Introduction to the series “Annotations about archaic Greek lyric”
For English-speakers in the world of higher education, as of this writing, the introductory textbook most often assigned for the study of “archaic Greek lyric” (including elegiac and iambic poetry) has been Greek Lyric Poetry: A Selection of Early Greek Lyric, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry, edited, with Introduction and Notes, by David A. Campbell (revised edition, Bristol Classical Press, 1982). In a reading course administered by the Classics Department of Harvard University, PhD candidate Greta Galeotti and I have been working through this textbook, and both of us have found many points of interest that are not addressed in the introductions and notes written by Campbell about the Greek texts that he collected for study. So, to supplement Campbell’s introductions and notes—without disparaging the merits of his work— the two of us decided to edit, online, a new set of annotations on archaic “Greek Lyric” writ large. The authors of these annotations will be mostly the editors (Galeotti and Nagy), but other authors, invited by the editors, will also be featured. Some annotations will take the form of stand-alone essays while others will be comments written into the margins of Greek texts—or of translations of the Greek texts. The authors of such marginalia will be indicated by way of a preceding name-stamp, together with a date-stamp of authorship. Still other annotations will take the form of new comments written into the margins of the stand-alone essays, again with name-stamp and date-stamp of authorship. In Part 1 of this series of annotations, the starting-point will be a stand-alone essay about Archilochus, featured as the very first of the “Greek Lyric” poets in Campbell’s textbook.
§0. The original printed version of this essay went under the title “Convergences and divergences between god and hero in the Mnesiepes Inscription of Paros,” and it was published in Archilochus and his Age II (ed. D. Katsonopoulou, I. Petropoulos, S. Katsarou; Athens 2008) 259–265. It was later reproduced online with minimal changes, even in formatting (Nagy 2020.11.02). The new online version here (Nagy 2022.01.10), which is now Part 1 of the new series “Annotations about archaic Greek lyric,” bears a relevant subtitle: “Archilochus, poet and cult-hero.” This new version is ready for updating by way of annotations in the margins. (The original pagination of the printed version of this essay will be indicated in this online version by way of “curly” brackets (“{“ and “}”). For example, “{259|260}” indicates where p. 259 of the printed article ends and p. 260 begins.)

§1. In his pathfinding book, Archilochos Heros, Diskin Clay has questioned the applicability of a well-known formula for distinguishing between the cult of heroes and the cult of gods in archaic, classical, and postclassical Greek historical contexts. [1] The formula is derived from the use of the words thuein / theos and enagizein / hērōs by the so-called “father of history,” Herodotus, who at one point in his Histories (2.44.5) distinguishes between one cult of Herakles as a god and another cult of Herakles as a hero. Both thuein and enagizein mean ‘sacrifice’, but the first word is associated with the practice of sacrificing to a theos ‘god’ and the second, to a hērōs ‘hero’. Herodotus observes (again, 2.44.5) that both of these cults are attested at Thasos, an island situated in the north-east zone of the Aegean Sea. This island, configured politically as a polis or ‘city-state’ in historical times, is relevant to the figure of Archilochus in his role as a poet who was a native son of Paros, an island situated in the central zone of the Aegean. Like Thasos, the island of Paros was configured as a polis in historical times. More than that, the polis that was Paros was also configured as the metropolis of Thasos—that is, the ‘mother-city’ of that other polis. And the relevance of Paros to the figure of Archilochus extends to Thasos, since the life and times of this figure, as reflected in the poetry attributed to him, involve not only the mother-city but also the daughter-city. But how is the involvement of Archilochus with the Aegean islands of Thasos and Paros relevant to the worship of Herakles as both god and hero at Thasos? The next two paragraphs are designed to explain such a relevance.
§4. To reinforce this argument, I adduce here the wording attested in the Mnesiepes Inscription with reference to the worship of Archilochus as cult hero in the island-state of Paros, the mother-city or metropolis of Thasos. As a case in point, I highlight the following twenty-three lines of the inscription: [4] {259|260}
<-ἐν τῶι τεμένει, ὃ κατασκευάζει, ἱδρυσαμένωι
<-βωμὸν καὶ θύοντι ἐπὶ τούτου Μούσαις καὶ Ἀπόλλ[ω]ν[ι]
<-Μουσαγέται καὶ Μνημοσύνει· θύειν δὲ καὶ καλλι-
5 <-ερεῖν Διὶ Ὑπερδεξίωι, Ἀθάναι Ὑπερδεξίαι,
<-Ποσειδῶνι Ἀσφαλείωι, Ἡρακλεῖ, Ἀρτέμιδι Εὐκλείαι.
<-Πυθῶδε τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι σωτήρια πέμπειν. [paragraphē mark here]
<-Μνησιέπει ὁ θεὸς ἔχρησε λῶιον καὶ ἄμεινον εἶμεν
<-ἐν τῶι τεμένει, ὃ κατασκευάζει, ἱδρυσαμένωι
10 <-βωμὸν καὶ θύοντι ἐπὶ τούτου Διονύσωι καὶ Νύμφαις
<-καὶ Ὥραις· θύειν δὲ καὶ καλλιερεῖν Ἀπόλλωνι
<-Προστατηρίωι, Ποσειδῶνι Ἀσφαλείωι, Ἡρακλεῖ.
<-Πυθῶδε τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι σωτήρια πέμπειν. [paragraphē mark here]
<-Μνησιέπει ὁ θεὸς ἔχρησε λῶιον καὶ ἄμεινον εἶμεν
15 <-τι]μῶντι Ἀρχίλοχον τὸμ ποιητάν, καθ’ ἃ ἐπινοεῖ.
χρήσαντος δὲ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ταῦτα τόν τε τόπον
καλοῦμεν Ἀρχιλόχειον καὶ τοὺς βωμοὺς ἱδρύμεθα
καὶ θύομεν καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ Ἀρχιλόχωι καὶ
τιμῶμεν αὐτόν, καθ’ ἃ ὁ θεὸς ἐθέσπισεν ἡμῖν.
20 περὶ δὲ ὧν ἠβουλήθημεν ἀναγράψαι τάδε παρα-
δ]έδοταί τε ἡμῖν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀρχαίων καὶ αὐτοὶ πεπραγ-
μ]ατεύμεθα. λέγουσι γὰρ ᾿Αρχίλοχον ἔτι νεώτερον
ὄντα …
<-To Mnesiepes did the god [Apollo] make the oracular declaration that it is more propitious and just plain better [5] if [6]
<-in the precinct [temenos] that he [= Mnesiepes] is constructing he [= Mnesiepes] sets up [participle of hidruein] [7]
<-an altar and makes sacrifice [participle of thuein] on it to the Muses and to Apollo
<-the Mousāgētēs and to Mnemosyne. And [8] that he make sacrifice [infinitive of thuein] (and perform correctly the sacred acts [infinitive of kallhiereuein])
5 <-to Zeus Hyperdexios, to Athena Hyperdexia,
<-to Poseidon Asphaleios, to Herakles, to Artemis Eukleia.
<-(And) that he organize a delegation [infinitive of pempein] to go to Delphi and offer there to Apollo a sacrifice for well-being. [paragraphē mark here]
<-To Mnesiepes did the god [Apollo] make the oracular declaration that it is more propitious and just plain better [9] if [10]
<-in the precinct [temenos] that he [= Mnesiepes] is constructing he [= Mnesiepes] sets up [participle of hidruein] [11]
10 <-an altar and makes sacrifice [participle of thuein] on it to Dionysus and to the Nymphs
<-and to the Hōrai. And [12] that he make sacrifice [infinitive of thuein] (and perform correctly the sacred acts [infinitive of kallhiereuein]) to Apollo {260|261}
<-Prostatērios, to Poseidon Asphaleios, to Herakles.
<-(And) that he organize a delegation [infinitive of pempein] to go to Delphi and offer there to Apollo a sacrifice for well-being. [paragraphē mark here]
<-To Mnesiepes did the god [Apollo] make the oracular declaration that it is more propitious and just plain better [13] if [14]
15 <-he [= Mnesiepes] honors [participle of timân] Archilochus the poet, in accordance with the intent (of the god).
And, in the light of this oracular declaration of Apollo, we call this place [topos] [15]
the Arkhilokheion and we have set up [indicative perfect of hidruein] [16] the relevant altars
and we make sacrifice [indicative present of thuein] [17] both to the gods and to Archilochus and
we honor [indicative present of timân] him in accordance with what the god declared to us.
20 Now, concerning what we wanted to put on record in writing, the following are the things that have been
handed down to us by the ancients and that we have made our concern. For they say that Archilochus, when he was still a young man, …