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THE CLASSICAL QUARTERLY

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VOLUME 59 앫 NUMBER 1 앫 2009

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CLASSICAL QUARTERLY P U B L I S H E D I N M AY A N D DE C E M B E R I N E A C H Y E A R

CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNALS BOARD Professor R.L. Hunter (Chairman) Miss C. Davenport (Secretary) Dr A. Bowie Professor D. Cairns Dr J. Davidson Mr P. Hooker Dr J. Morgan Professor S.P. Oakley Mrs C. Roueché Professor J.H.D. Scourfield Dr P. Stewart

Ex officio Dr V. Izzet (Editor, Greece &Rome) Dr R. Shorrock (Editor, Greece &Rome) Dr J. Taylor (Editor, Greece & Rome) Dr R. Ash (Editor, Classical Quarterly) Professor J. Mossman (Editor, Classical Quarterly) Professor R. Gibson (Editor, Classical Review) Dr N. Hopkinson (Editor, Classical Review)

EDI TORS Rhiannon Ash, Merton College, Oxford, UK Judith Mossman, University of Nottingham, UK

The Classical Quarterly is published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Classical Association. It is under the control of a Journals Board consisting of a Chair appointed by the Council of the Classical Association, the Chair of the Council, the Secretary to the Council, the Treasurer, and six further members appointed by Council. CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE JOURNAL Contributions and correspondence on its subject matter should be addressed to Dr Rhiannon Ash, Merton College, Oxford OX1 4JD, UK, Email: [email protected] or Professor J. Mossman, Department of Classics, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK, Email: [email protected]. Authors are requested to follow the ‘Notes to Contributors’ printed at the back of the journal. Subscriptions The Classical Quarterly (ISSN 0009-8388) is published twice a year in May and December. Two parts form a volume. The subscription price which includes delivery by air where appropriate (but excluding VAT) of volume 59, 2009, which includes print and online access, is £106.00 (US $196.00 in USA, Canada and Mexico) for institutions. The online-only price available to institutions is £99.00 (US $182.00). Members of the Classical Association may subscribe at reduced rates. Single parts are £57.00 (US $104.00 in USA, Canada and Mexico) plus postage. EU subscribers (outside the UK) who are not registered for VAT should add VAT at their country’s rate. VAT registered members should provide their VAT registration number. Japanese prices for institutions (including ASP delivery) are available from Kinokuniya Company Ltd, P.O. Box 55, Chitose, Tokyo 156, Japan. Orders, which must be accompanied by payment, may be sent to your subscription agent or direct to the publisher: Cambridge University Press, The Edinburgh Building, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8RU; or in the USA, Canada and Mexico: Cambridge University Press, Journals Fulfillment Department, 100 Brook Hill Drive, West Nyack, New York 10994-2133, USA. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices. COPYING This journal is registered with the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Organizations in the USA who are also registered with the C.C.C. may, therefore copy material (beyond the limits permitted by, sections 107 and 108 of U.S. Copyright law) subject to payment to the C.C.C of the per copy fee of $15.00. This consent does not extend to multiple copying for promotional or commercial purposes. Code 0009-8388/09. ISI Tear Sheet Service, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA, is authorized to supply single copies of separate articles for private use only. Organizations authorized by the Copyright Licensing Agency may also copy, material subject to the usual conditions. For all other use, permission should be sought from Cambridge or from the American Branch of Cambridge University Press. The Classical Quarterly is included in the Cambridge Journals Online journals service which can be found at http://journals.cambridge.org/caq. Tables of contents are freely available. The full text is available online from your desktop if your library has a subscription, or if you subscribe as a member of the Classical Association. For further information on other Press journals access http://journals.cambridge.org. © The Classical Association 2009 ISSN 0009-8388 Printed in the United Kingdom by Bell and Bain, Glasgow, UK

Classical Quarterly 59.1 1–7 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000019

1 TORRANCE OATH AND VIRTUE ISABELLE IN EURIPIDES’ H ELEN

ON YOUR HEAD BE IT SWORN: OATH AND VIRTUE IN EURIPIDES’ HELEN It has long been recognized that Euripides’ Helen is a play which explores the tension between illusion and reality in a very sophisticated and complex way.1 The ‘real’ Helen in this play is a paradigm of chastity and virtue. Not quite a Penelope, but almost.2 It is clear that the mythic variant Euripides is dramatizing goes against tradition, and Euripides takes great care in emphasizing Helen’s chastity, a quality which is antithetical to the standard character of the tragic Helen.3 Many scholars have discussed the issue of Helen’s chastity in this play, especially in terms of implied parallels with the virgin Persephone, abducted by Hades.4 Apart from being chaste, Helen is also a clever schemer, but Menelaus, by contrast, has been treated as dim-witted, pompous and contemptible by the vast majority of scholars.5 This paper argues that the use of oaths in the play sheds further light on the virtue of both Helen and Menelaus. In the case of Helen, it suggests that her oath-taking confirms her chastity and looks forward to her predicted apotheosis. In the case of Menelaus, it suggests that the oath bond with Helen casts him in a more positive light as a character and gives him more credit than has generally been acknowledged by scholars. In a drama of doubles, it comes as no surprise that there are two oaths.6 The first comes quite early on. Helen has been devastated to hear from Teucer that Menelaus is believed dead (132), but the Chorus persuade her to find out for sure from Theonoe, blessed with the divine gift of knowledge, whether or not the rumours are really true 1 See e.g. C. Segal, ‘The two worlds of Euripides’ Helen’, TAPhA 102 (1971), 553–614; M. Wright, Euripides’ Escape Tragedies: A Study of Helen, Andromeda, and Iphigenia among the Taurians (Oxford, 2005), esp. 278–337. 2 The parallels between Helen and the Odyssey have been well noted. See e.g. R. Eisner, ‘Echoes of the Odyssey in Euripides’ Helen’, Maia 32 (1980), 31–7; W.G. Arnott, ‘Euripides’ new-fangled Helen’, Antichthon 24 (1990) 1–18, at 13; I.E. Holmberg, ‘Euripides’ Helen: most noble and most chaste’, AJP 116 (1995), 19–42. 3 Eur. El. 1280–3 is the only other instance in tragedy where Helen is presented as a blameless victim of the gods, there explained by her brothers the Dioscuri. 4 E.g. Segal (n. 1), 595–600; C. Wolff, ‘On Euripides’ Helen’, CP 77 (1973), 61–84, esp. 63–4. D.M. Juffras, ‘Helen and other victims in Euripides’ “Helen” ’, Hermes 121 (1993), 45–57 discusses both parallels and distinctions between Helen and Persephone. 5 Cf. recently W. Allan (ed.), Euripides: Helen (Cambridge, 2008), ad 393–6 and 453; Wright (n. 1), 198, 283, and previously A. Pippin [Burnett], ‘Euripides’ Helen: a comedy of ideas’, CP 55 (1960), 151–63, at 158; A.M. Dale (ed.), Euripides: Helen (Oxford, 1967), xii; C.H. Whitman, Euripides and the Full Circle of Myth (Cambridge, MA, 1974), 45–50, 56–7, 61; Segal (n. 1), 575, 610; D.G. Papi, ‘Victors and sufferers in Euripides’ Helen’, AJP 108 (1987), 27–40, at 39; N. Austin, Helen of Troy and her Shameless Phantom (Ithaca and London, 1994), 141, 157–62; P. Pucci, ‘The Helen and Euripides’ “Comic” Art’, Colby Quarterly 33 (1997), 42–75, esp. 59–66; P. Mureddu, ‘Gli stracci di Menelao: polemica ed autoironia nell’ Elena di Euripide’, Philologus 147 (2003), 191–204, at 191–2. Arnott (n. 2), 15 calls Menelaus ‘a man of limited brain’. A.J. Podlecki, ‘The basic seriousness of Euripides’ Helen’, TAPhA 101 (1970), 401–18, was refreshingly radical in suggesting that Menelaus is a serious ‘Homeric’ hero, and not a comic buffoon, at 402–3 and passim, but this view has not been popular. 6 On doubles see Segal (n. 1); G.S. Meltzer, ‘Where is the glory of Troy?: Kleos in Euripides’ Helen’, CA 13 (1994) 234–55; Wright (n. 1), 328.

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(306–30). Helen agrees, but swears an oath, invoking the Spartan river Eurotas as sanctifying deity, to commit suicide if the rumours of her husband’s death are true (348–59). This is a particularly solemn oath statement, and Helen seriously contemplates various options of hanging and suicide by sword-stroke. The passage is a strong marker of how we are to interpret Helen as a character. It should be absolutely clear to the audience that Helen really does love her husband, even after all this time, and will not consider taking another man. Whatever illusions manifest themselves in this play, Helen’s devotion to her husband is not one of them. The invocation of Eurotas is also significant. Helen chooses a deity connected to her marital home in Sparta as overseer of her oath.7 The sanctifying deity Helen chooses for her second oath in the play, an oath of essentially the same content, is even more striking. In fact, she does not call any deity to witness her oath, but invokes the head of Menelaus as sanctifying power (835: ). It occurs to Helen, as she and Menelaus are planning an escape ruse, that if Theonoe is not won over, Menelaus will be killed and she will be forcibly married off to Theoclymenus (833). Menelaus feels that Helen is mentioning ‘forced’ marriage as an excuse (834), proving that old associations die hard. But Helen immediately responds by volunteering this powerful oath, which, like the first one she had taken before Menelaus arrived, clears her of any suspicions with regard to her chaste intentions. She swears by the head of Menelaus to die and never take a new husband should he be killed (835–7). The oath is formalized with a handclasp (838–9), and Menelaus reciprocates in kind stating that he will kill himself if he loses Helen (840). They agree that in the event of disaster, they will take refuge at the tomb of Proteus, father of Theoclymenus and Theonoe, and defend themselves for as long as possible before committing suicide (841–4).8 The formal swearing of an oath in Greek poetry usually involves the invocation of a power ‘greater than oneself ’.9 This power is normally one or more deities or, more rarely, a sanctifying object. In cases in which a sanctifying object is sworn by, this object generally embodies some particular power.10 A well-known example is Achilles in Iliad 1.233–46 who swears by Agamemnon’s sceptre. The sceptre is a symbol of power over the army and control over the situation, something which is very precious to Achilles at that moment, and something which he does not wish to lose. When Helen swears an oath to her husband invoking his own head, and no other power as sanctifying force, the implication is similar. It shows that she is desperate not to lose Menelaus, and this is validated by her sworn statement that she is prepared to die 7 Podlecki (n. 5) suggests, at 410, that the Eurotas seems ‘to symbolize Sparta and the happier days there to which the principals fear they may never return’. 8 Allan (n. 5) ad 835 follows M. Lloyd, ‘The tragic aorist’, CQ 49 (1999), 24–45, at 31–2, in arguing that Helen does not intend to swear to this death pact but that Menelaus completes her oath for her using his own interpretation of what she should swear (at 836). However this analysis treats too lightly Helen’s previous oath at 353–6, which is a sworn statement to kill herself should Menelaus be found dead, not merely a threat to do so, as Allan suggests. In fact it is not unusual for a respondent in a stichomythic exchange to pick up and clarify the meaning of the interlocutor in his or her response since the stichomythic pattern only allows for one line to be expressed by each person in turn; some examples taken at random are Eur. Andr. 911–18, El. 555–7, 635–6, IT 1186–7, Or. 432–3. Surely we are to understand that Menelaus has correctly interpreted his wife’s intentions at 836. 9 R. Janko, The Iliad: A Commentary Vol. 4, Books 13–16 (Cambridge, 1992), ad 14.271–9. Cf. A.H. Sommerstein, ‘Introduction’, in A.H. Sommerstein and J. Fletcher (edd.), Horkos: The Oath in Greek Society (Exeter, 2007), 1–8, at 2. 10 See also Sommerstein (n. 9), 2 and 218, n. 8 on sanctifying objects.

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should Menelaus be killed. Using the term ‘head’ to signify ‘person’ is not uncommon in Greek poetry, and is particularly common in Greek tragedy, 11 but Helen 835–42 is unique among archaic and classical Greek oaths in containing the invocation of a living mortal (or living mortal’s head) as sanctifying power.12 However, invocation of the husband’s head as sanctifying feature does have a divine parallel which commentators seem so far to have overlooked. This is Hera’s oath to Zeus at Iliad 15.36–46. There Hera swears an oath on Zeus’ sacred head (among other sanctifying deities) to the effect that it was not by her will that Poseidon is harming the Trojans and helping the Achaeans; rather, she suggests, it is his own passion which drives him on.13 The parallel between the oaths of Hera and Helen is that they both use their husband’s head as sanctifying object in an oath whose purpose is to allay that husband’s fears. The difference is that Hera is being duplicitous, while Helen is being honest. It has been argued that ‘Helen seems to have uttered the oath only to please Menelaus, as mere lip-service’, and that Helen would not have fulfilled her oath had, for example, Theoclymenus appeared and killed off Menelaus.14 But this suggestion ignores the solemnity with which an oath was treated in Greek literature and society. There are remarkably few examples of broken oaths in Greek poetry and these breaches are punished severely.15 In general swearers of oaths go out of their way to avoid perjury.16 Euripides, of course, became infamous for the line given to Hippolytus in the play of that name at 612: , ‘it was my tongue that swore, but my heart is unsworn’. This line was taken out of context by Aristophanes especially (Thesm. 275–6, Frogs 101–2, 1471), and used to present Euripides as a supporter of perjury. But in fact Hippolytus never breaks his oath. 11 As noted by editors; see R. Kannicht (ed.), Euripides: Helena (Heidelberg, 1969), P. Burian (ed.), Euripides: Helen (Oxford, 2007), Allan (n. 5) ad Helen 835. 12 The dead can be invoked (as at Eur. Hipp. 307, IA 473–6), and it seems that the list of sanctifying powers invoked by Demosthenes, On the Crown 208, including those who fought at Marathon, Plataea, Salamis and Artemisium, and all who fell in all of Athens’ other wars, is meant to include those who fought and survived, but these mortals are invoked in a very specific context and not in isolation. This information has been ascertained by consulting the database of A.H. Sommerstein, A.J. Bayliss and I.C. Torrance, The Oath in Archaic and Classical Greece (Nottingham, 2007), accessible at www.nottingham.ac.uk/classics/oaths/database.php. 13 It has been argued that Hera’s oath here remains proposed but unsworn (C. Callaway, ‘Perjury and the unsworn oath’, TAPhA 123 [1993], 15–25, esp. 17–18), but more convincing is the analysis of Sommerstein, Bayliss and Torrance (n. 12) and their remarks on oath id number 409. 14 Pucci (n. 5), 64. 15 Examples include Odyssey 12.298–307, where Odysseus’ men break their oath not to slaughter any sheep or oxen they come upon on the island of the Sun god, and they subsequently all die in a god-sent storm, and Hellanicus, The First Trojan War fr.26b (Jacoby), where the Trojan Laomedon breaks his oath to Apollo and Poseidon and fails to pay them the agreed wage for building the walls of Troy. In response Poseidon sends a sea monster which destroys those at hand and the crops. Informal oaths can occasionally be broken without consequence, but these belong to a different category of oaths, see A.H. Sommerstein, ‘Cloudy swearing: when (if ever) is an oath not an oath?’, in Sommerstein and Fletcher (n. 9), 267–88. 16 Several passages of Herodotus make this clear. At 3.74–5 Prexaspes anticipates punishment for perjury and commits suicide. At 4.154–5 Themison fulfils his oath by throwing Etearchus’ daughter into the sea, but immediately hauls her out again. At 4.201 the Persians purposely swear oaths over a hidden trench which will only be valid if the ground on which they stand remains firm. At 6.62 Agetus is forced to give up his wife after being tricked by an oath. All these examples were discussed by A.J. Bayliss, ‘The artful dodging of oaths in Herodotus’, at the 2007 APA meeting. The abstract is available at http://www.apaclassics.org/AnnualMeeting/07mtg/ abstracts/bayliss.pdf.

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Indeed shortly after uttering this line, which is itself spoken in a rage, Hippolytus quickly admits that his reverence of the gods will make him refrain from breaking the oath he took in their name (657). When Theseus returns, Hippolytus again wonders whether he should ‘unseal his lips’ in frustration at Theseus’ refusal to believe him, but decides that it would have no purpose since he would at once violate his oath and fail to convince Theseus (1060–3). Hippolytus’ piety in relation to oaths is even confirmed by Artemis in the exodus where she praises Hippolytus not only for rejecting the Nurse’s proposal, but also for keeping his oath of silence even in the face of Theseus’ slanderous accusations (1306–9). We hear from Aristotle (Rhetoric 1416a31–2) that Hygianon’s attempt to have Euripides charged with impiety because of Hipp. 612 was a failure.17 There is no reason to doubt that Euripides took oaths as seriously as other fifth-century Greeks. Instances in Euripides where oaths are perceived as having been broken lead to disaster for the perjurer. Jason in Euripides’ Medea essentially suffers the traditional punishment for perjury through the extinction of his family line (cf. Hdt. 6.86), and Medea can be read as the personification of the avenging fury inflicting this punishment (cf. Med. 1260).18 At Phoenissae 481–2, Eteocles is presented as a perjurer and ultimately dies, and Capaneus who swears in defiance of the gods (Supplices 498) is killed by Zeus’ thunderbolt. If it were merely a question of Helen giving lip service to Menelaus in Helen, she could easily have given a promise rather than an oath. Helen’s oath by her husband’s head may recall Hera’s oath to Zeus in Iliad 15, but there are several other deities who invoke the head of Zeus in oaths, and only deities do so. Two such invocations are abortive. Hermes, in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, volunteers to swear an oath to Apollo on his father’s head, but never does (274–6). Indeed Hermes’ engagement with oaths throughout this hymn is consonant with his tricksy character.19 Slightly different is the course of events at the end of Sophocles’ Trachiniae. In the throes of death, as he supposes, Heracles asks his son Hyllus to swear an oath on the head of Zeus his father (1185). Heracles is not yet fully divine, but he is the son of Zeus, and there are strong arguments to suggest that we are to anticipate that Heracles will undergo apotheosis after the end of the play.20 What is most telling is that Hyllus, who is certainly not divine, when he agrees to swear the oath, does not invoke the head of Zeus, he simply invokes Zeus (1188). This confirms that swearing by Zeus’ head is restricted to divinities. Two further examples of divinities invoking the head of Zeus are significant in the context of Helen. Sappho fr. 44A and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (26–8) both contain virgin goddesses swearing on the head of Zeus to maintain their chastity for 17 J.D. Mikalson, Honor Thy Gods: Popular Religion in Greek Tragedy (Chapel Hill, 1991), 86, notes the irony of Hipp. 612 being used to suggest promotion of perjury, when Hippolytus is ‘most loyal to oaths in the most trying and tragic circumstances’. M. Dillon, ‘By gods, tongues, and dogs: the use of oaths in Aristophanic comedy’, G&R 42 (1995), 135–51, at 143–4, argues convincingly that the Aristophanic parodies of Hipp. 612 are essentially humorous rather than loaded with accusations of impiety. 18 Pace A. Allan, ‘Masters of manipulation: Euripides’ (and Medea’s) use of oaths in Medea’, in Sommerstein and Fletcher (n. 9), 113–24, who argues that Jason never swore an oath to Medea, but fails to explain why Jason never denies having sworn or broken the oath as Medea claims. 19 See further J. Fletcher, ‘A trickster’s oaths in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes’, AJP 129 (2008), 19–46. 20 See R. Fowler, ‘Three places of the Trachiniae’, in J. Griffin (ed.), Sophocles Revisited: Essays Presented to Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Oxford, 1999), 161–75, at 167–74.

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all time, Artemis in the first case, Hestia in the second. Along with Athena, these goddesses are said to be the only three beyond Aphrodite’s power (h. Aphr. 7–35), and it is perhaps noteworthy that Athena, the virgin goddess, was born from the head of Zeus.21 Clearly the content of these oaths is a strong parallel to Helen’s oath in Euripides’ play where the female swears on the head of a significant male, as the only sanctifying power, to remain chaste. If the audience is aware that virgin deities swear on the head of Zeus to their chastity, Helen’s oath becomes even more solemn. Similarly, if swearing on the head is a feature of divine oaths, then we have a forward glimpse in this oath towards Helen’s predicted apotheosis, which is mentioned at the end of the play (1666–9).22 Furthermore, we are reminded that, like Heracles, she also has a claim to be the child of Zeus, something mentioned several times in the play (e.g. 77, 81, 470, 489, 1144, 1527). But what are the implications of this for Menelaus? There is clearly a tension between Menelaus’ wretched appearance and the implication of a parallel with a divine formula for oath-taking. There are two possible interpretations. Either we are to find that Menelaus is made (even more) ridiculous by the parallel, or we should find that it shows him in a worthy and virtuous light. The first interpretation would tie in well with the opinions of critics who see the play as a light-hearted drama of the ‘romantic comedy’ type. Menelaus receives this incredibly solemn oath while being cast as a bumbling beggar, and the effect is intended to be ridiculous. But is Menelaus really so contemptible in the play? Critics have seen the male characters in this play as intellectually inferior to the females. But it is often unwise to treat Euripidean dramaturgy in terms of simple binary oppositions. An obvious example, which fails completely in Helen, is a Greek–barbarian antithesis, where Greek is good and barbarian is bad. Theoclymenus is a bad barbarian of sorts, but his sister is nothing but virtue and divine knowledge. Similarly we should not allow Theoclymenus’ character to colour our perception of other male characters in the play. I suggest that Menelaus is not nearly as dim as scholars have argued, and that the solemnity of the oath with which Helen binds herself to her husband is a cue for the audience to expect Menelaus to act in a noble and effective way in attempting to secure their escape. It is true that Menelaus has taken a while to come to terms with certain revelations – that the Helen he took from Troy is just a phantom and that this woman he has come across in Egypt is actually the real Helen.23 But we can hardly find fault with him there. Indeed, he would be far more gullible and contemptible if he had believed everything straightaway. It is also true that Helen encourages Menelaus to abandon his shame and flee Egypt (805), but he is not well pleased at being treated as a coward in this way (806–8). Helen rejects any idea of Menelaus killing the king. She taunts Menelaus with the fact that killing him is impossible (809), without really ever explaining that this is only because the omniscient Theonoe would never allow it, not because Menelaus is a poor swordsman. In spite of her chastity, there are traces of the

21 Wolff (n. 4), 62, notes that Aphrodite is rejected in Helen by Theonoe (1006–7) and is reproached by Helen (1102–4). 22 On Helen’s connection with the divine in this play, see e.g. G. Zuntz, ‘On Euripides’ Helena: theology and irony’, in J.C. Kamerbeek et al., Entretiens sur l’Antiquité VI: Euripide (Geneva, 1960), 201–41, esp. 218, and B. Zweig, ‘Euripides’ Helen and female rites of passage’, in M.W. Padilla (ed.), Rites of Passage in Ancient Greece: Literature, Religion, Society (London and Toronto, 1999), 158–80. 23 Cf. C.W. Willink, ‘The reunion duo in Euripides’ Helen’, CQ 39 (1989), 45–69, at 50–1, who comments on the ‘shock’ caused to Menelaus by the circumstances of his reunion with Helen.

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‘familiar’ Helen in this character.24 She is very much concerned about Menelaus’ poor appearance (554) and she is embarrassed at the idea of Menelaus begging for food (791). But overall, Helen is presented as a virtuous alternative to the traditional adulterous whore of tragedy. I suggest that in this alternative world of phantoms and barbarians, Menelaus too is meant to be understood as a more worthy and virtuous alternative to the negative portrayal he receives elsewhere in tragedy.25 In fact, his appeal to Theonoe proves more successful than Helen’s and he displays considerable intelligence in improvising explanations which ease the suspicions of Theoclymenus. Theonoe agrees to keep quiet about their escape plan because she does , ‘pollute the good not want to (999–1000) reputation of [her] father’, and she is concerned about pollution from her first entry where she is involved in a purification ritual (865–70). Theonoe’s decision can be read as a more direct response to Menelaus’ threat to pollute her father’s grave through suicide (984–5), than to Helen’s appeals to justice and reputation. It is Menelaus who persuades Theonoe with what touches her heart most (960), and it is he who tells Theonoe what Helen had left out of her plea (976), that is, their sworn pact to commit suicide over Proteus’ grave should their escape attempt fail. Theonoe’s response proves that Menelaus’ arguments have been more persuasive than Helen’s.26 Similarly, Menelaus shows skill in dealing with Theoclymenus. For example, when the latter asks why the ship must be taken so far away from the shore to perform the bogus burial rites, he promptly replies (1271) , ‘so that the waves may not wash the impurities back to land’, a wholly believable explanation. The significance of Menelaus’ part in the escape can easily be measured by comparing the role of Orestes in the parallel plot line of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris. The two plays have often been thought of as a pair because of their similarity in structure. But there, Orestes has no input at all in the escape plan. Iphigenia is in complete control until they reach the offstage space of the ship, where Orestes must fend off the Taurians who are attempting to prevent them from sailing off. Menelaus, by contrast, is not only actively involved in securing the silence of Theonoe, he also takes over control from Helen before they leave the stage. By line 1390, he has been washed and is dressed as a warrior. Even scholars who find Menelaus ridiculous find him less so at the end of the play.27 Yet he is not just ‘less ridiculous’ – in fact he plays a fundamental part in successfully effecting the escape. It is he who takes over from Helen in allaying Theoclymenus’ suspicions (as noted above), it is he who manages to lead the contrary bull willingly on to the ship (1567–8), and it is he who organizes the ambush of the Egyptians with his men (1606–10), and ultimately makes good the escape. Again, if we compare Orestes in Iphigenia in Tauris, we do not find such a success story. Yes, Orestes fights valiantly, but it is only the intervention of Athena that secures the safety of the Greeks who have not yet managed to leave the shore in

24

Cf. Wolff (n. 4), 77, who remarks that ‘the new Helen assimilates the old Helen’. Menelaus in both Andromache (e.g. 362–3) and Trojan Women (e.g. 1033–5) is presented as effeminate and contemptible, and his character in the later play Orestes is also highly unsympathetic. 26 Cf. Wolff (n. 4), 66 and 83, who finds Menelaus’ rhetoric in this scene ‘shrewd’. The appeal to Theonoe must be based on the assumption that she has not yet made up her mind on the subject. Lines 892–3 should clearly be deleted, see further Burian (n. 11) ad loc. 27 E.g. Pippin [Burnett] (n. 5), 152 and 156, feels that Menelaus regains his courage. 25

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their ship (cf. IT 1394–5, 1414–19). In Helen, the Greeks have already escaped a significant distance before their deception is reported to the king. In sum, Menelaus does rather well in the final part of the play, at least, and his fortunes improve after Helen binds herself to him by oath. The formula of this oath, reminiscent of a divine formula, confirms the virtue and potential of an alternative Menelaus, just as it confirms the virtue and divine potential of this new Helen. University of Notre Dame

ISABELLE TORRANCE [email protected]

Classical Quarterly 59.1 8–29 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000020

8 TRAGIC HONOURS AND DEMOCRACY PETER WILSON

TRAGIC HONOURS AND DEMOCRACY: NEGLECTED EVIDENCE FOR THE POLITICS OF THE ATHENIAN DIONYSIA* Over the course of the last decade there has been much discussion, some of it in the pages of this journal, on the nature of the relationship, if any, between tragedy and democracy; and in particular, on the question of whether the Athenian City Dionysia should rightly be described as a ‘festival of the democratic polis’. The latter is a phrase used by Simon Goldhill in his article of 1987 – ‘The Great Dionysia and civic ideology’, which rapidly became a highly influential articulation of the position that Athens’ premier dramatic festival, viewed in the round as the ensemble of its framing ceremonies and the plays performed in contest at it, reflects or indeed enacts some of the defining preoccupations and practices of the democratic city.1 It is also a phrase – and an idea – which much recent criticism has sought to undermine.2 Fortunately, the fundamental questions at stake in this debate are rich enough to sustain not only a decade of productive disagreement – on top of the twenty-odd years of historicizing approaches to Greek drama that led up to it – but also, it is clear, further contributions.3 Given the length of the debate, measured in years and pages, the suggestion that there are significant items of evidence not yet considered in it may however come as a surprise. Less surprising, given that the relevant documents are fragmentary inscriptions, a variety of evidence of which many literary students of drama are often very wary, if not simply ignorant. It is the purpose of this paper to introduce this material to the debate about the politics of the classical Dionysia. And it is hoped that this may more generally encourage a better integration of the full range of epigraphic evidence into mainstream studies of Greek drama. * Thanks to Alastair Blanshard, Eric Csapo and an anonymous reader for extremely helfpul comments. I gratefully acknowledge the research assistance and substantive suggestions of Andrew Hartwig and, in particular, the generosity of Julia Shear for sharing work prior to its publication and discussing many points of detail. Financial assistance for this project was provided by the Australian Research Council. 1 ‘The Great Dionysia and civic ideology’, JHS 107 (1987), 58–76, at 68. 2 A small selection of items from the subsequent discussion: various contributors to J. Winkler and F. Zeitlin (edd.), Nothing to do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in its Social Context (Princeton, 1990), which includes a corrected version of Goldhill (n. 1); W. Connor, ‘City Dionysia and Athenian democracy’, C&M 40 (1989), 7–32; C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘Something to do with Athens: tragedy and ritual’, in R. Osborne and S. Hornblower (edd.), Ritual, Finance, Politics: Athenian Democratic Accounts Presented to David Lewis (Oxford, 1994), 269–90; B. Goff (ed.), History, Tragedy, Theory: Dialogues on Athenian Drama (Austin, 1995); C. Pelling (ed.), Greek Tragedy and the Ancient Historian (Oxford, 1997); P. Easterling (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 1997); P. Wilson, The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage (Cambridge, 2000); recent criticism and response: J. Griffin, ‘The social function of Attic tragedy’, CQ 48 (1998), 39–61; S. Goldhill, ‘Civic ideology and the problem of difference: the politics of Aeschylean tragedy, once again’, JHS 120 (2000), 34–56; R. Seaford, ‘The social function of Attic tragedy: a response to Jasper Griffin’, CQ 50 (2000), 30–44; P. Rhodes, ‘Nothing to do with democracy: Athenian drama and the polis’, JHS 123 (2003), 104–19; D. Carter, ‘Was Attic tragedy democratic?’, Polis 21 (2004), 1–25. 3 Note for instance the conference organized by David Carter at the University of Reading in September 2007, ‘Why Athens?: reappraising tragic politics’. An edited volume of essays is forthcoming with Oxford University Press.

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THE GREAT DIONYSIA AND CIVIC IDEOLOGY: A BLIND-SPOT My concern is with one of the key items discussed by Goldhill – namely, the proclamation in the theatre of honours, and in particular crowns, to benefactors of the city prior to the performance of tragedy. It was Goldhill who for the first time attempted to understand this, along with other ‘preplay ceremonials’, as part of a larger dynamic between tragic text and context, between democratic society, politics and drama. That discussion initiated a rich debate that continues apace. But few of these contributions mention, and none discusses in any detail, the first and most striking example of the phenomenon. Goldhill found there to be a meaningful and dynamic relation between the city’s practice of awarding honours and the nature of the tragedies that followed. In other words, the decision to timetable the event thus was in his view driven not by mere convenience, nor even by the simple fact of the presence of a large international audience. He saw the ensemble of ceremonial activities that took place just prior to the performances of tragedy as powerful assertions of the norms of democratic polis society that were then exposed to intense scrutiny in the dramas that followed: in the interplay of norm and transgression enacted in the festival which both lauds the polis and depicts the stresses and tensions of a polis society in conflict, the Great Dionysia seems to me an essentially Dionysiac event.4

The practice evinced the authority and confidence of a city that was in a position to confer significant honour and award, and it demonstrated the collective and competitive ideology of a democracy that sought thus to encourage others to serve it in the same way.5 By striking contrast, the scenarios of the tragedies that followed this display so often enacted the dangers of honour-seeking, the collapse of collective authority and the transgression of all communal limits. The recent criticism directed against Goldhill’s interpretation of this ceremony asserts, in the first place, a lack of evidence for it in the period from which tragedies themselves survive – namely, the fifth century. Thus David Carter writes: ‘that there is no evidence for it in the fifth [century] disqualifies it from being used by Goldhill as evidence of a democratic context for the tragedy that we have’.6 A second and more general criticism is that there is nothing distinctively democratic about these practices, that they are rather the sort of activity in which any polis might engage, just as tragedy – so the argument goes – is a form that appealed to and addressed the polis as such, rather than the democratic polis in particular. Well acquainted with the whole gamut of epigraphic and literary evidence, in his case against democratic interpretations of Athenian drama, Peter Rhodes sees the connection between such ‘civic business’ as the award of honours in the theatre and the dramas that followed as little more than ‘accidental’.7 He does cite the key item in the dossier of evidence that I shall be discussing – the fragmentary decree on stone (IG 13 102) which records the first known case of honours – but implies merely that its date late in the fifth century and the fact that it honours a foreigner, rather than a citizen, limit its relevance to the

4

Goldhill (n. 1), 76. Goldhill (n. 1), 62–3. Carter (n. 2), 8–9, noting that Goldhill himself seems to acknowledge the lack of good evidence for it in the fifth century. 7 His word: Rhodes (n. 2), 112. 5 6

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debate. He does not mention that it honoured the men who had restored the democracy by assassinating the leader of the oligarchic régime of 411 B.C. When IG 13 102, and a small set of its close congeners, are properly introduced to this debate, the position alters radically. These decrees reveal the appearance of a novel form of ‘publication’ of especially important honours awarded to its benefactors by the Athenian dêmos at the end of the fifth century – their announcement by means of the herald’s voice at the tragic agôn of the City Dionysia. This innovation, which was to have a long and very rich future, needs to be seen as one response to the political trauma experienced by the democracy in the revolutions of 411 and 404 B.C. At a minimum we can therefore say that benefactors to Athens were indeed honoured at the Dionysia in the age of Sophocles and Euripides. But more importantly, if, as many hold, IG 13 102 represents not only our first evidence for the practice, but evidence for the very start of it, the circumstances of its passing throw important light on its origin and ideological matrix. It will, moreover, emerge that this particular award of honours to the saviours of democracy at the Dionysia of 409 B.C. stands in a tradition, reaching back to the start of the fifth century, of proclaiming awards to tyrant-slayers before the performance of drama at the festival (this last one pre-play ceremonial overlooked by both Goldhill and his critics). IG 13 102: HONOURS FOR ASSASSINS Consideration of the significance of this first known example of honours for benefactors announced at the Dionysia has thus been entirely absent from the debate about the Dionysia, democracy and drama. A brief discussion of this intriguing document – so familiar to students of fifth-century democracy yet never introduced into discussion of the history of the theatre – is thus in order. IG 13 102 is a decree of the Athenian dêmos, passed in the spring of 409 B.C., that awards extensive honours to Thrasybulus of Calydon, the assassin of the oligarch Phrynichus, architect and leading agent of the anti-democratic revolution of 411 B.C. The document consists of three parts. The first is the substantive proposal of honours for Thrasybulus authored by one Erasinides, a man known to have good democratic credentials (lines 1–14).8 There follow two amendments, the first of which (lines 14–38) grants Thrasybulus Athenian citizenship; gives him leave to seek further benefits; confers upon him a share in a property apportionment; and awards lesser honours to some seven or eight of his associates. The second (lines 38–47) establishes an enquiry by the Council into allegations that bribery had been used in order to secure an earlier decree in the same connection in favour of Apollodorus of Megara. That Apollodorus eventually had honours conferred upon him comparable to those for Thrasybulus is clear. It is a possibility that he too was honoured with a gold crown at the Dionysia of 409 B.C.9 Only the main decree concerns me here. Erasinides’ proposal is to praise Thrasybulus of Calydon10 for being ‘a good man towards the dêmos of the Athenians

8

M. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, vol. 2 (Brussels, 1982), 20. R. Meiggs and D. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century2 (Oxford, 1969 [1988]), 263; J.L. Shear, Polis, Demos, and Revolution: Responding to Oligarchy in Athens, 411 to 380 B.C. (forthcoming), makes the case for the award of a crown to Apollodorus at the Dionysia. 10 Thrasybulus’ ethnic is not mentioned in the inscription and cannot easily be restored. It is relatively unusual, though not unknown (cf. e.g. Agora 16, 55 with M. Walbank, ‘Greek inscrip9

11

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and eager to do whatever good he can’ (lines 6–8). And, ‘in return for the good things he has done [for the city] and the dêmos of Athenians’ it is proposed that he be crowned ‘[with a gold cr]own’ (line 10), the value of which was very probably 1,000 drachmas.11 The next and final clause of Erasinides’ proposal entails the instructions for the public announcement, at a festival agôn, of the reasons for which the dêmos had awarded the crown to Thrasybulus: IG 13 102,12 lines 12–14

410/9 B.C.

stoichedon 36 h

.

h 12–13:

h -

|

Velsen.

|

Dinsmoor And at the agôn [of the Dionysia the herald is to announce] the reasons for which [the dêmos has crowned him].

Given the state of the inscription (with 25 of the 36 letters of line 13 missing), and given its relatively early date and thus the lack of good parallels for various of its phrases, this part of the text of IG 13 102 should hardly be treated as definitive.13 What can be said with certainty about this clause? In the first place, that it does indeed specify the public announcement of honours at a festival agôn. For even though the verb ([ ]) is fully restored, the reference to an agôn, immediately following the clause that stipulates the creation and award of a crown, ensures that it is a proclamation clause. There are numerous later parallels.14 Indeed, this is the first in a very long line of such proclamation clauses in Athenian decrees (a point to which I shall return). h | (lines 11–12) without doubt refers to the Similarly, the phrase h decision to have the herald detail the reasons that motivated the award of the crown, rather than, as is the rule in later examples, simply to state the fact of the award. In tions from the Athenian agora’, Hesperia 54 [1985], 311), to omit reference to the place of origin of foreigners honoured in Athenian decrees. In this case the omission may have something to do with an earlier decree or decrees in favour of Thrasybulus, though Osborne (n. 8), 18 argues persuasively that IG 13 102 is the first or original set of honours for Thrasybulus. See also, expressing a different view on this point, A.W. Gomme, A. Andrewes and K.J. Dover, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, vol. 5 (Oxford, 1981), 309–10; and C. Bearzot, ‘A proposito del decreto ML 85 per Trasibulo uccisore di Frinico e i suoi complici’, Istituto Lombardo (Rend. Lett.) 115 (1981), 289–303. 11 lines 8–11: | | | Most of the restorations in this part of the decree are, in broad outline, uncontroversial. 12 Earlier editions: IG 1.59+ (Velsen and Kirchhoff ); IG 12 110 with add. p. 303+ (Hiller); Tod 86+; Meiggs and Lewis (n. 9), no. 85; cf. SEG 10 (1949), 125 (Meritt on line 13: see below); text and important discussion in M. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, vol. 1 (Brussels, 1981), 28–30; Osborne (n. 8), 16–21; see also C. Veligianni-Terzi, Wertbegriffe in den attischen Ehrendekreten der klassischen Zeit (Stuttgart, 1997), 31–2. 13 Cf. Meiggs and Lewis (n. 9), 262: ‘The restorations are not all certain’. In Wilson and Hartwig ‘IG I3 102 and the tradition of announcing honours at the tragic agon’ (forthcoming), a case is made for a number of other possible restorations for line 13, which introduce specific reference to the contest of tragedies. 14 See esp. A. Henry, Honours and Privileges in Athenian Decrees (Zürich and New York, 1983), 22–62.

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effect this amounts to the specification of a text for the herald to deliver – or at least something like a set of bullet-points for the same. Though its presence and function are clear enough here, this is one feature of this early honorific decree that does not catch on.15 The fact that it does appear here demonstrates the importance to the framer’s mind of having the reasons for the honours for Thrasybulus fully and very publicly proclaimed, and before a larger and more diverse audience than that of the Assembly. It has always been assumed, no doubt correctly, that the clause also envisages the actual act of crowning Thrasybulus in the theatre, and not simply the announcement of the reasons for this crowning. (In this, as in many other aspects of this decree, we might have wished for a more competent secretary than Lobon.)16 The event is thus to be no mere report, but a live performance, complete with a script for a herald to deliver that voices the will of the dêmos. Nor can it be doubted that the agôn in question (line 13) was part of a major Athenian polis festival. In fact, despite the loss of much of line 13, there is virtually no doubt that the festival in question was the City Dionysia of 410/9 B.C.17 Only one other candidate has ever been aired – the athletic agôn of the Panathenaea of 409/8 B.C. This was proposed by Dinsmoor in 1931, with the following text:18 h h

h -

.

While this does have the advantage of specifying the relevant agôn more clearly than other restorations, little more can be said in its favour. The fact that 409/8 B.C. was a year for the Small Panathenaea speaks very strongly against it.19 In any case, 15 R. Osborne, ‘Inscribing performance’, in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (edd.), Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy (Cambridge, 1999), 341–58, at 354–5. It does however also appear in the next datable example of an honorific decree with proclamation clause, IG 13 125, lines 23–9 of 405/4 B.C., on which see further below. And cf. SEG 29 (1979), 86 (= IG 22 20+), lines 14–17 (of 393 B.C.) with D. Lewis and R. Stroud, ‘Athens honours King Euagoras of Salamis’, Hesperia 48 (1979), 189–90: Euagoras of Salamis apparently praised and honoured as (among other things) a Hellene serving Hellas. The herald is to proclaim as much at the tragic agôn of the City Dionysia. 16 Even in the majority of cases, where decrees do not, as here, specify the enumeration of reasons for the award, but simply require the herald – ‘to announce the crown’ – the meaning is rightly understood to be ‘to announce the award of the crown as it is being conferred’ (assuming the honorand is present). See below on the honorific decree for Epicerdes of Cyrene, the provisions of which for the announcement of an earlier crown in addition to the current one indicate a normative association of announcing and actual crowning. This cannot have been a hard-and-fast rule, however, as the case of Callias of Sphettus shows – known not to have been in Athens when honoured: T.L. Shear, Kallias of Sphettos and the Revolt of Athens in 286 B.C. Hesperia Supplement XVII (Princeton, 1978). Similarly, some of the many foreign honorands in later decrees are likely not to have been able to come to Athens for the scheduled ceremony. 17 This is now the consensus omnium: see e.g. Meiggs and Lewis (n. 9), 263; Henry (n. 14), 30; J.L. Shear, Polis and Panathenaia: The History and Development of Athena’s Festival (Diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2001), 414. 18 W. Dinsmoor, The Archons of Athens (Cambridge, MA, 1931), 346, n. 6; SEG 10 (1949), 125. 19 Although the restoration of democracy took place several months before the Great Panathenaea of 410 B.C., making that festival potentially available for this purpose, the framers of this plan to honour Thrasybulus and his associates did not bring their action forward in time to make use of that festival to proclaim the honours, probably at least in part as a matter of deliberate choice rather than through simple force of circumstance. See below p. 15.

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Dinsmoor’s suggestion of Athena’s festival in preference to Dionysus’ was motivated by a misunderstanding of the relevant calendrical circumstances. In that respect, Meritt’s calculations, which take full account of the confusion that affected the prytanic year in 411 B.C., are to be preferred. These put the start of the year 410/9 B.C. on 26th Thargelion 411 B.C., thus leaving ample time for the eighth prytany to propose the decree, since the Dionysia will have begun more than twenty days into their watch.20 In her full study of the documentary evidence for the Panathenaea over all its recorded history, Julia Shear rejects the association of IG 13 102 with the Panathenaea.21 Dinsmoor also proceeded in the belief that the selection of festival in such proclamation clauses was motivated by little more than accidental temporal proximity: that the next major polis festival to come after the decision had been passed by the Assembly (whether Dionysia or Panathenaea) was the festival for the announcement of the honours, simply because it was the next. This belief – shared, more or less explicitly, by many scholars22 – deserves some further consideration and critique. For it proceeds on the tacit and inherently weak assumption that the framers of such important proposals were fundamentally constrained by circumstance rather than at liberty to choose time and place. While there can be no doubt that pressure of events and questions of proximity did play some role in the timetabling of such announcements, in the case of IG 13 102, liberty rather than constraint is demonstrable. It was not by accident that the Dionysia was chosen in preference to the Panathenaea, or any other major civic occasion, as the moment at which to crown the killers of Phrynichus. We should give more credit to the forethought of the framers of these proposals and look at the question from (as it were) the beginning, rather than the end, of the process. For it makes more sense to suggest that the timetabling of proposed honours as agenda items for the Council and Assembly was significantly influenced by the

20 B. Meritt, The Athenian Calendar in the Fifth Century (Harvard, 1928), 98 and esp. Meritt, Athenian Financial Documents of the Fifth Century (University of Michigan, 1932), 104–6. Dinsmoor calculated that the start of the prytany of Hippothontis, during which IG 13 102 was passed – the eighth of the year – was around Elaphebolion 13, the day on which the Dionysia should have ended. The place of the Hippothontid prytany is established by Meiggs and Lewis (n. 9), no. 84, line 27 (= IG 13 375). 21 Shear (n. 17), 414; cf. also Meritt 1932 (n. 20), 105, n. 3. The proclamation of honours at the Panathenaea is only securely attested over half a century later (in 347/6 B.C.: IG 22 212, lines 20–44; P. Rhodes and R. Osborne (edd.), Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC (Oxford, 2003), no. 64), and the Dionysia far eclipses the Panathenaea (its nearest rival) as the premier site for the announcement of such awards over the course of the entire classical period, and beyond. The honours awarded at the Panathenaea in 347/6 B.C. are for Spartocus, Paerisades, Apollonius, sons of Leucon ruler of Bosporus. This decree shows the further innovation of the repeated award of crowns at successive Great Panathenaea (lines 24–6 with Rhodes and Osborne [n. 21], 323), in full knowledge that the crowns will never leave Athens (lines 33–6). The Dionysia and Panathenaea are the two festivals at which such awards are announced with increasing frequency over the course of the following decades. The two festivals maintained this status for some two centuries, until around 220 B.C., at which time the Eleusinia and Ptolemaea joined them to form a fairly stable group: Shear (n. 17), esp. 418–19. Agora 16, 225, lines 9–11 (of 224–221 B.C.) is the first appearance of the quatrain of festivals. Shear (n. 17), 413–23 traces the history of the developments in the award of crowns at the Panathenaea in full, down to the first century. 22 Cf. Shear (n. 17), 414: ‘the timing of the decree may have determined the festival at which the crown was announced: the Great Panathenaea of 410–9 had already been celebrated at the beginning of the year, while the City Dionysia had not’.

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anticipated advent of major festivals, and to acknowledge that a large degree of choice was often open to their proposers as to when they initiated their action. Concern for speedy proclamation of honours at a forthcoming festival gathering becomes quite unambiguous when the decrees themselves explicitly stipulate that the relevant occasion is to be ‘the next’ or ‘the imminent’ event. But even such instructions for expeditious timetabling are not evidence of constraint tying the hands of their proposers. And in fact these two similar qualifying phrases are somewhat different in – is especially function. The use of ‘the imminent agôn’ – striking. It appears in another early close congener to IG 13 102, and deserves brief mention here in its own right. This is the second instance surviving from the fifth century of awards proclaimed at a city festival, and follows the awards for Thrasybulus by just four years. Such public proclamations of honours were doubtless still a novelty, a high and distinct honour. This is the decree awarding honours to Epicerdes from Cyrene, dated to 405/4 B.C. (IG 13 125).23 Epicerdes had some time earlier given the Athenians 100 minas in their hour of need to rescue Athenian soldiers from starvation in Sicily, and been granted a crown for it, though as the document makes clear, he had not actually been publicly awarded this crown. He subsequently made a further cash gift of a talent, for which, among other honours, another crown was forthcoming. The surviving decree stipulates that ‘[the herald] should make the announcement, with the additional proclamation at the imm[inent agôn] in the city | | ( ) [that earlier Epic]erdes of Cyrene [gav]e the Athenians [100 minas] for the rescue in return for which they [crowned him for his bravery] and good-will [to the Athenians]’: lines 23–9.24 Like IG 13 102, this decree was probably passed some time in the eighth prytany, during which the City Dionysia fell.25 Though precision is impossible, the ‘imminent agôn in the city’ may thus have been no more than days away. The honours publicly awarded to the Cyrenean benefactor and saviour of Athenian manpower were thus certainly publicized at the city’s greatest theatrical festival. And the remains of the decree directing this show traces of the urgency with which this deadline was met. The clearly works as an ‘URGENT BUSINESS’ label.26 But the fact phrase 23 Bibliography on this text, following the discovery and incorporation of a new fragment in the excavations of the Agora in 1970: B. Meritt, ‘Ransom of the Athenians by Epikerdes’, Hesperia 39 (1970), 111–14; Henry (n. 14), 30–1; W. West, ‘The decrees of Demosthenes’ Against Leptines’, ZPE 107 (1995), 237–47, esp. 242–7; D.M. MacDowell, ‘Epikerdes of Kyrene and the Athenian privilege of Ateleia’, ZPE 150 (2004), 127–33. See also A. Bielman, Retour à la liberté. Libération et sauvetage des prisonniers en Grèce ancienne. Recueil d’inscriptions honorant des sauveteurs et analyse critique. Études épigraphiques, vol. 1 (Lausanne, 1994), 3–7 for text and commentary. 24 This decree thus, unusually, directs the proclamation of a crown that had already been granted some time earlier (Meritt [n. 23], 113–14) – perhaps because Epicerdes had been unable to receive it in person at the earlier date, though it remains a possibility that he had been awarded the earlier crown but not the act of its public proclamation. The (lost) decree sanctioning the earlier crown should date to around 413–411 B.C. and would thus antedate the award for Thrasybulus by a few years. Julia Shear points out to me that the abolition of democracy late in 412 may have interrupted the award of this first crown. But whether the earlier decree offered proclamation of the crown or not, it is clear that the earlier crown was not in fact proclaimed until 404 B.C. 25 See the calculations of Meritt (n. 23), 114, arguing for Erechtheis as the tribe in prytany. 26 The phrase appears in various Attic inscriptions in the context of e.g. the urgent appointments of ambassadors, special commissioners and the like; important announcements by heralds; urgent elections and decisions: cf. e.g. IG 13 21, line 5 of 450/49 B.C.; IG 13 40, line 47 of

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that such special instructions were stipulated to ensure that the honours for Epicerdes were proclaimed at the imminent Dionysia does not mean that this festival was chosen for nothing more than its proximity. On the contrary, the reverse is more plausible: namely that the proposal was shepherded through the Assembly and carefully formulated in this way with a view to the advent of the Dionysia. The desire for publicity at the fast-approaching festival is clearly paramount, and has created the impression of a last-minute rush in the business of the Assembly. Perhaps this usage, unique in honorific decrees, reflects a real situation not far from the imaginary one, projected on to the fifth century by Lucian, where the seven gold crowns that it is proposed be awarded to Timon of Athens are ‘to be proclaimed at the Dionysia, at the time of the new tragedies, today’. (Timon 51). to identify a IG 13 125 provides the only example of the use of forthcoming festival in the proclamation formula of an honorific decree. It is somewhat different from the practice, attested only from the late fourth century – and then, not in the city of Athens – of specifying that such proclamations are to take place ‘at the first (= next) Dionysia’.27 As Angelos Chaniotis has recently observed of this phenomenon, ‘[i]t was not self-evident that the honours were to be announced on the next occasion’.28 While evincing a concern for speedy proclamation, this usage thus also shows that there was no inherent assumption that the next urban agôn, whatever that might be, was the moment at which such proclamations would automatically be timetabled.29 The choice of festival for the announcement of honours, and of an event within a festival programme, was thus not neutral. And it certainly was not so when, as in IG 13 102, the practice was in the very earliest stages of its formation. Moreover, in her fine discussion of the decree of Demophantus and its associated oath, Julia Shear has 446/5 B.C., or indeed in IG 13 102 itself, line 23, also demonstrating its ready availability at this early period; IG 22 16, line 10 of 394/3 B.C.; IG 22 112, lines 6–7; IG 22 114, lines 6–7. However in the great majority of uses it appears as an adverbial phrase with verbs such as , , , and not, as in IG 13 125, attributively between the repeated article and ; cf. L. Threatte, The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions, II: Morphology (Berlin/New York, 1996), 409. 27 For a lively discussion of this phenomenon and further examples see now A. Chaniotis, ‘Theatre rituals’, in P. Wilson (ed.), The Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies (Oxford, 2007), 48–66, at 56–7. Others: Priene, IPriene 17, line 17; 54, line 65; 53I, line 34; 53II, line 59; 60, line 17; 61, lines 36–7 (fourth to second centuries); Cos, SEG 35 (1985), 912, line 5 (second century); ED 133, line 34 (second century); Larisa, SEG 26 (1976–7), 677, line 80 (second century); Magnesia, IMagn. 102, line 12; Lampsacus, IK 6, 2, 12, line 11 (second century). More elaborate variants: Colophon, REG 1999: 2, lines 29–32, (third century); Ephesus, IEph. 1390, lines 5–6. A (rare) Panathenaic example: IMylasa 632, lines 19–20 (second–first centuries). 28 Chaniotis (n. 27), 56. 29 The only (late) classical Attic example known to me is from a deme, the decree of the Aixoneis (SEG 36 [1986], 186, of 313/12 B.C.) which specifies as the time for the award of gold crowns to two local chorêgoi in the theatre ‘at the comedies in the year after Theophrastus’ archonship’ (lines 6–7: | ). This example further demonstrates the weakness of mere temporal proximity as the motivating factor for the timing of proclamations. The local Dionysia of Aixone was doubtless chosen by the Aixoneis for reasons of local pride, and because it was the one deme event that drew an audience from well beyond the deme itself. The specification of ‘the comedies’ (cf. SEG 36 [1986], 185, lines 14–15 also of 313/12 B.C.) seems to reflect a special local tradition, or the performance with which these honorands had been associated as chorêgoi (or both). See D. Whitehead, The Demes of Attica (Princeton, 1986), 235–42. A second Attic example is the much later IG 22 1227, lines 31–3 (of 131/0 B.C.) from Salamis: a gold crown to be awarded ‘at the tragedies of the Dionysia on Salamis, when it next takes place’ ( ).

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noted that that decree was passed sufficiently early in the civic year 410/9 to have made the Great Panathenaea of 410 B.C. available for the act of collective oath-taking by the Athenians which it prescribed, but the Dionysia of 409 B.C. – the very festival at which Thrasybulus was crowned – was explicitly specified instead.30 There could be no more pertinent example of the deliberate selection of one polis festival in preference to another; no better indication that simple proximity is an insufficient explanation of such timetabling; and no more compelling evidence that the collocation of such civic rituals within a festival frame can hardly be deemed ‘accidental’. ‘AT THE TRAGIC AGÔN’ It is clear that careful thought went into the plan to crown Thrasybulus at the City Dionysia of 409 B.C. But if we return to examine the phraseology of the relevant clause, the instruction that the honours for Thrasybulus be announnced ‘at the agôn [of the Dionysia]’ might seem to be rather unhelpfully vague. The programme of events of the City Dionysia in the late fifth century was after all complex, and the simple expression ‘at the agôn of the Dionysia’ is decidedly imprecise for the practical purpose of identifying a particular moment within it, with the aim of timetabling an important announcement. In 409 B.C. there were at least four agônes at the City Dionysia: the boy’s chorus, men’s chorus, comedy and tragedy. It is, none the less, clear that by this expression those who discussed and drafted IG 13 102 in fact meant to be understood, ‘at the tragic agôn of the Dionysia’. The close association of this new practice from the outset with the performance of tragedy cannot be doubted. That this is so is shown in the first place by the fact that, in the overwhelming majority of references to the practice, literary and epigraphic, the additional specification of ‘tragic’ is in fact present.31 Moreover, the imprecise and the specific alternatives are put to the same purpose in exactly parallel epigraphic contexts.32 And it is further suggested by the generally high profile attaching to tragedy among the performance-genres of the festival, such as to set up a synecdochic relationship between ‘the agôn’ and ‘the tragic agôn’ of the Dionysia. Moreover in 409 B.C., and for many years before that date, a range of announcements and other activities – the ‘preplay ceremonials’ illuminated by Goldhill – customarily took place just prior to the start of the tragic contest of the City Dionysia, marking that point above all others as the most significant focus of collective, para-theatrical attention within the festival programme. An abbreviated reference of the sort found in IG 13 102 – ‘the agôn of the Dionysia’ – must depend on a widespread familiarity with these practices that would remove any ambiguity. The display of imperial tribute in the orchêstra 30 J.L. Shear, ‘The oath of Demophantos and the politics of Athenian identity’, in A. Sommerstein and J. Fletcher (edd.), Horkos: The Oath in Greek Society (Exeter, 2007), 156. See further below p. 26 on the significant coincidence at this festival of honours for the assassin and oath-taking against anti-democrats. 31 Wilson and Hartwig (n. 13) assembles the evidence and makes a case for a number of other possible restorations for line 13 of IG 13 102 itself, which introduce specific reference to the contest of tragedies. 32 As an example of the imprecise usage of agôn – but with certain reference to the Dionysia (see above p. 14) – cf. the (securely) restored phraseology used in the decree of honours for Epicerdes, IG 13 125, lines 23–9 (405/4 B.C.): | | . Of the numerous specific usages, cf. the honours for Asclepiades of Byzantium, to be awarded ‘at the agôn of tragedies of the Great Dionysia’: | (IG 22 555, lines 6–7, of 307/6 – 304/3 B.C.).

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prior to the performance of tragedy very probably took place in 409 B.C., as it had done in the 420s and probably for some decades before that. In fact, Julia Shear has recently suggested that 409 B.C. was the very year in which the display of tribute was resumed after its suspension in 413 B.C.33 Similarly, the other activities known to have taken place before the performance of tragedy in the fifth century are very likely to have been present in 409 B.C.: the parade, in armour provided by the city, of young men orphaned by war and reared by the state;34 the pouring of libations by the ten stratêgoi;35 and finally, the possible proclamation of rewards to those who murder would-be tyrants.36 I shall return to this last item – not included in most recent discussions – shortly. For it is, I suggest, an immediate antecedent to the oath of Demophantus against anti-democrats and tyrants (assimilated clearly in that document for the first time), an oath sworn at this same festival. And the benefits the oath of Demophantus promised to political assassins were instantiated by the proclamation of honours for Thrasybulus at the same event. It should at any rate be clear that, in the epigrammatic language of the decree, ‘at the agôn of the Dionysia’ serves as shorthand for ‘at the tragic agôn of the Dionysia’. DEMOCRATIC HISTORY AND THEATRE HISTORY Discussion of IG 13 102 has traditionally tended to focus on the major issues of historical significance that lie behind it. Of prime concern has been its relation to the seismic events that led to the downfall of the oligarchic rule of the Four Hundred in 411 B.C., and to the other sources that report them. And the evidence it provides for the nature of engktêsis (the right of a non-citizen to own real property in Attica) in the early period has loomed large in the traditions of Athenian legal and diplomatic history;37 as have its provisions more generally for the award of honours, for this is the first known instance of the award of a gold crown to civic benefactors in any context.38 Analysis of the provisions for and significance of the announcement of Thrasybulus’ crown has been limited. While their place at the very head of the long Athenian 33 Shear (n. 30), 156. The display in the theatre is likely to date from as early as the transference of the League treasury from Delos to the Acropolis in 453 B.C., and generally to be coincident with the period of empire during which tribute-paying states were required to bring their payment to Athens at the time of the Dionysia. The best evidence associates it with the 430–420s: Ar. Ach. 496–508 and ad 504; Isoc. On the Peace 82; [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 3.2; see S. Goldhill, ‘The Great Dionysia and civic ideology’, JHS 107 (1987), 58–76, at 60–2. That it took place just prior to the tragic agôn – the source which gives most precision in the issue (Isocrates) writes only ‘in the orchêstra, at the Dionysia, when the theatre was full’ – is guaranteed by its close association with the parade of war-orphans, whose reception is placed precisely ‘at the time of the tragic performances in the city’ by Aeschines, In Ctes. 154. 34 This too is associated with the period of empire, and seen as long in the past in 330 B.C.: Aeschin. In Ctes. 153–4; Thuc. 2.46.1; Lys. fr. 129 (Carey): note the detail here of announcement by a herald, ; perhaps Solonic: Diog. Laert. 1.55; cf. Rhodes (n. 2), 111. 35 Plut. Cim. 8.7–9 with Goldhill (n. 1), 60; Carter (n. 2), 6. 36 See below, p. 26 for the evidence for this last activity. It may also be relevant that, according to most reconstructions of the programme of the classical Dionysia, tragedy could be said to be the ‘last’ – and climactic – agôn, at least the last to begin (comedy perhaps having for a period also ended on the last day): E. Csapo and W. Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama (Michigan, 1995), 107. 37 Meiggs and Lewis (n. 9), 262–3 with further bibliography and Osborne (n. 8), 16–21 offer the best summary of the main issues that have occupied commentators. 38 Henry (n. 14), 30; Osborne (n. 15), 354–5; Shear (n. 17), 414.

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tradition of proclaiming honours in a ‘live’ context beyond the Assembly has been noted, it was only in 1999 that Robin Osborne associated this apparent innovation with the particular individuals being honoured – political assassins – and with the circumstances of their honouring: ‘Announcing the honouring of Thrasybulus of Calydon at the Dionysia is one of the distinctly novel, or at least new-fangled, ways in which the murderers of the oligarch Phrynikhos were praised’.39 He did not develop the point further, however, and the politics of the theatre implied by it remain to be explored. In a fine recent study, Julia Shear has done a great deal to highlight the coincidence at this Dionysia of a number of enormously significant political events: the award of honours for Phrynichus’ assassins; the taking of the oath of Demophantus; and the likely resumption of the display of tribute, after a break of some four years in the wake of the Sicilian disaster. All of this no doubt made of that festival ‘a particularly charged affair’.40 For this famous document, of major importance to the history of Athenian democracy, has never been properly introduced into discussion of the history of the Athenian theatre. It certainly deserves a place there. The reasons for that exclusion are not hard to find. Until recently, the paths of the political history of Athens and the history of its theatre rarely met – and certainly not in the pages of PickardCambridge, who paid scant attention to the proclamation of public honours prior to the performance of tragedy at the City Dionysia.41 For that reason alone IG 13 102 never became an item in the standard portfolio of evidence for the history of the classical theatre that The Dramatic Festivals of Athens claimed to be. That omission, and the very authority of Pickard-Cambridge, account for its having remained outside the mainstream of scholarship on the theatre, even now that studies attentive to the social and political contexts of Athenian drama have proliferated.42 Having taken a closer look at the relevant document, we can return to the broader question of its significance for our understanding of the politics of the festival with which I began. As Robin Osborne saw, it is clear that this new form of festival proclamation of honours for the assassin of the oligarch was an innovation tailored to the importance of the events, giving the whole practice a profoundly ‘democratic’ origin.43 More can be said about this fitting of the new medium to the message of the moment. For, just as the great attention paid to the public and highly visible 39 Osborne (n. 15), 354. See also M. Burzachechi, ‘Doni ospitali (xenia) e corone d’oro nei decreti della Grecia antica’, Rendiconti della Accademia di archeologia, lettere e belle arti 36 (1961), 103–113, at 108; M. Blech, Studien zum Kranz bei den Griechen (Berlin/New York, 1982), 156–7. 40 Shear (n. 30), 156. Shear argues, however, that the oath associated with the decree of Demophantus was taken not in the theatre but in the Agora. 41 His only reference to the epigraphic evidence is the comment at A. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens2 (Oxford, 1988 [1968]), 59, n. 3 (cf. 67): ‘This provision occurs in many inscriptions’. H. Mette, Urkunden dramatischer Aufführungen in Griechenland (Berlin, 1977), 94–102, improves upon Pickard-Cambridge by collecting evidence for the proclamation of honours at the Dionysia, but he too fails to include the earliest examples discussed here. 42 A similar neglect has attended the intriguing set of inscribed decrees of the Assembly, passed at the special meeting held after the festival, and honouring foreigners for their services to the Athenian theatre. S. Lambert, ‘Polis and theatre in Lykourgan Athens: the honorific decrees’, in A. Matthaiou and I. Polinskaya (edd.), ΝΙΛΣΟΤ ΙΕΣΟΝΞΘΝΨΞ: ΝΕΜΕΥΕΤ ΕΙΤ ΝΞΘΝΘΞ Michael H. Jameson (Athens 2008), 53–85 redresses this neglect admirably. Cf. more generally P. Wilson, ‘Introduction: from the ground up’, in Wilson (ed.) (n. 27), 1–17. 43 Osborne (n. 15), 354, quoted above. Cf. Burzachechi (n. 39), 109.

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(re-)inscription of laws in the period following the turmoil of the two oligarchic revolutions was evidently designed to bolster the authority of the democratic lawcode itself,44 so too the new and special form of non-graphic ‘publication’ at the Dionysia of honours that had been decreed by the dêmos should be seen as a way of endowing these decisions with a heightened authority that likewise takes its origins from the (first) oligarchic trauma – an authority derived moreover from a new combination of the spoken and the written words of the dêmos. For the announcement in the theatre freed many from the need to read the decree itself.45 IG 13 102 could hardly present a more redolent example, a more momentous set of circumstances: the action that led to the restoration of democracy after its first overthrow, a re-foundational moment in democratic history – indeed, the point at which, in the view of some, an avowedly democratic political self-consciousness was born for the first time in Athens.46 This should be seen to confirm in spectacular fashion Goldhill’s thesis of the democratic ideological frame of tragedy, for here at the very inception of the practice, we see the democratic city rewarding with significant material gifts and powerfully symbolic honour those who came to its defence, latter-day tyrant-slayers akin to those founding heroes of the fifth-century democracy, Harmodius and Aristogeiton.47 The international character of the Dionysia ensured that the message reached a very wide audience. The wider world was called upon to witness the democracy once again fully in charge of its own destiny, and, more specifically, letting all know that anyone who did the dêmos good, be they Athenian or, as with Thrasybulus, nonAthenian, would find glory and generous reward.48 The Athenian (democratic) dêmos 44 M. Ostwald, From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law: Law, Society and Politics in Fifth-Century Athens (Berkeley/London 1986), 509–24; P. Liddel, Civic Obligation and Individual Liberty in Ancient Athens (Oxford, 2007), 80. 45 I note that Liddel (n. 44), 172, makes a similar suggestion, to the effect that announcement of honours made them accessible to those who did not read inscriptions. J.L. Shear, ‘Cultural change, space, and the politics of commemoration in Athens’, in R. Osborne (ed.), Debating the Athenian Cultural Revolution: Art, Literature, Philosophy and Politics 430–380 B.C. (Cambridge, 2007), 91–115, at 114 writes of Athens in 410 B.C. that ‘democracy and its products had to be displayed and the city had to be made visibly democratic again’. She amply demonstrates how, in preference to the Acropolis, the Agora was newly turned to this purpose, in particular for the honouring of citizen euergetai. Between Acropolis and Agora, the theatre of Dionysus was in this period evidently the place of choice for honouring non-citizen euergetai of democratic Athens. 46 Shear (n. 45), 114. 47 Cf. the prominent place of the Tyrannicides in the fifth-century popular imagination as evidenced by the Harmodius skolia in particular, PMG 893–6. 48 The debate around the announcement ceremony at the Dionysia has not always been clear as to the relevance of the distinction between awards for citizens and non-citizens. In an updated version of his influential 1987 contribution (n. 1), Goldhill (in Winkler and Zeitlin [n. 2]), 105, n. 26 very properly clarifies that ‘the evidence for the presentation of the crowns to Athenian citizens in the fifth century … is much less secure than for the fourth century’. The evidence shows a complex picture, with awards to non-Athenians very much more prominent in the epigraphic record overall (see esp. Henry [n. 14]) and the question of whether Athenian citizens could legally have honours proclaimed anywhere outside the Assembly (such as at the Dionysia) becoming a key issue at stake in the legal battle between Demosthenes and Aeschines in the 330s B.C. (Aeschin. 3.32, Dem. 18.120–1). On the last point E. Harris, ‘Law and oratory’, in I. Worthington (ed.), Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (London, 1994), 130–50, has convincingly shown that Aeschines’ case against the crowning of Demosthenes was, in strictly legal terms, weak and tendentious. For the award of crowns to Athenians in the fifth century see M. Gygax, ‘Plutarch on Alcibiades’ return to Athens’, Mnemosyne 59 (2006), 481–500. The very limited evidence for this includes nothing to suggest that any was proclaimed at a festival. It is relevant to the case of Thrasybulus that in the first rider of IG 13 102 (lines 15–16), he is awarded citizenship.

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had regained its all-important power to thank and to confer honour. And there will also have been an important internal dynamic to the message that this proclamation sent – a clear statement to Athenian citizens, of whatever ideological persuasion, of what constituted ‘doing the dêmos good’ (more on this below). At this point it is worth passing in review the small cluster of early congeners to IG 13 102, decrees in which the ‘festival publication’ formula makes its first appearance – all likewise absent from previous discussions of the politics of the theatre. For the honours for Thrasybulus are in fact the first in a small group dating to the last decade of the fifth and the first of the fourth century. The clear implication is that this was one response of the democracy to the trauma inflicted by the revolutions of the Four Hundred and Thirty – a response which took root as a habit, spread far afield, and persisted for centuries. But as I have already suggested, while the new form of proclaiming crowns and other honours at the Dionysia was indeed a likely innovation of this tumultuous period, seen in combination with the oath of Demophantus, the practice should also be understood as a form of ritual renovation, a continuity with a pre-existing practice that may date to the very first years of the democratic Dionysia, as well as an important development upon it under pressure of very particular historical and political circumstances. The language of these early decrees, particularly that of the proclamation clauses, reveals the uncertainty of a formula in formation, even granted the extremely fragmentary nature of the relevant inscriptions.49 Announcement ‘at the agôn of the Dionysia’ in 409 B.C is followed at a period of four years by ‘at the imminent agôn in the city’. It is clear that this has not become in any sense a fixed phrase since only two years later we find the use of the temporal clause ‘at the Dionysia, when the tragic agôn takes place’. A new variant on this last resurfaces in the next surviving example a decade later – ‘at the agôn when the tragoidoi are in competition’.50

49 See Henry (n. 14), 30–3. For convenience, I list the relevant clauses as restored in the most recent editions:

앫 앫 앫 앫

IG 13 102, lines 12–14 (409 B.C.): IG 13 125, lines 23–9 (405 B.C.): | IG 22 2 frag. b, lines 10–12 (403 B.C.):

| | |

|

SEG 29 (1979), 86 (= IG 22 20+), lines 14–16, 29–30 (393 B.C.), slightly modified: | …36… (lines 14–16); - - - - - - | | … . This improved reconstruction of the text of SEG 29 (1979), 86, lines 29–31 (of 393/2 B.C.) follows the recognition of Lewis and Stroud (n. 15), 189 that we have in this document a decree followed immediately by an amendment made in the Assembly, and that the language and phraseology of the text at lines 29ff. (amendment) closely echo that of lines 14ff. (proposal). Hence the introduction in line 30 of the verb from line 15, in preference to the anaemic … of IG 22 20, line 7. Lewis and Stroud (n. 15), 190 compare IG 11. 4 664, lines 11–13 (Delos, 240–230 B.C.) | , as the nearest parallel for the use of the phrase . IG 11. 4 1043, lines 15–16 (also from Delos) may be superior, since it is somewhat earlier and refers specifically to tragedy. 50 See the preceding note on SEG 29 (1979), 86. Henry (n. 14), 22, 31, 45, n. 2, 53, nn. 66–7 is perhaps over-sceptical with regard to IG 22 2, given the parallel (noted by Henry) in SEG 29 (1979), 86. Further support for the use of a temporal clause is available in the deme honorific decree of the fourth century IG 22 1210, lines 4–6: | | .

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We wait more than sixty years for the next examples of honours proclaimed at the Dionysia.51 It is clear that this earlier group is special. While we can say nothing much about the Boeotian father and son honoured in 403/2 B.C.,52 the other honorands form a quite remarkable group: there is Thrasybulus (and probably Apollodorus), the liberator of the Athenian dêmos from ‘tyranny’; the saviour of Athenian manpower, Epicerdes of Cyrene; and Euagoras king of Salamis, patron of Conon’s successful arrival in Athens as a returning hero of renascent Athenian naval power – all figures key to the security and identity of the Athenian democracy across this critical period.53 A recent study of the honours awarded the last on the list concludes that they treat him like a destroyer of tyrants.54 Brief consideration of this group thus leaves no doubt about the importance of the new practice of festival proclamation for Athenian democratic self-consciousness. Yet it also requires that we nuance any interpretation of the announcement of honours at the fifth-century Dionysia as above all a marker of Athenian democratic selfconfidence.55 While, as I have suggested, the granting of honours for Thrasybulus does point to a new assertiveness of the returned democracy, the act itself hardly obliterates the memory of what had given rise to it, no matter how anaemic, euphemistic or evasive its language tried to be: ‘… in return for the good things he has done [for the city] and the dêmos of Athenians …’. The award of a crown to Thrasybulus may speak a new confidence of the dêmos in power, but that confidence is at the same moment significantly tempered or tainted by a fragility and a sensitivity. For the very act of crowning Thrasybulus inevitably recalls the moment at which the shocking vulnerability of the dêmos had been exposed. Read with an understanding of its particular historical circumstances, such political self-confidence as we may find in this practice is in fact not that far from the spirit of uncertainty or heavily qualified optimism that tends to characterize the agency of the dêmos or polis in tragedy itself. To that extent, the contrast between tragic text and context may not be quite as sharp as Goldhill presents it.56 The proclamation of an (earlier) award of a crown to Epicerdes of Cyrene, in addition to another for a subsequent gift of emergency funds, is also especially revealing in this regard. These large cash gifts to Athens had come from this foreign euergetês in an hour of extreme need, for the money was used to save the lives of captured Athenian soldiers in Syracuse, in the darkest days the city had seen for a very

51 See Henry (n. 14), 31–2. The special honours announced (for the first time) at the Panathenaea for the magnates of Bosporus date to 347/6 B.C.: IG 22 212, lines 20–44, but we must wait a further fourteen years after that for the next Dionysian example. 52 And see n. 50 above for reference to the doubts of Henry as to whether a crown is indeed awarded, let alone proclaimed, in this fragmentary decree (IG 22 2 frag. b). M. Walbank, ‘An Athenian decree reconsidered: honours for Aristoxenos and another Boiotian’, Echos du monde classique / Classical Views 26 (1982), 259–74, argues 403/2 B.C. is not possible as a date for this inscription, and that the two fragments (a and b) do not derive from the same stêlê. He (tentatively) sees in frag. a a proxeny decree for the Boeotian exile Aristoxenus, dating it to 382/1 B.C. Fragment b he argues is close in date, and perhaps honours with a crown and its proclamation another Boeotian refugee who had provided funds to help the refugees from Boeotia. 53 Euagoras had been honoured (though without proclamation) eleven years earlier by the Athenians, probably for securing their food supply: Lewis and Stroud (n. 15), 187: SEG 34 (1984), 24; Osborne (n. 8), 22–4 dates this decree to early 407 B.C. 54 Shear (n. 45), 107–8. 55 Cf. Goldhill (n. 1), 62–3, 68. 56 Goldhill (n. 1), 68.

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long time, with the threat of the extinction of democracy looming directly before it. In saving the men, Epicerdes saved the city.57 The practice of proclaiming crowns to benefactors at the Dionysia thus simultaneously reveals the confidence and the fragility of the democracy, dependent as it was on foreign – and in many cases, extremely wealthy and powerful – individuals, yet able, in the very act of endowing them with such ostentatious honours, to assert and enact its superior status in any relationship. The granting of citizenship as one of the relevant ensemble of honours is an especially potent gesture. This highest award was given infrequently, and can be viewed to some extent as a means of attempted honorific control, of making its recipients at least notionally conform, in the act of acceptance, to Athenian norms and standards.58 In recognizing this dynamic we may detect a further reason why it was the city’s premier agonistic festival that was the chosen site for this practice. For the very business of awarding crowns to civic benefactors had the effect of assimilating their actions to other forms of agonistic endeavour, of making ‘doing good to the Athenian dêmos’ (euergetism) a contest like any other.59 The decision to timetable the proclamation of the ‘winners’ of this special agôn at the very moment of the city’s most prestigious cultural agôn (tragedy) draws attention to the implicit assimilation of civic euergetism to the long-familiar economy of the agonistic in the realm of performance – theatrical, musical and athletic.60 As in dramatic and musical contests, nonAthenians could and did always compete alongside Athenians in this event. But most importantly of all, from the perspective of the Athenian dêmos, this assimilation will have served as a powerful form of honorific control. For it made of even the most critical acts, vital to the very continuity of the democracy, performances to be judged and appropriately awarded by the dêmos. BETWEEN OLIGARCHY AND DEMOCRACY: THE DIONYSIA OF 410 AND 409 B.C. The festival at which the assassins’ honours were to be proclaimed is that of 410/9 B.C. This was surely an occasion of particularly strong emotions, in the aftermath of the first oligarchic revolution of 411 B.C. and the restoration of democracy. But we should first briefly consider the festival of the preceding year, 411/10 B.C. For there will have been a number of unusual circumstances attending this earlier event. The civic year had begun under the Archonship of Mnasilochus, the oligarchs’ man who almost certainly went on to become one of the Thirty seven years later.61 Given that it was the first practical duty of the Archon on entering office ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 57 In Thucydides’ account (7.77.7) of the epigrammatic conclusion to the ‘encouraging’ speech to the soldiers in question delivered by their general Nicias, this disaster prompts a striking absolute rhetorical identification between ‘men’ and ‘the city’ that draws on a topos of poetic discourse: . Alcaeus fr. 112, l. 19 (Lobel & Page); cf. Aesch. Pers. 349 and 352; Soph. OT 56–7. 58 This dynamic has been studied to good effect by A. Moreno, Feeding the Democracy: the Athenian Grain Supply in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC (Oxford, 2007), esp. 261, 268 in his analysis of the awards (though citizenship is not among them) granted by decree (IG 22 212) to the kings of Bosporus in 347/6 B.C. 59 Thus Osborne (n. 15). 60 Cf. Burzachechi (n. 39), 109: ‘ispirato certamente dalla consuetudine dell’ incoronazione agonistica’. 61 [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 33.1 with P. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian ‘Athenaion Politeia’ (Oxford 1993 [1981]), 410–11.

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56.3), Mnasilochus is very likely to have appointed the chorêgoi for the Dionysia, and perhaps took further steps in the festival’s planning. After the assassination of Phrynichus in the autumn of 411 B.C., Theopompos replaced Mnasilochus as Archon, but it is unlikely that he annulled the choregic arrangements that had been set in place. This in any case heralded the start of the period of the ‘moderate oligarchy’ of the Five Thousand.62 The duration of that regime is unclear, but the restoration of full democracy is generally thought to have taken place by March or April, following the battle of Cyzicus.63 In other words, the Dionysia of 410 took place under the Five Thousand, or just as their rule came to an end – one reason, no doubt, why it took so long for Erasinides & Co. to engineer the honours for Thrasybulus and his fellows.64 We happen to know something about one of the three chorêgoi for the tragic contest in this turbulent year. He was the extraordinary young man who commissioned Lysias’ twenty-first oration – and we know that he spent half a talent in the process (21.1).65 That sum is high and eloquent enough by itself. But, added to the list of his other known services, whose total expenditure exceeds some ten talents, it makes it as good as certain that he himself was from a family of compromised oligarchs, desperate to buy his way out of trouble. Had he been appointed to the most conspicuously prestigious choregic duty for tragedy by Mnasilochus as a promising young ‘sympathiser’, only to find soon after that the need to present himself well before the re-empowered dêmos in that capacity had become all the more urgent? It is no surprise that he describes himself as having come of age and performed this chorêgia in the archonship of Theopompus, (rather than Mnasilochus). This is probably an expedient licence on his part. But even if he had been appointed by Theopompus, that meant appointment by the Archon of the Five Thousand, and probably – as we have just seen – service at a festival with little by way of solid democratic credentials. The civic year of 410/9 B.C. was treated as a new democratic beginning.66 The very first official political business of that year was the passing of the decree of Demophantus and its accompanying oath.67 This directed Athenian citizens to kill anyone who attempted to overturn the democracy, granting them all legal and religious impunity in doing so. It described citizens who responded to this call to defend the democracy quite explicitly as tyrant slayers, in direct analogy with the tyrant-slayers

62 No democracy, pace G. de Ste Croix, ‘The Constitution of the Five Thousand’, Historia 5 (1956), 1–23. 63 D. Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire (Ithaca 1987), 247. Others place the restoration as late as June or as early as January: Meritt 1932 (n. 20), 104–14. 64 Cf. Meiggs and Lewis (n. 9), 263; Gomme, Andrewes and Dover (n. 10), 310; Bearzot (n. 10); and esp. Osborne (n. 8), 18–20. Thucydides was unable or unwilling to name an assassin, but rather attributed the murder to a nameless attendant (peripolos) of the Council Chamber (8.92). And the evidence of Lysias shows that the matter was still far from settled in 400. The facts were doubtless messy. Perhaps what the motion of Erasinides shows above all is the ideological need, in the wake of this fatal breach of trust, for a single champion of democracy, a latter-day tyrant-slayer with a recognizable identity (yet the long lapse of time taken, in addition to the amendments of Diocles and Eudicus, demonstrate how difficult producing such a clear-cut hero was). 65 He appears not to have been victorious: P. Wilson, ‘Costing the Dionysia’, in M. Revermann and P. Wilson (edd.), Performance, Reception, Iconography: Studies in Honour of Oliver Taplin (Oxford, 2008), 113. 66 Cf. esp. Andoc. 1.96. 67 Andoc. 1.97; M. Ostwald, ‘The Athenian legislation against tyranny and subversion’, TAPhA 86 (1955), 103–28.

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Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and eliding in the process the oligarch and the tyrant.68 Anyone who died in the attempt, along with his children, was to receive the honours accorded to them and their descendants. It has generally been assumed (and occasionally argued) that these rewards were restricted in their application to citizens only.69 But the language of the decree describing the slayer of the would-be destroyer of democracy is broad, doubtless deliberately so – ‘he who kills one who would do these things and he who conspires to do so’.70 While non-Athenians could hardly be bound by oath to protect Athenian democracy, they could certainly be honoured for doing so on a par with citizens. Very recent history will certainly have made the Athenians painfully aware of the value of (presumably metic) non-citizens in the defence of their democracy.71 The accompanying oath is to be sworn by ‘all the Athenians over adult offerings, before the Dionysia’ (Andoc. 1. 98, ) – the Dionysia in question being that of 409 B.C. This phrase has generally been interpreted as a temporal index stipulating a deadline before which all Athenians were required to have sworn the oath.72 I suggest that it may have a more specific meaning, namely ‘just prior to the Dionysia’ – and perhaps, more specifically, ‘just prior to the tragic performances of the Dionysia’.73 It thus also serves the purpose of timetabling this important action more precisely, as would be expected in a decree of this kind. In other words, we should envisage the scene of the Athenians swearing the oath of Demophantus en masse in the theatre, perhaps moments before the new and special honour of 68 69

See esp. Shear (n. 30), 152. Shear (n. 30), 151 makes the case.

70 . The Athenians could obviously legislate for non-citizens, including metics, within their territory, and in the absence of further specification it is, I believe, preferable to assume that includes citizens and non-citizens alike. If however Shear (n. 30), 151 is right in arguing that non-citizens are not included in these potential rewards, it makes the extremism of the oath all the more forceful. The way it binds all citizens to become assassins under such terms takes shape in light of the fact that the Athenians had evidently depended on foreigners to save them from oligarchy in 411. 71 The account recorded by Thucydides (8.92) is usually interpreted as suggesting that the killer of Phrynichus was in fact an Athenian, for the unnamed peripolos is said to have had an Argive accomplice, implying that the killer himself was Athenian: Gomme, Andrewes and Dover (n. 10), 310. If there had been a potential Athenian candidate for the assassin, there must have been powerful reasons why this account did not take root. One such reason would be that the assassination of Phrynichus was in fact the product of in-fighting among the oligarchs rather than noble resistance to their tyranny – a version of events that the restored democracy would be eager to obliterate. Bearzot (n. 10) makes some interesting arguments along these lines; cf. esp. her conclusion at 298: ‘La congiura contro Frinico nasce dall’interno della cercia degli oligarchi’. Note also the point made above about the controlled – and controlling – award of citizenship to foreign benefactors, including Thrasybulus. 72 D. MacDowell, Andocides: On the Mysteries (Oxford, 1962), 136 inclines to the view that the expression works only to stipulate a deadline for making the oath. But at the same time, he is struck by the unusually lengthy ‘period of grace allowed for the taking of the oath … the surprisingly long one of about nine months’. 73 See above p. 16 on the evidence for the placement of such activities at this moment within the festival programme and below n. 77 for evidence that the phrase could be used with this more specific meaning. I am delighted to see that Julia Shear (n. 30), 153–8 recently arrived at the same conclusion quite independently, although her interpretation differs from mine in locating the oath-taking in the Agora rather than the theatre, and in placing the taking of the oath in the days leading up to the festival proper. I refer to her excellent analysis, in which she further notes, for instance, that the stipulation that all Athenians swear the oath ‘by tribe and by deme’ is without earlier parallel, and has a full discussion of the regular epigraphic usage of the preposition in the sense of ‘just before’ which complements my own.

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bestowing a gold crown before the same theatrical audience on one who had enacted the spirit of Demophantus’ decree avant la lettre.74 There is no other example of + in the surviving corpus of Attic inscriptions.75 And there is just a single instance of + . In the honorific decree IG 22 351, lines 19–20 (330/29 B.C.), Eudemus of Plataea is praised for the following: ‘he has donated a thousand (days of labour of ) yoke of oxen for the construction of the stadium and the Panathenaic theatron, and has sent them all before the Panathenaea, as he promised …’ ( … )’76 While this may look rather more like an instance of the ‘deadline before which’ usage of + festival, it also demonstrates the special purposefulness that motivates the selection of the festival mentioned in such phrases – for there is no doubt that the oxen provided by Eudemus were to be employed for heavy haulage and construction-work on the stadium and theatron needing to be readied for use at the next Panathenaea. Moreover, the epigraphic examples cited by Shear (n. 30), 155–6 in reference to in the events or festivals other than the Dionysia demonstrate more fully that sense of ‘just before’ was a familiar usage. Among these, the direction to proclaim honours awarded by the Mesogeioi is especially illuminating. These are to be announced ‘in the sanctuary of [Heracles at the festival], just before the sacrifice’ | | ) IG 22 ( 1244, lines 3–5. In addition, the single literary example of generated by a textual search of the TLG confirms the view that in the decree of Demophantus the phrase should mean ‘just prior to the Dionysia’. This is the account given by Aelian of the young Plato, on his way to the theatre to compete with a tragic tetralogy that he had composed, only to hear and forever be distracted by Socrates: … ‘passing by just before the Dionysia he heard Socrates …’, VH 2.29.77 74 The interpretation of the phrase I propose (‘all the Athenians are to swear it … just prior to the Dionysia’) effectively includes the purpose of the more general interpretation as deadline (‘all the Athenians are to swear it before the date of the Dionysia’), on the assumption (easy enough in terms of ordinary Athenian ideological identifications: see esp. Dem. 21.18 with P. Wilson, ‘Demosthenes 21, Against Meidias: democratic abuse’, PCPS 37 [1991], 164, 187–8; Shear [n. 30], 156) that ‘all the Athenians’ are present for the Dionysia and swear the oath before it begins in earnest. If it did take place in the theatre – using an altar in the orchêstra, or perhaps by filing into the sanctuary – the requirement in Andoc. 1.97 that the oath be sworn has intriguing and hitherto neglected consequences for the (or at least one possible) disposition of the audience. 75 Nor is the Dionysia used in the way the Panathenaic quadrennium functions, to divide civic time into blocks : e.g. Ath. Pol. 43.1; IG 13 52, A lines 27–8, b. line 28; IG 13 292, line 3; IG 13 300, line 2; IG 13 317, lines 1–2, etc. 76 On this inscription see Lambert (n. 42). The recognition that = day equivalence goes back to A. Wilhelm, ‘Neue Beiträge zur griechischen Inschriftenkunde’, SAWW 166 (1911), 1–63, at 49. This amounts to a commitment to supply the necessary thousand days of labour before the festival. Given that Eudemus’ offer was made (according to the decree) on or near 11th Thargelion, the next Panathenaea was only about eight or nine weeks away. The thousand days of promised labour are therefore, I suggest, very likely to represent something like fifty calendar days of work with twenty pair of oxen. My thanks to William Slater for discussion of this point. 77 This use of ( ) also shows that the phrase could mean ‘before the theatrical performances of the Dionysia’ rather than, as strict logic might seem to require, ‘before the start of the festival of Dionysus’. If the latter were the required meaning of in the decree of Demophantus, as Shear (n. 30), 157 suggests, it points to Elaphebolion 9 as the day

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It is thus highly likely that the collective Athenian enunciation of the important oath of Demophantus against anti-democrats is to be placed among the very special set of pre-tragic ceremonies that took place at the City Dionysia of 409 B.C. Moreover, the evidence of Aristophanes’ Birds (1074–5) suggests that in 414 B.C. a practice had long been in place for the announcement in the theatre, prior to the performance of drama, of awards for the murder of aspiring tyrants.78 If Demophantus’ oath was indeed proclaimed collectively by the Athenians in the theatre ‘just prior to the Dionysia’ of 409 B.C., it presents itself as an updating of this older practice in light of recent experience.79 So, whether we are to imagine the new oath of Demophantus or the old announcement of awards for the slayers of would-be tyrants as the accompaniment to the proclamation of the gold crown for Thrasybulus, the Dionysia of 409 B.C. saw an extraordinary agglomeration of rituals shoring up and shaping democratic ideology.80 Indeed, as I have already indicated, the existence, from perhaps as early as the beginning of the fifth century, of this proclamation at the Dionysia of rewards for tyrant-slayers forms a neglected element in the portfolio of evidence for the politics of the theatre, and more particularly for discussion of the relation between tragedy and its festival frame.81 In instituting the practice of awarding and proclaiming crowns for benefactors at the tragic contest of the City Dionysia in the tumultuous final decade

for the oath, since the Dionysia officially began on or around Elaphebolion 10 with the pompê, with the dramatic contests starting on the 11th: Csapo and Slater (n. 36), 106–7. Elaphebolion 9 is a day for which meetings of the Assembly are known: J. Mikalson, The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year (Princeton, 1975), 123–30, 137. It is true that much the more usual way to refer to the moment of the pre-performance ceremonials is by use of a dative ( , , etc.). I would therefore not insist that has precisely the same meaning here. It is possible that the variation is rather intended to place the hugely important activity of oath-swearing at the very beginning of the sequence of various pre-performance ceremonials. But even if the phrase was not intended to tie the oath-taking physically to the theatre, the underlying politics of its association with the Dionysia remain unchanged. 78 /… / . N. Dunbar, Aristophanes: Birds (Oxford, 1995), 581 especially on the question as to whether this was confined to the first day of the Dionysia or took place on each day. See further K. Raaflaub, ‘Stick and glue: the function of tyranny in fifth-century Athenian democracy’, in K. Morgan (ed.), Popular Tyranny: Sovereignty and its Discontents in Ancient Greece (Austin, 2003), 59–93, at 69–70, who accepts the evidence for the practice and Seaford (n. 2), 34–6. 79 Cf. Raaflaub (n. 78), 70. 80 The combination of a decree about tyrant-slaying and an ideologically charged act of crowning that we find at the Dionysia of 409 B.C. reappears in an intriguing manner in the law of Eucrates of 337/6 B.C. (SEG 12 [1955], 87), which clearly looks back to Demophantus’ provisions. Whereas in 409 B.C. the decree and crowning were separate acts, the two are collapsed into one on the stone of the later law, as relief carving (Dêmokratia crowns Dêmos) and accompanying law. I thank Alastair Blanshard for this observation and refer to his fine study of the Eucrates monument: A. Blanshard, ‘Depicting democracy: an exploration of art and text in the law of Eukrates’, JHS 124 (2004), 1–15. 81 It is difficult to imagine an historical context other than that around 500 B.C. which would have given rise to the institution of the proclamation in favour of tyrant-slayers at the Dionysia. The lines from the Birds play on the idea that tyrants are a thing of the distant past. This might in itself be taken to suggest an awareness that the measure was of very long standing. More salient, however, is the fact that it draws its humour from a deliberate misrecognition of the way the Athenians re-figured the tyrant over the course of the fifth century. While affecting to present ‘tyrants’ as a thing of the distant past, it draws its impact from a no doubt keen awareness that, in 414 B.C., in the wake of the mutilation of the Herms and profanation of the Mysteries, and all that those acts portended, fear of tyranny was a reality in the city once more.

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of the fifth century, in close association with the decree and oath of Demophantus, the Athenians were thus activating the perhaps largely dormant potential of a ritual proclamation the democratic orientation of which is beyond doubt. That ritual, the mentalities that underpinned it, and the ease with which it was renovated and rearticulated for the special conditions that afflicted the democratic city in 410 B.C. show that the tragic contest of the Dionysia had been the natural home for such democratic expression for the whole period from which our surviving dramas derive, and that we are surely right to continue, with Goldhill, to think of the institutional framework within which drama was performed at Athens as fundamentally democratic, rather than simply ‘a polis framework’.82 The theatre came to this role in 409 B.C. with its own history. Indeed, we might say that the theatre itself had been a protagonist in recent political history, and that the attention devoted to the site in the aftermath of 411 B.C. to some extent reflects and refers to the role it had played. For Thucydides makes it clear that the two principal theatrical spaces of Athens – that at Munichia in Piraeus and the urban theatre by the Acropolis – were the chosen sites of democratic resurgence and formal decisionmaking during the short period of oligarchic rule. In an important sense, in this period the theatre served as a shadow-site of the abolished democratic Assembly. The one in the Piraeus was where the first concerted action of the dêmos under arms took place, in the wake of the murder of Phrynichus. The hoplites stockpiled weapons there and held an assembly in which they resolved to march on the city. Once there, the theatre of Dionysus on the slopes of the Acropolis became the site chosen for the meeting of the hoplite assembly ‘on a fixed day, to discuss homonoia’. That meeting never took place, but the plan suggests a propensity on the part of the anti-oligarchs to turn to that space in the hard journey towards political resolution.83 The rich young speaker of Lysias 21, of uncertain political allegiance, offers a point of striking continuity between the two successive Dionysia following the oligarchic revolution of 411 B.C. For he appears once again at the festival of 409 B.C., where the tragic contest was certainly preceded by the announcement of honours for Thrasybulus and his fellows, and the placing of a gold crown on the head of an Athenian euergete for the very first time – and one who had in effect ‘liberated’ the dêmos. And by a rare and happy coincidence of available evidence, we know that the winner of this tragic agôn was none other than Sophocles, with the set of dramas that included the Philoctetes.84 It is worth recalling the poet’s own recent very direct involvement in the events that led to the abolition of full democracy, as one of the probouloi who voted for the Four Hundred; and noting that this evidently did not tarnish his reputation with the Archon Glaucippus, or with the judges of the tragic agôn of that year.85 82

Rhodes (n. 2), 119. Thuc. 8.93.1, 8.93.3, 8.94.1. See Gomme, Andrewes and Dover (n. 10), 316; N. Loraux, La Voix endeuillée: essai sur la tragédie grecque (Paris, 1999). 84 Prose hypothesis Soph. Phil. The proximity of these major theatrical and political events at the Dionysia of 409 B.C. has never, to my knowledge, been noted by Sophoclean critics or historians of the theatre (however see now Shear [n. 30]). There is for instance nothing in C. Greengard, Theatre in Crisis: Sophocles’ Reconstruction of Genre and Politics in Philoctetes (Amsterdam, 1987), a work which ‘argues for a much closer relation of the drama to its historical setting than is normally accorded these “timeless” dramas’. (p. 8). 85 Sophocles as proboulos: Arist. Rh. 3, 18, 1419a25 = TrGF 4 T Gd 27. Cf. M. Jameson, ‘Politics and the Philoctetes’, CPh 51 (1956), 217–27, esp. 217–18. Without entering into the debate as to whether the praise of Colonus in the OC (668–719) – the place where a meeting of 83

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The choice of role made by the young liturgist of Lysias 21 at the Dionysia of 409 is particularly interesting. This time he served as chorêgos for the men’s chorus of his tribe (Lys. 21.2), and this time he spent the vast sum of 5,000 drachmas – ‘including the erection of the tripod’, this last phrase indicating that his chorus was successful in the agôn. He will certainly have volunteered for this task, as his tragic chorêgia in the immediately preceding year gave him automatic exemption from any such obligation.86 His decision to support his tribe, and to do so in so lavish a fashion, may have been motivated in part at least by a wish to identify himself with the more ‘democratically’ configured performance category of the men’s chorus. It could thus be seen as an act of symbolic identification with the restored regime at a time when reprisals against those who had been implicated with the rule of the Four Hundred were widening in scope.87 The sheer scale of his expenditure is striking. There are many practical reasons that might make one expect a larger outlay on the men’s chorus than tragedy or comedy – the fact that the former had fifty to tragedy’s fifteen singer-dancers prominent among them. But in this case we may suspect a wish, or indeed a need, on the part of this chorêgos, to be able to say that his expenditure on the performance with a greater collective affiliation and at a festival with no shadow cast over its organization had far outweighed that on tragedy in the previous year. This has the air of a compromised individual buying the charisma and charis of victory in the newly democratically sanctioned festival at any cost. As victorious chorêgos for the men’s chorus he too will have been crowned – with ivy rather than gold – at the end of the proceedings in the theatre that began with another, very special crowning. How did this rich young man, seated in a prominent proedric seat as one of the year’s chorêgoi, ‘hear’ the announcement of these honours for the democratic assassins at the Dionysia, as he saw the gold crown placed on the head of Thrasybulus, euergetês of the Athenian dêmos? The internal dynamic of this message was surely intended above all for him and his kind – a wealthy citizen who, while perhaps no fervent oligarch (witness his service at Aegospotami and his employment of Lysias, no friend of tyrants), all the same found no difficulty being complicit with an oligarchic regime (as his prominence under the Thirty, and his very presence in the city in Hecatombaion 403 B.C. show). The question of whether the chorêgoi for the Dionysia of 410 B.C. had indeed been appointed by the oligarchic Archon Mnasilochus becomes highly charged when we reflect on the fact that the oath of Demophantus explicitly included among those who were thereafter to be piously assassinated ‘anyone who holds office after the democracy has been overB.C.

the Assembly under Peisander was held – reflects a partisan or apologetic oligarchic view on the part of the poet (see e.g. J. Wilson, The Hero and the City: An Interpretation of Sophocles’ ‘Oedipus at Colonus’ [Michigan, 1997], 198–9; L. Edmunds, Theatrical Space and Historical Space in Sophocles’ ‘Oedipus at Colonus’ [Lanham/London, 1996], 91–110), it is worth observing the contrast between that Assembly, held in the sanctuary of Poseidon Hippius at Colonus, and the ones held in the theatre(s) of Dionysus during the oligarchy, but also thereafter, to foreswear oligarchs and tyrants. For further bibliography and a balanced discussion of political readings of Sophocles’ OC see A. Markantonatos, Oedipus at Colonus: Sophocles, Athens, and the World (Berlin/New York, 2007), 12–15. 86 Dem. 20.8; 21.155; 50.9; Ath. Pol. 56.3. Isoc. 7.38 implies that an exemption period of two years may have operated in an earlier time: MacDowell (n. 23), 127, n. 3. It is not inconceivable that choregic appointments made by Mnasilochus for 410 B.C. were subsequently deemed formally invalid, at least in respect of attracting exemption to their holders. Such a deduction should not, however, be made solely on the basis of Lys. 21, for its speaker repeatedly ignored the availability to him of liturgical exemption over the course of several years. 87 Wilson (n. 2), 90.

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thrown’ ( Andoc. 1.97). Chorêgoi were not archontes – but they were sufficiently indistinct from them to prompt a discussion of the question from Aristotle (Politics 1299a15–20).88 And the chorêgoi of the Dionysia in 410 B.C. had, strictly speaking, probably only served under a narrowly oligarchic regime for a brief period – and under the Five Thousand for a further four or five months. But the situation was doubtless close enough to make this an uncomfortable moment for this young man. The decision to present Thrasybulus before the panhellenic audience of the Dionysia at the tragic agôn of 409 B.C. can hardly have been merely a matter of convenience. If, as is likely, IG 13 102 represents the first use of the festival in this way, it is important to reflect on the fact that the practice was designed for and initiated in this context – the desire to honour the first historical saviour of the developed democracy. But it is also important to recognize that this innovation itself represents a continuity, the development of a long-familiar association between the tragic contest of the Dionysia and the defining co-ordinates of democracy. This is not the first, nor will it be the last, example of Dionysiac ritual moulded to meet the needs of a society articulating its sense of political liberty.89 University of Sydney

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Wilson (n. 54), 169–70. See Connor (n. 2). Another Athenian example: Philippides, comic poet and statesman, as agonothete for the City Dionysia in 287 B.C. ‘was the first to arrange an extra agôn for Demeter and Kore as a reminder of the [liberation] of the dêmos’ (IG 22 657, lines 43–5); and cf. also the Eretrian decree of around 309 B.C. (12. 9 192 = LSCGSuppl. 46) which prescribes inter alia the wearing of ivy crowns at the pompê of Dionysus by all, citizens and metics, as a memorial of the day ‘when during the pompê of Dionysus the [Macedonian] garrison departed, the dêmos was liberated … and reintroduced democracy’ (lines 3–5) with A. Jacottet, ‘Le lierre de la liberté’, ZPE 90 (1990), 150–6; P. Wilson, ‘The politics of dance: dithyrambic contest and social order in Greece’, in D. Phillips and D. Pritchard (edd.), Sport and Festival in the Ancient Greek World (Swansea/London, 2003), 165–98, at 180–1. 89

Classical Quarterly 59.1 30–45 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000032

30 A N A R IS TO PH A N IC S LAVE: DANIEL PEACE 819–1126 WALIN

AN ARISTOPHANIC SLAVE: PEACE 819–1126 When discussing Aristophanic slaves, it is usual to observe that Xanthias in Frogs and Carion in Wealth are exceptional in the extant plays, and that they occupy a place transitional between the slaves of Old Comedy and those who would develop later. While conceding that there is a fundamentally new (as far as we can tell) approach to the characterization of the slave in Aristophanes’ treatment of Xanthias in 405 B.C.E., I would like to explore in depth one of the forerunners of these characters, the in Peace 819–1126, who appeared on the stage sixteen years prior in 421 B.C.E. and shares many characteristics with Xanthias. I will examine how he often acts not as a slave but as an equal of his master, how he tries to attract attention while on stage by volunteering his humour, his preoccupation with the sexual, his possible use of asides, the dynamics of his unruliness and why his master never threatens or punishes him, and finally what it means that the audience never learns his name. Peace begins with a pair of slaves kneading cakes for a giant dung beetle,1 on which the hero of the play, Trygaeus, plans to fly up to heaven – in a parody of the flight of Bellerophon on Pegasus (cf. Pax 76, 135–9) humorously influenced by the Aesopic fable of the beetle and the eagle (cf. Pax 129–34; Aesop, Fab. 3) – to ask Zeus what he intends to do with the Greeks. When the hero arrives, however, he learns from Hermes that the Olympian gods, frustrated because the Greeks refuse to accept Peace, have left Greece at the mercy of War, who intends to grind up all the cities of Greece in his mortar but is prevented by lack of a pestle.2 This affords Trygaeus the opportunity of summoning a panhellenic chorus to help him rescue Peace from the cave where she is imprisoned. Trygaeus must make an ally of Hermes by bribing him with a golden cup and promising all the rites formerly given to the other gods. After a great deal of effort, the chorus rescues Peace and her handmaidens, Opora (Harvest), who is to be . As the bride of Trygaeus, and Theoria (Festival), who will be given to the Trygaeus returns to earth with these two women, he encounters one of his slaves, who operates for the moment as a straight man for his master by asking him questions about his travels that provide an opportunity for a series of jokes (824–41).3 1 It is possible that one of these slaves is the same character as the at 819–1126. Sommerstein (1985), 172 and Olson (1998), xliii, 231 suspect that this character may be identical with the second slave from the prologue (i.e. the more dominant one, who remains on stage to speak the prologue when the first has gone inside to feed the beetle, and who engages Trygaeus in dialogue as he is flying away to heaven). Olson goes so far as to label as both the prologue slave and the one at 819–1126. If we accept this identification (and there is no compelling reason why we should not), it only magnifies the role of this slave, which would strengthen the arguments I make here. It would also give the slave a more metatheatrical role, because he would speak to or about the audience not only at his appearance late in the play (as at 883–4 and 963–73) but also at the beginning. An increased metatheatrical role, in turn, would make it more likely that he does speak in asides (see below). The audience would have known one way or the other by the mask and dress of the character(s). 2 The lost pestles are Cleon and Brasidas, the most ardent war-hawks of each side. Both perished at Amphipolis in 422 B.C.E. Cf. Thuc. 5.10. 3 Trygaeus and this slave are partners in humour. They take turns performing the role of straight man and telling the jokes, so that now one, now the other is dominant on stage (inasmuch as control of the jokes is control of the play).

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Trygaeus abruptly ends the string of jokes about his travels by ordering his slave to take Opora inside and prepare her ritual bath and the wedding bed, while he himself (which despite this line he does not do until after his takes Theoria to the slave has returned). Apparently noticing the women for the first time, the slave asks his master where he got them. When he finds out, he expresses some surprise that / even the gods keep prostitutes ( , 848–9) – a comment that we might expect to offend his master, who after all is about to marry one of these girls.4 But Trygaeus takes the comment in his stride and even seems to affirm that these symbolic women are prostitutes ( , 850).5 This is the first of many examples of the tolerance and leniency of Trygaeus as a master, a trait that arguably explains and/or induces the presumption of his slave. The slave next asks a seemingly innocuous question: should he give Opora anything to eat? With his response Trygaeus (whether intentionally or not) sets up a joke for his slave: {

}

{

}

{

}

{Sl.} {Tr.} {Sl.}

6

(Pax 851–5)

Come on, let’s go. Tell me, should I give her something to eat up? No. She won’t want bread or barley-cake, when with the gods above she’s used to licking ambrosia. She’ll have to prepare herself to do some licking here, too!

The joke here revolves around the range of meanings of (‘to lick’), which can apparently indicate either eating or fellatio.7 There are several important things to note here. First, the slave has for a moment become the primary speaker of a joke; his master’s role of setting up the joke is secondary. We shall see more of this later. Second, the slave has spoken what may be an aside at 855.8 Immediately after 855 the 4 Stefanis (1980), 157 classifies the slave’s comment here with other such passages under the heading ‘the slave as appraiser of gods and men’ ( ). The phrasing of the Greek does suggest the translation ‘keep prostitutes’, if not something more suggestive of an analogy with the keeping of cattle. One various kinds of domesticated animal, though the metaphorical use of the word is by no means confined to this passage. The chorus of old men in Lys. uses the term both of ordinary women (i.e. wives) at 256–65 and of their slaves ( , which could refer more broadly to their dependents in general) and children ( … ) at 1203–4. 5 The whoredom or adultery of female symbolic figures seems to be conventional in extant comedy. For another example in this play, cf. Pax 978–90 (discussed in depth below). Whether the nude female mute in Old Comedy was played by real naked (or scantily clad) prostitutes or by padded male actors is an inveterate controversy, for a useful discussion of which see B. Zweig, ‘The mute nude female characters in Aristophanes’ plays’, in A. Richlin (ed.), Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (Oxford, 1992), 73–89. If Opora and Theoria are being represented by actual courtesans, the slave’s comment is quite metatheatrical (though in any case the slave’s comparison of the goddess Peace to an adulterous woman in his prayer at 978–90 is not metatheatre, for she would have been represented by a statue). 6 I print the Greek text of Pax as in Olson (1998). Translations are my own. 7 Cf. Olson (1998), 235. 8 K.J. Dover, Aristophanes’ Frogs (Oxford, 1993), 44–5 rightly notes Xanthias’ ability to speak in asides, an ability which helps to characterize him as an entity independent of (even better than)

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AN ARISTOPHANIC SLAVE: PEACE 819–1126

slave and Opora leave the stage, and a choral ode begins, so that there is no verbal response to his remark. The key question is whom the audience is meant to envisage as the recipient of Opora’s attentions. If it is the master, he may have no reason to react to the statement – although we should still take note of the slave’s interest in the details of the sexual relationship between his master and Opora and the master’s acceptance of that interest – but if it is the slave, we should perhaps expect some reaction from Trygaeus (provided that he hears). Action on stage could have made clear to the audience both whom the slave intended and any nonverbal reaction on the part of Trygaeus.9 Because we have only a written text, we cannot know for sure how the scene played out. But I think that the lasciviousness of this slave as expressed elsewhere – his willingness openly to scrutinize and fondle the women his master brings home – makes it likely that he does mean himself, especially when he speaks this line as he and Opora enter the house, away from the eyes of Trygaeus.10 He could also be implying that Opora will bestow her favours on both of them, which would be in the spirit of their shared sexual experience of Theoria, alleged by the slave at Peace 871–6 (see below). It is certainly true that Opora and Theoria are broadly conceived of in this play as respectively the private and public benefits of peace, the former the prize of Trygaeus, . Hence it is possible to suspect an interpretation in which the latter that of the the sexual benefits of Opora do not belong solely to Trygaeus on the grounds that it are not would undermine this dichotomy. But I argue that moments of subject to the generalizations that apply to the play as a whole. In such a moment humorous effect is paramount, and disruption or subversion of what the play is otherwise trying to accomplish should not be unexpected. After all, Aristophanic comedy is full of gag-scenes that go nowhere and only serve the exigencies of humour. So if the slave does imply that he wants to or will have sex with Opora, he does so because (presumably) it is funny. This does not need to affect much our interpretation of what Opora and Theoria mean for the play as a whole. In his recent book Humour, Obscenity, and Aristophanes James Robson attempts to understand better Aristophanic humour in part through the application of a theory of the ‘frame’, by which he means ‘a generalized context of experience which we subconsciously organize by a system of unwritten rules’.11 In the detailed analysis of Peace 819–921, which comprises his final chapter, he observes the substantial interval between the (probable) appearance on stage of Opora and Theoria with Trygaeus at 819 and the first reference to them in the dialogue at 842, noting that elsewhere in Aristophanes male characters respond lasciviously to the presence of mute nude female characters. He argues that the mere presence of such characters establishes a his master. He observes three lines (88, 107 and 115) where we as readers can discern with confidence that Xanthias is speaking in asides. Other lines (33–4, 41, 51, 308, 311) may or may not be asides. 9 I think the probability that Trygaeus hears but reacts only non-verbally is slim. Certainly we might expect that, if this were the case, he would make some comment later on, for instance when the slave admires Opora’s rump at 868. 10 For other instances of the lasciviousness of this , cf. Pax 868–80, 891–3 and the discussions below. But he and his master are a team in dirty jokes as much as in other things (Pax 874), such that this characteristic cannot really serve to distinguish him from his master (cf. Pax 884–5, 894–904). 11 J. Robson, Humour, Obscenity, and Aristophanes (Tübingen, 2006), 17. He illuminates the concept by the example of the frame ‘buying a train ticket’, in which certain linguistic sequences (e.g. ‘What time does the train leave?’ or ‘How much does it cost?’) are expected while others are not (e.g. a discussion of ‘aubergine farming in Malaysia’).

33

DANIEL WALIN

certain ‘frame’ in which the audience is led to expect lascivious comments, so that the whole time the women are on stage the audience is unusually attuned to the possibility of double entendre. It is concluded that the postponement of true obscenity to the , 855) tantalizes the audilast line of the scene ( ence.12 This argument lends weight to the slave as a character, for it posits an audience which anticipates sex jokes the entire time Trygaeus is responsible for the humour, all the while not knowing that what they are really waiting for is a transfer of comedic agency from the master to the slave, for it is in exploiting the comic potential of Opora and Theoria that the slave will find his first outlet for a joke of his own. As we shall see, he continues to find in these women (and later, as I argue, in their mistress) a rich source of material. If the slave communicates a desire to have oral sex with Opora to the audience in an aside, and does so immediately before the two of them leave the stage together, so that it is unclear whether this desire will come to fruition during the time allotted for her bath, it contributes considerably to the slave’s power over the drama and displays a rivalry with or dominance over his master that approaches that of Xanthias in Frogs. In this case the choral ode which immediately follows may admit of an ironic interpretation: the chorus says that Trygaeus is faring well as far as can be seen ( -/ / , 856–8) and emphasizes his old age twice ( , 856–7; , 860),13 thus playing on the possibility that he is being cuckolded as they speak. When Trygaeus imagines himself as a shining bridegroom fondling Opora’s breasts (859–64), the audience may think of the slave really doing offstage what his master is then imagining; and again there would be an element of irony when Trygaeus says that he has saved Greece so that everybody can / screw and sleep safely ( , 866–7).14 What can be said with certainty is that the slave both leaves (855) and reenters (868) the stage with a sexual remark about Opora, his master’s intended. He returns with the following locution: {

}

15

(Pax 868–70) {Sl.}

The girl’s been bathed, and her arse is doing fine. The cake’s been baked, the sesame is being shaped, and all the rest. But she does need a dick!

The slave’s frank admiration of Opora’s arse, unlike his reference to fellatio at 855, is probably not an aside, for it is part of the same line in which he reports to his master that his order that she be bathed has been obeyed. We must assume that Trygaeus hears this remark, but for whatever reason he does not seem to mind. The remark about the need for a penis (870) does not in itself refer to the penis of any one person in particular, so that we may expect that Trygaeus will take it as applying to himself,

12

Ibid. 157–62. Old men with young, attractive brides are natural targets for cuckoldry. My anonymous reader makes a legitimate objection: the tone of parallel choral odes in Aristophanes is generally similar, and there are clearly no such shenanigans going on at 909–21. But a general rule is precisely that and may be violated on occasion. 15 Apparently here is for Olson (1998), 237. 13 14

34

AN ARISTOPHANIC SLAVE: PEACE 819–1126

while the audience’s interpretation would have been influenced by whatever clues in staging there may or may not have been. Trygaeus’ lack of reaction to the lascivious comments of his slave could be explained by an excessive (to the Athenian audience) degree of leniency and a way of regarding the master–slave relationship as a partnership, exemplified in the fact that the two have shared a sex partner before in Theoria: {

}

{

}

{ {

} }

16

(Pax 871–6) {Tr.} {Sl.} {Tr.} {Sl.}

Come then, let’s hurry up, you and I, and give Theoria here to the Council. Who’s this? What are you saying? This is Theoria, whom we used to bang to Brauron when we were a bit drunk? It sure is – and catching her was quite a task! Master, what a quadrennial arse she has!

Trygaeus clearly hears the slave, for he responds at 875. If we read the passage literally, Trygaeus and his slave were banging Theoria ‘to Brauron’; the easiest interpretation of this phrasing, in my opinion, is that the force of their sexual activity was so great as a (potentially) that Theoria ended up in eastern Attica.17 RV recognize sexual word, glossing as . There is also a reference to the quadrennial festival of Artemis at Brauron, which may have been a ritual of maturation for Athenian girls and therefore perhaps a prime opportunity for sex.18 As Sommerstein and others have noted, the real meaning of this passage seems to be that Trygaeus and his slave used to frequent this festival, and that their experience there was marked by sexual activity.19 The slave’s comment exploits the difference between the female character on stage – who though mute is real enough as far as characters in a comedy go – and the travel to and attendance at festivals that she is symbolizes. Getting laid at festivals becomes getting laid with Festival. apparently for some word such as or .20 The change to stresses sex, (presumably) one of the most pleasant aspects of the festival, and allows for a joke based on the double identity of Theoria.21 The slave’s 16 The anonymous reader suggests that Trygaeus means Theoria is an exclusive prostitute. I think it is ambiguous whether Trygaeus (1) means that his struggles to free Peace and her handmaidens were arduous or (2) refers in some way to what has just been said by the slave. In the latter case there are several possibilities: Theoria could be envisaged as an exclusive prostitute, a rape victim, or a willing sexual partner who was scarcely ‘taken’ because of sexual impotence induced by drunkenness ( ) 17 For this use of , cf. Olson (1998), 238; J. Henderson, The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy2 (Oxford, 1991), 171 (§308). Henderson discusses the use of violent words as sexual slang under the heading ‘Hitting and Piercing’, 170–3 (§§298–316). 18 Olson (1998), 238. 19 Sommerstein (1985), 174. 20 Sommerstein (1985), 174; Olson (1998), 238. 21 Platnauer (1964), 142 denies (against RV and the more recent editions) that has a sexual sense, suggesting instead Kock’s emendation , which (I think) is more likely the expected word displaced by a joke than what one should actually read here.

DANIEL WALIN

35

line about her ‘quadrennial’ arse is fairly typical for Aristophanic comedy; the female body on stage often becomes a prop for jokes.22 I think that the metatheatre here should be a warning not to read too much into the fact that, according to a strict interpretation of the text, the master and slave have had their way with the same at 873 is ambiguous: the woman, either simultaneously or in close succession.23 slave, as the speaker, is necessarily included, but he could make a sweeping gesture to include not only his master and himself but also the entire audience, and in so doing he would become for that moment not a slave in comedy but an Athenian citizen, an actor appealing to the desirability of the communal experience of festivals as an incentive for peace.24 But however one reads it, the slave is playing a dominant role in the humour at this point. The slave continues to use Theoria as a prop for humour, not only with words but even with actions. As his master is trying to decide to whom out of the whole audience he should entrust Theoria – and implying that whoever can be trusted to guard her for is (877–8) – the slave is proving his lack of by groping the her: { {

} } (Pax 879–80)

{Tr.} {Sl.}

You! Just what are you circumscribing? Umm … hmm … for the Isthmian Games I’m claiming a campground for my dick!

The groping prompts a question from Trygaeus, which in turn sets up a joke for the – not necessarily the most natural word for slave (the use of the verb Trygaeus in this context – is clearly for the sake of the joke that follows).25 The reference to the Isthmian Games – particularly in a year (421 B.C.E.) in which there were none – is a joke; as Sommerstein puts it, ‘the “isthmus” [the slave] is thinking of is the narrow strip of territory between the two broad expanses of [Theoria’s] , 880) in which the slave plans to rest his penis is obvious. thighs’.26 The ‘tent’ ( Trygaeus, however, ignores these remarks – as he has done, in what begins to be a pattern, with 868–70 and 876.27 Possible explanations for Trygaeus’ lack of reaction to his slave’s lascivious comments so far have been (1) that the master is uncommonly lenient (which he certainly is, for he never threatens violence to his slave and does without doubt sometimes treat him, if only for a moment, as a partner) and (2) that the meta-

22 For other examples (by no means a comprehensive list), cf. Pax 879–80, 887–93; Lys. 87–9, 91–2 and 1112–88. The first two examples from Lys. are interesting in that it is the women who use the bodies of other women for sexual humour. But the male body is also the object of humour, and it is perhaps safest to make no distinction and say merely that it is quite common in comedy to point at someone else’s body parts and make humorous comments. 23 But the slave and Trygaeus may also be imagined as sharing the goddess Peace as a mistress at 978–90. 24 Aristophanes often promotes peace by emphasizing the many good things that come from it and reminding the audience of the hardships of war. 25 Cf. Olson (1998), 238. 26 Sommerstein (1985), 175. For this sense of the word ‘isthmus’ he refers the reader to Aesch. fr. 17.29–31M = F 78a 29–31 Radt, from a satyr play called Theoroi or Isthmiastai. 27 855 too, if we assume that it is not an aside and that Trygaeus hears it, is probably ignored.

36

AN ARISTOPHANIC SLAVE: PEACE 819–1126

theatrical nature of some of the slave’s comments (for example, the ambiguous treatment of Theoria as both festival and woman) inclines both characters and audience to consider them apart from the flow of the play, so that the master’s response (essentially ‘yes, this is that same girl we used to screw’) is partly the response of Trygaeus, partly that of the actor who plays him.28 But there is another consideration best illustrated by adducing a passage from Wasps: {

} (Vesp. 500–2)

{Xa.}

Yesterday my whore got mad at me too, when I came in to her at noon, because I ordered her to ride me. She asked if I was setting up a tyranny in the style of Hippias!

In what immediately precedes, Bdelucleon remarks on how easily the term ‘tyrant’ is bandied about, using as an example the talk in the market. It is his slave that introduces sexuality to the passage in these three lines. Though the remarks of the slave are not necessarily an aside – three lines do seem rather long for that – they are at any rate ignored. Perhaps one of the roles of the slave character – visible here and throughout the part of Peace in which we are engaged – is to be a source for jokes that are funny enough, but do not really advance the plot or the main character’s purpose at the time, so that it is better for them to be spoken by someone other than him or her. If the Athenian audience expects a slave to be making occasional wisecracks – certainly it would later, when it had become accustomed to such figures as Xanthias and Carion, but we are speaking of the early comedies – then it becomes too much a drag on the plot (and not very funny) for the comments of the slave always to require a response. In this view it would have become a convention that slaves do not always get the rebuke they might have received in real life (when is Old Comedy ever truly realistic?), and when they are rebuked or beaten it is because beating slaves is in itself (apparently) funny, and much funnier when it is for no good reason. A slave who makes wisecracks would be unlikely to be punished, because if the punishment is of any consequence the result would be to shut him up, eliminating the role of clown that he had been occupying. A slave who is not really involved in the drama and who has not done or said anything (good or bad) is more likely to be beaten, on whatever pretext can be found or for no reason at all.29 One final possible explanation for why the slave at Peace 819–1126 is treated so laxly is that his appearance coincides with the resumption of action after a choral sequence in which it is claimed that Aristophanes, in addition to discontinuing other brands of lowbrow humour, such as ridiculing the poor ( , Pax 740) or depicting a Heracles frustrated in his , Pax gluttony ( 741), has ‘freed’ the slave characters whom his rivals allegedly brought on stage for the

28 In other words Trygaeus and the slave are talking about Theoria the ‘character’ at the same time, and with the same words, as their actors are talking about the pleasures of the festivals she represents. The master and slave jointly enjoying the sexual benefits of Theoria could represent the domestic reunification of the fractured in the same way that the Athenian and Spartan simultaneous attraction to (respectively the vagina and anus of ) the mute female nude Diallage (‘Reconciliation’) represents their reconciliation at Lys. 1148, 57–8. 29 Cf. Nub. 56–9; Vesp. 1291–7, 1307; Av. 1311, 1316, 1323–9, 1334–5; Lys. 1215–23.

DANIEL WALIN

37

sake of abuse (Pax 743–7).30 As a consequence of the poet’s recent self-awareness, we encounter a slave who is treated by his master in an unusually indulgent manner.31 Trygaeus and his slave continue to play jokes off one another. The slave, who has been the primary joker since he re-emerged on stage at 868, sets up one for his master by pointing out (metatheatrically) that Ariphrades (whom Aristophanes attacks on several occasions as overly enthusiastic about cunnilingus) seems to want to be the one to receive Theoria.32 The master can then make the conventional joke about Ariphrades (cf. Eq. 1280–7; Vesp. 1280–3). But the slave is back in charge of the humour again at 891–3: { {

} } (Pax 891–3)

{Tr.} {Sl.}

Look at this oven all your own. How fine it is! And here’s why it’s so smoky: that’s where the council’s pot-props were before the war.

Trygaeus once again prepares the way for his slave by calling Theoria’s vagina an oven,33 adapting his diction better to set up the joke, as he did a few lines before with The slave gets a laugh by explaining Theoria’s pubic hair as soot. After these lines the slave suffers a temporarily diminished role; Trygaeus monopolizes the humorous discourse, not even needing his slave to assist him, for ten lines (894–904), in which he exploits the dual role of Theoria, as woman and symbol of festival, to produce a number of double entendres. He describes either athletics in extremely sexual language or (what comes to the same thing) sex with metaphors from athletics.34 Trygaeus then converses with the chorus, and the slave has no speaking role until 922.35 30 can mean simply to ‘put an end to’ (LSJ s.v. I.2) and may well have that meaning here (so Sommerstein and Henderson in their translations ‘got rid of’ and ‘cashier’ respectively – and certainly to use the term ‘freed’ in a translation could conjure up for the modern reader thoughts of abolitionism that we have no reason to suspect in Aristophanes). But it can also mean ‘to free’ (apparently often in a metaphorical sense, LSJ s.v. II), and it is interesting to think about the possibility of that sense here. 31 This explanation should not be pushed very far, for Aristophanes’ claims not to resort to the crude methods of his rivals are sometimes tongue-in-cheek. 32 For Ariphrades, cf. Olson (1998), 239 or Sommerstein (1985), 175. 33 ‘Oven’ is the translation of Sommerstein. Henderson translates as ‘cooker’, while Olson (1998), 240 translates ‘bake-house’. There appears to be some disagreement over whether this is the place or means (or both) of roasting ( ) 34 An interesting discussion of this passage is to be found in F. García Romero, ‘ : les métaphores érotico-sportives dans les comédies d’Aristophane’, Nikephoros 8 (1995), 57–76, at 67–76. 35 It has been suggested to me that the brief silence of the slave at 894–921, after so many lines of verbal banter between slave and master, may be imputed to the fact that here we have interaction between Trygaeus as citizen and the , and that the slave as a non-citizen is therefore excluded. But this neglects the slave’s conspicuous presence earlier in the scene (877–94) and the fact that the text becomes (if possible) even more graphically sexual and comic, not more serious, after the slave becomes silent. We should not let our understanding of the limitations of slaves in real Athenian society affect our conception of the roles of comic slaves (not the comic slave, for there is more than one distinct type) too much. I am more inclined to attribute to Trygaeus a kind of comic : he emits a stream of jokes so amusing and so tightly bound

38

AN ARISTOPHANIC SLAVE: PEACE 819–1126

The slave shows a certain leadership by beginning the discourse about what should , 922).36 His phrasing of this line be done next ( (‘what should we two do’) emphasizes how he and his master are acting as partners. He does not ask ‘what are my orders’ or ‘what would you have me do next’. When Trygaeus suggests that the goddess be established with pots, someone (whether the slave or the chorus is disputed) takes issue with this idea, implying that the goddess Peace deserves a better offering than one would give to some grumbling (or contemptible) little herm.37 Trygaeus’ suggestion that they use a fatted ox ( , 925) is rejected with a pun, lest they have to , or go to the aid of anyone. Likewise his idea that they use a pig – fat and large – is turned down by way of a passing reference to the piggishness of someone called Theagenes.38 A frustrated Trygaeus finally asks his interlocutor what they should sacrifice, and it is answered – the Ionic form of the Attic dative , meaning ‘sheep’ – so that when someone advocates war in the , those present will say in the Ionic fashion. is said for , or ‘alas’ ( Apparently this is a pun in which , 933). There is more humour in that the Ionians had a reputation for being somewhat soft; by causing the assembly to speak in Ionic fashion, the speaker imagines that they will act like Ionians as well, being mild in everything else, as lambs toward each other, and much gentler toward their allies (934–6). We must now ask ourselves who Trygaeus’ interlocutor is in this passage. RVΗPCH assign 922 to the slave, while L and the Aldine editio princeps attribute it to the chorus.39 The labelling of the speaker in the MSS should be treated as of no more value than the opinion of a modern scholar, for it is probably derived from the text itself: it is extremely unlikely that such identifications go back to the late fifth in 922 makes it clear that the speaker must be the slave: it century.40 But the use of seems incredible that the coryphaeus would distinguish himself from the chorus so completely. Trygaeus does, however, use a plural verb of his interlocutor at 925 ), which would appear to be evidence that he is speaking to a group of ( people (though an unmetrical is read in RVΗ).41 Olson uses this reading as evidence for a change of speaker from the slave in 922 to the chorus in 924. In Olson’s text the chorus is Trygaeus’ interlocutor from this point until the sacrifice begins at 956, despite the fact that Trygaeus uses a singular pronoun ( , 929) a few lines later.42 Sommerstein, who keeps the slave as Trygaeus’ interlocutor, explains together that his slave is awed into silence. After his monologue (894–908) ends, the slave remains in awe for the duration of his master’s brief dialogue with the chorus (909–21). This fits nicely with my argument below that Trygaeus’ forceful appropriation of his name and demotic at 919 ( ) shows that he feels threatened by the competition from his slave. 36 Though the attribution of the lines following this one is disputed, 922 itself is safely given to the slave because of its use of the dual form Cf. Olson (1998), 245. One recalls this line a little later, when Trygaeus too strikes a resumptive note with at 956. 37 For the interpretation of here, cf. Olson (1998), 245. 38 For a discussion of this person, cf. Olson (1998), 246. 39 Olson (1998), 245. 40 J.C.B. Lowe, ‘The manuscript evidence for changes of speaker in Aristophanes’, BICS 9 (1962), 27–42 examines the evidence and reaches the conclusion that while it is possible that changes of speaker could have been indicated by a system resembling that of the parabolus and double dot, there were probably very few or no identifications of speakers. 41 cannot be kept because it is unmetrical. But it is the reading of our oldest MSS, so that may be nothing more than a correction of the received text, in which case there would be a slim possibility that something different from both readings was original. 42 Olson (1998), 245 does take note of the and for this reason qualifies his attribution as to either the chorus or the coryphaeus.

DANIEL WALIN

39

by saying that Trygaeus speaks 924 to both the slave and the chorus.43 He could also address the audience, or at least the officials in the front row, who, it could be assumed for the sake of a joke, would be eager at the prospect of sharing the feast that might be expected to follow the sacrifice of an ox. Either of these explanations of seems preferable to a situation in which the slave, who has already established himself as quite an eager clown, initiates a discussion only to fall silent immediately, allowing the chorus and/or coryphaeus to exploit its comic possibilities. Olson’s other justification for attributing the dialogue to the chorus or coryphaeus is that the chorus, unlike the slave, ‘can reasonably speak about what goes on in the Assembly (931–3) and what ought to be “our” attitude toward the allies (935–6)’.44 This last consideration, I think, is of little value as evidence, for comedy is not reasonable, and a slave who cuckolded the for sure (874) and possibly his master (855), and who has felt comfortable making all manner of jokes, obscene and otherwise, and occasionally showing up his master on stage, certainly seems bold enough to speak about politics in an offhand way.45 It is undisputed that it is this slave who saves the sheep for the chorêgos by claiming that the altar of Peace is bloodless (1018–22). In the process he shows himself to be more cognizant of the proper religious usages than his master (though piety on stage, as is made clear to everyone in the audience, is only a pretext for the real-world thrift of saving a sheep). If he has better judgement about religious matters there and is not afraid to express it, can he not also speak about politics? Lysistrata speaks about politics at length, as do the women of Ecclesiazusae, and as women they were no less disenfranchised than a slave. If we follow Platnauer, Sommerstein and Henderson in attributing the dialogue at 922–36 to Trygaeus and the slave, we have a passage in which the slave is in control of the dialogue. He initiates the conversation at 922, rejects three of his master’s proposals – twice with a joke – and finally makes his own suggestion, which is also the , 934). The grounds for several jokes. He persuades his master easily ( passage would therefore add to the slave’s dramatic dominance; in it he is in control of the humour and the plot development (insofar as there is plot development in deciding what sort of animal will be sacrificed). But even if this passage is assigned to the chorus, the characteristics that the slave displays here may be found elsewhere. For instance, the slave shows the same sort of leadership and independence from his master at 1017–22, discussed in passing above, where he rejects his master’s (rather polite) order to slaughter the sheep ( / , 1017–18), saying that it is not right ( ) and explaining, when asked, that Peace does not delight in slaughters, for hers is a bloodless altar (1019–20). Trygaeus accepts this advice from his slave and acts on it. Something similar happens at Peace 1122–4, where the slave responds to Trygaeus’ order that he strike the oracle-monger Hierocles ( , 1121) by saying ‘you do it’ ( , 1122). The slave then explains that his master should do the striking because he wants to do something else, namely to ). strip him of his (dishonestly earned) sheepskins ( The slave also corrects his master at 1050. They have just noticed the approach of the oracle-monger Hierocles, and they are guessing why he is coming and what he will say. Trygaeus supposes that he has come to oppose the peace ( 43

Sommerstein (1985), 177. Olson (1998), 245. 45 At Ran. 738–813, Xanthias and an and the Athenian citizens. 44

of the house of Pluto chat about the tragedians

40

AN ARISTOPHANIC SLAVE: PEACE 819–1126

/ , 1048–9), but his slave disagrees, claiming that he has been attracted by the smell of the sacrifice ( , 1050). Both turn out to be right, though the slave more so, for he has rightly guessed the oracle-monger’s reason for coming, while Trygaeus has guessed about something that will only happen once they have revealed to whom they are sacrificing (and after they have resisted, for some time, giving him any portion of the offering). Even if we were to give no role at all to the slave at 922–36, his role in what follows that scene and its choral interlude is substantial: { { { {

} } } }

{ {

} }

{ { { {

} } } }

{

}

{Tr.} {Sl.} {Tr.} {Sl.} {Tr.} {Sl.} {Tr.} {Sl.} {Tr.} {Sl.} {Tr.}

(Pax 962–73) And to the spectators throw some of the barley seed. There. You already gave them out? Yes, by Hermes; there isn’t one person who has no seed.46 The women didn’t get any. But tonight they’ll get some from their husbands. Now let us pray. Who’s here? Where are the many and good? Let me give it to these guys, for they’re many and good. You thought them good? How not? When I poured out so much water, they went to this same place and stood there. But let’s pray ASAP. Yes, let’s pray.

The slave is comically quick in complying with the order (cf. 958, 1042). Continuing (‘a grain his long tradition of sexual humour, he makes a joke out of the word of barley’), which is a slang term for the penis.47 By Olson’s division of the lines, it is the slave who urges that they pray at both 967 and 973.48 If we accept this attribution, the slave is once more trying to take control of the action, perhaps eager to get to the prayer, in which he may (depending on whether one believes the attribution of the MSS) have a joke up his sleeve. Another joke is apparently based on a ritual formula, , those present were to respond by which, when the sacrificer asked

46 For the translation ‘seed’, which gives some sense of double entendre to the English, I am indebted to the anonymous reader. 47 Olson (1998), 254. R explains that 48

Henderson, Platnauer, and Sommerstein give both of these urgings to Trygaeus.

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DANIEL WALIN

.49 The chorus are many and good, according to the slave, because they have allowed themselves to be sprinkled with water and did not run away. We should note that the slave has made two jokes, one of which is about the audience and therefore has a metatheatrical element. Trygaeus begins the prayer in a suitably reverent tone, expending three lines on titles of the goddess and finally asking her to accept the sacrifice. At this point someone – either the chorus or the slave – interrupts his prayer:

50

(Pax 978–86)

Yes, accept it, much-honoured goddess, by Zeus, and don’t do what women in the act of adultery do. For they too open the door a little and peer out, and if someone notices them, they retreat; then, if he goes away, they do it again. Don’t do any of these things to us anymore.

If the slave speaks these lines – as he does in the MSS – he is once again introducing a scandalous joke, for he compares the goddess to an adulterous woman. I think that this passage is fitting from a character who, as we have seen from many passages, is preoccupied with the sexual. But Olson (following Brunck) assigns the lines to the chorus or coryphaeus. He gives two reasons, both of which have to do with what is appropriate for a slave to do. He quotes van Leeuwen’s assertion that it is not a slave’s place to pray for the safety of the city (‘non est serui pro ciuitatis salute precari’) and argues that ‘a description of the sexual pursuit of a free married woman is more acceptable coming from [the chorus] than from a servile character’.51 Neither of these arguments can hold much water in my opinion. Despite the desire of everyone, including myself, to establish firm conventions – what can and cannot happen in comedy – eleven plays are not really enough to do it. We do not know the limits of what a slave could do. What if Frogs had not survived? Would any scholar have imagined a Xanthias? The paucity of our evidence deprives the non est serui argument of its strength. Rather than asking whether a slave can do x, we should ask whether this slave might do x. And I think that nothing in this passage crosses some line that the slave of Peace 819–1126 had not already crossed. It is fitting that the slave who called Theoria and Opora whores (848–9) would cast their mistress in the role of an at 873–4, it is adulterous woman. If he does cuckold his master at 855 and the in his character to portray the goddess as yet another married woman whom he wants. It is interesting to note Trygaeus’ response to this interruption in his prayer. Despite his reverent tone before the interruption, when he resumes he takes up the metaphor begun by the slave (or chorus). The goddess is not urged, as one thinks at first, to be unlike an adulterous woman by being a chaste woman; rather, she is urged to commit adultery brazenly and without the (affected or real) modesty of an

49

Cf. RV. Because who speaks these lines is at issue here, I have not labelled the speaker, though I am using Olson’s text and Olson attributes this passage to the chorus. 51 Olson (1998), 256. 50

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AN ARISTOPHANIC SLAVE: PEACE 819–1126

ordinary adulteress. She should quit trying to be secret, just open the door already, and let her lovers have her. This is the implication of what Trygaeus says at 987–90 ( / / / ). Once again the master and slave are a team in wooing, as was implied at 873–4. This time, the probably is meant to include the whole audience (since presumably everyone wants peace), so that all the men in the theatre that day were, in a metaphorical sort of way, invited to share a mistress. In his dissertation on slaves in Aristophanic comedy, Stefanis observes: Εσξθ 52

In Peace the slave, who cooperates with Trygaeus for quite a while, prefigures Xanthias and Carion both in the extent of his role and in his behaviour.

He notes that the slave occasionally opposes his master and acts as if he were his equal – both of which are traits of Xanthias and Carion – and cites some specific examples ’) at lines 958 and in which he speaks back to his master lightly (‘ 1041.53 The first, while it may seem mildly impertinent ( , 958), is nothing compared with other actions and speeches of this slave, and it is strange that Stefanis chooses it as his first example. The second is not much different: {

}

{ {

} }

{Sl.} {Tr.} {Sl.}

(Pax 1039–42) That’s done. Pick up and arrange the thighs. I’ll go after the guts and cakes. I’ll do it. But you should be back already! Look, I’m here. Surely you don’t think I’m dawdling?

The distribution of these lines is disputed. What I have printed is the distribution of the MSS, which is advocated by Lowe against the altered arrangements of Beer and van Leeuwen.54 Arguing that the slave should not give the master an order, Beer inserts a change of speaker before , so that the master speaks the second half of line 1039 and all of 1040. The slave then would speak 1041a (through ), and the master 1041b. The distribution of van Leeuwen is the same, except that he gives to Trygaeus as well. All of this explains why, when one goes to check Stefanis’ reference to an impertinent remark by the slave (1041), one will find instead a line attributed to Trygaeus, as 52

Stefanis (1980), 151. To the examples of this slave’s impudence cited by Stefanis should be added, I think, Pax 1122–4, where the slave responds to Trygaeus’ order that he strike the oracle-monger Hierocles ( , 1121) by saying ‘you do it’ ( , 1122). The slave then explains that his master should do the striking because he wants to do something else, namely to strip him of his (dishonestly earned) sheepskins ( ). 54 J.C.B. Lowe, ‘Some questions of attribution in Aristophanes’, Hermes 95 (1967), 53–71, at 63–4. The arguments of Lowe and the reading of the MSS seem to have prevailed. While Coulon, Cantarella and Platnauer follow van Leeuwen, the more recent editions (Olson, Sommerstein, Henderson) follow the MSS distribution. 53

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in the MSS, in the more recent English editions. Stefanis apparently means to call ‘talking back lightly’ the half-line of the slave as in Platnauer ( ). I cannot agree that we should necessarily read any level of impudence into such a remark, but I do agree with Stefanis that if we accept the MSS distribution, there is a certain feeling that Trygaeus and the slave are equals.55 In this case the slave comes on stage, reports that the sheep has been slaughtered, and orders his master to take the thigh bones so that he himself may fetch the rest of the necessary parts of the animal from offstage. Technically he is giving his master a command, though he is not so much assuming the role of the master as that of a comrade. One recalls the partnership of Chremylus and Carion in Wealth.56 The slave is indignant at his master’s fault-finding at 1041 and expresses himself in 1042. This also reminds one of Carion, who resents the old men who make assumptions about his character (presumably because of his slave status) at Wealth 273–4. But I find this evidence much less interesting than the constant interjections, comments and jokes of the slave in previous lines (855, 868–70, 875–6, 879–80, 891–3, all discussed above). For whatever reason, Stefanis does not seem to discuss these.57 There is no substantial comment on this slave’s frequent attempts to gain the sympathy of the audience through initiating, while not being the object of, (often sexual) humour.58 In an interesting study of names and naming in Aristophanes, Olson observes that comedy and tragedy are fundamentally different in their presentations of the names of their characters,59 because tragedy is based on universally recognized myths, so that to introduce a character by name is to let the audience know everything about him or her,60 while in comedy a name means little, since the audience must discern the nature of each character through his or her actions on stage.61 He points out that when one or any labelling of watches a comedy on stage, one does not have a list of characters with a name whenever they speak. Instead, except for certain traditional figures that would have been recognizable, such as Heracles, Hades or Hermes (and perhaps, because of his lack of a beard, Cleisthenes), the characters on stage would 55

Stefanis (1980), 151, n. 36. K.J. Dover, Aristophanic Comedy (Berkeley, 1972), 205 observes that Chremylus and Carion ‘act more like a pair of friends than slave and master’. 57 Stefanis (1980), 115, n. 17 does briefly discuss 873–4 (where the slave mentions that he and his master have screwed Theoria), but he says only that these lines are characterized by (‘ ’) and that they should be attributed to the slave. He directs the reader to Platnauer (1964), 142, who denies that can have a sexual meaning. 58 The caveat ‘while not being the object of’ is quite important, for slaves in Aristophanes often generate humour at their own expense, so much so that K.J. Dover, Aristophanes’ Frogs (Oxford, 1993), 43–4 assigns to slaves in the plays before Ran. only two basic roles (with the exception of the handling of props): narrating the prologue and eliciting ‘laughter by being hurt, threatened, or frightened’. One can (and Dover does) adduce many examples of this phenomenon in the earlier plays, such as the slave who is beaten by Philocleon at a party (offstage) and then emerges on stage to tell the audience about his experience and lament that he does not have the hard shell of a turtle (Vesp. 1291–7, 1307), or the silent slaves who are abused for executing orders too slowly or for being in the way (Av. 1311, 1316, 1323–9, 1334–5 and Lys. 1215–23 respectively). But the slave at Pax 819–1126 does not fit into any of Dover’s pre-Xanthian categories. 59 S.D. Olson, ‘Names and naming in Aristophanic comedy’, CQ 42 (1992), 304–19, at 304–6. 60 Cf. Antiphanes fr. 191.5–8 K: / / / 61 Cf. Antiphanes fr. 191.18–20 K: / / / 56

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AN ARISTOPHANIC SLAVE: PEACE 819–1126

have been differentiated only by their dress until they happened to be named (which did not always happen). Olson’s study of slaves in particular yields results interesting for our purposes. He comes to the conclusion that, generally speaking, mute slaves are more likely to be named than those that have substantial speaking parts. He argues that speaking slaves are denied names in order to prevent them ‘from wielding their names in potentially subversive ways’, while those few substantial actors and speakers who happen to be given names (for example, Carion in Wealth, Sosias and Xanthias in Wasps) are always named by their masters in a direct command, and their names do not help them to dominate the stage.62 The only exception is Xanthias in Frogs. If one accepts Olson’s arguments, it would appear that the slave at Peace 819–1126 is not named lest he be a serious threat to the dramatic dominance of his master during that part of the play in which they act as partners. It should be noted that Trygaeus’ name, which has already been disclosed in his confrontation with Hermes earlier in the play (190), is , 919). repeated again quite emphatically in this section ( Does he do this to be sure that no one can mistake who the hero of the play really is, perhaps including his demotic to assert his citizenship in contrast to the slave’s lack thereof ? If so, this in itself is evidence of how much the slave has been giving Trygaeus a run for his money in the competition to dominate the stage. That the slave stops short of actually becoming the hero and must eventually be put down is hardly worth saying; the same could be said of our most conspicuous example of this kind of slave, Xanthias in Frogs.63 If Olson’s theory is correct, then, this slave’s lack of a name indicates that he is a potential threat or rival. Alternatively, the naming of slaves in comedy is for the most part mere chance – the masters themselves, as Olson recognizes, often go for hundreds of lines without a name, and this slave (unless he is the same as one of the slaves earlier in the comedy) has only a few hundred lines to exist. I do not think that a name would necessarily make him much more powerful, unless he were to use it himself with a strong sense of self-identity, as Xanthias does with his coinage, (Frogs 499), which Olson (oddly) does not mention. If he were named in the course of one of Trygaeus’ commands, the name would be no more his than the names of Carion, Sosias and Xanthias (the one in Wasps) are theirs; to be named in an order is to be given a name, to receive even that from the master. Xanthias at Frogs 499 and Trygaeus at Peace 919 proudly and with a fully-formed ego take their names and use them to draw attention to themselves and the identity that lies behind (better, in) their masks. The slave in Peace certainly does not do this; but neither does his lack of name preclude him from being a significant forerunner of Xanthias. Because of the difference between reading a play and seeing it staged in a time before programmes, his lack of a name is far more likely to prejudice modern scholarship than to have affected the thinking of the original audience. CONCLUSIONS The slave of Peace 819–1126, though nameless, proves to be quite a strong character. He vies with his master for the audience’s attention by volunteering all types of jokes, many of them sexual, one (855) perhaps in an aside. He frequently treats that same 62

Olson (n. 59), 309–12. Xanthias is, of course, the most independent, dominant and interesting slave in Aristophanic comedy. But even he disappears from the play roughly halfway through at 814. 63

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master, and to some extent that master treats him, as an equal and a partner. Often enough he is temporarily in charge of the action, even if we concede 922–36 to Trygaeus and the chorus. As far as the humour goes, he and his master frequently take turns setting up one another’s jokes. The slave frankly admires, even fondles, women ; it is evident from the who are to be betrothed to either his master or the dialogue that he has slept with the latter, and it is possible that he sleeps with the former during the play. If the line distribution of the MSS is to be trusted, he also casts the goddess Peace in the role of his adulterous beloved in a prayer to her. There are many ways that one could try to explain this slave – in terms of the selfconsciousness of the poet after what is said at Peace 743–7, the leniency of this particular master, the exigencies of humour on the comic stage, or the necessity of reacting ‘out of character’ to metatheatrical statements. But ultimately, like Xanthias in Frogs, we are compelled to accept his existence and alter our preconceived notions accordingly. University of California, Berkeley

DANIEL WALIN [email protected]

WORKS CITED REPEATEDLY S.D. Olson, Aristophanes’ Peace (Oxford, 1998). M. Platnauer, Aristophanes’ Peace (Oxford, 1964). A.H. Sommerstein, Peace (Oxford, 1985). I.E. Stefanis, ΔομοΚ τυΚ ΛψνψδεΚ υο `σιτυοζ0ξθ· ’Ο ’Σ"μοΚ υο λα ’Θ Νοσζ% υο (EEThess Suppl. 29, Thessaloniki, 1980).

Classical Quarterly 59.1 46–59 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000044

46 IN THBROACKES E CLO U D S JUSTIN

IN THE CLOUDS: WAS SOCRATES HIMSELF A DEFENDER OF SEPARABLE SOUL AND SEPARATE FORMS?

Aristophanes, Clouds 193–4

As Strepsiades casts his first uncomprehending glances into the Socratic thinkingshop, he hears that the men bent over are searching the regions below Tartarus. ‘But what, then, is their arsehole doing, looking to the heavens?’ ‘Alone by itself it is learn, emphatic in ing to do astronomy’, the Student replies. The phrase its near-repetition of the ideas alone and by itself, is passed over without comment in the main editions. It is, however, a phrase that became distinctive of what is usually thought of as specifically Platonic philosophy – used both of the separation of the from the body, as far as possible, and of the separation of a soul Form from, it seems, things in the everyday world (e.g. Phd. 83b1; cf. 64c5–8, 65c5–d2, 66a1–3, 79d1–7). The question arises, therefore, how much these ‘Platonic’ ideas may themselves have figured already in the thought of Socrates some thirty-five years earlier1 – despite the standard view, promoted by Aristotle, that they did not in the slightest. The phrase is unremarked in the main editions I have seen of the play individually,2 as also in the larger editions of Aristophanes;3 lines 193–4 are indeed omitted from some otherwise helpful older editions.4 There are no relevant scholia5 and there is nothing in Bekker’s (anonymously published) compendium of earlier editions.6 One school edition notes the phrase as philosophical, without saying in what way;7 probably the most promising note that I have seen is in L.L. Forman’s

1 The Clouds was first produced at the City Dionysia of 424/3, and the text we have is a partial revision, from some time between spring 420 and late 417; K.J. Dover (ed.), Aristophanes: The Clouds (Oxford, 1968), lxxx–lxxxi; abridged ed. (Oxford, 1970), xxix. The main revisions that we know of (from Hypothesis I) do not concern the parts of the play that we will be concerned with. Scholars mostly date the Phaedo to the years following Plato’s first visit to Sicily in 388/7, e.g. W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy IV (Cambridge, 1975), 325. 2 K.H. Weise (Leipzig, 1822), I. Bekker (London, 1826), G. Hermann (Leipzig, 1830), F.H. Bothe (Leipzig, 1830), C.C. Felton (Cambridge, 1841; Boston, 18777 (rev. W.W. Goodwin)), W.S. Teuffel (Leipzig, 1856, ed. auct. 1863), W.W. Merry (Oxford, 1879), M.W. Humphreys (Boston, 1885), C.E. Graves (Cambridge, 1898), J. van Leeuwen (Leiden, 1898), W.J.M. Starkie (London, 1911), Dover (n. 1), A.H. Sommerstein (Warminster, 1982). 3 F.H. Bothe (Leipzig, 1828–30, 1845, 4 vols), G. Dindorf (Oxford, 1835–38, 4 vols in 7); T. Kock, Ausgewählte Komödien (Berlin, 1852–64, 4 vols). 4 For reasons, I imagine, of school decorum: T. Mitchell (London, 1838), with rather full notes, and H.A. Holden (Cambridge, 18653). 5 Bekker (n. 2), 73–131; Dindorf (n. 3), vol. 4.1; or Scholia in Aristophanem fasc. 3.1 (ed. D. Holwerda, Groningen, 1977). 6 Notae in Aristophanem sedula recensione collatae ex editionibus Brunckii, Reisigii, Beckii, Dindorfii, Schutzii, Bentleii, Dobreii, Porsoni […] &c. &c. (London, 1829, 3 vols). 7 ‘Rather a philosophic phrase; perhaps intentionally so, though “de re ludicra” ’, W.C. Green (London, 1881).

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edition for H.W. Smyth’s Greek Series for Colleges and Schools (New York, 1915): : by itself, independently’ – but it makes no comment on what the ‘ point of the phrase in the context might be. The need for comment, however, could hardly be clearer. Virtually all the more respectable English translations get the phrase wrong. ‘It’s taking private lessons on the stars’ (B.B. Rogers, 18528) suggests almost the opposite of what is meant, in that the Greek implies a maximum of independence, while ‘private lessons’ suggests a relation of scholastic and perhaps financial indebtedness. A succession of translators have repeated one phrase: ‘It is studying astronomy on its own account’ (Anon., 1912);9 ‘Learning astronomy on its own account’ (Bailey, 1921);10 ‘It’s learning astronomy on its own account’ (Easterling & Easterling, 1961).11 Unfortunately, unless the phrase is just another way of talking – wrongly, as we have seen – of selffinanced tuition, then it is almost entirely obscure what it might mean.12 ‘In lonely state ’tis practising – astronomy’ (Starkie, 1911) has a nice tone of mockery, but ‘in is – a phrase used also in a serious lonely state’ could never be – as and straight description of the condition in which we are recommended by Plato to pursue the highest ambitions of philosophy. The best I have found is Hickie (1859): ‘It is getting taught astronomy alone by itself ’.13 But while ‘alone by itself ’ is, I think, exactly right, ‘getting taught’ makes definite allusion to a teacher, which may rather may be (and, I think, here is) defeat the claim to aloneness, whereas simply is learning or teaching itself. The French, unfortunately, are no better.14 Brunck’s Latin gets the separation, but not the acting by itself (‘Quid ergo podex in cœlum spectat?’ ‘Seorsum ille astro-

8 The Clouds of Aristophanes: The Greek Text with a Translation into Corresponding Metres (Oxford, 1852), which appeared anonymously. The translation, with revisions, was later used by B.B. Rogers in The Comedies of Aristophanes (London, 1902–16, 6 vols), which keeps the same phrase, and in his Loeb translation, vol. 1, The Acharnians; The Knights; The Clouds; The Wasps (London/New York, 1924). 9 The Eleven Comedies, anon. trans. (London, for the Athenian Society, 1912; New York, Liveright, 1928, 1932) 1.308. 10 C. Bailey, The Clouds Partly in the Original and Partly in Translation (Oxford, 1921). 11 H.J. Easterling and P.E. Easterling, trans. (Cambridge, 1961). So also, with exactly the same wording here, Sommerstein (1982). 12 The best I can offer would follow the lead of the OED2 (s.v. account 4.): ‘on its own account’ would mean for its own interest, at its own risk, for its own sake. But that would surely be a mistranslation: to be engaged either in astronomy or intellection for one’s own interest or one’s own sake is certainly not the same as doing it alone by oneself (which is what the Greek, I think, means). When Ion talks (Eur. Ion 608–10) of how Creusa will now bear her misfortune , rather than, as before, with the partnership of her husband, he is evidently talking of her as suffering ‘alone by herself’, not ‘on her own account’ or ‘for her own sake’. And if ‘on his own account’ carries any suggestion of the pursuit of ulterior personal advantage, then it is particularly inappropriate for a phrase attached elsewhere (as in the Phd.) to activities that are to be performed for their own sake and intrinsic worth. 13 W.J. Hickie, trans., The Comedies of Aristophanes: a New and Literal Translation from the Revised Text of Dindorf (London, 1859). Another exception, with exactly the same wording (here), is T.J. Arnold, The Clouds of Aristophanes Literally Translated (London, s.d. [1887]), in the unglamorous series of Kelly’s Keys to the Classics. R.H. Webb (Charlottesville, VA, 1960) comes close with ‘Studying on their own, astronomy’; as does J. Henderson (Cambridge, MA, 1998) with ‘Learning astronomy on its own’. 14 ‘Il apprend de son côté l’astronomie’, N.L.M. Artaud, Comédies d’Aristophane (Paris, 18412, 18794). ‘Il apprend pour son compte l’astronomie’, trans. A.-C. Brotier, corr. L. Humbert (Paris, 1889). ‘Il s’instruit pour son compte dans l’astronomie’, C. Poyard (Paris, 1898), and with exactly the same wording, H. Van Daele (Paris [Budé], 1923, 19342). One happy exception, but for the

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nomiam discit.’).15 The early nineteenth-century German versions are more or less unique in showing a sense of the philosophical use of the phrase elsewhere, but if anything they exaggerate it. Voss understands the text perfectly well, I think, though he renders it in free (and today archaic16) terms: ‘Was will der Arsch denn, daß zu der Himmelshöh’ er kuckt?’ ‘Selbst vor sich selber treibt er da Sternwissenschaft’. But Droysen (‘Er an und für sich beschäftigt sich mit Astronomie!’) and Schnitzer (‘Das lernt an sich und für sich selbst Astronomie’) surely go too far.17 The phrase ‘für sich’ is appropriate enough, but ‘an sich’ is almost meaningless in the context and merely imports a puzzling aura of the metaphysical ‘in itself ’. So it seems, for an accurate rendering we do best with a nineteenth-century crib or school translation; the German-speakers who hear philosophical echoes also exaggerate them; and in the absence of any good notes in the main editions, a succession of translators have made quite inaccurate sense of the passage. come to mean alone by himself, herself, itself, etc., as I How does first. is of course the have supposed – if indeed it does? Let us take , the reflexive pronoun, himself, herself, itself. has Attic contraction of the root meaning down, downwards and, like other prepositions, it had in pre-classical uses an adverbial force.18 An accompanying ablatival genitive was used of the place from ( , down from Olympus, Il. 1.44), and a proper genitive of the place to ( , breathing down upon the shoulders [of Asius], Il. 13.385; also down into); an accusative was used of the place through which the action ] , blood spurted down through his nostrils, Il. extended ([ 16.349). By an extension of meaning (paralleled in the English going down the road) the last usage became applied also to cases where the action went through something, , throughout the city, Lyc. 40; , but not spatially down ( with the along the way). With these fundamental uses, the other main uses of

last word: ‘Il s’exerce, à part soi, à la géométrie’, C. Zévort (Paris, s.d. [1889]). (‘A part soi, seul avec soi-même’: A. Hatzfeld, A. Darmesteter, Dictionnaire général de la langue française du commencement du XVII s. jusqu’à nos jours (Paris, 1895–1900), s.v. part.) 15 R.F.P. Brunck, Comœdiæ in latinum sermonem conversæ (Strasbourg, 1781, 3 vols), repr. in Aristophanis Comœdiæ … Græce et Latine … (Paris, 1846). With this phrasing Brunck also loses any coincidence with the phrasing of the Phd., which in the Latin of, e.g., Ficino runs (at 66a1–3) ‘ipsa secundum se ipsam mentis excogitatione sincera utens, ipsum per se quodlibet sincerum existens studeret venari …’ (in A. Bekker, Platonis … Scripta Græce omnia, 11 vols (London, 1826), vol. 10 Platonis dialogi Latine …, my emphasis). 16 Aristofanes von Johann Heinrich Voss mit erläuternden Anmerkungen von Heinrich Voss (Brunswick, 1821, 3 vols; 1.211). ‘Vor sich selber’, i.e. für sich selbst. Cf. H. Paul, Deutsches Wörterbuch (Halle a. S., 1897; Tübingen, 19929), s.v. vor. 2 17 J.G. Droysen (Berlin, 1835–8; Leipzig, 1869 ); C.F. Schnitzer (Stuttgart, 1842). And their successors have as much difficulty as anyone, capturing neither the ordinary meaning nor any more philosophical associations: ‘Auf eigne Faust betreibt die Himmelskunde Der [d.i. der Hintere]’, H. Müller (Leipzig, 1843; 1861); ‘Der treibt Astronomie auf eigne Hand’, L. Seeger (Zürich, 1952); ‘Der lernt auf eigne Rechnung Sternenkunde’, O. Seel (Stuttgart, 1963). Unfortunately, ‘auf eigne Faust’ or ‘… Hand’ means something like on one’s own initiative, under one’s own steam, off one’s own bat (originally, I presume: by the force of one’s own hand or fist), which is not what the Greek phrase means. For a person, for example, to grieve (as at Rep. 10.604a3) is for him to grieve alone by himself, not under his own steam; and the error is pretty much the same when the case is one of learning astronomy. 18 On : R. Kühner, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache. 1. Teil: Elementarund Formenlehre. In neuer Bearbeitung besorgt von Dr. Friedrich Blass (Hannover, 1890) §433, pp. 475–80; H.W. Smyth, Greek Grammar (1920; Cambridge, MA, 1956, rev. G.M. Messing) §1690.

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accusative can be traced, I think, as figurative extensions of the idea of what one goes through, or what one follows the path of. There is a temporal usage (e.g. , during or through the previous war, Hdt. 1.67); and there are the various cases that Smyth classes under the headings of ‘Conformity’ ( , according to the laws, Thuc. 8.2), ‘Ground on which an act is based’ ( , owing to friendship, Thuc. 1.60), ‘Manner’ ( , in accord with , according to nation, quietness, quietly, Thuc. 6.64), and ‘Distribution’ ( nation by nation, Thuc. 1.122): all these can be seen, I think, as developments of the idea of following the path of (the laws, friendship, quietness, the nation), and hence of what one acts in accordance with, or goes by (as in our going by the book).19 What is it for a person or thing to act ? of course means himself, herself, itself, but also by himself, by herself, etc., i.e. alone (LSJ s.v. I.3: , although alone, Il. 8.99; , for we are alone, i.e. among friends, Ar. Ach. 504; usages with which LSJ lists ). When a person – or , the force of the phrase is, or the soul – acts then, I think, that it is acting alone by way of itself, alone in accordance with itself – independently following its own path, not using anything else – hence, in short, alone by itself. It is worth noting that ‘itself by itself ’ (as, for example, in Vlastos [n. 21], 256–62) is not generally a good equivalent: when Plato talks of a time when the soul (Phd. 65c5–7: … may come to be ), he surely means ‘alone by itself ’, rather than simply ‘itself by itself ’. The qualification ‘as far as possible’ ( , 65c7, repeated 65a1, 67a3, 67c6, cf. , 65c9) is a sign of how hard the task to be performed is; whereas the soul is presumably always (if trivially) itself: what is hard is for it to be alone, approximating the state of death when it will be ‘pure, through separation from the folly of the body’ (67a6–7).20 With the meaning of the phrase clear in general, I shall say only a little about its use in Plato in particular. The classic text is the Phaedo,21 where occurs repeatedly in one form or another, applied to the soul or to Forms as its objects (e.g. 64c7, 65c7, 65d1, 66a1, 66e6, 67c7, 67e8, 70a7, 78d6, 79d1 and 4, 81c1, 83b1 [bis],

19 Cf. M.L. Gill, who in her Parmenides (Indianapolis, 1996) translates as ‘by itself’ and adds a note (to 129a) giving as meaning for that phrase both ‘apart, on its own’ and ‘in virtue of, or because of, itself’. The latter can be seen as a small extension of the root idea I have proposed, following the path of itself, a necessary extension indeed when the phrase comes to be applied not just to the soul but also to Forms. 20 One might try to defend ‘itself by itself’, saying that the soul is only fully ‘itself’ when it is also in the relevant sense ‘alone’, stripped of bodily accretions so as to become what it ‘really’, ‘in its truest nature’, is (cf. Rep. 10.611bc). (Thus the soul is, trivially, always [numerically] itself, but only under conditions of ideal separation from the body does it come to be [qualitatively] itself, i.e. of its true nature and character.) And there are of course cases where, in English as in Greek, ‘itself’ (‘myself’, etc.) has the force of ‘alone’. (‘Thank you, I can do it myself.’) But none the less, it is hard, I think, to hear phrases like ‘using the intellect itself by itself’ as actually meaning ‘using the intellect alone by itself’ (cf. Phd. 66a1–2); and if one does so, I suspect it is only by drawing on a special piece of Platonic doctrine, rather than on the common understanding of the words themselves. 21 D. Gallop translates the phrase ‘alone by itself’ in his Phaedo (Oxford, 1975; 1993); as does Burnet, Plato’s Phaedo, ad 64c6. R. Hackforth (Plato’s Phaedo, Cambridge, 1955) uses a variety of phrases: ‘by itself’ (64c), ‘alone by itself’ (65c7, 65d1), ‘pure and simple’ (for [sc. ], 66a1–2). G. Vlastos (Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher [Cambridge, 1991], 256–64) has ‘itself by itself’, but, though I cannot accept that as a translation, I think we are largely in agreement on the purposes to which Plato puts the phrase.

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100b6; also applied to the body: 64c6), with variants (like , 67d1) , 82e4; , and parallels using other prepositions (e.g. 83a6, cf. 80e5).22 The main discussion is at 64d–67b, where Socrates draws out from Simmias agreement that the body is an impediment to attaining wisdom and that … there are such things as a ‘just itself ’, a beautiful and a good ( … , 65d4–7) and greatness, health and strength; he argues that a person will come closest to knowledge of the being of such things who has trained himself to think most precisely of each object itself, abandoning the senses, as far as possible, in favour of intellection (65e–66a). ‘Using his intellect alone by itself and ), he would undertake the hunt for each reality unsullied ( [i.e. each Form] alone by itself and unsullied ( )’ (66a1–3).23 If knowledge is fully attainable by human beings at all, it can only be after death and separation from the body (66e–67a); and this is the reason why Socrates is unafraid of the fate ahead of him: ‘those who practise philosophy aright are cultivating dying, and for them, least of all men, does being dead hold any terror’ (67e). The same ideas are invoked later, at 78d–80c, in the third main argument for immortality: the soul and Forms are kin, so, since the Forms themselves are ‘divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble’, it would be proper for the soul too to be indissoluble, or something close to that (80c). ‘When … [the soul] studies alone by itself ( ), it departs yonder [into the realm of Forms] towards that which is pure and always existent and immortal and unvarying, and by virtue of its kinship with it, enters always into its company, whenever it has come to be alone by itself ( ), and whenever it may do so; then it has ceased from its wandering and, when it is about those objects, it is always constant and unvarying, inasmuch as it is apprehending things of a similar kind [i.e. constant and unvarying]; and this condition of it is called wisdom, is it not?’ (79d). That is the condition we may expect death to bring, and philosophy in this life to approximate. The soul ceases from wandering as it fixes on unwandering things – and the assimilative process at work here turns out in later writings of Plato to operate in the practice of astronomy itself. Observational astronomy is, in the educational scheme of the Republic, only a pale shadow of the purer theoretical astronomy studied in ‘problems’ (Rep. 7.528e–530c). But it is itself also,

22

For other uses of the whole phrase, applied to Forms, see e.g. Sym. 211b1 (of the Beautiful ), Parm. 128e6, Tim. 51c1; for the phrase applied to the soul, see Rep. 6.485d11. For some more ordinary and unmetaphysical uses, see e.g. Rep. 10.604a3 (quoted later in the main text) and Tht. 206a5–8 (Theaetetus learning to distinguish the letters ‘each alone by itself’, ). The language of Forms existing each is, I think, absent from the great analogies of Sun, Line and Cave in the Rep., except, notably, in application to the sun itself (516b) which is uniquely distant and apart from the other things of the upper realm, perhaps because, if Plato is talking of the survey of a whole realm or of Forms (e.g. 508c, 509d, 517b; cf. Phdr. 247c), then he may be becoming more impressed with their relations to each other, and to the Good, rather than their independence. Indeed it is the interconnection among Forms (rather than their aloneness) that is stressed in the Line passage, as reason ascends to the Good and then descends again to an endpoint, making use of ‘Forms alone by way of Forms and onward to Forms’ ( … , Rep. 6.511c; cf. 510b8), where the old incantatory phrasing is adapted now to express connection rather than separation. Forms as a group are alone or apart (sc. from sensibles), but they are not individually alone or apart (sc. from each other). For later discussion of interrelations, see Soph. 255c–258c and, for an application of none the less, 255c14–15. 23 Here and elsewhere I draw on the versions of Gallop (n. 21) and Hackforth (n. 21), but with modifications and variations of my own.

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the Timaeus will say, a direct way to calm the wandering soul: ‘the revolutions of reason’ in the stars, when seen by us, will ‘stabilize the variable revolutions within us’ (Tim. 47bc; cf. 90cd), as the soul becomes like the unwandering things that it attends to. Socrates’ case for immortality approaches its highpoint (after which a long silence ensues, Phd. 84c) with an explosion of recommendations for the soul to act , , and , and to regard as true . When bound to the body, the soul only what is, as are the Forms, , 83a3), as if through investigates through the eyes and other senses ( a prison, rather than alone through itself ( , 82e4): it is ‘rolling about’ in total ignorance ( , 82e5). Philosophy attempts to release the soul, by persuading it to withdraw from body and senses, by urging it to collect and gather itself to itself ( … , cf. 80e5) and itself to trust none other but itself ( ), whenever, alone by itself ( ), it thinks of any reality alone by itself ( ); and not to regard as true what it observes through other things ( … ), and what varies in various things; that kind of thing is sensible and seen, whereas the object of its own vision is intelligible and invisible. (Phd. 83a6–b4)24

The visual metaphor should be noted: the eye of the soul contemplates the Forms. The same phrase recurs elsewhere with similar force. Perhaps the most interesting place is Theaetetus 184b–187a, where the same opposition is drawn between what the soul does through other things and what it does through itself and by itself. On the one hand there is perceiving, which we do with the soul through the senses (184d4); on the other hand, there is thinking or judging – for example, that two colours or sounds are like or unlike, same or different, beautiful or ugly – which the soul does alone through , 185e1, 6) and alone by itself ( … , 186a4; itself ( 187a5). To attain the being of things, and hence have knowledge of them (186c–e, that is, I think, to grasp the nature of, for example, hardness and softness, or of the various colours and sounds) is the work of the soul acting alone by itself (187a5): something achieved by reasoning and calculation, and made possible, where it occurs at all, only , through ‘a great deal of effort and education’ ( is used as a phrase to conjure with in the 186c2–5). Once again, promotion of higher thought. of the various figures bent When the Student comments, then, that the over is learning to do astronomy, might his words be a parodic echo of (an earlier manifestation of ) any or all of these Platonic conceptions of the soul and its objects? Of course much of the science and philosophy of the Clouds is absurd, all of it is comic, and none of it can be taken at face value as a depiction of Socrates’ own views or practice. But one of the methods of comedy is to take the language and catch phrases characteristic of a person’s discourse that sound fine and proper in one context and to set them instead in a place where they are evidently ridiculous. Dover more vivid; talks (ad 193) of a resemblance between anus and eye which makes but it is the inversions as much as the parallels (and indeed the combination of the two opposite characters) that sustain the comedy here: that it is the arsehole – perhaps the

24 Trans. Gallop, with modifications to bring out the Greek phrasing; I substitute ‘true’ for ‘real’ to render .

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least upwardly and immaterially ambitious part of the body – that is given the task of learning alone by itself is of course part of the operation of Aristophanes’ ridicule. And obviously from comedy built with such traduced materials, it is not going to be easy to draw out any conclusions about what the original might have been of what we see only in exaggerated, partly transposed, form. There is evidently no mention in our passage of a theory of separate Forms or of any particular view on the nature or separability of the soul. But we have what looks like a definite reference to a project or practice of withdrawing from the everyday environment to be intellectually ‘alone’ and seek knowledge or learning ‘by oneself ’ – and, if that indeed is what it is, then we must ask what such a project might have amounted to, in whatever form it might have existed in Aristophanes’ environment. In Plato’s Phaedo, of course, the project involved a separable soul attending to separate Forms, and it was combined with a large-scale opposition between lower things that are constantly changing and higher things that are not; while the confusion constantly produced in the soul by lower things was to be alleviated by turning our attention to higher things, thanks to a process whereby the mind becomes assimilated in certain respects to the things it attends to. (Those who think on orderly things themselves become orderly: cf. Phd. 79d, Tim. 47bc, 90cd; cf. Rep. 6.500b–d.) But how much less than all that might the project have involved in the thought of Socrates, or of others in ? his world, if they used the phrase We are facing here a version of the traditional ‘Socratic problem’: that of trying to decide how much of what we find in the mouth of Plato’s Socrates may actually have been said or thought by the historical Socrates. The internal evidence of the dialogues is of course hard to disentangle and the external evidence (principally from Xenophon and Aristophanes) is suspect and tendentious. But views have been taken, and for serious reasons. At one extreme, A.E. Taylor and John Burnet ascribe to Socrates all the main views of the Socrates of the Phaedo, including an immortal soul and the theory of Forms.25 At the opposite extreme, there is, recently, Gregory Vlastos, and a large tradition developed in part from Hegel, that denies Socrates any metaphysical views on either subject and insists that Socrates was exclusively a moral philosopher.26 In the fairly large middle ground stand others, who ascribe some

25 J. Burnet, Plato’s Phaedo (Oxford, 1911) and A.E. Taylor, Varia Socratica (Oxford, 1911). Burnet argues: ‘Whatever Plato may or may not have done in other dialogues … , I cannot bring myself to believe that [in the Phd.] he falsified the story of his master’s last hours on earth by using him as a mere mouthpiece for novel doctrines of his own. That would have been an offence against good taste and an outrage on all natural piety …’ (xi–xii). Curiously, the theory of Ideas or Forms that Burnet attributes to Socrates as also to Plato (and credits originally not to either of them, but to the Pythagoreans) contains no claim of separation of Forms from particulars (xlvi, n. 2), which Burnet ascribes only to the ‘friends of Forms’ of Soph. 248a. As will be seen from the main text, I am not sure that this fits well with the Phaedo’s talk of a Form as (e.g. 66a2, 83b1), but that is an issue that I shall not take further here. 26 G.W. von Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, in Werke, hg. v. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel (Frankfurt a.M., 1969–71), 18.441–515, 520. Socrates’ philosophy ‘had an altogether practical aspect’: ‘in regard to the personality and method’, Plato’s picture of Socrates is more accurate, but ‘in regard to the content of his teaching and the point reached by him in the development of thought, we have in the main to look to Xenophon’ (G.W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, trans. E.S. Haldane and F.H. Simson [London, 1892–6], 1.397, 414). Vlastos (n. 21) argues that ‘the historical Socrates’ (49) fits ten main claims, the first two of which are that he ‘is exclusively a moral philosopher’ (47), and that he had no such theory as the Platonic theory of ‘ “separately existing” Forms and of a separable soul which learns by “recollecting” ’ (48).

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but not all such views to Socrates – like Guthrie, for example, who ascribes to him immortality of the soul but not separability of Forms, arguing that separable Forms are a Platonic addition that would have seemed to Plato only a trivial inference (‘a legitimate projection’27) from Socrates’ interest in definitions, given his faith in the survival of the soul. Aristotle has seemed to support a rejection of Taylor and Burnet: it was Plato, he says, – not Socrates, it seems – who in his youth became familiar with the Heraclitean doctrines ‘that all sensible things are ever in a state of flux’ and ‘that there is no knowledge about them’, and he maintained those views even in his later years. Socrates, however, was busying himself about ethical matters and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal in these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions; Plato accepted his teaching, but held that the problem applied not to any sensible things but to entities of another kind – for this reason, that the common definition could not be a definition of any sensible thing, as they were always changing. Things of this other sort, then, he called Ideas, and sensible things, he said, were apart from these, and were called after these … (Met. . 6, 987b1–9, trans. Ross, rev. Barnes)

Many people accept Aristotle’s word here. But we should remember that Aristotle was himself an opponent of Plato’s separated Forms, and it is not unusual for a person, when disagreeing, so to speak, with his intellectual father, to claim his grandfather to be on his side, and the claim may all too easily go unchallenged when the grandfather died some fifteen years before the speaker and his contemporaries were even born. The claim that Socrates neglected the science of nature may cite Apology 19b–d in support; pointing in the opposite direction, however, is not only The Clouds but also the ‘intellectual autobiography’ of Phaedo 95a–99d, in which ‘Socrates’ declares himself, when young, to have ‘had a remarkable enthusiasm for the kind of wisdom )’ (96a6). Some people, like Vlastos, known as natural science ( have preferred the Aristotelian view (dismissing the report of Socrates’ early interest in natural science as a ‘canard’ [161], citing Apol. 19b–d in support, and passing over Phd. 96 without any serious discussion at all); while others, like Guthrie, have concluded in favour of the opposite view, that Socrates did indeed have scientific interests while young.28 This is not the place to attempt to adjudicate that whole dispute. But what we are currently finding in the Clouds is a virtually unnoticed piece of evidence of a kind too often ignored:29 it is external evidence (whether ultimately persuasive or

27 W.K.C. Guthrie, Socrates (London, 1971), 33. Similarly E. Zeller, Plato and the Older Academy (1874), 227: ‘The reality of Ideas seems to him the direct and inevitable consequence of the Socratic philosophy of Concepts.’ To derive the existence of Forms simply from a demand for definitions of terms like ‘pious’ would surely be, as critics have pointed out, an invalid move; but it might yet be plausible, and even in part valid, to derive it from the particular kinds of question that Socrates asked about (e.g.) piety and his particular conception of what the definitional task amounted to. 28 Guthrie (n. 27), 100–5. The status of Phd. 95a–99d as biographical evidence is itself not clear: for a survey of views and a balanced assessment, see Hackforth (n. 21), 127–32. 29 Burnet and Taylor have noted other ‘Platonic’ ideas that are already to be found in the Socrates of the Clouds: ‘Aristophanes also knows of the spiritual midwifery of Sokrates, for he has a jest about the miscarriage of a thought. … [H]e represents him as a spiritualistic medium, and he calls the inmates of the Phrontisterion “souls,” a word which to the ordinary Athenian would only suggest ghosts. He also ridicules them for going barefoot and unwashed, and speaks of them as “semi-corpses.” All that, and more of the same kind, has a sufficient foundation in what Plato tells us of the Sokratic doctrine of the soul and the “practice of death.” ’ (J. Burnet, Greek Philosophy: Thales to Plato (London, 1914) 145.) Burnet is referring, no doubt, to 137

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not) of a Socratic interest not just in natural science, but also in some kind of special epistemology of withdrawal from the everyday world in order to acquire learning about distant things – something that (if we do end up attributing it to Socrates) would certainly go beyond what Aristotle described as a concern simply with ‘ethical matters’, and something that might easily be combined (whether or not it actually was in the 420s) with metaphysical doctrines on separation of soul and Forms.30 And Plato at this moment would have been five or six years old, and certainly not the source. Might the phrase just be accidental? Might Aristophanes have quite nonchalantly – as Plato himself talks, for example, at Rep. set a student at a task 10.604a3, of how a man may grieve in the company of his equals or instead ‘alone by – without alluding to anything particularly metaphysical himself ’, or, indeed, to anything else at all? Quite possibly, if Aristophanes had been talking of … just one student. But there is a whole collection of them ( , 191) searching the subterranean regions, each with an arsehole looking at the sky; and that a whole collection of such things should be said, with the innocence of pure literalism, to be acting alone by itself would surely make little sense. (And it perhaps explains the fact that so many of the translators have not understood the phrase at all.) If the phrase means anything, it must surely be an allusion to something that allows it to make better sense than it does literally. The phrase might perhaps be an echo of something not properly Socratic, or perhaps of a body of thought other than the one which I have been drawing out of Plato. But with some searching I have been able to find no other candidate in other philosophers, , which I shall discuss after briefly considerexcept for some uses of ing in the next paragraph a quite separate objection, and which actually only adds, I . The phrase has a think, to the case for Socratic talk of withdrawal huge and important role that we have seen in Plato, which, if (perhaps in some lesser form) it had played also in Socrates, would make perfect sense of Aristophanes’ lines as a good piece of mocking parody – making fun of a whole body of philosophical thought about higher thinking and withdrawal from the confusions of the bodily world, by transposing one of its most spiritually ambitious catch-phrases to one of the more heavily material parts of the body. And I cannot help thinking that if the phrase had itself been a catch-phrase of some quite different philosophy, well enough known to have resonated with Aristophanes’ audience but only by confusion associable with Socrates, then Plato would hardly have taken it over to play a new and different, but again resonant, role in his own philosophy, or at least, not without some comment to distance himself from that rival body of thought. (When the Socrates of the Apology wishes to distance himself from the impression given by the Clouds, he

( ), with 139; 94 ( ); and 504 ( ), with 102–4). Taylor (n. 25), in ‘The ’, brings forward a mass of evidence of ‘Platonism’ in the Socrates of the Clouds, and much of the material remains impressive, I think, despite some exaggerations, and even after the influential objections of, e.g., A.M. Adam, ‘Socrates, “Quantum mutatus ab illo”, CQ 12 (1918), 121–39. But in any case, Taylor makes no mention in his essay of at 193–4 and, though he mentions the physics of the clouds, connecting them with Diogenes of Apollonia (165 and n.), he is silent on the main points I suggest below. 30 For a rather different kind of withdrawal, that of the (Eur. fr. 193, Ar. Eq. 261), the man who seeks quiet uninvolvement rather than either meddling or fighting in a dirty political world, see L.B. Carter, The Quiet Athenian (Oxford, 1986), esp. 162–73 on Eur.’s Antiope.

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does so [19cd], whether entirely fairly or not.) There is no ground for claiming certainty in the case, but from the new evidence the most plausible conclusion is, I think, that the phrase is indeed an allusion to a body of Socratic thought, and that that body of thought is, at least at a moderate level of generality, the kind of thing that we find later in the Phaedo. was a phrase that entirely It would be a mistake to suggest that by itself needed a special philosophical reading.31 Related phrases using other prepositions have a perfectly ordinary non-philosophical usage, and our phrase is no , ‘himself toward himself ’ exception. In his own death, Ajax acted (Soph. Ajax 906; cf. OT 1238); Electra talks of being left in the house to lament , ‘alone and to myself’ (Soph. Electra 285); we are told that the Barbarian failed, for the most part, , ‘himself by reason of himself ’, i.e. by his own fault (Thuc. 1.69.5; cf. 6.18.6). And, using precisely our phrase, Ion talks of , ‘alone Xuthus’ wife Creusa bearing her misfortune with bitterness by herself ’ (Eur. Ion 610), as also Plato talks of a man grieving on his own, in the passage I mentioned above (Rep. 10.604a3). The point is not that the phrase is in itself philosophical, but that in our particular context it makes no good sense unless it alludes to something, so to speak, offstage; and given what the phrase literally means, along with the remainder of the sentence, how it is later used in Plato, and the fact that we are supposedly at the gates of Socrates’ school, the best candidate in the circumstances is, as it happens, a doctrine of epistemological withdrawal that Aristophanes apparently associated with Socrates. But at this point someone might suggest a rival view: that parallel idioms like those I have just mentioned show that the relevant sense is one of separateness and autonomy, rather than of withdrawal or and the significance of literal solitude. I am not sure: there is no single force to these phrases depends of course on the preposition and the case in question. In his suicide Ajax acts ‘himself ’ toward himself (whether alone or not), and one can talk indeed of autonomy as salient rather than aloneness; but Electra laments, surely, ‘alone’ to herself, and what is in question is aloneness not autonomy. There are places , ‘himself down upon himself ’ where a person brings a judgement (Soph. OT 228; cf. Eur. Heracl. 143), and there indeed one might talk of autonomy. (Eur. Ion 610), But when we hear of Creusa bearing her misfortune the contrast is explicitly with earlier days when in adversity she had had the company , 608–9): the emphasis is of her husband ( precisely on the aloneness. This last is as good an example as one could hope for of our phrase in a non-philosophical context at a time close to that of the Clouds, and it confirms, I think, the general interpretation I offered earlier of : as meaning alone by himself, herself, itself. But in that case, I think, aloneness must indeed be reckoned a standard (though perhaps in special contexts cancellable) part of the phrase’s meaning. There are many different ways to act or be alone, but to come to be alone is, in many central cases, to withdraw, and in our passage in the Clouds the pretended withdrawal seems to be for the purpose of learning astronomy, an epistemological task particularly special for Plato. From that point on – to say what kind of epistemological withdrawal might be at issue, for what range of epistemological projects – is I think a matter of probabilities and weighing of hypotheses in the light of larger bodies of evidence; but that some kind of doctrine of epistemological 31 I am very grateful here for the suggestions of an anonymous reader for this Journal, which I have developed I hope not too freely.

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withdrawal is being associated with Socrates and held up as a object of fun, seems to me a hypothesis that sits well with the philological evidence. It is time to discuss the only other candidate I know that might be cited as a , alone possible object of Aristophanes’s joking – the similar phrase by itself, as it occurs in Hippocratic texts and, more significantly, in Anaxagoras. or Attic , is, I think, at least as ordinary a phrase as (see LSJ, s.v. , I.1.2). But it occurs in the Hippocratic treatise On Ancient and , indeed,32 that led A.E. Medicine (VM 14, 15) in a context with ’ and to say it showed that ‘the Taylor to call the phrase ‘Plato’s technical phrases of the Phaedo are not Plato’s invention but belong to fifth-century science’ (Varia Socratica, 215). It would be an exaggeration, however, I think, to suggest that any very similar doctrine or conception, as opposed to the words themselves, were to be found in the Hippocratic treatise. The author has talked of how, for example, the salty, or the acid, may in the human body become separated off (the same word is used for secretion) alone by itself ( VM 14), thereby causing disease; he doubts, however, that the same thing happens with the hot or cold, wet or dry (§15), or if it does, that it happens in the same way (§§16–18); he concludes that the principal causes of disease are not the hot, cold, wet and dry of the new thinkers, but the bitter, salt, sweet, astringent, etc. of the older physicians. Separation ‘alone by oneself ’ here is no more than occurs all the time with humours in the body of the sick, and there would not be much promise, I think, in any suggestion that it was something of that kind that was the object of Aristophanes’ fun . with , frr. 9, Anaxagoras, however, talks somewhat similarly of separation ( frr. 6, 8) and of being alone (fr. 12, three 12, 13, 14, 16, and occurrences), and with more philosophical significance – in a way seems more promising. In Anaxagoras, ‘All other things have a portion of everything, but Mind ) is infinite and self-ruled, and is mixed with nothing but is all alone by itself ( ( )’ (fr. 12). (By contrast, he says that, of everything other than Mind, ‘nothing can be separated nor come to be by itself ’ ( , fr. 6): they are all, to varying degrees, intermixed.) And this separation of Mind from non-mental things is declared essential to Mind’s mastery (and, in Aristotle, to Mind’s knowledge): ‘things that were ) would have prevented it ( ) from mixed with it ( controlling anything in the way that it does when it is actually alone by itself ( … )’; ‘it is the finest of all things and the purest’ (fr. 12; cf. Arist. DA 429a18). It is Anaxagoras whose works we are told Socrates got hold of with such eagerness and then found disappointing for not giving a larger role indeed to mind (Phd. 97b–98c); and Anaxagoras who is said to have taught Archelaus, who in turn taught Socrates (DL 2.16). That Socrates should on these topics have modified Anaxagorean (as well as Pythagorean) materials and put them to further and new use would not be surprising. And the demand for separation in the Phaedo is made in rather similar terms, requiring purity (Phd. 67a5–b2, c5) and separation (e.g. 67c7, d4) as a condition for knowledge, and with a psychological theory of the body as an

32

, ‘they have not, I think, discovered any item that is alone by itself hot or cold or dry or wet, having no share of any other form’, VM 15.

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impediment ( , 65a10) when it is ‘grown together’ or interspersed with the , 81c6). Of course there would be a modification of doctrine: whereas soul ( Anaxagoras has Mind (the cosmic mind) alone by itself, it is individual souls that in Plato are recommended to be alone by themselves; and the object of knowledge is not bodily things but Forms (cf. 65c9). And there is a significant change in vocabulary, (or ) to . (The former is, I think, never used in from Plato for the soul setting itself ‘alone by itself ’, though there are non-philosophically charged uses at Soph. 217c3 and Prot. 326cd, and it is used briefly of the Form of fire (51c1, (Tim. 51b8) before giving way (for Forms in general, in the plural) to d4); so we have a new technical usage ( , ) that has more or less completely displaced .) But then the remarkable thing is that Aristophanes associates Socrates with the newer phrase: the change, if there has been one, has taken place in the time of Socrates, not of Plato. And, far from being just an echo of some general philosophical or scientific usage (of something like as used in certain medical theories), in the Clouds would be an echo of a characteristically Socratic usage – connectable with Anaxagoras, perhaps, as also with the Pythagoreans, but only by way of transformation of language as well as philosophical advance. Curiously, once we remember that withdrawal in the Phaedo is withdrawal specifically from the confusions of a world of flux and becoming, we can find much in the same part of the Clouds that may be an echo also of those latter ideas. When the Clouds finally appear on stage, heralded by Socrates as goddesses who bestow intelligence and discourse and thought and fantasy and circumlocution (317–8), Strepsiades’ first response is that he had thought that the clouds were mist and dew and vapour, not gods; his second response is more comic: ‘if they really are clouds, what has happened to them, that they look like mortal women?’ (340–1) The answer is drawn out of Strepsiades himself by what is supposed to be a barrage of Socratic questioning (345), though (comically) Strepsiades in his innocence quickly turns the method round and poses questions instead to his questioner (347, 351). The answer is that the clouds of the sky themselves ‘come to be whatever they want’ ( , 347), taking the form of an animal corresponding to the character of people they wish to expose: if they see a shaggy man, they make a , 350); to expose a thief ( , 351), they likeness of centaurs ( … , 352); when most recently they saw a coward, they become wolves ( became deer (354); and finally, having seen Cleisthenes, they have become women (356). There may be a joking transformation here of the kind of idea that shows up in the Phaedo (also, I think, not entirely seriously), about the reincarnation appropriate to the various types of soul (81e2–4): the gluttonous and lecherous will take on the body of donkeys and similar animals, those who have preferred injustice, tyranny and , 82a2) will have the bodies of wolves, hawks and kites, while those thieving ( with everyday but unphilosophical virtue will return to the condition of ‘tame and social creatures’, like bees, wasps and ants (82b5–8). The transposition in the Clouds is of course into a different key: for Plato’s transmigrating souls merely take on the body of these various animals, whereas the clouds are said literally to become the animals in question. But that is the real point: these clouds are constantly becoming – constantly changing shape and character – just what Plato will emphasize as being the character of sensible things: continually becoming, not being, they are things that merely resemble other things.

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Once there is a chance of taking the clouds as comic echoes of (what we know later as) the Platonic conception of sensible things, there are other resonances to be heard. , 375): when The clouds thunder when ‘rolling about’ ( filled with water ( , 383) then by necessity they collide and make a noise because of their density, just as Strepsiades, when ‘filled with soup’ ( … , 386) at the Panathenaea, has suffered disturbances in his stomach , 386; , 388). ( The pattern of ideas of rolling about, when filled with relevant matter, causing discord and disturbance, reappears in the Phaedo, in the same contexts as we have been considering (64c–67b, 78b–82d), to characterize the soul’s problems when impeded by the body in the path of true philosophy. To be rolling about, i.e. roaming, by tombs ) is precisely what the and graves ( soul of the newly deceased does when weighed down by an excess of bodily material (Phd. 81c11). The soul of each of us indeed is ‘rolling about in utter ignorance’ when tied to the body, examining things through the senses ( , 82e433): inquiry through the eyes is ‘full of deceit’ ( … , 82e3). And the effects of constant bodily demands have earlier been described: the , 66c4) with desires and longings, producing war and body ‘fills’ us up ( faction and fighting, ‘clamour and disturbance’ ( , 66d5; cf. 66a5–7; 79c7), which rob us of the leisure for the true philosophy that the (67a1). soul would pursue Thus we have two groups of ideas in both our short portions of the Clouds (184–99 and 314–411) and in some important parts of the Phaedo (64c–67b, 78b–82d): the idea of the learner alone by himself considering his distant objects, and, on the other hand, the idea of things nearby in constant change, rolling about, being filled with troublesome stuff and producing disturbance. So the question arises again: might the philosophical conceptions that go with this second cluster of ideas in the Phaedo have been present in Socrates as well as in Plato—the conception (a) of sensible things as constantly changing, and (b) of such things as an impediment to knowledge? The case for finding (b) in Socrates may at first seem less strong than with (a). But without (b), what would be the point of any doctrine of the need for withdrawal ? If it is not that one’s everyday environment is in some way confusing and an impediment (many very different ways, of course, being conceivable), then what would be the need to withdraw from it? The signs in the clouds of something like (a) in Socrates can only be taken as suggestive, rather than probative; but if they were accepted, we would have reason to reject Aristotle’s suggestion that the Heraclitean conception of flux left a mark only on Plato and not on Socrates. It is at least clear, I think, that Aristophanes associated Socrates with a doctrinal catch-phrase that was crucial to Plato and Platonism some thirty-five years later. To settle exactly which ‘Platonic’ ideas might at that earlier time have gone with the phrase and the larger question, which ‘Platonic’ views go all the way back to Socrates – if a settlement is to

33 is a buzz-word of what is usually counted as Platonic theory of mind and reality: Rep. 5.479d ( … ), Tim. 44d, Phaedr. 257a, 275e, Plt. 309a; though the word is also used in more everyday physics, Tim. 59d. (Rep. 4.444b, 10.602c, Phd. 66d5 [quoted above]) and (Rep. 2.381a, Phil. 63d, Phd. 66a5–7, 79c7) are characteristic terms in Plato, especially for the confusing effect of the body on the soul, but less exclusively so. The tyrannized soul, like the tyrannized city, being dragged about by desire, is ‘full of disturbance and regret’ ( , Rep. 9.577e3).

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be expected at all, given the available evidence – would demand a larger investigation than I can offer here. But the debate is, I think, worth continuing as well as ending – and we do now have more evidence on it than people have noticed.34 Brown University

JUSTIN BROACKES [email protected]

34 I am grateful to Mary Louise Gill and Barbara Sattler for conversation and comments, and to a reader for this Journal for further suggestions.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 60–74 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000056

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PLATO ON FORMS AND CONFLICTING APPEARANCES: THE ARGUMENT OF PHAEDO 74A9–C6 In Phaedo 73c1 Socrates commences his recollection argument; he had claimed (72e5–6) that (‘learning happens to be nothing other than recollection’). There are two different sorts of recollection; things can occasion recollection of similar and dissimilar things (74a2–3). In the case of the recollection of similar things, Socrates asks (74a5–7), (‘is it not necessary to experience this in addition: to consider whether or not this lacks something in similarity to that which is recollected?’). The argument that follows, in 74a9–c6, often called the argument from imperfection, is an attempt to explain what a thing that occasions recollection lacks in comparison with the thing recollected. In this argument Plato then introduces Forms. The argument is not intended to establish that there are Forms; their existence is explicitly assumed. Plato maintains that we recollect Forms by observing sensible objects. This intellectual process is made possible by the fact that these two kinds of things are different. So, assuming Forms exist, they must be different from ordinary objects of experience. The argument is meant to explain this difference and its significance, namely that we must already have knowledge of Forms before we perceive ordinary objects, which being different from them prompt our recollection of them (74e9–75d2). But it is controversial in what way Plato takes the two kinds of things to be different, for a crucial sentence of the argument can be understood in different ways (grammatically and philosophically). The sentence in question (74b7–9) is: (‘Do not equal stones and sticks sometimes, being the same, appear equal to one but not to another?’) Does Plato mean that a pair of stones can appear equal to one person and not to another, or that a stone is evidently equal to one stone and not to another? The orthodox view has for some time been that the latter option is correct; Plato is not talking about conflicting appearances. I shall argue for the first option, and in fact claim that Plato leaves little room for doubt. I shall also suggest what significance Plato attaches to the difference between Forms and sensibles, and why it makes sense to take the sentence quoted to refer to the conflict of appearances. The feature that differentiates Forms from sensibles is what makes Forms knowable in a way that ordinary objects of experience are not: while a pair of stones may appear equal or unequal, the equal itself, the Form of equality, invariably appears equal. It is this invariability that, according to Plato, makes the equal itself knowable as being equal. Thus, the conclusion of the argument is that, assuming that the equal itself exists, it can be known that it is equal. Paraphrased the argument looks like this, on my reading: (1) Plato assumes that there are two kinds of things that are said to be equal, ordinary objects of experience like equal sticks and stones and the equal itself.

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(2) He then claims that we know that the equal itself is equal. (3) He argues: when we experience sensible equals we come to think of the equal itself. Since the latter is different from the former, the conditions for recollection (set in 73c6–d1) are met. (4) Sensible equals and the equal itself are different in that the sensibles variously appear equal and unequal, while the equal itself invariably appears equal. (5) It is this property of the equal itself (that of invariably appearing equal) that distinguishes it from ordinary objects of experience and grounds our knowledge that the equal itself is equal. (6) He concludes: If the equal itself exists, it is different from sensibles in that it is knowable as equal through invariably appearing as equal. The same claim, I then submit, is stated in the Hippias major. THE PHAEDO PASSAGE Phaedo 74a9–c6 is probably the first instance of an explicit argument for Forms being distinct entities. In order to elucidate in which way an item occasioning recollection is different from the recollected item itself, Socrates asks Simmias (74a9–12):

We say, I suppose, that something is equal. I don’t mean a stick [equal] to a stick or a stone [equal] to a stone or anything else of that sort, but something different beyond all these things, the equal itself.

Socrates suggests that the equal itself is distinct from sensible things that are equal. Further, Plato seems to be saying that the equal itself is equal. The predicate ‘is equal’, then, can apply to a pair of stones and to the equal itself. The distinction between the non-sensible equal itself and stones is explicable by their being equal in different ways.1 Although it is generally held that Socrates here distinguishes between sensible equals and the equal itself, the passage has not been read (as far as I can see) as claiming that the equal itself is equal. The reason is hardly that such a claim would fit Socrates badly, for there are enough examples of self-predication in Plato’s works, and unmistakably in the Phaedo itself (100c4–5, cf. 65d4–6). Further, if one translates the as ‘We say, I suppose, that something is equal’, it is sentence quite reasonable to interpret Plato as claiming that the equal itself is equal. There is no grammatical reason for objecting to the translation above and in fact it is a natural translation.2 How has the sentence been translated? Assuming that is the grammatical subject can be understood as predicative or of the subordinate sentence, the adjective is copulative: (A) ‘something is equal’; such attributive. In the first case, the verb 1 In a different context (65d4–e5) Simmias had already agreed, without argument, that something is just by itself (65d4–6), and the implication is that this is justice. In that same context, Socrates stressed that we do not grasp what is just by itself through the senses but rather through intellect, a claim he will shortly repeat. 2 R. Loriaux, Le Phédon de Platon. Volume 1 (Namur, 1981 [1969]), 137, comments: ‘Si l’on prend la proposition isolément et si on la traite d’un point de vue grammatical, il semble difficile de traduire autrement’, i.e. otherwise than ‘[q]ue quelque chose est égal’.

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is my translation. In the latter case, the verb expresses existence: (B) ‘something equal .4 Scholars have opted exists’.3 The difference reflects the ambiguity of the verb 5 No grammatical consideration rules out either for different versions of reading (B). translation.6 But there is good reason to prefer (A) to (B). Not only does it introduce self-predication (which to my mind recommends it),7 but Socrates will also immediately and unambiguously state the assumption that the equal itself exists (74a12–b1), i.e. (B):

Should we say that it [the equal itself] is something or nothing? – Indeed we should say [that it is something], said Simmias, by Zeus, most definitely.

Why take such care to make the statement twice? Further, the ensuing explanation of what Socrates means is puzzling if one opts for reading (B), for when he turns to sensibles, ‘equal’ is clearly predicatively used of them.8 And, lastly, Socrates will in 3 Option (B) is taken from C. Rowe, Plato: Phaedo (Cambridge, 1993), 167, 140, who says that line 65d7 ‘seems to confirm that and are to be taken together’ (ad loc.), namely, presumably, that the adjective is attributive. I read no confirmation either way from 65d7. He translates (B) slightly differently, or ‘we say, I suppose, that there is [exists] something equal’ (ad loc.). 4 The same options apply to the aforementioned passage of 65d4–5. 5 Rowe (n. 3) says: ‘there is [exists] something equal’. N. White, ‘Forms and sensibles: Phaedo 74B–C’, Philosophical Topics 15/2 (1987), 197–214, says at 197, ‘there is some equal’. D. Gallop, Plato: Phaedo (Oxford, 1975), 119, translates ‘there is something equal’ (his italics). G.M.A. Grube, ‘Phaedo’, in J. Cooper (ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis and Cambridge, 1997), 50–100, translates thus. D. Bostock, Plato’s Phaedo (Oxford, 1986), 66, similarly says ‘there is something which is equal’. This seems to be the more common translation; cf. Loriaux (n. 2), 138, who mentions other examples. Even if some of the translations mentioned might be taken to imply self-predication, it is not clear that they do. A related and illuminating passage starts at 103c11, where Socrates asks Cebes: (‘You call something hot and cold?’). The tendency has been to translate this sentence as ‘There is something you call hot and something you call cold’ (Grube, above), although there is no reason to do so. Rowe (n. 3) translates and explains ad loc., ‘ “Do you call something hot and cold?’, i.e. ‘Is there something you call “hot” and [something else you call] “cold”?’’ 6 Some translators have simply made , and not , the grammatical subject of the sentence. Thus has for example simply been translated ‘there is an equal’, i.e. ‘an equal exists’ (G.E.L. Owen, ‘Dialectic and eristic in the treatment of the Forms’, in G.E.L. Owen [ed.], Aristotle on Dialectics: The Topics [Oxford, 1968], 103–25 at 115, translates thus, italicizing ‘equal’). This translation excludes the possibility of taking ‘equal’ predicatively. This inclination is more conspicuous in other translations: ‘equal is something’ and ‘there is such a thing as equality’. The first translation (his italics) is by T. Penner, The Ascent from Nominalism (Dordrecht, 1987), 57, and the latter is H.N. Fowler’s Loeb version (Cambridge, MA, 1914), identical to that of R. Hackforth, Plato’s Phaedo (Cambridge, 1955). These three translations are not very accurate. They take Plato to be referring, by the word , to an object, namely the equal. 7 Understanding the passage as referring to the self-predication of a Form in no way diminishes the desirability of this reading; in fact it should enhance it, because that is what Forms do in Plato, they self-predicate. This much is even implied in 74d4–8, which is the conclusion of the argument. Plato does not seem to take this as a problematic assertion, and it is usually accepted without argument; cf. M. Frede, ‘Being and becoming in Plato’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, supplementary volume (1988), 37–52 at 51–2. 8 It is difficult to see what motivates translating according to (B). Perhaps the reasoning is as follows: (i) x is equal, but (ii) x is not a sensible equal but rather (iii) the equal itself; hence (iv) x is the equal itself. But I find this a baffling reading of the passage. The ‘is’ involved, on this reading, has to be one of identity; this allows one to take ‘equal’ in (i) to be the subject of the sentence, and

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fact proceed to argue for the claim that the equal itself invariably appears equal (74b7–c3), where ‘equal’ is without doubt predicative of ‘the equal itself’. Surely, then, the distinction he wants to draw here is between two ways these things are equal, the equal itself and sensibles. It is therefore justified, I submit, to translate as I suggest above, unless the assertion of the self-predication of the equal itself proves incoherent within the argument. Socrates assumes, then, that the equal itself exists. This assumption is so explicit that Plato deems it fit to add shortly afterwards (76e4–5) that ‘if these entities do not exist, then this argument is futile’. It does not follow from this claim that the equal itself is distinct from sensibles, but just that, like sensibles, the equal itself exists, and it might for all we know be the same as sensibles.9 Plato needs an argument to show up the difference, and that is what we get. Having made this assumption, Socrates commences his argument and asks Simmias whether we actually know what the equal itself is (74b2–3): 10

Do we also know this [the equal itself], what it is? – Certainly, he said.

The phrase can hardly refer to anything but the equal itself, and commentators have understood the reference thus: ‘do we know what the equal itself is?’ Socrates has already suggested that the equal itself is equal, and got Simmias’ agreement. Now he asks whether we actually know this.11 Simmias answers positively. Certainly, this is a possible reading of the passage. But it might be objected that Plato does not plainly say this; he does not say that what we know is that the equal itself is equal; he may have something altogether different in mind. He only asks whether we know what the equal itself is. Now, the context makes it clear (or so I have argued) that it is conceded that the equal itself is equal. Socrates has just elicited Simmias’ agreement that the equal itself is equal, and immediately embarks on a discussion of the predicate ‘equal’ as used of sensibles and Forms (in 74b7–c6). So, given the context, it is perfectly intelligible to interpret the question as I suggest. But most importantly, there is no other way of making sense of Simmias’ concession that we do indeed know what the equal itself is. For what could he be conceding to know concerning what the equal itself is if not that it is equal? And, anyway, this is precisely what Plato thinks he knows, that the equal itself is equal. I infer the following claim: we know that the equal itself is equal. Having elicited the reply that the equal itself is equal, Socrates immediately asks from where we acquire this knowledge (74b4). He will elucidate how we do this. Before we turn to Plato’s elucidation, consider his use of . the verb Plato uses this verb, and then immediately refers to our in 74b3, and again in 74c8. He qualifies neither verb nor noun in any way, or gives any indication that they refer to something different from what he usually calls knowledge. Yet he is ‘equal’ in (i) and ‘the equal itself’ in (iv) to be identical. So: ‘equal = the equal itself’ and ‘equal ¹ sensible equals’. But treating the ‘is’ as one of identity seems strange, and in fact precluded by these versions themselves, for they all understand the verb existentially. 9 See White (n. 5), 198–9, 211, n. 2. 10 W has this reading, also found in the margins of B and T. It makes no difference to the sense of the sentence whether we include it or not, but it is a marginal gloss. 11 On the phrase , see J.D. Denniston, The Greek Particles (Oxford, 19782), 285: ‘Sometimes , “inquires with a certain eagerness”: sometimes means “also”, and goes close with an individual word’. Cf. e.g. Phd. 94a12.

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sometimes claimed to be referring not to knowing and knowledge, but something else. The reason for this claim is that Socrates remarks later that a knowing person would be able to give an account of what he knows, and not many people can do that (76b5–12).12 Hence the ‘knowledge’ of our passage might be colloquially used in a humdrum sense; i.e. it is not really knowledge, but perhaps nothing more than understanding the meaning of the word ‘equal’.13 Such evasions are unnecessary at this juncture, and unsanctioned by the text; if Socrates has in mind by ‘knowledge’ the understanding of the meaning of the concept ‘equal’, we should infer that knowledge can include such an understanding rather than infer that Socrates does not have knowledge in mind at all. For the words he uses and . Socrates has told us what we know: that the equal itself are is equal. Hence one need not expect him to ask what we know the equal itself to be, since he has already told us; and he does not ask this question. But one might expect him to ask from where we have acquired the knowledge that the equal itself is equal. For if he can explain the source of that knowledge, he can pinpoint the difference between our knowledge of the equal itself and what he had previously called our knowledge of sensibles (73c6–8).14 For that is the point of the argument: to explain the difference (cf. 74a5–7). In the present context Socrates does not indicate that we know that equal stones and sticks are equal, but only that we perceive them thus; the relation between knowledge and sensibles is left unclear. The next question, then, is directed at the source of our knowledge of the Form (74b4–7):

From where have we acquired knowledge of it? Is it not from the things we mentioned just now, seeing either sticks or stones or some other equal things, we come to think of this [the equal itself] from them, this [the equal itself] being different from them?

Socrates asks from where comes ‘our knowledge of it’, the equal itself. Since he has just specified the object of our knowledge as not simply the equal itself, but

12 The knowledge Plato discusses in this argument, and has Socrates claim to share with others, is that, for any F, the F itself is F. If this is indeed knowledge according to Plato – one might ask – how can this view be harmonized with what is said in 76b5–12, that the knowing person ought to be able to give an account of what he knows? In that passage Socrates is explaining that knowledge is recollection (in 75b4–76c13). Before our birth we did have knowledge of the equal itself. Then Socrates presents two possibilities. At our birth either we did not forget this knowledge but continued to possess it, or we lost it by forgetting it. If the latter is the case, we recover this lost knowledge of the equal itself by recollection, prompted by seeing sensible equals, i.e. we come to know that the equal itself is equal. Then Socrates asks Simmias to choose between the two possibilities, and helps him by offering an explanation. If the first possibility obtains, we always possessed knowledge, and everyone would then be able to give an account of what he knows. But this is clearly not the case. Hence we must choose the latter possibility, that knowledge is recollection, prompted by perceiving sensibles. Simmias graciously exclaims that the only possibility of the first option obtaining, i.e. that knowledge was not lost at birth, is in the case of Socrates (for a similar explanation, see L. Gerson, Knowing Persons [Oxford, 2003], 69, n. 17). I see no conflict between our passage and 76b5–12. 13 As suggested by Bostock (n. 5), 67–9. The ‘we’ of 74b2 might then mean ‘people in general’ as opposed to the ‘we philosophers’, who can give an account. 14 Already in 65d11–66a9 Socrates stresses that ‘what each thing essentially is’ is not the object of perception but of thought alone.

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, he must have in mind knowledge of what the equal itself is, i.e. that it is equal. Again, there appears to be no alternative. Socrates answers the question from where we get knowledge of the equal itself by making two claims. First he suggests that, when we see equal sticks and stones we do in fact ‘come to think’ of the equal itself (cf. 73c8). Secondly, he claims that the equal itself, becoming thus the object of our thought, is in fact different from the sensibles, and presently turns to explain the difference. Thus, the conditions for recollection are met. Before we consider Socrates’ explanation, it needs emphasizing that Socrates is answering the question ‘From where do we acquire knowledge of it [the equal itself]?’ It has been conceded that the equal itself exists, and it has been suggested that we come to think of it by perceiving sensible equals. But this does not explain what I take to be the explanandum, i.e. from where we know that the equal itself is equal: It is not because we come to think of the equal itself that we know what the equal itself is. Rather, the explanation of our knowledge is afforded by an account of the difference between the equal itself and sensible equals. As expected Socrates explains in what way the equal itself and sensible equals are different, and thereby from where we actually acquire this knowledge of the Form (74b7–c6):

[Socrates:] Or does it [the equal itself] not appear to you different [from sensible equals]? Consider it also in this way. Do not equal stones and sticks sometimes, being the same, appear equal to one but not to another? – [Simmias:] Certainly. – [Socrates:] What then? Is it ever the case that the equals themselves have appeared to you unequal, or equality inequality? – [Simmias:] Never, Socrates. – [Socrates:] Then these things are not the same, he said, these equal things and the equal itself. – [Simmias:] They do not at all appear the same to me, Socrates.

This passage is evidently intended to explain the difference between sensible equals and the equal itself by claiming that sensible equals variably appear equal and unequal, but the equal itself invariably appears equal.15 Here, then, we have Plato concerned with conflicting appearances in the process of introducing Forms. Prima facie Socrates is referring to different perspectives of 15 There are two apparent oddities in this passage. First, Socrates asks whether the equals themselves (in plural) have ever appeared unequal, and, secondly, whether equality has ever appeared as inequality. The plural of ‘the equals themselves’ is probably sufficiently explained as grammatically following the foregoing plural of ‘equal stones and sticks’, as Owen suggests (n. 6), 114–15. For the expressions ‘the equal itself’, ‘the equals themselves’ and ‘equality’ surely all refer to the same item, as White (n. 5), 204–5, maintains, and is generally accepted. For other explanations, see R.S. Bluck, Plato’s Phaedo (London, 1959), 5–11, countered by White (n. 5), 214, n. 25, P. Geach, ‘The Third Man again’, Philosophical Review 65 (1956), 72–8 at 76, reprinted in R.E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London, 1965), 265–77, and Damascius’ commentary on the Phaedo (I.302 [Westerink]). The second issue need not be odd either: not only does equality never appear unequal, but it never appears as inequality either. Plato argues for a distinction between equality (or the equal itself ) and sensible equals. If they were not distinct, and equality and sensible equals were identical, then, by the same reasoning, inequality and unequal sensibles would be identical. And since equal sensibles variously appear equal and unequal (as has already been granted), equality would variously appear as equality and inequality. For a discussion of the options advanced, see Gallop (n. 5), 123–5.

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different individuals: sensibles yield conflicting appearances.16 Thus, it happens that x appears F to one person and not-F to another person. The prevalent interpretation of the passage rejects this reading. For now I shall pursue my reading without argument. Now we have additional claims. The Form is different from sensibles in that it never yields conflicting appearances: The equal itself invariably appears equal and sensible equals variably appear equal and unequal. Such is the difference between the equal itself and sensible equals; the equal itself has a certain property that sensible equals do not have, namely that of invariably appearing equal. This difference is supposed to explain from where we know the equal itself, i.e. (on my reading) that it is equal. That such is the explanandum is clear both because Socrates is still answering the question asked in the previous passage (i.e. from where we know what the equal itself is), and because he presently says (in 74c7–9): (‘it is definitely from these equal things [sensible equals], being distinct from the equal [itself], that you have nevertheless derived and grasped the knowledge of it [the equal itself]?’) So: We know that the equal itself is equal because, unlike sensible equals, it invariably appears equal. In answer to the question asked in 74b4 ( ), Plato claims the equal itself invariably appears equal. Plato has argued that the equal itself is different from sensible equals, explained in what way they are different, and that we know that the equal itself is equal. There are two issues that call for an elucidation in this account. First, what sort of a claim is Plato making when he says that the equal itself never appears unequal, or as 74d4) the equal itself as equal? Is he later says, that we always experience ( he claiming that it is a necessary truth that the F itself appears as F? In Protagoras 330c2–e2 Socrates clearly implies that one cannot think of the F itself as being anything but F and exclaims (330d7–e1): (‘Quiet man! How could anything else be pious if piety itself is not?’). Nowhere is there any hesitation in affirming that the F itself is F. One is tempted to infer that the appearance of the F itself as F is invariable in that it is a self-evident truth that the F itself is F, ‘a logical truth, in the Quinean sense’, as Benson Mates put it.17 Plato substantiates an adjective, which he then, as a matter of course, predicates of itself, thus both objectifying a property and hoisting the property on the object. Ross for one was unkindly disposed towards this procedure, and stated that ‘the phrase “the x-itself ” ( ) … treats the Idea of x as one x among others. The mistake occurs in its crudest form in Prot. 330c2–e2 …’,18 the passage we were considering. In the Phaedo the invariable appearance of the F itself as F is not viewed as problematic. The other question is this: How should one understand what I have called the invariability of an appearance? In the Phaedo passage (74c1–2), Plato’s words are fairly general: (‘Is it ever the case that the equals themselves have

16

See for instance White (n. 5), 202. Cf. B. Mates, ‘Identity and predication in Plato’, in S. Knuuttila and J. Hintikka (edd.), The Logic of Being (Dordrecht, 1986), 29–47 at 40: ‘… for any Greek such a sentence would be a logical truth, in the Quinean sense that (a) it is true, and (b) every result of substituting another adjective for its only non-logical constant is equally true. In short, such a sentence would be felt as obviously and trivially true’. Mates goes on to discuss critically the use Plato makes of this logical truth. 18 D. Ross, Plato’s Theory of Ideas (Oxford, 1951), 88. 17

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appeared to you unequal, or equality inequality? – Never, Socrates.’). It seems to me that the variability in question may be of various kinds. It may refer to circumstances in that, for example, a sensible x appears as F compared with y and as not-F compared with z, or it may appear F at time 1 and as not-F at time 2, while the F itself is not subject to such variability. Nevertheless, according to the interpretation adopted above, this passage of the Phaedo places weight on one kind of invariability: sensible things appear F to one person and not-F to another, while the F itself appears F to all. Perhaps this is only one way in which the invariable appearance of the F itself is contrasted with the variable appearance of sensibles; nothing seems to preclude the possibility of subsuming all cases of such invariability under this heading. In the Phaedo an object of ordinary experience displays its contrary features in a situation where it appears to different observers to have a contrary feature. To compare, consider Plato’s characterization of the beautiful itself in Symposium 210e–212e. There, Diotima offers an account of the ontological status of the beautiful: it is ungenerated, imperishable and immutable; it is in every way, at all times, in relation to all things, and everywhere beautiful, which it would not be (211a4–7) … (‘if it were beautiful for some and ugly for others. Nor will the beautiful appear to him [the person who gazes at the Form of beauty] as some face or hands or anything that partakes of a body …’).19 Here, sensibles are clearly described as being beautiful dependently on observers and circumstances.20 I have suggested that Plato’s argument is intelligible as a reply to the argument from conflicting appearances. Further, it has the merit of explaining why Plato considered the claim that the F itself is F so important for the theory of Forms. But, to generalize, on this reading he holds that, if anything invariably appears F, then we know that it is F. This reading has not been adopted by other scholars. In fact, a reading along these lines is considered by many to saddle Plato with a poor argument, and should therefore be avoided. The only convincing way of avoiding a reading along the lines above is to claim that Plato simply is not discussing the conflict of appearances. Hence, arguments for a different reading are mainly negative. The negative arguments are the following.

19 The verb ‘appear’ is here used in its non-veridical sense, since there is no other explanation of the dative . 20 N. White, ‘Plato’s metaphysical epistemology’, in R. Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge, 1992), 277–310 at 289–92, discusses the relationship of viewpoint and circumstances in Plato’s characterization of the beautiful itself in greater depth. In addition it should be mentioned that White (n. 5), 200, (above), 280–5, and Penner (n. 6) both accept, as I do, that Plato is discussing the conflicting appearances of sensibles versus the invariable appearances of Forms. White (n. 5), 207–8, discusses possible implications of designating the equal itself differently and addresses them. Penner has termed the inability to confuse the appearances of Forms and sensibles ‘an incorrigible conceptual state’, and the whole argument ‘argument from incorrigible conceptual states’ (n. 6), 20–1. According to Penner, the Forms, in this argument, are ‘either meanings or things very like meanings’ (p. 33). As opposed to sensible equals, when equality ‘appears to us in the appropriate way (i.e. in pure thought), it is utterly stable: it never appears to be inequality’ (p. 185); he argues for this interpretation at length at pp. 95–121.

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OBJECTIONS AND REPLY , ’ . This might mean, not (i) In 74b8–9, Plato writes ‘appears equal to one [person] but not to another’, indicating conflict of appearances, but (ii) ‘appears equal [relative] to one [thing] but not to another’.21 It is alleged that, if we opt for the first reading, the argument is intolerably bad. In an influential footnote in his book on Plato’s Republic, N.R. Murphy may have been the first to claim that Plato must have meant (ii). For (i) ‘would seem pointless, since we could infer only that one of the two had made a mistake.’22 This observation has been made many times since.23 Nothing of any epistemological significance follows the observation that appearances conflict, it is claimed.24 Murphy’s reading of the Greek phrase is grammatical, but foists a strange view on Plato, as those agree who would want to read it thus. Consider two points.25 First, on this reading Plato asks whether ‘equal stones and sticks sometimes, being the same, appear equal to one [thing] but not to another?’ (74b7–9). Why would sensible things only sometimes appear equal or unequal to other sensible things? Would they not always appear either equal or unequal to other sensible things?26 Secondly, according to Murphy’s reading the distinction between sensible equals and the equal itself is that sensible things are equal (or unequal) to some other sensible thing, while the equal itself is just equal and not equal to anything. In the light of these objections, Bostock states, ‘It thus seems that [Murphy’s] interpretation … leads only to nonsense. But for all that, I believe that [Murphy’s] interpretation … is probably the right one, and Plato’s doctrine is indeed very peculiar.’27 So, were we to accept Murphy’s suggestion, we get a peculiar argument instead of a pointless one. But whatever the merits of the interpretation of Murphy and Bostock, it cannot be foisted on Plato unless another assumption is made. Here we arrive at a point of

21 There are in fact two other possibilities, usually and fairly dismissed. The first is ‘appears equal in one respect but not in another’, and the latter is ‘appears equal at one time but not at another’. The first of these hardly captures the Greek; cf. Gallop (n. 5), 122, Bostock (n. 5), 74. The second is supported by a variant reading, … , but this temporal qualification has already been indicated by , and is thus redundant, as pointed out by Gallop (n. 5), 122. 22 N.R. Murphy, The Interpretation of Plato’s Republic (Oxford, 1951), 111, n. 1. 23 It was taken up and developed by G.E.L. Owen, ‘A proof in the Peri Ideon’, JHS 1 (1957), 103–11, reprinted in R.E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London, 1965), 293–312, and again by G. Vlastos, ‘Degrees of reality in Plato’, in Platonic Studies (Princeton, 1981 [1973]), 58–75, first published in R. Bambrough (ed.), New Essays in Plato and Aristotle (New York, 1965), 1–19. For further discussions sympathetic to this view, see for example Bostock (n. 5), 73–8, Rowe (n. 3), 169, Loriaux (n. 2), 139–43, and A. Nehamas, ‘Plato on the imperfection of the sensible world’, in G. Fine (ed.), Plato 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology (Oxford, 1999), 171–91 at 188–90, first published in American Philosophical Quarterly 12 (1975), 105–17. Cf. also the detailed discussion of Gallop (n. 5), 121–5, and of K.W. Mills, ‘Plato’s Phaedo 74b7–c5’, Phronesis 2 (1957), 128–47, and ‘Plato’s Phaedo 74b7–c5, part 2’, Phronesis 3 (1958), 40–58. 24 So, most clearly, M. Burnyeat, ‘Conflicting appearances’, PBA 65 (1979), 69–111. 25 Discussed by Gallop (n. 5), 122–3, and White (n. 5), 200. 26 One could reply, as David Sedley has pointed out to me, that a sensible thing can be viewed only in relation to something equal to it, or only in relation to something unequal to it. In that sense it sometimes appears equal and sometimes unequal, as is perhaps suggested by Phd. 102d–e and Tht. 154b–c. 27 Bostock (n. 5), 75. Likewise, T. Irwin, ‘The theory of Forms’, in G. Fine (ed.), Plato 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology (Oxford, 1999), 143–70 at 153, says that taking the equal itself as not equal to anything ‘might well appear a nonsensical conception of an equal thing’. Owen defends this line by appeal to Aristotle’s criticism of Plato. C. Kirwan, ‘Plato and relativity’, Phronesis 19 (1974), 112–29 at 116–17, is highly critical of it.

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grammar. In order to make Murphy’s interpretation work it is crucial that one seize . If this verb on another ambiguous Greek phrase, that involving the verb means ‘appears to be’, then Murphy’s suggestion will not hold. For, first, as Murphy’s … ’ are defenders concede, if such is the meaning of the verb, the datives best taken with the verb.28 Secondly, Murphy’s suggestion demands that sensible things be equal to one thing and unequal to another. Plato is not talking about appearances. His point here is, on this reading, that the equal itself is equal, unlike sensibles that are equal and unequal; this is the desired distinction. And why would Plato claim that sensible equals appear to be equal to one thing and unequal to another thing, if his point really is that they are equal to one thing and unequal to another? So, if we want to follow Murphy, we have to understand the verb differently, namely so as to mean, not ‘appear to be’, but ‘evidently be’. And this is what most interpreters have done, so that such is now the orthodox interpretation of the passage.29 The verb in question is ambiguous; if veridical, it is usually followed by a complementary participle, and the meaning is ‘evidently is …’, while if non-veridical, it is as a rule followed by an infinitive, meaning ‘appear to be …’. The problem is that, in the argument, it is not followed by either.30 We must take the verb to be veridical, Murphy demands, for otherwise Plato is offering a poor argument. Those who would want to read the argument in the way presented in the previous section will therefore not only have to make a case in favour of the non-veridical reading, but also show that the argument is not ‘pointless’, at least not in the alleged way.31 Consider now the veridical reading, upon which Murphy’s interpretation rests; we shall see that it is incorrect because the non-veridical reading is favoured by Plato himself in a summary explanation of his argument. First, though, consider Murphy’s charge that ‘appears to one person [to be] equal and to another person [to be] unequal’ only shows that someone is wrong, and not what Plato would want it to show, namely that there is actually a distinction between the equal itself and sensible equals, and this distinction is that sensible equals are both

28

Cf. Bostock (n. 5), 73–4. It makes for a shorter list to name those who are squarely against this reading, the most conspicuous of whom are White (n. 5), 200, (n. 20), 280–5, and Penner (n. 6). It should be noted that there are those who accept the translation of the verb as ‘appear to be’ but still treat the datives as belonging to ‘equal’, so that the translation becomes ‘appear to be equal to one thing and unequal to another’ (see e.g. L. Franklin, ‘Recollection and philosophical reflection in Plato’s Phaedo’, Phronesis 50/4 (2005), 289–314 at 304, following A. Silverman, The Dialectic of Essence: A Study of Plato’s Metaphysics (Princeton, 2002), 52, 321, n. 8. This way of reading the Greek is to my mind less appealing than the one adopted in the main text. The dative close to a non-veridical would (I submit) naturally be taken to depend on it. At least one would need a good reason to interpret the dative otherwise. Nevertheless, even if one were to take the datives to mean ‘to one thing … to another’, or even ‘in one respect … in another’, that would only change the kind of variability in question, but not that it is a variability of appearances. And as suggested in the main text (p. 67), Plato may have conceived the variable appearance of sensibles (and the invariable appearance of Forms) widely enough to encompass different kinds of appearances. 30 Some have looked to the Republic 476–80 in order to find either construction there, to no avail, except Irwin (n. 27), 154, who does find a veridical use of the verb in Rep. 479b6–7 and in Hipp. Ma. 289b5–7. But the uses of the verb are grammatically ambiguous there in the same way as in the Phaedo; there is neither an infinitive nor a participle. Irwin does not mention Hipp. Ma. 294c5–e4, where the infinitives are clearly to be found, as I shall discuss below. 31 Both Penner and White have done so, although differently from me. 29

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equal and unequal while the equal itself is just equal. Hence one should translate (ii) ‘appears equal [relative] to one [thing] but not to another’.32 No one doubts that Plato wants to make a distinction between sensible equals and the equal itself. And a distinction is made on both readings. On my reading the distinction is that sensibles variably appear equal and unequal, while the equal itself invariably appears equal. On Murphy’s reading the distinction is that sensible equals evidently are both equal and unequal, while the equal itself evidently is equal.33 But the first reading has the virtue of being an informative answer to the question from where we acquire knowledge of the equal itself, what it is, i.e. by the equal itself invariably appearing equal. When sticks and stones appear to us to be equal (or unequal), we may be in error. When the equal itself appears to us to be equal, we cannot be in error. That is the important distinction: our cognitive relation to these appearances is different, how we experience Forms and sensibles. Knowledge is the issue at this point, not the ontological status of Forms and sensibles, because, as I claim, Plato is answering the question how we know that the equal itself is equal. Murphy said that, if we read the passage thus, it is ‘pointless, since we could infer only that one of the two had made a mistake.’ But this is all we need to infer.34 But such philosophical reasons for accepting my reading are unnecessary, for it has gone unacknowledged that, even if an infinitive does not occur in the passage containing the argument, and thus simply settles the dispute, it actually does occur a few lines below it, where Socrates summarizes his argument, and thus settles the dispute. Let us pick up the dialogue where we left off. In 74c7–d3, Socrates reiterates the point that sensibles remind one of the Forms. Then he adds (74d4–7):

Well then, he said. Do we experience something like this [the following]35 in the case of equal sticks and the other equal objects we just mentioned? Do they [sensible equals] appear to us to be equal in the same way as the equal itself,36 or is there some deficiency in their [the sensible equals] being such as the equal, or is there not? 32

Cf. Bostock (n. 5), 73 and Rowe (n. 3). It is reasonable to read this view into the argument, because, apart from the fact that other passages and works indicate that Plato did indeed hold it, Plato implies as much in the present argument when he states that the equal itself actually is equal in a different way from sensible equals. But at the same time this reading obscures the immediate context of this particular argument, i.e. Socrates’ attempt to answer the question from where we acquire the knowledge that the equal itself is equal. The reading makes Socrates claim that we know that the equal itself is equal because we realize that the equal itself evidently is equal while sensible equals are not. This argument is not interesting, because it does not attempt to answer the question from where we know that p except by asserting that we know that p because it is true that p. What we would expect Socrates to offer is a linkage between our knowledge that the equal itself is equal and the fact that the equal itself is equal. And if he is talking about appearances, we do get this linkage; the invariability of appearances guarantees knowledge. 34 Further, understanding the verb veridically is semantically strange, for in 74b8 the verb is apparently contrasted with the phrase (‘being the same’), so that the intended contrast would seem to be between how things are and how they appear to be, and not how they are and how they evidently are. White (n. 5), 201, has more to say on this issue. 35 Socrates is probably referring forwards, as J. Burnett, Plato’s Phaedo (Oxford, 1911), 57, thinks and others who express a view on this. But even if Plato is referring backwards, to the process of recollection, my point is unaffected. 36 The phrase may be rendered ‘what it is itself’ or ‘that which is, itself’, but in both cases one is left to supply ‘equal’, so that the reference is to the equal itself. Cf. Gallop (n. 5), 229, n. 24. 33

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Socrates draws together the foregoing argument in order to explain in what way sensible things are inferior to Forms. The question Socrates has in mind is whether we experience sensibles as we experience the equal itself: do sensible equals appear to us invariably to be equal just like the equal itself ? He asks quite clearly, and he uses the infinitive, whether this is our experience. He does not ask whether sensible equals evidently are equal just like the equal itself. Nor does he ask whether sensible equals appear to us to be equal just like the equal itself is equal. This is not surprising, for Socrates is asking about our experience of these things, not about how things are. The difference between the equal itself and sensible equals is manifested in the way we experience them. Plato’s use of the infinitive is quite clear; it is clear that he has appearances in mind in 74b7–c6. It might be objected that Socrates is not talking about the same thing here as in the original statement of the argument. For here he might just be asking whether there appeared to us to be a distinction between sensible equals and the equal itself.37 But this objection will not do, for he actually spells out what the difference consists in. What he says is this: sensible equals do not appear to us to be equal in the same way as the equal itself appears to us to be equal, and in this way our experience of the two kinds of things is different. Then Socrates finishes his question: … … or is there some deficiency in their [the sensible equals] being such as the equal, or is there not? – A considerable deficiency, he [Simmias] said.

It should be clear what the sensible equals lack. They lack invariably appearing to be equal. Such is the imperfection of the sensible world; it lacks epistemic consistency.38 Plato has set down the necessary and sufficient condition for knowledge of what is equal: a thing must invariably appear equal. The only thing that fulfils this condition is a Form, the ‘it itself ’; the only thing that invariably appears to be equal is the equal itself, equality. And this holds good for other ‘themselves’, like (75c11–d2) ‘ ’ (‘the beautiful itself, the good itself, the just, the pious and, as I say, about all those things to which we can attach the word ‘itself ’…’).39 Sensibles, unlike Forms, suffer conflicting appearances; this is their deficiency. Since the invariability of Forms’ appearances grounds our knowledge of Forms, does not the variability of sensibles’ appearances imply that we cannot have knowledge of them, or at least not the same kind of knowledge? When explaining recollection (in 73c4–d1), Plato does mention knowledge of sensible things. But having introduced Forms with the argument of 74a9–c6, however, he contrasts the knowledge of Forms, which we are born with and recollect, with the perception of sensibles, which prompts the recollection (74e9–75e7). It is the Forms that are the objects of knowledge, and 37

Such seems to be the understanding of Mills (n. 23), 132. Plato makes his argument no easier to read when he flanks his question about the difference between the appearances of Forms and sensibles with the question ‘does it not appear to you different’, and with ‘they do not appear the same to me’. Here, undisputedly as far as I can see, Plato uses the verb ‘appear’ non-veridically, although there is no infinitive in sight. 39 The invariability of appearances as a condition for knowledge is not confined to Plato. It seems to be most conspicuously used in the Pyrrhonian tradition; see R. Bett, Pyrrho, His Antecedents and His Legacy (Oxford,, 2000) and S.H. Svavarsson, ‘Pyrrho’s undecidable nature’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 27 (2004), 249–95. 38

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sensibles are pointers (75e5–6): (‘would not what we call learning be recovering our own knowledge?’). If this is correct, the implication of the argument is: we do not have knowledge about what sensible things are (equal or unequal), because sensible equals do not invariably appear equal. This implication of the epistemic status of sensibles, as opposed to that of the Forms, is only implicit in the Phaedo. It is explicit in the Hippias major, to which I now turn.40 Socrates and Hippias look for the definition of beauty or the beautiful itself. Having given up on Hippias’ suggestions, Socrates suggests that the beautiful itself is the appropriate. Socrates now asks Hippias (293e11–294a2):

See here, then. What do we say about the appropriate: Is it what makes – by coming to be present – each thing to which it is present appear beautiful, or be beautiful, or neither?

Hippias gets into trouble. First he chooses the first option: the appropriate is that which makes things appear beautiful. But Socrates rejects this, since he is looking for what makes things be beautiful. So Hippias suggests (294c3–e4):

But Socrates, the appropriate makes things both be beautiful and appear beautiful, when it is present. – [Socrates:] It is then impossible for things that are really beautiful not to appear to be beautiful, since what makes them appear so is present? – [Hippias:] Impossible. – [Socrates:] Then shall we agree to this, Hippias: that everything that is really beautiful (customs and activities) both seems and appears to be beautiful always to all? Or just the opposite: that they are unknown, and there is more strife and contention about them than about anything else, both in private between individuals and in public between states? – [Hippias:] More the latter, Socrates: they are unknown. – [Socrates:] They would not be so, if the appearance of beauty had been added to them. And that would have been added if the appropriate were beautiful and made things not only be beautiful but also to appear beautiful. So that the appropriate, if it is that which makes things be beautiful, would be the beautiful which we are looking for, but would not be that which makes things appear beautiful. Or, if the appropriate is that which makes things appear beautiful, it would not be the beautiful for which we are looking. For that makes things be beautiful, but by itself it could not make things both appear and be beautiful, nor could anything else.

This passage can be used to elucidate Plato’s idea of the equal itself in the Phaedo passage. First, his use of the verb is non-veridical, as the occurrence of the complementary infinitive confirms.41 Secondly, people disagree about what is 40 41

Surely an authentic dialogue; see P. Woodruff, Plato: Hippias Major (Oxford, 1982), 93–103. Woodruff (n. 40), 65, and Irwin (n. 27), 154, think otherwise.

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beautiful, and this is equivalent with things appearing beautiful to some and not to others. Thirdly, this disagreement shows that it is unknown what things are beautiful. But it would not be unknown if the things always appeared beautiful. It follows that, if a thing invariably appears beautiful, it is known that it is beautiful. This is the idea we found in the Phaedo argument. Forms and sensibles have a different epistemic status: Plato claims, according to the above interpretation, that we know the Forms because they invariably appear in the same way, but we do not know sensibles because they yield conflicting appearances; Forms are knowable, while sensibles are not knowable. This distinction is epistemic and not ontological. In light of this interpretation of the Phaedo and Hippias passages I have a suggestion to make regarding a reading of a central passage in the Republic, where the epistemic difference between Forms and sensibles takes centre stage. In 476a9–480a13 Socrates attempts to persuade the lovers of sights that Forms exist, having distinguished between these people and true philosophers who do believe that there are Forms such as the beautiful itself distinct from sensibles. The sight-lovers, he says, opine and have opinion, while philosophers know and have knowledge. He then declares his conception of reality (477a3–4): (‘what is completely [F] is completely knowable [as F] and what is in no way [F] is completely unknowable [as F]’).42 The importance of knowability is complete; what is knowable is coextensive with what is real.43 Socrates ponders how he could convince the lover of sights, the nominalist, who does not believe that the beautiful itself is anything, but only that there are many , here without infinitive beautiful things (479a5–b7). He again uses the verb or participle, leaving it grammatically unclear whether the verb is used veridically or not (which he did neither in the Phaedo, the Hippias nor the Symposium): “ ”

My dear fellow, we’ll say, of all the many beautiful things, is there one that will not also appear ugly? Or is there one of those just things that will not also appear unjust? Or is there one of those pious things that will not also appear impious? – [Glaucon:] There isn’t one, for it is necessary that they appear beautiful in a way and also ugly, and the same with the other things you asked about. – [Socrates:] What about the many doubles? Do they appear any the less halves than doubles? – [Glaucon:] Not one.

This has been taken to be veridical. The reason is the same as in the case of the Phaedo passage: if it is used non-veridically, nothing can be inferred about the ontological status of sensibles. Nevertheless a non-veridical reading is grammatical and, as I will suggest, may be used to make an inference about the ontological status of sensibles. If read non-veridically, Plato says that the many beautiful things variously appear beautiful and ugly. Let us pursue this reading. In light of this epistemic 42

For the legitimacy of inserting F, see Vlastos (n. 23), 62–3. Socrates explains the notion of opinion, how it differs from knowledge and ignorance (477a6–78e6). The cognitive faculties that are set over the knowable and unknowable are, respectively, knowledge and ignorance. It is not an innocent move to generalize the connection between these cognitive faculties and their assumed objects (cf. J. Hintikka, ‘Knowledge and its objects in Plato’, in J.M.E. Moravcsik (ed.), Patterns in Plato’s Thought (Dordrecht, 1973), 1–30 at 9. 43

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feature of the many beautiful things, Socrates asks about their ontological status: is x then any more F than not-F? (479b9–10). He gets his answer in epistemic terms (479b11–c5):

They are like the ambiguities one is entertained with at dinner parties … for they are ambiguous, and one cannot understand them as fixedly being [F] or fixedly not being [F], or as both [F and not-F] or as neither [F nor not-F].

If we adopt the non-veridical reading, Plato claims that, since sensibles variously appear F and not-F, they cannot be understood as being either F or not-F. We recall the Republic’s claim, that the real is knowable and the unreal is not knowable: if something is not knowable as F, it is not really F. The opinable is not knowable, for it is is impossible to understand it as exclusively F or as exclusively not-F. If read non-veridically, we are afforded a reason why the opinable is not knowable: it variously appears F and not-F. From our cognitive relationship with objects, on this reading, Socrates infers a truth about the objects’ ontological status. The epistemic inadequacy of the opinable shows its ambivalent ontology. Grammar does not in this passage. But if Plato uses the demand a non-veridical reading of verb non-veridically in the passages of the Phaedo, the Hippias and the Symposium, in the context of showing the significance of the conflict of appearances, such a reading of the verb in the Republic passage seems to be reasonable.44 University of Iceland

SVAVAR HRAFN SVAVARSSON [email protected]

44 My thanks to David Sedley, Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson and the journal’s reader for advice, elucidations and corrections.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 75–90 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000068

75 XENOPHON AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR JOSÉ PASCUAL

XENOPHON AND THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR ON LAND FROM 393 TO 386 B . C . Although we can glean some isolated facts from other sources,1 we have to rely primarily on two authors in order to reconstruct the chronology of the Corinthian War: Diodorus,2 and Xenophon. However, their accounts differ to such an extent that which one is used as the basis for research determines which of two different chronological timelines is accepted, one that is closer to Xenophon,3 and the other which is fully supported in Diodorus.4 Using Diodorus as the main guide to chronology presents formidable problems. For example he dates Agesilaus’ departure for Asia (14.79.1) as taking place in the Attic year 396/5, during the archonship of Phormio (14.54.1), when we can be certain that Agesilaus in fact set sail for Asia in the spring of 396 (Xen. Hell. 4.3–4, 20), that is, the Attic year 397/6 (archonship of Suniades). Diodorus also says (14.89.1) that the trial of the Spartan king Pausanias took place in the Attic year 394/3, when he must have stood trial immediately after the battle of Haliartus, in the summer of 395 (Attic year 395/4, cf. Xen. Hell. 3.5.25). In the same way, he reduces the length of time Agesilaus spent in Asia to two years (a military campaign in 396 and his return in 395) when the king in fact returned in 394, at the beginning of the third year of his campaign.5 Similarly (14.83.4–7, 14.84.2–85.1), he includes Conon’s campaign on the

1 For example, Hell.Oxy. 18–24 (ed. Chambers); And. 3.12–39; Paus. 3.5.1–10.1; Plut. Lys. 24.2, 29.6. 2 Diodorus’ account possibly derives from the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, through an intermediary author such as Ephorus, cf. H.D. Westlake, ‘Agesilaus in Diodorus’, GRBS 27 (1986), 264–6; V.J. Gray, ‘The value of Diodorus Siculus for the years 411–386 a.C.’, Hermes 111 (1987), 73. 3 G. Grote, History of Greece, vol. 9 (London, 1857), 150–2; K.J. Beloch, Griechische Geschichte, vol. 3.1 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1922), 61–95. 4 W. Judeich, ‘Die Zeit der Friedensrede des Andokides’, Philologus 81 (1926), 141–54; A. Momigliano, ‘Per la storia sulla publizistica della Koiné Eiréne nel IV secolo a.C.’, Ann. Pisa 5 (1936), 98–103; U. Wilcken, ‘Über Entstehung und Zweck des Königsfriedens’, APAW 15 (1941), 4. 5 According to Diodorus (14.79.1–3, 14.80.1–5), Agesilaus reached Asia, led an expedition in Phrygia from the plain of Cayster to Cyme, and defeated Tissaphernes in Lidia, near Sardis, all in the same year. However, the two campaigns took place in two different years and Diodorus himself says (14.79.3) that Agesilaus, between the two, spent the summer in Phrygia and returned to Ephesus in the autumn. On Agesilaus’ campaigns in Asia, see C. Dugas, ‘La campagne d’Agésilas en Asie Mineure (395). Xénophon et l’Anonyme d’Oxyrhynchos’, BCH 34 (1910), 58–95; J.K. Anderson, ‘The Battle of Sardis in 395 B.C.’, CSCA 7 (1974), 27–53; G.L. Cawkwell, ‘Agesilaus and Sparta’, CQ 26 (1976), 67; V.J. Gray, ‘Two different approaches to the Battle of Sardis in 395 B.C.: Xenophon Hellenica 3.4.20–24 and Hellenica Oxyrhynchia 11 (6).4–6.’, CSCA 12 (1979), 183–200; J.F. Bommelaer, Lysandre de Sparte. Histoire et traditions (Paris, 1981), 197; P. Cartledge, Agesilaus and the Crisis of Sparta (Baltimore, 1987), 357; J.G. DeVoto, ‘Agesilaus and Tissaphernes near Sardis in 395 B.C.’, Hermes 116 (1988), 41–53; C.D. Hamilton, Agesilaus and the Failure of Spartan Hegemony (Ithaca and London, 1991), 95–100; P. Debord, L’Asie mineure au IVe siècle. Pouvoirs et jeux politiques (Paris, 1999), 243–50; J. Buckler, Aegean Greece in the Fourth century BC (Leiden and Boston, 2003), 58–69. On his return: P. Funke, Homónoia und Arche. Athen und die griechische Staatenwelt vom des peloponnesischen Krieges bis zum Königsfrieden (440/3–387/6 v. Chr.) (Wiesbaden, 1980), 79; Hamilton ibid., 103; R. Seager, ‘The Corinthian War’ in D.M. Lewis, J. Boardman, S. Hornblower, M. Ostwald (edd.), The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. VI: The Fourth Century B.C.2 (Cambridge, 1994), 101.

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Asian coast immediately after Cnidus and the naval expedition the following year to the Aegean, Laconia and Corinth in the same year, 395/4, in the archonship of Diophantus (Diod. 14.82.1). In this case, as we shall see, Conon could not have sailed back along the coast of Asia Minor, then crossed the Aegean, circumnavigated the Peloponnese, reached Corinth and, finally, anchored at Piraeus in just two months after August 394, the date of the battle of Cnidus. Furthermore, Diodorus spreads Thrasybulus’ naval expedition over two years (14.94.2–4 and 14.99.4–5), which is probably correct, but in 392/1 and 390/89, thus leaving a year between them without any Athenian naval activity (391/0). He also says (14.97.3) that Diphridas was sent to Asia before and not after Thibron, when Diphridas was sent specifically to relieve Thibron, who died in action in Asia in 391 (Xen. Hell. 4.8.19, 21–2). Particularly in the case of the middle years of the Corinthian War, Diodorus tends to summarize a wide variety of different events in a rather haphazard way. Thus he condenses the war in Corinth between 392 and 390 into practically a single paragraph,6 and does not consider any of the events of the following two years, which were the archonships of Antipater (389/8) and Pyrgion (388/7), worth recording. In short, while recognizing that Diodorus can occasionally supply valuable information for the absolute dating of a particular event, and that he can be used for obtaining a relative chronology,7 albeit one that is very untidy, it is evident that he has constructed a chronological timeline that, taken as a whole, is unsustainable and contains obvious errors.8 For all these reasons, it is hardly a reliable framework on which to establish the chronology of the Corinthian War. Xenophon’s chronology too is far from perfect. In fact, his account contains several doubtful aspects relating to the campaigns in Corinth in 393 and 392 and the naval battles the Spartans fought against the Athenians between 391 and 389. However, despite these drawbacks, Xenophon’s chronological framework is much more consistent and reliable. While other sources, particularly the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, Andocides, Plutarch and Diodorus can be used for obtaining some additional details, supplementing Xenophon’s account is not the same thing as offering an alternative. There is some consensus with regard to the first two years of the war, 395 and 394. It is agreed, for example, that the conflict between the Locrians – probably the Eastern Locrians – and the Phocians,9 which preceded the outbreak of war, and the battle of Haliartus took place in 395, in May/June10 and August/September11 respectively, and 6

Diod.14.86.6:

. G.T. Griffith, ‘The union of Corinth and Argos 392–386 B.C.’, Historia 1 (1950), 245. 8 G.E. Underhill, A Commentary with Introduction and Appendix on the Hellenica of Xenophon (Oxford, 1900), xlvi; E. Aucello, ‘Ricerche sulla cronologia della Guerra Corinzia’, Helikon 4 (1964), 29–30; Funke (n. 5), 78. 9 Buckler (n. 5), 76 considers that the Locrians involved were the Eastern Locrians (this is also my opinion, J. Pascual, ‘Tebas y la Confederación beocia en el período de la Guerra de Corinto (395–386 a.C.)’, [Diss. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1995], 684–9) and that the territory in dispute was near modern-day Kalapodi. 10 Pausanias (3.9.9) says that the wheat was ripe in Locris at the time of the Phocian invasion. In Greece wheat can be harvested in June or even in the second half of May (see J. Buckler, The Theban Hegemony, 371–362 B.C. [Cambridge, MA and Boston, 1980], 244), so a date at the end of May for the war between Locrians and Phocians is possible and a date in June for the Boeotian invasion and the subsequent Phocian embassy to Sparta is also feasible (Xen. Hell. 3.5.4). These events would have occurred during Phormio’s archonship (396/5), which ended in the last days of June 395 (S. Accame, Ricerche intorno a la Guerra corinzia [Naples, 1951], 46–7). Diodorus (14.81.1–3) places all these events in the archonship of Phormio (396/5), although Haliartus must have fallen in the archonship of Diophantus (395/4) that followed. 11 The archonship of Diophantus probably lasted from 27 June 395 to 16 July 394. The 7

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394 was the year of the battles of Nemea (second half of July),12 Cnidus (end of July/first days of August)13 and Coronea (16/17 August).14 Disagreement mainly concerns the progress of the fighting on land in Corinth between 393 and 39015. Thus, since Xenophon’s account is the basis for determining the chronology of the Corinthian War, an investigation into the system he used for dating events can help us establish its chronology accurately, and thus resolve some of the more doubtful and controversial issues, especially the events relating to the war on land between 393 and 386, which will be the focus of our study. Firstly, Xenophon chose to give entirely separate accounts of the war on land and the war at sea. Hence he describes the events that took place on land, without interruptions, from Hell. 4.4.1 to 4.7.7 and then, from Hell. 4.8.1 to 5.1.35, he tells us about what happened at sea. Internally both parts follow a chronological order; however, the basic problem lies in combining, synchronizing and harmonizing the two parts, between which Xenophon makes little connection, since he uses only very vague references to relate one to the other16. Secondly, in general Xenophon appears to have used a year divided into seasons as the basis of his chronological system, like Thucydides, who probably used a solar

Lacedaemonian embassy to Thebes, the Athenian embassy to Sparta and Lacedaemonian preparations against Boeotia, which would have occupied the month of July 395, probably took place at the beginning of this archonship (Hell.Oxy. 13.1–5; Paus. 3.9.9–11). The alliance between Boeotians and Athenians must have been signed at the end of July or beginning of August 395 (M.N. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, vol. 2 [Oxford, 1948], no. 101, 14–15; P.J. Rhodes, R. Osborne, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 B.C. [Oxford, 2003], no. 6, 38–41). The battle of Haliartus would have been fought in August or during the first half of September 395 (Beloch [n. 3], 69–70). The anti-Spartan alliance was formed in the autumn/winter of 395/4 (Diod. 14.82.1–4) and the campaign waged by the Argives and Boeotians in central Greece and Thessaly (Diod. 14.82.5–9) can be dated to the autumn of 395 or, more probably, the early spring of 394. 12 We have three different inscriptions relating to the battles of Nemea and Coronea. IG 22 5221 is a small fragment of a much larger inscription which listed by tribes those who fell in the two battles, referred to in the document as Corinth (that is Nemea) and Boeotia (that is Coronea), cf. P. Harding, Translated Documents of Greece & Rome. 2. From the End of the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Ipsus (Cambridge, 1985), no. 19 A, 19–20; Rhodes, Osborne (n. 11), no. 7, 42–3. The fact that the two battles are listed together could be because they were fought during the same archonship. IG 22 5222 probably commemorates the cavalrymen of a single tribe, the Acamantis, who fell in the battle, since one of the dead is listed as Dexileus, commemorated in the following inscription. Once again the dead in both battles are listed in a single inscription (SIG3 131; Tod [n. 11], no. 104, 18–20; Harding, ibid., no. 19 B, 20). IG 22 6217 is the famous funeral inscription of Dexileus, a horseman who died in the archonship of Euboulides in Corinth (SIG3, 130; Tod [n. 11], no. 109, 20–1; Harding, ibid., no. 19 C; Rhodes, Osborne [n. 11], 40–3). We know that the battle of Coronea, fought in the middle of August 394, took place in the Attic year 394/3, that is, the archonship of Euboulides. The archonship of Euboulides lasted from 17 July 394 to 5 July 393, so the battle of Nemea, before Coronea, could have been fought in the second half of July, in the first few days of this archonship (cf. Beloch [n. 3], 72). 13 The naval battle of Cnidus would have taken place at the end of July or more probably in the first few days of August, with sufficient time for Agesilaus to receive the news of the Lacedaemonian defeat at Cnidus in Boeotia on 14 August 394, the day of the partial eclipse (Xen. Hell. 4.3.10; cf. Lysias. 29.28; Beloch [n. 3], 70; Hamilton [n. 5], 109). 14 The battle of Coronea (Xen. Hell. 4.3.15; Plut. Ages. 18) took place immediately after the eclipse, probably on 16 or 17 August 394. Afterwards Agesilaus went to Delphi for the Pythian Games celebrated at the end of August or beginning of September 394 (Plut. Ages. 19.3), at the same time as the polemarch Gylis attacked Locris, probably Eastern Locris (Xen. Hell. 4.3.21–3). 15 The chronology of the war at sea between 391 and 389, which is outside the scope of this study, also presents considerable problems. 16 Funke (n. 5), 77.

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calendar divided into seasons,17 perhaps derived from the Euctemon’s parapêgmata.18 Using this system Xenophon treated the year as beginning in March/April and ending around February/March the following year19. Although he mentions four seasons, his basic division was between ‘summer’ in the loosest sense, that is, the period for military campaigns, and ‘winter’, the season when citizen armies were demobilized. In the case of Thucydides, ‘summer’ extended from the appearance of Arcturus (6 March) to that of the Pleiades (8 November) and, in a somewhat similar fashion Xenophon treated the campaigning season as lasting a maximum of seven or eight months from the beginning of March to the end of September.20 Hence each year the armies were mobilized around March/April, or even later, in May/June, and disbanded no later than the end of September. More serious is, thirdly, his pro-Spartan bias. Xenophon concentrated his account on the events in which Sparta and his Spartan heroes Agesilaus21 and, to a lesser extent, Teleutias, were involved, and consequently he preferred to describe the events that took place on land and in particular those that occurred in the Peloponnese, but displayed little interest in the war at sea and paid no attention to the way the situation was developing in Thessaly, central Greece and the Northwest.22 These pro-Lacedaemonian sympathies also have to be taken into account when, in his account of the war on land, he refers to the following mobilizations and their corresponding demobilizations from the beginning of the war. As we can see (cf. below Table 1): Xenophon mentions only mobilizations and demobilizations involving Lacedaemonian contingents and their allies, and never those of their adversaries. These mobilizations and demobilizations of the Lacedaemonian armies constitute, in my opinion, one of the crucial elements for establishing the chronology of the Corinthian War.23 We have eight mobilizations and eight demobilizations for the ten years between the outbreak of the Corinthian War and the King’s Peace, that is, between 395 and 386. Unless Xenophon made an improbable series of errors, this means that in one or more years the Lacedaemonian Army was either not mobilized or did not cross the borders of the Lacedaemonian state. M1–D1 and M2–D2 took place in 395 and 394 respectively. After 394 the problems of dating become more difficult. Xenophon refers to the demobilizations, D3 and D4 (Hell. 4.4.13 and 4.4.19), that related to two campaigns before the Isthmian Games

17 A.W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides Vol.III. The Ten Years’ War, Books IV–V 24 (Oxford, 1967), 699–715. 18 W.K. Pritchett, B.L. Van den Waerden, ‘Thucydidean time-reckoning and Euktemon’s seasonal calendar’, BCH 85 (1961), 17–52; W.K. Pritchett, ‘Thucydides V 20’, Historia 13 (1964), 21–36; R. Hannah, Greek and Roman Calendars. Constructions of Time in the Classical World (London, 2005), 52–62. 19 G.E. Underhill, ‘The chronology of the Elean War’, CR 7 (1893), 157. 20 See M. Amit, Athens and the Sea. A Study in Athenian Sea-power (Brussels, 1965), 27. 21 Cawkwell (n. 5), 65; J.-C. Riedinger, Étude sur les Helléniques. Xénophon et l’Histoire (Paris, 1991), 20–3. 22 His more serious errors include, for example, not mentioning the formation of the antiSpartan coalition in the winter of 395/4 (Diod. 14.82.1–4) or the Argives’ and Boeotians’ expedition to central Greece and Thessaly (Diod. 14.82.5–9). 23 In practice, Xenophon also used the Lacedaemonian year which ran from October to the end of September of the following year and began with the first or second full moon before the autumn equinox, depending on whether the preceding year consisted of 12 or 13 months (cf. L. Pareti, Studi minori di Storia Antica, vol. 2 [Rome, 1961], 24, 213, 269).

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Table 1 Mobilizations (M)

Demobilizations (D)

M1. Hell. 3.5.6. The ephors order mobilization. D1. Hell. 3.5.22–5. Withdrawal of the Lacedaemonian army after the battle of Haliartus. M2. Hell. 4.2.9. The ephors order mobilization. D2. Hell. 4.4.1. Agesilaus disbands the army. There is a partial eclipse on 14 August this year (394) and the Pythian Games are held. D3. Hell. 4.4.13. Praxitas, the Lacedaemonian harmost in Sicyon, disbands the army. M3. Hell. 4.4.19. The Lacedaemonians undertake an expedition against Argos (and Corinth). M4. Hell. 4.5.1. The Lacedaemonians once again undertake an expedition against Corinthian territory.

D4. Hell. 4.4.19. Agesilaus disbands the army.

D5. Hell. 4.5.18. Agesilaus withdraws to Laconia with the army. The Isthmian Games are held this year.

M5. Hell. 4.6.1–3: Lacedaemonian mobilization D6. Hell. 4.6.12, 14. When autumn arrives, against the Acarnanians. Agesilaus withdraws from Acarnania. M6. Hell. 4.7.1. Lacedaemonian mobilization against the Acarnanians, who capitulated before the attack. M7. Hell. 4.7.2. Lacedaemonian mobilization against the Argives.

D7. Hell. 4.7.7. Agesipolis, the Spartan king, withdraws the army.

M8. Hell. 5.1.33. Agesilaus persuaded the ephors to order the mobilization. D8. Hell. 5.1.35. General demobilization of the army and navy.* *But only the Lacedaemonian army was actually mobilized (cf. Hell. 5.1.33, 36).

(Hell. 4.5.1). Irrespective of whether they took place in 393, 392 or 391, these demobilizations, together with that of 394 (D2), make it impossible for the Isthmian Games mentioned by Xenophon (Hell. 4.5.2), which were held biannually, to have been held in May/June 392. In fact, if the Isthmian Games took place in 392, the Lacedaemonian army would have been disbanded only once, at the end of 393. So we can be sure that Agesilaus’ campaign, which was fought while the Isthmian Games were being held, took place in 390.24 So D5 (Hell. 4.5.18–19) must have taken place at the end of 390 and the mobilization that preceded it, M4 (Hell. 4.5.1), also related to that same campaign in 390. Between the battle of Coronea (394) and the Isthmian Games (390) we need to establish the campaigns of 393, 392 and 391 for which, as we have said, we have references to only two demobilizations (D3 and D4). Since Xenophon refers only to the Lacedaemonian army, we can advance various hypotheses: either Xenophon has compressed into two years the events that took place in three, or at least one year saw 24 G.E. Underhill, ‘The Chronology of the Corinthian War’, Journal of Philology 22 (1894), 133 dates the Isthmian Games to c. April 390 and Beloch (n. 3), 86 to May/June 390.

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no major armed confrontations, or the Lacedaemonian army was not mobilized or did not fight in the Isthmus. Moreover, together with the reports of two demobilizations in these years, 393 to 391, we know of only one mobilization, M3 (Hell. 4.4.19), which related to Agesilaus’ expedition against Argos, and its subsequent demobilization, D4. In short, for three years, 393, 392 and 391, we have one mobilization (M3) and two demobilizations (D3 and D4). After describing the demobilization of September 394, Xenophon continues with his account, but where we would expect to find a new mobilization, he says (Hell. 4.4.1): , ‘After this the Athenians, Boeotians, Argives and their allies now based themselves on Corinth and carried on the war from there, and the Lacedaemonians and their allies based themselves on Sicyon’. He goes on to describe the massacre of the Corinthian oligarchs, which took place on the last day of the Eucleiae, that is, about the month of March. Later some exiles return (Hell. 4.4.5) and the ‘union’ of Argos and Corinth, probably a form of sympoliteia, takes place (Hell. 4.4.6).25 After that the returning Corinthian oligarchs helped Praxitas,26 the Lacedaemonian harmost of Sicyon, enter the city through one of the gates in the Corinthian Long Walls, which connected Corinth with its port, Lechaeum (Hell. 4.4.7–8), where Praxitas took up position. At this point Xenophon (Hell. 4.4.8–9) tells us about Praxitas’ contingent, which was made up of a Lacedaemonian mora, the Sicyonians and some hundred and fifty Corinthian exiles ( ). Thus Praxitas has neither the Lacedaemonian army nor the bulk of the allies as a whole under his command. Praxitas wins the battle of the Corinthian Long Walls that follows, the Lacedaemonians occupy Lechaeum and the Boeotian contingent garrisoning the port is annihilated (Hell. 4.4.9–12). Immediately after the battle, Xenophon says (Hell. 4.4.13), consistently, that the Lacedaemonians’ allies, and not the Lacedaemonians themselves, came to the aid of Praxitas. Then they demolished two sections of the Long Walls, west and east respectively, sufficient to allow an army through, took Sidus and Crommyon, and proceeded to fortify Epieiceia. Once they had done this, Praxitas disbanded the army and returned to Lacedaemonia (Hell. 4.4.13). Obviously Xenophon considers this as marking the end of the year. From his account it can be deduced that the Lacedaemonian army as a whole did not take part in the campaign, nor was it mobilized to fight in Corinth, where only the allies and a Lacedaemonian mora fought. At no point in the campaign does Praxitas appear to have led a Lacedaemonian army, and the final phase can be interpreted as meaning that Praxitas disbanded the allied army and not the Lacedaemonian army and that he himself returned to Lacedaemonia either alone or with his mora, which was thus relieved.27 If the massacre of the Corinthian oligarchs occurred in March, some time must have elapsed for the internal situation in Corinth to have stabilized sufficiently for the exiles to return; the sympoliteia between Argos and Corinth was probably established 25 N. di Gioia, ‘L’Unione Argo-Corinto’, Contributi dell’Istituto di Storia Antica, vol. 2 (Milan, 1974), 39 dates the union to between March and August 393. 26 Cf. P. Poralla, Prosopographie der Lakeidamonier bis auf die Zeit Alexanders des Grossen (Chicago, 1985), 170: Praxitas is a Lacedaemonian polemarchos, stationed with his mora in Sicyon in 393. 27 On the relief of the Lacedaemonian morai, see, for example, Plut. Pelop. 16.

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a little later and Praxitas’ campaigns fought in the second half of the summer, no earlier than July/August. Just as in Hell. 4.4.1, where, after Praxitas’ demobilization, we would expect to find the next mobilization, Xenophon (Hell. 4.4.14) claims that

, ‘From this time on neither side sent out large expeditionary forces. Instead, the cities in each alliance sent contingents for garrison duty either in Corinth or in Sicyon and these forces merely guarded the fortifications. Both sides, however, employed forces of mercenaries and used them vigorously in carrying on the war’. He therefore explicitly says that the two sides’ armies were not mobilized, at least at the beginning of the year, which clearly means the Lacedaemonian army was not mobilized and only a mora had remained stationed at Lechaeum (cf. Hell. 4.4.17). Xenophon then goes on to give an account of Iphicrates’ incursions into Phleious and Arcadia with mercenary peltasts, (Hell. 4.4.15–16) and a series of raids around Lechaeum and Corinth (Hell. 4.4.17). Finally ) and rebuilt the sections the Athenians arrived in large numbers ( of the Corinthian Long Walls destroyed by Praxitas (Hell. 4.4.18). Between these two events, the fighting around Lechaeum and the reconstruction of the Walls, the allies had reoccupied Corinth’s port, since this was subsequently retaken by Agesilaus (Hell. 4.4.19).28 After the reconstruction of the Walls, Xenophon (Hell. 4.4.19) says that the Lacedaemonians undertook an expedition against the Argives under Agesilaus’ command (M3). After laying waste part of the Argolid, Agesilaus went on to Corinth and recaptured Lechaeum; he attacked by land, his half-brother Teleutias providing him with naval support. Once Lechaeum had been taken, , ‘Agesilaus disbanded the army of his allies and led the home army back to Sparta’. Hence this was a full campaign by the Lacedaemonian army, with its respective mobilizations and demobilizations (M3 and D4). This expedition predates Agesilaus’ campaign during which the Isthmian Games of May or June 390 were held (M4 and D5), so M3 and D4 must have taken place in 391. It is strange that Xenophon does not mention the Athenian army’s resistance to Agesilaus’ attack, when the Athenians came en masse to Corinth to fortify the Long Walls, fearful of the Lacedaemonians reaching Attica. The most convincing explanation is that the Athenian army had withdrawn between the reconstruction of the Long Walls and Agesilaus’ expedition, after the Corinthian Walls had been rebuilt. This withdrawal must relate to the demobilization at the end of the campaigning season, but Xenophon does not mention it for the simple reason that it affected only the Athenians and not the Lacedaemonian army, which had not been mobilized. This 28 We do not need to assume that Praxitas failed to garrison the Lechaeum in 393. It would be strange for Praxitas to station contingents in Sidus and Crommyon and not at Lechaeum, however exposed the position was. This suggests that Hell. 4.4.17 is out of chronological context and refers to 4.4.7–13. According to Xenophon the attack on the Lechaeum garrison took place between Iphicrates’ campaigns and the reconstruction of the walls by the Athenians, which makes sense. Diodorus’ account (14.91.2), which mentions an attack by the Corinthian exiles from the Lechaeum before Iphicrates’ actions in Phleious and Sicyon, can be placed in the same context. As a result of these attacks the Lacedaemonians and their allies had to evacuate Lechaeum in 392 after the fighting for the Athenians to take advantage of the situation and rebuild the Long Walls.

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leads us to various conclusions: during 393 and 392 the Lacedaemonian army was not mobilized to invade Corinth and the fighting was done by a Lacedaemonian mora and allied contingents or mercenaries; and in two cases, Hell. 4.4.1 and 4.4.14, the implies the beginning of a year. expression Thus Praxitas’ campaign took place in 393, Iphicrates’ incursions, the capture of Lechaeum by the allies and the reconstruction of the Corinthian Long Walls in 392 and Agesilaus’ expedition against Argolid and Corinth in 391; finally the mobilization of Hell .4.5.1, M4, Agesilaus’ second expedition into Corinthian territory, during the course of which he took the Corinthian Peiraion, the Isthmian Games and the disaster of the Lacedaemonian mora all took place in 390. Xenophon refers to the demobilization of the Lacedaemonian army in that year, around July/August, in Hell. 4.5.18 (D5). In the context of early 393, Hell. 4.4.1 can easily be interpreted as a reference to the various garrisons established by the respective contenders in Corinth and Sicyon. Thus the Lacedaemonian mora stationed in Sicyon is mentioned on a number of occasions (Hell. 4.4.7, 8, 17, 4.5.11), and there was also a Boeotian garrison in Lechaeum (4.4.9, 12); the Athenian mercenary garrison is well attested,29 and the Argive presence (4.4.9, 10, 11, 13), despite Andocides’ rhetorical exaggeration (3.18), must relate to the garrison in Corinth, which was forced to leave the city after the King’s Peace was signed (5.1.34, 36). Xenophon consistently fails to mention Phleious, which only accepted a garrison at the end of the year, after the invasion by Iphicrates and his peltasts (4.4.15). In Hell. 4.4.14 Xenophon asserts that from the beginning of 392, the contenders no ). Xenophon may be longer deployed great armies ( linking and relating this development with his immediately preceding reference to the demobilization of the Lacedaemonians’ allies (Sicyon, Phleious, etc.) (4.4.13), whose armies were mobilized en masse in 393 after the victory of the Long Walls (the of that year). Before the end of 392, the Athenians also came en masse to rebuild the Long Walls. We do not need a whole year, 393, to elapse for Corinthian discontent at the plundering of its territory (cf. Hell. 4.4.2) to erupt violently in the Eucleiae of 392. Demosthenes’ testimony suggests that stasis in Corinth had already begun at the time of the battle of Nemea (July 394). Thus, immediately after the battle of Nemea, Demosthenes asserts (20.52–3) that some of the Corinthians tried to prevent the allied army, which was returning defeated from Nemea, from taking refuge behind the city walls. Dating the battle of the Corinthian Long Walls to 392 leaves little time for Andocides III’s speech, which refers to that battle (3.18), between the Lacedaemonian occupation of Lechaeum and the reconquest by the allies in the same Julian year. The speech may have been given in the archonship of Philocles, Attic year 392/1. Andocides (3.20) mentions the four years of war that would correspond with the campaigning season of 392 and Attic year 392/1. These dates are supported by the fragment of Philochorus (FGrH 328 F149 a), recorded by Didymus, in which the meeting in Sparta to consider peace falls within the archonship of Philocles and refers to the beginning of 392/1.30 This suggests that the peace the entry

29

Xen. Hell. 4.4.9, 15–17. For the other references, see Harding (n. 12), no. 22, 35–38. See Didymus in Dem. 10.34, col. 7.11–14. Xenophon does not mention the Congress of Sparta in 392/1 and Plutarch (Ages. 23.1–4) confuses successive missions by Antalcidas (see E. Aucello, ‘La genesi della Pace di Antalcida’, Helikon 5 [1965], 364). 30

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negotiations began in Sardis in the spring of 39231 and broke down in Sparta before Andocides gave his speech in Athens, at the beginning of a new Attic year, and before the reconstruction of the Corinthian Long Walls in August/September of 392. So, in the context of the peace negotiations of 392, it is better dating the battle of the Corinthian Long Walls to 393 (July/August) and not to 392 (July/August). It is worth asking why the Lacedaemonian army did not come to the Isthmus in the years 393 and 392. In both cases we can make a connection between the war on land and the events that took place at sea in 393 and 392. After the naval battle of Cnidus in the autumn of 394, Conon and Pharnabazus sailed north with the objective of expelling the Lacedaemonian garrisons from the Greek cities of Asia Minor and the islands near the coast (Xen. Hell. 4.8.1).32 Diodorus says that first they persuaded Cos to rebel, then Nisyros and finally Teos.33 Afterwards, Conon and Pharnabazus set sail for Chios where the Chiotes expelled the Lacedaemonian garrison and joined Conon. After Chios, Erythrae, Mitilene, Ephesus34 and perhaps Samos35 also went over to Conon. Once the fleet reached Ephesus, Pharnabazus disembarked and went overland to his satrapy.36 Conon, with forty ships, continued up the coast to Sestus, where he once again joined Pharnabazus. Along the route Conon must have won over practically all the cities that had been allies of the Lacedaemonians with the exception of at least Sestus and Abydos, which remained under the control of the Spartan Dercylidas.37 After their rendezvous on the coast close to Sestus, Pharnabazus returned to his residence and Conon wintered in the Hellespont, with the intention of winning over the Greek cities in the area and preparing a great naval expedition in the Aegean with Pharnabazus the following spring.38 Although Diodorus (14.84.3–5) includes Conon and Pharnabazus’ campaign on the Asian coast and the subsequent expedition across the Aegean to Laconia and Corinth in a single year, we can be fairly safe in assuming that the Aegean expedition was mounted in 393.39 In fact on the only occasion when Xenophon refers to campaigning seasons in the naval war (Hell. 4.8.7), he expressly says that Conon and Pharnabazus spent the winter in the Hellespont and, when spring arrived, after manning many ships and hiring a force of mercenaries, Pharnabazus sailed through the islands to Melos, which he and Conon used as a base to attack Lacedaemonia ( 31 J.G. DeVoto, ‘Agesilaus, Antalacidas, and the Failed Peace of 392/1 B.C.’, CPh 81 (1986), 191–202. 32 Funke (n. 5), 82; Seager (n. 5), 101; R.J. Buck, Thrasybulus and the Athenian Democracy (Stuttgart, 1998), 105; Buckler (n. 5), 130. 33 Only in the case of the island of Teos, situated on the northern coast of Ionia, between Ephesus and Erythrae, is the geographical order of Diodorus’ description apparently broken. However we can assume that, instead of or , this should read , Telos, the small island situated opposite the Cnidian Peninsula. Nisyros is the closest island to the south, and Telos is halfway between Cos and Rhodes (L. Robert, ‘Diodore, XIV, 84, 3’, Revue de Philologie 8 [1934], 43–8). 34 Diod. 14.84.3. Statues were erected in honour of Conon in Erythrae, Ephesus and Samos (cf. Paus. 6.3.16; Seager [n. 5], 102; Tod [n. 11], no. 106; Harding [n. 12], no. 12 D; Rhodes, Osborne [n. 11], no. 8, 44–7). 35 G. Shipley, A History of Samos 800–188 B.C. (Oxford, 1987), 134. 36 Xen. Hell .4.8.3. 37 Xen. Hell. 4.8.3–5. 38 Xen. Hell. 4.8.6–7; Funke (n. 5), 82; Seager (n. 5), 103; Buck (n. 33), 105, 107; Buckler (n. 5), 131–2. 39 Beloch (n. 3), 77–8; Judeich (n. 4), 143; Cartledge (n. 5), 362; Seager (n. 5), 104; Buck (n. 32), 103; Buckler (n. 5), 134–5.

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). Thus, in the spring of 393, probably around March/April, Conon and Pharnabazus set sail for the Cyclades. When they arrived, Melos, Delos, Paros and probably the rest of the Cyclades defected from their alliance with the Lacedaemonians. The crowns offered by the Athenians at the Great Delia, held every four years, probably indicate the time when Spartan influence in Delos ended as a result of Conon and Pharnabazus’ expedition. These Athenian crowns were dedicated in the late-fifth-century temple at Delos known as the temple of the Athenians or the temple of the Seven Statues.40 There is a record of twenty-one crowns offered between 417 and 329. Of these, the fourth belongs to 405 and the fifth to 393. The crown for 401 is missing, evidently because the island was at that time under Spartan control.41 Similarly, the crown offered by the Athenians at the Delia of 393 indicates the terminus ante quem for Delos abandoning the Spartan alliance. The Great Delia were held in spring, during the month of Thargelion (May/June) in the third year of each Olympiad, and the fifth crown proves that Conon had, around the end of May or more probably the beginning of June 393, not only wrested Delos from Spartan control, but had by then reached Athens. Significantly the crown of 393 was valued at 122 drachmas,42 and was the richest ever offered by Athens at Delos, which could be connected with the Persian money given by Conon to the Athenians. From Melos, Pharnabazus and Conon sailed towards the southern coast of the Peloponnese. They occupied Pherae or Pharae, modern Kalamata, on the mouth of the river Nedos43 and laid waste to its territory and other places along the coast. Their plan to occupy Pharae, on the Messenian coast, was probably aimed at stirring up a revolt of the helots, just as Pylos had done during the Peloponnesian War, and also to establish a base from which they could attack Spartan territory directly.44 However, according to Xenophon (Hell. 4.8.7), the lack of good harbours in the area, shortage of food supplies and the proximity of relief forces forced Conon and Pharnabazus to withdraw ( ). The shortage of food in fertile Messenia may indicate that the wheat was still green,45 that is, Conon must have reached Messenia before the middle of May. 40 F. Courby, ‘Notes topographiques et chronologiques sur le sanctuaire d’Apollon Délien’, BCH 45 (1921), 179. Seager (n. 5), 105 says that Athens controlled the amphictiony of Delos in 393/2, but does not connect this with Conon. 41 An inscription recalls this Spartan control of Delos, which Tod (n. 12), no. 99, 6–7 dates to around 403. The inscription cannot be before Aegospotami (405) and refers to kings Agis and Pausanias and the Council of the ephors. Agis died around the summer of 400 and one of the ephors of 403 that we know of, Naucleidas (Xen. Hell. 2.4.36), is not mentioned in this inscription, and neither is Sciraphidas or Phlogidas (Plut. Lys. 17), who was also probably an ephor in 404. The most plausible date is thus 402 or 401, perhaps during the Delia of 401. 42 Courby (n. 40), 180–4. 43 Strab. 8.4.5; Paus. 4.1.4, 4.2.10, 4.16.8, 4.30.2–6, 4.3.31 (Pharae is six stadia from the sea, about one kilometre). Cf. R. Baladié, Le Péloponnèse de Strabon. Étude de géographie historique (Paris, 1980), 69, 239–40. 44 Thuc. 4.3–4, 5.56.3, 5.115.2, 6.105.2, 7.18.3, 26. 45 For a similar situation see Thuc. 4.6.1: in 425 the Peloponnesians who invaded Attica early in the season when the wheat was still green were short of food.

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From Pharae, without giving up the idea of creating an anti-Spartan base, the Persian fleet turned back and went to Phoenicus on Cythera, which was well situated for attacking Laconia and interrupting Laconian trade,46 and whose walls were in a bad state of repair. When they saw the Persian fleet coming, the Cythereans surrendered without a fight.47 Conon and Pharnabazus repaired the walls of Phoenicus and left a garrison there, under the command of Nicophemus, and then sailed along the Peloponnesian coast to Corinth,48 where the Persian fleet probably anchored at the end of May. Once in Corinth, Conon and Pharnabazus met the Council of the allies, not before May/June 393.49 Pharnabazus gave them money and lifted their spirits, which had been severely undermined by the defeats of 394 in Nemea and Coronea and the pillage of Corinthian territory. He then returned to Asia, but before he left, Conon persuaded him to help reconstruct the Athenian walls. Thus, around the beginning of June, Conon entered Piraeus with eighty of the Persian fleet’s ships and provided the necessary funds for continuing work on the Athenian walls,50 which had begun some considerable time before, and for which the Athenians offered a rich crown in the Delia. In Funke’s opinion no major campaign took place on land in 393 and the war was probably restricted to a war of manoeuvre in which Corinth was particularly hard hit.51 He attributes this to the loss of Sparta’s naval supremacy as a result of the battle of Cnidus, which meant it did not want to get involved in major military operations that year, and Cartledge assumes that Pharnabazus and Conon’s naval campaign must have caused some kind of panic in Sparta, although Xenophon does not mention it.52 Here we can perhaps identify the forces mentioned by Xenophon which came to Messenia’s defence in 393. The Lacedaemonians had one of their six morai stationed in Orchomenus and another in Sicyon, but a large contingent of troops must have been approaching, because the powerful Persian fleet had to set sail with a large force of mercenaries. Thus we can assume that the relief forces actually consisted of the Lacedaemonian army, which had been mobilized to face the invasion.53 The scenario we have described can be compared with similar situations that are better known. In 425, when the Lacedaemonians discovered that the Athenians had taken Pylos, they ordered the army that had invaded Attica to return (Thuc. 4.6.1–2).

46 Xen. Hell. 4.8.8. The occupation of Cythera formed part of a long-standing strategy of harrying Sparta. On this and the island’s importance both in the Persian Wars and in the Peloponnesian War, see Hdt. 7.235.1–4; Thuc. 4.53–5. 47 Cf. P. Karavites, Capitulations and Greek Interstate Relations. The Reflection of Humanistic Ideals in Political Events (Gottingen, 1982), 77. 48 Xen. Hell. 4.8.7–8. 49 Funke (n. 5), 83. 50 IG 22 1656 and 1657; Tod (n. 11), nos 107 A and B; Harding (n. 12), no. 17, 37; Rhodes, Osborne (n. 11), no. 9, 46–9; Xen. Hell. 4.8.9–11; Lysias 2.63; Diod. 14.85.2–4; Nepos, Conon. 4.5; H. Swoboda (1922), ‘Konon’, RE 11, 1331; G. Barbieri, Conone (Rome, 1955), 167–8; Underhill (n. 8), xlvi. The reconstruction of the walls probably began immediately after the battle of Haliartus (S. Perlman, ‘Athenian democracy and the revival of imperialistic expansion at the beginning of the fourth century’, CPh 63 [1968], 261; Seager [n. 5], 101; Buck [n. 32], 99). In any case, thanks to the inscriptions we know that the work began during the archonship of Diophantus (395/4), before the arrival of Conon, but Persian money greatly speeded it up. 51 Funke (n. 5), 81. 52 Cartledge (n. 5), 362. 53 Isocrates (4.119) also refers to the havoc wreaked by the Persian fleet on the Peloponnesian coast.

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In the spring of 375, when the Lacedaemonians were preparing to invade Boeotia, the Boeotians asked the Athenians to sail around the Peloponnesian coast, because they reasoned that the Lacedaemonians would be unable to guard their own territory, the allied cities and send a sufficiently large army against them all at the same time (Xen. Hell. 5.4.62). The Athenians sent Timoteus and, sure enough, the Lacedaemonians did not invade Thebes that year because the Athenian fleet was close to their coasts (Hell. 5.4.63). A similar situation probably developed in 393. It seems unlikely that the Lacedaemonians, with two morai away and at least part of the army committed to defending the Spartan coasts, could have mobilized the army to march against Corinth, all in the same year. The Lacedaemonians were obviously aware that the Persian fleet was in the Aegean before the beginning of the campaigning season on land in April/May, and it was very dangerous to march to the Isthmus leaving Laconia and Messenia ungarrisoned. Thus the threat from Conon and Pharnabazus prevented them mobilizing the Lacedaemonian army at the beginning of 393 and Conon’s subsequent attack once again prevented them sending the army to Corinth after the battle of the Long Walls, after which only the allies mobilized. Consequently, Praxitas’ demobilization (Hell. 4.4.13) must have been in 393. At the beginning of that year, therefore, with no mobilization of the Lacedaemonian army, the Corinthian oligarchs were presumably massacred around March 393, to judge from Diodorus’ account (14.86.5–6);54 Conon arrived around May/June and stationed a mercenary force in Corinth, under the command of Iphicrates, and once the situation had become calmer, the exiles returned. Since Iphicrates’ mercenaries took part in the battle of the Long Walls (Hell. 4.4.9), Praxitas must have achieved his victory after Conon reached Corinth. Argos and Corinth united after Conon’s march, probably as a sympoliteia,55 and the battle of the long Walls was fought and Lechaeum taken in the second half of the year, around August/September. The allies, Sicyonians, Phliasians, Arcadians, etc., joined Praxitas en masse after the battle. At the end of the (Lacedaemonian) year Praxitas took Sidus and Crommyon and disbanded the army in September 393. After Conon withdrew, a threat remained from the enemy presence in Cythera, from the Persian fleet anchored in the Piraeus and from the revitalization of the Corinthian fleet. Just as the Lacedaemonian army did not invade Attica the following year, 424, because of the occupation of Pylos, it would not have been mobilized to fight in Corinth in 392. That year Sparta was busy defending its coasts and gaining naval supremacy, as we shall see, in the Gulf of Corinth.

54 Cf. Judeich (n. 4), 143 who also dates the battle of the Corinthian Long Walls to 393. Aucello (n. 8), 37–8 believes that the massacre of Corinth took place in March 393 and the Isthmian Games and the destruction of the mora in the archonship of Demostratus in 392 (Attic year 393/2). Gioia (n. 25), 38 considers 393 more likely for the massacre of the oligarchs, apart from which Diodorus includes it in the Attic year 394/3. For a date of the massacre of the Corinthian oligarchs in March 392 and the taking of Lechaeum in the same year, see Grote (n. 3), 152; Underhill (n. 8), xlviii and n. 1 (although he dates it in February); Griffith (n. 7), 241–2, 250; D. Kagan, ‘Corinthian politics and the revolution of 392 B.C.’, Historia 11 (1962), 447–57; C.D. Hamilton, Sparta’s Bitter Victories. Politics and Diplomacy in the Corinthian War (Ithaca and London, 1979), 249, 267; Funke (n. 5), 82, 85, 87; M. Whitby, ‘The union of Corinth and Argos’, Historia 33 (1984), 295–7; Cartledge (n. 5), 363; Seager (n. 5), 106. 55 Hamilton (n. 5), 113.

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The fighting between Corinthians and Lacedaemonians in the Gulf of Corinth provides us with further chronological information (Hell. 4.8.10–11).56 As we saw, around May/June 393 Pharnabazus and Conon reached Corinth with a Persian fleet. The Council of the allies then met and Pharnabazus provided additional funds to wage the war. The Corinthians used Pharnabazus’ money to build a squadron and gain hegemony over the Gulf of Corinth. The Spartans also armed a fleet. The Corinthians won a naval battle in which Podanemus, probably the Spartan nauarchos of 394/3, was killed. The naval battle could have taken place in the middle of summer 393, before August/September, and presupposes that the Corinthians still controlled Lechaeum. The Corinthian nauarchos Agathinus, in reality one of the strategoi,57 was subsequently relieved of command by Proaenus, at the time of the Corinthian new year. The new Corinthian commander abandoned Rhium, which was taken by the Lacedaemonians. We can assume that the Corinthian fleet was probably at Cape Rhium because Lechaeum was occupied by the Lacedaemonians (c. August/ September 393) and may have withdrawn from Rhium because the allies had retaken Lechaeum (c. August/September 392). Then Teleutias arrived, perhaps in October 392, and gained naval control of the Gulf in the spring of 391; this could already have happened before Lechaeum was occupied by the Lacedaemonians for a second time in 391. Furthermore, the peace negotiations in Sardis no doubt took place the same spring of 392 and opened up reasonable possibilities of agreeing on a peace treaty to settle the conflict.58 For all these reasons the Lacedaemonians did not mobilize the army in 392 and so there were only skirmishes between the garrisons of Sicyon and Corinth in the first half of 392 (Hell. 4.4.14); Iphicrates’ incursions into Phleious and Arcadia would have occurred in May and June when the wheat was ripe, and we can calculate that Lechaeum was retaken and the Corinthian Long Walls rebuilt around August/ September (Hell. 4.4.15–18). Once this had been done the Athenian army returned from Corinth, considering the year finished. The Spartan occupation of Rhium (392), her supremacy in the Gulf (spring of 391), the breakdown of peace negotiations and Conon’s arrest by Tiribazus (Hell. 4.8.16) must have finally lifted the threat to the Lacedaemonian coasts and made it possible to mobilize the Lacedaemonian army in 391. Agesilaus’ campaign in the Argolid would have taken place at the beginning of the campaigning season of 391 (M3), in the archonship of Nicoteles, between April and May,59 and Lechaeum was probably taken for the second time in a coordinated amphibian attack led by Teleutias at sea and Agesilaus himself on land, in June or July. The occupation of Lechaeum consolidated Spartan hegemony in the Gulf and Teleutias departed for Cnidus and Rhodes in the second half of the year.60 After the conquest of Lechaeum, Agesilaus disbanded the army, thus ending the 391 campaigning season (Hell. 4.4.19; D4). Despite the Spartan expedition of 391, the Corinthians succeeded in obtaining supplies through the Boeotian port of Creusis and cultivated Peiraion, an area to the 56 Funke (n. 5), 83–5; Underhill (n. 8), xlvi; Seager (n. 5), 105. Hamilton (n. 55), 231 dates the naval operations in the Gulf to the latter part of 393. 57 Xenophon (Hell. 4.8.10) applies Spartan terminology to Corinthian magistrates, who did not have a nauarcheia. 58 Beloch (n. 3), 81–2 and Funke (n. 5), 85–6 for whom Argos’ refusal presupposes control of Corinth, since its possession was of strategic importance for prosecuting the war. Hamilton (n. 5), 111 dates them in spring. 59 For a date in 392 for Agesilaus’ campaign, cf. Judeich (n. 4), 145–6. 60 Funke (n. 5), 84; Buck (n. 32), 112.

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north of the Isthmus far from the Spartan garrisons. In 390 the Lacedaemonians undertook another expedition against Corinth under the command of Agesilaus. The Spartan king probably left with the army around April or May, celebrated the Isthmian games of May/June 390 and took Corinthian Peiraion, probably in June (Hell. 4.5.1–6). In the same period, around June, just as the Hyacinthia were about to be celebrated in Sparta, the disaster of the Lacedaemonian mora occurred (Hell. 4.5.7–18),61 after which Agesilaus suddenly returned to Lacedaemonia (probably in July; Hell. 4.5.18–19).62 After Agesilaus’ withdrawal in the second half of the year, Iphicrates took advantage of the Lacedaemonian defeat to occupy Sidus, Crommyon and Oenoe and imprison the Lacedaemonians in Lechaeum (probably August/ September).63 In the winter of 390/89 friction developed between Iphicrates and the Argives in Corinth, as a result of which Iphicrates was replaced, in the spring or summer of 389, by Chabrias and sent to Thrace the following year, in the spring of 388.64 We know of two demobilizations in 389, 388 or 387 (D5 and D6), the first of which relates to an expedition by Agesilaus in Acarnania (M5) and the second to an expedition by Agesipolis against Argos (M7). The Achaean envoys very possibly arrived in Sparta at the beginning of spring 389 to ask for its help against the Acarnanians. The Lacedaemonians ordered the expedition (M5, Hell. 4.6.1), and it was undertaken in the summer of 389 by Agesilaus, who returned in the autumn (Hell. 4.6.12), possibly in September 389 (D6).65 The Acarnanians surrendered at the beginning of spring 388, under the threat of another invasion (M6, Hell. 4.7.1); this left the Spartan army free to undertake an expedition against Argos under the command of Agesipolis in the summer of 388 (M7 and D7, Hell. 4.7.2–7). However, there is another possibility. When the Acarnanians arrived to negotiate the peace, the ephors had already decreed the mobilization for the following year (Hell. 4.7.1) and they very possibly entrusted Agesilaus with commanding the expedition. Agesilaus had in fact promised the Achaeans that he would return the next year to Acarnania (Hell. 4.6.13), but the expedition against Argos was commanded by Agesipolis. While the army was massing in Phleious in order to attack through Nemea, Agesipolis consulted first Zeus and then Delphi on whether the sacred truce sought by the Argives was a just one, which took some time. Xenophon (Hell. 4.7.2) introduces Agesipolis’ expedition with the which he had already used on two other occasions, as we have formula seen, to indicate that a new year had begun. So this determines when the activities of Antalcidas, the fighting against the Athenian fleet and the beginning of the negotiations for signing the King’s Peace took place. Antalcidas was nauarchos in 388/766 and departed for the King’s court in Susa in the autumn/winter of 388. In the summer of 387 Antalcidas and Tiribazus were once 61 Beloch (n. 3), 219–20; Griffith (n. 7), 246; P. Cloché, Thèbes de Béotie. Des origines à la conquête romaine (Namur, 1952), 111; Hamilton (n. 54), 281; P. Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia. A Regional History 1300–362 B.C. (London, Boston and Henley, 1979), 286; Funke (n. 5), 91; Whitby (n. 55), 297. 62 The campaign is usually dated to the spring, cf. Beloch (n. 3), 86; Underhill (n. 8), xlix; Funke (n. 5), 91; Hamilton (n. 5), 114; Seager (n. 5), 110; Buckler (n. 5), 117–18. 63 Funke (n. 5), 92; Buckler (n. 5), 121. 64 Schol. Aristeides Pan. 274 f D; Polyaen. 3.11.6, 15; Griffith (n. 7), 243; Seager (n. 5), 111. 65 Beloch (n. 3), 86; Funke (n. 5), 92; Hamilton (n. 5), 116; Seager (n. 5), 111; Buckler (n. 5), 125–7. 66 Xen. Hell .5.1.6; Underhill (n. 24), 136.

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again in Asia Minor and for the rest of the summer, before the end of Antalcidas’ nauarcheia in September, were no doubt occupied in gaining naval hegemony. In the autumn in Sardis Tiribazus learnt of the King’s conditions for a peace treaty. Xenophon (Hell. 5.1.29) says that the Athenians were in favour of peace because of their naval defeat at the Hellespont, and he also links the Argive desire to sign the peace to the invasion of their land, and, we can assume, Agesipolis’ campaign in the Argolid. In short, Agesipolis’ expedition does not appear to be related to the mobilization ordered by the ephors in the spring of 388 and it took place not long before the peace negotiations, so it could set out in 387. Peace negotiations continued throughout 387 and the peace treaty was signed in Sparta in the spring of 386.67 During these peace negotiations, Agesilaus persuaded the ephors to mobilize the army because the Thebans had refused to dissolve the Boeotian Confederacy (Hell. 5.1.33). He crossed the frontier of the Lacedaemonian state and began to muster the allies in Tegea. The Thebans arrived while he was there and acceded to the Spartan demands, so there was another mobilization in the spring/summer of 386 (M8). Once the Thebans had accepted the terms of the Peace, Agesilaus ordered the Corinthians and Argives to force the Argive garrison to leave Corinth (Hell. 5.1.34) and stopped the Argives taking over Corinth by threatening to make war on them if they did not leave the city (Hell. 5.1.35). Xenophon may be referring to another mobilization ordered by the ephors against Argos that same year. However, it was not necessary to demobilize the army that was already stationed in Tegea first. Once the Thebans agreed to peace, the ephors, who were empowered not only to order mobilization but also to decide where military operations were to take place, only had publicly to announce the change of objective. The final demobilization in 386, in practice only that of the Lacedaemonian army and its allies, is also recorded by Xenophon (Hell. 5.1.35; D8). Our conclusions can be summarized as follows (see Table 2). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

67

Polyb. 1.6; Arist. 2.370; Underhill (n. 8), l.

JOSÉ PASCUAL [email protected]

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Table 2 Mobilizations Year 395 M1. Xen. Hell. 3.5.6. The ephors order mobilization.

Year 394 M2. Xen. Hell. 4.2.9. The ephors order mobilization. Year 393 (1), Xen. Hell. 4.4.1. [Beginning of a year]

Demobilizations

D1. Xen. Hell. 3.5.22–5. Withdrawal of the Lacedaemonian army after the battle of Haliartus.

D2. Xen. Hell. 4.4.1. Agesilaus disbands the army. D3. Xen. Hell. 4.4.13. Praxitas, Lacedaemonian harmost in Sicyon, disbands the army.

Year 392 (2), Xen. Hell. 4.4.14. [Beginning of a year] Xen. Hell. 4.4.18. [End of a year] Year 391 M3. Xen. Hell. 4.4.19. The Lacedaemonians undertake an expedition against Argos (and Corinth). Year 390 M4. Xen. Hell. 4.5.1. The Lacedaemonians undertake another expedition against Corinthian territory.

D4. Xen. Hell. 4.4.19. Agesilaus disbands the army.

D5. Xen. Hell. 4.5.18. Agesilaus returns to Lacedaemonia with the army.

Year 389 M5. Xen. Hell. 4.6.1–3. Mobilization against the Acarnanians. D6. Xen. Hell. 4.6.12, 14. When autumn arrives, Agesilaus withdraws from Acarnania. Year 388 M6. Xen. Hell. 4.7.1. Mobilization against the Acarnanians, who capitulate before the expedition. Year 387 M7. Xen. Hell. 4.7.2. Mobilization against the Argives. D7. Xen. Hell. 4.7.7. Agesipolis, the Spartan king, disbands the army after a campaign in the Argolid. Year 386 M8. Xen. Hell. 5.1.33. Agesilaus persuaded the ephors to order the mobilization (against Thebans, after against Argives and Corinthians).

D8. Xen. Hell. 5.1.35. General demobilization of the army and navy

Classical Quarterly 59.1 91–111 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S0009838809000007X

91 AN UNIDENTIFIED FRAGMENT PHILIP OF DIODORUS RANCE

HANNIBAL, ELEPHANTS AND TURRETS IN SUDA 438 [POLYBIUS FR. 162 B ] – AN UNIDENTIFIED FRAGMENT OF DIODORUS* Suda

438:

.1 Thôrakion: Hannibal, the Carthaginian general, by carrying the turrets of the elephants and making use of the beasts’ litters to cut away the branches to the greatest height, made the route secure and easy.

This entry in the Suda has had a chequered history as a potential fragment of Polybius’ Historiae. It was first identified as Polybian by Casaubon and included in the editio princeps of 1609, and was retained in subsequent editions, though one suspects owing more to scholarly inertia than conviction. It was excised by Schweighäuser (1789–95) and restored by Büttner-Wobst (1904), but marked in square parenthesis as dubious. It thus resides in the current Teubner edition among the fragmenta ex incertis libris [162b].2 It continues to be cited in both general and specialist lexica as a doubtful or spurious fragment of Polybius.3 In consequence its authenticity has been universally distrusted in modern scholarship from various perspectives – lexical, textual and historical: in her edition of the Suda Adler marks 438 as a dubious citation of Polybius; in his classic study of the elephant in * I am grateful to Nicholas Sekunda (University of Gdansk) and Michael Charles (Southern Cross University NSW) for their comments, and to the latter for kindly allowing me to read his paper (2008) in advance of publication. The following abbreviations have been used: Bigwood (1980) = J.M. Bigwood, ‘Diodorus and Ctesias’, Phoenix 34.3 (1980), 195–207; Chamoux and Bertrac (1993) = F. Chamoux and P. Bertrac, Diodore de Sicile: Bibiothèque Historique. Introduction générale. Livre I ([Budé] Paris, 1993); Charles (2008) = M.B. Charles, ‘African forest elephants and turrets in the Ancient World’, Phoenix, forthcoming; Charles and Rhodan (2007) = M.B. Charles and P. Rhodan, ‘Magister Elephantorum: a reappraisal of Hannibal’s use of elephants’, CW 100.4 (2007), 363–89; Goukowsky (1972) = P. Goukowsky, ‘Le roi Pôrus, son éléphant et quelques autres’, BCH 96 (1972), 473–502; Goukowsky, Diodore XVII = P. Goukowsky (ed. and French trans.), Diodore de Sicile, Bibliothèque Historique Livre XVII ([Budé] Paris, 1976); Goukowsky, Fragments II = P. Goukowsky (ed., French trans. and comm.), Diodore de Sicile, Bibliothèque Historique. Fragments II. Livres XXI–XXVI ([Budé] Paris 2006); Gowers and Scullard (1950) = W. Gowers and H.H. Scullard, ‘Hannibal’s elephants again’, NC (ser. 6) 10 (1950), 271–83; Scullard (1948) = H.H. Scullard, ‘Hannibal’s elephants’, NC (ser. 6) 8 (1948), 158–68; Scullard (1974) = H.H. Scullard, The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World (London, 1974); Walbank, Commentary = F.W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius (Oxford, 1957–67). 1 A. Adler (ed.), Suidae Lexicon (Leipzig, 1928–38; repr. Stuttgart, 1967–71), 2.724. 2 I. Casaubon (ed.), Polybii … Historiarum libri qui supersunt (Paris, 1609), 1027; J. Schweighäuser (ed.), Polybii Megalopolitani Historiarum quidquid superest (Leipzig, 1789–95), 5.60–1, fr. 22; T. Büttner-Wobst (ed.), Polybius, Historiae ([Bibliotheca Teubneriana] Leipzig, 1904; repr. Stuttgart, 1967), 4.535, fr. 162b. 3 E.g. H. Stephanus et al. (edd.), Thesaurus Graecae Linguae (Paris, 1831–65³), 4.474, s.v. , 5.1781, s.v. ; LSJ9, 813, s.v. , 1203, s.v. [Plb.] fr. 162b; A. Mauersberger (ed.), Polybios–Lexicon (Berlin, 1956–68; repr. 2006), Bd 1.3, 1164, s.v. , Bd. 1.4, 1722, s.v. : [fr. 162b].

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Graeco-Roman antiquity Scullard dismisses the entry on the grounds that ‘the source is not known and only very doubtfully could it be attributed to Polybius’; while Walbank excludes the fragment from his commentary.4 To the present author’s knowledge, however, Polybius’ authorship has never been defended or refuted with argumentation. If it is true that the ascription to Polybius was never more than Casaubon’s overconfident surmise, can the fragment be assigned with confidence to another author? There is more at stake than a purely parochial issue of Polybian studies or locating a new abode for a homeless fragment. The wider historical significance of Suda 438 for the campaigns of Hannibal is that, excepting some demonstrably fictive allusions in later Latin poetry, this fragment contains the only explicit and unequivocal statement that Hannibal’s elephants were furnished with turrets. Furthermore, all previous studies of this armament have overlooked the important information concerning its terminology and construction that this fragment uniquely preserves. Identification of the author and ultimate source will therefore contribute to the protracted debate over whether African forest elephants, distinct from the Indian species, were so equipped in Carthaginian armies or more broadly in the Hellenistic period. The first task in the process of identification is to narrow the field of candidates. It has long been recognized, if not widely appreciated, that the compiler of the Suda (c. 1000) did not derive its numerous quotations of historical authors from first-hand acquaintance with the original works but rather though the convenient medium of a recently published encyclopaedia. De Boor demonstrated that all the historical entries in the Suda, with the exception of those that originate from earlier lexica or scholia, were drawn from the Excerpta Constantiniana, the thematic volumes of historical extracts compiled at the direction of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913–59), with the overwhelming majority of citations being, as here, anonymous.5 There is no reason to believe that Suda 438 uniquely derives from a different source or methodology.6 The compiler of the Suda used only a small number of volumes of Excerpta. Of those volumes fully or partly preserved today, he made use of De virtutibus et vitiis and De legationibus, but not De insidiis or De sententiis. In addition, the Suda drew material from volumes that have not survived, among which De Boor identified the second half of De virtutibus, as well as the 4 A. Adler (ed.), Suidae Lexicon, loc. cit. (app. crit.); Scullard (1974), 242 (reiterating id. [1948], 162, n. 9); Walbank, Commentary, III 753. 5 The dependence of the Suda on the Excerpta Constantiniana was first observed by H. Valesius (ed.), Polybii, Diodori Siculi … Excerpta ex Collecteneis Constantini Augusti Porphyrogentae (Paris, 1634), unpag. pref., but the nature and extent of the relationship was demonstrated by C. de Boor, ‘Suidas und die Konstantinische Exzerptsammlung’, BZ [pt. I] 21 (1912), 381–424; [pt. II] 23 (1914–19), 1–127; and exemplified in previous case studies: ‘Zu Iohannes Antiochenus’, Hermes 20 (1885), 321–30, at 327–30; ‘Die Chronik des Georgius Monachus als Quelle des Suidas’, Hermes 21 (1886), 1–26. See also J. Becker, De Suidae Excerptis Historicis (Bonn, 1915); A. Adler (ed.), Suidae Lexicon, I xix–xi; reiterated in id., ‘Suidas (Lexikograph)’, RE 4A.1 (1932), 675–717, at 679, 700–6; P. Lemerle, Le Premier Humanisme Byzantin. Notes et remarques sur enseignement et culture à Byzance des origines au Xe siècle (Paris, 1971), 285–7. 6 There is no question that Suda 438 might derive from an earlier lexicon and scholion; De Boor (n. 5 [1914–19]), 22–37 shows that in historical entries originating from such sources the author is always cited, mostly using or . In contrast, the majority of entries deriving from the Excerpta Constantiniana are anonymous; in the minority of instances where the author is specified he is almost always named in the nominitive preceding the citation, occasionally with or .

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, and perhaps one other volume with military content. The Suda therefore becomes an indirect source for the contents of these lost volumes.7 Since Suda 438 is not found in the extant volumes of Excerpta, it must come from a historical work that was excerpted in one of the lost volumes.8 Given the subject matter – a famous general devising a solution to a natural obstacle – was the most likely intermediary. one might conjecture that the A good picture of the historical works quarried during the compilation of the Excerpta has been constructed from the indices auctorum preserved in the prologues of the extant volumes (De legationibus 1, De virtutibus), or, where the prologue is missing, identified from the contents (De legationibus 2, De insidiis, De sententiis), or, for lost volumes, reconstructed from entries in the derivative Suda. For the present purposes it is sufficient to observe that, for the classical and Hellenistic periods, Constantine’s excerptors relied exclusively on a small number of long narrative histories by well-known authors. Their selection must in part reflect the historical holdings of the imperial library at Constantinople, but from a practical perspective such works were better suited to the process of excerption than short and/or specialised monographs. The moral dimensions and edifying intent of Constantine’s great encyclopaedic project also called for reliance on reputable authorities. It can be established with confidence, therefore, that of the historical texts known to have been excerpted in the Excerpta only four authors could have supplied material relating to Hannibal, namely Polybius, Diodorus, Appian and Cassius Dio. Suda 438 must belong to one of this quartet.9 In addition to the potential author, one should consider where in an account of Hannibal’s campaigns the incident described could have possibly occurred. The technical aspects of Suda 438 will be discussed below, but the context of the episode appears to be a march through heavily wooded terrain by a Carthaginian force equipped with elephants; the challenge is logistical – a time-consuming and labourintensive operation of forest clearance – and combat with the enemy does not appear to be imminent. Since elephants were known to be impeded by dense woodland, it may be assumed that this forested district was too extensive to be easily circumvented and/or that the route taken by Hannibal was one of strategic or tactical necessity or advantage.10 The name of Hannibal is freely associated with war-elephants, but in the 7 For cross-references in the extant Excerpta to the lost cf. EL 1.14.26, 62.31; 2.379.26; EV 1.335.19; 2.116.19, 123.26; EI 222.3; ES 131.28; : EV 1.145.18; : EV 1.338.7, 354.4; 2.120.6; EI 33.8. There are several candi: EV 1.99.9; dates for the other volume(s) with military content: : EI 207.34 (if the last two are indeed different); or : EL 2.390.3; : EV 1.9.20; : ES 210.15. 8 Accordingly, A. Adler (ed.), Suidae Lexicon 2.724 (marg.) marks 438 as ‘E’ = ‘Excerpta Constantini Porphyrogenitae quae hodie non exstant’ (cf. 1.xix.). 9 For detailed argumentation see C. de Boor, ‘Zu den Exzerptsammlungen des Konstantin Porphyrogennetos’, Hermes 19 (1884), 123–48; id. (n. 5 [1912]), esp. 408–14; T. Büttner-Wobst, ‘Die Anlage der historischen Encyclopädie des Konstantinos Porphyrogennetos’, BZ 15 (1906), 88–120, esp. 96–100. For the most convenient summary of the shape and composition of the Excerpta Constantiniana see the masterly P. Lemerle (n. 5), 280–8; recently affirmed and elaborated by B. Flusin, ‘Les Excerpta constantiniens, logique d’une anti-histoire’, in S. Pittia (ed.), Fragments d’Historiens grecs autour de Denys d’Halicarnasse (CEFR 298 [Rome, 2002]), 537–59. See similar arguments in T.M. Banchich, ‘An identification in the Suda: Eunapius on the Huns’, CPh 83 (1988), 53. 10 Elephants entangled among trees: Sall. Iug. 53.3, impeditos ramis arborum. Plut. Pyrrh. 21.7 may refer to Pyrrhus’ elephants impeded by a wooded riverbank at the battle of Ausculum in 279

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sources his deployment of these animals is limited to two relatively brief and welldocumented periods.11 First, in the opening stages of the Second Punic War, in summer/autumn of 218 B.C., Hannibal led an army of invasion, including 37 elephants, from the Roman–Carthaginian frontier on the Ebro, through southern Gaul and across the Alps. An unspecified number survived the Alpine transit to fight at the battle of the Trebia (late 218 B.C.), though all but one of the remaining beasts died during the harsh winter of 218/17 B.C.12 The authorities at Carthage voted a reinforcement of 40 elephants in 216 B.C. (Livy 23.13.7) and an unstated number disembarked in Italy in 215 B.C. (ibid. 41.10), but their role and significance in subsequent operations are obscure, not least because of inconsistencies in the evidence that have been much discussed in modern scholarship.13 Second, Hannibal deployed at least 80 elephants at the battle of Zama in 202 B.C., without success.14 Within these contexts the passage through southern Gaul and the Alps offers by far the most likely scenario for extensive woodland impenetrable to elephants.15 Polybius refers to various geological, human and meteorological hazards encountered by Hannibal; trees are never singled out as an obstacle, though Polybius does clarify the concept of a ‘tree line’ for his readers:

(‘for the summits of the Alps and the parts near the tops of the passes are all quite treeless and bare owing to the snow lying there continuously both winter and summer, but the slopes up to half-way up on both sides are wooded and tree-covered and on the whole habitable’, 3.55.9). It is likely that in the late third century B.C. the tree line extended significantly higher up both sides of the Alps than it does today.16 Dio also alludes to natural obstacles that impeded the indirect paths selected by Hannibal to avoid detection, though again trees are not specified.17 Livy records an incident in the Alps B.C.,

as Scullard (1974), 106; Charles and Rhodan (2007), 379; however, in the most recent editions the reading found in all codices is emended to (ed. K. Ziegler [19712]; ed. corr. cum add. H. Gärtner [1996]), in which case the obstacle would be mud, though I can see no compelling reason to distrust the transmitted text. See discussion of this episode in A.B. Nederlof, Plutarchus’ Leven van Pyrrhus. Historische Commentaar (Amsterdam–Paris, 1940), 144–6, and generally R.F. Gower, ‘The tactical handling of the elephant’, G&R 17 (1948), 1–11, at 5; Charles and Rhodan (2007), 379–80. 11 See Scullard (1948); Gowers and Scullard (1950); Scullard (1974), 154–77; J. Edwards, ‘The irony of Hannibal’s elephants’, Latomus 60 (2001), 900–5; and now Charles and Rhodan (2007). The Suda entry is not adduced. 12 Polyb. 3.42.11 numbers 37 elephants at the crossing of the Rhône; cf. App. Hann. 1.4; Eutr. Brev. 3.8.2. On the Trebia see Charles and Rhodan (2007), 372–6. Sole survivor of winter 218/17 B.C.: Livy 21.56.6, 58.11; 22.2.10; Zonar. 8.24 (Dindorf 2.242.6–7). 13 For the meagre references to post-215 B.C. elephants and bibliography see n. 21 below. 14 Polyb. 15.11.1; Livy 30.32.4, 35.3; App. Pun. 7.40; Front. Str. 2.3.16. 15 For the countless attempts to match ancient accounts to modern topography see selectively Walbank, Commentary, 1.382–7 with older literature; D. Proctor, Hannibal’s March in History (Oxford, 1971); J. Seibert, Forschungen zu Hannibal (Darmstadt, 1993), 195–200; J. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps: The Invasion of Italy and the Punic Wars (Cambridge, MA, 1998). 16 See the brief summary of historical and ecological data by G. de Beer, Alps and Elephants: Hannibal’s March (London, 1955), 144–7; with additional thoughts by D. Proctor (n. 15), 205–7. 17 Cassius Dio apud Zonar. 8.23 (Dindorf 2.239–40), (‘Then Hannibal, in haste to set out for Italy, but suspicious of the more direct roads, turned aside from them and followed another, in which he met with grievous hardships …’); there follows a literary topos of icy mountain fastnesses of the sort Polybius (3.47.6–12) had already criticized.

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not found in Polybius’ account, when, in order to make a massive bonfire to shatter an obstructive boulder, Hannibal’s troops arboribus circa immanibus deiectis detruncatisque struem ingentem lignorum faciunt (‘felled some huge trees that grew near at hand, and lopping off their branches, made an enormous pile of logs’).18 More generally, the essentially pro-Barcid accounts that underlie the historical tradition of the march from the Ebro to Cisalpine Gaul exalt the courage and endurance of Hannibal and his army, and the crossing of the Alps in particular became a crucial ingredient in Hannibal’s development as a heroic and, later, romantic figure.19 Stories of how the Carthaginians triumphed over natural obstacles unsurprisingly accumulate in this phase of the war, including the well-documented crossing of the Rhône, of which there were conflicting ancient accounts, and other remarkable episodes of route-clearance and road building.20 It is not impossible that the Suda entry refers to an otherwise unreported incident after 215 B.C., when Hannibal received new elephants from Africa, and the Roman pursuit of ‘Fabian tactics’ dictated the avoidance of open ground in favour of hilly or obstructed terrain, though one struggles to identify a trace of any corresponding operation or locale in the sources for this later period. Furthermore, references to elephants after 215 B.C. occur almost exclusively in Livy’s account. Modern scholarship has tended to dismiss these Livian beasts as the exaggeration or invention of a Roman annalistic tradition, but, for the present purposes, their disputed historicity is of less significance than the fact that Livy clearly drew this information from a source that was not exploited by our four Greek historians, for whom elephants are predominantly an exotic logistical challenge of the Ebro-to-Italy march of 218 B.C.21 18 Livy 21.37.2; cf. also App. Hann. 1.4; Amm. Marc. 15.10.11; Syrianus Magister [Anon. Byz.], De Re Strategica 18 (61.51–6), ed. G.T. Dennis, Three Byzantine Military Treatises ([CFHB Series Washingtoniensis 25] Washington, D.C., 1985) (as ‘the Anonymous Byzantine Treatise on Strategy’). On this incident see E.T. Sage, ‘A chemical interpretation of Livy’, Classical Weekly 16 (10) (1922–3), 73–6; de Beer (n. 16), 112–13; J. Prevas (n. 15), 148–9. For the scientific phenomenon in antiquity see also Vitr. 8.3.19; Pliny, NH 23.27.57; Vita S. Theodori Syceotae 55, ed. and French trans. A.-J. Festugière, Vie de Théodore de Sykéôn ([Subsidia Hagiographica 48] Brussels, 1970), 1.47. 19 C. Jourdain-Annequin, ‘L’image de la montagne ou la geographie à l’epreuve du mythe et de l’histoire: l’exemple de la traversée des Alpes par Hannibal’, DHA 25.1 (1999), 101–27; D. Hoyos, Hannibal’s Dynasty: Power and Politics in the Western Mediterranean, 247–183 BC (London, 2003), 111. 20 Cf. Polyb. 3.54.5–55.9; Livy 21.36.1–37.6; Nepos, Hann. 3.4. For logistical difficulties: J.F. Shean, ‘Hannibal’s mules: the logistical limitations of Hannibal’s army and the battle of Cannae, 216 BC’ Historia 45.2 (1996), 159–87, at 177–80. On the Rhône crossing there are as many modern views as authors; for older bibliography see J. Seibert (n. 15), 194–5; more recently: R.S. O’Bryhim, ‘Hannibal’s elephants and the crossing of the Rhône’, CQ 41 (1991), 121–5; P. Leveau, ‘Le franchissement du Rhône par Hannibal: le chenal et la navigation fluviale à la fin de l’Âge du Fer’, RA (2003 [1]), 25–50; O.J. Schrier, ‘Hannibal, the Rhone and the “Island”: some philological and metrological notes’, Mnemosyne 59.4 (2006), 501–24. 21 For post-215 B.C. elephants in Livy cf. 23.18.6, 41.10, 43.6, 46.4 (cf. Plut. Marc. 12.3); 26.5.3, 11, 6.1–2, 9–12; 27.42.7. For discussion of Livy’s sources and reliability see Scullard (1974), 162–4; Charles and Rhodan (2007), 377–8, citing earlier Quellenforschungen. The accounts of Polybius and Cassius Dio (apud Zonaras) contain no references to elephants after 217 B.C. The only post-215 B.C. occurrence of elephants in Appian is his report of a small number used in a nocturnal assault on the Roman siege-lines around Capua in 211 B.C. (Hann. 41–2, cf. Livy 26.5.3. 11, 6.1–2. 9–12), but the details of this episode are not at all consistent with Suda 438. Diodorus’ account of the Hannibalic War (Books 26–7) is lost but for disjointed fragments; one might, however, speculate that, given the adherence of Diodorus and Appian to a common source (nn. 67–8 below), the absence of post-215 B.C. elephants from Appian (other than at Capua in 211 B.C.) may reflect what the lost books of Diodorus contained or omitted.

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Finally, in its haste to deny Polybian authorship of Suda 438 scholarship has overlooked certain valuable technical details which are of intrinsic interest but also point to an origin in a well-informed contemporary source. The author specifies that Hannibal managed to traverse this wooded terrain , ‘by carrying the turrets of the elephants and making use of the beasts’ litters to cut away the branches to the greatest height’. The author clearly refers to two and different items of elephant equipment – . In order to facilitate the elephants’ passage through the trees, their had to be removed and ‘carried’ ( ), presumably by soldiers or servants, were left on the elephants, apparently as a means of cutting back the while the indicates that this word branches to a maximum height. The lemma provided the chief lexical interest for the compiler of the Suda. The basic definition of relates to a protective barrier or parapet, notionally the height of a man’s chest, hence ‘breastwork’ is the closest English equivalent, though the word is used in connection with analogous breast-high structures, including walls, screens, battleand ments, a ship’s gunwales or a crow’s nest. The orthographic variants are well attested in documentary and literary sources, including Polybius is found with the specific meaning of a ‘turret’ and Diodorus.22 In addition, or ‘parapet’ mounted on a war-elephant, obviously the context here, though this usage is rare and, as will be demonstrated below, of considerable assistance in identifying is otherwise undocuthe provenance of this passage.23 In contrast, the word mented in this context; a literal derivation would suggest a ‘small chamber’, ‘cabin’ or ‘compartment’. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that in Suda 438 designates only the upper section of the apparatus mounted on each elephant’s back – the ‘breastworks’, ‘screens’ or ‘parapets’ – which in the constrained circumstances of this episode are disassembled and removed to reduce the overall height of the animal is recognized in some and its equipment. This more restricted sense of left on the elephants must then be a lower section of the same lexica.24 The 22 Polyb. 8.4.4: , ‘railed in and covered by a high breastwork’; Diod. 14.51.2: , ‘they raised up men in crow’s-nests’; 27.44.4: [F ] , ‘the men standing behind the screens’. The forms and are corroborated by Suda 436: : ; 437: : (= Phot. Lex. 300 [ed. C. Theodoridis]; > Τφξαηψη% μ(ωεψξ γσθτνψξ 149 [ed. I.C. Cunningham]). (= Suda 558; > Jos. BJ 5.7.4[318]). For as parapet, wall or barrier: Menodot. Sam. FHG 3.104 F 1 (apud Athen. Deipnos. 15.672.d); Jos. BJ 5.7.4(318); Ath. Mech. 18.11, 23.9 (with remarks of D. Whitehead and P.H. Blyth, Athenaeus Mechanicus, On Machines (Πεσ νθγαξθν0υψξ), trans. and comm. [Stuttgart, 2004], 117, 125). For as breastwork, parapet or screen: Aesch. Sept. 32; IG22.463.86; IGRom. 4.293ai39 (Pergam. second century B.C.), 1465, 1474 (Smyrna). A breast-high part of surface wall: P.Cair.Zen. 445 (third century B.C.). The gunwale of a trireme: IG22.1604.31. The crow’s-nest on a ship: Eratosthenes fr. 60 (apud Schol. in Apoll. Rhod. Arg. 1.566), ed. K. Strecker, De Lycophrone, Euphronio, Eratosthene comicorum interpretibus (Greifswald, 1884), 42–3; Asclepiades Myrleanus FHG 3.298 (apud Athen. Deipnos. 11.475a = Eustathius Thessal. Comm. ad Homeri Odysseam [Leipzig 1825–6] 1.67.13); Athen. Deipnos. 5.43.e; Pollux, Onom. 1.91 (with E. Bethe [ed.] 1.29, app. crit.). 23 Diod. 2.17.8; 17.88.6 (app. crit.); Ael. NA 13.9 (Megasthenes F 36a Müller). 24 E.g. LSJ9, 813, s.v. , ‘also, the tower on the back of elephants, or rather the upper part thereof’, citing the current passage (as [Plb.] fr. 162b), though blurring the distinction at 1203, s.v. , ‘tower on the back of an elephant’; similarly A. Mauersberger (n. 3), Bd. 1.3, 1164, s.v. , ‘Turm auf d. Rücken v. Elefanten oder dessen Oberteil … [fr. 162b]’, but again Bd.

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structure, seemingly a kind of litter or howdah, which, unlike the , did not substantially increase the height or breadth of the beast and thus the quantity of the vegetation to be cut away; indeed the instrumental dative strongly implies that the , whatever its design, far from being an additional impediment, provided a platform for this very task (rather than employing ladders and ropes).25 To my knowledge, no other source makes this terminological distinction or supplies comparable explicit data concerning a bipartite construction of elephant turrets. It is interesting to note, however, that Scullard has already hypothesized that such ‘towers … would presumably be made of light wooden frameworks, fenced around with light materials, such as wicker-work’. The testimony of the limited representational evidence is ambiguous, and in some instances certainly marred by artistic licence or guesswork, though Scullard observes that close examination of the turreted elephant depicted on the well-known plate from Capena (Museo di Villa Giulia, inv. 23949) ‘suggests a number of parallel lines running down from top to bottom, which could indicate some form of light slatting’.26 Also of potential relevance is an unprovenanced engraved sardonyx (Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque Nationale, inv. 1911) depicting an (African?) elephant mounted with a low-walled without ?), in which stand two open platform or howdah (an spearmen fully exposed above the hip.27 I plan a fuller treatment of this subject in a separate study, but I stress here that it is overwhelmingly unlikely that the description preserved in Suda 438 is the fancy of a later author writing at a time when elephant warfare had abated, and these details suggest that this episode was first reported by a well-informed source, who based his account on autopsy or eye-witness testimony, and who was acquainted with technical aspects of elephantry. One might also infer that this record of Carthaginian logistical difficulties in dense woodland during a route-march reflects a Carthaginian standpoint, rather than Roman intelligence of enemy activity, and probably originates from a Carthaginian witness, a consideration to which I shall return below. We therefore have four candidates for authorship, a likely historical setting and a potential authorial perspective. Casaubon’s ascription of the fragment to Polybius was not merely wishful thinking. The Suda contains copious entries drawn from the Constantinian Excerpta of Polybius, who must be considered among the compiler’s favourite authors, and the Suda is therefore an important editorial resource for reconstituting the lost books of Polybius. Difficulties arise, however, when one attempts to place 438 within Polybius’ narrative: his account of the passage from the 1.4, 1722, s.v. , ‘Turm auf dem Rücken von Elefanten’. See already J. Schweighäuser (n. 2 [1792]), 5.60, ‘Possis suspicari, [ ] esse pinnas vel propugnacula, quae superne cingebant turriculas, dorsis belluarum impositas’. 25 The phrase is construed here as instrumental dative, ‘by means of the beasts’ litters’, rather than pure dative, ‘cutting away the branches to the greatest height for the beasts’ litters’. This interpretation is the more likely, as it would seem strange, having gone to the trouble of removing the turrets, to leave the litters on the elephants if they added significantly to the overall height; rather, the are mentioned because they have a functional significance in this operation. In any case, the bipartite construction of this equipment is clear. 26 Scullard (1974), 244, with pl. 7a, and bibliography at 113, n. 7; see also J.D. Beazley, Etruscan Vase-Painting (Oxford, 1947), 211–12 with pl. 39.1; Gowers and Scullard (1950), 273, n. 9; Goukowsky (1972), 490–1, fig. 8. 27 A. Chabouillet, Catalogue général et raisonné des camées et des pierres gravées de la Bibliothèque Impériale (Paris, 1858), 254, no. 1911; Goukowsky (1972), 490–1, fig. 10; Scullard (1974), 245, fig. 23.

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Rhône to Gallia Cisalpina is extant and complete, and the fragment finds no parallels therein (3.47–55, cf. also Livy 21.30–8). Casaubon was not alone in assigning unidentified anonymous Suda entries to Polybius which later turned out to belong to another author.28 Of the other candidates, Appian may be safely ruled out since his brief account of these events is also preserved in full (Hann. 1.4). The relevant book of Cassius Dio (14) survives as a reasonably detailed epitome in Zonaras and again there is nothing of this incident.29 To summarize: Polybius and Appian must be excluded. It is not impossible that our fragment derives from a fuller version of Dio’s work, but there is no positive evidence to recommend such a hypothesis, and arguments to be presented below point strongly to the fourth candidate, Diodorus. Significantly fewer citations from Diodorus than Polybius have been identified in the Suda. This is presumably because Diodorus’ Bibliotheca was relatively lacking in lexical interest, the primary criteria for inclusion, but his rather colourless style also hinders recognition of unattributed entries.30 The Suda contains 64 entries derived from Diodorus, with another dozen or so suspected fragments.31 Ascription of Suda 438 to Diodorus has much to recommend it on a priori grounds. In contrast to the narratives of Polybius, Appian and Cassius Dio, the section of Diodorus’ work dealing with the Hannibalic War (Books 26–7) survives only as insubstantial textual wreckage salvaged from the Excerpta Constantiniana and Excerpta Hoescheliana, which preserve a few widely scattered fragments, mostly short and deprived of context, from which a coherent picture cannot be reconstructed.32 It was once hoped that an outline of these books might be dimly discerned in a skeletal résumé found in the twelfth-century historical verses of John Tzetzes, who claims Diodorus as one of his sources, but this farrago of clichés and errors cannot be claimed as a ‘fragment’ in any real sense.33 Diodorus’ account of the early phase of the war, including Hannibal’s passage into Italy and the battles of 218–216 B.C., has entirely perished. Of the four candidates, therefore, only Diodorus provides a suitable lacuna into which our fragment might be inserted. Furthermore, insofar as the brevity of the Suda entry permits analysis of vocabulary and style, Diodorus’ authorship is supported by comparative lexical evidence 28 For citations of Polybius in the Suda see De Boor (n. 5 [1912]), 395–7; id. (n. 5 [1914–19]), 24–7, 65–81; J. Becker, De Suidae Excerptis Historicis (Bonn, 1915), 67–71. For another example of mistaken identity: H. Valesius (n. 5), 212, assigned Suda 2062 (Adler 1.186.1–2) to Polybius (now [fr. 106]), an ascription retained for two centuries until T. Gaisford (ed.), Suidae Lexicon (Oxford, 1834) noticed that the entry is in fact Diod. 14.10.3. 29 Cassius Dio apud Zonar. 8.23 (Dindorf 2.238–40); the only reference to elephants in this period is the crossing of the Rhône (239.18–19). 30 For citations of Diodorus in the Suda see J. Becker (n. 28), 47–55; De Boor (n. 5 [1914–19]), 90–1; A. Alder, ‘Suidas (Lexikograph)’, RE 4A.1 (1932), 675–717, at 702; Chamoux and Bertrac (1993), cxxxviii–cxl. The lower number of citations from Diodorus, in any case, is not accounted for by the amount of material available to the compiler of the Suda: in the extant Excerpta Constantiniana Diodorus is represented by 949 excerpts drawn from all 40 books, see Chamoux and Bertrac (1993), cxxxiv–cxxxvii. 31 See Appendix 32 Goukowsky, Fragments II, 166 estimates that Book 26 covered the decade from the crossing of the Alps to the battle of the Metaurus (218–207 B.C.) 33 Diod. 25.19 (Walton) = J. Tzetzes, Historiarum Variarum Chiliades, ed. P.A.M. Leone (Naples, 1968), 1.703–808 (Hist. 27), citing (703–4) Diodorus, Cassius Dio and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. The Alpine crossing occupies just two lines (749–50), with no mention of elephants. This summary appears to be Tzetzes’ own construct, written from memory rather than quotation, and with major blunders (e.g. Cannae follows Metaurus). Goukowsky, Fragments II, 140–1 excludes most of the text.

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from other parts of his Bibliotheca. First, the non-technical vocabulary of the fragment keenly favours Diodorus, certainly over Polybius. This is best illustrated with the . The word , final clause here meaning ‘passage’ or ‘march’, is found nowhere in Polybius, once in Appian’s Hannibalica and once in Cassius Dio. In contrast, is a standard element of Diodorus’ vocabulary, occurring 51 times.34 More conclusively, among these passages of Diodorus is one instance of a similarly made (4.19.4) and another of (12.12.3).35 These coincidences of vocabulary do not occur in the other three historians, or indeed in any classical author other than Diodorus. Second, when we turn to technical vocabulary the pattern is yet more revealing. We have already observed that it was the terminus technicus that attracted the interest of the compiler of the Suda, and the various definitions of this term have been discussed. With the meaning ‘turret’ or ‘parapet’ on a war-elephant, however, is an exceptionally rare usage, both inherently and relative to , the only term employed in this context by Polybius and other Hellenistic authors. Indeed is attested with this sense in only three other instances, two of which occur in Diodorus.36 The three passages will be discussed in detail. (1) Within an excursus on the history of Assyria and Media (2.1–34), Diodorus provides an account of an Assyrian invasion of India led by Semiramis (2.16.4–19.10), an entirely fictional episode the historicity of which was doubted even in antiquity (cf. Strabo 15.1.5–6). Diodorus relates the response of the Indian ruler Stabrobates when informed of the enemy’s preparations: (8) (‘having conducted a hunt for wild elephants and multiplied by many times the number already at his disposal, he fitted them all out splendidly with such things as would strike terror in war; and the consequence was that during their attack, on account of their large number and the fact that they had been furnished with turrets, they appeared like something beyond the power of human nature to withstand’, 2.17.7–8). Diodorus’ chief source for this tale was Ctesias of Cnidus (Lenfant F 1 = FGrH 688 F 1), whom he cites eleven times, and whose Persica (written shortly after 398/7 B.C.) he almost certainly knew directly; or at least no convincing case has been made for a Zwischenquelle.37 Semiramis’ theatrical attempt to counter the Indian ruler’s 34 Diod. 2.6.6, 54.2, 7; 3.17.3, 72.4; 4.19.4, 22.5, 23.1; 5.29.1; 11.56.4, 74.2, 75.2, 80.1; 12.12.3; 13.89.3, 112.5; 14.19.9, 26.4, 5, 27.2, 28.2, 47.5; 15.53.2; 16.17.5, 31.3, 42.1, 84.5; 17.4.4, 24.2, 32.3, 53.3, 65.2, 94.2, 106.1; 18.59.3; 19.5.3, 19.1, 21.2, 24.5, 26.5, 31.2, 38.5, 80.2; 20.29.7, 42.2; 22.10.1; 29.23.1; 33.14.4; 34/5.2.28, 4.1, 8.1. Cf. App. Hann. 40; Cassius Dio 56.20.3. 35 Diod. 4.19.4: ; 12.12.3: . 36 Goukowsky (1972) passim fails to appreciate the rarity of this usage of and erroneously employs it as if it were widely used vocabulary; similarly Scullard (1974), 240–2; Charles (2008). 37 Ctesias F1b (§§16–19). Fragments of Ctesias are cited after D. Lenfant (ed., French trans. and comm.), Ctésias de Cnide, La Perse, l’Inde, autres fragments ([Budé] Paris, 2004). Date of the Persica: F. Jacoby, ‘Ktesias1’, RE 1.9 (1922), 2032–73, at 2034–6; Lenfant (ed.), xviii, xxii–xxv. For Diodorus’ use of Ctesias see Bigwood (1980), citing earlier bibliography. Diodorus’ direct knowledge of the Persica was demonstrated at length by P. Krumbholz, ‘Diodors’ assyrische Geschichte’, RhM 41 (1886), 321–41; id., ‘Zu den Assyriaka des Ktesias’, 50 (1895), 205–40; 52 (1897), 237–85; endorsed and supplemented by Bigwood (1980), 196–9.

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elephants is a central theme that runs through the story of her expedition, and there is no doubt that the elephants themselves are an original element of Ctesias’ narrative.38 There are very good reasons, however, for thinking that Diodorus did not find the reference to turrets ( ) in Ctesias’ work but inserted this detail himself. Diodorus substantially altered the style and content of his source, and supplemented the Persica with his own remarks as well as material drawn from other authorities.39 Although he occasionally allows his model to influence his language, Diodorus’ narrative is for the most part framed in his own choice of vocabulary and little can be reconstructed of Ctesias’ original wording. This is certainly the case with the current passage, in which a stereotypical battle account has been fashioned from words and phrases favoured by Diodorus elsewhere in his work.40 Furthermore, Diodorus’ interpolations are sometimes betrayed by details that must post-date Ctesias’ era or conflict with the extant fragments of his works. The most glaring anachronisms involve the unhistorical retrojection of military technology: hence the Assyrians have at their disposal stone-throwing artillery ( ) which was first developed in the Greek world in the mid fourth century B.C., and was thus unknown even in Ctesias’ day.41 In this context, it is widely accepted that throughout the Indian subcontinent in 38 Diod. 2.16.8–17.8, 18.6–6. Cf. Suda 220 (Adler 4.339) for another account of Semiramis and the elephants, which must also derive from Ctesias (though omitted by Lenfant ed. [2004]), on which see P. Krumbholz (n. 37 [1897]), 279–80. There are three other references to elephants in Ctesias’ Persica and Indica: (1) autopsy of an elephant with its Indian trainer at Babylon: Ctesias F 45b = Ael. NA 17.29, cf. 5.55 (cf. Aristotle, HA 9.1.610a22–4); see J.M. Bigwood, ‘Ctesias’ description of Babylon’, AJAH 3 (1978), 32–52, at 32–3; id., ‘Aristotle and the elephant again’, AJPh 114.4 (1993), 537–55, at 542–3. (2) Military applications of elephants in India: Ctesias F 45b = Ael. NA 17.29; Ctesias F 45.7 = Photius, Bibl. 72.45a (cf. Aristotle, HA 9.1.610a15–22), with Lenfant (ed.), 187, 319–22, n. 890; Goukowsky (1972), 474–5; K. Karttunen, India in Early Greek Literature ([Studia Orientalia 65] Helsinki, 1989), 63, n. 460; id., India and the Hellenistic World ([Studia Orientalia 83] Helsinki, 1997), 188. (3) Cyrus encounters elephants during a campaign against the Derbices: Ctesias F 9.7 = Photius, Bibl. 72.36b. 39 Bigwood (1980), 199–200. The most detailed study of Diodorus’ style is J. Palm, Über Sprache und Stil des Diodoros von Sizilien. Ein Beitrag zur Beleuchtung der hellenistischen Prosa (Lund, 1955), though his demonstrations do not include the section examined here. For Diodorus’ other named sources: Cleitarchus cited at Diod. 2.7.3 (= FGrH 137 F 10); an unknown Athenaeus at Diod. 2.20.3–5; see J.M. Bigwood (n. 38 [1978]), 45, n. 11; id. (1980), 199, n. 20, 202–3, 205–6; J. Boncquet, Diodorus Siculus (II,1–34) over Mesopotamië: Een historische kommentaar ([Verhandelingen van de koninklijke academie voor wetenschappen, letteren en schone kunsten van België. Klasse der letteren 122] Brussels, 1987), 75–7. 40 For Diodorus’ stereotyped battle-pieces see C. Vial (ed.), Diodore Livre XV ([Budé] Paris, 1977), xx–xii. The account of the battle between Semiramis and Stabrobates features vocabulary typical of Diodorus, especially and its cognates (2.16.3, 8; 2.17.7, 19.4). See J. Palm (n. 39), 167; Bigwood (1980), 201. G. Goossens, ‘L’Histoire d’Assyrie de Ctésias’, AntCl 9 (1940), 25–45, at 41–2 discerns in the engagement between Semiramis and Stabrobates (2.19) the dynamics of a Hellenistic battle. 41 Diod. 2.27.1. See G. Goossens (n. 40), 43; Bigwood (1980), 204–5; J. Boncquet (n. 39), 164–5. For Diodorus’ interest in the technical aspects of warfare see Chamoux and Bertrac (1993), li–liv; for artillery in particular see now H.M. Schellenberg, ‘Diodor von Sizilien 14,42,1 und die Erfindung der Artillerie im Mittelmeerraum, Frankfurter elektronische Rundschau zur Altertumskunde 3 (2006), 14–23 (http://www.fera-journal.eu). Similarly, Diod. 2.16.4 comments that the Indian elephant is larger than the African, a fact of which Ctesias was almost certainly ignorant, see J.S. Romm, ‘Aristotle’s elephant and the myth of Alexander’s scientific patronage’, AJP 110.4 (1989), 566–75, at 574–5; J.M. Bigwood (n. 38 [1993]), 543, n. 31, 550, n. 66; see further discussion see n. 60 below. Diodorus’ account of Semiramis’ Indian campaign refers to post-Ctesias events: 2.5.6 (Dionysius of Syracuse), 5.7 (Punic Wars), 17.3 (Perseus of Macedon). See also anachronistic geographical terminology reflecting Seleucid rather than Ctesian (i.e. Achaemenid) usage: Bigwood (1980), 200–1. It has also been observed that Diodorus’ treatment

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the late fifth / early fourth century B.C., and probably much later still, war-elephants were not furnished with turrets or howdahs and so, even granting that Semiramis’ expedition is an unhistorical fantasy, this equipment simply could not have been mentioned by Ctesias or his Persian informants. Accordingly, all modern commentators concur that the on Stabrobates’ elephants are Diodorus’ own invention inspired by Hellenistic practices.42 (2) In an account of Alexander’s victory on the River Hydapses in 326 B.C., Diodorus describes how the rajah Porus was heavily wounded and attempted to withdraw his elephant from the fighting (17.88.6). The text of Diodorus 17 depends on two manuscript prototypes which at this point preserve different readings. Parisinus gr. 1666 (= R) reads: , ‘having lost much blood on account of the multitude of his wounds, he fainted and, slumping over the parapet, sank to the ground’. Directly above occurs the word written in the same hand. It cannot be determined whether it was the copyist of R himself who first inserted this supralinear variant or whether he mechanically reproduced what he found in his exemplar, though in either case its presence surely expresses a Byzantine editor’s doubt or incomprehension of the word in the main text.43 In Mediceo-Laurentianus gr. 70–12 (= F), however, the sole family II manuscript to contain Diodorus 17, one reads only . Editorial choice of variant therefore determines whether the enfeebled Porus fainted and tumbled over ‘the parapet’ on his elephant or, in the absence of a turret, merely slumped over ‘the beast’ itself. The reading was preferred by Henri Estienne in the editio princeps (1559) and retained by all subsequent editors, including the influential edition of Peter Wesseling (1745), even though he stressed in his commentary the superior merits of .44 Goukowsky has especially pressed the case for , arguing that a turret is not mentioned by the other authors who, like Diodorus, drew on the so-called ‘Vulgate’ or Cleitarchan tradition for this episode.45 Moreover, Goukowsky conof Assyrian and Median history (2.1–34) contains psychological characterization of individuals consistent with moralizing stereotypes found elsewhere in his Bibliotheca, which cannot therefore be authentic elements of Ctesias’ Persica, see Bigwood (1980), 202. 42 Goukowsky (1972), 475 with n. 10; Scullard (1974), 35–6, 241; J.M. Bigwood (n. 38 [1993]), 243, n. 31; Lenfant (ed.), 45, n. 229 (F1b §17.8). For the howdah in ancient India see n. 55 below. 43 Goukowsky (1972), 473 asserts that in R the reading ‘ est indiscutablement une variante de premier main, que le plus proche parent connu de R, le Vaticanus 132, donne lui aussi selon la même disposition’. Vaticanus gr. 132 (= Y) cannot be used to illuminate the textual history of this variant in R, however, because Y is a fifteenth-century apograph of R and not an independent witness, as Goukowsky seems to believe here and reiterates, more guardedly, at Goukowsky, Diodore XVII, xlix. For the orthodox view of these codices see Chamoux and Bertrac (1993), cii–cv, cix–cx, with stemma codicum at cxxi. 44 See most recently Goukowsky, Diodore XVII, 123–4. See P. Wesselingius (ed.), Diodori Siculi Bibliothecae Historicae Libri Qui Supersunt (Amsterdam, 1745), 2.229.18–19, ‘Quis controversiam his movisset, nisi veteres membranae ansam praeberent? , quod ostentant, non plane incongruum est … Itaque id si reliquit Auctor, indicabitur Porum … ex ea machina in terram versum corruisse. Nihil tamen decerno, quod & vulgatum tueri se possit’. 45 Goukowsky (1972), 473–4. Cf. Curt. 8.14.31. The Vulgate tradition did, however, envisage Porus’ elephants themselves as ‘towers’ within the metaphorical ‘rampart’ formed by the Indian infantry: Diod. 17.87.5: ; Curt. 8.14.13: Beluae dispositae inter armatos speciem turrium procul fecerant; Polyaenus, Strat. 4.3.22:

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vincingly demonstrates, albeit by an argumentum e silentio, that war-elephants were not equipped with turrets or howdahs of any kind in the Punjab or (before c. 300–280 B.C.) in the armies of the Diadochi, who initially obtained their elephants and elephant-handling techniques from north-western India. Rather, elephants in this region and period were manned either by a mahout alone or assisted by a single spearor sarissa-armed ‘rider’ ( ) sitting astride the animal’s back.46 Goukowsky concludes that if Diodorus did write it could only have been a slip of his pen, a prospect he deems unlikely, and so he prefers to discern in this reading ‘une correction due à un grammairien trop érudit’. Goukowsky’s remarks on the Vulgate tradition and the contemporary utilisation of war-elephants are not disputed here, but their relevance and value in resolving this particular textual crux are illusory. In particular, Goukowsky’s appeal to the Realien of Indian warfare in the late fourth century B.C. is both unnecessary and irrelevant; it is Diodorus’ opinion that matters. The previously cited passage of Diodorus 2.17.8 (as §1) demonstrates beyond doubt that the first-century B.C. historian believed, however inaccurately or anachronistically, that ancient Indian war-elephants were furnished with turrets; that he was disposed to interpolate this technical detail into his source material, and that the very word he used to denominate this item of equipment was the exceptionally rare term .47 One may also legitimately doubt whether even the most erudite and meticulous of Byzantine scribes, upon encountering in the current passage, would have found reason to distrust this unexceptionable , which can reading and conjectured instead the recherché classical usage only be considered the lectio difficilior and thus the less likely of the two readings to be Byzantine scribal surmise. Goukowsky’s explanation is in any case incompatible with the codicological evidence: the configuration of the variant readings and in R leaves no doubt that, whoever was responsible, the supralinear must have been the later insertion into an exemplar that originally read only , and not vice versa.48 Furthermore, upon closer inspection the competing claims of codices R and F prove to be no contest at all: the mid-tenth-century R is more often a more reliable witness than the fifteenth-century F; a perusal of Goukowsky’s apparatus for Diodorus 17.88 reveals that of the eighteen other divergent readings in R and F in this chapter, R is correct in seventeen instances, the sole exception being a minor orthographic variant.49 Indeed, it may even be doubted ; it is true that in F the text whether F is an independent witness to the reading (cf. Livy 28.14.4 for a similar metaphorical usage). For the vexed question of the Vulgate tradition see selectively J.R. Hamilton, ‘Cleitarchus and Diodorus 17’, in K.H. Kinzl (ed), Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean in Ancient History and Prehistory. Studies presented to Fritz Schachermeyr on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday (Berlin–New York, 1977), 126–46; N.G.L. Hammond, Three Historians of Alexander the Great: The So-Called Vulgate Authors, Diodorus, Justin, and Curtius (Cambridge, 1983); L. Prandi, Fortuna è realtà dell’ opera di Clitarco ([Historia Einzelschriften 104] Stuttgart, 1996). 46 Goukowsky (1972), 474–92, 497–8; summarized by Scullard (1974), 240–2. 47 Aside from the word , these two passages of Diodorus share typically Diodoran descriptive vocabulary: 2.16.2: ; 2.17.7: ( ) ; 17.87.4: . 48 Note also that the only other instance of a supralinear ‘correction’ in this section of R is manifestly wrong and conflicts with the common reading in both R and F: 17.89.5 RF : Rsl. 49 Goukowsky, Diodore XVII, 122–4 app. crit. The exception is 17.88.4 F: - R.

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of Diodorus 17–20 derives independently from a majuscule archetype and thus embodies an authentic tradition, but the text has been modified by a late Byzantine editor in a process of recension that involved, inter alia, introducing corrections from other manuscripts, including R. The editor of F would therefore have been aware of the two variants and in R, and the presence of in F is just as likely to be a product of his editing as a genuine tradition from .50 Accordingly, the stylistic, lexical and codicological evidence, individually and cumulatively, overwhelmingly favours against , regardless of whatever wider historical thesis Goukowsky seeks to present. (3) The third and only non-Diodoran instance occurs in a fragment of the Indica of Megasthenes preserved in Aelian’s De natura animalium 13.9: {**}

, ‘The chariot also carries two crewmen. The war-elephant, on what is called the “turret”, or, by Jove, on his bare and unencumbered back, carries three warriors, {of whom two} shoot to either side, and the third at the rear, while a fourth man carries in his hand the goad with which he controls the beast, much in the same way as a pilot and ship’s captain control a ship’.51 The same passage of Megasthenes underlies a much more abbreviated report in Strabo’s Geographica: , ‘There are two crewmen in the chariot in addition to the driver, while the driver of the elephant is one of four, with three others shooting bows from it’.52 Again the text is problematic. In his Indica Megasthenes reported his observations during an embassy to Patâliputra, capital of the Mauryan Empire, during the reign of Chandragupta, a journey conventionally placed c. 304/3 B.C., but conceivably dating to any point c. 319/18–288 B.C.53 The fuller text in Aelian states that a Mauryan elephant crew normally comprised three archers plus a mahout, and that some sort of turret or howdah ( ) was one option in combat, alternative to all four men perching on the elephant’s back and shoulders. Goukowsky influentially dismissed the reference to a as Aelian’s interpolation, noting that this detail is not found in Strabo’s version, and again stressing the otherwise heavy silence of both literary and representational sources with regard 50 See F. Bizière (ed. and French trans.), Diodore de Sicile, Livre XIX ([Budé] Paris, 1975), xx–xxii; Chamoux and Bertrac (1993) ciii–cv, cxxi, cxxxvi–cxxxvii, who characterize F as ‘résultat d’un travail philologique tardif’ (civ). 51 Aelian, NA 13.9, ed. R. Hercher (Leipzig, 1864; repr. Graz, 1971) 323.13–20 (with app. crit. at xlv) = E.A. Schwanbeck (ed.), Megasthenis Indica (Bonn, 1846; repr. Amsterdam, 1966), F 35.4 = Müller FHG 2.431 F 36a. It is mystifying why Jacoby FGrH 715 omits this fragment, yet allows Strabo 15.1.52 = F 31 (see following note). Jacoby’s inconsistency caused unjustified doubts concerning ‘uncertainty of origin’ in Scullard (1974), 241. 52 Strabo 15.1.52 = Megasthenes: Schwanbeck F 34.15 = Müller FHG 2.431 F 36a = Jacoby, FGrH 715 F 31 (3 C.2 634.12–14). 53 See A.B. Bosworth, ‘The historical setting of Megasthenes’ Indica’, CPh 91.2 (1996), 113–27, who remarks on the fragility of the traditional date of 304/3 B.C. and argues for earlier contact, though, in my view, the bureaucratic system Megasthenes describes is more suggestive of the Mauryan Empire in its well-established phase. The terminus ante quem is the death of Chandragupta in 288 B.C. For a summary of earlier scholarship see A. Zambrini, ‘Gli Indika di Megasthene’, ASNP3 12 (1982), 71–149; 15 (1985), 781–853; K. Karttunen (n. 38 [1997]), 70–94.

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to the use of howdahs in India and the Hellenistic world before c. 300–280 B.C., around when, Goukowsky contends, elephant turrets or carriages were first devised in the West, probably by or for Pyrrhus in Epirus (and presumably transmitted back to India at some later date or developed there independently).54 The complex problem of the origin and diffusion of the howdah awaits definitive discussion, which will not be attempted here, but I note that the Indian sources are more complicated and equivocal than Goukowsky allows, and his thesis runs the risk of homogenizing the evidence for elephant warfare across a vast and diverse subcontinent.55 Furthermore, the intertextual case for Aelian’s interpolation of content is , weak – Strabo’s version is in every way more cursory and the absence of a or indeed any explanation of how the crew was mounted, is just one of several respects in which Strabo’s account is deficient. Scullard endorsed Goukowsky’s contention that ‘the mention of towers could well be an addition by Aelian himself on the basis of its (sic) frequent mention by Hellenistic writers whom he knew’, but, like in this context – Goukowsky, Scullard failed to appreciate the rarity of is the only word for an elephant ‘turret’ or ‘howdah’ documented in given that Greek sources other than Diodorus, it is difficult to divine in which ‘Hellenistic writers’ Aelian would have found this obscure usage?56 The evidence does not admit a simple solution. On the one hand, Aelian (c. A.D. 175–235) was a consummate rhetorician whose stylistic interests created opportunities for interpolation. Comparison with other Megasthenes-derived sources reveals that, while Aelian preserved some of the wording of his model, there can be no doubt that the received text of this fragment also reflects his own idiomatic tastes.57 If not might have arisen from Aelian’s known Megasthenian, the reference to a predilection for archaic or recherché vocabulary.58 If this be the case, it is possible that 54 Goukowsky (1972), esp. 488–9. He does not consider what possible counter-current/s might have carried this allegedly Greek innovation in elephant tactics back to the source of the elephants. Goukowsky’s view is accepted by Scullard (1974), 241–2. 55 Indologists have observed that other apparent discrepancies in the Greek sources for ancient Indian elephantry may be resolved by the simple realization that customs and techniques varied across India; in particular, the petty dynasties and aristocratic polities of the western Punjab and Indus valley, as observed by the authors who accompanied Alexander in 327–6 B.C., differed in significant respects from the centralized bureaucracy and powerful state-funded standing army of the Mauryan Empire, as described by Megasthenes. See T.R. Trautmann, ‘Elephants and the Mauryas’, in S.N. Mukherjee (ed.), India. History and Thought. Essays in Honour of A.L. Basham (Calcutta, 1982), 254–81, esp. 254–60. The very fact that Megasthenes states (on the combined testimony of Aelian and Strabo) that a Mauryan war-elephant carried a four-man crew should at least alert us to the likelihood that the military practices of the Gangetic plain differed from the mahoutmodel Goukowsky discerns in north-western India. The Indian sources do not permit firm conclusions concerning the early history of the howdah, see remarks and older bibliography in D. Singh, Ancient Indian Warfare with Special Reference to the Vedic period (Leiden, 1965), 75, 78–84; S.K. Bhakari, Indian Warfare: An Appraisal of Strategy and Tactics of War in the Early Medieval Period (New Delhi, 1981), 62–9; G.N. Pant, Horse and Elephant Armour (Delhi, 1997), 107–11 (to be read with caution). 56 Scullard (1974), 241–2, see n. 36 above. 57 The phrase , for example, certainly belongs to Aelian, cf. NA 1.29.4; 5.16.9; 6.53.9; 11.15.3; 12.6.7, 15.6; 14.10.3, 26.41; 17.11.14; ep. rust. 18. With equal certainty, however, other vocabulary can be deemed the authentic wording of Megasthenes, e.g. ; see analysis by B.C.J. Timmer, Megasthenes en de Indische Maatschappij (Amsterdam, 1930), 156–7, 164–7. 58 Note, for example, that Ael. NA 13.9, 22 is the only author to use the word with the sense of an ‘elephant-goad’ or ankus. The same term may possibly be discerned in a garbled lemma in Hesych. Lex. 399 (ed. K. Latte 1.17):

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Aelian’s choice of over owes nothing to earlier Hellenistic histories, as Scullard reasoned, but is a purely metaphorical allusion inspired by his comparison with the sense of a gunwale of the elephant to a ship and the attested use of , ‘the or crow’s-nest.59 The epexegetical construction so-called “turret” ’, at least implies Aelian’s awareness that he is dealing with arcane in jargon. On the other hand, proponents of the Megasthenian pedigree of Aelian might find modest support in the occurrence of the same usage in Diodorus’ Bibliotheca. Of all the historians who refer to elephant turrets Diodorus is distinctive and he alone used Megasthenes’ in two respects: he alone employs the term Indica as a source. More specifically, Diodorus amplified his primarily Ctesias-based account of Semiramis’ invasion of India (2.16–17) by inserting additional Indiarelated material drawn from the same sources as he later exploited for his main treatment of India (2.35–42); these sources included Megasthenes.60 The exclusive terminological concurrence between Aelian and Diodorus, therefore, opens the from Megaspossibility that both authors imported this atypical usage of thenes, though uncertainty about the nature and extent of Diodorus’ familiarity with the Indica means that this line of reasoning cannot advance beyond conjecture.61

. It is pointed out by R. Goossens, ‘Gloses indiennes dans le Lexique d’Hésychius’, AntCl 12 (1943), 47–55, at 52–3, that must result from negligent copying; he suggests a conflation of (cf. Sanskrit anka, ankusa), though LJS9 1256, s.v. consider another possibility. For alternative terminology cf. Aristotle, HA 9.1.610a28: ; App. Pun. 7.43: . 59 See n. 22 above. 60 At 2.16.3 Diodorus briefly introduces the reader to India insofar as this background is required for narrating Semiramis’ expedition. This survey was not in Ctesias, but closely resembles and anticipates Diodorus’ main description of India at 2.35.3, see P. Krumbholz, ‘Wiederholungen bei Diodor’, RhM 44 (1889), 286–98, at 293–6; Bigwood (1980), 206; J. Boncquet (n. 39), 114–15; Lenfant (ed.), 43, n. 222 (F 1b §16.3–4). Similarly, the account of Semiramis’ invasion plan at Diod. 2.16.4 prompts the observation that Indian elephants are larger than African, a fact unknown to Ctesias (see n. 41 above) which Diodorus drew from the same source as he used for his main account of India at 2.35.4 (cf. also 42.1). The verbal parallels leave no doubt that the same source lies behind this doublet: Diod. 2.16.4: ; 2.35.4: . Diodorus’ source for this statement cannot be identified with certainty, as several authors appear to have made similar remarks. Onesicritus expressed this view (cf. Strabo 15.1.43), though the data on elephants at Diod. 2.42 in every other respect conflict with the fragments of Onesicritus (FGrH 134 F 14). Megasthenes remains a more likely possibility, as Jacoby, FGrH 2B.2 474 avers, though in his collection of the fragments of the Indica he puzzlingly admits only Diod. 2.35.4 (715 F 4) but omits the identical Diod. 2.16.4. Jacoby’s inconsistency led Scullard (1974), 60 with n. 29 into some confusion. 61 The optimistic view of early scholarship (E.A. Schwanbeck [n. 51], 57–8, 85–93) that Diodorus 2.35–42 is a straightforward epitome of Megasthenes’ Indica has been abandoned. This whole section is included by Jacoby FGrH 715 as Megasthenes F 4, but printed in small type in recognition of the lack of explicit attribution. It is generally accepted that Diodorus’ treatment of India draws (directly or indirectly) on Megasthenes, but that he also took India-related material from (an)other Hellenistic source(s) (possibly Onesicritus via Cleitarchus). The subject would benefit from reappraisal, see P. Krumbholz (n. 60), 293–6; Jacoby FGrH 3.C.2 606 app. crit.; B.C.J. Timmer (n. 57), 19–21; O. Stein, ‘Megasthenes’, RE 1.29 (1931), 230–326, at 267–71; T.S. Brown, ‘The merits and weaknesses of Megasthenes’, Phoenix 11 (1957), 12–24, at 15–18, 21–2; R.C. Majumdar, ‘The Indika of Megasthenes’, JAOS 78 (1958), 273–6; K.D. Sethna, ‘Rejoinder to R.C. Majumdar’, JAOS 80 (1960), 243–8; R.C. Majumdar, ‘The Surrejoinder to K.D. Sethna’, JAOS 80 (1960). 248–50; K. Karttunen (n. 38 [1997]), 73.

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To summarize: the textual history of the Suda requires that 438 must derive from one of four authors: Polybius, Appian, Cassius Dio or Diodorus. All the evidence – historical, textual, stylistic, lexical – supports the view that this is a fragment of Diodorus. His Bibliotheca offers by far the most likely lacuna; the non-technical vocabulary of the fragment exhibits close verbal coincidences with Diodorus’ extant text, and with no other work; and, of the four candidates, the rare usage of in the sense of a ‘turret’ or ‘parapet’ on a elephant is unique to, and even diagnostic of, Diodorus, and marks him out from all the Hellenistic historians who universally . Indeed, even if the field were not denominate this equipment using the word limited to these four historians, Diodorus would still be the most likely suspect. I conclude with some brief remarks concerning the potential historical significance of Suda 438 and the possible source that ultimately underlies this anecdote about Hannibal. It is well known that in war the Indian elephant (Elephas maximus) can be furnished with a turret or howdah, if required, but whether this was the case with the smaller African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) used by Ptolemaic, Carthaginian and Numidian armies has long been controversial.62 The most recent and comprehensive review of the evidence concurs with the majority of earlier scholarship that African forest elephants did not ordinarily carry turrets, though this view necessarily entails an argument from silence, which is occasionally broken by awkward testimony to the contrary that can only be discounted by special pleading.63 The positive evidence for specifically Carthaginian use of elephant turrets is undeniably slight, but even those studies which argue a negative case concede the possibility of the exceptional use of turrets in a variety of contexts – ceremonial, propagandistic or poliorcetic.64 62 For the different species see Scullard (1974), 15–31, 60–3; R. Sukumar, The Living Elephants: Evolutionary Ecology, Behavior and Conservation (Oxford, 2003), 45–6, 52–4; Charles and Rhodan (2007), 364–7. 63 See now Charles (2008), who essentially affirms the views of Scullard (1948); (1974), 240–5. Problematic for the negative case are explicit references to elephanti turriti of Juba I of Numidia in 46 B.C. in B.Afr. 30.2, 41.2, cf. 86.1 (elephantosque LXIIII ornatos armatosque cum turribus ornamentisque). The author of B.Afr was contemporary, well informed and conversant with military technicalia, while his sparse Caesarian diction is free of gratuitous literary embellishment, see most recently M. Müller, Das Bellum Africum: Ein historisch-philologischer Kommentar der Kapitel 1–47 (Diss. Trier, 2001), 33–46, with an ample bibliography. A coin of Juba II, dated A.D. 21/2, depicts an unambiguously African elephant bearing a turret, see J. Mazard, Corpus Nummorum Numidiae Mauretaniaeque (Paris, 1955), 103, no. 276, with pl. at 247; Scullard (1974), pl. 23.j. Also of possible relevance here is a fragment of Juba II’s writings on elephants (FGrH 275 F 50), which alleges that the ‘Libyans’ in the past branded some war-elephants by engraving the symbol of a tower ( ) on their tusks. See also Polyb. 5.84.2–7, where elephants deployed by Ptolemy IV at the battle of Raphia in 217 B.C. expressly carry turrets, though one school of thought has sought to explain away this evidence by inferring that Ptolemy fielded a force of predominantly (unturreted) African elephants supplemented by a small number of turreted Indian beasts, and postulating Ptolemaic access to and/or breeding of the Indian species, see Gowers and Scullard (1950), 272–7; Scullard (1974), 143–4; and now M.B. Charles, ‘Elephants at Raphia: reinterpreting Polybius 5.84–5’, CQ 57 (2007), 306–11. 64 The testimony of Lucr. 5.1302–4; Sil. Pun. 4.599; 9.239–40, 577–8; 17.621; Juv. 12.110 can be safely disregarded as poetic embroidery. Scullard assembles the meagre representational evidence for certain or probable Hannibalic elephants equipped with towers: (1) small silver coins rev. depicting turreted elephant (species uncertain) probably issued by rebel Campanian cities post-216 B.C.; (2) a phiale from Cales in Campania; (3) a terracotta figure from Pompeii (insecurely dated). See Gowers and Scullard (1950), 278–9, pl. 16b; Scullard (1974), 170–1, 176–7, 243 with pls. 10.a–b, 22.h. On this basis Scullard (1948), 161–2 and n. 9 denies Carthaginian use of towers, but at 166 allows exceptional circumstances; repeated at Scullard (1974), 243, with a chronological qualification: ‘it is safer to believe that the Carthaginians in their earlier use of elephants did not encumber them with towers … [N]evertheless some archaeological evidence

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Once it is admitted that African forest elephants not only could but sometimes did carry turrets, residual objections on the grounds of the perceived physical inferiority of the species become doubtful.65 That being the case, regardless of whether the turrets were, in the event, employed frequently or exceptionally, they would still have to be transported when a Carthaginian army took the field, rather than improvised on campaign, and presumably the elephants themselves were the best vehicles for this load. It has been conjectured that after 215 B.C. Hannibal may have had at his disposal some (or at least one) Indian elephants, allegedly supplied to Carthage by Ptolemy IV (221–205/4 B.C.), who had captured Seleucid (Indian) elephants at Raphia in 217 B.C.; according to this view, any reference to turreted elephants after this date could relate instead to the Indian species. The tissue-thin evidence for this hypothesis hardly compels, however, and Romano-Egyptian friendship throughout the Second Punic War appears at least to rule out Ptolemy IV as a supplier of precious Indian elephants to Rome’s enemy.66 Consequently, acceptance of the historicity of the episode reported in Suda 438 controverts only those previous studies which dogmatically contend that African forest elephants were never, in any circumstances, furnished with turrets, a position which hardly seems tenable. It was demonstrated above that both instances of in Diodorus (2.17.8; 17.88.6) are his own interpolation of an unhistorical detail that was not present in his and source. This does not appear to be the case at Suda 438, in which are not mere descriptive embellishment but intrinsic and integral elements of the account, and it is overwhelmingly unlikely that this technical distinction, and thus the entire episode, is the invention of Diodorus; in short, he is the conduit not the source. It has also been suggested that this incident derives ultimately from eyewitness testimony, most probably Carthaginian, and possibly with military expertise. This begs the obvious question whether Diodorus could have had access to such information. Although Diodorus’ account of the Second Punic War survives as a few isolated fragments that merely hint at the content and arrangement of lost Books 26–7, exhaustive Quellenanalyse has established some possible sources. While detailed interpretations differ, it has long been recognized that comparison of the remains of Diodorus with other extant sources permits two basic conclusions: first, for this does suggest that towers were carried on occasion during the Hannibalic War’. Charles and Rhodan (2007), 366–8 similarly nuance a generally negative argument: ‘(368) we assume … that African elephants used in warfare by Carthage were not equipped with turrets (at least in pitched battles)’. More positive is Goukowsky (1972), 490, n. 67, ‘Il semble que les Carthaginois n’aient équipé que tardivement leurs éléphants de tours, mais il est certain qu’une partie au moins de ceux d’Hannibal étaient ainsi armés’. Other opinions, both scholarly and amateur, are assembled by Charles and Rhodan (2007), 366 with n. 19. 65 To my knowledge, this proposition originates in W. Gowers, ‘African elephants and ancient authors’, African Affairs 47 [188] (1948), 173–80, at 179; repeated with minor rewording in Scullard (1948), 161–2; (1974), 242; similarly de Beer (n. 16), 104; J.F. Lazenby, ‘Elephants’, OCD3, 520; id., Hannibal’s War: A Military History of the Second Punic War (Warminster, 19982), vii, 15–16. 66 The case for Hannibal’s Indian elephant(s) relies on an imaginative interpretation of inadequate numismatic and onomastic evidence, see Gowers and Scullard (1950), 277–83; H.H. Scullard, ‘Ennius, Cato, and Surus’, CR (N.S.) 3 (1953), 140–2; Scullard (1974), 170–6; F. de Visscher, ‘Une histoire d’éléphants’, AntCl 29 (1960), 51–60 at 54–5; Charles and Rhodan (2007), 366. I plan to examine this problem in a separate study. For Egypt’s official neutrality and actual assistance to Rome during the Second Punic War see L.H. Neatby, ‘Romano-Egyptian relations during the third century BC’, TAPA 81 (1950), 89–98; A. Lampela, Rome and the Ptolemies of Egypt. The Development of their Political Relations 273–80 BC ([Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 111] Helsinki, 1998), 33–86.

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period Diodorus owes nothing to Polybius; second, numerous striking correspondences with Appian, and to a lesser degree with Livy, indicate that Diodorus’ main source for the Second Punic War was a historical work, written in Greek, which belonged to or drew on the Roman annalistic tradition. This author was certainly pre-Livian, and possibly pre-Polybian, and was peculiarly well informed about domestic politics at Carthage.67 Although opinions have differed, the most recent and comprehensive assessment of the evidence has tentatively advanced the candidature of Lucius Cincius Alimentus.68 With regard to Suda 438, this proposal is especially tantalizing. The plebeian senator L. Cincius Alimentus (c. 240–190 B.C.) wrote a history of Rome in Greek that ran from the foundation of the city to the end of the Second Punic War.69 Alimentus participated in the war against Hannibal: he commanded two legions as praetor in Sicily in 210 B.C., where he remained as propraetor in 209/8 B.C. After his return to Rome in 208 B.C., he was a member of the three-man mission sent to the consul T. Quinctius Crispinus in Capua. More significantly, Alimentus reported in his work that he had been taken prisoner by Hannibal but apparently treated with respect, and his confinement (c. 208–201 B.C.) placed him as a privileged witness to Carthaginian perspectives. During his detention he had the opportunity to converse with Hannibal himself about his previous conduct of the war. As revealed in a fragment preserved by Livy, Hannibal specifically provided Alimentus with detailed information on the Carthaginian army during its crossing of the Rhône and the Alps.70 L. Cincius Alimentus, already proposed as the chief source for Diodorus 26–7, could therefore be the source for the episode in Suda 438. Diodorus’ dependence on this annalistic tradition for his principal model does not preclude his use of supplementary material from another source(s). As a second possibility, it is interesting to note that among the fragments of Diodorus 26 is an explicit reference to a ‘Carthaginian’ account of the Second Punic War: ‘Sosylus the Lacedaemonian wrote a work about Hannibal in seven books’. The fragment supplies no context and the reference does not in itself prove that Diodorus had read this work, though it does not seem too incautious to assume that he had a good reason to mention it.71 Sosylus’ work was at least known, and possibly available, up to the early 67 H. Hesselbarth, Historisch-kritische Untersuchungen zu dritten Dekade des Titus Livius (Halle, 1889), 593–4; E. Schwartz, ‘Diodorus’, RE 1.5 (1903), 663–707, at 688–9; G. De Sanctis, Storia dei Romani 3.22 (Florence, 1968), 647–50; F. Càssola, ‘Diodoro e la storia romana’, ANRW 2.30.1 (1982), 724–73, at 763; K.S. Sacks, Diodorus and the First Century (Princeton, 1990), 131–2; C.G. Leidl, ‘Appians “Annibaike”: Aufbau, Darstellungstendenzen, Quellen’, ANRW 2.34.1 (1993), 428–62, esp. 457–9; D. Gaillard (ed. and French trans.), Appien, Livre VII. Le livre d’Annibal ([Budé] Paris, 1998), xviii–xxvii. 68 P. Goukowsky (ed. and French trans.), Appien, Livre VIII, Le livre africain ([Budé] Paris, 2001), lxxix–lxxxvii; summarized in Goukowsky, Fragments II, 148, 168. 69 For testimonia, fragments and secondary literature see M. Chassignet (ed. and French trans.), L’annalistique romaine I. Les annales des pontifes. L’annalistique ancienne (fragments) ([Budé] Paris, 2003), lxxiii–ix, 54–9; H. Beck and U. Walter (ed. and German trans.), Die frühen römischen Historiker I: Von Fabius Pictor bis Cn. Gellius ([Texte zur Forschung, Band 76. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft] Darmstadt, 20052), 137–47. 70 Livy 21.38.2–5: L. Cincius Alimentus, qui captum se ab Hannibale scribit … ex ipso autem audisse Hannibale … = F 10 Chassignet = F 10 Beck-Walter = F 7 Peter = FGrH 810 T6, F5. 71 Diod. 26. fr. a 7a (ed. Goukowsky) (= Exc. 3 Hœschel = 4 Walton = FGrH 176 Sosylus T 2):

( Hœschel) . Goukowsky, Fragments II, 168, 176 n.15 stresses that Diodorus’ reliance on or even familiarity with either Menodotus or Sosylus cannot be assumed on the basis of this notice.

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first century A.D., when Diodorus’ contemporary Cornelius Nepos also implies familiarity.72 Of the several Greek historians employed in Hannibal’s retinue Sosylus appears to have enjoyed a particulary close acquaintance with the general: he accompanied Hannibal on his campaigns, taught him Greek and wrote a seven-book history of his achievements, an eye-witness account of the Hannibalic War that would have provided a corrective to Roman historiographic traditions.73 Sosylus’ work was known to Polybius, who censures it as ‘the gossip of the barber’s shop’; this criticism need not exclude Polybius’ use of Sosylus, though this cannot be demonstrated.74 The sole surviving specimen of Sosylus’ writing, preserved on a mutilated papyrus at Würzburg, is an account of a naval battle fought between the Carthaginian and Roman-Massiliote fleets, probably at the mouth of the Ebro in 217 B.C., though the location and date are disputed. This fragment testifies, on the contrary, to his descriptive precision, detailed information and objectivity, and makes Polybius’ judgement seem at best harsh, if not malicious.75 Despite its brevity and damaged condition, the technical aspects of this battle account, and in particular Sosylus’ and the Massiliotes’ counter-manoeuvre, description of the Cathaginians’ has impressed modern readers. Although the evidence hardly substantiates the view that Sosylus served Hannibal as a military adviser, as some have conjectured, his understanding of contemporary warfare appears beyond reproach.76 I shall not press 72 Nepos, Hann. 13.3. It is not possible to discern which details, if any, Nepos might have taken from Sosylus, or even to be sure that he had direct knowledge of this work, see J. Geiger, Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography (Stuttgart, 1985), 109–11. 73 Cf. Nepos, Hann. 13.3: huius (sc. Hannibalis) belli gesta multi memoriae prodiderunt, sed ex his duo, qui cum eo in castris fuerunt simulque vixerunt, quamdiu fortuna passa est, Silenus et Sosylus Lacedaemonius. atque hoc Sosylo Hannibal litterarum Graecarum usus est doctore, ‘many writers have handed down a record of his (Hannibal’s) military achievements, but among these men there were two who were actually with him on campaign and lived with him as long as fortune permitted, Silenus and Sosylus the Lacedaemonian. It was this Sosylus whom Hannibal employed as a teacher of Greek’. For older bibliography on Sosylus see Walbank, Commentary, 1.430–31. For Greek historians in Hannibal’s entourage: V. Krings, ‘Les lettres grecque à Carthage’, in C. Baurain et al. (edd.), Phoinikeia Grammata. Lire et écrire en Méditerranée (Namur, 1991), 649–68; J. Seibert (n. 15), 11–13; D. Briquel, ‘La propagange d’Hannibal au début de la deuxième guerre punique: remarques sur les fragments de Silènos de Kalèaktè’, in Actas del IV Congreso Internacional de Estudios Fenicios y Púnicos 1 (Cadiz, 2000), 123–7; D. Briquel, ‘Sur un fragment de Silènos de Calè Actè (le songe d’Hannibal, FGrHist 175, F 8). A propos d’un article récent’, Ktema 29 (2004), 145–57; O. Devillers and V. Krings, ‘Le songe d’Hannibal. Quelques reflexions sur la tradition litteraire’, Pallas 70 (2006), 337–46. 74 Polyb. 3.20.5, on which see now V. Krings, ‘La critique de Sosylos chez Polybe III 20’, in G. Schepens and J. Bollansée (edd.), The Shadow of Polybius: Intertextuality as a Research Tool in Greek Historiography: Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Leuven, 21–22 September 2001 ([Studia Hellenistica 42] Leuven, 2005), 223–36, with earlier bibliography. 75 FGrH 176 F 1, reproduced with partial French trans. in V. Krings, Carthage et les Grecs c. 580–480 av. J.-C. Textes et histoire (Leiden–Boston–Cologne, 1998), 217–29, and again with detailed commentary in G. Schepens, ‘Die Westgriechen in antiker und modener Universalgeschichte. Kritische Überlegungen zum Sosylos-Papyrus’, in R. Kinsky (ed.), Diorthoseis. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Hellenismus und zum Nachleben Alexanders des Großen ([Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 183] Munich–Leipzig, 2004), 73–107. See also C. Ferone, ‘Il frammento di Sosilo sulla battaglia dell’Ebro del 217 a.C. (F.Gr.Hist. 176 Fr. 1)’, in M. Capasso (ed.), Papiri letterari greci e latini (Galatina, 1992), 127–39; G. Zecchini, ‘Ancora sul Papiro Würzburg e su Sosilo’, in B. Kramer et al. (edd.), Akten des 21. internationalen Papyrologenkongresses, Berlin 1995 ([AfP Beiheft 3] Stuttgart–Leipzig, 1997), 1061–7. 76 It has been speculated that Sosylus not only taught Hannibal Greek but was also a tactical adviser, a belief inspired by the statement of Veg. Epit. 3.pr.7 that in Italy Hannibal employed an unnamed ‘Lacedaemonium doctorem armorum’, see e.g. J.F. Lazenby, The Spartan Army

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the evidence further, for fear of building a house of cards, but offer L. Cincius Alimentus and Sosylus for further consideration as the ultimate source for Suda 438, with a marginal preference for the former. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

PHILIP RANCE [email protected]

APPENDIX. CITATIONS OF DIODORUS IN THE SUDA The Suda contains 44 entries derived from Diodorus via extant Excerpta Constantiniana: Diod. 8.7.6 = 308 (4.308.14–15) = EV 1.214.11–12; Diod. 8.18.1 et 19 = 1271 (4.448.21–449.7) = EV 1.215.20–216.8; Diod. 13.35.4 = 1871 (1.168.13–15) = 1596 EV 1.232.2–4; Diod. 29.17.1 (Alder 5 Ind. Auct. 75 errore 19.17.1) = (2.147.24–6) = EL 400.26–7; Diod. 19.81.3–4 = 429 (2.41.2–10) = EV 1.249.12–21; Diod. 21.17.1 = 600 (4.553.5) = EV 1.254.19; Diod. 21.17.1–3 = 602 (4.554.2–28) = EV 1.254.19–255.17; Diod. 21.17.4 [errore 21.7.14 in Adler] = 214 (3.17.20–31) = EV 1.275.18–30; Diod. 23.16 = 3393 (2.442.14–16) et 442 (4.41.25–6) = EL 406.7–10; Diod. 24.3.2 = 341 (4.33.11–14) = EV 1.260.10–16; Diod. 28.15 [errore Adler 38.15] = 2657 (2.385.21–2) = EL 398.8–9; Diod. 29.4 = 3602 (1.325.26–7) = EL 398.27–8; Diod. 29.9 = 2642 (1.234.1–4) = EL 399.33–400.2; Diod. 29.17.1 [omit Adler] = 1596 (2.147) = EL 399–401; Diod. 29.11 = 466 (4.668.7–8) = EL 400.7–8; Diod. 29.12 = 676 (3.52.2–4) = EL 400.18–20; Diod. 29.33 = 457 (4.819.11–13) = EL 401.16–18; Diod. 30.2 = 1763 (1.157.11–14) = EL 401.31–402.1; Diod. 31.5.3 = 522 (4.49.5–7) = EL 402.23–5; Diod. 31.7.2 = 3088 (1.277.1–3) = EL 403.5–7; Diod. 32.6 = 444 (4.42.17) = EL 404.31–2; Diod. 32.6.1 = 1935 (1.173.27–9) et 798 (2.75.13–15) = EL 404.27–31; Diod. 32.6.4 = 2246 (2.350.22–3) = EL 405.6–8; Diod. 33.5 = 2440 (1.217.23–5) et 4611 (1.431.4–5) = EL 405.20–3, 26–8; Diod. 33.16 = 217 (2.203.24–5) = EL 406.10–11; Diod. 33.28a–b = 316 (1.33.18–20) et 1835 (1.165.5–6) et 121 (1.455.13–14) et 8 (1.503.1–2) et 2673 (2.386.18–12) et 3533 (2.453.29–30) et 3786 (2.477.14–16) et 111 (2.609.15–17) et 865 (3.302.19–22) = EL 406.17–21, 32–407.3, 6–10, 14–19; Diod. 34/5.38.1 = 462 2362 (4.201.16–17) = EV (2.47.31–2) = EV 1.312.17–18; Diod. 34/5.34 = 1.313.13–17; Diod. 36.15.2–3 = 4274 (1.394.10–12) et 2759 (2.393.8–9) et 787 1495 (4.467.2–3) = EL 408.20–2, 29–32; Diod. 40.1.3 = 2319 (3.59.7–8) et (1.208.6–8) et 405 (4.531.21–2) = EL 409.23–5, 31–3. Another 11 entries not found in the surviving volumes of Excerpta can be identified from the extant books of Diodorus: Diod. 13.67.2 (Adler 5 Ind. Auct. 75 errore 62.2) = 3559 (1.321.25–6); Diod. 14.10.3 = a 2062 (1.186.1–2) (falso Polyb. fr. 106); Diod. 14.20.3 = 4040 (1.369.8–9); Diod. 14.23.1 = 354 (4.659.27–660.2); Diod. 15.53.4 = 369 (2.36.3–5); Diod. 15.84.2 = 2067 (2.339.8–9); Diod. 17.82.7 = 2617 (1.232.4–5); Diod. 17.85.5 = 2818 (4.234.4–5); Diod. 19.96.4 = 3722 (1.335.8–9); Diod. 20.11.5 = 444 (4.42.14–15); Diod. 26.2 = 240 (4.801.4–6).

(Warminster, 1985), 170; G. Zecchini (n. 75), 1063–4; Goukowsky, Fragments II, 105, n. 144, 141, n. 38, 176, n. 16. E.L. Wheeler, ‘The Hoplomachoi and the legend of Spartan drillmasters’, Chiron 13 (1983), 1–20, at 1–2, 15–16, casts doubt on this thesis, arguing that although Vegetius probably does allude to Sosylus, the Spartan’s military role is a mistaken late deduction by Vegetius himself or his source.

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A further 9 entries name Diodorus, but come from sections of his work preserved in neither the Excerpta nor the direct tradition: Diod. fr. 5 = 2668 (1.236.23–4); fr. 6 = 1471 (2.295.16–17); fr. 7 = 1521 (2.299.17–19); fr. 8 = 1803 (3.135.23–4); fr. 9 = 1021 (4.427.2–3); fr. 10 = 1544 (4.470.13–14); fr. 11 = 586 (4.676.24–6); fr. 12 = 9 (4.780.5–7); fr. 13 = 538 (4.828.17–18). There are 12 suspected fragments: Suda 741 (1.71.6–7) (vel Polyb.); Suda 1961 (1.176.11–12); Suda 2612 (1.231.22–4); Suda 2925 (1.264.18–19); Suda 1368 (2.129.21–3) (vel Polyb.); Suda 19 (2.189.14) (vel Polyb.); Suda 3524 (2.453.7–8); Suda 179 (2.532.8) (vel Cass. D.); Suda 647 (3.50.25) (falso Polyb. fr. 169; Diod. vel Cass. D.); Suda 65 (3.440.13) (vel Cass. D.); Suda 2231 (4.191.10); Suda 556 (4.747.3–4).

Classical Quarterly 59.1 112–124 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000081

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STOIC AND POSIDONIAN THOUGHT ON THE IMMORTALITY OF SOUL What did Posidonius mean by the immortality of soul? Was his reference to the world soul only or also to individual souls, including human souls? Is Posidonius’ conception of immortal souls genuinely Stoic? In attempting to answer these questions, this article initially sets out to elucidate Posidonius’ response to Plato’s assertion of the soul’s immortality advanced at Phaedrus 245c. My discussion further relates a Stoic and possibly a Posidonian conception of souls’ perishability to a line of Stoic thought Posidonius would have inherited regarding destruction, in which Chrysippus notably developed an account of the perishability of all qualified souls. In outlining a plausible theory by which Posidonius might have held both to souls’ immortality and their perishing, this work attempts to reconstruct the meaning Posidonius might have attached to these terms in their likely context of intellectual exchange with Stoicism’s critics, notably Cicero. Attention to Posidonius’ arguments in this quasi-polemical context suggests the Stoic orthodoxy of his views, further demonstrating how Stoicism was capable of defusing a number of apparent contradictions between the postulates of souls’ immortality and perishing through positing sophisticated distinctions between these terms. This paper further advances the claim that Posidonius’ interpretation of Plato’s argument makes sense within a context of his reading of Plato’s dialogue. It is likely that Posidonius was motivated to draw on Plato in the Phaedrus in order to equate Plato’s ‘all soul’ with whatever is self-moving, yielding a Posidonian characterization of ‘deathlessness’ as the whole of self-moving soul. I. ‘IMMORTAL SOULS’ Hermias, in a passage of his commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus, reports Posidonius’ to introduce interpretation of Phaedrus 245c, where Plato uses the words his argument for the immortality of soul. In offering two contrasting interpretations of Plato’s argument, Hermias singles out Posidonius as representative of the group who took the words to refer to ‘the world soul only’, in contrast with Harpocration, who supposedly took the term to refer to ‘absolutely all’ soul. Festugière’s view aside,1 Stoic scholarship has broadly advanced two views of this crux. Hoven suggests that Posidonius’ reading represents a disinterested attempt to elucidate Plato without guidance from his own philosophy. Edelstein infers, contrarily, that Posidonius adopted his interpretation on the strength of his own belief in the immortality of the world soul only. Kidd largely concurs with this latter view, without finding adequate basis in Hermias’ text for the inference.2 In a competing attestation, Div. 1.64, 1 A.-J. Festugière, ‘Platon et l’Orient’, RevPhil 3.21 (1947), 5–45, at 21 judged ‘all soul’ to refer to soul collectively, and, in siding with Posidonius, took the ensuing argument of Plato to refer exclusively to the world soul; others such as T.M. Robinson, Plato’s Psychology (Toronto, 19952), 111–18 reject this interpretation. 2 R. Hoven, Stoïcisme et stoïciens face au problème de l’au-delà (Paris, 1971), 62; L. Edelstein, ‘The philosophical system of Posidonius’, AJPh 57 (1936), 286–325, at 300, n. 58; I.G. Kidd (ed.), Posidonius: the Translation of the Fragments (Cambridge, 1999), 143, Posidonius: the Commentary (2 vols; Cambridge, 1988), 2.979–81.

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however, Cicero reports that, in discussing the possibility of human dreams representing means of divination, Posidonius spoke of ‘immortal souls’. Unless we distrust Cicero, it becomes difficult to infer both that Posidonius held to a belief that the world soul alone is immortal and that his interpretation of Plato was influenced by such a belief. In the light of Cicero’s reference, the question of Posidonius’ own view on the topic needs to be scrutinized further. Therefore I address this question first, before discussing Posidonius’ interpretation of Plato’s argument. Cicero, Div. 1.64 reads: Sed tribus modis censet deorum adpulsu homines somniare, uno quod provideat animus ipse per sese, quippe qui deorum cognatione teneatur, altero quod plenus aer sit inmortalium animorum, in quibus tamquam insignitae notae veritatis appareant, tertio quod ipsi di cum dormientibus conloquantur. He proposes three ways in which men dream through divine impact: the mind of its own nature foresees, inasmuch as it is imbued with kinship with the gods; the air is full of immortal souls, in which appear, as it were, clear marks of truth; the gods themselves speak with men who are asleep. (Cic. Div. 1.64; fr. 108 EK, part).3

This Ciceronian attestation has given rise to extensive debate among scholars seeking to clarify Posidonius’ apparent claim: ‘the air is full of immortal souls’. Edelstein takes the expression ‘immortal souls’ to refer to the fixed stars, arguing further that ‘it is impossible to conclude’ from this assertion ‘that Posidonius believed the human soul to be immortal’.4 But in my view such a conclusion is not entirely impossible. In Cicero’s testimony above, Posidonius’ description of souls as immortal is not further specified, nor, to my knowledge, is there any evidence that Posidonius considered human souls mortal. Further, the words ‘the air’ seem to rule out the identification of ‘souls’ as the fixed stars; for the Stoics normally understood ‘the sphere of the fixed stars [to be] created’ not in the airy but in the fiery or ethereal region. Posidonius likewise associated the stars with ‘the heaven’, which he elsewhere called ‘the outermost circumference’, and which he and Chrysippus nominated as the dwelling-place of the cosmic deity and celestial gods.5 In seeking to identify the ‘souls’ that are said by Posidonius to be in ‘the air’, we may need briefly to advert to the doxographical section of Sextus Empiricus, Math. 9.73–4.

They [souls], having quitted the sphere of the sun, dwell in the region below the moon, and there because of the pureness of the air they remain for a long time, and for their nutrition they use the vapour rising from the earth, as do the rest of the stars also, and in those regions they have nothing to dissolve them. If, therefore, the souls remain, they come to be the same as daemons; and if there are daemons, then we must say that gods too exist, their existence being by no means hindered by the preconception about the legendary doings in Hades. (Sext. Emp. Math. 9.73–4)

3 For scholars’ discussion of this testimony, see Edelstein (n. 2), 300; Hoven (n. 2), 58; M. Dragona-Monachou, The Stoic Arguments for the Existence and the Providence of the Gods (Athens, 1976), 173–4; Kidd (n. 2), 1.428–32. 4 Edelstein (n. 2), 300, n. 58. 5 Diog. Laert. 7.137–8, 7.144; Simpl. In Ar. Cael. 4.3.310b1 (fr. 93a EK).

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In the previous section 9.71–2, the same source, against Epicurus, insists upon the existence of souls in the extra-terrestrial region, in asserting that, after separating from their bodies, they neither move downwards nor are dispersed but ‘rather soar lightly into the upper region’. The grounds for this argumentation rest both on the souls’ causal effect upon themselves through their capacity of holding themselves together, and on their pneumatic nature, composed as they are out of airy and fiery fine particles.6 In the present section just quoted, the passage’s author further adduces arguments in favour of the souls’ survival, citing in particular the air’s pureness in the region below the moon. Two points should be taken into account in considering the nature of these ‘souls’. First, the author’s demonstrations deploy a wide range of Stoic terms and ideas, for instance describing the souls as deriving nutrition from ‘the vapour rising from the earth, as do the rest of the stars’,7 and even playing on the etymology of the word ‘daemon’ in the sentence ‘if, therefore, the souls remain ( ), they come to be )’.8 Further, the ‘souls’ considered in the Sextus the same as daemons ( passage are likely to refer to human souls surviving death, or more specifically to heroes; for only this assumption justifies the contention that the souls residing in the upper region for a long time ‘come to be the same as daemons’. This material preserved by Sextus, whoever his Stoic source, provides persuasive grounds for believing that the expression ‘immortal souls’ in ‘the air’, as suggested at Cicero, Div. 1.64, refers to daemons, that is, to divine souls intermediate between the stars and human beings, or to heroes, signifying the souls of dead virtuous men who have survived death. Perhaps both references are meant, seeing that for the author of the Sextus passage the expression ‘the region below the moon’ as the location of surviving human souls and daemons best parallels ‘the air’ in Cicero’s report. The author is clear that the souls reside in this region ‘because of the pureness of the air’, which presumably facilitates their becoming the same as daemons. Kidd, in a passage of his commentary, makes a similar point to mine regarding Cicero’s report; but this makes it hard to understand how and why Kidd elsewhere insists that ‘Posidonius did believe in the sole immortality of the world soul’.9 Posidonius’ assertion in Cicero’s report sufficiently confirms that he admitted the immortality of individual souls, in addition to that of the world soul. There is a question, though, whether this Posidonian conception of the soul’s immortality can legitimately be taken as Stoic, since a range of evidence presented below rather attests a Stoic conception of the perishability of souls. The Stoics, according to Diogenes Laertius 7.156, infer, ‘first, that soul is a body’,

and, then, that it survives death; but it is perishable, though the soul of the universe, of which those [souls] in animals are parts, is imperishable. (Diog. Laert. 7.156)

6

Sext. Emp. Math. 9.71–2; see also Ach. Tat. Intr. in Arat.13 (fr.149 EK). The discussion of the stars’ nutrition (apart from that of the sun and moon) at 9.73 stands parallel to Diog. Laert. 7.145 (frr. 9, 10, 17 EK) and Cic. Nat. D. 2.118. 8 The word , like , is an original Stoic term. Sext. Emp. Math. 9.74 can serve as evidence for a Stoic, or a Posidonian, etymology of ‘daemon’, in addition to those at Macr. Sat. 1.23.7 (fr. 24 EK). For the Stoic concepts of daemons and heroes, see Diog. Laert. 7.151. 9 Kidd (n. 2), 1.430–1, 2.981. 7

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That is, for the Stoics, the world soul is identical to the whole of soul, whereas ), as they were individual souls, such as those of animals, constitute its ‘parts’ ( unified with the world soul during the conflagration, and are now, as Diogenes ) of this soul, a formuelsewhere reports, a fragment or an ‘offshoot’ ( lation to which Posidonius seems to have taken no significant exception.10 Further, Diogenes’ doxography ascribes the idea of the soul surviving death but later perishing to the Stoics in general. In doing so, it draws our attention to two points. First, ‘perishable’ is a standard term used by Stoic writers to describe the nature of all individual souls, in implicit contrast to the ‘imperishable’ world soul. Second, the soul Diogenes here speaks of refers to individual souls generally, but more specifically to human souls, whether rational or irrational; for, to the best of my knowledge, Stoics as early as Zeno did not describe the souls of non-rational animals, the stars or daemons as surviving death. Diogenes’ doxography begins with general statements about souls advanced by the Stoics collectively, but afterwards cites Cleanthes as maintaining that ‘all’ souls survive up to the conflagration. Chrysippus, meanwhile, Diogenes asserts, holds this to be true only of the souls of sages.11 Eusebius too, in his doxography of Stoic psychology, reports the same Chrysippean idea as Diogenes does, according to which, among the souls separated from their bodies, not all but only human souls survive on their own for a certain time; those of non-rational animals perish at once. Chrysippus appears to have maintained further that not even all human souls but only those of virtuous men survive up to the conflagration; fools’ souls do so only for a limited period, perishing sooner.12 The above evidence has two major implications. First, the Stoic assertion of souls’ perishability should not be taken to mean that the souls are destroyed in an unqualified sense, but that they undergo a sort of natural change which the Stoics called broadly ‘resolution’, by which they are unified with the imperishable world soul so as to become its parts. Second, while believing individual souls to experience this resolution generally, Chrysippus, unlike Cleanthes, discriminated between the souls of sages and fools with regard to the mode of destruction. That is, for Chrysippus, sages’ souls undergo the conflagration, whereas those of fools are not subject to this particular form of resolution, rather experiencing what might be called ‘mere resolution’. To make these points clearer, we should remember here that in Stoic physics ‘resolution’ holds a meaning far broader than that of ‘conflagration’, referring in Chrysippus’ physics to a compound’s dissolution into its components (for instance, an egg’s dissolution into yolk, white and shell, etc). The Stoics further explained the dissolution of the world and its individuals into the four elements (fire, air, water and earth) as an instance of this kind of destruction, indicating more specifically ‘rarefaction’ or the reverse of condensation in the elements’ reciprocal changes: 10

Diog. Laert. 7.143 (fr. 99a EK). For the Stoic conception of the conflagration, see n. 14. Diog. Laert. 7.157. It seems uncertain whether Cleanthes’ expression ‘all’ in Diogenes’ doxography refers to all animals’ souls or to all human souls; perhaps the latter is meant. 12 Euseb. Pr. ev. 15.20.6 (SVF 2.809): ‘They say that the soul is subject to generation and destruction. When separated from the body, however, it does not perish at once, but survives on its own for certain times, the soul of the virtuous up to the dissolution of everything into fire, that of fools only for a certain definite time. By the survival of souls they mean that we ourselves survive as souls separated from bodies and changed into the lesser substance of the soul, while the souls of non-rational animals perish along with their bodies’ (trans. by LS 53W). Cf. A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley (edd.), The Hellenistic Philosophers (2 vols; Cambridge, 1987), 2.320–1; Hoven (n. 2), 62; J.M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1969), 256–61. 11

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(‘Reciprocally, the dissolution and diffusion of earth, the first diffusion into water, and the second from water into air, and the third and last into fire’).13 This last phase is still not identical with the conflagration, since ordinarily the rarefaction of air into fire occurs within a cyclical sequence proceeding immediately to condensation in its next stage, in which the world is partly rearranged. The conflagration, on the other hand, is understood by the Stoics as the devastation of the world’s arrangement as such, so that ‘all’, namely the whole of the world, is resolved into, and unified with, a single element ‘fire’.14 This process also represents a sort of rarefaction, but, unlike the normal referent of the term ‘rarefaction’, the conflagration is unidirectional and does not at once accompany condensation, rather determining the world’s periodic destruction into fire at very long intervals of everlasting recurrence. In Stoic physics the conflagration is in this light a particular form of resolution, applying above all to the destruction of the elements, the world, the gods other than Zeus, and the souls of sages. The question arises why Chrysippus believed that the souls of sages survived at all up to the conflagration, and what sense this made for him as a psychological or ethical doctrine, as well as a physical one. This question is controversial and I attempt no direct treatment of it here. But the extant Stoic evidence, however meagre, allows us to conjecture that, in Stoicism, among the souls separated from their bodies and changed into their lesser substance those of sages alone are able to survive up to the conflagration on the strength of their superiority both in intelligence and in pneumatic constitution. Presumably part of the answer to the above question lies in the Stoics’ treatment of Plato’s Phaedo as a canonical Socratic text, an attitude which meant that they had to extract from it lessons which could be made compatible with Stoicism. That is, total indestructibility of individual souls would have clashed with the conflagration theory, but limited ‘indestructibility’ as a reward for virtue could be made fully consistent with Stoicism.15 This Chrysippean idea of the human soul’s destruction, closely linked with his physics of the conflagration, probably represented a standard Stoic doctrine. Little evidence remains, however, as to how the post-Chrysippean Stoics responded to Chrysippus on the matter of souls’ perishability. Inasmuch as Panaetius, siding with Boethus of Sidon and Diogenes of Babylon, denied the theory of the conflagration, it seems reasonable to suppose that Panaetius had no motive for following Chrysippus in every detail, preferring to use his own syllogisms in seeking to prove souls’ perishability.16 Posidonius at least differed from these three Stoics in abiding by the 13

Stob. Ecl. 1.129.2–130.13 (SVF 2.413, part); see also Diog. Laert. 7.136–7, 7.142. Diog. Laert. 7.134 (fr. 5 EK); Sen. Ep. 9.16; Euseb. Pr. ev. 15.18.2 (SVF 2.596); Alexander Lycopolis 19.2–4 (LS 46I); Plut. Comm. not. 1075d (SVF 1.510); Cleom. De motu 1.1 (SVF 2.537); see also SVF 2.613–32. 15 I am grateful for, and accept, the suggestion of D. Sedley, tending to confirm the attribution above. The pneuma constituting the souls of sages is fierier, finer and more in a hierarchy of tension than that of fools’ souls; and after separating from their bodies they reside in the upper region as an intelligent and fiery pneuma through their capacity of holding themselves together, sharing also in some instances in the ethereal substance which Zeus entirely occupies at the conflagration. Cf. n. 6; Stob. Ecl. 1.213.15–21 (SVF 1.120); Plut. Comm. not. 1077e; Sext. Emp. Math. 9.86; Diog. Laert. 7.138–9. 16 Cic. Nat. D. 2.118; Philo, Aet. mund. 2.497 M (4.96.19 Cohn) (LS 46P; fr. 99b EK, part); M. van Straaten, Panaetii Rhodii fragmenta (Leiden, 19623), 64–9; Long and Sedley (n. 12), 2.277. For Panaetius’ syllogisms about the souls’ perishability, see Cic. Tusc. 1.79. 14

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earliest Stoic doctrine of the world’s periodic destruction at the conflagration.17 Further, as Arius Didymus’ testimony shows, Posidonius, concurring also with mainstream Stoics,18 held to a version of the theory classifying destruction into four types19: division, alteration, fusion and resolution, in Posidonius’ wording ‘an out-and-out-change’,20 attributing alteration to substance only and the other three modes to qualified individuals. Arius’ doxography, however, provides no information as to Posidonius’ examples. It thus remains a matter of speculation what forms of destruction he understood as applying to individual souls, and particularly to human souls. This lack of direct evidence prevents us from fully recovering the terms of the debate inherited by Posidonius from Chrysippus on the topic of souls’ perishability, and even whether such a debate existed at all. But in so far as Posidonius adhered to the standard Stoic doctrine of destruction as noted above, it is possible to suppose that he related individual souls to resolution, holding to an idea of perishable souls. On this supposition, however, in addition to the question of Posidonius’ Stoic orthodoxy in insisting on souls’ immortality, the compatibility for him between the postulates of souls’ immortality and perishing also becomes a matter for discussion, especially when we bear in mind Cicero’s objection to a Stoic belief in perishable souls on the basis of the immortality of soul. Cicero, at Tusc. 1.18 and 1.77–8, while siding with Plato, indeed makes a case for the immortality of soul, categorizing those who define death as a separation of soul 17 Scholarship is now practically unanimous that Posidonius concurred with the early Stoics and not with his master Panaetius regarding the conflagration. Cf. Diog. Laert. 7.142 (fr. 13 EK); Aët. Plac. 2.9.3 (Stob. Ecl. 1.18.4b; DG p. 338.17) (fr. 97ab EK). 18 Diog. Laert. 7.141. That the world and its parts are subject to destruction is standard Stoic doctrine. Diogenes Laertius’ doxography shows that the Stoics adduced a syllogism proving the susceptibility of the world to this change. 19 Ar. Did. Epitome fr. 27 (Stob. Ecl. 1.20.7, 1.177.20 W; DG p. 462) (fr. 96 EK, part): ‘Posidonius says that there are four kinds of destruction and generation from being to being. For, they recognized that there was no such thing as generation from, or destruction into, non-being, as we said before. But of change into being he says that one kind is by division ( ), one by alteration ( ), one by fusion ( ), and one an out-and-out change ( ), which they call “by resolution” ( ); of these, that by alteration belongs to the substance, while the other three belong to the so-called qualified individuals, which come to occupy the substance’. For the discussion of the testimony, see Long and Sedley (n. 12), 1.172–3; Kidd (n. 2), 1.384–90. Arius’ doxography represents an important source for Posidonius’ conception of generation and destruction. Posidonius’ classification concerns less change as such than those changes by which a thing’s identity can be lost, as Long and Sedley (see above) point out. Supposing that Arius’ quotation is from a Posidonian source, possibly the word ‘they’ referred for Posidonius to mainstream Stoics, and the word ‘we’ suggests that he concurred with them on the definition of change. I will not discuss the question why Posidonius gave such a quadripartition, different from the Chrysippean ( ) as cited at Stob. Ecl. 1.17.4, p. 154 W (SVF 2.471), and also from the Stoic tripartition ( ) as cited at Philo, Aet. mund. 79. 20 As Arius’ testimony (n. 19) shows, Posidonius called one sort of destruction ‘an out-and-out change’ ( ). It is uncertain why he introduced this new expression, on which Arius does not specifically comment in his doxography. Bearing in mind both the Stoic conception of ‘conflagration’ ( ) (see n. 14) and the ensuing clause of the testimony ‘which they call “by resolution ( )” ’, Posidonius might not have meant by that expression the conflagration exclusively, rather implying the resolution of qualified individuals more broadly. Bernard Collette, however, has suggested (in a Cambridge seminar, 2006) that Posidonius’ expression ‘an out-and-out change’ in Arius’ doxography can be regarded as direct evidence for Posidonius admitting the conflagration, a point Kidd (n. 2), 1.387 fails to pick up. However, Kidd’s caution may be well placed, on my reading of Posidonius’ expression as alluded to above.

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from body into three: some hold that it is at once dispersed in space, others that it survives a long time, and others that it survives eternally. Within this tripartite grouping Cicero places the Stoics between the Epicureans and Platonists, marking off all three from Dicaearchus who, in Cicero’s view, argued most incisively against the soul’s immortality. Cicero remarks of the Stoics that they, on the other hand, give us a generous lease of life, as though to make us crows, testifying to a certain scepticism as to whether the soul can indeed survive a long time but not eternally. Conceivably, this Stoic view on perishable souls represented a major stumbling block to Cicero’s acceptance of Stoicism, since he himself speaks of it as the point of greatest difficulty in the whole problem. There seems little reason to deny that mainstream Stoics, or even those contemporary with Cicero, would have been forced to respond to criticism of this kind. Little evidence of the Stoic responses remains, however; and Cicero himself informs us no farther than reporting Panaetius’ syllogisms about soul’s perishability.21 But from such evidence as exists we can highlight at least a few aspects of these debates. Consideration of Stoics’ debates presented below suggests that a conception of immortal souls is as Stoic as a conception of perishable souls, and further determines Posidonius’ fundamental adherence to Stoic orthodoxy on this topic. In considering the grounds on which mainstream Stoics and Posidonius might have argued for the soul’s immortality and perishing, we should particularly remember that no Greek thinkers outside the Stoic school marked off ‘immortal’ and ‘imperishable’ from each other with regard either to soul or to god. The Phaedo’s final argument, for instance, appears to take ‘immortality’ to entail imperishability, though these two words are not semantically identical, hereby proving the soul to be both immortal and imperishable.22 The Stoics are, however, well known for employing ‘imperishable’ exclusively for their supreme cosmic deity Zeus, at the same time using ‘perishable’ of the rest of gods and souls as they did of the world.23 They employed ‘immortal’, however, for all of these without discrimination, as a range of evidence shows.24 We can therefore legitimately suppose that the founding fathers of the Stoic school made certain conceptual distinctions between ‘immortal’ and ‘imperishable’, inferring, for instance, that the souls are immortal but perishable. This Stoic terminology is exactly what Cicero, and later also Plutarch,25 seized on to launch one of their strongest 21 Cic. Tusc. 1.79–80. It is uncertain why Cicero argues especially against Panaetius, but perhaps he wanted to show how Panaetius, who revered Plato most among philosophers, neglected the fact that, when Plato spoke of the eternity of souls, this pertained not to the soul’s irrational parts, but to the mind which is always distant from disorderly impulse. 22 Pl. Phd. 105e10–107a1; see also Phdr. 245c5–246a2. Plato, at Phd. 106d4–6, applies this combined vocabulary also to ‘god’ and ‘the form of life itself’. Plato’s precise position in the Phaedo’s final argument on immortality and imperishability is more complex than I indicate, though this does not affect points I have made above. Cf. D. Gallop (ed.), Plato: Phaedo (Oxford, 19885), 216–22; D. Frede, ‘The final proof of the Immortality of the Soul in Plato’s Phaedo 102a–107a’, Phronesis 23 (1978), 27–41; R. Woolf, ‘The practice of a philosopher’, OSAP 26 (2004). 23 For the Stoic use of for Zeus, see Diog. Laert. 7.137, 7.134; Plut. St. rep. 1051e–f, Comm. not. 1077e; of for the world and the soul, see nn. 12, 18. 24 For the Stoic use of for god(s), see n. 25; Diog. Laert. 7.147; Cic. Nat. D. 1.123 (fr. 22a EK), 2.45; Cleanthes, Hymn. (Stob. 1.25.3–27.4); Sext. Emp. Math. 9.85; Calc. In Tim. 293; for the world, see Plut. St. rep. 1052c–d. 25 Plut. Comm. not. 1075c. This Plutarchean attestation, for all its polemicism, goes to show that mainstream Stoics asserted that ‘god is not mortal but perishable’ ( ). Plutarch here took ‘mortal’ to mean nothing other than ‘perishable’ and thus argued that the Stoics were inescapably caught in a dilemma, violating the common conception of god.

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objections to Stoicism. But it is easy to see this inference as relying both on an originally Platonic definition of death26 and on a Stoic conception of destruction, in a few regards expanded on below. The Stoics most probably understood ‘death’ as a form of division, namely ‘separation of soul and body’,27 through which any ensouled being loses its own identity.28 To the extent that they adhered to this definition of the term, they could say that a man dies but a soul or a god does not. That is, according to the Stoics, it is we and not our souls who are subject to death; hence ‘we ourselves survive as souls’, as Chrysippus says, ‘separated from bodies and changed into the lesser substance of the soul’, as cited by Eusebius in the passage above.29 Further, for the Stoics, because the gods are divine, and also because they experience no separation of soul from body, despite being composed of these parts, they are correctly called ‘immortal’ or ‘deathless’.30 Chrysippus, in Book 1 of On Providence, applied this exact attribute to the world, in asserting that ‘the world soul is not separated, but grows continuously until it has completely used up its matter on itself ’; hence ‘the world must not be said to “die” ’ ( ) (Plut. St. rep. 1052c–d). The question arises how far the very focus on immortality in this Stoic material betrays a preoccupation with Platonic concerns as to the soul’s immortality advanced in the passages of the Phaedo. It is uncertain whether mainstream Stoics or Posidonius worked with the relevant passages of the dialogue. But the Stoics’ conception of the soul’s immortality is in no sense a deviation from the language of Platonism, in that they adhered to a Platonic definition of death. Supposing the allegedly Pythagorean origin of the Platonic idea expounded in the passages, it would even seem possible that the Stoics rather wanted to adhere to a core Pythagorean idea of the soul’s immortality.31 Nevertheless, the Stoics’ conception of immortal and perishable souls seems to indicate where they diverged from the Phaedo’s final argument. It remains conceivable that ‘the validity’ of this argument ‘depends on the condition that the deathless should also be indestructible’.32 The Stoics, however, may have found this condition implausible, perhaps on the basis of their discrimination between death and the other forms of destruction as previously considered.33 Since, as noted, for the Stoics ‘death’ refers narrowly to a form of division (into soul and body) befalling any ensouled being, a soulless thing, for instance an egg, is not said to ‘die’ in Stoic terms, but is taken by them to be destroyed, whether by mere division (into yolk and white), by fusion (for instance, into a cake), or by resolution (into its components). Further, as indicated, a soul or a god is not said to ‘die’ either, but is taken to be destroyed by

26

Cf. Pl. Phd. 64c2–9, 67a, 105d13–e9; Cic. Tusc. 1.18. Cf. Sext. Emp. Math. 7.234; Plut. St. rep. 1052c–d; Nem. De nat. hom. 81.6–10; Cic. Tusc. 1.18; see also Long and Sedley (n. 12), 1.173. 28 In Arius Didymus’ testimony (n. 19), of the three types attributed by Posidonius to qualified individuals, ‘division’ describes a change befalling any unified body, in so far as this body is something qualified; that is, when this change occurs in a compound, the body loses its identity. 29 Cf. n. 12. 30 Cf. Long and Sedley (n. 12), 2.454. Frede (n. 22), 30 states that the word is ‘as ambiguous as the English word “immortal” ’, since ‘it designates not only deathlessness but also everlastingness’. I agree; the Stoic term ‘immortal’ is perhaps best rendered as ‘deathless’. 31 I am grateful for, and accept, the suggestions of M. Schofield in a Cambridge seminar tending to confirm this attribution. 32 Frede (n. 22), 30. 33 Cf. n. 19. 27

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resolution, or more specifically by conflagration. The Stoics’ point is clear, namely that in Stoic classificatory terms ‘deathless’ does not necessarily entail ‘indestructible’; and that, in so far as a thing is something qualified, though not experiencing death, this thing can undergo other forms of destruction. In this characterization of the Stoic theory of destruction, Stoicism shows itself capable of defusing all manner of apparent contradictions between the postulates of the soul’s immortality and perishing by positing sophisticated distinctions between these terms. There seems little basis for doubting that Posidonius’ conception of soul’s immortality was genuinely Stoic; and that, in claiming that ‘the air is full of immortal souls’, he was not deviating from Chrysippus or even from Plato. Bearing in mind Cicero’s knowledge of Stoicism in general, we must assume that Cicero in this respect was aware of the Stoic terminology, and rejected it. II. ‘SELF-MOVING SOUL’ We can now profitably turn our attention to Posidonius’ interpretation of Phaedrus 245c, as reported in Hermias’ testimony (though my examination here will necessarily be glancing). Plato’s own lemma reads:

[…]

All soul is immortal; for what is self-moving is immortal; but what is itself moved by something else, imparting motion, ceases its motion, and therefore ceases to live. Only what moves itself never ceases its motion, inasmuch as it cannot abandon itself; moreover, this self-mover is the source and the first principle of motion for all other things that are moved. Now a first principle cannot come into being. […] It is as impossible that it should be destroyed as that it should come into being; were it otherwise, the whole heaven and the whole of becoming would collapse, stop, and never again have any other source of motion to bring it back into being. (Pl. Phdr. 245c5–e3)34

Hermias states: ‘ ’

34 For scholars’ debates over this passage, see P. Frutiger, Les Mythes de Platon (Paris, 1930), 130–4; L. Robin, Platon. Phèdre (Paris, 1933); J.B. Skemp, The Theory of Motion in Plato’s Later Dialogues (Cambridge, 1942), 3, n. 1; Festugière (n. 1), 21; C. Diano, ‘Quod semper movetur aeternum est’, PP 2 (1947), 189–92; R. Hackforth, Plato’s Phaedrus (Cambridge, 1972), 64, n. 3; Robinson (n. 1), 111–18; M. Trapp, ‘Plato’s Phaedrus in second century Greek literature’, in D.A. Russell (ed.), Antonine Literature (Oxford, 1990), 141–73; R. Bett, ‘Immortality and the nature of the soul in the Phaedrus’, in G. Fine (ed.), Plato (Oxford, 2000), 907–31. The sentence at 245c5 is problematic. I follow the reading of the papyrus (P.Oxy. 1017) (accepted by Robin, Bignone, Müller, Ross and Ackrill), and not the reading of OCT (accepted by Hackforth, Diano and Robinson). I follow Hermias’ reading of (accepted by Hackforth). The most serviceable translation of Plato’s words is perhaps ‘all soul’, but this wording does not answer the question how to take the expression.

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We must first ask what kind of soul he [Plato] means. Some thought that his argument referred to the world soul only, because he said ‘all’ and a little later added that ‘were it otherwise, the whole heaven and the whole of becoming would collapse and stop’; the Stoic Posidonius is one of these. Others thought that it referred to absolutely all [soul], including the souls of ants and flies; Harpocration is one of these; he understands ‘all’ as applying to all soul. (Herm. In Phdr. ad 245c; fr. 290 EK)35

A central difficulty in probing Posidonius’ equation in Hermias’ report of ‘all soul’ with ‘the world soul’ lies in the entire lack of context. Even so, from what we know of Posidonius it is not likely that he adopted this equation on the basis of his belief in the immortality of the world soul only. Nor did his reflection centre on the slightly different concept of the world soul as advanced by Plato in the Timaeus; for, as Posidonius presumably knew, the world soul in the Timaeus represents one particular kind of rational soul, alongside other divine souls and the rational part of human souls.36 Instead, there is reason to believe that Posidonius took account of both the myth and the wider context of the Phaedrus, first because Hermias quotes a relevant section of Plato’s argument in introducing Posidonius’ interpretation, and second because Posidonius elsewhere himself made use of Plato’s figure in the myth of two horses drawn by a charioteer in describing the soul’s two irrational parts.37 Assuming Posidonius’ familiarity with the dialogue’s context, it remains conceivable that he may not have neglected the fact that Plato’s argument for the immortality of soul is meant to be applicable to individual souls, however indirectly.38 Further, while Hermias insisted that Plato’s argument is limited to the soul of god and the rational part of the human soul,39 Posidonius at least does not seem to have attended to this sort of limitation. Possibly he thought that Plato’s focus lies elsewhere; the emphasis in Posidonius’ eyes seems to fall much more heavily on the significance of Plato’s introducing his argument with the word ‘all’, as Hermias’ report shows. It seems possible, then, that Posidonius inferred ‘all soul’ to refer for Plato to the whole of soul collectively, including all individual souls. In addition, the principal question in Stoic scholarship on Posidonius’ psychology is whether, and if so in what sense, he himself acknowledged there to be parts to the soul; whatever his actual view on the topic, though, this does not seem to have affected his interpretation of ‘all soul’. But, even if this conjecture is correct, the question why Posidonius in his interpretation employed the expression ‘the world soul’ needs to be answered. Instructively, in Stoic physics, as already noted, the world soul is identical to the whole of soul subsuming all individual souls, whereas individual souls are its parts or offshoots.40 In this characterization of the Stoic view on soul, it would seem possible that in interpreting ‘all soul’ Posidonius recruited Plato to the Stoic side; these words become, 35 For scholars’ debate about Hermias’ text, see E. Zeller (ed.), Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Leipzig, 1919–224–6), 3.599; Edelstein (n. 2), 300, n. 58; Festugière (n. 1), 21; Kidd (n. 2), 1.980; Hoven (n. 2), 62. Unfortunately we do not know the original context of Posidonius’ remark. There is, for example, no evidence to support Zeller’s conjecture (see above) that it was a commentary on the Phaedrus. 36 Pl. Tim. 30b–31a, 36e–37a, Leg. 10.891–9. 37 Gal. PHP 5.466–8, pp. 322.28–326.8 De Lacy (fr. 31 EK). 38 Hackforth (n. 34), 64–5 suggests that ‘the argument’ of the passage ‘cannot be regarded as a direct argument for the immortality of individual souls’; but ‘it is reasonable to believe – and indeed, since it is the individual soul that Socrates will be concerned with in the myth, we cannot avoid believing – that Plato regarded a demonstration of the immortality of soul in general as applicable to individual souls’. 39 For Hermias’ reading of ‘all soul’ as ‘noetic soul’, see Robinson (n. 1), 111. 40 Cf. n. 10.

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if taken to refer to the whole of soul, appropriate to the world soul in the Stoic sense. But my preliminary observations tend to suggest that Posidonius’ interpretation rather rested on the context in the dialogue, and that by the expression ‘the world soul’ he meant the whole of soul as understood by Plato. In pursuing these points further, we can begin by looking at a passage of the myth immediately subsequent to Plato’s argument noted above. In the passage, Plato, using the precise words ‘all soul’, continues:

[…]. All soul has the care of that which is soulless, and travels the whole universe, coming to be at different times in different forms. So, when it is perfect and winged, it journeys in the upper region, governing the whole world; and when it sheds its wings, it comes to fasten on something solid, and, settling there, takes to itself an earthy body […]. (Pl. Phdr. 246b6–c4)

It remains a matter of speculation whether Posidonius referred to the passage of the myth just quoted, since Hermias is silent on the point. But supposing Posidonius did so, the inference would be that he found warrant to believe that ‘all soul’ represents for Plato the whole of soul, which gives birth to individual souls, as these are in Plato’s words ‘coming to be at different times in different forms’. Further, this same soul, ‘perfect and winged’, and in particular in Plato’s words ‘governing the whole world’, is likely to have coincided in Posidonius’ estimation with the world soul – as certainly no individual soul can do this – thereby cementing the equation of ‘all soul’ with the world soul. In seeking to clarify Posidonius’ interpretation further, we can return to the argument of Plato quoted earlier. The question whether in the opening line of the argument Plato used the expression ‘what is self-moving’ or ‘what is eternally moving’ has yet to be resolved by scholars. Leaving aside the debate on this crux, what is clear in subsequent lines is that Plato, with a distinction between ‘what is self-moving’ and ‘what is moved by something else’, maintains that only what moves itself ‘does not cease its motion’. He proceeds to prove this self-mover to be ‘the source and the first principle of motion for all other things that are moved’, further identifying soul as this self-mover. Plato concludes with the syllogism that what is self-moving is immortal; what is self-moving is soul; therefore soul is immortal. In speaking thus of soul as the self-mover, Plato offers an interesting disproof of the possibility both ‘that it should come into being’ and ‘that it should be destroyed’, on the grounds that the former has already been proved false and the latter is inconceivable. What he takes to be inconceivable is that ‘the whole heaven and the whole of becoming’, comprising all things that make up any possible universe, should stop and no longer move, for the reason that no source of motion to bring it back into being would exist; but this is inconceivable; therefore, the self-mover cannot be destroyed. It is likely that Posidonius was specifically engaged by this conditional prediction of Plato’s noted above, given that before assigning Posidonius to one group of Plato’s interpreters, Hermias explains their interpretation by quoting ‘because he [Plato] said “all” and a little later adds that’,

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Were it otherwise, the whole heaven and the whole of becoming would collapse and stop.41

It seems possible that Hermias here is quoting Posidonius’ own citation of this statement from Plato’s dialogue. We could, if so, be confident in inferring that Posidonius placed as much weight on the statement as on the word ‘all’; and, given that the immediate context of the argument including the statement is Plato’s proof of soul as a self-moving substance, it seems possible also to suppose that Posidonius attended particularly to this Platonic conception of soul. The question immediately arises why Posidonius placed so much weight on Plato’s conditional prediction. Posidonius presumably would not quarrel with the syllogism as noted above which stands, even if ‘soul’ applies to an individual soul, such as Socrates’ soul. But in my view, Posidonius judged further that, as far as the conditional prediction is concerned, Plato was treating ‘the self-mover’ as a term corresponding to ‘all soul’. That is, the Platonic conditional prediction in Posidonius’ eyes stands if and only if ‘the self-mover’ carries the same referent as ‘all soul’ by referring to all the self-moving substance there is. Posidonius’ formulation makes sense, in so far as it is clearly possible to go on thinking of the world in the event of the destruction of an individual soul, for instance, Socrates’ soul, while, were we to suppose the loss or destruction of all the self-moving substance there is, then we might quite possibly find the motion of the world unimaginable; therefore, this substance cannot be destroyed. The above discussion has three major suggestions. First, Posidonius did not neglect the fact that Plato’s argument is meant to apply to individual souls. Second, Posidonius gave attention to the fact that at the opening of the argument Plato said ‘all’, further stressing the Platonic conditional prediction that, should the self-mover hypothetically be destroyed, the whole world and the whole of becoming would stop and no longer move. Finally, Posidonius concluded that the truth of Plato’s proposition hinged on an identity between ‘all soul’ and all the self-moving substance there is. It is likely that this conclusion guided Posidonius in inferring that ‘all soul’ must for Plato refer to soul collectively, taken here as equivalent to ‘the soul’, in Plato’s words, ‘governing the whole world’. Let me conclude with a remark on Posidonius’ interpretation of Plato discussed above. It is typical of Posidonius that he read previous philosophers and especially Plato constructively for his own purposes, rarely venturing purely disinterested comments. Taking this characteristic into account, it seems possible that Posidonius used his reading of Plato to support, or at least refine, an essentially Stoic view of self-moving soul.42 Relevant sources for Posidonius’ reflection on Plato’s idea of self-moving soul are Achilles Tatius, Intr. in Arat.13 and perhaps also Sextus Empiricus, Math. 9.71–2.43 41 I am grateful for, and accept, the suggestions of A. Mourelatos (in my talk in the University of Texas at Austin) that the phrase quoted above, rather than referring to the universe’s annihilation in its entirety, may imply that it suddenly stops and does not move any longer, as if it and its occupants remain entirely frozen. 42 Macr. In Somn. Scip. 1.14.19 (fr. 140 EK) presents a list of the philosophers Philolaus, Plato, Xenocrates and Aristotle, who are said to have viewed soul as ‘a self-moving substance’; this doxography is plausibly traced back to Posidonian material. 43 Cf. n. 6. Kidd and Edelstein, in their Fragments, include only the Achilles passage, whereas J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists (London – NY, 1977), 110–12 takes Sextus, Math. 9.71–2 as typically Posidonian. Kidd (n. 2), 2.550 also remarks on this Sextus passage as ‘closer still to the Posidonian expression of the concept’ as presented in the Achilles passage. In the main I agree, on

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Any closer scrutiny of these passages notwithstanding, it seems evident that the passages’ sources equally insist, against Epicureanism, on the existence of souls in the extra-terrestrial region, whether these souls be surviving human souls or daemons or the souls of the stars; and that, analogically or otherwise, both bear out a Posidonian idea of the soul’s causal action upon itself through its capability of holding itself together. In view of this Posidonian preoccupation, it remains possible that when Posidonius interpreted Phaedrus 245c, his concern lay with the broader context of dealing with the topic of self-moving soul. Possibly, in engaging his contemporaries the Epicureans, Posidonius both had recourse to his Stoic predecessors and solicited the support of Plato by referring to previous conceptions of self-moving soul. Other material for (perhaps mainstream) Stoic reflection on the Platonic idea of self-moving soul can be found at Sextus, Math. 9.76.44 Leaving aside the question of Sextus’ Stoic source, there seems little room for doubting that the passage’s argument represents a standard Stoic doctrine, to which Posidonius seems to have taken no significant exception. The passage itself is roughly reminiscent of the Phaedrus passage that we have been studying, in two basic respects, namely self-motion and eternal motion, despite differences in the detail of the passages’ argumentation. From a comparison of the two, it appears that the source of the Sextus passage took over from Plato the distinction between ‘what moves itself ’ and ‘what is moved by something else’. In the first part of the argument, denial of a ‘self-moving’ power is accused of the absurdity of an infinite regress. The author proceeds to prove this self-moving power to be ‘divine and everlasting’, maintaining the impossibility of its being in motion ‘from some point in time’, as there could then be ‘no cause of its motion’; therefore it must ‘be in motion from eternity’. The general ideas of the argument and in particular the term ‘self-moving’ are strong confirmation that the Stoics’ conception of such a self-moving power, taken here as equivalent to ‘god’ or Stoic ‘reason’, echoed the Phaedrus passage discussed above even when they were not interpreting it directly.45 Seoul National University

A.E. JU [email protected]

the basis that, although the Sextus passage does not refer to Posidonius by name, it would seem baseless to deny its similarity with the Achilles passage, both doctrinally and in textual features. But, for lack of direct evidence, it appears difficult to determine that the subsequent section of Sextus, Math. 9.73–6 derives from a Posidonian exposition. However, the arguments of this section seem to represent standard Stoic doctrines, to which Posidonius seems to have taken no significant exception. 44 Cicero, at Tusc. 1.53–5, discussing previous philosophers’ views on the immortality of soul, quotes the same argument of the Phaedrus to which Posidonius referred, except for the opening sentence . Cicero possibly knew Posidonius’ interpretation of the argument. Judging from Cicero’s translation of as quod semper movetur aeternum est (1.53), and his accompanying comment (1.55), he favoured . Sextus, Math. 9.76, on the other hand, tends to suggest that Sextus’ Stoic source employed . It seems possible that Cicero differed from the Stoics in interpreting Phdr. 245c–e; yet it is unclear whether their difference was associated with the competing positions of the Stoic and Academic schools over this crux. 45 This article has benefited from discussion with Christopher Gill, Alexander Mourelatos, Terumasa Ohkusa, Malcolm Schofield, David Sedley, Stephen White and Hoyoung Yang. I thank the editors and anonymous referee of CQ for suggestions and corrections.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 125–131 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000093

125 HORACE’S PRIAPUS: A LIFELOWELL ON THE ESQUILINE EDMUNDS

HORACE’S PRIAPUS: A LIFE ON THE ESQUILINE (SAT. 1.8)* Horace’s Priapus has traits familiar from the poems of the Priapea.1 These traits are self-consciousness concerning ligneous origin, red phallus, raised arm, and protection of gardens against thieves.2 Yet he has one trait unparalleled in the Priapea, a reed attached to his head. The reed scares birds away, and this scarecrow function is presumably also generic, whether or not there was always a reed.3 Horace’s uolucres … / … uetat … nouis considere in hortis (6–7) seems to refer to this particular function, because scarecrows protect newly sown gardens, where birds eat the unsprouted seeds.4 Does Priapus speak of himself, then, as a new installation, and is the reader to assume that he has been fitted out as a scarecrow because these gardens are new? So one might at first assume, but already in line 8 Priapus begins to tell the history of the place. (It was once, he says, a potter’s field, marked by a cippus that defined its * I am grateful to Chrystina Häuber and John Bodel for corresponding with me and for their great generosity in sending me copies of their writings; to Niklas Holzberg for corrections, suggestions and most of the references in n. 32; to Denis Feeney for information on the phenomenon discussed in n. 23; to the anonymous referee and Rhiannon Ash for helpful comments. 1 In this article, the title Priapea (abbreviation Priap.) refers to what can be considered the standard collection of eighty epigrams about Priapus. On the collection and its various contents and names see ‘Note to the reader’ in W.H. Parker, Priapea: Poems for a Phallic God (London, 1988), facing p. 1. The date of this collection is controversial: see C. Goldberg, Carmina Priapea: Einleitung, Übersetzung, Interpretation und Kommentar (Heidelberg, 1992), 35–6. Even if it is entirely later than Horace, the epigrams have comparative value for Sat. 1.8 because their motifs would have been known to Horace. So Priapic poems by Catullus suggest: 47.4 uerpus … Priapus ille (Phalaecian); fr. 1.1, 2 (Priapean). Cf. 16.1 pedicabo uos et irrumabo with the same pair of threats in Priap. 35.1–2, 5. J. Uden, ‘Impersonating Priapus’, AJP 128 (2007), 1–26 studies poems 16, 47, 56 as Catullus’ experiments in the genre of Priapic poetry. For that matter the phallic threats appear already in Leonidas of Tarentum (A. Pl. 236 = lxxxiii G–P; A. Pl. 261 = lxxxiv G–P). Consider also the consistency of the representation of Priapus in art in the period 100 B.C.E. to 200 C.E.: W.-R. Megow, ‘Priapos’, in J. Boardman et al. (edd.), Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 8.1 (Zurich, 1997), 1044. 2 Self–conscious: Priap. 6.1, 10.4, 25.1, 43.1, 56.3, 63.9–12, 73.3; [Virg.] Priapeum 2.1 Richmond (OCT) = 85.1 Bücheler, etc. Red: Priap. 1.5, 26.9, 72.2, 82.8; Tib. 1.1.17; [Tib.] Priapeum 2.8 Luck = 82 Bücheler = Priapeum ‘Quid hoc noui est?’ Richmond (OCT). Raised arm, with club or falx (weapon or implement not specified in Horace): Priap. 6.2, 11.2, 20.5, 30.1, 33.6, 55.1. 3 This function of a Priapus elsewhere only at Tib. 1.1.18, where it is not a reed but the falx: terreat ut saeua falce Priapus sua; Virg. G. 4.110–11; Ov. Fast. 1.400, in the much discussed story of Priapus’ failed rape of Lotis, where it is the phallus, quique ruber pauidas inguine terret aues. Despite the impression conveyed by H. Herter, De Priapo (Giessen, 1932), 199, Cornutus Theol. Graec. says nothing about Priapus’ protecting gardens against birds. Cf. Lactant. Div. inst. 2.4.2: fures enim tam stulti sunt ut Priapi tentiginem timeant, cum aues ipsae, quas terrore falcis aut inguinis abigi existimant, simulacris fabre factis id est hominum plane similibus insidant nidificent inquinent (cited by Herter, op. cit., 212). A reed is not mentioned, and Herter exaggerates when he says ‘harundo saepe in capite eius fixa erat’. The short list of representations of Priapus in various media which he gives (200) hardly bears out this statement. 4 See the second of Porphyrio’s comments on line 7, quoted in n. 7 below. Note that Porphyrio was aware of the ambiguity of nouis. In an established garden, birds might have been pleasant companions of Maecenas. Cf. Pieridas Phoebumque colens in mollibus hortis / sederat argutas garrulus inter aues (Eleg. Maec. 1.35–6).

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dimensions [8–13].) One assumes that he is speaking from his own memory and must pre-date the new gardens. What, then, had he been doing there? Was he threatening thieves with anal penetration, as his subsequent reference to thieves might suggest (17–18)? Was he a scarecrow? The answer to these questions, and to other questions soon to be posed, will depend upon the reader’s ability to fill in the blanks in this Priapus’ elliptical life story. It will be suggested that the best way to do so is to assume that Horace’s persona loquens was a real Priapus, i.e. a physical image which the first readers or auditors of the poem could see. Further, as a perceptible physical entity, he had a particular location on the Esquiline, known to the first audience. He speaks, like his generic cousins, from a fixed ‘deictic centre’, indicated at the outset by huc (8).5 Even if Horace’s Priapus is not real but notional, as many or most of the Priapuses in the Priapea are notional (i.e. the epigrams are not inscriptions in a shrine or somehow posted near the figure of a Priapus, despite their conceit of realism), the question of location will not go away. The modern reader is not spared the task of coordinating Horace’s Priapus’ words with his location; cannot otherwise make sense of Priapus as the speaker of this poem; a fortiori, has no access to the mind of Horace except on Priapus’ terrain. To return to Priapus’ account, the Esquiline, that is the part of the Esquiline rendered foul by the cemetery, has become habitable, and one can take walks along the agger (14–16), that is south of the Esquiline Gate.6 As readers of Horace have known since the time of Porphyrio, if indeed it was ever forgotten, Priapus is talking about Maecenas’ clean-up of the area and his building of his own estate.7 But it would be odd if a Priapus had been guarding a cemetery like the one this Priapus describes. What would he have guarded? Why would the thieves, with whom Priapus was once concerned (17–18), have come into such a place? As for me, Priapus goes on, my role has changed, along with the changes in the area. I am less preoccupied by thieves and wild creatures than by witches, who come 5 For the concept of ‘deictic centre’, I cite the foundational work, K. Bühler, Sprachtheorie: Die Darstellungsfunktion der Sprache (Jena, 1934), 102–20 (‘Die Origo des Zeigfeldes und ihre Markierung’). ‘Centre’ is now commonly used instead of Bühler’s ‘Origo’. As a statue or statuette, and the persona loquens of most of the epigrams, Priapus is the perfect ‘deictic centre’ or deictic ‘zero point’. For huc, cf. Priap. 12.5, 14.1, 63.9, 64.2, 69.2, 70.5, 77.3, 80.10. hic occurs 12 times and hinc 5 times. The combined total of the occurrences of the three deictic adverbs is 26. 6 J. Bodel, Graveyards and Groves: A Study of the Lex Lucerina, American Journal of Ancient History 11 (1986 [1994]), 52; id., ‘Dealing with the dead: undertakers, executioners and potter’s fields in Ancient Rome’, in V.M. Hope and E. Marshall (edd.), Death and Disease in the Ancient City (London, 2000), 131–2; C. Häuber, ‘Zur Topographie der Horti Maecenatis und der Horti Lamiani auf dem Esquilin in Rom’, Kölner Jahrb. Vor- u. Frühgesch. 23 (1990), 11–107 (best maps, loose-leaf, by Helga Stöcker); ead., ‘Horti Maecenatis’, in E.M. Steinby (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae 3 (Rome, 1996); T.P. Wiseman, ‘A stroll on the rampart’, in M. Cima and E. La Rocca (edd.), Horti Romani (Rome, 1998), 13 For maps see also Häuber, ‘Das Archäologische Informationssystem “AIS ROMA”: Esquilin, Caelius, Capitolium, Velabrum, Porta Triumphalis’, Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 106 (2005 [2006]), 9–59. It is not clear why at Sat. 2.6.32–3 Horace says atras / … Esquilias. See the questions raised by A. Kießling and R. Heinze, Quintus Horatius Flaccus: Satiren (Berlin, 1957), ad loc. 7 Porphyrio (Hauthal) on line 7: (1) Ideo dixit, quod, cum Esquilina regio prius sepulchris et bustis uacaret, primus Maecenas [ad] salubritatem aeris ibi passus hortos constituit. (2) Potest nouis hortis accipi pro recens satis. Maxime enim aues tum prohibendae ex hortis sunt, ne semina in terra missa colligant. I have numbered the two parts of the gloss. Cf. Hor. C. 3.29.5–12 for Maecenas’ estate.

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here to collect bones and noxious herbs.8 Though he says that he cannot find a way to keep them out, he proceeds to tell a story about how he once drove a pair of these intruders away, and this story takes up the rest of the Satire. They had come into the noui horti by night and were performing their abominable rites, when Priapus farted so loudly that he split his wooden buttocks and sent them running off in confusion (46–50).9 So concludes the story and so also concludes the poem. As a conclusion to the poem, the split buttocks are most effective if they correspond to an observable peculiarity of a real Priapus, one which Maecenas and the first readers or auditors of this poem could see. So Adolf Kießling long ago suggested.10 In this way the story about the witches becomes a surprise aition for a physical feature which a modern reader can easily imagine. In his years of tenure on the Esquiline, Priapus had dried out, and the wood had split along the crease between the buttocks.11 Whether or not Kießling’s suggestion adds a virtual image to the collection of artefacts from the Horti of Maecenas which one now sees in the Museo dei Conservatori in Rome, it certainly gives the modern reader a useful way of thinking about Horace’s Priapus as the speaker of the poem. With an old, cracked Priapus in mind, one can try to give a more definite answer to the question of Priapus’ relation to the new gardens. Assuming that Priapus’ location has remained unchanged, larger ‘new gardens’, that is the urban villa, must have absorbed the garden in which Priapus began his life. The question then becomes: what garden was it? Pierre Grimal, who was aware of the difficulties of the phrase ‘new gardens’, thought that they were an extension of older gardens of Maecenas, in which Horace’s Priapus would already have had a place.12 This suggestion would solve the problem, and is on the right track, but there is no evidence for older gardens of Maecenas.13 A more likely possibility is a pre-existing tomb garden or kepotaphion somewhere in the vicinity of the potter’s field. Two inscriptions are cited for the role of a Priapus in such a setting. One is from Verona: after Dis Manibus C H C there is added locus adsignatus monimento in quo est aedic(u)la Priapi (CIL 5.3634). It sounds as if the shrine of Priapus was already there and is mentioned as a way of defining the area of the tomb. The other inscription is a couplet in iambic senarii: custos sepulcri pene

8 Lines 17–22. Note that ‘thieves and birds’ (3) have become furesque feraeque suetae (17). Birds are already forgotten as objects of his attention. They return, in the form of crows, and he is now the possible object of their attention: mentior at si quid, merdis caput inquiner albis / coruorum (37–8). 9 J. Hallett, ‘Pepedi / diffisa nate ficus: Priapic revenge in Horace, Satires I.8’, RhM 124 (1981), 341–7 explores anal associations of the word ficus (Horace’s Priapus is made of fig-wood) and suggests that, because of these associations, this poem redefines the typical (threatened) Priapic punishment, anal penetration. Here the anus is not the object of Priapic punishment but its instrument. If this interpretation is possible, it would not be inconsonant with the point I am making about Priapus’ loss of generic identity in this Satire. 10 Kießling and Heinze (n. 6), 136, ‘Anlaß zu den lustigen Versen (i.e. Sat. 1.8) wird gegeben haben, daß eines der Priapbilder in Maecenas’ Gärten wirklich die Beschädigung aufwies, deren Entstehung hier erklärt wird’. I refer to Kießling without having checked pre-Heinze editions. Heinze says in his preface to the fifth edition (1921), ‘ganz unverändert ist kaum eine Seite geblieben’. 11 Cf. Priap. 48 for observable physical peculiarity; perhaps also 26. 12 P. Grimal, Les Jardins romains (Paris, 19692), 143–5. 13 So Häuber (e-mail message to me 3 Apr. 2007).

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destricto deus / Priapus ego sum. mortis et uitae locus.14 This guarding of a tomb is unique in Priapic texts (and this metre is attested in a Priapic poem elsewhere only in [Tib.] Priapeum 2 Luck = Priap. 83 Bücheler). These two inscriptions are the first two items in Hans Herter’s inventory under the heading ‘De Priapo mortis et uitae deo’.15 But in this inventory one will not find, after the inscription just quoted (custos sepulcri, etc.), any certain example of a Priapus guarding a tomb. One has to distinguish, then, between guardianship of tomb and of garden belonging to tomb. There were many such gardens, many kepotaphia, on the outskirts of Rome.16 They are described in detail in inscriptions, for example, ‘to this tomb belong the vegetable garden which is enclosed within the wall, and the summer house built beside the door to serve as a porter’s lodge’ (CIL 6.13823) or ‘shops, three in number, to the left and right of the tomb … and the enclosed market garden within … ’ (CIL 6.31852).17 One would expect to find a Priapus in such gardens, which were, after all, his normal venue.18 These vegetable and market gardens, even with no connection to a kepotaphion, should in fact be considered. They could certainly be found on the Esquiline outside the agger, as elsewhere on the outskirts of Rome,19 and Maecenas’ project, which he began in c. 40 B.C.E., was easily large enough to include them. It took in an area far more extensive than the potter’s field, already large by today’s standards at 1,000 by 300 feet (Sat. 1.8.12), or almost seven acres.20 Cicero in Pro Cluentio (66 B.C.E.) preserves a picture of the place from about a quarter of a century earlier. It appears in a catalogue of the murders perpetrated by Oppianicus, the father of the plaintiff. One of his victims was Asuvius, a rich young man whose fortune he hoped to acquire. He lured him from Larinum to Rome. There, Oppianicus’ henchman, Avillius, forged a will, signing it with Asuvius’ name and making Oppianicus the heir. Asuvius … , quasi in hortulos iret, in harenarias quasdam extra portam Esquilinam perductus occiditur (37). Asuvius, gullible though he was, would not have gone outside the Esquiline Gate quasi in hortulos unless he knew or could have believed that hortuli were in fact to be found in this place. 14 CIL 6.3708 = 5173 = ILS 3585 = CLE 193 = 153 Courtney. Courtney comments, ‘Priapus guards a tomb placed in a garden or vineyard’. But the report of the find-spot given in CIL is only ‘near the monument’, i.e. the one from which 4881–5172 come and for which a plan is given on p. 926, along with quotations from Giovanni Campana’s excavation report. 15 Herter (n. 3), 229–32. Megow (n. 1), 1029 states that the protective function of Priapus extended to houses and graves, citing for the latter Herter (n. 3) and a museum catalogue of Gallo-Roman figurines, M. Rouvier-Jeanlin, Les Figurines gallo-romaines en terre cuite au Musée des antiquités nationales (Paris, 1972). 16 For this phenomenon, see J. Bodel, ‘Roman Tomb Gardens’, forthcoming in W. Jashemski (ed.), Gardens of the Roman Empire (vel sim.) (Cambridge). 17 The translations are those of N. Purcell, ‘Town in country and country in town’, in E.B. MacDougall (ed.), Ancient Roman Villa Gardens (Washington, DC, 1984), 188, n. 4. 18 But not in a cemetery, despite P. Lejay, Oeuvres d’Horace (Satires) (Paris, 1911), 217: ‘Un Priape n’était pas déplacé dans un cimitière’. 19 Suetonius called the Pincian Hill the collis hortulorum (Ner. 50). 20 An acre is 43,560 square feet. If Häuber is right about the location of the grove of the Querquetulanae uirae (cf. n. 25 below), then Maecenas’ gardens extended as far south as the modern Via Labicana. She believes the so-called horti Lamiani were part of the gardens of Maecenas (see ‘Il luogo del ritrovamento del gruppo del Laocoonte e la domus Titi imperatoris (Plin. Nat. Hist. 36,37–38)’, in Laocoonte alle Origini dei Musei Vaticani [Rome, 2006], 41–7) and estimates the size of the gardens as about 62 acres (25 hectares), while the size would have been about 35 acres (14 hectares) if, as others believe, the gardens of Maecenas and the so-called horti Lamiani were divided by the former ancient Via Merulana (e-mail message to me 23 Apr. 2007).

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Livy’s description, applying to a much earlier time (211 B.C.E.), coincides in two details with what is known of the Esquiline at the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Principate. Hannibal is only a few miles from Rome. The consuls organize the defence of the city. Amongst other things they decide to send a band of 1,200 Numidian deserters from their bivouac on the Aventine to the Esquiline: media urbe transire Esquilias iusserunt, nullos aptiores inter conualles tectaque hortorum et sepulcra et cauas undique uias ad pugnandum futuros rati (26.10.5–6).21 The gardens will reappear in Cicero’s description (though Cicero refers to hortuli and perhaps means a different kind of garden).22 The tombs will reappear in the Satire under discussion. Priapus can see magna sepulchra.23 Renewal of the Esquiline outside the agger had to deal with a variegated terrain, put to various uses over the centuries.24 From Cicero one knows also of the sandpits in which Asuvius met his end. If there was an oak tree tall enough to provide shade for Maecenas, it had to have preceded the horti, as Häuber has argued, proposing that it belonged originally to a sacred grove which she identifies as that of the Querquetulanae uirae.25 It has been suggested that the kolumbethra constructed by Maecenas (Dio Cass. 55.7) was a thermal spring found on the spot and reused by him for his own purposes.26 Similarly, the old Priapus of Satire 8 could have been found in one of the gardens referred to by Cicero and left there, somewhere within eyeshot of the potter’s field.

21 Cf. Tacitus’ description of a place ‘not far from the city’, to the north, on the Via Salaria, where Petilius Cerealis, sent ahead by Antonius with a thousand horse, was routed by a motley band of Vitellians: inter aedificia hortosque et anfractus uiarum (Hist. 3.79). See K. Wellesley, Cornelius Tacitus: The Histories, Book III (Sydney, 1972) on anfractus uiarum: ‘the north-eastern suburbs of Rome beyond the Castra Praetoria seem to have contained a number of cemeteries and suburban estates, connected with the main roads by rough tracks; cf. Suet. Nero 48–49’. 22 These gardens make one think of the garden plots which one still sees in cities in the U.S., England and Europe: the English ‘allotments’, the ‘German ‘Einzelgärten’ in a ‘Kleingartenanlage’, the Italian ‘orti urbani’, the French ‘jardins potagers communautaires’ or ‘potagers urbains municipaux’. Tecta makes one think of the charming, ingeniously constructed sheds that these gardens sometimes have. 23 Line 36. Cf. Cic. Ph. 9.17 for such a tomb on the Esquiline. See J. Bodel, ‘Monumental Villas and Villa Monuments’, JRA 10 (1997), 20–1 for monumental tombs on villa properties. 24 See Bodel (n. 16) on the competition for space outside the walls: ‘Romans looking for extramural burial sites competed for space not only with the suburban villas of the wealthy but also with warehouses, manufactories, transportation depots, markets, and squatter communities of laborers (notably teamsters, tanners, and brickmakers) and marginalized groups such as funerary tradesmen, foreign immigrants, and devotees of certain exotic cults’. The best-known case is Cicero’s search for horti for a shrine for Tullia, an obsessive theme of Att. 12–13 (45–44 B.C.E.). As he himself says, de hortis etiam atque etiam rogo (12.22.3). See also N. Purcell’s evocation of what a person would have seen as he or she left Rome through the Esquiline Gate in 55 C.E.: (n. 17), 187–8 and, more specifically on the area of Maecenas’ estate, Häuber (n. 6 [1990]), 106–7 with fig. 73. Inside the wall, in the Vicus Sabuci (see Häuber 1990, loose-leaf Map 2 E6), where kilns have been found, Maecenas seems to have taken over a business district as part of his ‘urban renewal’: see Häuber, op. cit., 106. 25 maluit umbrosam quercum (Eleg. Maec. 1.33). Häuber, ‘Wald und Siedlung im antiken Rom – Spuren heiliger Haine auf dem Mons Oppius’, Siedlungsforschung: Archäologie – Geschichte – Geographie 19 (2001), 59, 76 (with citation of F. Castagnoli, ‘Il tempio romano: Questioni di tipologia e di terminologia’, PBSR 52 [1984], 20, n. 85 for the incorporation of pre-existing shrines in private estates), 88; for the location Häuber (n. 6 [2005(2006)]), 16, 18; (n. 20), 45. 26 S. Rizzo, ‘Horti Mecenatiani’, in ‘7c. Gli “Horti” dell’Esquilino’, in Roma Capitale 1870–1911, 7: L’ Archeologia in Roma capitale tra sterro e scavo (Venice, 1983), 195–6.

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One should consider, then, the possibility that Priapus is punning when he says nouis … in hortis, simultaneously using horti in two senses: as the plural of hortus ‘garden’ and as the plural horti in the sense of ‘urban villa’ (cf. OLD s.v. hortus 2).27 Priapus’ life story begins with a description of his generic function in gardens in the primary sense, including two lines on his scarecrow function in ‘new gardens’, that is newly planted gardens. He goes on to say, in effect, that he has outlived his generic function and, in the setting of ‘new gardens’, that is Maecenas’ new estate, now has a new, post-generic function to guard against witches. The generic self-description with which the Satire opens would, then, refer first of all to Priapus’ functions in that old garden (hortus in the primary sense), which would have been either a tomb garden or a market garden or a family vegetable garden. He would have continued to play these generic roles in the indeterminate period extending from the inauguration of Maecenas’ new gardens (horti in the sense of ‘urban villa’) up to the moment in which Priapus is speaking (nunc, 14). But in this period he has gradually (as non tantum, 17 implies) shed these roles, though the main traits of his physical identity, phallus, raised arm and reed, remain the same. The ambiguity of nouis … in hortis (7) covers this diachronic range from the time of someone’s old garden with newly planted seeds to Maecenas’ incorporation of this old garden into his vaster gardens – from someone’s market garden or family vegetable garden or kepotaphion to Maecenas’ pleasure gardens. The present tenses of terret and of uetat (7) are also ambiguous, complementing the ambiguity of ‘new’. After deus inde ego (sc. eram or sum?), these present tenses sound at first like an imperfective, descriptive present, that is, descriptive of what Priapus is actually doing, but they turn out to be a general present expressing a vérité d’expérience concerning Priapuses which no longer applies to this Priapus’ existence.28 An antique, fissured Priapus, one losing his physical integrity, a Priapus physically recontextualized in new horti in which he abandons his traditional functions – he would be the perfect image for loss of poetic–generic identity. In his new role Priapus is post-generic in this sense too. He makes fun of himself as a Priapus.29 He is not speaking, after lines 1–7, to a reader imagined as reading Priapic verses posted in a shrine of Priapus or near a Priapus statue. He no longer conveys his characteristic phallic threats. He has forgotten the metres of the Priapea.30 Speaking in dactylic hexameters, he refers to those ne’er-do-well’s Pantolabus and Nomentanus (11; cf. Sat. 2.1.21); he describes Horace’s horrid fascination, Canidia, and her companion

27 The suggestion concerning horti as a pun came to me from John Bodel (e-mail message 31 Mar. 2007). 28 On the Latin present see A. Ernout and F. Thomas, Syntaxe Latine (Paris, 1953), 220–1. 29 Parody is the theme of the short discussion of Sat. 1.8 by V. Buchheit, Studien zum Corpus Priapeorum, Zetemata Monographien zur klassischen Altertumswissenschaft 28 (Munich, 1962), 63–4. 30 Cf. n. 1 above for the comparative value of the Priapea. 31 For Canidia, Hor. Epod. 5, 17; cf. 3.8; Sat. 2.1.48, 8.85. For Sagana, Epod. 5.25. For a survey of views on the identity of Canidia see D. Mankin, Horace: Epodes (Cambridge, 1995), 299–301. L. Watson, A Commentary on Horace’s Epodes (Oxford, 2003), 188–9 points out a previously unnoticed parallel between the boy’s curses in Epod. 5, introduced by dubius unde rumperet silentium (85) and Priapus’ fart in Sat. 1.8: both, by breaking ritual silence, have the effect of vitiating the witches’ magical ceremonies. 32 The description of the trio is from P.M. Brown, Horace: Satires I. (Warminster, 1993), ad

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Sagana31; and he refers to a trio of ‘unidentifiable undesirables’ (39), all in a way that might remind one of a Satire by Horace.32 Rutgers University [email protected]

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loc. Interpretation of this Satire has often called attention to similarities between Priapus and Horace (i.e. in the persona of satirist): W.S. Anderson, ‘The form, purpose, and position of Horace’s Satire I, 8’, AJP 94 (1972), 4–5; J.E.G. Zetzel, ‘Horace’s Liber Sermonum: The Structure of Ambiguity’, Arethusa 13 (1980), 61, 66; J. Henderson, ‘Satire writes “Woman”: Gendersong’, PCPhS n.s. 35 (1989), 60–2; this piece was ‘trimmed and rewritten’ (v) under the same title in id., Writing Down Rome: Satire, Comedy, and Other Offences in Latin Poetry (Oxford, 1999), 188–91; cf., for the same take on Sat. 1.8, id., ‘Not “Women in Roman Satire” but “When Satire writes ‘Woman’” ’, in S. Braund (ed.), Satire and Society in Ancient Rome (Exeter, 1989), 188–91; S. Braund, Roman Verse Satire, Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics 23, (Oxford, 1992), 21; B. Hill, ‘Horace, Satires 1.8: Whence the witches? Thematic unity within the satire and within the Satires of Book I’, in M. DeForest (ed.), Woman’s Power, Man’s Game: Essays on Classical Antiquity in Honor of Joy K. King (Wauconda, IL, 1993), 261; M. Habash, ‘Priapus: Horace in disguise?’ CJ 94 (1999), 285–6, 288–9, 295–6; F. Felgentreu, ‘Horaz, Satiren I,8 und die Vielfalt der Einfalt’, Hyperboreus 5 (1999), 281; T.S. Welch, ‘Est locus uni cuique suus: City and Status in Horace’s Satires 1.8 and 1.9’, CA 20 (2001), 184–7; E. Gowers, ‘Blind eyes and cut throats: Amnesia and silence in Horace Satires 1.7’, CP 97 (2002), 159–60; S. Sharland, ‘Priapus’ magic marker’, AClass 46 (2003), 105.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 132–141 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S0009838809000010X

132 THE ONE AND ONL Y FO NYN S BAN D U SIAE LLEWEL MORGAN

THE ONE AND ONLY FONS BANDUSIAE ‘Nobody knows where Bandusia was, but it is a fair guess that, like the pine tree Horace dedicates in 3.22, it was on Horace’s Sabine estate.’1 David West’s statement of the likely whereabouts of the fons Bandusiae of Odes 3.13, from the third instalment of his superb introductory edition of Horace’s Odes, may be considered representative of the broad scholarly consensus on this question from late antiquity (thus pseudoAcro at Odes 3.13.1 and Porphyrio at Epist. 1.16.12, where the spring described is undoubtedly at his villa) to recent times: Horace is addressing ‘the spring behind his farmhouse’.2 Another, more lucid view momentarily prevailed in the latter part of the eighteenth century (and reappears sporadically elsewhere), as we shall see. The main contention of this article is that those scholars who have maintained that the fons Bandusiae was nowhere near the Sabine farm, a small minority, are absolutely right. But I shall also be suggesting that interesting implications for our understanding of the poem addressed to the Bandusian spring follow from clarity as to its geographical location. I. FINDING THE FONS BANDUSIAE The true location of the fons Bandusiae was conclusively established some considerable time ago, in Bertrand Capmartin De Chaupy’s Découverte de la maison de campagne d’Horace.3 A French abbé, De Chaupy had stumbled by sheer chance on a bull of Pope Pascal II, dating to 1103, which made reference in passing to Ecclesiam sanctorum martyrum Gervasii et Protasii in Bandusino fonte apud Venusiam, ‘the church of the Holy Martyrs Gervasius and Protasius at the Bandusian Spring at Venusia’.4 Presented with such seemingly powerful evidence, De Chaupy decided to travel to the vicinity himself, and managed to narrow down the location of the church and spring to the modern town of Palazzo S. Gervasio, which he placed about six miles (though it is in fact closer to ten) to the east of Venusia (modern Venosa) along the Appian Way.5 What makes this information compelling, of course, and the link to * This discussion of a poetic expression of indebtedness owes its own debt to readers and interlocutors who have indulged the author’s determination to pursue his (no doubt eccentric) view of Odes 3.13. That includes Bob Cowan, Lindsay Watson, Matthew Leigh and the reader for CQ, and the participants at a symposium on Horace held in honour of Margaret Hubbard at St Anne’s College, Oxford in May 2008: especially Gail Trimble, Fiachra Mac Gorain, and the honorand on that occasion, to whom this article is respectfully dedicated. 1 D.A. West, Horace, Odes III: Dulce Periculum (Oxford, 2002), 120. 2 G. Williams, Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford, 1968), 149. 3 (Rome, 1767–9), 3.363–5 and 536–41. 4 The full text may be found at P. Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum2 (Leipzig, 1881–5), no. 5945; the relevant portion of the bull is also printed at B.D. Frischer and I.G. Brown (edd.), Allan Ramsay and the Search for Horace’s Villa (Aldershot, 2001), 127. 5 De Chaupy (n. 3), 538: ‘à six milles au dessus de Venose … au lieu appellé Palazzo’. For the route of the Via Appia past Palazzo S. Gervasio see P. Vinson, ‘Ancient roads between Venosa and Gravina’, PBSR 40 (1972), 58–90, at 68: the ‘Fontana Rotta’ marked on Vinson’s map directly alongside the line of the road was what De Chaupy identified as the residue of the fons Bandusiae. The ‘6 miles S. of Venusia’ of E.H. Bunbury (n. 14) was evidently a misreading (or perhaps mishearing from dictation) of De Chaupy’s ‘au dessus de’ as ‘au sud de’.

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Horace’s poem indisputable, is that Venusia was Horace’s hometown, and indeed the papal document also mentions two localities neighbouring the spring, Bantium and Ac(h)erentia,6 which feature in the (beautifully contoured)7 passage from an earlier ode in Book 3 where Horace reminisces about his charmed childhood (3.4.13–16): mirum quod foret omnibus, quicumque celsae nidum Acherontiae, saltusque Bantinos et aruum pingue tenent humilis Forenti. which was a marvel to all who live in the nest of high Acherontia and the high clearings of Bantium and the rich ploughland of low-lying Forentum.8

It thus seems perfectly clear, as De Chaupy concluded, that the fons Bandusiae was, contrary to the statements of the ancient commentators, ‘une Fontaine, non de la Campagne d’Horace, mais de la Patrie’:9 not a feature of Horace’s Sabine estate but a landmark of Horace’s youth in the marches of Lucania and Apulia (Hor. Serm. 2.1.34–9). Not just a local landmark, it is worth adding: by virtue of the position of the spring directly alongside the Appian Way, this was a location potentially identifiable also by the inhabitants of the city of Rome. Indeed, if we follow Brodersen’s analysis of the Roman ‘mental map’, not an essentially cartographical conception like our own, but linear, structured ‘by routes which only register the relative position of the landmarks situated on them’,10 this landmark on the road between Rome and Brundisium would necessarily be a prominent feature on the Roman ‘map’ of Italy.11 De Chaupy was read in turn by Allan Ramsay, whose An Enquiry into the Situation and Circumstances of Horace’s Sabine Villa Written during travels through Italy in the years 1775, 76 and 77 has recently been published for the first time.12 Ramsay accepted De Chaupy’s findings without qualification,13 as have a small rump of scholars since,14 but in mainstream literary scholarship, at least, the history of this scholarly 6 The name of the latter town is also written as Ac(h)eruntia or Ac(h)erontia: their modern counterparts are Banzi and Acerenza. 7 D.A. West, ‘Horace’s poetic technique in the “Odes” ’, in C.D.N. Costa, Horace (London, 1973), 29–58, at 34–5. 8 Modern Forenza. 9 De Chaupy (n. 3), 365. 10 K. Brodersen, Terra cognita. Studien zur römischen Raumerfassung2 (Hildesheim, 2003), 290, referring to the ‘intermediate space’ of countries and regions. 11 The location is not mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary, but as it happens that record appears to be deficient for this section of the Appian Way. See Vinson (n. 5), 86–7 for the likelihood that ancient Siluium is modern Gravina, and that the 20 milia passuum stated as the distance between Venusia and Siluium in the Itinerary, as contrasted with the 35 m.p. of the Peutinger Table (a better indication of the real distance between Venosa and Gravina), is the result of the dropping out of a stage between the two towns from the text of the Itinerary. For the relevant text, see O. Cuntz, Itineraria Romana (Leipzig, 1929), 17. 12 Frischer and Brown (n. 4): on De Chaupy see 123–31. 13 ‘Here [scil. in the papal bull] was not only a fountain of the same name with that which had been in vain sought for, but a fountain of such name and consideration as to serve as a landmark, and at the same time so linked in the Bull itself with other places with which Horace was known to have been connected as to leave little or no doubt of its being the same fountain which he had celebrated in his ode’: Frischer and Brown (n. 4), 124–5. 14 Thus W. Smith (ed.), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (London, 1854), s.v. ‘Bandusiae fons’ (E.H. Bunbury): Smith’s dictionary has recently been republished by I.B. Tauris (London, 2005), with an introductory essay by C. Stray. Stefania Quilici Gigli in S. Mariotti (ed.), Enciclopedia oraziana (Florence, 1996), I.557–8 offers a judicious, non-committal discussion of

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question took a decidedly peculiar turn. For it transpires that quite a number of the scholars who have held that the fons Bandusiae was a feature of Horace’s Sabinum have not only been aware of De Chaupy’s research but have also accepted the Frenchman’s conclusions in all essentials. The idea has gained currency that, although the original fons Bandusiae was indeed near Venusia, ‘Horace gave to a Sabine spring the name of a famous landmark near his birthplace’, as Nisbet and Rudd have recently put it:15 but the same notion is to be found in Kiessling–Heinze (ad loc.) and in Fraenkel, who traces it back at least as far as the middle of the nineteenth century.16 The belief shared by all these eminent scholars is, in effect, that there were two Bandusian springs. William of Ockham would have had something to say about this. But let us wield the razor on his behalf: Horace never offers any indication that the fons Bandusiae was at his Sabine farm. That is the fallacious, although perfectly understandable, assumption introduced by his ancient commentators, aware as they were of a spring on the Sabine estate, vividly evoked at Epist. 1.16.12–14.17 In addition we do in fact know where it was, because De Chaupy found all the relevant evidence in that papal bull. The kindest description of the compromise represented by the two-spring hypothesis is that it is inelegant. But as an account of a poem with a readership it is positively incoherent. In the absence of any hint from Horace as to the location of the fons that he is celebrating, the two-spring proponents are obliged to argue that contemporary readers would have thought of the landmark on the Appian Way near Venusia, but then arbitrarily dismissed it in favour of an ersatz fons Bandusiae at the Sabine villa: this is a lot to expect a reader to do without any guidance whatsoever from the poet. II. A NATIVE SPRING There was only ever one fons Bandusiae: I hope that is now self-evident. As for its location, it lay ten miles or so to the east of Venusia – but I claim absolutely no credit for that discovery myself. What I would like to do on my own account is to build a larger argument about this poem on that topographical clarification. I believe that other (often well-recognized) implications of O fons Bandusiae click into rather precise focus once the geographical question is settled. Rather more ink has been spilt on Bandusia’s limpid waters than the kid’s blood which has been the focus of modern (and, I believe, ancient)18 disquiet. But one point of agreement, and this time an incontestable one, is that a central concern of this poem is the poet’s own achievement. theories regarding the location of the fons, but the illustration at I.285 is asserted to be of ‘Il fons Bandusiae a Licenza’, i.e. on the Sabine estate. The village of Licenza is named after a river of the same name, and ‘Licenza’ is a clear corruption of ‘Digentia’, on which see n. 17 below. 15 R.G.M. Nisbet and N. Rudd, A Commentary on Horace, Odes Book III (Oxford, 2004), 173. 16 E. Fraenkel, Horace (Oxford, 1957), 203, n. 1, citing C.G. Zumpt in E.F. Wüstermann’s 1843 re-edition of L.F. Heindorf ’s edition of Horace’s Satires, 17, n. 1. Quilici Gigli (n. 14), 557 attributes the idea to G. Boissier, Nouvelles promenades archéologiques (Paris, 1884), 30–1. A rum exercise in Quellenforschung, this: the search for the scholar who first lost the Quelle Bandusia. 17 This spring is described by Horace as identical in nomenclature to a riuus (fons etiam riuo dare nomen idoneus, 12), seemingly the riuus later named as Digentia (Ep. 1.18.104, gelidus Digentia riuus). I cannot see any space at the Sabine farm for a spring named Bandusia. For a discussion of the symbolic value of the Digentia in Horace’s verse which tackles issues relevant in broader ways to this article, see J.C. Bramble, Persius and the Programmatic Satire (Cambridge, 1974), 62–3. 18 Pp. 137–40 below.

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In the last stanza of 3.13 Horace famously states that the spring will achieve fame in his poetry (me dicente, 14) comparable to the springs of Greek poetry (13–16): fies nobilium tu quoque fontium, me dicente cauis impositam ilicem saxis, unde loquaces lymphae desiliunt tuae. You too will be one of the famous fountains, as I sing of the holm oak overhanging the hollow rocks, whence your chattering waters leap down.

The Greek springs to whose company Horace’s poetry will raise the fons Bandusiae are such familiar names as Aganippe, Hippocrene, Castalia, Dirce and Arethusa, all of them conceived as sources of poetic inspiration and figures for poetry itself, and in all cases associated with Muses. The mode of thinking about the poetic process underlying this proliferation of inspirational springs is well described by Steiner in relation to Pindar: ‘[i]nspiration … demands that the poet take in some power from without, and that he carry within him the force of the divine which makes him truly entheos, god-possessed’.19 The idea that a spring should fulfil this role is extremely familiar in Roman poetry, and that is no doubt primarily due to Callimachus’ / , ‘the pure and undefiled little stream that trickles from a holy fountain, the best of the best’ (H. 2.111–12), and his restaging early in Aetia 1 of Hesiod’s encounter with the Muses on Mt Helicon at the start of the Theogony, which involved some reference both to the Hippocrene and seemingly also to the less elevated (in more than one sense) Aganippe, source of the Permessus (Call. fr. 2 Pf.; fr. 696 Pf.).20 But as Callimachus’ debt to Hesiod implies, the idea is older, and typically (or at least archetypically) the notion of the poetic spring entails some indication of the provenance of the poet to whom it provides inspiration. Thus Hesiod of Ascra learned his poetry from the Muses who danced around and cleansed themselves in the springs of Helicon (Theog. 1–34), and Propertius can consequently talk of Ascraei fontes (2.10.25–6), a Hesiodic level of inspiration to which he cannot as yet aspire, acquainted so far only with the Permessus. AP 9.64 similarly has the Muses offering the ‘inspiring water’ of Helicon to Hesiod, and Hesiod drinking his fill of it before penning his classic works: Persius spoofs the same idea at Prologue 1.21 Pindar of Thebes also identifies his inspiration with a spring in a locality of special relevance to him when he presents his sixth Isthmian, at its conclusion, as a draught of Dirce / (74–5): , ‘I shall offer them a drink of Dirce’s sacred water, which the deep-bosomed daughters / of golden-robed Memory made to rise by the well-walled gate of Cadmus’. The spring Arethusa functions rather similarly in (post-Theocritean)22 bucolic poetry. At [Mosch.] Epit. Bion. 77 Bion is said to have drunk from Arethusa as Homer had from the Hippocrene (cf. 9–12); at Virg. Ecl. 10.1, Arethusa is asked to vouchsafe one last Virgilian exercise in Theocritean mode. In each case this Syracusan spring 19

D. Steiner, The Crown of Song: Metaphor in Pindar (London, 1986), 44. W. Wimmel, Kallimachos in Rom. Die Nachfolge seines apologetischen Dichtens in der Augusteerzeit (Wiesbaden, 1960), 222–50. 21 My thanks to Lindsay Watson for these references. 22 Arethusa is mentioned at Theoc. Id. 1.117 and 16.102, but not as a source of personal inspiration. 20

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marks Theocritus’ geographical origins at the same time as it represents the external source of inspiration for Theocritean verse. The capacity of the waters of a poet’s homeland to symbolize his ingenium is surely also relevant to Ovid’s regular allusions to his well-watered place of origin at Sulmo, amongst the Paeligni (Am. 2.1.1, 16.1–2, 3.15.11; Tr. 4.10.3; Fast. 4.685–6), not just a case of the poet lingering ‘affectionately over his own well-watered family farm’,23 nor even simply a statement of national or ethnic loyalty, but a suggestion that it was to these origins that Ovid owed his poetic creativity: an aquosus homeland (and this characteristic of the territory is invariably foregrounded by Ovid) is figuratively a land that provides to its alumnus a wealth of poetic inspiration. Comparable again are Virgil’s references to the river Mincius at Ecl. 7.12–13 and G. 3.14–15, on the banks of which (according to the latter text) Virgil would raise his poetic temple to Caesar,24 and the role of the Camenae, denizens of the spring from which the Vestals drew their daily water, as patron spirits of early Roman poetic activity. An obvious implication of the final stanza of Odes 3.13 is that, just as the fons Bandusiae will bear comparison with these Greek springs, so Horace will join the ranks of the great Greek poets. West notes how Horace ‘glides into Greek syntax’ in this stanza as he effectively claims membership of the Greek literary club, just to ensure the point is registered.25 The sentiment is in effect a confident assertion of the mere aspiration to gain inclusion among the lyrici uates that Horace had expressed at Odes 1.1.35–6, but with its gesture towards the poet’s origins near Venusia we are closer to the terms of 3.30.10–14, where the emphasis is on Horace’s ascent, ex humili potens, from humble beginnings in Apulia to literary celebrity. In 3.13 the assessment of Horace’s origins is more positive, but there must still be a hint of irony in the assimilation of the fons Bandusiae to the grand springs of Greece, some suggestion of Horace’s achievement in elevating a locality so parochial (for all its proximity to the longarum ... regina uiarum, Stat. Silv. 2.2.12) to the universal celebrity of its Greek counterparts: the personified lymphae of the last line, more or less interchangeable with nymphae,26 call to mind, also with some self-belittling irony, the normal denizens of poetic springs, Musae.27 At any rate the combination of an acknowledged attempt on Horace’s part to equate the fons Bandusiae with springs symbolic of poetic inspiration and the very personal associations attaching to this landmark in his homeland makes it natural to assume that other elements of O fons Bandusiae contribute to some kind of statement about Horace’s poetic achievement – that this is indeed the burden of the poem. With this possibility in view, I turn now to the most controversial part of Odes 3.13, Horace’s sacrifice of the goat kid.

23

E. Fantham, Ovid, Fasti Book IV (Cambridge, 1998), at Fast. 4.685–6. It is no doubt significant that Virgil’s inspirational watercourse at this transitional moment in his poetic development is not a Callimachean spring but a river, albeit a generically conflicted one: on the one hand the ingens Mincius meanders with tardis … flexibus (14); on the other it delicately fringes its banks with tenera … harundine. For the contradictions inherent in the generic self-positioning of this passage see Ll. Morgan, Patterns of Redemption in Virgil’s Georgics (Cambridge, 1999), 50–5; and for the observation that ‘in every programmatic utterance’ of the Georgics ‘Virgil characterizes his position as transitional,’ see R.F. Thomas, Virgil, Georgics (Cambridge, 1988), I.2. 25 West (n. 1), 120. 26 West (n. 1), 121. 27 On the relation of nymphs to Muses, see R. Coleman, Vergil, Eclogues (Cambridge, 1977) at Ecl. 7.21. 24

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III. SACRIFICE AND SURROGACY Yet another widely shared assumption of scholarship on this poem concerns the context of the offering, the life of a goat kid, that Horace is proposing to make to the spring. Most commentators have concluded that a ritual offering to a spring must indicate a known festival, the Fontinalia of 13 October, in which case the dramatic date of the ode (given cras at 3) would be 12 October. Nisbet and Rudd are rightly sceptical, although they posit in the Fontinalia’s place another public festival, the Neptunalia of 23 July.28 But the poet in fact offers no indication that an official festival, let alone which festival, is being observed, and the assumption that some such publicly celebrated ritual must be at issue in the poem is in its way as strange, and as untrue to any natural reading of the poetic text, as the notion of an imitation fons Bandusiae at the Sabine estate. If a specific festival is entailed Horace tends to offer strong clues to that effect: we might think of the Matronalia at Odes 3.8.1, Martiis caelebs quid agam Kalendis, or the more complex play with dates in Odes 1.31, where the dramatic scenario shifts meaningfully from 9 October to 11 October 28 B.C.29 We today have to struggle to identify a festival which would fit Horace’s account, and it does not seem that Horace offers information that would have made it any easier for his contemporaries; in which case it is reasonable to assume that the poet did not want us to think in terms of a public ritual: cras at 3 is hardly enough.30 Perhaps we should take our cue from Horace’s failure to give us one. The details of the offering would certainly seem to support a reading of the sacrifice as a private ritual on Horace’s part. As Nisbet and Rudd report, offerings to springs could take a number of forms, garlands and also pigs and sheep,31 but this does not bring us very close to Horace’s precisely delineated offering of a prepubescent kid, and thus in no way precludes our looking for a significance and symbolism in the sacrificial victim of more immediate relevance to the poet. And our attention is undoubtedly focussed upon the kid: that much is ensured by Horace’s arresting decision to dwell, in seemingly unnecessary detail, on the character, the potential and then the death of the sacrificial victim (3–8), thereby evoking the pathos of the creature’s unfulfilled promise in a manner very unlike other, unembellished references to kid sacrifice at Epod. 10.23 and Carm. 1.4.12. But if we are being asked to contemplate this victim with unusual sympathy and attentiveness, what is it that he could represent? One approach to explaining this anomalous focus on the object, process and consequences of the sacrifice would be to consider the victim, a goat kid on the cusp of maturity and a fulfilled life, in the light of a well-recognized ancient understanding of sacrifice as a process of substitution: ‘the victim is offered in exchange for benefits 28

Nisbet and Rudd (n. 15), 173–4. For an excellent account, see D. West, Horace Odes I: Carpe Diem (Oxford, 1995), 146–51. 30 Nisbet and Rudd (n. 15), 173: ‘When Horace says that a kid will be offered to the spring “tomorrow” (3), he seems to be thinking of a particular festival’. It might be countered that lyric poetry, stereotypically the product of night-time symposia, is programmed to anticipate the following day, generally with a view to dismissing it in favour of the pleasures and oblivion of the present: thus 1.7.32, 1.9.13, 1.11.8, 3.29.43, and 4.7.17. In 3.17 Horace again looks ahead to a private festivity (a celebration of L. Aelius Lamia’s Genius, somewhat comparable to 3.13, as I interpret it) from the vantage point of the previous day. If at all marked, then, is cras at 3.13.3 in actual fact a succinct way of specifying the dramatic time of Horace’s ‘song’, rather than that of the sacrifice? 31 Garlands: Varro, Ling. 6.22 (on the Fontinalia); a pig: Mart. 6.47, in explicit payment of a vow; sheep: Ov. Fast. 3.300; G. Henzen, Acta fratrum Arvalium (Berlin, 1874), 146. 29

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or in payment of a negative balance incurred through earlier crimes’, though not only crimes, and ‘itself has symbolic value, standing in as a surrogate for those who offer it’.32 Horace is explicitly offering the fons Bandusiae a gift (donaberis, 3). But the question would then be, a gift in return for what? For whom or what might an adolescent goat operate as a repayment or substitute, and what debt might be owed to the fons Bandusiae to merit such a gift? One readily available answer might be that the kid is the surrogate of the person most immediately involved in his sacrifice, Q. Horatius Flaccus, in which case its symbolic value would potentially be very strong indeed: cut off at the cusp of maturity, after all, the animal is powerfully evocative of the young Horace himself, who had taken his leave of the vicinity of the spring to gain an education in Rome and rise to a life with its fair share of the uenerem et proelia (5) denied to the kid, especially if Horace is understood in his lyric persona as the Roman Alcaeus, warrior and symposiast.33 Horace’s account of his education at Rome at Serm. 1.6.71–82 implies that his departure from Venusia coincided with the start of the second stage of the standard elite Roman education, thus placing the future poet at roughly the age of twelve, a good human analogue for a kid with budding horns.34 A beast full of youthful promise dies, in other words, in recompense for the success of the boy who came to write this poem in this book and collection; and the Bandusian spring is Horace’s version of his personal Muses’ spring, his talent conceived as something external to himself to which he owes proportionate thanks, in the shape of the sacrificial kid. The derivation of Bandusia from Greek Pandosia, ‘giver of all’, postulated by Nisbet and Rudd, must also be felt here: return is made to the one who has given everything.35 I have suggested already that the unsettling quality of this passage is not just a product of modern sensibilities: Horace was not required to spell out the implications of the sacrifice for the victim (or for the spring) as explicitly or vividly as he does. Up to a point this disconcerting emphasis can be satisfactorily explained by spelling out the logic of such a sacrifice: for the kid to constitute adequate payment for Horace’s success, the future to which he will not attain must encapsulate the life that Horace did live, the victim’s lost life a payment for Horace’s extraordinary accomplishments. Our response to the sacrifice is thus not just to mourn the vitality of the haedus (although we must indeed feel the poignancy of his death, the force of frustra in 6): that lost vitality also, paradoxically, conveys the rich life with which Bandusia, understood as 32 P.R. Hardie, The Epic Successors of Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a Tradition (Cambridge, 1993), 32, with further references. This way of thinking is particularly important for the Aeneid, as argued by C. Bandera, ‘Sacrificial levels in Virgil’s Aeneid’, Arethusa 14 (1981), 217–39; W.S.M. Nicoll, ‘The sacrifice of Palinurus’, CQ 38 (1988), 459–72; Ll. Morgan, ‘Assimilation and civil war: Hercules and Cacus (Aen. 8.185–267)’, in H.-P. Stahl, Vergil’s Aeneid: Augustan Epic and Political Context (London, 1998), 175–97. 33 1.32.5–12 sets out very clearly the perceived division between Alcaeus’ political and erotic poetry, but see also pp. 139–40 below. 34 See P. M. Brown, Horace. Satires I (Warminster, 1995), at 1.6.77, with OCD3 s.v. ‘education, Roman’ (J.V. Muir). 35 Nisbet and Rudd (n. 15), 172–3. A name for a poetic spring translated from Greek also hints at an important theme in the Odes, Horace’s pride in transplanting a Greek poetic form to Italy, developed most explicitly at 3.30.13–14; but cf. 1.20.1–3 with S. Commager, The Odes of Horace: A Critical Study (New Haven, 1962), 326, and the suggestive linguistic play at 1.32.3–4, dic Latinum, barbite, carmen. The Appian Way, on which the spring in question was positioned, was of course the link between Rome and Magna Graecia, and thence Greece itself via the port of Brundisium.

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Horace’s ingenium, gifted the poet. With the passage that has been the focus of critical anxiety, the description of the ‘staining’ (inficiet) of the spring waters with the blood of the victim at 6–8, sacrificial thinking again provides an important key. We cannot appreciate the richness of Horace’s life – the generosity of Bandusia’s gift, in other words – unless the inversion of this gift, the curtailment of life endured by the kid, is developed with proportionate intensity: and the repayment to the spring of a life for a life could hardly be represented more compellingly than in the image of a lively creature’s life-force, his blood, seeping back into the spring’s life-giving waters. But many readers have still experienced the bleeding of the kid into the spring as some kind of violation of its purity,36 and although this can be overstated (a spring adulterated with sacrificial blood is not thereby straightforwardly polluted: sacrificial blood is at worst an ambivalent substance, as Burkert insists, purifying and polluting simultaneously),37 Horace’s imagery seems carefully designed to render the meeting of blood and water unsettling. The nuance of the verb inficiet is hard to pin down with confidence, but the allusion to 3.6.34, infecit aequor sanguine Punico (describing the actions of the exemplary youth of earlier times), whilst it suggests that the metaphor might convey the sort of righteous ruthlessness appropriate to crushing the Carthaginians, nevertheless chimes a little harshly in the quieter, pastoral environment of the fons Bandusiae. The image is also, most importantly, a contradiction of the Callimachean (and Horatian, cf. 1.26.6–9 to the Muse, quae fontibus , the fons integris / gaudes) ideal of the pure poetic spring (even if debatably nor integer), and signalled as such Bandusiae after the sacrifice is neither by its tension with the opening description of the spring as splendidior uitro: ‘inficiet (“discolour”) is set against the purity of splendidior (1)’.38 In fact this subtle complication of Callimachean programmatic imagery seems as purposeful as any element of this intricate composition. I return here to the suggestively Alcaic quality of the future denied to the kid, uenerem et proelia. Quintilian (Inst. 10.1.63) praises Alcaeus for his political poetry, which he considers morally uplifting in its attacks on tyrants, and in style ‘succinct, lofty (magnificus), precise and often like an orator’s’ (cf. Dion. Hal. Imit. 422), but deplores the same poet’s willingness to stoop to frivolous poetry and erotic verse, ‘though more suited to greater themes’ (maioribus tamen aptior). Alcaeus is defined as the (regrettably) (Strab. 13.2.3) and , light verse alongversatile author of both side serious, and here, as in Odes 1.32, the essence of the Alcaic persona is the sympotic poet and participant who is also a man of public affairs, Lesbius ciuis. The aptness of the Alcaic model to Horace lay above all in the latter’s own history of perilous engagement in national affairs, Philippi especially (of which we are about to be reminded at 3.14.28). What I am proposing is that it matters to Horace to advertise that his life has been Alcaic, rather than Callimachean, one of proelia (a word with an inevitable generic charge)39 as well as uenus, and that if indeed Callimachean 36 See the survey of G. Mader, ‘That st(r)ain again: blood, water, and generic allusion in Horace’s Bandusia Ode’, AJPh 123 (2002), 51–9, at 51–2. 37 W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA, 1985), 81–2, with a general statement of the sacrificial paradox at 81, ‘sacrament and sacrilege merge in every act of sacral killing’. 38 Nisbet and Rudd (n. 15), ad loc. As they proceed to comment, this is also one implication of the figure at 6–7 by which the redness of the blood implies the clarity of the water, and the coldness of the water the warmth of the blood: cf. E.A. Schmidt, ‘Schema Horatianum’, WS 103 (1990), 57–98, at 66–8. The implied warmth of the blood also contrasts with the ‘delightful chill’ that the spring provides against the heat of the Dogstar at 9–12. 39 See Mader (n. 36), 54–8 for a comparable reading of 3.13 as a poem in which Horace toys

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proprieties are violated, and an edgy hint offered of conflict and violence over and above that already inherent in the sacrificial ritual, the bloodletting of the haedus thereby serves to communicate, by inversion, the full richness and complexity of the Alcaic life to which the Bandusian spring had propelled its protégé.40 IV. CONCLUSION: SPRING, POETRY, GENIUS In the final, vivid evocation of the spring, itself (naturally) an embodiment of eloquence (15–16, unde loquaces / lymphae desiliunt tuae), poetry imitates the spring to the point of being sonically indistinguishable from it,41 and, more than that, offers in the very structure of the final stanza a visual reminiscence of the scene described. In a manner comparable to the poetic landscaping of 3.4.13–16, finely elucidated by West,42 the sense of the text is mirrored in its disposition: the holm oak (14) is set above the rocks on the line beneath, from which in turn the waters leap down into the final line, the sinuous movement of sense from line to uneven line iconic of the tumbling of water over the rocks of the spring: cauis impositam ilicem saxis, unde loquaces lymphae desiliunt tuae.

It would be easy also to draw comparisons between the power of poetry and the soothing influence of the spring: the frigus amabile bestowed on passing cattle and flocks (9–12) recalls the epiphany of the Muse Calliope at the start of Odes 3.4, at which the poet seems (6–8) ‘to hear and wander through sacred groves, into which steal delightful waters and breezes’. It is immediately after this that Horace tells of the magical childhood around such places as Acherontia, Bantium and Ferentum, and Mt Voltur, on the slopes of which stood Venusia, which marked him out as an acolyte of the Muses. Thanks to Odes 3.13 the immortality of the fons Bandusiae does not depend on its physical location ten miles east of Venosa,43 and that is indeed fortunate: even as early with a higher poetic register, represented for Mader by, amongst other things, the proelia of 5 and the motif of bloodstained water. But Mader equates uenus too readily with lyric, regarding the indications of a higher register of poetry as ‘an “epic” note’ (57). But lyric has a much more fluid generic status than Mader allows. In the person of Alcaeus, especially, not mentioned by Mader, the polarity of love and warfare is confounded. 40 Lindsay Watson has alerted me in discussion to the parallel between a goat sacrificed to an inspirational spring and the tale told of Archilochus’ initiation at testimonia 3 Gerber (SEG 15.517, the Inscription of Mnesiepes), according to which the Muses took a cow from the young poet-to-be in exchange for a lyre (22–35). 41 ‘The ode to Bandusia’s spring ends with the babbling of water’, West (n. 1), 121; cf. Fraenkel (n. 16), 203–4 on the end of the poem (‘And what an end it is!’): ‘Listening to the swift rhythm of these lines we seem to lose ourselves in the sounds and glitters of an enchanting scenery’. 42 West (n. 7), 34–5. 43 Cf. Joseph Addison, A Letter from Italy, 31–6, thinking primarily (as Allan Ramsay appreciated, Frischer and Brown [n. 4], 126) of the fons Bandusiae: Sometimes, misguided by the tuneful throng, I look for streams immortaliz’d in song, that lost in silence and oblivion lie, (dumb are their fountains and their channels dry) yet run forever by the Muse’s skill, and in the smooth description murmur still.

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as De Chaupy’s visit the original fountainhead had been obliterated. However, the geographical facts of the case are far from immaterial, for once we are properly informed about its true whereabouts we may begin to understand quite why Horace chose this of all springs to encapsulate his achievements as a lyric poet. Nor is the profound assimilation of spring and poetry that Horace achieves simply an (unusually brilliant) instance of something poets typically do. Much rests on the identification of this Apulian spring and Horace’s poetry. For when Horace addresses the fons Bandusiae, he is contemplating the wonder of his own native genius. Brasenose College, Oxford

LLEWELYN MORGAN [email protected]

Classical Quarterly 59.1 142–146 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000111

142 SUSTAINING DESIRE MOLLY PASCO-PRANGER

SUSTAINING DESIRE: CATULLUS 50, GALLUS AND PROPERTIUS 1.10 In Propertius 1.10, one of many in the monobiblos that address or name a ‘Gallus’, the poet-figure remembers a recent night during which he observed Gallus in an erotic dalliance with a girl; he thanks his friend for the pleasure and reciprocates with a poetic offer of erotic aid which is also an offer of aid-through-poetry. The elegy figures poetry as an appropriate recompense for erotic pleasure, an aid in erotic pursuit and a medicina for the wounds of love. The relation between poetry and desire in the poem is further complicated by the suggestion that Propertius’ seemingly voyeuristic pleasures are actually textual and not sexual, or are both textual and sexual, cloaking a description of reading the erotic elegy of Cornelius Gallus.1 Propertius’ rather creepy night spent2 watching, listening to and revelling in Gallus and his girl’s all-night exertions becomes instead a night spent passionately reading Gallus’ Amores: the lusus from which Propertius cannot pull himself away (1.10.9) becomes the play of light verse; the alternae uoces of Gallus and his girl in the heat of passion (1.10.10) become the alternae uoces of elegiac couplets, or possibly of amoebean verse.3 Perhaps we are particularly to imagine Propertius reading Gallus’ first book, his primus amor (1.10.1); here, in a poem nearly at the centre of his own first book, Propertius reflects on the sources of his (poetic) passion.4 This critical reconfiguration of Propertius 1.10 as concerned with the erotics of poetic reception also has brought it into close dialogue with Catullus 50’s impassioned plea to Licinius Calvus. Both Propertius and Catullus have passed sleepless nights (cf. Cat. 50.10: nec somnus tegeret quiete ocellos; and Prop. 1.10.7, quamuis labentis premeret mihi somnus ocellos) fuelled by the pleasure of a lusus that is both poetic and erotic.5 A number of recent studies have explored the homoerotic dynamics of the two 1 A suggestion first made by F. Skutsch, Gallus und Vergil (Leipzig and Berlin, 1906), 144–6; and expanded by A.S. Benjamin, ‘A note on Propertius 1.10: O iucunda quies’, CP 60 (1965), 178; D.O. Ross, Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry (Cambridge, 1975), 83–4; J.K. King, ‘The two Galluses of Propertius’ Monobiblos’, Philologus 124 (1980), 212–30. See also citations in n. 5, below. An association of the Gallus of the monobiblos (or at least some of him) with the historical poet was long closed off by the communis opinio but re-opened in earnest by Ross. Most major recent studies treat an association of the name ‘Gallus’ with Cornelius Gallus as part of the equipment with which a reader approaches Propertius 1. M. Pincus, ‘Propertius’ Gallus and the erotics of influence’, Arethusa 37 (2004), 165–96 offers a summary of the question at 169–72. 2 E. Oliensis, ‘The erotics of amicitia: readings in Tibullus, Propertius and Horace’, in J.P. Hallett and M.B. Skinner (edd.), Roman Sexualities (Princeton, 1997), 151–71, argues (at 160) that the testis of line 1 plays with the anatomical meaning of the word and places the speaker (bizarrely) inside Gallus’ scrotum; see also Pincus (n. 1) at 172–5. 3 On the amoebean reading, J. O’Hara, ‘The new Gallus and the alternae uoces of Propertius 1.10.10’, CQ 39 (1989), 561–2, building on J. Fairweather, ‘The “Gallus papyrus”: a new interpretation’, CQ 34 (1984), 167–74; contra A. Sharrock, ‘Alternae uoces – again’, CQ 40 (1990), 570–1. 4 On correspondences between this poem and 1.1 (the Cynthia prima): M. Hubbard, Propertius (New York, 1975), 27–8; cf. O. Skutsch, ‘The structure of the Propertian Monobiblos’, CP 58 (1963), 238–9; B. Otis, ‘Propertius’ single book’, HSCP 70 (1965), 1–44. 5 O’Hara (n. 3); P.A. Miller, Subjecting Verses: Latin Love Elegy and the Emergence of the Real (Princeton, 2004), 78–9; Pincus (n. 1) at 175–9. On poetic sleeplessness in both poems: R.F. Thomas, ‘New Comedy, Callimachus, and Roman poetry’, HSCP 83 (1979), 179–206 at 203–5.

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poems particularly in their conjunction and have focussed on the figure of the girl / Cynthia6 in the Propertian poem as a sign of rupture in a Catullan homosocial ideal. One critic concludes that ‘The inverse dynamics of these two, so similar, poems correspond to the dramatically different ways in which each text charts the speaker’s desire. In the Catullus text, the desire between men is depicted as symmetrical and dyadic … In Propertius, the convergence of poetic production and homoerotically tinged desire is perverted into a scene of voyeurism by the insertion into the scene of Gallus’ puella.’7 The bulk of critics are all but silent on the second half of the Propertian poem, where the poet shifts from reminiscence of his pleasure (iucunda quies … iucunda uoluptas, 1–4) to the production of a recompensatory gift: accipe commissae munera laetitiae (12). The same strategy of intertextual reading that has done so much for our understanding of the first portion of the Propertian poem is nonetheless applicable to the final section. In particular reading Propertius 1.10.19–30 as in dialogue with the final four lines of Catullus 50 focusses more attention on Cynthia / the puella as subject rather than symptom in 1.10. The Propertian poem in the end emerges as a critique of the erotics of poetry played out in Catullus 50 and perhaps also as a critique of Gallan elegy; most importantly it makes a claim for the self-sustaining desire-and-poetry produced by Propertius’ fides to Cynthia. It must initially be established that the Propertian poem does not abandon its Catullan intertext after the first ten or twelve lines. The instruction offered by the poet figure as recompense for his pleasurable reception of Gallus’ (and his girl’s) alternis uocibus, continues the pattern of lexical connection to Catullus 50. Where Catullus closes with a warning to Calvus not to spurn his poetic offering and his prayers for continued interaction (nunc audax caue sis precesque nostras, / oramus, caue despuas, Cat. 50.18–19) backed up by a reference to the goddess Nemesis, Propertius’ poetic offer of erotic assistance is backed up by reference to Cynthia, who has taught him ‘what things each person should seek out, and what things he should beware of’ (quae cuique petenda / quaeque cauenda forent, 19–20; cf. also, tu caue ne tristi cupias pugnare puellae, 21). Just as Calvus must be careful not to offend Nemesis (laedere hanc caueto, 21), Propertius warns Gallus that an offended girl won’t give up her righteous anger (nec meminit iustas ponere laesa minas). These fairly mild lexical signs of the connection between Nemesis in Catullus 50 and the figure of Cynthia and the more generalized puella in the Propertian poem are given more interpretative weight by the broader situational echoes. Nemesis in the Catullan poem is introduced as an enforcer of fair exchange: she will ensure that Catullus’ continuation of the previous day’s amoebean games is answered in kind.8 6 It does and does not matter whether the girl with Gallus in 1.10 is Cynthia. If the reader is tracing the narrative of a love affair (and Gallus’ interference in it), she will remember that in 1.5 Gallus was Propertius’ rival for Cynthia’s attentions; 1.13 will find Propertius ‘alone with his love snatched away’ (2) and Gallus involved with a girl very like Cynthia, a girl with whom Propertius has seen Gallus make love. If the reader is thinking instead about literary emulation and rivalry, Propertius’ Cynthia is inevitably wrapped up with Gallus’ amor and his puella. Poem 1.10 itself recognizes an affinity between the Cynthia of line 19 and the puella of line 5 in that the lessons learned from the one will apply to the other; they are, after all, both elegiac mistresses, quintessentially generic women. Cf. King (n. 1) at 214; L. Richardson, Jr., Propertius Elegies I–IV (Norman, OK, 1976), 180–1; M. Janan, The Politics of Desire: Propertius IV (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2001), at 35–6; Miller (n. 5) at 84. 7 Pincus (n. 1) at 177. Subtler but similar are Janan (n. 6) and Miller (n. 5) at 67, with further reference to Oliensis (n. 2) and A. Sharrock, ‘Constructing characters in Propertius’, Arethusa 33 (2000), 263–84 at 270. 8 D.L. Burgess, ‘Catullus c. 50: The exchange of poetry’, AJP 107 (1986), 576–86 at 585.

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Propertius 1.10’s elegiac mistress is likewise positioned as an enforcer of exchange and particularly of verbal exchange: when Propertius passes on to Gallus what he has learned under the tutelage of Cynthia, a surprising bulk of the didactic content concerns the regulation of words: neue superba loqui, neue tacere diu; / neu, si quid petiit, ingrata fronte negaris, / neu tibi pro uano uerba benigna cadant (‘Be careful neither to speak haughtily, nor to keep silent for long; nor, if she asks for something, should you deny her with a scowl, nor should her kind words fall unheeded by you’9) (1.10.22–4). Failure to keep up the exchange, to answer with the right sorts of words, will result in something that sounds very much like the uehemens dea with whom Catullus threatens Calvus: irritata uenit, quando contemnitur illa, / nec meminit iustas ponere laesa minas (‘She comes angered when she is scorned, and, once offended, she does not remember to put aside just threats’) (Prop. 1.10.25–6). Nemesis is precisely the embodiment of justified anger10 and the retribution that comes with it, and the Propertian girl takes up the same position. Her quasi-epiphanic arrival (irritata uenit) allows her to step all the more easily into the goddess’ role;11 we may even hear Nemesis’ name bubbling under the couplet: contemnitur illa / nec meminit. The figure of Nemesis, then, is the crux for the intertextual play between the latter parts of the two poems. Nemesis’ appearance in Catullus 50.20–1 has struck many readers as awkward and out of line with the rest of the poem and indeed there is a shift in tone in the Catullan poem not unlike that in Propertius 1.10:12 the final lines are purely monitory with the break strongly marked by nunc at the start of line 17. More importantly, the introduction of Nemesis as a third figure into the poem’s intimate exchange between two men is jarring. In a certain sense the goddess stands in for the poet: harm me, scorn me, Catullus says, and she will react badly; the repetition of the verb cauere in lines 18–19 and 21 underlines the union between the two. The interpolation of the goddess allows Catullus to express the prospect of righteous anger without unduly upsetting the mood of pleasurable intercourse with Calvus. Still, the shift of tone from all-absorbing passion and longing to warning and veiled threat, and what seems a sudden triangulation of the two poets’ mutual exchange (reddens mutua) reads as a disruption, a break in the hoped-for continuum posited by the poem. The fact that Nemesis is the primary focus for the intersection of the didactic portion of Propertius 1.10 with the Catullan poem may in part explain the frequent modern failure to follow intertextual readings all the way to the end of the Propertian poem: if critics are unsure what to do with Nemesis, then they may know even less what to do with Cynthia-as-Nemesis. 9 There is some controversy over the meaning of this clause; is it the uerba benigna of Gallus or of the girl that should not fall pro uano? S.J. Heyworth, Cynthia: A Companion to the Text of Propertius (Oxford, 2007), 50 summarizes the positions and comes down on the side of Gallus, arguing that an interdiction against vain promises on the part of the lover corresponds nicely with the exhortation in the preceding line to grant the beloved’s requests. However, the sense of continuous exchange of words set up by line 22 is better continued by advising the lover to respond appropriately to kind words from his girl. 10 Cf. Ov. Met. 3.406, of Nemesis: adsensit precibus Rhamnusia iustis. 11 See Hubbard (n. 4), 26, n. 1, with comparison to Prop. 1.5.32, rogata uenit; cf. also L.A. Moritz, ‘Well-matched lovers (Propertius 1.5)’, CP 62 (1967), 106–8. 12 A number of critics have read the shift in tone as comical, an intentional over-extension that tempers the intensity of the Catullan poem: W.C. Scott, ‘Catullus and Calvus (Cat. 50)’, CP 64 (1969), 169–73 at 171–2; P. Pucci, ‘Il carme 50 di Catullo’, Maia 13 (1961), 249–56 at 255; K. Quinn, Catullus: The Poems (Macmillan, 1970), 239; H.P. Syndikus, Catull: eine Interpretation (Darmstadt, 1984), 253–4; D.F.S. Thomson, Catullus (Toronto, 1997), 326. D. Wray, Catullus and the Poetics of Roman Manhood (Cambridge, 2001) at 106–7 offers a more fruitful integration of the final lines.

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If Cynthia / the puella in the second half of Propertius 1.10 plays out the role of enforcer taken by Nemesis in Catullus 50, that already gives the seemingly dry didacticism of this portion of the poem more interpretative weight and a closer relation to the dynamics of exchange in the first half of the poem. In lines 1–12 Gallus makes a pleasurable gift to Propertius of the opportunity to observe an exchange of pleasure and of words between Gallus and his girl; Propertius gives thanks for the pleasure afforded him by Gallus and promises a fitting gift in return. In 13–20 Propertius explains that his gift is not only a recitation of Gallus’ passions,13 but something greater: powerful new words, and words learned from his own girl (Cynthia me docuit). The gift itself follows in lines 21–30 and consists of advice on continuing the proper exchange of pleasure and words between Gallus and his girl. While Catullus introduces Nemesis at this point, a third figure to enforce the continued exchange between himself and Calvus, the presence from the start of ‘the girl’ in the Propertian poem all but guarantees the continuation of this process of exchange: she herself will enforce it. A continuation of the one level of exchange will mean a continuation of the other, the repetition of pleasure Propertius prays for in line 4. If we are taking the erotic pleasure of Propertius 1.10 as a metaphor for, or indeed an analogue of, poetic pleasure, the girl is positioned as, or perhaps more pointedly recommended as, the driving force of poetry; the poem concludes with an exhortation to faithful submission to una puella (29–30).14 Of the extant Latin elegy, Propertius’ poetry, particularly in the Monobiblos, focusses its elegiac querelae most strongly on the puella in question. Propertius advertises this unusual focus from the opening of the first poem whose Cynthia prima is as much a claim to Propertius’ innovation in the genre as it is a marker of Cynthia’s primacy in the poetry. Tibullus had, of course, different mistresses in his two short books of elegies, Delia and Nemesis,15 and neither is as powerful a force in the poems as Cynthia is in the Propertian corpus. More importantly for my argument, we have no indications that Gallus’ poetry shared Propertius’ focus on a single beloved: a girlfriend, Lycoris, was clearly present in the poetry, but just as clearly not omnipresent.16 Propertius 1.10, then, which lauds the pleasure Propertius has gained from Gallus’ primus amor, but goes on to advise Gallus based on the poet’s own experience with 13 I here accept Heyworth’s emendation of line 13 from non solum uestros didici reticere dolores to non solum uestros didici recitare calores, as printed in the new OCT (2008) and argued in ‘Notes on Propertius books I and II’, CQ 34 (1984), 394–405 at 397–9. 14 Cf. S. James, Learned Girls and Male Persuasion: Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2003), which brings to the fore Roman elegy’s nature as a persuasive genre directed to a mistress who is constrained by the economic and temporal realities of her social position as a courtesan; she necessarily resists the impoverished poet in favour of men who can offer her more concrete resources. Nonetheless, this docta puella has the discernment to be affected and persuaded from time to time by the offerings of her poet-lover. Her ability (and indeed her compulsion) to say no with frequency, but also to say a meaningful yes, gives a self-sustaining impetus to the poetic project of persuasion. Contrast this with, for example, Miller’s formulation of Cynthia’s role in Propertius’ work: ‘The poetry of the Monobiblos is inconceivable without Cynthia. She is what allows the work to function and the semiotic game to be played. Yet she herself never comes into focus; rather, she is like the vanishing point in a painting that allows the more defined shapes around it to have their form and intercourse with one another’ (n. 6 at 66). For Miller, Cynthia is the medium of exchange between men; for James, she is an agent in the creation of the poetry. 15 Is the name of Tibullus’ Nemesis perhaps chosen as an acknowledgement of Propertius’ recasting of Catullus’ goddess of exchange as an elegiac mistress? 16 On Lycoris and Gallus: Prop. 2.34.91–2; Ov. Am. 1.15.29–30, Ars 3.537–8, Tr. 2.445–6; and Mart. 8.73.5–10. See Ross’ characterization (n. 1 at 48–9) of Gallan poetry.

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Cynthia, can be read not just as poetic praise, but as a critique of Gallus, a promise of ‘something greater’ than faithful repetition of Gallus’ mode of poetry. Propertius claims for his own amor, and his own poetry, an element of self-sustaining exchange. Throughout Propertius 1.10, as in Catullus 50, words are the primary medium of that exchange: the proper and pleasurable reception and return of uerba drives this poem from start to finish. Unlike the Catullan Nemesis, though, the Propertian ‘girl’ is not just the enforcer of an exchange of poetic uerba, she is also the stuff of poetry, and more importantly, a player in the lusus that produces it. Her presence and the alternae uoces she shares with Gallus are what allow Propertius to enjoy his textual/sexual pleasure in the early lines of the poem and it is Cynthia who has given Propertius the words to give back to Gallus. The puella’s continued presence means the continuation of elegiac production and Propertius’ concluding lines promise more success and pleasure if Gallus submits to the girl and (therefore) to the continual process of verbal exchange. Ross tantalizingly suggests that Prop. 1.10 might ‘refer, on one level, to experiments in amatory elegy Gallus may recently have been writing’.17 If so, it claims (whether chronology allows or not) to be ahead of Gallus in the experiment: Propertius takes the role of praeceptor amoris to Gallus, and shows him the way to sustainable erotic elegy. The Propertian girl thus unifies three roles in the erotic and poetic exchange sketched out in Catullus 50: she is the goddess / enforcer Nemesis; she is the medium and material of an exchange of poetic uerba between men, that is, effectively, the poetry; and most importantly, she herself is a producer of exchanged uerba. The anguish of the Catullan poem lies precisely in the mediation of the exchange of pleasure through tablets, verses, metres. When the two men are physically separate the reality of poetry as medium becomes clearer and it is at this point that anxiety for continuation and the figure of Nemesis creep in. Propertius’ recasting of Nemesis and the union of enforcer, topic and producer of alternae uoces in una puella produce a more sustainable model of poetic and erotic exchange than the furor of Catullus 50 and perhaps also than Gallan elegy. The University of Mississippi

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MOLLY PASCO-PRANGER [email protected] Ross (n. 1), at 83; see also at 102.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 147–166 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000123

147 ROSALINDE KEARSLEY OCTAVIAN AND AUGURY

OCTAVIAN AND AUGURY: THE YEARS 30–27 B . C .* Augustus mentions his transactions with the Senate in late 28–early 27 B.C. almost at the end of his own record of his public career (RG 34.1–2). The significance of these sections of his account mean that the recent publication of a new Latin fragment from Pisidian Antioch is of the greatest importance. This small fragment, containing lettering from part of three lines, finally reveals that, in 34.1, the participle potitus restored by Mommsen in 1883 is now to be replaced with the adjective potens:1 1 2

In consulatu sexto et septimo postqua[m b]ella [civil]ia exstinxeram per consensum universorum [po]tens re[ru]m om[n]ium rem publicam ex mea potestate in senat[us populi]que R[om]ani [a]rbitrium transtuli. quo pro merito meo senatu[s consulto Au]gust[us appe]llatus sum et laureis postes aedium mearum v[estiti] publ[ice coronaq]ue civica super ianuam meam fixa est [et clu]peus [aureu]s in [c]uria Iulia positus quem mihi senatum pop[ulumq]ue Rom[anu]m dare virtutis clement[iaeque e]t iustitiae et pieta[tis caus]sa testatu[m] est pe[r e]ius clupei [inscription]em.2

1 In my sixth and seventh consulships, after I had extinguished the civil wars, when through universal consent I was in possession of power over all public affairs, I transferred the State out of my power into the authority of the Senate and Roman people. 2 For this service of mine by decree of the Senate I was named Augustus and with laurel branches the door-posts of my house were wreathed publicly and a civic crown was fixed above my door, and a golden shield placed in the Curia Iulia, which, it is attested by the inscription of that shield, the Senate and people of Rome gave to me for the sake of my courage, clemency, justice and piety.

The discovery has enabled new certainty about the manner in which Augustus chose to express his position of leadership at a crucial stage of his political career. The significant position of this episode in a work crafted with the opinion of posterity in mind (Dio 56.33.1; Suet. Aug. 101.4) suggests that Augustus is describing what he felt was a landmark in his career. Details that might clarify its political context are * My thanks are due to E.A. Judge and to the anonymous reader of this article for their suggestions and comments. It is not intended to imply, however, that they are in agreement with the views expressed here. 1 The new fragment was first published by P. Botteri, ‘L’integrazione mommseniana a Res Gestae Divi Augusti 34,1 “potitus rerum omnium” e il testo greco’, ZPE 144 (2003), 264 and may also be found together with further discussion in T. Drew-Bear and J. Scheid, ‘La copie des Res Gestae d’Antioche de Pisidie’, ZPE 154 (2005), 217–60, at 233–6. Discussion of RG 34.1–2 and the new fragment is also included in J. Scheid, Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Hauts faits du divin Auguste (Paris, 2007), 82–91. The fragment discovered at Pisidian Antioch has confirmed the earlier proposal to restore potens by R. Kassels (see W.D. Lebek, ‘Res Gestae Divi Augusti 34, 1: Rudolf Kassels potens rerum omnium und ein neues Fragment des Monumentum Antiochenum’, ZPE 146 [2004], 60). Despite its small size the fragment’s contribution to the historical analysis of the text is inestimable, cf. R.T. Ridley, The Emperor’s Retrospect. Augustus’ Res Gestae in Epigraphy, Historiography and Commentary (Leuven, 2003), 25–50 and, on RG 34.1 in particular, 139–41. 2 The text incorporates the new fragment but is otherwise that of V. Ehrenberg and A.H.M. Jones, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius (Oxford, 19552), 28.

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lacking, however, and it is necessary to turn to other sources in order to investigate the background to the momentous events to which Augustus refers. Among both contemporary and later sources which are available, the account of this period by Cassius Dio must be considered of primary importance because it alone provides a chronological framework for events. Despite the considerable distance in time between Dio’s own life-time and the events of the Augustan era, the reliability of his chronology for the Augustan years is strongly indicated by comparison with other sources which also made use of the acta senatus and the acta diurna.3 In general terms, Dio’s description of actions taken by Octavian to shore up his position from 30 down to the beginning of 27 makes it clear that the threat of civil war was not entirely over in 31, or even in 30 after Antonius and Cleopatra had been finally disposed of (cf. Dio 52.42.8). Moreover, because of what Dio (51.23.2–27.3) reports about the achievements of Marcus Licinius Crassus (cos. 30) and about subsequent events in Rome, Crassus has been characterized as a rival to Octavian for pre-eminence in Rome in some modern discussions.4 It is the scale of Crassus’ military achievements, the anomalies in how these are celebrated in Rome, and the disappearance of Crassus from the literary sources after the celebration of his triumph, which have been taken to indicate that he must have been a protagonist in the political turmoil during Octavian’s sixth consulship that led to Octavian being given supreme political power. The course and nature of Crassus’ campaigns when proconsul of Macedonia, provided in the substantial account of Dio (51.23.1–27.1), surely direct attention towards Crassus as a potential, and most unwelcome rival to Octavian’s claim to military leadership of Rome after 31.5 Moreover, Crassus’ shifting political allegiances as an adherent of, first, Sextus Pompeius and, then, Marcus Antonius (Dio 51.4.3) might reasonably be suspected to have contributed both to suspicion of his future intentions by Octavian, and to a view of him as an alternative leader by contemporaries in Rome, particularly those supporters of Antonius who survived the battle of Actium and who were once again part of the Roman political scene (cf. Dio 51.2.4–6, 53.11.1–4). In line with such an analysis, the discussion below is based on the following premises: that the victory of Octavian’s forces at Actium in 31 did not establish his right to the leadership of Rome unchallenged; that, during the immediately following years down to January 27, enmity existed between Octavian and several others who were determined to lead their lives according to the traditional mores of public life; finally, that the most difficult and sustained opposition to Octavian’s determination to 3 M. Reinhold and P.M. Swan, ‘Cassius Dio’s assessment of Augustus’, in K.A. Raaflaub and M. Toher (edd.), Between Republic and Empire. Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate (Berkeley, 1990), 171–3. 4 See M. Reinhold, From Republic to Principate. An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History Books 49–52 (36–29 B.C.) (Atlanta, 1988), 162; H.L. Flower, ‘The tradition of the spolia opima: M. Claudius Marcellus and Augustus’, ClAnt 19 (2000), 44 and n. 55 with a survey of earlier literature. For a recent argument against this view, see J.W. Rich, ‘Augustus and the spolia opima’, Chiron 26 (1996), 85–127. A response to his view may be found below. 5 The significance of Crassus’ thwarted ambition is acknowledged even by K.A. Raaflaub and L.J. Samons II (‘Opposition to Augustus’, in Raaflaub and Toher [n. 3], 422–3) who, in other respects, minimize the opposition to Octavian between 31 and 28. Perhaps the lengthy excursus on Crassus’ operations stems from Dio’s own interest in the region, but this by no means excludes the possibility that his sources reflected the interest and admiration Crassus’ campaigns created in contemporary Rome. Livy’s account (Per. 134) has been largely lost.

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be sole leader arose as a result of the military achievement of Marcus Licinius Crassus.

THE YEAR 30 The year following his naval victory over Antonius and Cleopatra was a troubled one for Octavian. In his account of the year 30, Dio describes how the military veterans whom Octavian had demobilized and sent back to Italy after Actium began to express their discontent because he had failed to recognize their contribution to his victory materially (51.3.1–2). This discontent gathered strength and led to public demonstrations causing Octavian, says Dio, to be fearful that the soldiers might seek out a leader and so undermine his recently acquired political control of Rome. The leader envisaged by Octavian was a potential rival, surely a man of senatorial rank who would seize on a ready clientela and the opportunity to challenge him for the leadership. It is a measure of the seriousness of the situation for Octavian that he surrendered the pursuit of Antonius to his deputies and returned to Italy precipitately regardless of the fact that it was mid-winter and the sailing season had closed (51.4.2–5.1). Many of all ranks certainly flocked to greet Octavian on arrival in Italy but not all went spontaneously. Some went because they were summoned and out of fear. Although the size of Octavian’s backing in Brundisium on that occasion is unknown, his arrival must have created the threat of reprisal. Octavian, however, did not attempt to enter Rome but remained at the port.6 The mutinous veterans were not alone in causing concern to Octavian. Dio also says there were other urgent matters of business with which Octavian had to deal. Their political significance is indicated by the fact that neither Maecenas, whom Octavian had left to protect his interests in Rome, nor Agrippa, whom Octavian had sent back to Rome from the East in late 31 to ensure that Maecenas’ authority was respected (51.3.5–6), was adequate to handle those urgent matters.7 Some of the mutinous veterans among the large crowd which had flocked to meet Octavian at the port received cash payouts and land assignments (cf. RG 16.1) and were, presumably, satisfied. But, Dio reports (51.5.1), Octavian had to pardon a part of the population because it had not come to meet him. From this indication that opposition to Octavian in Rome was maintained by some, we may conclude that ‘the other urgent business’ included dealing with it. Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, son of the former triumvir, who was planning to assassinate Octavian and to revive civil conflict, did not go unpunished (Vell. Pat. 2.88.1–3; Dio 54.15.4).8 Clearly, it was to Octavian’s advantage to exert himself urgently to prevent the coalescence of disaffected veterans and any senatorial challengers to his position. 6 Cf. Dio (37.20.3–6) on how the arrival of victorious commanders at Brundisium created nervousness among the Romans. As Octavian’s reception on the occasion of his victorious return from the East had been planned and announced well in advance (Dio 51.20.1–3) he may well have wished to avoid going to Rome before that event. 7 On the contrary, Plutarch (Ant. 73.3) reports that Agrippa kept writing to Octavian that his presence was urgently needed in Italy. 8 The conspiracy is discussed in P. Sattler, Augustus und der Senat. Untersuchungen zur römischen Innerpolitik zwischen 30 und 17 vor Christus (Göttingen, 1960), 29–31. The offence of the equestrian Cornelius Gallus was of a different kind but he too was eventually condemned (Dio 51.17.1, 53.23.5–24.1; cf. R. Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford, 1986), 32; Raaflaub and Samons [n. 5], 423–5).

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After what must have been a month of intense negotiation Octavian returned to Greece (Dio 51.5.1). The nature of the senatorial tributes dating to the latter half of 30 reveals that Octavian prevailed in persuading a majority in the Senate to back him (Dio 51.19.4–7). His success was only temporary however. Octavian again suspected the existence of conspiracies within the higher ranks against him in 29 (Dio 52.42.8). None of Octavian’s opponents during the winter of 30–29 is named by Dio; among his supporters, only Maecenas and Agrippa. There is no comment about the behaviour of Octavian’s co-consul, Marcus Licinius Crassus, at the time of his visit to Italy. However, Crassus became proconsul of Macedonia later in the same year.9 His war against the Bastarnae and the slaughter of their king in single-handed combat during his first provincial campaign won him a triumphal decree by the Senate in the winter of 30–29 (Dio 51.23.2–24.4).10 This success and its acknowledgement in Rome can hardly have been welcome news to Octavian.

THE YEAR 29 Octavian was absent from Italy until August during his fifth consulate. Nevertheless, two events occurred in Rome which Dio says were exceedingly pleasing to Octavian above all other honours decreed him (51.20.4). These events are of critical importance, therefore, in understanding the character of Octavian’s relationship to the Roman State at that time and in the future. The events in question, linked in time by Dio and dated to the month of January, are the closing of the gates of Janus and the performance of the augurium salutis.11 Although he was an augur (RG 7.3), Octavian’s absence from Rome at that time makes it impossible that he played a role in the actual performance of that augurium salutis.12 Nevertheless, Suetonius’ comment (Aug. 31.4) that it was he who revived the rite must mean that the college’s decision to secure permission for performance of the augurium salutis from the Senate was at his instigation. Even then the augural auspices could be taken only if the augurs were summoned by a competent official. Octavian’s consular colleague during the early months of that year, Sextus Appuleius (Dio 51.20.1), is the most likely candidate both to have sponsored the request for a decree of the Senate on Octavian’s behalf and to summon the augural college for the augurium.13 Appuleius was not only Octavian’s colleague as consul ordinarius in 29, he was his nephew.14 Given that he was himself a member of 9 Three suffects followed Crassus as consul (A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Italiae XIII.1 [Rome, 1937], p. 510), indicating he would have been free to leave Rome by the second half of 30. 10 Crassus’ campaigns are usually dated 29–28 but, although Dio (51.23.1–2) mentions the despatch of Crassus to Macedonia under the year 29, he links it with the building of Statilius Taurus’ amphitheatre in Rome in 30; cf. Syme (n. 8), 272 and Reinhold (n. 4), 160. For the flexibility of Dio’s annalistic scheme in recounting foreign wars, see J.W. Rich (ed.), Cassius Dio. The Augustan Settlement (Roman History 53–55.9) (Warminster, 1990), 10. 11 The closing of the gates of Janus is recorded in the Fasti Praenestini (CIL I2.1, p. 231). This event is proclaimed proudly by Augustus (RG 13, undated) as a mark of his success in achieving peace and prosperity for Rome, but the augurium salutis is not mentioned. 12 A cippus found below the Arx (ILS 9337) testifies to later ceremonies of the augurium salutis under Augustus. 13 Most often this was the pontifex maximus (J. Linderski, ‘The augural law’, in H. Temporini and W. Haase (edd.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.16.3 [Berlin, 1986], 2218) but the political circumstances in 29 made that impossible (cf. RG 10.2). 14 Syme (n. 8), 30.

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the augural college,15 it is probable also that Appuleius was the magistrate who took the auspices and performed the ceremony.16 The last celebration of the augurium salutis prior to 29 was that of the year 63. The ceremony was held on the successful conclusion of Pompeius’ extraordinary command in the East against Mithridates.17 When the augurium salutis was revived in 29, Octavian’s victory in the East against Cleopatra and the Parthian settlement (cf. Dio 51.17.4–18.3) would have been similarly represented. The augurium salutis identified Octavian as the one through whom Jupiter would always act for the well-being and safety of the State.18 His inseparable link with the safety of the Roman State at an official level is documented by the inclusion, in 29, of his name in the public hymns with those of the gods (Dio 51.20.2). Among these Augustus later singles out for special mention the hymn of the Salii (RG 10.1).19 In the same year Octavian cleansed the temple of Capitoline Jupiter of all earlier dedications and replaced them with his own (Dio 51.22.3–4; Suet. Aug. 30.2). By this means, he further identified himself with the chief god of the State, and hence with the fortune of the State itself.20 Thereafter, he laid the laurels from his fasces in the Capitoline temple after each victorious war (RG 4.1; cf. Dio 54.25.4). The first words of an Augustan edict relayed by Suetonius (Aug. 28.2) displays his self-identification with the divinely-granted security of the State: ita mihi salvam ac sospitem rem publicam sistere in sua sede liceat (‘May I be permitted to maintain the State safe and sound in its proper position’).21 Recognition of this important role of Octavian may be found in the subsequent traditions of the inhabitants of Augustan Rome and in Augustan literature (cf. Virg. Aen. 1.286–96).22 It is surely also reflected in Asia Minor where Octavian was at the time of the augurium salutis (Dio 51.20.7–51.21.1). There, dedications linked his name with that of Hygeia (Salus).23 15

T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (Atlanta, 1952), 2, 532. On the procedure of the augurium salutis, see Linderski (n. 13), 2255–6. 17 Dio 37.24.1–25.2. Like Octavian, Pompeius had not yet returned to Italy. The similarity in the political circumstances leading to the auguria salutis of 63 and 29 should not pass unnoticed. However, an important difference between them is that the earlier of the two was irregular. When repeated it was again accompanied by unlucky omens and Cicero later reported Appius Claudius as saying the irregularity meant civil war was at hand (De div. 1.47.105). No such cloud hung over the ceremony of 29. 18 Cf. Linderski (n. 13), 2226, 2291; J. Linderski, Roman Questions. Selected Papers (Stuttgart, 1995), 490. The role of Augustus in this respect is also depicted on the gemma Augustea where he is shown in the guise of Jupiter sitting beside Roma as he is crowned with the corona civica. Significantly, he holds the augur’s lituus rather than the thunderbolt of Jupiter (see P. Zanker, trans. A. Shapiro, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus [Ann Arbor, 1988], 230–1 with 234, fig. 182). 19 Ovid, Fasti 3.361–92 reveals the significance of this for claiming divine endorsement of his leadership of Rome. 20 Given the tributes to Octavian of the year 36 and the connection then made between his victory and Capitoline Jupiter (Dio 49.15.1–2), the augurium salutis must have presented the people of Rome with confirmation of the existing relationship rather than a novel concept. The view of E. Fantham (‘Rewriting and rereading the Fasti: Augustus, Ovid and recent Classical scholarship’, Antichthon 29 [1995], 53) that ‘Augustus took no personal initiative to enhance the cult of Jupiter Optimus Maximus or his own association with Jupiter’ seems unlikely in the light of these events. 21 Not surprisingly there is no indication of the date of this edict in Suetonius. 22 Throughout his life Octavian/Augustus’ health was of importance to Rome’s inhabitants (cf. Suet. Aug. 57.1). 23 C. Habicht, Inschriften von Pergamon 8, 3 (Berlin, 1969), 164–5; J. Reynolds, ‘Further information on imperial cult at Aphrodisias’, StudClas 24 (1986), 109 = SEG 30 (1980), 1269. 16

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Octavian’s revival of the augurium salutis should not be considered only as part of his interest in restoring discontinued rituals of Rome. A specific political purpose was served by this particular revival.24 The augurium salutis was used by Octavian as a means towards ensuring sole and enduring control in Rome. Dio says (51.20.5) that the closing of the gates of Janus and the augurium salutis took place despite the fact that Roman forces were still campaigning in Germany and elsewhere. The Senate’s action in sanctioning the ceremony meant that it endorsed his campaigns as the only significant ones for the well-being of the State. Its decree that the gates of Janus should be closed and prayers for future safety could be offered similarly had the effect of diminishing the significance of the activities of other members of the senatorial class who were still campaigning.25 Of the Roman commanders known to have been active outside Italy in 30–29, it is Licinius Crassus whose military exploits must have demanded a response from Octavian.26 As early as his first season of campaigning as governor of Macedonia, Crassus had distinguished himself among Roman commanders in an extremely rare manner. He had captured the armour of the enemy king in single combat (Dio 51.24.4).27 For Octavian, this achievement must have represented the emergence of a dismaying threat to his own desire for continued supremacy. He could not afford to allow Crassus to surpass him in the strictly measurable sense that dedication of the spolia opima signified.28 If that occurred there was a strong possibility that his own successes against Cleopatra and the Parthians would be overshadowed (cf. Dio 51.19.1–20.3). An extra dimension to the situation was created by the fact that Caesar had signalled his intention to campaign in the Thraco-Macedonian region against the Getae on his way to attack the Parthians (Appian, Ill.Wars 3.13). Since Caesar was prevented from doing this by his premature death, his heir may well have considered that task his prerogative.29 Moreover, Crassus had apparently intruded upon a client relationship of the Caesarian family with Roles, a king of the Getae (cf. Dio 51.24.6–7, 51.26.1). Thus, family honour may have been at stake, giving Crassus’ achievement the character of a personal as well as a political rivalry in the eyes of Octavian. Whether or not this was the case, the fact remains that full recognition of Crassus’ achievements would place him in a position from which he could challenge Octavian’s right to the sole leadership of Rome. Hence the crucial importance to Octavian of the augurium salutis of January 29. It secured for himself alone the right to decide if the State was at war by the sacred role of interpres of Jupiter. No doubt it was this outcome that made performance of the ceremony so pleasing to him. 24 Cf. Octavian’s revival of the ritual of the fetial priesthood in 32 (R.A. Kearsley, ‘Octavian in the year 32 B.C.: the S.C. de Aphrodisiensibus and the genera militiae’, RhM 142 [1999], 56–60). 25 Dio 51.20.5 may reflect a justificatory explanation of Octavian, perhaps contained in his Memoirs. 26 See J.J. Wilkes, ‘The Danubian and Balkan provinces’, in A.K. Bowman et al. (edd.), The Cambridge Ancient History2 X (Cambridge, 1996), 548–53. Dio preserves contradictory traditions about the nature of Crassus’ operations (cf. 51.20.5 with 51.23.2–27.3). The contemporary campaigns of Carrinas are mentioned but not described in Dio 51 21.6. 27 Dio 51.25.1–2 reveals that Deldo was dead and the triumph announced before the winter of 30–29 had set in. Crassus’ news was probably known to Octavian already by the winter of 30–29 since he was also in the East (Dio 51.21.1). 28 On the spolia opima, see Rich (n. 4), 106; Flower (n. 4), 50–1. 29 Cf. Reinhold (n. 4), 66. Octavian’s announcement of a campaign in Britain in 27 (Dio 53.22.5) reflects his propensity to emulate his adoptive father. Despite diplomacy replacing military action, he claims success there in RG 32.1, as does Horace on his behalf (Od. 3.5.2–4).

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Octavian’s return to Rome was followed closely by remarkable triple triumphal celebrations in mid-August.30 The triumphal procession of the third day was especially noteworthy for the manner in which the usual order was reversed to Octavian’s advantage and the detriment of his magisterial colleagues (Dio 51.21.9).31 Two triumphs, one for the naval victory at Actium and one for the conquest of Egypt, had been decreed in the previous year (Dio 51.19.1–5). To these a third was added and celebrated as the first of the three days. Appian refers to it as an Illyrian triumph (Ill.Wars 5.28), and so it is usually described in modern discussions, as Appian attributes this triumph to a long-delayed celebration of Octavian’s own campaigns in Illyricum between 35 and 33. Dio describes the day as celebrating victories over the Pannonians and Dalmatians, the Iapydes and their neighbours, and some Celts and Galatians (Dio 51.21.5–7). According to him, the day was actually a composite occasion on which Octavian caught up under his own name Carrinas’ victories to the north of Italy (Dio 51.21.6), Crassus’ achievements over the Dacians and the Moesians (Dio 51.25.2), and his own earlier campaigns in Illyricum against the Iapydes (Dio 51.21.5). Although Crassus’ name is not included in Dio’s description of the day, the claims made for Octavian by Appian bear a far closer resemblance to Crassus’ campaigns (cf. Dio 51.27.1) than Octavian’s own achievements in Illyricum.32 Moreover, in the procession of that day, as also on the other two days, spoils from Egypt were carried (Dio 51.21.7). Thus Octavian used the first day of his triple triumph to display the results of others’ victories and to assert his primacy by displaying Egyptian spoils at the same time. Octavian’s celebration of the victories of others as his own would not have been unusual during the period of the second triumvirate. Then, commanders triumphed only by permission of Octavian and Antonius.33 Triumviral prerogatives were not needed by Octavian to justify the continuation of this practice after Actium however. Nor did he need to seek some re-definition of precedence for consular imperium over that of a proconsul.34 His precedence was based upon his membership of the Iulian family and the honours inherited by him as the adopted son of Iulius Caesar.35 30

Degrassi (n. 9), p. 570. Cf. Reinhold (n. 4), 158. 32 Reinhold argues (ibid. 74, 157) that Appian’s text is heavily dependent on the Memoirs of Augustus. A variety of sources indicates that captives from Crassus’ first campaign were exhibited by Octavian on that occasion and at the consecration of the shrine of Iulius Caesar in the same year (Dio 51.22.2–3). Virg. Aen. 8.728, for example, mentions the presence of hitherto unconquered Scythians at the triumph who, when combined with information in Dio 51.22.6, RG 31.2 and Livy, Per. 134, should probably be recognized as Dacians defeated by Crassus. Certainly Dio (51.22.8) observes that some of these prisoners were captured after the battle of Actium. They cannot have been from Octavian’s own campaigns therefore: cf. A. Mócsy, ‘Der vertuschte Dakerkrieg des M. Licinius Crassus’, Historia 15 (1966), 512. Zanker (n. 18), 68–9 identifies a visual depiction of the first day of the triple triumph in the frieze of the temple of Apollo Sosianus where bound, northern, barbarians are seated to either side of a trophy with enemy helmet and armour (70, fig. 55). The trophy depicted in the lower register of the gemma Augustea may allude to the same occasion although Zanker connects it with Tiberius’ later campaigns (ibid. 231–2, fig. 182). K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture (Princeton, 1996) 107 and fig. 44 points to the helmeted trophy depicted on the rear of the cuirass on the Prima Porta statue of Augustus but makes no attempt to explain its presence. 33 Dio 49.42.3 makes it clear that negotiation and bargaining were part of this process. 34 This possibility was suggested by R. Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), 309; cf. also Linderski (n. 18), 614. However, a general in the pre-Augustan period conducted a war under his own auspices and, provided his auspices were valid (cf. ibid. 616–17), that man was the commander-in-chief. Hence, in the years 30–28 Crassus was in fact commander-in-chief (so Flower [n. 4], 52; Ridley [n. 1], 86). 35 Dio 48.46.1 states that Caesar did not avail himself of all the honours voted him by the 31

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In 45 a decree of the Senate in favour of Caesar, his sons and his grandsons had defined the relative importance of Rome’s commanders and the nature of their awards for victorious campaigns. The Senate granted Caesar the right to celebrations for victory even if he had not been on the campaign or had any hand at all in the achievements (Dio 43.44.6). Octavian claimed this right and, during the second half of 29, spent extravagantly with the aim of deepening public veneration of his adoptive father (Dio 51.22.1–2). Thus, in the political climate of the period there was nothing inherently unusual in Octavian’s outranking of Carrinas and Crassus in the procession on the first day of his triple triumph. The eventual celebration of a triumphal procession by Crassus himself makes it unlikely that acknowledgement of the imperatorial acclamation was withheld from him as Dio states (51.25.3).36 The contradiction created by Dio’s statement, therefore, can be understood only in light of the senatorial endorsement of the Caesarian family in the year 45. For at that time the Senate decreed that Caesar was to be Imperator once for all. He was given the right to bear the title permanently as a proper name, as were his sons and grandsons in turn (Dio 43.44.2–3; Suet. Caes. 76.1). This award involved a new way of using the designation Imperator, but it did not thereby replace the old. The imperatorial acclamation of the soldiers for their commander was not abolished by the Senate. The permanent and the acclamatory usages of Imperator were to co-exist (Dio 43.44.4–5). While there is disagreement among modern scholars as to whether or not Caesar himself availed himself of his new nomenclature,37 no disagreement exists with respect to Octavian’s use of Imperator as a praenomen.38 Dio highlights the year 29 when dealing with the use of the praenominal title by Octavian (52.41.3–4), but Octavian had actually not delayed so long in taking up the inheritance. Octavian availed himself of the hereditary right to this award soon after Caesar’s death. It is attested almost immediately after the treachery of Salvidienus Rufus in 40.39 Octavian demanded harsh punishment of Salvidienus in the Senate, asserting his offence extended beyond betrayal of personal friendship to treason against the entire Roman people. The basis of his claim must have been his possession of the name Imperator as heir of Caesar. The Senate accepted the gravity of the situation as portrayed by Octavian and passed a senatus consultum ultimum (Dio 48.33.3). Hence, when Dio’s narrative for the year 29 attributes the denial of Crassus’ right to dedicate the enemy king’s armour to Octavian’s superior imperium (Dio 51.24.4), he is actually recording the re-assertion of the right to the praenomen Imperator by Octavian following an effective precedent of a decade earlier. The prosecution of a prolonged and major war during his second campaign in the Macedonian region (Dio 51.25.3–27.3) delayed Crassus’ return to Rome and the celebration of his achievements in the field.40 Octavian attempted during this time to Senate in 45. This in no way affects Octavian’s right to choose to use them later on; cf. Reinhold (n. 4), 231–2. 36 Degrassi (n. 9), p. 87. Cf. L. Schumacher, ‘Die imperatorischen Akklamationen der Triumvirn und die auspicia des Augustus’, Historia 34 (1985), 210; Ridley (n. 1), 86. 37 Cf. R. Syme, ‘Imperator Caesar: a study in nomenclature’, Historia 7 (1958), 176–7; M. Gelzer (trans. P. Needham), Caesar: Politician and Statesman (Oxford, 1969), 307, n. 2. 38 Cf. Syme (n. 37), 179. 39 H.A. Grueber, Coins of the Roman Republic in the British Museum (London, 1910) vol. II, pp. 410–11, nos 101–4; cf. Syme (n. 34), 113, n. 1. For Salvidienus’ revolt: Appian, BC, 5.6; Dio 48.33.2–3. 40 Crassus’ return was probably late in 28 (E. Badian, ‘“Crisis theories” and the beginning of the Principate’, in G. Wirth [ed.], Romanitas–Christianitas: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und

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consolidate the Senate’s support for himself. A review of the senatorial roll was begun by Octavian and Agrippa as censors during 29. The record of discontent in the senatorial class lacks detail but is not entirely extinguished. Octavian caused some senators to depart and he enrolled other men, even adlecting some of them to consular rank (Dio 52.42.1–4). According to an authorization of the Senate and People given in the previous year,41 he created more patricians to fill the ranks of important traditional priesthoods (RG 8.1; cf. Dio 52.42.5). He sought to win senators over with the promise that he would burn incriminating letters found among Antonius’ possessions (Dio 52.42.8).42 None of these measures can have stemmed the senatorial opposition to Octavian because he also curtailed the senators’ right to travel outside Italy without permission, except to Sicily and Gallia Narbonensis (Dio 52.42.6–7). It is not hard to imagine what prompted this action. In the year 32 a large proportion of the Senate had caught Octavian unaware and left Italy to join Antonius in the East. In 29 Octavian may have anticipated, or at least feared, a repetition of such an event, this time in Crassus’ favour. Octavian not only worked to marshal the senatorial order to his support during 29, he also invested much money and energy in developing political support in other sections of Roman society. He spent a considerable amount of the proceeds from Egypt on the citizens resident in Rome (RG 15.1). Military veterans benefited, too, by cash and by land (RG 15.3). In the same year he returned to the municipia and colonies of Italy their contributions of 35,000 pounds of aurum coronarium (RG 21.3). Ultimately, however, Octavian’s claim to superiority had been most specifically expressed to all of those in Rome by including Crassus’ victories of 30–29 in the first day of his triple triumphal celebration while Crassus was still on campaign in Macedonia. After that any attempt by Crassus to dedicate the armour of Deldo as spolia opima on his return would amount to a specific confrontation with Octavian (cf. Dio 51.24.4). Nevertheless, Octavian did prepare for that eventuality. With specific reference to the issue of the spolia opima, Livy records that Octavian claimed he, rather than Crassus, held the auspices for the campaign when King Deldo was killed in single combat (4.20.6–7). Octavian’s claim did not have any legal basis since, as proconsul of Macedonia, Crassus’ imperium and auspices would have been independent of Octavian for the period he spent within his province.43 Certainly there is no indication that Octavian was alleging that a vitium had been uncovered in the departure auspices of Crassus nor indeed that there had been auspical irregularity in the field at the time of his campaigns. Therefore, since Octavian was not asserting that the magisterial auspices of Crassus prevented him from dedicating the spolia opima, his claim must have been based on the auspices he held as a result of the augurium salutis.44 The Literatur der römischen Kaiserzeit [Berlin, 1982], 25, n. 19, 26). The date is not indicated by Dio. However, he refers to three major expeditions undertaken by Crassus after that of 30 against Deldo, namely those against the Maedi and Serdi and the provision of help to Roles (51.25.4–26.1), the siege of Ciris (51.26.3–6), and the attack on the Artacii (51.27.1). He also says specifically (51.27.2) that a considerable time had passed. 41 His authorization was the Lex Saenia: Reinhold (n. 4), 212. 42 This promise was not completely fulfilled and men were condemned on the basis of evidence found there later on (Dio 52.42.8). Sattler (n. 8), 31–4 clarifies the nature of the difficulties Octavian faced in seeking to establish support for himself in the Senate. 43 See n. 34 above; cf. Linderski (n. 13), 2217–18; Schumacher (n. 36), 213. 44 Cf. Linderski (n. 18), 610–11. The terms auspicia and auguria were sometimes used interchangeably: see H.D. Jocelyn, ‘Urbs augurio augusto condita: Ennius ap. Cic. de Div. I. 107 (= Ann. 77–96 V2)’, PCPS 17 (1971), 48–9; cf. Linderski (n. 13), 2292.

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armour of Deldo was won during activities unsanctified by Jupiter in Octavian’s view. Crassus’ trophy could not be recognized as spolia opima, or so Octavian must have publicly argued in 29.45 J.W. Rich has also argued against deeming that Crassus held an imperium which was inferior to Octavian’s and missed out on the imperatorial salutation for his campaigns.46 With respect to the spolia opima, however, Rich is prepared to allow for the possibility that Crassus deferred to Octavian, or even that he refrained from claiming the right to dedicate the spolia opima unprompted.47 Apart from the fact that such abnegation is uncharacteristic of the Roman nobility, the weakness of Rich’s argument lies in the fact that he fails to identify in this context the significance of the earlier endorsement of Octavian through the augurium salutis. Nevertheless, in acknowledging the propensity of Crassus’ military success to eclipse and to distract from Octavian’s own victories, he does recognize the strong grounds Octavian must have used to argue against Crassus’ celebration of the ritual of the spolia opima. An objection by Octavian on the basis of the augurium salutis could not have been considered trivial.48 Octavian had been acknowledged as the interpres of Jupiter by it. It is because of what was at stake for each man that a political clash must have occurred.49 Crassus’ achievement extended far beyond the usual level of military valour among the Roman aristocracy. The feat of the spolia opima had been achieved by only three Romans before 29, the first of whom was Romulus.50 The spolia opima and the related topic of personal bravery, then, must have been a volatile issue in Rome even going into 28. It must have marked out Crassus as Octavian’s most dangerous opponent.51 It was an intricate situation for Octavian because the historical tradition might be interpreted in Crassus’ favour.52 Hence, it would be understandable if Octavian’s actions during the following year while Crassus’ return was awaited were designed to distinguish himself in the life of the State and to leave no room for a challenge to his leadership by Crassus. THE YEAR 28 Octavian was consul for the sixth time in 28. Significantly, Agrippa was his only colleague and the pair remained in office throughout the year. The year-long appointment of Agrippa as his consular colleague, although suffect consuls had become 45 Cf. E. Badian, ‘Livy and Augustus’, in W. Schuller (ed.), Livius. Aspekte seines Werkes (Konstanz, 1993), 15–16 against the common view that Livy’s notice of Augustus’ opinion (4.20.7) was an insertion written after 27; contra Rich (n. 4), 118. 46 Ibid. 93–7. 47 Ibid., 107. 48 Cf. ibid. 100–6, 126–7. 49 Ridley (n. 1), 159–60 believes that in Crassus Octavian faced the most serious challenge to his military standing during 28. 50 For the nature of the tradition and those who dedicated the spolia opima before 29, see Flower (n. 4), 34–48. 51 Badian (n. 40), 26 seriously underrated the political acuteness of Octavian when he argued that no one would have thought of the significance of Crassus winning the spolia opima during 29. In a later discussion, Badian (n. 45), 15, did recognize the extreme political difficulty any such dedication by Crassus would cause Octavian. Cf. also, Flower (n. 4), 50, 53. 52 Ibid. 52; Rich (n. 4), 93. If Dio is correct in reporting the Senate had awarded Caesar the right to dedicate spolia opima in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius in 45 (44.4.3), Octavian’s proprietary sense with respect to Caesar and his privileges may once again have been aroused by Crassus. Dio’s information is sometimes regarded as unreliable but cf. Flower (n. 4), 48–9. Livy’s personal confusion (4.20.7–8) has preserved the political ambiguities which existed.

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customary, is evidence that Octavian was finding the political environment in Rome particularly difficult that year (cf. Dio 51.3.5–7, 52.1.2).53 Nevertheless, Dio describes the general character of Octavian’s actions from the beginning of 28 as being deeply respectful of ancestral custom (cf. RG 8.5). He illustrates this by describing what he sees as distinctive aspects of his leadership at that time (53.1.1–3), namely Octavian’s collegial attitude towards Agrippa his co-consul by sharing the fasces, the swearing of the customary oath at the conclusion of his consular year and the revival of the principatus of the Senate. Octavian’s designation as princeps senatus appears to represent the achievement of a senatorial consensus. The latest attested principatus for Republican Rome was that of Cicero in 43 when he was designated as princeps senatus and recognized as princeps Romani nominis.54 The latter title, equivalent in meaning to princeps Romanae civitatis, was an acknowledgement of the standing which had underlain the designation princeps senatus since 209.55 Thus, as princeps senatus, Octavian was ostensibly acknowledged as leader of Rome by the senators. The position gave expression in the civic sphere to the auctoritas he had gained through the augurium salutis on the basis of his military achievements in the previous year and was of great political significance. However, the circumstances of Octavian’s appointment were not necessarily indicative of a voluntary affirmation of him. While Dio does not relate by whom or in what circumstances Octavian was designated princeps senatus, it is most likely that his appointment was made jointly by the censors, that is by Octavian himself and Agrippa.56 Since appointments were commonly associated with a lectio,57 the appointment probably occurred prior to the lustrum Octavian performed on completion of the censorial revision (cf. RG 8.2). The other actions of Octavian discussed by Dio (53.1–2) under the year 28 involved:58 the distributions of funds (to impoverished senators to enable them to hold public office; to the plebs a four-fold distribution of grain, and to the aerarium funds as necessary); measures of restoration and reconciliation (the cancellation of many debts owed to the aerarium before the battle of Actium; the destruction of records of debt to the State, and the rescinding by edict of all unjust and illegal laws he had sponsored when a triumvir to take effect from the end of his sixth consulship);59 attention to cult (the completion and dedication of the Palatine temple of Apollo; provision for the maintenance of Roman temples, and the expulsion of Egyptian rites 53 Agrippa’s first consulship was in 37 and this was also a crucial year for Octavian (Dio 48.2.4). Rich (n. 4), 110, in disregard of Dio’s account, argues that Augustus was totally secure in his leadership during the years between the victory over Antonius and the beginning of 27 (cf. Ridley [n. 1], 159–60). 54 F.X. Ryan, Rank and Participation in the Republican Senate (Stuttgart, 1998), 202–3. 55 Ibid. 230–1. 56 Cicero’s appointment was unconventional in that he was designated by the Senate (ibid. 203). Nevertheless, the political context of April 43 reveals how that appointment too served a political purpose. 57 Ibid. 232–3. 58 The events of this year appear to be narrated thematically rather than in sequential order, cf. Dio’s words in 53.2.4. Arguably this is a reflection of the haphazard survival of the history of this crucial period, something also indicated by the extreme brevity of Dio’s account of 28 and the lack of information about it in the Res Gestae. 59 An aureus was issued in 28 with the legend LEGES ET IVRA P R RESTITVIT, see J.W. Rich and J.H.C. Williams, ‘Leges et Ivra P.R. Restitvit: a new aureus of Octavian and the settlement of 28–27 BC’, The Numismatic Chronicle 159 (1999), 176–88, at 180. According to its legend the coin is most likely celebrating this edict.

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from within the pomerium). In addition, Octavian provided at his own expense the first celebration of the festival decreed in honour of the victory at Actium. It took an elaborate form and included chariot races for young and old among the nobility, gymnastic contests for which a special stadium was built, and also gladiatorial combats between prisoners of war. By these actions Octavian portrayed himself once again, to the entire social order in Rome, as patron and benefactor as well as leader. Moreover, the Actian festival also revived the triumphal atmosphere of the preceding year. It and the dedication of the temple of Apollo offered Octavian the opportunity to remind those in Rome of his victory over Antonius and the Egyptian queen. His action with respect to Egyptian cult within the city provided a tangible illustration of his mastery over Egypt in 30. The highly cultivated and well-rounded image of leadership which must have resulted from the total of Octavian’s actions of 28 was of vital tactical importance to him in the face of Crassus’ successful campaigns and winning of the spolia opima.60 Dio records that indeed these measures did earn Octavian popularity and praise (53.2.6). There are other significant events that took place during the year which Dio does not record. The fact that the Senate issued a decree authorizing Octavian to restore 82 temples of Rome which were decaying and needed repair during 28, his sixth consulship, is known only from the Res Gestae (20.4).61 But Ovid does refer to Octavian/Augustus as builder and restorer of temples and by doing so on the Kalends of February (Fasti 2.55–64) he most likely provides that decree’s date.62 Given his renewed eminence with respect to cult during 28, Octavian may well have considered that his new responsibility for the religious life of the city should include the performance of a lustratio on its behalf. Such a ceremony would have provided the perfect context for him to adumbrate the potential danger arising from Crassus’ impending return to Rome.63 The end of the census was traditionally marked by a purificatory lustratio and Augustus himself records that, as censor, he did carry out that ceremony (RG 8.2).64 60 Rich and Williams ([n. 59], 183) link the issue of the aureus to the settlement of 27, a view based on their prior assumption that the transfer of power was a process extending over 28–27 not as a single act in January 27; cf. nn. 97, 103 below for a different view. (The question of whether P. R. in the legend should be expanded by the genitive or the dative [Scheid (n. 1), 86] has no impact on the relevance of the coin in either context.) 61 Ridley (n. 1), 182–3 expresses puzzlement at the formulation of this paragraph and surmises that Augustus meant the date only to apply to the Senate’s authorization. If this is the case, it highlights the significance of the decree in Augustus’ eyes. It is also noteworthy that the rebuilding resulting from this decree is distinguished by Augustus, both by inclusion of this detail and by his arrangement of the text, from the many other individual restorations and constructions he carried out (cf. RG 19–20.3; 21.1). Dio (53.2.4) may constitute a less specific allusion to the decree and to a range of other related measures taken by Octavian. 62 No other reason for Ovid’s commemoration of Augustus on this day is known, cf. G. Herbert-Brown, Ovid and the Fasti. An Historical Study (Oxford, 1994), 43. 63 For the threatening circumstances in which a lustratio might be considered appropriate, cf. Lucan’s account (1.584–609) of an extraordinary lustratio in 49 B.C. Horace (Od. 4.15), describing how the threat of attack from the Dacians and Getae was averted, conceivably reflects an atmosphere of fear in 28 which had been engendered by Octavian. 64 The so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus may well represent this scene. Identification of the date and circumstances of the altar’s creation has so far eluded scholars (cf. R.M. Ogilvie, ‘Lustrum condere’, JRS 51 [1961], 37; E.S. Gruen, Culture and Identity in Republican Rome [Ithaca, 1992], 145–50, pls 2–3). Arguably, however, the representation of censorial activity including a sacrifice to Mars, and marine friezes honouring Neptune, combined on the one monument, fit well with Octavian’s celebrations, both in 28, of the naval victory at Actium by the

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The Amburbium, a purificatory festival instituted by Numa, was regularly celebrated on the Kalends of February (Macrob. Sat. 1.13.3).65 Octavian may also have performed a lustratio on that occasion, especially since it is the same date as the Senate’s edict authorizing him to restore the city’s temples. As a pontiff (cf. RG 7.3) he was eligible to officiate at the Amburbium. Moreover, contemporary sources repeatedly draw a parallel between Octavian and Numa (Virg. Aen. 6.810–11; Livy 1.19.3).66 In fact, since the exact date of the censorial lustrum is unknown, it is possible that ceremony was on the Kalends of February and it was extended to include the circular procession so that the entire city was purified. Certainly, Augustus (RG 8.2) describes his censorial lustrum by the phrase lustrum facere, which had a wider application than the technical one, lustrum condere.67 The connection of Octavian with another ancestral ritual early in 28 is suggested by Ovid’s reference to Augustus’ strengthening of Rome’s wall (facit hic tua magna tuendo moenia) on the Nones of February (Fasti 2.133–4), a ritual known as either augustum augurium or inauguratio.68 This augural ceremony was associated with several of the revered figures of Rome’s regal past. It had been performed by Romulus at the founding of Rome (Livy 1.7.1–4).69 Numa’s inauguration as king had provided the basis for his new foundation of the city on law and ancestral custom (Livy 1.18.6–19.1).70 Thus an inauguration might equally relate to the well-being and prosperity of the city in peace as to the definition of its boundaries and consolidation of its defensive position.71 The depiction of Octavian/Augustus as wall-strengthener by Ovid denotes the designation of him also as a ‘Founder’ through the same ritual.72 Once again, then, pious action offered the opportunity for Octavian’s name to be linked with that of Numa, to Octavian’s own political advantage. In 28 the performance of an augustum augurium would have been a striking way to associate himself with Rome’s well-being for the purposes of short-term political gain. Over later years, Augustus’ decisions would certainly increase the city’s prosperity by organization,73 dedication of the temple of Apollo and new Actian festival (cf. the inscription on the victory monument at Actium: R.A. Gurval, Actium and Augustus: the Politics and Emotions of Civil War [Ann Arbor, 1995], 66–7, n. 116 where Neptune and Mars are mentioned together) and the ceremony at the conclusion of the censorship of himself and Agrippa (RG 8.2). 65 G. Wissowa, ‘Amburbium’, RE 1 (1894), 1816–17. 66 Cf. Herbert-Brown (n. 62), 49; R.J. Littlewood, ‘Imperii pignora certa: the role of Numa in Ovid’s Fasti’, in G. Herbert-Brown (ed.), Ovid’s Fasti (Oxford, 2002), 175–80. 67 For detailed discussion of the difference between lustrum condere and lustrum facere, see Ogilvie (n. 64), 31. 68 The phrase augustum augurium is used by Ennius apud Varro, Rust. 3.12. Livy (5.52.2) uses inauguratio and its cognates for the same ritual: Jocelyn (n. 44), 48–9. 69 See Jocelyn (n. 44), 49–50. 70 Littlewood (n. 66), 180. 71 Littlewood (n. 66), 179. 72 Octavian’s action recalls Numa rather than Romulus since it is unlikely from Ovid’s description that Octavian extended the pomerium. Servius Tullius had also earned the title ‘Founder’ without extending the pomerium by his census and distribution of citizens into classes and centuries (Livy 1.42.3–5; cf. Littlewood [n. 66], 179, n. 13). Whether or not, at some time later, Augustus did extend Rome’s pomerium remains a debatable point. Tac. Ann. 12.23, Dio 55.6.6, and SHA Aurelian 21.11 all record he did so, but it is not mentioned in the Res Gestae or the Lex de imperio Vespasiani (CIL VI.930); cf. Ridley (n. 1), 82. 73 Augustus is known to have divided the city into a larger number of regions than Romulus. The existence of fourteen regions is first attested in 7 B.C. (Dio 55.8.7) and this may well be the date of the final Augustan organization. It is unlikely to be the date of the earliest action of Octavian/Augustus in this respect, however, as the total of fourteen was probably only arrived at as part of a process of systematic expansion (cf. J. Bleicken, ‘vici magister’, RE VIIIA [1958], 2481).

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by construction and restoration (Suet. Aug. 28–30), and by the attainment of peace over many years in the future. Thus the analogy between the accounts of Numa’s actions and the strengthening of Rome’s civic and social structure by Octavian/ Augustus continues to be notable even after 28. Octavian/Augustus’ public image was transformed over the years from a factional aggressor to the sacred protector of the State.74 It is surely no coincidence, therefore, that it was also on the Nones of February (Fasti 2.119–27) that Augustus accepted the title pater patriae in 2 B.C., or that it is this occasion that he represents as the crowning achievement of his public life (RG 35.1).75 No literary source records that an augustum augurium was performed by Octavian. Neither is there a reference to one by Augustus in the Res Gestae. It is only the evidence of a denarius from the East that indicates its occurrence and date. The connection Livy draws (4.20.7) between the firmly dated restoration of the temples and Octavian as Founder also points to the same conjunction of ceremony and its date. The denarius in question was long ago identified by Gagé as bearing a representation on the reverse of Octavian performing an inauguratio.76 He argued that Octavian, shown with veiled head and ploughing a furrow with a pair of oxen, is depicted in the role of Founder, although not in the literal sense like Romulus but rather as Founder in an allusive sense, as a ‘Second Founder’.77 A date of between 29 and 27 was assigned to the coin at that time.78 But now, when the combination of the inauguratio type on the reverse with the depiction of Octavian as Apollo on the obverse is considered, the date of the issue may be estimated even more precisely. Since Octavian dedicated the temple of Apollo adjoining his house on the Palatine in 28 (Dio 53.1.3), it is surely to that year, above all, that the assimilation of Octavian with Apollo is to be expected.79 In all it is probable that during 28 Octavian acted repeatedly to demonstrate he was the one who guarded Rome’s relationship with its gods and, through the rituals of lustratio and augustum augurium in particular, to convey the message that peace in Rome was under threat. His emulation of Numa in the various ways discussed above would have contributed immeasurably to the impact of this strategic behaviour. As well as enabling Octavian to gain in stature as the perpetuator of ancestral custom (cf. RG 8.5; Dio 53.1.1), it allowed him to align himself specifically with the other great Founder of Rome besides Romulus. In doing this he achieved a tactical balance with Crassus who stood in the tradition of Romulus after winning the spolia opima. And, finally, his message of impending threat to Rome meant that those in Rome viewed him as the one most fit to preserve the city’s well-being and prosperity. Towards the end of 28 after the dedication of the temple of Apollo on 9 October,80 74

Littlewood (n. 66), 192. Suet. Aug. 58. 76 J. Gagé, ‘Les sacerdoces d’Auguste et ses réformes religieuses’, MEFR 48 (1931), 93–4. 77 The image of a priestly figure ploughing a furrow refers to the ritual appropriated by Rome from the Etruscans. It defined the pomerium of a new settlement (Varro, Ling. 5.143; Aulus Gellius 14.1.3); cf. Ovid, Fasti 4.818–19 for the ploughing action of Romulus. For a list of other conditores after Numa who also only ‘founded’ figuratively, see Littlewood (n. 66), 179, n. 13. 78 H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum (London, 1923–64) vol. I, p.104, no. 638, pls 15, 17. 79 Cf. Zanker (n. 18), 82–9; O. Hekster and J. Rich, ‘Octavian and the thunderbolt: the temple of Apollo Palatinus and Roman traditions of temple building’, CQ 56 (2006), 162–5. 80 CIL I2.1, p. 331. The Actian festival was associated with this. 75

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Octavian was in a strong position to consolidate further political support for himself against Crassus by the use of invective.81 Octavian could denigrate Crassus by drawing attention to his political vacillation during the civil wars. Perhaps even his consulate of 30 and his appointment to Macedonia might be cited to show Crassus’ expediency in striking a bargain after Octavian had defeated Antonius.82 Crassus was also vulnerable to innuendo over his family’s impiety. The disastrous result of his grandfather’s Parthian campaign was attributed to the disregard of inauspicious omens (Plut. Cras. 18). Survival of the story as a topos of wrong behaviour towards the gods was probably given new life by Octavian at this time.83 Furthermore, the tremendous success of Crassus’ operations in the second campaigning season could also have been turned to his disadvantage by Octavian. The regions of Macedonia, Illyricum and Thrace were the location for armies and battles during the civil wars on more than one occasion.84 They formed the bridge between Italy and the wealth of the East and were also of strategic importance for Italy’s security against foreign enemies. In the decades after Actium the Romans feared Italy might be invaded from that area (Virg. Georgics 2.497–8; Hor. Od. 3.8.17–18; Hor. Sat. 2.50–3). In 28 Crassus was in control there and had legions at his command. Moreover, former Antonian supporters had been settled in Macedonia after Actium (Dio 51.4.6). These men could be represented as a potential source of additional manpower for Crassus should he wish to turn on Rome.85 Nearby native tribes would readily come to a Roman’s mind as potential military allies for Crassus also. The significance of diplomatic links with tribal kingdoms is revealed by the frequency with which client relationships are referred to and native embassies are recorded as visiting Rome or entering into treaties of alliance.86 Relationships of patronage were developed by Roman leaders among these tribes including apparently by the Licinii.87 Crassus is recorded as having friendly relations with King Roles of the Getae (Dio 51.24.6, 51.26.1) and with the Odrysae (Dio 51.25.4–5) during the period in question.88 His influence extended to the cities of Greece. He was the patron of Thespiae, an important city of southern Boeotia, which, 81 For the probability that Crassus’ return was late in 28, see n. 40 above. Octavian waged a war of words with great effect against Antonius in 32, cf. Kearsley (n. 24), 54. 82 Cf. E. Groag, ‘Licinius’, RE 25 (1926), 271–2. The record in Dio 52.42.4 that C. Cluvius and C. Furnius were adlected among the ex-consuls in 29 because their year of office had been taken by others reveals the nature of such accommodation and negotiation. 83 Hor. Od. 3.5.5–8; Dion. Hal. 2.6.4; cf. S.P. Mattern-Parkes, ‘The defeat of Crassus and the just war’, CW 96 (2003), 393. 84 Wilkes (n. 26), 545–9. 85 After the division of provinces in 27, Macedonia was left with little by way of a military garrison even though its border was repeatedly challenged by outsiders (Syme [n. 8], 274–5). The removal of the legionary force reflects Augustus’ later suspicion of any Roman commander with a large force so close to Italy. 86 Cf. Dio 51.22.8, 51.24.7; Front. Strat. 1.10.4; Plut. Ant. 63.4; Suet. Aug. 63.2. Compare the discussion of G.W. Bowersock, Augustus and the Greek World (Oxford, 1965), 152–5 for the period of Pompey and the second triumvirate. 87 A large clientela of the Licinii existed in Illyrian Istria in the time of Nero, one which Tacitus described as being of long standing (Hist. 2.73). 88 The trial of Primus for making war on the Odrysae less than a decade later (Dio 54.3.2) illustrates how relationships with this tribal group still aroused strong feelings in senatorial circles. The depth of political division on the matter is demonstrated by the plot that was formed against Augustus after the trial (Dio 54.3.4) as well as by the level of his own celebration when the plot was extinguished (Dio 54.3.8).

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together with Athens, honoured him and acknowledged his goodwill.89 These cities also recorded the imperatorial acclamation Crassus had won during his campaigns in Macedonia.90 Remnants of Octavian’s verbal attacks on Crassus may still be discernible in the speech to the Senate which Dio attributes to him in January 27.91 For example, in 53.7.1 Dio portrays Octavian as claiming conquests in Moesia which actually belonged to Crassus. Elsewhere (53.7.3–4), Dio gives Octavian the words of a self-denying leader who stressed the contrast between himself and others whose passion for sole supremacy meant they would even use violence to win it. Direct evidence for the other side of the debate is harder to discern in the sources. However, Octavian’s repudiation of his most unpopular acts during the triumviral years (Dio 53.2.5), and the other acts of civilitas (Dio 53.2.1–3, 53.2.6–7), suggest he was forced into a defensive posture during 28 by the reality of Crassus’ opposition and support for it in Rome. The scale of publicly expressed antagonism between these two leading senators would undoubtedly have led to fear and uncertainty among all Romans. Civil war had been the result of such situations more than once in recent history.92 It was this which created the climate in which a lustratio would have been widely supported by the population of Rome.93 In addition, Octavian’s augural role as mediator between Jupiter and Rome continued to provide him with the authority to interpret the god’s will about any threats he perceived against himself or the city.94 The level of concern among senators and people alike would have favoured an attempt by Octavian to seize the initiative without even waiting for Crassus’ return.95 When writing about the performance of the augurium salutis, Cicero had argued that a good augur cooperated with Jupiter not only in protecting but also in rescuing the State in emergencies (De leg. 3.43). An argument from Octavian that an emergency situation was threatening the well-being of the state would, therefore, carry the weight of the auspices.96 Such supreme power had been decreed for Octavian by an SCU as recently as 40 when, following his denunciation of Salvidienus, the Senate committed the care of the city to the triumvirs (Dio 48.33.1–3). Given Octavian’s designation as princeps senatus at the beginning of 28, obtaining a majority vote in the Senate for an emergency 89 Thespiae: AE 1928.44; Athens: IG2 III.4118. Thespiae had good relations with Rome over a long period and had a community of Roman businessmen. Cf. M. Kajava, ‘Cornelia and Taurus at Thespiae’, ZPE 79 (1989), 148. 90 Their testimony is inestimable as they record a fact which disappeared from the Roman historical tradition after Augustus was established as Rome’s leader. 91 Cf. the comments of Reinhold (n. 4), 84 on the speeches of Antonius and Octavian included by Dio in Book 50. 92 The analogous situation between Pompeius and Caesar in 49 (Dio 41.3.3–4) would also still have been fresh enough in the public mind. 93 The number of citizens Augustus claims to have registered at the lustrum in 28 (RG 8.2) is believed to be impossibly large if it involved only male citizens (P.A. Brunt and J.M. Moore (edd.), Res Gestae Divi Augusti. The Achievements of the Divine Augustus (Oxford, 1967), 51. The likely inclusion of women and children suggests a wider purpose for the occasion than the traditional registration of the citizen roll; cf. n. 67 above. 94 Linderski (n. 13), 2295–6 underlines the fact that, in contrast to the auspicium of magistrates which was valid for one day only, the augurium was permanent since it expressed Jupiter’s will for a person, place or ceremony, and not merely the timing of an action. 95 Cf. the manner in which Cicero undermined Antonius in 43: Phil. (Cic. Orations, trans. W.C.A. Ker, Loeb Classical Library vol. 15 [Cambridge, MA, 1926]); cf. Dio 45.18–47.5, especially 45.4–46.2. 96 Cf. Linderski (n. 13), 2253–5 for the inclusion of an invocatio uti avertantur mala in the augurium salutis.

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power directing him to ensure the city came to no harm would not have been difficult to achieve (cf. Dio 53.2.7).97 There is no record in Dio of such an official endorsement of Octavian. However a cistophoros minted in Ephesus and dating to 28 appears to reflect the successful outcome after the award of supreme power to Octavian. It bears, on the obverse, the laureate head of Octavian together with the legend LIBERTATIS P.R. VINDEX (‘champion/defender of the liberty of the Roman people’) and, on the reverse, an image of Pax. Wording analogous to this legend, rem publicam ... libertatem vindicavi, is found in RG 1.1 where the context is also civil war. From this – Augustus’ own usage – and from traditional usage, the intended allusion of the coin is made clear.98 It provides contemporary evidence for factional division in Rome in 28, division which was believed to be so threatening to Rome that Octavian was called upon to rescue the State. It also records Octavian’s eventual political victory over Crassus.99 The preservation of the memory of this battle of wills was undesirable from Augustus’ point of view once he had prevailed. Crassus’ military achievements were quickly minimized. He did triumph some six months later for victories ex Thraecia et Geteis but there was no mention of the victories over the Dacians, although this was Crassus’ major success.100 The celebration is likely to have been presented publicly as a magnanimous gesture of clemency by Octavian.101 Octavian’s clemency, if such it was, did not extend to the dedication of the spolia opima (Dio 51.24.4; cf. Livy 4.20.6–7).102

CONCLUSIONS Written many years later, the formulation of RG 34.1 refers to the Senate’s ultimate deferral to Octavian as leader in the vaguest possible terms and offers no indication of the events of 28 which preceded it.103 Interpretation of the text by modern scholars 97 For the view that an emergency power was conceded to Octavian in 28 and was released back to the Senate before the end of the year, see E.A. Judge, ‘“Res Publica Restituta”. A modern illusion?’, in J.A.S. Evans (ed.), Polis and Imperium: Studies in Honour of Edward Togo Salmon (Toronto, 1974), 279–311, 293 with 309, n. 16. 98 The coin was most probably minted between mid October and the end of 28 (cf. Badian [n. 40] above). Details of this coin are given in Rich and Williams (n. 59), 171. Cf. also W. Eder, ‘Augustus and the power of tradition: the Augustan Principate as binding link between Republic and Empire’, in Raaflaub and Toher (n. 3), 89–97. 99 Cf. Judge (n. 97), 294. E. Ramage, The Nature and Purpose of Augustus’ “Res Gestae” (Stuttgart, 1987), 68 with n. 149 and Rich and Williams (n. 59), 183–6 detect a reference to Octavian’s victory at Actium in this legend. However, the language used is not in accord with the consistent characterization of that conflict as a foreign war on coins and inscriptions (cf. ibid. 171; Gurval [n. 64], 66–7, n. 116). 100 Wilkes (n. 26), 550 suggests that this was ignored because it was offensive to Octavian; cf. RG 30.2 and 31.2 which appear to be Augustan appropriations of Crassus’ victories. 101 Crassus’ triumph: Degrassi (n. 9), p. 87. Dio 56.38.3–5 describes the political use of clemency by Octavian after Actium. The theme of clemency was traditionally associated with the civic crown (Judge [n. 97], 292–3). Hence, clemency was appropriate for the manner in which the conflict between Octavian and Crassus was resolved. The gift of clemency by Octavian after prevailing in no way prejudices the likelihood of enmity between the two men. Although the lack of traces of a public debate in the sources is attributed by Rich (n. 4), 108 to the absence of any confrontation between Octavian and Crassus, it is more probable that the official sources no longer acknowledged it had taken place (cf. Ridley [n. 1], 93). 102 A Marcus Licinius Crassus is consul in 14 B.C. (Dio 54.24.1) but, whether or not this is a son (doubted by Syme [n. 8], 276; accepted as an adoptive son by Flower [n. 4], 50), it does not illuminate the subsequent career of the cos. 30. 103 The interpretation that a specific threat does underlie RG 34.1, however, is supported by

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was also complicated for many years by the gap in the Latin text where there once stood a single but crucial word. Only very recently has Augustus’ own portrayal of the political situation in 28–27 been clarified by the fragment discovered at Pisidian Antioch (n. 1 above). It is now clear that Augustus described himself as potens rerum omnium. By selection of the word potens, Augustus intended to make clear the military and political nature of his supreme power.104 This is in accord with the character of the entire account of his achievements which emphasizes the military aspects of his power above any other.105 Even though he did not name his opposition of 28, it was obviously a matter of pride to Augustus that the context of his civic awards of January 27 be appreciated. Despite the fact that the words per consensum universorum failed to make explicit, or perhaps deliberately concealed,106 the actual source of his supreme power they do indicate Augustus’ view of the importance of the period in his public career.107 The cistophoric coin minted in Octavian’s sixth consulship expands and confirms such conclusions drawn from the Res Gestae. It cannot have been a minor political matter which resulted in the naming of Octavian as vindex libertatis populi Romani that year. On the contrary, this epithet, like potens rerum omnium in the Res Gestae, relates to a political crisis of great moment and must reflect a genuine struggle for the hearts and minds of the Roman people by Octavian against strong opposition.108 It has been suggested that the legend on the cistophoros reflects the passing of a decree of the Senate honouring Octavian.109 If this was indeed the case, it is likely that it was only from this point on that Octavian felt sufficiently secure in his leadership of the State to surrender his supreme power to the Senate. The amount of information preserved in the sources about the honouring of Octavian as Rome’s saviour on 13 January in 27 forms a strong contrast with the lack of recorded detail about the year 28 (RG 34.1–2; Dio 53.16.4). Nevertheless, a link is established by the way the rewards the Senate gave Octavian/Augustus refer back to the threatening atmosphere of civil war. The wreathing of the door-posts of his house with laurels, and the civic crown placed above his door, symbolized a triumph over enemies and fellow citizens rescued.110 Pompeius had felt that winding laurel around reference to Tiberius’ recapitulation of the events of the years from 31 to 27 in his funeral speech for Augustus (Dio 56.34.4–41.9). Tiberius refers to a period after Actium which would have been one of factional strife had not the Senate insisted Octavian accept their choice of him as leader again (56.39.5–6). The theme of Octavian’s recusatio, prominent in this part of the speech as it is elsewhere in Dio (cf. 53.5.1–4), should not be allowed to distract from the political discord which is the topic of discussion (cf. Dio 53.11.1–4). 104 See the discussion of the meaning and usage of potens in Scheid (n. 1), 82–6, at 85. 105 Ridley (n. 1), 92. 106 Cf. Ridley (n. 1), 109 on Augustus’ concealment of the nature of his censorial power of 28 in RG 8.2. 107 For the use of comparable emphasis to highlight other significant events, cf. RG 5.2, 9.2, 10.2, 25.2 (and Kearsley [n. 24]), 35.1. Scheid (n. 1), 86, by contrast, attributes a political significance to such expressions of support. 108 Ridley (n. 1), 221 argues that the total control of Octavian was an ongoing position following his victory at Actium. However against this, in addition to the difficult political situations which Octavian faced (discussed above), there is the nature of the rewards for Octavian’s surrender of power (see RG 34.2 with n. 110 below). 109 Rich and Williams (n. 59), 186–7. It is far less likely that an honorific decree was issued in the middle of gradually letting go aspects of the leadership (cf. ibid. 191) than at the successful completion of a particular action which had been previously endorsed by the Senate. 110 These accolades from the Senate (RG 34.2) have a character directly linked to victory in war and therefore cannot be explained simply as honorific tributes; see Judge (n. 97), 290–4.

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his fasces was an inappropriate way of expressing victory over fellow citizens (Dio 41.52.1). Caesar, too, hesitated to appear to rejoice publicly after his victory over the Pompeians (Dio 42.18.1–2). Not so Octavian. Moreover, after the Senate’s affirmation of him as leader on 13 January, he sought approval for a preferential rate of pay for his future Praetorian Guard (Dio 53.11.5). This is not how events were presented by Augustus in his Res Gestae (34–5) however. He re-wrote history when he described the award of his new name ‘Augustus’ in isolation from its full historical context. Despite the acknowledged connection of his name with augury,111 the Res Gestae is silent about the auguria of 29–28. Augustus deliberately shifted focus in the Res Gestae from 29–28, difficult years, to the Senate’s endorsement of him early in 27.112 Yet the absence of any reference to the augurium salutis or the augustum augurium is anomalous since much of his auctoritas during the years 30–27 stemmed from his consummate use of augury. The augurium salutis had played a central role in defining his military activity as, alone, important for Rome’s prosperity and in identifying him as Rome’s mediator with Jupiter in guarding the peace of Rome. The augustum augurium had permitted the pairing of himself with Numa and his designation as a ‘Second Founder’ of Rome.113 In RG 34.2, Augustus writes as if there was a causal connection between the award of the name and his transfer of power back to the Senate. The description of the award of his new name at that point was intended to associate it with a period of security and political unity in Rome rather than one of insecurity and division. He does this also by mentioning his new name before listing the honours of the laurels, civic crown and the shield.114 But the true sequence of events was different. Dio (53.16.7) describes the debate about Octavian’s new name as taking place only after the Senate had recognized his unique value to the State by the award of honours and the division of powers. By revealing the passage of time before the award of the name ‘Augustus’ to Octavian, Dio shows that it was not a reward for the return of the extraordinary power to the Senate.115 It was the military honours which were the rewards for Octavian’s surrender of the extraordinary power. Statements like that of Horace (Od. 3.6.1–16) which attribute the establishment of peace in Rome to religious piety are not a true reflection of the basis of Octavian’s supremacy even though they are significant in demonstrating how quickly an Augustan interpretation of the period took root. Peace did not come immediately after Actium; it was actually won after a struggle and sustained conflict between Octavian and some of his senatorial peers. Peace came only after a period of extreme tension which eventually forced the Senate and people of Rome to make the choice of Octavian over Crassus at the end of 28. 111 This connection was in the public arena already during the lifetime of Octavian (Ovid, Fasti 1.607–12). Its etymological validity is unassailable (Linderski [n. 13], 2290–1). 112 Abbreviation and arrangement of information, or even total silence, is used repeatedly by Augustus in the Res Gestae to bypass people or events from his past which he intended should disappear from the historical record; cf. the fragmented treatment of the triumviral years (RG 2, 7, 25 and also Ridley [n. 1], 234–41). 113 It is not surprising that the name ‘Augustus’, which recalled Numa with his peace-loving strengths rather than war-like Romulus, was felt by Octavian’s supporters to be the more appropriate for him as ‘Founder’ (cf. Dio 53.16.6–8.; Suet. Aug. 7.2; Florus 2.34.66). 114 Cf. the comments of Judge (n. 97), 289 on the non-chronological arrangement of the honours in RG 34.2. Scheid (n. 1), 90–1 points out that the linking of the gift of the clupeus aureus with the other gifts in RG 34.2 may represent a conflation also. 115 CIL I2.1 p. 231 (Fasti Praenestini) provides epigraphic evidence to the same effect.

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As a result of this new standing, and using his augural authority, Augustus could henceforth even re-interpret calamities. Contrary to precedent (cf. Dio 50.8.3) and inconsistently with future interpretations (cf. Dio 53.33.5, 54.1.1), the Tiber’s flooding on the night when he became Augustus was said to point to a period of new success for him as Rome’s leader (Dio 53.20.1).116 And Augustus continued to anchor his leadership in augury. The frequent inclusion of augural symbols on visual monuments from the period of his leadership of Rome clearly reveals how the augural doctrine remained central to Augustan ideology.117 Macquarie University

ROSALINDE KEARSLEY [email protected]

116 Linderski (n. 18), 618–19 cites this as an example of the manner in which Augustus ‘conquered state religion’. 117 Development of the priesthoods and ritual of the cults in the 265 vici of Rome (cf. Zanker [n. 18], 129–34) was probably intended by Octavian/Augustus as a complement to his inauguration.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 167–186 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000135

167 MONUMENTS AND MEMOR Y GEOFFREY S. SUMI

MONUMENTS AND MEMORY: THE AEDES CASTORIS IN THE FORMATION OF AUGUSTAN IDEOLOGY I. INTRODUCTION When Augustus came to power he made every effort to demonstrate his new regime’s continuity with the past, even claiming to have handed power in 28 and 27 B.C. back to the Senate and people of Rome (Mon. Anc. 34.1). He could not escape the reality, however, that his new monarchical form of government was incompatible with the political ideals of the Republic. At the same time, Augustus was attempting to reunite a society that in the recent past had been riven by civil conflict. It should be no surprise, then, that the new ideology that evolved around the figure of the princeps attempted to retain the memory of the old Republic while at the same time promoting and securing the power of a single authority through which Rome could flourish.1 The new regime’s relationship to the recent past was complicated, too, inasmuch as Augustus’ power was forged in the cauldron of the late Republic, and he was the ultimate beneficiary of the political upheaval of his youth. Augustus’ new ideology had to recall the Republic without lingering over its tumultuous last generation; it had to restore and renew.2 Augustus’ boast that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble as well as the long list in the Res Gestae (Mon. Anc. 19–21.2) of monuments that he either built or restored declare that the new topography of the city was an important component of this new ideology. One monument can serve as a case study: the Aedes Castoris in the Forum Romanum. This temple, which dated back to the very foundation of the Republic and had more recently been the locus of intense and often violent political confrontations in the era before Augustus came to power, was rededicated in A.D. 6 in the names of Augustus’ successor Tiberius and his deceased brother Drusus. This rededication, I shall argue, was part of a larger process through which the memories associated with the temple helped shape the ideology of the Principate. One critical juncture for the formation of this new ideology was the succession, since it was only when power was promised or bequeathed to a successor that the reality of monarchy was revealed. In order to understand how this process worked, we shall focus on three memories evoked by the Aedes Castoris: first, the temple’s political function in the late Republic, especially as a location for public meetings (contiones) and legislative assemblies (comitia), made it resonant of popular sovereignty; second, the temple’s foundation myth, which told of the Dioscuri’s appearance at the battle of Lake Regillus, and further the traditional mythology of the Dioscuri, were adapted for the succession; third, the temple also served as the destination point for the transuectio equitum, a Republican ceremony of great importance to the equestrian order and revived by Augustus in the Principate in part as a showcase for his successors. Romans maintained a dialogue with the past through 1 A. Gowing, Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture (Cambridge, 2005), 20–1. 2 Cf. K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton, 1996), 288.

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memories evoked by this and other monuments in the city. Under the Principate, however, the main interlocutor in this dialogue was the princeps himself, and his ideology was the filter through which many of these memories were communicated to the Roman people.3

II. MONUMENTS AND MEMORY Before we can discuss in detail the place of the Temple of Castor in Augustan ideology, it is necessary to establish the theoretical underpinnings on which this discussion will rest. For Romans much of their history was contained in the monuments that dotted the landscape of their city, and these monuments, I would argue, acted as a kind of mnemonic device that allowed Romans to remember some of the great events of their past.4 The process of remembering is complex and dynamic. At one end is the memorial, the physical reminder, which often stands in the place of person or persons, or even events, now remote in place or time.5 However, the Roman habit of constantly restoring and refurbishing temples, not to mention the more mundane task of maintenance and preservation, had the effect of keeping the founder’s memory alive6 and by the same token the memory of any event or events with which the monument was associated. At the other end of the process of remembering is the viewer who brings to the memorial his own complex of ideas and attitudes that inform the memory produced. In the case of ancient Rome, we are usually hard pressed to do better than merely guess at the precise content of this complex of ideas and attitudes, but we are certainly witness to examples of when it is exploited. One such example is the penchant of Roman orators for using monuments as visual aids or ‘props’ in their speeches (Cic. Scaur. 46–8, Cat. 4.18, De or. 2.266–7; cf. Quint. Inst. 5.10.41). In his first speech against Catiline (1.33),7 which was delivered at a Senate meeting, Cicero used the setting of this speech, the Temple of Jupiter Stator, to cue his audience to think about the early history of Rome. At the very end of the speech, Cicero mentions the founding of the temple by Romulus and lingers over the significance of the epithet Stator, ‘Stayer’. Cicero’s mention of Romulus here was meant to draw the audience’s attention to the foundation myth of the temple and allow him to compare himself with Romulus.8 Cicero thus became another ‘stayer’ at another crisis in Roman history. Cicero’s rhetorical ploy could be effective only if he and his audience shared the 3 Cf. J. Rea, Legendary Rome. Myth, Monuments, and Memory on the Palatine and Capitoline (London, 2007), 8. 4 On monuments and memory, see Varro, Ling. 6.49, with the discussion in M. Jaeger, Livy’s Written Rome (Ann Arbor, 1997), 15–18. Cicero can speak of ‘the power of suggestion that exists in places’ (vis admonitionis inest in locis, Cic. Fin. 5.2). The study of memory in Rome has exploded in recent years; in addition to Jaeger (above), see, in particular, C. Edwards, Writing Rome (Cambridge, 1996); U. Walter, Memoria und Res Publica (Frankfurt am Main, 2004); Gowing (n. 1); Rea (n. 3); and D.H.J. Larmour and D. Spencer, ‘Introduction – Roma, recepta: a topography of the imagination’, in D.H.J. Larmour and D. Spencer (edd.), The Sites of Rome: Time, Space, Memory (Oxford, 2007), 1–60. 5 Cf. Walter (n. 4), 133, who emphasizes the vastness of time that often separates monument and memory. 6 Walter (n. 4), 136. 7 On the invocation of Jupiter in this section of the speech, see A.R. Dyck (ed.), Cicero, Catilinarians (Cambridge, 2008), 122–3. 8 As A. Vasaly has persuasively argued (Representations: Images of the World in Ciceronian Oratory [Berkeley, 1993], 41–59).

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same memory associated with the temple and its founding. Cicero’s audience on the occasion of his speech was clearly cued by the very words of the orator – cued to think about Romulus and the founding of the Temple of Jupiter Stator. In other words, one memory contained within this monument was evoked by Cicero for a particular purpose on a particular occasion. In other cases, oral tradition and historiography, inscriptions and coins, might help to evoke a memory contained in a monument.9 Many monuments, however, had more than one foundation myth, or contained several memories, some of which were in direct conflict with one another and therefore must have complicated the process of remembering. The Lacus Curtius, for example, recalls the death of one Curtius in the war between Sabines and Romans – but was he a Roman hero or Sabine enemy?10 Tacitus appears to be exploiting the conflicting memories evoked by the Lacus Curtius to underscore the ambiguity of the regime and death of Servius Galba, whom he describes pointedly as perishing at this very location.11 Cicero in his speech against Catiline, and Tacitus in his narrative of Galba’s death both show how places can evoke memories. While Cicero directs his audience explicitly to the memory that he wants them to recall, what Tacitus does is much more subtle and suggestive: he merely points to the location of Galba’s death and requires his readers to recall the necessary memories. Both methods, as we shall see, were at work in Augustan ideology. III. THE AEDES CASTORIS AND POPULAR POLITICS IN THE LATE REPUBLIC The Temple of Castor was more than a cult centre and became increasingly important in the political life of the late Republic, as a meeting place for the Roman Senate (Cic. Verr. 2.1.129), the destination point in the annual parade of knights (transuectio equitum) (see further below), and especially as a site of contentious public meetings (contiones) and legislative assemblies (comitia) orchestrated by politicians or the urban crowd.12 In order to understand how the Temple of Castor came to be associated with popular politics, we must first consider the place of the temple in the changing topography of the Forum Romanum. Then, we can move on to show how control of the temple came to be equated with control of the popular assemblies that met there and hence control of popular sovereignty. We will conclude with a discussion of the temple’s political function under Augustus. The temple became the site of public meetings and legislative assemblies only after the Forum changed its orientation from the early to the late Republic.13 The focal 9

Walter (n. 4), 136. Livy 1.12.10, 13.5; 7.6.1–6; on the Lacus Curtius, see the discussion in D. Spencer, ‘Rome at a gallop: Livy, on not gazing, jumping, or toppling into the void’, in Larmour and Spencer (n. 4), 61–101; see also Edwards (n. 4), 43. 11 Tac. Hist. 1.41.2, with the discussion in C. Damon, Tacitus. Histories I (Cambridge, 2003), 183–4; she points out that Tacitus here exploits (as he does elsewhere) the ‘symbolic power’ of the event and location; see also Edwards (n. 4), 77. 12 On this temple in general, see I. Nielsen and B. Poulsen (edd.), The Temple of Castor and Pollux: The Pre-Augustan Temple Phases with Related Decorative Elements (Rome, 1992) and I. Nielsen, s.v. ‘Castor, aedes, templum’, LTUR 1.242–5. N.W. DeWitt calls the area of the Forum containing the Temple of Castor the ‘plebeian’ end (‘Litigation in the Forum in Cicero’s time’, CPh 21 [1926], 218–24, at 221). 13 N. Purcell, s.v. ‘Forum Romanum’, LTUR 3.325–36; M. Bonnefond-Coudry, Le Sénat de la République Romaine: De La Guerre d’Hannibal à Auguste: Pratiques Délibératives et Prise de Décision (Rome, 1989), 80–90. 10

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point of public meetings in the early period had always been the Curia and the Comitium. In fact, the original Rostra was probably built on to the Curia and faced the Comitium,14 thus serving as a platform from which one could address both people and Senate; also, it could have been used by senators to inform the people of what they had debated and decided in their meetings. After 338 B.C. a new Rostra was built, still in the Curia/Comitium corner of the Forum but now between the Comitium and the Forum. At some point in the next century orators began to turn away from the Curia/Comitium complex to address the people who gathered in the Forum for contiones.15 Elections continued to be held in the Comitium. In the second century, the location of comitia changed as well: C. Licinius Crassus (tr. pl. 145 B.C.), during one assembly of the people for the purpose of passing legislation, led voters into the Forum proper and perhaps to the Temple of Castor.16 Recent excavations have unearthed evidence to indicate that modifications were made to the temple some time after 200 B.C. It is possible that this rebuilding accommodated the new function of the temple.17 This combination of factors helped change the orientation of the Forum, away from the Curia/Comitium and toward the Temple of Castor.18 When L. Caecilius Metellus Delmaticus renovated the temple in 117 B.C., thus increasing the size of the tribunal,19 which was now called a second rostra, he took advantage of or at any rate acknowledged the place of the temple in the new orientation of the Forum. Raised platforms (pontes) provided access to and egress from the tribunal, allowing citizens to cast their votes. The consequence of these modifications to the temple was that it became a more important site for contiones and comitia.20 The final piece of the puzzle may have been the construction of the Gradus Aurelii or Tribunal Aurelium (c. 74 B.C.). The precise location of this structure cannot be determined with certainty.21 If it was near the Temple of Castor, which is a possible inference from some of Cicero’s references to it,22 it might have provided steps for the people to stand on in front of the temple, while they attended a contio or awaited their turn to vote in an assembly. This combination of the temple, its tribunal (a second 14 Perhaps on the steps leading from the Curia down into the Comitium, as L.R. Taylor suggests (Roman Voting Assemblies [Ann Arbor, 1966], 22–3). Cf. also L. Richardson, Jr., A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Baltimore, 1992), 334–5; F. Coarelli, s.v. ‘Rostra (Età Repubblicana)’, LTUR 4.212–13. On the development of the Curia/Comitium complex during the Republic, see J.C. Anderson, The Historical Topography of the Imperial Fora (Brussels, 1984), 12–20. 15 Plutarch claims that C. Gracchus was the first to do this (C. Gracch. 26.4). 16 Varro, Rust. 1.2.9; Cic. Lael. 96; Taylor (n. 14), 21–5. 17 Nielsen (n. 12), 1.243. 18 We should also note that already around 142 B.C. P. Scipio Aemilianus delivered a speech in front of the temple, but the subject and occasion of this speech remain unknown (Festus 362L). 19 The tribunal of Temple 1A was c. 11 m wide and 6.50 m in depth (I. Nielsen and B. Poulsen, ‘The rebuilding of the first temple (temple IA)’, in Nielsen and Poulsen [n. 12], 80–6, at 84); the tribunal of the Metellan temple was c. 21 m wide and 7 m deep (Nielsen and Poulsen, ‘The Metellan temple’, in Nielsen and Poulsen [n. 12], 87–117, at 113). On the Metellan rebuilding, see also Nielsen (n. 12), 1.244. 20 Taylor (n. 14), 21–9. 21 K. Korhonen, s.v. ‘Tribunal Aurelium, Gradus Aurelii’, LTUR 5.86–7, succinctly explains the critical issues surrounding this structure. See also F. Coarelli, Il Foro Romano, 2 vols (Rome, 1992), 2.190–9; Richardson (n. 14), 181–2, 400–1, believes the Tribunal Aurelium and Gradus Aurelii were separate structures. 22 Cic. Dom. 54, Red. pop. 13, Sest. 34, Pis. 11. In these passages he refers to the structure as ‘Tribunal Aurelium’. Earlier references (Clu. 93 and Flac. 66) call it the ‘Gradus Aurelii’.

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rostra), and the Gradus Aurelii would then have corresponded topographically to the Curia/Comitium/Rostra complex diagonally opposite. The precise location of the Gradus Aurelii notwithstanding, the rostra of the Temple of Castor provided an effective vantage point from which a popular politician could gesture angrily at the Curia across the Forum – the symbol of a remote and insensitive ruling elite; and the crowd would stand with its back to the Curia, instead of facing it, as it would if it were listening to a speaker standing on the Rostra.23 The temple became the ideal location for a champion of the people (such as P. Clodius Pulcher, tr. pl. 58 B.C. [see further below]) to emphasize the gulf that existed between the senatorial aristocracy and the urban plebs. There can be no doubt that the changing topography of the Forum contributed to the importance of the Temple of Castor in the political life of the city in the late Republic. In the last generations of the Republic in particular, as one location for contiones and comitia, the temple became a locus for popular politics and therefore resonant of popular sovereignty. Controversial legislation provoked the fiercest disputes in these often contentious assemblies.24 Two examples can illustrate what I mean: Q. Caecilius Metellus Nepos (tr. pl. 62 B.C.) proposed a law that would have conferred a command on Pompey to protect the city following the execution of those involved in the Catilinarian conspiracy. M. Porcius Cato, who was also tribune in this year, opposed it. When the people were gathering to vote on this law, Metellus and Caesar surrounded the Temple of Castor with armed men and gladiators and perched themselves atop the rostra of the temple. Cato, undaunted, ascended the tribunal and, much to everyone’s astonishment, sat down between Metellus and Caesar. Metellus began to read the text of the law that was being proposed, but Cato prevented him from doing so by snatching the text from his hand. When Metellus began reciting the law by heart, Q. Minucius Thermus, Cato’s friend, clapped his hand over Metellus’ mouth. The crowd erupted; Metellus dispersed it and Cato was led into the temple. The law was never passed (Plut. Cat. Min. 27–9). A few years later, during Caesar’s consulship, Caesar was at the temple presiding over the assembly that would vote on his agrarian law. His colleague in the consulship, M. Calpurnius Bibulus, entered the Forum with his supporters to break up the assembly and prevent a vote. Some in the crowd already assembled prevented Bibulus from ascending the rostra of the temple, threw him down, snatched the fasces from his lictors and broke them, and (in one account) dumped a basket of dung on Bibulus’ head. He retreated and the law passed.25 23 Cicero describes the Curia as a sentinel that oversees the Rostra and stands ready to rein in revolutionary oratory, thus implying that the Rostra was in the control of the senatorial aristocracy (Flac. 57): Hic, in hac grauissima et moderatissima ciuitate, cum est forum plenum iudiciorum, plenum magistratuum, plenum optimorum uirorum et ciuium, cum speculatur atque obsidet rostra uindex temeritatis et moderatrix offici curia, tamen quantos fluctus excitari contionum uidetis! Cf. DeWitt (n. 12), 220–1, who describes the area around the Rostra as having an ‘aristocratic character’. 24 See e.g., Plut. Sull. 8.5–8, which relates the dispute over a law transferring the prestigious command against Mithridates from Sulla (cos. 88 B.C.) to his rival Marius. To thwart this legislation, the consuls Sulla and Q. Pompeius Rufus, declared a suspension of public business. While they were holding an assembly (probably a contio, Plutarch’s language is unclear on this point) at the Temple of Castor, Sulpicius and his supporters entered the Forum and routed them from the temple, killing Pompeius’ son in the mêlée and forcing Sulla to flee. The next year another controversial law (distributing new citizens throughout all the tribes) provoked similar protests at the temple (App. B Civ. 1.64.290–2). 25 App. B Civ. 2.11.39; Cass. Dio 38.6.2–3; Plut. Cat. Min. 32.3.

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Many politicians in the late Republic endeavoured to control the temple in their hopes of swaying the assemblies that gathered there. It is not surprising, then, that the politician who made the most concerted effort to be the people’s champion has been accused of using the Aedes Castoris as his own armed camp. Cicero claimed that P. Clodius Pulcher removed the steps of the temple to prevent access (for example, Sest. 34), which can only mean that Clodius made it impossible for the temple to be used as a site for comitia, perhaps by removing the pontes or otherwise blocking access to them. Clodius had already conflated the usually separate functions of the comitia and contiones. The traditional function of the contio was to present to the people the merits of a particular bill (rogatio), but the people were not expected to respond. It was not until the comitia that that they were formally asked (rogare) what they felt and their vote was their response.26 Clodius, on the other hand, used contiones to put questions to the people and allowed them to give a response. Cicero objected that these responses came only from those who were members of Clodius’ gangs (operae) and therefore did not constitute the will of the people. When Clodius prevented access to the Temple of Castor, he (in Cicero’s view) further impeded the traditional political process in Rome. Clodius himself might have claimed that he was providing another venue for the expression of popular sentiment. In the political struggle following Caesar’s assassination the temple was the site of contiones in which the major players in this struggle could address the urban populace and Caesar’s veteran soldiers, whose allegiance was decisive to the eventual victor. First, Cicero refers to a contio that M. Antonius held here either in June or November of 44 B.C.27 He held another contio in October of 44 B.C. in which he accused Cicero of being responsible for Caesar’s death (Cic. Fam. 12.3.2). This contio, coupled with a new statue in Caesar’s honour, with the inscription ‘To our father who well deserved it’, made clear the breach that divided Antonius from the conspirators and their supporters. Next, Octavian returned to Rome in November of 44 B.C. at the head of two legions of soldiers and in a contio swore an oath of his hopes to rise to his father’s honours.28 In the case of this contio, Octavian might have been drawn to the Temple of Castor by its proximity to the monument erected in Caesar’s honour, on which he presumably swore his oath. It is worth bearing in mind that Octavian’s contio at the temple on this occasion was a kind of ceremony of succession, inasmuch as he swore to take his father’s place. This might have influenced Augustus’ incorporation of the temple in his own ideology (see further below). Finally, Cicero mentions a statue of L. Antonius (tr. pl. 44 B.C. and brother of the triumvir) that was erected near the temple with a dedication describing him as patron of the voting tribes (quinque et triginta tribus patrono, Cic. Phil. 6.12). Cicero’s remarks about this statue are contained in a speech he delivered in 43 B.C., which shows that even in the triumviral period the temple remained an important location for the expression of popular sovereignty. This brief survey of the changing topography of the Forum Romanum, which has featured the political significance of the Temple of Castor, especially as a location for popular assemblies in the late Republic, provides a basis for understanding why this 26

Taylor (n. 14), 28. Cic. Phil. 3.27, 5.21; for an argument for the earlier date, see G.S. Sumi, Ceremony and Power: Performing Politics in Rome Between Republic and Empire (Ann Arbor, 2005), 138–41; for the later date, see H. Frisch, Cicero’s Fight for the Republic: The Historical Background of the Philippics (Copenhagen, 1946), 151. 28 Cic. Att. 16.15.3; cf. App. B Civ. 3.41.169 and Cass. Dio 45.12.4–5. 27

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temple became symbolic of popular sovereignty in this period. It was a space over which politicians seemed eager to exercise control. It is not surprising, then, that Augustus, too, would want to demonstrate his control over this important monument and its immediate vicinity. The advent of the Augustan Principate effected a change in the political process. Popular assemblies, a hallmark of the Republican constitution, were still held, but only under the princeps’ supervision. How decisive was Augustus’ influence on the assemblies in his Principate is still unclear. Augustus actively campaigned for his favoured candidates before they stood for election in the new Saepta Julia in the Campus Martius (Suet. Aug. 56.1). Augustus might have wanted elections to maintain an air of freedom,29 but it is likely that his own candidates enjoyed a decided advantage. That elections were held in a structure named for the Julian gens advertised who was the ultimate authority in the political process. In a similar fashion, legislative assemblies came under the de facto control of the princeps after 23 B.C. by virtue of his tribunician power, which enabled him to bring legislation before the people, and his influence over the elections of consuls who tended to be the other sponsors of legislation.30 These assemblies still met in the Forum, but we cannot be sure of the precise location throughout the Augustan Principate. We have evidence of a law passed in 9 B.C. at the new Aedes Divi Julii, apparently in place of the Temple of Castor.31 Was this change of venue significant? One explanation is that the Temple of Castor might have been unavailable due to damage done by a fire a few years previously (14 B.C.). It was this damage that prompted the Tiberian renovations that resulted in the rededication of the temple in A.D. 6. We do not know whether all new legislation throughout the Principate was voted on at this new location. If Augustus did decide to move legislative assemblies to the Temple of Deified Julius, it is fitting that he chose a monument located in that part of the Forum of symbolic significance to the Roman plebs. What is more, he chose a Julian monument to demonstrate, in much the same way as he could for electoral assemblies in the Saepta Julia, that in the Principate the ultimate authority in the political process was the princeps and his family. The change from Aedes Castoris to Aedes Divi Julii was, topographically, a small one; a slight turn to the left for the citizen body which had been convened to vote on legislation. But symbolically it was much more significant as legislative assemblies were further brought under the aegis of the princeps and his family. The change of venue might show that Augustus wanted to shift his focus from the more recent memories of the temple’s role in popular politics in the late Republic, memories that recalled civil conflict, and embrace instead more remote memories that could be exploited more effectively for his new ideology.32 In other words, the larger historical and mythological background for the Aedes Castoris must be brought to account in considering the temple’s role in the formation of Augustan ideology. 29 On elections in the Principate, see A.H.M. Jones, ‘The elections under Augustus’, JRS 45 (1955), 9–21 = id., Studies in Roman Government and Law (Oxford, 1960), 27–50 and R. FreiStolba, Untersuchungen zu den Wahlen in der römischen Kaiserzeit (Zürich, 1967), 87–129. 30 G. Rotondi, Leges Publicae Populi Romani (Milan, 1912), 442–62; cf. Sumi (n. 27), 234–7. 31 This was a law enacted by T. Quinctius Crispinus (cos. 9 B.C.); Frontin. Aq. 129; cf. M.H. Crawford, Roman Statutes, 2 vols (London, 1996), no. 63, 2.795, 797; Sumi (n. 27), 235–6. 32 ‘The bloodshed, civil strife, and memories of battles fought, violent and brutal conflicts in which Romans clashed against their fellow Romans, could never be forgotten, but the memories of recent war could be placed into context by using events from Rome’s more distant past to demonstrate the city’s resilience’ (Rea [n. 3], 4).

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IV. THE FOUNDATION MYTH OF THE AEDES CASTORIS The most frequently attested memory associated with the Aedes Castoris was its foundation myth, which not only explained the circumstances of the temple’s founding but also was adapted and retold in other contexts throughout Roman history. Most importantly for our purposes, this myth remained alive under the Principate and was retold in particular in the tradition surrounding the death of Nero Drusus, Augustus’ stepson and Tiberius’ younger brother. Drusus was once marked out as one of Augustus’ possible successors before his sudden and premature death (in 9 B.C.) while on campaign in Germany ended these hopes. Dio informs us that while on this campaign Drusus was met by a woman of unnatural size who foretold his imminent death. Afterwards, two young men were seen riding through his camp, whose appearance was one of several omens that confirmed the initial prophecy.33 The story of the two riders appearing in Drusus’ camp after his death seems to have been adapted from the foundation myth of the Temple of Castor in Rome and is an appropriate starting point for an understanding of how this Republican myth could be made to serve the ideology surrounding the succession. The traditional story of the Dioscuri in Rome is their appearance at the battle of Lake Regillus, when the Roman commander and dictator A. Postumius Albus challenged the forces of Tusculum under the leadership of Octavius Mamilius. The tyrant Tarquinius Superbus, recently driven from Rome, joined Mamilius’ army. Postumius vowed to construct a temple to Castor in Rome if he was victorious in this battle (Livy 2.20.12). In the heat of the contest, two young men, handsome and unusually tall, appeared on horseback and led the Roman army to victory. Later, these same two figures were seen in Rome watering their sweaty horses at the Lacus Juturnae, just to the east of where the temple now stands, and brought news of the successful battle.34 Just as important as the epiphany of the gods in battle was their later presence in Rome where they announced the victory to the awaiting citizenry, in this instance, a victory of freedom over tyranny. Already in Greek thought the Dioscuri were often seen as saviour gods who provided timely assistance in battle, leading armies from the brink of defeat to the glory of victory.35 The Dioscuri, therefore, came to be associated with victories in battle and the swift announcement 33 The story of the two riders in Drusus’ camp appears only in Cass. Dio 55.1.3–5; cf. Suet. Claud. 1.2 for the story about Drusus’ confrontation with the woman of unusual size. 34 Cic. Nat. D. 2.6; cf. 3.11–13; Dion. Hal. 6.13.1–3; Val. Max. 1.8.1; Plut. Cor. 3.4; on the announcement of the victory at Rome, cf. Plut. Aem. 25.2. See also Walter (n. 4), 146–8. Livy’s account of the battle (2.19–20) does not mention the epiphany of the deities. However, he does mention that the dictator Postumius established a reward to be given to the first two men to penetrate the enemy camp (2.20.12). This detail might be Livy’s way of implicitly explaining away the alternate tradition, of which he must have been aware, that related the epiphany of Castor and Pollux: the two young men who appeared at the head of the Roman army were in fact these soldiers who first penetrated the enemy camp. I know of no convincing explanation for the absence of the Dioscuri in Livy’s account. Perhaps he was reluctant to attribute to divine intervention such an important victory in Roman history; D.S. Levene, Religion in Livy (Leiden, 1993), 153. 35 The Dioscuri were known as sotêres from at least the fifth century B.C. They were credited with aiding Lysander at the battle of Aegospotami (405 B.C.) (Plut. Lys. 12.1). For other examples, see B. Poulsen, ‘Cult, myth and politics’, in Nielsen and Poulsen (n. 12), 46–53, at 48, and W.K. Pritchett, The Greek State at War. Part III: Religion (Berkeley, 1979), 13–17, 21–2, 26, 27, 28. B. Poulsen argues that Augustus might have been inspired to adopt the Dioscuri as part of his ideology by Hellenistic rulers (‘The Dioscuri and ruler ideology’, SO 66 [1991], 119–46, at 137–42).

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of these victories often far from where the battles took place. They were at once saviour gods and heralds of victory.36 This foundation myth, a favourite in the Roman historiographical tradition, was adapted to suit the military campaigns of Rome’s imperial expansion. T. Quinctius Flamininus, for instance, following his victory over Philip V at Cynoscephalae and his later declaration of the freedom of Greeks (196 B.C.), dedicated silver shields to the Dioscuri in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi,37 after which he was given the honorific title soter,38 as the saviour and liberator of Greeks from the expansionary aims of Philip V. Moreover, a coin from 126 B.C., minted by one of Flamininus’ descendants, shows the Dioscuri standing on either side of a Macedonian shield – a likely allusion to Flamininus’ dedication.39 The Dioscuri had already been connected in Roman history with a victory of freedom over tyranny at the battle of Lake Regillus. Flamininus adapted and broadened the association of these deities with victory and freedom to include wars outside Italy, which influenced subsequent versions of the temple’s foundation myth. An epiphany of the deities was said to have occurred at the battle of Pydna when L. Aemilius Paullus defeated Perseus; again two young men appeared on horseback to announce the victory and then later they were seen watering their horses at the Lacus Juturnae.40 In 101 B.C. two young men on white horses made an appearance at the battle of Vercellae and announced in Rome the victory of C. Marius over the Cimbri.41 In Florus’ version of this retelling of the legend, the two young men delivered the letter announcing the victory (laureatae litterae) to the praetor in front of the Temple of Castor.42 Thus, the Dioscuri were shown to approve of Rome’s imperial ambitions. Just as this legend came to be connected with victories on foreign soil, as the Roman Empire expanded, so too was it adapted to the civil wars of the late Republic. As one of several prodigies heralding Caesar’s victory over Pompey at Pharsalus (in 48 B.C.), two young men appeared in Syria, to announce this victory on the very day that the battle took place.43 In this particular retelling of the myth, the Dioscuri were merely heralds of victory. 36 For the Dioscuri’s connection with victory, see the coin of c. 211–208 B.C. (M.H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, 2 vols [London, 1974], no. 61/1). 37 Plut. Flam. 12.11. 38 Plut. Flam. 16.7. 39 Crawford (n. 36), no. 267/1. 40 Cic. Nat. D. 2.6; on this passage, see the discussion in A.S. Pease (ed.), De Natura Deorum, 2 vols (Cambridge, MA, 1955), 2.552–60; cf. 3.11–13; Val. Max. 1.8.1; Plin. HN 7.86; Plut. Aem. 24.2–3, 25.1–2; Flor. 1.28.14–15. 41 Plin. HN 7.86 (on this passage, see the discussion in M. Beagon, The Elder Pliny on the Human Animal: Natural History, Book 7 [Oxford, 2005], 269–71); Flor. 1.38. The association of Castor and Pollux with victory continued into the Principate. A painting of Castor and Pollux was set up in Augustus’ Forum alongside one of Victoria and Alexander (Plin. HN 35.27). 42 There is some evidence to indicate that the praetor urbanus was especially important as an officiant in cult activity. Since the legend of Castor and Pollux usually included the announcement of victory in Rome, whoever was left in charge of the city would have received the news. In Florus’ account cited above, the praetor received the letter of victory in front of the temple. In Dionysius’ account of the battle of Lake Regillus, the one who was left in charge of the city ( ) – the praefectus urbi or the praetor urbanus? – conducted a futile search for the two young men who had announced the victory in Rome (6.13.2). A certain Asellio (pr. urb. 89 B.C.) was murdered while making an offering to Castor and Pollux in front of their temple (App. B Civ. 1.54; cf. Livy Per. 74; Val. Max. 9.7.4). In a much later period (A.D. 216), the cult of Castor and Pollux in Ostia was administered by the praetor urbanus (L.R. Taylor, The Cults of Ostia [Bryn Mawr, 1913], 22–3). 43 Cass. Dio 41.61.4: ‘…

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Thus far, we have focussed on historiography, perhaps based on an oral tradition, as the medium through which the memory of the foundation myth of the Aedes Castoris was recalled. Other media were possible, too; particularly noteworthy is the coin minted around 96 B.C. by A. Postumius Albinus, which depicts the Dioscuri watering their horses at the Lacus Juturnae, a clear allusion to the temple’s foundation myth.44 The minting of this coin is a reminder that particular gentes were often responsible for preserving the memories of importance to their members. In this case, the legend of the Dioscuri recalled the vowing of the temple by the minter’s distant antecedent, A. Postumius Albus Regillensis, and its building later by his son, perhaps in an effort to reclaim for the Postumian gens a myth that had been frequently retold in the context of other Roman victories. The frequency with which this foundation myth was retold and the number of Roman commanders who adapted it suggests that it was no longer the exclusive property of the Postumian gens and had become a myth for all Romans – a ‘national’ myth. We now can begin to see the process whereby the foundation myth of the Aedes Castoris was preserved, adapted and retold, first perhaps by members of the Postumian gens (although evidence for this is lacking until the coin c. 96 B.C.) and later by other Romans who desired a connection with the Dioscuri. The story of the Dioscuri’s appearance following the death of Drusus is one piece of evidence for the further adaptation of the story to suit Augustan ideology. A second piece is the story of another mysterious and sudden appearance of two young men. In Suetonius’ account of Caesar’s funeral, a divided crowd of mourners quarrelled over the appropriate place for the cremation of Caesar’s body, with one group favouring the cella of the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter and another the curia of Pompey’s theatre, where Caesar had been assassinated. Suddenly two figures appeared, each one girded with a sword and carrying two spears, and set fire to the bier with blazing torches. Immediately a crowd of bystanders piled up branches, benches, seats and other material.45 The dispute over the location of Caesar’s burial occurs in other sources for his funeral,46 but Suetonius is our only authority for the dispute being settled by the sudden appearance of two mysterious figures. The tradition of the Dioscuri’s appearances in the Roman Forum, usually to announce a military victory, and the description of these figures as armed warriors, are persuasive evidence for understanding them to be the Dioscuri.47 Two questions in particular arise in connection with this story. First, can we determine its origin? And second, how does it promote Augustan ideology? The description of the two figures directing the crowd in the Forum Romanum, as we have already noted, is somewhat reminiscent of Castor and Pollux directing the battle line at Lake Regillus, yet at Caesar’s funeral they did so in a part of the Forum that was associated with popular politics. One can understand, then, the Dioscuri in the role of mob leaders in the minds of Romans who had become accustomed both to …’. Dio recounts this epiphany in a long list of prodigies telling of the outcome of the battle. 44 Crawford (n. 36), no. 335/10a and b. 45 Lectum pro rostris in forum magistratus et honoribus functi detulerunt. Quem cum pars in Capitolini Iovis cella cremare pars in curia Pompei destinaret, repente duo quidam gladiis succincti ac bina iacula gestantes ardentibus cereis succenderunt confestimque circumstantium turba uirgulta arida et cum subselliis tribunalia, quicquid praeterea ad donum aderat, congessit (Suet. Iul. 84.3). 46 App. B Civ. 2.148; Cass. Dio 44.50.2–3; cf. Plut. Caes. 68.1, who describes the impromptu cremation in the Forum but says nothing about a dispute. 47 The Dioscuri are consistently depicted on coinage carrying two spears each; see e.g., Crawford (n. 36), no. 44/5 (c. 211 B.C.).

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their sudden appearances in times of crisis and to their temple, which was at the centre of the political turmoil of the late Republic. Suetonius’ account of the Dioscuri’s appearance at Caesar’s funeral seems to be a conflation of memories, recalling both the temple’s foundation myth as well as its role in late Republican popular politics. If these figures were to be understood as the Dioscuri, however, we should acknowledge a change in their iconography from warriors on horseback or leading their horses to ones armed with sword and spears.48 A possible explanation for this change in iconography is the Dioscuri’s frequent identification with the Di Penates or Penates publici. Much about this identification remains uncertain, but it is worth exploring briefly what we do know. The Penates (sometimes Penates priuati) were deities who protected and ensured the abundance of the household cupboard (penus) and were worshipped in close connection with Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, and the Lar Familiaris.49 The Penates publici had a temple on the Velia, which was purported to have stood on the site of king Tullus Hostilius’ home.50 The royal home, then, became the site of the public cult, an indication that the Penates publici protected the wellbeing of the community, along with Vesta, the goddess of the civic hearth.51 The proximity of the Regia and the Temple of Vesta in the southeastern section of the Forum is another manifestation of the connection of the royal household and civic hearth.52 These structures may have been part of a larger complex of buildings devoted to the Roman kingship.53 The temple on the Velia is first mentioned by Livy (45.16.5) in the context of omens that appeared in the year 167 B.C., although it is probably much older.54 Dubourdieu has argued that the identification of the Dioscuri with the Penates publici was probably late, as the coins of M. Fonteius demonstrate (minted in 108 or 107 B.C.).55 More to the point, for our purposes, is the relief on the Ara Pacis, showing Aeneas sacrificing at Lavinium, where one can see the shrine of the Penates in the background,56 in which they are depicted as twin gods, seated, and holding spears,57 armed in a fashion similar to the Dioscuri but not as mounted warriors. This relief demonstrates that the Penates became part of the Aeneas legend certainly in the Augustan period but some connection with Troy is in evidence before then.58 What we have in Suetonius’ account of Caesar’s funeral, then, is the epiphany 48 For the depiction of the Dioscuri as mounted warriors, see e.g., Crawford (n. 36), no. 44/5 (there are numerous other examples); for a depiction of them leading their horses, see e.g., Crawford (n. 36), no. 304/1. 49 J. Linderski, s.v. Penates, Brill’s New Pauly (Leiden–Boston, 2007), 10.718–20. 50 Varro, ap. Non. 852L; Solin. 1.22; Richardson (n. 14), 289. Augustus includes this temple in a list of those that he built (feci, Mon. Anc. 19). 51 Livy frequently uses the formula penates publici priuatique in a manner that makes them synonymous with one’s homeland (patria) (3.17.11, 22.1.6, 25.18.10, 45.24.12). 52 A. Alföldi, Early Rome and the Latins (Ann Arbor, 1971), 258. 53 This is the theory of Coarelli (n. 21), 1.56–78, which still has many detractors. For a critique, see F.E. Brown, Gnomon 56 (1984), 381–3. A summary of modern theories about the Regia can be found in T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC) (London, 1995), 239–41. The Regia was rebuilt by Cn. Domitius Calvinus in 36 B.C. (Cass. Dio 48.42.4–6; Plin. HN 34.48; CIL 6.1301=ILS 42). 54 A. Dubourdieu, Les Origines et le Développement du Culte des Pénates à Rome (Rome, 1989), 440–1. 55 Dubourdieu (n. 54), 430–9; Crawford (n. 36), no. 307/1a. 56 Serv. ad Aen. 3.12 (quoting Varro); S. Weinstock, ‘Two archaic inscriptions from Latium’, JRS 50 (1960), 112–18, at 113. 57 As Dionysius describes them on the temple on the Velia (1.68.1). 58 ‘When the idea of Trojan ancestry became established in Rome, probably around the middle of the 4th cent. BC, the sacred objects associated with Troy, such as the Palladium, were counted among the Penates’ (Linderski [n. 49], 719).

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of twin gods in the Forum directing a crowd of Romans, in the manner of the Dioscuri, but armed like the Penates publici, to cremate Caesar’s body near monuments connected with kingship and the public hearth. To identify these figures as either the Dioscuri or the Penates publici is futile. They had characteristics of both at once. The question remains as to the source of this story peculiar to Suetonius. Certainty is impossible, but one hypothesis is worth exploring. Of crucial importance is the role first of the crowd at Caesar’s funeral in determining (with the help of these two figures) a location for the cremation of the body, and later marking the location with a monument in Caesar’s memory. The crowd chose a location directly in front of the Regia,59 which served as the official headquarters of the Pontifex Maximus, Caesar himself in 44 B.C., and behind which was the home of the Pontifex Maximus, the Domus Publica. Moreover, as Pontifex Maximus, Caesar was chief priest of the public cult, which found its focus in the public hearth represented by the Temple of Vesta adjacent. The association of the Penates publici with Vesta, and Vesta with the Regia, might have encouraged the conflation of the Dioscuri and Penates publici at the basis of Suetonius’ account. The first phase in commemorating the location of Caesar’s cremation was the erection of a monument (variously identified as an altar or column),60 which came to serve as a rallying point for Caesar’s supporters and acquired cult status. If anyone ventured to wonder why Caesar’s body was cremated where it had been, and therefore why the monument stood where it did, this story provided divine sanction for the crowd’s choice of the location in the Forum. Moreover, this story linked Caesar’s monument closely with Roman kingship. We should bear in mind that it was the urban crowd that hailed Caesar as king when he returned to Rome in January of 44 B.C., after celebrating the Feriae Latinae on the Alban Mount, and was seen wearing the high red boots of the Alban kings. Caesar wittily rejected the crowd’s pronouncement by reminding them, as if they had mistaken his cognomen, that he was not Rex but Caesar. In the month following at the Lupercalia, M. Antonius offered Caesar a diadem ‘by order of the people’.61 The dictator, seated on the Rostra resplendent in purple, refused it to the delight of the assembled crowd, and then pointedly sent the diadem to the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, recording the act in the Fasti and declaring that only Jupiter was king of the Romans (Cass. Dio 44.11.3). The second phase of commemoration of the location of Caesar’s cremation was 59 Suetonius’ account does not include this detail, but we have the testimony of Appian, who states that the crowd cremated Caesar’s body near the ‘palace’ (basileion), presumably a reference to the Regia (B Civ. 2.148.616). We can also infer it from topographical evidence (see further next note). 60 Since most of our ancient sources for Caesar’s funeral do not describe specifically where Caesar’s body was cremated, we must infer the location from the future site of the monument that the plebs erected in his honour (Cass. Dio 47.18.4). The rostra of the Temple of Divus Julius contained a niche to accommodate this monument (R. Ulrich, The Roman Orator and the Sacred Stage: The Roman Templum Rostratum [Brussels, 1994], 181–2). Livy states that Caesar’s body was cremated ante rostra, which, if he means the Rostra at the west end of the Forum, is an error; but he could mean the rostra on the Temple of Castor, in which case he also connected the cremation closely with the temple (Per. 116). Appian (as noted above, n. 59) claims that Caesar’s cremation took place near ‘the ancient palace of the kings of Rome’ (a probable reference to the Regia). This monument, of course, was in the same part of the Forum, not far from the Temple of Castor, but with his allusion to the Regia Appian seems to want to connect Caesar’s cremation with ancient Roman kingship. 61 ‘populi iussu’: Cic. Phil. 2.87; cf. Cass. Dio 44.11.2. Other sources are Suet. Iul. 79.2; Plut. Caes. 61.

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the erection of the Aedes Divi Julii by Octavian in 29 B.C. on the spot of Caesar’s cremation and incorporating the memorial erected in Caesar’s honour. Of all the rebuilding of Roman monuments that Augustus undertook during his reign, he only constructed four new temples: those of Apollo Palatinus, Divus Julius, Jupiter Tonans and Mars Ultor. A recent study has pointed out that of the four only the latter was a manubial building, constructed after a vow taken by Octavian at the battle of Philippi. Augustus erected the Temples of Jupiter Tonans and Apollo Palatinus at the site of lightning strikes, clear signs from the gods as to the appropriate location for his new temples.62 We can reasonably believe that Augustus desired a similar sign from the gods for the location of his temple to the Deified Julius, which he found in this story that Suetonius recounts. That the story also gives the Roman people a role to play in the founding of his temple was an additional attraction. There are other reasons to believe that Augustus would have been drawn to such a story. First, the Penates publici recalled the Aeneas legend, of seminal importance to the Julian gens and one that Augustus elevated to a national myth.63 Second, the deities who later became identified with Augustus’ successors were shown here at the beginning of the dynasty orchestrating the cremation of Caesar’s body, the first step in his apotheosis, which cleared the way for Augustus to succeed (initially as Diui filius). Finally, the Penates publici recalled the public cult overseen by the Pontifex Maximus, Caesar himself at his death and Augustus beginning in 12 B.C. The story thus drew a direct link between the son succeeding his father as Chief Priest, skipping over the tenure of the inconveniently long-lived M. Aemilius Lepidus. One can see how the story of the two figures at Caesar’s funeral could develop from the Dioscuri’s traditional mythology which recalled their sudden and timely appearances at moments of crisis. The aspect of Suetonius’ account that is not in accord with this same traditional mythology and their identification with the Penates publici, namely the Dioscuri’s depiction as leaders of a crowd in the Forum instead of an army on the battlefield, can be explained as a product of the political function of their temple. This story, a modification of the Dioscuri’s traditional mythology, gave these gods a role to play in the transformation of Caesar from mortal to divine. Their appearance at Drusus’ death might have had the same significance. V. THE TRANSVECTIO EQUITUM AND THE SUCCESSION The appearance of the Dioscuri at Drusus’ camp suggests a connection between the Dioscuri and Augustus’ successors.64 More direct evidence for such a connection is the transuectio equitum, an annual parade involving members of the equestrian order who had the right of the public horse (equites equo publico). The parade began at the Temple of Mars on the Via Appia and wound its way to the Forum, where it ended in front of the Temple of Castor. This parade took place on 15 July each year and, according to one tradition, commemorated the role of the Dioscuri in the victory at 62 O. Hekster and J. Rich, ‘Octavian and the thunderbolt: the temple of Apollo Palatinus and Roman traditions of temple building’, CQ 56 (2006), 149–68, at 153. 63 See A. Erskine, Troy between Greece and Rome: Local Tradition and Imperial Power (Oxford, 2001), 15–43, for a discussion of this process and some of its implications. 64 Other scholars have noticed this connection; see in particular Poulsen (n. 35) and A.J. Woodman, ‘Mutiny and madness: Tacitus Annals 1.16–49’, Arethusa 39 (2006), 303–29, esp. 308–11.

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Lake Regillus (in 499 or 496 B.C.).65 Thus, in the Augustan period, there was an annual ceremony that cued Romans to recall the foundation myth of the Temple of Castor – in much the same way that Cicero’s words at the Temple of Jupiter Stator evoked the foundation myth of that temple, through which he was able to compare himself with Romulus. When Augustus revived this ceremony (after a long hiatus, according to Suetonius [Aug. 38.3]), he apparently altered its emphasis and brought it securely under the aegis of the imperial family by placing his heirs in prominent positions. In the Republic equites equo publico paraded down to the Forum, each one leading his own horse, where they presented themselves to the censors, seated at the Temple of Castor, who discharged them from military service (Plut. Pomp. 22). Suetonius’ account of the Augustan revival (Aug. 38.3–39) lays emphasis on this ceremony as a review (recognouit) of knights who were required to give an account of their lives to the princeps assisted by ten members of the Senate. The severest punishment seems to have been loss of rank (ignominia notauit); others might be reprimanded for scandalous conduct. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing under the Augustan Principate and presumably a witness to the Augustan revival, describes a ceremony of great pageantry in which Roman knights paraded on horseback, arrayed in tribes and divisions, crowned with olive branches and wearing purple robes adorned with emblems of their valour – a spectacle, in Dionysius’ estimation, worthy of Rome’s empire. Furthermore, Augustus’ grandsons, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, led the parade under the title principes iuuentutis,66 apparently fitted out in a manner reminiscent of the Dioscuri. By giving his successors a leadership position in this ceremony he further advertised the role that they would play in overseeing the acquisition and maintenance of empire. A Republican ceremony with a primarily censorial function thus became a rite of succession that adumbrated a glorious future for the Roman Empire under the aegis of Augustus’ successors. A second tradition holds that this parade was instituted in 304 B.C. by the censor Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus.67 It is more likely that this tradition preserves the memory of a revival of the ceremony than its institution, as well as its transformation from a strictly religious ceremony to one with a censorial function. The increase of the number of cavalry voting units (centuriae) from the original six to twelve might also have occurred around this time.68 In the Augustan revival of this ceremony the partici65 Dion. Hal. 6.13.4; Plut. Cor. 3.5; cf. Suet. Aug. 38.3. On the parade in general, see S. Weinstock, ‘Römische Reiterparade’, SMSR 12 (1937), 10–24; on the significance of the parade in the Augustan Principate, see Spencer (n. 10), 89–97. 66 This title for C. and L. Caesar was widely advertised on inscriptions and coins; see e.g., V. Ehrenberg and A.H.M. Jones, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius (Oxford, 1949), no. 65 (=AE 1899, 153) and RIC2 1, p. 55, no. 205. See also RIC2 1, p. 54, no. 198, for a depiction of C. Caesar on a galloping horse armed with sword and shield. J.B. Ward-Perkins points out that the equites continued to be associated with the emperor’s heirs, alluding in particular to the decursio at imperial funerals, such as the one depicted on the base of the column of Antoninus Pius (‘Columna Divi Antonini’, in P. Ducrey (ed.), Mélanges d’histoire ancienne et d’archéologie offerts à Paul Collart [Lausanne, 1976] = H. Dodge and B. Ward-Perkins (edd.), Marble in Antiquity: Collected Papers of J.B. Ward-Perkins, Archaeological Monographs of the British School at Rome 6 [London, 1992], 107–14, at 107–8); cf. also L. Vogel, The Column of Antoninus Pius (Cambridge, MA, 1973), 56–68. 67 Livy 9.46.15; Val. Max. 2.2.9; Aur. Vict. Caes. 32. On the institution of the transuectio equitum, see also S. Oakley’s note on Livy 9.46.15 in A Commentary on Livy, Books VI–X, 4 vols (Oxford, 1997–2005), 3.642–5. 68 A. Momigliano, ‘Procum Patricium’, JRS 56 (1966), 16–24.

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pating equites were divided into six turmae, which were probably an allusion to the original six centuries.69 This ceremony, and thus the temple, had close associations with the equestrian order whose patron deities were Castor and Pollux.70 In the late Republic, the equestrian order became increasingly politicized, first by C. Gracchus who in his tribunate succeeded in identifying issues of particular importance to the equestrian order and thereby separating its interests from those of the Senate. Central to Cicero’s rhetoric two generations later was concordia ordinum, his succinct expression of hope for rapprochement between the orders. When Augustus came to power, he began the process of separating career paths for members of the senatorial aristocracy and equestrian order,71 thereby succeeding where Cicero had failed in establishing a concordia ordinum. The revival of the transuectio equitum enabled Augustus to advertise himself as patron of the equestrian order,72 just as he was princeps senatus, and protector of the urban plebs (by virtue of his tribunician power). Augustus’ successors, as principes iuuentutis, were shown to be leaders of the next generation of equites. The performance of the transuectio equitum in the Augustan period, then, was more a glorification of the imperial family than a celebration of the victory at Lake Regillus.73 We should not, however, dismiss the fact that Augustus chose to glorify the imperial family through the identification of his successors with the Dioscuri in the context of a ceremony that recalled a great victory from Rome’s remote past and was of central importance to the equestrian order. The memories associated with the Temple of Castor were the symbolic framework for Augustus’ successors and ultimately shaped the way that Augustus communicated his ideology.

VI. DIOSCURI AS DEMIGODS: BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH The Dioscuri were appropriate divine counterparts for Augustus’ successors also because of their traditional mythology. Cicero listed Castor and Pollux, along with Hercules, Liber, Aesculapius and Quirinus, as demigods – heroes whose achievements in their lifetimes were so grand that they were accorded divine status (Cic. Leg. 2.19). Horace, writing a few decades later, imagines a scene with Augustus one day reclining with Pollux and Hercules, Dionysus and Quirinus.74 Further evidence for the importance of the Dioscuri and other demigods in Augustan ideology was a heavily 69

Mommsen, Staatsrecht, 3.523. M. Albert, Le Culte de Castor et Pollux en Italie (Paris, 1883), 81–9. Moreover, the Campani equites received the right of Roman citizenship in 340 B.C., and a bronze inscription commemorating the event was set up at the Aedes Castoris (Livy 8.11.15–16, with the discussion in Oakley [n. 67], 2.513–15). They may have also been given the equestrian census rank. 71 P.A. Brunt, ‘Princeps and equites’, JRS 73 (1983), 42–75, at 43–4. 72 Augustus himself had been a member of an equestrian family before being adopted into the patrician Julii (Suet. Aug. 2.1; cf. Iul. 41.1; Plut. Caes. 58.1; Cass. Dio 43.47.3). He evinced no shame at his equestrian birth and even boasted of it in his own writings, remarking that his father was the first member of his family to enter the Senate. In his rivalry with Antony, however, Octavian had to endure many insults directed at his character and the relative obscurity of his family’s origin (Suet. Aug. 2.3). 73 As Weinstock concluded ([n. 65], 24). 74 Hor. Carm. 3.3.9–18; cf. Ep. 2.1.5–6, where he enumerates some of those gods who achieved immortality through their great deeds (Romulus, Liber pater, Castor and Pollux). Later in the same poem (l. 15) Horace compared these demigods, all of whom achieved their divine status after their lifetimes, to Augustus who was praesens diuus (cf. Carm. 3.5.2–3). 70

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frequented corner of the Forum Augustum dedicated to such figures, with a painting of Castor and Pollux placed next to one of Alexander, another mortal who achieved divine status, with Victory in between (Plin. HN 35.27). The traditional story of the death of Castor as told by Pindar is pertinent here. After a quarrel with the sons of Aphareus (over the division of cattle taken in a raid) Castor was killed, and Pollux, in grief over his brother’s death, prayed to Zeus that he might die with him. Zeus gave him a choice of immortality for himself and death for Castor, or they both could live on Olympus for one day and spend the next in Hades.75 (A variant version has one living in heaven and the other in Hades on alternate days.) The traditional mythology of the Dioscuri, which has them inhabiting both the mortal and divine realms, is the foundation for modern scholars’ assertions that associate the Dioscuri with death and the afterlife. For this very reason, E. Strong regards them as ‘emblems of future life’.76 Their frequent depiction on sepulchral reliefs was the result of their cult having developed ‘out of that of the heroised dead’ and they never lost their connection with the underworld.77 This belief might have come to Rome from Hellenistic royal cult, since the Diegesis of Callimachus claims that the poet described the sudden death of Arsinoë as her having been snatched away by the Dioscuri.78 F. Cumont points out that the Dioscuri’s double existence was the basis of the ancients’ view of them as representing the two hemispheres of the sky, the regions of the sun and the moon, of light and darkness.79 Another aspect of the Dioscuri’s traditional mythology has them protecting travellers, especially sailors, for whom they ensure a happy voyage. Cumont posits a natural transformation of the Dioscuri from protectors of travellers to protectors of the dead.80 Even if one does not accept his cosmic interpretation of the Dioscuri as symbols of the two hemispheres, the story of their alternate deaths and their achievement of immortality through merit was memorable and compelling, sufficient to associate them with funerals and death.81 This might help explain their appearance at Caesar’s funeral and 75 Pind. Nem. 10.49–91. Horace’s language in Ep. 2.1.5–6 (cum Castore Pollux … recepti) perhaps shows that he was thinking of the same story. Ovid retells it in the Fasti (5.693–720). 76 E. Strong, Apotheosis and After Life (London, 1915), 201. 77 Strong (n. 76), n. 27 on p. 275. For their iconography in ancient art in general, see LIMC 3.1.567–635; for their appearance on Roman sarcophagi, see G. Koch and H. Sichtermann, Römische Sarkophage (Munich, 1982), 144. 78 Dieg. 10.10 on Call. fr. 228 (Pfeiffer). On the Diegesis in general, see R. Pfeiffer (ed.), Callimachus, 2 vols (Oxford, 1949/1953), 2.xxviii. 79 F. Cumont, Recherches sur le Symbolisme Funeraire des Romains (Paris, 1942), 64–103, citing in particular Sext. Emp. Math. 9.37 in n. 1 on p. 68. He is followed by J.M.C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (Ithaca, NY, 1971), 38, who also regards the Dioscuri as guardians of the dead (194); cf. M. Mackintosh, The Divine Rider in the Art of the Western Roman Empire (Oxford, 1995), 38. Cumont’s views on the symbolic significance of sepulchral art remain at the heart of a vexed question among art historians, namely whether we should view mythological scenes in sepulchral art as representative or symbolic of the ancients’ views of death and the after life or as merely ornamental. See Nock’s thorough review of Cumont’s book (‘Sarcophagi and symbolism’ [Review of Cumont, 1942], AJA 50 (1946), 140–70). He points out that the Dioscuri were often used as framing figures, placed on either side of another figure (e.g. Helen or another goddess) (152, n. 48). More recently, R. Ling (‘A relief from Duke Street, Aldgate, now in the Museum of London’, Britannia 24 [1993], 7–12) reminds us that many popular motifs of sepulchral art appear in other contexts as well. Clearly, some of Cumont’s statements go too far (e.g. the one that sees Pythagorean philosophical ideas in much tomb art [p. 251]), but his interpretation in my view is generally sound. 80 Cumont (n. 79), 65. 81 As Nock puts it, ‘… any ordinary ancient, reading of them or seeing their familiar type, would think rather of their human story, their alternate deaths, their attainment of heaven for merit …’ (n. 79), 151.

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also at Drusus’ camp at the time of his death. Moreover, the brotherly affection at the heart of the traditional mythology of the Dioscuri was especially relevant for Drusus and Tiberius, since in a magnificent display of fraternal pietas Tiberius famously recovered Drusus’ body after his death and transported it back to Italy (discussed further below). Castor and Pollux once inhabited the mortal realm, and in death they spent time both in the underworld of mortals and in the heaven of the gods. We should note, too, their capacity to move comfortably between the mortal and divine realms, as well as from the realm of death to that of life (hence their later function as funerary deities). The mythology of Castor and Pollux underscored the notion of semi-divine further by having them share their immortality, each one taking turns on Olympus. For this reason, they came to be regarded as gods on earth. In light of this it is not surprising that Augustus might want to use the Dioscuri as divine counterparts for members of the imperial family who aspired to a similar status. Furthermore, by identifying his successors with Castor and Pollux (the DIOSkouroi), Augustus was also identifying himself with Zeus/Jupiter, the king of the gods. In general, Augustus seems to have avoided identifying himself directly with Jupiter, choosing instead to present himself as Jupiter’s agent.82 In fact, scholars have remarked on a topographical shift away from the Capitoline, the site of Jupiter’s temple, and toward the Palatine and Augustus’ new temple of Apollo.83 Augustus would still have been drawn to many of Jupiter’s attributes. For instance, Jupiter secured and defended Rome by virtue of his temple on Rome’s citadel, now the capitol of an expansive empire. Jupiter received vows as well as the spoils of war borne in triumph. Moreover, he was connected with constitutional government, which Augustus was at pains to restore following the civil wars.84 VII. THE DIOSCURI AND FRATERNAL HARMONY IN THE IMPERIAL FAMILY The identification of the Dioscuri with Augustus’ successors, already in evidence in the transuectio equitum, occurred again in the tradition surrounding Tiberius and Drusus as well as other members of the imperial family. We have already discussed the story of the appearance of the Dioscuri in Drusus’ camp after his death, which is but one connection between Augustus’ stepsons and the twin deities. Valerius Maximus makes the connection more explicit in his account of Tiberius’ journey to recover Drusus’ body after the latter’s death on military campaign. Tiberius’ exhibition of fraternal devotion and pietas, Valerius tells us, was reminiscent of the Dioscuri.85 On 82 Suetonius relates a dream of Cicero who saw Augustus receiving a whip from Capitoline Jupiter (Aug. 94.9; cf. Plut. Cic. 44; Cass. Dio 45.2); Rea (n. 3), 56–61. 83 P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor, 1988), 108; cf. Suet. Aug. 91.2; see also J.R. Fears, ‘The cult of Jupiter and Roman imperial ideology’, ANRW 2.17.1, 3–141, at 60–1. 84 Mon. Anc. 34.1–2; Rea (n. 3), 57; Fears (n. 83), 65. 85 Val. Max. 5.5.3; the story of Tiberius’ recovery and transport of Drusus’ body was a famous one; see also Livy Per. 142; Strabo 7.1.3; Plin. HN 7.84; Sen. Epist. 11.15.5; Suet. Tib. 7.3; Cass. Dio 55.2.1. Cf. Ov. Fast. 1.705–8 for an oblique reference connecting Tiberius and Drusus with the Dioscuri. The story of Tiberius’ recovery of Drusus’ body was so important that Tiberius may have commemorated it in the sculptural programme at his grotto in Sperlonga (R.G.M. Nisbet, ‘Notes on the text and interpretation of Juvenal’, in N. Horsfall (ed.), Vir Bonus Discendi Peritus. Studies in Celebration of Otto Skutsch’s Eightieth Birthday, BICS Supplement 51 (London, 1988), 105, n. 29. Tacitus uses the occasion of Germanicus’ funeral to set the honours

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this occasion, Tiberius and Drusus could play the roles of Castor and Pollux, as the one brother mourned the death of the other, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the Dioscuri’s traditional mythology (discussed above). Valerius Maximus’ story also shows a further development of Augustan ideology, by introducing the notion of fraternal harmony. This was especially important in the first succession, since the early Principate featured brothers within the imperial family who were marked out as possible successors. Castor and Pollux were regarded as a paragon of fraternal harmony, as noted in the story that Valerius Maximus relates, in contra-distinction to another pair of famous mythological brothers, Romulus and Remus, whose relationship ended in fratricide, a symbolic bloodletting that infected the Roman psyche and led to periods of civil war.86 The rededication of the Temple of Castor in the name of Tiberius and his brother Drusus drew a close link between Augustus’ stepsons and their divine counterparts. Even more telling is the renovation of the Temple of Concordia in the Forum Romanum, which Tiberius undertook following his triumph in 7 B.C. In a manner similar to the Aedes Castoris the Aedes Concordiae was rededicated in Tiberius’ name and that of his brother Drusus on 16 January A.D. 10, the anniversary of Octavian’s adoption of the title, Augustus.87 The coincidence of dates was probably intentional, so that Augustus could underscore the association of this temple, rededicated close to the end of his own life and reign, with transfer of power. The Temple of Concordia, first founded according to tradition by Camillus in 367 B.C. amid the Struggle of the Orders and later refurbished by L. Opimius following the death of C. Gracchus in 122 B.C., adumbrated the harmony within the city during the most tumultuous times of the Roman Republic. This temple figured in much of the strife of the late Republic, as the site of Cicero’s Third Catilinarian and where M. Antonius and Cicero traded barbs after Caesar’s assassination (Cic. Phil. 5.18–20). The new temple came to be known as the Temple of Concordia Augusta (according to the Fasti Praenestini [Inscr. Ital. 13.2, p. 115]), which effectively redirected the symbolic orientation of the temple from city to imperial family. Concordia, an important symbol of the Republic, thus became subsumed under the ideology of the imperial family. The message was clear: only concord within the imperial family could ensure the peace and prosperity of the Roman world.88 Moreover, a coin minted by Tiberius (c. A.D. 35–6) depicting the façade of this temple on its obverse shows a pediment crowned by several figures (RIC2 1, p. 98, nos 55, 61 and 67). The central three are apparently female figures, probably meant to represent Concordia, Pax and Germanicus received against those of his father. In particular, he mentions the journey that Germanicus’ ‘brother’ (probably his adoptive brother, Drusus, Tiberius’ son) made to meet Germanicus’ remains: Drusus deigned to go only as far as the city gates. Thus, Tacitus can demonstrate how much has changed from Augustus’ regime to Tiberius’, and in particular imply the end of fraternal harmony (Ann. 3.5; cf. A.J. Woodman and R.H. Martin (edd.), The Annals of Tacitus, Book 3 [Cambridge, 1996], 98–9). 86 These issues are discussed in C. Bannon, The Brothers of Romulus (Princeton, 1997), 178–81. 87 The Fasti Praenestini record the temple’s natalis dies (16 January); CIL 1.1, p. 231; Inscr. Ital. 13.2, p. 115. See also, Ov. Fast. 1.637–39. Cass. Dio 56.25.1 has A.D. 10 for the year of dedication. On this temple in general, see A.M. Ferroni, s.v. ‘Concordia, aedes’, LTUR 1.316–20; for its decorative programme, see B.A. Kellum, ‘The city adorned: programmatic display at the aedes Concordiae Augustae’, in K. Raaflaub and M. Toher (edd.), Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and His Principate (Berkeley, 1990), 276–307. 88 This concept was underscored by the statues of Pax, Concordia and Salus that Romans honoured.

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Salus. The flanking figures may represent Tiberius and Drusus, the dedicatees of this temple, in the pose of warriors holding spears. It is possible that we are meant to think of their identification with other spear-toting brothers, namely, the Dioscuri.89 I would take this one step further and argue that the figures depicted are actually the Dioscuri themselves. They are, after all, frequently depicted holding spears and used as flanking figures in Roman art.90 If this interpretation is correct, then the Dioscuri oversaw, along with the other deities depicted, the harmony of the imperial household and ultimately had a hand in protecting the tranquil transition of power through dynastic succession. The two buildings under discussion both bore the names of Tiberius and Drusus. Even if the flanking figures on the pediment were not the Dioscuri, other scholars have noted a similarity in the architectural decoration of these two buildings, after the Temple of Concordia was refurbished in A.D. 10.91 These two buildings, then, were closely linked. The rededication of the Temple of Concordia in the names of Tiberius and Drusus combined the notion of fraternal harmony within the imperial family with the more traditional Republican concept of political or civic harmony. The rededications of both temples, of course, took place after Drusus’ death, when harmony between the two brothers was no longer necessary, or possible. Their relationship, nonetheless, may have served as a model for other relationships within the imperial household, most notably that of Germanicus and Tiberius’ son Drusus, who were among the hierarchy of heirs before and after Augustus’ death. In A.D. 9, following victories in Illyria, Tiberius, who was by this time heir designate, was awarded a triumph, which he postponed because of Quinctilius Varus’ disastrous defeat in Germany. Augustus, nonetheless, went out to meet Tiberius as he returned to the city, accompanied him to the Saepta Julia and there, flanked by the two consuls on a tribunal constructed for the purpose, princeps and heir greeted the people. Germanicus made the announcement of victory and was awarded the lesser distinction of triumphal honours (ornamenta triumphalia). Tiberius’ son Drusus, although he had played no part in the campaign, was given the privilege of attending meetings of the Senate and of voting before the ex-praetors. On this occasion, Augustus conferred honours on members of his household in order of their proximity to the throne – first Tiberius, then Germanicus, and finally Drusus. Augustus used the public conferral and announcement of this triumph as an opportunity to demonstrate the stability of the Principate, recently imperilled by the disaster in the Teutoberg Forest, by honouring three men in a grand ceremony of succession,92 which represents Augustus’ best attempts to lay the groundwork for a harmonious and tranquil transfer of power. The date of the rededication of the Temple of Concordia, as I already noted, marked the anniversary of Augustus’ assumption of power; it also corresponded closely with this ceremony of succession and may have been another attempt at reassuring the populace that harmony among the heirs in fact existed at this crucial moment in the history of the Principate. 89 Ferroni (n. 87), 1.318. Mattingly (BMCRE 1.116, p. 137) and Sutherland (RIC2 1, p. 96) identify the central figures as the Capitoline triad, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. Mattingly identifies the flanking figures as Ceres and Diana while Sutherland declines to attempt a specific identification. 90 E.g. the famous painting of Apelles in the Forum Augustum depicting Alexander between the Dioscuri (Plin. HN 35.93). 91 Kellum (n. 87), 276–307, at 277; cf. Nielsen (n. 12), 1.245. 92 Suet. Tib. 17.2; Cass. Dio 56.17; cf. Vell. Pat. 2.121.2–3.

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The mythical and divine models for these earthly relationships, as noted above, were the Dioscuri, whose temple after A.D. 6 bore the names of Tiberius and Drusus. These deities were bequeathed as divine models to two of the participants in Augustus’ grand ceremony of succession, Germanicus and the younger Drusus.93 Tacitus also remarks on their harmonious relationship, in direct contrast to the rivalry between those closest to them, including their wives.94 The Dioscuri continued to be associated with the fraternal harmony of imperial heirs and hence with the tranquil transition of power under dynastic succession.

VIII. CONCLUSION A critical element in understanding the importance of the memories evoked by the Aedes Castoris to imperial ideology was the dynastic succession. When Tiberius rededicated the temple in his name and that of his brother Drusus, he claimed for the imperial family a monument that had had an important political function during the late Republic and a foundation myth that linked it to one of the great military victories in the history of the early Republic. Whether the temple’s late Republican political function continued into the Principate we cannot know for certain. The temple’s foundation myth, on the other hand, was frequently retold and adapted throughout Roman history and evolved into a national myth. Furthermore, the traditional mythology of the Dioscuri as demigods, who were elevated to divine statue as a result of grand achievements and who shared their immortality, made them suitable divine counterparts to Augustus’ successors, first C. and L. Caesar, who led cavalry divisions in the transuectio equitum as principes iuuentutis, and later Tiberius and Drusus. The temple’s foundation myth was further adapted to the circumstances surrounding Drusus’ death. Tiberius’ journey to retrieve Drusus’ body evinced a fraternal devotion that made their identification with the Dioscuri even more explicit. The Dioscuri’s later function as protective deities who oversaw the preservation of the Concordia Augusta made them especially concerned with the succession, since it was at the very moment of succession that the harmony of the imperial family was most at issue. The appearance at Caesar’s funeral demonstrated to an imperial audience that the Dioscuri had such concerns even at the very beginning of the dynasty, when the uncertainty that gripped the city following Caesar’s death ultimately yielded to the emergence of the new princeps. Thus, a national myth, comprised of memories associated with the Aedes Castoris, was transformed into Augustan ideology. The fact of this transformation shows again how Augustus and his successors exploited traditional elements of the Republic – in this case the memories evoked by a Republican monument – to help establish and consolidate their new form of government. Mount Holyoke College

GEOFFREY S. SUMI [email protected]

93 K. Scott, ‘Drusus, nicknamed “Castor” ’, CPh 25 (1930), 155–61 and ‘The Dioscuri and the imperial cult’, CPh 25 (1930), 379–80. 94 Tac. Ann. 2.43.6: sed fratres egregie concordes et proximorum certaminibus inconcussi. Contrast the relationship of Germanicus and the younger Drusus with the relationship of two other brothers, Nero and Drusus Caesar, the twin sons of Germanicus, whose rivalry only exacerbated the tension within the imperial household (Ann. 4.59.3–60).

Classical Quarterly 59.1 187–195 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000147

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MUTATI ARTUS: SCYLLA, PHILOMELA AND THE END OF SILENUS’ SONG IN VIRGIL ECLOGUE 6 Quid loquar aut Scyllam Nisi, quam fama secuta est candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris Dulichias uexasse rates et gurgite in alto a! timidos nautas canibus lacerasse marinis;

(Virgil, Ecl. 6.74–7)

The last section of Silenus’ song in Eclogue 6 contains a notorious crux.1 Virgil is here describing the Homeric sea monster Scylla and her white loins girded by barking monsters. Although his description identifies this Scylla with the Homeric creature described in Odyssey 12.85–7, Virgil prominently refers to this character as the daughter of Nisus (Scyllam Nisi, 74). In doing so, he appears to confuse the Homeric Scylla with Scylla, the daughter of the Megarian king Nisus. The Megarian Scylla is known for her betrayal of her father whose magic lock she cut and handed over to Minos, who at that time was besieging her city, and whose metamorphosis into the bird ciris is narrated by Virgil in Georgics 1, by Ovid in Metamorphoses 8, and in the pseudo-Virgilian Ciris.2 This character is thus distinguished from the Homeric Scylla, daughter of Phorcys and Cratais, who, according to a version found not in Homer but rather in later sources, was transformed into a monster by Circe in her anger at being rejected by Scylla’s suitor, Glaucus.3 The conflated version of Scylla from Eclogue 6, which explains the Homeric sea monster as the product of the transformation of Nisus’ daughter, becomes popular in the Augustan period.4 It is surely significant that one and the same poet can * I am grateful to Nicholas Horsfall, Chris Kraus, Richard Tarrant, Richard Thomas and to CQ’s anonymous referee for their many insightful comments, criticisms and suggestions. 1 R.F. Thomas, ‘Voice, poetics, and Virgil’s sixth eclogue’, in J. Jasanoff, H.C. Melchert and L. Oliver (edd.), Mír Curad: Studies in Honor of Calvert Watkins (Innsbruck, 1998), 669–76, reprinted in R.F. Thomas, Reading Virgil and his Texts (Ann Arbor, 1999), 288–96; J.J. O’Hara, ‘Callimachean influence on Vergilian etymological wordplay’, CJ 96 (2001), 369–400, at 392–4, and J.J. O’Hara, True Names. Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1996), 144–5, are the latest treatments of the passage. On the references to Scylla in the Aeneid, see also M. Paschalis, Virgil’s Aeneid. Semantic Relations and Proper Names (Oxford, 1997), 147 and 186. 2 See also Aesch. Cho. 613–22; Apollod. Bibl. 3.15.8; Hyg. Fab. 198. 3 Homer (Od. 12.124) has Cratais as Scylla’s mother. For different versions of her lineage, see Ap. Rhod. Argon. 4.828 with Schol. in Ap. Rh. ad 4.825–31 g. The story of Scylla’s transformation at the hands of Circe is found in Ov. Met. 13.730–14.222 and Hyg. Fab. 199, and seems to have been told by the third-century poetess Hedyle (SH 456; cf. Ath. 7.297b). On Glaucus as a subject matter of poetry, see A.S. Hollis, Fragments of Roman Poetry c. 60 BC–AD 20 (Oxford, 2007), 152–3. For other references to the Homeric Scylla, see Eur. Med. 1343–4 and 1358–9; Catull. 64.156 Scylla rapax; Lucr. DRN 5.892–3: aut rabidis canibus succinctas semimarinis / corporibus Scyllas. 4 See Prop. 4.4.39–40; Ov. Am. 3.12.21–2, on which see J.C. McKeown, ‘Ovid Amores 3.12’, PLLS 2 (1979), 163–77; Ars Am. 1.331–2; Rem. Am. 737; Her. 12.123–5; Fast. 4.500, on which see S. Hinds, ‘Cave canem: Ovid, Fasti 4.500’, LCM 9 (1984), 79. See further, S. Timpanaro, ‘De cirri, tonsillis, tolibus, tonsis et de quibusdam aliis rebus’, MD 26 (1991), 103–73, at 117–18, reprinted in S. Timpanaro, Nuovi contributi di filologia e storia della lingua latina (Bologna, 1994), 87–164, at 101–2; R. Degli Innocenti Pierini, ‘Due note sul mito di Scilla (in Ovidio e nella Ciris)’, AR 40 (1995), 72–7, and C. Tsitsiou-Chelidoni, ‘Nomen omen: Scylla’s eloquent name and Ovid’s reply (Met. 8, 6–151)’, MD 50 (2003), 195–203.

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indiscriminately refer to the pure and to the contaminated Scylla at different points of his career, as Ovid and Propertius do.5 Thus, it is not by ‘mistake’ that the Augustan poets refer to the Homeric monster as the daughter of Nisus, since they are equally capable of producing the conventional version of the story of the Megarian heroine, as is Virgil in Georgics 1.6 It seems pretty clear that the conflated Scylla found in Propertius and Ovid is a Virgilian affectation.7 However, this does not exclude the possibility that Virgil found the conflated version in a source which has not survived. Evidence for the existence of one or more such sources is scant, but nevertheless compelling. Ovid, for example, emphatically declares that Scylla, by whom he means the conflated version of her legend that we find in Eclogue 6, owes her existence to the poets (Ov. Am. 3.12.21–2): per nos Scylla patri caros furata capillos / pube premit rabidos inguinibusque canes. The author of the Ciris complains that many poets misguidedly told the story of the Megarian Scylla’s transformation into the sea monster.8 Tibullus refers to the story of Nisus’ coma in a passage illustrating the power of poetry to confer immortality.9 These references hint at the existence of a distinguished poetic source for this hybrid Scylla, one potentially pre-Virgilian.10 An unplaced fragment of Callimachus’ Hecale may offer evidence for the existence of a conflated version of Scylla already in the Hellenistic period: (Hecale fr. 90 Hollis / 288 Pf.) ‘Scylla shameful woman with a name that is not a lie cut the purple lock’

The fragment refers to Scylla’s cutting of Nisus’ lock, thus identifying without a doubt the named character with the Megarian heroine. The phrase , ‘with a name that is not a lie’, clearly signposts an etymological wordplay on Scylla’s name, even suggesting the word ‘etymology’.11 So how is Scylla’s name true to her character? 5 Propertius, for example, tells of Scylla, daughter of Nisus, at 3.19.21–8, and mentions the Homeric sea monster at 2.26.53–4, crede mihi, nobis mitescet Scylla nec umquam / alternante uorans uasta Charybdis aqua, and 3.12.28, Scyllaque et alternas scissa Charybdis aquas. On the story of the sea monster Scylla in Ovid Met. 13.730–14.74, see S.K. Myers, Ovid’s Causes. Cosmogony and Aetiology in the Metamorphoses (Michigan, 1994), 98–104, and N. Hopkinson, Ovid Metamorphoses 13 (Cambridge, 2000), 41–3; cf. also Met. 7.62–5, on which see S. Hinds, ‘Medea in Ovid: scenes from the life of an intertextual heroine’, MD 30 (1993), 9–47, at 11–21 (on the relation between this passage and Her. 12.123), and A. Michalopoulos, Ancient Etymologies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: a Commented Lexicon (Leeds, 2001), 157–8. Met. 8.1–151 is devoted to the tale of Nisus’ daughter. 6 Discussion in Thomas (n. 1). 7 See, in particular, Prop. 4.4.39–40: quid mirum in patrios Scyllam saeuisse capillos, / candidaque in saeuos inguina uersa canis? Cf. candida … inguina in Ecl. 6.75. See G.O. Hutchinson, Propertius. Elegies Book IV (Cambridge, 2006), 126 on 4.39–40. 8 Ciris 54–7: complures illam magni, Messalla, poetae / (nam uerum fateamur: amat Polyhymnia uerum) / longe alia perhibent mutatam membra figura / Scyllaeum monstro saxum infestasse uoraci. 9 Tib. 1.4.63–6: carmine purpurea est Nisi coma; carmina ni sint, / ex umero Pelopis non nituisset ebur. Quem referent Musae, uiuet, dum robora tellus, / dum caelum stellas, dum uehet amnis aquas. The story of Pelops and Tantalus is referred to as a hackneyed topic in G. 3.6–7: cui non dictus Hylas puer …. umeroque Pelops insignis eburno. 10 Thus McKeown (n. 4), 169, ‘Ovid’s phrase per nos (through us poets) (21) is therefore a sly hit at his predecessors’. 11 ‘with a name that is not a lie’, i.e. ‘with a true name (etumon)’: O’Hara (n. 1 [1996]), 77. R. Pfeiffer on Callimachus fr. 288 points to the Platonic derivation of this phrase: Ap. 34e; Cra. 38c; Plt. 281b. Cf. Virgil, G. 3.280–1: hic demum, hippomanes uero quod nomine dicunt / pastores,

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By far the most obvious etymology of the name Scylla is one which arguably connects the Megarian Scylla to the Homeric monster. As Pfeiffer argued in his note to the fragment, Callimachus is here suggesting as an etymology of the name Scylla , a Greek word for ‘young dog’.12 The etymology of Scylla from the noun skylax, if evoked, must bring about a connection with the Homeric sea monster, as some commentators have reluctantly acknowledged.13 For the etymological word play which derives Scylla from skylax was first made by Homer himself in the Odyssey ), and when he compared Scylla’s horrible voice to that of a newborn puppy ( appears in several late grammatical sources.14 In addition, it is surely significant that Callimachus should choose to play on the etymology of Scylla’s name at all, as the other attested sources which treat the story of the Megarian Scylla focus instead on the origin of the word ciris, the name of the bird into which she is transformed, quite possibly to avoid confusion with the Homeric Scylla whose well-established canine etymology acts as a reminder of her bitch-like features.15 As first noted by Shechter, , which refers to the noun Scylla could be seen to be connected with the verb hair shaving and hair dishevelling, but no ancient source mentions this derivation.16 On the other hand, other attested etymological explanations clearly apply to the is to ‘trouble’ Homeric monster. To start with, the basic meaning of the verb or ‘annoy’, a term which well describes the Homeric Scylla’s habit of harassing the sailors who pass near her.17 Virgil himself alludes to this etymological connection between Scylla and by using the verb uexo in line 76 (Dulichias uexasse rates) of the sea monster’s destructive action at the expense of Ulixes’ ships.18 Also relevant ( ) meaning ‘to strip off’, is a possible derivation from the verb ‘despoil’, glossed by Roman authors with the epithet rapax by which the sea monster is sometimes described.19 lentum distillat ab inguine uirus pointing to the etymology of hippomanes from hippos and mania (madness of mares). See S. Shechter, ‘The aition and Virgil’s Georgics’, TAPA 105 (1975), 347–91, at 363–4. On etymological signposts, see further Michalopoulos (n. 5), 4–5. 12 Pfeiffer on Callimachus fr. 288: ‘Call. formula fere Platonica usus dixisse uidetur Scyllam uero nomine “canem” esse, i.e. impudentem’. 13 Timpanaro (n. 4), 116, n. 29 = 102, n. 29: ‘a malincuore l’identificazione andrà accettata’; Tsitsiou-Chelidoni (n. 4), 202–3 is more tentative. 14 Od. 12.85–7: / / . This etymology was recognized and discussed by grammarians: Schol. Plat. Epist. 7, 345E … ( ); Orion in Etym. Magn. s.v. : ; Oron in Etym. Magn. s.v. : . See O’Hara (n. 1 [2001]), 393–5 for discussion. 15 The Megarian Scylla is turned into the bird known in Greek as ciris whose name reminds generations to come of her cutting ( ) of Nisus’ purple lock, as Ovid makes explicit at Met. 8.150–1: in auem mutata uocatur / Ciris et a tonso est hoc nomen adepta capillo; cf. Ciris 488: esset ut in terris facti de nomine ciris. In the passage devoted to Scylla in G. 1, Virgil suggests the name of the bird and its etymology by repetition of the verb seco: secat aethera pennis, 406; secat aethera pennis, 409. 16 Shechter (n. 11), 359 cites Nic. Alex. 410: ; O’Hara (n. 1 [2001]), 393 cites Mel. AP 5.175.5: . With this etymology signalled by the verb , the reader would be invited to gloss Scylla as she who shaves, thereby connecting her name with her infamous cutting of her father’s lock. 17 Beda, Gramm. Lat. 7.289.9: Scylla habet nomen a spoliando siue uexando nautas: spolio enim et uexo Latine, Graece dicitur scyllo. 18 O’Hara (n. 1 [2001]), 393, n. 79, notes that the verb caused concerns among the ancient commentators: see Servius ad Ecl. 6.76; Gell. 2.6.2; Macrob. 6.7.4. 19 A point made by A. Michalopoulos, ‘Some etymologies of proper names in Catullus’,

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Commentators have traditionally been reluctant to see a reference to the Homeric monster behind the etymologizing of the name Scylla, and to acknowledge what would appear to be a case of contaminatio on the part of Callimachus. Since the image of a dog was used figuratively of a shameless woman, it is argued that Callimachus is simply pointing to a connection between Scylla’s shameless nature, as , and her name.20 Thus, while accepting the described by the participle standard etymological wordplay connecting Scylla to skylax, proponents of this theory argue that the latter is to be understood as a synonym for kuôn and need not trigger an association with the other Scylla, the Homeric monster with the voice of a yelping skylax. In his commentary, for example, Hollis acknowledges that Callimachus’ reference to Scylla’s true name must point to a connection between the character’s name and the bitch-like lasciviousness which leads her to cut her father’s lock and betray her fatherland. However, he is loath to accept that Callimachus may be implicitly referring to Scylla’s transformation into a sea monster with the voice of a , commenting ‘there need be no suspicion that Call. has conflated the yelping two heroines’. In addition, Callimachus, it is argued, may have told the ‘correct’ story of the Megarian Scylla’s transformation into the bird ciris in the Aetia, if we are to judge from the scant remains of an unplaced fragment (fr. 113 Pf. / 63 Massimilla), in which Pfeiffer argued the name ciris can be restored, together with the Greek noun oiônos.21 It all depends, however, how one approaches the issue of mythological lore in the original Callimachean source. For sure, it is not desirable to see the doctus poeta, Callimachus, making such a blatant mistake. It is, however, equally undesirable to exclude a readily available connection with the Homeric Scylla and her puppy-like voice which the clever and learned Callimachean implied reader could hardly be expected to miss. Furthermore, there is good evidence that play on mythological homonyms was a standard feature of the learned poetry of the Hellenistic period. Such play frequently included conflation and simultaneous allusion to multiple etymologies and it is against this background that a contaminated version of the story of Scylla may be best understood.22 By evoking the standard etymology of the noun PLLS 9 (1996), 75–81, at 76–7, and Michalopoulos (n. 5), 157. For Scylla as rapax see Catull. 64.156; Culex 331; Ov. Met. 7.65 and Her. 12.123. Is Ovid alluding to this derivation in Met. 8. 85–7 (fatali nata parentem / crine suum spoliat, praedaque potita nefanda / fert secum spolium sceleris)? Line 87, which is omitted by some manuscripts, is highly suspect (it is considered an interpolation by the latest editor of the Metamorphoses, R.J. Tarrant), so the argument is inconclusive: there is some discussion in Tsitsiou-Chelidoni (n. 4), 197. 20 For the history of the concept of a shameless woman as a ‘bitch’, see the note in West on Hes. Op. 67 and Fraenkel on Aesch. Ag. 1228. Cf. Hom. Il. 1.225; 3.180 and 6.344. Scylla is described as in Aesch. Cho. 621. Garvie on Cho. 619–21 points to the fact that the word is a hapax legomenon and suggests that ‘Aeschylus plays upon the etymology of Skulla, connecting it, as did Homer (Od. 12.85ff.) with skylax, a young dog’. 21 G. Massimilla, Callimachus Aetia 1–2 (Pisa, 1996), 374–5 on fr. 63, places it tentatively in the first book. There are a number of reasons to suspect that the ciris version of the story found in Virgil, Ovid and the Ciris, is a Hellenistic creation, perhaps going back to the Aetia fragment tentatively restored by Pfeiffer, or to some other source. Critics often point to the heavily artistic and neoteric character of the Scylla passage in G. 1. Cf. R.F. Thomas, Virgil Georgics 1–2 (Cambridge, 1988), 136 on 1.404–9: ‘such concinnity and striving for visual effect is a mark of neoteric, rather than Virgilian, poetry’. 22 Discussion in N.M. Horsfall, ‘Virgil, Parthenius and the art of mythological reference’, Vergilius 37 (1991), 31–6, at 34. In general, on etymological games in the Hellenistic period, see O’Hara (n.1 [1996]), 21–42. For a specific example, cf. the play between Argos /Argo in Catull. 64.4–9, and see R.F. Thomas, ‘Catullus and the polemics of poetic reference’, AJP 103 (1982), 144–64, at 148–52.

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Scylla from skylax which is first found in Homer, Callimachus, I suggest, is here making a characteristically learned allusion to a conflated version of her story in which she is transformed into a barking sea monster as a punishment for her lasciviousness. The truthfulness of her name does not simply suggest her lascivious nature, but rather points forward to the Homeric monster and prophesizes the Megarian Scylla’s subsequent transformation into the sea creature known from the Odyssey. Evidence for the existence of a conflated version of Scylla to which Callimachus might be alluding gains further support from careful analysis of the sources. It has not thus far adequately been noticed how the conflation, much criticized by the poet of the Ciris, might actually serve a specific aetiological purpose. For there is at least one important point of contact between Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, and her Homeric counterpart. According to a scholium to Dionysius Perigetes, Parthenius of Nicaea told the story of how Minos, upon learning of Scylla’s betrayal, tied her to his ship’s ) along in the sea, whence the sea is called rudder and ‘left her to be dragged ( “Saronic” ’.23 Now, according to Eustathius, in Parthenius Scylla was changed into a bird.24 Yet, as the author of the Ciris is quick to notice, the natural step for Scylla, upon being dragged along the sea by Minos, would have been to change into a sea creature rather than a bird: Sed tamen aeternam squamis uestire puellam Infidosque inter teneram committere pisces Non statuit (nimium est auidum pecus Amphitrites)

(Ciris 484–6)

A scholium to Euripides’ Hippolytus relates the same aetiology of the Saronic gulf found in Parthenius but explains that after falling into the sea, Scylla, daughter of Nisus, ‘became a beast and did not change her own nature at all’ (Sch. in Eur. Hipp. 1200: ). It is quite tempting to see in the word a reference not to the elegant ciris, but rather to the monstrous Homeric Scylla.25 Parthenius and his anonymous Roman follower seem to be correcting an alternative version in which Scylla, daughter of Nisus, was turned into the Homeric sea monster in the process of being dragged across the sea.26 Furthermore, Virgil’s description of the Homeric Scylla in Aeneid 3 would seem to support the existence of a version in which Nisus’ daughter is turned into the sea monster by being dragged. In describing Scylla’s destructive action against the ships at 3.424–5, Virgil uses the verb traho: At Scyllam caecis cohibet spelunca latebris Ora exsertantem et nauis in saxa trahentem.

Here, Scylla’s drawing in of the ships makes up for her being dragged in the sea by Minos (cf. Propertius 3.19.26, pendet Cretaea tracta puella rate; Ciris 390, per mare

23

Lightfoot fr. 24 a. Text and translation of the fragment from her edition. Lightfoot fr. 24 b, . 25 Cf. Eur. Med. 1342–3: ; Sen. Med. 407–8: quae ferarum immanitas, quae Scylla, quae Charybdis; Catull. 60.5 nimis fero corde of the lover to whom Scylla is mother. 26 R.O.A.M. Lyne, Ciris. A Poem attributed to Virgil (Cambridge, 1978), 299 on 484ff. agrees that the author of the Ciris is dismissing the variant of the story in which Scylla is metamorphosed into a fish, for which see below. 24

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caeruleum trahitur Niseia uirgo). The Megarian Scylla, once dragged in the sea, executes her revenge by dragging the unfortunate sailors who sail past her. Finally, Servius ad Aen. 6.286 attests to the existence of a version in which Scylla was turned into a fish, as distinct from another version in which she was turned into a bird.27 He is commenting on Virgil’s use of the plural Scyllae biformes in his description of the monsters at the gates of Dis: Bene plurali usus est numero: nam et illa Nisi secundum alios in auem conuersa est, secundum alios in piscem.

It is relevant to note here that the passage in Odyssey 12 containing the description of Scylla was a locus conclamatus of Homeric criticism and one that was therefore likely to invite ingenious interpretative approaches. The evidence from the scholia shows that ancient commentators were somewhat puzzled by the barking voice of the Homeric Scylla and some went as far as deleting the lines in Odyssey 12 containing the description of Scylla.28 The story of the daughter of Nisus’ transformation into the Homeric monster provides an aetiology for the sea creature’s canine features, now explained as reminders of the bitch-like character of the monster’s former self. This phenomenon, whereby a character is punished by being turned into a bird or plant whose name and features evoke the very sin for which they are paying, is a common one.29 This conflated version of Scylla would have found support in the tradition of reading the Homeric Scylla as a symbol of shamelessness as attested by the Homeric Allegories of Heraclitus, according to whom Scylla represents an allegory of .30 The allegorical interpretation of the Homeric Scylla’s canine features as symbols of shamelessness thus provides a readily available connection with the lustful Megarian heroine. To sum up, I have argued that in the Hecale fragment Callimachus constructs or alludes to an unusual, learned version of the story in which the Megarian Scylla is turned into the sea monster known from Odyssey 12 by being dragged across the sea by Minos. Far from being a ‘mistake’, this conflated variant, as I have suggested, explains the barking voice of the Homeric Scylla as a reminder of the character’s former wickedness and shamelessness. What remains to be examined is the purpose served by the Callimachean reference in Eclogue 6, to which I now return. The passage concerning Scylla and Philomela, which represents the concluding section of Silenus’ song and as such arguably occupies a prominent position, gains added emphasis by Virgil’s refusal to tell the 27 The painter Androcydes of Cyzicus was famous for the meticulous care with which he depicted the fish surrounding Scylla in a painting representing her story: Ath. 8.341a; Plut. Quaest. Conv. 4.665d. In art, the Homeric Scylla is often represented with the torso of a beautiful maiden and the lower body half-made of dogs and half-made of fish, as in the Scylla group from Tiberius’ villa in Sperlonga: G.B. Waywell, ‘Scilla nell’arte antica’, in B. Andreae, C. Parisi Presicce (edd.), Ulisse. Il Mito e la Memoria (Rome, 1996), 108–19. 28 The problem seemed to have been reconciling Scylla’s terrifying cry with her puppy-like voice. See Schol. in Od. 12.86:

29 30

. Myers (n. 5), 37–9. Heraclitus, Alleg. Hom. 70.11,

. Cf. also Eustathius in Od. 2.8.40, and see N.M. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 3 (Leiden, 2006), 317 on Aen. 3.427.

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story in full. For the praeteritio (quid loquar), which prominently marks the transition to the final section of Silenus’ song, seemingly advertises the fact that the poet is glossing over a story that has already been told.31 If we assume that Virgil found the conflated version of the story of Scylla in Callimachus, the rhetorical question could be interpreted as genuine: what need is there to tell a story that has already been told?32 On a different level, however, the praeteritio is markedly ironic and selfreferential: by stating that there is no need to tell the relatively obscure tale of Nisus’ Scylla’s transformation into a sea monster, Virgil draws attention precisely to the fact that he is using an untraditional and somewhat controversial version of the story.33 From a rhetorical and formal point of view, the praeteritio, with its apparent rejection of Scylla and Philomela as appropriate subjects of poetry, links the end of Silenus’ song to the main narrative frame, and specifically to the recusatio at the beginning of the poem in which the speaker similarly, albeit for different reasons, declines to sing about a specific topic (reges et proelia).34 Furthermore, the conflated Scylla of lines 74–7 with its Callimachean background nicely balances the beginning of the poem (cum canerem …, 2–5), which opens with an adaptation of the Aetia prologue (fr. 1.23–4 Pf.). Indeed, Virgil advertises his dependence on a model in several conspicuous ways. First, the reference to fama in line 74 can be regarded as an instance of the so-called ‘Alexandrian footnote’, a device whereby the alluding poet draws attention to his use of a learned source.35 It may also serve as a distancing device, giving a clue to the reader that the poet does not necessarily endorse the conflated version.36 Virgil, however, is undoubtedly doing more than paying homage to his Hellenistic predecessor. Servius, confronted with the ‘mistake’ raised by the text, had already argued that the Virgilian Scylla was either a case of poetic licence (poetarum more) or a compressed allusion to both stories (hysteron proteron), that of the Homeric Scylla and that of Nisus’ Scylla.37 Besides the ‘mistakes’, what has attracted the attention of commentators is the somewhat strained syntax of the passage. The meaning of secuta 31 On praeteritio as a transitional device, see R. Gibson, Ovid Ars Amatoria Book 3 (Cambridge, 2003), 164 on 3.169–70, quid de ueste loquar?: ‘the transition to a new subject is signposted with the self-referential question commonly used in didactic verse in these contexts’. For discussion of this passage, see Z. Stewart, ‘The song of Silenus’, HSCP 64 (1959), 179–205, at 195–6. 32 Cf. Virgil, G. 1. 104 quid dicam …? introducing a markedly Homeric passage describing a river flood. Thomas (n. 21), 84–5 on 1.104–10, describes the passage as ‘the first of many extended literary adaptations in the poem’. 33 For this ironic use of praeteritio to highlight mythological innovations, see, for example, Ap. Rhod. Argon. 3.311–4: / / / ; where the rhetorical question ( ) emphasizes Apollonius’ use of a recondite version of Circe’s story: see R.L. Hunter, Argonautica Book 3 (Cambridge, 1989), 134 on 3.314. Cf. 3.1096–9 where Jason glosses over the story of Ariadne with a similar rhetorical question. See also, Eur. Hel. 142–3: . R.J. Tarrant, ‘Roads not taken: untold stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses’, MD 54 (2005), 65–89, at 66–7, similarly notices Ovid’s tendency to display his doctrina by explicitly suppressing as well-known stories that are just as recondite as the ones he chooses to tell. 34 On the similarity between praeteritio and recusatio, see Tarrant (n. 33), 67. 35 For the term, see D.O. Ross, Backgrounds to Augustan Poetry: Gallus, Elegy and Rome (Cambridge, 1975), 78. 36 N.M. Horsfall, Virgilio. L’epopea in alambicco (Naples, 1990), 126; cf. Ciris 54–91 with Lyne (n. 26), 125 on 54–91. 37 Servius ad Ecl. 6.74: modo ergo Vergilius aut poetarum more miscuit fabulas et nomen posuit pro nomine, ut diceret ‘Scyllam Nisi’ pro ‘Phorci’ … aut certe sit hysteronproteron, ut quasi utriusque fabulae uideatur facere commemorationem.

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est in line 74 has caused the most problems. Is it the fama who has pursued Scylla (‘Scylla who has been pursued by the story that she attacked …’)? Or is sequi being used intransitively (‘as fama subsequently developed’)?38 The harshness of the syntax, I argue, is no mistake: the notion of fama pursuing Scylla implicitly refers to the omitted version in which Nisus pursues (insequitur, G. 1.408) Scylla, as Wendell Clausen already hinted at in his commentary.39 This learned game whereby a poet chooses one account of a story but subtly alludes to the omitted version is paralleled in Ovid’s treatment of Scylla’s legend.40 Furthermore, the verb sequi, which is often applied to an author’s relationship to his sources, draws attention to the process of artistic imitatio.41 So far I hope to have shown that in Eclogue 6 Virgil is following a version of the story which conflates the two Scyllas and which retrospectively explains the Homeric barking sea monster as the product of the transformation of Nisus’ daughter. This account, which, as I have argued, he may well have found in Callimachus’ Hecale, is in competition with another version in which Scylla, daughter of Nisus, is metamorphosed into a bird, a version which Virgil does not explicitly adopt but implicitly acknowledges. Virgil’s ‘mistakes’ in this passage, however, do not end with Scylla. It has long been noticed that Virgil refers to Philomela when mention of her sister Procne would be expected.42 aut ut mutatos Terei narrauerit artus, quas illi Philomela dapes, quae dona pararit, quo cursu deserta petiuerit et quibus ante infelix sua tecta super uolitauerit alis?

(Virgil, Ecl. 6.78–81)

Traditionally, it was Procne, Tereus’ wife, who punished her husband for the brutal rape of her sister Philomela by serving him their son Itys for supper.43 Virgil, on the other hand, makes Philomela, not Procne, the avenger.44 In the Greek tradition,

38 The translation is from R. Coleman, Virgil Eclogues (Cambridge, 1977), 199 on Ecl. 6.74–5. J. Conington and H. Nettleship, The Works of Virgil (London, 1883–98), 82–3 on Ecl. 6.74, speaks of the phrase quam fama secuta est as a ‘tame and unmeaning parenthesis’. 39 W. Clausen, Virgil Eclogues (Oxford, 1994), 205 on Ecl. 6.74. 40 Degli Innocenti Pierini (n. 4); Hinds (n. 4). 41 Cf. Lucr. DRN 3.3 (of Epicurus) te sequor, o Graiae gentis decus; Plin. Ep. 7.30.5 (of Demosthenes) Quam sane, cum componerem illos, habui in manibus, non ut aemularer – improbum enim ac paene furiosum –, sed tamen imitarer et sequerer. See A. Reiff, Interpretatio, Imitatio, Aemulatio. Begriff und Vorstellung literarischer Abhängigkeit bei den Römern (Inaugural Diss., Cologne, 1953), 107–8. 42 See Thomas (n. 1), 670 = 289. A version of the story in which Philomela, and not Procne, is Tereus’ wife is posited by Clausen (n. 39), 206 on 78–81: ‘as in the case of the two Scyllas, an ambiguous tradition permitted V. to conflate the roles of the two sisters’. A. Hudson-Williams, ‘Some passages in Virgil’s Eclogues’, CQ 30 (1980), 124–32, at 130, proposes to see Philomela as a ‘composite figure, symbolizing the two sisters’. More recently, in discussing Ecl. 6, S.J. Harrison, Generic Enrichment in Vergil and Horace (Oxford, 2007), 57, points to a fragment of Parthenius (fr. 33 Lightfoot) which, however, refers to the standard story of the nightingale’s mourning for her dead son. 43 Cf. Ov. Met. 6.412–74. D. Hurley, ‘Ovid, Met. 6.640: a dialogue between mother and son’, CQ 47 (1997), 320–2, has a useful discussion of the episode and of Ovid’s adaptation of the tragic version of Tereus’ and Procne’s story. 44 In line 79 it is Philomela who is serving Itys’ remains. In Ovid it is Tereus’ wife (Procne) who initiates the feast: Met. 6.647–9. There is some disagreement as to the subject of uolitauerit in line 81. The epithet infelix would seem to apply more naturally to Tereus but the change of subject is harsh. It is thus better to take Philomela as the subject of lines 78–81.

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Procne is known as Tereus’ wife and she is transformed into a nightingale, who is often represented in the act of mourning her son Itys (or Itylus). Philomela, on the other hand, is known as Procne’s sister and she is transformed into a swallow.45 In the Roman tradition, the identities of the swallow and nightingale respectively are often reversed, with Philomela being referred to as the nightingale (Virgil, G. 4.511–15) and Procne as the swallow (Ovid, Fast. 2.853–6; Ars Am. 2.383 and Tr. 3.12.9 ). In an effort as to explain this curious switch, scholars have invoked a folk etymology of ).46 The folk etymology would certainly support a revised ‘she who loves song’ ( version in which the character of Philomela is transformed into a nightingale, a bird to whom poets often compare themselves, particularly in the Hellenistic period.47 If so, this folk etymology of the name Philomela might also invite the reader of Eclogue , which means both limb and song.48 6 to gloss the word artus (78) with the Greek Now, in addition to the unexpected role assigned to Philomela, Virgil has significantly altered the narrative order of events: the final stage of the story, namely Tereus’ transformation (mutatos artus), is mentioned first, followed by the middle stage, the ill-omened banquet (dapes). The prominent reference to Tereus’ transformed limbs (mutatos artus) which opens the very last section of the song should then be read as a self-conscious commentary by Virgil on his use of modified versions of myths, as well as on his appropriation and transformation of poetic models in the poem as a whole. The passage devoted to Scylla and Philomela represents the concluding section of Silenus’ song. The carmen, which opened with the story of the creation of the world and the change and combination of elements to create shapes (rerum paulatim sumere formas, 36), appropriately ends with the two stories of Scylla and Philomela, whose main characters are subject to change and transformation. But, by his bold adoption of innovative and unusual variants of myths in this passage, Virgil further thematizes change and innovation not just as a subject for his poetry, but as a poetic strategy and as a way to approach the tradition. It is appropriate, therefore, that in this final passage, creation is not an act of God or nature happening in a void (magnum per inane, 31). Instead, the mutati artus of Scylla and Philomela, coming as they do after Gallus’ poetic initiation, focus the attention of the reader on poetry’s power to change, recreate and refashion the mythical past. Yale University

IRENE PEIRANO [email protected]

45 See F. Bömer, P. Ovidius Naso Metamorphosen: Kommentar, Buch VI–VII (Heidelberg, 1976), 115–19 on Met. 6.412–674. 46 T.E. Page, Bucolica, Georgica, Aeneis (London, 1895), 148; Coleman (n. 38), 200–1 on 6.78. Further discussion in W. Frentz, Mythologisches in Vergils Georgica (Meisenheim, 1967), 93–7. 47 Callim. Aet. fr. 1.16 (restored by Pfeiffer) and Epigr. 34. Cf. Ov. Am. 2.6.7–10. 48 Artus is sometimes glossed as Greek : Gramm. Lat. 4.578.20. In addition, similarly to membrum, which can apply to a physical as well as to a literary entity, poets sometimes ascribe to their own artus the qualities of their poetry: e.g. Ov. Am. 2.10.23 graciles non sunt sine uiribus artus; Tib. 2.3.9 nec querer quod sol graciles exureret artus; Prop. 2.22A.21–2 sed tibi si exilis uideor tenuatus in artus / falleris. On the ancient practice of employing body parts to refer to grammatical and rhetorical units, see further G.W. Most, ‘Disiecti membra poetae: the rhetoric of dismemberment in Neronian poetry’, in R. Hexter and D. Selden, Innovations of Antiquity (New York, 1992), 391–419, at 406–7.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 196–211 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000159

196 DIDACTIC POETRY AND DIDACTIC PROSE G.O. HUTCHINSON

READ THE INSTRUCTIONS: DIDACTIC POETRY AND DIDACTIC PROSE* If we survey classical literature as a whole, an obvious and fundamental question is how the two large categories of poetry and prose relate. The question has not, to understate, been accorded the centrality it merits. There are signs of a greater interest recently. The present piece considers what may seem a promising test case: didactic poetry after the second century B.C., and prose related to it. This poetry typically presents a direct transposition of prose; we can often compare either the original or the wider tradition on that subject. It will emerge, however, that even in this test case poetry and prose are less easily and sharply differentiated than has been thought. The piece does not seek to claim that there are no differences between poetry and prose. Nor is it forgotten that differentiation could be quantitative: that poetry and prose could have more or less of a given feature, rather than one possessing that feature, one lacking it. The aim is rather to show the difficulty of the question and the complexity of the relationship. It would be a very welcome outcome if this article prompted firmer attempts at differentiation, and still more welcome if it enhanced appreciation of what is here called didactic prose: prose with a subject matter comparable to that of didactic poems.1 Two common views on the transposition of prose into didactic poetry are: that the poets display their skill by transforming into elegant verse recalcitrant material from unassuming prose; and that the poets invest mundane subject matter from narrow prose treatises with metaphorical and wide-ranging significance. Both these views contain much truth on the poetry; but both underrate the prose, as if it were a colourless container for intrinsically base matter. Such a view of technical prose is rightly beginning to be challenged. As will be seen, works of didactic prose, like works of didactic poetry, show differing degrees of literary ambition; internally, works of didactic prose, like didactic poems, commonly contain more and less elevated passages. The traffic between poetry and prose is two-way: prose can draw on poetry as well as the reverse; poetry can seek to evoke or appropriate characteristics of prose.2 * Versions of this piece have been tried out in Cambridge, Manchester and Vercelli. I am grateful to my listeners, and especially to Professors L. Battezzato, P.R. Hardie, and D.R. Langslow. CQ’s referee has made many helpful suggestions on presentation. 1 Interest in poetry and prose: e.g. D.R. Langslow, ‘The language of poetry and the language of science: the Latin poets and “medical Latin” ’, in J.N. Adams and R.G. Mayer (edd.), Aspects of the Language of Latin Poetry, PBA 93 (Oxford, 1999), 183–225; T. Reinhardt, M. Lapidge, J.N. Adams (edd.), Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose, PBA 129 (Oxford, 2005), including J.N. Adams, M. Lapidge, T. Reinhardt, ‘Introduction’, 1–36, at 2–4, and H.M. Hine, ‘Poetic influence on prose: the case of the Younger Seneca’, 211–37; earlier e.g. G.O. Hutchinson, Latin Literature from Seneca to Juvenal: A Critical Study (Oxford, 1993). For the relation of didactic poetry and prose see R.K. Gibson, ‘Didactic poetry as “popular” form: a study of imperatival expressions in Latin didactic verse and prose’, in C. Atherton (ed.), Form and Content in Didactic Poetry (Bari, 1998), 67–98; M. Horster and C. Reitz (edd.), Antike Fachschriftsteller: Literarischer Diskurs und sozialer Kontext, Palingenesia 80 (Stuttgart, 2003); M. Horster and C. Reitz (edd.), Wissensvermittlung in dichterischer Gestalt, Palingenesia 85 (Stuttgart, 2005). 2 On the last point cf. n. 7 below. For general discussion of didactic poetry see W. Kroll,

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A straightforward difference in pragmatics is frequently assumed (prose is for use, poetry not); but evidence on ancient readers should raise some doubts on its firmness: readers are as significant as authors’ expertise and conjectured intentions. Various prose statements on didactic poetry have been taken as straightforward truths about authors, without thought for the intellectual context which they presuppose, and what this implies about readers. Even when Hipparchus presents Aratus as humbly following Eudoxus, it is apparent that many readers are using Aratus as a source of facts; Hipparchus’ own work is a commentary on Aratus, not Eudoxus. His point that Aratus’ poetic charm makes his assertions seem more worthy of credit ( , 1.1.7) takes us back to the Pindaric idea of poetry conferring authority – often erroneously (Ol. 1.28-32).3 Even when Seneca tells us that Virgil wanted not to teach farmers but to delight readers (nec agricolas docere uoluit | sed legentes delectare, Ep. 86.15), his argument (16) clearly presupposes that many disagree on the negative part of the phrase, and take Virgil as a worthwhile source. Columella sees Virgil as teacher and authority, while eagerly admiring his poetic ornamentation (Arb. 26.1.1 placet igitur sicut Vergilio nobis).4 ‘Lehrgedicht’, RE 12.1842–57; E. Pöhlmann, ‘Charakteristika des römischen Lehrgedichts’, ANRW 1.3 (1973), 813–901; B. Effe, Dichtung und Lehre. Untersuchungen zur Typologie des antiken Lehrgedichts (Munich, 1977); A. Schiesaro, P. Mitsis, J. Strauss Clay (edd.), Mega nepios. Il destinatario nell’epos didascalico (Pisa, 1993) = MD 31 (1993); A. Dalzell, The Criticism of Didactic Poetry: Essays on Lucretius, Virgil, and Ovid (Toronto, Buffalo, London, 1996); P. Toohey, Epic Lessons: An Introduction to Ancient Didactic Poetry (London, 1996); Atherton (n. 1); D.P. Fowler, ‘The didactic plot’, in M. Depew and D. Obbink (edd.), Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons and Society (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 205–19; K. Volk, The Poetics of Latin Didactic: Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid, Manilius (Oxford, 2002), and ‘Aetna oder Wie man ein Lehrgedicht schreibt’, in N. Holzberg (ed.), Die Appendix Vergiliana. Pseudepigraphen im literarischen Kontext, Classica Monacensia 30 (Munich, 2005), 68–90; M. Gale (ed.), Latin Epic and Didactic Poetry: Genre, Tradition and Individuality (Swansea, 2004); P. Kruschwitz and M. Schumacher, Das vorklassische Lehrgedicht der Römer (Heidelberg, 2005); the implications of P.R. Hardie, ‘Political education in Virgil’s Georgics’, SIFC 4th ser. 2 (2004), 83–111, could be extended. On didactic prose see M. Fuhrmann, Das systematische Lehrbuch. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wissenschaften in der Antike (Göttingen, 1960); B. Meißner, Die technologische Fachliteratur der Antike. Struktur, Überlieferung und Wirkung technischen Wissens in der Antike (ca. 400 v. Chr.—ca. 500 n. Chr.) (Berlin, 1999); C. Nicolet (ed.), Les Littératures techniques dans l’antiquité romaine. Statut, public et destination, tradition, Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt 42 (Geneva, 1996); W. Kullmann, J. Althoff, M. Asper (edd.), Gattungen wissenschaftlicher Literatur in der Antike (Tübingen, 1998); D.R. Langslow, Medical Latin in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2000); S. Goldhill, The Invention of Prose, Greece and Rome New Surveys 32 (Oxford, 2002), ch. 4; T. Fögen (ed.), Antike Fachtexte (Berlin, 2005); R.G. Mayer, ‘The impractibility of Latin “Kunstprosa” ’, in Reinhardt, Lapidge, Adams (n. 1), 195–210; D. Paniagua Aguilar, El panorama técnico-científico en Roma (siglos I–II d.C.). “Et docere et delectare” (Salamanca, 2006). 3 Philodemus, De poematis 5 is interesting for ancient debate on what differentiates poetry and prose (cf. C. Mangoni, ‘Prosa e poesia nel V libro della Poetica di Filodemo’, Cronache Ercolanesi 18 [1988], 127–38); important too is Strabo 1, esp. 1.2.3–6 (C 15–18). But the general ancient discussion cannot be investigated here; still less the modern, though the issues are visible from at least La vita nuova onwards. 4 Cf. RR 2.9.12, 10.11, 21.2, 3.10.20, 12.5, 15.4, 9.9.4, 9.2.1, where Celsus stands between Virgil and Hyginus in his literary characteristics. For the seriousness with which later writers take the Georgics as a technical work, see E. Christmann, ‘Zur antiken Georgica-Rezeption’, WJA 8 (1982), 57–67; A. Doody, ‘Virgil the farmer? Critiques of the Georgics in Columella and Pliny’, CP 102 (2007), 180–97. On the passage of Seneca, see also M.S. Spurr, ‘Agriculture and the Georgics’, G&R 33 (1986), 164–87, at 164–6. On poetry and prose in Columella’s own work, including his prose reworking of his poetic book, cf. 10 pr. 3, 11.1–2; see J. Henderson,

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Even when Cicero dwells on Aratus’ and Nicander’s ignorance (De Orat. 1.69–70), his comparison with the orator indicates that they are agreed to present their subject matter effectively; this is confirmed by Balbus’ use of Cicero’s version of Aratus in ND 2.104–14. The alleged proximity of poet and orator (est enim finitimus oratori poeta |, De Orat. 1.70) is noteworthy for the larger question of poetry and prose.5 Vitruvius places Lucretius, Cicero and Varro on a level as exponents of their subjects: plures post nostram memoriam nascentes cum Lucretio uidebuntur uelut coram de rerum natura disputare, de arte uero rhetorica cum Cicerone; multi posterorum cum Varrone conferent sermonem de lingua Latina (9 pr. 17). Even the Ars Amatoria, however entertaining, is not self-evidently without use: books have, after all, been written on personal relationships. Ovid in exile does not point Augustus to generic rules excluding didactic poetry from practical application. In general, modern critics of poetry have not been inclined to question the standard assumptions: they have found aloofness from practicality and from a distasteful type of prose too plausible an attribute of Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic poetry. But the segregation of poetry and prose is not so simple.6 The present piece does not scrutinize the basic atoms of poetic and prose language; nor does it embrace the cosmos of whole works, and survey how the structures of didactic poetry and prose relate and interact. It merely considers a series of passages in various areas, with an emphasis on some aspects and features of style. None the less, these stylistic aspects will be seen to connect with wider questions of the writers’ intellectual concerns, and the division of the world which is so important in didactic poetry and prose. The passages will also expose to view an involved intertextuality in both poetry and prose. This lowly approach may help to confront us with the entanglements that specific phenomena provide, and so complicate and challenge our own divisions of ancient writing.7 A considerable range of poetry will be discussed, in date and type, and a still more considerable range of prose. As will be seen, many factors affect the works besides their didactic ‘genre’, especially in prose, where any such genre will be less cohesive than in didactic poetry. The factors include stylistic fashion, intellectual allegiance and language (Greek or Latin). But all this only strengthens the argument. Neither the poetry nor the prose can be viewed as forming a body of material which is simply defined and contained by its genre; their interaction is the more complex.

‘Columella’s living hedge: the Roman gardening book’, JRS 92 (2002), 110–33 (and The Roman Book of Gardening [London, 2004]); S. Diederich, Römische Agrarhandbücher zwischen Fachwissenschaft, Literatur und Ideologie, Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 88 (Berlin and New York, 2007), 221–58. For the vertical lines in some prose quotations see section I below. 5 Cicero is presumably drawing on a tradition for his assertions about Aratus’ and Nicander’s expertise (cf. Arat. Vit. I pp. 8.25–9.1 Martin, II pp. 11.14–12.3, but not on the Georgica). With praeclare at De Orat. 1.69 cf. Col. RR 2.9.12. 6 For the pragmatics of the Ars Amatoria cf., among other works, A. Sharrock, ‘Ovid and the politics of reading’, in P.E. Knox (ed.), Oxford Readings in Ovid (Oxford, 2006), 238–61, and R.K. Gibson, S.J. Green, A. Sharrock, The Art of Love: Bimillennial Essays on Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris (Oxford, 2006). 7 The structure of Latin didactic poems in relation to prose, and its intellectual implications, are considered in G.O. Hutchinson, Talking Books: Readings in Hellenistic and Roman Books of Poetry (Oxford, 2008), ch. 10; that piece and this have to be read together to see the full scope of the argument.

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I. ASTROLOGY Astrology presents a rewarding area (for our purposes). Both prose and verse show a large span of stylistic pretensions. The many horoscopes on papyrus are so plain as to raise the question of what we allow to reach the level of prose: cf. e.g. P. Mich. 152 ) ´ (second century A.D.; no. 184 Neugebauer and van Hoesen8) ( ( ) ´ | ´ | ´ | < > [ ] | | | [ ] | [ ] ( ) | (‘In year 24, on the fifth intercalary day added to the first of the new year; the eighth hour of the night. The Sun in Virgo; Saturn in Virgo; Mercury in Virgo; Jupiter in Aries; Venus in Libra; the Moon in Scorpio’). But the list form, marked here in the arrangement of the papyrus lines, will prove as we proceed to have elaborate affinities with both prose and verse; it is a basic form of instruction and of classical poetry alike. Vettius Valens, whose nine-book Anthologies were written in Greek in the second half of the second century A.D., presents horoscopes with little narrative explications which are to arrest the reader. Despite the many types of writing in his work, he , 6.9.7 Pingree) – claims in a peroration that he has not written poetically ( unlike some. These ‘poetic’ writers are divided into actual poets and those who produce an attractive performance by the arrangement of words ( ).9 Valens just labours hard and is truthful. The ornamental words of others ( , 5.8.110) adulterate knowledge and lead people astray. For all Valens’ posing, writers are here perceived to vary in style; style and even poetry do not necessarily diminish credit with readers.10 The most ambitious and elaborate writers are Firmicus Maternus in prose and Manilius in poetry. Firmicus’ eight-book Mathesis appeared in or before A.D. 337; Manilius’ five books were probably published sequentially (cf. 1.114–17), the first after A.D. 9, the fourth probably in the reign of Tiberius (cf. 4.763–6). Firmicus might seem more committed to his career as a writer than to the inculcation of his beliefs: so one could infer when the pagan Mathesis, written before Constantine’s death in May 8

O. Neugebauer and H.B. van Hoesen, Greek Horoscopes (Philadelphia, 1959). Kroll’s punctuation is better than Pingree’s: … shows that goes with this clause. 10 Intriguing for the different types of astrological writing is the elaborate prefatory letter in the horoscope P. Lond. 130.1–34 (first century A.D.; Neugebauer and van Hoesen no. 81), reminiscent of a literary preface. Further cf. A. Bouché-Leclerq, L’Astrologie grecque (repr. Brussels, 1993); W. Gundel and H.G. Gundel, Astrologumena. Die astrologische Literatur in der Antike und ihre Geschichte (Wiesbaden, 1966); T. Barton, Ancient Astrology (London, 1994), esp. 57–62; B. Bakhouche, L’Astrologie à Rome (Leuven, 2002). Aratus and his progeny: e.g. D.B. Gain, The Aratus Ascribed to Germanicus Caesar: Edited with an Introduction, Translation and Commentary (London, 1976); G.O. Hutchinson, Hellenistic Poetry (Oxford, 1988), 214–36; P. Bing, ‘Aratus and his audiences’, in Schiesaro, Mitsis, Clay (n. 2), 99–109; R.L. Hunter, ‘Written in the stars: poetry and philosophy in the Phainomena of Aratus’, Arachnion 1.2 (1995) (http://www.cisi.unito.it/arachne/num2/hunter.html) ; D.A. Kidd, Aratus, Phaenomena: Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Cambridge, 1997); E. Gee, Ovid, Aratus and Augustus: Astronomy in Ovid’s Fasti (Cambridge, 2000); C. Fakas, Der hellenistische Hesiod. Arats Phainomena und die Tradition der antiken Lehrepik, Serta Graeca 11 (Wiesbaden, 2001); M. Fantuzzi and R.L. Hunter, Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (Cambridge, 2004), 224–45; W. Hübner, ‘Die Rezeption der Phainomena Arats in der lateinischen Literatur’, in Horster and Reitz (2005) (n. 1), 133–54; M. Semanoff, ‘Undermining authority: pedagogy in Aratus’ Phaenomena’, in M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker (edd.), Beyond the Canon, Hellenistica Groningana 11 (Leuven, 2006), 303–17. 9

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337, is followed in the 340s by the ferociously anti-pagan De Errore Profanarum Religionum, written under the more militantly Christian Constans and Constantius II. Firmicus well illustrates how didactic prose can use didactic poetry as a source. One of the texts he follows closely is Manilius’ fifth book. That brilliant satirical parade is a neglected highlight of poetry in the early first century A.D.; we cannot know whether literary appeal helped to motivate Firmicus’ selection.11 Firmicus’ adaptations are usually shorter than the passages of Manilius on which they are based. But his writing has a more leisurely and expansive appearance than Manilius’. One brief example is provided by the indefatigable socialite in Manilius 5.64–6: instar erit populi totaque habitabit in urbe, | limina peruolitans unumque per omnia uerbum | mane salutandi portans, communis amicus (‘he will equal a people, and will live in the whole city [by calling on everyone], speeding over thresholds, and bearing over them all a single word of morning greeting, a universal friend’). Here the paradoxes are tightly packed. Less so in Firmicus, who with some ‘mistranslation’ offers uariabunt semper domicilia; domus sedesque mutabunt, | et per omnium limina | matutinis semper salutationibus | peruolabunt | (8.6.2) (‘they will always be changing their dwelling; they will alter house and abode, and always fly over the thresholds of all with morning greetings’). A point is made, and then elaborated with synonyms (domus sedesque mutabunt). omn- no longer relates in a tight unit to unum: it is reinforced by semper, which itself takes up the preceding semper. The verb, an independent rhythmical unit, forms a forceful climax, and surpasses the previous two verbs, strategically placed. The whole effect is less compact and more spacious. (The vertical lines mark rhythmic closes. The difference between prose and the fixed rhythm of poetry is less firm and more varied than might appear.)12 But we can see Firmicus’ approach more fully by looking at one of his relatively extensive sections. In Manilius the Pleiades rising with the sixth degree of Taurus produce pleasure-going effeminates (cf. 4.518–22): … illis cura sui cultus frontisque decorae semper erit: tortos in fluctum ponere crines aut uinclis reuocare comas et uertice denso 11 The most recent edition of Firmicus is P. Monat, Firmicus Maternus. Mathesis (3 vols., Paris, 1992–7) (footnotes will give editions and commentaries where works may be less familiar, or editions recent). See R. Turcan, Firmicus Maternus. L’Erreur des religions païennes. Texte établi, traduit et commenté (Paris, 1982), 7–18 for Firmicus’ life, 15–19 for the paganism of the Mathesis (more – perhaps too – generous is M. Edwards, ‘The beginnings of Christianization’, in N. Lenski [ed.], The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine [Cambridge, 2006], 137–58, at 141–2); contrast e.g. Err. 16.4 amputanda sunt haec, | sacratissimi imperatores, | penitus, atque delenda, | et seuerissimis edictorum uestrorum legibus | corrigenda |, 20.7 profanarum rerum strage gaudentes | exultate fortius |. Discussion of Firmicus’ use of Manilius, and discussion of Manilius, esp. 5: e.g. W. Hübner, ‘Manilius als Astrologe und Dichter’, ANRW 2.32.1 (1984), 126–320; F. Fontanella, ‘A proposito di Manilio e Firmico’, Prometheus 17 (1991), 75–92; D. Liuzzi (ed.), Manilio fra poesia e scienza. Atti del convegno: Lecce, 14–16 maggio 1992 (Galatina, 1993); J.-H. Abry, ‘Manilius et Julius Firmicus Maternus, deux astrologues sous l’Empire’, in N. Blanc and A. Buisson (edd.), Imago antiquitatis. Religions et iconographie du monde romain. Mélanges offerts à Robert Turcan (Paris, 1999), 35–45; C. Salemme, Introduzione agli ‘Astronomica’ di Manilio2 (Naples, 2000); A. Perutelli, ‘Il disagio del poeta didascalico: sui proemi II e III di Manilio’, MD 47 (2001), 67–84; Volk (n. 2), ch. 6. Less elaborate are the adaptations, say, of Oppian (whose Halieutica probably appeared A.D. 177–8) by Aelian (c. 170–235): cf. e.g. Ael. NA 1.32 with Opp. Hal. 2.253–320, Ael. NA 9.66 with Opp. Hal. 1.554–83. 12 Cicero, admittedly making an argument, calls the poet numeris astrictior paulo | than the orator (De Orat. 1.70). On Latin prose rhythm, see e.g. G.O. Hutchinson, ‘Rhythm, style, and meaning in Cicero’s prose’, CQ 45 (1995), 485–99.

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fingere et appositis caput emutare capillis pumicibusque cauis horrentia membra polire atque odisse uirum teretisque optare lacertos. femineae uestes, nec in usum tegmina plantis sed speciem, fictique placent ad mollia gressus … semper amare parum est: cupient et amare uideri.

150

156 (5.146–53, 156)

They will always be concerned with their own appearance and the beauty of their brow: with arranging their hair so that it is twisted into a wave, or summoning back their locks with bands or shaping them in a thick mass, or altering their head by adding hair; with polishing their shaggy limbs using hollow pumice-stones, with hating their manhood, or wishing for smooth shoulders. Their clothes are women’s; the covering of their feet is for show not use; they like a gait shaped for softness … It is not enough to be always in love; they will want to be seen in love.

In Firmicus: … erunt semper nitidi, polita fronte et accuratis uestibus prompti, | quorum inflexi crines torquantur semper in bostrychos, | ut frequenter appositis alienis crinibus | fictam et compositam pulchritudinem | mentiantur, | totius corporis formam | uario pigmentorum genere mollientes. | hi demptis pilis corpus suum in feminei corporis | imaginem transferent, | quorum uestes et13 ad muliebris cultus similitudinem | excolantur. | hi molliter ambulantes | uestigia sua cum delicata quadam moderatione suspendunt.14 | … amabunt semper aut se amare simulabunt, | et paenitebit eos quod uiri nati sint. (Math. 8.7.2, 3) They will always be gleaming, equipped with polished brow and meticulous attire. Their curled hair will always be twisted into curls, so that often by adding the hair of others they will lay false claim to a feigned and factitious beauty, softening the shape of their whole body with various types of ingredient. By removing their body-hair they will shift their bodies into the likeness of a woman’s body; their clothes too will be adorned so as to be like a woman’s get-up. Walking effeminately, they will take slow steps with a sort of mincing restraint. … They will always be in love or pretend to be so, and they will be sorry that they were born as men.

The closeness of Firmicus’ adaptation is clear (contrast Liber Hermetis p. 53.8–10 Gundel);15 but the stylistic differences are apparent, and might at first suggest generalizable differences between poetry and prose. The short parallel clauses of Manilius are turned into more elaborate periods. In Manilius the phrasing is pithy; individual words are charged with point and arrestingly combined. Firmicus typically expands, while building up a sustained rhetorical emphasis on falsehood which goes beyond Manilius: so for Man. 5.149 caput emutare he has, with a typical emphatic doublet, ut … fictam et compositam pulchritudinem | mentiantur |. Man. 5.147 tortos in fluctum ponere crines expands to quorum inflexi crines torquantur semper in bostrychos | (an unusual and satirical loan-word to close). Man. 5.151 odisse uirum becomes, again with stress on falsity, corpus suum in feminei corporis | imaginem transferent |; 152 femineae uestes becomes quorum uestes et ad muliebris cultus similitudinem | excolantur |. The dense fictique placent ad mollia gressus (153) becomes the vividly mocking molliter ambulantes | uestigia sua cum delicata quadam moderatione suspendunt |. The ablative adjective + noun is characteristic, the quadam Ciceronian;

13 et is problematic; cf. Kroll, Skutsch, and Ziegler’s apparatus. Possibly uestes etiam: etiam is very frequently postpositive in the work, cf. e.g. 1.9.2, 1.10.11; for its function cf. e.g. 1.7.16 ista itaque confidentia mentis erectus | etiam corporis sui | curam tuitionemque suscepit |. 14 Perhaps suspendent? 15 W. Gundel, Neue astrologische Texte des Hermes Trismegistos. Funde und Forschungen auf dem Gebiet der antiken Astronomie und Astrologie, ABAW Phil.-hist. Abt. n.F. 12 (Munich, 1936).

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the combination of delicata with the ostensibly laudatory moderatione swells out the Manilius with lively irony.16 Yet at the close of his description, Firmicus takes up Manilius’ odisse uirum for an effectively curt reinforcement of his theme: the words quod uiri nati sint are short, the content is damning. Manilius himself closes with a neat sententia, where the first half elegantly prepares for the second. Such a sententia belongs to his period, in verse and prose alike. And there lies the complication. Firmicus’ style bases itself particularly on Cicero, as one might expect at this period. This is illustrated by the abundance of synonyms, and the reduction in epigrams. With the cum delicata quadam moderatione one may compare e.g. Cic. Inv. 2.164 cum animi ampla quadam et splendida propositione | or Dom. 115 cum proiecta quadam et effrenata cupiditate |; even the final phrase brings to mind Cael. 6 id numquam tam acerbe feret M. Caelius | ut eum paeniteat non deformem esse natum |. If we compared Manilius with prose writers from his own time or just after, the contrast between poetry and prose would be considerably lessened. One may instance, on related subjects, the concise, dense or epigrammatic phrases at Sen. Rh. Con. 1 pr.8 (e.g. capillum frangere), 2.1.6 (Arellius Fuscus; e.g. conuulneratum libidinibus, | incedentem, ut feminis placeat, | femina mollius |), 5.6 (e.g. muliebrem uestem sumpsit), Sen. Ep. 95.20–1 (e.g. et oleo et mero uiros prouocant |), 114.3–4 (e.g. quam cupierit uideri |). But the validity and effectiveness of Firmicus’ transformation should be apparent. It has been said above that Manilius’ poetry is particularly ambitious; the range of astrological poetry should be briefly exemplified. Manilius’ account of the tightrope-walker spectacularly defamiliarizes. The lines et caeli meditatus iter uestigia perdet | paene sua et pendens populum suspendet ab ipso (5.654–5) play on cosmic divisions and, through word-play, on the inversion of space (pendens … suspendet). The specifically poetic enjambement perdet | paene wittily focalizes the scene through the audience’s terror. The fourth book of ‘Manetho’, probably a distinct poem, is not later than the third century A.D. (P. Oxy. 2546, P. Amsterdam inv. no. 56). It depicts the activity more straightforwardly: | | (287–9). The use of line-end and enjambement is still forceful (287), and the phrase is of Gorgianic flamboyance. In the preceding paragraph types of people are denoted with a huge string of adjectives, nouns and short nominal phrases. This is characteristic of the fourth book especially, and reminiscent of astrological prose treatises; it is quite unlike Manilius. But the words and phrases | show an inventiveness unlike prose. So 281–2: ; here ‘with tombs in foreign lands’ is a a unique word, a cosmic paradox. And typical new compound, even Manilius had a string of infinitive phrases: listing or accumulative structures, as we have mentioned, possess complex connotations.17

16 Firmicus may presuppose the plain hairstyle for men in which his period was imitating Manilius’: cf. A.T. Croom, Roman Clothing and Fashion (Stroud, 2000), 66. 17 ‘Manetho’ 4.287–9 are cited by A.E. Housman, M. Manilii Astronomicon liber quintus2 (Cambridge, 1937), 82. On the style of the fourth book, cf. C.A.M. Axtius and Fr. A. Rigler, Ναξ(ρψξοΚ βιβμα .ω (Cologne, 1832), xxiii. With populum suspendet cf. Stat. Theb. 3.107 populos suspendere. Firmicus has an asyndetic tricolon in the passage parallel to Manilius’ paragraph, 8.17.4, cf. the tetracolon at 8.15.2.

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Firmicus also adapts the poetry of Anubion, which has lately been resurrected on papyrus; this elegiac poem, probably in at least four books, was perhaps written in the first century A.D., and certainly by the second century. Subject headings in F 5 (horoscopes of types) and F 15 Obbink suggest in parts of the poem internal division at short intervals by readers or author; the asyndeton in F 2 and F 5 suggests internal division by the author: a less ambitious poem, then, than Manilius’. Anubion’s elegiacs are simpler than Manilius’ or even ‘Manetho’s’ hexameters. Anubion’s mention of the | orator at F 5 b 9(–10?) Obbink (end of book) is greatly expanded by Firmicus, who eloquently depicts the orator’s eloquent power: talis erit orator | ut in modum fulminum | dictorum eius sententiae | proferantur, | ut pro arbitrio eius | multitudinis animi aut quiescentes excitentur | aut incensi facile mitigentur | (6.30.22). He goes on, with anaphora, to the orator’s impact on posterity, and to the verbal might of Demosthenes. The force of language is not only conveyed but exhibited: the reader is to admire not only Demosthenes but Firmicus. Even in this didactic ‘genre’, the prose – self-consciously rhetorical prose and not verse – conspicuously rises above its poetic source. We have seen, then, the stylistic range of astrological poetry and prose; the use that prose can make of poetry as well as poetry of prose; and the difficulties of generalizing about the relation between poetic and prose style, or of making the opposition between the two forms of didactic writing too rigidly hierarchical.18 II. HORSES Another subject, horses, takes further the complicated relationship of poetry and prose; the treatment of animals brings in elaborate literary and intellectual issues. We will look at three Latin passages, after some points on the prose tradition which lies behind them. Didactic prose on horses begins with Simon in the fifth century. The first-person intellectualism of his very opening is highly characteristic of fifth-century < > prose: … But when he tells us the (5) of a good hoof, he says that the hollow hoof (‘sounds the cymbal’) more. This use of language, though unpoetic, is no less vivid and imaginative than poetry. solido grauiter sonat ungula cornu is Virgil’s version (G. 3.88); Xenophon, referring explicitly to Simon, reduces his linguistic boldness to (Eq. 1.3). Xenophon talks directly at the start of his treatise about its relation to Simon’s: intertextuality is no less important in didactic prose than in poetry, even if differently expressed. Xenophon also introduces us immediately to , 1.1); his epistemological questions and to the evidence of a horse’s mind ( treatise is not only practical but searchingly thoughtful. The division of mind and body stressed here will be important for the poetry and prose that follow.19 18

F 5 b 10 sounds like an orator, cf. what precedes and the title; 8 might recommend [ , considered by Obbink; would then be the only basis for Firmicus’ thunderbolt. For Anubion see D. Obbink, ‘4503–7. Anoubion, elegiacs’, in N. Gonis (ed.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 66 (London, 1999), 57–109; D. Obbink, Anubio: carmen astrologicum elegiacum (Munich and Leipzig, 2006). It is notable that while Firmicus, who came from Sicily, uses the Greek Anubion, his readers need an allusion to Philip’s oratorical opponent to be spelled out (Math. 6.30.22 ut manifestius explicemus, | … Demostheni |). 19 On philosophical issues involving animals in the ancient world see recently C. Osborne, Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers: Humanity and the Humane in Ancient Philosophy and Literature (Oxford, 2007). Text of Simon: e.g. K. Widdra, Ωεξοζ1ξυοΚ πεσ 3ππιλ4Κ (Leipzig, 1964),

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The sequence Varro, Virgil, Columella on the appearance of the good horse shows textual relationships clearly. It will be of special interest to see how the poet affects the subsequent prose-writer. Varro, whose work appeared from 37 B.C. on, begins his account of horses with his common metapoetic – or metaprosaic – appropriation of the subject matter, which Virgil will use extensively: Lucienus, ‘ego quoque adueniens aperiam carceres’, inquit, ‘et equos emittere incipiam’ (RR 2.7.1). Lucienus gives a long string of the physical features in the foal which suggest a good horse to come: oculis nigris, naribus non angustis (5), etc. There is no particular rhetorical force in the list. Lucienus comes a little later to indications of mind (not explicitly named): equi boni futuri signa, si cum gregalibus in pabulo contendit, in currendo aliaue qua re, quo potior sit; si, cum flumen trauehundum est gregi, in primis progreditur ac non respectat alios (6). The final phrase, with alios at the end, lightly suggests an admirable attitude.20 Virgil’s account is affected by the sublime connotations of the horse in poetry; the Aeneid shows a clear perception of the prominence and magnificence of horses in the Iliad. Not that the aesthetic impact of the war-horse is a phenomenon confined to poetry: Xenophon explains how to make it (Eq. 10.1–5). And while Virgil’s didactic epic interacts here with narrative epic, he also relishes words that would not be expected in poetry: spadices (81, ‘chestnut’ horses) and giluo (82, ‘dun’). Virgil’s depiction interweaves features of the body with pieces of behaviour, and infuses physical description with mental and moral qualities; the poetic language realizes inexplicitly what is more explicit in Xenophon. So for Varro’s pectus latum et plenum (5) Virgil has luxuriatque toris animosum pectus (G. 3.81). His version of the animal’s behaviour is further made heroic, like a soldier’s (or a poet’s, cf. 3.6–12): primus et ire uiam et fluuios temptare minacis | audet et ignoto sese committere ponti, | nec uanos horret strepitus (77–9). He later extends this into a martial scene of known sublimity (so Aesch. Theb. 391–4 [simile for a hero]; cf. in prose Xen. Eq. Mag. 3.11–13): tum, si qua sonum procul arma dedere, | stare loco nescit, micat auribus et tremit artus, | collectumque premens uoluit sub naribus ignem (83–5). The young horse is already like a war-horse eager for the fray. Virgil ends the paragraph with mythical horses, some explicitly assigned to Grai … poetae (90); animal and human have hitherto been discreetly assimilated, but the metamorphosed Saturn (92–3) mixes animal and divine stridently. Employment of myth seems emphatically characteristic of poetry; but this distinction is weakened by Xen. Cyn. 1.1–17 (!) or Var. RR 2.5.5 (including Jupiter’s metamorphosis into a bull).21 41–4. The text of the opening (if it is the opening) is uncertain ( L: C (the only MSS): < > Blass). A possible version is offered above; neither Widdra’s nor G. Pierleoni’s (G. Pierleoni, Xenophontis opuscula [Rome, 1933], 299) seems possible. On Simon and Xenophon: J. Althoff, ‘Form und Funktion der beiden hippologischen Schriften Xenophons Hipparchicus und De re equestri (mit einem Blick auf Simon von Athen)’, in Fögen (n. 2), 235–52; on horsemanship: J.K. Anderson, Ancient Greek Horsemanship (Berkeley, 1961). 20 For the latest edition of Varro, with abundant notes, see J. Heurgon and C. Guiraud, Varron, Économie rurale. Texte établi, traduit et commenté, 3 vols. (Paris, 1978–97). For a substantial treatment of Varro’s work, see Diederich (n. 4), 22–53, 172–209, 297–368, 410–19; cf. also J.E. Skydsgaard, Varro the Scholar: Studies in the First Book of Varro’s De Re Rustica (Copenhagen, 1968). 21 On mythology in the Georgics see W. Frentz, Mythologisches in Vergils Georgica, Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 21 (Meisenheim am Glan, 1967); M. Gale, Virgil on the Nature of Things: The Georgics, Lucretius and the Didactic Tradition (Cambridge, 2000), ch. 4. On the anthropomorphizing language used of animals in the Georgics, see M. Gale, ‘Man and beast in

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Some of Columella’s work was published before A.D. 65; his account of the horse essentially reworks Varro’s. Xenophon’s approach may well have affected him; the influence of Virgil’s depiction is clear. So Columella’s version of the desirable chest is lato et musculorum toris | numeroso pectore | (RR 6.29.2). He is more interested than Varro in mental qualities, and separates them explicitly from the body as Xenophon does (cf. 6.29.5, and, on other animals, 6.1.1, 2.2, 37.4). Unlike Varro, he starts with the mental, separating it overtly from the physical (corporis uero forma, 6.29.2). cum uero natus est pullus, | confestim licet indolem aestimare; | si hilaris, si intrepidus, si neque conspectu nouae rei neque auditu | terretur, si ante gregem procurrit, si lasciuia et alacritate, | interdum et cursu certaminis22 | aequalis exsuperat, si fossam sine cunctatione transilit, | pontem flumenque transcendit, | haec erunt honesti animi documenta. (6.29.1) When the foal is born, one can swiftly judge its character. If it is cheerful, if it is fearless, if it is not alarmed by seeing or hearing something new, if it runs ahead of the herd, if it excels the other foals in playfulness and keenness, and in occasional running contests, if it leaps over ditches without hesitation and crosses bridges and rivers: these will be proofs of an admirable spirit.

The bridge and the noises come from Virgil; but more importantly the noble valour of the animal is now conveyed. The sequence of conditional clauses is not just a list but a rhetorical accumulation, which culminates in the moral main clause; this is apparent from the first three conditionals. The physical description follows Varro’s string of ablatives, but near the end suddenly produces a climax which confers elevation on the horse and the account: sitque sic uniuersum corpus conpositum ut sit grande, sublime, erectum (6.29.3). The adjectives have a metaliterary resonance: the writing is conscious of its own ambition. Columella returns to the mental with mores autem laudantur qui … (6.29.4).23 In this case the poetic passage separates itself stylistically from the two prose passages; but the two prose passages differ from each other. The difference is caused by the impact of Latin poetry as well as of Greek prose. Poetry’s range of language enables boundaries to be tacitly transgressed; but the later prose passage takes up the suggestions of the poetic language within a more directly philosophical framework. III. DOGS (AND DOLPHINS) Other creatures will bring us further into the division of human from animal, and into the wide aims and involved intertextuality of prose. An affective element was important in the passage of Columella; it actually forms part of Xenophon’s rhetorical purpose in the Cynegetica. He wishes to inspire young men to hunting (1.18, 13.1–18). His description of dogs in action at 6.15–16 presents strings of adjectives and participial phrases: not an instructive list, but an atmospheric evocation of the Lucretius and the Georgics’, CQ 41 (1991), 414–26, esp. 417–18. In G. 3.81 more decadent senses of luxuriat, at least, may be pointedly cancelled out; in 84 cowardly connotations of tremit are forcefully excluded. fremit is a simpler verb in the simile at Ov. Met. 3.704. For Virgil’s adaptation of Varro cf. E.W. Leach, ‘Georgics 2 and the poem’, Arethusa 14 (1981), 35–48; R.F. Thomas, ‘Prose into poetry: tradition and meaning in Vergil’s Georgics’, HSCP 91 (1987), 229–60. 22 Perhaps read cursus certamine. 23 Columella’s emotive and extravagant account of mares’ passion shortly before (6.27.3–7) is strongly affected by Virgil, of whom he says in quoting neque enim poeta licentius dicit (6.27.4). Contrast Var. RR 2.7.7–8 (though a drastic anecdote follows at 2.7.9). On Columella, see Diederich (n. 4), 53–68, 209–58, 368–95.

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dogs’ enthusiasm and tumultuous activity. So:

24 … (6.16, ‘when they are near the hare, they will make this clear to the hunter, shaking their whole bodies along with their tails, charging against the hare in warlike fashion, racing alongside each other in competition, running together in toil, uniting, quickly parting, charging once more’). He repeatedly gives the words to be used by the hunter to dogs and others (6.17–20), not because the hunter needs a script but to capture and transmit the mood: (6.17). Such use of the language of everyday speech might seem available to prose only; but poetry too can imitate it from a distance (Eur. – metaphorical). Interest in commuBacch. 977 nication and feeling between man and animals will recur in writing on dogs.25 Xenophon’s treatment of rearing and naming puppies (7.3–5) guides later treatments. Arrian was consul c. A.D. 130; his intertextuality with Xenophon in his own Cynegetica goes further than, and perhaps draws on, Xenophon’s with Simon. Arrian on this subject (Cyn. 20.30.2–31.2) cites and quotes Xenophon explicitly; but he deliberately omits some of Xenophon’s most striking phrases. So at Xen. Cyn. 7.3 puppies should be suckled by their own mothers, not other bitches: … (‘embraces’). The last emotive and anthropomorphizing phrase is omitted at Arr. Cyn. 30.2. Xenophon’s list of suitable names is also omitted (Xen. 7.5, cf. Arr. 31.2); but here a more intimate intertextuality comes in. Arrian so identified himself with the adored Xenophon that he adopted his name, and gave the last name in Xenophon’s list to a beloved dog of his own (5.6). Stepping over boundaries of literature as the dog has stepped over boundaries of species, he climactically names and memorializes the dog along with himself and his work:

<

>

† (5.6, ‘Hence I mean not to hesitate in writing down the dog’s very name, so that for the future too … has been left of her, that Xenophon the Athenian had a dog called Rush, most swift and wise and …’).26

24 I have changed the standard punctuation so as to give more point and force. 25 Xenophon’s, and Arrian’s, treatises are commented on by A.A. Phillips and M.M. Willcock, Xenophon and Arrian: On Hunting ( ) (Warminster, 1999). On hunting see J.K. Anderson, Hunting in the Ancient World (Berkeley, 1985). The exact text at Xen. Cyn. 6.17 is uncertain; cf. also 6.19, 20, Arr. Cyn. 18.1. For excited exclamation which evokes hunting cf. Pl. Rep. 432D2–3. 26 Some supplement is needed before ; e.g. would lead better into than Castiglioni’s . For the last word Hercher proposes the slightly weak , taken from 5.2, Sykutris ; Professor L. Battezzato attractively suggests (cf. hilaris of animals?). P.A. Stadter, ‘Xenophon in Arrian’s Cynegeticus’, GRBS 17 (1976), 157–67, at 163, n. 15 thinks that Horme was ‘probably male’. See that article and id., Arrian of Nicomedia (Chapel Hill, 1980), ch. 4 for Arrian’s treatise and its relation to Xenophon. For a relationship between authors approaching identity cf. Ennius’ reincarnation as Homer (Ann. I.ii–x; testimonia O. Skutsch, The Annals of Q. Ennius: Edited with Introduction and Commentary [Oxford, 1985], 150–3). On the names of dogs see E. Bäcker, De canum nominibus Graecis (Diss. Königsberg, 1884).

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Horme is made to surpass her species particularly in her command of language: she has more sounds than any dog Arrian has seen, and communicates with her voice (5.5). He treats her reaction to mention of a whip as an understanding of the word, not just the speaker’s tone (left out until the end). He gives a whole sequence of her actions here: the reader is to be amused by her vehemence and her quasi-human behaviour, but also impressed. …

(5.5, ‘she goes up to the man who has mentioned it, and crouches and begs him, and joins her mouth to his as if kissing, and jumps on him and hangs from his neck and does not let go until the angry man has desisted from his threat’). Epicureans might view human language as an extension of animal sounds (Lucr. 5.1056–90); but language is commonly seen as a human prerogative (Cic. Inv. 1.5, etc.). The whole passage is thoughtful as well as touching. Its intensely first-person quality distinguishes it from didactic poetry, and also from most didactic prose – but not from epigram (e.g. Mart. 1.109.6 hanc [a named dog] tu si queritur loqui putabis). Some types of poetry can encompass such lowly domestic affection and praise, not without an element of humour; but didactic prose can choose to follow them. In the content and the intertextuality of this passage, literariness, emotion and the author’s private world are connected in self-consciously surprising ways.27 In poetry, we may briefly mention Grattius and [Oppian] on puppies; Grattius is a contemporary of Ovid, [Oppian’s] four-book poem probably appeared in A.D. 212–17. Grattius begins from Xenophon’s recommendation of simple food; he adds the unpoetic maza (308, ‘barley-loaf ’), and relishes the word. The theme of deleterious luxury enables him to rise into the human (humanos non est magis altera sensus sc. than luxury of taste, 310). He sweeps onward through geography, history and empire, addressing Cyrus, Greece and Serranus, and culminating in heaven (325). Such moralizing expansions are common say in Seneca’s prose Natural Questions (e.g. 1.17.4–10: history of mirrors and decline). But Grattius’ epic genre gives self-conscious point to the ascent, and to the tension between grandeur and relevance: scilicet exiguis magna sub imagine rebus | prospicies (326–7).28 [Oppian], though heeding Xenophon on short names (Cyn. 1.444–5), undoes him on feeding, and takes off into aspiring fantasy. While suckling from other dogs would indeed be bad, deer, gazelles, a tame lioness, or a she-wolf would be fine (availability is not discussed). The puppies would become strong and swift, (1.443). The humanizing heightens the crossspecies play to close. A passage not on dogs illustrates strong affectivity, with a rhetorical purpose; it illustrates too the interest of poetry as well as prose in the borders of human and animal. Oppian’s five-book poem on how to fish (probably A.D. 177–8) is passionately 27 On epigrams about dogs cf. M. Citroni, M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammaton liber primus. Introduzione, testo, apparato critico e commento (Florence, 1975), 331–4; G.O. Hutchinson, Propertius: Elegies Book IV (Cambridge, 2006), 112. For Lucr. 5.1056–90 see G. Campbell, Lucretius on Creation and Evolution: A Commentary on De Rerum Natura Book Five, Lines 772–1104 (Oxford, 2003), 283–94. 28 Commentaries on Grattius: P.J. Enk, Gratti Cynegeticon quae supersunt. Cum prolegomenis, notis criticis, commentario exegetico (2 vols., Zutphen and London, 1918); R. Verdière, Gratti Cynegeticon libri I quae supersunt (2 vols., Wetteren, 1964); C. Formicola, Il Cynegeticon di Grattio. Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione e commento (Bologna, 1988). For dogs in Grattius see J. Henderson, ‘Going to the dogs/Grattius <&> the Augustan subject’, PCPS 47 (2001), 1–22.

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opposed to the fishing of dolphins, on the grounds of their mental equality with humans, and their friendship with humans on equal terms (Hal. 5.416–24). Not far from the close of his poem he depicts dolphin-fishers attacking a she-dolphin and her two young (5.519–88). The ‘mother’ (dolphin) is likened to a ‘mother’ (human) at the sack of a city (5.553–5): thus the animal sphere, in reversal of epic norms, is the target domain or tenor of the imagery, the human the source domain or vehicle. The likeness is focalized, as often in Oppian, through an ideal spectator: | (5.553).29 The mother is given a speech, as she urges one of her children to flee. The device is used elsewhere by Oppian (as at 2.305–7); but it has special force when the attack is on mankind ( | , 5.560–1). That force subserves the persuasive ends of the author: the narrator’s attack is now voiced by the character. The poem is exploiting direct speech with relation to humans and animals in an entirely different fashion from Xenophon’s prose; one could not imagine such a device even in the Georgics. But its artifice is acknowledged at the end, with no loss of | (5.565–6). Poetry pathos: no less than prose is interested in divisions and difference; it can exploit the possibilities of its language to transgress supposed divisions, not merely in imaginative exploration, but with intellectual and argumentative point. IV. MAKE-UP (AND THE GODS) The questions we have been exploring could be extended into many other areas, and into other divisions of the world. It can only be mentioned briefly here that on the gods, say, prose and poetry show a kindred intellectual energy, kindred stylistic devices and implicit and explicit interaction. So on the causes of lightning, Lucretius and Cicero alike heap up mocking questions about Jupiter (e.g. Lucr. 6.404–5 in mare qua porro mittit ratione? quid undas | arguit …?, Cic. Div. 2.45 quid enim proficit, cum in medium mare fulmen iecit?; cf. Sen. NQ 2.42.1). The vigour of the Latin writers, prose and verse, may be set against the austere eloquence of Epicurus, at least in the condensed account of the Letter to Pythocles (104, [‘makes deductions’]). Although lightning is part of the epic conception of Jupiter, we do not here find Lucretius directly confronting narrative epic (contrast 1.68–9). His concern is rather with another kind of carmina, the books of the Etruscan experts (6.381–2). A plurality of divinities wielding thunder (6.387–98) suggests Etruscan belief, not the world of epic (cf. Plin. HN 2.138). It is Cicero who engages most explicitly with narrative epic: his own account (fr. 10 Courtney) of the portents before the Catilinarian conspiracy (Div. 1.17–22, 2.45). In a complex combination of generic, personal, political and philosophical elements, he stresses the self-contradiction (urges me meis uersibus |, 2.45; contra facta tua et contra scripta, 2.46), but he allows an 29 For the simile cf. Hom. Od. 8.523–30, with I.J.F. de Jong, A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey (Cambridge, 2001), 216–17; for the use of cf. Il. 17.3–4. [Oppian’s] remarkable simile on the confused searching dog and the pregnant girl (Cyn. 1.494–505) may be contrasted with Valerius Flaccus’ simile comparing Medea about to leave home with a rabid dog (7.121–6). The latest edition of Oppian: F. Fajen, Oppianus: Halieutica. Einführung, Text, Übersetzung in deutscher Sprache, Ausführliche Kataloge der Meeresfauna (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1999); see also N. Hopkinson, Greek Poetry of the Imperial Period: An Anthology (Cambridge, 1994), 185–97; F. Fajen, ‘Oppianus Ciliciensis 1930–1999’, Lustrum 41 (1999), 75–104; E. Rebuffat, . Tecniche di composizione poetica negli Halieutika di Oppiano (Florence, 2001).

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impression to linger: the signs of so great an event may in some sense have been true (2.46–8).30 In discussing the argument from design, the Stoic Manilius engages explicitly with Epicurus, but only through his language with Lucretius: ut uoluit credi, qui primus moenia mundi | seminibus struxit minimis inque illa resoluit (1.486–7). While Manilius here employs compact metaphors of building, Cicero’s Stoic speaker had deployed an elaborate hypothetical simile on the order in a house or the like (ut, si quis, etc. ND 2.15) – an argumentative version of a poetic device. This is made to contrast with the drier abstraction of the Stoic Chrysippus’ prose (2.16 = SVF III.1012). The treatment of the gods, then, would further display the importance, and the unpredictability, of the relation between poetry and prose, and the many factors which can be involved.31 But we may end by returning to the elemental form of the list, which well exhibits the scope and complication of stylistic relationships between didactic poetry and prose. Catalogues are an important form in narrative epic; lists bulk large in the least literary bureaucracy. The relatively unexalted subject of cosmetics illustrates how the opposition of poetry and prose is less straightforward than we might think. Medical recipes, under which ancient make-up falls, appear in simple form on papyrus: so 1180 (first–second century A.D.), fr. A, col. ii. 24–6, 32–4 32 [ ] | | … ( ) | ( ) ( ) ´ ( )( ) ´ | ( ) ´ (‘Give your face a good complexion by crushing bitter almonds and mixing them with water; smear them on … Orange face-powder: bark of the root of convolvulus, litharge, helichrysum, schistus: 12 drachmas’ weight of each; white lead: 36; Minaean red ochre: 8; vinegar: a sufficiency’). But verse is often used for medical recipes. Galen (second– third (?) century A.D.) commends Andromachus and Damocrates (both first century A.D.) for using verse: verse is easier to remember and harder to pervert, even if it made 30 For the De Divinatione cf., as well as A.S. Pease, M. Tulli Ciceronis De diuinatione (2 vols., Urbana, 1920–3), D. Wardle, Cicero on Divination: De Divinatione, Book 1, Translated with Introduction and Historical Commentary (Oxford, 2006) (144–5, 160 on the discussion in Book 1). Cf. further M. Beard, ‘Cicero and divination: the formation of a Latin discourse’, JRS 76 (1986), 33–46. For Etruscans on gods and lightning, cf. S. Weinstock, ‘Libri fulgurales’, PBSR 19 (1951), 122–53, at 121–9; H.M. Hine, An Edition with Commentary of Seneca, Natural Questions, Book Two (New York, 1981), 389–90; J.-P. Jannot, Devins, dieux et démons. Regards sur la religion de l’Étrurie antique (Paris, 1998), 40–3. On Epicurus’ Letter to Pythocles, see D. Sedley, Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom (Cambridge, 1998), 119–20. 31 The argument in Cicero, based on Cleanthes (SVF I 528), is strictly meant to show how (true) ideas of the divine come to be formed in human minds; but in Balbus’ speech it becomes an argument for the existence of gods (cf. ND 3.16–17, 25–8). On such arguments in the Stoics, see M. Dragona-Monachou, The Stoic Arguments for the Existence and the Providence of the Gods (Athens, 1976), esp. 88–91; K. Algra, ‘Stoic theology’, in B. Inwood (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge, 2003), 153–78, at 156–65, esp. 161–2; J.C. Thom, Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Tübingen, 2005), 70–1; D. Sedley, Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 2007), ch. 7, esp. 205–13. The comparison with a house comes already in Aristotle (fr. 12 Rose, Cic. ND 2.95); alternatives, and elaborate detail on the house, appear in Philo, Leg. Alleg. 3.98–9 (questionably seen since I. Bywater, ‘Aristotle’s dialogue “on Philosophy” ’, Journal of Philology 7 [1877], 64–87, at 82–4, as based on Aristotle). For Lucretian language in the lines of Manilius cf. Lucr. 1.57, 59–60, 66–7, 73, 628, 2.708, 5.453–4. 32 … is given by I. Andorlini, ‘Un ricettario da Tebtynis: parti inedite di PSI 1180’, in I. Andorlini (ed.), Testi medici su papiro. Atti del Seminario di studio (Firenze, 3–4 giugno 2002) (Florence, 2004), 81–118; but the infinitive seems less plausible than the middle imperative suggested here, not least because of .

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Andromachus less clear than he could have been (Antid. 14.32, 44–5, 89 Kühn; Damocrates used iambics). This strikingly practical argument for verse is found already in the second century B.C. (probably) at Ps.-Scymnus 33–42: remembering unbound discourse ( , cf. oratio soluta) is like holding unbound logs. (The comic trimeter is favoured for clarity.) Medical recipes even have distinctive metrical tendencies: elegiacs are much favoured. Galen twice quotes entire the of Andromachus, Nero’s physician (GDK no. 174-line elegiac recipe-poem 62). Galen’s Theriaca begins with a scene reminiscent of the introduction to Cicero’s Topica: Galen has found his addressee reading Andromachus, whose work Galen admires. The pragmatics of prose and verse are not easily separated in this area.33 Ovid’s poem on make-up derives from this poetic tradition, already seen in Eudemus’ elegiacs (SH 412A, second–first century B.C.) as well as in Nicander’s hexameters. Here is to be found the origin of his elegiac didactic; the metaphorically medical Remedia Amoris closes the series. Ovid’s elaborate prologue approves make-up, but also limits its importance and value (43–50); the opening of Aristotle’s Rhetoric is not wholly dissimilar. For all the humour and the wider bearing of the work, he also takes on the tradition of presenting a list, numbers, and unusual words (unusual in poetry). Like Andromachus and others he relishes the idea of distant and diverse origins – an element important in the poetry and the ideology of luxury: so hordea, quae Libyci ratibus misere coloni (Med. 53), cf. Androm. GDK 62.146 ; Illyrica quae uenit iris humo (Med. 74), cf. Nic. Ther. 607 . Nicander is here more precise and evocative, and proceeds to a myth full of irony: Cadmus and Harmonia’s transformation into fierce snakes (608–9).34

33 The reference to in Gal. Ther. 14.210 Kühn indicates the elder Andromachus, and presumably this work. On Galen’s approach to Andromachus’ poetry see P. Luccioni, ‘Raisons de la prose et du mètre: Galien et la poésie didactique d’Andromachos l’Ancien’, in N. Palmieri (ed.), Rationnel et irrationnel dans la médecine ancienne et médiévale. Aspects historiques, scientifiques et culturels (Saint-Étienne, 2003), 59–75; S. Vogt, ‘“ … er schrieb in Versen, und er tat recht daran”: Lehrdichtung im Urteil Galens’, in Fögen (n. 2), 51–78. For lists in epic, cf. now S. Kyriakidis, Catalogues of Proper Names in Latin Epic Poetry: Lucretius – Virgil – Ovid (Newcastle, 2007). 1180 is first fully published by Andorlini (n. 32); for the lines quoted see 94, 109–11. For medical recipes, etc. cf. L.C. Youtie, ‘Three medical prescriptions for eye-salves: P. Mich. Inv. 482’, in J. Bingen, G. Cambier, G. Nachtergael (edd.), Le Monde grec. Pensée, littérature, histoire, documents. Hommages à Claire Préaux (Brussels, 1975), 555–63; H. Harrauer and P.J. Sijpesteijn, Medizinische Rezepte und Verwandtes (Vienna, 1981); M.H. Marganne, Inventaire analytique des papyrus grecs de médecine (Geneva, 1981); C. Schulze, Die pharmazeutische Fachliteratur in der Antike. Eine Einführung2 (Göttingen, 2003). For Ps.-Scymnus see the recent editions of D. Marcotte, Les Géographes grecs i. Introduction générale. Pseudo-Scymnos, Circuit de la Terre (Paris, 2002), and M. Korenjak, Die Welt-Rundreise eines anonymen griechischen Autors (‘Pseudo-Skymnos’) (Hildesheim, 2003); on the prologue see R.L. Hunter, ‘The prologue of the Periodos to Nicomedes (“Pseudo-Scymnus”)’, in Harder, Regtuit, Wakker (n. 10), 123–40. On elegiacs and medical recipes cf. M.L. West, Greek Metre (Oxford, 1982), 181. 34 For the Theriaca see J.-M. Jacques, Nicandre. Œuvres ii. Les Thériaques. Fragments iologiques antérieurs à Nicandre. Texte établi et traduit (Paris, 2002). For the Medicamina see G. Rosati, Ovidio, I cosmetici delle donne (Venice, 1985), and V. Rimell, Ovid’s Lovers: Desire, Difference and the Poetic Imagination (Cambridge, 2006), ch. 2; for the designation see Ars 3.205–6, with R.K. Gibson, Ovid: Ars Amatoria Book 3 (Cambridge, 2003), 179–80. The title of the Ars Amatoria points to a prose tradition: cf. Ath. 162 b on Sphodrias’ (not Sphodrius’) evidently racy ; N. Heinsius, Commentarius in P. Ovidii Nasonis Opera Omnia, ed. J.F. Fischer (Leipzig, 1758), 259.

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What distinguishes Ovid’s presentation is the robust sense of action. So at Med. 57–62 the couplets end lenta iube scabra frangat asella mola … contere in haec (solidi sexta fac assis eat) … protinus in cumeris omnia cerne cauis (‘bid the slow-moving she-donkey break them on the rough millstone … rub those into them (make a sixth part of a full pound go in) … straight away separate them all in hollow baskets’). Andromachus’ poem has much more the character of an embellished series of nouns. This difference is a less extreme form of that between Manilius and ‘Manetho’. The poetry in this area ranges widely. The Ovid should be seen, not as bizarrely tedious, but as a particularly animated version of a widely read type of poetry. This type bears an elaborate relation to prose, in form and purpose; Ovid’s poem cannot plausibly be viewed as simple parody. Play on women, religion, genre is another matter; it flourishes in the Medicamina, but is typical of Ovid’s work in other sorts of poem too. This brief exploration may suggest the complexity of the relations between prose and poetry. Obviously, didactic prose and didactic poetry differ in expression and stylistic form: we have seen the exploitation of devices only possible in poetry or in prose. But we have also seen links and connections between stylistic forms in didactic prose and verse, and we have seen the enormous range within didactic prose and within didactic poetry. In the goals they pursue, and in what they offer to the reader, facile segregation is not possible. Neither type of work has a monopoly on affective or atmospheric writing, on argument or persuasive ends. Frequent in both are intellectual depth of content and a concern with divisions and their limits. Intertextuality is fundamental to both prose and verse, but it includes their interest in and impact on each other. We should not think of didactic prose as the banausic slave, offering lowly matter which the master can transform into art. It would be apter to think of a fascinated and flirtatious relationship between the two types of writing: even if one type notionally has a hierarchical superiority and the two are notionally contrasted, this does not prevent intricate interactions and many resemblances. Our approach to ancient didactic writing needs to be broadened, our understanding of the relation between prose and poetry deepened. Exeter College, Oxford

G.O. HUTCHINSON [email protected]

Classical Quarterly 59.1 212–226 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000160

212 SENECA AND FELICIO: AND PURPOSE PATRICIAIMAGERY AND LINDSAY WATSON

SENECA AND FELICIO: IMAGERY AND PURPOSE INTRODUCTION Seneca’s twelfth Moral Epistle is a reflection on old age. He begins with a prooemium in which he narrates a visit to one of his estates near Rome, where an encounter with various things familiar from his youth, but now grown old, is a potent reminder of his own incipient decrepitude: Quocumque me uerti, argumenta senectutis meae uideo. Veneram in suburbanum meum et querebar de impensis aedificii dilabentis. Ait uilicus mihi non esse neglegentiae suae uitium, omnia se facere, sed uillam ueterem esse. Haec uilla inter manus meas creuit: quid mihi futurum est, si tam putria sunt aetatis meae saxa? Iratus illi proximam occasionem stomachandi arripio. (2) ‘Apparet’ inquam ‘has platanos neglegi: nullas habent frondes. Quam nodosi sunt et retorridi rami, quam tristes et squalidi trunci! Hoc non accideret si quis has circumfoderet, si inrigaret.’ Iurat per genium meum se omnia facere, in nulla re cessare curam suam, sed illas uetulas esse. Quod intra nos sit, ego illas posueram, ego illarum primum uideram folium. (3) Conuersus ad ianuam ‘quis est iste?’ inquam ‘iste decrepitus et merito ad ostium admotus? Foras enim spectat. Unde istunc nanctus es? Quid te delectauit alienum mortuum tollere?’ At ille ‘non cognoscis me?’ inquit: ‘ego sum Felicio, cui solebas sigillaria adferre; ego sum Philositi uilici filius, deliciolum tuum’. ‘Perfecte’ inquam ‘iste delirat: pupulus, etiam delicium meum factus est? Prorsus potest fieri: dentes illi cum maxime cadunt’. Wherever I turn, I see proofs of my old age. I had come to my estate outside Rome and was complaining about the cost of repairing a dilapidated building. My manager told me that it wasn’t the fault of negligence on his part, he was doing all he could, but the villa was old. This villa grew up under my hands: what will become of me, if stones the same age as I am are in such a state of decay? Angry at him, I seized the first opportunity to let off steam: ‘These plane trees are clearly being neglected: they don’t have any leaves. How knotted and dried up are their branches, how miserable and rough are their trunks! This wouldn’t happen if someone dug trenches around them and watered them.’ He swears by my guardian spirit that he is doing everything, has given them all his care in every respect, but they are old. Between you and me, I had planted them, I had seen their first leaf. Turning to the door, I said: ‘Who is he, that decrepit creature? He deserves to have been put in charge of the door, because he’s facing out of doors. Where did you get him from? What possessed you to take up someone else’s corpse?’ But he [the old fellow] said: ‘Don’t you recognise me? I am Felicio: you used to give me little presents at the Saturnalia; I’m the son of your manager Philositus, your little pet’. I said: ‘He’s completely raving: has he become a little boy again, my pet slave even? But certainly it is possible: even now his teeth are falling out’.

The pathetic image of the elderly slave Felicio, now useful for nothing but doorkeeping and as the butt of seemingly callous jokes, has frequently been discussed in isolation by historians of Roman slavery.1 But the Felicio episode can only be fully appreciated in its context, that is, as part of an integrated narrative of a visit by Seneca to his estate. To illustrate the point that the estate and its contents, like Seneca, 1 E.g. T. Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (London, 1981), 129; H. Parker, ‘Crucially funny or Tranio on the couch: the seruus callidus and jokes about torture’, TAPA 119 (1989), 233–46, at 242; K. Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge, 1994), 139; C. Laes, ‘Desperately different? Delicia children in the Roman household’, in D. Balch and C. Osiek (edd.), Early Christian Families in Context (Michigan, 2003), 298–324, at 303; cf. also A. Setaioli, ‘Seneca, lo schiavo Felicione e un iscrizione di Velia’, Prometheus 24 (1998), 149–51.

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have grown old, three examples are cited, with a progression from the inanimate villa, to the living but non-human plane trees, to the human slave Felicio.2 In a typically Senecan use of imagery, all three entities are a metaphor for senescence in general, and, in particular, the aged condition of Seneca himself.3 At the opening of the Epistle, Seneca berates his uilicus for the apparently neglected state of his villa and plantation. But on being told that this is due to old age, his recollection of building the villa and personally planting the trees brings home to him vividly how old he himself must be.4 Then comes the encounter with the slave. Again, the uilicus is criticized – this time for buying someone else’s old and unwanted seruus.5 This slave intervenes, asking his owner to recognize him as the child who was taken up as a pet (delicium) by Seneca at the time when he was establishing his estate, Felicio being the son of the then uilicus, Philositus.6 The recognition is the final element, in addition to the villa and the plane trees, associated with the early years of the estate: all three contribute to Seneca’s disquieting realization that he must be really getting on if things that he can remember from their earliest days are now old. In what follows, we will undertake a more thorough-going discussion of the prooemium to Epistle 12 than has hitherto been attempted even by scholars such as Henderson7 who have engaged with the literary subtleties of the text. First, we will subject the passage to a detailed analysis in order to demonstrate how possibly fictional details are elegantly woven together by Seneca into an artistic entity. Second, we will examine the passage in the wider context of both the twelfth Epistle and the Letters as a whole, demonstrating how it anticipates some broader patterns relating to Seneca’s protreptic techniques and themes in the work. LITERARY ARTIFICE IN 12.1–3 The reading of Epistle 12.1–3 which is undertaken below attempts to show that Seneca’s account of the visit to his farm is to a large extent a literary construct. Since this might appear to be labouring the obvious, it is vital to note that a significant number of scholars, commenting particularly on Seneca’s indifference towards Felicio’s plight, take the episode to be real.8 Even those who recognize the literary character of the work, such as Christine Richardson-Hay in her recent commentary on Book 1 of the Epistulae Morales, seem to assume that the whole episode is based 2 Cf. R. Coleman, ‘The artful moralist: a study of Seneca’s epistolary style’, CQ 24 (1974), 276–89, at 283, n. 4. 3 Coleman (n. 2) notes that it is typical of Seneca to exploit visual details for metaphorical purposes. 4 Haec uilla inter manus meas creuit: quid mihi futurum est, si tam putria sunt aetatis meae saxa? … ego illas (uetulas arbores) posueram, ego illarum primum uideram folium. 5 Owners could solve the problem of caring for old, useless slaves by selling them off: see T.G. Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History (Baltimore / London, 2003), 220–1; K. Cokayne, Experiencing Old Age in Ancient Rome (London, 2003), 171, nn. 114 and 219. 6 For adult Romans taking young slaves as delicia, cf. W.J. Slater, ‘Pueri, turba minuta’, BICS 21 (1974), 133–40, at 134–5; H.S. Nielsen, ‘Delicia in Roman Inscriptions and in the Urban Inscriptions’, ARID 19 (1990), 79–88, at 81–3; Laes (n. 1), 300–4. Many scholars (e.g. all cited in n. 1 above except Setaioli; C.D.N. Costa [ed.], Seneca: 17 Letters [Warminster, 1988], ad loc. and W.C. Summers [ed.], Select Letters of Seneca [London, 1960], ad loc.) have incorrectly assumed that Felicio was Seneca’s slave playmate as a child, which would make them contemporaries. 7 J. Henderson, Morals and Villas in Seneca’s Letters: Places to Dwell (Cambridge, 2004), 19–27. 8 E.g. the scholars listed in n. 1 above.

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on an incident which really took place and which has been exploited by Seneca as a vehicle to make a moral point.9 Others, conversely, have assumed that the account is a fiction, but without attempting to substantiate this position.10 Given this, and the further fact that discussions of ‘fictionality’ in the Epistles typically focus on the broader issue of whether or not the Letters represent a real correspondence,11 rather than on possibly fictional elements within the individual epistle, it seems worthwhile to subject sections 1–3 of Epistle 12 to a close analysis which will show how a number of ostensibly autobiographical elements are in fact so artfully contrived, so anchored in literary tradition, that it is legitimate to question whether there is any more than a soft kernel of fact at the heart of the whole episode. In arguing this, it is not our intention to suggest that the character of Felicio is a total fiction, or to deny that Seneca owned and spent time at such an estate as he describes in the Epistle: land owners regularly visited their properties to inspect the work of the uilicus for possible shortcomings, as Seneca represents himself doing here.12 This said, there are many elements in the episode which when examined closely may be shown to be intensely literary, and it is our contention that only an appreciation of this will enable us to appreciate fully Seneca’s artistry in constructing his narrative. To begin with an obvious point, Seneca’s encountering on the farm of three exempla of old age (the villa, the plane trees, the elderly Felicio) is too convenient for comfort, inviting the suspicion that at least one of the incidents was invented for the sake of completing a rhetorical triad.13 Next, let us consider the description of the villa buildings and the plane trees. The essential reality of this incident has been taken for granted, yet there is something seriously wrong with the uilicus’ explanation that their condition is unavoidable due to their extreme age. The dramatic date of the letter is A.D. 63–4, when Seneca was in his sixties.14 But the villa cannot be as old as this, despite the description of the stones as ‘of my age’ (aetatis meae), since Seneca says that he built the villa himself (haec uilla inter manus meas creuit).15 If we postulate that Seneca acquired the property in his mid to late teens at the earliest,16 this would make the house about fifty years old. 9 C. Richardson-Hay, First Lessons. Book 1 of Seneca’s Epistulae Morales: A Commentary (Bern, 2006), 29, 351. Henderson (n. 7) also seems to assume, if we understand him correctly, that the whole episode is based on a real incident, while subserving a larger philosophical purpose. 10 Cf. e.g. M.T. Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics2 (Oxford, 1992), 277 ‘(Felicio and other) slaves (named) must have existed, but did the scenes described really take place?’ 11 Cf. M. Wilson, ‘Seneca’s Epistles to Lucilius: a revaluation’, Ramus 16 (1987), 102–21, at 119, n. 3 and the bibliography there cited; Richardson-Hay (n. 9), 33–4 and n. 55 with further bibliography. 12 Agricultural writers advise landlords to undertake regular inspections of their estates in person, in order to check on the efficiency of the uilicus: cf. Cato, Agr. 2.2–4; Columella 1.7.5, 8.20; J. Carlsen, Vilici and Roman Estate Managers until AD 284 (Rome, 1995), 85–92. 13 On Seneca’s liking for grouping exempla in threes, see R.G. Mayer, ‘Roman historical exempla in Seneca’, in Sénèque et la prose latine (Fondation Hardt Entretiens 36, Geneva, 1991), 141–76 at 155–6. 14 Seneca was born between 4 and 1 B.C.: cf. M. Griffin, ‘The Elder Seneca and Spain’, JRS 62 (1972), 1–19, at 7–8, and Griffin (n. 10), 36. This would make him sixty-two at the youngest and sixty-eight at the oldest in A.D. 63–4. 15 As Nisbet–Hubbard note in commenting on Horace, Carm. 2.13.2–3, where it is said that the planter of the accursed tree on Horace’s estate <arborem> sacrilega manu / produxit, manus suggests the bestowal of personal attention. 16 Cf. Griffin (n. 10), 287, who suggests that the acquisition of the suburbanum goes back at least to ‘the days when Seneca was listening to (i.e. studying philosophy under) Sotion and

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Such a villa, built by a wealthy aristocrat, may be assumed to have been solidly constructed, and unless neglected – something that the uilicus denies – its stones would hardly be crumbling with age after such a comparatively short period of time.17 Moreover, even supposing that the uilicus was neglectful of his duties, Seneca himself, if he was really the hands-on landlord that he depicts himself as here and elsewhere (cf. Ep. 86, QNat. 3.7.1), might be expected to have noticed, and dealt with, any deterioration long before the estate got into the condition portrayed in this passage.18 Similarly, the description of the supposedly superannuated plane trees, with their parched, knotted bark and complete lack of foliage (nullas habent frondes. Quam nodosi sunt et retorridi rami, quam tristes et squalid trunci!), strikes a decidedly odd note. Elsewhere, planes are conspicuous for their abundant summer leaves, which made them extremely popular as a shade tree, and they are often associated with the locus amoenus, a setting to which the idea of shade is integral.19 More importantly, they are noteworthy for their longevity, as demonstrated by their place in stories of famously long-lived trees, such as the plane in Delphi purportedly grown there by Agamemnon (Theophr. Hist. pl. 4.13.2).20 Statius’ patron Melior had a remarkable specimen, already of a great age (Silu. 2.3), while Martial (9.61) describes one planted by Julius Caesar and still luxuriant in Martial’s day. Nowadays, planes are commonly planted on city streets, not only because of their abundant shade, but because of their hardiness and resistance to disease and pollution. The plane trees on Seneca’s estate, then, should not be in their wretched condition simply through old age. In fact, as portrayed by Seneca, they resemble modern descriptions of American sycamores (a species of plane) affected by the fungal disease anthracnose, which, left untreated, can lead to complete defoliation and a distorted appearance,21 or by the fungus Ceratocystis fimbriata platani, infestation with which results in sparse foliage, small leaves, and elongated sunken cankers on the trunk and larger branches.22 We must conclude, Attalus’; Sotion’s floruit was put by Jerome at A.D. 13 (cf. Griffin [n. 10], 37, n. 9). Since Seneca the Elder died around A.D. 40 (Griffin [n. 10], 33), the property would have legally belonged to him and have been part of the son’s peculium, but it was common for grown sons still under their father’s potestas to live separately, e.g. Roscius of Ameria lived in the countryside, on some family farms of which he had the usufruct. See J.F. Gardner, Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life (Oxford, 1998), 68–72; K.R. Bradley, Discovering the Roman Family (New York/Oxford, 1991), 163–4. 17 Stone quarried near Rome was soft and buildings which used it did not last more than 80 years, according to Vitruvius (2.7.1–2, 8.8), who also describes structural techniques for ensuring that stone buildings would last as long as possible. For the importance of siting villa buildings to avoid collapse of the structure, cf. Columella 1.5.9–10. So even if Seneca’s suburban villa was made of local stone it should not have fallen into a state of decay after 50 years. 18 Thanks to Miriam Griffin for this point. 19 On plane trees being prized for their shade, cf. Plin. HN 12.6–12. For shade as a feature of the locus amoenus, cf. H.-J. Van Dam (ed.), P. Papinius Statius Siluae Book II (Leiden, 1984), 314 (note on Silu. 2.3.39–42). See also G. Schönbeck, Der Locus Amoenus von Homer bis Horaz (Diss. Heidelberg, 1962), 28–9, 49–56. 20 The tree at Delphi is also mentioned by Pliny (HN 16.238) in a list of famous long-lived trees, which includes some planes. Further examples of long-lived planes from antiquity are cited by V. Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Haustiere9 (Berlin, 1911), 296. In more recent times, a plane tree has stood in front of Kew Palace in Richmond, near London, since 1762 and is still in fine condition (for a picture see: http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/plants/trees/oldlions.html). 21 S. Nameth and J. Chatfield, ‘Anthracnose leaf blight of shade trees’, Ohio State University Extension Fact Sheet: Plant Pathology (http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/3048.html); cf. P.D. Manion, Tree Disease Concepts (New Jersey, 1981), 140–1. 22 G. Moorman, ‘Canker stain of sycamore and London plane’, Penn State University, Cooperative Extension, Plant Disease Facts (2006) (http://www.ppath.cas.psu.edu/extension/plant_ disease/cankerst.html).

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then, either that the incident of the planes is an invention, just as the famous plane tree under which Plato’s Phaedrus was set was less a feature of the literal landscape than a construction of Plato’s pen (cf. Cic. De or. 1.28), or else that the plane trees on Seneca’s estate really were in a poor condition but that Seneca, in a piece of fiction, attributes to old age, for purposes of his discussion, symptoms in fact caused by disease.23 The doubts just thrown up as to the factual nature of the narrative are reinforced by the extremely literary character of the passage, which is marked by a number of well-established tropes. As symbols of human old age, the villa and trees are to a considerable degree personified. The phrase which Seneca uses of the estate, for instance, inter manus meas creuit, probably means ‘grew up, was reared, under my care’: this is its sense in the only parallel for the phrase which we have found, Apuleius, Met. 6.22, where Jupiter declares that he was responsible for the rearing of Cupid.24 Moreover, the conceit that the stones are coeval with Seneca (aetatis meae saxa 12.1) likewise seems to personify the villa: the stone quarried to build the villa was of course of indeterminable age, but the age of the stones is equated with the age of the villa, as if the stones, as part of the villa, had their day of birth at the time that the villa was built and a finite life-span, involving growing old and decaying. In particular, it is tempting to read the dilapidated building of the suburbanum (aedificii dilabentis 12.1) as a symbol of Seneca’s own decrepitude, for the image of a collapsing edifice is often associated figuratively with the idea of old age, and it is an image for which Seneca shows a particular fondness, as at 30.2, where an old man’s body is compared to a putre aedificium.25 And the symbolic equation of the deteriorating fabric of the building with Seneca’s own decaying frame is powerfully reinforced by the epithet selected to describe the former, putris: this term and its cognates are often used to characterize the physical disintegration attendant upon old age.26 The plane trees of section 2 are similarly replete with symbolic resonances. The idea of trees as images of human life was common in Roman thought.27 The pattern in such symbolic relationships is that the condition of a tree or trees is somehow mirrored in its human referent. Thus, for example, Pliny records the phenomenon of two myrtles, one known as the ‘patrician myrtle’ and the other as the ‘plebeian’, which flourished or withered according to the relative dominance or diminution of the 23 For circumfodere as a remedy for disease, cf. Plin. HN 17.247. It must be admitted that in modern times the oriental plane (the species of plane known to the ancient world) is said to be relatively immune to the diseases nowadays affecting the sycamore, but this does not exclude the possibility that in Seneca’s day planes suffered from some sort of disease to which they have become immune over two millennia. 24 Apuleius, Met. 6.22 at tamen modestiae meae memor quodque inter istas meas manus creueris cuncta perficiam (in the finale to the Cupid and Psyche story, Jupiter says that despite Cupid’s insolent behaviour he will arrange his marriage with Psyche because of his clemency and because he raised him). 25 Cf. Ep. 58.35; De ira 2.28.4; QNat. 6.10.1–2; Cic. Sen. 72 with Powell; Parkin (n. 5), 341, n. 55. Rhiannon Ash additionally draws our attention to Tac. Hist. 1.27.2 where Otho claims that emi sibi praedia uetustate suspecta, ‘is perhaps a metaphor for the state of the empire in the hands of the elderly Galba’. Cf. also (in a slightly different context) the image of life as a house at Sen. Ep. 70.16. 26 Cf. L.C. Watson, A Commentary on Horace’s Epodes (Oxford, 2003), on Epod. 8.7 (where putrida … pectora should refer to elderly mothers, not the Parcae), also the figurative use at Prop. 4.5.69 atque animam in tegetes putrem exspirare paternas. 27 Cf. R. G. M. Nisbet, ‘The oak and the axe: symbolism in Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus 1618ff.’, in S.J. Harrison (ed.), Collected Papers on Latin Literature (Oxford, 1995), 202–12, who states at 202 ‘the life moves in human rhythms’.

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authority of the Senate or people (HN 15.120–1). In a comparable effect, the rotten and barren trees which grow on the quondam site of Troy (Luc. 9.966–9) reflect the decayed glory of the Trojan kingdom.28 Significantly too, Pliny (HN 17.218–19) relates the diseases and death of trees, in terms of both pathology and nomenclature, to those of humans, particularly those of the slave or lower classes. And in the most recent account of tree-symbolism, Philip Hardie has demonstrated that the plane tree of Atedius Melior in Stat. Silu. 2.3 figuratively echoes a number of its owner’s traits.29 All this suggests that the aged and deteriorated condition of the plane trees has similarly been contrived as an image of Seneca’s own decrepitude, a conclusion which looks the more inviting, since the comparison of trees with people is a conceit for which Seneca shows an especial fondness in his tragic corpus.30 To turn now to Seneca’s nuanced use of language, the symbolic equation of the aged planes with their elderly owner is surely put beyond doubt by his choice of adjectives to characterize the former: for nodosus, retorridus, tristis, squalidus and uetulus, while commonly used of trees, are equally at home in the human sphere, not least in the sphere of human old age. To take squalidus first. Pliny, for example, speaks of the plebeian myrtle mentioned above as retorrida ac squalida during the era of senatorial ascendancy (HN 15.121), but persons can equally be squalidi (Plaut. Truc. 933, huncine hominem te amplexari tam horridum ac tam squalidum?; Lucr. 5.956 squalida membra), and the term is often applied, in differing contexts, to the aged:31 cf. Ter. Eun. 235–6, hominem … / uideo sentum squalidum aegrum, pannis annisque obsitum; Plin. Ep. 4.9.22, et in procero corpore maesta et squalida senectus; Apul. Met. 6.18, huic squalido seni.32 Again, while tristis is often used, as here, of trees or plants in a ‘wretched’ condition,33 or else, in reference to the arbor infelix concept, of trees which do not yield flowers or fruit,34 the adjective is also self-evidently applicable to humans. Significantly, it was twice used by Virgil to characterize old age (tristisque senectus, G. 3.67, Aen. 6.275) – passages which Seneca quotes more than once in his Epistles, suggesting that its association with senectus may be in play subtextually here.35 The same duality of reference to the human and arboreal realms is likewise seen in the rare adjective nodosus.36 Used both here and elsewhere of wood that is ‘knotted’ or ‘gnarled’ (cf. Luc. 3.440, nodosa … ilex; Plin. HN 16.65, materies [tiliae si mas est] nodosa; Juv. 8.247, nodosam … uitem),37 nodosus can also characterize the knot-like deformations of the joints caused by gout,38 a disease from which Seneca 28

Nisbet (n. 27), 207. P. Hardie, ‘Statius’ Ovidian poetics and the tree of Atedius Melior’, in R. Nauta, H.-J. Van Dam and J. Smolenaars (edd.), Flavian Poetry (Leiden, 2006), 207–21. 30 Cf. Nisbet (n. 27). 31 In part perhaps for the sake of the alliteration with senex or senectus? See, in addition to the examples cited immediately below in the text, Seneca the Elder, Contr. 1.1.19 senex squalidus barba capilloque; Sen. HF 765 squalidus … senex. 32 Based, like the HF passage quoted in the preceding note, on Virgil’s famous description of the infernal ferryman, Aen. 6.298–9, 304 portitor has horrendus aquas et flumina seruat / terribili squalore Charon … iam senior. 33 Cf. Plin. HN 13.120, 17.33; Sen. Ep. 86.19. 34 Cf. Plin. HN 16.95 non enim omnes (arbores) florent, et sunt tristes quaedam quaeque non sentiant gaudia annorum, 16.50; Hor. Od. 2.13.11; J. André, ‘Arbor felix, arbor infelix’, in M. Renard and R. Schilling (edd.), Hommages … Bayet (Brussels, 1964), 35–46. 35 Epp. 107.3, 108.24, 29. 36 See J.F. Gaertner, Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto, Book 1 (Oxford, 2005), on Ov. Ex P. 1.3.23–4. 37 The reference in the Juvenal passage is to the centurion’s baton of vine-wood. For nodosus of wood, cf. also Plin. HN 16.196, 17.176. 38 Hor. Ep. 1.1.31 nodosa … cheragra; Prud. Perist. 10.495 nodosa … podagra. 29

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may possibly have suffered39 and which tended, it seems, to increase in severity with the onset of old age (Plin. Ep. 1.12.4–6).40 Since, however, gout was usually caused by prolonged over-indulgence in food and drink,41 a vice of which Seneca was certainly not guilty,42 nodosus, if it has a human referent, more probably refers to arthritis, characteristically an affliction of old age: for writers often speak in medical contexts of articulorum or neruorum nodi,43 ‘knotty lumps at the joints/sinews’, almost certainly a reference to the disfiguring excrescences around the joints, the so-called Heberden’s nodes, which are characteristic of the degenerative disease osteoarthritis.44 Of particular interest in this connection is Prud. Perist. 10.495, nodosa torquet quos podagra et artrisis, where nodosa characterizes arthritis as well as gout. Of the five adjectives used by Seneca to describe the deteriorated condition of his plane trees, retorridus, which refers to a ‘shrivelled’ or ‘dried up’ appearance in trees or plants,45 is, on the face of it, the least likely to conceal a secondary allusion to Seneca’s old age. But the word is occasionally used of living creatures who are getting on in years;46 and it might suggest the drying up of the vital juices which, according to humoral theory, was characteristic of old age:47 interestingly, Galen (1.582 Kühn) compared old persons to a plant that, initially moist and soft, gradually dries out. Much more promising however for our argument is the last of the words applied to the planes, uetulus. Although uetulus is a technical term for an old tree,48 a passage of Cicero seems to indicate that the adjective, thus used, is a metaphor derived from the process of growth and ageing in animals and humans,49 once more suggesting a symbiosis between the world of man and the world of trees. And that uetulus is meant to call to mind the physical decline of Seneca himself is strongly suggested by another consideration. With the exception of the just-noted application to old trees, and a Catullan-inspired reference to ‘aged’ wine,50 uetulus is almost invariably used of elderly living creatures, most particularly old men and women, e.g. Plaut. Merc. 314, uetulus decrepitus senex; Epid. 666; Cic Att. 13.28.4, Cornificiam … uetulam sane et multarum nuptiarum; Juv. 13.55, si iuuenis uetulo non adsurrexerat. A concealed allusion to Seneca’s senescence, in short, seems almost incontestable. 39

Cf. Epp. 53.6, 78.9; Griffin (n. 10), 19. The sufferer in Pliny in fact contracted the disease, which was hereditary in his family, in his thirties, but the pain increased greatly as he grew old. 41 See L. and P. Watson, Martial: Select Epigrams (Cambridge, 2003), 320. 42 At least if we believe his protestations of ascetism, for which see Epp. 83.6, 87.1–5, 108.15–16, 123.1–3. Also relevant: Ep. 108.21 ad fin.; Tac. Ann. 15.45.3, 63.3. 43 E.g. Plin. HN 24.21, 30.110; Marcell. Med. 35.2. 44 For the prevalence of this from middle age onwards in the Roman world, see R. Jackson, Doctors and Diseases in the Roman Empire (London, 1988), 176–7. Pliny (Ep. 8.18.9) describes graphically the agonies of an elderly sufferer. 45 Cf. Plin. HN 15.121 on the plebeian myrtle, cited above; Sen. De ira 3.15.4 uides illam arborem breuem retorridam infelicem?; Ep. 86.18 nec magna pars eius quemadmodum in oliuetis ueteribus arida et retorrida erit. 46 Gell. NA 15.30.1 qui ab alio genere uitae detriti iam et retorridi ad litterarum disciplinas serius adeunt; Phaedr. 4.2.16–17 post aliquot uenit saeculis retorridus (mus) / qui saepe laqueos et muscipula effugerat. 47 For the loss of sap in the elderly, cf. E. Eyben, ‘Antiquity’s view of puberty’, Latomus 31 (1972), 677–97, at 679–82. 48 Lucr. 2.1168 uetulae uitis; Serv. ad Verg. Ecl. 3.11 and G. 4.144. 49 Cic. Fin. 5.39 earum etiam rerum quas terra gignit educatio quaedam et perfectio est non dissimilis animantium; itaque et uiuere uitem et mori dicimus, arboremque et nouellam et uetulam et uigere et senescere. 50 Catullus 27.1 minister uetuli puer Falerni initiates the trend. 40

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If, as suggested above, the first two exempla of old age – the decrepit building and the deteriorated planes – are unreal or at least involve an embellishment of reality with an overlay of literary symbolism and metaphor, then there is no reason why we should take the Felicio episode as the exact truth either. One element of literary invention might be the names of both Felicio and his father, both of which sound suspiciously appropriate in the context. Philositus, ‘lover of grain’, is a conveniently suitable name for a uilicus,51 while the use of the name Felicio, ironic in the context (he is anything but felix), could be an example of the literary commonplace whereby proper names are applied to slaves in a jesting fashion.52 Felicio and his father could be either literary constructs, or else real slaves who are given appropriate pseudonyms. Felicio’s aged appearance might also be fictitious, or at least exaggerated for the occasion. It is worth at this point considering how old he would be, if he existed, in A.D. 63–4, the dramatic date of the letter. Now Seneca jokes that it is Felicio’s loss of teeth which makes it likely that he is the pupulus (‘little boy’)53 that his master once knew. The image Seneca has in mind is the toothless smile of a child whose milk teeth have fallen out (cf. dentes illi cum maxime cadunt),54 which usually happens at around five to seven years of age.55 If the estate was acquired no earlier than c. A.D. 13 (cf. n. 14 above), then Felicio would be no more than in his mid fifties in A.D. 63–4, but possibly younger.56 To modern eyes, a person of this age would hardly be expected to present the appearance that Seneca attributes to Felicio, and we might therefore conclude that the description is a fiction, although when the living conditions and life expectancy of the average Roman slave are taken into account, it might not seem improbable that a slave over fifty could have deteriorated physically to the point of decrepitude.57 On the other hand, the description is hyperbolically comic, and is 51 Cf. Apuleius’ Philesitherus (‘he who loves [amatory] hunting’), Met. 9.16, and Philebus, Met. 8.25 (‘boy-lover’), for meaningful names prefaced by phil-. One thinks here also of the names of two of the interlocutors in Varro’s Res Rusticae, Stolo, (‘Shoot, Sucker’) and Scrofa (‘Pig’), which, although genuine, are clearly selected for the sake of a pun on the agricultural context; cf. 1.2.9, 2.4.1. 52 Cf. Mart. 3.34 with Watson and Watson (n. 41), 324. This argument is not of course conclusive, since both are real names. Philositus is rare: H. Solin, Die griechischen Personennamen in Rom: Ein Namenbuch (Berlin/NewYork, 1982), 1.165–6 lists ten examples, of which seven are definitely slaves or freedmen (cf. H. Solin, Die stadtrömischen Sklavennamen [Stuttgart 1996], 1.235), which could argue either way, i.e. that Philositus is real, or that his name is invented to suit the context. Felicio is fairly common (23 examples in Solin [1996], 93; there was a slave cobbler with this name in Domitian’s court: see M. Charlesworth, ‘Flaviana’, JRS 27 [1937], 54–62 at 61–2): it is used of a real delicium on a tombstone, discussed by Setaioli (n. 1), who argues that the name might have been given to pet slaves who enjoyed the special favour of their owners. 53 The unusual diminutive is found only elsewhere in Catullus 56.5, where it refers to a puer delicatus, and some (e.g. Costa [n. 6] ad loc.) see a sexual sense here too, but this is unwarranted. 54 Cf. Summers (n. 6), ad loc.; R.M. Gummere, Seneca Epistles 1–65 (Loeb, London/Cambridge, MA, 2002), ad loc. 55 Cf. Plaut. Men. 1116 of a seven-year-old: septuennis: nam tunc dentes mihi cadebant primulum. The toothlessness of old age can be compared with that of a baby (cf. Juv. 10.199–200), but the use of cadunt belies that interpretation here. Also, Felicio asks non cognoscis me? and it is hardly likely, even in fiction, that a person one had known only as a babe-in-arms would be recognizable 50 years later. 56 This assumes that he was taken up as a delicium (cf. n. 6 above) in the same year that Seneca built the estate and that he was then at least five years old, but if he had become a delicium a little later than A.D. 13, and/or had been taken up as an infant, Seneca remembering him as he was at a slightly older age, then he could be as young as fifty in A.D. 63–4. 57 Of interest here is a discussion in the jurist Paulus (Dig. 21.1.11: cf. Gell. NA 4.2.12) of whether the discovery of tooth loss in a slave could be considered valid grounds for returning the

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deeply infused with literary sneers against the aged.58 Old people are, for instance, frequently likened to corpses, as Felicio is here (quis est … iste decrepitus et merito ad ostium admotus? foras enim spectat … alienum mortuum).59 Such insulting comparisons are particularly common in invective against old women, so-called Vetula-Skoptik, the most striking case being Mart. 3.93.18–27, an extended verbal assault on a uetula as cadauer, but elderly males are also so described: most notably, Seneca the Elder records a declamatory color used by Latro, in which the use of an old male slave as a model for a painting of Prometheus, which involved the torture and consequent death of the slave, was excused on the basis that he was as good as dead in any case.60 Equally grounded in the thematic armoury of comic taunts against the elderly is the subject of toothlessness.61 As before, ageing women are the primary targets of such jeers, but elderly males are by no means exempt. Thus the lecherous uetulus of Plautus’ Casina is insultingly described as illius hirqui improbi, edentuli (550), a similar characterization is applied in the ‘mad scene’ of the Menaechmi to the senex of the play (864), while an epigram of Martial (6.74) satirizes the vanity of an old man who attempts in vain to disguise his loss of hair and teeth. Lastly, the combined sneer that, in claiming – as if in his dotage – to have been Seneca’s one-time delicium, and in dropping his teeth, Felicio has become like a child (pupulus) again, once more echoes a theme typically encountered in mockery of the elderly; for it was a commonplace of such sneers, canonically expressed in Juvenal’s madidique infantia nasi, that the old regress mentally and physically to childhood.62 We have demonstrated by a close analysis how Seneca’s description of his visit to the estate in sections 1–3, in terms of its themes, symbolism and diction, is an embroidered version of real life, overlaid with a patina of literary referentiality. Let us now briefly consider how the passage functions as a lead-in to the rest of the Epistle. Seneca begins Epistle 12 with the observation quocumque me uerti, argumenta senectutis meae uideo, thus announcing by reference to his own situation the central theme of the Epistle, old age and how one should react to it. Sections 1–3 take the form of an ‘autobiographical’ flashback showing how the author comes to an acceptance of his own senectus. In it he moves through successive stages of increasing self-awareness, marked by a movement from anger at the uilicus, who puts it to him that the dilapidated condition of the buildings is due to old age rather than neglect, to a wry aside acknowledging that Seneca, like his trees, is growing old, and finally to mockery at Felicio’s expense, culminating in the joke about toothlessness, which is designed to cloak Seneca’s discomfort at having implicitly to concede that he himself is growing old. This growth of self-awareness63 is crystallized at the opening of section

slave to the seller as faulty goods: cui dens abest, non est morbosus: magna enim pars hominum aliquo dente caret neque ideo morbosi sunt: praesertim cum sine dentibus nascimur nec ideo minus sani sumus donec dentes habeamus – alioquin nullus senex sanus esset. 58 A point already suggested by the description of Felicio as decrepitus. The word is old-fashioned, as Summers (n. 6) notes ad loc., and belongs more to the world of Roman comedy, where sneers against the elderly are legion, than to current usage. For the comic/invective tradition of attacks on old people see Parkin (n. 5), 86–9; cf. Cokayne (n. 5), 16. 59 Cf. Mart. 3.32.2, 10.90.2, and Hor. Epod. 8.12 with Watson (n. 26) ad loc. 60 Sen. Contr. 10.5.17. Cf. also Parkin (n. 5), 64. 61 For sneers against tooth loss in the old, cf. Parkin (n. 5), 83–4. 62 Juv. 10.199. For the perception of old age as a return to childhood see Parkin (n. 5), index s.v. ‘second childhood’. 63 Seneca’s attainment of self-awareness about his old age is vividly illustrated in later Epistles,

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4 by the admission debeo hoc suburbano meo, quod mihi senectus mea, quocumque aduerteram, apparuit, which then gives rise in the ensuing sections of the Epistle to philosophical commonplaces on the folly of fretting over the imminence of death and the necessity of living each day as if it were one’s last. The prooemium to the Epistle, then, is concerned with tracing, by a combination of circumstantial details and literary symbolism (the symbiosis between the villa/Felicio and Seneca’s aged frame), the process whereby Seneca rids himself of his reluctance to accept that he really has become old. This prepares the ground for the central hypothesis of the Epistle, that old age is something to be embraced positively, rather than feared as signifying the approach of death.64 THE PROOEMIUM IN A BROADER CONTEXT Not only do sections 1–3 serve as a prooemium to Epistle 12, but they also exemplify some broader patterns relating to Seneca’s protreptic techniques in the Epistles as a whole: (1) the use of supposedly biographical details as a peg on which to hang a moral or philosophical discussion and (2) self-criticism. (1) We have seen how Seneca’s description of a visit to his villa is employed as a springboard for his reflections on old age. The technique of introducing philosophical discussion via a personal ‘experience’ or some circumstance that impinges on Seneca’s consciousness is a common one in the Epistles. For instance, an attack of seasickness, caused by an ill-advised dash across the Bay of Naples, sparks a disquisition on how blindly we ignore our shortcomings both physical, and, more important, spiritual (Ep. 53), while in Ep. 80 the freedom from interruption occasioned by a boxing match and mention of the attendant athletic regime suggest, rather factitiously, a lecture on the need to train the mind, rather than the body. As in Epistle 12, it is important not to underplay the literary artifice and fictional nature of these highly circumstantial prooemia. Thus the account in Epistle 53.3–4 of the (seasick) Seneca stumbling over the rocks of the shore after being hastily decanted from his boat is strongly reminiscent of genre-scenes of shipwreck, a literariness underscored by a facetious reference to the various naufragia suffered by Ulysses in the Odyssey. Again, the description in 87.1–4 of the asceticism of the two-day journey undertaken by Seneca and Maximus, which serves as a platform for a sermon on the superfluousness of material possessions, reads like a perambulatory version of the hackneyed theme of the simple life. And sometimes the element of literary contrivance is more obtrusive still. Are we really to believe that Seneca accidentally stumbled into a noonday intermission at the games without some prior awareness of the carnage that was to be expected there (casu in meridianum spectaculum incidi, lusus expectans et sales … contra est, 7.3)? Did he, one of the richest men in Rome, really set up house above the baths (Ep. 56) in order to test the capacity of his philosophical tranquillity to screen out obtrusive noises,65 or is the colourful and detailed account of the various noises resounding in the baths, which is occasioned by Seneca’s living-

where he turns upon his own person the same jokes as he had previously directed against Felicio, describing himself in 26.1 as decrepitus (inter decrepitos me numera) and repeating in 83.4 the jest at 12.3 which conflates the dropping of milk teeth with tooth loss in the elderly. 64 Cf. 12.4 complectamur illam (sc. senectutem) et amemus; plena est uoluptatis, si illa scias uti; in section 6 Seneca rejects the argument molestum est … mortem ante oculos habere with the remark primum ista tam seni ante oculos debet esse quam iuueni. 65 So he claims at the conclusion of the letter §15 experiri et exercere me uolui.

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quarters, simply a simulated piece of autobiography, a literary tour de force designed to carry the message that illa tranquillitas uera est, in quam bona mens explicatur (56.6), whereas the generality of mankind, bedevilled by greed and ambition, start at every disturbance? These and similar passages give a strong impression of a kernel of fact or even pure invention rounded out by a literary circumstantiality which both satisfies Seneca’s artistic ambitions66 and subserves his larger didactic purposes as a proselytizer for Stoicism. (2) Let us turn now to the subject of self-criticism as a strategy pursued by Seneca to render his teachings more palatable by displaying his own moral shortcomings.67 Again, the prooemium to Epistle 12 exemplifies a technique which is on display in the Epistles as a whole. Two notable instances may be pointed to in Epistle 12. The first involves the bad temper which Seneca exhibits towards the uilicus at the dilapidated condition of his estate (1–3). Here Seneca depicts himself acting in a way that contradicts his own advice given elsewhere in the Epistles and in his earlier work De ira, that one should not succumb to anger. In Epistle 47, for instance, a disquisition on the treatment of slaves, he proclaims that a master should in general show himself hilaris towards his serui (17), while at the conclusion of Epistle 18, apropos of remarks on ungoverned anger, he suggests that slaves (along with enemies) commonly provoke this but that the provocation should at all costs be resisted. Moreover, his displaying anger not only contravenes Stoic principles68 but is especially inappropriate for one who professes Stoicism, because he depicts himself as acting thus in full awareness of what he is doing (iratus illi proximam occasionem stomachandi arripio).69 The second example in the Epistle of self-criticism comes in the Felicio episode. Scholars have often commented on Seneca’s callousness or indifference in levelling seemingly malicious jokes at the pathetic old slave.70 In our judgement, however, it is more productive to view these as a consciously contrived strategy, again involving self-criticism, which is integral to the didactic effect of the whole.71 The series of ageist jokes sets Seneca up for a fall when it is revealed by Felicio that the philosopher is even older than his quondam delicium. The effect is further heightened when, even after Felicio has revealed his identity, Seneca attempts to mask his embarrassment at the situation by making a further tasteless sneer about toothlessness. The overall outcome of the Felicio scene is to portray Seneca in a ludicrous light. What is the

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Griffin (n. 10), 418–19; Wilson (n. 11). Cf. Griffin (n. 10), 277, 417; Richardson-Hay (n. 9), 37–40. 68 The Stoic condemnation of the passions, not least anger, is too well known to need rehearsing here. See for instance, W.V. Harris, Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, MA/London, 2001), 104–18. In Seneca’s Epistles, see esp. 51.8, 71.37 and 85.12. 69 One might compare Seneca, Thyestes 488–9 and 543–4, where Thyestes yields to the urgings respectively of his son Tantalus and Atreus to take up once more the reins of power, acting thus despite a keen awareness that he is doing an unwise thing, but unable in the end to resist the allure of kingship. 70 E.g. Wiedemann (n. 1), 128–9 ‘Seneca’s story about how he failed to recognise his old playmate is an illustration of the callous ancient attitude to old age generally’; Parker (n. 1), 242, n. 56 [Felicio’s remark] ‘makes no impression on Seneca, despite his professed sympathy for slaves (Ep. 47 etc)’; A.J.L. Van Hoof, From Autothanasia to Suicide (London/New York, 1990), 34 ‘the self-centred Stoic has eyes only for his own sorry fate’; Bradley (n. 1), 130 ‘what would Seneca’s slave Felicio have thought of the Stoic virtue his master preached?’; Setaioli (n. 1), 149. Coleman (n. 2) says Seneca’s ‘coarse picture of the toothless old dotard seems callous until we realize that Seneca sees in him a reflection of himself’. 71 Cf. Coleman, cited in previous note, and Henderson (n. 7), 26. 67

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purpose of such self-mockery? It must be to show in the most colourful way possible that Seneca himself is not immune to the faults, in this case a lack of self-perception, which he would seek to eradicate in others. The technique in play here, whereby the philosopher deliberately places himself in a false or risible position in order to exemplify his own fallibilities, is repeated in other Letters. For instance, in Ep. 53 the overblown picture of Seneca’s seasickness, following a sea-journey unwisely undertaken,72 which sees him clambering over rocks, recontextualizing his enthusiasm for cold water dips and ascribing Ulysses’ multiple shipwrecks to an attempt to escape mal de mer, functions as a comic exemplification of the Epistle’s moral, that we are all too readily led to ignore our failings, both physical and spiritual. Humour deployed by Seneca at his own expense is, as we have just seen, one vehicle whereby he engages in a salutary self-criticism. In a similar effect, self-criticism can be implied by an inconsistency between what Seneca says and how he presents himself as acting. Thus, in the Epistle on the Baths, the comment that he is able to control his thoughts to such an extent that he can ignore the sounds coming from below is in conflict with his exceedingly detailed description of the various characters whose activities he can hear: if he is really immune to such noises why can he describe them in such vivid detail, and why does he end the letter by saying that he is going to change lodgings in order not to torture himself (torqueri) further?73 A similar phenomenon is seen in the famous Epistle on the Games, where Seneca illustrates the moral that the proficiens should avoid crowds because of their corrupting effect by the example of a visit on his part to the spectacles during the lunch-time execution of criminals. Here, the self-criticism is at first more overt: he admits that he returns from the games a worse person, unable to avoid being contaminated by the other spectators (auarior redeo, ambitiosior, luxuriosior, immo uero crudelior et inhumanior, quia inter homines fui, 7.3). Later in the Epistle, however, he describes the wholesale slaughter in the arena, and in particular the reaction of the crowd, shouting and thirsting for blood, with vivid disgust (7.4–5); but though this disgust might seem to represent his reaction to the events at the time he was witnessing them,74 such a Stoic display of imperviousness to the general fascination with bloodshed is at odds with his earlier statement that he left the games tainted by those around him. The reader must conclude, then, that Seneca is superimposing on his account of the spectacle his philosophically coloured reflections after the event, and that in a more subtle form of self-criticism he is describing behaviour on the part of the crowd into which he himself was drawn by their corrupting influence,75 which is why he leaves the Games, as he says himself, crudelior et inhumanior. We might even speculate that his disgust is all the more

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53.1 Quid non potest mihi persuaderi, cui persuasum est ut nauigarem? Ep. 56.15. Cf. Costa (n. 6), 174 ad loc. For a similarly revealing comment at the end of a moral diatribe, cf. the remark of Thyestes which concludes his laudation of the simple life as opposed to temporal kingship, immane regnum est posse sine regno pati, where pati notoriously betrays a hankering for the trappings of power which belies his previous brave words (Sen. Thy. 470). 74 C. Richardson-Hay, ‘Mera Homicidia: a philosopher draws blood – Seneca and the gladiatorial games’, Prudentia 36 (2004), 87–146, at 119 envisages Seneca as standing aloof from the mob, a lone voice of protest which is not heard above the general din; she fails to address the inconsistency between this and Seneca’s earlier admission of being contaminated by his surroundings. 75 This is not, of course, to say that the incident is real, but that such behaviour would be consistent with the dramatic situation created in the Epistle. 73

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virulent for being directed not just towards the crowd but towards his own imbecillitas for having been unable to withstand their degrading influence. The specific instances just discussed are part of a broader strategy pursued by Seneca in the Epistles of underlining at every turn his own fallibilities and shortcomings as one who is striving imperfectly towards philosophical enlightenment. Not only does he regularly include himself in the generality of humankind when he talks of their follies and imperfections (e.g. 59.9–11 to cite one example among many), but he also repeatedly foregrounds his own deficiencies as a proficiens who falls lamentably short of the mark. Examples include 27.1, ‘tu me’ inquis, ‘mones? Iam enim te ipse monuisti, iam correxisti? Ideo aliorum emendationi uacas?’ Non sum tam improbus, ut curationes aeger obeam, sed tamquam in eodem ualetudinario iaceam, de communi tecum malo conloquor et remedia communico. Sic itaque me audi, tamquam mecum loquar; 45.4, sed qualescumque sunt (libri mei), tu illos sic lege, tamquam uerum quaeram adhuc, non sciam, et contumaciter quaeram; 57.3, non de me nunc tecum loquor, qui multum ab homine tolerabili, nedum a perfecto absum. This idea comes particularly to the fore in Epistle 12 in the shape of Seneca’s bad temper towards the uilicus which we discussed earlier, instantiating as it does his inability to implement consistently the principles which he inculcates, a shortcoming which he highlights in Epistle 75 apropos of a discussion of the three classes of proficientes. Here he says that he and Lucilius will do well if they are admitted to the third, that is, least advanced, category of proficiens, a degree of progress which he exemplifies by saying tertium illud genus extra multa et magna uitia est, sed non extra omnia. Effugit auaritiam, sed iram adhuc sentit. Against this background, Seneca’s yielding to anger in Epistle 12 shows how far he has to go before he reaches the final stage of philosophical perfection, a condition, according to Stoic thinking, attainable only by a very few quite remarkable individuals.76 The preceding paragraph on the issue of self-criticism prompts the larger question of whether Seneca shows this as issuing in some form of moral progression in the Epistles as a whole. This is too large a topic to explore here, but what can be profitably noted is that in the penultimate letter of the corpus, 123, Seneca pictures himself arriving at his Alban villa and finding nothing ready for his arrival. But instead of exploding into anger at the situation, he accepts it in a spirit of philosophical imperturbability (mecum enim de hoc ipso loquor, quam nihil sit graue quod leuiter excipias, quam indignandum nihil [dum nihil] ipse indignando adstruas). It is hard to escape the suspicion that the incident has been contrived as a positional counterweight to Epistle 12,77 where a similarly unsatisfactory state of affairs in Seneca’s villa provoked an outburst of annoyance, suggesting that by the end of the work, Seneca portrays himself as having attained sufficient self-control and inner quietude not to respond emotionally to quotidian annoyances. CONCLUSION We have, it is hoped, demonstrated, by a close reading of Seneca’s Epistle 12.1–3, the full extent of the literary artifice with which Seneca’s description of a visit to his villa is overlaid, and how the ‘events’ recounted serve as a lead-in to the main theme of the Epistle, a philosophical discussion of old age. In the second part of the paper, we showed how this use of quasi-autobiographical material to establish the philosophical 76 77

See Richardson-Hay (n. 9), 38, n. 67. Thanks to Marcus Wilson for pointing this out and for help in general.

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keynote of an Epistle is replicated elsewhere in the Epistles. We also discussed a second Senecan technique exemplified by the prooemium to Epistle 12, the sweetening of his moral instruction by self-criticism and by the use of humour at his own expense. University of Sydney

PATRICIA AND LINDSAY WATSON [email protected] [email protected]

Classical Quarterly 59.1 226–237 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000172

226 THRASYMENNUS’ WANTON WEDDING ROBERT COWAN

THRASYMENNUS’ WANTON WEDDING: ETYMOLOGY, GENRE, AND VIRTUS IN SILIUS ITALICUS, PUNICA To set the scene for the battle of Lake Trasimene, Silius presents a unique aetiology for the lake’s name, which he gives as Thrasymennus.1 The beautiful son of Tyrrhenus, the Lydian colonist and eponymous king of Etruria, catches the eye of the local nymph Agylle, who, inflamed with passion, carries him down to the depths of the lake. The nymphs comfort him and, in the capping aetiological couplet, the lake is named Thrasymennus. This story, almost certainly invented by Silius, is one of several aetiologies in the poem with a markedly Ovidian character, most closely resembling the (likewise invented) story of the maiden Pyrene, raped and abandoned by Hercules, who gave her name to the mountain range.2 As the story of a nympholept, it demands to be read against the abductions of Hylas by the nymphs and the rape of Hermaphroditus by Salmacis, but it also has points of comparison with Anna Perenna’s union with the river Numicius, of which Silius himself offers a version in Punica 8.3 Silius regularly adopts and plays with the role of the doctus poeta, both in the way he manipulates his genuine doctrina and as he wittily invents aetiologies (and other learned details) in the manner of Callimachus, Propertius and especially Ovid.4 This inventiveness includes a passion for etymologizing, and I shall argue that, in the case of Thrasymennus, a further etymology lies behind both the name of the lake and of the beautiful youth. Moreover, this etymology is part of the way in which the story 1 Sil. 5.7–23. The episode is discussed by P. Asso, ‘Passione eziologica nei Punica di Silio Italico: Trasimeno, Sagunto, Ercole e i Fabii’, Vichiana 2 (1999), 75–87, at 75–8; S. Batino, ‘Stagnis Thrasymenum opacis: archeologia e miti nella storia di un lago’, ArchClass 4 (2003), 411–22. I have not been able to locate a copy of M.A. Vinchesi, ‘La vicenda di Trasimeno (Silio Italico 5, 7–23) e la fortuna del mito di Ila in età imperiale’, in M.P. Pieri (ed.), Percorsi della memoria 2 (Florence, 2004), 103–11. The lake is called Trasumennus at Liv. 22.4.1 (and on 24 other occasions), at Polyb. 3.82.10, and at Plu. Fab. 3.1. 2 Ovidian nature of story: R.T. Bruère, ‘Color Ovidianus in Silius’ Punica 1–7’, in N.I. Herescu (ed.), Ovidiana: récherches sur Ovide (Paris, 1958), 475–99, at 484–5; M. Wilson, ‘Ovidian Silius’, Arethusa 37 (2004), 225–49, at 229. Pyrene: 3.420–41, with A.M. Keith, Engendering Rome: Women in Latin Epic (Cambridge, 2000), 56–7; P. Asso, ‘Passione eziologica nei Punica di Silio Italico: la morte di Pirene’, AION(filol) 23 (2001), 215–32; A. Augoustakis, ‘Lugendam Formae Sine Virginitate Reliquit: reading Pyrene and the transformation of landscape in Silius’ Punica 3’, AJPh 124 (2003), 235–57. 3 Hylas: Theoc. 13; Ap.Rhod. 1.1207–39; Prop. 1.20; V.Fl. 3.549–4.57. Hermaphroditus: Ov. Met. 4.285–388. Statius has a similar story about the rape of the youth Lapithaon by the nymph Dercetis (Theb. 7.297–300), which J.J.L. Smolenaars, Statius Thebaid VII: A Commentary (Leiden, 1994), 145, thinks the poet probably invented. The direction of allusion between Statius and Silius is notoriously difficult to establish. Anna Perenna: Ov. F. 3.545–656; Sil. 8.50–201. 4 On Silian doctrina, see esp. A.J. Pomeroy, ‘Silius Italicus as doctus poeta’, Ramus 18 (1990), 119–39; R. Cowan, ‘Absurdly Scythian Spaniards: Silius, Horace and the Concani’, Mnemosyne 59 (2006), 260–7. Until recently Silian scholarship was dominated by Quellenforschung, but among the numerous works devoted to it, see esp. J. Nicol, The Historical and Geographical Sources Used by Silius Italicus (Blackwell, 1936), and, for a defence of Silius’ inventiveness, H.-G. Nesselrath, ‘Zu den Quellen des Silius Italicus’, Hermes 114 (1986), 203–30. The seminal work on etymologizing as doctrina is F. Cairns, Tibullus: A Hellenistic Poet at Rome (Cambridge, 1979), esp. 87–110.

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of Thrasymennus contributes to the wider, and interconnected, themes of generic propriety and military and moral uirtus in the Punica. NAMED AND SHAMED: A WANTON WEDDING The story is full of ‘signposts’ or ‘markers’, which indicate that it is not only aetiological but specifically etymological: nomina seruant (7), dederatque uocabula (11), nomen (22), dicitur (23).5 Primarily, this establishes the connection between the eponymous figures, Tyrrhenus and Thrasymennus, and, respectively, the land and lake explicitly named after them. This form of explicit etymology is widely paralleled in Virgil, Ovid and others, and might be exemplified by Caieta in Aeneid 7 or Croton in Metamorphoses 15.6 Silius himself provides various instances, especially in the heavily aetiological catalogue of Roman allies in Punica 8, including Marrus, eponymous founder of Marruvium, and King Asus, who gives his name to the river Asus and to the Asili.7 However, with Thrasymennus, the final, etymologizing couplet seems to overdetermine the derivation (Sil. 5.22-3): hinc dotale lacus nomen, lateque Hymenaeo conscia lasciuo Thrasymennus dicitur unda. From him/this came the lake’s dowered name, and, conscious far and wide of the wanton wedding, the waters are called Thrasymennus.

Silius appears to tell us the same thing twice, that the lake was named after the youth.8 Yet on both occasions he stresses that the naming was inextricably connected with the wedding of nymph and mortal – it was a dowry and it was, in some unspecified way, associated with knowledge of the wedding – a connection which leads us to question whether this is a simple boy-names-lake etymology. In addition, there is an ambiguity about hinc. Primarily, the youth’s dowry is the honour that the lake’s name should come ‘from him’, but hinc also suggests that it takes its name ‘from this’, that is from his rape by Agylle.9 If the lake’s name is to be derived not only from that of the youth, 5 Asso (n. 1), 77, n. 15. On such etymological ‘markers’ or ‘signposts’, see R. Maltby, ‘The limits of etymologizing’, Aevum(ant) 6 (1993), 257–75, at 268–70; J.J. O’Hara, True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor, 1996), 75–9; A. Michalopoulos, Ancient Etymologies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Leeds, 2001), 4–5. 6 Caieta: tu quoque litoribus nostris, Aeneia nutrix, | aeternam moriens famam, Caieta, dedisti; | et nunc seruat honos sedem tuus, ossaque nomen | Hesperia in magna, si qua est ea gloria, signat. Virg. A. 7.1–4, with O’Hara (n. 5), 183; Croton: nomen tumulati traxit in urbem. Ov. Met. 15.57, with Michalopoulos (n. 5), 61. On explicit etymologies in the Aeneid, see O’Hara (n. 5), 73–5. 7 Catalogue: 8.349–621. Marrus: Marruuium ueteris celebratum nomine Marri (8.505; E.M. Ariemma, Alla vigilia di Canne: commentario al libro VIII dei Punica di Silio Italico [Naples, 2000], 127, compares Serv. ad Virg. A. 7.750: alii Marrubios a rege dictos uelint); Asus: ante, ut fama docet, tellus possessa Pelasgis, | quis Asus regnator erat fluuioque reliquit | nomen et a sese populos tum dixit Asilos (8.443–5); Delz’s emendation Asus for the MSS’ aesis is marginally preferable to Alfieri’s Asis, though both are otherwise unknown. 8 Alternatively, as CQ’s anonymous reader notes, the conjoining –que could be taken as introducing not a repetition but an exegetical expansion in parataxis. This would indeed mean that the explanation is not given twice, but does not alter the fact that it is a double explanation, deriving (in both the succinct and the expanded versions) the lake’s name from the youth and from the fact of his abduction and wedding. 9 Both definitions of hinc are covered by OLD s.v. 7b ‘(indicating … the origin of a word or name)’, but an example, from Glare’s own selection, of the sense ‘from him’ is … et Capys: hinc nomen Campanae ducitur urbi (Virg. A. 10.145); for ‘from this (event)’: redduntur merito debita uina Ioui. | dicta dies hinc est Vinalia (Ov. F. 4.898–9). F. Spaltenstein, Commentaire des Punica de

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but also from the story itself, this would be an instance of a less common form of etymology, which O’Hara calls a ‘double etymology’, whereby a place is (explicitly) named after a person, whose name is itself (implicitly) etymologized. His examples include the Porta Carmentalis in Aeneid 8, named explicitly after the nymph Carmentis, whose name is in turn implicitly etymologized from carmen, ‘prophecy’, by the use of the words fatidicae and cecinit.10 With Thrasymennus the additional detail of the lake’s being conscious of, or complicit in, the wanton wedding, apparently extraneous to the etymological punch-line which the couplet provides, might lead the reader to wonder whether it is in fact part of the etymology, or rather of a double etymology; the lake is explicitly named after the youth, but is his name also implicitly etymologized? The description of the wedding as lasciuus, wanton, is almost oxymoronic, since Hymenaeus tends to be reserved for proper, ritually correct weddings.11 This oddity of expression further provokes the reader to look for a reason for its formulation, and that reason is an etymological one. lasciuus Hymenaeus glosses the Greek , the true words behind Thrasymennus.12 It might be objected that lasciuus is not the closest equivalent of . Agylle’s abduction of Thrasymennus is undeniably bold, and this is made almost explicit when she casts off one of the commonest antonyms of audacia, her casta pudor.13 But is it her audacia, her , which makes the wedding lasciuus? is, of course, most easily rendered into Latin by audax, as in Pliny’s capping of Thucydides, or and temerarius, as in Apuleius’ etymologizing of Thrasyllus’ name.14 However, its cognates are also used to describe those who are ‘forward’ and lacking in sexual restraint, such as Menander’s Thais, Lycophron’s Aegiale, and even, in one of Pluis regularly described tarch’s alternative readings, Nausicaa.15 The personified Silius Italicus: Livres 1 à 8 (Geneva, 1986), 335, is surely right that, pace Volpilhac (in J. Volpilhac, P. Miniconi and G. Devallet [edd.], Silius Italicus, La Guerre Punique tome 2, livres V–VIII [Paris, 1981], 2), lacus is genitive, rather than nominative: ‘the lake [takes] its dowered name from him’ makes little sense, since the dowry ought to go to the groom rather than the lake. 10 Virg. A. 8.337–41, with O’Hara (n. 5), 209. At 224, he likewise shows how 10.198–200 explicitly derives Mantua from Manto, and implicitly derives her name from with the gloss fatidicae. Double etymologies of this kind, where both are authorized by the text, should not be confused with the use of the same term for alternative, mutually exclusive etymologies, although I shall argue below that Silius also hints at an alternative derivation for Thrasymennus. 11 E.g. Catull. 66.11; Ov. Ep. 2.33; V.Fl. 8.149. R. Pichon, De sermone amatorio apud latinos elegiarum scriptores (Paris, 1902), 165: ‘Hymenaeus semper ad ueras iustasque nuptias refertur’. Cf. the similarly jarring oxymoron of Helen’s inconcessos hymenaeos at Virg. A. 1.651. 12 Ovid may hint at the first half of this etymology at F. 6.765–8, when he warns Augustus not to repeat Flaminius’ rashness, calling it temeraria tempora, though his orthography Trasimenus does not facilitate the derivation. Neither Bömer nor Littlewood comment on this. 13 castumque exuta pudorem (5.15). audacia and pudor opposed: Ter. Phorm. 233; Cic. Verr. 2.5.34, 39, Quinct. 79; Sall. Cat. 3.3.21; Tib. 1.4.13–14; Ov. Met. 9.527. See also R. Kaster, Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome (Oxford, 2005), 55–6. Cf. D.L. Cairns, Aidôs (Oxford, 1993), 151: ‘Tharsos … can be a positive antonym to misplaced aidôs, but it can also be taken too far, and thus lead to anaideiê, the negative antonym of aidôs’. and are paired at Cratin. fr. 377 K–A, Dem. Chers. 68.3, Meid. 201.5, Andr. 47.3, Ep. 4.4.8; they very often appear in scholia as more or less synonyms glossing the same word, e.g. T ad Il. 21.394c. 14 sicut 2ναρα ν6ξ ρσ0τοΚ! μοηιτν8Κ δ6 9λξοξ ζ(σει, ita recta ingenia debilitat verecundia, perversa confirmat audacia (Plin. Ep. 4.7.3, quoting Thuc. 2.40.3); Thrasyllus, praeceps alioquin et de ipso nomine temerarius (Apul. Met. 8.8). In the other direction, Planudes, in his translation of the Met., uses to render ferox (1.758, 9.31), ferus (9.85), fortis (4.652, 6.221), proteruus (12.234), temerarius (10.545), and uiolentus (8.106). 15 Men. fr. 163 K–A, Lyc. 612, Plut. Quomodo adul. 27B.

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as , and it is worth noting that the Roman Amor, though he can make his victims audax, is never so described himself; on the other hand, he is not infrequently lasciuus.16 lasciuus itself ranges from the neutral ‘playful’ (OLD s.v. 1) to ‘free from restraint in sexual matters’ (OLD s.v. 3), but always retains a sense of going beyond the acceptable limits, be it of seriousness or sexual propriety.17 That lasciuus has a semantic range which encompasses boldness is most clearly shown by the author of the HA life of Hadrian who, in a list of the princeps’ contradictory qualities, sets the lasciuus facet of his character in antithesis with his propensity to be a cunctator.18 Pichon even goes so far as to gloss lasciuia, as used by the elegists, as signifying ‘simul uoluptatem et inpudentem liberamque audaciam’, and lasciui as those ‘qui in amore omnia audent’.19 There is, therefore, quite sufficient equivalence between the meanings of lasciuus and for the etymology to be recognized in such a heavily signposted couplet, even if the former is not the most obvious translation. Indeed the , instead of the more obvious audax, is a calculated choice of lasciuus to calque , of these hymenaeals was of the one, designed to underline that the boldness, wanton, erotic kind and emphatically not of the courageous, martial kind. NOT BRAVING BUT CLOWNING: THE ETYMOLOGICAL PATH NOT TAKEN In privileging lasciuus over audax to render the Greek , Silius does not only point the reader towards his preferred, erotic etymology; he indicates the rejected, martial etymology, whose trace is still present, almost under erasure, as in the phenomenon which Christopher Ricks has called an ‘anti-pun’.20 Critics have noted that the story is not only Ovidian, but elegiac, bucolic, anything but epic.21 This incongruity with the surrounding narrative, and especially the great battle which will dominate the rest of the book, is played out within the story itself.22 Thrasymennus’ 16 as : Aristophon fr. 11. K–A; Ap. Rhod. 3.687; AP 5.274.1, 7.421.3–4 (where he is called simply ); Nonn. 2.223, 33.103, 42.206, 47.267. Love makes people bold: Ov. Met. 4.96, cf. Lib. Ep. 147.3.5. Amor as lasciuus: Tib. 1.10.57; Ov. Am. 3.1.43; Ars 2.497; cf. the less clearly personified amores at Hor. Carm. 2.11.7; Ov. Ars 3.27; Mart. Apoph. 187.1. audax only qualifies amor at Stat. Theb. 4.260, where Parthenopaeus is struck by a paradoxical passion for metonymous war: audaci Martis percussus amore. 17 TLL VII.2.983.48ff.: modum excedens, imprimis gravitatem, moderationem, continentiam sim. vel pudicitiam. The sole instance of forms of audax and lasciuus together is unfortunately unhelpful, Tac. Germ. 24.1 (quamuis audacis lasciuiae pretium est uoluptas spectantium), since the boldness is in the danger which the sword-dancing entails, and lasciuia is used in its most neutral sense of ‘sport’: A.A. Lund, P. Cornelius Tacitus, Germania (Heidelberg, 1988), 177, compares Liv. 1.5.2. 18 idem seuerus laetus, comis grauis, lasciuus cunctator, tenax liberalis, simulator , saeuus clemens et semper in omnibus uarius. SHA Hadr. 14.11. 19 Pichon (n. 11), 184. 20 ‘Whereas in a pun there are two senses which either get along or quarrel, in an anti-pun there is only one sense admitted but there is another sense denied admission. So the response is not “this means x” (with the possibility even of its meaning y being no part of your response), but “this-means-x-and-doesn’t-mean-y”, all hyphenated.’ C. Ricks, The Force of Poetry (Oxford, 1984), 265–6. So, in this aition, ‘Thrasymennus-means-wanton-wedding-and-doesn’t-mean-boldspirited’. I am grateful to Seamus Perry and Carl Schmidt for introducing me to the anti-pun. 21 Elegiac: Asso (n. 1), 77; bucolic: Volpilhac (n. 9), 133. 22 At a late stage of revision, I discovered that A. Augoustakis, ‘Two Greek Names in Silius Italicus’ Punica’, RhM 148 (2005), 222–4, at 223–4, also notes the derivation of Thrasymennus’ name from . However, he connects the , not with the boy himself, but with the ‘arrogant and immodest’ Tyrrhenus.

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father, Tyrrhenus, is depicted as a culture-hero, who not only gives his name to the land in which he settles his Lydians, but introduces the trumpet to the locals and thus ushers in Iron Age civilization23 (5.9–13): Lydius huic genitor, Tmoli decus; aequore longo Maeoniam quondam in Latias aduexerat oras Tyrrhenus pubem dederatque uocabula terris. isque insueta tubae monstrauit murmura primus gentibus et bellis ignaua silentia rupit. His father was Lydian, the glory of Tmolus; Tyrrhenus had once brought the Maeonian people by a long sea-journey to Latian shores and given his name to the land. And he was the first to reveal the unfamiliar sound of the trumpet to the people and to burst the idle silence for war.

Tyrrhenus is thus a sort of militaristic Saturn, or perhaps more aptly an Iron Age Jupiter from Georgics 1, toughening mankind up, not by the rigours of agriculture, but by war.24 For the silence which Tyrrhenus’ trumpet bursts is not peaceful but ignauus – sluggish, lazy, even cowardly.25 His positive and beneficial invention or introduction of war as a means of improving Italy’s moral fibre is entirely in keeping with the Jupiter of the Punica, who, in his own combination of the Georgics 1 theodicy and Aeneid 1 prophecy, explains that he has brought about the Second Punic War in order to reinvigorate the decadent Romans and spur them to greater glory.26 In this he parallels the Jupiter of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, who likewise ushers in an Iron Age of war (there coupled with sea-faring) in order to raise mankind to the stars, and, like his Silian counterpart, combines this theodicy with a prophecy of empire.27 Yet the emphasis on the musical instrument and on the sound of war adds a

23 On Tyrrhenus’ invention of the trumpet, see Hyg. Fab. 274; D. Briquel, L’origine lydienne des Étrusques (Rome, 1991), 319–44. 24 Saturn as culture-hero: Virg. A. 8.314–27; Macrob. Sat. 1.7.21–3; A.O. Lovejoy and G. Boas, Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (Baltimore, 1935), 57. Jupiter’s Iron Age theodicy: Virg. G. 1.118–59. According to Plin. HN 7.201, Tyrrhenus also invented hastae uelitares and, though the text is uncertain at this point, perhaps the pilum. See Briquel (n. 23), 345–68. In the alternative, Capuan Weltanschauung of Teuthras’ song, the golden age is casta … Saturni … saecula patris (Sil. 11.458). 25 Cf. Don Fowler’s provocative reading of the arming of the Italians in Aeneid 7: ‘Italy is recalled from its Saturnian slumber to a Jovian sense of struggle and cultural progress … Juno as culture-hero in her opening of the gates is not simply a matter of parody: there is a sense in which this is the way progress really is made in human societies’. ‘Opening the Gates of War’, in H.-P. Stahl (ed.), Vergil’s Aeneid: Augustan Epic and Political Context (Swansea, 1998), 155–74, at 168 = Roman Constructions (Oxford, 2000), 173–92, at 188. 26 3.571–629; on greatness through adversity, 571–90, esp. 584–5: iamque tibi ueniet tempus quo maxima rerum | nobilior sit Roma malis. On the motif: H. Hommel, ‘Per aspera ad astra’, WJA 4 (1949–50), 157–65. On this speech: M. von Albrecht, Silius Italicus. Freiheit und Gebundenheit römischer Epik (Amsterdam), 17–18; W. Kißel, Das Geschichtsbild des Silius Italicus (Frankfurt am Main, 1979), 42–6; W. Schubert, Jupiter in den Epen der Flavierzeit (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), 45–8, 55–80; F. Ahl, M.A. Davis and A. Pomeroy, ‘Silius Italicus’, ANRW II.32.4 (1986), 2492–561, at 2504; D.C. Feeney, The Gods in Epic (Oxford, 1991), 305–6; R. Marks, From Republic to Empire (Frankfurt am Main, 2005), 14–15. This idea, and the corollary that Rome’s post-Hannibalic success and prosperity inevitably lead to decline, is central to the Punica. 27 V. Fl. 1.531–67, esp. 565–6: durum uobis iter et graue caeli | institui. See Schubert (n. 26), 23–4, 31–42; Feeney (n. 26), 318–9, 330–4; M. Wacht, Juppiters Weltenplan im Epos des Valerius Flaccus (Stuttgart, 1991); A. Zissos, ‘Sailing and sea-storm in Valerius Flaccus (Argonautica 1.574–642): the rhetoric of inundation’, in R. Nauta, H.-J. van Dam and J.J.L. Smolenaars (edd.), Flavian Poetry (Leiden, 2006), 79–95.

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metapoetic dimension to Tyrrhenus’ revolution: he is not merely introducing war to a peaceful land; he is an epic poet giving sound to war in place of bucolic silence. There is a metapoetic aspect to the next line also, as Silius describes the proud father’s ambitions for his son (5.14): nec modicus uoti natum ad maiora fouebat, ‘And, immoderate in his prayers, he nurtured his son for greater things’. maiora is rather compressed and even enigmatic, and it is only the connective nec which guides the reader to understand that these ‘greater things’ are successes in the wars of the previous sentence. Well, perhaps not only the nec, for once the connection with military matters is made, she might think of other contexts where the comparative of magnus has such a connotation: paulo maiora canemus, nescioquid maius Iliade nascitur, maior rerum mihi nascitur ordo, | maius opus moueo, certe maiora canebas;28 Tyrrhenus, the ambitious patriarch of a distinguished military family, might well want his son to follow him into the army, but Tyrrhenus, the martial epic poet, wants his son to be a martial epic hero. He wants his name to be etymologically connected with , bold-spirited,29 epithet of the Homeric Heracles.30 Perhaps he even wants him to be a Hercules-figure, as would be appropriate in an epic aition in the tradition of Evander’s narrative of Cacus, and indeed Hercules features in several other aitia in the Punica.31 He is doomed to be disappointed. Agylle is bucolic, elegiac, Ovidian, entirely unepic. Indeed, her elegiac quality is almost overdetermined, as her passion is described in a bewildering mix of erotic metaphors (5.15, 18–19): uerum ardens puero castumque exuta pudorem… flore capi iuuenum primaeuo lubrica mentem nympha nec Idalia lenta incaluisse sagitta. 28 Virg. E. 4.1; Prop. 2.34.66; Virg. A. 7.44–5; Ov. F. 4.3; cf. Ov. Tr. 2.63. The first and last strictly refer to panegyric and aetiology, rather than martial epic, but there is considerable slippage between these higher genres set in antithesis with the lower genres of pastoral and erotic elegy. On forms of maior as generic markers for epic, and especially martial epic, see F. Bessone (ed.), Heroidum Epistula XII (Florence, 1997), 35–6. For examples in Silius, see D.P. Fowler, ‘Even better than the real thing: a tale of two cities’, in J. Elsner (ed.), Art and Text in Roman Culture (Cambridge, 1996), 57–74, at 72–3 = Roman Constructions (Oxford, 2000), 86–107, at 104–6, on 6.711, and below on 4.476. 29 So Apollon. Lex. s.v. and Hsch. 697 ( ) and, less precisely, A ad. Il. 5.639 ( ); bT ad. Il. 5.639 ( ) seems improbable in context, though more plausible etymologically; perhaps best of all would be the D scholia’s mildly paradoxical . That there was confusion about the word’s meaning and etymology contributes to the potential for competing interpretations here. 30 It occurs only twice, on both occasions in the formula , in Tlepolemus’ vaunt to Sarpedon (Il. 5.639) and Odysseus’ description of Alcmene in the parade of women (Od. 11.267); Heubeck (in A. Heubeck and A. Hoekstra, A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey vol. II, books IX–XVI [Oxford, 1989], 93) thinks the formula might derive from an earlier poem about Heracles. One might note that both contexts concern parent-child relationships; the only other extant occurrence, except for quotations and glosses of Homer, is at Bacchyl. 5.69–70, where Meleager is the bold-hearted grandson of Porthmaon, and is being met in the underworld by none other than Heracles, all three elements linking back to the Homeric contexts. 31 Parallels with Hercules and Cacus: Asso (n. 1), 75; Hercules also appears in the aitia of Saguntum (1.273–87), Pyrene (3.420–41) and the Fabii (6.627–36), as well as being a central figure in the Punica. On Hercules in the Punica, see esp. E.L. Bassett, ‘Hercules and the hero of the Punica’, in L. Wallach (ed.), Classical Tradition: Literary and Historical Studies in Honor of Harry Caplan (Cornell, 1966), 258–73; F. Ripoll, La morale héroïque dans les épopées latines d’époque flavienne (Louvain, 1998), 112–32; Augoustakis (n. 2). He is also, according to Hyginus, Tyrrhenus’ father.

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She burns, casts off her modesty like a cloak (and we are perhaps meant to imagine that that is not all she casts off ), is captured by the flower of the youth’s beauty, because she is slippery in her mind, and then she is swift to grow hot (again) as the result of Cupid’s arrow.32 A more elegiac figure it is hard to imagine. As such, she not only steals Tyrrhenus’ son away, but freezes him forever at the point where he is a puer, a desired, feminized, objectified figure, who will never grow into an epic uir.33 Like her Ovidian predecessor, Salmacis, she simultaneously feminizes and elegizes her victim.34 Thrasymennus will never achieve the maiora which his father hopes for; the echo of Eclogue 4 highlights his failure to match the achievements of that poem’s precocious puer, instead sliding back into being a figure like Hylas in Eclogue 6, a neoteric, bucolic negation of epic (as in Apollonius).35 He will never have the nomen, the glorious reputation, which all Silian heroes crave.36 Even the name he has will be given a new meaning, not ‘bold of spirit’, but ‘wanton in his marriage’. Although the martial etymology is rejected by omission, rather than being registered and then 32 To give one example each from many, ardeo: Ov. Am. 1.9.33; castus pudor: Ov. Ars 1.100; casting off restraining emotions, cf. Ov. Ep. 18.57: deposito pariter cum ueste timore; capio: Prop. 1.1.1; flower of youth: Tib. 1.8.47; incaluisse: Ov. Ep. 18.42; sagitta: Tib. 2.1.81. See Pichon (n. 11) for further examples. lubricus is not a markedly elegiac word, but Varro connects it, and specifically the collocation lubrica mens, with lubet and lubido (L. 6.6.47). R. Ash, Tacitus, Histories Book II (Cambridge, 2007), 381, commenting on Tacitus’ use of lubrica to describe Vitellius’ fickle fleet at H. 2.101.2, suggests that he might have been ‘struck’ by Silius’ description of Agylle. 33 On the puer as the antithesis of the epic uir, as much as the femina, see Ll. Morgan, ‘Child’s play. Ovid and his critics’, JRS 93 (2003), 66–91. In Valerius’ Hylas episode, Juno, though the protectress of Jason, because of her overriding hostility to Hercules, similarly threatens to derail the epic mission of the Argonauts and thus the generic status of the poem, as Jupiter ironically reminds her (4.7–8): sic Iuno ducem fouet anxia curis | Aesonium, sic arma uiro sociosque ministrat? (on which see Feeney [n. 26], 324). The deified Hylas urges Hercules to cease his elegiac lament (quid, pater, in uanos absumis tempora questus? 4.25) and to return to his epic ways (in duris haut umquam defice, 35). On the generic connotations of allusions to arma uirumque, see also E.L. Bassett, ‘Silius Punica 6.1–53’, CPh 54 (1959), 10–34, at 13–14; A. Bloch, ‘Arma virumque als heroisches Leitmotiv’, MH 27 (1970), 206–11; D. Hershkowitz, ‘Patterns of madness in Statius’ Thebaid’, JRS 85 (1995), 52–64, at 63; B.W. Boyd, ‘Arms and the man: wordplay and the catasterism of Chiron in Ovid Fasti 5’, AJPh 122 (2001), 67–80; for questus and queror as markers for elegy (erotic and funereal), see J. Ingleheart, ‘Ovid Tristia 1.2: high drama on the high seas’, G&R 53 (2006), 73–91, at 84, with further references, ancient and modern; for epic duritia and elegiac mollitia, see S.E. Hinds, The Metamorphoses of Persephone (Cambridge, 1987), 21–4; D.F. Kennedy, The Arts of Love (Cambridge, 1993), 31–4. 34 On the Salmacis episode as a conflict of epic and elegy, see I. Jouteur, Jeux de genre dans les Métamorphoses d’Ovide (Louvain, 2001), 272–80. On the feminization of Hermaphroditus, see M. Robinson, ‘Salmacis and Hermaphroditus: when two become one’, CQ 42 (1999), 212–23; P.B. Salzman-Mitchell, A Web of Fantasies: Gaze, Image, and Gender in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Columbus, 2005), 32–5, 160–3. On Valerius Flaccus’ allusion to this episode to suggest Medea’s threat to Jason’s manliness and epic status, see T. Stover, ‘Confronting Medea. Genre, gender, and allusion in the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus’, CPh 98 (2003), 123–47, at 127–33. 35 puer: Virg. E. 4.8, 18, 60, 62; Hylas: E. 6.43–3. I am grateful to Denis Feeney for suggesting the further implications of the passage’s intertextuality with the Eclogues. For an argument that Valerius Flaccus reclaims Hylas for epic in polemical response to Propertius’ elegizing of him, see M.A.J. Heerink, ‘Going a step further: Valerius Flaccus’ metapoetical reading of Propertius’ Hylas’, CQ 57 (2007), 606–20. 36 nomen as glory: OLD s.v. 11, Sil. 2.699, 3.595, 4.37, 6.462, 7.600, 10.71, 13.98. There is frequent slippage between this sense and OLD 10 ‘The name (of a person) as famed’ and OLD 2 ‘The name (of a people … considered to have individual existence)’, as at 10.501–2: sed iuueni, ne sim tibi longior, hinc est / et genus et clara memorandum uirgine nomen. Cloelia’s fame, her gentile name and the fame of that name are all won by her courageous deeds. The contrast with Thrasymennus is the more pointed, since his nomen (name) is immortalized, but, as the passive figure of an erotic escapade rather than an active military hero, he has no nomen (glory).

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dismissed, the adjudication between competing etymologies is typical of such aitia, and especially of Ovid’s technique in the Fasti.37 Tyrrhenus tried to nurture (fouebat) his son for greater things, but now the Naiads stroke (fouere) him to comfort him.38 Even the glossing of as lasciuus associates it, not with epic audacia, but with the playful, childish Ovidian poetics which Llewelyn Morgan has shown to be so disruptive of the grown-up decorum of epic.39 Elegy, forever railing against the of war, has its revenge on epic Tyrrhenus.40 IN THE NAME OF THE SON: THRASYMENNUS AND THE PUNICA Silius’ aetiologies have often been seen merely as decoration, demonstrations of his doctrina to satisfy the tastes of Flavian readers. Asso concludes that the story of Thrasymennus ‘dà un colore e una vivacità sorprendenti e spezza la monotonia della narrazione’, while Wilson vividly argues that the Punica’s Ovidian elements as a whole invite readers ‘to look at the view through the window and not at their digital watches.’41 However, they are able to produce more subtle, serious and wide-ranging effects. Keith and Augoustakis, respectively, have shown how the aetiological story of Pyrene ‘exposes the violence that underwrites the assimilation of the female to the topography of epic’, and dramatizes Hannibal’s failure to follow the positive aspects of his Herculean model successfully.42 Batino suggestively explores the mythical implications of the Thrasymennus narrative, with its parallels in Etruscan myth, and its allegorical interpretation as a transition either into another phase of life or from life to death.43 We have seen that there is a generic resonance to the story, fore37 Ov. F. 1.319–36, 2.449–50, 475–80, 3.839–46, 4.61–2, 85–90, 5.1–110, 6.1–100, a subset of the list of all alternative aetiologies in J.F. Miller, ‘The Fasti and Hellenistic didactic: Ovid’s variant aetiologies’, Arethusa 25 (1992), 11–31, at 12, n. 6. In 5.1–110, as in our case, the choice between etymologies has a generic resonance: ‘It is not only a question of an aetiological choice, for each Muse brings a different type of poetic discourse to bear on the argument, and each has a bent towards the tradition of a different literary genre.’ (A. Barchiesi, ‘Discordant Muses’, PCPhS 37 [1991], 1–21, at 14). 38 solatae uiridi penitus fouere sub antro | Naides amplexus undosaque regna trementem, 5.20–1. The detail recalls Theoc. 13.53–4, except that there the same nymphs both snatch and comfort Hylas. The erotic overtones of fouere (cf. Tib. 1.6.6, with J. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary [Baltimore, 1983], 208) are further in contrast with Tyrrhenus’ paternal nurturing. If the scene also reminds the reader of Aristaeus’ being comforted and entertained by the water-nymphs at Virg. G. 4.359–85, she might note Thrasymennus’ failure to become a comparable culture hero. 39 Morgan (n. 33), passim and esp. 69–75. 40 Schetliasmos of of war: Tib. 1.3.47–8, 1.10.1; Prop. 4.3.19–20 (occidat, immerita qui carpsit ab arbore uallum | et struxit querulas rauca per ossa tubas) is particularly pertinent to Tyrrhenus. On curses of inventors more generally, see F. Leo, Plautinische Forschungen (Berlin, 1895), 151–4, and in love elegy, R. Müller, Motivkatalog der römischen Elegie (Zürich, 1952), 21. 41 Asso (n. 1), 78; Wilson (n. 2), 238. I agree with Wilson that ‘Virgilian source material is always co-opted into a process of generic transgression’ (247), but would argue that there is an ideological dimension to such generic transgression. 42 Keith (n. 2), 57; Augoustakis (n. 2), 254. ‘Despite the constant effort of the Carthaginian general to imitate Hercules, Hannibal is portrayed as a follower of an erroneous model, whose darkest traits Silius has carefully underscored’. 43 ‘[S]i può facilmente intuire come il mito del rapimento di Trasimeno, con la transizione spaziale dal dominio terrestre a quello acquatico, possa aver assunto già in fasi molto antiche il significato di una perfetta metafora per indicare il passaggio ad un’altra dimensione, che sia quella del regno di Ade o il passaggio ad una nuova fase della vita.’ (Batino [n. 1], 416). Hylas’ rape in Theocr. 13 has likewise been interpreted as a sort of death by C. Segal, Poetry and Myth in Ancient Pastoral (Princeton, 1981), 54–61.

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grounded by the conflict of etymologies, which dramatizes the tension within the poem between its epic nature and elements which try to draw it towards lower genres. I would like to conclude by arguing that, as I have already intimated, this generic conflict is, on a symbolic level, a microcosm of the poem’s wider concerns about moral revival and decline. Tyrrhenus’ success in epicizing and militarizing the Etruscans, and his failure to continue that level of generic and moral integrity into the next generation, are played out on a larger scale throughout the Punica. The positive transition from slothful peace to active, glorious, Iron Age war, which we have seen Jupiter give as his reason for starting the conflict, is initiated when Fama, emphatically placed as the incipit of Punica 4, spreads the news that Hannibal has crossed the Alps. It is hard not to think of the Virgilian Fama, whose appearance in another book 4 led (albeit at three removes) to Aeneas’ abandonment of the slothful life of the elegiac lover in favour of resuming his epic mission. Generic propriety and divinely ordained duty go hand in hand.44 So it is in Punica 4, where the polishing of rusty spears in the manner of Virgil’s Latins not only marks their return to the militarism which made Rome great, but restores the epic propriety of the poem, as Mars ciet arma uirosque, summons ‘arms and men’ at the same time as he summons ‘epic’.45 As with Aeneas, the generic conflict is not mere literary cleverness but a means of expressing the conflict between the value systems which epic and its antitheses represent. Fama, Mars and even the unwitting Hannibal here serve the will of Jupiter to make Rome great through war and through epic, and in this they are a precise parallel for Tyrrhenus. Yet the Punica is not only a poem of cultural progress and renovation; it is also a poem of moral and political degeneration and decline. Elegiac elements are always threatening to defeat the epic, and simultaneously the forces of decadence threaten to demoralize those whose martial valour would otherwise win them glory. Disturbingly, a distinctly elegiac Venus and her Cupidines save Rome by corrupting Hannibal and his Carthaginians during their sojourn in Capua, simultaneously a contrast to the hardiness of third-century B.C. Rome and a prolepsis of the decadence of Domitianic Rome.46 Scipio, replaying the Prodican Hercules, rejects the personified Voluptas in favour of Virtus, but the former, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Silian Venus, flounces off with the chilling prophecy that her day will come, which, in Silius’ moral pessimism, it of course already has.47 The echoes of Ovid’s similar encounter with 44 ‘Love between Dido and Aeneas runs counter to the will of fate, but also contradicts the generic canons of epic since it represents, on more levels than one, an intrusion of materials outside and not provided for in the epic code (e.g., erotic-elegiac, erotic-tragic). The dialectical overcoming of the deviant Carthaginian episode ends up being therefore victory for epic no less than for Fate.’ (A. Barchiesi, Speaking Volumes. Narrative and Intertext in Ovid and Other Latin poets [London, 2001], 131). 45 4.11. For arma uirumque as metonymy for epic, see under n. 33 above. Silius is particularly – perhaps excessively – fond of plays on the formula: 1.132, 241, 364, 519, 2.675, 3.526, 4.98, 253, 5.325, 6.6, 7.8, 8.272, 661, 9.100, 597, 10.505, 554, 12.168–9, 189, 17.102, 279, 442–3, 516. 46 11.385–431. On this scene, see E. Burck, Silius Italicus. Hannibal in Capua und die Rückeroberung der Stadt durch die Römer (Mainz, 1984), 22–4; G.O. Hutchinson, Latin Literature from Seneca to Juvenal (Oxford, 1993), 203–7; A. Barchiesi, ‘Genealogie letterarie nell’ epica imperiale’, in L’histoire littéraire immanente dans la poésie latine (Vandœuvres-Genève, 2001), 315–54, at 336–42; R. Cowan, Indivisible Cities: Mirrors of Rome in Silius Italicus (Oxford, forthcoming). The enervating winter sojourn spent in love and luxury which threatens the generic purity of the epic has two key antecedents in Apollonius’ Argonauts’ visit to Lemnos, on which see Feeney (n. 26), 322–4, and of course Aeneas in Carthage (see n. 44 above). 47 Scipio in biuiis: 15.18–129; Voluptas’ parting shot: 123–7. On the scene, see esp. Ahl-Davis-

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Tragoedia and Elegeia in Amores 3.1 re-inforce the sense that both moral and generic levels are in play, that Scipio has chosen both uirtus and epic, but that vice and elegy will triumph in the end. Agylle, the elegiac puella who turns a prospective epic hero into an eternal puer delicatus, the man of the bold spirit into the boy with the wanton wedding, embodies the generic and moral threat to the epic, military ideal which the Punica depicts as the only way to the stars, as opposed to the bottom of a lake. This threat is, of course, to the future, to succeeding generations. The Punica is pre-occupied with descent – familial, ethnic and literary – and how the past shapes the present and the present the future.48 The conflict between Rome and Carthage is based on their descent from Trojans and Dido’s Tyrians, and what happens in the course of the Second Punic War will have (with the benefit of hindsight) an immense impact on the future of Rome down to Silius’ own Domitianic era. We have already seen how Tyrrhenus’ hopes for his son, that he will be a great warrior and (which comes to the same thing) an epic hero, are frustrated. This symbolizes, on a small scale, the poem’s grander concerns about the future of Rome, whose martial, epic qualities can too easily be corrupted into elegiac decadence. However, it gains even greater resonance from being read in context, following immediately from the end of Punica 4, when Hannibal refuses the Carthaginian demand (fomented by his enemy Hanno) to have his son sacrificed in a tophet.49 Hannibal, like Tyrrhenus, has great ambitions for his son, ambitions that he will be a great warrior and, of course, a great epic hero.50 This wish is most clearly encapsulated in one lapidary line (4.814): at puer armorum et belli seruabitur heres. Silius’ favoured collocation of arma uirumque is here adapted to puer armorum: Hannibal’s puer will, as his father hopes, grow up to be an epic uir, who can be coupled with arma to produce the epic formula. He will be the heres, the heir, both literal and literary, to the arma and the bellum, the incipit of the Aeneid and the title of the Bellum Ciuile. Hardie has shown how Hannibal fails in his attempt to substitute a sacrifice of the Roman dead at Trasimene for that of his son, so that his ‘hopes that his son will take his place as a great leader of his people … will come to nothing.’51 The last time we saw him with his wife and child, he was cast as a Hector, keeping them away from battle.52 Like Hector, his hopes for his Astyanax, that he will be a great warrior like his father, are vain. We might add that his hopes, like Tyrrhenus’, and indeed Hector’s, that his son would take his place as the hero of an epic poem also come to nothing. This contrasts sharply with the young Scipio, a puer who will – even in the course of the poem – develop into an epic uir, rather than being frozen in unfulfilled childhood. Indeed, even in Book 4, he moves from being an Ascanius, marked out for Pomeroy (n. 26), 2553–4; M. Fucecchi, ‘Lo spettacolo delle virtù nel giovane eroe predestinato: analisi della figura di Scipione in Silio Italico’, Maia 45 (1993), 17–48, at 42–4; Marks (n. 26), 148–61. 48 P.R. Hardie, The Epic Successors of Virgil (Cambridge, 1993), esp. 88–119; Ripoll (n. 31), 48–63; Cowan (n. 4). 49 4.763–829, with Hannibal’s speech at 809–29. On this scene, see esp. R.T. Bruère, ‘Silius Italicus Punica 3.62–162 and 4.763–822’, CPh 47 (1952), 219–27, at 219–22; M. Fucecchi, ‘Irarum proles: un figlio di Annibale nei Punica di Silio Italico’, Maia 44 (1992), 45–54. 50 Again, I find myself partially anticipated by Augoustakis (n. 22), who notes the parallel between Tyrrhenus and Hannibal, but not the generic dimension. 51 Hardie (n. 48), 50–1. 52 3.62–162, with Bruère (n. 49), 222–3; von Albrecht (n. 26), 146–7; D.W.T. Vessey, ‘The dupe of destiny: Hannibal in Silius, Punica III’, CPh 77 (1982), 320–5, at 324–5; Ahl-Davis-Pomeroy (n. 26), 2513–4; Ripoll (n. 31), 66–9. This scene also evokes Pompey’s leave-taking of Cornelia at Luc. 5.722–815, but the latter resonance does not extend to the debate over child-sacrifice.

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greatness by the omen of the dove which lands on his helmet before the battle of Ticinus, to a blend of the maturing Ascanius who kills Numanus Remulus and the Aeneas who rescues his father from Troy, as Scipio does his at the battle of Trebia.53 The augur Liger, interpreting the omen correctly, addresses the puer as one who will have a maius Carthagine nomen (4.130), on one level, of course, ‘Africanus’, but also a fame, for all his current childish years, appropriate to the higher genre of epic; it will certainly not be the elegiac name ‘wanton wedding’.54 He is marked out again, in Jupiter’s instructions to his son Mars,55 as a puer, but one who already entrusts to his tender right hand battles, proelia, half of that other recurrent metonymy of epic, the reges et proelia which Apollo prevented Virgil–Tityrus from singing; with Mars’ help, even, but that he audeat, not he might dare his first-fruits of battle, to be bold, lasciuiat.56 When Scipio, Aeneas-like, has performed the pius feat of rescuing his father, Mars praises him (macte) in the manner of the Apollo of Aeneid 9, marking Ascanius for a great future. He addresses him as care puer, but the echo of Evander’s farewell to Pallas is a contrastive one: Scipio will not be a doomed youth, deflowered by death, but will live on to a fulfilled epic future. For Mars predicts that he will go on to greater things, militarily and generically, in the way that Thrasymennus will not: adhuc maiora supersunt.57 In this respect Scipio resembles the boy Hannibal, whom Hamilcar (unlike Tyrrhenus with his son) successfully inspires with epic passion (1.80): Romanum seuit puerili in pectore bellum. Almost poignantly the epic which the great Barca hopes he has sown in his boy’s breast is called Bellum Romanum, a title which can only be given by a Carthaginian victor, to distinguish one successful war from the others; just as the Greeks fought the Persian Wars, so Rome victorious will brand this conflict with the name of the defeated, the Second Punic War, the Hannibalic War, and its epic will be, not Romana, but Punica. For Scipio, not Hannibal, will be the ultimate victor of this epic. His superiority to Hannibal, to Thrasymennus, and to the other youths who are among the poem’s defeated, is manifested in two interlinked ways. Firstly, his destined victory means that, though he starts as a puer, he swiftly matures to become an epic uir, and is never frozen in the passive state of an erômenos, as the feminized, eroticized object of a desiring gaze. Building on the work of Fowler and others, Reed has shown how, in the eroticized deaths of figures like Virgil’s Euryalus, Pallas and even Turnus, ‘the shadow of a feminine persona figuratively registers the loss of their adult male potential; the erotic light that falls on them in a sense confirms their now permanent status as boys’ and we are shown ‘the failure of these fallen warriors to continue national or family lines’.58 Thrasymennus’ rape by Agylle, a sort of thanatized love rather than eroticized 53 Omen: 4.101–19, with Ahl-Davis-Pomeroy (n. 26), 2544; Fucecchi (n. 47), 20–3; Marks (n. 26), 163–9. 54 Denis Feeney suggests per litteras that there may be a further play on his later title of Maior, to distinguish him from Scipio (Aemilianus) Africanus Minor. 55 The generational continuity of martial and epic excellence is further marked by Jupiter addressing Mars (notably not Mercury or Apollo) as nate (4.420). 56 4.425–6. Cf. Virg. E. 6.3–5; for reges et proelia as metonymy for martial epic, see e.g. G. Williams, Banished Voices. Readings in Ovid’s Exile Poetry (Cambridge, 1994), 29–32. On this scene: Ahl-Davis-Pomeroy (n. 26), 2544; Fucecchi (n. 47), 23–5; Marks (n. 26), 38, 218–19. 57 Mars’ speech: 4.472–7; Apollo: Virg. A. 9.641–4; Evander: ibid. 8.581. On this scene: Ahl-Davis-Pomeroy (n. 26), 2545; Fucecchi (n. 47), 27–9; Hardie (n. 48), 97; Ripoll (n. 31), 182–3; Marks (n. 26), 37; and esp. (noting the generic relevance) S. Casali, ‘The poet at war: Ennius on the field in Silius’s Punica’, Arethusa 39 (2006), 569–93, at 589, 58 J.D. Reed, Virgil’s Gaze (Princeton, 2007), 23, 40. Cf. D.P. Fowler, ‘Vergil on killing virgins’, in M. Whitby, P. Hardie and M. Whitby (edd.), Homo Viator: Classical Essays for John Bramble

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death, as Batino has shown, and his reduction from prospective epic uir to the object of her desiring gaze render him one of the poem’s defeated: emasculated, productive of no generational continuity, leaving a name to be sure, but only one commemorating his shameful marriage.59 Hannibal too will finally become the object of the Roman people’s desiring gaze, even if it is only as an absent presence, when the imago of him in defeat, fleeing on the plain, holds everyone’s eyes and minds.60 By then, Scipio will be addressed, not as care puer, but as inuicte parens (17.651). Secondly, Scipio’s choice of Virtus over Voluptas, both personified and abstracted, of epic over elegy, sets him up as the morally and generically superior figure, who, within the epic economy of the Punica, can fulfil the moral and generic plan of Jupiter. Thrasymennus succumbs to Agylle, Hannibal to Venus at Capua, but Scipio resists temptations both allegorical and corporeal. For, when, after the capture of Nova Carthago, he sends back untouched the betrothed virgin offered to him as a spoil of war, Laelius praises his continence, his refusal to veer into the territory of both decadent voluptuary and elegiac lover, in terms which explicitly compare him (to his advantage) with epic heroes qua epic heroes (15.275-6): cedat tibi gloria lausque | magnorum heroum celebrataque carmine uirtus.61 Indeed, even the heroes of the Iliad, Agamemnon, Achilles, and all the other inhabitants of tents on the Trojan plain, succumbed to this weakness; for weakness it was – they violated their treaty of alliance femineo amore, primarily out of love for women such as Chryseis and Briseis, but also out of a feminine love, an incontinent, enervating, elegiac passion, which leads to moral ruin and disaster, as it did when Camilla conceived her feminine desire for spoils.62 It is Scipio’s ability to resist such temptation, unlike Thrasymennus and Hannibal, which marks him as the epic hero envisaged by Jupiter and by Tyrrhenus, the puer who will grow into a uir and gain a greater name, not ‘wanton wedding’, but ‘Africanus’.63 Balliol College, Oxford

ROBERT COWAN [email protected]

(Bristol, 1987), 185–98; for the motif in Silius’ contemporary, Statius: C. Jamset, ‘Death-loration: the eroticization of death in the Thebaid’, G&R 51 (2004), 95–104. 59 See n. 43 above. 60 sed non ulla magis mentesque oculosque tenebat, | quam uisa Hannibalis campis fugientis imago (17.643–4). Hardie (n. 48), 38–9, emphasizes the triumph’s substitution of imagines for the ‘real’ Hannibal and Scipio. 61 On this scene, see Ripoll (n. 31), 352–3, 463–4; Marks (n. 26), 238–9. Cf. Ahl-DavisPomeroy (n. 26), 2554, who see it, on the contrary, as an exception to their depiction of an already corrupted Scipio. 62 15.277–32. Camilla: Virg. A. 11.782. 63 I am very grateful to Denis Feeney and Elly Cowan for their helpful comments on drafts of this article.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 238–246 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000184

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IN THE WAKE OF LATONA: THETIS AT STATIUS, ACHILLEID 1.198–216 At Thetis undisonis per noctem in rupibus astans, quae nato secreta velit, quibus abdere terris destinet, huc illuc divisa mente volutat. 200 proxima, sed studiis multum Mavortia, Thrace; nec Macetum gens dura placet laudumque daturi Cecropidae stimulos; nimium opportuna carinis Sestos Abydenique sinus. placet ire per artas Cycladas; hic spretae Myconosque humilisque Seriphos 205 et Lemnos non aequa viris atque hospita Delos gentibus… qualis vicino volucris iam sedula partu iamque timens, qua fronde domum suspendat inanem; providet hic ventos, hic anxia cogitat angues, hic homines: tandem dubiae placet umbra, novisque 215 vix stetit in ramis et protinus arbor amatur. (Achilleid 1.198–207; 212–16)

Standing on the shores of Thessaly, Thetis deliberates about where to hide Achilles so as to prevent him from joining the expedition to Troy. Statius’ geography has troubled critics in various ways. D.R. Shackleton Bailey, for example, asks whether Statius’ mind was ‘in Lemnos, with memories of Hypsipyle’ when the poet claimed that Thrace was nearest to Mt Pelion (Ach. 1.201); on Statius’ inclusion of Lemnos among the Cyclades (Ach. 1.205–6), Shackleton Bailey accurately states that Lemnos is not, in fact, located there, but he does not elaborate.1 Similarly, O.A.W. Dilke, seemingly in an effort to explain geographic ‘mistakes’, suggests that Statius had never visited Greece and thus his use of Greek topography is second-hand and imprecise.2 Examples of such criticisms could easily be multiplied.3 Absent a recourse to textual emendation, for which the mansucripts offer no grounds, we are left with limited explanations for the apparent oddities. One is to continue to suggest (or imply) that Statius was misinformed, incompetent or both; another, that this geography serves literary ends. This paper argues for the latter. The ancients themselves knew that poets represented lands that were, in fact, distant from one another as contiguous and ones that were contiguous as distant.4 Moreover, the constitution of the Cycladic islands in particular was hardly fixed in antiquity: Strabo, for example, claims that twelve islands were initially classified 1

D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Statius: Thebaid, Books 8–12; Achilleid (Cambridge, 2003), 328. O.A.W. Dilke, Statius: Achilleid (Cambridge, 1954), 129. 3 E.g. J. Méheust, Stace, Achilléide (Paris, 1971), 15. See P.J. Heslin, The Transvestite Achilles: Gender and Genre in Statius’ Achilleid (Cambridge, 2005), 135, n. 64 for further bibliography. 4 Strabo 1.2.20 comments on geographic oddities in, for instance, Sophocles and the prologue of Euripides’ Bacchae. Geographies in Roman poetry were also challenging: the Propempticon Pollionis, the work of the meticulous poet Cinna, contains an itinerary for the area around Actium that provoked questions from ancients; cf. A.S. Hollis, Fragments of Roman Poetry c. 60BC–AD20 (Oxford, 2006), 25–6. W. Kroll, Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur (Stuttgart, 1924), 293–307 is a standard discussion of geographical knowledge (or the lack thereof ) in Roman poetry; cf. too R. Mayer, ‘Geography and Roman Poets’, G&R 33 (1986), 47–54. 2

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among the Cyclades but that additional ones were added later (10.5.3); yet Pliny names thirteen islands that make up the chain (HN 4.65–8). In part this loose classification is likely to stem from the fact that the Homeric poems – an authoritative though hardly indisputable source of geographic knowledge – do not mention the Cyclades. Not surprisingly, poets such as Pindar (fr. 33d), Callimachus (Del. 36) and Virgil (Aen. 3.75–6) variously utilized the shifting position of Delos and the instability of the Cyclades for their own poetic ends.5 Indeed, in the Achilleid itself, Peter Heslin has already demonstrated that Statius creatively uses Delos as a foil to Scyros in order to enhance an understanding of the doomed attempts of Thetis to save Achilles.6 Such a marked literary history suggests that Statius’ topography warrants closer analysis. The geography of this particular passage of the Achilleid reworks passages from Homeric and Callimachean hymns, Euripides, Virgil and Ovid in ways that, for the most part, create a Thetis who is modelled upon Latona, the mother of Apollo and Diana who was forced to travel around the Aegean in order to find a place to give birth. Though Thetis is not about to deliver a child, the parallels between the two divine mothers highlight constraints against which the Nereid contends. Yet, as is suggested by the simile of the mother bird that immediately follows Thetis’ deliberations (Ach. 1.212–16), the mother of a child who is fated to a mors immatura must – and does – think and act differently from Latona, the mother of the eternal youth Apollo. Indeed, the analogy between Thetis and Latona ultimately draws a strong contrast between the mortal Achilles and the divine Apollo. Statius’ Aegean topography and the subsequent simile thus show that Thetis persistently looks to yet alters Leto’s path where necessary in order to try to keep Achilles safe. In trying to circumvent the heroic narrative(s) by which Achilles dies and gains his epic fame, Thetis is certainly doomed to failure. But whereas she often seems inept and a poor ‘reader’ of the literary tradition,7 in this case her assessment of the best location to keep Achilles safe shows her to be a cautious and alert reader of past poetry. It is just unfortunate for Thetis that her very awareness of the literary past also emphasizes her experiential understanding of fundamental distinctions between humans and the gods in the world of epic. I. PROXIMA … THRACE Statius’ statement that Mt Pelion is next to Thrace seems patently wrong in terms of actual distance, but this juxtaposition of Pelion and Thrace is paralleled in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. Specifically, a catalogue of the wanderings undertaken by the pregnant Leto places Mt Pelion next to Thrace, or at least to Thracian Mt Athos | and Samos (h.Ap. 33–4 ). These seemingly distant lands are literally juxtaposed, suggesting that for a goddess, spatial arrangements may be viewed from an entirely different perspective. 5 For Pindar and Delos, see I. Rutherford, Pindar’s Paeans: A Reading of the Fragments with a Survey of the Genre (Oxford, 2001), 243–52, 364–72; for Callimachus, see M. Giuseppetti, L’Inno a Delo di Callimaco: aspetti del mito e dello stile (Diss., Università degli Studi Roma Tre, 2008); M. Depew, ‘Delian Hymns and Callimachean Allusion’, HSCP 98 (1998), 155–82; J. Nishimura-Jensen, ‘Unstable geographies: the moving landscape in Apollonius’ Argonautica and Callimachus’ Hymn to Delos’, TAPA 130 (2000), 289–99; A. Barchiesi, ‘Immovable Delos: Aeneid 3.73–98 and the Hymns of Callimachus’, CQ 44 (1994), 438–43 discusses the Virgilian island. 6 Heslin (n. 3), 134–7. 7 Heslin (n. 3), 105–9.

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Moreover, these locations appear in the itinerary that Leto follows as she moves from Crete up the western side of the Aegean to Thrace to the eastern Aegean and then down towards the Cyclades. The hymn’s description of her circular pattern of movement establishes a kind of proximity between the western Aegean (and specifically Pelion) and Thrace.8 Thetis’ mental movements, then, recall Leto’s actual wanderings. Statius’ reworking of the Homeric hymn not only links Thetis with Latona but it also situates his poetic geography in a tradition of topographical incongruity. After all, the itinerary of Leto’s travels in the hymn is hardly precise, since Scyros, for example, is mentioned among islands that are found in the eastern Aegean (h.Ap. 35).9 Additionally, the famous division of the hymn into Delian and Pythian halves dispenses with cartographic tidyness.10 Clearly, then, the hymn itself is predicated upon geographic displacement, and Statius’ claim about the proximity of Thrace to Pelion thus locates his scene in a tradition that operates with a fluid sense of geography. For this specific expression of Thrace’s location, however, Statius most of all develops Virgilian geographical interests. At Aen 3.13, Virgil describes Thrace as terra procul vastis colitur Mavortia campis. The adverb procul often calls attention to long distances (OLD s.v. 2), and in the context of Thrace it may seem natural to take it in that sense. In fact, later in the poem Virgil represents Thrace as the prototypically … distant land (Aen. 12.335–6 ultima … Thraca; cf. Hom. Il. 10.434 ). But since Thrace is Aeneas’ first stop after he left Troy,11 it is actually not all that far from the fallen kingdom and thus procul may signify here a separation that is not of great distance. Indeed, on this very passage, Servius explains that procul means ‘not very far’ (non valde longe), and elsewhere he notes that the word may mean both ‘near’ and ‘far’.12 Virgil’s procul thus points to the difficulty of defining Thrace’s position in absolute terms: is it near or far? The Virgilian question is revisited by Statius in Achilleid 1.201. The adjective proxima establishes that Thrace is quite literally ‘closest’, yet the position of Thrace in the final foot of the hexameter is as distant as possible from its modifier that begins the verse. The hyperbaton and the adjective simultaneously suggest both proximity and separation. Moreover, Statius’ description of Thrace as Mavortia (Ach. 1.201), an adjective that is first attested in Virgil, echoes the account of Thrace at Aen. 3.13.13 Statius’ proxima, then, seems to pick up on and respond to Virgil’s geographic play with procul. That is, he offers that, to judge from the travels of Odysseus and Aeneas, 8 Nor is the geography of the hymn exceptional since even in the Iliad, Thrace’s separation from mainland Greece is variable. At Il. 14.227, for example, the land that is defined as Thrace seems further west than does the very eastern territory that is dubbed Thracian at Il. 2.844–50; see R. Janko, The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume IV. (Cambridge, 1994), 186–7. 9 Heslin (n. 3), 135–6 has shown the importance of the hymn’s treatment of Scyros for Statius’ own account. 10 See J.J. O’Hara, Inconsistency in Roman Epic (Cambridge, 2007), 15–16 and 26 on the notorious geographical problems in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo that are then reworked by Callimachus’ Hymn to Artemis. He suggests that the geographical incongruities may be seen as part of a tradition and literary technique rather than a point of confusion. 11 Thrace is also the first stop for Odysseus (Od. 9.39). 12 Cf. Servius’ comments on Aen. 5.124 (where he also points to the example of Ecl. 6.16) and Aen. 6.10. N. Horsfall, Virgil: Aeneid 3 (Leiden, 2006), 53 notes the need to read the sense of distance from Aeneas’ Trojan perspective. 13 Statius’ engagement with the geography of Aeneid 3 is discussed more generally by H. Kuerschner, P. Papinius Statius quibus in Achilleide componenda usus esse videatur fontibus (Marburg, 1907), 62–4.

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Thrace is a short distance from Troy.14 It is no wonder, then, that Thetis avoids Thrace at the very moment when she is trying to decide how to keep her son from going to fight – and die – at Troy. Statius’ startling reversal of Thrace’s conventional epic epithet suggests that this topographic account is relative. That is, it depends upon Thetis’ perception of distance as it relates to Achilles and Troy. Nonetheless, her viewpoint is not without justification since it evokes Leto’s wandering in the Homeric hymn. Both points indicate that Thetis’ conception of Aegean geography depends upon the literary past. II. STATIUS’ CYCLADES After she rules out Macedon, Athens, Abydus and Sestus (Ach. 1.202–4), Thetis focusses upon the Cyclades as a hiding place for her son. Once again, earlier poetic geography illuminates her decisions and motivations. Initially, the configuration of the islands seems odd: Myconos, Seriphos and Delos are all recognizable as parts of the Cycladic chain, but Lemnos, located in the north Aegean, is not even close to these islands. However, as mentioned earlier, the identity of the islands that actually made up the chain was debated in antiquity (Strabo 10.5.3), so it seems best to consider this strange arrangement of the Cyclades in light of literary history. Two points emerge from doing so. First, Statius’ geography calls to mind the passage from Euripides’ Trojan Women in which Poseidon assures Athena that he will rouse the waters around Delos, Myconos, Scyros and Lemnos in order to destroy the Greeks upon their return home from the Trojan War (89–90). Euripides does not classify these islands as the Cyclades, but none the less the islands he mentions are relevant for Statius’ passage. After all, Statius mentions three of the Euripidean islands, and the fourth (Scyros) need not be cited since it is where Thetis ultimately chooses to hide her son. In addition to the topographical similarities, however, the context of the Euripidean passage matters because it points to a crucial difference between the goddesses. Specifically, Athena is able to convince Neptune to rouse a storm and to overwhelm the Greeks who sailed to Troy, whereas Thetis has failed to convince Neptune to create a storm that would destroy the Greek fleet and thus save Achilles (Ach. 1.61–95). Moreover, Statius’ Neptune is like the Euripidean sea-god (to say nothing of Poseidon in the Odyssey) in that he looks to the Greek return trip – not the outbound one – from Troy as the moment to destroy the fleet. The timing of the divine assault upon the Greek fleet is crucial for Thetis’ hope to save Achilles, but the Euripidean geography, evoked by Statius in part through the unusual inclusion of Lemnos among other Cycladic islands, highlights the futility of her attempts. She is truly a weakened and desperate goddess.15 The second point is that Statius’ description of the Cyclades also situates the passage in an Ovidian tradition that creates and exploits geographic incongruities. The collocation of Seriphos and Myconos, for example, alludes to Ovid’s catalogue of 14 Indeed, Thrace is the European land closest to Troy. The problematic proximity of Europe and Asia is brought into sharper relief when Thetis decides to avoid Sestus and Abydus (Ach. 1.204). These two sites were conventionally seen as the shortest crossing point of the Hellespont and thus the closest point of contact between Europe and Asia (e.g. Hdt. 7.44; Ov. Ep. 18.127). When discussing the Trojan War earlier in the poem (Ach. 1.82), Statius, echoing a Virgilian expression (Aen. 10.90–1 quae causa fuit consurgere in arma | Europamque Asiamque), tellingly views it as the collision of Europe and Asia. Thetis’ decision to pass over certain sites, then, has real justification. For more on the boundaries between the continents, see D. Feeney, ‘Tenui latens discrimine: spotting the differences in Statius’ Achilleid’, MD 52 (2004), 85–105, at 101–5. 15 On Thetis’ lack of power, see Heslin (n. 3), 160–4.

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islands that join Minos in his attack on Athens (Met. 7.463–4),16 and perhaps the martial heritage of these islands prompts Thetis to avoid them. However that may be, Statius’ handling of Myconos is particularly revelatory. Two of the three appearances of Myconos in extant Latin literature before Statius come from Virgil (Aen. 3.76 Mycono e celsa) and from this section of Ovid’s catalogue (Met. 7.463 humilem Myconem). The conflicting descriptions of the island’s height – is it celsa or humilis? – that the Augustan poets offer are acknowledged by Statius’ juxtaposition of Myconos with the epithet humilis,17 but he ultimately sidesteps the issue by transferring the Ovidian adjective for the island to Seriphos.18 Nonetheless, Statius’ diction calls attention to the (deliberate) confusion and contradictions that appear in poetic decriptions of the Cyclades. Statius’ designation of Delos, the eventual centre of the island group, as hospita introduces even greater topographical confusion. The phrase hospita Delos replicates the language used by the Ovidian Niobe when she, the mother of fourteen children, rants against her townspeople for worshipping Latona, who has only two offspring. In the midst of her speech, Niobe imagines that the wandering Delos said to Latona that they are counterparts in that one wanders on land, the other on sea (Met. 6.190–1 ‘hospita tu terris erras, ego’ dixit ‘in undis’ | instabilemque locum Delos dedit). The idea of movement, suggested both by erras and hospita,19 creates the expectation that Statius’ Delos will be like Ovid’s wanderer and that Thetis once again envisions the Aegean in relation to Latona’s movements. In terms of understanding Statius’ geography, a wandering Delos matters because its movement precludes a fixed constitution of the Cyclades.20 Disturbed boundaries caused by a floating Delos are already manifest in Callimachus’ hymn, in which the island moves south from Euboea, the northernmost boundaries of the Cyclades, before reaching its fixed location in the centre of the chain (Del. 196–8). According to such a principle, Heslin argues, Scyros, which had created geographic problems as far back as the Homeric hymn, could be positioned among Statius’ Cyclades.21 Perhaps, then, Statius’ representation of the Aegean is so distorted that even more northern locales such as Lemnos may be represented among the Cyclades.22 If so, the inclusion of Lemnos among the Cyclades not only echoes the passage from Euripides’ Trojan 16 Ovid’s lengthier arrangement focusses on the Cyclades but, like Statius’, also includes outlying islands such as Astypalaia (Met. 7.463; one of the Sporades: cf. Strabo 10.5.14) and Peparethos (Met. 7.470; not classified among Strabo’s list of the Cyclades at 9.5.16). G.L. Huxley, ‘Arne Sithonis’, CQ 32 (1982), 159–61 fruitfully discusses Ovid’s inclusive geography. 17 Bömer (on Met. 7.464) discusses the Ovidian ‘correction’. 18 Another allusion to Ovid is the connective -que placed at the end of humilis, resulting in a line ending that matches Ovid’s mention of Seriphos (Met. 7.464 planamque Seriphon). 19 For hospita, cf. TLL 6.3.3032.24–32; 3033.17–27. 20 As Heslin (n. 3), 136 remarks on Thetis’ speech to Scyros, ‘In the world of the mythical past that Statius is describing, the geography of the Aegean was still somewhat unstable …’. 21 Heslin (n. 3), 135; it is intriguing that Scyros seems out of place as well at Catullus 64.35, where the manuscript reading Scyros has been emended to Cieros. The poem, of course, takes Thetis’ marriage as its subject. 22 It should also be noted that, as she does with other locations that pose some sort of problem for her interests, Thetis is wise to avoid Lemnos. The island is hostile to men (Ach. 1.206), a claim that refers to the myth that with the exception of Hypsipyle the Lemnian women killed their husbands and indeed all of the men on the island. Moreover, at this point in the narrative, Thetis’ plan to dress her son as a girl has only been hinted at obliquely (Ach. 1.141–2), so it seems that the Achilleid’s crucial question about whether gender and identity are essential or constructed (see, e.g., Heslin [n. 3], 294–5) is addressed right here, but Thetis knows that her son cannot escape his biology.

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Woman, but it may also build upon the literary history of Delos’ shifting position in the Aegean. The Ovidian Delos, however, ultimately proves to be only part of Statius’ picture. At the start of Achilleid 1.207, Statius’ gentibus, emphatically placed in enjambment, clarifies that hospita functions attributively, meaning ‘welcoming’. In other words, the initial reading and understanding of Delos as a wanderer was deceptively provisional.23 In fact, rather than referring to travel and movement, hospita actually marks Delos’ stability; for, as Callimachus indicates, only after it is rooted does Delos become open to people from all over the world (Del. 278–82; cf. Ach. 1.206–7 hospita … gentibus). And there is good reason to think of Callimachus’ account here since after it is fixed, Callimachus’ Delos celebrates the fact that it will no longer wander ). The Callimachean is virtually (Del. 4.273 glossed by the initial reading of Statius’ hospita, and even after the enjambment changes the meaning of hospita, the meaning of the Callimachean phrase is still evoked since Statius implicitly makes the point that Delos is no longer a wanderer. Statius’ diction and artful enjambment thus activate a second, distinct account about the (in)stability of Delos. Ultimately, these two competing mythic versions about Delos are closely related. After all, before Statius, Ovid had exploited the polyvalence of hospita to suggest that Delos is on the move, the very opposite point that Callimachus had made through . And while Statius’ redefinition of hospita seems to stabilize Delos, the shifting, Ovidian Delos remains in play. In fact, later in the poem Thetis, having deposited Achilles on Scyros, leaves the island and again uses Niobe’s language to prophesy that if Scyros protects her son, it will not be surpassed in fame by floating Delos (Ach. 1.388 nec instabili fama superabere Delo ~ Met. 6.191 instabilemque locum Delos dedit). Just as the literary tradition has it both ways, so too does the Achilleid: Delos is unstable, both fixed and moving. A wandering Delos, as discussed above, allows Statius to avoid a fixed Aegean topography and to recall the wanderings of Latona. But a fixed Delos helps to explain why Thetis would avoid the island. That is, the rooting of the island coincides with a new name: what had been called Asteria, according to Callimachus, becomes Delos (Del. 40; 51–4).24 This alteration of the name of the island seems to be a Callimachean (Del. 53), which Roman readers treated innovation that puns upon the word , ‘clear’ or ‘conspicuous’.25 Because as an alpha-privativized form of the Greek 23 For this kind of reading of enjambment in Latin poetry, see, e.g., S. Wheeler, A Discourse of Wonders: Audience and Performance in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Philadelphia, 1999), 11–13; R. Jenkyns, ‘Labor Improbus’, CQ 43 (1993), 243–8, at 247; W. Batstone, ‘On the surface of the Georgics’, Arethusa 21 (1988), 227–45, at 230. The phenomenon continually recurs in poetic language: at 228–9 Batstone discusses critical approaches to the phenomenon in Shakespeare; for Dante’s Inferno, cf. J. Ferrante, ‘A poetics of chaos and harmony’, in R. Jacoff (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Dante (Cambridge, 20072), 181–200, at 187: ‘The primary effect of enjambment in the Inferno is to force the reader to rethink a previous notion’. 24 Giuseppetti (n. 5), 45–6 discusses the temporal relationship of the change of Delos’ name in Callimachus and how his hymn relates to versions in Pindar and the Homeric hymn. 25 J.J. O’Hara, True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor, 1995), 165–6 cites Roman interpretations of the etymology. Giuseppetti (n. 5), 24 points out Callimachus’ innovation with the island’s name (cf. 46 as well for his discussion of Asteria, a name that itself probably involves etymological play upon the adjective [‘firm, fixed’] and the alpha-privative). K. Ukleja, Der Delos-Hymnus des Kallimachos innerhalb seines Hymnensextetts (Münster, 2005), 129–47 and W.H. Mineur, Callimachus: Hymn to Delos. Introduction and Commentary (Leiden, 1984), 75 also discuss Callimachus’ treatment of the island’s name.

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of the aid it provided to Latona, the Callimachean island turns from a floating, hardto-find land mass to one that is fixed and clear to see. For Thetis’ interest in keeping her son away from the Greek army and going to Troy, an open and accessible island should be (and actually is) the last place she should consider.26 Thetis, then, once again astutely draws upon the literary past – particularly as it relates to Latona – in deciding where to hide her son.27 III. MOTHERS AND SONS The simile of the mother bird that follows Thetis’ deliberations reinforces this etymological play concerning Delos and Latona (Ach. 1.212–16). Though the content of the simile recalls Achilles’ famous claim at Il. 9.323–5 that he is like a mother bird toiling on behalf of its young, Statius keeps Thetis at the fore. Indeed the points of contact between Thetis and the mother bird are numerous (timens, 1.213 ~ timidae, 1.211; anxia, 1.194, 214; the anticipation of threats to offspring (providet, 1.214 ~ video, 1.34); both settle on places that are pleasing (placet, 1.211, 215).28 In this regard, it is intriguing that the mother bird ultimately decides that the umbra ought to be her nesting place (1.215 tandem dubiae placet umbra). The bird’s choice may afford ‘protection’, but the fact that the semantic range of umbra includes ‘darkness’ and ‘obscurity’ pointedly counters the etymology of ‘conspicuous’ Delos. The obscuring shade pleases the mother bird,29 and in this regard she shares even more common ground with Thetis, who sensibly did not want to hide her son on an island that is defined by visibility and clarity.30 A deep poetic heritage underlies these maternal motivations. In particular, the language and imagery of light and darkness engage with central points of the Iliad. In Iliad 18, for instance, Achilles claims that by refusing to fight he was not a light for Patroclus or the other Greeks (Il. 18.102). Moreover, when he subsequently enters battle after having received his armour from Thetis, four similes describe Achilles’ luminous brilliance (Il. 19.375–99). The implications are clear: the martial Achilles is 26 It is from this perspective of visibility that Thetis must avoid Delos, which otherwise would seem fitting since death and warfare are banished from the island (Call. Del. 276–7). But the point is that Thetis must shield Achilles to prevent his discovery, which will lead to his death at Troy. 27 For potential connections between Callimachus’ Asteria and earlier mythic accounts of Thetis (a point that would make Statius’ engagement with Delos even richer), see Giuseppetti (n. 5), 43–6. 28 G. Aricò, ‘L’ Achilleide di Stazio’, ANRW 2.32.5 (1986), 2925–64, at 2937 notes the simile’s relevance for Thetis. As noted by D. Mendelsohn, ‘Empty nest, abandoned cave: maternal anxiety in Achilleid 1’, Classical Antiquity 9 (1990), 295–308, at 301, Thetis is also connected with the lioness whose cub Achilles had taken (Ach 1.168–70). A triangulated relationship between Thetis, Latona and the bird may also be suggested by the fact that the mother bird, like Latona, is seeking a place to give birth. 29 There is no strong reason to correlate the name Scyros with umbra, but one may wonder whether Statius puns not upon but in relation to the island: T Il.23.332–3, for example, quotes Aristarchus and connects the Greek verb ‘to shade’ with . Moreover, Hesychius claims that Philetas connected with groves and woods, a place in which one would naturally find shade (cf. K.Spanoudakis, Philetas of Cos [Leiden, 2002], 330–2). See also P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots (Paris, 1983), 1019. 30 D. Kozák, ‘The dawn of Achilles. Light imagery in the Iliad and Statius’ Achilleid’, Acta Ant. Hung. 47 (2007), 369–85, at 376–7 convincingly discusses from another perspective the ‘veil of darkness’ that surrounds Achilles’ time on Scyros and its lifting when Achilles joins the Greek army.

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characterized by light, whereas his withdrawal and separation from the Greek army are a period of darkness. By avoiding Delos Thetis seeks safe obscurity for her son as opposed to providing the weapons with which he becomes resplendent. She thus reverses her Iliadic actions and attempts to thwart essential imagery of the Homeric poem. Statius’ contrast between light and darkness as it pertains to Delos also entails distinctions between the human Achilles and the divine Apollo. The comparison between the two is set up at the beginning of the scene in Thessaly, when a simile – modelled upon a Virgilian comparison in which Apollo returns to his mother’s Delos (cf. Aen. 4.143–9 qualis … Lyciam … Apollo; cf. Aen. 4.144 Delum … maternam) – describes Achilles’ return to Thetis in terms of Apollo returning to his mother (Ach. 1.165–6 qualis Lycia venator Apollo | cum redit et saevis permutat plectra pharetris).31 This explicit comparison is reinforced by the recurring similarities between Thetis and Latona in subsequent verses. The relationship between Achilles and Apollo, however, is qualified in large part through the imagery of light and darkness. Whereas the Homeric Achilles could be compared to the sun (or Hyperion; cf. Il. 19.398), Statius’ Thetis declares in frustration that if Achilles’ father had been divine, then her son would have been a great star (Ach. 1.253–5 aetheriis ego te complexa tenerem | sidus grande plagis, magnique puerpera caeli | nil humiles Parcas terrenaque fata vererer). Thetis’ use of puerpera, an exceedingly rare word in epic, certainly recalls Ovid’s Latona (Met. 6.337) and furthers the comparison between the mothers and sons. In addition, while the contra-factual life that Thetis fantasizes about for Achilles sounds Jovian,32 sidus may also describe the sun (e.g. Tib. 2.1.47; Ov. Met. 1.424). By Statius’ day the connection between Apollo and the sun had been made through consistent puns upon his appellation Phoebus (e.g. Lucr. 6.1197; Aen. 8.720),33 so Thetis’ fantasy raises the possibility that the comparison between the sons operates on an astral level. But of course Thetis is aware that her son will not achieve such a position in the universe, and in this sense Apollo’s association with the sun distinguishes the god from Achilles. It is in the earthly manifestations of their brilliance that the crucial distinction between Achilles and Apollo is made. Earlier literature had naturally transferred to Delos the brilliance and visibility that is associated with Apollo (e.g. Arist. fr. 488 Rose; Pliny, HN 4.66). Yet it is striking that one of the earliest descriptions of Delos’ radiance is predicated upon Achilles’ own brilliance. Specifically, Pindar describes the ), and his use of the rare adjective surely island as ‘far-shining’ (fr.33c.6 recalls the cognate form that describes Achilles’ highly visible tomb in the Odyssey ). In its characterization of sites sacred to Achilles and Apollo, (Od. 24.83 literary history had linked the god and hero in terms of their visibility and brightness. But for Statius’ Thetis, Achilles is not Apollo because, instead of being an ethereal, 31 Heslin (n. 3), 183–4 and 253 well discusses the simile in light of connections between Apollo and Achilles, both of whom are paradigms of ephebic beauty; cf. Ach. 1.167–8; Il. 2.673–4. Achilles is a virtual doublet of Apollo elsewhere: see, e.g., W. Burkert, ‘Apellai und Apollon’, RhM 118 (1975), 1–21, at 19; R. Rabel, ‘Apollo as a model for Achilles in the Iliad’, AJP 111 (1990), 429–40. 32 Magni … caeli, for example, evokes Jupiter, whose association with the sky was widespread (e.g. Var. LL 5.67 quod Iovis Iuno coniunx et is Caelum; Virg. Aen. 3.171; Ov. Met. 13.707). See too Kozák (n. 31), 382, for a valuable discussion of the cosmic imagery of these verses in relation to Jupiter. 33 The connection between Apollo and the sun also appears in Greek as well; cf. Euripides’ Phaethon (TGF 781.11–13).

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radiant divinity, like all mortals he is earth-bound and destined to die.34 Indeed, it is through his death that Achilles’ equals Apollo’s brilliance. Thetis knows all too well that her son is like Apollo – and she like Latona – in many ways except in the crucial one. Consequently, at a pivotal moment of Achilles’ life she tries to prevent his death so as to deny Achilles the tomb that gives him a brilliance to match Apollo’s. By fighting against the imagery of light and darkness that underscores the heroic version of Achilles’ life and death, Thetis plays her maternal role differently from the way she does in the Iliad. While it has rightly become accepted that Statius turns to Ovidian epic to confront the Homeric tradition,35 here Horatian lyric – specifically the ode about Sybaris and Lydia that ends with the equation of the hiding lover to that of Achilles on Scyros (Carm. 1.8) – provides an explicit model.36 In addition, reconceptions of the kind of heroism embraced by the Iliadic Achilles appear even in Homeric epic, and perhaps no statement is more powerful than one offered by the shade of Achilles himself when he states that he would rather be alive as a labourer than be king of the dead (Od. 11.489–91).37 In the Achilleid, Thetis’ determined efforts to gauge the relative safety of various places in the Aegean poignantly show that she comprehends before his death what the poetic tradition has her son learn only after it. Georgetown University

CHARLES M C NELIS [email protected]

34 In this regard the phrase that describes Lemnos (Ach. 1.206 non aequa viris) significantly points towards Achilles’ human, that is, mortal, nature. In fact, the rare litotes non aequa is evocative of epitaphs or funerary contexts, and in this particular metrical sedes and in relation to Achilles, the phrase echoes Odysseus’ lament over the death of the hero in Ovid’s epic (Met. 13.131–2 quem quoniam non aequa mihi vobisque negarunt | fata). 35 E.g. S. Koster, ‘Liebe und Krieg in der ‘Achilleis’ des Statius’, Würzburger Jahrbücher für die Altertumswissenschaft n.F. 5 (1979), 189–208; G. Rosati, Stazio: Achilleide (Milan, 1994), 25–33; A. Barchiesi, ‘La guerra di Troia non avrà luogo: il proemio dell’ Achilleide di Stazio’, AION 18 (1996), 45–62; S. Hinds, Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (Cambridge, 1998), 136–42. 36 Horace claims that Sybaris shirks military and athletic training in the sunny Campus Martius (1.8.3–4 apricum … campum … solis) because of his love for Lydia. Sybaris’ avoidance of the outdoors implies his effeminancy (cf. N–H on Carm. 1.8.4), but as M. Lowrie points out (Horace’s Narrative Odes [Oxford, 1997], 120), Horace’s emphasis on sunlight also evokes Pindar’s sunny Olympia (O. 1.111). The heroic activity that takes place at the radiant Olympic games contrasts with Pindar’s assignation of a shadowy existence to those who lack the courage to undertake heroic feats (O. 1.81–5; cf. ). The lack of activity on the part of Horace’s Sybaris is thus markedly antithetical to glorious, masculine endeavours, and this polarity between masculine military/athletic training and feminine hiding is enhanced by the opposition between light and darkness. 37 For discussion of the Odyssean ‘retrospective comment’ upon the heroic values of the Iliad, see A. Edwards, Achilles in the Odyssey: Ideologies of Heroism in the Homeric Epic (Königstein/Ts., 1985), 50–2.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 247–262 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000196

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CHAEREAS REVISITED. RHETORICAL CONTROL IN CHARITON’S ‘IDEAL’ NOVEL CALLIRHOE INTRODUCTION In ancient novel scholarship, the distinction between the ideal Greek novel and its comic–realistic Latin counterpart has been, and still is, highly influential. It originates with R. Heinze’s thesis that Petronius’ Satyricon develops from a literary genre parodying idealistic features in the Greek novels.1 Despite the contributions of scholars warning against applying this dichotomy too rigidly,2 the distinction remains a commonly accepted tool to classify novelistic literature.3 In this paper I will focus on the characterization of the male protagonist in Chariton’s Callirhoe, the oldest of the so-called ideal novels.4 My reading of this character will suggest that Chariton’s position within the ideal genre should be reassessed, and that consequently the overall distinction between ideal and realistic novels is a generalization that does not take into account the actual complexity of one of the oldest representatives of the genre. The distinction between ideal Greek and realistic Latin novelistic literature is largely informed by the divergent depiction of character in both sub-genres. Whereas the Latin novel adopts realistic and sexually explicit character portrayal, scholars have underlined the idealizing aspects in the characterization of protagonists in the Greek novel. Their beauty invests them with a godlike appearance, and their nobility ) generates loftiness of character that sharply distinguishes them from other, ( less noble, characters in the story.5 Scholars have emphasized the unreal atmosphere surrounding this characterization.6 E. Rohde’s view that the protagonists in the Greek novel are ‘seelenlose Gestalten’ and ‘Gliederpuppen’, invested with a ‘leere und 1

R. Heinze, ‘Petron under der griechische Roman’, Hermes 34 (1899), 494–519. Cf., e.g., F. Wehrli, ‘Einheit und Vorgeschichte der griechisch-römischen Romanliteratur’, MH 22 (1965), 133–54. Recently, A. Barchiesi, ‘Romanzo greco, romanzo latino: problemi e prospettive della ricerca attuale’, in L. Graverini, W. Keulen and A. Barchiesi, Il romanzo antico. Forme, testi, problemi (Rome, 2006), 193–218 points to a number of less idealistic elements in various Greek novels. 3 Cf., e.g., N. Holzberg, Der antike Roman. Eine Einführung (Darmstadt, 20063), 59–138, classifying the texts under the headings of ‘Der idealisierende Roman: Ältere Texte’ (59–79), ‘Der komisch-realistische Roman’ (80–111) and ‘Der idealisierende Roman: Jüngere Texte’ (112–38). 4 Callirhoe was probably written within one or two decades either side of A.D. 50. This view is defended by B.P. Reardon, ‘Chariton’, in G. Schmeling (ed.), The Novel in the Ancient World (Leiden, 1996), 309–35, at 317, and E.L. Bowie, ‘The chronology of the earlier Greek novels since B.E. Perry: revisions and precisions’, Ancient Narrative 2 (2002), 47–63, at 57, who dates Chariton between A.D. 41 and 62. For an overview of different accounts of the dating of Chariton, see S.D. Smith, Greek Identity and the Athenian Past in Chariton: The Romance of Empire (Groningen, 2007), 2, n. 4. 5 E.g. F. Napolitano, ‘Leucippe nel Romanzo di Achille Tazio’, Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia della Università di Napoli 26 (1983–4), 85–101, at 86: characters are ‘fortemente stilizzati’ because of a ‘forte processo di idealizzazione’ (with reference made to the beauty of the protagonists). 6 E.g. D. Del Corno, ‘Anzia e le altre’, Atti del II Convegno Internazionale. La donna nel mondo antico (Turin, 1989), 75–84, at 84: ‘Certo, la protagonista del romanzo greco è una figura ideale, per non dire irreale: come già la stessa eccezionalità dei suoi connotati fisici e anagrafici esplicitamente ammette’. 2

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leblose Idealität’, has never been substantially contested.7 Scholars who point to the presence of some psychological realism in the protagonists’ characterization do not go any further than making short, occasional suggestions. A. Lesky, for example, conjectures that the influence of rhetorical school curricula on the novelists ‘must have led, at least for the more gifted, to a greater profundity of the intellectual processes and to a more refined elaboration of psychological details’,8 but he does not develop this suggestion in any detail. Common opinion still has it that realistic character depiction is to be looked for (to a certain extent, at least) primarily in the characterization of minor characters.9 Yet, it has often been pointed out that psychologically realistic detail plays a more important role in Chariton’s novel than in the other extant novels.10 It is telling, however, that only the characterization of the minor characters and occasionally of Callirhoe have been adduced to support this thesis.11 The characterization of Chariton’s male protagonist Chaereas, on the other hand, has been largely neglected. According to J. Helms, the author of the only systematic study on characterization in Chariton up to now, it is not even worthwhile to look for any realistic detail in Chaereas’ characterization in the first place: ‘There is … such a dearth of realistic detail that a discussion of realism in the case of Chaereas would be unprofitable and, therefore, it has not been considered further’.12 Long before Helms, J. Dunlop wrote in his History of Fiction that Chariton was the first writer of romance who succeeded in depicting an ‘interesting’ male character.13 Since Dunlop assumed, like Rohde later, that Chariton was the latest of all Greek novelists, Chariton is, in his view, not only the first, but also the only novelist applying psychological characterization. Significantly, however, Dunlop’s statement does not refer to Chariton’s protagonist Chaereas, but to the Milesian antagonist Dionysius. The limited attention that Chaereas’ characterization has received centres primarily upon his assimilation with pre-existing character types. It has been pointed out, for example, that Chaereas is associated, merely by his name, with the character type of the adulescens, often bearing the same name in New Comedy.14 This character type is hot-tempered and passionate, and Chaereas’ name might be read as an implicit prolepsis of his uncontrolled outburst in the first book of the novel. Furthermore, Chaereas’ assimilation with epic and tragic heroes and the inversions of and divergences from these paradigms have also received some attention.15 So far, however, 7

E. Rohde, Der griechische Roman und seine Vorläufer (Leipzig, 1914), 476–7. A. Lesky, A History of Greek Literature (trans. J. Willis and C. de Heer; orig. Geschichte der griechischen Literatur [Munich, 19632]) (London, 1966), 859. 9 Cf. B.P. Reardon, The Form of Greek Romance (Princeton, 1991), 26; Holzberg (n. 3), 63. 10 G. Schmeling, Chariton (New York, 1974), 157–8; A. Billault, ‘Aspects du roman de Chariton’, IL 33 (1981), 205–11, at 206. 11 Cf. Rohde (n. 7), 430; B.P. Reardon, ‘Theme, structure and narrative in Chariton’, YClS 27 (1982), 1–27, at 13. J. Helms, Character Portrayal in the Romance of Chariton (The Hague/Paris, 1966), 127–46 includes a small chapter on ‘realism in small details’. Although Helms credits Chariton’s heroine with a couple of individual traits accentuated by the ‘use of realistic and picturesque details’ (129), he traces realism ‘especially in the portrayal of the minor dramatis personae’ (128). On psychologically realistic features in Callirhoe’s characterization, cf. K. De Temmerman, ‘Blushing beauty. Characterizing blushes in Chariton’s Callirhoe’, Mnemosyne 60.2 (2007), 235–52. 12 Helms (n. 11), 129. 13 J. Dunlop, History of Fiction (London, 1814), vol. 1, 59. 14 Cf., e.g., Bowie (n. 4), 47–63, at 55. 15 Schmeling (n. 10), 130–59 maps out Chaereas’ characterization against the background of 8

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only S. Smith’s recent exploration of similarities between Chaereas and Alcibiades has substantially problematized the widely held idealizing view of Chariton’s protagonists in general, and of Chaereas in particular. This article further corroborates such problematization. A feature of Chaereas’ characterization that has triggered disapproval among students of the genre is his sudden character shift in the seventh book. In the first six books of the eight-book novel, Chaereas is characterized by passive behaviour that sharply contrasts him with the resourceful heroine Callirhoe. Unlike her, Chaereas hardly ever undertakes any action to resolve his problems and spends most of his time lamenting his separation from his wife. In the seventh book, however, his behaviour changes dramatically: following the advice of his friend Polycharmus, he joins the Egyptian army revolting against the Persian king Artaxerxes, and turns out to be a brilliant soldier. He succeeds in occupying the impregnable city of Tyre, and in less than no time he is the admiral of the whole Egyptian fleet. Scholars have criticized the improbability and inconsistency of this character shift. Rohde, for example, articulates the following complaint: ‘man verwundert sich, am Schluß des Ganzen den bis dahin so wenig energischen Chaereas urplötzlich zum siegreich handelnden und herrschenden Kriegshelden sich umwandeln zu sehen. Solche Tatkraft stimmt wenig zu seiner sonstigen Weichlichkeit, zu der Weichlichkeit der ganzen Erzählung und fast aller Personen derselben’.16 R. Balot argues that Chaereas’ character shift essentially revolves around the thematization of martial valour as the fulfillment of ‘the central virtues appropriate to his gender, training, and elite status’.17 In his view, Chaereas’ military excellence signposts ‘a turnabout in which Chaereas becomes the man he is required to be if he is to win back Callirhoe and begin to recreate his marriage’ (157). D. Scourfield rightly adds that Chaereas’ gradually developing ability to learn how to control and to utter his anger appropriately represents the young man’s personal growth towards a ‘full adult-male status’.18 Indeed, Chaereas’ initial anger, triggered by the false suspicion about his wife’s infidelity, persists throughout the entire novel. What makes Chariton’s protagonist an adult man is not a renunciation of anger but the ability to control this emotion and not be driven to impulsive and irrational behaviour by it. In this paper I want to draw attention to a new (and yet related) dimension of Chaereas’ character shift. I will put forward two arguments. First, I propose that, next to military excellence and the acquisition of self-control, the acquisition of control over other characters is an equally important feature of Chaereas’ character shift.19 In this connection, I take into account S. Smith’s recent, politically oriented reading of Chaereas as the rising star in the Syracusan political firmament who is about to traditional concepts of heroism in epic and tragedy (incarnated in Achilles and Ajax respectively). On Chaereas’ assimilation with epic paradigms, see D. Konstan, ‘La rappresentazione dei rapporti erotici nel romanzo greco’, MD 19 (1987), 9–27, at 9–11 and D. Konstan, Sexual Symmetry. Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres (Princeton, 1994), 16–17. For a recent overview of scholarship on Chaereas, see Smith (n. 4), 19–22. 16 Rohde (n. 7), 527. 17 R.K. Balot, ‘Foucault, Chariton, and the masculine self’, Helios 25.2 (1998), 139–62, at 156. 18 D. Scourfield, ‘Anger and gender in Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe’, in S.M. Braund and G.W. Most (edd.), Ancient Anger. Perspectives from Homer to Galen (Cambridge, 2003), 163–84. 19 Smith (n. 4), 83–4 has concisely touched upon the connection between self-control and control over other characters as an element underlying the characterization of Chariton’s two minor characters Dionysius and Artaxerxes. My reading of Chariton’s protagonist develops this point and emphasizes its thematic centrality in the novel.

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displace Hermocrates soon after his return to Syracuse.20 My paper points out that, along Chaereas’ road towards political power, the establishment of control over (and even manipulation of ) other characters is an issue of primary importance. Secondly, and consequently, I argue that my observations challenge the widely held view that character depiction of protagonists in the ancient Greek novel is invariably idealistic. CHAEREAS AND RHETORICAL CONTROL The concept of control discussed in this paper is of a rhetorical nature, comprising the protagonist’s ability to influence the behaviour of other characters through speech. In the heyday of the ancient Greek novels, the construction of speech in character (êthopoiia) was one of the so-called progymnasmata, preliminary rhetorical school exercises in writing and composition. These progymnasmata, discussed by, among others, Aelius Theon, Ps.-Hermogenes, Aphthonius and Nicolaus,21 were an essential part of rhetorical education in antiquity from at least the first century B.C. onwards22 and undeniably influenced imperial literature.23 Therefore, it is more than likely that both writer and reader of narrative will have considered speech an important index of character. On a more general note, M. Gleason has extensively discussed rhetorical performance as a crucial tool in achieving and displaying manliness in the first centuries A.D.24 Within this framework, this article sets out to interpret Chaereas’ rhetorical performance and self-presentation as an index of his growth towards male adulthood. The distribution of Chaereas’ speeches, including public speeches and private conversations, around his character shift is significant. In the first six books (before the character shift, that is), Chaereas speaks in public only twice. The last two books feature no less than seven such speeches. Let me first discuss the speeches before his or self-accusation character shift. Chaereas’ first public speech is his after the supposed murder of Callirhoe in Book 1 (1.5.4–5). The primary narrator highlights that Chaereas adduces none of the arguments in his defence. Instead, he asks the jury to be sentenced to death for murdering the daughter of Syracuse’s first citizen Hermocrates. Moreover, he insists on being denied burial after his death, comparing his crime to temple robbery and parricide. S. Smith rightly argues that the equation between Chaereas’ emotional expression and the sincerity of his inner state 20 Smith (n. 4), 190–1. See also S. Lalanne, Une éducation grecque: rites de passage et construction des genres dans le roman grec ancien (Paris, 2006), 158 for a short depiction of Chaereas as the new Hermocrates. 21 All treatises are edited by L. Spengel (ed.), Rhetores Graeci (Leipzig, 1854 and 1856), vols 2 and 3. A more recent edition of Theon is M. Patillon (ed.), Aelius Théon. Progymnasmata (Paris, 1997). 22 Cf. G. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill / London, 1999), 27. 23 Cf. A. Cizek, Imitatio et tractatio. Die literarisch-rhetorischen Grundlagen der Nachahmung in Antike und Mittelalter (Tübingen, 1994), 236–41; H. Cichocka, ‘Progymnasma as a literary form’, SIFC 10 (1992), 991–1000; G. Kennedy, Greek Rhetoric under Christian Emperors (Princeton, 1983), 53 and 143. Theon, Prog. 70.24–30 Spengel 2 explicitly underlines the importance of progymnasmata in contemporary literature: …

24 M. Gleason, Making Men. Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton, 1995), xx–xxix and 131–68.

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in this speech signposts neutralization of the power of rhetoric.25 This neutralization is, I think, equally fleshed out by the fact that Chaereas’ speech in the end does not generate the envisaged effect: the audience forgets about the dead general’s daughter and starts to commiserate with Chaereas ( , 1.5.6). When the jury finally acquits Chaereas, the protagonist himself, unhappy with this decision, thinks of possible ways to kill himself ( ). Smith (126–7) acknowledges that the power of rhetoric, absent from this speech, is ‘amply demonstrated elsewhere’ in Chariton’s novel. He specifically refers to other male characters, such as Dionysius and Artaxerxes, who, unlike Chaereas in this episode, rationalize personal emotions by means of subtle, rhetorical self-fashioning. As I will point out, Chaereas’ own rhetorical self-fashioning later in the story will also demonstrate the importance of the power of rhetoric in this novel. Chaereas’ second public speech is found in Book 3 (3.4.5–6 and 3.4.15), when he returns from the search for Callirhoe in the Ionian Sea and brings Theron to Syracuse. Framing this speech, the primary narrator takes pains to indicate that Chaereas has trouble assuming the self-control that might be expected of an orator addressing his audience. I refer to the physical details preceding the quotation of his speech ( , 3.4.4), the uncontrolled outbursts of emotion ( ) and the inability to address the public verbally ( , 3.4.4) or visually ( , 3.4.5). The first words of the speech itself, moreover, are in line with the overall picture drawn by the narrator. Chaereas says that it is not the right time for rhetoric, but for mourning ( , 3.4.5). As in the first speech, the power of rhetoric is neutralized, this time explicitly. Again, this neutralization is signposted by Chaereas’ failure to achieve the aim envisaged by his public performance. After Theron’s confession about Callirhoe’s abduction, Chaereas asks that Theron’s life should be spared in order to facilitate the search for Callirhoe (3.4.15). This request, however, is denied. The , 3.4.18) assembly follows Hermocrates’ counterarguments ( and Theron is executed. In neither of the two speeches, then, is Chaereas capable of persuading his audience to grant his requests. A comparable lack of control over his narratee(s) characterizes his private speeches in the first half of the story. Moreover, in these dialogues, it is Chaereas himself who is systematically controlled by his interlocutors. In fact, many of his private speeches and dialogues suggest that Chaereas is ‘easily misled’, a characteristic explicitly attributed to him by the primary narrator in a , 7.1.4). The very first gnomê or maxim ( words uttered by Chaereas in the novel are emblematic of this characteristic. They form only one sentence and reproach Callirhoe for being responsible for traces of … partying outside the newly married couple’s house: (‘It is what has happened to me that I am crying about; you have forgotten me straightaway!’, 1.3.5). These words are set in a highly emotional context, involving Chaereas’ anger and grief ( … … , 1.3.4–5), emphasized by the primary narrator’s heavily elaborated account of Chaereas’ , 1.3.4; body language ( , 1.3.5). Unlike the protagonist himself, however, the reader has been informed by the primary narrator that Chaereas is being misled by 25

Smith (n. 4), 126.

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the suitors, who left evidence of a party at the house the night before in order to trigger Chaereas’ anger and suspicion of his wife. In these circumstances, Chaereas (‘I cry’) will turn out to be emblematic of his behaviour when very first word, confronted with misfortunes in the following six books of the novel.26 Chaereas’ characterization as an object of deception by other characters is echoed in his depiction as an internal narratee in the first six books of the novel. From the very beginning of the novel, Chaereas is controlled and manipulated by other characters’ speeches. A first example is the dialogue between Chaereas and the tyrant of Acragas’ accomplice, who fools Chaereas into believing that his wife Callirhoe has been unfaithful (1.4.7–8). Chaereas is devastated by the news and asks his interlocutor to witness the adultery with his own eyes. This request plays, of course, precisely into the hands of the conspirators, and allows the interlocutor to set up the meeting between Chaereas and Callirhoe’s alleged adulterer. My second example of Chaereas as dupe is the conversation between Chaereas and Mithridates (4.4.2–5). This dialogue occurs when Chaereas has just been informed by Mithridates that Callirhoe has married Dionysius in Miletus. Chaereas asks Mithridates’ permission to go to Miletus and claim his wife from Dionysius. Mithridates, however, advises against this plan and suggests that Chaereas write a letter to Callirhoe first. He prefaces his advice as follows:

… (4.4.2) As far as I am concerned ... you can go. I don’t want you to be separated from your wife even for one day. I wish that you had never left Sicily and that no trouble had ever befallen the two of you.27

The reader knows that Mithridates’ words aim at fooling Chaereas into believing that he is truly concerned about Chaereas’ love for Callirhoe. Unlike Chaereas, the reader has been informed shortly beforehand about Mithridates’ hope that, while Dionysius and Chaereas quarrel about Callirhoe, he himself will be able to become her lover (4.4.1). The primary narrator explicitly clarifies this strategy when explaining why Mithridates rejoices in Chaereas’ sad story: Chaereas’ grief gives him the opportunity to talk and take action about Callirhoe ‘in order that he would appear to be helping , 4.3.11). The reader, who has been repeatedly a friend’ ( informed about Mithridates’ love for Callirhoe (4.1.9, 4.2.4), realizes that Mithridates tries to profit from the situation at Chaereas’ expense. Chaereas, on the other hand, has no idea about his host’s plan and thinks that he truly wants to help him. In his , letter to Callirhoe, he even calls Mithridates his ‘benefactor’ ( 4.4.7). At the end of the story, when narrating his adventures in front of the Syracusan people, he equally characterizes Mithridates as a true helper ( , 8.8.4). All the above speeches, both public and private, characterize Chaereas in a similar way. In public speech he is not able to persuade his audience to approve his requests. In private conversation his lack of control is highlighted by the control exerted upon 26 Cf., e.g., Chariton, Callirhoe 1.6.5, 3.3.14, 3.4.4, 3.6.6, 4.4.6, 5.2.4. The contrast between the resourceful Greek novel heroines and their helpless male counterparts in general has been addressed by, among others, Konstan (n. 15 [1994]), 15–26. 27 English translations of Chariton’s text are taken from B.P. Reardon (ed.), Collected Ancient Greek Novels (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 1989) and slightly modified where necessary.

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him by other characters. Let us now turn towards Chaereas’ speeches after his character shift in the seventh book. His first words after this shift are emblematic of a new strand in his characterization. This speech, addressed to the leader of the Egyptian rebels, occurs when Chaereas and Polycharmus have been taken prisoner by … , 7.2.2). When they the Egyptians, who regard them as spies ( are brought before the leader, Chaereas, without waiting to be addressed, embarks on a speech in which he reminds the audience of his homeland and noble descent ( , 7.2.3). Moreover, he associates himself with the famous Hermocrates by mentioning his marriage to his daughter Callirhoe (7.2.3). S. Smith correctly identifies this speech as the first instance of Chaereas’ participation in ‘the same rhetoric of self-representation adopted by other Syracusans in the story’.28 Chaereas relies on his ties to Hermocrates to secure a safe entrance into the Egyptian army. Ultimately, he expresses his and his friend’s desire to die fighting against the Persians. Chaereas’ attention to self-depiction is easily identifiable as a classical rhetorical technique, well documented by Aristotle’s famous account of the importance of favourable character construction (êthos) as one of the tools ensuring the audience’s persuasion.29 Significantly, Chaereas’ rhetorical strategy is successful: the Egyptian leader welcomes them into the army and provides them with arms and a tent. In this speech, Chaereas exploits his own origins in order to achieve a specific aim and, simultaneously, takes rhetorical control over his narratee for the first time. By creating a favourable characterization of himself and his friend, he succeeds in becoming a soldier in the Egyptian army, thus effecting the plan suggested by Polycharmus earlier (7.1.11). A study of Chaereas’ remaining public speeches after his character shift corroborates and, simultaneously, develops this point about the protagonist’s changing rhetorical abilities. In the following overview, I focus on a number of rhetorical techniques adopted by Chaereas. These observations will be contextualized by an account of how the primary narrator enhances his protagonist’s characterization in these passages. In a number of speeches Chaereas’ characterization as a rhetorically successful soldier and general is constructed, both by the primary narrator and by Chaereas himself, through assimilation with mythological and historical paradigms. Chaereas’ speech in the assembly of the Egyptian army generals (7.3.4–5) is a case in point. Since the impregnable city of Tyre is an obstacle to the Egyptian military advance, their leader proposes to retreat. At this proposal all are silent and downcast ( , 7.3.3), except Chaereas ( ). The Egyptian leader’s speech and Chaereas’ reaction to it are modelled on an episode in the ninth book of the Iliad (9.17–28 and 9.32–49), where Agamemnon’s proposal to return to Greece is countered by Diomedes. This parallel is suggested by a number of elements. Like the Egyptian leader, Agamemnon apostro, Il. 9.17; phizes the members of the assembly as ‘friends’ ( … , 7.3.2) and proposes returning home. Secondly, like the Egyptian leader’s speech, Agamemnon’s speech triggers silence ( … , Il. 9.29) and sadness ( , Il. 9.30) in the audience. The reaction of the audience to Diomedes’ speech, thirdly, coincides with the assembly’s reaction to Chaereas’ speech: in the Iliadic episode, all listeners loudly applaud Diomedes’ speech ( … , Il. 9.50–1); in Chariton, likewise, all listeners are too ashamed not to 28

Smith (n. 4), 88.

29

Arist. Rh. 1356a5–15.

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approve Chaereas’ proposal ( , 7.3.6). Fourthly, and finally, Chaereas’ answer itself unmistakably evokes Diomedes’:

…

(7.3.5)

But if you insist on going, leave a few volunteers with me; I and Polycharmus will fight, for it is at a god’s behest that we have come.

These words are an adaptation of the conclusion to Diomedes’ speech (Il. 9.48–9). They evoke Diomedes’ forecast about Agamemnon’s plan to abandon the war: if Agamemnon wants to flee, the Greeks will remain. And if they want to flee as well, at least Diomedes himself and his companion Sthenelus will remain.30 It has often been noted that both explicit and implicit assimilation of Chaereas with epic heroes is frequent in Chariton.31 What is important in this passage, however, is that it is not merely the primary narrator who casts Chaereas as an epic hero, but also Chaereas himself, adopting the above-mentioned Homeric quotation in his own speech.32 Chaereas presents himself as an epic hero and soldier. This strategy is successful and Chaereas achieves his aim: the Egyptian leader abandons his plan to retreat and gives Chaereas as many soldiers as he wants to capture Tyre ( ). A similar pattern appears almost immediately afterwards, when Chaereas addresses 300 Dorian soldiers ( … , 7.3.7) whom he has chosen to capture Tyre (7.3.8–10). In this speech, which is an adaptation of the speech delivered by Xenophon to his men before they engage in battle against their Persian enemy (Xen. An. 3.2.7–32),33 Chaereas is once again assimilated with literary paradigms. Again, Chaereas assimilates himself with two famous heroes, Leonidas and Othryades, both, like Chaereas, leaders of 300 Spartans/Dorians at Thermopylae and … at Thyrea respectively. This time, the association is explicit ( , 7.3.11) and echoed by the result of Chaereas’ speech, which is that his soldiers declare him their leader. Apart from assimilating himself with historical leaders, Chaereas adopts a number of other rhetorical techniques in order to pave the way for this decision. He starts, for example, by identifying his audience as ‘the best , 7.3.8). Subsequently, he aligns men in the army’ ( himself with his men by referring to their common virtues of and , and by contrasting himself and his audience with their Tyrian enemies. Finally, he does not propose that he himself should take command, but declares himself willing to serve under one of the 300 Greek soldiers.

30

Hom. Il. 9.42–3 ( ,| ). Cf., among others, M. Biraud, ‘L’hypotexte homérique et les rôles amoureux de Callirhoé dans le roman de Chariton’, in A. Goursonnet (ed.), Sémiologie de l’amour dans les civilisations méditerranéennes (Paris, 1985), 21–7; P. Robiano, ‘La citation poétique dans le roman érotique grec’, REA 102 (2000), 509–29; E. Cueva, The Myths of Fiction. Studies in the Canonical Greek Novels (Ann Arbor, 2004), 24–5. 32 On characters’ assimilation of themselves with mythological paradigms as a rhetorical device, cf. also Smith (n. 4), 104. 33 For details, cf. Smith (n. 4), 172–5. 31

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As well as assimilating himself with historical and mythological paradigms, Chaereas adopts other rhetorical techniques to persuade his audience. When, now as the admiral of the entire Egyptian fleet, he arrives with his army on Cyprus, he informs some of his troops that their Persian enemies have beaten the Egyptian land forces and killed their leader (8.2.10–11). The success of this speech, which is to persuade the soldiers to abandon the war and return home, is achieved mainly by two rhetorical techniques. First, the primary narrator emphasizes that Chaereas selects his internal narratees. His speech is not directed towards the entire army, but to his captains, the 300 Greek soldiers and ‘all the Egyptians whom he saw to be well , 8.2.9). Secondly, Chaereas subtly controls disposed to him’ ( and manipulates his audience’s decision-making process. Before depicting their hopeless military position and addressing the fact that they are surrounded by enemies ( , 8.2.10), he reminds his soldiers of the importance of unity in their naval military successes up to that point ( , 8.2.10).34 Subsequently, he suggests capitulation to the Persian king as the only possible solution. His audience’s refusal to agree does not come as a surprise, either to the reader or to Chaereas himself. At last one of the soldiers called Brasidas proposes to return to Sicily. While everyone applaudes this suggestion ( , 8.2.13), Chaereas pretends to disapprove ( ), adducing the length of the journey as a pretext ( ) for his scepticism. The primary narrator, for his part, informs the reader that Chaereas only wants to test the audience’s firmness ) by pretending to of purpose ( disagree. When the troops insist, Chaereas is ‘persuaded’ to go home. Thus, Chaereas reaches a consensus about terminating the war and returning home, without proposing this solution himself. This episode is replete with Homeric resonances relevant to Chaereas’ characterization. Chaereas’ reaction to Brasidas’ proposal clearly echoes Agamemnon’s attempt to manipulate the army in Iliad 2.53–154.35 In this passage, Agamemnon proposes withdrawal from the war and urges the soldiers to return home ( , Il. 2.140). As announced by the primary narrator , Il. 2.55) and by Agamemnon himself in a speech directed only to ( the members of the council (Il. 2.70–5), this is a ruse, ultimately intended to make the soldiers more eager to participate in a planned attack on Troy ( , Il. 2.72). Both in Homer and Chariton, then, the general’s attempt to manipulate the army is designed to test the soldiers ( , Il. 2.73; , Chariton 8.2.13). The crucial difference between the two episodes is, of course, that Agamemnon’s stratagem fails and results in chaos: the soldiers immediately run to the ships to prepare for departure. Significantly, order is not restored until Odysseus’ rhetorical skills ‘in a lordly manner brought the army under , Il. 2.207). Unlike Agamemnon, Chaereas control’ ( does not propose returning home, but subtly paves the way for this suggestion by proposing capitulation to the Persian king, well knowing that his audience will not agree. In both cases, the audiences agree with the proposal to return home, but whereas Agamemnon expects the opposite reaction from his troops, Chaereas’ subtle 34

Cf. Smith (n. 4), 97. The implicit presence of this Iliadic episode has been touched upon by G.P. Goold, Chariton. Callirhoe (Cambridge, MA/London, 1995), 375, and Smith (n. 4), 97, but has not been dealt with in any detail. 35

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demagoguery aims at triggering exactly this response.36 The Iliadic subtext in this episode, therefore, depicts Chaereas as a non-Agamemnon: whereas Agamemnon’s testing of the soldiers unexpectedly results in chaos, Chaereas’ testing of the soldiers triggers a confirmation of their resolution to go home, as anticipated by Chaereas. Whereas Agamemnon eventually needs Odysseus’ rhetorical skills to restore order after his own unsuccessful rhetorical performance, Chaereas becomes an Odysseus himself in successfully manipulating his audience. The episode involving Agamemnon’s unsuccessful attempt to arm the soldiers for battle is not the only subtext underlying Chaereas’ speech in Book 8. The context in which the speech is set equally evokes the above-mentioned discussion between the Egyptian leader and Chaereas in the seventh book. This parallel is highlighted by the narrator’s twofold explicit statement that Chaereas’ reaction to the proposed , solution to the crisis is different from the rest of the audience’s ( 7.3.3; , 8.2.13). More importantly, however, the assimilation of the latter episode with the former reactivates the Iliadic episode of the disagreement between Agamemnon and Diomedes (Il. 9). In all three episodes, a military commander accentuates the army’s hopeless position, after which the possibility is raised of abandoning the war and going home. Some verbal echoes underline the association between all three episodes. First, Chaereas’ opening words echo the Egyptian leader’s and Agamemnon’s apostrophes ( … , 7.3.2; , 8.2.10; , Il. 9.17). Second, the audience’s reaction to Chaereas’ speech about their hopeless position corresponds with the audience’s reaction to the Egyptian commander’s and Agamemnon’s , 7.3.3; , 8.2.12; … speeches: in all three cases, it is silence ( , Il. 9.29). Third, Brasidas’ speech, offering the solution to the problem that will , 8.2.13), eventually be chosen, is noted as being applauded by all listeners ( which echoes the reception of Chaereas’ and Diomedes’ speeches in the two mirror , 7.3.6; scenes ( … , Il. 9.50–1). The crucial difference between the two episodes in Chariton, however, is that, whereas the first episode associates Chaereas with Diomedes, the second portrays Chaereas himself as the leader of the army who informs the troops about their hopeless military position. This role aligns him, of course, with Agamemnon. Moreover, the result of Chaereas’ speech is, in the end, precisely the aim envisaged also by Agamemnon in Book 9, namely to abandon the war and return home. Significantly, the point of the association lies in the obvious difference between the two heroes: whereas Agamemnon’s proposal is criticized and in the end rejected, Chaereas manages to achieve his aim. More interestingly, he does so without proposing this solution but by creating the illusion that he himself is being persuaded by a suggestion from the audience. Thus, he is able to engineer withdrawal from the war without running the risk of being characterized by his troops as a fool or a coward, two characteristics attributed to Agamemnon by Diomedes because of his proposal to withdraw.37 Like the echoes from Iliad 2, the echoes from Iliad 9 also depict Chaereas as a non-Agamemnon. Unlike Agamemnon, Chaereas controls his listeners by giving them the impression that they are in control themselves. Whereas 36 On Chaereas’ characterization as a demagogue in this passage, cf. also Smith (n. 4), 98, who describes Chaereas as ‘a kind of Cleon or Alcibiades, using subtle rhetorical persuasion as a means of demagoguery’. 37 Diomedes reproaches Agamemnon for being a fool ( , Hom. Il. 9.32) and displaying a lack of courage ( , Il. 9.39).

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Chaereas himself was controlled by interlocutors in the first half of the story, he has become a public speaker whose rhetorical qualities surpass those of one of his most important epic paradigms. A fourth rhetorical technique adopted by Chaereas to control his audience is distortion of the truth. In his speech addressed to the Tyrians (7.4.5), he uses a lie which eventually leads to the capture of Tyre. He and his soldiers approach the city gates and tell the Tyrians that they are mercenaries deserting the Egyptian army. The stratagem is successful: after the Tyrians have opened the gates, Chaereas and his troops take the allegedly impregnable city. It is worthwhile pointing out that earlier in the story, the protagonist uses a similar lie to gain access to the ranks of the Persian army (7.2.1). In order to cross the Euphrates in the Persians’ wake, he and Polycharmus had claimed that they wanted to join the army. Unlike the Persians, the reader knew that this was a lie, since the two friends wanted to cross the river to join not the Persian but the Egyptian army. From the capture of Tyre onwards, the tactful use of lies and incorrect information will increasingly become part of the protagonist’s rhetorical strategy. Chaereas’ public speech in 8.2.5 provides an excellent example. It occurs when Chaereas, who has become admiral of the entire Egyptian fleet, has been informed by a messenger of the defeat of the Egyptian land forces and the death of their leader. The messenger states, moreover, that the Persian enemy is on its way to Aradus, the island harbouring Chaereas’ fleet. The primary narrator explicitly refers to Chaereas’ subsequent speech to the Egyptian sailors as a ruse or (8.2.5): Chaereas tells the sailors that the Egyptian army has defeated the Persians, and orders them to set sail without specifying their destination. Interestingly, Chaereas’ use of this scheme results from Callirhoe’s intervention. When Chaereas leaps up after hearing the bad news, Callirhoe advises him not to make it public (8.2.4). She argues that this would cause revolt among the troops and that ‘we shall be captured again and shall be worse off than ever’ ( , 8.2.5). The primary narrator comments that Chaereas is soon convinced by this advice ( , 8.2.5). In Callirhoe’s words, the issue of controlling and being controlled is explicitly highlighted as the main reason why Chaereas should not give an accurate account of what has happened. After his speech, as all the sailors are preparing to depart, Chaereas takes advantage of the confusion in the harbour ( , 8.2.7) to order his captains to set sail for Cyprus secretly. Once they arrive at Paphos the next day, they are safe from immediate danger. Thus Chaereas’ public address to the naval troops clearly generates the desired effect: thanks to the , Chaereas restrains his troops from mutiny and manages to keep them under control. Callirhoe has taught him that control over others can be achieved by rhetorical devices involving distortion of the truth. Chaereas’ last public speech (8.7.9–8.11) thematizes some important issues of manipulation and distortion of the truth already present in earlier speeches. Significantly this speech, in which Chaereas reports his adventures to the Syracusan people upon his homecoming, constitutes Chaereas’ new identity before his fellow Syracusans.38 The narrator gives some important background information about this speech. First, it is not Chaereas who insists on telling the story, but the Syracusan crowd who insist on hearing it, after having led him to the theatre ( , 8.7.3). Second, 38

Cf. Smith (n. 4), 142.

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Chaereas starts with the last events of his story ( , 8.7.3) because ‘he did not want to cause the people sorrow by telling them of the grim episodes at the beginning’. When the crowd protests, however, insisting that he does not omit , 8.7.3), anything ( Chaereas hesitates because he is ‘ashamed to talk about many events that had not turned out to his satisfaction’ ( , 8.7.4). The combination of the audience’s explicit request not to omit anything and the narrator’s equally explicit statement about Chaereas’ hesitation must surely alert the reader as to whether the information provided in Chaereas’ speech is actually complete.39 S. Smith, moreover, has recently drawn attention to various sorts of deceptions and conceits in the scene when Chaereas returns to Syracuse. This scene, reminiscent of Alcibiades’ triumphant return to Athens after exile, is filled with elements that consistently trigger incorrect inferences from the Syracusan people about what is happening.40 The issue of deception activated by these elements provides the framework in which Chaereas’ speech should be read. I argue that Chaereas’ account of his adventures is in some instances manipulatory and deceptive, diverging significantly from the primary narrator’s account in the foregoing chapters of the novel. The first relevant passage in Chaereas’ speech is his account of his and Polycharmus’ discovery of Callirhoe’s statue in the temple upon their arrival in Miletus:

…

(8.8.1)

At the time, when I had landed on this estate, I saw only Callirhoe’s statue in a temple, and that gave me great confidence. But during the night a band of Phrygian brigands made a lightning raid on the shore, set fire to our ship …

Chaereas contrasts the unfortunate outcome of the episode, due to the brigands’ attack, with his own confidence in a good outcome after having seen Callirhoe’s statue. The reader, however, recalls that Chaereas did not have ‘great confidence’ in this episode. In fact Chaereas fainted when he saw the statue of his wife, a reaction emphatically marked with a Homeric quotation by the primary narrator (3.6.3). The temple servant even had to bring water to resuscitate him. Moreover, the primary narrator emphasized Chaereas’ lack of self-control in this episode by contrasting the , protagonist with his friend Polycharmus, who was able to control himself ( 3.6.5) and prevented Chaereas from betraying who they were ( , 3.6.5). Furthermore, when he was alone, Chaereas threw himself on the floor and deplored his situation in a lamenting monologue. In short, the reader recalling this episode while reading Chaereas’ report realizes that ‘great confidence’ is not a correct representation of what had happened. Chaereas, however, understandably chooses to omit his lack of self-control in his version of the story. As to why Callirhoe married Dionysius, Chaereas says the following: 39 On checking a character’s direct speech against the primary narrator’s account, cf. T. Hägg, Narrative Technique in Ancient Greek Romances. Studies of Chariton, Xenophon Ephesius, and Achilles Tatius (Stockholm, 1971), 253. 40 Smith (n. 4), 231.

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…

259 (8.7.11)

When Callirhoe realized that she was pregnant by me, she found herself compelled to marry Dionysius, because she wanted to preserve your fellow citizen.

That Callirhoe is compelled to marry Dionysius, is, indeed, confirmed by the primary (5.1.1) to refer to Callirhoe’s marriage. narrator, who likewise adopts the term Chaereas is equally correct in adducing his child as the reason for Callirhoe’s decision to marry. The antonomasia used to refer to the child, however, is significant. By calling , Chaereas seems to be suggesting that Callirhoe’s loyalty his child towards her home city played a role in this decision,41 which was not the case according to the primary narrator’s version. Chaereas thus colours his story in order to generate the audience’s sympathy for his wife. Chaereas’ desire to generate sympathy for his wife might be responsible for the distortion of some other details of the ‘true story’. In his account of his imprisonment on Mithridates’ estate, he states that Mithridates discovered his identity after Polycharmus uttered his name under torture ( , 8.8.3). The reader, however, recalls that Polycharmus did not utter Chaereas’ name, but Callirhoe’s and that he did so not under torture, but when Polycharmus and Chaereas were carrying their crosses to the execution site. Moreover, Polycharmus’ utterance was a fierce reproach: ‘

’

‘

’

(4.2.7)

Polycharmus, as he carried his cross, said: ‘Callirhoe, it is because of you that we are suffering like this! You are the cause of all our troubles!’

To mention this detail in front of the entire Syracusan people would be embarrassing both for Chaereas’ friend Polycharmus and for his wife Callirhoe. It is therefore reasonable to assume that Chaereas decides to omit this detail in the ‘official’ version. Chaereas’ account of the events is also characterized by a tendency to emphasize the hero’s own achievements at the expense of the achievements of other characters. He recounts his arrival amongst the Egyptian army, for example, as follows:

(8.8.8) The Queen took Callirhoe with her, and I heard a false report – someone told me she had been awarded to Dionysius. To get my revenge on the King I went over to the Egyptians and brought off great feats: by my own actions I subdued Tyre, which was very difficult to take; I was then appointed admiral, beat the Great King at sea, and captured Aradus, where the King had left the Queen for safety, along with the riches you have seen.

The emphasis laid by Chaereas upon his own achievements is significant. Accordingly, he completely omits the role played by Polycharmus in this important episode. As the reader recalls, Chaereas burst into a lament and wanted to commit suicide after hearing the false report of Callirhoe that he presents here as the starting point of his 41

See also Smith (n. 4), 223.

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personal aristeia (7.1.4–7). It was Polycharmus who came up with the idea of harming their enemy with their own death. Again, Chaereas subtly adapts an episode which reveals his embarrassing lack of self-control. Instead of telling the truth, he credits himself with the decision to join the Egyptian army and immediately proceeds with . recounting his own This pattern is repeated in the protagonist’s account of how he managed to secure the Persian king’s friendship for the Syracusan people:

(8.8.10) Finally, I secured the Great King’s friendship for you by making a present to him of his wife and by sending to the Persian nobles their mothers and sisters and wives and daughters.

At this point, the reader vividly recalls that it was Callirhoe’s idea, not Chaereas’, to release the Persian queen (8.3.1). Significantly, Chaereas had been blushing while admitting to his wife that he wanted to take the queen to Syracuse as a slave (8.3.1).42 Moreover, in his letter to Artaxerxes, Chaereas did admit that it was not his but Callirhoe’s idea to release Statira ( … , 8.4.3). Whereas Chaereas presents the king’s friendship for Syracuse as his personal achievement, the reader realizes that there would not be any such friendship if Callirhoe had not intervened. In fact, the idea of keeping the Persian queen as a prisoner had explicitly , 8.3.2). Again, Chaereas credits been referred to as madness by Callirhoe ( himself with someone else’s achievements. This analysis explains why Chaereas at first is not willing to recount his adventures. The story contains a number of episodes about which he should rightly be ashamed. It is significant that, by the end of the novel, Chaereas is capable of distorting and covering up these episodes. It is equally worthwhile to note that, after his speech, his request that his sister be given in marriage to Polycharmus is accepted. Unlike in his two speeches to the Syracusans at the beginning of the story, Chaereas has become an orator who is able to control his audience. CONCLUSION The above observations about Chaereas’ changing rhetorical ability lead me to suggest that the strand of self-control in the protagonist’s characterization acknowledged by D. Scourfield43 can be complemented by the acknowledgment of an equally important strand of rhetorical control over other people. In addition to the transition from lacking self-control to adopting self-control in mastering anger, Chaereas’ character displays a significant transition on the level of rhetorical performance. At the beginning of the story, Chaereas is unable to achieve his desired aims through the use of speech. He lacks the rhetorical control required to persuade his audience. Moreover, in private conversation, he is controlled, and even manipulated and deceived, by his interlocutors. From the seventh book onwards, however, he develops the rhetorical ability to persuade his audience through the manipulation of speech. This ability is reflected in various features. First, he is successful in constructing favourable characterizations of himself to ensure his audiences’ persuasion, a 42 On the significance of blushing in Chariton (and this scene in particular), see De Temmerman (n. 11), 235–52, at 247–8.

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traditional rhetorical device discussed by Aristotle as the construction of êthos. Second, Chaereas associates himself, explicitly and implicitly, with mythological (epic) and historical heroes to enhance this construction (e.g. 7.3.4–5 and 7.3.8–10). Third, he is aware of the importance of consciously selecting his internal narratees (e.g. 8.2.10–11). A fourth technique consists in subtly manipulating his audience by guiding his listeners towards a specific decision while giving the impression that they have freely and independently reached it (e.g. 7.3.8–10 and 8.2.10–11). Fifth and finally, Chaereas realizes the importance of distorting the truth to achieve control over his audience. The assumption that rhetorical control involves conveying information that does not necessarily correspond to reality underlies all his public speeches from the capture of Tyre onwards. It is this last technique in particular that culminates in his last public speech addressed to the Syracusan people. His account of his and Callirhoe’s adventures is greatly concerned to cover up embarrassing details of the story. By omitting details compromising his own behaviour and by crediting himself with other persons’ achievements, Chaereas characterizes himself more favourably than the primary narrator does in the foregoing story. Why does the narrator depict this development in his hero’s rhetorical abilities in the later books of the novel? First, my observations are in line with, and offer an interesting addition to, S. Smith’s recently developed argument that Chariton’s novel implicitly tells a story about the transition of political leadership from Hermocrates to Chaereas.44 Within such a transition, the achievement of rhetorical control is, as I have pointed out, of crucial importance. From a broader perspective, my reading of Chaereas deepens S. Lalanne’s thesis that the ancient Greek novels embody the protagonists’ rite of passage from childhood to mature adulthood.45 In her view, the heroes’ and heroines’ many ordeals and adventures function as preparations for their tasks as socially accepted citizens and wives respectively.46 For male characters, this paideia is primarily directed towards the acquisition of a number of basic qualities such as moderation, perseverance and magnanimity, which are emblematic of the virtues of a civilized Greek male adult. In the case of Chaereas I argue that Chariton thematizes the importance of rhetorical skilfulness as yet another essential quality of male adulthood.47 In addition to the military achievements marking Chaereas’ entry into manhood from Book 7 onwards, his ability to perform successfully on the battlefield of rhetoric is at least as important. It is no coincidence, therefore, that Chaereas’ first active resistance against the misfortunes befalling him occurs in the Babylonian courtroom during the trial regarding the validity of his and Dionysius’ claims to Callirhoe. Although his intervention in this case is limited to the interjection of brief reproaches to Dionysius and a number of arguments corroborating his claim (5.8.5), its rhetorical setting is proleptic of the important place that rhetoric will occupy in Chaereas’ life once he decides to take control of his own destiny. Moreover, Chariton’s language assimilates this trial with warfare ( ),48 thus implicitly marking Chaereas’ first attempt to intervene actively in

43

Scourfield (n. 18), 163–84, at 163–75. Smith (n. 4), 190–1. 45 Lalanne (n. 20). 46 See Lalanne (n. 20), 16. 47 See also R. Webb, ‘Rhetoric and the novel: sex, lies and sophistic’, in I. Worthington (ed.), A Companion to Greek Rhetoric (Malden, MA/Oxford/Carlton, 2007), 526–41, at 534, who touches upon the link between rhetoric and masculinity in Chaereas’ last speech in Syracuse (8.7.9–8.11). 48 Lalanne (n. 20), 16. 44

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the course of events as an emblem of two major areas in which he will excel in the succeeding books. The above discussion provides a dimension to the characterization of Chariton’s male protagonist that has remained relatively unexplored so far. First, Chaereas’ characterization cannot be adequately described by merely addressing the notion of typical character. Rather, it requires attention to specific aspects of individualization. Second, his characterization does not merely thematize the oft-noted transition from helplessness and weakness to courage and strength, but seems to suggest that, like self-control, the ability to control other people by the power of rhetoric is an essential tool to be acquired on the road towards male adulthood. This suggests that Chariton’s male protagonist does not fit into the clear-cut and somewhat monolithic view developed recently on male protagonists in the novels as lacking rhetorical skills altogether.49 Third, I think that Chaereas’ characterization has a much more realistic dimension than has been identified by existing scholarship. In Chariton, becoming an adult male citizen involves developing awareness of the importance of rhetorical control, manipulation and deception, all abilities that display a much closer relationship to psychological realism than to idealism. The widely held view that Chariton’s Chaereas is the prototype of the ‘ideal’ novel hero should therefore be revised. Instead, it seems to me more plausible that Chariton consciously develops a critical stance towards idealistic character depiction in the novelistic genre. Therefore, ultimately, I do not believe that the widely adopted classification of ancient novelistic texts into ideal and realistic texts allows us to capture the peculiar position of Chariton’s novel.50 Ghent University

KOEN DE TEMMERMAN [email protected]

49 K. Haynes, ‘Power of the prude: configurations of the feminine in the Greek novel’, Ancient Narrative 1 (2001), 73–92, for example, highlights novelistic heroines’ rhetorical qualities in contrast with the lack of such qualities in their male counterparts. In Fashioning the Feminine in the Greek Novel (London, 2003), she develops this point at greater length. 50 An earlier version of this paper was presented in a Kyknos panel on the ancient novel at the Celtic Conference in Classics at the University of Wales, Lampeter (August–September 2006). I would like to thank Anton Powell for the conference organization, John Morgan and Meriel Jones for the organization of the panel, the audience for their comments, and Kristoffel Demoen, Graeme Miles, Susan Stephens and the anonymous referee of CQ for suggestions on written versions. Any errors or oversights are entirely my own.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 263–269 (2009) Printed in Great Britain doi:10.1017/S00098388090000202

263 A PINDARIC CHARIOTEER JANET DOWNIE

A PINDARIC CHARIOTEER: AELIUS ARISTIDES AND HIS DIVINE LITERARY EDITOR (ORATION 50.45) In his fourth Hieros Logos (Or. 50), Aelius Aristides reports that Asclepius instructed him in a dream to dedicate a victory tripod commemorating his recent choral performances. Aristides composes an epigram to be inscribed on the monument, detailing his efforts as poet, president of the contests, and chorêgos: / ’ (Or. 50.45).1 But the god rejects this poetic attempt, dictating to his patient instead verses that celebrate Aristides as an ‘illustrious charioteer of ever-flowing tales’: / (Or. 50.45). Although no archaeological trace of the memorial has come to light at the Asclepieum in Pergamum, the story has attracted some interest as indirect evidence for dedicatory practices of the sanctuary’s elite visitors, and scholars have added the revised epigram to the repertoire of inscriptions that illustrate how orators of the imperial era publicized their status.2 Little attention has been paid, however, to the nature of Aristides’ self-commemoration in its narrative context.3 The first dedicatory epigram is Aristides’ own composition; the revised version, on the other hand, is the result of divine intervention, and it incorporates a striking metaphor of the poet as charioteer. I shall argue that Aristides borrows this epinician motif from one of the classical authors he most admired – Pindar – in order to make a statement about his own relationship to his patron god, Asclepius.4 1 Citations from B. Keil (ed.), Aelii Aristidis Smyrnaei Quae Supersunt Omnia, Vol. 2 (Berlin, 1898, repr. 1958). 2 Aristides says he dedicated a tripod adorned with representations of Asclepius, Hygieia and Telesphorus in the Roman-era Temple of Zeus Asclepius (Or. 50.46), which appears to have housed offerings made primarily by elite visitors, C. Habicht, Die Inschriften des Asklepieions (Berlin, 1969), 13–14. Excavations of the Asclepieum have not, however, yielded any epigraphic material related to Aristides, B. Puech, Orateurs et sophistes grecs dans les inscriptions d’époque impériale (Paris, 2002) at 144; dedicatory inscriptions left by other orators of this period have been recovered, Habicht, loc. cit. at 16 and 71–80. There are parallels for the offering reported at 50.45–6. The dedication in Athens (IG 22 4531) of an altar to the same three divinities (a common grouping) has been attributed to Aristides; see C.P. Jones, ‘Three foreigners in Attica’, Phoenix 32 (1978), 222–34. For an example of a tripod dedicated to Asclepius commemorating artistic performances, see IG 22, no. 3120b (Athens, C.E. 190–200): / / ’ L. Robert, Études anatoliennes (Paris, 1937), 216–17 and Puech, loc. cit., 138–45 consider Aristides’ epigram in relation to contemporary orators’ self-commemorative inscriptions. 3 Aside from brief remarks on epigraphic parallels or dedicatory practices, the passage receives little comment in the annotated translations published by C.A. Behr, P. Aelius Aristides: The Complete Works, 2 vols (Leiden, 1981), A.-J. Festugière and H.-D. Saffrey, Discours sacrés: Rêve, religion, médecine au IIe siècle ap. J.-C. (Paris, 1986), S. Nicosia, Discorsi Sacri (Milan, 1984), O. Schröder, Heilige Berichte (Heidelberg, 1986). 4 Aristides’ relatively high rate of Pindaric quotation is noted by C.A. Behr, Aelius Aristides and the Sacred Tales (Amsterdam, 1968), 11 and n. 28, and by A. Boulanger, Aelius Aristide et la sophistique dans la province d’Asie au IIe siècle de notre ère (Paris, 1923), 441. T.K. Gkourogiannis, Pindaric Quotations in Aelius Aristides (Diss., University of London, 1999) provides a compre-

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In the fourth Logos, Aristides describes the resumption of his literary training and rhetorical performances after a year of illness.5 In spite of continuing physical weakness, Aristides is required not just to practise a little vocal exercise, light conversation, or recitation from memory, but in fact to take up declamation in the full sense: in the stoa near the theatre he is to perform an improvised and ‘agonistic’ speech (Or. 50.15). This, he says, was the first of many such performances, for ‘this new strength was as if the god was providing it, and the year seemed to be one not of silence but of training’.6 In this story of professional revival, poetic composition constitutes a distinct narrative sub-section (Or. 50.31–47) in which Aristides taps the traditional springs of literary inspiration.7 From his first tentative lines, written after falling ill on the journey to Rome (Or. 50.31), to the public ( , Or. 50.43) choral performances he presents in Pergamum, Aristides enjoys continual divine guidance, and he begins and ends with Pindar as his model. In his initial paean to Apollo, inspired in a dream by the god of poetry himself, the opening line – (Or. 50.31) – echoes the beginning of Pindar’s second .8 His account closes on a similarly Pindaric note: Olympian: the narrative sequence culminates in dream-instructions to set up a choregic monument, ‘partly as a mark of gratitude to the god, and partly as a memorial to the choral performances I had given’.9 The inscription for this memorial tripod crowns the excursus on his poetic career (Or. 50.45):

hensive study of the citations in context. Pindar is by no means an exclusively epinician poet, particularly for Aristides who, as Gkourogiannis shows, was thoroughly familiar with the entire Pindaric corpus, much of which is lost to modern readers. Themes of crucial interest to Aristides – including Pindar’s self-definition as a poet and his relationship to the divine – appear across the corpus. 5 Or. 50.14. Behr (n. 4), 26, n. 19 dates the beginning of Aristides’ sojourn at the Pergamene Asclepieum – and hence his return to rhetorical practice – to the summer of C.E. 145, approximately a year after his return from Rome in poor health (cf. Or. 48.7, 46–49, 70); cf. C.A. Behr, ‘Studies on the biography of Aelius Aristides’, ANRW 2.34.2 (1994), 1140–1233, at 1155, n. 58. 6

’ (Or. 50.18). Asclepius imposes a regimen of literary training, alongside prescriptions for physical health, and rhetorical feats themselves may bring about cures: e.g. Or. 50.14–18, 22, 29–30. On contemporary notions about how vocal exercise could affect health, see M. Gleason, Making Men (Princeton, 1995), Ch. 4, and A. Rousselle, ‘Parole et inspiration: le travail de la voix dans le monde romain’, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 5 (1983), 129–57. 7 The account of Aristides’ poetic training is part of the overarching narrative of his return to professional practice (see also n. 25, below). For accounts of the place of poetry in oratorical education of this period see Boulanger (n. 4), 42–7 and E. Bowie, ‘Greek sophists and Greek poetry in the Second Sophistic’, ANRW 2.33.1 (1989), 209–58. 8 O. 2.1. Cf. Bowie (n. 7), 214–15. 9

(Or. 50.45) On the kind of performances that might have led up to the dedication of the tripod, see Bowie (n. 7) at 216.

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And the following elegy had been prepared by me: ‘The poet, president of the contests, and chorêgos himself, has dedicated to you, lord, this memorial of choral performance’. Then there were two other verses in addition to these, one of which contained my name, and the other the fact that all this took place with the god’s guidance. But the god carried off the victory. For on the day when the dedication was supposed to take place, on this day, so it seemed, or a little before then, around dawn or even earlier, a divine epigram came to me that went like this: ‘Not unknown among the Greeks, Aristides dedicated [this], Illustrious charioteer of ever-flowing tales (muthoi)’. I dreamed that I was inscribing this and also that I was going to dedicate it as a votive offering precisely as if to Zeus.10

Scholars have drawn attention to the fact that Aristides’ name is highlighted in the god’s revised dedication.11 The inscription can then be adduced as another example of the sense of self-importance that led certain rhetoricians of this period to identify themselves by personal name only, without demotic or patronymic.12 However, Aristides tells us that his name would have appeared in the first dedication as well, in lines he does not quote here. There is no way of knowing what form this signature would have taken, but if Aristides’ aim was to highlight the appearance of his name in the god’s version of the inscription, he need not have mentioned that it was included in the original dedication as well. More striking is the shift from a simple delineation of his responsibilities in mounting choral productions, to an impressive metaphorical evocation of his excellence. The first epigram follows the commemorative conventions of choregic monuments, which enumerate the names and roles of the individuals responsible for various aspects of the choral production.13 In the second, inspired version, the claim to official functions is replaced by a bold statement of Aristides’ ) reinforced by Homeric exceptional brilliance and fame ( ) and a description of his compositions as everlasting ( ). All language ( this is animated by the metaphor – emphatically late in the second line – of Aristides . as a charioteer, Chariot racing as shorthand for excellence was current in epigraphic monuments to literary and artistic accomplishment. From among a number of examples ranging considerably in both date and subject matter,14 a choregic epigram of the Hadrianic period from Athens provides perhaps the closest parallel: 10

In order to be sure that he has completely fulfilled this part of the dream-prescription (… ) Aristides eventually makes a second dedication to ‘Olympian Zeus’ (Or. 50.46), probably at a temple of Olympian Zeus on his ancestral lands in Mysia. For this temple, see Or. 49.41, 50.48, 50.1, 51.10; Robert (n. 2), 207–22 locates it at the modern day town of Alibey, north of Omerköy. In the narrative context of a victory memorial, the reference also recalls the games held in Zeus’ honour at Olympia, whose athletic victors Pindar celebrated. 11 Puech (n. 2), 144–5 and 399–400; Robert (n. 2), 216–17; Habicht (n. 2) at 75. 12 A choice example is cited and interpreted by Puech (n. 2) at 399: dedicating a statue of Demosthenes in the Pergamene Asclepieum (after dream-instructions from the god), the orator Polemon identifies himself by personal name only, but specifies the patronymic and deme name of the (presumably more famous) fourth-century dedicatee. 13 In this case, Aristides fulfills all the roles: poet, chorêgos and agonothete ( ). 14 G. Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca (Berlin, 1878), no. 39. 3 (Athens, Dipylon, fourth century B.C.E.): ; no. 498. 2 (Boeotian Thebes, c. third century B.C.E.): . T. Preger, Inscriptiones Graecae Metricae (Leipzig, 1891; Chicago, 1977), no. 10 (Athens, fourth century B.C.E.): .

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(?) [For Praxag]oras charioteered (

… ) an [excellent] chorus. (IG 22 3117)15

Aristides’ revised dedication fits well within this metaphorical and commemorative tradition; Asclepius’ eloquent ‘charioteer of ever-flowing muthoi’ gives poetic éclat to the responsibilities for composition and performance that Aristides had already (Or. enumerated in more pedestrian fashion.16 The god’s victory – 50.45) – is partly a stylistic one that illustrates the practical aid Aristides says was bestowed upon him so abundantly in dreams.17 But as this climax of poetic commemoration and choral performance brings us full circle from Aristides’ beginnings as a Pindaric poet at Rome (Or. 50.31), we should also consider the charioteering metaphor from a Pindaric perspective, asking what it tells us about Aristides’ relationship with his divine literary editor.18 Chariot imagery is prominent in the epinician odes, particularly in places where Pindar reflects upon his own craft.19 He uses it to evoke two broad themes: (1) an association with gods and the divine realm; (2) craftsmanship or technical skill. In Olympian 1, written to celebrate the victory of Hieron of Syracuse in the single horse race of 476 B.C.E., the emphasis is on divine favour. When Pindar forecasts the possibility of racing victories in Hieron’s future he also anticipates his own role in celebrating them – by alluding to his poetry in terms of a chariot metaphor:

… A tutelary god keeps watch over your endeavours, Hieron, making this his concern. And as long as he does not suddenly desert you I hope to celebrate an even sweeter victory with the swift chariot, having found a helpful road of words … (O. 1:109–110).

The ‘swift chariot’ is both the literal vehicle of Hieron as victor, and the metaphoric vehicle of Pindar’s poetic excellence. In both cases, divine favour opens the path of victory clear and unobstructed. Human craft also contributes to excellence, however. 15 Text from SEG 51.209; cf. S. Follet and D. Peppas-Delmouzou, The Greek East in the Roman Context (Helsinki, 2001), 95–117. The individual named here is probably the chorêgos. 16 Cf. Bowie (n. 7) at 217. 17 See Or. 50.25–6. 18 Because the narrative context of the chariot image in the fourth Logos points towards Pindar, I set aside another obvious precedent: the charioteer of the soul in Plato’s Phaedrus. In his Or. 2 Aristides turns Plato’s discussion of madness and inspiration in the Phaedrus towards a defence of oratory as a divinely inspired art, and in Or. 28 he evokes the image of a winged chariot to describe his own performances (Or. 28.114–15); cf. 28.143 for direct reference to the Phaedrus. On the centrality of the Phaedrus in contemporary literary culture, see M.B. Trapp, ‘Plato’s Phaedrus in the Second Century’, in D.A. Russell (ed.), Antonine Literature (Oxford, 1990), 141–73, at 141, 152–3 and 166–7 for details on Aristides. Platonic chariot imagery speaks to the theme of divine influence, but it does not engage questions of the close relationship between inspiration and technical skill, in the way that the Pindaric chariot does. Furthermore, as epinician poet par excellence and one of Aristides’ preferred literary models (see n. 4 above), Pindar’s example is directly relevant to the contexts of choral performance, competition and poetic commemoration that are at issue in the passage under consideration here. 19 D. Steiner, The Crown of Song (London, 1986). M. Simpson, ‘The chariot and the bow as metaphors for poetry in Pindar’s Odes’, TAPA 100 (1969), 438–49.

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So at Olympian 9.80–1 Pindar hopes that his own skill makes him worthy of the / chariot of the Muses: (‘Skilful with words may I be fit to be carried up in the chariot of the Muses’).20 The potential of the chariot metaphor as an expression of craftsmanship comes most insistently to the fore in cases where Pindar shifts attention away from the vehicle and towards the charioteer who drives it. In a context quite separate from poetry, a boxing trainer responsible for moulding the innate strength and gifts of a young competitor is presented in these terms: < ’> … and I would call Melesias equal in swiftness to a dolphin through the sea, charioteer of hands and strength. (N. 6:64–6)

Described as a charioteer, and likened to a dolphin in speed, the trainer Melesias embodies the conjunction of learned skill and natural physical strength that he nurtured in the victorious young Alcimidas.21 This potent combination of innate gift and acquired skill returns in a remarkable image – of poetic excellence – from Isthmian 7: …

… and mortals forget what does not reach the glorious pinnacle of wisdom, yoked to renowned streams of verses. (I. 7.17–19)

In the economy of the metaphor, attaining wisdom through poetry requires bringing together the discipline of the yoked chariot and the spontaneous, natural inspiration of flowing waters. Inspiration and craft are the twin requirements of excellent performance in Pindar’s world – whether athletic or poetic – and the image of the chariot can, as we have seen, illuminate both. However, in the two places where he names his subordinates in the process of poetic production, Pindar uses the analogy of the hierarchical relationship between the victor and his charioteer to figure his own superior position as poet with respect to the chorus leader who presents his works.22 In Olympian 6, Pindar describes himself as drawing inspiration for his song from the spring of the nymph Metope (O. 6.82–4) but then urges the chorus-leader Aeneas to ) his companions in performance (O. 6.87–8). Aeneas is thus given ‘spur on’ ( the enabling role of Phintis, Hegesias’ charioteer, who was in fact conscripted (metaphorically) into poetic service earlier in the poem, when Pindar exhorted him: 20 For the chariot of the Muses, cf. I. 8.61 and Paean 7 (fr. 52h) 13–14, which Aristides quotes when he produces an example of poetic locution at Or. 45.13: . I thank Professor Ewen Bowie for this reference. 21 The same two metaphors (dolphin and charioteer) appear in fr. 140 B, where they seem to describe Pindar’s poetry and the poetry of one of his predecessors respectively. W.J. Henderson, ‘Pindar Fr. 140B Snell–Maehler: the chariot and the dolphin’, Hermes 120 (1992), 148–58 reads the metaphors here in terms of an opposition between inspiration and craft. 22 For discussion of the parallel Pindar constructs between his own chorus leader and the charioteer who drove for the victor see N.J. Nicholson, Aristocracy and Athletics in Archaic and Classical Greece (Cambridge, 2005), Chs 3 and 4.

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‘O Phintis, yoke at once the strong mules for me, as quickly as possible, so that we may drive our chariot on a clear path and I may come to his family’s very lineage’ (O. 6.22–5).

Likewise in Isthmian 2, when Pindar instructs his chorus-leader Nicasippus to ‘impart ) to his guest-friend Thrasybulus (I. 2.47–8),23 he echoes the these words’ ( - ‘dispense; direct’) he used earlier in the poem to describe the role of language ( Xenocrates’ driver, Nicomachus, in the racing victory (I. 2.20–2).24 In these examples, then, the metaphor of the charioteer creates distance – if not precisely opposition – between inspiration and craft. When Aristides borrows the metaphor of the Pindaric charioteer for the culminating episode of his poetic itinerary in the Hieroi Logoi, he invokes a complex web of associations: divine inspiration, skilled craft, and also a suggestion of hierarchical distance between the two. In the epigraphic tradition, as we have seen, the image of the charioteer is a motif of honour and status. Indeed, Aristides is not carried up passively by the Muses’ chariot to a divine realm; rather he is himself the ). At the same time, the motif of divine glorious charioteer ( sponsorship is as closely entwined in his self-representation as a poet as it is in his Pindaric model. For whose words are these that Aristides composes, publishes and performs? The gift of the revised epigram recapitulates the crucial role of Asclepius and other divinities in Aristides’ poetic development – a reminder that the ) that Aristides ‘charioteers’ come from the god. ‘ever-flowing tales’ ( When Aristides declares that the god ‘carried off the victory’ – – the statement applies not to this particular interaction only; it sums up the story of his progress as a poet (Or. 50.31–47) and, by extension, his whole professional revival.25 Without relinquishing the claims to personal literary glory that the chariot image suggests, Aristides points at the same time to his own subordination to the god.26 This refinement need not ultimately detract from Aristides’ prestige: here, as so often in the Hieroi Logoi, we see Aristides astutely negotiating the boundary between self-aggrandizement and glorification of Asclepius. The Pindaric image of the charioteer allows him to achieve both purposes. In his Hymn to Asclepius (Or. 42) Aristides is explicit about his pointed interest in Pindar as a model for the relationship between writer and god.27 Here Aristides 23 24

Son of the now-deceased Xenocrates. … /

/

25 At the end of the excursus of Or. 50.31–47, Aristides makes a transition back to the subject of oratory proper by rephrasing the compliment the god paid to him as a poet – (Or. 50.45) – in more general terms: … ‘… it seemed in every way necessary to cling to oratory (logoi) … since the god had called my words (logoi) “everlasting” ’ (Or. 50.47). 26 Compare the metaphor at Or. 43.26, ‘To Zeus’, where Zeus in his role as the universal directing power is compared to the , while other beings (humans and other gods) assume the enabling role of the : ’ < > ‘And everything everywhere is full of Zeus, and for all he presides over every deed, as teachers do with pupils and parabateis with charioteers’. 27 Or. 42 postdates the Hieroi Logoi, to which it contains a reference at Or. 42.10.

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describes his speeches as divine gifts, and he contrasts his understanding of his own oratorical accomplishments with a story told about Pindar – that the god Pan himself performed one of Pindar’s paeans. The reverse is true in Aristides’ case, he says: >28

<

’ . In fact you [Asclepius] reversed Pindar’s situation. For in his case, Pan danced his paean, so the story goes. Whereas I, if I may say so, to be the interpreter ( ) of the <speeches you taught>. Since you yourself [Asclepius] directed me towards them [i.e. rhetorical studies, ] and established yourself as the commander of my training. (Or. 42.12)29

Although the syntax is disturbed,30 Aristides seems to describe himself as the ‘interpreter’, the ‘actor’ ( ) of Asclepius, who directs his training and performance in public speaking.31 In both images – one from the theatre and one from the race-track – the god is the power behind Aristides’ accomplishments and thus the true victor. In conclusion, I have tried to show that the story of the revised commemorative epigram in the fourth Hieros Logos is a more finely calibrated piece of self-promotion than scholars have previously recognized. When the description of Aristides is changed from ‘poet, judge and chorêgos’ to ‘charioteer’, what is highlighted if we read through a Pindaric lens, is Aristides’ relationship with Asclepius. Figuring both divine inspiration and skilled craftsmanship, the Pindaric language of chariot racing illuminates the dynamic connection between god and human that defines Aristides’ self-presentation as a writer of poetry, as it does his conception of his wider rhetorical vocation.32 Princeton University

JANET DOWNIE [email protected]

28 Keil (n. 1), 338 follows previous editors in positing a lacuna and offers this conjecture in his apparatus. For other conjectures, see Keil ad loc. and G. Dindorf, Aristides, 3 vols (Leipzig, 1829) 1.68, n. 3 (Or. 6 = Or. 12 K). Behr (n. 3) at 249 and 463 translates Reiske’s emendation: < > ‘I say that I am the actor of your compositions’. 29 The Vita Ambrosiana of Pindar records the tradition that Pan was seen between Cithaeron and Helicon singing ( ) one of Pindar’s paeans, A.B. Drachman, Scholia Vetera in Pindari Carmina, 3 vols (Leipzig, 1903), 1.2.2. For Pindar’s song of gratitude cf. fr. 95 and Gkourogiannis (n. 4), 110. Aristides refers again to this incident in his oration ‘In Defence of the Four’, F.W. Lenz and C.A. Behr (edd.), P. Aelii Aristidis Opera Quae Exstant Omnia Volumen Primum (Leiden, 1976), at Or. 3.191, where it contributes to an argument about philotimia, a topic of ongoing concern to Aristides; cf. Or. 28.55, where Aristides refers to O. 2.86–8 and invokes Pindar as a model for poetic pride. On this oration, see I. Rutherford, ‘The poetics of the paraphthegma: Aelius Aristides and the decorum of self-praise’, in D. Innes, H. Hine and C. Pelling (edd.), Ethics and Rhetoric: Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-fifth Birthday (Oxford, 1995). On Aristides’ use of the Pindaric biographical tradition see Gkourogiannis (n. 4), 114–16 and 119–25. 30 See n. 28, above. 31 Cf. Or. 50.18, Or. 50.26. 32 I would like to express my gratitude to Professors Christopher Faraone, Shadi Bartsch and Elizabeth Asmis for their encouragement, and for their advice on drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank William Bubelis for enthusiastically fielding questions on epigraphic matters. I am grateful to Professors Mark Payne and Ewen Bowie for responses to earlier presentations of this material, and I have benefited from the comments of CQ’s anonymous referee.

Classical Quarterly 59.1 270–293 (2009) Printed in Great Britain

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SHORTER NOTES A NEW COMIC FRAGMENT (ARISTOPHANES?) ON THE EFFECT OF TRAGEDY Olympiodorus, In Plat. Gorg. 33.3, p. 172, 6–23 Westerink, reads as follows in the codex unicus, Marc. gr. 196 Z (M): 1

…

Olympiodorus’ account of Plato’s rejection of drama (Rep. 3, 394b–398b, and 10, 603b–606d) may partly depend on Proclus (cf. In Plat. Remp. 2.49.13–19 Kroll ), and his phrase can be compared with at In Plat. Remp. 1.44.27 Kroll. However, he includes other material. We may compare Theophrastus’ definition of tragedy as a 2 The and of epic as a similar phrasing suggests that Theophrastus was Olympiodorus’ ultimate source. This is supported by the fact that Theophrastus had a theory of catharsis that applied to ;3 by this term he meant both music and poetry, as did everyone down to Philodemus’ De musica.4 Theophrastus’ theory, adapted from Aristotle, was in turn borrowed by the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon, as we learn from Philodemus.5 The ungrammatical and odd expression is surely an unnoticed quotation from comedy, as Westerink suspected. Most of two comic trimeters can easily be restored, as follows: < > < >

<

>.

1 This is my emendation for M’s , an error based on the anticipation of the three occurrences of this word soon afterwards; cf. Ath. 11.505c, 2

F 708 Fortenbaugh. Cf. F 719–21 Fortenbaugh. 4 The new Budé edition by D. Delattre (Philodème de Gadara, Sur la musique, livre IV [Paris, 2007], 2 vols) finally makes fully accessible not only Philodemus’ views on music, but the On music of the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon, which he summarizes at length and which cited Theophrastus (F 720–1 Fortenbaugh, now cols 81–2 Delattre, where the text is very different). 5 Cf. R. Janko, ‘A first join between PHerc. 411 + 1583 (Philodemus, On music 4): Diogenes of Babylon on natural affinity and music’, CErc 22 (1992), 123–9. 3

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6 These verses are otherwise The second verse may have ended with or unknown. Could they be part of Aristophanes’ pervasive commentary on the rival genre, to which literary critics like Aristotle would owe so much? He often uses of the audience,7 and the versification is consistent with his style.8 Alternatively, they could derive from a play that considered tragedy at length, like Antiphanes’ .9 Olympiodorus could have obtained the quotation via Theophrastus, who also wrote on comedy.10

University of Michigan

RICHARD JANKO [email protected] doi:10.1017/S00098388090000214

6 Cf. Cratin. Pyt. fr. 203 Kassel–Austin, ; Men. Sent. 538, < > { } ; Com. Adesp. fr. 1209,2 Kock = TrGF Adesp. 26 Snell, / . 7 Cf. Ach. 496, Ran. 2, 132 (nom.); Pax 658 (acc.); Pax 964 (gen.); Vesp. 59, Eccl. 888, Plut. 798 (dat.); cf. Vesp. 1287, 1475, Pax 543, Nub. 518, Ran. 926, 1110, 1475, and in the singular Eq. 327, 704, Ran. 16. Antiphanes uses it in his in the dative plural (fr. 189,16 Kassel–Austin), and it is also in Adesp. com. 276,2. 8 falls in the same metrical sedes at Eq. 9, and at Eq. 1180, Men. Asp. 394. fills this sedes at Ach. 412, Vesp. 1511, Pax 148, Thesm. 450, Ran. 1120, fr. 392,1 Kassel–Austin; it is elsewhere at Ach. 400, 464, Av. 101, 1444, Ran. 90, 95, 798, 802, 834, 862, Lys. 138, Plut. 423, Men. Sicyon. 264 and Com. Adesp. fr. 1051,1 Kassel–Austin, and in other metres at Eq. 401, Ran. 913, 935. 9 Cf. fr. 189 Kassel–Austin. 10 F 709–11 Fortenbaugh.

ZENODOTUS’ TEXT OF HESIOD Zenodotus of Ephesus was the first librarian in Alexandria and active as a literary scholar in the early decades of the third century B.C.E. Best known for his muchreviled of Homer, Zenodotus also produced an innovative alphabetical glossary ( ) and worked on the texts of poets, including Pindar, Hesiod and Anacreon. While citations of Zenodotus’ readings by later Hellenistic and Roman writers reveal much about his scholarship on the Iliad and the Odyssey (over 400 readings of his are preserved), little evidence remains of his work on Hesiod’s poetry.1 In fact, only once do the Hesiodic scholia provide information about the readings of his text.2 A single thirteenth-century manuscript (Marc. gr. 464), in the hand of Demetrius Triclinius, contains this unique comment: Τ ad Hes. Th. 5 – : … In the first modern edition of the 1 On Zenodotus’ Hesiodic studies, cf. G.J.C. Muetzell, De emendatione Theogoniae Hesiodeae libri tres (Leipzig, 1833), 281; C. Göttling, Hesiodi Carmina, (Gotha, 18432), lxvi–lxvii; H. Flach, Glossen und Scholien zur hesiodischen Theogonie mit Prolegomena (Leipzig, 1876), 110–11; F. Jacoby, Hesiodi Theogonia (1930), 46–8, 74–5; J. Schwartz, Pseudo-Hesiodeia: Recherches sur la composition, la diffusion et la disparition ancienne d’œuvres attribuées à Hésiode (Leiden, 1960), 280–1, 614; N.A. Livadaras, (Athens, 1963), 35–6; R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age (Oxford, 1968), 117; K. Nickau, RE 10a (1972), 22, 38; and M.L. West, Hesiod: Works and Days (Oxford, 1978), 64. 2 Τ ad Hes. Th. 116 c (Di Gregorio) attributes an explanation of to a Zenodotus, but this is evidence for exegesis, not a text, and at any rate it is not certain Zenodotus of Ephesus is meant.

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Hesiodic scholia (1814–23), Thomas Gaisford printed the reading of the manuscript, .3 A decade after the publication of Gaisford’s edition in Germany, Wilhelm Muetzell suggested emending to .4 Ten years later Karl Göttling followed Muetzell’s suggestion, with the specification that be understood with .5 The emendation was taken up by Hans Flach in his edition of the scholia to the Theogony where he maintained that Þkd¾sesi should be understood rather than Göttling’s .6 Lamberto Di Gregorio followed Flach in the most recent edition of the Theogony scholia.7 Muetzell’s emendation of for is predicated on understanding that Zenodotus’ text of Hesiod’s poems was called by later scholars either a or an , though there is no evidence for this. A third possibility, one that would support the scholion’s reading in the manuscript, is that ancient scholars referred to Zenodotus’ copy of Hesiod’s poems as an . In fact, the Homeric scholia twice use the phrase / to refer to Zenodotus’ text of Homer’s Iliad as though is meant: ΤA ad Hom. Il. 13.808 a (Erbse) – < >: … ; and ΤA ad Hom. Il. 19.26 a (Erbse) – … ‘ ’ .8 These parallels confirm that (sc. ) is the correct reading for the scholion in Marc. gr. 464 and discredit Muetzell’s emendation. What this scholion preserves for us is the precious information that Zenodotus read ( ) for in his text of Hesiod’s Theogony. A number of late medieval manuscripts of the Theogony (for example, Vat. gr. 915, Laur. conv. suppr. 158, Paris gr. 2833) still retain Zenodotus’ variant ( ) or a form of it. There are at least three explanations for the origin of Zenodotus’ reading ( ) . One possibility is that the confusion between ( ) and reflects some copyist’s spelling error since and are orthographically quite similar. Another solution was offered by Felix Jacoby, who imagined that Zenodotus had discovered the form ( ) in an ancient text of the poem (in libris antiquioribus) and included it in his own copy.9 But Martin West has provided the most convincing explanation for the different names when he observed that the scholion records alternative spellings of the river’s name as reflected in two different Greek dialects: ‘If the initial consonant represents an original labio-velar, - will be correct for Boeotia, while Attic and koine would have -’.10 In other words, Hesiod and speakers of Boeotian and other Aeolic dialects would call the stream on Mt Helicon ‘Permessos’, while speakers of Attic and related dialects (such as Ionic) would refer to the same stream as the ‘Termessos’.11 3

T. Gaisford, Poetae Minores Graeci, 2 vols (Oxford, 1814; Leipzig, 1823), 2.463. Muetzell (n. 1), 281. Göttling (n. 1), lxvi. 6 Flach (n. 1), 111, 209. 7 L. Di Gregorio, Scholia vetera in Hesiodi Theogoniam (Milan, 1975), 4. 8 Eustathius (on Iliad 2.568, 289.38) offers a similar phrase: ; cf. Pfeiffer (n. 1), 117, n. 5; K. Nickau, Untersuchungen zur textkritischen Methode des Zenodotos von Ephesos (Berlin and New York, 1977), 5, n. 16; and M.L. West, Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad (Munich and Leipzig, 2001), 55, n. 23. 9 Jacoby (n. 1), 75. 10 M.L. West, Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford, 1966), 153. 11 On the changes of initial labio-velars into - or - before front vowels, cf. C.D. Buck, The Greek Dialects (Chicago, 1955), 61–2; R. Schmitt, Einführung in die griechischen Dialekte (Darmstadt, 1977), 69–70, 76, 81. 4 5

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A recent theory may confirm West’s dialectal explanation for the spelling ( ) in the text of Zenodotus, and allow for a clearer understanding of his copy of Hesiod’s Theogony. In his study of the transmission of the Iliad, West has suggested that Zenodotus brought to Alexandria from his native Ephesus an Ionian rhapsode’s copy of Homer’s poems which he used as the ‘base copy’ for his .12 According to West’s model, Zenodotus notated the rhapsode’s copy of the Iliad and Odyssey with critical marks but without altering the underlying text, perhaps including variant readings in its margins. An important clue to the origins of Zenodotus’ text is the inclusion of ‘various neo-Ionic or hyper-Ionic forms’, which he took as evidence of its production in Ionian surroundings.13 West’s suggestion has met with enthusiastic, if not universal, acceptance.14 West’s proposed solution is simple and elegant, and neatly explains the puzzling and seemingly arbitrary readings in Zenodotus’ text of Homer. If while still a young man in Ephesus Zenodotus had procured and annotated a copy of Homer which he later brought with him to Alexandria, we can well imagine that he did the same with a personal copy of Hesiod’s poems. Zenodotus’ text of Hesiod could thus have been a rhapsodic exemplar which contained the Attic–Ionic spelling ( ) , reflecting what was actually recited in Ephesus and thus differing from the Aeolic–Boeotian . If this is the case, a rhapsodic exemplar of Hesiod which shows dialectal traces of its production in Asia Minor would have been the ‘base copy’ for Zenodotus’ text of the Theogony. While this is only a hypothesis, it explains the variant dialectal spelling attributed to Zenodotus by the scholia to the Theogony, and accords well with the most satisfactory theory about his of Homer. If the suggestion that a rhapsode’s copy of the Theogony found its way from Ephesus to Alexandria is accepted, further evidence of the Ionian background of Zenodotus’ text comes to light. The medieval manuscripts of the Theogony transmit the Attic form of the pronoun in line 126, but a second-century citation (Theophilus Apol. Ad Autolycum 2.6.11) and a fourth- or fifth-century papyrus (P. Achmîm 3) contain instead the neo- or hyper-Ionic form .15 A papyrus fragment of the Catalogue of Women (fr. 45 M–W = fr. 37 Hirschberger) contains the similar form . The Hesiodic scholia are silent on whether or stood in the Alexandrian copies of Hesiod’s Theogony (and there are unfortunately no scholia to the Catalogue of Women), but the scholia to Homer indicate that Zenodotus read the neo- or hyper-Ionic form in his of the Iliad: ΤA ad Hom. Il. 14.162 b (Erbse) – : ‘ ’ .16 The neo- or hyper-Ionic form in Zenodotus’ 12 West (n. 8), 33–45; id., ‘Zenodotus’ Text’, in F. Montanari (ed.), Omero tremila anni dopo (Rome, 2002), 137–42. 13 West (n. 8), 43. 14 F. Montanari, ‘Alexandrian Homeric philology. The form of the ekdosis and the variae lectiones’, in M. Reichel and A. Rengakos, Epea Pteroenta: Beiträge zur Homerforschung – Festschrift für Wolfgang Kullmann zum 75 Geburtstag (Stuttgart, 2002), 119–40, at 123; R. Janko, ‘Seduta di Chiusura’, in Montanari (n. 12), 653–66, at 658; id., review of West (n. 8), in CW 97 (2003), 100–1, at 100. A. Rengakos argues against the hypothesis in his review of West (n. 8), in BMCR 2002.11.15: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2002/2002-11-15.html. 15 West (n. 10), 81 argues that the correct reading is . Cf. Buck (n. 11), 79–80; Schmitt (n. 11), 103. 16 Cf. ΤAim ad Hom. Il. 1.271 a (Erbse): < :> ‘ ’ .

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of the Iliad is the same as the variant dialectal form in Theogony 126 and the reading of the papyrus of the Catalogue of Women. We might therefore suspect, and with good reason, that the neo- and hyper-Ionicisms that existed in the texts of Homer and Hesiod stem from copies produced by rhapsodes in an Ionian setting, and that ( ) , and all once appeared in Zenodotus’ copy of Hesiod’s poems. The methods by which Zenodotus’ readings have passed into papyri of the Theogony and the Catalogue, medieval manuscripts of the Theogony and the Hesiodic scholia are opaque; yet taken together they point to the fact that ancient scholars who came after Zenodotus took an interest in preserving his readings and thoughts – if only to disagree with them. This theory about an Ionian rhapsodic copy of Hesiod in third-century Alexandria has the additional conclusion that Zenodotus’ text of Hesiod contained both the Theogony and the Catalogue of Women.17 This may serve as another reminder that ancient views on the authenticity of Hesiod’s poems differ from our own. Cornell University

C.M. SCHROEDER [email protected] doi:10.1017/S00098388090000226

17 Schwartz (n. 1), 280–1 hints in this direction, following the suggestion about the Ionian background of Zenodotus’ text of Homer made by G. Pasquali in Storia della tradizione e critica del testo (Florence, 1934), 240–1.

THE DISUNION OF CATULLUS’ FRATRES UNANIMI AT VIRGIL, AENEID 7.335–6 That Virgil presents the Latin War of Aeneid 7–12 as, among other things, a civil war between proto-Romans, has been noted by many readers of the poem.1 The language of civil war becomes prominent in his account of the outbreak of war in Book 7. Here it is the typology of familial discord as a reflection of civil discord that Virgil employs most conspicuously. At 7.323–40 Juno commissions the Fury Allecto, the embodiment of familial strife (odit et ipse pater Pluton, odere sorores | Tartareae monstrum, 7.327–8), to stir up discord between eventual son-in-law Aeneas and father-in-law Latinus. Juno’s pitting of these two against one another (hac gener atque socer coeant mercede suorum: | sanguine Troiano et Rutulo dotabere, uirgo, 7.317–18) recalls – and so thematically prefigures – a later Roman civil war, that between father-in-law Caesar and son-in-law Pompey, a conflict highlighted by Anchises in the previous book (aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monoeci | descendens, gener aduersis instructus Eois, 6.830–1). Warring fathers and sons, we learn from Juno, are to be accompanied by battling brothers. At 7.335–40 Juno gives Allecto her formal assignment:

1 On civil war in the Aeneid, see e.g. S.J. Harrison, ‘Virgil as a poet of war’, PVS 19 (1988), 48–68, esp. 63–6; F. Cairns, Virgil’s Augustan Epic (Cambridge, 1989), 85–108; P. Hardie, ‘Tales of unity and division in imperial Latin epic’, 57–71, in J.H. Molyneux (ed.), Literary Responses to Civil Discord (Nottingham, 1993); and N.M. Horsfall, A Companion to the Study of Virgil (Leiden, 1995), 155–61, with further bibliography.

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tu potes unanimos armare in proelia fratres atque odiis uersare domos, tu uerbera tectis funereasque inferre faces, tibi nomina mille, mille nocendi artes. fecundum concute pectus, dissice compositam pacem, sere crimina belli; arma uelit poscatque simul rapiatque iuuentus. You have the power to arm brothers of one spirit for battle, and to overturn homes with hatred. You are able to strike whips and funeral torches upon houses. You have a thousand names, and a thousand talents for doing harm. Shake your fertile breast, dislodge the agreed-on peace, sow the grounds for war. May the youth wish for arms, at the same time demand them, and snatch them up!

So Allecto’s task is to send the Latins and Trojans – ‘brothers’ in that they all have Italian ancestors,2 and that they all are Roman forefathers – headlong into war with each other. With her attacks on Amata (7.341–405), Turnus (7.406–74), and then the hounds of Ascanius (7.475–504), the Fury of course succeeds.3 The effectiveness of Virgil’s presentation of Allecto as an agent of familial discord, and, more broadly, of his Latin War as a fratricidal struggle, is heightened by an allusion in these lines to Catullus 9. This short hendecasyllable is addressed to Catullus’ friend Veranius, who has just come home from service in Spain: Verani, omnibus e meis amicis antistans mihi milibus trecentis, uenistine domum ad tuos penates fratresque unanimos anumque matrem? uenisti. o mihi nuntii beati! uisam te incolumem audiamque Hiberum narrantem loca, facta, nationes, ut mos est tuus, applicansque collum iucundum os oculosque suauiabor. O quantum est hominum beatiorum, quid me laetius est beatiusue?

5

10

Veranius, you who of all my friends are worth more than three hundred thousand, have you come home, to your hearth, and to your brothers of one spirit, and to your old mother? You have. O wonderful news to me! I shall visit you unharmed, and hear you telling about the places, deeds, and peoples of the Hiberi, as is your custom. And, clinging to your neck, I shall kiss your dear mouth and eyes. O, of all the more blessed men that there are, who is happier or more blessed than I?

The poem is a celebration of homecoming and reunion. And home here is less the physical space of Veranius’ house than it is the family with whom he is reunited: the fratres and mater in line 4 are a direct extension of the domus and penates to which Veranius returned (uenisti) in the preceding line.4 2 Time and again in the poem we read of Dardanus’, and thus his descendent Aeneas’, Italian origins. Troy’s Italian roots are addressed most explicitly at 3.163–8, 7.205–11, and 7.240–2. On Virgil’s novel adaptation and treatment of the Dardanus myth, see V. Buchheit, Vergil über die Sendung Roms (Heidelberg, 1963), 163–72. Another more strictly civil dimension of the Latin War is the struggle between the exiled king Mezentius and his former Etruscan subjects. 3 Allecto’s stirring up of familial discord here in Aen. 7 finds parallels in the opening of Seneca’s Thyestes, where the Fury goads the shade of Tantalus to perpetuate the strife between Atreus and Thyestes. On the influence of Aen. 7.323–571 on the prologue of the Thyestes, see R.J. Tarrant, Seneca’s Thyestes (Atlanta, 1985), 85–6, n. 2. 4 So R.M. Nielsen, ‘Catullus 9 and 31: the simple pleasure’, Ramus 8 (1979), 165–73, who writes at 169: ‘In Carmen 9 … home is conceived of as much more than physical shelter for

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I would like to focus on the collocation fratres unanimos in line 4, a phrase that, it has been argued, stands at the core of Catullus’ poem.5 After Plautus, who uses the older unianimus at Stichus 731,6 Catullus is the first surviving author to employ the adjective unanimus. We see it twice more in his poetry, at 30.1 and 66.80.7 The next attested authors to use the adjective are Virgil, who employs it a total of three times,8 and his contemporary the epigrammatist Domitius Marsus.9 Like Catullus, Virgil modifies frater with unanimus just once, at Aeneid 7.335, where, as we saw above, the phrase also appears in the accusative plural. The correspondence is noted by many commentators on the two passages, but seldom do they argue for a direct allusion.10 And, while the appearance of the phrase fratres unanimi is unique in each of the authors, it is true that we find unanimus (and its alternate unanimis) as an epithet for siblings, spouses and close companions elsewhere in Catullus’ and Virgil’s poetry, and in later literature.11 But, as often, it is the contexts in which we encounter the two phrases – more specifically, the pointed discrepancy between the contexts – that establish the case for allusion. As we have seen, Catullus 9 is a poem about Veranius’ reunion with his brothers, mother and his friend Catullus. The Virgilian passage, contrarily, is about the disunion that Juno bids Allecto bring to families and homes. Let us look again at Aeneid 7.335–6: tu potes unanimos armare in proelia fratres atque odiis uersare domos

and at Catullus 9, 3–4: uenistine domum ad tuos penates fratresque unanimos anumque matrem?

The task that Allecto is instructed to perform is emphasized by the placement of the words in line 335: the martial words armare and proelia literally stand between the unanimos fratres, a figurative prolepsis of the rending apart that the Fury is about to human life; it is a spiritual reality, one found in the bond among people enjoying the closest ties of blood and kindred’. 5 Nielsen (n. 4), at 169: ‘The importance of human contact, of loyalty, and of verbal communication as the primary elements in Catullus’ presentation of homecoming in Carmen 9 is reinforced by his central placement of the adjective unanimos. This epithet summarizes the mood of all gathered to welcome Veranius’. 6 St. 731: ego tu sum, tu es ego, unianimi sumus. 7 At 30.1, of the friends to whom the addressee Alfenus has been false (unanimis … sodalibus); and at 66.80, of the husbands of the brides addressed by the Lock of Berenice (unanimis … coniugibus). 8 At 4.8, of Dido’s sister Anna (unanimam adloquitur male sana sororem); and at 12.264, where Tolumnius addresses his fellow Rutulians (uos unanimi densete cateruas | et regem uobis pugna defendite raptum), as well as at 7.335. 9 Fr. 1 (Courtney), 1–2: omnia cum Bauio communia frater habebat, | unanimi fratres sicut habere solent. 10 An exception is F.P. Simpson, Select Poems of Catullus (London, 1942 [1879]), xxxviii, who included this correspondence in his catalogue of ‘imitations of Catullus’ by Virgil. N.M. Horsfall, Virgil, Aeneid 7. A Commentary (Leiden, 2000), 233, writes ad loc. that ‘unanimus/-is is from Catullus’. On Virgil’s engagement with Catullus generally, see C. Nappa, ‘Catullus and Vergil’, 377–98, in M.B. Skinner (ed.), A Companion to Catullus (Malden, MA, 2007). 11 See nn. 7 and 8 above, as well as A.S. Pease, Publi Vergili Maronis, Aeneidos Liber Quartus (Cambridge, MA, 1935), 91–2, ad Aen. 4.8 for cases of unanimus/-is modifying other categories of relatives and friends. Along with Domitius Marsus (see n. 9), Silius (13.651), and Statius (Theb. 8.669 and 10.727) also modify frater with unanimus, perhaps under the influence of their epic predecessor Virgil.

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execute.12 The disrupted homes (domos) in line 336 are an extension of the brothers of 335. In this regard these lines share with lines 3–4 of Catullus 9 the assimilation of home and family. Indeed, if we consider this close sympathetic link between lines 335 and 336, the ordering of the words too can be read as a chiastic allusion to Catullus’ similarly connected lines (Catullus’ A domum B fratres C unanimos → Virgil’s C unanimos B fratres A domos). We have here, then, a type of oppositio in imitando:13 Virgil incorporates and then immediately pulls apart Catullus’ fratres unanimos and the home that they represent. Another contrast evoked by the allusion at 7.335–6 is that between the homecomings lying at the heart of Catullus 9 and Aeneid 7–12. Veranius’ safe (incolumem, line 6) return to his family and friend Catullus is one of affection (lines 8–9) and unspeakable joy (lines 10–11). Aeneas’ homecoming will be much different. Italy is his ancestral home, where he now belongs, as Aeneas articulates in his address to the Trojan penates at 7.121–2 (o fidi Troiae saluete penates: | hic domus, haec patria est), and as the river god Tiberinus reassures him at 8.39 (hic tibi certa domus, certi [ne absiste] penates).14 Here he and Lavinia are to wed and establish, or re-establish, his race’s domus in Italy. But – so contrary to Veranius’ welcoming party – the fratres unanimi that await Aeneas’ return will be his opponents in war. Strengthening the argument for allusion to Catullus at Aeneid 7.335–6 is the presence of other Catullan correspondences in this episode. As we saw above, Virgil’s dubbing of Aeneas and Latinus as gener atque socer just above our passage at 7.317 recalls his use of the same terms for Caesar and Pompey at 6.830–1. But it is at Catullus 29.24 (socer generque, perdidistis omnia?) that we first see this slogan for Caesar and Pompey that Virgil adopts15 and then extends into his own civil war. Further, in the surrounding lines in Book 7 he twice incorporates language from Catullus 64. At 7.302–3, Juno’s complaint about the failure of various sea obstacles to halt Aeneas (quid Syrtes aut Scylla mihi, quid uasta Charybdis | profuit) is adapted from Ariadne’s indictment of Theseus’ parentage at 64.156 (quae Syrtis, quae Scylla rapax, quae uasta Charybdis). Then at 7.356 Virgil describes Allecto’s gradual seizure of Amata (necdum animus toto percepit pectore flammam) with language and rhythm drawn from Catullus’ account of Ariadne’s falling for Theseus (64.92: cuncto concepit corpore flammam).16 12 Horsfall (n. 10), 233, writes of this phrase that ‘[b]rothers ought to be unanimi … [H]ere therefore the adj. almost concessive’; he compares the application of concordes to Caesar and Pompey at 6.827. Cairns (n. 1), at 101, aptly calls unanimos fratres at 7.335 ‘a combined allusion to fraternal concord and its opposite, civil war, which illustrates well the standard ancient equivalence of familial and public harmony’. C. Bannon, The Brothers of Romulus: Fraternal Pietas in Roman Law, Literature, and Society (Princeton, 1997), 148, similarly observes Allecto’s ‘inversion of fraternal pietas’ in 7.335–8, but also downplays the extent to which Virgil presents his Latin War as a fratricidal, civil war. 13 As G. Giangrande (‘ “Arte Allusiva” and Alexandrian epic poetry’, CQ 17 [1967], 85–97) labels such an inversion of one’s model. R.F. Thomas (‘Virgil’s Georgics and the art of reference’, HSCP 90 [1986], 171–98) terms such a reference a ‘correction’, a process defined at 185: ‘The poet provides unmistakable indications of his source, then proceeds to offer detail which contradicts or alters that source’. 14 See n. 2 above. And on Virgil’s development of Italy as Aeneas’ patria (a theme first made explicit at 1.380: Italiam quaero patriam), see Cairns (n. 1), 109–28. 15 So M.C.J. Putnam, ‘The lyric genius of the Aeneid’, Arion 3 2/3 (1995–6), 81–101, at 89: ‘Virgil draws the collocation of socer and gener [at 6.830–1], and a touch of that poem’s irony, from Catullus 29 (24) where the two relatives are apostrophized as incorporations of Roman immorality’. W.A. Camps, An Introduction to Virgil’s Aeneid (Oxford, 1969), 97, regards the possible evocation of Caesar and Pompey at 7.317–18 rather as a ‘sub-conscious association’. 16 R.O.A.M. Lyne, Further Voices in Vergil’s Aeneid (Oxford, 1987), 16–17, explores the erotic implications of this allusion.

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Furthermore, Virgil’s use of Catullus 9 elsewhere in the Aeneid has been observed. At 6.687, we find as the first word of a speech rich with Catullan allusions the verb uenisti. As Michael Putnam has noted, Virgil uses this form of uenio only here; and Catullus uses this form only twice, at lines 3 and 5 of poem 9, of Veranius’ return.17 Just as Catullus hails the returning Veranius with uenisti … uenisti, Anchises at Aeneid 6.687 exclaims uenisti tandem to his son when they meet again in the Underworld. Their reunion, however, will be brief, to be followed by a more lasting separation. The fleeting and unfulfilling nature of Aeneas’ reunion with his father, Putnam argues, is brought out by the contrast with Veranius’ living, lasting reunion with his family and friends in Catullus 9.18 A similar contrast with Catullan precedent comes at 7.335–6, where, as we have seen, Virgil adopts and simultaneously dissolves Catullus’ unanimos fratres. The loss of the unanim-ity that Catullus captured in his poem will define Virgil’s Latin War. Juno’s bidding of Allecto at 7.331–40 begins the dissolution; and, indeed, over the ensuing lines of Book 7 Virgil emphasizes Allecto’s stirring up of hostile animi. As we saw above, at 354–6 we read of the gradual movement of Allecto’s poison from Amata’s body on to her animus (ac dum prima lues udo sublapsa ueneno | pertemptat sensus atque ossibus implicat ignem | necdum animus toto percepit pectore flammam). The Fury’s attack on Turnus is noted as successful when at 475 he is spreading combative animi to his Rutulian countrymen: dum Turnus Rutulos animis audacibus implet. Just after, at 481–2, we read that Allecto’s infection of Ascanius’ hunting dogs (who are thus able to track down Silvia’s stag) caused the enflaming of Latin rustics’ animi: quae prima laborum | causa fuit belloque animos accendit agrestis. Then, after war has broken out, Allecto vows at 550 to enflame more animi with the love of war, should Juno bid her do so (accendam animos insani Martis amore). Indeed, the stirring up and fractiousness of animi that we witness over the course of Book 7 is announced in the book’s proem, where Virgil declares that he will sing of kings driven by animi to their deaths (dicam acies actosque animis in funera reges, 7.42).19 Fratres unanimi, it is clear, have no place in this conflict. The Latin War’s impetus is the precise lexical opposite of unanim-ity, discordia, the splitting or separation of kindred hearts. Allecto boasts of discordia’s arrival in Latium at 7.545, just before her pledge at 7.550 to enflame more animi as needed: en perfecta tibi bello discordia tristi. And Virgil’s illustration of civil discord in Aeneid 7 is made more potent, more painful by his allusion at 7.335–6, where the reunion with fratres unanimi that Catullus had commemorated is torn apart, replaced by disunion and discordia.20 College of the Holy Cross

TIMOTHY JOSEPH [email protected] doi:10.1017/S00098388090000238

17 Putnam (n. 15), at 95. At 96 Putnam looks at further verbal connections between Aen. 6.684–702 and Cat. 9. 18 Putnam (n. 15), at 96: ‘There can be no physical contact in the world of ghosts, no possibility for living son to embrace dead father … It is this notion [of the horror of separation] that Virgil chooses to emphasize in contrast with Catullus 9’. 19 Virgil keeps the opposition of proto-Roman animi fresh in our minds as we enter Book 8. Before the relative calm of Aeneas’ trip to Pallanteum, we are reminded in the book’s opening lines of the agitated animi of the Latins (8.4: extemplo turbati animi) and of Aeneas himself (8.20–1: animum nunc huc celerem nunc diuidit illuc | in partisque rapit uarias perque omnia uersat). 20 I am thankful to Christopher Krebs, Michael Putnam, Richard Thomas, the CQ editor Rhiannon Ash, and the anonymous reader at CQ for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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HORACE, ODES 2.14.14 Frustra cruento Marte carebimus fractisque rauci fluctibus Hadriae, frustra per autumnos nocentem corporibus metuemus Austrum

14

In vain do we avoid the dangers of war, sea-faring, and climate, for inevitably (17–21) we must behold the Underworld and its infamous sinners. As a rule, waves are ‘broken’ in Latin quite explicitly by – or on – rocks, reefs, sandbanks or the like,1 and the fact that none of those is mentioned here to amplify fractis (14) may perhaps raise doubts about our text. Add the consideration that we should have expected a reference to the open sea’s stormy waves, such as encountered by a typical traveller crossing the Adriatic, rather than an allusion to the perils of off-shore reefs or shoals, and doubts increase. Horace speaks elsewhere of the Adriatic’s notorious storms, whipped up especially by the south winds, Notus, quo non arbiter Hadriae / maior (Odes 1.3.14–16), and Auster, dux inquieti turbidus Hadriae (Odes 3.3.4–5). He claims to know personally quid sit ater/ Hadriae … sinus and prays, conventionally, that only enemies’ wives and children might experience caecos / … motus orientis Austri et / aequoris nigri fremitum (Odes 3.27.18–19; 21–3). Of particular interest in these passages is his application of the adjectives ater and niger to stormy waters, for which we may compare his mention of a sea too stormy for fishing, atrum / defendens piscis hiemat mare (Sat. 2.2.16–17), and Virgil’s description of waves darkened by the north wind, fluctus … atros Aquilone (Aen. 5.2); the winds themselves sometimes are called ‘dark’ or ‘black’: Odes 1.5.6–7, et aspera / nigris aequora ventis; Epod. 10.5, niger … Eurus inverso mari; Cat. 68.63, in nigro iactatis turbine nautis; Virg. G. 3.278, nigerrimus Auster. The association of darkness with wind-driven, stormy waters will encourage a suggestion that, in the present line, Horace may have written not fractis but atris: atrisque rauci fluctibus Hadriae. It may be felt that this atris is uncomfortably close to ater in 17, uisendus ater flumine languido / Cocytus errans, but the repetition will have been rhetorically deliberate: in vain shall we eschew the Adriatic’s lively dark waves for we must soon view Cocytus’ funereally dark stream. While atris will entail a slight decrease in the verse’s alliteration of f and c, the adjective’s connotation of stormy, noisy wind may complement the aural imagery of rauci … Hadriae. As for the posited corruption, we might suppose that, with frustra just above (13) and also just below (15), atris will have been copied as fratris which then was corrected to the manuscripts’ fractis. Brooklyn College / Penn State University

ARCHIBALD ALLEN [email protected] doi:10.1017/S0009838809000024X

1 Compare, for example, Ov. Fast. 4.282, quaeque Carysteis frangitur unda vadis; Lucan 9.308, aequora fracta vadis; Sil. Ital. 5.398, fractasque in rupibus undas. And see TLL s.v frango, II A 2, de fluctibus sim.

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SEXUAL PUNS IN OVID’S ARS AND REMEDIA 1 I. ARS AMATORIA 2.121–2 sis licet antiquo Nireus adamatus Homero Naiadumue tener crimine raptus Hylas, ut dominam teneas nec te mirere relictum, ingenii dotes corporis adde bonis. forma bonum fragile est, quantumque accedit ad annos, fit minor et spatio carpitur ipsa suo. nec uiolae semper nec hiantia lilia florent, et riget amissa spina relicta rosa: et tibi iam uenient cani, formose, capilli, iam uenient rugae, quae tibi corpus arent. iam molire animum, qui duret, et astrue formae: solus ad extremos permanet ille rogos. nec leuis ingenuas pectus coluisse per artes cura sit et linguas edidicisse duas.

110

115

120

Ovid’s instructions to his student at Ars amatoria 2.109–22, to remember the transience of his own good looks and spend time cultivating his mind in compensation, have usually been interpreted by scholars as a manifestation of the praeceptor’s more general concern with cultus – the ‘civilization’ or refinement central to the sophisticated urban society in which the poet sets his amatory intrigues.2 But however seriously we take Ovid’s dedication to a wider philosophy of cultus, the ultimate goal of his teachings is rarely allowed to remain latent for long: these prescriptions have a purpose, and their aim is ultimately that which informs the entire curriculum of the Ars amatoria – the acquisition and continued enjoyment of sexual pleasure. This passage is in fact a restatement of the famous lines in Book 1 in which the praeceptor with mock pomposity urges recourse to the traditional syllabus of Roman rhetorical education, but for distinctly ‘un-Roman’ purposes (Ars 1.459–62):3 disce bonas artes, moneo, Romana iuuentus, non tantum trepidos ut tueare reos: quam populus iudexque grauis lectusque senatus, tam dabit eloquio uicta puella manus.

460

The introduction of the extended exemplum of Ulysses and Calypso at 2.123 seems to have precluded a provocative concluding aphorism along the lines of 1.461–2, and the apparent omission here of one of Ovid’s characteristically facetious reminders of the fundamental goal towards which these teachings are designed to lead may well contribute to the impression that his advocacy of a liberal education is intended to 1 My thanks to Maria Wyke, Matthew Fox and Rhiannon Ash, to audiences in St Andrews, Glasgow and Oxford, and to CQ’s anonymous referee, for helpful comments on previous drafts of these notes. 2 On Ovid and cultus, see e.g. J.B. Solodow, ‘Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: the lover as cultural ideal’, WS 90 (1977), 106–27; M. Myerowitz, Ovid’s Games of Love (Detroit, 1985); P.R. Hardie, Ovid’s Poetics of Illusion (Cambridge, 2002), 1. 3 On these lines see K. Volk, ‘Ars Amatoria Romana: Ovid on love as a cultural construct’, in R.K. Gibson, S.J. Green and A.R. Sharrock (edd.), The Art of Love. Bimillennial Essays on Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris (Oxford, 2006), 235–51 at 240–1.

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carry a wider significance.4 But in fact the way in which Ovid characterizes the skills his student is to acquire from this education brings us immediately back to the real aim of this supposedly high-minded advice: nec leuis ingenuas pectus coluisse per artes | cura sit et linguas edidicisse duas (121–2). Commentators rightly point out that the injunction to become conversant in duae linguae recalls the high value placed on bilingualism by the educated Roman elite: the two linguae in question are of course Latin and Greek.5 As Cicero enjoins his son Marcus at De officiis 1.1: ut ipse ad meam utilitatem semper cum Graecis Latina coniunxi neque id in philosophia solum, sed etiam in dicendi exercitatione feci, idem tibi censeo faciendum, ut par sis in utriusque orationis facultate.6 Had Ovid been Cicero, he too could no doubt have used an expression similar to utraque oratio, or some more metrically tractable equivalent.7 But Ovid is Ovid, and he does not; the expression linguas edidicisse duas (122) here is far from fortuitous, and its context within the Ars amatoria invests it with a crucial ambiguity. After all, there is more than one way ‘to learn thoroughly two tongues’, and two tongues come in handy for rather more than just public speaking (or even private reading) – we might think of the pugnantes linguae of Tibullus 1.8.37, for instance, or the probing linguae of Amores 2.5.57–8 (tota labellis | lingua tua est nostris, nostra recepta tuis). What we have here, then, is a characteristic Ovidian double entendre: by describing the activity he is recommending in terms of the outcome it is intended to procure, the praeceptor amoris conflates the means with the end, and in so doing keeps his student’s eye firmly fixed on the ultimate goal of his amatory training. Alison Sharrock seems to have noticed this play when she detects in this passage ‘a joke about seduction for the reader’, and identifies a further pun in the use of ‘double-tongued’ to mean ‘deceitful’.8 But in fact linguas edidicisse duas is only the clinching punch line of a sequence of smutty double meanings that has already begun in the hexameter of this couplet. Ovid’s immediately preceding precept that the would-be lover should make it his business pectus coluisse (121) admits a comparably anatomical meaning. On a literal level, of course, he is urging the student of love to ‘cultivate the mind’, pectus being the seat of thought;9 but when Propertius pictures 4 For a slightly more pragmatic reading of the lines, see however P. Murgatroyd, Ovid with Love: Selections from Ars Amatoria I and II (Chicago, 1982), 154, on 2.121–2: ‘The cultured and sophisticated Ovid advises his pupil to acquire similar culture and sophistication. This is yet another instance of good advice in this section, since such an education would make the reader more impressive in most girls’ eyes (and in those of their acquaintances) and should mean that he would be more interesting, have more depth and seldom be short of conversation (in particular a mastery of Greek would extend his reading and knowledge)’. 5 M. Janka, Ovid Ars Amatoria Buch 2: Kommentar (Heidelberg, 1997), 125, on 121–2; A.R. Sharrock, Seduction and Repetition in Ovid’s Ars Amatoria 2 (Oxford, 1994), 49–50 with 50, n. 45. On bilingualism at Rome, see generally J.N. Adams, Bilingualism and the Latin Language (Cambridge, 2003); J.N. Adams, M. Janse and S. Swain (edd.), Bilingualism in Ancient Society. Language Contact and the Written Text (Oxford, 2002). 6 On Ovid’s use of De officiis elsewhere in the Ars, see M. Labate, L’arte di farsi amare. Modelli culturali e progetto didascalico nell’elegia ovidiana (Pisa, 1984), 121–74; R.K. Gibson, Ovid: Ars Amatoria Book 3 (Cambridge, 2003), 22–3 and index s.v. ‘De officiis and the Ars Amatoria’; id., Excess and Restraint. Propertius, Horace, and Ovid’s Ars Amatoria (BICS suppl. 89; London, 2007), esp. 80–2, 117–22, 126–9, 132–3. 7 For parallels in Latin verse, see Horace, Carm. 3.8.5, docte sermones utriusque linguae (impossible in dactylic metre); Sat. 1.10.23, sermo lingua concinnus utraque; Martial 10.76.6, lingua doctus utraque. 8 Sharrock (n. 5), 50. 9 See Janka (n. 5), 125.

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Cynthia following his funeral cortège nudum pectus lacerata (Prop. 2.13.27) he is scarcely envisaging his girlfriend inflicting mental harm on herself, and when Ovid exclaims upon seeing Corinna’s naked body quam castigato planus sub pectore uenter! (Amores 1.5.21), it is not perhaps the quality of her education that most excites him. So we can see that at Ars amatoria 2.121–2 the elegiac magister insinuates that his pupil should take it upon himself to ‘cultivate’10 not just (his) mind, but (someone else’s) breast.11 In conjunction with the instruction to acquire an intimate familiarity with ‘two tongues’, it becomes clear that there is more to this concluding couplet than a disinterested call to self-improvement – and if, with Sharrock, we see in ingenuas … artes (121) a nod in the direction of Ovid’s own Ars,12 we should expect nothing less. The praeceptor’s sly, suggestive wit is as active as ever, and yet another series of instructions is brought to a neat climax (as it were) with outrageous epigrammatic humour. II. REMEDIA AMORIS 757–66 Much of Ovid’s Remedia amoris is concerned with picking up and countering suggestions made in the Ars amatoria for the successful pursuit of love.13 One prominent instance of this occurs towards the end of the book, where the speaker revisits the reading-list he had given to his female disciples at Ars 3.329–46. Unsurprisingly, the register of proscribed literature here includes much of the material we find recommended in the previous passage, described in very similar terms:14 eloquar inuitus: teneros ne tange poetas; summoueo dotes impius ipse meas. Callimachum fugito, non est inimicus amori; et cum Callimacho tu quoque, Coe, noces. me certe Sappho meliorem fecit amicae, nec rigidos mores Teia Musa dedit. carmina quis potuit tuto legisse Tibulli uel tua, cuius opus Cynthia sola fuit? quis poterit lecto durus discedere Gallo? et mea nescioquid carmina tale sonant.

760

765

The erotic character of these poets’ works – and hence their potential danger to the patient of the Remedia – is immediately spelled out in the adjective teneros (757: cf.

10 Note that such agricultural metaphors repeatedly carry sexual connotations in this didactic poem: see generally E.W. Leach, ‘Georgic Imagery in the Ars Amatoria’, TAPA 95 (1964), 142–54; Sharrock (n. 4), 264–5; and cf. Robert Graves, ‘Ovid in defeat’, quoted in G. Liveley, Ovid: Love Songs (London, 2005), 41 and ead., ‘Ovid in Defeat? On the reception of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris’, in Gibson et al. (n. 3), 318–37 (‘Ovid instructs you how | Neighbours’ lands to plough’, 13–14). 11 For pectus = breast, see further OLD s.v. 1c. D.C. Feeney, ‘To catch and to keep’, The Times Literary Supplement, 4 May 2007, 8–9 at 8 sees a comparable pun in Ars 1.755–6, sunt diuersa puellis | pectora. 12 Sharrock (n. 5), 49; contra, Janka (n. 5), 124–5. 13 For a tabulated survey of correspondences, see A.A.R. Henderson, P. Ovidi Nasonis Remedia Amoris (Edinburgh, 1979), xvi; cf. also Gibson (n. 6, [2007]), 141–2. 14 So Coe, Rem. 760 ~ Coi … poetae, Ars 3.329; Teia Musa, Rem. 762 / Ars 3.330; Tibullus and Gallus by name, Rem. 763, 765 / Ars 3.334. There is nothing here, however, on Menander, Varro or Virgil: contrast Ars 3.332, 335–8.

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teneri … Properti, Ars 3.333).15 Then comes the Hellenistic pairing of Callimachus and Philitas, the former ruled out as ‘no foe to love’ (non … inimicus amori, 759), and the latter bracketed with him as one who ‘does harm’.16 Here the erotic implications of this kind of reading matter are not probed any further, but in the next couplet Ovid’s wry humour begins to show through: on 761 me … meliorem fecit amicae, Henderson, translating ‘better company for my girl-friend’, comments that ‘the adjective is inoffensive, but a nod is as good as a wink’.17 Things get worse in the following line, where the speaker declares that the erotic lyrics of Anacreon have not led him into rigidos mores (762). Perhaps not, if we understand rigidus in its primary sense here as ‘strict’ or ‘severe’, and mores as ‘morals’. But in another sense the development of rigidi mores, ‘stiff habits’,18 is precisely the kind of reaction we might have expected the reading of erotic literature to produce – and an equally good reason for the lovesick to avoid it. Whatever physical or moral effects may (or may not) have resulted from his reading of Anacreon, Ovid’s pun does little to dilute the sexual content of his catalogue, and offers a further covert warning about the possible perils of engaging with these suggestive texts. A relatively innocuous line on Tibullus (763) leads into the next pentameter, which is occupied by a periphrastic summary of Propertius’ elegiac poetry: cuius opus Cynthia sola fuit (764). The inspiration for this description lies in Propertius’ own declarations of exclusive devotion to Cynthia (see e.g. Prop. 1.12.20, 2.1.3–4, 2.13.35–6)19 – but we should note that the older elegist nowhere refers to his beloved as his opus. This refers primarily here to Propertius’ literary ‘work’, and at least his first book of elegies was known by its opening word Cynthia (Prop. 1.1.1, 2.24.1–2; Martial 14.189). In Roman elegy, however, and particularly in Ovid, who subjects the erotic death fantasies of his elegiac predecessors to hilarious if tasteless literalization by praying, at the mid-point of the Amores, that he may expire medium … inter opus (Amores 2.10.36), there is an all too easy slippage between opus, literary work, and opus, sex.20 So when Ovid talks of the poet whose only ‘job’ was Cynthia, he may be giving a précis of Propertius’ poetry, a summary of his sex life, or both. Once more the characterization of this previous poet’s work is carefully chosen, and points yet again to the impossibility of keeping sex off the brain when confronted with these luminaries of erotic literature. At line 765 Ovid moves on to C. Cornelius Gallus, the first major practitioner of Latin love elegy. The proximity of the adjective durus to the name of this poet is striking,21 given that duritia is the literary quality associated with Gallus’ elegies by Quintilian in his catalogue of Roman elegists at Institutio oratoria 10.1.93: 15 Henderson (n. 13), 132; C. Lucke, P. Ovidius Naso Remedia Amoris: Kommentar zu Vers 397–814 (Bonn, 1982), 330; P. Pinotti, Publio Ovidio Nasone: Remedia Amoris (Bologna, 1988), 320. 16 For Callimachus and Philitas as love poets, see also Prop. 2.34.31–2, 3.9.43–4; Ovid, Rem. 379–82. 17 Henderson (n. 13), 132. 18 For rigidus used of erect genitalia, see OLD s.v. 3b; J.N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (London, 1982), 46, 103. Further Ovidian examples in J. Ingleheart, ‘Burning Manuscripts: the literary apologia in Ovid’s Tristia 2 and Vladimir Nabokov’s “On a Book Entitled Lolita” ’, Classical and Modern Literature 26 (2006), 79–109 at 85–8 with n. 29. 19 For the line-ending cf. Prop. 2.29B.24, in lecto Cynthia sola fuit: might recollection of lecto in this Propertian context precondition the reader’s initial interpretation of the meaning of lecto in Rem. 765 (see below)? 20 See e.g. D.F. Kennedy, The Arts of Love: Five Studies in the Discourse of Roman Love Elegy (Cambridge, 1993), 59–60; Ingleheart (n. 18), 101 with n. 69.

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elegia quoque Graecos prouocamus, cuius mihi tersus atque elegans maxime uidetur auctor Tibullus. sunt qui Propertium malint. Ouidius utroque lasciuior, sicut durior Gallus.

Could we see the appearance of durus in a Gallan context here in Ovid as evidence that this critical judgement of the earlier poet’s work was already current before the composition of Quintilian’s treatise? If so, the association of Gallus with duritia here could be understood in one of two ways: either Ovid is defending his predecessor from the charge later levelled against his poetry by Quintilian, claiming that it is inconceivable that Gallus’ œuvre could contaminate a reader with its own alleged duritia, or he is slyly pointing to the humorous paradox of not coming away durus oneself after reading a work notorious for its stylistic duritia. Might Quintilian even have been influenced in his verdict by this line of Ovid? It is likely, moreover, that Gallus himself used the word durus in a highly memorable and possibly programmatic context, given the repeated occurrence of this adjective in what appear to be imitations of Gallus’ own poetry.22 There may then be some playful engagement here on Ovid’s part with terminology used by Gallus in his elegies: who could come away ‘hard-hearted’ (durus) after reading poetry traditionally characterized as tener, the opposite of durus in its literary sense – a distinction perhaps drawn by Gallus himself ?23 However this may be, it should be noted that it is only with Gallo, the final word of the hexameter, that the meaning of the line is actually fixed as ‘who’ll be able to go away hard after reading Gallus?’ Before the clarification offered by this closing foot, there is no indication (unless perhaps durus offers a hint along the lines suggested in the preceding paragraph) that the line is about Gallus at all, and without the name at the end quis poterit lecto durus discedere could mean something entirely different. For lecto is revealed as a perfect passive participle, ‘having been read’, only when we reach its complementary noun Gallo, whereas before this resolution the reader could be forgiven for taking it as a substantive in its own right: ‘who’ll be able to leave the bed (lectus) hard …?’24 With his customary verbal dexterity, Ovid slips into his characterization of the emotional effects of reading Gallus an implicit pointer to the more physical consequences of being propelled into sexual behaviour by this kind of poetry. If you act on what you read in elegy, insinuates the praeceptor, there’s no way you’ll still be ‘hard’ by the time you come to leave the bed: durus, like rigidus, can be used to denote an erection.25 It is an entertaining deflation, perhaps literally so, when we find out upon reaching the final word in the line that this is not in fact the sentence’s primary meaning. Even then, however, there is room for doubt, given that gallus, indistinguishable in manuscript from the name Gallus, can be used in Latin to denote 21

Some recentiores have tutus – see Kenney’s apparatus. See Virgil, Ecl. 10.46–9, tu procul a patria (nec sit mihi credere tantum) | Alpinas, a! dura niues et frigora Rheni | me sine sola uides. a, te ne frigora laedant! | a, tibi ne teneras glacies secet aspera plantas!; Propertius 1.8.5–8, tune audire potes uesani murmura ponti | fortis et in dura naue iacere potes? | tu pedibus teneris positas calcare pruinas, | tu potes insolitas, Cynthia, ferre niues? (and, if I am right [PCPS 53 (2007), 161–79 at 165], 3.7.47–8, nunc tulit et Paetus stridorem audire procellae | et duro teneras laedere fune manus); F. Cairns, Sextus Propertius, the Augustan Elegist (Cambridge, 2006), 89–90, 111, 114–15, 139, 191 (though here mollis is given as the opposite of durus). 23 See passages in n. 22 above. 24 For discedere + simple ablative, see TLL 5.1.1280.39–47. 25 J.T. Katz and K. Volk, ‘Erotic hardening and softening in Vergil’s eighth Eclogue’, CQ 56 (2006), 169–74 at 173–4 (Ecl. 8.80–1) with 173, n. 23 (Ecl. 4.30, after Nisbet); see also Ovid, Fasti 2.346, et tumidum cornu durius inguen erat. 22

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a eunuch (specifically a devotee of Cybele: see e.g. Horace, Sat. 1.2.120–2; Ovid, Fasti 4.361–2; Martial 3.81, 11.74) or effeminate man.26 In this case the implication would paradoxically (perhaps humorously) be one of amatory failure: who could come away durus after reading someone whose very name might suggest sexual impotence? Taken together, this extraordinary accumulation of innuendo over the course of five lines is guaranteed, whatever else it does, to keep the reader’s mind on the subject of sex. The dangers of reading works of erotic literature are themselves illustrated by a reading of Ovid’s specification of the books to be avoided. No wonder he concludes his catalogue with the observation et mea nescioquid carmina tale sonant (766)27 – this is after all precisely what he has been doing throughout the last few lines. And it is what he does right the way through the Remedia, with the result that, as much recent scholarship has observed,28 Ovid’s prescribed remedies are intrinsically programmed to fail in their therapeutic capacity. In Rosati’s words, ‘Ovid well knows that “amorous speech” (especially if made up from “fragments” from the great erotic poets) is a symptom of latent illness and is itself a source of contagion: to continue to speak of love – even if only to repeat that it is over and that one is no longer in love – means continuing to dwell in the world of desire’;29 for him, ‘a line such as et mea nescio quid carmina tale sonant (…) completing a list of erotic texts to be avoided sounds to the reader of the Remedia like a confession (with an ironic wink) of the true nature not only of the previous Ovidian elegy, but also of the Remedia itself ’ (ibid.). Both Rosati and Henderson, then, catch an Ovidian wink in the course of this passage, at lines 761 and 766 respectively: in combination, those two instances might be enough to prove the point. But if I am right about the verbal texture of the passage as a whole, Ovid is not merely winking but positively fluttering his eyelashes. University of Glasgow

L.B.T. HOUGHTON [email protected] doi:10.1017/S00098388090000251

26 TLL 6.2.1686–7. For a possible pun along similar lines, see Prop. 1.10.1–2, primo cum testis amori | adfueram, addressed to one ‘Gallus’ (5): M. Pincus, ‘Propertius’s Gallus and the erotics of influence’, Arethusa 37 (2004), 165–96 at 172–9. 27 CQ’s anonymous reader suggests there may be an echo here of Ovid’s provocatively reticent cetera quis nescit? (Am. 1.5.25), ironically marking the avoidance of sexual explicitness in one of the poet’s most sexual pieces (see esp. T. Schmitz, ‘Cetera quis nescit. Verschwiegene Obszönität in der Liebesdichtung Ovids’, Poetica 30 [1998], 317–49; although Schmitz does not mention Rem. 766, nescioquid … tale would fit comfortably into his analysis). 28 See especially L. Fulkerson, ‘Omnia vincit amor: why the Remedia fail’, CQ 54 (2004), 211–23; G. Rosati, ‘The Art of Remedia Amoris: Unlearning to Love?’, in Gibson, Green and Sharrock (n. 3), 143–65 at 164–5; P.R. Hardie, ‘Lethaeus Amor: The Art of Forgetting’, in Gibson, Green and Sharrock (n. 3), 166–90 at 166–7; Sharrock (n. 5), 62–3 (‘The rejection of love is part of the discourse of love – it is love’, 62); ead., ‘Ovid and the discourses of love: the amatory works’, in P.R. Hardie (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambridge, 2002), 150–62 at 160–1. 29 Rosati (n. 28), 164.

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VIRGIL’S CUCUMBER AGAIN: COLUMELLA 10.378–92 Rebecca Armstrong has convincingly shown that the words tortusque per herbam | cresceret in uentrem cucumis (Virg. G. 4.121–2) lead the reader of Georgics 4 to expect a snake, only to be surprised by the bathetic climax which reveals it to be a cucumber.1 This interpretation gains substantial support from an earlier reader, who signalled his apprehension of Virgil’s suggestion by means of imitation. Columella, in his ‘fifth Georgic’ on horticulture, supplies the gap left for later authors by the invitation in the time-pressed Virgil’s praeteritio.2 This is his description of the gourd and the cucumber (10.378–80, 389–92): tum modo dependens trichilis, modo more chelydri sole sub aestiuo gelidas per graminis umbras intortus cucumis praegnasque cucurbita serpit … … liuidus at cucumis, grauida qui nascitur aluo hirtus et ut coluber nodoso gramine tectus uentre cubat flexo semper collectus in orbem, noxius exacuit morbos aestatis iniquae.

As Armstrong has suggested with respect to the Virgilian passage, so commentators have seen here in Columella an allusion to the serpentine name of the cucumis anguineus.3 Yet, regardless or even because of this shared allusion, it is clear that Columella is referring to the Virgilian passage and, by explicitly comparing the cucumber to two different snakes, is signalling his apprehension of the latter’s strategy of suggesting but suppressing mention of a snake.4 He marks the allusion to Virgil’s cucumber by recalling almost every word in the Georgics passage, either by verbal echo (tortus ~ intortus, uentrem ~ uentre) or by the use of synonyms and periphrases (tortus ~ flexo,5 per herbam ~ per graminis umbras), while the notion of cresceret is less

1

R. Armstrong, ‘Virgil’s cucumber: Georgics 4.121–2’, CQ 58 (2008), 366–8. Virg. G. 4.147–8, explicitly invoked at Col. 10.pr.3, 1–5. Columella ‘appointed himself Virgil’s heir and stepped into a breach that did not really exist’. (E. Gowers, ‘Vegetable love: Virgil, Columella, and garden poetry’, Ramus 29 [2000], 127–48, at 127). The most sympathetic and stimulating discussions of Col. 10 are Gowers, J. Henderson, ‘Columella’s living hedge: the Roman gardening book’, JRS 92 (2002), 110–33, V.E. Pagán, Rome and the Literature of Gardens (London, 2006), 19–36, and S. Diederich, Römische Agrarhandbücher zwischen Fachwissenschaft, Literatur und Ideologie (Berlin, 2007), 227–58. 3 Armstrong (n. 1), 367. F. Boldrer (ed.), L. Iuni Moderati Columellae Rei Rusticae Liber decimus (Carmen De Cultu Hortorum) (Pisa, 1996), 328, ad 10.378, who adds that the amphibious chelydrus is an effective parallel for the water-loving cucumber. The pun may also lie behind Martial’s intriguing connection of reptile and vegetable in describing a farm so tiny that a cucumber cannot lie straight nor a whole snake fit in it (11.18.10–11). 4 Henderson’s ludic translation of this passage suggests, with its suspenseful dots, exactly the sort of bathetic surprise which Armstrong finds in Virgil: ‘Here, hanging in an outhouse, or there, like some watersnake, | out in the summer sun, all through the cool shade of the grass, | there creeps … cucumber’, J. Henderson, The Roman Book of Gardening (London, 2004), 63. Of course Columella, unlike Virgil, has already made explicit that whatever he is describing is like, and hence is itself not a snake, but Henderson brings out the misdirection which Columella replicates from – and annotates in – Georgics 4. 5 Columella’s flexo also echoes flexi … uimen acanthi in Virgil’s next line at G. 4.123. It is notable that Columella swaps the epithets by referring to tortos … acanthos earlier at 10.241, the allusion marked by an Alexandrian footnote since the artichoke imitatur the acanthus. Gowers 2

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directly evoked by the conventional image of the pregnant gourd and the boldly paradoxical one of the cucumber being born from its own laden womb.6 The extreme brevity of the similes (more chelydri, ut coluber) underlines the close parallelism between snake and cucumber, since precisely the same language can be used of both with no need for differentiation between tenor and vehicle. In fact, one might go further and argue that the language is rather more appropriate to the snakes than to the cucumber. This would constitute an inversion of what Oliver Lyne has termed ‘trespass’, so that here words like serpit, uentre and cubat stray from the (implied) simile into the narrative.7 This further reinforces Columella’s implicit assertion that Virgil’s cucumber is similarly described in terms appropriate to a snake, but with the simile marker ut coluber suppressed. Columella demonstrates his awareness of the snakiness of Virgil’s cucumber, not only by allusion to the passage itself, but by combining that with allusion to the actual snakes described in Georgics 3 and elsewhere. In this way, as Hardie in particular has demonstrated with authors such as Ovid and Valerius Flaccus, ‘combinatorial imitation’ of two separate sections of Virgil’s text can illuminate the connection between them.8 Thus the two snakes to which Columella compares the cucumber (and in the first case also the gourd) are the chelydrus and the coluber, the same two snakes named at G. 3.415 and 418. Schroeter even suggests ingeniously that the cadence more chelydri might be shaped in imitation of the latter line’s nidore chelydros.9 Even more suggestively, 10.391 echoes, as Brakman notes, Virgil’s description of the monstrous serpents which, in the laudes Italiae, are absent from Italy: nec rapit immensos orbis per humum neque tanto | squameus in spiram tractu se colligit anguis (Virg. G. 2.153–4).10 This reference to the (problematic) absence of snakes is particularly suggestive in a context where Columella is drawing attention to the unexpected absence of a snake in Virgil’s cucumber patch.11 (n. 2), notes how the use of imitatur (the sand imitates the rope) at 10.8 ‘prefigures the imitative mode of the whole poem’. On ‘divided allusion’, see J. Wills, ‘Divided allusion: Virgil and the Coma Berenices’, HSCPh 98 (1998), 277–305. 6 The allusion of the whole passage to G. 4.121–2 is noted by Boldrer (n. 3), 329, ad 10.379b. The parallel of intortus cucumis to tortus … cucumis is also noted by G. Schroeter, De Columella Vergilii Imitatore (Jena, 1882), 37, E. de Saint-Denis, ‘Réhabilitons Columelle poète’, GIF 21 (1969), 121–36, at 124, and A. Biotti (ed.), Virgilio, Georgiche Libro IV (Bologna, 1994), 116, ad Virg. G. 4.121–2. In giving the cucumber as well as the gourd a pregnant and hence distended belly, Columella sides with Virgil against (or perhaps tries to reconcile him with) his ‘correctors’ at Prop. 4.2.43 (noted by Armstrong [n. 1], 368) and Mor. 75 (noted by CQ’s anonymous reader). 7 On trespass, see R.O.A.M. Lyne, Words and the Poet (Oxford, 1989), 73–4, and see index s.v. ‘trespass’. Boldrer (n . 3), 329, ad Col. 10.380 refers to serpit as a ‘verbo espressivo … che anima l’ortaggio e prosegue la similitudine con un serpente’. 8 P.R. Hardie, ‘Flavian epicists on Virgil’s epic technique’, Ramus 18 (1990), 3–20; id., The Epic Successors of Virgil (Cambridge, 1993), 14, 43, 47, 78–9. Particularly relevant is his observation that Ovid’s allusion, in describing the serpent killed by Cadmus in Met. 3, to both the serpents which kill Laocoön in Virg. A. 2 and to Cacus in A. 8, ‘reveals an alertness to significant structural correspondences in [the Aeneid]’, (id. ‘Ovid’s Theban history: the first “anti-Aeneid”?’, CQ 40 [1990], 224–35, at 227). On the contaminatio in Col. 10 of allusions to different parts of the Georgics, as well as the other Virgilian poems, see Boldrer (n. 3), 21. 9 Schroeter (n. 6), 37. 10 C. Brakman, ‘Ad Columellae librum decimum’, Mnemosyne 60 (1933), 107–12, at 111. Boldrer (n. 3), 332, ad 10.391 does not mention this echo but suggestively (for both Virgil and Columella) notes the verbal parallels with descriptions of monsters at Cic. Arat. fr. 8.3 T and Prop. 4.6.35. 11 CQ’s anonymous reader suggests a further instance of combinatorial imitation. The passage immediately preceding (10.357–68), describes the ritual expulsion of caterpillars (dira …

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Columella is not, however, merely displaying his doctrina by detecting the subtle allusion to the snake in the Georgics and creatively annotating it through explicit similes. His imitation also constitutes an interpretation.12 Armstrong concludes her discussion with some suggestions as to how the substitution of the cucumber for the anticipated snake might ‘form a small-scale comment on some of the larger themes of the poem’.13 In her reading the very suppression of the expected snake is not a suggestion that the apparently harmless cucumber has sinister qualities, but rather a demonstration that not all surprises lurking in the grass of the Georgics are nasty; some can be welcome: ‘the plump cucumber thus adds to the sense that a garden has the potential to surprise with its bounty’.14 Similarly, Henderson, without noting Virgil’s serpentine subtext, contrasts the two depictions: ‘Columella’s cucumber, long and round, serves up a sinister deformity for the fall, where Virgil’s garden saw only a joy he could have grown into a greenhouse of delight, no worries’.15 As always with such creative allusion, two broad possibilities are available to the reader. One might argue that Columella polemically puts the snake back into the cucumber; in doing so, he dissents from Virgil’s suppression of the serpent and his related implication that the cucumber is a harmless, even desirable vegetable, thus further reinforcing Columella’s own negative, or at least ambivalent, depiction of this vegetable.16 Alternatively, Columella’s allusion might support a reading whereby the implicit snakiness of Virgil’s cucumber was in itself a subtle indication of its sinister potential within the world of the Georgics, an indication which the imitator and commentator draws attention to, emphasizes and validates. This latter possibility might be reinforced by the combinatorial imitation, noted above, of Virgil’s snakes and Virgil’s cucumber. Indeed, the reference to the cucumber’s ‘harmfully exaceranimalia! 351 – ‘nesso epicheggiante ed iperbolico’, Boldrer [n. 3], 316) from the garden by a bare-footed (nuda plantas), menstruating woman, and compares her to Medea sending the Colchian serpent to sleep. As well as being another example of Columella’s explicit paralleling of a relatively minor pest with a monstrous serpent, the reader suggests that this scene might recall the real serpent of Georgics 4, the immanis hydrus lying unseen in the long grass before Eurydice’s (presumably, but not explicitly, bare) feet (4.457–9). This is attractive, though the emphatically ritual context of this ‘pot pourri of mumbo jumbo’ (Henderson [n. 2], 130), in which even the bare feet have magical associations (Boldrer [n. 3], 319), and the close verbal echo of Seneca’s and Lucan’s Medeas (magicis … cantibus, Col. 10.367, Med. 684, Luc. 4.553) make the evocation of Eurydice a secondary one. 12 On Columella as a tool for interpreting Virgil, see esp. E. de Saint-Denis, ‘Columelle, miroir de Virgile’, in H. Bardon (ed.), Vergiliana: recherches sur Virgile (Leiden, 1971), 328–43. Where Saint-Denis studies ‘ce que l’œuvre de Columelle nous révèle sur celle de Virgile, telle qu’elle a été lue et comprise au premier siècle de notre ère’ (329) and argues that ‘parce que Columelle est plein de Virgile et qu’il a vécu en communion intime avec lui, nous pouvons l’interroger pour essayer de résoudre quelques énigmes irritantes et de mettre un point final à des controverses interminables’ (337), one might prefer to see Columella offering tendentious interpretations of, rather than absolute solutions to, the ‘enigmas’ of Virgil’s texts. Cf. Gowers (n. 2), 127: ‘it tells us how Virgil was read in antiquity’, and Diederich (n. 2), 231: ‘Man hat festgestellt, daß Columellas Vergilimitation, komplex und subtil wie sie ist, viel Kreativität verrät’. On references to Virgil outside Book 10, see A. Cossarini, ‘Aspetti di Virgilio in Columella’, Prometheus 3 (1977), 225–40; A. Doody, ‘Virgil the farmer? Critiques of the Georgics in Columella and Pliny’, CPh 102 (2007), 180–97. 13 Armstrong (n. 1), 367. 14 Ibid. 368. 15 Henderson (n. 2), 130, n. 52. 16 On the cucumber’s (and the gourd’s) ambivalence, see Henderson (n. 2), 130: ‘this pair of fat-bellies, everything from fatal through life-saving, as versatile as Columella’s verse, as necessary as his expertise’.

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bating the diseases of the harsh summer’ (10.392) might take the combinatorial imitation further in pointing the imagistic parallel between the snakes and the plague which are the two principal destructive forces of the second half of Georgics 3.17 Certainly the plague and the cucumber both slither (serpant, G. 3.475), and exercise their destructive power in summer (aestiua, 3.472). Ultimately, however, Columella’s world view, like his cucumber, is a complex mixture of (in crude terms) positive and negative.18 The summer brings horticultural bounty as well as the blasting Dog Star (10.400–8); the serpentine cucumis liuidus may aggravate disease, but the cucurbita can be used as a wine-container or a buoyancy aid for children learning to swim (387–8), while the cucumis candidus will not only soothe, but actively bring aid to the ill (394–9).19 Columella certainly identifies the snakiness of Virgil’s cucumber and it is more than arguable that his annotative imitation also interprets it, but this is not to say that he asserts a simplistic or reductive interpretation which would diminish the glorious complexity and ambiguity of Virgil’s Georgics, Columella’s De Cultu Hortorum and both of their cucumbers. Balliol College, Oxford

ROBERT COWAN [email protected] doi:10.1017/S00098388090000263

17 On parallels between Virgil’s snakes and plague, see, inter alios, D.A. Ross, Virgil’s Elements (Princeton, 1986), 177–83; R.F. Thomas, Virgil’s Georgics vol. 2 (Cambridge, 1988), 119, ad 3.414–39. 18 ‘Columella erkennt die Ambivalenz der Natur also durchaus an und huldigt keinem so einseitigen realitätsfernen Optimismus, wie ihm die Forschung vielfach vorgeworfen hat’, Diederich (n. 2), 245. On the cucumber, see Henderson quoted in n. 16 above. With different emphasis, P. Toohey, Epic Lessons (London, 1996), 176–9, notes a tension in the poem between erotic (and fertile) sensuality and chaste purity. On the associations of cucurbits with the imagery of fertility in literature more broadly, see R. Norrman and J. Haarberg, Nature and Language: a Semiotic Study of Cucurbits in Literature (London, 1980), 13–79, esp. 21–3 on classical texts. 19 I use Columella’s own terms to distinguish between the cucurbits, but they are notoriously difficult to identify. For a scientific attempt to do so, see J. Janick, H.S. Paris and D.C. Parrish, ‘The cucurbits of Mediterranean antiquity: identification of taxa from ancient images and descriptions’, Annals of Botany 100 (2007), 1441–57, at 1444–5. Rebecca Armstrong suggests per litteras that Columella’s observation on the diversity of the cucurbits, una neque est illis facies (10.381), might further constitute a correction of Virgil’s failure to catalogue the different kinds. I am grateful to her and to CQ’s anonymous reader for their helpful suggestions.

THEMIS AT ELEUSIS: CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, PROTREPTICUS 2.22.5 The present note argues against a tenacious emendation. The textual problem with which it is concerned is located in a particularly sensitive passage, the long attack against the Mysteries of the Hellenes in Clement of Alexandria’s Protrepticus 2.12–2, one of our most precious sources of information on ‘ancient mystery cults’. The manuscripts of the Protrepticus are unanimous in reading at 2.22.5:1 1 All extant manuscripts of the Protrepticus derive from the Parisinus Graecus 451 (P), which dates from the tenth century. See O. Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus. Bd. 1: Protrepticus und Paedagogus (Leipzig, 1905), xvi–xxiii.

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< > The passage is cited by Eusebius with the exact same words.2 The emendation proposed by Wilamowitz in 1880, however, ‘correcting’ the of the passage into , has met with almost unanimous approval.3 It has been used by 2 Eusebius transcribes this section of the Protrepticus (2.11.1–23.9) in his Praeparatio Evangelica 2.3.40; K. Mras, Eusebius Werke. Praeparatio Evangelica, vol. 1 (Berlin, 19542), 86. Although Wilamowitz writes corruptela autorem etiam Eusebii exemplum obsedit, the manuscript reading was retained by Mras in his 1954 edition of the Praeparatio Evangelica. All MSS of Eusebius’ PE, together with P, are unanimous in reading , and even Wilamowitz concedes that this is what Eusebius also read (from a corrupted copy, in his opinion). Eus. BONV, together with Clem. P, all agree in reading after . Eus. H provides the only discordant reading: (M. Marcovich, Clementis Alexandrini Protrepticus [Leiden, 1995], 32). Arnobius makes a free translation of Clement’s passage in Adv. Nat. 5.19.26, but without any echo of the lines on Themis. 3 U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, Commentariolum Grammaticum, vol. 2 (Göttingen, 1880), 11 = U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, Kleine Schriften IV: Lesefrüchte und Verwandtes, ed. K. Latte (Berlin, 1962), 608–9. Until recently, Clement’s discussion of the mysteries in the Protrepticus was widely seen as an aggregate of information from various telestic cults, arranged without much order, and the case for seeking an appropriate divinity from any other mystery cult to make sense of the passage seemed perfectly legitimate. In 1880 there was no indication that Themis might have had an established presence in the Eleusinian cult, or that she played a part in telestic rites more generally. Lobeck, for instance, already suggested the correction (C.A. Lobeck, Aglaophamus, sive de theologiae mysticae Graecorum censis libri tres [Königsberg, 1829], 703). Mras conjectures on the basis of the of Eus. H. Themis did not seem to fit a context of teletai, and Gê Themis was a brilliant choice for an emendation. The idea of Themis as the expression of a primordial earth-goddess has had long currency; see e.g. L.R. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, vol. 3 (Chicago, 1971), 3, 13; K. Latte, ‘Themis’, RE2 5.2 (1934), 1626–7; K. Reinhardt, ‘Personifikation und Allegorie’, Vermächtnis der Antike: gesammelte Essays zur Philosophie und Geschichtsschreibung, ed. K. Becher (Göttingen, 19662), 26; K. Clinton, ‘IG i2. 5, the Eleusinia, and the Eleusinians’, AJP 100 (1979), 7; R.F. Healey, Eleusinian Sacrifices in the Athenian Law Code (New York, 1990), 75–9; 219–24. An equivalence between Ge and Themis is made by Aeschylus, PV 210–2, for instance (cf. A.J. Podlecki, Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound [Oxford, 2005] ad loc.); she is associated with Earth at Delphi (E. Stafford, Worshipping Virtues: Personification and the Divine in Ancient Greece [London, 2000], 52–6); the inscription of a seat in the theatre of Dionysus at Athens (IG 22 5130) reads (cf. also IG 22 5098: ‘two hersephoroi of Chloe Themis’); Paus. 5.14.10 sets the altar of Themis in the mouth of the oracle of Ge, and locates a sanctuary of Themis next to a sanctuary of Ge on the south slope of the Acropolis (1.22.1–3; cf. 8.25.7). The understanding of Themis as the personification of an ‘original’ deity of fertility and social order belongs to a distinct moment in the history of religions, of course. Stafford, 45–73, the most recent scholarly discussion of Themis as a figure of cult, rightly warns against continuing to privilege the ‘early and primitive’ association of Themis with earth and fertility. As all divinities of polytheistic Greek religion, Themis is linked to many other gods through rich ties of equivalence, complementarities and proximity, and there is no valid reason to privilege the tenuous connection of Themis with Ge in archaic and classical (mostly) literary sources to the detriment of all other associations (see e.g. Delphi inv. 4286; H.A. Shapiro, Personifications in Greek Art: The Representation of Abstract Concepts 600–400 BC [Zurich, 1993], no. 144). Not only is the cult association between Ge and Themis not ‘original’, but it is hardly attested. No actual cult association between Themis and Ge is attested before the mid-third century B.C.E., as Stafford observes, and even there the few documents adduced are far from decisive (67: ‘nowhere have we seen evidence to support the theory that Themis originated as an epithet of earth’). Price (T.H. Price, Kourotrophos. Cults and Representations of the Greek Nursing Deities [Leiden, 1978], 101–32), for instance, has argued that the inscription which was thought to mention a ‘priestess of Ge Themis’ (IG 22 5130) might actually be referring to a priestess of Ge and Themis instead, or even to two distinct priestesses, one of Ge and one of Themis (see also Stafford, 63–4). This late imperial text is in fact our only

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some to dissociate the passage entirely from Clement’s description of Eleusis.4 Others have seen it as pointing towards an equivalence between Demeter and Themis, as yet another generic type of earth-mother goddess, whether located in Eleusis or not.5 Although this emendation has been convincingly refuted by Pierre Boyancé in 1936, it continues to be generally accepted in editions of the text and discussions of the passage, when it is recognized as an emendation.6 As the strong case for the of the manuscripts has all but been ignored in the past 70 years, and as our understanding of Clement’s sources on mystery cults has significantly increased during that time, we believe that the question needs to be revisited. This is a textbook example of a hermeneutic house of cards: layers of interpretation built on the single (virtual) stroke of one letter.7 Our passage culminates with an assault on the Mysteries par excellence, the Eleusinian rites (2.20–2).8 After ‘revealing’ and ‘exposing’ a number of other mysteries (Aphrodite, Deo, Dionysus, Corybantes), Clement moves on to attack the

independent attestation for the putative figure of ‘Ge-Themis’ (C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘Myth as history: the previous owners of the Delphic Oracle’, in J.N. Bremmer [ed.], Interpretations of Greek Mythology [Oxford, 1987], 240, n. 62; Stafford, 68). 4 See e.g. A. Körte, ‘Zu den eleusinischen Mysterien’, ArchRW 18 (1915), 115–25; L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin, 1932), 82; U. Pestalozza, Religione mediterranea (Milan, 1951), 229–33; G. Casadio, Vie gnostiche all’immortalità (Brescia, 1997), 19–66. Most scholars who have written on the question do not mention that is an emendation. 5 Körte (n. 4), for instance, argues that the kteis gunaikeios was shown to the initiand as a symbol of rebirth. He writes that Clement called Demeter Ge–Themis as ‘er nur der Abwechslung halber die eleusinische Erdmutter mit einem anderen, wesengleichen Namen benennt’. Pestalozza (n. 4), 231 makes Ge–Themis an equivalent of Demeter–Kore. Cf. also V. Ehrenberg, Die Rechtsidee im Frühen Griechentum (Darmstadt, 1966), 33; Farnell (n. 3), 13–14. 6 P. Boyancé, Le culte des Muses chez les philosophes grecs (Paris, 1936), 36, 53; P. Boyancé, ‘Sur les mystères d’Éleusis’, REG 75 (1962), 460–82. The editions of O. Stählin (n. 1), G.W. Butterworth, The Exhortation to the Greeks, The Rich Man’s Salvation, and the Fragment of an Address Entitled To the Newly Baptized by Clement of Alexandria (Harvard, 1919), Q. Cataudella, Clemente Alessandrino. Protreptico ai Greci (Turin, 19402), and M. Marcovich (n. 2), the most recent one, all follow Wilamowitz’s opinion. C. Mondésert, Clément d’Alexandrie. Le Protreptique (Paris, 1949), is alone in accepting the of the manuscripts. Roberts also argues against the emendation of Wilamowitz, on the basis that ‘Clement almost never hyphenates the name of a god or goddess’ (L. Roberts, ‘The unutterable symbols of ( )’, HThR 68 [1975], 79). His discussion is an example of the force of scholarly tradition, as it continues to presuppose the association of Themis with Ge in the passage. See e.g. p. 79: ‘the Alexandrian procession may have included three different sets of mysteries. This does not discount the possibility that Clement may have combined the two goddesses in his thought. For scholars now recognize that the ancient goddess remained important through Hellenistic times’. The persistent presence of ‘Ge–Themis’ in discussions of the passage, even when the emendation of Wilamowitz is not accepted, is striking. Like Roberts, for instance, Stafford (n. 3), 45–73 accepts the manuscript reading , but explicitly reads the passage in reference to ‘Ge–Themis’. Although A. Bernabé, Orphicorum et Orphicis similium testimonia et fragmenta. Poetae epici graeci. Pars II, 3 vols (Leipzig, 2004–7), rightly edits in OF 532 II, he locates the fragment in the section devoted to ‘Phlya et Lycomidae’; he is following Casadio (n. 4), who actually bases this link with Phlya on the reading . 7 The difference between and is of course minimal in uncial scripts, and a mistake readily made. 8 On Clement’s view of Eleusis, see for instance F. Graf, Eleusis und die orphische Dichtung Athens in vorhellenistischer Zeit (Berlin, 1974), 194–9; W. Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, trans. P. Bing (Berkeley, 1983), 251, 269–71. Wilamowitz had a generally low opinion of Clement’s value as ‘witness for the Eleusinian cult’: U. von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, Der Glaube der Hellenen, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1932), 374.

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mysteries of Pherephatta.9 Throughout the passage, Clement systematically relates the myth of each mystery cult which is being exposed, and proceeds to reveal its synthêmata, hagia, and/or symbola. The section on the Cabiri, for instance, ends with a description of the shameful symbolon of the cult’s mystic kistê: the castrated aidoion of Dionysus (2.19.1–4).10 In disclosing the myths and rites of Eleusis as so many empty errors and shocking obscenities, the attack against the mysteries of Pherephatta follows the same pattern deployed against other teletai in the passage. It also follows the same order of material presentation. It tells the myth of Demeter’s search for her daughter in the version of a hymn attributed to Orpheus (2.20), quotes some verses from Orpheus which illustrate the shamelessness of the cult (2.21.1), discloses the (2.21.2), and reveals the of the mystic kistai (2.22.4). Immediately after this, Clement proceeds to unveil the of the cult (2.22.5). Wilamowitz’s emendation was based on internal and external considerations. The passage of Clement was thought to have little order in its arrangement of the material, something which justified looking beyond Attic Eleusis for fitting parallels;11 moreover, no independent evidence for Themis and the mysteries was thought to exist, something which justified changing the received text.12 Both considerations have now been disproved. First, the sentence which mentions the ‘unutterable symbols’ of Themis clearly belongs to Clement’s discussion of Eleusis. Recent research shows that the arrangement of the material we find in this section follows the pattern used for the other cults, as we have seen.13 The mention of the symbola at 2.22.5 belongs squarely in the section of the passage concerned with Eleusis.14 The reference to the Hierophant, the Dadouch, and Iakchos right after the ‘aporrhêta symbola of Themis’ are 9 The systematic alphabetical order adopted in the passage makes it clear that Clement is following a written source, a Hellenistic treatise on the mysteries which gives mythical and ritual accounts of diverse teletai using as main source one (or several) ‘Orphic’ poem(s); see C. Riedweg, Mysterienterminologie bei Plato, Philo und Klemens von Alexandrien (Berlin, 1987); N. Robertson, ‘New Light on Demeter’s Mysteries: The Festival Proerosia’, GRBS 37 (1996), 365–75; M. Herrero, ‘Las fuentes de Clem. Alex. Protr. 2.12–22: un tratado sobre los misterios y una teogonía órfica’, Emerita 75 (2007), 37–50. This contradicts the obviously interested information of Eusebius (PE 2.2.64) that Clement had direct knowledge of the mysteries because he had been initiated, something which is still widely repeated. While with Pherephatta Clement designates Kore, the poetic epiklêsis Deo is used to refer to both Rhea and Demeter. The alphabetical treatise used by Clement probably relies on ‘Orphic’ poetic traditions in which these equations of feminine goddesses were typical (e.g. P. Derveni, col. XXII.7 [OF 398 Bernabé]). 10 On the meaning of kistê in the passage, see Roberts (n. 6), 77–9. 11 Roberts (n. 6) 73, for instance, still sees the passage concerning the symbola of Themis as an ‘afterthought’ of Clement’s general discussion of the mysteries. 12 Neither P.F. Foucart, Les mystères d’Éleusis (Paris, 1914), G. Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (Princeton, 1961), K. Kerényi, Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter, trans. R. Manheim (New York, 1967), K. Clinton, The Sacred Officials of the Eleusinian Mysteries (Philadelphia, 1974), nor K. Clinton, Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries (Stockholm, 1992), for instance, discuss the presence of Themis at Eleusis. Healey (n. 3), 75–83, explicitly describes Themis as a divinity who does not belong to the ‘Eleusinian pantheon’. 13 See n. 9. 14 The fact that Clement breaks his unveiling of Eleusis with two rhetorical interruptions (2.22.1–2 and 2.22.3, based on Heraclitus and Philo, respectively), and that he has also anticipated some attacks on Eleusis in 2.12.2 and 2.17.1, does not affect the validity of this statement. The important point is that we expect to find symbola at the end of the section. A new lemma with Themis would also be uncharacteristic in both having no myth and breaking the alphabetical order.

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mentioned should be sufficient to confirm the matter.15 Second, the external considerations which were valid in 1880 have changed since then. It is no longer true to say, with Wilamowitz, that ignoramus Themidis mysticum cultum.16 The publication of column III from the ‘Nichomachean sacrificial calendar’ in 1935 confirmed the presence of Themis in the rituals of Eleusis once and for all.17 Whereas Themis was nowhere associated with the Eleusinian cult of Demeter and Korê before this text was found, the sacrificial calendar of the Agora now gives her pride of place in the rituals of the mysteries at the end of the fifth century B.C.E. The nineteen sacrifices mentioned in the upper part of column III are to be performed by the Eumolpids in the Eleusinia festival.18 The very first sacrifice mentioned is a ewe of twelve drachmas for Themis.19 The presence of Themis in the cult of Eleusis is independently and prominently attested. There is no valid reason to continue defending the emendation of Wilamowitz against the unanimous reading of the manuscripts and of Eusebius. The lemma of the Protrepticus (and of its source) on the mysteries of Eleusis mentions and describes the of Themis.20 Whatever value one gives to this testimony, it is a significant element of the great Eleusinian puzzle. It can no longer be replaced by a virtual text. McGill University Università di Bologna

RENAUD GAGNÉ [email protected] MIGUEL HERRERO [email protected] doi:10.1017/S00098388090000275

15 The rhetorical invocation which follows our passage has been thoroughly analysed in C. Riedweg, ‘Die Mysterien von Eleusis in rhetorisch geprägten Texten des 2/3. Jahrhunderts nach Christus’, Ill. Class. Stud. 13.1 (1988), 127–33. 16 Wilamowitz (n. 3), 11 = 608–9. 17 F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques. Supplément (Paris, 1962), n. 10, l. 60, first published in J.H. Oliver, S. Dow, ‘Greek Inscriptions’, Hesperia 4 (1935), 21–9. See now S. Lambert, ‘The sacrificial calendar of Athens’, ABSA 97 (2002), 353–99. Boyancé (n. 6, 1936), 26 and 53 and (n. 6, 1962), 480–2, was the first to see the importance of this inscription for the passage of the Protrepticus. He, however, improbably connects the Eleusinian Themis with the of Proclus, In rempubl. 1.125.20 Kr. Healey (n. 3), 75–83, discusses the presence of Themis in the inscription at length. His contention that the sacrifice of Themis mentioned in this public inscription belongs to the gentilitial cult of the Eumolpidae, based on the understanding of ‘la thémis ancestrale’ as the ‘symbol of clan justice’ proposed by G. Glotz, La solidarité de la famille dans le droit criminel en Grèce (Paris, 1904), and his many followers long ago, no longer carries conviction. 18 For the identification of this list as referring to the Eumolpid sacrifices of the Eleusinia festival, and not the Mysteries themselves, see Lambert (n. 17), contra Oliver (n. 17), 26–9 and Sokolowski (n. 17) ad loc. 19 Lambert (n. 17), l. 60: . The price is wrongly indicated in Sokolowski. For discussion of sacrificial prices in the inscription, see Lambert (n. 17), 396–7. 20 Marjoram, a lamp, a sword and a woman’s comb are mentioned, probably objects to be placed in a sacred basket, as Stafford (n. 3), 62–5 suggests, in reference to the hersephoroi of IG 22 5098. This short discussion on the emendation of Wilamowitz is not the place to speculate on the significance of this group of objects.

THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION

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