From Listeners to Viewers: Space in the Iliad

Citation: Tsagalis, Christos. 2012. From Listeners to Viewers: Space in the Iliad. Hellenic Studies Series 53. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_TsagalisC.From_Listeners_to_Viewers.2012.

Chapter 4. The Troad and Lycia

Since the Trojans are fighting in their own country, it is hardly surprising that places in Asia Minor are less often narratively exploited than specific areas of mainland Greece. A few places in the wider Troad, though, are thematized, as they are either tied to the fate of specific heroes or belong to the central core of the epic’s plot. Apart from some less important areas in Asia Minor that are briefly mentioned, the Iliad has at its disposal an extremely fertile field for spatial thematization: Lycia. Among the chief allies of the Trojans are some heroes of high esteem and significance for the Iliad, such as Sarpedon, Glaukos, and Pandaros, who are narratively exploited at great length. These two categories of space (Troad and Lycia) with respect to Asia Minor will be the subject of the two following sections, since they represent distinct spaces that the tradition of the Iliad constantly uses for different purposes.

The Troad

The Troad includes a number of rather small cities, some of which the Achaeans have sacked during the Trojan War, and certainly before the events narrated in the Iliad. [1] The Iliad treats these cities more or less in the same way they are presented in the Cypria, as targets of small-scale expeditions or raids led by the Achaeans during the nine long years of the war. I begin my investigation by looking at the relevant material from the plot of the Cypria, according to the summary offered by Proclus’ Chrestomathy:

ἔπειτα τὴν χώραν ἐπεξελθόντες πορθοῦσι καὶ τὰς περιοίκους πόλεις
Then setting out, they plunder the land and surrounding cities.
§40 Kullmann = 155–156 Severyns = 105.6–7 Allen
καὶ Λυρνησσὸν καὶ Πήδασον πορθεῖ [sc. Ἀχιλλεὺς] καὶ συχνὰς τῶν περιοικίδων πόλεων.
[Achilles] sacks Lurnessos, Pedasos, and many of the surrounding cities.

§44 Kullmann = 160–162 Severyns = Allen 105.11–12

According to the Iliad, the Achaeans have sacked four cities in the Troad (Hypoplakian Thebes, Lurnessos, Pedasos, and Khruse). Each of these cities is linked to the plot mainly by a single character, whom the epic will narratively exploit more or less at length. In particular, Andromakhe comes from Hypoplakian Thebes, [2] Briseis from Lurnessos, [3] and Lukaon from Pedasos, [4] while Khruseis, who was taken captive during the sack of Hypoplakian Thebes, [5] is narratively anchored to the city of Khruse through the famous episode with her father in Iliad I. [6]

This one-to-one correspondence is of paramount importance for comprehending the function of these locations within the Iliadic plot, the more so since they seem to have been selected in preference to other variants. According to a scholium (T) on Iliad XVI 57, Briseis was captured during the sack of Pedasos in the Cypria, but during the sack of Lurnessos in the Iliad: Τὴν Πήδασον οἱ τῶν Κυπρίων ποιηταί, αὐτὸς δὲ Λυρνησ<σ>όν (“The poets of the Cypria [refer] to Pedasos, but he [Homer] [refers] to Lurnessos”). Moreover, Aineias, who seems to have his personal epic tradition in the Troad, [7] declares that Achilles has sacked both Lurnessos and Pedasos (Iliad XX 87–92). Dué argues that the Panhellenic tradition of the Iliad systematically downplays local versions, [8] and fosters a narrative where Achilles looms large, not as a person who gets emotionally involved with various slave-girls, but one who treats them, and especially Briseis, as the emblem of his heroic status among the Achaean army. In fact, the Iliad deliberately employs for the raids made by Achilles in the cities surrounding Troy the same subthemes that Achilles himself has verbalized in Iliad I 152–157, where he explicitly says for the Trojans:

“οὐ γὰρ ἐγὼ Τρώων ἕνεκ᾿ ἤλυθον αἰχμητάων
δεῦρο μαχησόμενος, ἐπεὶ οὔ τί μοι αἴτιοί εἰσιν·
οὐ γὰρ πώποτ᾿ ἐμὰς βοῦς ἤλασαν οὐδὲ μὲν ἵππους,
οὐδέ ποτ᾿ ἐν Φθίῃ ἐριϐώλακι βωτιανείρῃ
καρπὸν ἐδηλήσαντ᾿, ἐπεὶ ἦ μάλα πολλὰ μεταξύ,
οὔρεά τε σκιόεντα θάλασσά τε ἠχήεσσα.”

“I for my part did not come here for the sake of the Trojan
spearmen to fight against them, since to me they have done nothing.
Never yet have they driven away my cattle or my horses,
never in Phthia where the soil is rich and men grow great did they
spoil my harvest, since indeed there is much that lies between us,
the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea …”

Iliad I 152–157

The opposition between the proximity of the cities surrounding Troy and the remoteness of Phthia, as well as between the destructiveness of Achilles and the harmlessness of the Trojans, is strongly thematized by the Iliadic tradition, which turns these locations in the Troad into the backdrop for measuring Achilles’ dramatic function in the epic. Hypoplakian Thebes, Lurnessos, Pedasos, and Khruse are not simply places on a notional mythical map, but variations on the emotional turbulence of Achilles, who fights a war against a people who have never harmed him.

Apart from the interplay between the remoteness of Phthia and the proximity of these cities, the Iliad exploits the spatial aspect of size, in order to hint at the difference between the ease with which Achilles sacks all these small cities in the Troad and his failure to take the great city of Troy. Moreover, although the Achaeans take various women captive, they cannot succeed in getting Helen, [9] the one person for whom this whole expedition was organized. This emphatic contrast reveals that space is used here with respect to both distance and size, in order to deepen our understanding of the situation Achilles has been facing in the epic.

Furthermore, these cities supply the poem with rather secondary characters, who are either linked to other prime figures of the epic or represent distinct phases in the development of the plot. To be more specific, the four figures mentioned earlier—Khruseis, Briseis, Andromakhe, and Lukaon—encapsulate Achilles’ role in the Iliad. Khruseis is the reason for all the Achaeans’ troubles, Briseis symbolizes the “apple of discord” between Agamemnon and Achilles, [10] Andromakhe is closely associated with the presentation and drama of Hektor, and Lukaon’s encounter with Achilles is a dramatic reenactment of his first captivity during the sack of Pedasos. Four different cities in the Troad are thus linked to four distinct characters who thematically epitomize the evolution of Achilles within the poem.

The small cities of the Troad are therefore thematized spaces within a larger framework. They spatially contextualize Achilles and dramatize his own role: ironically but tellingly, the great Achaean warrior is also a captive, not of some mighty hero, but of the Iliad’s perception and thematic exploitation of space. He will neither return to Phthia nor sack Troy, but remains the figurative prisoner of the very tradition that depends so much on his unsurpassed fighting skills.

Lycia

Lycia is mentioned eighteen times in character text and only twice in narrator text. [11] The sheer size of this difference shows that Iliadic characters use Lycia mainly as an embedded story space. Its function differs according to ethnic group (Lycians, Trojans, [12] Achaeans) and the mortal/divine dichotomy that epic regularly exploits.

In this light, the Iliad’s presentation of Pandaros as a famous archer (and famous archers come traditionally from Lycia) falls within the epic’s larger aim of creating a partial doublet of Paris. In Pandaros, the Iliadic tradition has not just thematized geography: it has subordinated it to the larger goal of reenacting the beginning of the Trojan War, by recalling Paris’ violation of the laws of hospitality. This time, Lycia is evoked as a second-level associative allusion, since it shaped the identity of a character (Pandaros) who was then used to conjure up another character (Paris), and in particular his insolent behavior in the events preceding the plot of the Iliad. Space is here the means that enables the association of Pandaros with archery; at a later stage, this association led to a new one with another archer, whose name, and most of all whose role as a violator of oaths, was central to the Trojan War epic tradition.

Feeling uneasy: Trojans and Lycians

A certain uneasiness between the Trojans and the Lycians is evident both in the accusations of cowardice Glaukos makes against the Trojans and in Hektor’s subsequent reply. In the midst of the fighting over Patroklos’ body, when Ajax emerges as one of the chief Achaean leaders who struggle to save the corpse from the rage of its slayer, Glaukos rebukes Hektor (Iliad XVII 142–168), threatening to take the Lycians and return home:

“τὼ νῦν, εἴ τις ἐμοὶ Λυκίων ἐπιπείσεται ἀνδρῶν,
οἴκαδ’ ἴμεν, Τροίῃ δὲ πεφήσεται αἰπὺς ὄλεθρος.”

“Therefore now, if any of the Lykian men will obey me,
we are going home, and the headlong destruction of Troy shall be manifest.”

Iliad XVII 154–155

This is the first time that Hektor will reply to the rebukes of the Lycian leaders. In both Iliad V 493 and XVI 548, he has refrained from responding to Sarpedon and Glaukos respectively. This time, things are very different, since Sarpedon is dead and Glaukos’ accusations aim at exchanging the body and armor of Patroklos for those of Sarpedon (XVII 160–165). This is the only time a mutual exchange of bodies and armor is suggested. [49]

Hektor’s reply begins by expressing his disappointment at Glaukos’ rebukes:

“ὢ πόποι, ἦ τ’ ἐφάμην σὲ περὶ φρένας ἔμμεναι ἄλλων
τῶν ὅσσοι Λυκίην ἐριβώλακα ναιετάουσιν·
νῦν δέ σε’ ὠνοσάμην πάγχυ φρένας, οἷον ἔειπες,
ὅς τ’ ἐμὲ φῂς Αἴαντα πελώριον οὐχ ὑπομεῖναι.”

“I am surprised. I thought that for wits you surpassed all the others
of those who dwell in Lykia where the soil is generous; and yet
now I utterly despise your heart for the thing you have spoken
when you said I cannot stand in the face of gigantic Aias.”

Iliad XVII 171–174

In this case, Lycia features in both Glaukos’ and Hektor’s speeches. While the former (as the sole Lycian leader alive after Sarpedon’s death) threatens to take his Lycians and return home, the latter virtually says that he is let down by Glaukos’ bitter words, the more so since he regarded him as the wisest man in Lycia. Both references to Lycia are inscribed within the larger framework of distant places employed as thematized space. Glaukos’ words recall Achilles’ speech in Iliad I, in which he too threatened Agamemnon with the possibility of taking his army and returning to Phthia. Both warriors and leaders of their own armies, the Myrmidons and the Lycians respectively, are (or at least feel) dishonored by their allies for whose sake the war is fought. Hektor is for Glaukos what Agamemnon is for Achilles, that is, the brother of the hero (Paris and Menelaos respectively) who claims Helen as his wife and for whose sake he (Glaukos and Achilles respectively) came to Troy. Both Glaukos and Achilles turn distance into an argument, place into space. Thus they offer a balanced presentation of remote places by tailoring them to their own rhetoric, the rhetoric of an ally who feels betrayed, or at least let down, by those for whom he is fighting this war. A closer look at Achilles’ verbalization of his threat to Agamemnon yields interesting results:

“ὤι μοι, ἀναιδείην ἐπιειμένε, κερδαλεόφρον,
πῶς τίς τοι πρόφρων ἔπεσιν πείθηται Ἀχαιῶν,
ἠ’ ὁδὸν ἐλθέμεναι ἠ’ ἀνδράσιν ἶφι μάχεσθαι;
οὐ γὰρ ἐγὼ Τρώων ἕνεκ᾿ ἤλυθον αἰχμητάων
δεῦρο μαχησόμενος, ἐπεὶ οὔ τί μοι αἴτιοί εἰσιν·
οὐ γὰρ πώποτ᾿ ἐμὰς βοῦς ἤλασαν οὐδὲ μὲν ἵππους,
οὐδέ ποτ᾿ ἐν Φθίῃ ἐριϐώλακι βωτιανείρῃ
καρπὸν ἐδηλήσαντ’ …”

“O wrapped in shamelessness, with your mind forever on profit,
how shall any one of the Achaians readily obey you
either to go on a journey or to fight men strongly in battle?
I for my part did not come here for the sake of the Trojan
spearmen to fight against them, since to me they have done nothing.
Never yet have they driven away my cattle or my horses,
never in Phthia, where the soil is rich and men grow great did they
spoil my harvest …”

Iliad I 149–156

“νῦν δ’ εἶμι Φθίηνδ’, ἐπεὶ ἦ πολὺ φέρτερόν ἐστιν
οἴκαδ’ ἴμεν σὺν νηυσὶ κορωνίσιν, οὐδέ σ᾿ ὀΐω
ἐνθάδ’ ἄτιμος ἐὼν ἄφενος καὶ πλοῦτον ἀφύξειν.”

“Now I am returning to Phthia, since it is much better
to go home again with my curved ships, and I am minded no longer
to stay here dishonoured and pile up your wealth and your luxury.”

Iliad I 169–171

The similarities in the diction employed by both Achilles in Iliad I and Glaukos in Iliad XVII indicate that a common pattern is used, which includes the following elements: (1) spatial misdirection is temporarily entertained by means of a potential return home (νῦν δ’ εἶμι Φθίηνδ’, ἐπεὶ ἦ πολὺ φέρτερόν ἐστιν / οἴκαδ’ ἴμεν – νῦν … / οἴκαδ’ ἴμεν); (2) both heroes play with the idea of convincing the army to act, although Achilles uses this theme to rebuke Agamemnon (πῶς τίς τοι πρόφρων ἔπεσιν πείθηται Ἀχαιῶν / ἠ’ ὁδὸν ἐλθέμεναι ἠ’ ἀνδράσιν ἶφι μάχεσθαι), whereas Glaukos employs it with respect to himself (τὼ νῦν, εἴ τις ἐμοὶ Λυκίων ἐπιπείσεται ἀνδρῶν, / οἴκαδ’ ἴμεν).

Given that Achilles’ rebuke of Agamemnon is based on his losing his war-prize (γέρας), and by extension his heroic honor, and that Glaukos’ accusations hurled at Hektor stem from his fear of losing the body and armor of Sarpedon, it becomes clear that Lycia, as the spatialized doublet of Phthia, thematizes heroic concerns and also functions as an “anti-Troy.” This being said, the audience, ancient and modern alike, is invited to realize the sophisticated construction of the Iliadic plot: the initial theme of the epic is so intricately interwoven into its texture that it has almost come full circle.

From this perspective, the idea of exchanging Sarpedon’s body with that of Patroklos reminds the listeners that Glaukos threatens to be a Lycian Achilles, who will abandon his Trojan allies and return home. But just as Achilles’ threat was only a spatial misdirection, so Glaukos’ menace will soon be forgotten. The audience should not fail to remember that although Glaukos has lost his companion Sarpedon, just as Achilles has lost his companion Patroklos, he also lost Sarpedon because of Patroklos and before expressing his threat. The doublet or mirror story is tellingly misleading. Lycia may be considered another Phthia, but Hektor (as the addressee of Glaukos’ rebuke) is not Agamemnon; and certainly Glaukos, who will not even abstain from war, is not a second Achilles. Μῆνις does not become the Lycians.

Lycia deauthorized: Tlepolemos and Sarpedon

The episode between Tlepolemos and Sarpedon in Iliad V 627–698, [50] together with a scholium on V 639.1 (bT) referring to the continuous enmity between the Lycians and the Rhodians, has given rise to the theory of a lost Lycian-Rhodian source, a pre-Homeric epic featuring a war between the Lycians and the Rhodians. The theory has numerous and eminent supporters, [51] despite the problems of chronology that stem from it. [52] The Lycian-Rhodian epic saga may well satisfy scholarly excitement concerning the “discovery” of lost sources or even epics, but hardly has a bearing on the function of this episode within the Iliadic plot. Aceti has made this point quite strongly with respect to the importance of the Lycians in the entire Iliad: [53]

Non è necessario, infatti, ipotizzare che per avere conoscenza di alcuni elementi appartenenti alle leggende locali i poetici greci avessero dovuto operare in Licia, tanto più dal momento che ci è noto come molti dei dettagli del mito che nelle fonti greche risultano associati a questo paese o ambietati in esso fossero frutto di un’invenzione degli stessi poetici greci … [I] due eroi del poema [i.e. Sarpedon and Glaukos] sono collegati per via genealogica alla Grecia e dunque, come già rilevava Bassett, “their prowess and unstained fame reflect glory on the Greek race.” [54]

I do not disagree with a possible Lycian-Rhodian source, though serious difficulties arise when we try to describe it. I simply reiterate Aceti’s observation that the emphasis on both the genealogical link between Sarpedon and Tlepolemos on their paternal side (the former being the son of Zeus, the latter his grandson) and their connection to the city of Ephura on their maternal side (the former through his uncle Bellerophon, the latter through his mother) [55] shows that the Lycian-Rhodian source, if it existed, had been epicized to such an extent that Sarpedon could be incorporated into the Greek heroic world. [56]

This being said, Tlepolemos’ address to Sarpedon is revealing:

“Σαρπῆδον, Λυκίων βουληφόρε, τίς τοι ἀνάγκη
πτώσσειν ἐνθάδ’ ἐόντι μάχης ἀδαήμονι φωτί;
ψευδόμενοι δέ σέ φασι Διὸς γόνον αἰγιόχοιο
εἶναι, ἐπεὶ πολλὸν κείνων ἐπιδεύεαι ἀνδρῶν
οἳ Διὸς ἐξεγένοντο ἐπὶ προτέρων ἀνθρώπων.
ἀλλ’ οἷόν τινά φασι βίην Ἡρακληείην
εἶναι, ἐμὸν πατέρα θρασυμέμνονα θυμολέοντα,
ὅς ποτε δεῦρ’ ἐλθὼν ἕνεχ’ ἵππων Λαομέδοντος
ἓξ οἴῃς σὺν νηυσὶ καὶ ἀνδράσι παυροτέροισιν
Ἰλίου ἐξαλάπαξε πόλιν, χήρωσε δ’ ἀγυιάς.
σοὶ δὲ κακὸς μὲν θυμός, ἀποφθινύθουσι δὲ λαοί,
οὐδέ τί σε Τρώεσσιν ὀΐομαι ἄλκαρ ἔσεσθαι
ἐλθόντ’ ἐκ Λυκίης, οὐδ’ εἰ μάλα καρτερός ἐσσι,
ἀλλ’ ὑπ’ ἐμοὶ δμηθέντα πύλας Ἀΐδαο περήσειν.”

“Man of counsel of the Lykians, Sarpedon, why must you
be skulking here, you who are a man unskilled in the fighting?
They are liars who call you an issue of Zeus, the holder
of the aegis, since you fall far short in truth of the others
who were begotten of Zeus in the generations before us:
such men as, they say, was the great strength of Herakles,
my own father, of the daring spirit, the heart of a lion:
he came here on a time for the sake of Laomedon’s horses,
with six vessels only and the few men needed to man them,
and widowed the streets of Ilion and sacked the city;
but yours is the heart of a coward and your people are dying.
And I think that now, though you are come from Lykia, you will
bring no help to the Trojans even though you be a strong man,
but beaten down by my hands will pass through the gates of Hades.”

Iliad V 633–646

Tlepolemos’ rhetoric follows a carefully constructed plan: after quickly defaming his opponent’s fighting skills (Iliad V 633–634), he attempts to reject Sarpedon’s divine parentage on the grounds of his enemy’s cowardice (635–637). He then switches from Sarpedon to himself, boasting of his father Herakles [57] who sacked the city of Ilion [58] because of the horses Laomedon had promised but failed to give him (638–642). In the third and last part of his speech, the Rhodian prince adds one important feature to the negative portrait of Sarpedon: he will not be able to save the Trojans, though he comes from Lycia, but will soon be killed at his opponent’s hands (643–646).

The reference to Sarpedon’s coming from Lycia must be interpreted within both the immediate context of the reference to the Trojans and the framework of the antithesis Tlepolemos paints between his own and his enemy’s pedigrees. The phrase ἐλθόντ’ ἐκ Λυκίης is not a mere line-filler, but aims to be heard in contrast with the help Sarpedon was supposed to give to the Trojans. It is as if Tlepolemos is telling Sarpedon that for all his Lycian origin, he cannot help his allies. This line of thought accords with the contrast between the two heroes’ genealogical status in the previous part of the speech. Tlepolemos’ rhetoric aims at the very heart of the Iliadic conception and presentation of the chief Lycian leaders Sarpedon and Glaukos, who as we saw have been “dragged” into the Greek heroic world by virtue of their genealogy and their connection to the city of Ephura. By casting doubt on his opponent’s divine parentage, while emphasizing his own, Tlepolemos tries to deauthorize Sarpedon’s status and prestige: “he cannot possibly be the son of Zeus, since he behaves as a coward.” It is in this context that Lycia is brought into the picture, in an attempt to deprive Sarpedon of his other heroic argument, the one that the Lycians systematically use to praise themselves: namely that they are coming from afar and are fighting not for their own country but for their Trojan allies.

Tlepolemos meticulously rejects all the components of Lycian heroic rhetoric and deauthorizes Sarpedon’s claim to self-esteem and honor. From the Rhodian’s point of view, Lycia is not a thematized space, not a source of pride and glory, not even an argument for heroic valor, but a mere topographical detail, a simple point of geography.

Merging spaces: Lycia as part of a mythical landscape

The encounter between Diomedes and Glaukos in Iliad VI includes the most noteworthy reference to Lycia, as the location of part of the embedded story of Bellerophon. [59] Being only a single place within the large mythical landscape delineated by Bellerophon’s hodologically determined adventures, Lycia has to be examined within the complex nexus of this locale’s associations. This being said, attention should be also paid to the general role of space, which seems to play a key role in this episode for two reasons: first because it is clearly inscribed within a genealogical framework, and second because it is marked by the strong antithesis between a limited physical space (the particular area of the battlefield where Diomedes and Glaukos meet) and a vast embedded story space. Given that both Diomedes’ and Glaukos’ insistence on their genealogical pedigrees is a way to acquire authority and legitimization, [60] the extended embedded story space they delineate may be seen as an effort to designate their proper historical space. Genealogies, after all, are maps of both time and space, since they allow the organization of collective memory into temporal and spatial terms and help communities reconsider their identity and shape it in social terms. [61]

The embedded narratives of Diomedes and Glaukos map out a mythical geography extending from Thrace to Ephura, then to Lycia and finally to Aetolia. In particular, the mythological paradigm employed by Diomedes refers to Lukourgos, and takes place on Mount Nuseion in Thrace; the first part of Bellerophon’s story occurs in horse-pasturing Argos and the second part in faraway Lycia; [62] and finally, Diomedes’ reference to the hospitality offered by Oineus to Bellerophon is placed at Kaludon in Aetolia.

The placement of the mythological paradigm of Lukourgos in Mount Nuseion (Νυσήϊον: Iliad VI 133) in Thrace stems both from the studied alliteration of this word with the epic form of Dionysus’ name (Διωνύσοιο) mentioned in the previous verse (Iliad VI 132) and from the general staging of the meeting between Diomedes and Glaukos. Thrace, which (like Phrygia) represents one of the most typical areas from where the cult of Dionysus was diffused in Greece, points to an otherness symbolizing danger and peril, since for the Greeks this region stood metonymically for the unknown, the unexplored, and the irrational. In cases like this, space must be perceived in terms of cultural topography rather than geographical accuracy. In the story of Lukourgos, the landscape emphasizes the notion of otherness even further: the internal setting where Lukourgos’ persecution of Dionysus and his maenads takes place is that of the mountain, of wild, untamed nature, far from the civilized world of the city. The embedded story of Lukourgos sheds light on a peripheral, marginalized, and inhospitable world, [63] from which the haunted god is saved by plunging into the sea, into the welcoming embrace of Thetis.

Seen from this angle, the embedded story space delineated in the parable offered by Diomedes stands in contrast to the story space of the entire scene: the absence of landscape markers in the narrator text has given way to specific markers in character text; these markers pertain both to the Greeks’ notion of cultural geography and to a metonymic polarity between mountain and sea. [64]

The embedded story narrated by Glaukos is divided into two parts, the former taking place in mainland Greece, [65] the latter in Lycia. These two distinct parts are organized around the figure of Bellerophon, who is the common thread among these three different mythical lays which seem to have been imperfectly conflated. The first refers to a king who decided to exile from his kingdom a young hero who could potentially become a threat to his throne; the second is a variant of the well-known story of Potiphar’s wife: [66] the wife of the king falls in love with a younger man, who in some versions is a potential usurper of the throne, and systematically slanders him after he rejects her love offers; the third lay refers to the contests and dangers a hero must overcome in order to be allowed to marry the king’s daughter. The clearly pleonastic explanation of Bellerophon’s exile from Argos (for reasons pertaining to both the first and the second lays), as well as his reward upon his arrival in Lycia, indicate that all three lays have been imperfectly merged into the Iliadic version. The final punishment of Bellerophon is a strong antiphonal echo of the punishment of Lukourgos, both being expressed in a similar formulaic manner: Iliad VI 140 … ἐπεὶ ἀθανάτοισιν ἀπήχθετο πᾶσι θεοῖσιν; VI 200 … καὶ κεῖνος ἀπήχθετο πᾶσι θεοῖσιν. [67]

In the first part of Bellerophon’s story, embedded story space is designated by means of the typologically established opening of an embedded tale: ἔστι πόλις Ἐφύρη μυχῶι Ἄργεος ἱπποβότοιο (Iliad VI 152). [68] As soon as specific geographical features have been given, a genealogy follows, starting from Sisuphos, continuing with Glaukos (the grandfather of the Iliadic Glaukos) and then with his son Bellerophon, who is characterized as favored by the gods with beauty and manhood. [69] The designation of space, which is done by means of place-names, is invigorated by Bellerophon’s pedigree, and especially by the designation of Sisuphos, son of Aiolos (Iliad VI 154 Σίσυφος Αἰολίδης), as his great-grandfather. [70]

The mention of Proitos recalls one of the three royal families of Argos, [71] the Proitids/Anaxagorids, from whom Sthenelos descends (the other two being the Melampodids and the Biantids, from whom come Eurualos and Diomedes). In Glaukos’ embedded narrative, Argos is more or less the domestic space of the palace of Proitos, from which Bellerophon is exiled. In the second part, space is designated through a series of changes: first the dangerous countryside of Lycia (after a brief scene of ξενία in the palace of the Lycian king, who remains deliberately unnamed) where Bellerophon fights against Khimaira, [72] the Solumoi, the Amazons (the symbol of untamed, savage female nature), and an ambush organized against him by the king of Lycia himself with a group of elite warriors; [73] then, upon Bellerophon’s victory and subsequent marriage to the king’s daughter, the hero moves to friendly space, the best τέμενος offered to him by the people of Lycia; [74] finally, Bellerophon is found, without any explanation on the part of Glaukos who narrates the story, wandering alone in the field of Aleion. [75]

The two parts of the story of Bellerophon constitute a bipolar organization of embedded story space: on the one hand, the historical and mythical geography of mainland Greece and Lycia, and on the other the systematic interplay between friendly and enemy space that continuously alternate: Proitos’ palace—Lycian countryside—fertile τέμενος—Aleion field.

With Diomedes’ final story we are brought back to the civilized world of the palace, though not this time in the Peloponnese, but in the city of Kaludon in Aetolia, in the palace of Diomedes’ grandfather Oineus, who is also known to the Iliadic tradition from the famous mythological example of Meleager. The shift of the action to the palace positively accentuates the theme of ξενία offered to Bellerophon by Oineus, and highlights the importance of the gifts of hospitality (ξεινήϊα), which foreshadow the exchange of gifts between Diomedes and Glaukos at the end of the episode. [76]

Lycia’s function in this episode is conditioned by its integration in a chain of locations comprising a mythical landscape, which connotes a shift of narrative settings on the basis of the following polar opposites:

Lukourgos	mountain	sea
Bellerophon	palace (Proitos’—Lycian king’s)	countryside (Lycia—τέμενος—Aleion field)
	palace of Oineus

The staging of the entire meeting of Diomedes and Glaukos is organized on the basis of the interaction between simple story space and embedded story space, which allows for the intersection of two basic themes of the entire episode: the relation between gods and men, and hospitality. Although the mythological example narrated by Diomedes focuses on the predictability and rationalization of divine-human interaction, by implying that divine penalties are imposed on mortals for their disrespect towards the gods, whereas that of Glaukos emphasizes the unpredictability of divine favor and anger, they have as a common denominator the motif of ξενία (hospitality), which is a prerequisite for the establishment of long-term relations and whose violation results in divine punishment. Given that the motif of ξενία [77] is implicitly linked to the place where hospitality will take place, the sophisticated interaction between simple story space and embedded story space in this episode results in their narrative merger, and explains the paradox of a friendly encounter on the field of combat. In particular, the limited simple story space is expanded by the extended embedded story space to such a degree that the former merges with or is even absorbed by the latter, so that the entire scene can end with a ξενία, through the exchange of gifts, and not with a formal duel. The meeting between Diomedes and Glaukos in Iliad VI marks the transformation of the primary military space of the battlefield into the vicarious, secondary space of a ξενία. This transformation, not surprisingly, will be short-lived. When Lycia features outside the mythical landscape of an embedded story, as with Glaukos’ rebuke of Hektor in Iliad XVII 142–168, then things are dramatically different: there is no exchange of weapons or of the corpses of the two fallen heroes Sarpedon and Patroklos. The mythical landscape has given way to the physical reality of the battlefield, where warriors come close only to kill.

Cultic space: Sarpedon returns home

One of the crucial questions surrounding this thorny problem is the role of Lycia, to where Sarpedon’s body is transferred. This aspect of the problem has not been studied before, but is directly relevant to the problem at hand. First, let me reiterate an argument that has passed unnoticed by those who argue for the priority of the Sarpedon story.

J. Kakridis has shown that the delay in the burning of Patroklos’ pyre in Iliad XXIII, which is resolved by Iris’ journey to the Winds, who finally decide to blow, reflects an episode in a pre-Homeric epic tradition (a lost *Achilleis) where the Winds (as children of Eos) refused to burn Achilles’ pyre, since Achilles had killed their brother Memnon (§60 Kullmann = 189 Severyns = Allen 106.5–6). In this epic, “Zeus’ action would be fully justified when ‘to honour Thetis’ he sends a messenger―either Hermes [90] or Iris―and orders the Winds not to leave unburnt the body of the great hero who was the son of a goddess and loved by the gods.” [91] This is a strong argument pointing to the motif of “Eos receiving help from two assistants,” both her sons, the Winds Boreas and Zephuros, and her brothers Hupnos and Thanatos: the former with Achilles’ pyre, the latter with the removal of Memnon’s body. W. Kullmann, in fact, has shown that since we are dealing with the goddess of Dawn (Eos), Hupnos and Thanatos may be representing her temporal aspect, while Boreas and Zephuros her spatial or cosmological one (they are hardly ever placed in the East, where Eos’ seat is). [92] Finally, with respect to the confusing genealogy of Hupnos and Thanatos, Kullmann suggests [93] that we are dealing with the contamination of two distinct mythological ways of thinking: Eos is the daughter of Nux, when the idea of the “course of time” is emphasized, whereas Hupnos and Thanatos are the children of Nux when the notion of “human fate” is highlighted. [94]

If the motif of the removal of Sarpedon’s corpse by Hupnos and Thanatos is secondary to the Iliad and primary to a pre-Homeric epic tradition about Memnon, then the same should be true of the place where the corpse is to be finally deposited. In other words, where was Memnon’s body placed after being removed by Hupnos and Thanatos in the Memnon story? Quintus of Smyrna (Posthomerica 2.585–591) explicitly says that the body was placed along the banks of the river Aisepos, in the beautiful grove of the Nymphs, where the daughters of Aisepos later made a huge σῆμα. This detail becomes all the more interesting given that in the Posthomerica the entire Aethiopean army is removed from the battlefield and covered in divine mist, so as to follow the corpse of their dead king to the streams of the river Aisepos. This last is obviously a late feature of the story, which is reflected in the future metamorphosis of the Aethiopians into birds (Posthomerica 2.643–655). [95] Still, the removal of Memnon’s body to the nearby site of the river Aisepos may indicate that the older mythical material at Quintus’ disposal designated only the place to where Memnon was removed by Eos: a wooded area not far from the battlefield, where she washes his body and anoints and dresses him, [96] as can be seen in the kylix of Pamphaios. This view may be surmised by considering that in contrast with Sarpedon, whose tomb is always located in his homeland Lycia, later sources disagree on the placement of Memnon’s grave on the river Aisepos in Asia Minor, the river Badas in Syria, in Belas, or even in Susa. Some authors say either that there was no grave for Memnon (Philostratus Imagines I 7.2) or that his tomb on the Aisepos is a cenotaph (Aelian On the Nature of Animals V 1). What matters here is the antithesis between the way later sources speak of the graves of two mythical heroes, so closely linked by the motif of the removal of their corpses from the battlefield by Hupnos and Thanatos.

There is, though, one more point to be considered. Given that the place where the first part of the lamentation and caring for the deceased’s body had to be close to the battlefield, Quintus followed the tradition of both the *Memnonis/Aethiopis and the Iliad that the corpses of Memnon and Sarpedon respectively were removed first to a neighboring wooded and watered area (a river). This is a significant detail: it seems that what was done in both the *Memnonis and in the Iliad in two phases—first a transfer by Eos and Apollo respectively to a nearby watered area for the initial caring for the body, and then the same gods’ calling on Hupnos and Thanatos to carry the bodies of Memnon and Sarpedon respectively—has been combined in a single transfer of two groups of people (Memnon and the Aethiopes). [97] In his reconstruction of the plot of the *Memnonis, Schadewaldt suggests that Hupnos and Thanatos transferred Memnon’s corpse to his homeland of Aethiopia, although he does not cite even a single source. He obviously thinks that this would be the only reasonable place for Memnon’s body after his death. Such a view cannot explain the divergence between the unanimous agreement of later sources as to the location of Sarpedon’s grave and the wide disagreement over Memnon’s tomb. Nor does it take into account that the name Sarpedon was known in the Lycian language as zrppudeine [98] and that there was a local tradition narrating the death of Sarpedon at the hands of Tlepolemos in Lycia. [99] In other words, the transfer of Sarpedon’s body to Lycia and the funeral it receives there together with the building of a tomb and a stele is more linked to Sarpedon’s hero-cult than to Memnon’s story. This is because Memnon was immortalized in the *Memnonis, while Sarpedon was not in the Iliad. It was Hera who suggested, against Zeus’ entertaining the possibility of averting Sarpedon’s death, that his body be transferred to Lycia and buried there. Since “hero-cult is a localized phenomenon in archaic Greek religion” [100] and Sarpedon is closely associated in the Iliad with the δῆμος of the Lycians (Iliad XVI 455; 673, cf. XVI 683), it may be that the motif of his transfer by Hupnos and Thanatos does after all reflect the *Memnonis, but the emphasis on Lycia where Sarpedon’s relatives and comrades will give him a proper burial is due to a local tradition. The fate of Memnon’s body is obscure: it apparently had to be transferred somewhere by Hupnos and Thanatos, but the hero’s immortalization (cf. §61 Kullmann = 189–190 Severyns = Allen 106.6–7 καὶ τούτῳ μὲν Ἠὼς παρὰ Διὸς αἰτησαμένη ἀθανασίαν δίδωσι) excludes his homeland, for one cannot be immortalized among the living. In the light of the Aethiopis (§66 Kullmann = 199–200 Severyns = Allen 106.14–15), where Thetis snatches Achilles’ body from the pyre and brings it to the White Island (Λευκὴ νῆσος), it may be that Hupnos and Thanatos carried Memnon’s body beyond the borders of the human world, though I am hesitant about the possibility that both Memnon and Achilles would be immortalized on the White Island. Perhaps the Islands of the Blessed (Μακάρων νῆσοι) are a good alternative. [101]

In the scene of the transfer of Sarpedon’s body by the twins Hupnos and Thanatos, Lycia plays a role determined by Sarpedon’s hero-cult, and reflects a tradition about his burial in Lycia after his death at the hands of the Rhodian Tlepolemos, in a local epic lay featuring the struggles between Lycians and Rhodians. [102] Lycia in this scene is the space of a hero’s future cult, the space where sleep and death, that is, fainting and dying, will cease to operate not by the immortalization of Zeus’ son, as with Memnon and Achilles, but through a cultural process, namely the tomb and σῆμα that his countrymen will built for him. The removal of a hero’s body after his death does not guarantee immortalization; it is the difference between human and semidivine space that does.

Having explored the function of place-names in the Iliad, we can summarize the results of our analysis briefly as follows:

The CS and the CT&A represent the main section of the epic in which the narrator reserves the use of place-names for himself. In this globalizing view of the Greek and Trojans-and-allies worlds, he offers a programmatic outlook in the Iliad by associating heroes with specific geographical regions. By combining two mental processes, the map and the tour, the storyteller is able to present a panorama of the forces involved in the war at the lowest possible cognitive cost.

Having accomplished this task, the storyteller lets the characters of the plot, much more often than he does himself, employ place-names in their speeches. Embedded story space is thus left to the various heroes, who function as cognizers, thinking agents whose epic storage determines the way they act in the story-world. In this light, place-names are transformed from mere locations on a map into thematized spaces by means of which each hero’s epic-mythical agenda is channeled into the Iliad. Phthia, Argos, Pylos, and Boeotian Thebes on the one hand, and the Troad and Lycia on the other are not just places linked to key figures of the plot. To a large extent, they constitute an integral part of the personalities of Achilles, Agamemnon, Nestor, Diomedes-Sthenelos, Hektor, Sarpedon, and Glaukos respectively. Being embedded in typical dichotomies of κλέος and νόστος and praise and blame, geography is turned into space that represents each hero’s “epic home,” the notional center around which his past, present, and future constantly evolve.

Footnotes

[ back ] 1. Places like Killa, Pedaios, Thumbre, Dardania, and Egyptian Thebes are mere locations with no role at all in the plot. Arisbe, Tenedos (Iliad I 38, 452; XI 625; XIII 33), and Imbros do not constitute thematized spaces but are occasionally associated with Achilles’ exploits in the wider region surrounding Troy. Arisbe is the last place in Lukaon’s troubled life: taken captive by Achilles while in his father’s gardens, he was then sold as slave in Lemnos, bought by the son of Jason, and subsequently redeemed by Eëtion of Imbros and sent to Arisbe, from where he returned to Troy (XXI 34–44). Nestor’s slave girl, the wise Hekamede, was taken captive by Achilles during the sack of Tenedos (XI 624–627). Imbros (together with Samos and Lemnos) is mentioned as a place where Achilles sold Hekabe’s sons (XXIV 752–753).

[ back ] 2. See Iliad VI 396–397 and 415–416; cf. scholium on Iliad VI 397a about Heracles’ founding and naming of Thebes after the king’s daughter Thebe: Ἀνδράμυς τις Πελασγὸς ἀφικόμενος εἰς τὴν Ἴδην τὴν ἐν Κιλικίᾳ κτίζει πόλιν †ἀδραμύστειαν καλουμένην. ἔχων δὲ θυγατέρα Θήβην ἔπαθλον δρόμου αὐτὴν ὥρισε τῷ βουλομένῳ. Ἡρακλῆς δὲ ταύτην λαβὼν ὑπὸ τῷ Πλάκιον τῆς Κιλικίας πόλιν κτίσας Θήβην αὐτὴν ὠνόμασεν.

[ back ] 3. Iliad II 688–693.

[ back ] 4. On Lukaon’s pedigree, see Iliad XXI 84–89.

[ back ] 5. Iliad I 365–369.

[ back ] 6. Notice the emphasis that Khruseis’ father Khruses places on the city of Khruse, which is mentioned first in his prayer to Apollo in Iliad I 37–38 (= I 451–452); see also I 97–100, 387–390, 428–431.

[ back ] 7. See Iliad XX 188–194; Aloni 1986:62–64, 76–98; Dué 2002:25; West 2003b:15–16, 2011:371 on Iliad XX 291–340. On Poseidon’s prophecy concerning the future rule of the Aineiadai over the Trojans, see the “Little Aeneid” in Iliad XX 307–339 (especially 307–308) and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 196–199. Conversely, the context (Iliad XX 307–317) indicates that Τρώεσσιν ἀνάξει ‘will rule over the Trojans’ does not refer to the old city of Troy, which will be razed to the ground. The relocation of Aineias’ descendants from Troy was later associated with conflicting claims on Homer: the Aineiadai were considered to be Aeolians or Ionians depending on the identity of the city they settled in; see Nagy 2009c, part II, 181–188.

[ back ] 8. Dué 2002:23–25.

[ back ] 9. On the Achaeans’ failure to “reabduct” Helen, see Jamison 1994.

[ back ] 10. Iliad II 688–694; XIX 56–60.

[ back ] 11. Iliad II 877 and XVI 683. Given that the first is part of the Catalogue of Ships and the second a mere repetition of Zeus’ orders to Apollo (who is commanded to send the twins Hupnos and Thanatos to carry the corpse of Sarpedon to Lycia), I do not treat them separately.

[ back ] 12. See Louden 2006:28, who argues for the existence of a story pattern that “positions the best of the Akhaians in duels with leaders of each of the three Trojan contingents: the Trojans, the Dardanians, and the allies” (emphasis added).

[ back ] 13. Pestalozzi 1945:13–15; Schadewaldt 1965:169; Howald 1946:85–90; W. Kullmann 1960:318 n2; Clark and Coulson 1978:70–73; for a different view, see Aceti 2008:231–262; Burgess 2009:77–78.

[ back ] 14. The motif “far from home” is typical, as can be seen in its ample use for various heroes in the Iliad (see Griffin 1980:106–110), but its application to the Lycian Sarpedon is closely associated with its climactic phase, the transfer of his body to Lycia by the twins Hupnos and Thanatos. The same is so, mutatis mutandis, with Memnon in the Aethiopis, who is given immortality. These two cases stand out from the general pattern as specific and interrelated.

[ back ] 15. See Aceti 2008:21, who observes that the very diction employed in this passage recalls an epitaph for a fallen hero (λείπω + accusative amounts to a formula used in epitaphs), and in this respect foreshadows the death of Sarpedon. Typical funerary diction is thus deftly used to add pathos to this scene. See Griffin 1980:103–143.

[ back ] 16. On this passage, see Tsagalis 2004:129–133.

[ back ] 17. See Iliad V 482–484 “ἀλλὰ καὶ ὧς Λυκίους ὀτρύνω καὶ μέμον’ αὐτός / ἀνδρὶ μαχέσσασθαι· ἀτὰρ οὔ τί μοι ἐνθάδε τοῖον / οἷόν κ’ ἠὲ φέροιεν Ἀχαιοὶ ἤ κεν ἄγοιεν·” (“‘Yet even so I drive on my Lykians, and myself have courage / to fight my man in battle, though there is nothing of mine here / that the Achaians can carry away as spoil or drive off’’”). Sarpedon speaks like Achilles in Iliad I 152–157 (and also XIX 325); see “The Poetics of Loneliness,” chapter 3, above.

[ back ] 18. On Sarpedon and Glaukos, see M. Reichel 1994:261–263.

[ back ] 19. See Carlier 1984:172: “Tous les rois homériques n’ont pas de leur devoir militaire une idée aussi exigeante.”

[ back ] 20. Hainsworth 1993:352 on Iliad XII 310–321; see also Adkins 1960:34–36.

[ back ] 21. On the symposium, see Detienne and Vernant 1979; Grottanelli and Parise 1979; Vetta 1983; Lissarague 1987; O. Murray 1990; Slater 1991; Schmitt–Pantel 1992; Scheid–Tissinier 1994.

[ back ] 22. Pucci 1998:52.

[ back ] 23. Within the framework of archaic epic traditions, let us recall that the banquet occurs at an early stage in the troubles that afflict the houses of Atreus (Aeschylus Agamemnon 1096–1097, 1220–1222, 1242–1244, 1501–1505, 1593–1602; Sophocles Ajax 1291–1294; Euripides Electra 637–638, Iphigenia in Tauris 195–197, 812–813, Orestes 11–15, 812–818, 996–1000) and Oedipus (Thebais, frr. 2 and 3, PEG 1). In both cases, food and drink play a crucial role. See Nagy 1979:130–131, 218–219, 311.

[ back ] 24. Durkheim 1984:592; see also Schroer 2006:48–51.

[ back ] 25. Pucci 1998:53.

[ back ] 26. Sometimes, though, this special group of people meeting in a special space exerts such an enormous influence on the kind of discourse developed that it becomes a world of its own, a “spettacolo a se steso” in the words of Rossi (1983:41–50).

[ back ] 27. On sympotic space, see O. Murray 1990:37–101.

[ back ] 28. On fighting in the first rank, see chapter 1 above, passim.

[ back ] 29. See Burkert 1985:57.

[ back ] 30. The exclusivity of the banquet can be seen as a working metaphor for the idea of the state: according to Simmel (1995), space can sometimes bestow uniqueness, individuality, and distinctiveness on a given structure. As with the state territory that is thought of as the mechanism connecting individuals, so the closed space of the banquet reaffirms the social links of the elite. This Ausschließlichkeit des Raums (“exclusivity of space”) results, unavoidably, in the construction of a specific identity by the individuals who pertain to this social space. See also Schroer 2006:65–67.

[ back ] 31. On τέμενος, see Burkert 1985:84–87.

[ back ] 32. Sarpedon’s words “and all men look on us as if we were immortals” (Iliad XII 312 πάντες δὲ θεοὺς ὣς εἰσορόωσιν) work well with his reference to a τέμενος in the next two lines. Only gods and heroes have their own τεμένη. Τέμενος is used in a profane sense in Linear B and in the following passages from the Homeric epics: Iliad VI 194 (for Bellerophon in Lycia), IX 578 (for Meleager in Calydon), XII 313 (for Sarpedon and Glaukos in Lycia), XVIII 550 (for a king on the shield of Achilles), XX 184 (for Aineias in Troy), XX 391 (for Iphition, son of Otrunteus, in the Gugaian lake, close to the rivers Hullos and Hermos); Odyssey vi 293 (for Alkinoös in Skheria), xi 185 (for Odysseus in Ithaka), xvii 299 (for Odysseus in Ithaka); see also Burkert 1985:84–87 and 382n37.

[ back ] 33. On the use of peoples and places in both Homeric epics to determine their relative chronology, see Dickie 1995:29–56. This kind of approach is not relevant to my research.

[ back ] 34. See Strabo 12.4.6. Bryce (2006:137) argues that this population movement may have happened around the end of the Bronze Age (in the manner of the Leleges, who also moved to the southeast corner of Caria).

[ back ] 35. Pandaros is not presented as belonging to the Lycian army in the Trojan catalogue of allies, nor is he anywhere in the Iliad linked to the Lycians par excellence, Sarpedon and Glaukos.

[ back ] 36. See Tsagalis 2010b:109–110.

[ back ] 37. See Iliad XII 330, where the expression “vast nation” (μέγα ἔθνος) designating the Lycians is more apt for their Lukka ancestors than for the limited region of historical Lycia. Expressions like κτήματα πολλά (V 481) and Λυκίης εὐρείης (VI 173) should be interpreted along the same lines. See Jenniges 1998:140; Aceti 2008:170–171.

[ back ] 38. See Frei 1993; Brill’s New Pauly 432–434 s.v. “Pandarus” and 916–920 s.v. “Lycii, Lycia.”

[ back ] 39. According to Bryce 1986:41 and Jenniges 1998:140, the Iliad offers a picture of Lycia and Lycians that combines features of their proto-Lycian Lukka ancestors at the end of the second millenium on the one hand, and those of their typically Lycian descendants, “permanently” located in southwestern Anatolia after the eighth century, on the other. For a recent overview of the whole matter of the Lycians, see Aceti 2008:167–172.

[ back ] 40. 1990–1991:144–145.

[ back ] 41. See also Kirk 1985:340 on Iliad IV 101.

[ back ] 42. See also Bacchylides Epinicians 13.147–148; Sophocles Oedipus the King 203–205; Euripides fr. 700 (TrGF 5.2 [Kannicht]).

[ back ] 43. See e.g. Herodotus 7.77.3–5 Μιλύαι δὲ αἰχμάς τε βραχέας εἶχον καὶ εἵματα ἐνεπεπορπέατο· εἶχον δὲ αὐτῶν τόξα μετεξέτεροι Λύκια, περὶ δὲ τῇσι κεφαλῇσι ἐκ διφθερέων πεποιημένας κυνέας (“The Milyans bore short spears, and had their garments fastened with buckles. Some of their number carried Lycian bows. They wore about their heads skull-caps made of leather” (translation by Rawlinson).

[ back ] 44. The same is true of the description of the actual shooting of Pandaros in Iliad IV 116–126.

[ back ] 45. Mette 1951; Schmitt 1990:82–84; Taplin 1992:104–109. See also Kirk 1978:18–40.

[ back ] 46. See e.g. the nurses Eurukleia, Eurunome, and Eurumedousa, and Mentor and Mentes in the Odyssey.

[ back ] 47. Brügger et al. 2003:271.

[ back ] 48. Taplin 1992:109.

[ back ] 49. Edwards 1991:78 on Iliad XVII 160–165.

[ back ] 50. On this episode, see Kelly 2010.

[ back ] 51. Valeton 1915:125; Malten 1944; W.-H. Friedrich 1956; Frei 1978; W. Kullmann 1960; Peppermüller 1962. Glaukos’ presence in the Post-Homerica is an indication that the catalogue of Trojan allies is based on a source to which Sarpedon was added at a later stage; see W. Kullmann 1960:175, who leaves this possibility open, and W.-H. Friedrich 1956:108–109.

[ back ] 52. See Aceti 2008:180n463.

[ back ] 53. Aceti 2008:180–181.

[ back ] 54. Bassett 1938:219, italics added by Aceti.

[ back ] 55. Frei 1978; Hiller 1993; Aceti 2008:182–183. See Iliad II 658–659 (and the scholium on Iliad II 659, which may go back to Aristarchus) and VI 152–155. The digression concerning the story of Tlepolemos points in the direction of an independent saga featuring Herakles’ affair with Astuokheia in Ephura (which may well be the one in Thesprotia); the birth of Tlepolemos there; the departure and arrival of Herakles and Astuokheia to Rhodes after the sack of many cities; the murder of his mother’s brother Likumnios by Tlepolemos, who subsequently gathered his supporters and left for Rhodes, where he arrived after having troubles at sea (II 667 ἀλώμενος, ἄλγεα πάσχων); and last his governing of the Rhodians by means of a system of tripartite division of the island’s population based on tribes (in a Doric manner, according to Valeton 1915:22).

[ back ] 56. See Valeton 1915:124, who argued that the Ionian storytellers knew from the Lycians a god Sarpedon, son of Zeus and Europa, who had come to Lycia from Crete and was governing the winds, and turned him into a mortal hero. It was only at a later stage (after colonizing Rhodes) that the Dorians became aware of a Lycian king named Sarpedon.

[ back ] 57. Tlepolemos’ view is a reversal of Sthenelos’ arguments in Iliad IV 405–410: whereas Tlepolemos acknowledges the superiority of his father Herakles, Sthenelos has highlighted the preeminence and success of his own generation during the sack of Thebes. See “Rival Spaces,” chapter 3, above.

[ back ] 58. On Herakles’ Trojan episode, see also Iliad XX 145–147.

[ back ] 59. Part of this section is taken from Tsagalis 2010b:87–113.

[ back ] 60. On the paradigmatic function of genealogies, see Alden 2000:153–178, who states that “Glaucus is saved by his genealogy from fighting with Diomedes.”

[ back ] 61. On genealogies as time maps, see Zerubavel 2003; as means of bestowing legitimization, explanation, and obligation or duty, see Grethlein 2006:65–84; for Grethlein, though, the case of the genealogy of Glaukos in his meeting with Diomedes is different, as in this episode it is the distance between gods and men that is emphasized, and the latter’s dependence on the former.

[ back ] 62. In the larger sense of the northeastern Peloponnese.

[ back ] 63. On the opposition between city and countryside, see Rosen and Sluiter 2006.

[ back ] 64. For the leap into the sea as a metaphor for a transition into another state, see Nagy 1990a:223–262.

[ back ] 65. There are a number of cities named Ephura. I am following the view of Frei (1973:823) that Homer is referring to Thesprotian Ephura (see also the scholium on Iliad II 659), so the term Argos is employed here in the sense of “the Achaean world”; see Graziosi and Haubold 2010:119 on Iliad VI 152. Differently West (1998–2000:381 s.v. Ἐφύρη [1]; 2011:177–178 on Iliad VI 152), who thinks that the “original Ephura was perhaps in Thessaly, in the Pelasgic Argos,” but “in the sixth century the name with its associated mythology was appropriated by Corinth.” Thesprotian Ephura is first mentioned by Thucydides (1.46.4).

[ back ] 66. The Near Eastern elements in the story of Bellerophon are numerous (Khimaira; the theme of Potiphar’s wife; the letter of Proitos to Iobates, king of Lycia, inscribed on the πίναξ πτυκτός; the wanderings of Bellerophon); see Strömberg 1961; Peppermüller 1962; West 1997:365–367.

[ back ] 67. The word καί in Iliad VI 200 has caused both trouble and speculation: some scholars take it as a direct comparison between Lukourgos and Bellerophon, while others maintain that the two paradigms have been “excerpted” from an earlier catalogue-poem. For the relevant bibliography, see Scodel 1992:78n13, who argues that “the point lies in the contrast between the two [Lukourgos and Bellerophon]” (78), since in the former the favor of the gods is presented as subject to human control, while in the latter divine favor in the beginning of the story, with Bellerophon’s πομπή in Lycia, and divine anger at the end, with the hero’s wandering, are left unexplained. See Webster 1958:186; Gaisser 1969:157–158; G. Murray (1907:197–199) has postulated a relation between the stories of Lukourgos and Bellerophon going back to the epic Corinthiaca by Eumelus.

[ back ] 68. “There is a city, Ephyre, in the corner of horse-pasturing Argos …” See H. Mackie 1996:68–69, who draws attention to Iliad II 811, XI 711, and XIII 32, where the expression “there is a hill/city/cave” is employed, and argues that “the line beginning with ἔστι marks a transition to a new setting and the start of a new episode … The examples show that the phrase ἔστι δέ τις (‘there is a …’) functions as a narrative marker, equivalent to the camera’s shift to a new frame in cinematic narrative.”

[ back ] 69. Iliad VI 156–157 τῷ δὲ θεοὶ κάλλός τε καὶ ἠνορέην ἐρατεινήν / ὤπασαν (“To [Bellerophontes] the gods granted beauty and desirable / manhood”).

[ back ] 70. In Pindar (Olympians 13.49–52), Sisuphos is presented as coming from Corinth, but it seems that this identification is based on the interpretation of the relevant Homeric passage in Iliad VI 150–211, with which Olympian 13.49–92 shares a number of common themes. Eumelus (Corinthiaca, frr. 1–4, PEG 1 = frr. 1, 12, 2, 3a, 5, EGF = frr. 15–19 West) is probably the first who identified Ephura with Corinth, so as to promote local Corinthian interests.

[ back ] 71. Notice that Bellerophon has to obey Proitos’ will to leave the city, given the power of the king (Iliad VI 158 ἐπεὶ πολύ φέρτερος ἦεν). For the motif “he is (by far) mightier” which is attested twenty-seven times in the Iliad, see Kelly 2007:173–174.

[ back ] 72. On the possible link between Khimaira and the place-names of Lycia, see Kirk 1990:182–183; between Khimaira and population movements, see Bryce 2006:148–149.

[ back ] 73. The use of the preposition ἀντί by both Diomedes (Iliad VI 127 ἀντιόωσιν) and Glaukos (VI 160 Ἄντεια, VI 186 ἀντιανείρας) is intriguing. Both place-names, Nuseion and Aleion, are acoustically exploited through interpretive alliterations (132–133 Διώνυσος-Νυσήϊον, 201 Ἀλήϊον-ἀλᾶτο); see West 1997:367.

[ back ] 74. See Karavites 1992:134–135, who draws attention to the fact that (1) a τέμενος does not always belong to the king but also to other preeminent citizens, and (2) the owner of the land may be the people as a collective entity.

[ back ] 75. On the wandering of Bellerophon and the motif of the “the suffering of the Erring,” see White 1982 and D’Alfonso 2008, who offers plenty of material on its oriental provenance.

[ back ] 76. On the exchange of gifts in this episode, see Scodel 1992.

[ back ] 77. On ξενία and φιλότης (within the framework of the making of agreements in the Iliad) and their relation to Near Eastern concepts of “brotherhood” or “fraternity,” see Karavites 1992:47–55; on the typology and aesthetics of the hospitality scene, see Reece 1993:5–39.

[ back ] 78. See Holland 1894–1897:2676–2679; Bothmer 1981:72, 76–77.

[ back ] 79. See Burgess 2009:77.

[ back ] 80. W. Kullmann 1960:319.

[ back ] 81. See Schadewaldt 1965:165; W. Kullmann 1960:35–36. On the importance of specific uses of typical motifs, see W. Kullmann 1984; Burgess 2006.

[ back ] 82. Arguing against Fenik 1968 and Dihle 1970.

[ back ] 83. Clark and Coulson 1978:70–73.

[ back ] 84. In Hesiod Theogony 758–759, Hupnos and Thanatos are children of Nux, while it is Eos who is a child of Nux in Quintus of Smyrna’s Posthomerica 2.625–627.

[ back ] 85. 2009:77–78.

[ back ] 86. Davies 1989:57. But see Burgess 2009:76, who observes that “[Memnon] traditionally die[s], and death precedes most cases of heroic immortality”; see also Burgess 2009:98–110.

[ back ] 87. West 2003a:9.

[ back ] 88. See Nagy 1990a:130–131.

[ back ] 89. Aceti 2008:256–262.

[ back ] 90. Hermes is not a good guess; Kakridis may have been misled, though he does not decide between Hermes and Iris, by Quintus of Smyrna (Posthomerica 3.699–701). Iris is the typical messenger of the gods in the Iliad; on this point, see W. Kullmann 1960:35n3.

[ back ] 91. J. Kakridis 1949:82–83.

[ back ] 92. W. Kullmann 1960:35.

[ back ] 93. 1960:36.

[ back ] 94. See Hesiod Theogony 211–212.

[ back ] 95. See P. Kakridis 1962:35.

[ back ] 96. See Lung 1912:51, 57–58 and the kylix of Pamphaios. On this topic, see Schadewaldt 1965:160.

[ back ] 97. Moreover, Hupnos and Thanatos had been replaced by the Winds, who were Memnon’s brothers.

[ back ] 98. Bryce 1986:26; Janko 1992:370–373 on Iliad XVI 489–683.

[ back ] 99. Valeton 1915:126. According to this view, Tlepolemos replaced Herakles, who in an older version killed Sarpedon. When the myth was taken up by storytellers of Doric descent, then the son (Tlepolemos) took the place of the father (Herakles), while subsequently Sarpedon became the one who killed Tlepolemos.

[ back ] 100. Nagy 1990a:132.

[ back ] 101. See Hesiod Works and Days 171 (ἐν μακάρων νήσοισι παρ’ Ὠκεανὸν βαθυδίνην) and Nagy 1990a:141.

[ back ] 102. Valeton 1915:126.

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