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Myth, religion and society
Structuralist essays by
M. Detienne, L. Gcrnct, J.-P. Vcmant and
P. Vidal-Naquct

Edited by
R.L. GORDON
Srn1°or Lrctu~r in Ille
School of Modem Lanp.p, and Europen History,
llnir~rsity of Eat An,tia

With an introduction by
R.G.A. BUXTOK
Lrctur,r in Classie, in thr
Vniunsity of Bristol

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Myth, rcli,ion and society.
I. Mytholo1Y, Grcc:k
I. Gordon, Richard L II. Detienne, Marcel
292'.l'.308 BL790 80-4078!1
ISBN O 521 22780 I hard coven
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Contents

Sources and acknowledgements page vii

Introduction, by R.G.A. Buxton ix

I: Myth and divinity

l. The union with Mctis and the sovereignty of heaven
LJ.·P. Vcmant) I,
2. The 'Sea-Crow' (M. Detienne) 16 t

11: The human condition 43

f' 3. The myth of Prometheus in Hesiod Q.-P. Vcrnant) 43
4. Sacrificial and alimentary codes in Hesiod's myth
of Prometheus u.-P. Vcrnant) 57,
5. Land and sacrifice in the Odyssey: a study of religious
and mythical meanings (P. Vidal-Naquct) 80r
_. 6. The myth of 'Honeyed Orpheus' (M. Detienne) 95 /

III: Myth and social order 111

7. 'Value' in Greek myth (L. Gcrnet) 111
8. The Black Hunter and the origin of the Athenian
,ph,b,io. (P. Vidal-Naquct) 147
9. Recipes for Greek adolescence (P. Vidal-Naquct) 163

IV: Disorder and deviance 18 7

10. Slavcrv and the Rule of Women in tradition, myth
and ulopia (P. Vidal-Naquet) 187
11. Athens and Atlantis: structure and meaning of a
Platonic myth (P. Vidal-Naquet) 201 /
12. Betwc:cn Beasts and Gods (M. Detienne) 215 1

Abbreviations used 229

Notes 231
Works cited 272
Index 291
Sources and acknowledgements

The following are the sources of the essays in this collection. The Editor
and Publishers wish to thank the publishers mentioned for their per·
mission to publish these essays. The translations have been made by the
Editor or adapted by him from those listed.

1
L'Union avcc MCtis ct la royautC du cid', in M. Detienne andj.-P.
Vcmant, Les nues de l'intellitence: la mitis des grecs (Flammaricn,
Paris, 1974), pp. 104-24 [= Me/ang<s ... H. Ch. Puech (Paris,
1974), pp. 101-16]. Published in English as Cunning intelligence in
Gree• culture and society (Harvester Press, Hassocks, Sussex;
Humanities Press Inc, New York, 1978), pp. 107-30, translated by
Janet Lloyd.
2 'La Corneille de mer', in Les ru.ses de l'intelligence, pp. 201-41
[= 'Le Navin d'Athena', RHR 178 (1970), 133-77 considerably
altered). Cunning intelligence, pp. 215-58.
3 'Le Mythc promcthCcn chcz HCsiodc', in J .-P. Vcmant, Mythe et
sociiti en Gr~ce ancienne (Maspcro, Paris, 1974), pp. 177-94
{= II mito greco: atti del convegno intemazionale (Urbino 1973),
edd. B. Gentili and G. Paioni (Rome 1977), pp. 99-106]. Published
in English as Myth and society in ancient Greece (Harvester Press,
Swsexj Humanities Press Inc, New York, 1980), pp. 168-85, trans-
lated by Janet Lloyd.
4 'Sacrifice ct alimentation humainc a propos du PromethC:e
d'Hisiode', Annali deUa Scuola Normale di Pisa 7 (1977), 905-40,
reprinted as pp. 37-71 of •A la table des hommes' in Detienne and
Vcmant ct al. La cuisine du sacrifice en pays grec (Gallimard, Paris,
1979), pp. 37-132.
'Valcurs rcligicuscs ct mythiques de la terrc ct du sacrifice dans
l'Odyss«', Annales ESC 25 (1970), 1278-97 [= Problimes de la
TffY'e en Grice ancienne, ed. M.1. Finley (Mouton, The Hague,
J 973), pp. 269-92]. (With alterations and corrections here.)
6 'Orphce au miel', QUCC 13 (1971), 7-23 [= Fafre de l'hi,tofre,
edd.J. Le Goff and P. Nora (Gallimard, Paris, 1973), 3, pp. 56-75].
7 'La Notion mythiquc de la valeur en Gl'Cce', in Louis Gemet,
Antleropologie de la Grice antique (essays collected by J .-P.
Vrmant) (Maspcro, Paris, 1968), pp. 93-137 (reprinted without
vii
Sources Cftd acbowledfnw-•
significant alteration from Jountal dr psychologi, -t I ( 1948),
415-621.
8 'IA- Chasseur noir et l'origint: de l'cphCbie athinicnne', Annales ESC
23 (1968), 947-64, which appeared in the same year id 'The Black
Hunter and the origin or the Athenian Ephebeia', PCPhS 194 (n.s.
14) (1968), -19-64 (translated by Janet Lloyd). (With ex.tensive
alterations and corrections here.)
9 'Le Cru, l'cnrant grcc et le cuit', in Faire de l'histoirr, pp. 137-68.
(With lltcrations and additions hett.)
10· 'Esclawge ct gynCC::ocratic dans la tradition, le mythc ct l'utopie', in
8«hwchn sur les structures sociales dtlJls l'Antiquiti cltUsiqwe,
introduced by C. Nicolet (Colloqucs nationaux du CN RS, ed. CNRS,
Puis, 1970), pp. 63-80. (With additions and corrections here.)
11· 'Ma.met ct l'Atlantidc', REG 78 (1964), 420-44. (With addidpns
·: 1 -.ftortections here.)
tt· '96uc Bites ct Dicux', in Nou1Jelle rrvue de psycM...tyu 6 (191i2),
, ,~ ··"lfl-t6 (special iuuc 'De5tins du cmnibalisllle') (reprint.-, widl
·· ~ alkrations as 'Rongc-r la tCte de ses parents', in M. Octffflne,
~ mis a mart (GaH.imard, Paris, 1977), pp. 155-60.J Pub-
lf.taecl 'in English as Dionysos slain Uohns Hopkins, lmtimorc,
"1,979), pp. 35-67, translated by Mireille '9.uellner and Leonard
lolucUncr.
Introduction, by R.G.A. Buxton

Writing in the Bvlletin of the Council of University Classical Depart-

ments for 1977, M.L. West addressed himself to the question of how, if
at all, the subject or Greek myth should be taught to undergraduates.
While accepting that students ought to be aware of 'the stories them-
selves', he expressed scepticism about the introduction of more theor-
etical mattcn:
When it comes to interpretation of myths, the problems are much harder. Before
we can think about teachina anythin1, we mu1t belinie we know 1omethin1, and
probably moat univcnity teachcn feel a profound lack of confidence in this aru
•.. interpretation of myths is not a field in which soundnc11 aboundl . , , The sort
of pa<batc we oua}lt to Ix aimin1 to produce, in my view, UI not one who knows
what the Greek myths arc all about (for none of us claim1 to know that), nor one
who hu m.uten"d 1ome 1listenin1 Method ...
These remarks by one of the most gifted philologists of the present
day would, I imagine, be received with approval by most classical
scholars. And indeed it is hard to refrain from a certain sympathy with
such a brisk refusal to be taken in. The history of the study of myth·
ology has been dominated by good ideas carried to absurd lengths; and
one may be pardoned for thinking that Euhemerus, say, or Max Mi.illcr,
would have benefited from more frequent promptings by the voice of
Empiricism. But it is unrealistic to expect of a theory, or even of a
~fethod, that it explain everything; enough, surely, if it permits us to
perceive new connections or, in the case of history, to cut fresh diag-
onals through the past. The essays collected by Dr Gordon in this
volume offrr, from their different but related perspectives, hope that
Professor West's methodological reservations may be unduly defeatist.
What these studies have in common may, for better or worse, be
summarized in the contentious word 'structuralism'. Unfortunately, to
say that one is a structuralist is about as informative as to say that one
is a democrat. The range of uses to which the term has been put in
linguistics, anthropology and literary criticism - to name only three
areas - is such ills practically to rule out any workable definition cover-
ing all the .tvailable cases. Yet in relation to the four authors here
rcprn<"ntcd the definitional problem is not insuperable. All arc working
\\ithin the samc intellectual tradition; aU sec as at least part of their
tiASk the recovery of the implicit categories - the structures - in terms
of which 'Greek mentality' was articulated. In the case of Vemant,
ix
R.G.A. Buxton
Vidal-Naquct and Uetic-nnc, who att all very much alive and active
today, their own pusitiun tiir-G-ui, the slructunlist movement i1 some-
thing which they thcmsch-es confront from time to time. In the case of
l.ouis Gemet (1882-1962) we att dealing rather with one who is in
certain respects a pl'C'Cunor or the structuralist1, and in whotc rich and
many-sided output wc can find the seeds or much that is occupying
scholars at present.
Jean-Pierre Vemant, Pierre Vidal-Naquet and Marcel Detienne all
teach or have taught at the tcole Pnatique des Hautcs ttudes in Puis. 1
To say that they form a 'school', with the magisterial Vnnant at its
head, would not be entirely misleading: Vemant and Vidal-Naquct haft
producedajointvolumconGreck lr111Cdy, 1 while Vemant and Detienne
have collaborated on a book (from which the fint lwo pieces in this
collcclion arc drawn) about cunning intelligence in Greek thought 1 and,
with othen, on a study or sacrifice~ moreover, the rootnotn: in their
worlu bear rrequcnt witneu to the rt:spcct which they have for one
another. None lhc less there arc si111ificant di£fcrences between them,
both in approach and in their areas of spec.ial intcrn:t.
Detienne works principally on mythology. In•!"~ G•rdns of
A~on~,1 .an analysis of a number of Grttk myths and rituals in-Valving
spices, he made an important contribution to our understanding of how
Greeks perceived the distinction between propa (wifely) and improp«
(cxccssiffly seductive) conduct by women, and how that perception
rccdvcd symbolic exprt:ssion through myth and ritual. Characteristic of
l>e1icnne's approach here and elsewhere - charac1cris1ic, too, of
Detienne'• model in the book, the anthropologist Claude U...i-Sttams -
is the attention paid to 'empirical categories· a~ ,lcploycd in mythical
narTativcs and ritual transactions: ht' shows repeatedly how contrasts
between, say, types of animal or plant constitute one of the funda·
mental vehicles for the logic of myth. So in 'The myth of "Honeyed
Orpheus"' (pp. 95-109 below) he draws our attention to the !'Ole o(
honey in various traditional talcs. Much of Dcticnnc's work is concerned
to iUuminalc the system of rcligiow thought of the Greckpolu (city),
but he has also done complementary analyses of marginal typct of
religious activity which define themselves by con1rut lo tht polis. A
classic instance is the essay (pp. 215-28 below) in which heexuninct
the different modes of dcvian~ cxcmpli£ied by Pythagoreans, Orphla,
Cynics and foUowcn of Dionysus, and in which, as usual, he pays dOR
attention to the n>Ie of empirical categories - here those rt:laring tQ the
pttparatinn and consumption 0£ food - in the sclf-dr-finitic,n of thC9C
groups.
Vidal-Naquct is a historian of fonnidablc ranKf. His contribution1 in
this collrction cover the world <•f "Homeric' society, rites d( statut.·
 Introduction
transition between adolescence and adulthood, ideological reflections
of the rotes of women and slaves in Greece, and a discussion of a 'philo-
sophical' myth in Plato, Elsewhere he has written on Greek tragedy, the
Jewish historian Josephus, and a wide variety of problems in Greek
social history, as well as on several contemporary historical issues.6 He
writes in a more condensed way than Detienne, is more divcne, and is
certainly less nsy to classify. 1£ one were to isolate one thread which
runs through his essays reprinted below it would be an interest in the
relationship between social practices and institutions, on the one hand,
and their ideological counterparts in myth and literature, on the other;
perhaps the clearest example is the paper on the 'Black Hunter' (pp.
147-62 below), in which a myth and an institution arc brilliantly
confronted,
Likc Vidal-Naquct, Vcmant has tended to prefer the article to the
book as his vehicle. His aim in thc splendid Les Origines de la pensie
grecque and Mythe et pensie chez les Grecs., - to recovcr the way in
which the Greeks' mental univene was articulated, above all in relation
to matten of religion - has been continued in his later writings. The
two papen on Hesiod (pp. 43-56 and 5 7- 79 below) arc typical or his
approach. Hesiod's talcs about Prometheus and Pandora tum on the
crucial distinction between men and gods: men must work and put up
with misfortune; the gods arc free of such trouble. Vemant explores the
implications of the distinction by examining Hesiod's accounts in detail.
Central to the analysis is sacrifice, the ritual which re-enacts, by the
separation of the parts of the victim which it entails, the separation of
men and gods. Hesiod, as Vcmant presents him, is much concerned with
boundaries; and that makes him a prime witness for the structuralists.
Having glanced at the three scholars individually wc must return to
'structures'. Vemant's approach to Greek myth ofrcrs a convenient
place to begin.
One common way of studying the Greek pantheon has been to select
a divinity and trace his or her ancestry back to its 'origins' in natural
phenomena, ritual, geographical or historical fact, the unconscious, or
somewhere else.• This enterprise, like etymology, is a perfectly respect-
able branch of human enquiry. But,just as etymology needs to be com·
plcmentcd by research into the interrelationships of words within a
language at a given time, so, argues Vemant, no single member of the
pantheon can be properly understood in isolation from thc rest: we
must broaden our outlook and take in the pattcm or interrelationships
between the deities. Only then shall wc be in a position to sec how the
conceptual univcnc of the Greeks was divided up, and how differen-
tiations with respect to time, space, sow:rcignty, etc., were implicit in
the way in which they conceived or their gods.
xi
 ,, ...... ·~ .
R.G.A. Buxton
An illustration may help. The ancient traveller Pausanias (5.11.8)
tells us that on the base of Pheidias's statue of Zeus at Olympia the aod·
dess Hestia is linked with the god Hermes. In a long and briUiant
analysis' Vemant suggesu that the pair embody contrary but comple-
mentary aspects or the Grttks' experience or space: Hestia is the heanh,
the fixed point, the centre around which human life within the oiio1
(household) is organized; Hcrmc, operates in a context of change,
tramition, movement, the linking of opposed stales. And the polarity
has a parallel in Greek social life: A, Hestia is to Hermes, so woman
(who stays at home) is to man (who leaves home and hu dealings with
others). Neither Hermes nor Hestia make, aense ir viewed in isolation;
only when each is contrasted with other clements in the "system' do the
distinctive traits of the two eme~ clearly. Moreovn - and here is
another characteristically structuralist gambit - the analysis points the
way towards an identification of homologous patterns within different
arcu of experience in the given cul1u1T: as Hennes is to Hestia, so man
is to woman. A third aspect ofVemant's study LI its demonstration that
something which is for us an aburact category - space - was perceived
by Greeks as a function of the specific forms of divine activity repre·
scnted by Hennes and Hestia. What is true of space is also true, for
example, of worklO and cunning intelligcnct: 11 the Grttks' way ol
classifying sorts of physical and mental behaviour by no means always
corresponds with our own,
Of the articles reprinted below it is Dctit-nne's piece on the 'sea-crow'
(pp. 16-42) which matches most closely the account I haw just given.
He discusses the different fonn1 of power exercised in relation to the
sea by Athena (the sea-crow is a marine bird which figures occaaionaUy
as an epithet of Athena) and POKidon. When Athena has to do with the
sc=a it is, Detienne uguc,, in relation to navigation and the finding of a
path across the treacherous deep. Her interventions show her to be th4:
divine equivalent or the ideal human helm1ma.n: quick-witte-d, deft, ablt:
to out-manocuvl't' the tricky problems posed by the shiftinR sea.
Poseidon, by contrast,
 Introduction
ing in a network of contrastive relationships with other comparable
figures. 11
Vemant, Vidal-Naquet and Detienne share an awareness of the essen-
tial seriousness of the myths, a sense that they are not 'just stories'. but
tales with a logic of their own and with a profound relevance to issues
generated by Greek culture. The view that there can be a 'logic' or
'reason' of Greek myth 11 docs not of course recommend itself to pro-
ponents of the idea that Greece witnessed the emergence of Reason
from the fogs of (irrational) Myth; but it is none the worse for that.
This last-mentioned idea contains, in fact, about equal measures of
truth and falsity. It is plain that in certain contexts - philosophy,
medicine, historiography come to mind - issues came to be debated in
classical Greece in ways which constitute a radical break with traditional
'mythical' modes of thought. Yet it is equally plain that men such as
Plato, Hippocrates and Thucydides were marginal in the influence
which they had on the beliefs of ordinary Greeks. For hundreds of
years after these and similarly gifted intellectuals had been applying
principles of reasoned argument to their chosen field of enquiry, most
Greeks will have carried on articulating their view of the world in terms
far more traditional; and not surprisingly, since the myths were em-
bedded in and supported by the ever-present ritual observances of the
religious calendar. Moreover, even when individual thinkers did intro-
duce 'rational' argumentation and the deployment of empirical evi-
dence, these commonly existed side by side with inherited assumptions
owing more to myth than 'reason'. In the case of philosophy and the
sciences this has b«n brilliantly demonstrated by Lloyd in two major
works_l 4 For historiography we may cite Herodotus: on the one hand,
he is a meticulous assembler of detailed empirical data, as in the account
of embalming among the Egyptians (2.86ff.); yet, on the other, he will
express views based on breath-taking a prion· assumptions, asserting for
example that the customs of the Egyptians are the reverse of those of
the rest of mankind (2.35). In Greek thought then is a ceaseless va-et-
vient between the 'mythical' and the 'rational', and he who would
generalize in the matter needs to beware of the different situations
obtaining in different contexts.
The paper by Gemct is devoted precisely to the complexities of the
'transition' from a mythical to a more positivistic mode of thought.
Louis Gemet" was a specialist in ancient Greek law, but his interests in
anthropology and sociology led him to explore other, wider aspects of
Greek society. The result was a series of extraordinarily penetrating
.u-ticlcs later collected under the title Anthropologie de la Grece antique;
the paper translatrd as' .. Value" in Greek myth' (pp. 111-46) formed
part of this collection. To our own 'positivist' way of thinking, argues
xiii
 ...,,,.\.
R.G.A. Buxton
Gcmet, 'value' is an abstnct notion which we perceive in terms of
quanlity. But for a society such as archaic, prcmonetary Greece 'val~e'
is a product of a complex or symbolic associations 'combining catcgo?es
which are for us distinct' (p. Ill; compare Yem.ant on the mythacal
perception or space). The bulk of the paper consisu or an aucmpl .'°
idcntir)· this archaic sense or value by examining a group of stones
ilhout a,-hnata, objects of (usuaUy) aristocratic wealth - tripods, gold
cuP5, magical-royal rings, clc. - whose worth resides in their special
talismanic numinousness u opposed to their 'external' ,•aluc. l'M
enquiry is a circuitous one (er. Gemd himself at p. 140) but it has
many telling poinu to make about the distinctiveness or mythical
thought. He ends by explicitly confronting the mythical/rational oppo·
sition in the light of his particular theme:
BccM&M (the 'es.tcnW tips of wnlth') were no lo.aFf the ndusivc property or•
claN within which the heritap of mythical ldnphip Uld ltl dfccdvc aym.bok hid
continued to Oouriab, c ~ value tendc::d to cdipM the oldn compka ilHp
..• The invention of money ca1unly makes pouibk dM deplo)·mcat of an •lr1IC.t
concsptioa ofvalue. (p. 145)
But Gemct is too subtle to miss the true complexity of the picture,
recognizing that the 'symbolic' and 'external' conceptions of v.aluc
coexist and interact long after the introduction of money (cf. p. 146).
Although Gcmct predates the explosion or widespread interest in
structuralism, his refcrcncc (p. 116) to Saussure (the linguist who must
he- sec-n in retrospect as one of the founding-fathen of the m~mcnt),
and cspcdaUy the unambiguous adoption of the myth-as-languagt"
analogy (ibid.), mark him out firmly as a fornunnrr or the approach
lilter developed by Vcmant. In fact, the analOR)' with lansuage is basic
to structuralism, and lies behind much of what is done in this hook. lt
can be seen most clc-arly at work. in 'Bct.,...ecn Beasts and Gods' (pp.
215-28). Detienne looks at some mythical accounts or cannibalism,
and then develops his analysis by locatinR the practice within a 1ystem
or comparable terms designating other ways in which humans relate to
food (sec esp. p. 2I 7);only whc-n a grid or map of the contrasting possi·
bilitics has been reconstructed docs it bC"comc reasiblc ta consider the
significance 0£ any one of them. The area or linguistics which suppiicd
the impetus for this approach is phonology: a phoneme: only signifies in
virluc of the contrasts between it and othrr phOMma. As critics of the
myth-as-language analogy have ob.crvcd, lhis does nol apply rigutouliy
to myth: ,me can hardly rcprd the isolatc-d utterance 'Scythians cat
human llcsh' (d. p. 220) as natinly devoid of tnc:aning,however much
more nuanced its import becomes by iu IM-inl( put back into its th"ut·
tural context. But surely we should be reasonable hctt, ( L) To •Y 1hat
myth is likr a langua,e- in certain respects is not lo say th.at it i1 a
 lniYoduction
lans,,&F in every respect. (2) To speak of Greek myths as constituting a
'system' may en on the side or formality, but it is a vitally important
counter to those who regard the stories as a random hotctt-potch of the
inherited conglomerate.

It may be useful to say something about how the selected aniclcs have
been grouped together. Section I consists or two pieces on the Greeks'
perception of their gods. Vemant discusses how the sovereign power of
Zeus was thought to operate; Detienne looks, as we mentioned earlier,
at the relative provinces of Athena and Poseidon. In both studies the
central theme is the extent to which divinities display or lack mttis.
The concept is one for which we have no satisfactory equivalent, so the
two papers cover a similar area to Vcmant's analysis of Hermes/Hestia,
viz. a demonstration of the way in which Greeks divided up their
experience differently from ounclvcs.
From boundaries between divinities we tum in Section II to bound-
aries which externally delimit and internally structure the condition of
humanity. In "The myth of Prometheus in Hesiod' Vcmant, after
examining the 'narrative logic' of the two accounts, summarizes what is
implied in them regarding the position of mortals: ' ... the story locates
humankind between beasts and gods, its status characterized by sacri-
fice, the use of fire for cooking and for manufacture, woman seen as
wife but also as animal belly, com as staple food and labour in the
fields' (p. 50). Sacrifice, agriculture, marriage: these arc the markers of
human life, distinguishing men from gods and from beasts. (Compare
the last paragraph of'Sacrificial and alimentary codes in Hesiod', p. 79.)
Sacrifice and agriculture also appear as central themes in Vidal-Naquct's
fine essay on the Ody11ey. This might just as well have been placed in
Section IV, since it is much preoccupied with questions of deviation
from social normality. Vidal-Naquet shows how accepted Greek con-
ventions relating to land-cultivation and sacrifice arc contrasted with a
rich variety of alternative modes of behaviour found in lands with
which the wandering Odysseus comes into contact. The last paper in
thr section, and perhaps the most methodologically radical (and con-
tentious) one in the book, brings us to the third Hcsiodic constituent of
the human condition: marriage. In seeking to make sense of the
Aristarus episode in Virgil's fourth Georgie, and in particular that
aspect of it which concerns Aristaeus's loss of his bees, Detienne goes
right outside, or behind, Virgil's text. He starts from two facts: (1)
Aristacus is guilty of a sexual transgression - pursuit of Orpheus's wife;
(2) Aristaeus loses his bees. The link is rcconscructed by Detienne on
the basis of associations which bees have elsewhere in ancient thought
with sexual purity. The analysis broadens to incorporate more and
R.G.A. Bus:ton
··-
mon: myths about bees and honey, especially those which in somr way
touch on the relations which 1hould properly obtain between mC'n and
wumcn in m•niagc. Some scholan will remain unconvin«d thaL the
key to Georgie 4 has been discovered here, feeling perhaps that what
Virgil himscl£ chruc to convey disappun from time to time u~dcr the
weight of mythological context, But thne CUI be DO dmym11 \bat
Detienne once again provides many insights into the way in which myths
make statements about social reality through the dcploymenl of m
C19.pirical logic.
The third scction brinp together three cuays which show how myths
n:Occt features of social orpnization, Gcmct, as WII have Kffl, uses a
tJOUP of myths to illustrate thC" ccinccption of value held by Gr~lu at•
particular stage in the development of their society. Vidal-Naquct 's two
1tudie1 relate to the period of social adolcsctm:c. known in thC" case of
Athenian males as eplaebeia, through which young poople pasacd before
reaching adulthood: 'The Black Hunter' ancmpta, by recoostructini;c a
little-known myth, to recreate the ideology of &he ~IJN; while
'Recipes for Greek adolescence' - a slight depmtun: from the t"rcnch
title, which translates literally as 'The Raw, die. Gnelr. child, and the
Cooked' - involves initiation rituals outside Atbeu• wd u in it, girls
u well u boys. To any who remain sceptical a'"-i interpretations in
terms of empirical logic I recommend Vidal-N.q•\ ACCOunl of the
astonishing nnd in a necropolis at Erctria (p, 171) ......,. drie Raw and
the Cooked differentiate childhood (rum aduldlotld..in a manner cle·.i.r
enough to quicken the pulse of even the mos, alpbnic.c,:f eb\lcturalists.
Sometimes Grttk myths reflect social reality, m.,t sometimes they
distort or in~rt it. In the final three papen "'" n,,·1·1 a number of
mythical na1Tativc1 which tell of invenions of the norm. In "Slaverv and
the rule of women' Vidal-Naquet asR"mhlcs several 'world-upside-down'
tr.ulitions in which it is imagined that power is in 1he hands of women
and/or slaves; from the way in which slavery is projected idcologi."-a.lly,
important conclusions are drawn about the differences between the
Athenian and Spartan models of slanry. 'Athens and Atlantis' is about
a rather special sort of myth, name-ly the one invented by Plato in his
dialogue Tim11t"w. Vidal-Naquet's densely-argued analysis of the twin
mythical cities, proto·Athcns and Atlantis, demonstrates that rh(')'
represent alterna1ivc imaginative models which contrast with c-ach other
and with the real Athcns;t'n po.u,u.i he disposes of a number of naively
realist hiHorical-geographical interpretations of the Adan tis 1tory, 1
procedure which might well be extended to diM:ouragc c1•mp1rably
literalist rcadinn of the more orthodoll. mvths.
 Introduction
gods) u,ually practised \\ithin the polis, he shows the compll"mcntary
and contrasting v..-ays in which four sects circumvent this normality.
The analysis is neat and formally satisfying - whether too neat is some-
thing for the sceptical empiricist to decide for himself - and the style is
refreshingly direct.
lt should be clear from what l have said that no one uniform approach
will he found exhibited in what follows; rather, a variety of strategics, a
number of which arc common to many or most of the pieces. Needless
to say, there is nothing sacrosanct about the order - the articles may be
taken by date of composition, or grouped according to author. In the
latter case what emerges is the individuality of the four scholars repre-
sented. If structuralism is 'some glistening Method', the quality of the
reflected light is entrancing in its variety.

Notes
1 Vidal-Naqu.et and ~tienne are still there; Vern.ant i, now at the CollC'ge de
France.
2 Vern.ant and Vidal-Naqu.et, 1972.
5 Detienne and Vern.ant, 1978.
4 Detienne and Vern.ant, 1979.
5 Detienne, 1977.
6 One may cite Torture: Conca of Democracy, Harmondsworth, 1965;Joumi1l
de ha commwne ihl.dionte (with Alain Schnapp), Paris, 1969; 'La mCmoire
d' Au.1chwitz', in Esprit for September 1980, 8-52.
\'emant, 1962; 1971.
At this point l am adapting 1ome remark, from my note in the Bull~rin of th~
Council of U,ii11nsity Cloui~ol D~po,tmrnts, 1977, 12-1'.
9 Vern.ant, 1971: I, 124-70.
10 Vemant, 1971: 11, 5-64.
11 Detienne and Vemant, 1978.
12 i,·0 r another aspect or the Athen1/Poseidon di1tinction see Vidal·Naquet at p.
206 below.
13 er. a chaptn in \'emant, 1974, entitlrd 'Reuons or myth'.
14 Uoyd, 1966: 1979.
IS t"or an appraisal or his work see Humphreys, 1978: 76-106.
I: Myth and divinity
1. The union with Metis and the sovereignty
of heaven
Jean-Pierre Vemant (1974)

Having consummated his marriage with Mctis ('Resource'), Zeus takes

the Titan Thcmis ("Order') to his second wife. 1 These two marriages
complement one another, each helping to guarantee the supremacy of
the new king of the gods, just as the two goddesses compose a pair both
compound and contrastive. Each of them has oracular powers, her
knowledge comprehending the whole sweep of time. Each, by virtue of
her relation with earth and water, the primal clements, enjoys powers
that antedate the reign, the very birth, of Zeus. Thcmis, born of Gaia
('Earth'), is patron of oracles on land; Mctis, daughter of Oceanus and
Tethys, represents - like various Old Men of the Sea - divination by
water (Vcmant, 1963: xvii-xviii; Detienne, 1967: 29-50). But the om-
niscience of Zeus's fint two wives takes different fonnsj which accounts
for his marrying Themis only after he has digested the special powers of
Mctis, and made himself mitieto ('metisizcd') - by swallowing her.
The omniscience of Themis relates to an order which is conceived as
already inaugurated, once and for all settled and fixed. Her utterance
has assertive or categorical force: she states the future as though it
already were. Because she pronounces what shall be in the present
indicative, she frames not advice but directives: she says 'Do this', 'Do
not do that'. Metis on the other hand has to do with the future under·
stood as a risk. Her utterance has a hypothetical, problematic cast: she
advises what should be done so that things may tum out in one way
rather than in some other way. She tells the future not as something
already determinate but as a possibility - either good or ill; and at the
same time she offers the use of her stock of wiles to make it tum out
for the better rather than for the worse.
Themis represents, in the world of the gods, stability, continuity,
regularity, the permanence of order, the cycle of recurring seasons (she
is the mother of the HOroi: Hesiod, Tlu:ogony 901-2), the fiat of fate
(she is also the mother of the Moirai 'who distribute to mortal men
good fortune and ill': Theogony 904-6). She it is who marks pro·

WU
Ji:an-Picrrc Vcmant
hibitions, boundaries which may not be crossed, l~~_J!_~-~!ions ~hich_
must be ~~~.!':.9 if e\·cr~one....is ta .be kept ~ways._within liis· proper
•I.ink and sphcrc. By contra.st, Mctis makes her prc1cncc felt when t_hc
di\'li,c ·worlO iS~sl'lll nuid, or when?t"s balance of forces is momcntanly
out of kilter - in disputes over !ucccssion,:stn,i.gd~ (~i:_~~~crciK1;'tY,
wars and rebellions, the rise of a new power. At these moments, thmgs
get dramatic and disconcerting in heaven; if they arc to triumph, the
_powers that be in the world _bcy~nd must_ display no~ ~4:r:~f?~g~
\*f'd strcngt~_, but i~~~jg~~t p~anrung, ~unmng an~ rc~urc~.J
- In marrying Mct1s, Zws - who has Just overthrown Cronus an~ upset
the old on:lcr - is not simply recognizing the services she rendcted him;
he is also providing himself with the wherewithal to estab.Iish an entirel~
fne~ order. In marrying Themis, he renden pe~nt imd. sacrosanct
the rules he has just decreed and his redistribution of b.oDAIJit ~~ privi-
leges. His double muriage both sets the seal upon the faD~n! ~~ ptd
his own accession, and precludes the possibility of N ~ change.

Wily 'Metis is a threat to any established order. Her intellipDce werb in

the realm of feint and disconccrtion the better to ~·lie tables, to
upset the seemingly most settled system. This comes Q\lt'jn,. • tealm o(
myth in the motif that her children arc danaerous:· ~iab-erit from
their mother her devious cunninR. Thus armed, hCT AJOI\ ia 1,ound to
challenge his father's supremat:y, overthrow his ~ .. atablish a
new dispensation. By marrying, mastering and swallowing" 'Metil, Zeus
reveals that he is not a king like other kings; he become, IDOR than a
merc kin11:, he becomes sovereignty itself. All the ttini, in thf" world, all
the rcserves of disconcertion hiddcn in cunning t; 1 , 1H1W inside

Zeus. And so sovereignty ceases to he the prize in.: 1-'o.:rpnu.i..l struKJ!;le:

it becomes a stable, enduring state. The king of the gods may now
celebrate his marria~ with Thcmis, givc her fine children, the Seasons
and the Fates. He has fixed irrevocably both the pattern of thinp to be
and the hierarchy of functions, rank.I and honoun. He has set them
hard. Whatever now comes to pass, it will now always have been entirely
foreseen and ordained in the beginning by the mind of Zeus.
Hesiod docs not describe in detail the manner in which Zeus over-
came Metis and swallowed her to make himself the 'Cunning One',
b J,lf)Tt,fTa, it JnlTWf:u:.' He merely says that when Me tis w;u ah out to
give birth to Athena, Zeus 'deceived her mind by a trick, by dint of
cunning words, and put her in his belly' (Theogony 889-90). It cwnot
have been easy: a scholiast on the passage tells us that Mctis could
tramform herself into any shape she Hki:d; Zeus sw~lowcd her 'after
confusing her and making her 1mall', ,r).~oa( Otlv ai,niv O ZtVC Kai
µu</)Ov 1roU7e1a,c; KaThteV (Scholi~I an Hesiod, Tlaeo,ony 886, p. I 10
 The union with Metis and the soutrtignty of heaven
di Gregorio). 4 There is here an obvious folklore motif: a witch or
magician has the power to change shape, thus becoming invincible. On
the pretext of testing their power, the hero gets them to run through
the repertoire until they turn into some creature small and weak enough
to be safely overcome.
The story of Pcriclymenus and his fight with Herakles seems to draw
on the same pattern. The story is known first from Hesiod's Catalogue
of Women, in a passage quoted by the scholiast on the Argonautilca of
Apollonius of Rhodes [completed by a papyrus) and also known from
the lliadic scholia (frg. 33 a,b Merkclbach-West). 5 This account, which
seems to have fixed the legendary tradition, presents Periclymenus as
the most formidable of the sons of Neleus. His grandfather Poseidon
has granted him the power to change into any shape during a fight.
Periclymenus boasts that he will by such magic be able to worst great
Heraldes, the son of Zeus. As it turns out, Hera.kles kills him at the time
of his sack of Pylos; but he has need of all of Athena's cunning when
she offers him her sharp-eyed help to defeat this slippery customer.
Peridymenus turns into an eagle, a lion and a gigantic snake, one after
the other; on Athena's advice, Herakles waits till he turns into a fly, and
then swats him with his club. There is a slightly different version which
Hesiod develops (cf. Schwartz, 1960: 346-7), in which Herakles takes
advantage of a moment when Periclymenus has turned into a bee and is
resting right in the centre of his chariot-yoke: again following Athena's
bidding, Herakles kills him with an arrow. In each case it is the goddess's
mitis _which creates the critical mon,e_nt and bril).gs. the .incident to_ a
successful conclusion. It is her resourcefulness which causes his own
po:...·er to Ucon -~;J°~st the magical warrior, the power of metamor·
phosis that he has inherited from his forebear, the god of the sea. She
docs not merely tell Hera.Ides the right moment to strike; she does not
simply point his opponent out in whatever shape; she sets up the chance
which Herakles siezes, for it is she who treacherously suggests to
Pcriclymenus that he become a fly or a bee so that he can startle his
opponent's horses.
So we can say that Athena in Hesiod's version turns on Periclymenus
and his auto-metamorphic power the very same trick employed by Zeus
against Metis in the Theogony to prevent her from giving birth to a
daughter endowed no less than himself with her mother's terrible
cunning. . . ,
A theogony mentioned by Chrysippu~ the Stoic ~h1loso.p~cr (S l- F 2,
256 [frg. 908) ::a Galen, De Hippocratis et Platonu plac,tts 3,8 (5, p.
351 Kuhn)) differs somewhat from Hcsiod~s account in the. Th.eogony .6
For it places the maniage of Zeus and Met1s not at the b~g:mnmg :'f the
god'! matrimonial career but during a quarrel between him and his law·
3
Jean-Piem Vcmant
ful wife Hera. 7 Yet the varimt doc1 confinn Hesiod in a crucial point:
it mentions that Metis was swallowed by a deception. Zeus escapes to •
safe remove from Hera in order to make love to Melis; and then 'deceiv·
ing her despite all her knowlcdRe (or, by an alternative reading, 'for all
her turning''), laid hands on her and IC't her deep in his belly for fear
that shC' might give birth to a child mighticr than the thundcrb~t; so
thc son of Cronus who siU enthroned on the peak of the aether 1n an
instant swallowcd her up. She was then carrying Athena to whom Zeus
pve birth from his head on thC' steep banks of the river Triton. And
Metil remained hidden within his belly.'
The scholiast to Hcsiocl linlu this themC' of the transformations of
MC'tis to her swallowing by 7.cus.' But Apollodorus introduces it right
at the start of their affair: according to him, Zeus 'had intercoune with
Metis, who took. on all sons of shape• to eK"ape him, and when she
became pregnant he took. her by surprise and swallowed her' (Biblio·
1laec11 l.!.6). Marriage uid absorption appear here as two aspects of a
single encounter with Mctis which Zeus mutt win: courtship, sex and
total usimilation. Fly and Ouid, Metis raids her magic-trick box lo try
and elude Zeus's embrace, making usc: of the self-same 'skilled trickery'
(lioAD? f'ix."'1) that Thetis employs against Pelcus, Proteus against
Menelaus, and Nercus again.st Herakles. 11
The mythical setting in each of thesc: incidents is essentially the same.
Dirrerent they may be, but all these sea11ods share with Metis not only
a metamorphic capacity but devious cunning and knowledge of the
future. Tha1e who confront them have- always to surprise - by dodge,
stratagem, ambush or dispisc - someone of extr.aordin,ry cunning and
wariness and vigilancei and hold him fut in an unbreakable grip come
what may. His magic neutralized by this binding, whc-n he hu rung
every metamorphic change, the monst~r mlllt surrender to his captor:
the trickster tricltcd, the cunning conned, the- knottCJ" k.noued. The god
who could pus throupi every lhape finds his way barred and blockc-d;
for his captor, this obscure lftd riddling bring now becomes forthriplt
and clc-ar. The price- these polymorphous divinities have to pay, Ouid,
ambiguous and contradictory u they are, is the compulsion to make
known whatever route, solution or expedient their ad.YCnaty is searcb·
ing for.
It is nnrcrthcleu only Zeus who pwhn the strual,c qainst dWI
cre-aturc- of the waters embodying all the powcn and priYiltBC' of cun·
ning intcllilf:DCC to the ultimate- point: he docs not merely pip Mcti1 in
his arms, as docs Pc-leus to force The-tis to sleep with him, or Heraklcs
Nc-rcus and Menelaus Proteus to force them plainly to reveal a SCCTtt
nscntial to an enterprise; he binds her in hil brlly so • to make her a
prisoner for ever: he ahub her up imidc him so that she may be part
 The union with Metis and the sovereignty of heaven
and pared of him, and so provide him at all times with that fore·
knowledge of future risks which will give Zeus control of the shifting
and uncertain course of things.
The struggle with the metamorphic god dramatizes his captor's
accession to the privilege of metU, his acquisition of that nimble·
wittedness which enables one to get out of hopeless predicaments. The
struggle's reversed fortunes serve to highlight the transition from the
fluid/mobile to the stable/static; from opacity to clarity; from the con·
trary to the direct; from uncenainty to good hope: in short and in plain
Greek, from the hero's initial apon·a ('helplessness') to a poros, an
ingenious dodge that he learns in the end and which will enable him to
carry out his ultimate purpose. The god is taken by surprise. To get free,
he assumes the most disconcerting, disparate and frightening shapes,
becoming by turns running water, burning fire, wind, tree, bird, tiger,
snake. But the series cannot continue indefinitely: there is a repertoire
of shapes; when one has run through it, one must come back to the
beginning. H his adversary has been clever enough not to let go, the
metamorphic god has to give up and go back to his usual, his original
shape and stick with it. This is Chiron's advice to Pcleus: Thetis may
turn herself into fire, water or into some wild animal, but he is not to
let go until he secs her return to her 'old shape', her 1:¥.pxa.ia µop<lni
(Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.13.5). So also with Idothea's advice to
Menelaus about her father Proteus's tricks:
... that will be
the time for all of you to u1e your 1tren1th and your vigor,
Uld hold him there while he 1trive1 and struuk• hard to escape you.
And he will tty you by tak.in1 the form of all creatures that come forth
and move on the earth, he will be water and masical fire,
You muat hold stiffly on to him and 1quee1.e him the harder.
But when at Iut he himself, 1peakin1 in words, que1tion1 you,
bein1 now in the same form he wu in when you 1aw him sleeping,
then, hCTo, you mult give over yo,u force and let the old man
10 free, and ult him which one of the 1ods ii anlfY with you ....
(Odyssey 4.415-·2:!I, tr. Latumore)

And Proteus, surprised by the double ruse of ambush 3:11d ~isgui~e, 1 1

does indeed attempt to escape by running through all hu dir1y tncks,
his bA~WIIX (410, 460), by using all his dolii techni_(455). He changes
into a lion first, then into a dragon, a panther, a giant hog. He turns
into running water and a mighty tree. All in vain. The grip. never
slackens. His range of magic exhausted (460), he comes back to .h~s true
form and turns into an Old Man of the Sea, truthful and exphc1t; the
trial of strength and cunning turns into a~ open dis~ussion i~ which
both sides speak quite frankly, without evasion or deceit (atreA:eos, 486;
cf. Hetiod, Theogony 233).
Jean·Piern Vernant
So one gets control over the dece:ption embodied in the meta.morpluc
god and his nuent variegation by suddenly byinR hold of all his different
forms, gripping him undaunted like a vict. The tnts an: quite explicit.
Menelaus wonders to ldothea how a mere mortal like himtcU is to
impose his v.ill upon a god like Proteus; the sea-nymph tells him that
the secret is to pounce on her father before he gets suspicious and hold
him tight. So at the opportune moment, Menelaus and his friends rush
the Old Man or the Sea, and Menelaus throws his arms around him and
holds on ( ~ .V xtipa( lfcU).oµE11: 419, 455). Chiron tells Pclcus to
Fl Thctis in a bear-hug (ouA>.as]fill) and hold tight (ICQT®XEill) (Apollo·
doNs, Bibliotl&cca 5.13.5). Heraklcs gets Ncrcus into a bear-hug
(ouAA~11) and grips him (HTJoE) and will not release him (oiHc E'Mlot)
until he is told the information he wanu (ApoUodorus, Bibi. 2.5.11).
And representations o( such scenes in art ar.:- c,,en more explicit: the
hero, whether Heraklcs versus Ncrcus or Triton, or Pclcus raping 'fhctis,
is always shown holding his opponent in a bear-hug, left hand locked in
rich•·
But when the stNgle is over, the arms open and the god capable by
mitis of changing shape it released. By contrut, Melis 'hidden in tM
belly of Zeus' remains for ever locked in hu belly-grip, the prize of
treachery.
Zeus overcomes Metis by turning iap.inst her hcJ'own weapons, cun·
ning, surprise, d«eit. In the samc way Menelaus, in.order to overcome
Proleus, must counter his 'tricks' with the doloi, ambush and disguise,
which the god's own daughter has dn·iscd For his cmnattment. And
e,·en that docs not 1ufface: it i, only in his sleep, when his u,uaJ wari·
nen fails and hit vigilance nnds. that the polymorphum ~ud can bc sur·
prised and o\·ercome; his mifis must momcntarily have quit. Hnak.lrs
jumps Ncreus while he sleeps. 12 ldothca outlinN to Mcnclaus brr
clever plan for delivering her father quite helpless: Menelaus must
watch for the moment when Proteus falls intc> heavy sleep; the god has
hardly got himself stretched on the sand for a snooze than he is a.II but
strangled (Odyssey 4.414, 453).
Hupnos, Sleep, is a formidable and powrrfol god: hc casts his magic
net ovrr all that breathes, over the fastest thought, the quicM'st mind.
At whim, he fetten anything that moves with invisible chains likr those
his twin brother Tlumotas, Death, locks round monals and ncver
unfaslrn1.
 The union with Metis and the soverei'gnly of heaven
be taken unawares. In Homer, Hupnos can modestly say that he can
easily send to slC"cp any of the immonal gods, even the tireless circu·
lation of Oceanus, the- father who engendered all creatures (Iliad
14.24!-6); against only one divinity is his power of binding useless,
because his metis never rests or fails: 'But Zeus the son of Cronus not
!!_f!!!_l_ .~~~_h_o:r. .put. tu il~_fp....1.UUCu...hc..himsdf .c.om.~~~ !!_le'
(247-8)~-¥irtue of his intestine mitis that sovereign god is per·
pctually wakeful; unfingered by sleep, his ever-open eye keeps him
~••~;igain
alwa)'.U!!l__ gu~d, _N_q_aua.~•.m> :!'!i!~. l)Q. mi.tis. .can_ .511Iprisc
him~ While Cronus, for all his cunning, for all his mastery of snares born
bf·trooked mitis, fell into bondage; deposed from heaven's throne, he
ekes out a life merely the shadow of a god's, the ghost of real saver·
eignty. And in that distant exile, now he sleeps for evermore.
The counterpart in the world of the gods of the human instruments
of mitis - hunting-nets, fishing-nets, snares, ropes, pits, anything
plaited, woven, cooked, engineered or fixed (Detienne and Vemant,
1978: 45-7) - is this invisible, irrcfrangible, magical bond. Such a
binding has several implications. First, the god loses one of his main
privileges, the power instantly to change place, the gift of ubiquity
which enables him to appear, faster than lightning or the swiftest
thought, whettVer in the univene he chooses to make manifest his
power. The binding of a god dooms him to the very margin of the cos-
mos, or even to the impenetrable Beyond; the pit of Tartarus whose
mouth is forever scaled; or a cave on an island lost to the world. Even
when he is bound within the organized univene, his immobility - his
range of action reduced to zero - so diminishes his power and his being
that he is weakened, helpless, wasted in that demi-death sleep is for
gods. 1 '
An Orphic tradition can thus imagine Cronus snoring supine after
munching the 'food of deception' which Zeus persuaded him to try
after baiting it with honey (OF p. 190, frgs. 148-9); or his head nod-
ding on his vast neck, snared by Hupnos who tames all creatures (Por·
phyry, De antro nympharum 16, p. 18 Arcthusa). 14 Two ~assages in
Plutarch also describe this state: in one, Cronus has been banished to an
island where he sleeps guarded by Briareus (De defectu. oracu.lu.m 18,
420a)· and in the other, he lies fast asleep inside a deep cave (De facie
in orbe /unae 26, 94lf). But in both, sleep is "the prison Zeus devised
forhim'. 15
Between the somnolence of Cronus unthroned and almighty Zeus's
unflagging wakefulness arc many gradations. These degrees of divine
stir and wakefulness arc exploited by the myths of sovereignty to
sugest the dangcn which might at cen~n moments c~en threaten
Zeus's own :tovettignty: the struggle which Zeus has still to under-
Jean-Pierre Vernant
take against Typhoeus(fyphon after defeating the TilUls is an especially
apt example.
In lksiod's Theogo"y, Typhoeus is a dire monster (peli>r, 856). the
ultimate ofhpringo(Gaia'scoupling with Tartanu. Near·Easttm models
there may indeed be for this Greek character (Vian, 1960: 17-37;
Walcot, 1966: 9-16); but in Hesiod Typhoeus displays original features
which warrant full description. Throuxfl Gaia his mother, he is a
chthonic power set over against the gods in heaven. Through his father
Tartuus, whom Hesiod calls fifl)M,,;, 'dark and misty', he is related to
Erebus and Night, the immediate issue of Chaos: he is an llboriginal
power by double inheritance. Late-born, younger than Zeus, he carries
on the line of the 'firstlinp', the primal beings set by Hesiod at the
roots or the world, into a univrnc now diffrrentiated and reduced to
order. By his ancestry Typhoeus is endowrd with !_X~rdin~~
and fury; but the very chanctrr of his energy _!u~~.hJm_ in~o a n ~
~j;pnfUsion andJ~. a minister of chaos.· Hesiod ffl'eniioDS the
strength of his arms, and a numbe-r of notable features besidrs: in par·
ticular, his feet are never at rest. The- Hittite monster Ullikumi, with
whom he- hu oftm be-en compared, is a threat to the Kina or Heaven
because his monsuow bulk cannot be rnoved. 11 But Typhoeu.1 ii
always moving: his feet are akamoloi, ju.st keep on going (Th•o,-on1
824); whateve-r apced they move- at, they never tin:, nC'ft'r ml. The
excessive violence of his nature also rt'VC'als illelf in the heads milling
monstrously on his shoulders: atop his trunk there writhe a hundred
serpent heads, a hidcou, multitude of eyct darting their conucating
gaze at every point at once (826-7). He- has, not one voice matched to
his own self, but a thousand different proper noise,: now he speab
with the voice or a aod; now imitates animals - bull, lion, dog; now
whistles like a kettle (829-35). This cacophony of voicc-s, this kaleido-
scope or noisc, 17 replicates in sound his monatrou.s polymorphism,
manirest also in Nonnus's quite traditional conception of him II fu1iq
the whole pmut of animal apecics into compmitc form, or in the idea
to be found in the scholiast on Ae-schylus's Promelhn,s Bo,md that his
hundred heads compose a gallery of all wild animals. 11
Energy, movement, vigilance, flaming stare multiplied a hundredfold
- all this makes Typhocus 1ruly in his euential chao, U°Ul'I finintl
adversary. As Hesiod says,

Surely thll d.y • thiDf beyond .U help

Milht h.ve occwred; he mip.t heve come la nde
O¥er the ,acll end mand nu., had nol
The I ether of ,ada llMI men been quiclr. 10 .ec
The danpr, . (7JuofO'I,)' 1'6-1. tr. W ~ )
 The union with Metis and the sovtFtipty of heavm
Aeschylus is Hesiod's true heir in presenting Typhon's assault on Zt'us
u a struggle for mastery of the world, a struggle between the fire flash·
ing from the monster's numberless eyes and the sleepless thunderbolt
in the hand of Zeus, possessor of mi tis (Promdhew Bound 356-8; cf.
Detienne and Vemant, 1978: 78-9). The same theme, as we have seen,
appears in Epimenides's venion too: Sleep has closed Zeus's eyelids
and Typhoeus seizes his chance to slip into the palace; he is all ready to
make himself master of the throne when, just as everything seems lost,
Ztus opens his eyes: the monster collapses, blasted (FVS 2, p. 34, frg.
88: cf. Detienne and Vemant, 1978: 79-80). It is only in Apollodorus
that we find Zeus momentarily defeated, his sovereign power tempor·
arily eclipsed.
Apollodorus's Typhon, like those of Plutarch and Nonnus of Pano·
polis, incorporates features which recall the Hurro-Hittite Ullikumi and
the Egyptian god Seth. So it is all the more instructive that despite
these influences the myth's logic and purport remain true to the Greek
tradition as expressed in Hesiod. In Apollodorus, Typhon is the son of
Ge and Tanarus, and he is the most powerful, most gigantic of all the
creatures engendered by Mother Earth (Bibliotheca 1.6.3). Half-man,
ha.If-beast, he plants his feet on the earth that gave him birth; his head
overtops the mountains to graze the highest heaven. When he extends
his anns, one hand scrapes the sunset, the other sunrise. His bulk thus
fuses high and low, East and West, confounding all the cardinal points,
just as in Hesiod the most utterly dif£erent sounds meet in him, those
of the wild beasts which inhabit the earth and those of the gods who
dwell in heaven. And we may punue the comparison.
In Hesiod's Theogony, Typhoeus's blasted body is hurled by Zeus to
the bottom of Tartarus. From the monster arc born the howling gales,
the whirlwinds unleashed from dark Tartarus to spring surprise attacks
by land or sea, blustering wildly here, there and everywhere, confound-
ing all the rules of space in incoherent tumult. Evil would have come of
Typhoeus's victory for univene and for gods, ~sp_oicr restored, a world
tw.bulcnt as Tartarus, the blank hollow beneath the earth, void in per·
pctual vertigo, no up, no down, no left, no right. 11 And the monster's
children, the wild winds, stand henceforth for men on the face of the
earth as sym~~ls or -~~~same 'in~u_r_a~~-~vil: 'Mortal men have no
remedy again.st lhiS scourgef"-(7'neoguny 876). Hesiod contrasts these
nocturnal, chaotic winds from below with the ordinary winds, Boreas,
Notos, Zephyr, whose origin is heavenly, of the gods. They are the sons
of EOs (Dawn) and Astraios ('Star-strewn'), brothers of the Morning
Star iillld of all those heavenly bodies that shimmer in the night iillld stud
with beacons heaven's dark dome, night after night tracing their fixed
and constant paths (378-82). These ordinary winds blow always in the
9
Jcan-Piertt Vcmant
same directions, scoring routes for ships across the 1ea's back; and they
impart to the 1,·isib!C' .....orld direction and order by establishin1 bounds
and granting coherence to ill several parts. . , .
The relation between Hesiod's Typhoeu1 and the wh1rlw1ndl, which
reduce' human space to a confusion reminiscent of primal chaos, both
widens and specifirs lhe burden of Apollodorus's description of Typhon,
highlightins the monster's enduring character in Greek mythological
thinking as a 'chaotic power'. And Apollodorus's test, in developinx
the Tlsttopny, confirms the l'Ole of devious intelligence in the nercisc
of sovereignty in another respect also: the motif of dolos, of ruff' or
deception, is crucial to the whole story. Battle is fint joined at a dis-
tance. Typhon shoots flames from mouth and eyes, He hurll incan-
descent rocks. Zcw from afar launches his thunderboli.. But Typhon
advances on heaw:n - they 1truggle at close quuten. ZeUI lands a blow
with Cronus's sick.le (,..,,i), and tackles his woW1ded foe bmd to hand.
But Typhon catches Zeus in his snake-coill, K"Ddllint bira helpless,
snatches away the sickle and cull out the tendons from hil arms and
lep; then, slinging Zeus paralysed over his shoulder, ,be takes him to
Cilicia, and leaves him in the Corycian cave, hidiaa tbc tendolls in a
bearskin. He seu a snake-woman, DelphynC, to guard tban,just • Zeus
once bade Briareus watch over the Titans, and Cromts K-,1 ('O.&rvc:1,
over the Hundred-Arms (cf. Detienne and Vcrnant, 1978: 85-6). All i1
apparently ow:r. Zeus is defeated, is now in that very ben4aF to which
he reduced Cronus. He languishes helpless deep in a C&YCIII, robbed of
the suength in arm and leg which made Typhoau in the TMopny a
match for the King of the gods, so long as he c-luded d:te thunderbolt
and escaped mutilation (cf. 'JVW8Eit: Theogony 85&).
But Zeus is saved, and his royal power restored, thanks to the inter·
vention of two 'trickstcn' ,20 cunning Hermes and his crony Aigipan,
whose rOlc in Apollodorus's story corresponds c:uctly to that of Melis
in Hesiod and of Prometheus in Aeschylus. The pair mMagc to steal
Zeus's tendons without bein1 seen and to fit them back into his body.
Re-equipped with arms and lep, Zeus regains all his native strength
(njv l6iav lo):Uv). Suddenly he appean before &he astonished Typhon,
who turns and Dees, Zeus, mounted in his chariot, pursu.cs him with hi1
thunderbolt. But even now neither would have been victorious had the
Fates not devised a new trick, a second stratagem. They fool Typhon
with the same ploy that Zeus used in the Orphic stor:y to trap Cronw,
the 'food of deception'. They penuadc him to bite into a fruit which
they promi1e will make him invincible. But the alleged 'invincibility
dru11' is in £act an t!phimrro1 urpo1 ('fruit of a day1, the opposite of a
food of immortality: it inevitably brings upon any who cat of it euni·
 T~ union with Mdis anc!.the.J.over.eignty of heaven
m~ti_on and d_cat!i-:'..Thc monster's elemental violcnc~ is overborn~ _by
Ze.u.s's..alli.u, -WM>H--cunning.succecdi U1- dup,i~g him. -'
This trick-motif is given an almost baroque f.rcatment in the fifth
century AD by Nonnus of Panopolis, who devotes the first two books
of his epic Dionysi.alta to the story of Typhon; but beneath the welter
of fantastical detail lies the full range of the traditional language of
mitis. Zeus is utterly preoccupied with his love-affairs, and leaves his
thunderbolts lying around in a comer of heaven, where their smoke
betrays them. Typhon takes the advice of Gaia, stretches his arm up
to the aether's peak and steals the sovereign weapon. In his prcsump·
tuous brutishness, the polymorphous monster can be seen as an anti-
Zeus, the lord o.f d.isor.der-.Jie_i~J.Q.. true ki~ip what a bastard-'_noth']k...,.
ti_~ _t2._kii!itn,~_l~_ .fhildK.Q.;\\t~
is the embodiment of the revenge o-r the
Titans and Cronus, whom he declares he will re-establish with himself
in heaven. All the Olympian gods become refugees from their heavenly
homes. Zeus requests the help of Cadmus to put into action an astute
plan he has worked out with Eros. Subtle and ingenious, King Cadmus
disguises himself as a shepherd with the a.id of Pan. Apart from this
fancy-dress, the only weapon he takes when he sets out to face the
young usurper, who has already succeeded in spreading confusion
through the cosmos, is a mere flute, from which he draws the most
beguiling notes. The violent Typhon is soothed by the music and he
unsuspectingly approaches Cadmus, leaving the stolen thunderbolts in
his cave. Cadmus shows every sign of terror. Typhon reassures him,
suggesting that he should carry him up to heaven to live with him and
sing the glories of the new rCgime. Whereupon Cadmus asks for an
instrument more fitting than the flute to celebrate the discomfiture of
Zeus. A lyre, he says; but has no strings. Oblivious to the trick, blind to
the web spun for his downfall, Typhon produces the tendons lost by
Zeus in an earlier battle. Cadmus carries on playing. While his enemy is
off his guard, Zeus slips unseen into the cave, recovers his weapons, and
disappears. Cadmus disappears too, smuggled away in a cloud by Zeus.
The music stops. Typhon gathers his wits and his normal state of rage.
He looks for the thunderbolts. Too late, he realizes he has been tricked.
It is now dark, sleep enfolds all Nature's living things. Even Typhon lies
stretched out on his mother Ga.ia's bosom, his snakes heads coiled for
sleep deep in caves. Only Zeus watches. I_n th~ morning,_ the monst~r
challenges Zeus to battle, attacks him with hu pullulat1~g arms, his
gaping snouts, his snakey hair, with lumps of rock, m~untams, even the
waters which he flings at the sky. All in vain. For all hu thousand meta-
morphoses, Zeus engulfs him in the glowing streak ?f his thun~~rbol~.
Stranger still, though less sophisticated as a piece of wnt1ng, 1s

11
Jean-Piatt Vemant
Oppian's version (Halieutilu, 3.9-28). Although this has ol,\•ious simi·
larities to the Hittite myth of IDuyankas, it is also related to Apollo-
dorus's and so to the Hesiodic tradition whieh, in the myths of sover-
eignty, closely usociates the motif of cunning with those of food and
swallowina;. Oppian's whole account is dominated by He-rme-s
poiltilornilis ('or variea;ated mitis'), who fint dcvistd the tactics used
by skilled lishermen (Oou>..«t .Si 'll'@W'OOIIOWV ~""-'., •• • 'll'pWTIO'fO(
qA~aao) and revealed the arts of hunting and plaiting the death of fish.
Hermes encrusted the 'art of the deep-sea' (that is, fishing) to his son
Pm, who is also reputed to h&VC' been the saviour of Zeus and the killer
of Typhon: he tricked the horrid monster by tempting him with the
offer of a fish-feast. Typhon was thus persuaded to leave his roomy
cave safe in the depths of the ,ca and come ashore, where Zeus's
thunderbolt in a trice set all hit heads ablaze.
This Typhon destroyed by greed clearly owes a good deal to the
earlier of the two venion1 or the llluyank.• myth known to us (ViU1,
1960: 28-52; Walcot, 1966: H-15). The dragon llluyankas fought
and defeated the Weather-god, who occupies in the Hittite pantheon a
place that corresponds to that of Zeus in the Greek one. With the aid
of an accomplice, a mere monal called Hupuiyas, the goddns Inara
then organizes a great celebratory banquet and invitcs Illuyankas. The
dragon leaves his lair and comes to the feast, where he procecds to stuff
himseU with so nn1ch food and drink. that he cannot get back into his
hole. Hupuiyas hobbles him and the Weather-god hu simply to kill
him. The ttsemblancc between the two stories is beyond dispute. All
the same, if Oppian hu given Typhon characteristics taken from thc
Hittite llluyankas, it is because they can be integrated almost unchanged
into the Greek story of Zeus's adwrsary. Oppian's Typhon low-1 fish
and lives on them; but he him1elr i1 not so much a dragon, like
llluyank.u, as a fish. To overcome him, you have to go lishing; and that
involves all the rnitis of Herma, all the snares of thal cunning aod,
master of nets and traps, inventor of all thosc dn-iccs called even in
Homer doloi. Zeus's supremacy among the gods is thus achin·ed by the
same kind of cunning which is at a premium in ht1ntin1 i1Rd fishing, Mid
which enables men to gct the bcner of animals u su.btlc as thc fox ut
the octopus (cf. Detienne and Vemmt, 1978: 27-5-l). MdftOft'r,
Oppian's Typhon i1 killed thank, to his greed. Like the bait which
enables (uhermen to catch fish - which hides death behind the prctt)'
arras of life - the fish-feut offcred T·rphon i1 a lutc, an apali {decep·
tion), like Cronus'• paaion honey, which Zeus empluys as a11 'ambuth-'
for his father to stumblc into;aad like th(.· fruit offercd Typhon by ihc
Moirai in Apollodorus, which he eicpc-cts to 1Pvc him adc(ed flKC)Ur but
which dooms him in fact to mortaliu.·.
 Thr union with Mrtis and the sovereignty of hraven
The motif of a 'food of deception' turns up in another passage in
Apollodorus, which also has to do with Zeus's struggles against his
enemies, this time the Giants (Bibliotht:ca 1.6.1). So long as the battle
between the Giants and the King of the gods remains in the balance,
their status seems ambiguous: arc they mortal and crushable, or
immortal and invincible? From an oracle, the gods know that they will
never win on their own; to succeed, Zeus needs the hdp of someone
less great than himself. To kill the Giants he needs a mere mortal:
Herak.les, not yet a god, fits the bill. Warned of the danger to her off.
spring, GC takes counter-measures. She sets off to look for a pharmakon
(philtre, charm, drug) which wiU protect the Giants from death even at
the hands of a mortal. Zeus checks the appearance of dawn, sun and
moon, anticipates GC (<t,86:oai;} and himself cuts and gathers the anti·
death herb, just as he surprises (<t,86:ocxi;) Metis in Apollodorus's other
story and swallows her down before she can give birth to an invincible
son (1.3.6).
Both the language and the structure of the story emphasize the close
connection in Apollodorus between the various episodes of the conquest
of sovereign power. Thus Metis tricks Cronus by getting him to swallow
a pharmalton which instead of increasing his inner powers tenfold
makes him vomit up those who arc to defeat him; Zeus tricks Mctis,
swallows her and retains her inside him for ever; Zeus tricks GC by
plucking from under the Giants' noses the plant of immortality which
would, had they been able to cat it, have made them invincible; the
Moira.i deceive Typhon by causing him to swallow what they allege to
be an immortalizing drug, which is in fact a food which condemns him
to defeat and death.
Apollodorus's text, in its description of Zeus's struggle for royal
supremacy, thus lays decided emphasis on the motif of swallowing
some kind of food, which is sometimes deceptive and sometimes genu-
ine. Do we have simply here to do with a distortion of Hesiod's think-
ing about the birth of the gods, or a true glimpse of one of its main
structural clements?
The theme of swallowing appears in Hesiod at two decisive moments,
which arc clearly opposed to one another: Cronus swallows his children,
but Rhea's mitis causes him to down a stone instead of Zeus, and he is
soon compelled to vomit up all the children he has devoured; by con·
trast, Zeus gulps Metis down and keeps her forever in the pit of his
belly (Tluogony 459-97, 888-900). Some other episodes in the
Theogony allow us to interpret the significance of this double sequence
in the myth. After Zeus has freed the Hundred-Arms and restore~ them
to the light, he decides to summon their aid in a struggle which has
raged indecisively for ten years, neither the Titans nor the Olympians
13
Jean-Pierre Vcmant
being able to swin~ it in their favour (629-41). Before they enter the
rray, the status or Cottus, Gyges and Briarcus seems to have been c~m-
parable with thal of the gjanu in Apollodorus - .not .monal. yet .With·
out that unquenchable vitality and youth which IS the particular
attribute of the Immortals. It is only when the gods allow them to par·
take of their nectar and ambrosia - the food 0£ immonality reserved
exclusively to them - that the Hundred-Arms acquire their full
strength and become the spearhead 0£ victory: 'then a bold spirit swelled
in all their brcasu• (641). This nourishment feeds a divine energy in the
Hundred-Arms which must have bttn etiolated by their earlier confine·
ment: it is the nact coun1erpart of that pharmahn through which
Typhon in Apollodorus expeces to find the acc~·ss of strength he needs
to supplant Zeus, but which in £act reduces him to the common state
of mortals.
In the Tlaeo1ony, the effects of this immortality-food contrut with
those of the waters of the Styx: Hesiod describes how, when a dispute
takes place between two gods and one has to be.- shown to be in the
wrong, Iris goes off to a subterranean ann of Ocean to fetch some of
this primeval water (775-806). She brinp it back in a golden ewer. The
gods involved in the dispute pour on to the earth a libation 0£ this
water in support of their swom claims, and it is natural to suppose that
they also drank some (since that was usual in human contcxu). The one
who had falsely swom at once fell to the ground and swooned, sense·
less and spiritless, for an entire 'great year'; as though wnppcd in magic
dumber, the sleeper is denied the divine nourishment while the stupor
lasts: 'ntvtr docs he dn.w near to partake of ambrosia or nectar' (796-
7).u
It will now be easier to understand the signal imponancc in the
11ittogony of the division of shares of nourishment established between
men and gods by Prometheus when ht performed the first sacrifice.
The story's structure is as follows (Tlae·a,.any 535-57; Wo,U ond Days
42-50; cf. pp. 57-65 below). In the beginning, gods and men lived
to~ther and ate together at the same feasts. Prometheus was given the
wk or dividins the food appropriately to each group. He planned to
use this opponunity to trick Zeus and cheat him for the profit of man·
kind. This was the origin of the duel of cunnin1 ad deception bctwt"en
the Titan with miris and the sovereign 1od lcnown as ,..o ,nilioeis; on
either side, the weapons were dolos and ap,,ti (deception). A grut ox
was killed in the presence of gods and men. Prometheus divided the
cue.ass into two ponions, each deceptive: one cooccaled under UM
most appetizing surface the bare bones stripped of meat. tht other hid
the choicest meat under the sir.in and the stomach. which c1111not ~
eaten. With due deference to rank. Zeus was irivrn (int choice. 'fhe lord
 The union with MetU and the sovereignty of heaven
oC Olympus, who 'had seen the trick and was not deceived' (Theogony
661), pretended to fall in with Prometheus's ploy; but in so doing, he
turned Prometheus's snare for himself into a trap for men. The portion
that was inedible, the white bones ever since burned by mortals on
w:rificial altiilfS in honour of the gods, is in fact the only genuinely
wholesome portion; men reserve the meat for themselves and cook it to
revive their failing strength. But what they keep is an 'ephemeral food',
like the fruit treacherously offered to Typhon by the Moirai. Those
who must live on it, and ta.kc pleasure in the eating, experience a hunger
~er-renewed; their strength fades, they tire and die. By the same token,
those who live only off the smoke from the bones, from the savour and
the aromatics, enjoy the banquets of immortality and sit down at the
tables where nectar and ambrosia arc served.
Each category of animate creature has thus its proper food, the food
it deserves: mortal men get the cooked meat of a dead animal; Typhon
and the Giants have the 'ephemeral fruit' instead of the pharmalt.on of
immortality; Cronus gets the 'food of deception' which confines him in
the prison-house of sleep; the Olympians and Zeus's allies whom he has
freed from their bonds, nectar and ambrosia. But Zeus, and he alone,
gets the divine sustenance which his cunning gave him to swallow and
digest, the goddess Metis - the drug that grants intelligence an~ clev~~-
ness beyond compare, the true pharmahon of unshakabl_e sovereignty.

15
2. The 'Sea-Crow'
Marcel Detienne (1970, 1974)

In most domains in whlch Athena operates we find a number of rituals,

myths and pictorial representations that enable u, to Conn an approxi·
mate idea of diis divinity, whether in her guise as the terrifying warrior·
goddess with the eye of bronze, u the tuner of horses who invrnt"d
the bit, or the aaftsman skilled in weaving. And at fint glance an
Athena of the sea, such as I sugest here, may aeem both unlikely and
impalpable: unlikdy, Ln that the sea ii not a place where Athena seems
to have much chmce of rivalling Po1eidon (ai she does to good effect in
the case of horsemanship and charioteering); impalpahlc. in that there ii
no considerable ritual connected with a marine Athcn;1, and no major
myth about her. Nevertheless, if we look more closely. we find that a
whole series of Athena's interventions occur in the rnntext of the sea
and of navigation. When Telemachus decides in the Odyacy to go in
search of Odysseus, it is Athena who prepares the voy9 and wbo
guides the vessel. ll is she who builds the ArlOMl,lts' ship, and who
selects the pilot and helps him negotiate dangen. And, more pncrally,
it is Athena who invented the first ship known to men - whether that
wu Danaus's or the crart of Jason and his companions. Finally, we
learn in several places or an unusual Athena. whose epithet i, the name
of a sea-bird, the aitlaulfl.
Starting here, and trying to define the nature of this sea-bird, I hope
to be able to give an account of this upect of Athena's activity and to
make clear the characteristic features of Athena of the sea. Early on in
his Description of Grttct (1.5.S) Pausanias rden to a promonlory on
the cout of Mepra overlooking the sea from when: Athena 11it/aui.r
looks out over the sea. At the same spot is a tomb, the tomb or one of
the kings of Athens, Pandion (Niluon, 1951: 56-8). A brief note by
the lexicographer Hcsychius complements Pausaniu's inFonnation:
when the Mctionidac had put Pandion to flight and expe:llcd his chil-
dren from Attica, Athena took the shape of an llilbill to cury lhc
deposed king to Mcgara, hiding him beneath her wings (s.v, b a·
Al'Buca, l no. 2748 Latte). No other evidence from Attica or (wm
Megan gives us any further information about thi1 fngmcnury royal
myth. If we are to make any sense of thil deity perched on tbc
Meprian headland, we must therefore look at the evidence for this sea·
bird whose name she bean and who.c shape she takes.
16
 The 'Sea-Crow'
Although we cannot precisely identify the species, the ancient
naturalists, ornithologists and lexicographen have left us enough infor-
mation of different kinds to allow us to be sure of its general type.
Modem scholars continue to hesitate, as ancient writers did, between
several different species of birds related to water ranging from the
cormorant to the shearwatcr or 'sea crow', by way of the herring gull,
the coot, the curlew, the puffin, grebe and diving-tem. 1 The uncer-
tainty derives not merely from the character of the zoological evidence,
which docs not coincide with our own taxonomy, but even more from
the likelihood that the distinguishing marks of species that are often
closely related have been blurred by the imposition of a stereotype
composed of an eclectic amalgam of behavioural traits characteristic of
a whole series of water-birds, such a.s the laros, the duptts, the erOidios
and the aithuia. 1
Now what are the aithuia's essential behavioural traits? (I propose,
for the sake of convenience, to call it the 'sea crow', Jiorimt tha/a.ssios,
as do several lexicographers1 .) It is first of all familiar to men in two
activities, fishing and sea-faring, because it works close to them. In
some sources, sea crows are supposed to be men of former times who
invented sea-fishing; when they became birds, they took to living close
by pons and cities on the coast.4 It is both a land and a sea bird, and
therefore doubly ambiguous: it defies the opposition between land and
sea just as it defies the opposition between air and water. It nests on
promontories lashed by the waves; and walks slowly along the narrow
strip of wet land that both separates and joins dry land and restless
water. When it feeds, it dives for fish into the waves and seems to surge
up from the swirling foam when it re<merges carrying its catch.
'Semantically', the sea crow is a mediator at the centre of a triangle
of elements, earth, water and air. M such, it is peculiarly well-fitted to
symbolize a number of aspects of sea-faring. In that it is a sea-bird
which leaves the land to launch out into the sea, and then returns to
shore, it may be likened to the sea-farer. In his Phaenomena, Aratus
compares sailors at sea to sea crows (,cci>..u,..Plawal8uir,ow) which settle
on the waves and allow themselves to be carried by the swell (290-9
Martin; cf. Callimachus frg. 178.32-4 Pfeiffer;Epigram. 58.4 Pfeiffer).
In Artemidorus's Interpretation of Dreams to dream of a sea crow
means that one will become a navigator, with an intimate knowledge of
everything to do 'Hith the sea; a person who has such a dream 'will
never be unable to find his bearings' (5.74 (p. 319.6-15 PackJ ). But if
it !tands for the navigator, it also may represent the ship that passes
between the frontien of earth, water and sky (Lycophron Alexandra
230). Its significance is to be understood in relation to these three
dements: 'if the aithuia meets a ship and plunges straight into the water
17
Marcel Detienne
in mid-night, it foretells great danger. If, on the other hand, it flies over
the ship, or goes and ~rchcs on a rock, this is a sign of a ~uccessf~I
voyage' (Cyranides 3, 11:epi ai.'6t1ca< = RueUe 2, p. 86). The pomt hett ts
that the aithuia acts in two different ways. It plunges mto the u-a, and
so brings sky and earth (i.e. 'here below') together (as sev~ral other
u:xts state explicitly'). Or it alights on a head.land, and so bnngs wa!cr
and land together: this makes it the harbinger of an une,·entfuJ crossing
from one point on land over the sea tc another.
Thett is an episode in the Odyury (5.285-464) which confirms the
imponancc of the aithuia in the context of sea-faring. Just as the out-
line of Phaeacia becomes dimly visible on the hori:z:on, Odysstus expen-
ences the wrath of Poseidon - the winds blow wild, squall£ gathering
from all directions; night falls, misu cover the sea and the shore; watn
from above merges with the sea's waves. At :he very height of this
storm, when Odysseus has given himself up for lost, he is miraculouslv
saved. Ino Lcucothca, the 'white goddess', appean oi1 t of the spray,
carrying the veil which enables Odysseus to reach Phaea,·ia. And in thus
appearing before Odysseus, Ino has assumed the form <>! J. hird - the
aithuia (3.~17, 353). So here in the Odyssey - at a point .. , here the story
depends upon a contrast between Poseidon and lno Lcucotlau - the
sea crow appears, a light in the storm, to save one in peril on the tea.
The significance of this episode is highlighted by the talismanic quality
of the veil which lno Lcucotla~a brings - which the Greeks later under-
stood to be the purple fillet which the initiates into the Samothracian
mysteries wore to protect them from the dangen of the sea (Scholiast
on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautika 1.91 7).
There are of coune considerable differences between the ways in
which lno Leucothea and Athena work. Neverthc-less, it is in th.is epi-
sode of the Odyssey that we arc able most clearly to discern the general
impan of Athena aithuia's relation to sea-faring. Two ancient interpret·
ations by scholia.sts help us to define it. Eustathius, in his commentary
on Odyssey 1.22 (p. 1385, 64), says that the aithuia is plaOsphoros, a
'bringer of light': like the Moming Sur, it makes light appuc in the
midst of dacknns. The scholiast on Lycophron, Alexandra 359 (p. 139.
28-30 Sheer), talking about Athena aithuia henelf, says that the it
called aitlauia because 'like (that bird) she has taught men to sail in
ships, crossing the sea from one end to the other'. Now it might teem
that these three forms of activity, teachin1 men how to navigate, open·
ing up a route across the sea, and bringin1 light in storm at night, have
little in common with each other. Can they really be connected with
one and the same Athena? And yet they are precisely the form, ot
activity evidenced in myth and epic for a marine Athena.'
In Odyssey 2.262-433 Athena 1akes over all the organiut.ion o,
18
 The 'Sea-Crow'
Tdemachu,'s voyage: she chooses a ship and anchors it at the harbour-
mouth; when they set sail she seats herself at the stem, where the
hdmsman sits, and summons up a favourable breeze (cf. Wachsmuth,
1967: 72-4). And she acts in rather the same manner in the epic of
the Argonauts: through Tiphys, the outstanding helmsman she sends
Jason, she steers the Argo for much of the voyage, at a discreet dis-
tance (Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautika 1.105-10; Valerius Flaccus,
Argonautica 2.48-54). And at the most perilous point, when the ship
has to squeeze through the Symplegades, she intervenes more directly.
There are two different versions of this episode which enable us to
describe what she does in greater detail. The first is that of Apollonius
Rhodius (2.598-600). Just as the Argo is about to negotiate the
'tortuous path' (2.549) between the two massive cliffs which keep
moving apart and clashing together, Athena seizes it, as it hangs be-
tween life and death, and shielding it with her left hand from the rocks
propels it with her right at full speed the instant a way opens up
through the wall of rock. In this version her intervention is merely an
extension of the pilot's normal activity: she intervenes suddenly and
to amazing effect, just like Ino Leucothea. But while the latter affords
a salvation as absolute as it is magical, Athena simply extends the action
she ha.s already initiated through the helmsman by taking him under her
protection. But at this juncture she no longer allows the steersman to
mask her activity - she herself intervenes to open up for him a path
which, without her, he never would have found.
In the second version, the Argonautika ascribed to 'Orpheus' (694-
710 Dottin), Athena's intervention is apparently quite different. When
the Argonauts reach the Black Rocks, Athena sends them a bird which
alights on top of the mast. Suddenly the bird flies off and hovers by the
rocks, waiting to find its chance. When it at last darts through, the two
rocks, which have moved apart, dash together and catch its tail-feathers
without preventing it from gaining the Black Sea. The Argonauts copy
the bird and take the same route, and they too escape the Black Rocks,
whjch - hopelessly outmanoeuvred - become immobile and take root
in the sea. Now the bird which Athena sends to show the Argonauts the
way, and which thus corresponds to the goddess's own intervention in
Apollonius Rhodius, is a sea-bird, the erOidios (cf. J~iad 10.274;
Thompson, 1936: 102-4). This is most probably some.km~ of shear-
water - a bird of roughly the same type as the aithuia (Aratus,
Phaenomena 913-15; Aelian, Historia anima/ium 7.7 {p. 173.23-5
Hercher}). We know from Homer that thi! bird was closely connected
with Athena. \\'hen Diomedes and Odysseus a.re setting out on their
night sally into the Trojan camp, an erOidios' appears, signifying that
they will have Athena's help and protection in an enterprise necessitat-
19
Marcel Detienne
ing a cunning and rcsolll'cdul spirit. 1 But the bird docs not_ h~vc quite
the s;unc significance in each pauagc: whereas for Odysseus it is merdy
an omen, in the Orphic pot:m it operates on two compk~e~tat)' levels:
it is first an effective warning, and then a model for nav1~t1on - wh~n
Athena's bird speeds through the rocks, only just escaping dei.th, its
flight-path indicates the Argo's course. The episode is just like a p~agc
in Apollonius Rhodius's version, where the Argonauu release a bird to
test the route through the Symplegadcs (2.328-40). Following the:
advice 0£ the seer, Euphcmus holds i. rock dove in the hollow of !'is
hand and launches it forward from the ship's prow (2.555--6) - with
very much the same movement as when, a little later in the same epi-
sode, Athena pushes the vessel forwards through the 'tortuous path'
now opened up (2.599).
A detail in the story of the Argonauu indicates just how close arc the
a£finities between 1hip and bird: just as the eri>idios and the rock-dove
lose a few tail-feathers a, they Oy through the rocks, so some of the
stem-decoration is snapped off Jason's ship (2.601-2). 9 Wh(·thcr it is
sent by Athena, or foreshadows her intervention, the Argon.iuu· bird it
in a sense the ship itself - or at lea.st its double: just .u the a1thui4 is.
But this relationship between ship and bird can only be understood.
folly by looking at ancient navigation techniques: for the bird which
finds a path for the Argonauts's ship is not merely an omen in the:
religious sense, it is aho a means of navigation. HI In ancient Greece, u
in Mesopotamia or Scandinavia, the release of bird, was a common
method of navigation - in a period when there were no compasses,
sailors took birds with them, and released them whenever they needed
to know where land Lay. 11 That technical point docs much to account
for the importance of certain birds in myths about the sea and sailing;
and there ii no doubt but that such a point is crucial in defining the
nature of Athena aithuUI. For it makes it possible to indicate more
fully the parallel between aithuia and navigation. The bird Athena sends
the Argonauts in the 'Orphic' version is much more than a mere sign
from the goddess: its behaviour fits with the pattern I have indicated in
Apollonius's version or Athena's intervention. In uch cue, its part is to
pilot the 1hip and open a path for it through the SCL
I have shown that then: exists a close connection between Athena
and the art of the helmsman. But the connection can only tau on its
full significance if we understand Greek thinking about the 1ea, the
frame of these interventions by Athena, daughter of Zeus ad Mctis.
How did the Greeks view the naviptor's skill in riclation to tMU'
rcligiou1 thinking concerning the sea?
Two acts of drYinities come into question here, and~ mull consider
their several properties and qualitiu. The fint pair is Ponto.r and l'ONJJ,
 The 'Sea-Crow'
which belong exclusively to the world of the sea; the second is Tyche
md Kairo1, which have a wider sphere of reference but which are very
imponant in the realm of navigation.
Pontos, the 'Salty Deep', is a primordial power of the open sea, the
vast expanse limited only by sky and land. Pontos 'of the thousand
paths' is a mysterious and disturbing realm, thought of as having paths
that arc constantly obliterated, routes never charted, tracks closed as
soon u they are opened (Benveniste, 1966: 296-8). In this chaotic
expanse, where every voyage is like breaking into an unknown land
without any landmarks, movement pure and simple forever reigns.
Whipped by the winds that blow across it, churned by the to and fro of
the waves, the sea is the most mobile, changeable and polymorphous of
spaces. Greek has a whole series of expressions for this fundamental
aspect of the sea - which became, in an entire tradition of thinking, a
symbol of coming-to-be and of generation: rolling like a cylinder
(,cu)-~•ia6a,), 11 left, right, up, down (lvlla •ai fvlla, livw •ai
Kch'w).'' blowing wild, moving in opposite directions (ii>..>..ort
t!IA>..o~), 14 turning back, turning round, turning over (1,1ero,l@.>..tw,
l,IET<n'Ph£w) 11 - all these mctaphon arc used to describe the nature of
Pontos.
The counterpan of Pontos (which is termed apeirOn, 'limitless', pre·
sumably because it cannot be travened rrom one end to the other) is
Poros, which was known u a cosmogonic power at least since the time
of Aleman (5, frg. 2 ii fPMG p. 24]; cf. 1.14 fPMG p. 2] ). Originally,
Poros meant a ford, a means of crossing a stretch of water; and thence
it came to mean the route or path the navigator has to open up through
the Pontos, over the sea. The relation between Pontos and Poros is
revealed in Greek. mythology in those dramatic accounts which describe
Odysseus or the Argonauts steering through the Clashing or the Black
Rocks, whether these be the Plarilt.tai, Kuaneai, or the Symplegades
(Lindsay, 1965). These arc all vast moving rocks which rear up out of
the sea, shifting constantly both up and down and from side to side:
they constitute an image of a realm in which there arc no fixed dircc·
tions, in which left and right, up and down, arc interchangeable and
ever-changing. It is not by chance that one of Athena's most important
interventions is in the chaotic context or the Symplegades; just when
the helmsman realizes to his horror that he has reached a part of the
Ponto, which cannot be crossed, Athena comes and opens a path for
him - indicates a poros, that is, both a solution to and an exit from the
aporia ('pathlessness' and so 'confusion') into which the sea plunges
sailors and their helmsmen.
By contrut with these two cosmogonic powcn, the complementary
pair Tyclte md Kairos serves to define more narrowly thC' realm or
21
Marcel Detienne
navigation, and its specific type of humilll ~tion. In Archaic Gree-k
thought, Tyche ('Chance') i5 thoroughly ambivalent (Stro~m, 1944).
She- is the daughter of Oceanus and Telhy~ - a sea-goddess inf~~;~~
sister to Metis. Like- the- sea., she symbolizes change and mob1hty.
More exactly - and this i5 her negative side - she sunds for ~nc _"'.1'ole
aspect of the human condition in a series of images of the U\~v1du~
buffeted by th(' waves, whirled by the winds, rclendcssly eddied this
way and that. But sh(' docs not merely reflect the sea's changeabi~ty,
for there is a positive side to her: it is she- who takes charge of the tiller
and guides a ship unerringly to harbour. For S('veral writen Tyche
represents the chance of success, and so the aim achieved, success
itself. a, This is the Tychc of Pindar's Olympian 12, who comes aboard
and takes over the helm from the pilot Uanni, 1965: 106-7); md the
Tyche of Alcman's frg. 64 (PMG), who is the daughter of PromCthei.a
and who can guarantee success thanks to her gift of foresight (promi·
theia), which gives one control over time and human affain (cf.
Ehrcnbe-rg, 1965: 145-7). Though these two facets appear quite- con·
trary, they arc as inseparable as the- two face-sofa double-herm. 11 Their
complementarity can be appreciated by considering the link bctwttn
the helmsman and the sea. just as the human art of foresight dcvdops
against the background of a future both opaque and unpredictable, the
art of the helmsman can be exercised only within the context of the
uncertainty and unpredictability of the: sea. The tiller's motions cannot
be dissociated from the: motion of the wavc:s. T'ych~ allows the un-
predictability of the future to be Limited to ce-rtain possibilities. And
here, the activity of this sea-goddess extends beyond navigation it.elf
and becomes a means of organizing any Corm or human e-ndeavour.
A similar extension of scope charactc:rizc:s the second term or this
pair, Kairos, 'Propitious Mome-nt', whose ambivalence matches that of
Tyche (Kuchanky, 1963: 95-105). Strictly speaking, Kairos is not a.
sea-divinity like Tyche; but it has special connectioru with that world.
The Italian e-xcavations at the: ancient s.ite- o( Elca (now Velia) have
mealed c:pigraphic evidence horn the fifth cc:ntury BC Cor a trio of sea·
divinities in which 'Olympian Kairos' occurs be-tween Pompai,os and
Zeus Ourios." Of these three, Pompaios is the most obscarc: the word
means 1imply 'Companion'. Easily the best-known i1 Zeus Oun·os, the
Zeus responsible for favourable winds (Cook, 1914~4:0: !.140-55).
One of his te-mples, said to have been founded by Jawn {Pol~·bius
4.39.6; Pomponiu, Mela, De chorographio 1.101), stood on rhr AIWic
coast of the Thracian Bosphonis. 10 Befort" trying to erots the Blad:
Sea, the Pontos A:ceino.s ("unfriendly to stnngers1, sailon wo\lld- KC
there and offer 1acriftcc, in the hope that the 1ea would then deal
kindly with them and become Pontos Etiuceinos, the 'hospitable w
 The 'Sea-Crow'
strangcn', thanks to a favourable wind sent by Zeus. 21 But the wind
(ovros) sent by Zeus is not just a literal following wind; metaphorically,
it may refer to the moment of departure,n the moment of launching
out on to the sca. 23 That makes the association between Zeus Oun·os
and Kairos all the more significant. Aristotle (Eudnnian Ethics 8.2:
1214a5-1;Nicomachean Ethics 3.5: 1112b4-7) says that in the art of
navigation there can be no general knowledge applicable to every case
- no certain knowledge of all the winds that furrow the sea. Even for
the most experienced helmsman, Pontos remains always the Unknown.
A navigator's excellence is not to be measured by the scope of his
knowledge but by his capacity to foresee and anticipate the snares set
for him by the sea - which arc by the same token opportunities offered
his skill. Alcacus devoted an entire poem to the idea that the voyage is
gained or lost not at sea but on dry land. 24 Zeus Oun'os may blow
favourably, but to profit from it the navigator must have foreseen its
coming and expect it. Kairos, associated with Zeus Ourios (representing
the opportunity itself), means the propitious moment which the good
helmsman must seize - who has long foreseen the chance that will
present itself for him to exercise his techni, his 'know-how'. 25 The
marine Kairos of Velia, supported by Zeus Oun'os, can thus be seen as
a reflection of ambivalent Tyche within a single dimension, that of
time. But whether they form a pair or not, Tyche and Kairos both
emphasize one essential aspect of navigation, the necessary complicity
between the helmsman and the element he confronts.
From Pontos to Kairos, from the ancient cosmogonic principle sym·
bolizing the Salty Deep to the new-comer among divine forces symboliz·
ing Time Used, all the religious imagery of the art of navigation focuses
upon the type of man we have earlier seen to be related to Athena in
her various manifestations. In Greek thought, the figure of the brims·
man is of central importance; and he is characterized by his possession
of one quality above all - mitis. E_ycn in the Ili~d it is already a clich~
to observe that mitis alone enables the helmsman to steer a straight
colll'Se despite the wind (23.316...:.17). In the chorus of Sophocles's
Antigone devoted_ to inan's triumph over. Nature by ms-ans of his
inventions, artifices and cxpedien~s (332-75), the poet places navi·
gation fi~st ir:t the .list of the cnt~rprises of this '.rcso~rccful' (panto·
po'T"Os) creature." Finding ·a poros - a way, a solution, a dodge -
pitting one's wits against the wind, being constantly on the alert, antici-
pating the most favourable opportunity for action: all these arc activi-
ties and manoeuvres - 'machinations' (michanarl as the Greeks called
them - which demand a many-sided intelligence, the gnOmi poluboulos
that Pindar ascribes to the helmsman (Isthmian 4. 73-4). Faced with
the sea, an expanse in which 'conuary winds from opposite quarters of
23
 Marcel Detienne
the sky may contend in a single instant',n the helmsman can only con·
trol it if he shows an identical trickiness.
Foresight, vigilance and an ability to keep the ship on count, arc
among the essential qualities of the navi1ator's mitis. 21 Plato, Epinomu
976a-b, remarks that no sailor can 'know the secret of the wn.th or
favour of the wind'; so he must remain constantly on the alert, never
aJlowlfllll 'his eyelids to close in sleep'.u Elsewhere-, he notes: 'The
genuine navigator can only make himself fit to command a ship by
studying the seasons of the year, sky, stars, and winds, md all that
belongs to his craft' (Republic 6, 488d-489a, tr. Cornford). Like
Danaus the first navigator, a helmsman both prudent and far·sighted
(pronoOs: Aeschylus, Supplilmt l+'omlffl 176-9, 970), the good pilot
must weigh up all the chances. He must be like a good player of back·
gammon (Suppliant Women 13). He must foresee the sudden \ecring of
the wind, meet cunning with cunning, espy the elusive chance to reverse
the shifting balance of forces. Once launched out on to the Pontos, on
to the shifting sea, the helmsman putt his whole mind to cortteting the
ship's course with deft adjustments of the tiller, 4Rd to navigating by
the reference-points the stars trace out in the ,,ault of heaven, ,o Steer-
ing, correcting, keepin1 on coune (ithunein) - all these arc ordinary
expressions in the languillC of ancient seamanship; their wry banality
stresses that for a pilot the ability to maintain a set course is quite as
important as the ability to keep in mind one's ultimate destination. 11
The shifting sea and the whims of the wind dictate a circuitous, tacking,
tortuous route; but the navigator's intelligence can guide the ship true
and never deviate from the course decided in advance. u And all o(
\( { Athena's interventions here take place in the helmsman's sphen:, in his
I ~ctiv~ rOle _as n~vigator, in the exercise of that cunning professional
intclhgence in which the daughter of Zcu~ can properly p«ceive a reflec-
tion of her own mitis.
 The 'Sea·Crow'
dedicated to Athena Ke/eutheia; and Odysseus was supposed to have
consecrated the statue in this temple (agalma) after his victory in the
foot-race which decided between the suitors for Penelope's hand in
marriage. Pausa.nias adds that Odysseus set up three separate temples to
Athena Keleutheia at three different spots. Why three? And what scr·
vices must Athena 'of the track' have rendered Penelope's successful
suitor?
Now Keleutheia is an unusual epithet for Athena. Docs it mean 'pro-
tector of the track', as the ordinary meaning of Jc.eleuthos ('path',
'track') would suggest? Or is she 'protector of the race' as the whole
mythological context would urgc?ll Since etymology is of no help,,..
there arc only two ways of interpreting this cult-title of Athena's here:
either to define the specific nature of her rdationship to this type of
athletic contest, or to examine her special relationship to Odysseus. J!ut
th~ two_ quc,tions arc in fact inseparable: witness a paHage in the Iliad
-(23)68-83) which reveals the complicity between Athena and
Odysseus in an athletic competition which, as it happens, is a foot·
iace?s Its occasion is the games in honour of the dead Patroclus.
When polumetis ('wily') Odysseus runs against Ajax son of Oileus,
fleet of foot, he has to call upon Athena in order to win:
Hear me, goddess, be kind: and come with 1trength for my footlteps.
(tr. Lattimore)
Athena responds at once: she gives Odysseus an extra spurt of energy
and makes his rival slip:
Now u they were makin1 their final tprint for the trophy,
There Aiu slipped in hi1 runnin1, for Athena unbalanced him,
Where dung was scattered on the ground from the bellowing o:m:en 1bu1h1ered
By swift-footed Achilles, thotc he dew to honour Patroklos.
(tr.L~ttimore)

No one is deceived, certainly not Ajax:

Ah now! That ,odde11 m~de me slip on my feet, who hu alW:•Y•
Stood overOdyucus like a mother, and taken good care or hun(tr. Lattimore)

Odysseus and Athena arc thick as thieves, as Athena herself reminds

him when he lands on the shore 0£ Ithaca without knowing it. She tests
his mitis by assuming the guise of a young man and telling him the
name of the place where he has just wok~n up (Odys~ey 13.~21--:--351).
So ;u not to betray himself, Odysseus thinks up a stnng of he~: Never
was his mind at a loss for cunning tricks' (13.255). Athena listens to
him with a smile: 'What twiiter (lterdaleos), what thief (epiJc.lopos),
even if he. wne ·a:---god,· could surpass you in cunning of cv~ry kind . . . ~
You reach your homeland and still think only of the knaVlS~ tale!i. and
lies dear to your heart since childhood ... Enough of these hes! We are
25
11.larccl Detienne
two of a_lund: you may have the sharpest mind and smoothett tongue
unong mortals, but wb,a .......... all talk about is Athm.a"s bNio,
(mitlS) and trick., {lll!'t'di)' (291-9). .
Exactly the sunc happened in the chariot race. _O_dysseus, hke
Antilochus is Jess powerful than his closest rival; yet tl IS he and not
Ajax who ~arried off the prize. Just so docs Antilochus, primed with
good advice, triumph over faster hones because he is able to !ore~
how the race will develop. Odysseus owed his victory to a combination
of circumstances which seem in Homer's account to depend entirely
upon Athena's intervention; but these circumstances arc in fact an
expression, in the context of epic, of the unpredictable nature of any
competitive encounter - and of the profit that mitlS inevitably derives
from such unpredictability. For if fleet Ajax comes a cropper in the
dung, it is because he docs not anticipate an obstacle which Athena's
favourite indeed docs not help him avoid, and which he may even have
encouraged to pop up under his feet. 'Athena made him stumble': to be
sure, but the point is that if he has no milis a man cannot ;mticipatc
the narrowing of the track which will give him the chance to take the
lead, nor SCc the patch of mud ahead which may cause the m;m in front
to slip. In setting up his statue in honour of Athena Kel~ulheia Odyueus
had fWO thi!IP in mind: to mark the shared intelligence that made
mitis their comffion badge (Stanford, 1963: 29, 39-40); and to stress
the role of cunning in athle4c contests.
It seems reasonably dcu thal this Athena, whose statue stood near
the place known as the 'Starting Linc', wu not a deity of 'the good
start', although we know of such an Athena £roman Attic inscription,,.
who must have been the counterpart of the Athena of victory over
rivals in the race whom Ajax speaks of in the Iliad passage I have just
discussed. It is true that the place known as Aphetafsn derives its name
without any doubt from the starting·linc (aphe.ris) of the classical gym·
nasium. But two points connected with religious cult suggest that thctt
is no particular relation between Athena KeleutheUJ and the '1tart'
properly so-called. Fint, we know that at Sparta the starts of race, were
placed officially under the protection of different divinities, the
Dioscuri, with the epithet aphetirioi (Pauaanias 3.14.6): their 1tatu~
probably stood at the entrance to the Spartan •Campus Martius' - the
Dromos - where in Pausania.s's time the young men still went to train
(Delorme, 1960: 74). Secondly, according to another tradition reported
by the same author (3.13.6), the tutelary divinity of the start of the
competition between Pendopc's suiton was one Aphet,,;os - we might
call him the divinity of the starting·pistol - whose nuuc wu supposed
to stand on the very 1pot where that race took placc.11 Althoupl these
facb show how important the start was in religious terms, they exclude
26
 Tit, ·s,a-Crow'
any assimilation of Athena K,leutheia into a divinity presiding over
'good starts'."
But in this act by which Odysseus showed his gratitude to Athena
there is a detail which throws some light on the meaning of this cult·
title of hen. We have seen that he dedicated three sanctuaries after his
victory (Pausanias 3.12.4: i6pllaaTo 6<nit K<Aeu6Ela( iEpd l>pdli,~ ,pia
•0111K6ro In' l,H,jAw•). Why thre,? Surely because on every race·
track, every dromos, there are three points of special danger, three
biroi critical in both time and space, when/where all can change
dramatically and the whole race be in doubt. Fint there is the start, the
aphesis, when you have to make a dash to get the best position in the
first few yards. Then there is the tum, the lcamptron, where you have
to take a hair-pin bend and come right round to enter the straight
parallel to the outward one: the 'Hone Startler' (tara.xippos) at the
hippodrome at Olympia illustrates this perfectly (Detienne and Vemant,
1978: 191-2, 200-1). The driver has to squeeze round the tum,
grazing the post; to do that he must keep a tight rein on the inside
horse while giving the outside one its head, and at the same time avoid
getting tangled up with another driver's chariot: manoeuvres which
demand all one's skill. Thirdly, the last critical time/place is the t,,ma,
the finishing-line: the last few yards of a race can confound every pre-
diction.40
Athena K,leutheia at Sparta is the patron of these three critical
points/moments in a race. She is not content merely to be with
Odysseus as he runs: she is regent of thr very location of the race,
dominating the entire contest. Mih's gives her, here as elsewhere, the
privilege of anticipating how the race will develop and of directing it
from start to finish. And there is further evidence of her r&le in
agonistic sport to be found on a relief - the; so·called 'Mourning Athena'
(Stele 695 in the Acropolis Museum, Athens).
Athena is shown here helmeted and clad in the peplos ( a long gar-
ment worn by women). She leans on a lance and is apparcntly 'me~-
tating' with her head bowed, in front of a pillar. For many years thH
figure was supposed to represent ?reek Reason. 41 ~orc rccently this
humanist and aesthetic interpretation has collapsed m the face of the
archaeological arguments advanced by Charles Picard (1939: 39-40;
1958: 95-8) and Fran~ois Chamoux (_1957: 143-59)." They '."°
agreed that the interpretation of the relief depends upon the ~1gmfi-
cance of thr mysterious pillar in front of Athrna; but they d_1sagrce
ovrr its idrntity. Picard saw it as a boundary-stone (laoros) marking the
city-boundary, while for Chamoux it is a cippw, one ~f the stones.that
mark the starting and finishing lines of the .t~k m the polaut~a.
According to the fint view, •mourning' Athena 1s m fact Athena Hono,
27
Marcel Detienne
the warrior-goddess 'leanin1 forward ;and meditating on the determined
defence of her land'; a c e ~ 19. t.bc tccond, she ii ~ d . ~oqbt~'
but there is no hint of ...t,iea: lhc i1 rcficctin11 'on the vmss1tudes - -
uncertainties of the impending race' (Chamoux, 1972: 263-6; cf.
Maffrc, 1972: 349).
By relating this stclc to a whole series of representations, Chamoux
has established beyond doubt that the 'pillar' must be a cippiu 'symbol·
izing the race over which Athena presides'. On the other hand, all the
evidence J have collected here suggests that we should not interpret the
Athena of the Acropolis relief as meditating upon the uncntointies of
11ictory, as does Chamoux." Certainly she 'meditates' because victory
is uncertain and the outcome of the games quite open - but she docs IO
in the sense or the Greek midlstlaai, which is a word intimately con·
nccted with the inteUectual activity denoted by mitis. This Acropolis
Athena, leaning on a lance with her head inclined towards the stone
that marks the start, is the image not of R.cuon but of practical intelli·
gencc, plaronisis. She is trying to foresee the hazards of the circuit - is
absorbed in 'meditatina: upon the race' in which she is about to
compete.
As with Pontos, so with the stadium: the trial at 1ca is won on dry
land before one quits the harbour (Alcacus fra:. 249 Lobel-Page; cf.
p. 2.! above with n. 24), and the victor in the race is he who hu more
trick, up his sleeve than his rivals drcun of. Although the athletic com-
petition may appear to take place within an enclosed space whose limits
arc fixed by the judgics and where the ~ i, subject to specific rules, in
fact any agonistic activity - whether ninning or chariot-racing - takes
place within a 'space:' that is in a ICnlC structurally homologous to the
'space' of the SCL The field of athletics, with its points of special dmger
and ill critical momcnu, is one in which any kind of reverse is possible;
and also one in which the course pttse:ribcd. by the rules finds its double
in all the paths which ,nitis can find and follow. lt is a field fiuid and
polymorphous, in which the intervention of Athena nece11arily takes a
special fonn - identical to the rOle of mitis in the field of navigation,
at odds with the play of wind and sea.

If we arc to rmd a more precise dcfiaition of marine Athena, we mu,t

explore the relation between her, the daughter or Metis, md the olh«
divinities which have righls M·cr the sea, whether pcrmmently liu
Poseidon or only from time to time, like the Dioscuri. Tbcy all sh&n:
with Athena a single field oC action, but each can be distinguishNl from
the otbcn by the specific character of their activity.
Athena's most serious rival is without dou.bt Poseidon (cf. Schachtr-
mcyr, 1950: 18--19, 150, 164-7.S).Notonlyishcthesupttlheac,dof
28
 Th~ 'Seo-Crow'
the sea among the Olympians, he is also traditionally the 'saviour of
ships' (Homeric Hymn to Poses"don 5). There is nevertheless one obvious
difference between them which is fundamental: when Poseidon inter-
venes to succour ships and save the sailon who call upon him, he does
not appear in the midst of the storm; and he docs not help the helms-
man by opening up a route for him through the raging sea. His form of
action is rather in keeping with his status as the elemental power of the
sea: he calms its violence and restrains the anger of the waves which he
himself has unleashed. The sea dies to calm as soon as Poseidon himself
is no longer angry. When sailors hung their votive-offerings in his temple
(scores of which have been discovered at Pcntcskouphia), it was either
to beg him for a safe return or to thank him for an uneventful voyage. 44
In other words, the rOle of Poseidon in navigation is as passive as that
of Athena is active.
A parallel difference between the two divinities can be seen in
another domain in which once again they confront each other directly
- that of horsemanship (riding and chariotcering).45 The tendency of
Gttek thinking to stress the affinities between ship and horse,46 and be-
tween ship's equipment and hamess,u makes the comparison all the
more natural. Poseidon Hippios ('of the hone') is matched by Athena
Hippio, and the balance of power between them can be defined in two
different contexts: that of the hone with its rider; and that of the
complex horses-chariot-charioteer. Whichever is involved, the division
between the two gods is dear - indeed the opposition between their
respective modes of action is underscored by a ritual detail in the myth
of Athena Khalinitu ('of the bit'). When Athena gives Bellerophon the
means of mastering his eminently Poseidonian horse Pegasus, the bridle
and bit (4halinos), she reminds him that he must fint pay homage to
Poseidon by presenting the horse, fitted with the. bit, ~o the Tamer. of
Hones (Damaios), and sacrifice a white bull to him (Pindar, Olympian
13.68-9). By thus making clear that the horse can only be mastered
with the assent of the Master of Horses, Athena confirms simultaneously
her own mode of action and Poseidon's.
This sacrifice to Poseidon in the context of the hone is pualleled by
a similar acrifice to him with a similar aim in the context of navigation.
In thest:ry of the Argonauts, various marks Of respect arc paid to the
great god of the sea by the very first sailors. Significantly enough, they
arc offered only at the beginning and at the end of the voyage. In one
vcnion (Pindar, Pythian 4.203-9), the Argonauts dedicate a te':'enos
('sacred enclosure') to Poseidon at the ~ntrance of the Sea Unfri~ndly
to strangers the Pontos Axftnos. They implore the Master of Ships to
bring them ' safe through the Symplcgades. Lik~wisc they offer their
ship to him at his temple on the Isthmus of Connth when they return
29
Marcel Detienne
(Apollodorus, Biblioth«• 1.9.27). According to a different tradition,
to be found in Valerius F ~ 1.111--ff.j...a solemnly
sacrific:es· bef'Off his dq,lri:iirt to Poseidon, the Zcphyn and GI•~.•
white bull adorned with purple headbands; he also slaushten a heifer in
honour of Thetis. During the «remony, Juon prays to Poseidon, and
Posddon a.lone, humbly offerin1 him the fint ship ever to cross the
seas: 'Grant me your pardon, you who rrign ~ r the foaming waves,
you who surround the earth with the waten of lhe sea. l know tha1 l
am the first man to venture where it is forbidden to 110; l know that l
desenre to be made the playthlllg o( the storms ... ' He then ucribcs
the blame for his daring upon Pelias, and closes the prayer thus: 'Only
receive this ship ... upon your waves and do not cause them to swell in
anger.' We have here an exact definition of Poseidon's mode o( oper·
ation. As with hones, so with ships: before using them one must win
Poseidon's 1oodwill and obtain his consent. In each cue he displays the
same characteristics. Jud u he is Muter o( Hones, so he holds bridlin11
sway over the sea and ships.
But the comparison may be pushed still (unher. And we may Slart
with this same sacrifice offered by Jason to Poseidon. Just as Bellero·
phon presented Poseidon with a horse fitted with Athena's bit and
tamed by her, so the 1hip which Jason offers Poseidon is Athena's work.
This is clear from the whole Gttek u-adition. In Apollonius of R.hodcs's
account, the daughter of Zeus and Metis supervises every stage o(
.A.rp's construction; the carpcnt« Arsos works to her dittctions
(2.1187-9), but it is the goddess hcnelf who selects the trees from
Mount Pelion (1188), who (ells them with an axe, and who anangrs the
prop, (3ptJoxot.: 1.723; cf. Chantrainc. 1962: 258-9) to support the
ship in building. And it is she, finally. who teaches Argos how to
measure the wooden cross-beams with a rule ( 1. 724). ln other m)·lhs
her l'Ole i1 equally crucial: when Danaus ii credited with building the
fint ship, it is always upon Athena's advicr and with her assistan«....
The parallel between hone and ship thus reveals a new aspect of
Athena's interventions in the atta o( navigation. By the same token, her
mode of operation iD relation to lhe hone emeraes mOR" fully and
clearly dermed. 1 have earlier (p. 29 above) distinguished two ca1e1orin,
the riding-hone and the chariot and team, in which lhe separation of
powcn between Athena and Poseidon was identical. But if~ take the
bone-drawn chariot, it becomes dear that Athena's activiry ii more
complex than we mia}u have imaptcd, extendina not merely to drivin1
the chariot and hones but to the building o( the cbariot·bodv and the
interlocking of the various sections of which it it made. ThC' fint
Hoffl4:ric Hy,n,s to Aphrodit~ n:mindt us (12-13) thu Athena was 1hc
fint to teach carpcnten to make ch.uiots and werpns adomcd with
,o
 The 'Sea-C,.ow'
bronze." With both chariot and ship, then, Athena clearly has a double
l'Ole which includes the art of coastruction u well as steering or drivinR.
Now we an: more likely to be aware of the differences rather than
the similaritit"S bctwttn these two activities; but the ancient Greeks saw
many affinities bctwttn them. We can sec this by looking at a number
of different references lo Athena. In the vcnion of Apollonius of
Rhodes, after the passage through the Symplegades, the Argonauts'
helmsman Tiphys rejoices at having escaped the clashing rocks. giving
all the credit to Athena who of counc shoved the ship forward at the
crucial moment. Curiously though it is not this aspect of Athena's
intervention which he elects to celebrate: he gives thanks to ship-
buiding Athena, to the Athena who firmly fixed the planks togcthC"r
with dowels (76,,</)olau, ov>OpaaaE: 2.612-14 (cf. Odyssey 5.248J)
just as though thrrr were no differences between the two, as if th,
were simply identical. This identity is also asserted by an ancient sour,
with whose help we earlier identified Athena aithuia: the scholiast 011
Lycophron's A.lexandr'O. Before he explains that Athena was called
oithuio because she taught men the an of navigation and to find a path
through the sea. he offers a different interpretation (closely connected
with this one, however). Athena is called aithui.G 'because she is the
prudence (ph,.onisis) by which ships arc built'. 50 The implication ial
cleu: the two activities, building and steeringfdriving. are connected.
with the same Athena of the sea because each depends upon the ~
type of Athena-intelligence. her miti.s. her practical intelligence.
Woodcutten, carpcntcn and shipwrights arc all craftsmen who
enjoyed traditionally the favour and protection of Athena. In the
Iliad, we hear of the great affection she hu for Tel,.ton Harmonidu,
'Carpenter, son of Joiner', 'whose hands knew how to make muter--
pieces of every kind•; in particular. this Tekton wu famous for havina
built (tdtenastluu) the ships of Paris/Alexander (5.59-64). Ir a
carpenter is able to cut a ship's keel fair and straight with the aid of a
line, he docs so by the grace of Athena who has granted him skill in
woodworking (15.410-12). If a plough needs to be made with the
share-beam fixed to the pole with dowels, this too lS a job for a 'ser-
vant of Athena' (Hesiod, Wo,.., and Days 430-1). And just as Athena
has shown carpentcn how to make ships or ploughs, she has taught
them the art of constructing chariots and wagons.
Whatever it is, chariot, plough or ship, Athena presides on·r .di thl'
phases of working with wood - the felling of the timber, the planing
of the plank$, or the jointing of the parts of the frame. F~r all az_c
operations which involve mitts in the same dc!P"'e. ~ the llaad ~as 1t
(23.315): 'the woodcutter is w better for skill (in,n) than he " for
brute strength' (tr. Lattimore; d. Chapot, 1887-1919: 352-6). Every
31
!o.larcclDcticnnc
carpenter is first a woodsman: he starts by taking his ax~ to trc.cs he has
selected himself in the fottat (Iliad 12.390-l; cf. Hesiod, Worts •nd
Odys 807-8). We hmve ~ that when Athena decides to build die
Argo her first care is to \lisit Mount Pelion to obtain materials. Once thit
trees arc down, the planks have to be sawn up and adzed smooth. 11 A
myth from the Homeric Cypria shows that this task too was performed
by her: whtn the magical weapon which is to be the weapon fint of
Pclcus and then of Achilles is bcin1 made, the centaur Chiron cuts the
ash chosen for the shaft, and Hephaestus the blacksmith tips it with
metal, thus making it a weapon of war. It is Athena who carefully planes
or smoothcs it (fllfom: frg. 3 Allen"' frg. 5 Evelyn-White (Loeb)). After
the timber has been prepared and smoothed, the carpenter who is build-
ing a ship, chariot or plough, begins to do the fitting and assembling of
the parts, and fastening them together (bpp6tEU', llpapiD,c,eu,, , - ~ .
rrrl'llew). One of the most widespread methods of ship construction in
ancient Greece was to build the shell first by fitting the planks with
tongue and groove joints and then fastening each tongue with a wooden
peg or dowel (the frame was then made inside the prepared shell)
(Taillarda.t, 1968: 185-6; Casson, 1971: 201-23). Athena prelides
over this major phase in the construction of a ship in Apollonius of
Rhodcs's .A.rgonautiAi:111: '& Argos fined the planks together with pep,
Athena breathed divine power into the ship' (2.613-14).
The different operations in wood-working are thus all combined into
a whole in this mythical pre,entation of a marine Athena who is also a
builder of ships. And they uc so combined in their proper order by
another figuR who is as skilled in steering a ship u in building it -
Odysseus, Athena's protCIC and the hero whom the Greeks regarded as
the perfect embodiment of all human rnm·s. Once the gods have agreed
thal he may leave the island where he is detained by Calypso, he sets
about building himself a ship. He fells twenty trees and trims them
skilfully with an axe; and then he cuts them carefully, usin1 a line, and
assembles the sheU - tongue and groove joints secured by pep (Odys,ry
5.234-5 7). n Thm the mast is up and the sail hoisted on thi, ship he
has built 'like a master-craftsman' (al fi6W( TM'f'OOVldwl': 250), and
lakinf hit ,eat anfulty with the 1tccrillf'OU lie held hn
on lier coune, nor did 1lecp ever clNcalll,m Ille -,didl
u he kept hi1 eye• on 11:ie Pleiadl:1 uwl lalHlttblt lo6ca.
and the Bea,-, to whom men pvc allo Ille na.e or thew.-.
who 1urn1 about in a fb.ed pbce ad loolil at-<hioa,
and lhe alone i1 never plunpd in Ille wmh al. tlae Oce-.
( ~ !U78-4, tr, 1.4timcn)
Even by night, which Aeschylus calls 'mother of care ror tH pnadcal
pilot' (S"PPlitmt Wom,na 770), Odysseus stecn his craf1 with the self·
umc mitil that built it.
52
 Tlt.e 'Sea-Crow'
But we can go still fun.her in our attempt to define how the same
intellectual model can be applied to activities as dissimilar as carpentry
and steering. In summarizing culier what the carpenter docs, I said
nothing of a crucial procedure in wood-working, the use of the line.
This is used to saw beams and planks dead straight (cf. BIUmner, 1875-
87: 2.234-5). 'Straight down the line' (bt' a,a8i,~· t8v""'") is a tra·
ditional expression in the Iliad and Odyssey in referring both to a skil-
ful carpenter," and to a good shipwright (Odyssey 5.245;//i4d 15.410).
One of the images for the idea of straightness is the
... challr.li.ne [which} 1traipten1 the cutting of a ahip'1 timber
in the hands or an expen carpeater, who by Athene'•
inspiration it weU versed in all hil craft'1 subdety.
{RUld 15.410-12, tr. Lattimore)
Now in Greek the verb ithunein, 'guide straight', rders to the way a lint
extends without deviating left or right.M It is also a technical term
found in both our convxts: in navigation, it is used to refer to the
ship's coc1ne which the pilot holds straight across the sea, despite winds
and tide, thanks (as thc.· Iliad has it) to his mitis (23.316-17; cf.
Apollonius Rhodius, ArgonautiJca 1.562 etc.); and it is also used for
driving a chariot - a charioteer with mitis can steer straight for the goal
without swerving." This lexical point seems to confirm the suggestion
that when a carpenter builds a ship or a chariot he employs the same
type of intelligence as the helmsman when he steen his ship over the
sea, and the charioteer, when he drives his team on the track.
In Greek thinking about Athena, then, there is no clear distinction
made betwec-n building and driving/steering, between cutting out a
ship's keel with the aid of a line and steering the ship on the sea. Being
each so intimately linked with AthC1:1a's practical intelligence, ships
and chariots holh are seen to be as guidable as they are mak.eable. And
this double aspect of Athena's activity can be con£inned by a semantic
detail from the language of mitis .
•.\mong the expressions in classical Greek for the idea of plotting,
planning, or thinking up schemes is a group which employs imagery
taken either from hunting or from fishing. Thus a plot may be knotted
("~'TUI ,rXfKELJ.1) just as a fish·trap or hunting snare is knotted. A plan
can be wouen (µf11'w IJtP(W,'Ew)just like a fishing or hunting net (Detienne
and Vemant, 1978: 4.5). But there is yet another expression, 'to build ,1
plot/plan': teltttJinesthai mitin (lliad 10.19). The verb telt.tmnut'.ia1
refers to wood-working and the activities of the carpenter. A cunning
ploy is "devised' or 'constructed' in the: same way that one assembles
the \'ariow bits from which a trap i.s made: to produce the means of
deception. A perfect example: is the famous Trojan Horse:, which was
as much a stratagem devised by Odysseus at Athena's inspiration as it
33
Marcd Det1c:nnc
was a contrivance in wood built by Epc:ios - again with Athena's help
(Odyssey 8.493-4; cf. Yal~..J,.}.960: 65-78; ~ · 1950:
189-20!~ The aam.c gon ftir- tire ship and the ch~ot: b?th ~ dlt
product and the instrument of Athena's intelligence, in which a nnglc
mitis is at work devising and producing tools to implement its plans. To
quote an epigram on the in~ntion of the ship (Anthologio Palati'IIIJ
6.342 = 1, p. 411 Stadtmullc:r), Athena first conceived it (e"µ"qO'crTo). In
other words, she created it by an ilCl at once intelli~nt and practical.
This compUUon bctw«n Athena and Poseidon in the two contexts
of the ship and the horse confirms Athena's twofold activity by con-
trast with the usually passive rOlc of Poseidon, limited to a quite
nominal sovereignty. But before we accept this distinction bctlft'cn
these riva1 gods, I must discuss some mythological and ritual texts which
might seem to provide evidence of varying weight against the hypothesis.
First, Poseidon is surely represented by Homer as the great god who
protects the Phaeacians, that people of sailors and carriers. Second, he is
closely connected with a mythical helmsman named Phtontis ('Knowing
One') in his temple on Cape Sounion in Attica. Finally, he is in the
myth of the Argonauu the fathc-r of Ankaios, whose reputation as a
helmsman was enough to make him the succcuor of Tiphys, Athena's
protCgt, at the helm of the Argo all through the second half of the
expedition.
(1) The Phuacian episode occun just after the interv~tion of lno
Leucothea, the aithuia, thanks to whose talismanic veil Odysscua
manages to reach Schcria, the land of the Phaeaciaru, and escape
Poseidon's anger (p. 18 above). Now the Phacacians, the 1ubje-.:ts of
King A1cinous, arc presented ;,u both marvellous sailors and prottgCs of
Poseidon: Phuacia is a city built right on the sea (Odyssey 6.262-9)
with a population of sailors interested only in masts, oars illld finely·
wrought ships (270-1), and its streets filled with oarpolishers and
tack.lemaken, makers of sails and rigging (268-9). Their passion is
betrayed in the very names: Topship, Quicksca, Paddler, Seaman,
Poopman, Beacher, Oarsman, Deepsea, Lookout, Goahcad,
Upaboard ... 11 They are a nation of ships' fitten and marvellou,
rowen. But apart from this single-minded passion for the ~~ ~
Phaca.cians arc characterized by another peculiarity: they live in a •pot
so remote that no other people comes into contact with them. Unlike
ordinary men they aHociate h.ibitually vii.th the god1, who come and
sit amongst them on days of feasting and banquetin1 (7.199-206).
But whik any god may \isit Phaeada if ht: wishes, only onC" poue1sc1 hil
own temple there, in tht agora (6.266) - P0&eidon, the god who fatheftd

.
the line of Alcinous and who grant1 lhe Ph.acac.ians thC' privilegf of Cl'OM·
ing the seas. Poseidon's so\·ereig:nty over I.hi, land 11Ums undeniable •
 The 'SH·Cror»'
There is just one other god who could rival him, at lcut if we were to
accept one Interpretation of four disputed lines in praise of Poseidon's
... bjects:
A1 111\lCh u Phaiakian men uc expert bq,ond .U. othen
for drivinc a f•t lhip on the open sea, IO their women
an 1killcd in weninc and dowered with wildom batowed by Athene,
to be es.put ln beautiful worlr., to have pod character.
(7.108-11, tr. Lattimott}
Don Athena's patronage extend to the weaving women only, as the last
scntcncc seems to imply in iu employment of a formula used elsewhere
for Penelope, who is likewise, by the grace of Athena, as nimble of wit
as she isat the loom (>"tp, .,.ap ""°' &wK.,. 'A8,j"'I I lna- ,· bloTaaBa,
>'fpuca).).ta Kai w,t- ta8).6'( - m fpowaua' />J.Q 8uµo, II ol fffPI
6wK ... A8,j"'I, I lna- ,· t ..loTaaBru >'fpuca>.>-.ta Kai "P'- ta8Aa<
Kep6<dl 8' ... : 2. 116-18)? Or doc:s it extend also to the Phacacian
sailors, as might be implied by the affinities I have noted earlier be-
tween Athena and helmsmen?n But, attractive though it is, there are
two reasons for rejecting such an interpretation.
First, Athena intervenes only at the very edge of Phaeacia: befon:
Odysseus sets foot there, Athena makes a single appearance to block
winds sent by Poseidon against his victim's ship - she stirs a brisk
North wind for Odysseus to reach the shore (5.283-7). 11 Once he has
done so, she behaves with immense discretion, refusing to show herself
to him, unwilling to act openly, hanging back. 'out of respect for her
uncle' (6.329-Sl). She no sooner guides her protCgC to the house of
Alcinous than she disappears on her way back to Athens and the house
of Ercchtheus (7 .78-87). And a topographical point betrays exactly
the relation between her and Poseidon in Phaeacia: while his temple
dominates agora and city, the one place dedicated to Athena is a modest
grove (6.521) - and it is outside the town, on the edge of Alcinous's
kingdom.
The second reason confirms that Athena scouts the Phacacians, but
it also gives the key to the relationship between them and the great god
of the sea. They are seafarers and carriers, and they possess extra-
ordinary ships - quite as extraordinary as Dionysus's: they travel with·
out a hitch, faster than wings or thought - not even a falcon, the fastt'st
thing that flies (13.86-7), can keep pace. But Poseidon has ad1kd to
this gift of speed over the water the privilege of 'crossing tlw grc:.Lt
abyss of the sea' (AalT'µa llrf' l1<we-pdwow: 7.35). These ships cross the
chasm of the sea evC"n when shrouded in mist and cloud 'without fear of
damage or shipwreck': they themselves "undentand men's thoughts and
purposes' (8.559; cf. 560-5). When ordinary men go to sea, they must
constantly adjust the ship's course with the steering-oar, but on
35
 \1arcel Detienne
Phaeacian ships there is •no helmsman, no tiller' (8.55 7-8). Sine"
Poseidon has granted t h ~ m of the chasm of the lta, $11i~y
do not have to cheat tht' winds or watch for bad Wt"ather. Fur them UI
fact Lhc sea is not a 'chasm' that cannot be crossed: it has become
familiar terrain stripped of mystery. And of course that is why Athen~
and her mitis have no place in the land of Phaeacia. Thi' art of navi-
gation is there useless, rendert"d superfluous by the vt"ry ships' privilege
of knowing all the paths of the sea. . . . .
If 'the men of Phaeacia surpass all other men m rowing swtft ships on
the sea' (7.108-9)," they do so thanks only to Poseidon who gives
tht'ir ships navel-knowlt"d~ of the chasm of the Kil. But equally he
may take away that knowledge all of a sudden in a fit of rage, meta-
morphosing hawk-swift ship into a dumb stone or somt' inen. su·r~tcd
rock.'° In other words, so far from undermining my earlier analysu of
the proper modes of Athena and Poseidon, the case of Phaeacia offen
precious confirmation. ~n when Post"idon's power rules supreme,
when it is as it were given free play, it operates on either side of navi-
gation, outside the field of Athena's proper sphere.
(2) Hae, then, Poseidon's character is revealed by the total exchuion of
Athena. In the other two cases, the two gods arc in more direct com·
petition, and in contuts which do involve navigation and the stetring
of ships. The fint is set at the very tip of Attica, at Cape Sounion. Herc,
£acing the sea and dominating the site, stands a temple of Poseidon,
31.15 m long and 13.48m'ol.;de(KintenandK.raiker, 1967: 163-7). 11
Sounion was famous even at the period of the composition of the
Odyssey, for it was hen that Menelaus's fteet on its way b.w:k from
Troy lost its helmsman Phrontis, slain by Apollo's arrowi as his ship
was speeding along, u he sa.t with his hand on the steering-oar (3.278-
81). He had to be buried, so Mendaus beached his ships and gave him a
full funeral, probably on thi, he.adland sacred to Poseidon.
Some years ago Charles Picard, following up the exca.,·ations carried
out by Greek archaeologists, found strong evidence for identifying ;,;a
small building just outside the temrnos of Poseidon as a '1ir0011 (shrine
of a 'hero'] of Phrontis (1940: 5-28). Sounion may therefon provide
evidence for a particularly close a..uociation bttwetn Poseidon and a
helmsman who,e very name Phrontis ('Knowing one') indicatts that he
possessed n.avigating skill worthy of a protigiE of Athena:
(He) lllrpua,rd all lhr b~d of mo1Uh
Plthrt1ttrin1 ora ehip wh-,cr(~;';';~t::. ~!:~·
The nst of this episode in the Odyssey teUs u1 more about his skill.

.. ..
Once he loses Phronti,, Menelaus is caught unawaru in a trap set by
Zeus: rounding Cape Malea, the fltet i1 surprised by a 1torm wbich the
 The 'Sea-Crow'
King of the Gods has deviS<d (t.poamo) for them (3.286-92)."
Sevcnil ships arc destroyed; the rest are blown as far off course as Egypt,
where Menelaus finds himself stuck: a god holds him prisoner and
'binds his path' (f6110• KEXEllllou: 4.380). It seems evident that by
losing Phrontis at Sounion, Menelaus has lost the mite's without which
ships cannot ride out bad weather (cf. Scveryns, 1966: 119).
But must we therefore conclude that this skill in navigation has been
somehow confiscated by Poseidon, who otherwise gives the impression
of having no connection with any form of mitis? If we look more
closely at the evidence from Sounion, I think we will find that we
should not. For it is clear that the site at Sounion was not reserved
exclusively to Poseidon. We find in Pausanias (I.I.I cf. Euripides,
Cyclops 293-4) that when sailors arrived within sight of Attica the first
thing they saw was a little temple perched right on the top of the head
land (f,ri ,c.opu4Jij 1"1~ &c,ow;). This was the temple of Athena Sounia.s,
the foundations of which have been found about 500 m away from the
temple of Poseidon, on a level eminence. In their excavation of this
sanctuary, the Greek archaeologists came across more precise evidence
for Athena Sounias: a small painted clay plaque, a votive o£fering,
which shows a ship steered by a bearded man who is sitting with his
hand on the steering-oar (as described in Pausanias 10.25.2: a scene
painted by Polygnotus in the /eschi of the Cnidians at Delphi). Even if
we do not go so far as to identify this with Picard as 'a memento of the
death of Phrontis', it is nevertheless clear that the helmsman heroized at
Cape Sounion was connected with Athena as well as Poseidon.
The relation between Phrontis and the two divinities of the sea may
be defined by analogy with the role of another legendary helmsman
who w.u also one of Menelaus's men. A post-Homeric literary tradition
has it that Phrontis's place was ta.ken by a helmsman named Canopus or
Canopus. It was he who took Menelaus's fleet from Rhodes to Egypt
wheTe he was accidentally killed and turned either into a star visible
only to sailon crossing from Rhodes to Egypt, or into the brightest star
in the constellation Argo (which represents tht' ship's stecring-oar). 64
The story of Canopus illustrates perfectly and concisely the relationship
between navigation and astronomy: the legendary helmsman is trans-
formed into one of the brilliant beacons which help the good navi~ator
to find his way across the sea. And according to the Chronicle set up rn
the temple of Athena Lindia at Lindos on Rhodes, the same Canopus
dedicated the stccring·oan of his ship not just to the patron deity of
Llndos, who is also the protector of pilots but jointly to Athena and
Poseidon:
Marcel Df:ticnne
'Canopus the helmsman 0£ Menelaus ( dedicated) his ncering·oa.n on
which wu inscribed "Can~....._ md P<*idon'"."' ·,
At Lindos II at Souniori thf1 clo1c U1ociation of Athena and Poseidon
with the helmsman can mean only one thing: while the navigator'• skills
derive principally Crom Athena, no helmsman can effectively exercise
them without also acknowledging: that aspect of Poseidon's sovereignty
which is represented in the banal image: of the Lord of the sea curving
on his back ships mm have made. It is not cnou11h for Phrontis and
Canopus to be Athena's protigis: they are necessarily also clients of
Poseidon. He may do without Athena, but she cannot dispense with her
powerful partner - precisely inasmuch as the nfflgator's skill cannot be
deployed without the collaboration of the clement which is at bean
beneath Poseidon's sway.
(3) At Sounion as at Lindos, Athena and Poseidon are to be understood
as twin powers, at once clearly distinct from one another but also
collaborative; indeed their collaboration is both c£fcctivc and ncccuary.
In our third case, however, the- two are found in more or less direct
collision, apin in the context or navigation. Nonnus's Dionynlllu,
describes a chariot race in which the competiton are Athena's charioteer
and Poseidon's coachman (Detienne and Vcmant, 1978: 204);just so a
real opposition seems to be set up between the successive helmsmen of
the Arra, between Tiphys, who is chosen and sent by Athena, and
Ank..aios son of Poseidon, who is entl'Ultcd with the helm on the sudden
death of Tiphys." It is true that strictly speaking Ankaios docs not
cornpete with Tiphys. Bu, he is presented u his rival in the art of steer·
ing:, as is evident from two passages in the A'1'onniil11 of Apollonius
which praise his knowledge as a naviptor and his slr.il1 in handling &he
steering-oars:
(Erpllo1 and Ankaio1) . , . ~ 6 'lpfc.,
ll,,iPMIWWIKIJ6'~n,xffdwM'o(l.lll-9 Friinkel)
'both boasted their prowess in seafaring and war';
... nparp6,., 1!6.t•i•croro
iltM'w (2.867-1 Frankel)
'for he was especially skilled in guiding (ships)'.
We might expect that a comparison between them miaht cau1e us to
modify in at least some rcspecu the division of powtr we have sketched
here. Let us sec. ·
We may note fint thal the gods' rclatian.10.cfl.:protips is wry dif·
fercnt. A&hena encourages Tiphys to join the ......... md bcc:ome
the helmsman. She 11ands at his side and acb with llilD whell they come
to the Symplepdes. By conu-a.st, Poseidon never inte,t.elles in faYOUr gf
the man whom it ia kmptinc to call 'his" hebum111: Q.~not Potr:idon
but Hera who prompts Anlwm to lay claim to _111• ,-1cr1 vacuit by
,a
 Th, 'Sta·Cf'OUI.
phys's doath. And at points of high drama it is Argos, Juon, the
ioscuri or even Triton (a lake-god) and Apollo aiglitis ('the dazzler')
ho come to his usistance and get him out of trouble. Ankaios never
thcr receives or requests help from his divine father. Once this dis·
nction is made, the contrast between the two helmsmen becomes
ansparc:nt. Where• Athena•, pilot shows himself to be truly in control
r the ship, even to the point of outshining Jaaon on occasion in front
[ all his companions, Ankaios seems a dim, insignificant figure, usually
uite inadequate to cope with eventualities he has been unable to
n.ticipatc.
From the very beginning of Apollonius's .Argonautika, Tiphys is
resented as a. masterly helmsman, quick to anticipate (1rpo6CltljJ.'Q't)
hanges in the \,·eather and shifts in the wind, able to calculate his
oune {«Kiuipaab) by the position of the sun and stan (A,r. 1.106-
1; d. Valerius Flaccus, .Argonautica 1.481-3; 2.55-71). It is he who
~vcs the signal for departure and who supervises the manhandling or
he ship into the water (A,r. 1.381-91). All through the fint part of
he expedition he is up with the morning star, watching for favourable
•inds and urging the Argonauts to set sail (1.519-22, 1273-5). It is
tis mitis and his prudence (•pa61,1ocn)1'17) that decides the route
:1.559-62). At the entrance to the Bosphorus only his skill in
manoeuvring enables him to find a way through the gigantic waves
which threaten to overwhelm the boat (2.169-76). But the supreme
demonstration of his mastery is the shooting of the Symplegades. the
Clashing Rocks. They follow the advice of the seer Phineus; Euphemus
releases a rock-dove to test out the pusagc as Tiphys gives the order to
row (2.555-67); the bird has barely cleared the rocks when he orden
the Argonauts to haul on the oars and shoot between the two cli£fs just
as they begin to move apart again (2.575-4). When they arc half-way
through, he is quick enough to make a last-minute swerve to avoid a
giant wave which threatens to swamp them (2.580-7); and then it is
Athena's tum (see p. 19 abo,:e)." When they finally emerge into the
Black Sea, Tiphys is filled with a great joy in striking contrast to the
other Argonauts' ten-or. He encourages Jason and comforts the crew,
declaring to their general surprise that henceforth the mission's success
is assured: all Phincus's predictions have come to pass and now that
they arc through the Clashing Rocks the way is open before them
(2.610-37)." Shortly afterwards, he suddenly dies (2.854-7).
Ank.aios then comes forward (2.864-98). In him we have a 1aclically
different type of helmsman. No doubt he has some knowledge of navi·
ption and can use the steering-oars. But he never anticipates anything,
De"Yer makes a decision or truly control, the ship. At the very fint
difficulty they meet, when they have to leave the Black Sea to enter the
39
Marcel Detienne
River Phuis which leads to Cokhis, it is Argos who takes Ank.aio,'s
plac, to sup,m1< w ...-·'(2.1260-1; cf. 1211-9). Oa ibe_
retum journey, it is apin Arso• who tells the AfFnauts what_ eoune »
follow (4.256-93). From then on, the voyage or the Arp 11 punctu·
ated by a ,cries or miraculous interventions. To show them the way to
the River lstro1 (Danube), Hera traces out a great shining line in the 1lr.y
(4.294-302). After the murder or Apsyrtus (Medea's brother), the
prophetic bearn built into the ship's prow reveals that the Dioscuri mun
pray the gods to open up the 'paths of Ausonia' which lead to the
island of Circe (4.580-92) .., On another occasion, when the wind
looks like blowing the expedition off into mid-Ocean, Hera once again
intervenes, this time more dirccdy and cncfFtically: she shouts at them
and alerts them to their mistake (4.640-4). In all this, Anlr.aios might
just u well not be there: he plays no part at all. Nor is he any more in
evidence when they shoot the Wandcrin1 Rocks (the PI.Gn.lta1). It is
Thetis and the Nereidl who seize the ship and 11,1idc it through, taking
advantage of a moment of calm brought about by the collaboration o(
Hephaestus and Aeolus, the Master of fire and the Kini of the winch
(4.922-65). And the rest of the voyqc- simply confirms his impotmcc.
With the Peloponnese already in sight, yet another 1torm forces them
into the Libyan Sea and beaches them deep in the Gui( of Syrtis, on a
de.en coast (4.1245-9). This is too much: Ankaim tearfully tells the
othen that he is abandoning his post and that he refuses to be helm•·
man any loftFr (4.1261-76).°'° Henceforth we hear nothin1 more of
him. The final part of the voyalC is marked by two further divine
interventions: Triton (the son of Poseidon) rises from the depth• of the
lake which is called after him and 11,1ides the ship by the keel to the
point wheR the lake flows into the sea (4.1551-1619); and fmally
Apollo oiflitis causes a bright liP\t to shine out in the blaclr. 1tormy
night, so saving the Argonautl from the perils of the impenetrable- dark·
""" (<"1Gt1A<I<:) (4.1694-1718).
Throughout the epic, Poseidon's helmsman ii 1huply contrasted with
Athena's. Unlike Tiphys, Ankaio1 never shows that he poncSIC'I even a
pin of mitil. N the expedition continues his incompetence becomes
more and more evident until he is forced to resign. But of all lhe epi·
sodcs in the 1tory u Apolloniu, tcU. it there is one which spells our the
limitations of this Poscidonian pilot better than any - that is when the
Dioscuri uc given charge of the Argonauts' lhip." When the .4.,ro
reaches the Stoichades, the DiolC'llri, who have beca dcsipar.ed. by the
prophetic beam, arc confirmed in their new rQlc by U\11 who cntrulll
them with rcsponlibility in the future for savin1 mip1 in danpr
(4.588-9, 649-55). Their mode of intervention is markedly diffcreac
from Athena's. The '1aYioun of shipl' appear in the di.y, shinina at the
40
 Tiit 'Sta-Crow'
top of ships' masts: they are pho,phoroi, 'bringers of light', and they
still the wind and calm the waves (Homnic Hymn to tit.~ Dioscun·
2.11-17:cf. Cook, 1914-40: 1.760-74). There was a ritual for caosing
them to appear: sailon saaificcd white lambs to them on the ship's
stnn when danger threatened (Homme Hy,nro 2.9-11). This ritual is
the exact convene of the one the Athenians performed to appease
storm-winds: when a 1torm threatened they would sacrifice a blaclr.
lamb to them on the sea-shore (Aristophanes, Frop 847-8). The
object here was to appease the dark clouds ("'9Wt), to avert the fury of
the winds by the offering of a black victim, a colour reserved to the
powcn of the underworld. The fint ritual is a request to the Dioscuri to
make a light shine in the storm, whose dazzling brilliance is symbolized
by the colour o! :h, sacrificial victims. And Plutarch well describes the
singularity of the way in which the Dioscuri operate: 1thcy do not sail
{with men) U\d share their danger, but appear in the sky as saviours'
(D• def•ctv orocvlo"'m SO, 426c).
This digression on the Dioscuri continn1 that there is no rivalry be-
tween Tiphys and Ankaios that might reflect a rivalry between Athena
and Poseidon in connection with navigation. The one helmsman who
can claim to have any connection with Poseidon is obliged to entrust
the safety of his ship to the good offices of the Dioscuri. In other
words, the salient difference between Tiphys and Ankaios is precisely
the point at which the difference between the action of the Dioscuri
and the intervention of Athena is most evident. Ankaios is as neglected
by Poseidon as the Phaeacians arc blessed by him. He is a dreadful
helmsman: he can only appeal for help to the Dioscuri.'2
It cannot then be denied that Poseidon's power, which is limitless on
the sea, applies neither to the helmsman nor to the art of navigation,
but operates both 'above' and 'below' this technical level. It operates
'below' when the god at will unleashes or calms the forces of the sea;
and 'above' when he grants the Phacacian ships such perfect knowledge
of the paths and the chasm of the sea as to render superfluous the
whole art of navigation.
Marine Athena, a 'sea crow' like lno Uucothea, affords the seafarer
help as total as it is magical, yet which cannot be characterized by the
opposition between black and white typical of the Dioscuri. '' She may
stand by the helmsman to open up a path for him over the sea; she may
release a bird to find the way through the chasm of the deep; but
always she manifests herscir in the marine world in the cxe~Li~c of a
skill in navigation which can hold a counc over the sea, outW1ttmg the
winds and the beating waves. But this same sharp practical intelligence
is manifested also u technical skill, in the art of cutting the timbers
straight with the line, and then in the equal art of fixing them together
41
Marcel Detienne
to build the very meillll whereby navigation becomes po11ible. In the
area or activity which ,.....,..... widi Paeeicloa. Leucothea md the
Diotcuri, Atheiaa ii characterized against all other divinities of the ,eai
by a dual capacity, both to make and to guide ships. And he~ lies her
CWltinction, her special mode of action, in the world or navigation.
II: The human condition
3. The myth of Prometheus in Hesiod
Jean-Pierre Vemant (1974)

Hesiod devotes two long passages to the story of the theft of fire by
Prometheus. one in the Theogony (535-616), the other in Wor•s and
Days (45-10!»). These two versions arc not merely complcmcnu. They
arc formally interrelated by virtue of an allusion in each to an incident
explicitly nanatcd in the other: WD 48 refers to the fint section of the
story in the Theogony, Prometheus's trick in apportioning the sacrifice
at Mckone; while Th. 512-14, by way of introduction to the myth of
Prometheus, mentions the acceptance by Epimcthcw of Zeus's fatal
gift to man in the shape of Pandora, which is the final section of the
story in the WorAo:s and Days. The two versions thus constitute a single
entity, and must be analysed as such.
I begin by presenting a formal analysis of the narrative, taking agents,
actions and plot one by one, first in the Theogony and then in the
Worls a.nd Days. I shall then attempt, by comparing the two texts, to
bring out the oven.11 logic of the narrative conceived as one.

Lewi 1: Formal analysis of the narrative

1.1 The qents

1.1.1 Tlaeogony
In the presence of gods and men

on one hand Prometheus

I on the other, Zeus and those who
carry out his final decisions,
Athena and Hephaestus
Characteristic of Prometheus arc his mitis, his cunning, his wily intrlli·
scnce (511, 521, 54'6, 550), and his skill in ~ecciv~~· his 5o).i'1 TEXvri
(540, 547, 551, 555, 560); of Zeus, hissover<1gn metlS (520, 545, 550).
Zeus is also describf!d as 'father' (54-2), lord of the heavens and of the
thunderbolt (558, 568, 602).

43
Jean-Pien-e Vemant
1.1.2. Woris and Doys
on one band Pronae~- ~r-..,
Epimetheus
I on the other Zeus (asmted. by
Hephaestus, the Graces, Peitho,
Aphrodite, Athena and Hermes)
representing: men gods
Prometheus's mitis, a compound of anticipation, guile and deceit, is
matched by Epimetheus's wanl of mitis, for Epimetheus never und~r-
stands anything until it is too late, and is always the fall-guy. T~e. ~n-
~ s are opposed but complementary, uniting subtle calculation
with grou fatuity; and precisely that combination ch~kli.zn the
human condidon. - ·

J.2. Actions (stnKturaJ ond literal)

The story as a whole is a duel of wits between the Titan of rnitis and
the lord of Olympus, the King of the Gods, who is mitiocls ('passesscd
ofmitis'), to.sec which can outwit the other.
In the Thcopny, the duel takes place in the presence of gods and
men. They are still united; and the result of the contest is to determine
the final distribution between them of honours and portions (timai and
moinn). In Works ond Days gods and men att already sundered, and the
two sides confront each other as it were in the tussle bct~en the two
representative heroes, Zeus for the gods, Promethcus-Epimetheus for
men.
In both texts there DI a strict parallelism between the actions of
Prometheus and those of Zeus. Thcte actions can be presented u follows:

1.2.1.
Preparatory (premeditated) dispositions (f"lBf"/J.U. and its compounds; cf.
for Prometheus, n. 557-9, 541; for Zeus and his ass.istanu, Th. 577-
8, 585, 601; WD 61, 74, 80) which arc designed to deceive, .,,.tan, the
opposition. On each side, this deception (OfHti) or trick. (dolos) involves
the wne rccounc to 'hiding' or 'concealing from sight' (Wap,~;n.
-':ruptein), and, in the cue of Prometheus, 'stealing' without being ICCft
(ll,p,.in).

1.2.2.
A pme of reciprocal giving of deceptive presents, trick gifu, which
may be either accepted or rejected. The rules of thlll pmc follow
the followin1 formal pattern, which also sums up the logic of tM
 Th~ myth of Prometht!us in Hesiod

I
taking the gift ~ accepting
not-taking the gi£t = rejecting
not-tak.mg what 1s not-given
not-giving
taking what lS not-given= stealing

1.3. Plot

1.3.1. Th,ogony
Thu general grammar represents the organization of the narrative. The
individual episodes can be expressed in the following terms, with each
one introduced by a time-marker which gives it a particular relation to
the other episodes in the sequence:
Episodt I (535-61)
Time-marker: 535-6: Kai ")'QP OT' ... .,.or· hEmx ('Now when ... ,
after this ... ')
In the presence of gods and men, and that there might be distinction
between them (cf. h:pUJOvro), Promethcw 'secretly disposes' (539:
1tcrrflJt?KE KaAUtJ.,a(; 541: E~ETiaac; Kcrr,8flKE KaXUW~) the two por-
tions of the ox he has 'laid before' (537: wpoli81JKE) gods and men, and
sacrificed and then cut up. Prometheus offen Zeus the appealing but in
fact uneatable part of the ox; Zeus accepts this apparently preferable
ponion and finds he has been tricked - though all along the trick itself
was part of the mitU, the cunning trap, laid on purpose by Zeus to en·
compass man's downfall. Zeus is angry.
This transaction establishes which share of the blood sacrifice is to be
reserved in future to men (i.e. the meat and the entrails covered in their
fat = the edible parts) and which to the gods (the stripped white bones,
burned upon the alter after being scattered with incense).
Episodt 2 (562-9)
Time·marker: 562: E,c TOVTOV 6rj l,rftW ('From that time on ... ')
Zeus cannot forget Prometheus's trick, and 'refuses lo give' men the
heavenly fire (the thunderbolt) which they used previously (ob,c €6ihov)
Unseen by Zeus, Prometheus steals fire (ffa,rQ:1170EP . • ,c).fijJw; .
n,pO( QV")'11P). Men arc denied heavenly fire, but Prometheus's fire
bums among them and enables them to cook food.
Zeus is angry at thus being tricked.
Episode 3 (~70-84)
Time·marker: 570: ai.rru«X ('Whereupon ... ')
In recompense for the fire which he had denied and which Prometheus

45
Jean-Pierl'C' Vernant
stole, Zeus orders the manufacture for men of something which had not

hit~e~ .:.::e~yev:;t~t.::::d Athena, who 'dispole' It •-

Prometheus did the portions of the ox in Episode 1. ·
Episode 4 (585-613)
Time-marker: 585: at,rap bEi 6'11 ('Arter this, when .•. 1
Woman, the 'beautiful evil' that is the recompense for £ire, is put
together md laid before gods and men, jun as Prometheus had brought
out the ACrificial ox. But she is a gift exdu1ift to men (570, 589),
token of their misfortune. Woman is to men what hornets are to hen, a
ravening belly (pstir) gobbling the fruit of othen' labour (590).
Henceforth, then, men must choose: either they do not m111TY, and
have grain enollp, since the female gastir does not deprift them of it -
but no children, since a female p.,tir is needed to give birth; or else
they many, and even with a good wife, evil comes to counterbalance
good (609).
Among human beings, goods and ills are mingled inseparably because
Zeus, in the gift of woman, has given men a ,c:(lf(Oa, trvr-" lJrrcr8oco, 'an ill
to match a good'.
Conclusion (61!-16)
Prometheus may haft been able to 1tcal (k/.tein) fire; but it is im·
possible to 'steal the mind' (ldepsa,· noOn = to deceive) of Zeus. For all
his insenuity, the Titui comes to a terrible end.

The narrative-structure can be summarized thus:

Prometheus offers Zeus a dolos (a false gift, a trick present)
Zeus ac«pts it
Zeus is angry, and denies men (heavenly fire)
Prometheus docs not accept this denial; he steals fire and si,ves it
to men
Zeus then constructs Woman (that is, a dolos) and gives her to men
Gods and men are now sundered
Prometheus gave men the Oesh of sacrificial beasts to feed upon; to
the gods he pw the bones, to be bumt
Prometheus pft to men the fire he stoic; Zeus reserved for the gods'
sole use heavenly fire
Zeus has given men, and men only, Woman
The human condition, insofar as men arc to be dil:tinguilhed from
the god,, thus involves (1) sacrifice, {2) 'Promethean' fire with its
corollary cooked food, (S) rnuria1e.
 Tht myth of Ptomethnu in Htliod
1.J.2. Worlu and Days
Prea,,.blt (42-8)
The gods have hidm:n from men (1<pv,j,11..-~) their means of life (PID•),
i.e. grain. If they had not, there would be no need to till or ploughi but
Zeus 'hid' (¥opu,j,•) the means of life after Prometheus had tricked him
(m allusion to the fint episode in the Tltogony).
Episodt I (49-59)
Time-marker: 49: roU•u' 11.p' .•. ('From then on ... ')
From that day (when he was tricked) onwards, Zeus meditated
(tmisato) bitter sorrows for men. He hid fire (50: Kp~,j,f 51 ,ri,p).
Prometheus stole it. Zeus was angry.
Zeus makes it known that to balance the account he will 'make men
a gift' of an ill they will love to have (cf. 57: &.Jaw and contrast OUK
t6i6ou, Th. 563).
Episode 2 (59-82)
Time-marker: 59: c:lc lF' .. . ('Thus he spoke ... ')
The seductive but dangerous gift is made ready by Athena, Hephaestus,
Hennes, the Graces, Pcitho ("Penuasion') and Aphrodite.
The ill is named Pandora, •the gift of all the gods' to 'bread-eating'
men (82;cf. the same term in Tia. 512).
Episode 3 (83-9)
Time-marker: 83: abrop hrfi ('But when ... ')
Hennes brings the gift of the gods, &;,pop BeWv, from heaven to the
house of Epimetheus. Prometheus had warned his brother never lo
accept a 'gift' from Olympian Zeus, but to refuse it and send it back.
But Epimetheus accepu the gift. By the time he realizes his mistake,
the damage is done.
Episode 4 (90-104)
Time-marker: 90: 1tpUI µE11 ('Before this ... ')
Prior to this, there were no hardships in human life - no work, no sick·
ncss, no old age.
But Pandora lifted the lid of the jar, and all ills escaped among mt·n,
cvttprcscnt but ineluctable because unpredictable. For they arc invisible
- by contrast to the Woman, an evil visible enough but which diiwms
thanks to a parade of beauty. They are moreover inaudible, again unlike
Woman, who uses her voice, her plaOM, all the better to disarm those
foolish enough to listen to the untruths which it utters.

47
Jean-Piern Vemant
And thus the ills go UDICCll lhat men wCMdcl ,woid. if they could but
,.. diem; and the ill - • !by cu, both ,cc one! heor - ...i
seduces them in the specious image of the good.
Conclusion
It is then impossible to 'escape the mind of Zeus' (and men must pay
heed).

The structure or this vcnion can be summarized thus:

The gods have hidden from men the means or life
For Zeus, having fallen victim to an o/J•li (Prometheus's trick in
hidin1 the portions or the ox), 'hides' fin:
Prometheus steals this hidden fire unbeknown to Zeus Uld gives it ro
men
Zeu1 pull together the 'girt of all the gods' and offen it to Epi·
metheus, who is the counterpart or Prometheus. Instead of reject·
ing it, Epimetheus accepts
Consequently humall life is full of ills. Some .arc hidden, invilible;
othcn arc quite visible, but camouflage themselves u desirable
blessings.

1.4. Comparison bctwun the two uenions: lite nematir,e '4fic

Then: arc a number of divergc-nces between the story in the Worlts .,.,J
Days and that in the 1"eogony.

1.4.J. The matter of Prometheus's deception (ap.ti) ovu the parts of

the ox gets only a passin1 naention; but Epimetheua's acceptance' (i.e.
the acceptance by men) ol Zeus's gift of Pandora and its wretched
consequences - the opening of the jar of evib - is fully treated (the
motif is simply alluded to in the Thcapny 511-12).

1.4.2. Pandora and her role • a 'gift' - a deceptive, baneful Jift which
might have been either accepted or rejected - are emphuized hcarily
(cf. the explanation of the name Pandora, and lina 57, 82, 85, 16). But
the theme of the gift is prnm.t already in the 71t•oto••1 version - and
n.·
in fact dctennincs its entire lope (note cspcci.U.y ('lake". 'chooR'),
549; ov,c Hi&v ('he irluocl to gi...,1, 565; and the 'cducol' dolivc1
/ia,8pwtrOU1u, ('lo, muwnd? in 570 and 589).

1.4.3. The act of 'himJII' (Wuptftn 0 •rvfllcin), whicll in the 11in,on,

is attributed explicitly to Prometheus and implicidy lo Zcm, .1ppean in
Worlr IINl Days explicitly in relation to Zeus. nc notion acblally
 The myth of Promethew in Hesiod
acquires a 1encraJ theological signifkance in the context of the relation
b<twttn Z.:u1 (the gods) and humanity.

1.4.4. The episode of the theft of fire is identical in the two versions.
The two versions of the creation of the first woman and/or Pandora
corrtspond exactly, though tht: account in the Works and Days is more
detailed: in each case, the feminine creature made by the gods for
humankind is presented as a parthenos ( an unmarried but nubile girl)
adorned for her wedding ceremony.

1.4.5. The two versions can thus ht treated as the components of a

single whole. Comparison between them helps to emphasize certain
features of the narrative logic. I distinguished earlier between two kinds
of action on the part of the agents in the intrigue: between (1) prepara-
tory actions - arranging and concealing, and (2) actions which involve
a relation to others - giving or not-givingi accepting or rejecting the
gift/not-gift. If we now compare the two accounts, these two kinds of
action may be seen no longer as merely superimposed or juxtaposed,
but as in concert.
For 'not-giving' is identical with 'hiding' (cf. Th. 56.3 'Zeus gave no
moft fire'; WD 50 'Zeus hid the fire'). So far as the gods are con-
cerned, no longer to give men a good hitherto freely available is to 'hide'
it from them. From this viewpoint, 'hiding (the means of) life' (i.e. com)
and thiding fire' are two ~pects of a single action. Originally com grew
on its own. a gift to men from the li.poopa ai.rroµan'/ ('the obliging
earth': WD 116-17). All they had to do was to bend down, pick it up
and cat. Afterwards, when com was 'hidden', cereals - that is, plants
that grow 'cooked' as opposed to 'uncooked' green vegetation, which
grows on its own - involve agricuhural labour (wcarisomeponos): the
land must be ploughed and the seed (sperma) buried in it to get grain.
Likewise, in the beginning heavenly fire was freely available to men on
the ash-trees where Zeus put it. Afterwards, it had to be buried 'in the
hollow of a fennel-stalk'; or its 'seed' preserved by hiding it in the
uhes (again sperma, cf. Odyssey 5.490: sperma puros associated with
the words ltrupuin and ltaluptein). Fire survived only when frd
(Herodotus 3.16); it had to be nourished continu~IJy. Lastly, m~n ong·
inally sprang up spontaneously from the ground, Just as com did !rum
the furrows and fire from the ash-tree. But henceforth men must tuil
for tht' female belly, which has to be fed like fire and ploughed like the
land, so that they may be able to bury their seed (sperma) in it.
But if the gods' 'not-giving' to men means 'hiding' so also docs their
'giving': since every gift from the gods is a dolos, an apati, a trick ur

49
Jean-Pierre Vemant
deception, and in fact withholdl what it pre~ 10 baEow - it looks
like dwe girt or a 1ood, a..n·iiMlihu an umern evil. In effect, • .- ....
things have been hidden (not-given) by the gods, men_ carn~ot havt
access to them except by way or the ills (pono1; womrn~ 1n ~•c? they
arc wrapped. And conversely, the gods' girts to men arc ills disgu11Cd u
goods. .
The opposition giving venus not-giving which seemed to domanate
the structure of the narrative thus resolves into two dirrercnt forms or
a single action 'hiding':
(1) •not-giving'-= 'hiding' a good so that it cannot be gained except by
way of the ills in which it is wrapped
(2) 'pving' ,. 'hiding' an evil under the seductive appearance or good.
'Ole narrative-logic reflects the ambiguity of the human condition, in
which, thanks to the gods' action in 'hiding', goods and ills whether
'given' or 'not-given' are always linked indissolubly. At the same time,
the story locatH humankind between beasts and gods, its status charac·
tcrizcd by sacriricc, the use or fire for cooking and for manufacture,
woman seen u wife but also as animal belly, com u staple food and
labour in the fields.

1.5. The discussion so far has dealt with the orpnization or the tex.t u
a nanativc, with its syntu and logic. We must now extend it, at a dif-
ferent level, by examining its semantic content, taking into account all
the details of the architecture of each cpitodc u well as the complez
network or relations between their constituent clements.
This will enable us to set u.p a third lcvcl, the structural contnt, or
more accurately the structure of the mental world (clusificatory
catq;orics, the pattemin1 Uld encoding of reality, the delimitation of
semantic fields) within which the mythical narratives were produced,
and which pmnits the modem interpreter to make them once again
fully intelligible in all their density of signification.

Level 2: Analyais of the scm•tic componcats

for brevity's sake, l offer the results of an analysi1 of the si.pifacant
dements in each episode in the form or meneral conchu.iobl. The
portions or the sacrificed ox, the stolen fire, the fmt-Woman/Pandon..,
and cereals u the staple of life - all four are related to on.e another by
homolocv and similarity in a number of difCcrcnt ways. These relatiom
we may summarize u fol10W1:

2.1. Pandor~ (at the story's end) corresponds to the pub of the sacri·
ficcd ox (at the outKt).
!O
 Tia~ myth of Prorndla~w in H~siod
2.1.1. She is an inviting gift offered by Zeus to men just as Prometheus
had offered Zeus the inviting portion of the carcass.

2.1.2. She ii a dolos, a trap, a deception, because her external appear·

ance conceals a reality totally at odds with it. In the case of the ox, the
eatable parts were concealed beneath the double covering of skin (n'no1)
and stomach (gastir), both rebarbative; the inedible parts were camou-
flaged by an appetizing layer of white fat (Th. 541: KC>Au-1,a,: ap-,in
6T111<i>l- As for Pandora, inside (WD 67: t.&!; 77, 79: tv 6" lipa) she has
the mind of a bitch, the habits of a thief and a voice (ail6~) designed
for deceit and subterfuge (WD 67, 78). But this inward 'bitchiness' -
the ·~u·, lalon - is concealed beneath a double layer of apparent
atttaction - the Judon, the 'fair': the physical looks of a girl no whit
inferior to the immortal goddesses; and the clothes and jewels in which
she is arrayed, especially her white robe (Th. 574: t,p,yu;iv ta6,jn; cf.
541) and the dazzling veil which hides her ( Th. 5 74-5: K<>AU!fTPT!•
tSm6crXb}11). The divine grace, the xapt(, that limns her penon and her
apparel makes her a snare (dolos cf. Th. 589; WD 83), concealing her
true animality - just as the appetizing white fat made the preferable
portion of the ox (Th. 544) offered Zeus into a snare (dolos cf. Th. 547,
551, 555, 560, 562) by covering over the uneatable bones.

2.1.3. She is agastir (Th. 599), a ravening belly that devours the bios, the
staple food that men get by agricultural labour (see WD 374, 704 for
this female voracity). The eatable portion of the ox which Prometheus
set apart for men is likewise placed inside the animal's gastir (here
'stomach'). Gastir means a container, a vessel in which food is cooked
(Ody.uey 18.44-5; Herodotus 4.61); but it also has another semantic
value: Prometheus's deception in hiding all the eatable parts inside the
animal's gastir condemns the human race henceforth to be unable to
live without eating, without filling this 'paunch' which concealed its
appointed diet of sacrificial meat. As slaves for evermore of this hateful,
wretched, baneful gastir - the source of all evils and worries, says
Ody11ey 15.344; 17.286, 474; 18.55 - men themselves are in danger of
becoming 'just like bellies' (Th. 26: 'YfflJ'f'Epot olaP; cf. Epimenides, FVS
1, p. 32 frg. Bl). Pandora embodies physically that 'bitch-belly' charac·
teristic of the human condition, sundered now by Prometheus's trick
from the gods. 'What is there', asks Odysseus, 'bitchier (,hntnon) than
the hateful gastir?' (Od. 7.216). And within Pandora Hermes hides a
lumeos noos, the 'soul of a bitch'.
But the voracity of the female belly is not merely directed towards
food: it is also for sex. In high summer - the Dogdays - women's
hunger for sex erupts in La,civious self-abandon (WD 586-7; cf. Alcacus,
51
Jean-Pierre Vemant
frg. 347.4 Lobcl-Pq:e). ~ · s bneo1 noOI involve, ffttacAlonfU,
'liotpaau',nolastha . . . . . .'

Z.2. Pandora corresponds also to Promethean fire, whDK counterpart.

or rcvetK, she is at several semmtic lcvclljustu she is in the nun.tivc·
structure (cf. bvrinptk: Tl&. 570, 585, 602; WD 57).

2.2.1. She is !int a dalos. Promethean fire acu as a mare in just the
same way u the portions of the ox and Pandora. It is hidden from view
inlide a fennel-stalk, the interior of which UI not damp but dry and
6brous and bums in secret. Put inside the hollow fennel (lP ,c,ofAlt,
l'Ctp6JJIU: Th. 567; WD 53), the stolen fire is concealed within• green
pbnt curled in the huld. But unlike heavenly fire, Promethean fire is a
hunpy fire: it dies whm not fed. It is also an engendered fire: to light
it you need a fire·'tced', lilr.c the one Promethcw hid in the fennel. jwt
u the (.-mer hides the com-seed in the belly of the earth, and the bu,-
band his seed in the belly of his wife.

2.2.2. Pandora also reveals herself as the counterpart of fire, as lrvrt'

,n,pd(, by being hcnelf a fire which bums men, shrivelling them up with
weariness and wony, by her two appetites and al.I the ills she brings
them. However strong a man may be (WD 705: ak, lJ:rep 5abio), she
bums him even without tinckr; and in the flower of his youth (W,,:d(,
'raw1 withen him to old age (Euripides, frg. 429 Nauck.11 ). M Palladas
of Alexandria (late 4th ~nL ADJ put it, in a slo11 on Hesiod: 'M the
price of fire Zeus pvc w llllOther fire, women .. , Fire will go out, but
woman is an inextinpishablc fire, full of heat and ever flaring up ...
She bums man up with worries, rats him away, tnnsmutct his youth
into premature old age' (Ands. Pal. 9.165.1-4 cf. 166 (Stadtmullcr] ).

2.2.3. Pandora is characterb.cd finally by her ~l,.lopon itlicn, her

'thieving disposition' (WD 67), further noted in WD 375: 'Who trusts a
woman trusts a thief.' To the "stolen' fire which Prometheus cunningly
filched from Zeus and gave to men then: cOl'ft'sponds it, 'rncrac', the
'thicvin1' fire which Zeus in revenge palmed off on foolish Epimetbeua
- Prometheus's own 'revcnc' - IO as to ruin mm.

2.J. Pandora corresponds to bios, the staple which U\11 'hides' alons
with hlS heavenly fire; just u Promethcu1 hid meat in the g,utir of the
ox, and the seed of stolen rll'C in the fennel-ttalk. The belly ol the
woman, which man must till in order 10 implant hil seed if he wutl
children, is like the belly of the earth whicb. man nnalt till if he wanLI
com - because Zcu1 has hiddal bio, wilhin it. Plato ohlcrvc1 that
52
 Th, myth of Prom,th,w in H,liod
woman imitates the earth in pn,gnancy and childbinh (Memxmus
2!8a). Moreover, 'Pandora', All-gi.fts', is one of the names of Earth,
1

because, we are told, she freely grants us all that is needful for life. That
is why she is called zndoros, fruitful; and why another of her names is
Anisidora, 'she who Knds gifts up from below' (Scholiast on Aris-
tophanes, Birds 972, p. 229 Dindorf [4.3]; Hesychius and Etymo-
loficon .lf.,..um s.v. '.A."'1at6wpa [1,5096, Latte;p.108.31 Gaisford]).
This l'Olc of Pandora-Ancsidora as the giver of good things hidden in
the earth is emphasized in painting and sculpture: her fruitfulness is no
longer due to the spontaneous bountifulncu of the 'obliging fruitful
earth' (t•l&.ip~ lipovpa odwo,.ani: WD 117-18) as in the golden age,
but a fruitfulness which demands now agricultural labour, toil {Panos),
ploughed fields (fffG), At Phlius, near Corinth, the title Ancsidora was
given to Demeter, in association with Ge, Earth (Pausanias 1.31.2).
Marriage, which entered human life with Pandora, is of coune a sort of
ploughing in which the woman is the furrow (a,oura) and the man the
ploughman (arotff). At this level, the female belly adds to its appetitive
and sexual meanings (what the belly docs in consumption and consum-
mation) an association, linked fundamentally to marriage, with the pro-
creation of children and the production of grain - what the female
belly first hides and then brings forth; and which cannot be produced
except by way of this belly, which first 'hides' it.
It will be clear, despite the limitation of this analysis to the major
aspecu of the myth, that the grammar of the narrative (the logic of the
actions) and the semantic content arc closely linked. The narrative logic
operates by a process of inverted equation: for the gods in their dealings
with men, both "giving' and 'not-giving' = 'hlding'. The grammar of the
narrative also has a semantic function: for men good things arc hidden
in ills; and ills arc either concealed within goods, or else invisible. The
entire system of semantic relations is articulated about the same theme,
which is illustrated and developed at several levels and in numerous
directions by the network of correspondences. Their interaction gives
substance to the underlying idea that, beneath all its forms and in all its
divenc aspects, human life is set thanks to divine 'concealment' in a
world of good and evil mixed, of ambiguity, of doubleness.

Level 3: The social-cultural context

Prometheus's trick set the seal on the sundering of men from gods by
instituting the sacrificial meal in its usual form. Among the inevitable
consequences and corollaries of this act 11I'C (st~len) fire, women and
marri.agt' (which imply birth through procrcanon, _and death), the
cultivation of com and agricultural labour. These different clements
53
Jean-Pierre Vemant
form so cloK a texture in the myth that they compose an indivWhk
whole~ .·,~~, ·
A number of points can be made:

3.1. This complex of relations wu used throughout ~~«k _paganism as

a framework for a definition of the human condioon in terms of
features which distinguish it both from the gocb and from the animals.

3.2. At the level of ~ institutions, sacrificial practices, the use of

rll't', marriage-rites and agricultural institutions arc all multifariously
linked. ~ a ritualized kind of cooking, the sacrificial meal involves
fire: the portion given to the gods is bumed on the altar, while the eat·
able parts must be boiled or roasted for men tu cat. Sacrifice is also
related diversely to mpiculture: domestic animals (sacrificed) and wild
animals (hunted) are at the same relative distan« from men as are cul-
tivated plants (seen as "cooked1 and wild plants (seen as 'raw'). This
intimate connection between animals used for sacrifice and cultivated
plants is emphasized in the ritual procedure in sacrifice, where barlcy-
grains and wine ue included u put or the process of killing and bum·
ing the ritual victim.
Links between maniagc and api.culturc are to be found in the orpn·
ization 0£ the pantheon, in marriage rituals, in religious festivals such u
the Thesmophoria, and in a whole l'UllC of other myths.

3.3. Each of the characteristics selected by the myth sou to distinguish

men from the godt is equally relennt to the distinction between men
and animals. Two rules govern the choice of the food cotuumed at
sacrifices: men do not cat meat of just any kind (abo,•e a.II, not human
Dcsh); and they eat it cooked. Hesiod hlm1Clr contrasts thit with the
carnivorous and cannibal ha.bits of animals, which eat one anoUK'r (WD
277-8). In one mythical uadition (to be found in Aeschylus's
Promethflu Bound and Plato's Proea,ora.r), the sipificance of the fll't'
which Prometheus steals ii not 10 much its sundering of hcavc-n and
earth as its education of mankind from primitive bestiality. Fire here is
"technology', the source or all the skills known to the busy mind of
man. Marriqe too marb a clear division between man and mimals,
who couple without rules, crudely, with any othu mcm~r of the
species which happens to be ~und. Asain, the gods are iauoortal
because they do not C"at brt:ad or drink wine (/IIM '6.Ul-2); and
animals likcwitc ~noccnt of thete cultivated foods: they arc eitM'r
camivorous or thtfy eat raw vegetation.
In both the Theo1orry and Wo'*r o.nd Dt,ys ilniod's narraliVC" makel
Prometheus the agent of the divorce betwcm gods ancl mm: he atTntct
54
 Thi! myth of Promtthf!w in Hf!siod
the cstran~mcnt of each from the other. But disLancc from the gods
implies as a corollary distana from the animals. What the myth of the
institution of sacrifice defines is the very status of man between animals
and gods. If we arc to interpret the text at all its levels of signification,
if we arc to extract the entire gamut of its implications, we must set it
in a much wider context: we must sec its relation to the sources for
other versions of the myth, widen our enquiry to include other groups
of myths concerned with the origins of civilization, and take account of
social practices.

3.4. If we do this, we shall better understand Pandora's rOle in the story.

Pandora's double nature is virtually a symbol of the ambiguity of human
existence. She betrays all the tensions and dualities which arc inherent
in mU1's status between animals and gods. In her beautiful exterior,
rivalling that of the immortal goddesses, Pandora reflects the splendour
of the divine; but her 1bitch-soul', her 'bitch-temper', reduces her to the
level of the animals. Through marriage, which she represents, and
through the articulate speech and force Zeus commanded she be
endowed with, she is fully human (WD 61-2: b 6'a•6pw,rou 61µ••
aii6iw KW' o9tPO('). Yet this humanity which she shares with men as
their companion (the inevitable rcvene of maleness) is itself ambiguous.
Because she speaks the language of men, because she can talk to them,
she belongs to humankind; but she is ancestress of a -ytllO( 7u11CWCWII', a
'race of women', which is neither identical with nor totally dissimilar
from male mankind. The articulate speech which Zeus gave to her as
well as to men is not, for her, a means of saying what is, of conveying
truth to othcn; but of hiding truth in falsehood, of giving verbal
existence to that which is not - a way of triumphantly ensnaring the
minds 0£ her male partnen (WD 78).

3.5. Pandora's fundamental ambiguity is matched by that of Elpis,

Hope, who remains behind in the house with her (WD 96~7) trapped in
the belly of the jar (WD 97: V'll'O XEilEaw), after all ~e ills have flown
away among men. If human life were all pleasure, as m the ~olden age,
if all ills were still safely shut up in the jar (WD 115-16), 1t would be
meanlllgless to hope for anything other than :-"hat is; ?r if life were
totally and irredeemably in the hands of evil and misfortune (WD
200-1), there would be no place for hope. But since henceforth ill is
mixed inextricably with good (Th. 603-10; WD 178 cf. 102), so ~hat
we mav not foresee exactly how things will tum out, we go on hopmg:
if men, had unerring foreknowledge like Zeus th~y would have no use
for Hope; if they lived entirely for the moment, 1~orant of the future
and indifferent to its wares, they would also be mnocent of her. But
55
Jean-Pierre Vcmant
they are fixed between the clear foresight or Prometheus and the blank
m.yop_ia of £pimcche.............. bctMcn thali withoat eaia ~
able to clismtansle them. They know beforehand that suffering, illMII
and death arc im~\'itablc; but ignorant or the precise lincamcnb of mis-
fortune, they rccoptze it only when it has struck and it is too late.
Immortal beings such as the gods have no need or Hope; and she is
not known to the animals, who do not know that they arc mortal. Man
is mortal like the beasts. Ir, like the 1ods, he could fores« all tht £ututt,
ir he dwelt entirely in the realm of Prometheus, he would not have the
strength to endure, because he would not be a.bit to face his own
extinction. ~ it is, he ii aware that he must die, but knows neither its
time nor ill manner. So Hope. which is foresight but blind (Aeschylus,
Promdllnu Bound 250; d. Plato, Gorgilu 523d--e), • saving illusion,
both Sood and bad, Hope LI the one thing that allows men to endure
this ambiguous, divided existence, the consequence of Prometheus's
deceit in the institution of the lint sacrificial meal. Ever since, every-
thin1 has had its dark race: no communication with the sods which i1
not also, in sacrifice, the acknowledgement that bctwttn mortals and
immortals there lies an impauable barrier; no fortune without mis,
fortune; no birth without dcath;no plenty without toil;no Promcthcw
without Epimctheus. And no Man without Pandora.

56
4. Sacrificial and alimentary codes in
Hesiod's myth of Prometheus
Jnn-Pltm: Vtmanl (1977)
The significance of Greek sacrifice is defined for us in one particular
myth: 1£ we push the analysis far enough, the myth suggests an undcr-
standmg both of the structure of ideas upon which the sacrificial ritual
is based, and of the enormous range of evocations it carried. In one
episode o~ the The.ogony, parts of which arc picked up in Works and
Days, Hcs10d dcscnbcs how Prometheus set himself up as Zeus's rival,
and how he tried by trickery, lies and deception to attain his own ends
by thwarting those of the King of the Gods. The first outcome of this
battle of wits between Titan and Olympian was the ritual distribution
of those parts of the sacrificed domestic animal - here a large ox
supplied, killed and dismembered by Prometheus - which were assigned
on the one hand to men, and on the other to the gods: to the fint, the
meat and the entrails thick with fat - everything one can cat; to the
second, the bare bones burned on the fire with a little fat and aromatic
spices at the sacrificial altars. 1 The a.etiological value of this sequence in
the myth is explicitly stressed by the text: 'And thus it is that the race
of men upon earth bum white bones to the immortal gods upon fragrant
altars' (lines 555-6), and has been rccognlZed by most commentaton.
But only the narrowest implications have been elicited. Almost
always it is undentood as an explanation of a particular, indeed minor,
aspect of the ritual, ~ a response to a kind of paradox supposedly
presented to the religious consciousness of the Greeks by a detail in
the blood sacrifice (which was also a meal) that later became incompre-
hensible. Sacrifice was supposedly an offering bestowed upon the gods
to pay them honour and to gain their favour; how then to explain that
it was not the best morsels that were set aside for them, but the parts of
the animal that were inedible - the junk, as it were? But to confine the
significance of the first part of the text to this one point is simply to
condemn oneself to supposing that it is more or less gratuitous, and to
misunderstand the links between it and the following sections which
give the myth its meaning as a whole. If the fiBU:re of Prometheus, _his
ri\"alry with Zeus, his fmal come-uppancc, the cnllrc talc told by Hesiod
in the long passage of the Theogony whi_ch deals _with the children ?f
lapctus (507-616), only deals with sacnficc entirely by the way, m
passing, then we ha,·c to admit that Hesiod's choi« of Prometheus is
57
jean-Pierre Vemant
pretty arbitrary. Prometheus would have been made respon.sible for_a
ycrifidal ritual whose ~liptlfK"Ulct' Hesiod h2d no Ink~ UI
ttYealing by placing it within a complex theologicaJ ~yst~; h e ~
only have wanted to find an ad hoc explanation by inventing a fairy·
story, as one makes up a fib to justify oneself after the event.
On this view what relation could there pouibly be between the first
act in the Prome,theus saga and those which follow it in Hesiod's ~nion;
between the cutting up of the ox and the ritual allocation of its parts
on the one hand, and on the other, the theft of fire ( Act the Second)
and the creation of the first woman (which concludes the dltmal
dnma)? He1iod must have bundled together into the same tu.t quite
disparate elements; quite artificially have attached to the tnditional
theme of the theft of fire an utiological myth desiped to account for
what seemed to him peculiar about sacrificial ritual, and off the top of
his head a tanadiddle about the origin of women that betrays his own
private antifeminist 'philosophy'. It would then be quite a.s vain to hunt
in the myth for a coherence which does not exist as to expect to derive
from it some und~tanding of the nature and function of sacrifice.
But this will no longer do. Fint, because it stems from a view of
mythical habits of thought which belongs to the past. But more precisely
- more concretely too - because the text contradict, it at every tum.
Hans Schwilhl (1966: 73-85) has shown that even at the formal level
the Prometheus episode follows in its mode of composition ttrict rules
which give the whole an undeniable unity, give it a strictly logical and
unified character. This coherence is equally marked at the nanative
level: Hetiod underscore, in the logical relationship between the epi·
sades the perfect continuity of the account, and mak.es quite evident
the necessary dependence: of each episode upon the one that precedes
it, It is because Zeus never forgets for an instant the deception or which
Prometheus has been guilty in granting men the meat from the sacrificed
animal (Th. 562), that he determints henceforth to deny men hi.a
(heavenly) fire. And it is because he catches sight of the fire sc:cretly
stolen by the Titan (Th. 569) merrily blazing on earth, that in return
for this new gift-by-deception that men enjoy he offen lhmi for his
part the third and final gift·by·deception: the fint woman, 'fire't
counter-gift' (Th. 570). The action proceeds accordin& to an impeccable
logic from start to finish, to conttitute a drama whote succcu.ive suces
ta.kc their strictly necc:saary places in I.he narra1ive tequmce. Flflally, I
have shown in the previous study (above, p. 50-3) that on the: sematitic
level there is a dense structure of 1ymbolic relations between the thane,
employed in each section of the story of Prometru'us: lD the unfoJdin1
of the narrative, each event is linked with others; and by the end, they
constitute: u a whole a coherent coraposition whose every constituent
58
 SacnJicial and aliment•,y codes in Hesiod
put is related in a quite strict manner to every other. At the diachronic
lev~I?'. the accou~t, the episode of the theft of fire has a mediating
r61e: 1t is through lt, and by means of it, that the link is made between
the first se~ti~n (the ~eception, dolos, of Prometheus in the assignment
ol th< sacnficial portions) and th, last (th• de«ption, dolos, ol Zeus in
assigning to men the first woman). Again, it is through it that the
revcna.1 of the activity and of the relative position of the acton takes
place: in the fint episode, the initiative, the deception, is Prometheus's
- ~eus appe~ _to be tricked, 3 men receive from the Titan the gifts in
which they reJotce; after the theft of fire,just the reverse: the initiative,
the deception, become Zeus's - it is now he who 'gives' to men, but the
happiness men experience at receiving the divine gift is nothing else
than the trap in which they lll"C' about to be ta.ken, and indeed, in a
wider sense, the symbol of mortal man's misery.
From this perspective, the final episode is simply the inevitable con-
sequence of those which came before. Here, as in a mirror, are reflected,
arranged and ordered all the earlier events; through it, they illuminate
each other to ta.kc on their true significance which can only be revealed
at the very end. The 'trap' that is woman has then to make its entrance
before the true nature of Prometheus's 'trap' for Zeus can be finally
understood - when the Titan 'fiddles' the portions of the sacrificial
animal so as to bestow upon men the benefit of all the meat: the good
part, upon which men congratulate themselves (as they congratulate
themselves on the 'beautiful evil' that Zeus bestows upon them in the
penon of the Woman), turns out in reality to be the bad. The petard
set by Prometheus to hoist Zeus devastates mortal men as it blows up in
his facei and fire itself, which Prometheus stole, for all its benefits, is a
gift no less ambiguous than the first female human-being - all decked
in perilous allure.,
These sequences arc too intimately related within the narrative tex-
ture, and their symbolic values too overlapped, for it to be possible to
isolate them and treat them separately. We must take the myth for
what it is, not an assemblage of disparate episodes but a single story;
and understand that in this coherent whole the relationship linking
blood sacrifice Prometheus's fire and the creation of woman can be the
result neither ~f serendipity nor of an author's whimsy: they arc neccs·
sary, necessary in the sense that they are of the. very essence of t~e
myth and fulfil the function Hesiod assigns them m the context of h11
Tllrogony. All lhrough the struggle betwee~ Tit~'s supple _cunn~g ~d
the unbending intel.nce of Zeus what 1s ulumately at issue 1s this:
the rules which define man's estate, the mode of life appropriate for
men now. The ritual of sacrifice is presented as the initial consequence
and as the most immediate expression of the gulf opened between gods
59
Jea.h.·ficrr.c Vernant -t ;r
and men on the day tl\at fr()mcthcu-s cntt'tcd upon his.rebellious Cbunc,
Tfic m) th links sacr1 ice to primc\.,l even\) "'·hich have made men whilt
they arc-,.dp~mc~ 10 duth,' dweifi..ng upOrl the cartb,J ,trou~lcd bf .•lls
w.ir,hout nUnJbct, • C41ting b.ulc\ tpm ~Ne field ~h'Cy work. d_":dhng
'With fcma1'C' sp"lucs.1 aJJ ,n alt,- tri~c -of ,crtaturn utterly cv.J. ~ff
1
fr'om tb_osc, ~o whdat: iq tbc!b~ping-fhcy_t,rcre- yet so f.}osc, Liv1'1g .U
they did iJ} ,<:Q,mn\cnsa.Utx with tJ'frm, ,11tun at the ,am~ µ.bks- Mlcl
sh~i>g 1'1C' same.., ft:iit.s• L th $ SJcss•d lmnfort:Us, ~ ~ho d"'·tll ,i~
hu,J!·n, nourishc e ambrofo, ..up, to ;)\'bor&_ I.here now waft.s .the Jmok•
o(bl,l.mt-orfcriogs . t The sat fi~~~pisode i1 neither se_s:y ndary nor an
aftcrtH.b_u ·~11 lt ijcs at the _CC&Qt?t .?' ft\(-q,tth. {t1~ nothmjftO d"p Wilh
'cxplain!llg' an oqsLdctail n). lhc ni,µa.1, that ban.es '1cre bumr:,b) p9mt-
ing oµt the dirferfncc h«"twccb t ost:- prut1Qns thcn·l=d in ncrificc for
the goQs 1-!ld th~(' for men. i~.thig~li8,htl the ~1f_ W:hid1 ~ver after
~paritcs 1hem + lbc fac i'h t t~Cy belong~ h Q, d,IDncr-tritJcs.,Jun
as the carlic.r ~lo! iic s w d,P'l'.tisc in my.th b) meaSu (>f't ~c inta,gc of
:i. cpmmynit 1of ba.nquctca fca..1UnR tpg"U{_cr. to sq>arauon now IS
mark.ec!..b.y tl1c c~nlTjl.St b"t\V"fCO'\\\'O( alimcntll)·"Tnodes. The opposi1ion
!x:.t:wem i.hcic ro.nns is' writW\ Q ~ ncii\- hC~rt' _ tfic rituaJiand }C.l
the...ritual is a means or ·c r~ttng a link-, mmuni~non. hctwc(n the
S'undc'tcd tri~s - it tritt, )o. (a.,;l.fj_t"-c;an, t> build:.a, bridge £rpm c:,vth
tOt1i.ea\TcQ.
'Q\c su.~ect of~lct 's ro~I\Cnt in. tht m.yth tljlt'n;and it rcsonatc_J LJl
0

rttan) diffdcol.wa~s. Sic~5CC. is gre;cntcd .u a h}~~.at ,v¥ch one cats-

mcat. But 1hi1 ci11og or roea~ js bcd'gcd .l.bo1.,1t '"1th a whole -scncS' or
cpnst,rainO; :tDd rdtri io s_; Iris. fir 9£ lU, ilmitc::d to l:crt;r,in specie$
of ,lJ\irn~, c,ttlu.dm q .n. P,i;,~i.J~ n;ics go ~ow the l?cas . L1
killed, cut "Up, d iv ded Ou\, jtrcpar'dd- ar<d c::atep. .F'ina\l), d;1e meal is
pvtly rdlgiQ1,1J m irlJ~ntioi\ · il s to .hono\lf !,he gods bx inl(it.illg
them to join a. (c~, whith is-)-t}u!', at Jc.1.St.in thcOf). their .own-.i da'is
Jht'Qn -'- irJ SS):rr,e Sfll dteYI '1C! pre ·, \, ahd' they may either acc,pt or
' rcJcct tM ojJ~ng..l• &i!Ptifice is,.ah.: .ali.mcnr.lry ri1..ujL); and 8' . th )S
docs not simply iJ ·~QWJ'l th6 e:Oqs(it,ons .ondcr '1Yhis:h an animaJ ma)'I t>e
killect fof consufpllon, undcf. w1rn::h mer ttH}" Iicitl). ind indeed with
p1et , cat it. It is dirert.~d to"'(ffds t.hc: 1,Qds. lt cl.a.im1 to link thCJTI with
~htr tanqur~rs 1 the joyful so\emoitv o(l the feast. And it ihercforc
cyokc$ the mt;mQry Qt that f9rrt\c::.r .c ;.ommfo,~11y 1 v,hen men md ijOds
together pu,cd da)' after day in ha py commo11 fq,tinK But thqu~h
p.s:rifice l09ks b::ac~ to the ~Qff day1 of the Colden A,gc "'+ien men
,vu li\'cd 'like th~ go s' anfihar,d thcjr rood, without thought{')( ifls,
totl, _sickpc1i1, o)d agt- or of womanlund,11 u t1 not the lt'ss tf\lc that tll
11.S "cry struc.\ur'c II rcgistcu that that bltncd time when mJ'R an<J gods
Jus,tcd togctt,:cr is ffiot'r for <.\'.Cr For it tu aside for the gods' a1tentiorl
60 <·
 -
codt;J in Hrsiod
,.
Jnn·Pierft Vcmant ,
charactnistic or men as op~;ed' to gods. In doing-so, ht LS linlU?!i; th1,1 ,
fint ~ction of th myth of Prometheus to the maJ.or tr,1dmon _of
rdi · us thY,k'n(. o fa,r_from inno lJ_ing tfc«:, 9r J~cu:ig thC' _mcjU'l1ng
pf Sprdt, or !aking 9 i;diJ!ary nationS mote soph1stlou:d 1' hi5, ~cc~unt

.
rests fir.ml}' .on thf d rdtoary' stmantic o{ ~c langu.~ of sacnfjco. ,
,,
Tp, ndcrstand th~d fofm of Grcck--p cr1ficc WhiCV_·nfq:l~~d lfi~ c~~ing qf
meat, one has th<.n tr takli f\esidd's ~fcoll.(ll cnui;t~~ J~mwsl}: \\.c nru,t
study he tc,xt ~-lo~y, without as um g,Y,1t an ·thing 1, non-J1gn1~c~nt.
And we myst c.ompar~ the t o \~ io1 ~ in i,hl_ Tlrcqg9f"Y and m the
Works apd DaJs, ta~ng not Of <\gtcemcnts and d1,c11cne1~_._ .
firs fall, ·,,rha.t. iS' t.h~ context g( the Prometheus epiaodc m each
poem? Ap~ ~O'i da,:s th~ cq_l\J.~x fid.p;.10 elucidate the status of th.c
ritua;l? For the Tlu;o(<J"Y.- t,here 1s nP, d1£fic.uliy. The work as a whok '.s
de\·ou:;d to tQ.C orjgjnl, the bi'i""th, ut hatJks and .~lie \'kton· or Zeus, hu
fombl s~i{µrc 1 f overcignt)' b : alnj of which he successfully euah·
lis~cs, over ag ·nst the former r~g_,m'- the (qund~t16_}u or a permanently
¥\able au~onty w'hich. c . l)t.v, t f,c. ov~rc:pro or ~h.J.cn. Zai 's
atcc~~on t Q lhc in om ot e~-..~ doe~ no mcc_c l :i.1gniry, as the tcx(
str.cssfs t thrc~ ..scpu~tC poiou. f~~ ~dcri"ng of all things for t~c gods,
a tl,rii.t _di\-is1on ~l~eCI) thc.m ~ l · 'fiO~oiJT$. powe and pTl\,Jcgc~;u
"'ilOng w1t'1 the s6 u:rc1go wfi"o IO)indccf It, this c 1m1c order I to exist
ll)~p((,for.th unchang~d a.J\i) cJriWgibJl
t, a poem in w'hich C\'~r;) thing \ ~ plac:t at the_ ie)·el of t e god\,
:u,ton~ the r>~s.f 1h~ce is nq p)~ for. .\n ac.c oynt.. of the.p rij,'lns qf_ .me,o
in iho ~r9pe,: scn\C· We learn how thC odt came into ing, not J1Jffl. 0

'tht Tlteogtmy (l~s 11,ot a S¥hcthCr Gala, the Ea.r:th. l)o~ them'.,
wh_c,her \J(c.'( wcrt crcatc4 b); Zd"us: jU)d t.l\c immofj.aJs, or whether the)
were born 9£ .th hi ted"'titan/ a ~s. 31 tic; Orphic fr.tdJtjon h\l,d II ,
1

Newrthelnl men .i.re· f>y=-scf\l l c ·Ylarratht, !"hey ppcir ..Jl of a

Nd.den.. au ring the courSC"o{ a.partjd...lar; episode, that de.,,otCd b)' fleJod
to, tile d.cice 4anl.l of bpctu~ TT}6(e precisely. to his sr,m frorpctJie·us;
TI)-cfc is n quc:s\ion or an ~cou[l. of i.,hc keilc l5 of m..a,nk,ind, Slfch z
(U\( might c~pc~t i a pocrv abQu tht Crciyon. Tlt tc.1} "IJ)Ca)ss or men
~ ~c.i~ur9 alrea<J.y \n exiu net, d elling witl) tht g('ldS, still amoJll
thcm. 11 Th~ r~sulr 9f PfQmcth~th·'s actiqn is 1\.0t tft girc ttiem an
existc:n¢e they alrc.i(l.y ha~, but to dcfirrc the.it sr,atu as n\prt.W o,·cr
~tinst !he: Blessed rmmbrta.1$. Thi, lo,ation hu.mai)Jtv, this ciTCum'
scrjption o( the modes of life appropri~tc tQ iT. ;md which' in.-kc it a racc-
awt, II aQ1ievcP b means of d1,.i1.ion bctwe('n men and gA<h of wh.a
belongs to e~h. At ~us's rcqu~t: or 1,t lc-t with his a~cmmt,
fromclh~us undertakes to m,11'$ th 1, dccisi\le allocation And the method
,h.c uks lS pre ·,cly the c;utting up, and the di.vision 'of tht- p.t of the
62. ...,.
 Sacrificial and alimentary codes in Hesiod
sacrificial victim (Th. 537 6aaaa1m«; 544 6,e6aaaoo µol;,w;). The son
of l~u.1 cuts up the sacrificed animal and allots it in two portions,
one for gods and one for men ; and this determines the division between
the two races - the dividing up of the animal both occasions and
declares the opposition between their two statuses. In and through the
sacrifice the gulf between mortals and Immortals opens and remains
opeo; along this line of the division of the parts of the victim is set the
frontier between the everlasting youth of the Olympian gods, masters
of heaven, and thi5 ephemeral sort of existence that men must evermore
on earth shuffle on to become themselves.
Mankind then has become what it is thanks to a division anaJogous
to that effected by Zeus in relation to the gods ever since his accession
to the throne, when he cuablishcd for each his proper domain and his
privileges. is But in the divine rcaJm this division follows two clearly
contrasted principles. In the case of his enemies, his rivaJs for the
sovereignty of heaven, the Titans and Typhocus, it is effected by
violence and repression (Th. 882: rq.a&c,.w Kpivavro fJl11ff),); exiled to
Tartarus, the routed gods arc put out of action - stripped of aJI honour
(atffl101) they arc excluded from the ordered world. By contrast, in the
case of the Olympians and their aJlies, the division is hannonious and
consensual. What then of the division from which men derive their
rtatut? It stems neither from brute violence nor from mutual agreement;
not imposed by force yet not decided in common: it is effected by a
process fundamentally ambiguous, multifarious, devious. On the one
hand. the violence is disguised as its opposite - smiles, flattery,
affability, paraded respcct. 16 On the other, agreement and negotiation
figure merely as subterfuges to conceaJ the reaJ means by which one's
opponent is constrained against hi, will. Instead of the overt struggle
which effected the division between Titans and Olympians we have a
KUerrilla war, a trial by stealth and duplicity. in which the game is to
catch the monkey by hoisting him on his own petard. Instead of an
agn-ement in good faith between victorious allies to effect a fair
division, we find deceit, a game of bluff in which public asseverations
arc alway, uttered with a forked tongue.
This negotiation by guile corresponds to the ambiguous status of
men in relation to the gods: they arc joined to them, and at the same
time separated from them, Men arc not sufficiently dangerous thre.1ts
to Zeus to compel him to eliminate them in an a11-out strug~k, .in>
more than they arc equals with whom he has to forge an alliance b~ a
straightforward division of privilege." Along with all mortal creatures,
such as the beasts of the field, they exist at another l<"vcl than the gods,
they ate separate, strmgcrs to the world of divinity. And yet, alone
among mortaJ creatures, and by contrast to the beasts, their way of life
63
Jean-Pierre Vcmant
implies a constant rc£erencc to and a special rcJatioll with the super·
natural lowers. Each ci•tzA s munity ii linked to ... ~ ..='~
by mcms of an orpnized rtligiow cult, utd so in a mense hu nr- •
that world.
This arnbiguit)' of status, dUI ,q,aration in unity with the pds, nigh
but far, is reproduced up to a point by Prometheus himself .in the .divine
world. On every measure his status in relation to Zeus 11 eqwvocal.
Though a Titan, he did not take his brothcn' part in the Battle or ~he
God, against the Olympian. He is not Zeu1'1 enemy: he even, according
to Aeschylus, planned the victory. Equally, he wu not to be uttt'rly
excluded from the world, shut up in the ckpthl of Tartarus. But hC'
could hardly be said to have been an absolutely trusted friend. At the
very heart of Zeus's ordered world, there he is, a rival, a very present
threat inside the circle of Olympian gods. His claim to recognition -
almost a revolt - is mo the voicr of what the world contains, in con·
trut to the godJ, of negativity, of IJl'Atuitous suffering, of inczplicablc
and arbitrary nil. And NI challenge is the more dan~rous in that it is
dtployed precisely where Zeus believes himself supreme - the realm of
qu.ick-wittedness, acuity, foresight, the domain of 'know-how' in wbicb
men also claim to have their shan:. The fnaits of a subtle and fertile
mind Prometheus cmploY1 to benefit humanity at the expense of the
gods, trying to spare: them the ills inscpanblc from mortality and to
obtain for them the blcuinp the &ocb rc1ervc to themselves. 11 lf he
teeredy opposes Zeus's plans in canyin1 out what he was told to do, it
is because he hopes, by dosing the pp between gods and mm so far as
possible, to mW men into crcatutt1 somehow like himself, truly
Promethean crcatura, who should be neither entirely separate, di1tant,
inferior and 1uppra1Cd (as Zeus wants them to be), nor yet quite inti·
mate, close, equal and united (as the Blesscd Immortals arc one to the
othn); but at a half-way point, occupying a mt:dian status that recalls
his own mediatin1 function, his own ambiguous ?014:- u hostile ally,
abetting antagonise., prisoner at large, pardoned sinner, redeemed and
reconciled rebel.
Prometheus the Titan represents, in this cpilode of the Thloprry, 1
questionmark - inscribed by a god nifficiently near to men to wish
them close to the gods - against an Olympian order which has ordained
for that special clau of beinp called human, with whom the- Titan
shares a special relationship, exhausting toil, the alow decay of pbytia.l
strength, pain, sickness, death, all that evil which constitutes thr radical
invenioa of what it i, to be divine. lf he had defeated Zeus in this trial
by deceit upon which they entertd OVC'I' the divilion b,tweca men and
sad•, sacrir.c:e would have guaranteed to men admiaion to thai non,
monal existence for which they arc always doomed to search. FailMri:
6'
 Sacrificial and alimmtary code1 in He1iod
ma111 not only that the ritual or sacrifice becomes the act by which the
aboohite apartheid of the two is symbolized, but that the split is glossed
with the character of a justifiable and irremediable Fall, whose legiti-
macy mortal men arc forced to recognize each time they enter into
eommunication with the powers above following the rules of
Prometheus's sacrifice.

It is the location or this episode within the account as a whole, and a

number of details in the text, that provide a thorough theological justi-
fication for the concatenation of evils which Prometheus unleashed.
Paradoxically enough, Prometheus is him.self said to be good, kindly
(eiis: Th. 565; WD 50). But the favour he shows to men is merely the
inve?K, the mask, or his secret malevolence towards Zeus. His one-
sidedncu (llnerozilOS, Th. 544) in making the division betrays his
desire to subvert the dispositions or Zcu1'1 sovereign order. The ends he
darkly purposes in performing the task of distribution allocated to him
a.re an expression of his fundamental rivalry with Zeus (fflZeto boultu:
Th. 534). The Fall of man is thus linked directly to the spirit of com-
petition, jealousy and strife - in a word, nis, dark daughter of Night -
that slips. thanks to Prometheus, insidiously into the Olympian gods'
aethcrial world. That world is a stranger to nis. More precisely, with
Zeus as king, it ought not to know any sort of ffll. It cunc into beinc
through open confiicti the victory of the Son· of Cronus ended that
conflict but it also relegated the time of conflicu between the gods to a
time before the Olympian order, just as it relegated the enemy powen
to a place beyond the sway of the lmmortals. 19 A passage in the
Theogony makes it clear that if nevertheless some conflict or discord
(fflS lt.ai neikos) docs arise between the Blessed Ona, there is a pro-
ccdurr laid down to expel the pcnon responsible without debate or
delay: he is fint deprived of conscioumess, breath, life, and wrapped in
the sleep of death; and then he is excluded from the councils and
banquets enjoyed by the Immortals.'°
But if we take the episode of Prometheus as an account of an ~ru
between a god and Zeus, the whole thing constitutes within the
Theogony a narrative of a thoroughly paradoxical rivalry: paradoxical
both because it is quite different from other such stories and because- it
involves, aucially, creatures who arc not gods. Compared with tin·
quarrel between Olympians and Titans, the differen_ccs art". plain.
Prometheus's eris is not an open war, duly declared. It 11 not aimed at
seizing power. makes no claim to Zeus's throne. It docs not take place
before his victory, before his foundation of order and the division of
privilege. It offen no threat to his ,ovcrcignty; it seeb to change it
from within, by worlung uncfasround. Neither is it comparable to that
65
 Jcan-PinTc Vcmant • ,~·.
other ens amonR the Immortals 10 whid't thC 11arogon-j aih.ide , w~os~
wh.iuon in a divine socict> :Urcady firmly cstabhsht'd and organucd
is....p/oYJdW for u\. ad\'ilf'C..t' by t c Auaiti udic~ PfOCC urc or npul·
, !ign. , ·0 , yet ,e!pc.s fromc.tl'icus' t'h:t' occ'1 after the ~ta:bli.s.hrrfcnt of
thi{ order, apy 'rq6rc: tl\iln it ant~atc 1t: m the rn ·1_t,. JI occurs a.t he
t',. $am,c l ime; a.s t ~ found, tjon Q Zeus'.s _o ~c;lc~ ~rnc1d~htall\i WI~ ha
,a: othC'r org.LJ\intiq.n11 ~ .ks~ Or r-ath~l'l ll 1:'0J1'Cldcs with, ~ parucu_lar
aspect of t;u s dispos'itiq n1 o'ne ch ,s o~t, mere fonpht) ; ~d l'-t'iiqi
is problcrn11.uc' Dea.use it cop~cms .mbigu9u,s and puz.zhrig crcatutts ,
wh1;>sc .status simply 114l tq... be the esuh., f.>f otch.cd, ~ mprom1K,
some sort of R.ca~aftcr a stru Id ci ~ t\. di\n'nc a":rnmc who bJod .,
each other at C\'C point ., ca( i,4~\,;pfrfg _tic tht,r _y ntil the whrstle
hlows. Qf c6urse, · al the end Q{ the roatcl\.. it ~ *fcu.fs \'Wion af the
allocation, wKitb gains the d 'r· Bt,1tii,n.0'1'der to win, he' mutt follow the
path laid dov,rn for fom by tijt StruqJc :ith Pron\cihs J; he ~>.s j.n,.l'ich
han<,I to_ ¢cpl Pfomctheus"s _bfddi~, \.u tally qf t ,polflu the ~y
f1tan in (llj Cl\, an wh1c r 4,c.,.is. naf,:,.c l'b }:'<puo~.1'~ 1.Q tum
aji1:aln,s1Ul.cm. I•,
Su~ iQ1 account x'plains thr,,.dbll~ \icr\C,S. pr thc,.Promet.hcUS episode ,
which fs a rt,. of parcnthcsi,. ~ '6,y.U (\e dcvclopT9ent of the. _Thfogoray
'f.. .as a whol~. lndc-cd, 'i~ _:i qpuOt-y p.,:rc thc1.,1C'il.l, fint 1)1 n;falldn, to the
~¥alogiplli r,qn}JiliQn, arul ,,scco11d jn rel.a.ti n to thb ~qµ"n f c o(,
~ ts l n lH~cdi."'i~ world 1 At )f c 1 3 7, lcsiod sµrt1 \o tscril:1c- the
fi i.ari (amil)'" rcc. lk h , li:taljz' gi\'tn us their na.nic, i n Qr<Jcr ·ot
hirU, w,bj~ nu.u, Qn tbe .male t ide, t"l'Qm dcc"9u$ to r m1.s-(oldc:st to
yuun}!:cst):_ by w~y' of 1'-01os, • iol, 1lypu\9n aJt,<l la~tus. w_c arc i,hus
-.:,lg th( Jl~l-1 jJ the d1ildrcn [ .Otcanus 1 l lyperion, Krj anJi ~oios.
But at Un~ 4{,$ mo. ·c to t~c d cc.nd~t '< £ CromJJ, wl)cn we
t'-xpc:.QteA,.t tw c. Q.f bpctri~ _:.i.nd. th.c gct1cid¢gica.l ~co.M,nt, through "l.fn ,
tion p'f v,'t: j:,i.fth of- Zc:tU t cQ1.1t 1 uc with .tile n ativc of \jlC ll)yth1cal
cn.O \¥htch C'On\tltuJ• the St:coo~ct .of dn:.jnt> lcgt:nds Q( tuocess1op.
iJ (Ute first Kt concern, •th·~ CilJtrap.c,m of Ql1 nos 411d iha. insi.,allatioo qf
Cron s u ruler) ,1J1d'·~n.1. rs on the ctn.tr~ theme t?f tfic SJrugglr for the
sovc.rtigll,fY of 'he ·cl) the ,trugglt: of Ztus aga1nn CromJS, d th;c
Olympl~n, a~ainst the. it.ans .. C{onul devours hi$ ctuldrqi ,o t,hat
nOflt . qf them shall supplant hm) ~pQll the thrq>nt"; Zeus escapO has
fa1 hcr;s gullet. 'fhq ,Um thin~ he docs is tof ausi hu thcr <o \Omit 4p
those whom he ha.s "s"'·a.llowc.d ; ,\Tld hC'n h rt:Jcases 1ht: C'vl:ropcs fro~
th('ir borfd~. They prohdc hlhl with thc, mstnimcnt of \Jctor. 1 the
chungicrbolt. in }Vhicfi ~u hc.ncdorth ' th11t4 an~ f\l.lcs O\- r mol'talt
i.nd lmmdrJ.ils' (line 506). ..
Ir ,is at this moment th.at Hcsi9d brn.ks o H th-c aCC'Qunl of 7..c.\'s's
stni les and god ba<;k IQ t~c genc.tlO~~al rxpo11} 10n ..- to t~t: chiJdtc:n
66
 So.cnficial and alimnitary codes in Hesiod
of lapetus. who~ proper place would have been after the Titans older
than CronU1. Jn fact, the real function of the genealogy or lapetus is to
introduce the story of the eris which pits Prometheus against Zeus, an
ms that is no less marginal to the struggles for sovereignty (it has
nothing whatever to do with the battle against the Titans) than to the
ot'dering of the divine world under Zeus's sway (because that order
knew no f'f'U). lt1 logk:al place in the story is thus neither clearly before
nor evidently after Zeus's victory. It is peripheral, circumstantial, just
as the question of the sta.tus of humankind seems, in the Theogony,
quite external to the grand conflict which sunders the world of the gods
for the po15ession of power. Indeed the poem makes no mention what-
ever of the existence of men under Cronus.
So the Prome.i·can parenthesis precedes the purple passage on the
Wu against the 'btans, the triumph of Zeus and the allocation of
honours. But occurring as h does immediately after the freeing of the
Cyclopes and the gift of the thunderbolt, and immediately before the
freeing of Obriareus, Cottus and Gyes, who make possible the
Olympians' victory, it is put into a context in which the reign of Zeus
sttms already secure even though the details of the fighting have not
yet been properly narrated. The scene is MCkOnC, the old name of
Slcyon. So we know the precise location, human, on earth, where the
contest took place. But we do not k.now exactly at what moment it
took place in the sequence of events which divide up the divine calendar.
1n other words, Prometheus's eris - insofar as that confrontation be-
tween two gods has to do with the relations between gods and men
rather than with the society of the gods itself - is aligned on a temparal
axis which is not exactly the same as the gods'. In the narrative, the two
time-axes seem to be contiguous without exactly coinciding;just as the
"°" of Prometheus is neither that of the Titans nor identical with that
juridically regulated in advance by the Olympians, and so introduces
into the world of the gods a dimension of being, a quality of existence,
which is too ncarlv human to be perfectly integrable into the hier-
archical order of div.inity.

The counterpart in the Works ond Days of the eris which, in the
Theogony, though it uses divine machinery, is essentially concerneci
with, and directed towards, men, is that which takes place in Bnt:(,t1.1
directly between Hesiod and his brother Pencs.
There is a stricter parallelism between the relation of the two text~ to
their context than might appear. In the Theogony, Prometheus's tricker)
oHr the parts of the SiACrificial animal is introduced by ga-, 'for', whkh
links the cpisOlk from which stems man's misfortune directly to the
preceding linc, which concerns the ms of Prometheus against Zeus. In
67
Jcan-Picne Vcmant
the Woris and Days, the _sc<;ond wrsjon o t" thC Promcthe ~n1 stor) afso
begins with afaY-, wttich this time n:fcrs. to thcadm~n 1tto~ which llc~od
tin Just ~ n is broth n~mi,ng the ens ..,.hich scu tlu:m . _ nst
one another. Their ldiros, their family pl,d t j rJind, ha:s been d.iv1<1t~
M1wecn them. This division was not adnt'-cd b _): force. by Qrutc
violence , as when one takes pou«.ion of cncn'l.) .bo.o \y in w;u. r,,;onc-
thclcn . it did RO( tak.C place by -ig6:Cit).l-J\ft)ClW gi the {W(,S ~rothcrt,
by a fric-ndly arr.u:iJt,mqi1 ..-~ iu.hould. In ot,dC' ,o DbJ.aii:r_ rn~rc th~
?is shatc~ ft r~s )lad stirrc4 up rancorou! qu~ _nc1lt( 4 "f.W.. dn1n: rt~
33). He hid takp:i t._hc m"at..tcno. arbiltauon br tb~roJers< of lhc1p1tt, in
principle tM cc"f)rgcptath·es o1 Olympian Zc\U.'s a)l~ ito~·ju~ti~. But
the rulers were- f\l.bprtu:.d: and gave judgement ~!Jtui JUshce. They
haudr:<i.a.own a qpQ k.c vcrdlct , a ptejirdj~e(j 6pin.icm : Tak.in.g the si4,e
that lllC:k'c..d justice, they apponioned the lcUJQ) .1a.e.qu~j~: , granting the
Pl e much of what bclonaed to the o ther. M shu ttfe displayed that
µme spirit or partiality wit h which Zcllt; ~J pjcalL-; rcprb¥he.d
Pro~lhc\ls in 1he n~101ty. There t6trtls t o to 'b t::_i .i;~~ an.a.loS)-·
et\Y.ecn the 1wo situations, divine and hl.l ~ n r wl:).*ti int.r.odUc,: in c.ach
poem the myth or Prometheus, with its b,.rih irnW,cation~ for IJl~rta1
men. Moreover, Hesiod don not sjfnply· c;mind his r othfr of t~
grievous wrangle he had provoked, o r th.e fia4c;iuknl divt.rif.!"I he h.id.
cleverly obtained at Hetiod's hptQ.st: Pc: enlarg thc.JJ 1(icant( o
the private. quUTel to univeru.1 justice and 9rdt.r; he. ma\CS il the.p 1s
for what one might wcU caU a veritable .ti ol or nu .-:-irl.ymuch .u
the firstborn daughter of Night intp'resSq":ill h_"rpan existcnc.e,withJttr'
seal. And thl, theology, right at the ~ginni.na .9( U'od:) anf/ Days ,
co ntains an cx.plicit allusion to the ;T,hp,,gQn Qr/. C subject cJf int,
which is he.re taken up and specified.
To the cods there might appear to b ~ Ot\lY one ~ind o! eris -:, the
Immortals ~ew only that viole nt ~ [ ( cfutihg which ;lt'u,1
t11umphdij 1.1vti'h' rJv~~d w}iiCrh his vietOr)'$il.Used t~ bctqme .extinct
in the divine ~rtd.11- Sul al ~tte level of IT1.lJlklnd, ~hU)gr iU'C q\fl.JC
dirferent. There is thtre. not pne ffls but two! ,a.nd this bi v..rcr t1on <:i£
the daughter of Nrghf cbp:l:spPn to 'lw: 1,QYercJg'} po'1,C;r O\CI" J'TICn's
lives, to h_er continl©lU pr se.nc~ in and for tl)C gd6d as well u in and
fQt rhe worse. In hCJ" 4ouble.., bifur""cft~d ,..a.,-ablguous form t'nS has ,ww
two-a.spt..ets jpJt a th<=rt arc two kituh of wick7 d division b,ctwecn men:
war·aga.iJ»t an t.n.emy (r9.m without, on e. b~trltfitld .. and fa1.:tion
IUlln a silJ.Slc ¢mm\lnity, in the Pl.;lf\lk' plil.Ce orasscrri\>ly (WD 29 .u,d
3Ql, 1'.ht. firsr reliu on forte of arms, the se.t:on4 employs the tani{UC!
md lri lfy dcvio~socu (lt:D 321 - 2, with an Op\)-0 tion . tween xcpq,
fJlv "Qd q,tO t'twoq~). But whcd\cr they use viole.1'1cc or dcceu, both
have the s~~ ob·c~t, to grab t)ooty 1 fo n,Ue pnesclf~ch a\ tm .cxpcnMl
}
 Sacrificial and alimentary codes in Hesiod
of another by takins from him what belonp to him. lll-sotten pins do
not last. Zcu1 him1elf make, halte to pay the guilty the Brim ·reward of
their crimea (WD 325-6, 333--4), just u he crushed the brute violence
of the Titans, and u he punished the crooked trickery of Prometheus.
This wicked ms, extinct unong gods, punished unong monals, men do
not love. And, Hesiod goes on, if they do honour it, it is against their
will, under con,traint of the decisions of the Immortals (WD 15).
But before she gave birth to this rancorous ms, which the will of the
gods has given men against their will to be their companion, Night bore
another, similar, but of different disposition, whose praise the wise man
should sing. It is she who stin, by emulation, every man who secs
prosperity abounding in the fields and in the house of a neighbour whose
application to hard agricultural toil is greater than his. This eris of
competition, of energetic rivalry in work, Zeus, sat on high in the
lambent aether, has established below u the foundation for all well·
gotten pin. He has set her in the roots of the earth (gaii: WD 18-19,
with the opposition aUMp, Mllw1,1 - "Y<l6,( Ell ptr,,a,), where men li\o·e
and from which they draw their sustenance. The Son of Cronus desired
that by means of this eris they should find the path to wealth in accord·
ancc with the order instituted by himself. There is then no way in
which men can escape eris, to whom their whole lives arc subject: they
may only choose the good rather than the evil one. It is not by bandy·
ing words in the agora, listening to disputes and avoiding work in the
fields (ap' n,ou: 28), that Perses can hope to set himself on the path to
succeu. To earn the means of life (bios), the fruit of Demeter
(Dimitnos akti: 31-2), which Gaia bestows on men in plenty when
she is worked, a man has to get down to it, water his furrows with the
sweat of his brow, compete with someone else in toil. How could it be
otherwise? Zeus exacts a harsh penalty for profits which are the fruit
of violence or trickery by means of wicked en's; and the goods that he
has granted to men, the wealth that gives them life (bios) and which is
hidden in the earth, he docs not wish that they should be able to gain
without labour (A:ai urgon eonta: 44), without appealing to good eris.
That might have been the case once, in the Age of Gold, when the earth
hcnclf, without having to be turned or seeded, caused the life-giving
can to sprout in such profusion that plunder, nor theft in the dark, nor
competition in work - no sort of eris - had any place here on earth
any more than in heaven. Man could live and cat without lifting a
rmgcr.2 1 But the gods hid the means of life from ~en; the?' sunk it
deep in the soil on the day that Zeus found himself tncked by
Prometheus Crookedthought. And since that day human life has been
what we KC: the victim of a twofold strugle, endlessly pulled between
each. now merciles1ly punithed by the gods if one follow, the wone to
69
 Sacrificial and alimtntary cotus in Hesiod
and men because it implies for each a 1harply different kind of nourish-
ment. How then can it be that in the WorAs and Days Hcti.od makes no
specifac reference to this act of division which founded the ritual and
Mt only instituted the Fall but continues to symbolize, in its double
character of rcligioa1 ritual and form of consumption of food, the
11nbiguity of a humanity linked with the gods in cult but separated
from them by the miafonune and misery stemming from the portion of
sacrificial meat which men alone may consume?
In point of fact the alimentary aspect of the myth of Prometheus is
no less in evidence in the Worb and Days than in the Thtogony. The
theme of a kind of food reserved for men and intimately linked to their
specific kind of existence is central in each account. It is simply that
the theme is displaced. And that displacement, which is intelligible if
we take account of the difference in penpcctive between the two texts,
illuminates some essential aspects of the myth, in relation to sacrifice.
In the Works and Days it is the products of the cultivation of the earth,
Demeter's com, ccreal..c;onsumption, which have a status analogous to
that of the ox which is sacrific"d, the ponions of meat and meat-eating
in the Tlaeogony. The interest of the author of the Erga (that is,
.A.gricultt,ral WorlcH) is in maJ) as cultivator. Man is understood and
fint defined as 'cater of bread'. The interest of the author of the
Tluotony is in man undentood from the penpectivc of the gods: man
is defined as one who consumes that portion of the sacrificial victim
offered to the gods which is ritually reserved to him. But in each cue
human consumption of food is marked by Prometheus's eris. Ever since
Zeus hid away the food that keeps him alive (bios), man can only cat
bread if he has paid the price in labour, if he has won it by the sweat of
his brow. Cereal food can be had only by dint of rivalry in labour, and
it recalb the Titan's spirit of rivalry no less than docs the sacrificial
animal. Be1idcs, it is not that the grain was simply iuelf hidden during
the struggle with Zeus: that alteration of status, by which food was
made to disappear beneath the earth whereas previously anyone could
make use of it freely, constitutes Zeus's response to Prometheus's trick
in concealing beneath the ox's hide the edible portions of the victim, so
as to give them to men (WD 47-8). The cultivation of cereals is thus
the countcrpm of sacrificial ritual, its inverse. For henceforth, thank!I
to Prometheus's trick, men have the ox's meat to eatj and, thanks to
Zeus's will, they will no longer have within easy reach, at their crn,1
convenience, the com they must have to live.
Again, just like the sacrificial victim, cereals are eaten at the end_ of a
negotiation conducted with the gods. The caring_ of _com ~tab!1sh_es
between men and gods a form of ritual commumcauon while, m its
very essence, it undcncorcs the tcparation, the distance, the disparity
71
Jean-Piare Vemant
between their statuses. For Hesiod to cultivate the earth for com is a
uue cult which t h e ~ thcpowal that~ (V..-.c, 1971:
2.19-20'; Detienne, 196!: 54-51). For him, work is a tort of M,
o£fice, careful to perform every wk at ~e appropriate m~ent and
respectful of traditional forms. If the fumer'1 ham ii stocked ~th tom,
iC he hu bread enough and to spare, it is the reMlh of a labon~s and
suictly regulated life whose punctiliousness hu been rewarded ntully
by his becoming dear to the Ble11ed Ones, by his becomina: a kinsman, a
pAilos, of Demeter (WD 500-1, 309: l«U' tPlGf6,ae'MN. .-o).U ~').npot
6t8cndT'Ocon•; 826-8). But to become a friend, a k.intman of the gods
and to escape limos, huncer, presupposes that he recognizes and has
accepted by his life of labour the harsh fiat of the fielcb (WD 388:
•dlw• ,6pol;) ordained by Zeus, that marks with the passing of the
Aac of Gold the loss of that time when men grew not old, and d~lt in
ignorance of hardship and toil, feasting with the gods. To eat com
implies that if he is to avoid hunger man, poor child of eris, can only
devote himself heart and soul to grinding work, to ponos, that stcond
child of nis (TII. 226-7: Eris gives birth to Panos and Lim0$). To
tseapc tht tvil born of ffll, he must pus by its brother.
Ont final point of similarity. I havt argutd that, in the logic of the
myth, all tht edible parts of tht sacrificial victim come to men, HC&UK
these pieces of dead meat, which satisfy man's endleuly demandi.n1
hunger and rc1tore his strength that without nourishment would con·
1ume away, constitutt the proper food of fully monal creatures, whose
life-force is not, like that or thC' gods, Free frorn any taint of thC' negative
but uncertain, unstable, unsettled, pttjudFd to death. Now the very
expttnion bios (life), used by Hesiod to refer to tM ear of com which
is man's specific food, stretsCs a relationship betw«n CC'l'C'al-catintt: and
thC' life-force typical of man which is so close that we mif!:ht 1ptak. of
consubstantia.lity: tht fabric of man's lifC' is woven of thC' sunC' material
u thC' food which sustains it. It is 'because they do not C'at bread' thas
the gods arc not monal; innocent orbartty, ftd on ambrosia, they have
no blood.,. The icAOr in them has no inegularities of flow, no falls in
pressure, no ups and downs, which are for men the stipnata, • it Wffl',
of their cphemerality, adumbrations of thC' death which C'&tin& can only
stave off. In the Iliad there is a formula dcscribing human-belftll (21.
464-5),
Mm nowWi oe. the rtpc •hnt ol t u ~
1ben Uli 1Piridca 1p they ,.. .c and 6. (tr. fitqaald.)
To pick up the txpression or the Odyssey, barlty and wheat, the food
of mtn, ma.kt up the mwfos ndrcin, the manow of men, W YffY aub-
stancc of thcirlirefortt(Od. 2.290 and 20.180: lil.._,TG, .,>..Oii' ""'4pW•)..
 Sa.cnficial and alimmta.ry cocks in Hniod
By mcan1 or these relationships and correspondences, which are 10
dearly marked, the myth o( Prometheus connects sacrifice closely with
the cultivation of com. It presents them u phenomena or two dif-
ferent types which arc yet interrelated and have the same value. This
relationship is ma.de clear by the explicit indications in the text which I
have noted; but perhaps even more strikingly in what the text docs not
say, in its silence. The disconcertingly abrupt allusion in the Works and
Days to Zeus 'hiding bio.s away' would be absurd, inept, incomprehen-
sible i£ the text did not presuppose, written as it were tacitly into the
myth-frame, a positional symmetry, a complete complementarity,
between bio.s-by-com and the sacrificial victim. The ritual of sacrifice
plays the same rble in relation to meat-eating as the cultivation of com
in relation to the eating of plants. In that case, the existence of an
episode linking Prometheus's trickery at the sacrifice to the necessity of
working the land in order to obtain the bios on which men subsist has
no need of any justification other than its mere presence in the text.
Moreover, the ox killed and dismembered by Prometheus, at the fint
sacrifice, is the domestic animal which is closest to man, most nearly
inkgrated into his sphere, above all when yoked to the plough to cut
the furrows. As such, it occupies the opposite pole to the wild animals
which men hunt like enemies and do not sacrifice. The ox is sacrificed
in principle with its own consent, as an animal which. by virtue of its
closenen to man, is able if not to represent him directly at least to offer
itself as a son of delegate. The otherness of wild animals in relation to
the world of men is revealed puticularly in what they cat: they cat one
another, without rules or restrictions. and without keeping back any
part of the prey they consume for the gods. Their world knows no
other laws than appetite. Indifferent to justice and to ritual. the act of
eating on the part of animals cannot reflect, either in its modes or in its
technique, a divine order on high: it expresses merely the relations of
naked violence in that internecine war upon which wild animals arc
engaged in order to cat (WD 276-80).
What the ox is to wild animals, com in tum is to wild plants. Of all
the fruits of the earth, it is the most humanized. Wild plants grow by
themselves, wherever conditions arc favourable. Wheat can only be
harvested at the end of a year of careful attention, rather as one
educates children to tum them into men.JS In the harvest the interplay
of human effort and divine blessing produces an equilibrium of regular
exchanges. Non-carnivorous animals feed off the plants whi.ch nat~ue
produces without cultivation, off the wild grass and vegetation which
grows outside the fields and orchards worked by the hand of mci:i,
beyond the ,phcrc of the domestic (Detienne, .1~~7: l~-1~). Bread is
peculiar to man; the mark and guarantor of c1vd1zed hfe, It separates
73
Jean-Pierre Vcmant
mankind from the animab, and from the 1ods. Men live on cultivated
domestic plants and ~ n t i c anhhla. Thele two com.pie·
mcntary aspects or human diet, locatin~ u they do ~c hurnut·~,
midway between animals and gods, which arc two kmdt of bcmp
simultaneously distanced from yet near to men, c~lish !he l~ner in
this median status which defines their proper cond1uon (Vidal-Naquet,

PPp::;: 0
1b;: i:)~ow easier to understand the full implications or the
link ntablished in the myth between the theft 0£ rue and the division
of the sacrificial victim on the one hand, and the hiding of grain in the
earth on the other. According to the Th~ogony, it is bcca\llC he is
constantly mindful of the trick played on him by PromcthC"m in allo·
eating the portions in such a way as to bestow on men all the edible
paru, that Zeus decides no longer to provide them (011A: edid,o11, 563)
with his celestial fire, the lightning, that they had previously enjoyed,
and which had been freely available from ash-trees so long u they dwelt
and feasted together with the gods.
Why this response? What docs it signify? Obviously Zeus wiahcs fint
of all to prevent men rrom making use of the gift which men have
received after the first round. By depriving them of fire, he prevents
them rrom cooking the meat, which thq could not cat raw. So the pri·
mary value of Prometheus's rue is alimentary. The Titan's ruse in
hiding fire, concealing it within a fcnncl ..talk to carry it off to men, is
intended to providc them with the means of sacrificial cookins. But to
cook meat before eating it UI by that very act to point up the contrast
with animals, who cat raw flesh, The culinuy fire of Hesiod's
Prometheus thus has a quite general significance: it rt:pretcnts culturc in
opposition to primitiveness. In that sen.c it adumbrates lhe theme or
'eivilizin1' fire, 'master or all artl ', dcvcloped in Aeschylus's Pro~thftu
Bound (110-11 and 254). But thc adumbration is idio1yncratic. wath
all the additional complexities and ambiguities dC'muided in the myth
by the median status of humanity.
Prometheus's fire ii not that or the gods, ii not the fire of heaven,
the lightning omnipotcnt in the hands or Zeus, immortal• its muter.
It can perish: it is cngiaulcrcd, l'ows hunsrv, rattcn, like .U mortal
creatures. To produce fire one must have a seed, prt:sctffd in the uhct
or curled insidC' a fennel-stalk as was Promctheu1'1.1t For it to stay
alive, it must be fed; it dies ir not rucllcd.,, Fire's unquenchable peed,
which cause, it to con1umc all that falls into its path, mU.a it like a
wild beast, u several formular in Homer already augcst (sce p. 76
below, and Gru, 1965: 108-16, 183-93). Or would, if, DAN in-the
hands of man whose mastery it ensures, it weft not at tbe SUM tir.e
dome1ticated. This cultural aspect, which is equal and oppolitc tQ the
74
 Sacnficial antl alimmtllf')' code, in H11iod
unleuhing of a violent, animal nature, is dearly apparent in Prometheu1's
fire, associated as it is with clever artifice, subtle invention. No mere
conaequence of a cunning which eluded Zeus's sharp eyes and made it
po11ible for men to have what god denied, it involves a technique for
ttansporting fire, kcepin1 it alight and starting it afresh, an aspect of the
knowledge indiopensablc for human life.
But the tecl&nai at the disposal of men are quite as ambiguous as the
Titan who made them available. Fire is a dolos, a tricky ruse, a uap,
directed from.the outset against Zeus. It allows itself to be taken, but
may on occasion tum against men, not merely because the 'might of
unwearying fire' is possessed of a power within, which passes human
control, but, more precisely still, because this might is somehow
mysterious, has something of the supernatural in it: its name is
Hephaestus, after the god. And this quality adds a new dimension to
what I have just said about the animal world and the acquisition of
human civilization. 11 Fire exists in three different modes, animal,
human and divine, and it can therefore act, at the very centre of sacri-
fice, as a mediator. When it is lighted on the altu, it docs not merely
pass between euth and heaven in its ascent to the gods with the burden
of sweetsmclling smoke. It completes Prometheus's act of division
because it separates, by the act of cooking, what is simply roasted or
boiled, and which belongs to man, from what is entirely consumed
away and, together with the animal's life itself, restored to the world
beyond. In eating what has not been tumcd into ashes, but simply
cooked - that is, softened and made tender to allow it more easily to
be digested by weak human bodies - men retain only, as it were, the
sacrificial left-oven, the gristle from a divine feut in which what really
matters can only be had by being consumed entirely, caused to dis-
appear utterly from this world below, devoured in the roar of the flames.

In this connection there is an instructive set of parallels and contrasts

between sacrificial cooking and the ritual cremation of the dead.
According to Walter Burkert (1972b: 66-76), the two practices arc
actually identical in function and structure, and he stresses the signifi-
cance of the fcut at funerals as well as at sacrifices. But the fact that
there were feasts at funerals docs not mean that they had the same
character as the sacrificial feast. At the celebration of Patrodus\
funeral, Achilles makes ready a banquet beside the corpse; they killed
bulls, ewes, she-a:oats and pigs, and cooked the meat 'in Hephaestus's
fire'. The victims' blood was collected in jan and poured u a libation
all round the body (Iliad 23.29ff.). The dead man is thus the recipient
of the lives of the animals whose edible parts arc to be eaten; and it is
with him that the sacrificial ritual which opened the funeral celebrations
75
 Socnficial and alimentary codes in He.not.Ii
to eat, thus mak.C"I po11iblc the separation, the segregation, of the 'white
bones" which. again wrapped in fat, constituted in the sacrifice the
portion of the gods - the portion which the mageiro1, by dismembering
the animal in such a way as to expoae completely the major bones, set
on one side right at the beginning to be put on the altar and burned.
The two practice, att structured in a 1imilar way, therefore, but
their objectives arc different, and each constitutes the inverse of the
other. In sacrifice, the part that does not decay, the white bones, are
cut out from the very first, and offered to the god, in the form of
smoke. ln cremation, the fire is required to separate the white bones, as
it bums, from every particle of perishable flesh encumbering them, so
that men may preserve them as the mark - set here on earth, as the
guarantor to the kin - of the presence of the dead man in his tomb. In
sacrifice, the part that really matters, the true vital life-force of the ani·
mal, returns to the gods with the burnt bones, while man cats the half.
raw, half-cooked left-overs of the divine feast. In the funerary rite, the
object of purifying the corpse by fire of all its corruptible parts, in
which life- and death arc inextricably intertwined, is to restore the body
to its essentials, to reduce the remains, through which men will con·
tinue to keep in contact with the dead man, to nothing but the white
bones.

The Wor4s and Days introduces the episode of the theft of fire in an
allusi"e, abrupt and apparently illogical manner. Hesiod explains to
Pcncs that 'the gods have hidden from men the means to life (bios). lf
they had not you could live without lifting a finger, without work. But
Zeus hid your bios away when he found himself tricked by Prometheus.
Ever since, he has ensured harsh cares for men; he hid the fire from
them.' One might be puzzled about the rOle of fire here if we did not
already know, from the Theogony, that Zeus's refusal of the gift of fire
was grounded in Prometheus's trick over the portions of the sacrifice.
But the Kqucnce still seems quite incoherent. The fact that Zeus was
mgry at being duped by the Titan is used to justify the necessity of
agricultural work.. Furious at allowing himself to be caught out, he
hides the means to life by sinking com into the earth. In the context,
'hiding fire' seems quite gratuitous, without any intelligible relation to
what come, before. Unless there were, in archaic Greece, so intim<llc
and evident a relation between hiding bios and hiding fire that the one
has to go with the other.
Ut w note first that in the beginning the same situation held for
both fire and grain. In the Age of Gold, before the sundering of gods
from men, that is before what happened at MCkOne, barley and fire
were both d.ittctly and oixnly available to men. The latter used them as
77
jt"an-Pierre Vt"mant
'natural' goods bestowed ~ them, with no aced to .hWlt for _tht"m,
the olljec:IO neither of,Wf•lll;. que,t, For th• gods. ~ ~ a n d
fire means, in a material sense, that com has fint lo be buned, h ~ ..
in the ground in the form of seed to u to gnminate and then npt"n
above ground. n And that fire bu to be buried, hidden in the ashes or
in a fennel-stalk, in the form of seed. to shoot up and then dance.on the
hearth. Morally and metaphysically, it means that these two k1ncb of
good hitherto na.tunlly at the free dil)>Olition of men must henceforth
be gotten, striven after, paid for; will be accessible _on!y through t~e
integument of evils in which they are shut; through gnndin1 effort, toil,
unccasin1 attention and reflection. Such evils, the necessary counter·
part of blessings formerly dispensed with an open hand, tum barley and
fire into the victories of human civilization rather than I.he natural
products they once were.
Ap.in, com and more generally all cultivated plants were opposed by
the Grcelr.1 to wild plants as the cooked against the nw (Detienne,
1977: 11-14). There arc two upccts of this cookin1. Species of plants
which lend themselves to being cultivated arc those in which the process
of internal 'coolr.in1' goes funher than is the case with the wild species,
where the raw humoun predominate. In addition, the intervention of
man, in opening and turning the soil to that the sun may penetrate,
allows a still further improved and elaborate cooklng of domesticated
plants. And to thil double cooking, the one natural, the other achieved
by cultivation, we may add a third, which brinp thC" process to com-
pletion: by transmutin1 flour into bread md pancake, oven-cookery
makes com fully digestible. It cuts the last link with nature and the
raw, a link which made flour a hybrid, a muddle:, neither raw nor
cooked, nc:ither wild nor civilized. Once out of the oven, bread hu
bc:come somethin1 quite different: it is now sitos, human food,ju,t u,
once roast or boiled, a lump or raw, bloody meat i, trammuted into a
civilized dish.M
Now in the: Age of Gold earth spontaneously be1towcd on men
products which possc:.c:d naturally all the chuactcristics and qualitic1
of cultivated planu. The1e producll grew already couked, u though the
soil, albeit unworked., had been cultivated and tumcd by the ploup.
They were moreover eatable at once; they did not have to be: tram-
muted and humanized by the action of rltC' in coollin1. The AF or
Gold has nothing to do with the opposition between uv•ry and
civilization: it cancels their difference by prc1enting civilized food as
the spontmeous product of nature, which man once upon a time found
without UIY bother, already cultivated, haive1ted, cooked and 11tady r01
eatin1. ln thil respect, the com-harwsts of the Age of Gold an like the
meat-harvests of the blcslCd Echiopians, which, a«ording to HerodoNI,
78
 Sacrijicud and •limentory codes in Hesiod
they found cloac by the Table of the Sun: each morning, scattered over
the plain which had produced them unaided overnight, the cuts of meat
lay waiting, all carved, served-out and ready-boiled, for their patrons to
com< and din<. They just gr•w there cooked (Herod. 3.18).
The close of the Age of Gold means three things simultaneously: the
necessity of sacrificial fire to cook meat, the necessity of agricultural
labour to cook com, the necessity of cooking-fire to render com fit to
cat. The anger of Zeus, to make men pay for the meat they obtained
from Prometheus, hides both fire and com from them in the selfsame
gesture. 1£ that is all that had taken place at MClc.OnC, men would not
have been able, from that moment, to eat the fruit, now raw, of
domesticated plants, any more than they would have been able, in the
version of the TMopny, to cat uncooked the flesh of domesticated
animals.
Prometheus's trickery did not simply establish, for all time, the rules
for the division of the sacrificial victim. It brought in its train, no less
inevitably, the constraint of labour, of ponos. Henceforth men, that
they may cat as men cat, ue doomed to the cultivation of com as they
arc doomed to cook in the sacrifice.
S. Land and sacrifice in the Odyssey: a study
of religious and mythical meanings
Pierre Vidal·N•quct (1970, 1976)

To/.·P.0-ort
This is an cuay about land. Perhaps paradoxically, l begin with 1omc
details taken not from Homer, but from Hesiod. Contrary to common
opinion, both the 11&cogon)' and the WorAs ...d Doy, can be uKd to
elucidate, not merely works composed after them, but also those which
mtcdatc them or which au more or lets contemporary with them - as
is perhaps the case with the Odyssey.
I believe that the •myth of the races' and the myth 0£ Pandora in the
Wor.U and Days, and the myth of Prometheus in that poem and in the
Thcogony, justify a definition of the human condition which could be
lcrmcd both anthropological and nonnative, both exclusive and inclwW'c.
The exclusion is twofold. Hcsiodic man is the man of the age of iron;
which means in the first place that he is not the man of the age of gold
- the mythical time when mm 'lived like gods', knowing neither old
ll£C nor true death: 'They had all good things, and the grain-giving earth
unforced bore them fruit abundantly and without stint. They pastured
their lands (fp'Y' b4,rowo) in cue and peace, with roany good thinp'
(WD ll2-19). 1 The distinction betw«n the ICC of gold and our own
which I wish to study here - there are othen - is that of work verms
non-work (agricultural work, or course).' As compared with the age of
iron, the age of gold - the age of Cronus - is an absolute model; it is a
condition which the other other ages can never hope to attain. The lot
of tjie race of the• of.1old during their lives is eJ\ioycd by the r~ of
heroes, or at least by some of them, after death: Zeus placn them
'apart from men' (&lx' WpW.wP), and apart from the gods, 'under thr
rul~ of Cr~~~'.. '!!.!h.c.cndi o[ the e~ta· . .'Arid t~ey d~D untouched
by IOrrow in the islands of the Blessed along the shore of the deep
swirling Ocean, _happy heroes for whom the_grain·giving earth bean
honey-sweet fruit Rourishin1 thrice a. ye•.'' The age of gold in 'time'
is succeeded here by an age of gold in 'space', in the islands of the
Blessed, which arc characterized also by the richncu of the earth.
Elsewhere, in the myth of Pandora,• Hesiod 1ummariza in advance
u it were the leuon of the myth of the races: 'Before this the tribes ol
men lived on earth remote and free from ills and hard toil (xa)..rlNNO
80
 Land ond ,.,rifiu in tlu Odyssey
........,) and b..vy sickness•• which bring the Kira upon men: for in
mite.,. men grow old quickly' (WD 90-5).'
To have been excluded from the 8F of gold means that man is not a
p.• But he it not an animal either; and the second exclusion bars him
&om llllilo,,/aafit,, cannibolim,: 'For the Son of Cronus has ordained
thil law for men, that fuhes and beasts and winged birds should devour
one another, for Right (diki) is not in them' (WD 276-8). The practice
of dilti ii what enables man to escape from the animal state: man is the
creature which docs not cat its fellows.
The inclusions arc clo1ely related - simultaneously inverse and com-
plementary - to the exclusions. The Worh and Days itself is about the
workin1 of anble land and all that is implied by it - the planting of
trees and the rearing of animals, especially for ploughing. Dilci is a
means of regaining - perhaps not the age of gold, for men are obliged
to labour - but at least prosperity and fruitfulness in humans, land and
flocks: 'The earth gives them (i.e. those who practise di4i) a life of
plenty, and on the mountains the oak bean acorns on high, and in the
midst, bees. Their fleecy sheep ue laden with wool; their women bear
children resembling their fathen. They flourish continually with good
thinp; and do not travel on ships, for the grain-giving earth bean them
fruit' (WD 252-7).'
This human work UI linked in tum to the possession (thanks to
Prometheus) of fire for cooking, that fire which had previously been
concealed by Zeus (WD 47-50; sec Vernant, pp. 74-9 above). In
revenge for the theft of fire, Hephaestus made at Zeus's command
Pandora, who is both earth and woman (WD 59-105).' The hints of
the Worb and Days arc filled out by the Tla~ogony. The qu111Ttl be-
tween gods and men at Mcie.one has two episodes which arc carefully
paralleled.' There UI fint the primordial saaificc of an ox and iu un-
equal division, the gods receiving the smoke and men the flesh: which
rcsultl in the confiscation of fire by Zeus and its theft by Prometheus.
Secondly, men are given the ambiguous girt of woman, to make up for
the gods' acceptance of the state of affain brought about by Prometheus.
Arable land, cooking, sacrifice, sexual and family life within the oi•os
- even, at one extreme, political life - form a complex, no clement of
which can be separated from the othen. These arc the terms which
define man's estate, in between the age of gold and allilophagia.
cannibalism. 10
The limits we find marked out here by Hesiod, with their character-
istic features (which arc also features of the crisis of his period) arc
repeatedly employed d1roughout the subsequent history of Greek
thouatn. From the end of the IUlth century BC in particular, these pat·
terns were taken up in the violent political disputes which divided thc-
81
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
Greek world and led tbeQrUU. lO adopt eoa"1111iaJ 'potitive' or 'nega-
tive' views of primitive·miinTlhe age o( gold josdes apimt t h e ~ of
the misery of primeval man. One might be tempted-: and some schollff
have not resisted the temptation - to trace these disputes back ta chc
time of Hesiod, and poruay Hesiod as himself an opponent or pro·
gress. 11 It is not perceptibly more plausible to make hiJn both a sup·
porter of 'chronological primitivism' (because he starts with an a~ of
gold) and an opponent of 'cultural primitivism' (in that he con~u
civilization with cannibalism), as docs one useful anthology (Lovqoy
and Boas, 1935: 35). For these two positions arc in fact one.
It is not my intention to discuss this post·Hesiodic literature here. 11
I note simply, for reasons which will shortly become dear, that Hesiod's
age of gold, the age of Cronus, the 'vegetarian' age befoff' cooking and
before sacrifice, which is described for us in so many tcxts, 11 is also the
period of cannibalism and human sacrifice, in at least part of the
tndition. Some of the texts which ma.kc this association between
opposites may seem very late. 14 But we should not forget that as early
as the fourth century BC the Cynics developed a theory of a 'natural'
way of life which both condemned the eating of dead flesh and cooked
food, and championed raw food, cannibalism and even incest, the
opposite paT ~xcelln1ce of culturc.u And it would be wrong to sec this
as merely a view held by theorists: Euripides's Bacchat: o,cillate, be·
tween the atmosphere of paradise described by the messenger early on
in his speech, and the orgy of nesh-cating which culminates in the quas.i-
incestuous murder of Pentheus by his mother (Bacclta~ 677-768,
1043-147). Hesiod's Cronus is also a god who cats his own children
(Th. 459-67) ... From this perspective, it is Plato who is 1theoriz.ing',
when in the Politic"-! he chooses to define the age of Cronus as the time
when cannibalism was unknown - a choice which happens to be the
same as that made by Hesiod in his venionorthemythoftheraccs. 1 '
If we begin from the other end, we find agriculture intimately linked
with cooking, u for example in the Hippocratic treatise On .·hacl&111t
Medicine, 3 (ed. FestugiCre), where it is shown that the cultivation of
cereals. which replaced the eating of raw foods, is founded upon a form
of food which has to ~ cooked. An association ~tween agriculture,
family life and the origin of civilization similar to that implied by
Hesiod also occun in the Athenian myths about Cccrop,, who, guided
by Bouzy~s ('Ox-team Ma.n'), 11 invented agriculture, and invented abo
the monogamous patriarchal family (Pembroke, 1967: 26-7, 29-!2;
and see pp. 215-28 below). The purpose of this csuy ii &o see wbcther
such associations exist already in Homer.

Whc~ Ody11cus realius that he is at lut on lttw:.a, hu tint action i1 \0

82
 Land and sacrifice in the Odyssey
'lwa.!lie ~-gi~ng e_an!i. in a.aree!ing_ to his native land': xo,ipc.>• t)
.,ala,"""" 5t tei&..>po• /Jpoupa,, (Odyss.,. 13.354).". Now this is not
merely the act .of a. man returning to his native land:. it Coiitains a
fundamental point which deserves close analysis. -
In talking about the Odyssey, we have to make further distinctions:
not between the comp01itions of different bards detected by 'analytic'
critics in the light of criteria that differ with every scholar and produce
re1ult1 at once predictably divergent and fatally untestable; but be-
tween units which have a significance in the poem as we have it. To put
it crudely. we cannot discuss Cyclops or Calypso in the same manner as
we discuu Nestor or Telemachus. In effect, as has often been rccog-
nizcd,10 the Odyssey c9ntrut1 a. world we may term 'real', essentially
the world of Ithaca, but "1so Sparta and Pylos to whichJ'el~i:n.•~hus
goes. with a ..mythical world which is roughly coterminous with that of
the stories in Alcinous's palace (Segal, 1962: 17). Similarly,
Shakespeare's Tempest contrasts Naples and Milan on one hand with
Pr01pcro 1 s magic island on the other (Maricnstras 1 1965: 899-917).
Odysseus enten this mythical world after his stay with the Cicones, a
perfectly real Thracian people, known still to Herodotus (7.58, 108,
110), in whose territory he eats, fights and plundcn just as he might
have done at Troy; and after a ten-day storm 11 which he encounters
while rounding Cape Malea, the last 'real' place on his travels before he
gets back to lthaca. 12
Proof that this contrast is indeed relevant is supplied by the text
it.self. Telemachus's route never crosses that of Odysseus. There arc two
points of contact only between the two worlds. One is plainly magical:
Menelaus tcUs Odysseus's son how he was informed by the magician
Proteus, in Egypt, the land of wondcn, that Odysseus was detained on
Calypso'• island (4.555-8; 17.138-44).as The other is the land of the
Phacacians, those professional seamen who have been shown to occupy
a strategic place at the junction of the two worlds (Segal, 1962).14 l
need hud.ly press the point. Odysseus's travels have nothing to do with
•geography'; and there is more geographical truth in the 'untrue' stories
he tells Eumacus and Penelope (14.191-359; 19.164-202)15 than in
all the stories in Alcinous's palace.H Crete, Egypt and Epirus arc real
enough.
For Odysseus to leave this fantasy world means to leave a world that
is not the world of me.rh_ a world whi<:h. is by turns super-human and
sub-human, a world in which he is offered divinity by Calypso but also
threatened by Circe with reduction to the condition of an animal. And
he must leave it to return to the world of normality. The Ody_ssey as a
whole is in one sense the story of Odysseus's return to ~ormality, ~f h~s
deliberate acceptance of ~ human condition. n
83
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
There is therefore no paradox. in saying th.t, from the Lotus-E.ltcn
to Calypso by way ol't'tlf land of the Cyclopes and the Undaw~ld,
Odysseus meets with no creature which is strictly human. There LI of.
course sometimes room for doubt: the Laestrygoncs, for example, have
an agora, the mark of political life; but physically they arc not as rMn
arc but giants (IO.I 14, 120). Circe causes us to wonder wh~ther we are
dealing with a woman or a goddcu: but fmaJJy, just as With C;a..lypso,
the humanity is merely in the outward form, in the voice. She is in
truth 6EIVl7 8e0( ca'.161/eaaa, the 'tenible goddess with a human voice'
(10.136; 11.8; 12.150, 449; cf. 10.228). Twice Odysseus asks himscU
what 'eaten of bread' he has landed among - that is, what men. But in
each case the point is that he is not among 'bread-eaten' but among the
Lotus-Eaten and the Laestrygones (9.89; 10.101). 21
There follows from this a signal implication, that the 'stories' rigor-
ously exclude anything to do with working the land, or with arable land
itself insofar as it is worked.n The Thrace of the Ciconcs is the last cul-
tivated land Odysseus encountcn: there he cats mutton and drinks
wine; and there he obtains the wine he later offen the Cyclops (9.45ff.,
161-5, 197-211).H Euripides's Odysseus, when he lands in an un·
known land, asks Silcnus, 'Whcrr· are the walls and the city towers?'
The answn comes: 'Stranger, this is no city. No man dwells here'
(Cyclops 115-16).11 Here it is fortifications which arc the 1ymbol of
the presence of civilized humanity, or indeed of humanity at all. But
Homer's Odyneus looks for cultivated fields, for the sign of human
labour.n When the Achuans reach Circe's island, they search in vain
for the n-ga broeOn, the 'works of men', that is, for crops. But all they
sec iJ scrub and forest, wh"rc stag-hunts can be organized (10.1-4:7,
150, 157-63, 197, 251). ln the land of the L:acsuya:oncs, the sight of
smoke might be taken u evidence of domutic hearths and the presence
of human·bcinp (10.99). 0 But there is 'no trace either of the work of
oxen or of the work of men': tlllJa 11,t11 oUn tJoW11 alk" b:v6pW114'ainTo
tna (10.98). The Sirens live in a meadow, u do the gods et.cwhcrc
(12.159; cf. Homeric Hymn eo Herma 72; Euripides, H,pflolytu.s
73-4). Although Calypso's island ii woo,;kcl and nocn possesses a vine,
this is never said to be cultivated (5.6S-74-).
There is one specifically human ~ preaent. D'I tM world o( the
'stories': the olive, the uc_e of whosc~J:tulhhil~,the
fixed point of his home (23.iSl..;zot},. ~ ~~~----AliYrj!, ~ ~
number of ocea.,iom the m e ~ - ~ ( ~ · - ~ from ~ r . ii:t
several different forms. It provides the stab- widl wli:lffl. ht boR1
through the Cyclops's eye·; anti the -~.ol'.:.tb,-@e~widi \midi. he
build, h~ boat (9.319---20; 5.254---6; d. S.pl, 1962,-f5,-G2,"6!):And
although it is true that when hr i, with Aeotu,. Cir« or Calyp,o.,
M
 land and sacrifictt in thtt Odyury
Odyueus has plenty to rat, and that the poet playfully draws attention
to the vast difference between the gods' meals and those of men
(5.196-9), we att never told where it comes from or who produced it.
A accond exclusion is entailed by this exclusion of cultivated land:
that of the sacrificial meal, which we saw from Hesiod to be so inti-
mately related to the first. One could almost, in a sense, extend to the
entire world of the stories the remark Hennes jokingly makes to Calypso
when he arrives on her island: 1Who would choose to cross this waste of
salt-water? There is not in these parts a single city of mortal men to
offer rich hecatombs to the gods' (5.100-2). But only in a sense. For
the sacrifice which Odysseus offen to the dead in accordance with
Circe's instructions and with lambs she has provided is perfonned in a
trench, and is intended to provide blood for the feeding of the dead
(10.516-40, 571-2; 11.26-47) - it is the opposite of a sacrificial
meal, whose purpose is to feed the living. And the same is true of the
victims which Odysseus promises the dead and Teiresias that he will
offer on his n:tum: a barren cow and a black ram (10.521-Si 11.
29-SS).
In the land of the Cyclopes, Odysseus's companions offer sacrifice
(9.2!11: lBLlaell'E'I'), as Polyphemus himself does not. But it is not a
blood-sacrifice, for they arc living on cheese (9.232i sec below, p. 88).
And the sacrifice they offer on the island just across from that of the
Cyclopes - which is abnormal becauK the victims are the sheep belong·
ing to Polyphemus, animals not reared by man - is rejected by Zeus
(9.551-5): even when a human community docs sacrifice in non-
human tcnitory the sacrifice is improper.
I

We should now go back over Odysseus's journey and examine more or

less in sequence the several types of non-human creature he meets with.
I take it for granted that Scylla, and the inhabitants of the Underworld,
arc not human: Achilles has made the point so that we shall not forget
(11.488-91). Likewise, the Lotus-Eaten are not bread-eaten: they cat
flowcn, and the food they offer Odysseus's companions deprives them
of an essential facet of their humanity, memory (9.84, 94-7). Except
during the encounter with Scylla ( 12.227), it is Odysseus who _constantly
remembers in the poem, the true man who stands out from his forgetful
companions.
Much more difficult arc the problems presented by the Cyclops epi-
sode. For here the mythical aspects with which I am here concerned arc
conflated with a quasi-cthnogn.phical description of pastoral peoples
(non-humanity may be just a different sort of humanity: savages) 14 and
with an overt, quite realistic reference to colonization. If these men had
been sailon 'they would have made their island a well-built place. The
85
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
lmd is not bad; it would bear.c:rops i.n each IIUSOn. By W shores of the
grey sea are soft, wt41'~icred meadows, where vines.~ DJeVCr
wither, and there would be rich huvests every year, so nch IS the ,oil
under the surface' (9.130-5). This vision remains unfulfilled. The land
of the Cyclopes is divided, it will be remembered, into two diffe~nt
areas. One is the 'small islmd', which is utterly wild and where huntmg
is quite unknown. There Odysseus's companions find memorable sport
(9.116-24, Ul-5). The other is the land of the Cyclopean shepherds.
Suda a division implies a hierarchy, cultivators-hunten-shepherds; and
it may be relevant to note that the same ,cries ttcurs later in Aristotle
(Politics 1.8, 1256a30--40). But the Cyclopes arc not merely barbarous
herdsmen who lack political institutions and are ignorant of planting
and ploughing (9.108-15). Their land is very close to Hesiod's agt: of
gold: "They do not plant or plough, but the earth provides them with
all things: grain, vines and wine from heavy clusters of grapes, which
Zeus's rain swells for them' (9.109-11; cf. 123-4). Although they have
sheep, they have no true draught·animals: there att 'no herds or plough,'
on the island (9.122). So it is, even if we may suspect that the vintages
of the golden age lacked breeding (9.111, 357-9).
But the real point is that the counterpart of the age of gold is canni-
balism. u The details arc so curious that it is impossible to believe that
they arc not intentional. Polyphemus brings in wood to make a fire for
1upper. But he does not use it: he is not an cater of bread, and even the
humans he cats he docs not cook as we might expect. He devours them
raw, like a lion: 'entrails, flesh, hon«, mattow - he left nothing' (9.
190-2, 234, 292-3). 36 Equa.lly, he performs none of the actions
characteristic of a sacrificial meal, for example the setting aside for the
gods of the bones; and in any case the relations of these goldcn·agc
cannibals with the gods arc fundamentally ambiguow. Homer strcssc1
both that the Cyclopes trust in the gods (-rn-oMrt~ tr6mlQToww:
9.107) - which allow, them not to plough or to sow~and Odysseus will
later have cause to rue the kinship of Polyphemu, and Poseidon (1.68-
73), and that Polyphemus treats Odysseus's appeal in the name of Zeu1
Xenios (who protects strangers and guests) with total indifference:
'The Cyclopes have no regard for Zeu1 who bean the aegis, nor for the
blessed gods' (9.275-6). Thit detail bean a little further attention. The
author ofthr /1144 seems to know of good Cydopet, tbe A.bioi ('without·
food'), who milk ma.res and live on the milk, and are 'the most just of
men' (Iliad 13.5-6). These men, now called Gabioi, ruppe:ar as
Scythians m the Ptometheus Unbound of Aeachylu.• (fq:. 196 Nauck.1 •
329 Mette; see Lovejoy and Boas, 1935: 35)!' They too arc 'the moat
just of men and the moat gcncrou~ to suanacn. They poaess neither
the plough nor the hoe, which .i.c1k the eatTh ..ind score lM ploush
86
 Land and sacrifice in the Odyssey
land. Their furrows seed thcrnsclves (Cll'.wdaW'opo, 'JUCU) and give men
food which never fails.' Later, Homer's literary heirs elaborated the
theme of the Cyclopes' way of life u part of the picture of the 'noble
savage".,. But the inheritance was not solely literary. When Ephorus
(FGrH 70 F 42) contrasted two types of Scythians - actulllly referring
to Homer's .4bioi - one of them cannibal, the other vegetarian (Toa.it
5t .... rwv lt>.Awv t<i>w• awl)(,a6a,: 'they reject (all) living things'),"
he was rationalizing and locating geographically a mythical opposition
which is also an equivalent. The vegetarian is no less inhuman than the
cannibal."'
The island of Aeolus offcn us another type of the non-human which
is no leu classic. The details uc wonh lingering upon for a moment. It
is a 'floating island' with bronze walls. There is naturally no cultivated
land, although there is a polis I in perpetual banquet. But the feast is not
a sacrificial one, and the bull in whose hide the winds arc imprisoned is
not orfcred to the gods (10.3-19). But it is of course incest which is
the oddest thing about Aeolus's island: there is no exchange of women.
The six daughtcn of Aeolus and his wife arc married to their brothers
( 10.6-7). This is a closed world, where one banquets by day and sleeps
at night (10.10-12). It is not a human oi.lios.
The Lacs trygones look in some ways like another venion of the
Cyclopes, though the metaphor here is not hunting but fishing - they
harpoon the Greeks like tuna-fish and then cat them (10.115-16, 121-
4). On Circe's island, nature presents itself at first as a hunting-park.
Odysse!US kills an enormous stag (10.168: .SEIJIOio wElWpou; 10.171:
µ;.,a hpiDv; cl. 180; on Circe, see Segal, 1962: 419-42). Non-
humanity is here revealed in two forms, that of divinity and that of
bestiality. The latter is itself twofold: Circe's victims arc changed into
wild animals, lions and wolves, which nevertheless behave like domestic
dogs (10.212-19). Circe has a drug added to the bread.41 served to
Odysseus's companions, which tums them into pigs, alth~ugh they
retain their memory ( 10.239-43). Odysseus escapes this fate by
taking with him a plant, the famous moly, which itself perfectly sym-
boli.z.es the theme of reversal: 'its root is black, its flower the colour of
milk' (10.304)."2 And whereas Odysseus's companions regain their
shape, the men who had been tu med into wild anim:'1s d~ not. T~c
episode thus contains a clear hierarchy: ~en-~omest1c ~1mals-wdd
ilnimals. This last category has no connection with humanity and can-
not be restored to it even by magical means."'
The Cimmerians whose land borders on the country of the dead, arc
non-human, in spi~c of possessing a dimos and a polis, in. that they
ncvrr behold the sun,just like the dead (11.14-19). The Sirens arc a
fiercer version or the Lotus-Eaters. To surrender to their seduction
87
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
means never to return home ~12.4:,l-5); but, lilie cbc Lotu1·£Men, they
can be foikd. These two dt Odysseus's pus•s alont don he en._
without harm. But if tht' Cyclops is to humanity what tht' raw is to the
cooked, the Sittns belong to the rottt'n: their victim,' corpses rot un·
eaten in the meadow (12.45-6).
The episode of the htrds of the SWl, heralded in advance at the
beginning of the potm ( 1.8-9), mfflts closer attention. The cattle and
shetp arc immortal, that is, they do not share tht condition of tht'
animals human, use for fann-work and for sacrifice. Just n Calypso and
Circe appear to bt" human, and just a.s the dud can pa.ss l l beings of
flesh and blood at first sight, the herds of the SWl appear domt"Stic:
they are prott"cted only by the prohibition against sacrificing thtm.
While Odysseus and his companions have bread and wine, they respect
the interdict (12.!127-9), but with their supplies exhausted they must
make a choice, between wild nature - to hunt and fish (the legitimate
a.ltemativt', which Odysseus chooS('s: 12.3!10-2) - and the forbidden
herds, which involves the sacrifice, the classification as 'domestic', of
animals which thty have to capture, to bring LO from the wild. This
latter is the choict" of Odysseus's companions (12.343-65). We should
note how Homer emphasizes tht sacrificcn' lack of the essential
requisites for proper sacrifice: tht barley-corns (oulai or oulochuta,) for
sprinkling on the animal befott its throat is cut are replaud by oak·
leaves (12.357-8),44 the 'natural' substituted for the 'cultural'; the
wine for the libations is likeWUe replaced by water {12.362-!l).45 The
manner in which they perform the sacrifice iuclf also rcnden it an anti·
sacrifice; and later, the flesh, both raw and cooked, begins to groan
(12.395-6). But of course: these herds a.re Ullmort.al; man's share of
the ,acrifict is the meat of the dead animal, the remainder passing to
the gods. The herds of the Sun att utterly unsuitable for sacrifice; and
the companions of Odysseus do not escape with their sacrilege.••
Tht Int stage of the hero's travt'ls in the land of myth - he is now
quite alone - secs him on Calypso', island, the navel of the sea (1.50).
He is here offered the possibility 0£ becoming immortal, by mUT)'ing
the goddess (5.135-6; 23.335-6). Now the: point of thit, as I have said
(p. 85), is that on Calypso's island the normal JRn:IU of communication
between men and gods - sacrifice - is unknown. Calypso can indeed
dream of a code-breaking union; b"t SM btnelf recalls that earlier
attempts ended disastrously, EOS (Dawn) md the hunter Orion and
Demeter and tht farmer Iasion {5.121-8). And aldt:ollgh t~ ancient
allegorists understood the itland as a symbol Qhhe body, of the matt,:t
from whkh man's soul must frtt i~lf (B\lffihe, 19~6; 461-4),
Homer's text 1carcdy support1 such ~ rc&diaa. When be quits Ca.lypto,

88
 Land and socrifice in lh• Odyss,y
Odyaeu, is d<bl>orately choosing the human against all that is not-
bwaan (Segal, 1962: 20).

By contrast to this world whose feature, I have just sketched, Ithaca,

Pylot and Sparta belong undoubtedly to the 'grain-giving earth '.47
Although Ithaca, the 'island of goats', is unable to suppon hones like
Sparta (4.605-6), it is nevertheless a grain-producing land, and a land
where the vine grows: 'It has grain and wine in quantity beyond telling,
rain in all seasons and heavy dews, a good land for goats ... a land good
for cattle."'' As a famous, and archaizing, pwage affirms, it is for the
king that 'the dark canh bean wheat and barley, and the trees arc
heavy with fruit; the Rocks bear without fail; the friendly sea brings
forth fish under his good rule, and the people thrive under him' (19.
111-14).49 Odysseus's wheat, barley, wine and livestock. are no less
than Penelope the prize in his dispute with the 1uitors. To return to
Ithaca is thus to return to a land of grain. But Ithaca is not sufficiently
land-locked: it is not here that Odysseus will one day meet death 'far
from the sea'; he will have to go beyond Ithaca, pressing on inland until
men mistake an oar for a winnowing-shovel (11.127-8; 23.274-5).
And there a threefold sacrifice to Poseidon will call a halt to his
wanderings; stability will prevail over movement.
Nor do I need to stress that Pylos and Sparta arc com-raising and
stock-breeding countries (3.495; 4.41, 602-4, etc.). But this fact docs
not make the three different places all of a kind. Pylos is the land of
perpetual sacrifice, the model of a religious country: Nestor is sacrific·
ing to Poseidon when Telemachus makes his appearance - all the ritual
details arc mentioned (3.5-9); and a little later it is Athena's tum (3.
380-4, 418-63). 10 At Sparta, things arc a little different, and we find
features belonging to the world of myth. Menelaus's palace is different
from Odysseus's but like that of Alcinous; with its decoration of ivory
and amber, it is a residence worthy of Zeus (compare 4.71-5 and 7.
86-90). At Spana, as on Schcria, there arc objects made by Hephaestus
(4.615-19; 15.113-19; 7.91-4). Sacrifice at Sparta is rctros~cctivc:
Mencia.us mentions a hecatomb he ought to have made dunng the
journey when he learned that Odysseus was on Calypso's island, which
thus connects with the world of myth (4.352-3, 472-4, 477-9, 581-
3). Again, unlike Odysseus, Menelaus's future destiny ~1 not death, b~t
that other golden age, the Elysian fields (4.561-9).. And there II
anothC'r respect in which Pylos and Sp~ta contr~t ~th Ithaca: they
arC' orderly kingdoms, where the sovereign, and his wtf~, arc present;
whcrC' the treasure-house is not looted; where the ordinary rules of
social life arc respected. When Telemachus arrives at Sparta, Menelaus

89
PitrTC Vidal-Naqutt
is cdtbrating tht maniagc of hil..fC!'a (4..S-H). .By coalnlf., on Ithaca
we fmd a ,oc;iety in crisis:· lie tlin:c gtntrations of the royal family_
represented by an old man (whose exclusion from the throne brcomcs
slightly mysterious when we compatt him with Nestor), a woman, and
an adolesctnt youth who is portraytd as slightly backward (J.296- 7;
cf. Finley, 1977: 76). 51 A society upsidedown, a society in a crisis sym·
boliztd by the revolt of the A:ouroi ( the young aristocrats I , waiting for
the re-establishment of order.
Sacrifice here turns out to be both the sign of the crisis and the
means of its resolution. Who makes sacrifice on Ithaca? If our sole
criterion is the use of the verbs hiereuiJ and spntdo and related words,
the answer is everyone - both the suiton and Odysseus and his fol·
lowcn.u But if we examine the texts in which sacrifice is specifically
addressed to the gods, we find that the su.iton do not sacrifice. Mon:
precisely, one of them does suggest a libation to the gods: but this is
Amphinomus, the one suitor whom Odysseus attempts to exclude from
the coming massacre." Antinous sugnu a sacrifice to Apollo accord-
ing to the Nies, with the thighs bumt; but he is unable to fulfil his
promise (21.265-8). 11 By contrast, on Odysseus's side, sacrifice either
retrospective or immediate, is perpetual; E.umacus's piety is streued.
'l'he swineherd did not forget the immortals; he Jlad a good heart'
(14.420-1)." The comparison certainly suggests that we have lo allow
that lai1tUu6 sometimes has a meaning which is not spccifaca.Uy
religious. 11 More importantly, sacrifice is a double criterion in the
Odyury: of humanity, between humans and non-humans; and of social
and moral values, bctwccn human-beings.
But there is in the human world of Ithaca at least one place directly
connected with tht world of the myths - the complex consisting of the
harbour of Phorcys, named after Cyclops's own grandfather (l.7J-2;
13.96-7; cf. Stgal, 1962: 48), and the cave ~ to the Nymphs, the
divinitic1 of nature and or water. This cave hu two entrances, one for
gods, the other for mortals (1.5.109-12); ad appropriately enough,
just near it is a sacred olive-tree, under which Athena speaks to
Odyacus (13.122, 572). And it is here that the Phaeacians I.cave
Odysseus and his treasures.
Charles Segal ( 1962: 17) bu oblcned tllat the Phacacia.ns arc 'be-
tween the two worlds': they are placed It tbe intenet:tion or the world
of the talcs and tht 'real' world; and their...._ function in thr poem is
to transport Odysseus from the one to the other.11 When Odyllftll
comes ashore in Phacacia, naked, after complctina, or almo,t complc-t-
ing, hil rctum journey home 'wit~. 11t the hrlr :-.f aods or mortal men'
(5.52),•• he takes shelter under an uliv~tffr Mut this olive-tree i1 qui«
remarkable: h is double, b ,Js, •).Ole, b 6' Uairic, both wild and
 Land and sacnfice in the Odyssey
pf'ted; olnstcr and olive (5.477).'° The very land of Scheria is double,
con,.panble at once both with Ithaca, Pylos and Sparta and with the
1mdt of the stories. Phaeacia contains all the characteristic elements of
a Guek settlement in the age of colonization, physically framed as it is
by the 'shadowy peaks" which can be seen from afar (5.279-80). lt has
anble land distributed by a founder (<6aooru lipov-: 6.10)." Iu
field, arc beyond doubt the 'works of men': l:,rypOV<: ... 1((ri fP"'t'
Mp.:,.-w,, 'field& and human tillage' (6.259) - exactly what Odysseus
has looked for in vain in all his travels. It has a fortified citadel, distinct
from the fields: poli, lcai gaia (6.177, 191; also 6.3: 6~µ6.r, ,r6).u, TE).
The country has in abundance wine, oil and corn; Alcinous has a
flourishing vineyard of his own (6.77-8, 79, 215, 259, 293; cl. 7.122-
6). In sum, the Phatacians arc men just like other men: they 'know the
cities and rich fi,,i,1s of all men' (8.560-1). When Odysseus lands in
Phacacia, he is [clu.ming to humanity. As he draws near to Nausicaa,
he is likened to a lion which descends from the hills and kills livestock
or deer; but when he leaves Phacacia to return to Ithaca, he is likrned
to a tired ploughman returning home (6.130-3; 13.31-5).
But at the same time, Phaeacia is sharply contrasted with Ithaca.
There are no seasons in the magic garden of Alcinous (7.113-32). 61
The West wind blows there ptrpctually; the vine bears blossom, un·
ripe and ripened grapes all simultaneously. In effect, it is no ordinary
orchard, but a goldcn·age land in the heart of Phacacia. By contrast,
LaCrtcs's garden is quite normal: 'each vine had its own time to be
harvested, and the clustcn of grapts were of every colour, as the sea.sons
of Zeus caused them to change' (24.342-4; cf. Segal, 1962: 47).U On
the one hand, the age of Cronus; on the other, the age of Zeus."' The
contrast can be developed. The dogs guarding Alcinous's house, the
creations of Hephaestus in gold and silver, arc immortal, and naturally
possess eternal youth; but everyone remembers the story of the dog
Argo, whose life is exactly commensurate with the period of Odysseus's
absence (7.91-4; 17.290-327)."
And what of sacrifice here? They arc performed in Phacacia much a.s
they art' at Pylos or on Ithaca. 'We shall offer choice victims to the
gods', declares Alcinous (7.191; cf. 7.180-1). Before Odysseus's
departure an ox is sacrificed in the proper manner (13.24-7;cf. 50-IJ.
libations to Zeus). And when the Phacacians arc threatened w1tl,
destruction by Poseidon and Zeus combined, their fate turns on the
result of the sacrifice which Alcinous decides to offer them: 'a.nd the)
prepared the bulls' (f'l°oll,&GaCJQvro liE 'f'Ql}pou<:: 13.184~. This is t~c last
act by the Phacanans in the Odyssey, and we never discover their fate
- the onh,· case of a fate left in the balance. And yet, even here, the
Phacacian; arc not as other men. Alcinous c-an say: 'When we sacrifice
91
Picl'TC' Vidal-Naquct
our magnificent hccatombs to the SOOs, they come ~d ~t by u, and ~at
with us' (7.201-3)." That sort or sharing has nothmg m common wal.h
normal sacrifice which, in contrast, separates men from the~- The
Phacaciuu are 0£ course men: AlcinOUJ aD4l ~ zemmd each
other of their mortality (7~~-Ug....f!j,·aiNitll'c.........,. ~S
.,,..._._ ia,.tlle poem c1early show, them racing the precarioumcst of
the human condition. But they are also onllhithtoi, 'relatives 0£ ,he
IO(b' - not mcttly a polite epithet, for Homer usn it twice only, and
both times of them (5.S5; 19.279). They were once neishbours 0£ the
Cyclopes and suffered from their attacks until Nausith001 set them
'aput from men who eat bread' (l'JCO( m,6pW11 M.f,tqcmiwll': 6.4-8).
And in one smse they arc indeed the complete reverse of the Cyclopes
(Segal, 1962: 55): all their human virtues, the practice or ho,pitality."
piety, the arts of feastin1 and gift-giving, are the inverse of Cyclopean
barbarism. Moreover, the present disjuncture and previous proximity of
the Phacacians and the Cyclopes is a sign of a more subtle relation: 'We
arc intimate, {of the pxb)', says Alcinous, 'like the Cyclopes and the
savqc: tribes of the Giaau' (~( ••P KUd,Wl'II!( ff ICGi biyplCI fvAcr
rrycn,rwiv: 7.205-6) - those: same Giants whom the Laestrygonct are
said to resemble (10.120). Proximity and kinsbip: 1Un:ly an invitation
to search in Phaeacia for both the pattern of lhe world or fmtuy and
its rncne.
After landing in AJc:inous's country, Odysseus meets a gid washina
clothes, who invites him to come and meet her father and mother
(7.290-!07). He had met another 1irl, elsewhere. drawing water from
a spring, who pvc him a similar invitation; but she WII the daughter of
the king or the Lacstrygones. Both in the cannibal and in the hospitable
kinpm Odyucu1 meetl the queen before he me.eu the kin1 (10.105-
15; 7.U9-!i4; d. 7.5S-5). And is Nausic:ai a girl or a god.de•? A
dichi, of coune; but we must realize that she is a girl who loob like a
goddess; while Circe and Calypio were goddascs who looked like girk
(6.16,,66-7, 102-9; 7.291; 8.457). AlcinoU1, md very dil<lttlly
Nausic:ai herself, entertain. a marriqc to OdyltC!'WI, p....Uel to thcte
goddesses' more cncraet,ically prosecuted plans. The IC<luctive Sireft1
sing like bards of the Tro.P,ft war (12.184-91), just tili.e Dcmodocua •t
lhc court of Alcinous, who brinp tears to Od)'UCU1"1 eyes (8.499-531).
The fll'tt represent the perilous, Omiodoc:u1 the poaitive, apect of
poetry (Detienne, 1967).
lt will no doubt be objected tha, there is • limil to the number ol
utterly difreren, 1ituationa a man like Ody1Hu1 can cncoun\cr. That ;11
uue; but there is one coincidem.."C whic:b it pnbap1 nwrc than- u,ually
curious. Before mcctiog wilh his ~ntual carriers, the Phacac-.,
Odyucus cnc:olUlten another, who brougbt him lo tbc n e i g h ~
 Land and sacnfice in tlte Odyssey
of ltha.ca - Aeolus, master of the winds (10.2l}i who spends his time,
lik.t the Phaeacians, in feasting. In the course of both 'returns' Odysseus
falls asleep; disastrous, after his sojourn with Aeolus, fortunate after
Scheria (10.23-SS; 13.78-92; cf. Segal, 1967: 32~9). Now it will be
recall~ that Aeolus's family practise inctst;and, if we are to accept the
lines which introduce the genealogy of Akinous and Aretc, the same is
true of the Phaeacian royal couple:
'Ap'lfll &' &q.,.' tar!V hWWJ,ILVI, b: Sf ro«f}W11
rWv cd,rWv o\',re-p rftt.OII 'AAAivotN jJaolAijo:
Arete ll the name she is called, and she come. of the same
parcnu u in fact produced the 11.i.og Alkino\lS
(7.54-5, tr. Lattimore, ali,tttly altered)

The rest of the text as we have it ( 56-66) corrects the inevitable im-
pres1ion by claiming that Aretc is not Alcinous's sister but his niecc;
but in this case tht..: l' is some justification for invoking the hypothesis
of ll\terpolation.19
All the same, the 'mythical' aspect of Scheria is counterbalanced by
what I have termed the 'real' world. I have alrudy shown this for land
and sacrifi~. but the point can be extended to its entire social organiz-
ation. The social institutions of Pylos, Sparta, and of Ithaca particularly,
arc to be found on Scheria,6 ' and the details of palace organization arc
identical between Ithaca md Akinous's court: is it an 'accident' that
there are fifty servants in Alcinous's house, and the same number in
Odysseus's (22.421-2; 7.103), and the same with everything clse? 70
But these identities do not produce identical societies. For ex.ample,
although there is at least one ·angry young man' on Scheria, Euryalus,
who insults Odysseus, he is compelled to apologize (8.131--415, esp.
396-415). One could hardly find a swineherd, a cowman, or a goa.t-
herd in Ph acacia; and there would be no chance of finding on Ithaca
those professional sailors, who steer infallibly without the aid of pilots
(7.318-28; 8.555-63, 566; 16.277-31; compuc 16.322-7): Ithaca i,
an island whose men once went in ships, but it is in no sense a country
of sailon, for all that Odysseus has acquired the necessary skill. Once
back in harbour, he puts to purely static use the equipment of his ship
- as when the ship's cable is used to hang the faithless servant-girls (22.
465-73).
And yet Phacacia is an ideal and an impossible society: Homer, at thr
height of the Dark-Age crisis of monarchy, pictures a king who <.an
restore peace, who rules over twelve obedient vassals (8.390-1), over
docile rons, over a wife whose rOlc, despite claims to the contrary, is
limited to intercessionj71 and over old men whose sole function is to
give advice (7.155--66 {Echeneus's sp~cch)), and_wh~ are nei_ther dis-
carded like Laertes nor embittered bke Aegypt1us. In this sense,
93
Pierre Vidal·Naquct
Alcinou,'s palace constitutes a perrcct ol4os; and yet ~l is impossiblc,
as I have sucsstd. The Phacacians arc ipi.orant oC phy11cal 1tn1glc (8.
246), and 0 £ political strugle too: the stormy ~,a ('politic:11

Phmcu, (8.24-49). On,..,_,_ •. .,......•

assembly1 of Ithaca (2.6-336) Jhould be com~ ~th I.he agora l1I
lttdl*.........u
T ~ - - the lalMl l,ufnqoris, •assembly loudmouth' (1.!Qi
2.85); Uld there can be little doubt but that we have here a direct
glimpse o( historical reality. Both Pylos and Menelaus's Sparta. it may
be arpicd, escape the crisis of monarchy; but both arc order)).- statet,
and the historical reality of crisis makes iu appearance only when the
logic of the story demands it. The crisis is on Ithaca, not neccssuil)'
everywhere in the world of men. 71
But in that cue, where lies the difference betwttn Phacacia and
Pylos or Sparta? The answer lies unhcsitatiJllly in the land-bucd
character of the latter. And this is the paradox.: at the very moment at
which a few Greek cities were embarking on the maritime adventure of
colonization in the West, the poet of the Odyuey describes a city of
sailon u something wildly utopian. In a sense, what Ody11cu1 would
like to restore on Ithaca is a system comparable to that which cXUts
amona the Phacacians: but he cannot succced. He can never reproduce
the perpetual feasting of the men of Schcria, with or without the suds'
participation; in Book 24hc musl seek a rcconciliatiOI\ with the families
of the slaughtered suiton. The Phac&eians have cast him back into the
world or men; their departure causes to vanish the images of anti·
humanity which he encountered at every stage of his travels. Scheria
may be the fmt utopia in Greek. lrtcratu.rc (Finley, 1977: 100-2, 156),
but we have not yet reached the point at which political utopi• are to
be distinguished from images of the golden age (Finley, 1975a: 178-
92).14 For the age of gold remains present in Phacacia. and it ii that
clement which distinguishes this ideal society from another rcprcten·
tation of the pnfect city - that portrayed both in peace Uld in war by
Hephaestus on the Shield or Achilln in Book 18 or the /Ulld: n-ecy
scene here, from the ambush to the law-suit, is LU.en from the 'real'
world. The golden ap musl disappear; Odysseus's journey mutt cul·
minate in his rctum to Ithaca. 15
6. The myth of 'Honeyed Orpheus'
Mar«I Detienne (1974)

In the middle of the nineteenth century there started a debate between

clusical scholan and anthropologists on the nature of mythology. Both
sides were agreed that myths rested on a 'basis of rude savage ideas'
(Lang, 1885: 28), but there the agreement ended. The classical scholars,
led by Max Muller and full of the recent discovery of comparative
linguistics, regarded mythology as an unexpected product of verbal mis-
understanding, a sort of 'disease of language'. The anthropologists, from
Tylor to Mannhardt, treated the mythical stories of the Greeks and
Romans as evidence of a 'savage intellectual condition' through which
the civilized races had had to pass and which could still be seen in
primitive peoples such as the Australian aborigines, the Bushmen and
the Red Indians (Lang, 1885: 83).
Then Max MU.Iler died, and the classicists tidied up, here and else-
where. Since they regarded classical mythology as inseparable from the
values of which they, as heirs of Graeco·Roman civilization, were the
appointed guardians, they thought it best to check this talk of iu
'savage basis'. They did this by restoring the myths to history. They had
a number of methods. They insisted that the stories belonged to a
society of which they were the appointed interpreters. Or they detected
traces of fact in the myths, but sufficiently obscured to send the
mythologists chasing after the mythical narratives, tracking them across
Greece from the first cities which could have been their original sites to
the last to which waves of migration might have brought them. 1 But
most effective of all was their third method, the handing over of
mythical narrative to literary history. Ever since, classical scholars have
used the written status of classical mythology to justify their prior
claim to it, and until quite recently they did no more than select from
it the clements compatible with the dominant ideology of the bourgeois
society whose interests and aims so-called 'classical' philology ho.le;
always so faithfully served.
A century after Tylor, social anthropology is taking the initiati\e in
re-opening the dialogue with the classical fraternity by proposing that
one of the most famous myths of the Gracco-Roman world should he
re-examined in the light of data from Latin America. Claude Lfvi·
Suauss's suggestion (1973: 403 n.17) that the adventures of Orpheus,
Eurydice and Aristaeus should be looked ..i.t afresh in conjunction with
95
~fared Detienne
the myths of the 'girl mad about honey' was made in full awareneu
that he was proposing to tackle one or the most vigorou, myths of the
West one which had become firmly rooted in history in at least two
ways: One or these is the metamorphosis into litcratutt guaranteed to it
by its posseuion of a he~ -..,a-..lice'.....,. ~ Ut GllllrlD all
namre ~ t law suong enough to conquer ~eath. Long befoff' VuwiJ'1
fourth Georgie, Orpheus stood for the mythical figure or the poet, the
master of the incantation in which words merge with music. And.just
as hil legend was transformed into musical narrative (cantata, ontono,
opera) so it developed into a major myth of litnaturt, OM of the
extreme forms of which can be seen in the 'aesthetic mysticism' of
Valery and Mallanni (Dcspon, l952;Juden, 1970: I.37-246). On the
other hand, the myth of Orpheus is not merely the vehicle of a
succession of literary ideologies; as it appean in the Ge orgies it n:fen to
a factual history explained in detail by Servius in his commentary on
the works of Virgil. According to Servius, the episode of Aristarus and
the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice was in.tencd in the second edition
of the Georgics to replace an original section in honour of Gallus, a
poet-friend of Virgil's and prefect of Egypt who wu forced to suicide
after losing favour with Augustus. It has been quite plausibly deduced
from this that, obliged by his position of literary dependence to alter
his poem, Virgil chose to tell the story of this myth rather than another,
not only because of Aristaew 's affinities with bees, which an: the sub-
ject of the fourth Georgie, but because th(' adventure of Orpheus pY<
him an oppon.unity to make a discreet allusion to his departed friend
and, in particular, to Gallus's conviction that passionate low was a
central clement in human life (Brilson, 1966: 305-29). Paradoxically,
however, with such an eminently 'literary' myth, coloured by so many
precise references to history, it is the failure of a purely philological and
historical approach to account for it satisfactorily which justifies a
structural analysis. The fint advantage of this approach, banal though it
may seem, is that it takes a mythical narrative seriously, take, account
of all its episodes, and e:r.plains even the most unlikely detai.Ls.

Summary of the myth of Ari1taeu,, Orphcut and Eu.rydicc

In the fourth book or the Georgics, after describing how bcc:s can be
generated from the rotted tleah of an ox, Virpl goes on to tell tht ttory
of Aristaeus, from whom men first learnt this technique of boupnil,.
Aristaeus hu lost his btt1. He is desolate, md goes to.« hll mother,
the nymph Cyrenc, who advises him to coNult Protew, Wice only he
can tell AlUtacus why the hen have dCKrted hU hives. During the dog·
day1 Ariuaeus lies in wait. He surprises the tca-lJod. u he ia about to
96
 Th, myth of 'Honeyed Orpheus·
take hi, siesta in the heat of the day, surrounded by his 1eal.1. Unable to
cacapc from a grip which holds him in spite of all his changes of shape,
ProteUs reveals to Aristacus that his bees have left him to punish him
for a seriout offence he has committed. Arista.cus had punued Eurydice,
who. in trying to get away from him, had fallen on a monstrous watcr-
setpcnt. In dcspcntion, her husband Orpheus went to look. for her in
the underworld. Pcnephonc had given Eurydice back when Orpheus
suddenly forgot his instructions, turned round to look. at his wife and
lost her for ever. Orpheus himself then died, tom to pieces by furious
women who took. his obliviousness to anything except the memory of
his wife for contempt of womankind.
Alter making these rnoclations Proteus diJappcan, leaving Aristacus
deeply repentant. Cyrcnc then tells Aristaeus how he can appease the
nymphs, the companions of Eurydice: he is to offer them a sacrifice of
four bulls, whose flesh, when rotted, will produce new swarms.

The ma.in clement which ancient mythology preserved from the myth
of Orpheus and Aristaeus was the death of Eurydice and the tragic
pusion which drove Orpheus to go down to the underworld. This tra·
dition emphasized the exemplary fate of the loven precisely because it
was incapable of accounting for the relation set up by the myth between
the bttkeeper Aristacus and the couple Eurydice-Orpheus. Two series
of questions arise immediately from the story in the Georgics. In the
fint place, why did Aristaeus chose to pursue Eurydice rather than
another nymph? And why docs his action result in the disappearance of
bees which, apparently, have no special connection with Orpheus's
young wife? Secondly, Orpheus is only brought into the myth because
of Eurydice; is not his connection with the bee-keeper purely fortuitous
and therefore gratuitous? In a famous study, the German philologist
Eduard Norden set out to demonstrate the arbitrary character of the
myth told in the Georgics. He argued that Virgil had latched on to the
insubstantial figure of Aristaeus and simply invented his adventure with
Eurydice and his rivalry with Orpheus (Norden, 1966: 468-532). The
fact that the author of the Georgics was apparently the only authority
for a connection between two separate myths, at least as far as their
immediate significance was concerned, seemed to support his claim.
The only objections were from those who attributed Virgil's inspirdtlun
to a Greek venion of Ule Hellenistic period,2 a mere question of
'sources' which did nothing to challenge the myth's status as the product
of individual imagination. The reason for the persistent failure of
ancient myth analysis to understand the meaning of the triangular
relationship Aristaeu.-Eurydice--Orpheus to which the Georgics bear
witness UI not simply that the method has an implici1 tendency to select
97
Marcel Detienne
from the myths values which legitimate a particular idc~ogy of the
eternal man. At a deeper lcvc:I, its own definition of the h~IV}' work
makes it incapable of "cognizing the double context of this story, the
mythical context and the ethnographic cme. Only tbc Ont of these can
account for the unexpcc:ted.,.._.:evf~ -·o.,.._.111~
dOrY of - ilMntOr Of honey, and the K"Cond ~ eucn~ial i_f any Ill'~
ing is to be given on the level of myth to AristacW s mufortWIC in
losing his bea.J Virgil's story begins with the disappearance or
Aristaeu1'1 bees. Three reasons an given for the disappearance of the
bees, all equally explicit. Finl, there is a statement which derives from
the experience of the pcuant bee-keepers to whom book 4 of the
Georgic1 is addrcucd: the bees died of hunFr and disease (4.25lff.,

mythical character, Orpheus's gru.

318-19). This is followed by two complementary explanations of a
U1d the anger of the Nymphs
(4.453 and 533-4). Orpheus docs not himK"lf exact ...cngcanc:e for the
death of Eurydice; the only ones who have power over the bees att the
Nymph• who brought them from their wild state in the oaks to the hive
which they placed under the protection of Aristan11. Convcncly, only
they can remove them from the half-wild, half-domesticated. state in
which agriculture hu placed them. But the initation of the Nymphs, u
companions of Eurydice, is not enough to account for Ariataeus's mis·
fortune. We must go further back; it is the offence committed. by tbc
fint bee-keeper himself which compromises his special rclationthi.p with
the bees.
From Aristotle to the Byzantine treatitcs such u the Geopontcll and
the De ,inmMlliuna r,ropriet.te of Philo, the Grttk conception of the bee
(mftis,a) was based on a model which, in essential features, ffl'Dained
unchUI~ for over fifteen centuries. The meliua was distinguished by a
way of life which was pure and chaste and also by a strictly VCFlarian
diet. In addition to its "jcction of hunting and the carnivorous life, U1d
its possession of a 'special' food which it helped to prepare and which
was part of itself, the bee showed • most scrupulous purity; not only
did it avoid rottin1 subttanccs and keep well away from impure- things,
but it also had the reputation of extreme abltincncc in sexual mattcn.
The same insistence on purit)" was also visible in the bee's distaste for
smells, whether very pleasant or highly rcbarbative; in particular it
detested the scent of aromatics."' This last characteri1tic 1CC11U1 to have
been sufficiently suikinc to make btt·kttpen take nrious precautions,
which arc mentioned in Gracco-Roman tn:atisr:1 on bee-keeping; sonac
recommend the bce-kccpC'r to shave hLS head before sainl near the beel
in order to be absolutely sure of no1 ha\.iftl any trace of ,cent t.r
aromatic ointment on him. 1 The elltremc olfactory srnsitivity of bees H
not the only reason for this behaviour; the bees' dctrstat-ioa. of perfuma

98
 Th, myth of 'Honeyed Orpheus'
arist-, out of their hatred of effeminacy and voluptuousness and their
particular hostility towards debauchees and seducers, in other words,
£or those who miausc ointments and aromatics.' Plutarch even, in one
of his treatise,, stresses the infallible discernment with which bees
singk out for their attacks only those usen of perfume who arc guilty
of illicit sn.ual nlationships.' He also emphasizes, in a chapter of the
Conivgalia praecep-ta (44, 144<!.), that bee-keeping requires exemplary
marital fiddity of its practitioncn: the bee-keeper must approach his
bees as a good husband dot"s his lawful wife, that is, in a state of purity,
without being polluted by sexual relations with other women. If he
docs not, he will have to face the hostility of his charges as the husband
has to face the anger of his partner. This ethnographic context explains
why Aristaeus lost his bees. While Virgil has no more than a discre('t
rdercncc to the flight of Eurydice and her nymphs bdore the Thcssalian
bee-keeper, other less squeamish writers say plainly that Aristaeus
d«ircd Eurydice, that he wanted to seduce her and attempted to
assault her (stuprare, uitiare).' It was because the inventor or honey
had the smell of seduction on him that he was deprived of his bees.
Orpheus's bitterness and the Nymphs' anger are therefore reactions to
a sexual offence. This, by accidentally causing the death of Eurydice -
who was bitten by a serpent in her flight - drove to despair a lover
passionately devoted to his new wife, and deeply disappointed
Aristacus's protecting powers, the bees, who had chosen him for his
exemplary conduct and his good upbringing - for which latter they had
also been largely responsible.
The ethnographic context, which reveals a dose relation between the
conduct of the bees and the sexual behaviour of the bee-keeper, now
sends us back to the wider mythical context to which the meeting be·
tween Aristaeus and Eurydice belongs. There arc two immediate prob·
lems here. What can be the significance of the misconduct of a figure
whose reputation as a virtuous husband is solidly established by the rest
of the mythical tradition? And why does he pick on Orpheus's wife
when no other myth puts them in direct connection or makes any
reference to their possible affinity? A full answer would require a
detailed analvsis of the early sections of the myth of Aristaeus, for
which thet-.: ~ no room here, but two things can be said. Fint, all the
education given to the 'master of honey' was a preparation for a sokm11
marriage with the eldest daughter of the king of Thebes, and tht' bndc
groom scaled the allianct with his fathcr·in·law with the honey he
brought as one of a number of useful presents. Secondly, one of the
main results of Aristaeus's activity - in the episode which takes place
on·<Aos - is the establishment of harmony in conjugal relations; the
sweet honey seems to produce a marritd life untroubled by either
99
Marcel Detienne
ildultcry or seduction. But what about the madness which ~ame. oYcr
Aristilcus when he came in contact with Eurydice? To a plain thui the
sociological status of this young woman hu to be uamined and defined
in refation to the mytholo* of honey, ~ 7 . ,~• u a nymph,
Eurydice ii one of the ,,_......., .l,hich tome tndltion1 ~-Jb:c
DWmtiolft6f'hof\rY. Two myths, which dovetail closely, make an associ-
ation between two groups in Ikmeter's entourage, the Nymphs and the
Bee-Women, the M~liss.i. According to the fint of these storie,, it was a
nymphcallcdMeliuawho discovered the fJJ1t honeycombs in the forest,
ate some and mixed it with water and drank it, uid then taught her
companions to make the drink and cal the food. This was part of the
nymphs' a.chinement in bringing man out of his wild state; under~
guidance of Melissa, Bee, they not only turned men away from caung
each other to eating only this product of the forest trtts, but also
introduced into the world of men the feeling of modesty, o.idi>s, which
they established by mean1 of another invention, intended to reinforce
the fint, the discovery of wovC'n gannenu. Sin« then, explains the
myth fmally, no marriage takes place without th" fint honoun being
reserved to thC' nymphs, the companions of Demeter, in mC'mory of
their part in C'stablishing a way 0£ lifC' ruled by piety and approved by
the gods. The purpose of thC' second story is to explain thC' association
of Demeter with thC' nymphs connC'cted with honey· and bees. ThC'tt is
nothing unusual in thC' presence' of DemdC'r in a myth cmtred on a
'cultivated' form of life conaisting of dietary prescriptions and a sexual
code, but it i1 given even greater justification by a ritual feature men·
tioned explicitly in thC' second myth. After the kidnapping of Pase·
phone, thC' sorrowing Demeter entru1ted to the Nymphs the basket
(K&>..a6cK) which had held Pent-phone's ~aving and went to Paras,
where she was wdcomed by King Mclisseus, the king of the bees. When
she was leaving the goddess wanted to thank her host, and 10 die pve
Meli1tC'us's sixty daughtcn the cloth Persephone had been wnvina for
her wedding, and at the IUDC' time told them of her sufferinp and
revealed to them the secret ceremonK's she wished to institute. Ever
after, the women who celebrate the Thctmophoria - the fcut of
DcmelC'r reserved for lawful wives - were known as MelUstli; their
ritual namC' was Bees (cf. Detienne, 197 7: 79--80; Detienne and Vemaet,
1979, 211-12).
The emphasis now is no Jongtr on dietary rules, which slip into the
background, but on two diffC'rcnt female statusc1. ThC' daupllC'n of
Melisscus move between thC' two ftnt ttceiving the cloth woven by
PC'nephone, which stands for the stale of the ""''"/'W, the young girl
thinking of marriage, and thC'n giYing their nunc to the 111u,icd women,
lawful wives, who meet to cclcbnte the mysteries of Demeter Thesmo-
100
 Th• myth of 'Hon,y•d Orph,,u'
phoros. Nymph woman, Thesmophorian woman: this duality of the
dausht•n of MelisKus it only fully expo-=d when placed in the 1etting
of a series of imatJes in which the bee is the animal symbol of cenain
female vinua. The description given above of various unique features
in the behaviour of bees relied on the evidence of Plutarch in a long
comparison between the bee and the lawful wife. When Plutarch
included in the Coniuplu prucepta the advice that the husband should
have the same regard for his wife u a bee·keepcr for his bees, he was in
agreement with a tradition as old as Hesiod, in which the bee stands for
the good wife in the same way that the fox symbolius cunning. In the
minds of the Greeks, the melissa is the emblem of female domestic
virtue; faithful to her husband and the mother of legitimate children,
she watches owr the private area of the house, taking care of the
couple's poucaions, always reticent and modest (sOphrOn and
aiditnOn), so adding to the functions of a wife those of a housekeeper
nevH greedy or fond of drink or inclined to doze, who firmly rejects
the romantic chatter that women in general enjoy.
It ii this model of the bee-woman which determines the distribution of
attributes between the two female statuses possessed by the daughten of
Mclisseus, who an: at one stage nymphs and at another thesmophoroi.
Since only the women who celebrate the Thesmophoria are given the
explicit title of Melissai, Bees, it is with their rOle that ~ will stut.
The structure of the Thcsmophoria is most clearly shown by contrast
with the ritual of the Adonia. A comparison of the two rituals (sec fig.
1) reveals a series of fundamental oppositions: between Demeter and
Adonis, between cereals and aromatics, and between marriage and
seduction (Detienne, 1977: 60-98). Analysis of the mythology of
aromatics has produced two results which are relevant here, the con-
trut between \he legitimate wife and the courtesan and the distance
between the former, with her faintly unpleasant smell, and the pungent
perfumir of thir latter. Whereas the festivals of Adonis display the licence
of which womirn are capable when abandoned to themselves, the
Thesmophoria always took place in a serious, almost severe atmosphere.
The wonhippcn of Adonis were often courtcnns; lhe followen of
Demeter Thcsmophoros were always the legitimate wives of the citizens,
and the fcslival was stricdy reserved for them; ceremonies were clond
to sla\'e women, the wives of metics and forcignen, and of coursL·
courtesans and concubines. The opposition between the thumophorul
and the devotee of Adonis was most shuply marked in the sc:xual
behaviour prescribed for th~ puticipanU in the two rites. In the
A.donia men and women behaved u loven, on the model of the
rclati.onlhip ot" Aphrodite and Adonis, but in the Theunophoria not
only WCff' men carefully ex.duded but even the manicd women were
101
Marcel Detienne

ADONIA nD,SMOPHOaJA

Di11lfl,porHr1 Adonil and hi1 mLlue•

Aphrodite
_..,_,_~
Dcmit1cr Tharnophoros and

~.r.i·' · LawruJ wlYn · -~.

-!i~~:' eoncubinr1
St•t1,110/111irn Invited by -mrn
.......
AD (includinf hwbanda)

ContiJ1ueJK:r
Suul•tlihfd,r Seduction
Auod•tird,r.ni. lnceme and mynh Abnham'1 balm
Smirll, Abule of perfumn Slipt amell or futiae-
Hatred of the Bee-women

Food •••lint .......

for Ibo• who wnr pert\uali

bound to continence for the duration of the festival. The prohibition

of sexual activity wu reinforced in two way,, by the UK of brancha of
Abraham's balm, cho,cn for its anti-aphrodi1iac reputation, to make
litten, and also by the faintly unpleasant smell which accompanied the
fast kept by the wonhippcn of Demeter. In contrllllt to the perfumed
courtesans who took part in the Adonia, the thennophoros ~ of£ a
very faint smell of ruling which had the same function u the prlic
eaten by the women at the Skiraphoria, nuncly - according to
Philochoros of Athens - to keep their breath from Mint 1\Veet·
smclling and so enable them the mo~ easily to avoid sc•ual activity. ln
short, the sexual and dietary abstinence practised by the women taking
part in the Thennophoria marked them out ill eKagcratcd venions of
the model of fm1alc domestic vinun ~preacntcd by the btt. Further-
more, in ritual terms the tAennophoros is the sociological counterpart
of the bccs mgcrcd by the ICCnt of aromatic,.
Dctcrminingthc statusof~ Nymph, who in this case is the numplli,
necessarily involves the definition of her name. In the GNek danifl.
cation of female ages, n'Yf'IPlai denotes a status ~ween thote of the
lt.ori md the rnirir. A 1u,ri is often an immature prt, and always .,_
unmarried woman (•,amo,); the mltir, on the other hand, i9 the
matron, the woman who has given birth to children. Nrunplli stands at
the intenection of these two categories, and appf1C1 both to the young
woman just before her matnaF and to the bride before the birth of her
children finally commits her to die alien home br her hasbancl. Thil
ambivalentt makes the nurnplai UI .,,._1,ipow bee and'° verj diffmllt
from the tlaennopl,oros. In her ritual dcalinp with dae nymphl, who
102
 The myth of 'Honeyed Otphew'
ue the pauoru of marriage, preside at the Hydrophoria ( one of the
marria«:c-rituab), receive the 'pre-nuptial sacrifices' (protdeia), and
supervise the weaving of the long bridal veil, the numphi represents a
type of woman who fully deserves the description 'bee', not just because
she submits to purificatory procedures which qualify her for the most
emphatically ritual part of marriage, but also because she displays
aidos and sOphron,ni, the modesty and reticence which arc the mark of
her new state. Nevertheless, bdore emerging a..s a thesmophoros, before
becoming a Bee in the ritual sense, the numphi must necessarily pass
through another state. In the days immediately following the marriage
she will lead the life reserved for young mmicd couples, the numphiOn
bios. Crowned with aphrodisiac plants such a.s myrtle and mint and
gorging thcmsclvt:s with cakes spiced with sesame and poppy seeds, the
bridal pair need think of nothing else but leading a 'life of pleasure and
voluptuousness', a life of hidupathntJ. This is a way of life symbolized
by honey, for the Greek proverbial tradition makes an equation between
the expressions 'to sprinkle oneself with honey' and hidupatheia, which
is the search for excessive pleasure and satisfaction. At this time of
'honeymoon' the young bride, the numphi, runs the risk of no longer
being a bee but becoming a hornet (ltiphin), turning into the revcnc of
a bee, a carnivorous bee, brutal and at the mercy of excessive desires,
driwn to gorge without measure on honey and condemned to roll in
what Plato describes as 'hornet honey', all the pleasures of the belly and
the flesh.
So the status of numphi is an ambiguous one in a woman's life, sina
while society, by ritual procedures, invites the numphi to behave like a
good bee, it nevertheless cannot prevent the new bride, who has access
to the pleasures of love (aphrodisiq), from automatically giving off a
scent which makes her desirable and so, momentarily, even dangerous.
This detour by way of the honeymoon was necessary to understand
how Eurydice, the young girl who had become Orpheus's bride, could,
quite involuntarily, have transformed the first bee-keeper into a vulgar
seducer. In rushing after Eurydice, Aristacus gave way for an instant to
the ,eduction exercised by the honeymoon, to the seduction within
marriage which threatens most of all someone whose whole life has
been passed within the area of marriage. To sec that the ~ymph
Eurydice was particularly fitted for the part of the y~ung ~ndc on
honeymoon, we need only remember that the mythical f1gun:. ol
Eurydice is entirely swallowed up in her love for O~~eus, the Thrac1":°
enchanter. All that remains to complete our analysis is to show that his
inuusion into the story of Aristaeus is neither fortuitous nor
unmotivated.
Orpheus has a double claim to a place in the mythology of bimC:y,
,W:i
Ma:-cel Detienne
for the exccuive love with which he sun-ouncb Eurycli« and for the
contrast he offers in a number of re1pecu with hil t'f?hcme~ ri":'1,
Aristacus the b«-k«pcr. In aJl the descriptions of their rrlationslup.
Eurydice and Orpheus appear u a pair of loven who cannot bear to tJ:'
separated, even by death. When Orpheus exploits the ~ of _hil
honeyed voice to get pemwaion to leave the underworld With ~urydicc,
the iods of those regions impose a uiple prohibition, oral, V1Sual and
tactile (Virgil, Getn'gics 4.'87; Cukx 289-95). He LI not to 1peak to
Eurydice, not to Joo.Ir. at her, not to embrace her. These are thlft forms
of distance which the gods of the underworld impose on loven too
violently in love with one another to put off the moment or meetin1.
The "too great love' (Virp's tnhU furor, GeMti,cs 4.495) which
prrci.pitakl the destruction of both Eurydice and Orpheus is the sip.
or their inability to live the relationship or muriage out1ide the honey·
moon. The story of Orphem and Eurydke is not a story o( trap: love
or unhappy pas1ion; it UI the failure of a couple incapable of establilh·
in1 a conjupl relationship which allows for the proper dinanca.
Nevertheless, Orpheus's propensity to 'roll ill honey' is not the only
feature or his which justifies the connection of hi1 1tory with the
mythology or honey and accounu for hll uwolvemcnt with the muter
of the bees. Honey is connected with the fil"J'C of Eurydke's lover in
two way1. First metaphorically: from hill melodj,ous mouth come
honeyed sounds which - accordin1 to the whole Greek tradition -
enabled him to charm all nature and drew arur him fish, birds and the
very wildest animals. Secondly in mattcn of food, where he U: the
legendary initiator of a particwar way or life, a diet or cakes and fruit
coated with honey adopted by those who call thermelvcs his followen,
who also offer tMm to the gods in sacrifice in order to avoid sheddin1
the blood of dome1tic animah. However, to fa more exactly Orpheus's
position in the mythology of honey, he mu,t be contrutcd, not only
with Aristacus, but also with Orion, a u.vage hunter wbo,c adventures,
prcfilJUrcd in the ex.plaits of Ariltaew.'1 son ActMon, develop in cun·
st.ant conll'Ut with those of the btt-.ltcepcr. A. triangular rclationlhip
bctwttn Orpheus, Ari1tacu1 and Orion is established in three area,,
animals, women and honey, thrtt areu in which Orion md Orpheus
correspond u two extttmes situated on either aide of Ariltacut,, their
mutual mediator. Orion, a brutal, violent. club-wicklins fipm:. appcm
throughout the mythical tradition a, a savage, for ever p1a11U11 fierce
animals, which he IOVC'I to daughter, md even ggina ID f• U 10 boast
that he will wipe off the face o( the earth all the iUWllah which Gm
bean and nurtures. Orpheus U: the opposite of Orion. When Orioa
shows an excess or savagicry in 1ettin1 no limitl to his huntiDa- OrphtNe'I
distinctive characecriatic is a pervenc tcntlmc11 whkb ......, bun
104
 Th, myth of 'Hon<y<d o,.ph,us'
...... round him all the animab of the canh, even the fiercest, which
Jil;,e,'._ all Utt' rat are drawn by the charm of his voice and the sweetness
o~ bil song. Aristaeua is hunter and shepherd, OK'fl" and n.omios, both
at nee, md hi, uniqucnas lies in his ability to maintain an equal dis-
tllnft &om each of these extremes; he tames some animal species
(cattle, goats, sheep) and inaugurates their husbandry, but also u,es
tnpe: to hunt the wild crcatu~s (wolves and bean) which arc a direct
threat to his activities as a shepherd and a bee-keeper. The same relation·
ships between the three figures reappear in their attitude to women. All
that Orion can do is rape them; almost as soon as he sets eyes on his
host's daughter on Chios he lusts after her and wants to have her; as
soon as he catches sight of the Pleiadcs he chucs after them. His violent
dcsitt cvcn tempts him to lay hands on Artemis while she is taking part
in one of his extermination hunts. At the opposite extreme from this
brute, Orpheus is a young husband passionately attached to his wife; his
honeymoon with her is excessi\'e, and prevents him - like Orion -
from becoming either a good son-in-law or a perfect husband, but in his
case from an excess of attachment rather than violence. Both Orion and
Orpheus, by opposite excesses, ue excluded from the status attributed
by the myth to the bee-keeper Aristaeus. the husband who keeps a
proper distance between himself and his wife and who uses honey as an
instrument of alliance with his father-in-law.
It is however honey which illustrates most clearly the function of
Aristaeus as mediator between Orion and Orpheus. Aristaeus is a model
bee-keeper. He receives from the nymphs the task of caring for the bca
and obtains from his protecton the secret of the process which will
establish honey and bees permanently in the world of men. Aristaeus's
honey is the basis of a form of civilized life from which both Orion and
Orpheus an excluded, though for directly opposite reasons. The giant
Orion, because of his excessive brutality and violence, is unable to
csc~ from a state of primitive savagery which he betrays most
obviously by trying to violate the Pleiades - the Dove-Women counter·
parts of thc Bees who nurturcd Zeus. Orpheus, through an cxcess of
honcy, is likewise excluded from a civilized world which bee-keeping
bas begun, tentatively, to define. It is because he is 'all honey' that
Orpheus obliterates the boundaries between the wild and the cultivatcd
and mixes marriage and seduction together. In the prescn« of Orphn~s
lions and bean live alongside roe and fallow deer, and the fiercc~t .1111
mals arc gentler than lambs. Just as he is all honey for the whok of
nature, by his excessive attachment to his young wife Orpheus cannot
prevent himself from being the lover and seducer of a woman whose
lawful husband he aJso is.
The tngic death of Orpheus is the final e\'cnt which confirms his
105
Marcd De-ticnne
inability to establish himxlf in the uu defined by ~be action or
Aristacus (fig. 2). Once Emydice UI gone for good, her distrmught hw.·
band xoes from improper clo5encu to cxce~c. u_can«. Oq,hcu1 cuts
himself orr from women, who, furious at thcar reJccbon, behave towards
him like wild beasts, and by so doing 1ttm to take the pl~c left empty
by the bcuts themselves, whom Orpheus has chosen as ~" cl~~t com·
panions and friends. This spatial pattern is illustrated m Ovid s ,Wet.a·
morplt.tnes. When the women launch the attack which en~ in_ t~c dis·
membermcnt of OrphC'US, the man with the honeyed vmcc ~s ~ the
middle of a circle of animals, and it is these who are the fint Y1ct1ms of
the Cftl'aFd bacchants, who .re armed with hoes, sickles, ~arth-~unden,
spits and two-headed axes, all tooJs belonpng to the cult.vatcd bfe from
which they now finally exclude Orpheus.
The hatred of bees for seducen, the social status of the bee-kec~r,
the tocial position of the bride, the definition of honey in ttlation to
hunting and not-hunting. all these are aspects and dimensions which fill
out the mythical background without which the misfortune of A:ri,tacw
and Orpheus remains shut up inside a literary nanative. In the field of
danical mythology the methodological contribution of socim anthro-
pology is u much to establish mythical language as an autonomous
object as to work out the basic rules for deciphering it. The mythical
nanativc in Virgil's story only acquires definition when placed within
its double context of ethnography and mythology. To identify the
different levels of meaning, the diffrrcnt code., which form the t.nturc
of the myth, all the cultural associations of honey must be cxplond,
which involves anas u divcnc as techniques of collection and the sym·
bolism of the bee, institutions such as marriage Uld variou.1 ritual pnc·
ticcs. Similarly, in order to inccrprc:t the Orpheus myth ~ need. to
explore its connections with other myths such u those of Ari.them and
Orion which with it fonn a group within which a number of 'trans·
formations' take place. The result of this double analysis is a grid on
which levels of meaning att distinguished along the vertical axUI and
conelations with other ro.ychs along the horizonW. All the .elcmcntl of
the myth now have a place, and decipherment CUI continuc until the
full richness of the lope of mythical statement is laid open.•
It is, of course, poaibte to interpret the OrphC'US myth diffcrenrl,·,
but alternative intcrptttationa achieve plausibility only by dntroyinc
the structure of codes which underpins the honey myrhl (in tNI cue
10ciolo1Pcal, dietary ad scJtual codes). In such approachct Orphcut't
glance at Eurydice, isolated from the othn prahibi.tians (onl llld
tac:tile) revealed by a structural analysil, became, pure impalicntt Gt, .u
in MontcYcrdi's opera, inability to control bil urps, o, IIIIUI - this i1
Ramcai't version. - a breach of romantic 1.'"0ll'ft'ntiom." Thf' clUDq of
1o,;
 The myth of 'Honeytd O,,,h,us'

OIUON ARISTAEUS ORPHEUS

A,a;.../, Destroy, all by Tame, 1amc (goau, Captivates all,

•nae •undq sheep, cattle), hunll even the fiercc11

lt'OMffl kapa and UMU.lb. Model hulband. Lover-hwband.

Detn.tcd 'aon-in-law' Perfect son-in-law Incapable of
becominc • 1ood
hulband and•
forriori a proper
son-in-I.aw

H,_, Pursues Dove-Women Bce-tr.ccper. 'All honey'

(• Bee-Women) Protector of bec1,
protected by Bee·
Nymph,

Ficurc 2

this process is humanism's discovery of it as 'the most marvellous

symbol of love ... which, strongrr than death, triumphs over every-
thinR, except it,.lf' (Belleuort, 1920, 145). All these are fragmentary
interpretations, dazzled by the glitter of a single detail, but all still able
to find suppon in the G~Mfl·cs, where Virgil, without breaching the
conventions of the myth or engaging in major distortion, gives Orphcw's
glance an imponancc which makes it reveal the ideological bias of his
story.
This detail also gives us a preliminary criterion by which to deter-
mine the level of mythical thought represented by Virgil's mythology;
it i! a reminder that, although most of the mythical discounc produced
by ancient societies is embedded in literary narratives, often influenced
by various forms of ideology, this docs not ncceuari.ly mean that the
development of the literary settings has distorted or destroyed the
myths. This characteristic may be combined with another, which was
recognized as a result of an investigation of a group of myths centred
on aromatics and seduction; it wu found that the categories and logical
relations revuled by structural analysis of mythology arc very largely
the same as those used by the Greeks in a series of explicitly 'rational'
works compost:d at the same time u the literary works which contain
the myths. Provisional though they arc, these conclusion1 on the type·
of mythical thought found in Greece suggest that we should not seek to
press the very close connections between the honey myths centred on
Aristacus and the corre1pondin1 mythology of Latin America which
seem to be indicated at first sight by the affinities between two mythical
complc:r.es of dearly unequal dimcmions, bur both centred on a
pathology of maniage in which the mythical opaator is honey. Our
107
Mucci Dcucnne
aim is no longer, as m Tylor's day, to recover the balf·v~s~cd traces of
a 'savage stage of thought' reve•d to us by archaic 1oc1et:1n. Th~ r1?'·
and essential, task is to construct the grammar of the wa~ of thinlung
expressed in the myths, without prej~dging the. qunuon whether
mythica.l thought is a privileged ex.preu1on of an nnage of UM' world
immanent in the structure of the mind, or whether structural resem-
blances arc to be attributed to a palatolithic heritage on which both the
Old and the New worlds have drawn. More urgent tasks confront the
mythologist. The myths have to be grouped by me~s of an exhawti~
analysis of their ethnographic context in ways which go bcyon~ _the
cycles and classifications of the ancient myth~h~n. In ad~1t1on,
since the cla.ssical myths arc deeply embedded m different literal)·
forms, the ana.lysis of the semantic field in which myths opcra1t must
be drveloped, and linguistic structures related to mythological one1
(Sperber, 1968: 200-6).
All these tasks will help to comprehend a history in~puable from
mythical statement throughout Graeco-Roman civilization. Until very
recently, isolated myths tempted tlwe hcllenist's curiosity with the
prospect of an institutional ttsidue or the scarcely discernible lineament
of some archaic practice. In future the business of the student of myth
will no longer be to e1ttract an institution or a social practice from a
mythical narrative like a kernel from its splintcttd shc:U. What the
mythical staltments of a society reveal is iu total mentaJ univcnc, since,
as we know, the only possible bas.is for structural analysis is a thorough
acquaintance with the ethnographic context of each myth and each
group of myths. Ritual practices, economic techniques, fonns of
marriage, legal institutions, classifications of animals, descriptions of
plant species, all arc aspects of a society which the mythologist ml.131
classify. Only then will he be able to judge the relevance of each term
in its sequence and each sequence in iu narrative, and go on to place
the narrative, by reference to iu various codes or levds of meaning,
within a major or minor mythical complex. All this whole ethnopaphic
context is nothing other than history, the history whose rhythm,
chronology, changes, Owt and reflux have been the objects of the hit·
torical study of ancient societies since the nineteenth century. The
mythologist's structural models cannot do without the analyses of the
historian; without them their coherence and logic would have no
foundation.
Antiquarians and other believers in a hilwry of ~vent,' wUHk1
through mythology with their spikes, triumphantly winldUII out ol
comets a fragment of archa&lm here or the foailO:ed memory of some
'real' event there. Structur~ anaJy5i.s of myth rejects this apprcm,cb. IN
di.tcovery of invariant forms underlying variety of conknt .enables it to
108
 Th• myth of 'Hon<y<d Orpheus'
design a.n alternative total history moving on a slower and more funda-
mental time-sea.le (Burguihc, 1971: v-vii). Structural analysis pen-
etrates below conscious expressions and, beneath the superficial move·
mcnt of things, traces the deep, slow cwrents which flow in silence.
Thia is one of its contributions to modem historical technique, but
there is also anotha. By examining the myths in themselves, in their
own organizational forms, the historian of the Greek world is enabled
in his tum to isolate various general properties of mythical thought,
confronkd as he is by the problem of coming to grips with a society in
which the a.ppearancc of a totally new form of thought, philosophy,
had a dcfinltc effect on the functioning of myths, but did not immedi-
ately Ulduce a process of decay . 11

109
m: Myth and social order
7. 'Value' in Greek myth
Louia~m•t (1948)

It is rather easy to forget that some fields of human activity, such as

law and economics, arc aspects of the human mind. For in our own
world they operate apparently without any reference to man himself.
If we arc to sec them for what they are, products of mind, we must
look in the fint instance not at thdr modem form but to their past,
whose rich complexity can so easily be misunderstood by an unthink-
ing application of attitudes stemming from Enlightenment philosophy;
and it is thi.5 past which has brought about their present high degree of
elaboration. Indeed, it is in the task of reconstructing those past con-
ditions in which the products of the human mind can mort: clearly be
grasped, whcrc\.·cr it proves possible, and to the degree that it is poss-
ible, that history finds one of its surest justifications. And that is,
before anything dse. a psychological enquiry.
The notion or "value' in particular. I think., deserves some attention.
For us today it is an entirely abstract notion, because we all conceive
it necessarily in terms of quantification. But this is not the cue in
societies which, for want of a better term, we call 'archaic' or 'primitive':
for in such societies the value of possession, or goods for consumption
is determined by a whole range 0£ conceptions and feelings - thinking
about 'value' involves a consideration 0£ all manner 0£ relationships
and associations. Such a field 0£ enquiry may seem at first sight quite
bewildering: which is yet another reason for studying it. For thc.se
societies prese-nt us with a 'total' notion 0£ value, combining categories
which uc for us distinct: it is the object 0£ respect, even of religious
fear; the focus 0£ interests, loyalties or pride; the leitmotif 0£ that
'capacity for wonder' which according to Descartes is the fint
'primitive passion'. Moreover, it involves or denotes a psychological
'pitch' at once higher and more diffuse than is the cue with u1.
We have here 10 do with true 'complexes', that is, with forms in
which all the classic '£acu1tics' 0£ mind arc implicated and combined to
an equal degree. The very idea 0£ value may involve an uneasy balance
between a generalized disquiet and a physical shrinking from something
cwi,crous - both mental and physical behaviour is involved. Social
Ill
LouisGc:mc:t
rulc:s, such as those: regarding reciprocal c:xchangc of gi.fu, both ~vc: the:
notion contc:nt and intc:nsify it. It is shot through W1th a(fc:cuvc: con·
sidc:u.tions, which arc: c:xprc:stc:d in images whose: fOlc: and ch~~r
have: to be: taken into account. And dttp down we can 1c:c: the: gu1dmg
principles - hard to discc:m but in con1:1'ol - the: ~ocidy's ~ollc:ctiw
ttprc:sc:ntations, which hc:lp to define: 1t . ~d which constltutc the:
inc:luctablc: (ramc:work for all its mental acuv1ty. I hardly nec:d to make:
the: point: all this provides the: idul conditions for a study of man's
capacity to cttatc: symbols.
It can only heighten the: intc:n=st of such an enquiry if it focuses upon
that stage of historical development which bordc:n upon the: era of
'positive:' value: - chronologically that lS- a stage at which ~sychol~~
attitudes deriving from thc- remote past ncvc:rthc:less ~n1st. And lt as
that possibility which is oHc:red by an archaic civilization which pro-
vokes such questions at almost n-ery tum; a consideration whic.h
inspires the following remarks.

The: problem of the: origin of money ii particularly important in relation

to ancient Gree~. where for the: fint time in human hi1tory the use of
money in the strict sense (that is, of certified money) became: wide:·
spread (Laum, 1924). One: aspect of the problem is this. If we: dis-
tinguish between 'symbol' and 'sign',1 in auch a way that the first
remains charged with immediate affective: meanings, where.u the signifi·
cance of the: 'sign' is limited, or apparently limited, entirely to ill
function, it is clear that what we mean by 'the origin of money' is the
transition from 'symbol' to 'sign'; we are moreover aware that in many
societies which do not makt use of money aa such there are to be
found charactc:ristic expressions of 'value', which fulfil functions more
or less similar but seem c:ssc:ntially concrete by comparison (cf. Mauss.
1970: l 7-45;Simiand, 1934: 1-58 with the diacuuion on pp. 59-86).
We may note that a parallel development ii clilcemib)e in the ca.se of
law, where: ritual precedes and adumbratet lc:pl process. And the: com·
parison is the more instructivt in Greece- ill relation to an institution of
evident social 1ignificance, the public pmat in thoec: lc:gt:ndary com-
petitions (athla:) which provide one: of the fuowite epic themes, the
behaviour and attitudes by which iruli:ri4uala lay claim to prizea pave
the way for the sten-otypc:d acu and ...._ ~ c of ancient
law (de: Visschc:r, 1931: 353-7). Mone llp0Ci:6cllty, one may i,ec in them
an antecedent of mancipatio (Gemet, 1948: l 17......aa). Tb it Ute act of
laying claim to somtthing by placing one'a bad upon it; and it hu I
special relationship to the: ob~ct towards which it II dirttted. ln what
might be: termed the marginal instan.c:c:, whcie it inV$ft'CI ltyina hold of
112
 'Valu,-'in Grult myth
tile hoRl of a bull which a man has won, it is merely an extension of a
propedy religious act, and the object claimed, which is in principle a
~ o£{eri.ng, has a religiow value. Although their significance is
ob\tiou.S.y more profane, the other objects given as pri~es are no less
'c:b:araed• - the idea of 'owning' them c.annot be separated from the
conception of the value attached to them. The way in which these
objecu are conceived, the conception of rights over them and the
behaviour demanded both in order to pin those rights and to protect
them, all of these arc tightly related to each other. Moreover, the very
objects, the institutionalized prizes, themselves adumbrate money: one
could almost say that in the case of the funeral games in the Iliad, for
example, we arc as far from money as we arc from legal process. And
that is a very interesting kind of relationship.
The ob~cu distributed as prizes, especially cups, tripods, cauldrons,
weapons and so on, can then be classified among the 'premoneta.ry
tokens' to which Bernhard Laum has drawn attention (1924: 104-25:
'die primonctarcn Geldfonncn'). These objects arc often evaluated by
reference to their quantity: objects offered in ransom, gifts between
guest·friend,, im·olvc considerations of number, which proves that there
were relevant norms and traditions. In the case of an institution like the
Homeric games, where all the contestants arc given prizes, there must
have been some hierarchy of value that governed them. Furthermore,
many of these objects have a direct relation to the origins of money. In
Crete, as late a.s the fifth century BC, fines arc expressed in terms of
tripods and cauldrons. Whether or not we arc to undentand them as
monetary tokens (the point is disputed), the token itself and its function
remain instructive. The iron sickles presented as prizes at the games at
Sparta have been identified by some modem historians as a Spartan
cuncncy ; converscJy, agonistic types arc commonly found on ancient
coins, which WefC' sometimes struck to commemorate games.

The objects given as prizes belong to a category both extensive and

definite, rclativdy at any rate. Such objects or their analogues occur in
several different but parallel contexts: traditional presents, gifts be·
t~cn guest-friends, offerings to the gods, grave-goods and objects
placed in the tombs of princes. As a class of goods, they arc the medium
of aristocratic intercourse. They arc classified implicitly as diffrrrnt
from another sort of goods which arc both inferior in nature .1Hd
distinct in function. In the language of Roman law - though there, in
an essentially peasant world, the distinction is formulated at a quite
different level - we should say that they a.re pre.eminently res mancipi.
By the same token, they constitute a special form of property - private
property in the narrow scnx, which, in the case of the warrior caste we
115
I .ouis Gemet
arc shown in the epics, is defmed both in terms of the: behaviour and
customary rules which regulate it and by contrast with o~er prOFffY
hdd on a juridical or quasi-juridical basis (such aa ownrrsh1p or land or
livestock). Its owner enjoys absolute: rights or d~posal. The best p~f
of that is the institution of grave-goods: such objects fo_llow the P':'ncc
into his tomb. And finally, it is prc:dscly this nouon of pnvatt
possession which is stressed in the v~ulary: the ~e~ kt~ta i,
normally used to refer to objecu of this lund, emphasizing the idea of
acquisition - acquisition in war, through the games, by gjft; but n,:vn,
in principle, by mercantile trade. 1
This group of preferences, u.clusions and norms SCJ"\'es to dcftnc a
particular aspect of 'value'. Historians have usually thought it appropri·
ate to focus upon objecu that arc clearly pttmonetary tokens; within
that context, I propose to study those which possess two characteristics:
goods U1 circulation (whereas livestock. used as 'money' must h.ave
functioned chiefly as a method of payment) 1 and the product of human
labour - metal-work. in particular (and sometimes textiles). Such a
restriction of the notion of value is intentional: it wu ideas connected
with cattle, with their specifically religious value: and their ritual uses,
that provided the major theme of Laum's essay on 'sacred money'. and
the basis for his theory concerning the ttligious origins of secular
money. I do not intend to discuu this theory; but it is clear that,
beyond religious cult - sacrifice, to be c:xact - whett such a theory is
quite legitimate, there nists this whole series of objects which La.um
could account for only by special pleading, and whose charactn and
functions I have just discussed: in an enquiry into the origins of money,
this class of objecu has its place; in a study of judgements about 'value•,
it must ht considn-cd independently.

We have of coune to do here with economic value, or at least fflth ill

earliest fonns. I shaJI however normally speak simply of 'value': as soon
a, one speak.s of 'economic value', there it a tendency to tupprcn the:
idea of value itself, to substitute the idea of mc:uure (which tinner·
theless essential) for the: idea of that which is meuured.. Moreow-r, I un
not talking about some minimal, abstract ff'nSIC of 'value' but of a
highly-charged value: embodied in certain objccti which pre-nisb that
other sente and indeed conditions it.
To treat the different a,pecu of 'value' u a homo~ou, fflllitv
require, no justification nowaday1: one is frtt to nrcOIJUU in dlem a
common 'intention'i and they all involve a process of idalizatioo. In
I.his particular case, there is evidence: for such a pro«H at lt'VU'll1 d:i(fer·
c:nt social-psychological lcvr.ls.
The fint is to be found in linguiltic habits. The: word: .,.,....; in its
114
 'Value' in Greeh myth
earliest usage. implies the notion of 'value'. It can be used of all kinds
of thing,, even, on occasion, of human beings thought of as 'precious'.
It usually expresses some idea of opulence, and above all of aristocratic
wealth (horses are agalmata). And it cannot be divorced from another
notion which i., insinuated by an etymology which the word itself
makes evident: the verb ago.llein, from which agalma is derived, means
both 'adorn' and 'honour'. Now the word agalma is used especially in
relation to the class of movable objects which concerns me here; and it
is highly relevant to add that in the classical period it became special·
ized in the sense 'of£ering to the gods', and above all that kind of
offering which statues of gods represent. 4
The objects I am concerned with arc 'industrial objects'; but it must
be stressed that they are products made for a luxury market. One
indirect proof of their outstanding, extraordinary, 'value' is the quan·
tities of imitations of them, the reproductions in cheap materials,
whose use as anathimata ('offerings') is, as it were, a symbol of a sym·
bol; and great masses of them are known from excavations. But
uchacology has also revealed a considerable upsurge in the proto·
historical period of the production of jewellery and its dissemination
by trade. Ncvenheless, Karl BUcher's remarks on the special charac·
tcr of Greek industrial production remain true for the '.Archaic'
period. 5
If we now tum from technical and economic considerations to
religion, we may start from my earlier observation that agalmata arc
characteristically 'offerings'; in Homer, where the word does not yet
have this specialized Stnsc, we find something even more telling: it
denotes 'precious objects' which are spontaneously used as offerings.
We have here a kind of religious 'trade' which is of special interest for
my purposes: the notion of 'value' is here heightened, and specialized,'
but it is evidently at the same time associated with the idea of lavish
generosity - that is, aristocratic generosity (which Aristotle in the
fourth century still takes to be characteristic of a class to which the tag
'noblesse oblige' remained appropriate).' And we should remember
that this category of 'wealth', manifested as the property of the gods,
remained a category well-defined in the classical period: in criminal
law, sacrilege (hierosulia) is quite different from the crime of theft or
malvcnation of a god's revenues. It is a quite special and unpardonable
offence. And it involves laying hands upon a more revered category of
'sacred goods', which are to be identified precisely as our agalmata -
tripods, vases, precious jewels and so on.'

Bu.t there is yet another level at which we can examine the mental
115
L:)uil Gernet
activity through which "value' comes into bang, that is, bttoma
'objective': the level or myth.' . .
We can sec that precious ob,JCcts occur 111 leftnds - CYCD that they
pla}', so to speak, a central l'Olc - became in them t~cy are ~waJI
endowed with a peculiar power. What I want to ,tress ~ that th11 '"Y
or thinking is particularly evident at the very stage at which I ~ s~udy-
ing the notion or 'value', that is, in the pre-monetary stqe whida 11 the
immcdiacc prccunor of a period in which it wu conceived abl~Y·
Perhaps we can learn somethin1 from that; at the very lcut. there ts a
problem to es.amine mOJC closdy. . .
There is no 'method' by which to conduct such an cxannna.ooo. We
must read the storica, nothing more. But the storica prnuppoac or
imply particular human attitudes: we should take them into consider-
ation if llllC wish to read aright. ~ stories, moreover, are intcrcon·
nected: there arc similarities which we would do well not to overlook.•
prion· because we U'C terrified of making arbitrary conncctiona. 1 need
really be granted only one thing: that mythology is a kind of lanpagc.
We know the function of ',ipifomts' in a language (de Sauuutt, 1966:
122-7); taking my cue from linguinics, I would say that we hPe to
take into account two kinds of conntttions. First, th<>11: bet~n the
constituent clements or 'moments' of a linclc talc (which ~ may tab
sometimn as the more significant in that their rationale is not immcdi·
atcly obvious and even seems on occasion not to have been und.entood
by those who told them); and second, the msociatiom by means of
which one episode, theme or imqt: evoffl a similar llf'OUP· Such con·
ncctions and associations arc: of somit help. But we must oot bC" in too
much of a hurry,

1hc tripod of the scvca , . . .

There arc advantages in taking first a story which looks historical - a
story whose charactcn arc historical pcnons, which is probably nol
earlier than the sixth century BC, and which morcPYff bu just that
~uonable and cdifyin1 tone which is typical of the period.. It would be
difficult to bcline that it is a legend: the story seems limply to have
been made up to illustrate an ideal of wildom. But it is a lqend in the
sense that one keeps finding in it certain lradidunal idf:u or imap1; aad
because throushout the tradition it compliantly rctaim a mythical l>Ne,
without which the story would IOSC' its mioimwn of aff«tive or pottk
interest that it always contains. It allows us at any rate now to pick out
certain rcaturc,, ecru.in elcmitn&s, which ~ may come acro11 apin
later: a very proper introductiun.
Our best tourcc ll Diogenes 1-rtiu,. who menily aiva ra HY4JnJ;
116
 'Yalut' in Grtelc myth
¥<nions (Lives of lht Phi/osophtn 1.27-33; cf. Plutarch, Life of Solon
4). The tradition goes back quite a long way, but it seems clear that
larF numben of variutts continued to circulate until pretty late: most
of the authon Diogenes cites by name uc fourth-century; but their
building-blocks seem to be old, and even if these were made up to suit
the tale, they were made up in keeping with the habit of mind that
created legends: we need no more. The story goes something like this.
It concerns the prize to be awarded 'to the wisest'. Each one of the
seven 'sages' to be found in the constantly-varying list that was trans·
mitted all through antiquity is accorded the prize in succession. The
prize is sometimes a tripod, and sometimes a golden cup or goblet.
Usually it is awarded fint to Thales, and Thales relinquishes it in favour
of another whom he deems wiserj who in tum gives it to a third. And so
it goes on until it is given back by the seventh to Thales, who consc-
aate1 it to Apollo.
Let us look fint at the company (or perhaps 'at the luminaries'). The
fint thing to notice is that the tripod or vase is conceived as a prize
awarded aher a competition, a competition in wisdom, even happiness
(Kuiper, 1916: 404-29), by a tnnsposition of the underlying idea of
rivalry. This feature is more or less explicit and is not demanded by the
situation itself. A model comes at once to mind, that of the games,
which we know to have been one of the preferred social contexts for
the deployment of the pn:cious object qU charged image. Another
modd too, equally social, and perfectly compatible with the fint: we
have here a succession of gifts - the object goes from hand to hand;
and the text of Plutarch is especially suggestive concerning those who
have rights in the gift. and the gift-ethic: note especially the words
'cede' (which implies a certain respect), •noble generosity', 'circu-
lation'.'8 Above all we should notice how Plutarch gives concrete,
plconastic, expression to the idea of circular transmission. The seven
5&FS form a group (the number itself is significant); the tradition else-
where brings them together at a banquet; and the banquet, in the society
of the legends, is the privileged locus for acts of generosity, for agree-
ments and for challenges. But above all it is the place where things
circulate - the cup and, with it, the toasts, which arc so many offer-
ings. 11 Beneath the story of the Seven Sages, there lies a traditional
structure of ideas.
The object itself has a quite special value which is linked to religion:
in the end, the tripod is consecrated to a god (as if its value had increased
through its being passed from hand to hand). And even before, in one
very interesting vcnion (Diogenes Lacrtius 1.33), it already ap?cars as a
wcD-known type of religious object: an oracle ordered. that 1t be sent
'to the house' of a wise man. u And that makes us thmk of the cult·
117
!..ouisGemet
practice whereby sacred objects arc held by a number of appropriate

peih~s;n~:!:~: ::~0!~ations intimate the existence he~ of a myth·

structure:. In a number of vnsions, the object has a history -. almos~ ~
identity card - such as we often find in Homer for valuable ttcms: it ~
divine right from the start, because: it was made by H~hacs~•: That IS
quite boring - practically a commonplace in the hermc uadit~on. ~ut
there arc one or two more interesting points. When the ob1ec1 11 a
tripod, it is uNally said to have been found in th~ sea, and to ~ave been
caught in a rWling net. And here: there surely 11 a connection ~o b_e
pointed out - which hu indeed already been pointed o":t, and which 11
quite inescapable. Not only is the sea the: clement which convey, or
canics off the god, the dead man translated into a hero, the infant hero
and, above all, the chc:1t in which he has been put;13 but divinities and
objects endowed with magical power are discovered or miraculously
,aved in fi1hing nets - as were: the infant Peneu1 and his molhc:r OanK
in the chest in which they had been cut away ;14 similarly in the
parallel legend of Telephus and his mother Auge (Glatz, 1904: 51-2),
the shouldc:rblade or Pdops, the most important or the bona or the
hero, which were: needed so that the Greeks might take Troy (Pausanias
.!U3.4-6 Rocha-Pereira), and a famous moving stitue [of the athlete(
hero Theagcnes J , now accuned, now impoacd upon the credulity of
popular reJ.iciosity (Pau,anias 6.11.8). And we may also note that in the
story which concems us this mythical motif is related to another, which
is its counterpart - at leut in one rather full version in the uadition: 11
the tripod wu originally a Wt"dding·gift from the gods, and as 1uch
paacd down in the funily of the Pelopidac until it came to Helen, and
was by her thrown into the sea 'in accordance with an ancient oracle';
and was miraculously recovered once the predicted period or time had
elapsed.
The mythic connections of the precious object arc then at on«
discernible - they almo.st leap out at one - in this morali»N itory or
the sewn sages. But that does not mean that it is not also maceivcd u
the repository or that social 'value', as involvinc that toeial manipu·
Jation, which att characteristic of the pre-monetary pbue. The tripod
and the cup arc among the most typlCal ex.unpla in tbC" list that I gave
earlier. They can be substituted for each other; md tu,:-, treated u
equivalents in the leR"n<b, except that, while the trippd=il ...-any the
carrier of mythical associations, the gold cup IClld, ,ID H treacc4
slightly differently. For it is not merely a rue olldecl .wMch ii I
privileged lip of wca..llh in a mainland economy that ,.,. ,till poor
(Kuiper, 1916: 424-): in the venion &ivcn by IM._. of CnidUI
(OioRCna Lacrtius 1.29),1• the King of L y d i a ' s ~ of the
118
 'Volue'in GrHlt myth
competition pnsage1 the uae or this kind of object - and the cup in
particular- in the earliest contractual trade.n
The story of the tripod or the sev~n ,ages 1ugge,tJ, I think, that in
the pttsentation of the agalma in the legends there arc, Hit were, two
contrasted poles.

This discuuion of the mythic density to ~ found in one and the same
story would be incomplete if I failed to point out one element that
might seem utterly adventitious.
Before it is awarded to one of the sages, the tripod is usually the
focus or a disputt- which turns into a war between cities. The episode is
not essential; the story could have dispensed with it. Y ct it fits neatly
with the tale, as is revealed by one very interesting detail (Diogenes
Laertius 1.32): as Helen threw the tripod into the sea, she foretold that
it would be much fought over (,rep~-r()('). That makes it sound as
though it were endowed with a mysterious power: it exercises, exactly,
a baneful influence. I incline to think that the pcnisten«: of this theme
which has no bearing on the story derives from the fact that it is a
constituent of the very idea of the precious object.
There is one other matter that I shall limply call to the reader's
attention in the same way: the venions in which the cup figures do not
include this feature. There must then have been a special connection be·
tween the ,ymbolism associated with the tripod and an essential element
of the mythi.cal conception of 'value'. Indeed, the theme of the 'dispute
over the tripod' is illuminated itself by a famous legend which pits
Heracles against Apollo. The tripod is the one at Delphi: and so we can
relate the possession of an agalm.4 to the establishment or the repos·
session of some religious authority. And it is only to be expected that it
might at the same time have a 'political' significance: a tripod given by
the Argonauts to the Libyans or the Hylleans [ or the people of
Euesperis/Berenice) assured these nations of their right to undisputed
possession of their land (Herodotus 4.179; Apolloniu1 of Rhodes, Argo·
nauti•a 5.522-36; Diodorus Siculus 4.56.6).
For us of course the symbolic implications of a single motif may well
seem to diverge in different directions. But in myth they are bound
tightly one to the other.

Eriphyle's necklace
Rather similar connections in relation to the precious object seem to
have existed in the minds of those who created legends inspired by it;
and they are revealed by other stories connected with conflict. .
According to the tradition describing the oldest games, the thmgs
119
LouisGemet
which were offered as prize1 wett truly impressive and in their own way
,,cry valuable; and among them we occasionally find arms and armour·
Not or coune to~ used: these objects belong to a class well known to
anthropologists - 'ornamental armour'. Our most interesting ex~ple is
the 'shield or AfKos', which gave its name to one of the contests m the
great festival of Hera: as a synonym, Pindar uses the expreuion 'the
bronze in Argos', thus stressing that aspect of the value or the metal
object which is socially of greatest importance (Pllldar, Olympian 7.85
Snell). But there are resonances here too. This shield was connected
with the one which King Dan~s carried in the days of his youth and
later consecrated in the temple of Hera (Robert, 1920-6: l.273). And
the prizes annually awarded seem to be a sort of coiMge derived from
this shield (Reinach, 1910: 221). In the lesirndary tradition, moreover,
the shield is a bit like a talli:man - it figurct in relation to the installation
and transmission of royal power in one case: on Dan~s·s death, his
son-in-law takes it down and gives it to hit own son (who is the proper
rc:prescntative or his maternal grandfather). On the other hand, the
shield also possesses the power - manifested miraculously in time of
wu - or protecting the city to which the temple bclonp. One glimpse
of the shield or Danaus is enough to make itt enemies tum and flee
(Scrvius, in Vngil. Aennd. 3.286 (3, p. 115.20 Harvard edition)). We
come across the same motir of magical armour .. and in exactly the
same form, 01. the story of Aristomcncs't ahi.eld, which had also been
consecrated, and which pined the day for the Thebans at Lcuctra
(3 71 BC) when it was placed on a trophy set up in full view of the
enemy (Pautanias t.!2.5-6).

But it i, in the context of specific behaviour 01. a given soci.al situation

that. we can best undentand the ambiguity of the precious object.
At just about the high polllt of the dram&, there is a scene in
Aeschylus's Apm.enuwn which C"Ven today provide, a special frisson, U
strangely powedul. Agamemnon has come bac.k to Argos the conqueror
of Troy. His wife Clytemnestra UI about to murder him. But she is
clever: she welcomes her hu1band with nentorlan hypocrisy. What
happens is this: she presses Agamemnon to·eater the pa.lac:e by walking
over rich purple stuffs; he is hesitant, he b llhaid; and fiRally give, in.
And when the great door of the palace c1-et upon him ~ know that
he is done for (Agamemnon 905.47 . . .,.
In the dialogue between the two charactcn.. we find themes at once
very old and extraordinarily vital: they surface la. alluliona 01. an I.U'lffll
rhythm in which the apparmt frutuft of the dilc:01,&ffl' pffltttly
betrays the bartered resonance, of tbt !hough.I. ClylefflllCStra requires
of the king tbt he lhould make muifett his divine-powtt. 11 Thr KinM
120
 'Yalu,' in Gr-,,A myth
mu,t never ,et foot directly on the earth (a well-known taboo). But the
magnificent 1tuffs that he is 1oin1 to set foot upon arc also the focus of
an actual ritual: it is by scttin1 one's foot on the skin of a sacrificial
U1imal, or on a tomb, or on one's ancestral land that one affirms a
religiou1 claim, one's assumption of power, one's right of ownerahip.
Again, what Agamemnon wallu on hu here its own intrinsic quality -
a quality that must be respected. What pves Agamemnon pause, what
inhibits him from at once accedin1 to his wife's desire, is the thousfn of
the hostile forces he mi&ht rouse up by so ponentous a parade - con·
demnation by the gods to whom alone such processions arc reserved
and who will be angered to have their honoun usurped; 'envy' in the
form of human criticism (TOI' /lQl8pwtrEIDP.,. ,/16'yoP: 9!7), which he
well knows is but that impcnonal divine force (numt'n in Latin), all·
powerful at certain moments, which emanates continually both from
Sods and from men and whose concrete form at any instant is the
magical notion of the evil eye. But what orchesuatcs all these plaited
themes is a conception of wealth: the object to which all these con·
siderations of power and of danger arc attached is something precious,
a possession. The question is shall he despoil it - shall he precisely
tread it - or shall he not? For on the one hand, wealth is, in itself, the
object of religious awe (aido1). Against that, it can be sacrificed intcn·
tionally, and Clytemnestra forces Agamemnon to admit that, under
exceptional circumstances in which one would have a duty to run the
risk involved in exceptional offerings, he could himself have vowed such
an offering.
Female treachery triumphs: Apmemnon accomplishes his own
doom by assimilating himself to divinity, by acquiescing in the fatal
consecration brought about by setting his foot upon the purple stuffs;"
and if his last utterance before he admits himself beatm expresses
shame at the waste of such opulence, that may indeed be a testimony
to bourgeois munness; but it is also something entirely diffettnl.

The most typical example of the malefic power of the precious object is
provided by the necklace which figures in the Theban cycle.H
Sewn Argive heroes have undenaken to make war upon Thebc1 to
restore to Polyneices, son of Oedipus, his proper rights after ~e hu
been driven out by his brother Eteocles. One or the SC"Yen, Amph1araus,
takes part only with extreme reluctan~e. To ob.tain his co-ope~ation'. his
wife Eriphyle has to be employed as mtermediary, for a cons1derat1on:
a peplos and a golden necklace. A series of disutcn ensues. A~phiar~us
loses his life on the expedition. His son Alcmacon avmgics him by kill·
ing his mother. Polluted by his mother's blood, he too cor.ncs to a
terrible end. He gives the peplos and the necklace to two wwves, one
121
LouisGemct
after the othrr; and they arc fatal. Their evil power peni1ted ~en into
historical times: after the Phocian sack of the temple at D~lph1, where
they had been consecrated, the wife of one of the Phodan generals
wanted to wear these treasures. They bumcd her to death, . .
We would do well to note in the initial story one or two links With
social reality. The peplos and the nccltlace had a long history: they ~d
been given to Harmonia., forebear of the kinp of Thebes, on the occU1on
of her marriage to Cadmus; and they were hand~d do~ through the
royal family until they reached Polyneiccs (who, mte~un~y m.ough,
according to one source, received them when the 1nhentance ;"•
divided up, in exchange for allowing Eteodes first tum U king:
Hellanicus, FGrH 4 F 98 (= Scholiast on Euripides, Ph.onsisstu 71) ). So
they belong in principle to the category of marriage-gifts~ iuclf pan ~f
the category of customary presta.tiom ad u such 1ubJect to soaal
Nies. We should also note that such thinp arc found in pain elsewhere
too: in Euripides's Mede., the daughter of the king of Corinth is given a
crown and a pcplos by Medea - an association which rccun in the fint
century AD in the case of an imperial offering {by Nero) at Delphi:
IDld crown and purple fHplos (Pausaniu 2.1 7 .6); Amphitrite gives
Theseus a crown and a tunic, more or lcu as a prc1cnt for his bridc·to·
be Ariadne; Alcmcne is given a necklace and a CLIP by Zeus, who has
taken the fonn of her husband.11
Some traditional prcslations, in puticu.lar those given on the occasion
of a marriage, certainly became heirlooms. And one could say that it
looks very much as though, in our story at leut, their alienation from
the family brought about by Polyneicc1'1 action initiated the unible
career of the oplmato. But it is worth thinking about tbe manner in
which their power is, at that decisive moment, let loose. Why did
Amphiaraus have to Co on the expedition? The legendary tradition on
this point is at once opaque and complex.. Now we find the idea of
'persuasion', now of 'obligation'. But all the sources agree that when
Amphiaraus goes he is aware of what hu happened and yet still hu to
go. Why must he go? One c1r.planation involu:a the idea that his wife bu
been granted beforehand the right to decide. The philolopts rightly
observe that tbia rtnden the motif of the inducement - the gift -
ruperOuous (cf. llobcrt, 1915: 1,208). The duty is without e•planat:ion,
the pcrsuuion incffectualj and aayway, they arc mutually coaLn-
dictory. When the legend was created in the epic poem Co which our
sources refrr, it seems that an attempt w• made, by dint of dwasy
prosthesis, to explain thia ccnual clement away bccaulC i.1 WM 110
lonser fully understood. But i.n tnath it is it.sdf the ezplan•tioD• And
,ometimes vtt can just glimp,c that it is all the nplanation nccdcd: fut
aample, when vtt look, in the figurative rcpreacmations, at the scene
 'Value' in Gred m)'th
of Amphiaraus's departure, where Eriphyle nands before her angry
husband, dearly wearina; the fatal neck.lace;1 1 or when we arc told that
Amphiaraus, precisely so as not to have to 80· forbade hi.I wife to
accept Polyneices's gifts (Apollodoru1, Bibliotheca 3.61); or when
Homer tells us that the hero's death was brought about by 'gifts to a
womm' ('YulOUt.Ja, Eiw'KCI' 5Wpwa,) - an expression even the ancients
found difficult, but which in its other occurrence in a dirferent con·
text refers to a legendary motif(Odyu•y 15.24 7; 11.521). In each case
we can sec the underlying notion of the 'coercive force of the girt':
Amphiaraus has to go off to his death once the gift has entered his own
house.
That idea cannot in principle be sepuated from the notion that there
inheres in the object given a mysterious power (Mauss, 1970: 8-12,
6S-9); and we should note that the two do become separated in the
usual run of legends about a,almato.. That more or less obscures both the
origin and the point of the motif in the myth - yet the motif endures,
and the object of value cannot be represented socially without it.
But it docs of course have other aspects: and they appeu stereo·
typed in legendary tradition.

Polycratcs's rina
Wealth is the focus of religious awe. Can it be got rid of? Sometimes it
must - witness the scene in the Agamemnon: where we also saw that
even to vow to destroy it involves facing terrible danger.
Polycratcs wu tyrant of Samo, during the second half of the sixth
century; for all that, the legend associated with him incorporates a
number of instructive themes. ln the form it takes in Herodotus (3.40-
3), it has of course been adapted in the interests of a morali2ing piety
of the le.ind often to be found in that author: the unmarred prosperity
of Polycrates stin the gods' envy; he is advi1ed to divest himself of
some portion of his wealth - precisely, •the object which is most
precious to him'. And so he throws into the sea, during what cilll'I only
be described as a ritual, n the famous ring which is the thing he values
most. But strange to tell, the ring tums up again. Polycratcs is unable to
renounce that which he had accepted he must renounce. And he must
be destroyed: only utter ruin can expiate obdurate prosperity.
Though it has come to dominate the unfolding of the story. the
metaphysical idea of nemesis has not, in general, done too much
violence to the uaditional clements that we can glimpse even through
the folk-talc motifs. Scholars have trird to define these clements by
dint of parallels which arc not exactly irTClcvant, but too general to
123
LouisGcmet
explain anything in a proper manner; .for instance •. the invocatio? o.f the
ceremony in which the Doac of Vmacc was mamed to the Adri~, to
symbolize the Venetian claim to rule the seL It is more approp~atc to
ttt:at the myth u a myth, to break down iu comtitu~~ts, Uld pick u.p
the usociadons it suggests in the Greek legendary tracbllon.
The finl point is that the throwing of a ring into .the sea~ occun
in the legend of Theseus. The contcxt, to be sure, lS rather different:
but that simply makes the praumption of the act's ritual character the
more natural. While the ship canying the victims destined for the
Minotaur to Crete is on ib way, Minos md Theseus quarrel - it docs
not here matter why, because quite independently of the reason (which
is anyway later forgotten), it is clearly in itself a strugle for pttStigl:
between the two kinp. MinDI is grmted by his father Zeus a favourable
sign which confirms his divine de.cent; Thcseua has to obtain a similar
sign &om his father Poseidon - and get it he docs, after divine into the
water. Such an ordeal of diving into the sea is well known elsewhere
and might have done perfectly by itself. But it is motivated in the story
by a quite extraordinary challcnac: by Minoa which was not indisperuabk
- indeed IO dispensable that it does not even figure in our primary
source - and which for that reason ad.Yffliscs itself the moft' loudly:
Minos throws his ring into the sea and bids Theseus rmd it.u
So one ru1t clement to note is the l'Olc of thc,ring in a situation
involving a competition in royalty: the test is unilateral in Polycratcs's
case, bilateral here; but there is a test in each: it is the power or a tyrant
that is in the balance a, it is the authenticity of royalty that is in ques·
tion, the same act and the same object arc the substancr of a ritual.
But it is an.other story about a marvellous ring which enables us to
approach nearer to the impo~ or the symbol in the 1yrant'1 talc: the
story of GY1~•'s ring in the form which Plato is the fint to pc us
(Republic 3, !159d-!160c}.11 A shepherd in the service of one of the
k.inp of Lydia, Gyp FU into an underground cave by way uf an
opening which auddenly appears; and there he discl>'len inside a bru.n
hone a naked corpse wearing a ring on its fin1Jer, He takes thc ring uwl
makes his way out. He ditcoven tha1 if be turns the collct towaids him,
be becomes invisible. He takes advantage: of this to murder the king and
take the throne.
The ring here is the means of obtaining royal 1taws by rcmse, .. in a
story which even in Plato prc:1ervcs its most traditional clements (111:urdier
of 0M'1 predecessor and 19arriall" to the queen). But panted that we
arc in the kingdom of Lydia, which is often belic¥cd to hiwc iuued lhc
fint money,• Uld where d,e incident iuclf is ,mer.-lly n:prded II
having taken place in die quasi·historicaJ period of tbc ICYfllth century,
the really tip.ificant clcmenl is what pve1 the narntive its pcctdial
124
 'Va:Ju,.' in Grulc myth
flavour. The csaential put of Gyge:s's ring is the collct. The collet it
what holds the seal in place (cf. now Cassin, 1960: 742-50); and Poly-
cratcs•1 rin1, and even Minos•s sometimes, is called a 'seal'. The rin1
fitted with an engraved stone is an important object in Greece from
Mycenaean times, the sort of thina; a prince takes with him to his tomb
(Bruclr., 1926: 8). We Ir.now that the seal wu employed from very early
times in Near·Eastcm civilizations. Both facts allow us to infer that the
seal was used relatively culy in Greece; it is at any rate cenain that the
seal is directly related to the earliest coinl - it is the antecedent of the
struck. coin (MacDonald, 1905: 43-52). It signifies, or rather marks,
ownership, and as such is endowed with a special a.ura that was orig·
inally magical. 27
It was in an underground cave - what the Greeks though of as a
'trC'asure·house' - that Gygcs found his ring, his magic carpet to wealth
and power; and, masked by a rationalizing context that ultimately
makes it look a little childish, Polycratcs's ring seems to be a charged
'sign' of wealth held and used by a tyrant. For what is special about this
precious object in the Samian talc is that it can be used as a bet in an
enormous wager in which all the power of its owner is at stake:
Polycratcs throws it into the sea - •so that it can never more return
among men', as Herodotus has his adviser say. But will the gift be
accepted? - it is not, Polycrates fails to secure the favour or legitimacy
that he wanted. It was not inappropriate for the legend to have inter-
prrtcd this failure as a manifestation of nemesis: cucntially, it is the
outcome of an ordeal. The test is closely related to divination (so,
Saintyvcs, 1912: 68-76). 21 For in divination (where the use of the ring
pcnistcd) it is a bad sign when an object thrown into the water docs
not sink to the bottom but is 'sent back' (cf. Pausanias 3.2'.i.8 on the
method used by an oracle at a shrine in Laconia).

The ordeal is of course also closely related to sacrifice. I need simply

remind the reader or the fact tha.t, at a ritual point which is roughly
equivalent to sacrifice, the practice or making ex-voto dedications by
throwing coins into a spring or well was carried on in the wonhip or
healing gods and heroes. But what intcre1ts me at this juncture is the
custom, apparently a properly royal custom, or sacriric~ng one of _these
characteristic objects, whether gold cups or other precious contamen,
by hurling them into the sea. There is an instance of this in the historical
account of Alexander the Great (Arrian, Anabasis 6.19.5): when he
reaches the Indus-delta, Alexander sails out into the sea, 29 sacririces
1ome animals and flings into the sea a gold cup that he has used to pour
a libation, and some winc-mixin1 bowls, also of gold. Herodotus
ascribes the same ritual to Xerxes after he has crossed the Hellespont
125
Louis Gernet
(7.54.2): after being used to pour a libation, a gold cup is ~u~g i'!_! 0 the
sea together with a golden mixing-bowl (crott1') and a somnar. The
parallel is close and worth remarking: it is quite unlikely that Aln.ander
should have been imitating Xerxes deliberately.
It must be clear that in such a case a theory of sacrifice. undent~
as an intdlectualist justification for the religiou.a act,_ would be qwk
1:
wronlit. The divine beneficiary can be entirely indeterminate. o be _,un
Xerxes is supposed to have been appealing to the Sun to g1ve hun a
prosperous issue in his campaign in Europe; but Herodotus wond~n
whether it waJ really 'consecration' to the Sun, rather than an offenng
to the Hellespont which Xerxes had had lashed and to which, repent.Int,
he might have wanted to offer a gift in compensation. As for Alexander,
he sacrifices bulls to Po,eidon; but the hurling or the cup and the
crakn into the Ocean - after a libation which takes place aftn the
sacrifi« of the animab, and quite independently - is an act which
seems quite self-sufficient, 91 The purpose of the offering remains ill·
defined, not only in the case of Xerxes, but in that of Alexander, whett
it is a matter simultaneowly of giving thanks for the success o[ one
expedition and praying for the success of the next. To the extent that
the act is the product of conscious rd1ection at all, all """ can say is
that such reOection justifies a posinion· - after th,e event - and rather
uncertainly a practice which the legend of Polycratcs interpret! as a
royal test: that is, the total consecration of a precious object by throw·
ing it into water.
Insofar as the rituals described by Herodotus and by Arri.m arc to be
considered sacrificial, they an not to be classi£ied as ordinary sacrifice,
which i., a contractual act; and just as this form is not iilS sharply
delineated as that of sacrifice proper, so the underlying attitude to
which it conforms is different. And there are quite a number of pt'&c·
tices to which agolm•t• seem a.s it were to be sponuneowly attract«!.
which can give us some idea of that underlying attitude, at least in the
context of religiow or cult usage. For there arc solllf: sacrifices in which
the object given up is entirely destroyed, in which that dnt.ruction is
effected- exclusively, in the cases we might cal.I 'ostensivc' - by fire or
by water, and whose essential feature is that one can sec in them not su
much a traditional idea, or even the notion of 'getting rid', aJ an intense
need to destroy. And what is destroyed is not only animal victims, but
sometimes delibera.tdy and evidently intentionally precious thinp and
symbols of wea..lth. That is the case with one of the rituals connected
with the institution of a.nnua.l ceremonial bonfires (cf. Nilsson, 1951-
60d: 348-54): at one spring festival in Phocis, anim.als fro1a the HocU
and herds, dothn, gold, silver, imagi:s of the god.I, were all thrown into

126
 'Yalu,.• in G,,.,.1,, myth
the Oam•• (Pausanias 10.1.6; cf. Nil11on, 1906: 222-S). Rituals which
involve throwing things into the sea can be understood in the same
way: here we find the chariot and team u the focu1 of the 'sacrifice'
(Festus, s.v. Octob., •quus (p. 190, 28-30 Lindsay: Rhod<s]
Pausaniu 8.7.2 (Argos]; S.rvius, in v..,.1. Georg. 1.12: (3, p. lH
10-12 Thilo: lllyrians)) - that is, lhc special sisn of sup<rabundant
wealth: the chuiot itself, whose mythical 'charge' I scarcely need to
recalli and the hones (sometimes still in harness), which only figure in
sacrifice in the classical period on a small number of special occasions
as everyone knows. but which ue reserved in the le~ndary tradition
for the most sumptuous sacrificial occuions which have no doubt lost
nothing in the tclling.12
Whether we take flamboyant sacrifices of an exaggerated kind or the
ring, cup, or tripod cut into the seai whether the sacrifice be a holocaust
or focus upon a single symbolic object, it signals, in a whole gamut of
rituals and legends, the destruction of wealth. But I have a feeling that
at the level of myth the word 'destruction' is only a gesture towards the
truth. lt means, among other things, that the act is not necessarily
dirl'ctl'd: one might even argue that it docs not in principle involve the
idea of a god to whom it is offered; in the legendary tradition at any
ntc it excludes that notion almost rx laypothl'1i: there can be no qucs·
tion of it in the extreme cue of Polycrate1 (cf. Stengel, 1920: Jl!S),
any more than in the story of Helen's tripod. But if the act is not
directed, it has a purpose. And it is here that the mythical view is most
plainly to be apprehended.

Polycratcs's ring was not supposed to return to the human world; but
such a thought opposes the human world to some other. One might
even say that it presupposes it. .
It is a constant theme of religious thinking that to destroy somcthmg
can never mean that it simply ceases to exist. Of course we have to
consider that point in relation to its concrete consequences. And for
my present purposes, a rather odd story told us by Herodotus cou~d be
at least suggestive. Note that it too come, from a lcFnd conccmmti a
tyrant: the legend of Periandcr or Corin~. (Herodotus !> ••9211.l·-~)-
Periandcr consults an oracle of the dead (1t u perhaps nut 1mmatcnal
that he should have consulted it about a lost hoard which cannot be
found); his dead wife, Melissa, appears but refuses to tell him where i~ is
hidden because she is cold and naked: fur the clothes that were buned
with her arc useless because they had not been consumed in the funeral
flam.cs. Hearing this, Pcriandcr calls all the townswomen, decked in
their finest apparel, to a shrine, whither they proceed 'u though they

127
LmusGemet
were off to a festival'; on« there, he has them stripped ~y his ~els.
All the clothes arc burned, and Melissa's ghost gives him the mfor-

ma;i:; :::;:~~~e focus is clcu from the story iue1£. We know th~t the
institution of grave-goods wu not done away with by the practice of
cremation; indeed, for the dead to remain in possession of the goods he
takes with him because they uc 'part of him', they must be- burned
with him:H the very fact that they are destroyed by the names mcanc
that they are guaranteed to the dead man. But in Herodotus's story
this idea is slightly altered: its purpose is in some degree novel, le11
well defined in intention, especially with reprd to the substan« of
the offering. No doubt Melissa is the beneficiary; but the sacrifice -
monstrous, u befits a tyrant, and quite out of proportion to iu
immediate purpose - is, actually, directed towards the world of the
dead which was the only consideration in the M:ginning and of which
the ghost of Pcriander's wife is only one member. Morcovc,; the a.ct
itself - and this is basic to the story - has lhc character of a gigantic
holocaust whose particular object is these typical symbols of opulence,
and for which the finest clothes of all the townswomen arc not excess-
ive. Tyrants by definition amass goods in the l~st quantities; and
they excel at making their subjects' property their own. But thesc
goods, and above all t.hne valuables, can be used 'to some purpoK if
their conspicuous destruction ~rvcs another world. Periandcr has his
models: a tyrant in legend must follow the rules laid down by myth.
Those rules can be pieced to~ther, by pursuing the different stories:
we have several ways of gcttinK at them. Somewhat differently, the
theme of things not consumed but which disappear from view ~vols
its original significance in the legend about the early history of Cyrcne.
h docs not concern an ogalma, a focus of 'value', but an object which
is simply poucssed of magicaJ power and nothing else. But it too is
related to a typical agolma in terms of iu {unctions, l th.ink.
In the course of their voyage the Argonauu readied North Africa;
they were received hospitably by the marine di~inity Triton, to whom
in exchange they gave a tripod (Herodotus 4.179.2) or in another ver-
sion a gold crater. But we arc also told that Triton himKlr pve one of
the Argonauts, Euphl:mos {Euphamos in Pindar), a clod of earth,
bOlos (Pindar, Pythion 4.20-3 Snell). At fint sight thetc two facu
seem quite unrelated nen though they arc both given us by old vcr·
sions: if we find that in the later t.radition the gifts arc reciprocal and
related to each other (Apollonius of Rhodes, A,pnau#.b 4.1!<67-6!),
that is aurely not accidental; gift and countcr-gift have a rcciprodl
relation. The tripod, whose thematic undertones arc sugcsted by tlU'
golden crater which is its equivalent, is here a. guarantee of srcuri.ty for
128
 'Valul'' in Grulc myth
the land wher< the recipient dwcU. (sec p. 119 above). The bolos (pa·
haps the lc~nd made it precisely parallel) guarantees to its ttcipien1 the
right to the land from which it was taken: we find it in thlt familiar
&ignificance in ,cvcral stories in Greece containing some trace of a ritual
of troditio pn ti•km (Nilsson, 1951-60c: 330-5). In the story about
E.uphi-mos, the bOlos contain, a magical power (mana) to help iu
owner. And to make this magical power cffcctivc, the bOlos has to be
thrown into the sea (Apollonius of Rhodes, Argon. 4.1755-7). Pindar
is more predsc (Pytltian 4.40-8): the proper time for their taking
possession of the land was delayed by the imprudence of Euphamos's
companions, who dropped the clod of earth into the sea in the wrong
place; they should have dropped it off Cape Tacnarum, in one of the
entrances to the underworld. M
When you throw a magic object into the sea, you know what you art-
up to. It is a pcnistent theme: but its recurrence in legends about
a,alm.ota docs not mean that a Greek had to have a specific awareness
of the imaginatiw 'field' which they once occupied. It is enough for an
imaginative scheme to endurt. And their value in myth is revealed again
in another set of motifs, which arc, as it were, the mirror-image of the
preceding one.

Polycrates', ring came back. Now to be sure, in the particular form in

which our nanativc presents the motif, it is folk-tale. But that docs not
mean that we have to suppose that it is merely a cuual invention
stitched on to a myth about ordeals. For we find it again in a quite
different context; and the parallel makes it certain that it is not a
unique idea in tht: legendary tradition. We know that Helen's tripod,
which she threw into the sea, had one day to come back.: she was her-
self perfectly aware of that. And come back. it did: it was 'found' in the
way that mythical objects arc found.
Agolmata can come directly from thc other world: tht:rc is ont-
legend that tells us about one that the sea itself threw up (Antiklcidcs
(""' FGrH 140 F 4, =] Athcnacus, Deipnosophistae 11.15, 466c, 3rd
century BC; Plutarch, Conrn"vium 20, 163b). Lcsbos was st:ttlcd by
,c:11en kings who, at a particular spot on the coast. had to offer a sacri-
fice ordered by an oracle, a foundation sacrifice, involving a human
being. The daughter of one of the kings was thrown into the sea. Eualri~.
a young man who was in love with her, dived in with hn. After:• ..:ood
while, he reappeared: his story was that the girl wa.s li11inF, with the
Ncreids, the Sea Nymphs, and that he him1tlf had been pasturing the
hones of Poseidon. Then he allowed himself to be carried off by a
wa11e; but ,oon emerged bearing a told ,up 'so magnificent, that human
gold by comparison was just copper'.
129
Lo!ffl-C.tm,t
Certainly the 1aJe could haw: acquired its present s ~ thanks ~o
some Aluandrian. But the love story should not cfutract us from 'f;'
fundamental demenu. One or two connections fint. In Plu~h I
venion, which is fuller on this point, there is not just a hum.an s_acn6n=:
a bull was also thrown overboard; and this kind of total oHen?~· Pfl:1"•
ticularly when it stands by itself (not preceded by the- ritual kilhng in
the usual fashion), is as we have seen chanctelUtic of som~ unurual but
enduring rituals analogou1 to those involving the throwmg of hors~,
into water (above, p. 127). And perhaps lam not entirely mistaken in
thinking that this parallel may help us to understmd the end of the
story ~1 the people involved remind us of se~ral things we already
know. Moreover, the girl is thrown in decked in rich clothes and gold
jewellery. . .
By contrast, the main character, Enalos, bean a name whtc.h obvtously
makes him into a hero of the 1ea. He is similar to a figure who occurs
rather more commonly, namely Glaucus (practically a synonym indeed),
and who is as1ociated with the ritual of jumping into the sea - itself
apparently linked to a memory of 'prophets' who specialized in such
ritual dives: Glaucus obtained immonality by magical means. The truth
is that it is an image of a paradise under the waves that is at least alluded
to by the story of Enalos :u it is in that of Theseus, for all that the idea
is !cu well-known among the Greek.s than among the Celts: the
presence of Nereida in each certainly sugge,ts the idea of immortality
(Picard, 1931: 5-28), especially their rOle in the-· Enalos story. And
Theseus, havin1 gone down to the bottom 0£ the sea under the circum-
stances I have described (p. 124 above), is given by Amphitrite, the
Nereid who is man-icd to Poseidon, two sumptuous cgcalmcco: a costly
gown and a crown whose purpose and meaninp vary from venion to
version of the legend of Theseus. but which in this instance is conceived
as a magnificent piece of jewellery.
In thi1 group of stories, where the image of the other world is given
finn shape, we can ICC th.at it is imagined above all as the place from
which the agalma comes. The story of Enalos and of the gold cup
brought up from the wave-s illustrates the notion o[ a free gift that
comes from the world beyond. And this is not the- onJy such instance in
the tradition: it appears in another form on two occuions, and the

......
analogy is the more striking in that the objects involved att oot tM

For all tha.t it Mloogs to what is generally called history, the 'Kc:·
ond MeMCnian ww' is myth-stuff: Ariltomcnet, the nuiopal hero, is
known by virtue of a tradition o[ popular cpit::1. We havr seen that hiis
shield was supposed to be able to destroy I.he enemie-1 ol t.lenenia
snenl centuries after his death (p. 120). Thil shield.._ 11 history.
U-0
 'Valtu 'in G~~• myth
A.rl,tomcnea lost lt in a battle - rather mysterioully (it wu taken by
!be Dioocuri). The DelpN< oracle MlviKd him to go down into the
underground ahrinc of Trophoniua in order to get it back. And
Aristomencs did indeed get his shield backi and with it he performed
mitbrier feats o( anns than ever (Pautanias 4.16.7). Trophonius wu a
hero who ran an oracle. How was hit intervention supposed lo havr·
worked?
The same question might spring to mind in an epi.Jode in the
Bcllcrophon legend - this time, in connection with an agolma. Pindar
telk us tha.t the hero tried in nin to break in Pegasus, until Pallas
Athena gave him a golden bit; and immediately afterwards, we find
mention of a dream - or rather a dream which i1 reality - in which the
goddess gave him the bit (Olymptiin 13.65-86 Snell). And whcTc it all
happened the~ was a shrine of Athena Kholinitis ('of the bit') as whose
foundation-legend this story ,cNcs (Pausanias 2.4.l) ;while Bcllerophon 's
ex.pcricnce is treated as a story of divination by dream. But it was not
just a sign or an insight th.at the goddess gave: it was the bit itself. And
that helps us to undcntand what might have seemed odd about the
story of Aristomenes: Ariatomenes 'got his shield back from Tro·
phoniw's cave'; the gift of a god is given directly. The thing comes
from a world beyond which is as well the land of dreams as it is the
su.btCTTancan cave of an oracular hero.
For Bellcrophon, it i1 a matter of an object that is magical in that it
acu in a marvellous way. But honc·hamea.,e~cially bridle and bit, is
one of the most important items of warrior wealth; age-old trailition
demanded that it be buried with its owner; fine ex.a.mples were found at
Olympia in the Roman period during construction work (Pausaniu
5.20.8); Cimon of Athens, that perfect 'knight', solemnly and sym·
bolically made an offering of one on the Acropolas on the eve of the
battle of Salamis in 480 BC (Plutarch, Life of Cimon 5.2).
Like other mythical objects which are rel:.,.ted to them in the Greek
imagination. pucious objects, traditional symbols of opult'nce, arc-
ineluctably related - indeed, in a way espcda.lly related - to chat other
world pre-supposed by the ttligiou1 mind: now they go down to it, and
now they journey back.

The golden fleece

Quite deliberately 1 have so far confined myself. to m~tt or le~ late
stories or fragments of legend whose interest lay m their revelation of
the mythical imagination at work "'' a period immediately prior to the
dawn of so-called po,itive thought. Onr- frds lhat it shouJd M' potaiblC'
Ul
Louis Gernet
to get back to older fonns, much richer, and in which the ~catt~ffd
ideas that I have put together step by step might be found 111 diffct
relation to the gmeral, yet more profoundly mythical, notion of_ wn.lth.
Of that, the golden fleece could be a typical illustration. It '!. re~
sented to us by difrercnt t.enns which amount to the ~e, with
rather difrercru chuacten, in two groups of lcgendl which arc not
related to one another: in the story of the Argonauts, and in the story
of the house of Pdops.
The st:cond of thcte is quite explicitly dramatic; and perhaps thettby
easier to penetrate. We fmd it in Euripides - one of the few poeu in
antiquity to be interested in lcscnd - and above all in a lyric passage in
the El•ctn (699-746). 11 Le-t me say in puaing that we could be lucky
in finding a mythical theme in lyric; for Grttk lyric proceeds by
allusion, intimation or 'snapshots' of scenes or frapcnu of scenes,
which can thus retain their proper significance and which the poets,
Pindar especially, order without respect for chronology to suit their
own endl. Quite different in character i& continuous narrative; in our
case, it is Phrrccydcs, one of the earliest mythographen, who provides
u1, throu,h the medium o( Apollodo1111, with a classic instance. Each
mode has its own interest. lt ii obvious that the second always involvn
some dcptt: of reconstruction; but the linkages are not a matter entirely
for the discretion of the namt.tor or of his literuv sources: w.e can
decipher a tradition in them, even in the connccti~s which muat be
invented. All the same, ii is best to begin where possible with thr
drunatic pcnpcctive, Uld we return to the Ekcha.
A marvellous lamb, a 11Jldcn lamb. is born to a sheep belonging to
Aucus, one o( the claimants to the throne of Mycenae. The gad of the
flocks comes down the mountains of Argos and brinp it into the city
to the strains o( his pipe. The public herald, from the agora-bloc:k, bids:
the people gather to behold the 'wonder', presqe of a protperous ttip.
All over the city, the sh.innner of gold, and the bright altar-fue1; the
music of flutes and hymns to the Sods- All of a sudden it i s ~
that Thyeste1, Atraui's brother. hu stolen the golden lamb: he.vaunts
his new posscuion before dae asKmbled crowd. And Zeus turns the tun
and the stan from their brisbt counc.
A poet obviously has the right to proettd by allusion; but it should
be of interest to us that for all his elliptical manna, which forces u1 to
supply certain facts from outside, for all his indifference to narrative or
psychological motivation, yet Euripides has stre•d the l!lemcnb of
spectacle, and above all the imagery' of proceaiom. Whether couciOIIJly
or not, he si\lCI us a Kenario. And in this scenario the role of thc lamb
is quite clear: it it a Witman which gra.ll it1 owntt the riaht: to be
kin&, becuuc it guarantea protpcrity to the people: as Sl&Ch, it ii __.
152
 'Valut' in Grtrlt myth
known durinc l festival" - and the very incoherence of what we can
hardly tenn Ill 1ecounl scrw, men,ly to highlight !his point. That is
Act I; Act ll, still man, Act Ill, are ,imply alluded to; but we might
wonder whether they are not both also mcmoric-1 of a scenario. And
that means that Wf: need to undentand the link brtwttn thr two
miradrs.
TM continuous narrath·r that we find in Apollodorus (Epitomr
2.10-12) makes n.plicit thr point which thr chorus in thr EltetrtJ
maltrs synthetically. Atreus has maclr a vow to sacrifice the fu1est
animal bom among his flocks; whereupon thr golden lamb 'appears'.
An analogous motif it to he found in the legend of Minos, whose
bTothen dispute hi. right to succerd to thr throne, and who explicitly
requests, as a muk of favour which cannot br denied, that an animal.
which he promises to sacrifice, shall miraculously be sent him (Apollo·
doNs, Bibliothrca 3.1.3).,. Both kings are false to their oath (though
thrir right to the throne remains unaffected): the golden lamb is
suUocated by Atrc\ls and hidden by him in a chest (lamax). But
Thyestcs steals it;''° and then he comes befo~ the a.ssembly and per·
suades it to decree that he who posscues the marvellous animal shall
become king; and so produces the golden lamb. Atreus intervenes. He
FtS Thyestcs to permit a ffpetition of the process: he is to become
king again if the sun tunu back in its counc. And so it happens.
Artificial though thr homology between the two episodes may be -
indeed, precisely because it is so - it is quite clear that the second is the
exact counterpart, with the same st.ructuff. as the ftnt. It would not
perhaps be excessively daring to see here two constituents of an investi·
turc ceremony: at all events, they repretcnt two succcuivc upects of
royal power. Power over the elements is one of the epential attributes,
familiar from Greek mythology in particular, of 'magic.al kingship': in
our ca.sc, in a form and with c11ocations l net:d not ana.Jysc, this power is
ncrcised over the coune of the sun and the stars. What is the origin of
the sort of fusion e11idenced by the legend between this power and the
power signalled and guaranteed by potsession of the talisman? Euripidr-s
gives us a due when he evokes, in a single phrase in rt:lation to the
golden lamb, the traditional theme of beneficent and prosperous rule".
The two aspects of power arc related.
But the significance of the talisman becomes more dense - or 111• 11,·
extensive - in the: myth which lies behind the Argonaut lrgend.
It is of <.:ourse more complex than in the story of the housl· uf
Pelops; or rather it contains a number of shifu and 10 a n~mbcr of
diffncnt aspects. The golden fleece belonged to the ram which s.wcd
Phri.x.01 whffl he was in danger of being iacrifkcd as a rauh: of the
intrigues of his step·mother, who had enl(lncerr-d a famine which could
U3
Louis Gcmct
be brought to an end only by the sacrifice of the kin~ ~r of one of hUI
sons. Phrixos, the king's son, haa been chasm as the vtclim: the goldni
ram miraculously appears and curies him off through the air. The plot,
in the legend, is too bizarrely complicated for there not to~ an C"SSCO·
tiaJ connection between the marvellous animal and real ntual facU
which even the legend hints at: in order to bring the famine about,••
the stl"pmothcr persuades the locaJ women to roast the 1~d·com; one
suggestin variant make, her givl" them roasted seed<om henelf. In
truth, we have here a memory of very old agrarian rituals; and aJso tM
memory of ceremonies, which penisted in certain traditionaJ festivals,
in which the King, as here the Queen. distributes com. The counterpan
of royal beneficence UI the king's responsibility, for he may be sacri·
ficed, or be obliged to sacrifice his son, if the community's prosperity is
endangered. lt is in this institutional and mythical context that the
legend itself sets the motif of the Golden Ram. In the end, the ram -
which, in the story, is soon sacrificed - becomes a substitute victim:•1
a victim duly embellished, like all other marnllous animals, but also
because of hU relation to the god who caused him to 'appear', and to
the royal figure for whom he substitutn.
The golden fleece itself appurs in a dirfcrcnt mythical coonection,
which relates nevertheless to the symbolic value of ~· marvellous
animal. Its conception as a royaJ talisman is a kind,of precondition of
the Argonaut legend, in that Jason cannot obtain the throne he claims
unless he fint goes in quest of the golden Oeece. But that poUlt ia made:
also more concretely. When he arrived in the far<astem Land or Colchis,
land of the Sun, Phrixos gave to king AietCS the fleece of the animal
which had saved him and which he had sacrificed. And it is from Airtcs
that Juon asks it back.. Of the many dramatic exploits to which this
claim gave JUe, the clearest iJ one told us by Pindar (PythW.n 4.224-43
Snell). The golden fleece ii the stake in an ordeal which it1 claimant bas
to undergo: he has to yoke two temblc bull, to a plough and with them
plough a piece of land. Aiiti1 did this himself fint; md when Juon in
his tum perform, the exploit he obtains the right, under the rules of the
pme, to ta.kc possession of the precious object. That is all; but for thi.
brief drama to stand independently in Pindar, the poet must comply
with a traditional mode of thinking by linking, as it were by an obli·
ptory synthesis, two elements in the story: tbe heroic ordeal of
ploughing, and the marvellous fleece. Athenian tradition petpetuatcd
the institution of sacred plouglung, the exclusive right of the rdi.giout
clans (zmt~, in Latin); these ceremonies included sowing the- sttd {ju1t
u Juan had to do) i and in the rituah which accompanitd the sowing,
the flee« of a sacrificed ram, caJlcd W ram of Zeus, playtd a pa.rt. Tht
mythical veraion usociatcd in uact.ly the s:une way peculiar priril• ia
194
 'Value'i" Grrtlt, myth
relation to agricultural work and possession o[ a talisman which mu1l
be the hide of a uc:rificial victim.

The two kgcnds l ha~ ta.ken - and matched - arc evidence for a
relation betwectn the 1ymbol 0£ opulence and tht themes of confir-
mation or investiture o[ a kin@:, They alao enable us to glimpse, in the
mythical imagination, how this symbol works. It is associated, in the
story of the sons or Pclops, with the magical power of a form of kin@:·
ship characterized by its authority over the Sun. ln the story of Jason,
it is associated with the agrarian prosperity guaranteed by the exercise
of a sole ri@:ht to perform certain religious functions. And through these
stories, it is associated with a mythical and ritual back.Kfound involving
the idea of an effective concentration of agrarian wealth and pastoral
wealth in the penon of the king, and under his control: the enduring
rituals of the Boultoleion. at Athens, of the Cattle Byre bcsi~ which
was celebrated each year the marriage of Dionysus and the Queen
(Aristotle, Corutitution of the Athnaions 3.5], the special power
attributed to the sacred flocks, the special value - and the multifarious
implications - that one finda in the imagt: of the sacred or royal field
(which is actually where AietCs performed his exploit); all of this is evi-
dence for a way of thinking which I will here simply state, because the
really important question ii this: if the way in which the golden lamb
or the golden fleece arc represented is closely linked with the theme 0£
agrarian wealth, which is iuclf also connected with royal responsibility,
is not this form of representation simply the spontaneous and meaning·
less elaboration of a religious object which had a fundamental place in
the scenarios?
The composite character of the image iuclf is quite instructive. Why
a iolden fleece, and even more, why a golden animal? We do not need
to discuss the imprecisions and the contra.dictions of the legend: the
important point ii the fusion of two elements connotin1 wealth, wealth
in flocks and herds, and wealth in precious mctals -- the very sa.mc
clements which make up the mythical thcme studied long ~o b.,·
Uscner, and whose relationship and fusion, in the legend of Atreus and
that of Phrixos, he noticed (1899: 182-5). The theme i1 sufficiently
amenable to particular intentions to free it from the narrowing and the
coherence which it would have required i£ it were to stand by itsdl .1
plays in the midst of a set of cultural forms and pu':Po1e1 ~roi_n whi 1 Ii 11
cannot be extricated. Following the path of mythical dunk.mg, it will
travel in this direction or in that. Atttus locked the golden lamb in a
chest u be would have done with some meta.I object; in the case of the
im.; of the golden fleece, it ii once apin the id~a of preciow i_nc~l
which seems to dominate. Convencly, it is the ammaJ aapect wh1ch 1s
135
Luu:, Gernet
highlighted when the talisman of kingship is concrivcd particul~y M
coming from the royal flocks. But in truth the two elements, m tbc
golden Ocea, cannot be separated. It is odd to find, in a late dctcenclNI•
of ancient myth - a modem folk-talc from Epirus (~k: 1914--40:
1.412-14) - how, moft' or lea unconsciously, the assoaaaons of~d
and its proper power have insinuated themsdons into a ~ontczt With
whose framing they might have seemed to him: had nothmg to do. A
king's daughter hu been shut up in an underground palace: she mu1t be
found befott anyone can marry her; a young man hu himself 11:wn into
a sheepskin, sold to thit kins • a sheep, and succeed, in gettin1 to the
prl. The skin he coven tlimtclf with is a goldm fleece: the echo, or the
ft'miniscence, might seem forced. But the king's daughtC"r LI shut up just
like Danae and Zeus 101 to her in the guise of a shower of sald; sin«
the folk-talc speaks of a fleece, no doubt it wu a golden flc«c; and a
golden tleca naturally gMs underground, becau,c th.at is where some-
thing valuable belongs. Even within a contnl in which imapllatift
products are simply for plea.urc, the traditional •oc.iations continue
to play their part.
The term 'composite imap' is really only a label. lt is not a matter of
different imqes comin1 toacthcr; rather, of sevcr.J meaninp of a sinpit
collective representation which is, in the true ~cnte, u "plucic' as
necessary. I cannot here malyse all these mcaninp; but l ouP,t to
sketch them at least in outline, bcc:aulC' then: is no better W&')' of unda·
standing the constituentl of the notion of the.,.,...., which lia deep
behind the idea of the pldcn fleece.

1 start with something extremely old: one of the cults most ,-Ip.ably
archaic: is that of Zeus Aknios on Mount Pelion - close by the land of
Phrixos;4s his ministnnb each year wound their way in proccaion up
the mountain, wrap~ in the sir.ins of fre1hly-ucrificed runs; the ritual
wu performed at the time of the (heliacal) rising of Sirius, a crud.al
date which wu the focus of meteorological mqic in eua other than
this. Ritually, the bide of the sacrificial animal has special powen o[ all
kinds (Plcy, 1911); but the miraculous ftccce hu a special ttlation to a
dau of objects in myth wbo.c meaning is fairly apparent. lnsofu • the
animal-hide can be used u defensive armour, h i1 map:al annom Wen
it is the famous ufis: when uxd by Zeus, it tprads panic lilr.e a NpCr·
natural force. But Zeus may use it differnlly: when he. thakes it 1ikr an
Arcadim 'rain·maker' (cf. Vil)il, Anuid 8.351-4), it inOwencea the *Y
and the atmosphere. II. also, even when wielded by Athena. hu I.he
power to make thinp fertile. The«,U isa pl-tkin: the SOU. A.mahhea.
which suckled Zeus, i1 usually a bcneraccnt creature, one of her horn.
became the horn ef abundance (the conauc. . .), m4 P"M• •
IS&
 'Value' in Gr,elc myth
mythical name for a number of other symbols of agrarian prosperityi
but it is sometimes a Lerrifying beut, and had to be 'hiddcn •: iu hide
provided Zeus with a weapon when he undertook the farnoua war
~ • t the Titans after whose conclusion he founded a new monarchical
ord<r ([Eratosthenes), Cowterismi 13, pp. 98-100 Roben). But the
Chimera, the monster defeated by Bcllerophon, ii also, as its nune
reveals, the Goat: it seems tha.t, in its homeland Lycia, the Chimera was
a shield-d,vice (Radcnnachcr, 1938: 97;cf. Maiten, 1925: 125-9). The
lamb at Argos may have been one (Fraztt, 1898: 3.187): a stone ram
stood ·on a tomb in the plain of Argos which was known as the 'tomb of
Thycstes' (Pausanias 2.18.1).
These observa.tions, few as they iltt, suggest at least a context of
imagery: the notion of 'royal' potency which I have shown to have
been associated with the representation of the fleece in myth may seem
multifarious and almost endlessly ramified. It has nonetheless, far back
in time, a sort of unity which the symbol's very plasticity sometimes
enables us to glimpse. The link between sold and the Sun - which
indeed specially 5allctifita royal power - ii particularly close in the
legend of Ai~tCs, lung of a mythical East: it appears somewhat differ-
ently, more opaque but more suggestive, in the story of Atreus. Further·
more, the fleece is not always 'golden'; sometimes it is purple: in
Etruscan divination, the appearance of an animal of this colour {or of
gold] in a flock or herd is the presagr of a new dispensation which will
be an age of prosperity and fertility (Macrobius, SotMmolio ,. 7.2).
Amid all the variations produced by the working of the imagination,
this fact, which takes us back to a tradition of 'Aegean' beliefs, fits
pcrlcctly, even in its ex.pression, with the idea revealed directly in the
legendary history of Mycenae.

But there i, an interesting shift. Pindar, one or our sources with tht'
most highly developed sense of myth, mentions 'the shimmering flrt"ce
with tassels of gold' (l';tltion 4.231; imitated by Apolloniut or Rhodes,
Argonauh'lca 4.1142 Frinkel). "Tassels or gold' is a detail Homer note,
in a description of Athena's aegis (Iliad 2.447-9). And Ho~er tt'lls.us
how many there were, and how much they wert' worth. It IS a dr1c~1p·
tion of a ritual vestment, this; borne by the goddess herself, the obJe, l
is the locus or all manner of qualities, including beauty illld 'valur' I i,1·
manner in which the fleece is presented in myth is evolving inu, .ui
image of an agolma even while it preserves, as it were, Its malcnJ.l
subi.tance.
This imaginative shift which is neverthclen qualified by a relative
penistence of the mythical symbol is a q~ite genrral phmome~on: we
can see its analogue in relation to real oLJt:cts or wht:n real actJons are
157
l.(.ui"GC'met
performed. Kings in kgends or in epic c ~ a seep~ (Ixubntr, 193,:
85) which is both sign and in1trumtot of the11 authonty: at Homer putt
it, there resides in it something of the power of Zeus, the fount of_royal
power. There is actually a necessary connection bttwttn the btmng of
the sceptre and the power of uttering themistes, pr~nounc_ements _and
judgcmenu, like those of the oracles: the sccpttr 1s ceru,m~y dcnved
from thc prophet's staff, itself cut from a tree s«:t a.pvt by lU natural
capacity for divination. But thc king's sceptre came to be made by a
craftsman: the sceptre given by Zeus to the house of Pclops was
fashioned by Hephaestus, the divine smith. And it of course ended up
made of gold. Yet in that object made of metal - costly m_etal :--- there
endurcs a magical quality akin to that once stored in a quite different
material. Conversely, thc practice of ma.king offerings sometimes rcvea4
a continuity of function in which one can observe the same uansition:
for example, the anathima comes to replace the offering which is
dc,troycd. The anathima is a reproduction of the offering in pn-ciow
metal: a typical example is the sheaves made of gold consecrated by a
number of cities at Delphi (Plutarch, De PythiM oraculis 16, 401f-
402a; [Suabo 6.1.15: 264C]; Rouse, 1902: 66 n. 3); one, Metapontum,
was to keep thc symbol on its coins. And of course it is sacrificial ani-
mals that we find rC'prescntcd, cspccially in gold: and it is quite pttdict-
able that the legendary tradition should happen to pre~rvC' a parallel
substitution in thc case of thc golden lamb of thc house of Pelops
(Antiklcidcs, FGrH 140 F 8 ["' Scholiast on Ari,tophanes, Cloud, 144,
p. 88.39-45 Di.ibncr) ).
All this is evidence for what, failing a more satisfactory term -
bccause in reality thC're is continuity too - I will call 'd.itplaccment'
(transfert): the samc thematic field. sometimes tht samc ttatC"S of feel·
ing and thC' sam.C' attitudes, arC' C'Vokcd or intimated by an object which
is dC'C'mcd identical but which ncvcrthcless is characterized by funda·
mentally ncw aspccts. And it is of course here that we can sec the
transition to the full notion of value taking place: we find evidence of
this in the case of one of the ob~cts employed in religious 'tra<k ', aod
which we also find as the object of human exchange u an .,aim., with
the kind of evocations we saw in tht motif of the golden fleece; and i,
is not what we might have" e1pC'ctC'd. In temple-inventories we some·
times find mC'otion of a 'golden vine' (Homollc, 1882: 146 (from thc
Artcmision at Delos)). ThC' displacf"mcnt hC"re is o( the same order ..
that in thc cue o( the golden com~an. for ex.111Dple. The ordinary
vine-stock is to be found in a number of rituals and myths, linked itself
to a dcn5C" group centred upon the motif of thc fruit-trtt planted or
cruted by a god or a hcro; and I.ht:: entire group is related to myths
about kingship, and indced to the mc-morics of tttniltios which peni.ft
U8
 'Valut' in Grtd myth
in enduring rituals. This thematic compln. extends into the golden
analogu.e. It is a golden vine-stock which ensures the recognition of two
heroes [Thoas and Eune01}. sons of Jason and grandsons of Thoas;
and Thoas received it from Dionysus god of the vine. It has. at a deci1ive
moment. to be '1hown', to be 'set forth'; it opcrat« as a hereditary
talisman.44 Yet we also fmd the same object as an ago.Ima proper. One
of the clearest illwtrations of the coercive force of the gift is offered by
m episode at the end of the Trojan War: in order to obtain military
assistance from his nephew, his sister's son, Priam sends his 1istcr a vine
with golden leaves and silver grapes made by Hephaestus; it had been
th< payment for the rape of Ganymede (Robert, 1920-6, 3.2.1, 1222-
3). It is a fine ex.ampk of the theme of 'gifts to a woman' (Odyssey
11.521); and the story unfolds in the same manner as that of Eriphyle's
necklace (p. 121 above).
The object created by labour that represt"ts a thing endowed with
magical properties, and which we have seen to have acted as a. talisman,
is here the same as the object in which economic value inheres.
We have to do with a sort of projection of the ideal notion in the
other world on to the plane 0£ human life: treasure is real enough
socially - an institution indeed; but it is also real enough in myth. It is
both a social reality and a mythic reality. And the notion of 'treasure'
involves also the place in which it is kept.
Hermann Usener quitr rightly pointed out the link between the
legend of the golden fleece and the motif of the storehouse. And of
course, since its double significance as talisman and as 'value' is quite
apparent, the object is kept by AiCtt:s in his palace, by Atreus locked in
a chest. By definition the symbol of opulence is something more or less
concealed: its magical properties cannot be divorced from a degree of
necessary secrecy. Certainly it must on some occuions be 'let out',
unlike pailaduJ, which arc ultra-secret; but thal d()('s not mean that they
arc not related to objects which i;ruarantee protection just as palladia do
and which arc, convcncly, represented in legend from time to time in a
way which recalls an object kept in a treasury. The bronze hydn"a which
contained a lock. of Medusa's hair, the guarantee of a royal city's sa£cty,
suggests a whole rangr of associations, in which the notion of opulence
alternates or combines with that of magical power (ApoUodorus,
Bibliotheca 2.7.3 [cf. Pausanias 8.47.51).
Precious thin~ arc often underground: a hoard at Delphi, which .\~,1.~
discovered by miraculous means, had been buried. But it is th1ni,:s
endowed with a. power which is now 'political', now rcliRious. that arc
buried in the earth: the knife used in the sacrifice which scaled a pact
(Euripides, Suppliant Women 1205-9); the arrow of Apollo, .hidden in
the land of the Hyperborearn and made of gold, but .ilso a s1pt of the
139
l..,(,uisGemet
ki,;:itimacy of the prophet Abaris ((Eratosthe11n], Cahlrte~~j 29, P·
154 Robut; cf. Delcourt, 1938: 89 n. 1);41 the Atgonau.ts tnp~;thC'
goat Amal the a; the thunderbolt or Zeus granted ~im on ~· acces:11on al
the symbol and as the guarantor of hil authonty (Hcuod, Tlteogon}'

50!~e6ns~;':i,~otatioru of the word t:rruurt·housc (tlai.raMrOJ') are

instructive. The earliest thisauros is the underground pit in which agn.
cultural produce is stored. It remained a pbce to store things; and
jeweU and clothes of value were kept there along with things that were
to be eaten. The word came, however, to have a technical sense in the
religio\lS sphere, but interestingly enough wa..s simulun~usly in son:ic
degree 'secularized', in that the idea of a sccrct store tn the end d1S·
appears; but we should remark one kind of templc-thisauros, the
offertory·box, which takes the form of a hollowed stone with a cover
on top; an identical shape and arrangement is known with different
purposes: for keeping cult-objects in - objecu of extreme ~anc~ty in
an archaic religion (Pausanias 8.l 5.3); and in legend, for keepmg hidden
objects used for the investiture 0£ ltinp (the stone of Theseus: Plutarch,
Life of Theseus 3.6- 7 Ziegler).
The chamber in which the ancient hoards of princes ~ kept was
called a tlwlamos (the same word, interestingly enough, w.u uscd for
the wife's or the daughter's apartmenu). It is u_,ually thought of as
underground; the story of Danae suggesu to us its associations in myth.
We find the same associations st,1ted explicitly in ulation to the
tluJJamos of AiCtCs (cf. Pindar. Pythian 4.160) - the owner of the
golden fleece: Mimnermus calls it a. golden thalamos 'where dwell thr
rays or the Sun' (fl'(I:, l I.5-8 Diehl (= /EC £rg. I la (2, p. 86)1 ). And
Euripides speaks of the tlwlamos where the king, ~thon's supposed
father, keeps his gold locked up, and where the dead body of Phatthon,
who is in reality the son 0£ the Sun, is laid al the end of the drama (frg.
781 NauckJ "' lines 222-3 Diggl.e}. 'lDe Queen, says Euripides, keep1
the kcys;just so does Athena., daughter of Zeus, Ucp the keys of the
treasure-house in which the thunderbolt of Zeus is locked away
(Aeschylus, Eumenider 826-7;d. Radennacher, 1938; 277-9).
The notion of the royal tttasurc-housc, sto~ of richn, stott of
aplm11ta, is founded upon the notion of the protective, p~rful
sacred objects kept safe in bis stronghold by a l~nda:ry king or by a
hi.sh 1od, lord of all.

I am afraid that in legend-land we sc-em to keep wandcrin1 off ,be pa.DI.

The tortuousnca will have been worthwhile if it hu enabled us t«:1
perceive par-alleh and ~n one or two constant, in some dcp
140
 'Yolut' in Grrd myth
n.plaatory. It has moffovcr been unavoidable, because of courK thr
eociil comtruction of 'value' and of the precious object is evidcnttd in
IOCia1 behaviour - a banality, but there is nothing like te1ting it in a
particular civilization U\d even, u hen:, in the ptthi1toric antcc:hamber
of civilization: the functioning of pft~x.changc at puticular moments
in social life; th.c consumption md i( need be the dcsuuction of wealth
to acquire pratige, at the moment of mtry into a special status, or in
expiation t the mechanics of a form of power characterized by the
oblipdon 'magically' to promote the prooperity of th• collectivity:
unless we know the principles which organize behaviour, unless we
know the very lineaments of that behaviour, we cannot possibly under·
stand the special status in myth of objects which arc at once the sub-
stance and the means of human and religious intercounc, within a con-
text of ideas which we have to reconstruct. Now, if legend helps in that
reconstruction, the evidence it provides is usuredly diverse, wayward:
we must take note of palpable variants; Wl' must stop and think about
the implications of each story, even if we arc more intert:stcd in the
psychological processes they display than in their institutional content.
If an ancient notion of 'value' is evidenced for us in the legendary
tradition, it is for a good rcuon: it is mythical itself in terms of the way
in which it is conceived. That means above all that its different r6lcs -
or nther what subsequently tum out to be differentiated rOles - arc in
10me degree fused: it tends to be global, involving economics, religion,
politics, law and aesthetics all at once. That docs not mean that we can-
not recognize in it a fonn of thought,.. lincc we have in some degree
now undentood iu orientations. We may now attempt to specify the
notions related to the idea of the .,.z,,.. and the nature of their
rclationship.
There is a word in Greek, tnwu, which may be intcrt:sting, bccau,c it
is aometim.cs used in relation to the objects I have discussed and bccauR
the stNcture of thought to which it points can be seen in the group of
ideas with which I am mainly concerned (cf. Osthoff, 1905: 52--68).
Roughly speaking, it denotes something extraordinary, mysterious -
often for that rcuon frightenin1: its etymological doublet prlOr in
tiOin.C'r ·:.ne~ a monster, such u the Gor1on; and after Homer, who
\&Ks tCTCU nther in the lea specific sense of a marvellous vis.ion, it is i11
this sense- that t~ras itself ii quite often specialized. On the other hand,
the word is associated - one could say is usually usociatcd in 1lw
oldest usage - with the idea of 'sign': I should add that thi~ ·~i~1·
reminds us sometimes of the mark or emblem on ii weapon, shield or
breutplate (where, indeed, we often hear of m~nstrous anim;11• being
repretcnted: let me in pauing mention the put1cular connec:taon there
teems to be between such notions u 'monster' or 'omen' u,d thiclci·
141
Loui~Uemct
devices). Finally, its etymology it lJI this case or crucia1 import.an~: it
has enabled Osthoff to trace behind the idea of the marvcU~us ~r ulca
of the 'magical' (zaubenJ"ch): its root, •qwn-, is the_ one ~hich in ln~o-
European expresses the idea of 'doing', but cspec1a1ly in the magical
sense ... , There is then, in this group, the notion, latcn~ or over~, but all
the same central, of supernatural power attaehcd t~ a SJ~, th.e idea _of a
religious force which can be concentrated in ~e t~ing which ts specially
denoted by the word tnru. So it is appropnate, 1f hardly unexP_C~ttd,
that the golden lamb should itself also be termed t~r,u (E~np1~es,
Orestes 999 di Benedetto; cf. Electra 716); and that the bit which
Bellerophon was given by Athena (PlJldar, Olympian 13. 73 Snell) -
and which the goddess herself calls a 'charm' (philtron {: 68 cf. phcrr-
malton, 85] ) - should be too.
In the last analysis, it is suttly the idea of religious force which ~
should take to be fundamental in the mythical displacement of the
agalma, Even more important, the agalma is normally linked with the
rea1m of the sacred. It is in accordance with the structures of religious
thought that it is socially 'rt:prcscnted'. Although the associations of
thisauros arc to some dcgtte ambivalent, the notion of the 'concealed
object' is based in the ea.te of precious things upon that sugFstcd by
cult-practice. Their to-and-fro between the world of men and the other
world, so characteristic of them in the legends, iJ an idea insistently
imposed by the religious life, and the parallel is sometimes aa clear u
one could wish: as it is in a Boeotian cult in which the sacrificial ani·
mals which had been cast into pits ~rt: belirved to reappear at Dodona
(Pausanias 9.8.1) - which is simply a conaete and naively spatial
interpretation of a practice familiar in 'chthonic' cult. On the other
hand, the idea of the ogalma is often linked to things properly religious;
it can be associated with that of cult-apparatus, and derives some of its
prestige: from that as,oclation. The cup, which turns up again and again
in lcgc:nd, is usually termed there phiali - a libation-cup. Woven
stuffs, which arc lJlcluded among the agaimata, have a very ancient
place in wonhip: it may be that the games, in which in historical times
they occasionally still were used as prizes., arc the remote descendants
of tribal jousts, U'ld in any case the transv«tism which remained a
special feature of a number of fc1tivals is instructively archaic; the
offerlJlg of the peplos to various female divinities, a practice appattntly
institutionalized at a very early date, is also that in which thr specializ-
ation of the object for cult purpoacs is most pronounced. 41

There is then as it were a specific character of a religious nature inherent

in the class of precious objecu, But the psychological reprcKntation of
cplnNt4 follows a definite path: tbctt is a princiµlr ( : sdection, and. ol
142
 'Valut'in Gretlc myth
'freedom', al work therr. lt ha., its own '1pacc', in that the objects
evoked a.t the lniel of mythical ima.pry arc all equally object, in cur·
rent use uad which to some extent att in circulation. A particular
notion of 'value• - a predominantly aesthetic one, it must be said - is
evident: in a story Nch as that of Enalo1, it moves into tht' foreground.
Our task. has been ma.de ea.aier by the 'displacements'. Sometimes myth,
permit us to perceive them; social institutions occuionally allow w to
a.y how they work and something of their special qua.lily: to the giving
of food, the foundation of intercourse between peers or between
'prince' and his followers, is added the giving of agalmata (a gold cup is
the magnificent postscript to a hulth) - which may even be a substi·
tute for the first.•• Connrscly, we may stand this relation to the
religious world on its head: not mcrdy because an object is used in a
religious context because it has value, but also because the fact that it is
precious makes it worthy to be consecrated.'° Hence we find in myth a
number of objects which arc essentially symbols of opulence and
nothing more. The lama.x, the chest in which Atreus locked the golden
lamb, is a piece of fumiturc used to store valuable clothes and precious
objects~ and it is abo the characteristic means of 'exposing' infant
heroes or even gods (Glou, 1904: 45).n The tripod did not appattntly
iuclf have ritual associations originally: we have the sequence some·
thing given as a gift -+ something given as an offering; it must have been
only secondarily associated with Apollo's prophetic powcr51 and then,
as tha.t god's proper symbol, have been able to pursue its mythic.a.I
career in the divine iconography. n
ln this ideological frunc, it is a small but interesting point that the
adjective timieis is, for instance, the Homeric epithet for Eriphylc's
neck.lace: in relation to a characteristic object in the legendary tra·
dltion, the complex. notion of timi (honour. ex.elusive social right,
~cial religious qua.lity) become• specialized, evt:n standardized, in the
,ense 'precious'. That is a decisive moment: the very same objects
which remain even in quasi-historical contexts charged with power
derived from myth appear as wha.t we would call rxtcmal signs of
wealth. Yct that notion is much less abstract than we miaht ~ inclined
to think: both its origins and iu enduring associations attest a. con-
ceptual stage in which wealth is not the only sign!fi~a.ncc of such
objects - they also embody a mysterious pov.:cr; and 1t 1s by no mcam
irrdevant that attitudes towards treasure and HS accumulation cvt"n in
the classical period arc still characterized by traditional arfc~ t~ (d.
Athcnacus, Otipnosoph.isea~ 11.14-16, 46!>c-66d + 78lc-d Ka.ibcl).

J am trying to get the me.a.sure of a mythical notinn. But the c1tcntial

14!
LouisGemct
feature" of mythical thin.king ii that it U not merely a way of thinkm:B
associatC"d with images: the images arc its indispe~c mode. In tt:'°
particular c~, we can discero in the cttation of !:ht images a special

ch~;~ds about precious objects have as it _were a r~w m~ttri~: thty

originate more or less directly in the themaac of magical kinphip. 'f!'"
magical quality that inheres in the "'"''"" is above all tha~ of a spcctal
kind 0 [ social 'powC'r': thC" well-spring of the const~cbon of ~ese
images seems to be the very earliest social undent~dmg o_f ~c ~1ffC"r·
ent aspects of authority. It may be asked wheth~r this ~onunwty 1s not
simply a matter of tradition;ought we not to think of 1t mcttly u a~-
use? But it must have some rationalt, because we can show that 1t
endures in the unconscious long after the mythica.l period.
The conception of 'value' intimately linked with objects made of
precious metal is related to the very earlit1t notion of ·~th' and
tends, like it, to gravitate towards an ideal cott. In the mythical repre-
sentation of kingship, in the su:narios that found and sustain it, the
king, who bears the weight of the group's collective life and is the key
to its agricultural and pastoral well-being, is marked out also u the
keeper or that form of wealth betokened by the golden flC"ece. The
posseuion or precious thinp is both sign and precondition of beneficent
powC"r; so too, the possnsion of the sacred field, of thC" sacred U'tt, of
the sacred flock, which are all C"nduringly connected with it. This con·
ceptual heartland, in which the talismanic object - in some degree
already 'coined', insofar u it is a precious thing - ii at once the
expression and the guanntor of '\'aluC"', to a degree endures into the bis·
torical period in Greece. A tC"mplc treasutt, be-longing to a god., md
which is also a city's ttta.sutt, a city's rescn,e fund, like that of Athena
in Athens, does not include simply the official coins which the stale is
free to borrow in case or need: the ultimate safeguard is the more
sacred property, the apparel of thC" goddess {•onnos) and all the
precious objects whose most \lalued clemcn t was viewed in the financial
dispositions of Pericles, and or Lycurgus a hundttd years later, only u
a lut resort (Thucydides, 2.1.3.4--5; pseudo-Plutarch. ·vita• X orwtorunt,
¥1'1~~ ·'(, 852b). And this idea emerges later still in mythical form.
Callimac:hus's Hymn lo Demetn ends with a litany (6.119-38 Pfeiffer)
in which the p~t lists the different kindl of meaning he can fmd io the
ritual procession which is hi.a subject, all dooe with the IIW•t u.emplicy
symmetry: the four bonn lhill bca.r the sacred buket tell the blcssinp
or the year and its four snsons; the minisuuts' garb sipifics the
prayer for hC"alth; and fin.a.lly, 'as the /i1t,,.oplt.0N;1i ('com-bMkc-t·bcattn')
bear the baskets filled with gold, so mlly 1old be given us in mdicfl
prorusion' (126-7 PreiHCT). ln tbis Ptolcniaic monarcby, whote pretty
144
 'Value' in Grulc myth
synthttic political-rdigious ickology yet remains rooted in deep ptt·
hiltory, a dilettante court-poet manages to catch once more the £edin1
of the splendid pomp o! kinp blended with ,triking ritual: the parade
of objccti made in gold testifies to an dfective poWtr whose beneficiary
is the social group and which works in ju1t the same manner u the
magical power of the lr.ings in mythic time.
The collective memory at work in the legends which concern aplmatG
doc-1 not work arbitrarily: inside a conception of 'value' which is
becoming independent, nU gtneris, traditional habits of thought cru:urr
continuity with the magical-religious idea of mana.
In the carlie,t period of social history of which we have any d.ittct
evidence, the symbolism has already in large meuurc ceased to be
polyvalcnt. It is certainly telling that when Homer describes or alludes,
as he often does, to a precious article 'value' is attached to objel·ts
whose religious or legend~ connotations arc stressed by the poet him-
self or are easily supplied by his audience (for example, llUld 16.220-
4; 11.632-5); but I would also point out that an item of harness which
might remind one of Bellerophon's exploit - and which in fact is
su~stive poeh.cally because of the legendary undertones - is in Homer
essentially an example of an industrial product, on display for its
mark.ct worth."'
Such an alteration in habiu of thought presupposes social conditions
(of which indeed we know almost nothing) which we may suspect to
have encouraged in some degree the sprud of 'external signs of wealth'.
Because they were no longer the ex.elusive property of a class within
which the heritage of mythical k.ingship and its effective symbol, had
continued to flourish, economic value tended to eclipst" the older com·
plex image; the well·known tag 'Money makes the man' ii already apt
for the pre-monetary period: it occurs, solto voe,:, in the 1tory of the
tripod of the seven sagcs. 11 Thus gathered the revolution that brought
about the invention of money, a revolution that occurred simultaneously
in social life and in habits of thought. But as I draw to a close, it may
not be unprofitable to touch on the evidence for continuity e\'en within
this sea-change, evidence which men of the time may have been the first
to fail to recognize.
The invention of money certainly makes possible the ckployment of
an abstract conception of value. With the new state of affairs th~r<
comes the use of an instrumental 3.JJent whose substance (in the ph11,,
sophical srnse; whose material composition) mi~t seem o~ little i11tl"1nt
or importance: it was left to Plato and Anstotle, neither of them
friends of the mercantile economy, to construct a theory of money·a..s-
sign. and money·aa·cOnYention. That wu a logical theory, 1ince of
cow1e these philosophcn were intere1ted only in tht· aspect of exchange=
145
 Louis Gernet
and circulation (and they forgot or failed to undentand that metal
money had been very early used in a kind of religious 'trade' to settle
debts - u-votos, traditional offerings, expiations). And thett can be no
doubt that the instrumental agent once invented Wi&S ~irably fitted
to circulate. Circulate it did in Greece, both early and widely. But in
the historical milieu in which money-a.,-sign first appcatt.d, the religiow,
aristocratic and agonistic symbola stamped on its first sptci~n• Wtft
attestations of origin: a mythic.a.I way of thinking enduttd right to the
very moment at which the invention of coinage became possible. By
which I mean to say that then- is, in 'value' and so in the very token
that represents it, a core which cannot be reduced to wha:t they call
rational thought.

146
8. The Black Hunter and the origin of the
Athenian ephebeia 1
Pierre Vidal-Naquct (1968, 1979)

To Al.I. Firtlry
We l&aH IIHft "o,A ...,•
It'• .e '1nrd1-subd,r u tl&C' fo• for ,wry,
Liu ..,.,,ilH ., Me •olf for IUMt IN' nt;
0... Niau!' i, to c"'- wh•t flW, , .•
SlldHfN.-e, Cymbelint J.J.J9- 42

Before, and even mote 1incc, the discovery of Aristotle's Constitution

of the Athenians the Athenian eplarbeia hu been a subjut of contro-
versy. This two-ycu 'military service' ii described by Aristotle in chap-
ter 42 of his little treatise. But wu it an entirely artificial creation
JC1ulting from Lycurgus's policies, as Wilamowiu maintained, or was it
rather an extremely ancient - even archaic - institution, of the kind
likened by nineteenth-century scholan to the Spartan 1,.ryptW,?
The argument has grown rather stale now, and as a result of the
analyses and discoveries of the past thiny years it is easy enough to
reach agreement on two points. 1 Fint, no one would now claim that
the cplaebn/1. in Lycurgus's time wu in every respect an uicicnt institu-
tion: the Athenian politician re-ordered and rationalized whatever
es.i1ted before his time. Second, everyone would now apee that the
eplaebeio of the fourth century BC had its roots in ancient practices of
'apprenticeship' whose object wu to introdua yoW1g men to their
future l'Oles u citizens and heads of families - that is, u full memben
of the community. I need hardly remind the reader o( the rble played
by comparative ethnology in the realization of the significance of
initiatory rituals in the ancient world: as early as 1913 lfenri Jeanmairc
hued his own work on such studies (1913: 121-50), and only a litde
later Pierre Roussel commented upon a text of Ari11otle (Constitution
of the Athe...:.111 42.5) in similar terms (1921: 456-60). We know that
the ephebe 'cannot go to law either aa a defendant or a, a plain1i!1
unle11 it is a matt.er of upholdina an inheritance, arrangin1 the arrain 1d
an heireu, or a priesthood related to the 1mos'. Aristotle'• own i::xpl.1-
natiun is simple: the cphebcs mu1t not 1urfcr any distraction from their
milituy acrvicc. But this SQrt or explanation it valid only for Ari1totlc's
own time; R.ouucl observed, 'the rpMbeM ii much more than a period
or military 1crvicc. It ii the period of transition bctwccn childhood and
147
Pierre Vidal-Naquct
complete participation in the life of the society : .. Thttt ~J so much
C"vidcnce £rom othC"r ,ocictics, including Sparta in Greece ttself, that
young people led a life apart for a period ~f ~m~ bcfon their ddinitivc
admission in1o the social group, that one 11 inclined to ice an c:umpk
of this practice here' (p. 459). .
'Definitive ad.minion' meant for the young citizen eucnually two
things: marriage, and entry into the hoplitc phalanx (or !a.tcr, bcco~inl
a sailor in the Athenian navy). So long as these two cond1t1on.1 rcmEMd
un£ulftlled - and the second was especially important in clusieal
Athcn 1 - the young man's relation to the polis is ambiauous. He both
is, and is not, a member.
This ambiguity is strikingly illustrated at the level of topography -
remembering that the orpniz.ation of symbolic space d~s not always
coincide with actual geography. When Aeschinn the orator mentions
hi, own ephebic genenr.tion (around 370 BC), he say• that hc served for
two ycan as 'pnipolbs of this land' (On tit~ Embassy 167) ah« child-
hood. When Plato came to copy the institution of the rph~bda, he
makes his a,ronomoi circle round hlJ city on the fruntien, fint in one
direction, then in the other (Law, 6, 760b; d. Vi.dal-Naquet, 1981)
thus takins literally the etymological meaning of fJ~rtf'olot, 'one who
circles round'. In the fourth century BC the ephebic peripolos1 wu
normally stationed in the frontier forts: hnactoll, Occcleia, Rhamnus
uid 10 on. That might pnhap1 be entirely natural for lightly-armed
young men' who ~ only called upon. to fight under eKccptional
circumstances,' and would then obviously be u"d on patrol (which
is another pat1iblc trandation of pff'ipolos). And yrt these young
men arc u&ociatcd with forcignn, and with citizena of recent date:
Aeschine1 SC'1Yed as a peripoloi with young men of his own agt: and
with mercenaries (On the Embassy 161); Thucydides mentions
(Hripoloi twice, first in association with Platacans (Athenian citizen• of
recent date) at a night-ambush near Niuea in 42!, BC (4.67-8), and
later he says that the man who murdned Phrynichut in 4 l l w» a
pnipolos, his accomplice being an A.rpve·(8.92.2'j. Other wurccs too
state that Pbryni.chus's murdcrcn were fORiplcn (Lysias, Agai,vt
A1orato1 1l;Syllott'J 108 "'Mei.gt and LeWU, 1969: 260-3, no. ~). 6
The same word could then dnip•te l:,otJI. th.e yeu.ng men of Athcnl
and forcipen in her service, Both arc fMIJiul to~ dty (though tM'
q,hcbe's marginality is temporary). But dlit eplwbe's rdation to the
world of the frontier is complicll.. A, YOUlll tdlditn, they ocai.py the:
frontier-zone of the city which ii np'"91!d pbJ•ic:alty in the ~ of
fortlctt (jun u in Crek, whnc thett ll cpipapMc evidence for • dcair,,.
cv.t distinction Mtwcen the youn11m·11 . .-.11,1 QoCc\lf''.' UK' pllrouN, the
011reia, the frontier-area, and the fwl 1.1tu('n1)f' w~ they talc- tN

148
 The Bladt. Huntnand the on.gin ofth~ Arhe,iian ephebeUI
oath which mak~ them full hoplitcs. they mention the boundary-stones
which 1epuate Athens• territory from her neighboun'. But with the,e
stones ltt u1ociated wheat, barley, vines, olive,, fig·trce1 - in a word,
the world of cultivation (Daux, 1965: 78-90; cf. J. and L. Robert,
1966, 362-3 no. 16~).
A 1hon discussion of a non-Athenian poetic text may make it easier
to understand this. The finest evocation of the duality of the Greek
cphcbc is no doubt the Jason of Pindar's fourth Pythian ode. Pclias, the
old king of lolcus, was appointed to 'die by the hands of the noble sons
of Aeolus or their unrelenting schemes':
l! lrJ<,&,w• AloMS<i,, 9...i,- x<i·
p~aou, ti tk,u~ la:t,IQ,µffot(' (72-! Snell)'
He had been warned to beware 'at all costs the man with one sandal'
who should pass from •a lofty retreat' to 'the sunny plain' - 'stranger
be he or townsman' (ffUIIX ai.'T'W11 b:ank: 75-7). And indeed Jason
comes from afar off where he had been brought up, in wild nature, by
Chiron the centaur and his daughten. He is a foreigner, and received as
such, but also a citizen, speaking of himself as such to his fellow·
citizens: J<f6K>i ,ro>.in:a, ~pQaaari ll°' aa+Ewt ( 117). He is a qualified
cphebe twenty years old, ambiguous, with two javelins, and dressed
both in the clothing of Magnesia but also in the leopard-skin of the wild
man:
lo6a< 6
a. ff Mcrp,,1rr'-JII·-·pa,.."''"·
ht)(Wpca( t,p,,0 -
Cowa:8CIITJ'TO'Ol 1UIOL(,
a,,f( 61 ,rap6(>Alq c,r.-,ero fpiaoo,m,, ~ - (79-8 l)
... and a twofold ,uiR wu on him.
A tunic of Map.nian fuhion fined doK hit mq,uficent limbs,
and acroe, it a panther'• hide hdd off the lhiv'erin1 rairu.
(tr. LattiP1orc)
The hair which the Athenian ephcbc cut as a mark of entry into man·
hood still hangs down his back (82-3).
This prolonged adolescence takes us away from the world of social
reality and into the realm of myth. Let us_ re~~ to _Athens, ~here the
ephebe's ambiguity - at the level now of its uutJtut1onal rul1ty ~ can
be seen as double. As Jules Labarbc saw (1953: _58-9~), there w:e~c
really two ephcbic structures: the official epliebel4, wh.1ch was a ~lVlC
military service, and a more archaic one throu_gh_ wh1cl~ ~ne_ gai~ed
admission to the phratry. Hence the cxpreuion ep1 d,etrs hebesa1, which
means (1) to be an ephcbe in the civic sense, that is, lo have rca~hed the
age of eightcen;a.nd(2),as the literal sense suggesU, to have att.1.med the
hibi to have been an ephcbe for two ycan (cf. Labarbc, 1957: 67-n;
Pe&Ck.idis, 1962: 51-65). Labarbe showed that the firn rphebeia was
marked ritually by the sacrifice of the A:ourt>ion (the youn~ man's long
149
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
hair) at the ai;:e of sixteen. I may add that in one case at lust admission
to the phratry was not ratified until one year.had dapsed from the dat~
of the offering of the hair (Sylloge 3 921, Jines 27-~ (s: Sokolowski.
1969: no. 19, with bibliography - the so-called 'Ruling of the Demo·
tionidae')). . .
The sacrifice of the hair took place at the time of the Koureotu, the
third day of Apatouria, the great festival celebrated by the phrat~es
of the Ionian world, which took place in the month Pyaneps1on
(September-October). This month was marked by a series of festi,,als
which have been shown, by Jeanma..ire in particular (1939), to havt'
been festivals celebrating the re-tum of the young men from the cam·
paigns of the summer. And it was through studying the aetiological
myth connected with the Apatouria that I was led to formulate the
ideas presented here.
The myth is known from a large number of texu dating from the
fifth century BC right down to the Byzantines Michel Psellos and
Johannes Tzetzes, who are of course simply resuming older sources.
The texts do not for the most part come from the principal ar :ient
works of literature or history; though alluded to by Strabo and
Pausanias, it is recounted only by Konon (an extremely obscure Hellen-
istic mythographer), Polyaenus and Frontinus; otherwise it is a matter
of scholiast1' remarks and entries in ancient lexica.,' In view 0£ the 1tate:
of the sources, it is hardly possible to define an 'ancient' and more
recent versions of the story, and l will therefore try to indicate the
most important variants.
The scene is the frontier between Athens and Boeotia: an eschatia,
mountainous areas that arc the 'end' of a city's territory, and whosc-
inhabitants arc always at loggerheads with their neighbours over the
border. Such places existed on the borden of al.I Gttdt states (Robat,
1960: 304-5, esp. 304 n. 4). They were the tenain of hunters and
shepherds, frontier zones constantly in dispute. And they ~re necess·
ary to Greek cities if only for training the young 10}dien for war (the
ritual nature of which training has been demon,trated by Bttlich, 1961;
cf. Gar)an, 1975: 29-31).
A conflict broke out between the Athellians •d the Boeotian•. In
some venions, over On\~ and Panactoo, in others OftT the frontier
dcmc Mela..inai. The fourth.century hiltorian Ephorus (quoted by
Hupokntion) says that the dispute WU lw.pn th ~ c1'onu:
'over an area called Melania'. I will obscrtt linll~y thM at Panacton
th~ was an annual sacrifice to mark the Apatounl (Syl1op3 485 ).
The Boeotian king was Xanthos (or Xanthiot, oc x.n~as), which
meam 'the fair one'. The Athenian king was Thymoitct, the lut of the
descendants of Theseus. It wu agreed to sc-ttlr the d'i,pv«: by means of
ISO
 Th• Bt.d H•nt,r and th, orifin of th, Athmian ,ph,b,ia
a duel, a monomachia. But Thymoitcs stood down, according to a
scholia.tt on Aristophanes's Frop and another on Aeliu1 Ari1tcidc1'1
,-.tlinuiicw. because he was too old. Another warrior came forward
and was, according to some vcnions, promised the succession in return.
His name wu Melanthoa (or Melanthioa), 'the black one'. So the Black
One was to fight the Fair One.
Ai they were fighting, Melanthos suddenly cried out, 'Xanthos, you
do not play according to the rules ( ou"'9iJKCrL) - there is someone at
your side!' - and as Xanthos looked round in surprise, Mclanthos took
his chance and killed him. The sources dirtcr over details of what
happened. Polyacnus and Frontinus say it wu a ruse pure and simple;
Halliday compares it to Tom Sawyer's trick when he cries out 'Look
behind you Aunty' and thus escapes the beating she was about to
administer (1926: 179). The Luica S,p,riano makes Melanthos pray
to Zeus .ApathaOr (Zrus 'of wiles1. Most mention Dionysus's inter·
vention - Dionysus Melonaigis, 1of the black goatskin'; and Plutarch
(Quaesiion,-s conviviales 6. 7 .2, 692e) says that Dionysus Ml'lana1gis and
Nu,ierinos ('of the night') was wonhippcd at Eleuthcrac (that is, not
far from Panacton). 19 Afterwards, the victor Melanthos became king of
Athens.
In every source, the Apatouria is explained by paronomastic ety-
mology. The festival is supposed to commemorate this apaii ('wile',
'deception'), whether the inspiration of the deception is ascribed to
Dionysus, to Zeus or to Mclanthos himself .11 The sources offer this
explanation even though the scholiast on Aristophanes's Ac:laanuGns
146, as well as the grammarian quoted by the Suda s.v. )\wcrrOU_Pca:,
knew an explanation which is more or lea conect: A.poiouna ""
Homopoioria ( 'Ol'ft'cn-dplO). Nowadays we would ~~ that th~ a of
~•m-OVpca: is a copulative: the festival of the Apatouna IS thc_fest1val of
those who have the •same father' - in other words, the festival of the
phratries.
Over the years, there have naturally been many attempts to explain
this myth. Finl of coune historically - many such_, from Jo1hannes
TOpffcr's AUisclae Genealogie (1889: 225-4_1) t~ Fd1x Jac~by s great
commentary on the Atthidographen, the historians of ~tuca. We an
usured that Mclanthos wu a historical pcnonagc, ~ Ncle1d, the father
of Codrw who, thanks to anotherapali (disguising himself as a pcasan~),
managed tu gel himself killed and thus ensured the _safety of A1!'ens m
accordance with the oracles' prophecy. Melantho1 &S also dcscnbed as
the 'ancestor' of the phratry of the Mcdontidac. ~ttemp~ havr cv~n
been made to pinpoint the 1tury's date - Wilamo'_"lt;i put 1l not carhcr
than 508 BC, because the frontier was o~ly estabhshe~ then ( 1955-7:
5.1, 22 n. 2). And Jacoby, while not deny mg the mythical nature of the
151
Picr'!"C Vidal·Naquct
story, cnvilagrd the pouibility or a real frontier akinnish (FGrH Sb
Suppkmcnt 2: 50 (on 323a P 2SJ). .
But it was Hermann Uscncr who fint attempted to prorick an overall
explanation of the myth. 11 He pointed out that this Wiii. a due.I bctwttn
the Blaci and the Fair, as a few ancient mthon realized: P~lyarnus
quotes or invt:nts, an oracle- given bdore the- encounter, which run1:
n;., ~r,-, TElifa( b JAEA11t "'°"°., faxE M f ~ 'Having wrou~lt the
death of the fair one the black one seized McJainai.' (Mela"not mnn•
"the black country'. J Usena 11.w the duel in 1ymbolic term,, as a ritual
combat between winter and summer, an intcrptttarion wrlcomcd by,
among othen, Lewis FamcU (1909: :dvii; 1896-1909: 5.U0-1), A.B.
Cook (1914-40, 1.619) ond Herocrt RDK (1961, Ul-S)." But it
fails to explain what nttds to be explained: the link between the duel
and the festival itself. The umc applies to Nilnon whe:n, in a Yariant of
the theory, he su•s•cd that this agon ('contest') linked with tM wor-
ship of Dionysus w• one of thc earliest forms of tragedy ( 195 l-60a:
1.61-110.111-16).
Many years later. in COM:roi~t Cou,.;u,, Henri JeanmaiR offm:d an
entirely different view (19.59: 382-!). He saw the duel Mtween.
Xanthos and Melanthos as a ritual joust. pcrhap, followed by a pro·
cnlion, throupl which a claimant to ~ throne dcclattd himself
master of the tclTitory, The name of Melanthos i1 replaced in Pautani.u
9.~.16 by that of Andropompos ('the Leader of die procession'). and
according to Plutarch (C:ZU-,tio,a~s ,,.«u U, 294b-c) it Wiii in a
similar way - a duel inYOlving a trick almo1t identical with oun - that
Ph.mtlu1, king of the Acnianians, e1tablilhed his claim to the valley of
the Inachus. It also recalls the funous - lclffldary - bank between
PittakOI and Phrynon at the time of the war over Sigeum bctwffn
Athms ond Mytilene (Will, 1955, 581-5).
But to my knowledge only Angelo Brclich hu really artcmptcd to
eKplain the poniblc ttlation,hip between this myth and the
Apatouria, the festival of the phratric1 during which the ephebcs wtte
received into the phntry after consecrating tMir hair (1961: 56-9). 14
In particular, he stresses the frequency with which duels between young
men take place in frontier·districll and ol»rrvet that Diouytut {whom
he identifies with Dionysu1 Mcl.nfli,U) is dacribcd sometimet u '-ibdJI
('with his beard stuting to grow'). But he Caile to puth his illtc,prewion
much further tha.n this.
For my part, I wa ltNcl by tbrtt pointt which 1C4plir~ c•planatiorn.
First, that lh.c 1tory takes place in the frontier rqion,just u i1 i, 10 t,bc
frontier dw tbe Athenian cphebc1 lllff sent. md that in-their oadl they
swear to protect the boundary-1tunc:1 or their country. The secoad
point is the 1tory11 1tre11 on the 4fMli, the- trick. Why 1hould · *
152
 Tht Blac• Hcmttrand the ongin oftht Athenian ,ph,btia
~ have been offered a model of behaviour quite contrary to that
wbic,b. thty swear in their oath to observe? We have single-handed com-
11ot· (*ot,i>muhia) and trickery, contrasted with fair hoplite-fightins on
even tenns. (Let it be noted in passing that the very name Melu1tho1
~ .probably evocative for a reader of Homer: just as Dolan is the
oriininl wolf in the Iliad (Gemet, 1968b: 154-71) so in the Odyss<'J
Melmthios or Mclanthcus is a treacherous goatherd (17.212, 22.1.59,
161, 182 etc.) and his sister Melantha is a truchcrous servant (18.
;21-2). Their father is called Dolios, 'the cwming onc'.) 15 Thirdly, I
was struck by the stress on black in the story (mtla.s (adj.), stem
mt'4n·). We find the name Mclanthos, the location, which in some texts
is c::allcd Mclainai, and Dionysus of the Black Goatskin (Mtlantugis).
And this is not the only occurrence of an association bt:twccn the
Athenian cphcbes and the colour black: at least on certain solemn
occasions, they wore a black chlamys (a short cloak) which was rt-
placcd, thanks to the generosity of Herodes Atticus, by a white one in
the second century AD."
In his discussion of the inscription which provides us with this last
item of information (/G 111 3606), Pierre Roussel showed that tht
black chlamys was suppo~d to commemorate Theseus's forgetfulness:
that cphebc of ephebcs forgot to change the black sails on his ship for
white ones on his return from Crete (after killing the Minotaur). But
aetiology is not explanation; and George Thomson understood this
black. garment as a sign of ritual exclusion (1941: 107). And there is
certainly something very peculiar about this predominance of black -
we have only to refer, for txamplc, to Gerhard Radkc's conscientious
catalogue (1936; cf. Morcux, 1967: 237-72) to undcrst~d just ~ow
startling, indeed shocking, a ritual victory for .black might be 1~ a
festival celebrating the entry of young men into the commumty.
1t may help to formulate these problems ~ore p~eci~tly_ if l n~w
digress in order to discuss the Spartan lcrypt~w.,. an mst1tu_t1on which
has often been compared to the Athenian epla~b~. and which, though
it involved a much smaller number of young men, was indeed paralltl to
it in somt respects. It is well known that we have a very small number
of sources for the ltrypteia. 1 " But the scholiast on Plat~'.s Laws_ 1, 633b
says explicitly that it was a preparation for the m1.htary .. hfe. And
KOchly argued as early as 1835 {following Karl Otfncd .Muller)_ that.
this tn..ining was to be compared to that of the Ath~1an prnpolo1
([Muller, 1844, 2.302); Koehly, 1881-2, l.587-8); a point made •ve.n
more clearly by Ernst Wachsmuth, ~ho lucidly observed that tht~
military apprenticeship took the speaal form of a helot-hunt (1846.
1.252; 2.304)." ) l 'd d h
A brilliantarticlebyHenriJcanmai~(l91S: 121-50 euc1 ate t e
U3
Pierre Vidal·Naquet
fundamental characteristics of the ltrypteia by muns of comparuon
with certain African societies: compulsory isolation or ccn.ain ~~I
men around the time of puberty; living in the bmb; ncn ~c ~ p
of helots - all of these can be panllelcd. in black Afnca, m the
initiation-cettmonies and secret societies of Wolf·mcn and Panthcr·men..
But if that is so, what of the military l'Ole of the Ji,yp1N? Jcanrnairc's
reply wu unequivocal: 'the whole of Spartan military history cries out
apimt. the idea of t.urning the Spartiatc hoplitc into a tnckcr in the
bush domberi"I aver R>Cks and walls' (p. 142). And he added wryly
that 0if the lrryptft/11, with its camping-out by nipt in the mountains,
had really been a training for military life at the time of the battle of
Thcrmopylae (480 BC), Epbialtes's path (by which the Pcnian1 sur-
prised the Spartans) would have been discovered and parclcd..
To my mind Jeanmaitt wu both profoundly right and profoundly
wrong. What he failed to understand was that the lnyptN WU by no
mean, completely unrelated to the life of the hoptitc: for ,ryprN and
the hoplite life were symmetrical opposites. If we make a list from what
the sources &eU us, we get the following remit:
(1) The boplite is armed to the teeth; the youth in the ltrypta. is
gumt1os, which means either that he carried. no arms at all (Scholiaill
on Plato's Laws l, 65!b) or that he had only a dlllJl'CT (Plutucb.,
L;f• of Ly<"'f'U 28.2).
(2) The member of the pltMan:c is opposed to the'youth on hill own or
living in a smaU group.
(!) The fighter in the plain ii opposed to the youth who runs wild ia
die mountain,.
(4) Plato's youth in the ltryptria did his tninin1 in the middle of
winter; the hoplitc, according to Thucydidn, fought in sununn (cf.
WOKQ{p1 in Modern Greek).
(5) The tna1tworthy hoptitc: chttnd on by Tyrtacus (7th cent. BC) is
opposed to the cunnin1 killer of helot1.
(6) The man who fightl in the liKf'it of day is oppoaed to the youth who
fiahts by nipL
(7) The Scholiast on Plato's UJws u.ys that the youth in the Jt,yptftd
ate whatever he could lind, living from hand to mouth, probably
without ever findinc time to have anything cooked; whe'"5 lh•
hoplite is above aU a member of a common narss, the: ~s,itioN.
(8) The mcmben of the ltryptcil, stayed UI the uu1 which became. in a
scn1e, the frontim, of enemy territories - for the Ephon anually
declared war on the Mlots in a ritual comparable to tbe Romu
dedara.tion o[ war by the Fctial,s. 1• (By C011trut, the: full boplite1
were obliacd to remain, in peacct.ime, clo_. to their .ysriti., that is,
close 10 Spu,a itself.)
IH
 Tli• Bu,d Hunt" ond th, ""IP" of th, A th..,;.,, -,,A,bm
In oum, with the hoplite order (ta,ns) reign,;" in the h,-yptn11 there
is nothing but cunning, deception, disordH, in"ationality. To bonow
Uvi-Straua•, terms, one might 11.y that the hoplite is on the aide of
Culture, of what ia •cooked', while the l&ryptN is on the side of Nature.
of the •raw', bearing in mind of coune that this 1Natun: 1, the 1idc of
non-aaltun:, is itsetr to some degree aocially orpnized. 21 And we might
apply this point more widely: for example, in Ctttc we find ap'4i of
young men, which Pierre Chantrainc interprets u the 'herds of an.imab
that are driven along' (19&6: 32-3), opposed to the h,toir,i,,i, the
'brotherhoods' of mature men. And I could ao on, but I have said
enough to indicate how, by a proadure which Uvi.Sttauss would term
a logical inversion, the lcryptti. dramatizes the moment when the
young elite Spartiate leaves ~hind him forever hia childhood.
In his Poi,.,;ty ""d A...tol)I (1966) Geoffrey Lloyd hu brilliantly
shown how the principle of polarity played a fundamental role in the
reasoning of Greek. thinkers in the Archaic period - indeed I believe
that his conclusions could euily be extended to include the Classical
period itself: how can we undentmd Thucyclidcs. for example, without
using the notion of polarity?111 And my intention here, a, must already
be evident, is to detect evidence of polarities cx,prcued not in book-
thinking but in social institutions; and I propose to do that without
entering upon the question of whether 'thought' and 'institutions' are
the effective consequcnce1 of one single entity, the Levi-Straussian
•human mind'.
I think we may generalize and extend what I have already said in dis·
cussing the Spartan ltrypteili: for we must recognize that in Athens, and
in many other parts of the Greek world - above all in Sparta and Crete,
where very archaic institutions were preserved until well into the
Hdlcnistic period - the transition between childhood and adulthood
(the period of maniace and fighting) is dnmatized both in ritual and in
myth by what we might call the "law of symmetrical inversion'. Indeed,
since the publication of Arnold van Gennep's Tire Rites of Passage in
1909 (van Gcnnep, I 960), many rituals of sutus-transition have been
analysed in these term,. 11 I may ttmind the reader, for eumplC', that in
Argos young women sported a (falsr) beard when they got married
(Plutarch, De mulinum r,;,.iutibus 4, 2451); and that in Spar~a, when a
prl was to be married sM' •was handed over to a numph,utna who cu I
off all her hair, dressed her in a man's clothes and shoes, and mad" her
lie down all alone on a mattress in the dark• (Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus
15.5). The two casc:1 arc quiu parallel, as is o~viou1 when we rcmc~bcr
that, according to Ht:rodotus (1.82. 7) adulh in Arp had to be entirely
bald, while in Sparta, they had to let their hair tVOW long. We have hett
dlen a kind of double invenion.
1&5
Pierre Vidal-Nilquet
But we must return to Athens, and look again at the- festiuh con·
nected with the young men's 'return' that att so marked f~a~
the month Pyanepsion (Septemixr-OctoMr). In thc,e es?v .
t ;< t'
ephebes played an important part; and they are all the more s1~ficant
for IM inasmuch as they also marked the end of _the pcnod o{
'apprenticeship' - for this was probably the .point at which the eph~ba
took their famous hoplite-oath in the Aglaunon and when they recCJVcd
their arms from the city. .
Very shortly after the Apatourio occurred the- ~ctuv:_! lr.n~~ as the
Oscltopltortll (held on the snoenth day of P7ane~1on). ~11 IS a pilZ'·
ticularly interesting festival bc<:ilusc 1t1 acaolog:tcal myth rs co?cemcd
precisely with Theseus's return from Crtte after killing the Mwota~r.
and the conflicting emotions be fr els - glad be-cause he. ha, been vie·
torious, filled with grief at his father', death (Plutarch, L1f# of 11,.esr:w
22.4). And it was preci1ely thit death which the ephebes' black cltlamys
was belirvcd to commemorate.
The traditional sources for the Oschophoria diverge m.ark.e-dJy from
one another. I do not propose to an.alY11e them exhau,ti~ly,,. but will
simply emphasize some points which have- sometimes been negfcctfli.
First of all an eucntial rOle in the- Oscbophoria is played by an outlyinJ
gr:nos (a group of relatively wealthy familie1 clai~ng descent from a
single ancestor), that of the Salaminians who had moved to Attia. It
was this gnaos in particular which provided the youths (ua:Niar) who
cvried the vine-branches complete with bunches of grapes (Osch.or) -
who were in conscquena: called Osclaopltoroi.. 11 Set":ondly, the fint
rvcnt or the festival was a procession (/,•rapornpi) from Athens to the
shrine of Athena Skiras at Phaleron. Now the word ,•iron mn.n, 'lime'
and so 'badlandl'; and Felix Jacoby hu shown that the names S~uras,
SJ,iros and s•iron weft' generally given to outlying dittri<:ts which
either were, or had been at some- time in the past, frontier-areu. 1 ' Tbw
'Skira' is another name for the offshore ill.and of Salami,; Skiron i& ~
village on the old boundary between Athens and Eleusis, and so on. The
procession to the shrine of Athena Sk.iras was made up of boy, (p,cudd)
led by two boys dispisr:d III girls carrying the Oschoi~ these boys .aft
referred to u paides amplailltaleis. n Plutarch nplai.ns the tr11n,vesti1m
by saying that among the ttven maidens whom Thcaeus took with him
to Crete there were two boy, disguised as girls. 19 l cannot here venture
to tackle the very co1111pln problems pn,ented by the fe,tivals cart·
nected with Athena Skins: the source-s are so confused that it i• hard to
tell which or the various festivah they refer to. I will limply point out
that Athe~ Skiras K"em, to have bc-=n linked tigniftcantJy with Ult
(:Ustom of dreuina-up: it is during her festival that Prnagnra and lit'f
friends decide in Aristophanes's Tit~ AunnbJy of Wo,,,wn to dress op
156
 Tltt! Blaclf. JJunttT and the origi" of the Athnaion ephrbeia
u men and wear false beards (and it 10 happens that one of the chuac·
kn hu a husband who is a Salaminian {18-25, ,s)).'° Plutarch, lift
of Solon 8, gives two vcnions of how the Athenians seized Salami.I
( otbcrwi.w known as Skiras) from the Megarians; and in one of them
the bcardleu young men disguitt themselves u women. And he says
that a restival was established on the promontory Skiradion after the
seizure (though he link.a its details to the second story, which, though
involving a deception, contains no transvestism) (9.4).
Besides the procession and the boys 1 transvestism, the Oschophoria
ft-atured a race (atOn, lt.amilla) between ephebcs carrying Osehoi. Most
of our information about this is derived from Proclus's Chrestomathia. 51
The cowsc ran from the temple of Dionysus to Phaleron. The com·
pctitors were either two representatives from each of the ten tribes,
rach pair running separately; or else twenty youths, two from each
tribe, all running apinst each other. The victor drank the 'fivefold
cup', a mixture of oil, wine, honey, cheese and flour. After the
ceremonies at Phaleron, and in particular the rituals of seclusion and
the deipnop/toTUJ ("food<arrying'), there were libations, followed by a
Mvcl (•O'"os) which brought the participants back to Athens. It is evi·
dent from Plutarch (Life of 11aeuus 22.3) that this revel was accom·
panied by a herald, and that the return journey too was explained by
reference to Theseus's retum from Crete (he wu supposed to have
stopped at Phaleron in order to sacrificr). In the story, Theseus's herald
precedes him with the news of success, and diJcoven the death of
Ae~us, which he rcpons to Theseui;, who is still outside Athens.
Theseu1's party then entered Athem loudly lamenting, but still the
bearers of happy news. And for this reason, says Plutarch, it is not the
herald himself who is crowned at the O.Chophoria, but his staff
(lf.iruAteion); and cries of joy, 'Eleleu', alternated with keening, 'iou,
K>u', in commemoration of Aegcus's death.n
The structure of the Oschophoria is thus marked by a series of
oppositions. The most blatant is that between male and femal", which
is clear in the procession itself (boys dttucd as girls venu1 the youths),
but also in the contrast between the procession (boys ctn-ned as girl!)
and the race (dromos) between the ephebes (th" race of course is
nothing if not virile: in Crete, the dromeus is a matur" m_an (Willetts,
1955: J 1-14), and in Lato, in particular, the word for leaving the age/a
to become a man is 'running out' (~6pa1,1ei11: IC 1.16 [Latol, 5.21);
according to Aristophanes of Byzantium an apodromos was a you11~
boy not yet allowed to take part in the public races). 11 Th" ra~e
during the Oschophoria is indeed exactly_ par~tl to the stapltulo~rom1a
during the Spartan festival or the Camna, which v.:ai also a fesuval of
the phratrie1: it was a race in which five unma.rned youn1 men ran
U7
Pierre Vidal-Naquct
apinst each other (Harrilon,1927: 234cf. .!121). Thirdly,joy is o~po,ed
to grid, as is shown by Plularch's Life of Thesnu 22.~ - which h•
been considered, wrongly I think, to be: a later in&erprc:tabon. .
It is well kn.own that in archaic Greek socic:tie1, as well u UI other
societies, dressing up u a woman, u in the procession at W Oscho-
phoria, was a means of dramatizing the fact tha_t a young i:nan had
reached the age of virility and marriage. The dauac example m Gn:c.k
mythology is the story of Achilles on Skyros Qeanma.irc, 19:59.: 354-5;
Dckourt, 1961: 1-16; cf. Bettelheim, 1962: 109-21). But ll can be:
demonstrated that it is not the lind of diqu.ilc which is important..
nther the cofttruf which it undcncores. The opposition bctwttn li&h,1
and dark for example ii no less 1ignificant: youn1 men not yet adult arc
known sometimes to haft bHn called slr.otiai ('of the dark': Scholiast
on Euripides, Akeslis 919); the r&eftiai {'youths') of the Otchophoria
arc called eslciatn1pllirnmoi, 'brought up in the dark' {Plutareh, Life of
Tiies~ 2!.2; Proclus, Ch~sloJMthia 89 (p. 56 Scvcryns) ).,.. Both
Malla and Dreros in Crete seem to have held cc:remonics of adminicm to
the adult age-classes, which involved ritual nudity before the conffflinc
of hoplite arms. The youn1 men att called uOStoi, which Hesychi1U
dcfma u 'those who are without arms'. At Dreros they were called
· pwuuu.Osioi and egd11ommoi, 'those who have no 9,othcs' - thie latter
term occun also at Malla.u There was likewilc at Phacstus a festival
called the EJcdysS. ('Clothie1 ofr): the actiolOff here ii a ttory about a.
girl who twned into a boy - whleh forms a link bietwcen the two sets
boy : fir/ and "4h4 : Cffllftl (Antoninus 1..ibcnlis, Met•morphoses 17
[Leukippo,); cf. Pepathomopoulm, 1968: 109-10; Willctu, 1962:
175-8).
It is perhaps worth noting finally that the 1exual imrenion of any
young man about to become an adult is quite cliearly related to theK
facts: it is cnoup to mention Ephorus's well-known story about the
rape (,..,.,,,,i) of a YOUIII Cretan boy, who ii taken by his lover into
thie country (of couniel) for two months, for a life of relu.ation and
i\u•tiftf. h is on his n.:tum to thr town that hie reciti"l:s the.,_, whicll
mu.c him• hoplitc (FGrll 70 F 149 [from Suabo 10.4.21: 41,CI).

I come now to thie thiemc of the hunt, which appcan in thie title or this
papier, and which I still have to explain and, if pauibk, juatify. ,Pian
Chantrunc hu noted (1956: 40-65) that huntias is linll<4 1 . -
mientally with lAC qro, in Greece, the land which Jit:1 beyond thie cul-
tivated area, that ii, with the escluttiai, the borderlands of a,cd, c-i~
Plato calla hi1 ephebc, the p,enon who dcfuds the f~tier area~ 18\
_ . , . . , {Loin 6, 760.-76la). Mo.. .....,.Uy, buntiag - ,a
IIOl1PU for heroes, whc,m dlie q>hebes emu.laud. thal I\ Orth
Ill
 Th, Blach Hunur ottd the origin of the A.then,-•n ~ht'b•UJ
remarked that 'heroes ue hunten and hunten heroes' (1914: 559).H
In a 1cntt, hunting is firmly on the 1idc or the wild, the 'raw', or
night~' and the skills employed ia the Spartan ltryptN ~tt those or
hunting. But only in a sense: 'WC have to make certain distinctions.
My starting-point is a well-known test on education, from the end or
Plato's section on education in the Laws (1, 822d-824a). Using the
method demonstrated in the Sophist, Plato introduces here a whole
series of distinctions. Each time he spuks of a left side, the side of evil,
and a right side, that of good. Fishing depends upon the use of neu: it
therdort falls squarely on the left. One ought then to restrict oneself to
the hunt and the capture of quadrupeds (91)pEVO'k rE K.Oi Q"fpa: 824.11.).
Here too, though, he makes a distinction: one is not allowed to hunt by
night with nets and traps. All that seems to be permissible is that type
of hunting which conforms to the ethos of the horseman and the hop·
lite: coursing the animal, or killing it with a lance - both of them kinds
of hunting which involve the use of one's bare hands (though bird·
catching is tolerated en41FoU, 'beyond the area of cultivation'). 'But as
for the man who hunts by night, the nu•ureutis, with only nets and
t.ra.ps, let no man allow him to hunt anywhere' (824b).
When faced with a text of this kind, we must of counc allow for
Plato's dichotomizing method, and for bu moralizin1 tone. Perhaps we
should allow for a similar tone when Pindar describes Achille, k.illin1
deer without dogs, and without guile or nets, but simply by running
futer thmi. they (Nemean 3 ..51-2) - even though it reminds us of the
Cretan dromeus. But there arc several texts which draw a contrast be·
tween two types of hunting: adult hunting, where the spear is used
rather than the net, and which takes place by dayli1ht, sometimes in a
group, and which is in kecpin1 with the hoplite ethos; opposed to it is
hunting by ni1ht, a 'black hunt' baJed on the use of the net. The heroic
prototype of the group·hunt is of counc the hunt of the farnou, black
Calydonian bov. Now it has been observed that 'thC' use of OC'ts is not a
feature of pictorial representations of the Ca.lydoni.tn boar hunt' - any
more than it is of the literary accounts (Chantrainc, 1956: 65, quoting
La Costc-MuscliCre, 1936: 130-52 (though lmmerv.·a.hr, 1885: 52-4
points out that U,is feature dues occur on Roman representations of
the hunt on sarcophagi; and see now Koch, 1975. E<l.J). And for this
reason: the Calydonian boar hunt is a hunt involving the adult heroes •Jf
Greece. Likewise, Hcgesandros reports a Macedonian custom whC'r("ll\
no man could dine reclining until he had killed a boa.r "A-ithout the .11d
of net or snare (Athcnacus, Deipnosophist•e 1.31, I Ba). Poor C,m.~uki
had to wait until he was thirt)·.fivc before he could enjoy this priv1lcgl"
- distinguished hunter though he wu. We may put the point slightly
differently: unless he had accomplifhed somc signal exploit a young
)59
Pierre Vidal-l',aquet
man i.:ould not be a full participant in the communal meah which ~
a feature of so many archaic or marginal societies.
Two Spartan customs neady illustrate how integral hunting was to
the hoplite ~thos. According to Plutarch (L•fe of Lycurps 12 . .f.), ~y-
onc who took part in the communal meals had to present ~c ~ e W1th
the choiast parts of his sacrifice, or if he had been hunnng, WJth pan
of the bag. One was allowed to dine at home if the sacrifice or hunt had
finished late, but the othen had to come along too (TOO( 6 • tiXMJU~ t'&et
l'QPEiM:r,.). And Xenophon informs us that hunting dogs and hones were
common property; while any food left in the meu after dinner had to
be kept in a special place for any huntcn who ~tt delayed (Constitu-
tion oftlae LscedlJemonion.s 6.5-4).
By contra.st with these heroic and communal exploitl, huntins b~·
on~lf and with neu seems ohcn to be rypicaJ of the adolesa:nt. This
is indicated by many texts, though it is true that many an: late. Accord-
ing to Oppian, Cyncgetica 2.25, it was Hlppolytus, the prototype of the
youth who is unmanied and who rcfuSC5 to marry, who invented thr
hunting-net. In the story of young Philios, the 6nt task impo,W on
him was to kill a lion lil'ftl ac.&9'-pov, 'without an iron weapon'. And be
slew it not with a net, but with a typical trick (apati) - hC" made i.t
drunk (Antoninus Libcralis, Metamorphoses 12) . . - And Bttlich hu
emphuized the interest of an odd passage in XC"nophon's Cynqeticus
(2.!), where he defines the hunt ;u chanctnistic of thC" transition from
childhood to adolescence and adds: 'the hunter who URI a net must
love his art, moat be: of the Greek tongue and be about t~nty yean
old'. It is in such terms perhaps that onr might explain why on -the
Chigi Vase in the VWa Giulia in. Rome there ii a line of mm creeping
through the undergrowth, over against the line of hononen and the line
of hoplites (the Chigi Vue is of course Late~rinthian). And it is by
re£erence to the same oppositions that we can undentand why Nestor
has two dirfercnt initiations into the art of war in the //itul, first a, a
young man, lightly-armed, taking part in a catt1e-raid at night, and then
as a heavy-armed adult (/li•d 11.6 70- 762, with the dttisiW" ditcuuion
of Bra\lO, 1979).
But I want to aflUC tlQt the essential evidence for the J'Olc of the hunl
in the \lariow stages of a young Greek male's life it providtd by a facu,ft'
whom it is high time that I dealt with: the IJadi: Huatff, Melanlon.
Let me tell you ,1 li1tlc llory
1 beard when Iw• a boy
How
nim once IWU a you.lh l~oi.J ca&led.Md.nMln, who
Wu 10 appuled u the prOlpCCt of women he fte.w
To the mm.maiiu rather th• mSTY.u
And he hunted hana
160
 Th~ Bladt Hunttr 11nd th, onfin of th, Athmian eph~briJ
And he ~t hit mun
With hil do1 there,
Ancl ftffet' cunt b&clr. for IIDYOftCI
(Al'Utophanca, L1N,,_ta 781-H, U'. Dicklnton)

Melanion appeUI he-ff as an ephebc, but a son of ephebc manquC -

a kind of Hippolytus in fact, as Wilamowitz saw clearly in his com-
mentary (1927: 169-70). If wdooked no further than this chorus, we
should have here a version of the widespread myth of the gloomy soli-
tary hunter who is either a misogynist or who tries to insult Artemis,
and who, in either case, flouts the social rule,. It is the well-known type
of the hunter Orion - who was indeed. according to Oppian, Cynegetica
2.28-9, the inventor of hunting by night.
But look further we must. Putting the story of Melanion back into
its mythical context, \ff can bracket it with the story of a young girl,
the Arcadian Atalanta, who was a huntress and who excelled in run·
ning.,. Their legend is set near a frontier mountain, Mount Parthcnion,
between the Argolid and Arcadia.. Pausania.s (8.6.4) says that the
nearest village was called Mclangeia. Like Melanion, Atalanta was
brought up in the mountains, suck.led by a bear (Artemis's animal).
Ewipidcs (frg. 510 Nauck') chancterius her as '""71,m KU'll'piOO(,
'hated by Aphrodite' - a social failing parallel to Melanion's. Theognis
(1291--4) describn her as 'the blonde Atalanta who strides over the
mountain peaks, fleeing from the desire of marriage'. For Hesiod she is
the 'light-footed Atalanta' (fr1. 73.2, 76.5, 76.20 Merkclbach-Wcst) -
the maiden who etcapu from the Ct'ntaun' attempts to rape her
(Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3.9.2). Aclian knows of her only that she was
a virgin ( VCU"'iae historiM 13.1) - just as all that is known of Melanion
in Aristophanes's chorus is that he refulC'S to marry. In Apollodorus's
well-known venion, she comes home and challenges any comn to a
race. stipulating that it shall be an armed race. She thus trespuse1 on
male preserves twice-Over. Xenophon says that Mdanion won her hand
thanks to his skills as a hunter (Cynegt'tinu 1.7); but a widespread
mythological tradition (for example, Apollodorus) had it that Me~anion
beats Atalanta and win., her for his wife by meam of an apalt' of a
feminine kind - dropping Aphrodite's thrt'e golden apples, one at a
time. Both of them were depicted on Cypselus's chest at Olympia
(Pausania.s 5.19.2). During that period of their lives which was more ur
less unexceptionable, they both took part in the Calydonian boar hunt:
they appear together for example on the 'Franc;ois vase', Atal.'am.i .1.ll
light in colour, Mclanion all black (in keeping with pictona.l rnn·
vcntion); and a white hound is about to spring on the black boar. They
had a son, who~ name, significantly enough, was P.u-thenopac:us."
And once again they violated sexual rules by havinK intercounc: in a
161
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
shrine sacred to Zeus or Cybele, the Mother of the Gods. And then they
were transformed into lions, because, it is said, lions arc unable to have
tt'xuaJ intercounc."
The Athenian ephebe is in a sense the true heir of the Bl~k Hunter.
The Black Hunter is, as I have observed, an ephebc manquc.' an q,hcbc
who may (ail at every turn. 42 And many Attic vases dc~1ct a ~oung
ephebe setting 0 (( with his hound: perhaps they do indeed, 01 their own
way, represent the young man on the threshold of adult life.
It is time to draw this paper to a close. In historical terms, the ephebc
in Archaic and Classical Greece wa.s a prc-hoplite. By virtue of this, in
the symbolic enactments which are the rites of passage, he was an ~ti-
hoplite: sometimes a girl, sometimes a cunning hunter, somenmcs
black. It is not in the least surprising that a myth like that or Melanthos
should have been considered a model for the ephcbe." And at the tech-
nical level, the ephebe is a light-armed soldier. an anti-hoplitc who
ensured the perpetuation, often quite unseen, of a mode of fighting
which is both pre- and anti·hoplite, and which reappears into the light
0 ( day (and of history) during the Pcloponnesian War and in the fourth
century BC. 44 Creature of the frontier-area, of the esclso.tia, he gu.an.n·
tees in his hoplitc-oath 41 to protect the boundary stones of his COWltry,
and with them, the cultivated fields. the wheat, barley, olive-trees, vines
and figs.
We might extend this study of the ~,.ebeia to a consideration of the
rble of the wurior in Greek mythology. Long before the introduction
of hoplite warfare into Grccc.c and Rome, the warrior's function in
lndo-European society wu twofold. On one sidc was order, which later
led to the dn,clopmcnt of the pltaLmx and the legion; and on the other
disorder and the cxploiu of the individual (cf. DumCzil, 1958: 57-8).
As Georges DumCi:il has stressed, these pcnonaJ exploits, through
which the young warriors won recognition, derived from their furor,
lwsa, ulnitM, mtnos, £rom their fiKhting spirit; but the cxploits of tM
Irish CUchulainn, which made his return.journey from thc frontier-zone
so difficult and dangerous, were Wo tricks.~ And in just thc tame way
it is by a trick, in Uvy's account, that Publius Horatius defeated the
three Curiatii {l.25.7-12). There is a striking parallel in Herodotus's
story of the battle bct\ftcn 300 young Spartans and 300 young Argi~
in the frontier area of Thyuatis {l.68) [aft.er which Othryad"1, thc aok
Spartan survivor, set up a trophy while thc two survivDlg Argivts
returned to Argos with the news of victory; both sides could thUJ
legitimately claim to have won. Ed.]. Young Horatiu, may thu, be•
distant cousin to the Black Hunter.

162
9. Recipes for Greek adolescence
Pierre Vidal·Naquet (1974, 1979)

'I ll•lc tr.wU ad ~aplorers. •

Clfttk Lhi-Stros1

In 1724 there appeared in Paris a book by the Jesuit Joseph Fran~oi,

Lafitau entitled MOftlrs tlrs .sauvqts flfflhiquai,u cornparits 11u.x morurs
drs prnrai~ «maps. 1 A modest enough tidti but the contents consti-
tute a kind of landmuk in the historiography of the ancient world.
Lafitau was a missionary, born (1670) in Bordeaux into a family of
rich merchants and bankm. From 1712 to 1717 he lived in Canada
with P. Garnier, who knew the Algonquins. Hurons and Iroquois well.
As an ethnologist who had worked in the field, Lafitau was of course
neither the fint missionary nor the first European to favour the con-
querina: West with the benefit of the knowlcdse he had acquired.
Reflection and discovery went hand in hand. In effect ethnology had
established itself since the sixteenth century as a science of bubarian
societies, conceived now as static in relation to a world swept up in the
flux of history. Lafiwi•s originality lay eltewherc. :1 Arnaldo Momigliano
has put it well: tris book 'revealed to the world the simple truth that
also the Greeks had once been savages' (1966: 141). To be sure,
Thucydides had made almost exactly W same point: 'One could point
to a number of ... instances where the manncn of the ancient Hellenic
world arc: very similar to the mannen of barbarians today' ( 1.6.6). But
Thucydides had been forgotten. Deprecating the nsults of the conquest
of America, Montaigne - who wu yet at moments so dose to historical
ttlativism - wrote: 'Why did not su noble a. conquest fall undt>r
Alexander, or the ancient Greeks and Rom;ms: and so great a revolution
and mutation of so many empircs and nations, fall into hands that
would have gently levelled, rooted up and made plain and smooth what·
ever was rough and savagt amongst them, and that would have cherished
and propagated the good seeds that nature had thcrc pr~uced; mixint,:
not only with the culture of land and the ornament of c,taea, the arl~ of
this part of the world, in what was neeeSAtY, but also the Greek .t.nd
Roman virtun, with thotc that were original of the country?' (Essays
m 6 tran1. Cotton). Indeed Lafitau went funhcr than Thucydides, by
compuin1 not only cbc distant put of the Greeks with the world of
gvasn, but alao Cluaical GRccc ittelf. In his own way, thr Jesuit wu
163
Pierre Vidal·Naquct
cln.wing a line under the debate bet~cn Ancients and Modems ..~~e
Greeks, Romans, C\'Cn up to a point the Jews (in a senst' more dec1sn:e
still) lost the cultural privile~ th~ had be«"n ~anted h>; the:.:~~~~
the Renaissance and the- KVmtrenth century. I declan:, he
extraordinary teml"rity, 'that if thc ancient ;;ru~on ha,.~ ~forded me
illumination to substantiate sn-eral happy solubons regarding Savages,
the customs or Sauges have afforded me illumination the mort'. easily
to understand, and to eJ1.plain, sevnal matten to be fou~d I~ t.hr
ancient authors.' In saying that, La.fit.au WU taking the opposite hne ta
another founding father of anthropology, the Spanish Jesuit Jose de
Acosta, author of a His tori.a natural y moral th l4J Indios, published at
Seville in 1590 and aJmost at once translated into French and English
[by Edward Grimston, 160.f.). De Acosta's epistemologjcal rult': ncept
in matters religious, was that the Graeco-Roman world rema.med th~
civilization. To be sun: Lafitau, learned missionary that he was, found
himsd£, in true classical tradition, an ancient patron: 'The science of
the mannen and customs of different peoples is so useful and intettlt-
ing that Homer dttmed that he should ma.kc it the subject of an enti.n:
poem. Its purpose is to celebrate the wwlom of hil hero Uly•s who,
seeing himself after the siege of Troy carried ever further from hi1
homeland Ithaca by the wn.th of Neptune, profits from different mis-
takes in his Yoy.age to instruct himsdf in the mannc.rs of the nations at
which the anger of the winds obliged him to touch, and to derive from
each what was in it good and praiseworthy' (1724: 1.3). But tbellC'
nations arc not only the imaginary peoples which Ody~u• dacribes ia
the palace of Alcinous - they att the Greeb themselves, seen both a1
the crcaton and as the objects of a science.
The frontispiece to Lafitau's work (fipre S) is U1 cmbkmaWI
engraving. How did he himself interpn:t it?* The writer (llf)parcnt1y ,
woman) is seated at a writing desk in an.mllt dfta. She is busy 'com-
paring a number of ancient monuments, pyram.ida, obelisks, pantheon,
(statues combining the attributes of seven.I .gods], medallioru, ancicnl
texts with a number of accounts, maps, voyagc1 an4 othn curiOUties of
America, among which she is sittinc'. In pmlinlar one can ma.kc out
one such idol on the ground, an Artemis or lplleNt lying on its siCX.
Two putti help her U1 this t»k. One holda bl Jaia.lek band the c:aducev,
ofHermrs and in hi1 right.,. Red Indian pipe;&M Olha-b,.. • boquo14
'turtle' against tome son of rhomb or nttle flolrr .a ~ from. tM
Hellrnistic East. Higher up, above Adam. and l.w, ~ a-n. Chd:at ...
the Virgin Mary after the Auumption, 111t1oldldre4.,. ......-;• O.U th!
dazzling Host on an iUW. Fina.Uy Time tu.a die .-itc,. b-.k "lo . .
source of all' and ra.Ne, him 'as' it v,en: ~ the conaectioa Mt.,...
a.II thae monuments and the ori(lin of man, bdwecD IMID and tbe
164
 Rrcipes for Grrrlt adol,·scence

ficurc ,. fronti,piccc from.J. Ldil.au '• ltlunHJ drJ sa•H•Otf" I a,., ; n ·q 11•i"1 cu '",,.,.,~,
dri ~"'Wn tonps. ( R,dn,wn b y R. K. Brill o n)
...... ffl(,t"llf'J

1(,5
PieJTe Vidal-Naquet
essence of our Religion'. 1 do not know whethrr Lafi~u i~aginc-d that
Time, with his wings and scythe, was a figure from antJ.qu1ty: ~ ~ow
of course today thal it is not (Pmofsky, 1962: 69-93). Father Time,
descended from ancient Saturn and the mediaeval fip1tt of ~th, own
his iconography to the Renaissantt: he is contemporary With the mm
who witncucd the 'Great Expansion'; Lafitau"s dnughUmUI stresses
his vitality rather than his destructive aspect (the ~the is _not at work).
The Jesuit saw no contradiction between the ~bon o! ~1mr and ~om-
1
parison, between, as we miP,t say now, the diachroruc and the 1yn·
chronic'.
Comparison between the customs of the Indians and the Greeks is
legitimate because Indians and Grerk.s are each desccndrd from Adam
and Eve. The scene is given unity by the figures and symbols of Judaro·
Christian myth. Moreover, Lafitau makes his own attempt to historicize
the myth by making his Indians thr distant cousins both of the Grerka
and of their barbarian neighboun (hr~ again he differs from his ptt-
deccssor de Acosta who thousht indeed that the Amrrican Indians
came from the Old Continent - hr had gucacd the e:itistencc of the
Behring Strait - but stressed that these ancestors can hardly have been
anything but 'mas hombres ulvaFS y cazadorn, que no gentr ttpU.blica
y pulida' ( 'savages and hunters rather than a refined and civiliJ:ed
polity')' - 'savages and hunten': the very n:duncbncy of the phrase i•
characteristU:). But Lafitau could hardly ignore (and did not) the fact
that rven before hil own century, and in particular aftrr the Great
Expansion, the possibility of mother Adam, or of several othrr Adams,
had been raised (PoJiakov, 1974: 137-44), sometimes to justify the
enslavement of the Indians, but sometimes to assert that they were free
of original sin. The death 0£ God, so close to Lafitau's work, while it
cut away the top of his pictul't', in a way left things as they stood. ls
that why~ now have the right tu comp.rr, that i1, as it wrre, to annu.l
fathrr Time?
Ninekenth-century rvolutionary theory, in its own way structuralist,
injected a dose of secularism into Lafitau's schrma. At Stuttprt, in
1861, Johann Jakob Bach.ofrn pubJishrd his Da M•ttnncltt (Mitri·
arclay ). Right from the start the Swiss ,cholar relied upon a now famous
passage or Herodotus (1.173): in Lycia the mrn took the name a.ot of
thrir fathrr but of their mothrr -- which is whai the Iroquois, among
others, also did. Now Lafitau knew chis tcxl: indcfll, be had colkcled
all the tn.u he could find on what we must altrr him call 'matriarchy'
and "malrilinearity'. 'Gynaecocracy. the Rul,: of Women', M ob,erved,
'was practicaUy univenal' (1.7J). His lint reaction an con:fpm'UII
Lycians, Iroquois and Hurons wu to suppose that the ARM:rican Indians
wrrc descended Prom thr Lycian1 (1.64). He wu a little doubtful on
166
 R«ipn [M' GruA odolt1cmc,
ICCO\lftt ofthe claimed univenality of matriarchy in the ancient world,
but baoin1 no ch1nae of th<ory at hand, finally conc:lud<d that 'th•
larger put 0£ the inhabitants o( America stemmed originally from thOIC
borbarians who dwelt on the mainland or Gr..e< and th< islands'
(l.82-S), befott the arrival of the Gtt<u. Bacholm did not n«d such
a hypothesis. For him, all manltind hu pused throush a •taae or
"matriarchy', a stage of comforting con1.aet with nature which repro-
duces the mother's breast and which precedes the cultural break
brousht about by patriarchy. Even earlier than Bacholen and
appattntly without knowing Lalitau, LH. Morgan had likened the
Lycians to the Iroquois.• When the time came for a 1ynthc1is in 18 77
(Ancinat Socidy), God, incrssantly on Lafitau's pen, makes an appear·
ance only on the very last page, where Morgan pays homage to th~s<"
•savages', these 'barbarians' whose patient toil was •a part of the plan ot
the Supreme lntclligence to develop a barbarian out of a savage, and .1
civilized mm out of this barbarian'. A hesitant enough appearance; but
all the same ncccssuy. for the parallelism of social evolutions is
explained at least putly by the presence in all men, if not of a gleam of
original Revelation, then at kut or the 'primary germs of thous}\t'
which the transition between one stqe of IOcial evolution and another
allow> to develop.' Scculariud by Enaeb (Oril"• of lh• Family was
published in 1884), Morpn'11ehema makes comparison both legitimate
and straightforward. To compatt two societies, it is ncceuary and
sufficient to determine their co-ordinates on the anph of social evol-
ution. The Iroquois are at the lower margin of the state of barbarism
whole upper marx:in is represented by Homeric Greece. Fine, but what
about all the innumerable institutions which Lafitau knew perfectly
lffll could exist in quite dirferent societies? Must we for example for-
bear to comp~ the warrior societies of the mediaeval West and
Homeric society on the grounds that the one, in Marx's and En~ls'
temainology, belongs to a social formation founded on slavery, and the
other to the 'feudal' period? Even if wr do make the sacrifice, the prob·
lem refUKS to go away. We have to make a choice: either we say, with
the Soviet version of Marxism in panicular, that all human societies
have pused or will pass through thr same stages ·- which is just not
tn1e;' or we restrict the occuncncr of 'feudalism' simply to the medi
anral West and Japan, which involvcs an n.tnordinary comtriction ,,1
the comparative field, one which would disallow a whole serin ,if
studies whosc very cx.istcncc prove• that you cannot make 1oml·1hi11K
true simply by believing it.
Though I tw,c cited Lewis MOl'pft, it wu not - unfortunately - his
work the work of a man who had received a double cducation, lroquois
and American, and who, in spite of or because or that, iftlUtcd upon
167
P1c"Te Vidal·Naquct
the unity of the human family, that dominated such in~t a s ~ ~
pologists had in the Greek world. Six ycan bcfott Ancwnt .son~ty_,_m
1871 there appeared the lint edition of Edward B. Tylor s Pnm,trw
Cult~rt:, and it wa., through Tylor and his foUowen, above all And~
Lang (1844-1912) and J.G. Frazer (1854-1941), that Gn:ek stud1n
were decisively influenced by the work of anthropologisu,' after the
collapse of Max Muller's 'comparative mythology'. 10 Of count th~
wett many points on which Morgan and Tyl~r ~ ~cd, but thnr
views we« at heart d.iffcralt. Right at the bepnrung of his book T~l.or,
while allowing for the existence of good savages, sets up an o~posttr_on
between Savagery and Civilization - that is of course Wntcm 1~penal·
ist civilization. But comparison is justifiable bccautt of nimllllls (an
older notion significantly adapted by Tylor) from the savage world at
the hurt of the civilized: 'If~ choose out in this way things which
have altered little in a long counc of centuries, we may draw a pictu.ff
wheK" then shall be scarce a hand's breadth diffen:nce between an
English ploughman and a negro of Central Africa. ' 11 Then: is a funda-
mental unity between the lower classes of the West and the inferior
ruces of the world: in Tylor's day English royalty could not yet bt:
compared with African chiefs. Mo~ovcr Tylor made a point which it
the origin of many theories of totemism: 'The Kntc of an absolute
psychical distinction between man ;md beast, so pl'C'\'alent in the civil·
ized world, is hardly to be found among the lowu raccs.' 12
What was the place of lM Gn:ek world sttn through the evolutionary
spectacles of the nineteenth cmtury? It is crisply defined by Andrew
Lang, a key figure of the age, at once a journalist, a historian on the
grand and the small ,calc, and a fo~most anthropologi,t. lt went with-
out saying that, from the agr of Homer, the Grtek world belonged
utterly to Civilization. After all, from then on there wett royal hou,.es.
But it was equally obvious that the Gn:eks wcrt conscious of having
bttn savages. Their rituals and their myths att full of odd thinp, from
human sacrifi~ to cannibalism. Htre the notion of survival combin~
with evolution plays a crucial rOle: the Greeb lu,d bet'ft u.vqes.. they
WttC so no more; thei:r myths are survivals from 1hci.r pat,u and
mythology tell.s wlat their ancestors did. Comparison was compatible
with hicrarchization.
The synthetic system, of the Romantic period and the Arc of
Positivism are now men: rotted hulks or etiolated to the point of un-
r«ogniubility. Let us take a look at a alightJy later period; a1 a lime
when the kings of anthropology were Frazer on one side and Malinowskl
on the other, what freah basis for eompan.tiw sh.1dy could a his,oriui
have found? Frazer wa, a fact-gleaner. Starting from the Graeco-lfoman
world, which he knew admirably well, he W-dl Mt indefatigable footnoter
168
•
R1cipes for G,u• adol11Cfflct
p...._. •d Ovid without ever cxplairung what it was that per·
~ him to compare the Prie1t·k.in1 of Ncmi slain by his 1ucccuor1
••
·JL
Cliril& dymc on the Cross or the God-King of Pharaonic Egypt.
*8laowtki dedicated him1dr to an unprecedented dfon of reflection
iapon the functioning of a sinsle Mclaneaian society, ovcr-hutily
..;.d with the Sava,e lokt cotu"I (Leoch, l966b: 360-7). For the
hielorian, the choice might properly appear ruinous. And yet, of the
two, from the time of Salomon Rcinach to our own, it was un-
doubtedly Fta%er who waa, in France and elsewhere, the more influ-
mtial. With hardly an exception (but 1tt Finley, 1977), the central
concept which we owe to Malinowrki (and refined by his succeHon,
above all R.adclifre-Brown), 'social function', has hardly been put to use
by historians of the Ancient World. To be sure it wa.s not a clear or a
crisp notion, and it hu properly been strcucd that the word 'function'
has two senses for Malinowski, an organicist tense - an institution is an
element which has a function, a r61e, in a social aggregate; and a logistic
or symbolic sense - mythology has a symbolic function in the structur·
ing of social relations (Panoff, 1972: 109). But there was here an open
door which almost no one stepped through. One may be allowed to
regret this at a time when anthropology has, once again, rocketed in the
most divergent directions, of which 'structuralism' is just one - though
the one which, even allowing for fashion, attracts many historians most
strongly.
How arc we placed now? The latest racarch, so far from ma.king the
historian's choice easier, limply ma.kn it fflOff painful, because every
historian today knowa that what he studies ii propc:rly speaking neither
the unique nor the univenal - even if the univenalism of the 'human
mind' has replaced Frazer's empirical univenalwn. We all know as his-
torians that the truth of the history of a Breton village is not to be
found in the simple history of a Breton villagt>; but also that the divertt
metahi.stories which crowd us, from a more or leSI refurbished Marx.ism
to psychoanalysis, from the philosophy of the price-curve to that of
univcnal logic, will never relieve us of the obligation to get back to our
village.
Structural anthropology is one of these metahistorie1, one of the
Siren-voitts - surely one of the most exciting and uimulating, inas
much as, privileging on the Saussurian model of language the s, n
chronic over the diachronic, it offen the most complete challengr rH1
thrown to a diacipline which bdieved that there was no pecpinK o,·rr
the walls of time, unln1 it was for some rhdorical or pc:dagogic purpose
to paint what the diss.crtation·scribblcn call •. "picture' .. Yct _th~s
challenge docs not abolish those offered by carher gcnentlons: 1t as
simply added to them. for it i1 not enough to .u&erl. f'Vm to prove, as
169
Pi.-ne Vidal-Naquct
'structuralism' atlcmpts, not unsuccessfully, to d~, ~,1t the 'hum_.an
mind' is a universal logical agent, to rcstorc to the h1sto~an the sccunty
he has lost, and which, one must hopt'. ht will ~ever rcdtseovtr_- For the
'human mind' is not in itself tht obJtCt of hutory, and &n)Way ~
tthnologists who postulate, t'.'tn prove its uni~e~~ty do_ not c~m
that it is, if it bt that the aim of their undertaking ts the ~ntegra~on
of culture in nature and finally of life within the wholt of its phy11Co-
chemical conditions' (Uvi·Stnuss, 1966a: 247). The 'logic of the
living', which is also that of things in themsdves, 1~ is not answer~blc to
historical reason which is constitutivt, not conslltuted, and which un-
endingly makes' and rcmaktt its operational fields, its 'scenarios'

(Vz::e~e!!~· though, we cannot apptal to ~e uni~ucness o_f ev~ry

event in time and take rdugc in the bosom of Singularity. The htnona:n
cannot isolate himself in such a vitw. The individual occurnn« is
properly unintelligible if it is not stt in some relation. The Breton vill~gc
is in Brittany, France, the West; it is also in the Celtic world: studying
iu folklon: may force ont to study Irish or Welsh folklore; and it may
not be entirely profitltss to ta.kc a look at the folklore of the Auvttgnc
or of Provcnce. 0 At any rate the hi1torian is condemned at C"Very
momtnt to define his contexts, and the contexts of his conteJlts; his
definitions ue always provisional - 'Greek culture' ls a context, but a
potentially illusory one if one isolates the Greek world from the
Thracian world or the lllyrian, to say nothing of the Med.iterranQll con·
text; he is doomed to opcntc 1imultaneously on the spatial and on the
temporal axes; and if he adopts provisionally 'univeru.l' categories like
the Raw or the Cooked, it is always to make them dynamic.
In his own way, Lafitau undentood and anticipated the dilemma:
"The customs and manners of nations could well gwde u1 to a more
refined undtrstanding by comparison of these mannen and customs.
But some among them were gcntral, instituted upon the earliest ideas
whk:h the fathcn of the peoples communicated to their children and
which were among the majority integrally preKrved, or at least without
marktd a.iteration notwithstanding their separation in 1pact and their
lack of communication. Such are the ilku relakd to mo1t o( the prac-
tices of collective life. As,ur~y from them one can derive no condu·
sions. In making the compari1ons which are proper, therefore, I will not
scruple co citt the customs of what ptople1 1orvn they be, without
claiming to draw any conclusions other than the 1ole relation of tbnc
customs with those o( earliest antiquity. It should then only be in tM
macttr of cen.ain dutincti,..c u,,d characteristic featuus of &he ~
newly diacovercd, in relation to thox peoples of antiquity of whom
the historians have pre5t:rved to us some k.nowleqgt', 1.h&t cme cuukl
170
 Recipe, for Grult adolescence
hazard some conjectures, bringing thcsC' distinctive [eaturcs together
and comparina thC"m one with another' ( 1.44-5). or coune 'the
general' no len than 'the distinctivt-' han varit-d sin« the Jesuit mission-
ary. All tht- same, the t-xtraordinary thing i1 that such a kxt might SC"rvt-
as a motto as well for the work of GcoJ1CS DumC:r.il as £or that of
Claude Uvi-Strauss.

Among all the many human institutions which Lafitau sought to relate
to one another there is one which C'thnography was to take up in
remarkable fuhion - initiation. To adopt a recent dC"ftnition, initiation
is 'a body of ritC"s and oral tc-achings whose purpose" is to produce a
radical modification of the religious and social status of the penon to
be initiated. In philosophical terms, initiation is equivalent to an onto-
logical mutation of the csistcntial condition. The novice emcrgC"s from
his ordeal a totally different being: he has become another' (Eliade,
1969: 112). Even before Lafitau the initiations which att, even today,
best known and best studied, had been perfectly rehearsed and idcnti·
ficd: the means by which the young ·savage' C'nten upon the adult
community. So Robc:n Beverley, author of The History •nd Ptesent
Staee of Virginia, retailing the rituals unde'IOne by the young Indians:
The Solemnity of Huakan.wina ll commonly pnctil'd once every fourteen or ,a;.
teen yean, or oftener, u their YO\lnl men happen to pow up. It is an Institution
or DiKiplinc which all youn1 men m1111 pau, bcfOft' they can be admitted to be or
the number of the Great men, or Cock.arouiw1 of the Nation; whereu by Capt.a.in
Smith•, I.elation, they were only ,ct apart to aapply die Priesthood. The whole
ceremony is performed after the followin1 manftft.
The choice,t uid briu.nt youncmen of the Town, and 111ch on1y u have acquired
tome Treuure by their Travd, and Huntina:, 1n chOleft out by the Rulers lo be
Hu,lr.anawed; and whot"vcr refuses to undcf'IO dus Prot"e•, clan not remain amona:
thera. SnenaJ of thote odd preparatory f opperiet aft premis'd in the bcplnin1,
which h.ve before been rdated; but the prindplll pu, of the b\Wlleu is to carry
them into the Wood.a, and there keep them under confinement, and dc1titut~ of 1111
90Cicty for KYenl month,; 1ivin1 them no other su1tenanl'e, but the Jnfu11on, or
Decoction of ,ome Poiaonou1 lntos.katin& Roou; by virtue of wtuch Phy1iclr., and
by the scverity of the di,,cipline, which they unckr10, they become 1tarlr., 1tarin1
Mad; ln which ravin1 condition they arc Ir.cpl eipltcen or twenty day, ...
(On their return to the villa,c) thcy mu1t preU:nd tu havc for1ot the ¥~ry Ult of
their Tonpt1 sou not to be able tu ,peak, nor undnuand anythin1 that l l 1pokcn,
till they lean:: it apin. Now whether thi1 be re.al or counterfeit. I don't Ir.now; but
certain it ii. that they will not for some tim, take notic, or illlY bod), nor llrl~
thins, with which they WCK before acquainted, bein1 •till ~nder 1he pard of then
Kccpen who contuntly wail upon them nery where, Lill they havt lcam1 all
thinp ~rfccdy over apin. Thu, lhey unliw their former lives, and commence Mm,
by forJettin1thatthey baveeverbeen Boyl. ()70!!,; 5.8 §52 [pp. 5941})
But Lafitau improved this initial interpretation in two w,1,ys. lk
allowed into the category of initiations not merely admission into the
community but acceptance into 1mallcr groups (secret socit"tics),
rcJip<>us and ,hamanist initiations and 10 on. And in the 1pirit of the
171
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
nieral rogrammc of hil enquiry. he compared the l~dian initia~ons
:th th!H' known in clusical civilization - the Myltenes of _Elna~, •
well as Spartan and Ctttan education sys!cms - and~ ~~di~al. for
he treated the ritual of admWion to knighthood u an m1aat1on - yet
another stroke of daring (1.201-56; 2.1-70, 28.5-8).
It was not indeed until 1909, with the publication or Arnold van
Gcnnep's Rit,s de possage, that this framework was further enlaraed
and that the fmt steps were taken towards tht elaboration of a formal
structure of analysis, the French folklorist dcmons_tntin1 that the
enormous body of rituals such as these could be clus1r1ed under thrtt
headinp: rituab of separation, rituals of cxdusion, rituals of (re)·
incorporation. .
This classification obviou.ay presupposes in addition, indeed m fi~t
place, an articulation of time 1nd space peculiu to ritffl d~ ptus.p {i.e.
rituals of status-transition. Ed.). Time first. Its rhythm 11 not that of
the continuum, invented by the mathematicians: "The idea of Time·,,
is one of those categories which we find necessary because we ue 1ocial
animals rather than because o{ anything empirical in our objective
experience of the world. •1• Time in rituals of status-transition is abo a
human creation: the year ii punctuated by the rituals and the ritual
itself causes the initiate to paSI from the ordinary to the extra-ordinary
and back again to the ordinary, now consciously accepted For the
ritual to operate also at the level o{ conccptions.,.of space, it must itself
be broken up: 'hulDUI' space in which social life is lived, against
'marginal' space, which may be a symbolic 1acred area, 'the bush'
whether literal or figurative, forest or mountain 11 - it hardly mattcn,
provided it be perceived a.s other: 'heaven' and 'hell' in children's hop-
scotch is a good, i( extreme, example. So time and space arc 'binllt'Y'
{that is, each organized into two mutually exclusive - and inverted -
c:atc1orie1. Ed. J, though the ritual rhythm, u defined by van Cennep,
is threefold. Edmund Leach defines three kinds of r61n men find them~
selves playing in this kind of ritual action: formality, muqueradc,
l'Ole reversal (1966a: q5). In the context of initiation of young men
into the warrior life, for example, the three terms will be reprncnLcd
by warrior uniform, by dissuisc, of which countleq type1 ~ found at
the point of marginality, and by the invenion which temporarily tuffll
the man into a woman, which causes him. too to behave in aactly the
oppo1itc manner from how he ii to brhavc in 'normal' life.
It would be po11iblc to exemplify thil rhythm amon1 the Au.strali•
aborigines no kss than in Africa ur amont the Amerindian.a; but u Joni
• we remain on lhia very general Incl, we an: not actually within tM
ttalm of the historical, or the -.UbJunary', to llSC a term hulYeyne h•
borrowed from Aristotelian.ism. Let u, see what b«omet of'&hc1e con-
I 72
 R,cipt1 for ~tic •dol•snnct
ccpu - 111d they an: ind<ed concepts - in a particular hi,torical society:
Iha& of ll'Chlic and clusic:al Gn:ecc.
Recent ncavation at the site or the Greek city of Eretria., on the
island of Euboca, by Swis, arcboeolopsu, bas n:vealed amons other
tbi:np • small necropolis sunoundin1 the tomb o{ a prince or kin1,
dalOblc to the late eighth and early l<Vfflth century - pn:ciscly the
~od or the emel)fflce of the uchaic city .11 The tombs excavated
fonn two groups: to the west we find only incineration; to the eut,
inhumation. It it not a cue of change of (uh.ion. since the two groups
arc contemporvy; nor ii it a matter of competing funerary cu1tom1 1
such as one finds elsewhere - for example, at the Keramcikos at Athens
in the ninth century. We have rather a quite deliberate and significant
oppoaition at the symbolic level: the inhumations are of children, the
incinerations of adults. Both sex.cs arc represented in the two groups.
Their opposition is ai.pialled in the group of incinerations by the
presence of UTD.I in the one case, and of jewellery in the other. Claude
Berard, the excavator, makes the point: "inhumation was the practice
at Eretria until just before adolescence, Cftmation being re1ervcd for
marriageable girb and married women, and for youths and men able to
use the lance and to take their place in battle' (C. Birard, 1970: 50;at
Marathon, the a.duh male Athenians wen: cremated. but not the
Plataeans and the slaves, who fought, but not on the same buis: Kurtz
and Boardman, 1971: 246; cf. the conclusions of Loraux, 1978: 810).
Trying to determine the • al which the appropriate funerary practice
chmged, Bml'd suggests that at Eretria, uid very probably in many
other places.'• it wu about the age of si:11.teen. The mere account of the
archaeological r.nds (is an account ever innocent though?) directs us to
the search for a ritual of status·tran&i.tion which dramatized for the
Greek adolescent the transition between Nature and Culture, or, if you
wish, between the Raw and the Cooked, in the moil concrete senK.
This ritual is relatively well knownj at Athens in the archaic and clas1ical
periods, as Claude Berard notcs, it is idcntificd with admi1sion into the
phratry. Thc distinctive occurrence on the third day of the Ionian
festival of the Apatouria (the fe1tival of 'those who have the same
father' - that is, of clanificatory 'brothen') was an initiation «rt>mony,
the lou,..dli.r: the name derives from the shearing (h.ouro) of the flocks
and of men, and it probably connotCI also the young warrior (h.ouros).
At A.thens, the 1acrifice of the h.ourt'ion (probably the offering of tll(·
hair itself. Ed.J which marM'd the admission of the cphebc1 into tilt'
phratry, took place at the age of six.teen.io
One point however 1Crvcs to remind us that we ought not to neglect
the 'diachronic' aapcct. The oppoaition between cremation and in·
hwnation employed at Eretria and ellcwheft to denote the opposition
175
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
between childhood an~ adulthood ob~iou~)' cannot pred;::ilti:;tc~~i:
duction of cremation into Gre«e, which did not haps>4=n
collapse of the Mycenaean world. . . . .
Nevertheless the discovery, due u we hW to L.t.fit31;1, of lnlb~Uon
rituals in Greece parallel to those of 'primitive' 1odeues, has 1bmu-
lated, ess>4=cially in the twentieth century, a very large amou~t of. wor~
recently synthesized by the Iu.lian historian An~lo Breli«:h in hd
Poldes e Parthenoi (1969).u Jean-Pierre Vcmant, usmg the ev1d~nce of
the mythical tndition css>4=cially, has analysed a number of ~£fcren1
religious fettivals, summarizing his results as folloW'I: 'If. ntuals of
status-transition mean for boys entry into the statUJ of warnOT, for the
girls associated with them in the same rituals, and frrquently them-
selves subjected to a period of seclusion, the initiation ordeals mean a
preparation for sexual union in maniaF. Here again the association,
which is also an opposition, between war and marri• is evident.
Marriage is to the girl what war is to the boy: for each, they mark. the
fulfilment of their ff'spective natures, by quitting a state in which each
has still some of the characteristics of the other' (197.,t: 37-4-0 d.
Calame, 1977: 1.239-40; Schmitt, 1977: 1059-73). This &I the
explanation, for example, of the fact that the Athenian ephebes wear
the 'black chUJmys' (a kind of short cloak. Ed.], not always perhaps,
but at least at the solemn occasion of the proce•ion to Ele:usi1 to be
initiated into the my.teries.11 before the:y put on, aftu •~aring the
oath, the hoplitc panoply (Vidal-Naquet, 1972: 161-2); and it also
explains why the festivals and myths frequently dramatized the young
man', entry into adulthood by having him put on female diJgu.isc:. and a
girl's into womanhood by meU\sof a male: charadc.u And here o( course
we remember Leach's three terms, formality, masquerade, role ft"Venal.
The male rituals of the ephebe'UJ in puticular allow us to define a
twofold structure: on one side the hoplite, who fights by day, in ranks,
face-forward, supporting his fellows, on the lrvel plain; and on the
other the ephebe (or the Spartan ltruptos), who fighu by !light, un.ded,
resorting to triclu of thC: kind deplored by hoplite and citnen values,
skulking on the frontien,. - all-in-all K"ting in a manner quite thr
rnene of how he must behave wbe:n he is intepted into the polis,
Surely ~ have here culture on one side, nature on the other; on one
side: sav•ry - or femininity, on the other civili%ation. Pt.a.to, in com-
mon with many other Greek think.en, defined childhood as the savage
time of human life (Timaeus +4a-b; Uu,r 2, 653d-e; 666a-c). The
Grttks made the principle of polarity one of the comentooct of th~
mode of ttpKat:nting the world (Lloyd, 1966). No tu, thu ,11 wen:
they capable of representing the oppositions which articultkd the-it
world in the fonn of a u.ble with. two columns. Th!M t h e ~ ·
174
1ecor-ding to Arittodc, 'recognized tm principlcl, which they list in
two parallel columns:
limited unlimited
equal unequal
unity plurality
right left
male female
still moved
straight line curve
light darl<
good bad
&qua.re oblong'
(M•14physics 1.5, 986a 22~ 6)
That list one could easily extend by looking at diffennt aspects of
Greek culture:: master-slave, Grt"ck-Barbarian, citizen-foreigner -
C"Yen Apollo-Dionysus perhaps. Heff again ancient thought in large
measure anticipated modern structural analysis: th.ink for example of
how Ariatode asks himself how far the sets adult-child, man-woman,
master-slave, employer-craftsman coincide, and the senses in which
they do not (Politics 1.12, 12l9a57ff.). And do we need to be reminded
of the propensity of sophists, tragedians and philosophers to contrast,
oppose, compare pltusis (Nature) and nomos (Law, Custom)?
These and other pairs may be considcnd to constitute the frame·
woii Of the discOune of thC Greeks. But the s~ctunJ.Mlthropologist
and'1.TlCiilif0iiiri.··cannC)t b~th .Jcai with them in the same manner. For
example, if we tak.e the opposition between cphcbcs and hoplites,
fledgling warrion and adult warriors, the comparatist will observe,
from the work of Georges DumCZil, that the oppo1ition bdween the
noked (i.e. not heavily-armed) warrior, thcephcbe, fighting unaided, and
the warrior integrated into some group and fully armed, is much earlier
than the set ephcbc-hoplitc, since hoplite warfare makes its appe...rance
in Greece only ear1y in the seventh cenLury; and that the opposition can
be traced elsewhere in the lndo-Europcan world. The opposition is the
same, but the words used to describe it arc not. Thus, in the Indian
epic. the 'heavy' warrior is an archer, while in Greece the bow bdongs
to the Savage (DumC:iil, 1968: 63-~; J. Le Goff and Vidal-N.it.quct,
1978: 275-5). 15 It will be objected that the Inda-Europeans, or al
least their conceptions, arc nevertheless historical, yet Dumizil, 111
studying a ritual of warrior-initiation at home, makes use not onl~ nl
Indo-lraniiUl and Irish evidence, but also of evidenoe from Canadian
Red-Indians: 'It is British Columbia, the East coast of Canada, which,
by virtv.e of• coincidence we cannot expltJin, best helps us to see the
meaning of the Indo-lnnian lc~nds about a thre1··hcadcd moMtct'
175
rie""c Vidal-Naquet
(1942: 128, my stress). The upJanation, if indeed it is ~bl.e, ii h~re
fatally a-historical: no historian. can postulate a collocabon md~~
Red Indians, Inda-Iranians and Romans, all ~ee. S~ch a colr!u~?o~;
in fact the human ra« itself - or better ,till, the human · .
Greek historian on the other hand is concerned with a da~able reali~,
the hoplite, and with another datable reality. an in1titut1~n fint.n"I·
dencc-d epigraphically in 361/0 BC and ~~ w.orking IS explained
some 35 years later by Ariltotle, that is the msutubon called at Athens
the tf)hcbeul, and its panllels in the rest of the Greek world.
One characteristic of the history of Ancient Grttce, from the very
beginnings of our knowledge of it, is an extraordinlV)' unevenneS9 of
development - an unevennese so marked that for an Athenian of the
fifth century some indisputably Greek pcoplts were thought of as
'sa~s·, almost as the Brazilian Indians wett by their ai~tttnth-cen~ury
conquerors (sec Thucydides 3.94 for example). Following Thucydides,
modcm historiaru: see the oppolition between Sparta and Athent, be-
tween the type of con1ervatism and of rejection of history on the one
hand, and the city which by contrast chose, in the fifth cmtury, to
identify itself with historical chan&e on the other, as one of the major
features of the classical period. In view of that, what of male and
female initiations? Put it another way: what differences arc there be-
tween thc two in terms of the sets child-adult and girl-boy (Alter·
natively, malc-fcmale)?
The cphebcia as descri.lxd by Aristotle is a form of civic military
servicc.u For the philosopher, the two-year period of service ii in no
sense a period of isolation preparatory to inu:gration into the ci"ic
community: he say, n:prcssly that the admission of a young man into
the deme-lists pr1tced,es the military service: recognition of citizenship
prcudes the pcriod of probation and is not its comequcncc. One point
only suggests something other than the mere performan« of military
obligations: 'During thete two yean of prri1on-duty, they wur a
chlom1s, and they are ftec from all fmancial. impositions; they cannot
be involvcd in a lawsuit, either as plaintiff or as defendant, 10 that they
will have no excuse for absenting themselves. The only nccptions are
cues concerned with an inheritance or with an hcirc1,1; or when a man
has to take up a priesthood hereditary in hls family' (Co,vh't1,lio11 of
thc .AtJsimimu 42.5). The chlamys is undentood not • the dreu or
ritual scclu,ion but like the miliury uniform of our own day. Aristotle
Ill.so undcntands the debarment from litiption in purely 1cC1Jla.r t ~ ;
and it ii obviously u:tremcly significant that. he can take this approadt
quite naturally. The question of origiru. ii ,1 q\Ute diffettt*probkm.
Loni ago it was ob1t:tvcd that 'the scdu1ion of the )'Olllll, in tht
pcrM>d immediately prior to UMir definite inclulion within the sodrtY,
176
 Reci'pe1 for Grwt• Mal,icn&e~
ii so well attelted in .n kinds of different societies and, in Greece, in
Sparta, lhat one is inclined to discern a trace ol it here' (Rouael, 1921:
459). To be IUR, but what exactly do ,.. mean by 'trace'? II the
fuNt:tion of an institution in a society to be confu.sed with ill orifin? b
lhe B.A. delllff to be explained by its mediuval oritpno? 01 coun• not.
any more th.an Ari1tophani.c comic,dy is to be explained by a seuonal
ritual ol fertility u the Cambrid!I" School would have it (lorexamplr,
Cornford, 1914: 55-69). Of coune then, an, inertias and n,peals in
society, but it does not live in the pa.st. The put is influential only
inasmuch u it is pre1mt in the structures of thought, manners, inter·
prctati.ona. To return to the •ltebN, it is obvious that in Aristotle's
time the ordinary undentanding of the ephcbcs' stay in the frontier
forts wu not u an ~elution of the young men prior to their entry, or
re~ntry, into the poli.rj but u pnison-servicc. And when Thucydides
mentions in passins that the pnipoloi ('thOJC who go round'), that is,
the ephebcs, went on a ftipt alt.ad: near Nisaea in 425 together with
the new Plataean citizens (4.67), there can be no doubt that the ephebes
are not (yet) citizem like other citizen, and that they are usociated
with irregulu activities jn wu; all the- same, we must show that such an
interpretation was current at the time. In any cue it is obvious that it
no lonFf wu so in Aristodc's time.
If we look at the historical chanacs we an obtain some idea of what
happened. The earliest q,lt,beila wu 1ct in the context of the phratry,
an archaic institution, certainly reactivated in the fifth century, but
whose J'Ole wu diminished markedly after the Cleisthcnic refonns
(508 BC) by the dcmes. One b«ame an ephebe in the civic or military
tense of the word at eighteen, but one became an ephcbe in the phratry
at sixteen. It war within the phratry that there took place the rituals of
status-transition which mark entry into ,dulthood, the most importuit
being the offering of the child's long hair (Vidal-Naquct, 1968: 179-
80). But in myths, comedy, in a philosopher suc-h as Pl;,,to, and even, as
I bavc tried to show, an entire tragedy ofSophocln, thcffa.uocldes, 27
there i, prcservcd something elle - the "trace' of an initiatory ritual in
which the young man, as a guileful 'black" hunter, was sent out to the
frontier atta until he should perform the 'exploit' symbolically imposed
upon the young men in archaic 1ocietie~. ~tu~ of this t ~ wen rt:a1
enough in Crete where nen in the hcllcn11bc penod the official vocahu·
1ary of a city like Drcros mall.ct a distinction between city, country J.nd
the frontier forts, and where the educational i111titution1 set thr 'flocks'
(agelai) of adolescents over against the 1od.uitie1 (he~N~) ~f t~c
adults (oat.arc apimt culture) (pp. 155-8 above). Thrsc insutuuons in
Alhena have been for the moll part detached from eac:h other, in• civic
world which had been profuundly effected by rationalism - one might
177
ric:-re Vidal-Naquet
almost say secularized. And so Brelkh, hardly one to ~void com~son
with 'archaic' societies, in his discussion of the Athenian t!phel,no con·
duded that 'the original initiatory elements ~ can discern in it came _to
be voided of their original functional integrity' (1969: 227). The pnn·
dple of 'elders fint' endured of course. In the Athenian asscmbl',', the
old men had first right to speak. In the coul'H' of what was perhaps the
most crucial debate ever held in the d.lt.lesi• (Assembly), whether or
not to deploy almost all its forces in the expedition to Sicily (415 BC),
Nicias appeals to the old men as a group to resist the crazy idc-m of
Alcibiades and the young men with him, attempting thus to swing the
traditional mechanism of •-classes into action; Alcibiades asks the
Athenians not to be afraid of his youth: the city is made up of young
and old. Togt!thn they can win (Thucydides 6.13, 17, 18). Alcibiades
carried the day, though the Athenians were to regret it; at lcut his
speech suggests that the city l5 an inclusive totality which to a siMDifi-
cant degree cancels the opposition betwem age-classes.
'Old' Nicias thought of a city in which the young held power mo«: or
less as an inversion, a topsy-turvy world. The comic poet Aristophanes,
imagining a utopian situation in which everything is turned upsi<k
down - in Lysistrata or Ecclrsiazusoe (Womtfl in .Asumb/y) - makes
the women or Athens responsible for the decisions of govnnment. In
Lysistrata (411 BC) the wives of the Athenians have seized the democ·
racy. They decide to go on a sex-strike if peace'is not made. In their
ju,tification, the chorus of women, using the lanfl\.lage of usembly-
meetinp, declare:
It'• opni lo anyon, to pn.i1,
The dty md I to the end of rny daya,
Sh.U love her for 1ivin1 joy 10 a ,cnde child.
I wu only ,even whtll I
Carried the Sacttd
Vatel1; and It len I
l«e the Ternpk Mill;11
Then UI yellow I acted the Lildc Bur al lrauron,
And, srowin1 Ulltr.
An4 lovelier, took Caft
Of the Holy lull.et - it wu heawenl
(658-47, tr. Dick.in-)
That looks at fint sight like a list of female initiations in which there
were sevtral stages, rather like the system for boys at Sparta. H But no
such thing existed, and we mwt undentand this speech a idcologial:
Athenian women ~tt not properly speaking citizens, and young girll
were not citizens to be, whom the city had to take through the •lal"•
of an educative initiation. The Athenian polu wu founded upon tbr
exclusion of women, just as, in other respect,, it wu founded upon the
exclusion of foreipen (metic•) and daves. The sole ciYic flAlction g{
178
 R~ci.p~, for Gr~d adolrsunu
women w11 to give bin.h to citizens; the condition imposed upon them
by Perida's law of 451 wu to be thc daughter of a citizen and of a
citizen'• daughter. The chorus in LyW,..,..ta is arguing as tf the women
of Athen1 were in fact the citizens. The stages referred to arc thotc of a
fictitious cycle. Most of them have nothing whatever, or virtually
nothing, to do with rituals of sutus·transition: there were only two
oniplt.oroi (?"bearcn of the ~crct symbols'), chosen from among girls
of noble birth. They were responsible for weaving the peplos ('robe') of
Athena Poliasi and they played a key l"Olc in the highly sccret ritual of
the Ancphoria (or An-etoplao"4). 30 As for the 'grinden of grain', they
prepared the flour and bread for the sacrifices in the cult of Athena; the
most important duty of the Ufl~horoi wu to carry baskets in the
solemn Panathcna.ic proccssion. ln short, these arc duties undertaken by
young girls Lil the service of the community; even if some of them
reveal characteristics of initiation rituals - special dress, seclusion of
the arriphoroi, for instance - there is here no question of a regular
institution affecting an entire agc·dass,ll rather of the city at each
festival renewing its contact with divinity. The women of Athens arc
not altering their status.
The case of the little 'Bean' in the sanctuary of Anemis at Brauron is
very diffncnt and much more complex. The very name of the animal
which the girls represent is that of the divinity. Artemis, goddess of
wild nature. The evidence of the scholiuu for the cult and that of
other sanctuaries of Artemis in Attica (see Brclich, 1969: 247-9), and
archaeological evidence going back to the fint half of the fifth century
(Kahil, 1965: 20-33; 1976: 126-30), permit no doubt about the
general character of the ritual: it invol\'ed a seclusion preceding - by a
considerable period of time - and preparing for marriage. The girls - so
the scholiast Harpokration for example tells us - had to 'become bears
before marri~. (in honour of) Artemis of Mounychia or of Artemis of
Brauron'. The explanation offered by the a.etiological Jc1cndi for this
obligation in\'ol\'c an original killing of a !Jcar by some boys, the ~tri·
bution for which was at first a human sacrifice, and J,1,ter thUI ritual of
substitution performed by the girl·bcan.n Varia..nu or no, the myth is
not d.ifficult to explain: in exchange for the \'Cry advanc(' of 1.:ulturc
' implied by the killing of wild animals, an ad\'illlt:t" for which m<'n are
~sponsiblc, the girls arc obliged bdorc marriage - indeed bdort
~ puberty - to undergo a period of ritual 'wildness'. Study of the pottnr
evidence from Brauron reveals that the rituals in honour of the go<ldns
involved (sequentially?) nakedness and the wearing of a special form of
•. clothing (the •crocu1' lJ a u.ffron·yellow robe) - p~r~~ps .a means ~f
dramatizing the tran1ition between savqery and ctv1hnt.1on. But. 1t
: ~ rcmain 1 true that it was pouible for only a small nurnb~r of Atheruan
179
Piene Vidal-Naquet
girls to become 'bears': the very size of the sancnaaries enforces .tiw
conclusion. The Aristophanes lCholion which gives w our most detailed
account (on Lysi.rtrat• 645; cf. Brelich, 1969: 265--4), 1ay1 both that
the 'bean' were girll who had bttn 'chOICII', and that the goddes1 ~
determined - at the original institution or the ritual - that no Athauan
girl might many before she had become a bear in her service. We m_1.111
then allow that, CVffl if the little bean represent the female commun~ty,
in the sense in which the Boule (the Council or 500) represents the city,
they constitute an elite of the: 'chOSt"n' and that initiation was c~rmcd
to them. Mo~er such a patlem ii well known to anthropologllts -
the pattern of the 'secret IOCicty', a small group which fulr~ a function
for the public weal, the precondition of that being a spcctal degree of
initiation.
Let us return to Vemu1t's parallel which we wed as a model:
'Marriage ii to the p-1 what war is to the boy', a formulation which
quite cvidcndy can be applied to innumenble societies. We cut now see
just what happened in Athens. As regards boys, the •laebftlJ a a rib.lal
of entry into adolescence ii 1eparatcd from the epladeia u compulsory
military service for all: at this lcvel, thett are no longer uiy groups
privileFCf by birth, wealth or membenbip of some priady family. At
most, considerations of family~rder - atablishing one's inheritance,
saving an oillos [family} from the thftat of 'eschoat' by manyinc an
epilclirol - could relieve one of the obliption!1 Depending upon his
wealth qualirKation, a young Athenian would later serve as a rower in
the fleet, u a cavalryman or as a hoplite, but in each cue he would
haft scnrcd u an cphcbc and hatt sworn UI oath based upon the
ideology of the hoplite: 'I will not abandon the man who 1tancll next to
me in the batde-lines.' Initiatory rituals proper are to an extent separ-
ated from the proceu of entry into the civic community. It is obvious
that nothing or the kind existed for girls: certainly marriage involved
well-known rituals of statu•lransition (being carried over the threshold
by the husbU1d), and it bestowed the right to take part in 1pe:cif"lcally
Female cettm0nics for WOftl.en citizens, ihc Thcsmophoria (DC'ticnne,
1977: 78-81; Detienne and Vemant, 1979: 185-214), which wu the
only forum which brought women toselhcr 111 citizens of Athens For
the one kind of political activity (if one CUI call it that) allowed than;
but age<lasl initiation properly so called, if it ever bad been a collective
experience, developed in a direction oppotite to that of male initiation,,
it involved only a minuscule group of initiatn who could n:prcsent the
city only by metonymy.
The imacc of Sparta u-an1ntlttcd to us by the •cient texts, panic»·
Jarly thole deriving from Athene, ii that of a society which rer~d NI·
torical change and auapended iuclf in the chanfclcunea of she 'Consd.·
110
 Recip.1 for Grult. afUJle1ttntr
tu1ion of Lycurgua' (Tiaffstedt, 1965; Rawaon, 1969). Such modom
acholara II haw not capitulated to the 'Spartan ming,,' have directed
themoel,,a to 'nonnalizing' Sparta'• oddneu - Arnold Toynbee would
have it • one of his 'ciWizationa'. To normalize is the resort both of
Henri Jeanmaine in Coo,roi et Courif., (1989), when: he diacema
'beneath the muk of Lycursus' a aociety exacdy comparable with
African aocieties, and of M.l. Finley, in ahoWDII that the thn:e funda-
mental aspects of clu1ical Sparta, the agrarian infrutructure, with the
hienrchy of llomoioi ('the Equals'), pnioilioi (the free non-Spartiate
inhabitants of th• towns of Lakonia and probably Mesaenia. Ed.], and
hclota;. the governmental and the military structure; the 1y1tem formed
by the rituala of status-transition, education (the Gf'Ogi), •-classes,
coUectivc eating etc., were not developed and instituted at a stroke; and
that the 'sixth-antury ft'Yolution' which gave to classical Sparta its
chuacteriltic stamp was • complex procea of innovation, transform·
ation, and revival of features and institutions apparently transmitted
&om remote prehistory.•
What wu true of the Athenian hoplite at tlae lerMI of myth is true of
Spartiatc: 11.,,.,,tos in f'TGdice: the lt.n,pto1 appean in every respect u an
antihoplite. The 11.n,ptoi were young men who left the city to roam, in
ICa"et md in isolation, 'naked' (that is, not heavily-armed), throupi
mountain rand countryside, feedins themselves u they might, ususinat-
ing helot:J under cover of night - the helots apinst whom the Ephon,
to ensure that no pollution attached to such killinp, each year declared
war. According to the scholiast on Plato's I.AWi 9, 6S9b, the period of
,eclusion lasted m entitt year, though Plato him.self exprealy rcmarb
that it occurred in winter. We have only to invert this text to find the
Nici which governed the manner of life and the moral uid aocial
behaviour of the hoplitc, whoac virtue• otherwitc compose the very
fabric of Spartan life: collective living and eating, fiahting in the open,
by day, on the Oat, in summer - a mode of fi1hting founded upon the
face-to·faa: encounter of two tcts of phalanxes. And yet, ju1t u only a
tiny number of Atheniui girls played the part of 'bears', only a tiny
number of Spartiates followed thit mode of life which JeanmaiJT com-
pared to the 'Jycanthropy' known particularly in Africa Ueanmairc,
1959: 540-69). Plutarch notes that it wu 'the mosl utute' ( ~
,->.urra """" tx«" bociim>\': Lif• of Lycu,ps 28.2) youns Sparuate,
who were chosen for this ritual of 1tatus·transition; uid it ii probahlr
that, once they had become adulu and full wurion, it wu the ltrupto1
who composed the elite fonnation of thl"ft hundred 'cavalrymen'
(Nf'l'N: they actually fou1ht on foot), conccmed above all with police
dutiea ije....,..;n:, 1959: 5•2-5). In other wordt it is impoaaible to
...,,Mii
cletach the • from the pnctical part which it played in Spanlate
181
Pierre VidaJ-Naquet
society, a rOle which mutt ha~ been developed fort.he m~t part .from
the eighth century, the date of the conqu~t of ~cssaua; th~t 11, to
maintain in every way possible a rq,rut1ve regime facxd_ w,th the
endemic tt:beltions or the subject population of Meucma and of
Lakonia itself. The Jr.ru.plos, like the ephebc or Athenian myth, 11 a
guildul hunter - but he hunts helots (Wachsmuth, 1846: l.f~2i
2.30f). The temporary 'wildness' of the hrupt~tll. is an utterly soc1a..l-
ized, even political, wildneu: it functions directly to maintain the
political and social order.
At first glance, the education of the young Spartiate, the •10gi,
which was the precondition for the entry of a Sparti.ate into ruU citizen-
ship, has every appearance of being a system of initiatory rituals of
'primitive' type which ttmained, in the classical period and even there-
after, fully effective. Ind«d Spana is the only G~ck city whc-re ~
know at any rate the names of the different age-classc, which articulated
childhood, youth and adolescence (Brclich, 1969: 116-17). According
to a Roman historian, 'Lycurgus laid down that the children should be
brought up not in the area of the city but in the fields so that they
might past their early years not in luxury but in toil and suffcrin3; and
he directed that they should return to the city only when they had
!)(:come fully~own men' Uustin 3.3.6). "Bush' venus city, childhood
versus adulthood: the oppositions look transpattat. But if we look
more closely, things arc not so clear. One surprising point fint of~.
which seems to have escaped notice: it Kerns difficult, not to say
impossible, to fix precisely the point at which a young Spartiate
became a full a.dult.' 5 We know of coune tha.t around twenty or
twenty-one the Span.iate eirin (i.e. ephebe) became a spluzirnu ('ball-
player') (Pausaniu 3.14.6). But this moment docs not seem to have
been made particularly drama.tic: nothing at Sparta recalls the oath of
the Athenian cphebes when they became hoplitcs, though ,uch an oath
is found in other societies in srvcral respects closer to Sparta than to
At.hem, for example in Crete. A text of Xenophon has sometimes been
used to prove the existence of such a statu11-tran.sition at thi, point
(Brdicb, 1969: 125). But it say, nothing of the kind - mdttd quite
the rcvcne: 'In respect of those who have p~d through the period of
adolescence and arc now eligible even for the highest public ofliccs. the
other Gn:ek states no longer insist that they should keep fit, yet lay
upon them neverthclcu the obligation to go on campaign; Lycurgus on
the other hand laid down that for men of this a,c hunting was the
perfect thing, so long as it did not interfere with any public obligation.
so that they too would be able to su,tain the physjcal h:vd&hip of
cunpaigning no lcu than thosie in the flo~r of ,their yo.. th' (Xenophon,
Constitution of the Ulcedaemo,U,u 4. 7). It tS hard to trll whctheor
182
 RrciPts for Grrtlt odolrsc•nct
adulthood at Sparta wu an cxtmaion of childhood; or whether child-
hood Wiii rather an anticipatory preparation for the life or an adult and
a so~r. At any rate, by contrast with what happened elsewhere, for
example in Ctttc, marriage is in no sense the point at which adol('tc('nce
comes to an end: for several yun after his muri~c. the husband con-
tinued to live in barracks, and saw his 'M.fr only in secttt (Xenophon,
COtLSt. laud. 1.5; Plutuch, Lafe of Lycurgus 15). Morco~r. whereas
in other Greek cities it w;u the offcri111 of the child's long hair that
marked the end of adolcscmcc, in Sputa it was customary for the adult
maks to wear their hair long (Herodotus 1.82; Plutarch, Lifr of
Lysander l ). The offering of the hair is a ritual of status-transition,
because it involves a 'before' and an 'after'; to keep one's hair is quite
different, because that can hardly be betokened by a ceremony. And
search though one may through the successive ordeals undergone by a
young Spartiatc, the most notorious of which is the cheese-stealing
beneath the lash at the altar of Artemis Orthia.." for thc ghosts of
initiations and even of fictive deaths, not one of these ordeals is in the
least decisive (Brelich, 1969: 156).
By contrail, a patient reading of the well-known tex.tJ which describe
the 410gi, Xenophon's C'11Utitution of the Loced«monians and
Plutarch"s Life of Lycur-ps, reveals one striking fact. Childhood at
Sparta has two iimultancom connotations: 'Nvagcry' and hoplite-
culture: the child is at one and the same time a small animal and a prc-
hoplite; and that is the mark of thc extent to which properly military
institutions 'consumed' Spartiatc education. The vocabulary - so far as
we have any direct knowledge of it - i1 characteristic. For the groups
of young men, two words were used in antiquity: oge/4, fJoek; and the
word ii.a, which really means the group of young 1oldiers ..n Xenophon's
description is particularly telling: th,: children arc simultaneously intro-
duced, like the lcruptoi, to guile, to 1tealing, lo activity by night; but
they also mix with the adults at thC' nasitia, the common muls (Co,ut.
Laced. 2.5-8; cf. Pluwch, lycurps 12). One ritual deserves ~pc:cia.l
cmphuis: from time to time two batallions (mofrai "" "'orai, .1 term
used in the Spartan army) of Spartan 'cphebcs' met at Plat.misw
{'Plane-tree Wood': actually an open space surrounded by plane trees.
Ed.) in Spa.rta. The fight was simultaneously hoplite and 'wild', since
the combatants were allowed to resort to a number of ~xpedient,,
including biting, which were ordinarily forbidden; and _it was pn
ceded Uy the sacrifice to Enyalios, the god of Bloody Fight, ol lwo
dogs, that is of the most domesticated of animals - in fact, to be more
precise, of two puppic:11 (cf. Plutarch, Q114t'stionn romanae 111, 290d).
]t wu preceded too by 41 fight between two wild-hoars, wild U1imal1 if
ever there were, but in this cue ithalUs, which mc,rns 't.ame'. The vie·
18l
Pierre Vidal·Naquet
tory of the boar belongin1 to Ont' or other camp usu.an; en,u.~ the
victory of its group of young mcn. 11 It al.I looks u 1f the ~Id and
'culture' were not memin whose hostility had to be dramauz«d, but
two opposed principles which it wu appropriate • far as ~blc to
bring tognher.H It w• the lrn,ptoi alone who had the pnvilqr of
dramatizing their hostility.
As early as Lafitau it had bttn noted that the •tatu, of womm at
Sparta wu quite di£ferent from elsewhere in Grectt; and he ewn uSN.
the word •gynaecocncy• ('rule of women') in thi1 conflect.ion (l.75).
One might aay in gcncnl that in the mo,t archaic of archaizing Greek
cities the opposition bctwccn the sexes was ,ttt~d lcu hn.vily th:'° in
a dcmocntic city such u Athens. In the laucr female pown 11 an
issue only in comedy and in utopian thinking; at Sparta or Loffllll and
cllcwhcre it fonn1 part of the historical-lcFndary tradition, auoc:iatcd
moreOYCr with po-werbcingsciud by the daYCS (pp. 189-200 below). In
the particular cue of Sparta, and of what little we know of its •fcmalr
Jnitiations* we know that the Spartiate woman underwent on hu
marriage rituals of invcnion comparable to thOK known dsewhctt in
the Greek world: the girl 'wu put into the care of a woma called a
mnnph.nhia, who shaved her hair, clrcucd her in the clothes and the
shoes of a man, and settled brr down on a mattreu stuffed with leaves.
all alone and without light' (Plutarch, Virtun of Worian. 245(; L1e11rp,
15). But aenerally spcakin1 what we know of a girl's childhood. and
adoleterncc gives less the impression of bein1 a preparation, punctuated
by rituals, for marriafe, th• an imitation of imtitudons for males ....
not that the Sputiatc woman prepares henelf for war. like tht!' fem UC'
citizcN of Plato's R..,blic and Law,; but the only specifically £emalc
duty whid'I mnainl ii the obligation to produce fine childRn. The
Spartiate family ii ..:araly an institution of the city, which on
the contrary took peat pains to rrstrict funily lffc to the baft
minimum.
At any rate, the irnprulion given by the few ancient texts is not so
much of a parallelum between the education of aids and that of boyi
(compare Brelich, 1969: 157), as or a direct reproduclion: thc,e wc,c
.,._ of girb u wdl u of boys (Pindar, l'I. 112 SneU); nakcdn. . ,...
obtiptory for girls in certain ttrcmonies u it wu for boy, (Plutarch.
Lyn.,p, 14--15); both teKes had to perform physical exnc:ilc1 .-nd
compete (Xenophon, Co,vt. I.M~. l.4) - it would be cay to (IO on.
Certainly the reproduction was not complell': little prh md ecea•"
were not orpnized into a,e·clusc1; in maoy twb the girl•' rol£ w•
different from that of boy,; boy, alone u ~ orm• to rest
endurance tuch u that at the altar of Aneinit Orthia; and the.,.,.,..
wa1 1b'ictly conrmed to mala, jUR II were all the properly political

114
 R«;p,, for Gr.,• •dol,1cmtt
imtitution, of andmt Sparta. The Spartiat< prl wu in a real ICIIK a
boymanqui.
It will probably now be clear where the compariaon bctwcm Athen,
ud Spmu has led ua - a comparison which I am not the fint, nor the
lut, to m.akt. In each case the lexical item, of the lanauap of initiation
are doubtless the same; and it is euy enough to find in them the
oppo,.d pairs which modem 111thropology hu tau9"t ua to discover.
But their articulation into phrasa is radically diffeftnt - 10 much 10
that one would almost WU'lt to say that the opposition between Athens
Uld Spana at the level of practice ii nearly as strict as it is in
Thucydides's speeches. Yet this opposition is quite evidently the consc·
qumcc of a historical development which accentuated instead of
reducing the differences. No doubt Greek society is a 'historical'
societyj and we k.now some have contruted • "cold" and "'hot"
societies; the former seeking. by the institutions they give themaelves,
to annul the possible effects of historical facton on their equilibrium
and continuity in a quasi-automatic fashion, the latter resoluttly
internalizing the historical procc• and making it the moving power of
their dew,lopment' (Uvi-Strauaa, 1966-, 234). But Sparta is the arch<·
type exactly of a society which refuses to internalize history and which
is, for all that, compared with the other Greek. states, the comcquen«
of a complex historical evolution. The quad.on now is whether, having
borrowed from the anthropolopts ideu they themselves took over,
with chanp, from structunl lin11.1istics, we in tum should not require
of them the same holism which they have quite properly demanded of
us: that they should give the l&IIH~ weight to the diachronic dimension
u to synchronic analysil. 41 Unlea we make that demand, what signifi-
cance could the 1y1kms of sign, po1sc11 within which we encapsulate
the societies we study - ignorin1 their Kicntific import, of coune,
which ii 1upra-historical, not to say supra-ethnolosical - but the
dcpos.it or the spoor that each of them leaves be-hind in the form or
ttxts, anworks or ruins? Edpr Morin has a nice commenl on tht
stranse world of tourist-guides: 'It ii a kind of gi1antic Luna.Park. The
land is ,tripped of its socioloSY {and of iu history) for the ta.kc of its
ethnology, its archaeology, ill folklore and its oddities."'' We can
admire the work of ethnolopts past and present - they have cnor·
mously increased the historian's 'proper' field. But without history c:m
ethnology be anything but a kind of day-trip - fmt-clus?
iV: Disorder and deviance
10. Slavery and the Rule of Women in
tradition, myth and utopia
Piem: Vidal-Naquet (1970, 1979)

To Shno,. Pr'"broh

This paper is an atkmpt to bring together two different approaches.

The ftrst is the straightforward use of social history, of the work done
in recent years on the category of unfrcc penons defmed by Pollux a.s
'between free men and slaves': meta.xu eleuthn-im lcai dowlim, such as
the helots of Sparta, the pnaesuu.· of Thessaly and the •larOtai of Crete.
The outcome of this work. has been well summarized by M.I. Flfllcy
( 1963/64: 249; d. Lotze, 195'9): ancient society passed from a state in
whlch personal status was dittributcd along a continuum with the free
man at one end and the non.free at the other; to one, the model or
ideal-type being classical Athens, in which the distinction ~tween
citizen and slave was dear-cut, crisp and absolute.
Of course, if we look only at the Spartiatc homoioi (the 'Equals')
and at cit.ii.ens propu, we can maintain, as i, often done, that the dif·
ference between the democratic city and the type Plato called 'timo·
cratic' lS merely one of depee. The two type• of city (three if we
include property-based oligarchies) a.re bo.~-[~~!!~cd on the J!rincipl!
of ~quality:, di~feij~g. ?~Y-- ~n respect ~~ ~c numb~r -9r_~n~Sc- W~o
f>Os~eH full rights:_ But the case is quite diffrrcnl if we con11dcr the
socW. forffl&iiori as a whole.
Developing this argument, I have 1ried to show elsewhere ( 1965:
127-9; 1973a: 29-36; cf. Mani, 1961: 35,-60) th•t the political
nullity of the Athenian slave - whom it i, totally impossible to imagine
demanding the right to hold political office - contrasts with the
genuine political activity of the helots and the penestai. One clement 1,i
Spartan history, right down to the time of Nabis (reigned 207-192 IICI
is hdol rebellions and demands. Plato took the point in the J,awl
(6, 777d}: (lf the slaves arc to be docile) 'they will not be taken from
within the same country V,.triOtas), nor i£ po11ible from the ,ame
language-community (asumph.Onow)'. . ..
I want here to test these conclusion1, no1 with matr-r1al from pohttcal
187
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
and social historv. but from myth, ;.malysed in the mann~r chiiUnpioncd.
by Claude Levi-Strauu. 1 Of cowse the Greek myths, which have co~
do'Nil to us through a scholarly tradition, require subtle tttatmmt. Fm
the sake or simplicity, I shall make a distinction betwieen myths of
origin, or about the development of order, and legiends. In G.reece, the
former went through three stagrs: (I} co!mological-cum·soc1al myth,,
(2) purely cotmological myths, (3) properly ~ myths (Ve~~t,
1962: 96-113). By thismeanscachcity pictured for itself the tnrutOOD.
'in the beginning' from chaos to__£!'_9eJ_.and_ttQ.!!I Nature to Cu~turc. The
legendary tradition incorporates mythical elemenu, ~ut 1s ""(;it and
describe-d u historical. The utopia stands on the frontier bctw~n the
mythical and the social, and it concerns us here inaunuch as what it
utains is quitt u important as what it rejects: as Ltwis ~tumford hu
observe-d, the Greek utopian writers 'could (not) ... admit, even u •
ttmote ideal, the possibility or breaking down pennan,ent class divisiom
or doing away with the institutions of war. It w.n easier for rhc Greek
utopians to conceive of abolishing marriage or private proputy tho of
ridding utopia or slavery, class domination and war' (1965: 277; cf.
Finley, I975a: 178-92).
The justification for examining the place of alavcs to~lher with that
of women U this. The Greek city in its classical form was marked by ..
double exclusion: the eir.clusion of women, whicb made it a 'men't
club'; and the exclusion of tla~s. which made it a 'citiun's club'. (One
might almost say a Ulret"fold exclusion, since rattignen also were kept
out; but the treatment ofslavC5 is no doubt merdy the e11.trnne cue or
the 1:n'atment or foreigners.) It is or course true that these two
exclusions arc not of precisely the &amc order. But AristotJe at lnst
granted a connection bet~cn the position or women and that of sla.\'cs.
In a passaac dealing mainly with Sparta, he remarks that women make
up 'half the city' (-rd ij,.I01.I rir< wd>..ewt) and that the law-giver must
therefore bear them in mind; and he g~s on to compare the diffcrcn1
dangen which item from over-indulgence (Wlto~) lowarcll slaves md
towards women (Politia 2.9.4-5, 1269b7ff. Rou), In each case the
threat U political in a direct and immediate SCn.K: indu~nce toward.I
helots lead1 them to revolt and to demand equality; and if womm ruk
the rulen, they therefore rule the city (KOcToc. ,., ~ , n , ")'WIOlilcGt
lipxew fl ~ ltpx~ brO 1'WP "J'UK1111CW11 llpxeafa,; 2.t..9, 12'9b
35-4). 2 He returns to this question in a di1cusaion of tyrmny and:
democracy (5.11.11, UUb32-9). Here the dangeri1 the same but i.da
lr11 directly and irnmcdlately political: laxity towards sia•,n (do~
MUSIS) or women'• rule in the home {pftoikolrwll4 ... pffl i v ~
lca_ds_th.< .d.c..J!lo~~c.1:.i.!y_int~ ~yr~~Y.. - whp mc&rUMitba: ~~
of slaves nor lht rule or women, 1trictly ,peabng: Aristotle ~
181
 Sl..,ny and th• Rult of Womm
es.plain, that under tyrant.I women and slave, do not conspire because,
u under tbc prm.ou1 democracy, they an tttated with laxity?
It may al.so be rrmarked that for Ariatotlce the distinction betwun
mater and slave, u well u that between male llftd female, are of the
a.au: order u the distinction between body and 1oul, brtw«n that
which commands and that which obeys (Politics U.4--7, 12S4a34--
b 16). And elsewhere he comment&, 'Both a woman and a slave can also
be good; but a woman U perhaps an inferior being - and a slave utterly
worthless' (<ai -yd,p 'TUP!i <ori" XPflOni Kai 6ouX0<, <alrot -,, '/owt
«Mw• TO I'••xeiµ>P, TO 6E ijXwt ..,.;M• <or1P: Poetics 15, 14S4a20--2
Kassel). The nuance is worth remcrubering.

Wuc then traditions in Greece about the rule of slaves or the rule of
women? lf so, is there any connection between them? On the fint
point, if ~ set aside such famous but obscure episodes of Helleniltic
history u the 'City of the Sun' founded by Aristonicus (Eumenes lll)
of Perpmum (Rohen, 1962: 264-7l;Dumont, 1966: 189-96;Finlcy,
1975a: 183-4), or the anecdote about Chio, reported by Nymphodorus
of Syra.CUK (ap. Athcnacus.D.ipnosophistoe 6, 265c-266c),4 evidence
in myth for the city of the &laves (Doulopoli.s or dou/On polis) is thin.
To a Greek, the very expression wu of counc contradictory. A
character in the Anchises of Anax.andridc1 (a writer of Middle Comedies,
mid-foun.h century BC) pull the point 1uccincll.y: 'Slaves have no city,
old man' --- oo< lion liouXw•, .:,.Y<IB', ol,&r,.o,i in!X« (frg. 4 (GAF 2,
p. 137} = Athenacus, Vftfmosoplustae 6, 265b). There arc references in
historians, comedians (quoted, unfortunately, only by Jcxicogn.phcn)
ad puotmiographcn to a 'city of slavcs',S a place where all one had to
do to become free wu to bring a atone (Hccatat:us of Milctus, FGrH 1
F 345, Crom Stephanus of Byz:antium). This city is b&ff'ly dutingui.shcd
in the tradition from the City of Crooks (Po"hopolU: Pliny, HN 4.41;
Plutarch, De curiositot,: 10, 520b),• or from the onr- in which there as
only one frrc m;m, the priest (l-lccatacus, FGrll I t' 345 ).
The one interesting feature of these tcxu is the locatioa ucribed to
this 'city of slaves'. Sometimes it is placed in biU'barian tcnitory (Egypt,
Libya, Syria, Caria, Arabia); sometimes in Crete.' And what intereslcd
Soaicratcs and Dosiadas, who both wrote Histon'es of Crde (J'GrH 461
F 4 and 458 F 2, 3, from Athcnan&s, DeipnoJophistae 6, 263f-264.1>.
was precisely the different terms used for 'slaves' - or rather the stat1n:·~
'between slave and free' - on the illand, the place pat cxccllenn· m
antiquity where technical terms of this kind were developed (cf. Vida.I·
Naquct, 1965: 128 n. 46). Not one ~xt locales~ 'city of slaws' in any
part of Greece where davcry in the stnct ,ense cxmcd - thal b, chattel·
slavery b,-d on slavc·t.rading.•
)89
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
That implies that when the Greeks wanted to ~~ •. 'city of
slaves' they could chooae: only bctwcm complete marginaliza~on (!Mr·
barian countries) and locatin1 it in a counuy ~ a 'sl-:c was n.ot
quite a slave. There is a tense ila which Naupactus (founded: m the- ~~
fifth century by helots who had Ocd from Mcucnia), and othn abC'I
established by the Menenians, and Mnsmc it.elf (rcfoundcd afttr
Epaminondas's upcd.ition, !69 BC), might be added to Cretan
Doulopolis. Yet even when they had become helots, the Meumians
continued: to be thought of• Greeb and Dorians, jwt like the Spartans
themK"lves. Pausanias claimed not only that they had not lost their
Dorian dialttt evffl after three ttnb.lries of exile for many or them; but
that, in the Empire, it was the purest Doric in the Peloponnese (4.27.
11 ). The right of these relllly peculiar 'slaves' to a political ex is ten« or
revival, a right which they rq,catedly assC"rttd, could be legitimated by
means such as these.
And what of women? llncarch in this area has been srcat1,· stimu·
lated by the work of Simon Pembroke: on Greek uaditions about 'matri·
archy'.' In the lut century Bachoren, followed by Enaels and many
othen, saw matriarchy u a universal stage in tM history of man. It,
'survivals' - such as the institutions of Lyda dacribcd by Herodotus
(1.173) - wctt seen as evidence for an earlier period. Pembroke has
shown that the ancient sources do not stand up to qitical euminarion,
and that the Lycian imcripciom, for nample, show no trace whatrva
of a matriarchal system. But he has alto explained the l<>pcaJ. srructure
of the concept of matriardly itself: whelhcr we are taJ.k.in1 aboul the
Amazom or the Lycians, it ii tbc Greek polis, that male club, which ii
being defined by its hislOrians and its 'ethnographen' in terms of its
opposite (cf. now Roscllini. and S.td, 1978: 949-100~). There ii a
splendid example of this technique or invenion, or rewnal, in
Hcrodotu1's statement thal the institutions of Egypt att euctly tbc
oppo1itc of thox of the Grttks (2.35). The imagi~ polj_ty_af__$hc
~~ _tl:!._e inVf:!!!i, set in a precise locadOft, 0( the Grttk city.
Lcmno,, the ilbnd noloriom for its 'atrocitic:t'.. is also characterized as
):,&.led.~·• The chorus in Aeschylus'• Libstion-bHrtn, ft'fcr·
riq to Cytemnutra, 11 picb up cxprcnion1 from the fant play, tht
.4pffl,annon: the mU1-womU1 (A,.,..nnnon l 0-11 ; 550 d. 259-60)
ond the 'female that kills the mole' ("iAo< &po...,._.....,., A,- 12!1) -
human monsters who have failed to pas, the barrier separating....,,..
from civilization:
'i"he mule fOIU, the dnpencr
IGVCCQ1111itsNliltalway
- •mriip Md lhc dark e•br.llC"~
of lmne beu&a. of ....W .....
(599-601, tr. La1tnon)
190
 St.vny and th• Ru/• of ll'o"'""
l'lo!e """ ,...red hen: 11 'the female force' is tluiluAratis, an adjective
whicll ca metll both 'which conquen women' and 'where the female
hM ....-,; ·and tho lint cxamp~ Ihm &ivon is that or the Lemnian
...,..., (691--4), whose 'powor' took the form or tho murder or their
hu........ -
.Now·the tradition doa know of female power exercised honourably.
But tho fflCVlllt texts speak not of Athens (see p. 198 below) but or
Spana, which 'WU o( c:ounc the mak city par excellence - but also the
city Amtotlc beli~ to be threatened politically by a takeover by
women, u we have lff1'I (p. 188 abOYe). Plutarch records a famous
witdcilm by Gorgo, wife of Leonid• and. according to Herodotus
(5.!l), the woman who prncn~d Clcomene1 from doing as Aristagoras
of M.iktus wished (i.e. to support the Ionian revolt against the Pcnians
in 499/98): to a woman who observed, 'You Spartan women att tht·
only women who give men ordcn', she was supposed to have ~plied,
'Yes, because we uc the only women who give men birth' (Life of
l.yt'IIJ'PS 14.8; er. Apophth,putta L«,dMmonilln,m (Gorso( 6,
240c; Apophth<Jlffl4'4 l.awiumonio,um (Lycursu•I 15, 227c). And it
wu Sparta. not Athena, which provided Plato's model when he pve
women their place in his R.,.blic.
In \'Kw o[ all this. it ii perhaps worth enquiring whether theft wu an
111cicnt tradition in_ any way linlc.i1J.& .tb'-..a.aciat..ol.powa.~~n
~d by slavrs. I argue ihi1 such a tradition did indeed ex.isl, and in at
·1eaitf'0Ufforms.
The fmt is connected with a well-known hi11orical evcnl, the defeat
of Argos by the Spartans at the battle of Scpeia, which hu been dated
variously between 520 and 490 BC. 12 Our earliest source ii Hcrodotu1
(6. 77, 83), who prefaces his account with a Delphic oracle in venc pre-
dicting a drama in which ·~~-[~1!!~~-~!l..prcv~ over the ~~and win
glory among the Argivca•: · - ·- - -
l<)X-~B,j~"'""'llpw... -
tfe>.aoQ &oi •u6ot iv :\p"J'l'IOtOII-' 6i,oqrol.
Argos is defeated, and loses all i(s men. The aHain of state are run by
the llaves (tx,qpc.;,611 olfrw WO'T"f ol &w~o, abTW11 tuxo,, fflVf'O TO:
•P1h",,aM 6\oXOlo"l"t't} until the young Argi.vc citizen111 rnch manhood.
The 'davcs • thereupon flee to Tiryns, whence they arc ultimately driven
out by the Argivcs. In this account the two clements, rule of womc 11
and rule of slaves, arc pttscnt but are krpt separate: the fin1 occ.ur, iu
the oracle while the Kcond appcan in the historical a,;count. f11i~
scheme disappears in the later venions, which no doubt involves an
alteration 0 ( the original material; but thi1 hardly mal ten, aincc rny
taak ia not to reconsUUct the •fact,' but to und~ntand Ile IGpC of
the myth&. What is important di that nrcn in H~rodutus Areos is an
191
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
u_pside-do~_world: the frmale has o\·ercomc the male and the slncs
arc in power. u . .
Plutarch (De mulierum 11frtutibw 4, 245f) gave! hu o~ giou to
Herodotus in quoting him as saying that when the cty Iott JU ~en ~
'slaves' married the Argive women; and introduces, from the h1sto~
Socrates 0 £ Argos, a new character, Tdesilla. a poet~. She ?rgamzcs
the women of Argos to defend the city, dressing them in mens do~
_ which later P"e them the right of putting up a comm~mont:M=
monument to Enyalios, the god of warriors (245c-e). Most un.portant
of all, be says that thit episode wu the origin of a festival still 0celcbn.tcd
in Argos, the hyl!Pll.li~!_:!'~~-h- c'?m_m.c;ff!o_~te, t!'e "'!'~fn . 1 . _ ~
and in the course of which men and women wear each other s drns

<2~.:;!.,,, ~
venion di!fmnt again (2.20.8-9). Acco,ding to him,
Tclesilla called upon all those who could take pan in the defence of the
city - women, the old men, the young boys, the slave, (oiAl:et.u): in
other words, all those normally excluded froro fighting for the polis.
(He also quotes Herodotus's oracle, however: 2.20.10. Ed.)
But who exactly were theM!: slaves? Aristotk's own mention of this
'sen.rile interregnum' (Polih.cs 5.3.7, 1303a6-8) says nothing of womm
at all: he obJervcs simply that the Argives 'had ~n forc.cd tc;, admit
into the city a cenain number of pm'o;Aai': "1AJO"JKQ09,Ja(DI
fflPQ6'Ea:o6w TW11 repfDU(w11 TW<'. It has been shown that Aristotle
generally uses the word perioiltoi to mean rural dependant! or bond,-
mcn rather like the belou of Laconia (\\'ilk-tts, 1959: 496). And in fact
there can be no doubt but that our sources' Argivc 'slaves' arc to ht
identified with the occupants of the servile status-category known ill
Argos as the p,nnitllh: those who were 'naked' by contrast with thosc-
who wore the hoplitc pmoply. Equally important, when Ari1totle
wanu to give a comparable example from Athens, he speaks not of the
recruitment of slaves but of hoplitc, from outside ua~
r~gisteT - that i.s,
the thiles, the citizen, of the lowest category i.n term• of property.
A tndition known from much latrr texts offen a panlld SCJ ptteisc
with the Argivc episode as to be 1uspicious. This time we att at Cums,
in Magna Graccia, where in 505/4 BC Arirtodcmu, made bim,clf tyrant,
put to death or exiled the aristocrats and be,towed thcit propert',', tbc:0
wives and their daughtcn, upon the slavN who bad 11tWdcrtd thcit
mutrn. 1• That left, according to our principal sour«, Dionysiu> of
Halicamassus, only the fate of the roalc childttn to be dictermiDed. Al
first, Aristo<kmus thought of putting them. all to death; but afW
appcala from their mo~n. and the lattcn'iitlcw lovcn, dccidc-d to .nd
them off 10 the fields to lead scrvlk lives of agricultu~ or ~101al
labour. The world is turned upside-down: the you.na aristocrau tab cht
192
 Slavery and the Rule of Women
pl&« or the 'slavtt' whom they now se~. So far, we can interpret the
rtory in common-sense terms: hut what follows i1 rather odd. TheK
yoang alaves in the fields an brouwh.t up u girls: long curly tre11e1, kept
in a net: embroidettd dresses; Living in the ,hadc or parasols, with cnd-
lca baths and perfume (Dionysiu, of Halicamassu1, Ant. Rom. 7.9.4
Jacoby). It is hard not to suppose a ritual comparable to the Argive
hybristillo or the Oschophorio in Athens (see pp. U6-8 above). There
comes a time when the 'sons' - who seem, as in Argos, to be all of an
. - - riK in revolt and with the help of the exiles suppress the tyrant
(Ant. Rom. 7 .9.6). It is Plutuch who supplies the dimension of the
episode ~Levant to the theme of the rule of women (De mulierum
uirtvtibvs 26, 262c-d): Xenocrite, the daughter of an c:,;ile, becam"
Aristodemus '1 mistress; and it was she who persuaded the young men to
tupprcss the tyrant (c. 491/90), together with an unnamed woman al
Cumac who JTmarked to them that Aristodcmus was the sole man
(oni,) in the city (262b).
Herc again servile power and female power arc linked, the women
assuring the continuity or legitimacy. But it is lcs, easy to say what pre·
ciscly the 'slaves' were, though the 'hclot·typc', given that these men
scrmingly lived in the fields and made an effort to act politically or
collectively, is mott likely than the 'Athenian' type.
My third ex.ample comrt from the well-known tradition about the
origins of Epizcphyrian Locris in Sou them Italy, a colony founded by
mainland Locrians, whether Opuntian or Ozolian is undcar. 11 The
foundation of the city was the subject of an acrimonious debate,
reported by Polybius, bctwccn Aristotle (or more probably the author
or the Peripatetic Constitutiot1 of Locris) and the Sicilian historian
Timacu, of Tauromenium; Poly bi us reports the debate as part of his
own polemic against Timaeu1. 1• Aristotle said that Locril had been
founded by riffraff, runaway slave, and 1lavc-d<"alrrs; m reply, Timaeus
argued that in the very early period 'it was nut the nationaJ custom of
the Gtteks to use slaves bought with moncy'. 11 Nu doubt repeating
Aristotle, Polybiu1 then tells the story of how, when the Locrians WCI"<'
the allies of Sparta in the Mcs,enian War (pttsumably the fint war),
they wctt prevented - perhaps by an oath, as in the lc~nd of the
foundation of Tarentum (sec p. 195 below), but certainly cffrcti'vely -
from having intercourse with their wives. The wives then tumt"d 1"
substitute husbands, the slave,; and it was these women and 1lavc~ who
later became the fint colonists of Italian Locris. Consequently
hereditary nobility in the colony was derived originally not from the
men but from the women: .-a,,,rQ' rd: 6ca 1rpO"(dvw1,1 fVOOEa rap' ailroi~
tinrO f"WI' ,yuM111CWv OOK b~ .,.e,;,., lri16pWt1 tonv (Polyhius 12.5.6). We
also know that some of the female founders of Locris belonged to the
19,
 Picl'T" Vidal-Naquet
hundred noble families who had the 'pri"Vilegc' of K"nding two girls each
year to serve Athena of llion. 1• • • •
Irenically-minded rcaden will doubdns obserYC tha~ It 11 not unpoN-
ible to reconcile Aristode and Timaeus, at lcut m tmnl of the
coherence of the tradition. Certainly a famou1 inscription, tht branu
plaque £rom Galaxidi (Ozolian (Western) Locrisl, seems to prow the
existence of hclotagc in Locrian territory at an early date (early fifth
century BC)." The inscription gives the regulations for ~ colony
established by the E•tem Locriam at Naupactus, and prescnbca • tM
penalty for a magistrate who refuses_ justice to a plain.tiff ~c ~ru:
cation of his property, cbe land 1uc:lf together With tts sla~
(rooi.tidtai): ,CCU x,,,,aro. ~E"ioflOI. TO ,d11« 11mlr Fouc.lMCIP
(lincs 45-5). Notwithstanding that Hesychius identifies the oiltulis
(which occun only here) with the chattel-slave (OUC:11)~: WIIIJTO('
aou>..~). there can be little doubt but that the Locrian woilt.ill.lM, wbme
position is linked closely with the citizen's land-allotment, is more like
that of the Cretan woi4nu (FOUtak): he is in effect a helot. So there is
no reason not to accept that in the tradition followed b)· Aristode and
Polybius the Locrian 'slaves' who married their mistresses ~ in a
category similar to that of tbe Argive pmnitoi.
The women '1 rOle is no less important, thou(lh Polybius doC"s not say,
as has been claimed, that at Epizephyrian Locris' nobility desccnclcd
through the fC"male line: he lll)'S simply th•t originally in the Locrian
'nobility' there wa a FOUp of women; lhcy were citizens, and many of
them or good familie1; and their husbands were lll•vet." And he
explains by reference to thit same tradition the fact that a procatioa,
which he says was taken o\'er from the Siculi, waled by a girl •d not
by a boy (12.5.10-11).
This connection between female citinns and "slaves• recun in a
legendary tradition whose "Variants are far more complex, that of the
Foundation ofTarent\UD..21 Although all the sources agstt i.n clc.scribinl
the foundcn or Tarentum as a minority felt to be ,1adesirable in their
country of origin, Sputa, and who were c:allC"d the Partllmilll. thcR
were at lcut thrft versions. The oldest is rcpraented by Antiochw of
Syracuse, a contemporary of Thucydides (FCrH 555 F 13, from SUMG
6.3.2 (278-279C) cl. Vidol-Noquet, 1975b: 2!1-42). Hc.1ayt tl,ot
during the firat Mc11Cnian War the Sputiates dilfranc:b.Qcd lftQIC: qi
their number who had not taken pan in the tlghan,: they were~
sla"Vel (~,cp"l'poa.r 6au01) and then:after termed "helop', u werr dtcil
dc1Cendanu, the ,.,,.nilli. The ls.UC"r plotted '°IHM', but 'MN cl"_.
covered by lho ephon ( the onnual ,,,...,,..., or SponaJ , tl,cy """'
n.pelled from die ci1y and amt to h.J.y. Ith.is vcniaD caa,... ·~
mylhs: one about the foundation or Tuentu.m., the odwr .bout the
·'• a 194
 Slavery and the Rule of Women
origin or Spartan 'slavery': the original helots are supposN to have been
tresantt:s, those Spartiates who had failed in war and so been dis-
franchi.z.ed (Herodotus 7.231; Plutarch, Lift: of Agesilaus 30; Life of
Lycurgus 21.2; cf. now Loraux, 1977: 105-20).
Strabo rejects this version in favour of one followed by the fourth-
ccntury historian Ephorus and consequently by many others, whether
directly or indirectly (FGrH 70 F 216, from Strabo 6.3.3 [279-
SOCJ ) .21 The Spartans were at war with Messenia and had sworn not to
return home until they were victorious. But the war dragged on, and
the next generation could not be born. It was decided that the young
men, who had not taken the oath, should return home to Sparta and
all of them should have intercourse with all the young women
(partheno1) so far as possible: avr,l.veafJai mi~ wap(Jf1101,f; itwaoa,.~
cho:Pl'a(.21 It was the offspring or these promiscuous unions, who knew
their mothers but not their fathers, who received the name Partheniai.
In other words, the Partheniai were the result not of normal marriage
but of a sort of original saamble (Rosellini and Said, 1978: 955-66,
995-1003).
The third and simplest version is analogous to that of the foundation
of Epizephyrian Locri: while the Spartiates were away fighting, their
wives slept with their slaves, and the Partheniai were the resulting
bastards. 14
There are some further texts which arc not quite parallel to any of
these versions. A rather elliptical passage of Aristotle (Politics 5.7 .2,
1306b27-31) seems to suggest that the Partheniai suffered from some
kind of political discrimination without there being any question about
their birth. 35 To make things even more complicated, a fragment of
Diodorus Siculus published in 1827 (8.21) gives a composite account of
a rebellion which occurred in Sparta after the First Messenian War. 2•
The most important group of rebels were the epeunaletai, who arc
defined by Hesychius as atl'JKOijtipr(u, 'bed-fellows'; they were respon·
sible for the plot, and later got in touch with Delphi in order to found a
colony. The other group was the Partheniai, who came to terms with
Sparta as soon as the conspiracy was discovered. It is tempting, but
unprovable, to suppose that the second arc the sons of the first. 11 They
arc often confused, all the more easily in view of Hcsychius's equivalent
for the very similar word epeu.nahtai: Portheniai. But Thcopompus docs
explain the identity of the epeu.nahtai (though he calls them
epeunaletoi): they were helots who during the Mcsscnian War - he docs
not say which one - took the place of the dead Spartiatcs, not in their
marital beds but 'on their beds in camp': bird:~ onJ3dt6o:~ (FGrH 115 F
!, from Athcnacus, Deipnosophistae 6, 272a; cf. Pembroke, 1970:

•
1245-7). It is important to understand that in the myths relating to
195
Pier:'f' Vidal-Naquet
Sparta a 'slave' could substitute for a citizen in his basic du.ty, thal: of
fighting. . . ..
Although these venion.1 are all 10 different, thae u on~ cOnJC.Ut. it
is the women who ensure the continuation of the population. In shorl,
the P,,,.tlaniai are the sons of young wonu•n befOff they att tM IOftl of
men. The versions disagree only about the identity of their fathers. And
yet as a. whole they are quite coherent. In the tint case ~Antioch~•)
they are cowards, in the second (Ephonas) young men, an the third
(Hcraclcides) '1laves'; and perhaps for Aristotle political infcrion. In the
fint cue they arc made cliltinctivc by a moral judgement; in the second
by their place in the rystcm of age-classes; in the third by a social judl'·
mcnt; and in the founh by their place in the political hierarchy. The
variants have a common theme: the fathcn of the Parthna;ai both arc
and arc not of the city - they arc nu,rginal. Exactly the same WU true
of the Argivc 'slaves' and of the husbands of the women who founded
Locris; the nonnal hierarchy is invcn.cd.
Other texts on the foundation of Tarentum make thi1 invcnion
quite explicit, though it is unfortunate that they arc often contaminated
by traditions about the foundation of Rhcgium (Vallct, 1958: 68-76;
Ducat, 1974: 93-114; Valenza. Mcie, 1977: 512-17). An oracle i1 said
to have advised the foundcn of Tarentum to settle' where they uw a
she-goat mounting a buck.,11 or where they saw rain falling out of a
clear 1ky (Pausanias 10.10.&V" Both arc ways of sugatin9 an inwrtcd
world. The parallel texts about Rhcgium quite explicitly dirrct the
founder, Antimcdcs of Chalcis, to • place where he saw 'the male
mounted by the [cmalc'i 'fOv tipp~ta lnrO nj( "1h~ bwudpl'..,..
(Diodorus Siculu.s 8.2:5.2; Heraclcides Ponticu1, hri Poluftim 25 •
FHG 2, 220) - which takes us right back to the oracle Herodotus says
was given to th~ Argivc.1 (p. 191 above).
All the same, thUI topsy-turvy world which gives extraordinary
prominence to women and to 'slaves' is an imaginable one. Whneas at
Athens the exceptional UIC' o[ slaves in war wu logically followt'd by
their emancipation," in Sparta there was nothing unusual about hd.ou
u such fighting - as in the case of Thcopompu111 -,mmelttoi (d.
Herodotus 9.29; Thucydides 4.80 etc.). Likcwilc, the Gortyn law Code
provides for the possibility or a marriqr between a male tbave and a
fttc woman: 'If the s1aft (dOlos) sacs to the [rec woman ad muria
her, their children will M free; but if the fttc womm goes to tht alawc
and marries him, their children will be slaves•: (al 11:' b IP.~) 1t•i.,.,
IA<U6'pco, !AB°"'"""''· l!Aalfl•p'i~ li>nirft,a.al.U •' llltAruB,pcr
hrl nw M).o•, &P.' fµ I i•ni ri<..,(/C4,a.!'7Z,col. 6,56; 7, t-5)."
Moreover, although in the classical period Spartiatc marrillN'Ulc• did
not permit such liaisons, they a1 leut pvc both husbmd and wife tha
196
 Slavery and the Rule of Womt'11
right to take a sub,titute partner (Xenophon, Constitution of the
Lacedaemonians 1.7-8). And there was at Rome, in a religious context,
an association between slaves and women: at the Saturnalia masten
(domiratl served their slaves (servi), while at the Matronalia, wives were
honoured by their husbands and prepared a feast for their male slaves:l2
yet another detail that makes archaic Rome look more like Sparta than
Athens.

It was inconceivable in Athens that an Athenian woman might marry a

slave. And in general the Athenian attitude towards marriage was much
stricter (Vernant, 1974: 52-81). With the exception of the special case
or heiresses (seep. 261, n. 33 below), marriage at Athens involved the
transfer of a young woman from one oiJtos [household) to another; in
Sparta, on the other hand, well-known texts indicate that a Spartiate
woman could belong simultaneously to two oikoi (Xenophon, Consti·
tution of the Lacedaemonians l. 7-8; Plutarch, Lafe of Lycurgus 15).
Even crisis-measures were different: a tradition that may go back to
Aristotk says that when there was a scarcity of men, the law permitted
male citizens to get children by a citizen woman other than their
wife.n It was naturally only a matter for citizens - there was no ques-
tion of the law allowing the recruitment of substitute wives from
among the metics (resident foreigners) or the slaves, even though the
metics regularly served in the anny.
A good illustration of the contrast here between Spartiate and
Athenian practice is provided by Herodotus's parallel accounts concern-
ing the island of Lemnos, one of which relates to the Spartans, the
other to the Athenians (4.145, 6.137-8). In the first, some descendants
of the Argonauts and the women of Lemnos come to Sparta, saying
that they are indigenous Minyans (that is, from prior to the Pelasgians);
the Spartiates welcome them and exchange wives with them. But the
strangers tum arrogant, and it is determined to put them to death. The
'Minyans' are then saved by their wives, who change clothes with them,
and they escape to the mountains dressed as women. 34 Eventually, they
become the colonists of Th era. In the other story, the Pelasgians have
been expelled from Athens for insulting the daughters of the Athenians.
They move to Lemnos, and in revenge take with them some Athenian
women whom they use as concubines. The women bring their children
up according to Athenian ways and speaking Attic Greek and in the end
are massacred with their children. 15 This story is plainly an inversion of
the Spartan one: at Sparta marriage with foreigners leads to coloniz-
ation, while at Athens concubinage with foreigners leads to destruction
- to one of the versions of the 'crime of the women of Lemnos'. And
the value-judgements in the two societies are symmetrically inverse.
197
Picrr" Vida.1-Naquct
At if'ast aftu the Jaw of 451 BC, mani• at Athens at~ds midway
bf'twccn two equally rcpellrnt f'xtremes. One extttmc is of cou~
incest: 'Can a bird that ca.ts bird's-flesh be pure?' asb Danau• ~
Aeschylus's Suppliant Women (226). The other i.s revealed by Theseus•
outrage at an Argivc who on the advice of an or_adc f~om ApoUo had
married his daughtf'n to a boar md a lion, two wild animals, to Tydait
and Polynciccs, forf'ignf'n both:
Thaewi: To au...,.:n. thm, you wechkd ArJh'c prb?
Adrutus: Yn: 1),<kul .nd Polynice•. of Thebaa stock:
Tbaeua: How ltid you conae to want them ro, your kill?
A.drum: Puzuina ridcles of Phoebua lw-ed me on ...
That I ~ my daughtcn to a bov and a lion ...
Thuc111· They wac beau? You ~ you.- prb to the111? .
nneus; First, bowiq to Phoebu,' wordl, lilr.e one who thlDb
The 10& aitt, you pn your pt, to .uan,rn:
A matiftl of rur with foul, 10 hurt your hoUM:1
Wron,.:loen' bodies sbaald not be joined to the just ...
(f.wipidn, SupplWflt Wolft~ US--4~. 219-24, tr. P.W.JCMICS)
~ a traditional place of rcfu~ -· n-en ir only for the Neleids of Pylos
supposed to hav" fled there before going on to settle in Ionia (Sakd·
lariou, 1958) - Athens did of course have- some myths very similar to
those of Sparta. But in the cla.ssical period thctt is not a word about
marriage with a foreign male; and the democracy put an end, at least in
principle, to the inverse procca, marriage between an Athenian citizen
and a foreign woman ( which had been very common among the uiato-
crau), by the law of 451.
Although it is found only in Late sourcn, we can reconstruct one
myth to tell us about two mattcn, the origin of male democracy and
the origin or Athcnim marriage (sec Pembroke, 1967: 26-7, 29-32).
According to VatTO (quott'd by St Augustine, Dt! civitatt: thi 18.9), in
the time of Cecrops there occuned a dispute betwc,m Athena and
Poseidon as to which of them should be patron or Athens. An (ll3Ck
told the king to put the choice of patron divinity to the vote by all the
inhabitants including women, 'for at that time it was customary in
those parts for even womm to have their say in public votes' (mos niim
tune in ristkm locis mJI tu f!tiam femirwu publicis co,uultalionibru
iftltt"t'SSt"nt); and because th«e wett more womeA than men, the choi«
fell on Athena. The m~ .Jook.. their rev~ by deciding that 'f?OJD
henceforth the women of Athens shall not vote; that children shalJ no
lon~r be known by their mother's namej that the women llhall not be
called ''women of Athens" '. Thus in the claaicaJ dty theft an no
"womc=n of Athent' - only the wives and daughtm or the 'men. of
Athens'. That remains the case evm in the 1romcdy whi<-h tt'IIC'rRI tbci1
f'Olc1: in the Tht:nt1ophoriuwu, Aristoplfanc:s spca.kt 'Of the de,ttes
(Peoplr) of Women, and of tbe Council of Women, but Aevt'f of the
198
 Slav~ry and th~ Hui~ of Women
dettws of the Women of Athens (335-6, 372-3; cf. Loraux, 1980b).
The accond decision is upWned by those texts which make Cecrops
the inventor of malTiage.u Cecrops's usual epithet 'double-natured'
( ~ ) was normally nplained by saying that he was part miitl1, part
animal; but these texts account for it by saying that, as the inventor of
marriage, he taught that each man had both a father and a mother.
According to Clearchus, bcf ore that sexual unions took place at random
and no one knew who his father was; which implies that individuals
wctt known by their mother's name only. So Cecrops's role here is that
of a culture-hero - and indeed the scholiast on Aristophanes's Plutw
773 says as much: 'he brought the Athenians out of savagery to civiliz-
ation' (lnrO a")'pl.On'JT~ Ek f/µfpOTTjTa frra'ro). The rule of women in
Varro's report (the women not only vote, they arc in the majority) thus
cornsponds to the state of naturc, to the original scramble. We ha\'C
already seen that the same features n:cur in the accounts of the Foun·
dation of Tarentum; but what is 'in the beginning' for Tarentum is at
Sparta part of 'history' and is used to legi__!!~~tc a number of a«:~~al
p~~tice~ i!I, society.
The passages just discussed do indeed tell us about the Athenian
account of the origin of marriage and the exclusion of womcn from the
body politic; but they have nothing to say about the connection - or
inversely, the distinction - between the status of women and that of
slaves. And it is on this point that Athem can be seen to be the exact
opposite of Sparta or Locris.
It will be clear from what I have already said that in a topsy-turvy
world like that of the legends about the First Messenian War, 'slaves'
getting above themselves might occur with a temporary tracing of
descent through the femalc line. Now in thc latc fifth century BC
classical Athens also had its topsy-turvy worlds, above all in Aristoph·
anes's utopian comedies. Thc hoopoe in the Birds has a bird-slave and
when Eudpides expresses surprise at this, thc slave tclls him, 'I think
he likes to be reminded he was a man' (70-5). In Lysistrata the women
take over the Acropolis (345ff.) and at once thc theme of topsy·
turvydom makes its appearance in an oracle (which recalls Herodotus's
Argive oracle): .
When all the SwMlows pther into one place, etcheWllll t.he
Hoopoe-bird1 and their amorou, pW'lvib, then is come the end of
.U [Yih, and it q ordained by Zeus the Thunderer that the low ahall
be nahed over the hip!. ( 77 0-,, tr. Dickinton)n

All the same, Lysistrata at onc point calls for a Scythian archcr, an<l
slaves appear on a number of occasions (18, 184, 241) ..
But of course my best cvidence here comes from 1he Assnnbl! of
Women (Ecclesiazusae). The play is based upon a double transvestism,
199
 Pierre Vid&l·Naquct
fint that usociatcd with the fcnival of Athena Skiru (the Sli,...,._.)
when women dressed up in beards (18, 25, 38, cf. p. 156 above), bat
also the comedy's own: the Athmian women dill',UIC dNnnlclva u
men in order to votc themselves into power in the A.ucrobly. The com-
munist system they start is prnentcd as thc fulfilment of democncy
and involves the sharing of all wealth risible and iavuible, iaduclint:
slaves. h is rorbiddcn that some should have much and othcn nothiag
at all. But of course the bnd itself will be worked by sines - while
cbeir muten ttlu. and wait for their dinncn (593, 602, 631, 651-S,
c(. PIKltu 510). Now all this is rcuonably familiar; perhaps le11 so arc
the sexual implications of this femino-communist democracy. For the
women propose to equaliH 1exual opportunity (944-5) - for the
young citizens naturally: of male slaves, not a word. By conttast, the
fana1c slaves are expressly cxduded from citizen-amours: they have to
IDMe arnnacmcnts with male slave, (725-7).
Ariltode's point ttmains tnlC then: theff is some difracnce betwcca
women and alavcs. An Aristopbanic utopia can put women on top, jutt
u Plato later can set them almost on the aunc level as men. But chattel·
Uva are limply not part of the city at all. And I would say that myth,
legendary tradition and utopiu as wcU, respected this ,tau of affairs
. even though it was of recent datc. 11 A myth accounts for_lhc n:ducti9!!.
of the statu~ of women_ at ,Mlle.w_ a,. 911e brick in the wall betw_cai
sav111ef-i"iAa..c!isor4~ ..Q.P. dll..ilof t\¥~.1 anc1 civiC-mder ~
s~·t the distinction bctWCfll free mcn and ·,i;;;-~p1y-~~ not a "prob-
lem' of this kind. In uchaic societies on the other band ( of which
Sparta is the bc11 known), the: situation. is quite different. Slavery w.
undcnilood thtte u having an origin in biltory (J have disc:uucd one of
the traditions in thi1 connection, but lhere ~ many othen), Uld on a
number of occaaiom the status of women and the status o( llava are
sccn 1.1 linked. Each occupies a variable polition on the continuum
between the free Uld the non-free.
I began by oboerving that Athens md Spana con be ,..., • loti<aJ
oppositca; I hope that this at.udy serves to reinforce the paia&•

..
200
 ,,
,f!~.

11. Athens and Atlantis: structure and

meaning of a Platonic myth
Plan Vidol·Naqaet (1964, 1979)
Harold Chcmils once observed of the problem of Atlantis, the subject
or so much debate since classical times, that 'it is easier to conjure the
djinn out of the bottle than to get him back in again' (1977: 200). Very
true; but what exactly is the problem? 1 At the beginning of the
Timae-w and in the unfinished dialogue Critiu, Plato describes, in the
fonn of a tradition learned by Solon from the priests of the goddess
Nclth at Sais in Egypt and passed on by him to his relative Critias the
elder, through whom it came to the younger Critias, one of the 'Thin.y
Tyrants' and Plato's unclc,1 the institutions, the political geography
and the history of two cities which disappeared almost nine thousand
years earlier - prior to the last of those catastrophes (universal con-
flagration or general flood) which recur periodically on this planet
(Timuw 22d ff. and 2$c) - proto-Athens and Atlantis.
What is the point or this description? Socrates and his friends have
just been through the fundamental cbaractcristic1 or the Platonic city at
put forward in books 2 to 5 of the Republic: the group or Guardians,
both male and remale, separate rrom the rest or the population; com-
munity of women and children; the rational and secret ordering of
sexual relations (Tim. t 7b-19b). Socrates then says that he would wish
to sec a real city or such a kind in existence; in a word, to place it in the
actual world, the world or war and international relations. Does that
mean place it in history, in our sense or the word? No indeed: it means
constructing one or those mechanical models which Plato so loved to
work out and which allowed him to dramatize an abstract discussion
(d. Schuhl, 1968a: 71-105).
But the cunnict between proto·Athens and Atlantis is a model in a
second sense besides. For in Plato, any paradigm presupposes that there
is a structural homology between pattern and product, between reality
and myth (d. especially Goldschmidt, 1947: 81£r.). Thus, in tht·
Politicw, the ruler is defined in terms or the image or the wea, i:r,
because the ruler or a stale is a weaver, a craftsman who works with his
e-ye fixed on the divine- model. The problems involved in the accounts
or the Timaeus and the Critias are endlc:uly more complex: the City
whose fundamental institutions are described in the Repubh"c provides
the paradigm for the constitution of proto-Athcns, so 1hat the dcscrip·
201
Pi.-rtt Vidal-Naquet
tion of Atlantis, of its empire and the final catastrophe ~ich engulf~ it,
is determined by its relation to the fixed point prov:uied by the JUlt
city. But this 'Tale of Two Cities' is itself intimately linked to ~e
physics of the Tirnaitu.r, as Plato npreuly sa~s. One can~ot en~1K,
as the Critias does, a detailed account of thlS human _h11tory wathout
first defining man's place in nature - in tha_t n~ture lmd hart _for us. by
the physiologue ofLocris(Tim. 27a, b). Physics 1uelf, becaUH its ob)CCt
belonp to lhe world of becoming, can only ground a 'probable myth'
(Tim. 29d). But the narrator has known through contemplation lhat
'Being which is eicmal, and which has no !hare in the world of becom-
ing' (..-6 &, bl, 7f.11EOIII M OOI( fxo,,), just as the demiurgr has, who
undcntands not through 'opinion linked to scn11t-imprcssions' (56fa:
11£1. cr1a~oec..i() but through 'iniclligellct' combined with rcuoning'
(llmfO'« peTG: Ad,yot,) (Tim. 28a) - in short, what is in tht: truC!lt scnx
'the same'. And for that rcuon,. his account is no leu founded in truth,
worthy of the goddess wh0tc kstival is being celebrated (i.e. Athena).
Socrates could even characterize it as 'a true account, not merely an
imaginative fiction' (1,111 TMIIO'IMvnr ,uilrw tiU,." «AT18'Pol' ~ ) (Ti....
26<).
There are then three rules for tht: historian who wishes to undcnWld
the myth of Atlantis. He must not sunder the two cities which Plato bu
linked so closely together. He must refer himself constantly to the
physics of the Timons. And consequently, he mull relate the historical
myth whose structure he is trying to explain. 10 Plato's 'idcali1m'. The
success of a properly historical interpretation depends entirely upon Ult'
extent to which this preliminary task is performed. 1

Although for Plato it is proto·Athens which i, the paradigm, Atl•tis

has attracted enormously greater attention thanks to tht: simultancou.aly
circumstantial and imaginative character of the myth.• In antiquity Im
account was taken in various ways: sometimes as a story which might
acreeably bear imitation, as did Theopo1npU1 in the fourth century,
1ubstitutin1 for Solon's mcetina with the priests or Sais a dialogue be·
tween Silenus and Kins Midas, and for Atlanti1 a wlll'lik.e ciJy
(MecAimos), for Athcm a reverent one (E..,.bis). 1 AJtemati'vely, it
could be made the occuion for a leuon in acography. a spccl11atfft
mode - more nicely dilcriminate of languap: than of reality - eocour-
qcd by Hellenistic philology; Strabo at any rate wa amply justified in
hi, criticism of Po~idonius's credulity, and in his commeDI - recalliDs
Aristotle's on Homer - that tht: continent had b«n done away with by
iu own maker.• We know much lcu about philosophical intnprctationl,
which we hear of almost exclllliwly through Proclus'1 Ccu,u11ni,..,,
on tla~ Tit11H'1Ui he obtcrved, intclligtndy enolfsh, that the besiBWPI ci(
202
 Athens and Atlantis
the Timaeu, was a presentation in the form of images of the theory of
the Universe (TTw Toil ,cOOµou ~wpKDI) (in Tim. l.4.12f. Diehl). His
own interpretation, and those of his predecessors, are sometimes lunatic,
but at leut did not divorce Athens from Atlantis and related the myth
systematic.ally to the Timaew's physics, for all their failure to eschew
ttalist hypotheses (in Tim. 1. 75.30ff.). But these philosophers, soaked
in a social and ttli.gious world completely different from Plato's, simply
did not comprehend at all the political aspects of his thought. Later
still, a Christian geographer turned Solon into Solomon and accused
Plato of distorting an account he had got from the Chaldaean
Oracles ... 7
If a 'realist' reading made little headway in the ancient world, the
case since the Renainance has entirely altered. In the late seventeenth,
and in the eighteenth, century Atlantis became the focus of great
debate: was Plato's continent the Xew \\.·arid, America? Wa.s it the land
whence civilization for Christians had developed - wa.s it Jewish
Palestine? Or was it rather an Anti-Palestine, watershed of the Arts and
Scirnces, that could be located in Siberia or in the Caucasus? The first
stirrin8$ of modern nationalisms played their part too. A Swede, Olaf
Rudbrck, marshalled a learning of almost inconceivable weight in order
to prove that Atlantis could lie nowhere but in Scandinavia.• And of
course the quest passed from the hands of scholars to those of would-be
Kholars, 9 and so to mythomaniacs and charlatans, those who, even to
this day, 'discover' or peddle Atlantis anyplace between Heligoland and
the Sahara, between Siberia and Lake Titicaca. 11 The 'realist' reading
has been exterminated in science. But has it really disappeared? Failing
a submerged continent, Plato might ha\'e known, we are ohen assured,
a tradition which more or less faithfully reproduced a memory or an
actual historical event or a local saga.
A$ early as 1841, Thomas-Henri ~lartin, in his justly famous £tudes
nir le Timie de Platon, in spite of placing Atlantis in the region of the
'Island or Utopia' (1841: 332), wondered whether Plato had not been
thinking of an Egyptian tradition (323). Since Evans's discoverie-s, it is
of course Crete that has provided most ammunition: it was practically
inevitable that the bull·sacrificc in the oath of the kings of Atlantis
should point someone to the land or the Minotaur;and the destruction.
of the fabulous kingdom has been assimilated into the fall ol
Knossos. 11 It is unfortunate simply that such claims remain r .. 111
pletely undemonstrable; but one is compelled_ to wonder whe~hcr
any progress has been made in the interpreta~1on of t~e text sm«
Olaf Rudbeck when one finds an archaeologist dedarmg that the
site or Atl;mtis is amazingly similar to that of Lakr Copais - with just
one problem: rrhe greate-st discrepancy is the fat·t that :\tlantis accord·
203
Picm: Vidal-Naquet
ing to Plato lays far to the West, while the Copail buln ii in the mict.t
ofGrcccc' 11 (Scnnton, 1949~ 159-62). .
At the heart of these lucubrations, a weird im-. of the philoeophff
is to be found: Plato the: historian, whDK 'aoun:ct' have to be looked
into as one might in the cue of Herodotus or of Diodonu Siculus. But
Plat~ did not think in terms or 'source,., of what Heroclotwi called
apsis and d6ir [using one's eyes and cars), but prcasely ia tcnnl of
modcls. 11 And the enquiry into these •models' has been a &ood deal lea
cnthmiutic than the •arch for 'sources'. And where there hu bcm
enquiry, one could hardly call the method employed dlpirical; which
compels me now to tum lo these argumentl uid comment upon thnn.

Many 1cholan have compared the island of Atlantis with the Phaeaciam'
Schcria. 14 And the paral1clilm cannot be doubted. After all, the tint:·
dom or AlcinOU1, with itl idealized patriarchal monarchy and ill palace
filled with marvels. is the rust utopian city in Grttk literature (Finlry,
1977: 100-2, 156). At lcut, that might have been the imprasion of a
fourth-century Greek. Again, it is importmt that we have a utopia
connected with the sea. Schcria, like Atlantia, is a city of tail.on:
ncy, conflclent in the ipCed of their nalllUIII ilhlpa, a - O"ff'I'
the peat opm watcr, liacir thil d the ti.rt of the Em-dlllbU.tt
to them... (Od),017 7.54-5. tr. Lattim.Oft)
The kinp or Atlantis weTe dctccndcd from the union of Poseidon •d a
mortal woman, Klcito, while Alcinou1 and ~ \ft'rc the dcsccnduu
of the union of Poseidon and the nymph Pen"boia (Critia, l Udct Od.
7.56r.). The one temple on Schcria is comccratcd to the god or the sea.
as is the one temple dcteribed by Plato (Od. 6.266;Critias l 16d-ll 7a).
Homer speaks of two sprinp, as don Plato (CM. 7.129; Crilia l 17a).
And 10 on.
The local colour then ii epjc t and Plato actually notc1 at the- very
beginning of the Tiffl8111 that Solon. had he to wished, could h&YC
equalled. Homer and Hesiod (Tim. 2lc). The names of tome o( tbc
kinp of the Feat itland aft bonowed from Homer. But heic Homer'•
world ii inverted: the land that bidl welcome hu become an empire
from which will Kt sail the armies dctcnnincd upon the. drstruction ol
Gree«; the parallclitm does not explain cvcrythin1 - ettn if it ougb.1
certainly to figun: in any dilcu11ion of Plato"• relation to Homer.
Then again, Paul Friedlindcr, and Joseph Bidez after him, ha.vc
strnscd the many reuons for supp~g Admtis, which Plato teLi II
the wcJtcm ed1e of the world, to be 1111 idealixd transposilion of CM
Eut and of the world of Pcnia (t'ricdlandcr,.,l958: 273-7; llld,s,
1945: Appendix II, S2--4). It ii ccru,inly pw,111,lc that Plato, dclcrij,-
1.ion of the walls of the capital city and chc city it.1elf ruy have bull
204
 Athens ad Adntis
inlpind by Herodotus's description of Ecbatana md Babylon (Hdt.
1.91, 178; ad Critio.r l 16a ff.). The Greeks thought of m oriental king
• a lord of the waten. Herodotus dncribcs the legendary heart of Asia,
a plain, encirdcd by mountains, which gives rise to U1 imaginary mighty
river which flowed through the mountains in five branches until the
Great King built five sluice-gates that he alone could open (3.117). 11 I
need hardly recall what he says about the Nile, about Egypt U1d the
Pharaohs. The massive irrigation works undertaken by the kings of
Atlantis (Criti,u 117cd)and the scale of the kingdom itself arc sufficient
indication that Plato is thinking here primarily not of the tiny world of
the Greek city-states but of the universe of oriental despotism. Such an
interpretation might obviously lead one, as it has many (so Rivaud,
1925: 252), to view the strugle between Athens and Atlantis as a
mythical uansposition of the strugle between Greeb and Barbarians,
and the Persian Wan in particular. One can even show, as I do not think
it has been, that Plato was directly influenced by Herodotus. For in the
Timo:~w he says (20e):
And he 1okt my pandfather Critiu (.ccordinf to the 1tory the old man UICd to
repeat 10 wi) that then: ~ pul md admirable eaploiu perfonaed by OW' own
city long ..o. which have been loqotlen throupl i..,. ol dlae and the de,trv.clion
or b,ua.Ul We. (Tr. Cornford)
This is how Herodotus begins his history (1.1):
Tiie• ue the iaeudle1 ol Haodobll ol Thurii which be publiaha in tbe hope ol
thereby pn:IICl'\'iq from decay the remembrance ol what men have done, and ol
prcvcntiq: \he peat and wcmdc:rful actio111 of the Greet, and the Bubarianl from
Joline their du.c 111ccd or •orv ... (Tr. Rawlinson)
For his part, the historian tried to be fair to each of the warring sides. 11
But if the model is really the Penian Wars, then Plataea here comes
before Marathon. Athens starts out as leader of the Hellenes, but she
wins the victory alone, and she alone sets up the trophy and liberates
the Greeks and the subjects of Atlantis's empire (Tim. 25bc) - those
very cities and peoples over which the Athens of history had extended
her sway after the war. Should we find that surprising? The second
Penian war was for Plato maned by the naval engagements at Artemision
and Salamis (Laws 4, 707bc). When he discusses the matter, it is cer-
tainly not to praise Themistocles's daring and the decisive role or the
Oeet. While Xerxes made his preparations to invade Attica,
(The Athenians) eonlideriq di.al there wu no ulvation for them either by land ~·
by ICI .•. One chance of Alcly remained, llipi1 indeed and dnperatc, but _1hm
only one Th~ uw lha1 on the
former occuion th~
bad pined a 1eemmJI)
=-~:':.:a:~=:: u.:·,~:;:.::. ;:::c,'f',at their only refu~

But Plato's remodelled Athenian, do not get on board their ships: his
Athenians defeat the 1Cafuing men of Atlantis not on Lhe sea but on
205
Pi~~ Vidal-Naquet
Jand. An odd Athens; and an odd 'Orient'. But a closer look at the te.1111:J
leads u.s, without rejecting what we have learned •. ~o a more. cornpkx
interpreta.tion of the struple bctwC'en the tw0 c1ucs. ~lato I Athcras
meets and vanquiffles Atlantis; in so doing, she in reality ov~rcomes
herself.

That may sound strangl'.'; 11 but let us look once more at the facts and at
the texts.
On the west face of the: pediment of Pheidias's and lktinos's
Parthenon was represented the mythical dispute between Athena and
Poseidon. I think it no e~ration to say that this dispute was one of
the mythical foundations of Athenian history. The ironical funeral
speech in the Mnaexfflw dccla.res {237c):
Om COWlb'y U worthy to be pnikd. not cmly by u. bv.t by all mUlll:iftd; ftnt, and
abo~ all, u bdn& dear to the pelt. Thill i, proud by the nrife ;uid cOllikD.tion of
the sods tt1p«"tin1 her." (Tr. Jowett)
This passage is directly contradicted by one from the Critia (I09b):
In the day• of old, the 1ocb had the whole e.lh diltributed amon1 them by 111lot·
mcnt. There wu no qual'l'dllnf; for you cannat rishdy NppoK' that the pct. did
not Ir.now what w .. proper for eiach of than to h-,,c-, or. lr.nowin1 thh., that d!.cy
wouJd seclr. to procu.~ for cbnn1elvcs by contmtion di.at which more proped)'
bclon,rd to othcn. (T,. Jowett)
According to this. it was DikC who shattd out the allocations. Athcm
was assigned to Athena and Hephaestus, and Atlantis became the realm
0£ Poseidon (Cn.tias I09c and 113c). The two divinities wonhipped
together in the En:chthcum arc thus ,eparated; and Plato ttparates and
opposes likC'wisc: the two Greek forms of power: the Athenians, stem-
ming from th,c iced of Hephaestus and Gaia (Tim. 23e), inherited powa
on the land; th,c kinp of Atlantis, child~n of Poseidon, powe"r by sea.
But that very £act reveals to us that Plato i, prelt:'nting his native city
Crom two different points of view: the city of Athena and the olive·
trcic is identified with proto-Athens; and the city of Poseidon, Lord of
horses and of the 1ea, is realized in Atlanl:U.
Ut us take a closer look at the topography and the in1titutiom of
this idealized Athens. It i, cuentially an enormous .acropolis, which
include,, besides the cla.uical Acropolis, the Pnyx and Lyqb,ctto,, and
thus extends as far • tM Eridanus and the Lycabcttos rive~ and it ii
covered in earth. It is thus quilt di.ffeJ'C'nt froni tht' harsh rock. M'licb
Plato knew (Critw.J lllit-112a). Its summit fomu a)evd lift"
raolosed
by a sinfle wall (!-Pi •ep,lJo'l.f.f' •IIXJ•tPt.lSe~•= U 2b).» __.- ii
where thit second claa of t'hc population, the wvrion, live. Thir crafb-
men and the farmen live oultidc and work the field, Hyood. "*~
de,crib<t the cl.., of warrion (.-o "°""'°" .,....,
cAaro<te~1tioally b)
of an exprrnion dmotin:g what nitYCT th-.ai it im ff(t.1
206
 Athens and Atlantis
ltatll' 11.uto. 11 Civic space is organized in a manner quite unlike that of
the classical city. There is no Agon. to be the me.son (centre) of political
lire; no tempk which might be the prototype of those built in the fifth
century. To the north, there arc common barracks, refectories suitable
apintt bad weather, and temples. To the south, gardens, gymnasia and
summer refectories (112bd). In the middle is the sanctuary of Athena
and Hephaestus, an evident transposition from the Hcphacstcion which
still dominates the Agon. today, and in front of which Pausanias
records that there stood a statue of Athena (which we know, like that
of Hephaestus, to have been the work of Alkamenes) - a conjunction
he found quite unsurprising in view of the myths of Erichthonius
(1.14.6; cf. Brone-cr, 1949: 52; Thompson and Wycherley, 1972:
140-9).
What docs this divine pair signify here? The Homeric Hymn to
Hephaestus sang of the God: 'With Athena of the glittering eyes he
taught men on earth wondrous crahs' (20.2-3). But this is not the only
tecllni which may be relevant.
Hephaes1w and Athena, who were brother and Pltcr, uad ,pran1 from the ,ame
father (llµa ,..0 tl&A¢,r)i, b: 1"111n'Ol/ 1rmpo('), h1.ving 1. common nature (1eO&J,q1,1 fuau,
tx:OIIT~(), and bein,: united allO iD the love of pbi1010phy and art (t,rtllnt), both
obtained u their common ponion this land. which wu natunlly adapted for wis-
dom andvirtue. 21 (Crit14J 109c, tr.Jo-It)
Hq,haeuus and Athena thus guavantcc the dose relationship between
the two cluses, guardians and produccn, of proto·Athens.
I have already observed that this Athens is land-based. The term
really applies to Attica as a whole, more extensive than Plato's city,
since it reached down to the Isthmus or Corinth (Cri#as llOe).u It is
a land wonderfullv fertile, covered with fields and forests, 'able in those
days to support .a vast army, exempt from the labours or the soil'
(CritUU llOd-l lle), and thus permitted soldien to be soldien only,
Plato hoped, proor of the development of military techni and pro·
fessionalism; while he was also eil.gCr to reconcile this evolution with the
ideal of the citizen-soldier, as nren Sparta had failed to do (cf. esp.
R~ublic 2, 373a ff.). To the very end of its history, the city of _the
Timaeus and the Critia.s is a republic of the land. When the temble
cataclysm comes, its army is swallowed by the earth (rO µQ):apo1,1 1r0'.1,1
Cl8p6o1,1 l6u ,ccrrO Tit), whereas Atlantis is engulfed by the sea (,ccrrO:
TTf( 6a:XaTTTlt 8Voa t,,t,avioBTJ) (Tim. 25d). It is hardly neccHary to
remark that in his account of prehistoric Athens Plato devoted no sp.in.""
to the life of the sea. The country is SU!Tounded by sea, but there arc
no harboun. A republic of the land: a republic united and unchanging.
Unity is the foundation of a11 Plato's 'constitutions';1• and here ~t is
assured by the divine pair and by community of wom~n and offspnng.
He stttues this unity and the lack of change even in tiny details: there
207
Pi.::Te Vidal·Naquet
is only one spring, and iu water is of a temperature c_qually con•enicnt
in summer and in winter.,. Changlcssnns appears Ill ~c nu,abcr ~
warriors which so far as possible shall nol alter; and m the way an
which the constitution and the organization of their land h• bcm
ordained once and for a.II. H And, more jokingly, in the a:rt of house·
building, which the inhabitant, pass down 'to othen like themselves,
always the same' (Cn.tias 112c).' 7 . •
One might ask whether there is any further connection between thu
structure based on the land, this unity and this changelessness, be!'yond
those that an: obvious? In~ cosmology of the Timaeus, of the four
elements, it is precisely earth that cannot be trmsfonned: OV "fClP Ek
lO.).o "Tf. Elba( {A_9o,. ,rar'li» (Ton. 56d). Movement in thi, cosmology
consists in the commingling, at every level, of the principle of changr-
lcssncss, 'of the indivisible Existence that is ever in the same sutc'
(~ ('}'QPJ &,upiDTav ,ccti lui ,cQTQ ndrm ~0007Jt OOOiat), the Sllmc
(TO a(,nf), with 'the divisible Exisu:ntt that exists in bodies' ("1( (IV
1ttpl nt oWµaro 7'7"°1'6'fJt l'EPt.OT'Tlt), the Oifftrent (TO tf'fpoll) (Tim,
35a ff.). One might sec prehistoric Athens u the politica.1 manit'.cstation
of the Same. The tenor of the myth is no le• evident at a politkal level.
It is not a matter of chance that Plato takes Solon as the intennediary
for his knowledge of this Athens: by the mid-fourth century lhe
Archon 0£ 59-4 had become the grand old man or the moderate,, tbc-
supporters of the p,arn·o.r polittilA. 31 The great cataclysm deprived.
Athens of the larger part o( her land. The small remainder, of fint·n.te'
quality, is a token of what once wa (Crituu l lOc}, just as among the
Athenians of Solon's day, 'a little of the 1n-d' of the Athc.nians 0£ for·
mer days was preserved (Tim. 25c). AtMns is not then 'lost', if the
word mean, anything in Plato's philosophy;but the city Plato describes
is the antithcsif of the ttal city or the fifth and fourth centuries - u, a
word, an Anti-Athens.

Plato prescnu in th.e Politicw:, in the fonn or a myth, two cycles in Ult
universc. 19 At times, 'God in person accompanies the movement of the
univenc,puttinghisown hand 10 the wheeling of iu circles' (tr. Taylor).
The world then comes to know what the poets haw called the Age ol
Cronus, men under the sway of divine shepherds. 'SoAI of lhc earth',
men lead a lire exactly the revenc of oun: lhcy are born grcybcwds
and die babie1. Then the cycle goes into rever,c- an.d God abandons tlte
helm. At fint rncn succeed rea.sonably well in organWD.g tbiap; 'b11t in
pr<Keu of time, as forgc"dulneu coma uw:r (thr world), tlM: old discol'd
prn.Ws ever more and morr'. The: threat is then thu the world will bli
swallowed up 'in thr boundles place of ~kcnca' (t!t( ,(it,, "1C
b,,o,-,.6n)'°" ft<<P°" wn, TCar<w) (Pol. 273d). God tun• band, .od
208
 Athens and Atlantis
the world revenes itself ona= again. In book.s 8 and 9 of the Republic
Plato outlinet an analogous shift, from timocracy to oligarchy, from
oligarchy to democracy, from democracy to tyranny: the ideal model is
progressively distorted, yet each type preserves elements of the preced-
ing constitution. Equally, each stage is a little further removed from the
ideal of unity: democracy is like 'an emporium of constitutions where
one can choose the model he likes best' (Cornford) ( Wotrt:p t:k
'lf'CW1"0ll'WXwv ~OJl~"ct' 1toXtTEtW11, K.ai f1<.XeEcrµi&1ctJ oifrw K.atoU<itt:w:
Rep. 8, 557d). And Plato is especially fond of the adjective poihilos to
describe democracy and its logical consequence, tyranny (Rep. 8, 557c,
558c, 56le, 568d). These two forms of constitution push 'diversity',
'chiaroscuro', to the very limit.
In order to characterize this 'chiaroscuro' quality - or, in a different
image, this apeiron, this lack of limits - Plato uses oppositions, big and
little, hot and cold, pitched and unpitched, etc.:
WhcrC"Vcr they an pruent they exclude any definite quantity. They alw1y1 imbue
activitie, with Feater ,tren(th over a,ainst Feater mildness and convencly, render-
inl them more or leu whatever it may be (r01r).£0,.,1<crirOr>,JXT'TOV lrfftp-yBfto6ov),
&nd rulin1 out definite qu&ntity ... Ir they do not oblittrale definite quantity, but
allow decree and meuure to appear in the mids! of more or le11, or strongly &nd
mildly, they in fact abandon the terrilory they occupied. For in admittinl of
definite quantity they would no lon,er 1trictly be hotter or colder. For the hotter
goes on witl,out pa.u1e, a.nd thtc colder in the Jame way, while a definite quantity
comes to a. puticula.r point and IIXI no further. So on the pruent a.rrumenl the
bolter and at the 1:ame timtc its opposite would come ou1 as indeterminate.JI
(PAiileb., 25cd, t:. Goal.ins)
It is easy to recognize in thi5 passage the well-known 'indetenninate
dyad' (liucxc; b:dpw-roc;) of great and small, by which Aristotle defined
the material principle in Plato; and of course, the 'Other' of the
Timaeus. 32
It is in this last dialogue that we find, in close mutual relationship,
the two cycles which in the Politicus are sundered. The circle of the
Same corresponds to the movement of the stars, and moves from left to
right, while the Other, divided into seven unequal circles (the planets),
moves from right to left. But the turning of the Other is brought about
by the turning of the Same which it imitates (Tim. 36c ff.).n The har·
mony of the universe can thus be accounted for, but also the unfore·
seen eventualities to which it is subject.
If proto-Athens is the political express~o~ of the .t~umph of ~he
Same what of Atlantis? I do not say that 1t is the political expression
of ,h; Other, ~cause the Other does not exist i~ itself. _what is su~ject
to coming into being and is visible (-yiPECJW EX011 K~I ~p~11) is an
imitation of the model (µtpfl,..a 6E 1rapa&{-yµaroc;), which IS itself alone
intelligible and eternal (1J011TIW ,cai b:Ei K.ard: TOOl'T& l:i11) (Tim. 48e-
49a).>"
209
Piene Vidal-Naque1
To grasp what Atlantis is, it would be .Kns~blC'. fint of .U to loo~
oncC' again at the fate of Athens. The ptthuitonc city l~t ~at gave tt
permanence: 'for the fact is that a 1ingle ~ l of exetSs~e run ~ed
awav the earth and laid batt the rock' ( Cnh&f, l l 2a); m com pan.son
with what then was, there remain only the bones of the wutt:d body · · ·
the mere skeleton of the land being left' (lllb). It became lM rock
that Plato describes thus: 'The whole country is only a long promontory
extending far into the 1ea away from the rest of the continent' (•iroo
airo n?~ @.).fl( +r,,Elpov l"JlCi'O wponCJJOVaa. ek TO •f).«')'O( OUN' lbc.pa
,ce-tmt: Cntuu 11 la).u Athens is therefore condemned to seafaring and
all that that involves - political change, commerce, imperialism. But is
not that the fate of Atlantis? ls this extraordinary world, this island
'larger than Libya and Atia together' (Tim. 23d),M and whose Homeric
and oriental characteristics we have explored, A tltnsian ? 5 , Early on in
his account, Plato has ttcount to a very odd expPdient to nplain wh}·
the names he is going to use arc Greek: 'You must not be surpritcd if
you should perhaps hear Hellenic names given to foreignen' (ob Kai
n)& bvo,.am) (Critw ll3b): the story told to Solon came to him from
the Egyptian tongue and was then turned into Greek.. An entirely point·
less thing to say; unless the point is precisely to intimate that "lkUenic
names given to foreigners' might rn-cal rcalitie-s no less 1imilar. The
structure of Athens is fixed once and for all; that of Atlanti1, by con-
trast, is a continuous creation. First of all, it is on an island, and it hu a
fertile plain, like- that or Athens, which is close to the sea. Above this
plain, a mountain inhabited by a couple, Euenor and U:ucippc. 'born
from the earth' (Critics 113cd).H In the beginning, then, Atlantis w•
of the earth; and Poseidon, Lord of the island, ~fore he- became God
of the se-a, was a divinity of the aoil. To keep his affair with K.Jeito
secret, however, he fashioned round the mountain two circular
enclosures of e-arth, and thttc of sea; but Plato remark.a: 'no man could
get to the island, for ships and voyages were not yet thol.l8,ht or (Crifias
ll!de-). Th,: opposition bctwe-ie:n earth and water nonetheleu became
from that moment a fundamental aspect of the structure- of Atlantit. A
spring rises in the island's centre, no longu as a singl~ source which
could be used at any time of year as at Athens, but a, two fount.aim,
one hot, the other cold, which the God himtclf caused to flow.just u
he caused the famout 'sea' of Er«htheus to exist al Athens (Cn'WS
113e, 1 l 7a, cf. Herodotus 8.55).u Indeed, water appean on AtbnuD
in a rather less likely way, too: its soil is rich in every conceivable- mclal,
and especially in gold and the mysteriou,orichalcum (ll'K);andin the
Timaeus Plato tells us that meu.11, and the pwat metal, gold, in pit'
ticular, arc mnely v~eti.es of waur (Tim. 58b Q',).•
This temporal relationship between earth and water, which i• in iaiotlf
210
 A.ehf'ntMld Atlantis
sipificant. ii only the most •t:rilwat: aspect of a dualism which Plato
stttacs constantly and which proves that the structure of Atlantis is
constituted by the play of the apeiron, of non-identity.
The island rcfuae in the centre is five stades across; then there comes
a strt:tch of water one stadc wide, and then two groups of enclosures of
earth and water, two md three stades across respectively (Cn"tuu 115d-
l 16a).0 Thus we have a sequence which is more or less that of an
inttrtcd fugue: 5(5+2),1,2,2,5,5; anyone who leaves the island's centre
rapidly enten the world of doubleness.
CIOICly corresponding to the five enclosures which protect the island
IN: the five pain of twins which K.leito bean to Poseidon. In giving us
the tally of these twins (one of which bean both a bubarian and a
Greek nune: Gad.eiro1·EumClos}, Plato carefully distinguishes elder
from younger {Cnti&s ll.5e-114d}. Again, he records that some of the
buildinp were simple (lnM!} and others of different stones ('lfOUl:iAa);
some of the cisterns were open to the sky and others covered over;
'twice in the year they gathered the fruits of the earth', making use of
rain during the winter, and in the summer water from the canals. The
kinp held their mcetinp 'every fifth and every six year alternately,
thus giving equal honour to the odd and to the even number' (T~ TII!
bpr",1 IC.Od Tfi, •~p,rrft) µipO( loo1,1 hoff,ml"R'c} (Critw 116b, ll 7b,
l 18e, l 19d).42 When he describes in the Timoew the formation of the
natural world, from the World&ul to man, and from man to ftsh, Plato
is also describing the advances of non-homo11=ncity, which is supreme in
nature (plnuis}. Nature appears in Atlanti1 in al.I its limitlessness: trees,
different sorts of plants, fruit, animals, and in particular the elephant,
'the largest and greediest of the animals' (Critias I 15a}. This structure
has a history: the ten sons of Poseidon give rise to ten royal dynasties,
and these dynasties perform construction-works which link the centre
of the island to the sea beyond (Critia, Il5b-l 16a);41 the kings build
bridges and open the land to seafaring (117e). They improve the plain
by means of a grandiose system of canals (l 18ac).-.. They provide
themselves with a large army (119ab). 45 And, finally, lhey lay out in
the centre of the island a monumental area complete with a palace, a
sanctuary of Po,cidon, and cven a hone-racing circuit, as one might
expect on an island consecrated to that god (Cn"tias I 16c-l 17a). Plato
givct us figures for most of these undertakings: the temple, for exampk.
was 'a stade in length, and half a stade in width, and of a proponionalc
height (aul,lld'f"PCW) (116d}. If we convert that into pletlera, ~e get
6:5:2 - a limplc example, one of many, of a play on the ten pnmary
numbers, and above all, on the number 10, of which Atlantis provides
many instanccs.41
The descendants of Poseidon established a political system of singu·
211
PicrTC Vulal-Naquct
larly mixed character (CriMI 119b-12~). Within his o~ ~ ·
each king is sovueign. with power ewer life and dn.~h, ~ ~ t
conespond as well, in the cue of a philmopbc:r• to the 1de~ 1i1Uabon m
the Politic• (292d-297b), as to tynnay, in the op~ate cue.~•
group, the ten lungs constitute an oliprchy or amtoc:racy, which
govcms collectively in accorda:"cc with the pre~'! e n ~ , by the:
first kings on a column of onchalcum at Poseidon s behest. When
justice hu to be done, thnc rule• are as1u~d by the lcpduy oath.
which comi1ts CIICfttially in the pouring of the consecrated blood of a
bull, the characteristic means by which non-philo10phcn are able to
maintain a comtitutional ordinance."• And when a member of the
royal family is 10 be pu.t to death, it must be dccickd by a majority
verdict. From its inslitutiom, Atlantis might then appear to be one of
those successful mixed constitutions dacribcd in the Politic•, the
Tim•"u.r, the Pllilebw and lhe Uws; and indeed, for many gienerations,
'the lunp wen obedient to the laws. and well-affectioned towards the
god, whose 1eed they wen:' - tKy even thought "lightly of thr
pot1C11ion of gold and other property, which seemed only a bunlai to
them' (Critia.s l20c-12h).49 But the divine clement withered. and the
kinp were rilled 'with unrighteou1 ambition and power' (d.eGNfi«
iW6c:ou ,cm &ul'lll,,ltw<) (l2lab). 1• And it wu then that, to punish them,
Zru5.called ,.._her the company of the gods to the ccnttt of the uni·
vene, lo a place 'which .•. beholds all crated thin.gs' (ft ... ~
dvra lloa Tft'8fc.,( Jlfffi~~P) and that ... The dialopae breaks off
(12lbc). 'The hittory of Atlantis thus re¥Cals the •l£ume advance
towards disunity that we hwc seen in iu phylical structun:.
At thi, point, it is -,propriate to slteU, mon: than I haw dan.c 10 fu,
the Athenian upccu of the mighty island. K.leisthenes'1 refonns divided
A.thens into ten triba; and it is into ten puu that Poseidon dividu hil
own domoin (61,ca "'"" ...,..,....,.) (Cnlilu !Ue)-" When Plaio
speaks of orichalcum, the metal which played so large a part in tlle
prosperity of the kinp of A.dantis. he mentions that it wu 6m.0tc
precio111 in those clay1 than anything except gold' (llk). 12 The
description. of the harboun and their fortmc:ations is gn:ady indebted,
• hu often been noted, lo the complex K.ntbaros, Zu, Mounychia.
the ••VII yords (SAnotliiii) and the Anmol. The naval dadtyanlo ol
Atlantis had trireme, lyi111 in them; and Plato obsrrves of the poru-:.
"they were full of YCSHls and rHrchants coming frOfB all parh, who,
from their numbcn, kept up a multitudinous ,cnand of human n,icd.,
and din ""d clatter of all ,on, night ..d cloy (......is, . - eo,,,tlM
flDJT'O&mrCW) (l 17c).11 In other words, just like tbe Pineus.
Unlike" the royal palace, the temple of Poxidtn i, detcribea at length,
And in spite of its notic decorarion, it reminds one MtoaitbinPY of
212
 A.thfflS and Atlantis
the Parthenon. In the sanctuary stands the statue of Poseidon, mounted
in a chariot and surrounded by a hundred Sea-nymphs on dolphins; he
is 'of such a size that he touched the roof or the building with his head',
just Ii.kc Phcidiu's statue of Athcna Parthenos (116d;cf. Picard, 1939:
37-t). All thcsc statues were of gold. Wc att reminded of what Pericles
says in Thucydides: 'The gold with which the image of the goddess
was overlaid ... weighed forty talcnu pure' (2.13.5). All around the
tcmpk arc statues, and in particular those of the wives of the ten kings
(the tc:n eponymous heroes of K.leisthencs's city?); and Plato remarks,
curiously enough, that there were 'many other great offerings of kings
and of private persons, coming both from the city it.self and from the
foreign cities over which they held sway' (Critias 116c-ll 7a) - as
though he were thinking of Phcidia.s's two Athcna.s on the Acropolis,
Athena Promachos, set up by command of Pericles, and Athena
Lcmnia, which took its name from the Athenian clcruchs of Lcmnos
who dedicated it. 54
Finally, and most important, Atlantis became an imperial power:
Now in this idand of Adantil there wu a great and wonderful empire which had
rule over the whole idand and tnen.l othen, md over puu or the continent.
(TimMMS 25a;d. Crituu ntc)
Not satisfied with all this, i.ts leaders embarked on an overseas ex·
pcdition. Their clash with prehistoric Atheru brought upon them a
<2tastrophe comparable to that suffered by the Athens of history in
Sicily, or rccently experienced by her at the time when Plato was
writing the Timuw and the Critias, at the hands of her rebellious allies.
But we have still to explain, if we arc able to conclude the demon·
1tration, why Plato 1hould so oddly haYe mixed Athenian with 'oriental'
features in this historical myth. ln the Laws, he analyscs briefly the two
constitutions which 'are two mother forms of state from which the rest
may be truly said to be derived' (3, 693d): the despotism of Persia, and
Athenian democracy. The account is quite unhistorical, but Plato's
description of their development (Laws .3, 694a-70lb) c,tablishcs a
strict parallel between the two of them, strikingly reminiscent of the
history of Atlantis: the 1ame just, if precarious, equilibrium in the
beginning, the same disastrous evolution, which leads in the first case,
under the impulse of gold and imperialism, to the despotism of an
absolute ruler; and in the second, after the Persian Wars, and then the
abandonment of the old mowihi ( 'moral education'] to 'theatrocracy'.
I need hard.Jy add that the Persian king had by the fourth centur)
bccome enonnoutly influential in the Grcek world, whether directly or
through the Uit of satellites.

I We can now understand the true significance of the prahf of Athens in

213
Pierre Vidal-Naquet
the Tim•eus and in the CntiM. The technique is t:OIIUIIOl'I in Plato (see
Schaerer, 1948). In the PluJednu, he p~s the youn1 lsocratcs (278c:-
279ab),11 who at the time was actually an old man and Plato s
opponent. In doing so, he t:alls attention away from the real Jsoaace1
to a possible Isocrates, the philosopher-orator that he. was not. 1'hr
Athenian Stranger in the LawJ raises a protest when ~ Sp~ and
Cretan interlot:uton account for the institutions o( their counb"les b)·
appcalin1 to military DCCftlli.ty; and Plato then pvcs us a philosophiu.J.
Sparta and a philotOphical Cffte out of his i~r1:1.P:ation: '°':e ord~r or
them is disc:overed to his eyes, who has expcnence in laws pmcd e1ther
by study or by habit, althoush they arc far from being Klf-cridcnt to
the rest of mankind like ourxlves' (Laws l, 652d;cf. the philosophical
Sparta in Prolqo"" S42b).
Nevertheless, the moral of our story is complicated. Athens is lri·
wnphant. Thc city of Unity defeats the c:ity which hu allowed itaclf ta
be taken over by disunity md by heterogeneity. The waten dote over
Atlantis. Their absolute victory halu the advance or•non-identity. But
Athens loses her foundation in the earth and bct:omes Atlantis.96 b
this 'serious'? 'I say that about serious mattcn a mm should be serious,
and about a matter which is not serious he should not be serious ..•
only God is the natural and worthy objct:t of our most serious ...
endeavoun' (cnrov6,jc lq:IOP) (Low 7, 803t:). But Plato has just said that
if 'human affain are hardly worth considering in earnest ... yet we
must be in earnest about them, - a sad necessity constrains us' (803b).
Man is nothing but a puppet in the hands of God, a plaything made by
God for his own plcuutt (lfov n flld-yllfllfl ,..,nixcu,,r,..tflOI') (1,644d ff.,
7, 80St:). And so raan pays God homage by 'playing the mOlt beautiful
pm•• he can' (mlfoo,ra Itri ,callima< •ao&<ic) (7 ,803c). Myth llld hil-
tory, like all thinp that oome from imitation, arc arnon1 these pmcs.
N the Timuus hu it (59cd):

IW'II
•'*
A fflml may 9;0metima let meditations about eternal lhillp, and for RCrntlom
to eo111ider the truthl of pnen.1ion wbich ue proballle only; M wit thus . .
a pleuw-e not to be repealed of. and KC\lff rcw him.Sf wbile be ltYd • wiN ancl
modente putime (pi,'PfOI', . , •Gl&dlo .:Cli ~ ) .
A.II the same, the game is wonh it: at the beginning of the dialopc,
Critias crave, his hcarcn' indulF:nce by saying that he is aoin1 ' t o ~
of high mattm' (w< npi~.-,.!A""' /dllw• Ar,e") (Crilw JO&.:). II ie
more difficult, he says, to speak of men than of lhc: lf)ds, because •
man i1 alway1 demanding when a painter undcnakn to paint his por·
trait (107d). Poinllc11 -- if Plato were not say.ins to his contci:npo,aric•
what the seventeenth-century philosopher was nying to his: U ,,
/.bula UfflltlU'. n

214
12. Between Beasts and Gods
Mored DclieMC (1972; 1977)

Strong fcclinp were aroUKd at the end of the last century when the
English anthropological IChool claimed to have discovered. 'swvivals of
a savage state' in the thought, and in the society, which western civiliz:·
ation had confidently dcrmcd the tap-root of its own values and
principles. Could the Greeks - the Greeks, who had miraculously
divll\cd. Reason to be incarnate in man, and had thus been the first to
ttcogniu the privileged status of human beings in the world, ponibly
have luted human Resh, have been cannibals, like the Iroquois or the
savages of Melanesia? Tylor and his followers claimed that myths con-
tained evidence for previous st.ates of a society. If so, the banquet of
Thycstcs, Lykaon's sacrifice, the myth of Cronus, were now become so
many irttfutablc proofs that Plato's fordathen bort an uncomfortable
resemblance to the American Indians (Lang, 1885).
Though modem classicists may have insomnia, however, it is not
because they fret that Plato's great·grandpapa might have bem a
cannibal; and the problem is nowadays discussed in different terms. 1
With the exception of a quite unusual ritual such u that of the wolf·
man, during which initiates partook of human flesh mixed with pieces
of an animal victim, cannibalism in ancient Greece is now sem in sym·
bolic terms, whether in myth, religious thought or political ideology.
Consequently, its explanation can be in one of two forms. First, some
kind of thematic reading covering all the myths and stories in which the
motif occun, however incidentally: Dionysus eaten by the Titans,
Tc~ and Thycstcs feasting on their children, the Theban Sphinx who
ate the young men with whom she copulated, the offering by Tantalus
and Lykaon of human flesh to the gods, Cronus swallowing down the
offspring borne him by Rhea ... The motif of cannibal.ism is obvious
enough in each of these myths, but the very act of collecting them for
study is enough to meal fundamental differences. In each case the
meaning of what seems to be an act of cannibalism depends on the con·
text: only the context can make clear its true significance. Two
examples will scne to show that this first method offers ultimately no
solutions. Take the story of Cronus. A na'ivc reading of Hesiod may
leave the impression that Cronus is a cannibalistic father in that he
devours e..ch new-born child as Rhea presents it to him (1leogony
459-60). But the account takes on quite a different meaning when
21'
MaH-el Detienne
placed in iu proper context, the myths of so•,ereignty (d. Dcti~e ~
\'cmant, 1978: 64-7). Like Zau, who has an ickntical functl~ ~
Hesiod's myth, Cronus is a sovereign god fated to be d~roned b', h11
son, a child more powerful than his fathn ..To prevent tlus, Cronus and
Zeus alike devour (h.arapine-in) their offspnng. Cronus docs not ~at the
children Rhea bears him limb by limb: he gulps them down mbre and
alive, and so is able later to disgorge them under the influence of ~r
dru administered him by Zeus's accomplice Mc-tis - the selfsame Metu
wh!m Zeus, in his own twn threatened with dethronement by a more
powerful son, decides to ~ow a.ftcr their ~arri_age .so as to pounl
himself of all that swift cumung without which his reign would be as
bric£ as Cronus's. Neither Cronus nor Zeus ia a real cannibal. They arc
both 10vcreig:n gods who swallow their enemies so as to defend or to
establish their power.
Our second example is provided by the myths of Tpeus and Poly·
tcchnos (Mihailov, 1955: 77-208), two venioru of a story about a man
who unwittingly cats the flesh. of his own child served him by his own
wife. Taken out of context, this horrifying supper ia open to any num·
her of misinterpretations - it might, for example. be a Dionysiac
banquet or a cannibalistic meal. 1 But if we look at the mythological
context, we find that the stories bdong to a complex nf myths about
honey, and this allows us to define more closely the cannibalism of
Tcreus and Polytechnos.' The two myths att in fact parallel venions of
, story which begins with an uce.uiw- laon,ymoon and ends with the
duomposition of honey or its transformation into exc,~mnit. ln the
Tereus venion, the husband who abuses the honeymoon i, condemned
first to seduce and violate his sister-in-law, then to t:al the Oesh of his
son, and finally to change into a. hoop~. a bird which feed, on human
eitcrement. In the Polytechnos version (where Polytechnot is the wood·
peck.er, the master of bcu and honey), another e1tceu.ive honeymoon
leads the guilty husband by the same path - r..pc and cannibalism - to
death by honey: he is rolled in it and left to be bitten 11nd :1tung. The
punishment fits the crime perfectly, for he 'wallowed too long' or 'ate
too much' honey - both images used by the Greek., to refer to hon~-
moons and the pleasure given each other by a newly-married couple.
The myths of Tereus and Polytechnos tell how an improper u..w of
honey transforms wmething eatable into the opposite, cxcttmcnt or
rot. This transformation is mediated by a cannibalistic phlllC, defined i11
other myths of the same group as the state prior to the diKovcry ol
honey: in these myths, men ate each other until the Bee·Wo~n tautfit
them how to feed off honey pthered in the fordf.•
A structural analysis, then, aUowi WI to undentand the cannib.d.~
of these myths in two ways, ~ at one~ tM sign nf a RWH,ion to the
216
 B~twtffl Beasts and Gods
period before honey and a., the fint stage of a break.down of the honey·
diet, bt:forc it turns into dung (in the case of the hoopoc) or rottenness
(in the case of the woodpecker).
An alternative to a systematic reading of the different groups of
myths to which the stories concerning cannibalism belong is this:
cannibalism can be defined within the structure of Greek thin.king -
located within the cluster of images which the Greeks constructed,
about thcmscl~s and about ouuiders, at the level of eating habits. For
them, the eating of human flesh was ont of a number of forms of
cannibalism. As such, it was an essential term in a dietary code which,
in their religious and social thought, constitutes a grid capable of
representing the structure of relations between man, nature and the
supernatural.' So we have to make use of the system as a whole if we
arc to rescue cannibalism from the siding into which it was explicitly
shunted by the Greeks. For although Greek society rejected cannibalism
utterly, yet, by virtue of what it did have to say about it, it compdled
dissident individuals and groups to express their rejection of society in
terms of this very form of illicit consumption.
We cannot, in other words, define cannibalism in Greece simply
within the system of politico-religious ideas. We must also ddine it
from •outside', by looking at different ways in which Greeks cxpresscd
thtir rejection of the city and iu values. These rcjtctions were of differ·
ent kinds. Sometimes it was simply a matter or more or less isolated
indivw:luals, such as the Orphics or the Cynics. But protest could be
expressed in more or less orpnized sects or groups - the Pythagoreans,
or the worshippers of Dionysus. It is impossible to say whether they
actually thought of themselves as alternative rystnns or were simply
protests against the city. Nevcnheless, these four movemcnt!II,
Pythagoreanism, Orphism, the Dionysiac sects and the Cynics, can be
sttn a.s a set or four tenns each of which projects a mirror-image or the
politico-religious synem of the Greeks, in which cannibalism is given a
particular stress, either positive or negative.
We may begin by describing the politico·rcligious system which was
dominant in ancient Greece. It wu based on a ritual of sacrifice which
lies at the heart of Greek political life and which codified Greek rules
about tating. In Greece, the consumption of meat was intimately
related to the sacrifict, to the gods, of a domestic animal. The flesh of
this animal men kept for themselves, granting the gods the smoke from
the burning bones combined with the scent of the aromatics burned
with them. Such a practice marks a sharp division bttween mtn and
gods at the level of rules about food. Men receivt the me.i.t because to
Jive they have to cat flesh, perishable flesh, such as they themselves
are made of. The gods alone receive the aromas, perfumes, the incor·
217
Ma. c"l Detienne
ruptiblc substances which constitute the superior foods reserved for the

im:~~~~- defines the human condition i.n one direction. But then is
another definition implied in 1acrificc - against animals. But .htre, for a
number of reasons, the boundary is less sharp. Mtn and. anunals both
need to cat, and both suffer &om hunger, which is a 'sign' of death.
Some animal species, like man, arc carnivorous. Moreover, wh.crc.u men
and gods are so far sepan.ted that it is necessary to bum mce~ to
attract the gods to men's sacrifices, men and animal& are dose neigh·
hours ~ sometimes so close that it may be difficult for a group to draw
a clear distinction between ill own membcn and, say, the plough-01.
Within the framework of the city, the dominant ,ct of idcu about
the relationship between man and the animal world in ancient Greece
is to be found in the writings of .-.\ristotlc and the Stoics. It is agreed
that animals exist for man's benefit. They arc thtrt to provide him with
food, to supply him with clothing and help him in his work. According
to Aristotle, it is a just law of nature that man shoulcfltusc animals for
these purposes.' This vi.cw is echoed by the opponents of vcgeu.rianiml:
to give up using animals, they said, would risk man's 'leading a bestial
life' (Porphyry, De obstinmtia 1.4). Man is free in sovereign manner to
divide the animal world into two groups: the animals he protects for
the services he expects from them; and those he hunts for fear of the
harm they may do him. But domestic or wild, animals are invariably
regarded as crntures lacking reason, with whom men can establish no
relation of law. For animals arc incapable of 'making agreements among
themselves that they 1hould neither inflict nor ,uffer harm'.' The
animal world knows neither justice nor injustice; and it is dli1 funda-
mental ignoranct which the Greeks ~gardcd as the essential distinction
between animals and mankind. Separated from men. who live under the
rule of dilf.i, within legally-defined relations, animals arc condemned to
cat each other. The kingdom of cannibalism begins at the front.in
where justice ends. 'Thia is the law which the Son of Cronus has
decreed for men: fish and wild beasts and the birds of the air mav eat
each other, for there is no justice among them. But to men he has aittn
justice, which is by far the best.•• Consequently, just as between men
and gods, so the true distinction between men and -.nima.la is to be
found at the level 0£ rules about eating - except tlq.t here there ii I
double distinction, two levels. The most buK: of these ia the iHuc ~
cooling: 'Man is not an .animal that eats raw fiah.' (Porphyry, CJ,
obstinnitia 1.13). ln all Greek thinking, human food it inextricably
linked "r'iUl the fitt of sacrifice; while even the leut wild of dQfflntic
animals, the hubivorcs, arc 1till condemned ft eat food that is ROI
cooked (Detienne, 1977: lS). In effect, the aotion of 'besu.i~··
218
 Betwttn BetJJts and God.r
bepn, with the conaumption of uncooked food - and finishc1 up in
cannibalism.
Man's median position bctWttn beasts and gods is entrenched, but·
trcucd by the e11tire politico-religious 1ystcm, by way of the daily prac·
tice of 1acriflcc of animals whose flesh is then eaten. But in so rigid a
form.. this three-term mod.cl is neither adequate nor corTCct. It becomes
IO only when we accept that it has a dynunic dimension: the human
condition is dcrmed. not simply by what it is not, but by what it no
lonpr U. In the Greek city, where a proper history of culture usurped
the function of mythical discourse about how thinp began, there
developed a twofold tradition, according to which the Golden Age can
substhute for barbarism, and vice vcna. Sometimes, u in Hesiod, men
become caters of meat where once they had shared the food of the
god.1; and sometimes, as in the myth of the Bee-Women, men developed
their present eating-habits only after living for a long while like animals,
eating things raw and eating each other. We may put it thus: the model
contains two symmetrical starting-points, one at the 'top', the other at
the 'bottom'. They represent invcne orientations within the same con-
ceptual area, and their symmetry is emphasized by the presence at each
point, 'top' and 'bottom', of the same mediator, Prometheus. In the
one cue, through the invention of sacrifice, he brings about the tran·
sition from the Golden-Age fellowship with the gods to a diet of meat
(Vemant, Introduction to Detienne, 1977: xxvii-xxviii, and see pp.
59-62 above). In the other, he e:r.tricates mankind from savagery,
directs it away from an animal existence, by his gift of fire and by
inventing the difrerent trchnical sk.ills (Cole, 1967: 6, 20-1, 150). The
city does not feel compelled to make a choice between these two wa)'I
of putting it: it gives equal status to both venions. In its sacrificial
practice it implicitly assumes the process sketched by Hesiod's myth;
but in the various systems centred on its own history it tends to stress
the shih from cannibalism to a food-code characterized by the eating of
bread and meat.
The politico-religious system of thought, then, dearly proclaims
cannibalism to be a form of bestiality which the city unambiguously
ttjects. It sets it on the very margin of its history, in a previous~ of
human existence, or on the fringes of its geographical extension, among
the tribes which make up the Barbarian world. The geographical dis·
tribution 0£ 'savages' is organi:ted on the principle that the consumption
of raw food is a fonn of bestiality though it falls short of cannibalism
(d. Festugiere, 1972: 145-9). Eaten of raw meat are accordingly
found in remote areas of Gr«ce iuelf, such u northern Aetolia, the
home of the Eurytanes, 'who, it is said, speak a completely unintelligible
languaRC and eat raw meat' (Thucydides 3.94). Genuine cannibals live
219
~;u .:"1 Detienne

in £ar-orr lands. One exampk i1 the Scythians, who cat ~um~ fklh
and like othen or their kind, drink marr"1 milk (Ephoru.t. U'l FGrH 10
F 42 (• Strabo 7.3.9 (302C))). Herodo<us call, one tribe '!'•Man·
eaten (Androphagoi), and says, 'their cu1toma att utterly bestial; they
do not observe justice nor do they have any law. They arc nomads · · ·
and alone of these peoples, cat human flcth" (4.106). AriltotJc. 1pc~
qu.itc clinically about 'bestial dispositiom', and rmds them likcwuc
unong tbe people• of the Pontus area, who show 'a tendcn':Y t~ mur~
md cannibalism• sometimes institutionalized amo111 certain mbcs wd
to provide each ~ther with children for banquctl (NicotNClann Ethics
7.5, 1148bl9-25;Poliliu l,4, 1338bl9-22). All of theoe ott eumpla
of cuuuDUism on the margiru or the civili&cd world which the Greeb
can 1imultu1coudy chanctcrizc, with Plato. u survivals of a primitive
human condition or cite, like Aristotle's contemporaries, u the origin
of the Lamia., the bogtyfflUI who comes at night to devour foetu.sa
md diacmbowels pregnant women to reach them (Laws 6, 782b6-c2;
Anon. Scholi:ut on Ni.com. Erla. 7.6 • CA.C 20, p. 427'57--40).
1bit 10Ciolocical perception or cannibalism must be supplemented b,.
another, which confirm.I the city's radical ~jection of all cannibalistic
behaviour. In Greek thought or the fifth and fourth centuries, the
tyrant (tunmnos} is a type explicitly defined in terms of the three-fold
model which underpin• the city's sacrificial practice and eating ruln.
Because his pown- derives from himself, without hil either huing had
it granted him m being oblipd to ntum it to the 'centre' (n muon),
the tyrant sets hirnsclr above other men and above the laws. lie is all·
powaful, which puts him on a lnel with the gods. However, by tht
same token, he is ndudcd from the community, is banished to an area
within which political theory ceases to diltinpish .aupcnnen from sub-
mcn - where it oblitenta the chum between god and be•t (Vemant
and Vidal-Noquet, 1972, 116-17, 128-50). In Plato', R.,,..blic, the
tyrant's behaviour W 1een u the naked inuption into the world of
primitive lu1ts which orclin.ariJy arc aroused in us only in sleep, when,
under the infl~n« of alcohol, the animal part or the IOU.I (ta
tlairiidu) dreams that it commits incest with the mother, npc, .,cl,
man or beat, rnurdcn the father or devoun ill own children (9,5 7lc-
d; cl. I0,619b-<:). Oullido the &amo al the city ond 1he hlorarchiql
1tructurc with which it is linked, man, god and beast are IIHll'ely intcr-
chan,cablc obj«ts of the tyranl"s desires, which w:.Gm?D him to iDclll
and parricide and rmaP.y to a.1to-cana:ibalism. hi atin1 his own 0-
ed blood, the tynat proclaims that he ii oataidc the twcf, a lOCW
outcast - jult as Ille scapegoat was expelled fn,m tbc city in tm:' C!GQllf:
of certain 1pring festivals in various parts of Grp. ··
To eat humu flcth is to enter a nOft,hwna,n world from which1:bcn'
220
 Bdwun Btasts and Gods
it usually no rctum. When, in his madneu, Cambyses detennined to
conq~r the 'Long-lived' Ethiopians, who were suppoted to shatt the
banquet or the Sun and live in bliss at the enda of the earth, his armies,
as they advanced further and further and ran out of food, were by
degrees reduced tint to eating their pack-anUllals, then to feeding on
grass and plants, and finally to eating nery tenth man, selected by lot.
Mad though he was, says Herodotus, Cambyses at once abandoned the
expedition, so much did he fear that his men would eat one another
and become as wild beasts;' like those Phoenician mercenaries and
Libyan dissidents who were reduced by hunger to eating each other
and whom Hannibal Barca, who conquered them, had trampled by his
elephants on the grounds that cannibals 'could not, without sacrilege,
continue to live with other men' (Porphyry, De abstinentia 2.5. 7). The
aamc mod.cl has proved its effectiveness as a means of exclusion in
countless polemics against groups whom it was desirable to denounce as
enemies of humanity. That they slept with their mothers or their
sisten; that they cut the throats of new-bom babes to devour their
Oesh, dipped bread in the blood and drank it - these were the crimes of
which the fint Christians were accused. The slanders were said by the
Greek Christian apologists Ori~n and Justin to have been started by
the Hellenized Jews in the second century AD; which did not prevent
their being used against the Jews in their turn more than once in cen-
turies to come. 10
However that may be, invenion is a basic mechanism in a whole area
of thought whose true significance lies in the dynamic relationship bc-
tw«n four kinds of anti-system, each of which converts the terms of
the basic model for its own purposes. By taking one of the two direc·
tions available in the original - up or down - the politico-religious
system can be transcended, in a movement either towards the gods, or
towards the beasts. The Pythagoreans and Orphics explored the first
possibility, Dionysiac movements and, later, Cynicism, the second. But
whatever the form taken by rejection of the politico-religious system,
or protest, in the city, those involved were invariably co~pelled. to
adopt a certain view of cannibalism and to define themselves m relation
toit.
In Greek religion Orphism and Pythagoreanism are of course. the ~e.st
known forms of deviance. Speaking generally, they were m ongm
religious movements which rejected the city's ~ystem of values, and
challenged its assumption of a fundamental relation between m~n and
gods founded on the division establish~d by Prome.theus at the moment
when, by reserving the meat for mankind, he depnved them for eve~ of
their former fellowship with the gods. The main thrust of Pythagorcan1sm
is directed towuds dietary rules; it insists, with varying degrees of
221
 Ylarctl Detienne
strictness, on a diet which docs not contain meat ~Detienne. ~977:
40-57). In practice, Pythagorcanism adopted two diHermt ~rutu~
towards blood-sacrifice and the city. On the one hand, there 11 the ~-
transigent rejection on the pan or a sect which set it~Ir up a, an ann·
city. On the other, a milder form of rejection. prac~tsed by a group
which was political rather than religious, and which med to reform the
cit,· from within. The fint group rejected any form or meat; the second
co~promised by determining that some sacrificial vi~tims - pig, and
goats - were not 'meat' in the strict sense. True meat 1s the flesh of the
plough-ox, and its slaughter they strictly forbade. .
Of these two approaches, only the ftnt deserves to be descnbed as
'renunciation' (which is the basis of its claim to ~ an anti-systnn). The
strict vegetarians regarded all blood saaificc u murder, and in the
ntremc case, cannibalism. It was this that they attacked in their myths
about the bean. The mythical food of the goch and or the Golden Age
was spices. The bean, a leguminous plant, is the po'lar oppositt of
spices: because it has no nodes on the stem, the bean is in direct con·
tact with the world or the dead, to which it anyway belongs Mcausc of
ill associations with rott~ss. lnvcncly, spices, which Mlons to the
world of the gods by virtue of their solar nature and their dryncn,
effect direct communication with the divine. For the Pythagoreans,
however, the bean is even more: it is a creature of flesh and blood, W
double of the man by whose sidt it gro",, on the same dungheap, feed·
ing on the same decomposition. Cons~ucntly, it is for them as gnvt a
crime to eat beans as to 'gnaw the heads of one's parents'. They proved
this by a series of experiments describtd in the Pythagorean tradi1ion.
A bean was placed in a pot or in a closed vessel and covered in dung or
buried in the earth: this in some mysttrious way 'cooked' it. After a
gestation period of indeterminate length, the bean was transformed
eitbtr into a woman's vulva. with a partly-formed child's head a.ttached
to it, or into a human head with already recognizable reatutts.
ln these experiments the pot is a. matrix duigncd to reveal the be.n's
true nature; the same end could be achieved by biting or squcnin1 the
bean and then leaving it for a few momenu in the sun. It then 1ave off,
by all accounts, a smell either or sperm or of blood shed in murder. To
the vegetarians those who ate the sacrificial victims, the city·ca.mivortt,
are to be classified with one of the two extreme rorms of besti.!ity:
with the Lamia, who eau the foetuses she tears from the wombs of
pregnant women, or with the cannibal son who devoun the hea.da..ul
those who arc neatest and most pttcio• to him. The 'putt'
Pythagorcan1 rrvencd the model which .subtendtthe po IQ, and so mack
,11/11 their sect inlo an anti-system, a cowttcr-polis. They ftnt rcduttd that
model from three terms to two (meat : not-meat}; and thn said tlw
222
 Bdween Beasts and Gods
cannibalism is nol rtlc:gated to distant savages but is to be found in the
polis itself, among the men who sacrifice on the altan in honour of the
gods. And that is the meaning of the tradition which say9 that
Pythagoras invented vegetarianism in order to wean his contemporaries
£ram their previous custom of eatU\g each other. 11
The Orph.ics were no less radical; their rejection of the world
involved them in the same sharp invenion as the utreme Pythagoreans.
There is a paradox in Orphic thinking: the most important teaching
that Orpheus left to mankind was the instruction to 'abstain from
murder' (phon.ot) - a sect symbolon for the rejection of the practice of
blood-&acrifice and the eating of meat. On the other hand, the Orphics'
~ntral myth is an account of a sacrifice involving cooking and eating.
The young Dionysus is the victim; the Titans his sacrificers. The victim
is eaten a(tcr being cooked in two ways: first by boiling, and then b)
roasting on the spit. Now this must n=main paradoxical so long as we
n=gard the myth as an account of some sort of communal meal. But
what if we sec: the Titaru' sacrifice in relation to that of Prometheus? It
becomes at once apparent that both arc primordial sacrifices:
Prometheus's sacrifice established the relationship between men and
gods; but the Orphic story presents the Titans' sacrifice as a cannibal
meal whose sacrificial character is underlined by the methods of cook-
ing employed. The Titans' sacrifice has two consequences: immediately,
their punishment - they arc destroyed by a thunderbolt; but from their
ashes is born the human race which, every time it offers sacrifice to the
gods, unwittingly repeats the murder and cannibal banquet performed
by its remote forebears. 12
The Orphics' distinction coincides exactly with the Pythagoreans':
'cannibals' arc those who cat meat and do not follow the bio:s o,philtos,
the Orphic way, that is, who do not attempt to purify the divine
clement imprisoned in man by the gTCCd or the Titans, or to overcome
the rift cut by blood-sacrifice between mankind and god. In effect,
then, cannibalism has for these two sectarian movements the same
negative connotations that it has for the polis itself, in spite of their
bc:Ulg inversions of the dominant politico-religious system in Greece.
It is quite otherwise with the other two protest movements which
constitute this group of four anti-systems in the: history of th.e Greek
polis between the sixth and the fourth centuries BC. Both in D1onysiac
cult and in Cynicism cannibalism is seen as an extension of 'eating raw'
md becomes a meam of achieving that subversion of the order of the
polis which is their shared aim, a subversion from within, the one at ii
religiout lC'\lel, the other at a socio-political one.
In relation to the polis, the position of Dionysiac cult is plain: it
~ffects from 'below' the rejection of sacrifice wh1d1 Orphics and
22S
,brccl Detienne
Pythagoreans effected from 'above'. In ~ion!aiac cult,~ utter contmapt
of the rules for polil-sacrm«, an anunal II hunted m th~ moun~
torn to pieces while still alive and con~ taW, ly thu mean,. tH
boundaries betw«n animals and men arc efCacccl. human and anilul
intcrpenetrate, become indistinguishable. The MKnadl ~ Bacchlimel
suckle young wild beasts at their breasu. At lbe same tune, du:y tev
panthen and deer limb from limb. It is as if, iD m attempt to become
IDOft utterly 'wild' the wonhippc:n of Dionysus had 6.nt to soften the
crn.tures of the wild, mate friends with them even to the point of .elf·
identification. But Dionytul the wild hunter is not simply an 'eater of
nw Oesh' (OmediOI, O,nilli1). The practice of eating n.w flesh which he
demands or his followcn lads them to imitate wild animals in pnfonn·
Ing the cruellest acts of cuanibalism (Schmidt, 1959: 580-2;Jeanrnaire,
1951: 256). A number of ritual details C011finn the betttr·knowa
literary accounH of tbe myth. On Chios, Tenedo1 and Lcsbot, DionylllU
hungen for human Oesh; the victim tom apart in his llonour is a m111.
In Euripides's BtKchu, Agave is pounsed by the god whom her IOR
Pentheu1 hu 1COmed; and wllen Pentheus come• to the mountains to
mock the maddened women, she hunts him down - seein1 him u a
lion-cub or young bull, 'lhlll)' like a wild uumal' (1185-9), a victim
which she tCll'I apart with her own hands and 1tart1 to devour. The
same frenzy attacks the daqhten of Minyu. They ~ \ttavin1, more
interested in getting married than in going off to bacchic orgie1 in the
bush. Dionysus mu.a them join the Maenads; in their madness they
conceive 'a delire for human flelh', and choose by lot one of their own
children, tearing him limb from limb u thouP, he were a yoUJll
animal."
In all these traditions, cannibalism appean within dte context o(
'eating nw Oelh'. It ckarly constitutes the ultimate form of the 1tate of
'savqery' to which Dionyliac cult claims to restore us. To eat htMDIII
flesh, to mp~ in cannibalism, seems to be pan of a pattcm of
behaviour designed to make men 'savaae', lo put them in do.er coal.Id
with the mpematural (represented here by Dionysus F..atcr of Men)
through possession.
But we should enq~ whether the cult of Diony.us 1n..w,q
attributed to cannibalim the aame positive Me it attached to the ,aw
consumption of a wild animal caught by huntifta.. la one wnioll of WI]
story of the dauah,ten of Minym, the llilliq of the duld prl1li0kai •
anFY reaction from odlcr Bacchmuea: they abando1I their wild ~
through the mountain,. and tam on th.e unnatural lbodlera (A.diM.
v• .;. ~;,,,,,;. 5.42). Lik<wi,., at di• •n~ • £uripida'• ploy, dlO
death of Pent.bew ii presented• a murder i.ncurriac p.UU.U.t A,pte,ii
amt into uilc (1674). On thil occasion, it it. Dionysus biauelf who
224
 Betw~~n s~asts •ntl Gods
pronounces the aentcnce, thus condemning the behaviour which he
him.elf had apparently commanded. It is of course true that in each
cue ·the eater of raw flesh' only tunas those into cannibah who resitt
him and refuse to have anything to do with his 'savagery'. This does not
however mean that the pn.ctice of cannibalism is foreign to Dionysiac
wonhlp: it is rather an essential clement within it, but an ambiguous
one. Thu is clear particularly in the story of the Bassani, the wor·
shippen of Dionysus in Thracc. 'Not content with orfering sacrifices of
buU., the Basaani of old eng•d in the madness of human sacrifice -
even to the point of eating the victims' (Porphyry, De obstinentia 2.8).
Porphyry goes on to note that the Bassarai 'did in this respect exactly
as we do with animals, since we too offer the fint portion to the gods,
and cat the rest in the feast'. But the panllcl stops there. For, as he
continues, 'everyone knows the story of how they were stricken with
madness, anacked and killed one another, actually eating the blcedin!l
flesh, not resting till they had wiped out the family which had first
practised ruch sacrifice'.
At this point cannibalism reveals its inner contradictions. In the cult
of Dionysus it appears as the extreme fonn of 'savagery' which Dionysus
offers as a path for his worshippers. But here Dionysus docs not inter-
vene to condemn the eaten of human flesh: they destroy themselves.
Possessed by a manic hunger, the Bassarai arc not able to restrain them·
selves from attacking each other. Furiously they tear each other apart
and cat the flesh, a cannibal-crescendo. But, and this i.s my point,
cannibalism cannot reach illl crescendo without destroying itself. The
choice is simple. Either the Bassarai destroy themselves to the last
woma.n, or the cannibalism at the heart of Dionysiac religion must be
severely restricted. To end the epidemic of cannibalism, which threatens
to wipe the worshippers of Dionysus out, the Bassarai must kill those
of the group who arc known to have begun these dreadful rites. In its
pure form, cannibalism is impossible. Dionysiac worship, which nurses
it and lllte&Taks it into some of its rituals, can use it only under severe
controls ... And the extent to which it docs tolerate cannibalism
corresponds exactly to the degree to which the Dionysiac movement,
while maintaining 'transcendence through savagery' as an ideal, remained
an essential part of the religion of the polis. h was always oppose~, but
alway~ inside. It never took the fonn of an anti-system totally ahen tu
the official religion.
It was this 'impossible' cannibalism which was taken up by the:
Cynics as part of their programme. At first sight, this programme looks
• if it were parallel to the Dionysiac one, in that it too involves a
tttwn to primitive 'savagery' (Hauulciter, 1935: 167-84). But ~~ere
the Dion~iac movement operates mainly at the level of rchgion,
22,
~,reel Detienne
Cynicism is a system of ideu wbich attacks socll:tr at every In-el. In
theory and in daily life, the CyniCI dnelopcd amu~. not merely of
the polis, but also of social order and civilization: Thetr protest wm a
general a11ault upon civilized life. 1• It developed lft the fourth century
BC with the genenl crisis of the polu, and one of its main themes - a
return to a state of 'savagery'. 11 Neptivdy, it dc:aicd the life of the
city and rejected the material comlons of civilization. Positively_, it
tried to get bade. to the simple life of the first men, -.ho drank 1pnnr-
water and fed on acorns pthered on the ground or on planu which
they collected. It Cynia proposed two modcb for the procc• of re-
education so that men ffliabt be able to coosume raw plants: the uvaga
who had preserwd this way of life intact; and animals, who had nner
been colT\lptcd by Promethean rue:. In effect, Cynicism was pameatcd.
by an anti-Promethean current, directed apin1t the invention of manu-
facturing, civilizing, fire.I' To become '18Va8'' it was not enough to cat
raw like Diogenes (who paid with his life '#Mn he foulJht with IOfflC
dop over a piece of nw octopu1: Dio Chrysostom 6.~ j Plutarch, A9•
111n 1"'pu util. 2, 956b). It wa1 also necc,sary to dismantle the S)'ltclll of
values on which ,ocicty wu based. The journey back to •savapry'
bcpn with a aitiquc of Prometheus - not here the fint sacrificn
responsible for the 1cparation of gods and men, but the civilizing Titan
of cultural anthropology, the mediator RSp01Uiblc, by his Greek gift
of fire, for educating man. out of his primitive 1tate.
The cult of Dionyms 1printed into the slate of savagery, in punuit of
possellion and contact with th" supematu.nll; it wu quite otherwise
amon1 the Cynics. Amo111 them, we rand a rrtuat into 'savap:ry', a
p-adual descent in several staga. Fint. raw food and the condemnation
of fire. TMn two buic demands. for the abolition of the incest taboos;
and for toleration or auto-cannibalism. Both can be round in Diopna
of Sinope. The rust occun ironically: 'Why did Oedipus complain so
violently of being both brother and fuhcr to his children, at oner
husband and son or the samf: woman? Coc.U, dop and donkey• don't
make aach a fuu, nor do the Pcnian1' (Dio Cbry1ostom 10.29-:SO). lu
ror the 1econd demand. not conknt with obJcrving that at lcut 01'II
society bu no taboo on eating human flab, Diogenes wu IUppOICd: to
have actually 'taught children that they should herd their mothen and
fatbcn to the DCnracial llltan llld cat them IO ·dle lut ac:np'
(Thcophilu,, Ad A•rofy"'m S.5 • SVF S F 750). - .. puricide;
cannibalism: the buic interdictions are overthrown. The climn.utliac c,j
society reaches dowa to virgin IOil, to where Cynici• cauld f"md
nothinc but the putt individ\111, priOI' to IOdcty, prior to ..-Y ~
life. It ii only in this context of the radical ~niMBII of ciwliae:dlift
that cannibalisra could acquire an utterly politive nlue - a .&ue ii
226
 Brtrvet'n Jfrasts and Gods
could never either so openly or so ea.,ily be Kivcn b} the cult of
Dionysus, a collective movement that was unalterably Greek. For it is
obviousJy only 'intellectuals' like the Cynics who can afford the luxury
of making the cannibal son an ideal so as to assert the rights of the
individua] against the collectivity, against any form of civilization.

These four solutions, all based on the dominant model of the polis,
differ in rt'lation to their judgement upon cannibalism, and can be
classified in two groups. The first, Pythagoreanism and Orphism, by
their own account anti·systcms. merely reverses the polis·modcl an<l
condemns within the poli.s the cannihali~tic activity the polis condemm
in the world 'beyond'. The other, ~tarting from within the politm>·
religious system of the polis, tric~ to use cannibalism against the polis ~o
as to destroy it or to introduce inlo it what Plato would call the Othn
At the same time, the four schemas do not exhaust the solution,
theoretically available by combining the elements offered h} the model
from which we began. We arc offerc-d in effect two solutions only. each
of which appeacs in two diffuent forms between the sixth .md fourth
centuries BC. :\11 the same, I am inclined for a number of reasons to
speak of a system of 1tkas. There is first the constant substitution, in
the mythical and le:,!;end.1.ry tradition concerning the aboriginal state of
man, be-tween Golden Aie and a state of 'savagery'. And there is the
character of Promethc-us, which shifts according to whether he effects
the mediation once men lost fellowship with the gods; or whether he
becomes the mediator by bringing about the end of the state of
'sa\·agery' which men once shared with the animals.
To these two arguments history adds a third. which confirms the
coherence of tJ1e system and the relation between its s) mmetrical
starting-points. This is the transformation of one solution into its
oppoi.ite, which can In: seen taking _p_lacc in the _sc_cond t~ird ol the
fourth century BC when, after pnhlical and rdigwus failure, some
Pythagoreans tum into Cynics almost before our_eycs. . .
By the end of the fifth c~ntury, Py_thagoreanism had finally ~ailed m
its political aim of reforming the city. Persecuted ,mil harncd. the
disciples of Pythagoras scattered. :\ small group managed to sur.·~v<" al
Phlius. Archyta.s went to ma.kc a career at Tarentum. rhe m.aJont)
abandoned ~lagna Graecia (von Fritz, )963: 214-19). As a group th
P) th.i.i,;oreans were finished: neither sect nor brot~erhood r:mamcd \
fe\\ sunivors g.i.thcred in Atht'ns, and some details o~ then c!1d1.1(_tn
anJ wav of life arc prc~ervcd in fragments of the Athenian comic poets,
Antiph~es, Aristophon and Ale,tis (:\Ieautis, 1922: 10 18; Burke-rt,
1972a: 198--201). Extraordinarily, the Pythagorc.m h,u beco_mt' a
character in comedy. :,.iot a trace of the !o:r.1H. wh1tr robed f11-,'tlre.
227
M::!:f'CelDetieMe
dedicated to asceticism, who strove after holiness within the sect's
nUTOW rule,. The new Pythagorean is a tramp. Bucfoot and fdthy, he
drinks from sucams and goes down into ravines to fttd on wild herba
such as sea-pu.nlane. 11 A beggar-bag on his back, a shabby short cloak
slung over his shoulden, he wean his hair long and 1lecpt rough summa
and winter. People couldn't gt't over it. Could thC'SC' shabby unsha,-cn
hoboes still be called Pythagoreans? There was nothin1 whatner in
their behaviour to diltin111iah them from Cynics; they even borrowed
the Cynic's characteristic labels, the bcgpr·bag and the short cloak. 11
This very question was ulr.cd already by anml\t historian, 0£ phil·
osophy; and their perplexity is often shared by modem scholan.Jt
Thett Jived in A.thens in tbc fint half of the fourth century BC a
stranF philosopher named Diodoru.1 of Aspcndus, who claimed to be a
disciple of Pytha,oru but who dressed and Hhaved. like a Cynic.
According to a contemporuy, he 'wu a follower of Pythagoru, but
pthcred a large following by his pachydermous fatuity tnd repertoire
of insultl' (Stratonik.01 ap. Athenacu.s, Dn/fflo1oplaist. 4.56, 16.5c-f).
But do we really have to follow the author of the little-known Pl&ilos·
ophrn in Sequenu in accusing Diodorus of affectation in wearing l q
hair and a short cloak, 'where in former times the Pythagoreans dreSIC'd
neatly, practised mauqc, cut their hair and trimmed their beards in the
usual way' (Sosicrates, op. A.thcnacus, Dnf'rao,oplwlltt 4,56, 16.5c-f)?
ls it not more likely that Diodoru11s ambipity is to be sccn as an.
example of a shift cvidmced. at the 1&111.e period in the Comic writen,
whoK" most successful st.it on it is the scene in which strict ~urians
fight greedily over bits of dog's flesh (Alexis, TGHAti,u,s frs. 219 (CAF
2, pp. 377-81)?
It looks very much• if, with the failure of the solution from 'above:',
the lut Pythagorean, had to make a choice between two, md only two,
possibilities. They could either go bac:lr. into the polu md be ablorbed;
or they could atttmpt from the 'bottom', talr.in.g the individualist tack.
that transcendence of the polis which they had failed to achieve from
'above'. And there can be little doubt bu.t that the model pm:,,.....:
luuu allows us to accoumt most satisfactorily for the fact that the
im.p of the child eating ill parenu should haw been na.luated, over a
time-span of two centuria, tint neptivdy and then positively by tbc
u.me diuidcnt movement of the ancient world.

221
Abbreviations used

AIPH A"n11llli,1 tu l'/,utitwt dt P,iilolalit d d1listoirt Odtntal,s dt

l'Uflftl...-siti librt dt Bru1Ut1 (Bruullc1)
AJA Affterit'an/ou"'41 of ArduuoUlty (Princeton)
AJP,. .A.1t1fflu11/our,tal of Philolon (Baltimore)
A,cM:6-s Archtolofic Clcuic11. Rivilta ddl1atituto di Archcolo,ia dell'
Uniffnitl di Roma (Roma)
ARW Artlut' /Nr Rtlifioruwisstruchaft (Leipzia:: Leipzig-Bulin}
ASNP Anourli dtlt. ScuoUI Nof'fflal, Supffior. di Pisa, CUUst di L,ttu,:
t Filosofi,,, (Pisa)
ASSPII Ann1U111'1 dt t. Sociitt Suisse d, Philosophi.t (Sludia Phifos
opliica)(Bud)
BARB Bidltti11 dt Iii, Ct.,.u d,s Ltttns dt f',fradtmit Ro-,al, d,
Btlfiiiu (BN:11:1:Ua)
•CH Btdlttin (U Corrnpondanu Helli11iqu, (Puis)
Bf.FAil Bibliothequc da £colcs fI'U11;abet d'Athctlcs cl de Rome
•J Bo111U"r Jolarbwehn dts Rhtittisclltn L111td,n11wse1ur11 in Bonn
und dts Vn.i,u 11011 A.lt,rtufft1frn"1dtn im Rho:inJondo:
(Kn-ci-r)
CAF Th. Koclr.., Conti.con,m Allicon,m Frq,r,en.t", 3 vol1., 1880-8,
U'ipzi(
CAG Co'""'~torio ifl AriJtotelo:'" ,,_,a, 24vob., 1883-1909, Berlin
CAIEF Cohier, do: l'Auocitltio,i int-.tioNllo: d,, ltudei Fron,oisei
(Pari1)
CHM Cahirr, d'Histoire '"ondMlo: (Nc11chitcl)
CPI, Ct.stico/ Philoloty (Ch.icq:o)
CQ Tiu Cl.sricci Q..arterl1 {O.Corcl)
CR Tiu Clluti,.J R,..,w111 (Od"ord)
CRAI Co,.,.pto:1 R,rui,u do: l'A,lldimi, lk1 Jn1cri1'tion1 (Pari1)
CSSH Co,.,.,-ti11, StMdiri in Socidy '"'d. Hi,1ory (Cambrid1c)
Dattmberf-Sqlio Ch. Dan:mbcr(, Edm. Sq:lio (ed.). Dicllonn"ir" dn Antiquith
,ro:cqu,s o:t ronurin<'I d'epric, ltJ to:11:to:r ,t /" mo111,,.,.cnt1, 5 vQb.
iA 10, 1877-1919,Paris
DELG Pinn Chantninc, DictiQnnofro: itymologi.q .. , de lo lonpo:
,ro:cqut:ll1,1oiro:dt1'"ob, l968- ,Pari1
FGrH Fcl.ixJKoby, Di, Fropnt, dtr Grw',1111'11.tn Historilur, 3 vol,
in 14, 1923-58, Berlin and Leiden
FHG K. and Th. M11Uer (eds.), Frog,.,.tnlil J/istoricon,m Grouon,m,
5 vob., 1878-85, Pari1
FVS H. Diel, and W. Kranr. (eds.), DW Fr11r,unlo: dtr V,w10,troti.lie•.
6 ed., 3 voi.., 1951- 2, Berlin -Grunewald
GGA G01t.i111ilchc Gdehrtc Amei1cn (".OU.iq:cn)
GGrM K. MWkr (ed.), Gtu,raphi Grul:I Minor,1, 2 vol1., 1882, Pu'"
HTltR Hor-uord Tllo:ulogicol Ro:VU!w (Cambri~, Mus.)
IC Mar,hcrita Guarducd (ed.), J,isl:nptiono:1 Cro:lic•• opo:ro et
consilio Fridorici H.Jbh~ colkctu, 4 voll. htltu.to di Archo:o·
lo1ia c Storia dcU'Ano:. I 9'S-!i0, RQmll

229
.Abbreviations
M.L. Wnt (ed.), /.,,abi tt Elt,i Gr.eci-1• Ak..... drw• , .. r.a,
IEG
2vob., 1971-2,0:dord
JG
/JG
~~'~!::. 1
~-~:-~~i!;", ·~rinach (edl.), '!•naril "'1
i,ucriptioru juridU,uu ,ncques, 2. 11'011., 1191-1, P_an• .
JdAJ
JESHO
Jt11&,bud1 de1 dnt.ldrn Arcl&iaio~clu_• f,unt,,ts ( ~ )
Joumal of llst Ecoflo1"fr artd So,ial Hutory of Ille
(Leiden)
°"'"'
/HI /011,-1 of tlit HUt--, of /tutu (Ephn.ta, h)
/HS /011""'1 of HtUtnic ~tudu1 (London) .. . .
J6At Jt1lire1lief1e du 611nnicliUclsn1 Arclaaolopchne [,uhh,t.,
(Wien)
/WCI Jou,.,,.J of the W•hrf t111d Coul'Uuld /,utitt,te, (Lo~don)
LGRM W.H. R.OIChcr (ed.), Aw1fiilsrlic~1 Luico11 der Gried11d•11
un.d RO,,.isdtn Mytl&olo,U, 8 vob., 1184-1931, Leip&ic
MEFR Mii...,ts d'Arclsiolol't d d'HUtoire de l'lcolt Fnuu;ime 4t
Ro,,.• (Paris)
OF Otto Kem (ed.), 0,ph:o,,.,,. fraptfl.ltl, 1922, Berlin (repr
1963)
KPltS Proceedinp of tlst Ct11"brid1• Plsiiolof'cal SQcitty (Cambri.)
PG J.-P. Mipe (ed.),Patrolo~ - 1fflt1 , , _ ,•• Puis
,MG D.L. Pace (cd.),Poet•• MeliciG,111ci, 1972,0xfOl'd
Tiit 0KyrliynchWI Pt1pyri, 1898-, LoDd-
'°"'
"'
QUCC
Lt1 Pt1rolla dtl Passato: RWistt1 di S,..di a11Udi (Napoli)
QNtld,mi Url,irtali di Cadt•ra Clt111kt1 (Roma)
RA Rtntt Ardiolof'qi,tt (Paris)
RBPH Reuut Belft de Pliifolol'f' ti d'Hiltoirt (Bnis:eUe,)
RE Wis1owa, G., K.l'oll, E., etc. (eda.), Pt1uly1 Rtal-Encyclop,idM d~
ct.s1ilr:h.e" Altertum:rwi.ssnur:lit1ft, 1893-, Stuttpct
REA Rtuut drs t,-d,1 AP1cit11fl.tl (Bordea~)
REG R,.,..e dtt l1Mdtt1 GrecqMts (PW)
RGVV Reli,ion1~1eluchtlichr Venucht 11nd Vorubciten (Giutcn, latl'r
Bai.in)
RHDFE RtT!Nt HUtoriqi,e d, Droil Frn,;.;,, ti £ir-,tr (hri.l)
RhM RluiJtisclm MIUHlfl (FrMllr.fun)
RHR Rtrn,t dt l'Hisloirt du RtliJio,u (PW)
RIDA R,1111, lntntMtio1111lt des Droils tu l'Antiqa,ili (Bnutd.la)
RPIIFE Rn,i,, Pliilo,oplsiqa,t dt l• Frt1Jtct ti tu l'i,,,_I" (PUU)
SMSR Stadi ,t M11ttri.ali di Storill dtlu Rtlip,11i (Roma)
SVF J. •011 Amim (ed.),Stoicon,;,n
lndn:, I 90S-24, Ldpi;if
V,,e,,.,.. Frqm,.,.111, !, IIOU. wilh

TA.Pit.A. Tr1t111t1ctio111 -.d Proctedi"fJ of th, ,4,,.trir:oPI PhUCllopM

Auor:i:.no .. (Ckftlaad)
YCS Y•I• Ct.srictll Stlldit1 (Ncw lkll'cn)
zrE Zrituhrift fiir P-,ryrolo11·, .,.d Epiptlphilt (Bonu)

230
Notes

1. ne uiu. wlllt. Melil ad dlcaoftftip.ty or•--.

1 Hesiod, Tli:eopny 816: npw1111,1 ... Ml)rw ('Fint, Mcti1., .1; 901: flwrfpo,,
• , , 8eµu, ("Second, 1bcmil ... '). Attention hu often been drawn to the
rciplar triadic 1tnacturc of Hniod'1 lillinaofZeu1'1 wivc1 from neor"">' 907
(nuniap to Eurynomt foUowina; that to Thcmill) to 929 the end of the
catalosuc, l czcept Una 910-11, ncilcd by Muon (B~ edition) .,.d
Solm1e11 (OCT). Fnnn thia point of view, Ze111'1 f1111 two wives an: 1cpu-11c
fram \he rest of the teries, both fallin1 outside the triadic pattern of the
catalosuc of later muriqa. The fact that they dlarc thil n:ceptionaJ position
t. cmphuizcd by the OCCllffencc of the 111mc fonnuJa to round off the pusa,e
~=)~o each: llryalMp 1'E 11:a,uW tt ('1ood and ml'), 900 (Metia) and 906
2 If we think of thil pair of female divlnilir1 from the human 1tandpoint n.thcr
than lhat of the 1ods, they may be Hid 10 n:late, in the umc way, 10 oppoaik
upcct1 of oracular activity. The oracu.lu ut&eran« of Thcmil reproduces the
ncccaity and intranaipDCC of the 1od1' d«xcs, which mortal, canaot pin1ay.
Mcti1 com1porub to th.al feature of the \lit of oncln which involvn a tu-1e
between aocb and men, that dilcrcet and danfa'ow pme in which nothinf ii
firmly 1Ctded beforehand, and in which the playen have ·10 Ir.now precisely the
rich• moment to ulr. their quntion, to Ir.now whether to accept or rcj"t the
or"1e, and even how to Nm to their own adv.mtqe a rnpolllli' pven by the
aod in favour or their opponent.
My undcntandint: of the paiz" Tbemi1-Metil raay be or 1ome help in maJr.ina:
1Cn1C or Aleman', ulOciation between Air• and Poror in hil P,lhneion,
wheTe he prcscnu them u primaJ divinitie,, the 'oldnt or the pd.a': -,epoirotr04
[91WPJ (• StW11) (or, in ui.other recon1b'lldion, [ 6 ~ ) ')'fp0&rotr04) (.ee
Pa,r'1 mpparat111 to line1 U-14: al10p. !4). Frinlr.cl, 1975: 16!-4, er. 25!,
reprds A.ir• u the principle of dadny 1U1dcniood u abeolutc con1uaint, and
Po,.os u a name for the ,cope for individual Initiative which the future annu
anyone intelli,ent cnouafi to tum it to advantiifC. The relation between A.ir•
and 71untU ii obviou1; and that bttwfffl Po,oi and MC'tit: would be apparent
even without the C'Videncc provided by Plato. The Jin.Ir. between A.WI and
Po,.os, \air.en ., a compound U1d contn1UW pair or force1. i1 exactly that be-
tween Tbemil and MC'lil. Let me add that althoupl the p,.....-1 in the

:=: :=~~:c~:.u:,~:e::~ai:::..:~~;?!~y ~cc=•~~:=~=

cue. In the cue of MC'WI, it rcfen to the aood and the C'Vil apin11 which Metil
warm Zcu1 in advance:. 10 that the ltin1 or the aodl wiJI alway, be hi a position
10 find a way of cnlllrin1 the fint and c,capin( the second. But with Thcmi1. 11
rcfC'n to the aood and the evil Ufifned once and fM all time to wretched
morta.11 by thC' three Moirai [10mctime1 hereafter called 'Fatc,'I. t11e names or
the Moirai malr.e il quite clcill' that there ii no earthly way in which men can
uinul w dcflecl the ck1W1y (Air•) they 1ervc ov.t by virtue or the privile,e
pllnted them by Ze111 'p-lH'CI of •IIU' (n,,tp' ,nipf ,nrrifnt Ztut, 904).
! Mqrino: n. 56, 5!0, 904, 914; WOMI •,ad Dllys [WD) 104; ~ : TA.
216,457; WD 51, 7'9.
231
Note1 to pp. 3·--8
4 The manUlcript haa """*'·
row which F.A. Paley Md Gondille rnd ,-pl,,.
The qu.e1tion ii whethn we llbould loDow Cooll, 1914--40: 5'.744 a. 4, ...

=e~=~e~~;:':~~e::.<~::!:d"=~!"~:1!!
henelr Into a few drop• of liquid which he coald e.dly take. 1'11111 ~kl be ~e
inRrR of the 1Wailowinl we find ln the cue of Croa111: Medi ptl bua to *iDll

had intended co keep inlide for ever. ZCIII .ucccedl 1n ch...,.

a plulrMMon (philtre, charm, dnq) which compel, h~ to clilprp the.~ be
Metts lllto •
,,....,...._ IO that be can swallow her, and keep hn iatide the pit of hil belly
foe ever. [See Ibo n. 22 below. Ed.)
: ~ia5:':.-"2~::::;:;:::-:~c:~~:;:~~ ~4;~n 7
171eo,on,: 1eeCook, 1914-40: 5.745 n. 9 Mdnpttially Jta11er, 1959.
in Hniod'1

7 Io chil version, Hen lD l'fffllF p,e1 off 1nd producet BcphaNtu1 pglbnlo-
FJICCially. Hephac1uu ii IUJ'ffme amoQf the ,ocb ln knowlcdre and llr.ill .r a
pnctical-tn:hnical order, whlk Athena, to whom Ze111 P• birth analded, .ii
111Pff!De in all fonn• of pnp,.atic intelliplla:. (On dw thcme ofHen"I ·.-,.
taneou' parturition, we DOW Detienne, 1976: 75-111. Ed.)
I The tn.t haa llo>.ti 6ll'fUIILICIGII 'for 1111 hn t11min1', for ~ h letp n-MI
n>.P5QM'/ hucJal, 'c:lever thou,h ,he w•'· If we retain wc,M ~ . tbe
'turainl' mut be u.ndmtood co meaa Medi'• metlP!lorphOIH. her cmatant
lhiflinl from one lhapc to another.
9 The 1Choliut ..y1, 'Metil hM the power of chutprll into any lhapc lhe willlcd'
(on line 1116, p. 110 di Grqoriol.
10 Thetb and Pelcu: ICC Apollodona, BiW.'olla•u S.IS.S; cf. Pindar, Nna ....
4.61 SncU; ICholiMt on Lycophron, Al•,qnn 175, 178 (I, pp. IJ and II
Schca); tcholia on ApoDonhu or Rllodn, .4,,..._Hu 1.512 (p. SO. 19-20
Waadcl): Qwntua Smymu,u. Tltr F.U of 1hry (die ·c-tulu#o,. of R•"'ff'°)
9.618-24;0vtd,N•ltll"'orf'A.u, 11.Ht-65.
Pro1eu1 and Menelau: <My,rey 4.119-570.
Nimw and Heraltln: Apollodonal, .au,uouaec:• 2.5.11; Kholiall a11
Apolloniu1 of R.bodc1, A,p,...dh 4.1996 (p. 9 IS.2!-S Weacld).
II See Odyur, 4.4'7, 459 (dolo,, 'Uicli.'); 441, 469 (lodao.r, ·.,.bu.lb', 'tnp'I.
The dolo, which ldothca 1ugcata • to dllpllc Ma.elm, Uld hil lricncb by
pu.Uinc on tcal·lkln•. Maybe, when die hu.man1 llip into the pelts of ltelhly·
11Linncd 1ea-creatura, they don 101111cthlna: of their M l ~ ' • llippcrineM IIIUI
lh11tt in hil dniou "'""· '
12 ApoUodoru.1, li6l. 2.S.11: a u ) . ~ M abrO. .cofl.lWJIUO', •,ettin1 a pip oa
bim u he llcpt '.
IS llwul 585-91: Ara ii lhu.t up for thirteen month• in a broue jar, hOf"tied by
Oto, and f.pblaltn the 1Dn1 of Aldcu, and would la.ave perilhcd (hdMwo).
imatiablc 1od of wv thou.,h he be, had Hemtc1 not fCM1Dd a wsy of me. . .
him; 1111.d when he doa C1Cape, he ii lhri\.~Ucd 1111.d raded (ij&,J ~ -
14 Note the expreaionl ~ 6o>.ditaoGII Hc.,&ijl', 'alter ••tins t.be food ol
deception" (OF ,.,._ 141) and Tdl, 5'd: 1,11).,roc 16).om,, 'the trick wl&b the hoeey'
(Porphyry), for e::ir.unple; d. Wu~nll, 19'0: 699-H. ·

....... u.--.......-a..................
15 The fint pauap h• llo,,:OII -,~ ohr(j.l NII (.lngp ~ ; the aecoad

16 Vian, 1960: !i4 ripdy ot.ervea that 'Ulliltumi .ii a1tomc-.Wutc1add,tal.,

~=~~
fonnid.ablr only beca1t1e he ia ID lwp. Suicdy ~ . hr ia. lib ladllll
Vru, a l)'mbol of pallffe l'ma1UIU, a fon:e of ln«tia, lht Obllaclc • , .
1
17 ;g,"~~~•lhl•iacm.•nobnotnery cOftCCD'-
~ ~ · ~ ~ ~ t o n i n u 1 LibmU,, .w..-._,,,.,.,.11 frvphoa.J.l,

252
 Not•s to pp. 8-20
II N01111m of hnopoH11, Diotly,illi• 1.157-62; 2.250-7, !67-70; ICholiut on
Aetdl.yhd. Prbffltihh.l lloa,,,d 551 (p. 125.12 Heriqton); ,ee alto Wen., 1966:

'"·
19 Heliocl'1 tn:t heffDy ltJ'eUel the d'finity between the chaotic pit of Tutanu,
the di8ordcrly Htwe of Typhocua and tht whirlwincb' coafUllon: co1:11parT
n11opt1y 742 (Tanaru.1), 152-& (Typboeu.1) IDd 875-6 (whirlwinch).
20 In the 1tchlUCal lfflk in which 1he word i, ulltd by hUltorian1 of relipon.
21 Sec on thill point lludhardt, 1971: 94--7, who ma.Ir.a 'the co1Telatioo between
the myth, .bout Styx and thote conccnuaa U1brolia' quite plain.
22 My whole utument pnrridu, l think, l(>Od n:uon, for acceptin1 Cook'•
n:tmtion of ,rucpd,,, 'antidote', in the sc:hoUoa to Th1101ony 886, in 1r.cepinf
with the DlEIUICript readinf (set n. 4 above).

2. ne 'ka·Qow'
1 Ste for e•ample Keller, 1909-1': 2.243; Steier, 1952: 2412-ll;Thompton,
1956: 27-9, and 1951: SS5-9.
2 A 1imilar coDfution ii ehan.cterittic of the Latia term '"""''· gull: AndrC,
1967: 101-3.
5 Scholiut on the Odyuey &.66 (p. 248 Dindorf) (cf. on 1.441 too) .and
Hesychiu1, 1.v. cll'8uai I, no. 11193 Latte. We diould pcrhap1 identify thi1 '1ea
crow' with a mbtpecit1 of the Mans. Shearwattt, Pv./jintU pu/fintU yefJiouan,
with ThomP'On, 1958 and Andri, 1967: 61. (nil bird is local to Wand, and
couu of the Aclrial:ic, Aqu..a and Black Seu, and i1 certainly compatible in
behavioUJ and deru.ity of population with ancient account.I of the 11ithvi.1; 1ec:
moet n:ccntly Cnmp, 1977: 145-50. Ed.]
4 Slldi an a,ceount is Pffl by Dlonyd111 Pfflc,etn, btvtfron 2.S (p. 26, 15 rr.
GllffYa), of the taro,; but the lerml lmo1 and ...,hUN au IO cl01Cly ut0eiatcd,
and CYtn confuted, that the #lift from one to the c.thcr ii cuy: ,cc Steier,
1932: 2414-16. [Such a cont.won 1ten11 to mt more likely in learned tra-
dition., 1n11on1 .chol~ for whom all 1ea-birdl are mOl't or le• indimtinll'Whablc,
than amon1 actual ,ea-faren in the Archaic period: we h1Ye ollly to ttmcmber
Uvi-Strawt's obRTVation that tnad..itional 10Cictic1 tend to be n:tn:mcly
ob.enant or n.atural dilti.nctiom (1966a). Ed.)
5 Thcophrutu,, On w.alher-sips 2.28; Antu., Phat110,n11n11 950 Martin;
St"holiut on Antw,P.11-o,n,,,., 918 (p. Sil. 10 ff. Maau).
6 Two 1tudie1 hffe been devoted to Atheru1 •itllvi.s; one or them (Kioclr., 191§:
127-33) collected a number of rclevant plJIIICI, and the other (Anti, 1920:
270-!118) drew attention to a number of monumenu which could be repruen-
tation1 of a marine Athena either clad in , doalr. covered in •t~ (cf.
ph6S,h.on,1) or accompanied by a sea-bird. Neither of them paid any attcnl:ion
to the r61e of ,nllu in Guclr. thinkinl about Athena of lhe .ea.
7 In thUI contea.t, the er6idio1 ia doubtleN ,ome specie, or heron, perhap, the
Nip,t Heron (Nyelteo""" 11:yetfronu) jor the Squacco Htfon (,fr<kola
,o/louks). Ed.).
I Cf. fliad 10.242-7 (Diomede• ,peaking):
'If indeed you tell me mytd( to pklr. my companion,
how then could l foriet Odyaeus the godlilr.e, he whose
heart and who,e proud spirit are beyond all other, forwud
in al] hud c1:1deavoun, and Palla, Athene loves him. .
Wuc be ID to with me, both of u, could come bac,lr. from the b_lu1ng
of fire ittcl!, since hit mind LI bet! at dcrict1' (hr11!1 ffll!Piot& JVQOCU).
(tr. Lattbnotc)
9 Tha-e i, a definite parallditm between Juon "with one 11ndal' ("'o~o•npu)
an,d the ,A.ffO that losct part of ic.. 1tem: jut u Juon lo,n one of hb und.&11

233
,\",,t,s to pp. 20-J
while c:rouinJ a ford (a poro,) and th111 beconan flt to ~ndc~e Ute a·
pt,dition to retch the Golden Fleece. IO the A,p (ud. the bird ~~ P ~
it throqh the Symplqade1, a poros 1t tn) ii laU'lled 111 • very umil~ ~~Y m •
very limilar location. Roux, 1949: 92-5, hu riptly poincecl - t the unuatory

10 ~':.e~::~:~~~~2~7~pe, 19S6: HS-6;Homell, 1946: 142-l;lamett,

1951: 221-SO;David, 1960: US-60;Wach•uth, 1967: 119-92.
11 Note elJ>Ceially Pliny, HUtorN 11•tuNlil 6.15 (on a cwtol'II ffPO~ &om
Taprobanet • Ceylon); Charon or Lu,pucul io FCrH 262 F S; .\Kkpiada.or
TRphu ia FGrH 12 F 2b; Scholiut oa Apolloniu1 of Rhodn, A,a-011111111tiM

12 :·:,2::.:~. Sopbodea, A111df'onr 590; Pindar, P,ih'-' 4.209 Snell;lsd&ffl;..

5/4.18aSnell. {AIIOAlc&elll"1;. S7Edmonds• fq. Z2 (526) Lobel-Pap. Ed.I
15 For 'left, ri,t11' 1ec °"1'"1 5.527; in n.ut 25.520 it ii uled metaphorically, for
the path or lhe charioteer who drive, wi\hov.t ,,.,,u - '111 over the pl.cc'. For
'up,dowa', Ke Verdniu.1, 1964: 517.
14 For a.ample, Pindar, Py11&;.n S.104-5 Snell; l1thmY11 5/4.25--4 Snen;
Ofymp- 7.94-5.
15 For n.unple, 1.uripklH, In 1506; Ariltophaae1, h•er 945 Hall-Odden;
Plato, ,e.,_blic 6, SOid. The rDOlt recent treatment of the 1ea ill Greek
thoqht ii Wachunuth, 1967: 202U. •
16 See Heaod, n,op11:, 560. AcconiUll to (Plato), A..:Odu 561b, when man
(wbo ii c1ermec1 u one who ousht to I~ oa the land) launched himtelf OD to
the deep u thoqh he were amphibian, he becune enlinly the playdlinl of
Tye/a•.
17 Aetchyb.1, S"""1Mlfll w-,... 525: flflilw 6' hOCTO mi fVX'l •PCIKn)pc«, 'may
Perwuion and Fortune attend me!' (11', Beaudete). ,.,.,UriH
here mean1
'achiCVUllthcFM'.
18 A p.-p in Plato'• UIQ idloW'I &hit adm.inbly (4, 7091,-c). The AIMJtiua
ob,eryc1 that one ~ t be tempted to my tbal human hiltory ii llarl,y Ml a
m•Uer of chance (ft.lXII( 6' ftMli oXfldlo ....,_ nil W,wl'IMII • ~ ) .
'Still, the ame may be aid of dte _.. of the IUor, uad the pilol, md the
phylidan, aad die p:nenl, and may Men. to be well ..W.; and ye& one can •Y
.omethin1 eYII: about thnn no lal plaulibly •.• That God ll"'fflll all thinp,
and that chance (J)cla,) and opportuky (K4N'ro1) co-operate with him in the
pemment of h11111U1 aHlin. There II, howl!ftr, a dlird IDd le• extreme view,
thal IJt (1~d1III) •ould be there abo; fM I lbo111d 1ay that ia a 1tom1 there
mwt llll'ely be a peat advantace if lhc pilot'• ar1 can_. tbe oppomudty
which it 1ffordl' (11'. Jowett, 11ip.tly Utcred).
19 The imcripdo111 h•e been Hndied by Guuducci, 1966: 279-94, thoqh the
milu.ndemand1 the lltniflcance of thll nrw K.;ros. Pint of .U, lh.e doe1 not
take the imcription la POlridon tllflMUiol ('the mr:curu') (no. 1) _,...ely
from the other thne (which date from the rum ccnhlry IDCI wen aD fOlllld in
the ume -.u mered. end01ure), nen thoulh llhe hendf date, it .. the lint
hUf of the rourth century BC. Secondly, lbe truulatH ...._•• -..illMt
Olt.fflpto, u 'of/from Olympia' inatcad of 'Olympi.ut'. kairw of eoune YI thc
'youn,elt dlild ol Zew' (Ion of Chio,, q11oted by PalllUlbl t.14.9). M:y awn
interpretadon followl hpiete-CarnteW, 1970: 248-9 ud 1971: 547-SS, die
LattcrofwbidlamwenGuarducci., 1971: 12....... 1.
20 See Aman, hripliu lo111i E.,..Clli 57 (In GGrM U,Ol);MscllDuofHa.dea,
lpilo,n• pmp1,· indl'U inkffli Ml'llif1pi 7 {in GGrM 1.561-9), both cl.(ed by
Coolr., 191t-40: !1.142 nn. 10-11 (udd. p. 141).
21 =':.!":":'en7o!':r:;'r!,';;'1r::!,.th:.:. •~-.t~'!alaa.!::
 Notes to pp. 23-4
l'rien•v to 111ranpr1' U1d - chMpd cuphffllilticalty illlto £uino,: Ke
Danoff, 196%: 961-2.
22 Note • 1yric p--,e ln Sopboeln. Plliloct,1,, 8H, where the contnt IWice
ICM.a tbe 1lpifkance of biros {857-8 and 862-S). (The imqc of 'fair
wind' here ii cleuly motivated by wh•t NeoptoJemu1 bu Mid a few line,
eulier, 779--81. Eel.) See UICI AelChytu.1, Cllo.,llori 812-14 and Homeric
Hy•• 7 (to DioayN1} 26 (cqtOP ~a).
2J Andlylu,, s.,,,,_,., Wo•en H2-4 (lyric):

---"""""
<allrolo:11>-~allrox... llMII,
rl1erc.w, fOffOII

..,;xop--·
..-be facher I uqe of my 1ffC11 life l Whoae own huad hu ,own me I Lord I
Aadent in wildom l Who crafted my people I Allhdp I Whose fair bftath hu
lpCd me' (tr. Lembke, linn 794-10)). Mlt:l,ar in SM UI connected with the
word MklUrfll, 'contrwancc',
24 Akaew, frs, 149 Lobel-Pap (• 1'0•'1 2291, fr. I, I. 6ff.), with Bamer'1
eueDent commentary (1967: I U-26).
2S Note Pindar, N,,,.,.,.
7.17-11 (Saeli):
ODfGi &! ,->.>.wra
f'p,nllliw ..,~
t,...,, o65' tnrd Upk,IMIJe,.
'Wile mm know whea the third wind ii corain1, and aHrice doe, not dbtort
their juclcanmt' (tr, Uoyd-Jonn. (By iporiq the context, D. mi1interprett
thine Unn, wfllch have nothine 10 do with 'wincb that will blow in two day1'
drae' u he 1uae1u (p. 2U n. H of the on,inal). 'The third wind i1 the wind
that will 1tir u.p the thbd and mo.I formidable of three 1uccellivc wave, ...
"Wile mm" in Pindar often mcuu "poeu", bv.t the wile men hen: are dearly
not poets; they are men who haw clone noble deecb, and are not prevented by
av.rice &om 1pmdinf money to ffllllff that the memory of theK deecb will
live in poetry' (Uoyd-Jone1, 1975: ISO). Ed.) But acconlin1 to Pau.uniu,
when the wind which WOllld enable the Greeb to leave Awil fcw Troy
Nddenly ( t ~ ) llarted to blow, everyone wa WI.en by 1urpriae and conK·
quendy .aerif"1eed to Artcrnl, the fint anUDal 10 come to hand, whether male
or female (9.19.7). Cf. C.Uimadnu, (r. 200b ,reilfer (on Artunil Colaenll,
wonhipped at Amarynthua in luboeaJ.
26 UnnSSS-7Jebb: n:IUr01em,roA&oulJ#,-
1rwrotl~p",J~
XCJPfi.ffPilf'r.,xil,u,111
ff~" w· ol'lµaow . . . (• SS4-7 Peu10n)
'(Man ii) the poWff that O'OIICI the white Ha, driven by the 1tonny touth·
wind, makin1 a path under ,mp1 that threalen to enpU him' (tr. Jebb).

.....
27 Pindar, Oly,n,,..,. 7.94-S Snell; cf. l'),11114111 !.104-S; l1tliJftMft S/4.23-4

!I Now Arat111, l'ufflomffl• 761-2 Martin:

IM¥« IJ!ipf''IM.i")'0(,1'04' jll)puwabrut.' l:Mi.o,o
1Wff"t~lll!i_,.'Arrr1Ji""'Wpi
'Small ii the ttoubJe, and th0111andfold the reward of hil heedfu.lne• who""

29 ~::• t::e·.~~~~:!iumltw) Odyueu1, In fact, who eapenly Ileen hi1 ahip

from hil teat by the merin1-oar (Od'1UI')' S.269-77, and Me p. 52 below).
Note alto Aeldiyl:,!•;"=~,!~t:;~ .6Aewc
~~.NfollO.µil,cllfl&W11~
'(he) di.at in dte city"• prow watche1 die event I and pidee the Nelder, hil

235
Noies to pp. 24- 7
eye not dropped in deep' (tr. Gmtc, diplly duapd), with Van Na, 196!:

so

!1
(Co,,.., fHWOcrttiof. ,,..,~.• «Id. IAuudt. utcl
~·=
~!~ tfffpaip~a&,,, or cn,jll!IOlida:a, 'lo cmc,alatc from die 1un', it •
vcrbill aprcuion for thoee wbo unciatake loai DitarY voya,n: ~

~;s~);~w<;,;.,:;..~'":'!~.5Sd&Dcidnrin, l:
Lcubeh'1 note1): twi11thi111, Co1,1111.-1 bl Ho1'1. Od. J.216 (p. 1555.H-

~:!!!!;"'"'• mam both • n:fcrencr·point or land-111U'k and t h e ~ ~

206,
with
~
1111•

\~.:i·

an intdliscnt cnauare capable of makmi 1en11C of nach • topopaplucal lllfl

(.ec Dctiftlne and Vaunt, 1978: 141-5! and 288-9). Ta':' n:IC¥8ftt to
i,lluuiil in II DMIUCIII IUIK are lo be found from the Ho•eric eplCI to tM' end
ol antiqllity: for a:..apk, /liMl 2!.516-17; Anta.1, l'IIMR:o"''"'•
44 Manin;
Apolloaiu ol Rbocle,, _...,...,,..,.... 1.562 (tfi8wtuo). . . .
!2 Jadced, the pilot'• intelUpnce can be Mid to be 11ochubC m nat11n:: M.u.1111.ua
of Tyre, 0-.HV !0.2 (p. 512. 13 ff. Hobein).
U Like Hernan~ ('of the road}roadadc") or lrOJfflaOC ('conductor', 'pick'),
(or fne"JICMO(' ('pide1); or Attel:IUII,,,...,.., ('pide'). Wick, 189!: 61, lnld--
latcd lidntlld• u 'proteder of the padt.', wlt.iJe FuneU n:lated the 11m11e of
the place where Athna X•u11&1¥ wu wonh...,Cd to her -.me, and MW her
u 'the dirine rt.ur of the ncC'' (1896-1109: l.!Jl). See al10 Oruppc, 1906:
1216a. ,.
J4 Fridl., 19M-72: 1.115 (1,.v. ICEAnif1oc) ft'riC'w9 nrioal ctymokttict 1111fnoW'·
mly. Pilani, 1929: 9-10 and l!MS-4: SH-4, h• offered two different

:.i°'+°'!"'W-=.4r!ccmo~=-~~r,:.;~:1~,~:i~
H Calllnuchu, B•III o/ r.lu U-12 mentions Atheu NIUIUIS in the tlnlor
(once up and do- the lladium, abov.l 400 yudl: Gardiner, 1910: U. 210,
HI), which enable, him lo IUIIL her with the DiNcwi, one or whom, CMtor,
wu auppoted to haw-. lbe very llln foot-nee•• Olympia (haaniN 8.1.4):
l f f Cuen', corameaury, 19!10: 22!.
H
l.omua Ute to 1n epipun by Philmen• (At1U&ol. ,,_,. 9.119 •
H,IWJUStic Efli,anu p. 16!; ? wcoad half of third century), line. S-4 of
Gow-••·
it.lbcl 79!, quotinl , - . . . . .U6.4. kdtel -.0 compun lllil d&idit•don of

wllichn:md:c.AM1rCMm/lJll).b.GO'k~a,&:..,~.·ltlffl:dtcn.
drivin1 ,oft Nluc1ance r,- your liacea!' (1ee abo the rcmm'U of Gow-hp,
II p. 479-10. Ed.I.
S7 In die Glllf of Mapi.nia dlCTC wu II pi.cc called ..tpllela. HnodDtu1 7.11!,
_,,, th•t the Arpnavll Intended lo lake on Waler dlcn and 'la&nc:h Ht' into
the open mea (Ek~ • I ~ ~II').
JI COIC by thCft were two alt.an of 19da with th, epid!.ct ......... ..,.., ('COllftoo
tcllor'), one of Zeua .uld Athena jointly, the other of tbe DiokW'i.
19 'Good 1tar11' would abo irapty '19od r.milha' too; 1Duau1ch u bodl ~ poinu
of ehan,c, they me bodl danlffll'u11 note for example Greek ritullh CClllftfttecl
with cmb.rklas and dilnabarkin&, OI' th.e pnc1icc of aakms ueriflcet befon:
oae narud off (Popp, 19!9: &Sff.).
40 'Illeword,_. ii uacd (in thC' plural) in Ody,w, I.In to ,nem tM -kcr
indicllWlf die point at which a dbcu1 Ide, dM: poud: Ody-, 11\Nw dlC
dilcul r.r t.yond ncryone me, aDCI. Alhena, ill N . . . ol 11 ...._ 'l'Ulbd
th, &hrvw' ( ~ M Np,-r· MtiMJ), In the PIHi dncrilNd in llW Z!,.,......
meUY the tunlin,-pcnt (c.1, !51: 'Achilla poinled - • the hlfflintPoM',
~~ ripl/ll,ff· A):&llaic, to tbe compctiac ~ I H n • lhe"J llaC" .p Ill
ti There Wffe 1nmc eacepuoaL fora:aNpk de Ridder, 1112: US-I, 1&wbff•

256
 ,:otes to pp. 27 33
•1

Lhe Athena who prurrns the law,, 'the august guardian of the city' (Athcnil
flw~aio: ('with a 1tatue in the cou.ncil-chunber'f'giving 1ood coun.cl'I or
ffDXioiixo:: ('prote(tor of the wy.j ). He 1uppo1ed hu to Ix pr.in1 at an inscrip-
tion on the stria.
42 Fairbank.1, 1902: 410-16 had cuiirr advocated the thcsiJ that this w;u an
Athena who pre1idcd over the games in the Palae1tra.
4' To the Qtcnt that hr rrcognizts that the notion of .liairu1 i1 important,
Cham.Ola docs allow mltu iU proprr place in uplaining Athena's relation to
the palaum. (1972: 266)
44 Ser Rayet and Collignon, 1888: 143 52, and the fuller ducription in Furl·
wingler, 188~: 1. nos. 347 -473 (Po5eidon alone); 474-~37 (Poseidon with
Arnphitrite) + '920, 3921; 646-61 + 3924 (ihips); 787-845 (double-sided
pPlaJu1 with the ume 1u.bjecu).
45 At Acliua Aristeide1 point, out, Athena hu a dou.ble relation to Poseidon, lfl.
urnu.ch u he is 1od 'of hor1e1' (tmrux:) and 'o( the sea' (ll'OVTUX:): Oratio,i
!7.20 Keil.
46 Ships can~ said to be the 'ho11e1 of the ,ca': Odyn,y 4.707--9; .'\rtemidorus,
lntnprrtauo,i of Drraim1 1.56 (p. 64.17 Pu:k.); cf. the dire(t comparison be·
tween chanot-houcs and ,hip in Ody11rv 13.81-5. The hone is 'yokc-bcarin1'.
or 'cndunng' Ot'P~fV')'O( (lbycus fra. 287.6 PMG). just :u the Ulip is (Alcacus
ftJ. 249.3 Lobcl--Pq;c). Hcrodotu, UJ('1 the word JuUs to rnc•n °ridtng hone'
(7.86) u wdl u,. fut, light pllcy (8.94) !- a usage commonplace in the fifth
ccn1u.ry I have 01m11cd the rcsc of thiJ nott which i1 m11lndm11. Ed.].
47 The anchor is sometimes called~. 'bit and bndle', as in JG 11 2 1610.2.14;
E.uripidcs. lfrrnbo !>39 (xaAWWT'llpia); Pindar. Pythio,i 4.24-5; Oppian,
HaJiri,t1J1.Qn l.229. In a deniaely m('taphoncill pu1a11c, Aeschylus ca.lb hones'
bits •uccrin11-ous in hones' mou.th,':
i.1Tffu.:oir 0'IIVOI' ffT7bQ>..iwv&O: ar4u,.a
0

fl'Up1')1'~io,XC1Awoi
(S,v,11 a,flinsl Thrbrs 2067:l)ric)
an 1ma«c picked up by Eu.ripidl'1 m illl extended compui1on of Hippolytlll
IT)mg 10 stop his chano1-honc, from bolting with a man hauling at the oar
(Hippoi)II.U 1221-6). A fragment of Sophoclu, twice qi,oted by Pluurch,
UICI oiat Stc('ring oar' and );:Q~U'O( 'hll/~ridlc' :LI virt_ual synonrms (frg. 869
0

Ruh), ;, UlafC Plutarch .i.ppropnatn to h1m9e\f ([), /11dc rl Usind, 4!1, !16!k).
{I hav(' made some ;1.heration1 to thi1 note. Ed.] .
48 Apollodorus. Bib/1othcco 2.1.4; Hyg:mu•. Fcbu/or 277 (end); Eullathnu,
Cornmrnt. ,... Hom /11adrm 1.42 (p. 37, 22-8). d. W:ucr, 1901: 209!1, and

49 ~::~~~ Hesiod, H'orlts ond Dr,ys 430-1 ('sn> .. nt! of Athcn.11' makinJ
plouihs); Diodorus Siculus 5. 73.8 (Athena as the u ..,hn of all lr.mds or
c-piJth1IOJ, 'knowhow'); .4,itho/o,io Poioli,ia 6.204, 20!', ("' Gow-Page,
H,llr>1t1tic l:pigrams, Lconidu VII, VIII IP- 1_09] ). , ,
!,O AiBwl- &!, i:in ..:cu. 11).oia 11 fpol'f/01( kQ'TfOkflOOf 1tC11 but:rw Clt01.kQ(; Mi6att T ~
~PWffotK vavr(A).ea6c:a hr" ailfwv 6iafl'tPCIUIOJitVOv,;: Tl')V Oci).ciaaOIJI (Schol. 1n

SI ;~; 0 :~,~~~:l:~d;~t;~g~•'\!:1~:~;.:-:-:1~t~;~1i1h', see Ch;apot, 1887 -1919:

!1!1!1-4 am.I Orl;aodoa, 1966-11: 1.42-!I.
S2 For 1h~ mc1hodt OdyJ.1cu, u.JoCJ, and the type ofahip. ~" C.u~on, 19.64; ~I 4,
and 1971. 211 -19. (Notc hi,. earlkr rcmarlr., p. 202: a fonn of,ah1p-buil<lmg
50 rd111td that it more resemble• ubinct-worlr. than carp.,ntry, Ed.]
!,3 O.i>m>' 17.!141; 21.44; 2!1.197;Sophoclcs, frs: 474.5 (p. ,114 Radt).
S4 The imac-c iJ u,cd in a mmal l(IIIC by Theo1onu, Efrg,~s 94S --6:
ti/Jl ,rapQ urdttBl,lfll' bp8i/11 Mda-. oo6€repwcff
k~~ ~'fG'pµ'IJpriallCtl/TO-VOlu,

237
Notts to pp. JJ-40
'I'll walk • path ur.1.lght u a line, inclining to neither -'r: r,:,r all my th~ta

:;:,' ~e1~~r:rm:d·;,.,'; ~; •=t~~~;~°':':e~r!.9:!:e:.:..;W:

TheOfOIUI, for e:nrnple 594-4 and 80S-10 BQP (With Van Grorun,en,

55 ~!~:=J~!·,~f~L10; II.S27-8;24.li9--SO"' 178-9, 962 [tho~ in none or

the.c cue, ii there my qu,udon of milU: the fint two emph~e o~ly dettr-
rninadon to enter battle, while iD the ciu.tio111 frona Book 24 ,tJi_,,..
mclll\l
scarcely more th.1.R 'drive'. Ed.]; [HesiodJ, Sh~ld of Hrnu:ks '25-54 (qaln,
jtJiuruitt aimply n:11:ans 'drive' - • ,oal ii not even mentioned. Ed.), . .
56 (Truulatcd by W.H.D. R.ou.e. Victor Benl'd'• French ii mlldl W'ltbn:
'Dupillard. Vitcnmer, Lariron, Lcnochcr, Dclapt"oue, Dubord, Odam-.
57 ~ ~Lnrn1er.
b)'" 1896: 1944;Gruppc, 1906: 1215 n. 7 and NilMOn, 1967:
4'9forcnmplt.
H P•waniu 4.55.8 rncntioru an Athena ~µW1'1( (',tiller of windll1, who at
Diomedct'1 Htrnty ,tilled fo~cr the violence or the windl in the ura of
Mot.bone (on the SW cout ofMeuen.ia).
59 The word ucd here ii tMIUWw ('drive') not i9tHw ('ruick (1traipt) '), the
lhip beina; propelled by the oarsmen'• arm, (d. Odyury 19. 76-8).
60 As happen, to the lh.ip which has ta.Ir.en Ody.-:w back to l'*aca, on the ft'Nffl
journey: Od-,ur, U.162-4.
61 The qu.adttnnial fut:ival at So11nion, ia.volria1 a thcoric ahip (Herodotiu 6.157)
and• 't:riffrne race (Lyliu, Oration 21.5), wu prot.bly in honow or Pote:idon
(to Deubner, 1952: 215 [followin1SchoemmmJ).
62 The name Phro,itis ii u o:prelOV'C u thal of the boalman NoimO,e IOft of
Plaroni4s ('Knowinl, ion of Cln-cr') from whom Athena obtain, • ehip for
Tden1aclu11'1 voyap: (Ody'") 2.S86).
65 f¥)Qt(¥1D& ('contidcr', 'po1uier') bclonp to the lanpqe of mtlu: note Odyury
S.126-9; ll.510-11.
64 Sec Scholiut on Antwi, N•tnomcaa 951 (p. 411.19 fl. ~ ) ; Gcntillw,
Eisqott 2: E111tadliwi, Co"'"''"taril&Sitt Di011yNl1t1 Ptf'Vptn 11, ln GGrM 2.
p. 219:and R.ch111, 1919: 1182: ROdcr, 1919: 187'.
6S Sec Bl.inkcnbcq and ltindl. 1991-60: 2.1 Olroniq11e du temple (no, 2) B §
xn • line1 7'-4 (coli. 165-6). [In koeepin1 with Blinli.cnbcl'f'1 rather~ coo·
Vt"Dtion, 1 h..e Doi added IICCCntl or bre.thinp. Ed.}
66 Soon afttt the lhip ha, entued the Black Sea. The opposition between the two
helrn11nen wu 11oted, with tome urc-, by 1.11 Villt" )Se Minn-t. 1895:
280-2.
67 {It lhould be noted thH [uphem.111, u well u Tiphy1, play, 11111 im.porant part
in thil cpilock: not only d0t"1 h, relcuc the rock--dow, b11t he C1ICOllnlfl lhe
Argonaut& to row immediately after Tiphy1 bu avoided the pull w- (588-
90). Tiphy1 docs 1101 ,ccrn to rne to be pwn ... iJaprcuiff a par1 in the p--.
of the Symplcpda in Apolloniu1'1 venion u D. irnplin. Ed.)
68 (Thie account too b n.thcr mialeadlna, when placed in contnt. E.•eryone i,
very reliCTCd after the pua-,.: of tht" Symp~pcb (607: ~ } . fttl:iftf
they ha\'C been IP'ed froni death; reliC'ved rather th.an clelpoftdent. T~ya',
apecch i, IU.Ullly about Athena'• lllincul~ in1a,ic-ation, ud lldic1 for itl bopc
entirely upon Phine111'1 pn:dictioa (615-18). finally, Jaaoa'I 1peedl imrncdl·
•tdy altirrwarcb (622-57), lhoqh 'dnpondca1'. ii deh'bentcly intfflded to
tefl the bcroc1 (rcc.1.llin( OdyNaU'1 coauaent on Apmenuloa'1 ,-.lid ,pccdl
tn Uilld 2.190..-7). They dwy about b.::k confidendy (151-9). Ed.)
69 (The beam had spolr.U1 befon, ,vcn when Tiphy1 WM allve -ffFt•• thC' _ , .
nin, of the cxp,dition (1.524-7). More Fncnlly,. mu,t be uadcnt.ood tbat
the mhforlllllCI the Argonaut, 111ffc:r on the re tarn jcnu'ncy lft' • 4iNct - 8 l

2!8
 Nole• lo pp. 40-57
er du: murdff of A.p,vr:tv.1 and Znl'• lllbequent snpr (4.5!17-61 etc.). In
dlll lkulioa lllCl'Cly human lkill, . . .fed or not by Athena, can ~ of little
-.e.l.d.J
70 llt Iha.kt be noted that '.U lha1e 'Rob"' abou.t lhips' qree with Anuioe'1
poiat h~ (4.1177-1) - u well they 111.tcht, ~ dlC A.lfonauu end 11p by
havint to carry lhe Art• bodily to Lake "fritonia (4.1§66-9). Ed.)
71 lnia is lllilleadlftl, Ille prophetic bnm uy, thatPolycleuteaandCastor (who
se o6 COIDR IDeMb.n of the es.pedidon) are to pny the pell to open 'paths
(thr-,h the Id) of A.uonia', whne they wW tlnd Circe. They do so, and the
lhip fmda iu way 10 the riYcr llhodaa111 wilhou.t diffacu.lty (4.627). While the
lhip ii kl lhl' 'dt,. . of the Di01Cmi.', it ill COIIIWldy aided by Hen - iadwli!lf
one of lhe , _ , . . D. hu lln:ady qaotcd lO lbow how 11selc11 Ankaia, UI
(C.640-4). 1 aee no n:uon to Nppote that it UI uiythinf b111 the ,pccial
relationship betweeft the Dio1euri and Zeus d:aat makes ii appropriate for
Apolloniua to ilatroduce them hl're; and thl'y arc cenainly not heard of apin.
Then- ill .,. obriCMll 'airtiolDpCal' point too: Apallonim can es.plain the origin
of the calt of the Dloecari on the Stoichadcs {651-5). Ed.)
72 {In fact It wu lhe prophcW:: beam which told dt.c Ariona11u to do thil. Ed. I
75 It ls in tena1 or the !ame contrast, of black apinat whi&e, that another rnuim:
dhinity, Thetis, it praenU:d in Boot F011r of the Ar,ouulila. whCft' lhe plays
a role in the pusqe of the no...h11i, tbe Wandcrinf llocb, analop1 to that of
Adlma in Boot 2.Lite Medi, the ii a111uine deity;and 1hcfi111rcs inAlcman"s
coamolOfY u a peat primordial todde• whOM: emcqence at the heart of •
dlac>tic world wnpped in darkne11 pve1 bir1b to daylqht and the brillianl
lhin.mcr of the stul. A. a divinity or the primordiAI waten, her power, older
llill than that o( Polddon, partially double, hb in ,ome pans o( the Greek
world. r or n:uoplc, when a tnrlble storm pou.accd on the Pcnian ftcet off
C.pc Sepias (In lhpaia. to the north of Euboea), the Mali aicd to ltop it by
ucrifldnl to '1beaa and the Nercidl, bclida naalr.ina: offcrinp and chanWl1
praycn at the IOp of their .oiccs to lhe howling windl (Hcrodotu.1 7.191). But
in the pauqe of lbe ..i1,,.,._tiA11, The tis acu just like Alhena - with the help
of the NCl'Cim (who are cxplicidy Wr.eacd lo .;dauiai: 4.966- 7), lhe tat.a hold
of the Arp by the •tan and lhovea it forward;jut lite Alheaa earlier, she
opc:111 up a path fOlf lhc Araona11b' lhip and pidh it lhroup! the crooked
rocks (9in< S" rflM d ~ : 4.9S8). [lnnncdiatdy afterwards, however, the
Nereida arc uaqincd u girt. playin1 ball on lhe beaeh - they pu11 the A,.,.o
from hand to h1111d over lhc rocks and w1.1n, for lhe lc111'h of a sprin1 day:
4 ·9:!;:~:,:;)lhe rcscsnblancc ill dNC, the co1npari10n cannol be punucd, al
lcut - the ICV'CI at which I PD workin1 - • 1tnactural analt·iis or lhe Olympian
deitia. for tboush,. like Alheu, Thctil is• sc,ddel! who employ, Mttis, she
don not bdOllf to the sam.e 1cneration - unlike Poseidon or lhe Diolcuri. Al a
primCRdbl pc,wtt pollC'IICd of MIN. lhe trantccnds, likc Mdis hcrHII. the diC-
r ~ t mode• and particular forms or ~e naltU or the Olynapian 101U •• as
revelled by the !lp1ECif1C cate10ricl of ac:aon of Athena, Hennes. Aphrodite,
HcphHIIIIU and Zeus. "lllat bcinf 90, Thelis -)' intervene in the ume way as
Athena docs - the mish,t equally ha...e appeared u a lhip-wright; but her mlti,
ia fundamentally non-1pcc:mc (ICC fu.nher, Vernant in Detienne ad Vcmanl.
1971: 141-2).

4. Sacrificial•• llluamcary coclcl 1ai Heliod"1111ytb of Promedlnt

l i., u r6lc u the orpnisa' of the r1r11 ucrificc, Pro~~ do~s ao~ appear
u the acwal llau,blffla' of thl' animal. Rather, he 11 n who brillp •l to ~
IP°'• and who dtrida it up before liFlin1 the fi.rc 011 the alw. A qu.1.11-

239
Note1 top. 59
tn:hJ'UCal langu.a,e is uaed of wbat hi' docs: "'1ttG ~ ~ · ·. · ~~
K.trrE&r,u .1a>.ti"1Cli: QP,m ~ (H-0-1). Abcnoe .0, hi, Nncoo.111': t o , ~
u.11:, to divide M:iong the onloolu:n, the parts of ~e ~ f i ~ ~ :
6®"~MX in S3 7, 5ct,S6:ooao JJl1lpa( ia S...... Tliil fanction, wh~b • q,rnml,
if hardly hipU,hted, in the riNal of ucrifice, iii hurily ttrc*1i an the contn.t

2 ~ru~e~o~;;:~lt~ be tricked, bc1:•- in Heaiod't Tlt4opny all tb•f coma

to p• in the u.nivl'ne don ,o in tM ruw analylis_ becauae o{ the pd ~ ~
up will. beca111C' he has planned it .o, becaute of hil bo..U. Pro,netheu • tnrlL
is th111, ill • 1enK, pa.rt of Zeu,·, plaa, aincc be alrndy iDknded to ~e men
the milnahle lot whida i, theft. Ba:ick1, at the very moment at wbich the
Titan prnentl him wi.tb du, t:hoice betwfl:n the deccptn'e portiolas. that he
may take that whidl i, to belon1 to the ,ocb, the teat immediate!)" au.i.a dear
that 'Zew, whOH wildom ii ewcrlastin1, perceived the aic.lL and did not m ..
IAILC' iL B11t he indited in Ida heart e,ril aphut mona.J men, that WM iAdttd to
come to paat' (SS 1-2). Don that rneui that ,eyerything i1 ordainitd in adnncc,
and that in thit 11rUmsle who1e W11e i, ia a - roreordained there i• no pla«
either for a ,cnuine coafroaution or f« any in.itiatiVI', let alone' IIIICCea, n'11R
of a ternporuy Ii.ind, forPrometheu1? To be
thin.IL'° would to ~dent.aDd
the Jape of the taL Althoush it amrm,, u a tn.th in principle, the iof.uibilny
of Zcu,, it ta1Le1 rrut paUu to 1h"eu, • the action WUoldl, Ptomethe111'1
.chicvementl, the N«alC'I he tcorcs, Zai.1'1 dbconcenion -.:I wnth U ttti"I
him•lf ,!int counter-ed &ftd then clapcd by the Titan (d. TII. SU: }(~MK:
SS4: JCWOClh> J(d;\ot; H8: ~!M.woc; lt'D &!: x c , A ~ ) . WMIU ••ull Dr,s
NYI that die caue of hil Ul(lltr WM Promctbcu1'1 theft o{ nrc )OIOw 4MII (S2),
0

'llftbcbown to Zai.s'. The lattff a.Nreaes the Titan 11'1 the foUoWMS words:
'It 1iva you joy to han Holen rwc .id to han cozened my wits (,t_... ~
fln'po,rtuocl(: SS).' If WC abould .ccept Ullat Zew hu fOTaetD all, - IOU.I It
once add that thb Corceicht Ulvolved Promedm11', &Mins dtc initialffe in et1&er-
inf into competition with hirn, ,a.cccedin1 in dKciriftc hllll, the kin, of the
rods bcia1 fwiou, and brinPft1 to pall evil for IIICQ, not clirtttly, bu.I by
mean• of the very advabtaee• that thrir prolL"ctor hid '"""I,,,,_ hinL U one
fed, tcrnpted to find Nd!. ari intapTetation too ',ophisticated', one may
ft'lll.embn that Chriltian theololY aff"um1 aimllltaneea..dy the 0111nipotatce and
om1U1dcnce of God and a freedom or choice for man, which implin dlat hu
decu.iont are not prcdC'lltined. To 10 bad. to He.;od, let ,ne j111t point 011.t thal
if, in the 77uo,-y, Cronu• dcYoun hi, f,nt children, he .does eo bccMIIC he
hu diacovued from G1111 and Ounnos th,t hie destiny is fixed: his doom ti .nc
day to fall to his own ion "by the plan or ndlhty Zeu,· (46S). Yet Zeus hu no1
yet been born. Thinp ~ then 1oin:1 to happen accwdin1 to the plan, of Zcua,
4(0( ... hi OouMk. C¥en be(ore Zeut cnten the world oft.be foda, and befon
he co11kt pouibly IIUW: pllll.L
S The c-pilode as a wbok-" chuactcriucl by thil eccuw effect: h 11 uly .c thf
a1d of the mua,lc. when the pint is played and over, tbal the a.ertioa tha1
everythin1 that happen, ii at cvay rrton1ent the c ~ c e of dle will ot
Zeu1 become, true. Thi, doa not raean thal PrOJDCthcq1 hM not ,cClftd pomi,
durina hi.I cooh-1ation, any more than that, in the ..u be,wen Olympian,

=~:
and Titan,, the fact that the iuue ii decided ia advance (Cl'OQU'1 clcstinv to be
own:oine by Ju,. .on) muas th.lt the b:atde CMU1.0t remain IIIKffla.l lor ten
whole yun (657-8). The nill'n.tiYt techJ:lMl'le Is to ptopo,t' trom dle wtMt a

:~=edtobe!ot::.r~~oi: c=~~~..:.:
Zet11 who tee. cverythin1 in adwance, onJy to lhow Ima latff IWice JWl!dlcd

Mq,tnl' mtun- of Prometlll-.'1 atfm. wltOIC doubdW ~ a l ~ ill the

end recoil on I.heir redpieat:L.

240
 Notes to pp. 60-2
'4 71.. 555, 552, 564, 581, 592, 600; WD 92. 105.

: !:c~j;.7! ~\Sl~~:·ri~~~j~~~~2, 609, 612, 1(~11 ).uypti: WD 49,

95, 100; ~ 56; ~ , IUaG: WD 58, 18, 91, 101.
7 ~O'T'f?(, one who eau barley: n. 512 and WD 82. TbeH aft the only
pa.a,q in the two pot!NI in which the word ii ulCd of rnen (cbcwhett, cf.
Hniod h. 75, line 5, Merlr.clbach-We1t, Atalanta hopin1 to e1ea~ rnarriagc
with WpWv lr>.~v. and the Shi.Id of Heracles 29, wh~ the epithet
lt'l'W'I to re!Pltcr a diltinclion between (odt and the hwnan followers of
Alcmene', bUlb•d}. (n nch caac, the word ii applied to men in the contel.t of
th, ~U11Dce of Pandora, first woman and wife. The link between marria,e
and th, produclion of com P already obviou1 here. A, PicrTC Vidal·Naquct
obttn'cs, followin( Chantraine (p. 245 n. 8 below), olpltlstls, eatCT of bread, is
formed from Ult root td·od, eat. lt U thercfon a puallel, if inverse, formation
to lJml1tl1, one who devours r:11eat raw.
1'7l. 513-14, 592, 600--1, 60!-12; WD 80-2, 94 ff.
Cf. frr. 1, Mnir.elbach-We,t "' 82 Rz;ach: 'For in thoH day1 Immortals and
rnort.11 lhattd ll;lftthff their meab and their place,.'
10 Cf. Odyucy S.4<1, 556;/tiod 24.69. The upreuion "-1 tAcoi., or IAtim nrc..n
the upcct of dhiaion ill the 1aerificial rnn.1, betwttn men oo one hand, and be·
tw«n men and gods on the other. Oii the idea of • gif1, cf. Plato, E"tAyph~o
l4c8-9: 'Doe, not to sacrifice mean to offer gifu to the 1oda?'
11 WD 112 ff. In the n:=lgl:I of Cronus, the men of the Are of Gold lived W( 6Eoi,
lilr.t roda: pen11anendy youthfv.l, tlu:ltercd from pain, troubln, work and old
• ; far from all M, "m:WI' ~uoo6w b:ncb-rwl', they enjoyed ""et'Y aood thinr,
to6M ~ lfGVT11 'f'Oiau, bJv; and thty 9Pent their time rawrl( mary at the
feut, which the flll'TOW. of a ~nerous and fertile earth of their own accord
made ready for them, withoul any need for toil: tc,&.Jpot tipovpa. ~ .
12 Hesiod', lt:U malr.n no menlion of the 1pl.11.U1na, the internal orpn.1. Given
the rdi,iou1 IRptirtcaac:e of the viacera and their ritual con111mprion, thil can·
not be merely the con.cqunu:e of lofFdulnn,. The poet', omiuion ii inten·
lion.al: he wishe, only to take into conlideration the two portion, of the victim
wbOK different allocation md tttabnent un~i,,ocaUy point up the connut
betwem the tribe of the l(O(b 'who live fore"l'er', and the tribe of mortal men
who, in orckr to live, miut 111bmit to the necelaity of catinr a certain Ir.ind of
food. As mpns filled with blood, and roa,ted din:ctly on the altu·flanr.H, the
iplml.tAn.i, while con1titutin, a hwnan food, alto bdonred to the aodl, Such a
cluaification muddln the lharp dcan,e betwttn the two different Ir.ind.I of
ontological 1tatu1 (cf. Delienne, 1979a: 84-7). That ii why He1iod usc:1 the
word e11••t•, entrails, to refer to the animal's innarda alonr with the flesh in
which they aft enclosed (1u.t&1). The tflAa,. include the rfltt'f'<1, the inlt1tint1,
a, well ,.. the YUCen proper - that H, the dite•tive orpns a.nd the orran1 filled
with blood (cf. Berthiau.rne, 1976). By ta.kinl nuh .-nd entrailt together
( ~ n: ICQl tyxaro iriwa «/Jl4', 5.58) u puu of the ¥ietim which are
cqu.al.ly avulable for eatinr by mtn, by contras.I t~ the 01t~• fruh (540),
rnervcd for the ,odl, Heaiod 1uccccda up to II pom1111 obscwm1 the problem
of the ipt.nU1.,aa, which men cal bul whose 1acrificial 1tat\11 w:iU not allow to
be fuUy equated with the .trro or 1on\01 (• wh&I we would me.-n by 'red meat'.
viz 1triated m111Cle and the .wroundinr fat. Ed.). The ambip.iry of the
w~~ ,r11.tot<1, which can mnn inte1tinn (Ody11iry 9.293) or 'IUICo:n (Od.
12.36!-S) indiffen:ntly, allow, him, withoul actually cornprorniliq h1m1tlf,
to lu.rnp iotethtr C"Yerythi.nf which cannot be da•Uitd ,.. 01tH lni••. white
bonea. [Cf. nowJ.·L. Ounndin Detienne and Vemant, 1979: 1!9-!0.J .

...................
l! 711. 74, 112:W("f'·~Mc,om,rolll:li.W(npck&/).(wro;B8!:b~T"OtOUI

241
NoU1 to pp. 62-5
14 711. 535-6: '(It - ) when ,och and monal ram ltpUIIU'd Ulnntdtta,

u ~':'::;:· ;~_M:~:~~~O: 557 cd 544: WdaOGO (Pr011De-thn1, in lM

quarttl betwctn mcn 111d l')dl), with "'- 112: ll{>OGV'fo and 885: ~

16 ~!::;;c~srt~~I: ~:::.:::-::;!o:::~~)5ff); Zn, to Promcthrus:

~d~!(~~~6~:.!!!!:
contain, an dcmrnt or humow wtekr the
~:~~)?du1
:::li~-co!~~.Throuabout
CU"eWDIUffC"N.
puaacc li9flnr
=::
of thr Tlico1ony Znui ii pv"cn by Httiod thr eplthe-t ~Q

;:t"h~= ~ ~ C : ! . / ! ! 5 ; , ! ! ~ ! ) ~ ~ ~ c ~ ; e : : ! ~~
crntutt1' (5S9), accordinc his rival hit OW1> propu rp1thrt. Dunrc lhdr ron-
frontadon, th, two antafCNU.Su nnoer ceur 10 be countou1 to QIIC anoOu!r;
indeed, thry pl1y thr ptleman by conauin1 their mmity bmmlh ~iltt,
and doakinl .greuion with raillery. U in Won\:r .nd Dr,:r Ullt., funolltly
an,rr (lCo).~. 59), l1u,h1 out loud (r)'l~-~~. 59), in tbt" l1111oprt-,
the Titan'• small lfflile (~aht'/o«, 547) ill his n,pon1r .to Zn.'s taunai
(up-rC¥,llwt1, S45), while he pW11 his ~u.herou, move (llo>.tfl TQl'fl), IIWLl"t
rrady hU drcq,tion (t~jfflJOftl, 565). The ffU betwem the t - pd9 ttau1
eraploy1 the 10fdy llt"<Nctift trraehny of lanp•, the entkftnent of tweet
nuon, not physical violence: an nis in the COllfttry ordinarily of Aphrodite,
£N111 and Khano-. For the IJlht"rC of thac pdcleM, brllidu 10ftneu and twcel
dtlipt, it the thouchb of YOIUII -en. Kfft"t PDalrs, l , l l ~ Q , lilllc
drcq,tiona, f ~ (711. 205-6). •
One OUJht to add hown-tr that, in rdabon to hil division of the MCrifke,
Promrtht"UJ caricalllff• the manner ol a Jood II.inc who ttnden ,Ju.t:ii:c bl the
iwne of Zeu in 'maipt lt"lltence.': 6-p....,... lf,aOTOfi: .:nm 6ic1JC11P (8!-
6). In adjudicatin, • quunl, the 11.lnt who 11 lmpiRd by the Mutrt tu.nu. not
to force of anna. bv.t lo - e t nuon, ,oh co11nny, the IOOthbaf honey of
lilten word&. The rouic of h.is j1111 uttennce hu the power of aimllble
rel0lution1, it lffct ttlc pla!nti!C rcdrc•, re1ton1 1 proper eqv..ilibriura,, but
IIUldJy, witho111 viole11ee, without opp.-elliolll: 1KfOT"pnG l/l"fO. T"~MVOI ~
(H-90). So far from tutorinl equilibrium, bown-u, PfOfQe1ltcwl eo11Jow11:k It
by hil putial acijudicuion (cf. Ht: h"fpoN).w,; ~ µoipclc).
17 Cf. 711. S92-6 and 423-1. which dc,cribr th, objt"ct and the fomu ot Zewi',
"-'"os with rcprd 10 the 1odt (cf. 88!).
18 One may compare Til. 657: Cottu1 pRMCS l.ail for h,,... ',pared' ( ~ P l
the homortala from chill doom; and 614: 'kindly Promelhn..' (to. rdation to
111en),6adf(,rra~OI;".
19 Cf. Th. '86 fr. In the diYinc world ordned by Zn.,, Z,/01 (tmuladcm,
Rivalry) no loa,er h» hi.I old place, no lonF 11in up confrontatio111 and
dillt"nljo11. Like hil br-other and liattr, Xr-.to1 (M.ipt) ud BW (Foree}, w,bo are
Zru1'1 lhadow1 and eccompany him w h ~ be ,oes, Ula, n-iippelll'S u
the p1r1111or of the 1Up.-e1111ey of the new K..mc of the Gock. He b d-ll"
UIOClllted with NiU (indccd, they fon:a a pair), md bit job ii le brins to
nou.rht any 11tcmp1 by a rival of Zeut ,o dupute bu -ercipty.
20 TA. 782-806. If wt compare thil p--.,e wilh Wo~ - " Dq, lto-200. wt
can 1re de..ty the diffGl!nce rn the «abu of #if bttweca lk dirili,e -.! the
hllm&D world&. When IOT!le ITU VN unon, . . aom. dlc O ~ y &11.0·
maticllly rneal1 the pilty puty, who 11 forced to pcrjwc bimadf (hiQoltoc,
79!). The lin.ner it a1 ODCC 'bidden' in an nil, dhd Mcp (791) 11114 a:pdkd
from lhe divine company (801-4). A--. IBft, wb.~ the lime ...all CCJl'IWI IAI,
• wicked nu lhall fmd iu way ffetywherc and ....Ric the iucparablc co..
pllli- of poor man.Jund, there will be 1M> value, no dcltp.1, Ill aa oatt. (WD

242
 Not,s to f>p. 68- 18
Ito); the wicked will plle Un on pajwy, hri'.li' ~O,U,irCII. (lH) - but thit
time ii ~ not ~ the ,inner who ,rill be hidden 1way and apelled. 011 the
conll'Uy. It wiU be .A.id61 {Re,pect for the Rulu} u:ad Ntmnis (Appropriate
Anfcrl, the two dcitia ,till praent on earth u the Jut link yet connectin1 the
world ofmm to that of the 1oda, who will them1elvn hide (198), andUlandon
men cleY01cd to nil, in order to n:pin the company of heaven (199-200),
21 Eril come1 into bcinf 1111.ong the goda with Cronu1'1 attack upon hi.I father
Ourano,. Oi.nno1 chidct hit childttn (PrWiww: 208), &nd tell, them that in
return for thil crime thett will one cby be a risu, vell(Cancc. And the tisis ii the
connict between the Titant and the Olympian,, thU ~ and nriJao, ('quurel',
'feud'). For when Rhu. i, about 10 give birth to Zci.11, she a,lu Gaia and
O\ln.not to dnri,c with her a plan to 1,ave Zcu, and to repay the debt to the
cr"Uly, of her fatba (niacrro li" t,ou,tic 11trrpi,t; !oio: 472). A 1trv.qle for power
then m,un. betwccn Cronu, the i.in1 and mipty Zeu, (476), until the l•ttcr
ii victoriou,. With that vktory, the tisi, iJ paid and order rc-e1tUllilhed.
22 WD IIS-18: in the Ate of Gold men lived litrt:p 110$/Wv, without toil th.at
wcariea; h.1ppy with what they had, MIEA11µoi.; and at peace, flauxo&. tha! it.
without envy or rancour, without irrv.
2S Bencdctlo Bravo hu pointed out to me that the words crp, cr1uo,ncnoi are
twice in the Worlt, tftd O.ys u,cd of navij.ation and te.a·tn.de, at linct 45 .and
6-41. It rcnaa.iru U'QC that within the poem thetc word.I arc buinl.ly connected
with ~C\lltural labour: there arc •bout 50 Pua.IF• in which thil is 10.
24 Cf. Iliad 5.'39-4): ' . lhilt immonaJ fluid,
ichor. . the blood of bliufu.l IJO(ls
who cat no food, who drin.k no tawny wine,
and thereby beiq bloodle• have the name
of bcinf in1111onaJ.' (tr. Fiu1cn!d)
Pluwch, in Co1u,IP. s~pte,n Sap. l60b2-J, commenll on thb p.aua,e: "He
me-.n1 by thU th•t food is a precondition not only of life, but aho of death":
wt AllJ 1,.10l'Oll r-OL' tr,v &Ua Kai TOO tmotwoaaw rl/v r-poi;ip} f ~ o!,am,.
2S After notinj; th.at qricultutt cook, the nutriment of plant.I and activate, it,
Aristotle 1tatt1 (Prabltmota 20.12, 964d9-21): 'the productl of thil tillqc
.an called 'cultl\l1ted', hlmnu, bcuusc they have pined .advanu,c- from bcinl
tilled, u thouih they had been educued by it (~17'11'~P ft'~J.'Cr).'
26 Cf. Odyury 5.488-90:
A• when 1. man burica , bumin1 lo1 in 1. bJack alb heap,
in .a rernote place in tht country, where none live nc.ar I I nci,lhboun,
and pvca the aced of fire, h1.vin1 no other place to act• li,tu
from... (tr. L•tti111.orc)
Al,o Hom. Hymn io Hcrm,~ 2)7-8; Pin<br, /"ytlt. J.66;_ uid above all,
Olympi,,n 7.86-7 (Snell): when they instituttd the fin111.Crifice to Atherur.,
the people of Rhode• 'went up, h.avin1 not the bri1ht 1ted of 11.ame (~ip$,Ul
f).ay()()' (tr. Lattimore). They were thu1 rc,pon1iblt for th, inb'oduct1on of
.aailice without fue; .and Pindar commcnU on this forgettina: the ICt~ of
fue, 'Rc~ece for Pro111ctheu1/f0Tethou,t.1 pu.u. on 111an go~incq and delight
alto' (79-81). {Snell't tc:111 print.I ft'po,IIJ/Not, forethought; but ':he.contelll,
with iu dear rdercncc to Prometheu earlier, 1ugau at le".111 All ~blfll1ty. Ed.)
27 Sec Herodolut S.16; The E1Yptian1 'bdicve rue to be .a live .an~al, whach cau
wh.atn-er ii can ,ci:r.e, .and then, ,iutted with the f~d, die.• with the m11trr
which it fcnb upon' (tr. Rawliuon). The Creclr. 11111ude UI lo be foun_d m
Ariitotlc (Pon,a ntil.: Dt iw11t11t, d JtHd. 5, 469b21-6): 'When there I~ n~
mOl'e foocl/ruet (tropAI), l.rld the heat can no Jonser fe«I illtlf, the fuc dieL
28 For the Ult oflt:O'flibcrlx 1,1 an epithet for fire, tee Graz. 1965: 104-8. .
29 ju.ti u "° oac call any of the uwn.i. al.aUJhtcred on the pyr~, whether edible
(lh~ep and c1tde) or nol (hones and dop) - let alone the TroJ1.r11.

243
Notes to pp. 76-80
!10 Sc-c- Iliad 23. 76: fflll' Jlf np« M~E- For tbe •• or nip in du p-nitit,c

!I ;~:.:~6:.~:!/~::; ;:!:!!!;1:~od. n. ~!II, ct..ifin • ·n~ _UICI

entrail1' ( ~ TE lloi.~) oYG lfllUll1. the white ~nn.. ~ ~ i t t k
=~~~::Jt::.!: i:,trrC::?"-Zt c:;,~!!· ~u!ik= ~· ~,e:
,.iw).dwn:I. {er. p. 86 below.I
!12 f{iad U.2!18-40: ... aimir,o t.etf'O
bona narpdii::Acxc MEMXnd&lo Atyr.,JfJD
fi,~·1,p,-a,"""""-
Thmcome,
~'U comb the a,he1 ro, P11rOklot' bonnl
They will be euy r.o pick out. . . (tr. Fiu,en.Jd).
!! Bea.11,e Zew concealed com in the earth, to ,et corn, men 1'111'1 hide lhe ..:ed..
the ,p-•,in lhit earth. Stt WD 470--1: ~· the rumer plou.th•, ·1~1- • Ila-,
with • mattodr., pvt pono, to tht birdt OTEPJJO 1ranapO,rn•.1v, by hidiq deep

!4 :~:~·P111tuch make, in am. es.ceptionally intcrcadnt p-.: ~ hu not,

I thinlr., received the attention it dncrna. In Qu6,1f. ,.__ 109, 28h-f,
Ph:itarch ,ay, that ftour ii an incomplete and uncooked rood, and he contin111n:
For neither hu it remained whit it wu, wheat (b ln,lpOt), nor hM it bccoJIH
whit it mu,t become, bread (0 ~ ) . but it ha both I01t the Ff'l'IUNltiw
power or thit iced and at the - e time it hu not attained the -rUfflell of
ccrul food(~ o,rio.J ~IGI'). (tr. Babg.u, llipdy altered)
He ioe• on then to meat (QMM,1. ,om. 110, !89f-209a), utd wondcn whether
tht ume ii not true of lo .. r..., u of to ak-.iro" (Dou,). And he then aay1:
For neither U it I liVDll erc.-tutt nor ha. it yet become cooked food. Now
boiling or routin1, beine: i tort of alteration mr.d ra.11tition, dinr.inatn the
prcviou, form; but fresh aw meat doe, not brtc a de;m and uu.ullicd
appcannce, but one that ii rcpllllivc, like a fruh wound.. (tr. Babbitt)
One could hudly 1tate mort- delll'ly th.-t whit breld ia to the rs..- plant (di.it
wheat whflit ml.I Urin, llftd powina) and to ffour (ditad but 1tiD uncooked),

or bloody mrat (dead but 11.ill uncooked). In itaeh cue, '°'

cooked meat UI to the bcut on the hoof (the animal while lhrin1) and to a cut
food, whetber
animal or vqitb.ble, to be ntablc by men, it mlllt uadnJo a kmd of tran.
fonnalion which cau1e1 it to pu, from one 1tatc to mother. Its oriciaal con-
dition i, thlt of a livinl(crcal11rit in the natural 11-te. From that. it mwt itntcra
new dauification, u .- cultural oti;ret ,pproprialt for lrwnaa couumption.
Thb tnn1fom:iation involvt1 ~ intermediate lt.l(t' in whkh that which .,....
once alivr become, dud. And thi1 tnn1ition-st1fit bctwc"itn nature and cultlltt
(flour, ni.w meat) invoh'ci 'impurity' for whit hu bitcn deprived oflik, which
hu been killed without hav;ng yet been panted full ttatlls u food fit for coa-
111mption: it bttoma untouch.-ble. It b only cootinf and cookny that c.,..
plete the tnrufom:iation 1nd apunF all tnc:CI of illlpwtry, intqntiftc (06CI.
animal and vq,rtable, fu.ll.y into thr ,phtft of dvDlzcd h11nri-,i life, tbr life
lfftn mm by Promcdlt111.

S. Laad ad ll&Cri&ce • tM OdJ1My: a lllldf of ....... ad •Jllhial .......

1 011 the Hesiodic •nriytti of the ni.ca', ICC Vaunt, 1971: l.!1-41 *Ml 42-71.
2 Strictly, the e-trut ii betwttn the •race or ircm' and an the adier oJNL &...
the mm of brnn1e, who °wOTk whh lll'onac' ( ~ 5' ~~' 1'1), do
not ._.... in the 1trict wNC: they pnfon11 1 iulituy ritit (ICC Vnnut, 1171:
1.28). Only thr 'r,cc of rold' ii cleleribcd c:zp8ci~ not worlina,

244
 Not~s to Pf1i 80--2
5 WD 167-75. rcttorina: )69 (on the rule ofCronu1) to ittpolition in the lftmlO-
Kripltl (• l 75a Sohn1en, whote-,,,,...tus
Mou.Id be couulted.. Ed.).
4 Vcmant, 1971: 1.52-5 and eap. 51--4, hu demonstrated the dose connection
between thla myth and th.at of the nce1,
& Linc 95, which I hSYc rn:tond hen,, lt a quotation from Od. 19.360.
6 Commcntaton haw: perhap1 been too qWCk to reject WD 108 u an inter-
polation (Lehn, foDowed notabJy by Mazon, 1944 (and Sohnsc:n, 1970] ). For
Ulc WU' inttoduce1 the myth or the racn by connecting it with the myth of
Pandon: W( ll,.,di9o, ~ lkoi 8vrrroi, ,.· WP<o)lrOt: 'for god.I u:id morla.11
have the same ori,m'.
7 II is well known that thc1t formulae: ;i,ppcar frequently in the tall of oath1:
lee in putkular the oath of the Amphictyone in Actchi.nee, Al"',ut Ctesiplaon
Ill, and the oath of the people of DrcroJ in IC 1.9 (Drero1).l: 85-9. And
when .\1i1bris ia triumphant, u at the end of the myth of the racc:1, we ue told:
'the father will no \on,er rc1emble hlt so11.1, nor the 90n1 their Cather' (WD 182).
8 Vcm11111t, 1971: 1.33, rcmarlu that Pandor.a's double, Ane1idora, is depicted in
paDtinf and ICU.lpture u riling out of the srouad. Pandora herself is pen 10
brin1 'unhappineu to bread-eating men' (1"¥1' Wpckau> li>..~au,: WD 82).
It may be relevant that lllp#ll1tl1, 'bread-eating', which ii a Homeric adjectiv~.
is formed from the root ••df•od, 'to cat'; and lt a formation pan.lie! (and in
1enw: opposite) to""''•"'· 'nw-eatins' • 'camivorow': sec Chantn.ine, 1933:
51!1.
9 The panlleli,m QI emphuized by the reputed u,c or lrrnro irl Th.. 536 lr'ld
562. The whole affair tun plact in th, AJfte period or timt: 'It was in the
time when the quarrel betwtto god.I and mortal men wu beinf 1ttded' (&'
f~ . (535] ). I uo ,nteful to Jc.an Bollaclt for drawin1 my attention
to thiapoinL
10 Note that the Huiodic: ac:countJ luvt no space Cora nomadic period irl the hit-
tory of man: man is eidi.er a cultivator, or no 111111 at all.
11 A typical n:ainplt .i. Haveloc:lr., 195 7, the second chapter or which. 'Hi1tory u
Repe11' (pp. 36-51), anal.y1t1 tht 'myth of tht race,' lide-by-aide with the
mydu Ql Plato'• Poliriau and Law,. It should ,c.arccly be nece,ury to observe
that neither the idea of 'prOITft,I' nor that of 'revcu' wu tbirllu.bJe in Hesiod'•
time: for there w• no idea of 'binory' in our 1m•. Thil objection doc, not
however apply to a very u,c(ul boolr. by a follower or Havelock, Thomu Cole
(1967), which conceatntCI on a prcciae period and deala with JCn11ine ideo-
JGpCal
disputes.
12 The moat useful collection or matcriaJ for 111ch • 1tudy i.a certainly Lovejoy le

u ~-!~;le (thCR arc many othc:n) i.a Empc:doclea, r,,nr~a,i,,,u rrr. 128
Dids-K-: 1n the ,eign or Kypril (Aphrodite), all ucrificn consi.atcd or
myrrh, incenK and honey.' Blood-iacrif'Jccs, ~d indcc~ _.u eating or meat,
were conlli.dered aboininationL Plato's myth in the Po/111ciu (272a-b) 11y1
much the umc;and vcscurilftUrD. ii implicit in what Hesiod says. For a 1cnen.l

14 ;:-'!'.:~~~~:;:r~::: L.ctantius, IP11ri~1ione1 Dwinu 1.13.2: 'Sat~rn

and hill wife and the other men of thil time uaed to eat human Rcah. Ju~ner

;a;n~u:u;~ ~al~ut~:;.::,::,~£::a:::' l~t;~~:l~d!~ ~"a':'.0;

;mcienu 11crificed to Cronw accordm1 to the. mode uxd in C~lF "hilc
thU city oitted'; SHtUI Eiapirkul, OuflJnCI of ~,.,.11011!.ffll (p. 190
Mutachinui.n.): '90me people aacrificed • man to Cronu1 m the nme w,y th.at
tile ky1b.iam ~ c e d 1~11 to Anemia.' See Lovejoy le Bou, 1935: 55-
79, for furtberrd'en,nca.

245
Notes to pp. 82--4
15 er.Oiofcnc• LKrtius, UH, of tM Pltilo,opltnr 6.H. 72-_5; mo a.~-tom
I0.29-50;J!lli.an, ()NtioMS 6.191-5. See Nttbcr, HaulkittT, 1955. 167-14

16 &-::d!ee~r:;:~t';;r2: ~ = J ~ d .IJll4p11.p_ in Greek l i t ~ , ttt, m

additio• to Lonjoy &: ao.,, 1955 and H.....ilerta, 195.5, Feetuaihe, l97Z:

17 !!!;:ZiiC"IIS 272d~:,..ooi}f ~ f1"'there

au,: ~ ah6f OTQ"O,( np,OWQII:
Q(JMv o(ftt ta>.).,tMJll~ • 6 ~ N
weft no wild tribe• amonr lhffll (th,e
animal,), nor camul>ab; and wv and polidell 1aifc wer.: com~k-tdy ab.mt·
The PMMF concam animals, but the lanfUAF nnployed II debbcntely
'hu.man'.
11 Sec thevuc d-.TibechodiUutn.tcd by l\obcruoD, 19'1: 152-60.
19 The formll1a m,f 6' ~ ~ ( ' b e klllied the ~ eartb1
occun culler, in the de8c:ripdon of Odyunu'• arrinl on ~chaia (5.465), but
the rint pwt of the line ii n&tllBlly diffCffllt. The conneeuon tun.• out not to
be accidental.
20 ne two ,epante world. of the Od'jury .re dearly ddineated• by Germain,
19541: 511-12.
21 To be aact, a nine-day storm; on the tenth day, they reach the Lot-Eakn
(9.12-4). See Germain, 19.54b: 13: 7hc munMI" nine ii 111ed caentiaDy to
rymbolize a period of time al the end of which, 011 the tenth day or ynr, •
decimive n-cnt happen1.'
22 'Dier Sturm vencblact elem Hdden im Fabdland': Muhll, 1940: 720.
23 Menelau huju.1t returned, u Ne1tor puuit (J.519-20), from a ttP,n whence
men rvcly tttu.m. r
24 Thac ii one otha place from which commu.n.ication ii feuiblc, but fai11:
Aeolu1'1 noatin1 illand (10.S).
25 The ,econd account to Pcaelope (19,262-507) contabui a teriOIUI difficulty:
Ody""-11 introdu.ce1 the Phaeaduu wheft they arc clearly out ol place. Nna
Penelope doe• not yet II.now anythin1 of Ocfyueu's ach-mt11tt1 or his idc:ntity.
Line• 27'-16, of tbe 'intnp0lation1' ~ d by ninetttnth<ennuy critic,,
are one of the few ~ whid! almCllt «rtainly ducve to be: rejeeted. In
hil flnt accou.nl, Ody.et» bncb for Cttte after roundinf Cape Malea ( 19.18 7),
which ii perfectly ~-Babic 1111.d reatorcs 'pop-aphical' tnlth pr«iM:ly at the
point at which it wu ,bando,ml Elernentlll of 'truth' llipped in IIIIOllf the 'lie,'
- and contruted with the: 'lie,' which c:oudtute the 'true' 1aln - arc fu.nda-
mcnt.al to the Horncrk story;,ccTodo"", 1967: 47-5S.
26 I need hardly add that I do not expect to cfucounp nth,.._.tl for Homeric:
',eo,nphy' and the 'identification' of litni, thoqh the ,pan hu bcffl apdy
lilu:ned by J.·P. Dsiaon to the ,ean;h for the rabbit-hole throush which Alice
enters Wonderland. Of c:oune thil ii not 10 dmy that Homeric wonden, l.ike all
wonden, bear IIOllle Jdalion to the realities of their taD.e, which meana cllCll-
tially the western Mediterranean (and pcrtup,., iu an nrlier period. the qatcn
Medi1ernncan,ifonebclinc.Meuli, 1921). Aher.U, t h c t t i l ~ man:
ttlC'fflbJancc between the wonder, seen by Ali« and Victorian f.ntlaod. tha
between that Wonderland and M.-cbu. China.
27 "The mO'lflllcnt of the Odyur, ii ewentially inwuds, 11,onKW'Vd,, tow•dl AOr-
mlliry' (StanfOl'CI, 196!: SO);and .« aboft all Sepl, 1962.
28 Similuly, Polyphcmw 'did not rc•mblc • man who Cab bread' (9.190---1).

,o
29 A point not noticed bf Ric:hta, 1961.
I cuinot wulentand why HSIUlleik'I' thoupt daAC die CicOMI- were C--W.
(19SS: 21): the tnil docs not meation it.
U I owe tlUI refrrenc:e to Y•on Carl:m.
52
-:!~;;c.:~ ':t:::e~~~="'~:':rZ ,::··.;.n::.~~
246
 Nore, to pp. 84..;.:a
worth, of ame occ:unmcu in the Odyur,, only dllft: Ider lO a pnciH place
{ldlaca: IS.Hf; ftl-.rla: 5.415; EIYJ)t: t.229}. Tbe rest hne a more pen!
referm1. rCJlllllly • 'lwse below'.
H 1'heN: is abo-.olc coftUltl from Cfte'a houae (lO.IH-7); and when Ody11e111
appromihn ldlaca dter leaYiDa; the illlDd of Acohu, be can Ke mea aro11nd a
lin(....-,1o.soJ.
J4 The idmtificatioa of the ftprell caccnmteftd by Odyueu with •nae aibel ii
esplicitly nued • a poaaibili1y ln l.lH-9, when: Adieu. ill the pile or
Men1e1, wondcn whether he ii the priloDer of men who are XQ).nol, &ypux
("hanh', 'brv.tuh1; and whm Ody111r111 blmldf uka what dau of men the
lnhabltantt of Cydopbi bdoac to: 1.#/HON' t'f ,cGi 6ypl0l or 6imlot, t,.
~ . "w>lm1 ad hruciah' or 'ripteou men who welcome 1tnqen'
(9.17&-6). Tbe Allle quation recun •• 15.201-2, on Ithaca, before Odyue111
n:copian that be bin rac1 bact home; and earlla, when he landl on Phaeacia
(1.120-1). Compwe die n:cellenl chapter OD the Cyclopea In Kirt, 1970:
162-71.
S5 h b acarcdy mflldent to NY, with Hav.llieiter, 1955: 2! a. 2: 'lhe cannibalbm
of the Cydops Polyphem111 1te1111 on the wbolc to be an iaolated cue.' ne
Incident dncna more than a mere footnote,
S6 Tbae and other de1&ill b11n bn:a -U 11rt11Cd by Paac, 1955: 1-20. who
comparea Ho1Der'1 Cydopt wi1h the Cyclope1 of folklore.
S7 On the Abioi, G•bioi or Hifl,IMot,oi, .« allO Nkolau of Dunuc:111, FCrH 70
F 104.
H Tbe main tata are collected by Lovejoy and loa, 1915: 504, '51, 411. ne
mmt curiou of them ii do11bdc. the lpCCCh Plutudl pull into them-th of
-e of OdyaK111'1 CCNDpaaiou who wu turacd into a pi( on Cir«', illand.
Tuter of both hulllUI and ulim.11. ailtentt, he pniae, the 'life of the Cydope11',
compuiq Polyphem111'1 rich earth widi the thin IOill of llhaca (GryU'" 91&r-
987a).
H Note .11.IO the Anlb'ophlpl ('Man-Eaten') in Herodot111 4,11, who li¥e on the
edcc of the dcKn, and are dlelllldve, at the Umitll ol the human. (On thac
Scythia.. and the Androphqoi, 1ee now R.ONUiai and Said, 1971: 955-74.J
40 Sec p. 12 abOft; ia the lu.d, when Ach.illu and Hecuba mada a.treme1 of
picl and llftfff, they fataaiH about eatinc dr.dr enenaiel: 22.S47; 24.212.
41 There ii no n:uon to alter the Offlf) or the •.mu:rip111 in line 255.
t2 In line 217, Hermea am.ply aay, to Ody-111 dlat ii he 'carrin lhil accllcnt
remedy', nl6e . , , . . _ ftlf).dp lxc,.w,he willbe aafe.ltilthenDOt achann 10
be ucd but a taliamanic objecL
45 It ia Hermn, Lb.e pd clolnl to hwnantiad, who pe1 OdyDt"111 the •"'1: and
it ii to Hananthal Eumaewaac:rificuapit (14.f!S).
44 Sec l.1111illhiw'1 comment on 12.559: "'1i nii tf'l1C 711( •oA>.a:,crxj &,Aw8ri0'1(
""1a1k &sac,uu;k, 'and throqbout the rouowin1 dclC'ription or the ucrif"JCial
prepantiom'; and on 557. On lhe role or the ouW-011.locllura· in Homeric
uc:ril"ace, aee Kudhardt, ISi.Si: 255.
t5 The moat Cllria.1 fatutt of thi,; cplaodc ii that whereu waler i,; nonnaUy in
Homeric uicrir1ee ucd to prepare few lhe actual killin1 (it it contained in die
~ C . bronze YCIICU) (Rudhardt, 19SI: 2H), Homer here dew, not
mention water. lnnead, he eoncentntn on die libation of wine whldl r0Uow1
the tillinl, Thil paau,e wu noticed by SamlOn Eitrem, 19U: 271-10, who
believed I.hat it prcsentcd ICYidence ror I rite IAOl'C ancient than bload .-r-rifice,
u did thucancriaa:of leave, att.ntcd In - e fv.nenl rttuab: 'They (OdyACu1'1
compuuoDII} knew that ill a prma111 period or iD odr.er placn, thil form had
been ucd. • or coune, when aplaiacd (I) in this way, the tnt lo1e. .lhignin-
- . . Ziehm, by cona.t, 1aw it • 'an Idea of the poe1'1, influenced by die
iiaaadoa' (1959: SU).

247
!'llot~s to pp. 88-·91

46 ~:.e~=do:~t~Y ~:O~'..e;::'M ~i= wh · th Od-,nr, feut widi

~t;nof ~•'• compw-·
uaileg:io~ rcut On a plain ouuick their city, the earth 1tscH su~bn ~~
clu-eetly with th~ 7able of the Sun' the boiled De-sh of ~HOC an~ ,

~~I!!:!~ ~:~:~t:'c!o::~:~~O:!o(!!:)~ · = : . : I E ~ ~ n
relation to the Nn, th')' ue pe1u. not uttff ltl'Utlffl ~ ue ~?d>'.-u•'•
paniolll (.« al10 Vn11ant. p. 78 above, and 1972: :uv-a:vu; and RoeeUisu

47 ~~ ::~ ~~~:::~~ countrie1 which rKeil'e 1imply ab~ mention. 0 -

ol them Syn,1 from which Eumaeus comes. prelCnll • pvuculaf problna. It
ccnainl; prod~H com and wine (15.406), but th~ ii no illncp or hun~
th~ and death come. without pain (407-11). It lae1 'when the tun ICU
(-404), and cannot thercfon be the Aeccan illand ?' the aame name (I .ilffl .,..te·
fu1 to F. Hutor forbrinlins tb.il poirtt to my nonce). I cannot h~ dwru• the
problem of the my1tcriow "Taphiaiu·.
41 U.24-t-6; for corn, ICC llllO U.SH: 20.106-10 (mill•): ro,
Ody-u1 lllto own, cow, on Ccphallenia (20.209-10).
co-.
..
17.181.

-49 On thb tat, which NgaU a conception of kinphip very arcbaic even in
Homcr'1day,1ee Finley, 1977: 97-8.
50 Nott the details: barley uad lu1tnl water, 5.+40--7; the riD.Lal cry of the
women, -450-2; cl. allo 15.222-:S.
51 By contrut, OdyltCIII AY• "I un not a ,od' (16.187).
52 Dctpilc the nineteenth-century urumenb recently nvivcd by Kinoncn, 1968:
US-62, there ii nothin1 in the- treatment of Pcndopc to ,»a,d.ty • rdenncc to
matriarchy - or nm 'trace,· of it. hndope'• 'mpec:iu po,ition' ia to be::
c:a:plaincd ,imply by the abtcnc" of OdySMUa.
n See 2.56: 1-4.74; 16.-45-4; 17.181: 17.600 (W*l:20.S;20.250--S.
54 Sec 11.414-28. Antphin-UI Q killed at 22.19-94; th, hecatomb of 20.276-
IS ii anonymou,ly olfcrcd, but clearly not by the JUlton.
55 Liodct, the 1u.i.ton' d&soltoOs, ii lulled by Ody1KU1 at 22.SI0-29, mak.ing it
cit• that the 1111Crir.ee1 performed in the put on the tuiton' bchul haft not
been accepted. A lliuo,••Os ii a Ker: Jee Caabona, 1966: 118-19.
56 Sec alto 2.425-SS (TdcmachUJ); 4.761-7 (Penelope); 14.~--t (IU1BacU1);
18.151 (Odyuew); 19.198 (Odyl:lnll't 'fabe' 1tory); 1.60-2; -4.762-';
17.2-41-S (Ody1KU1'1 pul 1¥rir1ee-1); 19.591-8 {lilt of Mcrif1ee1 offered by
Au.10lycu1, the p-andfathcr or Odyacu,). And we ahould rcmembn the IK"ri-
r..:e1 promiKd by Ody1KU1. u well (p. 85 abo¥e).
57 Cuabona obKrvca (1966: 2:S); 'th" idea of "banquet .. b«Gma predominant'
- an ca:ccllive litotn. {Ct. Vcrnant, p. 61 abov,.)
H Sec alao 1962: 27: The: PbaeacWU ... while the inltNJDnit or Ody1KUS'I
return to the world of reality, are U90 the lut aftttpow of the ph.ntuy real.JD
bt ill leavina.' I bcline that the- whole of St:pl'1 c - lhowd be acccpkd., but
without the ',ymbolitt' ud psychological 1-lpqe he aometimc1 cmploya, Sc,r
al.lo Sepl, 1967: '2l-'2;Clarkc, 1967: 52-6 uul.Hartos, 1970.
j9 Thoupl he wa, bdpcd by lno-Lcucothea mid the rivn'IO(I of l'hactcia (5.S!!-
53, -445-53). (Cf. DeciC!IIDI!', p. 18 aboft.J
60 The two tn'CI shaft the Ame trunJr... The MC:icnt world llllMUlloualy undrr-
lJtood f,lt'Wlii u 'wild olive' (1ee Jt.ichter, IH8: 155); it i1 oaly in the 1"ocleffl
world that a few aitic, h ..c tbourbt that myrtle - Nltcnded (Peur, J9S7:
2006).
61 Ml&Ch hu been mMic of this line by biltoriam of cololl.iution; ' " Mi,n,
1966: 5, forauaplc.
62 h mldt be dcu that we cui.no1 n:dle thil faaKIUI ducriptioa &om lhc
()d,yur, on the irtaucrinclv inadeqvatc arouD4J that the 'toUd bit.I ft¥TP'
 Notes to pp. 91-1
pndncu' of the Mycenaean citie1 could nc,ver have had 'room within thc,r
Wllllt for the fo11r acre, ol thi1 otchu-d. double vineyard and ._itchen·gardrn
U, Berard, 1961: 1.186). h iJ instructin to note that the puu.gc's utopian illl<l
mythic.al ch.ncter was cleuly rccoiinized in antiquity Jamboulu1's hcUcnistic
Utopia quotes lines 7.120--1, for cxunple (Diodonu Siculut 2.56).
6S There ii here a dil"ficulty which I frd incapable of H"tolving. All the com·
puilons made in this article tend, it ,cenu to me, to 1uppon those who accept
Ill lcut an overall 'u-chitect' - whil Kirlr. cal.It a 'monumcnu.1 compo1er', who
pvc the Homeric poems their present stn&cture (1962: 159-270; to be 111p-
plemmtcd by Pany, 1967: 175--215). Thi.I ii also my po1ition. Bui it m11st be
admitted that there u-e many anomalies, cspcdal.Jy in the lilllguag,:, of Book
24, and th1,t it prnenu special problems (ice Page, 1955: 101-36 - illl
extreme v;cw - and K.irlr., 1962: 248-51). We alto Ir.now th1,t the hcllcnistic
critics Arittarch111 of Samo, illld AIUtophanc1 of Byzantium regarded the
Ody11c-y u ending at line 286 of Book. 23. If, for the Ille of argument, we
acccpl these criticisms u Vlllid, docs it follow ncccs»riiy that the parallel
d.-awn between Book 7 and Hook. 24 is nonscn1e? For 1ho1c who practilc 1\TUc
tural anal} si$ on 1he basis of linguistic cri1cria alone, the question hu little
meaning; .ind indeed it ii difficult to sec why they should not '11tucture' a
complc• compo1cd of the Iliad, the ,\foliahliONta and Paradile I.osl . At this
point. the h11torillll must make: a gncc:f11l exit. But a quite different approach
i.s pouiblc. Th.- worlr. or Propp .uid his ,mmcdi,uc, and later. followers (1ec
Propp, 19611; Hrcmond, 1964: 4 32 md 1968: 147-64; .and 1he whole of
Corn'"11nicalio11s 8 [1962J) 1u111uu th.it, within a common cultural area, a
complu of uor1c1 may be reduced to a ,mall number of simple clemcnlJ which
may occupy a vancty of different 1trucrural po1itions. It 1ccm1 clear to nae
that, in th.- Odysuy, the naorif or the golden-age garden is parallel to that of
the garden cullivatcd by mcn;juu a.s the motif of the hospitable Jirl ii parallel
to that of the: gul who prepares vi11tot1 for death. I also believe 1hat thematic
ilnaly,i, of epic narrative of the kind practited by the followers of Milman
P;u-ry lcalU 1n the end in the umc direction (Lord, 1960: 68-98), by abowfnt
that an ancient theme - and it is hard to unagine the long-awaited mcctinfbe-
twecn Odyucus and Lacrtc1 could be anything b111 an ancient theme - m.ay
have acquired a r1..1:cd form only relatively late. These 1wo approachc1 would
benefit from mu111al acquaintance.
For these reasons, I do nol bclitvc thal an Od':,SSl!"'J which ii pu-tly COID•
po11tc, historica.l.ly ,pcalling, ca..nnot alto be, from a 11J"ucturali.u point ofvie'w,
homogeneous; though I admit that a nrict proof hu yet to be offered.
64 More accurucly, these are the cquivalcnlJ of thoM" 1u.10 to which Hc1iod and
hi• 1ucccuon Ji~c the na,ncs 'qc of Cronus' and 'ace of z .. u1'; for of cow1e
the land of the Cyclope1 11 al10 tended by Zcu1 (9.111, 3!18). Homer'• Cron111
is the father of Zeus and ii impri10ncd in Tartaru1 (/l,ad 11.4711 ·81).
65 Eumuus, too, hu dogs which arc quite real illld bark· 14.21-·2. . .
66 Thal 15, 1hc Ph.lcacia.ns have the umc pri11ilc1n u the_lc11cndary Eth10.p1~1
(1.23 6), sec also 6.203-5: 'We arc very deu 10 the 1mmortal1; we !we In
11ecluiion in the midJI of the 1wclling 1ca, ;i\ the edge of th,. ~arid (nch.a,011,
a.nd no mortal, ,·isit us' (uc Eitrem, 1938: 1523). n,,.1 f~ili.a.rity with the
gods ..·hit·h ii 1 ymbolired by diucd feuu is corrdated with i1olation from

mo:~.. ;:';~hcna ta.Ii.rs par! in the fint sacrifice offered by N~stor and h11 1on1
{3.41- 44) . .tic docl 10 in dagu.itc (at Mcn1orl, whereas Alcmo~I •i:i-cuc1 ,the:
fact that unonr the Phacxian• th, god, d~ not au:umc dugu.1-c: OU n
ICOf"Qa,PVlffOUOUI (7.205); they e•t !he ~ficial meal m <um?'"on (7.20,).
Similarly, Potc1don u pre1ent at the Ethiopians" f~ul (liarr1 :Pl"CtPT!1'EPOo;": 1.26).
lt mi.at,! ,aecm u 1ho11gh Athena doct the umc 111 ;,.,.,tor", p•l~<"C (h).6( .. , f(

249
.V,it•s to pp. 92-8
.s.;;,.. 'the came
to lhe re.t': 5.420); but aflff llhe h• l'fft!alcd hcndf...,.
~ iDto a bird (S.571-2), lbe I.aka hn lhare Ill .n iawiliWc clhWIJ"
(S.4H-6). NntM and Telcmac:hw de not thenfDR .r dN: ............. •

67 ;"e'::.,i~, thoqh, ii flirty ambipou. for A ~ ill~·..,..

~-=-~;!! = e . = : : . ~ ; ; ~ ~ ~ : : = : n w h " : c ~ ~ :

=-=~:: ;:!:=-::;
warnall of counc, bu1 Nawicai bu jwt Nici (6.205) dlat few mortal• vWt
dlena (.:_ 66 above): and Adieu. co.-en Odyllftll wish • milt 'in cue one of

~~-~;;.w,:.11:r:;:·
pilality ii the im1p of a Phaeacia conapuabk widl the la.d of the Cydopn.
61 A ICholialt nota &bat "11.niod' rcpnkd Alciaou Uld AffU' • bl-other Md
Iida (tee Schal. Ody-. If (7), H, (I. p. 525, Dindorf) • Hniod, rrs-
222
Nertelbach-Wat: (rcpr. Solm•n, 1970: 115") ; ICC alao Em1athb11 oa 'I (7),
64 (p. UUI). Th.ii tea.a two poaible IOluliom: 10 ap-ee with what the
ldloliut •Y•, 1lM'O ~ 'f'OK lfipc, 'lhia coaDk:u .tlh wha1,lolloW1'. and
then, u hu been done liDce the time or IUrdloff, 1169: M-6, ftPl'd u inln·
polatcd Hui 56-61 aacl 1f6 (wheft Affte ii caUcd she daqbkr or l\hcxenor);
m to Kccpt that die poet: PH the royal couple aa .ppeannce of iocell, whidt,
w• lalff COll'l'Clcd., IO • to draw • parallel between Aeohu •d Aldaoua (1eit
Germain, lt54a: 295).
69 Mo.t olwiov.dy, of coune, the kin1 md qaem: dt,e amc formula att 1Ulrd lO
delCribc the royal coupln' ~tirclllau fM die aipl at Pylol, Spll'II and oa
Sdleria: S.402-5; 4.SCM-5; 7.546- 7. .,.
70 For auaplc, lhere ii a hOllll!lr.cepcr - Scberia (7.166, 175; 1.449), u oa
Ithaca (17.94) &a.d •• PylN (5.592):aHIN (7.7-12) UOD lth.a(ll.SJJ-6,
412-S); • bard (l.261 ff.), al• • on Uhiaca (22.55~ l). lhe Ph-.ctu.
cpilode and the .:ma - •t11ac• bn.: oltea beat. compand: aotc, lot nmnpie,
the .....-nt1, IO aariowily limilar cletpile dae dme-iap• of H ,an Alld the
cllffacnce in the aplU1•tioD1 offered (• IUII el •1a111rpoladom' apiml: • •
compoliidoa), of Eitnm, l!NM and I,1111, 1969: 119-61.
71 M will be ICal by re..U., 7.1% ff. fn:e of dae kind of prttOIICleption11bCN1t
naalriadly to be fouad in L11111, 1969: 115.
72 Compa,T Ec:henewi'• 'PffCh with that of old Aeffptiya, 2.25-54.
75 A point rnade 10 iae by IU. Pinley.
74 I flllly accept the aeMIIII tenor of Pinley', re..arlui heft; but it *'Ollld be
l'ffllelllbcnd that by die tune of the later heUeniltk period v.top&. 1&1Cd a
complex rnbtv.re of adt.u: Uld raillenurian raytha md polldal . . . .
(Gcrnet, I !Nia: 151-53). The aituatioa WM dlffem1t in die fifth ctaNry ac:
a v.tapia like Chat of Hippodama1ofMDetu1 (Aristotle,r•li*• 2.5, IH7bSO ff.)
cmnot be a.plained by appal to mythical thinki.._
76 I would like to thmk llidtft Sn.ford for re..U.. ........ lhu ftnioa of tu
sdckwidl.me.

,. ne .,. ot 'Hncyed o.,ai...·

I Tb.ii ..,road!. WM llled by Gnappe, 190fi, for aamplc.
2 M lllllftited by Wilamewit;a.Moellndorff, 1915: 244 11, 2: l f t almo W......._
1169: SH-6.
I 1bc aulyRII )ftNated .liere ia .....aary fonn,, wilbout full clocq-tlllhm, will
be developed la deed in • flncnl lhldy ., bau, .,.. . . ONece, wt.a . .
;i:;_c;:.lain
a dilcumioa of purely Utvuy ~ e a . 1111Cb u lcpl. Ittf:
,
HO
 Nous to pp. 91-117
t Ariltode, HU,-. 11Ri111.Uutt1 9.40, 616&16 ff.; Theopluubll, D• ulUU' ,,.,.,.
..... 1.S.l1ttc.
6 Accordlnc to Adl&ophmn ol lyundum (A•"do,. ,,..", ed. Roee, 2, p. 2!1,
2-1), dr.il WM die pnclice ia !cYPt.
I Adlaa,MdON.....U..m S.ll;C-.nuaB..... Cdo,o,aA 15.2.19.
7 Plutardl, QuM,lio,a•• .....,.,., 56 (ed. SIIDdbacb, Loeb ed., vol. 11, pp. 211-
ta).
8 Senilu, rJI v..... a•.,,. 4.517: Scholion lena. 611 Vfff. Geor,. 4.49! (ed.
8-).

10
....,,...
9 Claude U\ot.Suaua, 1977: 60-7, hu detcribed 10111e upecu ol thU method of

Due, delln impctllcwc

l'anw11 habile en toujoun naalft.
See Bellu, 1970: 254,
II See further, Detienne, 1979: 1-19.

1. ·v....· • Gftck •JD,

l Thil cannot be done in llldl a way u to render the dutinction uniYenally valid;
Meymon, 1941: 76-116.
1ee
2 On 1aictly private s-openy ad RI dt.anc:teriltic: IOCiaJ pl'CICfttation, ICC
BnKk, 1926: 59-74.
Laum, 1924: 10-1!; In the Rommt. eontat, Lby-lrv.hl, 1947: 98-100.
In reladon to a perceptibly anthetie and 'at.Incl' attitude towardl the 1tatw:,
wbieh eonuuu with 1nother, odpnally Aqdll, wbieh 1ea the cult....tue u
the loc111 or 'my1ticll' qulitia; not but what dw nodcm or .omctbmf
mywterio111 occun occulonally In the word ...,,,..: note the curio111, euen-
tially metaphorical, dewelopment or the idea in Plato, L.1111 11, 9SOe-9Sle.
5 1904: 72-6, 95-6, 109-16. lucber1how1 that tbe1e objec:11, wbich wet-
ea.Uy tend to think or in tam, u.ltm &om ollt.cr historical pcriodl, were lll.9dc
in f.ct for a ,mall pvu.p or uiltoc:nu; he mo demOIIIIAtn that h wu the
pme1 above all which made partkwar item1 r-ou,,
6 The iNtltution of •111lllil"l•M ('otferiap') appemi Giiiy at a relatiftly late
ltaF of rdiaiowi <kTelopment (Laum, 1924: 16-95). Lawn. relata it to the
belief that pd, have a penon.Uty which It coutant, wlaicb eontruu wt.th the
conception of A.111pnb,ict1,0lkr ('hcrc and now .-i'), to wbkh it ii appropri·
ate to otfu thb,p which can be eaten (p. II). I wonder whcthu the relation·
lhip ii not the ca.ct oppoaite: whether thett 11 not a proceu of eo111P111ou1
objccdrtcation on both leTCl1 - ritual and the conception or diYlnity - al the
aametlme.
7 Ariltode, NkofflKA-,, Ethic, 4.2, 1123a4-5; PlalO, by contrut, lha,ply
Urnill -alth in the city di.etched in the,..., and al10 re1bict1 the mqnificmcc
of both pl'Mtc and public offninp.
I The notion of obj«tio~ of/enc~ pnsilu in thil connection lo ,ome dcp1:e into
fOIU'th-«ntwy Athen, (to Jl.ldp from the two p1CUdo·Dem01thmic 9Pteche1
_.pind..,rillopir-),
9 Let III not quibble O¥er the wonl to be 111ed.. EYffl If one bclicvn that 'myth'
Pl'°'pcrly dmo1n a ,peciaJ kind of 1tory, difl'CJ'Cllt from th09C with which I am

!'oe:e::.cr:a'!:~ :n:::!:f;::! :':=:~-,;:~i~;i:::

dclipatc by the form.Uc term, myth, lepd 1nd folktale. And from the
psycbolopeal point of Yicw, that Ill all that matlt'n, at ICRt bcre.
10 e : . : = y ~ ~ = . , ~ ~ - ~ ~ anc16':f."t:'~
251
Notes to pp. 117-24
lnr" O,UQI (Th,lc1) &'ClliA( '8rfonk>J1 •P« ta. ~ ~ : . · ::,j
11 ~"';u;':r:e,i~~.;.;.·i~~:=.;~~~~~·
~ ~ ~ l t ~ o ~ . c ::.-:-·1~:o~,~: ~M~.h1:t:-=~
Oddly chanctniaed hfft' u • tradition.I 'MF', Uld in.~.':~
12
;;,;b:,,r:.1:n..~~ :-.:n~ 6\::, ::..rin lhe ~
u r..:!!,~-~=::.:·t
a typicml iutulce:
2
~ Diony1111 mil Semde were cal adrift) ii
UNIICI', 1199: Ul-80, Uld Pftller, 1909: 215.
,ec
14 they arc picked up by a fill:r.cna.m1 whOK ume, Dil:t)•s, h~ beca con11«ted
witb tbe word for a filllcrna.m"• ncl; nok toa die ,oddc• OiAlhuu1111, wbo WM
.a.., Nftd in a filbin,-act. See Robcn. 1920-6: 1.252-S (uui GW1•. 1904:
15 ~-;t 2i.~~wdl·, wnioa in Life of Sol- 4.S--4 Zicelcr; th~ ii Pif,llllld to that
iri J>ioFna Laertiul, LR, 1.S2-S: we have here two vanan.11 of the UIIIC
\lftlion which teeml to have enjoyed special cuncncy.
16 The iritermcdiary here ii one of lhc ll.in1'1 'frinNb' - llft oriental fe&IWI:. (Note
that Diot;enn here .i.o quota Euanlhet of M.ilehll (or pouibly S-.ot). Ed.I
17 Even iD the arly fourth century BC, we find • pld cap,• 01)1Mbol- obuiMd
from the Penian ILiq:', UN u I lellcr or cn:dit (Lym. ON"°" 19.24-6).
II We U'C reminded of tbe IIQddc• wbo ncorts I km, - which ii a fcatun ol. du!
lrilamphal proce91ioa, u we bow &om other evidcacc. •
19 Aa idmticll rnoclcof,eH-couccntion ii made Yleofin the rin&II oflhc 'Grat
Oa&h' al Syraaase (Plamch, Life of Dion 56.5]: d. Glotz, 1877-1919: 752.
20 See C•l Robert, 1920-6: S.916-22; md d. 1915: !05-10.
:ti nil cup had a sped.a lluipe and narae, l:.UIA011: .ee Pherecydea (FGrll Sf
Ua) •d Herodonal ol Herakleia (FGrH SI F 16) quoted by Atb~,
Dnp,&otopl&UIM 11.49, 474cl-f (d. Macroltiua. S......,_ 5.21.S Wllil, who
quotn PhffeCYdN); tee all9 the n:111.-Ji.1 of a.an of Laraipuc:1111 (FCrH 2U f
2) on the al:1plto, in Allb.ueu1, Drip11. 475b-c. Macrobiul me, die nplfflion
#lff,.,,,. fOfU'llbihu: hcrci Mich cv.pt Weft IPftn by a male, whether pd or .ls-
tocn.t, to I woman not hil wife ia n:tum f• RS.ual fat'OW'L Ceowna lft alto
attested in lhil connection (Hen,ciot\1.1 6.69.l), • are ruap, wbo• myshical
.lipif'"JCanCC I lake tbe opportunily hen: to slftel: tbey au found • tallsnlam
puanleeinf lq:itirnacy In hiltorica! lepd, aa wdl • ln lcpad more .-,.lly1
1ee Justin U.4.2-6 Seel.
22 For nanaple, on the laie<:orinthian ,,.,.,. (1iath cennuy BC) (amM 1651;
now 1•11, which ill\lllnte1 the ame Nbject (the depu1111C or Arn)llhlarau) u
Cypselu', chclt, deeczibed l,y Pauaniu 5.17.7-1 (9"' hyne, 19Sl: 529,aL
no. 1471, md lhe photopapb cuily .:Ulliblc in Hade, 1975: 14,f.. 7.1.d.J.
2S A riblal - - to that deecribed II the aul of i.laripidn.'1 H.,.. {1231-71.
15.M-II K.annichl}; Ill OCClllion ii cmaialy diffettnt bat IIOI ha ........ Com-
pare too • ailon' rltlml at Syncuae which inY1*a thro_.., u Hfthenwatt
1r1luc into the tea frolll a boat (lolcman of Dia• ia FHC S, I S6 I'll, 75 •
Athcaaeus, Dap,lo,opAi,,- 11.5, 4621»--c).
24 The DIOlt drcunaatanml KCOllll&is to be fCNDd ia Baecht,lidtli's thir4 clkh~b
(17, I.inn 57-66. 7+-10 Sraell). It lb.Ollld lie retaanhend di• the te,Nulol
ThC'anu. in the form in whkh it UI 11:nowa to u. mut-.. beell iavn.t:cd in IIM
•mcmtury~
25 ThJa lw beea ~ in n:ladon III fuehry rillllll and
che 11.oru by SdMIN, 1968a: 67-1.
me..-. ;..,-4'
ze On &be ,,...._.i_,. role of she ri11f, 11F1 Un:, •ai,
lfl...-9 0 t~.a.ilcfoP
and Ridpway.

252
 Not~s to pp. 124-34
27 Sec Un:, 1922: 149-52 (the story of Gylft ii dllcuaed OD p. 151); OD 1t.b,
Laun, 1924: 159-0.
21 lA1 me mention IIZI intereittin1 panlld &om a C(Wte different cultlll'c, China:
.ee Mutre, 1957: J!l-61.
29 The fonn of the urcraoay i, the aame u that in the atory of Polycratn (p. 12!1
above) (~ TO RAlr((J(. lD,,nr;\,ei.A.,..hri, 6.19.S - 111tt. 5' bfrcrycrrtU' E1t.iMW
f( TO l ' i ~ Rffodotut J.41.2. Ed.)
!10 The ICUll.itar i, hen conceffcd u tometb.Ulf precioua: Xcrxn mU.e, a pit ol
Olle dRwherc, and it is dearly a very lsvilh one (Hcrodob.11 8.120). (Note that
tbi..t latter tdmitu i, UPffaly Mid to IN: made of 1old; the other gift which
accomparun it i, a 'tiara' made or gold-thread. Ed.)
!1 fl am not tun that the tat .U.owa one to make this inference: Aman tay• (He
threw the bulb into the lea after sacrificUlf them) Kai O'fffiorP. hri ro 9uoiq 1TIV
t.>il)aA.no E( TO ,rck,r°" ... Ed J
¢ila:;\,11f.' •••
U For a:arnplc, Pausan.iu ].20.9 (a aacrifice nonh of Sparta by Tyndarcu1):
ni.41 21.171-2 (at Patrochu', fU11cnl pyn). Tiie 1Wnptuo111 ritual offerin11 of
chariott and chariot·honet com:,pondi to their statul in myth.
J!I fot the Homeric world, ,ce Bruck, 1926: 28-52, 7S-100; cf. Wein, 192!1:
l46-9;Wntrup. 19!4: 167-72.
!14 The 11et h111 a number of rnananccs: bulb w~ Aerificcd by throwina: them
into a river-head nea:r Syracu1e where Had.et weDt back into the undCJWorld
afm the npe of Pcnephone (Diodorua Sicuhu 4.25.4); hone1 were aacrificed
to Potcidon by beint thrown into the eea off the cout of the Arplid neu a
6"1ellalwff. a 'place when: birth1 talr.e place' - perbapt whe~ 1oul1 att re·
incarnated? (Pauu.n.iN 8.7.2 (mni rO r~veffNOl'J): in Pindar, PyU.unt 4.42-3
Sndl. the b,Uos it called "the immortal ,eed of wide Libya': ~ ... A ~
«lpuxdpauniPl,lll.
!5 H~. 11 often cbewhe~. hone, att connected with Pote:idon, particularly in
hit capacity u god or the eea: but bone1 are alao rdated to Hadn, god of the
underworld: cf. Stm,el. 190S: 203-13.
)6 In the Jtory connected with the house of Pdopt, tbe ,oun:ea unally speak of
the animal it.el[ (the 'toldm lalRb'), but iD one or two placet i~ Oeeee D
thought of u aoroethinl; quite independent; the R'l'CTle D IJ'\le in the llory we
know u that of the 'golden Reece'.
37 Note illso the lyric pusae,e1 in Euripidct'• o,.,,u,, 812-18, 995-1012 di
Benedetto.
58 Some memory of a fctttv-1 of royal invntiture, with acrtfieee and choiMinJinl,
pomii,ted into fifth-century Sputa {Gemet hen: ~fen to Thucydides 5.13.6,
which has nothiq to do with hi, point hce«. and I cannot thinlr. which
lbuc:y~dean PMUF he meant; but compuc:, Xenophon, Corutitulioff of tfar
L«rdumOPlicm.s 15.9. Ed.).
!9 The lqendary plot hc.-e on« :,,pin allow, u, to ttt a royal dnm1 eonnec~cd
with inve,titW"C u lung. with an idcentical 'opposition• becw«n brothen wl'lich
ii mtittly typical of the theme.
40 To thi, md he hu eeduced (u in Ewipidcs'• venion) Aue1u"1 wife. I limply
not.e hc.-e the ugnif'u::aace of the theme of the woman's riile in the tra111fcr of I
talilrnan or prccio111 object from one pcnon to another. . ..
41 On the mythical notion of sterility [a1itu1tion c,u..:d by offence apuut~nc
rules and marked spedtlcally by the inability of crop,, Ooelr.s and men al1lr.c to
repr~ducc succutfully J , which D the oppo,itc of wealthfw~ll-brinr - and so
· 1tructurally homoloiou• - .cc DekoW't, 1938: 9-28 (an unportant.1tudy).
,1 42 Then ii a dramatic ,ymbolic 1ubstitutiou in Hcrodotu.1 9.197.!-!! which con·
can, practicea (allc,cdly human sacrifice) which wc.-c cun-cnl m a p~ of
Thn.ly when: the lcepd i, ,ometilnet 1et. The story seenn to be a Ir.ind of
homoloeuc of thew prKdcc,.

253
NA'ft to pt,. U6 f1
4! The Unk wu made IOIII' IF by SffliFr, ll8.f-a:i74icf.Nllloa, J90I: 11-
12. (FOi' • dilcu.uion of 11be Clllt, 1ec Cook, IIH--40: I.ft~: 1.2..171 ff.

44 :!] mOlt dculy the dcdkation prelffl'ed • .Allli\.lo,-_ .._..,... S.. 10 (19-
priatal by Bond, 196!: 141-9 witll • bdtcr tat dillla Dibaer, 1 pp. 42-9,
Hypmpf'lc'• i,c,m Kem to have bea ~ by __. of dle IDlda fllN
(Mc Bond. 1965: 19, with fq. 765 Nauck (• p. II BOMIJ and~ 7.Ht
r'I- 6f line 111 f• p. 49 ao.d]; ICC 100 aond.'1 BO&n IO frs. 57 line 10 UMI
u i~ !:,~ ;~! !td.lact
4 8 to Apollo Hyperboftoe. wbo pw the arow tD
Abml, who Pff it in Nm to Py1bap1111. Ed.)
fl OD mytho&..,. u • rona of tlablkmc, ICC UM'III•, 1907: 57-65.
47 (Oedloff'• ctymoloff ii di favoured by both Frilk, 1954-72: 2..171 , ..... and.
by Cballtnw, DELG 4.1 .. 1106-6 l.'I', Ed.)
fl T1til ii jull a pnce towsdl the enor1DOUI importAace in 'primi.Uft' (Gftclr.)
retilion of waTinC - a c:mlwlW tbat bclonp cacbuiftly lo,.,.__
49 Let me hen call aneadoa to a rekvant item of la&e cnclmcc, coaarllUlf •
fcMI beld by a relipous conln.tcmity, IO be faund. in • curiou ~ of dw
,,.,,.,,._,,..,. ('Mcmoin1 of Ptolemy VlD E1*ptCI JI (• F,J;rH ZSf 1 9)
recordecl by AtheftMUII, Dnp,toseplw6" 12. 75, lfte-HOa; note .&.o die
Macedonian IUfflll'C-rcutdncribcd by Hippoloch• of Macedon in AlhCIIHIIL
Dnf#L 4.1, Ula-lSOc: aad • rrapneat of PCNll!idoaiu1, FGrH 17 f IS•
Ath-,Dnf'11. ll.U,461b-c:.
H Oii clulkal pnclicct in relation to the olffflnl; - 'IYmboUc offffllllli'; Uld on
the fKt that in mOlt cua ffud• which were conaccratcd lo the pdl 'Mer
from choec ID domatk ..., anly by their iDlcribcd dcdica&iOII uul f ~ l l ' ,

-
lee Homolle, 1117-1919: Sll-78, OlpKlaUy 571-S o•fumiture, tripadlud

51 It ill allo wonh aotinl; tbat tbe hero Mlcletea"• 'IHc-wrety', the lot takm hm
the !ft, WU kept in a,-_,. KCOrdiat to IIKdi.ylida 5.140-2 Snell (d'.
Robert, 192~6: 1.110 11-6. l.d.).
52 er. llcilch, 1905: 1117--li Schwa1ck......_ 1921: 161-11; a.Dion, 1943:
9~1.
SS On the tripod u ApoUo'1 winFc1 'l'chkle, .ee Cool, 1914-40: l.JH-1 ( ~
SS5 n. 5), picked., by 2.1.204--5 wnlt. r11, 144.
!If The chanp o f . , . or the word M.i.,..o, ia/Mcl f.141-!1 ii worchy ofll01C:
it mean.I hen: 'work-room' (to Cunllf&); rDonoftl', in Homer, 1111 .,.,,_ ii
racrved udu,h,dy f• • 'lr.in1' (tha1, ac any nte, ii the burdca or thill ,......
l.d.] 1 an laatruc:tift mndnomy.
!15 Dlopan Lacnlll,. U,e1 •I rh• pluloso,,llff'a l.Sl (ql.lOtlq • well-known tail
by Akacu1 (rq. 560 Ible 2 Lobel-Pap) UOut tht lparlaD ArutlNliun•:
x,tplr' ilw, fflqpOC I" a615' l'l~ ffi'A.rr' lo8)ac dlM ~ . 'Wealth b dM
••i no poor man ii a tnae man, no poor man hu liffll ('.........1' - -.ely Ill
una:eeptionably uiltocntic 1entbnent of a ChdtllDnal kJad. &d..l,

l.1'11!811dr.Ha1eraadtllc ..... ofdlcA.__,..._.

I Tb..il ii a conlidcrably lftiNd 't'cnion of llbc Gl'iaiml uticle. I UH ldlll
account er lleffhl poinll wmch bffe been lll8CN to me, NptdaUy by 0. Plclld.
•d or the critidmu of Mu.weU.Stu.ar&, 1970~ l lS-lli.
2 P• the coalrowrty, NC Whmowlb:.,MoeJlmdmff, llt!: l.ltS--4o 'l.obfflo
llH; 2'7-507; Jc.......-C, 1951: P&!kidil, 19'2 (with fllll ~ y ) .
M~. 19'5: 56--45, 105-12, 116-t. J.emmu&h, 197!: l!S-H hal .,.a
h,11 tbc imaiptiou dial the ,pAeln! edited in Hl BC. cOlllideluly IMfofr
die period of Lycurpe'• domination of AdlnaD polidcal uta. To IM aute, dlr:

254
 Note, to pp. 148-51
dma: of tbe imaipUOII whicb R.ebm!.llh relin Oii. hu been quntloned by
Mitd!.eU, 1975: 255--45; but dae ld:iolm wbo faund die 1tone,M. Mlt101;, wu
.In II J)Olilian 10 defend 8.dnmv.ch (cf. J. and L. Robert, 1976: no. 194). And
INlt important of .U, Philippe O.U.thier bu lhowa deciliYely ia hb diKv.uion
of Xaaophon, w.,, aul MHtU 4.51-t (wlaich blld.ao1 hitherto been adduced
in the clebale) both tbat the .pli•IHNI mtedatn Lyeurgu, - the w.,, ...
d
MHIV WM written in 155 IC - 111.d that, prior to LYCW'l'II. it wu not a daty
impoted upon .U yo1111111dk dliaea1 (1976: 190-5).
I On fHripoloi pnenlly hi tbe Greek world, l f f Robert, 1955: 28!1-92; we may
add two recent itelft9 from Acunaaia and Epinu: cf. J. and L. Robcn, 197!:
not. 229 and 260.
4 Xenophon, w.,., ... tt Ncau 4.52 thw IIIC9 the verb pelW.i'11 nthn than
llopli"'""'· the pdu bdn1 a lipt lhxld (and lu,plik11rirt refmint: to the
performance of military aervice equipped wil:b hemvy hop]ite umour, e,pcdally
the lhield, ltofd-.1.d.J: cf. Gauthier, 1976: 192-!.
5 Youn1 men wc,e only wed to ript U11da eueptional circu11utance1, and 10
arc nonnally !peeir.cal}y mcnlioned: note the epbode in the rnt Pelopon·
nc,ian Wu, a baule apinlt Mcpn. involvlns the IW6t.lloi (the YOWll men not
aonnally callff. up) and the pre1b1daloi (the older mm no lonirer normally
called up): cf. Thucydida 1.105.4 and Lyaial, OrllliOfl 2.50-S, with Lorau.ll,
JHO..
6 I am not here eonccmed with the mutual lncouiltencie1 of the.e pauqc1.
7 See IC 1.9 (Dn:NM), 1.126-7; and for 01irnut • 'be a YOIIDI loldicr in the
froDtier foru·, van l.ffenlflle, l941b: 1055-4. 11r.ucydida 5.41.2 repro·
daced la Be....-,n, 1912: IN-5, no. 191} ollcn a dear.cul, offic:ial du-

I
........
1inctlon betwem the fronlicl' areu and the territory proper of Aqoa and

The teal Id• formal com.bat ,pinlt 11niap1D, an oppolition whme lipif°1-
caace UI ducUNd bdo•.
9 Hen: la a U.1 - ~ y iltcompJete - ol the 'IOUl'Ce1' (a quill: iaadeqv.all:
term, u will al once be reallRd, fm fflOII of d:rew tcai.): Hdlanicul, FGrH .f
F 125 • S2Sa F 25 (• Scholiut Ton Plato, s,,...
po,i..... !Old) witbJacoby'I
connnealUy; Ephorv.1, FCrH 70 F 22 (• Harpotn.tion, LV. mrcrrrot)pca (I, pp.
t!-S Dindorfl); ~ - . DilftluU iD FGrH H F 1, S9 (Ml).,sf~)\ Slnbo
1.1.7 (S9SC)I Fnmlinu, s,,_,.,..,...,_
Z.5.41; Prondmu, SINk'p,qY 1.19;
Jwtin 2.6.16-21; Pauaniu !.18.8-9; 9.5.16: Kuebn,, CAl'OIIIK°OII p. 56 (ed.
Sc:boene);Jobn of Anl:ioch, in THG .f, p. HI§ ll;l'l'ocl111,ffl Tiffi•..,,.
21b
(1.81.11-90.12 Diehl); Nonn111 of Paaopolil, Dio11y...... 27.SOl-7;Michad
Apo9toliu, a.v. 4rlru.JII' t( : A . ~ in cm,. paro,.111io,r. ff'., edd.. Leuuch
and Schneickwin, 2, p. 294; Michael P1Cll11S, De .Aclionufll 11omi11i61U 40
(• Mipe, l'C 122, coll. 1017d-!Oa): Joh. TUeU!ct, Com11u•11,..n·11m i11
..en:..,.,...., RllftM 7Ha (4..5, pp. 907-9 ltoalcr);Lycophron,.All'xand,w 767
with 1eholla (ed. Scheer): EtymoloFon ..,.,.....,. 1.v. tm:m,lipca (cob. S!l6-7
GailfonS). and LY. I C ~ & ( (152!-S Gailford); Luic• Sl'prrMIII.& 1.v.
~ - (in Bekker, ..C11ecdor. fNCC• I, pp. 416-17); Schollut on AdiUI
Ariateida, I (P.-,hl'llllilw) lJl.20 (S, pp. 111-12 Dindorf); Schaliut on
Arilaophutet, A.cA-iaou 146 (p. 7 Diibner), and h.cl' 890 (p. Sl!I

Adler): u. Jd'A.al, (S, no. 451 Adler); LV. ':!._

Diibncr):Suda, u. hMoliplQ (1, no. 2940 Adlrr);u. M t ~ (S, no. 4S8
(S, no. 8 Adler): Georgr
Synccllu• in FHG 4, p. 559. The• 101U'Cff haw n,cenlly been UK1111bled and
dilcUIICd by Fcnaaadn: Nieto, 1175: 2.15-20 (no.!).

10 ~~ ii .::·.r.: :::. Pl= ;';t\ter:.=:--::. -;m.:,~:c":

Maffp(llllli•Cli:IM!~~iolaiL,'B1uyouwan1u10fill11p-(willcJ
"dark • mp1 a111d ubk-lkinned" •, which Kalli to be • cult-ti lie of Diony1US;

255
Notes to pp. 151-5
but V.•N.'• F•aal poiDt rauim w~d, cf. Suda 1.v. Miw (S,p. '50.o. 451
11 ~;): !°:: inm~~= r. •Jt! ::!.!;: ~
9 DD wordL Al_ Pauliat
Schmitt illfomH me, then: wM accordinl m ,--.mu 2.~s. 7, on die ~ d or
Sphllltria nHr Troeun, a tnDPk or Athena Apatouria. which plmyed ~ un_pon·
~ ~o~~~l::!.£:\fi=:':e~J~;a;~\:St
12 ~;ncr, 1912-Ua: 4.292-7, roUOWUll a ..,..aon by MUii, 1189: 105 n.
15 }!;,:,~~~9 ~~1S~e4 ·~~~~; (1951--60a: 1.61-110, 111-16),

:::..-= ~-:-,
wbil:h or coone he did not blow.
H Marie Ddcowt.'1 raurb in 1965: 11 are completely W1founded, beinf; hNd

15 .,..patbclic rlplft': Odyar, 24.222-5, Sl7-90, 5!7--411

(and at leut IOIDC of hia lODI, apparcndy. Ed.J. AnllieSchnapp hu dilcmled
th.ii theme or 40101-Dolon in a forthcorniat article.
16 Thil point hu been chllll~d by MaweD.SNUt., 1970: 115-1,6. He tria to
millimi&e the llipi&ance of Ph.ilo,m,tu, UHs of Ila~ Soplai,as 2.550, accord-
inl to which the cpbebe1 wore in -mbly and in. public proceuion1 a bi.ct
cMl•Y•· Hil aiticilm doa not cany conrictioa becaue, althouah he ii
ramilm with Rou.uel'1 article (l!Ml: 165-5) - which to my mind ii deciliN
- he penim in thinJLiDI &bat IG 11 1 1152 (h-onnc imcription ror Heroda
Atdclu) m ... to Hcrodel'I father, Cla11diul A.tdau, who• YOW Hereda WU
flllmlm,. But RoUACI lit.owed that the tut inf.ct ftren to The.... : lt uy1
'the .m of Aepllll much to hil cbnay rorptliq h.ia rat1tt, .•. • ()."""' .,._.
llaw,ae.._ I Aqfi&w: 20). Mol'COYG', lhcn: ii no way or lhowin1 that thil
iucriplion n:fen to the my1terie1 ol Eleuaia.. On the other haad, I haw 1aken
ICCOIUH of two impon111t points by M•wdl.Stuart, and remo.-ed a ftfeffftC'lt
to Xntopboa, HdJnic• 1.7.1 (which 1 inltl'pftted w,ontfy) u.d lbe lt'ridmce
or the YUCI (which I aisepn1mted).
17 Sec PllllO'I WDI• 1, &SJb and the relnut, md very lmportan\, acholia on it;
Hendc:idea of Pontua in FHG 2, p. 210; Plutarcb, Li/• of Lye.,,,.. 28; note'
too Plllun:h, Lif• of Ct.ott1nn 21, which mm.Ii.ON one Damotele1, who wu
la Cleomenet'1 .,.,. die hnd of the liryplrill (that ii, in chute of 1111bmhcs)
(cf. l.ocbly, 1111-2: l.!116-7. Ed.I.
II h would be dtwcnint to conaparc lhae 'railltary' interpretalionl 1n the nine-
temlh cenhll')' with lhe libfflll, not to ay Louil-PhDippian, one of Henri
Walloo, the 'father or the Republic', for wbom the lrypr.ia wu HlltOtWly a
police-operation.
19 P111wch, Life of Lycr,rp.s 21.4 (quotin1 A.ria&ode), Por a defaac:e of the
1cricn1ane• of thil tradition, 1ee Finley, 1975b: 165 with L 9; 176-7.
20 At &be Ind of ideolotY, or coune; the actual JOCial cnpniutioa of the
Spaniate hopllte-body .. more complicated dim dw, u Nicole Lon\l& remiadl
me (aee 1.orum., 1977; 105-20).
21 Sec Lm.S1n1111, IHlb: 19-50, and, mon paenlly, 1970, widl Yabna11,
1967: 71-89: aleoJaulin, 1967: 40--IH, 141-71 (the•tOllillliq..:cnt1toJ
the 111thoe'1 "ialtialion' by a tribe bl Olad), &Del DwDed, 1161: H-1 (OD
mother type of oppolition between the 'ubd' usd the <tr.e..&y-arm.ed'
wurior).
22 Rational decilion ""'"'') ii for Thucydida the oppollte of fortuH (r,a\l):
clilcoune tbc oppolite of action, jwt u &be bot ii die oppGIIIIC of the C.W OI
the dry or &he we1 in Milclian comaolotlcal dualunl,
IS Oa &he COIICl!:pt or invcnioa, oae coud qule lhc ROie of l..lvt-SlnJua'• WCN"k,
lff a110 Pe..brolr.e'1 imponant JMPCI', 1967: 1-56.

256
 Notes to ff. J 56-7
24 Oa the Otehophoria, tte Momnuicn.1898: 56, 278-82; Rut,envan der LoeH,
1915: 404-15; Deubnrr, 19!12: 142-6;Severyn,, 1958: 2.24l-!14;Jeanmaire,
1959; 546-7, 524, 588; JKoby, FGrH 3 b I: 285-!104; !I b 2: 193-223;
Fame, 1964: 170-2.
2S The entire literary tndition on the OICbophoria and Slr.ira i, printed in Jacoby,
FG,.H !I b I (Suppleme11t): 286-9 in hU commentary u.pon tome or the mo,t
important passage• (Philochorus, !128 F 14-16). The only 1ignificant lNCrip-
tion relevanl lo the 0.Chophoria is that bclonpng lo !163 BC which give, 11' the
nc::ord of an lll"'emmt between the two KpDtnll or the Salaminia!:I 1rno1
which had been in di,putc (fint publiUled, with a full commmtary, by W.S.
Ferpson, 1938: 1-H; conveniently R"printtd in Solr.ofow1ki, 1962: 49-54,
no. 19).
26 Sec Solr.olowllr.i, 1962: 50, line ~9. The ,a,ne fAoJ provided two female
dripnophoroi ('food<anien') who broufht food to the youn1 people '.lhut
away' during the tcclu.ion ceremonies in Phaleron; cf. Nillson, 1951-60c·
2.731-41.
27 Jacoby, FGrH 3 b 2 (Supplement): 200-3. The nnctu.ary of Athen1. Skir;u i,
taid to be 'outaidc the city' (Et rit<; rrOAtw(): Etymoloficon Ma,num p. 71 'i
28 ("'Jacoby, FGrH !I b I (Supplemenl): 287 no. 7. Ed.).
28 Amplti11udt1 has two mcanints: 'a child with both p.l.ffnb alive'; and 'one who
CU.ti and huulle1 grem branche1 or twip in riNabor procet!D.oru': .« Rober!,
1940: 509-19.
29 See Pluwch, Life of Thtuus 2!1.3-4, quotinf the Anhidognphtt Demon [c.
300 BC); Proclua, Chrtnom•tll~ 88-91 (pp. S6-7 Severyn,) [• Photius,
Bihliollltca 239).
!10 Thete poinu tttm to have 1onc unnotked.
31 Proclu1, Clirrslomalll.ili 91-2 (p. 57 Scvcryna): Ei'ffETO /,E Toi<' vrm>M:11.( b
~ 1taihMTO:J.iEAT1. tt b:Q0111( Ci 4111.\flt f4'rllb 6uJ~.\Wvro rrpo( Q:.\Afl).Otl(
6.od,Jl.jJ ('the chorv.1 followed the youn1 men (the procession with the two boy,
dre-d u ptl1 V.-N.) and .-n1 the sonp; q,hebc1 from each tribe competed
apinat each other in a runnina; nee'); .sec alto the ICbolia,t on Nicandcr of
Colophon, Afuiph.rmab J09 (p. 36 Abel and Vui: Waxojaclp°' SE Ai'ycwrcta
~ a , rrui&( ~ M i ( o,u.\AWµoa drG: -.,~, o l . ~ e ( , c ) . ~
t»,.mll.ou EK Toti Wpo6 TOli ~ frprx,w d( ro riK Iiupd6o( MQVQ( i.fpciv:
'O,cll.ophoroi meant al Athen, boy, who carried tacnd br.1.nche1 and who
competed by triba; they ran with vinc.branchct from the temple of Diony1u1 to
the temple of Athena Slr.iru.' Ed.]. The inscription of the Sal.iiminioi, quoted
above, apparently alludet to thUI compeli'!on (hamilfo1) in line1 61-2
(Sokolowdli, 1962: 51): TO 6t l l ' P ~ TOV fiJ.u),),QJ h, ,idplft fl((tffpov,;
'"'1d:.oXfa6o:a: 'Each puty (ie. the two Klfflen!.I of thr Salaminian 1e11os
whoK dispute b heR' rnolved) ahall perform i.a !um thc 11,acrificc which prr·
cedct the cont,..t' (cf. Fer1J11.an, 1938: 37. E.d.J.
Thc 1i1erary uadiuon is hopdCMly confo1td, iiJlcc the 1ource1 teem to mil:
up 11 lcu1 folll fe1tivah. the Oschophoria, the Skua, the Skiraphoria and the
Thcsmophoria. The fin! and last of these took place in thr month Pyanep1ion
(SepternbcT-Octobcr) and the ThC'Smophoria w.u confined to m~ed wom~n.
But what about the Slt.ira? Ariltodcmus of Thebc,, a late hcllengbc Boeotian
writer, auicncd the ephebi.c race, which I have ~ c d lo the Oschophoria <rn
the authority of Proclu1, to the ft1tival of the Sk>r1. which wa, connected .... uh
Athena Skiru JU•t a, the 01ehophoria was (FG~H .583 F 9, from Athen .. ctH,
o~,p,aoiQplt.~,;,& It, 495e). The 1,eholiut to Ari1to.phanca. Ec.,lenafu.&or Ill
(p. 31!1 Dubnrr) u.y, that the Skira W&I a Junt fesuval (12 Skll'Ophonon). If
to, it• impouib.le to 1uppo1t that the youth, carried fJsrlloi, b~nchc1 af.~p,
papet. I cannot theR"foR" llft'e with Jacoby when he wn1cs:. Our tradition
ii pedcc:Lly dear: lhe procnaion ill attcncd for the Oschophona, the nee for

257
 .\'ot~s to pp. I 57-61
the Skin.phori2' (or the Skin. ped:iap,); Uld tbna clm&a thu 'lnditioft' by
arpinc that pan or l'Todu', tat ii Ulltapolated. (T~H 5 b ~ (Sllppl~t~,
commnr.ury on 521 f 14-16). Additional-~ for •Y ~ •
provickd by the n:Ultcnce at 5,-U of a rinLIII nee .rry doe ID dlD
described by our ,ourcet, linked to a fcstinl of tbe pltntrin (die Camria), mid
in which the runner, cany bv.ncba o r ~ UII jut CM' ..,..e way ( - P· 157

bel~:).tbc S.kiTa. K'e Dow uui1 Hcalcy, 1965: 16-17, 55, 59--41, +t., ,__.,
and commnr.linl upon /G II 156!1 (thoufh tbe book must be ued with
cautio11 : cf. J. and L. llolMl't. 1967: 481-2 (IID. 217) and tbe authon they
dtc, cq,edaDy Jean Poullou:I: and GcOrJCI llous.).. . .
[V.-N.'1 commc:nu 011 Jacoby hen· arc .w-dy JWtificd; but I ~ riot thm.k
we can be certain that lbc pvalld Mtween the Otchophona and die
Staphulodromia U1 Sparta w• qu:itc u a.act • he. arpea. The ~y IOW"Cll!_
which ttatct catctoricaDv thM the ,rphebcs who ran JO tbe race csrned oaclio,
ia the Scholwt on Nicander of Colophon in the p-,e, I ha..r truubted.
aboff. hoclut him.di ay, only that it w• the two YOWll men ~ U pk
who carried vinc-b.-ancha and snPft: TOii ~ 6' 6t.'io ~ ~ -,wmm(
~a,oNOl'f.o. ,c).tpl .,. ~ 1COJU'tovr« ,-Uf'GI ~ jlorptJWI': 'nwo
youna: men from the cllonu, ~ u WOIMO and carrying a Yinc-bnndl
conrcd with fat snpa ... '. In view of the mull peata maunatan.tialily of
di.ill puaqc, and KCtion 92, it seem• cuier to 1Uppo9C" that it ii tbc 1ehotiut
on Nicutdcr which hM compttlled a fuller aecoant to the poiDI of confuioa,
or muddled • proccNioa in. the 01ehopb.oria inTOMI\I (1) n.v YOIUII men
carryinr vinc-branchca and (2) a nee between ,pA,k, witlu lisailar ooe in the
Skinphoria, when the papcs wen: just startiq to xt. ln th.ii c ~ it is
innn&cdw that this tcholian thought that ~clll iaeant Pply 'a rine tn.b',
and by cnenaion the brudl of any ni:e, thu millet the poiat .na.,:d, fOI"
n.amplc, by Ptodm, and by the EtymfHofK-"'-P•""' 619.52 Gaill~ tbM
the branch carried rlpt, bancbn of papa. Ed.)
S2 See d.o Arilto&:mu,. or Thiebet, TGrH SIS F 9 and PToc:lw, CAra11o-UIM
91-2 (p. 57 Severyn,,).
S9 '(They call the cphebee) •odro'"oi iD CreflE becau1e they do not yet tt.ke part
in the runflina ncn': ho ... K,om,J, ~ , 6io: 'td ,nJ6hw rWI' &OIIIWI'
6pq.iwt' IJET"ixEW: Euau.thiu1, Co'"'"'"'W'AU ffl Hom. Od)'JS. 8.247 (p, 1592.
58), quoted by Willem. 1955: 11 a. 8.
54 It will ~ recalled that then wttc fefthoab, ,uch u the hn11ye.\i, dwinr the
Athenian. Pan.athmaia, from whM:h all but ~ yoang wcrc ntdwkd, ad whkh
were hdd 1t night (d. Euripides, Her•driW 710-5); nott too the ritual
ramtioned by HttodolUI 5.41, dileuacd by Schmitt, 1979: 216- 7.
55 Stt IC 1,9 (DrmM), 1.11-12: 98-100 (p. 85); 1,19 (Mallot), 1.17-18, with
Guardu.cci's commmtary onpp. 87, 2!2;cf. Schwy.11:r, 1978: 257--48 m1idvan
Effeatem:, 19!7: 55~2.
56 The ruin work on lnuuin,: in cluocal Grttee 1-m11im OUo Mana1, 18U:
7-Sa; 1189: 5-20; 1890: 5- 21. The-re ii IQlll.e infonn.atiaft to be PflMd
from Aymud, l"l (motdy about llornu buntial}, aad cf. lnlidl, 1958:
iadn, .LY. Caccia. When thia snide _ . fint publ.Wted, I did aot know
ltcren)'i, 1952: ISJ-<f,2, which r.iset • llUlDbcr of the prohk:11111 dlac-..d
hne. Sec DOW abo Schnapp, 197' (ttill 1111pubUahied); lrelidl, 1919': IH-9;
and Picket, 1969: 281-98, which i, thoucht·pwN>kiaf.
J7 ID the wd.1-known oppolition betw«11 hoplkc -d. .Ca ill Emipidrl'•

t
Henlcl'1, the archer is rtjectcd, lince he hWlU wild MilaUI (155-1).
SI [7o the •ountaint' truulatcs ,._.,.. ~( t,w,.,.., I lliw mi( ltpeou, ~ : "be
went to the wild land, and chHlt in the mOWlWll:I' (Unu 716-7). f.d.J
The litcrar,, texu concernina: Alalaau arc pvea, for n:-pk. bf b o ~ r .
. 59
,
2§8
 Notesto l>f). 16/ ... 1
1185: 1-11. Bown., 1950: 52-69, thOllp devoted to Swinburne', poem
Ar..,.,,., ii Ngative; but the hmdunental dilc\lmon ii aow Arripni, 1977;
d, Detienne, 19791: 27-:54, .a-2, f4--51. On the cpilodc or the .ppk:1, 1tt
Trumpf, 1960: 20.
40 'A half-child man' {Wpoirm.t ~ ) . . .y, AeKhyhu, S111e,i. a,lli,a,it T/wb,r
5!5; the very name, P.rtbcnopiwu, mean, 'with a lace like a prt•,·.
fl A.pollodoru.1, BilHwU..1e• S.9.2; Ovid, M,M'"c>fJ'hor,s 10.560-607; Virlic:4ffl
M'1tho,rophn 1.S9 (ed. Mai); Hy,:inw, F•lniliu 115;Serviu1 in Vnfil. A:,mnd.
5.11 J. The 10un:e1 differ conceminf the aame or Atalanta', hu,band.
42 Thia type or D,urc ia myth should be com.pued with the whole nn,e of tho,e
who rcfue truuition. That b a .ubject which has not yet been eir.plorcd.
4S Stu"tln( from hnc, I have tried to lhow tbat one can iaterpret SophocJc1'1
Pltilocter,, in term, of lhc,pA,beUI (1972: 161-14) (,cc n.. 27, p. 261 below).
44 Xenophon·, worlr. on war and hunting ~eab thi, 1:11odifk11ion of the hoplitc
tradition eir.u-aordinuily well. Many ,cntence1 - for Wtancc thoite which
advilc the traininf of youth, and older rnca (or WU by the practice of hunting
- have I polemical. liptili.cance which h1,1 hardly btta aoticed.
45 Tiw it u ru II l fO alons with the remuluof Plckct, 1969: 294 on the ephebe
u a hoplitc-in·the-raakln1- On the cpbebic oath u a hoplitc oath, ,cc Siewert.
1977: 102-11.
46 See Du.mt!zil, 1942: S7; 1956: 2'; and more tmenlly, Vian, 1961: SS-61. In
the properly Roman c~tcltt, ln'cn! 1tudic1 by J,·P. Morel have tN'Own nc:w
lipt on the tole of the iu11n1"'1 (the AF-clu, ol youn1 men) in the a,e-cl111
atruc;turc: d. 1969: 52'-!15; 1976; 66)-13.

9. bdpa for Grttk ~

I [O..to,n, of thr A'"nie.,. s_..,.,

co,np.red un'th Ulc Cturo1n1 of Ellrl~d
Ti'"e,J, cited in the tceoDd edition, 4 vol1., d•odecilfu1. (The book wu tnr»-
latcd into Du1ch in 1751 and into Gernaua in 1752, but never iato In,lilh.
Ed.)
2 Sec apecially K..alia, I 94S, and the aut.bon he cite1, e ~ y A.mold VUI
Gcnncp, 191'; torne additional information naay be found m Ouch.ct, 1971:
14, 15, 72, 99, 101, 105, and ctpecially tbe chapter 'Dilc.ollft ethnolo(iq11c';
ef. Lemay, 1976: IS 1'-21.
J Lalitau, 1724: I, 'l.ap1-.ltion of the mpavinp and rlfW'CI in the Fint
Volume'.
4 It b hud to uy whether the bearded fipn below Mary ii a prophet, or
whether, more probably, it b the £temal Father addreain1 himtelf to Adam

:"~ !:Cth~o:!: 0
: ! : o : 1::u':;
11
!i~~~~~:t::u:~':
and the Beu;,o, ule11t, Morgan, 1177: 156. Ed.) . .
~:;'!~c:;~
.
5 de Aco1ta 1954: S4. The trulll1tion of 1598: 50 111 a mollifi.::auon of the
oripnal. {On
de Aeosu and Lafita11, 1« brieOy in Enpi&h Meek., 1976: 42-9,

6 ~ 7~ . ~ i 7 : 145; d. Pembroke, 1967: S. [By.1877 he b hPl!l,elf quotin.1

BKhofcn (559, 464 n. I) within the context of hw own uprncnL <:>n Lewu
Morpn in Eqiilh, mee Rcaclr., 1960; IIIU\, 1960: 179-201; Harrit, 1968:

7 ~8!;!;,Iti~7: 4 {'Al we n·uccnd aloa1 the KVc:nl line9 or pro~H tuwud

:e::i~i::v;:~:ti:'.:!=.~~ af~:r:ee 0: ~ : ~ ; ~~ ':~~~
tutiont OD the other, we arc enabled to pcrce~e that ll:'e former nand to cad!

: : :~ ~ : ~ e ~ o n ~ : : : : : r : .
11
~!.;';~t~~t~~:i;:nm~:
259
.\'otes to pp. 167-74
&om .a few primU"V llff"II of thou,hL Mockrn illltiNtionl plaftl their - b ill
thr period or barbvilm, into wblcll their Pftlll Weft ~ltttd. from the

~':~U::=.O:r:O~~!'eJi
I Stt for a.ample, thr
..~ro!c-:i~~:ra,h
durulliom ID Ganudy, 19'9,
* ••·
Godma', 1170; WD
aDCl
vkbl-Naquct, 1964, and Sofrl, 1919. (laE..,u.b,aoce AIMknoD. 1974: 597-
451, 462-549; and Hoblba-, lDtradiacdoa lO Man:, 1964: 9~. Ed.)
9 Note- the ,on of '111anif'e1l0' edited bJ LR. Msett. 1908, tn.otria1 Oft
clallicilu (A.rUl.ur Enns, Gilbert Marny, F.B. J - . J.L Myen.. W. W....
Fowler) aDd an anthropoJGpt-blnoriaa, Andrew t..Ds. The- maail'estD ..,..
mlriud the- won. or a pcntiaL
10 See Glido'r:, 1114/15: cola. 17-9. (For ma k'COUllt ia Eqluh, 1e-e Sbalpe,
1175:J5-46UICl47-71,,...... Ed.} Onthil.aadlffenlother~lff
DedtMe, 1979b: 12-7.
11 Tylor, 1901: 1.7;ch.,cen I 1911 4 are dffotcd lO 'Surmal iaCulNn' (Ito!:
1.70-159). Oa Tylor mdhllcaatcmpanrie,, sec Mader, 1971: 5~79;then:
ii 10me- illJonaadoa on &be notiaa or 'IIU'ffl111" in Tylar to be! foua ..... Hodpn,
1956: 16-66, utd apecilllly 'hnow, 1970: 221-51.
II Tylor, l!IOJ: 1.469. (The p-,e coadnllCI: 'Mea to whom tbcc:rk!tolbeub
1111d Wrdl 111:eta like hu1111111 ~ . a11d cheir Kticrall pklird u it wen by
hwun tllousht, lop:ally moutll aDow the nillteac:e or ..... lO bnl.._ binll.
aad ,eptila. u to mm. nae lower ,-ycholo1Y canoe bus ~ .ia bal•
the very chancteriltia whida it attribata to dt.e h...._ 1Dul, nmaety, the
phenomena or life md clead!., wl1 md
vilion or in drcua.' Ed.)
Ju....-, utd the phalltora WGI In

U Lui, 1117: 2.255-11. Note die re1pect accorded ta 1.afitaa.: '(He) WU per--
haps I.be llnt writer who nw aplained cnula ra.tura. in Glftk and other
ancient rnythl and pnc1ice1 • .-ntvak &o.. tote'lmllll. The Clailllera. • com·
pallite cnatwe, lion, fOlll and •rpe11t, fllilbt nptittaal, Lalttau thaqp.c, a
le.,ue or daru totem tribet. Jut u wolr, be.- Md t1111.le- ~ t e c l die
lraquoil le....e' (l.75). for a cdticlll 1111odna fleW, let Detienne,pp. 215-17
~,:."\~i"' Lut,'1 adln,polapal wort, .re ill Eqlilh, ROM!, 19!Hidc Coe..
14 See Lffl.Stnu.11'1 flaue, ill 1971: 559-'21, whidt. Up.lei the poia.t la •trikhtal
fuhion.
15 For 1111 n&111ple which ii not Bretoll but rrom Poitou, 1ee Le Goff ..d Le Roy
Ladmk, 1971: 517-U2.
11 Leach, 196611: 125; on - Gmaep IIDd rir.s fU ,-u-,, l f t 'lelnulnt:, 1974:
69-11.
17 Ith• been demomcnteclbyMmprido, 1971, thacinialtiadoarilulltheldl-
mne area can 'be' 1amdm111 Ge WGrld or die wfld, u.d ~ tile lamnan-
ize-d world; iadffd, the hmction of ritv.als of lnkiation ii to h.....ia both die
11111:-cta.n IIDd the- 'wld·.
11 See C. Baud, 1970; al1a RoDey, 1974: 507-11; Uld Auhenoa, 1975
(apec:ialty the- rernarb or Aabenon, Mele, Mania IIH 'l,epcll'e), . . . . . . J
think tbu B&vd bu ....,cred thne objfcdou. Men punlly. BOie
Snodsrua, 1977.
19 An:haealoptl haw habicully lpored buri.a. of clll*o _. ~ n a
bec&ule the bodie1 wen
Nlly reicoYeffll die l'dlUII
Wd.,....
bent:Mh lhe llll'IKle - thOIIP lky 1111-.e nn-
Df.__ (wbidl ~ pa.a4a.....-J mdor
Mkll• (wluch were placed io. dltaay - , . ••c ..,.......,, ....
betweca the IIF' ol n,o ad ....,lffft: 1ee C . .._., lf71h 5.Z.
bff' dllill
20 See Lllbllrl,e, 1951: Sll-94; ·Vldal-N.,...c. 1811: 161--11, ~ J1P- 14e-lO
abo,e; Vaunt, l97f: 91-51.
21 or IIMdllliapartmcc-.JDIIIIUlire, 1111: 12t-10and 1H91......._ 1,e1-

260
 Not•, to /IP· 174-83
IOb: 2.116-691 llouiel, IMl: 115-1; 1951: 115-221; Thomlon, IHI:
Brelkh, IHI md. 1965: 222-Sl. 011,,.., • hrlltnfli {1969),u well Mon
ndiu wodl by NU.0.., jllDC llaniloa, JCIIUDare etc., l f f c.lame, 1971:
7-47;C. SDllfflllou.-lawood, 117h: 172-l;Vklal-Naquet, 1968: 111-11 and
pp. H7-12 abcne:Vauat, 1974: U-56,
22 See tt.ou.el, 1941: 115-5; VicW-Naquct, pp. 155....fi llbove; MaweU-Stuart,
1970: IU-16.
2! nacre II .. a:lclllivc litentl&n:, but DOh: Geraet and Boulaapr, 19S2: 59-40:
JClilllllaft, 1919: 442; Dekoun, 1961: Vmumt, 1974: 54-40 and VidaJ.
Naquet, pp. 165-8 above.

form of myth lbou.t w.mior-nala or rtra......,.

H Sec Brdkh, 1961 and Ellillfer, 1978: 7-55 {a 1tudy of a partia&larly rldicaJ

H In the Greek world, u in the mediaeval., there were bowa and bowa; the bow
dn.wa by Odyaew at the end of the a.,..., ii lhc type.cue of the bow
dulirted 'potllively'.
26 See the \ICf'Y detailed ccnnmeatary on Co111litutio11 of lh, Alh,11Mnl: 42 br
Pclflr.idil, 1962: IS-6 cf. 17-152; aJ10 Brelich, 1969: 216-27. For the date:,
Rtp.14711, 2abowc.
27 See VicW.,Naquet, 1972: 161-14, wbOlt handammtal conclUlionl I 1tand b,,
dapite the up.111cat1 of di lenedeuo, 1978: 191-207. ·
21 Liten.D.y, 'I srouad the snin for om Arclllpli,-', which refen to Athena,
dnpitc Souvinou-lawood, 197lb: 541, who upe,. for Artcmil; ollly Athena
could be Archtsetu at A.them,
29 See Bnticb, 1969: 229-SO, wJao pn,perly c:rilici&e:1 Che Mlllmpli-;J continue
to -cree wt.th Brdich, dapitc Cawnc, 1977: U7-9.
SG Tbe Nlldam.aual Int ii huaniu 1.27.S; the cridaacc ii collectcd in Coot,
1914-40: 5.165-91 (with u a:traonliaary commeatuy) and elptCially ill
BIIDen, 1"6: 1-25, who iaclecd enaphuiaet the initiatory upcci. of the cult,
but bill, I think, lo relate it to the trudtion between one ap-c:WII iand
another. On the number of -,1ioroi, 1tt Brdich, 1969: 235, 212.
SI EVCD thOllp Ariltophaaa chODkl to pre-t the limation II tho!IF it were,
ror dramatic: aad conaic: rc_n, that hr,e aot really been undentood; 1e1:
l.olau..,lNOb.
52 The IWo periocb arc 10metima telc1eoped iluo oae.
SS ('EICheat' ii a feudal, not 111. ~icn1 lepl ICml, and ii technically inappropri·
au: hffC bccaue or coune the land did DOI lfffft to the Cl'OWft in clU1ical
A.lhem in def.Wt of direct hcln. Nevcnhcltll the wonl convey, a K111C or lhc
dulff of a fuaily'1 lud bcffll dilpcncd beyond ltl control in IUch a cue. The
Frateh ia 'to•ber ea dilb.Cl'ence' (p. 156). A.a ,piUho, wu a woman who, on
the death of her father, found hcndhhc: tole 1urviviq dirc:1:1 heir, 1111.d wbo in
A.thclliaa law wu compelled lo ffllll}' her lltuat ,pack kin. See further,
Haniloa, 1961: 10-11, U2-H. Ed.)
54 Finley, 1971b: 161-71. ['Beneath the muk oCLycurru1· Uthe title of Chapter
I ofJcumairc'1 Co,m,i •J Couri111, pp. 46:S-SII. Ed.)
55 Perida in Thucydidc1 2.S9.l, play, on the: doubc 1t Spana for the benefit or
the Alhcmaal when he dedara that the Spania1e1 'by din1 ol h.-.h lnininf
pw111t the ,ca1e of maAhood [or JDMly thinp) wble 1till youthl', ffiwdlH,.J
~~WO& &.ff(' t'O ~iwv.n'P'1(0!"0a;d. Lonu•. 197&: ~- .
S6 Xenophon, Co1111. L«.•tl. 2.9. Thill CIIIIOID II noi to be confuNd with what 11
became in the R.omu. period - a mere ,pct:ucular.
57 fluiart:h l.if• of L1tu,p1 16.4-5; Xenophon, Clffllt. LM,d.. 2.11. Niluon,
1151-IOb: 2.151, ii of the opinion t.hat Plutardl'1-,.lo ii I 1r11r11lation of illl.
The olf"adal &idc, attc11:cd cpip'aphic:ally, of the pou.}Mea_dtt wu Bo~.,01,
'llenllm.•' 1c1. flarcbiu.11, u. ~ : «Yf~. o rrrc *"'l.lK i.Oxc..111
Mlk. t\alw.Jtlff J, no. 8'7 Wue. Ed.I

261
Notes to pp. 184-9
SI Pau,aaiu 5.14.I, 20.1. 0.,, of dac competition.I bennn. the YOUIII M m ~
we 1r.n- from tbe dedk:adrml to Ancmil Onbia - Clllkd bf • ume wbida
indilputably meam 'bunt'; the olllen Nan to bSft bem •.-.I eompethl,cml:

the
59 ~ ~ ~ 9~ : 5 pa.,, of thc.e imtim.doulbed ~ o n : d:iua, • Nkolc
I.emu. bu noted (1977: 116), ta lhe lut atqcl o f t h e b a n l e a t ~
(410 BC), the dme hUlldred 5,-dala - that ia ~e f ~ "'Yf!'"'
now
NfflDI • Hi#N - fol.IP• "witb their bandl and with thm tfftll , or 'lib
boars -..rpaainf their nub': Haodotu 7.225.S: Ariltaphana, L1....,.
1214-6.
40 Seelrdkh IH9: 157-16,..ciiCaJame, 1977: l.211-H7.
41 [would no~amoqdacbnteft'ort:1 In thil.ue, Wachtel, 1971: 795-140 md
Zalclema. 1171 (with a pnface by Wachtel).
41 Moria, HNi5: 225. (See alto Ille Milar poin.t l'Ude by Rolmld l.rthn, ~
llueGuidc'in 1972: 74-7. Ed.}

10.111nry ...s th•• or w.--1a tndicioli, •Y* •• atopla

J For a prelimiaary atmapt, Ne my earlier article Oii the llaclr. H-ter (pp.
147-fi2 aboYe).
2 ('l"be drift of thil Hem11 to me rather mbleaclin.1. Ariltotle bqbu hit clilelulion
or Sparta and Crete by eouic1eriAi heloap (2.9, IH9a-29 ff.) and_,,. that,
becauae of the dlfliClllty ln lr.nowma h - to treat lllch helots, 1tau1 which
lllffer from lffOlu or from illlolmce on tltc helots' part cannot be md to haw
round 'the bat way' (1H9bll-12). He cben at once proceed. to corulcln a
condathe cllaadYlnt.p at Spwta, the lcmce p.nted women: there ii no
dlncl co111pui,Nm between lnftl and W0111em, altbou.p the one IDlll'lff ffl·
dmdy cau.ed Adltotle to Nm to the odlcr lm•ediately Utuwardl. l•t tbffe
may be a vdled reference to mllccpMion betweffl free women and belou at
2.9.11, 1270.1-S. Ed.I
3 (Apia, thil IHIIII to me Jllp.dy inKalnle. Aristotle ii here i.llr.lq !ipedft-
cally of the mainleDUICe or tynnny (1.11.4--54, ISISaS4-IS15bl0), uul
make• no meadon (here) of tile historiul/monl filiation betweo 4emocncy
and tyranny: lu..ltr toW#dl " - • and u,e of fcnaale IPka ae raana by whidl
tyr'Ultl rule ('over true mm1, jqlt uwulerclemocrwy,,. beca~ daaocrwy
ila 1011ortyra1111.y (UllbSl-t). Ed.I
4 See Vklal·Naquet, 197Sa: !15-6, and, for an attempt at an hlll:orii:111 intierpret·
ation, Full.a, IHI: )02-11. .·
5 See Cntinu flt. 208 (CAF 1, p. 76, quoted by Scepbuuu of Byzantiwn);
lupolil frr, 197 (CAF 1, p. 312, quo1ed by Hnydliall); lphoru1, FGrH 70 F

:!:-:-;~l~.~C,:,":l~=
Schaeldewin, 1, pp. tls-t •
...~,.(~:'°-=!'!.~;..~~~~
p. IH, frr. ,S};Somaatet,
FHG !I, F FGrH4'1
2 (quoted by the Swla);fliny, HN 5.f4;0lylllplan1U,q110tedbyStqlwnuof
lyuntium, 1.v. Sau).c.w ~ (p. 2'7 Meinecke); ApcNt.., 6.55 (c..,_
fN'OH•. f'·, edd_ Leutaeh ... Schnddewia, f, p. 5711.T, ~ ~ ) . Mcwl
of tbae refernca se to be foaad cOfflltlliaady bl dlree laka, a.w. Wl.w.
NN(: Havchiua. p. 457 Sduuk;Sleph.mlm of ~thm,p. H7Memecke;
die Sada. no. 1425, t, p. IH Adler.
.,_._
6i A fabaloua city ...,,.... 1o haw.: been roltlUkd by Pblip of Mael'doa •

7 Our 1aurcc, EpbOl'III ~ 70 F 29, hm Albe.ueus, DripteonpAUIM 6.HSf)

..,.. that ~ die towa or l.ydoa tbfte ...., r.rinlt ill wllk:b no tr. . . .
ICIMlldamtbedtylDd"olkwa...,.Wl'.....,..,','ttle_.~•eo11aol
of naydlinr'. We .a...
ha.e the . . , _ . . . from S"Ph ..... or lyandma.

262
 Notes to f>P. ~-95
I POllib~ CDUJ1ter-uunpla aft the llave-camp on Chiol n:aeationed" by
Nympb.odcmt11 (1ec FUU in n. 4 .bon), or the Jrlaye,.kiJl1dom act up in the
lffOrtd centia,' BC roWld Etna in Sicily: but the1e were imt:itution, created by
111..a, not 'dtia' dclCl'tbcd u tnVile.
9 Sec Pcmbrolu:, 1965: 217--47; 1967: 1-55; 1970: 1240-70 (which dcll..h with ,
die tnldl.tionl concc:rnins £pizepbyrian Locm and Tanntum), Hit arsumcnu
llft' not affected by the duartation of Jtaarle ffin,onen, 1968, which anyway
ipgrc.tthem.
10 Set the te1:u -bled by Dwnb.il. 1924; at lcut one tat u1e1 the term
~~ ('ruled by women') in connection with Lcmno1: Apollo-
doru1, 6ibliotluu 1.9.17.
11 On Cytcmnenn in Gr«k tn,edy u the IUlllpCr of male powcn, ,cc Vcmant,
1971: l.1!4-5, and ZcidiD, 1978: 149-89.
12 There it • ntt, though oftm qW.tc worthlc11, litcn.turc on thit topic. There ul"
how"er fWO u.cfw articles I may mention, Luria, 19H: 210-28 and Willl"lts,
1959: 495-506; and a,1,unmuy of the problem in Crahay, 1956: 172~5. Thi1
ta:t of Hcrod.otu.1, and m.ny other puallcl one1 includin1 a number of thosi!'
dbcuucd hett, hive now been du.It with by my friend David Ashcri, 1977·
21-48. Hu commonacDIC pcnpc.:tivc ill very diffcrcn1 from my own, but his
full collection of cvidcnc:c may II.low a ff-eJtunination of the probll"m. Let me
alto mention the eritkum1 md of my ankle by Van Compcmolle, 1975:
!55-64.
U Cf. Willen,. 1959: 502: 'It it well to bcu in ,nind that f) 9rj>..t"uz ,-OJI tiput:vo.
~ ('lhe fnnalevictorioll9 over lhc male? rcprc1enu a proverbial idea for
top1y-tuny condition,.'
14 The 111ajor IOIUCCI aft Dionylhu of Halicamauu.a, .A:ntiq. Rom., 7.2-12 e,p.
7.9.1-11.4 Jacoby, lllld Pluwcb., Dt ,nulw,vn, wlvtibu.r 26, 26lc-262d.
(FIU'Ulcr reference, uc to be found ira Bcnc, 1967: 2.611, thoul(h hit db·
cuaion (1.168-.5) U not illwninatin1J ;t« nowAllhcri, 1977: 22-.5.
15 Sec the ducuNion by Lcra1, l9S2: 2.22-5: he favO\lff the wc1ttl'II (01olian.)
LoaianL
16 Polybiw 12.S-ll; tht pauagc of Tim1Cu.1 appeani u FGrH 566 f 12. An
accowu ainiilar to Polybiw', (i.e. Al'Utotle'1) it lffen by the 1choliut to the
1CC0Dd-centwy AD 1copapbcr Dionylli.111 Pcriqetc1, .566 ('" GGrM, 2, p. 495
line JO). Sec Walbanlr., 1967: 2. .5.5.5-41; Pembroke, 1970: 1240-70
(apcei.11.ly important) uid Sourvillou-Jnwood, 1974: 188-94.
17 More or le• tbe eame n:pruuon occun in Athcnanu, Dtipnotophi$tu 6,
264c:272a (• FGrH 566 r 11).
18 The nHntial do,;wntnt it the iu..:riptioo 'of the Locrian ml.idem' (reprinted
in Schmitt, 1969, no. 472 (pp. 118-261), brilliant!)' elucidated by Wilhelm,
1911: 16.5-!56. F'wthcr reference, to the rt,kvant Uteruy tnll, ll.lld romc
idea of the enormous modern bibliography, can br found in Sehmiu, 1969:
12.5, 125-56 and in Vidal·Naque1, 1975b: 496-507. .
19 J.cprin1cd in Meigm uid Lewi,, J969: no. 20(pp. 5S-40), who 1trangcly omit
the important commcnlary in/JG 1.180-92 (no. 11).
20 ThU point i, randy uublilhcd by Pc":'brolr.c,.1970: 125.5:--4; he alao llho"".1
that no .u.ppo" for matrili11eal de..:cnl in LocnJ can be denvcd from thr ep•·
IP'IID in .A:11t.ho/ofY P.Utrn. 6.26S (• _2801-2 Gow andP.a,e). Lcratalso came
to the aamc concl\llJon 1bo111 the Locrian1 (1952: 1.59_.0).
21 Source, 1t1d biblio,raphy arc to be found in Wuillcumicr, 1939: 99-47:Jcan
Bttu'd, 1957: 162-7S. I have relied ht-avily upon Pembrolr.c'1 d.itclua.ion,

t2 ::;:,:~4 ~1-:;.0f'UI,whether dirut or indiRct: Polybiu1 U.6b.9; Dionyti111

of HalElll'UINI 19.2-f;J111tin .5.4. .5-11 ll'C tht moe:t 1mpo1:ant. .
2.5 Siro.ilar n:prcNWm OCCW' inJwitia: profft#c1101 omni"'" fn,untln4nt co11c11bit1u

263
Notes to pp. 195-7

~==:'~~~~(;.~~=~~_:;
bom from thcte indilaiminate coaplinp1. Nole UO 5C1'¥1111,-' Y ~
,trnft&"III J,551: '""~ ulto disfflmirle 1111p,..,..111 ('tbe,-e wen: noni.lnat.O ffl

24 :~:.:;;.tc::r::~2,;h~i:::-::-o!:.~·=:w~semm.~
,t..arid. S.551; ad vnp. Eclof. 10.57; Hcrackkln Ponncua, Pm poburdrt
y~

26 (in FHG 2, p. 209) • Arinode, 11'1,.611.57 ROM.. . ,

25 =:t:o':.,!.': i:;:ara!:~m::~=.!-::i1i.,~..,;:t;
fflow': . . . . . f'O d.;,Bot TWl/ f l f ~ W( ~ . , . 6rp,n,tl'.
'For exuaplc, ia Spana. tbc lfOUP called die r.vt,"*
(clacelulmlU of the
HoJ11oioi ('The Equall') ), whom the Spanau: ~I to loWld. Tarn.nun Ut~

~:: ~ ~coaz.,-;;~-:.:=~
T ~ ...,,..., Tbc 1e1m or the apr.-ioa d: rlrt llo111oU11 here ii
unclear. Al wdl • 'dc1eellclanbl ol the Ho,,...01" it coald iaeu. 'wlto beionfed
to the Homoioi', but tba1 -u1c1 mU.c tbe pauap meanialle& On my
lntcrprdacion, it may be rcpnkd .. ,;.... compatible wit.It. Epbonu'1 KCOunl;
aad ft'CIII with lhat or Antiochw ol S y ~ .
26 Anodr.cr p--,c in Diodonal Siculus, U.6', mOl'C or le• follows 8phanu.
Ju.dm S.5, which ill p....Ud to Diodoru1 Siculw 8.21, rdcn a.plicidy to ih.e
Second Me•nian Wu.
27 Commmtaton on thil ,_... 111Ually cont.. lhem; credit for diadaphhlns
the111 mustp to Simon Pcmbrakc, 1970: 1146-7.
21 Cl. DionylRU ol Halicanaaalu 19.1.5-2.1 Oacoby): lhe budr.-pu: motif ii
pMully bowcllcriaed 10 • (mlllc) wild n,.a.e Cffl'elopcd by • (female) vine.
29 Tkc 'dear N.y' ii Aithra. the wife of the fomadcr of Tarentum, ftwmtbOL
Shew-,. while holdini bn hlllband'1 bead ID her lap (Paauaai. 10.10.7).
JO Ariltopbance. Frop IM-5 wilh lhe a:boliUII; Lyairp9. d ~ I L•tKNM1
41: cl. Roben, 1911: 111-26; Gut., 1172: 29-ti7 and Welwt:i, 1974.
Jl Opllihl, which in the llllplle of lhc Athenian. comedy·writcn IDHIU IDIIH-
lh ... lilr.e 'to Nck', ii in the Oortyn Code the technical term for the aaritll
union. The n:m::t . . . . of the "6lo, hu beea lhe 111bject of cnclle• dlacu,aion,
liac:e tbe law, of Gcmyn mention another llave, the a,oi,lnu. who ill. evfl'yone
qree,, dmllar to the Sp11un helo1, Effentem, 194.la: 92, condlldn lhat
d,Jlln .inclicatn the jvidkal aspect and y,a,.., the -=W upect of the mne
indmdual, while Finley, 1960: 168-72 arpae, ror the li1111plc equ.tnhnce of
the term•, dffclopinc a point of l.ipsiw'1. The latat edit.or of the Gortyn
Code, Willette (1117), ii more heli.&IDt: 'lhe word dlllos i,;,omedmiu IY••J·
nu,111 with woil:na, lftd IDlllletitnet denota a ch1tteHlawe' (p. 14); a dalo,
could, for a.uapk, be purdl..ed la the aeon (col. VU, 10). My owa concha·
lion it that by the time die Gonyn Code wa writlen dowa, IGCill reality h ...
al&erccl (in pwtkul. bcc.ue of chaa1cl...aa.c,,y), but the vocablllmy lud no.I
roUowed lllit aacdy.
JZ Sec Dwaftil, 1970: 2.611. The In.la IN: MKl'Dbiu. S.fllnlaM 1.12.7;
Joltannn Lyd111, De ,,....... J.22 (Wi-..cll);. Jllltin 41.1.J-J (lo, the
Sahlmllia); and M.acrabill1 &lld Johanaes Ly. . ~ (lor lhe M.........).
SS Dio,eaa Lacniwi, Liva o/ ... Pliiloaoplten 2.ll;AtflnlaNa.0.....,~.:,,_.
U, 556a-b, quotiq die WJN d,r,wiac: ('On Good lttnh') ataibuled IO
Ariltode; Aul... GeUilu. N•i•1 dHicu U.!0.6. 0. t:hil matter,.- Jqn
Pepin in Schuhl, lHlb: 121-J; and on the audlenticky of &lac 'dccl'ee' q110kt1
a.,. Hi1::roay111111 of IUaocka, Harrbon, 1968: 17. A.dacuaaa .-cl Allla:1 ea.n.....
INt ne1 DiopDeS Lunlu, mpeak ol a HCOnd .......,. {TIM 11efaencA ii ro
Atll.-) · ii!

264
 Notes to pp. 197-aQl
H Dnaidl, IIN: 51-!1 reprdcd thil mylh • the aetiolo1Y of a Spartlate ritual
with aprac...,.. anddilpue;,ee aleo Pembroke, 1970: 1266.
!15 Dumbl, 1924: 11-12 .en hue u. •tiolOIY ror a ritual or ,epan.tion and
Initiation. My own interpretation ii not intended to be n.clu.dve: I ani ,imply
tl'Vint: to 1t1e1a why thia acc:011Rt LI Alht:nian.
H Cleucho1, quoted by Alhmaeus, 0..,,aosopllistu 15, 5S&d (• FHG 2, p. !19,
frs. 49);Juttln 2.6:Charu orPerpmum (FGrH 105 f !11):John of Antioch in
F'HG t, p. 547, fls. U.5; Nann111 of Pmopolia, Dion7IWI• tl..S85;scholiub
onAriltophane1,l'hihi.r 775.
!17 Sec Willetta, 19H: 496. [Pfhc: k,w sh.all be exalted over the hiah' tramlatn
nli: 6' fm,nepo. llfpnp,a. Ed.]
!II It ii IIOt pollible to say cr.acdy when. It wu a proceu which ended only with
Pcricla', law of 451 BC. Clearly, if we could c:ftdi.t all 'laws of Solon' quoted
by Plutan:b, one could point to UI implicit contn,t between two pUI~ in
the Life of Solon (21.4 uad 1,6), between lhe proYilion of the Law on wills
which dilqualifia lhe tatator who acts 'under lhe inftueac:e of a wom1n'
(')'IIIIQIIU ll'ftfJdr,wl#OC'), Md the law which foibidl llavn to oil themadve. for
e:xffdle in the 1Ymnabua or to pnclilc pedauty with citizen minon. Thia
leO:llnd rnlriction ii twice repeated by Plutan:b (Co1111illiuJJ1 7, IS2d and
A,...1onu 4, 751b). Then: II u qi~ic ~ I , for in lhe illlcription c:on·
c:erninl the 'My1teric1 of Andania' (S)'Uop 3 7S6 line 109 I• Sok.olowtki,
1969: no. 65, pp. 120-HI), dacrc oc:c:un W caprHDOII. 6ClliAoc 6' ,rrrlJ!k
11Aflif'o8w: 'no . i - may oil bimtdr.
Thac 'law, of Solon' arc not to be U'Ulcd, but they do provide a Sood
W1111ntioo o( the teat or Ariltotlc cited earlier. 1t ill qllitc b'1le that Plu.tarch
ay1 immediately aftcrwardl ill dtc Alfl•loniu dlat Solon 'dxl-t forbid ICKu.al
rdatiou bctWffD IISYCa uad (he) womm': ~ M 011MJUOK11C ~
olM: ~ I bu.t dUI nepthc affirmation, ii' I may caD it dlat, ii not to the
point heft, bcc:U11C the contat lhow1 quite dC.y that ror Plutarch lllmldf it
ii merely a matter or an infcn:nc:e dnwn b y ~ in the dialo111e, not of
a tradition bcllCYCd to be utdcnL

ll. A.dlcma.d A.llaad9: llr1lc:blRMd . . . . . . ofallatoak•Jtli.

I A. prellminuy sketch of my up,mmt hen: ii ro be fo11nd in Uvfquc and
Vidd·Naqucc, 1964: I 54-9. I am most . .tcful to P. Urique fw allowiq me
bcrc to m ...c UK of wortr. that -.. done toFther. A Yfflion or the paper WII
read to the AIIOciation. pom l'cncOIUIFment ck• C111de11 FffC1Ue1 on 2
Dcenabcr I 96!1. I wu fonu.natc eaOIIJb then: to rcceft'C both enc:OW111C1111mt
utd help f'lom Jean Bollack and H. Wilm.an, b?th of them mutcrly 1t11~enu of
the TiJJIUIU' and the Cnhlll; and would a1ao lilr.t> to thank thole who dilqrccd

2 ~'!' ~~=::::=:C!·!~
Dawlft, 1971: 525-6. For my
f"Wation are by
I un illclined to think that Plato took a
part,
diKwHd

Pff"l'IC ddifht ln iU impb,lllibBitic1. Note daat one of the other IPeaJr.t>n In

:: t:;::C::!,.(l:=,wc:,':: :,,.;;!·!;°.;:J:!i!~~~~~C:~t~!
natlll'al that he lho-.ld be taUdnf wf.th an Athenian politic:ian of hit own

:, ~neer=~• but nrdy been eilher 11!.ctchcd or aucmptcd. 1 liDcl it quite n.tra·
ordin.-y, for cum.pie, that tbac probkm• arc ilCUCdy nm mnilioocd In the
pelt commnatarice by Taylor (1921) and Cornford (19'7). But note
CqcNc:han (IMS), wbo at leMI ICCI that~ ii a problem.
4 ncn: ,.,.. ror 1o111 ~ litdc wlittcn on Proto-Athen1 - one ac:cp-

•••
.Votes ta pp. 202-4
w•
::ac:::::. :!!c..i:=~-: ~:,.::,~er: me•~
tion Bronecr, Ifft: 47-H, .ithou,b be WM ~ : . ~ :
=·79-IJ:)

5 t~F~;;ulcm:;• ;' 7~~::....cnt of 11tcopompw'1 M""!'-, hil ~ t

human candilion - a tort of narnlift fic:lioa: tbe b-.c IOlllff • Adiu, V
of •
11•

6 ::t 2.S.6 (102C); lS.1.56 (591C). Couim., 1927: 29-71 cOldabu auy
refcrcnca 10 •ndcru opiniom about Adantil; d . .llo - · · U171: S-t5.
7 c-u Jndicvplcu,ta QruUII Tt1'0JNIM7 452all ff. W..-lt. Wal:III.&.
IHI: 270, ripdy pobai. oat that c-u·, Platoaic reference1 me lty DO
mon, completely 1p. . .1: •d thUI Byzutiac maak 111 at leut 100Dat,
a:eptical of the hiltoricity of Plato', accOUDL It ....W. ia bet be lDClll'alDI co
cumiac the tncet of die mytb of Atlantia in palliatic dlauctat.
I 1.uclbeck, 1619-91: ctpedaDy 1.144-.502. l.udbedi. eaaptic:llly m;ctKU
tho• who limply - e d that Atl-tis wu America. [Thc n.t edhion. of
thia book -,pcU'Cdin 1675,iDSwedilh. V.·N. qNta from dleawpd.NCOlld
edltioD, in three voluma wkh a YOlwnc of plata, wluch Ml • Lam lat lty
ADclrHI Norc:opeull. Tiu: Swediah Ian ii mNI canwfflieedy ....... ill the
edition by A::11:d Nill- (Lych.-Bibliodlek: Saadiel and .un:a pablilbed by
the Swcdilh Hiltory of Scimce Sodcty: 2.1-1: Uppala,,Stockholm. 1917),
1.91-190. Ed.] Oa l.udbedL, RC SinaOII, 1960: 217-507 (• refaac:e I owe
10 H..J. MUTCN), J UIII at the monim.t WOl'Ullf - a 1c.dy of RWDtftnd!.· mid
elp&ecnth-c:mtury Jnterprewion, or Adaati&.
9 HaYUll llad occuion to rad PierTe Benoit'• mollltrCMu fic:lioa, I coal11::11 that
at Ont I toot die pc,snpber Bcrliou:a: to whom he often reren to be the
lpODtalleOIII pnduet ol Bcnoh', imlpUdot1. Tut WU aimply lparnDce. I
ma - able to refer lhe reailn 10 Batiomr., 1114: J-70, whicb ii one or
llenoh'• 10urc:,e1. And one adpt reeall thal tU piece wu written at abOIII tile

10 CoWllin (1921) proridn

tpate lhow, -
an---•
1UDe time• the Preach c:olCllliu,tioa of the ....... (~Julien, 19'4. £.4.).
.ccoW1toldlil litenlurc. Since tbcn, the
Np or diminWllac. The reader wm rCll'pYe me for not cidq
die author, of dais ltllff, In lplte or their 10eiolopai illltercd, and 11otwitb-
1ta11dine chat .,.one than - to be fo-d elllinea.t men - a L111hen,n pMtor, •
eolond and a lieutenuu-c:olond.
11 Sc, fu • I know, Lb.e fint Kbohr to prod1.tee thil arpuacnt wu FIOlt, ltU:
119-206. A mOff com.pies f - of the - e bypotbew (le,md replMinf m
hiltorical tradition) appon In lnndenlkin (1951). Fin.Uy, a.::corclinc to
Muinalol, 1950: 195-215, Adan... ii indeed Cretan, bu.I only aflff a ••our
throup E1YPI - whic:b IIUIMI the lep-nd labyrirubiae. Pall. . cha&' Mltbon
lbould haYC thouJht a little more about Proclul'1 obael'taliall.: ntl, ..,.,,
KrinJv lwri. f'OU la1'0U ,..,_. e ~ IX lfoM1,a, 'Ille &beelopm o1-.
pu,1 Crete whm tbry man &be lntellipble' (ill n ......,,. 1.111.21 DirM).
Madnatos', ll1ic:le h• DOW been rewiled and Oiied out to becanN a boo.
(Marilla•-. 1971) - bat .neither czpmwion - tn.lat.iDn bu .i1CNC1 iu
lundammtal lillinat; the ....c applies to J. V. LIIQl'I wlicM ia ....... I 971:
49-78 - note die commC'llt, of J.R. F~. pp. IOS-.S4.
12 NeedleM ID ay, the .-tide ii called 'Lost Aalulil fCMIIICI lpiftl'. s--= A.
Schu.lcen, people haYC Ula loobd for Ad..til In T - l cl., for eumple,
the wondcrhlly im.....adw book by Gaudio, 1962: 141-6.
IS I need hardly aylhain ...... cbia,....lllllnot:~tbo. . . . .
whidl attempt to relalle Plato'I ,..,....._, lo the real illllilutiolu DI Ml

Vincent, Jt40: 81-96, luril iD fact •o- aa wta.e: be done at,,...,.._

own day, ol wbich Oerau, 1M1: adY-«ri, ii aa ........._ a-,le. A.

19ftlll in NU'*I hi &be c.dl oflhe- UIIJIIIAd....•d. .-,1.n.Ownd.i 1tlk:

~

266
 Nous to pp. 204--8
207-17. It it llao necaary hOWft'er to lhow how thu 'iD.formado11' rdatet to
Plato"• llt.oql1.t, ud I wou.ld cri.tk:b.'! R. Weil, 1959: np. 51, far only half
pcrf'Oftllq that talk.
14 See Pallotdno, 1952: 228--t-O, who, howner, unfortu.11ately CODl.bined 1ennblt
omer"\'adon1 with mlldt. more pn,blcmatic the.a con«mm1 Atlanti, and
Cffle. Ont of the indr.potl, J. Spu.u.th, 195!: 165, hu no pm:tptibl.e heli·
talion in writing: -rhe uaalope1, even in detail, ve IIO 11:riling, that one
wolMkn whether Homer dkl not make: u1e of th, oricinaJ account of the his·
tory .nd diuppearance of tbe: iJland of Atlaatil whm he wu telliq the 1tory
of Ody11CU'1journey to the land of tbt PbaeKiam.'
15 Oil the 'hydnu.lic' upecu of orientlll dapot:iam, ' " Vidal·Naqaet (1964).
16 I am pretty Ntt that Pb.to even borroWfli the name Atlantia from Herodotu,.
The Jana pLatt. hil Adantu at the w"tem e:dae of what he: knew of the bulre
of the Sahan; of which he aay1 that it atcnch rtiU further west, beyond the
Pillan of Hen:ulet (4.184-5). The,c Atlantct lived on a mountain in the lhapc
of a column. It wu cnoup. for Plalo to pu.ti. the geographical myth a link
fvthtt by tnnafnring hil ialand "in front of the 1tnita wbxh a« by you called
die pillan o{ H ~ a ' (Tim. 24e).
17 There ii no need to streu tbe dildain which the IIUtocratic Plato felt for the
wa and nittythina: connected with it: ~, Lllccioni, 1959: 15-47 and Weil,
1959: 159-64.
11 The thesis UI not entirely new. lbc: Athenian upcc:ts of the accoant of Atlantil
hPe often been noted, putkv.b.rly ill Hippodarnian ,eometrism: cf. for
o.arnple, Kl\ll', 1910: 2H; Friedlindn. 1958: 1.27.!-7; 'kivau.d, 1925: 249-
50, ud, more p~dvcly, Herter, 1928: 28-47. lnoW"comparilonbctwecn
the impttialmD of the Atlant&DI and that of duaial Athent, Uv~que .nd I
(1964: US) are in accord wnh C.H. Kahn, 196!: 224. Tho1.1sh he upc:t on

., .......
the - e line•, O. Bartoli, 17'19: H rr., combina dc:ft intuition• with a cloud

19 Note:- that according to tradition the arbitrator of the dispute: Wal Ccaop, -
whom Plato mU.e, one: of tbe military leaden of hil proto-Athcm (Critw
110.).
20 The ezpraaion IUF•ts a cin:ular enclolW'c:.
21 Jlin.ud \ln.Kcouni.bly trarulate1 ',cpantc &om the: re1t'; if the n:preaion is
indeed tnmlatablc, it mum rather 'always identical to iuclf'.
22 fl.ato d - DOt mean to 111.Lgttt that Atht11.1 ia a p\lff pbi1010phc:r. On the con·
tnry, 1Utue11 of Athena a1 warrior prove: to him that in tho1t day• women
fouthtjull u men did (CritiAI I !Ob). .
25 Nonhwlll'I», the frontier tta,;he1 u fa:r u the: pea.Ju of Cithacron and Parnn.
and lndudc1 the territory of Oropua. . . . . . . .
2, Cf Ariltotle PolilK1 2.2, 126Jal!i f.: >.r,w « ro llJJ:III ewm fTII' ,rci).w W(
~ Oii lh",
IIQMUTG ffQom, . ~ ' ')'op TQV'll')II imdSt'aW b I w ~ .
"I am IPCU,ins of the premisl from which the: a:rrumcnt of Socratet procccct:-,
"that the areatc:r the 1.1nicy of the llatc, the: bctter Thc_re are m~y ~lato~ic
0
'.'

puuaa; "' above: all Rrpc,Wic 4, 462~. Of count .no tnbal or,~auon lilr.e
~=.:~~~~e =~·i.,"'1C:~1t;, =i~i,.1:, ~~~c"'_:dc;~.:t:!:~t
25 ib9:\. i!:i\J.
1
(ll2d) (with
undcntand tbc: phnac mcPlk ~ ,rpi,,;;. X~~JIO re ,cal, 8cpo<;
Moniau, in hil Pliiadc: truulauon); ~nlilr.e R~~d, wh~ tun1
lat es 'tQ\lallY healthy in .um mer and winter', thw wnply O~lltllll the: •~ea of
bicndiDJ - which oc:aus in relation _10 the: ~-~ ( ~ ,llffpuJrQTQ
~ llle;cf. aJ.oTima,M624c: rt711ri.lKpaOUllllTW,,Wpw11).
26 Critilu I 12d: 'And they toolr. cHe to prncrve the 1amc num~ of m~ 1111d
women • could already perform, or could .till perform, military J19'VICt -

267
Notes to pp. 20lJ-JO
that " to ..y about twenty tbouand.' A moment ea,lia, - le.am d'l•f dse
AtheltWUI wr:c'the leaden or tbe Hdkncs, who ""'1'e thrir willins ronowen·
(rWl'fwlillw~·Enf!M""fnt'~hdt,,r""")· .
27 AD thilitwdl undentood by Proehl•. in rm,._.,'" 1.1'2 ff. (Diehl).
28 Cf Liwque and Vidal·Naquet, 1964: 118-19, wsd tbc 11111:hon cited thcrt .
.E•. Jh1tchenbwch, 19S8: 400, h• noted that aD the lllluliotu to Solon in di~
Attic orato111 aft with three eaceptiotu, latn than 556 BC, dte date of Adieu,
defeat In the S~ial Wu and tbe break-up of the Sn:ond Athenian Empiff. T11c
n'".utu' and the Criti,u can be dated precilely to this period.
29 Politiau 269c-274e; cf. on the relation betwttn the 1t:ructuff of thia myth
and Empedode1', thoqht, loU.ack, IHS: ISS-6, and Vldal-Naquct, 1971:
157-9.
SO I cite the tat of the mmucripu. The indittct tradition (hodua. Simplk:nu)
uaualty cites the p - . with the suh.titution of ,rOl'rCJII fM TOlfCW, which bu
been ucq,tcd by many editon, for cum.pk A. Diet, wbo tnnllata; 'In the
bottomlna Ocean of dillimilarity'. The pa.ace h• bccn much debated: cf. In
particular, J. Pepin, 19H: 257-9. My prefen:ncc for f"Oll'cao uinerdy UN"tic,
IUICe 1fQPfOI;> b too Ni.table ror my own thnia for me not to be conlCl"Tlltivc,.
There it no doubt that the earlia- Pnaccs, of the pilot and the bclm, and of
1ton11, mipt nananlly C"Mkc: the imqc of Ocean (• D~, ays); no • -
natunlly, howe"t'a-, rnic9n they have ln1pired a corttot"tion.
SI Note th.at Plato here ue, the dual number throuplout.
32 On lhe r61e of the flf)no, in Platonic t~inf. ,cc the vuy deu diaamion. of
GaiKr, 1963: 190-2. The 111:cond hypothelU of the ,._"ides ii a ,nacty of
die dilution of the One In the world of the Dyad; cf. al.a 11lc1NIC~ 155bc.
U The tame characteristic dmliOIU of the World Soul ue reproduced at eedl In-cl
of the hierarchy of 10WI. Eacb of the two cirde1 U formed, aceO'fdiar lo fbed
proportions, from the 11111,ta.nee of the Suae, or the Other, and of that whidl
retults &om their blendinf. It b its poailion ill the unffcne which cktffllUllet
the primacy of the cirdc: of the Same.
54 I omit here any dilcUJion ol the cA6,.., the DMterial rttcptade which makes it
po..ble ' • differmdation to proceed: TPIIINIII &Ob ff.
55 Plato at once roe• on to make a compariton with illandl.
S6 There ii n.othiaf un11M1al in a compuilon between imperial Alhau and an
bland: Peride1 tdla lhe Athenian, at the bcpnninf of the Pdopon.aaian W.-
to behave u if they were b.Jandcn (Thcydiu, 1.92.!);the ..,_ imap ia l1M:d
by the 'Old Oliprch' (p1eudo-Xenophon., C,nul. Alllf'l"I. 2.J4) md by Xeno-
phon (Pm-oi I).
S7 Othcn ~ 111:m hne, perhap1 righdy, fffftinilcen.ce, of Pia.to'• Tilit: to
SYlKUIC: 1tt Rudbcrf, 19S6: SI-72.
58 The nrilcat inhabitants of Atlantis were thus autochthonou,, jwt u the
inhabitant, of Attica were (Critiu 109d). Plato underlinn the point by Pint:
one of the Unp of Atlantis the name Autochthono, (IISc). Ddibente play oa
the erymolorr of proper naniet i, charactni,tic of the entin account of
Atlantil: Eu.enor b 'the pd man', l.cQcippe 'the white hone' (of POMidon),
their dauchtcr Kleito 'tftlown', and ,o on.
59 I have alftady rnenOoned (p. 204 abo\oe) thil Horn«ic rcminuc:eacc: a ,oocl
n;mnple of the many-layered cip.Ulcance of Platonic tea ta.
40 Stone1, of which there att IO many la Atlanl», are- aimilarty the remit of
pulUlf earth throuth water (60b ff.). 1bC9C lcimtilk: ideu about the orlipn gf
mnalt Nrcly have a mythical b.cql"ound.. One ii 1"CIQindcd gf the Int liaa
of Pindar'• fint Olympiaq ode:
""Apurro,,f'i~Lowp,bk ~ ~ r i p
6'1 6mrl)hf1 J.'tlffi ~ ftoxo: •AIMW·

268
 Notes to pp. 211-12
But of •II thinp i1 water; but ,old, lib a ,tcamina fltt
by !Upt, ouuhilm all, pride of wealth bead,. (u. Lattimore)
ThCR ..e of eoune no m,tal. in proto·Atba11, and they an anyway forbidd,n
by th, law• (Critlu ll2c).
41 Su th, diagram in u ...Aqu, and VicW-Naqu,t, 1964: 1!7. Not, abo the rol,
played by dcMtbl, and trip!, int,rval1 in th, 1tructur, of th, World Soul
(Tin'luw !6d); th, doubl, interval co1Tc1pOndti to the octav,, th, r,l.1.tion !:2
toth,fifth.
42 Equal and unequal, Ii.kc hot Uld cold, dry Uld w,t, were pvt of the famous
table of oppoidtcs (.nutoidu4) which Ari,tod, •lb'ibutca to the Pythagorean•
(M,r.pll'1riCJ 1.5, 986a15). I thinlr. that th, interpretation of Plato', many
nuniben in hia account of Atlanti, in Brumbaupl'• stimulatinc boolr. (1957:
17-59) QI highly debatable. I do not thinlr. that Plato intended to provide 111
with I world badly connn1.ct,d in tcrmt of an archaic mathematic.I. But
Bnunbaugh. ia n,ht to ~u the rOlc o( th, numbc:n 6 and 5 in Plato',
d,Kriptiou: there uc five pain of twin,, and rn-, enclosures; the centre of
the illan.d ia five 1tadc:1 acroa; th, relation between the tot.al area of the rinp
of watn and that of the rinp of evth ia 6:5; the ttatuc of Po1tidon showt him.
dririns ahl. horsc:1 (ll6d); th, c:c:ntnl lcvcl area mCU\U'CI 6,000 1ladc:1 ,quarc:
(118); it ia rc:cluil',llar, not 1quuc, which puu it on the 'bad' tid.t of the table
of oppo1itca•. Th, number ti.a and ill multiple, play a fundamental fOlc in 1he
mililuy orpniiation ( l l 9ab). I have no dcllU"C to interpret the1e poinu in
detail here; but simply note that Plato hinuclr 1tre9ac:1 that the oppo,ition be-
twCCD 5 uid 6 ii a Iona or the oppolition bctwcc:1:1 the equal and the unequal;
whtc:h ii to ay, accofdina to the Pytbqortan table of oppoaitct, between 1ood
andevil. (Forthctablc:,1eep. l76ab,gyc,J
4! The kinp build both the ellWI and tbe bridfct at the .amc time, thu1 end.inc
the euJicr isolation or KJ,i10·1 ill.1111.d. Thil i, yet another 1tcp in the provcu
ofdieunity.
44 Note that in the L•1111 :,, 68ld ( .• the constitution under which nien colonize
the plain• dtn the catadyant ia 'one in which all other fonn1 and conditions
or polidet and citie1 arc lr.intlcd t•ther· (quodq ltlll.d 20.216~18): iu

,,,.......
r;., 6q 1JOl>T'a ErMJ m i " ~ 11'0Alf"E~II "'1i. ~ ll'dM(o.11' avµffiffTEl
45 Thia anay has both Greelr. and bubarian char:actni.nict: hoplitet and chariot·
fipter1 c:ailt lide-by-aide. It ii wroq to claim, at doc, E. dct Place, ad /oc.
(cf. Gcmct ct al. (19511), that llinp were alto I barbarian weapon: note the
Rhod.ian alinlffl mentioned by Thucydide1 6.9!.
46 The nwnbcr 10 ii the rum of tht fint fow primary numbn1, :uid COl'l"flpon<U
to ll"h'Mt)I•. on whoic J"Oi, in Pytfucorcsnilm and in Plato, ice L"°(que and
Vldal·Naquet. 1964: 100 and the wortu by P. Boyance, A. Delatte and P.
Kuc:hanlr..l cited there; I.I.to Gai11ct, 196!: 118-2!1 and the Ariatottlian tCJ<U
cited on p. 542. Sec alto Brunte:hwie:, 1956: 149-!12 (usinr tom,: unpubliahed
worlr. of mine). for Plato. the ttlrmA:tys ii s form of ttntsis: cf. t:1P. Ti'"oeu,
5!c; to •Y nothin( of the con,tn,.c:tion of the World Soul, in the form of a
double tdr"IIIU)'S (Tins_, !12b-!5bc:). It .cemt to me. in the cue of the
Crihlll, that the genesis of number. corre,pond. clo1ely to the play of pllusis.
47 One QI reminded of the Jn~rb,-is on which wen engraved the law1 of Solon.
48 The rOle of the oath in tht eo111titution of Atlantis ii an.&1010111 to that or
incanr.atioru and myth• in the Lows. To ,cho an ellprtnion from E.R.. Dodd1.
1951: 207. the obj,:c:t UI to ttabUizc the lllhcritcd Conflomcn.tc.
49 There i, probllhly .Qothina; in the typolo(Y of IOCW dLd'llrmony in Republic
8-9 quite '° 1urp1"'1ift( u the an.al.yait or the tole of 1old. Gold did not n:ilt
ill the dmocra.tic city of Spartan type (8, 547b-548b), but it malr.CI ic,

269
,"'lous to pp. 212-18
appearance in the oU,ardllc dty, whc~ it proridi:1 lbe b.t ol the rifht to ruk
(8. 5.50de) and b<comH the object of envy on the pU1 of ~-who bPc to.I
their potition and who fow,.d daDocn,cy (I, S.5.5b f.); bat 11 it not enouch to
Incl rich and poor, and I Jut for pin dri¥e1 the latter lDto the UffUI or t.he

50 ~=~!; ~: :i, lanpqc commonly iued to deacriM hsipcrialiml.

.51 On the ~cance or thi, divuioo, we Ltffque aad VMlal·Naquet, 19~4: 96-
8 110-11 13.5-6and 141-2,whichofferUWy.noCthetuuputicui.ty
f;om the i.wJ which al.low 111 to define Pb.to'• reaction, to the matitutional
innovation• of Kki,thcna..
.52 There i, an evident refereacc to the Wvn- ol Laveion.
SS 9dpuj3o( i, 1 word rcplarty employ~ by Plato to dnaibt' what pe~ on ia
de111ocratic aaemblin: aft R~blic 6, 492bc, tor esample. In W T1f!IMKI,
f2c, the union of the 10ul with the body allo Ul¥o1Yn a t.\orwbo1. In coa·
uut, Due and eternal reuon ()i.O,OC: b ~ 11ll'brcw '-A"9rk') occ11n lilcndy,
without a IOUnd (&,,tu Mr,av ,cai tnci)c': S7b). The diKUIDOn in tbe
Rqn.blJC t11.lr.t1 place lD the Piracut, after a proce...011 in honour·or a foreip,
..,.We•, in the houx of tb.e um•manufactW'ff Ct:pttalw, in the midlt of a
boiltffOUI ptherin1 of yOWlf people: philolophy ls the lut thiq they can!
abolet. That beinf IO, dtowd we not ice the YCIY lint wordl of the d.ia.lorue:
K.crr~ xf'( tk OtlPCU, 'I walked down to the PirMwi yntnd.y', u an
iln'I" of the phi1010pher'1 delcent baclr. into die' cave, • Henri Marguttltte bu
IUll"tcd (durinc hil 1e111inan In the .Ecole pntiqa.e ill 19.52-5)1
St Sec Pausaniu 1.28.2. I ... indebted for 111.0II ol tb.eae nmarlu on the ueh.-:·
olorvto Piene LMque:ieealto Lktque and VidaJ·Naq.aet, 1964: 151.
!i5 There i, little point In rdarinc here to the many dilcuaior11 of lhU ffllt; d.
the nnaarb of Bollack, 1965: 1.52-,.

.........
!i6 The caebatolopcal myth of IAws 10, 90!e-9CMe, depe-ncb upon an analopw

5 7 The problen11 dbeu.cd iD thil oN'lide hne alaee ~ taken up dtewbCft and
devdoped, 10111ctisne1 iD a 11.i(titly diffanit directioh; Me Bna9CNI, 1970:
to2-H;GW, 1976: 1-11 and 1977: 217-104.

12. lctwea Beutt -4 Goct.

I A ,reat du.I or material hu bcco collected, and dnoftlffldy aaalyled, by
Ddcourt, 1966: 1!9-11:Piculup, 1961, and Burkert, J972J,.
2 So Wclclr.cr, Hiller von Gaerubiaen. Cuzaa1p .md othera..
5 They would thu, rind their place in a lhi-Stn.ul&i&n ~adinf of Grt'elr. 111ytlu
connected with honey.
f Sec iay The myth of Honeyed Orphcu1·, pp. 9.5-109 abon .
.5 See Detienne, 1977: '7-H with J.·P. Vern.ant'• inlroduttion, pp. v-Yi;
ub.-:u.xi; and the work of P. Vidal·N~uct, In Vcruant and Vldal·Nilqut_
1972; 1,.5-!il; 197.51: 129-42; &nd pp. 10-94 abo.e.
6 Porphyry, Dt eb,t,.._tM 1.6; Ariltode, l'olirics I.I, 12S6b7-21; a« allo
Morau., 1957: 100-7; Laffranque, 1964: 461, f71 copula whh dl.ercmarlr.1
ofVodlr.e, 1966: 217.
1 £pkwu.a, Sffltt111aU 1d1dtJt !2 (• Utcnc:r, 1117: 71.10-lt) widl IM-..!yllMI
by Monu, J9.57;d. Melhe·Modn:ejcwtkJ, 197S: 75-102.
I Heliod, Wori, - " D.J,1 276· 9; Pb.to, Politicw 271d; ho,.._ !2lL Tbe
Hceiodic and A.riltotdian onhodoxy 11 h - , to be contr11tcd wkll dur
tradition of the fable abou1 an U1il\"lal kincdom in which the H11e'1 •,1,,v
lhatten the tairnal, the di411, which the fo1 e..pectad .hen he jolrNd die bird
that toan bt hta¥CD {Archiloch111 161-76 (cda. l.aawTTe·loaMrd •Tftdltil).
FOi' the Chriatian tradition, ICC PuanOff, 1975: J9S-211.

270
 Notes to f>fJ. 221-8
9 fferodot,u !.2.5; cf. Vemant, 1972; aiY-,r.vil • Detienne and Vemant. 1979:
2'9-49.
10 Waltdnf, 1925: 205-59 (and,inEn,1.ub,Cohn, 1974: 1-59. EdJ.
II Cf. Detieq.ne, 1977: 149 n. 98.
12 This urumt'fll ll furtherclabontcd in Decienne, 19'19a: 68-94.
I! Pl11wc:h, Q""1fioM1 ,-.ca !8, 299e: Antonin111 Libenlis, MttamorpJaous
10 fMinyadet). For the evidentt u • whole, ,cc lc..mbibis, 197.5.
14 Ota a number or iA11ct, it is cloubtlca appropriate to tee similaritie1 ~tween
Cynkt and lhe hippia of the aixde1: tee Shmw:li, 19'10: 490-514.
15 'Baclr. to the jllJllle' ii the aprcaion IIICd by Pl11tudl, Dt t111 c4n11i.,m
99.Sc--d, rdcfflnl to Dioaenea. fThc litmd meanine: of the G~ct., ton bion
-,,othlriOslll&, ii 'to pu1 cmli&ed life back amoqthc wild beut1'. Edi
16 Dinscnes L~w. Live, of tJae PJailosopJa,rrs 6.56, 105; Julian, Orationrs 1.
214c; Dio Chry,01tom, Or.tiOflts 6.62; 21-2.
17 Dio Chryto1tom, Or. 6.25; P111tarch, Aq11a Mi i'pis 11tiliOT 2, 956b; cf. Cole,
1967: U0---1.
lB Tramp: Arittophon f'I. 9 (CAF 2, p. 279); AlcU frp. 196, 197 (CA.F 2, p.
!70); cf. Al"Ultophon frs. 10 (CA.I' 2, p. 280). Sea-punlanc: Antiphilllcf frg.
160 (CA.F 2, p. 76).
19 Ptra (Antiph.-nCJ in hia Mn.,,s•W u,e, the synonym A:6,.,.tos) and t,ibt>n:
Arillophon hp. 12, 13 (CAF 2, pp. 280-1).
20 See Tannery, 1925: 201-10. Altho11gh 8urlr.crt, 19'12a: 198-208 pereeiYct the
link& betwctn thc,c comic Pytba,orean1 and a ri.,un ,u.ch ., Diodorw of
Aspendw, he is mOl't conceJ11cd with their continuity in n:lation to the
'Aaumatiot' than in their bn:ak with tradition. The new type of Pythqorcan
Cynic wu • rnarsinaJ ripre, oUtcNt now by the polis and radically e11t off
from the old Pytha,on:an co1Dmunity 1nd iu membcn.
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290
Index

Abarit, 1'9-40 the rphebic oath, 149, 162;and

,tbt'oi (• G•bio11, 116 slaves, 192-!, 194, 200; sacn:d
abstinence: from 1nual pollution, 98, ploughillj, 1.54-5:su •ho bio,;
101; from food etc., 102; from blood- plough; women
ahcd, 104; frorn meal, 221-5 a,ro110,no1, in Plato, 148, 158;stt also
Achillc1, 75-6, 85; hunt.I by runnin1, ptripolos ·

'"
adolncmcc: andeph,-beld, 147-52,
156-60, 174-8; and lirypteUI,
llid61, 100, 121, 242 n. 20
Aiem(kingofColchis), l.54, 1.57, 1.59,
140
J5S-S, 18l-4;ofSpananiirl,s, Aifipan, 10
184-S;of Athenian girl.1, 178-80; in .4:iso, 231 D. 2 (in Aleman)
Crete, 1.57-8, 177; marked in funer- Aju, 1on ofOileu1, 25-6
uy pncticc, 17'-4; and hunting, Alcibiades, 178 (oppose, Niciu)
160-2;Tclcmachus, 90; the Alcinou1, .54, 91-4; palace or, 89, 204;
HUU.anaw in Virpnia, 17l;uc abo uperiecl oiJtos,95-4
a,~clauct; childhood; masquende; Alcmacon, 121 (murdrn mother)
ritcsofpusqc Aleman: on .4:iso and Poro,, 251 n. 2;
Adoni.a, 101-2 on T-yclit, 22
AclU, 86, U6-7 Alexander the Great, 125-6 (ucrifice
Aeolus (Muter of Wind1), 40, 246 n. 24; to sea)
and incest, 87, 92-S Amalthea, 136-7
Anchylus: Ata,,.emnon, 120-1, 190; Amazons, 190 (lopsy-tu.rvy world)
Chocphoroi, 190-1 ;£11mer1irkt, 140; ambi(\lily: of the human condition, 50,
on Typhon, 9; navigation, 24;incclt, 53,55,65-S;of Promethean!irc,49,
198;Pu-thenopacus, 161 n. 40;ai1- 59, 75; of Pandor:a, 51, 55, 81; of
nificancc of f1tt (Prom,-flltwt), 54, 74 Elpi1 (Hope), 55-6; of tris, 68-9; of
111•/lrUI: u prcdous object, 114rf, 119, nou.r, 78; of objtcu, 120-3, 138-9,
125, 126, 128, ISO, 141-2 142; of .A:itluu:.:i, 17-18; of bees, 98;
Apvc (mother of Pcnthc111), 224 oCnumpht, 102-3; of 11atu1 of
qe-d&nc:1, 175, 178-84, 255 n. 5;city Giantl, U;of T-yclit andKotros, 2Iff;
cancel, opposition betwttn, 178; stt of Golden Age with 1odt, 86;of
•bo adolescence; hoplite cannibalism in Diony1i..:- euh, 225;
ace or Cronut,; qe or gold, stt Golden of ,:phebe, 147rf, 149 -50 (double);
.....
.plll,inCn:tt, ISS, 157, 177, 18.5
of Juon, 149; of Scheria, 91-2
ambrollia, 14, IS, 72, cf. 54
-,,,,1. in Sparta. 181, 182rr Amphian.us, 121-2
11fon, 44, IS7-8, l84;stt -'so Efll/tris Amphitrite, 122, 1!10
qon., 68, 84, 94, 1.52- 3; abtcnt in Andropompo1, 152
prot<>Athcru (Plato), 207; at Sparta, An&opha,oi, 220, 247 n. 39
24--5;inPhacaci.1., 34 Anesidor:a, 5.5, 245 n. 8
agricu.ltun:: defines tht human con- animal akin: wearing of (ahe,:p,kin), 136;
dition, 49, 54, 71-4, 78-9, 80-.5, (Jeopard-1ltin), 149;(1,:alP.in), 252
89-91; in prot<>Atheru (Plato), n. 11; {1oaultin (aegis)), 1.56; ,olden
206-7; iDvmted by C«ropm and Reece, I3Hf;hideofJ&Crificial
Bou~.12; r:llcluded from world animaJ, 156-7;bu.11'1hideuba,,
or Ody.ev.1'11torin, 84. 86- 7; and
" 291
Index
an.im\11, cWlificllt l.On of: 11itA11W, 193-4: onA,sot., 192;onAthC01,
17--1 8 ; bcc1, 9Sff; wild--domcstic 13S, 197;on~bN, 147, 176-7,
hiqvcht, 75-4; 87-11, 218;1f'it 180; on canaib.l tribe,, 220: on
•llo mtn in rtlation to llll.imab; walth, IIS;c,t1fta'riptio11, 25:oa
aninaab in fft1""'1, 218 - 19:on bftt..
1ac~ficial &nlffl.als
Ank.aio.. (,on of P01cidon), .52: (hclm,- 98; on the coincidmcc of bipol&r
man), '8fr ICU, I 7S, 189; on the Pyth..orun
&nthr!)polorv : l'Ulc of comparat.in- , in 111.1toid ... l 7S, 269 n. 42
rdllt,ion toiniti.ation, 147, lSS, 172, annour: 'omuncntal', 120; dt"rica Oil.,
1119 :. Fonccm with Gttccc in oin~ 141-2:r•it llbo p,,1110,; hoplite
tctnth centwy.161, 21S;c:ambridft: aromatict: in ..aifa,cc, U, 57, 61,
School, 171:in early twentieth cm- 217-11, 22!;~1CCOr, lflrdpof
tury:, l68.-9; ,1n1.ctu.nali.t, l69-70: AphTodhe, 24S o. 15; bated by bffl.
m'l,l r include hiltory, 1U: Hit .Uo 98- 9
L"ivi~ tru~; myth, csplanation of: Arffphoria. 179
J\-f'lctunlilm Artcmil: attempted npe or, lOS, cf.
Antilo<hUs 1 2§ 161; hwnan .-crif1ec to, 245 n. 14;
.AntinoW-~ 99 auod.11cd wilh bcv, 161, 17t-10:
11p111 .12 o. U, 44, 1Sl, IS2 - 5, 16t)....2, at Bn1U"OJ1, J79;ortphawi, 164;
171 , 182 ,ru -'sodcception H1pmo11•, 256 •· ,S; of Mouaycbia,
,.tp1110111W, ! ) Oft', 156, 175; ctymolo,v 179: O,.tAi.., 115-4, 262 n. 51
or. 1st At.lant.. 161-2 , 241 n. 7
Aphrodit 1r7, JO • \{tred. fotAul.anta. Athena. 5, 16-42 ,....n,.., 44, 19, 90,
16 1; golden a!Spll: \ of, 161:.rdpof, 249 n. 66, ISi, 179, 202;k,r,epa kcy1
245 n. l5 oruorchouc, 140;acp.lof, 1!71
Apo llo, 11 Ll9 lJ51 19 lffoW Q/, tttulll'C of, 144; patroo or Athena.
159-40; e(()iSln:.tic powff of (tripod), 191. 20,-1,rnt sacrif'i« to. at
145; A.i(/dc1~ 59_.f.0; Hybw60~01, R.hodu. 24, n. 26;..f,..101<,..., 2S6
245 n. 4~ a. 11 ;A.rcAitplU, 178 n. 28; ••"'-·
p ONI , 5, 2) 2,6 n. 4l;H;pp;., 29;Hori9, 27-8;
arch ai1m, 8 ~ ~Q. 95-4, 142, lS5, of Dion, 195-4;1C.dntAda, 24ff;
U9 - 60, 171 IC.A-'nutis, 29, Ul , 142;L•"'n .. ,
A m , 252 \,5 (U'111111p in jv) 21';/.ffldMI, 57-8:Poliu , 179;
Pol~11,d.01, 256 n. 4;,.,.olftMAoz,
'Yi" 2 ,~i ~~~:·
rcl t (wifo; of Akinow), 95, 204

9a.u~
Ario• (CaJl?CUter}, 52, 59
n6 n. 57. san.
2u;su,..,, U6, 200,so1111.:.,, 57
Athena: bo\Uldaria of, 148-9, UOfl;
orifin of democracy at (,myth),
'101 , 120ff, 131, 162, 191-2, 198-9:. 191-9;8oUokk)n, ISS;O.C-ho-
\rgolid, COUI of, 2S5 n. H phoriaat, l56-7;~d pl"Phtc
· ., ~11,: myth of, u told by VirJil, at, 154;Jlcnm.eUtoa, 17S;kiap
'JU -7; attempted rllpC of Eurydice, (Aqcu,) 1!17, 2S6 a. 16, (Cea,,pt)
•19 , 103 ; v 'mutff of honey', 99; 12, 191-9, 267 a. 19, (Codru.) lSl,
mtdiator between Orion ud Orphcw. (Ercc:bthcw) 210, (Mdanthot) lSI,
105',H.1.01 (P1i1dion) 16, (Thymoita) I.S0 ~-1,
~f!SI OO'JICY,. 90, 115-14, I IS, Ul, 146. (Hit 111..a Th~);war (with
RocotiaN), 110, (D'l'fl SJccua), U,2,
Ari!:o~e!!!; f~~a';;, 2:r Cu'~u), 1\2..., (withP"*),2M, ............. ol
ft.riltomtnn, sltidd or, 120, 130 city i• clu*al period, .... 110,
Aritton K\11 (<o f Pti:11.mon), 189 ltl-9; adoJHCGIC'C ta, ]16-1~
,Arutoph&nt1~ ltxplained' by, Carii.b1"1c!,t m.riale ia, 197rt;U¥ery in, 19i:
S-chooJ, 171 ; o rt"'Womcn 11 Athc;:n,. -..d.nuiom al(ecldl,y ,......._,
178 80 1 J98f/;o rl'ilavn, 199- 2.00 ; 177-l;Plato',vkw of, 2'06··9,
11teofrcvcual , J 18 , 199 209:110.ry 21S--14;oppolltdtaSs-n,., 176-11,
-o!Mcl~i9 n,} 6t;1' I 191, IK-200; de:bue oa tidy ia
Anu otlt : on Spart._ 111-9; on Locru, 4U, • .c.. 111

292
 Index
athktic1: illtdlipncc in, 2fff; for pi. Boeotia, 67, 142, 150
andboy,atSparta, lBf:ueflUo
bonn: in aacril"i.cc, 14--15, 57, 60-1,
public p,ne1;.running
86;opp-d to red meat, HI n. 12;
Atlantis: modem tcholanhip, 20!£f; do not rot, 60-1; in funeral
ancient view. of, 202f; and Homer, ceremony, 76-7;of Pdop1, ll8
204:az,d the Ea,t, 204-5;uima,c lotphoru,, 22, 59. cf. 29
of the ""1eiron, 209ff: ln relation to BoMltolrion (at Athen1), IS5
Athm1 of hUtory, 212ff; origin of bounduy, 2, 2ll;neptionof, 17, 105,
name, 267 n. 16
224;11'1' al.so clUW1eation; mediation
A.mu,, 132-S, 1S5, 1!9 Bou.zY1t1,82
autochthony, of the earliest lnhabitant1 bow, q a weapon, 175, 251 n. 37
of Atlantis, 268 n. S8 Brauron, 178-80
bread: eating, define, man, 71-8, 82;
Babylon, Herod.otu1'1 dc,cription, 205 'eaten or, 92, 241 n. 7, 245 n. 8,
B.-:,hoftn,JJ., 166-7, 190 cf. 72; eaten in Circe', houac, 87; not
i».nquct, 12, 54,87, 117 eaten by Lotw·Eaten, 85; claaifi·
barbarism: u .11 catq:ory of comparilon, cation of flour, 78 n. !4;ttt alto
16!-8, 175; of Cyclopes, 92; bar· agriculture
barian location for 'City of Slaves', Briattiu, 7, 14, 67
l89;forcanniba.l ,ocictie1, 219:ru bri<De: of Btl!C'rophon, 29, 131-2, 142,
IIUou~ 145;offeredbyCirnon, 131
Buan.i (ln Thr¥e), 225
ba,tard, 11, 195 Cadm1&11, ll, 122
bcan, ln Pythqorun theory, 222-S Calypao, 85, 88-9
bur: suckled At.alant&, 161; u rinw Cunbysc1, 221
mtut ,t Brauron, 179-81 caniculu period (Doe day1), 51, 96, 136
beard: faltt, 155, 156-7, 200;jult cannibal.um, 81-2, 86-7, 92, 198,
powll\1 (Diony1w), 152:yoUI\( men 215-28;ttt also Golden Age
without, 157;ruaho hair Canopu1 (Canobw), 57-8
bta.uty: of Pandon. (.talon Aa.ton), U, Cameg (Sparta), 157-8
51, 59; object of, 137 ca,pentry, !Irr, 41-2
bee: metamorphosis into,!; death of, Carthqe, sacrifice at, 245 n. 14
911;claailication of (fipre ro, chute cave: n..il.c of a god to, 7; Zcwi prilonC'r
wife a.ad n111n/llu'), 96ff; born from in, IO; of Typhon, 12: of Ny111ph1,
dccompolin1 ox, 96- 7; a, imq:e of 90; of GY1e1, 124-5; Trophoniw'1
plenty, 81; opposed to homet or-.cle,l!l
(fJCUl'C for male), 46; a.ad Poly· Cecrop1, 82, 198-9, 267 n. 19:u
teehnos. 216 'culture hero', 199
Bee-woman (Mdina). 1oorr, 216, 219 Cent.1111.r: Chiron, 5-6: tric1 to rape
BdlC'rophon (and m~ bridle), 29-SO, Atalanta,161
Ul, 157, 142, 145 Ceo,, 99
bU11, 47, 49, 51, 60, 73, 77, 81 ;see also chariot,!, 10, 269 n. 45; racin1, 26-7,
apicv.ltuu 29-30; buildin1, !Orf; dc1truetion
biosor,liilr.os, 104, 22! of, I27;ofP01eidon (Plato), 21'
bitch...oul (of Pandon.), 51-2, 55 chattel ,lave, 194; in Crete, 264 n. SI;
blaclr.: cli.Ml"'Y', 15!, 156, 174;oppo,cd '1trict' form of slavery, 189;clcarly
to whhc,41, 87, 150-1; Diony1u,, defined in 'developed' 1ta1e, 187,
151- 2, US;hunt (with net), 159-60; 200: doc1 not make political
ilMOciatcdwithguik,151,153,162, demanda, 187; emancipated if u1cd
177;with fronlieu, 150-l, 16l;tt, in war, 196;,tt aho davery, dave1
also darl<m:u;Mdainai;Mdantho1
bJood: on alw. 61, cf. 212;orpn•
,.,
che1t(i.oma.11:), 118,13!,135-6,U9,

filled with, 241 n. 12;collection of,

75; avoidance of ln .acrince, 104,
urn
~:b=·~~ civic function of
Athenian women, 179; al.a in Sparta,

29'
Index
childbirth(cont.) animaZ-Wn; deception; dilpitc
Hl4; 1cneral tipiricancc of. 52-J; cool:cd: meat ill 1acrifice, 15; cllldnacd
1ee -110 ma,rlafc pJa.1111 ,e-en u, S4; uad the
154;~f,.,H2n.16;oppc,trdto
t"'''°'·
childhood.147-8, 17S-4, 176ff(at
Athcn1 and Sparta); defined by Plato, 'raw', 155, 170, 17J;roaat,,,boied,
174; parallel between children and 75, 22S
wheat, 7S cool:cry: sipif"lCaricc: of, 49-.50, M,
Chicq; Orion on, 105; davcry in, 189, 74ff, 11-2, 2I8-19;J)f'etcnded,. by
26S n. 8: Dionyaiac cult on, 224 Pytha,orcans, 222; double:, of pluu,
Chiron, 5-6, 149 78: of teed-com, 134
Chwny1 (of ephebet), ISS, 156, 174, Corinth, SS, 122, 207
176 c:orp,e, 7.5-6, 124, 248 n.. 46
Chrylippu1, 3 c01111ol0ty: or the: Ti,..anu, 208, 209,
Cicone1 (in Thrue), U 211; of the Polilictu, 208-9; of
Cimmeri.a.iu, 87 Aleman, 2!1 n. 2
Cimon, 131 Cott\Q, 14, 242 n. 18
Cilicia., 10 Crc:te: ill OdYNCU'• 'lyin,: Wes', 85;
Circe, 40, 8', 87-8 and Atlanllil. 20S; 'philotophic.al',
citizen.hip, 147ff, 176-7, 182;women 214;andTbncw, 124, 15', 156-7;
not cilizer1,1 at Athens, 178-9, r111cs upttNtd in cauldrona and tJi.
197-9;., rnc:rabenhip of an es:clu.,- pods, 11!: 1ite of Doulopolil, 119;
ive 'dub', 188 adole.:c:ncc ill, HI, 155, 159, 172,
civilization; chilRCter denned by con- 177, 182, JU;ll.avcry in, 117,
trut, urr. 174, 119. no-1, 199: 189-90, l!M, 196
oripn of. 82, 199; partly defined by Cron111, 2, 7, 11, 66-7, 82, 215-16,
(bee-kccpinc), 105, 216, (tc:chnoloCY), 2'4' n. 14; DCl:.lc: of, 10; ace of, 80ff,
54, 71-2, 78-9, 179, (c:atint cooked 208-9;ue also Golden Aac
food), 71-8, 82, 218;Cynic rejection C,khulainn, 162
of, 82, 226- 7; oppoltd to aavqery in culhu'c:: oppoted to Nahu'c:, 1.55, 17!,
nineteenth century, 168 174, 179, 188; but not completely •t
Cluhing Rock1, 19-20, 21, 29, 38-9, Spvta, 185-4
40,2S!I n. 9 Cumae, 192-S
c:Lu.lincation: obliption of mydiolop!t, Cybele, tm:iple or, violated, 161-2
lOl;Grc:el: difrCTent from ours, Cydopet, U-4, ISH, 90, 92, 244 n. JI;
lll-12;by neption, 85-90:of once nc:irhboun of Ph.c:aciM1, 92;
Sod• in diHettDI 1enention1, 8, lffc: Zcw the: thunderbolt, 66- 7
l!l-14, 62-7, 2!19 n. 73:of fodl' eynicmll: theory of n•Nnl wtiy of Ufc,
fOlc:1, 30-42:ofrituab, 172-S;of 82; attitude towvds ca.nnibalima,
women, 49rt, IOOrf; ctamnc:atory 2!1, 225-7; 'Py\ha.prn.o', !27-8
brothc:n, 173:seeobo a,c-cbacl; Cyrcne (city), 128
codc:1, myth, panllc:1 motih in Cyrcnc (nymph), ff
Ocilthc:nct (reform, of), 177, 212-U
Clytc:mncstta, 120-1, 190 OUM, U6, ltO
codct (11:Nctural), 48-50, 53£f, nn, Dan•w: lint a8or, 16, H, JO; lbJdd
106-7, 155-6, 217(( of, l20;ia Anc:bylw, 198
Colchi,, 40, 1!14 darknea, 11, 18, 52, .... 6!,, 154-5,
collective: representation., 112, 1!5-6, 158-9, !84, 25911. 7!;1.tolioi, 151;
142, 217fr papnul,87
c:omparativc:mc:thod, 111-16, 166-71. OcN, The:: iD Od,ary, 1.5, 87-1;
175-6, 115, 266 n. U ondc of, 127-8;bnn-plaat in coa-
concealment: ill Hcaiod. 44--50, 51-1, tact with, 222; treatment o(, 75-'1,
69, 71-!, 81; of bonet in fat (Juau. 17S-4:l(OOdtof, 128
ary), 76-7;ofmqic:allambby death, IS, 56, 60, 64, 217; Thuaataa,,
AtJC'U.1, US;ofpreciawobject/pa- bJGthff of H1.1pno1, 6: ,ec .t,o
,011, U6-7, U9-40;su e'6o funerary ritual

294
 Index
decqidon, 4tr, 12-lS, 4Sfr, 57f£, caniculu pfflod
61-9, 121, 151-2, 157;foodof, Dolon, 151
7-1, 10-11, U;rule1 for, Niii· IUJlo1, 12, 14, 4'-4, 49, 51
n,ma; up Jolie of 1torie1, 44-5: rtt Ooulopoli, (City of Slave,), 189
.ho concealrnent;~ Dovc-worncn, 1u Pleiadct.
dtiptio(MoN./-oi, 15 7, 25 7 n. 26 dream, 17, 151
Delphi, 119, 122, 151, UB, U9, Drno1(Crctc), 157, l58, 177
191-2, 195 duel: to 1ettlc &di,p11tc, 150-1, 152-5,
Demeter, 69, 71, 18, 100, 144;and
(cf. 162); between Zeus and Promc·
cacab, 7lrr;called Aneaidona, 51; the1.U1, 44;.ec oho Eris/erii
Tltttmopltoror, 100-1 Dumbil, G., 162, 171, 175-6, 256
dcmocr&Cy: orifin of (rnytb), 198-9; n. 21, 263 n. 10, 264 n. 12, 265 nn.
fwfilmcnt of, in EcclttWU&uat, 200; 54, SS
Plato on, 209, 215; Ariltotlc on, dung; on racetrack, 25-6; broken-down
181-9 honey, 216-17; 'cooking' in, 222
dill, 7S, 81, 206, 218. 270 n. 8
Diodoru1 of Aapendua, 228 eqle, !I, 270n. 8
Dio,enca of Sinopc, 226 cd(c of world, 7, 65, 80, 204, 219,
Dionyliac e11h, 1trv.cturc of, 221, 249 n. 66
225-5 EIYPt, 9, 37, 83, 245 n. 27, 251 n. 5;
Oiony1u, 175:marriaa;eof, atAthent, and AtlantQ, 201, 203, 205, 210
1!5;ju1t sn,wint beard, 152; eaten dldcN (Affcmbly): at Athcnt, 178;
by Titan.I, 215, 225; as canniba.l., EcckrilUiuac (Aristophanes), 156- 7,
224; u hunter. 224; in Oschophoria, 178-9
157;Mtlar1aif'r,l51-l Elculil, My1terit1 of, 172, 174
Diotc11ri, 26, 28, '9. 40-1, 151, 216 Ely&ian Fields, 89 (de,tiny of Menelaus)
di Enalot, 129-30, 143
diappcarancc from this world, 75, Eqd1, F., 167, 190
76-7, 118-19. 121-4, 129-51, envy, 121, 121, 269 n. 49
U6, 208:by dc.truction, 126ff; Enyalio1, ucrif"u:e to, 183, 192
thins• underground, 119-40 Eo1 (Dawn), 88
dbgu.itc, 11, 47-8, 49-50, 5Hr, 55, Epaminondu, 190
200, 247 n. 14, 249 n. 66, 265 n. 14; cpltcbcit,, 147-85 po,rim; d&te of, al
,u aho concealment; deception Athens, 254 n. 2, 176; age 0£ entry
di.memberrncn1: of primeval o:r..14-U. into, 149-50, 177;cha:rter myth for,
45, 48, 51-2, 57-61, 61, 65. 76-7, 150-!I; charactcrittic type of combat,
{cf. 81, 217); of Diony,111, 215; of 154, 162, 177;see4Uo hair;hunting;
OrphtlU, 97, 106 initiation;.lr.ryptcia;marginality;tile
dieordn:coarnic:, 2(Mctis),8rr, ofpuuge;running
(Typhocu);political, 90, 94, 155 cphon, 154, 181, 194
(.byptti.z), 162 (individu.al), 200 tpiltltro1 (hcirenal Athcn1), 147.176,
(women), 208-9 (Plato); n&tun.1/ 180n.!l!I
IOCia.l, i.n,tiptcd by Orphcu, Orion, Epimetheu1, 43-4, 47-8, 52, 56
105; oppotcd to order, 2, 8, 90, Ernria, necropolis at, 171--4
155, 162, 200 Eriphyle, nec.lr.laccof, 121ff
dirination, 125, Ul, 157, U8 Erit/enl (Strife), excluded from world
drrinc in.lo .ea: oithui.z, 17-18;Thc,eu1, of god,, 63; between gods, 14, 66,
J24; Enalo1 of Lcsbo1, 129-10 242 n. 20: bclwecn Zcut and Prome-
Dodona..142 thciu, 44, 65- 7; between Hctiod
dot;: hunting, 91.161-2;without, 159; and Pcnct, 61;doublc, 68-70;
common property in Sparta, 160; man a,child of, 72;suaho oion;
.uvenccn, 76, 226; wolVCI li.lr.c dop, duel
17; flcah of 228; bu.Ir. imitated by trOidio1, 19-20
8;
T}"Phocu,, imitalion, on Schcria, Ero,, II
91;1ccf1Uo bltch-ec,ul; -day1,,ee Etcoclct, 121-2

295
Jndn.
EthiopiaN, 78-9, 221, 248 n. 46, diffcnnt modes, 75; Like a woman.
52:datructionby, IH-·-7, 121;
249n. 66
Eu.phemu.., st, .UB n. 67, 128-9
animaJ1 unr;onupted by, 226; ia
E,uipida: on ,olde11 lamb at ~ EJYPt, 24! n. 27
U2-S, 142;on maniafe to a fuh, 12 (llluyantu), (cf. (Polyaw.tn',
roreipcr, 198 ; on pq>lo1 u • pit, rina;), 125, 127)
122; ritual of rejection, 252 n. 2!; fllllln,, 12, 17. 87; diuppn:wed of by
on 10n1 of Hyp.ipyle, 159; on Plato, 159:net, 118
Phaethon, J4.0;on.Atalanta, 161; fodty, 1-2, 6-7, U-14, 19, !6
compuilon Mtweea hoplite and folklore: motif1, !, 128-9, 1'6, 247
l.fcllcr, 258 n. 51;B•allu, 82, n. !&, 25 l 11. 9: Propp and contiau-
224-5 aton, 249 11. 6'
Eurydice: rape of, 99, 105; u Nymph, fOJ:, 12, }01, 270 IL 8
IOO;brideofOrphn11, 10!-4 Frucr,J.G., 161-9
Eurytann, 219 frontier: area, 148-9, 150-2, U4, 1'6,
achan,e: of women, 8 7; offcrin1 pftl, 151, 162, 172, 174, 177; fo....
ll!-U, 141, 14!, 146:with the Athenian, 148, 177;Cntan, 141-9;
othff world. 118, 12.,ff, 128ff, of proto-Athen1, 207
1511-9, 142, 14';of one victim for fruit, 19, 91:'1>11-~o,u,po,, 10-11,
anothff, 15"-4;philo10phiea.l U; fMUt tret planted by ,od, Ul-9;
theory of, 145-6;,re -1,o pit fnaitlu.laem,52-l
acluaion: of Athena, !16; of mm from funerary ritual: in /liMA, 7!-- 7; iabu-
conu11cnality with IJO(U, 45, 47ff, matlon, incineration, 128, 175--4;
51, 54-5, 56, 70ff, 80-1, 217; from ue-'to,nwt1
, civiJiudlife, 105,22l;ofwomen,
'J,06, 178-9, 184, 188-9, 197ff:of G•bioi, ,u A.bioi
adidu, 258 n. .,4; of free men, 262 Ga.ia (Gt), I, 52-J, 69, 91, 104, 20C;
n. 7: ~f ephebes from cit4cn rifhts, mothffofTyph~. lff, ll;protectt
147-8, 176-7, (cf. 155):ofadol- Gianti1 1 I!
c1emt1, 17l, 174;of Phaeacianl p,den (m-,X), 91
from world of mm, 92; of nee of prlic, 102 (eaten at Skinphoria)
,old from Hade1, 80; of men from Gennep, A. YUi, U5, 172
cannibalism, 81, 219; of qriculhlft Pf'-01, 1!4, 147;Salam.lnian, 156
u..:I Md'U1ec &om world of seosraphical concep11, U, 87, 190, 202,
Ody1aC111'1 tn.vd1, 84-5; aduaive 205, 207--3, 210
,oft.ff (Wit: Typhoeia, 8ff; Ze\11 and, 15;
CllC!'ffDCDt, tel' du.DI food, 15:0rion, 92, 105
Ji.ft: In Helliod, 4!, 44ff, 49-50, 51,
fastina:, 102 (in ThHrDOphoril) 5!-4, 69, ll;between lU,efl-friende,,
fat: in 1aaifice, 45, 51, 52-5, 57, 77; ll!;wtddin1Pf11. Ill, 122;d-=mt
in funerary ritual, 76 of £riphylc'1 n«t.bce, 12.J...-2;
fate1,1uMoirai
father,45, 17!,207
father-ill-law, 105, (cf. 107)
~~r=~:.f·1!~~~~~~.;,.
~~m anothff world, ISO;
feutinf, 12, !4, 60-1, 87, 14!1, 197: on rdated to ofCerlnc, 145;,e.4'$0
human Ooh, 220; perpetual, 17, 94 offcrinf
fCOMI (llalt), "2, 74, 78 Glaucw. J!O
fCIUYIII, U2-S, 179:cekbndnfretum ioat, 89, 196; Aawthea., 1!6-7; hiddu
ofyowi1 mm, 150;at nipt, 251 below pound. 140; KapefOat. 220
n. 54;10ci.Uy invened, 262 .._ 7 pd,,u_..,#1~-u;.i.o
Finley, M.I., 90, 9-4, 15'4 n. It, 169,
181, 117, 204, 264 IL !l
rn, 5, 54, 218;thdt of, 45, 45-6,
41-9, !2, SI, 70-1, 74-5,11, 219;
in aemation, 75-6; cdru I.a. three
...........
clulification; immOl'\allty; •••-
morpho-.t: aaatficc;~t.loa ol

pl4h a.p, 117, lll-19, 121, 129-JO,

145:bowb., 125-6, 1!8-9;1cimthl',

296
 116:arrow, IH-40: ltab&n, 215; Hcralda, !, 4-5, 15, 24, 119
hone-bk, Ul;Yinettock, Ul-9; Henne,, 85, 164, 2S& IL !!;a.ve1Zcu.1,
odlcrlOOCk, 126-7, UO, ISS-9; 10, 12;1avnAre1, 2!2 IL l5;u10Ci·
Aphrodite'• applea, 161: fleece, ated with l)'mnuia, 24; and Pan-
151-tO;lhoweror, 1:s&; tulld1, dora,47
1!7;thhainffllll, 152:Sun, 157; Herodotv.1: on Spana, 191 {Corto),
walth, l44-5;clertftd &am water, l!M-5 (hrrllllffl;..1, 196 (Helot1) 1
210: forbiddm 10 proto-Athen1, 18! (ICftflh o(hair);onAndro·
261 IL 40;in Plato'1Rq,uWic, 269 phagoi (Scythian1) 1 220; on Argo,,
L49 191-2;Thyrcatul, 162; on El)'pl,
Golden Ap (ap of Cronu), 49-50, 60, 190;on Lyc:ia, 166, 190;on Al'JO·
69-70, 72, 77ff, IOff, 19, 91, 94, nautl, 119, 121; on the Lcmnian
219, 227;1H lll10 canniballma women, 197; human sacrif"tce, 255
Gorp (clauchm of Cleomene.), 191 n. 42;Ethiopian1, 78-9, 221:
Gorpn, 141
Ma,ian cen:snonic1, 259 ... 7!,
Gonyn, Law-code of, 196 125-6;1ift1fOl'1enalfavours.252
Gncu, 1be, 44, 47, (cf. 51) n. 21:Polycratn, 12!-51;Periandcr,
pmn, 47, 49-50, 52-S, 54, 71ff, 14, 127-1
16, 19, 91; srain·lirinc eanh, 12-S; hcroe,, 159 (u hunters)
111.J,o bread Haiod: 1lnlctv.re of poem,, 1 n. I,
lffl'U: good,, l lS-14, 125, 127-8, U-14, 4!-50, U, 58-61, 62-!,
l ! I , 17 ! ; necropolis at Eretria, 64, 65-74, 77-9: U1C or folk.Jore,
17!-4 2-!;or Near Eutem model,. 8-9;
peed, 12 (of Typhon) deliberate omillion, 241 n. 12; no
pat-friend (isfflo,), 11!, (cf. 86)
fHlffOI, 154, 160;p .. n,,.i at Al'fOI, ~.~fo~~:i~e!~n~:~~~:.r
192. (cf. 194);,e•cl,o hoplite rpi:ran1or of Zeu1'1 lc1itbnacy.Jf0, '
1Ymouiu111 (divinitie1 of), Hff {cf. 10-12);eannibali1m in, 215-16;
diffn-entiation between men and
Hada, 41, 76, 84-.5, 97;entnnce to, beuu, 7!, 81, 218
129, (cf. 25! n. S4) Arlllinia, 155, 177
hair: J..,n•,, uncut, 149;offeriq of, Hippolynu, 160-1 (u m&rJUlal hunter)
149-.50, 152, 17!, 177, IU;daaved Hhti1emytht.1cr, 12
atAqoa, l.5.5;tluiviqhnd for holoeau11, 75-6, 126fr
purity, lO!:lona,atSparu., us, Homer: on _.rariq, 11-19,52,!5-7;
l8!;pl'1cutoffat man-lap, 1.55; pmn of Patrodu, 25-6; funeral of
ev.t by Pydlapreuui, 221; not cut by P., 75-7;craft1manlhip,5lff;U1Cof

......
Pythqornn Cynic,, 228;ne Wo

llumibll Barca, 221

ruH, 5, !!-4; Phacacia. !4-5, 90-4;
age or1old. 85-6:manuealfll'of
bnad, 72, 92;,acrifice in, 85, 18,
heireM, l•H q,ik/wo, 89-90, 91-2; '&if"U. to• woman',
12!, U9; con,uuclion or world of
=~:;.~~olOf)',97, 116-17, Odyucu.1'1 craveb, 8!-9, 92, 246 IL
144-5, UO, 250 n. 74 26; wOTd, for wondro111 thinp, 141 ;_
hematlnan, :i••n-"Ption; pilot connotatiom of object,, 145; analyuc
criticiun of, rejected, 8!, 249 n. 65
heloq,: at Spana, 154, 181-2, 187,.
194-6; indui,encc towards, l e ~ ltomoioi(at Spana), 181, 187, 264n. 25
to revolt, 188-9; u Grcclu, 190; 1n
Locrit, 194; in Cortyn, 196 IL 51;
ho~?&)~:!' ~.c:;,7:~:?iJ;~· 21
Cronu,'ipauion, 10, 12;decornpo-
ue IUo Cretc;11unnlt111i; klar6tm;
litionof,216

..,
penc,tai;lla'lff'Y
Hq,hantu1, 40, 47, 75, ll, 94, 118,
Ul-9,206, 252 a. 7;tcmplcof, :=;=.a;;~ (! ~~:ane,'1
5
216-17 (feed, on dun&)
Birds),

Hna, 4, !I, 40, 120, 2!2 n. 7 hoplile: entry into 1tatu1, 148, 151, 174;

297
Jnd~x
221, 22J, 2'2 n. 4;1u .UO rn'a.l
hoplitc (cont.) invuibility, 47ff, 51ff, 76-7, 124. %49
ideology or, IS+-5, 159 n. '7, 174,
180, Ill, 269 n. 45;ac Sparta, 18Uf; n. 66
cphebc u anti-hoplite, 162; late Vff- Ionia, 150, 191, 198
tion of urliC"r distinction, 175-6, Iris, 14
2.55 n. 4, 256 n. 21; contrutrd with Iroquois, 16.5, 164, 166-7, 215
'naked', 160, 192 Jthab, 82-!, 89ff
Horatiw, 162
hornet, 46, IO! (oppotcd to Bee) Juon; and Arton•uU, 16, .50, '9,
hone: Athena, tamu of, 16, 29; in J.54--5, 1.59 (.oDll of); u an epbebe,
Spvta uad Pylos, 89; of bronze 149, 2.,., n. 9
(mqical), 124;aacrifice of, 127; of JeaDlll.aire, H., J47, 150, 15'-4, 17f
Poseidon, 129, 269 n. 42;ha.mra, n. 21, 181
l!l-2, 142, 145;~mbol of IUIOnl, judfement: (alll', 68-9. 242 n. 16:
I44;collcctive property •t Sputa, true, U8;atAtlanria,2lt;of
160 Dionysu1, 224-5
honc-ridinl, 29-!0, l!J, 180; rthot of,
159, 181 Ko;,.o,, 22-J; youncc,t ch.Id o( ZNt,
hunting, 12, 84, 86, 87, 104-5, 158ff 2.54 n. 19
(twoKim), 177, 182;nisht·huntia1, K•mfH, 10
161 ;Atalanta, 161; in Diony,iac kin,: idealized, 89, 9!-4, 242 n. 16;
cult, 224-5; .nd Will', 162; Al'Utaeu1 and tali1n:1an, 152-.5, U5-6; dil-
at hunter, 105 tributet com, 1'4; carriet aceptn,
Huskuaaw, 171 l'8;objcct1 ror invt:Wne:, 140;~11
ltybristilta (u A1101), 192, (cf. 19!) at Lelbo1. 129; ten on Adandl,
204-5, 2ll-12;o(Tbe~.. 99;,n
llluyanlr.at (Hittite dncon), 12 IIUo Athens, klnp of
bn-,c, 28, 1!7-8, 14Hf;ofSparta, k.inphip: competition for, 124; in
180-1; in Plato, 202-!; mirror- Ody11ey. 89ff. 9!-4, 204; pre.,,..:
im., 217 o(, U2;mqkal, l!.5, U5-6,
immonaJity; denning chukteriltic of 144-5; myth, of, l '8-9; orlental,
1od1, 15, 56, 60-1, 62-!, 217-18; 205; on AtWltU, 212;iet oho
of inhabitanu of a,e of gold, 80; of M>ffTeifnty
Herd.I of Sun, 88; of Mcnelau,, 89; •Ja,6t.i (in Crete), 187
food of (Wutory), 14-15, H;of Kleito, 204, 210, 211, 268 n. '8
dop in Alcinou1'1 palace, 91; of knowledf;e of the h.ituft, 1-2, 5. U,
Glaucut, I!O;Cottu1 not morul, 14 17-18, 40-1, 240 n. 2, SS-6, 119
ince1t, 87, 9!, 198, 220-1; abolition of Aiouroi, 90, 17.5
taboo, 226 ltrypttW, 147. 15J--5, 174, 181-2, 184;
Jndo-European: etymololY of tnu, form.er •"'ptai become hippN, 181,
142; warrior, 162, 175 262 n. .59
inheritance: of tali:iiman, 1!9; of
nobility ac Locrit., 19!-4; In rch.tion labour, 46- 7, 49-50, .51, 52-9, S6,
to ephebct, 147, 180 114, U9;sr, IIUo qricwtwe; poNHI
initiation: into phratry, at Athens, Lame., 91, 9'
149-50, 152, 17!, 177; in pcnl, LutrrySonn, 14, 17, 92
154, 171-!, 17S-6;ofptb(at Lafitau,J.F., 16!-72, 174, 114
Athens), 179-80, (at Sputa), IH-5, L&naia, 220, 222
(on Sphaaia) 256 n. I 1;~,phON, Lanj, A., 161
179; into marriq;e, 155, J 79, 18!-4; ~•,utchelt
into manhood, 156-60, 174, 177-8; Lato (C1e1e), 15 7
al Athen1, 180; at Sparta, 111--4 legend, 116, 111, 119, 122-J, J241f,
innrlic,n, 61, 65, 71, 92, 155 (double), 127, 128-9, 1.54, 1'8-9: f11nd>
162, 171, 172-!, Ill, 184-.5, uo. mental deQlenU in, UO; conu-a-
191-2, 196, 199-200, 2CM, 2DI, dictiont in, J.5&; dUtUlfl.lillhrd from

298
 Jnd,x
myth, 181, 200, 251 n. 9; rrom folk- or forelper,, 148-9; or l'flr1lae11illi,
lAle, l2':1ubclaaofmyth, 116-19; 196; in1pac:c, 16!1, 172, 190, 219 (1ee
can n:YCIJ mythical imagination, dio cdp of world): of cannibali1m,
Ul-2, 155, 14l;pan.llel1with 219:of PythqoreanCynic:1, 271 n, 20
ri1uaJ., S6-7, 41, 1!4, 1!6, 150-1, rnuriqc: Ze111 and Mctil{l'hcti1, J(f;
156-7, 179-IO;about female power, hurnan, 47-8, 49-50, 51-.5, 5.5-5,
191-i 241 n, 7, 99-100, 102-!1, 148, 180,
Labo•, 129, 224 199; Naulicla, 92: di1tincuilhe1 rnen
[.eucothea, 11-19, 41-2, 248 n. 59 from anirnll1, 54; rejec:tion or,
Lcuctn., 120 160-l;abolition or, 188, (d. 195);
UY._Stnuu, C., 95-6, 106 n. 9, 155, patholo,y or, 107-1, 216: prepar-
170-1, 187-1, 23! n. 4 ation ror, 174, 179, 180:at Arp..
lie, 26;mbr.edwith uu1h,uaun.tiYe 155;atSparta, 155, ll.5, 196-7:a1
technique, 246 n. 25 Athen1, 197fr; between alave and free
Up.t, 11, 40-1; Opting by daylipt, inGonyn, 196:mot.irinlqcnd, 124
154, 174, 181 ;huntinl; by dayllpt, Manr., K., 260 n. 8:Manr.ism, 167, 169
159:contruied with duknu1, rnuquerade, 172, 174
151-9, 174, lll;JH8lsop/i6· matriarchy, 166-7, 190, 248 n. 52
plloro, M•1rtut111lill, 197
lilrtoplaoroi, 144 Mawi1,M.,112,12.5
lion, !I, 5, I, 17, 105, 160, 161-2, 191: rneat, eatins of, 15, 54, 71(f, 11-2,
cub, 224 217K, 221ff;sce a&o mon.iity, rood
Lmn1 like aom. 60, 64-5, 69, 80K, of;1acri6ce,rule1ror
Medea, 122
86-7, 91-2, 224-5
LOffll, 19!1-t, (d. 184 (Epizcphyrian); mediation, ti, 51-2, 5trr, 64, 70, 74rf,
(helotl,ft:atOzolianl.ocril), 194 a!I, 9orr, 91, 102rr, 1.sm, 216-17,
Lotu, Ealcn, 14-5, 87-8 219, 222, 227:in Neflltce, 60
Lycanthropy, 111, 215, (d. 154) Meduaa, 1.59 (hair kept in Jiydril)
Lyc:ia, 'rnaaiat'c:hy' in, 166-7, 190 Mcpn., 16, 255 n. 5;Salarni11eized
LYCl&fllll (Athenian politician), 144, hom,157
147 Mekonc, 4.5, 67, 77, 19;ue•IJo ueri·
Lyc:urgu,, (Spartan lawsiver), 110-1, ficcat
182 Melainai, 150-1, 152-!
Lydia, 124 Melanscit.(Areadian¥illa,c), 161
Lykaon, 215 Melanion, 160-1
Ly1ittrata, 178-9 Melan1hio1, U.5
MelanthN, 150ff
MeliNa, 127-8 (wil'eo£Pcriandt'r);
Maenad1, 224-5
raqic: tran1fomJation, t, 5, 87, 124; sec alJo Bee-woman
worid,l!I, 81;objeet1, lll-l9,
124-5, 121, 1!11, 1!16-7, 159-4~;
::::;·!;;!1ion 85;retcntion
of,
lllleep, 14: do11, 91:prdcn, 91: .Jneld, rnen or,17
in relation to UWllaJ1, 15, I 7K, 46,
120, t!IO-l;kinphip, l!l!l, 141.'. 51-2, 54-5, 56, 7.5-4, u. 198-9,
YOk:corOrphcu1, 96, 104-5:divmc 216-17, 218-19, 224, 226
intervention, 19, fl; bindiaf or a men in rel,,tion to death, 15, 5!-4, 56,
fOcl, 7; mean• to ilnmonaJily, l~O; 72-!,217-11,22!;uco/Jo
powcrllltbnately IOCial, lff;CYiJ
monality
eye.121;rncteoro101inl, 1!16; . men in relation to food, 14-15, 45-6,
etymoloSY or,..,.,, 141-2: wunor, 49, 51, 52-4, 241 n, 7, 71ff, 217-28:
5, 120. 1!10-1 Jee fflo monality, food o(
M•ncli.l,, 149, 2!16 n. !17 men in rcladon to land, 47, 49-50,
Malinowllr.i, B., 161-9 52-4, 61ff, 80-94
Malla (Cme), 158 rnen in relation 10 women, 46- 7,
... _,145 49 _ 50 , 51-2. 55, 11, 121rr, 115,
nwpnalll.y: of cphebc, 147-1, 149-50;
299
 -
Index
men in relation to women (co111.) function of, 169, 215; 'INIIH'
189 (atSputa), 198-9;,euUo
tbeorin of, 151, 205, Ma a. 2';

..
Mcnclaua, fff, Hff, 19-90
Mentn (Athcnadi,p.iKd u), 247 n. H
Mcuenia, 181-2, 190, 2!8 n. 58;
mi.eaten aplanatiouot, 57-8,
151-2, 1'8, 215;..-ycholoeicaJ
upccuof, lllff, 142-S, 251 n. 9;
thcma of ffDlr.ed in difl-nt ~
Mcucnianwan, U0-1, 182, lt!, 1ion1, 4-5, 7-8, U-14, 50-S,
l!K-5,199 I Sfff, 220-8; thnna dilplKcd.
racta111orpholit. Sfl, II, 16-18, 96,40, ISl-9, 145; narndveofbrol;n up
87, 196, 247 n. M;,,-.-auo mqk; by lyric, I S2: n&rTalft'c lope of, 51,
phylical tnnslonution 51, 240 n. 3, 66-7, 72-S, Ut6;
metapho,, 29, 251 n. f, 262 n. 99 Plato'• UK" of, 201-2, 206- 7.
mtllr, 102 208-9, 2H; panllel motJl1 in. S-6,
Metil (Soddcu), 1-6, 10, 12-15, 216, 8-12, 15, 11-20, HS n. 9, 29fl,
(d. 20, 28);a.nnin,, 9, 6-7, 11-lf, SS-4, !14ff, 45-50, 59, 80-94,
29rr, 28, 911r, 57, 59, fS-f, 64 12Stt, 129ff. u2rr. 1f0. 1u,
millr., 86, 220 191-6, 221-l;incompletc, HI
Mino, (tine of Crete), 124-5, IU n..7S11•e.J,o lh'llcturalllm
Minyadca, 22t mytbopaphy (ancimt), 97, 108, 132,
Minyan,, 197 150;,•• .Z.o HcDmiltic mycholOfY
model, SS, 228;-,e ofpld u, 80; mytholoSY: na1uft or, 95-6, 107-9;u
mythical modcll in lqend, I 16ff, a kind or laap9F, 116; vviaab in
128-9, 1Sl-2;lortypnohodal analyWof, 141, 150-1, 179;bnapl
cnpni&ation. 117, (cf. 162); in Plato, indilpcll•bJciD, lff;l'O&colcoatat
20lff, 209;5a11au.rian, 169, (cl. 116) lft, 215-16
moira (at Sputa), lU;MeirG, 1-2, Mytiknc, Ut
10, 12-U, 15, 291 n. 2
mo,.,,17 IIU.cdnaa, 124, 127-1, 179, lMi
moncy,oripnot, 11211, 125 duallcalory, 151, (cf. 154, 175,
mo1U1tcr, llf, lfl-2, 175-6 111)
Morpn, L.H., 167-8 nature: wUcl, 149, 179: 111m'1 pllft in
mortality: lood or, 51, 54, 60-1, 71-4, {Plato), 202;in Atlantia, 21l;opprNeli
217; dcfmct man, 62-9, 6t-5, 90; tocultuft, 155, 17J-4, Ill, 1H.
apparcn1, II; anirnll, i,Donnt of, 216; incompletely al Spau, 11!1-4;
56; of fire, 74;r,e •UO dcceptioa; ..... also . . al p,ld; -.rklllture
mm in relation to death Naupamu, 190, 194
Mi.Iller, M., 95, 161 Nauaicaa,91-2
murder, 120-1, 124, 190-1, 192, 197, naYiptioa, 20-4, 28, S2-S, U-4,
220, 222-4 S6ff;ttl!.t.o pi.101
mlllical inatnuncnt, 11 (ftute, lytt), 192 Nnnail, US, 242 n. 20
(pipn. nutn) Nestor, IS, 160, 249 n. 66
Mycenae: lhronc of, U2; lqren,dary h• ne1: hu•dna, filhU,., 7, J 11, 1&9-iO;
tory or, I S 7 ; period, 12.5; collapN immpfortrid.ay,Sl-4;~
of, 174 by '11.10, 159i DOI ued in c.lyclonia
my11terin: ot Elcuaia, 172, 174, (cl. bouhunt, lH;orbyPhDio., l&O
256 n.. l6);ofSamo1hnce, 18 Niciu,J78
myth: thrtt 1tqc1 in Oreccc, 111; con- nip1: Dlony11111111Aitffino1, UJ;hunt·
UUtcd with lqcnd, 116, 122-9, 141, mc1,y, 15t;r1p11ncb,, HI, 154,
Ill; lilclVy, !1-41, 97, 107-1;.ia
relation to "hldory', IOI, 121, ISO,
~!!:· 181;•,.,,•Wac•i
ISS--4, 177, 187-1, 191, 19tff, 20I, IIOMOI (GppOMd IOp.ltui,), J75
219; u nidcnec fGr IOcilll orpam- 1111•pAI, 102-S
ation, 174, lll, 200;uuciolotY,
150, lH, 179, !15 n. J4-5;power n~s':.'2':;,9/,~~9:;-..,t0,
of dcrtwcd from. IOCifty, lff;synabolic

500
 Index
o•th: dirine, 14, 242 n. 20; hoplite, Orphilrn: aa a ICCt, 221, 223; Orphic
l48-9, U6, 162, 174, 180; not at myth, 7, 10, 62; rejection o f ~ . -
Spart., 182; not to lllttp with win,, 104;uealso bios orphiliqs
19.S;not to ~ho11:1e1111tilvic· 01thophori.a, 156-8, 19..J ·
torio11,1, l95;falecto, 1!3,242
n.. 20; 'Great Oath' at Syrac....tc, 252
os.: prim~a1. 14-U, .,tr. sore, 57ff:
worltins, 73, 84, 218, 222; bca froni
n.. 19;ofkinp of Atlantit, 205, 212, dead, 96;uelliso dismnnbemaenr,
266 n. IS uaificialanimals
Oce1.11w, I, 7, 14, 66;0cean, 4-0, 80,
126 painofdivinitiu,1,2Sln.2,20ff, i
Ody-.eu1, 18fi, 25ff, 82-94puri,,,, 29ff, 239 n. 73, 242 n. 19, 206-7
164; build1 lhip, !12; dnoUes Trojan palace, 89, 9!1--4, 120-1, 159, 204, 211
hone, !l!l-4 Pan, 11, 192
Oedipus, 121, 226 ,------ Puw:ton, 150-1
o r ~ ~ u , 121, 1 2 3 ) j,~..;;;;~-~;.._:-:-:-:-:~:--.::-:-
o~~rd{!~;t~t~~
human life within, 8l;murlaae and,
anc!=~~:.8;9;:;:r:~~!o;~j
p,;.0-1/~ Aoeaidora, 53;1,eaJs?womarl J1
197; non-human, 87: perfect but field,, 89; image of in Bacchu, 82:
impoaible, 95-4; rift enterint;, under the tea, 130
121-3 Paros, 100
old a,e, 60, 64, 72 puricide; dream, of, 220, Cynic
Old Man of the Sea, 4--6, 96- 7 recommendation of, 226- 7
olffe, 84, 90, 149, 162, 206:wild, 90-1 Parthenon, 206; temple of Poteidon on
Olyrapi.a, 27, 131, 161. (d. 254 n. 19, Atlantia like, 212-U
2.56 n. SS);Olympio,, 22 Parthenopaeus, 161
omen,, 20, l.52-2, 137; linked to parth,rios, 49; ,,,,, lliso women, clanifi·
notion of'mon.,ter', 141-2 cation of
oppo1i1e1, 5, 9, 10-11, 12, 17-IB, Parth~Uli, 194-6
2!-4, 29-.50, 34, 41, 52, 65, 82, putoraliam, 86, 105, 192
87,90,94, 101-2, 104, IS2-S, puh,5,21,36-7.41,66
154-5, 158, 172, 190, 199, 216, PauanW, Dt!1cription o/Gnt!cr: on
222, 269 n. 42 Attiea, 16, 37:Aq:o•, 127, 137, 192;
oppo.lidon, 8, 13fl, 19, 20-1,41, Mencnia, 120, 130-1, 190;Sparta,
43-4, S4-5, 61-2, 70, 7.5-4, 76, 24ff, 125, 182-3;a1 Delphi, 122:
71-9, l!ll-2, 1!14-5, 88, 91, lU, PhocLI, 126- 7; foundation or
157, 159-60, l 73ff, 178, 11!11-2, Taren.turn, 196: bones or Pdop1,
11!14-5, 11!19-90, 198, 206ff, 209rt, Ill!l;movin(statue, 118;Cypsclus'•
218-19, 253 n. 39;cance11ed, 78; chc.t, 123 n. 22, 161:thlMUros,
notclear, 182-3 140;mqic&!relocationof1Kri-
onc.le, 1, 13, 117-18, 125, 129, 151-2, ficialanimals, 142:Andropompos,
191-2, 196, 191!1-9, 231 n.. 2;ofthe 152
dead, 127-8 pederasty, 158, 265 n. !18
order: coimic (ThcmLI), 1-2, 62, 65; Pquu,. 29; ,,, also BeUnophon
myths of, 188; imparted by windt,_ Pcitho, 44, (cf. 2!14 n. 17)
10; political, 90, 94, 162. 200; ta,n,, Peli.at, 30
US;1upported by lf.ryptt!UI, 182; Mt Pelion, 136
oppoKd to duordcr, 2, 8, 90, 155, PeJop,: shouide1bJadc of, 118; houac of,
162. 200, 208-9 1!12-3;,ceptre or, 1!18
Orion. 88, 104--5, 161 Pendope, 25, 26-7, !S, 1!13
Orphcu•, 95-109 pa,A'"; oblitente11 pni.,stt1i (in Thcsaly), 187
bo1&ndarin between the wild and the Pcntheu, 82, 224
~ltivaaed, 105; 'author' of Jl"l'fO• pt,plo1, 121-2, 142, 144, 179:uc.Uo
...,,.,._, 19-20 weaving

301
lnthx
Periandn (of Corinth), 127-1 the ttate, 201, 207-1, 212-14;
Paicle1, 144, 179, 261 n. S!i, 265 LSI CC*aolOl'Y, 202, 20l-9, 211;.e of
Pcriclymcnw, S Homer, 204, 210; of Hnodottu.
perioibi: atSparu., lll;atArpi, 192; 204-6: awnber theory, 211; ur of
in Ariltotlc, 192 model-. 201-2, 204, 206, 212-U;
pnipolo,, 141, 177;,u 8llo ..,..,.amo, clillike of 1ea Uld dcmocncy, 206,
Persephone, 100, 255 n. Sf 207, 210, 212-IS;n ...,..ion, 24
Pn,eu1, Ill Pleiada, 52, 105
Penianl: ritual, 125-6, 259 n. 7!; plou,h, plOIIPinc= mall.inc. 51-Z;
rnodel of de•odmo., 215; royal 1)'111· plou,hiac/lCll, 52-5, (ct 49, 71, II,
bolo", 252 n. 17 H-7); Cyclopn ipor-t of, 86;
Phaeac:ia: land of l&ilon. Sf-5, 41, IS: .IIICffll. 194-5;02., 75, 14, 211, 222;
stn.cture of fantuy, IS, 90-S; and u ordeal Uuon), 1!4;0dy9'NI M
Adanbl, 204 plOUplm-. 91: cCNUtella&ion, 52
Phaertu.1 (Crete), 151 Plutarch: on Spana, llS--4, 197
Phaethon, 140 (nwriqe), 154, Ill, llS-4 (eda-

~ ..
Ph&leron, 156- 7 (in 01ebopboria)
poUl"lll•l-. IS-14, 16, 252 n. 4, 247

Phemiw Ckinl of Aeniudanl), 152

Pherccyda, U2
catioa), 11! (hair), 114, 191 (women),
160 (huntinc), 194--5 (hrfA,.,.;.1;
offcrinp a1 Delphi, tsl; Enalol,
129-50; Dio.curi, fl: Diony-
M1,-..., Ul n. 10;111neua. HO,
Philio,, 160 157-l;ru11eof Phemiu... lS2;of
Phocil, 126- 7 Atheaiuui at Salamil. 195;Clraan.
pUsplaoro1, II, 2SS n. 6, 40-1 ;u1 ISl;Cynica. 226iAlpa. l92;CUlllile,

-
Gia lipt 195;mariitce, 101
phratry, admillioa to, 149-50, 155, polllicy, 174-5, 191;in IOcial imti-
l 77;1e1 ma ...c,-,..,r;. hltioa11, 155; tt• -160 opp0Ute1,
Phrb.01, US-4, 155; land of, U6
pllron11U,21, 51 polu: • .cropolis, 17, 91; 111en.benhlp
Phronti1, Sf, S6ff ofclUlical, ltl-9, 174, 117-8;
Phrynichu,, murdff of, 141 definition throuP, boullday r...
phylic&I 1nn1fonmtion, S, 5-6, 17, H, win, 16- 7, 190, 219-20; cuteell
75, 71, 97, 156-7;andNCk llpm, coallict between -ce-ciu... 171:
17; ,,.,.mo mcumorpholb 'dCYCloped' DI 'ucbaic', 117-200;
fJIIIUU: in Plato, 211 (on Atlantu);and Platonic, 20Uf, 207;1fl m,o
no11101, 115 rejection of
pilot, 20, 22, 24, 52-S, 5911; without, polludoa, 121-2, 191, 224
95: "" mo naviption Polycnces ofSamo, 12Sff
Pindu: Tyde, 22; nr,iptioa, U; Polyadcfl, 121-2, 191
Bdle,ophon, H, Ul, 142: Arp- Polyphem.111, 15-6;,umo Cydopa
nauu, 29, 121-9, 154, 140, 149; Polyicchot. 216
'shieldofArpt', 120;Juonu Po•,.ios, 22
ephebe, 149; AcbiDc1 h-tina,. 159:
pbatSparta, 114
,_a,, 47, 49-60, 56, 70ff, 71-9,
10-l;KCOIUl.dlildolf.ria, 72;.Nf
planu: cultiHtcd, 49-50, 55-4, 75-4, mo acrkuJNR; labour
71-9, 19, 90-l;wild, 15, 15, H, Pa,.,o,, 20
75, 71-9;catin1 wild hcrbl, 226, Poro,, 5, 21, 29, ISi 11. 2
228: naturally cooked ia qe of pld, Poeeicloa, 16-42 ,.,ri,,., 16, 19, tl,
71; double 'cookiq' of, 71 lH;aacl Amphitrite, 150;.Udu.,
Placo: on cannib.U.., 12, 211, 220; on 256 L 11; PeriboJa. 204; Peridy-
buncin1, 159;1lory ..tGnu., 124-5; menw, 5;TMlft ofKortea. 29, (cf.
lire, 54;.,,.ono•oi, lfl, 151;on 129, 206, Hin. f2);dilpuae wilh
prepancy, 52-9; on childhood. 174; Alh..-a, IN, 206,atteadl 14..,._·
female dtil:cn1 fi&ht, 114, 267 n. 26; faac, 2ff n. 6 6 ; ~ by
on hdou,c, 117: o• 'YDDDY, 220; oa PhMIICWMI, !14-5, 206; by Alc,uader,

!02
 Index
125-6; by Atlantil, 204, 206, 210ff: Sputa, 155-4, 181-2;runnin(u,
temple at Sounioft, S6-7;aphllldor, 156ff;huntin1 u, IS9ff: rejection of,
214n. 19 162 n. 42;van Gcnnep, ISS, 172; in
Pnaap1'11(inEccWriuurN), 156-7 Africa, 154; in VirJinia, J 71
Priam, IJ9 ritual, 120-l, 125-4, 125, 162, 172,
printhood, 180:ofpno.r, 147, 176 184;tne1:1of, l2';vc.tmen1, 157,
priniitMmn, 81-2, 226, 228;re, lll.ro 144; of 1celu1ion, 157; colour in,
Goldm Age;rcjcc:tion ofpolir; IS.S;rulllsoproce11lion;.acrilice,
Utopia rulcafor
pri,.e, 112-U, 117, 120, 142 Rome: archaic, more like Spana than
proccuion: O.chophoria, 156-7; to Athens, 197;'ephebe'at, 162;com·
Ileu1i1, 174; Panathcnaia, 179; It puilon between Grcclr. and Roman
Iplacphyrian Locri1, 194; in honour inititudom, IU, 154, 162. 251 n . .S
or Demeter, 144-5 rottcnnen, 18, 96, 98, 216--17, 222,
Promcthcu1, 10, 14-U, 4J-S6, 57-79, (d. 6l);not ronin1 (bone,), 60-1
81, 219, 221, 22!, 227;,,,lllso rue: rule of women, 166-7, 184, 187-200
PCnrice at Mckone rule1, 28, 54-5, 59ff, 85, 18, 98ff,
property: private, IISU;claim to, 121; lllfr.122, 1'4, ISI;dictuy, IOOff,
1crlllso oilior;wcalth 217ff; 1n:ual, 101-2, 226; for
Propp, V., 249 n. 65 lcacnd, 12Brf
Protcu,, 4rr, n, 96-7 runninc, u mark of adulthood, 157-8,
publicpmc1(othla), ll2ff, 117, 159, (er. 161 (invcnion))
IJ9-20, 142, 146
purity, 91-9;11, ,lro Orphbm sacrifice: meaning of, 53--6, 59-65,
putttraction. IH rottennca, 70-4, 81-2, 217-19; burial of knife,
Pylo,, 19-90, 94; Nddd.l or, 198 IS9; to marlr. ApMoc,rio, 150;
Pytha,oru, 22S, 254 n. 45 ll~uo, 61; Pcrlian, 259 n. 75: or
Pythacornn,, 217, 222-5,227-1; kinp or Atlantl.1, 212; human,
table or oppo1ite1, 174-5, 269 n. 42 129-30, l!S-4, 179, 224-5, 245
~ 14
nee or women. 55 u.crilicc It Mckone, 14-15, 45. 57-8,
npe: attempted, or Eurydice, 99. IDS; 61,62ff,69ff,22S
of Plei*9, 105;of Anemll, 105;or ucrifice: rule, for, 44-!I, 51, 54, !17ff,
Danae. U6;o(Ganymcdc, IJ9;or 7lff, 86, 81, 90, 217-18, 224-!I;
Cretanboy, 151;ofAtaZuta, 161;by total de1truction of objecll, 126- 7;
Tcrcu1, 216, by Polytcchno1, 216; invenion or, 226; failure of, 18;
dttam,or, 220 'veaetari1n', 104,24!1 n. JS
n11ionaliPn, 111-16, 14'-6, 177-8, 1&erilici.al animal,, 14-15, 29, 41, 44Jf,
85,97, 113, 12!, 12!1ff, 130, us.
"'
rationality, laclr. or, derane1 animal1, 211
11w, 76, 88;oppo1cd to 'cooked', 77fr,
Uf-5, 183, 212, 223, 225, 2!1S
n. S4;reprctcnta1ion1of, JS8;rc-
us, 159, 110, 11s. 211-19, 22srr, 1ppcannce or el,cwhcre, 142;
226,245 n. I Pythq:orcan view, on, 222; complc:·
rejection of polis, 199-200, 217-28; mentarity between 1nimll and bio1,
rejection ol ttanllition, 162 n. 42;sH 7.S-4
!Ibo Golden A,.:; primilivbm: Utopia Ailor: flnt ..Uor, 29ff; Phacacians,
revnNl. 24, 28, 154-62, 166-7, 172, 54-6, 9!, 204;1l!'f' a/Jo n1via"alion;
174, 181-2. 184·-5, 190-1, 197, pilot
201-9. 227; or run', counc, 192-S: Salam ii: battle of, I! I; ,cir.rd by
1r,1U,o in\·enion
Athenian1, 1!17;a11.. i,.., J56;Slla·
Rhu, 1!. 2U-16, 245 n. 21 mini.aftff'IIOI, 156
Rhqium,196 Satumali.a, 197
rin1. 12Sfr (Polycratct), 124-5 (Gncs), S1u11ure, F. de, 116, 169
252 n. 21 (parantor of lc,itimacy) u.vq:ery:a1compara1ivec11cgory,
ritcofpu.... 171fr, 179;,.ryple141 in 16'-4, 166, 167ff, 171. 174-6,

303
Index
uvagery(co11t.) 178, 188-90, 194, 200; tcillt" powtt,
185, 199-200, 215, 219;0rion 184;ru.lt-of, 191-6;ciryof, 189,{c(
unable to escape from, 105; Dioll)'· 19S);dealt"n, 19S;tubctiNtt- Corcid-
aiac, 224-S;su obo barbUUJD; 1m in war at Sputa, 195-6;flpt at
dvi..lizati.on; culture Man.than, 17S;marriafrcof.at
Scberia, ru Phaeacia Gortyn, 1%
Scyll,. and Charybdu, 85 llecp, 6-7, 9, 11, 14, 24, 242 n. 20
Scythiana, 86-7, 220, 245 n. H; ancll: of acrifict, 15, 60-1, 75,
udler, 199 217-IB;offuung, 102-S:oflll)Cl"IR
,ea: home of Typhon, 12;na.vcl of, 88; Of blood, 222: IWttt-lmcJlinc CO'l)"I,
tripod found in, ll8; throwinc 248 n. 46
ob_;«u Ullto, 12scr, 129-SO;hcro or, 1111oke, II, 15, 61, 75, 84. 211
150;Atheaao(, 16--42;111e.Uo snau, '· 5, 99; hcad1, 8, (cf. 11);
naription; Oceanu,; Potcidon Umb1, 10; wOmiln (Dt"iphynt-), 10
,cuom, 2, 24, 144, 267 n. 25;absntc:e K1Cial formation, 167-11, 18Hf
or, 91 Solon: mediator of Atlantit myth, 201,
tcclu1ion, 156 n. 26, 174, 176, 179, 181 205-4, 208, 210; law1 of. 265 n. 38,
.eduction, 47, 51-2, 92, 98-9, 10.5;of 269 .._ 47;alluliona 10, in fourth
Lawfulwife, 105;oflister-iftolaw,216; century, 268 n. 28
oflUll'4a,e,242n.16 Sophoclc1: Anhta"t, 'praise of rnan',
1ecd, 49, 52-S, 69; metaphorically, 2011 2!;PhiJo~ltlti -d tphcM, 177
1epantion of mu, froin beuu, 54--5, Soun.iOII, !6-7
111-2, 218ll;rre •lso men in relation 10WTCipty; or Zau, 2, 7, 10, 12-U,
to animab 15, 62, 137.140, 216;UI Ody.rtty,
,cplnlion of man from rod, 50-5, 89-90, 9'--4; ICq,tr'C U lip of,
H-6,57-79, 80ff, 2I7ff, 241 nn. lSl;su IIUo lr.inphip
7, 9; in Orphic bdid, 22!;ambipou1 Sputa, 24-5, 26-7, 89-90, 94, 115,
llatUI of[thioplana, 79, 248 ti. 46; 125, 172, 177-8, 191, 195, 207;
of Scheria, 91-2 oppo.cd to Atht-u, 176-85, 191,
Sepeia (battle of), 191-2 196-200; aa 'male city', 191 ;adol-
Sepia, (Cape), 2.59 n. 7!I Hccncc in, 180-5;lt,yptria, 1U-S;
IQ chance, 1.58 (aetioJorv for fatiV"al), Cwfft-ia, 157-1; PlataNlllall, 18!;
(cf. 190, 200);.rer lWo tnmvatisrn P.tlinti#li, 194--6;women, 184-5,
1eaual: abttcntion, 98ff; intcrcoune, 188, 191, 1H-5, 196-7;oripio(
5lff, 161-2, 215: rationally ordncd, llavC!)', 194--S;huotinJ, l60;royal
20l;forct-d, 6 (set- dso rape);acc11, in'VctliN~. 255 n. SS; 'philo.o·
51-2, 99, 105-4, 161, 216, 220 phical', 214
Shamans, UO Sputiatn, U5, 181-2, 1117, 197;
ahidd: of Danau,, I20;of A.ri,tomne1, ,.,onam, 114, 196-7
120, 130-l;dt"Vicc, U7, 141-2 Sphim., 215
ahip, 16-I7, 19, 22ff, 205, 212;ttlation .,,,_.,._,.., 241 .._ 12
bttwecn lhip and hint, 20; builclin,, 1prin1: on Scheria, 204:Atlantis. 204-&,
SO((; of the Phaeaci.ana, 55-0, (cf. 210;proto·Athcn,, 208
204) t former abtencc of in AdUIUI, st.llyl,odramM (atCoPnrir), 157--1
210 ~•. 9, 24, 52, S7. 59, U!-S. 259 n.
liclr.nu., 47, 52, 55-6, 60, 64
Slttn1, 84, 87-8, 92
SILiraphoria, 102, 257 n. SI, 200;
"
1ratu,e: mO'riac, 118; declicatiq-. 24-5~
de1tructioa, U6-7:-,.hu, 11S;or
Sir.iron, 156 Athena, 207, 2U;Pmddon, 215
alavt-ry, 167;in Athau, 187, 196-7, 1tealinf: Proinetheul, 44__.0, Sf,
199-200; LD 'U'Chaic' nact-.. J96-7; H-9;Typhon, IJ;lmab ltolm.by
,\ristotleon, 175, 181-9;Tiaan11 Thyata, 1!2-l
on, 19!; tcnninoJol)', 189-90, l!M, 1tcp-mothcr, lll-4 (of l'b.rb.N)
196; IU .L,o chattel llava; hdOtl staility of land, l!S-f
tlavcs; cs:cluded &om dti1e11 rif.hU. Stobi acdb&dc t o ~ alW1lalt,
 211-19; Chryrippwi', theoaony, !I Teltph1&1, 118
rtomuh, 14,51,d.52-!I _Tduilla (of Arpe), lff
rtonr,, 9, 18, !6, 41, (cf. 126) ten1ple, l20, l22, 156, £57, 161-2,
rtrattcem, 4ff, I0, 149 n. 8, 151, 206-7, 211, 212-1!1; treuure, 1!1~_,_.
152-!I, 174 n. H, 177 l<h ~- -
lll'UCtunliJm: snmmv or narntin, tmdon1, 10 (of Zan), 76 (or corpse)
4!1-50, !l!I, 58!f, 106rf;homolOfY Tere,n,215-16
of patterning theme,, 12ff, 20ff, Ttthy1, 22
!!ff, 50ff, 7!1fr, 106, 116, 185, Thalet, 117
201-2 (Plato); demancb auumption Thcbe1, 99, 121ff
that nothint UI non-significant, 62, ThemUI, 1-2, 2!11 n. 2
I 15-16;demands aplanation at Thera (colonUlu of), 197
levd of myth iuelf, 58-9, 98; pou- The1eu1: and Ariadne, 122; Minos, 124,
ible even in ablftlce of major myth, (er. l!IO);motherof,256 n. ll;for-
l6:a1a111etahiatoricall)'1tem, get• to change ail,, 15!1, 156;
169-70, 18S;utrulyhittorical, mounu Aegeus, 1!17;on marriage 10
97-8, 187-8;demand1 attentl0n to foreignm, 198;,tone or, 140
the concrete, 127, (er. 62-!I, 97-8); Thetmophoria, IOOfr, 180
1u: also anthropology; Livi-StruUI; Thetit: and Peleus, 4fl; •aifice to, !O;
my<h helpt Argonaut,, 40, 2!9 n. 7!
ltrv.ch&ttdtpace, 28, 127fr, 172, Thyeltes, U2-3, 215;tornb of, 157
206- 7, 209ff;10· 4/.so geo,nphical Tiphy,, ,srr
concepu Titans, 10-11, U-14, 62-3, 64, 137,
Styi:, 14 215,22!1
mufferinl, ,er Golden Age; laboUl'; old tool: of olive-wood, 84; agrieuhura.l,
qe; sepan.tion or men from ,od; uted for odd p1.&1J>111t1, 106;,hip'•
1idr.near; women in rela1ion to men cable &1 hanging-rope, 9!1; oar mi.-
111rnmer, 51-2, 152, 154, 181, 207-8; ta.Ir.en for winnowinr-lhovel, 89; non-
1u: •160 canicular period poHenion of, a ,ign of barbarism, 86
,un: father of Phaethon, 140;herdt or, transformations, 8-14, 106
118; City of, 189; table of, 79, 248 trantgrenion ofruk,,81-9, 98ff, 151,
n. 46:and ,old, 1!17; and tpi(:et, 222; 161-2, 2!6, 219-28
influenced by kin(, U2-!I, l!IS; tranaition, 102-!, 147ff, 160; refuAI
prayer to by Xerxe1, 125-6 of, 162 n. 42;stttolio initiation;rite
,urvinl: u n:planation of problem, in ofp.uuge
myth, 168, 215;ofprimitive world, transmiai.on of 1ift, 117-18, 128-9,
220 1!11, 132-!1, 134;sualso n:chan,e
,wallowing whole, 1-2, 4-5, 15-14, tranffestism, 142, 155, 156-7, 192-!,
240n. 2,66, 216 197, 199-200;,uobo invenion;
symbolism, 17, 2!1, 59, 71, 101, 112, reverul;1e:,r.changt
118-19.1!15, 177;pluticityof, 1S7; trap, 11, 15, 2!, !11;sualso Pandora
symbolic explanation milt.a.Ir.en, 152 tre.uun:-houee, 89, U6, 140, 142
l)'Dtu: (of'langua,c:' ofinitiation), 185 tree: tnruformation into, 5; for lhip-
Syro1, 248n. 47 buiJdjng, !Off; ftre on uh-trees, 49;
ryuitio,., 154, 160, 181 honey in, 98, (cf. 100); capable of
divination, l!8;plantedby1od,
taboo, 120-1 ; ,u: ollo incell 1!18-9; ,acred, 144; &1pect of

...
Tantalu,. 215 n11t11n:,211
Tarentum (foundation of), 19!1, 194-6, Truanttt(atSpana), 195
tripod, 113, 116ff, 127, 128-9, 140,
Tananu, 7-9 143, 14!1;notoriginally 1acrttd, 14-f
1ttcl,..1. 4-5, 4!1, 207; of hdmaman, 2!, Troezen,256n. 11
2!14n.18 Trophonnu (oracle of), Ul
twin1, 4-f (Promethe111-Epimethe111),
Teluon, !I
Ttlemac:h1&1, 16, 18-19, 8!1. 89-90 211 (fivepair1 bom to IUeito)

,o5
htde•
Tyd,I, 21-2;oppodte or,,.,-,i. d1nysolephebe1, 155;P,·~
Thucydidc1, 256 n. 22 robes. 2%7; oppolCd to black m
Tylor, E.I., 95, 101, 161, 215 ritual/myth, ti, 150-· I: in hut.
Typhon(I'yphOClll,l-12, U,U 161; ... ol)', 161
tyrant: Periudcr, 127-1; Polyaa1e1, wife, 46, 52-S, 60, 89, 9S, 97, 19,
125ff;Gyaa, 124-5;Aril&odfflt.UI 101-2, 105-6, 120-1 (Cytem-
ofCwnac, 192-S;modcu f,x, 1211; natn), 12ur (Eriphy~);lfffflup
u imqe oflawlcunea, 220;ueon- Dah of children, 216
ltitutional fOIIII., 111-9, 209 wild bo..-: Calydoftian, 159. 161; kiD·
Tyn..-1, 154 1n1, u rite or.,._.. i• Macedon-.
l59;rip1 be-twH:n, at Sputa,
UUilr.11mi, I llS-4, (cf. 262 a. '9hcmblfln of
unity (uPlatonic Y&lue), 206-7, 214 Tydew, 191
U.ener,H., 195, U9, 152 wine, 54, 76, 16, II, 91, 157, 255 a. 10
Utopia, 94, 114, .... 199-200, 205,
204, 248 n. 62;,u . 0 Golden Ace·
rejection of po/ii
winier, 152, 154, Ill, 207-8
woodRK.br..2.lL"'_ ·I
w'
•

""Wiiiiia. l'Ti conlempilor";"f1:· lff,truc-,

tionby, 106;,tftuo, 121, U9;1ilr.cl
ftFIUIIINllll, 12, H, 211, 225, 221; ttr.c earth, 52-S; dauiRcation of, t91,
or
one IOl't Atioi, 87;u mark or IOOff; tncin, de.ant throush, 199, \

vri~~~~~t5~ 7
Tiner uaon1Cydopn,16;oaSchaia,
\
I
\1::~1::~:c;::;.~,:~=oaor
1t11N1al Athem,J79;orl.e'laaa.. ;·\-';!
9l;onlthaca,19;amon1Ciconn, JIO-J,(d.197)
14:pldea, IH-9;Athemal\,pro- women UI relation lo mea, 51-2, 65, II

:!::!e~~~:~ ~;4~;1:~,. ~.:~;·.~;·~~~11

1

0
~':;..~!;,!6 1/,atlboworaea, ~~~:,'12e:7·:~Mo,', 140;~ I
.onailln1, IS, 66, 216 t
water: dettruction by, 126-7;drin~,[:::"~e=11:..:":::i11teii'1~{w:!' n:rm'=-- ~
9 .;;e'w;;.;;..;;r,:;,

~J=.~~.iri~i;~~o-
Athen,. 207-l;u orip.ofraetal,
xe~-~:s;'.!r.~:=~~:
J96-7;huntin1(aad war), 180, 112,
210:lflU.e, 97, 99 259 n. 44;Melanicm.161;royal
walth, 19, 120-1, UI, 155-6, HS, invelt:itllre al Spana, 255 IL H
• 110;,yraboll or,
lfS;eutie1taotio11
of, lff:lharint.200;onAtlaada.
Xen.-. 125-6

212
wcavinc, 16,S!l, 100, 109, 142, 179,
224; imap of, f• Plato, 201
white: bona ia ucrifice, 14--15, 57,
77, HI IL 12;boaain pyn, 76--7;
fat, 51, 76-7;robe olfU1clota. !II;

306