholarship, I will now cover the archaeological data for Roman spolia relating to the practice of Islam in medieval Tunisia.

Like much of North Africa, Islam only became dominant in the region that is now modern Tunisia between the ninth and tenth centuries CE.10 The centuries between Roman rule and the conversion to Islam were split between Byzantine and Vandal occupations and the population was largely comprised of ethnic Berbers, namely the Butr and Barānis.11 Much of the Berber-Carthaginian-Roman-Greek mixed population located on the Mediterranean coast, named al-Afārika by Arabs, had converted to Christianity by the early seventh century. The remainder of the population, almost solely Berber, continued traditional religious practices. Small minorities of Berbers, mostly around the areas of Zeugetania and Byzacena, converted to Christianity in opposition to and exposure from the Romans. There was also a significant Berber population that converted to Judaism, though few writers paid them much attention.12 Come the mid-to-late seventh century CE, the Arab conquest of North Africa began to take root and Islam quickly spread across the Maghreb, the number of converts and settlers growing incre5 Matthew M. McCarty, “French Archaeology and History in the Colonial Maghreb: Inheritance, Presence, and Absence,” in Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy, ed. Effros Bonnie and Lai Guolong (Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press at UCLA, 2018), 360.

6 Ibid, 360-361.

7 Ibid, 361.

8 Ibid.

9 H. Monès, “The Conquest of North Africa and the Berber Resistance,” in General History of Africa III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century, ed. M. Elfasi (University of California/UNESCO, 1992), 225.

10 Jonathan Conant, Staying Roman: Conquest and Identity in Africa and the Mediterranean (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 363-364.

11 Monès, “The Conquest of North Africa,” 226.

12 Ibid, 229.

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mentally over the following centuries.13 Once Berbers began to adopt Islam, they started constructing mosques in nearly every corner they inhabited.14 Some of these mosques strategically made use of Roman sites, often abandoned, thus incorporating spolia into their designs. Examples of such usage of spolia are found throughout modern Tunisia, though for the sake of this paper, examples will be extracted from Kairouan, Carthage, and Sousse.

The city of Kairouan, a renowned center for Islamic scholarship during the medieval era, located approximately 160 kilometers south of Tunis and Carthage, is home to the Great Mosque of Kairouan.15 The Mosque was first constructed in 670 CE. It was built strategically in the center of the city, and is considered to be one of the most important architectural monuments within the Islamic tradition. It has received a number of renovations, additions, repairs, and restorations over the centuries since its initial erection, though throughout its evolution the value of Roman spolia has been continuous. Historians from the medieval period, including al-Bakri and al-Maliki, have acknowledged the use of Roman porphyry columns supporting the cupola. They point towards Qaysaria (Caesarea) as being the point of origin for these columns.16 It is even said that the Byzantines offered a great deal of money to acquire these columns, but authorities in Kairouan refused on the basis that they would not take them out of the house of God to have them placed in the “house of Satan.”17 The columns in the prayer hall of the Mosque are also composed of Roman elements. The bases, drums, and capitals of the majority of the columns were retrieved from Roman sites, including Carthage.18 The reason for the inclusion of these spolia appears to be less about convenience, as seen in the following section on Libya, and more about power and value (both aesthetic and monetarily).19 The power of the usage of spolia was strategic in that these earlier Roman materials were converted into Islamic materials as an act of service to God. Thus, the placement of Roman capitals proves incredibly intentional and heavily artistic, working with the natural navigation of observers’ eyes whilst curating a statement on the power of Islam.

The city of Sousse, located approximately 150 kilometers south of Carthage and Tunis and 50 kilometers east of Kairouan, houses another strong example of Roman spolia in medieval architecture relevant to the practice of Islam. The Ribat of Sousse is a fortress and place of prayer that was initially constructed during the Muslim conquest of North Africa by Aghlabid authorities occupying modern Tunisia. Construction first took place between 775 and 788 CE by order of Yazid ibn Hätim al-Muhallabi. Various extensions were added over the years, including a watchtower in 821 CE.20 The Ribat is nearly a perfect square in shape, measuring 13 Monès, “The Conquest of North Africa,” 229.

14 Ibid, 240.

15 Caroline Goodson, “Topographies of Power in Aghlabid-Era Kairouan,” in The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2018), 93.

16 Faouzi Mahfoudh, “La Grande Mosquée de Kairouan: textes et contexte archéologique,” in The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2018), 188.

17 Ibid.

18 Henri Saladin, “Tunis et Kairouan,” in Les Villes d’art célèbres, ed. Henri Laurens (Paris, 1908), 120.

19 Mahfoudh, “La Grand Mosquée de Kairouan,” 188-189.

20 Xavier Casanovas, Antònia Navarro, and Karima Zoghlami, Les colonnes de granite du ribat de sousse (Barcelona: Montada, 2012), 9.

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39 by 38 meters, and features round towers at every corner of the building except for the southeast, where the watchtower is located.21 The central courtyard of the Ribat is where Roman spolia are on full display. The archives and stone vaults feature several columns and capitals from Roman sites, not just from Tunisia, but also from Malta. Medieval geographer al-Himyari, in his geographic text entitled Kitāb al-Rawḍ al-Miʿṭār, recounts the origins of the materials used to construct the Ribat.22 He describes that these materials came from Roman Christian churches in the modern city of Mdina in Malta that were desecrated during the Siege of Melite in 870 CE.23 This account is also corroborated by medieval physician and writer Ibn al-Gazzar, who wrote in Kitāb al-’Uyūn that “every cut slab, every marble column in this fort was brought over from the church of Malta by Ifabasi ibn ‘Umar in the hope of meriting the approval and kindness of Allah the Powerful and Glorious.”24 The Ribat of Sousse utilized Roman spolia acquired from conquest intentionally, artistically, and — perhaps most importantly — religiously. The use of such spolia saw these architectural elements utilized in the service of the Islamic faith as opposed to Christian. In this case, Roman architecture was explicitly sought to serve and appease God in a newly constructed building designed to protect the faith of Muslims.

LIBYA Ancient Libya was settled by nearly every major ancient power in the Mediterranean, including the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, and Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt. The name “Libya” itself is Greek in origin, coming from the ancient ethnonym Libu attributed to a Berber tribe of North Africa. Various ancient peoples laid claim to all or portions of the land that makes up modern Libya and left their mark in their respective material remains, often now seen in ancient theatres, villas, temples, statues, and more.

The history of archaeology in Libya is contentious and deeply colonial, as is true in many parts of the world, like Tunisia and the wider Maghreb. Archaeology in Libya began primarily as a product of Italian colonization in the early twentieth century. That year, the first archaeological mission was led by Federico Halbherr in 1910, supported by Catholic historian Gaetano De Sanctis, just over a year before the beginning of total Italian colonization.25 In his practice, De Sanctis felt it was Italy’s job to continue the “civilizing mission… started by imperial Rome.”26 He also frequently compared modern Africa to that of the “ancient barbarian West.”27 Italy’s colonial efforts, including those masquerading as archaeology, are responsible for the transmission of historical insight into ancient Libya that scholars possess today. Therefore, the information available to scholars and the systems of information 21 Xavier Casanovas, Antònia Navarro, and Karima Zoghlami, Les colonnes de granite du ribat de sousse (Barcelona: Montada, 2012), 9.

22 Al-Ḥimyarī, Malta 870-1054: Al-Himyari’s Account and its Linguistic Implications, trans. Joseph Brincat (Malta: Said International, 1995).

23 Ibid, 11.

24 Ibid, 17.

25 Massimiliano Munzi, “Italian Archaeology in Libya from Colonial Romanità to Decolonization of the Past,” in Archaeology Under Dictatorship, ed. Michael Galaty and Charles Watkinson (Boston, MA: Springer, 2004), 77-78.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid.

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distribution are both products and tools of colonial and white supremacist agendas. Scholars utilized archaeological data as materializations of their prejudiced ideologies, and created a metaphysical spolia that has been ransacked into fitting a racist, imperialist framework. The materialization of archaeological data in such a way is “a strategic element of political strategy,” an exercise of power over knowledge and identity.28 Moreover, while some of the material from Italian excavations in Libya were well documented, others were not, and many sites ended up damaged or destroyed due to military efforts.29 Perhaps it also goes without saying that the agenda of Italian excavators in the early twentieth century was specifically related to unearthing an ancient Roman past. Material stuck between modern and ancient strata were seldom preserved.

Ancient Roman architectural spolia employed in the medieval period for uses relevant to the practice of Islam appear in many regions across Libya’s Mediterranean coastline. Archaeological and historical surveys have been centrally focused around Tripoli; for the sake of this paper, examples come from in and around that region.

Tripoli’s visible Roman past has largely been consumed by building efforts from the medieval period to today. In instances of medieval buildings built specifically for the practice of Islam, likely constructed by the Ottomans, the selective inclusions of Roman architectural elements suggest careful consideration and purposeful intention relating to an assertion of power. As seen throughout this paper, these strategic uses of Roman architectural elements represent an exercise in political domination through converting physical materials from Roman to Islamic. Some of the prime examples of Roman spolia in Tripoli come from the city’s mosques.

Libyan mosques are unique in their own right — despite influence from the Syrian-Egyptian and Maghreb artistic schools, workers in Libya developed a style that stands apart from mosques of Arab, Persian, or Ottoman design.30 Looking back to the way Roman columns were incorporated in Tunisian mosques alongside Libyan examples does illuminate certain patterns for the use of spolia, though each for a unique purpose.

The spolia employed at both An-Naga Mosque and the Mosque of Mūrād Aghā, which will be introduced in the following paragraphs, were utilized mostly for convenience, as medieval Libya struggled economically and could not easily afford to outsource materials and labor. Shafts, capitals, and other architectural elements provided strong supports and ornamental pieces for the buildings; thus, the use of spolia was ultimately both practical and aesthetically appealing.

An-Naga Mosque in the Medina (the city’s old town), considered Tripoli’s oldest mosque, incorporates ancient Roman architecture into its supports. The columns of the Mosque are positioned in a regular pattern throughout the mosque’s multi-domed hall. The columns most central in the picture are crowned by Roman capitals, repurposed in the original tenth century construc28 Elizabeth DeMarrais, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Timothy Earle, “Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies,” Current Anthropology 37, no. 1 (1996): 17.

29 Ibid, 79.

30 Simonetta Ciranna, “Pulcherrima Spolia in the Architecture and Urban Space at Tripoli,” in Perspektiven der Spolienforschung, ed. Stefan Altekamp, Carmen Marcks-Jacobs, and Peter Seiler (Berlin: Edition Topoi, 2017), 74.

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A more well-documented example of a mosque constructed using Roman spolia in the region of Tripoli, 16 kilometers east of Tripoli in Tājūrā’, is the Mosque of Mūrād Aghā. The namesake of the mosque comes from the Turkish naval officer who conquered Tripoli from the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem with the privateer Darghūt, and then occupied Malta and continued to do so until 1798. Mūrād Aghā became the sovereign of Tājūrā’ and began a project to construct a fortress in the village. Amidst construction, he was compelled to turn the fortress into a mosque.33 The construction of this fortress-turned-mosque sourced materials from a variety of sources, including columns from a ship that sank just off the beach at Tājūrā’ and spolia from the many ruined Roman villas littering the coast.34 The elements extracted from these villas consisted mostly of “plain and fluted shafts.”35 These shafts form the central supports of the main prayer hall of the mosque, and thus are much more practical in their incorporation, as opposed to being politically incorporated.

MALTA The Maltese archipelago, located in the middle of a narrow passage in the Mediterranean between Tunisia, Libya, and Sicily, is one of the most historically significant stepping-stones between southern Europe and North Africa. The strategic position of Malta has governed its entire history — including its populations, rulers, occupiers, trade, religion, language, and culture. Modern Malta reflects this complicated and layered history that is somewhere between Arab and European. Throughout Malta’s ancient and early medieval history, it has traditionally been placed within African boundaries under Punic, Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine, Aghlabid, and Fatimid occupation.36 Its later medieval and early modern occupiers, namely the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, sought to condition Malta to be politically aligned with Europe, crafting the Islands to protect Christianity from Ottoman threats. As a product of occupation, Malta is largely Catholic, though its population speaks Maltese, which descended from Arabic during the medieval period. Each people that occupied Malta left various intangible and tangible remains across the Islands. In this section, the city of Mdina and its suburb of Rabat will be analyzed for their Roman remains and the medieval usage of such remains in Islamic contexts on the main island.

Archaeology in Malta has been almost exclusively devoted to 31 Charles O’Cecil, “Tripoli: Crossroads of Rome and Islam,” Saudi Aramco World 61, no. 3 (2010): 16-23.

32 Ciranna, “Pulcherrima Spolia in Tripoli,” 76.

33 Ibid, 80.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Ayse Devrim Atauz, Eight Thousand Years of Maltese Maritime History: Trade, Piracy, and Naval Warfare in the Central Mediterranean (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008), 2.

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prehistoric archaeology, with some pursuits into classical archaeology. Malta’s most celebrated archaeologists, including Themistocles Zammit, David Trump, Anthony Bonanno, Antonio Annetto Caruana, and Manuel Magri all focused their energies into excavating prehistoric sites, some occasionally venturing into Punic and Roman sites. Until the turn of the twenty-first century, the Roman period in Malta was still considered something of a ‘Dark Age,’ according to David Trump.37 While archaeology in Malta has largely been pursued by the Maltese themselves, it was not without its colonial motives. Archaeology was first pursued in Malta during the 1880s while Malta was still a British colony, as it would remain until 1964.38 In an attempt to justify the British claim to Maltese soil, Gerald Strickland, a British-Maltese politician, identified an abstract mutual relation between the Maltese and the British in the Phoenicians. Strategically, this theory emerged contemporaneously to the discussion of Maltese independence, as the British were attempting to keep their hold on the Central Mediterranean archipelago.39 Strickland’s theory encouraged the thought that the Maltese were ethnic Phoenicians and that their Semitic tongue was a descendent of the Phoenician language, not Arabic.40 Strickland thus distanced the Maltese from their North African, Arab roots and created an abstract common ancestor that could be utilized in the colonial playing field. This claim has since been disproven, but its consequences still are felt in discussions of heritage in popular settings throughout Malta.41 More recently, the practice of archaeology in Malta has started to expand its scope to include maritime archaeology, focusing on Punic and Roman activities, dedicated excavations on Punic and Roman sites, and occasional projects focusing on the medieval period. Though, as Godfrey Wettinger stated in 2010: One is also now waiting for the appropriate [medieval] archaeological investigation in a strictly controlled fashion and following the normal archaeological methodology and eventual publication after the usual peer review without non-academic interference from Church or State.42 While he never publicly elaborated on this statement, it is evident from this that Maltese archaeology still faces the consequences of British colonial influence through political and other institutional frameworks that shill for imperial values of Europeanness. This is exceptionally clear in explanations of the Aghlabid and Fatimid presence and the potential eradication of any previous population prior to 870 CE — both of which lack appropriate depth and ded37 David Trump, “Some Problems in Maltese Archaeology,” Malta Archaeological Review 3 (1999): 34.

38 Nicholas C. Vella and Oliver Gilkes, “The Lure of the Antique: Nationalism, Politics and Archaeology in British Malta (1880–1964),” Papers of the British School at Rome 69 (2001): 353.

39 Ibid.

40 P. Grech, “Are there any traces of Punic in Maltese?” Journal of Maltese Studies 1 (1961): 137.

41 Through personal communication and experience, one can quickly recognize how much more fondly the Phoenicians are thought of in the Maltese collective historical consciousness than the Aghlabids or Fatimids.

42 Godfrey Wettinger, “Malta in the High Middle Ages,” Ambassadors’ Hall, Auberge de Castille, Malta, December 7, 2010.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College icated study.

The most notable and extensive evidence for the spread of Islam into Malta is observed in the town of Rabat, located just outside the city walls of Mdina. On the north end of Rabat is the Domvs Romana Museum, built to house the remains of a Roman villa unearthed on site in 1881 by A.A. Caruana. Initial excavations halted that same year but were eventually continued by Themistocles Zammit in 1920.43 The objective of the excavation was to uncover more of the site’s Roman heritage, yet to their surprise, they continually exposed a significant number of human remains on top of the villa’s ruins and surrounding site. Through evaluation of the burial methods and materials, it was discerned that the burials were in fact Muslim, dating to the eleventh century. During Caruana’s excavations, 44 Muslim burials were accounted for, and during Zammit’s, over 250.44 However, as the excavation’s objective was ultimately to source Roman archaeological materials, the remains of the Muslims buried on site were disposed of in a pit outside of the excavation area.45 These burials were often accompanied by Kufic tombstones, usually containing verses from the Qur’an.46 These inscriptions were incised into marble sourced from the Roman villa that laid beneath the cemetery. The marble was also utilized as spolia in the building of the tomb walls that would prevent dirt from piling atop the bodies once buried, in accordance with Islamic burial practices.47 Roman ceramic fragments were also found within some of the burials. These were likely not grave goods, which are rare in Islamic burials, but rather accidental inclusions due to interference between strata either during the initial internment or excavation.48 The site of the Roman villa was intentionally chosen by the Fatimid settlers. It provided ample materials to work with to construct tombs and tombstones, and was likely already in extensive ruins, creating open space for burial. A similar ideology could have also been applied here as it was in Kairouan: converting Roman spolia into Islamic materials as a service to God. Other examples are seen in the city of Mdina, though they are not as easily accessible as the cemetery in Rabat. Anecdotes of Mdina’s Islamic history are observed throughout the city, both in its name (coming from the holy city of Medina) and in its architecture. The fortifications of the city were largely initially constructed during Fatimid occupation and follow conventions of Islamic fortification architectural technology, though there is a strong possibility that the location of the fort emerged from preexisting Roman or Byzantine foundations or boundaries.49 The characteristics of the fort resemble that of a Byzantine pyrgokastellon type.50 Studies 43 Veronica Barbara, “Are We Being Multi-Vocal? The Case of Presenting Archaeological Heritage in Malta,” MA Thesis (University of Malta, 2013), 110.

44 Ibid.

45 Themistocles Zammit, “Excavations at Rabat, Malta,” The Antiquaries Journal 3, no. 3 (1923): 219.

46 Barbara, “Are We Being Multi-Vocal?” 111.

47 Vincenza Grassi, “Materiali per lo Studio della Presenza Araba nella Regione Italiana,” Studi Magrebini 21 (1989): 16.

48 Ibid.

49 Stephen Spiteri, “The ‘Castellu di la Chitati’ the medieval castle of the walled town of Mdina,” Online Journal of Military Architecture and Fortification (20042007): 4.

50 Ibid.

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on the fortification have suggested that Fatimid construction on the site took advantage of existing Roman and Byzantine materials and natural depressions in the ground.51 Other fortresses were constructed around the island using Roman and Byzantine materials, including at San Pawl Milqi, where Roman farmhouses were repurposed as building materials.52 Many other forts throughout Malta have gone without proper studies of their origins.

The lack of architectural remains from this period and before in Malta does not signal inactivity — on the contrary, it is a signifier for an organized deconstruction of evidence for non-Christian occupation of Malta. Such happened similarly in Sicily after the Norman conquest there in 1139 CE, only briefly after the 1091 capture of Malta.53 There also have been no systematic archaeological excavations with the objective of seeking medieval Islamic material or architectural remains. The finds that have been documented and published have often been found accidentally whilst digging for remains from an earlier period. Thus, in looking at the lack of architectural remains from the practice of Islam in medieval Malta, one may be able to use evidence from other Central Mediterranean sites, such as in Tunisia or Libya, to aid in the overdue reconstruction and revaluation of Malta’s medieval Islamic heritage. The patterned evidence for Roman architectural spolia usage in medieval Islamic practice and a strong understanding of Roman settlement patterns in Malta may guide the recovery of neglected cultural heritage.

CONCLUSION The use of spolia in sites that pertain to the practice of Islam in the medieval period suggests that there was an opportunity to take advantage of abandoned materials in areas for a variety of significant reasons. Many regions throughout the Central Mediterranean in the medieval period lacked the technology and/or economy to produce and construct structures to suit their needs, so relying on the locations and materials of the Romans, as well as other peoples outside the scope of this paper, gave them a starting point to build in their own unique ways. The usage of Roman architectural spolia, in particular, arises in situations of religious service and power, which is evident in mosques of Tunisia, and in situations of convenience due to a lack of technology and/or resources, as seen throughout sites in Libya and Malta. The use of spolia is not one-dimensional and does not suggest a lack of innovation or originality — rather the opposite. It suggests a complex and layered outpouring of creativity and artistic design that was vital to the construction of early Islamic sacred spaces and interactions with their neighbors, conquered land, and the peoples within those borders. Growing interest in the area of Roman spolia used in the spread of early Islam may be utilized in future explorations of Islamic sites throughout the Central Mediterranean, and beyond, both through new archaeological data and analyzing existing data that may have been diminished, disregarded, misinterpreted, or even discarded.

51 Spiteri, 4.

52 Vincent Zammit, “Maltese Fortifications,” Civilization 2 (1982): 29.

53 Godfrey Wettinger, “The Arabs in Malta,” In Malta: Studies of its Heritage and History, ed. John Henry Newman (Valletta: Mid-Med Bank, 1986), 88.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College Works Cited Al-Ḥimyarī. Malta 870-1054: Al-Himyari’s Account and its Linguistic Implications. Translated by Joseph Brincat. Malta: Said International, (1995).

Atauz, Ayse Devrim. Eight Thousand Years of Maltese Maritime History: Trade, Piracy, and Naval Warfare in the Central Mediterranean. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, (2008).

Barbara, Veronica. “Are We Being Multi-Vocal? The Case of Presenting Archaeological Heritage in Malta.” MA Thesis (2013).

Casanovas, Xavier, Antònia Navarro, and Karima Zoghlami. Les colonnes de granite du ribat de sousse. Barcelona: Montada, (2012).

Ciranna, Simonetta. “Pulcherrima Spolia in the Architecture and Urban Space at Tripoli.” In Perspektiven der Spolienforschung, ed. Stefan Altekamp, Carmen Marcks-Jacobs, and Peter Seiler, 67-93. Berlin: Edition Topoi, (2017).

DeMarrais, Elizabeth, Luis Jaime Castillo, and Timothy Earle.

“Ideology, Materialization, and Power Strategies.” Current Anthropology 37, no. 1 (1996).

Goodson, Caroline. “Topographies of Power in Aghlabid-Era Kairouan.” In The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors, ed. Glaire D. Anderson, Corisande Fenwick, and Mariam Rosser-Owen, 88-105. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, (2018).

Grassi, Vincenza. “Materiali per lo studio della presenza araba nella regione italiana.” Studi magrebini 21 (1989).

Grech, P. “Are there any traces of Punic in Maltese?” Journal of Maltese Studies 1 (1961).

Kinney, Dale. “Roman Architectural Spolia.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145, no. 2 (2001).

———. “Spolia. ‘Damnatio’ and ‘Renovatio Memoriae.’” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 42 (1997).

Luttrell, Anthony. The Making of Christian Malta: From the Early Middle Ages to 1530. Oxon: Routledge, (2018).

Mahfoudh, Faouzi. “La Grande Mosquée de Kairouan: textes et contexte archéologique.” In The Aghlabids and Their Neighbors, ed. Glaire D. Anderson, Corisande Fenwick, and Mariam Rosser-Owen, 136-189. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, (2018).

McCarty, Matthew M. “French Archaeology and History in the Colonial Maghreb: Inheritance, Presence, and Absence.”

In Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy, ed. by Effros Bonnie and Lai Guolong, 359-82. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press at UCLA, (2018).

Monès, H. “The Conquest of North Africa and the Berber Resistance.” In General History of Africa III: Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century, ed. M. Elfasi, 224-245.

University of California/UNESCO, (1992).

Munzi, Massimiliano. “Italian Archaeology in Libya from Colonial Romanità to Decolonization of the Past.” In Archaeology Under Dictatorship, ed. Michael Galaty and Charles Watkinson, 73-107. Springer, Boston, MA, (2004).

O’Cecil, Charles. “Tripoli: Crossroads of Rome and Islam.” Saudi

Aramco World 61, no. 3 (May/June 2010).

Saladin, Henri. “Tunis et Kairouan.” In Les Villes d’art célèbres, ed. Henri Laurens. Paris, (1908).

Scullard, H.H. From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome 133 BC to AD 68. London, UK: Methuen Publishing Ltd., (1970).

Spiteri, Stephen. “The ‘Castellu di la Chitati’ the medieval castle of the walled town of Mdina.” Online Journal of Military Architecture and Fortification (2004-2007).

Trump, David. “Some Problems in Maltese Archaeology.” Malta Archaeological Review 3 (1999).

Vella, Nicholas C., and Oliver Gilkes. “The Lure of the Antique: Nationalism, Politics and Archaeology in British Malta (1880–1964).” Papers of the British School at Rome 69 (2001).

Wettinger, Godfrey. “Malta in the High Middle Ages.” Paper presented at the Ambassadors’ Hall, Auberge de Castille, Malta, (2010).

Wettinger, Godfrey. “The Arabs in Malta.” In Malta: Studies of its Heritage and History, ed. John Henry Newman, 87-149.

Valletta: Mid-Med Bank, (1986).

Zammit, Themistocles. “Excavations at Rabat, Malta.” The Antiquaries Journal 3, no. 3 (1923) Zammit, Vincent. “Maltese Fortifications.” Civilization 2 (1982).

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College

Lucian’s Megilla Transcending Time and Gender

Jul LeCours (they/them), Skidmore College, Class of 2022

Abstract

Lucian’s fifth dialogue from Dialogues of the Courtesans is noteworthy for its complex depiction of a gender-nonconforming character, Megilla. Scholars in the past have given less attention to Dialogues of the Courtesans than to Lucian’s other works because they primarily portray sex workers and queer people, but, in recent years, this bias has begun to change. Within secondary scholarship, Megilla is a somewhat polarizing figure, interpreted variously as a butch lesbian or as a transgender man.

However, I argue that the clearest understanding of Dialogue 5 arises when we situate Megilla at the intersection between these two identities: as a nonbinary transmasculine lesbian.

Lucian of Samosata is well known for his comedic dialogues, particularly those featuring famous philosophers and military leaders (Dialogues of the Dead) and various deities (Dialogues of the Gods, Dialogues of the Sea Gods). Meanwhile, his similarly structured Dialogues of the Courtesans have historically been viewed as less worthy of study due to their bawdy content. However, the themes presented therein are more complex and meaningful than many give him credit for. Dialogue 5 (Leaina & Klōnarion) stands out, owing to its complex portrayal of a gender-nonconforming character, Megilla. In this dialogue, Leaina tells her friend Klōnarion about an amorous encounter she had with two wealthy lesbians, Megilla and Dēmōnassa.

Lucian constructs Megilla explicitly as “lesbian,” being from Lesbos, and also as “manly” (ἀνδρική). Scholars have begun to theorize about Megilla’s gender identity and how this relates to their sexual orientation.1 A 1920s English translation depicts Megilla as androgynous, in line with the new beauty ideals of that decade, whereas 21st century scholars have interpreted Megilla as either a butch lesbian or as a transgender man. Keeping with this tradition of reinterpreting Lucian’s work to speak to each successive generation, I propose a reading of Dialogue 5 where Megilla inhabits simultaneously lesbian and transmasculine identities.

According to Ruby Blondell, the context for this dialogue is unusual in its premise: the fictional affair between Leaina, Megilla, and Dēmōnassa begins at a symposium. Blondell argues that this is an allusion to Plato’s Symposium. She also asserts that the structure of the dialogue is Platonic in itself since it relies on the framework of a story within a story.2 Therefore, this dialogue draws on various themes from Attic philosophy, which would have given it a unique significance to readers with a knowledge of paideia during the Second Sophistic. However, this lofty premise is complicated by the fact that instead of the typical male-only symposium, Lu-

cian has created a female symposium, populated by sex workers and queer people.

Thus, Blondell questions Lucian’s intended tone, proposing that it represents a lewd fantasy driven by the male gaze or, alternatively, that it mocks women and gender-variant people through irony — the idea of female sex workers having a philosophical dialogue being absurd and comic.3 Errietta Bissa raises the contrasting point that it is difficult to know whether Lucian intended to caricature gender-variance with this text since what is caricature is inherently subjective.4 While keeping in mind these various theories of Lucian’s intention, it may prove rewarding to analyze the text from the perspective of its characters, in good faith, because this analysis reveals many complexities.

The first way Lucian characterizes Megilla in the text is as a lesbian, due to both their geographic origin (Lesbos) and their sexual relationships with women, including Dēmōnassa and Leaina.

In this way, Lucian not only constructs Megilla in terms of individual identity and relationships, but he also ties them to the literary tradition of Sappho, as the word lesbian continues to do today.

Sandra Boehringer asserts that this reference to Lesbos also carried connotations of debauchery, promiscuity, and unusual sexual proclivities more generally. She notes that using geographic origins to imply certain traits about a character is a common technique in Lucian’s work.5 Therefore, Lucian is situating Megilla from the start as an individual who goes against societally expected roles for women in terms of sexuality.

Bissa characterizes this dialogue as uniquely important because it explicitly depicts a long-term lesbian relationship between Megilla and Dēmōnassa, who describe themselves as having been married for a very long time (γεγάμηκα πρόπαλαι).6 Megilla claims

1 In Greek, Lucian switches between masculine and feminine forms when referring to Megilla, so I have chosen to preserve this gender ambiguity in my writing to give a better sense of what reading the Greek feels like. However, I will be using singular they/them pronouns as a gender-neutral alternative because I find it easier to follow than switching between she and he.

2 Ruby Blondell and Sanda Boehringer, “Revenge of the Hetairistria: The Reception of Plato’s Symposium in Lucian’s Fifth Dialogue of the Courtesans,” Arethusa 47, no. 2 (2014): 244-246.

3 Ruby Blondell and Sanda Boehringer, “Revenge of the Hetairistria: The Reception of Plato’s Symposium in Lucian’s Fifth Dialogue of the Courtesans,” Arethusa 47, no. 2 (2014): 248.

4 Errietta Bissa, “Man, Woman or Myth? Gender-bending in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans,” Materiali E Discussioni per L’analisi Dei Testi Classici, no.

70 (2013): 86.

5 Sandra Boehringer, “The Illusion of Sexual Identity in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans 5,” in Ancient Sex: New Essays, (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2015), 263.

6 Bissa, “Man, Woman or Myth,” 85.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College they took Dēmōnassa as their wife, using the male-coded active verb γαμέω.7 In this way, their relationship appears to follow a heterosexual script, with Megilla as the husband and Dēmōnassa as the wife. However, this interpretation is in tension with Bissa’s assertion that their relationship is lesbian because it diverges from traditional heterosexual roles. Bissa emphasizes uniqueness in Megilla and Dēmōnassa’s sexual acts with Leaina, as both characters take an active role to Leaina’s passive role, kissing and biting her “like men” (ὥσπερ οἱ ἄνδρες).8 Therefore, although Dēmōnassa is female and a wife, Bissa notes that she is not a typical female sexual partner either because she is dominant. Megilla and Dēmōnassa also describe their sexual acts as distinct from and indeed more pleasing (ἡδίω παρὰ πολὺ) than the acts available to heterosexual couples.9 Bissa uses this distinction to further her claim that the relationship is lesbian.

An examination of Megilla’s gender identity may allow us to resolve the tension between the straight-coded and queer aspects of Megilla and Dēmōnassa’s relationship. Several scholars have explored this topic, including Bissa and Aaron Devor, both of whom raise the idea of reading Megilla as transmasculine. Bissa claims that Megilla’s gender is unique, compared with that of the other characters. According to Bissa, Klōnarion has difficulty understanding Leaina’s story since Megilla’s gender doesn’t fit with the idea of female homosexuality that was prevalent in Greek society. This is why, Bissa claims, Klōnarion is so shocked and why the dialogue would inspire laughter at Megilla’s expense.10 Likewise, Devor includes Megilla in his chapter documenting femaleto-male transgender existence throughout history.11 Devor and Bissa support these interpretations using Megilla’s self-identifications in the text. In true Platonic style, Megilla deflects a series of questions from Leaina: whether they are crossdressing (as Achilles did on Skyros), intersex like Hermaphroditos, or have experienced divine sex-change like Tiresias. After denying each of these possibilities, Megilla describes their gender in their own terms, saying “I’m all man” (τὸ πᾶν ἀνήρ εἰμι), while admitting to having been assigned female at birth, like Dēmōnassa and Leaina (ἐγεννήθην μὲν ὁμοία ταῖς ἄλλαις ὑμῖν). However, unlike the women, Megilla professes to have the “mind, desire, and everything else of a man” (ἡ γνώμη δὲ καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία καὶ τἆλλα πάντα ἀνδρός). Boehringer sees this phrase as expressing the sex/ gender distinction we recognize today, with the possibility of separation between biological features and mental understandings of self, though she notes that this is probably unintentional on Lucian’s part.12 Further, Bissa claims that the modern conception of gender dysphoria may apply to Megilla if they were living today.13 While they do not seem to suffer discomfort with their physical body, Megilla does react with great offense when Leaina refers to them as female, which we could easily read as social dysphoria – 7 Luc. DMeretr. 5.3 8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Bissa, “Man, Woman or Myth,” 92-93.

11 Aaron Devor and Jamison Green, “Have Female-to-Male Transsexuals Always Existed?” in FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society, (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2016), 6.

12 Boehringer, “The Illusion of Sexual Identity,” 268.

13 Bissa, “Man, Woman or Myth,” 94.

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discomfort at being gendered incorrectly in society.

While some scholars fit Megilla’s assertion of their masculine gender into the scope of binary female-to-male experience, I would argue that Megilla’s self-description is more nuanced than that and is better reflected within the umbrella of nonbinary transness. While Megilla does self-describe as “all man,” they also place themself apart from the sexual expectations of cis men, saying that they have their own method of making love, “sweeter by far” (ἡδίω παρὰ πολὺ) than what men do. This shows that Megilla both identifies with maleness but also sets themself apart from the sexual behaviors of men, even while claiming to be Dēmōnassa’s husband. Similarly, Megilla describes themself as a “youth” (νεάνισκος), a term which Boehringer argues connotes softness and femininity, often describing the younger, passive partner in a male homosexual relationship.14 Megilla’s choice to dress in female clothing and a wig to attend the female-only symposium further complicates our analysis of their gender. Because of these various factors, I propose a reading of Megilla that is decidedly nonbinary. They clearly conceive of themself as male in several respects, but also identify with femininity and set themself apart from cis men instead of trying to conform. In these ways, I perceive Megilla as breaking down stereotypes about gender and evading categorization into either binary category.

Up to now, the main disagreement in scholarly discourse surrounding this character seems to be between those who identify Megilla as a masculine lesbian and those who interpret them as being a transgender man. However, I believe that these two framings are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, one could argue that the clearest understanding of Megilla emerges precisely at the intersection and integration of these two identities.

How would this reading of Megilla influence our understanding of the text? There are several places where a modern translator could emphasize this framing and communicate the story in terms that would be understandable to modern queer people, even creating positive representation for the LGBT community. For example, at the beginning of the dialogue, Leaina describes Megilla as δεινῶς ἀνδρική, and this characterization sets up the understanding and expectations that readers will have going forward. Many translators choose to translate the adverb δεινῶς according to its most common meaning of “terribly” or “frightfully,” giving rise to a reading where Megilla’s manliness is something to be feared or scorned, which is consistent with Klōnarion’s reaction. However, Leaina’s feelings on the matter are less clear. The term δεινῶς presents a translator with some interesting choices. An equally valid translation could have Leaina describe Megilla as “marvelously manly,” “mightily manly,” or even “wondrously manly.”15 These translation choices would result in the rest of the dialogue presenting a more positive depiction of gender variance rather than mocking Megilla’s identity.

However, some scholars argue that it is wrong to interpret antique characters in contemporary terms at all. Boehringer believes that to do so is dangerous and should be assiduously avoided. She argues that modern readers need to mistrust Lucian, even when 14 Boehringer, “The Illusion of Sexual Identity,” 273.

15 “δεινός” in LSJ (Perseus Digital Library).

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College it seems we understand what he is talking about, because this leads to ahistorical assumptions about antiquity.16 While I agree with Boehringer that some measure of humility and caution is important, I would counter that to eliminate all modern biases when approaching a historical text is simply not possible, nor is it desirable, especially in the case of Lucian. Is the purpose of reading Lucian’s dialogues not to be entertained? To connect with the past in meaningful ways? To learn lessons and new perspectives that we can apply to our own lives?

Furthermore, laying the ethics of this choice aside, it is necessary to point out that translators have been interpreting Megilla to suit the conventions of their own time periods for nearly a hundred years. In 1928, a new illustrated translation of Dialogues of the Courtesans was published for a queer American audience, embellishing the original dialogues with contemporary slang and making cuts and additions that emphasized the many homoerotic themes. The translator, A. Hillman, insisted in his foreword that an effective translation would not merely translate the words but would also infuse them with “spirit” and “atmosphere” so as to be legible to a modern audience.17 Thomas Jenkins claims that this translation served to reframe the still new concept of homosexuality as something that had existed forever and was therefore perfectly normal.18 He also draws a parallel between this adaptation of Lucian and Lucian’s own adaptive spirit in writing dialogues that drew from mythology and Attic philosophical themes. Therefore, I argue that by interpreting Megilla in modern terms, my reading of the text is part of this lineage of writers who have seen their own truths mirrored in historical works and have sought to communicate the relevance of these texts to others of their generation.

Since deducing Lucian’s explicit intent in the creation of this dialogue is guesswork at best and since the Greek allows for a variety of quite different translations and interpretations, I propose that a new translation for our generation would make the concepts of gender and sexuality in Dialogue 5 legible to a modern audience.19 Doing so would allow queer people today to see their own lived experiences represented in classical literature, which for marginalized communities is so rare. Moreover, such an approach allows us to revitalize the study of Classics by centering those who have historically been left out, including more perspectives in the broader discourse, and ultimately ensuring the continued preservation, study, and enjoyment of these texts into the future.

Works Cited Bissa, Errietta. “Man, Woman or Myth? Gender-bending in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans.” Materiali E Discussioni per L’analisi Dei Testi Classici, no. 70 (2013): 79-100.

Blondell, Ruby, and Sanda Boehringer. “Revenge of the Hetairistria: The Reception of Plato’s Symposium in Lucian’s Fifth Dialogue of the Courtesans.” Arethusa 47, no. 2 (2014): 244-58.

Boehringer, Sandra. “The Illusion of Sexual Identity in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans 5.” In Ancient Sex: New Essays, edited by Ruby Blondell, Kirk Ormand, and David M. Halperin, 253-84. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2015.

Devor, Aaron, and Jamison Green. “Have Female-to-Male Transsexuals Always Existed?” In FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society, 3-36. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2016.

Jenkins, Thomas E. “‘An American Classic’: Hillman and Cullen’s ‘Mimes of the Courtesans’.” Arethusa 38, no. 3 (2005): 387-414.

Liddell, Henry S., Robert Scott and Henry S. Jones. Greek-English Lexicon. Perseus Digital Library. Tufts University.

Lucian. “Dialogi Meretricii 5.” In Luciani Samosatensis Opera, Vol III, edited by Karl Jacobitz. Leipzig: Bibliotheca Teubneriana, 1896.

16 Boehringer, “The Illusion of Sexual Identity,” 254.

17 Thomas E. Jenkins, “‘An American Classic’: Hillman and Cullen’s ‘Mimes of the Courtesans’,” Arethusa 38, no. 3 (2005): 397.

18 Ibid., 387-414.

19 A short film in which my new translation of this dialogue is performed will be available via YouTube this spring!

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Achilles as the Master of Ceremonies Obligations to the Living and the Dead in Iliad 18-24

Amogha Lakshmi Halepuram Sridhar (she/they), University of Victoria, Class of 2022

Abstract

Grief rituals in the Homeric Iliad act upon the tensions between obligations to the living and the dead. Caught in these tensions, Achilles brings the principal anxieties of the epic — war, death, and grief that has exceeded the epic convention and approached the realm of ritual — to the forefront. In doing so, Achilles assumes the role of a master of ceremonies within the narrative. Leading the Iliadic rituals of self-defiling, sacrifice, and dishonor, strange even to the internal audience of his actions, Achilles embodies a meta-textual gesture toward a society whose morality and mourning is shaped by war.

Grief becomes a ritual in the Homeric Iliad. Iliadic grief does not entail ritual or merely find expression within ritual; grief is all that can be offered for the dead in a society at war. As Kevin Crotty notes in regard to Zeus’ impotence before the death of Sarpedon, Iliadic figures “can do nothing for their sons except bury them and give them the honors befitting the dead.”1 Margo Kitts elaborates that the epic narrative builds up “pathos” for the deaths of its most significant figures by the deaths of other heroes.2 Thus, grief rituals in the Iliad act upon the tensions between obligations to the living and the dead, and the figure of Achilles is caught acutely in those tensions.

Scholars have described Achilles as “a mourner bewildered by the lack of means to express his grief.”3 Achilles is a protagonist who “desires the satisfaction that a γόος can offer, and tries to pass the same feeling on to the other Myrmidons.”4 This essay offers a reading of Achilles as the master of ceremonies for Iliadic grief rituals following the death of Patroklos and up to the return of Hektor’s body to Priam. Building on theories of the rituals of oath-making by Margo Kitts and the relationship between supplication and grief as Kevin Crotty discusses them, I argue that Achilles presides over Iliadic grief rituals when his obligations to the dead outweigh his obligations to the living.

The opening of Iliad 18 offers an instance of Achilles engaging with grief ritualistically. The epic describes Achilles, on hearing from Antilochos that Patroklos has fallen, as follows: “In both hands, he caught up the grimy dust, and poured it / over his head and face, and fouled his handsome countenance, / and the black ashes were scattered over his immortal tunic.”5 Achilles’ ritualistic defiling of the self in grief follows Christos Tsagalis’s typology of Iliadic laments and contains elements, such as the mourner’s “death-wish” in desperation and assumptions of “common fate,” 1 Kevin Crotty, The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (London: Cornell University Press, 1994), 97.

2 Margo Kitts, Sanctified Violence in Homeric Society: Oath-Making Rituals and Narratives in the Iliad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 11.

3 Crotty, Poetics of Supplication, 3.

4 Christos Tsagalis, Epic Grief: Personal Laments in Homer’s Iliad (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, Inc., 2004), 177. Tsagalis defines γόος as “personal lamentations uttered by the next of kin, and delivered in speech” and distinct from θρήνοι or musical laments. See Tsagalis, Chapter 1.2 for further definition.

5 Homer, The Iliad of Homer 18.23-25, trans. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). [All excerpts from the Iliad referenced in this paper correspond to this edition and are translated by Lattimore.]

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wherein there is an equivalence in the fates of the mourner and the deceased.6 However, Achilles’ grief ritual is not a translation of verbally expressible sentiment alone — his actions do not suggest any correspondence to a spoken lament or discourse. Kitts suggests paradigms of understanding ritual beyond discursivity that are particularly useful in this discussion because ritual is not necessarily “symbolic behavior.”7 These grief rituals may be understood as “iconic” and in the realm of “visual spectacle” as a narrative device that captures the attention of audiences both internal and external to the epic narrative.8 Achilles’ grief ritual is iconic because Achilles responds to the death of Patroklos by pouring dust over himself, a strange and marked action that no other character performs within the epic. Achilles’ bodily reaction to the death of his companion is what Kitts terms a “somatic” ritual.9 Somatic ritual concerns bodily aspects of ritual and this perspective sheds light on thematic anxiety surrounding the body entrenched in the Iliad.

Achilles befouls his robes, which are described as immortal, thus accentuating a desire to befoul his own person. Achilles befouls the very concept of immortality as it pertains to the body, thus weighing his ties to the dead against those to the living.

This brief ritual shifts the principal emotion surrounding the death of Patroklos from the anxiety of protecting his body to the performance of ritualistic grief. The Homeric Iliad reserves for Achilles the right to lead its mourning of the death of Patroklos.

Following Achilles’ lead, the captive handmaidens engage in lamentation.10 Even Antilochos, who breaks the news to Achilles, allows himself to mourn following Achilles’ grief, as do the Nereids, whose lamentations are for Achilles himself.11 Scholars often note that the narrative, like this lament, substitutes the death of Patroklos for that of Achilles, which does not occur in the Iliad, and attribute Achilles’ grief for Patroklos to an underlying “self-mourning.”12 However, Achilles, as the master of ceremonies, resists certain elements of epic convention, such as self-mourning and establishing narrative foils, though not successfully. In lamenta6 Tsagalis, Epic Grief, 29-30.

7 Margo Kitts, “Discursive, Iconic, and Somatic Perspectives on Ritual,” (Journal of Ritual Studies 31, no. 1, 2017), 11.

8 Ibid, 15.

9 Ibid,18.

10 Iliad, 18.28-31.

11 Ibid, 18.32-34; 18.34-64.

12 Crotty, Poetics of Supplication, 49.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College tion, Achilles swears an oath to Patroklos, attempting to create a distinction between Patroklos as a dead warrior and himself as a living mourner who may yet accomplish great acts of vengeance.

This oath, however, only tethers Achilles to the dead, and Achilles carries the grief ritual from amidst the mourning Achaians to the battlefield.

Achilles then blurs the lines between lament and oath before the body of Patroklos when he determines his course of action: I will not bury you till I bring to this place the armor and the head of Hektor, since he was your great-hearted murderer.

Before your burning pyre I shall behead twelve glorious children of the Trojans, for my anger over your slaying.13 Here, two distinct traditions — lament and oath — converge within the epic form before the unified grief ritual of washing and anointing Patroklos’ body may take place. The practice of oath-making within the Iliad, as Kitts argues, is a convention to “refine and protect social intercourse” among the living.14 Here, Achilles transfers such attachment owed to the living onto his dead companion. Achilles demonstrates his disregard for existing social protocol both in his disinterest toward the distribution of gifts that Agamemnon details and in the instance wherein Odysseus entreats him to remember that the Achaian soldiers must be fed before they can fight.15 Achilles is emphatic in his breaking of ties with the living. His oath sworn to the dead Patroklos may be weighed against the oath Hektor proposes in battle that Achilles forcefully rejects. Hektor, with the promise to do likewise, pleads with Achilles that Achilles not defile his body upon his death.16 Kitts reads Achilles’ rejection here as a rejection of the premises of oath-making, namely those of “compassion, self-restraint, and mutual trust.”17 Building on that reading, I suggest that Achilles refuses this oath in refusal of ties to the living: Hektor, argue me no agreements. I cannot forgive you.

As there are no trustworthy oaths between men and lions, nor wolves and lambs have spirit that can be brought to agreement but forever these hold feelings of hate for each other, so there can be no love between you and me, nor shall there be oaths between us, but one or the other must fall before then to glut with his blood Ares the god who fights under the shield’s guard.18 In invoking Ares as a lexical substitute for war, Achilles returns to 13 Iliad 18.334-37.

14 Kitts, Sanctified Violence, 52.

15 Iliad 19.199-237.

16 Ibid, 22.250-259.

17 Kitts, Sanctified Violence, 52.

18 Iliad 22.261-67.

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ritualistic vocabulary. The epic has previously described Patroklos at the time of his death as one with “the force of the running war god,” and Achilles colludes with the epic in elevating mortal Patroklos to one for whom the warring Achaians may perform rituals.19 Achilles insists on Hektor’s death and suggests that this death will be in fulfillment of a ritual. Hektor speaks as he falls and pleads, “Do not let the dogs feed on me by the ships of the Achaians.”20 This striking allusion to the opening lines, defining the Homeric Iliad as an epic in which heroes yield their bodies “to be the delicate feasting of dogs,” demonstrates that, as master of ceremonies leading grief rituals, Achilles embodies the principal thematic anxieties of the epic, concerning war, death, and immutable grief, and engages with the question of what happens to the bodies of heroes in death.21 Thus, the dying Hektor repeats his plea with the explicit mention of funerary ritual: “And give my body to be taken home again, so that the Trojans / and the wives of the Trojans may give me in death my rite of burning.”22 Achilles does not acquiesce. He fastens Hektor’s corpse to his chariot, dragging it back to the Achaian camp, where the rituals for Patroklos begin, and Achilles confirms that he has killed Hektor in fulfilment of the oath made to Patroklos.23 The instances of Achilles as a hero who leads grief rituals provided thus far demonstrate his role in terms of its thematic and narrative importance. Achilles’ role as the master of ceremonies uses visual spectacle in the funerary rites he offers to the body of Patroklos and in its immediate presence. In a second oath to the dead Patroklos, Achilles fulfils the theme of ritualistic self-defiling aesthetically when he refuses to wash away blood stains before burying Patroklos.24 His grief further sharpens this visual spectacle by manipulating an existing ritual convention: Achilles vows to cut his hair for Patroklos, citing that there will come “no second sorrow” while he is “one of the living,” suggesting that the ritual of cutting one’s hair is reserved for immediate family or kin and that Achilles will not experience further familial relationships in the brief life he has yet to live.25 The aesthetic gravitas of Achilles’ rituals holds the attention of the audience within the narrative, as Achilles stirs “the passion of mourning” in his companions.26 Thus, Achilles’ grief rituals are an attempt to hold on to the dead Patroklos, as evident in his dream of Patroklos. “You have forgotten me,” Patroklos declares, noting that he cannot enter Hades without the funerary rite of burning, and hence traps Achilles within his own ties to the dead.27 In the events leading up to the funeral rites, Achilles cements his role as the master of ceremonies. Achilles instructs the Achaians in the process of the grief rituals in Book 23, from carrying the body of Patroklos to offering locks of their hair. Achilles, himself, kills the twelve Trojan youth, sets the dogs upon the body of Hektor, and offers the final prayers to the winds, Boreas 19 Iliad, 16.784.

20 Ibid, 22.349.

21 Ibid, 1.4-5.

22 Ibid, 22.342-343.

23 Ibid, 23.20-23.

24 Ibid, 23.35-54.

25 Ibid, 23.46-47.

26 Ibid, 23.108.

27 Ibid, 23.69-76.

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and Zephyros, so that Patroklos’ body may burn.28 In such a role, Achilles creates a ritual framework for his own death. Achilles relates to Agamemnon his intention to be buried with Patroklos: “And let us lay his bones in a golden jar and a double / fold of fat, until I myself enfold him in Hades.”29 The Achaians follow his instructions without question, as if they are in a trance. There are no spoken responses to this demand by Achilles. The external audience is not privy to the response Achilles evokes among the internal audience. The narrative offers no commentary in regard to the cultural valence of such an intention. In the face of Achilles’ declaration, the Homeric Iliad breaks off, speechless, and moves toward another ritual that Achilles conducts. Here, the narrative introduces the funeral games.

When Achilles completes his obligations to the dead, self-imposed or otherwise, the epic narrative offers paths to repair his ties to the living, which, in the course of the funeral games, Achilles rejects. The games demonstrate the importance of societal bonds, expressed through the ritual of gift-giving. As an epic that is chiefly concerned with war, the Homeric Iliad provides its heroes with respite from battle in this episode. The narrative offers this opportunity for pause and reflection, an opportunity that many of the Iliadic heroes eagerly accept. Antilochos, for instance, offers his prize to Menelaos and attributes his own greed to his youth.30 Telemonian Aias and Odysseus take their prize “in equal division.”31 Although Achilles conducts the funeral games and offers material gifts, he remains external to the gift-giving economy that develops amidst the competitors. Achilles offers judgements with generosity but, by virtue of his role as the master of ceremonies, does not compete. Of special note is the act of Agamemnon mending his relationship with Achilles only to be met with Achilles’ impartial generosity.32 Achilles does not mend his ties with the living or honor their individual relationships with him — he turns the funeral games into a grief ritual.

Achilles remains in his role of a character planting grief rituals within the narrative so long as his ties to the dead outweigh his obligations to the living. The final opportunity for recourse the Homeric Iliad offers to its protagonist is the space to respond to Priam’s supplication. This supplication, Crotty argues, is “the ceremonial occasion for Achilles’ climactic experience of pity for Priam.”33 In this final ceremonial occasion, Achilles’ absolute control as the leader of rituals falters. When Achilles returns Hektor’s body to the grieving Priam, he acts upon his obligations to the living. Achilles’ words do not convey softened emotion. However, following the return of Hektor’s body, it is evident that Achilles himself considers this action a breaking of his oath to Patroklos because he begs Patroklos not to be angry with him.34 With the Achaian master of ceremonies faltering, the Iliadic narrative then shifts to the grief of the Trojans, leaving the grief of the Achaian camp behind.

Achilles’ grief rituals bear an immense weight on the narrative of the Homeric Iliad. As the master of ceremonies, Achilles determines what is permissible within the bounds of grief and what is not, and determines the conventions of the genre. Thus, when Achilles slays the twelve sons of noble Trojans, he is not a warrior on a battlefield — he is the master of ceremonies, effecting prescriptive ritual, with the other Achaians powerless to stop him. The societies within the Iliad are war-torn and have been for several years. Achilles’ framework for grief is informed by war, by his ties to the dead, and by extension, death itself. This is evident in his brief explanation of his motive for the ritual killing of the twelve Trojan youth when Achilles justifies the killing as performed “for my anger over your slaying.”35 This declaration is not unlike the one made before the slain Hektor. Achilles defiles sacrifice by introducing his own immutable grief within its bounds. Similarly, Achilles’ defiling of Hektor’s body is determined by his invention of “shameful treatment for glorious Hektor.”36 Achilles’ grief ritual is described here in militaristic vocabulary and with powerful hatred, which bleeds into society from war. His role leading Iliadic ritual is, in some ways, a heightened meta-textual device that forces the Homeric audience to consider what happens when societal grief rituals or morality is determined by war. The Homeric Iliad reveals itself as an epic that is necessarily larger than life, with its protagonist carrying his rage from the battlefield to society.

35 Iliad 18.337.

36 Ibid, 22.395.

28 Ibid, 23.138-225.

29 Iliad 23.243-44.

30 Ibid, 23.587-95.

31 Ibid, 23.736.

32 Ibid, 23.890-94.

33 Crotty, Poetics of Supplication, 89.

34 Iliad 23.592.

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The Haley Classical Journal, an undergraduate research publication affiliated with Hamilton College Works Cited

Crotty, Kevin. The Poetics of Supplication: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. London: Cornell University Press, (1994).

Homer. The Iliad of Homer. Translated by Richmond Lattimore.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (2011).

Kitts, Margo. “Discursive, Iconic, and Somatic Perspectives on Ritual.” Journal of Ritual Studies 31, no. 1 (2017): 11– 26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44988486.

———. Sanctified Violence in Homeric Society: Oath-Making Rituals and Narratives in the Iliad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (2005).

Tsagalis, Christos. Epic Grief: Personal Laments in Homer’s Iliad.

Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, Inc., (2004). https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/lib/uvic/ detail.action?docID=3043044.

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CALL FOR PAPERS Dear students, professors, and departments, The Haley Classical Journal is excited to announce that we are opening our call for papers for our Spring Semester 2022/Summer 2022 issue!

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