“Neither Aiakos’s son Peleus
Nor godlike Kadmos had a secure life
For of all mortals they are said to have
Have received the highest blessing of mortals
Since they listened to the Muses with golden-headbands
Singing on the mountain and in seven-gated Thebes
When one married ox-eyed Harmonia
And the other married Thetis, the famous child of wise-counseled Nereus.
The gods feasted with both of them
And they say the kingly sons of Kronos
On golden seats, and accepted from theme
Bride-gifts. Thanks to Zeus,
They made their hearts straight again
From their previous suffering.
In time, however, [Kadmos’] three daughters
Stripped him of his share of joy
with piercing pains—
even though father Zeus went to the desirable bed
of white-armed Thuonê.
And Peleus’s child, the only one immortal Thetis
Bore in Phthia, raised the mourning cry
From the Danaans as he was burned
On the pyre, after he lost his life
To war’s arrows.
If any mortal keeps
The road of truth in mind
He must suffer and obtain well
From the gods. But from the high winds
Different breaths blow different ways.
Human happiness does not last long
safe, when it turns after bringing great abundance.
I will be small in small times and then great
In great ones. I will work out the fate
That comes to me always in my thoughts, ministering to it with my own devices.
But if god were to grant me great wealth,
I have hope that I would find the highest fame afterwards.
Nestor and Lycian Sarpedon, we know from the stories of men
From honeyed words which skilled artisans
Fit together. Virtue grows eternal through famous songs.
But few find this easy to do.”
This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. This post is part of my plan to share new scholarship on Homer. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
Do we really know why or how we make decisions? Do we want steak for dinner because of its social and cultural value or because of the evolutionary advantage of high protein diets or because of our body’s need for iron or because we just like the taste? (Ask a Homeric hero that one: they won’t share fish or vegetables with the gods!)
However we may alter the question, it ultimate becomes one of determinism vs. free will and any honest discussion of the pair will likely determine that’s it’s complicated. The distinction between the two may be a false binary and even asking the questions itself may in fact be a particular concern of a culture steeped in individualism and garnished with heroic narratives of individual (men) making the world safe and glorious through their own effort.
Homeric epic is far from disinterested in similar questions, but as Hayden Pelliccia (2011) has warned, our willingness to read such questions into Homer may be as much (if not more) a product of our culture than epic’s. But both the Iliad and the Odyssey frame their actions with statements about the relationship between human suffering and divine choice. The Iliad—perhaps problematically— announces that its events are all part of “Zeus’ will being fulfilled”. But the Odyssey changes this up just enough to be interesting: Near the beginning of the epic as he looks down on the mortal Aigisthos, who, despite divine advice to the contrary, has shacked up with Klytemnestra and helped murder Agamemnon, Zeus opines (Od. 1.32-34):
“Mortals! They are always blaming the gods and saying that evil comes from us when they themselves suffer pain beyond their lot because of their own recklessness.”
As I argue in my book on the Odyssey, I think this is a programmatic statement for the epic, inviting audiences to think about to what extent mortal decisions do impact their fate. And I don’t think this is all negative: if we can make our lives worse through our foolishness, certainly the opposite should be true, that we can ameliorate our fates through prudence. But the most important aspect of this is that the opening frame of the epic invites the audience to consider just how much human beings are partners in their fate.
In the Odyssey, I believe that the story of Telemachus is in part set up to show how mortals should work alongside gods, providing something of an ideal situation where humans work with divine sponsorship and inspiration, but choose to act on their own, attaining what psychologists have called a “sense of agency”. As many know, a sense of agency—alongside belonging—can be essential to mental health. But, to make matters more confusing, this may also be tied to cultural assumptions. (And, I use “sense of agency” to weasel my way out of worrying about free will.)
Classic debates from the 20th century about Homeric poetry from the secondary through the post-graduate level involve some variation on the relationship between fate and free will. When it comes to heroic behavior and divine intervention, this can get a bit involved: there are situations that seem somewhat clear (as when Athena pulls Achilles back by the hair in book 1 to keep him from drawing his sword and killing Agamemnon) and those that are less clear (in the same book, the narrative assertion that Hera inspired Achilles to call the assembly is not supported by any other evidence).
Evaluating these situations can be difficult for the audience external to the poem because we have nearly synoptic knowledge on what is going on. At times, we see the gods directly intervening and telling characters to do this and then the humans eventually realize they have been duped (see Athena as Deiphobos with Hektor in book 22); while in others, there are levels of obfuscation as when Zeus sends a ‘false’ dream to Agamemnon that promises him the Achaeans will be victorious on the following day, to which Agamemnon responds by ‘testing’ his army (in book 2).
Distinguishing between what the narrator reveals to us, what is revealed to internal audiences (including Homeric mortals), and what is held back helps us see that there is a lot of complexity in how and why decisions are made. Human beings are not without some agency: While everything in the Iliad may be part of Zeus’ plan, no divinity seems to cause Agamemnon to reject Chryses’ ransom and insult Achilles in book 1, even though he seems to make some claim to that effect in book 19; nor does any god inspire Achilles to ask Zeus to honor him by making the Achaeans suffer.
At a broader thematic level, then, Homeric heroes make important choices. Within the action of the epic and its interwoven plot, however, there are moments in which the gods seem more in control than others. Where Homeric characters seem ignorant of that fact, we see what scholars have called “double motivation” (or determination, or causality), following Albin Lesky. These moments offer interesting insights into Homeric views on human psychology, on theology, and on the limits of human knowledge about their own actions and motivations. On one level, we can see how human characters in the Iliad can use divine action as an excuse or explanation for their own behavior, without any clear reason for doing so. On another level, Homeric epic leaves ample room for reading different deterministic world views into the epic narrative.
This amphora pairs a scene of Dionysus with one of Herakles’ exploits: the struggle between Herakles and Apollo for the Delphic tripod. According to myth, Herakles traveled to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi to consult the oracle, but, when no answer was forthcoming, the hero seized Apollo’s tripod, prompting a fight between the two. Herakles, draped in his lion-skin and carrying a club, menaces a youthful Apollo, while Herakles’ protector, Athena, and Apollo’s twin sister, Artemis, remain on the sidelines. On the back, Dionysus encounters the lame Hephaestus, god of fire and metalworking, riding on a donkey as a maenad looks on.
In his 2023 Homer’s Iliad and the Problem of Force, Charles Stocking enters into this conversation through a prolonged analysis of expressions for force, especially the doublet damazo/damnemi (“to subdue, kill, etc.”). Stocking argues that the concept “co-agency” is a better way of thinking about double determination because it is “underscored by the conceptual conditions for the production of epic poetry itself and the close link between poet and Zeus” (184). Stocking provides and intricate and persuasive argument that their is a hierarchy in the use and execution of force that pairs gods with mortals, men with women, etc., positioning a stronger party to help along the action of the weaker. He suggests that “the concept of co-agency” sidesteps [the issues of determinism and free will] by focusing the discussion not on the psychological cause of action but simply on how characters view themselves as sites of co-participation in action” (185).
In essence, Stocking is arguing that our modern understanding of ancient metaphysics and epistemology has prevented us from understanding the cultural beliefs represented in Homer, concluding that we should “rethink the Homeric person, not simply as a failed self-conscious individual but as an intersubjective dividual, one constituted by human-divine symbiosis” (221). For people following along with my reading of Stocking’s book, he has used a re-reading of Weil’s analysis of force alongside a critique of Snell’s progressive argument for the development of human consciousness to posit an entirely different picture of human/divine action.
I’ll confess to liking the argument, but wondering as I often do, where performance and audiences come in. Another—not necessarily exclusive—approach is that the epics function dialogically—they invite audiences to think about the relationship between divine will and human action and as a result produce narratives that mix and match different views on the problem. The result does seem to accord with Stocking’s argument, but in a slightly more complicated way. Homer’s heroes are engaged in navigating a world where they make some choices, have some made for them, and then twist the situation in turn by claiming choice or force depending on its rhetorical convenience.
A short bibliography on Homeric decision making and ‘double motivation’
n.b this is not an exhaustive bibliography. If you’d like anything else included, please let me know.
Allan, William. “Divine Justice and Cosmic Order in Early Greek Epic.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 126 (2006): 1–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30033397.
Finkelberg, Margalit (1995) “Patterns of Human Error in Homer.” JHS 115: 15-28.
Gaskin, Richard. “Do Homeric Heroes Make Real Decisions?” The Classical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (1990): 1–15. http://www.jstor.org/stable/639307.
Lesky, Albin (1961) Gottliche und Menschliche Motivation im Homerischen Epos. Winter, Universitätsverlag: Heidelberg
Pelliccia, Hayden. 2011. “Double Motivation.” Homer Encyclopedia V. 1. ed. M. Finkelberg. 218-2190
Segal, Charles. 1994. Singers, Heroes and Gods in the “Odyssey.” Ithaca.
Sharples, R. W. “‘But Why Has My Spirit Spoken with Me Thus?’: Homeric Decision-Making.” Greece & Rome 30, no. 1 (1983): 1–7. http://www.jstor.org/stable/642739.
“People of every age enter this classroom. “Do we grow old only to follow the young?” When I go into the theater as an old man and I am drawn to the racetrack and no fight is finished without me, shall I be embarrassed to go to a philosopher? You must learn as long as you are ignorant—if we may trust the proverb. And nothing is more fit to the present than this: as long as you live you must learn how to live. Nevertheless, there is still something which I teach there. You ask, what may I teach? That an old man must learn too.
But the human race still shames me every time I enter the school. Near to that theater of the Neapolitans, I have to pass that house of Metronax. There, the place is packed too as with a burning desire they judge who is the best flute player. The Greek horn and a herald bring a crowd. But in the place where we seek what a good man is, where how to be a good man may be learned, the smallest audience sits and they seem to most people to be up to no good in their pursuit. They are called useless and lazy. May such derision touch me. For the insults of the ignorant should be heard with a gentle mind. Contempt itself must be held in contempt as we journey toward better things.”
Omnis aetatis homines haec schola admittit. “In hoc senescamus, ut iuvenes sequamur?” In theatrum senex ibo et in circum deferar et nullum par sine me depugnabit ad philosophum ire erubescam?
Tamdiu discendum est, quamdiu nescias; si proverbio credimus, quamdiu vivas. Nec ulli hoc rei magis convenit quam huic: tamdiu discendum est, quemadmodum vivas, quamdiu vivas. Ego tamen illic aliquid et doceo. Quaeris, quid doceam? Etiam seni esse discendum. Pudet autem me generis humani, quotiens scholam intravi. Praeter ipsum theatrum Neapolitanorum, ut scis, transeundum est Metronactis petenti domum. Illud quidem fartum est et ingenti studio, quis sit pythaules bonus, iudicatur; habet tubicen quoque Graecus et praeco concursum. At in illo loco, in quo vir bonus quaeritur, in quo vir bonus discitur, paucissimi sedent, et hi plerisque videntur nihil boni negotii habere quod agant; inepti et inertes vocantur. Mihi contingat iste derisus; aequo animo audienda sunt inperitorum convicia et ad honesta vadenti contemnendus est ipse contemptus.
The Homer Multitext Project makes high-resolution images of every page of the Venetus A Venetus A and B manuscripts of the Iliad (along with a few others too!) available for free and to anyone. Undergraduates at multiple universities are at work transcribing these manuscripts, including some never published scholia.
. Medieval manuscripts are filled with delightful things. At the beginning of Iliad 8, Zeus calls the gods together and threatens them, at one point describing how far Tartarus is from Olympos. In the lower right corner of Folio 103 of the Venetus B, there is a simple, sweet illustration:
The Greek is pretty legible here, but if you can’t read it:
αἰθήρ [“upper air”]
ἀήρ [“sky/air”]
⊗ [circle for earth]
ἀίδης [Hades]
τάρταρος [Tartaros]
The Venetus A Manuscript offers a similar image (lower left of Folio 100 verso), but it is a bit messier:
This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. This post is part of my plan to share new scholarship on Homer. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
In his speech to Achilles in Iliad 9, Phoinix laments the idea that he may be separated from Achilles. Part of his sorrow, it seems, resides in the fact that he has work still to do (437-443):
“How could I be left here without you, dear child, alone? The old man and horse-trainer Peleus assigned me to you on that day when he sent you from Phthia with Agamemnon still a child, not yet educated in the ways of crushing war or assemblies where men become most prominent. He sent me for this reason: to teach you all these things, how to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds.”
A Scholiast (Schol. bT in Il. 9.443 ex 1-4) suggests that what Achilles needs to have learned is “rhetoric” (φαίνεται οὖν καὶ τὸ τῆς ῥητορικῆς ὄνομα εἰδώς) whereas another scholion (Schol. AT in Il. 9.443 c1) emphasizes the fact that the execution of both deeds and words requires “good counsel” (εὐβουλία: σημείωσαι ὅτι τὸ ὁμοιοτέλευτον ἔφυγε μεταβαλὼν τὴν φράσιν· οὐ γὰρ εἶπε ‘μύθων τε ῥητῆρα καὶ ἔργων πρακτῆρα’. καὶ ὅτι πάντων διδακτικὸν εὐβουλία). In the Pseudo-Plutarchean Life of Homer, these lines are used to assert (1) that virtue is teachable and (2) that Homer was the first philosopher (Ps-Plutarch Vita Homeri 1736-1739):
“For life is sustained by means of actions and words, and he says that he was made a teacher of the young man about both. From these lines he asserts clearly that every kind of virtue is teachable. Thus Homer was therefore first to philosophize concerning ethical and natural affairs.”
But there’s another angle to all this as well: there are many Homeric words that are in fact actions themselves that change the relationships of the people who speak and hear them (rebukes, threats, oaths). Rather than seeing a polar opposition between being a speaker and a doer, we might want to consider whether we have a binary opposition here (“both…and” instead of “either/or”). Or, to be more salacious, a hendiadys: to be a Homeric hero, one is an Agent. Some of these actions are conducted through words.
At the end of his chapter, “ “Stronger”: Performative Speech and the Force of Achilles” (from his 2023 Homer’s Iliad and the Problem of Force), Charles Stocking rephrases his argument to assert, “to frame it another way, the Iliad not only demonstrates “how to do things with words” but also how to undo them”. While this sentence aims at a bit of a chapter-closing provocation, it also builds on a large body of philosophy, linguistics, and some important work on Homer. Stocking’s contribution is an important step, because it interweaves some often overlooked comments on “speech act theory”. It is also interesting to bring up now as we enter an election cycle where the importance and efficacy of words will be debated using the only medium for doing so: more words.
Stocking looks at the way that “performative speech” is used in book 1 of the Iliad to argue that while Homeric speakers do envision speech as an alternative to action–witness the oft-repeated goal of being a speaker of words and a doer of deeds–utterances about hierarchy and force tend to rely on and strengthen notions of inequity on force relations to increase the authority of a given speech act. As such, a given ‘performative utterance’ relies in part on the material reality of its articulation (the context, the players, etc.) to advance the goal of the speech in question. For Stocking, this is an important adjustment to how others have approached speech acts in Homer because it departs from a simple approach to how speech functions as action and is “consistent with [Pierre] Bourdieu’s own insistence that performative speech must rely on external material conditions as the source for authoritative speech” (72).
(And to make another few important distinctions: we use performative loosely in English. Sometimes performative means having to do with a performance, therefore, not part of the everyday. In a related pejorative use, performative has come to mean “superficial” or in some way not real. For analytic philosophy and linguistic, a performative is in some way realer than other language.)
To follow the argument here, I think we should first establish what the stakes of the argument are, the tradition within which Stocking is working, and why these distinctions matter (in multiple questions. Let me start with the stakes in simplistic terms: the world we share together is one mediated if not created by language. Language can alter our perception of the world and what we do in it; it can inspire action, and it often does so regardless of whether said language conveys anything remotely resembling what we call ‘truth’. In a world described entirely by language–such as that of epic poetry–the basic reality I just described is perhaps more severe: all action in Homer is really speech. And, from something of a post-modern perspective, all speech is in a sense action insofar as once re-articulated (that is, read) it becomes again, if only in the imagination.
Don’t worry! I am not aiming for a metaphysical quandary of whether or not our reading of Homeric epic in some way makes it real, but instead to set up a different kind of distinction. Homeric poetry is also representative or mimetic speech. When talking about “performative speech” in Homer, it is crucial to note that we are not talking about the performance of Homer, but instead about the representation of performative speech in a very narrow sense in a poem that in itself, when performed, becomes and does something in the world.
(There is debate about the application of speech-act theory to literature (barred generally by Austin). Searle contends that the operation of cultural rules within the narrative world makes it valid (1979, p. 33-34 and 64). See also Pratt (1977) and Johnson (1980). For a broad critique of the application of speech-act theory, see Gorman (1999)
Again, I run the risk of sounding nonsensical, so I will step back just a moment: J. L. Austin was one of the first philosophers to qualify as a “performative speech act” an utterance that in some way changes reality by effecting or amounting to an action. His examples were fairly limited: utterances like “I bet” or “I thee wed” are those that need no accompanying action or other act to suffice to have changed the relationship between the speaker and others (or among those subject to the speech) based on the context. Austin added more vocabulary to this: a felicitous speech act is one that obtains its outcome (and infelicitous is one that does not). Austin also helpfully distinguished between different kinds of outcomes: he calls the intended effect of a speech-act the illocutionary effect of the speaker and the actual outcome the perlocutionary effect. If we take the example of making a bet, an infelicitous “betting” would be one where the process or formula were wrong or either the speaker or the recipient did not have the contextual (social) standing to execute the speech act.
I got interested in speech act theory while working on my dissertation, focusing in part on how Zeus’ language changes and effects reality (and there’s support here for a larger view of Zeus’ language and that of poets creating reality and their shared ability being reflected at the beginning of Hesiod’s Theogony, but who has time for that!) I was interested in part in the act of making a bet or an oath (as it shows up in Iliad 23) but also in trying to disentangle the intentions from the results in Agamemnon’s testing of the army (the so-called diapeira of Iliad 2). Richard Martin was one of the first to apply speech-act theory to Homer, insisting that the speeches in Homer are stylized versions of speech acts that would have been recognized by Homeric audiences. (Elizabeth Minchin builds on this too in her 2007 Homeric Voices; see Barker 2004 and 2009 for the use of speech act theory in political institutions and the creation of the Achaean assembly ).
By integrating Bourdieu’s work alongside the mainstays of Austin and Searle, Stocking reiterates the strong complementarity between speech and deed in Homer, insisting that “performative speech does not simply supplement force in the Iliad. Rather, Homeric characters actively attempt to construct the very relations of physical force upon which their speech acts rely” (28). In making this argument, Stocking of course needs the work of Pratt (who argues that literary speech does not constitute a world apart from regular speech for this kind of analysis, against Austin), Martin (who argues that Homeric speech reflects consistent type and genre to constitute as performative) and Minchin (whose argumentation supports Martin’s moves). Stocking’s contribution is to asseverate the how the material conditions make certain kinds of utterances possible, focusing on the genealogy of Achilles and the power of Agamemnon as expressed metonymically through his scepter. Stocking also cites Benveniste’s critique of Austinian theory as ignoring the importance of authority (39-42) and is reliant on a particular sense of subjectivity. It is through this connection that we get to one of the throughline’s of Stocking’s book, a different model for agency and action in Homer that combines both divine and human volition
I am not wholly convinced that Stocking needs speech act theory to get where he wants to with this book. Yet, in an overview of force in Homer, how can we not talk about language? Anyone who reads the Iliad is aware of how nearly evenly split it is between narrative scenes of overwhelming violence and direct speech by Homeric characters: speech and deed are certainly matched in Homer. And in an epic where people are motivated by stories, insults, cultural constructions of honor and heroism, it is all the more appropriate to ask what words themselves contribute to the carnage.
Short Bibliography
n.b. this is not exhaustive. please let me know if there are other articles to include.
Austin J. L., How to Do Things With Words, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1975.
Barker E. T. E. 2004. “Achilles’ Last Stand: Institutionalising Dissent in Homer’s Iliad.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society: 92–120.
———. 2009. Entering the Agon: Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography and Tragedy. Oxford.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Harvard University Press
Brown, H. Paul, «Addressing Agamemnon: A Pilot Study of Politeness and Pragmatics in the Iliad», Transactions of the American Philological Association, nº 136, 2006, p. 1-46.
Christensen Joel P., «The End of Speeches and a Speech’s End: Nestor, Diomedes, and the telos muthôn», dans Reading Homer: Film and Text.Kostas Myrsiades (ed.), Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009, p.136-162.
Christensen Joel P., «First-Person Futures in Homer», American Journal of Philology nº 131, 2009, p. 543-571.
Clark Matthew, «Chryses’ Supplication: Speech Act and Mythological Allusion», Classical Antiquity, nº 17, 1997, p. 5-24.
Gorman David, «The Use and Abuse of Speech-Act Theory in Criticism», Poetics Today nº 20, 1999, p. 93-119.
Gottesman Alex, «The Pragmatics of Homeric Kertomia», Classical Quarterly, nº 58, 2008, 1-12.
Martin, Richard, The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1989.
Elizabeth Minchin, Homeric voices : discourse, memory, gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 1 online resource (ix, 310 pages).
Pratt M. L., Toward a Speech Act Theory of Literary Discourse, Bloomington, University of Indiana Press, 1977
Roochnik David, «Homeric Speech Acts: Word and Deed in the Epics», Classical Journal, nº85, 1990, p. 289-299.
Searle J. R., Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1969.
Searle J. R., « A Classification of Illocutionary Acts». Language in Society, nº 5, 1976, 1-22.
Searle J. R., Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theories of Speech Acts, Cambridge, 1979.
Wilson Donna F., Ransom, Revenge, and Heroic Identity in the Iliad, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
N.B. The following contains some severe misogyny and a debate about Asclepius’ ‘true’ mother:
Pausanias, 2.26.6
“There is also another story about [Asclepius], that when Korônis was pregnant with him she had sex with Iskhus, Elatos’ son and that she was killed by Artemis who was defending the insult to Apollo. But when the pyre had been lit, they say that Hermes plucked the child from the flam.
The third story seems to me to be the least true—it makes Asclepius the child of Arsinoê, the daughter of Leucippus. When Apollophanes the Arcadian came to Delphi and asked the god if Asclepius was the child of Arsinoê and thus a Messenian citizen, the oracle prophesied:
Asclepius, come as a great blessing to all mortals,
Whom lovely Korônis bore after having sex with me—
The daughter of Phlegyas in rugged Epidauros.
This oracle makes it abundantly clear that Asclepius is not Arsinoê’s child but that Hesiod or one of those poets who insert lines into Hesiod’s poetry added for the favor of the Messenians.”
The standard details are reported in the Homeric Hymn to Asclepius:
“I begin to sing of the doctor of diseases, Asclepius,
The son of Apollo whom shining Korônis bore
In the Dotian plain, that daughter of king Phlegyas.
He’s a great blessing to mortal men, a bewitcher of painful troubles.
And hail to you lord. I am beseeching you with this song.”
Phlegyas is the father of Ixion and Corônis. His son Ixion was exiled as a murder and then, after Zeus cleansed him of his crime, he tried to rape Hera and was punished in Hades for eternity (spinning, crucified, on a wheel). One can easily imagine distancing Asclepius from this family…
The debate is treated by an ancient scholiast:
Schol. ad Pind. Pyth 3.14
“Some say Asklepios is the son of Arsinoê, others say he is the son of Korônis. Asclepiades claims that Arsinoê is the daughter of Leukippus the son of Periêros from whom comes Asklepios from Apollo and a daughter Eriôpis. Thus we have the line: “She bore in the halls Asklepios, marshall of men / after being subdued by Apollo, and well-tressed Eriôpis.” There is also of Arsinoê: “Arsinoê, after having sex withZeus and Leto’s son,bore Asklepios, blameless and strong.”
Socrates also claims that Asklepios is the offspring of Arsinoê and has been interpolated as the child of Korônis. The matters about Korônis have been reported in lines that were added into Hesiodic poetry….”
Later, the same scholion presents an attempt by a Greek historian to resolve the two narratives.
“Aristeidês in the text on the founding of Knidos reports this: Asclepios is the child of Apollo and Arsinoê but she was called Korônis when she was a maiden. She was the daughter of Leukippus of Amykla in Lakedaimon.”
In this debate, we are likely witnessing a later comment (e.g. Pausanias) on an early divergence with roots in local (epichoric) traditions about the genealogy of Asclepius. The Panhellenic account (more Athenocentric in this case) is championed by Pausanias.
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts (Introductory Letter to Xan Fielding):
Indeed, indifference to the squalor of caves and speed at the approach of danger might have seemed the likeliest aptitudes for life in occupied Crete. But, unexpectedly in a modern war, it was the obsolete choice of Greek at school which had really deposited us on the limestone. With an insight once thought rare, the army had realized that the Ancient tongue, however imperfectly mastered, was a short-cut to the Modern: hence the sudden sprinkling of many strange figures among the mainland and island crags.
Strange, because Greek had long ceased to be compulsory at the schools where it was still taught: it was merely the eager choice— unconsciously prompted, I suspect, by having listened to Kingsley’s Heroes in childhood—of a perverse and eccentric minority: early hankerings which set a vague but agreeable stamp on all these improvised cave-dwellers.
“This is not the true tale:
You never went in the well-benched ships
You did not go to the towers of Troy…
[It is a fault in Homer that
He put Helen in Troy
And not her image only;
It is a fault in Hesiod
In another: there are two, differing
Recantations and this is the beginning.
Come here, dance loving goddess;
Golden-winged, maiden,
As Khamaileôn put it.
Stesichorus himself says that
an image [eidolon] went to troy
and that Helen stayed back
with Prôteus…”
“Atreus’ war-loving son Menelaos conquered everyone
Because he gave the most gifts. Kheiron took Peleus’ son
of swift feet to wooded Pelion, that most exceptional of men,
when he was still a child. War-loving Menelaos wouldn’t have defeated him
nor would any other Mortal man on the earth who was wooing
Helen if swift Achilles had come upon her when she was still a maiden
As he returned home from Pelion.
But, as it turned out, war-loving Menelaos got her first.”
In other traditions Achilles actually is a suitor. (Pausanias 3.24; Euripides’, Helen 98-99; see Ormand, The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and Archaic Greece, 2014, 149-150 and 198-201). Hesiod, however, finds it necessary to explain why he is sidelined from this game…
Decorated amphora in the British Museum. Figures suggested to be Achilles and Cheiron. Etruscan 500BC-480BC
“We develop virtues after we have practiced them beforehand, the same way it works with the other arts. For, we learn as we do those very things we need to do once we have learned the art completely. So, for example, men become carpenters by building homes and lyre-players by practicing the lyre. In the same way, we become just by doing just things, prudent by practicing wisdom, and brave by committing brave deeds.”
“It is therefore well said that a person becomes just by doing just things and prudent from practicing wisdom. And, no one could ever approach being good without doing these things. But many who do not practice them flee to argument and believe that they are practicing philosophy and that they will become serious men in this way. They act the way sick people do who listen to their doctors seriously and then do nothing of what they were prescribed. Just as these patients will not end up healthy from treating their body in this way, so most people won’t change their soul with such philosophy.”
