Victim of the Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior and Hero in Greco-Roman and Indo-European Myth and History

  Compton, Todd M. 2006. Victim of the Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior and Hero in Greco-Roman and Indo-European Myth and History. Hellenic Studies Series 11. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Compton.Victim_of_the_Muses.2006.


Chapter 13. Euripides: Sparagmos of an Iconoclast

There are traditions that he was subjected to legal harassment. Aristotle tells us that a Hygiaenon opposed the dramatist in a trial for an exchange of properties, and accused him of impiety, in that Euripides had allegedly recommended perjury in a play.

ὥσπερ Εὐριπίδης πρὸς Ὑγιαίνοντα ἐν τῇ ἀντιδόσει κατηγοροῦντα ὡς ἀσεβής, ὅς γ’ ἐποίησε κελεύων ἐπιορκεῖν “ἡ γλῶσσ’ ὀμώμοχ’, ἡ δὲ φρὴν ἀνώμοτος.” ἔφη γὰρ αὐτὸν ἀδικεῖν τὰς ἐκ τοῦ Διονυσιακοῦ ἀγῶνος κρίσεις εἰς τὰ δικαστήρια ἄγοντα· ἐκεῖ γὰρ αὐτῶν δεδωκέναι λόγον, ἢ δώσειν εἰ βούλεται κατηγορεῖν.

So with Euripides’ reply to Hygiaenon, who, in the action for an exchange of properties, accused him of impiety in having written a line encouraging perjury—[Hippolytus 612] “My tongue has sworn: my heart is unsworn.” Euripides said that his opponent himself was guilty in bringing into the law-courts cases whose decision belonged to the Dionysiac contests. “If I have not already answered for my words there, I am ready to do so if you choose to prosecute me there.”

Aristotle Rhetoric 3.15 (1416a3) (test. 59K), translation by W. Roberts, modified


This is early, quite sober evidence, though one wonders what asebeia had to do with antidosis, whether it was actually part of the charge, or whether it was supportive character defamation. But it is significant that the charge haunts Euripides in a law case. Lefkowitz characteristically argues against the historicity of this reference, suggesting that such stories resulted from emphasis on Plato’s trial, or from Old Comedy. [
11] But Aristotle was born only twenty-two years after Euripides’ death; one wonders if the philosopher, himself a shrewd and sober critic, would be susceptible to complete fantasy after such a short period of time.

There is no chance of historicity in any of these deaths, as his murderers are too closely related to his traditional critics in life, whose attacks probably have some realistic basis (as Aristophanes’ attacks show). But Euripides’ sparagmos still has a significant mythic power, as its widespread popularity shows.

Footnotes

[ back ] 1. Vita, see Kovacs 1994, test. 1; Meridier 1925:1–5. For translations, see Paley 1872:lx–lxii (Vita1–44); Lefkowitz 1981:163–169 and Kovacs 1994 (whose translation I use, unless noted otherwise). Satyrus The Life of Euripides in Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 9.1176(1912)(test.4K), is quite early, a manuscript from the third century BC;s ee Arrighetti1 964, but cf. are view by S. West 1966; vonArnim1913:3–13; Stevens 1956. See also Sudas. v. Euripides (test.2K), Arrighetti 1964:97;Westermann 1845:141; a life by Thomas Magister(test.3K), Westermann 1845:139–140; Aulus Gellius Attic Nights 15.20 (test.5K); Hermesianax 7.61–68 (test.64K), in Powell 1925:105, ad Athenaeus 13.598d–e. Also Piccolomini 1888:116–121; Delcourt 1933; Stevens 1956; Goossens 1962:660–662; Dover 1976:29,42–46; Lefkowitz 1981:88–104; Lefkowitz 1984; Franco1986.

[ back ] 2. Vita 29–30; 23–25. See also Hermesianax 7.61–68. See above, chapter 6 (Hesiod), Semonides fragment 7, for misogynist blame.

[ back ] 3. Ἱππόλυτον, ἐν ᾧ τὴν ἀναισχυντίαν θριαμβεύει τῶν γυναικῶν. … εἰς τὴν κατὰ τῶν γυναικῶν βλασφημίαν ἐθρασύνετο. αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες ἐβουλήθησαν αὐτὸν κτεῖναι …

[ back ] 4. ἔσκωπτε δὲ τὰς γυναῖκας διὰ τῶν ποιημάτων.

[ back ] 5. καὶ πάντων μῖσος κτώμενον ἐκ συνοχῶν / πάσας ἀμφὶ γυναῖκας … Trans. Gulick, using Headlam’s “by his barking” (ex hulakōn). Kovacs prefers ex onukhōn, Jacobs’s suggestion, thus, “full to his fingertips of hatred against all women.”

[ back ] 6. Fr. 39.IX: ἁπλῶς ἅπαν εἴ τι μὴ μεγαλεῖον ἢ σεμνὸν ἠ[τι]μακώς. Cf. Lefkowitz 1981:166n7.

[ back ] 7. Satyrus fr. 39.XXII, cf. Stevens 1956:90.

[ back ] 8. Vita 27: ὑπὸ γὰρ Ἀθηναίων ἐφθονεῖτο.

[ back ] 9. Satyrus fragment 39.X: ἀπήχθοντ’ αὐτῶι πάντες, οἱ μὲν ἄνδρε[ς] διὰ τὴν δυ[σ]ομιλίαν, α[ἱ δὲ] γυναῖκε[ς δ]ιὰ τοὺς ψ[ό]γους τοὺς ἐν τοῖς ποιήμασιν. Cf. Lefkowitz 1981:168n12; Franco 1986:115.

[ back ] 10. Translation by Lefkowitz, Ἐπέκειντο δὲ καὶ οἱ κωμικοὶ φθόνῳ αὐτὸν διασύροντες. Aristophanes’ Frogs is the most famous example. Cf. Vita 32: “The poets of Old Comedy derided him for being the son of a vegetable-seller” (τοῦτον οἱ τῆς ἀρχαίας κωμῳδίας ποιηταὶ ὡς λαχανοπώλιδος υἱὸν κωμῳδοῦσι). According to Lesky, he is “the chief object of the indignation and ridicule of the conservatives … Comedy is full of it” (1966:361). See Prato 1955.

[ back ] 11. Lefkowitz 1987. Cf. Momigliano 1971:66–77.

[ back ] 12. Papyrus Oxyrhynchus. 2400, a list of subjects for rhetorical exercises (test. 60K), cf. Dover 1976:29; Stevens 1956:88. Stevens (who dates the papyrus in the second century AD) incorrectly suggests that the three events on the list are purely imaginary. As Dover notes, “The other two items … of this list refer to historical events, and the author of the list probably regarded the prosecution of Euripides also as historical.”

[ back ] 13. Cf. Dover 1976 on the Cleon prosecution; also Stevens 1956:88; Lefkowitz 1981:110; Lefkowitz 1987.

[ back ] 14. Translation by Lefkowitz, πλέον τι φρονήσας εἰκότως περιίστατο τῶν πολλῶν, οὐδεμίαν φιλοτιμίαν [ back ] περὶ τὰ θέατρα ποιούμενος. . . . σκυθρωπὸς δὲ καὶ σύννους καὶ αὐστηρὸς ἐφαίνετο καὶ μισόγελως … ἐλέγετο δὲ καὶ βαθὺν <τὸν> πώγωνα θρέψαι καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς ὄψεως φακοὺς ἐσχηκέναι.

[ back ] 15. Vita 28: μειρακίου δέ τινος ἀπαιδευτοτέρου στόμα δυσῶδες ἔχειν ὑπὸ φθόνου … Aristotle Politics V.10 (1311b30f) (test. 61K): ὁ δ’ Εὐριπίδης ἐχαλέπαινεν εἰπόντος τι αὐτοῦ εἰς δυσωδίαν τοῦ στόματος.

[ back ] 16. See also Satyrus fragment 39.XX; Stobaeus, Anthology 41.6.

[ back ] 17. Philochorus, fourth century BC, ad Aulus Gellius Attic Nights 15.20.5 (test. 5K); cf. Satyrus fragment 39.IX.

[ back ] 18. For the cave as a stereotypical feature in the lives of thinkers, see Stevens 1956:88n9.

[ back ] 19. See Stevens 1956:91–92; Lefkowitz 1987:151; Franco 1986:119.

[ back ] 20. Stevens 1956:93.

[ back ] 21. Cf. Prato 1955.

[ back ] 22. Bremmer 1983b:307n43; Burkert 1979:71n29; Larson 1995. Cf. the legendary scapegoats in chapter 1, above.

[ back ] 23. Murray 1913:166.

[ back ] 24. On Vices X, col. XIII (in Jensen 1911:22): ἀχθόμενον αὐτὸν επὶ τῶι σχεδὸν πάντας ἐπιχαίρειν πρὸς Ἀρχέλαον [ἀπ]ελθεῖν.

[ back ] 25. Vita 21: χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον Εὐριπίδης ἐν ἄλσει τινὶ πρὸ τῆς πόλεως ἠρέμει. Ἀρχελάου δὲ ἐπὶ κυνηγέσιον ἐξελθόντος, τῶν σκυλάκων ἀπολυθέντων ὑπὸ τῶν κυνηγῶν καὶ περιτυχόντων Εὐριπίδῃ, διεσπαράχθη καταβρωθεὶς ὁ ποιητής.

[ back ] 26. Vita 35, see above. Lefkowitz 1981:96. This is true to an extent; Pentheus suffers the sparagmos, for instance. But other details of Euripides’ death find no parallel in his writings. There is no trace of the “freewill” theme, so common in Euripides’ writings (see below), in his death legend. The earliest reference to this death is the third-century BC Hermesianax, writing perhaps a century and a half after Euripides’ actual death. See also Diodorus 13.103.5, diaspasthēnai. On various versions of the dog death, see Arrighetti 1964:146–147.

[ back ] 27. Suda s.v. Euripides. “Arrhibaeus of Macedon and Crateuas of Thessaly, who were poets and hostile to him” (ἐτελεύτησε δὲ ὑπὸ ἐπιβουλῆς Ἀρριβαίου τοῦ Μακεδόνος καὶ Κρατεύα τοῦ Θετταλοῦ, ποιητῶν ὄντων καὶ φθονησάντων αὐτῷ …). Another, less significant, detail has Euripides pursuing the king’s housekeeper when he is overtaken by the dogs (Suda; Hermesianax 7.61–68).

[ back ] 28. “Plutarch” Alexandrine Proverbs (at Leutsch and Schneidewin 1961 Suppl., IIIa, p. 14n26, Crusius), quoted in Arrighetti 1964:146.

[ back ] 29. The story of Actaeon is attested as early as Hesiod’s Ehoiai, fragment 217A M-W, see Gantz 1991:478–481. A version of the tale in Euripides’ Bacchae (337–340) has Actaeon destroyed by Artemis because he boasts that he is the best hunter, which reminds us of Marsyas and Thamyris, see ch. 16 below. On a more “historical” level, Lucian (see Suda s.v., cf. Lefkowitz 1981:90n12) and Heraclitus (see Diogenes Laertius 9.3–5; Fairweather 1973) were purportedly torn apart by dogs. Diogenes the Cynic dies after being severely bitten by dogs, an ironic death (Diogenes Laertius 6.77; Suda s.v. Diogenes, cf. Fairweather 1973:235). Cf. Pausanias 9.38.4 and Visser 1982:409n21 for Actaeon in hero cult myth.

[ back ] 30. Hyginus Fables 247: “Euripides, author of tragedies, was destroyed in a temple” (Euripides tragoediarum scriptor in templo consumptus est); Ovid Ibis 595, cf. La Penna 1957 ad loc. “And as a crowd of vigilant dogs, guardians of [the temple of] Diana, did to the tragic bard, so may they tear you to pieces also” (Utque coturnatum vatem, tutela Dianae, / Dilaniet vigilum te quoque turba canum). See above, on Hesiod, chapter 6, for the death localized at a temple.

[ back ] 31. Suda s.v. Euripides (test. 2K). Cf. Nestle 1898, especially 135, 138–142.

[ back ] 32. Callimachus fragment 99 Pf., at Pliny Natural History 7.47.152; Pausanias 6.6.4–6; Aelian Historical Miscellanies 8.18; Fontenrose 1968:79; Clay 2004:134–135. For the more general theme of sacrality and lightning, see above, chapter 3 (Archilochus). For Euripides’ monuments struck by lightning, see also Anonymous, in Palatine Anthology 7.48.

[ back ] 33. Pausanias 6.23.3.

[ back ] 34. The question of Euripides’ religious views is, of course, extremely complex. See Rohde 1925 II:459.

[ back ] 35. Schmitt 1921; Roussel explicitly compares Euripides’ heroes to the pharmakos (1922: 225–240); Nancy 1983; Foley 1985; O’Connor-Visser 1987, with further literature, pp. 5–18.

[ back ] 36. There is at least a hint of the consecration motif in Euripides’ biography, for an oracle prophesied to his father that his boy would win at a contest which awarded crowns. As often happens, the oracle was misunderstood, and Euripides was trained to be an athlete before he found his dramatic vocation (Vita 3; Aulus Gellius Attic Nights 15.20.2). The oracle to the father of the poet prophesying a poetic vocation for the son is of course an Archilochean theme. See above, chapter 3.

[ back ] 37. Thus we find the following themes in Euripides’ biographical traditions: 4, worst; 4d, ugly; 7, trial; 10a, exile (with 8a, ambivalent volition); 10b, death in far country; 12a, death at cult site; 22, blame poetry/satirical (attacks on women and militarists); 24, conflict with political leaders.