Moving beyond Plato, we may turn to Aristotle for a less theoretical and more historical perspective on the Panathenaia. Aristotle gives a brief outline of the main features of the Panathenaia at Athens in his Constitution of the Athenians 60.1–3:

1. agōn ‘competition’ in mousikē (τὸν ἀγῶνα τῆς μουσικῆς); prizes awarded: gold and silver. {40|41}
2. agōn ‘competition’ in athletics (τὸν γυμνικὸν ἀγῶνα), including equestrian events (horse-racing and chariot-racing: ἱπποδρομίαν); prizes awarded: Panathenaic amphoras containing olive oil.
3. peplos ‘robe’ = the ceremonial robe, Peplos (τὸν πέπλον); woven for the goddess Athena, it was formally presented to her at the Panathenaia.
4. pompē ‘procession’ = the Panathenaic Procession (τήν τε πομπὴν τῶν Παναθηναίων); at the climax of this procession, the Peplos was formally presented to Athena. Aristotle does not say it explicitly, but the occasion of this climactic moment is a thusia ‘sacrifice’, more on which later.
5. athlothetai = a board of ten magistrates, with one from each phulē appointed (by lot) every four years for a term of four years; their function was to organize and supervise all the events of no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, and no. 4, including the arranging and awarding of prizes in the case of no. 1 and no. 2.

For the moment, I have kept this outline at a minimum, recapping as closely as possible the main features as reported by Aristotle (he orders them differently, however: 5, 4, 1, 2, 3).

The rhapsodes at the Panathenaia not only competed with each other in performing the poetry of Homer: they also had to take turns following the narrative sequence of that poetry in the process of competition. In the Hipparkhos of “pseudo-Plato,” as we have seen in the previous chapter, there is a story that purports to explain an Athenian law requiring that the Iliad and Odyssey be performed in sequence by the rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’ at the Panathenaia: {42|43}

In this extract, I have highlighted two words with special rhapsodic implications: ephexēs ‘in sequence’ and hupolēpsis, which I translate as ‘relay’ for reasons that I have already outlined in the previous chapter. In the present chapter, I concentrate on the expression ephexēs auta diienai ‘go through them [= the epē ‘poetic utterances’ of Homer] in sequence’, to which I will compare the contexts of Plato Timaeus 23d3–4 / 24a1–2: panta … hexēs dielthein / ephexēs diienai ‘go through everything in sequence’ / ‘go through in sequence’. At a later point in the present chapter, we will return to these contexts in the Timaeus.

As I noted in the previous chapter, I infer from these two passages that the Homeric epē ‘poetic utterances’ performed at the Panathenaia were the Iliad and Odyssey. According to these passages, there existed in Athens a custom of maintaining a fixed narrative sequence of Homeric performance at the Panathenaia. According to this custom, known to classicists as the “Panathenaic Rule,” each performing rhapsode was required to take up the narration where the previous rhapsode left off. {44|45}

The inscription goes on to specify that the mousikē should begin on the fourth day before the end of the month of Anthesterion (lines 8–10: ἄρχειν δὲ τῆς μο|υσικῆς τετράδα φθίνοντος τοῦ Ἀνθεστηρι|ῶνος μηνός). Then the inscription lists the categories of competition in mousikē (lines 10–14), and I repeat here my translation of the wording: “and that [the city] is to organize the mousikē for rhapsodes, aulodes, citharists, citharodes, and parody-singers; further, that those who compete [agōnizesthai] in the mousikē should all compete [agōnizesthai] in the prosodion [= processional song] for the sacrifice [thusia] in the aulē, having the same costume that they have in the competition proper.” As at the beginning of the inscription, we see here again the highlighting of thusia ‘sacrifice’ (line 13) as the central theme of the institution of competitions in mousikē.

Category	Prizes	Drachmas
Rhapsodes	1st prize	120
	2nd	50
	3rd	20
Aulodes (boys’ category)	1st	50
	2nd	30
	3rd	20
Citharists	1st	110
	2nd	70
	3rd	55
Citharodes	1st	200
	2nd	150
	3rd	100
Parody-singers	1st	50
	2nd	10

The homology between the pompē ‘procession’ and the thusia ‘sacrifice’ is highlighted by the syntax (ἡ πομπὴ καὶ ἡ θυσίη, line 39). The competitors in mousikē, then, participate in and become part of the entire religious program of the Artemisia, a continuum that extends from the procession to the climactic sacrifice and from the sacrifice to the competitions themselves.

From the evidence of such comparisons between the Artemisia of Eretria and the Panathenaia of Athens, I infer that we are dealing here with two institutions that are not only parallel but even cognate. A particularly telling point of comparison, as I have stressed, is the custom of holding agōnes ‘competitions’ in mousikē. The categories of competition are remarkably parallel, even in the relative rankings of these categories.

There is, granted, a vast difference in scale between the Artemisia of Eretria, as recorded in the inscription IG XII ix 189 from ca. 341/0 BCE, and the Panathenaia of Athens, as recorded in the inscription IG II² 2311 from 380 BCE. In that era of the Panathenaia, as I have already noted, the monetary value of the first prize in the competition of citharodes, a gold garland, was worth 1000 drachmas—and that figure does not even include the additional cash prize of silver worth 500 drachmas. When we compare that sum of 1000 drachmas at the Panathenaia of that time to the sum of 200 drachmas, which was the cash prize for first place in the competition of citharodes at the Artemisia of Eretria just forty-odd years later, we can appreciate all the more the magnitude of the Panathenaia. The monetary value of the gold garland bestowed on the top citharode at the Panathenaia in the decade of 380 BCE is the equivalent of the entire budget of the Artemisia in 341/0 BCE.

Despite the differences in scale, the Eretrian inscription IG XII ix 189 shows enough structural parallelisms with the Panathenaia to encourage extrapolations in areas where we do not have direct information about the Athenian festival. Here I return to the all-important elements of procession and sacrifice. The districts of the city, called khōroi, are each to contribute animals (cattle are specified) that are krita ‘chosen’ by state {51|52} overseers for the sacrifice (lines 25–31). Sacrificial animals can also be bought, in the sacred precinct, by individual sacrificers from individual sellers (31–34), as also in the agora (35). All those who wish to sacrifice are to march in the procession, which is to be marshaled in the agora by officials called dēmarkhoi (34–35); the sacrificial animals are to be led in the procession by their respective sacrificers, in a prescribed sequence determined by the categories of animals: first come the dēmosia or victims of the State, including the choicest entry or kallisteion ‘fairest prize’ (35–36); then come the krita ‘chosen ones’, presumably the ones contributed by the khōroi (36); and then, finally, all other victims, elliptically indicated by a formula that refers not to the animals but to their sacrificers, and this category includes any private individual who wishes to participate in the procession (sumpompeuein: 37).

It is essential to stress here a detail just noted, that the organizers of the procession culminating in the grand sacrifice are officials called the dēmarkhoi (34–35). Earlier on in the inscription, these same dēmarkhoi are described as the officials in charge of the entire agōn of mousikē (τὸν δὲ ἀγῶνα τιθόντων οἱ δήμ|αρχοι, 23–24). By extrapolation, we can say that the dēmarkhoi of the Artemisia are analogous to the athlothetai of the Panathenaia.

Participation in the grand procession of the Artemisia, then, is an option open to any individual. For the actual competitors in the mousikē, however, participation is required. The inscription specifies that all the agōnistai ‘competitors’ are to take part in the procession (37–38), and we have already noted the explicit reason given for this required participation: ‘in order that the procession [pompē] and the sacrifice [thusia] become the most beautiful possible’ (39). Since the other participants in the procession are conducting the various sacrificial animals to the grand sacrifice, can we say the same for the competitors as well? If so, perhaps the sacrificial animals to be conducted by {52|53} the competitors are the lambs mentioned at the beginning of the inscription, the enkritoi of line 8.

The inscription ends by providing for its words to be inscribed on a stele and to be placed in the precinct of Artemis (40–41), with the following express purpose:

One last time we see the all-important factor of sacrifice, and, this time, the homology is between the thusia ‘sacrifice’ and the mousikē.

We may note a formal parallelism of rhapsodic repertoires in Plato’s Ion: the rhapsode Ion, who is about to compete in the Panathenaia (530b), is potentially a grand master in performing Hesiod and even Archilochus, not just Homer (531a); he tells Socrates that he specializes in Homer only because Homer is the best poet and, by implication, the only poet whose poetry is performed by rhapsodes at the Panathenaia (531a-532c). The rhapsode is a master performer—without musical accompaniment (533b5–7)—of dactylic hexameter (Homer and Hesiod) as also of elegiac and iambic meters (both these meters were primary compositional media of Archilochus). From such formal parallelisms, we can see that the poetic medium of Solon—elegiac and iambic meters—is appropriate to the performance repertoire of rhapsodes. Solon’s poetry is rhapsodic poetry. But is this poetry appropriate for rhapsodic performance at the Panathenaia?

Plato’s Timaeus implies that the rhapsodic poetry of Solon could have replaced the rhapsodic poetry of Homer at the {55|56} Panathenaia, if only the great Athenian statesman had found the leisure time to finish his unfinished poem about Atlantis and Athens (21c–d). By further implication, the rhapsodic tale told by grandfather Critias could have become the poetic centerpiece of the Panathenaia. But Solon did not complete his rhapsodic masterpiece—just as Plato did not complete his trilogy of Timaeus, Critias, and Hermocrates. As I will now go on to argue, this state of incompleteness is expressed by Plato in a nostalgically playful way, and the playfulness cleverly mimics the childish mentality of a ten-year-old boy playing at a game of rhapsodes, where the object of the game is to win celebrity status as the star rhapsode of the Panathenaia.

In the interplay of cross-reference, the fact that the word khthes is consistently juxtaposed with politeia ‘republic’ in the Timaeus may be viewed, in and of itself, as a reference to the Republic, in light of the prominent featuring of that word at the beginning of the Republic. For the reference to be a cross-reference, you do not have to reconcile the logic of the immediate context with the logic of the ultimate context, which controls the ultimate purpose of reference.

In terms of the immediate context of the Timaeus, its own dramatic moment is the eve of the concluding day of the Panathenaia, on the 28th of the month Hekatombaion. By contrast, the dramatic moment of the Republic was the feast of the Bendideia, on the 19th of the month Thargelion. Recognizing the dramatic moment of the Republic, Proclus infers that the dramatic moment of the Timaeus must have been the 20th of Thargelion—that is, the day after the Republic. In other words, Proclus is taking the usage of khthes ‘yesterday’ in the Timaeus as a historical reference to the setting of the Republic. At the {57|58} same time, he does not want to let go of the immediate context of the Timaeus, from which he infers that the feast in question is indeed the Panathenaia.

Such a mistake is really a mistake only if we follow Proclus in assuming that the dramatic dates of the Republic and the Timaeus need to be connected historically. For Plato, however, I submit that any intended thematic connection between the Republic and the Timaeus is purely literary, not historical: the Republic of “yesterday” had dealt with the topic of the ideal state, while the Timaeus of “today” announces a new topic, that is, a state that must be pure fiction.

The intentionality of this kind of intertextuality is reflected, I submit, in Plato’s use of the language of rhapsodes. From what I am about to show, it appears that Plato is making a point about individualized rhapsodic style and even individualized rhapsodic content, within the framework of an imposed and previously-agreed-upon sequence of narrative. When it is Critias’ turn in the Critias to take up where Timaeus in the Timaeus had left off, Timaeus says: “I hand over [paradidomen] to Critias, as prearranged, the continuous discourse [ephexēs logos]” (Critias 106b: παραδίδομεν κατὰ τὰς ὁμολογίας Κριτίᾳ τὸν ἐφεξῆς λόγον). I draw attention here to the expression ephexēs logos ‘continuous discourse’. We may compare the rhapsodic expression ephexēs in the passage I quoted earlier from “Plato” Hipparkhos 228b–c.

Critias responds by saying that he will now “take up the continuous discourse” at the point where it was handed over to him by Timaeus. I draw attention to the precise wording: dekhesthai ‘I take up’, with the direct object ephexēs logos ‘continuous discourse’ understood. The whole idea is worded in a noticeably compressed clause marked by the particle men, to be followed by an expanded clause, marked by the particle de, which expresses the idea that the discourse will now become {59|60} even more challenging than before, and that the speaker must therefore beg the indulgence of his audience all the more: ἀλλ᾿ὦ Τίμαιε δέχομαι μέν· ᾧ δὲ καὶ κατ᾿ἀρχὰς σὺ ἐχρήσω, συγγνώμην αἰτούμενος ὡς περὶ μεγάλων μέλλων λέγειν, ταὐτὸν καὶ νῦν ἐγὼ τοῦτο παραιτοῦμαι … ‘all right, then, Timaeus, I’m taking it up [dekhesthai] here [that is, the continuous discourse], on the one hand [men]; on the other hand [de], I ask for the very same thing that you too made use of at the beginning when you asked for indulgence on the grounds that you were about to speak about great [megala] things’ (Critias 106b–c). Critias goes on to say that his subject matter is surely even greater (106c).

Critias remarks that his topic, the genesis of humans, is even more difficult than the topic that had just been treated by Timaeus, the genesis of the gods and of the cosmos, since the audience will demand greater verisimilitude about topics that seem closer to their own world of direct experience (107a–b). Socrates jokingly responds that the topic of the next slated speaker, Hermocrates, will surely become even more difficult (108a–b).

Critias’ speech stops short at exactly the point where he is about to quote the Will of Zeus (δίκην αὐτοῖς ἐπιθεῖναι βουληθείς 121b–c). Plato’s wording evokes the epic theme of the boulē or ‘Will’ of Zeus, as announced at the very beginning of the Iliad, I 5 (Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή) or at the very beginning of the Cypria fr. 1.7 Allen (Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή). At the point where Critias’ speech stops short, Zeus is about to announce that he will now inflict a Flood on the Golden Generation—the last of a doomed race who have finally exhausted their divine genetic destiny (moira) because of their habitual interbreeding with ordinary mortals (Critias 121c). This point of stopping short, I argue, is analogous to a given point in epic narrative where one rhapsode could leave off the narration and another rhapsode could take it up.

Having noted my disagreements with Heiden’s formulation of performative breaks in Homeric poetry, I return to a central point of agreement, concerning the suspenseful endings of Iliad VIII {64|65} and XV. So far, we have seen that the effect of suspense is achieved by way of breaking the narrative at a point where the Will of Zeus is not yet fully realized. The choosing of such points for breaking the narrative, I have been arguing, reflects a distinctly rhapsodic practice. Further, I have been comparing these points for breaking the Homeric narrative with the point in Plato’s Critias where the text breaks off, at the precise moment when the Will of Zeus is about to be quoted directly.

The analogy seems incomplete, however, since the Will of Zeus, as spoken in his own words, is “quoted” in Iliad VIII and XV not at the end of these “books” but further back (VIII 470–483 and XV 14–33, 49–77). Still, the actual effects of the words spoken by Zeus are suspensefully held back by the narrative of each of these “books,” all the way to the very end of each.

This Homeric theme of ultimate extinction is pertinent to the themes of Plato’s Timaeus and Critias. Already in the Timaeus, we see a polar opposition between two kinds of eschatological disaster, that is, Conflagration (Ecpyrosis) and Flood (Cataclysm): the first is exemplified by the myth of Phaethon (22c) and the second, by the myth of Deukalion (22a). At the {65|66} point where the Critias breaks off, the Will of Zeus is about to unleash the second kind of eschatological disaster, the Cataclysm.

In sum, the Critias of Plato breaks off at a point that corresponds to a break in rhapsodic performance. What then, could this correspondence tell us about the narrative sequence of the Timaeus and Critias?

In the wording of the Timaeus, the narrative about Atlantis was told to Solon hexēs ‘in sequence’ (23d) by the Egyptian priests, after they had re-read their own written record ephexēs ‘in sequence’ (24a). The contexts of these terms hexēs / ephexēs are analogous to the context of ephexēs logos ‘continuous discourse’ in Critias 106b, which I have already compared to the overtly rhapsodic context of ephexēs in “Plato” Hipparkhos 228b–c. As we have seen, the context of Critias 106b is in fact likewise overtly rhapsodic. When it is Critias’ turn in the Critias to take up where Timaeus in the Timaeus had left off, Timaeus says: “I hand over [paradidomen] to Critias, as prearranged, the continuous discourse [ephexēs logos]” (Critias 106b: παραδίδομεν κατὰ τὰς ὁμολογίας Κριτίᾳ τὸν ἐφεξῆς λόγον).

The problem is, Critias can never finish narrating this “continuous discourse,” just as Solon never finished turning this narrative into his own poetry in the first place. If only Solon had not left unfinished his poetic composition about Atlantis and Athens, says the grandfather, this statesman would have {66|67} surpassed even Homer and Hesiod in poetic fame (Timaeus 21c–d). If only Solon had finished, his Atlantis would have become the “continuous discourse” of rhapsodes.

It is precisely at this moment in the narrative of the Critias that the Will of Zeus is about to reassert itself in the course of human affairs. It is also precisely at this moment that Zeus, just as he begins to speak, is precluded from uttering even one word. How ineffable of Zeus even to try to speak at this {67|68} point in the flow of narration, given that the dialogue of Critias had already started off by shifting from divine to human affairs!

The open-endedness of the narrative sequence from the Timaeus to the Critias to the nonexistent Hermocrates leaves no chance for Hermocrates, described as tritos (Critias 108a6), even to start—let alone finish. If he had indeed started, Hermocrates would have needed “a second beginning,” hetera arkhē, in any case (Critias 108b). That way, he would not have had to resort to the same old beginning, arkhē.