Sacred Space as a Frame for Lyric Occasions

By Gregory Nagy | 2022.12.29

Introduction

The three terms sacred space and frame and lyric occasions in the title of this essay all need to be questioned for their meanings, which depend in each case on the overall meaning of the title that combines these terms. As for the word case as I use it here, it figures in the secondary title I have given to Part 1 of this essay, referring to specific examples that give context to my questioning of the three highlighted terms of the primary title: Part 1 is titled “The case of the Mnesiepes Inscription, reporting on the hero cult of Archilochus.”[1]  My questioning is meant to provoke some friendly debate, and the questioned terms can become the main subject for the debate itself. In the spirit of such friendly debate, I will now proceed to question the highlighted terms of the primary title, going in reverse order: (A) lyric occasions, (B) frame, and (C) sacred space. Of these three terms, as we will see, the third of them, (C) sacred space. is relevant to the first illustration I have chosen for this essay.

(A) lyric occasions

The word lyric as I use it in the primary title follows the conventions of the Network for the Study of Archaic and Classical Greek Song—and my Introduction here is actually part of the text of a paper I delivered almost five years ago (2018.06.30) at a meeting organized by members of that Network.[2] But my usage is questionable in the case of the ancient text highlighted in the secondary title in Part 1 of my essay here, the Mnesiepes Inscription, the main referent of which is Archilochus as poet: the question is, can we describe as lyric the verbal art that this text attributes to such a poet? And my questioning is implicit in the combination of the word lyric with the word occasions in my primary title. The word lyric raises the question of genre, and genre needs be defined in contexts of occasion, as I once argued in an essay titled “Genre and Occasion” (Nagy 1994). Right away, I enumerate here four such contexts: composition, performance, reception, transmission (as first formulated in Nagy 2009a). As we will see, the “lyric occasions” for the compositions attributed to Archilochus are particularly problematic. For now, however, I continue with my questioning of the three terms I have used in the primary title. Next in order, then, is the second of the three.

(B)  frame

From the standpoint of my overall argumentation, a frame for any occasion may be either physical or only notional. That is to say, an occasion may be real or only pictured as real. I draw attention here, already now, to a distinction I need to make in this formulation. When I say that an occasion may be notional in that it may not be real but only pictured as real, this is not the same thing as saying that such a notional occasion is fictional. The very idea of fiction could be misleading in the case of texts attributed to the persona of Archilochus—as also in other such texts to be found in “lyric” writ large, as for example in songs attributed to the persona of an Alcaeus or a Sappho (accordingly, I respectfully disagree with the usage of “fiction” by D’Alessio 2018). What may seem as fictional for us as “outsiders” who are merely looking in, as it were, when we view an occasion—as indicated in the text of, say, Archilochus—may have been seen as real by those who were “insiders” to the poetic traditions that shaped this given text. That is why I prefer to say pictured as real, not imagined as real, whenever I refer to occasions in the texts of Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho, and other such exponents of “lyric”—or whatever we choose to call it. Whereas the idea of fiction—or even falsehood—is at least implied in our everyday use of the word imagining, such an implication is not required if I use instead the word picturing. To picture something is not necessarily a fictionalizing of that something. It remains to ask, however: what was the prerequisite for becoming an “insider” to an occasion that was being pictured in the poetic traditions that shaped the text of Archilochus and other such figures? The prerequisite, I argue, was that such an “insider” would be a participant in the performance of the poetry that eventually became the text. I made a special effort here to say a participant—not merely a passive member of an audience. For more on this distinction, I refer to a book listed in the Bibliography below, Poetry as Performance (Nagy 1996a:83). For now, in any case, I continue with my questioning of the three terms I have used in the primary title. Next and last in order, then, is the third of the three.

(C) sacred space

My use of this term takes me back to an old essay of mine that I contributed to the Festschrift for Bruno Gentili, listed as Nagy 1993 in the Bibliography. The title of the essay was “Alcaeus in Sacred Space,” with reference to a temenos or ‘sacred precinct’ mentioned in Alcaeus Fragment 129.2 V and in Fragment 130b.13 V. This temenos is described in the language of Alcaeus as a great federal space common to all the people of the island of Lesbos, and such a place can be identified with a sacred precinct that went by the name of Messon, mentioned in two inscriptions dated to the second century BCE, which Louis Robert (1960) connected with the name of the present-day place known as tà Mésa in Modern Greek. This temenos or ‘sacred precinct’, situated on the island of Lesbos, was sacred to the goddess Hera—as also to Zeus and to Dionysus—so we read in the text of Alcaeus. And the identity of this place as sacred to Hera is likewise indicated in the songs of Sappho, as we can now see even more clearly since the recent discovery of new papyrus fragments. I offer a detailed analysis of the relevant texts in an online essay listed as Nagy 2015 in the Bibliography. But this sacred space called Messon was sacred not only to Hera and to other gods: as I argued in the same article I cited at the beginning of this paragraph, “Alcaeus in Sacred Space,” the temenos was sacred also to the poet Alcaeus himself in his role as a cult hero. And now, in my essay here, I will extend my argument by comparing what we know about another sacred space, and this one is situated in the island state of Paros, where the poet Archilochus was worshipped in his own role as a cult hero.

Part 1. The case of the Mnesiepes Inscription, reporting on the hero cult of Archilochus

§0. The evidence of what is actually said in the Mnesiepes Inscription, dating from the third century BCE, will become decisive for my argumentation. Having offered working definitions for lyric occasions, frame, and sacred space, I will now argue that the first twenty-two lines in Block A Column 2 of this Inscription (I am using here the numbering system of Rivoli 2020, not the older system of Tarditi 1968)—lines that I will in due course cite and translate—provide documentation for the existence of a sacred space in Paros where Archilochus was worshipped as a cult hero and where his hero cult served as a frame for perpetuating the ‘lyric’ poetry attributed to him in his role as a cult hero, not only as a poet. This double role, as we will see, was contextualized in the ‘lyric’ occasions that are narrated in the overall text of the Mnesiepes Inscription—not in the first twenty-two lines of Block A Column 2, which is the beginning of the text, but in the rest of the text as it extends beyond the first twenty-two lines of Column 2 and further beyond. In the first twenty-two lines of Block A Column 2, by contrast, the role of Archilochus as a cult hero is actually introduced, and this introduction connects, as we will also see, the role of Archilochus as a cult hero with his role as a poet. Before I analyze the connectivity of these two roles, however, I need first to offer some background on the role of Archilochus as a poet, and I organize this background by way of three placeholders, as I call them, each one of which will lead sequentially into the analysis that follows.

§1. Placeholder 1

The traditional way of performing songs attributed to Archilochus, as we know from historical evidence dated to the Classical period and later, takes the form of a specialized kind of poetic performance that is differentiated from song in the familiar sense of this word song as we know it.[3] As we see from attestations of references to the songs of this poet, most notably from the testimony of Plato (Ion 531a), the professional performers of ‘songs’ attributed to Archilochus were rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’: that is to say, such professional performers were not kitharōidoi ‘citharodes’ or aulōidoi ‘aulodes’.[4] In the Classical period, as in the era of Plato, the repertoire of rhapsodes was not ‘lyric’ song—unlike the repertoires of citharodes or kitharā-singers, that is, of singers self-accompanied by the kitharā or ‘ lyre’, and of aulodes or aulos-singers, that is, of singers accompanied by the aulos or ‘double-reed’. Rather, the ‘singing’ of rhapsodes was modified song, with reduced melody—and without the instrumental accompaniment of the lyre or of the double-reed. And yet, the persona of Archilochus, in texts of songs attributed to him, refers to himself as a performer of ‘lyric’ song—even of choral song. In one fragment of his songs (F 121 W), Archilochus is self-described as an exarkhōn ‘choral leader’ of the paiēōn [= paiān] ‘paean’; implicitly, his performance there is accompanied by the kitharā ‘lyre’, as we see from the description of Apollo’s own model performance of the paean in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (514–519), where the god accompanies on the kitharā or ‘lyre’ his own choral singing and dancing as a lead-in for performance by the rest of the chorus. We may compare two ancient images where we see the figure of Archilochus himself in the act of performing his compositions while holding a lyre—as pictured on the surface of coins minted by the island state of Paros, the poet’s homeland.[5] Also, in another fragment of his songs (Archilochus F 120 W), the performing poet is self-described as an exarkhōn ‘choral leader’ of the dithurambos ‘dithyramb’, where his performance is explicitly accompanied by the aulos or ‘double-reed’; in the wording of this fragment, the dithyramb is described as sacred to the god Dionysus.

§2. Placeholder 2

The choral personality of Archilochus is also evident in the Life of Archilochus tradition as preserved by the Mnesiepes Inscription.[6] Starting at Block A Column 2 line 23 (I continue to follow here the numbering by Rivoli 2020), the text of this inscription, dated to the third century BCE, narrates in prose the “Life” of Archilochus, giving context to “quotations” of the transmitted poetic compositions that were attributed to him. These quotations of poetry are embedded within the prose of the narration that I describe as the Life of Archilochus tradition. And this Life of Archilochus tradition, as memorialized by the Mnesiepes Inscription, also aetiologizes the hero cult of Archilochus.

§3. Placeholder 3

As I have already noted in Placeholder 1, the poetry of Archilochus refers to itself as a choral lyric medium: the persona of Archilochus describes himself as capable of being an exarkhōn ‘choral leader’ (F 120 and F 121 W), that is, the leader of a chorus, a group that sings and dances. Such self-reference is an example of what I call diachronic skewing, that is, where the medium refers to itself in terms of earlier phases of its own evolution.[7] As I have argued at length in a book I have already cited, Nagy 1990a, especially in Chapters 1 and 12, the medium of Archilochus was originally undifferentiated lyric, that is, sung and danced, but it evolved eventually into differentiated non-lyric recitative. In what follows, I epitomize salient points of my relevant argumentation.[8]

§3A. Aristotle in Poetics 1449a9 and following says that both tragedy and comedy had a beginning that is autoskhediastikē ‘improvisational’ (ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς αὐτοσχεδιαστικῆς), and that tragedy was derived from the exarkhontes ‘choral leaders’ of the dithurambos ‘dithyramb’ (ἀπὸ τῶν ἐξαρχόντων τὸν διθύραμβον). Aristotle may have had in mind the wording of Archilochus F 120 W, where the persona of the composer declares that he knows how to be the exarkhōn ‘choral leader’ of the dithyramb, performed in honor of the god Dionysus, while the poet’s mind is thunderstruck with wine. The meter of Archilochus F 120 W is trochaic tetrameter catalectic. According to Aristotle the meter of dialogue in early tragedy, before it was replaced by iambic trimeter, was this same meter, trochaic tetrameter catalectic (Poetics 1449a22 and following). What Aristotle says about the evolution of comedy and tragedy implies that he thought that Archilochus was a typical exarkhōn of dithyramb, which he understood as characterized by trochaic tetrameter catalectic, typical of both comedy and tragedy.

§3B. From the testimony of the Mnesiepes Inscription, Block A Column 3 lines 16–57, we learn of a traditional myth, native to the island state of Paros, that represented Archilochus as a chorus teacher of his community. I propose now to analyze how this myth, preserved in the context of the poet’s hero cult in Paros, dramatizes the social function of Archilochean poetry in the civic life of the state or polis, as it is called in the inscription.

§3C. In the wording of the Mnesiepes Inscription, it can be argued, we are witnessing a cognate of the source of Aristotle Poetics 1449a and 1448b23, who considered Archilochus an exponent of primitive blame poetry.[9] I summarize here the relevant story as retold in the Mnesiepes Inscription, Block A Column 3 lines 16–57. The story has it that Archilochus improvises ([αὐτο]|σχεδιασ[…]), lines 19–20, a composition that he teaches (διδάξαντα), line 22, to some of the citizens of Paros. I note here the context of the verb mi-mnē-sk– (μιμνησκομ[…]) ‘remember’ at line 52, which seems to be pertinent to the concept of Mnēsiepēs ‘he who remembers the words [as in epos ‘word’]’.[10] From the standpoint of the narrative, Archilochus seems to be represented here as a ‘chorus teacher’. The Mnesiepes Inscription then proceeds to quote at lines 31–35 the words of the composition (F 251 W = 219 ed. Tarditi): the text is fragmentary, but we can see clearly that Dionysus figures prominently (F 251.1), in the context of the epithet Oipholios (F 251.5), a derivative of the obscene verb oiphō ‘have intercourse [male subject]’. The polis finds this composition ‘too iambic’ (ἰαμβικώτερο[), line 38. Archilochus is put on trial (ἐν τεῖ κρίσει), line 42, and apparently condemned. But then the polis is afflicted with a plague that affects the genitalia, lines 42–44. Emissaries of the polis consult Delphi, lines 45–46, and the Oracle tells them that the plague will not abate until the polis honors Archilochus, lines 47–50. The connection here of Archilochus with Dionysus and the notion of Oipholios institutionalizes the ‘iambic’ composition of Archilochus. I should stress the explicit testimony of the Mnesiepes Inscription concerning the practice of worshipping various gods, along with the cult hero Archilochus, in the sacred precinct of Archilochus, the Arkhilokheion, as we read at lines 14–19: among the gods listed at lines 1–13, Dionysus is accorded a position of particular prominence, at line 10).[11]

§3D. The narrative pattern of the story of Archilochus and the punishment of the Parians is typical of aetiologies concerning the founding of a hero cult: (1) some hero is dishonored, sometimes even killed, by a community; (2) the community is then beset by some plague; and (3) the Oracle is consulted and prescribes the hero cult of the given hero as the remedy. In such aetiologies the well-being of the community, as threatened by the plague, is visualized as fertility of vegetation and inhabitants alike—a fertility that is then restored and guaranteed to continue through the proper maintenance of the hero cult (examples for fertility of vegetation: Pausanias 6.11.6–8; for fertility of humans: Pausanias 2.3.6–7). In the Archilochus story as well, the fertility of the polis is connected in general with the hero cult of Archilochus, which is after all the context for the telling of the story, and in particular with the institutionalization of Archilochus as ‘chorus teacher’.[12] Here we have the nucleus of the civic function of Archilochean poetry, in that the chorus is the traditional medium for the self-expression of the polis.[13] And the theme of fertility is explicit in the story of Archilochus in his stylized role as ‘chorus teacher’, which is connected with the cult of Dionysus (T 4 II 10 ed. Tarditi; and F 251 W; also F 120 W).[14]

§4. With this background in place, I am ready to quote and to translate the text of the first 22 lines in Block A Column 2 of the Mnesiepes Inscription, where it is made explicit that the poet Archilochus was worshipped as a cult hero within an enclosure that was named the Arkhilókheion, as we see at line 16 of the text. Here, then, are the 22 lines of the Greek text, taken from the edition of Rivoli 2020, and followed by my translation:

1. Μνησιέπει ὁ θεὸς ἔχρησε λῶιον καὶ ἄμεινον εἶμεν
2. ἐν τῶι τεμένει, ὃ κατασκευάζει, ἱδρυσαμένωι
3. βωμὸν καὶ θύοντι ἐπὶ τούτου Μούσαις καὶ Ἀπόλλ[ω]ν[ι]
4. Μουσαγέται καὶ Μνημοσύνει· θύειν δὲ καὶ καλλι=
5. ερεῖν Διὶ Ὑπερδεξίωι, Ἀθάναι Ὑπερδεξίαι,
6. Ποσειδῶνι Ἀσφαλείωι, Ἡρακλεῖ, Ἀρτέμιδι Εὐκλείαι.
7. Πυθῶδε τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι σωτήρια πέμπειν ⁝
8.  ̅Μνησιέπει ὁ θεὸς ἔχρησε λῶιον καὶ ἄμεινον εἶμεν
9. ἐν τῶι τεμένει, ὃ κατασκευάζει, ἱδρυσαμένωι
10. βωμὸν καὶ θύοντι ἐπί τούτου Διονύσωι καὶ Νύμφαις
11. καὶ Ὥραις· θύειν δὲ καὶ καλλιερεῖν Ἀπόλλωνι
12. Προστατηρίωι, Ποσειδῶνι Ἀσφαλείωι, Ἡρακλεῖ.
13.  Πυθῶδε τῶι Ἀπόλλωνι σωτήρια πέμπειν [⁝]
14. ̅Μνησιέπει ὁ θεός ἔχρησε λῶιον καὶ ἄμεινον εἶμεν
15. [τι]μῶντι Ἀρχίλοχον τὸμ ποιητάν, καθ’ ἃ ἐπινοεῖ ⁝
16. Χρήσαντος δὲ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ταῦτα τόν τε τόπον
17. καλοῦμεν Ἀρχιλόχειον καὶ τοὺς βωμοὺς ἱδρύμεθα
18. καὶ θύομεν καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς καὶ Ἀρχιλόχωι καὶ
19. τιμῶμεν αὐτόν, καθ’ ἃ ὁ θεὸς ἐθέσπισεν ἡμῖν.
20. [Π]ερὶ δὲ ὧν ἠβουλήθημεν ἀναγράψαι, τάδε παρα=
21. [δ]έδοταί τε ἡμῖν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀρχαίων καὶ αὐτοὶ πεπρα=
22. [γ]ματεύμεθα ⁝ …

1. To Mnesiepes did the god [Apollo] make the oracular declaration that it is more propitious and just plain better if
2. in the precinct [temenos] that he [= Mnesiepes] is constructing he [= Mnesiepes] sets up [participle of hidruein]
3. an altar and makes sacrifice [participle of thuein] on it to the Muses and to Apollo
4. the Mousāgētēs and to Mnemosyne. And that he make sacrifice [infinitive of thuein] (and perform correctly the sacred acts [infinitive of kallhiereuein])
5. to Zeus Huperdexios, to Athena Huperdexia,
6. to Poseidon Asphaleios, to Herakles, to Artemis Eukleia.
7. (And) that he organize a delegation [infinitive of pempein] to go to Delphi and offer there to Apollo a sacrifice for well-being.
8. [paragraphē mark here] To Mnesiepes did the god [Apollo] make the oracular declaration that it is more propitious and just plain better if
9. in the precinct [temenos] that he [= Mnesiepes] is constructing he [= Mnesiepes] sets up [participle of hidruein]
10. an altar and makes sacrifice [participle of thuein] on it to Dionysus and to the Nymphs
11. and to the Hōrai. And that he make sacrifice [infinitive of thuein] (and perform correctly the sacred acts [infinitive of kallhiereuein]) to Apollo
12. Prostatērios, to Poseidon Asphaleios, to Herakles.
13. (And) that he organize a delegation [infinitive of pempein] to go to Delphi and offer there to Apollo a sacrifice for well-being.
14. [paragraphē mark here] To Mnesiepes did the god [Apollo] make the oracular declaration that it is more propitious and just plain better if
15. he [= Mnesiepes] honors [participle of timân] Archilochus the poet, in accordance with the intent (of the god).
16. And, in the light of this oracular declaration of Apollo,
17. we call this place [topos] the Arkhilokheion and we have set up [indicative perfect of hidruein] the relevant altars
18. and we make sacrifice [indicative present of thuein] both to the gods and to Archilochus and
19. 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
21. handed down to us by the ancients and that we have made our
22. concern.

Mnesiepes Inscription, Block A column 2 lines 1–22

§5. I have stopped my quotation of the text in the middle of line 22, where the rest of the line, extending into line 23, begins the formal narration of the Life of Archilochus, and the first story is about the time when a young Archilochus unwittingly traded a cow for a life of poetry. To quote lines 22-23: Λέγουσι γὰρ Ἀρχίλοχον ἔτι νεώτερον | ὄντα … ‘For they say that Archilochus, when he was still a young man…’. I have already noted that the Life of Archilochus tradition is a narrative replete with details that connect the status of the poet with his status as a cult hero, but now I will shift the focus by noting details that contextualize the historical fact of the hero cult itself. Here in the first 22 lines of Block A Column 2 of the Inscription, the text actually documents the status of Archilochus as a cult hero. In fact, the first 22 lines of Block A Column 2 of the Mnesiepes Inscription make it clear that the original place where the inscription itself was displayed was the Arkhilókheion, mentioned at line 16, which was the sacred precinct at Paros where Archilochus was worshipped as a cult hero. This role of Archilochus as a cult hero, as I pointed out already in Placeholder 3, is linked in the Mnesiepes Inscription, Block A Column 3 lines 16–57, with explicit testimony about a traditional myth, native to the island state of Paros, that represented Archilochus as a chorus teacher of his community.

§6. I focus on this sacred space called the Arkhilókheion, mentioned at line 16. This space was an enclosure, called a temenos or ‘sacred precinct’ at lines 2 and 9, and the temenos was also a sacred space for gods, who are said to receive the sacrifices of their worshippers on two bōmoi ‘altars’. Sharing one of the two altars are Apollo Mousāgētēs, also the Muses and their mother, the goddess Mnēmosunē, lines 3–4. After that, at lines 4–7, we read that the following other gods also receive sacrifice: Zeus Huperdexios, Athena Huperdexiā, Poseidon Asphaleios, Herakles, Artemis Eukleiā. And then there is a second altar, to be shared by Dionysus, the Nymphs, and the Hōrai ‘Seasons’, lines 10–11. After that, at lines 11–12, we read that these other gods also receive sacrifice: Apollo Prostatērios, Poseidon Asphaleios, Herakles. Finally, in the context of the reference to the entire enclosure as the Arkhilókheion, at line 16, it is prescribed at lines 14–15 that worshippers are to offer sacrifice on the two altars not only to the gods named but also to Archilochus, described as ‘the poet [poiētēs]’ at lines 15. I note with special interest that the verb thuein ‘sacrifice to’ applies not only to the gods as recipients of sacrifice, lines 3, 4, 10, 11, 18, but also to Archilochus himself, line 18.

§7. I draw attention to the fact that the entire enclosure within which Archilochus is worshipped here as a cult hero is a sacred space that is shared by a variety of gods who are worshipped in the context of the hero cult. I find a remarkable parallel in a passage of Pausanias where our traveler describes a precinct in the city of Troizen that is sacred to Hippolytus, who is worshipped there as the city’s primary cult hero. Before I quote my literal translation of the relevant passage, I emphasize already now the fact that the peribolos or ‘enclosure’ of Hippolytus, as mentioned at 2.32.2, is described at 2.32.1 as the temenos or ‘sacred precinct’ of Hippolytus. Keeping this fact in mind, let us now consider the relevant passage:

{2.32.1} Ἱππολύτῳ δὲ τῷ Θησέως τέμενός τε ἐπιφανέστατον ἀνεῖται καὶ ναὸς ἐν αὐτῷ καὶ ἄγαλμά ἐστιν ἀρχαῖον. ταῦτα μὲν Διομήδην λέγουσι ποιῆσαι καὶ προσέτι θῦσαι τῷ Ἱππολύτῳ πρῶτον· Τροιζηνίοις δὲ ἱερεὺς μέν ἐστιν Ἱππολύτου τὸν χρόνον τοῦ βίου πάντα ἱερώμενος καὶ θυσίαι καθεστήκασιν ἐπέτειοι, δρῶσι δὲ καὶ ἄλλο τοιόνδε· ἑκάστη παρθένος πλόκαμον ἀποκείρεταί οἱ πρὸ γάμου, κειραμένη δὲ ἀνέθηκεν ἐς τὸν ναὸν φέρουσα. ἀποθανεῖν δὲ αὐτὸν οὐκ ἐθέλουσι συρέντα ὑπὸ τῶν ἵππων οὐδὲ τὸν τάφον ἀποφαίνουσιν εἰδότες· τὸν δὲ ἐν οὐρανῷ καλούμενον ἡνίοχον, τοῦτον εἶναι νομίζουσιν ἐκεῖνον Ἱππόλυτον τιμὴν παρὰ θεῶν ταύτην ἔχοντα.

{2.32.2} τούτου δὲ ἐντὸς τοῦ περιβόλου ναός ἐστιν Ἀπόλλωνος Ἐπιβατηρίου, Διομήδους ἀνάθημα ἐκφυγόντος τὸν χειμῶνα ὃς τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἐπεγένετο ἀπὸ Ἰλίου κομιζομένοις· καὶ τὸν ἀγῶνα τῶν Πυθίων Διομήδην πρῶτον θεῖναί φασι τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι. ἐς δὲ τὴν Δαμίαν καὶ Αὐξησίαν – καὶ γὰρ Τροιζηνίοις μέτεστιν αὐτῶν – οὐ τὸν αὐτὸν λέγουσιν ὃν Ἐπιδαύριοι καὶ Αἰγινῆται λόγον, ἀλλὰ ἀφικέσθαι παρθένους ἐκ Κρήτης· στασιασάντων δὲ ὁμοίως τῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει ἁπάντων καὶ ταύτας φασὶν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀντιστασιωτῶν καταλευσθῆναι, καὶ ἑορτὴν ἄγουσί σφισι Λιθοβόλια ὀνομάζοντες.

{2.32.3} κατὰ δὲ τὸ ἕτερον τοῦ περιβόλου μέρος στάδιόν ἐστιν Ἱππολύτου καλούμενον καὶ ναὸς ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ Ἀφροδίτης Κατασκοπίας· αὐτόθεν γάρ, ὁπότε γυμνάζοιτο ὁ Ἱππόλυτος, ἀπέβλεπεν ἐς αὐτὸν ἐρῶσα ἡ Φαίδρα. ἐνταῦθα ἔτι πεφύκει ἡ μυρσίνη, τὰ φύλλα ὡς καὶ πρότερον ἔγραψα ἔχουσα τετρυπημένα· καὶ ἡνίκα ἠπορεῖτο ἡ Φαίδρα καὶ ῥᾳστώνην τῷ ἔρωτι οὐδεμίαν εὕρισκεν, ἐς ταύτης τὰ φύλλα ἐσιναμώρει τῆς μυρσίνης.

{2.32.4} ἔστι δὲ καὶ τάφος Φαίδρας, ἀπέχει δὲ οὐ πολὺ τοῦ Ἱππολύτου μνήματος· τὸ δὲ οὐ πόρρω κέχωσται τῆς μυρσίνης.

{2.32.1} To Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, is dedicated a very famous precinct [temenos], in which is a temple [nāos] with an ancient [arkhaion] statue [agalma]. Diomedes, they say, made [poieîn] these, and, further, he was the first to sacrifice [thuein] to Hippolytus. The people of Troizen have a priest [hiereus] of Hippolytus, and he is consecrated [hierâsthai] [to Hippolytus] for life. Also, it is an established practice for them to have annual sacrifices [thusiai] performed [for Hippolytus]. In addition [to this ritual practice performed for Hippolytus] they have another one. They perform-a-ritual [drân] that is as follows. Every girl before marriage cuts off for him [= Hippolytus] a lock [plokamos] of her hair and, having cut it off, she brings it, in an act of bringing-in-procession [pherein], to his temple [nāos] and dedicates it. They [= the people of Troizen] are unwilling to accept that he died, dragged to death by his horses, and they do not show [apophainein] his tomb [taphos], though they know where it is. But they customarily-think [nomizein] that the one who is called the Charioteer [= Auriga = hēniokhos] in the sky, this one [houtos], is that one [ekeinos], the Hippolytus who receives this honor [tīmē] from the gods.

{2.32.2} Within this enclosure [peribolos] [of Hippolytus] is a temple [nāos] of Apollo Epibatērios [‘boarding (the ship)’], a dedication of Diomedes for having weathered the storm that came upon the Greeks as they were returning from Troy. They say that Diomedes was also the first to hold the Pythian Contest [agōn] in honor of Apollo. Of Damia and Auxesia (for the people of Troizen, too, share in their worship) they do not tell [legein] the same story [logos] as do the people of Epidauros and of Aegina, but they say that they were maidens [parthénoi] who came from Crete. When factionalism [stasis] broke out everywhere in the city, even these girls, they say, were stoned to death by an opposing faction and they [= the people of Troizen] celebrate [agein] a festival [heortē] for their sake, calling it the Lithobolia [‘throwing of stones’].

{2.32.3} In the other part of the enclosure [peribolos] is a race-course [stadion] named after Hippolytus, and looming over it is a temple [nāos] of Aphrodite [invoked by way of the epithet] Kataskopiā [‘looking down from above’]. Here is the reason [for the epithet]: it was at this very spot, whenever Hippolytus was exercising-naked [gumnazesthai], that she, feeling-an-erotic-passion-for [erân] him, used to gaze away [apo-blepein] at him from above. Phaedra did. A myrtle-bush [mursinē] still grows here, and its leaves—as I wrote at an earlier point­—have holes punched into them. Whenever Phaedra was-feeling-there-was-no-way-out [aporeîn] and could find no relief for her erotic-passion [erōs], she would take it out on the leaves of this myrtle-bush, wantonly injuring them.

{2.32.4} There is also the tomb [taphos] of Phaedra, not far from the tomb [mnēma] of Hippolytus, which is a piled-up tumulus near the myrtle-bush [mursinē].

§8. As we see from this passage, the temenos or ‘sacred precinct’ of Hippolytus contains not only a nāos ‘temple’ that is sacred to him but also a nāos that is sacred to Apollo and, even more interesting, a nāos that is sacred to Aphrodite, who is given an epithet that evokes the myth about the love of Phaedra for Hippolytus.[15] But I save for last here the most interesting detail of them all, from the standpoint of my argumentation: also enclosed within the sacred space of Hippolytus is the tomb of Phaedra herself. And the presence of a tomb for the suicidal Phaedra within the temenos or ‘sacred precinct’ of Hippolytus is an indication of hero cult.[16]

§9. As I will argue in Part II, the tomb of the suicidal Phaedra, situated within the temenos or ‘sacred precinct’ of Hippolytus, is comparable to the tomb of the suicidal daughters of Lykambes as signaled in a fragmentary poem preserved in Dublin Papyrus 193a, dated to the late third century BCE, and in a poem by Dioscorides in Greek Anthology 7.351—a poem likewise dated to the third century BCE. Laura Swift (2015), in a most perceptive analysis of these and other texts, quotes a telling summary, formulated by Martin West (1974:26), of the underlying story: “A match was arranged between Archilochus and one of Lycambes’ daughters, Neoboule. But Lycambes afterwards broke it off, whereupon Archilochus abused him and his two daughters in such fierce iambi that they (the daughters only, in the earlier sources) hanged themselves for shame. He claimed that he had met the girls in the precinct of Hera and that they had indulged in a sexual orgy or orgies together, the details of which were described with the most indecent explicitness.”

§10. About the daughters of Lykambes I will say only this much more for now: there are references to these two doomed girls in the so-called Cologne Epode of Archilochus, F 196a W, and these references do in fact signal erotic activity within a sacred space. In Part II, however, I will argue that this activity is not simply an act of desecration, as Laura Swift (2015) describes it: rather, it is also an act of sacralization, sanctioned within a space that is sacred to the goddess Hera. But I should add that I do agree with Swift when she points to this goddess as a model for the poetics of seduction, and we see such poetics at work in the celebrated erotic scene of Iliad 14 where Hera seduces Zeus as if these two divinities were young unmarried lovers, not a mature married couple. Still, I disagree with Swift’s view that this seduction scene is some kind of epic model for the “lyric” scene of seduction as narrated in the Cologne Epode. In making my own argument about Hera as a model for the poetics of seduction in “lyric” traditions, I draw on the insights of the anthropologist Julian Pitt-Rivers (1970) in his study of “women and sanctuary,” who analyzes examples of “ritual inversion” within various kinds of “social order.”[17]

§11. For now, though, I draw Part I to a close by returning here to that image of a pair of lovers featured in the first illustration for this essay. There they are, all wrapped up inside a cloak that hides their lovemaking, and their sexual activity is sanctioned by a Dionysiac halo, as I called it, of grapevines surrounding their act of making love. So also in the Cologne Epode, as I will argue in Part II, the seduction of a girl who is all wrapped up with her lover inside a khlaina or ‘cloak’ is sanctioned by the poetic medium of Dionysus as activated within a sacred space of Hera.

Part 2. Erotic desecration and sacralization in Greek myth and ritual: The case of the Daughters of Lykambes[1]

§0. In Part I §10, I started to argue that the erotic activity as narrated by the first-person speaker in the so-called Cologne Epode of Archilochus, F 196a W, is ultimately not an act of desecration but rather an act of sacralization, sanctioned within a sacred space. I continue the argumentation here by analyzing situations where a narrated desecration in terms of myth can function as a sacralization in terms of ritual. In both the visual and the verbal arts, I argue, a khlaina or ‘cloak’ that covers a given depiction of erotic activity can function as a symbol of such sacralization.

§1. A primary context for sacralizing erotic activity, from the standpoint of my argument, is the framing of such activity within a temenos. This Greek word temenos, which is conventionally translated as ‘precinct’, is what I have in mind when I speak of a sacred space that functions as an actual setting for erotic activity in myth. Here I agree with the reasoning of Laura Swift (2015:19, with bibliography), who shows that the erotic activity narrated by the first-person speaker in the Cologne Epode of Archilochus, F 196a W, may have been pictured as happening within a space that was sacred to the goddess Hera. As Swift points out, it is relevant that Hera can be pictured as a model for the erotic activity of seduction. A case in point, as already noted in Part I, is the Homeric scene where Hera seduces Zeus as if the two divinities were young unmarried lovers. At the climax of this seduction, as narrated in Iliad 14.342–345, Zeus covers himself and Hera with a golden cloud at the climax of their embrace. Something strikingly similar happens at the climax of the seduction scene as narrated in the Cologne Epode: in this case, the man who is seducing the woman says at verse 45 that he covered himself and his sexual partner with a khlaina ‘cloak’ at the climax of their embrace, so that the erotic details of their lovemaking are in the end not revealed. It can be argued, then, that this act of hiding the climax of a sexual encounter is typical of Hera, and that the encounter that we see being narrated in the Cologne Epode could be staged, as it were, inside a precinct that was sacred to this goddess.

§2. References to such a staging of a seduction scene inside the sacred space of Hera can be found in a set of relevant sources considered by Laura Swift (2015:19), and I will highlight here two of them.

§3. One of these sources is a poem of Dioscorides, who lived in the third century BCE. In this poem, preserved in the Greek Anthology, 7.351, the daughters of Lykambes are pictured as speaking from the dead—from a tomb in which they are buried—and they are lamenting their suicide caused by what they say were false stories told about them by Archilochus. The girls are denying, as we read at verses 7–8, that Archilochus ever succeeded in seducing them—that he ever even saw them ‘in the causeways [aguiai]’ of the city (ἐν ἀγυιαῖς) and ‘in the great precinct [temenos] of Hera’ (῞Ηρης ἐν μεγάλῳ τεμένει). These daughters of Lykambes, pictured here as speaking from their tomb, are evidently the same two girls whose reputations were ruined in the first-person narrative of the Cologne Epode of Archilochus.

§4. The second of the two relevant sources I am highlighting is a fragmentary poem preserved in Dublin Papyrus 193a, dated to the late third century BCE. Here again the daughters of Lykambes are pictured as speaking from their tomb, protesting what they say were false stories told about them by Archilochus.

§5. In the first of the two poems I have highlighted, the references to aguiai ‘causeways’ at verse 7 and to the temenos ‘precinct’ of Hera at verse 8 indicate, I think, that the girls are sacred to the goddess, and that they have a sacral role both inside the precinct of Hera and in processions to that precinct along the causeways of the city. The word temenos ‘precinct’ is explicit in associating the girls with their sacred roles. As for the word aguia ‘causeway’, it too is explicit, since it can apply to a “via sacra” along which a procession takes place. As I observe in earlier work, such an application of this word aguia is attested in a verse quoted by Thucydides 3.104.4 from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (corresponding to line 148 as transmitted in the medieval tradition).[19]

§6. That said, I will now argue that the tomb of the daughters of Lykambes was situated within a precinct that was sacred not only to Hera but also to Archilochus himself in his role as a cult hero.

§7. In Part I§8, I drew attention to what Pausanias says at 2.32.4 about the tomb of Phaedra. This tomb, he reports, was situated within the temenos ‘precinct’ of Hippolytus, worshipped as a cult hero by the people of Troizen. So also, I argue, the tomb of the daughters of Lykambes was situated within the temenos ‘precinct’ of Archilochus, worshipped as a cult hero by the people of Paros. But that is only one part of the argument.

§8. The temenos ‘precinct’ of Hippolytus as cult hero was shared by this hero with divinities like Aphrodite, whose presence is noted by Pausanias at 2.32.3—not only with divinities like Apollo, noted at 2.32.2. So also, I propose, the temenos of Archilochus was shared with divinities like Hera—not only with divinities like, again, Apollo, who as we saw in Part I§6, figures most prominently in the text of the Mnesiepes Inscription.

§9. Just as Phaedra, in terms of the myths and rituals of Troizen, may have been defamed unjustly by poetic tradition, so also the daughters of Lykambes, in terms of the myths and the rituals of Paros, may have had their own story to tell. The cloak that covers the two lovers in the Cologne Epode of Archilochus may thus be a symbol of the uncertainties surrounding the erotic encounter described in that poem. Here I cite a relevant work that was brought to my attention by Ettore Cingano: it is an extended study, by Giampiera Arrigoni (1983), of amorous encounters, and the picturing of such encounters in the visual arts can show a loving couple cloaked within the mystical protectiveness of a khlaina or ‘cloak’—which is what cloaks the infamous pair at the ending of the Cologne Epode.

Bibliography

Arrigoni, G. 1983. “Amore sotto il manto e iniziazione nuziale.” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 15:7–56.

1999. See Nagy 1979/1999.

Calame, C. 2009. “Referential Fiction and Poetic Ritual: Towards a Pragmatics of Myth (Sappho 17 and Bacchylides 13).” Trends in Classics 1:1-17.

D’Alessio, G. 2018. “Fiction and Pragmatics in Ancient Greek Lyric: The Case of Sappho.” Textual Events, ed. F. Budelmann and T. Phillips, 31–62. Oxford.

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Nagy, G. 1979/1999. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in chaic Greek Poetry. Baltimore. Revised ed. with new introduction 1999. https://chs.harvard.edu/book/nagy-gregory-the-best-of-the-achaeans-concepts-of-the-hero-in-archaic-greek-poetry/.

Nagy, G. 1990. Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past. Baltimore. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Pindars_Homer.1990.

Nagy, G. 1993. “Alcaeus in Sacred Space.” Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’ età ellenistica: Scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili, ed. R. Pretagostini, vol. 1, 221–225. Rome. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Alcaeus_in_Sacred_Space.1993.

Nagy, G. 1994. “Genre and Occasion.” Métis: Anthropologie des mondes grecs anciens 9–10:11–25. https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article/gregory-nagy-genre-and-occasion/.

Nagy, G. 1996. Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond. Cambridge. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Poetry_as_Performance.1996.

Nagy, G. 2002. Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens. Cambridge, MA, and Athens. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Platos_Rhapsody_and_Homers_Music.2002. For the third edition, see Nagy 2021.10.01.

Nagy, G. 2007. “Did Sappho and Alcaeus Ever Meet?” Literatur und Religion: Wege zu einer mythisch–rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen I, ed. A. Bierl, R. Lämmle, and K. Wesselmann, 211–269. MythosEikonPoiesis 1.1. Berlin and New York. For an expanded second edition, see Nagy 2009b.

Nagy, G. 2008. “Convergences and Divergences between God and Hero in the Mnesiepes Inscription of Paros.” Archilochus and his Age II, ed. D. Katsonopoulou, I. Petropoulos, S. Katsarou, 259–265. Athens. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Convergences_and_Divergences_between_God_and_Hero.2008.

Nagy, G. 2009|2008. Homer the Classic. Printed | Online version. Hellenic Studies 36. Cambridge, MA, and Washington, DC. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homer_the_Classic.2008

Nagy, G. 2009a. “Hesiod and the Ancient Biographical Traditions.” The Brill Companion to Hesiod, ed. F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, and Ch. Tsagalis, 271–311. Leiden. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Hesiod_and_the_Ancient_Biographical_Traditions.2009.

Nagy, G. 2009b. “Did Sappho and Alcaeus Ever Meet?” 2nd ed. of Nagy 2007. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.Did_Sappho_and_Alcaeus_Ever_Meet.2007.

Nagy, G. 2010|2009. Homer the Preclassic. Printed | Online version. Berkeley and Los Angeles. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Nagy.Homer_the_Preclassic.2009.

Nagy, G. 2010. “The ‘New Sappho’ Reconsidered in the Light of the Athenian Reception of Sappho.” The New Sappho on Old Age: Textual and Philosophical Issues, ed. E. Greene and M. Skinner, 176–199. Cambridge, MA, and Washington, DC. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:Nagy.The_New_Sappho_Reconsidered.2011.

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Nagy, G. 2018.07.06. “Erotic desecration and sacralization in Greek myth and ritual.” Classical Inquiries. https://classical-inquiries.chs.harvard.edu/erotic-desecration-and-sacralization-in-greek-myth-and-ritual/.

Nagy, G. 2021.10.01. Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer Music: The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens, ed. 3. Classical Continuum. https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/platos-rhapsody-and-homers-music-the-poetics-of-the-panathenaic-festival-in-classical-athens/.

Petropoulos, I. 2008. “Some New Thoughts on the Old ‘New Archilochos’ Fr. 196A West2.” In Archilochus and his Age II, ed. D. Katsonopoulou, I. Petropoulos, S. Katsarou, 123–131. Athens.

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Rivoli, M. 2020. “L’iscrizione di Mnesiepes dall’Archilocheion di Paro.” Axon volume 4 number 1. https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/media/pdf/article/axon/2020/1/art-10.14277-Axon-2532-6848-2020-01-008_ssnUcI9.pdf.

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[1] The original version of Part 1, which included also an original version of the Introduction here, appeared in Classical Inquiries, Nagy 2018.06.30; and the original version of Part 2 appeared separately in Classical Inquiries, Nagy 2018.07.06.

[2] As I mentioned in n1, that paper was published in Classical Inquiries, Nagy 2018.06.30.

[3] The rest pf this paragraph is epitomized from Nagy 1990a:363–364 at 12§49.

[4] Nagy 1990a:25–28 at 1§§16–20.

[5] Documentation in Nagy 2018.06.06.

[6] For more on the text of the Mnesiepes Inscription: Nagy 2008.

[7] Nagy 1990a:394 at 13§28,

[8] Nagy 1990a:394–397 at 13§§30–35.

[9] Nagy 1990a:395–396 at 13§33.

[10] Nagy 1990a:363–364 at 12§49n133; also Nagy 1979/1999:304 at 18§4n3.

[11] Again Nagy 1990a:395–396 at 13§33.

[12] Nagy 1990a:396–397 at 13§34.

[13] Nagy 1990a:141–142 at 5§§10–11; 144 at  5§15; 363–364 at 12§§48–49.

[14] Nagy 1990a:397 at 13§35.

[15] Further commentary in H24H Hour 20. More on the epithet Kataskopiā ‘looking down from above’ in Nagy 2018.06.21.

[16] Nagy 2018.06.21.

[17] Pitt-Rivers 1970:873.

[1] The original version of Part 2 appeared in Classical Inquiries, listed as Nagy 2018.07.06 in the Bibliography;,

[2] Nagy 2010|2009:15n22.