3§5 Restricting the field of vision to the age of Plato, I start by asking a hypothetical question. Suppose we had access to a transcript of such a Panathenaic Homer – exactly as Plato heard Homeric poetry being performed at the Panathenaia in a given year. The question is, what Homeric text would such a transcript resemble most closely? My answer is this: the closest thing would be the quotations from Homer as we find them in the works of Plato himself. The next closest thing would be the Koine of Homer as approximated by the base text constructed by Aristarchus.

3§6 I follow up with a second question: what poetry was considered to be Homeric – and non-Homeric – in the age of Plato? From the standpoint of the Panathenaia, the answer to this second question is most revealing. As we will see, Homer was assumed to be the poet of the Iliad and Odyssey – and of nothing else. As we will also see, the Iliad and Odyssey were the only epics officially performed at the Panathenaia in the age of Plato. From a Panathenaic point of view, Homer was by now the author of only the Iliad and Odyssey. No other epic qualified as Homeric. Further, what was considered to be Homeric or non-Homeric in the age of Plato was determined by a standard of Panathenaic performance. Here I introduce the concept of a Panathenaic standard as the driving force behind the Panathenaic Homer. What I have been calling the Panathenaic Regulation is a central aspect of this standard.

3§7 Things were different in the subsequent age of Callimachus. By that time, the Homeric tradition had broken free of what I am calling the Panathenaic standard. Texts of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey were no longer dominated by the performative norms of the Athenian festival of the Panathenaia. As I started to argue in Chapter 2, texts of Homer in the age of Callimachus accommodated non-Homeric elements – that is, elements differentiated as non-Homeric in other ages. These supposedly non-Homeric elements were recognized in other ages as Cyclic, Hesiodic, and Orphic. What had earlier determined their non-Homeric status was the Panathenaic standard. {355|356}

3§8 Here I return to the model of the Homerus Auctus as I developed it in Chapter 2 – the model of an all-encompassing Homer in the age of Callimachus in the third century BCE, accommodating Cyclic, Hesiodic, and Orphic traditions. Such an augmented Homer served as the base text of Zenodotus in the third century BCE. In Chapter 2, I contrasted this model of the Homerus Auctus with the later model of an unagumented Homer, that is, the Koine, which served as the base text of Aristarchus.

3§9 That same model of the Homerus Auctus in the age of Callimachus will now have to be contrasted also with an earlier model of a non-augmented Homer, which I trace back to the age of Plato. That earlier model of a non-augmented Homer in the age of Plato is comparable to the Homeric Koine, that is, to the later model of a non-augmented Homer in the age of Aristarchus. To put it another way, the Koine reconstructed by Aristarchus as his base text for editing Homer approximated the Panathenaic Homer, which embodied the continuation of the old Panathenaic standard for performing Homer.

3§10 The antithesis to an unstable and fluid Homerus Auctus is the stable and relatively rigid Panathenaic Homer, which I argue was later approximated by the Homeric Koine as reconstructed by Aristarchus. To sum up my argument so far: this Homeric text – or, better, this Homeric textual tradition – most closely approximated the Athenian norms for performing the Iliad and the Odyssey at the feast of the Panathenaia. The Homeric Koine was an Athenian Koine. From here on, I will refer to the Panathenaic Homer simply as the Homeric Koine.

3ⓢ3. The Homerus Auctus as a predecessor of the Homeric Koine

3§11 In Chapter 2, I explored various similarities that linked the Cyclic, Hesiodic, and Orphic traditions embedded in the Homerus Auctus with what we know as the Homeric tradition. Here in Chapter 3 I will concentrate on the dissimilarities. On the basis of these dissimilarities, our first impression is that the Cyclic, Hesiodic, and Orphic augmentations of the Homerus Auctus must come from post-Homeric as well as non-Homeric traditions. In the end, however, I will conclude that they are pre-Homeric – that is, if we define pre-Homeric in terms of earlier periods when the Cyclic, Hesiodic, and Orphic traditions were as yet undifferentiated from what later became the Homeric tradition. In other words, I will conclude that the Cyclic, Hesiodic, and Orphic augmentations predate the Panathenaic standard of performing Homer in the age of Plato. {356|357}

3§12 In Chapter 2, I was using the terms Cyclic, Hesiodic, and Orphic merely as general points of reference to the poetry conventionally attributed in the ancient world to the poets of the epic Cycle, to Hesiod, and to Orpheus. Now I need to refocus on specific points of reference, and I will start with the term Cyclic.

3§13 By Cyclic, I mean the poetry of the epic Cycle as understood by Aristotle, for whom the Cycle was categorically non-Homeric. In his Poetics, Aristotle mentions two of the Cyclic epics he knew – the Cypria and the Little Iliad – and he makes clear his view that the authors of these epics were poets other than Homer; more than that, he chooses not even to name these poets (1459a37-b16). Another source, Proclus, offers specific names and proveniences: for example, the author of the Cypria was supposedly Stasinus of Cyprus; of the Little Iliad, Lesches of Lesbos; of the Aithiopis and the Iliou Persis, Arctinus of Miletus.

3§22 In the case of the Hesiodic tradition, its differentiation from the Homeric tradition is explicit, attested by the textual traditions that culminate in the Hesiodic Theogony as well as the Works and Days. In the case of the Orphic tradition, on the other hand, the differentiation is only implicit. In Chapter 2, in fact, I have already emphasized some aspects of non-differentiation, focusing on occasional convergences between Orphic and Homeric traditions. Here in Chapter 3, I focus on the divergences, which will help me highlight what was distinct about the Homeric tradition in the age of Plato. {359|360}

3ⓢ4. The Panathenaic standard as highlighted by Orphic deviations

3§23 For Plato, what was Orphic was non-Homeric, just as Cyclic and Hesiodic poetry were non-Homeric. Now we will see that whatever Plato considers to be Orphic is a foil for whatever he considers to be Homeric.

3§24 As we consider the dissimilarities between Plato’s Orpheus and Plato’s Homer, our first impression is that the poetry of Orpheus stems from a post-Homeric tradition that deviated from Homer. This impression is reinforced by Aristotle’s view that Orpheus is some kind of post-Homeric invention (Historia animalium 563a18, De generatione animalium 734a19). In Chapter 2, however, I already began to explore the idea that the poetry associated with Orpheus stems from a pre-Homeric tradition – that is, if we define pre-Homeric in terms of a prehistoric age when Orphic poetry was not yet differentiated from what later became Homeric poetry. As I observed in Chapter 2, this idea applies to Cyclic and Hesiodic poetry as well as to Orphic poetry: all three of these poetic traditions seem at first sight to be post-Homeric, but various aspects turn out to be pre-Homeric. Here in Chapter 3, I follow up on this observation by arguing that the Cyclic, Hesiodic, and Orphic traditions predate the Panathenaic standard of performing Homer in the age of Plato. I will argue further that the anteriority of these traditions became reinterpreted as a deviation from the Homeric Koine. A figure like Orpheus, from the standpoint of Plato’s Socrates, was not only non-Homeric: he was deviant in being non-Homeric.

3§25 The idea that Orphic poetry is in some ways older than Homeric poetry can be tested by examining conventional views about Orpheus and Homer in the age of Plato. As we will see, Homer was viewed as a generalist in the realm of poetry, while Orpheus was viewed as a specialist. As we will also see, the poetic categories of generalist and specialist are both defined in terms that conform to the Panathenaic standard of the Homeric Koine.

3§27 Now we turn to the testimony of Plato. In his usage, Orpheus figures as a specialist in the singing of humnoi. In Plato’s Laws (8.829d-e), for example, there is talk of interdicting a hypothetical mousa ‘song’ that is being sung, ‘even if it be sweeter than humnoi that are Orphic [Orpheioi] or than [the humnoi] of Thamyras’ (ᾄδειν ἀδόκιμον μοῦσαν μὴ κρινάντων τῶν νομοφυλάκων, μηδ’ ἂν ἡδίων ᾖ τῶν Θαμύρου τε καὶ ᾿Ορφείων ὕμνων). I draw attention to the fact that Orpheus is implicitly being represented here as a master kitharōidos ‘citharode’, that is, one who sings while playing on the kithara, while Thamyras is a master kitharistēs ‘citharist’, that is, one who plays on the kithara without singing. These artistic specialties are made explicit in another Platonic passage, which shows most of the central themes that figure in this chapter:

3ⓣ1 Plato Ion 533b-c

ΣΩ. Ἀλλὰ μήν, ὥς γ’ ἐγὼ οἶμαι, οὐδ’ ἐν αὐλήσει γε οὐδὲ ἐν κιθαρίσει οὐδὲ ἐν κιθαρῳδίᾳ οὐδὲ ἐν ῥαψῳδίᾳ οὐδεπώποτ’ εἶδες ἄνδρα ὅστις περὶ μὲν ᾿Ολύμπου δεινός ἐστιν ἐξηγεῖσθαι ἢ περὶ Θαμύρου ἢ περὶ {c} ᾿Ορφέως ἢ περὶ Φημίου τοῦ Ἰθακησίου ῥαψῳδοῦ, περὶ δὲ Ἴωνος τοῦ Ἐφεσίου [ῥαψῳδοῦ] ἀπορεῖ καὶ οὐκ ἔχει συμβαλέσθαι ἅ τε εὖ ῥαψῳδεῖ καὶ ἃ μή.

3§30 We find in Plato’s Ion an explicit reference to such ‘competition [agōn] in mousikē’:

ΣΩ. Τὸν Ἴωνα χαίρειν. πόθεν τὰ νῦν ἡμῖν ἐπιδεδήμηκας; ἢ οἴκοθεν ἐξ Ἐφέσου;

ΙΩΝ. Οὐδαμῶς, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἀλλ’ ἐξ Ἐπιδαύρου ἐκ τῶν Ἀσκληπιείων.

ΣΩ. Μῶν καὶ ῥαψῳδῶν ἀγῶνα τιθέασιν τῷ θεῷ οἱ Ἐπιδαύριοι;

ΙΩΝ. Πάνυ γε, καὶ τῆς ἄλλης γε μουσικῆς.

ΣΩ. Τί οὖν; ἠγωνίζου τι ἡμῖν; καὶ πῶς τι ἠγωνίσω; {b}

ΙΩΝ. Τὰ πρῶτα τῶν ἄθλων ἠνεγκάμεθα, ὦ Σώκρατες.

ΣΩ. Εὖ λέγεις· ἄγε δὴ ὅπως καὶ τὰ Παναθήναια νικήσομεν.

ΙΩΝ. Ἀλλ’ ἔσται ταῦτα, ἐὰν θεὸς ἐθέλῃ.

ΣΩ. Καὶ μὴν πολλάκις γε ἐζήλωσα ὑμᾶς τοὺς ῥαψῳδούς, ὦ Ἴων, τῆς τέχνης· τὸ γὰρ ἅμα μὲν τὸ σῶμα κεκοσμῆσθαι ἀεὶ πρέπον ὑμῶν εἶναι τῇ τέχνῃ καὶ ὡς καλλίστοις φαίνεσθαι, ἅμα δὲ ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι ἔν τε ἄλλοις ποιηταῖς διατρίβειν πολλοῖς καὶ ἀγαθοῖς καὶ δὴ καὶ μάλιστα ἐν Ὁμήρῳ, τῷ ἀρίστῳ καὶ θειοτάτῳ τῶν ποιητῶν, καὶ τὴν τούτου διάνοιαν {c} ἐκμανθάνειν, μὴ μόνον τὰ ἔπη, ζηλωτόν ἐστιν. οὐ γὰρ ἂν γένοιτό ποτε ἀγαθὸς ῥαψῳδός, εἰ μὴ συνείη τὰ λεγόμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ {363|364} ποιητοῦ. τὸν γὰρ ῥαψῳδὸν ἑρμηνέα δεῖ τοῦ ποιητοῦ τῆς διανοίας γίγνεσθαι τοῖς ἀκούουσι· τοῦτο δὲ καλῶς ποιεῖν μὴ γιγνώσκοντα ὅτι λέγει ὁ ποιητὴς ἀδύνατον. ταῦτα οὖν πάντα ἄξια ζηλοῦσθαι.

SOCRATES: Greetings to Ion. Where from, on this occasion of your visiting us here? Are you coming from your home city, Ephesus?

ION: Not at all, Socrates. I’m coming from Epidaurus, from the festival of Asklepios there.

SOCRATES: You don’t mean that the people of Epidaurus also [= like us Athenians] have a custom of holding a competition [agōn] of rhapsodes [rhapsōidoi]?

ION: Oh, but they do in fact. And they also have a custom of holding competitions in other kinds of mousikē.

ION: This will happen, if the god wills it.

3§32 At the agōn ‘competition’ in mousikē held at the Panathenaia, the contests of kitharōidoi ‘citharodes’ [= kithara-singers], of aulōidoi ‘aulodes’ [= aulos-singers], of kitharistai ‘citharists’ [= kithara-players], and of aulētai ‘auletes’ [= aulos-players] may have varied in content from one season to the next, but the overall content of what the rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’ had to perform was invariable – at least, it had become an invariable by the time we reach the age of Plato. In terms of my overall argumentation, that invariable was the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, performed season after season at the Panathenaia. This status of Homer at the Panathenaia is indicated by the wording of Plato’s Socrates in the passage I have just quoted. Socrates’ emphasis on Homer as {365|366} the best of poets is parallel to his emphasis on Homer as the featured poet par excellence at the agōnes ‘competitions’ of the Panathenaia.

3ⓣ3 Lycurgus Against Leokrates 102

βούλομαι δ᾿ ὑμῖν καὶ τὸν Ὅμηρον παρασχέσθαι ἐπαινῶν. οὕτω γὰρ ὑπέλαβον ὑμῶν οἱ πατέρες σπουδαῖον εἶναι ποιητήν, ὥστε νόμον ἔθεντο καθ᾿ ἑκάστην πενταετηρίδα τῶν Παναθηναίων μόνου τῶν ἄλλων ποιητῶν ῥαψῳδεῖσθαι τὰ ἔπη, ἐπίδειξιν ποιούμενοι πρὸς τοὺς Ἕλληνας ὅτι τὰ κάλλιστα τῶν ἔργων προῃροῦντο. {366|367}

3§34 To advance the argument further, I adduce three interconnected details. The first two come from the Ion of Plato, while the third comes from the Panegyricus of Isocrates. {367|368}

3§38 The third and decisive interconnected detail comes from a passage in the Panegyricus of Isocrates, concerning the repertoire of rhapsodes competing with each other in the athloi ‘contests’ in mousikē at the Panathenaia:

3ⓣ4 Isocrates (4) Panegyricus 159

οἶμαι δὲ καὶ τὴν ῾Ομήρου ποίησιν μείζω λαβεῖν δόξαν ὅτι καλῶς τοὺς πολεμήσαντας τοῖς βαρβάροις ἐνεκωμίασεν καὶ διὰ τοῦτο βουληθῆναι τοὺς προγόνους ἡμῶν ἔντιμον αὐτοῦ ποιῆσαι τὴν {369|370} τέχνην ἔν τε τοῖς τῆς μουσικῆς ἄθλοις καὶ τῇ παιδεύσει τῶν νεωτέρων, ἵνα πολλάκις ἀκούοντες τῶν ἐπῶν ἐκμανθάνωμεν τὴν ἔχθραν τὴν ὑπάρχουσαν πρὸς αὐτοὺς καὶ ζηλοῦντες τὰς ἀρετὰς τῶν στρατευσαμένων τῶν αὐτῶν ἔργων ἐκείνοις ἐπιθυμῶμεν.

3§39 In the reference that this contemporary of Plato is making here to Homer, the wording assumes that the epics performed at the Panathenaia were totally familiar to all Athenians. Such epics, in the Athens of Isocrates and Plato in the fourth century BCE, can only be the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey. Even in the general usage of Isocrates (2.48; 10.65; 12.18, 33, 293; 13.2), we find that the term Homer refers to no poet other than the poet of the Iliad and Odyssey. The same goes for the general usage of Plato himself (a case in point is Ion 539d).

3§42 What, then, is the formal difference in Plato’s Ion between Phemios the ‘rhapsode’ and Orpheus the ‘citharode’ or ‘kithara-singer’? After all, Orpheus – just like Phemios – is imagined as singing and accompanying himself on the kithara. The difference is that Phemios, as a ‘rhapsode’, is a worthy point of comparison for Homer as the ultimate poet, whereas Orpheus, as a ‘citharode’, is not. The ‘music’ of Phemios as a rhapsode is central at the Panathenaia in the days of Plato, whereas the ‘music’ of Orpheus is marginalized. Even as a citharode, Orpheus is mockingly marginalized:

3ⓣ5 Plato Symposium 179d-e

᾿Ορφέα δὲ τὸν Οἰάγρου ἀτελῆ ἀπέπεμψαν ἐξ ᾍδου, φάσμα δείξαντες τῆς γυναικὸς ἐφ’ ἣν ἧκεν, αὐτὴν δὲ οὐ δόντες, ὅτι μαλθακίζεσθαι ἐδόκει, ἅτε ὢν κιθαρῳδός, καὶ οὐ τολμᾶν ἕνεκα τοῦ ἔρωτος ἀποθνῄσκειν ὥσπερ Ἄλκηστις, ἀλλὰ διαμηχανᾶσθαι ζῶν εἰσιέναι εἰς {371|372} ᾍδου. τοιγάρτοι διὰ ταῦτα δίκην αὐτῷ ἐπέθεσαν, καὶ ἐποίησαν τὸν θάνατον αὐτοῦ ὑπὸ γυναικῶν {e} γενέσθαι

3§46 Thus the generic rhapsode performing the poetry of Homer at the Panathenaia becomes a generalized representative of poetry as ‘music’: his identity extends from the prototypical singer who sings Homeric song all the way to the contemporary rhapsode who recites Homeric poetry. By extension, Ion the rhapsode may at first seem like a generalized representative of poetry in his own right, for the simple reason that he is a representative of Homeric poetry. To the extent that Homer the poet is considered a generalist, not a specialist, so too the rhapsode who performs Homer may at first seem like a generalist in poetry.

3ⓢ5. Plato’s attempt to discredit the Panathenaic standard

3§49 In the context of the Panathenaia, the figure of Homer evolved to the point of becoming the all-sufficient poet, the ultimate generalist in poetry. By the age of Plato, the feast of the Panathenaia could leave no room for any poet other than Homer in the rhapsodic competitions – no Hesiod, no Archilochus – not to mention Orpheus and Musaeus or the poets of the epic Cycle. Only in the citharodic – and the aulodic – competitions at the Panathenaia was there room left for other poets, and these poets had to be non-epic poets, that is, so-called lyric poets like Simonides.

3§50 And yet, all early poets are linked, says Plato’s Socrates, to the single and absolute source of poetic or ‘musical’ inspiration, the Muses. Just as rhapsodes are hermēneis ‘interpreters’ of poets, so also poets are hermēneis ‘interpreters’ {374|375} of the Muses (Ion 535b). I am about to quote a passage from Plato’s Ion (536a-c) where a collectivized concept of the Muses as a single absolute source of all poetry or ‘music’ – in the literal sense of mousikē ‘craft [tekhnē] of the Muses’ – is expressed by Socrates through the metaphor of the Heraclean or Magnesian stone, that is, the magnet (Ion 533d). Poets are imagined as metallic rings directly ‘linked’ to a prototypical magnet of poetic inspiration, the Muses. Poets, as direct links to the magnet, are the prōtoi daktulioi ‘first rings’. As we are about to see, Plato’s Socrates expresses the direct ‘linkage’ of the metallic rings to the prototypical magnet by way of the verb exartân ‘link’, which I will translate as ‘magnetically link’, and he makes it explicit that the poets symbolized by the metallic rings are likewise prototypical, namely, Orpheus, Musaeus, and Homer – in that order:

3ⓣ6 Plato Ion 536a-c

καὶ ὁ μὲν τῶν ποιητῶν ἐξ ἄλλης Μούσης, ὁ δὲ ἐξ ἄλλης ἐξήρτηται. ὀνομάζομεν δὲ αὐτὸ κατέχεται, τὸ δέ {b} ἐστι παραπλήσιον· ἔχεται γάρ. ἐκ δὲ τούτων τῶν πρώτων δακτυλίων, τῶν ποιητῶν, ἄλλοι ἐξ ἄλλου αὖ ἠρτημένοι εἰσὶ καὶ ἐνθουσιάζουσιν, οἱ μὲν ἐξ ᾿Ορφέως, οἱ δὲ ἐκ Μουσαίου· οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ ἐξ ῾Ομήρου κατέχονταί τε καὶ ἔχονται. ὧν σύ, ὦ Ἴων, εἷς εἶ καὶ κατέχῃ ἐξ Ὁμήρου, καὶ ἐπειδὰν μέν τις ἄλλου του ποιητοῦ ᾄδῃ, καθεύδεις τε καὶ ἀπορεῖς ὅτι λέγῃς, ἐπειδὰν δὲ τούτου τοῦ ποιητοῦ φθέγξηταί τις μέλος, εὐθὺς ἐγρήγορας καὶ ὀρχεῖταί σου ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ εὐπορεῖς ὅτι {c} λέγῃς· οὐ γὰρ τέχνῃ οὐδ’ ἐπιστήμῃ περὶ Ὁμήρου λέγεις ἃ λέγεις, ἀλλὰ θείᾳ μοίρᾳ καὶ κατοκωχῇ.

3§51 Of supreme importance is the image of the First Rings (prōtoi daktulioi) as visualized here in Plato’s Ion (536b). The First Rings are symbols for the three First Poets, named here as Orpheus, Musaeus, and Homer – in that order. It is made clear that the performers of Homer outnumber by far the performers of Orpheus and Musaeus in the era of Socrates. One such performer of Homer is Ion the rhapsode, described as a Middle Ring in comparison to Homer. By implication, performers of Orpheus and Musaeus are likewise Middle Rings in comparison to Orpheus and Musaeus themselves, who are First Rings like Homer. As my argumentation proceeds, the image of the First Rings as symbols for First Poets will become ever more significant.

3§52 A figure like Ion, as a rhapsode, is not a prototypical poet. He is no First Ring. He is not even a poet. As a performer, the rhapsode is merely a Middle Ring linked magnetically to one of the First Rings, in this case, to Homer. Performers of epic and of drama are Middle Rings in relation to the poets of epic and of drama, who are First Rings, whereas the audiences watching rhapsodes performing Homer – and the audiences watching actors performing drama in the theater – are the Last Rings:

3ⓣ7 Plato Ion 535e-536a

ΣΩ. οἶσθα οὖν ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ θεατὴς τῶν δακτυλίων ὁ ἔσχατος, ὧν ἐγὼ ἔλεγον ὑπὸ τῆς Ἡρακλειώτιδος λίθου ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων τὴν δύναμιν λαμβάνειν; ὁ δὲ μέσος σὺ ὁ {536 a} ῥαψῳδὸς καὶ ὑποκριτής, ὁ δὲ πρῶτος αὐτὸς ὁ ποιητής. {376|377}

SOCRATES: Of course you know that this person we talked about, the spectator [theatēs] in the audience, is the last of the rings – I mean, the rings that get their power from each other through the force of the Heraclean stone. The middle ring is the rhapsode – that’s you [= Ion] – as well as the actor [hupokritēs]. And the first ring is the Poet [poiētēs] himself.

3§54 In order to discredit Ion, Plato’s Socrates has in effect disconnected the prestige of Ion as the performer of Homeric poetry from the prestige of Homer as the notional composer of Homeric poetry. This way, the prestige of Homer is not directly challenged, just as the prestige of Homeric poetry as the {377|378} premier poetic event of the Panathenaia cannot be challenged. The idea of Homer as the all-sufficient and all-encompassing Poet is a given. It is already a historical reality.

3§55 The dominant status of Homeric poetry is not the only historical reality relevant to the argument in Plato’s Ion. Another reality is the dominant status of the actual craft of rhapsodically performing – and interpreting – Homeric poetry at the Panathenaia in the dramatic time of Plato’s dialogues. I say craft in view of the explicit designation rhapsōidikē tekhnē ‘rhapsodic craft’ as we see it applied by Plato’s Socrates at later stages of his argumentation in the Ion (538b, 538c, 538d, 539e, 540a, 540d, 541a). Thus the rhapsōidikē tekhnē ‘rhapsodic craft’ of the Panathenaic rhapsode is another given. It too is already a historical reality.

3§56 At the earliest stages of his argumentation in the Ion, however, Plato’s Socrates avoids referring to this tekhnē of the rhapsode. Instead, he speaks only about the overall craft of the poet, which is designated as poiētikē tekhnē ‘poetic craft’, and he induces Ion to admit that this craft is a holon, an integral whole, just like other tekhnai (532c). (For the moment, I translate poiētikē as ‘poetic craft’, but it is more accurate to render this word as ‘craft of composition’, since the poiētēs as ‘poet’ is the composer par excellence in the verbal arts.) Then Socrates induces Ion to admit that the craft of painters, graphikē tekhnē, is likewise a holon ‘whole’ (532e), and that craftsmen are like painters – and sculptors, he adds – in that they need to be experts in the totality of their respective crafts (532e-533b). By the time he speaks about the craft of sculptors, Plato’s Socrates has already omitted the word tekhnē. This omission facilitates his transition to the passage I have already quoted about craftsmen such as auletes and citharists and citharodes and rhapsodes (Ion 533b-c). Far from speaking of these craftsmen as representatives of separate crafts, Plato’s Socrates groups them together as representatives of a single craft, to which he had referred earlier as that integral whole, the poiētikē tekhnē. How could it be, asks Socrates, that any one of these craftsmen – auletes and citharists and citharodes and rhapsodes – could fail to be an expert in that integral whole, in that single craft of theirs, that is, in the poiētikē tekhnē? Ion, who has already accepted the premise that the poiētikē tekhnē is an integral whole, a holon, is now forced to admit that he simply cannot claim to be such an expert: instead, Ion is an expert only in one aspect of that craft, that is, in Homeric poetry (533c).

3§57 Next, Plato’s Socrates induces Ion to accept the idea that the rhapsode’s profession is therefore not even a matter of tekhnē but rather, a matter of inspiration (Ion 533e). By implication, the rhapsode is an expert only in the {378|379} craft of mousikē, the craft of the Muse who inspires poets, not in the craft of the poet himself, that is, in the craft of poiētikē. This way, as we have already seen, Ion’s authority as a rhapsode can still be validated as ‘magnetically’ linked to the authority of Homer as poet, which in turn is ‘magnetically’ linked to the authority of his inspiring Muse as the ultimate source – the ultimate inspiration. Once Ion accepts this idea, however, his authority as a thinker is thereby discredited: he has in effect admitted that, as a rhapsode, he has no mind of his own and simply speaks the mind of Homer. Only after the rhapsode has accepted the idea that he is an inspired performer does Socrates start speaking openly about the ‘rhapsodic craft’, rhapsōidikē tekhnē, in his continued dialogue with the rhapsode. By now it is safe for Socrates to speak this way. Since Ion has already been discredited as a thinker, he cannot invoke his prestigious rhapsodic craft as a source for independent thinking. Even the prestige of Homeric knowledge – to the extent that the rhapsode derives it from his rhapsodic craft – has been diminished: by now the rhapsode’s general knowledge seems less impressive than the specialized knowledge that other craftsmen derive from their own specialized crafts.

3§59 As the craft of rhapsodically performing Homeric poetry evolved in the context of ‘musical’ competitions at the Panathenaia, it had reached a level of prestige that overshadowed other forms of performance as they too evolved in the context of competitions at the same festival. I have already quoted the passage where these other forms are listed alongside the premier form, that is, {379|380} alongside the craft of rhapsodically performing Homeric poetry. Viewing by hindsight the Socratic attempt to shade over the importance of the premier form, I now requote the passage in order to highlight this importance:

3ⓣ8 Plato Ion 533b-c

ΣΩ. Ἀλλὰ μήν, ὥς γ’ ἐγὼ οἶμαι, οὐδ’ ἐν αὐλήσει γε οὐδὲ ἐν κιθαρίσει οὐδὲ ἐν κιθαρῳδίᾳ οὐδὲ ἐν ῥαψῳδίᾳ οὐδεπώποτ’ εἶδες ἄνδρα ὅστις περὶ μὲν ᾿Ολύμπου δεινός ἐστιν ἐξηγεῖσθαι ἢ περὶ Θαμύρου ἢ περὶ ᾿Ορφέως ἢ περὶ Φημίου τοῦ Ἰθακησίου ῥαψῳδοῦ, περὶ δὲ Ἴωνος τοῦ Ἐφεσίου [ῥαψῳδοῦ] ἀπορεῖ καὶ οὐκ ἔχει συμβαλέσθαι ἅ τε εὖ ῥαψῳδεῖ καὶ ἃ μή.

SOCRATES: Here is another thing. As far as I can tell, neither in [1] playing on the aulos [= aulēsis] nor in [2] playing on the kithara [= kitharisis] nor in [3] singing and playing on the kithara [= kitharōidia] nor in [4] performing as a rhapsode [= rhapsōidia] have you seen any man who is skilled at explaining about [1] Olympos or about [2] Thamyras or about [3] Orpheus or about [4] Phemios of Ithaca, the rhapsode – but who is perplexed about Ion of Ephesus and is unable to formulate what things Ion performs well as a rhapsode [= verb of rhapsōidos] and what things he does not.

3§61 In the passage I just requoted from Plato’s Ion (533b-c), the wording shows that any rhapsode who competes at the Panathenaia practices the craft of a performer, not the craft of a composer. The same holds for the crafts of the auletes and the citharists and the citharodes. All such craftsmen are being viewed as performers at festivals like the Panathenaia, not as composers. As {380|381} we take a closer look at the same passage, we discover that this view extends also to the prototypes of these craftsmen, that is, to Olympos, Thamyras, Orpheus, and Phemios. All four of these prototypical figures are viewed here as performers in their own right, not as composers per se.

3§63 From what we have already seen about Phemios, we can picture him as a self-representation of Homer in Homer. And yet, the self that is Homer changes over time. When Phemios is equated with a rhapsode in Plato’s Ion, this equation implies that Phemios is no longer a poet like Homer, since the rhapsode who competes at the Panathenaia is no composer like Homer but merely a performer of Homer. To equate the Panathenaic rhapsode with the self-represented Homer that is Phemios is to detract from Homer the Poet. If Phemios in the Homeric Odyssey is merely performing but not composing, like some rhapsode competing at the Panathenaia, then he has no say about determining the content of what he performs. Such a recreated Homer can only say what Homer is saying. And what exactly is it that Homer is saying? According to Plato’s Socrates, Homer in turn can only say what the Muses are saying.

3§65 What, then, is the poetry of Homer for the rhapsode? As we saw in the passage I quoted earlier from Isocrates (Panegyricus 159), Homeric poiēsis ‘poetry’ is a tekhnē ‘craft’ that is activated in two linked contexts: (1) the Panathenaic athloi ‘contests’ of rhapsodes in mousikē ‘musical craft’ and (2) the paideusis ‘education’ of the young. The wording of Isocrates, as quoted above, makes it clear that Homeric poetry is a tekhnē ‘craft’ in its own right, and that it counts as part of the overall mousikē ‘musical craft’ of the Panathenaic athloi ‘contests’ (Panegyricus 159).

3§66 Unlike Isocrates, however, who implicitly identifies the craft of the rhapsode with the craft of Homer, Plato seeks to make a distinction between the two crafts. He does this by implicitly making a distinction between the crafts of mousikē and poiētikē, as if the rhapsode were an expert only in the craft of mousikē, not in the craft of poiētikē.

3§67 Already at the very beginning of the Ion, Plato’s Socrates had drawn Ion’s attention away from Homeric poetry as a tekhnē ‘craft’ in its own right by speaking instead about the more general concept of poiētikē tekhnē ‘poetic craft’. Once Socrates induces Ion to admit that the poiētikē tekhnē is a holon ‘whole’ (532c), much like the tekhnai ‘crafts’ of painting and sculpting (532e-533b), he has already succeeded in discrediting the craft of performing and teaching Homeric poiēsis ‘poetry’. Such performing and teaching is in effect the rhapsōidikē tekhnē of Ion. In order to emphasize the universalized importance of Ion’s craft, I repeat once again the formulation of Isocrates: the tekhnē ‘craft’ of Homeric poiēsis ‘poetry’ is coextensive with the paideusis ‘education’ of the young. Ion has unwittingly discredited his own tekhnē once he admits that he is a specialist in Homer. Moreover, in order to validate his specialty, he is forced to deny that his tekhnē is really a tekhnē.

3§68 Plato’s Socrates has forced Ion to make a choice: the rhapsode’s authority comes either from inspiration or from the poiētikē tekhnē, the craft of poetry. Ion is forced to choose inspiration as the source of his ultimate authority, since that inspiration comes ultimately from the Muses of Homer. Ion is not allowed to claim the craft of poetry as his ultimate authority because he is forced to admit that he is a master in only one aspect of that craft, that is, {382|383} in Homeric poetry. Moreover, he is a master in only two of three aspects of that poetry, that is, in performing and interpreting it; he not a master in the third aspect, that is, in composing Homeric poetry.

3§69 Plato’s Ion has to make a choice that a rhapsode need not have had to make, between tekhnē and inspiration. Provided the rhapsode insists that his craft is really a craft, a specialized rhapsōidikē tekhnē instead of the generalized poiētikē tekhnē, he can have his own tekhnē and still claim to be inspired by the Muses of Homer. With his specialized craft, he can lay claim to the generalized and even universalized paideusis ‘education’ represented by the poiēsis ‘poetry’ of Homer, since his rhapsōidikē tekhnē is part of the overall mousikē tekhnē of performing at the Panathenaia.

3§70 The time has come to summarize the distinctions in the meanings of rhapsōidikē, mousikē, and poiētikē as applied to the word tekhnē ‘craft’ in the age of Plato. The rhapsōidikē tekhnē is the craft of performing recitative poetry at agōnes / athloi ‘contests, competitions’, especially at the Panathenaia. The mousikē tekhnē is the craft of performing (1) recitative poetry or (2) song and / or (3) instrumental ‘music’ (in the modern sense of the word) at these same agōnes / athloi ‘contests, competitions’. The poiētikē tekhnē is the craft of composing – but not necessarily performing – in the media of mousikē tekhnē that we have seen so far and in other media as well, including tragedy, comedy, dithyramb, satyr drama, and so on. In the opening of Aristotle’s Poetics, which is, in Greek terms, a discourse about poiētikē tekhnē, we see a definition that validates in many ways the working definition that I have just offered:

3ⓣ9 Aristotle Poetics 1447a8-18

περὶ ποιητικῆς αὐτῆς τε καὶ τῶν εἰδῶν αὐτῆς, ἥν τινα δύναμιν ἕκαστον ἔχει, καὶ πῶς δεῖ συνίστασθαι τοὺς μύθους εἰ μέλλει καλῶς ἕξειν ἡ ποίησις, ἔτι δὲ ἐκ πόσων καὶ ποίων ἐστὶ μορίων, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων ὅσα τῆς αὐτῆς ἐστι μεθόδου, λέγωμεν ἀρξάμενοι κατὰ φύσιν πρῶτον ἀπὸ τῶν πρώτων. ἐποποιία δὴ καὶ ἡ τῆς τραγῳδίας ποίησις ἔτι δὲ κωμῳδία καὶ ἡ διθυραμβοποιητικὴ καὶ τῆς αὐλητικῆς ἡ πλείστη καὶ κιθαριστικῆς πᾶσαι τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι μιμήσεις τὸ σύνολον· διαφέρουσι δὲ ἀλλήλων τρισίν, ἢ γὰρ τῷ ἐν ἑτέροις μιμεῖσθαι ἢ τῷ ἕτερα ἢ τῷ ἑτέρως καὶ μὴ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον.

3§72 By contrast with the composition of Homeric poetry, we have seen in Plato’s Ion that the actual performance of this poetry had achieved a most specialized status as the craft of the rhapsode, rhapsōidikē tekhnē. For Plato’s Socrates, this craft is no craft at all, and only the overall poiētikē tekhnē may be considered as a holon, a ‘whole’, comparable to the categories of painting or sculpting, each of which is likewise a craft that may be considered as a whole. As a category, the generalized craft of composing poetry cannot have as a subcategory the specialized craft of composing Homeric poetry – let alone any specialized craft of performing Homeric poetry. Plato’s thinking here is contradicted by Aristotle’s Poetics, where the generalized craft of composing poetry is a category that can in fact have as a subcategory the specialized craft of composing Homeric poetry – though this specialized craft is expressed in a most generalized way.

3§74 How, then, can the rhapsode defend himself against the dialectic of Plato’s Socrates? In order to maintain Homer as a generalist in the poiētikē tekhnē, the rhapsode must insist on being a specialist in the rhapsōidikē tekhnē. That way, he maintains a prestige that is coextensive with the prestige of Homer as a universal educator of Hellenes. Since the rhapsode, as a master of the rhapsōidikē tekhnē, is a specialist performer but not a specialist composer, he cannot be considered a master of the poiētikē tekhnē. Since the rhapsode is a specialist in performing recitative poetry, to the exclusion of other forms of poetry as also of song and ‘music’ (in the modern sense of the word), he cannot be considered a master of the mousikē tekhnē, either. {385|386}

3§76 But Plato has taken away from the rhapsode the tekhnē of mousikē as a true tekhnē or ‘craft’. As far as Plato is concerned, the rhapsode cannot really have a tekhnē or ‘craft’ if he is really inspired by the Muses. That craft belongs only to the poet, who is Homer. For Plato, Homer is the inspired creator or poet, whereas the rhapsode is merely an inspired re-creator. The rhapsode is merely a Second Ring to Homer’s First Ring, just as the actor of drama is merely a Second Ring to the poets of drama, who are First Rings like Homer. The magnetic force of the Magnesian Stone, which is the source of inspiration by the Muses, attracts rhapsodes and actors only as re-creators, not as the creators who are the poets themselves – poets who have mastered the craft of the Muses as a true craft.

Excursus on Plato’s Laws

3§78 In the old ideal state of Plato’s Republic, Homer needed to be banned as the primary representative of the poiētikē tekhnē, the craft of the Poet. As {386|387} for the new ideal state of Magnesia in Plato’s Laws, would Homer need to be banned from here as well? No, not really – not if we think retrospectively in terms of all the works produced by Plato before his final work, the Laws. In those previous works, especially in the Ion, Homer figured as the primary representative of two crafts – not only the poiētikē tekhnē, the craft of poets, but also the mousikē tekhnē, the craft of the Muses. So why would there be a need to ban from the city of the inspiring Muses someone who is actually inspired by the Muses?

3§80 The mousikē of philosophy is all-pervasive in Plato’s Laws (a shining example is 2.658e-659a). And the pattern has already been set in Plato’s earlier works. In the Phaedrus (259d), for example, the Muses Kalliope and Ourania are explicitly named as the transcendent Muses of this mousikē of philosophy: Plato’s cicadas report to these two Muses the good deeds of philosophers, since it is the mousikē of Kalliope and Ourania that philosophers hold in honor (τῇ δὲ πρεσβυτάτῃ Καλλιόπῃ καὶ τῇ μετ’ αὐτὴν Οὐρανίᾳ τοὺς ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ διάγοντάς τε καὶ τιμῶντας τὴν ἐκείνων μουσικὴν ἀγγέλλουσιν).

3§82 From the standpoint of the overall philosophical legacy of Plato’s Socrates, the mousikē of philosophy will survive his death in Plato’s Phaedo. It will live on in Plato’s Laws, that is, it will live on in a virtual city named after the magnetic force of inspiration emanating from the Muses of philosophy. And these inspiring Muses of philosophy will surely not need Homer as master of the mousikē tekhnē.

3§85 In Magnesia as their own city of inspiration, the Muses of philosophy will reorganize their craft as the new mousikē tekhnē of philosophy. There will now be new poets who will be masters of this new craft (Laws 7.801d5). Plato’s ideal poet of the future, who is to be synchronically vetted by all, is like the ideal poet of the past, Homer, who has been diachronically vetted by all in the history and prehistory of the mousikoi agōnes ‘competitions in the craft of mousikē’ at the Panathenaia.

3§86 Even the genres of song and poetry as represented by the old mousikē tekhnē will now be reorganized in terms of the new mousikē tekhnē. So the genres of song and poetry will now be reorganized in terms of Plato’s philosophical agenda.

3§87 Here I come to a most suggestive passage in Plato’s Laws dealing with mousikoi agōnes ‘competitions in the craft of mousikē’ as reorganized at Magnesia. As we are about to see, the genres of song and dance to be performed at the festivals of Magnesia are recognizable as the same genres of song and dance performed at the festivals of the Panathenaia and the City Dionysia in Athens:

3ⓣ10 Plato Laws 6.764c-765a

Μουσικῆς δὲ τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο καὶ γυμναστικῆς ἄρχοντας καθίστασθαι πρέπον ἂν εἴη, διττοὺς ἑκατέρων, τοὺς μὲν παιδείας αὐτῶν ἕνεκα, τοὺς δὲ ἀγωνιστικῆς. παιδείας μὲν βούλεται λέγειν ὁ νόμος γυμνασίων καὶ διδασκαλείων {d} ἐπιμελητὰς κόσμου καὶ {389|390} παιδεύσεως ἅμα καὶ τῆς περὶ ταῦτα ἐπιμελείας τῶν φοιτήσεών τε πέρι καὶ οἰκήσεων ἀρρένων καὶ θηλειῶν κορῶν, ἀγωνίας δέ, ἔν τε τοῖς γυμνικοῖς καὶ περὶ τὴν μουσικὴν ἀθλοθέτας ἀθληταῖς, διττοὺς αὖ τούτους, περὶ μουσικὴν μὲν ἑτέρους, περὶ ἀγωνίαν δ’ ἄλλους. ἀγωνιστικῆς μὲν οὖν ἀνθρώπων τε καὶ ἵππων τοὺς αὐτούς, μουσικῆς δὲ ἑτέρους μὲν τοὺς περὶ μονῳδίαν τε καὶ μιμητικήν, οἷον {e} ῥαψῳδῶν καὶ κιθαρῳδῶν καὶ αὐλητῶν καὶ πάντων τῶν τοιούτων ἀθλοθέτας ἑτέρους πρέπον ἂν εἴη γίγνεσθαι, τῶν δὲ περὶ χορῳδίαν ἄλλους. πρῶτον δὴ περὶ τὴν τῶν χορῶν παιδιὰν παίδων τε καὶ ἀνδρῶν καὶ θηλειῶν κορῶν ἐν ὀρχήσεσι καὶ τῇ τάξει τῇ ἁπάσῃ γιγνομένῃ μουσικῇ τοὺς ἄρχοντας αἱρεῖσθαί που χρεών· ἱκανὸς δὲ εἷς ἄρχων αὐτοῖς, {765a} μὴ ἔλαττον τετταράκοντα γεγονὼς ἐτῶν. ἱκανὸς δὲ καὶ περὶ μονῳδίαν εἷς, μὴ ἔλαττον ἢ τριάκοντα γεγονὼς ἐτῶν, εἰσαγωγεύς τε εἶναι καὶ τοῖς ἁμιλλωμένοις τὴν διάκρισιν ἱκανῶς ἀποδιδούς.

Next, it would be fitting to institute directors [arkhontes] of mousikē and of athletics, two kinds of each. For one kind, their task is to be education [paideia], and, for the other, it is to be the supervision of competitive events [agōnistikē]. In connection with education [paideia], the law specifies a body of officials who supervise general order [kosmos] and the task of teaching in gymnasia and in schools, while at the same time supervising related matters such as going to and from school for boys and girls as well as the maintenance of their school buildings. In connection with competitive activity [agōnia], the law specifies two kinds of athlothetai, one kind for contestants [athlētai] in athletics and another kind for contestants in mousikē; once again there is to be a division into two kinds, the one having to do with mousikē, the other with agōnia in general [= competition in athletics]. The same ones who set up the athletic contests of men are to set up the contests involving horses; but in mousikē it would be fitting that there be one set of athlothetai for solo singing [monōidia] and mimēsis – as for example in the case of rhapsodes, citharodes, auletes, and the like – and another set for choral singing [khorōidia]. First and foremost, the arkhontes should be chosen for the choruses of boys and men and girls with a view to supervise the playful spontaneity of their dancing and its overall arrangement in terms of mousikē. One arkhōn will be adequate for the choruses. He should be not less than forty years of age. One arkhōn will also be adequate for {390|391} the induction of the solo singers and for rendering adequate judgment in selecting from among the competitors. He should be not less than thirty years of age.

3§88 In this passage, I draw special attention to Plato’s use of the word athlothetai, which I have translated earlier as ‘arrangers of the athloi’, that is, of the contests or competitions. As we have already seen, this term applies to officials at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens who organized the athloi ‘contests’ among rhapsodes, citharodes, auletes, and so on. Whereas the competitive events at the Panathenaia involved only solo performances of epic or lyric compositions, the competitive events at the City Dionysia involved mostly choral performances of lyric compositions. So the distinction between monōidia ‘solo singing’ and khorōidia ‘choral singing’ in what I have just quoted from the Laws replicates an institutional reality grounded in Athens.

3§89 But this reality, as well as other institutional realities grounded in Athens, becomes merely a refraction of reality in the ideal state of Magnesia. The idealized festivals in this ideal state do not match the real festivals of the Panathenaia and the City Dionysia in the real state of Athens. The Olympian gods who are celebrated at those Athenian festivals, Athena and Dionysus, will have to find new places in a new system of idealized festivals that will be redistributed among all twelve Olympian gods. The ideal city of Magnesia will have twelve heortai ‘festivals’, each of them featuring both khoroi and mousikoi agōnes (as well as athletic events) and each of them celebrating one of the twelve Olympians (Laws 8.828b-c; also 7.834d-e). So the existing differentiations between, say, the Panathenaia and the City Dionysia will be undone. If one old festival had only monōidia while the other had only khorōidia, these two media will now have to coexist in any given new festival. Even if Athens had mousikoi agōnes only at the Panathenaia but not at the City Dionysia, or choral competitions only at the City Dionysia but not at the Panathenaia, Magnesia will have both kinds of competition at each one of its twelve festivals. That is why the athlothetai of Magnesia, unlike the athlothetai of Athens, will supervise the more generalized medium of khorōidia as well as the more specialized medium of monōidia. And both of these media will now be subsumed under the most general of all media in Magnesia, the medium of mousikē.

3§90 In effect, then, Plato has succeeded in diachronically reconstructing the most primal and therefore most undifferentiated sense of mousikē as the ‘craft of the Muses’, but he has reassigned this primal sense by taking it away {391|392} from poetry and songmaking in general and giving it instead to philosophy. In Magnesia, the magnetic force emanating as inspiration from the Muses is the mousikē of philosophy, not the mousikē of poetry.

3§91 In the mousikē of Magnesia, we can still recognize traces of the ancient poetic craft as preserved in such institutions as the Athenian mousikoi agōnes ‘competitions in mousikē’ at the Panathenaia. A prime example is the passage I quoted about the performances of rhapsodes, citharodes, and auletes (Laws 6.764c5-e10). But such performances in Magnesia are no longer linked to the old mousikē of poetry, since that craft has been replaced by the new mousikē of philosophy. True, the medium of the rhapsode can still be associated with Homer in the new world of this new mousikē (as in Laws 2.658b). But the point is, Homer can no longer be the ultimate standard that he had been once upon a time, back in the old world of the old mousikē of poetry.

3§92 The mousikē of Plato’s Laws, even though it is new in terms of its function, is old in terms of its form. As I have just argued, Plato’s model of mousikē amounts to a diachronic reconstruction of a primal time when the more specialized medium of monōidia ‘solo singing’ and the more general medium of khorōidia ‘choral singing’ were as yet undifferentiated (such a reconstruction is most evident in Laws 3.700a-701b and 7.816c-d). Whereas the competitions in mousikē at the Panathenaia in Athens centered on the more specialized medium of monōidia ‘solo singing’, the corresponding competitions envisioned for the new state of Magnesia could accommodate the more general medium of khorōidia as well. Such khorōidia corresponds to what we see in the competitions at the City Dionysia in Athens.

3§93 In Plato’s Magnesia, then, the basic idea of khorōidia is merged with the even more basic idea of mousikē. We see another example of this merger in Plato’s vision of khorōidia in Egyptian civilization. The Egyptian khorōidia is seen as a primal form of mousikē (Laws 2.656e-657b).

3§94 Such a primal form of mousikē is meant to be revived in Magnesia, where monōidia and khorōidia are to remain undifferentiated. This ideal of undifferentiation avoids the reality of the differentiations we see attested in Athens. We can see only a refraction of that reality in Plato’s Laws.

3ⓢ6. Orpheus and Homer

3§95 As a specialist in performance, the Panathenaic rhapsode is made to seem closer to Orpheus than to Homer in Plato’s Ion. As we have already seen, Orpheus himself is envisioned as a specialist in performance, to be contrasted with Homer as the generalist in composition, that is, in poiēsis ‘poetry’. One {392|393} aspect of this contrast, as we have also already seen, is the specialization of Orpheus in his association with the humnos, whereas Homer’s association with this form is general rather than specific. As we are now about to see, there is another dimension in the contrast between Homer the generalist and Orpheus the specialist. It involves the mysticism of Orphic poetry, to be contrasted with the general non-mysticism of Homeric poetry.

3§96 A traditional characteristic of Orpheus is that his language was understood to be mystical, delving into mysteries of initiation, whereas no such special characteristics applied to the language of Homer. In Chapter 2, I already quoted a passage from Plato’s Theaetetus that illustrates this point (179e-180d). Here I requote only the most relevant portion of that passage:

3ⓣ11 Plato Theaetetus 180c-d

ΣΩ. Καὶ μετρίως γε λέγεις. τὸ δὲ δὴ πρόβλημα ἄλλο τι παρειλήφαμεν παρὰ μὲν τῶν ἀρχαίων μετὰ ποιήσεως {d} ἐπικρυπτομένων τοὺς πολλούς, ὡς ἡ γένεσις τῶν ἄλλων πάντων ᾿Ωκεανός τε καὶ Τηθὺςῥεύματα <ὄντα> τυγχάνει καὶ οὐδὲν ἕστηκε, παρὰ δὲ τῶν ὑστέρων ἅτε σοφωτέρων ἀναφανδὸν ἀποδεικνυμένων, ἵνα καὶ οἱ σκυτοτόμοι αὐτῶν τὴν σοφίαν μάθωσιν ἀκούσαντες καὶ παύσωνται ἠλιθίως οἰόμενοι τὰ μὲν ἑστάναι, τὰ δὲ κινεῖσθαι τῶν ὄντων, μαθόντες δὲ ὅτι πάντα κινεῖται τιμῶσιν αὐτούς;

3ⓣ12 Hippias FGH 6 F 4 = DK B 6 via Clement of Alexandria Stromateis 6.15 (II pp. 434-435 Stählin)

Ἱππίαν τὸν σοφιστὴν τὸν Ἠλεῖον … παραστησώμεθα ὧδέ πως λέγοντα· “τούτων ἴσως εἴρηται τὰ μὲν ᾿Ορφεῖ, τὰ δὲ Μουσαίῳ κατὰ βραχὺ ἄλλῳ ἀλλαχοῦ, τὰ δὲ ῾Ησιόδῳ, τὰ δὲ ῾Ομήρῳ, τὰ δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις τῶν ποιητῶν, τὰ δὲ ἐν συγγραφαῖς, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι, τὰ δὲ βαρβάροις· ἐγὼ δὲ ἐκ πάντων τούτων τὰ μέγιστα καὶ ὁμόφυλα συνθεὶς τοῦτον καινὸν καὶ πολυειδῆ τὸν λόγον ποιήσομαι.”

3§100 The same sequence of canonical ordering is evident in a passage from the Frogs of Aristophanes, where the stage-Aeschylus is speaking in mock-mystical style about the social benefits conferred by the poetry of the four most ancient poets of the Hellenes:

3ⓣ13 Aristophanes Frogs 1030-1036

3§101 In this extract from Aristophanes, we see that the rationale implicit in the sequencing of these four poets is not only chronological, starting ‘from the beginning’ (ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς). The rationale is also qualitative, centering on a contrast between the mystical nature of an earlier Orpheus and the non-mystical nature of a later Homer. Such a contrast is evident elsewhere as well, as we see in a passage from Plato’s Protagoras where Protagoras of Abdera describes Orpheus and Musaeus as exponents of teletai ‘mysteries’ and khrēsmōidiai ‘oracular songs’, whereas Hesiod and Homer – along with the lyric poet Simonides – are described simply in terms of poiēsis ‘poetry’: {396|397}

3ⓣ14 Plato Protagoras 316c-d

ὀρθῶς, ἔφη, προμηθῇ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ. ξένον γὰρ ἄνδρα καὶ ἰόντα εἰς πόλεις μεγάλας, καὶ ἐν ταύταις πείθοντα τῶν νέων τοὺς βελτίστους ἀπολείποντας τὰς τῶν ἄλλων συνουσίας, καὶ οἰκείων καὶ ὀθνείων, καὶ πρεσβυτέρων καὶ νεωτέρων, ἑαυτῷ συνεῖναι ὡς βελτίους ἐσομένους διὰ {d} τὴν ἑαυτοῦ συνουσίαν, χρὴ εὐλαβεῖσθαι τὸν ταῦτα πράττοντα· οὐ γὰρ σμικροὶ περὶ αὐτὰ φθόνοι τε γίγνονται καὶ ἄλλαι δυσμένειαί τε καὶ ἐπιβουλαί. ἐγὼ δὲ τὴν σοφιστικὴντέχνην φημὶ μὲν εἶναι παλαιάν, τοὺς δὲ μεταχειριζομένους αὐτὴν τῶν παλαιῶν ἀνδρῶν, φοβουμένους τὸ ἐπαχθὲς αὐτῆς, πρόσχημα ποιεῖσθαι καὶ προκαλύπτεσθαι, τοὺς μὲν ποίησιν, οἷον ῞Ομηρόν τε καὶ ῾Ησίοδον καὶ Σιμωνίδην, τοὺς δὲ αὖ τελετάς τε καὶ χρησμῳδίας, τοὺς ἀμφί τε ᾿Ορφέα καὶ Μουσαῖον·

You are thinking ahead correctly, Socrates, on my behalf. For when a man goes as a stranger to great cities, and in them persuades the best of the young men to leave their other associations, relatives, and acquaintances old and young, and associate with him, so that they will be as good as possible through their association with himself, he who does these things must beware. For all kinds of not inconsiderable envy come about concerning these things, and other kinds of ill will, and plots.

3§102 According to this scheme, Homer and Hesiod – along with Simonides – are generalists in poiēsis ‘poetry’, whereas Orpheus and Musaeus are specialists, that is, experts in mysteries and in specialized poetry concerned with mysteries. This distinction, as it plays out in the Protagoras of {397|398} Plato, evidently extends to the portrayal of Protagoras himself, who claims mastery of a special kind of tekhnē ‘craft’ that aims to conceal and to mystify. He calls it the sophistikē tekhnē, the craft of the sophist.

3§104 Having made this comment on the ‘sophistic craft’ as applied to Protagoras, I return to the problem at hand, that is, the distinction being made in Plato’s Protagoras between the general poetry of Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides on one hand and the mystical poetry of Orpheus and Musaeus on the other. As I was saying, this distinction in the Protagoras of Plato extends to the portrayal of Protagoras himself, who claims mastery of a special kind of tekhnē ‘craft’ that has the power to conceal and to mystify. As I was also saying, that craft is the craft of the sophist, the sophistikē tekhnē.

3§105 Plato’s wording pictures Protagoras attended by an ensemble of enthralled followers, devotees recruited from the various cities he visited, who are imagined as a choral ensemble of singers / dancers enchanted by Orpheus himself:

3ⓣ15 Plato Protagoras 314e-315b

ἐπειδὴ δὲ εἰσήλθομεν, κατελάβομεν Πρωταγόραν ἐν τῷ προστῴῳ περιπατοῦντα, ἑξῆς δ’ αὐτῷ συμπεριεπάτουν ἐκ μὲν τοῦ ἐπὶ θάτερα {398|399} Καλλίας ὁ Ἱππονίκου καὶ ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ {315a} ὁ ὁμομήτριος, Πάραλος ὁ Περικλέους, καὶ Χαρμίδης ὁ Γλαύκωνος, ἐκ δὲ τοῦ ἐπὶ θάτερα ὁ ἕτερος τῶν Περικλέους Ξάνθιππος, καὶ Φιλιππίδης ὁ Φιλομήλου καὶ Ἀντίμοιρος ὁ Μενδαῖος, ὅσπερ εὐδοκιμεῖ μάλιστα τῶν Πρωταγόρου μαθητῶν καὶ ἐπὶ τέχνῃ μανθάνει, ὡς σοφιστὴς ἐσόμενος. τούτων δὲ οἳ ὄπισθεν ἠκολούθουν ἐπακούοντες τῶν λεγομένων τὸ μὲν πολὺ ξένοι ἐφαίνοντο οὓς ἄγει ἐξ ἑκάστων τῶν πόλεων ὁ Πρωταγόρας, δι’ ὧν διεξέρχεται, κηλῶν τῇ φωνῇ ὥσπερ {b} ᾿Ορφεύς, οἱ δὲ κατὰ τὴν φωνὴν ἕπονται κεκηλημένοι ἦσαν δέ τινες καὶ τῶν ἐπιχωρίων ἐν τῷ χορῷ.

When we entered, we found Protagoras walking around at the portico. Walking around with him in sequence there were, on one side, Callias son of Hipponikos, and his stepbrother Paralos son of Pericles, and Charmides son of Glaucon; on the other side, there were Pericles’ other son, Xanthippos, and Philippides son of Philomelos, and Antimoiros of Mende, the one who is the most highly regarded of the disciples of Protagoras and who is learning the craft [tekhnē] with the purpose of becoming a sophist [sophistēs] himself. Others followed along behind to hear the things that were being said [legesthai]. For the most part they appeared to be non-Athenians whom Protagoras had drawn from every city through which he had passed, enthralling them with his voice like Orpheus while they, enthralled, followed along wherever the voice may lead. And there were also some local people [= fellow Athenians] in the chorus.

3§106 Immediately after this description of Protagoras of Abdera and his enthralled followers, we read a description of another sophist, Hippias of Elis, attended by his own followers. This description presents Hippias as the diametrical opposite of Protagoras. Whereas Protagoras the sophist is mystical and in that sense ‘Orphic’, Hippias the sophist is non-mystical and in that sense ‘Homeric’. Here I proceed to examine the Homeric evocations in the Platonic description applied to Hippias, as spoken by Plato’s Socrates:

3ⓣ16 Plato Protagoras 315b-c

τὸν δὲ μετ’ εἰσενόησα, ἔφη ῞Ομηρος, Ἱππίαν τὸν {c} Ἠλεῖον, καθήμενον ἐν τῷ κατ’ ἀντικρὺ προστῴῳ ἐν θρόνῳ· περὶ αὐτὸν δ’ ἐκάθηντο ἐπὶ βάθρων Ἐρυξίμαχός τε ὁ Ἀκουμενοῦ καὶ Φαῖδρος ὁ Μυρρινούσιος καὶ Ἄνδρων ὁ Ἀνδροτίωνος καὶ τῶν ξένων πολῖταί {399|400} τε αὐτοῦ καὶ ἄλλοι τινές. ἐφαίνοντο δὲ περὶ φύσεώς τε καὶ τῶν μετεώρων ἀστρονομικὰ ἄττα διερωτᾶν τὸν Ἱππίαν, ὁ δ’ ἐν θρόνῳκαθήμενος ἑκάστοις αὐτῶν διέκρινεν καὶ διεξῄει τὰ ἐρωτώμενα.

After him [= Protagoras], the next one I noted [eis-noeîn], as Homer says, was Hippias of Elis, seated at the portico across [from the portico of Protagoras] on a throne; and seated around him on benches were Eryximachus son of Akoumenos and Phaedrus of Myrrhinous and Andron son of Androtion as well as some non-Athenians. Among them [= the non-Athenians] were some fellow-citizens [of Hippias of Elis] as well as others. It appeared that they were making a systematic inquiry [di-erōtân] in asking Hippias various astronomical questions concerning the nature [phusis] of heavenly bodies while he, seated on his throne, made critical judgments [dia-krinein] for each one of them as he systematically went through the things about which they had just made inquiries.

3§109 There are further Homeric evocations to be found in the description of Hippias the sophist. Unlike Protagoras, who is mystical, Hippias is decidedly non-mystical. Hippias is described as a straightforward speaker of his own judgments, and the wording of this description in Plato’s Protagoras matches the Homeric vision of Minos the king of Crete, who is described as the absolute judge in the heroic otherworld of Odyssey xi:

3ⓣ17 Odyssey xi 568-571

3§110 From the passage in Plato’s Protagoras that I quoted just before this Homeric passage, we can see clearly that Plato’s vision of Hippias matches the Homeric vision of Minos. Indirectly, it also matches the Homeric vision of Zeus. Minos is not only the son of Zeus but also the underworldly surrogate of the god. Like Minos, Zeus himself is conventionally pictured as sitting on a thronos ‘throne’ (Iliad I 536. etc.), and, as the ultimate king, he is the ultimate source of authority for the holding of a skēptron ‘scepter’ (I 234) by kings who dispense themistes ‘judgments’ (I 238-239 οἵ τε θέμιστας | πρὸς Διὸς εἰρύαται). The plural noun themistes designates ‘judgments’ as instantiations of ‘justice’ as designated by the singular noun themis. Like Zeus, Minos is conventionally pictured as sitting on a throne, holding his scepter, and dispensing themis or ‘divine justice’ (Odyssey xi 568-571).

3§112 As the dialogue in the Hippias Minor proceeds, it becomes clear that the expertise of Hippias extends to all tekhnai or ‘crafts’, not just the craft of astronomy, and that these crafts culminate in the craft of poetry and song. As we will see from my upcoming analysis of Plato’s Hippias Minor as a whole, this dialogue highlights the idea that Hippias the sophist has mastered the craft of poetry in general. In fact, already at the very beginning of the Hippias Minor, Hippias is described as an expert in the craft of Homeric poetry in particular: {402|403}

3ⓣ18 Plato Hippias Minor 363a-c

ΣΩ. Καὶ μήν, ὦ Εὔδικε, ἔστι γε ἃ ἡδέως ἂν πυθοίμην {b} Ἱππίου ὧν νυνδὴ ἔλεγεν περὶ Ὁμήρου. καὶ γὰρ τοῦ σοῦ πατρὸς Ἀπημάντου ἤκουον ὅτι ἡ Ἰλιὰς κάλλιον εἴη ποίημα τῷ Ὁμήρῳ ἢ ἡ Ὀδύσσεια, τοσούτῳ δὲ κάλλιον, ὅσῳ ἀμείνων Ἀχιλλεὺς Ὀδυσσέως εἴη· ἑκάτερον γὰρ τούτων τὸ μὲν εἰς Ὀδυσσέα ἔφη πεποιῆσθαι, τὸ δ’ εἰς Ἀχιλλέα. περὶ ἐκείνου οὖν ἡδέως ἄν, εἰ βουλομένῳ ἐστὶν Ἱππίᾳ, ἀναπυθοίμην ὅπως αὐτῷ δοκεῖ περὶ τοῖν ἀνδροῖν τούτοιν, πότερον {c} ἀμείνω φησὶν εἶναι, ἐπειδὴ καὶ ἄλλα πολλὰ καὶ παντοδαπὰ ἡμῖν ἐπιδέδεικται καὶ περὶ ποιητῶν τε ἄλλων καὶ περὶ Ὁμήρου.

3§113 The expertise of Hippias in the craft of poetry in general is evident not only from an overall reading of Plato’s Hippias Minor but also from his own words, which I have already quoted and will now quote again here:

3ⓣ19 Hippias FGH 6 F 4 = F 6 DK via Clement of Alexandria Stromateis 6.15 (II p. 434 Stählin)

Ἱππίαν τὸν σοφιστὴν τὸν Ἠλεῖον … παραστησώμεθα ὧδέ πως λέγοντα· “τούτων ἴσως εἴρηται τὰ μὲν ᾿Ορφεῖ, τὰ δὲ Μουσαίῳ κατὰ βραχὺ ἄλλῳ ἀλλαχοῦ, τὰ δὲ ῾Ησιόδῳ, τὰ δὲ ῾Ομήρῳ, τὰ δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις τῶν ποιητῶν, τὰ δὲ ἐν συγγραφαῖς, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι, τὰ δὲ βαρβάροις· ἐγὼ δὲ ἐκ πάντων τούτων τὰ μέγιστα καὶ ὁμόφυλα συνθεὶς τοῦτον καινὸν καὶ πολυειδῆ τὸν λόγον ποιήσομαι.” {403|404}

I will adduce Hippias of Elis, the sophist [sophistēs], who said something like the following: “Some of these things may have been said by Orpheus, some by Musaeus – some things briefly by one of them in one place, other things by the other in another place – and some other things were said by Hesiod, some other things by Homer, and still other things were said by others of the poets [poiētai], and still other things were said in prose writings – some of those things said by Hellenes and others by barbarians; but of all these things I have combined those that are the greatest and are similar to each other among the classifications [= phula] of humanity, and I will now make from all these things the present discourse [logos], which is novel and multiform.”

3§114 For Hippias, as we will see in what follows, a logos is a ‘discourse’ that includes not only the ‘logic’ of his discourse but also the actual ‘wording’ – literally, logos – of the poetry or prose that he performs as the basis of this discourse.

3ⓣ20 Plato Protagoras 347a-b

καὶ ὁ Ἱππίας, Εὖ μέν μοι δοκεῖς, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες, καὶ σὺ περὶ τοῦ ᾄσματος διεληλυθέναι· ἔστιν μέντοι, ἔφη, καὶ {b} ἐμοὶ λόγος περὶ αὐτοῦ εὖ ἔχων, ὃν ὑμῖν ἐπιδείξω, ἂν βούλησθε.

And Hippias said: “I think you have gone through the song [of Simonides] very well, Socrates. But I too have a discourse [logos] about it that holds up very well, and I will make a public display [epideixis] of it, if you-all wish.” {404|405}

3§116 Hippias is represented here as offering to make a ‘display’ (epideixis) – that is, to perform – a logos ‘discourse’ about a song of Simonides for all the intellectuals assembled in the dramatic setting of Plato’s Protagoras. That song is what we know as “Poetae Melici Graeci (or PMG) fragment 542” in Denys Page’s collection of archaic Greek lyric fragments. For Hippias, the logos ‘discourse’ that he offers to display about this song includes not only the ‘logic’ of his own discourse but also the actual ‘wording’ – literally, logos – of the song. In other words, Hippias is ready to perform the song of Simonides while making an argument on the basis of what he performs. The discourse that Hippias offers to perform about “PMG 542” would have supposedly rivaled the discourse already performed by Socrates himself about the same song of Simonides. In the preceding section of Plato’s Protagoras, Socrates is shown in the act of actually performing parts of this song of Simonides in making his own argument (Protagoras 342a through 347a).

3§117 It all started when Protagoras challenged Socrates by starting to perform and interpret the initial sequence of that song of Simonides (Protagoras 339a-b). Socrates will respond to the challenge by following through on the performing and the interpreting of that song.

3§118 The expertise of Protagoras himself in performing and interpreting Simonides – as opposed to the expertise of Hippias and of Socrates – is shaded over in Plato’s Protagoras. Although Plato’s Protagoras offers to perform the whole song of Simonides for Socrates after adducing the initial sequence from the song, Socrates declines the offer, saying that he knows the song by heart (Protagoras 339b). Protagoras gets to perform only the initial sequence of the song (PMG 542 lines 1-3 at 339b) and then one more sequence after that (PMG 542 lines 11-13 at 339c) before Socrates himself proceeds to perform his own discourse on the whole song, quoting several further sequences from the song as living proof of his claim that he knows it all by heart (PMG 542 lines 14-16 at 344c, lines 17-18 at 344e, lines 20-26 at 345c, lines 27-30 at 345d, lines 34-40 at 346c).

3§120 So we have just missed a chance to hear Plato’s Hippias displaying his expertise in poetry. That is, we have missed such a chance in Plato’s Protagoras. In Plato’s Hippias Minor, on the other hand, we do in fact have such a chance, and I will return to that dialogue presently in order to explore at length the implications of the dramatized display of Hippias in that other context. For the moment, though, I need to follow through on the implications of what exactly it was that Hippias would have displayed in the context of Plato’s Protagoras – that is, if he had been allowed by Plato to make such a dramatized display in that dialogue. Let me anticipate my conclusions: the display of Hippias concerning the poetry of Simonides – or concerning the poetry of Homer and Hesiod, for that matter – would have been non-mystifying, non-mystical, as opposed to the stance of Protagoras, which is ostentatiously mystifying, mystical. Correspondingly, the display of Socrates in Plato’s Protagoras concerning the poetry of Simonides – and concerning the poetry of Homer and Hesiod as well – turns out to be non-mystifying, non-mystical.

3§121 Even before Socrates performs his discourse on the passage adduced for him by Protagoras from the song of Simonides (PMG 542), he himself voluntarily adduces passages from Homer and Hesiod (Iliad XXI 308-309 at Protagoras 340a and Works and Days 289-292 at Protagoras 340c-d). The motive of Plato’s Protagoras had been to test Socrates’ general expertise in poetry when he started questioning him about the authorial intent of Simonides, and Socrates remarks that he understands this motive (Protagoras 341e-342a). Even after Socrates finishes his discourse about the song of Simonides (Protagoras 342a through 347a) and even after he induces Protagoras to move beyond the debating of questions in terms of interpreting poetry and song, he still manages to demonstrate his expertise one last time, adducing yet another passage from Homer (Iliad II 224 at Protagoras 348c-d).

3§122 In short, what we see in Plato’s Protagoras is a replacement of Hippias by Socrates as a representative of the craft of performing and interpreting poetry. If Alcibiades had not cut him off, Hippias would have made his own display of this craft. {406|407}

3§123 The replacement of Hippias by Socrates in the Protagoras is relevant to the dichotomy between Hippias and Protagoras in their attitudes toward the craft of performing and interpreting poetry. I have already quoted the passage in Plato’s Protagoras where Protagoras specifies Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides as prototypes of sophists who are non-mystical, to be contrasted with Orpheus and Musaeus as prototypes of sophists who are mystical. I quote again here a part of that passage, because the wording it contains turns out to be essential for my further argumentation:

3ⓣ21 Plato Protagoras 316d

ἐγὼ δὲ τὴν σοφιστικὴντέχνην φημὶ μὲν εἶναι παλαιάν, τοὺς δὲ μεταχειριζομένους αὐτὴν τῶν παλαιῶν ἀνδρῶν, φοβουμένους τὸ ἐπαχθὲς αὐτῆς, πρόσχημα ποιεῖσθαι καὶ προκαλύπτεσθαι, τοὺς μὲν ποίησιν, οἷον ῞Ομηρόν τε καὶ ῾Ησίοδον καὶ Σιμωνίδην, τοὺς δὲ αὖ τελετάς τε καὶ χρησμῳδίας, τοὺς ἀμφί τε ᾿Ορφέα καὶ Μουσαῖον·

3§124 In terms of such a dichotomy between mystical and non-mystical sophists, Socrates is aligned with the non-mystical. That is, Socrates is aligned with Hippias and non-aligned with Protagoras. Like Hippias, Socrates speaks as an expert in poetry when he performs and interprets the poetry of Simonides. By contrast, Plato’s Protagoras speaks as an expert in sophistic mysticism. Protagoras looks for hidden meanings, which can elude even great poets like Simonides. Protagoras is saying that the basis of education is not only the understanding of poetry but also the understanding of whatever it is that the poets themselves do not and cannot fully control in their poetry (Protagoras 338e-339a). When Protagoras performs two passages from the song of Simonides (PMG 542 lines 1-3 at 339b and lines 11-13 at 339c), his intent is to show that a sophist like himself can understand things that even a poet like Simonides fails to understand. {407|408}

3§125 In response to the interpretation claimed by Protagoras concerning the poetry of Simonides, Plato’s Socrates playfully confesses a feeling of panic because he too – so he says – fails to understand the hidden meaning that the sophist Protagoras supposedly understands – a hidden meaning that even the poet Simonides himself supposedly fails to understand (Protagoras 339d-e). Moments later, having collected his wits, Socrates declares that he will in the end pass the test set by Protagoras. That is, Socrates will now prove his expertise in poetry by attempting to explain fully the meaning of the song of Simonides (Protagoras 342a). He then proceeds to present his discourse about the entire song (Protagoras 342a through 347a).

3§126 The poetic expertise that Plato’s Socrates displays in the Protagoras can be used as a model for understanding the kind of poetic expertise that Hippias himself could have displayed and had actually offered to display. Such expertise involves not only the poetry of Simonides but other forms of non-mystical poetry as well, especially Homer.

3§127 To sum up, the divergences between the sophists Hippias and Protagoras as respectively non-mystical and mystical interpreters of Homer and other poets correspond to the divergences between the poetic figures of Homer and Orpheus as respectively non-mystical and mystical poets. Having noted this correspondence, I conclude my consideration of the divergences between Homeric and Orphic poetry in the age of Plato. Before leaving the subject, however, I should note that the alignment of Plato’s Socrates with non-mystical interpreters of Homer and other poets, as displayed in Plato’s Protagoras, is only ad hoc, matching the context of the Socratic line of argumentation in that dialogue. In other contexts, Plato’s Socrates can align himself with the mystical interpreters of poets, focusing on the ultimate mystical poet, Orpheus. A case in point is Plato’s Phaedo, where Plato’s Socrates explores a variety of mystical models in the quest for initiation into the ultimate mystery that is meant to transcend all other mysteries, the Platonic theory of Forms.

3ⓢ7. Hippias the sophist as master of the Panathenaic standard

3§128 Leaving behind for the moment the mysticism of Protagoras and delving further into the non-mysticism of Hippias in his interpretation of Homer, I turn to the question of describing the overall expertise of Hippias the sophist in the performing and interpreting of Homer. This expertise, I will now argue, corresponds closely to the expertise of Ion the rhapsode in the {408|409} performing and interpreting of Homer. I propose to describe this expertise in terms of the Panathenaic standard. That is to say, I propose that the Homer of Ion and Hippias was essentially the same Homer that was being performed on a seasonally recurring basis at the feast of the Panathenaia in the time of Plato and, by extension, in the earlier time of Ion and Hippias as dramatized by Plato.

3§129 In the Ion of Plato, the rhapsode’s act of performing at the Panathenaia is directly associated with the act of performing Homer, to the exclusion of other poets. Correspondingly, in the Protagoras of Plato, we saw Hippias associated with Homer, while his counterpart, Protagoras, is associated with Orpheus. We also saw that the Socratic vision of Hippias matches the Homeric vision of Minos, and I find it essential at this point to repeat the Homeric details. Hippias too is pictured as seated on a throne (Protagoras 315b καθήμενον … ἐν θρόνῳ, 315c ἐν θρόνῳ καθήμενος), responding to questions (315c διερωτᾶν … ἐρωτώμενα) that call for critical judgment, as expressed by the verb dia-krinein ‘decide [between X and Y]’ (315c διέκρινεν). In the Protagoras, Hippias is pictured in the act of responding to questions about the natural world, that is, about phusis ‘nature’ in general, and about astronomy in particular (315c ἐφαίνοντο δὲ περὶ φύσεώς τε καὶ τῶν μετεώρων ἀστρονομικὰ ἄττα διερωτᾶν τὸν Ἱππίαν). In Plato’s Hippias Minor, we see the same Hippias actually responding to questions posed by Socrates, who challenges the sophist to apply various tekhnai ‘crafts’ for the purpose of distinguishing, as empirically as possible, what is true and what is false. Among these tekhnai, Hippias singles out the tekhnē of astronomy as one of his specialties (Hippias Minor 367e). As the dialogue proceeds, it becomes clear that Hippias claims to be master of all tekhnai, culminating in all the tekhnai that relate to poetry and song:

3ⓣ22 Plato Hippias Minor 368a-369a

ΣΩ. Ἴθι δή, ὦ Ἱππία, ἀνέδην οὑτωσὶ ἐπίσκεψαι κατὰ {b} πασῶν τῶν ἐπιστημῶν, εἴ που ἔστιν ἄλλως ἔχον ἢ οὕτως. πάντως δὲ πλείστας τέχνας πάντων σοφώτατος εἶ ἀνθρώπων, ὡς ἐγώ ποτέ σου ἤκουον μεγαλαυχουμένου, πολλὴν σοφίαν καὶ ζηλωτὴν σαυτοῦ διεξιόντος ἐν ἀγορᾷ ἐπὶ ταῖς τραπέζαις. ἔφησθα δὲ ἀφικέσθαι ποτὲ εἰς Ὀλυμπίαν ἃ εἶχες περὶ τὸ σῶμα ἅπαντα σαυτοῦ ἔργα ἔχων· πρῶτον μὲν δακτύλιον – ἐντεῦθεν γὰρ ἤρχου – ὃν εἶχες σαυτοῦ ἔχειν {c} ἔργον, ὡς ἐπιστάμενος δακτυλίουςγλύφειν, καὶ ἄλλην σφραγῖδα σὸν ἔργον, καὶ στλεγγίδα καὶ λήκυθον ἃ αὐτὸς ἠργάσω· ἔπειτα ὑποδήματα ἃ {409|410} εἶχες ἔφησθα αὐτὸς σκυτοτομῆσαι, καὶ τὸ ἱμάτιον ὑφῆναι καὶ τὸν χιτωνίσκον· καὶ ὅ γε πᾶσιν ἔδοξεν ἀτοπώτατον καὶ σοφίας πλείστης ἐπίδειγμα, ἐπειδὴ τὴν ζώνην ἔφησθα τοῦ χιτωνίσκου, ἣν εἶχες, εἶναι μὲν οἷαι αἱ Περσικαὶ τῶν πολυτελῶν, ταύτην δὲ αὐτὸς πλέξαι· πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ποιήματα ἔχων ἐλθεῖν, καὶ ἔπη καὶ τραγῳδίας {d} καὶ διθυράμβους, καὶ καταλογάδην πολλοὺς λόγους καὶ παντοδαποὺς συγκειμένους· καὶ περὶ τῶν τεχνῶν δὴ ὧν ἄρτι ἐγὼ ἔλεγον ἐπιστήμων ἀφικέσθαι διαφερόντως τῶν ἄλλων, καὶ περὶ ῥυθμῶν καὶ ἁρμονιῶν καὶ γραμμάτωνὀρθότητος, καὶ ἄλλα ἔτι πρὸς τούτοις πάνυ πολλά, ὡς ἐγὼ δοκῶ μνημονεύειν· καίτοι τό γε μνημονικὸνἐπελαθόμην σου, ὡς ἔοικε, τέχνημα, ἐν ᾧ σὺ οἴει λαμπρότατος εἶναι· οἶμαι δὲ καὶ {e} ἄλλα πάμπολλα ἐπιλελῆσθαι. ἀλλ’ ὅπερ ἐγὼ λέγω, καὶ εἰς τὰς σαυτοῦ τέχναςβλέψας – ἱκαναὶ δέ – καὶ εἰς τὰς τῶν ἄλλων εἰπέ μοι, ἐάν που εὕρῃς ἐκ τῶν ὡμολογημένων ἐμοί τε καὶ σοί, ὅπου ἐστὶν ὁ μὲν ἀληθής, ὁ δὲ ψευδής, χωρὶς καὶ οὐχ ὁ αὐτός; ἐν ᾗτινι βούλει σοφίᾳ τοῦτο σκέψαι ἢ πανουργίᾳ {369a} ἢ ὁτιοῦν χαίρεις ὀνομάζων· ἀλλ’ οὐχ εὑρήσεις, ὦ ἑταῖρε – οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν – ἐπεὶ σὺ εἰπέ.

3§131 In this same passage, the status of Hippias as grand master of poetry and song is correlated with the keen interest shown by this sophist in the orthotēs ‘correctness’ of grammata ‘letters’ and in other such matters relating to various tekhnai ‘crafts’ of poetry and song (Hippias Minor 368a-e). This interest requires the ability to make critical judgments, as signaled by the verb dia-krinein ‘decide [between X and Y]’ in the description we saw earlier of the sophist seated on a throne and responding to questions (Protagoras 315c διέκρινεν). We may compare the interest shown by Ion the rhapsode in making correct critical judgments concerning questions of Homeric verbal artistry – {412|413} that is, whether Homer says his epos (plural) ‘poetic utterances’ orthōs ‘correctly’ or not (τὰ ἔπη εἴτε ὀρθῶς λέγει Ὅμηρος εἴτε μή Ion 537b-c). In the Ion, when Plato’s Socrates asks Ion to tell him what are the things about which the craft of the rhapsode can enable Ion to make critical judgments, that is, dia-krinein ‘decide [between X and Y]’, the rhapsode replies: ‘all things’:

3ⓣ23 Plato Ion 539d-e

ΣΩ. Καὶ σύ γε, ὦ Ἴων, ἀληθῆ ταῦτα λέγεις. ἴθι δὴ καὶ σὺ ἐμοί, ὥσπερ ἐγὼ σοὶ ἐξέλεξα καὶ ἐξ Ὀδυσσείας καὶ ἐξ Ἰλιάδος ὁποῖα τοῦ μάντεώς ἐστι καὶ ὁποῖα τοῦ ἰατροῦ καὶ {e} ὁποῖα τοῦ ἁλιέως, οὕτω καὶ σὺ ἐμοὶ ἔκλεξον, ἐπειδὴ καὶ ἐμπειρότερος εἶ ἐμοῦ τῶν ῾Ομήρου, ὁποῖα τοῦ ῥαψῳδοῦ ἐστιν, ὦ Ἴων, καὶ τῆς τέχνης τῆς ῥαψῳδικῆς, ἃ τῷ ῥαψῳδῷ προσήκει καὶ σκοπεῖσθαι καὶ διακρίνειν παρὰ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους.

ΙΩΝ. Ἐγὼ μέν φημι, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἅπαντα.

ION: I say it’s all things, Socrates.

3§133 I propose to contrast this match between the sophist and the rhapsode with a mismatch deliberately set up by Plato in the Hippias Minor and the Ion. This mismatch has to do with the different strategies of argumentation used by Plato’s Socrates in arguing with the sophist and with the rhapsode. Despite the differentiation between sophist and rhapsode as set up by Plato, I will argue that the actual concept of critical judgment, as signaled by dia-krinein ‘decide [between X and Y]’ and by the simple form krinein ‘decide’ and its derivative kritikos ‘critic’, is in fact not all that different in the craft of the sophist, despite its rivalry with the craft of the rhapsode. A similar argument will apply to other compound formations involving the verb krinein, especially hupokrinesthai and the noun derived from it, hupokritēs.

3§134 As an expert in Homer, Ion the rhapsode is compared by Plato’s Socrates to an oracular poet who is inspired, that is, to a mantis ‘seer’ (Ion 531b). Hippias the sophist in Plato’s Hippias Minor is likewise an expert in Homer, but in Plato’s terms he would be comparable not to a mantis but to a prophētēs. In making this point, I have in mind an exceptional passage where Plato’s Socrates makes a distinction between two kinds of ‘seer’, the mantis who is inspired and the prophētēs who is supposedly uninspired:

3ⓣ24 Plato Timaeus 72a-b

τοῦ δὲ μανέντος … οὐκ ἔργον τὰ φανέντα καὶ φωνηθέντα ὑφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ κρίνειν, … ὅθεν δὴ καὶ τὸ τῶν προφητῶν γένος ἐπὶ ταῖς ἐνθέοιςμαντείαιςκριτὰς ἐπικαθιστάναι νόμος· οὓς μάντεις αὐτοὺς ὀνομάζουσίν τινες, τὸ πᾶν ἠγνοηκότες ὅτι τῆς δι᾿ αἰνιγμῶν οὗτοι φήμης καὶ φαντάσεως ὑποκριταί, καὶ οὔτι μάντεις, προφῆται δὲ μαντευομένων δικαιότατα ὀνομάζοιντ᾿ ἄν

But when some person is in a state of mental possession [manēnai] … it is not that person’s task to make decisions [krinein] about the visions that are made visible [phanēnai] to him or about the words that are voiced by him. … For this reason it is customary to put in charge the class of prophētai as decision-makers [kritai] presiding over oracular utterances [manteiai] that had been made [by others] that are entheoi [= in the state of being mentally possessed by the god]. They [= the prophētai] are called by some, in ignorance, manteis. This is to ignore completely the fact that they [= the prophētai] are hupokritai, by ways of riddles [ainigmoi], of oracular utterance [phēmē] and oracular vision [phantasis]. So they would be {414|415} most justly called not manteis but the prophētai of things that are uttered by those who function as manteis.

3§136 In the same passage from Plato’s Timaeus that we have just examined, the ad hoc usage of prophētēs as an uninspired performer of oracular poetry is matched by the ad hoc usage of the agent noun of the verb hupokrinesthai, that is, hupokritēs. Like prophētes, this word hupokritēs is used here in the ad hoc sense of designating a performer who is not possessed, not inspired by the god. As we have already seen, however, Plato’s Socrates elsewhere actually speaks of the hupokritēs as an inspired performer, parallel to the rhapsōidos:

3ⓣ25 Plato Ion 535e-536a

ΣΩ. οἶσθα οὖν ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ θεατὴς τῶν δακτυλίων ὁ ἔσχατος, ὧν ἐγὼ ἔλεγον ὑπὸ τῆς Ἡρακλειώτιδος λίθου ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων τὴν δύναμιν λαμβάνειν; ὁ δὲ μέσος σὺ ὁ {536a} ῥαψῳδὸς καὶ ὑποκριτής, ὁ δὲ πρῶτος αὐτὸς ὁ ποιητής.

3§137 As is the case with the word prophētēs, so also with hupokritēs: we see from the passage just quoted that this word too may be used in the sense of a performer who is possessed, inspired. Plato’s wording, as we saw in the Timaeus (72a-b), describes hupokritēs as one who interprets, by way of performing, the utterance [phēmē] and the vision [phantasis] of a given oracle. There is no need to follow Plato, however, in assuming that such a hupokritēs must be disconnected from the visualization and the verbalization of the oracular vision. Just as the verb hupokrinesthai is predicated on the idea of a preexisting vision, so also the noun hupokritēs.

3§140 In the case of hupokrinesthai, as we saw in Chapter 1, the idea of an oracular vision is evident from the word’s conventional associations with such other words as theōros, meaning literally ‘he who sees [root hor-] a vision {416|417} [thea]’. In the case of hupokritēs, as we also saw, the word is associated with theatron ‘theater’, meaning literally ‘the vehicle for achieving vision [thea]’.

3§143 In the end, Plato’s portrayal of Ion implies that the rhapsode, like an actor, is simply acting out the words once composed by Homer. The {417|418} moment of truth arrives when Socrates questions Ion whether the rhapsode feels the same emotions felt by the characters in his Homeric performances, such as Andromache, Hector, Hecuba, and Priam:

3ⓣ26 Plato Ion 535b-c

ΣΩ. Ἔχε δή μοι τόδε εἰπέ, ὦ Ἴων, καὶ μὴ ἀποκρύψῃ ὅτι ἄν σε ἔρωμαι· ὅταν εὖ εἴπῃς ἔπη καὶ ἐκπλήξῃς μάλιστα τοὺς θεωμένους, ἢ τὸν Ὀδυσσέα ὅταν ἐπὶ τὸν οὐδὸν ἐφαλλόμενον ᾄδῃς, ἐκφανῆ γιγνόμενον τοῖς μνηστῆρσι καὶ ἐκχέοντα τοὺς ὀιστοὺς πρὸ τῶν ποδῶν, ἢ Ἀχιλλέα ἐπὶ τὸν Ἕκτορα ὁρμῶντα, ἢ καὶ τῶν περὶ Ἀνδρομάχην ἐλεινῶν τι ἢ περὶ Ἑκάβην ἢ περὶ Πρίαμον, τότε πότερον ἔμφρων εἶ ἢ ἔξω {c} σαυτοῦ γίγνῃ καὶ παρὰ τοῖς πράγμασιν οἴεταί σου εἶναι ἡ ψυχὴ οἷς λέγεις ἐνθουσιάζουσα, ἢ ἐν Ἰθάκῃ οὖσιν ἢ ἐν Τροίᾳ ἢ ὅπως ἂν καὶ τὰ ἔπη ἔχῃ;

SOCRATES: Hold it right there. Tell me this, Ion – respond to what I ask without concealment. When you recite well the epic verses [epos plural] and induce a feeling of bedazzlement [ekplēxis] for the spectators [theōmenoi] – when you sing of Odysseus leaping onto the threshold and revealing himself to the suitors and pouring out the arrows at his feet, or of Achilles rushing at Hector, or something connected to the pitiful things about Andromache or Hecuba or Priam – are you then in your right mind, or outside yourself? Does your psukhē, possessed by the god [enthousiazein], suppose that you are in the midst of the actions you describe in Ithaca or Troy, or wherever the epic verses [epos plural] have it?

3§144 Ion begins his response to the questioning of Socrates by claiming he feels the same emotions of terror and pity that are felt by his audiences in reaction to the actions of his characters (Ion 533c). But then, Ion continues his extended response to the question by implying that he is merely acting the words of and about these Homeric characters – and not necessarily experiencing their emotions. If words about sad things composed by Homer make Ion’s audiences genuinely sad, then Ion himself can be genuinely happy, he says (Ion 535e). Thus Plato’s portrait of the rhapsode has ultimately turned this supposedly inspired mouthpiece of the Muses into an uninspired and cynical manipulator of the audience’s emotions. While Ion leaves his audiences crying over the grief of Andromache and other such heroic characters, he is “laughing all the way to the bank.” {418|419}

3ⓢ8. Sophistic powers of total recall

3§148 The very idea of inspiration or divine ‘possession’ by the Muses can help Plato undermine the credibility of rhapsodes as representatives of song and poetry. On the other hand, Plato needs different ideas to undermine the credibility of Hippias. As a sophist, Hippias does not represent song and poetry per se.

3§149 Unlike Ion the rhapsode, Hippias the sophist is not overtly inspired or ‘possessed’ – either by Homer or, ultimately, by the Muses. When Hippias needs to consult Homer, what he needs is not inspiration or possession but memory. As we saw earlier, there is a technical term for this kind of memory, that is, mnēmonikon tekhnēma ‘mnemonic technique’ (Hippias Minor 368d). This term is used again in a later passage where Socrates is challenging Hippias to display his all-encompassing knowledge of Homer by responding to the central question of distinguishing between the true and the false man, and the sophist is induced to admit that he will have to use his memory: {420|421}

3ⓣ27 Plato Hippias Minor 368e-369b

ἀλλ’ ὅπερ ἐγὼ λέγω, καὶ εἰς τὰς σαυτοῦ τέχνας βλέψας – ἱκαναὶ δέ – καὶ εἰς τὰς τῶν ἄλλων εἰπέ μοι, ἐάν που εὕρῃς ἐκ τῶν ὡμολογημένων ἐμοί τε καὶ σοί, ὅπου ἐστὶν ὁ μὲν ἀληθής, ὁ δὲ ψευδής, χωρὶς καὶ οὐχ ὁ αὐτός; ἐν ᾗτινι βούλει σοφίᾳ τοῦτο σκέψαι ἢ πανουργίᾳ {369a} ἢ ὁτιοῦν χαίρεις ὀνομάζων· ἀλλ’ οὐχ εὑρήσεις, ὦ ἑταῖρε – οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν – ἐπεὶ σὺ εἰπέ.

ΙΠ. Ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἔχω, ὦ Σώκρατες, νῦν γε οὕτως.

ΣΩ. Οὐδέ γε ἕξεις, ὡς ἐγὼ οἶμαι· εἰ δ’ ἐγὼ ἀληθῆ λέγω, μέμνησαι ὃ ἡμῖν συμβαίνει ἐκ τοῦ λόγου, ὦ Ἱππία.

ΙΠ. Οὐ πάνυ τι ἐννοῶ, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὃ λέγεις.

ΣΩ. Νυνὶ γὰρ ἴσως οὐ χρῇ τῷ μνημονικῷτεχνήματι – δῆλον γὰρ ὅτι οὐκ οἴει δεῖν – ἀλλὰ ἐγώ σε ὑπομνήσω. οἶσθα ὅτι τὸν μὲν Ἀχιλλέα ἔφησθα ἀληθῆ εἶναι, τὸν δὲ ᾿Οδυσσέα {b} ψευδῆ καὶ πολύτροπον;

ΙΠ. Ναί.

HIPPIAS: But I am not able to do so, Socrates, at least not in the present circumstances.

SOCRATES: Nor will you be able, I think. But if I am right, you remember [memnēsthai] what follows from the argument, Hippias.

HIPPIAS: I just don’t understand what you mean, Socrates, not at all.

SOCRATES: Maybe you are not using your mnemonic technique [mnēmonikon tekhnēma] right now – clearly you don’t think you need to – but I will give you mnemonic support [hupo-mnē-]. You know {421|422} you were saying that Achilles is true but Odysseus false and multiform [polutropos]?

3§150 In this passage we see again the term mnēmonikon tekhnēma ‘mnemonic technique’ (Hippias Minor 369a), which I have already highlighted in the previous passage I quoted (368d). This term is relevant to the notion that the presence of Homer is to be ignored in the dialogue between Hippias and Socrates, and that Hippias is to ‘respond’ jointly for Homer as well as for himself:

3ⓣ28 Plato Hippias Minor 365c-d

ΣΩ. Τὸν μὲν ῞Ομηρον τοίνυν ἐάσωμεν, ἐπειδὴ καὶ {d} ἀδύνατον ἐπανερέσθαι τί ποτε νοῶν ταῦτα ἐποίησεν τὰ ἔπη· σὺ δ’ ἐπειδὴ φαίνῃ ἀναδεχόμενος τὴν αἰτίαν, καὶ σοὶ συνδοκεῖ ταῦτα ἅπερ φῂς Ὅμηρον λέγειν, ἀπόκριναικοινῇ ὑπὲρ Ὁμήρου τε καὶ σαυτοῦ.

3§151 The wording here makes it clear that Plato’s Hippias, as a sophist, needs to make no overt claim to the inspiration of and by Homer – unlike Plato’s Ion, as a rhapsode. In the case of Hippias, his mastery of Homeric poetry comes from a craft, just as Ion’s mastery comes from a craft, but the craft of the sophist is one that transcends the rhapsōidikē tekhnē. It transcends even the poiētikē tekhnē writ large. I propose that the craft of Hippias the sophist was imagined as a form of sophistikē tekhnē ‘sophistic craft’, which was derived from the rhapsōidikē tekhnē but became differentiated from it. Such a transcendent craft, the sophistikē tekhnē, was the rival of another transcendent craft, the philosophical dialectic of Socrates himself. {422|423}

3§152 We have already seen this term sophistikē tekhnē ‘sophistic craft’ in a passage that I quoted from Plato’s Protagoras. Here I requote the part of that passage that features this transcendent tekhnē of the sophists:

3ⓣ29 Plato Protagoras 316d

ἐγὼ δὲ τὴν σοφιστικὴντέχνην φημὶ μὲν εἶναι παλαιάν, τοὺς δὲ μεταχειριζομένους αὐτὴν τῶν παλαιῶν ἀνδρῶν, φοβουμένους τὸ ἐπαχθὲς αὐτῆς, πρόσχημα ποιεῖσθαι καὶ προκαλύπτεσθαι, τοὺς μὲν ποίησιν, οἷον ῞Ομηρόν τε καὶ ῾Ησίοδον καὶ Σιμωνίδην, τοὺς δὲ αὖ τελετάς τε καὶ χρησμῳδίας, τοὺς ἀμφί τε ᾿Ορφέα καὶ Μουσαῖον·

3§153 As we see from what I just quoted, the sophistikē tekhnē ‘sophistic craft’ can be mystical, as represented by Protagoras himself. As we can also see in an earlier passage I already quoted from Plato’s Protagoras, the sophist Protagoras is compared to Orpheus himself (315a-b). Orpheus in the present passage is associated with teletai ‘mysteries’ and khrēsmōidiai ‘oracular songs’ (316d).

3§154 By contrast with Orpheus, Homer in the present passage is associated simply with poiēsis ‘poetry’ (316d). In the earlier passage, the description of Protagoras as Orpheus is being contrasted with the description of the rival sophist Hippias in wording that suits Homer (315b-c). If we apply the term sophistikē tekhnē ‘sophistic craft’ to this sophist, we need to specify that his version of the craft is not mystical, by contrast with the craft of Protagoras.

3§156 Here I need to concentrate on the precise moment when the mnemonic technique of Hippias the sophist is first mentioned in the Hippias Minor. In the context of the sophist’s display of all the crafts that he has mastered, he starts by highlighting his mastery of the jeweller’s craft as a prime example, saying that he himself had hand-made the daktulios ‘ring’ that he wears on his finger – and on that ring is a sphragis ‘seal’ that he himself had specially carved (Hippias Minor 368b-c). That ring is the first thing about Hippias that attracts the attention of Plato’s Socrates in the Hippias Minor. Socrates thinks back to that ring that Hippias was wearing, and he thinks back further: he now remembers that it was Hippias himself who had first drawn attention to the ring. ‘You started with that’, Socrates says about the ring (Plato Hippias Minor 368b).

3§157 So the daktulios ‘ring’ was the first thing that Hippias talked about in the sacred precinct of Zeus in Olympia and, by implication, also later in the agora in Athens. What about that ‘first ring’? That all-attractive ‘first ring’ evokes the image of the magnetic First Rings (prōtoi daktulioi) that magnetize performers and their audiences in Plato’s Ion (536b). This connection between the First Rings in Plato’s Ion (536b) and the Ring of Hippias in the Hippias Minor (368b) will be most relevant in later phases of my argumentation.

3§158 The daktulios ‘ring’ hand-made by the sophist is just the beginning. Hippias then goes on to say that he also hand-made the himation and the khiton (khitōn) that he is wearing, having woven these fabrics himself. Moreover, Hippias is a master of leatherwork – skutotomeîn – in his own right, having hand-made his own shoes. We saw already in another Platonic passage {424|425} that the husteroi or ‘later’ thinkers who are experts in supposedly later poets like Homer – rather than earlier poets like Orpheus – tended to demystify the mysteries, so that even leatherworkers – skutotomoi – may understand (Plato Theaetetus 180d), to be contrasted with palaioteroi or ‘earlier’ thinkers specializing in supposedly earlier poets like Orpheus, whose mysteries continued to mystify the outsiders (Plato Theaetetus 179e-180d). A most valuable independent confirmation comes from Xenophon’s Memorabilia (4.4.5), where Hippias of Elis is represented as debating with Socrates about the possibilities of teaching even the skuteus ‘leatherworker’ and other specialists (εἰ μέν τις βούλοιτο σκυτέα διδάξασθαί τινα ἢ τέκτονα ἢ χαλκέα ἢ ἱππέα …).

3§159 Returning to the point I already made about the sophistikē tekhnē ‘sophistic craft’ as mentioned in the Protagoras of Plato, I stress again that this concept is hardly monolithic. The craft of sophists can be either mystical, as represented by Protagoras himself, or decidedly non-mystical, as represented by his rival, Hippias. Also, this craft can subsume other crafts. Among the crafts subsumed by the sophistikē tekhnē of Hippias the sophist, the most prominent is the rhapsōidikē tekhnē – specifically, the rhapsodic craft of performing and interpreting Homer. That is the craft displayed to the fullest by Hippias the sophist in Plato’s Hippias Minor.

3§160 By metonymy, this one single craft of the rhapsodes can subsume other crafts. By metonymy, the mastery of Homeric poetry is the mastery of all crafts. We saw this idea proclaimed by the rhapsode Ion in Plato’s Ion. This stance of Ion the rhapsode is remarkably similar to the stance of Hippias the sophist. The difference is, Hippias does not consider himself a specialist in rhapsōidikē tekhnē. Rather, he seems to be a generalist in sophistikē tekhnē. The sophist’s mastery of the rhapsode’s craft is merely the primary example of his mastery of all crafts. Here I return to my argument: what makes all the difference is the sophist’s overall mastery of the mnēmonikon tekhnēma ‘mnemonic technique’.

3§161 In order to show the decisive role of this mnemonic technique, I need to review the two consecutive sections in the catalogue of crafts attributed to Hippias in Plato’s Hippias Minor. As we saw, the first section enumerated various kinds of handicraft mastered by Hippias, starting with the sophist’s ring and going through everything else he wears on his person (368b-c). The second section enumerated the kinds of poetry and song that the sophist has likewise mastered, corresponding to the kinds of dramatic and ‘musical’ performance featured at the two premier festivals of Athens, the City Dionysia and the Panathenaia respectively (368c-d). It is in this particular context that the mnemonic technique of Hippias is highlighted: {425|426}

3ⓣ30 Plato Hippias Minor 368a-d

ΣΩ. Ἴθι δή, ὦ Ἱππία, ἀνέδην οὑτωσὶ ἐπίσκεψαι κατὰ {b} πασῶν τῶν ἐπιστημῶν, εἴ που ἔστιν ἄλλως ἔχον ἢ οὕτως. πάντως δὲ πλείστας τέχνας πάντων σοφώτατος εἶ ἀνθρώπων, ὡς ἐγώ ποτέ σου ἤκουον μεγαλαυχουμένου, πολλὴν σοφίαν καὶ ζηλωτὴν σαυτοῦ διεξιόντος ἐν ἀγορᾷ ἐπὶ ταῖς τραπέζαις. ἔφησθα δὲ ἀφικέσθαι ποτὲ εἰς Ὀλυμπίαν ἃ εἶχες περὶ τὸ σῶμα ἅπαντα σαυτοῦ ἔργα ἔχων· πρῶτον μὲν δακτύλιον – ἐντεῦθεν γὰρ ἤρχου – ὃν εἶχες σαυτοῦ ἔχειν {c} ἔργον, ὡς ἐπιστάμενος δακτυλίουςγλύφειν, καὶ ἄλλην σφραγῖδα σὸν ἔργον, καὶ στλεγγίδα καὶ λήκυθον ἃ αὐτὸς ἠργάσω· ἔπειτα ὑποδήματα ἃ εἶχες ἔφησθα αὐτὸς σκυτοτομῆσαι, καὶ τὸ ἱμάτιον ὑφῆναι καὶ τὸν χιτωνίσκον· καὶ ὅ γε πᾶσιν ἔδοξεν ἀτοπώτατον καὶ σοφίας πλείστης ἐπίδειγμα, ἐπειδὴ τὴν ζώνην ἔφησθα τοῦ χιτωνίσκου, ἣν εἶχες, εἶναι μὲν οἷαι αἱ Περσικαὶ τῶν πολυτελῶν, ταύτην δὲ αὐτὸς πλέξαι· πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ποιήματα ἔχων ἐλθεῖν, καὶ ἔπη καὶ τραγῳδίας {d} καὶ διθυράμβους, καὶ καταλογάδην πολλοὺς λόγους καὶ παντοδαποὺς συγκειμένους· καὶ περὶ τῶν τεχνῶν δὴ ὧν ἄρτι ἐγὼ ἔλεγον ἐπιστήμων ἀφικέσθαι διαφερόντως τῶν ἄλλων, καὶ περὶ ῥυθμῶν καὶ ἁρμονιῶν καὶ γραμμάτωνὀρθότητος, καὶ ἄλλα ἔτι πρὸς τούτοις πάνυ πολλά, ὡς ἐγὼ δοκῶ μνημονεύειν· καίτοι τό γε μνημονικὸνἐπελαθόμην σου, ὡς ἔοικε, τέχνημα, ἐν ᾧ σὺ οἴει λαμπρότατος εἶναι·

3§163 Whenever Hippias of Elis displays his total control of the rhapsodic craft by quoting verses of Homer that are most relevant to his ongoing live dialogues with his interlocutors, it is implied that the credit goes not to the old craft of the rhapsode but to the supposedly new mnemonic technique of {427|428} the sophist. Nevertheless, as we see in Plato’s Hippias Minor, the rules of the game continue to be set in terms of the old craft. The questions continue to be Homeric questions, debated in a format that corresponds to the ways in which rhapsodes performed and commented on Homer at the Panathenaia.

3ⓣ31 Isocrates (12) Panathenaicus 33

περὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν πεπαιδευμένων τυγχάνω ταῦτα γιγνώσκων. περὶ δὲ τῆς Ὁμήρου καὶ τῆς Ἡσιόδου καὶ τῆς τῶν ἄλλων ποιήσεως ἐπιθυμῶ μὲν εἰπεῖν, οἶμαι γὰρ ἂν παῦσαι τοὺς ἐν τῷ Λυκείῳ ῥαψῳδοῦντας τἀκείνων καὶ ληροῦντας περὶ αὐτῶν, αἰσθάνομαι δ᾿ ἐμαυτὸν ἔξω φερόμενον τῆς συμμετρίας τῆς συντεταγμένης τοῖς προοιμίοις.

3ⓣ32 Isocrates (12) Panathenaicus 18-19

μικρὸν δὲ πρὸ τῶν Παναθηναίων τῶν μεγάλων ἠχθέσθην δι᾿ αὐτούς. ἀπαντήσαντες γάρ τινές μοι τῶν ἐπιτηδείων ἔλεγον ὡς ἐν τῷ Λυκείῳ συγκαθεζόμενοι τρεῖς ἢ τέτταρες τῶν ἀγελαίων σοφιστῶν καὶ πάντα φασκόντων εἰδέναι καὶ ταχέως πανταχοῦ γιγνομένων διαλέγοιντοπερί τε τῶν ἄλλων ποιητῶν καὶ τῆς Ἡσιόδου καὶ τῆς Ὁμήρου ποιήσεως, οὐδὲν μὲν παρ᾿ αὑτῶν λέγοντες, τὰ δ᾿ ἐκείνων ῥαψῳδοῦντες καὶ τῶν πρότερον ἄλλοις τισὶν εἰρημένων τὰ χαριέσταταμνημονεύοντες· ἀποδεξαμένων δὲ τῶν περιεστώτων τὴν διατριβὴν αὐτῶν ἕνα τὸν τολμηρότατον ἐπιχειρῆσαί με διαβάλλειν, λέγονθ᾿ ὡς …

But, a short time before the Great Panathenaia, I [= Isocrates] got very annoyed at them [= Isocrates’ detractors]. For, according to what was reported to me by some friends that I happened to meet, there were these run-of-the-mill sophists [sophistai], sitting together in the Lyceum, three or four of them, the kind who tell you that they know everything, the kind who quickly turn up at every occasion, and here they were discussing various poets [poiētai], and especially the poetry [poiēsis] of Hesiod and Homer, saying on their own part nothing about them but rather performing rhapsodically [rhapsōideîn] their poems [that is, the poems of Homer, Hesiod, and other poets] and mentioning [mnēmoneuein] things having the most kharis [khariestata] taken from what has previously been said [about the poems] by others. Then, when the bystanders showed their approval [apodekhesthai] of their [= the sophists’] performance [diatribē], the most audacious one of them [= the sophists] started trying to slander me, saying that …

3ⓢ9. Rhapsodic powers of total recall

3§168 Given that Hippias applies the rhapsōidikē tekhnē ‘rhapsodic craft’ whenever he performs quotations from Homer in his dialogue with Socrates, I {430|431} now propose to test his rhapsodic powers of total recall by comparing the text of his Homeric quotations with the text of Homer as we know it.

3§169 Let us begin at the very beginning of the Hippias Minor, where Socrates addresses a most central Homeric question to Hippias: was Achilles really ameinōn ‘better’ than Odysseus (363b)? This question, as we will see presently, has to do with the complementarity of Achilles and Odysseus as the aristos ‘best’ hero of the Achaeans in respectively the Iliad and the Odyssey. In the Hippias Minor, Socrates starts by alluding to this question:

3ⓣ33 Plato Hippias Minor 364b-c

ἀτὰρ τί δὴ λέγεις ἡμῖν περὶ τοῦ Ἀχιλλέως τε καὶ τοῦ Ὀδυσσέως; πότερον ἀμείνω καὶ κατὰ τί φῂς εἶναι; ἡνίκα μὲν γὰρ πολλοὶ ἔνδον ἦμεν καὶ σὺ τὴν ἐπίδειξιν ἐποιοῦ, ἀπελείφθην σου τῶν λεγομένων – ὤκνουν γὰρ ἐπανερέσθαι, διότι ὄχλος τε πολὺς ἔνδον ἦν, καὶ μή σοι ἐμποδὼν εἴην ἐρωτῶν τῇ ἐπιδείξει – νυνὶ δὲ ἐπειδὴ ἐλάττους τέ ἐσμεν καὶ Εὔδικος ὅδε κελεύει ἐρέσθαι, εἰπέ τε καὶ {c} δίδαξον ἡμᾶς σαφῶς, τί ἔλεγεςπερὶ τούτοιν τοῖν ἀνδροῖν; πῶς διέκρινες αὐτούς;

ΙΠ. Ἀλλ’ ἐγώ σοι, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐθέλω ἔτι σαφέστερον ἢ τότε διελθεῖν ἃ λέγω καὶ περὶ τούτων καὶ ἄλλων. φημὶ γὰρ Ὅμηρον πεποιηκέναιἄριστον μὲν ἄνδρα Ἀχιλλέα τῶν εἰς Τροίαν ἀφικομένων, σοφώτατον δὲ Νέστορα, πολυτροπώτατον δὲ Ὀδυσσέα.

HIPPIAS: Why, I am glad, Socrates, to go through for you still more clearly what I say about [legein peri] these and others also. For I say that Homer has made [poieîn] Achilles the best [aristos] man of those who went to Troy, and Nestor the most wise [sophōtatos], and Odysseus the most multiform [polutropos].

3§170 As Socrates proceeds to question Hippias about this formulation, it becomes evident that he also questions Homer:

3ⓣ34 Plato Hippias Minor 364e

ἐπειδὴ δὲ τὸν Ὀδυσσέα εἶπες ὅτι πεποιηκὼς εἴη ὁ ποιητὴς πολυτροπώτατον, τοῦτο δ’, ὥς γε πρὸς σὲ τἀληθῆ εἰρῆσθαι, παντάπασιν οὐκ οἶδ’ ὅτι λέγεις. καί μοι εἰπέ, ἄν τι ἐνθένδε μᾶλλον μάθω· ὁ Ἀχιλλεὺς οὐ πολύτροπος τῷ Ὁμήρῳ πεποίηται;

[SOCRATES:] But when you said that the poet [= Homer] made Odysseus the most multiform [polutropos], to tell you the truth, I do not in the least know what you mean by that. Now tell me, and perhaps it may result in my understanding better. Has not Homer made [poieîn] Achilles multiform [polutropos]?

3§172 In the course of their debate over this central Homeric question of the Iliad, Hippias and Socrates quote extensively from Iliad IX. The first Homeric quotation comes from Hippias:

3ⓣ35 Plato Hippias Minor 364e

[ΙΠ.] Ἥκιστά γε, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἀλλ’ ἁπλούστατος καὶ ἀληθέστατος, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἐν Λιταῖς, ἡνίκα πρὸς ἀλλήλους ποιεῖ αὐτοὺς διαλεγομένους, λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἀχιλλεὺς πρὸς τὸν Ὀδυσσέα –

3§173 These verses as quoted from Plato’s text of Homer must be contrasted with the corresponding verses that have come down to us through the medieval manuscript tradition:

3ⓣ36 Iliad IX 308-314

3§174 The differences that we see between the wording of this passage as transmitted in Plato’s dialogue and the wording as transmitted in the medieval manuscript tradition can be explained as variations in the formulaic system that typifies Homeric poetry in general. That is to say, the wording as performed by Hippias in this re-enactment by Plato can be considered just as “Homeric” as the wording that has come down to us through the medieval manuscript tradition. That said, I am ready to argue that this wording matches the traditional wording of Homer as he was understood in Plato’s time.

3§175 This argument is supported by the internal logic of the whole dialogue that we know as the Hippias Minor. That is because the argument of Socrates in this dialogue is actually based on the recognized authority of Hippias as a most accurate transmitter of Homer’s ipsissima verba. For Socrates to win the argument with Hippias, he has to show that his opponent is trapped and even defeated by these ipsissima verba. That is why Socrates has to recognize the sophist’s mastery of the same ipsissima verba.

3ⓣ37 Plato Hippias Minor 365b

ἐν τούτοις δηλοῖ τοῖς ἔπεσιν τὸν τρόπον ἑκατέρου τοῦ ἀνδρός, ὡς ὁ μὲν Ἀχιλλεὺς εἴη ἀληθής τε καὶ ἁπλοῦς, ὁ δὲ Ὀδυσσεὺς πολύτροπός τε καὶ ψευδής· ποιεῖ γὰρ τὸν Ἀχιλλέα εἰς τὸν Ὀδυσσέα λέγοντα ταῦτα τὰ ἔπη.

[HIPPIAS:] In these verses he [= Homer] makes plain the character of each of the men, that Achilles is true [alēthēs] and simple [haploûs], and Odysseus multiform [polutropos] and false [pseudēs], for he figures [poieîn] Achilles in the act of saying [legein] these verses [epos plural] to Odysseus.

3§177 This dialogic commentary of Hippias is countered by the dialogic commentary of Socrates himself, who consistently undermines the words of {435|436} Homer as faithfully remembered by Hippias. Since Hippias refuses to accept the idea that Homer presents Achilles in an unfavorable light, Socrates challenges Hippias to defend the meaning of these words independently of whatever Homer meant:

3ⓣ38 Plato Hippias Minor 365c-d

[ΣΩ.] Τὸν μὲν Ὅμηρον τοίνυν ἐάσωμεν, ἐπειδὴ καὶ {d} ἀδύνατον ἐπανερέσθαι τί ποτε νοῶν ταῦτα ἐποίησεν τὰ ἔπη· σὺ δ’ ἐπειδὴ φαίνῃ ἀναδεχόμενος τὴν αἰτίαν, καὶ σοὶ συνδοκεῖ ταῦτα ἅπερ φῂς Ὅμηρον λέγειν, ἀπόκριναικοινῇ ὑπὲρ Ὁμήρου τε καὶ σαυτοῦ.

3§178 Socrates bases his argumentation on the premise that Hippias has an exact memory of Homer’s exact words – a memory connected with the sophist’s expertise in poetry. When Hippias came to Athens to display his many prodigious skills, what impressed Socrates the most was this expertise:

3ⓣ39 Plato Hippias Minor 368d-e

πρὸς δὲ τούτοις ποιήματα ἔχων ἐλθεῖν, καὶ ἔπη καὶ τραγῳδίας καὶ διθυράμβους, καὶ καταλογάδην πολλοὺς λόγους καὶ παντοδαποὺς συγκειμένους· καὶ περὶ τῶν τεχνῶν δὴ ὧν ἄρτι ἐγὼ ἔλεγον ἐπιστήμων ἀφικέσθαι διαφερόντως τῶν ἄλλων, καὶ περὶ ῥυθμῶν καὶ ἁρμονιῶν καὶ γραμμάτων ὀρθότητος, καὶ ἄλλα ἔτι πρὸς τούτοις πάνυ πολλά, ὡς ἐγὼ δοκῶ μνημονεύειν· καίτοι τό γε μνημονικὸν ἐπελαθόμην σου, ὡς ἔοικε, τέχνημα, ἐν ᾧ σὺ οἴει λαμπρότατος εἶναι· οἶμαι δὲ καὶ {e} ἄλλα πάμπολλα ἐπιλελῆσθαι.

3§179 It is precisely because Hippias is known for his perfect memory of Homer that Socrates can undermine Homer through Hippias. So when Socrates pretends to be forgetful in the presence of this master of mnemonics, he is ironically accentuating the effectiveness of his own argument against Homer. This effectiveness is all the more accentuated when Socrates proceeds to demonstrate that he too, like Hippias, is a master of mnemonics, and that he too has a perfect memory of Homer. Socrates starts by provoking Hippias, questioning whether the sophist is making use of his vaunted techniques of mnemonics:

3ⓣ40 Plato Hippias Minor 369a-369b

[ΣΩ.] Νυνὶ γὰρ ἴσως οὐ χρῇ τῷ μνημονικῷτεχνήματι – δῆλον γὰρ ὅτι οὐκ οἴει δεῖν – ἀλλὰ ἐγώ σε ὑπομνήσω. οἶσθα ὅτι τὸν μὲν Ἀχιλλέα ἔφησθα ἀληθῆ εἶναι, τὸν δὲ Ὀδυσσέα {360b} ψευδῆ καὶ πολύτροπον;

[ΙΠ.] Ναί.

[ΣΩ.] Νῦν οὖν αἰσθάνῃ ὅτι ἀναπέφανται ὁ αὐτὸς ὢν ψευδής τε καὶ ἀληθής, ὥστε εἰ ψευδὴς ὁ Ὀδυσσεὺς ἦν, καὶ 
ἀληθὴς γίγνεται, καὶ εἰ ἀληθὴς ὁ Ἀχιλλεύς, καὶ ψευδής, καὶ οὐ διάφοροι ἀλλήλων οἱ ἄνδρες οὐδ’ ἐναντίοι, ἀλλ’ ὅμοιοι; {437|438}

SOCRATES: Maybe you are not using your mnemonic technique [mnēmonikon tekhnēma] right now – clearly you don’t think you need to – but I will give you mnemonic support [hupo-mnē-]. You know you were saying that Achilles is true but Odysseus false and multiform [polutropos]?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Do you now, then, perceive that the same man has been found to be false and true, so that if Odysseus was false, he becomes also true, and if Achilles was true, he becomes also false, and the two men are not different from one another, nor opposites, but alike?

3§180 Hippias responds to the provocation of Socrates by challenging him to a duel in mnemonics. The two duelists must argue their cases not only by opposing each other’s arguments. They must also quote verses from Homer to back up those arguments:

3ⓣ41 Plato Hippias Minor 369c

ἐπεὶ καὶ νῦν, ἐὰν βούλῃ, ἐπὶ πολλῶν τεκμηρίων ἀποδείξω σοι ἱκανῷ λόγῳ Ὅμηρον Ἀχιλλέα πεποιηκέναι ἀμείνω Ὀδυσσέως καὶ ἀψευδῆ, τὸν δὲ δολερόν τε καὶ πολλὰ ψευδόμενον καὶ χείρω Ἀχιλλέως. εἰ δὲ βούλει, σὺ αὖ ἀντιπαράβαλλελόγον παρὰ λόγον, ὡς ὁ ἕτερος ἀμείνων ἐστί· καὶ μᾶλλον εἴσονται οὗτοι ὁπότερος ἄμεινον λέγει.

[HIPPIAS:] Right now, if you want, on the basis of many different pieces of evidence, I will demonstrate to you, using a discourse [logos] that is self-sufficient, that Homer has made [poieîn] Achilles better than Odysseus and free from falsehood, and [that he has made] Odysseus crafty and a teller of many falsehoods and inferior to Achilles. And, if you want, you should compete by matching discourse [logos] against discourse [logos], maintaining that one of them is better than the other; and these men here will determine which of us speaks [legein] better.

3§181 In the wording of Hippias as re-enacted by Plato, the act of performing Homer’s words is expressed not only by the verb legein ‘speak’ but also by the noun logos in the general sense of ‘speech’ or ‘discourse’, which overlaps with the specific sense of ‘argument’ in his sophistic discourse. For Hippias, as we are about to see, a logos is a ‘discourse’ that includes not only the {438|439} ‘logic’ of his argumentation but also the actual ‘wording’ – literally, logos – of Homer himself. Just as Homer ‘speaks’ (legein), so also Hippias ‘speaks’ (legein) when he performs Homer.

3§182 Socrates responds to the challenge of Hippias by becoming a Homeric performer in his own right. Only, he outdoes Hippias by managing to quote four separate sets of verses from the Iliad, not just a single set. The wording that introduces the first set includes numerous instances of legein in the sense of ‘speaking’ the words of Homer as well as ‘speaking’ the words of the argument supposedly represented by Homer:

3ⓣ42 Plato Hippias Minor 369d-370a

καὶ γνώσῃ τούτῳ οὓς ἂν ἐγὼ ἡγῶμαι 
σοφοὺς εἶναι· εὑρήσεις γάρ με λιπαρῆ ὄντα περὶ τὰ {369e} λεγόμενα ὑπὸ τούτου καὶ πυνθανόμενον παρ’ αὐτοῦ, ἵνα μαθών τι ὠφεληθῶ. ἐπεὶ καὶ νῦν ἐννενόηκα σοῦ λέγοντος, ὅτι ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσιν οἷς σὺ ἄρτι ἔλεγες, ἐνδεικνύμενος τὸν Ἀχιλλέα εἰς τὸν Ὀδυσσέα λέγειν ὡς ἀλαζόνα ὄντα, ἄτοπόν μοι δοκεῖ εἶναι, εἰ σὺ ἀληθῆ λέγεις, ὅτι ὁ μὲν Ὀδυσσεὺς οὐδαμοῦ {370a} φαίνεται ψευσάμενος, ὁ πολύτροπος, ὁ δὲ Ἀχιλλεὺς πολύτροπός τις φαίνεται κατὰ τὸν σὸν λόγον· ψεύδεται γοῦν. προειπὼν γὰρ ταῦτα τὰ ἔπη, ἅπερ καὶ σὺ εἶπες ἄρτι –

SOCRATES: […] And by this you [= Hippias] will recognize whom I regard as wise; for you will find me persistently asking such a man questions about what he says [legein], in order that I may benefit by learning something. Just now I noticed when you were speaking [legein] that in the verses [epos plural] that you spoke [legein] just now to show that Achilles speaks [legein] to Odysseus as to a deceiver, it seems to me very strange, if what you say [legein] is true, that Odysseus the multiform is nowhere found to have uttered falsehoods [pseudesthai], but Achilles is found to be a multiform [polutropos] sort of person, according to your own discourse [logos]; at any rate, he utters falsehoods [pseudesthai]. For he begins by speaking [legein / eipeîn] these verses [epos plural] which you just spoke [legein / eipeîn]: {439|440}

3§183 Socrates now proceeds to argue, in opposition to Hippias, that Achilles himself hides one thing in his thinking and says another thing. To back up this argument, he quotes this second set of Homeric verses:

3ⓣ43 Plato Hippias Minor 370b-c

ὀλίγον ὕστερον λέγει ὡς οὔτ’ ἂν ἀναπεισθείη ὑπὸ τοῦ Ὀδυσσέως τε καὶ τοῦ Ἀγαμέμνονος οὔτε μένοι τὸ παράπαν ἐν τῇ Τροίᾳ, ἀλλ’ –

[…] and a little later he [= Achilles] says [legein] that he would not be persuaded by Odysseus and Agamemnon and would not stay at Troy at all, but …

3§184 Socrates pursues his argument by quoting a third set of Homeric verses:

3ⓣ44 Plato Hippias Minor 370c-d

ἔτι δὲ πρότερον τούτων πρὸς τὸν Ἀγαμέμνονα λοιδορούμενος εἶπεν –

And even before that, when he [= Achilles] was reviling Agamemnon, he said [legein / eipeîn]:

3ⓣ45 Plato Hippias Minor 371b-c

[ΣΩ.] Οὐκ οἶσθα ὅτι λέγων ὕστερον ἢ ὡς πρὸς τὸν Ὀδυσσέα ἔφη ἅμα τῇ ἠοῖ ἀποπλευσεῖσθαι, πρὸς τὸν Αἴαντα οὐκ αὖ φησιν ἀποπλευσεῖσθαι, ἀλλὰ ἄλλα λέγει; {441|442}

[ΙΠ.] Ποῦ δή;

[ΣΩ.] Ἐν οἷς λέγει

SOCRATES: Don’t you know that he [= Achilles], speaking [legein] at a later point after he declared to Odysseus that he was going to sail away at daybreak, does not in addressing Ajax declare that he [= Achilles] is going to sail away but says [legein] different things?

HIPPIAS: Where is that?

SOCRATES: It is where he [= Achilles] says [legein]:

3§186 In the case of this Homeric quotation, Plato’s text matches the text that has come down to us in the medieval manuscript tradition, except for this variation: {442|443}

3ⓣ46 Iliad IX 653

3§187 Having made his argument against Hippias by performing the words of Homer as part of the argument, Socrates goes out of his way to reaffirm the authority of Hippias as an expert in Homer:

3ⓣ47 Plato Hippias Minor 372a-c

[ΣΩ.] Ὁρᾷς, ὦ Ἱππία, ὅτι ἐγὼ ἀληθῆ λέγω, λέγων ὡς {272b} λιπαρής εἰμι πρὸς τὰς ἐρωτήσεις τῶν σοφῶν; καὶ κινδυνεύω ἓν μόνον ἔχειν τοῦτο ἀγαθόν, τἆλλα ἔχων πάνυ φαῦλα· τῶν μὲν γὰρ πραγμάτων ᾗ ἔχει ἔσφαλμαι, καὶ οὐκ οἶδ’ ὅπῃ ἐστί. τεκμήριον δέ μοι τούτου ἱκανόν, ὅτι ἐπειδὰν συγγένωμαί τῳ ὑμῶν τῶν εὐδοκιμούντων ἐπὶ σοφίᾳ καὶ οἷς οἱ Ἕλληνες πάντες μάρτυρές εἰσι τῆς σοφίας, φαίνομαι οὐδὲν εἰδώς· οὐδὲν γάρ μοι δοκεῖ τῶν αὐτῶν καὶ ὑμῖν, ὡς ἔπος {372c} εἰπεῖν. καίτοι τί μεῖζον ἀμαθίας τεκμήριον ἢ ἐπειδάν τις σοφοῖς ἀνδράσι διαφέρηται; ἓν δὲ τοῦτο θαυμάσιον ἔχω ἀγαθόν, ὅ με σῴζει· οὐ γὰρ αἰσχύνομαι μανθάνων, ἀλλὰ πυνθάνομαι καὶ ἐρωτῶ καὶ χάριν πολλὴν ἔχω τῷ ἀποκρινομένῳ, καὶ οὐδένα πώποτε ἀπεστέρησα χάριτος. οὐ γὰρ πώποτε ἔξαρνος ἐγενόμην μαθών τι, ἐμαυτοῦ ποιούμενος τὸ μάθημα εἶναι ὡς εὕρημα· ἀλλ’ ἐγκωμιάζω τὸν διδάξαντά με ὡς σοφὸν ὄντα, ἀποφαίνων ἃ ἔμαθον παρ’ αὐτοῦ.

3§188 What Socrates ostensibly learns from Hippias is an expertise in a craft that is most highly respected by all Hellenes, that is, the craft of the rhapsode. By ostensibly giving it due respect, Socrates makes that craft a foil for something that demands even more respect, that is, the craft that is not a craft because it transcends all crafts. That non-craft is philosophy, the love of sophia as ‘wisdom’, which transcends sophia as ‘craft’.

3ⓢ10. Panathenaic Homer and the Koine of Aristarchus

3§192 It would be going too far, however, to think that Plato’s Panathenaic Homer was the same thing as the base text of the Homeric Koine as reconstructed by Aristarchus. That reconstruction was just that, a reconstruction. It could only point toward the reality of the Koine, without ever fully capturing it.

3§193 It may be that Aristarchus himself had access to a copy of Plato’s Homer. In the Homeric scholia, we learn that Ammonius, the successor of Aristarchus at the Library of Alexandria, produced a monograph concerning Homeric verses used by Plato. Didymus (via the scholia A for Iliad IX 540a1) mentions the title of this monograph, Περὶ τῶν ὑπὸ Πλάτωνος μετενηνεγμένων ἐξ Ὁμήρου ‘About the things derived from Homer by Plato’. In this monograph, according to Didymus, Ammonius mentions a variant that Aristarchus found in Plato’s Homer for a verse in Iliad IX (540): in Plato’s Homer, this verse shows the variant ἔρεξεν ἔθων in place of ἔρδεσκεν ἔθων (<ἔρδεσκεν ἔθων>: Ἀμμώνιος ἐν τῷ Περὶ τῶν ὑπὸ Πλάτωνος μετενηνεγμένων ἐξ Ὁμήρου διὰ τοῦ <ξ> προφέρεται, ἔρεξεν). This variant reading from Plato’s Homer, ἔρεξεν ἔθων, is attested nowhere in the medieval manuscript tradition {445|446} of Homer. Nor is this verse from Iliad IX (540) attested anywhere among the verses that Plato actually quotes in his extant works. So it may be that Ammonius inherited from Aristarchus a Homeric text that was used by Plato himself.

3§194 A moment ago, I said that the base text of Homer as edited by Aristarchus was merely his reconstruction of the Homeric Koine, not the Homeric Koine itself. Perhaps it is not too obvious for me to add that Aristarchus could never have fully succeeded in reconstructing what he attempted to reconstruct. Still, the reality of the Homeric Koine came into sharper focus thanks to his efforts in collating Homeric manuscripts, though it became blurred again in the post-Aristarchean age of Didymus, that is, in the age of Virgil, just as it had been blurred earlier in the pre-Aristarchean age of Callimachus.

3§195 To sum up, we can expect to see some differences between “our” Koine and “their” Koine – and by “their” Koine I mean Plato’s Homer. These differences are important to the extent that they show not just textual but also formulaic variations, as we saw in Plato’s quotations from Iliad IX. So Homeric poetry shows some degree of fluidity, however limited, even in the age of Plato.

3§196 Still, as far as differences go, such formulaic variations are relatively minimal – that is, they will seem minimal to us once we compare them to the differences between the Homer quoted by Plato and the Homer that I have been calling the Homerus Auctus. By comparison to the Homerus Auctus, with its Cyclic, Hesiodic, and Orphic accretions, Plato’s Homer will seem to be mostly the same as the Homeric Koine, which is “our” Homer. I have more to say about this aspect of the Homerus Auctus in the twin book, Homer the Preclassic. For now, however, I focus on the Homeric Koine and on the Panathenaic standard that maintained it. The Homer quoted by Plato is this Homeric Koine.

3§197 I would give anything to hear Homer as quoted by Plato or, even better, to hear the Homeric Koine as performed by rhapsodes heard by Plato at the Panathenaia. I would give anything to hear directly from the rhapsodes their answers to the questions of Socrates – or even their answers to the questions of Plato himself. I would give anything just to overhear their rhapsodic talk, at whatever time and whatever place. Failing that, I need to reconstruct such talk, and I have to go to Plato in order to do it. Even Plato might be sympathetic to such a need. After all, even Plato could not have imagined a world without a Panathenaic festival. Nor could Plato have imagined a world that is truly without a City Dionysia. Granted, he may have wished to ban such a thing from any ideal Republic, but the idea that there would ever {446|447} be a time when no such thing existed would have seemed unthinkable to him. How to imagine life without a Festival of Dionysus? We who live in such a world need to hear the language of rhapsodes and actors, however indirectly. So we have to reconstruct what it was like to hear the Homeric Koine performed at the Panathenaia. We need the help of witnesses, and the best we can do is to listen to the words of Socrates, as brought back to life each time we read Plato’s dialogues. This Socrates is of course Plato’s Socrates, and we are in a way fortunate that Plato is the mediator for us, because he has such a good ear for dialogue. This time I don’t just mean Socratic dialogue. True, I am sure Plato picked up on Socrates’ dialogue and even on Socrates’ speech-habits in general, so much so that the real personality of Socrates comes back each time we read Plato. But here I am not talking about Socrates the person. I am talking about Plato the historical person who had a good ear and who listened carefully to the discourse of people in general, and of people of tekhnē in particular, such as rhapsodes. We need help in reconstructing the discourse of these rhapsodes. And, like it or not, Plato seems to be the only person who can help us.

3ⓢ11. The sorrows of Andromache

3ⓣ48 Plato Ion 535b-c

ΣΩ. Ἔχε δή μοι τόδε εἰπέ, ὦ Ἴων, καὶ μὴ ἀποκρύψῃ ὅτι ἄν σε ἔρωμαι· ὅταν εὖ εἴπῃς ἔπη καὶ ἐκπλήξῃς μάλιστα τοὺς θεωμένους, ἢ τὸν Ὀδυσσέα ὅταν ἐπὶ τὸν οὐδὸν ἐφαλλόμενον ᾄδῃς, ἐκφανῆ γιγνόμενον τοῖς μνηστῆρσι καὶ ἐκχέοντα τοὺς ὀιστοὺς πρὸ τῶν ποδῶν, ἢ Ἀχιλλέα ἐπὶ τὸν Ἕκτορα ὁρμῶντα, ἢ καὶ τῶν περὶ Ἀνδρομάχην ἐλεινῶν τι ἢ περὶ Ἑκάβην ἢ περὶ Πρίαμον, τότε πότερον ἔμφρων εἶ ἢ ἔξω {c} σαυτοῦ γίγνῃ καὶ παρὰ τοῖς πράγμασιν οἴεταί σου εἶναι ἡ ψυχὴ οἷς λέγεις ἐνθουσιάζουσα, ἢ ἐν Ἰθάκῃ οὖσιν ἢ ἐν Τροίᾳ ἢ ὅπως ἂν καὶ τὰ ἔπη ἔχῃ;

SOCRATES: Hold it right there. Tell me this, Ion – respond to what I ask without concealment. When you recite well the epic verses [epos plural] and induce a feeling of bedazzlement [ekplēxis] for the spectators [theōmenoi] – when you sing of [1] Odysseus leaping onto the threshold and revealing himself to the suitors and pouring out the arrows at his feet, or of [2] Achilles rushing at [2->3a] Hector, or [3] something connected to the pitiful things about [3b] Andromache or [3c] Hecuba or [3d] Priam – are you then in your right mind, or outside yourself? Does your psukhē, possessed by the god [enthousiazein], suppose that you are in the midst of the actions you describe in Ithaca or Troy, or wherever the epic verses [epos plural] have it?

3§200 The first two moments have to do primarily with the emotion of terror, and they feature the main heroes of the Odyssey and the Iliad respectively, [1] Odysseus and [2] Achilles. The next three moments have to do primarily with the emotion of pity, and they feature the main heroes on the other side of the Trojan War: [3b] Andromache, [3c] Hecuba, and [3d] Priam. As I will argue in Chapter 4, the link between the two moments of terror and the three moments of pity is [3a] Hector, who exemplifies the emotion of terror when he is about to be killed by Achilles but who also exemplifies the {448|449} emotion of pity through the lamentations of [3b] his wife Andromache. In the wording of Plato’s Ion, the pairing of [3a] Hector and [3b] Andromache creates a thematic link for the transition from terror to pity.

3§201 The Homeric portrayal of Andromache’s lamentations is high theater. As we saw earlier in this dialogue, the rhapsōidos who performs such moments at the Panathenaia is parallel to a hupokritēs ‘actor’ who performs similar moments at the City Dionysia. In Chapter 2, I quoted an exquisite example from tragedy: it is an aria sung as a monody by the actor who plays Andromache in the Andromache of Euripides (91-117).

3§202 There is an overall parallelism, then, between the scenes of terror and pity in the epic of the Panathenaia and in the drama of the City Dionysia, especially tragedy. Such scenes in tragedy cannot be viewed independently of epic, as if they were intrinsic only to tragedy. Aristotle’s formulation about terror and pity as essential ingredients of tragedy extends to epic as well. And his formulation corresponds closely to Plato’s earlier formulation about terror and pity as essential ingredients of the epic performed by rhapsodes like Ion at the Panathenaia. There is a tragic way of “reading” Homer. {449|450}

Footnotes