“But in Italy they also believe that the gaze of a wolf is harmful—specifically that it will take the voice from any man they see first. Africa and Egypt have wolves that are slow and small, while the colder climates produce fierce and wild animals. We ought to believe with certainty that accounts of men turning into wolves and then back to themselves again are false; or we should be prepared to believe all the tales that are fantastic from as many generations.
Nevertheless, since the tale is popular enough that it has earned the curse-term “versepellis”, I will explain its origin. Euanthes, not unknown among Greek authors, reports that the Arcadians hold that a member of a family of a certain Anthus is selected by lot, transported to a certain lake in the region, and, after he hangs his clothes on an oak tree, he crosses the lake and enters the desert where he turns into a wolf and joins with others of his kind for nine years.
If he keeps himself from humans for this period of time, he returns to the same lake and once he has crossed it regains his form, except that nine years of age have accumulated. Fabius adds to this tale that he also regains his clothing. It is amazing how far Greek gullibility will go! There is no lie so shameful that it will lack partisans.
Similarly, the author Apollas who wrote the Olympionics, claims that Demaenetus of Parrhasia, when the Arcadians were still performing human sacrifices to Jupiter Lycaeus, sampled the entrails of a child who had been sacrificed, and transformed into a wolf. That same man transformed back 10 years later, became an athlete, and returned to the Olympic games as a victor.
It is also believed that there is a thin tip of hair on the tail of this animal which acts as an aphrodisiac—when the animal is caught, it has no force unless it is plucked while the animal is still alive.”
Sed in Italia quoque creditur luporum visus esse noxius vocemque homini, quem priores contemplentur, adimere ad praesens. inertes hos parvosque Africa et Aegyptus gignunt, asperos trucesque frigidior plaga. homines in lupos verti rursusque restitui sibi falsum esse confidenter existimare debemus aut credere omnia quae fabulosa tot saeculis conperimus. unde tamen ista vulgo infixa sit fama in tantum, ut in maledictis versipelles habeat, indicabitur.
Euanthes, inter auctores Graeciae non spretus, scribit Arcadas tradere ex gente Anthi cuiusdam sorte familiae lectum ad stagnum quoddam regionis eius duci vestituque in quercu suspenso tranare atque abire in deserta transfigurarique in lupum et cum ceteris eiusdem generis congregari per annos VIIII. quo in tempore si homine se abstinuerit, reverti ad idem stagnum et, cum tranaverit, effigiem recipere, ad pristinum habitum addito novem annorum senio. id quoque adicit, eandem recipere vestem.
mirum est quo procedat Graeca credulitas! nullum tam inpudens mendacium est, ut teste careat. item Apollas, qui Olympionicas scripsit, narrat Demaenetum Parrhasium in sacrificio, quod Arcades Iovi Lycaeo humana etiamtum hostia facebant, immolati pueri exta degustasse et in lupum se convertisse, eundem X anno restitutum athleticae se exercuisse in pugilatu victoremque Olympia reversum.
quin et caudae huius animalis creditur vulgo inesse amatorium virus exiguo in villo eumque, cum capiatur, abici nec idem pollere nisi viventi dereptum.
Here’s the oldest textual reference to werewolves in the western tradition:
Herodotus, Histories4.105
“The Neuroi are Skythian culturally, but one generation before Darius’ invasion they were driven from their country by snakes. It happens that their land produces many snakes; and even more descended upon them from the deserted regions to the point that they were overwhelmed and left their own country to live with the Boudinoi.
These men may actually be wizards. For the Skythians and even the Greeks who have settled in Skythia report that once each year the Neurian men turn into wolves for a few days and then transform back into themselves again. People who say these things don’t persuade me, but they tell the tale still and swear to it when they do.”
λύκοςγίνεται. This earliest reference to the widespread superstition as to werewolves (cf. Tylor, P. C. i. 308 seq., and Frazer, Paus. iv. 189, for Greek parallels) is interesting, as the evidence is so emphatic. Others (e. g. Müllenhoff iii. 17) see in this story a reference to some festival like the Lupercalia.
The Lamia (or, just Lamia to her friends) is one of the figures from Greek myth who seems like a frightening monster but really is a particular distillation of misogyny. She is often called a Greek ‘vampire’ along with Empousa. Unlike the latter, however, Lamia is specifically associated with killing children.
Diodorus Siculus, 20.40
“At the rock’s root there was a very large cave which was roofed with ivy and bryony in which the myths say the queen Lamia, exceptional for her beauty, was born. But, because of the beastliness of her soul, they say that her appearance has become more monstrous in the time since then.
For, when all her children who were born died, she was overwhelmed by her suffering and envied all the women who were luckier with their children. So she ordered that the infants be snatched from their arms and killed immediately. For this reason, even in our lifetime, the story of that women has lingered among children and the mention of her name is most horrifying to them.
But, whenever she was getting drunk, she would allow people to do whatever pleased them without observation. Because she was not closely watching everything at that time, the people in that land imagined that she could not see. This is why the myth developed that she put her eyes into a bottle, using this story a metaphor for the carelessness she enacted in wine, since that deprived her of sight.”
The story of why Lamia killed children gets a little more depressing in the Fragments of the Greek Historians
Duris, BNJ 76 F17 [= Photios s.v. Lamia]
“In the second book of his Libyan History, Duris reports that Lamia was a fine looking woman but after Zeus had sex with her, Hera killed the children she bore because she was envious. As a result she was disfigured by grief and would seize and kill the children of others.”
Elsewhere, the evidence of narratives about Lamia are rather limited. She becomes just another negative, female monster.
Suda, Lambda 85
“Lamia: a monster. The name comes from having a gaping throat, laimia and lamia. Aristophanes: “It has the smell of a seal, the unwashed balls of a Lamia.” For testicles are active—and he is making a fantasy image of Lamia’s balls, since she is female.
“There is a crag rising up over the ground on which the Delphians claim that a woman stood singing oracles, named Hêrophilê but known as Sibyl. There is the earlier Sibyl, the one I have found to be equally as old as the others, whom the Greeks claim is the daughter of Zeus and Lamia, the daughter of Poseidon. She was the first woman to sing oracles and they say that she was named Sibyl by the Libyans. Hêrophilê was younger than here, but she was obviously born before the Trojan War since she predicted Helen in her oracles, that was raised up in Sparta as the destruction for Asia and Europe and that Troy would be taken by the Greeks because of her.”
“Foremost he differed from previous authors in this, by which I mean how he took on a subject that was not a single thread nor one divided in many different and also disconnected parts. And then, because did not include mythical material in his work and he did not use his writing for the deception and bewitchment of many, as every author before him did when they told the stories of certain Lamiai rising up from the earth in groves and glens and of amphibious Naiads rushing out of Tartaros, half-beasts swimming through the seas and then joining together in groups among humans, and producing offspring of mortals and gods, demigods—and other stories which seem extremely unbelievable and untrustworthy to us now.”
Mormô, in the genitive Mormous, declined like Sappho. There is also the form Mormôn, genitive Mormonos. Aristophanes says “I ask you, take this Mormo away from me”. This meant to dispel frightening things. For Mormo is frightening. And again in Aristophanes: “A Mormo for courage”. There is also a mormalukeion which they also call a Lamia. They also frightening things this.
Plutarch, De Curiositate [On Being a Busybody] 516a
“Now, just as in the myth they say that Lamia sleeps at home, putting her eyes set aside in some jar, but when she goes out she puts them back in and peers around, in the same way each of us puts his curiosity, as if fitting in an eye, into meanness towards others. But we often stumble over our own mistakes and faults because of ignorance, since we fail to secure sight or light for them.
For this reason, a busybody is rather useful to his enemies, since he rebukes and emphasizes their faults and shows them what they should guard and correct, even as he overlooks most of his own issues thanks to his obsession with everyone else. This is why Odysseus did not stop to speak with his mother before he inquired from the seer about those things for which he had come to Hades. Once he had made his inquiry, he turned to his own mother and also the other women, asking who Tyro was, who beautiful Khloris was, and why Epikaste had died.”
“But I kill one of you—and Apollo grants me the right to boast, Then once I strip off your weapons, I will take them to holy Troy And I will hang them on the temple of far-shooting Apollo. But I will return the body to the well-benched ships, And the Achaeans with the long hair will bury him. They will heap him up a sign on the broad Hellespont And then someone of the people who are born later will say As they sail on the wine-dark sea in a many-benched ship, “This is the grave of a man who died long ago, Someone whom shining Hektor killed when he was the best” So someone will say some day, and my fame will never perish” So he spoke and everyone stayed quiet in the silence. They were ashamed to refuse, but afraid to accept.”
This speech comes near the beginning of Iliad 7 as Hektor is challenging one of the Greeks to fight him in single combat. Its position and content speak directly both to the characterization of Hektor, some problems of the structure of the Iliad, and the metapoetics of kleos (or, more appropriately, the occluded poetics of the epic “kleos function”). Let me try to address them in order.
First, Hektor is using this language not 45 minutes in performance time from his encounter with Andromache and Astyanax on the wall of Troy where he ends by praying for his son to be better than his father and to delight his mother’s heart by returning from nettle with another man’s weapons just as Hektor hopes for himself now (6.479-81). There as well, Hektor engages with what some have called “tis-speech” imagining the future words of others (de Jong 1987). Hilary Mackie refers to these moments as vignettes and notes that all but one of them appear in Hektor’s speeches (6.460-1; 6.479-50; 7.88-91; 7.300-2; and 22.107). For Mackie, these support Hektor’s tendency towards “an inward focus and absorption in the scenes he is creating” (1996, 98-99). This separation from reality, the rumination and the accompanying verbal tic of moving between a harsh assessment of reality (Hektor’s statements that he will in fact die) and flights of fancy, is supportive of a character in distress, I believe. Hektor is engaging in classic rumination, in delaying tactics, as he pushes against the reality of his situation. His decisions and his actions may be shaped by trauma. (Or, to put it less aggressively, his characterization may be such that it allows others to see him as responding erratically as one in a traumatized state may do.)
In a way, Hektor is a complement for Achilles’ contemplation of heroic valor and the promise of eternal fame. But he approaches it from a more shame-based perspective. (See Schein the Mortal Hero, 177-178 for more on hector as a hero shaped by shame and Redfield, Nature and Culture 119-126 for Hektor’s heroism as a function of responsibility and obligation.) In nearly every major speech that indicates a decision or a resistance/regret for one being suggested (see Hektor in book 6 and 22), Hektor worries of shame and reputation which may be considered part of the rhetoric of fame, since the latter is shaped to an extent by the meaning of the former. Hektor, as Richard Martin has noted (1989, 133), is particularly concerned with winning a reputation. This concern expands beyond the boundaries of the poem (in time and space) in a manner that is really only achieved elsewhere by Achilles. When he refuses Andromache’s plea to stay within the walls in book 6, he immediately claims he fears feeling shame in front of the Trojans and predicts, using language that recalls this speech, that some day someone will see Andromache enslaved and crying and that her pain will rise anew from the loss of a husband who can no longer save her.
The projections of objects into the future that attest to Hektor’s absence, his success in gaining fame, and his failure to protect his wife, must in some way hang together in the mind of the audience. While we often take Hektor’s comments in book 7 as signal words on Homeric fame, they are words shaped by the public context that is in and of itself about the shame of people witnessing your excellence or commemorating one’s fall. When Hektor speaks to Andromache a book earlier, he projects her into the future as a different sêma (marker) of his absence, but one that correlates to his failure. The personal, intimate nature of this and Hektor’s expression of pain—that he would rather the earth cover over him than have to hear her crying (6.459-465) both underscores Hektor’s conflicted feelings and also undermines the significance of his later claims.
Yet, perhaps this too is an overstatement. Hektor’s bluster in public is a function of his refusal to reject shame, to stand down or seem less-than in front of his people and his enemies. In the intimate wish to his wife, he doesn’t mention glory or a grave, but instead wishes for oblivion, to be covered by the earth and to have no news of the horrors that continue after his death. If anything, rather than being an indication of an inconsistent character, these two vignettes point to an emotional coherence and a deep complexity to Hektor’s character.
halice krater with Achilles and Hector, Attic, c. 500 BC, ZA 63 – Martin von Wagner Museum – Würzburg, Germany
And I am so bold as to imagine that the structure of books 6 into 7 reflect this. Why does the Iliad need a second duel between heroes in its first half? Why, 10 years into the war, should Ajax and Hektor face each other in a single combat that is ultimately meaningless? And why, of all possible moments, have this be the one when Hektor points to the sema of his own grave as the guarantee of the continuity of memory for his own kleos? I may be as yet and as ever too modern in saying this, but I suspect the futility and the mundanity of the scene is the point. Hektor’s duel—and his fame to come—impact nothing of the world he cares about and may, at best, preserve a kleos that is as much a record of this as of all he could not protect.
The incoherence of the events that follow may support the coherence of this characterization. Hektor’s challenge inspires fear—and the response reported by the narrator echoes Hektor’s own concern with shame (αἴδεσθεν μὲν ἀνήνασθαι, δεῖσαν δ’ ὑποδέχθαι, 93). Nestor follows with the language shame reminds the Achaeans of their own boasts, Menelaos gets frustrated and is said by the narrator to be about to die (7.104) if he faces Hektor, only for Ajax to win a random drawing to face Hektor. Despite their fear of Hekor, Ajax seems to acquit himself quite well, save for an intervention by Apollo (7.272-273). The ‘draw’ is a stepping back from the conflict that has the Trojans relieved that Hektor survived and Agamemnon delighted at Ajax’s “victory” (7.312).
Throughout Hektor’s characterization in the Iliad we find a tension between the man we are told he should be and the figure we actually see in action. After returning to this speech again, I think that such tension is a direct function of Hektor’s relationship to kleos as clarified by his contrast with Achilles: he does not fight by choice, like Achilles; but he fights by obligation. His imagined futures change depending on whether they are public or private as he tries to play the part of a warrior prince who has learned to fight and die for his people while still struggling with the human part of knowing what his failure means for his city, spouse and child. Together, Achilles and Hektor can provide reflections on the limits of epic kleos and the conditions under which it matters and cannot. We just need to hear them as speaking in dialogue with each other, and us.
Achilles dragging Hector’s corpse through the Greek camp. Bone comb from tomb 5, via Frascati in Oria.
Short bibliography on Hektor
n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know. Follow-up posts will address kleos and Trojan politics
Horn, Fabian. “The psychology of aggression: Achilles’ wrath and Hector’s flight in Iliad 22.131-7.” Hermes, vol. 146, no. 3, 2018, pp. 277-289. Doi: 10.25162/hermes-2018-0023
Irene J. F. de Jong. “The Voice of Anonymity. Tis-Speeches in the Iliad.” Eranos 85 (1987) 5-22.
Lynn Kozak, Experiencing Hektor: Character in the Iliad. Bloomsbury Classical Studies Monographs. London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. xiv, 307.
Hillary Mackie. Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996.
Van der Mije, Sebastiaan Reinier. “Bad herbs: the snake simile in Iliad 22.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 64, no. 3, 2011, pp. 359-382. Doi: 10.1163/156852511X505079
W. R. Nethercut. “Hektor at the Abyss.” Classical Bulletin 49 (1972) 7-9.
Oele, Marjolein. “Priam’s despair and courage: an Aristotelian reading of fear, hope, and suffering in Homer’s « Iliad ».” Logoi and muthoi : further essays in Greek philosophy and literature. Ed. Wians, William. SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Albany (N. Y.): State University of New York Pr., 2019. 297-317.
Pantelia, Maria C. “Helen and the Last Song for Hector.” Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 132, no. 1/2 (2002): 21–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20054056.
Pucci, Pietro. “Divine protagonists in the « Iliad »: Hector’s death in book 22.” Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic, vol. 1, 2017, pp. 175-205.
Ready, Jonathan L.. “Iliad 22.123-128 and the erotics of supplication.” The Classical Bulletin, vol. 81, no. 2, 2005, pp. 145-164.
James Redfield. Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hektor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
The classic Transylvanian-style vampire—male, nocturnal, fanged—is really a product of folklore and gothic horror after the middle ages (with garlic, mirrors, crosses and stakes coming at various times from various places). But human blood-eating creatures of pleasure were present in ancient folktales as well. They are not prominent, but the Lamia and the Empousa, both female creatures of death who live off the life-force of the young, are attested as early as the 5th century BCE. Our best references, however, come from later antiquity. For ease, I am just going to translate them both as ‘vampire’. (There will be a second post about Lamia.) Here are some facts about Empousa.
Vampires live in the East. They can be Frightened off with mockery.
“These things are from the first book. Let us move on to the material in the second. The story picks up and follows the journey from Persia to India—there, they experienced something surprising—he says that [Apollodorus] saw something paranormal, what he calls a vampire [empousa], on the road and that they drove it away with mockery”
“After they went over the Caucasus they saw people who were four-lengths tall and who already dark-skinned. Once they crossed the river into India, they saw others who were five lengths tall. In the journey up to this river, I have picked out these things as worthy of investigation. For they were traveling in the clear moonlight when a phantom of a vampire [empousa] met them, changing into this scary thing and then another and then nothing! Apollonius understood what thing it was and mocked the vampire himself and ordered his companions—for this is the response to this kind of attack. The apparition went into flight like a ghost.”
Vampires like to eat the young (their blood is better)
4.5-6 “She said “be quiet and go away” and seemed to be disgusted at what she heard. And, I think, she was mocking philosophers for always talking nonsense. When, afterward, the golden bowls and what seemed to be silver was shown to be unreal—when everything flew from our eyes as the cup-bearers, the cooks, and every kind of servant disappeared as they were cross-examined by Apollonios—then the apparition seemed to be crying and was pleading that he not test her or compel her to agree what kind of thing she was. But when Apollonius laid on the pressure, she confessed that she was a vampire [empousa] who had been fattening Menippus with delights to eat on his body since she typically ate fine young bodies because their blood was more vital.
I have drawn out this tale, which happens to be the best known concerning Apollonius, out of necessity—most know that it occurred somewhere in the middle of Greece, but they have acquired only a summary account of how he once trapped a Lamia in Korinth. They don’t know what she was doing and that it was for Melanippus. The story is told by Damis and now by me from his records.”
Vampires like to have sex with mortals and then eat them
4.4 “What I was saying is that this woman is one of the vampires [empousai], whom most people think are the same as Lamiae or werewolves. Vampires feel desire, but they long for human sex and flesh most of all. They use sex to catch the ones they want to eat.”
7.29 “King, would someone who is covetous enough of honor to appear to be a sorcerer seem to credit to a god what he had done himself? What awestruck audiences for his skill would there be if he were to hand the wonder to a god? What kind of a sorcerer would pray to Herakles? These wicked devils credit their kinds of acts to ditches and underworld gods from whom Herakles must be separated since he is cleansed and it good to people. I prayed to him at some point in the Peloponnese for there was some apparition of a vampire [lamia] there too eating the fine forms of young men….”
Empousa: A devilish apparition sent by Hekate and appearing to the unlucky. It seems to take on many different forms. In the Frogs, Aristophanes [mentions this]. The name Empousa comes from that fact that it goes on one leg [hen podizein]—for people think that the other one is bronze. Or, because she used to appear [eph-aineto] to the those initiated in the mysteries [muomenois]. She was also named Oinopôlê. But some say that she changed her form [to get this name]. She seems to appear in the middle of the day as people offer sacrifices to those who have died. Others claim that she is Hekate. There is also the name Onokôle because she has a donkey leg which they refer to as bolitinon because that is donkey-manure. Bolitos is the specific name for donkey feces.
Beekes on the uncertain etymology of both Empousa and Lamia:
Lamia is associated more frequently with attacking children. This, of course, merits a separate post.
Lamia, carrying off infant
We get by with a little help from our friends
In the 16th & 17th C there were vampire 'contagions' in E.Europe and the Greek islands – see Paul Barber, Vampires, Burial and Death (Yale). https://t.co/pQJRp59abe
“For treatment against night terrors and fear of ghosts it is suggested that a string of big teeth will help”
contra nocturnos pavores umbrarumque terrorem unus e magnis dentibus lino alligatus succurrere narratur.
Seneca, Moral Epistle 82.16
“Death should be hated more than it is customarily. For we believe many things about death. There has been a struggle among geniuses to increase its bad reputation. The world below is depicted as a prison and the region is oppressed by eternal night where:
“The huge guardian of death / laying upon half-eaten bones in his gory cave / horrifies the bloodless ghosts with eternal barking”*
Even if you can persuade someone that these are stories and that there is nothing there for the dead to fear, another fright comes over you. For they fear going to the underworld no less than they fear going nowhere.”
Mors contemni debet magis quam solet. Multa enim de illa credidimus. Multorum ingeniis certatum est ad augendam eius infamiam. Descriptus est carcer infernus et perpetua nocte oppressa regio, in qua
Ingens ianitor Orci
Ossa super recubans antro semesa cruento,
Aeternum latrans exsangues terreat umbras.
Etiam cum persuaseris istas fabulas esse nec quicquam defunctis superesse, quod timeant, subit alius metus. Aeque enim timent, ne apud inferos sint, quam ne nusquam.
Dio Chrysostom, Oration 55.10 On Homer and Socrates
“Dear Friend, if we compare the fox with [Homer’s] lions and leopards and we claim that it either not at all or a just a little different. But, perhaps, you approve of those kinds of things in Homer, when he brings up starlings, or jackdaws, or ashes, or beans, lentils, or when he depicts people winnowing or these portions seem to you to be the worst part of Homer’s poems.
So you admire only lions, eagles, Skyllas and Kyklopes, the things he used to enchant dumb people, just as nurses tell children about the Lamia. Truly, just as Homer tries to teach people who are really hard to teach through myths and history, so Sokrates often uses a similar technique, at times he feigns joking because he might help people this way. Perhaps he also butted heads with myth-tellers and historians.”
Antiquity has bequeathed to us On Defamatory Words and Where they Come from (ΠΕΡΙ ΒΛΑΣΦΗΜΙΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΟΘΕΝ ΕΚΑΣΤΗ) attributed to Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. (Yes, that Suetonius.) It seems rather fragmentary, but it produces some gems. A large section include insults about women, but here’s a nice one for a man:
“nôthouros: I guess is one who has a bastard ‘tail’ for intercourse. For they use this in respect to male genitals. The kind of man described this way is also called impotent [astutos] and his household is called impotent. For example in Xenarkhos, “the impotent house of the Pelopides”. And there is also “fruitless” [akarpos] and “childless” [agonos] “the house perishes because it experiences the flaccid fates of its masters”.
note: συγγιγνώσκω means “agree with”: συγγίγνομαι can mean “talk with” or “communicate with” but also to “have sex with”. Don’t confuse them.
LSJ is just too precious on this:
I think that nôthouros might be the equivalent of “limp-dick”, although I would like to suggest “fake-dick” or “counterfeit-cock” vel sim. (but that comes from a fake etymology with the short vowel omicron for “bastard” (νόθος). This, of course, is impossible. Tell me, Beekes:
A few months back I wrote with some enthusiasm about some recent publications looking at Homer using new tools broadly characterized as AI [these approaches are largely statistical language models…but that’s less attention grabbing]!
I had several conversations with Homerists and friends and we figured there was enough going on to organize a workshop to provide those interested with a basic primer of the processes available, the kinds of questions people are asking of the texts, and how we can collaborate in the future. Our plan is pretty simple: John Pavlopoulos, a computer scientist, is going to start us out with an overview statistical language models, large language models, and other potential frameworks for thinking about ancient texts. Then, we will have three short presentations about ongoing work followed by some responses, posing questions we may contemplate at future workshops.
The schedule is below. It is provisional, with room for others if they’re interested. Pre-registration for the webinar is recommended. All are welcome. Any questions can be sent straight to me!
Homer and Artificial Intelligence Workshop
Zoom Webinar
October 31st, 2024 1:00-4:00 EDT
Hosts: Joel Christensen, Brandeis University and Elton Barker, Open University
State of the Art
A Quick Primer on Modern Computing: Statistics, LLMs, and AI (20-25 minutes)
John Pavlopoulos
Discussions/Questions (15 minutes)
Current Projects
Research Presentation: Maria Konstantidou, John Pavlopoulos, Elton Barker (15-20 Minutes)
Discussion (15 minutes)
Research Presentation: Chiara Bozzone, Ryan Sandell (10-15 minutes)
Discussion (15-20 minutes)
Computational Research Labs in Classics Departments: Lab-Based Frameworks for Scholarship and Funding (10-15 minutes) Annie K. Lamar, UCSB
This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
When I teach and write about Iliad 6 I usually find myself spending too much time thinking about Diomedes’ exchange with Glaukos and then breaking hearts with discussions of Hektor, Andromache, and Astyanax at the book’s end. In talking about the former, I typically spend most of my time going through Glaukos’ remarkable story, both for its content (Bellerophon!) and its impact (Diomedes declares them guest-friends). But before Diomedes delights in Glaukos’ ancestry, he tells his own story from myth.
Homer, Iliad 6. 130-140
For not even the son of Dryas, mighty Lykourgos, Lasted long once he began to strive with the heavenly gods. He;’ the one who chased the nurses of maddening Dionysus Down the Nysian hill–all of them were dropping Their wands to the ground because they were beaten By man-slaying Lykourgos with a cattle-goad. And Dionysus was frightened, so he immersed himself In the salty waves where Thetis rescued the frightened child. A powerful tremor had overcome him from the man’s shouting. After that, the gods who live easily hated him And Kronos’ son left him blind. And he didn’t last very long After that, once he became hateful to all the immortal gods.”
This is one of the few times in the Iliad where we find Dionysus mentioned at all. Indeed, the absence of Dionysus in our extant epic poetry is so marked that it led earlier generations of scholars to buy in to the Dionysian narrative of “a new god from the east”. (This argument was largely dispelled by the decipherment of Linear B which, surprise, shows ample evidence of Dionysus). One explanation for this absence has been generic: according to some, epic is properly the province of more rational gods like Athena and Apollo and Dionysus is more proper to lyric and tragedy. I am uncertain about this for two reasons: Apollo is not necessarily rational and we do have epic fragments (e.g. Panyasis) that shows wine and the forces of Dionysus as alive and well in epic verse.
If I were forced to give an answer on the spot about Dionysus’ absence from epic, I would suggest two thematic answers. First, as Elton Barker and I explore in Homer’s Thebes, the Iliad is interested in establishing the metaphysical boundaries of mortal human life. Even Herakles, as Achilles opines, is subject to death in its world view. Dionysus, as a child of a mortal mother and Zeus who becomes a god, challenges this fundamental feature of epic poetry. If mortals can become immortal, what’s the point of fighting, dying, and earning kleos. My second ‘idea’, which is much less well formed and perhaps just nonsense, is that our notion of Dionysus’ importance to the Greek pantheon might be skewed by the Athenocentric nature of our evidence for ancient Greece. Dionysus was extremely significant in Athenian cult and ritual (especially around Tragedy). I have a suspicion that the gods present in Homeric epic are there as much for their Panhellenic appeal as their generic importance.
The mosaics of the House of Aion date back to the fourth century A.D and lie close to the mosaics of Dionysus and Theseus. Five mythological scenes worth seeing are: “The bath of Dionysus”, “Leda and the Swan”, “Beauty contest between Cassiopeia and the Nereids”, “Apollo and Marsyas”, and the “Triumphant procession of Dionysus”.
In her Homeric Encyclopedia (2011) article on the topic, Renate Schlesier notes that Dionysus appears only four times in the Homeric epics, typically in situations “loosely associated with love and/or violent death” (210; to be fair, most situations in Homer could fall under this category).She adds that Dionysus does not seem to be a wine go in Homer, but that the language and motifs around him does seem to imply a knowledge of Maenadism.
The passage in the Iliad is explained as part of Dionysus’ conventional exile from Thebes and journeys through the east. A scholion summarizes it.
Schol. D ad, Hom. Il. 6.130
“Dionysus, the child of Zeus and Semele, happened to be receiving purification under the guidance of Rheat among the Kybeloi of Phrydia. Once he completed the rites and received his acoutrement from the goddess, he traveled all over the world. He obtained his choruses and honors, while people were leading him everywhere. When he was present in Tharce, Lykourgos, son of Dryas, caused him pain, Hera was despising him, and drove him from the land with a gadfly. She attacked him and his caregivers. They happened to be engaging in sacred rites along with him. Driven by a god-made whip, he was rushing to punish the god. But [Dionysus] leapt into the sea beccause of fear where Thetis and Eurynome accepted him. Lykourgos did not commit irreverance without punishment. He paid a penalty mortals do.–for Zeus took his eyes from him. Many record this story, but Eumelos told the story first in his Europia.”
Christos Tsagalis provides the most in-depth discussion of this passage (that I know of). In The Oral Palimpsest, Tsagalis treats this passage first as a mythological paradeigma but then charts the language, especially the participle μαινομένοιο. Christos combs through similar language in the iIliad to identify a thematic pattern that shows “interplay between the Dionysias metaphor in the myth of Lycurgus…and the meeting between Andromache and Hektor” (37). He draws attention to both Lykourgos and Hektor sharing the epithet “man=slaying”, Andromache being compared to a maenad, the fear felt by baby Dionysus and Astyanax, and the liminal dramatic space where the action of the myth and the meeting of Hektor and Andromache take place. Tsagalis uses this analysis–and more that probes the couple’s connection to Thebes–to suggest both the Dionysus does in fact belong to other poems and non Ionian traditions. In addition, the association of Andromache with a maenad engages with a larger mythical tapestry, “ changing (as far as Andromache is concerned) an Amazon with maenadic and warlike origins into a suffering wife and mother” (64).
Tsagalis was not the first to treat this scene, of course. M.B. Arthur sees the comparison as indicated that Andromache is moved out of her normal state of mind by anxiety and grief. Charles Segal demonstrates how Homeric language has been shifted to accommodate this image. I think we also need to consider the valence of the image of audiences who would have been more familiar with the range of meaning associated with Maenads. Imagine an audience familiar with stories like the Bacchae. Andromache as a maenad may be out of her mind from an authoritative male perspective, but she may also be considered rightfully so from a cosmic perspective. Her out-of-mindness stands both to mark her straining to break from the limited agency the siege of Troy (and her marriage to Hektor) imposes while also anticipating her ultimate marginalization by grief and his loss.
De Ridder 222 Side B: Dionysos (named) and two maenads, one holding a hare; Amasis’ signature (Αμασις vac. μεποιεσεν).caption…
If we treat the internal references as a kind of simile where Hektor=Lykourgos and Astyanax=Dionysus, there may be additional pathos to consider. Hektor is clearly not god-hated, but he is a king who cannot stay within limits. The difference here is that Hektor commits no sacrilege and the infant child does not go on to be rescued by a goddess of the sea.
Regardless of the precise interpretation we offer, this is a good example of how fluidly integrated the motifs and themes of epic poetry are on both large and small scales. The story of Lykourgos in Diomedes’ speech is a lesson about angering the gods that Glaukos picks up on and responds to in his own narrative where his Bellerophon becomes hateful to the gods despite performing heroic deeds. So, the story Diomedes offers Glaukos is not a simple message to his addressee, but it is a dynamic narrative Glaukos ‘reads’ and uses to ‘decode’ the challenge Diomedes presents in the text. The correspondence between this scene in the middle of book 6 and the later presentation of Hektor, Andromache, and Astyanax relies on audience memory and interpretation, triangulating a level of understanding that requires both a knowledge of poetic convention and a sensitivity to the stories at play.
Arthur, M.B. “The Divided World of Iliad VI.” In Reflections of Women in Antiquity, Helene Foley ed. New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1981, 19-44.
Lightfoot, Jessica. “Something to do with Dionysus ? : dolphins and dithyramb in Pindar fragment 236 SM.” Classical Philology, vol. 114, no. 3, 2019, pp. 481-492. Doi: 10.1086/703823
Davies, Malcolm. “Homer and Dionysus.” Eikasmos, vol. 11, 2000, pp. 15-28.
Segal, C. “Andromache’s Anagnorisis: Formulaic Artistry in Iliad 75 (1971): 33-57.
Suter, Ann. “Paris and Dionysos: iambos in the Iliad.” Arethusa, vol. 26, 1993, pp. 1-18.
![Homer and Artificial Intelligence Workshop [to register, go to this link: https://brandeis.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_R5UOzpXYR4-ZrpMUHNVyAA#/registration ] Zoom Webinar October 31st, 2024 1:00-4:00 EDT From statistical language models to future possibilities. A conversation among computer scientists and Homerists](https://i0.wp.com/substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_%21zI_g%21%2Cf_auto%2Cq_auto%3Agood%2Cfl_progressive%3Asteep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd0e116b8-141a-457a-a878-3737813a0119_1201x1162.jpeg?ssl=1 "Homer and Artificial Intelligence Workshop [to register, go to this link: https://brandeis.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_R5UOzpXYR4-ZrpMUHNVyAA#/registration ] Zoom Webinar October 31st, 2024 1:00-4:00 EDT From statistical language models to future possibilities. A conversation among computer scientists and Homerists")
