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Book Nine
his purposes. The heroic days of Kaludon preceded the Trojan War by two
or three generations (see the genealogy 555—8n.); the Aitoloi are now led
by Thoas (2.638-42, where it is explained that the sons of Oineus were now
all dead). Phoinix begins his parable by setting the scene, how the Aitoloi
and the Kouretes were at war, in the succinct narrative style usual in
Homeric allusions to other sagas (529-49). The narrative at this point
is compressed, but perfectly clear.
Phoinix then explains (550-72) how Meleagros, after lording it over
the battlefield, had taken to his bed in wrath because, having killed his
mother's brother, he had been cursed by her. There is vagueness here.
Around whose city were the Aitoloi and Kouretes fighting? (See 552n.).
Who was Althaie's brother (the singular is used, 567) and how had
Meleagros come to kill him? How was her curse to operate? Why is
Alkuone/Kleopatre introduced at such length? Althaie's brothers are called
Iphiklos and Aphares by Bacchylides, Plexippus and Toxeus by Ovid,
Prothoos and Kometes by Pausanias, and Iphiklos, Plexippos, Poluphantes,
Phanes, and Eurupulos by Hrd/D. Such wide fluctuation indicates that no
canonical form of the story existed. In most accounts Meleagros had killed
his uncles in a dispute arising from the spoils of the Calydonian boar
(Bacchylides 5.127-35, Ovid, Met. 8.425-44). Althaie's response was to
seize the firebrand that represented Meleagros' life and throw it on the fire.
As it burned, Meleagros' strength ebbed away as he fought. The primitive
features of the story, the magical firebrand itself and the preference for
brothers over a son are warrant enough for a very ancient origin, see
Kakridis, Researches 14, 37 and Appendices i and iii, and for life-tokens as a
motif of folktale see S. Thompson, Motif Index E 765.1.2. However, the
question must be asked, though it cannot be answered, when the syncretism
of the folktale of the firebrand and the saga of Meleagros took place.
The association of firebrand and Meleagros first appears in Phrynichus'
Pleuroniae, then at Bacchylides 5.140—4, and Aesch. Cho. 602. For Kleopatre
see 561-3^
Phoinix next proceeds to put the sting in the tale of his parable: offers
were made to Meleagros which he rejected until his house was under
bombardment (573-94). Then he had to fight, gifts or (as it happened) no
gifts. At this point of course Phoinix stops, though everyone would know
that Meleagros went out to his death, as Patroklos and soon Akhilleus
himself would do, and in each death Apollo would play a part.
Homer's version of the story is maverick in that it incorporates a 'wrath'.
Apollodorus cites it as an alternative (oi 56 900-1 ...), making no attempt
to blend it with the folktale. Did Homer invent his version? It is a thesis
strongly affirmed by Willcock, CQ 14 (1964) 141-54, that Homeric practice
is to improve the fit of a paradigm by invented detail within the