Master of the Game: Competition and Performance in Greek Poetry

  Collins, Derek. 2004. Master of the Game: Competition and Performance in Greek Poetry. Hellenic Studies Series 7. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_CollinsD.Master_of_the_Game.2004.


19. The Panathenaia and Beyond

Such a claim is even harder to support based on an older reference to the Panathenaic Rule, attributed to Dieuchidas of Megara, about which Solon is said to have passed a law:

τά τε ῾Ομήρου ἐξ ὑποβολῆς γέγραφε ῥαψῳδεῖσθαι, οἶον ὅπου ὁ πρῶτος ἔληξεν, ἐκεῖθεν ἄρχεσθαι τὸν ἐχόμενον.

He [= Solon] wrote a law that the poetry of Homer was to be performed rhapsodically by cue, so that where the first person left off, from that point the next one would begin.

Diogenes Laertius 1.57 = Dieuchidas of Megara FGH 485 F 6

Here we read that Solon wrote a law that the poetry of Homer was to be performed rhapsodically ἐξ ὑποβολῆς ‘by cue’, and that where the first singer left off, the next one would begin at that point. [7] What this means exactly is not so clear: it could mean, as he argues, that after a coherent scene, of the kind mentioned earlier in connection with Plato’s Ion, one rhapsode stops and the next one begins. But there is no reason to assume that possibility only. It could also mean that two rhapsodes engage in singing by turns the same scene or episode, just as Homer and Hesiod were engaged on Delos to sing one hymn to Apollo and alternated with one another in producing it. We do not know the frequency with which rhapsodes, given this performance mode, might have alternated with one another. However, I do not believe that rhapsodic performances at the Panathenaia were stichomythic, as in the Certamen. The Certamen illustrates a range of technical skills in an accomplished rhapsode’s repertoire; it cannot be used as direct evidence for Panathenaic competitions. In the list of performable scenes given by Socrates in the Ion (535b), the possible length appears to vary from as little as seven lines (Iliad 22.430–36 concerning Hecabe) to several hundred (Iliad 24.144–717 on Priam), assuming that the vulgate text of Homer is the benchmark. The fact that Ion in Plato’s dialogue can recite whole scenes does suggest that this was the preferred performative mode at the Panathenaia, and the fact that he recalls various scenes from the Iliad and Odyssey suggests that he knows them independently as scenes or episodes. But it is not impossible that rhapsodes performed the same scenes together in some fashion. If this line of reasoning is correct, it provides one answer to the interesting problem of how rhapsodes were prevented from arbitrarily appropriating to themselves the better scenes (a point originally raised by Sealey [8] ), however we conclude what makes a scene better or worse in Homer. Such a concern does not arise if rhapsodes perform the same scenes together. It also does not arise if we assume that what was competitive about rhapsodic performance lay not primarily in the basic content of what was performed, but in the technical and dramatic skill with which it was performed. [9]

We actually have later evidence in Greece (particularly in Ionia) that rhapsodic exchange, as a general performance mode, also took place at the non-professional level of boys’ contests. Contests for youths in general as evidenced by inscriptions emphasized both athletic and intellectual education, for boys and occasionally for girls, with somewhat greater emphasis placed on physical skills. [14] In any case, Plato in the Timaeus (21b) mentions that boys at the festival of Apaturia were said to engage in recitation contests (ἆθλα ῥαψῳδίας) set up by their fathers, where the objective was apparently to exchange the elegiac verses of Solon. Perhaps the most interesting boys’ games are documented in inscriptions from Chios and Teos, dated to the second century BCE, set up to commemorate the victors. In the inscription from Chios (CIG 2214 = SIG 959), we read about competitions between different age levels of boys in ῥαψῳδία ‘recitation’, as well as ἀναγνώσις ‘reading aloud’, κιθαρισμός ‘cithara-playing’(= κιθάρισις), and ψαλμός ‘harp-playing’, not to mention more physical exercises like the δίαυλος ‘double-course race’. In his commentary on this inscription, Dittenberger, following Boeckh, relates the description of events to the inscription from Teos (CIG 3088 = SIG 960n1), which lists many of the same competitive events but also mentions an event ὑποβολῆς ἀνταποδόσεως ‘verse capping (?)’ for the older age-set of boys (πρεσβύτεροι). This is possibly some kind of give-and-take competition by cue, a game Wilamowitz connected to the Certamen. [15] The give-and-take competition seems parallel to the mention of ῥαψῳδία in the Chios inscription, as well as to the more advanced and specialized rhapsodic competitions at the Panathenaia. Following Dittenberger and Boeckh, I would argue that the reference to ὑποβολή suggests the exchange of poetic verses, and again that, contrary to LSJ, these boys’ competitions, as in the Turkish example, need not entail any external prompt. Rhapsodes, moreover, with their extensive memorization and mastery of Homeric texts would surely not have needed any external cue by which to exchange verses or take up the narrative. [16]

The story that Polybius tells about the ancient Arcadians well illustrates the central cultural value (in Arcadia) placed on having an intimate knowledge of poetry and on being able to recite it in a timely and responsive fashion. [18] Mastery of poetry and song during youth enabled the Arcadians when adults even to create their own poetry for performance, especially during symposia. And while these abilities are recognized in frequent formal poetic (and especially choral) competitions, they are just as readily acknowledged in less formal exchanges, such as those at symposia:

ταῦτα γὰρ πᾶσίν ἐστι γνώριμα καὶ συνήθη, διότι σχεδὸν παρὰ μόνοις ᾽Αρκάσι πρῶτον μὲν οἱ παῖδες ἐκ νηπίων ᾄδειν ἐθίζονται κατὰ νόμους τοὺς ὕμνους καὶ παιᾶνας, οἶς ἕκαστοι κατὰ τὰ πάτρια τοὺς ἐπιχωρίους ἥρωας καὶ θεοὺς ὑμνοῦσι· μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα τοὺς Φιλοξένου καὶ Τιμοθέου νόμους μανθάνοντες πολλῇ φιλοτιμίᾳ χορεύουσι κατ᾽ ἐνιαυτὸν τοῖς Διονυσιακοῖς αὐληταῖς ἐν τοῖς θεάτροις, οἱ μὲν παῖδες τοὺς παιδικοὺς ἀγῶνας, οἱ δὲ νεανίσκοι τοὺς τῶν ἀνδρῶν λεγομένους. ὁμοίως γε μὴν καὶ παρ᾽ ὅλον τὸν βίον τὰς ἀγωγὰς τὰς ἐν ταῖς συνουσίαις οὐχ οὕτως ποιοῦνται διὰ τῶν ἐπεισάκτων ἀκροαμάτων ὡς δι᾽ αὑτῶν, ἀνὰ μέρος ᾄδειν ἀλλήλοις ποοστάττοντες. καὶ τῶν μὲν ἄλλων μαθημάτων ἀρνηθῆναι τι μὴ γινώσκειν οὐδὲν αἰσχρὸν ἡγοῦνται, τήν γε μὴν ᾠδὴν οὔτ᾽ ἀρνηθῆναι δύνανται διὰ τὸ κατ᾽ ἀνάγκην πάντας μανθάνειν. οὔθ᾽ ὁμολογοῦντες ἀποτρίβεσθαι διὰ τὸ τῶν αἰσχρῶν παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς νομίζεσθαι τοῦτο. καὶ μὴν ἐμβατήρια μετ᾽ αὐλοῦ καὶ τάξεως ἀσκοῦντες, ἔτι δ᾽ ὀρχήσεις ἐκπονοῦντες μετὰ κοινῆς ἐπιστροφῆς καὶ δαπάνης κατ᾽ ἐνιαυτὸν ἐν τοῖς θεάτροις ἐπιδείκνυνται τοῖς αὑτῶν πολίταις οἱ νέοι.

For this is well-known and familiar to everyone, that almost only among the Arcadians, boys are accustomed right from their childhood to sing hymns and paeans in melodies, in which they all hymn their local heroes and gods according to tradition. After these they learn the melodies of Philoxenus and Timotheus, and every year in keen rivalry they dance chorally in the theatres to the accompaniment of reed-players, the boys in the competitions for boys, and the young men in what is called the men’s competition. Similarly throughout their whole lives they do not so much create music in their banquets by bringing in outside singers as through their own efforts, requiring one another to sing in turn/successively. They do not think it a disgrace to deny knowledge of other fields of study, but they are neither able to deny singing because everyone is required to learn it, nor, when admitting that they know how to sing, can they refuse to, since this is considered a disgrace among them. In addition, the young men practice marching strains on the flute also while in military order, and further perfecting their dances they perform for their own citizens in the theatres every year with public support and expenditure.

Polybius 4.20.8–12

The state-sponsored emphasis on poetic training and public performance was also realized through more private social gatherings. And here is where we come to the most interesting point, as I see it, in Polybius’ description. Social gatherings (συνουσίαι) among the Arcadians furnished occasions for the individual display of poetic talent, which was realized through extemporaneous, turn-taking performances (ἀνὰ μέρος ᾄδειν ἀλλήλοις προστάττοντες). This probably refers to the common poetic game called σκόλιον that, as we have already seen in Part II, made up part of the program for symposia. Here again we see the communal nature of the turn-taking performance: no Arcadian could deny being able to recite poetry, since this was his birthright, while each participant demanded a performance from his neighbor. Individual recognition and talent is mediated through a collective game lest disgrace (αἰσχρόν) attach to one who refuses to participate. The communal demand for both scripted (Philoxenus and Timotheus) and extemporaneous poetic performances, then, ensures the mark of Arcadian honor and social identity.

Such an identity is of course not at stake in the centralized, state-sponsored rhapsodic competitions at the Panathenaia. But we should beware of conceptually separating these competitions too much from examples of localized traditions like those of Arcadia or the boys’ games in Chios and Teos. To the extent that the rules for the Panathenaic competition involve exchange between rhapsodes, they systematize what appears to be a broader Greek cultural phenomenon: the ability spontaneously to recite poetry, both from memory and through improvisation, in a give-and-take fashion. Hipparchus’ reforms might have limited the poetic repertoire of the Panathenaic competitions to Homeric poetry, but his reforms drew upon earlier performance traditions (perhaps already in evidence during the smaller, yearly Panathenaic competitions) that had a wider provenance.

For this reason, it is difficult to give the nature of rhapsodic performance and exchange, as I have argued for it at the Panathenaia, a reductive, ideological import. Recent research on the Panathenaia has made important strides toward rethinking the complex aristocratic and democratic dimensions of the entire festival, [20] as well as of individual events. But what seems to emerge is the view that a given event may not only have been valued differently over time; it may, at a given point in time, simultaneously have projected more than one ideological register. An event organized by φυλή ‘social tribe’ like the εὐανδρία ‘physical fitness’ illustrates this complication nicely. [21] Jenifer Neils has argued that this contest, being limited as it was to Athenian citizens, could specifically have helped to reinforce the reforms of phylai by Cleisthenes. [22] Yet, as Alan Boegehold has stressed, our (fourth-century) sources tell us that euandriai were paid for by private citizens as a liturgy ([Andocides] 4.42, Against Alcibiades), while prizes for victors went to individual phylai (Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 60 and IG II2 2311.75). [23] Thus a single event might have served multiple ends: if Neils is right, the euandria competition offered the occasion for individual phylai, now stripped of their old aristocratic distinctions, to consolidate their economic, social, and geographical reconfiguration. [24] On the other hand, at least through the fourth century the liturgical sponsorship of euandriai continued to offer wealthy Athenian citizens the chance to compete, through the long-standing tradition of aristocratic μεγαλοπρέπεια ‘magnificence’, [25] for social prestige and recognition. In the fourth century and later, victorious rhapsodes were commemorated by name, an action that suggests there was individual recognition for their efforts, yet we know that these individuals belonged to guilds such as the Homeridae of Chios and the Creophylei of Samos. Their victories must therefore be understood at some level in collective terms. Although not Athenian citizens, the Homeridae at least derived sponsorship in the sixth century from Hipparchus and therefore have an old association with tyranny and aristocracy. In the fourth century the prizes for rhapsodes—high-quality olive oil in inscribed amphoras [26] —were paid for by the state, as they probably had been at least since the reorganization of the games in 566, further attesting to their élite, corporate sponsorship. As for the rules themselves of Panathenaic rhapsodic competition, however, we simply cannot interpret as aristocratic or democratic (or some combination of the two) the requirement that rhapsodes were to go through the Homeric poems by exchange (Hipparchus), or that they were to go through them by cue taking up the narrative wherever they saw fit (Solon). I have argued for a certain degree of freedom of selection as to which parts of Homeric narrative rhapsodes could choose to perform. This freedom might suggest a democratic impulse, as perhaps does the rule requiring succession, or maybe alternation, in recitation. But the evidence is not forthcoming in this regard, and we remain on safer ground if we acknowledge that rhapsodic competitions accommodated both social élite and popular interests.

There is widespread evidence from all over Greece that rhapsodic performances continued vigorously for centuries—the Panathenaia itself is attested down to the third century CE. [27] But when we look at the period between roughly the fourth and first centuries BCE, some innovations in the structure and content of professional rhapsodic performances begin to emerge. Victory lists for this period found in inscriptions from a wide array of cities in Greece, usually in the context of festivals in honor of gods or local cult heroes, show quite clearly that not only rhapsodes were victorious, but also a new breed of contestant, the ἐπῶν ποιητής or ἐποποιός ‘composer of epic’, began to win. [28] Maria Pallone has shown that beginning in the fourth century new works of poetry in hexameter began to be composed for these festival contests, and that they were performed either by a rhapsode, or occasionally by the poet himself: the victor is sometimes listed under both the title of poet and rhapsode. [29] We also hear mention in this period of poetry contests between sybils, who apparently competed with hexameter verse. [30] Typically the content of these new hexameter creations were mythological, historical, ethnographical, and what Pallone calls court epics; at the same time, what is not as clear is whether these compositions were epics in the traditional sense, as Pallone thinks, or smaller works of no more than a few hundred lines. [31] It is possible that, as Alan Cameron has recently argued, the terms ἐπῶν ποιητής or ἐποποιός in victory lists meant only ‘composer in hexameter’. [32] But Cameron does not consider that individuals so named could simultaneously be called ῥαψῳδός ‘rhapsode’ in a victory list, [33] a term that was still used for reciters of Homeric poetry at festivals through the third century CE. [34] Thus a reevaluation of one term ought to entail a reevaluation of the other. Pallone’s model for the compositions of the ἐπῶν ποιηταί are the seventh- and sixth-century BCE compositions of the Epic Cycle poems, [35] attributed to composers such as Lesches of Lesbos or Arctinus of Miletus. [36] This is in accord with the evidence for the composition and performance of longer mythological and ethnographic epics, even if we cannot be certain about the actual length of historical epics. [37]

Footnotes

[ back ] 1. See Davison 1955 and 1958.

[ back ] 2. I agree with Nagy 1996:133 that texts of Homer were not essential to the origin and early development of rhapsodic competitions, but I believe that written texts are assumed by the author of this passage. At Alcidamas, On Sophists 14, written texts are also assumed in the performance of rhapsodes and actors.

[ back ] 3. Cf. the related account of Lycurgus, who brought the Homeric poems from the descendants of Creophylus of Samos back to the Spartans (Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 4.4). Discussion in Burkert 1972, and Nagy 1996:79 with testimonia given in his Appendix 1.

[ back ] 4. I take ἐφεξῆς to refer to the sequence of performance by rhapsodes, i.e. one after another, rather than to the sequence of poetic material. Cf. Schwartz 1940:5.

[ back ] 5. We might actually have evidence for a similar type of improvisation among kithara players. Cf. the Homeric Hymn to Hermes 54–56: θεὸς δ᾽ ὑπὸ καλὸν ἄειδεν | ἐξ αὐτοσχεδίης πειρώμενος, ἠΰτε κοῦροι | ἡβηταὶ θαλίῃσι παραιβόλα κερτομέουσιν “and the god [Hermes] sang beautifully in accompaniment trying improvisations, just as young men at feasts taunt each other.” This passage suggests that a boy’s lyre-playing could be mocked at by another boy, which may imply a turn-taking or exchange of melodies.

[ back ] 6. E.g. West 1998:VI, Nagy 1996:69, implied at Shapiro 1992:72–3 (but he expresses doubts in Shapiro 1998:104), Taplin 1992:29–31, Thalmann 1984:119 (although he allows for “piecemeal” performance at non-festival venues), Sealey 1957:342, 349, and Else 1957:27. Doubts against the performance of both epics have been expressed by Burkert 1987:50 and Boyd 1994:118. Kotsidu 1991:44, although suggesting that “die Reihenfolge des Textes”—whatever this is exactly—had to be maintained by rhapsodes, does not assume that both epics were performed at the Panathenaia. Yet she does assume that at least one of them was performed in its entirety. This same view was expressed much earlier by Meyer 1918:332. Cf. the testimony of Dionysius of Argos (FGH 308 F 2 = scholia to Nemean 2.1d 31.2 Drachmann) that early rhapsodes sang whatever “part” of the tradition they wanted (ἕκαστος ὅ τι βούλοιτο μέρος ᾖδε), “but later, after each of the two poems was introduced, the competitors, since they were mending the parts to one another and moving toward the whole poem, were called rhapsodes” (αὖθις δὲ ἑκατέρας τῆς ποιήσεως εἰσενεχθείσης τοὺς ἀγωνιστὰς οἶον ἀκουμένους πρὸς ἄλληλα τὰ μέρη καὶ τὴν σύμπασαν ποίησιν ἐπιόντας, ῥαψῳδοὺς προσαγορευθῆναι). Even if we concede that this testimonium refers to the reforms of Hipparchus and the Panathenaia, about neither of which is there any mention, it remains far from clear that “moving toward the whole poem” means performing the Iliad and Odyssey in their entirety during the Panathenaia.

[ back ] 7. Cf. the related but derivative accounts of the “Panathenaic Rule” in Lycurgus, Against Leocrates 102 and Plutarch, Pericles 13.6.

[ back ] 8. Sealey 1957:343.

[ back ] 9. Including the kinds of improvisation, especially the addition or elaboration of verses, for which I have been arguing.

[ back ] 10. Thus Else 1957:33n2 and Boyd 1994:115n16, where he unnecessarily posits the existence of “attendants” or “officials” who preside over the competition and who clock each rhapsode’s performance.

[ back ] 11. See the discussion of Page 1934:98–100, who, despite the lack of evidence, nevertheless believes (100n2) the prompter to exist in the classical period. The earliest mentions of the ὑποβολεύς are Philo 1.591 and Plutarch, Precepts of Statecraft 813e.

[ back ] 12. See again Dundes 1987:82–117.

[ back ] 13. Cf. Nagy 2002:19–22 on the Homeric semantics of ὑποβάλλω ‘to interrupt’ and ὑποβλήδην ‘interruptingly’, where he argues instead for the basic idea of “picking up the train of thought exactly where [an] opponent [leaves] off (21).”

[ back ] 14. Ziebarth 1914:136–47, esp. 138. We do occasionally hear of girls’ song competitions, as for example the contest (ἀγὼν ᾠδῆς) mentioned by Aristoxenus (fr. 129 Wehrli = Athenaeus 619e), which took place to commemorate Harpalyce, who died after falling in love with Iphiclus. This kind of song contest involving unwed girls (παρθένοι) seems parallel to that mentioned in Euripides’ Hippolytus (1423–29 Diggle) among the young women of Troezen who lament Phaedra’s love for Hippolytus.

[ back ] 15. See Wilamowitz 1884:266 and Ziebarth 1914:141.

[ back ] 16. Memorization by rhapsodes is assumed at Xenophon, Symposium 3.6.

[ back ] 17. Several famous stories along these lines are recounted by Plutarch. Cf. his account of the Athenians captured during the Peloponnesian war who were freed from the Sicilians if they could recite from Euripides’ choral songs; and also the Caunians who, before being admitted to the Syracusan harbor, were also required to sing Euripides’ songs (Plutarch, Νicias 29.2—11). Related to these is the account of a Phocian who, at a symposium before Lysander has the walls of Athens torn down and their triremes burned to the music of Athenian flute-girls, sings the parodos from Euripides’ Electra. The performance is said to have moved the symposiasts to pity, and to express their regret for destroying a city that produced men of such talent (Plutarch, Lysander 15.4–5).

[ back ] 18. Noted already in Part II. The same story, with a few minor changes, is reported by Athenaeus 625a–d.

[ back ] 19. Discussion in Wilson 2000:270–76.

[ back ] 20. See Shapiro 1996 on the Panathenaia during the reign of Pericles.

[ back ] 21. An overview of this elusive contest can be found in Wilson 2000:38. It remains unclear whether the euandria was a male beauty contest, or some other agonistic expression of phyletic and/or Athenian qualities of physical excellence. Cf. Boegehold’s 1996:97–103 view that the euandria is another name for the cyclic chorus that performed at the Panathenaia.

[ back ] 22. Neils 1994.

[ back ] 23. Boegehold 1996:104.

[ back ] 24. Neils 1994:151.

[ back ] 25. On which see Wilson 2000:141–43.

[ back ] 26. On the significance of Panathenaic prize amphoras, see Kyle 1996:116–23.

[ back ] 27. See the inscriptions cited in West 1996a:1312. Cf. Herington 1985, Appendix II.

[ back ] 28. Pallone 1984. Cf. the brief treatment of this period in Gentili 1990:174–76.

[ back ] 29. E.g. IG VII.419.14–17 (first century BCE).

[ back ] 30. Plutarch, Convivial Questions 675a on the sybil who won at the funeral games of Pelias, father of Acastus (= Acesander FGH 469 F 7), and 675b on Aristomache of Erythrae, who won twice in epic verse (ἐπικῷ ποιήματι) at the Isthmian games and dedicated a golden tablet in the Sicyonian Treasury (attributed to Polemon, but see also FGH 469 F 7).

[ back ] 31. As Cameron 1995:268–73, 295 maintains.

[ back ] 32. Cameron 1995:270 and n45 contra Pallone 1984:159, 166.

[ back ] 33. E.g. IG VII.419.14–17 (first century BCE).

[ back ] 34. E.g. IG VII.1773.17, 1776.15.

[ back ] 35. Pallone 1984:163.

[ back ] 36. Aethiopis, test. 5 Bernabé and Phanias of Eresus fr. 33 (Wehrli) (= Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.21.131.6). See Wehrli’s commentary ad loc. and Aly 1920:246 on Lesches’ contest with Arctinus. Lesches is said to have won.

[ back ] 37. Cameron 1995:295–98.