Andromache’s Sons With Neoptolemos

July 15, 2023July 15, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Scholia ad Eur. Andromache, 24

“In these halls, I [Andromache] produced this male child / after sleeping with Achilles’ son, my master]:

One source says that she bore only one son to Neoptolemos while others say that there were three: Pyrrhos, Molossos, Aiakos and a daughter named Troas. Lysimachus, in the second volume of his On Homecomings, writes that Proxenos and Nikomedes the Akanthian report in Macedonian Matters that Andromache gave birth to those who were just mentioned, and from Leonassa, Kleodaios’ daughter, [he fathered?] Argos, Pergamos, Pandaros, Dorieus, Genyos, Danae and Eurylockus. They also say that Pyrrhos received the kingdom from his father and that the country was named Mossia to give honor to Molossos.”

κἀγὼ δόμοις [τοῖσδ᾽ ἄρσεν᾽ ἐντίκτω κόρον / πλαθεῖσ᾽ ᾽Αχιλλέως παιδί, δεσπότῃ γ᾽ ἐμῷ] ἰδίως ἕνα φησὶ παῖδα γενέσθαι τῷ Νεοπτολέμῷ, ἄλλων τρεῖς λεγόντων Πύρρον, Μολοσσόν, Αἰακίδην καὶ Τρωάδα. Λυσίμαχος δὲ ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ τῶν Νόστων φησὶ Πρόξενον καὶ τὸν ᾽Ακάνθιον Νικομήδην ἐν τοῖς Μακεδονικοῖς ἱστορεῖν ἐκ μὲν ᾽Ανδρομάχης γενέσθαι τοὺς προειρημένους, ἐκ δὲ Λεωνάσσης τῆς Κλεοδαίου ῎Αργον, Πέργαμον, Πάνδαρον, Δωριέα, Γένυον, †δανάην, Εὐρύλοχον. φασὶ δὲ Πύρρῳ μὲν ἐγχειρίσαι τὴν βασιλείαν τὸν πατέρα, Μολοσσῷ δὲ τὴν ἐκ τῆς προσηγορίας τιμὴν προστάξαντα τὴν χώραν Μολοσσίαν ὀνομάζειν.

A Fragment of An Odyssey

June 22, 2023June 22, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

P. Ryl. 3.487 = Exertatio Ethopeoiaca [TLG] = LCL 360 Select Papyri 137

“…Ill-fated Elpenor, the one Kirke’s home stole away–
Like Antiphanes and man-eating Polyphemos–
Of the immortal [ ] [stories like that] I will tell you..

[fragments]

…and the trials of Penelope.
Don’t disbelieve that Odysseus has returned home,
When you see the scar that not even Penelope has seen.
Quit the stable, Philoitios. I will relieve you
Of trembling before the suitors to wander with your cattle.
I will make your household free for you. But in turn
All of you take up arms by my side against Eurymakhos and the rest
Of the suitors. You are well versed in their evil
Just as Telemachus and prudent Penelope are.
Cowherd, pledge yourself…
Become….

δύσμορ[ο]ς Ἐλπήνωρ, τ[ὸ]ν ἀφήρπασε δώματα
Κίρκης.
ἴκελ[α] Ἀν[τ]ιφάτηι καὶ ἀνδροφάγωι Πολυφήμωι
ἀθανά[τ]ο̣υ̣ .εσ[..]ψ̣ατ̣[…..]ρ̣ητην ἀγορεύσω
α̣ἰγὸς ᾿Αμαλ̣θεία̣ς σ̣[έ]λ̣[α]ς̣ [..].[..]εν αἰγίοχος Ζεύς
[ο]ὔριος̣ ὁρμ̣α̣[ί]ν̣ουσι̣ν ο̣τει̣ο αρουρ̣[….].π̣ι̣σ̣
οὐ ρ̣α̣.[.].θ..ο̣υθο..[.]υ̣κ̣…[…].[.]ε̣ς̣ [οὐ]δὲν ἐο̣ῦ̣σιν
ειμ̣[ ] ἀ̣νδρῶν
[ ]ι̣
[ ]ο̣ι̣μ̣ων
[ ]ε̣ μάκελλαν
[ ]ε̣ ποθ’ ὕδωρ
[ ]η̣ν ἐπὶ βώλῳ
[ ]θιος ἀνήρ
[ ]β̣[..]ρες
[ ]κα.[]

[]..ρ̣α̣τ̣ι̣[]
[]μ̣ω̣ι̣[]

. . . . .
ἀ]θλήματα [Πη]νελοπείης.
μὴ σύ γ᾿ ἄπιστος ἐῆις ὡς οὐ νόστησεν Ὀδυσσεύς,
οὐλὴν εἰσοράαις τὴν μηδ᾿ ἴδε Πηνελόπεια.
παύεο νῦν σταθμοῖο, Φιλοίτιε, κ[α]ί σε μεθήσω
μνηστῆρας τρομέοντα τεαῖς σὺν βουσὶν ἀλᾶσθαι·
στήσω σοι τεὸν οἶκον ἐλεύθερον. ἀλλὰ καὶ ὑμεῖς
ἀμφ᾿ ἐμὲ θωρήσσεσθε κατ᾿ Ἐυρυμάχοιο καὶ ἄλλω(ν)
μνηστήρων· κακότητος ἐπειρήθητε καὶ ὑμεῖς,
ἴκελα Τηλεμάχωι καὶ [ἐχέφρονι Πηνελοπείηι.
βουκόλε κάτθεο̣ []
γείνεο μὲν ποτι[]

I wrote a whole book about the Odyssey and just found out about this fragment. It is dated to the 3rd/4th century CE by Roberts in Catalogue of the Greek Papyri in the John Rylands Library. The hexameter is clearly later than Homer, but the story it tells is interesting: the bulk of the fragment seems to have Odysseus trying to convince the cow-herd Philoitios to join him in the fight against the suitors in exchange for a promise of manumission. This concept is really alien to the Homeric Odyssey

Philoitios is something of a silent double for Eumaios in the Odyssey as one of the “good” enslaved people. He closes the door on the suitors in book 21 (240) but speaks rarely. When He does, in book 20, he asks Eumaios who this stranger is, and confirms that he looks like a kingly man. He expresses sympathy with the stranger and tells Odysseus in disguise how much he misses his former master. Odysseus tells him that Odysseus will soon come home.

Odysseus, zijn zoon Telemachus, Eumaeus en Philoetius verlaten gewapend het paleis en gaan onderweg naar de vader van Odysseus: Laërtes. Minerva verbergt hen in duisternis op klaarlichte dag, zodat ze ongezien wegkomen.

Appropriating Like A Stoic

April 24, 2023April 24, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

CW: Slavery, self harm, suicide

Seneca, Moral Epistle 77.14-15

“Now, you think I am going to offer examples of great men? I’ll talk about a boy. There’s a tale of that Spartan youth that people still tell. When he was captured, he was shouting, “I will not serve” in his own Doric dialect. And he kept his promise. As soon as he was ordered to carry out some basic and insulting service–he was ordered to empty a chamber pot–he bashed is head against a wall.

Freedom is so close, yet some people are still slaves? Wouldn’t you prefer your own child to die this way rather than through slow old age. Why are you upset when even a child can die bravely. Imagine you don’t want to follow this example? You will be taken there. Wrest control over what belongs to another! Won’t you take up the that boy’s spirit and say, “I am not a slave!”

Sad man, you are a slave to people, to things, to life. For life is slavery if you are not brave enough to die.”

Exempla nunc magnorum virorum me tibi iudicas relaturum? Puerorum referam. Lacon ille memoriae traditur inpubis adhuc, qui captus clamabat “non serviam” sua illa Dorica lingua, et verbis fidem inposuit; ut primum iussus est servili fungi et contumelioso ministerio, adferre enim vas obscenum iubebatur, inlisum parieti caput rupit. Tam prope libertas est; et servit aliquis? Ita non sic perire filium tuum malles quam per inertiam senem fieri? Quid ergo est, cur perturberis, si mori fortiter etiam puerile est? Puta nolle te sequi; duceris. Fac tui iuris, quod alieni est. Non sumes pueri spiritum, ut dicas “non servio”? Infelix, servis hominibus, servis rebus, servis vitae. Nam vita, si moriendi virtus abest, servitus est.

Human Fortune and Slavery

March 25, 2023March 25, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistles 47.10-11

“Please remember that that person you call a slave has come from the same seeds, enjoys the same sky, breathes the same, lives the same, dies the same as you. You can imagine them freeborn as easily as they can imagine you enslaved. At the time of the Marian slaughter, fortune laid low many born at the highest level, people making their way to the senatorial class through military service: one of these became shepherd, another a guard to a country-house. Go ahead, look down on someone whose fortune you might come to share, even as you scoff at them.

I don’t want to get caught up in a large debate and complain about the treatment of enslaved people, against whom we are the most arrogant, cruel, and savage nation. But this is my highest precept: live alongside your inferior as you would want your superior to live with you.”

Vis tu cogitare istum, quem servum tuum vocas, ex isdem seminibus ortum eodem frui caelo, aeque spirare, aeque vivere, aeque mori. tam tu illum videre ingenuum potes quam ille te servum. Mariana clade multos splendidissime natos, senatorium per militiam auspicantes gradum, fortuna depressit, alium ex illis pastorem, alium custodem casae fecit; contemne nunc eius fortunae hominem, in quam transire, dum contemnis, potes.

Nolo in ingentem me locum inmittere et de usu servorum disputare, in quos superbissimi, crudelissimi, contumeliosissimi sumus. Haec tamen praecepti mei summa est: sic cum inferiore vivas, quemadmodum tecum superiorem velis vivere.

Color photograph of a marble relief showing enslaved persons with a collar and chains led off by others — Roman collared slaves. — Marble relief, from Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey), 200 CE.
Collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England.

Marcus Cato Was a Cheap, Cruel Man

December 27, 2022December 6, 2022 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Plutarch, Marcus Cato 339

“Some people blame these traits on Marcus Cato’s cheapness; but others believe he is a model for his rectitude and wisdom, since he counterbalanced the excess of everyone else. But I believe that how he used slaves up as if they were pack animals and then driving them away and selling them when they were old is the mark of a deeply cruel character—one that believes that human beings have nothing in common except for need.

But we know that kindness occupies more territory than justice. For we use law and justice only in reference to human beings, but it is kindness and charity that at times pour out from a gentle character even for the unthinking animals just as water from a full spring. Kind people take care of horses even when they are old and dogs too—not just when they are puppies, but when their old age requires care.”

Ταῦτα δ᾿ οἱ μὲν εἰς μικρολογίαν ἐτίθεντο τοῦ ἀνδρός, οἱ δ᾿ ὡς ἐπὶ διορθώσει καὶ σωφρονισμῷ τῶν ἄλλων ἐνδοτέρω συστέλλοντος ἑαυτὸν ἀπεδέχοντο. πλὴν τὸ τοῖς οἰκέταις ὡς ὑποζυγίοις ἀποχρησάμενον ἐπὶ γήρως ἐλαύνειν καὶ πιπράσκειν ἀτενοῦς ἄγαν ἤθους ἔγωγε τίθεμαι, καὶ μηδὲν ἀνθρώπῳ πρὸς ἄνθρωπον οἰομένου κοινώνημα τῆς χρείας πλέον ὑπάρχειν. καίτοι τὴν χρηστότητα τῆς δικαιοσύνης πλατύτερον τόπον ὁρῶμεν ἐπιλαμβάνουσαν· νόμῳ μὲν γὰρ καὶ τῷ δικαίῳ πρὸς ἀνθρώπους μόνον χρῆσθαι πεφύκαμεν, πρὸς εὐεργεσίας δὲ καὶ χάριτας ἔστιν ὅτε καὶ μέχρι τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων ὥσπερ ἐκ πηγῆς πλουσίας ἀπορρεῖ τῆς ἡμερότητος. καὶ γὰρ ἵππων ἀπειρηκότων ὑπὸ χρόνου τροφαὶ καὶ κυνῶν οὐ σκυλακεῖαι μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ γηροκομίαι τῷ χρηστῷ προσήκουσιν.

Andromache’s Sons With Neoptolemos

July 11, 2022July 11, 2022 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Scholia ad Eur. Andromache, 24

“In these halls, I [Andromache] produced this male child / after sleeping with Achilles’ son, my master]:

A Fragment of An Odyssey

June 23, 2022 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

P. Ryl. 3.487 = Exertatio Ethopeoiaca [TLG] = LCL 360 Select Papyri 137

“…Ill-fated Elpenor, the one Kirke’s home stole away–
Like Antiphanes and man-eating Polyphemos–
Of the immortal [ ] [stories like that] I will tell you..

[fragments]

[]..ρ̣α̣τ̣ι̣[]
[]μ̣ω̣ι̣[]

The Gods Don’t Hate Those Who Suffer…

June 14, 2022June 14, 2022 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1. 45-46

“You can understand from the two popular lines which Epictetus wrote about himself that the gods do not completely hate those who suffer because of a range of miseries in this life, but that there are some secret causes which the curiosity of a few may be able to sense:

“I, Epictetus, was born a slave with a crippled body
both an Irus in poverty and dear to the gods.

You have, I believe, sufficient argument why the name “servant” should not be despised or taboo, since concern for a slave affected Jupiter and because it turns out that many of them are faithful, intelligent, brave, and even philosophers!”

45. cuius etiam de se scripti duo versus feruntur, ex quibus illud latenter intellegas, non omni modo dis exosos esse qui in hac vita cum aerumnarum varietate luctantur, sed esse arcanas causas ad quas paucorum potuit pervenire curiositas:

δοῦλος Ἐπίκτητος γενόμην καὶ σῶμ᾿ ἀνάπηρος,
καὶ πενίην Ἶρος καὶ φίλος ἀθανάτοις.

46. habes, ut opinor, adsertum non esse fastidio despiciendum servile nomen, cum et Iovem tetigerit cura de servo et multos ex his fideles providos fortes, philosophos etiam extitisse constiterit.

Marcus Cato Was a Cheap, Cruel Man

December 12, 2021December 12, 2021 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 1 Comment

Plutarch, Marcus Cato 339

Two Perspectives on Slavery

August 20, 2021August 20, 2021 ~ lawrencebenn ~ 1 Comment

The starkest of contrasts: an anonymous Hellenistic epigram depicting a grateful slave and his benevolent master, and an Athenian letter recounting a slave’s desperation and his master’s brutality.

Anonymous Epigram 7.179 (Greek Anthology)

Even now from under the earth, master,
I remain obedient to you.
Your kindness I haven’t forgotten:
Three times you saw me from sickness to health;
And now you’ve gone so far as to lay me
Under this sheltering stone, announcing:
Medes, a Persian.
You’ve done right by me.
For that, you’ll have willing slaves in your debt.

In 1972, excavation of the Athenian Agora turned up a unique c.4th-century-BC letter inscribed on a lead tablet: the speaker is an actual slave describing the actual conditions of bondage. (Presumably the letter was dictated to a scribe, and since it was found in a well, presumably it was never delivered.)

As in the fanciful epigram, δεσπότης (“master”) designates the man who command’s the slave’s life. But unlike the fictional δεσπότης whose kindness can never be repaid, the real δεσπότης is a man of limitless brutality.

The letter reads:

“Lesis sends a letter to Xenochles and his mother saying do not overlook that he’s dying in the forge, but come to his masters and find him something better. For I have been handed over to an entirely bad man: I’m dying from the whippings; I’m tied up; I’m horribly abused. And more, more!”

7.179 (Greek Anthology)

σοὶ καὶ νῦν ὑπὸ γῆν, ναί, δέσποτα, πιστὸς ὑπάρχω,
ὡς πάρος, εὐνοίης οὐκ ἐπιληθόμενος,
ὥς με τότ᾽ ἐκ νούσου τρὶς ἐπ᾽ ἀσφαλὲς ἤγαγες ἴχνος,
καὶ νῦν ἀρκούσᾐ τῇδ᾽ ὑπέθου καλύβῃ,
Μάνην ἀγγείλας, Πέρσην γένος. εὖ δέ με ῥέξας
ἕξεις ἐν χρείῃ δμῶας ἑτοιμοτέρους.

Lead tablet letter from the Athenian agora, c.4th BC. (quoted in Edward Harris, Democracy and the Rule of Law in Classical Athens, page 271)

Detail of lines 2-4 of the slave’s lead tablet letter. Reproduced from David Jordan’s “A Personal Letter Found in the Athenian Agora,” Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Jan. – Mar., 2000), pp. 91-103.