[ back ] 128. The final mention of Nestor in the poem is in Odyssey 24 in Agamemnon’s account of Achilles’ funeral: Nestor restrained the Achaeans from fleeing to the ships in panic when Thetis and the Nereids came to mourn Achilles’ death (Odyssey 24.50–52). The scene resembles Agamemnon’s testing of the army in Iliad 2, except that there Odysseus restrains the Achaeans from fleeing to the ships and Nestor incites them to war; see §2.67 above. The same motif in Odyssey 24 looks like a conscious variation of Iliad 2. In the main story of the Odyssey Nestor’s final appearance (or rather non-appearance) is in Odyssey 15, when Telemachus bypasses him on the way to Ithaca (see §2.91 above).

[ back ] 129. See above §1.4 and n1.8.

[ back ] 130. Agamemnon in this passage is called the brother-in-law of the Dioskouroi (γαμβρὸς ἐὼν, line 5); this must mean that he had already wed Clytemnestra and was no longer himself an eligible suitor of Helen. The precise point of lines 3–4 then—that Castor and Polydeuces “would have made him (Agamemnon) their brother-in-law by force”—is not quite clear; this apparently means that they would have made him their brother-in-law if he had not already been their brother-in-law. It is not likely that γαμβρός in line 5 means “wooer” rather than “brother-in-law”—an Aeolic and Doric usage attested by Pindar and Theocritus—in view of the meaning “brother-in-law” in the previous line. At any rate Agamemnon woos not for himself but for his brother. Hesiod fr. 198.2–8 MW says that Odysseus, who wooed from Ithaca, kept promising gifts to Castor and Polydeuces but never sent them, because he knew that Menelaus, as the richest of the Achaeans, would win Helen.

[ back ] 131. Melampus and Bias fled to Argos together, but this passage is interested only in Melampus, the ancestor of Theoklymenos; cf. “Apollodorus” 1.9.12 and 2.2.2 (see also above §1.11 and n1.26).

[ back ] 132. They are not called twins, but they are twin figures; see n1.24 above.

[ back ] 133. “Apollodorus” 1.9.12 offers a detailed account: Melampus, who understood the language of animals, heard worms talking in his prison and escaped before they ate through the beam over his head; this impressed his captor, who agreed to give him the cattle in return for curing his son (cf. n2.134 below). “Apollodorus” 1.9.11 tells how Melampus first became a prophet when snakes cleaned his ears and this enabled him to understand the language of birds.

[ back ] 134. In Odyssey 15.231 Melampus is held in the halls of Phúlakos, whose name, “imprisoner,” matches the name of the place, Phulákē. In Odyssey 11.290 it is Iphiklos, not Phylakos, whose cattle are set as Pero’s bride price; the two names are reconciled in “Apollodorus,” where Phylakos is the father of Iphiklos: Melampus wins the cattle and his own freedom through his medical skill, telling Phylakos how to cure his son Iphiklos of childlessness. Melampus’s medical skill is featured again in the myth of Proitos’s daughters, whom he cures of madness (cf. n1.26 above); in his function as a physician Melampus corresponds to the Vedic twin gods and the Greek twins Podaleirios and Makhaon (for the latter pair see above §2.8 with n2.19).

[ back ] 135. Compare the Vedic name Nā́satyā in its association with cattle in Vedic diction, and in its association with a return from darkness in the Vedic twins’ myths and rituals; compare also the cattle raid in the myth of the Dioskouroi (see above §1.66 and n1.205). In the myth of Castor’s death the variant to the driving off of cattle is the carrying off of brides, the Leukippides; in the case of Melampus and Bias the winning of a bride is not a variant for the winning of cattle, but connected to it: cattle are Pero’s bride price.

[ back ] 136. Hesiod fr. 37.10–14 MW:

[ back ] 137. The birth of Pero after her brothers in Odyssey 11 is uncannily echoed by the birth of Helen after her brothers in Cypria fr. 7.1 Allen: τοὺς δὲ μέτα τριτάτην Ἑλένην τέκε θαῦμα βροτοῖσι, “after them she bore a third, Helen, a wonder to mortals”; compare Odyssey 11.287: τοῖσι δ’ ἐπ’ ἰφθίμην Πηρὼ τέκε, θαῦμα βροτοῖσι, “after them she bore steadfast Pero, a wonder to mortals.” The phrase thaûma brotoîsi, “a wonder to mortals,” occurs in only these two lines in Greek epic: Pero and Helen were both “a wonder to mortals” because of their beauty, which attracted many suitors. The Cypria fragment, which is found in Athenaeus 8.334b–d, continues with a passage naming Nemesis as Helen’s mother. From this it would appear that the Cypria considered Nemesis the mother of the Dioskouroi as well, but this is not certain (the first line of the fragment and the lines about Nemesis are not clearly connected; Allen indicates a lacuna between them). “Apollodorus” 3.10.7 says that according to some Nemesis rather than Leda was Helen’s mother; he does not say that this pertained to the Dioskouroi as well as to Helen.

[ back ] 138. See n1.156 above for the female figure associated with the twins in the Indo-European myth; she is called the “daughter of the sun,” and she is both the sister and common wife of the twins. In the Greek myth Helen is the sister of the Dioskouroi but her suitors are a different pair of brothers; Pero follows the same pattern as Helen.

[ back ] 139. For the city-founding function of Greek twins cf. also n2.20 above on Podaleirios, who acts separately from his brother Makhaon in this role, just as Neleus acts separately from Pelias. The city-founding function of twins has correspondences elsewhere in the Indo-European domain: Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, and Hengist and Horsa, the leaders of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain, are examples; the Anglo-Saxon twins, both of whose names mean “horse” (for Hengist cf. German Hengst, “stallion”), are a reflex of the twin horsemen of the Indo-European myth. Other Germanic peoples (the Vandals, Langobards, and Asdingi) are also said to have been led by pairs of twins during the period of migrations; see Ward 1968:50–56 and 1970:199–200 with n30. The Theban city founders have the basic features of Indo-European twins: they are associated with horses (see EN1.3 end), and they are contrasted with each other like other Indo-European twins. In Euripides’ fragmentary Antiope the contrast between them is cast as a debate between Zethos, the proponent of an active life, and Amphion, a contemplative musician (see Kambitsis 1972:xxii–xxx). In this debate music is equated with sophía, “wisdom”: cf. sophísmata, fr. 188.5, sophós, frs. 186.1, 200.3, 202.2 Kannicht 2004; according to Cicero On Invention 1.50.94 and the Rhetorica ad Herennium 2.27.43 Amphion’s defense of music in the play is rather a defense of sapientia; cf. Kambitsis xxii n2 and xxviii–xxix. The active life advocated by Zethos, on the other hand, includes the duties of a citizen soldier (cf. aspídos kútei, “the hollow of the shield,” fr. 185.5 Kannicht). Euripides seems to have recast in contemporary terms an old contrast between the twins (“intelligence” in the one, “war” in the other). “Apollodorus” 3.5.5 tells how the Theban twins were exposed by their mother and raised by a cowherd, and how Amphion practiced music whereas Zethos practiced cowherding. From the standpoint of the Indo-European myth Zethos’s association with cattle is secondary; it perhaps has to do with Euripides’ distinction between an aprágmōn Amphion, who busies himself with music, and a poluprágmōn Zethos, who busies himself from childhood with active pursuits (the word aprágmōn, “free from business, staying away from politics,” and the idea of a poluprágmōn, “restless, meddlesome man,” are found in Antiope fr. 193 Kannicht). Plato’s Gorgias bears witness to the contemporary resonance of the Euripidean debate between Amphion and Zethos (the debate is alluded to in Gorgias 484e, 485e, 486bc, 489e). The tradition that Amphion and Zethos walled Thebes by means of the kithara, attested for Hesiod (fr. 182 MW), is ignored by Homer. At the end of Euripides’ Antiope Hermes assigns the two twins different roles in the task of building walls for Thebes: Amphion is to play the lyre, which stones and trees will obey (fr. 223.119–126 Kannicht); in the lines addressed to Zethos there is a lacuna, but the full line that remains, while itself corrupt, has a warlike sound to it that fits the characterization of this twin: σὺ μὲν .[.]…το̣ν̣ ἔ̣ρ̣υ̣μα̣ πολεμίων λαβών, “you, on the one hand…taking the enemies’ defense,” Kannicht fr. 223.118 (cf. Kambitsis ad loc. [fr. 48.89] for the uncertain text). Apollonius of Rhodes 1.735–741 pictures the twins in the act of building the Theban walls; Zethos lifts a mountain peak on his shoulders with great effort, while Amphion plays his lyre and a rock twice as large as his brother’s follows him. As a parallel for Amphion the musician, the Dioskouroi are called musicians in Theocritus 22.24 (ἱππῆες κιθαρισταὶ ἀεθλητῆρες ἀοιδοί, “horsemen, kithara-players, athletes, singers”; music presumably characterized Polydeuces in contrast to Castor, but this is not attested. For a discussion of early and late sources attesting the building of the walls of Thebes by Amphion and Zethos see Hurst 2000. The double foundation of Thebes, by Cadmus on the one hand, and by Amphion and Zethos on the other hand, is studied with a focus on archaeological evidence by Berman 2004.

[ back ] 140. Hesiod Shield of Heracles 35–38 (Zeus is the subject in the first two lines):

After the lovemaking of husband and wife (lines 39–47) the poem concludes with the birth of Alcmena’s twin sons (lines 48–56); the latter passage elaborately contrasts both the fathers, one immortal and the other mortal, and the sons, one better and the other worse (Hesiod Shield of Heracles 48–56):

[ back ] 141. A brief comment on Epikaste is in order. The catalogue of heroines in Odyssey 11 presents the “wives and daughters” of heroes: Odysseus says so in his introduction to the catalogue (Odyssey 11.225–227):

He uses the same formulation in his epilogue at the end of the catalogue proper (Odyssey 11.328–329):

Husbands and fathers of the heroines are duly named in each entry, but not very consistently, and it does not take long to emerge that the heroines are actually significant as mothers rather than as wives and daughters: it is the heroines’ sons (and one daughter, Pero) who matter in this catalogue. In Epikaste, who is both wife and mother to Oedipus, the announced intention of the catalogue and its real purpose coincide, and this obviously happens in her case alone. The real purpose of the catalogue, which is to present the mothers of heroes and their sons, pertains to the entire catalogue; the clearest articulation of this purpose, in the shocking case of Epikaste, is well placed at the midpoint of the catalogue as a whole.

[ back ] 142. Analysts have long regarded the “intermezzo” (as the interruption in Odysseus’s story is sometimes called) as a secondary intrusion into the poem; see e.g. Page 1955:32–35, whose argument focuses on the addition of an extra day to Odysseus’s stay (τλήτω…ἐπιμεῖναι ἐς αὔριον, “let him bear…to remain until tomorrow,” Odyssey 11.350–351), when his departure seemed to be firmly fixed for a day earlier (αὔριον ἔς, “for tomorrow,” Odyssey 7.318, spoken the day before). Fenik 1974:108 comments on the phrase αὔριον ἔς in Odyssey 7.318 that “probably no other single phrase in the Odyssey has served as the basis for more elaborate or more confident analyst criticism and reconstruction.” Brian Hainsworth (Heubeck et al. 1988, vol. 1, 317) defends the phrase from such analyst criticism, arguing that “its use in the circumstances is perfectly natural and it is corrected at 11.350–351 when circumstances had changed.”

[ back ] 143. The role of the Phaeacian queen is also crucial for Odysseus’s homecoming; he is told twice before he meets her that if she is well disposed toward him there is hope that he will reach home (Odyssey 6.313–315, 7.75–77). It is in the interruption of Odysseus’s story that Arete first gives him her full endorsement. Her speech is well placed because it immediately follows Odysseus’s encounters with other female figures in the underworld, his mother first, followed by the group of heroines. As has often been noted, the shift in Odysseus’s story from the encounters with these female figures to encounters with his male companions from Troy is dramatized by having the queen speak first after Odysseus interrupts his story, and having the king speak next, before he resumes his story (see e.g. Pache 1999:30). The shift from a female to a male perspective is signaled especially in Alcinous’s words πομπὴ δ’ ἄνδρεσσι μελήσει / πᾶσι, μάλιστα δ’ ἐμοί, “his voyage will be up to all the men, but to me most of all.”

[ back ] 144. Note that Nestor’s “smooth stones” to sit on (epì xestoîsi líthoisin, Odyssey 3.406) are paralleled in the Phaeacians’ place of council when Alcinous gathers the elders to arrange Odysseus’s return (Odyssey 8.4–7):

These are the phrases’s only two occurrences in the Odyssey; there is a third occurrence in the Iliad in the litigation scene on the shield of Achilles (Iliad 18.504). There are variations of the phrase at Iliad 6.244 and 248 (θάλαμοι ξεστοῖο λίθοιο, “bedchambers of polished stone”) and Odyssey 16.408 (ἐλθόντες δὲ καθῖζον ἐπὶ ξεστοῖσι θρόνοισιν, “they went and sat on polished thrones”); cf. also ξεστοῖσιν λάεσσι, “polished stones,” in Odyssey 10.211 and 253 (Circe’s palace).

[ back ] 145. “Apollodorus” 1.6.1–2 names thirteen giants who took part in the battle at Phlegrai and Eurymedon is not among them, much less their king. There may also have been local myths of giants, and it is possible that Eurymedon represents one such. See West 1966:419 (on Theogony 954) for the possibility that Heracles, besides his participation in the battle at Phlegrai, slew other giants by himself on a different occasion. For further discussion of the giants in Greek tradition see EN2.3 and, from an Athenian perspective, n3.105 and n3.108 and EN3.7 below.

[ back ] 146. Conceal would be more accurate; see below.

[ back ] 147. Hesiod fr. 30 MW; also “Apollodorus” 1.9.7; cf. Vergil Aeneid 6.585–594.

[ back ] 148. It is also famously given to the sinner Aigisthos (Odyssey 1.29).

[ back ] 149. And a typical one for ancient Greek society (see n2.150 below). There are two examples in Nestor’s own family: Tyro was Kretheus’s niece (cf. Hesiod fr. 10 MW) whom he raised and married after her father Salmoneus was destroyed (Hesiod fr. 30.25–30 MW); Amythaon married the daughter of his brother Pheres and had the sons Melampus and Bias by her (“Apollodorus” 1.9.11).

[ back ] 150. In Attic legal terminology Arete has the status of an epíklēros, “heiress,” a daughter whose father had no male heirs; the epíklēros was required to produce a male heir for her father’s line through marriage to a close relation (a father’s brother or a cousin); see Cox 1998:94–99. In Athens, according to Aristotle, the father could give such a daughter to whomever he chose, and if he died intestate, the guardian of his inheritance (his klēronómos) could give her to whomever he chose (Politics 1270a26–29); the klēronómos was “the nearest adult male relative, or if there should be more than one equally near, the eldest of them” (Newman 1887:329; cf. also Schütrumpf 1991:312–313 for more recent discussion). For bibliography on Homeric and Attic marriage and differences between them see Foley 1994:147–148 and n208. In Sparta, if a father had not chosen a husband for an heiress, the kings did so (Herodotus 6.57.4). In Sparta, as in Athens, an heiress would no doubt be married to her nearest relation on the father’s side, an uncle or cousin, so that the property would remain in the clan.

[ back ] 151. Iliad 7.228, 13.324, 16.146, 16.575; Odyssey 4.5. All occurrences of the epithet are in the same metrical position as the name Rhexenor in Odyssey 7.63. The name occurs once more, in Odyssey 7.146, where Arete is called “daughter of Rhexenor.” The noun ῥηξηνορίη, “man-breaking might,” occurs once, in Odyssey 14.217, in Odysseus’s tale to Eumaios.

[ back ] 152. For the Phaeacians’ names, see Welcker 1832/1845:3–4 (discussed further in n4.179 below): Alcinous has three sons and a daughter, three of whose names relate to the sea; the exception is Laodámas, whose name expresses “kingliness” (“das Königliche”) in Welcker’s term (for this figure, the Phaeacian heir apparent, see §4.49–§4.53 below; for his name see EN2.2 to n2.125 above and cf. n2.125 above). Among the rest of the Phaeacians eighteen have names that relate to the sea and only two do not: Polybos, who made a purple ball used for a dance (Odyssey 8.373) and Dymas, “famous for ships” (ναυσικλειτοῖο Δύμαντος, Odyssey 6.22).

[ back ] 153. Compare the arrows that Apollo shoots against the Achaean army in Iliad 1.43–52, which suggest plague, especially in the deaths of animals (dogs and asses) as well as humans. In Odyssey 15.407–411, on the other hand, Eumaeus tells Odysseus that on the island of Syrie, where he was born, there was no hunger or disease, but when people grew old Apollo and Artemis shot them with gentle arrows; in this case the gods’ arrows seem to represent a natural death by old age, which would not apply to Rhexenor.

[ back ] 154. More than a century and a half ago G. W. Nitzsch wrote to the point of the Phaeacians that “they are there only for Odysseus and the course of the Odyssey” (“sie nur für Odysseus und den Verlauf der Odyssee da sind,” Nitzsch 1831:165; cf. Welcker 1832/1845:14, who quotes Nitzsch’s statement, and also Nitzsch’s related discussion, p. 78). Brian Hainsworth regards the Phaeacian genealogy as an invention, noting that “at least twelve Periboeas and eight Eurymedons are known to the mythographers,” but he misses the point that the Phaeacians themselves are an invention of the Odyssey (Hainsworth in Heubeck et al. 1988 on Odyssey 7.54–66).

[ back ] 155. The pretense is maintained at Odyssey 16.227–228, where Odysseus tells Telemachus that the Phaeacians brought him home, “who also convey other men, whoever comes to them”:

[ back ] 156. The scholia to Odyssey 7.324 say that Rhadamanthys came “to bring Tityos to his senses” about his evil deed (ὡς δὴ σωφρονίσων αὐτὸν) or that “Rhadamanthys, the most just judge among the Greeks, punished him earlier,” i.e. before Apollo did (τοῦτον οὖν ὁ Ῥαδάμανθος ὁ δικαιότατος παρ’ ῞Ελλησι κριτὴς ἐτιμώρησε πρότερον). These alternatives are clearly guesses based on nothing more than the text of the Odyssey. Welcker 1832/1845:28, 71 supposes that the Odyssey alludes to a real tradition for Tityos and Rhadamanthys which was known to Homer but did not survive later. He makes much of the statement of the scholia to Odyssey 7.324 that the Phaeacians seem to live near the isles of the blest (φαίνονται γοῦν οἱ Φαίακες πλησίον τῶν μακάρων νήσων κατοικοῦντες), and this leads him to connect the Phaeacians with a Germanic tradition for islands of the dead in the Atlantic Ocean. He follows another of the scholiast’s leads in comparing Rhadamanthys’s final abode in Elysion, which is “at the ends of the earth” according to Odyssey 4.563, with the apparent home of the Phaeacians. The upshot is that the Phaeacians and Rhadamanthys lived near each other “at the ends of the earth,” and this is the reason that they took him on his obscure mission to Euboea. I would agree that this seems entirely consistent with what the Odyssey says about the Phaeacians.

[ back ] 157. It is worth noting the quaintness of Euboea’s being the farthest point that the Phaeacians ever reached if indeed they took many on their way (so also Stanford 1959 ad loc.). The conveyance of Rhadamanthys, if examined closely, is different from what the Phaeacians otherwise claim to do, which is to provide conveyance to anyone who comes to them needing it (Odyssey 8.31–33; see §2.117 above). Rhadamanthys cannot be imagined as simply wandering into the Phaeacians’ kingdom in desperate straits like Odysseus; the Phaeacians must have picked him up where he dwelt (cf. n2.156 above). After taking him to Euboea, moreover, they must have taken him back home again, even though this detail is left out of Alcinous’s brief description of the round trip: καὶ μὲν οἱ ἔνθ’ ἦλθον καὶ ἄτερ καμάτοιο τέλεσσαν / ἤματι τῷ αὐτῷ καὶ ἀπήνυσαν οἴκαδ’ ὀπίσσω, “They went there and they finished the voyage without toil / and came back home again on the same day” (Odyssey 7.325–326); this return trip is also more than what the Phaeacians claim to do routinely. The Rhadamanthys episode is meant to be vague and suggestive, as said; a further point that is suggested is worth making explicit. If Rhadamanthys indeed inhabited the Elysian fields (cf. n2.156 above), he was already “dead” when he visited Tityos. This is relevant to the “return to life” of Odysseus, the Phaeacians’ only other passenger. The death-like state of Odysseus in his final return aboard the Phaeacian ship (Odyssey 13.80; cf. §2.120 below) goes well with the Rhadamanthys episode, so interpreted, and vice versa.

[ back ] 158. To be sure the Corcyreans claimed to be the Phaeacians’ descendants, a claim that was well established by the fifth century BC (Thucydides 1.25.4). Welcker 1832/1845:40–41 speculates that Hesiod was the first to associate the Phaeacians with Corcyra, since Hesiod associated Odysseus’s other travels with locations in Italy (cf. Welcker 1832/1845:47n103). The first attested mention of Corcyra is in the probably sixth-century Naupaktia Epe, which according to Pausanias 2.3.9 represented Jason and Medea as moving to Corcyra from Iolkos after the death of Pelias. How the Phaeacians figured in this epic is not known, but the story seems different from the wedding of Jason and Medea under the protection of Alcinous and Arete known from later Argonautic tradition (cf. Welcker 1832/1845:39). A major accomplishment of Welcker’s essay is to show that the Homeric Phaeacians had nothing to do with Corcyra, despite the fact that this identification was taken seriously in the time of Thucydides, and probably well before Thucydides. In the Hellenistic era Eratosthenes and others distinguished Scheria from Corcyra, but the indentification was revived in modern times (see Welcker 1832/1845:47–60, who gives an interesting example on p. 54: Isaac Newton calculated thirty-four years between Medea’s marriage on Corcyra and the fall of Troy, and on this basis calculated that the bride Nausicaa was fifty years old when she married Telemachus; as Welcker points out, Newton did not allow for the possibility that Arete was childless at the time of Medea’s marriage). Many have supposed (rightly, in my view) that the Argonautic use of the Phaeacians merely imitates the Odyssey (cf. Welcker 1832/1845:53; for a summary of views before Welcker, either attacking or defending the identification of the Phaeacians with the Corcyreans, see Welcker 1832/1845:57–59). For the wedding of Jason and Medea among the Phaeacians as a Corcyrean invention, see Welcker 1832/1845:39–40; the Corcyreans commemorated the wedding in a festival attested by Timaeus (scholia to Apollonius of Rhodes 4.1217, 1153). Welcker 1832/1845:40 argues that Corinthian colonists brought Medea together with Hera and other divinities to Corcyra (for Hera’s important place in Corcyra, cf. Thucydides 1.24.7, 3.75.5, 3.79.1; 734 BC is the traditional date for the founding of Corcyra by Corinth). The features of the Homeric Phaeacians that may have led Hesiod and later Greeks to identify them with the Corcyreans are discussed by Welcker 1832/1845:41: Thesprotians, who figure prominently in Odysseus’s lying tales, are in the same geographic region as Corcyra; the place of origin of the Phaeacians’ servant woman, called a γρηῢς Ἀπειραίη, “an old woman from Apeira,” in Odyssey 7.8 (cf. Ἀπείρηθεν, “from Apeira,” in Odyssey 7.9) was taken to be Epirus, which again is in the same geographic region as Corcyra.

[ back ] 159. Alcinous recalls this prophecy on an earlier occasion as well (Odyssey 8.564–569).

[ back ] 160. Note also that they live “far from grain-eating men” (ἑκὰς ἀνδρῶν ἀλφηστάων, Odyssey 6.8); hence no one can have any intercourse with them, or indeed any knowledge of them. Analogous to the Phaeacians with respect to their non-existence outside the Odyssey is the Achaean wall in the Iliad, about which Aristotle, as quoted by Strabo 13.1.36, says: “the poet who made it also destroyed it” (ὁ δὲ πλάσας ποιητὴς ἠφάνισεν).

[ back ] 161. Another sign that Arete’s place in the Phaeacian genealogy is, so to speak, arbitrary, is the discrepancy between Homer and Hesiod as to what her place in fact is. In the Odyssey Athena tells Odysseus that Arete is from the same “parents” (tokē̂es) as Alcinous before she proceeds with the rest of the Phaeacian genealogy (Odyssey 7.53–55):

As the continuation of the passage shows, tokḗōn here means “parents” in an extended sense that also includes an earlier generation in the bloodline (Nausithoos is Alcinous’s father but Arete’s grandfather); this usage is unusual, but no more so than in Odyssey 4.596, when Telemachus says that he could stay in Sparta and listen to Menelaus for a year and not miss his tokē̂es (only his mother and his paternal grandfather are in Ithaca; Telemachus can hardly be including Odysseus in his statement). According to the scholia to Odyssey 7.54 Hesiod took Arete to be the sister of Alcinous (Hesiod fr. 222 MW). It is clear that for this Hesiod depends on Odyssey 7.54–55, where Arete is said to be from the same “parents” as Alcinous, but it is hard to explain why Hesiod ignores the Odyssey’s explanation of this statement. Perhaps it was a “learned” disagreement showing Hesiodic independence from the Homeric Odyssey on this point; the Hesiodic variant of a brother-sister marriage would thus be an invention, and one that could not be disputed with anything beyond the uncle-niece marriage of Odyssey 7, for no one knew any more about the Phaeacians than what the Odyssey said. In other words, the Hesiodic poets pretended to know more than the Homeric poets in this instance. If this explanation is right, it is consistent with the view that the Phaeacians really belong solely to the Odyssey. For further evidence that Hesiod knew nothing about the Phaeacians, but simply drew inferences from the Odyssey, see Welcker 1832/1845:40–41and 47n103; I note in particular his suggestion that Hesiod, who first assigned Italian locations to Odysseus’s travels, also first equated Scheria with Corcyra (cf. n2.158 above).

[ back ] 162. For the following cf. above §1.37, also n2.154.

[ back ] 163. The Phaeacian ship reaches Ithaca with the sleeping Odysseus just at dawn (Odyssey 13.93–95):

Odysseus’s nóstos is thus a “return to light” as well as a “return to life.”

[ back ] 164. Nausicaa tells him this in Odyssey 6.313–315; Athena tells him again in Odyssey 7.75–77.

[ back ] 165. Note that in this passage Alcinous’s fame (kléos) is tied to Odysseus’s homecoming; this is another sign (not a proof) that Alcinous is limited to the Odyssey tradition.

[ back ] 166. The transference of anger from one context to another is also found in Odyssey 15, where Peisistratos warns Telemachus that Nestor will be angry if Telemachus simply bypasses him on his return to Ithaca (μάλα γὰρ κεχολώσεται ἔμπης, “in any case he will be very angry,” Odyssey 15.214); this anger too is a transference from the quarrel between Nestor and Odysseus on Tenedos (see §2.91 above).

[ back ] 167. There are actually two dance performances (Odyssey 8.261–265 and 8.370–380), and Odysseus comments approvingly after the second one, in which Laodamas and Halios (another son of Alcinous) show unusual skill. Between the two dances Demodokos sings the song of Ares and Aphrodite. According to Alcinous the Phaeacians excel in singing as well as dancing (Odyssey 8.253), and Demodokos’s song bears him out.

[ back ] 168. The tone of latent hostility between Odysseus and his hosts is generalized to all the Phaeacians before he has even met his hosts, when Athena covers him in a mist on his way into the town so that none of the Phaeacians will taunt him (Odyssey 7.14–17):

Disguised as a maiden, Athena then warns Odysseus directly about the Phaeacians’ unfriendly attitude to strangers (Odyssey 7.32–33):

Odysseus’s chilly reception in the palace is well prepared for; so too is the taunt that he receives from Euryalos.

[ back ] 169. For the quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus (the first song of Demodokos) see Nagy 1979:23–25, 45–46.

[ back ] 170. The passage is quoted §2.109 above.

[ back ] 171. The form of the question, with a set of alternatives, the second of which is valid, is reminiscent of the technique used in the chariot race of Iliad 23 when Idomeneus speculates about what befell Eumelos at the turning post: first he surmises what actually happened, a crash on the plain, then he suggests what is the real point of the scene—a crash at the turning post.

[ back ] 172. See Stanford 1959 on Odyssey 3.4; Stanford’s view that Homer’s Ionian audience venerated Neleus as the ancestor of the kings of Miletus and Colophon is, I think, substantially right, with a qualification in the case of Colophon (Colophon is secondary to Miletus in this affiliation; see Part 4 below).

[ back ] 173. For what I mean (and, more important, what I do not mean) by “interpolations,” see n2.16 above regarding Cantieni’s argument that Nestor’s story in Iliad 11 contains “spurious” passages. What I mean by “interpolation” is anything that entered the Homeric poems after the Ionic phase of development. As I noted earlier, I reserve the term “Homeric” for the Ionic phase, but I by no means wish to impose this usage on those who have a different perspective. The unfortunate part of the term “interpolation” is that it automatically suggests a written text. When I use the term I prefer not to prejudge the question of the medium, whether oral or written, but to consider this issue with others on a case by case basis. There have been those who consider the catalogue of heroines as a whole an interpolation (references in Stenger 2006:231n57), and this, to say the least, is an overreaction. Those who defend the catalogue from the charge of irrelevance to Odysseus’s mission in the underworld (references in Stenger 2006:231n58) often point to the role of Arete, who seems to accept Odysseus for the first time immediately after the catalogue. I agree with this point (cf. n2.143 above), and I cite Stenger 2006:230–232, who makes a good case in these terms; in the end, however, this defense of the catalogue still seems to me to fall short.

[ back ] 174. Preller 1894:573n1: “Indeed the narrative of Odyssey 11.235ff. still allows one without difficulty to guess an older form of the myth, according to which not Poseidon, but the river god Enipeus…was the original ancestor. Cf. Poseidon Ἐνιπεύς in Miletus” (“Doch lässt die Erzählung der Odyssee 11.235ff. noch unschwer eine ältere Sagenform errathen, wonach nicht Poseidon, sondern der Flussgott Enipeus…der Stammvater war. Vgl. den Poseidon Ἐνιπεύς in Milet”). For the cult of Poseidon Ἐνιπεύς in Miletus see n2.178 below. Similarly Robert 1920:39: “There Poseidon approaches her in the form of Enipeus. This is probably already a transformation of the oldest form of the myth, according to which Enipeus himself was the father of Pelias and Neleus” (“Da naht sich ihr Poseidon in der Gestalt des Enipeus. Wahrscheinlich ist das bereits eine Umgestaltung der ältesten Sagenform, nach der Enipeus selbst der Vater des Pelias und Neleus war”). Weizsäcker, Roscher’s Lexikon ‘Neleus’ 112: “For that he [Neleus] was originally thought to be the son of the river god follows of itself from the narrative of the Odyssey” (“Denn dass er [Neleus] ursprünglich für einen Sohn des Flussgottes galt, geht aus der Erzählung der Odyssee selbst hervor…”). Cf. also West 1985:142.

[ back ] 175. Vergil Georgics 4.360–361: at illum / curvata in montis faciem circumstetit unda, “but a curved wave that looked like a mountain surrounded him”; the context is the Aristaeus epyllion.

[ back ] 176. Scholia to Vergil Georgics 4.361: hunc versum ex Hesiodi gynecon transtulit (Hesiod fr. 32 MW). For the source cf. Schwartz 1960:116–117.

[ back ] 177. There are further similarities between the two texts: in line 7 of the Hesiodic fragment Tyro returns home after Poseidon disappears beneath the water, and in Odyssey 11.251 Poseidon commands Tyro to return home and disappears beneath the water. I do not agree with the suggestion that the close similarity in wording and situation between the two passages can be explained by a common epic tradition underlying both (Crane 1988:97–98, Tsagarakis 2000:83–84) or that the Hesiodic fragment imitates the Odyssey rather than the reverse (Tsagarakis 2000:84); the point that fragments of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women contain no speeches apart from this one in my view does not indicate the direction of borrowing since there is an anomaly in either case. Theoretically Hesiod could be imitating Homer (as defined n2.16 above) verbatim, but to my knowledge there are no other examples of this. Cf. Page 1955:37–38: “The second and third lines are identical with 11.249–250. They are not conventional or formular phrases; it is therefore probable that the relation between the Hesiodic poem and the Odyssey is one of direct imitation. In both versions Poseidon is speaking to the lady of his love; the outline of the story was identical in the two poems, and so was a good deal of the detail.” Whereas Page believes that the whole catalogue is a post-Hesiodic interpolation into the Odyssey, I think that only limited parts are.

[ back ] 178. Scholia to Lycophron 722: Ἐνιπεὺς ὁ Ποσειδῶν τιμᾶται παρὰ Μιλησίοις. The identification of this cult with an altar of Poseidon that the city founder Neileos was said to have established on Cape Poseidion (Strabo 14.1.2, 3, 5) is implied by Lycophron 722 and the scholia to this line: Lycophron 722 locates the cult on a “projecting headland” (ἀκτὴν…προὔχουσαν), and the scholia specify Cape Poseidion; cf. Herda 1998:15. See Map 2.

[ back ] 179. In the Phaeacian genealogy, which is based on the Neleid genealogy, the role of Poseidon is explicit: he is the father of Nausithoos. This imitates his role as the father of Neleus in the Panhellenic myth (as opposed to the Milesian version).

[ back ] 180. These include both examples in the Iliad, three of the four examples in the Theogony, one of the two examples in the Homeric Hymns, and none of the four examples in the Hesiodic fragments. In four of the six total examples the act of love is specified by a form of the verb μιγῆναι, “mingled”: Iliad 6.26, Hesiod Theogony 125 and 308, Homeric Hymn 32.15; in Iliad 20.225 the verb is παρελέξατο, “lay next to”; in Hesiod Theogony 404–406 the verbal phrase ἦλθεν ἐς εὐνήν, “went to bed,” occurs, and the phrase ἐν φιλότητι, “in love,” follows loosely with the act of becoming pregnant and giving birth. The example with παρελέξατο in Iliad 20.225, in which the north wind Boreas takes on the likeness of a horse and impregnates mares, provides a useful contrast with the proposed reading of Odyssey 11 (Iliad 20.223–225):

In the Odyssey, Tyro “desires” Enipeus (same verb ἠράσσατο as in Iliad 20.223), she conceives and gives birth (ὑποκυσαμένη…τέκε, corresponding to ὑποκυσάμεναι ἔτεκον in Iliad 20.225), but there is nothing in the Tyro passage corresponding to the verb παρελέξατο, “lay with,” used of Boreas.

[ back ] 181. These six examples include one from the Theogony, one from the Homeric Hymns, and four from the Hesiodic fragments; two of the four Hesiodic fragments (Hesiod fr. 7 and fr. 205 MW) contain ὑποκυσαμένη in the first line of the fragment, hence we do not know what preceded it. This leaves us with four valid examples, one each in the Theogony and the Homeric Hymns, and two in Hesiodic fragments.

[ back ] 182. West 1966 on Theogony 409 notes that a fragment of Musaeus gives the same parentage for Hecate as Hesiod “but with Perses cuckolded by Zeus” (scholia to Apollonius of Rhodes 3.1035 = Musaeus fr. 16 Diels-Kranz; the scholia to Apollonius of Rhodes 3.467 say that “some” make Zeus rather than Perses the father). For Hekate’s various fathers, including others besides Zeus, see Steuding, Roscher’s Lexikon ‘Hekate’ 1899.

[ back ] 183. Eurytos was the famous archer, whose son Iphitos later gave his bow to Odysseus (Odyssey 21.13–38; for Eurytos cf. also Odyssey 8.223–228). Eurytos’s father Melaneus, a son of Apollo, was also a famous archer.

[ back ] 184. Is it possible that the paternity of Eurytos was disputed, being attributed to Apollo himself as well as to Apollo’s son Melaneus? Then there would be the same reason as in the birth of Hekate not to make the act of love explicit (the same phrase κεκλῆσθαι ἄκοιτιν, “to be called his wife,” is used in both cases). Against this is the pronoun τῷ, “to him,” in line 27, which must refer to Melaneus.

[ back ] 185. The beginning of the line has been preserved, and enough of the next four lines has also been preserved to ensure that the papyrus contains the same passage as in the scholia. Note, however, that the passage in the scholia contains a sixth line that does not match the corresponding line in the papyrus; see Merkelbach and West 1967 ad loc. for the conjecture that this line in the scholia is not Hesiodic, but perhaps from the Oikhalias Halosis of Kreophylos, and has simply been added to the Hesiodic passage by the scholiast.

[ back ] 186. Homeric Hymn 1 to Dionysus, which contains the third of our four instances of (ὑπο)κυσαμένη without the explicit mention of an act of love (for the fourth see n2.187 below), has only the name of the father, Zeus, in the dative case: οἱ δέ [sc. φάσ’, line 2] σ’ ἐπ’ Ἀλφειῷ ποταμῷ βαθυδινήεντι / κυσαμένην Σεμέλην τεκέειν Διὶ τερπικεραύνῳ, “some (say) that Semele, becoming pregnant, bore you on the deep-swirling Alpheios River to Zeus who delights in thunder” (Homeric Hymn 1.3–4).

[ back ] 187. There is a third Hesiodic passage to discuss in which an explicit act of love is omitted, but it is another fragment, and its condition is worse than the other fragments that we have considered. This is Hesiod fr. 145 MW concerning the birth of the Minotaur from Pasiphae and a bull. The three lines concerning the birth are relatively clear (Hesiod fr. 145.15–17). As far as can be told, the act of love of Pasiphae and the bull was passed over in silence in the preceding lines, and in line 15 Pasiphae is said to have borne her offspring, not to the bull, but to Minos: ἣ δ’ ὑποκ̣[υσα]μένη Μίνωι τέκε κα[ρτερὸν υἱόν, / θαῦμα ἰ[δεῖν], “she conceived and bore a st[rong son] to Minos, a wonder to s[ee]” (Hesiod fr. 145.15–16). In the preceding lines the version of the story is perhaps that in which Poseidon sends a bull to Minos in answer to his prayer (cf. “Apollodorus” 3.1.3–4: Minos wants to impress his subjects and so prays for the bull; Poseidon complies, but demands that the bull be sacrificed; when Minos fails to sacrifice the bull, Poseidon makes Pasiphae fall in love with it). In the two lines preceding the line with ὑποκυσαμένη, “conceiving,” we can clearly make out in the first line that the bull “desired” Pasiphae; what the second line contained is only conjecture, but it is probably correct that it gave further description of Pasiphae, the object of the bull’s desire: τῆς δ’ ἄρ’ [ἐν ὀ]φθαλμοῖσιν̣ ἰ̣δὼν ἠράσ̣[σατο… / †ταύρωι̣ ̣[ ̣ ̣ ̣]ρ̣ι̣μενησ̣κ̣α̣μ̣ε̣ρ̣μ̣ιδαο̣τα̣[†, “seeing her with his eyes he desired her / † bull ?? †” (Hesiod fr. 145.13–14). West, by way of example (“sic lusit West”), restores the second line as: Ταυρων (?)…Ηριγενης Υπεριονιδαο τε κουρης. If this is at least pointed in the right direction, there is only the verb ἠράσσατο, used of the bull’s “desire” for Pasiphae, followed by Pasiphae’s conceiving and bearing of the Minotaur, and no explicit mention of their act of love (a bestial act about which the less said the better?). There is a close parallel here to the passage about Tyro and Enipeus in that the verb ἠράσσατο, indicating sexual desire, suffices by itself to imply an act of love, after which the heroine conceives and gives birth. The only difference is that in one case it is the male’s desire (that of the bull) and in the other case the female’s desire (that of Tyro) that is indicated by the verb. There is another famous example (or rather series of examples) in which the male’s desire, as expressed by the same verb ἠράσσατο, leads immediately to the birth of children with no mention of an act of love. This is in Iliad 14, where Zeus bids Hera to lie with him, for never before has desire of a goddess or a woman so overpowered him, not even when—and he continues with a list of seven of his conquests and their offspring. The first of these is the wife of Ixion, and she sets the pattern for the rest (Iliad 14.315–318):

Although this example does not contain the participle ὑποκυσαμένη, “having conceived,” it is still comparable with the Tyro and Enipeus passage (as I propose to read it) for the essential point. The point of comparison is that Zeus’s passion, as expressed by the verb ἠρασάμην, is followed immediately by the birth of a child. Is this the same as in the Tyro and Enipeus passage? One difference, as in the previous example, is male versus female as the subject of desire. There is also a reason that explicit acts of love are not described in Zeus’s case: that would push a passage that is already close to the edge (it has been called Zeus’s “Leporello catalogue”) past the bounds of decency. There is, moreover, an explicit reference to an act of love at the beginning of the passage, when Zeus invites Hera to bed: νῶϊ δ’ ἄγ’ ἐν φιλότητι τραπείομεν εὐνηθέντε, “but come let us turn to love and go to bed” (Iliad 14.314). Perhaps the main conclusion to be derived from this and the other examples is that there was variety in the way that this situation was handled.

[ back ] 188. Hesiod fr. 37.1–7 MW. The rest of the fragment continues as follows: lines 8–9 tell how Pero bore a son Talaos to Bias; lines 10–15 tell how Melampus and Bias then went to Argos, where Melampus cured the madness of the daughters of Proitos; lines 16–23 (the last lines of the fragment) concern Neleus’s brother Pelias. Lines 10–14 are quoted in n2.136 above.

[ back ] 189. Pfeiffer suggests κοίρανος, “ruler,” as the line’s first word.

[ back ] 190. Iliad 1.5. In the Cypria the “plan of Zeus” is to relieve the earth of overpopulation by means of the Trojan war (οἱ δ’ ἐνὶ Τροίῃ / ἥρωες κτείνοντο, Διὸς δ’ ἐτελείετο βουλή, “the heroes were killed in Troy, and the plan of Zeus was fulfilled,” Cypria fr. 1.6–7 Allen).

[ back ] 191. This passage is quoted in §2.102 above.

[ back ] 192. Cf. n2.134 above.

[ back ] 193. What he did to repay Neleus for his wicked deed is not known.

[ back ] 194. There is one other Homeric occurrence of δεσμῷ ἐν ἀργαλέῳ, “in a harsh bond,” in Odyssey 15.444 (one of Odysseus’s lying tales); Homeric Hymn 7.12 (to Dionysus) has δεσμοῖς…ἀργαλέοισι, “harsh bonds.”

[ back ] 195. The sin of the giant Eurymedon in the Phaeacian genealogy shows that.

[ back ] 196. Phaedra, daughter of Minos and wife of the Athenian Theseus, is well known. Prokris was daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens, and unfaithful wife of Kephalos, who killed her unintentionally.

[ back ] 197. See Allen 1924:242–245, who cites Scott 1911, 1914, and 1921:47–72. For instances in which Homer ignores Attic myth see Scott 1911:427–428.

[ back ] 198. A counterexample is the reference to Erechtheus’s palace in Odyssey 7.80–81; this passage, which Martin Nilsson recognized as highly archaic in content (Nilsson 1921:12–13, 1967:348, 1950:488), is, I think, integral to the story of the Odyssey; see Part 3 below (for Nilsson’s view see n3.115).

[ back ] 199. There are three examples of Διώνυσος in the Iliad (6.132, 135, 14.325) and one in the Odyssey (24.74). The Homeric Hymns use both forms (omicron in 7.56, 19.46, 26.1 and 11; omega in 7.1 and 1.20; note that Homeric Hymn 7 uses both forms, lines 1 and 56).

[ back ] 200. We do not know for sure who Maira and Klymene are since more than one heroine had these names. Maira is probably the daughter of Proitos, the son of Thersander, who in the Nostoi was said to have died a virgin (fr. 5 Allen in Pausanias 10.30.5); the same Maira (the daughter of Proitos, the son of Thersander) was said by Pherekyces to be a nymph of Artemis who was killed by the goddess after Zeus made love to her (Pherekydes FGrHist 3 F 170). In Tegea Maira was identified as the daughter of Atlas and wife of the local hero Tegeates (Pausanias 8.48.6). Klymene may be the figure so named in Nostoi fr. 4 Allen (Pausanias 10.29.6); she was a daughter of Minyas who married Kephalos (not Phylakos, as Stanford 1959 ad loc. says) and had a child Iphiklos.

[ back ] 201. Eriphyle was from Argos; Klymene was probably Thessalian (see n2.200 above for the daughter of Minyas); Maira is uncertain, but later at least was claimed by Tegea (see n2.200 above).

[ back ] 202. Compare καλήν τ’ Ἀριάδνην, “and beautiful Ariadne,” with στυγερήν τ’ Ἐριφύλην, “and hateful Eriphyle”: the third heroine gets the epithet, as well as the story, and in the case of Ariadne the interpolator has changed the epithet from one of blame (“hateful”) to one of praise (“beautiful”). Using an epithet of just the third person named is of course normal Homeric practice: cf. Νέστορά τε Χρομίον τε Περικλύμενόν τ’ ἀγέρωχον, “Nestor and Chromios and proud Periklymenos.”

[ back ] 203. Another point of comparison between the two passages is their length. The interpolator’s passage is longer, which is fitting, since it is not the last in the catalogue, and we want to have more than a line on Ariadne in this position. But the length of the passage makes the mention of the other two heroines, Phaedra and Prokris, inappropriate, because we want to hear their stories too. In the genuine conclusion to the catalogue, the names of the two heroines whose stories are not told seem more generic. There are no specific stories that we want to hear, and in any case these heroines are soon swept away with the rest of the multitude that Odysseus does not wish even to name.

[ back ] 204. Cf. n2.141 above.

[ back ] 205. This does not count the interpolated Ariadne (Theseus is in any case not called Ariadne’s husband). Only Antiope (besides Tyro and Chloris) has her father named. Four heroines (besides Tyro and Chloris, and not counting the interpolated Megara) have a husband named: Alcmena, Epikaste, Leda, and Iphimedeia.

[ back ] 206. See n2.141 above. Megara too is a mother, but this is left out of account in Odyssey 11 for an obvious reason: Heracles kills Megara’s children when he goes mad. This is the subject of Euripides’ Heracles, in which Heracles kills Megara as well. The story of Heracles’ madness occurred in the Cypria: according to Proclus Chrestomathy line 116 (Allen 1912:103 line 23) Nestor told the story of “Heracles’ madness” (τὴν Ἡρακλέους μανίαν) to Menelaus, but the details of his account are unknown; it must have contained at least the death of Heracles’ children. Megara’s murder by Heracles is apparently Euripides’ invention; in the more common tradition, as attested by e.g. Pausanias 10.29.7, Heracles divorces Megara because the marriage has proved unlucky; see Wilamowitz 1895:82–85. Wilamowitz (p. 83) is surely right that the brief account in Odyssey 11 is incompatible with Megara’s murder, but at least the infanticide must have been known to the interpolator. Whereas the other heroines in the catalogue have children who collectively convey the catalogue’s hidden meaning, Megara had children who cannot even be mentioned. Cf. n2.219 below.

[ back ] 207. This also holds for the expansion of the Tyro passage.

[ back ] 208. The final line of the catalogue (Eriphyle “accepted gold for her husband”) is as good an example as any of the catalogue’s overall allusive quality.

[ back ] 209. The expansion of the Otos and Ephialtes story was again perhaps based on Hesiod; the scholia to Apollonius of Rhodes 1.482 comment as follows on the name Ἀλωϊάδας (Hesiod fr. 19 MW): “Hesiod says that they were in name the offspring of Aloeus and Iphimedeia, but in truth of Poseidon and Iphimedeia, and that the city Alos in Aetolia was founded by their father.” Unfortunately none of the Hesiodic text has survived to compare with Odyssey 11.

[ back ] 210. The fact that both twins die contrasts with the Dioskouroi (both live) and Nestor (he lives, his brother dies); see §2.104 above. But the fact that both Aloadai die is well conveyed in the first four lines of the passage through the phrase μινυνθαδίω δὲ γενέσθην, “but they were short-lived”; the full story of how they were undone by their own hubris is not needed to establish both the parallel and the contrast with the two preceding entries of the catalogue.

[ back ] 211. The phrase μέγα ἔργον, “great deed” or “great misdeed,” has a negative connotation in all ten of its occurrences in the Odyssey (on the other hand it is morally neutral in eight of nine occurrences in the Iliad). The closest parallel to Odyssey 11.272 is Odyssey 24.458, where the seer Halitherses characterizes as a μέγα ἔργον the conduct of the suitors in consuming Odysseus’s property and dishonoring his wife: οἳ μέγα ἔργον ἔρεζον ἀτασθαλίῃσι κακῇσι, “who did a great misdeed in their evil recklessness.” The phrase is also used twice of Aigisthos’s corrupting of Agamemnon’s wife in his absence (Odyssey 3.261 and 275). Cf. Jebb’s comment on Sophocles Women of Trachis 1276f. that “μέγας, [‘great’], is often nearly equivalent to δεινός, [‘terrible’], as in μέγα τι παθεῖν, [‘suffer something great’] (Xenophon Anabasis 5.8.17), etc.”

[ back ] 212. Cf. n2.141 above.

[ back ] 213. The eight-line addition to the Oedipus passage contains nothing that is per se un-Homeric. Contrary to the later legend, in which Oedipus is expelled from Thebes, these lines say that Oedipus remained and ruled in Thebes after his incest was discovered (Odyssey 11.274–276):

Iliad 23.679–680, referring to a competitor at the funeral games of Oedipus in Thebes (ὅς ποτε Θήβας δ’ ἦλθε δεδουπότος Οἰδιπόδαο / ἐς τάφον, “who once went to Thebes to the funeral of the fallen Oedipus”), agrees with Odyssey 11 in having Oedipus remain in Thebes until his death. So do other early sources. According to Hesiod when Oedipus died in Thebes, Argeia, the daughter of Adrastos (and the wife of Polyneices) went to his funeral; the scholia to Iliad 23.679 (Hesiod fr. 192 MW) contain this account: (ἡ διπλῆ) ὅτι βασιλεύοντα ἐν Θήβαις φησὶν ἀπολέσθαι, οὐχ ὡς οἱ νεώτεροι. καὶ Ἡσίοδος δέ φησιν ἐν Θήβαις αὐτοῦ ἀποθανόντος Ἀργείαν τὴν Ἀδράστου σὺν ἄλλοις ἐλθεῖν ἐπὶ τὴν κηδείαν Οἰδίποδος, “(This verse is marked with the diplē̂) because it says that he died while he ruled in Thebes, and not as later poets say. Hesiod too says that when he died in Thebes Argeia, Adrastos’s daughter, went with others to his funeral.” In a fragment of the Thebaid, when Oedipus curses his two sons, the scene is Thebes to judge by the “table of Kadmos” mentioned there (Thebaid fr. 2.2–3 Allen). For the Oedipodia our evidence is Pausanias 9.5.10–11 (Oedipodia fr. 1 Allen), who argues that Epikaste could not have borne Oedipus four children if the gods revealed their incest “immediately” (ἄφαρ), as in Odyssey 11.274, and who goes on to say that in the Oedipodia the mother was Euryganeia, not Epikaste; thus Oedipus in this poem would seem to have continued to rule in Thebes after marrying a second wife. This was perhaps the version that the author of the interpolated passage in Odyssey 11 followed. In this passage, where the gods immediately reveal the incest of Oedipus and Epikaste and Oedipus remains and rules, Epikaste hangs herself and visits unnamed woes on Oedipus from the grave (Odyssey 11.277–280):

The woes (álgea) that Oedipus suffers presumably refer to the war between his two sons, but where did these children come from if the gods revealed the incest of Oedipus and Epikaste immediately? A second wife would seem to be implied in Odyssey 11, as in the Oedipodia, hence I regard the latter as a likely source for the interpolation in Odyssey 11. What, if anything, the other sources (Hesiod and the Thebaid) had to say about this matter is unknown.

[ back ] 214. Tyro’s two sets of offspring (twins by a divine father, three sons by a mortal father) in a certain sense parallel Nestor’s case, allowing him to be either one of two sons or one of three sons; a certain freedom of choice between two sons and three sons has been prepared for from the start of the catalogue. The catalogue thus exploits established tradition (Tyro’s two sets of sons) to mark Nestor’s ambiguous status as one of three sons but also a twin.

[ back ] 215. There is a contrast as well as a parallel in that Eriphyle was a conscious sinner, Epikaste an unconscious one.

[ back ] 216. The two-line Epikaste passage, by not stating its main point, but leaving it unstated, prepares for the same thing in Nestor’s passage, which is the focus of the entire catalogue, and in which his twin myth is deliberately disguised.

[ back ] 217. I by no means wish to prejudge the relation between oral and written texts of the Homeric poems since too much is still unknown about this very issue. I believe that the observations offered above are correct, but I am aware that unconscious anachronisms may affect one’s judgment in such a case. Cf. n2.173 above.

[ back ] 218. For the cult of Poseidon Enipeus in Miletus see n2.178 above.

[ back ] 219. Martin West dates the Hesiodic catalogues to sixth-century Athens (West 1985:130–137, 169–171; but cf. Janko 1982:85–87, 221–225, who argues for an earlier date and disputes an Attic origin). Although the poems of the epic cycle cannot be specifically detected in the interpolations of Odyssey 11, they were probably another source (cf. n2.213 above on the possible use of the Oedipodia in the Epikaste passage). The poems of the epic cycle are generally dated to the seventh and sixth centuries, and in their final form (as far as fragments show) they have been dated as late as the late sixth century (see Davies 1989, and for Cypria fr. 1 in particular, pp. 98–100). As discussed in n2.206 above the tradition that Heracles killed Megara’s children can be inferred for the Cypria; it is also directly attested for Stesichorus in the mid-sixth century (Pausanias 9.11.2, who cites Panyassis as well). Is the omission of Megara’s children in Odyssey 11 a silent correction of the tradition for their murder? For the likelihood that the interpolator took an interest in Heracles’ reputation, see §2.164 below. In the fifth century Pindar Isthmian 4.67–70 sought to correct the tradition for Heracles’ murder of his children (cf. Wilamowitz 1895:81–82). The motivation of Pindar as a Theban is clear; did a sixth-century Athenian intend a similar correction?

[ back ] 220. See Shapiro 1989 Chapter 6 (“Poseidon, Stammvater of the Tyrants”) for the importance of Poseidon to Peisistratos and his pedigree; cf. also Shapiro 1983. Shapiro thinks that Peisistratos’s claim to Neleid descent was based on fact. He addresses an interesting point, but one that does not bear directly on the actual question, when he notes that there was a cult of Poseidon Helikonios in the Attic village of Agrai (Shapiro 1989:102; reference to Eustathius ad Iliadem 361.36 should instead be to Kleidemos FGrHist 323 F 1). There was an associated cult of Demeter Thesmophoros in the same location (Kleidemos FGrHist 323 F 1). Shapiro proposes to date the cult of Poseidon Helikonios to the end of the Bronze Age, and to see it as the origin of the same cult in Ionia. Peisistratos’s birth in the same region of Attica would then associate him with the colonists of Neleid descent who founded a new cult of Poseidon Helikonios in Ionia. Perhaps a stronger argument for the genuineness of Peisistratos’s claim is the existence of an archon in 669/8 BC named Peisistratos: “An earlier namesake, surely an ancestor of the tyrant, was Archon in 669/8 BC [Cadoux 1948:90]. The family’s claim to descent from the Neleids was thus no invention of the tyrant, but reached back well into the Eupatrid period” (Shapiro 1989:103; cf. Shapiro 1983:89). I think that the family probably did claim this Pylian connection as early as the archon Peisistratos, but that they did so in imitation of the Neleids of Miletus and the Medontids of Athens. The archons succeeded the Medontids as rulers in Athens. The archon Peisistratos was among the first yearly archons, the list of whom begins in 683/2 BC. The last Medontid ruler was Hippomenes, whose cruelty led to the end of his family’s rule. It makes sense that an early archon (669/8 BC) claimed descent from a different branch of the same family that had now been removed from power, but only, I think, if the prestige of the Homeric poems was a factor. We must bear in mind that the Medontids and Neleids saw themselves as each others’ cousins; if the Homeric poems were important to the Milesian Neleids, these poems were probably not unknown to their Athenian cousins the Medontids. If a family named a child after a son of Nestor at about 700 BC in order to claim a pedigree rivaling the pedigree of the Medontids, now removed from office (or perhaps about to be removed), this, in my opinion, says a great deal about the degree to which the Homeric poems were already known in Athens. Peisistratos the tyrant was hardly the first to introduce these poems to Athens; Solon knew them, and I surmise that other Athenians before Solon did as well. See below §3.90 and §4.43–§4.44 for further discussion.

[ back ] 221. Note that after the birth of twins to the local god Enipeus in the first passage, the second passage features Antiope “who indeed (dḗ) claimed that she lay in the arms even (kaí) of Zeus” (ἣ δὴ καὶ Διὸς εὔχετ’ ἐν ἀγκοίνῃσιν ἰαῦσαι). A contrast with the preceding passage seems intended by the word “even,” and I take this as a highlighting of the (relative) lack of pretension in Tyro’s giving birth to twins by Enipeus. Otherwise I do not see the point of the word kaí.

[ back ] 222. When Poseidon says to Tyro that “the beds of the immortals are not in vain” (Odyssey 11.249–250), we may well imagine Peisistratos as the ultimate object of these words.

[ back ] 223. We can also go a long way in saying what it was not, namely the origin of the Homeric poems themselves. Pade 1983:13–14, having detected the influence of Peisistratos in the catalogue of heroines, draws the conclusion that the Homeric poems as a whole were composed at the request of the Athenian tyrant or his sons (cf. also Larson 2000). Murray 1934:312–314 and Jensen 1980:167, whom Pade cites, hold similar views regarding a Peisistratean recension, and for them as well the role of Nestor and his family in the poems is one reason. As far as the catalogue of heroines is concerned, once we distinguish between an earlier Ionian version and a later Athenian version, the Athenian claim to authorship of the poems on the basis of the catalogue disappears. It then remains to show only that Nestor’s role in the poems belongs with the Ionian version of the catalogue, i.e. that it too is Ionian, not Athenian.

[ back ] 224. As stated earlier (n2.217 above) I do not wish to minimize the part played by oral transmission of the Homeric text, which in some environments may have continued for a long time. While there must have been a written text to regulate the oral performance of the Homeric poems at the Panathenaia, too little is known to rule out an oral aspect to the process of interpolation even in this context. For an evolutionary model of Homeric transmission, including the Athenian phase, see Nagy 1992 and 1996:29–112.

[ back ] 225. Allen 1924:226–238 distinguishes four areas of ancient evidence bearing on the question of a Peisistratean recension: 1) passages dealing with the performance of the poems at the Panathenaia (this tradition is generally credible); 2) evidence for the transport of the poems to Athens (the claim in “Plato” Hipparchus 228b that Peisistratos’s son Hipparchus was the first to bring the poems to Athens is not credible; cf. n2.220 above and, for what may explain the claim, Ritoók 1993:48); 3) passages asserting the collection of the lays (this cannot refer to the actual genesis of the Homeric poems, nor is the inclusion of anything as major as Iliad 10 at all likely at this stage; cf. the following point); 4) passages attesting interpolations: Allen 234–238 lists five alleged interpolations, which vary in length from a single letter (Γονόεσσαν for Δονόεσσαν, Iliad 2.573) to the whole of Iliad 10 (according to the scholia at the beginning of Iliad 10 this book was composed as a separate poem by Homer and added to the text of the Iliad by Peisistratos); the other three alleged interpolations are each a single line (Iliad 2.558, Odyssey 11.604, and Odyssey 11.631). The difference in scale between Iliad 10 and the other four instances speaks for itself.

[ back ] 226. Much is uncertain in the conflict between Athens and Megara over Salamis. Legon 1981:101, 122–131, 136–139 reconstructs events as follows: Megara captured Salamis from Athens in the seventh century to protect its own shipping; Solon, at the beginning of his career in the early sixth century, instigated a war to recapture it; Peisistratos, who is said to have played a part in this war but almost certainly did not, came to power thirty years later and by capturing Nisaea forced Megara to accept arbitration of the continuing dispute over Salamis; the Spartans arbitrated the dispute and the aged Solon put the case for Athens, which included the allegedly interpolated line Iliad 2.558; because of his age Solon could not have done this later than the 560s or early 550s, in the early years of Peisistratos’s rule (Legon 1981:138–139). Legon suggests that the Megarians were willing to give up all claims to Salamis at this time so long as they got back their port of Nisaea. In any case the Spartans awarded Salamis to Athens. The fullest source for Solon’s role in the arbitration is Plutarch Solon 10; cf. also Strabo 9.1.10; Diogenes Laertius 1.46–48; Aristotle Rhetoric 1375b29–30.

[ back ] 227. Allen, who disbelieves the tradition for a Peisistratean recension, thinks that the Megarians forged their own version of Iliad 2.557–558 and invented the story that the Athenians forged their version (Allen 1924:245–246); Legon’s assessment, that “neither the Athenian nor Megarian couplet inspires confidence,” seems closer to the truth to me (Legon 1981:138n8; cf. n3.272 below).

[ back ] 228. The line removed by Peisistratos has been preserved for us (Hesiod fr. 298 MW), but not the context from which it was taken. Plutarch Theseus 20.1 makes it clear that the word γάρ, “for,” in this line relates to Theseus’s desertion of Ariadne. Before quoting the line Plutarch says that many stories are still told about Ariadne: some say that she hung herself when she was deserted by Theseus, others say that she was brought by sailors to Naxos to live with a priest of Dionysos, and that she had been abandoned because Theseus had fallen in love with another woman. Here Plutarch cites the verse of Hesiod, and he states Hereas’s charge about it, and he repeats Hereas’s further charge that Peisistratos interpolated line 11.631 into the text of the Odyssey: ἀπολειφθῆναι δὲ [sc. Ἀριάδνην] τοῦ Θησέως ἐρῶντος ἑτέρας· “δεινὸς γάρ μιν ἔτειρεν ἔρως Πανοπηίδος Αἴγλης.” τοῦτο γὰρ τὸ ἔπος ἐκ τῶν Ἡσιόδου Πεισίστρατον ἐξελεῖν φησιν Ἡρέας ὁ Μεγαρεύς, ὥσπερ αὖ πάλιν ἐμβαλεῖν εἰς τὴν Ὁμήρου νέκυιαν τὸ “Θησέα Πειρίθοόν τε θεῶν ἀριδείκετα τέκνα” χαριζόμενον Ἀθηναίοις. “[Others say that] she was left by Theseus who desired another woman: ‘for a terrible passion for Aigle, the daughter of Panopeus, afflicted him.’ Hereas the Megarian says that Peisistratos removed this verse from the poems of Hesiod, just as he inserted into Homer’s Nekyia the verse ‘Theseus and Peirithoos, illustrious children of the gods’ to gratify the Athenians” (Theseus 20.1–2). Plutarch implies that in his day the Hesiodic line was no longer part of the text of Hesiod, and this is borne out by Athenaeus 13.557b, who cites Hesiod for the fact that Theseus wed Hippe and Aigle, but who then cites Kerkops (not Hesiod) for Aigle as the reason that Theseus broke his oath to Ariadne; the passage follows and enlarges a list of Theseus’s wives (carried off or legally wed) found in the Atthidographer Istros: Ἡσίοδος δέ φησιν καὶ Ἵππην καὶ Αἴγλην, δι’ ἣν καὶ τοὺς πρὸς Ἀριάδνην ὅρκους παρέβη, ὥς φησι Κέρκωψ, “Hesiod says also Hippe and Aigle, because of whom he broke his oath to Ariadne, as Kerkops says.” Athenaeus would have cited Hesiod for Theseus’s treachery if the line in question had still been part of the Hesiodic text.

[ back ] 229. It is noteworthy that the interpolator, who made use of the Hesiodic catalogues to expand other passages in Odyssey 11, rejected the Hesiodic version of Ariadne’s fate as attested by fr. 298 MW (see n2.228 above). For the different traditions regarding Ariadne see Barrett 1964 on Euripides Hippolytus 339 and West 1966 on Hesiod Theogony 949. West comments as follows: “Her union with Dionysus is sometimes put in Crete…, though much more often in Naxos, where Theseus left her (first in fr. 298). A different version, perhaps older, is preserved in Odyssey 11.321–325: Theseus was taking her to Athens, but Dionysus drew attention to the elopement, and Artemis killed Ariadne on Dia.”

[ back ] 230. The scholia to Odyssey 11.604 refer to the athetesis of only this line: τοῦτον ὑπὸ Ὀνομακρίτου ἐμπεποιῆσθαί φασιν. ἠθέτηται δέ, “This line they say was inserted by Onomakritos. It is athetized.” The continuation of the scholium suggests that at least some (ἔνιοι) wished to reject line 604 but to keep line 603: ἔνιοι δὲ οὐ τὴν οἰνοχόον Ἥβην, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀνδρείαν, “Some say that Hebe does not refer to the wine-pourer but to his own manliness (i.e. to Heracles’ own hḗbē, ‘youthful prime’).” Allen 1924:238 and 1928:73 quotes other scholia stating that all three lines were athetized (see the apparatus in Allen’s OCT Odyssey edition ad loc. for the scholia in question); Allen 1928:73 states further that all three lines were obelized “in the lost minuscule MS. ‘J’ according to the collation of Heinsius.” Stanford 1959 on Odyssey 11.602–604 notes simply that “these lines are generally marked as spurious.” Cf. Cassio 2002:116n52.

[ back ] 231. Hesiod Theogony 952 and frs. 25.29 and 229.9 MW. The passage in the Theogony describes how Heracles made Hebe his wife (Hesiod Theogony 950–955):

Heracles won imortality from the gods by helping them to defeat the giants (the μέγα ἔργον, “great deed,” referred to in line 954; cf. n2.145 above).

[ back ] 232. Text quoted n2.230 above. Herodotus 7.6 tells the story of Onomakritos’s forgery and exile; he calls him an “oracle-monger” and the “arranger” of Musaeus’s oracles (Ὀνομάκριτον, ἄνδρα Ἀθηναῖον χρησμολόγον τε καὶ διαθέτην χρησμῶν τῶν Μουσαίου, Herodotus 7.6.3). Onomakritos presumably collected and arranged the oracles of Musaeus for the benefit of Peisistratos and his sons (cf. n2.234 below).

[ back ] 233. Herodotus 7.6.3–4: ἐξηλάσθη γὰρ ὑπὸ Ἱππάρχου τοῦ Πεισιστράτου ὁ Ὀνομάκριτος ἐξ Ἀθηνέων, ἐπ’ αὐτοφώρῳ ἁλοὺς ὑπὸ Λάσου τοῦ Ἑρμιονέος ἐμποιέων ἐς τὰ Μουσαίου χρησμὸν ὡς αἱ ἐπὶ Λήμνῳ ἐπικείμεναι νῆσοι ἀφανιοίατο κατὰ τῆς θαλάσσης· διὸ ἐξήλασέ μιν ὁ Ἵππαρχος, πρότερον χρεώμενος τὰ μάλιστα, “For Onomakritos was exiled from Athens by Hipparchus, the son of Peisistratos, when he was caught in the act by Lasos of Hermione inserting into the words of Musaeus an oracle that the islands lying near Lemnos would disappear under the sea; for this Hipparchus exiled him, having earlier made the greatest use of him.”

[ back ] 234. Onomakritos uttered oracles in Xerxes’ presence that portended well for the king’s invasion of Greece but suppressed any that foretold disaster (Herodotus 7.6.4). Herodotus says that the Peisistratids had reconciled their hostility with Onomakritos when they brought him with them to the Persian court in 485 BC: ἔχοντες Ὀνομάκριτον, ἄνδρα Ἀθηναῖον χρησμολόγον τε καὶ διαθέτην χρησμῶν τῶν Μουσαίου, ἀνεβεβήκεσαν, τὴν ἔχθρην προκαταλυσάμενοι, “They had traveled up country with Onomakritos, an Athenian oracle-monger and arranger of Musaeus’s oracles, having first ended their enmity” (Herodotus 7.6.3). The date 485 BC can be inferred from the fact that in Herodotus the passage concerning Onomakritos (7.6.3–5) immediately precedes the passage concerning Xerxes’ conquest of Egypt (7.7), which occurred in 485 BC, and from the further fact that Darius died and was succeeded by Xerxes in the autumn of 486 BC (see How and Wells 1928 on Herodotus 7.4; for the chronology of the whole ten-year period, 490–480 BC, see How and Wells on Herodotus 7.20.1).

[ back ] 235. The purpose of the forged oracle, which Herodotus 7.6.3 says concerned the disappearance of islands near Lemnos, must have had something to do with Athenian interests in the region; cf. Allen 1924:240: “Tradition does not give the intention of the forgery…, but it can hardly have been other than political, and connected with Athenian designs upon the Hellespont.” As to the reason that Hipparchus exiled Onomakritos, Lewis 1988:293–294 argues that genuine religious scruple was the motivation; Dillery 2005:167–168, 189 and Aloni 2006a:18 argue along the lines that I have suggested above. For a somewhat different interpretation of Onomakritos’s relation to the Peisistratids, cf. Nagy 1990a:172–174.

[ back ] 236. Ritoók 1993:41 discusses the evidence for Onomakritos as an interpolator (and redactor) of Homer but draws no firm conclusions; the Homeric scholia to Odyssey 11.604 can probably be taken to mean that all three lines, 602–604, were interpolated by Onomakritos (see Ritoók 1993:41n9). For Peisistratos’s occupation of the Acropolis with his “club-bearers” (κορυνηφόροι) see Herodotus 1.59.5–6. Boardman has made the case for Peisistratos’s special interest in Heracles, especially Heracles’ arrival on Olympus (see Boardman 1972:60–62; Peisistratos’s club-bearers likewise suggest Heracles). Boardman 1975 develops the argument further, addressing Heracles’ initiation into Eleusinian cult, which became part of his Cerberus adventure in the underworld; Peisistratos was much concerned with Eleusinian cult. Cf. Irwin 2005:152n104 for a debate regarding some parts of Boardman’s argument.

[ back ] 237. If Onomakritos was active for Peisistratos, who died in 527 BC, he must have been quite old when he became active again for the Peisistratids 42 years later in 485 BC. Onomakritos’s name is linked to that of Peisistratos in a passage of Tzetzes concerning the Peisistratean recension; it is there reported that some attributed the “recension” (διόρθωσις) of Homer to four men in the time of Peisistratos, one of whom was Onomakritos the Athenian (two others were Orpheus of Croton and Zopyros of Heraklea; the name of the fourth is corrupt [Tzetzes Perì Kōmōidías, Anecdota Graeca 1.6, ed. Cramer, quoted by Allen 1924:232–233, also in Kaibel 1899 p. 20; cf. Nagy 1990a:174]). Whatever the value of the rest of this report (for the editorial commission as a Hellenistic invention to make Peisistratos resemble the Ptolemies see Ritoók 1993:41and n13), its assigning of Onomakritos to the time of Peisistratos was perhaps not obviously wrong or easily contradicted, and may have been based on fact.

[ back ] 238. See n2.231 above for the Hesiodic line that also occurs at Odyssey 11.604: note that two of the three Hesiodic occurrences of this line are in the probably sixth-century Athenian Catalogue of Women (cf. n2.219 above), and that the third, Theogony 952, is in “the probably post-Hesiodic” part of that poem (line 901 to the end in the view of West 1966:397–399, who notes that lines 929, 939, 962, and 964 have also been proposed as the start of this part); use of the Hesiodic catalogues in particular matches the profile of the interpolator in Odyssey 11. The verb used by Herodotus of Onomakritos’s alleged forgery of oracles of Musaeus is ἐμποιέω (ἐμποιέων ἐς τὰ Μουσαίου χρησμόν, “inserting an oracle into the verses of Musaeus,” Herodotus 7.6.3). The same verb may occur in the scholia to Odyssey 11.604 with reference to Onomakritos’s alleged insertion of 11.604 into the Odyssey (here ἐμπεποιῆσθαι, “inserted,” is Lobeck’s emendation for πεποιῆσθαι). On the basis of Herodotus’s use of the verb ἐμποιεῖν for Onomakritos’s activity a more neutral term than “interpolation” from the standpoint of the use or non-use of writing would be “empoíēsis” (cf. n2.173 above). As to the implications of ἐμποιεῖν, Graziosi 2002:41–47 argues that ποιεῖν and related words when used of poetry emphasize composition as distinct from performance. Leaving aside the issue of what this implies about written as distinct from oral composition, I note only that ἐμποιεῖν would have been the proper term for the work of the interpolator in the catalogue of heroines in Odyssey 11, even in his own mind.

[ back ] 239. A statement like “Peisistratos added this line to the Nekyia” (Hereas’s charge about Odyssey 11.631 according to Plutarch Theseus 20.2) does not imply that Peisistratos himself composed the line; cf. Pausanias 7.26.13, who reports the view that when Peisistratos assembled the scattered parts of the Homeric poems, “either Peisistratos himself or one of his companions” (αὐτὸν Πεισίστρατον ἢ τῶν τινα ἑταίρων) made a mistake about a particular name, putting Γονόεσσαν for Δονόεσσαν (cf. n2.225 above). Onomakritos seems to have been one of Peisistratos’s “companions” if Tzetzes’ reference to him as one of the four compilers of the Peisistratean recension has even limited historical value (cf. n2.237 above). Pausanias several times refers to Onomakritos as the author of poems of an Orphic nature (8.31.3, 8.37.5, 9.35.5, cf. 1.22.7), but there is no consensus as to whether Onomakritos did in fact compose such poems; Pausanias, who did not believe that Orpheus was the author of such poems, may simply have attributed them to Onomakritos as a credible alternative (see Linforth 1941:350–353; Heinze DNP ‘Onomakritos’ compares Pausanias 1.22.7, where Pausanias comments that the poems of Musaeus are mostly not genuine and attributes one such to Onomakritos).

[ back ] 240. Hipparchus rather than his father is associated with Homeric poetry in “Plato” Hipparchus 228b: ὃς [sc. Ἵππαρχος] ἄλλα τε πολλὰ καὶ καλὰ ἔργα σοφίας ἀπεδείξατο, καὶ τὰ Ὁμήρου ἔπη πρῶτος ἐκόμισεν εἰς τὴν γῆν ταυτηνί, καὶ ἠνάγκασε τοὺς ῥαψῳδοὺς Παναθηναίοις ἐξ ὑπολήψεως ἐφεξῆς αὐτὰ διιέναι, ὥσπερ νῦν ἔτι οἵδε ποιοῦσιν, “Who [sc. Hipparchus] displayed many other fine deeds of wisdom, and in particular he first brought the epics of Homer to this land, and compelled the rhapsodes at the Panathenaia to go through them in order, one after another, as they still do now.” While the first part of this report is not credible (cf. n2.225 above), the “Panathenaic rule” governing rhapsodes’ performances may well have been due to Hipparchus (cf. n4.106 below). Onomakritos has a stronger connection with Hipparchus than with Peisistratos in the historical tradition; this, however, says little about the act of interpolating passages into the catalogue of heroines in Odyssey 11, for this act, which went undetected, lay outside the historical tradition. I prefer to think that it was for Peisistratos himself that the interpolations were made.

[ back ] 241. This is not to say that the Athenian passage wished to be recognized as an interpolation, for surely it did not. This raises the interesting question of how early the idea arose that the Homeric poems were actually Athenian, i.e. that Homer was Athenian. This idea, which is associated with Aristarchus in the Hellenistic era, seems present already in the fifth century when Gorgias traces Homer’s ancestry not to Orpheus, but to Musaeus, who was so to speak the Athenian Orpheus (see Graziosi 2002:82–83 on Gorgias fr. 25 Diels-Kranz = Proclus Chrestomathy line 24 [Allen 1912:100 lines 5–6]; for Musaeus as Athenian, cf. Diogenes Laertius 1.3). Traditions that synchronize Homer’s birth with the Ionian migration suggest a similar tendency; for the fourth century (Aristotle and probably others) see Jacoby, commentary on Philochorus FGrHist 328 F 209, n11, and cf. Graziosi 2002:99 with n25; for the fifth century see Graziosi 2002:120, who interprets Thucydides to this effect. How much earlier the idea of an Athenian Homer may have arisen is unknown.

[ back ] 242. For more on the early phases of transmission of the Homeric poems see Part 4 below.

[ back ] 243. It is also the catalogue that Polygnotos knew in the mid-fifth century BC when he painted the Nekyia in the Lesche of the Cnidians at Delphi; Pausanias, who describes the painting, names some twenty female figures in it, eleven of whom are from the catalogue of heroines in Odyssey 11. Of these eleven seven are from the original catalogue (Chloris, 10.29.5; Tyro [referred to as “the daughter of Salmoneus”], 10.29.7; Pero, 10.31.10; Iphimedeia, 10.28.8; the three heroines at the end of the catalogue, Maira, 10.30.5, Klymene, 10.29.6, and Eriphyle, 10.29.7); four heroines are from the expanded catalogue (Megara, 10.29.7, and the three Athenian heroines, Ariadne, 10.29.3, Phaedra, 10.29.3, and Prokris, 10.29.6). The expanded catalogue had clearly replaced the older catalogue at the date of this painting (probably between 458 and 447 BC), which would have been within a century of the expansion itself. Plato Symposium 190b provides later but more explicit evidence for the expanded catalogue in a reference to the attempt by Otos and Ephialtes to storm heaven (they are a comparison for the proto-humans in the speech of Aristophanes): καὶ ὃ λέγει Ὅμηρος περὶ Ἐφιάλτου τε καὶ Ὤτου, περὶ ἐκείνων λέγεται, τὸ εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνάβασιν ἐπιχειρεῖν ποιεῖν, ὡς ἐπιθησομένων τοῖς θεοῖς, “and what Homer says about Ephialtes and Otos is said about them, that they tried to make an ascent into the sky in order to attack the gods.”

[ back ] 244. Cf. §1.9 above.