Animus Classics Journal, Volume 4, Issue 1

ANIMUS

CLASSICS

JOURNAL

Winter 2024

Volume 4

No. 1

Cover art by E.G. Keisling

ANIMUS 1 THE CLASSICS JOURNAL OF THE UNIVERSITY

OF CHICAGO

VOLUME IV, NO. 1

WINTER, 2777 AUC

0ANIMUS, THE CLASSICS JOURNAL OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, VOL. IV, ISSUE 1

A LIST OF THE ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME

12 THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNMANLY:

ROMAN REPUBLICAN MASCULINITY AND THE

VIR MALUS

Colton Van Gerwen

26 METAMORPHOSIS OF DAPHNE

Phoebe Henricks

28 ASCYLTUS REDUX

Ray Brown

32 A PLOTINIAN READING OF THE MYTH OF

GANYMEDE

Luke Briner

44 THE SONG OF GANYMEDE

Luke Briner

48 ANCIENT HANDS IN MODERN EYES: SELF-EX-

PRESSION IN FEMALE TERRACOTTA FIGU-

RINES FROM LATE BRONZE AGE CYPRUS

Talia Neelis

68 THE FERRYMAN’S SONG

Ana Stinson

72 RAVAGED BY TIME - BUT STILL STANDING:

THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO

Katherine Terrell

74 DEATH HOVERS OVER THE MARRIAGE BED:

GRASPING AT IMMORTALITY IN CLASSICAL

TEXTS

Kate Whitaker

90 THE ENCHANTING MAENADS: A EURIPIDEAN

EPODE

Elias Fuchsel

BOARD OF THE ANIMUS CLASSICS JOURNAL

Sarah M. Ware, Elizabeth Harrison

Anjali Jain

Shama M. Tirukkala

Editors-in-Chief

Managing Editor

Secretary

ACADEMIC

Ken Johnson

Section Editor

Francesco Bailo

Harris Lencz

Thomas C. DeGirolami

Asst. Section Ed.

CREATIVE

Gabriel R. Clisham

Section Editor

Esther Kim

Shannon Kim

Hudson Kottman

Asst Section Ed.

TRANSLATION

Matthew Turner

Section Editor

Bill Baker

Will Zimmermann

Asst Section Ed.

BLOG

Penelope Toll

Section Editor

Bill Baker

Carrie Midkiff

Dania Siddiqi

Asst Section Ed.

Jonathan Yin

Asst Design Editor

p. 8 1

REVIEWERS & COPY EDITORS

REVIEWERS

Francesco Bailo

Bill Baker

Gabriel R. Clisham

Kayla Davis

Thomas C. DeGirolami

Julia Fink

Elizabeth Harrison

Anjali Jain

Elizabeth Johnson

Ken Johnson

Ahna Kim

Shannon Kim

Isabelle Y. Lee

Harris Lencz

Lekha Masoudi

Carrie Midkiff

Aimee Stachowiak

Vidya N. Suri

Shama M. Tirukkala

Penelope Toll

Alexa Torres

Matthew Turner

William Turner

Anushee Vashist

Sarah M. Ware

Isaac Yoo

Will Zimmermann

COPY EDITORS

Kayla Davis

Elizabeth Harrison

Anjali Jain

Elizabeth Johnson

Ahna Kim

Isabelle Y. Lee

Vidya N. Suri

William Turner

Sarah M. Ware

p. 9 1

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

As empires rise and fall, and the Animus Board meetings

move from Classics 021 to some room in Harper Memorial

Library, we would like to take a moment to mention the

people who have dedicated their time, energy, and efforts to the

Winter 2024 issue of Animus.

Gratitude

for our Staff

Gratitude for

Classics faculty

and staff

Without fail, we are incredibly thankful for the continual support

of our Animus staff and personnel. The tireless efforts of our Peer

Reviewers, who, amidst an unprecedented number of submissions,

ensured each of our authors received careful and insightful

feedback, continue to impress us cycle after cycle. We are equally

grateful for our keen-eyed Copy Editors, willing to take on anything

from experimental poetry to hefty bibliographies and ensure

every period is in (or out of) place. We thank you all for the

endless hours you’ve contributed to making the journal what it is

today.

We’d like to thank the Classics department as a whole for their

guidance, support, and warmth. We have particularly relied on

Kathy Fox and Professors Jonah Radding and Emily Austin for

their consistent kindness and assistance throughout the publica-

p. 10 1

tion cycle. We also appreciate the help of Classics Bibliographer

Catherine Mardikes for archiving issues of Animus for posterity. It

is also impossible to overlook the UChicago Student Government

Committee, whose generous funding makes this issue possible.

We feel deeply fortunate for the amazing staff who have worked

with us during this publication cycle. When we first introduced

the Assistant Section Editors in our second volume, we were excited

to bring more people into the Animus community, but we

could not have imagined then how helpful and essential their

presences would become in our weekly meetings. We are honored

to have a truly excellent group of Assistant Section Editors,

without whom the journal would not have been possible. We are

particularly grateful for Bill Baker, Harris Lencz, Carrie Midkiff,

and Will Zimmermann for consistently going above and beyond in

supporting not just their Section Editors, but Animus as a whole.

In this vein, our gratitude extends to Jonathan Yin and Anjali Jain,

who have taken on the yoke of typesetting and designing our

journal from Jacob Keisling, our previous Design Editor, whose

presence is still felt in every page. We would also like to thank Gabriel

Clisham and Elizabeth Harrison, who serve as the President

and Vice President of the Classics Society this year. With their

help, the Classics Society continues to grow, secure funding, and

host events for the Classically inclined on campus.

In the course of this cycle, as we’ve welcomed our new Board and

staff members, we’ve witnessed Animus flourish as a community–not

just as a journal. Each Sunday, our members trek through

the sleet, snow, and wintry slush to our warm room on campus,

where we laugh, linger, connect, and commiserate–and yes, put

together the journal you’re holding now. We are fortunate to have

a group of bright, inquisitive, and thoughtful individuals working

to bring Animus to you–from Penelope’s culinary experimentations

to Gabriel’s storytelling, from Harris’s love of the New York

Knicks to Esther’s research rollercoasters, the community we

have created at Animus is a far cry from our Zoom-laden origins,

and we could not be more grateful for the people with whom we

share each Sunday afternoon.

Particular

thanks for

certain

members

The Animus

community

Always yours,

Sarah M. Ware and Elizabeth Harrison

p. 11 1

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNMANLY1

ROMAN REPUBLICAN MASCULINITY AND THE VIR

MALUS

2 Colton Van Gerwen, University of Winnipeg

In Roman Republican Latin, authors used the

word vir (“man”) to describe the ideal man. 1 The

vir was inextricably linked to potestas (“power”),

2 and it was the man who held legitimate potestas

whom Roman Republican Latin writers identified as a

vir. 3 The phrase vir bonus (“good man”) thus presents

us with the Roman man par excellence, whereas the

phrase vir malus (“bad man”) presents us with a paradox.

How can a vir malus be simultaneously both malus

(“bad”) and a vir? It seems that this comes from the

understanding of the vir malus as a degeneration from

being a vir: the vir malus is conceptualized as a man

who might have once been a vir but now has perverted

potestas for his own ends and exhibits certain unmanly

vices, often in excess. 4 Indeed, it was recognized that

potestas gave the vir the ability both to help and to

harm. 5 The vir, by exercising potestas with recklessness

and impropriety, rather than prudence and self-restraint,

can become the vir malus, and so also becomes

susceptible to other dangerous vices that betray the

1. Alston, “Arms and the Man: Soldiers, Masculinity and

Power in Republican and Imperial Rome,” in When Men Were

Men: Masculinity, Power, and Identity in Classical Antiquity,

ed. Foxhall, Lin, and John Salmon (London: Routledge,

1998), 206.

2. Alston, “Arms and the Man,” 206.

3. Alston, “Arms and the Man,” 206.

4. Charles Goldberg, Roman Masculinity and Politics from

Republic to Empire (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2020), 22.

5. Goldberg, Roman Masculinity and Politics, 20.

ideal behaviour of the vir. 6 Both the vir bonus and the vir malus

sought gloria (“glory”), honor (“honor”), and imperium (“command/authority”).

7 But, as Sallust states, ille vera via nititur,

huic quia bonae artes desunt, dolis atque fallaciis contendit (“the

one pursues them by just methods; the other, being destitute

of honorable qualities, works with fraud and deceit”). 8

A man who sought personal glory and power at the expense of

the safety of the res publica (“Republic”) was evidently someone

who lacked self-control and restraint and was, for this reason,

an “unmanly” man—a vir malus rather than a vir bonus. The

abuse of potestas as a means to an end for one’s own personal

benefit was therefore understood to be typical behavior of viri

mali (“bad men”) and was suggestive not of hyper-masculinity,

but rather the lack of manly control. 9 Certainly, this behaviour

appears not only to threaten one’s status as a vir, but also the

safety of the res publica itself. Vices such as avaritia (“avarice”),

lubido/libido (“lust”), and ambitio (“desire for political glory”)

in particular were also thought to compel men to abandon the

path of being a vir and the true vir bonus in favor of this path

of the vir malus. 10 Above all, the abuse and misuse of potestas

and these unmanly vices seemed to be particularly pernicious

for and detrimental to one’s status as a vir. For this reason, I

shall argue that this conduct and these sorts of vices were the

impetus for the perception and designation of men as viri mali.

I shall include the vices and characteristics of Gaius Verres,

Publius Clodius Pulcher, and Lucius Sergius Catilina—better

known in English as Catiline—as observed from the perspective

of several different Roman Republican authors; that is, an

examination of the perception and portrayal of these men by

writers such as Cicero and Sallust, in particular.

Before I begin, however, I shall first bring attention to the

source biases of Cicero and Sallust against Verres, Clodius,



8. Sallust, De Coniuratione Catilinae 11.2. I have used the Latin of

Sallust’s De Coniuratione Catilinae from: Sallust, Catilina, Iugurtha,

Orationes Et Epistulae Excerptae De Historiis, ed. Axel W. Ahlberg

(Leipzig: Bibliotheca Teubneriana, 1919; Perseus Digital Library).

I shall also note here that all English translations of Sallust’s De

Coniuratione Catilinae are from: Sallust, Conspiracy of Catiline, trans.

Rev. John Selby Watson (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1899; Perseus

Digital Library).


10. Goldberg, Roman Masculinity and Politics, 21–22.

The Good, the Bad, and the Unmanly 13

and Catiline. An awareness of such source biases must not be

excluded from this discussion; the fact that both Cicero and

Sallust were, for the most part, opposed to the men about

whom they wrote necessitates a brief note. Indeed, in each of

their own literatures, their portrayals of Verres, Clodius, and

Catiline perpetuate their own beliefs and prejudices with regard

to these men. Cicero’s In Verrem speeches were delivered

as a prosecution of Verres for his mismanagement of Sicily; his

Pro Milone was delivered on the behalf of his friend Milo, who

was accused of murdering Clodius; and Sallust’s De Coniuratione

Catilinae was written in order to demonstrate that the

corruption of morals in the Roman Republic was the catalyst

of the Catilinarian conspiracy. 11 What I shall focus on here are

the versions of Verres, Clodius, and Catiline portrayed in Cicero’s

and Sallust’s works, and how these literary depictions

of these men created viri mali, who are the antitheses to viri

(“men”) and true viri boni (“good men”). Now, whether or not

Verres, Clodius, or Catiline were in reality guilty of the charges

and adhered to the characterizations which Cicero or Sallust

brought against them is a separate question. The historicity of

Cicero’s and Sallust’s portrayals of these men will not be the

concern of my present discussion. Rather, I shall henceforth

devote attention to constructing and supporting an argument

that wholly concerns them as the literary inventions of Cicero

and Sallust, and how these literary inventions therefore inform

us about the Romans’ ideals of masculinity—that is, in what

ways and for what reasons men could be perceived and designated

as good, bad, or “unmanly.”

Cicero’s Verrine orations depict Verres as a depraved vir malus,

whose abuse of power in Sicily for his own interests illustrates

the dangerous consequences of the abuse and misuse of potestas

by a vir malus. Cicero unequivocally showcases the sort of

man who is completely lacking in self-control and restraint,

someone “who abuse[s] power for his own ends.” 12 In the hands

of Verres, from the perspective of Cicero, slave revolts, potential

traders, and even Roman citizens themselves could be

used as means of acquiring more money, 13 for Verres always

had a single goal in mind: the selfish acquisition of profit and

11. Ann Thomas Wilkins, Villain or Hero: Sallust’s Portrayal of Catiline,

American University Studies, Series XVII, Classical Languages and

Literature, Vol. 15 (New York: P. Lang, 1994), 1.


13. Thomas D. Frazel, The Rhetoric of Cicero’s “In Verrem,” (Göttingen:

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), 132.

14 The Good, the Bad, and the Unmanly

gain. 14 Cicero states this explicitly: quod iste nihil umquam fecit

sine aliquo quaestu atque praeda (“because that man never

did anything without some gain and some booty”). 15 Moreover,

Cicero portrays Verres as a man whose behavior and actions

threaten the salus (“safety”) of the res publica: quae cum accidunt,

nemo est quin intellegat ruere illam rem publicam haec

ubi eveniant; nemo est qui ullam spem salutis reliquam esse arbitretur

(“And when such events take place, there is no one

who is not aware that that state is hastening to its fall. When

such things take place, there is no one who thinks that there

is any hope of safety left”). 16 Taking into account Cicero’s examples

of Verres’s abuse of potestas for his own gain—such as

his exploitation of the slave revolt and naval fleets, the numerous

instances of his illegal incarcerations and executions, and

his overall seemingly insatiable desire for more profit—it can

hardly be surprising that Verres does not seem, to Cicero, at

least, to be concerned at all with the safety of Roman citizens

nor that of the res publica itself. 17 Indeed, the abuse of potestas

on the part of Verres, as illustrated by Cicero in the Verrine

orations, serves not only to threaten his status as a vir, but

also reinforces the idea that he is a vir malus, for he flagrantly

disregards the safety of the res publica in favour of his own interests.

18

The depiction of Clodius Pulcher in Cicero’s Pro Milone similarly

presents us with a pertinent portrayal of a vir malus who abus-

14. Frazel, The Rhetoric of Cicero’s “In Verrem,” 133.

15. M. Tullius Cicero, In Verrem 2.5.11. I have used the Latin of Cicero’s

In Verrem speeches from: M. Tullius Cicero, M. Tvlli Ciceronis

Orationes: Divinatio in Q . Caecilivm. In C. Verrem Recognovit brevique

adnotatione critica instruxit Gvlielmvs Peterson Rector Vniversitatis

MacGillianae, ed. William Peterson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917;

Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, Perseus Digital

Library). I shall also note here that all English translations of Cicero’s

In Verrem speeches are from: M. Tullius Cicero, The Orations of Marcus

Tullius Cicero, trans. C. D. Yonge (London: George Bell & Sons, 1903;

Perseus Digital Library).

16. Cic. Ver. 2.5.12.




es potestas, often in excessive and destructive ways. 19 In Pro

Milone, Cicero describes a myriad of “hyperaggressive and violent

abuses” on the part of Clodius. 20 His despicable behaviour

is described as extensive and his frenzy uncontainable:

He had polluted the holiest religious observances with his

debauchery; he had broken the most authoritative decrees

of the senate he had openly bought himself from the judges

with money; he had harassed the senate in his tribuneship;

he had rescinded acts which had been passed for the sake

of the safety of the republic, by the consent of all orders of

the state; […] he had declared a wicked war against Gnaeus

Pompeius; he had made slaughter of magistrates and private

individuals; he had burnt the house of my brother; he

had laid waste Etruria; he had driven numbers of men from

their homes and their professions. He kept pursuing and oppressing

men; the whole state, all Italy, all the provinces, all

foreign kingdoms could not contain his frenzy. (Cicero, The

Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Milone 87)

This description of Clodius’s various alleged crimes provides

an important illustration of the sort of behaviour that is characteristic

of the vir malus. The ways in which Clodius abuses

potestas in order to bring about his own gain supports the notion

that he places his own interests over those of the res publica.

From this, Clodius’s frenzied abuse and misuse of potestas

is evident. It certainly seems that we should not, from Cicero’s

account, interpret Clodius as the proper Roman vir, but rather

as an improper vir malus.

Furthermore, in ancient texts, men are often designated as viri

mali for their grossly improper and excessive acts of sexual depravity.

21 For Clodius too, accusations of behaviour and acts of

sexual depravity present him as a vir malus. In De Haruspicum

Responsis, Cicero expresses that Clodius’s sexual depravity

seizes him to such an extent that he tried to seduce his own

19. I have used the Latin of Cicero’s Pro Milone from: M. Tullius

Cicero, M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes: Recognovit breviqve adnotatione

critica instrvxit Albertus Curtis Clark Collegii Reginae Socius, ed. Albert

C. Clark (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918; Scriptorum Classicorum

Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, Perseus Digital Library). I shall also note here

that all English translations of Cicero’s Pro Milone are from: M. Tullius

Cicero, The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, trans. C. D. Yonge (London:

George Bell & Sons, 1891; Perseus Digital Library).


21. Goldberg, Roman Masculinity and Politics, 21–2.


sister. 22 Likewise, Cicero often accuses Clodius of sacrilege

at the Bona Dea Festival of 62 BCE because of Clodius’s attempted

seduction of Pompeia, the wife of the Pontifex Maximus

(“Supreme Pontiff”), Caesar. Clodius allegedly disguised

himself as a woman in order to gain entrance to the rites of

the Bona Dea Festival, a strictly woman-only celebration, in order

to seduce Pompeia. Clodius’s attempt to gain entrance to

these rites was sacrilege in and of itself, but to do so with the

explicit intent to seduce the Pontifex Maximus’s wife was even

more so. Cicero stresses the threat that Clodius poses to the

res publica in both the Pro Milone and De Haruspicum Responsis,

going so far as to assert that Clodius deserved to be slain

by Milo because of the former’s improper behavior. In support

of this, Cicero writes: proposita invidia, morte, poena qui nihilo

segnius rem publicam defendit, is vir vere putandus est (“But the

man who, though unpopularity, and death, and punishment

are before his eyes still ventures to defend the republic with no

less alacrity than if no such evils threatened him, he deserves

to be considered really a man”). 23 Not only does Milo not deserve

to be punished for what he has done, but he should even

be considered a true vir bonus, since he had undertaken to stop

such a dangerous vir malus, Clodius Pulcher, and defended the

res publica. Despite any qualities of a real vir that Clodius might

have possessed at one point, Cicero clearly aims to depict him

as a vir malus. As we are able to observe in Cicero’s Pro Milone,

Clodius is a man who, completely lacking self-control and restraint,

has relinquished the path of being a vir, and of the true

vir bonus, through his hyper-aggressive and frenzied abuse of

potestas for his own ends as well as his indecent acts of sexual

depravity and sacrilege, which all evidently pose a risk to the

safety and values of the res publica. 24

Among many such examples of viri mali who abused potestas

and sought personal gain at the expense of the res publica,

none is perhaps more infamous than Catiline as depicted in

22. Cicero, De Haruspicum Responsis, 42. I have used the Latin of

Cicero’s De Haruspicum Responsis from: M. Tullius Cicero, M. Tulli

Ciceronis Orationes: Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit

Albertus Curtis Clark, ed. Albert C. Clark (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1909; Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, Perseus

Digital Library). I shall also note here that all English translations

of Cicero’s De Haruspicum Responsis are from: M. Tullius Cicero, The

Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, trans. C. D. Yonge (London: George

Bell & Sons, 1891; Perseus Digital Library).

23. Cic. Mil. 82.

24. See, especially, Cic. Har. 42.


Sallust’s De Coniuratione Catilinae. 25 Above all, the behaviour

of Catiline in Sallust’s De Coniuratione Catilinae, like that of

Verres or Clodius as portrayed by Cicero, illustrates the quintessential

vir malus. Yet, Catiline is initially shown exhibiting

certain characteristics that are indicative of viri and true viri

boni. 26 Catiline’s lust for regnum (“rule”) at the expense of the

safety of the res publica, however, eventually led him to abandon

the path of being a vir, and, more importantly, the path of

being a true vir bonus. With regard to this idea, Sallust touches

upon the character of Catiline: Animus audax, subdolus, varius,

quoius rei lubet simulator ac dissimulator, alieni appetens,

sui profusus, ardens in cupiditatibus; satis eloquentiae, sapientiae

parum. Vastus animus immoderata, incredibilia, nimis alta

semper cupiebat (“His mind was daring, subtle, and versatile,

capable of pretending or dissembling whatever he wished. He

was covetous of other men’s property, and prodigal of his own.

He had abundance of eloquence, though but little wisdom.

His insatiable ambition was always pursuing objects extravagant,

romantic, and unattainable”). 27 For Sallust, an animus

(“mind”) which was audax (“daring”), subdolus (“subtle”), and

varius (“versatile”), as well as possessing eloquence, marked a

vir, whereas covetousness, a lack of wisdom, and an insatiable

ambition indicated a departure from being a vir and a vir bonus

in favor of being a vir malus. Still, from Sallust’s description,

we can see how Catiline at one time possessed the traits befitting

of a vir. 28 Sallust also explains the circumstances which

led Catiline to pursue his own personal gain and the advancement

of his self-interests: Hunc […] lubido maxuma invaserat rei

publicae capiundae; neque id quibus modis adsequeretur, dum

sibi regnum pararet, quicquam pensi habebat (“a strong desire of

seizing the government possessed him, nor did he at all care,

provided that he secured power for himself, by what means

he might arrive at it”). 29 To Sallust, Catiline embodies the behaviour

that characterizes viri mali: he abuses potestas in the

hope of achieving even more power than he already possesses,

showing no concern whatsoever for the safety of the res

publica. Indeed, Sallust’s portrayal of Catiline presents us with

an excellent example of what corrupts the vir: for Catiline’s insatiable

lust for and abuse of power exceeds far beyond the

bounds of propriety. Accordingly, such conduct—as exhibited



27. Sal. Cat. 5.4–5.


29. Sal. Cat. 5.6.


by Verres, Clodius, and Catiline—can be understood as the impetus

for the designation of these men as viri mali.

Following this, I turn to how writers such as Cicero and Sallust

designate men as viri mali based on certain unmanly vices. Avaritia

(“avarice”), in particular, was often seen by ancient writers

as an unmasculine vice. This can be observed from Cicero’s

De Officiis: Nullum igitur vitium taetrius est […] quam avaritia,

praesertim in principibus et rem publicam gubernantibus. Habere

enim quaestui rem publicam non modo turpe est, sed sceleratum

etiam et nefarium (“There is, then, […] no vice more offensive

than avarice, especially in men who stand foremost and hold

the helm of state. For to exploit the state for selfish profit is

not only immoral; it is criminal, infamous”). 30 Keeping this idea

in mind and returning to Cicero’s portrayal of Verres in the Verrine

orations, it is clear then how Cicero illustrates him as a vir

malus based on his avaritia. Cicero asserts that each of Verres’s

actions exemplify his excessive avaritia: 31 meum enim crimen

avaritiae te nimiae coarguit (“My accusation convicts you of excessive

avarice”). 32 Certainly, avaritia is ubiquitous throughout

Cicero’s depiction of Verres, and it is apparently the vice that

“led to a veritable orgy of wrongful incarcerations and executions,”

33 truly a trait befitting of a vir malus. Sallust, too, addresses

the dangers of avaritia: ea [avaritia] quasi venenis malis

inbuta corpus animumque virilem effeminat, semper infinita <et>

insatiabilis est, neque copia neque inopia minuitur (“It [avarice] is

a vice which, as if imbued with deadly poison, enervates whatever

is manly in body or mind. It is always unbounded and insatiable,

and is abated neither by abundance nor by want”). 34

As Wilkins writes, “In Catiline’s case, avarice accompanied by

luxury is the ruin of public morals and thus a catalyst for his

behavior.” 35 Not only is avaritia a trait that is particularly pernicious

in this sense, since it “enervates whatever is manly in

body or mind,” but it is also “abated neither by abundance nor

by want.” 36 Thus, as is in the cases of Verres and Catiline, avaritia

manifests itself alongside other vices which are antithetical

30. Cicero, De Officiis 2.77. I shall note here that I have used the

Latin and English translations of Cicero’s De Officiis from: M. Tullius

Cicero, De Officiis, trans. Walter Miller (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1913; Perseus Digital Library).


32. Cic. Ver. 2.5.153.


34. Sal. Cat. 11.3.

35. Wilkins, Villain or Hero, 133.

36. Sal. Cat. 11.3.


to the virtues of viri and viri boni.

Lubido appears as an unmanly vice that often goes hand-inhand

with avaritia and can also be identified as playing a part

in the perception of men as viri mali. One might even contend

that lubido lies at the root of all evil that impels men to abandon

the path of being a vir and the real vir bonus in favor of that of

the vir malus. It is necessary to requote Sallust in this context:

Hunc […] lubido maxuma invaserat rei publicae capiundae; neque

id quibus modis adsequeretur, dum sibi regnum pararet, quicquam

pensi habebat (“a strong desire of seizing the government

possessed him, nor did he at all care, provided that he secured

power for himself, by what means he might arrive at it”). 37 In

the case of Catiline, we can observe that Sallust singles out

lubido—that is, a maxuma lubido (“greatest lust”)—as the driving

force behind Catiline’s abuse and misuse of potestas. Once

avaritia had infected Catiline with an effeminizing sickness,

as Goldberg explains, “He soon turned to achieving what he

desired with violence, always with a lust (lubido) of acquiring

more.” 38 Because of avaritia which effeminat (“enervated”) him,

and lubido which invaserat (“possessed”) him, Catiline dared

to endanger the res publica in the hope of acquiring regnum

for himself. It thus becomes clear that, for Sallust, unmanly

vices such as avaritia and lubido impel men to abandon the

path of being proper, upright viri and viri boni in favor of that

of viri mali: igitur ex divitiis iuventutem luxuria atque avaritia cum

superbia invasere […] pudorem pudicitiam, divina atque humana

promiscua, nihil pensi neque moderati habere (“From the influence

of riches, accordingly, luxury, avarice, and pride prevailed

among the youth […] they set at naught modesty and continence;

they lost all distinction between sacred and profane,

and threw off all consideration and self-restraint”). 39 So, too,

then are we able to see how vices such as avaritia and lubido

operate as an impetus for Cicero and Sallust to perceive and

designate these men as viri mali.

Similar to avaritia, the word libido (“lust”), an alternative spelling

of lubido, is prevalent in Cicero’s Verrine orations as a charge

against Verres as well, for avaritia can hardly itself exist without

lubido/libido in the first place. Verres’s insatiable and excessive

libido for money and profit led to acts of crudelitas (“cruelty”)

far beyond propriety: at quae erat ista libido crudelitatis exercendae,

quae tot scelerum suscipiendorum causa? (“But what, O

37. Sal. Cat. 5.6.


39. Sal. Cat. 12.2.


Verres, was that passion of yours for practicing cruelty? what

was your reason for undertaking so many wicked actions?”). 40

Just as we touched upon earlier, libido likewise plays a role in

Cicero’s portrayal of Clodius. In De Haruspicum Responsis, Cicero

illustrates how libido compelled Clodius to perform acts of

depravity and licentiousness, employing the word libido itself

twice in the same section: qui post patris mortem primam illam

aetatulam suam ad scurrarum locupletium libidines detulit (“a

fellow who, from the moment of his father’s death, made his

tender age subservient to the lusts of wealthy buffoons”); and

also, atque ibi piratarum contumelias perpessus etiam Cilicum libidines

barbarorumque satiavit (“he satisfied the lusts even of

Cilicians and barbarians”). 41 While not driven by his own libido

here these instances still reinforce the idea that libido impels

men to perform acts that go far beyond the bounds of propriety—acts

that are, without a doubt, indicative of viri mali.

Even then, lubido/libido still plays a role for Clodius himself,

as we saw, with respect to the accusations of his own sexual

depravity, both with his sister and at the Bona Dea Festival. 42

With regard to the Bona Dea scandal in particular, Santoro

L’Hoir elucidates the connection that Cicero seems to make

between Clodius and “that of an effeminate Dionysius,” bacchant,

or corybant. 43 Santoro L’Hoir explains further: “As the

Bacchanalians were once perceived to be sunken in criminal

degeneracy, so now is P. Clodius Pulcher.” 44 From this, it

is evident that avaritia and libido/lubido possess the power to

corrupt men: the prevalence of these vices, understood to be

depraved and unmanly, in the literatures of Cicero and Sallust

illustrate the prejudices that these authors held towards them

and the men who embodied them. Indeed, it can henceforth

be understood that, for Cicero and Sallust, these vices played

integral roles as an impetus for the perception and designation

of men such as Verres, Clodius, and Catiline as viri mali.

Now, we must turn our attention to one final vice: ambitio.

Like avaritia and lubido/libido, ambitio appears to be a dangerous

vice that is pertinent for understanding viri mali. Ambitio

is nefarious as well, since Cicero himself explains how ambitio

is often a vice that leads to the ruin of a state: 45 nihil sane va-

40. Cic. Ver. 2.5.145.

41. Cic. Har. 42.

42. Cic. Har. 42.

43. F. Santoro L’Hoir, The Rhetoric of Gender Terms: ‘Man’, ‘Woman’,

and the Portrayal of Character in Latin Prose (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 24.

44. L’Hoir, The Rhetoric of Gender Terms, 24.



fre nec malitiose facere conatus est; sed ut studia cupiditatesque

honorum atque ambitiones ex omnibus civitatibus tolleret, quae

res evertendae rei publicae solent esse (“He did not choose to do

anything in an underhand manner, or by means of artifice; but

in order to take away the fondness and desire for honours and

ambition out of every city, feelings which usually tend to the

ruin of a state”). 46 Sallust, too, cautions against excessive ambitio,

even though it, like virtus (“manliness/courage”), at first

seems to promote the conferral of gloria, honor, and imperium

upon the men of whom it takes hold. Sallust describes the resemblance

of ambitio to virtus: Sed primo magis ambitio quam

avaritia animos hominum exercebat, quod tamen vitium propius

virtutem erat. nam gloriam honorem imperium bonus et ignavos

aeque sibi exoptant (“At first, however, it was ambition, rather

than avarice, that influenced the minds of men; a vice which

approaches nearer to virtue than the other. For of glory, honor,

and power, the worthy is as desirous as the worthless”). 47

Therefore, the indulgence of ambitio in excess was dangerous

for viri to pursue, for while ambitio was understood to be

the task of elite Roman viri, it could “just as easily exceed the

bounds of propriety.” 48 For Sallust, Catiline is an example of

how ambitio has the ability to corrupt the vir; in Sallust’s depiction

of him, Catiline, as a product of the time, has been

consumed and corrupted by ambitio. 49 Sallust contends that,

because of the degeneration of morals in Roman society, Catiline

dared to attempt to assail the safety of the res publica,

and thus, Catiline became “the embodiment of avaritia and

ambitio” 50 and of what these vices had the potential to cause.

Just as with the improper exercising of potestas, through the

improper utilization of ambitio the vir becomes susceptible to

the abandonment of the path of viri and true viri boni, in favour

of that of viri mali. Evidently, Sallust’s depiction and characterization

of Catiline illustrates that deviation from the path of

viri, as with the misuse of ambitio, spells disaster for one’s status

as a vir and as a true vir bonus. 51 Indeed, actions impelled

by certain unmanly vices—such as avaritia, lubido/libido, and

ambitio—were imperative for authors such as Cicero and Sallust

to conceptualize the vir malus. The vir malus thus becomes

evident as a man who lacks self-control and has relinquished

46. Cic. Ver. 2.2.132; cf. Cic. Off. 1.64.

47. Sal. Cat. 11.1–2.






the path of being a vir, and a true vir bonus, in favour of the

abuse and misuse of potestas, impelled by these unmanly vices,

for his own ends—as we have seen in the cases of Verres,

Clodius, and Catiline.

It seems that the vir malus is less of a vir and more of a homo

(“person”) than anything: to Roman Republican Latin writers,

such as Cicero and Sallust, viri mali more so resemble homines

(“people”), 52 and furthermore, it seems that they are often

labelled as particularly dangerous—and sometimes effeminate—homines,

whose behaviour, actions, and vices threaten

not only actual viri, but also the safety of the res publica itself.

53 As Santoro L’Hoir explains, “Viri are concerned with the

welfare of the Republic; homines are not.” 54 Still, what I have

observed is that the causes and reasons for the designation of

men as viri mali are quite clear: the abuse and misuse of potestas

as a means to an end for one’s own personal benefit and

certain unmanly vices—avaritia, lubido/libido, and ambitio, in

particular—seemed to greatly affect the statuses of Verres,

Clodius, and Catiline as viri and even the safety of the res publica

as a whole. Without a doubt, this conduct and these

vices were uncharacteristic of the vir and the real vir bonus.

Even if Verres, Clodius, or Catiline could have at one time been

characterized as viri, their abuses of potestas and exhibitions

of certain unmanly vices present us with not just homines, but

viri mali. Verres, Clodius, and Catiline, as portrayed in Cicero

and Sallust, are viri mali because of these behaviors and vices,

which all underscore the complete abandonment of the path

of viri and true viri boni. Indeed, it is these men through whom

we are more easily able to ascertain the Republican Romans’

ideals of masculinity: that is, in what ways and for what reasons

men could be perceived and designated as good, bad, or

“unmanly.”

52. For further discussion on the label vir versus that of homo in

Roman rhetorical and political discourse, see: L’Hoir, The Rhetoric of

Gender Terms, 21–29.


54. L’Hoir, The Rhetoric of Gender Terms, 22.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alston, Richard. “Arms and the Man: Soldiers, Masculinity and

Power in Republican and Imperial Rome.” In When Men Were

Men: Masculinity, Power, and Identity in Classical Antiquity, edited

by Foxhall, Lin, and John Salmon, 205–23. London: Routledge,

1998.

M. Tullius Cicero. M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes: Recognovit brevique

adnotatione critica instruxit Albertus Curtis Clark. Edited

by Albert C. Clark. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909. Scriptorum

Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, Perseus Digital Library.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0014%3Atext%3DHar.%3Asection%3D1

(accessed

March 23, 2023).

M. Tullius Cicero. M. Tvlli Ciceronis Orationes: Divinatio in Q .

Caecilivm. In C. Verrem Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica

instruxit Gvlielmvs Peterson Rector Vniversitatis MacGillianae.

Edited by William Peterson. Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1917. Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, Perseus

Digital Library. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/

text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0012%3Atext%3D-

Ver.%3Aactio%3D2%3Abook%3D2%3Asection%3D1 (accessed

March 23, 2023).

M. Tullius Cicero. M. Tulli Ciceronis Orationes: Recognovit breviqve

adnotatione critica instrvxit Albertus Curtis Clark Collegii

Reginae Socius. Edited by Albert C. Clark. Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1918. Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis,

Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/


Mil.%3Asection%3D1 (accessed March 23, 2023).

M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. Translated by Walter Miller.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913. Perseus

Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2007.01.0048%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D1

(accessed March 23, 2023).

M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Translated

by C. D. Yonge. London: George Bell & Sons, 1891. Perseus

Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/

text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi0474.phi031.perseus-eng1:1 (accessed

March 1, 2023).


M. Tullius Cicero. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Translated

by C. D. Yonge. London: George Bell & Sons, 1903. Perseus

Digital Library. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/


Ver.%3Aactio%3D1 (accessed March 1, 2023).

Frazel, Thomas D. The Rhetoric of Cicero’s “In Verrem.” Göttingen:

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009.

Goldberg, Charles. Roman Masculinity and Politics from Republic

to Empire. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2020. https://doiorg.uwinnipeg.idm.oclc.org/10.4324/9781003038566.

Sallust. Catilina, Iugurtha, Orationes Et Epistulae Excerptae

De Historiis. Edited by Axel W. Ahlberg. Leipzig: Bibliotheca

Teubneriana, 1919. Perseus Digital Library. https://

www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0002%3Atext%3DCat.%3Achapter%3D1

(accessed

March 23, 2023).

Sallust. The Conspiracy of Catiline, trans. Rev. John Selby Watson.

New York: Harper & Brothers, 1899. Perseus Digital Library.

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(accessed

March 1, 2023).

Santoro L’Hoir, F. The Rhetoric of Gender Terms: ‘Man’, ‘Woman’,

and the Portrayal of Character in Latin Prose. Leiden: Brill, 1992.

Wilkins, Ann Thomas. Villain or Hero: Sallust’s Portrayal of Catiline.

American University Studies. Series XVII, Classical Languages

and Literature, Vol. 15. New York: P. Lang, 1994.


METAMORPHOSIS

OF DAPHNE

PHOEBE HENRICKS

Ohio State University

p. 26 1

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Hand-embroidered on black cotton, this piece depicts

Daphne metamorphosing into the laurel tree, as

described by Ovid in Book 1 of his Metamorphoses. This

piece features a variety of stitches, including chain,

stem, long and short, French knots, and satin stitches,

as well as hand-sewn sequins and beading. The piece

is 10 inches in diameter with the central Daphne figure

standing at 5 inches from root to leaf. The silhouette

of Daphne was inspired by Bernini’s Apollo and

Daphne, sculpted between 1622–25. I chose to focus

on the physical change from human to tree, as Ovid

describes in Book 1:

… And hardly had she finished,

when her limbs grew numb and heavy, her soft

breasts

were closed with delicate bark, her hair was leaves,

her arms were branches, and her speedy feet

rooted and held, and her head became a tree top,

everything gone except her grace, her shining.

(Ovid, Metamorphoses, pp.19–20)

This piece was also initially inspired by classical

Roman vase paintings: the pearl and white sequin

border on this piece reflects the gradual change in the

Metamorphoses from disorganized chaos in Book 1 to

Augustan Rome in Book 15. The pearls represent the

opulence and wealth of the empire, but, in circling

the piece, they also reflect the annexation of Greece.

I encased Daphne in gold sequins to represent the victory

of Apollo and the Roman Empire and highlighted

a crown of laurel in Daphne’s hair, representative of

the laurel being worn as a symbol of victory.

Ovid, Metamorphoses I, trans. Rolfe Humphries, and J.

D. Reed. In Metamorphoses: The New, Annotated Edition

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018).

p. 27 1

ASCYLTUS REDUX1

2 Ray Brown, Mount Holyoke College

‘. . .there was a naked young man. He had lost his clothes wholly, he

had lost them all . . . and a crowd cleverly circled him, clapping with

timid wonder, ’cause the weight of his junk was so grand that you’d

believe the living, human being himself was but a supplement to his

fascinum. What an industrious young man! I think he’d start one day,

finish the next. And well, as such, he found…assistance, stat, from

some Roman eques I don’t personally know, but they say he’s notorious.

He enclosed the lost, young stray in a cloak, took him home,

I believe, so that he could make use of such grand luck alone.’”

(Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon, Section 92)

Once more, here’s

that iuvenis. Here’s he:

Ascyltus.

Ascyltus is caught in triangular love

with a boy and a man

and the hot Roman south!

He lives in a biome that’s cruel about sex. It is cruel

about poets, and meat, about wealth. It is cruel about

incidents, cruel about girls.

It is cruel about age.

It is cruel about death.

So it follows he’s frauded, and bolted and butchered his breath

behind bars.

He’s been warriortizing what lust he is able.

He’s been fried in his author’s own cooking pan

since he pulled lots from the scowling

spark of his birth.

p. 28 1

His sire’s a satirist.

Here’s what Ascyltus remembers.

The scene was a brothel—he himself gored

on the couch by an ogre wretch man all on top

of a try from the tour guide who herded Ascyltus therein.

It’s immoral, he thinks, that that first man, the old one, he looked

like a neighbor, the type who would seed

a quaint window box whole, chuckle hoary with cheer, and

not Pan’s twisted sister.

He summoned the sharpness to run from the brothel,

but something back there made him want

to show teeth.

What else was Ascyltus to do?

He was honor-deficient and dying

of hunger.

He furthered his lust like a Tarquin.

He felt there was proof in his near enough triumph:

he himself was a man, not the meat in a sandwich

for once.

When you pirate your prior love’s lover it’s natural

to laugh the Greek fire of laughter and feel

like the son of a king.

But when you fleece your confidant’s lover,

well. Ascyltus will just chalk it up to the stiff

anti-pathicus urge life has set in his bones.

Then, there was a woman.

Just like Ascyltus, she wasn’t blessed

with a serious bone in her body, and boy

did it show. Her culty soirée

was so heedlessly drawn from the wrongness of life.

She dipped a paint brush in satyrion,

threatened his skin.

p. 29 1

It ended up shoved down his throat

with the smooth shock of wine. His bravado fell flat

with torment like it was never there.

He corralled to a party beset with a limpness of choice.

He spent half the night simply sitting and bad mouthing,

eating his fill.

He came home. He drew from his jaw hog, turducken,

misc. carnes. Well, everyone does it, he thought,

and it wasn’t a comfort.

Now, there’s a war-won

haughtiness to his interactions. A liquid-logged

blurriness to his recollections. A reformed

heaviness to the way he just throws about his body

when he walks

the sick length

of his tenement.

Ascyltus is finding he’s simply a cauterized bully.

He’d been scaling the town with a sword for his contentious lover—

and finally he caught him in arms with that self-same companion. The

man

was shocked by Ascyltus’ mercy which stung

more than most things. Were we not good friends, thought Ascyltus,

once bent by the weight of a southern imperial prison? The sort

who like housecats licked each other’s wounds?

It hurt that he’d read him so wrong.

True enough that Ascyltus had strongarmed his way

to this crude meeting point. Forgiveness, he motioned, more so for

himself

than those frightened hard by. These two are inflamed

with my same mold and sweetness.

Doddering bodies of flies dot the air where the street

keeps the odor of goat-fish and pike

even when all the vendors have packed, and

Ascyltus is slubbed down by alcohol.

He slinks but objectively wobbles.

As the bounds of his vision crepitate loosely he sees

that the whole block is shimmering with light and sound.

And where are his lovers tonight?

Some baffling factor has made him alone.

Sobs wrack his speech while weighed down

in mosquito-bit nudeness.

Well, where are his clothes?

p. 30

He grasps with a shiver shook off his damp back that the insects

are gone.

In their place are hazy tall creatures of flesh

wrought with teeth and sex organs but most of all clothes.

The figures rung round him are doubling

and throng as if in for a show. The scratch of thin fabric

takes shape on his shoulders. A convict again,

like a convict again,

he resigns himself to be led

by the sweat

of a captain.

The following morning he wishes to drink out of Lethe.

Today, just any old cloak feels like poison. Would that

he could walk out in armor

and never be gazed at again.

Sun sieges the gray of Ascyltus’ linens and queerly

he’s laughing. He’s always been one for a joke

but this one’s just too far.

When he woke in the house of a stranger

the first thing he noticed were orchids. Yes, orchids

pressed flat on the table, in vases, and rotting straight out

of their roots. You grind orchid bulbs to create

priapiscus. It’s funny—perhaps it’s a regional difference—

he’s always just called it satyrion. Overindulgence

makes for quite an achy insomniac.

That they don’t tell you the places he goes.

What’s plucking his eyestrings in sleep?

Ascyltus, a Greek word.

A-scyltus.

Spare a strained laugh for its meaning:

Unwearied. Unhurt.

It’s often he thinks about cleaving

the A from his name.

His pride simply will not allow it.

“[Ascyltus] cleaned his sweat off with his hands. ‘If only you knew

what has happened to me” (Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon, Section 8)

p. 31

A PLOTINIAN READING OF THE MYTH OF

GANYMEDE1

2 Luke Briner, St. John’s College

In Book I of Plato’s Laws, the Athenian Stranger,

within the context of a discussion on the social

dangers of a lack of discipline with respect to

pleasure, makes this remark about the myth of Ganymede:

Certainly we all blame the Cretans for the story of

Ganymede; we think they are spinning a yarn. Since

their laws were believed to come from Zeus, we

think they added this story about Zeus so that they

could claim Zeus’ authority for their enjoyment of

this pleasure too. (Plato, Laws, 636c–d, trans. Tom

Griffith [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2016])

This, of course, indicates the general historical reality

that the myth was viewed, by people of Plato’s own

time and by many others after it, as a divine example

of, and therefore a powerful sanction and glorification

of, sexual perversion. 1 This is naturally a great stain on

the myth’s overall legacy and modern image, and it is

that very fact that has led me to the endeavor of this

paper: to lift it from the darkness and scandal that

have become attached to it, and to demonstrate that

a different, brighter, and more spiritual reading of it,

1. To be clear, the perversion I personally refer to is pederasty

in particular, although the Athenian Stranger is unfortunately

talking more broadly about all homosexual relations

here. The point stands regardless, however, since I intend

to argue that the myth can be interpreted in an entirely

spiritual, and thus in an entirely non-sensual, way.

through the philosophical perspective of Plato’s own great follower,

Plotinus, is possible.

In order to proceed in an orderly and rigorous fashion, I will

take the following steps. First, we will determine a thorough

understanding of the myth as originally present in Greek storytelling,

so that its initial rendering can be brought into contradistinction

with those of later periods (I). On the basis of

this contradistinction, we will be able to dismiss those later

renditions of the myth that contain the additional content

that served as the inspiration or justification of the kind of

perversion that the Athenian Stranger rightly condemns, and

thereby set up the thus-purified essence of the original for a

fresh, spiritually edifying interpretation (II). We will then move

to an analysis of the hermeneutical method of Plotinus, as well

as that of Plato insofar as it naturally serves as a foundation

for the understanding of Plotinus’s own (III), and from there at

last apply that method to an actual interpretation of the myth

itself (IV).

I.

The first literary references to Ganymede are found in Homer:

two in his Iliad, 2 and one in his Hymn to Aphrodite. 3 In the former,

he is described as a Trojan prince, the son of Tros, who,

being “the loveliest [κάλλιστος] born of the race of mortals,” 4

was lifted up by the gods to their supernal abode “to be Zeus’

wine-pourer, for the sake of his beauty [κάλλεος], so he might

be among the immortals.” 5 In the latter, the “[g]olden-haired

[ξανθόν] Ganymede” 6 is depicted as being “snatched up” 7 by

Zeus himself “because of his beauty [κάλλος],” 8 and is thus

allowed “to live among the immortals and pour wine for the

gods in the house of Zeus, a wonder to see, honored by all the

2. Homer, Iliad, trans. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 2011), V.265–267, XX. 230–235.

3. Homer, “Hymn to Aphrodite,” in The Homeric Hymns, trans. Susan

C. Shelmerdine (Cambridge, MA: Focus Books, 1995), 202–217.

4. Homer, Iliad, XX.233.

5. Homer, Iliad, XX.234.

6. Homer, “Hymn to Aphrodite,” 202.



A Plotinian Reading 33

immortals as he draws the red nectar from a golden bowl.” 9

There are, therefore, four essential elements to the Ganymede

myth according to the original Homeric texts: 1) Ganymede’s

κάλλος, 2) the special admiration of that κάλλος by the gods,

3) his apotheosis on the basis of that admiration, and 4) his

subsequent vocation as a beloved wine-pourer of Olympus.

Other, now commonly-referenced elements of the myth are,

then, only grafted onto the original. To take two instances of

this as expressed in major later writers, Ovid describes Jupiter

transforming himself into an eagle in order to carry Ganymede

up to Olympus and Juno’s subsequent jealousy, 10 and Apuleius

describes him as a shepherd before his ascent. 11

II.

By our comparison of the authentically Homeric depiction of

the myth and the depictions of other, later writers, we may already

perceive a clear disparity between the content of Athenian

Stranger’s condemnation of the myth and the authentic

content of the myth in itself. Importantly, in all three Homeric

references to Ganymede, there is no mention whatsoever

of his age. It’s certainly possible that Ganymede is a younger

man simply by virtue of his beauty and his status as a prince,

but there is nothing that can or should lead us definitively to

the conclusion that he’s actually a minor. In fact, Homer never

even describes the relationship between Ganymede and Zeus,

or between him and any of the other Gods for that matter,

as overtly sexual in any way. According to Shelmerdine, “the

hymnist [of the Hymn to Aphrodite] does not speak directly of

an erotic relationship between Zeus and Ganymede. The first

clear reference to the two as lovers is in Ibykos fr. 289 (6th c.

B.C.).” 12 And again, Nichols Jr., in a note to his translation of

Plato’s Phaedrus, asserts that only “later renditions of the tale

9. Homer, “Hymn to Aphrodite,” 202. I’ve chosen to ignore the story

of Tros and Zeus after Ganymede’s ascent as related by Homer in

Iliad V.265-258 and Hymn to Aphrodite 207-218, as it’s outside the

scope of my current inquiry. I believe that I’m justified in doing this

because it’s consistent with the interpretive approach to myth

which Plotinus himself takes throughout the Enneads and which I’ll

go on to emulate. This will be developed more thoroughly in part III.

10. Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Justus Miller (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1967), X.155–161.

11. Apuleius, The Golden Ass, trans. W. Adlington (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 1915), XI.8.15–16.

12. Shelmerdine, The Homeric Hymns, 135–6, n. 202-217. More precisely,

she is referring to Ibykos’ (overtly pederastic) Gorgias.

34 A Plotinian Reading

make Zeus fall in love with him [Ganymede].” 13 Hence modified

versions of the myth depicting Ganymede as a minor or his relationship

to Zeus as pederastic, or interpretations of the myth

so modified, can be seen as entirely discardable by someone

seeking to make their interpretations of classical Greek myths

primarily upon the original Homeric sources (someone, importantly,

like Plotinus). 14 This view is beautifully corroborated by

Xenophon’s Socrates when he argues that “in the case of Ganymede,

it was not his person [σώματος, i.e., body] but his spiritual

character that influenced Zeus to carry him up to Olympus,”

15 deriving the name “Ganymede” from γάνυται (to be glad,

to take joy) and μήδεα (counsels, arts) and determining thereby

that he was “not physically but mentally attractive.” 16

From these considerations, it becomes clear that the Athenian

Stranger, in condemning the Ganymede myth, in reality

doesn’t necessarily condemn it in its original essence but only

the common, later renderings of it that permit or glorify the social

perversion that he sees around him. We ourselves, then,

are free to condemn those renderings and perversions alongside

him while recapitulating and reappropriating the myth in

its original form for a less ignoble purpose.

III.

Now Plato himself, far from condemning mythology universally,

“creates a mythology of his own.” 17 Although it’s his original

“reformed mythology and by no means the objectionable old

inherited religious legend which he wishes to enthrone,” 18 he

clearly recognizes that myth, in and of itself, can “aid in making

the interlocutor receptive to arguments and leads him to

these arguments by offering him insights to be tested, insights

often about ‘worlds’ with which he is not familiar.” 19 For Plato,

myths are not substitutes for or directly connected to the

13. Plato, Phaedrus, trans. James Nichols Jr. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University

Press, 1998), 255c.

14. Stephen R.L. Clark, Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor, and Philosophical

Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016) 157-158.

15. Xenophon, Symposium, trans. E.C. Marchant (Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press, 1979).

16. Xenophon, Symposium, 8.30.

17. Ludwig Edelstein, “The Function of the Myth in Plato’s Philosophy,”

Journal of the History of Ideas 10, no. 4 (October 1949): 466.

18. Edelstein, “The Function of the Myth in Plato’s Philosophy,” 478.

19. Janet E. Smith, “Plato’s Use of Myth in the Education of Philosophic

Man,” Phoenix 40, no. 1 (1986): 13.


truth, but the right interpretation of the right myths can lead

us to the truth more easily than otherwise. This fundamental

appreciation of the pedagogical efficacy of mythology is,

in fact, precisely what informs his conviction that “gruesome

and overtly immoral tales about gods and heroes were corrupting.”

20 If myths are, by their very nature, capable of easily

resonating with and thereby influencing the characters and

perspectives of those who hear them, then it is of the utmost

importance to ensure that those myths which actually are

heard tacitly contain beneficial rather than harmful lessons.

Hence his claim that “all the battles of the gods Homer made…

must not be accepted in the city,” 21 is not a universal repudiation

of mythology as a pedagogical mode; rather, it is actually

made on the basis of his recognition of its undeniable efficacy,

and therefore of his earnest desire to have only the very best

myths told to impressionable minds.

Plotinus, as a follower of Plato, wholeheartedly concurs with

his master’s view that myths may serve as highly valuable tools

for the communication of philosophical and spiritual truths.

He writes:

But myths, if they are really going to be myths, must separate

in time the things of which they tell, and set apart from

each other many realities which are together, but distinct in

rank or powers, at points where rational discussions, also,

make generations of things ungenerated, and themselves,

too, separate things which are together; the myths, when

they have taught us as well as they can, allow the man who

has understood them to put together again that which they

have separated. 22 (Plotinus. Enneads, III.5.9 [trans. A.H. Armstrong.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967])

Calvo perfectly captures the sense of this passage when he

writes that, for Plotinus, “[t]he myth divides in time what is

transmitted in the discourse and separates entities from each

other which in reality are united, meaning that the myth takes

20. Clark, Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor, and Philosophical Practice, 150.

21. Plato, Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books,

1968), 278d.

22. Important to note here is that while Armstrong, whose translation

of this passage is given above, puts it under chapter nine, the

standard MacKenna translation puts it under chapter ten. Although

the MacKenna translation of this particular passage is remarkably

powerful and poetic, as it is generally throughout the Enneads, I

found the Armstrong’s to be significantly clearer, and so have decided

to use it instead.


back to the past—from an origin—things which are in the present.”

23 The μῦθος, in dealing with “the unseen and unexpectable,”

24 is capable of expressing the Eternal in the temporal

and grounding the esoteric λόγος with an immediately engaging

πάθος, and therefore of rendering the content of otherwise

highly difficult doctrines not only understandable but personally

relatable.

In this, however, Plotinus dares to go further than Plato, and

happily subjects not only Platonic but many traditional (again,

primarily Homeric) myths to metaphysical exegesis, and does

so with a remarkable, sometimes even startling pragmatism.

He uses mythical situations or characters to illustrate whatever

philosophical situation he finds himself in, even if that

means using the same character to represent different things

at different times, 25 or, similarly, confining his analysis to a particular

moment of a myth without referencing its broader narrative

context. Hence, to give only a few specific examples, he

represents Kronos as the Intellect, 26 Aphrodite as “the Soul at

its divinest” 27 contemplating the Intellectual Realm, and the

generational struggle between Uranus, Kronos, and Zeus as

the hypostatic procession from the One to Intellect to Soul. 28

Sometimes his method advances to the outright manipulation

of the content of traditional myths to suit his own purposes.

Perhaps the most striking example of this is found in his discussion

of the receptivity of ὕλη to εἶδος in the Kosmos, 29 wherein

he claims that “the sterility of Matter, eternally unmoved, is

indicated by the eunuchs surrounding it in its representation

as the All-Mother [Cybele].” 3031 With respect to this passage,

Armstrong remarks that “the allegorical interpretation of the

eunuchs who surround the Great Mother given here seems to

23. José María Zamora Calvo, “Myth and Exegesis in Plotinus: How

to Divide and Recompose Words and Things,” Rupkatha Journal on

Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities 9, no. 2 (August 2017): 87.

24. Clark, Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor, and Philosophical Practice, 154.

25. Calvo, “Myth and Exegesis in Plotinus: How to Divide and Recompose

Words and Things,” 84.

26. Plotinus, Enneads, trans. Stephen MacKenna, rev. B. S. Page

(Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1952),III.5.2.

27. Plotinus, Enneads, III.5.2.

28. Plotinus, Enneads,V.8.13.

29. Plotinus is here undoubtedly following upon Plato’s description

of matter or space in Timaeus, 49a–b.

30. The identity of this “All-Mother” as Cybele is indicated by Clark

in Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor, and Philosophical Practice, p. 157.

31. Plotinius, III.6.19.


have no parallel….[i]t is so far-fetched and so exactly adapted

to Plotinus’s own distinctive doctrine of the absolute sterility

of matter that it may well be his own invention.” 32

We observe, then, Plotinus freely and unscrupulously appropriating

exactly those sorts of myths which Plato explicitly repudiates,

and yet doing so with the intention of achieving the

very same pedagogical end as Plato. Ordinarily, there might be

a significant tension between their two approaches given this

fundamental disagreement on the salvageability of traditional

myths. I suggest, however, that the myth of Ganymede in

particular, having been determined as completely morally unobjectionable

when brought back to its original, Homeric essence,

is in a uniquely favorable position to be accepted as the

material for philosophical interpretation by Platonic as well as

by Plotinian standards.

IV.

With this foundation now laid, I proceed to my ultimate claim

that the myth of Ganymede may be interpreted as the spiritual

ascent of the Plotinian Soul to the Divine Source from which

it originated. I will develop this claim in accordance with the

essential elements of the myth as related in Part I of this paper.

The κάλλος of Ganymede, which serves as the basis of the gods’

unique favor for him and therefore ultimately of his apotheosis,

can easily be interpreted as the κάλλος that serves as

the basis of the Plotinian Soul’s own apotheosis. Plotinus asserts

emphatically that, in order to “ascend again towards the

Good, the desired of every Soul,” 33 said Soul must submit itself

wholeheartedly to those purifying rituals which prepare it and

make it worthy of such an ascent. “Never did eye see the sun,”

he reflects, “unless it had first become sunlike, and never can

the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful.

Therefore, first let each become godlike and each beautiful

who cares to see God and Beauty.” 34 In essentially what,

then, does such purification, such self-beautification, such

“Likeness to God” 35 consist? For Plotinus, as for Plato, it must

consist most fundamentally in virtue, in ἀρετή; 36 it is only by the

32. Plotinus, Enneads, III, 288–289, n 1.

33. Plotinus, Enneads, I.6.7

34. Plotinus, Enneads, I.6.9.

35. Plato, Theaeteus, 176a-b. Plotinus quotes this passage at the beginning

of his tractate “On Virtue” (I.2) which I’m about to discuss.



attainment of a genuinely virtuous character in the present,

material world, i.e., of civic virtue, that the Soul prepares itself

for the subsequent acquisition of higher, more spiritual forms

of virtue, 37 and thereby ultimately forms a union with the authentically

Divine. 38 Hence the famous “inner statue” of the

beautiful or self-beautified Soul is described as possessing the

“godlike splendour of virtue,” 39 with this itself being the most

important prerequisite for that Soul’s union with the Supreme.

Ganymede, therefore, who is brought up to Olympus “because

of” or “for the sake of” his own beauty, may serve as a clearcut

representation of a Soul that finds itself in this purified,

radiant state, rising up to its original, beatific Source above.

It’s also not impossible, on this basis, to conceive of some connection

between Ganymede’s description as “golden-haired”

(ξανθόν) and the way that Plotinus speaks of gold (χρυσός) as an

illustration of the native beauty and worth of the Soul itself. 40

An important clarification must be made here with respect

to the distinction between the Good (τὸ ἀγαθόν) and Beauty.

Plotinus shifts constantly between two distinct meanings

of Beauty throughout the Enneads: the Beauty of the utterly

transcendent Good in and of itself, or καλλονή, and the Beauty

as actually, determinately existent within Intellectual-Being,

or τὸ καλόν. 41 On the one hand, we read that the Good in itself is

“beyond-beautiful, beyond the highest,” 42 with everything secondary

to that Good being merely beautiful, and that “beauty

is that which irradiates symmetry rather than symmetry itself

and is that which truly calls our love,” 43 and, since symmetry is

a characteristic of Intellectual-Being, that true Beauty must

be beyond Intellectual-Being itself. On the other hand, we

read that “Beauty without Being could not be, nor Being voided

of Beauty….[h]ow then can we debate which is the cause

of the other, where the nature is one?” 44 Most fascinatingly of

all, Plotinus also claims that “The Good, which lies beyond, is

the Fountain at once and Principle of Beauty: the Primal Good

and the Primal Beauty have the one dwelling-place and, thus,

37. Plotinus, Enneads, I.2.3-5.

38. Plotinus, Enneads, I.2.6-7.


40. E.g., Plotinus, I.6.5., IV.7.10.

41. John M.Rist, Plotinus: The Road to Reality, (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1967), 63.


43. Plotinus, Enneads, VI.7.22.

44. Plotinus, Enneads, V.8.10.


always, Beauty’s seat is There.” 45 This seems to imply, bizarrely,

that Beauty is totally at one with the Good and yet at the

same time merely its derivative. The question this naturally

presents to us in our analysis of the Ganymede myth, and

thereby of the ascent of the Soul generally, is this: if the Soul

prepares itself for an ascent to the Divine by beautifying itself,

then precisely what kind of Beauty of the Divine does that

Soul-Beauty correspond to and thus ultimately rise to in actuality?

Will it be to Beauty qua Being (τὸ καλόν), or to to Beauty

qua Beyond-Being (καλλονή), or to some subtle unified reality

of the two? We can venture an answer to this question in two

closely-related parts.

First, within the context of the confusion surrounding the

distinct ontic and supra-ontic natures of Beauty featured in

Plotinus’s system, we may observe that, regardless of the precise

point of delineation between the two, there must be a

clear mode of procession of the former from the latter, and

therefore there must also be some analogous mode of procession

from the latter to the former for the Soul. Insofar as

the Soul derives itself from Intellectual-Being, and insofar as

Intellectual-Being—whose “self and content must be simultaneously

present” 46 —posessess and thereby is τὸ καλόν, then

the relatedly-beautified Soul will be worthy of uniting with

it. Likewise, insofar as the Soul derives itself directly from the

Good, 47 and insofar as that Good is also the Beyond-Beautiful

(καλλονή), then the relatedly-beautified Soul, which is now

also unified with the Beauty of the Intellect itself, 48 will in turn

become worthy of uniting with it. The Soul, therefore, is capable

of ascending to each of these levels in accordance with its

own degree of beautification.

Second, with respect to the specific narrative of the myth of

Ganymede in relation to these considerations of Beauty, we

might say that the particular level of the Soul’s ascent that

Ganymede’s own ascent represents is determined by precisely

what status we consider him to ultimately have on Olympus—i.e.,

whether we consider him as the wine-pourer of Zeus

specifically (as the Iliad relates) or of the Olympian Gods generally

(as the Hymn to Aphrodite relates). The former case lends

itself to the Soul’s ultimate union with the Supreme Good



47. Rist, Plotinus: The Road to Reality, 65.

48. Plotinus routinely insists that the Soul must ascend first to the

Intellect, and only then to the Good (I.2.7, I.3, VI.7.36, etc.).


since the Good is also the transcendently One, 49 set apart entirely

from the multiplicity that Intellectual-Being implies. 50

The latter, accordingly, lends itself to union with that very Intellectual-Being,

which Plotinus beautifully describes as “one

God and all the gods, where each is all, blending into a unity,

distinct in powers but all one god in virtue of that one divine

power of many facets.” 51

Finally, then, we may take Ganymede’s ultimate vocation as a

wine-pourer, either to Zeus in particular or to the Olympians

in general, as representing the Soul’s own absolute absorption

into the Divine, so that Soul itself becomes the wine, not only

the offerer but the offering, outpouring its whole essence into

the all-perfect Source from which it originated. As Ganymede

pours out “red nectar from a golden bowl” for his doting master(s),

so the Soul, overcome with “wonderment and a delicious

trouble, longing and love and a trembling that is all delight”

52 at the sight of the Beloved, longs to be “molten into

one” 53 with that Beloved forevermore.

49. Plotinus, Enneads, V.1.8., VI.9.






BIBLIOGRAPHY

Apuleius. The Golden Ass. Translated by W. Adlington. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press, 1915.

Clark, Stephen R. L. Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor, and Philosophical

Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Calvo, José María Zamora. “Myth and Exegesis in Plotinus:

How to Divide and Recompose Words and Things.” Rupkatha

Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities 9, no. 2 (August

18 2017): 81–89. https://dx.doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.

v9n2.08.

Edelstein, Ludwig. “The Function of the Myth in Plato’s Philosophy.”

Journal of the History of Ideas 10, no. 4 (October

1949): 463–481. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2707185.

Homer. Iliad. Translated by Richmond Lattimore. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Homer. The Homeric Hymns. Translated by Susan C. Shelmerdine.

Cambridge, MA: Focus Books, 1995.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by Justus Miller. Cambridge,


Plato. Laws. Translated by Tom Griffith. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2016.

Plato. Phaedrus. Translated by James Nichols Jr. Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press, 1998.

Plato. Republic. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic

Books, 1968.

Plotinus. Enneads. Translated by A.H. Armstrong. Cambridge,


Plotinus. Enneads. Translated by Stephen MacKenna; Revised

by B. S. Page. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1952.

Rist, John M. Plotinus: The Road to Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge



Smith, Janet E. “Plato’s Use of Myth in the Education of Philosophic

Man.” Phoenix 40, no. 1 (1986): 20–34. https://www.

jstor.org/stable/1088962.

Xenophon. Symposium. In Xenophon in Seven Volumes 4, translated

by E. C. Marchant. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1979. http://data.perseus.org/texts/urn:cts:greek-

Lit:tlg0032.tlg004.perseus-eng1.


THE SONG OF GANYMEDE1

2 Luke Briner, St. John’s College

I.

I sing of Love and Love attained,

From worldly loneliness detained

To ravished Height of Heavenly embrace,

Brought up by God-inspired flight

So won through his affectioned sight

Of mortal Virtue’s hard-acquired grace.

By such Assumption was I made high Jove’s beloved thrall

And glad attendant of Olympus’ immortal Hall.

II.

Hear now of how I was before:

Meandering that hazy shore

Which Phoebus greeted early in his blaze;

Although by scion’s blood its heir,

I felt as if a stranger there,

And on more lofty birthright set my gaze;

For while in common fondness joined to my familiar sire,

A Union with some greater Parent yet was my desire.

p. 44 1

III.

I tended then unto my flock,

Unruly brood of Nature’s stock

Which only by the staff went not astray;

By that ennobling toil sought I

To prove e’en to the distant Sky

My merit to be freed from th’earthly fray.

So hoping, so essaying, and so fixed in high repine

Did I outstretch my aching, prostrate heart to the Divine.

IV.

And then I was by new sense struck,

As though by eagle’s talons plucked

As prey submissive from the lowly grass;

No fitful breeze of Aeolus

Or Dæmon tutelar was this,

But Presence of true Otherwordly class.

By Godly Inspiration was I then, in great amaze,

Upswept forthwith from gloom terrene t’ward new World’s

jocund blaze.

p. 45 1

V.

I higher rose than any peak:

Parnassus, where the Sibyls speak

The words of Heaven unto its lost own,

Or Ida blessed, on Cretan isle,

Which Rhea made the domicile

Of my Lord ere he claimed his native Throne;

Those summits seemed to point toward a higher summit still

And urge me to chase the Beloved with more earnest will.

VI.

Soon I had vaulted o’er the Sun

As a triumphant Phaëton

Who earned Supernal sanction thus to rise

By Hubris not but spirit poor

And ardent longing to adore

That kindred Light scarce flashed before my eyes;

So by Empyric wing I flew ’bove each enmattered Sphere

And scraped the primum mobile in which Kosmic turns inhere.

VII.

Yet as I gazed upon the Whole,

Work of the Universal Soul,

A Whole far greater was revealed to me:

That Presence shed its pluméd form

Which it to me before had worn

And burst into the Heav’nly Apogee.

The sudden Transformation lifted me, with it entire,

From Hylic bond to that Beyond to which I did aspire.

p. 46

VIII.

O long-lost Joy now pure and free!

O All-Transcendent Ecstasy!

How can I with these mortal words convey

The Unity Empyrean

And Consolation held therein

Imparted unto me that blessed day?

At once, at last, did I in that Apotheosis high

Find an Ambrosial balm for every earth-exacted sigh.

XI.

There is in this Elysium

All Being in its perfect Sum

Resounding in a grand polyphony;

I melted in its serenade

And felt my self begin to fade

Before the Beauty that enveloped me.

In Bacchic exultation, drunk with Love, I was led t’ward

My highest télos, the embrace of my Eternal Lord.

X.

He held me to his bosom tight,

And there, at the end of my flight,

I poured out everything I had to him;

I was myself his nec’trous wine

And consort made henceforth Divine,

A homecoming glad from excursion grim.

By noble spirit and above-set mind have I thus won

A perfect Union with my God, no longer two but One.

p. 47

ANCIENT HANDS IN MODERN EYES1SELF-EXPRES-

SION IN FEMALE TERRACOTTA FIGURINES FROM

LATE BRONZE AGE CYPRUS

2 Talia Neelis, University of British Columbia

A

lump of clay has the potential to house a multiplicity

of meanings to diverse audiences. When

used as a vehicle for artistic expression, artifacts

of material culture are significant both to their

makers and to those who examine them. Scholars

have aimed to unearth a myriad of possible meanings

and functions from the anthropomorphic “Bird Faced”

and “Headgear”figurines that come from Cyprus (fig.

1) during the Late Bronze Age (1600-1050 BCE) (table

1). These handmade clay representations combine ornithological

features (fig. 2) or flat-topped heads (fig.

3) with what appear to be human female forms. Each

figurine was manufactured with distinct stylistic variations,

adornments, and poses, ranging from individualized

earring possibilities to differences in painted

hatch-mark decorations. While most of the figurines

are unprovenanced due to biased and illicit excavations,

some artifacts come from domestic, burial, and

ritual settings. Uncertain provenances for the majority

of the figurine corpus, paired with conjectural knowledge

of Cypriot Bronze Age religion and social systems,

allow for a wide range of hypotheses. The objects’ wide

hips and cupped breasts have led to their predominant

understanding as representations of deities relating to

sex, fertility, and reproduction. These “emphasized

sexual features” are what determine their dominating

interpretation as “Mother Goddesses.” This theory not

only assumes that reproduction is the central, most

important role for women, but also presupposes that

emphasis on physical attributes equates to sexuality.

The interpretation discounts their individualized features and

posits the figurines in a linear historical narrative as primitive

predecessors to the developed, patriarchal twentieth-century

society. By refocusing attention to the individualized markers

of artistic expression and archaeological contexts of Late

Bronze Age terracotta figurines, nuanced meanings pertaining

to Cypriot cultural practices, gender roles, and societal structures

might overcome age-old male-centric theories that predominate

the field.

Interpretations of the figurines are largely based on their material

makeup and stylistic attributes. The figurines are all

handmade from Base-Ring ware, which is distinctive of Late

Bronze Age Cyprus. All of the figurines exhibit asymmetrical

compositions, rough decoration, exaggerated hips, conical

breasts, and incised hatch marks on their pubic triangles. From

here, the typification diverges into two groups: “Bird Faced”

figurines with large “earring” holes and pinched noses to create

beak-like faces (fig. 5)and “Headgear” figurines with flattopped

heads (fig. 3). While both groups feature incisions that

mostly concentrate around the pubic area (fig. 2, fig. 3), only

the “Headgear” type includes red and black pigment traces on

the neck, face, and legs (fig. 3, fig. 4). The poses assumed by

the figures are just as wide-ranging as their adornments. Most

take up a pose with their hands placed just below their breasts

(fig. 6, 7, 8), grasping their breasts (fig. 8, 9), or with their hands

on their hips (fig.10). However, some hold infants horizontally

across their chests or to their sides, rendered as simple cylindrical

masses of clay above the breast (fig. 11, 12, 13). The figurines

sometimes sit, although rarely (fig. 14); the small, pointed

feet of the figurines would not have been able to support

themselves in an upright position. Their undecorated backs

suggest that their reverse sides were not meant for view, and

thus were likely displayed lying horizontally (fig. 15). However,

before their supine deposition, their small, portable size (~20

cm tall) would have made them ideal to carry by hand and interact

with (fig. 16). As for their provenances, find-spots range

from communal cemeteries along the island’s north coast to

settlement structures and ritual spaces in the central-southwest

expanse of the island at sites including Enkomi, Maroni,

Klandia, Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios (fig. 1). 1 High value on the

antiquities market and early 20th-century fixations on Myce-

1. Constantina Alexandrou, “Following the Life-Cycle of Base-Ring

Female Figurines in Late Bronze Age Cyprus” (PhD diss., University of

Dublin, Trinity College, 2016), 44.

Ancient Hands 49

naean valuables provided incentives for illegal excavations,

with the result that the majority of the figurine corpus became

unprovenanced. 2 Thus, interpretations of their functions and

meanings must be gleaned largely from their stylistic and formal

attributes.

These physical characteristics form the backbone of the interpretation

that has dominated the figurines’ generalized

character in scholarly debate: the “Mother Goddess” theory.

From paleolithic figurines like the Venus of Willendorf (fig.

17) to Minoan figurines (fig. 18) and beyond, the compulsion

to relate female figurines to fertility, abundance, and sexual

power permeates the study of figurines across vast geographical

and spatial expanses. 3 Strongly influenced by Arthur Evans

and his interpretations of female figurines from Knossos, the

interpretation is still conveniently accessible when other plausible

explanations are ripe for consideration. 4 The “lusty [and]

blatant display of the pubic triangle” and breasts (fig. 8) has

been explicitly tied to themes of sexuality and fertility. 5 Bolger

illustrates that interpreting the figurines in relation to these

aspects becomes especially effortless when their Cypriot

context is considered as the mythological birthplace of Aphrodite.

6 Such sexualization of the figurines assumes that they

embody fertility, as modern prejudices towards nude female

anatomy automatically ascribe a unilateral meaning to breasts

and genitalia. 7 However, the wide-ranging application of the

theory comes as a result of its vagueness and ambiguity: the

generic image embodies “all aspects of ‘fertility’ from sexuality

and fecundity to procreation, motherhood, and life in gener-

2. Nancy Serwint, “Women and the Art of Ancient Cyprus,” in Women

in Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient World, ed. Stephanie

Lynn Budin and Jean Macintosh Turfa (London: Routledge, 2016), 411.

3. Stephanie Lynn Budin, “Creating a Goddess of Sex,” in Engendering

Aphrodite: Women and Society in Ancient Cyprus, ed. Diane Bolger

and Nancy Serwint (Alexandria, VA: American Schools of Oriental

Research, 2002), 315.

4. Lousie Hitchcock and Marianna Nikolaidou, “Gender in Greek and

Aegean Prehistory,” in A Companion to Gender Prehistory, ed. Diane

Bolger (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2012), 512.

5. Desmond Morris, The Art of Ancient Cyprus (Oxford: Phaidon Press,

1985), 168.

6. Diane Bolger, “Figurines, Fertility, and the Emergence of Complex

Society in Prehistoric Cyprus,” Current Anthropology 37, no. 2 (April

1996): 366.

7. Stephanie Lynn Budin, “Maternity in Ancient Cyprus,” in Women in

Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient World, ed. Stephanie Lynn

Budin and Jean Macintosh Turfa (London: Routledge, 2016), 369.

50 Ancient Hands

al.” 8 It not only implies homogeneity among the material objects

themselves but also among the people who used them.

Despite individualized characteristics and diverse contexts,

their interpretation within a singular framework conflates

their meanings and functions. In order to fit the figurines into

the dominating theory, nuances of the figurines’ manufacture

or contexts that complicate their significance are unaccounted

for. Biases in scholarship range from:

personal ideologies to stereotyped assumptions about gender

roles and the belief that those roles remain fixed over

time as well as to the presumed priority and greater importance

of the role of males in society today (Diane Bolger and

Nancy Serwint, “Introduction,” 18)

Ultimately, the “Mother Goddess” theory is the product of examining

ancient artistic expression through lenses colored by

modern patriarchal biases.

Not only is this interpretation banal and narrow-minded, but

it is founded on the presumption that sexuality and fertility

were the primary roles for women in ancient Cyprus. The

“Bird Faced” figurines holding infants (fig. 5, 6, 10, 11) have

been characterized as representations of the goddess Astarte

(“Figurine,” n.d.), whose cult is associated with fertility and

sexuality. 9 This relationship to Astarte posits the artifacts as

objects that venerate female sexuality in order to contribute

to societal repopulation. The “Astarte” theory could be conveniently

applied to a myriad of contexts. In ritual settings, the

figurines were offered to the goddess in hopes of bringing the

good fortune of fertility. In burial contexts, they were deposited

in order for deceased individuals to “continue contributing

towards the maintenance and reproduction of society.” 10

In general, this framework characterizes the symbolic role of

the figurines as a means of developing and improving society

via reproduction. Here, the male-centered overtones are clear

and result in an explanation that makes unevidenced claims

8. Bolger, “Figurines,” 366.

9. Vassos Karageorghis, “The Cult of Astarte in Ancient Cyprus,” in

Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient

Israel, and Their Neighbors, from the Late Bronze Age to through Roman

Palaestina, ed. William G. Dever and Seymour Gitin (University Park,

PA: Penn State University Press, 2003), 215.

10. Andreas G. Orphanides, “Towards a Theory for the Interpretation

of Material Remains in Archaeology: the Bronze Age Anthropomorphic

Figurines from Cyprus,” PhD diss. (State University of New York

at Albany, 1986), 68.

Ancient Hands 51

about societies which can no longer speak for themselves. Budin

remarks that these theories create images of goddesses

and women who are only sexual “in order to make the grass

grow.” 11 The approach keeps the power of sexuality within confined

limits, as their sexual attributes merely indicate the figure’s

power to provide a good harvest to produce children or

for the use and benefit of men. 12 In all cases, female sexuality

is first assumed on the basis of “erotic” iconography, then interpreted

as a utilitarian tool for the betterment of society as

a whole.

If one instead routes their attention to the individualized details

of the figurines, they can glean new insights to how the

figurines may have been tailored to unique identities. On many

of the objects, individualized hatch-marks that concentrate

around the figurines’ pubic triangles attest to distinct identity

fashioning. “Headgear” figurines exhibit the most variation of

this form of adornment, as their pubic triangles are painted

as well as incised, and their necks are often decorated with

bands of red and black paint (fig. 3, 5, 7). In analyzing the

iconographic fluidity of the figurines, agency is re-ascribed to

the objects, their creators, and their users. Once analyses are

dislodged from the influence of the “Mother Goddess” theory,

highly variable decoration can be understood as formations of

identity and self expression. Throughout the Bronze Age in Cyprus,

pierced ears and earrings are reflected both iconographically

(fig. 2, 4) and in the archaeological record. Two sets of

six plain gold hoop earrings excavated from Tomb 11 at Kalavasos-Ayios

Dhimitrios did not merely serve as stylistic decoration,

but rather communicated aspects of social identity as

status markers. 13 In conjunction with the recovery of jewelry

at Kalavasos, pierced ears on figurines can be taken as markers

of identity. The level of variation just within the realm of

figurine ear-piercings and jewelry suggests that the artifacts

were not standardized or mass-produced. By understanding

the figurine’s ear individualization as the fashioning of distinct,

personal identities, and reflections of varying statuses, they

are brought out from under the thumb of the “Mother Goddess”

theory. An interpretation that centers around the material

object as a form of self-expression begins the process

11. Budin, “Creating a Goddess of Sex,” 316.

12. Budin, “Creating a Goddess of Sex,” 316.

13. Kevin Douglas Fisher, “Building Power: Monumental Architecture,

Place and Social Interaction in Late Bronze Age Cyprus,” PhD diss.

(University of Toronto, 2006), 222.

52 Ancient Hands

of re-introducing long-subdued ancient identities to modern

consciences.

In addition to the fashioning of distinct identities, intimate relationships

might be materialized by the figurines who carry

infants. The figurines recovered from Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios

reflect relationships between mother and child. Three

women buried with a toddler and three infants were uncovered

from Tomb 11 at Kalavasos. 14 Additionally, broad excavations

at Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios show that a significant

percentage of the population died before age five, with 26%

of bodily remains belonging to infants and toddlers. 15 The high

rate of female and child mortality and the emphasis on mother-child

relationships in burial contexts might reflect how figurines

(fig. 11, 12, 13) emphasize the postpartum relationship

between mother and child. Other figurine iconographies, such

as the breast-grasping pose (fig. 6, 9), have been associated

with mourning. 16 Taken all together, the figurines who clutch

infants to their chests, the burial relationship between mother

and child at Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios, the high rates of

infant and mother mortality in the Late Bronze Age, and the

link between breast-grabbing and grieving might point to the

figurines as materializations of distinct maternal relationships.

Thus, conceptions of female roles can be shifted away from

women as reproductive drivers of society and instead towards

understanding the real lived experience of maternity in an age

where childbirth and motherhood were in peril.

The size and structure of the figurines more generally points

to distinct, individualized meaning rather than an all-encompassing,

homogeneous function. Their small size and diamond-form

make them ideal to be held by human hands

(fig. 17). Additionally, their inability to support themselves

upright and the lack of decoration on their reverse sides (fig.

16) points to their involvement in close human contact before

their deposition: they could be easily carried around in close

contact to their owner. In this way, one can interpret the figurines

as personal objects that have intimate relationships with

human individuals. Archaeological contexts of domestic (fig.

19) and burial settings (fig. 20) at Enkomi and Kalavasos-Ayios

14. Kirsi O. Lorentz, “Real Bones, Real Women, Real Lives,” in Women

in Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient World, ed. Stephanie

Lynn Budin and Jean Macintosh Turfa (London: Routledge, 2016),

353.

15. Budin, “Maternity in Ancient Cyprus,” 370.

16. Morris, The Art of Ancient Cyprus, 168.

Ancient Hands 53

Dhimitrios suggest the objects had such elemental value that

they were used in daily life and then taken into death. 17 Excavations

from Tomb 19 at Enkomi revealed a figurine resting on

a deceased woman’s chest (fig. 20). The placement suggests

a close relationship between the deceased and the figurine

through direct contact. 18 When the “Mother Goddess” interpretation

is abandoned, agency and a multiplicity of meanings

within the objects are unearthed. Users who imbued the objects

with their own self-expression by hand-fashioning distinct

characteristics into the clay formed identities in the process

of production. Individual natures were manifested in the

finished products and intimately connected to their human

counterparts throughout day-to-day interactions.

From outdated interpretations of the figurines as “Mother

Goddesses” to theories of the figurines as reflections of maternity

in ancient Cyprus, it is impossible to deduce one single

meaning from a range of such varied objects. However, their

stylistic and formal individualization and their spatial and

temporal contexts point to their significance on very intimate

levels. Rather than submitting to the dominating “Mother

Goddess” theory that discounts their variability and operates

within a male-oriented framework, contemporary viewers can

work to critically examine material expression and deduce

meanings which honor ancient identities. However, this can

only be accomplished if researchers examine ancient artistic

expression through frameworks which are self-conscious of

their own modern positionality and biases.

Just as adopting a self-conscious approach alters the perception

of the figurines’ meanings, so too might their significance

have fluctuated through the diverse experiences of people in

antiquity. It becomes clear that the artifacts’ ability to shift

from one meaning to the next is paramount to any singular attributed

definition, when the artifacts are given room to speak

for themselves and express the multivalency housed within

their clay cores.

17. Alexandrou, “Following the Life-Cycle,” 221.

18. Alexandrou, “Following the Life-Cycle,” 192.

54 Ancient Hands

IMAGES

Table 1.

A summary of the dates of prehistoric Cyprus, starting from the

Aceramic Neolithic until the Late Cypriot period (Alexandrou

2016).

Figure 1.

The distribution of Base Ring female figurines throughout Cyprus

in settlements, burials, and ritual spaces (Alexandrou

2016).

Ancient Hands 55

Figure 2.

Female Terracotta Figurine, 1450–1100 BCE. British Museum,

London, United Kingdom. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1898-1201-218.

Figure 3.



56 Ancient Hands

Figure 4.

Terracotta Statuettes of Women with Bird Face, 1450–1200 BCE.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, US. https://

www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/241098.

Figure 5.

Head and Neck of Headgear Female Terracotta Figurine, 1450–

1100 BCE. British Museum, London, United Kingdom. https://

www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1896-0201-218.

Ancient Hands 57

Figure 6.

‘Bird Faced’ female terracotta figurines with hands placed on or

below the breasts (Alexandrou 2016).

Figure 7.

‘Headgear’ female terracotta figurines with hands placed below

the breasts (Alexandrou 2016).

58 Ancient Hands

Figure 8.

‘Bird Faced’ female terracotta figurines with ear piercings holding

infants (Alexandrou 2016).

Figure 9.



Ancient Hands 59

Figure 10.

Female terracotta figurines with hands placed on the hips (Alexandrou

2016).

Figure 11.

Terracotta Statuette of Woman with Bird Face (1450–1200 BCE).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, US. https://

www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/241098.

60 Ancient Hands

Figure 12.

Female terracotta figurines holding infants to their sides, and

broken incised pubic triangle (Alexandrou 2016).

Figure 13.

Female terracotta figurines with pierced ears holding infants

across the chest (Alexandrou 2016).

Ancient Hands 61

Figure 14.

Seated Female Terracotta Figurine (1450–1200 BC). British Museum,

London, United Kingdom. https://www.britishmuseum.

org/collection/object/G_1898-1201-132.

Figure 15.

‘Headgear’ female terracotta figurine lying on its back (Alexandrou

2016).

62 Ancient Hands

Figure 16.

‘Bird Faced’ female terracotta figurine with infant being handled

(Alexandrou 2016).

Figure 17.

The Venus of Willendorf (28,000–25,000 BCE). Museum of Natural

History, Vienna, Austria. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-prehistoric-venus-figurines-mystify-experts.

Ancient Hands 63

Figure 18.

Minoan Snake Goddess (1600–1500 BC). Heraklion Archaeological

Museum, Heraklion, Greece. https://www.heraklionmuseum.gr/en/exhibit/the-snake-goddesses/.

Figure 19.

The distribution of the Base Ring female figurines in a residential

building at Enkomi (Alexandrou 2016).

64 Ancient Hands

Figure 20.

The ground plan of Tomb 19 of Enkomi, noting the provenance

of the figurine (‘29’) and jewelry assemblages (‘30,’ ‘31’) (Alexandrou

2016).

Ancient Hands 65

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alexandrou, Constantina. “Following the Life-Cycle of Base-

Ring Female Figurines in Late Bronze Age Cyprus.” PhD diss.,

University of Dublin, Trinity College, 2016.

Bolger, Diane, and Nancy Serwint. “Introduction: Approaching

Gender in Cypriot Archaeology.” In Engendering Aphrodite:

Women and Society in Ancient Cyprus, edited by Diane

Bolger and Nancy Serwint, 1–20. American Schools of Oriental

Research Archaeological Reports, vol. 7. Alexandria, VA:

American Schools of Oriental Research, 2002. https://doi.

org/10.5615/j.ctt2jc9sc.

Bolger, Diane. “Figurines, Fertility, and the Emergence of

Complex Society in Prehistoric Cyprus.” Current Anthropology

37, no. 2 (April 1996): 365–373. http://www.jstor.org/

stable/2744358.

Budin, Stephanie Lynn. “Creating a Goddess of Sex.” In Engendering

Aphrodite: Women and Society in Ancient Cyprus, edited

by Diane Bolger and Nancy Serwint, 315–324. American

Schools of Oriental Research Archaeological Reports, vol.

7. Alexandria, VA: American Schools of Oriental Research,

2002.

Budin, Stephanie Lynn. “Maternity in Ancient Cyprus.”

In Women in Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient

World, edited by Stephanie Lynn Budin and Jean Macintosh

Turfa, 361–374. London: Routledge, 2016. https://doi.

org/10.4324/9781315621425.

Figurine. Late Cypriot II or III. Terracotta figurine, 16.2 cm.

British Museum, 1898,1201.218. https://www.britishmuseum.

org/collection/object/G_1898-1201-218.

Fisher, Kevin Douglas. “Building Power: Monumental Architecture,

Place and Social Interaction in Late Bronze Age

Cyprus.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2006. Library and

Archives Canada.

66 Ancient Hands

Hitchcock, Lousie, and Marianna Nikolaidou. “Gender

in Greek and Aegean Prehistory.” In A Companion

to Gender Prehistory, edited by Diane Bolger, 502–525.

Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2012. https://doi.

org/10.1002/9781118294291.ch24.

Karageorghis, Vassos. “The Cult of Astarte in Ancient Cyprus.”

In Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the Power of the Past: Canaan,

Ancient Israel, and Their Neighbors, from the Late Bronze Age

to through Roman Palaestina, edited by William G. Dever and

Seymour Gitin, 215–222. University Park, PA: Penn State University

Press, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781575065458-

017.

Lorentz, Kirsi O. “Real Bones, Real Women, Real Lives.” In

Women in Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient World,

edited by Stephanie Lynn Budin and Jean Macintosh


org/10.4324/9781315621425.

Morris, Desmond. The Art of Ancient Cyprus. Oxford: Phaidon

Press, 1985.

Orphanides, Andreas G. “Towards a Theory for the Interpretation

of Material Remains in Archaeology: the Bronze Age

Anthropomorphic Figurines from Cyprus.” PhD diss., State

University of New York at Albany, 1986. University Microfilms

International.

Serwint, Nancy. “Women and the Art of Ancient Cyprus.”

In Women in Antiquity: Real Women Across the Ancient

World, edited by Stephanie Lynn Budin and Jean Macintosh


org/10.4324/9781315621425.

Ancient Hands 67

THE FERRYMAN'S SONG1

2 Ana Stinson, Durham University

“Come now, Charon, are we there yet? My backside is beginning

to ache!”

Why do gods complain when they face the toils of men? They

whine and ache and search for pity, a pat on the head and a

comforting response. They receive none from him. Yet there

sat Dionysus, the reveller, the faint light of the ferryman’s lantern

casting shadows across his youthful face, waiting. The ferryman

remained silent. Dionysus rubbed his backside angrily,

taking one hand off the oars to do so.

“Do not still the boat, son of Zeus. There are things worse than

I that patrol these shores,” Charon responded. He continued

to stare straight ahead, his eyes two flaming orbs which reflected

in the water below.

Dionysus scoffed, tossing his golden hair as he resumed his position,

and they continued to move the boat down the river.

The two immortals sat in silence, Charon occasionally using his

long pole to make small adjustments to their course.

They had been rowing for an hour in an attempt to cross the

lake. It stretched out in the vast darkness, a darkness that

was unbroken save for the dim lantern Charon had affixed to

the back of his boat. The water did not flow. It was still, and

quiet—only the sound of the oars splashing travelled throughout

the void. It was times like these that Dionysus missed his

servant, Xanthias, whom he had left to wander the marshes

alone. Charon had instructed so.

I shall not take the mortal; he is unworthy.

He is far more worthy than many who cross over under your care!

Fought he at the sea-battle, amongst those brave, woeful souls?

p. 68 1

His eyes forbade it.

Then he must walk, and quickly. Sit your oar.

Time passed. Dionysus took this time to consider the ferryman

properly. Long, scraggly grey hair, streaked with white, hung

limp around his face and continued down his back. His brow

was heavy, his face lined with age, and the nature of his beard

matched that of his hair. He wore a filthy tunic, knotted at one

shoulder, which covered him torso to calf, and what Dionysus

could see of his skin was papery, an unhealthy pallor reminiscent

of death and decay. His flesh clung to his bones, revealing

his ribs and his broad, jagged shoulders. He was tall—too tall,

stretching well above Dionysus, despite his hunched posture—

his limbs long and lean. His fingers were crooked and offset,

each one at least the length of Dionysus’ own hand. He clung

to the pole with a vice-like grip, unrelenting in his duty. His

gaze was set dead ahead, looking at the darkness unfolding

around them.

“Say, Charon,” Dionysus began, breaking the silence. His curiosity

had been growing in the time between their last exchange.

“What are these things of which you speak? Those

whom you urge me to fear?”

And so Charon spoke. He spoke of the Empusa, the shape

shifters of Hecate, with their single leg of bronze and their

changing faces. He spoke of the Harpies, the anthropomorphic

soul-snatchers, those with the body of a bird yet the face

of a woman. He spoke of Cerberus, the three-headed dog

who guards the gates of the Underworld, and of the Erinyes,

the three goddesses who oversee punishment. And lastly, he

spoke of the Frogs.

“The Frogs?” Dionysus laughed, his shoulders shaking from

the effect. “Surely you jest, O gazer! I was unaware that was

something you could do, yet here I stand—sit—corrected! The

Frogs. Do you take me for a fool?”

p. 69 1

“It would serve you well to heed my warning, son of Thunder.

Even Heracles of Thebes knew better than to disturb

their slumber.”

“Your mind is as rickety as your boat, old man. Fear the Frogs!

A notion indeed. The only thing a frog is good for is croaking in

time to my strokes! Perhaps I should awaken them; it may aid

me along my way!”

Time passed. Charon’s eyes shone forward into the darkness,

though more than once he allowed his gaze to drop to the god

in front of him. Long, shining golden hair hung in curls around

his face. His face shone with eternal youth, glowing as he

laughed, and his plump cheeks shone scarlet in the dim light.

He wore a white chiton and purple cloak, lined with gold,

which fell the length of his back and down to his calf. He was

well-fed, round even, and tall for an immortal, his muscles defined

and smooth. His palm beat his tympanon, which he now

played, having decided he had rowed enough for the time being.

Charon was silent, and waited, his warnings given and his

work done.

The first sign was the bubbles rising up from below the surface

of the lake. Dionysus, who was too busy with his music to care,

took no notice. But Charon did. Still he was silent. Next came

the quiet yet dissonant chorus of their song.

Brekekekex, koax, koax!

Brekekekex, koax, koax!

You will learn to fear the Frogs

Those who wait in lakes and bogs

Our song is harsh

Beware our marsh

You arrogant, foolish god!

Brekekekex!

At this, Dionysus did take notice. He lowered the drum, peering

over the sides and out into the darkness, yet he saw nothing.

p. 70

Koax! Koax!

“Charon? Do you hear that?”

Koax! Koax!

“That sound…”

Koax! Koax!

“Charon, what is it?”

Dionysus’ eyes filled with fear, yet still Charon was silent. Then

the boat began to tip, as the song got louder and louder.

“Charon, please! We have to do something!”

Koax! Koax!

The Frogs began to scale the boat, causing it to tip and sway.

Dionysus let out a loud and fearful scream, making a frantic

attempt to use his oar to hit them away. The swarm came. Still

Charon was silent.

Koax! Koax!

Dionysus threw himself at Charon’s feet, clutching at his tunic.

His eyes were wide and frightened, his cheeks flushed and skin

the same pallor as the man he clung to. He was begging, apologising,

pleading for Charon to help, to move the boat, to save

them, to make this right. Still Charon was silent.

Koax! Koax!

The frogs began to drag Dionysus overboard and into the dark

and murky waters below. He was screaming the ferryman’s

name. Begging. Apologising. Pleading. Still Charon was silent.

Koax! Koax!

Charon remained silent until the boat stopped rocking, the

water was still, and the chorus had ended. He sighed and slowly

sat down, grasping his pole tightly in his hand. A soft, wistful

song spilled forth from his lips, travelling out over the water. A

peaceful melody, one which brought great comfort to his old

bones. A song of hope and calm in the never-ending darkness.

The ferryman sang, and waited for the Frogs to return what

they had taken.

p. 71

RAVAGED BY TIME -

BUT STILL STANDING:

THE TEMPLE OF

APOLLO

KATHERINE TERRELL

Stanford University

p. 72 1

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Inspired by my summer journey to Greece in 2022,

the artwork Ravaged By Time - But Still Standing: The

Temple of Apollo captures what I saw while visiting the

Temple of Apollo in Corinth. What struck me most

was the temple’s enduring beauty despite the relentless

march of time. It serves as a reminder that even

in the face of adversity, the creations of humanity can

endure. To me, the temple seemed to function as a

time capsule, preserving moments from antiquity. It

stood as a repository of history, narrating the tales

of ancient civilizations that have long faded into the

depths of time gone past. As I wandered around the

ancient remains, I found myself forming a connection

with the people who once called this place their

own. But the temple was also staggeringly beautiful

and awe-inspiring. The temple’s towering presence

dwarfed my very existence. I based this graphite

drawing on a photograph I had taken during my trip.

But in the drawing, I endeavored to capture not only

the physical likeness but also the ethereal essence

of being in the temple’s presence—a certain magical

quality inherent in its ruins. Through my artistic interpretation,

I aimed to convey the enduring allure of

this ancient masterpiece and the profound impact of

history on our contemporary lives.

p. 73 1

DEATH HOVERS OVER THE MARRIAGE BED

1GRASPING AT IMMORTALITY IN CLASSICAL TEXTS

2 Kate Whitaker, University of Chicago

A girl sits in a room, surrounded by busied female attendants.

She will be washed by fellow women, dressed

in fine, white linens, and presented to the public. She

will be paraded through the streets, leaving her home

and returning to another. The onlookers will give gifts

and eat feasts in honor of the occasion. Music will be

played and speeches given. The girl will stay silent as

she is covered with a veil.

Am I speaking of a bride or a corpse?

It is not intuitive to place marriage and death, weddings

and funerals, together, but the ritual similarities

speak for themselves. Even more than modern people,

the ancients understood the closeness between these

distinct concepts.

Ancient Greek weddings and funerals shared many

words. Τέλος, used to signify sexual consummation

during a marriage, also meant death. Perhaps this signified

the major products of a person’s life, or marked

the two bookends of formal maturity. Additionally,

the same word, κῆδος, referred both to a connection

by marriage and mourning for the dead. As scholar

Rush Rehm says, “perhaps the original idea of ‘related

by marriage’ implied an obligation on behalf of one’s

οἶκος (household) to participate in the family’s ‘funeral

rites.’” 1 Other academics have speculated that κῆδος refers to

those who experience pain at someone’s death, and thus joining

someone’s family meant that one took on the burden of

experiencing grief at their passing. 2

Romans, too, recognized a similarity between death and marriage.

Roman weddings and funeral ceremonies were both

conducted by torchlight, which could signal the respect for

the Vestal sacred fire (as brides were often compared to Vestal

Virgins). 3 Additionally, both events involved some exchange of

money, either between the bride and bridegroom or the Lares,

or for when the dead would approach Charon, the ferryman.

For both ancient cultures, the ceremonies’ similarities made

fertile ground for dramatic comparison. I will examine three

prominent instances: Persephone in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter,

Antigone in Sophocles’ Antigone, and Dido in Vergil’s

Aeneid. Finally, I will provide an interpretation of various philosophical

sources on the root of this association. Through this

examination, readers of these tragedies may gain a better understanding

of marital death and deadly marriages, and the

sort of cultures which produced them.

PERSEPHONE

The most famous marital death story in the Classical world

must be the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the story of Persephone.

As the literal bride of Hades, Persephone embodies

many polarities: sexuality and virginity, divinity and mortality,

fertility and infertility, and cyclical marriages and deaths.

Though Persephone marries a most unusual bridegroom, her

wedding follows a recognizable formula, with some notable

exceptions and funerary aspects. Her father, Zeus, arranges

the marriage, with a bridal pledge (ἐγγύη) that neither Persephone

nor Demeter participated in, as was traditional. 4 Her

time with the daughters of the sea (5) may function as a sort of

1. Rush Rehm, Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral

Rituals in Greek Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1994), 22.

2. Mary Scott, “Some Greek Terms in Homer Suggesting Non-Competitive

Attitudes,” Acta Classica, vol. 24 (1981): 10.

3. Karen Hersch, The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 74.

4. Homeric Hymn To Demeter, 3–4.

Death Hovers 75

ritual bath before her marriage and funeral, 5 with the Oceanids

acting as her attendants (νυμφεύτριαι), washing her body as

women washed corpses. Persephone is abducted by her bridegroom,

a more literal and violent version of the bridal abduction.

6 She is forcibly led out of her home, the world of the living,

by her husband. 7 Her laments serve as her marriage songs,

and she becomes her own wedding sacrifice. 8 Demeter, a posthumous

wedding attendant, bears a torch in her search for

Persephone. 9 This search also lasts nine days without food, 10

which is perhaps a reference to the period in between feasts

at the gravesite after burial. 11

The ritual feast motif becomes even clearer when, before she

is rescued, Persephone eats pomegranate seeds in a ritual

marital meal, one which she partakes in through Hades’ deception.

12 Though she is said to recline on a couch with Hades,

Persephone remains πόλλ᾽ ἀεκαζομένῃ μητρὸς πόθῳ. 13 The narrative

calls Persephone παράκοιτις, literally “bed partner,” but does

not refer to her as Hades’ γαμετή or δᾰ́μᾰρ, both of which would

more traditionally signal a marital partnership through their

derivation from γάμος (marriage pairing) and δόμος (household).

The significance of Persephone’s pomegranate feast also

points to the larger theme of fertility; the pomegranate is

both a symbol of the male, through its seeds, and the female,

5. To Demeter, 5.

6. Both Greek and Roman brides were led from their parents’ homes

(ἐξαγωγή) with mock force. In Greece, this took the form of the hand

on wrist (χεῖρα έπὶ καρπῳ) imagery of the man leading his wife. In

Rome, this mock abduction recalled the Sabines, as brides would

yell out “Talassio!” (to the god of marriage), which the Sabine women

also did. Rehm, 14 and Hersch, 148.

7. To Demeter, 19.

8. To Demeter, 20. Greek weddings began with preliminary sacrifices

(προτέλεια). Rehm, 12.

9. To Demeter, 48.

10. To Demeter, 47–49.

11. Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1985),, 193. A funerary feast (περίδειπνον) took place immediately

following a Greek funeral, with a formal return to the grave

and subsequent feast after nine days. Walter Burkert, Greek Religion

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 193.

12. To Demeter, 371, 432.

13. To Demeter, 344. “Very unwilling because of longing for her

mother.…” All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.

76 Death Hovers

through its womb-like shape and bloody liquid. 14 Persephone

is a perpetual virgin, a κόρη (maiden), but the floral imagery

before her abduction points to her fecundity. 15 In an inversion,

her marriage leads to infertility as her mother holds the crops

in stasis, while the earth only bears fruit once Persephone

leaves her husband. Though Persephone and her mother will

adopt countless mortals through the ritual of the Eleusinian

Mysteries, 16 the marriage between Hades and Persephone is

not productive in the original myth. 17

As if they were mortal Persephones, many women faced symbolic

death through marriage, forced to leave their homes and

become dead to their natal families in joining with their husbands.

However, it is unclear if Persephone and Hades’ marriage

is fully valid under Greek ritual requirements, or if it is

merely a perverse imitation of the marital ceremony. Though

much of the occasion revolved around male authority, brides

notably had to issue even symbolic or coerced consent for

marriage. Often, this came in the form of accepting the offering

of food after the καταχύσματα. 18 Even the act consummating

the marriage, the unveiling (ἀνακαλυπτήρια)—which is strikingly

absent from the Hymn to Demeter—involves the bride taking

an active role in revealing herself to her husband. 19 All this

culminates in a confused ending: since Persephone and Hades

don’t fully join in the marriage ceremony, they are never completely

united, and the seasons remain cyclical.

14. Helene Foley, The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1994), 303.

15. To Demeter, 6–9.

16. To Demeter, 476.

17. In one Orphic text, Persephone is said to have children with Zeus

(Melinoë and Zagreus/Dionysus). In another, she and Hades are said

to have the Erinyes as children.

18. This is a ritual throwing of nuts and seeds following a marital

procession. Rehm, 17.

19. There is much conjecture about when this took place, but Rehm

provides a very compelling argument to say that the first unveiling

occurs in the wedding chamber before sexual union (the end of the

marriage ceremony), while the second “unveiling” is when the bride

emerges again in the morning, now publicly uncovered. See Rehm,

141–142.

Death Hovers 77

ANTIGONE

Sophocles’ Antigone begins with one death and ends with

several more, but this constant mortality takes on a marital,

and even an erotic tone throughout. Antigone begins the play

wishing to bury her brother to bring pleasure (ἁδεῖν) to those

she must gratify, i.e. her family, 20 and later justifies her illegal

actions as following the passions of Hades. 21 She even explicitly

says of her brother: φίλη μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ κείσομαι, φίλου μέτα. 22

These incestuous undertones call to mind her parentage, of

course, the subject of one of Sophocles’ other plays. The theme

of blood emerges early on and remains prevalent throughout

Antigone, taking on shifting meanings from the mingled blood

of incest or marriage to the blood of sacrificial offerings to the

blood shed at death—or combinations thereof.

When she is caught by the guards, Antigone is denied the ability

both to perform funeral rites for her brother and to have

wedding rites to be performed for her, as she is no longer Haimon’s

bride. 23 Kreon coldly says both that Hades will prevent

the prior marriage, 24 but also that Antigone will marry someone

in Hades. 25 When he says this, his words act as both prophetic

and prescriptive, a sort of ἐγγύη affirmed by the gods

below. 26 He reinforces this when he tells Haimon ταύτην ποτ᾿

οὐκ ἔσθ᾿ ὡς ἔτι ζῶσαν γαμεῖς. 27

Antigone herself construes her march to suicide as a wedding

procession, singing her own wedding hymn as a funeral dirge. 28

She laments her parents’ ill-fated marriage, tainted blood

which will lead her to shed her own. 29 Notably, she compares

the importance of different relationships, mourning the loss

of her own future. However, she reaffirms her decision, saying

that she could have had another husband or child, but not

another brother (904–-912). 30 This ranking or replaceability of

blood bonds emerges throughout the play, perhaps best ex-

20. Sophocles, Antigone, 89.

21. Sophocles, 519. These erotic undertones are attested in Rehm,

59.

22. Sophocles, 73. “As a loved one, I will lie with him, a loved one.”

23. Sophocles, 568–569.

24. Sophocles, 575.

25. Sophocles, 654.

26. Rehm, 63.

27. Sophocles, Antigone, 750. “You will not marry this woman while

she still lives.”

28. Sophocles, 806–816.

29. Sophocles, 865–871.

30. Sophocles, 904–912.

78 Death Hovers

emplified by Haimon, whose name literally means “bloody,”

a wordplay made explicit in line 1175. He too initially tells his

father that he would not value any marriage more highly than

Kreon’s guidance (637). 31 However, he will later shed his blood

to join his beloved in death, fulfilling his father’s guidance that

he should not marry Antigone while she still lives.

After the ἐγγύη and bridal procession, Antigone and Haimon’s

wedding of death continues to replicate the rituals of a traditional

Greek wedding. Antigone hangs herself with a “μιτώδει

σινδόνος,” (1222), 32 the word for fine linen being used both for

wedding veils and funeral shrouds. 33 In this way, her suicide

plays with the ἀνακαλυπτήρια and the boundary between seen

and unseen, serving as both a veil to uncover the bride and a

shroud to hide the dead. 34

Haimon’s suicide functions as the final act of marital consummation

after the unveiling. Sophocles imbues his death with

erotic language, saying

ἐς δ᾿ ὑγρὸν ἀγκῶν᾿ ἔτ᾿ ἔμφρων παρθένῳ προσπτύσσεται καὶ φυσιῶν

ὀξεῖαν ἐκβάλλει ῥοὴν λευκῇ παρειᾷ φοινίου σταλάγματος.

Still conscious, he takes the maiden into his soft embrace

and, panting for breath, releases a sharp stream, as a drop

of blood [falls] on her white cheek. (Sophocles, Antigone,

1236–1239)

This sexual imagery evokes both the emission of semen and

the blood of a virgin on her wedding night. 35 Finally, the husband

and wife lie together, having posthumously completed a

perversion of the marriage rites through their deaths (1240–-

1241). 36

DIDO

The most foundational work of Roman literature, the Aeneid,

also contains death and marriage themes central to its plot.

Dido, the Phoenician queen whom Aeneas seduces before he

leaves for Latium, is the central figure in this conflation.

Dido was previously married to Sychaeus, who was murdered

31. Sophocles, 637.

32. Sophocles, 1222. “Noose of fine linen…”

33. Mark Griffith and Sophocles, Antigone (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2008): 334.

34. Rehm, 64.

35. Griffith, 338.

36. Sophocles, Antigone, 1240–1241.

Death Hovers 79

by her brother Pygmalion for his wealth. However, as Dido tells

her sister Anna, she vowed to remain faithful to her husband,

even though deceptam morte. 37 This language of infidelity,

mixed with talk of mortality, foreshadows Dido’s “remarriage”

to Aeneas, ultimately culminating in her death when he leaves

Carthage. With her marriage to Sychaeus, Dido encounters her

first contact between marriage and death, which leads invariably

to others.

Dido’s love for Aeneas implements two important metaphors,

both foreshadowing her demise: fire and wounds. First, at

the meal the two share after meeting, Venus sends down Cupid

in the form of Aeneas’ son, Ascanius, to cingere flamma. 38

This flame both represents sexual passion and portends Dido’s

suicide on a burning funeral pyre. Likewise, it recalls the

burning that the fury of Pygmalion brought, which ultimately

consumed Dido’s husband in its flames. 39 This fire makes Dido

both the actor, kindling the passion in her chest, and the victim,

burnt as a sacrifice by the conflagration.

This fire causes and is fed by her status as saucia cura, 40 a

wound which Dido nurses and which serves as another warning

of the physical chest wound she will inflict. Vergil compares

her to a doe wounded by a hunting shepherd, 41 physicalizing

the wound and preparing readers for its approaching transformation:

42 the mark will go from tacitum vivit sub pectore

vulnus, 43 to infixum stridit sub pectore vulnus, 44 giving a shrill

funeral dirge for the dying woman.

Dido’s “marriage” is also marked by the shrieking of the

Nymphs as she and Aeneas join in a cave. 45 Juno acts as her

attendant (pronuba), 46 both bride and bridegroom are bathed

37. Vergil, Aeneid, 4.17. “[She was] cheated by death”

38. Vergil, 1.673. “Encircle [her] with a flame [of love]”

39. Vergil, 1.346–352.

40. Vergil, 4.1. “Wounded by love”

41. Vergil, 4.66–73.

42. Richard F. Moorton, “The Pivoting Metaphor in Vergil’s Story of

Dido,” The Classical World, vol. 83, no. 3 (January - February, 1990):

157.

43. Vergil, 4.67. “Silent, the wound lives under her chest.”

44. Vergil, 4.689. “Fixed, the wound shrieks under her chest.”

45. Vergil, 4.160–172.

46. Vergil, 4.166.

80 Death Hovers

in rain, 47 and the fire itself becomes their witness. 48 Though

this marriage could be legally valid—Dido and Aeneas needed

only to proclaim their intention to be wed in order for a marriage

to happen—the text avoids stating explicitly that they

are married. Dido has pledged her faith to Sychaeus, calling

upon the three sectors of existence, the cosmos, earth, and

sky, 49 to not wed another man. When she joins with Aeneas,

Vergil writes that praetexit… culpam, 50 with the name of marriage,

a play on the modesty of a virgin bride, which she is not.

The textual illegitimacy of this marriage means the two will

never be truly joined; they cannot be. Instead, it becomes the

first day of death, 51 recalling Dido’s deceased husband and her

lifeless promises as well as foreshadowing the demise of her

reputation, her departed relationship with Aeneas, and her

own death. This acts as a marital pledge, committing Dido

to death and to her previous husband, even as she joins with

someone else.

Dido’s death takes on distinctively sexual overtones, too.

When she sees Aeneas leaving and wishes to kill herself, Dido

strikingly asks Anna to erect a pyre, on which she will place

lectumque iugalem quo perii. 52 This perishing takes place in multiple

senses; it acts as the extinguishing of her honor from the

promise to her husband and the death of her reputation at

the hands of Rumor. 53 Finally, it becomes the path by which

she passes through, literally per-ii, from “marriage” to death. 54

Through a consummation by sex, she rushes toward a consummation

of her life.

Additionally, this funeral pyre and marital bed include her

bridegroom. 55 Just as the two joined in the fires of sexual union,

so too does Dido hope to join in the cremation fires of death.

She decorates the pyre with funeral fronds; she literally coro-

47. Vergil, 4.16.

48. Vergil, 4.167. These three factors (an attendant, sprinkling of

water, and witness) are ritual parts of a Roman marriage ceremony.

49. Vergil, Aeneid, 4.14–30.

50. Vergil, 4.172. “She veils… her fault…”

51. Vergil, 4.169.

52. Vergil, 4.496–497. “The bed [which] joined [us], on which I perished.”

53. Vergil, 4.173–197.

54. Moorton, 159.

55. Vergil, Aeneid, 4.507–508.

Death Hovers 81

nat (crowns) it, 56 as she never got to wear a corona. 57 Dido prepares

for death as she would for marriage, acting as her own

pronuba and washing her still-living corpse. 58 She unfastens her

girdle as if to prepare for intercourse and prays to the gods for

death, 59 just as she earlier prayed for love. 60 The gods watch

her suicide, witnesses to her death as well as her marriage. 61

As she lies burning with the effigy of Aeneas, Dido plunges his

sword into her bosom. 62 As with Haimon and Antigone, Dido’s

sudden gush of blood and how she ingemuit (moans) with her

last breath makes this resemble an emission of semen or blood

of a virgin on her wedding night. 63 Additionally, the use of Aeneas’

sword adds emphasis to the penetrative aspect. As the

wound of Aeneas’ affection, created with his phallus, marks

Dido for death, so too does the wound of his sword complete

it.

However, as she leaves one husband, she returns to another

in death. Before her suicide, Dido instructs Barce, Sychaeus’

old nurse, to tell Anna to bring sacrifices to the pyre. 64 Though

Barce and Anna assume that Dido will offer these sacrifices to

regain Aeneas’ love, they act as atonement sacrifices to expiate

her infidelity toward Sychaeus. I also propose that they act

as both retroactive preliminary marital sacrifices for her “marriage”

to Aeneas and for her coming remarriage to Sychaeus in

death.

When Aeneas sees Dido next, she occupies Hades with Sychaeus.

Unlike Aeneas, Sychaeus returns her love. 65 However,

Dido still possesses many aspects of her attachment to Aeneas,

showing that this consolation of Sychaeus may not suffice.

Aeneas witnesses her recens a vulnere, 66 evidence of the way

his love has altered her. When he speaks to her, she rebuffs

him, still ardentem (burning) with passion both to both love

56. Vergil, 4.506.

57. Roman brides would traditionally wear a crown on their wedding

days.

58. Vergil, Aeneid, 4.512.

59. Vergil, 4.518.

60. Moorton, 159.

61. Vergil, Aeneid, 4.167, 4.519.

62. Vergil, 4.663.

63. Vergil, 4.688, 4.692.

64. Vergil, 4.636.

65. Vergil, 6.474.

66. Vergil, 6.450. “[With a] wound still fresh…”

82 Death Hovers

and hate him. 67

Ultimately, Dido’s love—an almost-marriage—and her death

intertwine. As Moorton explains, “Dido’s love is like death because

death is its effect, while her death is like love because

love was its cause.” 68 Her incomplete marriage corrupts her

reputation, killing her before her death. When she throws herself

onto the burning pyre, the literal flames consume her body

as the flames of passion have already consumed her soul. Her

funeral preparations, born of deceit, echo her perverted wedding

ceremony. Finally, she cyclically returns to her first husband:

the death of his love led her to find death at the hands

of love.

PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLANATIONS

Besides the obvious loss of life, where does the true tragedy lie

in these tragedies? Why is there a fascination with the intersection

of marriage and death, weddings and funerals stretching

from seventh-century Greece to beyond first-century Rome?

I propose that the widespread conflation of these two seemingly

disparate states and ceremonies lies in the devastation

that marital aberrations cause to the traditional Classical understanding

of the family, religion, and state. These texts tell

readers what should not happen and the tragic consequences

of such a disaster, implicitly signaling an ideal relationship

between marriage and death. Ultimately, this ideal relationship

reveals itself as immortality. However, on a surface level,

this devastation uncovers an innate relationship between

marriage, death, and the public interest. To see this in literary

form, we return to Sophocles’ Antigone once more.

From the beginning of their confrontation, Kreon places extreme

emphasis on his ordering of the πόλις. He threatens

Antigone, saying καὶ δῆτ᾿ ἐτόλμας τούσδ᾿ ὑπερβαίνειν νόμους;. 69 Additionally,

in his argument with his son, he focuses on the public

aspect of their family and what this conflict means for his

rule. 70 When Haimon earlier tells his father that he will not value

marriage over his father’s guidance to rule, 71 he implicitly

places the οἶκος and πόλις, the world of marriage and the world

67. Vergil, 6.467.

68. Moorton, 160.

69. Sophocles, Antigone, 449. “And so you dared to transgress these

laws?”

70. Sophocles, 736–739.

71. Sophocles, 637.

Death Hovers 83

of the state, in opposition.

The death of Kreon’s wife, Eurydike, also engages with these

themes. After learning of her son’s suicide, she flees into the

house to mourn, 72 an inversion of Haimon’s earlier departure

to Antigone, waiting outside earlier. This also showcases her

role as a proper wife who stays in the domain of the οἶκος, as

opposed to Antigone who ventures outside where women

must not go. 73 However, news of her suicide comes out via

the messenger, the Chorus saying οὐ γὰρ ἐν μυχοῖς ἔτι. 74 In this

way, Eurydike jarringly intrudes on her husband’s public life, his

lament of his son; she is no longer an obedient wife. 75 She also

accomplishes this upset of the πόλις by polluting the οἶκος, killing

herself near the altar and offering her blood as a perverse

sacrifice to their household religion. 76

As in the present day, ancient weddings and funerals were

times when the personal collided with the public, joining the

home and city most obviously by public celebration or mourning.

Many scholars have noted how Sophocles and other authors

of antiquity play with the traditionally accepted rites

of weddings and funerals to comment on problems facing the

family and broader society. The aberrations outlined in Classical

literature, i.e. what marriage is not supposed to be, can

convey to readers the role that marriage should have in public

life. The tragedy of these stories emerges from their inability to

conform to the ultimate purpose of marriage and thus they are

always invalid, either half completed as Persephone or Dido,

not started in life as Antigone, or ended abruptly as Eurydike.

To explain this ultimate ideal of marriage, Plato and Aristotle

point to immortality.

Though Plato and Aristotle disagree on many things, one thing

they share with an almost word-for-word sentiment is the nature

of marriage as a means to immortality. In the Laws, Plato,

speaking through the Athenian Stranger, lays down the first

law in his imagined society, a marital law. He outlines the argument

behind it, saying

ἔστιν ᾗ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον γένος φύσει τινὶ μετείληφεν ἀθανασίας,

72. Sophocles, 1246–1250.

73. Sophocles, 578–579.

74. Sophocles, 1293. “For she is no longer indoors…”

75. Rehm, 67.

76. Sophocles, Antigone, 1301. Griffith expands: “She chose to die ‘at

the altar’ (1301 βωμία), presumably that of Zeus herkeios in the inner

courtyard, symbolizing the integrity of the family.” Griffith, 350.

84 Death Hovers

οὗ καὶ πέφυκεν ἐπιθυμίαν ἴσχειν πᾶς πᾶσαν… τῷ παῖδας παίδων

καταλειπόμενον ταὐτὸν καὶ ἓν ὂν ἀεὶ γενέσει τῆς ἀθανασίας

μετειληφέναι.

This is [the way] the human race by some nature has partaken

in immortality, which all naturally hold a desire for…

which, by leaving behind the children of children [and

continuing] this [way] in one manner always, it partakes in

immortality. (Plato, Laws, 721b6–c1, c5–6 )

Therefore, marriage law seems to be the foundation of the

πόλις and is created to, in a way, defeat death. This marriage

law he speaks of is a paternal law, to ensure that a familial

line “[continues] this [way] in one manner always,” which also

points to the basis of male superiority over women.

The idea that marital law in the face of death forms the beginning

of society extends into another foundational philosophical

writing, Aristotle’s Politics. In Book I, he outlines the basis

of a πόλις, saying that society comes to exist because men and

women cannot exist without creating children with each other.

He declares that the union begins not out of planned design,

but because

ὥσπερ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις ζῴοις καὶ φυτοῖς φυσικὸν τὸ ἐφίεσθαι οἷον

αὐτὸ τοιοῦτον καταλιπεῖν ἕτερον.

Just as also with other animals and plants, [there is] a natural

[instinct] to desire to leave behind another the same as

oneself… (Aristotle, Politics, 1252a29–31)

When he later proclaims man to be a political animal, it is first

because of his desire to join in a procreative union to combat

death. 77

In fact, this concept of law being established and given through

union between husband and wife finds its earliest roots again

in the poetry of Homer, as referenced by Aristotle. In the Odyssey

Book IX, Homer speaks of the primitive race of the Cyclopes,

saying,

τοῖσιν δ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ἀγοραὶ βουληφόροι οὔτε θέμιστες, ἀλλ᾽ οἵ γ᾽ ὑψηλῶν

ὀρέων ναίουσι κάρηνα ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροῖσι, θεμιστεύει δὲ ἕκαστος

77. The distinguishing feature that makes man a political animal as

differentiated from animals is his ability for speech, but this procreative/social

nature is prior to that.

Death Hovers 85

παίδων ἠδ᾽ ἀλόχων, 78 οὐδ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἀλέγουσιν.

[They have] neither assemblies for counseling nor laws,

but they dwell on the peaks of high mountains in hollow

caverns; each one gives law to his children and wives, not

having regard for one another. (Homer, Odyssey, IX.112–115)

Importantly, though, this passage describes a proto-legal society,

one in which its inhabitants have not created the πόλις

that the prior two philosophers have described. 79

This view of marriage, as a way to hold off mortality, offers

readers a view as to why tragic figures like Persephone—the

bride of Death—held such weight. It also points to a larger

sort of immortality that laws at the foundation of the πόλις

point toward. Procreation in marriage specifically is useful to

the state not only because of the immortality of its individual

citizens. If the reason behind a marital law were merely the immortality

of each individual man, the natural response would

be promiscuity, not marriage. In fact, promiscuous procreation

would be more advantageous for a πόλις to sustain itself

through new citizens. Instead, these stories and this philosophy

point to an immortality of the state itself through ideally

stable institutions like marriage.

For the πόλις itself to thwart death, it must sometimes precariously

allow its citizens to balance their roles as public and private

actors. Antigone demonstrates this tension between the

public and the private through Haimon and his relationships

with Kreon and Antigone. This tension will always be present

in tales of marriage and death as their ceremonies mark a collision

between a private, familial relationship and public consequences.

This becomes clear in the other tragic works as well,

as the effect of Persephone’s intimate relationships with Hades

and her mother ripples out to the whole world in the form

of seasons. This is even more obvious in the Aeneid, as Dido,

the queen of her state, kills both her reputation through her

half-marriage to Aeneas and herself through her subsequent

78. This literally means “bed partner,” a different word from the

descriptor applied to Persephone, but raising a similar question

about legitimacy. Ἄλοχος can also mean “unwed woman.” Perhaps

this points to another reinforcement that marriage fundamentally

changes its character when outside of society.

79. This is not necessarily Homer’s intention with this passage, but I

think it is Aristotle’s purpose in including a shortened version of it in

Politics 1252b16–28.

86 Death Hovers

death for the love of Aeneas.

The tragedy at the heart of marital death and deadly marriage

narratives demonstrates to the readers that the aim of

marriage is not merely the individual immortality of its participants

through procreation. Instead, marriage aims at a much

larger immortality, that of the state. This plays out in two ways

as the state both requires marriage both for the procreation

of new citizens and the stability of institutions through consistent

marital bonds. The consequences when lacking these

necessities are negatively demonstrated in the prior tragic narratives.

Plato and Aristotle will both quietly 80 go on to move

toward this interpretation, immortality of the state, as they

admit that the pitch toward marriage with personal immortality

acts as a compelling narrative to habituate citizens into

virtuous action. Essentially, since men are not considered virtuous

enough to follow laws independent of personal incentive,

marriage superficially acts as a method of personal immortality

while, in reality, contributing to the immortality of

the community and state as a whole.

CONCLUSION

In the weddings of 5th century Athenian women, prior to the

ceremony, the bride would be ritually washed by an attendant

(νυμφεύτρια) using a vase called a λουτροφόρος. Often these vases

were decorated with scenes from the bridal preparation

and then given as wedding gifts memorializing the day. 81

At the graves of 5th century Athenian women, archeologists

have also found λουτροφόροι. However, iInstead of showing

her attendants bathing her, the scenes on these λουτροφόροι

showed women mourning the young girl. The necks of

these grave vases often had the deceased herself holding a

λουτροφόρος. There, she would give herself the marital bath she

never received, washing her corpse as Dido did, preparing herself

for death.

Each day, thousands of these ancient women made the journey

to their new homes: either their husbands’ houses or their

graves. Her family, friends, and fellow citizens sang songs of

celebration or lament. Perhaps these ceremonies felt personal

and intimate, but their consequences rippled out into

80. This interpretation is present in Leo Strauss’ The Argument and

Action of Plato’s Laws (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975).

81. Rehm, 30.

Death Hovers 87

the larger community. In the children whose future their parents

would never see, part of the parents lived on. Even more

broadly, becoming part of a social structure larger than oneself

ensured a sort of legacy. An individual may die, but the

beliefs they held, the institutions in which they participated,

shaped and were shaped by them. Through marriage, both individuals

and states got to scratch the surface at something

arcane, something tragic poets and philosophers knew to be

true: they got to grasp at immortality.

88 Death Hovers

WORKS CITED

Anonymous. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica. Edited and

translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd.,

1914.

Aristotle. Politica. Edited by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon

Press, 1957.

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1985.

Foley, Helene. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1994.

Sophocles. Antigone. Edited by Mark Griffith. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Hersch, Karen. The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in

Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Moorton, Richard F. “The Pivoting Metaphor in Vergil’s Story

of Dido.” The Classical World 83, no. 3 (January–February,

1990). The Johns Hopkins University Press. JSTOR.

Plato. Platonis Opera. Edited by John Burnet. Oxford: Oxford


Rehm, Rush. Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and

Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy. Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1994.

Scott, Mary. “Some Greek Terms in Homer Suggesting

Non-Competitive Attitudes.” Acta Classica 24 (1981). Classical

Association of South Africa. JSTOR.

Strauss, Leo. The Argument and Action of Plato’s ‘Laws.’ Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1975.

Vergil. ‘Bucolics,’ ‘Aeneid,’ and ‘Georgics’ Of Vergil. Edited by J.

B. Greenough. Boston: Ginn & Co, 1900.

Death Hovers 89

THE ENCHANTING MAENADS1A EURIPIDEAN EPODE

ELIAS FUCHSEL, TRANSLATOR

AMHERST COLLEGE

When I read the Greek lines, I imagined myself participating

in a Bacchic dance—happy with wine,

dancing round and round, uninhibited. In this

translation, I have attempted to capture that feeling of

lightheaded, Dionysiac celebration. Where possible, I

tried to mimic how Dodds has laid out the Greek lines

on the page, but often I found it necessary to deviate

from him in order to achieve a more Bacchic air to the

English translation.

p. 90 1

BACCHAE 135–167

When a maenad whirls too many times and falls

from our Bacchic dance, she drops to the mountain ground

in a sweet ecstasy.

Cloaked in the holy fawnskin, we thirst

after goat-blood—what a blessing to feast on raw flesh! We are

thrown from the Lydian mountains to the Phyrigian,

and to our leader Bromius, we cry out—

Euhoi!

ἡδὺς ἐν ὄρεσιν, ὅταν ἐκ θιάσων δρομαίων

πέσῃ πεδόσε, νεβρίδος

ἔχων ἱερὸν ἐνδυτόν, ἀγρεύων

αἷμα τραγοκτόνον, ὠμοφάγον χάριν, ἱέμενος

ἐς ὄρεα Φρύγια, Λύδιʼ, ὁ δʼ ἔξαρχος Βρόμιος,

εὐοἷ.

The land beneath our feet flows with milk—

it flows with wine!—

oh! it is the nectar of bees!

As if Syrian frankincense,

Bacchus holds up a torch of burning pine-wood;

From this thyrsus, smoke trails behind him

when he runs and dances along with us.

When wanderers pass by, he rouses them into anger

by hurling his Bacchic cries at them

and throwing his delicate curls up into the aether.

ῥεῖ δὲ γάλακτι πέδον, ῥεῖ δʼ οἴνῳ, ῥεῖ δὲ μελισσᾶν

νέκταρι.

Συρίας δʼ ὡς λιβάνου καπνὸν

ὁ Βακχεὺς ἀνέχων

πυρσώδη φλόγα πεύκας

ἐκ νάρθηκος ἀίσσει

δρόμῳ καὶ χοροῖσιν

πλανάτας ἐρεθίζων

ἰαχαῖς τʼ ἀναπάλλων,

τρυφερόν <τε> πλόκαμον εἰς αἰθέρα ῥίπτων.

p. 91 1

His Bacchic cries are thus:

Come, my Bacchants!

Come!

Celebrate Dionysus with your castanets

forged from the gold of Tmolus!

Sing and dance with me!

Beat your drums until they roar,

and praise the Euhoian god

with your own Euhoian cheers!

Let out your shouts with a Phrygian battle cry,

and when the holy-sounding lute roars out in its holy play,

join together in a frenzy in the mountains—

oh! the mountains!

Like a foal out to graze with its mother, you Bacchae will be thus

delighted,

leading your swift limbs in a leap!

ἅμα δʼ εὐάσμασι τοιάδʼ ἐπιβρέμει·

Ὦ ἴτε βάκχαι,

[ὦ] ἴτε βάκχαι,

Τμώλου χρυσορόου χλιδᾷ

μέλπετε τὸν Διόνυσον

βαρυβρόμων ὑπὸ τυμπάνων,

εὔια τὸν εὔιον ἀγαλλόμεναι θεὸν

ἐν Φρυγίαισι βοαῖς ἐνοπαῖσί τε,

λωτὸς ὅταν εὐκέλαδος

ἱερὸς ἱερὰ παίγματα βρέμῃ, σύνοχα

φοιτάσιν εἰς ὄρος εἰς ὄρος· ἡδομένα

δʼ ἄρα, πῶλος ὅπως ἅμα ματέρι

φορβάδι, κῶλον ἄγει ταχύπουν σκιρτήμασι βάκχα.

EDITION

Euripides. Bacchae. Edited by E.R. Dodds. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1960.

p. 92

Animus Classics Journal, Volume 4, Issue 1

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