Myth and History: Close Encounters, De Gruyter, Berlin 2022

Myth and History: Close Encounters Edited by Menelaos Christopoulos, Athina Papachrysostomou, Andreas P. Antonopoulos ISBN 978-3-11-077958-5 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-078011-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-078023-9 ISSN 1868-5080 Library of Congress Control Number: 2021953233 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com Contents Preface IX Part I: Epos Menelaos Christopoulos Historicizing Homer’s Myth in the Homeric Epigrams 3 Jonathan S. Burgess The Aristotelian Constitution of the Ithacans and Homero-Cyclic Reception of the Odyssey 13 Giuseppe Zanetto “Let Me Tell You an Ancient Deed of the Distant Past”: The Epic Hero as a ‘Historian’ 25 Constantine Antypas Authority, Power and Governability in the Odyssey: The Mythical Birth of the Polis 37 Part II: Lyric Poetry Vasiliki Kousoulini Domestic and Political Order in the ‘Foundation Myths’ of Partheneia Ephraim Lytle Myth, Memory and a Massacre on the Road to Dodona: Reinterpreting an Elegiac Lament from Archaic Ambracia (SEG 41.540A) 77 Part III: Historiography Marion Meyer Shaping History: The Case of the Tyrannicides and the Marathonomachoi 99 57 VI Contents Nanno Marinatos The Myth of Troy Turned into History: Thucydides’ Archaeology Natasha Bershadsky The Argive Women, Beards and Democracy Olga Levaniouk Seeking Agariste 119 131 147 Jordi Redondo The Herodotean Myth on the Origin of the Scythians 167 Part IV: Drama Paolo B. Cipolla (Re)writing a Sicilian Myth: The Palici and Aeschylus’ Aitnaiai 189 Efimia D. Karakantza “To Be Buried or Not to Be Buried?” Necropolitics in Athenian History and Sophocles’ Antigone 207 Andreas P. Antonopoulos Sophocles’ Trachiniae and the Peloponnesian War: A New Perspective 221 Gesthimani Seferiadi The Authority of ‘History’ in the Exodus of Sophocles’ Trachiniae 245 Athina Papachrysostomou Nectanebo II and Philip II in Mythic Disguise: Comedy’s Burlesque of History 263 Part V: Loci and Tempora Jorge J. Bravo III The Myth of Opheltes at Nemea in the Context of Rivalry in the Archaic Peloponnese 279 Contents Chiara Di Serio Marginal Remarks on the Concept of ‘Time of Origins’ in Classical Greek Culture 291 Alexandros Velaoras Myth and History in the Court of Archelaus 303 Part VI: Roman Era and Late Antiquity Chris Trinacty “Oceans Rise, Empires Fall”: Cyclical Time and History in Seneca’s Quaestiones Naturales 3 323 Françoise Lecocq Herodotus’ Phoenix between Hesiod and Papyrus Harris 500, and Its Legacy in Tacitus 339 Joel Allen Empire, Ethnicity, Exegesis: Lucian on Interpretations of Greek Myth in the Roman Mediterranean 359 Grammatiki Karla Myth and History in Libanius’ Imperial Speeches George W. M. Harrison Myth and Levels of Language in the Octavia The Editors 407 The Contributors 409 Index Rerum et Nominum Notabiliorum 413 387 375 VII Preface The present volume tackles the twin subject of Myth and History, and engages into rigorous discussions of the emerging manifold interactions between the two spheres and the concomitant intricate contexts of reference. Thus, the volume lands in the very midst of and contributes to the study of a subject that has a long pedigree in the field of Humanities, ever arousing profound interest among classicists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, and even psychologists. Despite appearing as seemingly opposite entities at first sight, the fluidity of both myth and history in antiquity and the ensuing rapidity with which these notions can (and did) infiltrate and cross-fertilize one another is striking and has repeatedly attracted the scholarly interest. There have been numerous attempts to define myth and history and fully comprehend the internal mechanisms at work, which on occasion make these notions function either in conjunction as inextricably inseparable concepts or in juxtaposition as diametrically antithetical and even mutually exclusive patterns. Simultaneously, equal attention has been paid to a number of germane parameters, such as the social and religious backdrop against which myth and history coexist and coalesce or, on occasion, collide. To mention but a few conspicuous landmarks in the advancement of the myth-history studies, one strand of research focuses on myth’s rationalistic interpretation; the origins of this trend trace back to antiquity already, and in particular to Palaephatus’ treatise Περὶ ἀπίστων (ἱστοριῶν) (On Incredible Tales). In modern times Wilhelm Nestle was the first who attempted to systematically register the evolution from myth to rationalized thought in Greek literary tradition, especially in the fields of Greek rhetoric and philosophy, in his monumental monograph Vom Mythos zum Logos.1 As far as history is concerned, Edward Carr’s groundbreaking work What Is History?2 still remains a classic and thoughtprovoking introduction to the subject. Carr engages in incisive discussions about the very essence and the study object of the science of History, its methodological tools, aspirations, and limitations, the role of the historian, while myth occasionally becomes tangentially relevant to his analysis. Another critical milestone is 1 Nestle, W. 1940. Vom Mythos zum Logos. Die Selbstentfaltung des griechischen Denkens. Selbstentfaltung von Homer bis auf die Sophistik und Sokrates. Stuttgart. See also: Buxton, R. 1999. From Myth to Reason? Studies in the Development of Greek Thought. Oxford; Hawes, G. 2014. Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity. Oxford. 2 Carr, E.H. 1961. What Is History? New York (with a new introduction by R.J. Evans for the 40th anniversary reissue, Basingstoke 2001). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110780116-203 X Preface Jean-Pierre Vernant’s Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs,3 where the elements of myth, ritual, and society are interpreted against the bigger and convoluted canvas of history. In 1970 Geoffrey Kirk attempted an in-depth exploration and a critical venture into myth, thoroughly studying its nature, meaning, and functions in his epoch-making monograph Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures.4 Kirk’s research climaxes four years later, when he publishes his work The Nature of Greek Myths,5 where he painstakingly defines, interprets, and categorizes Greek myths of gods and heroes, while he simultaneously discusses interpretation models from the disciplines of anthropology, philosophy, and psychology. Most memorable is Paul Cartledge’s monograph The Greeks, where the author effectively addresses the idiosyncratic relation between myth and history, under the dual prism of complementarity and antithesis.6 The understanding of myth as a phenomenon imbued with primarily social and historical nuances naturally allows for more than one methodological approaches. In this context the myth-and-ritual School of Cambridge (also known as “the Cambridge ritualists”) has laboriously studied the inherent relation between myth and ritual, in its various sub-versions and multiple variations. The pioneering figure among these “myth-ritualists” was the nineteenth-century biblical scholar William Robertson Smith, who considered myth to be inferior to ritual. Prominent representatives of the Cambridge School also include James Frazer, Edward Burnett Tylor, and Jane Ellen Harrison, who – despite the slight differentiations in their personal credos – largely upheld that myth was shaped to have one role: to be the verbal accompaniment and complement to ritual. On the other hand, different groups of scholars pursued individualized approaches to myth and ritual, denying and rejecting any alleged interrelation between the two as incidental and/or anomalous (e.g. Walter Burkert and Mircea Eliade). Robert Segal and Robert Ackerman have done an excellent job in condensing, critically assessing, and presenting us with more than a hundred years of scholarship (from all fronts) in their respective works of 19987 and 2002.8 Special reference is also due to the School of Paris and its outstanding contribution to the analysis of Greek myths against their social network (uses and 3 Vernant, J.-P. 1965. Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs: études de psychologie historique. Paris. 4 Kirk, G.S. 1970. Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. Berkeley. 5 Kirk, G.S. 1974. The Nature of Greek Myths. Woodstock, NY. 6 Cartledge, P.A. 1993. The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others. Oxford (especially chapter 2: “Inventing the Past: History v. Myth”, pp. 18–35). 7 Segal, R.A. 1998. The Myth and Ritual Theory: An Anthology. Malden, MA. 8 Ackerman, R. 2002. The Myth and Ritual School. J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists. New York. Preface XI needs) and within their original historical milieu. Jean-Pierre Vernant’s Mythe et société en Grèce ancienne9 inaugurated a whole new research path and laid the foundations for a markedly sociological and historical approach (shared by e.g. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Nicole Loraux, and Marcel Detienne), which placed special emphasis on the relation developed between the shaping of myth on one hand and the social landscape and historical circumstances of each era on the other, which accommodate, promote, impede, or otherwise affect and mold myth’s nature and role.10 The individual aspects of myth and history highlighted in all above-mentioned works (and plenty of others) incessantly trigger a series of constructive discussions among those who, in their different approaches to myth, take into account the social and historical parameters.11 Additionally, most recently, the ways in which myth interacted with physical and conceptual landscapes in antiquity have also been brought to the foreground, especially due to the collected volume edited by Greta Hawes, Myths on the Map: The Storied Landscapes of Ancient Greece.12 All these discussions are carried out on the basis of eclectic methodological tendencies that have emerged in the field of Humanities, springing particularly from the areas of social anthropology, structuralism, the deconstruction theory, and gender studies. Within the wider context of this ongoing, interdisciplinary exchange of ideas, the present volume on Myth and History endeavors to trace and register the association and interaction between myth and history in various literary genres in Greek and Roman antiquity, i.e. an era when the scientific definitions 9 Vernant, J.-P. 1974. Mythe et société en Grèce ancienne. Paris. 10 For the pertinent theory of the perfusion of society by religion, see Durkheim, E. 1912. Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Paris. 11 See e.g. Sebeok, Th.A. (ed.) 1965. Myth: A Symposium. Bloomington Ind. (featuring, among others, a chapter on “The Structural Study of Myth” by Claude Lévi-Strauss); Littleton, C.S. 1966. The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges Dumézil. Berkeley; Tosh, J. 1984. The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods, and New Directions in the Study of Modern History. London; Benjamin, J.R. 1998. A Student’s Guide to History. Boston; Woolf, D.R. (ed.) 1998. A Global Encyclopedia of Historical Writing (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities), 2 vols. New York; Evans, J.R. 1999. In Defense of History. New York; Csapo, E. 2005. Theories of Mythology. Malden, MA; Presnell, J.L. 2007. The InformationLiterate Historian: A Guide to Research for History Students. New York. 12 Hawes, G. 2017. Myths on the Map: The Storied Landscapes of Ancient Greece. Oxford. XII Preface of and distinctions between myth and history had not yet been perceived as such, let alone fully shaped and implemented.13 This is the fourth collected volume coordinated over the recent years by the Center for the Study of Myth and Religion in Greek and Roman Antiquity, which is affiliated with the Department of Philology, University of Patras. In 2010 the collected volume on Light and Darkness in Greek Mythology and Religion was published, edited by M. Christopoulos, E.D. Karakantza, and O. Levaniouk (Lanham: Lexington Books); in 2011 Reflecting on the Greek Epic Cycle came out, edited by E.D. Karakantza (as volume 6 of Harvard’s electronic journal Classics@); in 2017 A. Bierl, M. Christopoulos, and A. Papachrysostomou co-edited the collected volume on Time and Space in Ancient Myth, Religion and Culture (Berlin: De Gruyter); and most recently, in 2021, A.P. Antonopoulos, M.M. Christopoulos, and G.W.M. Harrison co-edited the volume on Reconstructing Satyr Drama (Berlin: De Gruyter). Recently, the Center’s stated focus on the study of Myth triggered an equally strong and constantly increasing interest in the study of History among the Center’s members and followers, since History is variously considered as simultaneously being Myth’s antipode and complementary sphere (with further, intricate ramifications ensuing thereof, as discussed in the aforementioned modern scholarship). Hence, the Center resolved on organizing a Conference that would tackle a series of myth-and-history related issues throughout Greek and Roman antiquity and beyond. Indeed, in summer 2019 the Center hosted, on the premises of the University of Patras, a four-day International Conference entitled “Mythical History and Historical Myth: Blurred Boundaries in Antiquity”, which brought together some sixty scholars (classicists, historians, and archaeologists) from Europe, the USA, Canada, and South America. Through both a diachronic and a synchronic perspective and adhering to a cross-generic approach, the speakers addressed a great number of challenging topics and incited constructive discussion pertaining to virtually every single literary genre. Following a scrupulous, double-blind peer-review process, the volume in hand constitutes the elaborate outcome of the above Conference, as it features twenty-four select chapters, which engage in myth-and-history analyses that expand from epos to lyric poetry, historiography, dramatic poetry, and, even beyond, to literary genres of Roman era and late antiquity. 13 To that respect see Calame, C. 1996. Mythe et histoire dans l’Antiquité grecque: la création symbolique d’une colonie. Lausanne, where he speaks of modern-day misconceptions and offers a novel perspective into what really ancient Greeks thought of what we call myth. Preface XIII It is the editors’ hope that this volume will stimulate further discussion and the readers will benefit from original ideas, new interpretations, and (re)evaluations of key texts as well as less well-known passages, close readings, and catholic overviews. The editors are grateful to Dr Torben Behm (Content Editor Books), Andreas Brandmair (Content Conversion Services), the entire typesetting team of the “MythosEikonPoiesis” series of De Gruyter, and especially to the series editor Professor Dr Anton Bierl, who wholeheartedly endorsed the project from the very beginning. Special thanks are also due to Yiorgos Charitatos and Panagiota Taktikou (PhD candidates, Department of Philology, University of Patras), and Fay Papadimitriou (MA graduate, Department of Philology, University of Patras) for their invaluable assistance during the editing procedure. Menelaos Christopoulos Athina Papachrysostomou Andreas P. Antonopoulos Patras, October 2021 

Contents Preface IX Part I: Epos Menelaos Christopoulos Historicizing Homer’s Myth in the Homeric Epigrams 3 Jonathan S. Burgess The Aristotelian Constitution of the Ithacans and Homero-Cyclic Reception of the Odyssey 13 Giuseppe Zanetto “Let Me Tell You an Ancient Deed of the Distant Past”: The Epic Hero as a ‘Historian’ 25 Constantine Antypas Authority, Power and Governability in the Odyssey: The Mythical Birth of the Polis 37 Part II: Lyric Poetry Vasiliki Kousoulini Domestic and Political Order in the ‘Foundation Myths’ of Partheneia Ephraim Lytle Myth, Memory and a Massacre on the Road to Dodona: Reinterpreting an Elegiac Lament from Archaic Ambracia (SEG 41.540A) 77 Part III: Historiography Marion Meyer Shaping History: The Case of the Tyrannicides and the Marathonomachoi 99 57 VI Contents Nanno Marinatos The Myth of Troy Turned into History: Thucydides’ Archaeology Natasha Bershadsky The Argive Women, Beards and Democracy Olga Levaniouk Seeking Agariste 119 131 147 Jordi Redondo The Herodotean Myth on the Origin of the Scythians 167 Part IV: Drama Paolo B. Cipolla (Re)writing a Sicilian Myth: The Palici and Aeschylus’ Aitnaiai 189 Efimia D. Karakantza “To Be Buried or Not to Be Buried?” Necropolitics in Athenian History and Sophocles’ Antigone 207 Andreas P. Antonopoulos Sophocles’ Trachiniae and the Peloponnesian War: A New Perspective 221 Gesthimani Seferiadi The Authority of ‘History’ in the Exodus of Sophocles’ Trachiniae 245 Athina Papachrysostomou Nectanebo II and Philip II in Mythic Disguise: Comedy’s Burlesque of History 263 Part V: Loci and Tempora Jorge J. Bravo III The Myth of Opheltes at Nemea in the Context of Rivalry in the Archaic Peloponnese 279 Contents Chiara Di Serio Marginal Remarks on the Concept of ‘Time of Origins’ in Classical Greek Culture 291 Alexandros Velaoras Myth and History in the Court of Archelaus 303 Part VI: Roman Era and Late Antiquity Chris Trinacty “Oceans Rise, Empires Fall”: Cyclical Time and History in Seneca’s Quaestiones Naturales 3 323 Françoise Lecocq Herodotus’ Phoenix between Hesiod and Papyrus Harris 500, and Its Legacy in Tacitus 339 Joel Allen Empire, Ethnicity, Exegesis: Lucian on Interpretations of Greek Myth in the Roman Mediterranean 359 Grammatiki Karla Myth and History in Libanius’ Imperial Speeches George W. M. Harrison Myth and Levels of Language in the Octavia Appendix The Editors 409 The Contributors 411 Index Rerum et Nominum Notabiliorum 415 387 375 VII