Achilles in Love
Achilles in Love
MARCO FANTUZZI
1
3
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# Marco Fantuzzi 2012
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Foreword
1
These hints at the history of opera are totally dependent on chap. 1 in Heslin
(2005).
vi Foreword
hints it did include. The Epic Cycle must have narrated some of them
to some extent, even to the point that a sort of debate developed in the
Aethiopis on their epic propriety. Finally, tragedy and erotic poetry
indulged in (re-)constructing Achilles’ erotic passions with no cen-
sorious stance at all. But reactions of indignation at Achilles’ erotic
debauchery and attempts to counter this with a dignified restoration
of his heroism never stopped, at least from the Hellenistic age on-
wards, both in the interpretation of existing texts and in the mytho-
poiesis of new texts.
This book, then, is an attempt at a diachronic account of how these
various views about Achilles’ love life evolved in literary narratives
from Homer to Statius as they moved from generation to generation,
author to author, and genre to genre. I have concentrated my atten-
tion on only some of these loves: Deidameia, Briseis, Patroclus,
Penthesileia. In fact, only in these cases was the number of literary
or iconographical texts significant enough to let me (try to) appreciate
the dynamics of the different reactions by different authors and
genres to the narratives of Achilles’ loves.
The ÆYØ behind the research underlying this book was the
unpublished colloquium ‘Greek Poetry in Italy’ which A. Sens and
J. Osgood organized in July 2007 at the Georgetown University
campus in Fiesole. Some points of the ‘Briseis’ chapter constituted
an invited paper (unpublished) given at the Classics Department
of the University of Cincinnati in the autumn of 2010. Parts of the
section ‘Achilles at Scyros’ were presented at the fifth ‘Trends
in Classics’ conference of the University of Thessaloniki on ‘Encoun-
ters, Interactions and Transformations in Latin Literature’, May
2011, and at the Zurich conference on ‘Das Epyllion: Gattung
ohne Geschichte?’, July 2009, and will be published in the relevant
proceedings.2
At a time when the funding cuts for humanistic research have made it
more and more difficult for many university libraries in many coun-
tries (first of all in the country where I was born) to keep their
2
English translations of Greek and Latin texts are from the Loeb Classical Library,
where available, unless it is otherwise stated. Translations from the Iliad are by
M. Hammond (Harmondsworth and New York, 1987). Translations of the Homeric
scholia are my own.
Most abbreviations comply with the practice of The Oxford Classical Dictionary,
but some reflect my idiosyncratic preference.
Foreword vii
collections up to date, I had the privilege of writing most of the
chapters of this book in some of the world’s greatest specialized
libraries of classical studies, and in the context of their stimulating
scholarly environments: the Classical Faculty Library and the Uni-
versity Library of the University of Cambridge; the Library of the
Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies at Washington, DC; Butler
Library of Columbia University; and the Library of the Department
of Classics at the University of Cincinnati. Without these institutions,
this book would perhaps have been born anyway, but it would have
undergone a much more difficult gestation.
This book also profited from the generous advice of several friends or
colleagues (in most cases both friends and colleagues). S. Goldhill,
P. Hardie, R. Hunter, D. Steiner, and Gareth Williams read either
the whole of it, or most of it. A. Barchiesi, F. Budelmann, C. Dué,
H. Foley, K. Gutzwiller, D. Konstan, M. Labate, C. McNelis, G. Nagy,
R. Osborne, L. Pagani, T. Papanghelis, D. Poli, L. Prauscello,
A. Rengakos, G. Rosati, R. M. Rosen, A. Shapiro, D. Sider,
M. Squire, Richard Thomas, C. Tsagalis, K. Volk contributed invalu-
able suggestions to single parts or points. The Press’s anonymous
readers made most valuable suggestions in their initial reports and
above all helped me shape the material they had read into a proper
book.
M. Hanses, D. Ratzan, and A. Uhlig joined forces to make my
English more palatable—at the beginning it was, I fear, much less
inviting—and also often improved the clarity of my arguments. At the
end of the gestation of this book many surviving oddities of all sorts
were wiped out by the unyielding eyes of the Press’s copy-editor,
Heather Watson, and proofreader, Miranda Bethell, whose skills
proved to be far beyond the best hopes an author may conceive.
Financial support from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Columbia
University, NY, contributed to cover the cost of the revision(s). But
the debt I owe all of my helpers for the patience with which they
coped with the impossible deadlines I kept setting for myself and for
them will remain unpaid.
I thank them all. I would also like to thank in particular my wife
Maria, whose love, patience, and scholarly advice contributed sub-
stantially to the fulfilment of the project of this book. And I dedicate
this book to the memory of my mother Agata, self-effacing heroine of
day-to-day hard work and love for me.
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Contents
List of Plates xi
1. Introduction 1
Homer: an encyclopedia of love? 1
Achilles and the crossing of boundaries—of
heroism, and of the epic genre 6
Perceptions of (Achilles’) love 13
2. Deidameia 21
Epic silence 21
Classical texts and paintings, and the first critics 29
Achilles the coward lover 38
Achilles makes love, not war 43
Achilles (at Scyros) and the issue of character consistency 61
Ovid as a champion of the character consistency
of Achilles? 65
Statius and the dignification of Achilles at Scyros 71
Effeminacy, passion, and the melancholy of
decisions 89
3. Briseis 99
Homer’s inexplicitness 99
Passion or rhetorical self-defence? 109
Briseis çºÆæ 116
Another opinion about Achilles and Briseis 123
Ovid’s Briseis far beyond matrimonial hopes,
and icy Achilles 128
Briseis’ pessimism destabilizes elegy 133
But at least someone did believe that Achilles
loved Briseis 143
The fortunes of elegiac Achilles 157
Translating but eroticizing the Iliad 173
The tears of Briseis 175
4. Comrades in Love 187
Epic friendships 187
x Contents
‘And Patroclus complied with his dear friend’ 191
Patroclus versus Briseis 198
Patroclus the ‘second self ’ of Achilles 202
Tragic eros 215
Classifying the unlabelled 226
The ancient homo-scepticals 232
Virgil and the fortunate losers: in the steps of
Achilles/Patroclus and Odysseus/Diomedes 235
Fortunati ambo and amor pius 246
Athis and Lycabas, Hopleus and Dymas 257
5. Flirting with the Enemy 267
‘The best of the Achaeans’ is impeached 267
Penthesileia between Propertius (Virgil) and Nonnus 279
Introduction
1 2
Ion 531c–d, Resp. 599b–600a. Trans. by M. B. Trapp.
3
Formulaic in Homer: Il. 5.304 etc.
2 Introduction
emotional’ (l æ ŒÆd KÆŁ) Achilles;4 licentious love is depicted
through the portrait of Paris in Book 3; ‘just and mutual love’ in the
exchange between Hector and Andromache in Book 6; love that is
‘happy to use the ground for a bed (åÆÆØ Å æø)’ in the scene of
seduction between Hera and Zeus in Book 14; ‘manly love’ in the case
of Achilles and Patroclus—a love ‘won by long toil and preserved till
death, between two equally young, handsome, and temperate, teacher
and pupil; one grieves and the other consoles; one sings and the other
listens’ (ŒÆd e Iæ E Kd HØ —ÆæŒºøØ, e øØ ŒÅe ŒÆd
åæøØ, ŒÆd 忨 ŁÆ ı æ æå , ø ŒÆd ŒÆºH Iæø
ŒÆd øæø, F b ÆØ , F b ÆØ ıı. › b
¼åŁ ÆØ, › b ÆæÆıŁ EÆØ· › b ¼Ø Ø, › b IŒæAÆØ). And in the
end it is a ‘lover’s ploy (KæøØŒ)’ through which Patroclus persuades
Achilles to let him enter the battlefield with his armour.
Together with Or. 18, some other orations by Maximus are con-
cerned with exploring the correct parameters of an individual’s social
behaviour, and the philosopher pursues this aim by focusing on the
paradigmatic, albeit controversial and often criticized figure of
Socrates. In the oration from which we have quoted, Maximus tries
to demonstrate that there was nothing sick or dangerous in Socrates’
frequent indulgence in the feeling of love. And to validate Socrates’
outstanding and unimpeachable morality, Maximus offers as evi-
dence the moral authority of other figures who shared Socrates’
interest in the subject of love. Homer is the first example chosen by
Maximus, and he is followed (} 9) by Sappho, Anacreon, and a brief
hint at Hesiod’s Muses, not without a preterition of Archilochus’ too
hubristic idea of love.
Maximus’ understanding of the Iliad as the primary ‘erotic’ text of
Greek literature is quite an over-interpretation. There is, in fact, far
less explicitly erotic content in the poem than one might imagine.
Achilles offers only a few sentimental words about his lost war-bride
Briseis in comparison to his much more substantial and obsessive
complaints about the slight to his Ø following her abduction by
Agamemnon—and the ancients suspected even these few romantic
words to be insincere and rhetorical, as we shall see. Similarly, an
4
This interpretation of the fight of the two Iliadic leaders is frequently attested in
Latin culture of the 1st centuries bc and ad: see below, pp. 172–5. The faults and
responsibilities of the two men are presented in a much more balanced fashion within
the Iliad itself: cf. below, pp. 100–2.
Introduction 3
objective reading of the Iliad offers no explicit evidence that Achilles
and Patroclus were bound by an erotic bond, or were anything more
than exemplary good friends. An erotic interpretation of the Iliad—
however philologically inappropriate it might be—can be explained
in historical terms as the effect of a perspective that merged the actual
text of the Homeric poem with its eroticized reinterpretations. In fact,
as I will show in the following pages, post-Homeric literary rework-
ings of the life of Achilles often fictionalized from scratch, or drew
from non-Iliadic traditions, episodes of an erotic life of Achilles for
which very scanty information, if any, was provided by Homeric epic.
We cannot know whether the poets of the oral tradition underlying
the Iliad were aware of these erotic exploits of Achilles. They may
have been entirely unaware of a series of erotic Achilles-myths that
might have emerged only after the text of the Iliad was fixed, or they
might have left these details untold, as they fell outside the poetics of
the martial epos.
To offer an example of what we mean we may look to the youthful
erotic adventures of Achilles on the island of Scyros. The Iliad tells us
only that Achilles had conquered Scyros and that he had a son
growing up there (details below). Did Homer himself know only
these details about Achilles’ time on the island, or did he know of
the whole version of Achilles’ cross-dressing at Scyros and his love for
Deidameia, but passed over this story, opting rather to relate the more
warlike account of the conquest? Either option is equally plausible,
but I have to admit that I favour the latter hypothesis, as I surmise
that sexual life, or the experience of love, would perhaps have repre-
sented something far too human and commonplace, to be integrated
into the Iliadic poetics of the ‘absolute past’, and besides—from the
viewpoint of the ‘absolute past’—something not relevant enough to
the specific values and concern prevailing in the Iliad (war, and war-
won glory). In other words, love was not distant enough from the
shared and common humanity of everyday life and it thus under-
mined the superior detachment of the heroes of epic; it threatened to
devalue their achievements and to contribute to an undue ‘noveliza-
tion’ or ‘familiarization’ of epos.5 After all, as we shall see below,
already in the Aethiopis the criticism of Achilles’ love for Penthesileia
(whichever reasons this criticism adduced) problematized the role of
5
The terminology is from Mikhail M. Bakhtin (1981) 15–17.
4 Introduction
love and women in epic. In my opinion, this Cyclic poem already
included the motif of ‘surprise’ at the role of sex and females in actual
epic, which was worked out in the system of literary genres in Rome
and canonized for the woman a kind of ‘theoretical status as
an ambusher of the purity of epic’.6
If the larger question of Homer’s ignorance or knowledge of an
erotic tradition of Achilles’ life will be left unanswered, the problem of
Homer’s various levels of reticence about the love life of Achilles in
the Iliad will be touched upon in this study. My central focus will be,
in fact, on how Achilles’ love stories were revealed and expanded, or
elided and concealed, in the many forms of post-Homeric interpreta-
tions and continuations of Homer to be found in literary texts and
also in iconography (as far as iconography parallels, explains, or is
explained by literary texts). I shall trace these tales of Achilles in love
down to the Latin poets of the first centuries bc and ad, and the Ilias
Latina, because the first substantial extant texts to articulate romantic
‘novels’ of Achilles’ private life (featuring Achilles and Deidameia,
Achilles and Briseis, Achilles and Patroclus, or Achilles and Penthe-
sileia) date exactly from this time and place. References to the fortune
of these stories in both poets and prose-writers of the imperial age will
also be frequent, but certainly not exhaustive; they only show the
main directions of the narrative traditions or the longue durée of
certain motifs inherent in Achilles’ loves.
I should make clear from the outset that this volume is not, and was
never intended to be, a section in an encyclopedia of mythology, or in
any way a systematic analysis of the myths connected to Achilles’
erotic life. My main interest in the following pages, as stated in
the title, focuses on intertextuality. This means that I have explored
the reciprocal interactions between the various post-Iliadic authors
(and literary genres) that contributed more or less detailed episodes
concerning Achilles’ private life, or between them and the pictorial
narratives of paintings and sculptures. In particular, I have paid
special attention to their various strategies for responding to the
noisy silence of the Iliad, the main common model for most of
them, and a convenient foil for all of them.
This also means I have not dealt systematically with those love
stories which found few or no detailed literary treatments, and are
6
Hinds (2000) 223.
Introduction 5
known to us only from reports of mythographers or mythographical
notes in other prose-writers, or from iconography with no detailed
literary parallels: Troilus, Polyxena, Iphigeneia and Helen before and
after death, and Medea after death in the Island of Leuce. This is due
to my prioritizing the dynamics of literary genres both in the (re-)
fictionalization and in the evaluation of Achilles’ erotic life.
However, lest I be accused of being too biased in favour of poetry
and its own special mythopoiesis, I have devoted extensive attention
to Homeric scholarship. I share in fact the widespread opinion that,
from at least the Hellenistic age onwards, both the individual inter-
pretations and interpretative trends of Homeric scholars were of the
greatest relevance to the way Homer’s texts were read, alluded to, or
rewritten by later authors (though this is not the same as saying that
there was slavish adherence to all scholarly positions). It is, for
instance, difficult to escape the impression that the opposition
drawn in Ovid’s Her. 3 between a passionate Briseis and a chilly
Achilles presupposes the construction by the exegetical class of
Homeric scholia (possibly reflecting at least in part the thought of
Hellenistic commentators) of the figure of Briseis as ‘husband-loving’
and their corresponding reservations about Achilles’ warmest expres-
sions of love for Briseis. We can see a certain scholarly bias in the
cooling of Achilles’ feelings for Briseis under the rather one-dimen-
sional gaze of these scholia, an interpretation ventured without en-
ough consideration for the passion that his words possibly express, at
least at a surface level. We can also smile, with a feeling of scholarly
superiority, at the obstinacy with which the Hellenistic scholars
suspected those few lines of the Iliad where Homer seemed to come
all too close to speaking of an erotic connection between Achilles and
Patroclus.7 This erasure of the Iliad’s few moments of erotic content
will hopefully never be recommended as a paradigm of sound method
in a handbook of textual criticism. And yet, in terms of literary
criticism, it reveals the sound perception of the Hellenistic scholars
that the poetics of the martial epos of the Iliad privileged as much as it
could the seriousness and greatness of its heroes, above all of Achilles,
‘the best of the Achaeans’. In the context of a broader appreciation for
what the scholiasts call the æ of heroic behaviour, the text of the
poem itself indeed allotted only a limited space to the erotic
7
See below, pp. 208–15.
6 Introduction
components of its heroes’ lives and none whatsoever to the homo-
sexual dimension.8 In other words, this ‘philological mistake’ of the
Hellenistic interpreters may be understood as a reaction—substan-
tially healthy, but more Catholic than the Pope—to what we have
called, in Bakhtin’s terms, the ‘familiarization’ of the epic characters
in general and in particular the eroticizing approaches applied to
Homer by various post-Iliadic authors and genres. As such, this
reductive ‘mistake’ represents yet another invaluable chapter in the
story of the reception of Achilles’ loves—the other side of the coin, so
to speak, that responds and stands in opposition to the magnification
of eros practised by the rereading of Homer in erotic poetry.
8
See below, pp. 189–90.
Introduction 7
‘for love of Polyxena’ (amore Polixenae) and is killed as it were
because of lust, through his heel (‘for love of Polyxena’, because he
was ambushed in the night and at the place he expected to marry her:
see below). Of course one might be permitted to smile at the way
Fulgentius sees Achilles’ indulgence in lust as the effect of the in-
complete immersion in the waters of the Styx, and at his attempt to
explain it in pseudo-medical terms; or at the violence he does to the
etymology of poor Lycomedes’ name. But Fulgentius had no copy-
right on the idea that Achilles was a ‘perfect’ hero, secure ‘against
almost all trials’, except for occasional (and not actually that infre-
quent) episodes of unrestrained surrenders to love: this was the com-
mon opinion among the ancients, whose mythopoiesis also ascribed to
Achilles several other forms of intemperance and excess.
Apart from being attracted to members of both sexes, Achilles’
savagery, for instance, against Troilus or against Hector; his readi-
ness to withdraw from the community of his fellow Greeks and
construct a sort of perfect egoistic micro-society with Patroclus;
the paroxysm of his sorrow for Patroclus, which led him to abstain
from food and thus practically to withdraw from life itself; his
frequent exchanges with his mother and thus indirect access to
Zeus’ power, making the gods his interlocutors despite his mortality;
his cross-dressing at Scyros, which turned out to be an episode of
initiation, and an initiation reasserting his maleness,9 but neverthe-
less served to conceal, almost to erase, this maleness for a while: all
these features make him a perfect paradigm for the transgression of
boundaries, which will feature quite often in the stories of Achilles
surveyed in this book. In some sense, Achilles’ heroic status is
synonymous with his ability to cross over divisions that other men
cannot surmount: human/god, human/beast, male/female, life/death.
Because of the seeming ease and frequency with which Achilles
transgressed these boundaries, and the ability of his own unrest-
rained humanity to exacerbate the polarities which he himself re-
fused to respect, Achilles the perfect/imperfect hero, perhaps more
than other heroes of epic, leads us, and led the ancients, to think
about these boundaries, and therefore to ponder what it means to be
a human, or to be a hero.10
9
As happens frequently with cross-dressing in Greek mythology: see below, p. 93.
10
Van Nortwick (2008) 10.
8 Introduction
From this viewpoint Achilles has much in common with Heracles,
another hero who personifies the most unbeatable ‘disposition to
victory’.11 Unlike Achilles the martial hero, Heracles usually fights
with his bare hands or with the help of blunt devices like the club,
or arms considered less honourable in heroic terms, like the bow, and
his battles are fought with beasts and monstrous antagonists, often
far from any battlefield as traditionally conceived.12 Yet both heroes,
if we consider the endless lists of their victories, share the attribute of
seeming ‘born to kill’ more than any other hero. In fact, even when
they do not kill a foe outright, both consistently display the most
brazen and fierce awareness of their killer’s disposition and of their
unbeatable superiority. For instance, during his long withdrawal from
battle in the Iliad, Achilles does not actively kill anyone. But his
withdrawal is itself nonetheless a manifestation of his fierce anger: a
cruel egotistic decision that causes the death of many of his comrades.
And when he sings sitting beside Patroclus in Iliad 9, in what might
have been a moment of calm diversion, his subject is, most profes-
sionally, the ŒºÆ IæH, the ‘deeds of the heroes’13—he seems to
rest, but as if he were ‘sharpening’ the blade of his weapons.
At the same time, at the margin of what might be called their ‘official
heroic CV’—in the space which will form the core of most narratives
told of the two heroes in non-epic literary genres—both heroes not
infrequently experience the weakness of love, and experience it in the
same extreme, unbounded manner that they bring to their martial
exploits or other heroic deeds.14 Both Achilles and Heracles cross-
dress for a period of their lives for reasons which are totally un-
heroic—Achilles to comply with his mother’s desire to save him from
participating in the war (and then facing death), or, in other versions,
11
Some of the ancients may have fictionalized a liaison between the two. Accord-
ing to the Socratic philosopher Antisthenes (fr. 25 Decleva Caizzi), concerning ‘a boy
educated with Chiron’ Heracles would have commented: ‘in fact he is great and
virtuous and handsome (ªÆ . . . ŒÆº . . . ‰æÆE), and no base lover would have
fallen in love with him’. Impossible to be sure that this boy was Achilles. Antisthenes
certainly spoke of Heracles’ sleeping with Chiron in his cave (fr. 24a), but e.g.
Asclepius, another pupil of Chiron (and mentioned as such together with Achilles
in fr. 24a), is another good candidate for Heracles’ erotic appreciation.
12
An analysis of Ovid’s works illustrating these features of Heracles’ peculiar (pre-
heroic) equipment in Labate (2010) 83–93.
13
See below, pp. 131, 135–6.
14
Cf. Cyrino (1998) 213–14.
Introduction 9
primarily to conquer Deidameia; Heracles during his slavery to
Omphale, which Latin love poets reinterpreted as servitium amoris.
Not only must these heroes renounce their accustomed heroic beha-
viour, but, at least once, they must also give up their very identity as
men! Indomitable heroes like Heracles and Achilles might have been
perfect symbols of the epic world of heroic deeds (martial and other-
wise); and yet, at the same time, these episodes expose a crack in their
usually self-assured attitude, demonstrating the limits of the epic
heroism world-view.15 Achilles’ erotic weakness became a perfect
template to be used again and again in genres such as tragedy and
the various forms of love poetry, where themes of love and passion
were more readily at home than in heroic epic.
Achilles’ temporary erotic compulsions, in particular, offered a
paradigmatic example of the irresistible power of love, since the
hero’s passions stood in stark contrast to the fierce violence by
which his deeds were most regularly characterized, a theme that
recurs throughout the literary doxography of this character, from
Aristotle to Horace. Already in Aristotle, Poet. 1454b14–15, we are
told that Homer made Achilles ‘good’ (IªÆŁ), but at the same time a
Ææ ØªÆ ŒºÅæÅ ‘paradigm of harshness’.16 In another pas-
sage Aristotle seems to suggest the idea that this harshness of Achilles
made his behaviour especially ‘unstable’. The assertion is recorded for
us by the Homeric scholia in their discussion of Achilles’ sudden
anger towards Priam at Il. 24.560–70: although Achilles first offers
warm words to the Trojan king, even comparing him to his own
father Peleus, he reacts with unexpected fury when Priam asks for
the release of Hector’s body. Commenting on this sudden change of
behaviour, T 24.569 quotes Aristotle (fr. 391 Gigon) as an
authority on Achilles’ ethos being especially ‘inconsistent’
(Iƺ). In both this case and in his remarks on 1454b14–15,
it seems to me that Aristotle’s comments on Achilles’ instability
focus on his outbursts of rage—in 1454b14–15 the reference to the
15
On the homosexual love of Heracles for Hylas, which further testifies to the great
hero’s marginal weakness in matters of love, cf. now Heerink (2010).
16
The text of this passage is uncertain, and clear and plausible sense can only be
gained through Lobel’s transposition of the words in the paradosis. The word order of
the manuscripts and the variants IªÆŁH/ª Łø lead one to understand the passage
to mean that the two poets ‘Agathon and Homer’ would have presented Achilles in
this way. But we know of no tragedy by Agathon that could feature Achilles, apart
perhaps from the Telephus.
10 Introduction
ŒºÅæÅ of Achilles is immediately preceded by a remark about
irascible or sluggish characters.17
It is perhaps in Horace that we find the most clear-cut picture of
Achilles’ unfalteringly fierce character and the most adamant oppos-
ition to altering it in any way. In Ars poet. 119–22, at the beginning of
a catalogue of mythological characters, Horace depicts Achilles as
characterized almost exclusively by his singular severity and harsh-
ness of spirit. The passage draws in a number of respects on ideas
similar to those set out by Aristotle in his own Poetics (especially the
discussion of the relationship between new plots and consolidated
myths at 1453b22–5 and 1454b14–15).18 Horace’s list of mythical
figures, which continues from Achilles to Medea ferox invictaque,
Ino flebilis, etc., exemplifies the idea that the consistent representation
of these figures, as expressed in the sum of their literary treatments in
the tradition (fama), should not be altered in the construction of new
plots:
aut famam sequere aut sibi convenientia finge,
scriptor. {honoratum{ si forte reponis Achillem,
impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,
iura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis.
Either follow the tradition when writing, or make up details consistent
with themselves. If, say, you are putting the illustrious (?) Achilles back
on stage, let him be unyielding, wrathful, inexorable, savage, have him
say that by nature laws are not for him, never failing to appeal to a
judgment of arms.19
Despite the fact that Horace speaks of future depictions (reponis) of
Achilles in tragedy (cf. 125 scaenae committis, 129 Iliacum carmen
17
Aristotle advised against close adherence to plots inherited from previous poets
and encouraged a moderate degree of innovation (Poet. 1451b23); on the other hand,
he warned against manipulation of the kernel-episodes of the plots: ‘one cannot break
up the transmitted stories (f b s Ææ غÅı Łı º Ø PŒ Ø)—
I mean e.g. Clytaemnestra’s death at Orestes’ hands, etc.’ (1453b22–5). He also
considered the consistency of a ›Æºe qŁ, or at least the internal consistency of
an inconsistent character, as goals to be pursued by the tragic author: ‘even if the
subject represented is someone inconsistent (Iƺ Ø), and such character (qŁ)
is presupposed, he should still be consistently inconsistent (‹ø ›ÆºH Iƺ
E r ÆØ)’: 1454a26–8. In light of fr. 391 Gigon quoted above, it is perhaps not too
fanciful to suppose that Aristotle had in mind the Achilles of the Iliad when he
considered the possibility of presenting a character ›ÆºH Iƺ.
18
Discussed above, n. 17.
19
Trans. by R. S. Kilpatrick, with modifications.
Introduction 11
deducis in actus), his account of Achilles’ consistently fiery character
disregards the fact that the established versions of Achilles in Greek
tragedy already presented a much more nuanced picture (even a
contradictory one) rather than the fiery and irascible Achilles of the
Iliad.20 Horace’s exclusive focus on the Iliadic Achilles is rooted in the
persistency of his scholastic experience: as Horace admits in Epist.
2.2.41–2 ‘at Rome I had the luck to be bred, and taught how much
Achilles’ wrath had harmed the Greeks (iratus Grais quantum no-
cuisset Achilles)’. It also appears to have guided his depiction of
Achilles elsewhere in his oeuvre. It is Achilles’ fight with Agamemnon
that attracts Horace’s attention in C. 1.15.33–4 and Epist. 1.2.6–16
(see also S. 1.7.11–15 on the hatred between Achilles and Hector), and
his anger over Briseis’ abduction surfaces again in the qualification of
Achilles as insolens at C. 2.4.2–4.21 It is therefore unsurprising that the
aspect of Achilles’ erotic life which features most often in Horace is
the one that involves Achilles’ Iliadic fury and BØ. For Horace,
Achilles remains no less furious a lover than a warrior; Horace thus
aligns his erotic poetry with the position expressed in his literary
criticism, in which Achilles’ character is defined as iracundus, inex-
orabilis, acer.
This Iliadic way of thinking of Achilles was, however, not the only
possible one—and in fact, as we have seen, it was a quite limited
viewpoint in terms of tragedy. Ovid, for instance, perhaps in tune
with his usual deconstruction of the heroic seriousness of many
literary characters of the past, seems to correct/integrate this perspec-
tive (if not specifically Horace’s passage in Ars poet. 119–22), when he
observes that some author(s) preferred to feminize Achilles. In Trist.
2.409–12 Ovid, while wondering why to be an erotic poet was deemed
to be scandalous in his case, whereas it had not been a crime for
others, speaks of the relevance of the erotic element in drama, and
concludes with the following: nec nocet auctori mollem qui fecit
Achillem | infregisse suis fortia facta modis ‘and it does not harm the
author who made Achilles soft that he weakened Achilles’ strong
20
In particular the Myrmidons, the first tragedy of Aeschylus’ Iliadic trilogy, staged
Achilles’ romantic passion for Patroclus, untold or ignored in the Iliad (see below,
pp. 215–22), and Euripides’ Scyrioi had told of the love story of Achilles at Scyros—a
story which has been supposed to be the plot for Livius Andronicus’ tragedy Achilles
(cf. Bickel 1937; Fantuzzi forthcoming) and certainly was mentioned by Horace
himself at C. 1.8.13–16 discussed below, pp. 61–2.
21
See below, p. 157 n. 138.
12 Introduction
deeds with his metres’.22 The language of Ovid is especially strong
(infregisse . . . ), because effeminizing a character with a specific mili-
tary talent could be felt as especially destructive of his identity in
Rome, where the idea of an effeminate male warrior was almost
paradoxical, and homosexuality was repressed among the soldiers.23
In the light of the focus of Trist. 2.409–10, which is satyr-drama, it has
often been assumed that Ovid points here to Sophocles’ satyr-play
The Lovers of Achilles; 24 other candidates have been Aeschylus’ Myr-
midons or a lost Roman tragedy. In the latter case Ovid would make
room for a much more varied characterization of Achilles in tragedy
than the one which Horace was ready to allow; however, it is unlikely
that Ovid returns to tragedy after emphatically concluding the tragic
section at 2.407–8.25 Ovid may also perhaps refer here to erotic
narratives of Achilles at Scyros,26 after concluding with drama and
before moving on to the fabula Milesia.27
There is no doubt that erotic poets, as we shall see, were keen to
completely disentangle Achilles’ love stories and his Iliadic fury and
BØ. Instead of approaching Achilles’ love for Briseis from an Iliadic
perspective, elegiac Propertius and Ovid explored those elements of
Achilles’ love life that went untold in the Iliad, thus transforming
Achilles’ anger for Briseis’ abduction and his slighted Ø into a love
story between the two—not without some help from Homeric inter-
preters. Their picture of Achilles the lover was excavated from the
margins of pre- and post-Iliadic tales of the hero’s love life, themes
which might or might not have emerged already in the Cypria or the
Aethiopis, but which had become central concerns of the literary and
iconographic treatment of Achilles from the sixth century onwards.
The story of how these accounts of Achilles’ loves developed in the
centuries between Homer and the Latin elegiac poets of the first
22
Trans. by J. Ingleheart.
23
Cf. McGinn (1998) 40 and Ingleheart (2010) 324, with bibliography.
24
On this play see below, pp. 16–17.
25
Cf. Ingleheart (2010) 324.
26
Cf. Rosati (1994) 6–7 n. 4.
27
Juvenal 1.1.163 nulli gravis est percussus Achilles ‘nor is there any problem in
killing Achilles’ (within a list of three hackneyed poetic themes in lines 162–4) may
offer another reference to literary treatments of Achilles’ exposure at Scyros, if we
accept the emendation of percussus to excussus ‘exposed’ suggested by Nisbet (1988)
and defended by Cameron (2009). The way the Achilles motif is introduced in
Juvenal—nulli gravis est—sounds similar to Ovid’s nec nocet auctori: if excussus really
was the text of Juvenal, we might think of an allusion.
Introduction 13
century bc is in fact one of extreme complexity, and it is made even
more disorientating for the modern scholar because of the poor
preservation of the tragic and Hellenistic texts which fictionalized
or retold them. To reconstruct both the diachrony and the genre-
constraints of the multilayered interpretation of Achilles’ loves will
be one of the central tasks I shall attempt on the following pages, so
let me begin by presenting a brief chronological overview of these
developments.
The story of Achilles’ loves would seem to begin with the lost poems
of the Epic Cycle. Unfortunately, the handful of fragments and the
brief summaries of the Epic Cycle offered by Proclus give us little
indication of how they characterized the erotic exploits of ‘the best of
the Achaeans’. Certainly the Aethiopis treated Achilles’ love at first
sight for the Amazon, Penthesileia, in an episode of some length.
By contrast, as I shall try to argue, it does not seem that the Cypria or
the Little Iliad, which dealt with the landing of Achilles on Scyros,
spoke of the hero’s cross-dressing or of any romantic story between
him and Deidameia. However, according to Proclus’ summary, the
Cypria gave some space to the episode of Achilles’ ‘wish to see’ Helen,
when Thetis and Aphrodite ‘brought the two of them together
( ıªÆª ÆPf N e ÆP); and then, when the Achaeans are
eager to return home, Achilles holds them back ( r Æ I E
‰æÅı f 寨f åØºº f ŒÆå Ø)’. This encounter may
have been a ‘compensation’ for the fact that because of his young age
Achilles originally did not belong to the numerous group of Helen’s
suitors (Odysseus, Ajax, Protesilaus, etc.),28 and therefore was not
involved in the oath of exacting punishment from whoever carried off
Helen by force, which—at least according to Hesiod—Tyndareus
compelled all her suitors to swear.29 Through this encounter Achilles
28
As remarked by Hes. fr. 204.78–92. Possibly in order to ‘normalize’ (Cingano
(2010) 82) Achilles’ participation in the war, in another, probably later, version he was
included among the suitors of Helen: see e.g. Eur. Hel. 99.
29
Cf. again Hes. fr. 204.78–87; Stesich. PMGF 190; Eur. Iph. Aul. 57–65, etc. The
obligation of the suitors is never mentioned in the Iliad and in the summary of the
Cypria, though Odysseus’ feigned madness to refrain from participating in the war
14 Introduction
may have found the motivation to participate in the war of Troy, that
otherwise would have been less cogent, as he was not under this
oath.30 Was any connection developed in the Cypria between this
first contact between the two and Achilles’ initiative to prevent the
Greeks from returning home? In that case, Helen would turn out to
have triggered the war at Troy not once but twice. But these questions
remain without an answer for us, as no other source informs us about
this encounter, and r Æ, the adverb which in Proclus connects
the encounter and Achilles’ intervention against the embarkment,
probably points to sequence in time rather than consequentiality.31
As for Iphigeneia, whom some sources prefer to Deidameia as the
mother of Achilles’ son Neoptolemus, the Cypria seems only to make
mention of Agamemnon’s ruse of offering her in marriage to Achilles
in order to lure her to Aulis—whether this poem also spoke of love
between the two (as Lycophron will do, see below), we do not know.
In the Cypria we are also told that Achilles killed Troilus, but not a
word is said in Proclus’ summary about Achilles’ attraction to the
young boy (the youngest child of Priam). Furthermore, the summa-
ries of the Cypria and the Aethiopis make no mention of Achilles’
flirtation with another enemy, Polyxena, the sister of Troilus, or of the
fact (also narrated by Lycophron) that Paris would have killed
Achilles near the temple of Thymbraian Apollo, where Achilles
believed he was going to marry Polyxena. In particular, if we trust
Eur. Hec. 41 (PEG 34), the Cypria presented Polyxena’s death as the
consequence of the wounds inflicted by Odysseus and Diomedes
during the sack of Troy.32 However, from the mention of the sacrifice
of Polyxena on the tomb of Achilles in the summary of the Iliou persis
(PEG p. 89), it has often been assumed that this sacrifice presupposes
(Cypria) may lead us to suppose that he was under some commitment to Menelaus:
Gantz (1993) 565.
30
See most recently on this point Cingano (2010) 82–3.
31
It is tempting, though adventurous, to suppose that these events duplicate the
mutiny of Iliad 2 and Odysseus’ intervention to check it, but with a ‘romantic and un-
Homeric’ motivation: ‘the army must stay at Troy because Achilles has seen the
beauty of Helen’: Griffin (1977) 44.
32
The fact that we would then have to suppose that the Cypria included a late
event of the war should not be a sufficient reason to doubt the scholion. It may
certainly have been a parenthetical anticipation, connected, for instance, to the
narrative of Troilus’ death, as archaic iconography often depicts Achilles ambushing
or pursuing Troilus who is in the company of his sister Polyxena, and in some vases of
the early 5th cent. only Achilles and Polyxena are shown: Robertson (1990) 64–7.
Introduction 15
some privileged relation between Achilles and Polyxena. But—
although the belief in a liaison between Achilles and Polyxena
seems most probably archaic33—it remains rather uncertain
whether the author of the Iliou persis had already spoken of an
erotic relation. Achilles’ demand for the sacrifice of Polyxena
might not have been rooted at all in a previous feeling of love for
her: he may simply have had a special claim on Polyxena as the last
surviving virgin of the royal house of Priam (see already Agamem-
non in Il. 9.139–40), and he could not otherwise avail himself of this
part of his pick from the Trojan booty because of his death; hence
Polyxena’s sacrifice.34 The erotic implications of the sacrifice would
have been a rationalistic addition—possibly of the Hellenistic age
(Lycophron, first of all) or even of a later time, if Lycophron’s
emphasis on the slain Polyxena as bride of Achilles still reflects
only the widespread topos considering women who died before
being able to marry as brides of Hades.35
Lyric poets offer somewhat more generous hints of an appreciation
for Achilles’ erotic side. Ibycus’ reference to Troilus in PMGF S224.7–8
and S151.41–5 may well have alluded to Achilles’ attraction to the boy,
who is called Ł E Y Œ[ º ‘patterned on the gods’ (clearly in terms of
beauty) and _distinguished
_ __ for his Kæ Æ æç ‘loveliness of
form’ —a few of the most frequent iconographical representations of
36
33
Cf. Burgess (2009) 139–40 n. 27.
34
Cf. Jouan (1966) 370–1; King (1987) 184–95.
35
Cf. King (1987) 185–8. On this topos, see below, p. 217. K. C. King pointed to the
original Dares Phrygius in Greek (end of the 1st cent. or 2nd cent. ad) as the first text
which fictionalized the love story of Achilles and Polyxena: there Achilles tells Hecuba
that he would abandon the war and go home if she were to give him Polyxena as a
wife, and actually does go on to refuse to participate in the war because of his promise
to Hecuba and because of his love for Polyxena (certe se minus pugnaturum eo quod
Polyxenam valde amabat, 30); his death in the temple of Apollo is also described as an
ambush organized by Hecuba (34). From analogies between Philostr. Her. 51, Dictys,
and what we know of the plot of the lost tragedy Hectoros lytra of Dionysius I of
Syracuse, Grosshardt (2005) speculates that Dionysius would have been the first to
fictionalize the connection between Achilles’ love for Polyxena and his death in the
temple of Apollo.
36
Cf. most recently Cavallini (1994) 39–42 and Jenner (1998).
37
Cf. Zindel (1974) 40–71, 75–80; Boitani (1989) 16–18; Robertson (1990) 67.
16 Introduction
‘beautiful knees’ with some obvious eroticism.38 Stesichorus (PMGF
S135) and more certainly Ibycus (PMGF 307) appear to have spoken of
Polyxena—though for their fragments, as well as for the Iliou persis (see
above), it is impossible to ascertain whether an erotic interpretation was
involved. And both Ibycus (PMGF 291) and Simonides (PMG 558)
make mention of Achilles’ marriage to Medea in the Elysion.
But it is the tragedians of the fifth century, with their keen interest
in exploring passions and, more specifically, the passion of love, who
most often depicted Achilles’ erotic desire and his frequent sufferings
as a ‘victim’ of love. Phrynichus presented Troilus in clearly eroticized
language (TrGF i.3F13; the title of the play remains unknown),39 and
Sophocles wrote both a Troilus and a Polyxena. Aeschylus wrote
Myrmidons, dramatizing Achilles’ love for Patroclus and his pain at
Patroclus’ death, and Chaeremon’s Achilles slayer of Thersites dealt
with the consequences of Achilles’ love for Penthesileia;40 Euripides
wrote Scyrioi about the events on Scyros.41 Sophocles’ satyr-drama
The Lovers of Achilles (åØººø KæÆ Æ: TrGF iv.149–56) staged
Achilles as the object of sexual desire of the chorus of Satyrs, and thus
parodically synthetized and sharpened the two un-Homeric and
typically tragic features of Achilles’ sexuality: feminization at Scyros
(Euripides’ Scyrioi) and liaison in an erastes role with Patroclus
(Aeschylus’ Myrmidons). It is difficult to think of a more systematic
example of satyr-drama as ‘tragedy diverted into obscene laughter’
(in obscenos deflexa tragoedia risus, according to the definition of
Ov. Tr. 2.409). TrGF iv.153 ‘ah, you have lost your beloved (ÆØØŒ ),
as you see’ (by Phoenix) seems to involve some play on the distinction
between the sexes as objects of desire,42 and this play may thus have
pointed to the ambiguity of Achilles on Scyros.43 The focus of the
drama appears to have been Achilles’ education, so that one of the
most positive/heroical motifs in Achilles’ youth was also destructured
and reinterpreted in homosexual terms. But, in connection with the
38 39
See below, pp. 125–7. Cf. Robertson (1990) 67.
40 41
See below, pp. 215–22 and 273. n. 20. See below, pp. 29–35.
42
The fragment is reported by the ıƪøªc º ø åæÅ ø (ant. 9 Cunning-
ham) as being a phrase said by Phoenix when the Satyrs were ‘advancing
(KØØø) toward desire of women’; the grammarian quotes it to prove that
ÆØØŒ is also said of male beloveds, and can thus be used for both sexes. Especially
after the transvestism at Scyros both senses of the word were suitable for Achilles.
43
S. Scheurer and S. Kansteiner in Krumeich, Pechstein, and Seidensticker (1999)
234–5.
Introduction 17
theme of education, Sophocles mercilessly exposed the troubled con-
jugal bond between Achilles’ mismatched parents, the mortal Peleus
and Thetis, who narrowly lost the opportunity of getting married to
Zeus.44 The ‘natural’ setting for the sexual assaults on Achilles by the
Satyrs had been the cave of the Satyr Chiron in Pelion (cf. TrGF
iv.154); but the scene might also have been set in Phthia (Peleus
possibly featured among the dramatis personae (TrGF iv.150), and
Phoenix certainly appeared in the play), or in both Phthia and
Pelion.45 In any case the drama must have mingled Achilles’ peder-
astic training and his education, which was one of the most dignified
points in Achilles’ youth.46
The disparaging treatment of Achilles in this satyr-drama does not
surprise. First of all it depends on the biting ‘familiarization’ that epic
characters typically undergo in this genre. But it is also paralleled by
the disparaging or at least critical tone with which Euripides’ tragedy,
in particular, seems to present Achilles. Euripides’ Hecuba and Iphi-
geneia at Aulis are the only two surviving tragedies in which Achilles
plays a significant role. In Hecuba Achilles’ ghost appears above his
tomb when the Greeks are on the verge of embarking for home and
asks them to sacrifice Polyxena, Priam’s enslaved daughter. Once
again, as in the Iliad, Achilles seeks here his prize of honour (ªæÆ)
from his brothers in arms (41, 94), thus becoming a paradigm of the
egocentric and furious heroism of the epic, in contrast with the ‘new’
heroism of Polyxena or the civic rhetoric of Odysseus.47 The young
44
Heslin (2005) 118–21, 261–7. Apart from evoking the transformations with
which Thetis had tried to evade Peleus’ rape (TrGF iv.150), the play mentioned her
‘separation’ from Peleus, because of his ‘insults’ ( Apoll. Rh. 4.816 e —źø
ºØæÅŁ E Æ c ¨Ø ŒÆÆºØ E ÆP: TrGF iv.151).
45
Cf. Sutton (1980) 36; it seems certain, however, that the play included a change
of scene: TrGF iv pp. 165–6. On Phoenix/Chiron and Phthia/Pelion as alternative
protagonists and places of Achilles’ education, see below, pp. 21–2.
46
Michelakis (2002) 172–8 sees this overlapping as an edifying strategy of The
Lovers of Achilles, which he compares with Antisthenes’ possible idealization of the
liaison of Achilles and Heracles (see above, n. 11). I would think that a humorous/
obscene tone is as probable as edifying implications in the case of Sophocles’ satyr-
play—after all Achilles was not the object of the sexual desire of a single dignified
lover, but the coveted catamite of a plurality of Satyrs.
47
Achilles also represents a sort of outdated heroism in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,
where he is, however, a positive paradigm of the straightforwardness that Neoptole-
mus loses and finally reacquires, as opposed to the rhetorical insincerity of Odysseus:
cf. King (1987) 66–78.
18 Introduction
Achilles of Iphigeneia at Aulis is portrayed as a hero-to-be who
cannot impose his will concerning the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, and
eventually yields to the power of Agamemnon and the will of the girl.
These two tragedies of Euripides seem to investigate Achilles’ life
before the time of the Trojan war and what he might have become
after it, with a special focus on the weakest or the most ethically
controversial aspects of his character.48
It comes as no surprise that Euripides investigates non-Iliadic and
not-very-glorious moments of Achilles’ life. This may have depended
in part on the ‘disillusionment arising from the general decay of
values during the Peloponnesian War,’49 but it also reflects, in tune
with the Trojan focus of Hecuba or Trojan Women, the task of
metaliterary differentiation from epic, and the pursuit of viewpoints
different from the Homeric one. An intriguing parallel case is repre-
sented by the Rhesus, a tragedy which came along to us as part of the
corpus of Euripides, but probably is by a fourth-century imitator of
Euripides. Homer had recounted the War of Troy from, mainly, the
viewpoint of the Greeks, but the Rhesus rewrote Iliad 10 by focusing
on the action in the Trojan camp, and with some sympathy for the
future ‘losers’ which was a good match with the tragic poetics.50
Somewhat later, in the Hellenistic era, Lycophron’s Alexandra, a
peculiar kind of tragic drama, gave voice to the contempt felt by
Cassandra/Alexandra, Hector’s sister, towards the Greeks and, most
pointedly, Achilles by allowing her to hint maliciously at Achilles’
most embarrassing erotic episodes—in fact the prophetess reels off
an unconventional interpretation of the past war of Troy, apart
from predicting the future disasters of the leaders of the Greek
army (she rewrites both the Iliad and the ‘Epic Cycle’). In her small
encyclopedia of Achilles’ erotic weakness and wickedness, she men-
tions his cowardly attempt to evade the war at Scyros (276–80) and
his many flirtations with the enemy (Troilus, unsuccessfully wooed,
309–13; Polyxena, whom Achilles was going to marry in the temple of
Thymbraian Apollo, when he was killed by her brother Paris, 323–9;
Penthesileia 999–1001), his polygamous relationships with Helen and
Medea (Helen: 143, 171–3; Medea on the island of Leuce: 174–5, 798),
and his unsuccessful pursuit of the beloved Iphigeneia (186–96).
48 49 50
Cf. Michelakis (2002). Latacz (2010) 4. See below, pp. 235–41.
Introduction 19
But after such excoriation of Achilles’ erotic pursuits in the insult-
ing words of Lycophron’s Alexandra (the viewpoint of the Thersites’
slanders in the Aethiopis through a megaphone, probably), Achilles in
love finally enjoys a revival of fortunes among the Roman elegists
(and with the Latin Iliad): the erotic plots exposed as the most
embarrassing entries in Lycophron’s cahiers de doléance become
sweet love novels to be appreciated as paradigms.
This phenomenon finds plausible historical-national explanations,
and a sure justification in terms of literary genres. On the one hand, it
is possible that in the Rome of Augustus, claiming descent from the
Trojans, the martial greatness of Achilles’ Iliadic heroism found fewer
fans than in Greece.51 On the other hand, Achilles’ loves presented
the Latin erotic authors with a carnet of paradigms that were ideally
suited to the elegiac conception of love. Briseis, a slave who was also a
most loyal partner, offered a perfect example of what an elegiac
domina could and should be; Penthesileia, the defeated warrior who
could ‘capture’ Achilles, her powerful vanquisher, with a single
glance, offered Propertius a model of just how far one could trace
the idea of unavoidable submission to the domina; the episode at
Scyros provided the love elegist with a chance to explore questions of
transvestism and rape, themes which repeatedly attracted the atten-
tion of Latin authors of the first centuries bc and ad, elegiac and
otherwise.52 Soon after this euphoric celebration of Achilles in love in
Latin elegy, Statius produced his Achilleid, the first work that we
know of to revisit the life of Achilles in epic form. Statius set out to
tell more of the life of Achilles than the Iliad by offering a biograph-
ical ‘contextualization’ for his Iliadic heroism. Since the poem re-
mained unfinished, we shall never know how Statius might have
approached the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus in light
of post-Homeric eroticization of their especially powerful bond. But
from the text that Statius did compose (beginning with Achilles’ birth
and running up to his departure from Scyros), among all the deeds of
Achilles left untold by Homer, the author demonstrates a privileged
attention for re-establishing a balance between the heroic and erotic
dimensions of Achilles’ life. Statius’ narrative seeks to recover a sense
of epic æ, while at the same time integrating the potentially
51
As suggested by Latacz (2010) 4.
52
Achilles is a positive new love-hero for the elegiac poets, after Propertius
(cf. below, pp. 145–57), but Horace’s evaluation remains more ambiguous (pp. 172–3).
20 Introduction
destabilizing eroticism of some ‘new’ situations that Homer had not
covered in his own narrative.
Homer’s Iliad set down the story of Achilles’ war-heroism for all
time, but Achilles the hero of love remained a figure of uncertain
fortunes, exalted and vilified by turns, a hostage to the contrasting
viewpoints of the various literary genres which tried, time and again,
to capture the sense of the forays of his martial harshness into the
world of eros.
2
Deidameia
EPIC SILENCE
1
For the poetics of ‘complementarity’ implicit in this statement, cf. Barchiesi
(1996); Ripoll and Soubiran (2008) 8–14.
2
Statius clearly intended to tell the whole story of Achilles’ life, including the
Trojan War, and it would be rash to infer his poetical intentions for the whole poem
from the text he actually completed—as Aricò (1996) 198–9 has warned recently.
However, it may be a telling indication of Statius’ own attraction to Achilles’ youth
that most of the allusions to Achilles in the Silvae concern Chiron or Scyros: Silv.
1.2.215–17; 2.1.88–9; 2.6.30–1; 5.3.193–4; Dilke (1954) 6–7.
3
As was observed already by some of the ancient Homeric scholars: cf. Eustath. ad
Hom. Il. 9.666–8 (782). Curiously enough, it is precisely the hero’s education and his
cross-dressing that became the two most popular themes in the Roman iconography
of Achilles from the 1st cent. ad onwards (see below, pp. 92–4, 227–9 for the various
senses of this cultural phenomenon). The large space allotted to Achilles in drag in the
Achilleid may thus reflect the appreciation of this motif in the contemporary icono-
graphy of the Roman villas which Statius often celebrates in many occasional poems
of the Silvae: Konstan (1997a) 83.
22 Deidameia
(11.769–75), and Phoenix also remembers being sent off to war from
Phthia, along with Achilles, whom he was to supervise (9.438–43).
Besides, in the many paintings from the first half of the fifth
century that depict Achilles leaving for battle with the new arms
provided by Thetis (LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 186–204), the scene, wherever
it can be identified, is Phthia.4 However, we know from Od. 11.506–9
that Odysseus goes ‘by ship’ to Scyros in order to recruit Achilles’ son
Neoptolemus to join the war, and in Il. 19.326 Achilles too has
Neoptolemus growing up in Scyros.5 At any rate, there is no mention
in the Iliad of Achilles’ cross-dressing and love affair with Deidameia
on the island. The hint at Neoptolemus being raised at Scyros seems
in principle to presuppose this love affair, but it may also point to a
sexual but not romantic contact—in particular, it is difficult to rec-
oncile the romantic tale of Achilles’ cross-dressing with the mention
of Achilles’ conquest of Scyros in Il. 9.668.6
4
Cf. Friis Johansen (1967) 92–127; Kossatz-Deissmann (1981) 69–72.
5
In light of the mention at Il. 9.668 of Scyros as a city ( ¯ ıB º Łæ) that
Achilles had conquered some of the ancients disputed whether Homer’s ‘Scyros’ was
the island of the Sporades off the east coast of Euboea ‘from which Achilles took
spoils without plundering it but overrunning it in peace (P æŁ Æ, Iºº NæÅØŒH
ŒÆÆæÆg KºÆçıæÆªªÅ )’ or a city, of which we know nothing: cf. D ad loc.
Both Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus athetized Il. 19.327, where
Achilles expressed the anxious doubt ‘if indeed godlike Neoptolemus lives’, Aris-
tarchus justified his intervention with the argument that ‘Scyros lies not far’ from
Troy. Therefore, Aristarchus argues, it would be odd for Achilles to express this
doubt about his son being alive or dead (implying that because of the short distance
Achilles would have been informed if Neoptolemus had died). Aristarchus may thus
have assumed that Scyros was not the island of the Sporades, but a city in a region
close to Troy originally called Cilicia, later Phrygia (= the land of the Cilices of Il.
6.397, living in the plain of Thebe).
6
See (above, n. 5) the odd explanation in D ad loc. that Achilles took spoils from
Scyros without ravaging it. Statius might have attempted a reconciliation of Achilles’
cross-dressing and love for Deidameia with his subsequent sack of Scyros. Achilles’
oath that Scyros will lie destroyed by fire and iron (ante igni ferroque excisa iacebit j
Scyros) before Lycomedes can punish Deidameia for her love for Achilles (Ach. 1.657–
8) grants the de-feminized Achilles his future ferocity. These words possibly allude to
the Homeric hint at Achilles’ conquest of Scyros in Il. 9.668, as pointed out by
Cameron (2009) 21. In particular, A. Cameron suggests that Statius might have
been planning ‘to have Achilles return from Troy to Scyros on one of those expedi-
tions in search of booty we learn of from Homer, to destroy the scene of his
discreditable sojourn “among the girls”. Deidameia herself was to die in the carnage
(not necessarily by Achilles’s own hand). To dwell on the idyllic and sentimental
aspects of Book i is to ignore the way Statius himself undermines what might have
seemed the most carefree period of the young hero’s life’.
Deidameia 23
Modern scholars have come down on either side of the question
whether Homer knew of the cross-dressing and ignored it or was
simply unaware of the tale. Yet, while the story is not mentioned in
the Iliad or Odyssey, it has been assumed to feature in the poems
of the Epic Cycle. According to Proclus’ summary of the Cypria and
of the Little Iliad, both poems seem to have had Achilles land unin-
tentionally on Scyros.7 A fragment from the Little Iliad tells of a storm
which threw him off course and compelled him to moor at the island,
and not without difficulty (PEG 24 = 4 West):
—ź Å åØºBÆ çæ ŒFæ Ł ººÆ,
Ł ‹ ª K IæªÆº ºØ ¥Œ ıŒe KŒ Å
as for Achilles the son of Peleus, the storm carried him to Scyros; there
he made the harbor with difficulty8 that night
According to T Il. 19.326, which reports the two lines, this event
would have taken place the first time the Greek fleet sailed from Aulis
to Troy, when they ended up landing at the Teuthranian kingdom of
Telephus and mistook his land for Troy. In Scyros, according to
Proclus’ summary of the Cypria, Achilles would also have ‘made
love to’ (ªÆ E) Deidameia.9 How this ‘intercourse’ or ‘marriage’
came about is left unsaid by the scholion, and Proclus does not
provide us with any insights either; at any rate, Achilles’ cross-
dressing was not necessarily the device that paved the way for it.
The siring of Neoptolemus may in fact have taken place either (1) at
an accidental encounter of Achilles and Deidameia occurring after his
7
It is commonly assumed that the Little Iliad might have mentioned events
concerned with Achilles at Scyros as flashbacks (including the narrative of the mission
to fetch Neoptolemus to join the war: cf. most recently Davies (1989) 66). Tsagalis,
‘Cypria’ forthcoming, observes that ‘the subject matter of the Little Iliad was a fertile
ground for this kind of association, since it “looked back” both to certain events that
began in the Cypria and remained dormant until they were continued in the Ilias
parva (see e.g. Philoctetes)’; another episode which occurs twice in two different
poems of the Cycle is e.g. the ‹ºø Œæ Ø, which featured both at the end of the
Aethiopis and the beginning of the Little Iliad.
8
IæªÆº must mean that entering the port of Scyros had been made ‘difficult’ by
the storm: cf. Severyns (1938).
9
Iºı Ø b ÆPE KŒ B ı Æ å Øg KØ Ø ŒÆd ØÆ Œ ıÆØ.
åØºº f b ŒæøØ æ åg ªÆ E c ¸ıŒı ŁıªÆæÆ ˜Åœ ØÆ ‘as they
are sailing away from Mysia, a storm catches them and they become dispersed.
Achilles lands on Scyros and makes love to Lycomedes’ daughter Deidameia’. Neop-
tolemus as Achilles’ son and Lycomedes as Deidameia’s father also feature in the
Cypria according to Pausan. 10.26.4 = PEG Cypr. fr. 21 = 19 West.
24 Deidameia
unplanned arrival on the island during a storm (as mentioned in the
Little Iliad, and in the Cypria at least according to Proclus’ summary)
or (2) as a war-rape during the conquest of Scyros, which is briefly
hinted at in Il. 9.667–8 (a passage where, by the way, another girl who
had been abducted in the same conquest is said to have been later
presented by Achilles to Patroclus). In both cases this episode might
belong to an archaic oral tradition (and later unknown poem?) on the
expedition of Achilles against the Dolopians of Scyros, or in general
about expeditions of Achilles more or less closely connected to the
war at Troy.10
The relevant T Il. 9.668, which handed down the hexametrical
quotation PEG Cypr. 40 = inc.sed. 17 West º N ŒFæ
˜ºÅÆ ‘they sailed to Dolopian Scyros’, frames this fragment
with the two clarifications: ‘Achilles took Scyros when they were
recruiting for Aulis, because there were Dolopes there, who had
revolted from Peleus’ rule’ and ‘that was also when he fathered
Neoptolemus’ ( b ŒÆd e ˝ º KÆØØ Æ). In
fact we know from Il. 9.483–4 that Phoenix had been granted the
kingdom of the Dolopians by Peleus; and, from Pindar fr. 183, that he
led to Troy a troop of Dolopians who were ‘expert in slinging, an aid
for the weapons of the horse-taming Danaans’.11
None of the passages we have seen so far provides any evidence
that Achilles’ cross-dressing was featured in the Epic Cycle. However,
D Il. 19.326 (PEG 19 = West) does state that the ŒıŒºØŒ offered a
version of Achilles’ stay at Scyros which included the decision of
Peleus to hide Achilles there to avert the prophecy of his death at
10
For the idea that an archaic (Aeolic?) tradition and poem(s) existed on the
various expeditions and city-sacks by Achilles around Troy before or during the years
of the war—the ‘Tale of Foray’—cf. Leaf (1912) 242–8, Nagy (1979) 140–1 and 272–3;
Dué (2002) 3–4, 8–9, 61–5. This kind of expedition, which was often aimed at
collecting men, cattle, and women for the leaders and their friends (cf. Il. 9.664–8),
seems to have been a form of initiation rite for heroes who did not have an oikos of
their own yet: cf. Waldner (2000) 94–5.
11
Pindar’s fr. 183 does not seem to simply develop Il. 9.483–4, but possibly reflects
some other oral tradition/poem on Achilles’ expeditions, because, with the exception
of Pindar, the Dolopians are nowhere said to be clever in slinging. In the light of the
low esteem in which the ancients held the slings (see e.g. Xen. Cyr. 7.4.15
ıºØŒÆ ‹º), the specification that the Dolopians were expert in slinging
and a mere ‘auxiliary’ troop to the Danaans fits the representation of these people as
semi-barbarian, which we would expect in the context of a poem about the suppres-
sion of their rebellion.
Deidameia 25
Troy, Achilles’ transvestism, and the mission of Odysseus, Nestor,
and Phoenix to enrol him in the war:
When Alexander stole Helen, Agamemnon and Menelaus recruited the
Greeks against the Trojans. Peleus, knowing in advance that it was fated
that Achilles should die at Troy, went to Scyros, to king Lycomedes, and
placed Achilles in his care; and he dressed him in female clothing and
brought him up as a girl with his daughters. But as an oracle had been
issued that Ilion would not be captured without Achilles, the Greeks
sent Odysseus, Phoenix, and Nestor, and when Peleus denied that his
son was with him, they travelled to Scyros. Suspecting that Achilles was
being raised among the girls, at Odysseus’ suggestion they scattered
some weapons, together with work baskets and weaving implements, in
front of the girls’ chamber. The girls made for the baskets and the other
things, but Achilles took up the weapons, and so was caught out, and he
joined the expedition. But before that, while he was living with the girls,
he had seduced Lycomedes’ daughter Deidameia, and by him she gave
birth to Pyrrhus, who was later named Neoptolemus; he went to fight
with the Greeks as a young man after his father’s death. The story is
found in the Cyclic writers ( ƒ æÆ Ææa E ŒıŒºØŒE).12
It has been suggested that this narrative, which D Il. 19.326 pre-
sents as attested in the ŒıŒºØŒ, was included in the Cypria; the brief
references to æØ in T Il. 9.66813 and to Ø in T Il. 19.326
may also point to the same poem, both presupposing the story of
Achilles hidden by his mother at Scyros.14 This poem would then
have included a story about Achilles’ stay at Scyros substantially
similar to the later version which was to become standard15—the
12
Trans. by M.L. West. This is one of the mythical stories, narrated in the D and
in some papyri, that derive from the archetype usually called ‘Mythographus Hom-
ericus’, on which cf. Montanari (1995). The closest parallel to this narrative of Achilles’
stay at Scyros, but not the same narrative, is PBerol. 13930 (5th cent. ad): cf. Montanari
(1984) 235–6; Luppe (1985); van Rossum-Steenbeek (1998) 98–9.
13
In the ancient scholia (not only to Homer) æØ and ŒıŒºØŒ are synonyms
in many cases: a list in Severyns (1928) 66–8.
14
If the narrative of Achilles hiding cross-dressed at Scyros went back to the
Cypria, we could expect something more precise than these three different an-
onymous references. Van der Valk (1963–4) i.371 tried to explain the generic or
even derogatory quality of these references (ŒıŒºØŒ is often derogatory in the
scholia) by remarking (about the Ø of the T scholia) that these scholia usually
offer a favourable representation of the Greek heroes, and therefore may have referred
here in a disparaging way to the Cypria as the source of this inconvenient story of
Achilles cross-dressed.
15
As is maintained by Severyns (1928) 285–91.
26 Deidameia
main difference is that in the version ascribed to the ŒıŒºØŒ by the
D, contrary to the standard versions of Achilles at Scyros, it was
Peleus, not Thetis, who tried to save their son from his predestined
death at Troy, and Lycomedes, not Thetis, who thought of Achilles’
cross-dressing. This suggestion has been well received.16 Yet the fact
that Proclus mentions no such story forces us to have some doubt
about the report of D Il. 19.326.17 Besides, even if we do believe that
the scholion’s attribution to the Cyclic poets is correct, we can
surmise that the note ƒ æÆ Ææa E ŒıŒºØŒE in this scholion
applies only to the etymology of the name Neoptolemus and the
statement that he went to Troy to fight for the Greeks after his father’s
death.18
In conclusion, we can suppose that the Iliad, Little Iliad, and Cypria
(according to the summary of Proclus) presupposed or contained a
version of the encounter between Achilles and Deidameia—a version
which, however, did not yet include Achilles’ transvestism. In it,
Achilles, already a member of the expedition against Troy, was
blown to Scyros by a storm while sailing back from his encounter
with Telephus, and on that occasion he happened to meet Deidameia
and had sex with her. At least in Homer and in the Little Iliad (and in
my opinion also in the Cypria), neither the fact that the young
Achilles was led to Scyros by an anxious protective parent nor the
trick of cross-dressing or its detection by Odysseus appears to be
attested. Achilles lands on the island during the expedition against the
16
See van der Valk (1963–4) i.370–1; Burgess (2001) 21; and Marin (2008–9).
According to Burgess loc. cit., ‘the account in Proclus of Achilles ending up in Scyros
later in his life is in no way incompatible with an earlier sojourn there (just as we need
not be troubled that Odysseus reaches Aeolia, Aeaea, and the channel between Scylla
and Charybdis twice in the course of the Odyssey)’. But in Proclus’ summary Achilles
seems to beget Neoptolemus precisely when landing on Scyros because of a tempest at
the end of the Teuthranian expedition, and not in an earlier stay (see above, p. 23).
17
A detailed criticism of the idea that D Il. 19.326 includes a summary of the
episode as narrated in the Cypria can be found in Heslin (2005) 199–205, Tsagalis
(2008) 259, and Tsagalis forthcoming; see already Kullmann (1960) 191–2.
18
As suggested by Bethe (1929) 238 n. 14, M. L. West per litteras, and Tsagalis
forthcoming. As observed by Montanari (1995) 143–4, the author cited in the sub-
scriptions of the D is often pertinent only to a part of the content of their
mythological report. The fact that the æØ would attest the version of Achilles’
cross-dressing according to T Il. 9.668 is not decisive, though the term is often
synonymous with ŒıŒºØŒ (n. 13 above): for æØ referring not to Cyclic poetry,
but to post-Homeric authors in general, and contextually opposed to ŒıŒºØŒ/ƒ K
HØ ˚ŒºøØ, cf. at least T Hom. Il. 23.347 and Etym. Magn. 600.2–9; Severyns
(1928) 68–9.
Deidameia 27
Dolopians or he is simply ‘cast away’ on the island by a tempest,
independently of his own or his parents’ will. In this case, at least in
the versions of the Iliad and the Little Iliad, a deliberate abandonment
of the war did not feature in the career of Achilles and did not stain it.
And if the Cypria had indeed already featured the version of Achilles
being taken to Scyros by Thetis or Peleus and living as a cross-dresser
at the court of Lycomedes (which I do not believe), then the Little
Iliad, if later in date, may have deviated from this version: its author
may have purposefully selected different elements from the varying
narratives of Achilles’ visit(s) to Scyros and specifically ‘picked up’ the
forced landing of the hero, fully in tune with the ‘preference’ the
Homeric scholia (especially the ‘vetera’, versus D) are known to
show for a very dignified Achilles.
It is possible, in fact, that the Cypria, as well as the Iliad, were silent
about the romantic motivation of Achilles’ stay at Scyros not because
the epic traditions underlying these two poems did not know of the
transvestism of Achilles or his love for Deidameia, but because they,
in a way, censored this episode of Achilles’ life. The original motives
for their silence do not necessarily coincide with its later interpreta-
tions; however, for at least some of the ancients, it was quite clear that
the Iliad preserved a heroic dimension for Achilles’ connection with
Scyros that contrasted with the alternative tale of his transvestism.
Commenting on Hom. Il. 9.667–8, the passage where Achilles’ con-
quest of Scyros is mentioned, T Il. 9.668 informs:
ŒFæ º: ƒ b æØ KŒ E e ÆæŁ H çÆ Ø, ŁÆ e
åØººÆ K ÆæŁı 寨 BØ ˜ÅØÆ ÆØ {ŒÆÆŒºı Ø{, › b
ØÅc æøœŒH ÆºÆ ÆPe K Æ N c ŒFæ I Æ
P ÆæŁø, Iºº IæH ØÆæÆ æªÆ, K z ŒÆd a º çıæÆ
øæ EÆØ E ı åØ.
Post-Homeric poets say that there [= in Scyros] was the gynaeceum
where they have Achilles disguised as a girl lie down[?] with Deidameia.
The poet, instead, dressed him up in his panoply, in a heroic way, and
had him disembark in Scyros to do not maidens’ work, but that of men,
and he [Achilles] also presents his comrades with spoils from these
deeds.
Quite a different kind of scholar, the periegete Pausanias was fully
in tune with this Homeric interpreter. While describing the paintings
in the so-called Pinakotheke in the left wing of the Propylaia on the
Athenian acropolis, the periegete dwells on two drawings of Achilles:
28 Deidameia
one depicts the sacrifice of Polyxena at the hero’s grave, the other, by
Polygnotus, represents Achilles who, ‘people say, lived his life at Scyros
together with the girls’ (ºªı Ø ›F ÆE ÆæŁØ åØººÆ å Ø K
ŒæøØ ÆØÆ, 1.22.6).19 Pausanias comments (ibid.): ‘Homer did
well in passing by this barbarous act [the sacrifice of Polyxena on
Achilles’ tomb]. It seems to me that he also did well to make ( s
Ø çÆ ÆØ ØB ÆØ) Achilles capture Scyros, therein differing entirely
from those who say that Achilles lived in Scyros with the maidens, as
Polygnotus has represented in his picture’. Other ancient interpreters
of Homer appear to have expressed their appreciation of the version of
the Little Iliad and its presentation of Achilles as landing unintention-
ally on the island. T Il. 19.326 displays an opposition perhaps
significant between the Ø according to whom the seclusion of
Achilles at Scyros was deliberately initiated by Thetis (Ø is a refer-
ence which, though not necessarily disparaging, at least shows little
consideration for the relevant authors)20 and the appreciation of the
contrasting account of the Little Iliad, which the scholia cite at length to
demonstrate that the landing of Achilles on the island was forced,
hence not cowardly. b Il. 19.326, which also prioritizes the version
of the landing during a storm, is silent about a liaison between Deida-
meia and Achilles, not to mention Achilles’ transvestism, and opposes
the version of the Little Iliad (Neoptolemus born to Deidameia) to that
of another group of Ø, according to whom Neoptolemus would
have been the son of Achilles and Iphigeneia (this latter variant b
explicitly rejects: b æÆ ƒ æÆ ØÆł ÆØ ‘the other story is
false’). Even in quoting this alternative tale of Achilles and Iphigeneia,
which was a different love story, b seems to present Achilles as a sort
of cruel macho-man ready to abandon the girl after impregnating
her—everything but an unheroically tender lover. In fact b refers to
Douris, FGrHist 76F88, who reports that ‘Iphigeneia, carried off to Scyros
[sc. by Artemis], was abandoned (K ŁÅ) by him’.21 Not all accounts of
19
Polygnotus’ painting is usually dated to 450 (cf. Kossatz-Deissmann (1981) 57) and
was possibly executed for Cimon, who conquered Scyros. The fact that after 475 Cimon
‘discovered’ the coffin with Theseus’ bones in the island proves his interest in emphasiz-
ing its role in the heroic past. Cf. Simon (1963) 49; Jeffery (1965) 45 n. 17; Heslin (2005)
199–201.
20
Cf. van der Valk (1963–4) i.371.
21
‘By him’ (’ ÆPF) is made explicit only in b. T neglects to specify the
agent, but it may convey the same sense. H. Erbse (ed.), however, argues that the text
of T leaves room to believe that Iphigeneia is abandoned on the island by Artemis.
Deidameia 29
the story of Achilles and Iphigeneia implied the same erotically sad end of
the story which b decides to adopt. For instance, this story was
presented in a quite different and romantic way by Lycophron’s Alexan-
dra, who, in her blazing hatred for the killer of her brother Hector, often
slyly magnifies Achilles’ susceptibility to the ladies as a stain on his
martial-heroic career (we shall see in due course how merciless she is
about Achilles’ erotic dalliance at Scyros).22 In Lycophron’s report (Al.
186–201), Achilles is a desperate, doting husband who spends five years
of his life looking for his sweetheart Iphigeneia.23
While epic poets seem to have been ignorant of the story of Achilles’
cross-dressing or may have omitted it deliberately, the same does
not hold true for the Greek tragedians. Euripides’ Electra, probably
produced in the decade 422–413, is silent about Achilles’ stay at
Scyros, and cannot have presupposed it. The Nereids who, in the
first stasimon of the tragedy, bring the hero his first armour reach him
not at Scyros but on Mount Pelion, where Chiron ‘was nurturing
(æç ) a bright light for Hellas’ (442–51). Since the Nereids are the
usual retinue of Thetis, Achilles’ mother does not seem to have
opposed (or taken steps to avert) her son’s departure to Troy in this
tragedy. Nor does Achilles seem to have hidden at Scyros or anywhere
else in order to avoid this departure, since he is still with Chiron when
the Nereids reach him, apparently with no interruption to his trainee-
ship. However, as we know from the papyrus hypothesis,24 in the
22
See also above, p. 18.
23
When Iphigeneia disappeared from the sacrificial altar at Aulis, ‘her husband
(› ı) shall search for her within the Salmydesian Sea, where she cuts the throats
of Greeks, and shall dwell for a long space . . . yearning for his wife (ŁH ÆæÆ) . . .
And the deep waste within the wash of the waves upon the beach shall be called the
“Chase of the bridegroom” mourning his ruin (ÆŁf ’ ø ÞŪE ÆPÅŁ ÆØ /
æÅ K ŒæŒÆØ Ø ıçı æ, / ¼Æ) and his empty seafaring, and her
that vanished and was changed to an old witch . . . And he, lamenting, shall pace the
Scythian land for some five years yearning to be in bed with her (å‰ b Æ Ø åHæ
ÆN Çø ŒŁÅ, / N ı º ØHÆ ƒ æø ºåı)’.
24
TrGF v.2, pp. 665–6.
30 Deidameia
Scyrioi, an earlier play probably produced between 455 and 430,25
Euripides had covered all the main points of what was to become the
standard version of the story of Achilles at Scyros: the intervention of
Thetis, who hid the young Achilles on the island by entrusting him, in
drag, to the local king Lycomedes;26 the consequent transvestism of
Achilles, who was living in the gynaeceum of Lycomedes’ daughter
Deidameia when he seduced her; the oracle informing the Greeks that
the expedition against Troy could not begin without Achilles; the
consequent mission of Odysseus and Diomedes, sent by Agamemnon
to find and fetch Achilles;27 the final trick through which the two
Greeks exposed Achilles.
It is a pity that the text of the hypothesis of this lost tragedy (or
satyr-drama?)28 has a lacuna, at the point where the mission of
Diomedes and Odysseus to expose Achilles in cross-dress at Scyros
is introduced. From this text we can thus derive only a few details
about what must have been the core of tensions and emotions in
Euripides’ play. For example, from lines 17–18 of the hypothesis,
where Deidameia is said to have been motherless, and where she
seems to be the only child29 (æçø ’ KŒ E [ŁıªÆæÆ] Åæe
25
Cf. Jouan (1966) 216–18. Since Pfeiffer (1933) there has been substantial agree-
ment that Sophocles’ Scyrioi dealt with the mission of the Greeks (among whom was,
again, Odysseus) who fetched Neoptolemus from the island to participate in the war
at Troy after the death of Achilles and not with Achilles’ cross-dressing: TrGF iv.418.
26
It may have been a speaking name forged in connection with the transvestism of
Achilles, as many names in Greek mythology from the root *lyk- ‘appear at transi-
tional points in narratives or indicate the marginal status of a character’ (Bowie
(1993), 91–2 and n. 52).
27
The mission which has to expose Achilles at Scyros is composed of Diomedes,
plus Odysseus, of course, and possibly Nestor (in lacuna) according to the hypothesis
of Euripides’ Scyrioi; see later Philostr. Jun. Imag. 1.3, and Liban. Or. 64.68; Odysseus,
Phoenix, and Nestor in D Hom. Il. 19.326; Odysseus and Diomedes, accompanied
by the trumpeter Agyrtes in Statius, Achilleid; Odysseus in [Apollod.] Bibl. 3.13.8;
Odysseus, Ajax, and at least another in Ov. Met. 13.162–70.
28
This option was rejected by Bickel (1937) 7–12.
29
In most other sources, Deidameia has sisters. Jouan (1966) 215 correctly re-
marked that the reduction of the number of Lycomedes’ family members offered
Euripides certain dramaturgic advantages: no sisters would have meant fewer actors,
and hiding Deidameia’s pregnancy would have been easier with the help of a nurse
and in the absence of a mother. According to Jungck (1984) i.314, the initiative of this
reduction should be contrasted not only with the later koine of the myth of Achilles at
Scyros, but also with the painting of Polygnotus (on which see above, p. 28): Euripides
would thus prove to be later than Polygnotus. However, Pausanias’ description of the
painting has Achilles live ›F ÆE ÆæŁØ, which might easily refer to Deidameia’s
sisters; yet this phrase may also refer to Deidameia’s retinue (in the fashion e.g. of
Deidameia 31
OæçÆ ‘raising a daughter named Deidameia whose mother had
died’), we understand that the female character who in TrGF v.2.682
speaks to Lycomedes about Deidameia is not her mother, but, as often
in tragedy, the nurse. From this emphasis on Deidameia’s status as an
orphan we may also surmise that the nurse had a special relevance in
the play, and that she was, perhaps, the speaker of the prologue.30 She
is also the only confidante to whom Deidameia reveals her pregnancy
in Statius’ Achilleid (cf. 1.669–70), a poem which, we shall see, dis-
plays many points of contact with Euripides’ tragedy.31 However, the
hypothesis provides almost no hint as to very important events of
Achilles’ stay at Scyros, which would most probably have been the
high points of the tragic action: the revelation of the baby of Achilles
and Deidameia to the unsuspecting Lycomedes, Achilles’ exposure
and his preparation to leave for the Trojan War (and thus his death),
but also his anxiety about the separation from Deidameia. It is
possible that the first part of the tragedy was centred on the irony
apparent in the contrast between the reality known to Achilles and
Deidameia (and the nurse), on the one hand, and Lycomedes’ lack of
awareness on the other. Alternatively, in their awareness of their
mission, Odysseus and Diomedes could have been juxtaposed with
the Scyrian characters, who were kept in the dark about the two
Greeks and their expedition (in Stat. Ach. 1.734–8 Odysseus and
Diomedes deceitfully maintain that their target is to explore possible
routes to Troy and to learn about the Trojans’ preparations). After
Achilles’ exposure, modern scholars conjecture that the dramatic
acme must have been reached in the psychological dilemma the
character now faced;32 certainly, this dilemma features extensively
in Stat. Ach. 1.885–960, where, most pathetically, Deidameia and
Achilles can enjoy only a single night as legitimate spouses after the
Nausicaa) and point to her gynaeceum, which is mentioned in T Il. 9.668, D Il.
19.326, Philostr. Heroic. 45.8–46.2, and Liban. Progymn. Laud. 3.5.
30
Thetis was of course another good candidate for the speaker of the prologue, as
suggested by Gallavotti (1933) 185. But we have no evidence whatsoever of her role in
the play, and above all her plans are frustrated by the events of the plot—this deprives
her of the kind of authoritative knowledge we usually assume on the part of a prologue
speaker. The fact that Deidameia is the only child of Lycomedes is perhaps confirmed
by TrGF v.2.682.1, where Deidameia is referred to as ÆE. Cf. Körte (1934) 4–5;
Bickel (1937) 15–16.
31
Cf. already Körte (1934) 7–11 and above all Aricò (1981).
32
Cf. Aricò (1981) 226–7.
32 Deidameia
wedding (1.936–7) before Achilles departs.33 Romantic feelings of
separation apart, Achilles’ departure would have gained pathetic
effect from the fact that it was tied to a destiny not just of war, but
also of death-in-war as well.
The few surving fragments allow us to glimpse some important
details of the plot of Euripides’ play. TrGF v.2.682 seems to come
from a dialogue between Lycomedes and the nurse. We know from it
that when the latter learned that Deidameia was pregnant or had just
given birth to Neoptolemus, she told Lycomedes that the girl was
‘sick’ ( E) and ‘in a dangerous condition’ (ŒIØŒØø å Ø), and
that Lycomedes conjectured that her sickness consisted of an excess
of bile troubling her chest. If the nurse did indeed reveal Deidameia’s
pregnancy, we have to assume that the birth of Neoptolemus took
place later in the course of the tragedy—a comic motif, familiar from
New Comedy.34 Alternatively, we might suppose that Deidameia,
worried by Achilles’ imminent departure, sent the nurse to reveal to
Lycomedes that she had just had a baby (her sickness would then have
concerned her puerperium).35 In this case the situation would then be
similar to the diachrony adopted in Statius’ Achilleid. There, immedi-
ately after Achilles is exposed by Odysseus and Diomedes, Deidameia
is deeply troubled by the prospect of losing her beloved (1.885–8);
when Achilles hears her cries, he goes to Lycomedes, reveals his
identity to the king, and, in order to get the king’s blessing for their
wedding, shows him the child born to Deidameia and kept hidden up
to that moment (1.889–910).
TrGF v.2.683 is usually assumed to be a comment by the nurse,
who justifies her past silence about the event as an agreement with
Deidameia,36 and who qualifies her behaviour as wise:37 çd b
ıªŒæı Ø NŒ Æ º Æ ‘wise people join in concealing da-
mage within their own family’: cf. Stat. Ach. 1.671–3 illa astu tacito
raptumque pudorem surgentemque uterum . . . occuluit ‘with secret
guile she [sc. the nurse] hid the ravishing and the swelling womb’,
33
See below, p. 36.
34
Interpretation suggested by Körte (1934) 6.
35
Conjecture of Bickel (1937) 15–16.
36
If the persona loquens is Lycomedes, as supposed by Gallavotti (1933) 185, then
the phrase may reflect his uncertainty about formalizing Achilles’ and Deidameia’s
union through a wedding, as in Statius, Ach. 1.892–918.
37
This comment may also be made by the chorus justifying both the nurse and
Deidameia: Jouan (1966) 211.
Deidameia 33
etc. In this interpretation, NŒ Æ of TrGF v.2.683, with its strong
reflexive value, refers to the nurse, who may certainly have a vested
interest in hyperbolically assuming a sort of belonging to the royal
house. But the fragment may also come from a defensio sui delivered
by Deidameia—in Stat. Ach. 1.918–20, after Achilles lets Lycomedes
know about the baby, Deidameia herself faces the fury of her father,
with a calm demeanor that replicates the calm shown by Achilles in
the face of Lycomedes’ highly agitated reaction. In any case, the
fragment can hardly stem from the same dialogue between the
nurse and Lycomedes from which TrGF v.2.682 derives:38 in that
case Achilles would have informed Lycomedes about the truth before
his identity could be revealed by Odysseus and Diomedes; the
exposure scene would thus lose most of its dramatic intensity.
TrGF v.2.684 is a tirade on the ‘unevenness’ of human destinies, a
tirade that may have belonged to Lycomedes’ reaction to the news of
Deidameia’s pregnancy or giving birth (the gravity of his reaction
suggests that he must have seen the liaison between his daughter and
Achilles as an undeserved and grave dishonour, and that he must
have been furious, at least initially). Lycomedes complains that some
people fare well, while others meet harsh misfortunes ( ıçæÆ),
though they live ‘with care and prudence, quite justly and without
shameful behaviour’ (ÆN åÅ)—where the final remark clearly fo-
cuses, among the misfortunes, on the idea of honourableness and its
opposite.39
From its source, Plutarch, aud. poetis 34d, we know that TrGF
v.2.**683a ( f t e ºÆæe çH I f ªı | Æ Ø,
Iæ ı Ææe Eººø ª ª; ‘and you, extinguisher of your
family’s brilliant light, are you combing wool—you, born of the
most valiant father in Greece?’) comes from Odysseus’ ‘rebuke’
(KºÅ Ø) to ‘Achilles as he sat among the maidens’. If the Eu-
ripidean fragment inc. fab. TrGF v.2.880 PŒ K ªıÆØ d f ÆÆ
åæ g | Iºº K ØæøØ ŒI ‹ºØ Øa å Ø ‘young men should
get honours not amongst women but amidst arms and weaponry’
belongs to the Scyrioi, as it has often been assumed, it may have been
38
As was supposed by Gallavotti (1933) 185–6. Körte (1934) 5 suggested that the
nurse yielded to Lycomedes’ insistence on knowing the truth about his daughter’s
health, and revealed the nature of Deidameia’s ‘sickness’. But cf. Jouan (1966) 207 and
Aricò (1981) 225.
39
Traces of an original tragic scene featuring Lycomedes’ fury and progressive
acceptance of the situation may survive in Stat. Ach. 907–18.
34 Deidameia
expressed by Odysseus in the same context, or (less probably) by
Lycomedes. Regardless of who spoke these lines, if they are accepted
as derived from the Scyrioi, they confirm that the moralistic/indig-
nant evaluation of Achilles’ cross-dressing was an ingredient of this
story already in Euripides. With his words of accusation, Odysseus
either tries to expose the real gender of Achilles, or (if they were
spoken at a later point) he intends to overcome Achilles’ romantic
resistance to leaving for Troy and abandoning his Deidameia. But
whatever his motive, Odysseus adopts a tone of exasperated indigna-
tion at the discrepancy between the greatness of Achilles’ possible
future and the debasement of his effeminization. This kind of rhet-
orical argumentation, where indignant exasperation, exhortation, and
rebuke usually coexist and often resort to the use of apostrophai,
anticipates a feature of many later narratives of Achilles at Scyros:
Ovid, Ars am. 691–6 and Met. 13.168–9; Statius, Ach. 1.514–35,
1.624–39, 1.796–802, 1.867–74. In all of them the beginning of the
end of Achilles’ cross-dressing takes place through impassioned ap-
peals to the sublime future of glory or at least to manly values—values
which Achilles should apparently impersonate according to the great-
ness of his nature or birth.40 The only variant among all these passages
is that in Euripides, Ovid, Met. 13, and Statius, Ach. 1.796–802
and 1.867–74 Odysseus utters this appeal, in whose mouth it is a
persuasive device, practical and intended to restrain Achilles from
continuing in his disguise. In Ovid, Ars amatoria, on the other hand,
and in the other two passages from Statius’ Ach. (1.514–35, 1.624–39),
it amounts to a moralistic comment: it is either an apostrophe by the
author ad phantasma, in Achilles’ absence, or an ethical reaction by a
character, or a reflexive apostrophe by Achilles to himself (another
form of comment, in which an Achilles still cross-dressed externalizes
the most dignified part of his self and debates with it).41 What we
might call the ‘rhetoric of disapproval’ turns out to have been, sooner
or later and in one form or another, a sort of ‘background noise’
occurring in most of the narratives of Achilles at Scyros of which we
know. It is clear that the result achieved by this rhetoric—achieved as
an intertextual synthesis in the diachronic tradition of this myth, and
40
See below, pp. 68–70, 83–4, 87–8. The possible connection of Euripides’ Scyrioi
with Ovid and Statius was acknowledged already by Aricò (1981) 220–3.
41
On the apostrophai by Calchas and the self-apostrophai to Achilles in Statius, see
below, pp. 82–9 and Fantuzzi forthcoming.
Deidameia 35
also intratextually in Statius—was a polyphony of disapprovals, in-
tended to strengthen the idea that Achilles’ effeminacy was only too
unacceptable.
Euripides’ Scyrioi and Sophocles’ tragedy of the same title on the
departure of Neoptolemus from Scyros at the end of the war at Troy,
are more or less contemporary—tellingly, in my opinion—with one
or two works of art which may be the most ancient paintings of
Achilles at Scyros: a red-figure kylix by the Oedipus Painter, probably
dating from the last decades of the first half of the fifth century bc
(once in the Borowski collection, here Pl. 1), whose interpretation is
debatable, and a Boston krater of the mid-fifth century by the Niobid
Painter (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 33.56 = LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 176),
whose interpretation is also uncertain, but more consolidated.
The kylix by the Oedipus Painter depicts on one side three spin-
ners, one seated and two standing, surrounded by two columns,
which suggest the inside of a palace; on the other side, also
with columns, are a young man donning his armour and two men,
one on his right, bearded, leading the way with a hand-gesture, and
one on his left, extending to him helmet and shield. No detail points
explicitly to Scyros, or leads us to suspect that we are not yet seeing
another iteration of the very popular scene of young men arming
themselves for battle. However, this kylix has been recently inter-
preted as representing the arming of Achilles assisted by Odysseus
and Diomedes while he prepares for his departure for the war (the
spinning woman seated at the centre of the other side should then
be Deidameia). This interpretation seems plausible, if not certain—
particularly in light of at least two details. First, the bearded man who
leads the way seems to urge departure. Second, it is plausible that the
spinning women represent the female sphere which Achilles is leav-
ing, but to which he had belonged, since the symbolism of spinning
strongly contrasts with war and valour as typical concerns of men,
and, as we shall see, spinning is frequently evoked in connection with
the cross-dressed Achilles.42 Unless the two sides of the cup simply
depict the opposition between typical manly and female occupations
(an alternative interpretation which cannot be easily discarded), the
two scenes would perfectly illustrate the life-choice Achilles has
42
The interpretation is by Ferrari (2002) 89–90, who brilliantly frames it with her
analysis of the relevance of wool-handling as the main occupation of the female
çØº æªÆ vs male Iæ Æ.
36 Deidameia
made, with the help of Odysseus and Diomedes, and the female world
he has abandoned.
The Boston krater depicts on one face the farewell to a soldier
leaving for the war. This motif is certainly common, but our krater
features an unusual number of female figures: a bearded (i.e. an old)
man seated at the side, and, in the central scene, a youth who holds
his spear in his left hand while offering his other hand to one of the
five women who surround him; the woman connected to him by
hand and gaze also holds his helmet and another spear. The youth has
been identified as Achilles departing from Deidameia and her sisters
(or friends) and Lycomedes. This interpretation was proposed half a
century ago and has since become almost canonical.43 First of all it
would explain why only women (and why many women) surround
the youth; besides, the opposite face of the krater would be a con-
tinuation of a sort, as it represents (as is declared by an inscription)
Neoptolemus leaving for Troy with Odysseus and Phoenix, while his
mother Deidameia is trying to hold him back. Another detail of the
farewell scene may be telling. The girl in contact with the boy who is
supposedly Achilles wears a special garment, consisting of a chiton
and a short girdled peplos worn on top of it; in classical iconography
this garment seems to belong only to some divinities (Athena, Dio-
nysus, Artemis, or Apollo) and to brides. The Boston krater would
thus depict precisely the kind of departure-and-wedding scene that
would be in keeping with the Statian narrative at Ach. 1.885–926,
where immediately after being exposed Achilles asked Lycomedes for
permission to marry Deidameia, and the newly married couple then
had only a single night of marital love together before Achilles left—
as Deidameia complains in Ach. 1.936–7 modo te nox una deditque j
inviditque mihi ‘one single night has just given you to me and
begrudged you’. 44
Independently of the Boston krater—that is, many years before this
krater was first interpreted as depicting Achilles’ wedding to and
43
Kossatz-Deissmann (1981) 65–6 and (1992) 301; also Kemp-Lindemann (1975)
58–60; Schefold and Jung (1989) 141.
44
For this interpretation, presupposing that the two sides of the krater represent
two different episodes of the same cycle, cf. Simon (1963) 57–9. The alternative
(traditional) interpretation considers both sides of the krater to be related to the
same episode, i.e. the departure of Neoptolemus for Troy, albeit at different stages. Yet
in the iconography of Neoptolemus’ departure only the mother Deidameia is given a
place.
Deidameia 37
departure from Deidameia at Scyros—the fragments of Euripides’
Scyrioi had already led E. Bickel to conjecture that, in addition to
the obvious exposure scene, another tragic acme of Euripides’ play
was Achilles’ abandonment of Deidameia. The dramatic potential lies
in the obvious romantic/pathetic implications of his departure and in
the dilemma of the hero who finds himself trapped between his love
for the girl and his heroic martial career (and death) at Troy.45
Any attempt at using the iconography of the Boston krater, in
combination with Statius, to recover nuances of Euripides’ tragedy
must of course remain a speculative exercise; in the absence of
evidence from identifying inscriptions, the interpretation of the krater
inevitably forces us to hazard guesses. But if we accept the risky but
plausible interpretation of the Boston krater that we have outlined
above, we are perhaps entitled to take a step forward, or rather two.
On the one hand, the combination of the two scenes on this krater
may be a reaction to the two Scyrioi of Euripides (on Achilles leaving
Scyros for the war) and Sophocles (on Neoptolemus leaving Scyros
for the war).46 The impact these two tragedies had on artistic repre-
sentations is strongly confirmed by the fact that, after flourishing in
the first half of the fifth century, the paintings of Achilles equipping
himself with the new arms provided by Thetis and departing for the
war from Phthia (not from Scyros) appear to stop in the 440s.47 This
synchronism leads us to suspect that more or less in this decade a new
orthodoxy for the myth was established by Euripides, and that it
undermined the traditional setting of Achilles’ departure scene
(now Scyros, no longer Phthia). On the other hand, in light of the
interpretation that the Deidameia on our krater is wearing wedding
clothes, and given that this version is also attested in Statius, it is
tempting to suppose that Euripides’ Scyrioi also described the depart-
ure of Achilles soon after, if not the day after the wedding.
In the same span of time when both Scyrioi tragedies were staged
and the kylix of the Oedipus painter and the Boston krater were
painted, Polygnotus of Athens also painted Achilles in the gynaeceum
of Scyros (LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 95), which we have already mentioned
45
Bickel (1937).
46
In light of a group of vases from 460 to 450 bc representing the departure of
Neoptolemus (we do not have later or preceding iconographical evidence of this
episode), Pfeiffer (1933) 15 has plausibly suggested that Sophocles’ Scyrioi should be
dated to ‘not long after 450’.
47
See above, p. 22.
38 Deidameia
above.48 We know from Pliny (Nat. hist. 35.134) that a hundred years
later, still in Athens, Athenion from Maroneia depicted ‘Achilles dis-
guised in female dress while Ulixes detects him’ (Achillem virginis
habitu occultatum Ulixe deprendente, LIMC ‘Ach.’ 105). This work
has often been considered the source of the Pompeii frescoes LIMC
‘Ach.’ 54=108 (here Pl. 2), 109, and Mus. Arch. Naples 9110;49 all these
paintings, possibly in the wake of Athenion, point in one way or another
to the unbecoming nature of Achilles’ cross-dressing.50 But little infor-
mation exists concerning other paintings of Achilles in the gynaeceum,
in the wake of Polygnotus, apart from a few sarcophagi, mosaics, and
plates dating from late antiquity (LIMC ‘Ach.’ 96–103). We shall return
at the end of the chapter to this long iconographical silence.
48
p. 28. According to Simon (1963), the painting of Polygnotus would have been
the source inspiring the Boston krater. But there is no substantial evidence supporting
this connection, whereas Achilles among the maidens and Achilles departing from
Deidameia appear to be two different motifs in iconography.
49
Cf. Curtius (1929) 206–13; Robertson (1975) i.583–4; Ling (1991) 133–4; Ghe-
dini (2009) 86–8. A painting of the early Hellenistic artist Theon of Samos, described
by Aelian, Var. hist. 2.44, depicted a young warrior (in Aelian’s words, a ‘hoplite’) who
has snatched his weapons and is excited as if he had to pounce on his enemies after the
blast of a trumpet. Fornari (1916) 63 tried to interpret this painting as portraying the
exposure of Achilles.
50
For instance, as observed by Grassigli (2006) 131 and Ghedini (2009) 87–8,
Achilles’ skin is effeminately white, in contrast with the brown skin of the other
Greeks. For Achilles’ female toiletries and earrings, often featuring in Pompeii fres-
coes, and their obvious contrast with his future predilection for weapons, see Grassigli
ibid.: Stat. Ach. 1.864–6 highlights that seeing his face on the reflecting surface of the
shield—most probably in opposition to his previous female mirror—caused Achilles a
shock that helped him to reject his past cross-dressing. See also below, pp. 75–6.
Deidameia 39
at greater length.51 It was also the main subject of a late Hellenistic
hexametrical poem known as the Epithalamium of Achilles and
Deidameia (henceforth Epith.).52 This poem is an erotic/mythological
narrative very similar to what modern scholars label an ‘epyllion’,
though it has a pastoral frame;53 it probably dates from the end of the
second or the beginning of the first century bc, as it seems to be the
work of Bion or of his school.54 Both Lycophron and the Epith.
emphasize the unheroic character of Achilles’ stay at Scyros, despite
their quite different evaluations of his character and of the situation
he finds himself in. In fact the tone is derogatory in Lycophron, who
stigmatizes the protagonist’s lack of heroic temper, but sympathet-
ically erotic in the Epith., which seems to admire the fact that its
protagonist makes love, not war. Lycophron’s outlook reflects the
usual anti-Greek bias with which the Trojan Alexandra/Cassandra
describes the characters and deeds of the major Greek heroes at
Troy;55 this bias is especially bitter in the case of Achilles, as he had
killed her brother Hector.
In an attempt to cast Achilles in as pejorative a light as possible,
Alexandra even goes so far as to omit Thetis’ role in her son’s cross-
dressing in Scyros. The idea that Achilles acquiesced in his cross-
dressing adventure solely to assuage his mother’s anxieties seems to
51
Eustath. ad Hom. Il. 19.327 (1187.14) refers to Palamedes as exposing Achilles
ªıÆØŒØÇ ‘effeminized’ in Lycophron—but this agency of Palamedes is not
recounted in the Alexandra. In any case, according to Al. 183–5, Lycophron appears
to have believed that Neoptolemus was the son of Iphigeneia, not Deidameia.
52
The Epithalamium of Achilles and Deidamia is a poem whose beginning (the first
31 and a half lines) has come down to us in the collection of anonymous texts
appended to the Bucolic sylloge in two manuscripts of the Laurentian family, which
suggest the title ’¯ ØŁÆº Ø/ åØººø ŒÆd ˜ÅØÆ Æ. The MS Tr (Triclinius?)
ascribed the poem to Theocritus, probably for no other reason apart from the title,
since the Theocritean Epithalamium of Helen and Menelaus also contained mytholo-
gical characters. The title transmitted in the manuscripts was probably a late and
general editorial classification based on the fact that the main narrative in the surviving
part of the text deals with the courting of Deidameia by a cross-dressed Achilles, which
at least in part takes place in a bedchamber. In fact, the poem has none of the features of
the archaic lyric genre of the KØŁÆº Ø or of a text like the Theocritean Epithala-
mium of Helen and Menelaus, which is a hexameter adaptation of this originally lyric
genre.
53
An interesting parallel to this structure is represented by the Dirae ascribed to
Virgil, where catalogic curse poetry is grafted onto the thin monologic frame and
refrains by a farmer (the addressee, Battarus, never replies): cf. Reed (2006) 218.
54
See below, pp. 43–6.
55
See above, p. 18.
40 Deidameia
have been the most common apology entertained by the authors who
passed judgement on this episode in his life, but did not want to be
overly censorious—from Ov. Ars am. 689 turpe, nisi hoc matris precibus
tribuisset (to which we shall return later), to Tertullian and Libanius. For
a Christian judging pagan mythology, however, not even the pressure
exerted by a mother could serve as a satisfactory justification: cf. Tertull.
pall. 4.2 feras si in puero, matri sollicitudinem patiens; certe iam histri-
culus, certe iam virum alicui clanculo functus, adhuc sustinet stolam
fundere ‘one may willingly tolerate, in the case of a little boy, a mother’s
concern. But no doubt he was already covered with hair, no doubt he
had already proved himself a man to somebody, when he still put up
with a woman’s flowing robe’. In Liban. Progymn. Laud. 3.5–6 the first
line of defence is to denounce as liars those people who invented the
myth of Achilles at Scyros;56 but, he adds in the encomium of Achilles, if
we do in fact want to accept this myth, we have to acknowledge, as an
excuse for Achilles, that he underwent the cross-dressing only because
he wanted to please his anxious mother ( åÆ ªaæ i ŒÆd F æ
B PçÅÆ YÅ, N BØ Åæd çıÅØ 寿 Æ ŁÆØ E TØŁÅ).
In an unsurprising move for the Third Sophistic, a different declama-
tion of Libanius (Progymn. Vitup. 1.5–7) argues the opposite thesis and
turns what in the encomium was the usual satisfactory excuse into an
insufficient apology for a man of Achilles’ make-up: Thetis’ operation,
in Libanius’ vituperatio, does not justify Achilles, who simply dodged
the draft, whereas the other Greeks dutifully prepared for war—Ther-
sites included, despite his physical handicap.57
We might certainly suppose that Lycophron omitted the agency of
Thetis simply because of the brevity of his reference to the episode of
Achilles’ cross-dressing, or because in general he is cryptically elu-
sive—in this case he could presuppose that every reader would
assume Thetis’ or Peleus’ role in the hiding of the boy Achilles at
56
See below, pp. 63–4.
57
‘He fabricated this either unwillingly or willingly indulging his mother (F b
Y ¼Œø Y Œg ÆPBØ BØ Åæd 寿ØÇ ºÆ )—in either case it was not
noble; for let no one, I say, indulge even his parents in a way that will make him
disreputable (¼ ), and even if they have given bad advice, let him not confirm it by
failing to object. For I think the best thing for a man who was actually good would
have been to remove his mother’s fear, cheer her up, talk with her about glory, match
his honour against her fear, sympathize with her, shed tears, and convince the one
wishing to protect him that this would be harsher than death, and if he failed to
convince her, to hurt his mother in only this one way—by being noble even against
her will’ (trans. by C. A. Gibson).
Deidameia 41
Scyros, as this role was present in every other version of the episode of
the transvestite Achilles that we know before Lycophron.58 But in the
context of Alexandra’s words, brimming as they are with hatred, her
silence on Thetis’ responsibility surely magnifies the cowardice of
which Alexandra most explicitly accuses him by suppressing every
extenuating circumstance. As for the fact that Achilles defeated and
killed Hector, Alexandra highlights both the cruel greed with which
he demanded a very high ransom for Hector’s body (only to suffer the
same fate when he himself died) and the cowardice with which he
originally tried to avoid Hector’s spear (Al. 269–80):
ºÆg b Ææı F çÆ ı ,
Œ ŁæHØ Æº øØ æı Å MæÅ, 270
ÆsŁØ e IØ KªåÆ Y
—ÆŒºØ ÆŁE Ø ÅºÆıªB æ,
ŒæÆBæÆ B Œåı ÆØ, Œ ŒºÆı
çÆØ Ø, ÆQ çºÆ BÅçæı ª ,
¸ ØÅٿŠْ o æŁ —غ Æ Œc 275
› ŒææÆ, n æ ØÆø
ŒÆd ŁBºı Içd HÆ º ÆØ º
FÆØ, Ææ ƒ E Œ æŒ łÆ Æ Œæø,
ŒÆd ºE Ł N ªB ı H ÞEłÆØ Æ,
e , ÆØ , ŒI oøØ ø æı. 280
And having slain the bull he takes the price thereof, weighed in the strict
balance of the scales. But one day he shall for recompense pour in the
scales an equal weight of the far shining metal of Pactolus and shall
enter the cup of Bacchus, wept for by the nymphs who love the clear
waters of Bephyras and the high seat of Leibethron above Pimpleia; even
he, the trafficker in corpses, who, fearing beforehand his doom, shall
endure to do upon his body a female robe, handling the noisy shuttle at
the loom, and shall be the last to set his foot in the land of the foe,
cowering, O brother, even in his sleep before your spear.
Alexandra presents the stay at Scyros as a sort of unfitting, almost
unnatural (º ÆØ) and thus dishonourable choice for Achilles,
which readers could easily ascribe to his fear of the war in general,
or of Hector in particular, who is mentioned immediately after-
wards.59 After introducing Achilles by depicting him as a ferocious
58
This is not, however, the case of the later Hor. C. 1.8.13–16, see below, pp. 61–2.
59
This is the interpretation of the psychology of Lycophron’s Achilles according to
a medieval reader, Tzetzes ( Lycophr. 277): ‘the story has been told by post-Homeric
42 Deidameia
and enormous bird of prey at 260–5, she concludes by imagining him
terrified by Hector’s spear: ‘the final words of the passage, ø
æı, enact the diminution of Achilles from predator to prey, crouch-
ing to avoid discovery’.60 In fact, in the absence of any mention of
Thetis’ agency, we are left to wonder whether Achilles’ real nature is
to be a predator or to fear being preyed upon. Compare the quite
different passion of the young Achilles for the patria hasta ‘paternal
spear’ in Stat. Ach. 1.41, whereas the dolor and the timores for his
future reside in materno corde, ‘in my mother’s heart’ (1.42); see also
presagia materni somni, ‘his mother’s prophetic dream’ (1.22).61 Be-
sides, Achilles’ attempt to avoid going to Troy and the dishonour
associated with his late arrival there (ºE Ł ‘last’: really an anti-
Protesilaus!) are combined with a hint in ŒææÆ at his disreput-
able request to ‘sell’ Hector’s body for a certain quantity of gold62 and
his nightmares concerning the spear of Hector: even what he manages
to do around Troy when he is finally compelled to go there, is marred
by venal or cowardly feelings. Lycophron’s synthesis of all of these
more or less well-known stains on Achilles’ heroic record undercuts
the heroic kleos he had acquired in the Homeric version of the war at
Troy.63 Lycophron’s Alexandra cannot rewrite the story of the war or
the death of Hector (the Iliad still exists), but at least she can
acrimoniously re-read the story of these events with an anti-Iliad
and anti-Greek perspective. It is impossible to establish whether this
authors (E øæØ) that Achilles heard that Hector was brave, and then, fright-
ened (çÅŁ ), simulated to be a girl, etc.’ (Tzetzes refers to ‘post-Homeric authors’,
probably only to specify that the myth was not in Homer, and appears to paraphrase
the specific words of Lycophron’s Alexandra).
60
Cf. McNelis and Sens (2011) 69.
61
As remarked by Mendelsohn (1990) 298–304, with the stay at Scyros Thetis
subdues Achilles to her own female status, whereas Achilles’ interest for the patria
hasta under Chiron’s tutelage represents a victory of the paternal influence which
Thetis can only overcome momentarily. Achilles’ rape of Deidameia also seems to
emulate his father’s rape of Thetis, which is described e.g. by Ov. Met. 11.238–40: cf.
again Mendelsohn (1990) 304–5; also Heslin (2005) 275–6.
62
With reference to the story that Achilles would have only agreed to ransom
Hector’s body in exchange for his weight in gold, which may be adumbrated in Hom.
Il. 22.351 and narrated in Aeschylus’ Phryges: cf. TrGF iii, p. 365.
63
Deconstructing the kleos of Achilles, and constructing a greater than Homeric
kleos for Hector (often ascribing to him the images of martial greatness which Homer
had ascribed to Achilles) is a peculiar feature of Alexandra’s rhetorical strategy in
recounting the events surrounding Troy: McNelis and Sens (2011) 66–78. On Alex-
andra’s contempt for Odysseus, cf. also Sens (2010) 310–12.
Deidameia 43
spiteful deconstruction of Achilles’ heroism relied on some source or
not, or whether it was just the backbiting of a prophetess accustomed
to manipulating the presentation of events. In the Iliad Achilles
proudly maintains that, while he was fighting with the Greeks, ‘Hec-
tor was never willing to push the battle away from the wall, but would
come out no further than the Scaian gates and the oak-tree. There he
once stood up to me alone, and barely escaped my attack’ (9.352–5).
Certainly, when Agamemnon tried to restrain Menelaus from fight-
ing with Hector, he warned him that ‘even Achilles shudders (ææØª )
to meet this man [= Hector] in the fighting where men win glory, and
he is a much better man than you’ (7.113–14). But at least some of the
ancients considered these lines a ‘lie’ invented by Agamemnon to
‘deter’ Menelaus from fighting: minora Il. 7.114 “ææØª IغB ÆØ
means ‘he feared to encounter’. This was a lie; he said this to Mene-
laus in order to dissuade him (F b Kł Æ· ¥ Æ b I æłÅØ
e ºÆ r ÆPHØ)”.64 Probably there were no other passages
the ancients could bring to mind where Achilles was actually por-
trayed as frightened by Hector,65 or they applied their common
protective concern for Achilles’ heroism.
64
p. 132 De Marco.
65
Agamemnon’s phrase also seems ‘a piece of persuasive exaggeration’ e.g. to Kirk
(1990) 248.
66
According to Reed (1997) 29 the rhetorical style of the Epith., in particular, is
different from that of Bion’s extant works: ‘each theme is exploited for a few rhetorical
turns, then dropped. Bion’s manner is more organic and carefully wrought: he allows
each idea to build on the one before it, and keeps a single theme in view throughout a
44 Deidameia
which may lead us to suppose that the poem is either Bion’s work or
the work of a hyper-Bionean imitator of Bion—as it is clear from the
Epitaph for Bion 93–7, written by a devoted pupil or fan of Bion, this
poet left behind some form of poetic school after his death. In support
of this line of argument, we can point to plausible intertextual models
for the Epith.’s phrasing and also to certain motifs in the initial
exchange between the two shepherds which introduces the narrative
of Achilles’ stay at Scyros (Epith. 1–7):
(!"#˝) ¸BØ Ø, ¸ıŒÆ, ØŒ ºe º ±f ºØªÆ Ø,
ƒ æ ªºıŒŁı KæøØŒ, x › ˚Œºøł
¼ Ø —ºçÆ K MØØ <AØ> ˆÆºÆ ÆØ;
(¸!˚%˜`) ŒMd ıæ , æ ø, çº, Iººa ºłø;
(!".) ŒæØ <‹>, ¸ıŒÆ, ÇÆº pØ æøÆ,
º ŁæØÆ —ź Æ çØº ÆÆ, º ŁæØ P ,
H ÆE Æ çAæ, ‹ø Kł Æ æç . . .
(myrson) Will you sing for me some sweet Sicilian song, Lycidas—
some charming and delightful song of love such as the Cyclops Poly-
phemus sang to Galateia on the sea shore? (lycidas) I too should like to
pipe, Myrson, but of what am I to sing? (myr.) Of love in Scyros,
Lycidas, the song you used to sing in admiration: of the stolen kisses
of Peleus’ son and his stolen wedlock:67 how though a boy he put on a
woman’s robe, and feigned another form . . . 68
Myrson’s initial exhortation to Lycidas in Epith. 1 to ‘sing some sweet
Sicilian song’ (ØŒ ºe º ±f ºØªÆ Ø) is clearly connected to the
invocation of Bion to perform a last bucolic song for Core in the
Epitaph for Bion 119–21: Iºº ¼ª ˚æÆØ j ØŒ ºØŒ Ø ºªÆØ ŒÆd
± Ø ıŒºØ Ç ı. j ŒÆd Œ Æ ØŒ º . . . ‘Nay, come sing to the Maid
some song of Sicily and make her sweet rustic melody: she too is
Sicilian . . . ’. Uncertainties of authorship and relative chronology
passage’. However, my analysis below shows that the succession of themes in the
Epith. may involve a rhetorical strategy which is not loose at all, but, rather, focuses on
the strong underlying target of advertising its erotic-bucolic poetics.
67
‘Stolen’, not only according to the traditional motif of sex as ontologically
furtive, namely consummated in private, which dates from Hom. Il. 6.161 and
Mimn. 7.3 Gentili-Prato = IEG 1.3 and is widespread in Latin love elegy (cf. most
recently McKeown (1987–9) ii.101; Floridi (2007) 164–5); compare in particular Ps.-
Theocr. 27.68 çæØ P . In Epith. 6 the epithet is remotivated: the kisses and sex
which Achilles enjoyed with Deidameia are ‘stolen’, since he acquired them thanks to
his cross-dressing disguise.
68
Trans. from Theocritus, the Epith., and the Epitaph for Bion are by A. S. F. Gow,
with occasional modifications.
Deidameia 45
force us to remain uncertain about the direction of this intertextual
connection, but every possible interpretation involves some kind of
Bionean relevance for both texts. In fact, if the Epith. is by Bion, then
the author of the Epitaph might have borrowed from it, as was the
case for the Bionean Epitaph for Adonis, which the Epitaph for Bion
systematically imitates.69 Or, alternatively, in the Epith. an imitator of
Bion might have reused a line from the Epitaph for Bion, or a line of
Bion which the author of the Epitaph for Bion had also independently
adopted; indeed, the author of the Epitaph may well have been the
same pupil/imitator of Bion who also composed the Epith. The
description of the º, which Myrson bids Lycidas sing in the
Epith., as ØŒ º = ‘bucolic’ is in fact only paralleled in the refrain
of the Epitaph, where the ‘Sicilian Muses’ are invoked (ØŒ ºØŒÆ . . .
E ÆØ); in turn, this is later echoed by Virgil’s Sicelides Musae of Ecl.
4.1.70 ‘Sicilian’ thus appears to be either an epithet first attached to
bucolic poetry by Bion’s imitator in the Epitaph (or Bion before
him?), or at least a post-Theocritean generalization which is first
attested in Bion’s bucolic song.71 Indeed, the refrain of the Epitaph,
while mimicking the recurring invocations of the Muses in Theocr. 1
(64, 70, 73, etc.), turns the Muses, who are simply invoked as ‘Muses’
by Theocritus,72 into ØŒ ºØŒÆd E ÆØ.73 Furthermore, Myrson
69
Cf. Mumprecht (1964) 38–43.
70
Virgil’s Sicelides is a Graecism both in form and prosody, since the first syllable
is artificially lengthened, and this quantity had a few Hellenistic precedents, one of
which was our passage of the Epitaph: Clausen (1994) 130.
71
Theocritus has references to his Syracusan fatherland (11.7, 28.16–18), but in the
Epitaph both ØŒ ºØŒÆ . . . E ÆØ of this refrain (8, 13, 19, etc.: ¼æå ØŒ ºØŒÆ, H
Ł ¼æå , E ÆØ ‘begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge’) and ˜øæd IØ of line
12 appear to be regional epithets which have a wider geographic horizon than merely
Syracuse, and may have originated from post-Theocritean reflections on Theocritus’
poems or traditions concerning Daphnis and other pastoral Sicilian prototypes: cf.
Mumprecht (1964) 67–8; Fantuzzi (2008). Reed (1997) 165 maintains that ‘Sicilian’ in
the Epith. ‘refers to the circumstances of the narrated singing, not to genre’, since the
tale of Achilles at Scyros is not bucolic. However, in the Epith. the term practically
introduces a specific kind of erotic song that also has bucolic colouring, and thus seems
to be in tune with the post-pastoral and erotic poetics advertised in Bion’s fr. 10 (see
Fantuzzi (2012)), which can also be hinted at in lines 80–4 of the Epitaph.
72
¼æå ıŒºØŒA, E ÆØ çºÆØ, ¼æå IØA (‘begin, dear Muses, begin the
pastoral song’, 64, 70, etc.), ¼æå ıŒºØŒA, E ÆØ, ºØ ¼æå IØA (‘begin,
Muses, begin again the pastoral song’, 94, 99, etc.), or ºª ıŒºØŒA, E ÆØ, Y
ºª IØA (‘cease, Muses, come cease the pastoral song’, 127, 131, etc.).
73
See also Epitaph 121, where the author wants to confirm Core’s certain attention
to bucolic song, which he has asked Bion to sing in lines 119–20 quoted above, and
thus he argues: ŒÆd Œ Æ ØŒ º ‘she too is Sicilian’.
46 Deidameia
appears elsewhere as a shepherd only in Bion fr. 2, where he is again
one of the two shepherds engaged in poetic dialogue. As for the name
of the other shepherd in Epith. 1–9, Lycidas, this is inherited from
Theocr. 7, where it was the name of the foundational goatherd who
invested Simichidas(/Theocritus) with the role of bucolic singer.
Similarly, in the Epith. it is the name of the shepherd who is asked
to perform and who does the singing. But Lycidas also has a special
relevance in Bion’s poetry. In Bion fr. 9.10 it is the name of the poet’s
beloved and constitutes a bucolic element within a context of erotic
poetry: a poetic mode which also appears to be promoted in fr. 10 and
to which Bion (or a character of his, if the first-person speaker of frr. 9
and 10 is not the author) declares his total dedication.74
Now, the story of Achilles at Scyros that is portrayed in the Epith.
does not belong to bucolic lore, but appears rather to be an erotic
story from the heroic myth. However, the way it is introduced in the
Epith. determines its bucolicization, prefacing as it does its non-
bucolic content with a brief bucolic frame. On the one hand, the
episode of Achilles’ youth that Lycidas is going to sing retains a
strong, albeit erotically distanced connection to the epic tradition:
—ź Æ çØº ÆÆ ‘the kisses of Peleus’ son’ of line 6 seems to be a
reversal of the BØ . . . —źŜ ø åØºB ‘the anger of Achilles
son of Peleus’, the stated subject of the Iliad in its first line.75 On the
other hand, the bucolic frame connects these epic elements with
the ensuing erotic narrative of Achilles at Scyros: through this
frame, the Achilles narrative is presented as the song of a shepherd
which is endowed with a sweetness comparable to the erotic songs
sung by the Homeric and Philoxenean bucolic Cyclops of Theocritus
and Bion. The Cyclops is an especially well-chosen parallel suggested
by Myrson to introduce an erotic-mythological tale set in a pastoral
frame, since he had featured in Theocr. 6 and 11, and perhaps also in
Bion’s fr. 16, precisely as a sort of pre-heroic mythological character
who is loaned out, as it were, to the erotic sphere of the bucolic world.
As a mythological figure in the Homeric Odyssey, the Cyclops had
been a frightening and monstrous cannibal, but he was successfully,
74
For Bion frr. 9 and 10, and their poetics, see Fantuzzi (2012). In particular on
Bion’s erotic-pastoral poetry and its influence on Latin erotic poets of the 1st cent., cf.
Fantuzzi (2003); Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004) 171–90.
75
Cf. Gutzwiller (1981) 74.
Deidameia 47
and ironically, transformed into a helpless and pathetic lover by
Theocritus (after Philoxenus).76 The young Achilles of the Epith.
seems to have little in common with the frightening and outrageous
Iliadic Achilles; rather, he is envisioned as an erotic-bucolic character
of the same stamp as the young post-Odyssey Cyclops of Theocritus.
And the Cyclops too remains a monster, but he is also tenderly in
love, and he hardly shows any signs of his epic past as a repugnant
cannibal. In other words, the brute of the Odyssey and the relentless
warrior of the Iliad represented the traditional Homeric past of these
two characters; many centuries after Homer, however, the poet of the
Epith. chooses to cast the same characters at the beginning of their
careers, and as tender lovers of an elegiac bent. It turns out, then, that
they share an asymmetry between their biographical and literary
histories: as far as their biographies are concerned, both Achilles
and the Cyclops experience love before they live through the events
featured in the Iliad and Odyssey respectively;77 yet these tales of their
early years were excavated and expanded long after the completion of
the Homeric poems. This is another significant point of contact
which would have led the reader to recognize the reason for Myrson’s
association of the Cyclops and Achilles.
Beyond these points of contact, however, the Achilles of the Epith.
has nothing of the erotic awkwardness of the Homeric Cyclops and he
is a much more talented lover. The Cyclops of Theocr. 11.14–15 is
sitting alone (ÆP) on the beach with his heart wounded by love,
languishing from daybreak (K IF) but never managing to commu-
nicate with Galateia in the narrative of this poem (even in Theocr. 6,
for the sake of the strange matrimonial strategy that he professes
in lines 32–3, the Cyclops avoids paying attention to her when she
comes out of the sea and appears to flirt with him, so that she has to
pursue him while he pretends not to love her any more: lines 15–19).
76
It is impossible to say how far Theocritus’ predecessor Philoxenus went in
bucolicizing and romanticizing the atmosphere in which the Cyclops operated in
the dithyramb called after him. But the significant role of Odysseus in his story (PMG
818, 823–4), not excluding the episode of the blinding of the Cyclops (PMG 820),
leads us to suspect that Philoxenus did not go very far, and that ‘the love-story was
evidently no more than a sub-plot’ (Hordern (2004) 285).
77
In Met. 14.158–222 (Achaemenides’ report about himself, abandoned by Odys-
seus and his companions in the cave of the Cyclops) and 13.738–987 (the Cyclops and
Galateia) Ovid humorously ranks far from each other and in non-chronological order
the lives of the Cyclops before and after Odysseus: cf. Labate forthcoming.
48 Deidameia
In the Epith., however, Achilles engages in a more promising and
pragmatic seduction of the object of his desire: from daybreak (K
IF, line 22) to night he was sitting beside Deidameia (ÆæÇ ,
ibid.) in a sort of siege which resembles a successful stalking.78 And
Achilles does indeed achieve his end as a successful lover, most prob-
ably within the narrative of the Epith., whereas even Theocr. 6 had left
it quite ambiguous as to whether the Cyclops actually conquered
Galateia or merely fabricated a fantasy in which he conquered her.
The initial frame of the Epith. involves other specific metaliterary
devices that are concerned with the poem’s bucolic pedigree. For
example, it engages in a sort of allusive challenge to the programmatic
first two and a half lines of Theocr. 1. In these lines Thyrsis had
defined the sweetness of the new bucolic song by creating an analogy
between the music of nature and the music of the shepherd’s song:
± Ø e łØŁæØ Æ ŒÆd ± ı, ÆNº , Æ,
± d ÆE ƪÆE Ø, º ÆØ, ±f b ŒÆd f
ıæ . . . .
Sweet is the whispered music of that pinetree by the springs, goatherd,
and sweet too your piping.
Theocritus’ shepherd Thyrsis thus presents the music of bucolic song
as an extension of the sounds of the natural world,79 and the shepherd
of the Epith. defines his bucolic-erotic song as a variation on the
erotic songs of the bucolic Cyclops. Furthermore, there is a nexus of
intertextual references in the Epith. which corroborates the analogy
between the passionate love of the Cyclops and that of Achilles. To
begin with, ºBØ ‘you will’, the first word in Myrson’s invitation to
Lycidas to sing in Epith. 1, precisely echoes the first word in Thyrsis’
invitation to the goatherd to play the syrinx in Theocr. 1.12. Above all,
the dichotomy ıæ Ø/º Ø expressed by Lycidas in Epith. 4,
and the emphasis on the sweetness of the song requested by Myrson
in Epith. 1–2 (º ±f . . . ƒ æ ªºıŒŁı ‘sweet song . . .
charming delightful’) together challenge Theocr. 1.1–3 (± Ø
łØŁæØ Æ . . . º ÆØ, ±f b ŒÆd f ıæ ).
78
The strategy of the Statian Achilles is not any different: cf. Ach. 1.570 nunc
nimius lateri non evitantis inhaeret ‘now he clings too closely to her side (nor does she
avoid him)’.
79
Cf. Hunter (1999) 68–71.
Deidameia 49
The Cyclops thus stands as both a point of reference or comparison
and as an agonistic challenge. This double status may be another clue
that the Epith. is either the work of Bion or of a pupil/imitator of
Bion; at least, it certainly confirms some intertextual connection
between the Epith. and the Epitaph for Bion. In the whole of the
Epitaph, Bion, the poet whose death is actually sung, impersonates
Adonis, the young and beautiful semigod whose death Bion had
celebrated in the Epitaph for Adonis. With a witty shift from Bion
the author to Bion the protagonist of his stories, the Epitaph imagines
Bion not only as—unlike the Cyclops—a successful wooer of Galateia,
but also as her most successful lover: it was love for him that caused
her to look on him more sweetly than on the waves of her watery
abode (she thus followed the advice the Cyclops of Theocr. 11.43–4
and 49 had given her, albeit in vain), to join him on dry land (as the
Cyclops implored, unheeded, in Theocr. 11.42), and to devote herself
to shepherding his cattle (thus sharing his property, with which the
Cyclops hoped to entice her in Theocr. 11.42). Cf. Epitaph 58–63:
ŒºÆ Ø ŒÆd ˆÆº ØÆ e e º, – Œ æ
ÇÆ a E Ææ’ IØ Ø ŁÆº Æ·
P ªaæ Y ˚ŒºøØ º . e b ç ıª
± ŒÆºa ˆÆº ØÆ, b ’ –Ø º –ºÆ,
ŒÆd F ºÆ ÆÆ H ŒÆ K łÆ ŁØ Ø
&Ç ’ KæÅÆÆØ Ø, Æ ’ Ø E Ø.
Galateia too weeps for your song—Galateia, whom once you would
delight as she sat by you on the sea-beaches, for your music was not as
the music of the Cyclops. Him the fair Galateia would fly, but on you
she looked more gladly than on the sea, and now, the waves forgotten,
she sits on the lonely sands, and still herds your kine.
This passage presupposes that either Bion or the ‘Cyclops and Gal-
ateia’ poem of Bion (fr. 16) conquered Galateia’s heart—either in the
context of the narrative of that poem (e.g. in a happy ending of that
poem) or only in the fantasy of the pupil of Bion who wrote the
Epitaph, and fictionalized in his lines that Galateia returned Bion’s
poem with love for him. Therefore I am attracted by the idea that the
Epith. also involves the ‘reversal’ of the sad story of Theocr. 11: the
love story of Achilles for Deidameia, which was going to be concluded
with the success of Achilles’ wooing, may have both challenged
antiphonically the unsuccessful Cyclops of Theocr. 11, and evoked
in full sympathy the triumphal Bion who won Galateia’s heart.
50 Deidameia
While challenging the Cyclops of Theocr. 11 in tune with the
competition Bion/Cyclops in the Epitaph, the author of the Epith.
seems to also challenge the erotic songs of bucolic poetry in general.
Lycidas’ strongly metaliterary interrogative Iººa ºłø; (‘but of
what am I to sing?’) in Epith. 4 problematizes his choice of content
and implicitly points to the variety of his repertory. Significantly,
the Cyclops of Theocr. 6 and 11, or the goatherd of Theocr. 3 (the
other main erotic singer in Theocritus), had no choice when it came
to the content of their songs. The bucolic singers of Theocritus
specialized in singing of their own pain in love or of the pain of
other shepherds, and they were more or less limited to this kind of
self-representation.80 On the contrary, however, Lycidas has such a
varied repertory that he can respond positively to Myrson’s prompt
(5–9) by performing the mythological—and thus obviously extra-
bucolic—story of Achilles and Deidameia.81
The poetological relevance and self-awareness of this insertion of a
mythological narrative into the pastoral world is especially clear in
the incipit of the actual song. Lycidas’ tale of the love story between
Achilles and Deidameia begins in Epith. 10–20 with its ‘pre-history’:
–æÆ a ῾¯ºÆ Ł › øŒº, pª K ῎%Æ, 10
ˇNÅØ ŒÆŒe ¼ºª. Kå Æ < > ± ¸ÆŒ Æø
Æ b ºÆe ¼ª Øæ `åÆœŒ, P Ø ῞¯ººÅ,
h ıŒÅÆø h ῎˙ºØ h ¸ÆŒø,
E e ŒÆa HÆ çıªg Æ @æÅÆ.
º ŁÆ K ŒæÆØ ¸ıŒÅ Ø F åØºº , 15
YæØÆ IŁ ‹ºø KØ Œ , ŒÆd å æd º ıŒAØ
ÆæŁ ØŒe Œæ r å , KçÆ M ŒæÆ·
ŒÆd ªaæ Y ÆØ ŁÅº , ŒÆd ¼Ł
80
In the same vein, other performances of bucolic singers in Theocritean poetry
had focused only on bucolic stories as the contents of their songs (this applies both to
Thyrsis’ singing of Daphnis in Theocr. 1, and to Tityrus’ singing of Daphnis and of
Comatas in Theocr. 7). The Cyclops of Bion’s fr. 16 is also obsessively limited in his
choice of themes, since he promises to walk his way to the shore ‘beseeching cruel
Galateia’, and devoting himself forever to the ‘sweet hopes’ of love until he reaches
extreme old age.
81
Of course the phrase Iººa ºłø; reflects ‘a convention taken by the bucolic
poets from the practice of the bards composing on a specific thematic kernel of the
mythological tradition’ (as remarked by Sistakou (2008) 172). But the total openness
of the question (and the absence of the short list of exemplary alternative options
which are often suggested after the proposition of aporia, e.g. in the ‘Homeric’ hymns)
points in the direction of highlighting the great variety of themes that Lycidas is able
to perform.
Deidameia 51
åØÆØ æçıæ ÆæÅ Ø, ŒÆd e Ø Æ
ÆæŁ ØŒB K ØÇ , ŒÆ KŒÆÇ ŒÆºæÅØ. 20
The herdsman once bore off Helen and to Ida took her, a bitter sorrow
for Oenone. And Lacedaemon was wroth and gathered all the Achaean
folk; nor was there any Greek, not in Mycenae or Elis or Sparta, who
stayed at home escaping the cruel war. Only Achilles lay hid among
Lycomedes’ daughters and was schooled in wool, not weapons; in
untanned hand he carried a maiden’s broom, and looked like a girl.
Womanlike as they he bore himself; as theirs the bloom upon his
snowy cheeks. His walk was maidenlike and with a veil he covered his
hair.
The well-known, almost hackneyed tale of the origins of the Trojan
War is presented here from a peculiarly tendentious point of view,
which renews the motif in a striking way. By antonomastically refer-
ring to Paris as › øŒº, the Epith. places such emphasis on his
profession that no room is left for his name. This strong bucoliciza-
tion of Paris is not an isolated move by the author of the Epith., since
it is also paralleled in the first line of Ps.-Theocr. 27 a Øıa
EºÆ — æØ læÆ ıŒº ¼ºº ‘another herdsman, Paris, bore
off the prudent Helen’. Here a girl, who seems to have just allowed
herself to be kissed by Daphnis (the beginning of the poem is lost),
justifies her imminent yielding to him through this paradigm. The
relative chronology of these two appearances of Paris as the paradig-
matic bucolic seducer cannot be determined, since [Theocr.] 27 has
been tentatively dated to quite different times.82
The pastoral characterization of Paris is reinforced in the Epith. by
reference to his bucolic partner, the nymph Oenone, and to his
bucolic landscape, Mount Ida. In fact, Paris is said to have returned
with Helen to Mount Ida where he had been a cowherd, although,
logically, he should have concluded the pastoral phase of his life and
regained his status as a prince in Troy before departing to Sparta: he
had no reason, in fact, to return to Ida after being recognized as a
82
See Beckby (1975) 516 for an outline of conjectures about the chronology. The
poem has also been ascribed to Bion by Gallavotti (ed.), but there is little textual
evidence to support his authorship. The intensely erotic character of its contents
should not be considered sufficient proof, of course, especially since the strongly
pastoral characters and contents of this poem do not appear to be in agreement with
what we can reconstruct or conjecture about Bion’s post-bucolic erotic/bucolic poetry.
52 Deidameia
prince.83 On this point of the return to Ida, the Epith. is in tune with
what Agamemnon says of Paris in Eur. IA 75–6 KæH KæH Æ þØå
K ÆÆæ Æ j EºÅ æe ῎%Å ÆŁ(Æ) ‘he carried Helen off,
in mutual desire, to his steading on Ida’. However, in Euripides,
Agamemnon’s phrase pointedly emphasized the notorious lowliness of
the shepherd’s existence; he thus expressed the same contempt for both
Paris and Helen that he had just conveyed in lines 73–4, albeit there
through a somewhat contradictory reference to the luxurious Asiatic
fashion of Paris’ apparel.84 In a very different way, the specification of
Paris’ return to Ida seems to be adopted with some bucolic sympathy in
Epith. 10, and it is joined structurally to the pain of Oenone, who
belongs to the same pastoral world of Ida as the pre-Helen Paris. By
opening a window onto Paris’ pastoral life with the nymph on Ida and
focusing on Helen’s abduction primarily as an upheaval in Paris’ peace-
ful, bucolic life with Oenone,85 this incipit bucolicizes the Trojan War in
the most radical way: it never mentions Troy, and it is as if Paris’ home
is Mount Ida and remains Ida, even after Helen’s abduction. A reader
who faithfully follows this introduction is not inclined, at least on a first
reading, to think of the standard scenario, according to which Helen’s
abduction caused the destruction of Troy: thanks to the wording of the
Epith. the love story of Achilles and Deidameia becomes the principal
consequence of an unfaithful shepherd’s sexual adventure (the name
Paris remains unmentioned) and the unhappy end of the love which
existed between him and the similarly pastoral Oenone.
Apart from its functional role in creating the bucolic frame, the
Epith.’s emphasis on Oenone is also relevant to the specific erotic
contents of the narrative which follows this framing: the story of Paris
and Oenone is never mentioned in Homer, and her name does not
83
The more logical perspective, according to which Paris and Helen come back
from Sparta to Troy, and not to Mount Ida, already appears e.g. in Stesich. PMGF 192
and Herod. 2.117. The recognition of Paris as a prince naturally follows the judgement
of the goddesses, as in the narrative of Helen’s rape he is expected to be a prince:
Stinton (1965) 56–7. Ida, in contrast, is a more ‘natural’ place for Oenone. In Ovid’s
epistle from Oenone to Paris (Her. 5) the nymph appears to be near the sea when the
ship is carrying Paris back with Helen (63–4) but immediately after seeing the other
woman and understanding the nature of her relation with Paris she runs away to Ida
in order to open the floodgates of her pain (73).
84
A not entirely coherent combination of derogatory suggestions (cf. Stinton
(1965) 56): does it point to some schizophrenia in Paris’ character?
85
As remarked by Gutzwiller (1981) 74: ‘[I]n the pastoral pleasance the conflicts of
life center on love, and war has no place’.
Deidameia 53
appear to be attested before Hellanicus, FGrHist 4F29 and Lyco-
phron, Al. 57–68, and thus it may be a later invention: after all, it is
‘obviously well suited to the Hellenistic predilection for erotic motifs,
even though it may have had old folkloric origins’.86 Most impor-
tantly, this story shares with Achilles/Deidameia and Cyclops/Gala-
teia the feature of being a romantic tale which involves the pre-Iliadic
life of Homeric characters, though its literary fortunes are actually
post-Homeric, as it had never been mentioned by Homer. Therefore
the vicissitude of Paris’ abandonment of Oenone is really a well-
chosen companion-tale at which to hint, side by side with the Cyclops
and Galateia, at the beginning of a narrative which was an erotic tale
with mythological characters. Such a narrative, in fact, was most likely
interested in advertising the quantity of untold, or relatively new, love
stories which could be developed from the recesses of the lives of
mythological characters already celebrated in archaic epic but for
different episodes.
The same erotic–bucolic chauvinism may also be at work in the
description of the broader consequences of Helen’s abduction. The
reaction which one might expect to be described is, of course, that of
Helen’s husband. On the contrary, Epith. 11 does not oppose Mene-
laus, who remains unnamed, but his city ‘Lacedaemon’ to the
ıŒº, whose pastoral habitat, Mount Ida, is mentioned, whereas,
as we have seen already, there is not a single mention of the fact that
he comes from and is destined to go back to Troy. Of course, every
reader could have easily intuited the names of the characters and
places of what was probably the most well-known Greek myth. But it
is tempting to suppose that the Epith. might have purposefully
emphasized the hatred (Kå Æ, 11) between a city, Sparta, and a
‘herdsman’ in order to highlight the opposition between urban and
pastoral life. This opposition, which is only vaguely envisaged in
86
Quotation from Stinton (1965) 40, who also argues (43) in favour of integrating
the name of the nymph into a lacunose passage of Bacchyl. fr. 20d.3, drawing an
appealing comparison between the folkloric character of the ıŒºØ Paris and
Daphnis. In a post-Iliadic and post-Cyclic version, Paris did not fall on the battlefield,
as seems to be the case in the Little Iliad, but his death was caused by the resentment of
the nymph Oenone, who, because of his betrayal, refused to treat an arrow wound that
only she could heal. This motif of a mortal betraying the love of a goddess and
receiving retribution in return, which probably belongs to folklore, has a parallel in the
folkloric characterization of Daphnis, who in most versions of his story either died or
was blinded in retribution for his infidelity to a nymph.
54 Deidameia
Theocritus, plays a substantial role in Virgil’s Eclogues and in Proper-
tius’ pastoral poems.87 See, in particular, Virgil’s Ecl. 2.60–2, where
Paris plays the role of the paradigmatic champion of pastoral life over
urban life:88
habitarunt di quoque silvas
Dardaniusque Paris. Pallas quas condidit arces
ipsa colat; nobis placeant ante omnia silvae.
Trojan Paris and the gods dwelt in the woods too. Let Pallas have her
citadels, and let the woods be our delight.89
If the Epith. was in fact written by Bion or one of his students, this
provenance could partially explain the particular Roman preference
for a city versus country dichotomy.90
Another important feature of the Epith., which may depend in part
on the fact that the singer is a shepherd, and shepherds are tradition-
ally addicted to singing of love and to pursuing the ± ıåÆ of the
countryside, is the strongly eroticized and anti-heroic perspective in
which the character of Achilles is introduced. Lines 12–13 make it
clear that no other Greek ‘stayed at home’; yet, as line 15 unequi-
vocally declares, Achilles ‘hid himself among the girls’. Furthermore,
if the conjectural reconstruction of line 14 which is commonly ac-
cepted in modern editions is correct,91 Achilles would have ‘run away’
(çıª) from the war (@æÅÆ). The qualification of war as Æ is
also telling. In Homer, and sometimes in later authors, Å
means ‘unhappy/pitiable’, but this sense is impossible in our passage,
since the idea of contempt rather than pity is certainly expressed here,
as is often the case in Sophocles and Euripides.92 Therefore, as
opposed to the objective epithets used to describe Ares’ destructive
negativity in Homer (Iæç (‘man slaying’), æºØª
87
See e.g. Stahl (1985) 181–2, 282–3; Knox (2006) 138–41.
88
Theodore Papanghelis, per litteras, also suggests the possibility that Virgil knew
of some pastoral text where the future Iliadic prince Paris featured as a still pastoral
lover. If so, the coexistence in the Epith. of the Achilles–Deidameia story and the story
of the Cyclops in love with Galateia would have relied on (and alluded to) another
exact parallel.
89
Trans. by P. Alpers.
90
The pupil of Bion who wrote the Epitaph for Bion speaks in line 94 of an
‘Ausonic mourning’ for Bion’s death. Thus he may have been an Italian, and his
reference certainly demonstrates that Bion had Italian fans.
91
The texts transmitted by the manuscripts are corrupt.
92
Cf. Bond (1981) 401.
Deidameia 55
(‘plague of man’), hºØ (‘baleful’), ıª æ (‘hateful’)), Æ is a
more evaluative/subjective term which must have sounded like a
condemnation of the war,93 conveying the ‘antagonistic’ point of
view to war one might expect from an erotic poet or his characters.94
The same epithet is also the sole extenuating circumstance that the
Epith. expresses for Achilles’ dodging the draft. Above all, the Epith.
nowhere mentions that Achilles was at Scyros as a result of his
mother’s (or his father’s) protective intervention—a point made in
almost all of the versions of the episode of the transvestite Achilles
that we know, apart from Lycophr. Al. 276–80 discussed above. As we
have already observed apropos of Lycophron,95 a general awareness
of the role Thetis played in the episode might have led readers to
assume, despite the silence of the Epith., that the boy Achilles had
been accompanied by his mother or his father. But this protective
intervention is not made explicit in the Epith. In view of this silence
about a parent forcing the young Achilles to don a female disguise,
might we infer that Achilles went to hide himself at Scyros and dodged
the draft not because of his fears, as in Lycophron, but to follow his
own erotic inclinations with a similar lack of heroic motivation? Yet
since there is no trace of the kind of vilification we found in Lyco-
phron’s Alexandra, he is here rather a hero of love whose choice seems
preferable to the militaristic choice of the rest of the Greeks.
The fact that Achilles appears to be perfectly at ease in his cross-
dressing and is deeply feminized is another anti-militaristic element
that contributes to the erotic atmosphere and viewpoint of the Epith.
Achilles is depicted as enjoying his situation, and fully complying
with the demands of his disguise: he has white skin (16) and snowy
cheeks (19) which blush shyly (19); he learns how to spin wool (16),
he walks like a woman (19–20), and he wears a veil (20).96 In effect, as
the author invites us to acknowledge, KçÆ ’ M ŒæÆ· j ŒÆd ªaæ
93
Interestingly enough, Achilles in Il. 19.324–5 is almost the only person in the
entire Iliad who uses strongly negative language for Helen, where she stands for the
manifestation of the war.
94
In fact, the Latin elegiac poets (not far off in time and in space from the author of
the Epith., if this author was Bion or an imitator of Bion) developed the opposition/
assimilation of love and war, contrasting or paralleling real war with their own shared
imagery of the militia amoris. A discussion of the main passages (and of the Greek
prehistory of the militia amoris) in Murgatroyd (1975); see also Benediktson (1985);
Volk (2010b); also below, pp. 144–5, 148, 159–60.
95
Above, pp. 39–41; also below, pp. 61–2.
96
These details have already been pointed out by Gutzwiller (1981) 74 and King
(1987) 180.
56 Deidameia
Y ÆØ ŁÅº ‘he looked like a girl. Womanlike as they he bore
himself ’, 17–18. Furthermore, in the Epith. it is precisely this com-
fortable familiarity with his transvestism that Achilles exploits in the
verbal strategies he uses to conquer Deidameia. We cannot rule out
the possibility that he had been doing the same thing in other texts
that narrate this episode of his life. In any case at least in the most
detailed poetic treatment of the myth known to us, Statius’ Achilleid,
from the beginning (1.318–24) to the end (1.652–4) of his cross-
dressing Achilles is aware that this disguise allows him to stay close
to Deidameia and to wait for a good opportunity to satisfy his
passion. But when he finally decides to engage with her sexually,
he does so in the Achilleid through the violence of rape, which he
views as his first male action after the extended repression of his
manly temper under female clothes: cf. 1.638–9 quonam usque
premes urentia pectus / vulnera, teque marem (pudet heu!) nec
amore probabis? ‘How long will you suppress the wound that
burns your breast, nor even in love (for shame!) prove yourself a
man?’97 And he was also supposed to have raped Deidameia in the
brief account offered by Ov. Ars am. 1.681–704, where Achilles’
conquest of Deidameia is presented as a paradigm of male force
being used in the conquest of love objects. On the contrary, in the
scene that concludes the surviving part of the Epith. (lines 25–30),
Achilles tries to attain his goal by furthering his pretence of femi-
ninity to the most extreme point:
Æ K Ø
ø ŒØe K o. º ı ŒÆd ºª ÆPAØ·
“¼ººÆØ b Œ ı Ø f IºººÆØ Ø I ºçÆ,
ÆPaæ Kªg Æ, Æ b , çÆ, ŒÆŁ Ø.
ƃ ÆæŁ ØŒÆd ı ºØŒ , ƃ ŒÆºÆ,
Iººa ÆØ ŒÆa ºŒæÆ ŒÆŁ . . .”
and all his endeavour aimed that they should sleep together; indeed he
said to her: ‘Other sisters sleep with one another, but I alone and you
alone, maiden. Though both be girls of the like age and both fair, alone
in our beds we sleep . . .’
Not without some awareness of the paradoxicality of this idea (cf.
Æ K Ø, º ı ŒÆ), the author ascribes to Achilles a speech
97
On this passage, and the sense of rape in the episode of Scyros, see below, pp. 70–3.
Deidameia 57
in which he appears to appropriate the female voice of Sappho or a
Sapphic character: in an Aeolizing text usually ascribed to Sappho
(168b Voigt),98 a female voice, who is possibly, but not necessarily,
the author, expresses distress over her nocturnal solitude in bed,
perhaps implying that she hoped it would be otherwise:99
ıŒ b I º Æ
ŒÆd —ºÅÆ · ÆØ b
Œ , Ææa æå þæÆ·
ªø b Æ ŒÆ ø.
The moon has set and the Pleiades. The night is at its midpoint, time
passes, and I sleep alone.100
This fragment (or could it be a complete short poem?)101 is quoted
by Hephaestion as an anonymous example of a metre (the ionic
tetrameter), and is only ascribed to Sappho by Byzantine parœmiog-
raphers.102 Therefore, its Sapphic authorship has sometimes been
questioned.103 Regardless of whether it is by Sappho or by one of
her imitators, however, the desire which it describes is erotic and the
memorable ªø b Æ ŒÆ ø of the Aeolic text will have been
easily perceived as the intertext in the background of Epith. 28: ÆPaæ
Kªg Æ, Æ b , çÆ, ŒÆŁ Ø (female voices expressing
sexual desire must have been few in Greek poetry). The sense to be
inferred from this intertextual connection is that Achilles, disguised as
a girl, was trying to deceive Deidameia by taking on the additional
disguise of a female homoerotic voice. At the same time, however, the
Achilles of the Epith. challenges the phrasing of the Sapphic
text, especially by twisting it to also function as a warning for
Deidameia, when he suggests that the feeling of solitude is shared by
98
Beckby (1975) 562 has already pointed out the parallel to Sappho 168b.
99
As remarked by Snyder (1997) 121. In fact, at least in Homer, seems to be
a specialized word that defines a threatening, or at least a tense and impairing
condition of loneliness, whereas its (apparent) synonym r can be used for every
state of singleness and does not imply stress (Goldhill (2010)).
100
I take þæÆ to point, implicitly, to the passing of Sappho’s life, with Sider (1986)
58–9.
101
As suggested by Clay (1970) 126.
102
A reference to Sappho in the allusion to this text in Her. 15.155–6 leads us to
suspect that Ovid considered it to be her work.
103
See in particular Page (1958), who argues against Sappho’s authorship; Clay
(1970) and Sider (1986), who argue convincingly in favour of it.
58 Deidameia
both himself and her. He thus transforms the original nostalgic sense
of the erotic solitude of a single person into a paraenetic motivation
for Deidameia to sleep in the same bed as another girl in order that
they might overcome this shared solitude. In other words, through the
allusion to Sappho Achilles hints at the erotic distress of his solitude,
but at the same time, for the sake of Deidameia’s innocent ears, he
seems simply to suggest an innocent sharing of the bed for compa-
nionship. In the same twofold allusive interplay, Achilles’ designation
of the other girls who surround Deidameia as ı ºØŒ probably
includes another connotation which is particularly well-suited (and
of good omen) to Achilles’ wishes, since Sappho had twice mentioned
the P ºØŒ of the bride celebrating weddings in her epithalamia
(30.7, 103.11), and Theocr. 18.22 (another epithalamium) had also
defined—in a probable reference to Sappho—the singers of this poem
as ı ºØŒ of Helen.104 Besides, çÆ from line 28 of the Epith. is
also charged with a convenient ambiguity whose promising connota-
tions Achilles could be exploiting for himself without allowing Deida-
meia to understand, or to be disquieted by, his true intentions.
Deidameia would have believed that she was being addressed as a
‘marriageable maiden,’ according to one of the two possible meanings
of çÅ.105 The word, however, is also quite a common designation
of the bride—e.g. again, in the vocabulary of Sappho’s epithalamia (frr.
30.4, 103.2, 103b.2, 116, 117)—and Achilles might thus be hinting at
this other meaning as a sign of his wish, and an anticipation of his
imminent erotic conquest.
Amusingly enough, if any real sexual intention can be grasped
from the supposedly innocent invitation spoken by Achilles to Dei-
dameia, Achilles has to seem a homosexual wooer: he conquers
Deidameia as a woman, not as a male, and his female disguise is
most credible and accomplished up to the last moment before he
regains his virility. In other words, Achilles’ impersonation of a
female voice is objectively an effective stratagem of a male lover
pursuing the target of his desire; but within the textual strategy of
the Epith. it also contributes to the general picture of Achilles’ com-
pliant effeminacy.
104
That this word had a special Sapphic colouring is proved by the fact that
P ºØŒ also reappears in Theocr. 30.20, an Aeolic (male) homoerotic poem.
105
e.g. in Hom. Il. 9.560.
Deidameia 59
This reuse of Sappho by Achilles is not the only instance of
transgendered language in the myth of the cross-dressed Achilles: it
was obviously intriguing to speculate on how one of the most fiery of
the epic heroes was to speak, and other people were to speak to him, if
he was a woman. We know from at least three sources—Hygin. Fab.
96.1, Ptol. Chenn. ap. Phot. Bibl. cod. 190 (p. 53 Henry) quoting the
mythographer Aristonicus of Tarentum, and Sidon. Apollin. carm.
9.141 Loyen—that Achilles in the gynaeceum received ‘from the
virgins, because he had blond hair’ (Hyginus) his own female name
‘Pyrrha’. Besides, an inscription ‘pyrra filius tetidis’ is found in a
mosaic of the fourth/fifth century ad from Sanisteban del Puerto
(LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 100),106 which highlights—juxtaposition of mascu-
line (filius) and feminine (Pyrra) elements—the fact that Achilles
belonged to both genders. Whoever invented ‘Pyrrha’ as Achilles’
female identity had a sense of humour, as the homonymy with
Pyrrhus, the other name of Achilles’ son Neoptolemus, wittily mag-
nified the paradox of a (temporary) female fathering the child. But if
we trust a somewhat unreliable source like Ptolemaeus Chennus
(quoted above), Achilles even had more than one female name;
indeed Ptolemaeus reports at least two other female names: ‘Kerky-
sera’ and ‘Issa’. This plurality of Achilles’ female names may simply
reflect an erudite onomastic debate among scholars: Suetonius, Tib.
70.3, for instance, reports that the emperor Tiberius used to ‘make
trial of ’ (experiebatur) the grammarians with some thorny queries,
one of which was: ‘what was the name of Achilles among the virgins?’
But the existence of these different names may also, perhaps, reveal a
plurality of underlying literary texts, now completely lost, that devel-
oped an anagraphic female identity for Achilles.
It is curious that Achilles also plays along with a form of gendering
of his speech in Statius’ Achilleid. We cannot be sure that Statius’
Achilles presupposed the Epith. If it did not, then it would just be a
coincidence that his neat ‘virilization’ of an ex-ambiguous intertext
strongly contrasts Achilles’ cross-speaking in the Epith., and it would
yield further evidence to indicate that ‘linguistic transvestism’ was a
stock feature authors exploited or rejected as they played with their
characters’ gender. With the Epith. in mind, or independently of it,
Statius takes his Achilles in a direction that is diametrically opposed
to the Achilles of the Epith. After revealing his masculinity to
106
Cf. Lancha (1997) 159–62.
60 Deidameia
Deidameia and while rethinking his earlier cross-dressing in dialogue
with her, Statius’ Achilles delivers a line which both evokes and
stigmatizes the days of his cross-dressing (Ach. 1.652–4): nec ego
hos cultus aut foeda subissem j tegmina, ni primo te visa in litore:
cessi j te propter ‘nor should I have donned this habit, these shameful
clothes, if I had not seen you at the shore’s verge; on your account
I yielded’. The phrase in litore: cessi alludes to the long intertextual
story of a sentence characterized by a conspicuous gender-ambigu-
ity.107 A similar sentence had originally been used in self-reference by
Berenice’s lock lamenting its separation from Berenice’s head in
Callimachus (fr. 110 Pf.). We do not have Callimachus’ relevant
words, but Catullus’ translation (66.39) tuo de vertice cessi. From
Callim. fr. 110.51 ŒÆØ . . . I ºç Æ ‘sister locks’ and the translation
in Catullus 66.51 comae . . . sorores we can see that Berenice’s hair was
feminine in both authors, whereas we can conjecture that for the lock
Callimachus used the masculine nouns › ºŒÆ or › æıå.
Therefore, the concrete occasion for this passage was the customary
dedication of a part of a maiden’s hair (e.g. in memory of the chastity
of youth),108 but its rhetoric rather reflects the situation of a woman
carried away to marriage or abandoned by a lover; yet in terms of
grammatical gendering, Callimachus’ speaker is a masculine lock,
which was unwilling to be cut from the (female) hair of a woman
because of an almost sexual affection for his owner. In fact, thanks
to the transvestism imposed at times by arbitrary grammatical
gendering,109 this male lock is made to display the same emotions
as his female owner Berenice, who had long suffered due to the
absence of her husband while he was fighting in a war (as we can
understand from Catullus 66.21–3). Catullus’ translation had already
got rid of at least the grammatical transvestism of the princess’s lock,
as his became female in gender: caesaries (66.8): see invita, o regina,
tuo de vertice cessi j invita, ‘against my will, O Queen, was I parted
from your crown, against my will’, 66.39–40.110 The sentence that
constitutes Catullus 66.39 was adopted again, before Statius, by Vir-
gil’s Aeneas, a male hero, who through these words asserted to Dido
107
Cf. above all Barchiesi (2005) 59–60.
108
On the maidenlike features of the lock, cf. Gutzwiller (1992) 374–5.
109
Greeks were well aware of this phenomenon: cf. e.g. Aristophanes’ jokes about
Iº Œæı and Œ æ in Clouds 659–80.
110
Trans. by P. Green. On the gender shift of ‘lock’ from Callimachus to Catullus,
see Koenen (1993) 94–5; Hunter in Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004) 87–8.
Deidameia 61
in the Underworld how reluctantly he had left her. Virgil’s invitus,
regina, tuo de litore cessi ‘against my will, good queen, I withdrew
from your shore’ (Aen. 6.460) finally replaced the lock with a concrete
human lover sorrowful for his apparently unwilling desertion of his
partner—that human lover who had been, after all, the real subject
presupposed by the erotic rhetoric of this sentence from Callimachus
onwards. The clash between the pathetic but playful quality of the
Callimachean/Catullan context and the straight and deep emotion of
the Virgilian scene makes it probable that this Virgilian allusion
attests to the cleverness and greater propriety with which Virgil
reused his Hellenistic model.111 It is therefore intriguing to suppose
that—in order fully to restore the dignity of an Achilles, who had just
concluded his cross-dressing and is now apologizing for it—Statius
not only worked with the direct Virgilian model, but also hinted at the
whole story of the phrase. In fact, by choosing Virgil as his model,
Statius emphasizes the definitive conquest of masculinity by his
erstwhile cross-dresser Achilles.
111
Cf. Harrison (1970) 241.
62 Deidameia
For what reason has he gone into hiding, as the legendary son of the sea
nymph Thetis did before the heartbreaking deaths at Troy, lest his male
dress would thrust him into the midst of the carnage and the Lycian
troops?
This episode in Achilles’ life is mentioned by Horace as a paradigm
for the radical changes in behaviour which love can provoke—and in
fact did apparently provoke in his friend Sybaris, who, conquered by
love of Lydia, started to shun all the virile activities of which he had
formerly been fond (cavalry exercises, swimming in the Tiber, train-
ing in the Campus Martius, throwing javelins). For this paradigm to
make sense, we have to assume that Achilles’ hiding—Achilles’ hid-
ing, not Thetis’ hiding of Achilles—was presented by Horace as
motivated by both love and fear. The designation of Achilles through
the antonomasia marinae filius . . . Thetidis may have been enough to
remind the reader of the well-known responsibility of Thetis for
Achilles’ stay at Scyros. But it is not coincidental, I think, that Horace
combines the ideas of fear of the war (as in Lycophron) and of lust (as
in the Epith.) with this silence on Thetis’ involvement (as in both
Lycophron and the Epith.): not surprisingly, the texts which empha-
size a personal and non-heroic motivation for Achilles’ hiding at
Scyros—either eros or fear—are doomed to be silent about the par-
ental role in the hiding.
The radical deconstruction of Achilles’ martial and fiery dimension
that follows from his attempt at dodging the draft is a good example
of the concern of the contemporary debate about whether authors
should more or less adhere to traditional characterizations of literary
figures that they inherit from the past. In fact this debate, of which we
have clear traces especially in Latin literature of the second half of the
first century bc, appears to have resorted often to the paradigm of
Achilles. It is impossible to say whether or not it was triggered by the
hyper-eroticism inherent in such versions of the story of Achilles at
Scyros as the one presented in the Epith. But the innovative erotic
emphasis of the Epith. and possibly other lost comparable texts must
have appeared as an extreme reversal of the better known Iliadic
Achilles.
Homer’s Iliad had certainly left many gaps in Achilles’ biography,
as Statius noted in the proem of the Achilleid. At the same time, by
focusing on a few events in both his martial and non-martial life, the
Iliad had made Achilles one of those literary figures who were
Deidameia 63
characterized consistently by a special fierceness and harshness.112
This monolithic perception of Achilles is evidenced first of all in
Rome by the definition of Achilles’ character outlined by Horace,
Ars poet. 119–22, which we have already discussed above,113 but it
was hardly idiosyncratic to Horace. The same idea is also clear from
Ovid, when he thinks back to Achilles as an Iliadic character. When
Ovid applies himself to his customary target of setting and defending
the boundaries of elegy, he seems to agree that Homer’s martial
Achilles has no point of contact with erotic poetry: blanda pharetratos
elegia cantet Amores j et levis arbitrio ludat amica suo. j Callimachi
numeris non est dicendus Achilles j Cydippe non est oris, Homere, tui
‘let smooth-tongued elegy sing of Cupids with their quivers, and play
the gentle mistress, as she decides. Achilles is not spoken of in
Callimachus’ rhythms, sweet Cydippe is not for your mouth,
Homer’,114 Rem. 379–82. Erotic Cydippe is opposed to epic Achilles
as Callimachus is to Homer. But, for Ovid, Achilles is not only the
Homeric Achilles.
Slighting Achilles’ heroic greatness by narrating episodes of his
temporary cross-dressing was certainly not a ‘crime’ for Ovid (cf. Tr.
2.409–12, discussed above),115 though we understand from his words
that this version of the story might not have been acceptable to some.
And some certainly deemed it to be a slur worthy of reproach. So at
least the Greek rhetoricians Philostratus and Libanius, and later
Tzetzes, cast doubt upon the ‘truthfulness’ of the parodic reversal of
Achilles’ fierce virility at Scyros, and Tertullian labelled it a radically
‘unnatural’ myth. Philostratus, Heroic. 45.8–46.2 considered Achilles’
stay at Scyros an ‘unlikely’ episode in Achilles’ life, and hence one not
to be believed, and he suggested an edifying interpretation
(ØŁÆ æÆ . . . ŒÆd IºÅŁ æÆ ‘more plausible and truthful’) by
which Achilles would have been sent in reality to Scyros by his
father to avenge Theseus.116 Libanius affirmed that only a sycophant,
112 113
Rosati (1994) 5. pp. 10–11.
114 115
Trans. by A. S. Kline. pp. 11–12.
116
‘When he became a young lad, he was not, as many say, reared in hiding on
Scyros, of all things among young maidens! It is not likely (h ªaæ . . . NŒ) that
Peleus, who had become the best of heroes, would have sent away his son somewhere
secretly, running from battles and dangers . . . after Theseus had fled from Athens
because of the curse against his son, he died in Scyros by the hand of Lycomedes.
Peleus, who had been Theseus’ guest-friend and companion in the Calydonian deed,
sent Achilles to Scyros to avenge Theseus. And after he set sail together with Phoenix,
64 Deidameia
an ill-minded person, or a slanderer could invent that story ( N
Ø ºª Ø ŒFæ ŒÆd ÆæŁ HÆ ŒÆd åBÆ ªıÆØŒ E, ıŒç Å
ªøª F ªFÆØ ŒÆd ŒÆŒÆÆ ŒÆd ł ıºª), as it was
worthy neither of the virtue inherited from Peleus, nor of the educa-
tion received from Chiron (Progymn. Laud. 3.5). Also, Tzetzes’
Lycophr. 276–80, after paraphrasing the derogatory version of Achilles’
stay at Scyros in Lycophron’s relevant passage, suggested a rationaliz-
ing explanation that denied its veracity and justified Achilles: ‘but
these things have been fabricated and mythified (ºÆ ÆØ ŒÆd
ıŁºªÅÆØ). The truth is this: as Achilles had just married Deida-
meia, the daughter of Lycomedes, he used to spend time with her
( ıØæØ ) in the bed chambers and the gynaeceum for love of the
bride, and for this reason people have invented the story that he was
dressed in female chothes (‹Ł KıŁ Æ ‹Ø ªıÆØŒ EÆ ı)’.
Tzetzes suggests the same explanation again but more briefly in Ante-
hom. 173–6 ‘nor did (the Greek leaders) forget about famous Achilles,
who was newly married and still dwelling in the rooms of his wife
(IæØª ı K B Iºåı ª æØ Ø) at Scyros . . . This is the
reason why people tell the story of the women’s mantles (h ŒÆ
ıŁ ÆØ ºı ŁÅºı æ ø)’. Without denying the reality of this
myth, Tertullianus, pall. 4.2, elaborated on the idea of its ‘unnatural-
ness’. By focusing on Achilles’ transvestism and presenting it as a real
transgenderism, and thus a ‘breach of nature’, he acknowledged a strong
contrast between it and the severe education he had received from
Chiron—a constrast so strong that this changing from male to female
and then again from female to warrior made of Achilles a monstrum
geminum: ‘So the hero of Larissa caused a breach of nature (naturam
. . . concussit) by changing into a girl . . . certainly, later he is a warrior,
for necessity restored his sex (necessitas enim reddidit sexum)! . . . a
monstrosity, then, he is, a double one: from a man he became a
woman, and then from a woman a man . . . either form of change was
bad; the former ran counter to nature, the latter was against his
safety’.117
who by reason of old age knew only the deliberative arts, he overthrew Scyros, which
was on high ground away from attack after it had been rebuilt on a rocky hill, etc.’
(trans. by J. K. Berenson Maclean and E. Bradshaw Aitken).
117
Trans. by V. Hunink.
Deidameia 65
OVID AS A CHAMPION OF THE CHARACTER
CONSISTENCY OF ACHILLES?
Ovid did not censor the poets of Achilles at Scyros, and he neither
objected to their credibility nor criticized the ‘naturalness’ of the story
of Achilles’ cross-dressing, but in his Ars amatoria he appears to have
himself played, in jest, the role of censor regarding the silence on
Thetis’ agency—the most indecorous feature which in the Epith.
characterized Achilles’ stay at Scyros. Just a few decades after the
likely date of the Epith., Ovid referred to Achilles’ stay in the gynae-
ceum of Scyros in Ars am. 1.681–704. He introduced the fact that
Achilles conquered Deidameia through a stuprum (1.704) as para-
digmatic evidence that men should resort to sexual violence as one
means of achieving their erotic goal.
It is difficult to be sure whether the Epith. was really ‘the immediate
source’ of Ovid’s account, as has been argued.118 The partial excusatio
with which Ovid’s account begins, 1.681 fabula nota quidem, sed non
indigna referri, ‘it is an old tale—but it is worth retelling’,119 may
point to a single text that was either especially well-known or close in
time to Ovid’s own writing (as the Epith. probably was), or to a
plurality of pre-existing narratives of the story. The parallel of Hor.
C. 1.8.14, which introduces its brief reference to the story of Achilles
in Scyros with plural dicunt (an ‘Alexandrian footnote’ similar to
Ovid’s Ars am. 1.681 fabula nota), would perhaps seem to favour the
former interpretation.120 There are, however, some analogies between
Ovid’s account of the episode and the narrative of the Epith., which
suggest that Ovid alluded to the Epith.121 Some resemblances between
Ovid and the Epith. are already to be found at the beginning of their
respective narratives. In each, it is the same sequence of events that
sets the stage for Achilles’ hiding in Scyros: Paris’ abduction of Helen
and the general participation in the war by all the Greek leaders in
sympathy with Menelaus are not unavoidable elements in an
118
By Hollis (1977) 138.
119
Trans. from the Ars amatoria are by J. Michie, with occasional modifications.
120
See also above, Introduction, n. 27 on Juvenal 1.1.163.
121
e.g. by the three most authoritative commentators of book I of the Ars am. in
the last century: Brandt (1902) 57–8, Hollis (1977) 138–40, Pianezzola (1991) 262–3,
and Dimundo (2003) 251–2 n. 701.
66 Deidameia
archaeology of the war of Troy, and their combination can hardly be
considered fortuitous—something like ‘the Greeks were readying to
sail against Troy’, for instance, would have been informative enough.
Even the allocation of the four lines, which narrate these events in
Ovid (Ars. am. 1.685–8), resembles the beginning of Lycidas’ song in
Epith. 10–14. Of course, Ovid does not include the bucolic colouring
which was characteristic of the Epith., but which did not fit at all into
the urban perspectives of Latin elegy. Hence there is no emphasis in
Ovid on Paris’ shepherding, and no mention of Ida; indignation
belongs to Menelaus and not to the city of Sparta, in contrast to the
bucolic milieu of Paris. Ovid also has nothing of the emphatic series
of details which Epith. 16–20 devotes to demonstrating how true-to-
life Achilles’ female disguise was.122 Above all, we find in Ovid no hint
of what had been one of the highest points in the hyper-eroticism of
the Epith., namely the professional performance of Achilles as a
female/Sapphic poet.123
If Ovid did presuppose the Epith., it seems that distancing his text
from the version of the story narrated in the Epith. must have been no
less significant for Ovid’s poetic strategy than alluding to it. For
instance, one of the strongest points of contact supporting the idea
that Ovid reused the Epith. is his description of the female disguise of
Achilles. Ars am. 1.690 veste virum longa dissimulatus erat, ‘he hid his
manhood in a woman’s dress’ Epith. 7 H ÆE l Æ çAæ,
‹ø ’ Kł Æ æç ‘how though a boy he put on a woman’s
robe and feigned another form’ and Epith. 15 º ŁÆ ‘he lay hid’. Just
before and soon after this plausible allusion, however, Ovid feels, or
rather ironically/mockingly pretends to feel, obliged to deter possible
moral criticism of his character’s cross-dressing through a sort of
praeoccupatio. He makes two comments which stress (i) how indec-
orous this cross-dressing would have been, were it not the result of
Achilles’ yielding to his obedience to Thetis’ prayers (Ars am. 1.689;
the lack of any mention of a parental intervention behind Achilles’
stay at Scyros, I repeat, was one of the most telling silences of the
Epith.);124 and (ii) how perplexed, nevertheless, he qua author and
everyone else should be at the unsuitable image which his Achilles
122
Above, pp. 55–6.
123
Discussed above, pp. 56–9.
124
See above, pp. 39–42, 55. Thetis was also behind the hiding of Achilles at Scyros
according to Ov. Met. 13.162–3: genetrix Nereia . . . dissimulat cultu natum.
Deidameia 67
projected of himself, which is in such striking contrast to his usual
fiery demeanour. Cf. Ars am. 1.689–96:
(turpe, nisi hoc matris precibus tribuisset) Achilles
veste virum longa dissimulatus erat.
quid facis, Aeacide? non sunt tua munera lanae;
tu titulos alia Palladis arte petes.
quid tibi cum calathis? clipeo manus apta ferendo est;
pensa quid in dextra, qua cadet Hector, habes?
reice succinctos operoso stamina fusos:
quassanda est ista Pelias hasta manu.
(Deep shame, had his mother’s prayers not put him under stress)
Achilles hid his manhood in a woman’s dress. What are you doing?
Spinning is not your concern, grandson of Aeacus: you will earn fame
through another art of Pallas. Why do you stand with a basket on your
shield arm, quite unmanned? Why do you hold in your right hand—the
one by which great Hector will be slain—a wool-skein? Throw away
that spindle with its troublesome thread, wave your spear from Pelion
instead!
The long sequence of interrogatives which the author addresses to
the protagonist is arguably wearisome, even ‘irritating’, for modern
tastes, and it has been adjudged as evidence of the ‘bad influence of
rhetoric on Ovid’s style’.125 But a similar series of indignant questions
and didactic comments is also found at Ars am. 1.303–10, where Ovid
comments on the overly expensive clothes and careful toilette with
which Pasiphae grooms herself, despite the fact that she is going to
meet a bull; and also at Her. 9.55–80, where the disguise of Hercules
as a servant of Omphale is described with a strong implication of
cross-dressing, and is interpreted as a sort of servitium amoris ante
litteram.126 No doubt, both in the case of Achilles and in the cases of
Pasiphae and Hercules, Ovid may simply be pretending, in jest, to
defend the coherence of his character as would a naïve modern
spectator of melodrama, who bursts out a warning to a likeable
character on the scene when he/she is on the verge of making a
mistake.127 Or (my favoured option) he perhaps combines with jest
125
Quotations from Hollis (1977) 138–40.
126
The story of Hercules and Omphale is evoked as a precedent for Achilles’
transvestism by Thetis in Stat. Ach. 1.260–1. On Hercules and Omphale and the
transvestism, cf. below, n. 150; Loraux (1995) 125–31.
127
Frécaut (1972) 139.
68 Deidameia
a seriousness of metaliterary purpose. He may be making a didactic
point about propriety: propriety of the forms of dress, and, in the case
of Achilles and Hercules, propriety of the roles that, in performing
gender, men and women have to play (active and passive respect-
ively). In fact, if Ovid’s pupils mix these roles, the mission of Ovid’s
erotodidaxis is doomed to become much more complicated. In his
role as praeceptor amoris Ovid seems keen to refrain from complica-
tions, and prefers to teach his pupils how to act out their roles
skilfully: before being taught to be proper lovers, they are taught to
be proper men and women.128 And an Achilles who becomes the
most active rapist, after and in spite of his successful performance as a
girl, is a most instructive example of the ‘inevitability’ of the role
which men have to play.
Ovid also embraces the idea that Achilles had to be checked/
reproached and forced to resume his ‘destined’ gender when he
deals with the contest for Achilles’ arms in Met. 13. Here, Odysseus
presents his crucial role in the mission to fetch Achilles from Scyros
to join the Greek army precisely as the task of ‘re-programming’
Achilles’ character for performance as a traditional hero/as a male.
He also deploys the same kind of apostrophic strategy and the same
superior control which Ovid had ascribed to himself as an author in
Ars amatoria (see in particular Met. 13.170 inieci manum, pointing to
the formal, legal procedure of vindicatio of the potestas over some-
thing or somebody, confirmed by mea of Met. 13.171; cf. the same
phrasing in Amor. 1.4.40 and Her. 12.158).129 Cf. Met. 13.165–71:
arma ego femineis animum motura virilem
mercibus inserui, neque adhuc proiecerat heros
virgineos habitus, cum parmam hastamque tenenti:
‘Nate dea’, dixi, ‘tibi se peritura reservant
Pergama! Quid dubitas ingentem evertere Troiam?’
iniecique manum, fortemque ad fortia misi.
Ergo opera illius mea sunt.
128
Cf. Volk (2010a) 92; see also in general 87–93 about how rarely Ovid pays
attention to homosexual forms of love in his ‘realistic’/personal amatory poetry of
Amores or Ars amatoria, which deal with desires and relationships that are nearly
exclusively heterosexual—this is at variance with Ovid’s mythological love-poetry,
which includes experiences of male desires for both males and females, in the stream
of the most common tradition of Greek and Latin love-poetry.
129
Cf. Daube (1966) 226–31; Bessone (1997) 214.
Deidameia 69
I placed among women’s wares some arms such as would attract a man.
The hero still wore girl’s clothing when, as he laid hands on shield and
spear, I said to him: ‘O son of Thetis, Pergama, doomed to perish, is
keeping herself for you! Why do you delay the fall of mighty Troy?’ And
I laid my hand on him and sent the brave fellow forth to do brave deeds.
So, then, all that he did is mine.
In principle, Ovid may simply have derived the rhetorical figure of
indignant apostrophai from the Scyrioi of Euripides, at least if Eur.
TrGF v.2.**683a and TrGF v.2 inc.fab. 880 quoted above130 truly
reflect Odysseus’ words from this tragedy.131 The Euripidean model
and the parallel of Met. 13.165–71 certainly position the author’s
protectively indignant apostrophai to Achilles in Ars am. 1.691–6
within the tradition of Odysseus’ paraenetic apostrophai to the
young hero. But if we link them to the other authorial comment
turpe, nisi . . . of line 1.689, then we form the impression that with
both his comments Ovid also humorously hints at the critical debate
about the limits within which the characterization of some figures of
traditional mythology could be stretched without undermining their
traditional coherence. Ovid would then here reproduce the voice of
critics prescribing how the story of Achilles at Scyros should be told,
lest it become turpe (it should not be without Thetis); or the voice of
those recommending how Achilles could regain his traditional, fiery
and virile characterization (he should stop complying with his cross-
dressing and do something virile). Of course, we would expect Ovid
himself to prefer exploring deconstructive irony and ruthless parody
of his characters. We therefore have to assume that Ovid is not
actually sympathizing with Horace’s side and favouring a coherently
martial Achilles, but that he acknowledges Horace’s recommendation
tongue in cheek.
It is significant, about the strategy of Ovid’s irony, that in Ars
amatoria he pretends to adopt the same kind of moralistic/instructing
apostrophai used by his Odysseus in Met. 13; but unlike Odysseus,
Ovid pushes Achilles not so much toward his mission at Troy as in a
rather different direction. In fact, Ovid appears to turn his feigned
care for the coherence of the character Achilles into a parodic para-
enesis to masculinity. The author’s last moralistic apostrophe to
130
pp. 33–5.
131
The case for an intertextual connection between these two fragments and Ovid
has been made by Aricò (1981).
70 Deidameia
Achilles to brandish his hasta at 1.696 (quassanda est ista Pelias hasta
manu) conveys a farcical ‘plot twist’ of the sexual kind. This apos-
trophe comes just before the announcement of the stuprum at 1.697–
8, so that the rape itself almost seems to constitute the character’s
prompt compliance with the author’s exhortation. Later on (1.697–
704), the apparently pleasurable impact of the stuprum on Deidameia
confirms Ovid’s view that sexual violence is not at all unbecoming in
love affairs:
Forte erat in thalamo virgo regalis eodem:
haec illum stupro comperit esse virum.
viribus illa quidem victa est—ita credere oportet—,
sed voluit vinci viribus illa tamen.
saepe ‘mane!’ dixit, cum iam properaret Achilles:
fortia nam posito sumpserat arma colo.
vis ubi nunc illa est? quid blanda voce moraris
auctorem stupri, Deidamia, tui?
Deidameia, who happened to share his bedroom, found he was a man,
indeed she was ‘raped’ (one is bound to accept tradition, of course), but,
still, she wanted to be taken by force. ‘Stay’ she begged him again and
again, ‘Please stay’, when Achilles was already on his way, his distaff
dumped, a warrior under arms. But now I ask: ‘What harm has been
done by force? Why do you wheedle and press the author of your rape
to linger?’
A dignified reading, in tune with the grave moralism previously
feigned by the author, will of course infer from these lines that the
stuprum allowed Achilles to recover his coherence as a man in
‘preparation’ for his future heroism as a fierce brandisher of the
spear on the battlefield.132 However, Ovid’s mention of the oppor-
tunity of brandishing the hasta does not speak of Achilles’ regained
virility solely for its consequences in terms of future recovery of
heroism, but focuses most of all on its immediate sexual effects.133
Through the stuprum Deidameia suddenly acknowledges that, to her
surprise, her supposed female companion was a vir (comperit esse
virum, 1.698); but her surprise is immediately followed by her
132
Compare Achilles’ temporary acceptance of Thetis’ female dimension during
his cross-dressing: above, p. 42 n. 61.
133
There is perhaps further sexual punning in mane, which may suggest a girl
asking her lover to slow down, or properaret, which can refer to a man rushing to
orgasm: cf. Davis (2006b) 95.
Deidameia 71
pleasure (1.699–700). At the same time that we are reminded that
Achilles is going to become a great fighter with the spear, we are also
asked to infer from the ambiguity of hasta that Achilles is a superb
lover; for a comparison is implied between the effects of the sexual and
the military hasta, and, as expected, it favours the former. In other
words, Achilles first has to overcome his transvestism and become
reacquainted with the proper use of the hasta ‘shaft’ that characterizes
his real sexuality.134 The emphasis on stuprum as the ideal corrective of
effeminacy comes as no surprise in Ovid, as an obsession with the idea
of aggressive penetration is typical of the Romans’ idea of male sexuality
and leads to an especially derogatory or mocking tone in many of their
references to male effeminacy.135 Ovid’s preliminary, half-jesting indig-
nation at Achilles’ feminine disguise (Ars 1.689–90) also displays the
same obsession, since cross-dressing was the most striking visual
marker of effeminacy and the one most often chastised in the frequent
attacks on effeminate people in first-century Latin literature.136
If Ovid and Statius had the Epith. among their models, then they
agreed in avoiding any allusion to the performance of Achilles as a
skilful female poet. At least in Ovid’s narrative, the rape was facilitated
by the fact that Achilles and Deidameia happened to be (forte) in the
same bedroom (Ars am. 1.697); the scenario he envisioned for the rape
was thus more or less the same as in the Epith.137—in Statius’ case the
134
As was suggested by Heyworth (1992); see especially p. 61: ‘the sexual con-
notation of hasta leads to the unmasking of Achilles’ manhood through a weapon
rather different from those Ulysses will bring’. Contra Dimundo (2003) 253.
135
According to Corbeill (1996) 144 ‘an effeminate man threatened the Roman
male . . . the fear of Hellenic or Eastern influence may explain in part what the Romans
of this time were wary of—namely, the infusion of different ways of thinking about
government and society . . . Yet this formulation does not answer why Roman society
fixated on the fear of effeminacy. One possible explanation lies in the Roman male’s
conception of self and of the natural features he felt separated him from a woman’. Also
Skinner (1997) 11–12; Corbeill (1997) 107–10; C. A. Williams (1999) 135–53.
136
Corbeill (1996) 159–63 and (1997) 119–20.
137
Thanks to the adverb forte Ovid seems to save his Achilles from giving the
impression of sleeping customarily with Deidameia and her companions—the
72 Deidameia
rape took place during an open-air Bacchic celebration in the night
(Ach. 1.640–8).138 But, still, in the Epith., Achilles seems to have
accomplished his sexual conquest of Deidameia through words of
seduction inspired by Sappho. The loss of this poem after line 32
makes it uncertain how the story progressed: will Achilles’ Sapphic
performance prove a successful means of seducing Deidameia? Or will
he have to resort to other measures later on (e.g. violence)? Yet at the
very least, the emphasis on his Sapphic words proves that just before
exercising his virility on Deidameia, Achilles still and again engages in
his own feminization: he almost seems ready to accept the perspective
of ‘not being a male even in love’, which Statius’ Achilles (1.639; see
below) forcefully rejects.
On the contrary, from the beginning, Ovid introduces the story of
Achilles at Scyros as the paradigm of a stuprum (Ars am. 1.698),
although a stuprum where gratus raptae raptor uterque fuit ‘the
ravisher found favour with the ravished’ (Ars am. 1.680). In this
respect (and not only in this respect, as we shall see below, despite
the substantial difference in tone), Statius’ Achilleid is in accord with
Ovid, since Statius also conceived of Achilles’ conquest of Deidameia
as a rape. Statius’ Achilles, however, also entertains Deidameia and
tries to be on more intimate terms with her by teaching her his skills
as an epic singer of heroic deeds (the dignified occupation which was
appreciated by the scholiasts when he practised it in Iliad 9);139 for
the sake of his cross-dressing he also accepts that she, for her part,
teaches him how to walk more decorously and how to deal with wool
(Ach. 1.573–83).140
impression which the hero certainly gives in Epith. 27. In fact, forte only pretends
amusingly to save Achilles, with the converse effect of suggesting the opposite,
embarrassing possibility that Achilles had been sleeping often with Deidameia and
her female companions in Lycomedes’ gynaeceum.
138
Iconography gives instances of both scenarios: cf. Ghedini (2004) 23–5. The
landscape of Scyros appears to have played a most relevant role in the anonymous
painting described by Philostr. Jun. Imag. 1.1, which also featured a personification of
the island.
139
See below, pp. 134–6. On the late-antique fortune of the motif of Achilles
playing the lyre among the girls in the gynaeceum, cf. Ghedini (2009) 80–3 and below,
p. 94.
140
Cf. King (1987) 181. On the techniques of seduction of Statius’ Achilles, which
seem to apply some of the principles taught by Ovid’s love-poetry and theory of love,
cf. Sanna (2007).
Deidameia 73
Ovid and Statius thus agree in presenting this rape as the most
explicit evidence of the victory of Achilles’ virility over his previous
cross-dressing. Ovid’s relevant phrase, Ars 1.698 haec illum stupro
comperit esse virum—comparable to Achilles’ self-address in Stat.
Ach. 1.639 teque marem (pudet heu!) nec amore probabis? ‘nor even
in love (for shame!) will you prove yourself a man?’—has often been
taken to allude to Epith. 21 Łıe Iæ r å ŒÆd Iæ r å
æøÆ ‘but a man’s was his spirit and man’s his love’.141 Yet in the
Epith. this phrase merely stresses that, despite his true-to-life disguise,
Achilles was still not a woman. This comment paves the way for the
statement of Achilles’ love for Deidameia, after the preceding lines on
his radical feminization and true-to-life cross-dressing could have
aroused the reader’s suspicion that he was a little too pleased with
his role as a transvestite. If Ovid’s direct model really was the Epith.,
then the statement with which the author of the Epith. had simply
transitioned from the description of a cross-dressing Achilles to the
description of his virile infatuation with Deidameia was radically
transformed to match the theme of the struprum, in accordance
with the typically Roman culture of virility and of male social stand-
ing and power. If, however, Ovid and Statius conceived of or opted for
the story of the rape without having Epith. 21 in mind, then anyway
their texts reflect a cultural perspective which is significantly at
variance with the Greek Epith.
As has been maintained more than once,142 there is no passage of
the Epith. whose possible influence on Statius’ Achilleid could not be
reinterpreted as Ovidian influence. Certainly, Statius shared with
Ovid a willingness to portray Achilles in a dignified manner, differ-
ently from the erotic dimension privileged in the Epith.; besides, he
also enhanced this effort by excluding any Ovidian playfulness. There
has been some debate about the poetics of Statius’ Achilleid, whether
it was a radically anti-Homeric and almost ‘elegiac text’,143 or whether
it was in tune with the sublime, epic dimensions of the Thebaid and
thus mainly intended to dignify Achilles.144 The most recent apprais-
als, however, have highlighted its eclectic character, divided between
141
Cf. e.g. Hollis (1977) 140.
142
Most recently by Heslin (2005) 194 and Aricò (1986) 2938 and 2944 n. 88. Cf.,
however, Sirna (1973) 41 n. 3 and 49 n. 1; Mendelsohn (1990) 296 n. 3.
143
Cf. above all Koster (1979).
144
Cf. above all Aricò (1986) and (1996).
74 Deidameia
epic dignification of Achilles as an epic character and compliance
with the erotic nature of the episode.145 Coming after the epic, tragic,
and erotic elaborations of Achilles at Scyros, Statius seems to opt for a
structural, overarching plan of dignification, whereby the greatest
emphasis is allotted to Achilles’ disconcerting and distressing deci-
sions about his existence (perhaps an inheritance from the myth’s
presentation in Euripides’ Scyrioi, as we saw above); not even the
period preceding the exposure is presented as a calm/sweet time of
full dedication to eros, but it looks rather like a time of frustration
anticipating the recovery of virility and departure for the war. This
larger structural plan does, however, leave a space to deal with the
details in a different way. A series of erotic hints is interspersed in
the narrative of Achilles’ stay in the gynaeceum, and they fully reflect
the objective eroticism of the situation. In other words, Statius’
Achilles is clearly destined to become a man again, and a warrior,
and this predestination is discernible even from his first days of
disguise and erotic passion. At the same time, however, at least
while the young hero is still ‘among the maidens’, Statius does not
miss occasions to dwell on his effeminization and explore his erotic
psychology;146 but regardless of whether or not Statius presupposed
the Epith. for these erotic details, he decided to drive the macrostruc-
ture of his narrative along paths which hardly ever show us the erotic
super-star of the Epith.
One illustrative example of how Statius mixed dignification and
erotic indulgence (where the former consistently leads the way)
comes from a plausible point of intertextual contact between the
Achilleid and the Epith. Achilles’ beauty is described by Statius, before
his arrival at Scyros, at Ach. 1.161–2: niveo natat ignis in ore j
purpureus fulvoque nitet coma gratior auro ‘a bright glow swims in
his snow-white face and his hair shines fairer than tawny gold’. This
passage resembles Epith. 18–19 ŒÆd ¼Ł j åØÆØ æçıæ
ÆæÅ Ø ‘womanlike was the bloom upon his snowy cheeks’. The
beauty described by Statius might seem formally to reflect the fem-
inine delicacy of the boy Achilles at Scyros, where he is actually
effeminate. But in reality Statius focuses on the full bloom the boy
145
Rosati (1994), Delarue (2000), Feeney (2004), Heslin (2005).
146
Heslin (2005) offers a brilliant analysis of the eroticism of Statius’ Achilles in
drag, which I will presuppose, without reconsidering this vital aspect of Statius’ epic/
erotic poetics in detail.
Deidameia 75
Achilles experienced before Scyros; besides, Achilles is described in
these terms in Statius just after he returned from the slaying of a
lioness, where he displays his heroic qualities despite his imminent
cross-dressing147 (cf. also Ach. 1.160–1 arma inter festinatosque la-
bores j dulcis adhuc visu ‘amid weapons and hurried labors he was still
sweet to look upon’).
It is equally important to our understanding of Statius’ poetics that
the Achilleid repeatedly stresses that Achilles was virtually innocent
with regard to his indecorous female disguise, since it was Thetis’
responsibility. From the beginning, Thetis’ greatest fear, when faced
with the ship carrying Paris and Helen to Troy, is that her child might
all too promptly want to go to the future war, as a consequence of the
austere education imparted by Chiron: iam pelago terrisque meus
quaeretur Achilles, j et volet ipse sequi. quid enim cunabula parvo j
Pelion et torvi commisimus antra magistri? ‘soon they will be looking
by land and sea for my Achilles, and himself will want to follow. For
why did I trust Pelion to the child for cradle and the grim master’s
cave?’ (Ach. 1.37–9). Also elsewhere Thetis is perfectly aware that her
plan of hiding Achilles to keep him away from war is undignified, and
she must accomplish it behind Chiron’s back. When she goes to
Chiron in order to take Achilles away from his cave, where he could
be easily detected, and to bring him to Scyros, she has need of a
fictional motivation to deceive Chiron: she makes up the story that
she has to dip Achilles in the waters of the Ocean in order to
reinvigorate his invulnerability, with which she had formerly en-
dowed him by dipping him in the Styx. Statius presents his opinion
on these lies very clearly in 1.141–3:
sic ficta parens: neque enim ille dedisset,
si molles habitus et tegmina foeda fateri
ausa seni . . .
so fabricates the mother, for the ancient would never have given the boy
if she had dared tell him of the effeminate habit and degrading garb.
Statius’ opposition between the education from Chiron and the debased
cross-dressing organized by Thetis finds a most intriguing parallel in the
contemporary frescoes from Pompeii LIMC ‘Ach.’ 54, here Pl. 2, and
Mus. Arch. Naples 9110. The shield at the centre of the painting, which
147
As remarked by Gutzwiller (1981) 74; see also King (1987) 180.
76 Deidameia
Achilles promptly seizes, thus exposing his identity—though without
stopping to look at Deidameia—depicts the Centaur embracing
Achilles to teach him the lyre: this is a sort of memorandum, both
for Achilles and for the viewers, that Achilles’ recovery of a masculine
dimension, symbolized by his attraction to the weapons, amounts to a
necessary return to the principles of Chiron’s tutelage.148
Also, when Thetis proposes the cross-dressing to her son, she
does so suspecting that his pride might reject this indecorous trick.
For this reason, she introduces it with a long preamble on the gravity
of the impending danger, in addition to which she also has to plead
with her child to ‘lower a little his manly spirit’ (paulumque animos
submitte viriles, 1.259).149 She then resorts to examples of mytho-
logical characters who did not disdain to cross-dress occasionally, in a
transparent attempt at making her proposal palatable to her child
(1.260–4).150 But Thetis’ rhetorical efforts are nullified by Achilles’
refusal, which is motivated by the hardness of his character and his
concern for his austere education, as she perfectly understands (pudet
hoc mitescere cultu? ‘are you ashamed to grow soft in this dress?’,
1.272), and the author confirms as much (sic horrida pectora tractat j
148
Cf. Trimble (2002) 233–4.
149
See below pp. 80–2.
150
Cross-dressing led Hercules to ‘carry out the spinning’ for Omphale, and also
accept to hold for her the molles . . . hastae ‘weak sticks’ of the Dionysiac thyrsuses
(paradoxically opposed as molles to the martial hard hastae, and anticipatory of what
Achilles will do in Ach. 1.593–618, where he is also compared to Bacchus, who follows
Hercules as comparatum for Achilles here in 1.262–3); Bacchus ‘swept his footsteps
with gold-embroidered robe’; Jupiter disguised as Diana in order to pursue Callisto;
Caeneus changed his sex from male to female, but ‘doubtful sexes did not rob great
Caeneus of his manhood’. The analogy of these paradigms to the narrative of Achilles’
future cross-dressing could not be more closely anticipatory. Heracles cross-dressed
for love of Omphale, and Jupiter for love of Callisto; Thetis will also only overcome
Achilles’ reluctance when she understands that her son has fallen in love with
Deidameia and persuades him that the disguise can be helpful to seduce Deidameia
(1.318–22). She knows Greek mythology pretty well, in fact, as in many other cases
cross-dressed heroes are not permanently feminized, but use the disguise precisely in
order to achieve a goal, mainly the sexual conquest of a woman: cf. Raval (2002) 152–
8. Dionysus’ sexual ambiguity is another appropriate model for Achilles not only in
the night of the Bacchic rites in the mountains and the rape, when the hero accom-
plishes his transition from female to male identity (cf. Heslin (2005) 241–57), but also
in the mystic dances which Achilles dances with the maidens for Odysseus and
Diomedes at 1.823–40: cf. Heslin (2005) 231–6. As for Caeneus, his change from
woman to valiant warrior among the Lapithae ‘guarantees’ that Achilles will recover
his masculinity after his cross-dressing, just as Caeneus was able to enjoy his ‘man-
hood’, in spite of having been a woman.
Deidameia 77
nequiquam mulcens: obstat genitorque roganti j nutritorque ingens et
cruda exordia magnae j indolis ‘so she wrought on his rough heart,
coaxing in vain. Against her plea stands his father and his huge foster
sire and the raw rudiments of a great nature’, 1.274–7). Even when
Achilles first sees Deidameia, promptly falls in love with her, and
consequently accepts his mother’s cunning advice to approach Dei-
dameia disguised as a girl of her circle, Thetis has to overcome his
indecision by resorting to a form of soft violence to get him to cross-
dress: Ach. 1.325–6 aspicit ambiguum genetrix cogique volentem j
iniecitque sinus ‘his mother sees his indecision, sees that he would fain
be forced, and throws the folds over him’. These lines seem to convert
actual persuasion into a kind of violent (cogi) feminization, at which the
author is indignant. ambiguum has the surface meaning of ‘uncertain’
and defines Achilles’ feelings about accepting the transvestism; but it
may also proleptically hint at the sexual ambiguity into which Achilles is
in fact going to be forced.151 cogique volentem apparently recycles the
phrase through which Ovid’s voluit vinci of Ars am. 1.700 had presented
Deidameia as affected by a typically male lust for sex—an affect which
turned her into a sort of female version of the cross-dresser.152 The
impression resulting from this intertextual link is that Statius’ feminized
Achilles and Ovid’s masculinized Deidameia have much in common.
Also, iniecit . . . sinus may properly mean that Thetis throws the hanging
breast-folds of a frock, or synecdochically simply the frock, over her son,
but it also hints at the idea that through this cross-dressing she un-
naturally ‘imposes the female breast’ on him.
As far as morality is concerned, Thetis herself is not too proud of
her accomplishment either, which she defines as incepti . . . mendacia
furti ‘the falsehood of our artful enterprise’, 1.342.153 When Achilles
151
ambiguus is a keyword to define effeminateness, both in the Ach., cf. 1.337, and e.g.
Hor. C. 2.5.21–4 (describing the eromenos Gyges: quem si puellarum insereres choro, j
mire sagacis falleret hospites j discrimen obscurum solutis j crinibus ambiguoque vultu ‘if
you put him in a group of dancing girls, discerning strangers would, to their amazement,
be tricked; for the distinction would be blurred by his flowing hair and equivocal looks’):
see Rosati (1994) 14–15; Puccini-Delbey (2008) 180.
152
Also in Statius Deidameia’s beauty is depicted as sexually ambiguous (see in
particular her comparison to Athena in 1.299–300). Rosati (1994) 17–18 correctly
observes that Achilles appears to be seduced not by Deidameia’s beauty as a girl, but
by the sexually ambiguous beauty of hers, which he shares.
153
furtum and fraus are two keywords in Statius’ narrative of Achilles in drag, and
the secret liaison between Achilles, still a transvestite, and Deidameia will also be
called furtum (1.561): cf. Rosati (1994) 19–20, 31.
78 Deidameia
is finally introduced to Lycomedes as ‘the sister of Achilles’, and is
accepted as one of the girls of Scyros, Statius once again ascribes the
whole plan to Thetis’ cunning (quis divum fraudibus obstet? 1.364); or
to an even mightier god (quis deus attonitae fraudes astumque parenti j
contulit? ‘what deity bestowed artful trickery on the baffled mother?’
1.283–4).154 As for Achilles, in Statius he views his disguise as an
imprisonment and longs for the heroic/martial dimension which
consistently belongs to him, though he accepts the need to wait on
painful standby at Scyros. In spite of the utility of this disguise first to
conquer Deidameia and then—after the rape—to live with her, the
virile and martial interests which Achilles holds in check almost come
to the surface and nearly betray him at least three times. In each
instance, only Deidameia’s intervention saves him. As soon as he
hears of the arrival of a ship with Greek warriors, whose mission is of
course still unknown to him, ‘Peleus’ son hardly hides his sudden joy
(nova gaudia) and eagerly desires to see the stranger heroes and their
accoutrements, even in his present guise (vel talis)’, 1.753–5. In fact,
Ulixes sees his ‘face erect and roving eyes’ (erectum . . . genas oculisque
vagantem), with ‘no mark of maiden modesty’ (nulla . . . virginei
servantem signa pudoris, 1.764–5)—this detail is fully in tune with
the painting described by Philostr. Jun. Imag. 1.3;155 since the scene
described in this painting includes idiosyncratic elements which do
not match the Achilleid,156 we can surmise that the motif of the
‘different beauty’ of cross-dressed Achilles had a widespread diffusion
and was independently adopted by Statius and the artist. Achilles
would then have been exposed that very first night if Deidameia had
not warned the excited Achilles (praecipitem) and embraced him in
154
This authorial question resembles the comment of Catull. 66.31 on the meta-
morphosis of the lock, which in his translation had also acquired a female gender: quis
te mutavit tantus deus? ‘what god had the greatness to change you?’: cf. Barchiesi
(2005) 60; above, p. 60. Also in Seneca’s Troades Ulixes, in dialogue with Andromache
who has tried to hide Astyanax, evokes his cleverness in detecting Achilles in a frock
and points to the tricks of Thetis: vicimus matrum dolos / etiam dearum ‘I have
defeated the tricks of mothers, even goddesses’, 569–70.
155
Writing about this painting, Philostratus described the daughters of Lyco-
medes, who are plucking flowers in a meadow together with Achilles, as all beautiful,
‘but while the others incline to a strictly feminine beauty, proving indisputably their
feminine nature by the frank glances of their eyes and the bloom of their cheeks and
their vivacity in all they do, yet yonder girl who is tossing back her tresses, grim of
aspect along with delicate grace, will soon have her sex betrayed, and slipping off the
character she has been forced to assume will reveal Achilles’.
156
See above, n. 138.
Deidameia 79
her bosom (1.767–71). Immediately afterwards, Ulixes describes the
heroic motivations of the many volunteers in the war the Atreids had
organized, and he specifies that the opportunities for glory will be
great around Troy, so that as a consequence ‘scarce do timid mothers
or troops of maidens hold back’ (vix timidae matres aut agmina cessant j
virginea, 1.799–800), and Achilles ‘would have leapt from the couch’, if
Deidameia had not clasped him; ‘but he lingers looking back at the
Ithacan (haeret j respiciens Ithacum) and is the last to leave the
assembly’ (1.802–5). Achilles’ gender again all but reveals itself when
Lycomedes has his daughters dance for Ulixes and Diomedes: Achilles
dances together with the other girls, but in front of his fellow country-
men, and after Ulixes’ tales of war have lessened his interest in remain-
ing a girl,157 he ‘cares not to keep turns or to link arms; more than usual
he scorns womanish steps and dress (molles gressus . . . amictus), dis-
rupting the choirs and causing untold confusion’ (1.836–8).
In contrast to other versions of the myth,158 the Ulixes of the
Achilleid relies on both the display of the arms and the blast of
the martial trumpet (1.721–5, 848–56, 874–7) to excite Achilles’
male/martial interests, and so to dislodge him from his transvestism;
but Statius also stresses that the first strategy alone would have been
more than enough. And indeed, even before the final blast of the
trumpet, when the female clothes magically drop from Achilles’ body
(1.875–82), Achilles had already come close to revealing his identity
when he first felt a compulsive attraction to the armour and especially
the shield (this, of course, is a shield chiselled with scenes of war and
ruddy with cruel stains of war (1.853–4), like his own future shield on
the battlefield of Troy in the first nine years):159 ‘he cried out and
rolled his eyes, the hair stood up from his forehead. Forgotten his
mother’s charge, having forgotten his hidden love, Troy is in all his
heart’ (infremuit torsitque genas, et fronte relicta j surrexere comae;
157
Cf. Heslin (2005) 146.
158
In other versions Odysseus uses either trick: arms in Ovid. Met. 13.165–70;
Philostr. Jun. Imag. 1.5; D Il. 19.326; Lycophr. 277; trumpet in Ps.-Apoll. Bibl.
3.13.8; Liban. Or. 64.68. Both tricks coexist not only in Statius but also in Hygin. fab.
96.3.
159
The readers who could remember the frightening scenes depicted on the first
shield fabricated by Hephaestus for Achilles and described in the stasimon of Eur.
El. 432–86 may have believed that Achilles’ excitement for the shield displayed by
Odysseus anticipated at Scyros the arrival of this very shield.
80 Deidameia
nusquam mandata parentis, j nusquam occultus amor, totoque in
pectore Troia est, 1.855–7).160 Immediately after, in response to
Ulixes’ admonition to reveal his identity (1.867–74), Achilles had
already taken the initiative of ‘loosening the clothing from the chest’
(iam pectus amictu j laxabat, 1.874–5), even before Agyrtes blew
the blast from his trumpet, and then ‘the garments fell untouched
(intactae) from his breast’ (1.878): if this final and effortless (intactae)
falling of the frock from Achilles’ breast symbolizes not just his
steeliness of will but also the inevitability of his destiny, then his
initiative to start taking his clothes off before the blast of Agyrtes’
trumpet (traditionally the device which makes Achilles’ self-revela-
tion inescapable) conveys in the clearest way his preparedness to
willingly embrace a destiny that would, after Odysseus’ intervention,
become inescapable.
In particular the simile of 1.858–63, which compares Achilles’
cross-dressing to the outward taming of a lion, makes clear that the
hero’s transvestism had been an unnatural condition which was
forced upon him by his mother, but which never had a deeper impact
on his soul:
ut leo, materno cum raptus ab ubere mores
accepit pectique iubas hominemque vereri
edidicit nullasque rapi nisi iussus in iras,
si semel adverso radiavit lumine ferrum,
eiurata fides domitorque inimicus, in illum
prima fames, timidoque pudet servisse magistro.161
As a lion snatched from his mother’s dugs learns manners, taught to let
his mane be combed, to respect man, and never to fly into a rage unless
ordered; but if once steel flashes out in front of him, his faith is forsworn
and his tamer becomes his foe, his first hunger is for him and he is
ashamed to have obeyed a timid master.
This simile concludes in ring composition the days of Achilles’
cross-dressing. In the beginning, Statius had likewise employed a
160
Cameron (2009) 20–1 correctly comments on this scene of Statius: ‘it seems
clear that, despite his obvious familiarity with the growing tendency to dwell on his
hero’s pre-war life, Statius was determined to redress the balance. While drawing on
the details of the later tradition to make his hero more complex and so more
interesting, he nonetheless makes it clear from the very beginning that in the end
Achilles will subordinate personal happiness to military glory’.
161
Cf. McNelis forthcoming ad loc.
Deidameia 81
simile to compare the cosmetic treatments and behavioural training
by which Thetis feminized Achilles to an artist’s effortless moulding
of wax (1.323–34). Thetis had seemed capable of moulding Achilles’
soul up to the point of teaching him the female fandi . . . pudor ‘how
to speak with modesty’ (1.331: the last precept to be mentioned of
Thetis’ teaching in the text). But as soon as the effect of her attempt at
reshaping Achilles’ soul faded and he returned to his natural ferocity,
Achilles felt a radically different pudor. The feeling ascribed to the
lion with which Achilles is compared in 1.863, timidoque pudet . . .
magistro, involves a radical disavowal of the long-term effectiveness
of Thetis’ wax-moulding, and restates the young hero’s preference for
his previous education under Chiron, the torvus magister of 1.39
(versus the timidus master who tries to tame the lion in 1.863). The
lion simile not only tells us that Achilles recovered from the disor-
ientation of Thetis’ treatment, but also reminds us just how deeply
this treatment had affected or seemed to have affected him. The
Homeric Achilles had been likened to a wild lion in Il. 20.164–75,
24.41–3 (also briefly 24.572), but Achilles the tamed lion of Statius’
simile radically reverses what a dignified wild lion should be. It is of
course to be expected that lions’ manes are unkempt, as they are, for
example, in Stat. Theb. 1.484 impexis . . . iubis horrere leonem ‘(he
sees) a lion’s pelt, stiff with uncombed mane’. On the contrary,
combing the hair was a sign not only of femininity, but of special
coquettishness, and avoiding this practice was a sign of serious-
ness.162 In fact, combing the wild hair of Achilles had been one of
the first ’cosmetic’ treatments through which Thetis had attempted
the metamorphosis of Achilles into a girl at Ach. 1.328: impexos certo
domat ordine crines ‘she arranges and subdues the unkempt hair’.
Thetis also teaches Achilles her unwarlike feelings and fears: homi-
nemque vereri ‘to fear men’, said of the tamed lion at 1.859, is also one
of the fears exhibited by the mother bird that, seeking a place for her
young, was used as a comparison for Thetis in 1.214–15 ‘here she
162
According to Callim. HPall. 18–22, even during the judgement of the god-
desses, when cosmetic treatments were most expectable, Pallas, who is the laudanda of
the hymn, ‘looked neither into oreichalc nor in the transparent eddy of the Simoeis’,
nor did Hera, whereas ‘Cypris took the translucent bronze and often rearranged twice
the same lock of hair’ (cf. Tibull. 1.8.9–10 and Ovid. Am. 1.14.35–6). Sophocles’ satyr-
play Crisis (TrGF iv.*361) may have featured the same opposition; see also Hor. C.
1.15.13–14 (with Nisbet and Hubbard ad loc. and on C. 1.12.41) on the combing of the
hair by Paris as a protégé of Cypris.
82 Deidameia
thinks anxiously of serpents, here of men’ (anxia cogitat . . . homines).
Besides, the mildness of the tamed lion in 1.860, which ‘never flies
into a rage unless ordered’ (nullas . . . rapi nisi iussus in iras) is set in
contrast to the rage (Å or Iªøæ Łı or å æÅ) which often
motivates the aggressions of the lions in Homeric similes, where the
animal comparison often conveys the battle rage of a warrior who is
arming or attacking.163 But at 1.862 the virile Achilles resurfaces as an
orthodox Iliadic lion: the words eiurata fides (‘his oath is forsworn’)
proclaim a final renunciation of loyalty between tamer and lion which
confirms what Achilles had bluntly told Hector in Il. 22.262: PŒ Ø
ºı Ø ŒÆd Iæ Ø ‹æŒØÆ Ø ‘there are no treaties of trust between
lions and men’. We are thus reminded that the taming of the lion-
Achilles was destined, unavoidably, not to last.
Openly indignant reactions to the indecorous cross-dressing of
Achilles had already surfaced twice before Achilles got rid of his
female clothes, once through the mouth of the seer Calchas, and
once in a monologue delivered by Achilles himself. Achilles’ mono-
logue takes place during the night of the Bacchic revels in the woods,
in which he participates in disguise with Deidameia and her friends
(1.619–39):
scandebat roseo medii fastigia caeli
Luna iugo, totis ubi somnus inertior alis 620
defluit in terras mutumque amplectitur orbem.
consedere chori paulumque exercita pulsu
aera tacent, tenero cum solus ab agmine Achilles
haec secum: ‘Quonam timidae commenta parentis
usque feres, primumque imbelli carcere perdes 625
florem animi? non tela licet Mavortia dextra,
non trepidas agitare feras? ubi campus et amnes
Haemonii? quaerisne meos, Sperchie, natatus
promissasque comas? an desertoris alumni
nullus honos, Stygiasque procul iam raptus ad umbras 630
dicor, et orbatus plangit mea funera Chiron?
tu nunc tela manu, nostros tu dirigis arcus
nutritosque mihi scandis, Patrocle, iugales?
ast ego pampineis diffundere bracchia thyrsis
et tenuare colus—pudet haec taedetque fateri— 635
iam scio. quin etiam dilectae virginis ignem
163
See e.g. Il. 12.299–306, 16.823–6, and 20.164–75, 24.41–3, quoted above.
Deidameia 83
aequaevamque facem captus noctesque diesque
dissimulas. quonam usque premes urentia pectus
vulnera? teque marem—pudet heu!—nec amore probabis?’
Moon in her rosy chariot was scaling the slope of mid-heaven, the hour
when sleep at his most torpid glides down to earth with all his wings
and embraces the silent globe. The dances subside, the beaten bronze
falls mute awhile, and Achilles, solitary from the tender band, thus
communes with himself: ‘How long shall you endure the devices of
your timid mother and squander the prime flower of courage in un-
manly durance? May you not carry Mars’ weapons in your hands nor
hunt affrighted beasts? Where are Haemonia’s plain and rivers? Sperch-
ius, do you miss my swims and promised tresses? Or care you naught
for your deserter foster son, and am I already talked of as snatched away
to the shades of Styx, and does Chiron lament my death bereaved?
Patroclus, do you now aim my darts and my bow and mount the team
that was reared for me? While I now know how to spread my arms with
wands of vine and spin thread (shame and disgust to confess it!). And
more, you conceal your passion for your beloved girl, your coeval fire,
night and day, a prisoner. How long will you suppress the wound that
burns your breast, nor even in love (for shame!) prove yourself a man?’
Achilles’ dilemma takes the shape of a dialogue with himself, and
his first two questions are so ‘dialogic’ (1.624–6 and 1.626–7) that
they would seem to be addressed to an external interlocutor, though it
turns out that the addressee is Achilles’ own ‘alter ego’; only at line
1.628 and 1.631 does the possessive meus re-establish the unity of
Achilles’ character, which is finally recovered by his nostalgia for the
virile activities which he is bound to participate in again. This dialo-
gue between Achilles and himself has a very persuasive effect on him;
it plays a decisive narrative role in the action of the Achilleid, because
immediately after it Achilles unveils his masculinity for the first time,
when he rapes Deidameia (1.640–4). Therefore, in addition to the
apostrophic tone, the narrative function of this inner dialogue also
leads us to compare it to Ovid’s indignant apostrophic comment
on Achilles’ cross-dressing, which had also marked a crucial transi-
tion point. Of course, in Ovid, the synchronization of the apostrophai
to Achilles and his recovery of virility was only a narrative trompe-
l’œil, but the amusing effect achieved by Ovid’s mode of presentation
was to give the reader the impression that he, the author, had
persuaded Achilles to rediscover his virility and test it out with
Deidameia. By contrast, the Achilles of the Achilleid is wise enough
84 Deidameia
to address to himself, autonomously, the warnings which Ovid’s
Achilles (perhaps presupposing the radical ‘deregulation’ of Achilles
at Scyros in the Epith. or in other similar erotic texts) still had to be
given by the author: in a most dignified way, Statius’ Achilles at the
same time corrects himself and recovers his future. Besides, in Statius,
Achilles’ anger at himself is entirely serious, whereas Ovid’s indigna-
tion at his character is feigned and humorous. There are, however,
some clear narrative details that link Ovid’s and Statius’ passages. For
instance, both passages focus on Achilles’ manipulation of wool and
spindles, and both suggest that he should be holding weapons in his
hands instead.164
Surprisingly enough, no one seems to have acknowledged that in
all likelihood the same Ovidian passage was also the text behind the
apostrophai to Achilles uttered by Calchas in 1.514–35. Modern
interpreters have read Calchas’ apostrophai in the context of the
typical furor of prophecies as reported in Latin poetry, which involved
some level of ‘hyperbolic dramatization of the tone’,165 and they have
compared in particular epic intertexts such as the prophecies of
Cassandra in Sen. Ag. 710–74, of the matron inspired by Apollo in
Luc. Bell. civ. 1.674–95, or of Mopsus in Valer. Flacc. Arg. 1.211–26.166
But the identity of the subject (Achilles in cross-dress) and the
similarity of the contents of the apostrophai (what he does, and
what he should rather do) may also reveal, I suggest, a transgeneric
challenge mounted against Ovid by Statius. Some analogies in struc-
tural functions also connect Ach. 1.514–35 to 1.623–39. On the one
hand, the self-apostrophic indignation expressed by Achilles in
1.623–39 highlights the persistence of the character’s ‘real’ identity,
and it constitutes the beginning of the end of his transvestism, at least
on a private level (immediately after that monologue, the ensuing
rape will let at least Deidameia know that he is male). On the other
hand, Calchas’ speech in 1.514–35 reflects the public viewpoint of the
Greeks who are waiting to begin the war against Troy, the scene of the
‘real’ heroism of Achilles according to traditional myth. This speech
sets in motion the narrative mechanism that will put an end to
Achilles’ temporary loss of identity and let his ‘real’ glorious story
begin.
164
Cf. Davis (2006a) 129–30.
165
Cf. Ripoll and Soubiran (2008) 224–5.
166
Cf. Zissos (2004) 25–32 and (2008) 190–1; Ripoll and Soubiran (2008) 225.
Deidameia 85
Calchas’ prophecy took place when all the other champions and
soldiers of the Greek forces were finally gathered together at Aulis and
ready to sail for Troy, but they felt they could not leave if Achilles
failed to join them. All of them clamour for him, since he is the
strongest of all men, half-divine, and invulnerable; but they do not
know where to find him (1.476–90). When the kings finally ‘take
counsel on times for sailing and fighting’, Protesilaus asks Calchas to
prophesy about Achilles’ whereabouts, so that he can be summoned
to join their war efforts. In fact, Protesilaus ‘above the rest is eager for
battle, having already been granted the glory of the first death’ (huic
bellare cupido j praecipua et primae iam tunc data gloria mortis,
1.494–5); although this wish may seem strange, it sets Protesilaus’
heroism in direct opposition to Achilles’, who at the same moment is
being hidden by his mother in order to prevent his destiny of a
glorious death at Troy. This motif—‘Calchas consulted about an
issue which leads him to utter an oracle that is upsetting to a member
of his audience’—has been usually ascribed to the influence of Virgil,
Aen. 2.116–9, where, according to Sinon’s false report, Ulixes
compels Calchas to reveal the name of the Greeks who had to be
sacrificed according to Apollo’s oracle in order to regain favourable
winds that would allow them to sail back to their fatherlands from
Troy. I surmise that another major intertext operating in the back-
ground not only of Sinon’s false report but also of Statius’ Calchas is
Il. 1.53–100, where Achilles suggests that they consult ‘some seer or
priest or an interpreter of dreams’ in order to discover the reason why
Apollo has sent pestilence to destroy the Greeks. Here, Calchas
prophesies that Apollo can only be appeased if Agamemnon re-
nounces Chryseis and returns her to Chryses—hence Briseis’ abduc-
tion from Achilles and his refusal to fight. In fact, Statius may well
have alluded directly to the motif of the ‘disappointing prophecy’ of
Virgil’s Calchas in Aeneid 2 (and, in its background, to the prophecies
of the Cyclic and Euripidean Calchases about Iphigeneia and Poly-
xena). But he would probably also have meant this as a ‘window-
allusion’167 to Iliad Book 1, and thereby connected the prophecy of
his Calchas to the prophecy of his Iliadic counterpart; for the proph-
ecy of Statius’ Calchas is responsible for triggering events that lead to
167
This category of allusions was first theorized by Thomas (1986) 188–9.
86 Deidameia
Achilles’ participation in the war, and Homer’s Calchas provoked
Achilles’ later abstention from it.
Statius’ Calchas is aware of the danger that Achilles might perman-
ently abstain from the war, which is reflected in his prophecy at Aulis.
It was only with his vituperatio of Thetis that he started to avert this
danger. When he sees in his prophecy that she is abducting Achilles
and attempting to hide the child, he tries to prevent this abduction by
indignantly questioning and checking her. Immediately after seeing
the sea goddess take away her child, Calchas realizes that the ‘hiding
place’ they are heading towards is the Cyclades, and the island of
Lycomedes in particular, who appears to be conniving with them. He
also perceives that Thetis will hide her son by dressing him in
women’s clothing. At this point, Calchas—still enthralled in his
vision—stops questioning Thetis, and follows up with an indignant
comment (or rather paraenesis), which is no longer aimed at Thetis
but at Achilles and Deidameia, or at Achilles still recalcitrant and
Achilles effeminized by cross-dressing. When Calchas’ vision focuses
on Achilles, he sees an improba virgo168 and then stops (1.514–35):
iamdudum trepido circumfert lumina motu
intrantemque deum primo pallore fatetur 515
Thestorides; mox igne genas et sanguine torquens
nec socios nec castra videt, sed caecus et absens
nunc superum magnos deprendit in aethere coetus,
nunc sagas adfatur aves, nunc dura Sororum
licia, turiferas modo consulit anxius aras 520
flammarumque apicem rapit et caligine sacra
pascitur. exsiliunt crines rigidisque laborat
vitta comis, nec colla loco nec in ordine gressus.
tandem fessa tremens longis mugitibus ora
solvit, et oppositum vox eluctata furorem est: 525
‘Quo rapis ingentem magni Chironis alumnum
femineis, Nerei, dolis? huc mitte: quid aufers?
non patiar: meus iste, meus. tu diva profundi?
et me Phoebus agit. latebris quibus abdere temptas
eversorem Asiae? video per Cycladas artas 530
attonitam et turpi quaerentem litora furto.
occidimus: placuit Lycomedis conscia tellus.
o scelus! en fluxae veniunt in pectora vestes.
168
On the sense(s) of this intriguing phrase, see Fantuzzi forthcoming.
Deidameia 87
scinde, puer, scinde et timidae ne cede parenti.
ei mihi raptus abit! quaenam haec procul improba virgo?’ 535
This while the son of Thestor has been glaring around him in nervous
agitation and his first pallor confesses the entering god. Presently he
rolls fiery bloodshot eyes, nor sees comrades and camp, he is sightless
and somewhere else. Now he catches unawares the great gatherings of
the High Ones in heaven, now talks to prescient birds, now anxiously
consults the harsh threads of the Sisters, now incense-bearing altars,
snatching the tip of flames and feeding on sacred murk. His hair starts
up, the fillet on his stiff locks is in trouble, his neck is distorted, his steps
disordered. At last in trembling he opens his weary mouth in long-
drawn howls and his voice struggles free from opposing frenzy:
‘Whither, O Nereid, are you haling great Chiron’s mighty foster child
with your woman’s wiles? Send him here. Why do you carry him away?
I shall not suffer it. He is mine, mine. Are you a goddess of the deep? Me
too does Phoebus drive. In what hiding place do you strive to conceal
Asia’s overthrower? I see you adaze among the crowding Cyclades,
seeking a shore for an unseemly trick. We are undone! Lycomedes’
conniving land was your choice. Oh crime! See, flowing garments come
upon his breast. Tear them, boy, tear them, nor yield to your timid
mother. Alas, away he goes, kidnapped. Who is this shameless girl
yonder?’
This speech is most telling about the relation between Statius’ and
Ovid’s respective stances on the redemption of Achilles. It is similar
in content to Ovid’s apostrophai to Achilles in Ars am. 1.691–5 (as
observed above), but it expresses a very different point of view. In fact,
the (mockingly) indignant questions put forth by Ovid were intended
to drive Achilles back to virility, and they promptly achieved their
goal. In a subtle interplay between the author, the inherited tradition,
the chosen narrative context of the Ars amatoria (Achilles must have
a particular exemplary value as a macho-man), and a character
obedient to the didactic instructions of the author, Achilles inevitably
has to end his cross-dressing and fulfil his destiny of becoming a
paradigm of succesful sexual violence, the role which Ars 1.673–4 has
assigned to him. It is as if Achilles had complied with Ovid’s invita-
tion, as it takes him just two lines after the end of Ovid’s apostrophe
actually to rape Deidameia, whereby haec illum stupro comperit esse
virum (1.698, quoted above). Likewise, in Statius, the prophet Cal-
chas, at the pinnacle of an indignant apostrophe to Thetis and
Achilles, finally ‘sees’ (video, 1.530) where Thetis has hidden Achilles,
88 Deidameia
and thanks to this ‘vision’ of events he tries to intervene in them, but
of course he does not actually interact with Thetis, Achilles, or the
improba virgo. In fact, at a variance with the didactic Ovid of the Ars
amatoria, who manipulates the narrative of his plot to give the reader
the impression that his instructions have succeeded in redirecting
Achilles’ sexuality, Calchas’ autopsy does not have this immediate
effect. But it is precisely this prophetic acquisition of information on
Calchas’ part which provides Diomedes and Ulixes with the informa-
tion they need to go and summon Achilles, allowing the Greek
expedition to depart for Troy and Protesilaus to have the opportunity
of being the first man to land (and to be killed) there. Thus Calchas is
an excellent ‘protector of the plot’ of the Trojan War, as he ensures
that the narrative moves forward by causing certain actions which
trigger its continuation along the path of traditional myth—unavoid-
ably, since the Cypria (for Protesilaus) and the Iliad and the Aethiopis
(for Achilles) had already been written. As a caretaker of the plot,
then, Calchas plays a role that is not very different in its effects from
that which the didactic author Ovid assumes in his manipulation of
the narrative. On the one hand, Statius portrays Calchas as a sort of
stand-in for himself—not a strange replacement, since both poet
and prophet are called vates in Latin technical language, and both
‘depend’ on Apollo for their inspiration in the Achilleid. Protesilaus
exhorts Calchas to prophesy where Achilles is hidden by ceasing to be
nimium Phoebi tripodumque oblitus tuorum ‘too forgetful of Phoebus
and your tripods’ (1.496), and Calchas presents himself as being
inspired by Apollo (me Phoebus agit, 1.529). In a similar way, in the
proem of the Achilleid Statius asked Apollo to help him get new
inspiration (da fontes mihi, 1.9) and enter once again the Apollinean
Aonium nemus (1.10). On the other hand, however, Statius does not
actually speak in the first person and conceals himself behind the
words of the seer, thus adhering to the conventional impersonality of
the epic author.
In conclusion, Calchas’ speech may be read as a sort of epic
dignification of Ovid’s manipulation of his narrative, which intends
to present the prophet as a successful guardian of Achilles’ adherence
to his destiny as an epic character. In his indignation over the destiny
of Achilles, Calchas is a persona loquens similar to the Ovidian
didactic vates ‘poet’. He is a vates ‘seer’ who knows what Achilles
has to become, and he is thus a reliable ‘guardian’ of the myth as well
as an epic author; but at the same time, as a vates, he can be less silent
Deidameia 89
and self-concealing than the epic author. He plays the same pivotal
role of pushing the plot towards Achilles’ transition from cross-
dressing, by providing Ulixes and Diomedes with the necessary
information to summon Achilles to the war; he practically reiterates
the effectiveness that the Iliadic Calchas had displayed in compelling
Agamemnon radically to change his behavior toward Chryses, thus
redirecting the story of the war of Troy.
For all that, however, it is hardly the case that the psychology of
Statius’ Achilles is becalmed and satisfied by the stuprum and by his
recovery of manly virility. Though in the Achilleid he regains his
status as a future epic warlike hero and fully rejects his transvestism
in the most dignified way, he is not forgetful or completely repentant
of the feelings of love, for the sake of which he had yielded to
transvestism. First of all, in Ovid the rape of Deidameia seems to
mark a radical split between Achilles’ time of disguised effeminization
and his virile decision to leave for the war: fortia arma sumere ‘to take
valiant arms’ is set alongside ponere colum ‘put away the distaff ’ at
Ars am. 1.702, to suggest the idea that the former action is a direct
and immediate consequence of the latter. Besides, thanks to the
intensity of her sexual satisfaction, Deidameia repeatedly asks
Achilles to ‘remain’ and tries to restrain him from leaving: saepe
‘mane’ dixit, cum iam properaret Achilles . . . quid blanda voce moraris j
auctorem stupri, Deidamia, tui? ‘often she cried: ‘Stay’, when already
Achilles was hastening from her . . . Why with coaxing words, Deida-
meia, do you make the author of your rape tarry?’, 1.701 and 703–4.
But Achilles seems inexorable in Ovid, where he is ready to leave
(properare) for the war, thus fulfilling the role of a (recovered) macho-
man whom Ovid has allotted to his paradigmatic appearance in Ars
amatoria. Statius’ narrative pace is far more unhurried and detailed,
whereas in Ovid Achilles’ stay Scyros is only allotted the brief space of
an incidental paradigm; besides, since he is the paradigm of the hard
male, any indecision on the part of Ovid’s Achilles about the future
would have vastly impaired this paradigmatic value. It is still telling,
90 Deidameia
however, that Statius opts to devote much of the narrative to Achilles’
very slow transition from effemination to warfare. Statius’ Achilles
stays hidden in cross-dressing at Scyros for a while after having sex
with Deidameia (Neoptolemus had already been born when Ulixes
and Diomedes arrive at Scyros), and he still exhibits his cross-dres-
sing to Ulixes and Diomedes for more than 200 lines, not without
participating in a banquet with them as a girl, and even dancing as a
girl.169 And even at the very end of the farewell speech to Deidameia,
Achilles still worries about leaving her (non ipse inmotus ‘himself not
unmoved’, 1.956). Already at 1.888, while hearing the weeping of
Deidameia, Achilles haesit et occulto virtus infracta calore est ‘he was
hesitant and valour yielded to hidden passion’—where haesit tell-
ingly reflects quid haeres (1.867), with which Ulixes had invited him
to reveal his identity, thus giving up his recent past of transvest-
ism.170 Still after giving up his disguise, Achilles’ newly recovered
virtus vacillates and looks back to the time when he first cross-
dressed to gain Deidameia’s love. His hesitation here is similar to
the hesitation that had troubled him before he gave in to his effemi-
nization. The experience of love continues to affect his feelings,
though it is kept under control—after all, Achilles’ masculinity also
remained ‘hidden’ after the rape from almost everyone, apart from
Deidameia (1.364, 1.560). In fact, when faced with Deidameia’s cries,
Achilles loses control of his feelings, and the result is that he im-
mediately goes to ask Lycomedes for Deidameia’s hand (1.892–908),
not without promising him to refrain from the Trojan campaign if
need be: pono arma et reddo Pelasgis j et maneo ‘I put the weapons
aside and return them to the Pelasgians and stay here’, 1.906–7. The
reader is left with the impression that the future of Achilles is still
undecided: will he become an exemplary husband, and a member of
the royal family at Scyros, or will he finally depart to fulfil the destiny
of glory (but also death)?
At this point in the Achilleid, Lycomedes seems to play a powerful
role: he almost counterbalances the influence of Ulixes, and might
have stopped Achilles from leaving. In fact, when he first reacts with
169
As was correctly remarked by Heslin (2005), 275, ‘his willful and deliberate
assertion of his manhood fails, somehow, to take hold. Rape, that Ovidian signifier of
maleness, has surprisingly limited repercussions for Achilles’ own identity’ (see in
general 268–76).
170
See also 2.28–9 occultus sub corde renascitur ardor j datque locum virtus ‘fire
hidden in his heart is reborn and valour yields place’.
Deidameia 91
fury to Achilles’ request, Achilles asks him: quid triste fremis? quid
lumina mutas? ‘why the gloomy growl? Why change your look?’,
1.907. Achilles’ psychological dilemma is complicated: apart from
the contrast between his mutually exclusive passions for Deidameia,
on the one hand, and martial glory, on the other, a further contrast
between this martial future and Achilles’ family-life at Scyros—
namely the contrast between Ulixes and Lycomedes—also comes
into view in Statius’ narrative. Indeed, it had probably already been
developed in Euripides’ Scyrioi: the complaint of TrGF v.2.684 that
ÆN åÅ ‘shame’ often strikes just people despite their goodness may
well have come from the mouth of Lycomedes while sadly and/or
indignantly commenting on the dishonour of Deidameia’s preg-
nancy. Only when Achilles shows the baby Neoptolemus (of whom
the king was unaware), does Statius’ Lycomedes decide that despite
his indignation over his daughter’s iniuria ‘wrong’ (1.912: compare
Eur. ÆN åÅ), he cannot refuse to ‘join himself (iungere) to such a
son-in-law’ (1.917). He also decides not to remain loyal to the mission
of protecting Achilles—the mission that Thetis had assigned to him
(1.1.913–14a)—since he ‘fears to oppose so many destinies (fata) and
delay the Argive war’ (1.914b–915: with a certain tragic irony, one of
the fata which Lycomedes decides not to oppose will be precisely
Achilles’ destiny of death). It is as a consequence of these parallel
decisions by Lycomedes, and his final ‘blessing’ of Achilles’ participa-
tion in the war, that Achilles finally feels free to depart for Troy.
Statius thus focuses on the pressure of hard choices, and extends
its operation on Achilles from the final period of his inglorious but
safe ‘life with the maidens’ to his departure for the lethal but glorious
adventure at Troy. This extension probably provides the character-
ization of Achilles with some coherence between the sweet juvenile
interlude with Deidameia and the mature option to leave for the war.
In other words, there is no black and white contrast in Statius
between a negative stage of cross-dressing and eroticism, on the one
hand, and the positive dedication to war and glory on the other; the
stress that Achilles feels already in the moments of indecision before
he throws off his disguise is in tune with Statius’ insistence that
Achilles meant to put his cross-dressing behind him and reassert
his manliness, despite all appearances to the contrary.171 Lycomedes
171
See above, pp. 75–9.
92 Deidameia
as well lives through the same kind of painful decisional incertitude,
which leads him from being furious to assenting to the wedding of
Achilles and Deidameia, and from wishing that Achilles remain at
Scyros to letting him go to the war.
This melancholic transition between the two identities of Achilles,
together with its impact on the other characters, had already been one
of the main points (perhaps the main point) in Euripides’ Scyrioi, the
Boston krater, and the painting of Athenion; especially after Statius, it
was also going to be the longest-living segment of the whole story of
Achilles at Scyros. After all, Achilles’ ‘life with the maidens’ seems to
have been the subject of a painting by Polygnotus at Athens, one of
the oldest pieces of evidence concerning the stay of Achilles in the
island.172 A rather detailed description of Achilles’ erotic strategies as
a member of the parthenon is also the subject of the surviving part of
the Epith. But the emphasis on this more or less blissful part of the
story—a free-standing erotic episode of Achilles’ life, in radical op-
position to his future martial achievements and fierceness—does not
seem to have been the most widespread literary and iconographic
theme, and it is mainly known to us from the Epith. An Achilles who
light-heartedly dodges the draft, with no apologetic mention of his
mother’s protection, and who enjoys his disguise up to the point
where he even cross-dresses the very language of his male desire,
may have been perceived as an especially incoherent oddity within the
Achilles tradition. It comes as no surprise that this kind of version
attracted Ovid’s bemused attention and triggered his jesting criticism of
the limits of a hyper-erotic Achilles. In a manner similar to Ovid’s, but
with less jesting, Statius effects a dignification of Achilles at Scyros
which may have counteracted narratives like the Epith.
It is not only in poetry that the effeminized but happy Achilles of an
erotic bent seems to have lost his war with the Statian Achilles, the
172
See above, p. 28. In contrast with what Pausanias states (Pausanias only and
clearly says that Homer omitted to speak of Achilles ‘living in Scyros with the maidens
(›F ÆE ÆæŁØ . . . å Ø . . . ÆØÆ), as Polygnotus has represented in his pic-
ture’), Robert (1889) 151 and Lippold (1951) 17 maintained that Polygnotus’ painting
must have contained a scene of the exposure of Achilles. As is clear in particular from
Lippold, these scholars were conditioned by the iconographical rarity of the motif of
Achilles among the maidens, and the large diffusion of the exposure scene from
Athenion onwards. But 5th-cent. taste did not need to coincide with the standard of
the Roman times. Fornari (1916) 62; Kemp-Lindemann (1975) 60; Kossatz-Deiss-
mann (1981) 57 and (1992) 301 correctly suggest sticking to Pausanias’ description.
Deidameia 93
hero of the painful/thoughtful abdication of cross-dressing and erotic
passion. Achilles at Scyros is a frequent topic of Pompeii frescoes
(some of which probably derive from lost originals of the classical
age) and becomes by far the most popular episode of the iconographic
‘cycle’ of Achilles’ youth, particularly in the imperial age: Achilles’
education, with its perfect choice of pedagogues (Chiron, Phoenix),
was seen as the key for the greatness of Achilles, and thus as a
paradigm to be imitated and defended.173 Among the various tales
of Achilles’ youth, the episode at Scyros is particularly popular on
sarcophagi of Greek manufacture, dating mainly from the second and
the third centuries ad, which are found in many parts of the Medi-
terranean.174 This episode became the symbol of a virtuous choice
between a great but short heroic life dedicated to the pursuit of glory
and the juvenile disorientation of Achilles’ existence among the girls
at the court of Lycomedes. Achilles’ opting for the arms displayed by
Odysseus is precisely the fated moment when the rejection of female
garb became inevitable for the young hero, and he is therefore most
often depicted as still wearing the frock even as he is delighted at
handling the arms (see below). Besides, in terms of specific sepulchral
symbolism, Achilles’ radical change of clothes and gender is one of
the clearest examples of the class of myths which modern anthro-
pologists call ‘rites of passage’ and may have pointed especially to
epheby rituals.175 As such, it symbolizes the shift from the dimension
of the living to the dimension of the dead. Last but not least, Achilles,
with his short life, was a sort of ‘loser-cum-winner’ who reached glory
precisely through the choice of going to war at Troy and dying there.
This aspect played into hopes of some form of a ‘better life’—hopes of
the sort entertained by the people who commissioned these sarco-
phagi.176 Of course, in order to serve as a paradigm for these edifying
values, only that part of Achilles’ stay at Scyros which was considered
most paradigmatic would usually be selected.
Of the more than eighty paintings or reliefs of Achilles at Scyros
which have come down to us from the imperial age and are listed in
173
For discussion of the iconography of this part of Achilles’ life: Grassigli (2006),
Ghedini (2009), and Cameron (2009).
174
Cf. LIMC ‘Ach.’ 128–65 and (for the Attic sarcophagi) Rogge (1995) 26–30, 53–5,
99–102; (for the greater eroticism of the Roman ones) Ewald (2004) 246.
175
Cf. Crawley (1893); Delcourt (1961) 1–16; Leitao (1995); Cyrino (1998) 227–32;
Waldner (2000) 84–101; Ewald (2004) 246–7; Heslin (2005) 193–236.
176
On these symbolic values, cf. Cumont (1942) 22.
94 Deidameia
LIMC, only four sarcophagi (LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 96–9),177 two mosaics
(LIMC ‘Ach.’ 100–1), and two plates (LIMC 102–3) certainly repre-
sent the life of Achilles in disguise in the gynaeceum of Deidameia:
the young hero is depicted in the sweet and calm atmosphere before
Odysseus’ and Diomedes’ arrival, usually playing the lyre, in the
company of the retinue or sisters of Deidameia, or at least of Deida-
meia herself. After Polygnotus and before the imperial age, this
iconography does not seem to be attested, not even among the
many frescoes of Achilles at Scyros found at Pompeii (LIMC ‘Ach.’
108–13). The vast majority of these and later depictions of this
episode of Achilles’ life develop, in different ways, the motif of
Achilles’ exposure, which is the theme of the painting of Athenion
and of the Pompeii frescoes LIMC ‘Ach.’ 54=108, 109, and Mus. Arch.
Naples 9110: they continue to depict Achilles dressed in drag, but
focus on Odysseus’ exposure of Achilles (most frequently at the key
moment of the blast of the trumpet), and Deidameia imploring
him to stay, usually in a kneeling position. LIMC ‘Ach.’ 54 (Pl. 2),
in particular, seems to focus precisely on the coexistence of Achilles’
attachment to Deidameia and his enraptured attraction to the arms:
his body moves towards the shield and the sword which he is seizing
on the viewer’s right, but his eyes are turned to the left, where in all
probability the naked girl is Deidameia.178
With the same emphasis on decision/transition, a few other depic-
tions of Achilles at Scyros emphasize the moment when Achilles
departs, in arms, from Lycomedes (LIMC ‘Ach.’ 177–81). In addition
to these sarcophagi where the specific motif appears to be Achilles’
separation from Lycomedes, the king of Scyros is also present within
many scenes which mainly focus on Achilles’ exposure. Lycomedes
appears in the Pompeii frescoes LIMC ‘Ach.’ 54=108, where he
may symbolize the ‘road not taken’ by Achilles as he recovered his
177
On the Attic sarcophagi, cf. Rogge (1995) 31, 109–10.
178
Cf. Trimble (2002) 232, also on the parallel mosaic LIMC ‘Ach.’ 55 and fresco
Mus. Arch. Naples 9110. Trimble (2002) 235 emphasizes that this last fresco also
depicts Achilles physically at the moment of transition from female identity to male:
he is beardless, his skin is pale like a woman’s, his air long; at the same time he is of a
larger size than Odysseus and Diomedes, and his seizing of the weapons, as if he were
surging out against an enemy, expresses a unleashed masculine force. After all, as
Trimble ibid. correctly concludes, ‘Achilles in drag provides no titillation unless the
viewer also knows that this will be the greatest of the Achaeans at Troy. At the same
time, the external knowledge of the viewer in turn permits the painting to leave
Achilles’ ambiguous gender unresolved and to insist on the transformation itself ’.
Deidameia 95
virility, namely the decision to become a quiet and good husband and
father, and perhaps to remain at Scyros. In Statius, Lycomedes also
represents the family responsibilities which Achilles could have
chosen to pursue after revealing his gender—the pro-family choice
he had in fact taken in Stat. Ach. 1.906–7, in dialogue with Lycomedes
and under the influence of the ‘loud laments’ that he had heard from
Deidameia.179 Some sarcophagi represent Achilles’ dilemma most
vividly in their organization of the pictorial space. LIMC ‘Ach.’
131= ‘Lyk.’ 5 (here Pl. 3), of the mid-second century ad, and LIMC
‘Ach.’ 165 = ‘Lyk.’ 6, of c. ad 180, depict Achilles at the centre of the
front slab, with Deidameia kneeling close by, flanked by her sisters.
The queen and Lycomedes are on his left, and the Greeks are on the
opposite side: Odysseus, Diomedes, and the trumpeter.180 Even more
explicitly, at least four other sarcophagi, from the second and third
quarters of the third century ad,181 feature Achilles in the centre of
the slab, whereas at the opposite sides of the Lycomedes and Aga-
memnon sit on thrones. Lycomedes, whom Statius as well had de-
picted as reluctant to let Achilles leave for the war (Ach. 1.912–18),
may imply the idea of vita contemplativa; Agamemnon, who in
Statius commends (stimulat . . . Agamemno volentes, Ach. 1.553) Dio-
medes’ and Odysseus’ volunteering for the mission to find and fetch
Achilles to Troy, seems to point to the vita activa.182
Another confirmation that Achilles’ stay at Scyros was reduced
to an edifying episode telling of a virtuous and/but distressful transi-
tion from an inadequate life of effeminization to a better life-choice
comes from an ethopoiia in hexameters of the fifth/sixth century ad,
preserved in the anthology of the codex Salmasianus, whose title is
179
See above, p. 90.
180
An uncommon feature of both these sarcophagi is that Lycomedes is depicted
with the typical dress of kings in drama: a chiton with long sleeves girded with large
bands. This has led Kossatz-Deissmann (1981) 61, 68 and (1992) 299 to suggest that
its iconography goes back to dramatic performances (she reminds us, p. 68, that ‘die
Mythendarstellungen auf Sarkophagen gehen häufig auf dramatische Bearbeitungen
zurück’). Certainly in Euripides’ Scyrioi there was no queen, as Lycomedes was a
widower. But from Liban. Or. 64.68 we know that in the mid-4th cent. pantomime
performances of Achilles at Scyros were not uncommon.
181
LIMC ‘Ach.’ 133 (= LIMC ‘Lyk.’ 9), 143 (=‘Lyk.’ 7), 148 (=‘Lyk.’ 8), 177 (=‘Lyk.’
10), also 178 (=‘Lyk.’ 11).
182
The dichotomy vita act./vita cont. has been suggested for this iconography by
Kossatz-Deissmann (1992) 301.
96 Deidameia
Verba Achillis in parthenone, dum tubam Diomedis audisset.183 It is
an anonymous text, possibly a school exercise, and its literary level
can hardly be considered exciting; but precisely for this reason it may
be supposed to meet and reflect closely and transparently the cultural
standards of its age. In the first part (1–43), the persona loquens, who
is Achilles himself, confirms the correctness of his choice to throw off
his debasing cross-dressing (exemplified by the usual series of female
activities and behaviour) and to opt for a virtuous life of military
glory—the great successes at Troy will be a satisfactory reward for
him. In this first part Achilles either summarizes or evaluates the two
different realities in order to prove, again and again, that cross-
dressing is an infamy and that the martial/virile choice is a positive
one. He alternates between arguments expressed in the first person
(1–9, 17–19, 30–43) and self-apostrophai (10–16, 20–9),184 where he
addresses himself concerning the objects he is now either accustomed
to dealing with (arms) or not accustomed to any longer (weaving
tools, mitra, etc.), and he instructs himself and these objects on how
to pursue the right new choice. The second part is a sort of dialogue.
A fictional interlocutor is introduced (44–58), who expresses a new
moralistic concern/doubt about Achilles’ life-choice: did Achilles
consider sufficiently how much pain he is causing his mother Thetis,
the praesaga creatrix (44) who had tried to save him from his fate? Is
joining the Greeks in the war and yielding to martial fury a sufficient
reason to face death and thus sadden Thetis with his funeral (ne, te
rapiat si Martius ardor, j orbatam crucies inviso funere matrem ‘so
that, if the fury of Mars abducts you, you do not have to trouble your
mother, childless, with a sad funeral’, 48–9), not to mention abandon
wife and son? From line 59 onward Achilles replies to this objection.
Or, rather, he does not so much answer it (the point concerning
Thetis’ sorrow, in particular, remains untouched), but contrasts those
objections which focus on the familial dimension with the public
dimension of honour (which would be slighted if Achilles dared not
183
Excellent edn. and comm. by Heusch (1997), to be consulted also for a discus-
sion of various suggestions about the dating; see also Crea (2003–4).
184
Apostrophai are of course quite expectable in declamations, but we must also
acknowledge that they mesh very well with the consistent frequency of apostrophai of
censure or moral evaluation that intersperse the history of the motif of Achilles at
Scyros. In particular, the beginning of the self-apostrophe of Achilles at line 11, rumpe
moras ‘give up hesitations’ repeats the apostrophe of Odysseus to Achilles in Stat. Ach.
872 hei, abrumpe moras.
Deidameia 97
to share the dangers which even Thersites accepts to face)185 and
glory (which will be the result of Achilles’ military deeds). The
ethopoiia thus foregrounds another aspect of Achilles’ decision-mak-
ing, and one that does not seem to have been developed in previous
authors, though it may have been hinted at in Ach. 1.856, where
Statius comments on Achilles’ reaction to the viewing of the shield:
nusquam mandata parentis, | nusquam occultus amor, totoque in
pectore Troia est ‘forgotten his mother’s charge, forgotten his hidden
love, Troy is in all his heart’ (1.856–7). The anxiety and sorrow that
Achilles’ choice (and later death) provokes and will continue to
provoke in his mother—i.e. Achilles’ immediate family—is thus
added to the concerns of the possible future family, centred on
Lycomedes and Deidameia, which had been the focus in Statius and
was widely privileged in the iconography of the imperial age. It
represents a sort of variation on the theme of the greatness and
sadness of Achilles’ decision, which once again proves to be the
most widespread way of ‘reading’ Achilles’ story at Scyros.186 The
self-indulgent super-star of erotic poetry who starred in the Epith. lost
his battle with a troubled, tragic Achilles, who did love Deidameia,
but preferred to return to being an epic hero, with his warlike future
of glory and death, but without Deidameia.
185
That an Achilles dodging the draft turned out to be baser than Thersites is also
maintained by Liban. Vitup. 1.5–7 (see above, p. 40). The comparison between the
défaillances of the ‘best of the Achaeans’ and the standard infamy of the worst of them
appears thus to have been topical, and this topos may date back to the opposition
between Achilles and Thersites about the Penthesileia affair in the Aethiopis; cf. below,
pp. 271–9.
186
This variation pops up as no surprise in a text from late antiquity. The
Introduction (Accessus) to the notes to Statius’ Achilleid by an anonymous school-
master of the late Middle Ages, made the most of the maternal/filial feelings, and
explained the ethical value of the poem in these terms: subponitur autem liber iste
etice, moralitas enim consistit in sollicitudine matris erga filium et in obediencia filii
erga matrem ‘but this book has a moral basis: its morality consists of the attentiveness
of the mother for the son, and of the obedience of the son for the mother’ (Clogan
(1968) 21, lines 26–8).
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3
Briseis
HOMER’S INEXPLICITNESS
The character of Briseis and the story of her relationship with Achilles
stand in the background of the entire Iliad: the poem opens, literally,
with Achilles’ anger, which at 1.298–9 turns out to be caused by
Briseis’ abduction on Agamemnon’s order, and ends shortly after
Achilles sleeps with her once again in his tent (24.675–6). Her brief
appearances seem to have, however, mainly a framing function: she
has great structural importance, but is an absent structure. The
solution to the anger of Achilles that is triggered by her abduction
(and thus absence) will only be provided by Patroclus: Patroclus, not
Briseis, is thus going to be the most consistent presence at the side of
Achilles in the plot of the Iliad, up to his death in Book 16. Also after
Patroclus’ death, Briseis’ mourning for him at 19.282–300 is the only
occasion when we hear her voice in the Iliad.1 Although this brief
speech shows the intensity of her feelings for Patroclus (and much
less so for Achilles, as we shall see), she remains a rather shadowy
figure in the Iliad in comparison with Patroclus.2
It also remains uncertain whether Achilles considers her to be a
love object or merely a mundane object, the ªæÆ ‘war-prize of
honour’, which is a concrete recognition of his Ø and brings it
into question, as a lack of deference, when she is abducted3—hence
1
As the ancient commentators acknowledged: bT ad loc.
2
For the dynamics of Briseis and Patroclus as focuses of Achilles’ feelings, see
below, pp. 198–202.
3
On the dynamics of Ø and ªæÆ in Homer, cf. most recently Wagner-Hasel
(2000) 171–96. On the relevance of deference, and lack of deference (which involves
necessary retaliation), van Wees (1992) 110–15.
100 Briseis
Achilles’ BØ, a term which in the Iliad is almost entirely restricted
to Achilles’ anger over his slighted Ø,4 and is emphasized from the
beginning by the narrator as the driving force behind the action of the
whole poem.5 Briseis’ own words contribute to this ambiguity. In her
mourning for Patroclus she alludes to the story of her family (19.291–6),
but her three brothers and husband seem to have narrative relevance
only insofar as they were killed by Achilles—a way of pointing out
her attachment to Achilles, which runs deep despite his having their
blood on his hands. All of them remain unnamed, and their anon-
ymity contributes to the impression that the myth of Briseis is not a
real legend with roots outside the Iliad, but a specific invention of
this poem, a parallel to the character of Chryseis, who has a similar
story and similar features.6 The same impression also arises from
the very name of Briseis, derived from her native town Brisa or
rather from Briseus, her father (1.392, 9.132). This impression is
probably false, as Briseis may have lived a pre-Iliadic life in the
tradition concerning Achilles’ raids at Lyrnessos, Pedasos, Thebes,
Scyros, Tenedos, etc.,7 with the Iliad compressing to a bare mini-
mum the details of what was a well-known story in this oral tradi-
tion.8 However, if we stick to the Iliad, in this poem Briseis is usually
nothing more than one of the ‘objects’ Achilles has plundered from
Eëtion’s city.9
The first time Briseis is mentioned in the Iliad Agamemnon defines
her as a ªæÆ he will take from its rightful proprietor, Achilles, as
compensation for the loss he is suffering, since Apollo is depriving
4
This specialization of the term was acknowledged already by Nagy (1979) 73,
who observed that Achilles’ anger over the death of Patroclus, for instance, is never
called BØ. See now Muellner (1996).
5
Later readers, to whom the Homeric code of honour had become obscure, easily
considered the attention Achilles gave to the integrity of his ªæÆ an almost manic
excess. In Euripides’ Hecuba, when Achilles’ ghost appears above his tomb as the
Greeks are on the verge of embarking for home and asks them to sacrifice Polyxena,
he is said to be seeking again, as in the Iliad, his ªæÆ from his brothers in arms
(lines 41, 94). As such, his blind pursuit of his ªæÆ seems to have become a paradigm
of the egocentric and furious outdated heroism of archaic epic, in contrast with the
‘new’ heroism of Polyxena’s self-sacrifice or the civic rhetoric of Odysseus. See above,
p. 17.
6
Cf. Reinhardt (1961) 50–9.
7
For the archaic ‘Tale of Foray’ posited by Leaf, cf. above, p. 24 with n. 10.
8
Dué (2002) 23–5.
9
The frequent mention of this sack may, however, highlight its special significance,
since it was the moment when Achilles acquired Briseis: cf. Sammons (2010) 106–7.
Briseis 101
him of Chryseis, and he would thus be left without compensation for
the loss. For both Agamemnon and Achilles the expropriation of
Chryseis and Briseis is a material deprival which shows their loss of
autonomy, and thus of face.10 Few mentions are made of any senti-
mental dimension of this deprivation. As Agamemnon claims that
Briseis’ abduction is necessary by virtue of his royal superiority, so
‘the implication is that Apollo’s BØ was a response to an offence in
the domain of status, and that as it justified Agamemnon’s loss of
Chryseis, so Agamemnon’s BØ justifies the seizing of Briseis from
the disrespectful Achilles’11 (1.182–7):
‰ ’ IçÆØæ EÆØ )æı ÅÆ *E ººø,
c b Kªg f Å ’ KBØ ŒÆd KE æØ Ø
łø, Kªg Œ’ ¼ªø BæØ ÅÆ ŒÆººØ æÅØ
ÆPe Ng ŒºØ Å e e ªæÆ Zçæ KV NBØ
‹ çæ æ NØ Ł , ıªÅØ b ŒÆd ¼ºº
r Kd ç ŁÆØ ŒÆd ›ØøŁ ÆØ ¼Å.
Just as Phoibos Apollo is taking Chryseis away from me—I will send her
home with my ship and my companions—so I shall take the beautiful
Briseis, your prize, going myself to fetch her from your tent, so that you
can fully realize how much I am your superior, and others too can
shrink from speaking on a level with me and openly claiming equality.
This presentation of Agamemnon’s decision reflects, of course, his
subjective point of view. One can thus suppose that it is biased by his
intention to repay Achilles in his own coin for supporting Calchas’
idea of returning Chryseis to her father12—and from the very begin-
ning, as soon as Calchas reveals Apollo’s indignation, Agamemnon
interprets the restitution of the girl as a diminution of his Ø, for
which he had to be compensated with a new and equivalent ªæÆ
(Il. 1.118–20). But a few lines later in the same dialogue, it is
Achilles who points to the abduction of Briseis as an act now in turn
10
Scodel (2008) 18. For a recent, and most thoughtful discussion of the dynamics
of the fight between Achilles and Agamemnon, cf. Allan and Cairns (2011).
11
Muellner (1996) 108–9.
12
As observed already by bT 1.182, Agamemnon ‘persuasively says that his
ªæÆ is not being taken away by the Greeks, so as to avoid being suspected of hating
them for his returning the girl, nor by Achilles, so that the Greeks would not be
grateful to Achilles. But he says that it [sc. the ªæÆ] is taken away by the god, so that
he seems inferior not to men, but a god’. Pulleyn (2000) 173 further remarks that
‘Agamemnon also implies that he is as far above Achilles in the scheme of things as
Apollo is above Agamemnon.’
102 Briseis
impinging on his honour—even though he ostensibly claims that he
will not fight with Agamemnon or the other Greeks ‘over the girl’
(å æ d b h Ø ªøª Æå ÆØ ¥ ŒÆ ŒæÅ),13 as they only
asked him to return what they had previously given (1.298–9).14 But at
the same time, Achilles threatens that if someone tries to take away
any of the other goods he has gathered near his ship, much blood will
be spilled by his spear (1.300–3). The abduction of Briseis thus creates
an impasse between Achilles and the Greeks in the relation of gift
exchange which usually binds individuals in social groups, so that any
further act of interference on behalf of the Greeks with Achilles’
property would define them as real enemies and provoke a lethal
reaction.15 At least at this moment Briseis seems to hold no special
value for Achilles; she is just another of the ‘little but dear’ (Oºª
çº )16 pieces of booty which he has gathered by his ship (1.166–8).
In other words, the person of Briseis is not what makes Achilles’ revenge
unavoidable, but what she represents as a unit of currency in the
Homeric economy of honour.17
Within Iliad 1, however, the abduction of Briseis is not seen by
Achilles only in terms of slighted Ø. Nor have the ancient com-
mentators consistently favoured this as the cause of Achilles’ reaction.
In fact, outside the public debate with Agamemnon, and in the private
space of his camp, we find Achilles bursting into tears as soon as
Agamemnon’s heralds leave with Briseis in tow (1.348–50):
ÆPaæ åØºº f
ÆŒæ Æ æø ¼çÆæ &Ç çØ ºØÆ Ł ,
ŁE ç ±ºe ºØB, ›æø K I æÆ .
13
Compare 2.377–8, where Agamemnon admits that he and Achilles have been
fighting ‘over a girl with wrangling words’, before stopping in order to avoid too much
trouble for the rest of the army (ŒÆd ªaæ Kªg åØº Æå Ł’ ¥ ŒÆ ŒæÅ /
IØØ K Ø).
14
Cf. Scodel (2008) 33: ‘the taking of Briseis from Achilles can be described as the
reappropriation of a gift by the giver, and Achilles regards this circumstance as a
reason not to fight for her’.
15
Muellner (1996) 114.
16
Oºª qualifies the quantity in opposition to ºf EÇ ‘much bigger’, which
defines Agamemnon’s part of the booty; çº probably highlights that Achilles
chooses with care and affection his own small particles of the booty (Briseis included,
of course): cf. Pulleyn (2000) 170–1.
17
Agamemnon’s choice of retaliating against Achilles with a sexual offence,
depriving him of a beautiful young woman, has been considered particularly ‘humili-
ating and emasculating’ by Gottschall (2008) 59–60. But cf. D. F. Wilson (2002) 88 on
the ambiguity of the location of women in spheres of wealth in Homeric society.
Briseis 103
Then Achilles, breaking into tears, quickly drew far away from his
companions, and sat down on the shore of the grey sea, looking out
over the boundless ocean.
Achilles’ tears are confirmed at 1.357: ῝# ç Œæı åø ‘so he
spoke, with tears falling’. In the case of Achilles’ tears the text does not
speak at all of slighted Ø or diminished ªæÆ, and in fact they may
seem (as they did to some of the ancients) love-tears. Yet in his appeal
to his mother at 1.352–6, which immediately follows these tears,
Achilles focuses not on love but, once again, on Ø (353), IØÆ
(356), and ªæÆ (356):
Ø æ Ø Zç ºº OºØ Kªªıƺ ÆØ
Z f łØæ Å· F P ıŁe Ø ·
q ª æ æ Å Pæf Œæ ø ªÆø
MÅ · ºg ªaæ å Ø ªæÆ ÆPe IæÆ.
Surely honor should have been granted to me by Olympian Zeus, the
high-thunderer. But now he has shown me not even the slightest
honour. The son of Atreus, wide-ruling Agamemnon, has dishonoured
me: he has taken my prize with his own hands, and keeps it for
himself.18
Thetis herself will do the same, at least in her dialogue with Zeus and
Hephaestus.19 Her supplication to Zeus (1.503–10) tellingly begins
with the imperative Å Ø ıƒ at 505, includes MÅ at 507,
and concludes with the peroration of the ultimate goal: Zçæ i 寨d
j ıƒe Ke ø Ø O纺ø ØBØ ‘until the Achaeans recom-
pense my son and raise him in honour among them’.20 She practically
tries to transform the offence done to Achilles into an opportunity for
his social advancement: the underlying motivation for her request to
make her son, destined to an early death, at least ‘the best of the
Achaeans’, is supplied by Zeus’ prior decision not to have her in his
bed (cf. e.g. Pind. Isthm. 8.31–48), thus depriving her son of the
chance of becoming ‘the best of the gods’. And so, what did not
18
In light of this passage, Pulleyn (2000) 214 rules out that Achilles’ tears are tears
of love; see also Föllinger (2009) 22. They are possibly correct. But the impression of
some of the ancients was different.
19
In her dialogue with Achilles, however, Thetis focuses on another private or
personal aspect of Achilles’ existence, i.e. the unhappiness of his early death: cf. Di
Benedetto (1998) 306–9.
20
Already the scholiasts (bT) observed about this line: ‘understandably ( NŒø)
the poet often returns to the term Ø . . . ’
104 Briseis
happen to Achilles at the level of divine status she hopes to achieve at
the level of heroic kleos.21
The ancient interpreters, however, must have believed that the
‘official’ or publicly advertised motivation of the slighted honour,
conveniently pleaded first by Achilles himself, and then by Thetis to
Zeus, did not exclude or conflict with the subjective, sentimental
reaction Achilles had to Briseis’ removal. Indeed, they interpret
Achilles’ distress and tears as being erotic in nature, and, at times,
they force this reading on the text in places where it is not supported
by the evidence. For example, in the eyes of the scholiasts even the
rather formulaic and unemphatic epithet ŒÆººØ æÅØ, referring to
Briseis at 1.346, but also used repeatedly of Agamemnon’s slave-girl,
becomes evidence of the scene’s fundamental eroticism ( bT
1.346):22
hŒÆØæ e KŁ , c F KæH Ø Ł Ø KçÆE HØ ÅºF ¥Æ
KæAÆØ.
The epithet is opportune, as it highlights the psychology of the lover by
showing how great the woman he loves is.
Although this is the general light in which they see Achilles’ motiva-
tion in this specific passage, the ancient commentators on 1.349 also
mention the issue of honour as an alternative or additional cause for
Achilles’ tears. Side by side with erotic distress, the ancient inter-
preters thus include among the possible motivations for Achilles’
tears the ‘background noise’ of the Ø-motivation, which does not
surface in the text itself ( bT 1.349):
ÆŒæ Æ æø: &Ø e æøœŒe æe ŒæıÆ . . . ¼ººø ŒÆd
çØºØ J IØAÆØ BØ oæ Ø ÆºÆØA ıÅŁ Æ æ ÆØ, Y ø b
ŒÆd e ªÆØ IŒı ø IƺºÆ Kº E. ¼Œæø b KæHÆ
åÆæÆŒÅæÇ Ø· yØ ªaæ ÆE KæÅÆØ lÆØ, Œº.
‘breaking into tears . . . from his companions’: heroes are quick to tears . . .
besides, since he is concerned with his Ø, he is distressed by the violence
21
Cf. Slatkin (1991) 40; Tsagalis (2001) 18–23.
22
See 1.143, 1.310, and 1.369 for Chryseis and 1.184 and 1.323 for Briseis. Many
other elements contribute to the parallelism between Briseis and Chryseis, e.g. the
name formation; both are called ŒæÅ; both are taken by Achilles in the sack of Thebe
according to 1.366–9; the fact that Agamemnon maintains that he prefers Chryseis to
his ŒıæØÅ ¼ºå (1.113–14), and Achilles calls Briseis his ¼ºå, though both
Chryseis and Briseis are war-slaves. See Dué (2002) 42–3, 49–52.
Briseis 105
he has suffered and lacks his well-established companion; and perhaps he
also pities the woman who is sequestered against her will. The poet
perfectly characterizes the lover. In fact these people enjoy solitude, etc.
A different and almost exclusive focus on the Ø aspect of Achilles’
troubles then appears in the scholia on Book 9—although, as we shall
see, it was not as exclusive in the actual text as the scholia were ready to
claim. In 9.106–11, Nestor confirms the negative opinion he had
formed from the very beginning concerning Agamemnon’s decision
to take Briseis away from Achilles’ tent ‘for all his anger’ (åøı),
and he sees this action as an offence against Achilles’ Ø (9.111:
MÅ Æ, ºg ªaæ å Ø ªæÆ ‘you have dishonoured him—you have
taken his prize and keep it for yourself’). Besides, though Odysseus
promises to restore Briseis to Achilles (emphasizing that she had never
been touched by Agamemnon) along with many other gifts in ex-
change for his return to the fight, Achilles maintains that he cannot
accept Agamemnon’s proposal until the king completely atones and
apologizes for the ‘outrage’ he inflicted (9.387),23 or until he believes
that the king has suffered enough for the offence he has given.24
Therefore, in effect, Achilles refuses to be reunited with Briseis.25 Last
but not least, when the anger is over, and Patroclus’ death leads Achilles
to be reconciled with Agamemnon and have his Ø symbolically
restored with Briseis’ return, far from expressing joy for the imminent
reunion with her, Achilles does not even hesitate openly to curse the girl
as responsible for so many Greek deaths, chief among them—at least
implicitly—that of Patroclus (19.56–62):26
23
As Agamemnon admits in 9.158–61 (lines which Odysseus notoriously does not
repeat to Achilles), the real goal of the gifts is not to acknowledge Achilles’ value and
admit Agamemnon’s mistake, but to establish Agamemnon’s prestige as a giver, and
thus reassert his superiority in rank to Achilles—the same goal he had when he took
Briseis from Achilles. Achilles almost seems to apprehend the logic of gifting which
was explicit in Agamemnon’s speech, but which Odysseus had left out. Cf. Muellner
(1996) 140–1 and below, p. 130 n. 79.
24
Cf. van Wees (1992) 133. In any case Achilles’ refusal can only be understood
within a society where gifts do not matter only for their material relevance, but also for
the way they are given: Allan and Cairns (2011) 123–6.
25
Cf. de Jong (1987) 111. Achilles’ refusal to marry one of Agamemnon’s daugh-
ters, which immediately follows (9.388–92), is also interpreted by the scholia in terms
not of love for Briseis, but of resentment for the fact that his liaison with Briseis had
been ‘belittled ( P ºÇ ŁÆØ)’ ( bT 9.388).
26
Taplin (1992) 216: ‘I do not see this as incompatible with Patroclus’ past
assurances to Briseis. However strongly Achilles may feel about her, Patroclus was
still more important. He would rather she were dead than have regained her at this
106 Briseis
æ Å q ¼æ Ø ’ IçæØ Ø ¼æ Ø
º d ŒÆd K, ‹ H æ Iåıø ŒBæ
ŁıæøØ æØØ Æ ¥ ŒÆ ŒæÅ;
c Zç º’ K Ø ŒÆÆŒ @æ Ø NHØ
XÆØ HØ ‹’ Kªg ºÅ ¸ıæÅ e Oº Æ·
Œ’ P Ø åÆØd Oa &º ¼ sÆ
ı ø e å æ d K F IÅ Æ.
Son of Atreus, could we possibly say that this has proved good for both
of us, for you and me, that the two of us in our passions quarreled in
heart-consuming anger over a girl? I wish that Artemis had killed her
with an arrow on board my ships, on that day when I destroyed
Lyrnessos and won her. Then all those many Achaeans would not
have sunk their teeth into the broad earth, brought down by enemy
hands in the time of my great anger.
When other voices besides Achilles’ (especially, as we have seen,
Achilles in his public pronouncements) consider Briseis’ abduction—
for instance, Homer as narrator and the maternal voice of Thetis—
different perspectives on Achilles’ feelings surface. The violation of
societal Ø is not the main reason explicitly quoted in 2.688–94,
where Achilles’ ‘anger’ (åø ) is joined to his ‘suffering’ (Iåø),
just before one of the rare authorial comments in the Homeric poems:
Œ E ªaæ K Ø æŒÅ E åØºº f
ŒæÅ åø BæØ Å MߌØ,
c KŒ ¸ıæÅ F K º ººa ª Æ . . .
B ‹ ª Œ E Iåø, åÆ I ŁÆØ ºº .
Swift-footed godlike Achilles was keeping by his ships, in anger over the
girl, the beautiful Briseis, whom he had chosen as his spoil from
Lyrnessos after he had labored hard for its taking . . . She was the sorrow
he lay grieving for, but he was soon to rise up again.
Likewise, in Thetis’ speech at 18.429–61, when she asks Hephaestus to
help provide new armour for Achilles and reminds him of the
harshness of her son’s destiny, her maternal sentiments point again
price’. See also Sale (1963) 99 n. 5, according to whom in this piece of ‘Mediterranean
rhetoric’ love for the companions prevails over love for Briseis. As correctly remarked
by D. F. Wilson (2002) 88, the instability of the evaluation of women in Homeric
society allows Achilles to eulogize her hyperbolically in Book 9, when it suits his
purpose to augment the compensation he can claim for her abduction by as much as
he can, while in the changed situation after the death of Patroclus, ‘he can transfer
Briseis just as easily, and just as strategically, back to the exchange order of prestige
goods or even wish that she were dead’.
Briseis 107
jointly to the ¼å of Achilles over the abduction of Briseis and his
consequent anger against Agamemnon.27 But this abduction, accord-
ing to the standard guidelines of the motivations for the fight between
Achilles and Agamemnon, is also seen as the theft of Achilles’ legit-
imate property and consequently the diminution of his ªæÆ/Ø
(18.444–6):
ŒæÅ m ¼æÆ ƒ ªæÆ º ıx ` 寨H,
c ił KŒ å ØæH &º Œæ ø ` ªÆø
XØ n B Iåø çæÆ çŁØ .
The girl that the sons of the Achaeans chose out as his prize lord
Agamemnon took back out of his hands. So he let his heart waste
away in grief for her.
Apart from the sentiments expressed by these two focalizers ex-
ternal to the fight (the narrator and Thetis), other emotions, which
are more complex than just the usual concern for Ø, appear to be at
work in Achilles’ soul, not only in the private sphere of 1.349–50, but
also at least once—and with a special emphasis—in the context of the
dialogue with Agamemnon’s ambassadors at 9.334–45:
¼ººÆ IæØ Ø ı ªæÆ ŒÆd Æ Øº F Ø·
E Ø b Æ Œ EÆØ, K F Ie ı 寨H 335
¥ º ’, å Ø ¼ºå ŁıÆæÆ· BØ ÆæØÆø
æ Łø. b E º ØÇ ÆØ +æ Ø
æª ı; b ºÆe IªÆª KŁ Iª æÆ
æ Å; q På EºÅ & Œ MߌØ;
q FØ çØºı Iºåı æø IŁæø 340
æ ÆØ; K d ‹ Ø Icæ IªÆŁe ŒÆd Kåçæø
c ÆPF çØº Ø ŒÆd Œ ÆØ, ‰ ŒÆd Kªg c
KŒ ŁıF çº ıæØŒÅ æ KF Æ.
F K d KŒ å ØæH ªæÆ ¥ º ŒÆ I Å
ı Øæ ø s N· P Ø. 345
All the other prizes [Agamemnon] gave to the kings and leading men stay
safe with their owners. I am the only Achaean he has robbed. He has taken
my wife, my heart’s love—let him lie with her and take his pleasure. Why
is it that the Argives must fight the Trojans? Why did the son of Atreus
raise an army and sail it here? Was it not because of lovely-haired Helen?
Are the sons of Atreus the only ones of humankind to love their wives? No,
27
Pain and anger, often connected to each other, are the most frequent emotions
felt by the Iliadic Achilles. On ‘Achilles’ as etymologically derived from ¼å, cf. Nagy
(1979) 69–93; Sinos (1980) 65–8; Dekel (2012) 44–62.
108 Briseis
any good man of sense loves his own wife and cares for her—as I too loved
this girl from my heart, even though I won her by my spear. Now that he
has taken my prize from my hands and cheated me, let him not try me.
I know him well now—he will not persuade me.
Within the frame of the usual and unromantic perspective of the stolen
ªæÆ—a perspective that surfaces in ring composition at 334–36a and
344—we can also find here a series of statements that unambiguously
point to the romantic dimension of Achilles’ liaison with Briseis. This
revelation of love remains unparalleled for the Iliadic Achilles as far as
Briseis (or anyone else) is concerned, especially in his public speeches.
In 336b, in particular if we follow the punctuation which has prevailed
in modern editions, Achilles calls her his ¼ºå ŁıÆæ, ‘my wife, my
heart’s love’, where ¼ºå is a term that is normally used of one’s
legitimate wife. Some eighteenth- and nineteenth-century editors and
commentators (up to Leaf and Van Leeuwen) were troubled by the fact
that Achilles calls Briseis an ¼ºå,28 especially since he points out
immediately afterwards (9.343) that she is a slave. They therefore
punctuated 336 after ¥ º with a period (and not between ŁıÆæÆ
and BØ ÆæØÆø) in order to have Achilles’ words mean that Aga-
memnon has his own concubine-wife and should be content with her,
instead of abducting the women of the others. But ŁıÆæ also ex-
presses a special intensity of feeling and fondness. In fact, this epithet,
the term ¼ºå, and the verb å Ø (though in the sense of ‘to embrace’)
appear in conjunction in defining Penelope in Odysseus’ arms in Od.
23.232: ŒºÆE åø ¼ºå ŁıÆæÆ, Œ a NıEÆ ‘he wept, embracing
his wife, his heart’s love’ (this is the scene in which Penelope finally
recognizes her husband, and a long romantic comparison follows that
parallels her pleasure in seeing Odysseus and the pleasure the ship-
wrecked sailors feel when they are within sight of land). It is therefore
appealing to suppose that this Iliadic passage purposefully adopted a
phrase that in the oral tradition of the Odyssey applied to Odysseus’ wife
precisely in the case of Achilles, who defines Briseis as his wife to
Odysseus—the use of familiar language would have been a nice way
for Achilles to persuade Odysseus of the intensity of his own feelings for
Briseis. In our passage Achilles, who is not married, goes beyond even
Agamemnon, who in dialogue with Achilles in Book 1 had compared
28
Leaf (1900–2) i.395 is explicit about this trouble; see also Leaf (1900–2) ii.279
about 19.298.
Briseis 109
Chryseis to his wife Clytaemnestra, succinctly defined as ¼ºå, to the
detriment of the latter (1.113–15): ŒÆd ª æ ÞÆ ˚ºıÆØ æÅ
æıºÆ j ŒıæØÅ Iºåı, K d h Ł K Ø å æ ø, j P Æ
Pb çı, h iæ çæÆ h Ø æªÆ ‘and indeed I prefer her to
Clytaemnestra the wife of my marriage, as she is in no way her inferior
in body or stature, or good sense or the craft of the hands’.29
The alternative punctuation, according to which Achilles would be
speaking of the ¼ºå of Agamemnon, is hardly tenable, as Agamem-
non is nowhere said to have a concubine in the camp around Troy, apart
from Chryseis, and the idea that he can take pleasure from his wife
Clytaemnestra far away in Mycenae is not plausible.30 And anyway the
problem remains that it would still be strange for him, no less than for
Achilles, to view a captive concubine as his ¼ºå. Also if we leave line
9.336 to one side (as it has been questioned), Achilles compares himself
in a rhetorical question to a husband who has been deprived of his
beloved wife, and not just to any husband, but indirectly to Menelaus.
Thus he situates his motivation in the context of the Trojan War itself,
with Briseis implicitly compared to Helen and Agamemnon in the role
of a second Paris;31 inescapably Briseis ‘must be an ¼ºå to enable
Achilles to make the connection with Helen’.32
29
Another of the many points of contact between Briseis and Chryseis: see above,
p. 100.
30
Cf. Hainsworth (1993) 107.
31
Cf. Suzuki (1989) 22; Pizzocaro (1994) 48; Dué (2002) 39–41.
32
As remarked by Griffin (1995) 114—although Griffin ibid. maintains, perhaps
too rigidly, that this definition of Briseis by Achilles must be ‘an exaggeration’. About
9.343 (KŒ ŁıF çº ) Griffin (1995) 115 also feels the need to assert that Achilles ‘is
not to be thought of as a romantic lover’.
33
Cf. de Jong (1987) 110. Hainsworth (1993) 108 observes: ‘it is a pity that Achilles
should make this declaration, emphatic though it is, only in a context where his
110 Briseis
demands that this ‘rhetorical’ interpretation, according to which
Achilles’ romantic argument would be more or less lacking in sincer-
ity, be the correct one—especially since Achilles stated a few lines
before that he hates ‘like the gates of Hades the man who hides one
thing in his mind and speaks another” (9.312–13).34 The scholiasts,
however, unanimously take Achilles’ statements as an emphatic pres-
entation (or rather exaggeration) of his case as a legitimately enraged
victim of a most outrageous bullying. Indeed, they seem to detect
quasi-forensic elements in his self-representation, as if Achilles were
presenting a formal accusation at trial against one whom he has
accused of hubris: his prosecution would then be an exercise in rheto-
ric, not an expression of his true feelings. In this respect, they adopt the
same line of interpretation they follow in reading Agamemnon’s
shocking statement, made on the point of agreeing to restore Chryseis
(1.109–15), that he loved her even more than his ŒıæØÅ ¼ºå
Clytaemnestra. Referring to Chryseis, the scholiasts (bT ad 1.113)
remark first: K Ææ Ø e Ł, ‹ø ª Å ŒBØ ŒÆÆŁ ŁÆØ
E 寨E å æØ (ÅÆªøªØŒÆ ª æ K Ø) ‘he magnifies his
desire, in order that he may seem to lay up a very great store of favour
with the Achaeans (for he is an out-and-out demagogue)’ and only in
the second instance do they suggest an alternative, more universal
explanation: j ‹Ø æØ Æ E K’ IººÆB › H ªıÆØŒH
Ł ‘or because desire for women is felt intensely by people who are
abroad’. Likewise, when Achilles calls Briseis ¼ºå ŁıÆæ (9.336),
the scholia (bT) maintain that ‘he increased the violence committed
against him (Åh Å c oæØ) by calling her ¼ºå and ŁıÆæ’;
and when in 9.339 he implicitly compares Briseis’ abduction to Helen’s,
the scholia (T) note: ‘in an amplificatory way (ÆP ÅØŒH) he has
compared Briseis with Zeus’ daughter’. At 9.337–9, where Achilles
formulates his rhetorical questions pointing to the fact that the two
Atreids had started the war precisely over the abduction of a wife, thus
justifying his own indignation at the ‘same’ treatment, the scholia
(AbT) make the following cogent observation:
æÆŒØŒe › ºª, ØŒf e ªÆÆ j I j ¼ØŒ· N b
ªaæ ØŒæe ª EÆØ e IØŒÅŁBÆØ æd ªıÆEŒÆ, º E PŒ Ø æd
rhetoric requires her to be raised to the status of the ¼ºåØ of the Atreids so that his
loss may be equated with that of Menelaus’.
34
Taplin (1992) 215.
Briseis 111
EºÅ· I s K Ø æd ØŒæA ÆNÆ º H. N b åÆº e ŒÆd
ªÆ, H – æ ÆŁg ’ Iººçºø IªÆÆŒ E, ÆFÆ N f çºı
ØH PŒ IØŒ E Ç Ø; ŒÆd æH b IÅæŁÅÆØ e Iå æØ ,
r Æ c oæØ.
This speech is practical, showing that Agamemnon is either unintelli-
gent or unjust. For if Agamemnon believes it is of little consequence to
be wronged about a woman, he should not go to war over Helen; he is
therefore stupid to wage war for an insignificant reason. If, on the other
hand, receiving an offence for a woman is a serious and weighty matter,
how is it that he is vexed after having suffered this at the hands of
foreigners, but believes that he does no wrong if he does the same to
friends? And at the beginning he reckons up [Agamemnon’s] unpleas-
antness, then his violence.
Also, when at 9.340–3 Achilles observes that every reasonable man
loves and cherishes his own woman, the scholia (bT) explain Achilles’
phrase as an instance of KØ, or rhetorical ‘persistence’:
e ØF KØc ºª ÆØ, ‹Æ Ø åø ÆNÆ K ØØ c ç ªÅØ e
ªŒºÅÆ. ŒÆd åØºº f s, K d ØÆºc r å ‰ ªıÆØŒe å æØ
OæªØ Ł , P ç ªø c ›ºªÆ N e ‹Ø ØŒÆø KåÆºÅ
æå ÆØ
This is called ‘persistence’, when someone who is accused of something
does not shy away from the accusation. Also Achilles, then, who was
charged with losing his temper because of a woman, comes to the point
of demonstrating that he lost his temper justly, without avoiding a
confession
And about 9.341 bT specifies:
åØŒH e ¼ NAÆØ Øa F Ææa E ıÆØ N Ø r ÆØ
e ª .
With professional skill he cures his lawlessness with the fact that his
marriage is as honourable as those of respectable people.
The interpretation of the Hellenistic commentators was one-dimen-
sional, but not necessarily unjustified for that reason. Rather, this
interpretation was probably based on the generalization that Achilles’
prevailing concern was for his Ø—a sort of application of the
Aristarchan principle of , OÅæ K ˇæı ÆçÅÇ Ø to the
‘anomalies’ of Achilles’ character. Whether Achilles’ words about
Briseis being his beloved wife at 9.341–3 had real romantic
112 Briseis
motivation (a plausible interpretation of that passage)35 or not (like-
wise a plausible approach, which Homer’s commentators preferred),
the context within which Homer arranged these words inevitably led
his audience to downplay the erotic intensity of Achilles’ feelings,
rather than to argue for it.
In fact, Achilles’ declaration of love is followed by two statements,
one made by Achilles himself and the other made by Ajax, both of
which understate the romantic connection between Achilles and
Briseis and assert Ø as the predominant reason for Achilles’ indig-
nation. `t 9.344, still speaking to Odysseus, Achilles concludes his
sentimental appreciation of Briseis with a typical heroic concern for
booty: F K d KŒ å ØæH ªæÆ ¥ º ŒÆ I Å . . . ‘now that
he has taken my prize from my hands and cheated me . . . ’ The scholia
(bT) immediately find in these words a confirmation of their main
interpretative line, and intervene to explain Achilles’ return to the
theme of the stolen ªæÆ through the commonplace metaphor of
the ember, which—although the fire is hidden—continues to smolder:
u æ b ØŁcæ Œ Œæı o æ e A B oºÅ ŒÆÆÆº Æ
ŒÅº ª ÆØ, oø › læø f Kغ ı ºªı I Ø
Ø Åº ª ÆØ.
Like a hidden spark that later becomes evident after it has burned
through an entire forest, thus the hero reveals himself, throwing off
fictitious speeches.
On this interpretation, Achilles had always been thinking about his
lost ªæÆ, but feigned for a while in Book 9 an emotional attachment
with consumate rhetorical skill in order to bolster his ‘case’.
The reaction Homer ascribes to one of the Greek ambassadors,
Ajax, similarly appears to downplay Achilles’ professions of love for
Briseis by adducing his core concern for his ªæÆ. In contrast to
Achilles’ statement at 9.334–45, Ajax completely undercuts the clear
35
When Achilles puts the question at 9.337: ‘Why should the Greeks fight the
Trojans’ and answers: ‘For the sake of Menelaus’ wife Helen’ he holds a romantic/
erotic perspective over the war, which does not sound usual for him. The common
answer would have been: ‘we fight to earn glory and restore the defiled honour of
Menelaus’, but Achilles here finds it useful to unusually stress the parallelism between
the origin of the war and the origin of his wrath instead. Cf. Sale (1963) 93 (perhaps
the most eloquent defence of the genuine romanticism of Achilles’ speech) and Rabel
(1997) 125. Still, this romanticism may be suspected to be feigned and exaggerated to
serve the case of an Achilles who is only in part ‘sentimentally’ injured by Agamem-
non’s offence.
Briseis 113
idea of exclusivity inherent in Achilles’ warm words there for Briseis,
and instead points out the apparent paradox that Achilles flew into a
rage for ‘just one woman’, but now refuses to give up his resentment
for the price of the seven women offered by Agamemnon (9.636–9):
d ’ ¼ººÅŒ ŒÆŒ
Łıe Kd Ł Ø Ł d Ł Æ ¥ ŒÆ ŒæÅ
YÅ· F Ø a Ææ å å’ Iæ Æ,
¼ºº ºº’ Kd BØ Ø.
The heart the gods have put in your breast is implacable and perverse,
all because of a girl, one girl—but now we are offering you seven, the
very finest, and much more besides them.
bT 9.637 observes that Ajax shapes his speech ¥Æ c Øa
IŒºÆ Æ, Iººa Øa ªæÆ ØŒæe ŒBØ ºı E ŁÆØ ‘so that Achilles
may seem not to grieve because of a lack of self-control, but because
of just a small gift’, despite the greatness of the gifts being offered to
him. In fact, the ‘numerical argument’ produced by the ‘not overly
subtle quality of Ajax’s intellect’36 is a sort of prosaic-materialistic
version of Achilles’ usual concern over his ªæÆ and thus totally
neglects or ignores any subjective, erotic value of or preference for
that ‘single girl’ Briseis. Achilles’ reference to his feelings for Briseis
belonged to a logic that thwarted the system of values of equivalence
and substitution endorsed by the ambassadors and Agamemnon,
according to whom the offence of the abduction of Briseis could be
remedied by offering Achilles one or more women.37 For Ajax, it was
as if Achilles had never spoken the lines at 9.334–45, or as if the
rhetorical insincerity of those lines were to be taken for granted.
On only one other occasion in the Iliad (16.85) does Achilles
express an erotic appreciation for Briseis. In this case, too, although
for different reasons, the ancient scholia maintain that Achilles must
be pretending, since he would otherwise be making statements con-
trary to what must be his ‘true’, namely ‘heroic’ motivation. It is, in
reality, another public speech, and one in which Achilles seems
especially concerned with the construction of his image, just as was
the case at 9.334–45. After Patroclus has persuaded Achilles to let him
go into battle dressed in Achilles’ armour in order to frighten the
Trojans and bring relief to the Greeks, Achilles tries, vainly, to
36 37
Quotation from Leaf (1900–2) i.418. Cf. Felson and Slatkin (2004) 96.
114 Briseis
delineate the precise objectives and limits of Patroclus’ action in the
battlefield (16.80–90):
Iººa ŒÆd z, — 挺 , H ¼ ºØªe Iø 80
KØŒæÆø, c c ıæe ÆNŁØ
BÆ KØæ ø Ø, çº Ie &ºøÆØ.
Ł u Ø Kªg Łı º K çæ d Ł ø,
‰ ¼ Ø Øc ª ºÅ ŒÆd ŒF ¼æÅÆØ
æe ø ˜ÆÆH, Iaæ Q æØŒÆººÆ ŒæÅ 85
ił I ø Ø, d IªºÆa HæÆ æø Ø.
KŒ ÅH Kº Æ NÆØ ºØ· N Œ Æs Ø
ÅØ ŒF Iæ ŁÆØ Kæªı Ø ῞HæÅ,
c ª ¼ ıŁ K E ºØºÆ ŁÆØ º Ç Ø
+æø d çØººØ Ø· IØ æ Ł Ø. 90
But even so, Patroclus, fall on them with all your strength to keep
destruction from the ships, so they do not put blazing fire to our ships
and take away our longed-for return. But follow exactly the aim of the
instruction I now put in your mind, so that you can win great honour
and glory for me from all the Danaans, and they bring me back the
beautiful girl and offer splendid gifts besides. When you have driven
them from the ships, come back. And if the loud-thundering husband of
Hera grants you the chance to win glory, do not press on without me to
fight the war-loving Trojans—that will reduce my worth.
bT to 16.83–96 comments:
ŒÆ qŁ KŁ Œ ØÆØ PŒ KH e çº IºÆæ ŁÆØ
º . Iæ b b ŒÆd e ƺºÆŒ ŒÆd æø B ŁÆØ. j ‰
çØºÆØæ K Å Ø ÆPe H ŒØø, Ng bæ b H H
–ÆÆ ÆPHØ ıªŒØı Æ, a b ÆFÆ PŒ i Ø Ł º Æ
ıÆŒºıŁ E Øa e Œ Æ. H s PŒ KŒçæ Ø ÆFÆ æe e
— 挺, Y æ oø Ø E; j e b IºÅŁb Ng XØ Ø e
— 挺 B NÆ øÅæÆ ŒÆÆçæ Æ, Kç Æıe b
æØ Æ c ÆNÆ XØ Ø — 挺 çıºÆ . ‹Ø b
ŒÅ ØŒH ÆFÆ HØ çºøØ ııº Ø, KØÆæıæ E ŒÆd K E
B › ØÅ· “Ø· Œº.”
Underlying this passage is the envious character of someone who
does not allow his friend to become famous in his own right. And it
is also unseemly to mention the concubine and the gifts (cf. 16.85–6).
Or he [i.e. Achilles] has him [i.e. Patroclus] stand off from danger as one
who is fond of his comrade, knowing that everyone would have helped
him to defend the ships, but that they [i.e. the Greeks] would not have
Briseis 115
been willing to follow him beyond that because of the trouble. How then
could he not express these things to Patroclus, if these were his
thoughts? Or he knew that Patroclus would have been disdainful
of his own safety, had he spoken the truth, but careful if he turned the
reason [for his instructions] back onto himself. The poet bears witness
to the solicitous nature of his advice to his friend in the subsequent
lines: (16.686–7) ‘Poor fool! etc.’
More than one point in Achilles’ speech appears to be unworthy of his
ethos in the eyes of the ancient commentators—and quite incon-
veniently so, since it is addressed to Patroclus, his intimate friend. In
fact, Achilles is once again defending his own Ø, and trying to find a
balance between it and his support for Patroclus’ initiative.38 But the
only way the scholiasts can preserve Achilles’ heroic ethos and reconcile
it with his words is to believe that he must have an ulterior motive—
persuading Patroclus to fight enough to save the Greeks from their
situation, but not too much, in order not to risk being killed—when he
emphasizes the importance of his own glory and its connection to the
limitations he places on Patroclus’ action. Among these points, Achilles’
mention of gifts and of the æØŒÆºº girl Briseis at 16.85 seems
particularly suspicious and envious to the scholiasts, who comment
( bT ad loc.): æøÆ b ƺºÆŒB ŒÆd çØºÆæªıæÆ KØ ŒıÆØ ƒ
åØ ‘the lines exhibit love for a concubine and avarice’.39 Likewise,
Achilles’ appreciation of Briseis’ beauty ( æØŒÆººÆ) could well have
been interpreted as simply echoing the narrator’s earlier appreciation of
Briseis as ŒÆººØ æÅØ 1.346—which was identified as erotic by ad
loc., quoted above—and implying the almost marital romantic longing
of 9.336–43. However, in the case of 16.85 the possible romantic
sincerity of the epithet is radically downplayed by the scholiasts. Instead
they consider it as belonging to a sort of strategic and contrived
38
If Patroclus’ action wipes out the danger of the ships’ destruction, the Greeks
might not feel compelled any longer to plead with Achilles to return to the battle and
to offer him gifts, ‘while if he saves them only from the immediate danger that Hector
may burn their ships, he will win honour for Achilles, since he will have demonstrated
that even Achilles’ indirect help is enough to rescue them. . . . If Patroclus fights too
well, he will have caused Achilles to help the Achaeans substantially even though he
has not been compensated; Achilles will appear weak (at least he seems to think so)’:
Scodel (2008) 17–18.
39
The reference to Briseis as ƺºÆŒ in 16.7 (bT); 16.56–9(T), 19.175–6 (bT),
19.181–2(b) may go back to the hand of a single commentator with an especially
moralistic bias. The scholia vetera to e.g. Book 1 or Book 9 do not refer to her in
derogatory terms.
116 Briseis
egocentrism, which is simulated by Achilles in his speech in order to
increase the effectiveness of the limitations he places on Patroclus’
action. In tune with this interpretative stance, Briseis loses all individu-
ality and becomes an unsympathetic ƺºÆŒ j ƺºÆŒ, whose char-
acterization as æØŒÆºº is enough to reveal Achilles’ underlying
sexual attraction to her.40 In this way, commentators identical to
those who described Achilles’ rhetorical insincerity in Il. 9.334–45, or
commentators who were at least of the same mind, diminished and
rationalized the romantic potential of this evidence of Achilles’ feelings
for the girl; these commentators thus obscured the possibility that at
least part of his motivation was emotional or erotic.
BRISEIS çºÆæ
The Homeric scholia also show that the Hellenistic interpreters adopted
a stance concerning Briseis which was curiously opposed to their pro-
clivity to erase Achilles’ erotic feelings for Briseis. Despite the fact that
Briseis’ feelings for Achilles merit only two, and then very brief, mentions
in the text of the Iliad (see below), the scholia nevertheless consistently
appear to suggest—or rather impose—an image of Briseis as a girl in love
with, or at least strongly attached to, Achilles. There are only two women
who are called çºÆæ ‘husband-loving’, in the Iliadic scholia:
Briseis and Andromache.41 The rare epithet they share highlights the
connection between the partners of the two greatest champions of the
Greeks and the Trojans, and the parallel nature of their respective
destinies as women bereaved of their families. The analogy of their
shared sense of reliance solely on their husbands becomes particularly
clear when in her lament for Patroclus (19.291–4) Briseis remembers
first of all Achilles’ murder of her husband and brothers in terms similar
to Andromache in 6.413–24.42 But while for Andromache this emphasis
40
Also according to the scholiastic tradition attested in the Par. Gr. 2679 (= Anecd.
Par. iii.21.6–12 Cramer) the mention of the girl ‘highlights that he is lecherous (º ª
ÆPe KçÆ Ø)’.
41
For the latter, cf. bT 6.383, T 6.394, T 6.411, T 6.433, bT 17.207–8 (below, n. 144).
42
On the actual parallels, see Reinhardt (1961) 52–3, to be read together with the
criticism of Erbse (1983) 2–3; Barchiesi (1992) 29–31; Dué (2002) 12–14, 67–73;
Tsagalis (2004) 141–2. On Andromache as a character ‘specially connected to the
emotion of pity’, cf. Nagy (2009) 578–82.
Briseis 117
is fully justified by her official conjugal status with Hector, in the case of
Briseis her ‘uxorial’ love for Achilles as a husband seems mainly a
romantic construction fabricated by later Hellenistic interpreters.
Briseis expresses her feelings in two Iliadic passages. One is 1.347–
8. When Agamemnon’s heralds Talthybius and Eurybates reach
Achilles’ tent, Achilles instructs Patroclus to escort the girl out of
the tent, and at that point:
g ÆsØ YÅ Ææa BÆ åÆØH·
m ’ IŒı –Æ E Ø ªıc Œ .
They went back again to the ships of the Achaeans, and the woman
went with them, reluctant.
In response to Briseis’ ‘reluctance’, bT 1.348 promptly interprets
her behaviour as the reluctance of a çºÆæ woman:
<IŒı Æ:> Ø ªaæ çºÆæ, ‰ e æ ø ÆPB źE. ıæÆ
b ÆÅ ›æÇ ÆØ r ÆØ ÆNåÆºø Æ ŒÆd Øa ØA º ø ›ºŒºÅæ
E qŁ æ ı ºøŒ .
‘reluctant’: since she is husband-loving, as her character proves. [The
poet] marks this out as her second enslavement and has through one
word made the whole of her character’s ethos clear for us.
The text of the Iliad, however, does not specify that ‘love for a
husband’ is the main motivation for Briseis’ reluctance. In fact, an
unpleasant and forced removal from an established situation with an
established owner was an entirely plausible reason for her reluctance,
which is reasonably suggested by ,43 and anyway an unbiased reader
would have no small amount of trouble finding a single passage of the
Iliad that might serve as sure evidence of Briseis’ love for Achilles.
No doubt Hellenistic interpreters would have defended their read-
ing by referring to a second piece of ‘evidence’, namely Briseis’
mourning speech for Patroclus in Il. 19.287–300:
— 挺 Ø ØºBØ º E Œ åÆæØ ŁıHØ
Çøe º Ø Kªg ŒºØ ÅŁ NF Æ,
F ŁÅHÆ ŒØå ÆØ ZæåÆ ºÆH
ił IØF ’· u Ø å ÆØ ŒÆŒe KŒ ŒÆŒF ÆN . 290
¼æÆ b zØ Æcæ ŒÆd ØÆ Åæ
43
On 1.348 IŒı Æ see also Taplin (1992) 81, ‘that might be seen as no more than
the fear of those caught up in power-struggles, like the heralds IŒ (reluctantly) at
1.327’.
118 Briseis
r æe ºØ Æœª O œ åÆºŒHØ,
æ E ŒÆ تı, Ø Æ ª Æ Åæ,
ŒÅ ı, Q OºŁæØ qÆæ K .
Pb b P ’ Æ Œ , ‹’ ¼æ’ Ke TŒf åØºº f 295
Œ Ø , æ b ºØ Ł Ø Å,
ŒºÆ Ø, Iºº ’ çÆ Œ åØººB Ł Ø
ŒıæØÅ ¼ºå Ł Ø, ¼ Ø ’ Kd Åı d
K *ŁÅ, Æ Ø b ª a ıæØ Ø.
’ ¼ ŒºÆø ŁÅÆ ºØå ÆN . 300
Patroclus, more the pleasure of my poor heart than anyone, you were
alive when I went away from the tent and left you, and now I come back,
leader of your people, and find you dead. So it is always in my life, pain
following pain. My father and honoured mother gave me to a husband,
and I saw him torn by the sharp bronze in front of our city, and my
three brothers, borne by the same mother, my beloved brothers all met
the day of destruction. But when swift Achilles killed my husband and
sacked the city of godlike Mynes, you would not even let me weep, but
you said you would make me godlike Achilles’ wedded wife, and take
me back in your ships to Phthia, and celebrate my marriage-feast
among the Myrmidons. And so I weep endlessly for your death. You
were always gentle.
This intense mourning seems to be motivated by the special sweet-
ness that Patroclus showed to Briseis when Achilles killed her broth-
ers and husband, with Patroclus thus mediating between the two of
them by foretelling/promising Briseis that Achilles would marry her
and take her back to Phthia. Indeed, her words explicitly express
Patroclus’ crucial role as a benevolent go-between—in contrast to
Achilles’ violence against her husband and brothers. Then, at 19.296–7
she implicitly equates Mynes (her deceased husband according to bT
ad loc.)44 and Achilles (the prospective husband) by qualifying both as
Ł E, and the same phrase is used for both her husband and Patroclus:
ÆØª O E åÆºŒHØ ‘torn by the sharp bronze’ to designate the
look of each in death (19.283, 19.292).45 Besides, her speech ends with
her cherishing the idea of marrying Achilles (an obvious improvement
44
But see Vian (1959) 125.
45
De Jong (1987) 113; Dué (2002) 11. As soon as she lost Patroclus’ protection, Briseis
is oppressed by the heaviness of being deprived of family and fatherland, and it is this that
drives her to speak of these past events first of all: cf. Murnaghan (1999) 217.
Briseis 119
upon her current status).46 Briseis thus clearly gives the impression of
using her lament for Patroclus as an opportunity to re-establish her
status among the Myrmidons, to whom she has just returned, and in
particular to ‘define her relationship with Achilles’,47 or at least to
arrange in the fictional space of the lament a personal remembrance
of the past which projects her wishes for the future.48 But no warmth
can be discerned in the way Briseis refers to Achilles,49 and no explicit
expression of fondness for Achilles is easily found in the lines quoted
above.
If the text thus remains elusive about Briseis’ romantic feelings for
Achilles, the scholia express a firmer and clearer opinion. They rush
to present her mourning as irrefutable evidence of her çØºÆæÆ,
supported by her following matrimonial wishes ( bT 19.282–302):
Ø b ºÆ çºÆæ, ‰ Ie H ÞÅŁÅ ø ŒÆd F “m ’ IŒı ’
–Æ E Ø ªıc Œ ”
she is one who loves her husband excessively, as is understood from
what will follow and from ‘she went with them, reluctantly’ (1.348)
This assertion of çØºÆæÆ as fundamental to Briseis’ lament is
somewhat puzzling. Towards whom, precisely, is Briseis çºÆæ?
Paradoxically, it would seem that it might be both towards her
husband, whom Achilles killed (19.291–2), and towards Achilles,
whom Briseis would like to marry. Despite the primary focus of the
text on Patroclus (cf. 19.287), and despite the çØºÆæÆ that Briseis
46
Cf. de Jong (1987) 112: ‘a marriage with Achilles would have provided her with
security and status, but her real sympathy seems to lie with ‘gentle’ Patroclus’.
47
Dué (2002) 76, who glosses, ‘she creates a status for herself that might protect
her in some way when Achilles himself dies’.
48
As Murnaghan (1999) 207 brilliantly observes, ‘unlike epic itself, which claims to
provide an accurate record of past events, the lament is, in part, a fictional genre, in that
its speakers dwell on fantasies, hoped-for events that now can never take place . . . Be-
tween them, as they mourn Patroclus, Briseis and Achilles tell what is in effect a version
of the story that the Iliad itself cannot tell, the impossible alternative to the Iliad ’s plot’,
namely Achilles’ return to Phthia and wedding with Briseis, or a narrative in which
Patroclus acts as the surrogate father for Neoptolemus.
49
19.295 TŒf åØºº seems to characterize him as a warrior pursuing enemies
(e.g. 22.188, 229, etc.); it may be telling (but it may also not be, in the light of the
frequency of formulaic epithets referring to Achilles’ speed) that Achilles is also
defined as æŒÅ in Andromache’s reference to Achilles’ slaying of her seven
brothers (6.423). But the epithet may also make one think of Achilles as Tξ:
Pucci (1993=1998) 102.
120 Briseis
clearly displays for her first husband,50 the scholia privilege those
sentiments which point to her proleptic çØºÆæÆ for Achilles, thus
leading readers to see her lament as self-centred, and therefore
Achilles-centred: as bT 19.287 remarks, I Ø ø å Ø a F
Łæı· P ªaæ a K ÆPHØ Iºçæ ÆØ, Iººa Øa e KŒ ı
Ł Æ a ÆPBØ KÆŒºıŁ Æ ‘the contents of the mourning
are credible; for she does not lament him (i.e. Patroclus), but her own
lot as a consequence of his death’.
Proclus’ summary of the Aethiopis, the Cyclic poem that included
the funeral of Achilles, does not mention a lament by Briseis for
the deceased Achilles, but we cannot rule out that the Aethiopis did
include a version of it. With or without Briseis’ lament for Achilles,
the Aethiopis must have transmitted some narrative taken from the
oral traditions about the funeral of Achilles, which the Iliad probably
adopted in Book 19 for the lament of Briseis for Patroclus.51 The
Iliad is surely interested in establishing a series of analogies between
the funerals of two heroes who were united by a most exclusive
bond. After all, Briseis, the wife/concubine of Achilles, might have
been deemed an ideal participant in the funeral of Achilles, rather
than that of Patroclus, and indeed in her Iliadic lament for Patroclus
Briseis speaks at least as much of Achilles as she does of Patroclus.
Besides, Briseis eulogizes Patroclus for favouring a wedding which
would also have been an obvious element of her speech at Achilles’
funeral in the Aethiopis; therefore her Iliadic lament for Patroclus
effectively consists of what would have been expected ingredients of
her lament for Achilles. This mirror game of mutual reflections of
oral traditions about Achilles’ funeral, the Iliadic version at Briseis’
mourning at the funeral of Patroclus and Achilles’ funeral in the
Aethiopis will have encouraged Hellenistic scholars in their reading
Briseis as a sort of bridge-character between Achilles and Patroclus;
hence, probably, the label çºÆæ, in connection with Achilles, the
term with which the scholia describe her lamentation for Patroclus.
Briseis could thus be considered to use ‘the authority of Patroclus
to assert that it was Patroclus’ design and will that Achilles should
50
Another ‘love for the husband’, which bT 19.295 does not neglect to
underline.
51
Cf. Nagy (1979) 113.
Briseis 121
choose Briseis as his legitimate wife’,52 no differently from the way in
which Helen will use her funeral speech for Hector, at the very end of
the Iliad, as an ethically authoritative and supportive device with
which she might effect her reintegration into the centre of the royal
family, and so deflect the visceral hatred with which she feels herself
to be surrounded (24.762–75).53 Briseis’ words would thus also be a
sort of indirect appeal to Achilles, since he was so fondly attached to
Patroclus.54 From this perspective, she uses Patroclus to focus on
Achilles as the culmination of her own matrimonial life-plans—a self-
reflexive perspective which is not too different from what Achilles will
do with Patroclus in his own lament.55 Last but not least, Briseis’
lament may invite other mirror games: for instance, a sort of analo-
gical connection between her first husband and Patroclus as protec-
tive figures (see above).
The ancient commentators, and to some extent Homer as well,
guided the readers toward this line of interpretation by emphasizing
the self-reflexive target of the laments of the captive women who in
Homer mourn for Patroclus soon after the end of Briseis’ lament, in a
sort of capping antiphony56 which also anticipates Achilles’ own
lament for Patroclus (19.302–3). Briseis and the captive women
52
Cf. Pucci (1993 = 1998) 102. The mourning of Briseis for Patroclus was received
coldly by Achilles in his own lament for Patroclus at 19.315–37, a speech formally
connected to Briseis’ lament by strong antiphonal echoes (Lohmann (1988) 13–32;
Tsagalis (2004) 82–7, 139–43): she is excluded from the sad plans he had already
formulated for himself and Patroclus—he to die alone at Troy, Patroclus to take care
of Neoptolemus in Phthia (Pucci (1993=1998) 111–12; Tsomis (2007) 192 n. 20). At
9.393–4, when Hector had not yet died, Achilles still fancied the possibility of a return
home, but his wishes about his future involved Peleus finding him a wife in Phthia,
thus excluding a common future with Briseis—from this perspective, giving up the
war and returning home was an option entirely incompatible with accepting the
restitution of Briseis (Taplin (1992) 215).
53
On the points of contact between the reflexive laments of Briseis and Helen
(both focusing, by the way, on male figures who were not erotically connected to the
two women), see Skinner (1982) 266–7; Gagliardi (2007) 164–9, 240–2.
54
‘Briseis knew that Patroclus was the way to Achilles’ heart; and the way to
Achilles’ heart was through his gentleness and compassion’: Taplin (1992) 81.
55
If the ‘Patrocleia’ (if not the very figure of Patroclus) is truly a Homeric
invention—as argued with different nuances e.g. by Schadewaldt (1951) 178–81;
Kullmann (1960) 44–5, 193–4; Dihle (1970) 159–60 and Erbse (1983)—then Tsagalis
(2004) 87 is correct in suggesting that the Iliad ‘seems to be lacking a language of
lament for Patroclus and so its poet has to invent it for himself. As is only natural, the
poem turns to Achilles, for whom the epic stock of lament material is extremely rich,
and makes him the notional center of those laments targeting Patroclus’.
56
Cf. Alexiou (1974) 132.
122 Briseis
display some obvious similarities. For example, all of them are slaves
and have a rather loose connection with the deceased, a feature that
anticipates the professional hired mourners of the classical period and
is not common in the Iliad; there, the absence of free women from the
Greek camp of course necessarily means that men are the most
frequent mourners.57 These other mourning songs, however, are
not expressed, and the silence of the text here invites readers to equate
their laments with Briseis’. Here more than ever Briseis is the ‘mouth-
piece of a whole group of characters’,58 and she plays the role of a
‘typical’ slave.59 A propos of these captive women, and thus especially
of Briseis, who seems to have paved the way for their behaviour,
Homer comments (19.302–3): Kd b å ªıÆEŒ j
— 挺 æçÆ Ø, çH ÆPH Œ Œ Å ‘and the women
joined with their keening—the reason/excuse was Patroclus, but each
of them wept over her own sorrow’. This statement is balanced by a
similar authorial remark a few lines later about the elders who
respond to Achilles’ lament (19.338–9): S çÆ ŒºÆø, Kd b
å ªæ , j Å Ø a &ŒÆ Kd ª æØ Ø º Ø
‘such was his lament, and the elders joined in with their mourning, as
they remembered what each had left behind in his own home’.
Because of the notorious ambiguity of æçÆ Ø, the phrasing at
19.302–3 could mean either that the laments of the captives (and of
Briseis) were also concerned with their own pains (19.302b), and the
lament for Patroclus’ death was the ‘immediate context’/‘reason’ for
the deeper lament of their own personal grief (19.302a);60 or, alter-
natively, both groups could primarily be concerned with their own
personal grief, with Patroclus’ death serving merely as an occasion or
‘pretext’. The scholiasts developed only the latter point of view, as
they identified a hidden target behind the lament for Patroclus by the
captive women: ( AaT) Kd æç Ø F —ÆæŒºı· P ªaæ q Æ
ØæÆŁ E ÆØ ÆPF ‘with the excuse of Patroclus: in fact they were not
acquainted with him’; ( DAa) ƃ b ºØÆd ªıÆEŒ f BØ
57
Cf. van Wees (1998) 15.
58
Cf. de Jong (1987) 113.
59
Suzuki (1989) 29 defined her as the ‘typical female’. See also Dué (2002) 43–4.
60
Cf. Heiden (1991) 7–8: ‘the Homeric narrator . . . proclaims that the immediate
context of the women’s lamentation, and their intention, must be disregarded; he
takes their lamentation ‘out of context’, implicitly places it in a new context, and
reveals a motive for their weeping that the immediate context contradicts’. See also
Edwards (1991) 271.
Briseis 123
BæØ ÅØ BŁ ‰ Kd æç Ø —ÆæŒºı ŒºÆØ, BØ b IºÅŁ ÆØ
Œ Å ÆPH KŁæ Ø c ÆıB ıçæ ‘of course the other
women together with Briseis were mourning, using Patroclus as an
excuse, but in reality each of them was crying over her own disaster’.
As we shall see in detail in the next chapter, Homer’s text was not
explicit about the erotic nature of the connection between Achilles and
Patroclus. Hellenistic scholarship seems to have assumed that Homer
remained purposefully silent on this issue in order to preserve a stan-
dard of epic propriety (e æ). But it may be that Homer (as
I prefer to believe)61 simply had little narrative interest in describing
the nature of the connection between Achilles and Patroclus. It was thus
left to other genres to re-examine this relation: tragedy, in particular,
thanks to its strong poetological interest in passions, and in particular in
love-passion, would reread it as an undoubtably erotic liaison.
Something similar apparently happened to the interpretation of the
relation between Achilles and Briseis, though we cannot be sure that
this reinterpretation was played out in tragedy. Indeed, we cannot
take for granted that Briseis was ever a substantial tragic character.
Based on Aesch. Prom. 437, which mentions Agamemnon’s heralds
Talthybius and Eurybates as being ‘sent to summon Achilles to battle
(ŒÆºF N åÅ)’ (whereas in the Iliad they were sent to collect
Briseis), some scholars assumed that this other mission of the two
heralds was an innovative scene in Aeschylus’ Myrmidons, which
would have reshaped and combined the Iliadic narratives of the
abduction of Briseis and the embassy to Achilles.62 It is also
possible—in fact it is a widespread view today63—that the Prom.
scholion, not Aeschylus, misrepresented the Iliad by merging the
mission of the heralds in Book 1 with the embassy in Book 9. In
61
See below, pp. 190–1, 198, 209–13.
62
Cf. e.g. Bergk (1883) 484–5; Di Benedetto (1967) 381; Döhle (1967) 82; Taplin
(1972) 64–5; Jacobson (1974) 16.
63
After Herington (1972), with whom Taplin (1977) 423 has agreed; see now
Totaro (2010) 160.
124 Briseis
any case, a scene on the krater in Vienna from Vulci (450/440 bc) that
is usually assumed to illustrate Aeschylus’ ‘Achilleid’ and is ascribed
to Polygnotus (= LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 480 = ‘Briseis’ 18) depicts Achilles
mourning for Patroclus, at whose kline also stands a woman with
short-cut hair, who cannot be Thetis, because Thetis appears already
in the upper band with different clothes. Since Briseis actually par-
ticipates in the mourning for Patroclus in the Iliad, and since on the
krater she is next to Talthybius (who is identified by an inscription),
this woman may be Briseis. Her dress is slightly unusual, as it seems
intended to look somewhat oriental; elsewhere Briseis is not given
such an appearance, but Lyrnessos, her city of origin, is on the north-
eastern borders of Troy, and her dress may thus point to these
origins.64 In the Iliad the Nereids and Thetis mourn for Patroclus
in the depths of the sea and come to Achilles in his quarters to share
his sorrow (18.65–69) well before Briseis is returned to him by
Agamemnon (at 19.246), but Aeschylus may have reshaped the chron-
ology, inspiring perhaps the synchronic presence of Briseis, Talthybius,
and Thetis at the mourning for Patroclus on the krater.65 In conclu-
sion, the scene depicted by Polygnotus could simply be explained as a
combination of Iliadic elements from the embassy of Book 9 and from
Book 24.66 However, even if we assume that the Prom. scholion is too
late and unreliable as evidence, it still does not seem implausible to me
that Aeschylus’ trilogy perhaps included a scene, after Patroclus’ death,
where Talthybius (alone, or together with Eurybates, perhaps kophon
prosopon and/or some other character)67 accompanied Briseis back to
64
Matheson (1995) 251.
65
Cf. Döhle (1967) 131–2; Trendall and Webster (1971) 54; Kossatz-Deissmann
(1978) 20–1; Matheson (1995) 251–2 and 334 n. 15 for the bibliography on this
identification.
66
R. Osborne, per litteras, suggests: ‘Polygnotos’ image plays both with the im-
agery of the embassy scene (where occasionally one of the embassy carries the
caduceus, as Talthybius does here) and with the imagery of Priam ransoming Hektor,
where again there is a couch, but this time with Achilles reclining on it, and sometimes
with a woman standing at the head of the couch, as Briseis does here, as well as with a
caduceus-carrying Hermes, paralleling Talthybius (cf. e.g. LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 656 or
661, as well as earlier black-figure iconography)’.
67
Talthybius, but not Eurybates, also participates with several others in the
formalities of the reconciliation between Agamemnon and Achilles in Book 19,
which include the restitution of Briseis and the delivery of the gifts already promised
by Agamemnon in Book 9: cf. 19.196, 250, 267.
Briseis 125
Achilles and she participated in the mourning for Patroclus, as in the
Iliad.68 In any case, since in the Myrmidons the focus of Achilles’ real
passion must have been Patroclus,69 then it might have been more
likely that Briseis played a major role in Nereids (if the Nereids was the
second and not the third play in the trilogy),70 than in the Myrmidons.
Apart from in Aeschylus, Mynes, the king of Lyrnessos mentioned by
Briseis in Il. 19.296 (and her husband according to bT ad loc.) also
appeared—and so he, and perhaps Briseis as well, may have played
some role—in Sophocles’ Aichmalotides: TrGF iv.43. All in all, how-
ever, the fragments of lost Greek and Latin tragedies dealing with
Achilles offer no sure evidence to support the idea that Briseis, or in
particular the erotic component of the Achilles–Briseis story, played a
major role in the theatrical reworkings of the epic character of
Achilles.71
However, before the Hellenistic commentators played down the
evidence for any romantic or emotional relationship between Achilles
and Briseis in the Homeric narrative, Bacchylides seems to have given
this romanticism greater weight while correspondingly paying less
attention to Homer’s ostensible focus on the slighted Ø. In the 13th
epinician, for the Nemean winner Pytheas of Aegina, the praise of the
island where the winner was born consists of a discourse on the
contributions of the Trojan War’s two most illustrious heroes,
Achilles and Ajax, who were the great grandchildren of the nymph
Aegina. Ajax defended the ships from Hector › —Å[º Æ] j
æÆ[å] EÆ [K Ł Ø ]AØ j TæÆ[, ˜ÆæÆÆ] j ’ ºı
¼[Æ] ‘when Peleus’ son had stirred up fierce anger in his breast and
freed the Dardanids from their bewilderment’ (13.110–13). This first
reference to Achilles is shaped in Homeric terms: Achilles ‘iliadically’
nurses a ‘fierce BØ’ in his soul, which leads him to withdraw from
fighting. But after 13.112–13, and in explanation of these lines,
68
Cf. Sommerstein (2010) 243, 248, who also observes that in TrGF iii.267, where the
father of Andromache is called ‘Andraemon of Lyrnessos’, Aeschylus may have altered
the place of origin of Andromache from Thebe (her native city in the Iliad) to Lyrnessos
(the city of origin of Briseis), in a context where Briseis was also mentioned, in order to
‘increase the sense of quasi-brotherhood between Achilles and Hector’—for instance,
Briseis may have been addressed or spoken about ‘in a speech by Achilles explaining to
Priam the chain of events that led to Hector’s death’ (Sommerstein (2008) 269).
69
Sommerstein (2010) 243.
70
See below, p. 215 n. 63.
71
As restated e.g. by Jacobson (1974) 16–19 and Barchiesi (1992) 187.
126 Briseis
Bacchylides remembers how the Trojans had to live besieged within
the walls of their city whenever Achilles ‘went on his furious rampage
in the plain, brandishing his murderous spear’ (13.118–20); the
author also remembers how the situation changed with the with-
drawal of Achilles. Like Boreas, who blows impetuously in the night,
but ceases on the arrival of dawn, and as when the sailors can proceed
with full sail at the breath of the south wind and ‘eagerly reach the dry
land which they had despaired of seeing again’ (13.114–32), so ‘in the
same way, when the Trojans heard that the spearman Achilles was
remaining in his tent on account of the blond woman, lovely-limbed
Briseis, they stretched up their hands to the gods, since they
saw the bright gleam under the stormcloud’ (S +æH , K[ d] Œº
[ÆN]-jåÆa åØººÆ j [’] K ŒºØ ÆØ Ø j ¥ Œ[ ] ÆŁA
ªıÆØŒ, j [B]æ[Ø] Å ƒ æªıı, j Ł E Ø ¼ ØÆ 忯, j çØa
K Ø Æd j å ØH ÆYªºÆ, 13.133–40).
In this passage Bacchylides’ language is still Homeric, but it dis-
plays a violent fusion of war and romantic tenderness as antithetical
realms of experience.72 It would certainly be lopsided and risky to
maintain that Bacchylides ‘celebrates the softer side’ of Achilles, or
‘presents Achilles as a romantic lover pining away for his mistress’, or
to suppose that his epithets for Briseis—in particular ƒ æªıØ73—
follow the prevailing mood of sixth-century lyric.74 In fact, in
his martial description of Achilles’ actions and role in the war at
13.110–20 Bacchylides is impeccably Homeric,75 as is the subject of
the simile which compares the critical situation of the Trojans to the
effects of a sea storm on the sailors (13.124–30a is modelled on the
description of the distress of the Greeks hard-pressed by Hector in Il.
72
See in particular 13.121–3, where the definition of Achilles’ warlike fierceness
(ºØ—IæÅ ıƒ) incapsulates the gentle mention of the Nereid N çÆ
(Thetis), and above all the radical alternative between the motivations of Achilles in
13.110–13 (the usual Homeric æÆå EÆ . . . AØ) and in 13.133–7 (love for Briseis
defined in terms which evoke her sexual appeal in ‘blond’ and ‘lovely-limbed’).
73
Thanks to this epithet Achilles’ feelings for Briseis have here a stronger erotic
charge than anywhere in the Iliad: Cairns (2010) 311–12.
74
Carne-Ross (1962) 84–5; not very far from this position is Segal (1976: 128–30). See
Fearn (2007) 127–35 for an excellent criticism of both. It is true, however, that ƒ æªıØ
is a hapax, and therefore ‘it would be risky to suggest that Bacchylides was directly
influenced by sixth-century lyric’ (Fearn (2007) 133), but it is not unlikely that the epithet
really belongs to lyric.
75
Also linguistically: the phrase defining Achilles’offence, 13.111–12 [K Ł Ø
]AØ j TæÆ[, is the reflexive adaptation (hence the middle form) of the Homeric
formula with active verb Łıe Kd Ł Ø ZæØ /þæØ (cf. Maehler ad loc.).
Briseis 127
15.624–9). But some latent lyric mood is tacitly activated in the atten-
tion paid to the psychological relief of the sailors (13.130b–32), as the
åæ (‘dry land’) they finally reach is called ¼ º, ‘which they had
despaired of ’. The same tender/psychological mood seems to continue
in the description of the effects of the seemingly reassuring news that
the Trojans ‘hear’ (13.133) about Achilles’ withdrawal: 13.138–40.
Besides, at 13.110–13 Bacchylides is a Homeric narrator who
Homerically summarizes the situation of Iliad 15 and defines the
withdrawal of Achilles from fighting in the terms which Homer
usually adopts, namely via the idea of BØ. But there is no hint in
Bacchylides of a concern for slighted Ø, which was commonly
connected to Achilles’ BØ in the Iliad. The result is that the
audience of the epinician will have been left to wonder whether this
BØ could instead have been the effect of frustrated love or passion
after the abduction of Briseis, particularly if the audience could
connect this mention of BØ with the eroticism of 13.133–7. In the
latter passage, which concludes Bacchylides’ mention of Achilles’
withdrawal in ring composition with the BØ passage of 13.110–13,
Bacchylides recounts a ‘rumour’ heard by the Trojans. This rumour—
precisely a vox populi (Œº, 13.133)—has an unofficial character, as
frequently happens with rumours, and may thus have set the author
free, in a way, from his own responsibility for the tale. In other words,
this Trojan perspective via a rumour perhaps made it easier for
Bacchylides to ignore the ‘official’ Greek-centred, Iliadic version of
Achilles’ BØ, and, so, to speak of his liaison with Briseis not in terms
of diminished ªæÆ and slighted Ø. In particular Bacchylides may
have conceived this rumour as including (in a way hardly uncommon
for rumours) something of the down-to-earth, psychologizing inter-
pretation of the love story of Achilles and Briseis according to
which his contemporaries might have—in a more ‘modern’ way—
re-envisioned the relationship. Anyway, the Trojan rumour was a
felicitous viewpoint from which to represent the explanation that will
have possibly seemed, in Bacchylides’ age, the true-to-life but unofficial
‘other side of the coin’ about the motivation of the fury of Achilles (i.e.
it was sexual desire), substantially at variance with the official Homeric
version (i.e. it was mainly a matter of Ø).
Of course, in light of how the interpretation of the Achilles–
Patroclus relationship developed in fifth-century culture, it is possible
that the erotic dimension of the Achilles–Briseis relationship—and its
role in fomenting Achilles’ anger—represented a ‘modern’/’realistic’
128 Briseis
vein of Homeric interpretation more widespread than the single piece
of evidence of Bacchylides now suggests. In any case, from my review
of the reception of Achilles and Briseis in the Homeric scholia, it
appears clear that Hellenistic scholars were interested in deciding to
what extent Achilles could be in love, not only in the case of Patroclus
but also in the case of Briseis. The text of the Iliad does not provide
much detail about sentimental feeling, and still less about the erotic
feelings of Achilles. But in order to shore up Achilles’ ethos as solidly,
impeccably ‘heroic’, the ancient scholiasts minimized this romantic
dimension to the Iliadic Achilles yet further, almost to the point of
effacing it entirely. This is clear in the case of the possible erotic
overtones of the relation with Patroclus, as we shall see, but it is also
visible, as we saw above, in the case of Briseis. Through their reading
of the text, then, the scholiasts contributed to the construction of the
monolithic fierceness of Achilles, which Horace’s Ars poetica could
take for granted,76 and did little credit to the more complex (and
sympathetic) figure Homer in fact drew. As we shall see in the next
section, their views might also have had the effect of ‘validating’ the
peculiar role Achilles plays in the version of the story proposed by
Ovid in Her. 3.
76
See above, pp. 10–11.
Briseis 129
Homer had left to the intelligence of his audience the task of
understanding that Briseis’ lament for Patroclus, though concerned
with Patroclus, was in fact addressed to Achilles, and was intended to
be an expression of her anxiety about her own future, aimed at
securing Achilles’ support (perhaps, ideally, even marriage to him).
In a different manner the scholia, as we have seen, drive even the least
intelligent reader towards perceiving that Briseis addresses Patroclus
directly and Achilles only indirectly, and make quite clear that her
anxiety about the future of her connection with Achilles, and of
her future tout court—which depends on Achilles—is uppermost in
her thoughts. It is this perspective, evident in the scholia, that might
influence Ovid’s Briseis, who seems to care more about the uncer-
tainties of her present and future than being plagued by doubts about
the strength of Achilles’ love.77 Her. 3 may have been conceived as a
sort of response to, or continuation of, the plea to Achilles left implicit
by the çºÆæ Briseis of the Iliadic lament for Patroclus—a re-
sponse by a more realistic and more desperate Briseis without explicit
matrimonial ambitions but a more explicit anxiety about her future.
The erotic charge of the love-querela of Briseis in Her. 3 also generally
contrasts with her shadowy and self-effacing sentimental existence in
the Iliad: Ovid’s poem seems to represent a development of the
Homeric hints of Briseis’ sentimental dimension—hints which were
packed into the single word IŒı Æ for Briseis as she departed from
Achilles’ tent in Book 1, and the few lines of her lament for Patroclus
(see above), though the Hellenistic interpreters had already begun to
unpack them.
Ovid’s Briseis seems not to doubt that Achilles loved her. She
believes that he was compelled to hand her over to Agamemnon,
despite his love, because of circumstances beyond his control, and
that at some point he stopped loving her. Her primary complaint is
that he delivered her to Agamemnon too soon (non, ego poscenti quod
sum cito tradita regi, j culpa tua est—quamvis haec quoque culpa tua
est; j nam simul Eurybates me Talthybiusque vocarunt, j Eurybati data
sum ‘that I was all too quickly delivered over to the king at his
demand is not your fault—yet this, too, is your fault; for as soon as
77
It has been correctly observed about Her. 3 that ‘Briseis fears abandonment; she
needs a levamen, someone to furnish her with a sense of security and attachment,
someone tied to her in a bond of warmth and concern. Though she would prefer Achilles
as husband or lover, she views him as essentially a support’: Jacobson (1974) 35.
130 Briseis
Eurybates and Talthybius came to ask me, to Eurybates was I given
over’, 7–10; see also 13). Even so, she does not doubt the necessity of
her being delivered to Agamemnon. Instead, she constructs the
rhetoric of her message to Achilles around his subsequent falling
out of love with her, demonstrated by his not claiming her back,
even when he could have (21b–22). At the moment when she is
imagined to have written this letter—immediately after the ambassa-
dors’ visit in Iliad 9 and before Patroclus’ re-entry into battle in Iliad
16—she is pictured as feeling that his love for her had disappeared
completely.
Her. 3 displays a high degree of imitation of Homer’s Iliad,78 and
for this reason the contrast between how Ovid’s Briseis describes the
fading of Achilles’ love and the actual Homeric text, which suggests
nothing of the kind, is thrown into high relief. In fact, Briseis’ letter is
a response to the situation of Iliad 9, but it is precisely in Achilles’
answer to Odysseus at 9.334–43 that we find the warmest words
Achilles ever utters with respect to his ‘sweetheart wife’, as we have
seen above, words which at the very least suggest his persisting
love. How is it possible that Ovid’s Briseis completely ‘forgets’ this
suggestion?
It is true that in the same night Achilles also refuses Agamemnon’s
offer to restore Briseis, because he believes that this will not make
good the debt of honour he is owed (payable, probably, only through
a more formal and public apology by Agamemnon).79 After all, what
is at stake for Achilles if he accepts Agamemnon’s offer of reconcilia-
tion is death.80 At any rate, the fear of death is never mentioned by
Achilles during the embassy, and the official motivation of the pursuit
of Ø, once again, seems to prevail over erotic desire—if the latter
78
As Barchiesi (1992) 189 observes, Briseis’ letter ‘redoubles’ the Iliadic night of
the embassy to Achilles especially when Briseis fully endorses the role of ‘replacing’
the ambassadors, as she suggests to the Greeks that they send her as an ambassador to
Achilles (Her. 3.127–30), or when she retells Achilles her own version of the Meleager
story (Her. 3.91–8), which Phoenix had already tried to use in Homer: see below,
pp. 182–3. Jacobson (1974) 33 remarks that ‘in a sense, Briseis’ version represents how
she hears the story, how it impresses itself upon the mind of a person in her
circumstances’.
79
Achilles may also have realized that the abundance of Agamemnon’s gifts seemed a
triumph of the king in gift-giving, thus reaffirming his superiority just in another form.
Cf. Rabel (1997) 116–17; Wilson (2002) 90–6; Gottschall (2008) 61–3; above p. 105.
80
On Achilles’ perception of the brevity of his life, and its interaction with the Ø
component of the honour code, cf. e.g. Zanker (1994) 78–92.
Briseis 131
ever existed. Furthermore, other details suggest that Achilles appears
hardly to be in love at all, much less desperately so. For example,
when the ambassadors come to Achilles’ tent, they find him playing
the lyre, singing of the deeds of heroes, not of Briseis (9.185–9).
Again, when they leave, he sleeps not alone but with some other
captive girl, one conquered in his sack of Lesbos (9.663–5).81 Of
course, these are two plausible pieces of evidence for Achilles’ poten-
tial lack of feeling—though at least the vision of Achilles playing the
lyre could be interpreted in a dignifying sense by a less troubled soul
than Briseis (we shall soon return to this point).
Within the context of Achilles’ controversial or at least ambiguous
behaviour, his assertion of love for Briseis in Il. 9.335–43 may seem to
amount to an isolated outburst, an accident of sorts in Achilles’
otherwise egoistic indulgence of his lyre and his concubine from
Lesbos; or it may seem to manifest his obsessive concern for Ø.
Ovid might therefore have his Briseis entirely ignore the possible
sentimental intensity of Il. 9.335–43 because she ponders the other
contradictory and non-romantic motivations of Achilles in the con-
text of these lines; or does she follow the line of interpretation
reflected in the Homeric commentators (who will have probably
considered the same contradictions)? A good example of this diver-
gence between Il. 9.335–43 and the pessimism of Ovid’s Briseis arises
in the way in which Ovid and Homer differ when it comes to the
significance of Briseis’ status as a captive, and its implications for
Achilles’ putative emotional attachment. At 9.342–3 Achilles had
been careful to stress that he loved Briseis despite the fact that she
was a war-captive (ŒÆd Kªg c j KŒ ŁıF çº ıæØŒÅ æ
KF Æ ‘I too loved this girl from my heart, even though I won her by
my spear’, where the concessive force of æ clearly points to the
paradox of intense love for, or even matrimonial bond to a slave).82
Very differently, from the beginning of her letter Ovid’s Briseis
presents her condition as a woman rapta (Her. 3.1) as a source of
social inferiority, and also declares her ethnic alterity when she says
that her letter will be couched in only a barbarian Greek (vix bene
barbarica Graeca notata manu ‘scarce charactered in Greek by a
81
See below, pp. 196–8.
82
ıæØŒÅ æ still has the potential of emphasizing the paradox of a beloved
wife though slave, even if another function of the epithet ıæØŒÅ is ‘to contrast
Briseis with the ¼ºåØ of the Atreidai’ (Leaf (1900) i.396).
132 Briseis
barbarian hand’, Her. 3.2). As a consequence, instead of clinging to
the dreams of the Iliadic Briseis about marriage to Achilles, she tries
only to carve out for herself a future as Achilles’ slave: victorem
captiva sequar, non nupta maritum ‘as captive let me follow my
captor, not as wife my wedded lord’, Her. 3.69.83 In fact, if on the
one hand she completely ignores the romantic import of the Homeric
Achilles’ words, on the other she seems to know (and to rely on) a
series of other details from Achilles’ statements and behaviour during
the meeting with the ambassadors during the night of Iliad 9—details
which lead her to believe that Achilles does not love her any longer.
Her. 3.69, for instance, seems to presuppose Achilles’ statement in Il.
9.393–400, where he manifests his intention to go back to Phthia and
let Peleus choose a wife for him, or to choose himself one of the many
Achaean women of rank as his wife.84 Did Ovid’s Briseis, as a learned
reader of Homer, ponder the opposition between the future Ø ’
¼ŒØØ which Achilles had reserved for his wedding with an Achaean
women back in Phthia at Il. 9.397 and the imperfect çº he had
used for ‘romantic’ Briseis at 9.343? The contrast between these two
tenses and temporal perspectives, pointing to future plans or the past,
may have been an important prop for the way Ovid’s heroine defines
her love for Achilles as having once been reciprocated but as now
unrequited.
Like many other Ovidian characters, Briseis relives a specific mo-
ment in her prior literary life as she writes her letter, in this case Iliad
9. But of course, she has also already ‘read’ the whole of Homer: the
cahiers-de-doléances which she ranges against Achilles are therefore
much richer than any which the Homeric Briseis could have drawn
up at the time of Iliad 9, when, by the way, she was, according to
Homer’s text, in Agamemnon’s quarters and so did not witness what
Achilles said or did during or after the embassy. Ovid’s heroine, on
the other hand, complains that Achilles did not accept her restoration
(29) or Agamemnon’s rich gifts (30–40), and concludes by asserting
that she has become some cheap, disposable object: qua merui culpa
fieri tibi vilis, Achille? j quo levis a nobis tam cito fugit amor? ‘what
have I done that I am held so cheap by you, Achilles? Whither has
your fickle love fled so quickly from me?’ (41–2). This ‘reaction’ to the
events of the embassy thus represents a debasing reversal of even the
83 84
See below, pp. 140–2. See above, p. 121 n. 52.
Briseis 133
material or economic point of view of the Iliad, in which Briseis was
usually seen as a ªæÆ of some value for Achilles.
The desperation of the Ovidian Briseis affects even her memory of
her abduction, so that she radically reinterprets at least one of the
events of Iliad 1 as a consequence of her dark desperation, and other
events are interpreted according to a pessimistic psychology which
clearly diverges from Homer’s account. In Il. 1.348–9 Briseis was said
to have left Achilles’ tent together with the two heralds IŒı (Æ), but
immediately after Achilles also stood on the seashore ÆŒæ Æ
(1.349), and the Hellenistic commentators of Homer did not omit
to comment on his tears as evidence of his love (see above). Ovid’s
Briseis, however, does not speak at all of any tears shed by Achilles,
which would have been a reassuring sign of his persisting love, but
instead dwells on her own expressions of sadness, among which are
endless tears, ‘appropriate to the tragedy of the loss of home and
family’:85 lacrimas sine fine dedi rupique capillos ‘tears without end
I shed, and rent my hair’ (Her. 3.15). But we shall return at the end of
this chapter to the tears of Briseis. Besides love, Ovid suggests another
psychological explanation for her tears. This explanation, which
reveals her desperation even more clearly, is one formulated nowhere
in Homer, but it is expressed in a very similar way in Homer’s scholia
on Briseis’ ‘reluctance’ at Il. 1.348. Ovid’s Briseis glosses her own
display of pain with the following lament: infelix iterum sum mihi visa
capi! ‘Miserable me, I seemed a second time to suffer the captive’s fate’
(Her. 3.16). This corresponds perfectly with the scholiastic comment:
ıæÆ b ÆÅ ›æÇ ÆØ r ÆØ ÆNåÆºø Æ ‘[the poet] marks this
out as her second enslavement’ ( bT Il. 1.348, already quoted above),
which is advanced as an explanation as to why the Homeric Briseis left
Achilles’ tent IŒı Æ.86
85
Jacobson (1974) 27.
86
The connection between Ovid’s passage and the was pointed out already by
Lausberg (1982) 119.
134 Briseis
9.186–9. Achilles’ singing could seem self-indulgent and cruelly
indifferent to the sufferings of the Greek host and Briseis’ forced
removal. And indeed, this is how Ovid’s heroine views it at 117–20:
Achilles’ lyre-playing is but more evidence of his lack of concern,
similar to his heartless sleeping with another slave. Both incidents
thus suggest that he prefers being a comfortable coward to rejoining
the war as a hero:
tutius est iacuisse toro, tenuisse puellam,
Threiciam digitis increpuisse lyram,
quam manibus clipeos et acutae cuspidis hastam,
et galeam pressa sustinuisse coma.
Safer is it to lie on the couch, to clasp a sweetheart in your arms, to
tinkle with your fingers the Thracian lyre, than to take in hand the
shield, and the spear with sharpened point, and to sustain upon your
locks the helmet’s weight.
Briseis was not alone in seeing Achilles as egotistically indifferent
to others, relaxing and playing his lyre (çæØª ) during the Greeks’
hour of greatest need as Hector and the Trojans nearly routed them.
From the text of the Homeric scholia, which are brimming with
apologetic defences of Achilles’ music-making, some hints surface
about the complexities of how to interpret Achilles’ behaviour. bT
Il. 9.186, for example, begins its list of reasons for appreciating
Achilles’ music with the litotic assertion that it was PŒ IŒ Ø,
‘not inappropriate’, which is, of course, evidence that some did con-
sider Achilles’ lyre-playing as IŒ Ø, like Ovid’s Briseis; see in fact
Porphyr. Quaest. Hom. ad Il. 9.186, 134.25–8 Schrader: Iæ b Œ E
ŒÆÆºÆ ŁÆØ ŒØŁÆæÇÆ ‘it seems unbecoming that [Achilles] is
found to be playing the kithara’.87
87
Despite the good press which Achilles’ music usually got in the authors of the
imperial age (see below and p. 160 n. 147), this criticism occasionally found expres-
sion: see e.g. Sen. Troad. 318–21: at non timebat tunc tuus, fateor, parens, j interque
caedes Graeciae atque ustas rates j segnis iacebat belli et armorum immemor, j levi
canoram verberans plectro chelyn, ‘but I suppose your father felt no fear then when,
among the slaughter of the Greeks and the charred ships, he lay idle and forgetful of
the war, striking his melodious lyre with the delicate pick’ (trans. by E. Fantham). This
is Agamemnon’s (hardly unbiased) assessment, who attempts to colour this pastime
as smacking of ‘over-refinement’ (Fantham (1982) 256) and femininity (e.g. segnis,
armorum immemor), in a way similar to Briseis’ deluded view of Achilles’ love, and
her subsequent exhortations to Achilles to resume fighting (see below).
Briseis 135
However Achilles’ music was also—and perhaps more often—
appreciated than criticized. First of all, as we have seen already, the
Homeric scholia provide a range of apologetic explanations for
Achilles’ music, and distinguish it as neatly as possible from the
sort of music for which the ¼ÆºŒØ Paris is stigmatized by Hector
at Il. 3.54–5.88 Not only does Achilles sing ŒºÆ IæH (Il. 9.189), a
most dignified and ‘professional’ topic for a warrior, but the very
phorminx he plays is also the product of war, despoiled from Eëtion’s
city (c ¼æ K K æø ºØ H ø Oº Æ, Il. 9.188): Achilles’
music was thus part and parcel of his participation in war, utterly in
keeping with his heroic character.89 In the opinion of some Hellenis-
tic commentators the act of singing ŒºÆ IæH was, in practice, a
way for Achilles to reflect in song on his own past and future deeds
and Œº—not very differently, it has been said recently that Achilles
was singing ‘to look to traditional songs for guidance how to alter his
attitude towards the very traditional values for which he himself had
been risking his life’.90 Hellenistic readers also assumed (again apolo-
getically) that his playing music meant that Achilles did not spend the
night in unseemly and noisy drinking-parties, and that it was thus a
more appropriate action for one who was sad at the abduction of
88
The music of Paris has an especially bad reputation. In Il. 3.54 e.g. an enraged
Hector comments to Paris that if he had the guts to go back and face Menelaus again
on the battlefield ‘there would be no help then in your lyre-playing and the gifts of
Aphrodite (PŒ ¼ Ø åæÆ ÅØ ŒŁÆæØ Hæ çæÅ)’ and bT ad loc.
ŒŁÆæØ Kd æ ÆØ æe å æØ çæÅ, P ı H ØÅ. b åØººø
ŒØŁ æÆ ŒÆd e r K æ ‘the kitharis is [an instrument] played for [lit. ‘given over
to’] sex to please Aphrodite, not the Muses. The kithara of Achilles, on the other hand,
and his aspect are virtuous’. See later Hor. C. 1.15.13–15, and Plut. Vita Alex. 15.9;
Alex. fort. 331d. Cf. Veneri (1995); Rosati (1999) 148–9.
89
Cf. bT Il. 9.186 ( Porphyr.) PŒ IŒ Ø HØ læøœ ıŒe h Å
ªı Ç ŁÆØ Aºº a ı ØŒa ŒÆd c ØÆÆıåÇ Ø· ÆæÆıŁÆ ªaæ F ŁıF
ŒÆd ºÅ. Ø b ŒÆd çØºı ŒÆd º çıæ åø c ŒØŁ æÆ· ŒÆd P
ŁÅºıæØÅ ºÅ, Iººa ŒºÆ IæH ¼Ø Ø, ŒÆd æÆ ŒÆØæ. j N l Ø ÆPf
Ææ ÆØ ‘it is not unfitting for the hero—when it is night—to practise music and
not to spend the whole night awake in feasting. For this is an assuagement of his anger
and grief. And he is young and a lover of music, and the kithara which he has comes
from war-booty; and he does not sing effeminate songs, but of heroes’ deeds, and it is
evening; or he bears himself haughtily because he considers that the ambassadors are
arriving’. See also Athen. 14.633c, according to whom only in recent times had ‘low-
class musical styles (æØ ı ØŒB çÆFºØ) emerged’, whereas ‘in ancient times they
produced songs that described the heroes’ deeds or were hymns of praise honouring
the gods. Homer, for example, says of Achilles. . . . (Il. 9.189)’; A Hom. Il. 9.188; Dio.
Prus. regal. (2) 28–31.
90
Sider, forthcoming.
136 Briseis
Briseis.91 Modern interpreters, on the other hand, have also consid-
ered the scene to contain a sort of metaliterary image, mirroring the
activity of the epic poet of the Iliad.92
Ovid himself, in Ars am. 1.11–16, appreciates Achilles’ music as a
placida ars, one instilled in him by Chiron, who used it to soften the
harshness of his soul (animi feri) when he was a child.93 Ovid also
returns to this theme in his Tristia, when he meditates on the con-
soling effects of poetry during his exile by exploring a series of
paradigmatic songs used as a relief from physical toil or emotional
distress.94 Among them he suggests Achilles’ music for Briseis (Trist.
4.1.15–16):
fertur et abducta Lyrneside tristis Achilles
Haemonia curas attenuasse lyra.
They say too that when the maid of Lyrnesos was taken from him, sad
Achilles relieved his sorrow with the Haemonian lyre.
This erotic interpretation seems to depart radically from both the
professional (i.e. military) dignity which the Iliad confers on Achilles’
91
See again bT Il. 9.186 ( Porphyr.) ŒÆºH b I Å B KæøÅ ¼Ø Ø,
‹ø c ŒÅ Œø Ç Ø. j ‹Ø çæØŒ b B H Eººø I çÆº Æ,
æ Ø EÆØ b ŒÆÆçæ E . . . ‘conveniently he sings, as his beloved is away, so
that he does not seem to make merry; or because he has taken heed of the safety of
the Greeks, and pretends not to care . . . ’. In a mosaic (5th/6th cent. ad; SEG 54.1702)
from Madaba (Jordan) Achilles playing the lyre and Patroclus are side by side with a
woman flanked by the inscription (lacunose?) EYBPE. This female figure may be the
personification of Euprepeia ‘Propriety’ (Agosti (2004) 51–7), but other interpreta-
tions of the inscription are possible as well (cf. Bowersock (2006) 48–53).
92
Cf. Frontisi-Ducroux (1986) 11–14; King (1987) 10–11; Sider, forthcoming. This
is not the only case of characters’ isolated actions reflecting their broader character-
izations or structural elements of the plot in the Iliad. Among the other instances,
Rengakos (2006) chap. 1 has recently demonstrated that Achilles mirrors the key
point of the Iliadic plot when in 23.555–7 he ‘smiles’ (first and only time in the poem)
at Antilochus’ anger as he feels deprived of a prize which he believes was due to him—
Antilochus’ anger, in fact, closely resembles the BØ of Achilles for the subtraction of
Briseis from his part of the booty.
93
Not an uncommon idea: cf. Philostr. Heroic. 45.6; [Plut.] mus. 1145e.
94
Horace, Epod. 13.17–18 exhorts some friends to enjoy sympotic pleasures in
order to feel relieved from the anxiety about an imminent storm, and in this context
introduces Chiron’s prophecy that Achilles at Troy will have to console himself from
omne malum with wine and song (illic omne malum vino cantuque levato, j deformis
aegrimoniae dulcibus alloquis ‘while there, be sure to lighten all your ills with wine and
song, sweet comforts for the ugliness of pain’). Omne malum possibly includes the
pain of love for Briseis, and thus also points to Il. 9.186–224, but must directly concern
the certainty of Achilles’ imminent death and of his never coming home, as pointed
out at 15–16 (Mankin (1995) 225).
Briseis 137
song and Briseis’ own pessimism in Her. 3. Rather, it is similar to
[Sen.] Oct. 814–15: ille [sc. Cupido] ferocem iussit Achillem j pulsare
lyram ‘it was he [Cupid] who commanded fierce Achilles to strike the
lyre’.95 Achilles’ music as consolation for the heartache caused by the
abduction of Briseis is in tune with the tenor of erotic poetry, just as
the military specialization suggested by the original Homeric context
was suited to the heroic demeanour in the Iliad. Indeed, it is not by
chance that in both Her. 3 and Trist. 4.1 Ovid has rechristened
Achilles’ lyre as ‘Haemonian’/‘Thracian’, thus connecting it with
figures of prototypal singers like Orpheus and Thamyris96 instead
of cities Achilles sacked, as in Homer. In Trist. 4.1, in fact, Ovid
transforms Achilles’ music into the otium of the ideal elegiac lover,
whom he describes in Am. 2.11.31–2:
tutius est fovisse torum, legisse libellos,
Threiciam digitis increpuisse lyram.
The safer course was fondly to keep your couch, to read your books, to
sound with your fingers the Thracian lyre.
Neither the heroic dignity pointed out by the scholiasts to Il. 9.186
and 9.188, nor the potential expression of love for Briseis realized
elsewhere by Ovid crosses the mind of Briseis in Her. 3, when she
thinks of Achilles’ singing. At this point of her letter she is interested
only in vilifying his withdrawal from the fighting as much as she can.
She thus remembers with nostalgia an Achilles who once deemed ‘the
deed or renown, rather than safety’ to be his pleasure (tibi pro tutis
insignia facta placebant, Her. 3.121), and she wishes that he would re-
enter the battle: quid tamen expectas? . . . arma cape, Aeacide, sed me
tamen ante recepta, j et preme turbatos Marte favente viros ‘what do
you still wait for? . . . Seize up your armor, O child of Aeacus—yet take
me back first—and with the favor of Mars rout and overwhelm their
95
These lines of Octavia come from an ode on the ruinous powers of love, an ode
which predictably lacks the appreciative tone of Ovid: the latter writes as an erstwhile
erotic poet defending in Trist. 4.1 his poetics of love-song, whereas Octavia adheres to
the topoi of Greek tragedy, resembling the frightened statements about the power of
love we find e.g. first of all in Soph. Ant. 781–800. Cf. Ferri (2003) 356.
96
On the possible links of ‘Thracian’ with Orpheus, cf. e.g. McKeown (1998)
iii.249. ‘Haemonia’ is an old name for Thrace recurring in Ovid. But it may here
evoke in particular ‘the land of the cave of Chiron’, since Ovid uses it twice in Fast.
5.381, 400 when speaking of Achilles’ youth, and thus points to the old Centaur as the
teacher from whom Achilles learned how to play the lyre (a very well-known detail of
Achilles’ biography: cf. e.g. Ov. Ars am. 1.11–16 quoted above).
138 Briseis
ranks’, 83–8—a paraenesis which may well suggest to Achilles a
programmatic synthesis of his masculine duties as Briseis’ lover
(‘taking back Briseis’) and his militaries duties (arma), and thus
practically tries to rewrite the Iliad, according to a female-gendered
perspective, as a tale of erotic separation and reunion.97
In fact, one might say that she recognizes the ‘elegiac’ in Achilles, but
only to brand it as indelibly ‘effeminate’ (an effect of his long cross-
dressing at Scyros?). These exhortations to war—so atypical of women
in love poetry!—will have easily reminded the readers of Helen’s scorn-
ful command to Paris to return to battle at Il. 3.428–33a.98 At that point
in the poem she rebuked Paris, who had withdrawn disgracefully from
his duel with Menelaus, and dared him to go back and challenge his
enemy again. She then changed her mind, and, with what is more
probably a sarcastic rather than a romantic afterthought, announced
that it would have been too dangerous after all for Paris to challenge
Menelaus again (3.433b–436). Briseis’ Achilles, however, has no Mene-
laus, that is no superior warrior, waiting for him in the battlefield.
Besides, Achilles is not only almost depicted by Briseis as the
equivalent of the feminized Paris; what Briseis introduces here as
evidence of Achilles’ effeminate negation of his epic excellence is also
precisely a sort of ‘elegiac’ behaviour. The indignant phrase summar-
izing this behaviour, tutius est iacuisse toro, tenuisse puellam, j Threi-
ciam digitis increpuisse lyram (Her. 3.117–18, quoted above), is
strikingly close to the programmatic appreciation of elegiac life pre-
sented by Ovid in Am. 2.11.31–2 (also quoted above). In fact, Briseis
here shares the common interpretation of music as a quiet/lazy
pastime ideally opposed to war, which had its literary foundation in
Hector’s reproach to Paris in Iliad 3 (see above), and which was often
revived by Latin authors of the first century bc.99 In particular,
the fact that Her. 3.117–18 almost literally reproduces this
eulogistic definition of the elegiac choice of life may be especially
97
Cf. Hinds (2000) 224–5.
98
As Roisman (2006) 22 comments, ‘the very fact that the statement is a command
reverses the accepted hierarchy between husband and wife, shows disrespect, and
undermines the man’s position and authority’.
99
Hor. C. 1.6.10, 1.15.15; Prop. 4.6.32, 36; Ov. Rem. 753, Met. 5.114. Rosati (1999)
148–9 offers a brief history of the shifts in the different cultural evaluation of music in
Greek and Latin cultures. Cf. also (commenting on Sen. Troad. 318–19 quoted above,
p. 134 n. 87) Fantham (1982) 256: ‘to the Roman reader (unless he were a Nero) the act
of singing to the lyre would itself suggest unmanliness’.
Briseis 139
telling—and it hardly matters whether Her. 3.117–18 was the model
for Am. 2.11.31–2, or reflected it. The almost complete coincidence of
the two expressions in the Heroides and Amores shows how caustic-
ally the female voice of Briseis preys upon and plays upon the elegiac
conventions in her Letter.100 As soon as she believes that Achilles does
not love her any longer, she stops accepting the apparent contra-
diction of Achilles as warrior and lover, which is common in the
erotic poetry of the first century bc, and is shared by Ovid himself
elsewhere as we shall see later in this chapter. Instead, from her
disillusioned viewpoint, Achilles’ persistent progress in an elegiac
direction would probably mean that his romantic side is directed—
or soon will be—towards another woman, with music being a certain
sign of his ‘infidelity’. It is no coincidence that Ovid excludes all music
from the ‘hyper-typical’ scene of the dinner of the Greek leaders after
Achilles’ victory over Cycnus in the ‘Iliad’ of Met. 12, where Achilles
is depicted as a paradigmatic hero in hyper-Homeric fashion,
cleansed of every post-Homeric and especially elegiac interest in his
amorous adventures, so that he practically retracts what Briseis
accuses him of doing in the Letter (Met. 12.157–63):101
non illos citharae, non illos carmina vocum
longave multifori delectat tibia buxi,
sed noctem sermone trahunt, virtusque loquendi
materia est; pugnam referunt hostisque suamque
. . . quid enim loqueretur Achilles,
aut quid apud magnum potius loquerentur Achillem?
Nor were they entertained by sound of lyre, nor by the voice of song,
nor by the long flute of boxwood pierced with many holes; but they
drew out the night in talk, and valour was the theme of their conversa-
tion: they tell of the fighting, both their own and their enemies’ . . . For
what else should Achilles speak of, or what else should others speak in
great Achilles’ presence?
100
Cf. Barchiesi (1992) 27–9; Rosati (1999) 149–51.
101
Cf. Galasso (2004) 97–8. Papaioannou (2007) 93 suggests that the victory over
Cycnus may have been the focus of Achilles’ song, and comments: ‘Aware of the direct
relationship between epic song and the power of epic memory, [Ovid’s Achilles] calls
for a typical epic festive interlude, and ascertains that his Cycnus “victory” mythos,
marvelous and anti-heroic though it may be, dominates the heroes’ table talk and
becomes the deed of glory to corroborate Achilles’ hero status in their war/epic
memories’.
140 Briseis
After seeing how Briseis’ accommodation of elegy helps her in
constructing her pessimism in Ovid’s Letter, we shall now take a
step back to explore in more depth her pessimistic rewriting of
Homer. Briseis interprets the silent facial expressions of Talthybius
and Eurybates, Agamemnon’s heralds, which had been emphasized
by Homer, according to a romantic psychology that is at variance
with Homer’s explanation of military respect for a superior. Accord-
ing to Homer, when they reached Achilles’ tent, g b Ææ Æ
ŒÆd ÆNø Æ ØºBÆ j Å, P Ø æ ç P Kæ
‘they stood there silent, without word or question, in fear and respect
for the king’ (1.331–2). In the loving but desperate eyes of Ovid’s
Briseis, the heralds’ silence has a quite different meaning, radically
alternative to Homer. As a self-projecting102 interpreter of the facts,
she ascribes to them the question which excruciates herself, and
explains (Her. 3.11–12): alter in alterius iactantes lumina vultum j
quaerebant taciti, noster ubi esset amor, ‘each, casting eyes into the
face of the other, inquired in silence where now was the love
between us’.
In the end, Briseis oscillates in Her. 3 between the utopia of a
marriage with Achilles, which she considers just out of reach, and the
mundane request for his basic protection of her as her dominus,
which she believes is her due as his slave. From the very first couplet,
as remarked above, she emphasizes her awareness of her status as a
rapta and a barbara.103 At the very moment when she writes her
Letter, Achilles does not need Briseis, she admits bitterly, because he
does not need a wife: her subjective version of the Iliadic list of the
gifts offered by Agamemnon, which she accuses Achilles of having
rejected together with her restitution, understandably culminates in
Agamemnon’s promise to give Achilles one of his three daughters—
but, as Briseis comments in a sad and indignant aside (Her. 3.37): sed
non opus est tibi coniuge ‘you have no need of a wife’.104 In the past
she had found in Achilles a full compensation for the loss of her
whole family, whom he had killed: Her. 3.51–2 tot tamen amissis te
102
Jacobson (1974) 26.
103
On this stance of Ovid’s Briseis, cf. in particular Lindheim (2003) 53–62.
104
Maybe this remark involves a hint at the war slave Diomede, with whom
Achilles sleeps at the end of Iliad 9 (see below, pp. 196–7), as Mathias Hanses suggests
per litteras. In contrast to Briseis, whom Achilles himself had defined as a ‘wife’ at Il.
9.335–43, Diomede does not seem to be anything more than a war-slave and an
occasional bedfellow.
Briseis 141
compensavimus unum: j tu dominus, tu vir, tu mihi frater eras ‘for so
many lost to me I still had only you in recompense: you were my
master, you my husband, you my brother’, echoing yet intensifying
Andromache’s address to Hector in Il. 6.429–430 ‘you are father and
honoured mother and brother to me, as well as my strong husband’
(intensifying, as Hector had not killed the husband and brother of
Andromache, before becoming equivalent to them). For the future, as
Achilles has threatened to sail back home, she mainly fears being
abandoned by him and left to someone else (Her. 3.61), and is ready to
see him married to some Achaean girl of worthy lineage in his father-
land, provided that she is allowed to follow him (Her. 3.71–4). In
constructing this perspective Ovid’s Briseis seems to borrow the sce-
nario which Achilles himself had envisioned for himself in Il. 9.395–9:
ººÆd 寨 N d I Eºº Æ *ŁÅ j ŒFæÆØ IæØ ø, . . . j
ø l Œ’ KŁºøØ çºÅ Ø ¼ŒØØ. j . . . ªÆÆ Å c
¼ºå KœŒıEÆ ¼ŒØØ . . . ‘there are many Achaean women across
Hellas and Phthia, daughters of leading men, . . . whichever of them
I want I shall make my dear wife . . . having taken a wife in marriage
over there, a well-matched partner . . . ’). The Iliadic Briseis had not
‘read’ the whole of the Iliad yet, and could still delude herself, as she
could not possibly know of Achilles’ fancy of returning to Phthia and
marrying there a distinguished Greek woman (one of the ‘daughters of
leading men’), or of his sad premonition of death. Thus, after being
returned to Achilles after the death of Patroclus, she could dream of a
future marriage to Achilles. Ovid’s Briseis, on the other hand, asks only
to be allowed to follow Achilles back to his fatherland, not as a wife but
as a slave (Her. 3.69 victorem captiva sequar, non nupta maritum,
quoted above), and she is ready to work the wool for him, again as a
slave (Her. 3.70, 75–6). And when she retells the paradigmatic story of
Meleager (Her. 3.91–6) she cannot help but compare herself to the wife
Cleopatre who managed to persuade Meleager to re-enter the fighting.
But the comparison only serves to acknowledge her failure in her
different circumstance as a slave and concubine (Her. 3.97–8):
sola virum coniunx flexit. felicior illa!
at mea pro nullo pondere verba cadunt.
Only the wife availed to bend her husband. The happier she!—for my
words have no weight, and fall for naught.
The comparison also restates her acute awareness of her non-matrimo-
nial status with a precise polemic against the inappropriateness of
142 Briseis
every speech labelling her anything more than a slave. Is she implicitly
objecting to Achilles’ words in Il. 9.343 as well? (Her. 3.99–102):
nec tamen indignor, nec me pro coniuge gessi
saepius in domini serva vocata torum.
me quaedam, memini, dominam captiva vocabat.
‘servitio’, dixi, ‘nominis addis onus’.
And yet I am not angered, nor have I conducted myself as a wife because
often summoned, a slave, to share my master’s bed. Some captive
woman, once, I remember, called me mistress. ‘To slavery’, I replied,
‘you add the burden of the name’.
To conclude, Briseis’ self-presentation in Ovid seems the result of a
pessimistic negation of the idea of Achilles as a warrior/lover, which
had been elaborated by Propertius and by Ovid himself in other
works.105 It also amounts to a pessimistic revision of the wifely status
which the Homeric Briseis had anticipated in her lament for Patroc-
lus at Il. 19.297–9, though Achilles himself had confirmed that she
was practically already his wife, having called her ¼ºå at Il. 9.336.
In other words, Ovid’s character seems resigned to acknowledging the
insurmountable contradiction inherent in the common elegiac idea of
the couple Achilles–Briseis as paradigmatic of the most intense love
(though for a slave)—an elegiac idea to which we shall return soon.
Achilles himself had touched upon this contradiction at Il. 9.342–3
only to surmount it;106 Ovid’s Briseis adopts it in order to present it as
insurmountable.
The recurrent pessimism of the lovers and, consequently, the
anxious perspective from which Ovid’s Briseis depicts her future
may be enough, perhaps, to explain why she omits to remember
Achilles’ warm words for her in the dialogue with the ambassadors.
After all, it is precisely the consistent structural pattern of the Her-
oides, where the collapse of a pre-existing love is an essential point de
départ of the heroine’s misery, that could lead Ovid’s Briseis to
underestimate Achilles’ declaration of love in his model, Iliad 9. But
other features of the Homeric narrative may have contributed to
making this underestimation possible. A rational interpretation of
the contradictory context of Achilles’ stated plans and behaviour
which were in contrast to his declaration and thus undercut its
sincerity—in particular Achilles’ statement about his matrimonial
105 106
See below, pp. 144–73. See above, pp. 107–9.
Briseis 143
future in his fatherland at 9.395–9—will have helped this under-
estimation. Last but not least, as a careful post-Iliadic reader of her
Iliadic story, the Briseis of Ovid may also have scaled down the
romantic aspect of Achilles’ words in tune (I like to think) with the
reductive perspective which some Hellenistic interpreters had possi-
bly already adopted when assessing their romantic value.
107
pp. 9–12.
144 Briseis
In fact, in Rome in the first century bc the tension between the
Iliadic text, on the one hand, and the ‘strong’ interpretative ideas of its
Hellenistic interpreters, on the other, seems to have given rise to a
twofold reception of the (love) story of Briseis and Achilles. As we shall
see in due course, the elegiac commonplace of an erotic Achilles
appears to focus often on a hyper-eroticized reading of his sentimental
assessment of Briseis in Iliad 9, and in particular on his definition of
Briseis in marital terms despite her status as a slave in 9.343 (KŒ ŁıF
çº ıæØŒÅ æ KF Æ). And yet, as we have seen, the icy
Achilles of Her. 3 and Briseis’ consequent desperation about her
matrimonial ambitions presupposed the silencing of Achilles’ romantic
aspect and his comments about her as wife in Iliad 9; Her. 3 was thus,
in a way, attuned to an unromantic interpretation of the scholiasts.
The radical variance between the standard elegiac point of view
and that of Her. 3 comes as no surprise. Ovid’s ‘female elegy’ in the
Heroides depends substantially on Augustan elegiac poetics, but re-
verses the usual gender roles of elegy. Their protagonist is not a man
in love with a woman who does not reciprocate his feelings, but a
woman in love complaining about a lover who is no longer returning
her feelings, or at least not returning them sufficiently, and whose
perspective on her own love story is more or less biased by her
desperation, not balanced by ‘objective’ authorial corrections of her
presentation.108 Her. 3 thus reverses the relation of the male erotic
poet/lover to his beloved domina in the frame of his harsh militia
amoris on several levels. Briseis is concretely a slave, who has met (i.e.
was enslaved by, and later fell in love with) her dominus Achilles (5–
6) during a raid against her city, in military circumstances that are a
perfect actualization of the idea of militia amoris (erotic conquest and
military conquest are made fully to coincide, though the conqueror is
the male, and the enslaved is the woman). Furthermore, the chrono-
logical framework adopted by Ovid for this love story neatly accom-
modates an interpretation of Briseis’ role as a ‘military’ lover. At the
time of her writing, every attempt to run away from Agamemnon and
try to rejoin Achilles, as Briseis stresses (‘the enemy was there, to seize
upon a timid girl’, 18), would have meant wandering in enemy
territory and probably being captured—especially during the night
of her writing, which was the night of Iliad 10, the most wakeful and
108
Rosati (1989) 6–8; Barchiesi (1992) 20.
Briseis 145
hectic of the Iliadic nights, with both Greek and Trojan spies about. In
the end, she did not leave Agamemnon’s quarters or risk encounter-
ing soldiers (she was a woman after all); but in order to rejoin her
beloved, she had considered the idea of practising, as a woman, the
principle of the elegiac male: militat omnis amans, to which we shall
return soon.
This material realization of elegiac metaphors (domina, and love as
militia) allows Ovid not only to highlight the reversal of the usual
gender-roles of beloved domina/enslaved male lover in elegy, but also
to challenge—once again109—the authority of the conventions of
elegy. In fact, it suggests first of all that these roles are anything but
conventional within Ovid’s poem, or at least are established by real-
to-life (or, better, real-to-myth) events beyond the elegiac conven-
tions: the result is that they seem more ‘authentic’ than elegiac
conventions.110 The friendly polemic in which the female elegy of
Her. 3 engages with these conventions becomes especially evident in
the anomalous role of cold indifference which Achilles—the equiva-
lent of the invariably cold female domina of elegy—plays in the
narrative of the poem. This is a feature of Her. 3 at variance with
the mainstream of Augustan love poetry, which presents Achilles as
‘the example par excellence of the epic hero as lover’.111 This em-
phasis on the coldness of Achilles and the erotic forwardness of
Briseis is so anomalous that, in my opinion, her apostrophe to
Achilles at Her. 3.26 (i nunc et cupidi nomen amantis habe ‘go now,
deserve the name of an eager lover!’) may reflect and advertise Ovid’s
metaliterary awareness of the difference between his unloving
Achilles of Her. 3 and those familiar references to him as an actual
lover of Briseis in the erotic poetry of Horace or Propertius, or in
Ovid’s Amores, Remedia, and Ars amatoria.112
Probably the oldest among these passages are found in Propertius’
Book 2, which dates from the period 28–25 bc, and which seems
especially concerned with developing the idea of militia amoris by
means of comparison with Iliadic warfare: for example, the tussles
with Cynthia become the longae Iliades (2.1.14), Cynthia is another
109 110
See above, pp. 137–9. Cf. Spoth (1992) 67–9.
111
Rudd (1980) 68–9.
112
See above all Prop. 2.8.29–38, 2.9.9–16, 2.22.29–34; Hor. C. 2.4.2–4; Epist.
1.2.11–13; Ov. Am. 1.9.33, 2.8.11; Ars am. 2.711–16; Rem. 777–8; Her. 8.85–6,
which will be discussed below. The relative chronology of Her. 3 and most of these
other texts cannot be assessed.
146 Briseis
Helen (2.3.32–40), and Propertius presents his tomb as destined to
become as famous as Achilles’ (2.13.31–8).113 The last part of
Prop. 2.8, in particular, is a miniaturized erotic rewriting of Achilles’
motivations for his actions (and inaction), where his slighted Ø
and consequent BØ—the features which predominate in the Iliad—
only surface indirectly to parallel the inhonesta (mors) of 2.8.27–8 (see
below). Propertius has decided that he cannot survive, after he has
been ‘robbed’ of Cynthia by a rival. From the first line the poet
programmatically presents Cynthia’s desertion as a forced abduction
(eripitur nobis iam pridem cara puella ‘I am being robbed of the girl
for so long dear to me’), and he emphasizes the parallelism with the
abduction of Briseis, for whom the same verb and a synonym are used
again at 2.8.29 abrepta desertus coniuge, and 2.8.36 in erepto . . . amore.
He thus ends up equating himself to Achilles and Cynthia to Briseis.114
Propertius subsequently decides that he has to kill Cynthia, as well as
himself, with the same dagger. This is certainly going to be a ‘dishon-
ourable death’, mors inhonesta, 2.8.27–8—a dishonour perhaps antici-
pating the idea of Achilles’ slighted Ø, which is introduced in 2.8.29–
30: even Achilles behaved in no less an indecent and outrageous way
throughout the time of Briseis’ abduction (abrepta).115 No wonder
(argumentum a maiore) that Propertius is defeated by love, when
love could defeat a hero so much stronger (2.8.29–40):116
ille etiam abrepta desertus coniuge Achilles
cessare in tectis pertulit arma sua. 30
viderat ille fuga stratos in litore Achivos,
fervere et Hectorea Dorica castra face;
viderat informem multa Patroclon harena
porrectum et sparsas caede iacere comas,
113
For a still useful review of Propertius’ ‘elegiacization’ of Homer, cf. Benediktson
(1985).
114
Cf. Gazich (1995) 102–3; Dué (2002) 103.
115
Spoth (1992) 64 n. 4 suggests that Propertius appropriates here an idea of Achilles
known from comedy: cf. Plaut. Mil. 1287–9 verum quom multos multa admisse ac-
ceperim j inhonesta propter amorem atque aliena a bonis: j mitto iam, ut occidi Achilles
civis passus est ‘but since I have heard that many people have committed many dishon-
ourable things because of their love and have done what is improper for good men—I
won’t mention how Achilles allowed his fellow citizens to be slaughtered . . . ’.
116
I agree with Gazich (1995) 102–5 and Fedeli (2005) 262–3 that the exemplum of
Achilles in love is adopted by Propertius for the analogy between the inhonestas of the
death which the poet prefigures for himself and the indecency of Achilles’ abstention
from war and its cruel consequences.
Briseis 147
omnia formosam propter Briseida passus: 35
tantus in erepto saevit amore dolor.
at postquam sera captiva est reddita poena,
fortem ille Haemoniis Hectora traxit equis.
inferior multo cum sim vel matre vel armis,
mirum, si de me iure triumphat Amor? 40
After his sweetheart was abducted, lonely Achilles let his weapons lie
idle in his tent. He saw the Achaeans cut down in flight along the shore,
the Doric camp ablaze with Hector’s torches; he saw Patroclus’ muti-
lated body sprawled in the dust, his hair matted with blood. All this he
bore for beautiful Briseis’ sake; so cruel the pain when love is wrenched
away. But after late amends restored the captive to him, he dragged
brave Hector behind Thessalian steeds. As I am far inferior both in birth
and battle, no wonder love can triumph over me!
Apart from the possible but nevertheless implicit hint at Achilles’
Ø in inhonesta, there is no anger here at some reduction of booty,
and so a diminution of Ø, but rather fury aroused by the pain of his
love being wrenched away—if the hint at Ø in inhonesta was
perceived, then Propertius would have shown this pain of love to be
the real alternative reason for Achilles’ withdrawal from the fighting.
And only the cessation of the same pain, following the erotic satisfac-
tion regained after the restitution of Briseis, allowed Achilles to return
to the battle. The emphasis on fury (saevit) is certainly reminiscent of
the Iliadic idea of BØ. But Propertius identifies love—satisfied by
the presence, or starved by the absence, of the beloved woman (erepto
amore, 2.8.36)—and not resentment for his violated honour, as the
cause of (i) Achilles’ outrageous indifference to the slaughter of his
comrades and even of his friend Patroclus, and (ii) his renewed
attention to his military honour and immediate victory over Hector.
As a result, mainly heartache seems to have prevented Propertius’
Achilles from continuing in his honourable struggle against the
Trojans, and he could be forced to return to the pursuit of military
glory and the killing of Hector only by the return of Briseis (2.8.37–8).
But in the Iliad Achilles had been forced to return to the battlefield by
his anguish at Patroclus’ death; the promise of Briseis’ restitution in
Book 9 had done nothing to persuade him. Propertius thus seems to
radically rewrite Achilles’ feelings from a heterosexual perspective,117
117
On the adumbrating of Achilles’ love for Patroclus, see Sharrock (2000) 278–9;
Greene (2005) 221–2.
148 Briseis
which indirectly affirms the primacy of his love for Briseis over his
love for Patroclus.118 In fact, his anguish at Patroclus’ death appears
to belong to those omnia which Achilles was able to endure (passus,
2.8.35) precisely because of his still greater, even overwhelming long-
ing for Briseis. Propertius thus sees Achilles motivated essentially by
love (i.e. the presence or absence of the beloved Briseis), with love
even representing the condicio sine qua non of Achilles’ martial
heroism and pursuit of honour. In a wholesale ironizing of the
pretensions of epic as the ‘all-male, all-war’ genre, Propertius’ point
of view half-jestingly transforms the Iliad, usually considered the
prototype of the genre of martial epic, which is diametrically opposed
to love poetry, into the first love-poem in literary history (see for a
similar operation Ov. Trist. 2.371–4, discussed below). Propertius’
poem, in fact, leaves the reader with the impression that war itself
turns on love. Only the last couplet (2.8.39–40) betrays Propertius’
ironical acknowledgement of the difference between his love pains
and Achilles’ Iliadic labours, when he refers to Achilles’ concern for
arma and his mother, thus highlighting that Achilles had motivations
beyond the purely erotic. After all, Achilles had to live up to his status
as the child of a divine mother and win military distinction—a
distinction which the elegiac persona of Propertius not only did not
share, but also declined elsewhere because of his own inadequacy: see
in particular 1.6.25–30, where militia amoris is presented as a lesser
militia than real warfare, and indeed the fruit of extrema nequitia
which the fata have inexorably allotted to Propertius.119
Briseis and Cynthia both have marginal roles in the poem, and
both girls function above all as touchstones for the feelings and
reactions of their lovers. Cynthia, in fact, is not even named, and
Briseis is named only once, at 2.8.35, where she receives the epithet
formosa, which is perhaps reminiscent of the epithets which occur in
118
On homosexuality and Latin love-elegy cf. above, p. 68.
119
See above all McKeown (1995) 297–300 and Gale (1997) 83, who also observes
that in 2.8.39–40 ‘the mingling . . . of literal and figurative senses of militia (Achilles’
arms are literal, but the triumph of Amor is figurative) exposes the factitious basis of
the comparison’. Wyke (1989=2002) 213–14 observes that in a society where citizen-
ship brought with it an obligation to military service, the metaphor of militia amoris
defines the elegiac male as ‘socially irresponsible’, someone who as a slave to love has
precluded himself from participating in the customary occupations of male citizens,
and presents the first-person heroes of elegiac poetry as displaced from their tradi-
tional social duties and adopting the socially ineffective status of women.
Briseis 149
her Iliadic manifestations, æØŒÆºº and ŒÆººØ æÅØ.120 Proper-
tius’ ‘Iliad’ in five couplets also refers to Briseis in two strategic lines
defining the boundaries of the erotic section of Homer’s Iliad which
interests Propertius most—I am referring to the hexameters in the
first and last couplets (2.8.29, 2.8.37). These describe, respectively, her
abduction and her restitution (in both couplets, the following
pentameter describes Achilles’ reactions to the two events). Signifi-
cantly, the first couplet introduces Briseis as coniunx, while in the last
she is captiva. Despite the distance of a few lines between coniunx and
captiva, the architectural mirroring inherent in this ring composition
will have invited the combination of the two terms, and thus the
reconstruction of their intertext, namely the romantic outburst in
which Achilles called Briseis ¼ºå at Il. 9.336, and his characteriza-
tion of her in the words: ıæØŒÅ æ KF Æ six lines later at
9.343. The coniunx of Prop. 2.8.29, if considered in isolation from the
context of this tradition, may refer here, broadly speaking, to Briseis
as ‘lover’ or ‘concubine’,121 but in the light of Propertian usage else-
where (in eleven instances the word means ‘wife’),122 and in the light
of the Iliadic precedent, the term ‘wife’ was almost certainly intended
here, and will have been so understood.123 The adoption of this word,
ambiguous but with matrimonial connotations, probably points to
the antinomy between legitimate nuptial love and the extramarital
liaisons of the love poets and their lovers (involving women already
married or courtesans)—an antinomy often explored by the elegiac
poets in their attempt to problematize what an elegiac liaison was and
to present it as competitive, in terms of loyalty, with conjugal
bonds.124 The contradictory case of Briseis—a slave, but also a be-
loved and loyal ‘wife’—might thus have been a very convenient
prototype of the idea that the elegiac lover could love a married
mistress or a courtesan as intensely and permanently as, or even
more than, his own wife. Last but not least, the fact that Briseis is
called captiva in 2.8.37, at the moment of her restitution to Achilles
120
See above, p. 115.
121
Cf. La Penna (1951) 194–5 n. 8; Shackleton Bailey (1954) 165; Casali (1995)
166.
122
Cf. Gazich (1995) 104, 193–4.
123
Cf. Fedeli (2005) 264.
124
Cf. Gazich (1995) 104, 194, who, however, does not notice that Achilles’
awareness of the paradoxical character of matrimonial love for the slave Briseis
might have had a prototypical relevance for Propertius’ ideology.
150 Briseis
by Agamemnon, and not when her relation with Achilles is first
presented at 2.8.29, may also suggest the idea that she also (or
above all) was the ‘prisoner’ of her abductor Agamemnon, just as
Cynthia was a ‘prisoner’ of her new lover—an idea which was cer-
tainly appealing to the wishful thinking of the abandoned Proper-
tius.125 In any case, despite the distance separating coniunx and
captiva, Propertius’ readers will have perceived that Propertius’
‘Iliad’ brilliantly resolved the paradox of a beloved slave-wife, which
the Achilles of Homer’s Iliad problematized (cf. æ KF Æ), though
surmounted, along the way.
The following poem, 2.9, focuses again on marital loyalty, and is
again concerned with death, though this time the memory of the
literary deaths of heroes is mingled with Propertius’ dreams of death,
for which the epic/elegiac Briseis is offered as an exemplary aition.
The poem seems to be the Cyclic ‘sequel’ to the elegiac rewriting of
the story of Achilles and Briseis in 2.8, as it focuses on the post-Iliadic
funeral of the hero, and is an extension of the paradigmatic uses of the
Iliadic Briseis and Achilles in 2.8.126
In 2.9 Briseis is more than ever a projection of Propertius’ un-
attainable desire for an ideal Cynthia.127 Propertius may well have
relied for some details of his scene on the narrative of the funeral of
Achilles in the Aethiopis, but the choice of this specific funerary scene
from the plot of the love story of Achilles and Briseis largely depends
on the elegiac motif of the paradoxical continuation of loyalty and
even sexual attraction to the beloved beyond and despite death, a
motif which Propertius often pursues.128 Within the context of the
‘reduction’ of the Iliad to a love poem in 2.8, and the broader elegiac
idea that militat omnis amans, Propertius envisions himself as a sort
of hero-of-love, entitled to be celebrated at his death just as Achilles
was as the elegiac hero-of-war/hero-of-love. In fact in 2.13b he
imagines in detail how Cynthia will officiate at his private but solemn
funeral, and in our poem he fashions himself implicitly in the image
of the body of Achilles taken care of by Briseis—or rather in our poem
he wishes he could so fashion himself, but is compelled to oppose
Cynthia to the ideal partner Briseis.
125
Cf. Fedeli (2005) 269–70.
126
On 2.8 and 2.9 as ‘counterparts’, cf. Bobrowski (1994).
127
Cf. Whitaker (1983) 124.
128
Cf. Papanghelis (1987). See also Tibullus 1.1.59–68.
Briseis 151
Prop. 2.9 begins by contrasting the infidelity of Cynthia, who could
not be without a man for a single night, to the extraordinary fidelity of
Penelope, which lasted twenty years—a predictable paradigm, which
may owe something to the opposition, in the Odyssey and afterwards,
between Penelope and Clytaemnestra.129 After the brief reference to
Penelope, Propertius moves to focus on Briseis as a paradigm of
loyalty after death. Despite being a slave, according to Propertius’
narrative, she was deemed to be so important to Achilles that she was
the only one among Achilles’ female intimates who dealt with the last
and most private phase of the hero’s funeral rites,130 embraced him as
if he were still alive as she did so, and handled his body and bones
(2.9.3–18):
Penelope poterat bis denos salva per annos
vivere, tam multis femina digna procis:
coniugium falsa poterat differre Minerva, 5
nocturno solvens texta diurna dolo;
visura et quamvis numquam speraret Ulixem,
illum expectando facta remansit anus.
nec non exanimem amplectens Briseis Achillem
candida vesana verberat ora manu; 10
et dominum lavit maerens captiva cruentum,
appositum flavis in Simoente vadis,
foedavitque comas et tanti corpus Achilli
maximaque in parva sustulit ossa manu:
cui tum nec Peleus aderat nec caerula mater 15
Scyria nec viduo Deidamia toro.
tunc igitur veris gaudebat Graecia nuptis,
tunc etiam caedes inter et arma pudor.
For twice ten years Penelope could live secure, deserving of so many
suitors; she could postpone re-marriage by Minerva’s guile, unraveling
at night the day’s weaving; and though expecting never again to see
Ulysses she stayed true—grew old waiting for him. Briseis too, embra-
cing lifeless Achilles, tore her fair cheeks with frenzied fingers.
A prisoner in mourning, she washed her blood-stained lord beside the
129
See in particular Od. 24.192–202 and Tsagalis (2008) 36–41.
130
There are two possible (and not alternative) interpretations of Briseis’ excep-
tional attachment to Achilles. One relies on the fact that the last washing and
preparation of the dead usually belongs to the closest family members, cf. Lechi
(1979) 91; Gazich (1995) 191. The other adduces the paradoxical affection demon-
strated by someone who deals with the body of the beloved as if he or she were alive,
cf. Wiggers (1976) 368.
152 Briseis
sandy shoals of Simois, threw dust on her hair and lifted in her little
hands the huge bones of great Achilles, for Peleus was not then with
him, nor his blue-eyed mother, nor Deidameia who slept in a deserted
bed on Scyros. Then Greece was therefore blessed with true brides; then
honour prospered, even amid slaughter and strife.
Propertius’ narrative hardly coincides with Agamemnon’s report
about the funeral of Achilles in Od. 24.43–92, in which Briseis is not
featured. According to Od. 24, Thetis came from the sea to view her
son’s body, while the Nereids dressed him in divine clothes, and the
Muses sang the dirge. The Greeks mourned him, set him on the pyre,
and eventually gathered his bones into an urn provided by Thetis.
Prop. 2.9 has thus often been assumed to reflect the narrative of
Achilles’ funeral from a Cyclic poem (most probably the Aethiopis),
or a Hellenistic text. This archaic or Hellenistic source has also been
viewed as the putative inspiration for Quintus of Smyrna, Posthom.
3.544–81, the only surviving (yet oblique) parallel for Propertius’
scene. However, the connection between the Aethiopis and both
Propertius and Quintus is not at all evident. In Proclus’ summary of
the description of Achilles’ funeral in the Aethiopis Briseis is never
mentioned. Thetis, her sisters (the Nereids), and the Muses mourn for
Achilles, and finally Thetis snatches his body from the pyre before it is
cremated in order to convey it to the Islands of the Blessed.131 In
Propertius, by contrast, Achilles’ body is cremated (his bones are
mentioned at 2.9.14), and there is no hint at an afterlife; Thetis,
moreover, is said to be missing at least from the phase of the washing
of the body, which Briseis would have completed alone. Quintus’
account is close to Agamemnon’s narrative in the second nekyia of
Odyssey 24, and accords with most of its details (apart from the
lament of Briseis, which is not found there, as we have said). In Quintus
Achilles’ body is said to have been washed first by his comrades (3.526)
at Agamemnon’s command (and Nestor’s prompting), and then the
last cosmetic touch was given by Athena (3.533–40). In Quintus,
however, the cleansing of the body is followed by multiple laments:
the slaves taken by Achilles at Lesbos and in Eëtion’s Thebe were the
first to stand in lamentation for the hçæø (‘benevolent’) Achilles,
because ‘he had respected them, though they were daughters of his foes’
(3.550)—a motivation reminiscent of the ‘sweetness’ of Patroclus
131
Cf. Burgess (2009) 98–110.
Briseis 153
which had justified Briseis’ fondness for him in Il. 19.300. Among the
slaves, according to Quintus, Briseis’ heart ‘felt the keenest grief of all’
(3.551–81):
Æ ø ’ ŒÆªº IŒÅå Å ŒÆæ
BæØ Åd Ææ ŒØØ Kıºı åØºB
Içd Œı æøçA ŒÆd IçæÅØ Æº ÅØ Ø
æıŠ忯 ŒÆºe I · KŒ ’ ±ÆºE
Ł ÆƒÆ ÆØ Ia تª ¼ æŁ 555
Ł ØÅ· çÆÅ Œ Kd ªº ª Æx Æ åÆ ŁÆØ
çØ. IªºÆÅ b ŒÆd IåıÅ Iº ª ØH
ƒ æ æÆØæ , å æØ ƒ ¼ å r .
E ’ ŒçÆ FŁ OØÇıæe ªø Æ·
“þ Ø Kªg ø æØ Ø ÆNa ÆŁF Æ· 560
P ª æ Ø æ KºıŁ ¼ºº Ø BÆ,
h ŒÆ تø h’ Pæıåæı æd æÅ,
‹ E ŁÆ· K d Ø ƒ æe qÆæ
ŒÆd ç M ºØ º ŒÆd ºØå ÆNg
Kºøæ ’ IªÆŁE ŒÆd ¼ ¼ºŒÆæ IÅ 565
Å ’ IªºÆÅ ºf çæ æ Mb Œø
º · Æ ªaæ r Å øBØ æ K ÅØ,
ŒÆ Þ ŁBŒÆ ¼ŒØØ ºg ¼ ºØÆ æªÆ.
F Ø K Ø åÆØH ¼ ÆØ ¼ºº
æÅ N Kæøº j K ºıłØ ῎`檷 570
ŒÆ Œ IçØº F Æ ŒÆŒa º ’ IÆ
F I çØ Ł E Æ ı æ. ‰ Zç º
ªÆEÆ åıc KŒ ºıł æ N ŁÆØ”.
S m b ÅŁ’ Oºçæ —Åº øÆ
øBØ f ª æBØ Ø ŒÆd IåıØ Ø åÆØE 575
ıæÅ ŒÆd ¼ÆŒÆ ŒÆd IæÆ· B <’> Iº ª Øe
h æ Œæı, ŒÆ ’ ¼åæØ K’ sÆ
KŒ º ç æø, ‰ Y ºÆ ŒÆa ÆŒ oøæ
æÆÅ, w ıºf bæ Æª åØ
KŒŒåıÆØ ıç ºE ŒÆ’ h , Içd b åÅ 580
Œ Ł’ ›H ¯hæøØ ŒÆd M ºØ ºBØ Ø.
The heart that felt the keenest grief of all was that of Briseis, the noble
warrior Achilles’ concubine. Round and round the corpse she turned,
with both her hands tearing her lovely flesh and crying aloud. On her
tender bosom blood-red welts raised by her blows; you would think
them drops of crimson blood on milk. But even in her bitter anguish her
beauty kept its radiant charm and she was clothed in grace. These words
she uttered between her pitiful wails: ‘Alas! This is by far the worst of all
154 Briseis
my suffering. No other grief so great has ever afflicted me, for loss of
brothers or fatherland so fair and wide, as this for your death. For you to
me were the blessed day, the light of the sun, the sweetness of my life,
my hope of good to come and my strong defense from harm. Far more
to me than all life’s splendor and my own parents, you alone were
everything to me your captive. You made me your wife, releasing me
from the tasks of a slave. But now some other Achaean will take me with
the fleet, either to fertile Sparta or to thirsty Argos. So in servitude I shall
endure harsh toil after losing you so disastrously. If only the earth had
covered me before I saw your doom’. So Briseis bewailed the slaugh-
tered son of Peleus in company with the wretched captives and grieving
Achaeans, weeping for her master and her spouse. Her tears of mourn-
ing never ran dry but streamed from her eyes right down to the ground,
like sunless water from a rocky spring, when above it abundant snow
and ice is spread across the iron-hard ground, until the frost is melted
by the east wind and the rays of the sun.132
We cannot rule out the possibility that a pre-Iliadic oral tradition,
later fixed in writing in the Aethiopis, inspired the narrative of the
funeral of Achilles described in Odyssey 24, the lament of Briseis for
Patroclus in Iliad 19, Propertius, and Quintus. But there is hardly any
element of the narrative of Achilles’ funeral in Quintus that was not
already in the Odyssey account of Agamemnon. Besides, most of the
details of the lament of Briseis for Achilles in Quintus which do not
feature in Odyssey 24 resemble details of the Iliadic lament of Briseis
for Patroclus, or words addressed in Iliad 6 to Hector by Androm-
ache, another slave-wife whose parallelism with Briseis was pursued
more than once in the Iliad.133 Again, the emphasis in Quintus on
Briseis’ radiant beauty (3.556b-7) reflects her comparison to Aphro-
dite in Il. 19.282. Both Briseis’ statement in Quintus that she has never
suffered such a pain as now for Achilles, not even in the case of her
brothers’ death and the ruin of her fatherland (3.560–3a), and her
declaration that Achilles has been for her a father, a brother, and a
lover (3.563b-7) reflect in part her words at Il. 19.292–4 and in part
Andromache’s words for Hector in Il. 6.429–30. Quintus, however,
sensibly omits to mention Achilles’ responsibility for the ‘loss’ of her
family, which Briseis addressed head-on in her Iliadic lament for
132 133
Trans. by A. James. See above, pp. 116, 125 n. 68, 140–1.
Briseis 155
Patroclus and in Her. 3.45–50. But at the same time he also justifies
the precedence that Briseis’ pain for Achilles takes over her familial
losses, which had remained unexplained in the Iliad. Patroclus had
provided the Homeric Briseis with the hope of going back to Phthia
together with Achilles, and of being his wife (Il. 19.297–9). In her
mourning for Achilles, Quintus’ Briseis also reflects on her Iliadic
lament over the body of Patroclus, but she now acknowledges a more
up-to-date version, whereby she had been emancipated by Achilles
and had really become his wife (3.568); after the death of Achilles,
however, she has lost her Kºøæ ‘hope’ (3.565), like the Andromache
of Il. 6.412, who has lost her ŁÆºøæ, her ‘comfort’ for the future,
since Hector has decided to go back to the battlefield; thus Briseis
predicts her removal from Troy in the form of a sad trip to Greece as a
new slave of ‘some other Achaean’ instead of a joyful trip to Phthia
with Achilles (3.569–70). Hence, at the conclusion of her lament,
comes her weeping as ‘water from a rocky fountain’ (3.578); tears that
are not so different from those which Achilles weeps for Patroclus in
Il. 16.3–4 (u ŒæÅ º ıæ, j l ŒÆ’ ÆNªºØ æÅ
ç æe å Ø oøæ ‘like a spring of black water, which trickles its
dark stream down a sheer rock’s face’).134
In conclusion, Quintus may certainly have relied on the Aethiopis
for the description of the funeral of Achilles and included precise
allusions to this Cyclic poem which we cannot now detect because
we do not have its text. But the reuse in the Posthomerica of details
from Briseis’ lament for Patroclus and other Iliadic passages makes it
probable either that Quintus or the Aethiopis before him (if this poem
was his source), or both Quintus and the Aethiopis, also adopted the
Iliad among their models. It is thus tempting to suppose that Quintus
(and perhaps the Aethiopis) reversed the direction of the mirror
games played proleptically in the Iliad between the actual death of
Patroclus and the future death of Achilles, and synthetized the extra-
Iliadic narrative of the funeral of Achilles with the Iliadic funeral for
Patroclus, as well as other analogically relevant intertexts from the
Iliad.
Propertius, on the other hand, may have alluded to some phrases
used in Homer for ritual manifestations of grief for Patroclus’ body,
but all of these concerned very typical gestures performed at different
134
Cf. Tsomis (2007) 187–94.
156 Briseis
moments and by different characters of the Iliad, and it is difficult to
believe that they were intended by Propertius as intertextual markers
pointing specifically to the Iliadic mourning for Patroclus.135 All in
all, Propertius offers an insight into the funeral of Achilles that is
essentially non-Iliadic, and also markedly alien to the other narratives
of this funeral of which we know. He depicts his Briseis in 2.9.11–14
as dealing with the very specific concern of cleansing the body and
gathering the bones—a concern which the Iliad had not mentioned in
connection with Patroclus, and which finds no mention in Odyssey
24, the Aethiopis, or Quintus either. Propertius moreover seems to
add this detail precisely in order to mark out Briseis (as opposed
to other possible intimates) as the most ‘important’ person to
Achilles—more important than the mother or the father or even
Deidameia, who must have been considered Achilles’ legitimate
vidua, as implied by Propertius in 2.9.16 viduo . . . toro.136 The slave-
‘wife’ Briseis thus manages to ‘outpace’ the whole institutional family
of Achilles to this honour. The way is paved by Propertius or his
source (if any) for the role of Briseis as a ‘watchdog’ of Achilles’
posthumous goods. Both in Dictys Cret. 4.15 (in Dictys Briseis is
replaced by her daughter Hippodameia) and in Tzetzes, Posthom.
542–4 it is Briseis whom Neoptolemus acknowledges in his father’s
tent after he arrives at Troy, designates as custos rerum Achillis, and
respects as his ‘mother’.
If we must posit a model for Propertius’ ‘construction’ of the role of
Briseis in the funeral for Achilles, we shall have to intuit some
unknown narrative, possibly Hellenistic in date, or some icono-
graphic source, which inspired this seemingly new image of Briseis
as the perfect ‘undertaker’ of Achilles. But just how new is this image
of Briseis? Death reveries are a peculiar feature of Propertius, but the
image of Briseis as a perfect ‘undertaker’ is just one facet of the ideal
of perfect wife (perfect, though not formally sanctioned in terms of
matrimonial conventions), which she fulfils in Roman elegy; and this
image, as I have tried to show, is mainly built on Achilles’ revealing
and embarrassing definition at Il. 9.336 and 343 of Briseis as the
135
The possible allusions of amplectens to Il. 19.4, verberat ora to 18.24, lavit to
18.344–5 + 18.350, foedavit comas to 18.27, and sustulit corpus to 23.136 have been
observed by Gazich (1995) 190–2, who, however, prudently admits that all these
phrases are relevant to typical scenes and ‘staging posts’ of the mourning.
136
Toro is the text of some late MSS, instead of viro of the best MSS; but the
paradosis is unanimous about viduo.
Briseis 157
¼ºå ŁıÆæ whom he loved ıæØŒÅ æ KF Æ. It is not
surprising at all that the heavily Iliadic Posthomerica of Quintus
also emphasizes the idea that Briseis was slave but wife—twice, at
3.567–8, and at 3.576. But the fact that the non-Iliadic Prop. 2.9.11
reactivates the same paradox, and not without rhetorical emphasis,137
is far from inevitable or predictable. It confirms that Propertius
discovered how fitting for elegiac ideology might be the idea of Briseis
as perfect though anomalous ‘wife’ (as first suggested by Achilles in
his speech of Iliad 9); and that this motif thereby went on to become
an almost essential part of the elegiac image of Briseis.
137
The hyperbaton of captiva between dominum and cruentum magnifies the
difference of status between Briseis and Achilles, which is also strengthened by the
physical opposition of cruentum and candida: Fedeli (2005) 282–3.
138
Cf. Barchiesi (1992) 26. In Hor. C. 2.4.1–4 the serva Briseis is said to have
‘stirred’ (movit) Achilles insolens. Insolens might, in principle, be taken attributively to
mean ‘inexperienced’ (of love, or of women), but here, in the case of the fiery Achilles,
it should be taken predicatively to mean ‘arrogant’. This arrogance is, in fact, an
inborn feature of Achilles’ character which Briseis has softened by making him fall in
love. But the greatest exploit of Achilles’ arrogance comes after and because of his
passionate love. Therefore insolens rather refers proleptically to the BØ of Achilles
as an effect provoked by the abduction of Briseis, which made him become ‘arrogantly
unrestrained’ in his rage. Cf. Epist. 1.2 quoted below.
158 Briseis
the light of the principle that having sex does not ennervate men. In
fact, Prop. 2.22 seems to capture the glorious moment of sexual
fulfilment which took place in Achilles’ tent between the two mo-
ments of 2.8.37 postquam sera captiva est reddita poena and 2.8.38
fortem illum Haemoniis Hectora traxit equis.139 Cf. 2.22.29–34:
quid? cum e complexu Briseidos iret Achilles,
num fugere minus Thessala tela Phryges?
quid? ferus Andromachae lecto cum surgeret Hector,
bella Mycenaeae non timuere rates?
ille vel hic classis poterant vel perdere muros:
hic ego Pelides, hic ferus Hector ego.
Think of Achilles when he left Briseis’ arms—did Phrygians stop run-
ning from his spears? Or when fierce Hector rose from Andromache’s
bed, didn’t Mycenae’s ships fear battle? Both heroes could demolish
fleets and barricades. In my field I am fierce Hector and Achilles.
A similar use of Briseis reappears in Ov. Am. 1.9, which openly
develops Propertius’ motif, and programmatically begins with the
statement: militat omnis amans et habet sua castra Cupido, ‘every
lover is a soldier, and Cupid has a camp of his own’.140 If love and
militia could coexist in the case of Hector, Ovid’s Achilles, ‘saddened’
(maestus)141 after the abduction of Briseis, illustrates the fact that
separation from his beloved led the hero to withdraw from fighting,
causing the temporary but deadly Trojan triumph, whereas Hector
demonstrates what a blessing reciprocal love is for a warrior: not only
was he willing to fight after making love to Andromache, but he was
almost urged on to the battlefield by his wife (Am. 1.9.33–6):
ardet in abducta Briseide maestus Achilles
(dum licet, Argeas frangite, Troes, opes);
Hector ab Andromaches complexibus ibat ad arma,
et galeam capiti quae daret, uxor erat.
Aflame is great Achilles for Briseis taken away—men of Troy, crush
while you may the Argive strength! Hector from Andromache’s em-
brace went forth to arms, and it was his wife who set the helmet on his
head.
139
As remarked by Papanghelis (1987) 130.
140
Papanghelis (1987) 131 n. 69 observes that Ovid ‘must have been aware of
adding the finishing, and more obvious, touches to an already spicy passage’.
141
Not untypically, erotic poetry transforms the epic and traditional ‘anger’ of
Achilles (a feeling not without social relevance) into subjective ‘sadness’.
Briseis 159
This passage presupposes not only (in the couplet 35–6) the model
Prop. 2.22.29–32, as it is commonly assumed,142 but also (in the
couplet 33–4) the motif, already found in Prop. 2.8.29–40 quoted
above, that heartache provoked by the absence of the beloved impedes
even the greatest warrior, whereas requited love helps to achieve the
greatest goals. In particular, the apostrophe of Am. 1.9.34 may trans-
late Hector’s exhortation in Hom. Il. 12.440–1 Zæı Ł’ ƒÆØ
+æH , Þªı Ł b Eå j æª ø ‘On now, you horse-taming
Trojans, break through the Argives’ wall’,143 but it may also be
reminiscent of Prop. 2.8.31–2 viderat ille fuga stratos in litore Achi-
vos, . . . quoted above.144 This synthesis of the motif that having sex is
helpful for the warrior and not having sex hampers the warrior keeps
eros so relevant to the soldier’s life that it amounts to a reciprocal
confirmation of the initial motto—in fact, the poem implies, if we
may paraphrase the beginning of Ov. Am. 1.9, that amat omnis
militans. In Propertius the militia amoris had still been an ‘antiphras-
tic metaphor’,145 in the sense that the original comparison between
the lover’s experience of toil (the militia amoris) and the paradigm
of the toughness of martial militia aimed at ‘promoting’ the former to
the seriousness of the latter—but not without clearly emphasizing this
imbalance in seriousness. In fact, in choosing to live the life of the
elegiac poet, Propertius self-consciously declares at 1.6.25–30 an all-
out renunciation of the real militia of war in favour of his socially
and morally inferior nequitia.146 Ovid, by contrast, seems proud to
propose a new fictional identity for the soldier/lover, within which
142
Cf. Némethy (1907) 135; Brandt (1911) 70; Barsby (1973) 113. But see
McKeown (1989) ii.272.
143
As observed by McKeown (1989) ii.273.
144
In light of this motif of Prop. 2.8, the representation of Achilles as idle and
maestus when he is bereft of his love-object in Ov. Am. 1.9.33–4 is perhaps not as
irrelevant as it has been considered by some critics (McKeown (1989) ii.272: ‘one
would rather have expected a catalogue of warriors stirred up to activity by love’). The
couplet 35–6 points to the scene of Hector and Andromache in Il. 6, though in a rather
disorientating way. In the Iliad, it is Hector who deals with his helmet, first taking it
off when Astyanax gets scared by it, and later wearing it again (6.467–73, 6.494–5).
And above all Andromache tries in every way to restrain Hector from going to the
battlefield (6.407–38). But see bT 17.207–8 on Andromache who ‘arms’ Hector qua
‘husband-loving’. The sense of Ovid’s rewriting of this Iliadic scene may be, perhaps,
the witticism that in order to enter the battlefield the humanized heroes of love-elegy
needed a bit of supportive encouragement, unlike their Homeric versions.
145
Cf. Labate (1984) 92.
146
See above, p. 148.
160 Briseis
love’s militia appears to have no inferiority complex towards the
soldier and his more traditional militia.147
The same confirmation of the militat omnis amans motif, deriving
from the privileges which a warrior has when he is also a lover (then,
again, amat omnis militans), is found in Ars am. 2.709–16, where
military cruelty is presented as a sort of paradoxical aphrodisiac. Ovid
suggests here a list of warriors who were also lovers, and by virtue of
their military ars were able to find their way to the most sensitive
spots in the partner’s body. No hands were too tough or too cruel for
love:
fecit in Andromache prius hoc fortissimus Hector
nec solum bellis utilis ille fuit;
fecit et in capta Lyrneside magnus Achilles,
cum premeret mollem lassus ab hoste torum.
illis te manibus tangi, Brisei, sinebas,
imbutae Phrygia quae nece semper erant.
an fuit hoc ipsum quod te, lasciva, iuvaret,
ad tua victrices membra venire manus?
Most valiant Hector of old so acted with Andromache, nor in war alone
did he avail. Thus did the great Achilles with the Lyrnesian captive,
when weary from the foe he burdened the soft couch. By those hands
did you suffer yourself to be touched, Briseis, that were imbued in
Phrygian blood; was it this very thing, wanton one, that delighted you,
that a conqueror’s hands should caress your limbs?
147
On the assertive pride which differentiates Ovid’s militia amoris from Propertius’
(especially 1.6) and Tibullus’ (1.1.75–8) statements, see above all Cahoon (1988) and
Dimundo (2000) 187–201. Following in this ‘utilitarian’ interpretation of love as a
stimulus to military prowess will also be Statius, Silv. 4.4.35–8: talis cantata Briseide
venit Achilles j acrior et positis erupit in Hectora plectris. j te quoque flammabit tacite
repetita parumper j desidia . . . ‘so came Achilles the fiercer after he had sung of Briseis;
putting by his quill, out he burst against Hector. You also shall idleness silently inflame,
sought again for a little while . . . ’. Statius seems to interpret Achilles’ music not as
consolatory but as restorative—a respectable form of relaxation which reinstated
Achilles to military efficacy, if not violence, and so an illustration of the principle that
maior post otia virtus (4.4.34): see Corti (1991) 210–12. It is thus a possibly new
interpretation of Achilles’ lyre-playing, at the same time both thoughtfully erotic and
dignifying. This, in fact, is not the only time Statius adopts a kind of moderating stance
towards the character of Achilles. So also in the case of Achilles on Scyros: see above,
pp. 71–89. On the great late-antique fortune of the music of Achilles, and of the
professional Achilles-like music/poetry that is an otium as constructive and useful as
a negotium, see Mondin (2002); Bowersock (2006) 48–53.
Briseis 161
Achilles is, in fact, the most infamous example of this paradox,
since his murderous hands are stained not only with Trojan blood as
he approaches Briseis (Ars am. 2.714), but also with the blood of her
husband and brothers (Il. 19.291–6)—and yet these same hands
succeed in their caresses. Interestingly enough, Ovid does not draw
attention to the slaughter of Briseis’ family, mentioning only Achilles’
Trojan slaughter, though she really does for lust what Priam had done
in order to ransom Hector’s body in Il. 24.478–9: Œ å EæÆ j Øa
Iæçı, Æ¥ ƒ ºÆ Œ ıx Æ ‘[Priam] kissed [Achilles’]
hands, those terrible, murderous hands, which had killed many of
his sons’.
Ovid constructs perfectly integrated heroes of love and of war who
are at once Iliadic, but also ‘beyond’ the Iliad; and he supplements the
Iliad by adding what Homer had not (yet) said about Hector’s or
Achilles’ sexual life. Along the same lines of ‘constructive’ rethinking
of the Homeric narrative, Ovid also felt free to expose the erotic
feelings which Homer had mentioned only briefly or even just barely
alluded to. The Remedia amoris, in particular, displays new ‘versions’
of two Homeric scenes, which together amount to a systematic
rewriting of the Iliad as an erotic novel.148 In Rem. 469–86 Ovid
adopts Agamemnon as the paradigm of the principle that every old
love is eclipsed by its successor (successore novo vincitur omnis amor,
462), and represents the erotic motivation which led him to deprive
Achilles of Briseis after he himself had been deprived of Chryseis. All
this is completely at odds with Homer’s emphasis on Agamemnon’s
concern for his royal Ø and his need to demonstrate his superiority
over the other Greeks, and particularly Achilles:
Marte suo captam Chryseida victor amabat;
at senior stulte flebat ubique pater. 470
quid lacrimas, odiose senex? Bene convenit illis;
officio natam laedis inepte tuo.
quam postquam reddi Calchas ope tutus Achillis
iusserat et patria est illa recepta domo,
‘est’ ait Atrides ‘illius proxima forma 475
et, si prima sinat syllaba, nomen idem:
hanc mihi, si sapiat, per se concedat Achilles;
si minus, imperium sentiat ille meum.
quod si quis vestrum factum hoc accusat, Achivi,
148
Cf. on both passages Pinotti (2006).
162 Briseis
est aliquid valida sceptra tenere manu. 480
nam si rex ego sum, nec mecum dormiat ulla,
in mea Thersites regna licebit eat’.
dixit et hanc habuit solacia magna prioris,
et posita est cura cura repulsa nova.
ergo adsume novas auctore Agamemnone flammas, 485
ut tuus in bivio distineatur amor.
Chryseis the prisoner of his army, he [Agamemnon], the conqueror,
loved her: but everywhere her old sire wept stupid tears. Why do you
weep, hateful old man? It is well with them; you are hurting your
daughter, you fool, by your officiousness. And when Calchas, safe
beneath Achilles’ protection, had ordered her to be restored, and she
was taken back by her father’s house, ‘There is one’, said Atrides, ‘whose
beauty is next to hers, and, but for the first syllable, the name is just the
same. Her, were he wise, Achilles would freely yield to me; otherwise let
him feel my power. If any of you, Achaeans, blames this deed, it is
something to hold a sceptre in strong grasp. For if I am a king, and no
maiden sleep with me, Thersites may sit upon my throne’. He spoke,
and took her as ample solace for his former love; his passion was
allayed, for the new drove out the old. Learn therefore from Agamem-
non, and take another flame: let your love be split two ways where two
roads meet.
In the Iliad Chryses appeared sad and frightened when he went to
the Greek camp to implore the Atreides to accept his ransom and
return his daughter, and Agamemnon mistreated him and ordered
him to leave and never return. Hence ‘the old man was afraid and did
as he was ordered: he went in silence (Iο) along the shore of the
sounding sea . . . ’ (Il. 1.34). Chryses did not actually cry according to
Homer’s text, but, at least according to some Hellenistic commenta-
tors, the predicative Iο implied that he was holding back sobs
because of the circumstances (IŒø· PŒ N Æ Øa e ŒÆØæ,
bT ad loc.). Possibly aware of this sort of Hellenistic exegesis, Ovid
took the easy step of transforming Chryses’ silence in Homer, at best
an indicator of repressed grief, into outright and explicit tears. But, as
a love poet, he also reinterpreted Chryses’ grief in light of a well-
known topos of comedy and love poetry, and represented his tears as
the typical expression of the old who carp censoriously at the happi-
ness of young lovers.149 After summarizing in only two lines (Rem.
149
Cf. Lucke (1982) 124 and Pinotti (1995) 137–000.
Briseis 163
473–4) Calchas’ advice to hand over Chryseis and Achilles’ support of
this idea, which the Iliad had narrated in 1.53–100, Ovid undermines
the gravitas of Agamemnon’s Homeric speech at Il. 1.109–15, in
which the king defended his attachment to Chryseis by maintaining
that he liked her better than his wife Clytaemnestra; he also under-
mines the gravitas of the following quarrel (Il. 1.121–87), in which the
king and Achilles argue about how the economy of honour was going
to be rebalanced. Indeed, Homer’s Agamemnon presented Briseis’
abduction both as compensation for a deprivation which otherwise
would have left him alone, a king, IªæÆ (Il. 1.118–19), and as a
demonstration of his kingly Ø, namely superiority over everyone,
and in particular over Achilles, who had threatened his authority by
offering protection to Calchas: ‘so that you can fully realize how much
I am your superior, and others too can shrink from speaking on a
level with me and openly claiming equality’ (Il. 1.185–7). Ovid’s
Agamemnon, on the other hand, is far more interested in Briseis
per se. So, instead of eulogizing Chryseis as equivalent to Clytaem-
nestra, as he had done in the Iliad (h Ł K Ø å æ ø j P Æ
Pb çı ‘she is in no way her inferior in body or stature’, 1.114–
15),150 Ovid’s Agamemnon praises Briseis directly for her similarity
to Chryseis (proxima forma, Rem. 475), thereby effectively shifting
the original comparison between Chryseis and Clytaemnestra to one
between Briseis and Chryseis. No doubt Ovid’s Agamemnon relies on
better motivation for his comparison than the Homeric Agamemnon:
apart from being tangibly visible at Troy, and not far away like
Clytaemnestra, Briseis is similar to Chryseis not only in forma—
beautiful appearance—but also in the alphabetical form of her name
(Rem. 476). Besides, the Homeric Agamemnon’s obsession with the
restoration of the ªæÆ as a condition for the restoration of his
authority disappears completely from the perspective of Ovid’s Aga-
memnon.
The only trace of the political element, in quasi-Iliadic terms, con-
sists in Ovid’s reference at Rem. 477–80 to the sceptre as the symbol of
the power that legitimizes his abduction of Briseis. This sceptre had
played a large symbolic role at the beginning of the assembly of Iliad 2,
which serves as a sort of doublet for the assembly of Iliad 1 and recasts
the essence of Achilles’ argument with Agamemnon through the more
150
See above, pp. 108–9.
164 Briseis
unruly eloquence of Thersites.151 But whereas the interpretation of the
sceptre in the Homeric context is fairly straightforward, it is much
trickier in Ovid. Ovid’s Agamemnon maintains that if anyone objects
to his taking of Briseis, he should consider that est aliquid valida sceptra
tenere manu (Rem. 480). But this is precisely the political issue: what
sort of aliquid, namely of authority, does that sceptre represent, and
how firm is Agamemnon’s hold on it? For was it not with that same
sceptre that Agamemnon made his indecent proposal to the Greeks to
give up the war and embark for the return home in Iliad 2?152 Again, at
Il. 2.185–6, when Thersites’ incitement following Agamemnon’s pro-
posal paved the way for the hastening of the assembled host toward the
ships, it was Odysseus, inspired by Athena, who seized that same
sceptre in order to check the mob (Thersites among them), after he
had snatched it from the hands of an apparently paralysed Agamem-
non.153 Ovid’s Agamemnon had also sworn by his sceptre that he had
never touched Briseis—which, at least according to Ov. Rem. 783–4
(see below), was almost certainly a bare-faced lie.154 Furthermore, not
only was the sceptre’s authority questionable, but it was also not going
to be secure in Agamemnon’s hands for very much longer: as Ovid’s
readers will know in light of their Odyssey (11.387–434) and their
tragedy (e.g. Soph. El. 417–23; Eur. El. 318–22), it was soon going to
151 152
See below, n. 160 and pp. 271–3. Cf. Whitman (1958) 160.
153
Cf. Easterling (1989) 109.
154
In Il. 19.258–60 Agamemnon had sworn not on the sceptre but by the gods: see
below, pp. 166–8. The fact that Ovid’s Agamemnon swears on the sceptre may just be
another way of emphasizing the solemnity of his oath: on this function of the sceptre,
Compbellack (1948); Easterling (1989) 105–6. But I like the idea that in Rem. 784
sceptrum non putat esse deos Ovid humorously implies that his Agamemnon avoids
invoking the gods directly (as Homer’s Agamemnon had done), since he believes that
there would be more danger perjuring himself. Ovid would thus perhaps suggest that
Agamemnon did not believe in the common interpretation of the sceptre as a symbol/
replacement of the authority of the gods as testimonies of the oath. See first of all Serv.
ad Verg. Aen. 12.206 ‘the reason that a sceptre was used at treaties is that our ancestors
always used an effigy of Jupiter, and because it was irksome [to do this], especially
when they were concluding treaties with nations far away, they came up with a
solution: by holding a sceptre they reflected a sort of image of Jupiter’s effigy, for
indeed the sceptre is particular to Jupiter’; already Il. 7.411–12 “‹æŒØÆ b Z f Y ø
Kæªı Ø ῞HæÅ”. j S Ng e ŒBæ I å Ł A Ø Ł E Ø ‘“and let Zeus,
loud-thundering husband of Hera, be witness of our oaths”. So speaking he [Aga-
memnon] held up his scepter for all the gods to see’, where T to 7.412 comments:
æıæÆ ÆPf ŒÆºH ‘calling them as witnesses’; also 9.98–9. For the sceptre as a
symbol of the divine power allotted by Zeus: Benveniste (1973) 324; Mondi (1980)
205–6.
Briseis 165
change hands and belong to the usurper Aegisthus.155 Last but not
least, the holding of the sceptre—like Pelion’s hasta, which Achilles
would have to ‘wave’ (quassare) in Ars am. 1.696156—could also convey
obvious phallic undertones. And these undertones, at least for Augu-
stan readers of love poetry, would be quite suitable for Agamemnon,
who, after releasing Chryseis, could be thought of as aroused but
incapable of satisfaction—a further undercutting of his pretensions to
royal dignity.157
Ovid’s Agamemnon is thus portrayed as far from successful in his
assertion of political authority, even in comparison with the Homeric
Agamemnon. But he nevertheless seems to articulate a principle of
authority, although a quite different one, when at Rem. 481–2 the
reaffirmation of his authority as a king is made to depend on the
presence of a woman in his bed. Most humorously, this Agamemnon
practically ‘hijacks’ the conjecture of the Homeric Thersites, when
at Il. 2.225–42 the latter had defiantly attacked the king’s authoritar-
ianism and avarice, thus practically performing the role of a
more mundane double of Achilles, and presenting a ‘less heroic’
point of view on the fight between him and Agamemnon158 (such
an exacerbated caricature that not even the soldiers could eventually
stand his ‘defective sense of fitness’,159 though in principle they, as the
epic commoners, might be believed to share his prosaic point of
view).160 Thersites concluded his attack against Agamemnon by
musing: ‘What are you missing? Your tents are filled with bronze,
and there are women enough in your quarters, choice girls . . . Or are
you missing some young woman, so you can twine in love with her,
and keep her secluded all for yourself?’ (Mb ªıÆEŒÆ Å, ¥ Æ ª ÆØ
K çØºÅØ, j l ÆPe I çØ ŒÆ å ÆØ;), Il. 2.225–33. The
Homeric Thersites, with his prosaic and materialist logic, could not
even conceive of Agamemnon’s aristocratic idea that a single lost
ªæÆ was enough to diminish his overall Ø, and that he thus
needed to be compensated immediately: what Thersites could figure
out with his materialism was that Agamemnon was perhaps missing
the exclusive personal possession of ‘some young woman’ to have sex
155 156
Cf. Pinotti (2006) 116–17. See above, pp. 69–71.
157
On this symbolism in Sophocles’ El., cf. Devereux (1976) 238–51.
158 159
Cf. in particular Postlethwaite (1988). Finley (1978) 103.
160
On Achilles and Thersites, see below, pp. 270–9. Ovid’s conflation of the assemblies
of Iliad 1 and 2 has an obvious philological basis, as the assembly of Book 2 repeats the
assembly and quarrels of Book 1, ‘in a debased but clearer form’: Thalmann (1988) 20.
166 Briseis
with, and to be kept ‘secluded all for himself’ (having lost Chryseis,
whom he had to hand over to her father). The Agamemnon of Ovid,
who is much more down-to-earth than his Homeric counterpart,
constructs his own idea of royal authority precisely around the ‘status
symbol’ of a woman permanently dedicated to his bed—a status
symbol which Thersites had conjectured to be essential for him. In
fact he appears implicitly to quote Thersites as his ‘source’, in Rem.
482: if he does not secure an exclusive woman for himself, he believes
he ought rather to transfer his kingship to Thersites; Thersites in fact
owned the copyright of the principle, now shared by Ovid’s Aga-
memnon, that a king needs a woman exclusively assigned to his lust,
in order to be a real king!
A second episode of the rivalry of Achilles and Agamemnon—
rediscovered in its dimension of an erotic rivalry—is mentioned by
Ovid at Rem. 777–84:
hoc et in abducta Briseide flebat Achilles,
illam Plisthenio gaudia ferre viro.
nec frustra flebat, mihi credite: fecit Atrides,
quod si non faceret, turpiter esset iners.
certe ego fecissem, nec sum sapientior illo:
invidiae fructus maximus ille fuit.
nam sibi quod numquam tactam Briseida iurat
per sceptrum, sceptrum non putat esse deos.
This too did Achilles bemoan in the loss of Briseis, that she should give
joy to the Plisthenian hero; nor bemoaned he without cause, believe me:
the son of Atreus did what none but an impotent sluggard would have
failed to do. Certainly I would have done it, nor am I wiser than he: that
was the greatest reward of the quarrel. For that he swears by his scepter
that Briseis never was touched: he deems not his scepter to be god.161
Rem. 777–8 appears to synthetize the famous tears of Achilles of
Il. 1.349 (a crucial aspect of Achilles’ emotional sensitivity in the Iliad,
and one which Hellenistic scholars did not refrain from acknowledg-
ing, as we have seen) with his seemingly dismissive but potentially
distressed phrase in Il. 9.336–7 about Agamemnon and his relations
with Briseis (BØ ÆæØÆø j æ Łø), and the most solemn oaths of
Agamemnon that he had never touched Briseis (Il. 19.258–65; see also
161
On the sense of the last couplet, and in general Ovid’s mockery of Agamem-
non’s sceptre, see above.
Briseis 167
9.132–4 and 274–6). Ovid thus calls on the elegiac topos of the
intensity of Achilles’ pang of love, but he expands the range of his
pain: not simply sexual solitude, but also jealousy. Homer had left
the tears of Achilles unexplained. Ovid, with a sort of mocking ex-
planation, or perhaps correction, of Homer, illustrates these tears by
supposing that Achilles must have been aware that Agamemnon was
going to have sex with Briseis, and so he was painfully jealous. No
hint of the Homeric Ø survives in Ovid, which one might have
otherwise supposed to be another plausible reason for Achilles’ tears:
in Ovid they are the unambiguous expression of a lover’s frustration
as he imagines his beloved in the arms of another. The concern of
the Homeric Achilles for his social, public Ø is totally replaced
by the preoccupation of the Ovidian Achilles with his private,
sexual Ø.
At the same time, Ovid seems to poke fun at a familiar motif of love
poetry, namely the specialized function of Achilles in love as an
argumentum a maiore. As we have seen, Achilles had been adduced,
e.g. in Prop. 2.8, to justify the weakness of the human lover, and of the
love poet behind him. Thanks to his experience as a lover and love
poet, Ovid shows that he is able to interpret the ‘real’ psychology of
the Homeric heroes better than Homer. He knows all too well, for
instance, what one should unfailingly do with a concubine at hand,
and how to interpret Achilles’ reactions, independently of and in
contrast with what Agamemnon would have done according to his
precise Iliadic oaths (about not touching Briseis), or what the Hom-
eric Achilles felt and thought (in the Iliad Achilles did not react with
suspicious jealousy to Agamemnon’s assurance about his non-affair
with Briseis). In fact, mihi credite of Rem. 779 seems to ask the readers
to trust him, not Agamemnon—and not Homer. As for nec sum
sapientior illo of 781, it allusively points to Prop. 2.8.39 inferior
multo cum sim vel matre vel armis quoted above, but in order sub-
stantially to reverse the author’s self-assessment. After checking and
openly denying the credibility of Agamemnon’s statements about
himself and Briseis in the Iliad, and before adopting in Rem. 782
the self-evident ‘proof’ that enjoying sex with Briseis was the most
important thing at stake in the fight between Agamemnon and
Achilles, the litotes nec sum sapientior hardly conveys a plain admis-
sion of the poet’s inferiority. Instead, the phrase may rather imply:
‘not that I am/need to be wiser than Agamemnon, to do what I would
have done’, or ‘anyone who is not actually mentally defective would
168 Briseis
have done what Agamemnon did’.162 Sapientior, in particular, also
takes the opportunity of gently mocking Agamemnon, as ‘wisdom’
was certainly not one of the (rather few) positive aspects of his
character in the Iliad.163 The impression that Ovid presupposes
here the relatively long elegiac history of the ménage à trois Agamem-
non–Achilles–Briseis, and that he manifests the proud awareness of
his ‘coming after’, is confirmed by the playful emphasis on the
topicality of Rem. 777 in abducta Briseide. This phrase exactly repeats
Am. 1.9.33, and in particular abducta is a sort of post-Homeric
formulaic qualification for Briseis that also occurs in Trist. 4.1.15
abducta Lyrneside; see also Her. 8.86 abducta . . . coniuge.164 An
intra-textually vigilant reader of Ovid’s erotic works might have
been left with the idea that the abduction of Briseis was not suffi-
ciently emphasized in the Iliad, nor Briseis herself quoted enough, to
give birth to any memorable formulas about her abduction, whereas
Ovid had promoted this abduction to a sort of ‘typical scene’ in the
frequent elegiac motif of Achilles/Agamemnon in love with Briseis.
A similar statement of the superiority of the point of view of love
poetry can be found in Trist. 2.371–4, a non-erotic passage where the
author operates as a historian and apologist of love poetry, and
merges the traditional programmatic opposition of elegy to war
with the topos of ‘love is war’165 through a sort of deliberate ‘reductive
appropriation’166 demonstrating that, if an erotic reading turns out to
be possible even for the elevated Homer (remarkable the emphasis in
Ilias ipsa),167 then eros is really everywhere:168
Ilias ipsa quid est aliud, nisi adultera, de qua
inter amatorem pugna virumque fuit?
quid prius est illi flamma Briseidos, utque
fecerit iratos rapta puella duces?
The very Iliad—what is it but an adulteress about whom her lover
and her husband fought? What occurs in it before the flaming
162
Cf. Henderson (1979) 134–5.
163
Cf. Kalinka (1943) 56–63; Taplin (1990) 78–9.
164
Cf. Fedeli (2005) 590. See also a rapta Briseide of Her. 3.1 and in erepto . . .
amore in Prop. 2.8.36.
165
Cf. Rosati (1999).
166
For the definition: Viarre (1986) 371, already quoted by Rosati (1999).
167
ipsa can at the same time humorously highlight the tendentiousness of Ovid’s
declaration: Hinds (2000) 229.
168
Ingleheart (2010) 300.
Briseis 169
passion for Briseis and the feud between the chiefs due to the seizure
of the girl?
In this case, as well as in the case of Rem. 777–84, the experience of
love (poetry) leads the poet to sit in judgement over the real essence
and meaning of the whole war for Troy, here designated through
Homer’s Iliad as pars pro toto169 (2.371–2), and of the Iliad in
particular (which seems the focus of 2.373–4): love is the passion
without which no war would have been fought and no Iliad would
have been written. The whole war is reduced to the aetiological
dimension of its ‘inaugural substance’ (quid prius est . . . ): a pugna
‘fight’ within the love-triangle of Menelaus, Paris, and Helen. The
raison d’être of the specific fight underlying the Iliad as a poem, on
the other hand, was the ‘love for Briseis’ (flamma Briseidos), and the
fury provoked by her abduction in another triangle involving the two
‘chiefs’ Agamemnon and Achilles; also the Odyssey, at 2.375–6, is
reduced to a poem which only deals with a woman wooed by too
many suitors in the absence of her husband. It has been correctly
observed that these ‘odd judgements, which reduce the fount of epic to
a pair of typical scenes from Roman erotic elegy’ can be a thoughtful
and provocative response to the caprice of Augustus for epic:170 Ovid
would oppose his one-sided paneroticism which kills the autonomy of
epic to Augustus’ unbalanced flirtation with epic.171 More generally,
169
Not dissimilar Prop. 2.1.49–50 solet illa levis culpare puellas j et totam ex Helena
non probat Iliada ‘she [scil. Cynthia] likes to blame fickle girls and on Helen’s account
censures the whole Iliad’.
170
Cf. Williams (1994) 193–4.
171
The fact that Ovid places side by side the responsibilities of Helen and Briseis in
the stories, respectively, of the war at Troy and the Iliad, may find a parallel in a cycle
of fresco panels mainly representing divine and heroic episodes of love of different
kinds, in particular from the war at Troy, which was in the atrium of the House of the
Tragic Poet at Pompeii: the hieros gamos of Hera and Zeus on Mount Ida (cf. Il.
14.153–353) and a scene with Aphrodite perhaps from the judgement of Paris
featured on the south wall, whereas on the east wall was the abduction of Briseis
(LIMC ‘Briseis’ 3 (here Pl. 5), discussed below), side by side with Helen entering the
ship in which she was sailing to Troy with Paris; opposite these two panels, on the west
wall, was the wrath of Achilles, who was represented with Agamemnon and Athena at
the moment when she kept him from unsheathing his sword, and a panel with
Amphitrite, Poseidon, and Eros. Briseis and Helen, both women in a transitional
phase, joining or leaving their men, were thus visually linked in this atrium in a sort of
‘memory theatre’ for learned viewers that invited consideration of their different
situations (Briseis a slave but faithful, leaving Achilles against her will; Helen married
but adulterously abandoning her husband for a lover, etc.), but also invited compari-
son of similarities. The most obvious pictorial links between them are their common
170 Briseis
Ovid’s tendentiousness could easily be felt by erotic poets and readers
as a retaliation of a kind for the traditional ‘maleness and militariness
of the genre to the exclusion of matters female and erotic’.172
Apart from the partisanship of such a reductive overview of the
plots of the Homeric poems, Ovid’s passage slightly manipulates the
order of presentation of the facts in the Iliad’s opening. There, accord-
ing to our standard text, only Achilles’ wrath is immediately men-
tioned (1.1–7), whereas the anticipation of the abduction of Briseis is
delayed down to 1.184–7,173 and the statement that the fight
( å ŁÆØ) between him and Agamemnon takes place because of the
girl ( ¥ ŒÆ ŒæÅ) comes only at 1.298–9 and 2.377. As a result of
this order of presentation, all the events concerning Agamemnon’s
defiance of Chryses, Apollo’s plague, Achilles’ suggestion of consulting
Calchas, Calchas’ response, and a large portion of the relevant debate
among the Greeks actually ‘come before’ the first appearance of Briseis
and her abduction in the Iliad. Instead, Ovid emphasizes the hierarch-
ical and chronological primacy (prius)174 of the effects of passionate
love both in the Iliad and in the history of the war at Troy.
I find it appealing to suppose that Ovid’s presentation of the sequence
of events in the first book of the Iliad was favoured by an alternative
textual tradition of the beginning of this poem. After the description of
the wrath of Achilles, which is introduced first of all as the ultimate
consequence of Zeus’ will—‘Sing, goddess, of the anger . . . which
brought uncounted anguish . . . and hurled down to Hades . . . and this
was the working of Zeus’ will’—the text of Il. 1.6–7 that has come down
stance and lowered heads as well as their similar backgrounds of buildings and
helmeted soldiers; both are escorted away by a man grasping an arm; both appear
on the outer edge of the picture, Helen on the left and Briseis on the right, so that, seen
in place, they seem to turn toward each other and form a kind of closed diptych. The
binary opposition Briseis/Helen overlaps with the triangular relationship involving
their two panels and the panel of the wrath of Achilles, which was a direct conse-
quence of Agamemnon’s abduction of Briseis: on the one hand, the purple robes of
Achilles and Agamemnon and the shields placed behind their heads ‘establish cor-
respondences that underline the cause and effect of Achilles’ anger’, on the other, the
viewer is also stimulated to acknowledge the connection between Paris and Agamem-
non, as both had taken women from other men, with Achilles fighting in war for the
theft of Helen by Paris and in personal strife against Agamemnon’s abduction of
Briseis. Cf. Bergmann (1994) 232–7, 245–6.
172
Hinds (2000) 229.
173
See already Ingleheart (2010) 302.
174
On the inopportuneness of prius in terms of value and not chronology (i.e.
more prominent) cf. Ingleheart (2010) 302.
Briseis 171
to us in all the medieval manuscripts and can thus plausibly be viewed as
the vulgate in the ancient world is: K y c a æHÆ ØÆ Å
Kæ Æ j æ Å ¼Æ IæH ŒÆd E åØºº ‘from the time
Atreus’ son, the lord of men, and godlike Achilles first quarrelled and
parted’. In this form, lines 6 and 7 state that the cause of the wrath of
Achilles had been a quarrel between him and Agamemnon, but no
further details are provided, so that for more than 150 lines it is left
unsaid that this quarrel originated from the abduction of Briseis. But a
different divisio verborum of 1.6 appears to have been adopted by some
at some point in antiquity, when the dual form of the verbs was not
acknowledged and Kæ Æ became Kæ Æ, so that ˜%`+˙+˙˝
(as it would have been written) was construed as a prepositional phrase:
Øa Å ‘because of a girl’.175 Probably this reading was just an
artificial and playful output of the Hellenistic age as it did not circulate
in the actual manuscripts of Homer of the ancient world, and is not
recorded at all in the Iliadic scholia (hence we can reasonably infer that
Aristarchus did not favour it, and perhaps did not even think it worth
while to dignify it with an explicit dismissal). In fact, Å is a gloss
only attested elsewhere in two Hellenistic riddle-poems characterized
by an abnormal use of cryptic vocabulary, whose authors will have
enjoyed referencing a bizarre variant reading of Homer: Theocr. (?)
Syrinx 14 and Dosiadas, Altar 1.176 In any case, anyone reading the text
Øa Å Kæ Æ—presuming he or she knew what on earth Å
meant—would have immediately identified Achilles’ wrath as erotically
motivated from the very first lines of the Iliad. This variant, which
Aristarchus was probably correct to despise in scholarly terms, was just
a witticism conforming to the Hellenistic taste for glosses. And Ovid
could simply have considered the events preceding the introduction of
Briseis in the ‘canonical’ text of Iliad 1 as secondary in comparison with
the crucial theme of Briseis and the fight between Agamemnon and
Achilles. Therefore the text with Å was not a necessary preface to
Ovid’s statement, but his knowing of Øa Å Kæ Æ could have
facilitated his statement: with this word division in 1.6, truly nothing
prius est in the Iliad than the fight over a girl!
175
Cf. Theocr. (?) Syrinx 14; Dion.Thr. GG i.3.11.24–5 and 452.28–9 Hilgard;
Tzetz. Exeg. Il. 68.11 Hermann; Eustath. ad Il. 1.6–7 (21.42–5) and 13.29 (918.55–6);
Leumann (1950) 112.
176
These two passages also are the only loci classici recorded by later grammarians
commenting on this gloss.
172 Briseis
In conclusion, in an elegiac context, the Achilles of both Propertius
and Ovid exemplifies the ‘heroism of love’, with his overriding (epic)
concern for his Ø forgotten, or drastically de-emphasized, so that
the furious irrationality of his disregard for his μ/gloria and
withdrawal from the battlefield becomes a consequence not of the
slighting of his honour but of his love-passion, at least from
Prop. 2.8.36 onwards (quoted above, saevit dolor). It comes as no
surprise that a more balanced interpretation of the Iliad as a blending
of the ira of two immoderate antagonists and the sub-motivation of
their erotic passions—a reading which more closely reflects the text
and the dynamics of the Iliad, as we have seen—can be found in
Horace, a non-elegiac author, in a non-erotic passage where he
considers Homer’s didactic utility: Epist. 1.2.
Here we find a picture of both the war at Troy and the Iliadic action
that is similar to the aetiology proposed by Ovid in Trist. 2.371–4
quoted above. But the picture is not distorted so completely as it is in
Ovid’s elegiac logic, in which love is almost all: without privileging
love exclusively, Horace clearly places side by side the passions of love
and ira, not very differently from Ovid in Trist. 2.374 discussed above,
but in comparison with Ovid, he adds a sort of philosophical concern
for the categorization of the emotions.177 He also adopts an openly
derogatory view of the combined effect of the two—perhaps for the
sake of the moralistic and didactic point of view from which he is
considering the Homeric texts.178 The war at Troy is thus labelled by
Horace stultorum regum . . . aestus. Amor affects Achilles, but not
Agamemnon, with only ira common to both: it is these combined
irae that lead both into error and folly (cf. delirant), and the peccata of
scelus, libido, and ira run rampant in Troy as well as among the
Greeks, wreaking havoc as they go. Cf. Epist. 1.2.6–16:
fabula, qua Paridis propter narratur amorem
Graecia barbariae lento collisa duello,
stultorum regum et populorum continent aestus.
Antenor censet belli praecidere causam.
quid Paris? ut salvus regnet vivatque beatus 10
cogi posse negat. Nestor componere litis
177
Cf. Ingleheart (2010) 303.
178
Readings of Horace’s passage in the frame of the ‘moralizing’ interpretations of
Homer for paideutic purposes are provided by Ingleheart (2010) 300–1 and Hunter,
forthcoming.
Briseis 173
inter Peliden festinat et inter Atriden;
hunc amor, ira quidem communiter urit utrumque.
quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.
seditione, dolis, scelere atque libidine et ira 15
Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra.
The story in which it is told how, because of Paris’ love, Greece clashed
in lengthy war with a foreign land, embraces the passions of foolish
kings and peoples. Antenor moves to cut away the cause of the war
[namely, to return Helen to the Greeks]. What of Paris? To reign in
safety and live in happiness—nothing, he says, can force him. Nestor is
eager to settle the strife between the sons of Peleus and of Atreus. Love
fires one, but anger both in common. Whatever folly the kings commit,
the Achaeans pay the penalty. With faction, cunning, crime, lust and
wrath, within and without the walls of Troy, all goes wrong.
The consistent erotic filter through which love poets read the motivations
of Achilles and Agamemnon was not operative only within the bound-
aries of the erotic genres. Some decades after these poets, it also seems that
this erotic perspective on the Iliadic actions of the two leading characters
of the Greek army had become so established and pervasive that it was
thoroughly internalized by the author of the Ilias Latina (most probably
second half of the first century ad). In this Latin epitome of the Greek
epic, however, love did not have the positive role it had had consistently in
the elegiac poets, as a force capable of strengthening the epic heroes in
their martial activity. With a moralizing attitude not dissimilar to that
which Horace adopted in Epist. 1.2 (quoted above),179 here too passion
and its furious manifestations represent a negative force which conditions
the action of both Agamemnon and Achilles (though more so Agamem-
non) in a manic way, thus bringing the Greeks to the brink of ruin. In
other words, instead of emphasizing the political dimension of public
power dynamics and the heroic obsession with Ø, as the Iliad had
done, the Ilias Latina understands the key motivation of the Iliadic action
as a pernicious sickness (pestis) sent by Apollo—a plague which consti-
tutes a mix of love, passion, and individual insanity: ille Pelasgum j
179
Cf. Scaffai (1997) 64.
174 Briseis
infestam regi pestem in praecordia misit j implicuitque gravi Danaorum
corpora morbo ‘for he [Apollo] it was who sent a fell disease into the
breast of the Pelasgians’ king, infected too the bodies of the Danaans with
an illness grave’180 (10–12); ferus ossibus imis j haeret amor spernitque
preces damnosa libido ‘wild love burns deeply in the royal bones and
hurtful lust spurns Chryses’ prayers’ (25–6); turpem caecus amor famam
liquisset in aevum j gentibus Argolicis ‘blind love would have left a
shameful fame forever upon the Argive folk’ (79–80); turpiter occiderit
superata libidine virtus ‘virtue will perish shamefully, destroyed by lust’
(92).
When Agamemnon finally returns Chryseis to her father in the
Ilias Latina, he does so with a non-Iliadic addition, which is in fact an
extension of what Agamemnon swears about Briseis at Il. 19.261–5,
and which reveals the author’s novelistic interest in an erotic reread-
ing of the Iliad. In fact, the Ilias Latina insists that nothing had
happened between Agamemnon and Chryseis, as he returned her
intactam, ‘undefiled’ (64). And yet the king decides to abduct Briseis
from Achilles, not in order to establish the primacy of his power, as he
had maintained in the Iliad,181 but, in post-Ovidian terms (see Rem.
am. 467–86 discussed above), in order to satisfy his lust with a
replacement for Chryseis: non tamen Atridae Chryseidis excidit
ardor: j maeret et amissos deceptus luget amores. j mox rapta magnum
Briseide privat Achillem j solaturque suos alienis ignibus ignes ‘but yet
Atreides’ passion for Chryseis has not ceased; he grieves and in
delusion mourns for his lost love. Soon he deprives the great Achilles
of Briseis, and solaces love’s flames with the beloved of another’
(70–3). As for Achilles’ anger, at 75–6 Briseis’ abduction is referred
to with respect to his honour: ni sibi reddat honestae j munera
militiae, letum crudele minatur ‘unless his prize of honourable service
be restored to him, he threatens cruel death’, which indeed sounds
vaguely Iliadic; yet these munera militiae are, in a way, only the
material aspect of the Homeric ªæÆ, stripped of its societal value,
since Achilles never complains in the Ilias Latina about offences to
his honour, nor does Thetis complain on his behalf about this same
issue when she asks Jupiter to avenge her son, as she had done in the
Iliad. Instead she prefers to point to a concrete sex-offence that
Agamemnon is predicted to commit against Achilles, the future
180
Trans. of the Ilias Latina is from Kennedy (1998).
181
See Il. 1.182–7, and above, p. 101.
Briseis 175
violation of Briseis: quodsi permittitur illi j ut flammas impune mei
violarit Achillis, j turpiter occiderit superata libidine virtus ‘for if it be
allowed for him to violate with safety the love of my Achilles, virtue
will perish shamefully, destroyed by lust’ (90–2, once again Ovidian
terms: see Rem. 777–84 discussed above). As for Achilles, he cuts the
figure of a passionate lover whose feelings are trampled on because of
the intervention of a powerful and, consequently, successful rival.
Shortly before Thetis’ epiphany, for instance, Achilles is presented as
almost succumbing to the fury, provoked as he is by the love which
had already consumed Agamemnon: had Achilles not finally yielded
to Pallas’ advice to hold back his sword already unsheathed against
Agamemnon, ‘blind love would have left a shameful fame forever
upon the Argive folk’ (79–80, quoted above). But Achilles could
control himself, thanks to Pallas’ help; Agamemnon could not.
The Ilias Latina is not isolated in this favourable presentation of
Achilles as opposed to Agamemnon. In fact, this stance finds a very
close parallel in the clear dichotomy of bad lover/good lover, which
we can find in Maximus of Tyre (18.8):
K æøØ ºªøØ Kd ÆNåÆºøØ KæÆ Æd , › b ŁæÆ f ŒÆd
KØÆ, › b l æ ŒÆd KÆŁ· › b I纪FÆØ a ZÆÆ,
ŒÆd ºØæ EÆØ A Ø ŒÆd I غ E· › b IÆåøæ E Kç’ ıåÆ, ŒÆd
ÆŒæ Ø Œ , ŒÆd Iº Ø, ŒÆd I º ŁÆ çÅ Ø, ŒÆd PŒ ¼ Ø Ø.
In the first book we find two lovers contesting over a prisoner of war,
the one bold and obsessive, the other gentle and emotional. The for-
mer’s eyes blaze as he flings threats and abuse at all and sundry; the
latter retreats into inactivity and lies weeping and fretting, and says he is
going away—and then does not leave.182
182
Trans. by M. B. Trapp. See also Max. Tyr. 26.5, where the fight between
Agamemnon and Achilles is presented as a contrast between two types of fury: the
fury of authority and the fury of youth: ‘Homer’s poetry portrays a young man from
Thessaly and a king, Achilles and Agamemnon, the one impelled by rage into
insulting action (Agamemnon), the other reacting to the insult with fury—allegories
of the emotions, of youth and of authority’ (trans. again by M. B. Trapp).
176 Briseis
Achilles. In Ov. Her. 3.15, as we have noted above, Briseis casts her
loss of a ‘lover’ (prospective husband and current owner) in terms
more suitable to a tragic funerary lament, and probably with a special
solemnity: lacrimas sine fine dedi rupique capillos, ‘tears without end
I shed, and rent my hair’.183 Propertius testifies to the same image:
quid fles abducta gravius Briseide? quid fles j anxia captiva tristius
Andromacha? ‘Why do you weep more bitterly than the abducted
Briseis? Why in your anxiety do you weep more sorrowfully than
captive Andromache?’, 2.20.1–2. As particularly the second instance
shows, Briseis is—and can be made to be together with Andro-
mache—the elegiac paradigm of a woman who cries most bitterly
for her man, in spite of the fact that she, unlike Andromache, is just a
slave.184 In the Iliad, however, Andromache actually wept when she
was parted from Hector, who was leaving for the battlefield (6.405
and 6.484), while there is no mention of tears in the Homeric version
of Briseis being led away by Talthybius and Eurybates.
A reasonable explanation, and one often put forward, is that
Propertius or Ovid relied on some lost piece of Hellenistic poetry or
on iconographic models developing the pathetic dimension inherent
in the separation-scene of Achilles and Briseis.185 The solution of
resorting to unknown Hellenistic poets was quite fashionable in the
last century to explain Latin innovations in archaic and classical
Greek models;186 but there is, perhaps, no need in this case to suppose
that Ovid relied on any such Hellenistic poem.
183
As Mathias Hanses suggests per litteras, Briseis’ phrase may have evoked Verg.
Aen. 1.279, where Jupiter promises Venus that Aeneas’ descendants have a bright
future ahead of them: imperium sine fine dedi ‘I have given empire without end’. The
allusion would contrast the epic hero’s aspirations (imperium) with the tears (lacri-
mas) his beloveds are forced to shed as a result.
184
This status is made explicit by Propertius quoted above with respect to
Andromache, and for Briseis at Prop. 2.8 and 2.9; the paradigms of Briseis and
Andromache are combined by Propertius in 2.20.5–8 with other examples of famous
weepers, Procne and Niobe, both of whom had often featured in tragedy. According to
Dué (2002) 108–10, the story of Procne had been ‘elegicized’, as Procne’s murder of
her son was a revenge for her husband’s rape of her sister, and so Propertius could
imply that she was lamenting her betrayed love. The mention of Niobe would then
also point to a most famous Iliadic lament: 24.602–20. The result would be a
‘reintegration of lament and love song, epic, and elegy . . . Propertius reinterprets
elegy as lament and in doing so incorporates epic into lament’.
185
Barchiesi (1992) 206 suggests: ‘Omero descrive non il pianto di Briseide ma
quello di Achille: ma una Briseide più patetica poteva essere suggerita dalla tradizione
iconografica, o dalla poesia alessandrina’.
186
See e.g. specifically about Briseis, Pasquali (1920) 491.
Briseis 177
In fact, while in the Homeric abduction scene Briseis had not cried,
as we have seen Achilles did, as soon as Agamemnon’s heralds took
Briseis away (Il. 1.348–9). These tears were acknowledged by his
mother Thetis at Il. 1.362, and indeed Achilles kept on crying before
and after his mother reached him (Il. 1.357, 360, 364), and she
questioned him directly: ŒºÆ Ø; ‘why do you cry?’187 Transferring
Achilles’ tears to Briseis’ might have been one in a series of attempts
to modernize what had long since become an embarrassing element
of the story: Achilles’ tears. On two of the occasions ŒæıÆ are
ascribed to Achilles (Il. 1.349 and 1.360) the Homeric scholia embark
on complex justifications188 which betray the awareness of the effem-
inacy of crying and its violation of the ideal of male self-control,
absent from Homer but pervasive by the fifth century, as we see in
tragedy.189 Besides, ancient readers of the Iliad may also have been
used to connecting Briseis and tears. So, in the only extended scene
where Briseis features in the poem, the lament for Patroclus, she is
said to have been ‘crying’ (ŒºÆı Æ) at both the beginning and at the
end of her lament (Il. 19.286 and 301). In any case, Briseis’ tears
belong to the same taste for highlighting the pathos of situations
which we can infer from the Hellenistic scholars’ interpretation of
the lament for Patroclus discussed above.
In any case, no such Hellenistic poetic text remains (if it ever
existed), nor does any iconographical evidence present itself before
the first century ad, to substantiate any such speculation. We do,
however, have two vase paintings of the abduction scene from the
classical age, an Attic red-figure kylix of the Briseis Painter from Vulci
of about 480 bc, now at the British Museum (LIMC ‘Briseis’ 1; here
187
It seems plausible that Propertius models the incipit of 2.20 (quoted above),
with the two maternal and anxious questions addressed to a friend, on this scene of
the Iliad, as Fedeli (2005) 588–90 remarks.
188
For Il. 1.349 and the relevant see above, pp. 104–5. b 1.360 explains: PŒ
K ÆÆØ F ŒºÆıŁF, K d P · Pb ªaæ ¼, N ŒÆd ¼ºŒØ q, ‹Ø
º ºÅÆØ· Kº Ł æ ªaæ J ŒÆd ±ºF F Ø E, P Øa ØŒæłıåÆ ‘he does not
cease from weeping, because he is not blameworthy for this. There is nothing strange,
even if one is brave, in having felt grief. He does this as one who is free and frank, not
from want of spirit’.
189
Cf. Monsacré (1984) 137–96; van Wees (1998). Plato, Resp. 388a goes so far as
to suggest cutting out the ‘lamentations by famous men’ from the poetic forms
cultivated in his ideal state, which should leave them to the ‘less reputable women
or the bad men’; in particular, he recommends that Homer and the poets should not
describe the frantic forms of Achilles’ grief for Patroclus in Il. 24.10–12 and 18.22–4,
‘with all the weeping and the lamenting the poet [sc. Homer] described’.
178 Briseis
Pl. 4), and a skyphos of Macron/Hieron from Nola of about the same
age, now at the Louvre (LIMC ‘Bris.’ 2 = ‘Achilleus’ 447). In LIMC
‘Bris.’ 1 Briseis moves with great dignity between the two heralds;
Achilles is seated with his cloak over his head, muffled in rage and
humiliation (he touches his forehead with his hand, which is a sign of
deep sorrow); two men on either side of Achilles’ tent appear to watch
and wonder what is happening.190 Everything in the scene on this side
of the cup is substantially in tune with the Homeric narrative, but a
sort of ‘interpretation’ of what remains untold in Homer is operative
in the presentation of, specifically, Briseis: one of the two heralds
holds her by the wrist, with the gesture of the grabbing of the wrist
(å dæ Kd ŒÆæHØ), a common iconographic motif that expresses the
taking away of a woman in marriage;191 besides, the mantle drawn
over Briseis’ head looks like a bridal veil.192 These possible hints at the
symbolism of the wedding presuppose the understanding that the
concubine of Achilles was doomed to become the concubine of
Agamemnon—Agamenon’s herald, accomplishing the abduction on
behalf of Agamemnon, would thus anticipate Agamemnon in grab-
bing the wrist. They thus also presuppose the opinion that Agamem-
non’s oath in the Iliad (9.132–4=274–6) that he had never touched
her was probably false—an opinion that was bound to be attractive to
Ovid’s sense of humour. In fact Ovid probably expanded on it,193 but
it could also plausibly reflect fifth-century bc common sense. In
particular, presenting Briseis as a wife, and not as a concubine may
depend on the fact that Achilles had called her ‘wife’ in the Iliad, and
Agamemnon had said he preferred Chryseis to his legitimate wife;194
besides, this presentation punctually anticipates the point of view of
the Homeric interpreters, who twice call her ‘husband-loving’.195 The
other side of the cup continues a similar kind of down-to-earth at
interpretative expansion of the Homeric narrative: it depicts the
arrival of Briseis and the heralds at the camp of Agamemnon,
which was the logical destination of the group, as Agamemnon had
been the principal in the abduction of the girl.196
190 191
Cf. Woodford (1993) 68. Cf. Neumann (1965) 59–66.
192 193
As remarked by Shapiro (1994) 13–14. See above, pp. 166–7.
194 195
See above, pp. 108–9. See above, pp. 116–23.
196
As Shapiro (1994) 14 correctly comments, the scene on this side of the cup ‘is
pure invention, but one that for the painter needed no textual authority, only common
sense’.
Briseis 179
The Louvre skyphos (LIMC ‘Bris.’ 2) depicts the same scene with a
more substantial departure from the Homeric narrative. Briseis, rep-
resented holding her chiton and himation with the left hand, is taken
away not by the two heralds of Agamemnon, as in the Iliad, but by a
bearded character identified as Agamemnon, who seizes her by the
right arm, accompanied by Talthybius and Diomedes. Diomedes
more properly belongs to the other scene of the embassy, represented
on the opposite side of the skyphos. But we do not necessarily have to
see this as a case of ‘contamination’ of the episodes of the heralds in
Iliad 1 and the ambassadors in Iliad 9, though such contamination
was not uncommon in later periods, and perhaps Diomedes was
included in the abduction scene only for reasons of representative
symmetry.197 However, in the Homeric text, Agamemnon had only
threatened the possibility of his own personal intervention in abduct-
ing Briseis (Il. 1.184–5 and 322–5), a threat never carried out in the
Iliad.198 And when Agamemnon is presented as the one who ‘took
away’ Briseis (always IæÆ, formulaically at the end of the line)—
by Achilles in dialogue with Thetis, 1.356; by Thersites in his attack
against Agamemnon, 2.240; by Nestor in dialogue with Agamemnon
himself, 9.107—Agamemnon’s responsibility as the principal of the
abduction has to be presupposed, rather than his concrete participa-
tion. Therefore, Macron appears to have introduced Agamemnon in
this scene in order to make Achilles’ resentment more dramatically
motivated,199 or to portray Agamemnon and his sexual goals as the
real principal accessory before the abduction.200 On the other side of
the skyphos is a version of the embassy scene of Iliad 9, in which
197
Massei (1969) 156.
198
These threats ‘stress (indeed they exaggerate) the arbitrary exercise of power
and violation of the protocols of distribution that occur when a single individual takes
into his own hands a procedure that all agree is conventionally performed in the name
of the community’: Allan and Cairns (2011) 115.
199
Kossatz-Deissmann (1986) 158. As observed by Carandini (1965) 14, the sky-
phos attests ‘a phase of comment’, rather than of mere ‘illustration’ of the Iliad.
200
R. Osborne suggests per litteras: ‘the decision of Macron to show Agamemnon
himself taking Briseis away might be thought of as the artist’s solution to the problem
that pictures don’t easily allude to the absent. So one has to be familiar with the Iliad
in detail to know that if it is Talthybius who is leading Briseis away then Briseis must
be being led to Agamemnon. But here, by having Agamemnon present himself, this is
spelled out. There is more here in the way Agamemnon is presented. Pot painters
showing Talthybius leading Briseis away are sometimes, at least, careful to have him
grip her arm only through her cloak. But here Agamemnon very prominently takes
her wrist (å dæ Kd ŒÆæHØ motif). So we don’t just see Briseis being removed from
180 Briseis
Achilles, seated and flanked by Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax, is
enveloped in his himation, while his helmet and sword are hanging
from the wall, symbolizing his withdrawal from battle. The vessel was
thus possibly designed to be read as a cause–effect sequence, with the
abduction to be taken as the ‘cause’ of the embassy.201
In the Louvre skyphos, as well as in the British Museum kylix,
Briseis does not cry: the gesture of holding the chiton implies in the
former that she is going to cover her head (as in other representations
of the abduction), but her stance is as dignified as in the British
Museum cup. The only certain representation of Briseis crying is
found in a Pompeiian fresco from the House of the Tragic Poet,
now at the Museo Archeol. Nazionale of Naples (LIMC ‘Bris.’ 3,
here Pl. 5). The fresco dates from the age of Vespasian, but according
to unanimous scholarly opinion it is based on a fourth-century202 or
Hellenistic model.203 The two heralds approach from the left of the
painting, at whose centre is Achilles, seated in his tent and turned
toward Briseis on the right and surrounded by some Myrmidons in
arms, among them Phoenix. Patroclus, on the right, turns his back to
the viewer, and gently hands over the girl to the heralds. Briseis turns
her glance outwards and raises her right hand to hold her veil up and
wipe tears from her eyes.
This fresco is the oldest of a wide-ranging series of paintings on
Briseis which share a few recurring iconographic elements and have
thus been called the ‘Romance of Briseis’ by Bianchi Bandinelli.204
Achilles, we see her being made love to by Agamemnon. The way she holds out her
veil here is similarly “bridal” (contrast LIMC ‘Bris.’ 1)’.
201
Carandini (1965) 14–15; Massei (1969) 156–8; Shapiro (1994) 16. This ‘para-
tactic’ interpretation is nowadays standard with respect to the relation of the two
scenes; contra Heberdey (1934). A sort of contamination that conflates the heralds of
Book 1 and the embassy to Achilles of Book 9 in the scene of the abduction of Briseis
takes place in the Antioch mosaic from the House of Aion (LIMC ‘Bris.’ 5: Achilles
holds the lyre as in Il. 9.188), and most clearly in the mosaic of the Getty Museum
(LIMC ‘Bris.’ 6: Achilles holds the lyre and is flanked by Phoenix) and in the situla
Doria (LIMC ‘Bris.’ 10: Achilles holds the lyre); perhaps also in the silver plate
formerly known as the ‘shield of Scipio’ (LIMC ‘Bris.’ 8), cf. Carandini (1965) 15–16.
202
Cf. Lippold (1951) 77–81.
203
Cf. Rodenwaldt (1920).
204
Cf. Bianchi-Bandinelli (1955) 118, after Rodenwaldt (1920). The idea of a more
restricted cycle of late-antique paintings, which excludes the Pompeii fresco, has been
proposed by Weitzmann (1954). But Bianchi-Bandinelli’s point of view has been
reconfirmed by von Gonzenbach (1975) and Frangini–Martinelli (1981). I agree
Briseis 181
Most of the surviving items belong to late antiquity and include
mosaics,205 engravings,206 miniatures,207 a papyrus drawing,208 and
a stone relief.209 The romantic twist of many of these paintings is
revealed by the fact that one of the most frequent iconographical
features linking them consists of the sad faces of Achilles and Briseis
romantically turned toward each other (at least the Antioch mosaic
from the House of Aion, the mosaic of the Getty Museum, min. vi of
the Ilias Ambrosiana; in the PMon. Gr. 128 we miss the image of
Achilles in his tent because of a lacuna, but Briseis is turned to the
point of the painting where Achilles should have been repre-
sented).210 Compare the classical kylix at the British Museum
(LIMC ‘Bris.’ 1, Pl. 4), where Achilles looks in the direction of Briseis,
but she is turned in the opposite direction. It seems telling that,
despite this general romantic twist displayed in the paintings of the
‘Romance of Briseis’, the only painting in which Briseis cries is in fact
one of the earliest, the first-century Pompeii fresco (Pl. 5, described
above)—a pictorial parallel which is thus chronologically and geo-
graphically close to the crying Briseis of Propertius and Ovid.
Of course, if Briseis’ gesture of wiping the tears from her eyes was
already current in the Greek model from which this fresco is usually
assumed to be derived, then we may also suppose that this original is
with Carandini (1965) 15 that the Pompeii fresco and the mosaic in the House of Aion
(LIMC ‘Bris.’ 5), as well as the silver plate once known as the ‘shield of Scipio’ (LIMC
‘Bris.’ 8—if this plate represents Patroclus leading out Briseis, as suggested e.g. by
Bulas (1929) 82–4 and Levi (1947) i.48, and not the restitution of Briseis by Aga-
memnon after his reconciliation with Achilles in Il. 19, as traditionally believed: see
now Childs (1979)—display a romantic emphasis which is slightly different from the
‘philological’ fidelity to the Iliad narrative of other items of the ‘Romance of Briseis’,
like the miniatures v and vi of the Ambrosian manuscript of the Ilias (Childs (1979)
20). What is revealing, however, about the romantic twist of the late-antique paintings
of Briseis, is that these very ‘philological’ miniatures include (min. vi) the exchange of
distressed glances by Achilles and Briseis; see below.
205
Mosaic from the House of Briseis’ Farewell, Antioch, end of the 2nd cent. ad:
LIMC ‘Bris.’ 4; mosaic from the House of Aion, Antioch, about ad 250: LIMC ‘Bris.’ 5;
Malibu mosaic, Getty Mus., 2nd cent. ad: LIMC ‘Bris.’ 6.
206
Silver plate of Paris, Cab. Méd. 2875, called ‘Shield of Scipio’, 4th cent. ad:
LIMC ‘Bris.’ 8; bronze plate of British Mus., same age: LIMC ‘Bris.’ 9; bronze bucket in
the Doria Pamphilj collection, Rome known as ‘situla Doria’, 5th cent. ad: LIMC
‘Bris.’ 10.
207
Min. v-vii of Ilias Ambrosiana, 5th cent. ad: LIMC ‘Bris.’ 12.
208
PMon. Gr. 128, 4th cent. ad: LIMC ‘Bris.’ 13.
209
Architrave now at the Coptic Mus. of Cairo, end of the 4th cent. ad: LIMC
‘Bris.’ 11.
210
Cf. Frangini and Martinelli (1981) 6.
182 Briseis
in turn evidence of the literary or mythological tradition on which
Propertius and Ovid drew. I am not suggesting that these icono-
graphical tears of Briseis, dating probably from the classical age,
were themselves the model in Propertius’ or Ovid’s minds, but they
at least constitute a parallel piece of evidence of the same trend to
emphasize the pathos of the situation, which explains the appear-
ance of Briseis’ tears in these poets. And the customer who paid for
the fresco of the House of the Tragic Poet at Pompeii will not
necessarily have commissioned the specific iconographic template
of a crying Briseis for his wall, but it is quite probable that he will
have found that this template resonated with his own literary
memories.211
Iconography may offer another, less sure but intriguing case of
parallelism with literary treatments of Briseis. Ovid’s Her. 3 is not
merely set during the Iliadic night of the embassy to Achilles, it also
‘reduplicates’ the Iliadic scene, setting itself up as a sort of utopian but
frustrated alternative to the Homeric version.212 Briseis fully endorses
the role of ‘replacing’ the ambassadors, when she suggests to the
Greeks, in an imaginary apostrophe, that they should send her as
ambassador to Achilles (Her. 3.127–30), or when she retells to
Achilles her own tendentious version of the story of Meleager (Her.
3.91–8), which Phoenix had already tried to use in Iliad 9 to persuade
Achilles to give up his anger and rejoin the war. In perhaps the most
telling of such moments, she dares Achilles to conquer his own soul
and its rage: Her. 3.85 vince animos iramque tuam, qui cetera vincis!
‘subdue your own angry spirit, you who subdue all else’. With this
exhortation should be compared Phoenix’ appeal in Il. 9.496 Iºº
åØº F, Æ Łıe ªÆ ‘come, then, Achilles, master your great
passion’ (see also Il. 9.255–6, where Odysseus had already reminded
Achilles that his father Peleus recommended to him ‘hold down your
heart’s high passion in your breast’, f b ªÆºæÆ Łıe / Y å Ø
K Ł Ø). Finally, Briseis also exhorts Achilles to rejoin the war
211
About the research of pathos in this painting, already Carandini (1965) 14
observed: ‘ci troviamo di fronte a uno stile rappresentativo più che non narrativo, che
sottolinea un gusto sviluppato per quanto vi è di patetico e di psicologicamente
caratteristico nell’avvenimento; gusto che dovette essere uno, ma non l’unico, tipico
della cultura figurativa di tradizione ellenistica, certo però quello che doveva mag-
giormente e soprattutto piacere agli ignoti committenti romani in generale e pom-
peiani in particolare, in quest’ epoca’.
212
See above, p. 130.
Briseis 183
after accepting her restoration (Her. 3.83–90),213 not without accus-
ing him of being a coward and preferring to strum the cithara and
sleep around to fighting (Her. 3.115–17): in practice she ‘would like
Achilles to reinvent himself as an epic hero who is also an elegiac
lover’.214
This voluntary reconciliation of Achilles with the Greeks, of which
the Ovidian Briseis fantasizes, before returning to the hard reality of
Achilles’ indifference, was precisely the goal which the ambassadors
had tried in vain to achieve during the night of Iliad 9 (in fact, it was
only achieved in the elegiac reinterpretation of the Iliad by
Prop. 2.8.37–8, according to which Achilles was appeased and started
fighting again when Briseis was returned to him; in Homer’s Iliad,
when Briseis is returned to him, Achilles is deeply distressed by his
loss of Patroclus). And indeed, Briseis imagines herself a better
ambassador than Phoenix and Odysseus (cf. Her. 3.129 plus ego
quam Phoenix, plus quam facundus Ulixes ‘more than Phoenix,
more than eloquent Ulysses’).215 She co-opts their arguments and
positions, but replaces their rhetoric of ‘military decency’ with a more
appropriate, she believes, and persuasive rhetoric of love, which—not
coincidentally—puts her at the centre of the action in the Iliad: Her.
3.89 propter me mota est, propter me desinat ira ‘because of me your
wrath was stirred; because of me let it be allayed’. Her past experience
of Achilles’ love allows her to rely on the memory of their sweet
moments of intimacy (Her. 3.131 est aliquid collum solitis tetigisse
lacertis ‘it avails something to have touched a lover’s neck with the
accustomed arms’); that experience makes her more likely to succeed
than the ambassadors.216 So she wants to replace the ambassadors,
and maintains that she can perform better than they. But how does
she know what the ambassadors want or do or say?
The Iliadic Briseis never had any contact with the ambassadors
during the embassy, nor heard them urge Achilles to accept the gifts
(including Briseis) and rejoin the fighting: she was, we must imagine,
sitting in Agamemnon’s quarters. As a well-read character of Ovid,
the Briseis we encounter in Her. 3 might have learned simply from
213
Ovid’s Briseis does not want Achilles’ rejoining the war to become such a
relevant autonomous value that he can forget her, and the parechesis cape/recepta
suggests that war and love are responsive to each other: Spoth (1992) 77.
214
Fulkerson (2005) 96–7: see above, pp. 137–40.
215
See above, p. 130 n. 78.
216
Spentzou (2003) 152.
184 Briseis
reading the Iliad how to be sympathetic to the ambassadors’ plan.217
But a few paintings concerned with Briseis are at least parallel to
Ovid’s fantasy, and may have contributed to Briseis’ following the
example of Phoenix as a storyteller in Her. 3. Already the Louvre kylix
G 152, signed by the Athenian ‘Brygos Painter’ and so from the first
quarter of the fifth century bc (LIMC ‘Bris.’ 52, here Pl. 6), depicts in
the interior medallion a female figure pouring wine to an old male
figure seated, identified by inscriptions as Briseis and Phoenix218:
since the exterior side of the cup is painted with scenes of the
destruction of Troy, they may be pouring libations for the final victory
in the war (inside and outside would thus be in sequence of cause and
effect).219 Behind the two figures is the lower half of a round shield and
a sword in its sheath, hanging from the wall. These details suggest a
warrior’s quarters, which are arguably the tent of Achilles, as the arms
on the wall may point to his withdrawal from the battlefield. Besides,
the representation of Briseis and Phoenix side by side on friendly
terms, though unprecedented in the Iliad and probably the product
of the painter’s fantasy (or his unknown source?), is nevertheless built
on a ‘philological’ basis. In fact Phoenix, Achilles’ old teacher, and
Briseis are the two characters closest to Achilles, who also share at least
two other features: they either stand ready (Phoenix: Il. 9.434–8) or
wish to be able (Briseis: Il. 19.297–9) to return to Phthia with Achilles;
and they are the only people in the Iliad for whom Achilles is said to be
affected by the feeling of KŒ ŁıF çØº E or is loved in return in similar
terms (9.343: Achilles to Briseis; 9.486: Phoenix to Achilles).
This ‘collusion’ of Phoenix and Briseis in hoping for a victorious
end of the war seems to be attested nowhere else in either poetry
or iconography. However, Phoenix also features at least twice in
paintings of the abduction of Briseis belonging to the iconographical
‘Romance of Briseis’, in which he is with Achilles when the heralds
217
Cf. Knox (2002) 128.
218
The Brygos Painter used the same composition for another tondo of a cup
(Tarquinia RC 6846 = 41 Ferrari), but in the absence of inscriptions it is there
impossible to identify the two figures with certainty. Beazley, ARV2 369.4 suggested
Briseis and Phoenix again (see also e.g. Wegner (1973) 91–2), but various other
identifications have been argued. Hampe (1937) 143 and Ferrari (1988) 132 have
observed that the column at the side of the woman points more to a palatial context
than to the tent of Achilles; but the sword and shield hanging from the wall may still
point to Achilles’ quarters.
219
Simon (1976) 113; Kossatz-Deissmann (1986) 164; but it is a rather speculative
interpretation.
Briseis 185
come and take Briseis away: the Pompeii fresco (LIMC ‘Bris.’ 3) and
the mosaic in the Getty Museum (LIMC ‘Bris.’ 6). Both are later than
Ovid, but their original(s), if there were any, pre-dated the Augustan
age. Whatever the precise chronology, such images testify to an
iconographic tradition in which Briseis and Phoenix could commu-
nicate as members of Achilles’ retinue, before the girl was abducted.
And such a tradition might well have inspired Ovid to conceive of the
fantasy of a Briseis who wants to become a second Phoenix after the
failure of the first, and shows how many points of contact join the
ambassadors’ martial-heroic arguments to the rhetoric of her own
peculiar love elegy.
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4
Comrades in Love
EPIC FRIENDSHIPS
1
Provided that in this passage Patroclus’ ‘waiting in front’ of Achilles really
presupposed an exchange of friendly looks in the Iliad. Instead, Patroclus may simply
be waiting attentively for the end of Achilles’ singing for the technical reason that the
two are engaged in a relay performance: cf. below, p. 196.
188 Comrades in Love
the further steps in their intercourse, Pseudo-Lucian has his memory
shift from Homer to Aeschylus, thus revealing that it was difficult to
find relevant instances in Homer, yet proving how easy it was (due to
the intensity of the feelings present in both stories) to fuse Homer’s and
Aeschylus’ different versions into a single synchronic picture.
As we can also see from this ‘backdating’ of Achilles’ and Patroclus’
erotic relationship to Homer, for some ancient and some modern
scholars Homer’s silence did not rule out that the Iliad could be tacitly
implying that they were lovers. Aeschines, for instance, at a trial in
346/5 bc, delivered an oration against Timarchus, whom he attacked
inter alia as a ‘public prostitute’. In order not to sound hostile to
homosexuality in principle—as this impression would have impaired
his point in front of an audience which at least in part was still ready to
accept the ideology and practice of aristocratic pederasty, though at
least its lower-class members were seeing its hubristic implications
with substantial suspicion2—Aeschines embarked on a sort of history
of what he wanted to present as the good, socially commendable
pederasty, and opposed it to the alleged whorishness of Timarchus.
For this edifying history he relied first of all on the paradigm of
Harmodius and Aristogeiton, historical but heroized characters,
whose achievement Thucydides had presented as the result of their
love and Hipparchus’ attempt at seducing Harmodius.3 Immediately
after mentioning the two tyrannicides, Aeschines introduced the two
Homeric heroes Achilles and Patroclus. For both couples he empha-
sized the exceptionality of their relationship and de-emphasized its
banal, sexual dimensions. About Harmodius and Aristogeiton he
comments (Tim. 140):
ت æØ f B º ø b P æªÆ, ÆE ’ Iæ ÆE æ ÅåÆ,
AæØ ŒÆd æØ ª Æ, › çæø ŒÆd , Y æøÆ Y
æ åæc æ Ø E, Øı KÆ ı , u f KÆØFÆ a
KŒ ø æªÆ ŒÆÆ æı Œ E r ÆØ K E KªŒøØ H KŒ Ø
æÆªø.
That is the reason why the city’s benefactors, men excelling in the
virtues, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, were educated by their chaste
2
Cf. Cohen (1991) 175–85; Hubbard (1998) 62–72.
3
Thuc. 6.54, 56–9. Herod. 5.55–6 had given a similar version of the dynamics of
the tyrannicide, but with no hint at an erotic motivation or liaison of the two; cf.
Tsakmakis (1996); Hornblower (2008) 433–40. On the Athenian idealization of the
tyrannicides qua lovers, also Podlecki (1966); Vickers (1995); Stewart (1997) 70–5;
Meyer (2008).
Comrades in Love 189
and legitimate—whether one should call it erotic love or inclination—
and it educated them to be of such a kind that those who praise their
deeds seem in their encomia to fall short of what those men achieved.4
And about Achilles and Patroclus (Tim. 142):
º ø b æH b æd ˇæı, n K E æ ı Ø ŒÆd
çø Ø H ØÅH r ÆØ . KŒ E ªaæ ººÆåF
Å æd —ÆæŒºı ŒÆd åØººø, e b æøÆ ŒÆd c
KøıÆ ÆPH B çØºÆ IŒæ ÆØ, ª a B PÆ
æºa ŒÆÆçÆ E r ÆØ E ÆØ ıØ H IŒæÆH.
I shall speak first about Homer, whom we rank among the oldest and
wisest of the poets. He mentions Patroclus and Achilles in many places,
but he keeps their erotic love hidden and the proper name of their
friendship, thinking that the exceptional extent of their affection made
things clear to the educated members of his audience.
According to Aeschines, Homer was silent, then, about the erotic nature
of the connection between Achilles and Patroclus, because he could take
for granted that the erotic undertones would have been perfectly in-
telligible to his audience, despite his reticence. Through this observa-
tion, in fact, Aeschines ascribes to Homer the thoughtful shunning of
plain banality that the orator had himself displayed in a similar way in
his treatment of Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Aeschines then goes on
to list a series of passages from the Iliad to demonstrate—sometimes
more, sometimes less plausibly5—that the noble intensity of Achilles’
attachment to Patroclus should be read as erotic.
At levels of methodological refinement that are, of course, incompar-
ably superior to Aeschines’ analyses, many modern scholars have tried
time and again to uncover what they think is hidden in the lines which
4
Trans. by N. Fisher, but in contrast to Fisher I stick to the MSS. Baiter and Sauppe
(followed by e.g. Dilts, and now Fisher) corrected æ to <‹ØÆ> æ =
‘whether one should call it erotic love or whatever one should call it’. With this
other text we have, anyway, just a different form of the same hesitation to use the
term æø for these exceptional relationships: contrast Thucydides, who has no
reservations about reusing the term eros four times (6.54.1 and 3, 6.57.3, 6.59.1) to
define the liaison between the tyrannicides (Vickers (1995) 196). The consideration
whether a banal sexual definition of the bond between Harmodius and Aristogeiton is
satisfactory is in tune with Aeschines’ last statement about the inadequacy of every
form of eulogy for the exceptionality of the tyrannicides.
5
18.324–9; 18.333–5; 23.77–91. All these passages are going to be discussed below,
except for the first, Il. 18.324–9, where inferring that Achilles was in love with
Patroclus simply because he accepted Menoetius’ invitation to take care of Patroclus
is, to say the least, ‘not at first sight obvious’ (Fisher (2001) 290).
190 Comrades in Love
deal with the most intensely affectionate moments between Achilles and
Patroclus.6 With a similar agenda, they have also tried to highlight
possible clues that the idea of homosexuality, tout court, left traces in
other Homeric passages as well. However, according to T 16.97–100,
Zenodotus and Aristarchus appear to have agreed in denying that ‘there
were male homosexual loves in Homer’.7 And in fact there are passages
of the Odyssey that might point in the direction of homosexuality,8 but
they are hardly explicit enough to demonstrate that pederasty was such
a conventional practice and ideology for Homer or his audience that it
could be assumed to underlie every intense relationship between men.
In any case, if we believe, with Aeschines, that certain erotic implica-
tions could be unearthed from Homer’s silence on the relationship
between Achilles and Patroclus, then we have to assume that the Iliad
and its later, classical audiences shared more or less the same ideas
about what eros is. But if we just consider what is called the ‘generic’ use
of æ ‘love’ in Homer, applying to even the most mundane things of
everyday material life (more on this below), and its separation from the
idea of sex proper (most often conveyed by the term çØºÅ), we can
doubt that this is the case. Every attempt at unveiling the supposedly
untold in Homer therefore stands on shaky ground.
Instead of forcing Homer’s Achilles and Patroclus to wear the strait-
jacket of the classical idea of pederastic love, we might rather consider
the Iliad not so much an implicit beginning of the pederastic narrative,
but rather take it as the final attestation of the traditional epic motif of
intense male ‘comradeship’ that is found in at least two Middle Eastern
poems whose latest versions precede or are contemporary with the
(likely) time of the Iliad’s written fixation.9 The Assyrian epic Gilgamesh
6
See e.g. von Scheliha (1943) 314–17; Clarke (1978); Cantarella (1988) 25–8;
Ogden (1996) 123–5; Davidson (2007) 255–67.
7
Below, pp. 208–9.
8
The texts most often targeted are the Odyssey passages in which Nestor invites
Telemachus to sleep together with his youngest son Peisistratus (3.397–403; 4.302–5;
also 15.4–5) and the reference to Ganymede in Il. 20.231–5 as ‘the most beautiful
(Œ ººØ ) of the mortals’—‘and so the gods snatched him away to be Zeus’ wine
pourer because of his beauty (Œ ºº )’; cf. most recently Nardelli (2004). But
compare for the case of Ganymede the more openly pederastic interpretation of the
myth which can be seen in HHom.Aphr. 202–17; cf. Percy III (1996) 38, 40. On both
the Odyssey cases and Ganymede cf. Skinner (2005) 42–3. For a thorough refutation of
the supposed evidence that Homer hinted at the practice of pederasty: Patzer (1982)
93–100.
9
Halperin (1990) 87 concludes his influential comparative essay on the Homeric
Achilles and Patroclus (with whose results I substantially agree): ‘rather than viewing
Comrades in Love 191
and the later Books of Samuel in the Old Testament (about 7th cent.)
both display couples of male heroes, respectively king Gilgamesh/En-
kidu and king David/Jonathan, who are characterized by features simi-
lar to those of Achilles and Patroclus (total complementarity of
functions and extreme intensity of feelings) and a similar course of
events (the weaker member of the couple dies, while the other, the king,
takes vengeance). At least the final versions of both poems are not
different from the Iliad about Achilles and Patroclus and opt to label
the great intensity of the feelings uniting these couples not in terms of
sexual bonds, but in terms of friendship. And though the narratives
concerned with these couples turn out to be very eroticized in terms of
language and imagery, the interactions between them remain within the
boundaries of the vocabulary of friendship or kinship—according to a
recent definition, their relations would be ‘homosocial’ but not ‘homo-
erotic’.10 Other analyses, both old and recent, of these couples in
Gilgamesh and Samuel have highlighted that their eroticization is so
sustained that readers could well interpret them as homoerotic lovers.11
However, this phenomenon of innuendo, in these two poems as well as
in the Iliad, seems to concern more the reader-response than the explicit
intentions of the texts. And in any case the common intention of the
texts, in all of the three poems, seems to refrain from adopting clear-cut
labels/definitions that unequivocally point to homoerotic overtones.
heroic comradeship as the origin of “Greek love” . . . I view it as the final playing out,
in the Greek epic, of an earlier narrative tradition’. Other appraisals of the points of
contact between the Gilgamesh epic and Homer’s Achilles and Patroclus are Wilson
(1986) 28–31 and West (1997) 336–8.
10
Cf. Nissinen (1998).
11
Cf. in particular Ackerman (2005); also Nardelli (2007).
192 Comrades in Love
Homer speak of their relationship? In other words, what is the
narrative function that Homer ascribes to it? Despite its obvious
silence about the nature of the relationship between Achilles and
Patroclus, the Iliad not infrequently highlights in the most vocal
way the special intensity of their connection. This intensity remains
unqualified in sexual terms, but is vital for the credibility of the plot of
the Iliad. After the abduction of Briseis, when Patroclus appears for
the first time, and after the failed embassy, when Patroclus makes his
first substantial appearance, the institutional relations between
Achilles and the other Greeks are about to reach (or have already
reached) a substantial impasse. The plot of the Iliad now requires
some exceptional event to trigger a change, and this event has to come
from outside the leaders of the Greek army or the isolated figure of
Achilles.12 While Patroclus is still alive, only he, with his overwhelm-
ing piety and emotional closeness to Achilles, can persuade the hero
to temporarily withhold the decision to keep his men from entering
the battlefield with the other Greeks. With/after his death, the neces-
sity of revenge persuades Achilles to contain his anger and desire for
revenge against Agamemnon. In fact, Patroclus’ exceptional import-
ance for the plot of the Iliad, to which his characterization turns out
to be tailored, is perhaps the main (and valid) clue supporting the
widespread idea that Patroclus is either a character the Iliad moulds
from scratch, or at the very least he acquires in the Iliad a relevance
which he did not have in the pre-Iliadic tradition of the war at Troy.13
But if the intensity of the relationship between Achilles and Pa-
troclus assuredly is a key point in the Iliadic narrative, did Homer also
12
This point is well made by Hooker (1989) 34–5.
13
The idea that Patroclus is invented by the author of the Iliad, or at least that his
relevance is magnified to fit the plot of this specific poem, is discussed with different
nuances e.g. by Schadewaldt (1951) 178–81; Kullmann (1960) 44–5, 193–4; Dihle
(1970) 159–60; Erbse (1983). Kullmann, however, and more recently Burgess (2001)
71–3 (contra Hooker (1989)), emphasize that from the reference in Pind. Ol. 9.70–9 to
Patroclus fighting together with Achilles in Mysia we have to infer the existence in the
Cypria of a narrative concerning Patroclus’ participation in this pre-Iliadic expedition.
As for the flashback in Nestor’s speech in Iliad 11 (see below, pp. 202–3), where the
young Patroclus is described as being at Phthia together with the young Achilles, and
Menoetius as being acquainted with Peleus (cf. also lines 23.87–90, which explain the
reason why Patroclus moved to Peleus’ house), this is a background tale about the
relationship between Achilles and Patroclus which the oral tradition of the Iliad must
not necessarily have drawn from the tradition of the Cypria, but which it may have
invented to substantiate his ‘new’ Patroclus (or, rather, the new greater importance
ascribed to this character): cf. Hooker (1989) 31.
Comrades in Love 193
pursue this ‘intensification’ by labelling their feelings erotic, or at least
connoting them with erotic undertones?14 If we shift our perspective
in this direction, and if we unavoidably conclude that just intensity,
not erotic or sexual intensity, is the main feature of the relationship
between Achilles and Patroclus in narrative terms, we can then
surmise that, in terms of the poetics of the epic genre, Homer had
no interest in emphasizing an erotic ontology of this exceptional
intensity. Perhaps the erotic dimension was beyond the horizon of
martial epic (or at least the Iliadic idea of martial epic) because, in
Bakhtin’s terms, it was a banal and ‘everyday-life’ experience that
could undermine the superior detachment of the great heroes of epic
and threatened to devalue their achievements thus contributing to
‘familiarize’ epos.15 In fact, love seems in the Iliad mainly ‘a feminine
passion, an accident that aids or hinders the hero’s pursuit of duty or
glory’.16 Besides, in terms of the history of ideas, Homer may not have
considered the erotic component as especially intense, and thus a
requisite in his aim of highlighting the intensity of the connection
between Achilles and Patroclus. The Homeric conceptual vocabulary,
in fact, clearly allows for the idea of an intensity of the feeling of desire
which is not necessarily erotic or simply passionate. In the Homeric
poems, æ ‘love’ designates an intense desire, capable of satisfaction
or not, for the most various mundane things, and unrelated to sex or
romanticism: food, lamentation, sleep, song, dancing, war.17 In any
case, it is a fact that neither æ, nor æø,18 nor other terms
designating sexual attraction (such as çØºÅ), are ever predicated
of Achilles and Patroclus—even when at least according to our
mentality (and, probably, already the mentality of classical Greeks
as well) an ‘erotic’ dimension could further increase the intensity of
the bond between the two heroes.
Let us now examine the relevant scenes in more detail. The first
appearance of Patroclus takes place in Iliad 1, in connection with the
14
The last systematic attempt at uncovering sexual undertones implicated in the
text of the Iliad for Achilles and Patroclus was by Licht (1932) 449–52, to be read with
the deservedly cruel criticism of Barrett (1980-1).
15
See above, p. 3.
16
Hainsworth (1991) 142.
17
As observed by Fischer (1973) 47 ‘für Homer ist die erotische Liebe ein Verlan-
gen unter vielen’.
18
Beginning with bT Il. 1.469, it has been maintained that æø would be more
specifically used for amorous passion in Homer. But cf. e.g. Kloss (1994) 24–43.
194 Comrades in Love
abduction of Briseis. After some bitter quarrelling between Achilles
and Agamemnon, which concluded with Agamemnon’s decision to
abduct Briseis, Achilles left the assembly and returned to the tents of
the Myrmidons ØØ ÅØ ŒÆd x æØ Ø ‘with the son of
Menoetius and his other companions’ (1.307). Patroclus, addressed
just by his patronymic, is thus introduced as a member of the group of
Achilles’ ÆEæØ—though he is also immediately distinguished from
them by the fact of being named individually, whereas the other
companions remain anonymous. Immediately afterwards, the heralds
Talthybius and Eurybates, sent by Agamemnon, come to Achilles’
tent and abduct Briseis. When they arrive, they are embarrassed and
frightened, and seem not to dare to report Agamemnon’s order.
Feeling their dilemma, Achilles anticipates their request, and asks
Patroclus to bring Briseis out of the tent: Iºº ¼ª ت b
—ÆæŒº ƪ ŒæÅ j ŒÆ çøœ e ¼ª Ø ‘come, Patroclus
sprung from Zeus, bring the girl out and give her to them for the
taking’, 1.337–8. This time Patroclus is addressed just by his name,
without the patronymic, but with the epithet ت , which is
common for heroes but not necessarily only stereotypical here: it
may confirm Patroclus’ heroic rank at the very moment when he is
to execute a seemingly servile order. The episode is concluded with a
line, S ç , — 挺 b çºøØ K Ł Ł ÆæøØ ‘so he spoke,
and Patroclus complied with his dear friend,’ 1.345, which becomes a
recurring formula in the Iliad to express Patroclus’ prompt obedi-
ence,19 and mirrors in ring composition the introduction of Patroclus
at 1.307 quoted above, where he had been referred to as one of
Achilles’ &ÆæØ— ÆEæ of Achilles is the most common way
Patroclus is defined,20 and Ł æ ø ‘attendant’ is another similar
definition.21 In 1.345, however, we find ÆEæ qualified by çº,
which did not appear in 1.307. This epithet, which will become
extremely common for Patroclus, represents another step toward
the full presentation of Patroclus, which seems to be progressing
19
9.205, 11.616.
20
About 30 times.
21
At 23.89–90 Patroclus’ ghost remembers that Peleus ‘welcomed me in his house
and brought me up lovingly and made me your Ł æ ø’. This term both expresses
the fact that Patroclus is lower-ranking than Achilles and points to his crucial function
in the Iliad as the ‘ritual substitute’ of Achilles’, cf. Nagy (1979) 33, 292–3; Sinos
(1980) 29–37; Tarenzi (2005).
Comrades in Love 195
gradually.22 Besides, it may also be designed to explain Patroclus’
action at 1.345 and help us understand why he ‘obeyed’ so promptly.
However, the ambiguous semantics of çº make it hard to ascertain
whether it is here just a reflexive-possessive adjective, with little if any
effect on the context (as when it is used of parts of one’s own body), or
if it actually connotes a mutual, sentimental ‘affection’ shared by
Patroclus and Achilles. It might also denote an institutional (i.e.
non-sentimental) relationship of co-operative reciprocal obligations
between the members of the warrior caste.23
Patroclus shows up again in Iliad 9. Once again, ambassadors sent by
Agamemnon come to Achilles’ tent, and they list the series of gifts with
which Agamemnon tries to persuade him to rejoin the fighting—among
these gifts is, of course, the restitution of Briseis. Achilles is playing his
phorminx and singing of the ‘deeds of the heroes’.24 His audience
consists only of Patroclus: — 挺 ƒ r KÆ w ØøBØ,
j ª `NƌŠ› º Ø I ø ‘Patroclus alone sat opposite
him in silence, waiting for when Achilles would end his singing’, 9.190–1.
Already some ancient commentators ( A ad loc.) had acknowledged
that P K BØ ŒºØ ÆØ, Iººa `NƌŠª I
w · ŒÆd ªaæ `Pø Kd B ŒºØ Æ q, ›ø ŒÆd › *EØ
‘[Patroclus] was not the only one in the tent, but only he sat opposite
Aeacides, waiting for him; in fact, Automedon was near the tent [cf.
9.209], and equally Phoenix [cf. 9.223?; but see above, pp. 184–5]’. Some
others (bT) specified: EÆ ªaæ K Ø Ø Kd H çºø. XØ b
ÆPe ŒÆŁÇ ŁÆØ ºª Ø j KÆ Ææa f ¼ººı ıæØÆ
‘sweet is the performance which is for friends. In fact Homer says that
only Patroclus sits, or that only he sits in front of Achilles, compared to
all the other Myrmidons’. Immediately after seating the ambassadors,
Achilles asks Patroclus to prepare something to drink for them (9.201–4)
and then to offer a sacrifice to the gods (9.219–20). At the end of a
22
Hooker (1989) 30 correctly observes: ‘unlike Agamemnon, Achilles, and
Nestor, Patroclus is not introduced as a fully-formed character: it is only gradually,
almost imperceptibly, that he grows to the full, dominating structure he has in
Book 16’.
23
The first meaning has been pursued for instance by Landfester 1996; the second
by Hooker (1987), (1989); the third by Nagy (1979) 103–9 and Sinos (1980) 39–46.
For a balanced and recent reappraisal of this issue, cf. Konstan (1997b) 28–33, who
concludes: ‘while hetairos . . . covers a relatively wide range of companionable rela-
tions, those hetairoi who are singled out as philoi belong to the most intimate circle of
a man’s companions and age-mates and may reasonably be regarded as friends’.
24
Il. 9.186–9.
196 Comrades in Love
lengthy description of the cooking of the food, which emphasizes the
care and competence with which Patroclus operates (9.204–17a),
Achilles intervenes, and in perfect symbiosis with Patroclus he arranges
for the final apportionment of the food (9.217b): cf. 9.216–17
— 挺 b E ºg K Ø æÆÇÅØ j ŒÆºE K ŒÆØ Ø,
Iaæ ŒæÆ E åØºº ‘Patroclus took bread and set it out on the
table in fine baskets, and Achilles served the meat’. In his first appearance
Patroclus had been introduced as fulfilling an action that Achilles had
commanded, and Patroclus accomplished. In his second appearance
Patroclus has a similar role as ‘right-hand man’—Ł æ ø, as he is
often called.25 Yet another nuance is added to this assessorial character-
ization, which stresses another kind of complementarity, and a less
ancillary one: the special synchronic parallelism of Patroclus’ to Achilles’
action and vice versa, in what was perhaps a relay performance in which
Patroclus is to take up the song precisely when Achilles leaves off, and
start singing in thematic continuity with him.26 Besides, Achilles parti-
cipates in the action of apportioning the food prepared by Patroclus.
Another key passage that will help us understand the narrative
function of the parallelism/complementarity of Achilles’ and Patroc-
lus’ everyday life is at the end of Iliad 9. When the other ambassadors
leave, Phoenix stays in Achilles’ tent overnight, and Patroclus
gives the order to ‘companions and slaves’ to arrange a bed for him
(9.658–62). Then (9.663–8):
ÆPaæ åØºº f y ıåHØ ŒºØ Å PŒı·
HØ ¼æÆ ÆæŒÆº Œ ªı, c ¸ Ł qª ,
*æÆ Łıª Åæ ˜ØÅ ŒÆººØ æÅØ.
— 挺 æøŁ Kº Æ· aæ ¼æÆ ŒÆd HØ
῏%çØ K-Çø, ƒ æ E åØºº f
ŒFæ ºg ÆN EÆ ’¯ ıB º Łæ.
25
Above, p. 194.
26
I agree with Nagy (1996) 71–3 and (2003) 43–4 that a succession in singing
between Patroclus and Achilles, in a relay performance, is the best way to interpret the
fact that Patroclus was waiting (ª ) for the moment when Achilles ‘would end
(º Ø ) his singing’ (9.191). The verb ºª Ø is technical for a rhapsode ending a
performance or a part of it (cf. Ford (1992) 115 n. 31). There is no evidence for relay
performance in the Homeric poems, or for Patroclus playing the cithara or singing
epic elsewhere, but the fact that Patroclus is said to be ‘waiting’ for the conclusion of
Achilles’ singing, and the text provides no reason why (the text does not even remark
that Patroclus was waiting attentively: cf. Segal (1994) 115; Sider, forthcoming) may
have been easily interpreted in terms of his taking up Achilles’ singing—if, of course,
the relay performance was known as Homeric by the ancients.
Comrades in Love 197
And Achilles slept in the corner of his well-built tent, and beside him lay
a woman he had brought from Lesbos, Phorbas’ daughter, beautiful
Diomede. Patroclus lay down on the opposite side. He too had a woman
lying beside him, the fine-girdled Iphis—Achilles had given her to him
when he took steep Scyros, the city of Enyeus.
The complementarity, and, in this case, the self-sufficiency of Achilles
and Patroclus could not be expressed more emphatically. It is in ring-
composition with the scenario that had welcomed the ambassadors at
their arrival: Achilles playing the phorminx and singing, with Patro-
clus being a sort of privileged and exclusive audience and/or co-player
of Achilles’ music. Both the scene at the beginning of the embassy
and now the combined parallel sleeping of the two heroes at the end
of the same episode have a similar narrative function. They show
that Achilles and Patroclus constitute a sort of social microstructure
of two alter-egos, or better, ‘second-selves’ of each other,27 who seem
perfectly autonomous not only from the rest of the community of
the Greek army, but also from the contingent of the Myrmidons.
Besides, at the end of this night of hectic anxiety and diplomatic
failure for the Greeks, the two friends give the opposite impression
of pursuing stable and calm routines: Achilles sleeps with his own
slave, Diomede, Patroclus with Iphis, a girl whom Achilles had
enslaved and presented to him (again, they mirror each other in
their symbiotic complementarity, though at the same time they also
reconfirm the slightly inferior position of Patroclus as ÆEæ of a
friend/leader). The audience is thus left with a misleading impression:
at least from the looks of it, Achilles and Patrolus move so calmly and
smoothly on the familiar ground of their everyday life that they could
remain where they are and how they are (with each other and with
their women-slaves) indefinitely, in their state of withdrawal from the
27
As for Patroclus featuring in the Iliad as an alter ego of Achilles (and vice versa
up to a point), both are the only ones (together with Hector) who are called ‘equal to
Ares’ (r @æÅØ); Achilles calls himself ‘the best (¼æØ ) of the Achaeans’, Patroclus
‘the best of the Myrmidons’ (Nagy (1979) 34: ‘he has taken upon himself not only the
armor but also the heroic identity of Achilles’); the lament over Patroclus’ body
prefigures Achilles’ death and the lament for him. See above, pp. 120–1. However,
at least from Book 11 onwards, the complementarity of Patroclus and Achilles seems
to be emphasized more frequently than their identity of feelings. Therefore, rather
than ‘alter ego’, Patroclus should be better defined as Achilles’ ‘second-self ’, taken as
‘a figure who represents parts of the hero that he is denying or has somehow lost touch
with, usually through arrogance and pride’ (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in other words):
cf. Van Nortwick (2008) 8.
198 Comrades in Love
battle. In other words, this scene conveys the idea that Achilles has no
need of repossessing Briseis, or at least is or seems anything but
anxious about this goal. But the audience may also be left with the
impression that if something bad happens to either member of this
couple of Achilles and Patroclus, that equilibrium will fade away, and
at that point the survivor may have to lose control of the situation.
This foreshadowing, however, is never made explicit. The only certain
impression with which we are left at the end of Book 9 is that Achilles
does not need Briseis, and thus does not need to negotiate with
Agamemnon.
The last scene of Book 9 is perhaps the most telling passage about
the kind of information that the Iliad is concerned to provide on the
relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. Homer strives to present
their connection as something most intense. But he only highlights
this intensity in terms of the extraordinary complementarity and self-
sufficiency of the couple—there is no hint at a sexual component to
their relationship, and the final scene even leads us to assume the
opposite, when it speaks of separate beds.28 This scene seems to
demonstrate that their micro-society does not need Briseis any
more than Achilles needs the other Greeks; even from a sexual
point of view, Achilles and Patroclus live in their perfectly self-
sufficient symmetry, each with his relevant slave. Of course the fact
that both now sleep with women does not mean that they cannot
sleep, or have never slept, with each other at other times. But it is
telling that the Iliad gives no hint whatsoever of this latter possibility.
28
Bowra (1962) 68 interprets our passage as an ‘implicit denial’ of the love of
Achilles and Patroclus. With a rather weird homophobia, he includes this denial
amongst the evidence of the fact that there are some themes from which Homer
shrinks, ‘because they shock or horrify him’.
Comrades in Love 199
providing one of the solutions to the crisis—the voluntary reconcili-
ation with Agamemnon—which, however, remains the route not
taken in the Iliad. In particular, it is when the ambassadors leave
that this possibility definitely fades away and Achilles’ refusal to accept
Agamemnon’s offer of gifts (and the restitution of Briseis) turns out to
be a long-lasting choice. At this point a symbiotic life with Patroclus
appears to be for Achilles a sort of real alternative to Briseis’ partner-
ship (for everything but sex, I would insist). If one has a friend like
Patroclus (and also, icing on the cake, one can enjoy sex with a young
slave-woman), who needs Briseis?
The impression that Briseis and Patroclus are in a way alternatives
to each other is confirmed by other hints. The only moment they are
in contact in the Iliad is when Patroclus leads Briseis out of Achilles’
tent, delivering her to Talthybius and Eurybates (1.346–7). Conveni-
ently, this is also the precise moment after which they will be sep-
arated for ever. When Briseis appears again in the Iliad, she comes to
Achilles’ tent together with the other ‘gifts’ sent by Agamemnon, as
soon as Patroclus is dead. In fact, the first thing she sees of Achilles’
quarters when she is back is the prothesis of Patroclus (19.282–3), and
the first and only words she utters in the whole poem are a mourning
speech in which she tries to use Patroclus’ supportive authority to
regain her place, or possibly gain better status, at the side of Achilles
(19.282–302).29
There is also a broader set of parallelisms between Achilles’ com-
panions in Book 9 and Book 24 which concerns not only Briseis but
also Automedon and develop the idea of the ‘alternatives’ to Patroc-
lus.30 In Book 9 the ambassadors had found Patroclus with Achilles,
and Patroclus had prepared the meal for them, with the help of
Automedon, and later of Achilles. In Book 24 Priam enters Achilles’
tent and finds inside Achilles ‘and his companions sitting apart from
him. Two only, the heroes Automedon and Alcimus, descendant of
Ares, were busy close to him—he had just now finished his meal, . . . ’
(24.473–5). Remarkable analogies connect the details of the prepara-
tion of food for the guests at 24.621–8 and at 9.201–17. Some of them
29
See above, pp. 117–9.
30
On Antilochus, who in the Iliad Ajax significantly deems to be the most
appropriate person to convey the news of Patroclus’ death to Achilles (17.652–5),
and in the Aethiopis appears to be a replacement for Patroclus at the side of Achilles,
cf. Sinos (1980) 58. The latest attempt at understanding which one of the two pre-
existed and was the model for the other is Davidson (2007) 278–81.
200 Comrades in Love
may be easily explained as an accidental result of Homer’s use of stock
components in a typical scene of hospitality. But a few others really
strike us almost as cross-references—probably not intra-textual allu-
sions like the ones that we are accustomed to enjoy in written poetry,
but verbal homages paid by a newer oral tradition through more or
less close quotations to an older tradition of oral poetry which had
already elaborated a similar episode or scene.31 In particular, at
24.625–6 Automedon is ascribed (with a different subject of course)
the same two lines which presented Patroclus as serving the food
while Achilles apportions it in 9.216–17 (discussed above).32 Even if
these lines were formulaic (though they occur only here), it is fair to
suppose that the poet who elaborated the scene that staged the special
friendship between Achilles and Patroclus recollected and reused a
phrase which the oral tradition had employed for Automedon, who,
as a charioteer, was possibly a more standard or at least less special
incarnation of the Ł æ ø type (this in fact would be the diachronic
direction of the cross-reference, from Automedon to Patroclus, if we
agree that Patroclus’ narrative relevance is an innovation in the oral
tradition which gave rise to the Iliad). And it is certain that at least a
classical or Hellenistic reader would have connected the two passages,
and thus noticed the fact that even the name of Automedon had
occupied in 24.625 the prosodic space of ‘Patroclus’ in 9.216, between
line beginning and trithemimeres caesura. Another time when Auto-
medon and Alcimus had acted in unison with Achilles, temporarily
irritated with Priam, they had been explicitly presented as the ‘replace-
ments’ of Patroclus: ‘then the son of Peleus sprang like a lion to the
door—not alone, but two lieutenants went with him, the hero Auto-
medon and Alcimus, the two of his companions that Achilles hon-
oured most, after Patroclus was dead’, 24.572–5.
But the policy of reciprocal diachronic replacement (and synchronic
incompatibility) enforced between the ‘companions’ of Achilles is
especially evident in the case of Patroclus/Diomede/Briseis. Toward
the end of the book, 24.673–4, Priam and his herald are put to bed in
the same way that Phoenix was put to bed in 9.662; for his part
31
Cf. Foley (1999) 13–34; Schein (2002); Nagy (2003) 7–19; Tsagalis (2008), with
an ample discussion of many instances of Homeric ‘intertextuality’.
32
Automedon really is ‘the second-best replacing the best’, as he is defined by
Taplin (1992) 80—but I am also indebted more generally to Taplin’s brilliant analysis
of the connections between Briseis and Patroclus at pp. 78–81.
Comrades in Love 201
åØºº f y ıåHØ ŒºØ Å Kߌı· j HØ b BæØ ÅU Ææ º Æ
ŒÆººØ æÅØ ‘Achilles slept in the corner of his well-built tent, and the
beautiful Briseis lay beside him’, 24.675–6, just as he and Patroclus had
each been sleeping with a slave girl in 9.663–8, Achilles with Diomede,
Patroclus with Iphis. ‘Briseis the best replaces the second-best Dio-
mede’,33 but Patroclus’ companionship, which together with Dio-
mede’s had been in a way an alternative to Briseis’ companionship, is
simply no longer there to be enjoyed.
It is only Thetis’ intervention, however, that paves the way for the
definitive solution for Achilles’ anguish over his friend, that coincides
with Briseis’ return to Achilles’ side. This solution is somehow un-
expected still at the beginning of Book 24, where Achilles tosses and
turns in his bed and sobs for the loss of Patroclus (24.2–11a)34 and
commits further acts of extreme cruelty against Hector’s body
(24.11b–21). Because of these acts Achilles is still so far from feeling
the general ‘pity’ he will reach at the end of Book 24 that, as Apollo
comments at 24.44, it rather seems that ‘Achilles has murdered pity
(º )’, and Hecuba can describe him as a ‘raw-meat eater’ (24.207).
Just before Priam’s visit, during which Achilles will agree to set aside
his grief over Patroclus, overcome his rage at Hector, and start pitying
not only his fellow Greeks, but even the enemy, Thetis is solicited by
Zeus and pays a visit to her son. Her main point is (24.128–32):
Œ Ke 忨 Oıæ ŒÆd Iå ø
c ÆØ ŒæÆÅ Å h Ø ı
h PB; IªÆŁe b ªıÆØŒ æ K çØºÅØ
ª Ł · P ª æ Ø Åæe ÅØ, Iºº Ø XÅ
¼ªåØ Ææ ÅŒ Ł Æ ŒÆd EæÆ ŒæÆÆØ.
My child, how long will you eat your heart out in sorrow and sufferance,
with no thought for either food or bed? It is a good thing to join with a
woman in love—as I shall not see you live long now, but already death
and strong fate are standing close beside you.
With æ modifying the whole phrase IªÆŁe b . . . ª Ł and thus
designating an action which is presented as preferable to the one
which precedes,35 Thetis neatly contrasts ‘sorrow’ for Patroclus and
33
Again a definition by Taplin (1992) 80.
34
On which see below, pp. 211–15.
35
Denniston (1954) 482. Modern commentators of this passage agree that æ
refers to the action expressed by the whole phrase, and not to the single word ªıÆØŒ.
If it goes with ªıÆØŒ, then Thetis opposes having sex with a woman to having sex
202 Comrades in Love
consequent ‘suffering’ to the pleasurable satisfaction that comes from
food or sex with a woman.36 As there is no way to recover the life of full
complementarity with Patroclus, where sex—we repeat—had never
featured as essential, Achilles has to conclude his mourning and redis-
cover the material requirements of everyday life, such as alimentary
needs and sexual pleasure37—especially since, as Thetis specifies in a
crescendo climax, his life in particular is going to be short.
with Patroclus, as Clarke (1978) 386–8 maintains, concluding that 24.130–1 would
contain ‘the only explicit implication in the entire poem that Achilles and Patroclus
were paederastic lovers’. But it is a fact that a few lines before Achilles could have
erotically remembered sweet moments of intimacy with Patroclus, at 24.2–11, but he
preferred to heroically evoke martial deeds shared with him on the battlefield (below,
pp. 211–12).
36
Not at all a zeugma for Homer, where the broad sense of æ included the desire
for eating and drinking: see above, p. 193. The formula ÆPaæ K d Ø ŒÆd KÅ
K æ & ‘and when they put aside the desire for drinking and eating’ occurs seven
times in the Iliad, and many more in the Odyssey.
37
‘By abstaining from all these typical human activities, Achilles is, according to
the symbolism of early Greek poetry, signaling his withdrawal not just from his fellow
Greeks, but from all human life’: Van Nortwick (2008) 9.
Comrades in Love 203
this point a substantial variance between Patroclus’ character and
Achilles’ surfaces for the first time, which, however, turns out to be
another form of partial complementarity. It is precisely at the point
when some cracks had started to appear in Achilles’ anger (independ-
ently of Patroclus, Achilles had autonomously manifested some con-
cern as to the identity of the soldier whom Nestor had helped out of
the battle, and thus indirectly for his brothers-in-arms)38 that Patro-
clus distances himself from Achilles’ previous total indulgence in
anger. In fact in the second half of the Iliad he becomes distinguished
for the kindness and readiness to compassion which are frequently
observed in him39 and will allow him to ‘teach’ even Achilles how to
deepen his pity for the Greeks at the beginning of Book 16.40 With the
understandable exception of his outrageous vengeance on Hector,
which is another form of anger, Achilles shows that Patroclus has
permanently retaught him the pity and concern for the other Greeks
that he had displayed in the assemblies at the beginning of the Iliad,
up to 2.771–9.41 Pity is Patroclus’ idiosyncratic contribution to the
Iliad, as much as anger has been Achilles’ own contribution up to this
point. In dialogue with Nestor, in fact, Patroclus can still interpret as a
dutiful executor even Achilles’ unexpressed feelings of impatience
(Achilles had never urged Patroclus to come back as soon as possible)
but at the same time the stigmatization of the quick temper of
Achilles paves the way for Patroclus’ re-educational mission on his
friend, which will start in Book 16.
Despite seeking the opportunity of returning to Achilles’ quarters
as quickly as possible (11.649) Patroclus has to yield to Nestor’s
rhetoric, in the longest and most garrulous speech he gives in the
Iliad, and finally is persuaded to try and temper his friend’s anger.
Nestor first reports on the Greeks’ debacle, informing Patroclus about
all the major leaders who have been wounded and are out of action
(11.658–69), and goes on to recollect in a lengthy digression the
38
This request is one of the ‘turning points’ of the Iliad, as this is the first time
Achilles is speaking in terms that reveal, indirectly, some incipient compassion for his
fellow-Greeks; hence Nestor’s surprise, at 11.656, that Achilles starts to feel pity for
them. Cf. Most (2003) 67.
39
Cf. 11.814; 15.390–404; 17.204, 670–2; 19.295–300; 21.96; 23.281–2; Zanker
(1994) 138–40.
40
Achilles had been ‘pitiless’ (9.632), especially concerning the other Greeks
(11.665), as Patroclus himself confirms at 16.31–5.
41
Cf. e.g. Sinos (1980) 44–5; Haubold (2000) 79–80; Most (2003) 63–4, 67–9.
204 Comrades in Love
enthusiasm with which, as a youth, he had joined the expeditions
against the Eleans in defence of Pylos (11.670–762a). These two
narratives emphasize the contrast between Nestor’s martial deeds in
tune with the heroic tradition and Achilles’ present withdrawal from
the war and complete isolation (promptly mentioned in 11.762b–64).
Thus, they constitute oblique appeals to Patroclus to motivate
Achilles to return to the fighting.42 But Nestor also formulates an
explicit request to Patroclus for a conciliatory mediation with Achilles
or, failing that, at least Patroclus’ temporary return to the fight
(11.792–803). Nestor narrates the memories of his encounter with
Achilles, Menoetius, and Patroclus, some years before in the house
of Peleus: he remembers in particular how Peleus exhorted Achilles
‘to be bravest and best and excel over others’ (11.784), whereas
Menoetius advised Patroclus: ‘My child, by birth Achilles is superior
(æ æ K Ø) to you, but you are the older (æ æ). He is
far stronger than you (ÅØ ‹ ª ººe I ø), but your proper
task is to give him words of wisdom and advise him and guide him—
and he will listen to you for the best (Iºº s ƒ ç ŁÆØ ıŒØe M
Ł ŁÆØ j ŒÆ ƒ ÅÆ Ø· n b ÆØ N IªÆŁ æ)’, 11.786–9.
Another good reason for the perfect complementarity between
Achilles and Patroclus is thus provided. The emphasis on Patroclus’
cleverness as an adviser, joined with the preceding narrative on the
Greek army’s troubles and Nestor’s juvenile enthusiasm for war,
paves the way for Nestor’s request to Patroclus to move Achilles’
heart with his persuasion (11.792), since ‘there is power in a friend’s
persuasion’ (IªÆŁc b ÆæÆçÆ K Ø Ææı, 11.793).43
When Patroclus replies in a warlike manner (r @æÅœ) to
Achilles’ summons at 11.603–4a, the author remarks: ŒÆŒF ¼æÆ
42
As Minchin (1991) remarks, Nestor presents his long life as endowed with an
exemplarity which is almost up to the level of the usual mythological paradigms. The
focus of his narrative is not himself as an individual hero, but the code by which every
hero should regulate his life, and he structures his tale in such a way that Patroclus
cannot but be reminded of the special joy which any young warrior experiences as he
performs his military duty. Cf. also Rabel (1997) 143–7.
43
Already Phoenix, in another memorably long speech to Achilles, had evoked the
paradigm of Cleopatre, a go-between who solved the other difficult case of the anger of
Meleager, when he had withdrawn from fighting, and thus provoked the quasi-defeat
of the Aetolians in the war against the Couretes, until his wife Cleopatre persuaded
him to re-enter the battlefield (9.524–605). On this ˚º - æÅ as anticipating also in
the name the role that Nestor actually asks — æ-Œº to play in Book 11, cf. Howald
(1924) 411; Nagy (1979) 105, 107–8; Sider forthcoming, n. 20.
Comrades in Love 205
ƒ º Iæå ‘this was to be the beginning of his doom’. Homer’s
audience is thus alerted that the course of action which Patroclus
embarks on as a reaction to Achilles’ summons is fated to lead to his
death in Iliad 16, where he replaces Achilles in the battle against
Hector. In fact Nestor manages to persuade Patroclus to become a
strenuous defender of the Greeks in desperate straits, and Patroclus
becomes a sort of second Nestor.44
At the end of Book 11 Patroclus helps a wounded Eurypylus off the
battlefield, thus showing, but in very practical terms, the same con-
cern at the wounding of too many fellow Greeks which had motivated
Achilles to send him to Nestor, and Nestor to help Machaon (a
concern that Eurypylus proves to be well founded, as he confirms
Nestor’s news that most of the greatest Greek leaders were out of
commission, 11.814–827). Patroclus deals successfully with Eurypy-
lus’ wound in the tent, doing what Achilles first of all would have had
the special expertise to do, and he does it precisely as Achilles would
have done it: Eurypylus explicitly asks Patroclus to cure him accord-
ing to ‘Achilles’ therapy’: ‘spread soothing medicines on the wound,
those benign drugs they say you have learnt from Achilles—and he
was taught them by Chiron’ (11.830–2).
Patroclus does not intervene in the hectic battles described in the
following books. Though he is grief-stricken over the state of the war,
he does not have his own aristeia qua Patroclus, but he waits until he
can have his aristeia masked as Achilles and following Achilles’
authorization. He has already decided to act as an intermediary
between Achilles and Nestor, as requested, and when he appears
briefly in mid-Book 15 it is to describe to Eurypylus both the target
of his mission (‘to move Achilles’ heart with his persuasion’) and the
reason he is confident he will succeed in it in two lines, 15.403 and
15.404, which repeat Nestor’s words at 11.792–3. The second of these
lines (‘there is power in the persuasion of a ÆEæ’) tellingly includes
a mise en abyme of the narrative function of the tight bond between
Achilles and Patroclus: only their intense connection can explain why
Achilles consents so promptly to Patroclus’ idea of helping the Greeks
a bit by entering the battlefield instead of him.
Nestor’s and Patroclus’ confidence turns out to be well founded. At
the beginning of Book 16 Patroclus appears to Achilles distressed and
44
Rabel (1997) 147–8.
206 Comrades in Love
in tears. The narrator introduces him with a simile brimming with
pathos— ŒæıÆ Ł æa åø u ŒæÅ º ıæ, j l ŒÆ’
ÆNªºØ æÅ ç æe å Ø oøæ ‘letting his warm tears fall like
a spring of black water, which trickles its dark stream down a sheer
rock face’, 16.3–4; the same simile had been used in 9.14–15 for
Agamemnon’s sorrow when he suggested to the assembly to leave
Troy and sail back home. Not all the members of the original aural
performance audience will have connected the two images, but the
poet probably had Agamemnon in mind when he reused the simile
for Patroclus, thus connecting the two desperate reactions to the
disastrous state of the war, and perhaps opposing Agamemnon’s
defeatist behaviour to Patroclus’ positive and constructive suggestion
to Achilles.45 These tears appear to immediately move Achilles’ soul
in the direction of pity: at least according to the vulgate of the text
Achilles ‘pitied’ him (þØŒØæ , 16.5) and replied with a simile compar-
ing Patroclus to a little girl begging her mother to pick her up, and
likening himself to that mother (16.7–10):
Œæı ÆØ, —ÆæŒº , M- ŒæÅ
ÅÅ, l Ł’ –Æ Åæd Łı ’ I º ŁÆØ Iª Ø
ƒÆF ±Å, ŒÆ ’ K ıÅ ŒÆ æŒ Ø,
ÆŒæı Æ Ø ØæŒ ÆØ, Zçæ’ IºÅÆØ;
Why are you all in tears, Patroclus, like a little girl running along by her
mother and demanding to be carried, pulling at her dress and holding
her back as she tries to hurry on, and looking at her tearfully until she
picks her up?
This simile is perhaps at least in part mocking,46 though in the end it
expresses tender sympathy47—sympathy in general for Patroclus as a
friend, and perhaps, in particular, for a request which could be swiftly
fulfilled.48 Aristarchus emphasized this teasing undertone and con-
sidered it incompatible with pity, thus correcting þØŒØæ of 16.5 to
Ł Å .49 But this hint at a mocking superiority would not be
foreign at all to the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus,
45
Cf. Ready (2011) 173.
46
For the reasons of Achilles’ irony, cf. above all Ledbetter (1993); also van Wees
(1998) 14.
47
Cf. e.g. Most (2003) 68; Gaca (2008).
48
Cf. Ready (2011) 174–83.
49
T 16.5 ‘Aristarchus writes Ł Å . He would not have been playful (P ªaæ
i ÆØ ) in his questioning, if he had pitied Patroclus.’
Comrades in Love 207
where it is Achilles who patronizingly decides, or at least has the last
word, and Patroclus who most often obeys orders or, in rare mo-
ments, gets to make suggestions of which he has to persuade Achilles.
In any case, this simile, centred on the relation between mother and
daughter, involves a clear amount of tenderness and intensity, which
anticipates/motivates the positive tone of Achilles’ answer to Patro-
clus’ appeal. Achilles could have easily chosen an erotic analogy to
explain the inevitability of his assent: love, after all, is at least as good a
guarantor that a lover is going to yield to a request as the familial
affections between mother and daughter. But Homer does not resort
to the imagery of erotic relations; he chooses the imagery of parental
relations.
Patroclus introduces his plea with a long rebuke of Achilles’ ex-
cessive pride and proneness to anger. Perhaps he reacts to the tone of
superiority in Achilles’ question with a critical discrimination be-
tween their characters,50 but above all he stigmatizes Achilles’ general
behaviour, which had brought disaster on the Greeks.51 He finally
asks that Achilles let him go and fight the Trojans with his armour.
Achilles agrees, but retains the patronizing role of planning the scope
and limits of his intervention (16.64–96).52
The last words of Achilles’ reply finally seem to comment on both
the inconsonance between him and the Greek army, which he prac-
tically curses, and the blissful consonance between him and Patroclus:
it would be great, he says, if he and Patroclus were alone to conclude
the war, in complete isolation (16.97–100):
50
Exegetical (b)T to 16.7: ‘people reproach according to their own character
those with whom they deal: tough people compare reasonable and meek persons to
women, and reasonable people define the stubborn person as wild and savage. Here,
Achilles calls Patroclus a girl, and Patroclus calls Achilles the son of the rocks (16.35)’.
After the great kindness with which Patroclus helped and entertained Eurypylus, he is
the only one who in Book 16 could ‘make so passionate an appeal to Achilles, blaming
him for the lack of that human concern which is so distinctly a mark of his own
character’ (Parry (1972 = 1989) 314).
51
According to Ledbetter (1993) 486, Achilles’ irony would be both a response to
Patroclus’ tears and a manifestation of his anger against the Greeks.
52
These lines define the limitations of Patroclus’ recommended range of action.
They were also perhaps motivated by a concern to make sure that the Greeks would
still need Achilles to re-enter the war and thus may seem embarrassingly egocentric:
see above, pp. 114–15. Homer anyway specifies that Patroclus was killed precisely
because he defied Achilles’ advice: cf. 16.686–7 ‘if he had kept to the instruction of the
son of Peleus, he would have escaped the vile doom of black death’.
208 Comrades in Love
ÆD ªaæ Z F æ ŒÆd ŁÅÆÅ ŒÆd @ºº
Ø s +æø Ł Æ çªØ ‹ Ø Æ Ø,
Ø æª ø, Hœ KŒF Zº Łæ,
Zçæ rØ +æÅ ƒ æa Œæ Æ ºø .
Oh, father Zeus and Athena and Apollo, if only none of all the Trojans
would escape death, and none of the Argives, but only you and I could
survive destruction, so that we alone could break Troy’s holy crown of
towers.
These lines sound paradoxical in themselves, but are less absurd
within the frame of the special relationship between Achilles and
Patroclus, which had at this point already (at least from the end of
Book 9) been presented as a sort of self-sufficient microcosmic alter-
native to the macrocosm of the Greek army (see above).53 In parti-
cular, Achilles’ wish for isolation is in tune with the concrete practice
hinted at by the ghost of Patroclus in the single fragment of his and
Achilles’ everyday life that he evokes when he appears to his friend
and asks that his funeral rites be finally accomplished. Cf. 23.75–9:
OºçæÆØ, P ªaæ ÆsØ
ÆØ K Æ, K ıæe º º åÅ .
P b ªaæ Çø ª çºø I ıŁ Ææø
ıºa Ç Ø ıº , Iºº Kb b Œcæ
IçåÆ ıª æ, l æ º å ªØª æ.
I beg you with my tears as I shall never again return from Hades, once
you have given me my due rite of burning. No more, in the world of the
living, will you and I sit down away from our dear companions and talk
over our thoughts together, but the hateful doom that fell to me at my
very birth has gaped for me and swallowed me.
Achilles’ curse/wish of 16.97–100, however, is so hyperbolic that it
seemed either childish or excessively cruel, and therefore not authen-
tic, to many ancient commentators; besides, it seemed so intense that
it was considered erotic, and therefore was supposed to be forged ‘by
some of those who believe that Achilles was the erastes of Patroclus’.
Cf. 16.97–100:
IŁ FÆØ åØ Ææ , ØØ ŒÆa ØÆ Œ ıc KçÆı Ø ª ªæ çŁÆØ
Ø H ØÇø KæA e åØººÆ F —ÆæŒºı· ØFØ ªaæ
53
As Haubold (2000) 78 correctly comments, Achilles and Patroclus are ‘a circle
which gives the impression of being self-contained precisely because Patroclus
replaces Achilles’ other social bonds’.
Comrades in Love 209
ƒ ºªØ “ IºØ ºc H”. ŒÆd › åØºº f P ØF,
ıÆŁc . (A)
These four lines are athetized, because the way they are elaborated
shows that they were written by some of those who believe that Achilles
was in love with Patroclus. This in fact is the sense of “may all die,
except for us”. Besides, Achilles is not such a person, but is sympathetic.
Æ ºH KŒºÅ f ÆæÆ åı· æH, ‹Ø ÆØØÅ ŒÆd
IÆ På, r Ł ’ ‹Ø çŁ æ , r Æ KæøØŒ. b MŒÅ Æ ƒ
ıæØ ; H *E K،ƺ EÆØ, n XŒı e ¨Ø çÆ
ÆıF ŁÆØ; b ŁÆıÆ , N KæÅ æŁE ºØ; ŒÆd e º Ø
åÅ NŒø K . H b e “Hœ” PŁ EÆ Åº Ø; ŒÆºH s
çÅ Ø æ Ææå ZÅ ø ıŒÆØ ‰ r Ææ Ł ƒ
åØ e H Iæ ØŒf æøÆ º ªø r ÆØ Ææ ˇæøØ ŒÆd
ø ÆØØŒa r ÆØ åØººø — 挺. (T)
We must definitely athetize the four lines. First of all, because the prayer
is childish and impossible—either as it is jealous, or as it is erotic. What
have the Myrmidons done wrong? How can Achilles appeal to Phoibus
[16.97], who, as he has heard from Thetis, will be his killer? [cf. 21.276–
78]. Where is the greatness, if they plunder a desert city [16.100]? And
demolishing walls is what builders do. And how can Hœ designate the
nominative? Therefore Aristarchus says that Zenodotus was correct in
suspecting that these lines were interpolated by people who believed
that there were male loves in Homer, and suppose that Patroclus is the
eromenos of Achilles.
Homer’s lines reconfirm first of all the self-sufficiency of the symbiotic
relationship between Achilles and Patroclus, and depict the most ex-
treme, dreamlike achievement of the micro-society which the two con-
stitute, in tune once again with Homer’s broader emphasis on the
intensity of this relationship. The audience is thus left with fewer and
fewer doubts that the disappearance of one of the two (and the resulting
disruption of their common routine) will leave the other with the great-
est sorrow and an absolute need for retaliation—Achilles admits only
Patroclus to “his” conquest of Troy, and it is as if they were one person.54
A second narrative function of these words of Achilles is to convey some
tragic irony. Due to the absurdity of the scenario they depict55 (which
54
Clarke (1978) 385.
55
Compare the more realistic wish expressed by Diomedes in 9.48–9, which does
not include the impossible scenario of self-sufficient loneliness prefigured by Achilles:
‘and the two of us, I and Sthenelus, will fight on until we reach our goal in Ilium ( N ‹
Œ Œøæ % ºı oæø ), since god is with us in our mission here’.
210 Comrades in Love
highlights its dreamlike unattainability), they anticipate the death of
both Achilles and Patroclus, who will not be able to even participate in
the sack of Troy as spectators. Similarly, Apollo will speak prophetic
words right before Patroclus’ headlong (and fatal) rush towards the walls
of Troy, which Achilles had advised him not to attempt alone (16.91–2
quoted above); the god will comment ‘it is not fate for the proud Trojans’
city to be sacked by your spear, nor even by Achilles, a far greater man
than you’, 16.707–9.
These two clear narrative functions provide 16.97–100 with a
satisfactory sense. Whether these lines also involve a further erotic
undertone and point to a homosexual liaison between Achilles and
Patroclus, or not, is not vital for the correct functioning of the text. Of
course, Achilles’ wish to be the exclusive protagonist in the war and
his self-sufficient isolation from the rest of the world, as well as many
other details of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus con-
sidered so far, might in principle involve homoerotic love. In parti-
cular the readiness of both to listen to the other and to learn from the
other at different levels can point in this direction. After all, self-
sufficiency and inseparability were not infrequently quoted among
the features of the most solid homoerotic couples.56 These beha-
vioural dimensions might have magnified, in principle, the intensity
of the feelings binding Achilles and Patroclus, which Homer clearly
wants to highlight. But despite its potential helpfulness for his narra-
tive purposes, Homer displays no hint of it.
What has been said about 16.97–100 applies to all the other forms
of ‘intensity’ attested in the feelings which Achilles and Patroclus
communicate to each other—in spite of the ‘erotic inferences’ formu-
lated over and over again about some of them by ancient and
modern commentators. It is certainly a particular relation, whose
exceptional intensity is unparalleled in the Iliad, a poem where intense
feelings of love seem elsewhere, as we have said already, the province
56
See e.g. the description at the beginning of Theocr. 13 of the relationship
between Heracles and Hylas, which is explicitly characterized as erotic (13.1). This
description included both the idea of inseparability (13.10–15) and the idea that
Heracles taught Hylas whatever he knew (13.8–9; compare Achilles teaching Patroclus
medical science in Hom. Il. 11.831). It goes without saying, however, that insepar-
ability could also be a feature of intense friendship: Plutarch considers ı EÆØ ŒÆd
ıØÅ æ Ø with each other as the essence of friendship in On having many friends
and On brotherly love (94f and 490d respectively); see below, n. 62.
Comrades in Love 211
of women.57 And it is telling that Homer, who hardly ever speaks of
physical contact between ‘companions’ at war, lavishly describes the
way Achilles embraces Patroclus’ body, or the way they both want and
try to hold each other with their hands when Patroclus’ ghost appears
to Achilles at the beginning of Book 23.58 However strongly the text
highlights the exceptionality of their feelings, so that erotic imagery
would have been something to be expected according to our idea of
eroticism, no hint at an erotic dimension surfaces.
Homer also prefers to resort to imagery that is coherent with the
flow of the martial narrative for Achilles’ memories of his common-
ality of life with Patroclus at the beginning of Book 24. In contrast
with 2.1–4 and 10.1–4, which describe, respectively, the watchful/
deliberative sleeplessness of Zeus pondering how to restore Achilles’
honour and of Agamemnon considering the disastrous state of the
war, an intimate and sentimental anxiety keeps Achilles awake at the
beginning of Book 24. In fact, even at the end of the funeral games for
Patroclus, which might be expected to conclude the time of mourn-
ing, he does not stop weeping for him (24.2–11):
d b æØ
oı ªºıŒ æF Ææ ÆØ· ÆPaæ åØºº f
ŒºÆE çºı æı Å, P Ø o
lØæ Ø ÆÆ øæ, Iºº K æç ŁÆ ŒÆd ŁÆ 5
—ÆæŒºı Łø IæB ŒÆd M-,
M’ › Æ º ı f ÆPHØ ŒÆd Ł ¼ºª Æ
IæH ºı Iº ª Ø ŒÆÆ æø·
H ØÅ Œ ŁÆº æe ŒÆa Œæı r ,
¼ºº Kd º ıæa ŒÆÆŒ , ¼ºº ’ Æs 10
oØ, ¼ºº b æÅ·
All others turned their minds to supper, and the enjoyment of sweet
sleep. But Achilles began to weep as he thought of his dear companion,
and sleep that conquers all could not overtake him. He tossed this way
and that, crying for the loss of Patroclus, his manhood and his brave
strength, and all that he had accomplished with him and the hardships
they had suffered, threading the wars of men and dangerous seas. As he
remembered all this he let the heavy tears fall, lying now on his side,
now on his back, and now again on his face.
Memories of shared experiences are always evidence of a meaningful
or even intense relationship, and this intensity may of course be
57
Cf. Clarke (1978) 388–90.
58
Cf. 18.317=23.18 and 23.75, 97, 99 respectively.
212 Comrades in Love
erotic. It comes as no surprise that poets like Sappho alluded to
shared memories belonging, more often than not, to the erotic
dimension, in order to create a sense of emotional intensity. In
Sappho (frr. 24a, 94, 96.1–5), the remembrance of shared emotions
and pleasures ensures that the joyful life lived together will continue
to exist as an objectified, long-lasting reality belonging to the
‘rituals’ of the thiasos which can be actualized again and again in
song and will thus survive the end of the actual relationship and
Sappho’s separation from those she loved.59 Once again—not un-
reasonably but undemonstratedly—ancient and modern commen-
tators who considered Achilles’ remembrances as homoerotic took
the initiative of labelling as erotic what the text presents only as an
extraordinary sentimental intensity.60 In fact the variance between
our passage and the usual content of this kind of erotic or otherwise
pleasurable remembrance is clear. Already some of the ancients
appreciated these lines and defended them from attempts at athe-
tizing specifically because they approved of Achilles’ choice to
remember Patroclus not for sweet moments of joy and relaxation
shared with him, but for toilsome martial achievements—in con-
trast with what Hector had done with his companion Podes in
17.577. Cf. bT 24.6–9:
P ªaæ ‹Ø ıÆØÇ P ‹Ø ÆPe KŒº Œ ı P ‹Ø f ıÅ
q, ‰ › F ῞¯Œæ (“K ƒ ÆEæ Å çº, NºÆØÆ ”), Iºº
‹Ø ŒØøe Iæ B ŒÆd ª Æø æªø. ƒ b IŁ F f åı
H PŒ KæÅØ, ÞÅÆø ŒÆŒ åºø Kå Ø . . .
59
Cf. e.g. Burnett (1979) 26–7; Gentili (1988) 84; Snyder (1997) 45–9.
60
Unless, with Davidson (2007) 258, we want to interpret of 24.6 in a sexual
sense = ‘semen’, which may be attested in Archil. fr. 196a.52. But this last technical
meaning of is probably nothing more than a synecdoche for the common
meaning ‘might’ also in Archilochus’ ‘First Cologne Epode’ (IEG 196a), where the
sense would be made clear by both the micro-context (the governing verb IçBŒÆ may
mean ‘emitted’) and the macro-context (a scene of petting). Therefore, it is not certain
that , in isolation, could have such a concrete sense even in Archilochus: cf. West
(1975) 217; West (1993) 4 e.g. translates IçBŒÆ as ‘I shot my . . . energy off ’; see
also ‘I lost my strength (as a consequence of orgasm)’, an interpretation suggested by
S. R. Slings in Bremer, van Erp Taalman Kip, and Slings (1987) 50. In any case, a
sexual sense would be not expected at all in the Homeric context, not only because
Homer hardly ever speaks of sex especially in the Iliad, and never with similar
technical terms (unlike the iambic poets), but also because the context of Achilles’
remembrance of the battles fought together with Patroclus would impose the more
common meaning = ‘(military) valour’.
Comrades in Love 213
in fact not because Patroclus used to feast with him, or to flatter him,
or because he was his fellow-drinker (in the fashion of Hector:
‘because he was his good boon-fellow’ [17.577]), but because he was
his partner in valour and noble deeds. As for the people who athetize
the lines, how are they not stupid?—they, who stick flippantly to
single small words . . .
In his speech to Achilles at 23.75–9, quoted above,61 Patroclus’
ghost operates under the same parameters when he refers to his
everyday life with Achilles: he too privileges companionship and
communal elaboration of opinions and decision-making over an
alternative possible focus on sweeter/sentimental exchange. Some of
the ancient commentators assumed that Patroclus and Achilles
would have been consulting about the necessary things to do
(about the war?), and therefore approved of Patroclus’ choice as
‘noble’: cf. bT 23.78 ª Æø P e H ø K ŁÅ, Iºº K
x æd H ıç æø Kıº ‘in a noble way he remem-
bered none of the sweet things, but the moments in which they took
decisions about the expedient actions’.62
Despite the spirited persuasion of the commentator reflected in
bT 24.6–9 (above), many of the ancients regarded these lines with
suspicion. The lexical doubts criticized by bT seem to have been
widespread. A maintained that these four lines were so ‘cheap’
( P º E), that they could be disposed of with no damage to the
pathetic tone of the passage. The scholion also pointed to the redun-
dancy of IæBÆ and together, and to the fact that Iæ,
used in the sense ‘valour’, would be unique in Homer. Also Aristo-
phanes of Byzantium favoured excision. In contrast, the exegetical
tradition of the scholia was divided. Some interpreters—as we have
seen above—strenuously defended the lines. But other bT scholiasts
favoured the idea of athetesis on the ground of more or less the same
lexical considerations that are found in Aristonicus, plus a supposed
narrative inconsistency. Possibly in reaction to the scholars supporting
their defence on the basis of the noble contents of the lines, some
interpreters argued: ‘together with Patroclus Achilles undertook no
61
p. 209.
62
Patroclus’ words were also quoted later on by Plutarch in On having many friends
(94f) as evidence that the pleasure of friendship lies in its intimacy ( ıŁ ØÆ), and that
its most pleasant part is found in association and daily companionship (XØ K HØ
ı EÆØ ŒÆd ıØÅ æ Ø).
214 Comrades in Love
heroic deed, and Achilles himself remembers his companion for lighter
occupations’ (Kd ŒıçæØ: this comment refers to 19.315–17,
where in fact Achilles remembers Patroclus as his cook-waiter, and is
substantially correct in its emphasis, since—as we have seen—Patroclus
often features in this role in the Iliad, whereas Achilles and Patroclus
never do fight together in the battlefield or accomplish anything sig-
nificant jointly). Still other commentators (T) highlighted the possible
homoerotic undertones of our lines, whose authenticity they therefore
doubted:
. . . ŒÆÅªæF ‹Ø ‰ ªŒØ Ł E, På x ØŁø, Iºº’ Pb
تıÆŒø ¼ Ø <Z>; N ªaæ ‹ºø F E E, KæÆ c i YÅ
— 挺 ‰ øæı ŒÆd æØŒÆºº æı.
. . . objecting that [Achilles] desires [Patroclus] as a bedfellow—some-
thing which is not worthy not only of half-gods, but even of half-
women? In fact, if we have to go the whole hog in supposing this
sense, Patroclus would be the erastes, as [Achilles] is younger and
more handsome.
This last scholion is just another piece of evidence that a substantial
and coherent interpretative direction existed which criticized as non-
authentic the lines of the Iliad where an intensely emotional tenor led
readers to suspect homosexual undertones. For the sake of maintain-
ing what they considered the epic æ, and/or for the sake of
internal coherence (in a sort of application of the Aristarchan prin-
ciple of explaining Homer through Homer), Aristonicus and, per-
haps, already Aristarchus excluded the idea that Homer, who is
usually silent about a sexual element in the relationship between
Achilles and Patroclus, could from time to time allude to this sexual
component. This scholion also proves that a discussion existed
between Homeric scholars who believed that Achilles would have
been the erastes ( A 16.97–100, discussed above, going back
to Aristonicus) and scholars, whose works also filtered into the
scholiastic tradition, who deemed him to be the eromenos. In other
words, the definition of the roles in the relationship between Achilles
and Patroclus in terms of the pederastic etiquette of the classical age
was so crucial that the debate about this issue was a ubiquitous one,
which could also involve some of the ancient scholars who definitely
discounted the idea that Homer presented the relation between
Achilles and Patroclus as sexual love. To this debate about the roles,
and the construction of the homosexual interpretation of Achilles and
Comrades in Love 215
Patroclus, which appears to prevail for the whole of the fifth century,
our attention will turn in the next section.
TRAGIC EROS
63
It is usually assumed that Aeschylus’ Achilles trilogy consisted of Myrmidons, on
the death of Patroclus, Nereids, on the delivery of armour to Achilles and the death of
Hector, and Phrygians or The Ransom of Hector. But West (2000) 340–3 suggested
that Nereids might have been the third tragedy after Myrmidons and Phrygians and
dealt with Achilles’ death.
64
Cf. e.g. Scaife (1995).
65
On which cf. Griffin (1977) 48–52; Bravo (2001).
216 Comrades in Love
to reuse the Iliad appears to have meant also to rewrite it from a
different point of view. The Rhesus, in fact, represented the night of
Iliad 10 from the perspective not of the Greeks but of the Trojans, in
contrast with the ‘philhellenic’ bias that Homer seems to have often
pursued in the Iliad, as the ancient scholiasts already remarked.66
Myrmidons, the first play of Aeschylus’ Iliadic trilogy, rewrote the
events leading to the death of Patroclus, and Achilles’ reactions to it,
in the light of an erotic interpretation of the bond between the two
heroes which contrasts with the total silence of the Iliad in this
respect.
Aeschylus’ adoption of the ideology of pederastic love was a crucial
twist in the history of the interpretation of the feelings between the
two Homeric heroes. This adoption is not only explicable in terms of
cultural history, as an acknowledgement and consequence of the
Greeks’ evolving ideas about pederasty which reached full expression
in the seventh and sixth centuries. It may also have been an initiative
involving some metaliterary relevance. The passion of love is in fact
one of the most typical passions of tragedy, where it is portrayed in
many of its most extreme negative or positive forms—incest, forced
defloration, adultery, but also love more forceful than death, etc.—not
only because investigating passions is the main concern of the poetics
of tragedy, but also because passions involving çºØ (meaning every-
thing from ‘friend’ to ‘lover’) were especially typical of tragedy. As at
least Aristotle, Poet. 1453b15–22 suggests, the sufferings ( ŁÅ) which
the tragedians should pursue are the ones between çºØ: actions
committed against enemies or neutrals cannot arouse pity among
the spectators (they are to be expected), whereas actions against çºØ
can provoke this effect especially well. Love was also a most appealing
theme in tragedy because the chronological distance between the past
of the myths enacted in tragedy and the present of the spectators
permitted the tragedians to ‘explore what erotic passions might have
been—and what they might become—without well-established
norms’ in modern society, thus exposing subjective sexuality and its
irresistible urges, which were regimented and invisible in everyday
social life of the fifth century.67
66
Cf. e.g. Il. 1.2 (bT), 7.17–18 (bT), 8.274–6 (b), etc.; see below, p. 240.
67
The whole of this paragraph is indebted to the brilliant pages on ‘Sex and
tragedy’ by Sissa (2008) 99–103.
Comrades in Love 217
It is thus not uncommon for tragedy to deliver an erotic presenta-
tion of events which in other genres do not have, or less frequently
have, erotic undertones. As is well known, the tragedians most fre-
quently enact the topos that metaphorizes the death of unwedded
girls as a marriage with the divinities of the underworld.68 Or they use
the general, non-erotic, sense which was found for æ in Homer,69
and apply this term or other similar and usually erotic terms (Ł,
¥ æ, etc.) to a longing for an even greater variety of mundane
objects than Homer did; while this approach extends but does not
contradict the approach we observed in the Iliad, we find a new twist
in the tragedians’ technique that does go beyond the boundaries set
by Homeric poetry. The tragic poets sometimes eroticize even this
general sense of æ as a desire for mundane objects, which—again—
bore no erotic undertones in Homer. Terms denoting ‘love’ are thus
often connected to mundane objects or actions (the fatherland, the
plundering of Troy, etc.), as in Homer, but in tragedy also the context
surrounding them sometimes includes phrases or imagery which
are evocative of love or marriage—as a result, it is not so much that
eros is generalized, as in Homer, but that what is mundane is some-
times eroticized. One example will be enough. In Aesch. Ag. 540–5
the chorus asks the herald of the Greeks returning from Troy if ‘love’
(æø) for the fatherland ‘prostrated’ him: the verb used is KªÆ ,
here metaphorically ‘laid waste’, but the idea of the ‘undressing’, with
its erotic undertones, is possibly still operative. When the herald
answers positively, the chorus specify: ‘you were stricken by desire
for those who longed for you in return (H I æø ƒæøØ
ºÅªØ)’, so that the herald can conclude: ‘you mean that this
land yearned for the army which was yearning for it?’ (Ł E
ŁFÆ ªB æÆe ºª Ø;). Affection for the fatherland is
here not only construed as ‘love’, thanks to the generic deployment of
the usual terms for erotic feelings, but even the mundane object of
this ‘love’ in turn exhibits an emotional response that is described in
the traditional, technical phraseology of reciprocated love (in partic-
ular I æø and Ł E ŁFÆ).70 We may thus, on the
one hand, simply not be surprised that Aeschylus, a member of the
68
Cf. e.g. Seaford (1987); Rehm (1994); Ferrari (2002) 190–4.
69
See above, 193.
70
For more examples of ‘love for the city’ or ‘the demos’ as characteristic ideas of
the ‘new style’ of 5th-cent. politicians like Cleon, cf. Connor (1971) 99–108.
218 Comrades in Love
fifth-century Athenian upper class that was then engaged in elabor-
ating the ideology of pederasty, would label Achilles’ and Patroclus’
intense relationship ‘eros’. But, on the other hand, it may have also
been part and parcel of the eroticizing point of view that tragedians
often adopted to describe the most varied forms of intense liking (also
homosexual: cf. Athenaeus 13.601 on Aeschylus and Sophocles’ Niobe
and Colchides): in terms of tragic poetics, Aeschylus must have been
fond of the idea of applying the term ‘love passion’ to a most intense
relationship which had been in the background of the plot of the Iliad
from Book 9 to at least Book 16 (and was also influential beyond), but
had remained without a name across so many events and books.
In fact the Myrmidons, the first play of Aeschylus’ Iliadic trilogy,
which dates from Aeschylus’ early career,71 appears to be mainly
dedicated to this love story and focuses on its woeful conclusion.
Only a few brief fragments survive of this play. They are enough,
however, to demonstrate that it featured a substantial shift from
Achilles’ almost exclusive concern with his public respectability
(Ø) and its concrete evidence, namely the prize of honour
(ªæÆ), towards a new appreciation of love and, in particular, the
sacredness of erotic loyalty and honour. In treating Achilles’ love for
Patroclus as a matter of Æ and honour, Aeschylus explored the
contrast between traditional epic values and homoerotic love in
contemporary individual ethics and state-sanctioned practices.
When Antilochus reports Patroclus’ death to him, the Iliadic
Achilles exhibits unrestrained manifestations of sorrow (soiling his
face with dust, sprawling in the dust, sobbing, etc.: 18.22–31) and
Antilochus is even ‘afraid that Achilles might cut his throat with a
knife’, 18.34). But the death wish which Achilles formulates in dialo-
gue with his mother takes a dignified heroic form, in which life’s
preferability over death is conditioned upon successful vengeance on
Hector: see Il. 18.90–3 ‘since my heart has no wish for me to live or
continue among men, unless first Hector is struck down by my spear’.
Just a few lines later, answering Thetis’ sad predictions about the
brevity of the life allotted to him after Hector dies (18.95–6), Achilles
states that he would deserve to ‘die directly (ÆPŒÆ)’ (18.98; see
71
Cf. Sommerstein (2008) 135. The common dating of the earliest vases decorated
with the scene of Odysseus addressing Achilles muffled up in his cloak points to the
490s; cf. Döhle (1967) 112–13; Kossatz-Deissmann (1978) 12–13. Iconography may,
however, also have preceded and inspired Aeschylus: cf. Massei (1969) 148–65 and
Totaro (2010) 161–2.
Comrades in Love 219
below), since he had not intervened to help his friend while he was
being killed, and was sitting idly in his quarters because of his anger
for Agamemnon (18.102–6). Achilles’ death wish thus constitutes a
sort of immediate self-punishment. In any case, the line of thought
that immediately follows this sense of guilt and wish for death is
programmatic and factual. Achilles’ response to his mother concludes
with a concrete plan for the future: once his anger against Agamem-
non is settled (as is necessary since ‘what is past one should let be’:
18.112–113—Achilles’ concern with his future could not be clearer),
he intends to leave for the battlefield and kill Hector, thus taking
revenge for Patroclus (18.114–116).72 The way in which Achilles
anticipates his death in the Myrmidons seems different, cf. TrGF
iii.138 ºå , Iø F ŁÅŒ j e ÇHÆ Aºº·
Ia ªaæ Øå ÆØ ‘cry for me the living, Antilochus, more than for
the dead: all I had is gone!’ This statement had of course to be
followed up, in Aeschylus as well as in Homer, with Achilles’ decision
to take revenge for Patroclus and, therefore, to return to the battlefield
(cf. TrGF iii.140 ‹ºø ‹ºø E ‘arms, arms I need’). But at least the
specific statement reflected in TrGF iii.138 includes a sentimental
nuance which was found nowhere among the forms of Achilles’
mourning for Patroclus in the Iliad, i.e. the sense of a holistic loss
where the pursuit of μ seems at least temporarily forgotten, and
the coexistence with Patroclus (in life or in death) appears to be the
only value, not the sorrow over having failed to help a friend on the
battlefield.73 Also unattested in epic is the final idea in the fragment
that the survivor should be deemed more disgraceful than the dead,
which is a typical topos of tragedy.74
TrGF iii.135 and **136 are the climax in what we know of Aeschy-
lus’ eroticization of Achilles’ mourning: respectively, Æ b ÅæH
±ªe PŒ KÅØ ø, j t ı å æØ H ıŒH çØºÅ ø ‘no
reverence had you for the sacred holiness of the thigh-bond, oh
ungrateful that you were for those countless kisses’ and ÅæH b
H H P c ›ØºÆ (or P Å ›ØºÆ)]{ŒÆººø {‘the sacred
converse with your thighs [or ‘I venerated the intimacy of your
72
Cf. Zanker (1994) 17–18, 63.
73
Cf. Moreau (1996) 20–1.
74
Cf. Aesch. Sept. 336–337, Prom. 750–1; Eur. Alc. 864–9 and 935–40; Tro. 630–7;
Phoen. 1640; Mastronarde (1994) 612. Compare the radically different common-sense
viewpoint expressed by Achilles in dialogue with Odysseus in Od. 11.488–91.
220 Comrades in Love
thighs’]. Fr. **136 is certainly addressed by Achilles to the body of
Patroclus, but the identity of the speaker of 135 is uncertain. Fr.135
might have been said by Achilles to the body of Patroclus, thus, for
example, accusing him of having exceeded the precise limits that
Achilles had set for his action in Book 16 (the most common inter-
pretation).75 It could also have been addressed by Patroclus to
Achilles in the underworld, or by Achilles to himself, or by an
indulgent friend to Achilles, who in his inconsolable sorrow over
Patroclus’ death wanted to hear himself accused by others of the
lack of responsibility of which he felt guilty.76 In any case, our
fragments are the clearest possible indication that the relationship
between the two heroes was erotic. The combination of thighs and
kisses finds a close parallel in an elegiac couplet of Solon (16 Gentili–
Prato = IEG 25),77 where the desire for the thighs and the sweet
mouth of the beloved is a quintessential designation of ÆØçØºÆ;78
furthermore ›ØºÆ, often used with a sexual meaning,79 takes on an
especially clear sexual nuance in combination with Åæ. At the same
time this most explicit love between the two heroes is elevated to a
kind of real sacredness through the almost paradoxical use of the
epithet ±ª, which quite often designates the sexual purity of
virginity,80 and through the use of Æ: this term, which usually
involves the idea of religious reverence for the gods,81 stands here for
the love-relation as a whole, which should attract reverence
(KÅØ ø),82 thus transforming the sexual converse (›ØºÆ) of fr.
**136, manifestation of that Æ, into a sort of religious rite—and
in fact the combination of the two terms ›ØºÆ and P / P Å Æ
becomes possible. If 135 and **136 are from contexts not too far from
each other (and from the similarity of their tone they may have come
75
See above, p. 207.
76
This last interpretation, which relies on the context in which the second line of
the fragment is quoted by Plutarch, adul. et amic. 61a, was suggested by Merkelbach
(1969) 109–111, and is followed by Snell (1971) 16. For a review of other interpreta-
tions, cf. S. Radt, TrGF iii p. 250.
77
Ł lÅ KæÆE Ø K ¼Ł Ø ÆØçØº ÅØ, j ÅæH ƒ æø ŒÆd ªºıŒ æF
Æ ‘so long as one falls in love with a boy in the lovely flower of youth, desiring
thighs and a sweet mouth’. Cf. Noussia-Fantuzzi (2010) 339–42.
78
The pentameter of Solon’s distich is defined as lascivissimus versus by Apul.
Apol. 9. On the Åæ as objects of homosexual attraction, cf. also Soph. TrGF iv.345.
79
Cf. at least Arist. Pol. 1272a25; Dover (1978) 197–8 n. 2.
80
Cf. Kraus (1983) 10–13.
81
Cf. Buffière (1980) 368; Cairns (1993) 207–8.
82
Cf. Cairns (1993) 211.
Comrades in Love 221
from the same context), the audience will have been drawn to equalize
the two phrases Æ b ÅæH and ÅæH . . . P c ›ØºÆ, and
thus to consider them as interchangeable expressions of one and the
same religion of love.
In conclusion, whatever the identity of the speaker and addressee,
TrGF iii.135 shows how Achilles’ conception of shame shifts away
from his Iliadic concern with honour or dishonour, the extent to
which others recognize his martial superiority, and his relationship
with the army’s leaders: his shame focuses now on the one-to-one
relation with Patroclus, whereas the broader horizon of his military
duties or the pursuit of μ seem out of consideration. Achilles, or
possibly one of his friends, or perhaps Patroclus addresses the other
lover with the complaint either that Patroclus has ‘betrayed’ the
bond of his love for Achilles (evidently through his temerity in
fighting and helping the other Greeks without thoroughly consider-
ing the risk of ‘widowing’ Achilles) or that Achilles has betrayed the
same erotic bond by not saving Patroclus from death: as it has been
correctly observed, ‘Achilles’ relation with Patroclus takes on the sebas
and the devotion which should be directed towards the army and its
leader’, and the homosexual bond between Achilles and Patroclus not
only contributes at the beginning to Achilles’ self-definition and isola-
tion from the army, but also later turns into ‘a catalyst of the plot’ of
the Iliadic action, as it redirects the anger of Achilles from the
Achaeans to Hector.83
Did this tragedy represent Patroclus’ love as Achilles’ private
alternative to the principles of military devotion, to the duty of war
and commitment to the communal (shared?) values of the Greek
army? In other words, was the one-to-one erotic relationship between
Achilles and Patroclus opposed qua erotic to the societal values of the
Greek army at Troy?84
It is clear that Aeschylus’ Iliadic trilogy magnified (even in com-
parison with Homer) the radical opposition between Achilles and not
only the rest of the Greek army, but even his own Myrmidons.
Achilles’ withdrawal into silence and immobility, in which he spent
long periods of time sitting, muffled up in his cloak, was
presumably staged both in Myrmidons (for the wrath) and Phrygians
83
Cf. Michelakis (2002) 44.
84
Michelakis (2002) 44 concludes from his brilliant analysis of the Myrmidons that
it ‘questions the premise that private and public interests can be mutually supportive’.
222 Comrades in Love
(for the grief),85 and must have been a coup de théâtre which Aeschy-
lus introduced in opposition to Homer, as in Iliad 9 Achilles enter-
tains the ambassadors and speaks to them. This Aeschylean scene was
widely appreciated by Aeschylus’ contemporaries, and Achilles, to-
gether with Odysseus and sometimes other ambassadors, was most
often depicted in this posture in representations of the ‘embassy to
Achilles’ which are common in Attic black-figure vases from the 490s
to the 470s.86 Achilles’ posture of radical isolation, as well as the
accusation of treason that the Myrmidons brought against him, and
their threat to stone him in the tragedy named after them (TrGF
iii.132c), all point to a most problematic relationship between
Achilles and his comrades.
This does not prove, however, that the opposition was merely black
and white, between the private/individual dimension of Achilles and
Patroclus on one side and the public/society of the Greek army on the
other. It seems appealing to suppose that Aeschylus may have also
reinterpreted the two Homeric heroes in light of the ‘modern’ use of
pederasty as a motivator of martial prowess. As is well known, some
classical Greek cities encouraged eromenos–erastes relationships
among soldiers in order to stimulate reciprocal emulation, based on
the view that the desire of the erastes to impress his eromenos would
trigger the love of the eromenos, and that the eromenos in turn would
wish to live up to the example set by the erastes—first of all at Sparta
and at Thebes, where some of the ancients believed that pederastic
love originated.87 The Theban Sacred Band, the élite corp of the
Theban army to which some momentous victories were ascribed
between 375 and 338, was believed to consist of 150 male couples of
soldiers. According to Maximus Tyrius’ idealized interpretation of the
Sacred Band (Or. 18.2): ‘each of the lovers had to show himself a hero,
both because he desired to shine as he fought before the eyes of his
beloved, and because he could not refuse to defend what was dearest
to him; and at the same time the boyfriends strove to rival their lovers
85
Cf. Sommerstein (2010) 242.
86
LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 439–54. A long time after Aeschylus’ trilogy, the silence of the
Aeschylean Achilles was a scene parodied in Aristophanes’ Frogs 911–15.
87
On the so called ‘Doric pederasty’ of Sparta and Crete, characterized by a high
institutional profile as a form of initiation, and a relevant military function, cf.
Cartledge (1981); Patzer (1982) 70–90; Sergent (1987) 5–39; Percy III (1996) 69–89.
Comrades in Love 223
in deeds of valour, just as young puppies run with the older dogs in
the hunt’.88
This idea of the Sacred Band may or may not have been a relatively
late legend, which is first documented in Plutarch, but its roots lie in
such idealizations which existed already in the classical age. Zeno’s
city of love, for instance, was inspired by the role that pederasty
played or was believed to have played at Sparta.89 As for Athens,
the inscription CEG 47, as early as the last quarter of the sixth century
bc, may demonstrate that the idea of homosexual love as incitement
to military bravery was professed as operative in real life more than a
century before Plato: ‘here a man swore a solemn oath for love of a
boy to join strife and fearful battle (Z [ ŒÆ]a hæŒØÆ ÆØe
KæÆ[ ]Łd j Œ Æ ı åØ[] º Ł Æ ÆŒæı Æ). I am
sacred to Gnathios of Eroeadae, whose life was lost in [war]’.90 We
know nothing of the motivational context of this epigram, and we
cannot rule out, for instance, that the lover, Gnathios, simply swore to
go to war to find there liberation from the anguish of his love91 (a
choice which would be parallelled e.g. by Theocr. 14.52–8). But the
Homerisms Œ Æ and º Ł Æ ÆŒæı Æ (cf. Il. 12.361,
17.512) point to the heroic character of the oath. However both
these Homerizing phrases and ı åØ[] possibly fuelled a correc-
tive imitation of Anacreon, IEG 2 ‘I do not like the man who while
drinking his wine beside the full mixing-bowl talks of strife and
tearful war ( Œ Æ ŒÆd º ÆŒæı Æ ºª Ø): I like him who
by mingling ( ı ªø) the splendid gifts of the Muses and Aph-
rodite remembers the loveliness of the feast’. Anacreon had opted for
a separation of martial topics and the relaxed atmosphere of sympotic
talks about love, whereas our inscription integrates the choice of
military life into a love oath—whichever this integration was: war as
a remedy against love,92 or (as I prefer to think) war as either the
88
Trans. by M. B. Trapp.
89
Cf. Schofield (1991) 22–56. These idealizing legends should be considered, at
least, ‘a fanciful real-world analogy that initially supported and ultimately replaced a
utopian proposal to build a city or army on the ennobling bond between lover and
beloved’: Leitao (2002) 162. Leitao (2002) is the most sceptical voice on the erotic
composition of the Sacred Band; the phenomenon has been investigated as a historical
reality e.g. by Dover (1978) 190–4, 200; Buffière (1980) 95–101; Cartledge (1981);
Ludwig (2002) 341–5. A full discussion of the ancient evidence on the practical
military uses of pederasty, or the speculations on them in Ogden (1996).
90
Trans. by Friedländer and Hoffleit (1948) 63.
91
Cf. Kretschmer (1891) 121.
92
Kretschmer’s idea (see above).
224 Comrades in Love
occasion to win glory which might provoke the beloved’s reciproca-
tion,93 or alternatively the occasion to take an Achilles-like revenge
for the death of the beloved and/or to extinguish the pain for his
death in war.94 In both cases (but more in the latter than in the former
case) it is appealing to suppose that the author of the inscription
evoked the prototypal erotic poet Anacreon as his formal starting-
point precisely in order to emphasize the difference of his martial-
erotic message.95
In any case Phaedrus’ words in the Symposium (178e–179a) ex-
emplify the broadest application in Athens of the social utility of
pederasty, as this form of love is considered the best incitement not
only to military bravery but also to the most responsible civic beha-
viour of the citizens:
N s ÅåÆ Ø ªØ u ºØ ª ŁÆØ j æÆ KæÆ H
ŒÆd ÆØØŒH, PŒ Ø ‹ø i ¼ Ø NŒ ØÆ c ÆıH j
I å Ø ø H ÆN åæH ŒÆd çØºØ Ø æe Iºººı,
ŒÆd Æå ª i ’ Iºººø ƒ ØFØ ØŒHØ i OºªØ Z
‰ N E Æ IŁæı. KæH ªaæ Icæ e ÆØØŒH OçŁBÆØ
j ºØg Ø j ‹ºÆ Iƺg w i ı ÆØ j e ø
H ¼ººø, ŒÆd æe ı Ł ÆØ i ºº ŒØ &ºØ. ŒÆd c
KªŒÆÆºØ E ª a ÆØØŒa j c ÅŁB ÆØ ŒØı Ø—P d oø
ŒÆŒe ‹ØÆ PŒ i ÆPe › ῎¯æø Ł Ø Ø æe Iæ , u
‹Ø r ÆØ HØ Iæ øØ ç Ø.
If in some way it could be brought about that there was a city, or an
army, of lovers and their beloveds, there is nothing that would enable
them to govern their country better than their abstention from all
shameful things and their rivalry with each other in pursuit of honour;
and if they actually fought alongside each other, such men—even a few
of them—would overcome practically all human opponents. A man in
love would surely find it less acceptable to be seen either breaking ranks
or throwing his arms away by a beloved than by anyone else, and rather
than have that happen he would choose to die many times over. More-
over, as for abandoning his beloved, or not going to his aid when he was
in danger—no one is so cowardly that Love himself would not give him
93
Cf. Dover (1978) 124, coll. IG I3 ii.1401 (first quarter of the 5th cent.) ‘Lysitheos
says that he loves Mikion more than anyone in the city, for he is brave (Iæ E)’.
94
Cf. Crönert (1910) 462.
95
P. A. Hansen, CEG p. 33 prefers to think that both Anacreon and CEG 47
depend on a lost epic hexameter.
Comrades in Love 225
a courage that was inspired, to make him resemble the man who
possesses supreme courage by nature.96
Just a few words after this consideration, Phaedrus refers to Aeschylus
in his eulogy of the noble end of the love of Achilles and Patroclus
(see below), so that these two heroes practically (though inexplicitly)
seem perfect examples in his speech of his idealization of the state-
and army-related usefulness of pederasty (Symp. 179e–180b). In full
agreement with Phaedrus, Pausanias’ subsequent speech maintains
that the maturation of the symmetry of feelings between the two
tyrannicides proved what love can bring about: ‘it was Aristogeiton’s
love (æø) for Harmodius, and Harmodius’ affection (çØºÆ) for him,
when both became firm and constant, that brought tyranny to an end’
(Symp. 182c)—the same parallelism between Achilles/Patroclus and
Harmodius/Aristogeiton can also be inferred from Aeschines, Tim.
140 and 142 (quoted above), and demonstrates that some analogy
could be drawn in classical Athenian ideology between the ethically
enabling love of the homosexual fathers of democracy and that of
Achilles and Patroclus.
It is therefore impossible to answer the question whether Aeschy-
lus had already suggested a connection between the story of Achilles
and Patroclus and the idea of pederasty’s social utility, or whether the
combination hinted at in Plato came only later. But that Aeschylus’
trilogy drove its audience also to consider this idea remains a plau-
sible possibility. In this case, Aeschylus not only may have been
exploring the private/public polarity, but also was perhaps interested
in investigating whether and how conveniently or steadily this third
pole—the deployment of private feelings in the service of the public
interest and policies—could fit into the established public/private
polarity, or could collapse it but also resurrect it. After all, it is
because of his bond with Patroclus and the consequent need of
revenge, that Achilles returns to fight against Hector and, after killing
Hector, the other Trojans.97
96
Trans. from Plato’s Symposium are by C. J. Rowe.
97
As Michelakis (2002) 45 correctly comments, ‘a historical practice in military
societies such as Sparta, used to celebrate the tyrant-slayers Harmodius and Aristo-
geiton in Athens, and a topos in homosexual literature of later times, is here broken
and reassembled as spectacle for the Athenian populace’.
226 Comrades in Love
Aeschylus is usually assumed to have been the first to rewrite the story
of Achilles and Patroclus as a clear love-story. The tragedian may
have relied on earlier hints in this direction, for example in sixth-
century lyric, but it seems probable that this new interpretation of
Homer’s silence was strongly associated with him. In fact, when
Plato’s Phaedrus tries to classify more properly which roles Achilles
and Patroclus had to play as lovers in terms of the Athenian standard
etiquette of pederasty, he quotes Aeschylus and appears to consider
him the only relevant interlocutor in his brief discussion of the
sexual roles of Achilles and Patroclus. This issue had been simply
irrelevant to Homer, as Homer, I repeat, never portrayed the intense
companionship of this couple as love, but only as an exceptional
companionship.98 The problem arose, instead, when Aeschylus re-
defined Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. In fact, the roles of friends
in a bond of friendship are usually mutual and equal (Aristotle for
instance adopted the maxim: çØºÅ N Å ‘amity is equality’ in Eth.
Nic. 1157b36, Eth. Eud. 1241b13), whereas at least from the sixth/fifth
century onwards, pederastic love involved a precise etiquette with
asymmetrical roles for the lover (erastes) and the beloved (eromenos),
according to which the two partners were believed to have different
views of their liaison, in line with their different respective functions.
The erastes was assumed to be older, to have a dominant and sexually
active role, and to appreciate the beauty of the eromenos; the erome-
nos was younger and still displaying the tenderness and the hair-
lessness of a female body, sexually passive and thus equivalent to a
woman, and he was supposed to appreciate the greater wisdom, not
the comeliness, of the erastes.99 What to do, then, with Achilles and
Patroclus, as the former was younger and the most handsome of the
Greeks,100 while Homer never mentions any special handsomeness in
98
Above, pp. 207–13.
99
For the distinction between symmetry of friends/asymmetry of lovers I am
heavily indebted to Konstan (1997a) 37–9; cf. also Cohen (1991) 178–99; de Vries
(1997), to be read with the remarks by Skinner (2005) 91; Calame (1999) 35–43.
100
Achilles is called the most handsome of the Greeks in the Iliad: in the Catalogue
Homer comments of Nireus: Œ ººØ Icæ e ”ºØ qºŁ j H ¼ººø ˜ÆÆH
IÆ —ź øÆ ‘he was the handsomest man who came to Ilios of all the Danaans,
after the blameless son of Peleus’ (Il. 2.673–4). As D. Konstan remarks, per litteras,
Comrades in Love 227
Patroclus, yet in most situations it was Achilles who had the last word
and was the principal?101
According to what we hear from Plato (see below), Aeschylus
presented Achilles as the erastes of Patroclus. This interpretation of
the liaison of the two heroes may have found an almost immediate
resonance in Pindar’s Olympian 10, for a victory of 476 bc. At lines
16–19 Pindar compares the debt of gratitude which Hagesidamus of
Epizephyrian Locris (a boy boxing victor) should feel for his trainer
Ilas to Patroclus’ debt of gratitude to Achilles:
ŒÆ K OºıØ Ø ØŒH
῎%ºÆØ ç æø å æØ
<ªÅ Æ, ‰
åØº E — 挺
victorious as a boxer at Olympia, Hagesidamus should be grateful to
Ilas, just as Patroclus was to Achilles
We cannot rule out that Pindar relied on pre-existing narratives
expressing the idea that because of his prodigious education from
Chiron, Achilles was the teacher of Patroclus—with no pederastic
undertones. However, the relatively close chronology of Aeschylus’
trilogy and Pindar’s passage, and the fact that Pindar did respond
elsewhere to the theatre of Aeschylus,102 suggest the idea that Pindar,
in general P æø J KæøØŒ ‘being immoderately erotic’ (Athen.
13.601c) and often interested in the pederastic theme,103 considered
Hagesidamus’ mentorship to Ilas to be based on their homoerotic
engagement. We might surmise this scenario: as sexual liaisons
Phaedrus might not have read Homer entirely amiss in Plato’s Symposium (180a),
when he relied on these verses, among others (see below, p. 229), to show that
Patroclus must have been Achilles’ lover.
101
Modern scholars who favour a homosexual interpretation of the relationship
between Homeric Achilles and Patroclus may accept, for instance, the historical
perspective that the ‘sexual relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is an unhier-
archised one between men who are to all intents and purposes peers (Ogden (1996)
125). But for the ancients of classical and post-classical Greece the hierarchical
schemes of the pederastic etiquette canonized between the 6th and 5th cent. appear
to have been inescapable.
102
See Hubbard (1990) with further bibliography.
103
For instance the paideutic role of Chiron in Pyth. 6 might have been inherently
pederastic (L. Kurke) and a pederastic dimension might have been introduced by
Pindar into the myth of Poseidon and Pelops in Ol. 1 (A. Köhnken): cf. Hubbard
(2003) 17 n. 6.
228 Comrades in Love
were very frequent between every sort of teacher and their pupils, and
in particular between athletic trainers and pupils, Pindar assumed that
the relation between Hagesidamus and Ilas was also to be interpreted
in pederastic terms; he therefore went on to establish a comparison
between it and the intense feelings uniting Patroclus and Achilles,
which Aeschylus had recently described as homoerotic.104 Of course,
the Iliad never straightforwardly defines Achilles as Patroclus’ teacher;
this would have been difficult even in principle, as Patroclus’ father
points out that his son is older than Achilles and invites him to exercise
a sort of mentorship over him, giving him ‘words of wisdom and
advice’, in 11.786–9.105 Pindar would in this regard not be indebted
to Homer, but would have his Achilles play a didactic role largely
based on Aeschylus’ conception of this hero as Patroclus’ model and
erastes: Pindar’s own addition would then be the emphasis on the
common overlap between homoerotic mentorship and athletic train-
ing.106 Yet even in suggesting the idea of Achilles as Patroclus’ teacher,
despite his younger age and the superior wisdom of Patroclus (which
were Iliadic data), I think that Pindar may have found some help in
Homer after all. At the end of Book 11 (see above), Eurypylus asks
Patroclus—who is taking care of his wound—quite precisely (11.829–
32): ‘cut the arrow from my thigh, and wash the dark blood from it
with warm water, and spread soothing medicines on the wound, those
benign drugs they say you have learnt from Achilles—and he was taught
them by Chiron, most civilized of the Centaurs ( æ çÆ Ø
åØººB Ø åŁÆØ, j n ) æø KÆ ØŒÆØÆ ˚ Ææø).’
In fact, 11.829–32 may have been a passage of some importance for
people seeking an explanation why Achilles was younger than Patro-
clus in the Iliad, but was nonetheless understood as the erastes in
Aeschylus’ homosexual interpretation of their relationship: not only
does this passage state that Achilles taught Patroclus something, but it
evokes the famous superior education received by Achilles from
104
The idea that the paradigm of Achilles and Patroclus serves in Ol. 10 to eroticize
the relation between the victorious athlete and his trainer Ilas has been argued by
Hubbard (2003).
105
See above, p. 204.
106
Hubbard (2003) 1–2, who in fact observes: ‘nothing in the Iliad or mythological
tradition makes Achilles a teacher of Patroclus; the one admonition Achilles offers
Patroclus in the Iliad Patroclus fatefully disobeys’.
Comrades in Love 229
Chiron, which was perhaps a more than enough reason why he would
be able to teach even an older companion.107
If Ol. 10 really intended to present victor and trainer as con-
nected by a pederastic bond, and if therefore Achilles and Patroclus
were compared to them as an exemplary couple of lovers, then
Pindar agreed with Aeschylus that Patroclus was the eromenos of
Achilles, and Achilles the principal and erastes (though younger).
Conversely, Phaedrus in Plato’s Symposium (180a) vehemently dis-
agreed with Aeschylus: `N åº b çºıÆæ E ç Œø åØººÆ
—ÆæŒºı KæA ‘Aeschylus plays the fool when he says that
Achilles was the erastes of Patroclus’. He maintained that Achilles
was in fact the eromenos, because ‘his beauty exceeded not only
Patroclus’ but in fact that of all the heroes, and he was still beard-
less, and also much younger, as Homer says (u çÅ Ø , OÅæ)’;108
but the beardlessness, the most predictable feature of Achilles’ role
as an eromenos according to the etiquette of homosexuality, was
Phaedrus’ personal addition, as the state of Achilles’ beard was not
recorded in Homer, who could not care less, as we have seen above,
about defining Achilles’ erotic sentiments, to say nothing of his
homoerotic physiognomy.
107
I think we should connect this passage with the Sosias kylix in Berlin of about
500 bc (Berlin F 2278 = LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 468), and we should do so more emphat-
ically than it is usually done (usually only Il. 11.831–2 is quoted in the interpretations
of this cup, as a reference explaining why Achilles knew of the medical art). The cup
represents Achilles taking care of a wound of Patroclus (both characters identified by
inscriptions): Achilles (young and without a beard) has removed the arrow and is
bandaging his friend (with beard and moustache): for a thorough reading of this cup
in erotic terms, which is enlightening, though not necessarily the last word as far the
erotic interpretation is concerned, cf. Davidson (2007) 264–7; Lear in Lear and
Cantarella (2008) 99–100. We do not know of any battle where Patroclus was shot
and Achilles healed him—of course there may have been one or more in the Cypria
that were not reported in Proclus’ meagre summary (cf. above, p. 24 n. 10). But if the
artist relied on the Iliad, then it is tempting to suppose that the end of Book 11, and in
particular 11.829–32, might be at the basis of his fantasy. The scene depicted on the
kylix will then have been conceived of as the occasion on which Achilles taught
Patroclus how to heal arrow-wounds, or as an example of Achilles’ special compe-
tence with the treatment of arrow-wounds, so that the viewer could be prompted, for
instance, to consider the picture on the cup as a sort of first ‘instalment’ followed by
the other episode of Eurypylus and Patroclus, at the end of Iliad 11.
108
Cf. Il. 2.673–4, 17.279–80; Od. 11.550–1 for the superior comeliness, and Il.
11.787 for the younger age. Also above, pp. 226–7 n. 100.
230 Comrades in Love
Phaedrus must really have considered the hierarchy of ages and
roles prescribed by fifth century pederasty to be set in stone. In fact,
one of Phaedrus’ main points in his defence of love is that love and
the presence of the beloved lead men to feel more shame toward
doing shameful things and to be competitive with each other in the
pursuit of honour (178e–179a, see above about war). But when it
comes to the most heroic thing one can do for another, and the thing
which the gods honour most, that is dying for others, Phaedrus
specifies that ‘only those who are in love (ƒ KæH ) are willing to
do it’ (179b4). Now, Achilles is precisely the paradigm that Phaedrus
adopts for the capacity to die for others; therefore an Achilles ‘lover’,
KæH, would have brought grist to Phaedrus’ main argument, but in
order to stick to the parameters of role-distinctions in classical ped-
erasty and the data provided by Homer, Phaedrus has to support the
opposite idea that Achilles is the eromenos. He appears to sacrifice his
own logic for the sake of enforcing the ‘golden rules’ of contemporary
pederasty.109
In any case, Achilles did die for Patroclus, and for this reason,
according to Phaedrus, the gods honoured Achilles with the most
prestigious privilege, after death, to live in the Isles of the Blessed
(179e–180a):
åØººÆ e B ¨Ø e KÅ Æ ŒÆd N ÆŒ æø ı
I łÆ, ‹Ø ı Ææa B Åæe ‰ IŁÆE IŒ Æ
‚ŒæÆ, c Ø Æ b F YŒÆ KºŁg ªÅæÆØe º ı Ø,
KºÅ º ŁÆØ ÅŁ Æ HØ KæÆ BØ —ÆæŒºøØ ŒÆd Øøæ Æ
P æÆŁÆ E Iººa ŒÆd KÆŁÆ E º ıÅŒØ
[the gods] honoured Achilles, son of Thetis, and sent him to the Isles of
the Blessed, because when he learned from his mother that he would die
if he killed Hector, but that, if he did not do that, he would go home and
end his life in old age, he dared to choose to go to his lover Patroclus’ aid
and avenge him, and so not merely to die for him but to add his death
soon after he had died
As the correlative P . . . Iººa ŒÆ demonstrates, the climax
inherent in Achilles’ sacrifice of his own life for love is that he not
only died ‘for’ (æ) Patroclus, but also ‘in immediate addition to’—
109
Unless the inconsequentiality of the paradigm of Achilles is a wilfully provoca-
tive exaggeration of the rhetoric of encomium. As Rowe (1998) 140 comments ad loc.,
‘more than likely . . . Phaedrus is meant to be taken as being deliberately perverse’.
Comrades in Love 231
this must be the sense of the prefix K in the uncommon
KÆŁÆ E. I think that Phaedrus is here following very closely the
dialogue between Achilles and Thetis in Il. 18.78–137.110 When
Achilles expresses the intention not to live any longer (P Kb
Łıe ¼øª j Ç Ø P ¼æ Ø ÆØ, 18.90–1) if Hector is
not the first enemy to fall by his spear, Thetis sadly comments that in
this case he is going to live only a short span of time (Tξ), since
for him ‘death is ready straightway after Hector’s death’ (ÆPŒÆ . . .
ØÆ Ł ‚ŒæÆ E, Il. 18.95–96). Achilles replies
with a death wish which seems to fuse his scornful reaction to the
inevitability of his death with his wish for self-punishment—he has
decided, finally and too late, to ‘help’ Patroclus and avenge him on
Hector (hence, I think, the generalization of Plato’s Phaedrus, Symp.
179a: ‘as for abandoning his beloved, or not going to his aid when he
was in danger, . . . ’). His words raise the stakes of Thetis’ sad predic-
tion, and make it worse by expressing the precise wish for an im-
mediate death (Il. 18.98–100):
ÆPŒÆ ŁÆÅ, K d PŒ ¼æ ºº ÆæøØ
Œ ØøØ KÆFÆØ· n b ºÆ ÅºŁØ æÅ
çŁØ , K E b B IæB IºŒBæÆ ª ŁÆØ.
Let me die directly, since I was not to help my friend at his killing—he
has died far away from his native land, and did not have me there to
protect him from destruction.
The Platonic KÆŁÆ E º ıÅŒØ reproposes in my opinion
the wish of immediate death expressed by Achilles in Il. 18.98–9a
(ÆPŒÆ), and transforms Achilles’ wish/readiness into an action
which Phaedrus can thus proclaim worthy of reward from the gods
(in the Iliadic war at Troy Achilles’ death took place a relatively long
time after he avenged Patroclus, though Thetis’ prophecy in Il. 18.96
quoted above makes this time issue less relevant than the certain
relationship of cause and effect). Besides, Plato would articulate the
concise KÆFÆØ of Homer into the aorist participles ÅŁ Æ . . . ŒÆd
Øøæ Æ in 179e, thus making clear that in Achilles’ intentions
vengeance on Hector had to precede death in any case, according to
the actual evolution of the Iliadic plot: another noble mission for
Patroclus’ sake, before dying for Patroclus.
110
Already mentioned above, pp. 218–19.
232 Comrades in Love
111
See above, pp. 188–9.
112
It is commonly assumed that either Plato or Xenophon read the other’s
Symposium, and the points of contact between the two works are impressive (list in
Thesleff (1978) 157–63). More controversial is who wrote first. A date commonly
accepted for Plato’s Symp. is between 384 and 378 (cf. Dover (1965)), but for
Xenophon’s Symp. we have no sure chronological clue. The statements in favour of
Xenophon’s priority are comparatively few, and modern scholars usually argue that
Xenophon came after Plato (see most recently Huss (1999) 13–18, who suggests
dating Xenophon’s Symp. to the late 360s), or that at least chapter 8 in Xenophon’s
Symp. came after Plato. In fact Thesleff (1978), followed by Bowen (1998), has
maintained that Xenophon’s chapter 8 (namely our chapter on Achilles and Patroclus
inter alia), with its apologetic emphasis on spiritual/non-sexual passions, appears to
have come after the Symp. of Plato. This reconstruction, however, appears to beg the
question, if we take into consideration, with Huss (1999) 16–18, that some of the
arguments Xenophon’s Socrates proposes in favour of a spiritual as opposed to a
material ideal of love seem to be modelled on Plato’s Phaedrus, dating from about 365.
Loscalzo (2008) is the most recent reconsideration of Socrates’ and Plato’s ideas about
homoerotic love, and especially its pedagogic relevance.
Comrades in Love 233
parallels a series of pairs of mythical heroes whose bond commonly
met the definition of un-erotic companionship. Cf. Symp. 8.31:
åØºº f ˇæøØ ÅÆØ På ‰ ÆØØŒE —ÆæŒºøØ Iºº ‰
ÆæøØ IŁÆØ KŒæ ÆÆ ØøæB ÆØ. ŒÆd Oæ Å b ŒÆd
—ıº Å ŒÆd ¨Å f ŒÆd — ØæŁı ŒÆd ¼ººØ b ººd H ØŁø
ƒ ¼æØ Ø FÆØ P Øa e ıªŒÆŁ Ø Iººa Øa e ¼ªÆ ŁÆØ
Iºººı a ªØ Æ ŒÆd Œ ººØ Æ ŒØBØ ØÆ æAåŁÆØ.
Homer represents Achilles taking his spectacular revenge for Patroclus’
death not because Patroclus was his eromenos, but as a comrade. So we
also have songs telling how Orestes, Pylades, Theseus, Pirithous, and
many other illustrious demigods achieved great and glorious deeds side
by side, not because they shared a common bed, but because of mutual
admiration and respect.
Xenophon seems to deal primarily with Homer and the case of
Achilles and Patroclus, and it is only in order to make his point
stronger that he adds the other two couples of mythical friends as
parallels—two parallels among the ‘many other heroes’ who, as So-
crates says (¼ººØ b ººd H ØŁø), might be adduced. Xeno-
phon’s presentation had thus not amounted yet to a list of three
parallel and equivalent exemplary entries but still, it most probably
stands at the beginning of a long tradition which turned the three
couples of ‘perfect friends’ into a quite successful rhetorical topos in
Rome from (at least) the first century bc. At the beginning of this
century, from outside the Socratic circle and its debates, and more or
less two centuries after this exchange of ideas between Plato and
Xenophon, a love poem by Bion of Smyrna113 revived the debate
between Plato and Xenophon. Understandably, in light of his fa-
voured genre, he sided with the ‘party of love’, namely with Plato,
and he did so by formulating his position through a list of paradigms,
which pointedly challenged Xenophon’s ‘quasi-list’ (fr. 12 Gow =
Reed):
ZºØØ ƒ çØº Kc Y I æ øÆØ.
ZºØ q ¨Å f H — ØæØŁø Ææ ,
N ŒÆd I غŒØ ŒÆºıŁ N Æ·
ZºØ q åÆº E Ø K Ø Ø Oæ Æ
u Œ ƒ ıa —ıº Æ –ØæÅ Œ º Łø·
113
We have already dealt with his role in the history of (bucolic-)erotic poetry
above, pp. 43–61.
234 Comrades in Love
q ŒÆæ `NÆŒÆ æø Ç åØºº ·
ZºØ q Ł Ø Œø ‹ ƒ P æ ÆNe ¼ı .114
Blessed are those who love when they are loved equally in return.
Blessed was Theseus when Pirithous was at his side, even though he
went down to the house of implacable Hades. Blessed was Orestes
among the inhospitable Taurians, since Pylades had chosen journeys
in common with him. Achilles, scion of Aeacus, was blessed when his
companion was alive; blessed was he in death, since he did not avert the
sad destiny from him.115
It is well known that there is a connection between the idea of an
‘immediate death’ that enables Achilles to quench his guilt for aban-
doning Patroclus and to take revenge on Hector, expressed in Plato’s
Symposium, and the last two lines of Bion’s fragment, which, independ-
ently of the text we adopt, however, point to Achilles’ ‘death after’
Patroclus.116 But Bion seems to me to be indebted to Plato far beyond
this idea. In Xenophon, as we have seen, the couples of Orestes/Pylades
and Theseus/Pirithous were paradigms still used to exemplify the
friendly intensity of feelings connecting the couple Achilles/Patroclus,
and proved the relevance of spiritual love. In Bion the three couples
became a list of standard (universally agreeable, as they seem) para-
digms of lovers.117 Bion not only talks of the importance of recipro-
cated homosexual love but also intensifies the eulogy’s impact by
declaring his exempla ‘happy’, ZºØØ, because of both the strength of
their erotic bond and the fullness of their reciprocation. This operation
will have been triggered, in my opinion, by Plato’s mention of the prize
awarded to Achilles: to live after death in the Isles of the Blessed, the
ÆŒ æø B Ø. That the Isles of the Blessed were the original model
which Bion ‘rhetoricizes’ in his makarismos was possibly made more
transparent, in my opinion, by the fact that in the single case of Achilles
114
For the last line I have printed the Oxford Class. Text of A. S. F. Gow, who
accepts Meineke’s emendation to ‹ ƒ P æ against the paradosis ‹Ø ƒ æ
favoured by Reed (1997)—according to the paradosis, the sense of line 7 would be:
‘blessed was he in death, since he avenged his baneful fate’. For the linguistic reasons
of my choice, cf. Fantuzzi in Fantuzzi and Hunter (2004) 173 n. 146. According to
Meineke’s text, Bion would present a precise actualization of Achilles’ wish in Il.
18.98–100.
115
Trans by J. D. Reed.
116
Cf., most recently, Reed (1997) 179.
117
From the 5th cent. onwards homoerotic reinterpretations of relations between
mythological male characters become increasingly frequent: for a review, cf. Dover
(1978) 199–200.
Comrades in Love 235
Bion varies at line 6 the otherwise consistent (4 times) epithet of
‘blessed’, ZºØ, to the other epithet ŒÆæ.
Xenophon’s view about the nature of the relation between Achilles/
Patroclus, Orestes/Pylades, Theseus/Pirithous—just very good
friends—was going to overshadow Bion’s innovation, which re-
mained without followers.118 But Bion may have found at least one
most distinguished follower: Virgil.
118
See below, pp. 257–8. for the use of this triplet of paradigms in Ovid. As
Konstan (1997b) 38 correctly observes, the homosexual interpretation of Achilles
and Patroclus seems to have gone out of fashion after the fourth cent. bc. This does
not mean that we cannot find occasional references to Achilles and Patroclus as lovers
in later authors: see e.g. Sanz Morales and Laguna Mariscal (2003) for a possible case
in Chariton (but the other case that Sanz Morales and Laguna Mariscal (2005) suggest
in Apollonius of Rhodes seems less certain); Straton, AP 12.217.
119
The depiction of the slaughter of Rhesus on the walls of the temple of Carthage
in Aen. 1.469–73 has been often considered in recent studies an anticipation of the
236 Comrades in Love
same events of the simultaneous spy-missions conducted by the
Greeks Odysseus and Diomedes and by the Trojan Dolon. These
events took place on an especially eventful night for the Greek
army, just after the embassy to Achilles had proved that the most
important Greek warrior was not going to resume fighting, and the
absence of Achilles from the battlefield clearly parallels the absence of
Aeneas. The same narrative had already been the subject of Accius’
Nyctegresia, of which, however, we have only a few tiny fragments.
This kind of multiple intertextuality may of course have been much
more frequent in the ancient world, above all in Latin literature and in
particular in Virgil’s work, than the greatly reduced body of surviving
Greek literature enables us to recognize. We simply do not know, for
instance, whether and how often Virgil read his Homer through the
filter of Aeschylus’ Iliadic tragedies, as we have the Iliad but not those
plays. It is a quite reasonable conjecture, however, that Virgil con-
sidered pre-existing tragic reworkings of epic texts to be interesting
and appealing precedents for his blending of epic genre and tragic
mood in the Aeneid.120 We can thus suppose an influence of the
Aeschylean reworking of the epic myth of Achilles and Patroclus on
the markedly sentimental twist that characterizes Virgil’s presentation
of the feelings that connect Nisus and Euryalus in what can be
considered a sort of ‘tragic epyllion’121 within the Aeneid. The con-
troversial complexity of Nisus’ and Euryalus’ characters may also be
indebted to Aeschylus’ investigation of the contrast between the public
and private dimensions of the two warriors’ relationship (see above).
Last but not least, we can see concretely how the tragic reworking of
the Homeric story in the Rhesus may have influenced details in Virgil’s
own ‘tragic’ reinterpretation of the Homeric Doloneia.122
episode of Nisus and Euryalus (despite the fact that Aen. 1.471 only mentions the
‘Tydides’, not Odysseus, which strikes me as a little surprising in this perspective). Cf.
Stanley (1965); Lowenstam (1993–4); Dué and Ebbott (2010) 136–45 (also to be seen
for a persuasive analysis of the Virgilian episode of Nisus and Euryalus as an imitation
of the ‘poetics of ambush’ of Iliad 10). The Greek ‘Doloneia’ was paralleled to the
episode of Nisus and Euryalus by Ov. Ibis 629–32.
120
Among the huge bibliography on the topic, most recently: Hardie (1997); Conte
(2007) 23–57; Panoussi (2009).
121
As some call the story of Dido in Aen. 4, which has much in common with
the episode of Nisus and Euryalus—the definition is by Heinze (1993) 96; but
cf. especially Collard (1975b) 141. See below, pp. 241–2.
122
I shall refrain, however, from dealing in detail with Virgil’s ‘debt’ to the Rhesus
or to Homer, or from attempting a systematic reassessment of Virgil’s balance (or
imbalance) between Homer or Hellenistic Homeric scholarship and the Rhesus. See
Comrades in Love 237
Nisus’ and Euryalus’ martial dimension and heroic qualities are
rather inconsistent, and every attempt at finding unity in their char-
acterization has proved unsuccessful. There are substantial cahiers de
doléances by modern critics about the pair’s lack of ‘professionalism’
and behavioural coherence.
During the mission, first of all, both indulge in a massacre of
Rutulians, on the immoderate cruelty and dangerous excess of
which Virgil comments: (9.354) sensit enim nimia caede atque cupi-
dine ferri ‘for he [sc. Nisus] saw his comrade swept away by excessive
lust of carnage’. Furthermore, despite the noble magnanimity he
displays during his conversation with Ascanius, Euryalus wastes
precious time during the mission—the aim of which is to fetch
Aeneas—in order to collect booty. Pointedly, the weight of the
loot he carries slows down his attempt at escaping the Latin knights
led by Volcens: 9.384–5 Euryalum tenebrae ramorum onerosaque
praeda j impediunt fallitque timor regione viarum ‘Euryalus is ham-
pered by the shadowy branches and the burden of his spoils, and
fear misleads him in the line of the paths’. Odysseus and Diomedes
also indulge in slaughtering Rhesus’ Thracians. In Iliad 10, they are
tempted to continue the slaughter after killing Rhesus (cf. 503–6),
and in the Rhesus they ponder about whether to stay and kill more
Trojans after killing Dolon or to return safely to the Greek camp
(580–94). But in Il. 10 and in the Rhesus, Athena intervenes in their
actions, whereas in the Nisus and Euryalus episode the gods are
conspicuously absent and certainly never intervene to correct
human action:123 thus their overzealous quest for spoils causes the
failure of the mission of the Trojan pair.124
already on the topic Fenik (1960) 54–96; Knauer (1964) 266–75 and 407–10; König
(1970) 89–108; Schlunk (1974) 59–91; Pavlock (1990) 89–92; Hardie (1994) 118, 131,
133, 137, 141; Schmit-Neuerburg (1999) 23–65; Jolivet (2004).
123
See Dingel (1997) 32–4. Euryalus’ incuria (or spes magna sed puerile consilium),
together with misfortune, is often stressed by the ancient commentators as the main
reason for the failure of the expedition: cf. Gioseffi (2005–6) 198–204.
124
Ajax in Ov. Met. 13.98–116 may amusingly rely on our passage, and charge
Odysseus with a lack of intertextual memory, when in the armorum iudicium he
reminds him that, were Achilles’ arms assigned to him at the end, the nitor galeae
claro radiantis ab auro ‘the helmet [of Achilles] gleaming with bright gold’ would
betray him or discover him as he hides as usual (13.105–6), and the weight of this
armour would be a fatal impediment to his main military device: flight (13.114–16); cf.
Labate (1980). But already in Virgil the epithet immemor, used of Euryalus as he is
betrayed by the shining of the galea (9.373–4), may have pointed intertextually back to
238 Comrades in Love
Last but not least, when faced with the death of his beloved Eury-
alus, Nisus tries to attract the attention of the Rutulians and offers
himself to be killed in his stead, in an attempt at a sort of ‘sacrificial
substitution’ of his body for the body of Euryalus.125 In so doing, as
Virgil comments, he is made amens (9.424) by erotic grief for his
companion: apart from exposing himself to sure death, he overlooks
the purpose of the mission and thus allows his private feelings to
prevail over the general interest of the Trojan people.
The protagonists’ actions and motivations seem so capricious and
contradictory that some modern critics have even argued that the two
die deservedly in the end, as a consequence of their greed for booty or
their excessive passion (god-sent ardor, or personal dira cupido,
9.184–5). According to G. E. Duckworth, for instance, Nisus and
Euryalus belong to the group of Virgilian characters like Mezentius,
Camilla, and Turnus who pay the penalty for their excess and beha-
vioural mistakes;126 in particular, M. A. Di Cesare has highlighted
Nisus’ and Euryalus’ strategic errors, which resemble Turnus’ mis-
takes,127 and M. Labate has noted that the shining helmet which
Euryalus seizes and improvidently wears stands in stark opposition
to the leather casques of Diomedes and Odysseus or Dolon’s wolf
disguise in the ‘Doloneia’ of the Iliad.128 Besides, as K. Quinn stresses,
the carnage accomplished by the two unavoidably alienates the read-
ers129—especially since, unlike Odysseus and Diomedes, they are not
the theft of the Palladium in the Little Iliad (PEG 25 = 11 West), when Odysseus had
tried to kill Diomedes, but the moonlight had shown the gleam (Conon) or the shade
(Paus. Att.) of his sword to his companion; cf. Jolivet (2004) 205–7.
125
Cf. Hardie (1993) 49–50, who also remarks that, when Volcens ignores Nisus’
plea, the latter reacts to the killing of his friend by taking a life for another life, that of
Volcens for that of Euryalus, and in so doing brings about the self-immolation which
he had sought earlier.
126
Duckworth (1967) 147–9: ‘they do the wrong things and suffer tragic deaths as
a result’. See later especially Huxley (1974); Saylor (1990); Farron (1993) 9–11.
127
Di Cesare (1974) 157–66.
128
Labate (1980) 31–2; also Schmit-Neuerburg (1999) 57–8. Already A Il.
10.258 observed (on Diomedes’ ŒıÅ . . . Æıæ Å . . . ¼çƺ ŒÆd ¼ººç ‘casque
of bull’s hide without horn and without crest’): ¼çƺ b ŒÆd ¼ººç ŒÆ’
KØ ı Ø, ¥ Æ ºÆŁ ÅØ ‘without horn and without crest as a deliberate measure,
so that he can escape notice’.
129
Quinn (1968) 205. See also Horsfall (1995) 178: ‘Virgil pulls us in conflicting
directions, compelling us to share both admiration and some degree of condemnation
for the victims’ methods’.
Comrades in Love 239
guided by a god to the unheroic slaughter of their sleeping enemies,
but by their own bloody instincts.130 In fact, their dire yearning for
glory mimics in parvo the larger design according to which Virgil sees
mankind bound to be roused to anger again and again (M. C. Put-
nam);131 for B. Otis they are finally crushed by their bad cupido, and
deservedly die without the glory that their good cupido had envisaged,132
whereas for B. Pavlock they are guilty of preferring individualistic glory
or their mutual love to familial and civic pietas.133 Finally G. J. Fitzgerald
mounts a global defence of Nisus and Euryalus; he considers their
actions ‘unexamined’ not because they make personal mistakes but
because they misconceive the values imposed upon them by the militar-
ism of Augustan society.134
There is a clash, then, between the public celebration of national
values and the private experience of love or loss and grief, which is at
work in this episode and explains Nisus’ and Euryalus’ lack of coher-
ence. It may be a sort of exploration—from a tragic point of view—of
the nature of epic heroism, and possibly also the public interests
of Augustan imperial ideology, on the one hand, and of the cost of
these values for women and the young,135 or the ideal of friendship
in private life, on the other.136 In these terms, the episode would
constitute just another instance of the Aeneid’s blending of public
national epic voices and private tragic emotions. Indeed, describing
contrasting emotions or contesting roles within the framework of
gender, generational difference, past and present values—and espe-
cially the tension between public civic institutions and private mor-
ality and individualism—is a recurrent task on the agenda of several
130
Cristofoli (1996) 264–5.
131
Putnam (1995) 296–9.
132
Otis (1963) 350–1; also 393 (‘they pay the penalty for their own excess’).
133
Pavlock (1990) 104–5.
134
Fitzgerald (1972) 115; see also Boyle (1972) 79–80. Thornton (1976) 164–71,
Lennox (1977), Potz (1993), Horsfall (1995) 174–8, and Pizzolato (1995) provide
other balanced attempts at finding grounds for a positive appraisal of Nisus’ and
Euryalus’ enterprise: e.g. Virgil highlights the greatness of their communal love (Potz);
their juvenile heroism in a crucial situation for the Aeneadae is the guarantee for the
future martial greatness of Rome (Lennox); or they combine civic pietas and the amor
pius of amicitia (Pizzolato).
135
Cf. Ford Wiltshire (1999) 177.
136
Cf. Konstan (1997b) 131–5.
240 Comrades in Love
tragedies.137 After Homer and perhaps with greater focus than in
Homer, Aeschylus’ Achilles and Patroclus had certainly explored this
tension, as we have seen above. But the tantalizing state of the
fragments from the Aeschylean trilogy does not allow for a close
comparison with Virgil’s two heroes in love—with the single excep-
tion, perhaps, of the idea of amor pius, to which we shall return in due
time.138 Therefore I shall begin by concentrating on some details that
illustrate how Virgil appears to pursue a tragic quality in this episode
probably by imitating one technique and one motif of the Rhesus.
The Rhesus adopts a point of view opposite to that of Iliad 10, by
focusing the scenic action on the Trojan camp. The tragedy also
completely erases the narration of the capture and slaughter of the
coward Dolon, although it devotes much time to the killing of a
heroic Rhesus and thus shows some sympathy with or, at least, pays
attention to the Trojans. In the Iliad on the other hand, the action
mainly concentrates on the Greeks and—more precisely—on the two
Greek spies Odysseus and Diomedes, with a special ‘pro-Greek chau-
vinism’ which is frequent in the Iliad as a whole139 (a point under-
stood by the ancient exegetical tradition on Iliad 10: Il. 10.13). In
particular, Iliad 10 had gone to great lengths to present their Trojan
counterpart Dolon negatively as a greedy coward, and reserved just a
few lines for the slaughter of Rhesus.
The Rhesus also reapplies to the Trojans some details clearly drawn
from the Greek-centred action of Iliad 10 (or those books that
immediately precede and succeed Book 10). Thus, for instance, at
Rh. 7, Hector, awakened by the sentinels of the chorus, props up his
head on his elbow in exactly the same gesture as Nestor when
Agamemnon rouses him from sleep in Il. 10.73–9; Hector’s adviser
at the begining of the Rhesus, Aeneas, is ascribed speeches which in
the Iliad are given to Polydamas, and Hector’s list of offers to Dolon
137
Cf. Hardie (1997) 312–3, 316–7. As he points out on p. 317, ‘Homer already
explores the problem of heroes who are expected to serve the interests of their
group altruistically, but are encouraged at the same time (and indeed in the pursuit
of the communal good) to strive for a competitive, individualistic superiority. In
tragedy this instability within the Homeric system intensifies when it becomes the
instability of two different systems, one old and one new, rubbing up against each
other’.
138
pp. 254–6.
139
Taplin (1992) 152; Schmit-Neuerburg (1999) 27–30; above, p. 216.
Comrades in Love 241
evokes Agamemnon’s promises to Achilles, etc.140 Virgil may have
followed in the footsteps of the Rhesus, thus creating expectations
about the identity of places and characters which the narrative then
reveals to be erroneous or at least only partially true.
Likewise, Nisus and Euryalus, on the one hand, play the sad role of
doomed ‘losers’ that Dolon plays in Iliad 10 and in the Rhesus. When
they ask the Trojan leaders to authorize them to go and fetch Aeneas,
Nisus boldly anticipates that he will be back from his mission after
slaughtering the Rutulians and conquering some booty (9.242–3:
‘soon you will see us here again, laden with spoils after wreaking
mighty slaughter’), in a way that closely resembles the vain, tragic
boastfulness of Dolon in the Rh. 219–23: ‘I will get through safely and
when I have killed Odysseus I will bring his head back to you—that
way you will have clear proof that Dolon reached the Argive ships—
or perhaps I will kill the son of Tydeus. I shall return before dawn
breaks with bloodied hands’.141 Aletes’ comment following Nisus’
boast—9.247–50: ‘Gods of our fathers, whose presence ever watches
over Troy, despite all you do not in fact intend utterly to blot out the
Trojan race, since you have brought us such spirit in our youths and
such unwavering souls’—similarly resembles the tragically optimistic
comment of the chorus after Dolon’s final speech at Rh. 244–51: ‘I am
amazed at his courage. Brave men are always hard to find when days
are dark at sea and the city is being tossed on the waves. There are
brave men among the Phrygians, there is boldness among the war-
riors’. Furthermore, the long list of gifts enumerated by Ascanius to
Nisus as rewards for the mission—a pair of decorated goblets con-
quered at Arisba, a pair of golden tripods, a bowl presented by Dido,
and, after the defeat of the Rutulians, the horses and the armour of
Turnus, twelve Italian matrons and Italian warriors with their ar-
mour, all the lands of Latinus (9.263–74)—presupposes Hector’s and
Dolon’s discussion about material rewards in Rh. 164–92, as it is
140
I have dealt with this technique of ‘misleading intertextuality’ in Fantuzzi
(2006a) to which I refer the reader for more examples, and for a more detailed
analysis of the ones which I have mentioned here.
141
The Homeric Dolon (Il. 10.324–7) had only stated that he would have certainly
accomplished the spy mission, having been persuaded by Hector’s promise of
Achilles’ horses: ‘I shall not be a vain spy for you, nor less than your expectation,
for I shall go straight on through their camp, until I come to the ship of Agamemnon,
where their greatest men must be gathered to deliberate the question of running away
or fighting’.
242 Comrades in Love
completely absent from Iliad 10 (in both lists, the horses of the
greatest enemy are among the promised rewards).
On the other hand, Nisus and Euryalus are good soldiers primarily
motivated by the pursuit of martial glory (not like Dolon but like
Odysseus and Diomedes),142 or by loyal comradeship (like Agamem-
non and Menelaus).143 Euryalus’ concerns about what will happen to
his mother without his help are of the noblest sort (9.284–92), but he
can also become as greedy as Dolon, in his interest in gathering the
booty.144 Nisus and Euryalus also are the efficient and cynically cruel
commandos comparable to Odysseus and Diomedes, and in fact
perpetrate the kind of slaughter which in the Iliad and in the Rhesus
is accomplished by those Greeks.145 Furthermore, when at the end of
the mission Nisus and Euryalus are killed, they do not behave at all in
the disgraceful and cowardly manner that Dolon does,146 and thus
their heroic death is comparable to that of Rhesus, rather than to the
ignoble demise of Dolon.
In conclusion, the ethical complexity, almost incoherence, of Nisus
and Euryalus’ behaviour may have been influenced by tragedy’s taste
for investigating the motivations and contradictions of the human
soul. But the especially hybrid nature of these two characters may also
have found a precedent in the destabilizing kaleidoscope of over-
lapping or shifting characters of the Iliadic model that Virgil found in
the Rhesus.
Another token of the influence of the Rhesus (and/or, again, of
Greek tragedy in general) on the episode of Nisus and Euryalus is the
lament of Euryalus’ mother (9.481–97).147 No one mourns exten-
sively for the Thracians slaughtered by Odysseus and Diomedes in the
Iliad, apart from the laconic hint at a lament performed by Rhesus’
142
On the contrast between, on the one hand, Dolon, who seems from the
beginning quite un–heroic, and Odysseus and Diomedes, on the other, who are in
line with the fundamental martial values of the Iliad, cf. Williams (2000) 13.
143
On the influence of the model of the two brothers leading the Greek army at
Troy on Nisus and Euryalus, see Schmit-Neuerburg (1999) 40–3.
144
Casali (2004) 325.
145
The killing of Rhoetus, in particular, is described by Virgil (9.345–50) with
unusual syntax and phrases that resemble the dream-vision in which the charioteer
frames his description of the death of Rhesus in the tragedy named after him: Fenik
(1960) 73; König (1970) 99–100; Pavlock (1990) 99–100.
146
Casali (2004) 326.
147
On the structural role of the lament of Rhesus’ mother as an anticipation of the
main issue of pietas in books 9–12, cf. Egan (1980).
Comrades in Love 243
cousin Hippocoon, who ‘uttered a groan, and called his dear comrade
by name’ (10.522). The Rhesus, instead, concludes with the lamenta-
tion performed by Rhesus’ mother, which extends over some ninety
lines (890–982) of the tragedy, with just a few short interjections by
the chorus or by Hector. In addition to its length, many details of this
lament are quite different from the pure grief and despair expressed
by Euryalus’ mother. This difference does not surprise. The Muse has
the body of her son in her arms, and thus can improvise a real
funerary lament. She can also do this by resorting to her professional
skills as a mourner: according to the literary tradition—Od. 24.60–2
and the Aethiopis—the Muses sang a dirge at the funeral of
Achilles.148 In contrast, Euryalus’ mother is a human being and no
longer has access to the intact body of her child. Furthermore, thanks
to his divine mother, Rhesus is destined to a kind of immortality as a
religious hero, whereas Euryalus is simply dead. It is thus hardly
surprising that for the details of the speech of Euryalus’ mother,
centred around the topoi of the sadness an aged mother experiences
when bereaved of her children, Virgil finds his models elsewhere—
above all in Andromache’s lament upon seeing Hector’s body dragged
behind Achilles’ chariot (Il. 22.477–514) and the speeches which
Hecuba makes to Hector before and after he is killed (Il. 22.82–9,
431–6).149 The speech of Euryalus’ mother, however, is ‘far less re-
strained and far closer to insanity’ than these Iliadic models: she is
‘hysterical with shock’, and her brief lament contains many more
exclamations and exclamatory questions than that of Andromache,
and, instead of dying away into pathos like Andromache’s, her lament
rises to a peak of frenzy at the end.150 Not only does this excess of
excitement and pity resemble in tone the endless mourning of
the women in Greek tragedy, but it is also followed by an account of
the effect of her wailing on Aeneas’ men that evokes the poetics of
tragedy (9.498–502):
hoc fletu concussi animi, maestusque per omnis
it gemitus: torpent infractae ad proelia vires.
illam incendentem luctus Idaeus et Actor
148
Cf. Fantuzzi (2006b) 145–8.
149
Cf. La Penna (1983) 334–5; Schmit-Neuerburg (1999) 61–2.
150
Highet (1972) 153–4. La Penna (1983) 339 correctly emphasizes that Virgil’s
depiction of Euryalus’ mother stands at odds with the model of the Spartan mother,
who traditionally rejects any form of mourning for the sons fallen in battle.
244 Comrades in Love
Ilionei monitu et multum lacrimantis Iuli
corripiunt interque manus sub tecta reponunt.
At that wailing their spirits were shaken, and a groan of sorrow passed
through all; their strength for battle is numbed and crushed; and as thus
she kindles grief,151 Idaeus and Actor, bidden by Ilioneus and the sorely
weeping Iulus, catch her and carry her up indoors in their arms.152
It has been appropriately observed that many Greek tragedies
engage with the politics of lamentation, which appears to have been
a rather hot social issue in classical Greece, especially (but not only) at
Athens. Indeed, Athenian legislation (ever since the laws ascribed to
Solon) and that of other poleis as well consistently favoured private
and contained forms of mourning within the family and the house of
the deceased, and tried to limit the intervention of mercenary mourn-
ers or other exhibitions of luxury and power that might trigger
private, extrajudicial revenge for murders. Sometimes in tune with,
and sometimes in polemic with this legislative effort to limit public
manifestations of mourning, tragedy of the fifth century often in-
cludes descriptions of the most extreme and untempered forms of
mourning or exemplarily controlled mourning. The violent excess of
the laceration of the cheeks, in particular, is frequent on the tragic
stage, and female lament is often presented as beyond the control of
and hostile to male political power.153 The Choephori, for instance,
stages a chorus of lamenting foreign women, in contrast with the
prescriptions of Solon’s legislation, and several plays, including
Sophocles’ Antigone as well as Aeschylus’ Choephori and Septem,
emphasize the great revolutionary potential of the female lament. In
the Septem in particular, Eteocles tries to restrain the mournful fears
expressed by the Theban women by stating, inter alia, that they would
undercut the spirits of the citizens: cf. Sept. 237–8 ‰ ºÆ c
ŒÆŒ º ªåı ØŁBØ, j hŒÅº Y ŁØ Å ¼ªÆ æçF ‘in
151
The ‘grief ’, as it is usually taken, is the grief she contagiously spreads among the
soldiers (cf. 498 concussi animi); or she exasperates her own grief.
152
In terms of narrative function, as Fowler (2000) 108–9 correctly observed, with
the removal of Euryalus’ mother, the ‘closural allusion’ to the end of the episode of
Nisus and Euryalus which the precedent of the finale of the Rhesus made inherent to
her lament is transformed into a ‘denial of closure’: she is ‘simply taken back into the
tent like a ventriloquist’s dummy objecting to going back in the box, in order to close
the episode for the epic beginning which follows’ (Aen. 9.503–4).
153
From the large bibliography on the topic: Loraux (1990); Holst–Warhaft
(1992); Foley (2001) chap. 1; Hame (2008).
Comrades in Love 245
order not to make our citizens faint-hearted, use words of more
helpful omen and do not panic too much’; 262 ªÅ , t ºÆØÆ,
c çºı ç Ø ‘be silent, wretched women: don’t panic your
friends’—compare the effect of the laments of Euryalus’ mother in
Aen. 9.498–9 quoted above: hoc fletu concussi animi, maestusque per
omnis j it gemitus: torpent infractae ad proelia vires.
As I have tried to show elsewhere, the lament of Rhesus’ mother
shares Attic tragedy’s widespread concern with the discipline of
mourning.154 This is shown first of all by the qualification ‹
æ Œ Ø c ªı ŒØøÆ j åØ ºÅ e e NŒæø ª
‘with such grief as befits one unrelated by blood, I lament for your
son’ (904–5), with which the chorus marks the bounds of their
empatheia for the Muse’s mourning. In fact, Solonian legislation
had prescribed that the threnos had to be not ØÅ ‘fabri-
cated’,155 and we have already said that participation in the funerals
by women not related by blood to the deceased was limited in the fifth
century. The carrying off of Euryalus’ mother in order to interrupt
her exhibition of excessive grief can be viewed in connection with the
reflections on issues of decency and public convenience that are
involved—among other Greek tragedies—in the Muse’s lament at
the end of the Rhesus. There is no explicit intertextual connection
between the lament of the Muse and the lament of Euryalus’
mother;156 however, I believe that the lesson of threnodic æ
provided by the mourning of Rhesus’ mother and in other Greek
tragedies may have made Virgil aware of a typically tragic motif that
could add an especially tragic note to one of his saddest episodes. The
forced interruption of the mother’s mourning brings to a culmination
the dichotomy between private and public featured throughout the
whole episode and lays the groundwork for the conclusion of the
episode at 9.503–4—at tuba terribilem sonitum procul aere canoro j
increpuit; sequitur clamor caelumque remugit ‘but the trumpet with
brazen song rang out afar its fearful call; a shout follows and the sky
re-echoes’—with the martial trumpet of Ennius’ ‘classical’ martial
epos (Ann. 451), which draws us back into more conventional epic
action and register. The tragedy of individual destinies is absorbed
into epic again, and fades away.157
154 155
Fantuzzi (2007). Cf. Plutarch, Sol. 21.4.
156 157
See above, p. 243. See D. Fowler quoted above, n. 152.
246 Comrades in Love
158
As remarked by Hardie (1994) 153, ‘the words come as a shock after the tale of
the unfortunate pair’.
159
Klingner (1967) 564; Lyne (1987) 229.
160
As remarked by Reed (2007) 25–6; see already Griffin (1986) 94: ‘so profoundly
is Virgil moved by the death of the two lovers that he breaks out ‘lucky pair . . . ’ We
seem to see him trying to put that essentially homosexual sensibility at the service of
the patriotic purposes of his poem’.
Comrades in Love 247
strangeness of the two boys being called ‘lucky’ just a few lines after
Nisus had called himself infelix for fear of being separated from his
friend, and at the very moment when both are dead and their mission
has failed. Also puzzling is why such a strong and unusual statement
on the fortune of the Aeneid is used to show the author’s appreci-
ation for Nisus and Euryalus. In the face of these embarrassing
difficulties, some scholars have gone as far as to interpret Virgil’s
comment as ironical,161 but this view has never met with consistent
favour, and faces the substantial objection that makarismoi never
appear to have negative undertones in Virgil.162 On the other hand,
the lines can hardly mean that the two boys were simply lucky
because they achieved the glory of being sung of by Virgil,163 since
all the other characters of the Aeneid would similarly have to be
deemed fortunate.
More probably, like other apostrophai, this apostrophe establishes a
timeless and personal relationship between the poet and his charac-
ter: Virgil would be expressing his own personal admiration when he
calls pulchra (9.401) the death that Nisus will pursue after Euryalus’
demise,164 despite the misery that seems to affect the two boys and
despite Nisus’ neglect of their mission. Perpetual fame is a stock
consolation of funerary epigrams, and at this point the four-line
apostrophe has the function, if not the conventional form, of an
epitaph.165 But this comment by Virgil has also, undeniably, the effect
of pointing out that—despite the failure of their military mission—
Nisus and Euryalus will achieve glorious fame thanks to the pulchra
mors which Nisus consciously chooses for the sake of his inseparable
161
Especially Quinn (1968) 206–7; Fitzgerald (1972) 126–7. According to Casali
(2004) 352–4, the ironic and the face value are both plausible, as Virgil himself would
foresee the pessimistic interpretation and the resistance to the bias of his text, on one
hand, and, on the other, the optimistic interpretation and political uses of the same
text in terms of Augustan ideology; see also Fowler (2000) 103–4.
162
Cf. e.g. Potz (1993) 326–8 and Pizzolato (1995) 270–1.
163
Cf. Potz (1993) 328.
164
Servius ad loc. remarks: gloriosum enim est pro amico perire ‘it is glorious to die
for a friend’ (ii.346.2–3 Thilo).
165
Hardie (1994) 153. The structural function of Virgil’s apostrophe in 9.446–9
would thus be analogous, but opposite, to the passionate pessimism with which
Apollonius in Arg. 4.1161–9 introduces the account of the night of the wedding of
Jason and Medea: as Nelis (2001) 323–6 correctly notes, Virgil’s fortunati apostrophe
is the reverse of the Apollonian çFºÆ ıÅÆŁø IŁæø ‘tribes of suffering men’ of
Arg. 4.1165.
248 Comrades in Love
friendship and love.166 Of course, this glory is rather different from
the undying Œº which in Homer’s martial epic is often presented as
the only enduring reward for heroic struggle and death.167 Virgil’s
apostrophe strategically highlights that, despite this difference, Nisus’
and Euryalus’ deeds are worthy of epic acknowledgement; it thus seals
their inclusion in the Iliadic part of Virgil’s Augustan poem, whose
sublime national orientation is stressed immediately afterwards at
9.447–9. In these terms, the passage is not merely an expression of
Virgil’s great sympathy for his two characters (in case anyone
doubted that the communal death which resulted from the love and
friendship of Nisus and Euryalus was glorious or ‘epic’ enough), but
also as a metaliterary statement of Virgil’s conception of epic glory
and of epic tout court, which was ‘broader’ than Homer’s.168
Several considerations may lie behind the Virgilian treatment of
Nisus’ behaviour. First of all, at a broad cultural level, Virgil will be
expressing a position in the ongoing debate about the contrast be-
tween individual honour and duties, on the one hand, and concern
for the well-being of a friend, on the other (a discussion which seems
to have escaped the attention of the scholars, but which is of great
importance in connection with the Nisus and Euryalus episode). In
the debate N E ÅŁ E HØ çºøØ Ææa e ŒÆØ, ŒÆd 忨 ı
ŒÆd EÆ, both Theophrastus’ — æd çØºÆ (frr. 532–46 Fortenbaugh)
and Cicero’s De amicitia held it to be true that the honour derived
166
As Gransden (1984) 114 remarks, ‘the author interposes an intense emotional
pressure, and not merely the emotional pressure which is generated by a crucial
moment in the narrative, as Patroclus’s fate prompted Homer to a bold use of the
vocative [i.e. in Il. 16.787], but an empathy so pervasive and sustained that the
reader may find himself constructing out of an epic of traditional heroic prowess
another, very different kind of epic, an epic of sensibility, in which reactions to
events become as important as the narration of the events themselves, and perhaps
more important’.
167
It is difficult to believe that fortunati ambo would refer exclusively or princi-
pally to the martial heroism of the couple, as was maintained by Otis (1963) 349–50
and 388–9. For a criticism of this suggestion see already Farron (1993) 157. Further-
more,Virgil may have called the couple lucky because they died together before they
could know the unhappiness of life. The topos that ‘lucky is he who dies young’ is
certainly widespread (see e.g. anon. ap. Arist. fr. 65 Gigon; Theognis 425–8; Soph. OC
1224–7; Alexis, PCG 145.14–16), but there is no explicit textual hint at youth in Virgil.
168
Similar, though more explicit, would be the strategy of the makarismos of the
agricolae in Virgil’s Georgics, 2.458–74, as it is immediately followed by the author’s
statement of his intellectual and poetic choices (2.475–94), where the two options
between which Virgil chooses are also expressed via makarismoi (490–2 and 493–4).
Comrades in Love 249
from the willingness to assist a friend at every cost outdoes the loss of
honour involved in behaving contrary to what is just. According to
Aulus Gellius (NA 1.3.23–6), Theophrastus (fr. 534 Fortenbaugh)
stated that parva . . . et tenuis vel turpitudo vel infamia subeunda est,
si ea re magna utilitas amico quaeri potest. rependitur quippe et
compensatur leve damnum delibatae honestatis maiore alia graviore-
que in adiuvando amico honestate, minimaque illa labes et quasi
lacuna famae munimentis partarum amico utilitatium solidatur ‘a
small . . . and slight disgrace or bad repute is to be endured, if by this a
great advantage can be gained for a friend. For the trifling loss
involved in diminished honour is paid back and compensated by
another greater and more important honour involved in assisting a
friend, and the slightest stain and, as it were, the deficiency in one’s
reputation is made up for by the bulwark of advantages secured for a
friend’.169 Theophrastus, in Gellius’ report, continued by saying that
of course the damage caused to one’s own honour by the help given to
a friend must not be heavy: cum in rebus aut paribus aut non longe
secus utilitas amici aut honestas nostra consistit, honestas procul dubio
praeponderat; cum vero amici utilitas nimio est amplior, honestatis
autem nostrae in re non gravi levis iactura est, tunc, quod utile amico
est, id prae illo, quod honestum nobis est, fit plenius, sicuti est magnum
pondus aeris parva lamna auri pretiosius ‘when the advantage of a
friend or our honour consists in things which are either equal or not
far from it, honour has without doubt the greater weight. But when
the advantage of a friend is far larger and the sacrifice of our reputa-
tion in a matter of no importance is trifling, then that which is
advantageous for a friend becomes more important in comparison
with that which is honourable for us, just as a great weight of bronze
is more valuable than a small sliver of gold’ (Cicero, amic. 61 was also
in agreement with these ideas of Theophrastus, as observed by Aul.
Gell. 1.3.13). Nisus’ suicidal attempt at helping or avenging Euryalus,
resulting in disregard for the mission, might have been a case study of
this debate. Almost like a tragic character, Nisus pushes (or trans-
gresses) the boundaries of what is permissible in acting for the benefit
of a friend but in contrast with his own honour and honourable
duties; besides, the damage caused to the Trojans by his choice to
die with his friend is potentially heavy, but concretely not at all
169
Trans. from Theophrastus by W. W. Fortenbaugh, with modifications.
250 Comrades in Love
substantial, as Aeneas promptly and spontaneously returns to the
battle camp from Pallanteum.
Whatever Virgil’s interest in this ethical debate, in formal terms he
clearly treats it as a matter of good fortune that the two young Trojans
die together.170 The idea that common death is the preferable death
for friends/lovers seems to have been a broader commonplace: com-
pare, for example, Eurip. Suppl. 1006–8 lØ ª æ Ø Ł Æ j
ıŁØ Œ Ø ŁØ Œı Ø çºØ, j N Æø ŒæÆØ ‘the most
pleasurable death, you know, is to die with one’s dearest as he dies, if
fate so ordains’.171 In particular, this idea had a long-standing place in
the story of the reception of the Homeric Achilles and Patroclus.
Plato’s Symp. 179–80 and Bion’s fr. 12, discussed above,172 seem to
me to be two landmarks in this complex story which were especially
important for Virgil. In fact, the melancholic heroism of Nisus’ choice
of a shared death with his beloved and their consequent makarismos
closely resembles Plato’s and Bion’s claims that Achilles is ‘blessed’/
deserves the Isles of the Blessed for his choice to die ‘together’ with
Patroclus. In both Plato and Bion, Achilles, as well as Nisus, willingly
opts to die in connection with the issue of avenging his companion:
either in order to avenge him (Plato, and Bion according to the
manuscripts), or because he has failed to avert death from the com-
panion (Bion according to Meineke’s text), or for both reasons (in
line with Il. 18.91–100). Therefore Plato’s and Bion’s retreatments of
the story of Achilles and Patroclus had adopted an approach to the
nature of Achilles’ heroism, which might have sparked Virgil’s inter-
est in rediscussing social and individual values of the epos. Unlike
Homer’s, Plato’s and Bion’s Achilles does not appear to die in order to
achieve individual martial μ (glory is hardly mentioned among
the components of Achilles’ greatness): by connecting Achilles’ death
almost exclusively to avenging his beloved, Plato and Bion made
Achilles the prototype of a new martial heroism whose core consisted
of sacrificing one’s life for the sake of love.173 Last but not least, in
formal terms, Virgil seems to reveal at least one definite point of
170
See e.g. Williams (1983) 205–6: ‘Nisus could have saved himself. He chose not
to, and the poet signifies that decision to have been right’.
171
Other parallels in Collard (1975a) ii.367 ad loc.
172
pp. 230–5.
173
A similar shift from the Homeric dimension of public respectability towards a
greater emphasis on the sacredness of loyalty and honour in the private sphere of
erotic relations had also taken place already in Aeschylus’ Myrmidons, as we have
shown above at pp. 218–21, and shall return to at p. 254.
Comrades in Love 251
contact with the rhetorical context in which Bion elaborates Plato’s
idea. In fact, Bion and Virgil (not Plato) share the form of a makar-
ismos—though, as we have observed above, Bion’s idea of the makar-
ismos was indebted to Plato’s idea of the Isles of the Blessed.
The main difference between the makarismos of the Aeneid and its
models is that Virgil can adjust his own narrative according to it.
Therefore the connection between Nisus’ death and his failed attempt
at first defending Euryalus and later avenging174 his death is immedi-
ate in the narrative context, and very obvious. By contrast, in Plato
and Bion it had been the result of a slightly arbitrary offence against
the chronology of events in the war of Troy, as Achilles’ death did not
happen immediately after his vengeance on Hector—though, as we
have seen above,175 Il. 18.96 and 18.98 already originated the ideali-
zation of the immediacy of Achilles’ death in Plato, Symp. 179e, where
KÆŁÆ E transforms the Iliadic potential readiness of Achilles to
die for Patroclus ÆPŒÆ into an actually immediate death.
At variance with Plato and Bion, Virgil also does not make totally
clear whether his Nisus and Euryalus are only friends, as Xenophon’s
Achilles and Patroclus are, or lovers, as they are in Plato or Bion.176
The more limited acceptance of homosexual love in Rome may have
led Virgil to be cautious about specifying the nature of the relation-
ship between Nisus and Euryalus.177 For the same reason he might
174
In 9.424–30 Nisus still tries to avert the attention of Volcens from killing
Euryalus; once Euryalus is dead, he attacks Volcens: 9.438–43.
175
p. 231.
176
Amor is used repeatedly to describe the relationship of Nisus and Euryalus
(5.296, 5.334, 9.182, 9.197); but cf. Hardie (1994) 108, and below, pp. 264–5, on the
ambiguity of amor. Virgil also uses the unusual dual ambo to refer to the pair, creating
a unique link between them (9.251, 9.423, 9.446). Euryalus is also beardless, just as
Achilles, who is the eromenos in Phaedrus’ speech in Plato’s Symposium (9.181; Plat.
Symp. 180a4–8). Euryalus and Achilles are both described as the most beautiful of
their companions-in-arms (9.179–80, 5.295; Il. 2.673–4 and Symp. ibid.). And Nisus
consistently plays the role of the elder mentor—erastes—suggesting the night raid
(9.184–96), explaining the scheme to the elders (9.234–45), and warning Euryalus
when he is too carried away in his slaughter (9.354–6). As Makowski (1989) and
Oliensis (1997) 309–10 have highlighted, Virgil’s debt to the Greek ideology of
pederastic love seems sure: see Makowski (1989) also for the bibliography of previous
attempts at maintaining that Virgil would have presented their relationship as a non–
sexual friendship.
177
See above, pp. 12, 69. As correctly remarked by Hardie (1994) 33, ‘we need to
ask what place a heroic homosexual relationship has in a Roman epic: if we reply that
it is to be understood as one of the archaic, Graecizing, features of Virgil’s depiction of
the legendary period that will be superseded in later Roman history, we have to face
252 Comrades in Love
also have been reluctant to make explicit the intimacy between
Aeneas and Pallas, though he seems to hint at an erotic relationship
between them178—however, Virgil has no problem in indicating in
Aen. 1.28 the sexual character of the traditional relationship between
Jupiter and Ganymede (at variance with Homer, as remarked by
Macrobius 5.16.10–11), or in emphasizing the sexual preference of
the Italian youth Cydon who in Aen. 10.324–7 risks dying by Aeneas’
hand while following his lover (nova gaudia) Clytius, and thus comes
close to giving up the amores iuvenum affecting him.179 Beyond the
shifting ideas on (homo-)sexuality at Rome, Virgil may also have left
the precise character of Nisus and Euryalus’ relationship ambiguous,
because he intended to harmonize the various different interpret-
ations of Achilles’ relationship with Patroclus, along the lines of the
‘philological’ treatment which Hellenistic poets often applied to their
models: if the Homeric Achilles and Patroclus were taken as either
lovers or just friends by interpreters of the Iliad, then it made sense
for Virgil, as a poeta doctus, to leave their equivalents in his poem
open to the same double interpretation.
On the one hand, the simile of the flower cut down by the plough,
adopted by Virgil to describe the death of Euryalus (9.435–7), with its
Homeric (Il. 8.306–7) and Catullan (11.22–4) antecedents,180 depicts
the death of Euryalus as being ‘pretty, not particularly noble’,181 and
adds an unexpected erotic nuance to the episode.182 After all, as has
Virgil’s emphatic association of the love of Nisus and Euryalus with the history of the
power of Rome in the final apostrophe to the dead couple (446–9)’.
178
Cf. above all Putnam (1995) 32–45; Reed (2007) 20–3. The devotion of Nisus
for Euryalus may foreshadow Aeneas’ affection for Pallas: cf. Otis (1963) 350.
179
Cf. Williams (1999) 116, 118. Cydon and Clytius both have names hinting at
the idea of glory (ŒF, Œºı: Harrison (1991) 159), but Cydon is defined infelix,
and Virgil dedicates only a few lines to both Rutulian enemies. In contrast to the
fortunati Nisus and Euryalus, the two Trojans who with their death conquer eternal
glory thanks to Virgil’s narrative of their mission (discussed above), Cydon does not
even die and in any case he risks dying alone. Are Cydon and Clytius acting as a foil to
Nisus and Euryalus, and constituting an example of the ‘road not taken’ towards
glory?
180
‘The simile has two main models, one epic and one lyric (in keeping with the
wider conflation of the epic quality of the episode with more personal genres [ . . . ])’:
Hardie (1994) 150.
181
Johnson (1976) 62.
182
Cf. above all Klingner (1967) 563–5; now also Cristofoli (1996) 262–3; Maz-
zocchini (2000) 351–2 and 356–7 n. 47.
Comrades in Love 253
been said, ‘their dying together is in effect the epic’s most fully con-
summated marriage’:183 at the end of the episode, the appearance of
Fama, who reports the news of Euryalus’ death, thus highlighting his
‘shift from marriage to death’ (9.473–5 interea pavidam volitans pen-
nata per urbem j nuntia Fama ruit matrisque adlabitur auris j Euryali
‘meanwhile, winged Fame, flitting through the fearful town, speeds
with the news and steals to the ears of Euryalus’ mother’),184 invites
comparison between the martial-erotic episode of the two young
warriors and the erotic epyllion of Dido (at 4.173 Fama announced
the ‘marriage’ of Dido and Aeneas; at 4.666 she announced Dido’s
suicide).185 From this perspective, it cannot be a matter of chance that
Virgil mentions an ancient bowl presented by Dido (cratera antiquum
quem dat Sidonia Dido, 9.266) among the gifts promised by Ascanius
to Euryalus: the gift is an ‘ill-omened’186 sign of the affinity between
the tragic love-story of Dido and Aeneas, on the one hand, and the
story of Nisus and Euryalus’ love and death.187 Besides, apart from
being consistently depicted according to the usual identikit of the
eromenos, Euryalus is also given the name of a handsome eromenos
in Ibycus, PMGF 288 ‘Euryalus, offshoot of the blue-eyed Graces,
darling of the lovely-haired (Seasons?), the Cyprian and soft-lidded
Peitho nursed you among rose-blossoms’.
On the other hand, the ambiguous character of Nisus and Euryalus’
relationship is underscored by Virgil’s adoption of the term amicus as
183
Oliensis (1997) 310. As Theodore Papanghelis remarks, per litteras, ‘the “con-
summation” of the warriors’ relationship in death, with its emphasis on the dead
bodies’ physical contact and the quasi simultaneous last gasp, is strongly reminiscent
of elegiac love-in-death fantasizing, particularly Prop. 2.26.57–8 “and if I had to lay
down my life while in your arms, such a death for me will not be a disgrace”. Was it
erotic elegy with its flair for love-as-death highlights, or Virgil and whatever was
known of his Aeneid prior to publication that first formulated such “consumma-
tions”? However this may be, the Nisus–Euryalus episode, a nightly militia under-
taken by lovers, seems to be subtly tampering with the ontological priority of literal
over figural that gives the elegiac militia amoris topos its special flavour. As elsewhere,
the war–love interface sustains Latin poetry’s compulsive fascination with generic
boundaries and identities’.
184
As remarked by Nelis (2001) 323–4.
185
Nelis (2001) 323–4. On the similar structural autonomy of the two passages, see
also above, p. 237 n. 121.
186
Horsfall (1995) 172.
187
The prominence of Dido’s role in the Aeneid makes it reductive to believe, with
Kraggerud (1968) 203 and Dingel (1997) 126, that Virgil refers to her here as a
‘Sidonian woman’, so as to introduce a reminiscence of the Sidonian krater which
was the first prize in the Iliadic race competition at 23.741–4.
254 Comrades in Love
the key definition of their bond. This is the last word spoken by Nisus
at 9.430, a line which has something of the quality (and thus of the
authority) of an epitaph;188 the same word is reused by the narrator at
9.444, where it refers to Euryalus at the moment when Nisus flings
himself on his body, and thus depicts the way Nisus sees Euryalus. No
less than amor, amicus is a vox media which may point to sexual love
as well as to friendship.189
Most ambiguously, in his first introduction of the couple, one line
after describing Euryalus’ handsomeness (see above), Virgil presents
Nisus as affected by amor pius pueri (5.296). The epithet pius is not
simply an unequivocal synonym of castus, or non infamis, as was
maintained by Servius Danielinus and Donatus.190 No doubt, this
epithet can point to the non-sexual character of the friendship
between the two (‘tender’), or simply to Nisus’ ‘paternal’ or ‘fraternal’
feelings towards Euryalus.191 But pius can also be predicated on
sexual love, in the sense of ‘devoted’, ‘dutiful’ (cf. OLD 3d), and in
light of the sacrality of the feelings of love uniting Patroclus and
Achilles highlighted in Aeschylus’ Myrmidons, TrGF iii.136 discussed
above ÅæH b H H P c ›ØºÆ (or P Å ›ØºÆ), this
may very well be its sense in Virgil.
Of course, if, as I believe, the Virgilian phrase presupposes the
Aeschylean treatment of Achilles, it would be promoted in the Aeneid
to a structural relevance and pregnancy which we do not necessarily
have to attribute to it in the Myrmydons. Virgil most often associates
pius with Aeneas in the Aeneid—indeed it is one of the few ‘fixed’
epithets for this hero, and is very significant for the ideology of the
poem.192 Aeneas was also called pius only ten lines before the amor of
Nisus is defined as such. The proximity between the two passages
suggests a parallelism between Aeneas and Nisus: just as Aeneas is
pius in his obedience to the gods and his willing fulfilment of his
188
Hardie (1994) 31 and 149.
189
In the sense ‘sexual partner’, amicus is attested as early as in archaic comedy.
For its homosexual use, cf. Martial 11.43.10 where Aeacidae . . . levis amicus
(sc. Patroclus) is in erotic competition with Briseis.
190
As Gioseffi (2005–6) 190–1 correctly observes about the exegesis of the ancient
commentators, ‘se la specificazione è parsa necessaria, vuol dire che si poteva equi-
vocare’.
191
Cf. e.g. Monaco (1958) ad loc.
192
Cf. Traina (1988) 96.
Comrades in Love 255
mission,193 so Nisus is pius in his love for his friend. The remarkable
and surprising combination of pius with amor to describe Nisus’
personal emotions would thus foreshadow the integration of the
private feelings joining the pair of warriors and their devotion to
social or public tasks that usually defines Roman pietas.194 Pietas
towards the nation overflowing into passion,195 in fact, is treated as
the central motivating consideration of Euryalus’ plans about the
mission at 9.184–96, but only pietas seems highlighted in Aletes’
reactions to these plans at 9.246–56.
Like the apostrophe fortunati ambo, which highlights how Nisus’
and Euryalus’ deeds should properly belong to epic glory (see above),
the phrase amor pius may be another mise en abyme of the way in
which Virgil reconciles Nisus’ and Euryalus’ behaviour with Roman
pietas, and thus makes them worthy of the ‘national’ greatness and
glory of his other main characters. The phrase thus makes the two
young Trojans something more than, simply, paradigms of either
friendly or conjugal amor196 (as Achilles and Patroclus had been for
Xenophon or Bion) or heroes of a private ‘religion’ of love (as they
had been in Aeschylus’ Myrmidons). Rather, by dying with and for
Euryalus, Nisus becomes the paradigm of the private dimension of
feelings which may be reminiscent of the Æ of the Aeschylean
Achilles, just at the moment in the narrative when the martial
dimension of the Iliadic Achilles increasingly becomes the model
for both the leaders on both sides of the conflict: Turnus owes to
the palimpsest of Achilles the ferocity and eagerness for war that
make him an impressive epic opponent, while Aeneas, in the replay of
the Trojan war in Books 10 and 11, comes to be featured as a new and
better Achilles, both with regard to his pietas towards the gods and his
nation, and more negatively in the destructive ferocity that almost
193
Cf. Burgess (1971–2) 48.
194
Pavlock (1990) 104–5 observes that the union of eros and pietas is paradoxical,
since amor in Virgil frequently connotes obsessive passion and ‘the essentially private
nature of amor is likely to interfere with the publicly oriented demands of pietas’.
195
Cf. Williams (1999) 117: ‘in addition to its ostensible subject (a desire to achieve
a military exploit), Nisus’ language of yearning and desire could also evoke the
dynamics of an erotic relationship’; also Makowski (1989) 8.
196
Though they could of course be most decidedly interpreted in the latter way: see
e.g. the inscription for a wife and husband CIL 6.25427.25–6 = Anth. Lat. 1142.25–6
Bücheler fortunati ambo—si qua est ea gloria mortis—quos iungit tumulus, iunxerat ut
thalamus.
256 Comrades in Love
seems to pervert pietas.197 Nisus and Euryalus exemplify a further
version of Achilles, focused on a more private dimension of pietas.
This episode of Nisus and Euryalus, however, has a precise, graphic
boundary at 9.503–4, where, as we saw above, the lament of Euryalus’
mother is interrupted, and the sound of a trumpet—not only the
sound of a martial trumpet, but a sound expressed in Ennian terms—
prefaces the return of the poem to more conventional/Iliadic action:
the attack of the Italians against the Trojan camp, the aristeia of
Ascanius, etc. The fact that the story of Nisus and Euryalus represents
an episodic parenthesis in the plot of the Aeneid may also have been
another effect of Virgil’s rewriting of Achilles and Patroclus in the
time-format of a ‘Doloneia’.198 To some degree, both Odysseus’ and
Diomedes’ and Dolon’s nocturnal activities in Iliad 10 and the Rhesus
stand at variance with the usual behaviour of those fighting the
ordinary daytime battles of the Iliad: their protagonists wear different
clothing and armour, fight in different ways, have different motiva-
tions (they are openly greedy for booty and kill cruelly, but lack the
anger that sometimes leads warriors engaging in single combat to
ignore supplication), and adopt different defensive and offensive
tactics (using military intelligence and passwords, for example).199
Night was a space ordinarily devoid of human activity in ancient epic,
in which little takes place between dusk and dawn, and in fact the
Alexandrian philologists found the contiguous presentations of dusks
and dawns the natural spots to set many of their transitions from one
book to another. It comes thus as no surprise that the unconventional
military activities of Iliad 10 or the Rhesus are relegated to this
troublesome night. Virgil’s ‘experimental’ story of Nisus and Euryalus
reflects, more radically, the opportunity for innovation provided by
the unconventionality of the night setting: it is as if the unconven-
tionality of the night action were converted into a canvas for inves-
tigating the interference of private sentiments on martial actions,
197
In the first part of the Aeneid, Achilles is usually evoked in negative terms as a
paradigm of unyielding, ferocious, bloodthirsty excesses; as King (1982) 35 com-
ments, ‘references to Achilles in the first half of the Aeneid create a vision of Achilles
and the Iliad that will control our interpretation of the later action in Italy during
which both Turnus and Aeneas at various times play the role of Achilles’. See also
Boyle (1993) 96–7.
198
See above, pp. 235–6.
199
On the military and ethical peculiarities of Iliad 10, which are not necessarily
un–heroic, but are uncommon in the heroic epic, cf. Williams (2000).
Comrades in Love 257
since night was a narrative space that ‘naturally’ (as already in Iliad
10) could be explored with a lesser amount of the paraphernalia of the
fixed scenes, formulaic language, and typical epic ideology adopted
for the day action.
At dawn, after Nisus and Euryalus’ death, the sentimental pietas of
the new post-Aeschylean Achilles and Patroclus becomes just a
memory, no longer to be evoked in the Aeneid. Of course, every
reader could read about the two unlucky young soldiers again and
thus be reminded that an epic might have a broader perspective on
life than was represented in Homer’s Iliad. At the surface of the text,
however, the national, martial pietas of the new Iliadic Achilles,
Aeneas, had been restored as the unchallenged model of epic heroism,
and so the epic æ was also re-established.200 After all, a good
reader of Homer will have remembered that the events of Iliad 10,
along with the characters of Dolon and Rhesus, are never mentioned
outside the fraction of a night in which they are enacted. More than
perhaps any other Iliadic narrative, they remain exceptionally self-
contained within the boundaries of their book, and unrelated to what
is beyond them.201 With the arrival of dawn at the opening of Iliad 11,
or the Ennian trumpet of Aen. 9.503–4, the main thread of the
narrative resumes in both poems, and, with it, more conventionally
epic actions and values and heroes return to the fore.
200
Some good thoughts on this issue are to be found in Greco (1983).
201
It is not coincidental that a commentator on Dionysius Thrax appears to
take Iliad 10 as a paradigmatic example of a self-contained book of Homer: Vat.
GG i.3.179.29–180.2 Uhlig.
202
Cf. Trist. 1.5.17–26 (omitting Achilles and Patroclus), 1.9.23–34, and 5.4.23–6.
Pont. 2.3.37–48 and 2.6.25–6 do not include Nisus and Euryalus; the latter also omits
Achilles and Patroclus.
258 Comrades in Love
form, will have constituted standard clusters in rhetorical hand-
books of paradigms203 or at least in the rhetorical tradition; there-
fore the prompt inclusion of the story of Nisus and Euryalus
demonstrates that this episode of the Aeneid rapidly came to be
considered an autonomous sentimental epyllion and that, as such, it
became a canonical entry in ‘handbook’-lists like that of the erotic
poet Bion. Ovid’s treatment of the nature of their relationship as
non-sexual was in tune with the Xenophontean interpretation,
which neatly prevailed in the imperial age over the isolated homo-
sexual emphasis in Bion: as friends the three traditional pairs will
also be reproposed in Dio Chrys. 57(=74).28, who, by the way,
defined these three paradigms as Łæıº Ø ‘hackneyed’.204 In
any case a non-erotic interpretation was perhaps more suitable for
the moralistic tone of the Tristia, where a keen concern with false
friendship and the intention to heroize the loyalty of his few true
friends, or his loyalty to his friends,205 are an understandable feature
of the exiled Ovid’s rhetorical stance.206
Yet Ovid’s engagement with the Virgilian story of Nisus and
Euryalus in his provocatively unconventional and unmartial epos,
the Metamorphoses, appears to be completely different and to as-
sume a sexual interpretation of the episode. At Met. 5.47–73, Ovid
overtly emphasizes the homoerotic connection between Athis and
Lycabas, a pair of warriors clearly modelled on Virgil’s Nisus and
Euryalus, although they do not die on the battlefield in the night, but
are killed by Perseus during the furious fight started by Phineus at
the wedding banquet of Perseus and Andromeda. When Perseus
slays the Indian guest Athis, the other guest, Lycabas, an Assyrian,
immediately tries to avenge his beloved, but is killed as well, and by
dying side by side with the body of his beloved, like Nisus, he finds a
‘solace’ in his death (iunctae solacia mortis, 5.73 quoted below). Of
203
Presupposed for Ovid most recently by Bernhardt (1986) 133.
204
For other lists of paradigmatic friends see in particular Prop. 2.1.37–8 (Orestes
and Pylades, Achilles and Patroclus); Plut. de multis amic. 93e (Theseus and Pirithous,
Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, etc.), and Hyginus, fab. 257 (concerned
with Qui inter se amicitia iunctissimi fuerunt), where Orestes and Pylades, Theseus
and Pirithous, and Achilles and Patroclus are followed by a long list of less well-
known friends or lovers, concluding with Nisus and Euryalus.
205
Cf. Bernhardt (1986) 136.
206
The list of paradigms of erotic loyalty in Ars am. 1.740–6 also excludes an erotic
interpretation of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. On homosexuality
and Ovid’s erotodidaxis, see p. 68.
Comrades in Love 259
the three main components characterizing the episode of Euryalus
and Nisus—heroism, strong affection, common death—the heroism
is completely dismissed by Ovid. Athis and Lycabas are foreign
guests at a wedding dinner, who simply find themselves mixed up
with a sympotic fight, with no noble cause whatsoever to defend.
Athis seems not even to acknowledge the firebrand with which
Perseus kills him, and certainly attempts no reaction, while Lycabas
reacts at 5.62–4 by shooting an arrow which misses its target (archery
does not receive a good press in the Iliad either!207), and thus Ovid
makes Lycabas’ boast at 5.65–7 not heroic but bathetic: mecum tibi
sint certamina . . . | nec longum pueri fato laetabere, quo plus j invidiae
quam laudis habes ‘let your battle be with me, and you will not for
long rejoice in that boy’s (pueri) fate from which you will have more
contempt than praise’. By contrast, the erotism of affection between
the two foreigners could not be presented in a more explicit way.
The narrator lavishly describes Athis’ physical beauty and the soft
oriental luxury of his clothing (5.49–53):
egregius forma, quam divite cultu
augebat, bis adhuc octonis integer annis,
indutus chlamydem Tyriam, quam limbus obibat
aureus; ornabant aurata monilia collum
et madidos murra curvum crinale capillos.
his beauty was outstanding, and enhanced by his rich apparel: twice
eight years old, still fresh, he was clad in a Tyrian cloak round which
there ran a fringe of gold; a golden collar adorned his neck and a curved
hairband his myrrh-drenched locks.
The death of Lycabas is also like a last erotic homage to Athis, where
the traditional motif of the pleasurable ‘common death’ of lovers (or
good friends) gives rise to the erotism of Lycabas’ attempted embrace
of Athis’ body (5.71–3):
iam moriens oculis sub nocte natantibus atra
circumspexit Athin seque acclinavit ad illum
et tulit ad manes iunctae solacia mortis.
he, now dying, his eyes swimming beneath dark night, looked round for
Athis, leant himself upon him, and took to the shades the solace that
they were joined in death.
207
Athis also had been said to be especially good with the bow (5.55), and their
predilection for this weapon makes both of them seem like ‘display warriors’: Rosati
(2009) 133.
260 Comrades in Love
Above all, Ovid plainly describes Lycabas as Athis’ ‘closest comrade
and no concealer of his true love’ (5.60–1 iunctissimus illi j et comes et
veri non dissimulator amoris). The emphatic phrase veri non dis-
simulator amoris appears to express Ovid’s appreciation for the
sincere pair of professed lovers by juxtaposing the professed erastes
Lycabas to crypto-erastai like the Virgilian Nisus. But in light of the
ancient discussions about Homer’s silence concerning the nature of
the bond connecting Achilles and Patroclus—a silence intimating
that Achilles and Patroclus were not lovers, as most of the Hellenistic
commentators agreed, or a silence implying that they in fact were,
according to Aeschines—Ovid’s subtle criticism may also have looked
back to the original and targeted, via a window-reference, the ambi-
guity of the Homeric Achilles and Patroclus.208
Just a few decades later the episode of Nisus and Euryalus was
also closely reworked, in a completely different direction, by Statius in
his Thebaid (10.347–448). Hopleus and Dymas, squires of Tydeus
and Parthenopaeus respectively,209 make a night raid to rescue the
bodies of their chiefs, who lie unburied on the battlefield. They are
discovered, and Hopleus is killed; Dymas, cornered by enemy soldiers
under the command of the Theban Amphion, is promised salvation if
he reveals the war plans of the Argives, but refuses to betray his city
(10.436–7) and commits suicide over the corpse of Parthenopaeus
(thus using his own body as a grave, in a sort of surrogate burial:
cf. 10.441).210 The reuse of the Virgilian episode could hardly be
clearer, as it is openly advertised by Statius in the promise of literary
glory that he offers the pair, in a passage (10.445–48) that not only
alludes to the Virgilian address to Nisus and Euryalus, but also quotes
the two Virgilian characters:211
vos quoque sacrati, quamvis mea carmina surgant
inferiore lyra, memores superabitis annos.
forsitan et comites non aspernabitur umbras
Euryalus Phrygiique admittet gloria Nisi.
208
On the erotic dimension of Ovid’s episode cf. above all Baldo (1995) 213–21
and Rosati (2009) 132–3.
209
Parthenopaeus ‘may be the most Vergilian of Statius’ Seven’, as he is modelled
upon Camilla, and his death also evokes that of Euryalus: McNelis (2007) 137.
210
See below, pp. 262–3.
211
Cf. e.g. Markus (1997) 57; Hinds (1998) 92. The ideological relevance of Statius’
‘redressing’ of the Virgilian episode will have guided readers to understand that his
modesty was less sincere than it seems: cf. Lesueur (1994) 160 n. 35.
Comrades in Love 261
You too are consecrate, though my songs arise from a lesser lyre,
and will go down the unforgetful years. Perchance too Euryalus will
not spurn your attendant shades, and the glory of Phrygian Nisus will
grant you entry.
Despite the resemblance of Statius’ treatment of Hopleus and Dymas
to Virgil’s reworking of Homer and to some themes of Homer’s
‘Doloneia’, Statius rewrites his models (Homer and Virgil of course,
and Ovid only to be exorcised) so that his characters not only behave
with traditional pietas both erga homines and erga patriam,212 but
also act in a militarily responsible and consistent way, despite the
failure of their mission. The pessimistic Statius, characteristically,
treats the episode as a paradigm of the irrelevance and unavoidable
failure of pietas: compare the authorial aphorism at 10.384–9 invida
fata piis et fors ingentibus ausis j rara comes ‘the fates love not the
pious and fortune rarely goes hand in hand with great attempts’.213 At
the same time, the exemplary Hopleus and Dymas avoid the cold-
blooded ruthlessness of the commandos Odysseus and Diomedes.214
Besides, the enemies promise Dymas that he can be free and give
burial to the body of his leader if he betrays his army, but Dymas
renounces the sentimental goal of his mission, rather than betray the
Argives—unlike the Dolon of Il. 10.412–45, who in the hope of saving
his life discloses to Odysseus all sorts of information,215 and unlike
Nisus, who fails in his pietas towards his country for the sake of his
private feelings.216 Moreover, unlike Nisus and Euryalus, Statius’ two
nocturnal warriors do not waste any time slaughtering their enemies
or self-destructively collecting booty.217 Last but not least, although
Hopleus and Dymas are clearly modelled on Nisus and Euryalus,
and thus might be expected to be lovers, there is no hint in Statius’
212
Cf. Ripoll (1998) 291–5, 297, 403–4; Ganiban (2007) 132–3.
213
Cf. Burgess (1971–2) 58–9; Pollmann (2001) 18–19 and 25–8; and esp. Ganiban
(2007) 131–4. As McGuire (1997) 20 remarks, ‘the Flavian poets (unlike their epic
predecessors) repeatedly append their expressed hopes for the commemorative power
of their songs to acts of suicide, ironically linking claims of poetry’s permanence to
visions of self-destruction’.
214
Cf. Kytzler (1969) 214.
215
Cf. McGuire (1997) 17–20; Ripoll (1998) 403–4; Ganiban (2007) 132–3.
216
Pollmann (2001) 22–3; Ganiban (2007) 132–3.
217
Burgess (1971–2) 59. An outline of the points where Statius shows that his
characters are behaviourally blameless and appear to have learned how to redress
Nisus’ and Euryalus’ mistakes is provided by Pollmann (2001) 18–24; see already
Kytzler (1969) 214–17 and Markus (1997) 58–60.
262 Comrades in Love
text to suggest any sentimental connection between the two at all:
Statius replaced the amor pius connecting Nisus and Euryalus in
Virgil with Hopleus and Dymas’ pietas towards their respective
chiefs.218 Given the obvious engagement of Ovid’s Athis and Lycabas
with the question of the nature of the relationship between their
model heroes Nisus and Euryalus (and Achilles and Patroclus in the
background), the omission of the erotic motif in the Thebaid can
hardly be accidental and may rather be considered an example of
Statius’ attempt to dignify the Virgilian episode. By characterizing
Hopleus and Dymas as he does, Statius appears to engage in an
edifying revision of his predecessor’s treatment of Nisus and Eury-
alus, adopting an un-erotic perspective on the nature of the relation
between the two nocturnal warriors that is in keeping with the nature
of the bond between Odysseus and Diomedes, and the view of most
Homeric scholars about the chasteness of the relationship between
Achilles and Patroclus.
At the same time, however, Statius’ treatment of the episode con-
tains homoerotic undertones of a different kind. Despite the apparent
chastity of the connection between Hopleus and Dymas, there may be
some hints that their relations with their respective leaders, Tydeus
and Parthenopaeus, were erotically charged: for both young squires
the bodies of their leaders are an amicum pondus ‘loved burden’
(10.378) when they first shoulder them. When Hopleus is hit,
(10.402–4):
labitur egregii nondum ducis immemor Hopleus
expiratque tenens—felix si corpus ademptum
nesciat —, et saevas talis descendit ad umbras.
Hopleus falls, not yet unmindful of his great leader, and dies holding
him—fortunate in that he knows not of the body’s removal—and
descends thus to the cruel shades.
Like Nisus’, then, Hopleus’ death is paradoxically felix, since it pre-
vents him from knowing about his impending separation from
Tydeus’ body.219 As for Dymas (10.439–41):
sic ait, et magno proscissum vulnere pectus
iniecit puero, supremaque murmura volvens:
218
As has been correctly remarked by La Penna (2000) 139.
219
Shackleton Bailey’s emendation of nesciat to nesciit makes the point clearer.
Comrades in Love 263
‘hoc tamen interea certe potiare sepulcro’
So he speaks and throws his breast, carved with a great wound, on
the boy, with a final utterance: ‘Nevertheless gain this burial in the
meantime’.
In conclusion, they ‘delight in death’ (leto . . . fruuntur, 10.444), be-
cause they both die ‘in the longed-for embraces of their chiefs’ (optatis
regum in complexibus ambo, 10.442). None of these hints amounts to
an explicit or unambiguous indication of a sexual connection between
each squire and his leader. The erotically loaded way in which
Hopleus’ and Dymas’ gestures are described, however, makes them
seem paradigms of an idea that, as we have seen,220 existed in at least
some major areas of the classical Greek world: love, whether sexual or
not, makes soldiers valiant. Although Statius (unlike Virgil) does not
model the relation between his night raiders Hopleus and Dymas on
the erotic bond between Achilles and Patroclus in Aeschylus, he
explores through the pair a different aspect of the eroticization of
war. To be sure, the case of Hopleus and Dymas is not as overt as that
of Caphisodorus, who died with and was buried close to his erastes
Epameinondas, the Theban leader at Mantinea;221 but they may well
have reminded readers of cases of militaristic/erotic devotion like the
one of Caphisodorus for the Theban commander. The episode in
Statius is thus parallel to the Virgilian story of Nisus and Euryalus,
but at variance from it in content (inasmuch as the intensive devotion
is not for the other companion-in-arms but for their leaders) and in
atmosphere (the sentimental character of the relationships between
squires and leaders is even less explicit than in the Aeneid, and the
military behaviour of the participants more coherent and responsi-
ble). Characters who behaved in a militarily incoherent way like Nisus
and Euryalus, or who shared their emotional motivations, would not
have helped Statius to demonstrate the continuous and overwhel-
mingly negative impact that the invida fata had on epic action.222
In his wittier and more ‘Ovidian’ Achilleid, Statius likewise pursues
an overall strategy of dignification of Achilles, in particular of the
most embarrassing episode of Scyros (as we have seen in Chap. 1), but
from time to time he deploys the eroticism of Achilles’ ambiguous
sexuality. The poem is unfinished and breaks off in Book 2, when
Achilles is first recruited to fight in the Trojan War. We thus cannot
223
It is notably stronger than in Valerius Flaccus’ treatment of Achilles and
Patroclus’ education at Arg. 1.407–10, the only other source for the information
that Patroclus joined Achilles in Chiron’s cave, where the relationship between the
two children is merely one of friendship and familiarity: cf. 408–9 ut socius caro
pariter meditetur Achilli j fila lyrae ‘to study the chords of the lyre side by side with his
dear Achilles’.
224
Hom. Il. 23.84–90 stresses that Patroclus and Achilles lived under the same roof
in Peleus’ house, where Patroclus was brought by his father when he was still ‘a little
lad’.
225
Aen. 1.344; 1.675; 3.330; 4.395; 5.5; 6.28; in a non-erotic context 1.171; 1.716.
Comrades in Love 265
mean, in fact, both the ‘desire for glory’ which Euryalus feels about
himself, or the ‘love for Nisus’ heroism’.226 Statius as well is not clear
whether he uses amor in the sense of friendly affection or erotic love,
but he seems to correct Virgil through Virgil’s usus scribendi, as he
makes explicit at least the sentimental sense that Virgil had left
unclear. And after all Statius’ reference to the emulative ambitions
that amor triggered in Patroclus may have easily led the reader to
rather think of the educative component of classical Greek pederasty,
and not just of friendship.
To conclude: Statius’ case is most significant for an understanding
of the dynamics of the interpretations applied to the relationship
between the two Iliadic heroes. When he alludes to them in the
Hopleus and Dymas of his Thebaid, a poem which for its contents
proposes itself as a post-Cyclic martial epos, he is stricter and clearer
than the Hellenistic commentators and more explicit in his ‘Homeric’
silence, and excludes the possibility that his ‘Achilles and Patroclus’
were connected by an erotic bond—the erotic attachments of both
Hopleus and Dymas to their respective leaders would then be a
discrete, marginal modernization of the Homeric martial epos via
the new ideas on the military use of pederasty (after all Hopleus and
Dymas are modelled on Homeric Achilles and Patroclus, but are new
characters in a post-Homeric poem by an author who, differently
from Homer, knows of Caphisodorus and Epameinondas). But when
Statius writes his biography of Achilles, which is free to deal with all
the aspects of both the military and the private life of Achilles, he is
ready to make room—programmatically close to the beginning of
Book 1—for an interpretation of the bond between Achilles and
Patroclus which takes into consideration the long series of reflections
on the sentimental character of that bond. Achilles had as many
different private lives as the genres which dealt with him.
226
Hardie (1994) 111. Although, the former, non-erotic, meaning is perhaps more
obvious: tellingly, Dingel (1997) 107 deals only with this sense.
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5
1
See above, pp. 3–4, 193.
2
Cf. already Griffin (1977) 39–45.
3
It is uncertain (but improbable, in my opinion) whether the Cypria features
Achilles’ love for Deidameia at Scyros: cf. above, pp. 23–6.
268 Flirting with the Enemy
narration (though, as we shall see, this love is subject to debate
and complications) is thus his very ‘professional’ love for a
female-warrior, which restates Achilles’ heroism just before briefly
transgressing the borders of war-epic.4 It is a love which lives only a
few moments on the battlefield and is, in a way, a product of Achilles’
martial valour; for it is only after he has inflicted the mortal wound
that Achilles is able to gaze on the face of his great foe, Penthesileia,
thus falling in love.
Amazons in ancient myth existed mainly as foils for the great
heroes (Achilles and Heracles, first of all) or cities (Athens first and
foremost) with whom they fought and by whom they were invari-
ably defeated. Even their most common epithet IØ ØæÆØ stressed
their essential quality: the Amazons were a ‘match for men’, an
‘equivalent alternative to men’, hence almost equivalent to the
warriors with whom they were said to fight and, moreover, endowed
with the capacity to escape the normative structural opposition
between the world of men and war and that of women and domestic
life.5 At the same time, both literary and iconographic sources
highlight the Amazons’ feminine beauty and its paradoxical cou-
pling with their almost masculine warlike strength.
Precisely Penthesileia’s beauty or alternatively her aptitude for war
were highlighted in the two surviving versions of the very first lines of
the Aethiopis (at the beginning or—if the poem began, as some claim,
with an account of the ransoming of Hector’s body—at the outset of
the Amazon part of the poem).6 The last line of the Iliad (24.804) in
4
Other authors from different ages often seem to characterize Achilles’ feelings as
attraction to the similar. Identity or complementarity is the cement of the Iliadic
Achilles’ intense companionship with Patroclus (see above, pp. 192–8, 202–15), and
Deidameia’s beauty in Statius is an ambiguous and almost male beauty, which
matches Achilles’ transvestism (above, p. 77).
5
Cf. Blok (1995) 169–75. In the case of the Amazon Penthesileia, even her name
seems to have been constructed specifically to parallel that of her killer. If the name
Achilles sounded to the ancients, most probably, as though it were derived from ¼å
‘grief ’ and ºÆ/º ‘(host of) people’, Penthesileia was probably etymologized from
Ł ‘sorrow’ and º Æ/ºÅ ‘flock’: cf. above, p. 107 n. 27; Stahre (1998) 157.
6
This is the thesis of Kopff (1981) 930–1 and (1983). His position relies mainly on
three Macedonian drinking cups of the 2nd cent. bc decorated with Homeric subjects
which are assumed to reflect the editorial activity of 3rd-cent. scholars and portray,
with inscriptions, the three scenes of the ransom of Hector, the arrival of Penthesileia,
and the fight between her and Achilles (Sinn (1979) 92–3). Kopff suggests that this
evidence should be considered more reliable than Proclus’ summary concerning the
structure of the Aethiopis. His thesis has been criticized e.g. by Edwards (1985) 219–20
and n. 11 and Blok (1995) 211–4; followed by Burgess (2001) 140–2.
Flirting with the Enemy 269
the manuscript tradition is S ¥ ª Iç ç ¯ Œæ
ƒ Ø ‘such was the burial they gave to Hector, tamer of horses’.
But T ad loc. informs us of a distich, which, if it is archaic, served
either as a link between Iliad and Aethiopis, or as a transition to the
second part of the Aethiopis, dedicated to Penthesileia; alternatively, it
may have been a transitional element inserted by a Hellenistic editor.
One version reads:
S ¥ ª Iç ç ¯ Œæ· qºŁ ÆÇ,
@æÅ Łıª Åæ ªÆºæ IæçØ.
so they busied themselves with Hector’s funeral. And an Amazon came,
a daughter of Ares the great-hearted, the slayer of men.
Another version of the second line of this text also circulated in the
ancient world, reported to us by PLit.Lond. 6.xxii.43–4 Milne (1st
cent. ad), in which the patronymic from Ares and his two stock
epithets7 were replaced by a matronymic and an appreciation of
Penthesileia’s beauty:
Oææ[Å]<> Łıª Åæ P Øc — Ł º< >ØÆ
_
a daughter of Otrere, the good-looking Penthesileia
Of course other epithets may have followed in this variant, which
stressed the military prowess of the queen of the Amazons, but the
emphasis placed here on Penthesileia’s beauty stands in clear contrast
to what we find in the variant for the second line reported in the
Homeric scholion, in which her military prowess was placed first and
foremost and motivated, in a way, by her birth from Ares.8 Of course,
the dating of these lines is not certain and we cannot rule out the
possibility that these introductory descriptions of Penthesileia con-
stitute an editorial intervention by, for example, a Hellenistic source,
rather than belonging to the archaic Aethiopis. Nor can we build
much of an interpretation on just an epithet. But the two variants
for the second line focus on the two opposite aspects of the Amazon’s
nature, and the aesthetic eroticism introduced by P Ø in one of the
two alternative characterizations of the Amazon warrior is in tune
with Bacchylides’ remark at 13.136–7 (discussed above) that the
‘lovely-limbed Briseis’ was the cause of Achilles’ withdrawal from
7
ªÆºøæ is not an epithet of Ares in the Homeric tradition, and thus is either
more recent (Dihle (1970) 43) or older (Edwards (1985) 215).
8
Cf. Stahre (1998) 157.
270 Flirting with the Enemy
fighting—the earliest known, and still weak attempt at romanticizing
the Iliadic Briseis. This detail apart, the erotic exchange between
Achilles and Penthesileia at the conclusion of their duel and the
consequences of Achilles’ unusual behaviour may perhaps be read in
the context of what seems to me a broader trend in the Aethiopis to
turn the narrative of Achilles and Penthesileia into the point of depar-
ture for a wide-reaching metaliterary debate about what role Achilles’
‘loving’, and in particular his ‘flirting with the enemy’ (Penthesileia’s
case), should or should not play within the ideology of epic.
Before we evaluate the metaliterary content of the episode, we have
to try to understand what precisely happened between Achilles and
Penthesileia in the Aethiopis, and what happened between Achilles
and Thersites. Proclus does not tell us how the love arose between
Achilles and the Amazon. But visual representations of Achilles kill-
ing Penthesileia are common between the sixth century and the first
half of the fourth century bc (LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 719–44)—most
famous are the neck-amphora painted by Exekias around 530 bc
(LIMC ‘Ach.’ 723, here Pl. 7) and the kylix by the so-called Penthe-
sileia Painter from about 460 bc (LIMC ‘Ach.’ 733, here Pl. 8).
A number of these depictions highlight an intense exchange of
looks between Achilles and Penthesileia at the very moment when
Achilles’ spear is entering her throat (LIMC ‘Ach.’ 723) or as she is
fainting in death and clasps his chest (LIMC ‘Ach.’ 733).9 These images
may well reflect the prevailing archaic version of the myth (and thus
that of the Aethiopis as well?)10 in which Achilles was overcome by love
for Penthesileia just at the moment when he had, or was about to, deal
the mortal blow in duel with her on the battlefield. A narrative of this
9
Blok (1995) 223 n. 77 denies, uniquely, that there is a significant exchange of
glances between Penthesileia and Achilles in LIMC ‘Ach.’ 723, but cf. Kossatz-
Deissmann (1981) 170 and Mackay (2010) 319 and n. 30. Despite the archaic
convention of representing the eyes frontally, Mackay observes that in order to help
the viewer perceive the direction of Achilles’ gaze line, his eye ‘bores down upon her
turned up face, the gaze line approximately parallel to the shaft of the spear’. An
intense exchange of looks is also certainly displayed in the 5–4th-cent. LIMC ‘Ach.’
731 and 734–6. Of course there is another side of the coin: in both paintings it is clear
that Achilles also kills the Amazon, after all; therefore the sword with which Achilles
wounds Penthesileia in the cup of the Penthesileia Painter has been interpreted as a
phallic symbol of reassertion of the gender role which was confounded when the
Amazon, a woman, challenged Achilles in battle; cf. Tyrrell (1984) 17–28.
10
In at least three vases of the 6th cent. the scene of Achilles slaying the Amazon is
combined with other scenes from the Aethiopis: cf. Kossatz-Deissmann (1981) 170.
Flirting with the Enemy 271
sort is also often reported by later ancient sources. For example, both
Propertius 3.11.15–16, and Quint. Smyrn. 1.657–61 place emphasis on
the fact that the thunderbolt of love struck Achilles when the helmet
was lifted from the head of the dying Penthesileia, revealing her
beautiful face to the hero for the first time.11
Achilles’ temporary erotic weakness on the battlefield would not
have impinged on the final result of the duel. But it did give rise to a
momentous chain-reaction which ultimately resulted in an attack on
Achilles’ honour within the Achaean camp, the first in a series of
mirror-repetitions of the structure of the Iliad. Then Achilles killed
Thersites, the man who questioned his honour (in Il. 1.188–92 he was
already tempted to kill Agamemnon, but was stopped by Athena).
Besides, because of this violent reaction to the slighting of his honour,
he had once again to segregate himself from the rest of the army for a
while.12
According to Proclus’ summary,
Œ Ø ÆPc IæØ ı Æ åØºº , ƒ b +æH ÆPc Ł ı Ø. ŒÆd
åØºº f ¨ æ Å IÆØæ E ºØæÅŁ d æe ÆPF ŒÆd O ØØ Ł d e
Kd BØ — Ł Øº ÆØ º ª æøÆ· ŒÆd KŒ ı Ø ª ÆØ E
寨E æd F ¨ æ ı çı. a b ÆFÆ åØºº f N ¸
º E, ŒÆd Ł Æ ººøØ ŒÆd æØØ ŒÆd ¸ÅE ŒÆŁÆæ ÆØ F çı
Oı ø.
[Penthesileia] dominates the battlefield, but Achilles kills her and the
Trojans bury her. And Achilles kills Thersites after being abused by him
and insulted over his alleged love for Penthesileia. This results in a
dispute among the Achaeans about the killing of Thersites. Achilles
then sails to Lesbos, and after sacrificing to Apollo, Artemis, and Leto,
he is purified from the killing by Odysseus.
Thersites was offensive and audacious enough to say in public what
others refrained from expressing because of Achilles’ high social
and military profile. Yet both in the Iliad and in the Aethiopis his
criticism of, respectively, Agamemnon and Achilles would have been
widely shared. In the Iliad, Thersites ‘the incarnation of the ugly
11
On the long dispute about the existence of a common source for Propertius and
Quintus about this detail, or the dependence of the latter on the former, cf. Morelli
(2001) 53–6; see also below, p. 283 n. 49.
12
For the parallelism of the narrative roles of Achilles in the Iliad and the
Aethiopis, see most recently Marks (2005) 15–23.
272 Flirting with the Enemy
truth’13 attacked Agamemnon (Il. 2.225–42) with more or less the
same rebukes that Achilles had already expressed in the debate about
the restitution of Chryseis to Chryses in Book 1—though Thersites
voiced his accusations in a more debased and above all insubordinate
way.14 Achilles, after all, was one of the Æ Øº E ‘kings’ and doubtless
the great warrior he also boasted to be, whereas Thersites was just a
commoner from the troops,15 or a fallen aristocrat16 whom the Iliad
leaves with no patronymic attachable to his name and no mention of
his homeland; if, as some suggest, he did belong to the aristocracy no
less than Achilles,17 he was nonetheless ethically diminished by his
consistent characterization as a reprehensible critic of his betters, with
no respect for the basic principles of social interaction.18 Even when
he claimed military prowess (2.231), his physical deformity (2.215–24)
unavoidably made it difficult to take him seriously. Because of his
total lack of individual charm and social distinction or authority,
Thersites’ criticism of Agamemnon in Iliad 2 is out of line, first and
foremost because he criticizes Agamemnon for his failure to show
proper respect to his fellow-kings at the same time that he himself
fails to pay respect to a king. Thersites’ inappropriateness turns his
words into a comic parody of Achilles’ reproaches of Agamemnon,
though his accusations did express a thought that was not far re-
moved from Achilles’ earlier rebuke of the king; hence Odysseus can
13
Whitman (1958) 261. As Blok (1995) 207 remarks, ‘in the verbal justification of
honour and leadership, which is vested in eloquence in public speaking, everything
that is wrong or undesirable is glossed over as much as possible. It is this repressed,
underlying layer which Thersites brings to the surface. In terms of the aristocratic
moral code, he puts into words precisely what has to be hidden from sight’.
14
Thalmann (1988) 20-1 correctly observes that in Iliad 1 the aristocrat (or lesser
king) Achilles rebels against the monarch within a social structure in which the
higher spheres of authority are never clearly defined. In Book 2, on the other hand,
Thersites defies the ruling class as a whole, but so openly exaggerates his critical
caricature of leading aristocratic values that in the end even the commoners are
persuaded to take position against him and side with the kings and their defender
Odysseus.
15
Cf. e.g. Finley (1978) 102–4.
16
According to the thesis of Ebert (1969).
17
Cf. Kullmann (1960) 148; Marks (2005).
18
Thersites’ role has been compared with other more or less repulsive traditional
slanderers such as some Greek çÆæÆŒ ‘scapegoats’ (e.g. Nagy (1979) 279–80)—in
particular with the çÆæÆŒ Aesop, who in the biographical tradition is depicted as
an ugly author of true criticism, who somehow specializes in the blame of insulting
and disappointing truths (Nagy (1979) 280-8; Rosen (2007) 98–105; Kurke (2011)
85–94)—or the deformed Indian mocker-clown ‘viduçaka’ (Blok (1995) 205–6).
Flirting with the Enemy 273
beat him bloody and all the Greeks approve. In the Aethiopis, in
contrast, Thersites’ capacity to openly reveal the most ugly truths
does not provoke the effect of alienating his potential sympathizers,
and rather turns him into ‘the justified mocker, who ultimately suffers
for his art rather than for any truly actionable villainy’.19
That Achilles’ mingling of eros and Ares could seem enough of a
deviation from the standard heroic behaviour to deserve a censure
was not only Thersites’ impression: indeed, there is some indication
that his feelings, like those that he expressed about Agamemnon in
the Iliad, were shared by much of the army. As Proclus tells us,
Achilles’ killing of Thersites sparked a Ø ‘sedition’ among the
Greeks,20 and the displeasure at the killing would seem to suggest that
some were in sympathy with Thersites’ remarks. Besides, the complex
of rituals that Achilles had to undergo, according to Proclus (quoted
above), after killing Thersites, ‘implies that the homicide was
problematic enough to merit a complex purification ritual’.21
In later versions, beginning with Lycophron,22 Achilles’ violence
against Thersites was not a result of the latter’s public criticism of his
behaviour, but had another, more concrete genesis: Thersites would
have committed some offence against the body of the Amazon. See
Lycophr. Al. 999–1001:
19
Rosen (2007) 103; cf. also 69–78.
20
Blok (1995) 202–3, for instance, infers from this term that the entire Greek army
was divided in two opposite parties following Thersites’ death at the hands of Achilles;
cf. also Marks (2005) 19–20. Some modern scholars have opted for the idea that
Proclus’ Ø simply points to the dissent of Diomedes, who, as a relative of
Thersites, would have been the ‘only’ one to be angry with Achilles for Thersites’
death, and had to be calmed down by the most eminent Achaeans, according to Quint.
Smyrn. 1.767–81. Quintus’ version implies that the dispute over Thersites’ death was a
rather private matter between Achilles and Diomedes, soon resolved by the interven-
tion of mediators. On the other hand, Proclus’ summary does not mention Diomedes
at all, though his short passage is ‘otherwise replete with proper names’ (Rosen (2007)
98) and suggests that the quarrel did not (or did not only) owe its origin to a mere
question of family honour but really divided the Greek army into factions. A similar
version to Quintus is presupposed by the Boston Apulian krater of 350/300 bc, LIMC
‘Ach.’ 794, and therefore in all probability also by Chaeremon’s play åØºº f
¨ æ ØŒ, which appears to have inspired this krater. Cf. Sodano (1951) 72,
Vian (1959) 21 n. 8, and above all Morelli (2001) 66–8, 93–100, and 135–68 for an
attempt at reconstructing Chaeremon’s tragedy and Rosen (2007) 104–15 for a
thorough discussion of the societal values at stakes in Diomedes’ reaction to the
killing of Thersites.
21
Rosen (2007) 97.
22
See later Soph. Phil. 445.
274 Flirting with the Enemy
w KŒ Å ºE Ł OçŁÆºe ı d
ØŁÅŒæçøØ `NøºHØ çŁæøØ
Ø æ çÅŒØ çØøØ ÅøØ.
the eye gouged out from her while she breathed her last shall bring
doom to the ape-formed Aetolian pest, wounded by the bloody spear.
Achilles’ slaying of Thersites would have been in retribution for his
gratuitous savagery against the Amazon with whom Achilles had
belatedly realized he had fallen in love.23 Was this motivation for
Achilles’ fury already in the Aethiopis? In light of his summary’s
brevity, Proclus’ silence cannot provide conclusive evidence, but if
Thersites in the Aethiopis is a blamer as in Iliad 2, as it appears, then ‘a
blamer must take the high ground, whereas if he is made to abuse
corpses and suchlike, he would become simply a villain’.24 Therefore
I prefer to think that only later on in the literary tradition did the
accusation of æø for Penthesileia no longer seem a good enough
reason for Thersites to slander Achilles or for Achilles to see red at
this reprimand; hence the motif of Thersites’ attack on the body of
Penthesileia. In the same terms in some sources from the imperial age
Achilles was ascribed a form of behaviour, necrophilia,25 which was
more radically beyond the accepted norms of social and religious
behaviour.26 But there is also no hint of Thersites’ accusation of
necrophilia in Proclus’ summary. Proclus’ report simply identifies
Achilles’ conflict with Thersites as a result of being ‘abused’ and
‘insulted’ over his own º ª æø—compare [Apollod.] Bibl.
Epit. 5.1 ‘[Achilles] fell in love (KæÆ Ł ) with the Amazon after her
death and slew Thersites for jeering at (ºØæFÆ) him’. Proclus’
specification º ª æø, ‘alleged love’, refers to a love that had
not been fully or openly acknowledged, and thus was something that
23
Achilles killed Thersites either with a fist (according to most sources, beginning
with Pherecr. PCG 165) or with his spear (Lycophr. Al. 1001). Cf. Morelli (2001) 64
n. 91.
24
R. M. Rosen per litteras.
25
IG 14.1839.12–13, discussed below, p. 285; Liban. Progymn. 9.1.22; Serv. Daniel,
ad Verg. Aen. ii.555.5–8 Thilo; Nonn. Dion. 35.27–35 (below p. 284); Soph. Phil.
445; Tzetz. ad Lycophr. 999; Eustath. ad Hom. Il. 2.220 (208.1–7). It has been
conjectured that the whole story of Achilles’ necrophilia originated in Thersites’
slanders but was later transformed into a ‘true’ detail of the myth by a mythographer
avid for unwholesome details, such as, for instance, a Hellenistic paradoxographer or
Sotades of Maroneia: cf. Arrigoni (1981) 268; Morelli (2001) 60; Magnelli (2008) 307.
26
Cf. Blok (1995) 201.
Flirting with the Enemy 275
others (perhaps only Thersites in his malevolent speech?)27 had been
‘talking about’, but was not certifiably true—in particular, this phrase
obscures whether the veracity of the report was confirmed or denied
by the author of the Aethiopis.28 In other words, the phrase probably
means that Thersites called it æø, but Achilles’ actions could not be
plainly defined as æø by everyone. Achilles might have revealed his
instantaneous love simply through the passion of his gaze or his
unusually humane handling of her body.29 Or he might have
mourned for her: in Eustathius’ words (ad Hom. Il. 2.220 (208.3–4)):
KŒ E I ºg r Œ å Kd BØ Œ ØÅØ. › b ªaæ KŁÆÆÇ e
Œ ºº ŒÆd ‰ ŒÆºc –Æ ŒÆd Iæ Æ Iæ ØÆ ŒÆd Œ ººØ
Mº Ø30 Œ ØÅ e ‹Ø NŒØÇ .
after killing her, he conceived compassion for her: he admired her
beauty and mourned for her, lying dead, as beautiful and brave at the
same time—he the bravest and the most handsome—because he had
pity for the analogy [between himself and her].
Thersites’ slanders may also have included an objection to Achilles’
support for the return of Penthesileia’s body to the Trojans for burial.
Possibly this protest stemmed from the fact that no ransom was
offered (none is mentioned in Proclus’ account), whereas a ransom
had been necessary, for example, in the case of Hector.31
Unfortunately, it seems that we shall never know the details of
what Thersites said. Eustathius (quoted above) introduces his account
of Thersites’ death as a øæÆ ƒ æÆ, reporting that Achilles
mourned for the Amazon (see above), but Thersites ‘jeers at him
for his lust’ (Kd ºÆª ÆØ Œ Ø: compare O ØØ Ł d e . . . æøÆ
27
Cf. Vian (1959) 20-1.
28
Cf. Rosen (2007) 94.
29
Panaenus, Phidias’ brother, depicted Achilles holding up (Iåø) Penthesileia
in the structure at the basis of Zeus’ throne at Olympia: Paus. 5.11.6 (LIMC ‘Ach.’
739). Similar scenes are found in some Apulian krateres of the first half of the 4th
cent., which usually also feature Aphrodite and /or Eros on the sides, in order to stress
the eroticism of the situation (LIMC ‘Ach.’ 740-4).
30
Tzetzes ad Lycophr. 999.
31
According to Sisyphus of Cos (3rd cent. bc: FGrHist 50F1(12)) and Dictys Cret.
4.3, there was a debate among the Greeks about what to do with the corpse of
Penthesileia: some proposed to throw her in the Scamander (Diomedes actually
threw her in the river according to Sisyphus, Dictys, and Tzetzes, Posthom. 207),
others to leave her body to dogs and birds; when Achilles proposed to bury her with all
the honours, Diomedes and Thersites would both have objected, and Thersites would
have opened the floodgates of his reprimand against Achilles’ erotic weakness.
276 Flirting with the Enemy
in Proclus). Since æØ is a term commonly employed with
reference to poems of the Epic Cycle in both the ancient scholia to
Homer and in Eustathius,32 it is not impossible that Eustathius is
here pointing to the original version of the Aethiopis,33 in which case
Thersites would have charged Achilles with ‘lust’ (or a similar sin).
Apart from this possible but uncertain echo of the Aethiopis in
Eustathius, what we have are brief references from different ages,
which may or may not reflect elements of Thersites’ speech in the
Aethiopis. Although we cannot confidently reconstruct the archaic
epic text from which they derive, each offers intriguing evidence of
the many different reactions to which Achilles’ flirting with the
enemy could give rise in different ages and, above all, in different
genres.
Of Thersites’ speech itself, our only surviving account of any length
or detail is Quint. Smyrn. 1.723–40:
t åØº F çæÆ ÆN, <X> <ı> XÆç Æø
Łıe Kd æØ Ø ÆÇ ¥ ŒÆ ºıªæB
m HØ ŒÆŒa ººa ºØºÆ Å Æ ŁÆØ; 725
ŒÆ Ø Kd çæ d BØ Ø ªıÆØÆb qæ åØ
º ÆØ ‰ IºåØ ºçæ l Kd &Ø
ŒıæØÅ ı Æ K º ªÆ ŁÆØ.
u < > Zç º ŒÆa BæØ çŁÆÅ º ıæ,
o ŒÆ ŁÅºıæÅØ Ø ¼Å KØæ ÆØ qæ, 730
32
See above, p. 25; but also p. 30 n. 18.
33
I agree with Severyns (1928) 316–7 and Vian (1959) 20–1. Eustathius’ descrip-
tion of Achilles’ mourning for the Amazon (quoted above) seems to match what an
ancient epic discourse on this subject may be supposed to have been. The emotional
sympathy for the ‘analogy’ (‹Ø) which Achilles would have felt according to
Eustathius between himself and the Amazon is very much in tune with the common
mirror-play in the funeral speeches for Patroclus in the Iliad, which sometimes point to
the imminent death of Achilles, and/or anticipate motifs that were probably included
in the funeral speech for Achilles in the Aethiopis (see above p. 120). It is tempting to
suppose that the poetics of the Aethiopis shares this device with the poetics of the Iliad,
where in his last funeral speech before he dies Achilles reflects and meditates on
himself and his own coming death. Besides, according to Eustathius, Achilles used
the epithet Iæ E in his description of Penthesileia’s bravery, a term that clearly
includes the idea of ‘virility’ even when it conveys, as here, the sense of ‘valorous’. Apart
from contributing to the ‘professional’ viewpoint of the appreciation by the warrior
Achilles for the warrior Amazon (see above pp. 267–8), this epithet would mesh very
well with the idea of ‘analogy’ between Achilles and Penthesileia, if Achilles’ eulogy in
the Aethiopis were in fact based on this type of correspondence between Penthesileia’s
death and Achilles’ death—in other words, it seems more a ‘quotation’ from an archaic
text developing this motif than a random definition by Eustathius.
Flirting with the Enemy 277
P ı Ø Åº Kd çæ d PºÅØ Ø
Iç’ Iæ B Œºıe æª, Kc K ÅØ ŁÆ ªıÆEŒÆ.
åºØ , F K Ø { æd { Ł Mb ÅÆ;
BØ b Å Æ ØºB I; P Ø r ŁÆ
‹ ¼å +æ Ø ªıÆØÆı Ø ıŒÆØ; 735
P ªaæ æøºB Oº æ ¼ºº æE Ø
K ºå ƒ Å, l ¼çæÆ çHÆ ŁÅ Ø
ŒÆd Øı æ KÆ. øØ ¼æÆ ŒF OÅ E·
Iæd ªaæ ÆNåÅBØ ŒÅ<> Œº æªÆ @æÅ
æ , çıªºøØ <b> ªıÆØŒH hÆ P. 740
Achilles, perverted man, what power has beguiled your spirit for the
sake of a wretched Amazon, whose only desire for us was every con-
ceivable evil? The heart within you is so crazy for women that you care
for her as for a prudent wife courted by you with gifts to be your lawful
spouse. She should have been the first to strike you with her spear in the
battle, since your heart takes such delight in females and your accursed
mind has no concern at all for glorious deeds of valour once you catch
sight of a woman. Scoundrel, where is your strength of body [?] and
mind? Where is the might of the noble king? Surely you know how great
has been the cost to Troy of people crazy for women. Nothing is more
pernicious to mortal men than pleasure in a woman’s bed. It makes a
fool of even the wisest; only toil produces glory. The deeds of war and
victory’s fame are a fighting man’s delight; the coward’s pleasure is
bedding with women.
It is difficult to believe that much of this speech goes back to the
Aethiopis. Above all, it seems to rely on the model of Iliad 3, where
Hector rebukes Paris for his woman-craziness in similar terms:34
falling in love with Penthesileia, Achilles is temporarily transformed
into another ªıÆØÆ Paris (the epithet used by Quintus 1.726 is
quite rare after Il. 3.39). The emphasis of Quintus’ Thersites on the
dangers of this state, and his insistence that ‘only toil produces glory’,
suggests that by yielding to the dangerous pleasure of bedding a
woman, Achilles might turn his attention away from his heroic
code35 and in particular his job as a warrior, thus becoming a
çıªº , precisely like Paris in Iliad 3. Proclus gives no
34
3.38–57 (see also 6.325–31). This model seems more convincing than Thersites’
abuse of Agamemnon in Il. 2.225–42, suggested by Schubert (1996) 111, which has
fewer points of contact with Quintus.
35
‘Thersites articulates the most traditional values of heroic epos (ŒF; ŒÅ<>
Œº; æªÆ @æÅ), which he sees threatened by erotic interests (ªıÆØŒH . . . P)’:
Rosen (2007) 95.
278 Flirting with the Enemy
indication that the Aethiopis episode represented Achilles as any less
engaged in his warlike activity (as in Quintus 1.730–2) or at risk of
becoming a çıªº (1.740) when he fell in love; in fact,
Achilles’ actual vanquishing of the Amazon would seem to under-
mine such a possibility.
If Quintus’ version of the speech of Thersites had any connection
with that found in the Aethiopis, then we would have to conjecture that
the Aethiopis itself must also have drawn from the image of Paris in the
Iliad. The parallelism between Paris’ permanent addiction to eros and
Achilles’ temporary erotic weakness would thus be expanded within
the Aethiopis to a broader parallelism between the figures of Paris and
Achilles—both ªıÆØÆ E, hence both çıªº Ø. Mirror-reflec-
tions between the Iliad-tradition and text and the traditions/poems of
the Epic Cycle (in both directions) are the form of intertextuality most
frequently ascertained or conjectured by the Neo-Analysis scholars
between the Iliad (or the Odyssey) and the Cyclic poems.36 In this case
the parallelism would involve a hyperbole: Achilles never fled like a
coward from the battlefield, like the Paris of Iliad 3, though he had
certainly withdrawn from fighting when Briseis was abducted, yet
while his Iliadic motivations had been Ø much more than love,
this withdrawal could well be interpreted as another effect of tempor-
ary ªıÆØÆÆ. But perhaps the exaggerated equalization of Paris and
Achilles might simply reflect the distorted logic of Thersites’ hyperbo-
lically generalized slander. We also should not forget that it is just as
probable that Quintus’ lengthy account of Thersites’ speech was the
infelicitous fruit of Quintus’ own creativity. Quintus would then have
constructed (rather than reconstructed) Thersites’ slanders on the
basis of the criticism levelled at Paris in the Iliad.
There is another motive for Thersites’ criticism that we can infer,
indirectly, from our sources. When he fell in love with Penthesileia,
Achilles lost the position of strength he had acquired through his
military victory, and his dismay at killing the Amazon transformed
him from her vanquisher to her prey. In fact the ‘afterthought’ of the
winner who is compelled by passion to complain about his victory is a
sort of paradox in terms of epic ideology, where the highest score of
victories in duel was the safest evidence of god-given ŒF, the
‘ability to be a victor’,37 and Œº, that which every hero strove to
36
See above, p. 120.
37
For the sense of ŒF, cf. Benveniste (1969) 346–56.
Flirting with the Enemy 279
achieve. The fact that, once he had fallen in love ( æª ) with the
Amazon, Achilles ‘blamed (ŒÆ ç ) his own victory’ seemed
thus ‘not likely’ (PŒ NŒÆ) for the fifth-century ad rhetorician
Nicolaus of Myra, Progymn. 5.4 (Rhet. Gr. 1.289–91 Walz). Nicolaus
thought it unlikely that Achilles could fall in love with someone with
whom he had been fighting and toiling, because ‘fights cannot gen-
erate loves’, as the fear inherent to them is not a feeling compatible
with eros; he maintained that in order for Achilles to fall in love the
Amazon had to be beautiful—but she could not be beautiful as she
was dead; and so on. So illogical did Nicolaus find the whole story that
he declared it not ‘true-to-myth’; he consequently rejected the episode
as a poetic fiction (FŁ . . . ØÅH) which needed his refutation
(º ªå).38
38
Similar logic and conclusion in Philostratus and Libanius about Achilles at
Scyros: cf. above, pp. 63–4.
39
Examples and discussion of the Ganymede motif in Tarán (1979) 7–51.
280 Flirting with the Enemy
least once, with Thersites in the Aethiopis, upset the delicate balance
and difficult coexistence between values of martial epos and eros.
Nonnus’ ultimately failed attempt to retell the story of Achilles and
Penthesileia while balancing the competing demands of epos and love
is extremely clear and eloquent; we shall return to it at the end of the
chapter. By contrast, Virgil’s appreciation of the tale has to be argued
mainly ex silentio. The Aeneid includes a female leader of a small
Volscan army who has entered the war as an ally of Turnus. From the
beginning she is presented as bellatrix and opposed to usual female
jobs (7.803–7), and in her aristeia she appears to fight surrounded by
a group of female, Amazon-like Italian warriors (11.655). Besides, the
image of bellatrix Penthesileia and the Amazons is the last of the
scenes of the Iliacae ex ordine pugnae bellaque ‘the battles and the
warfare of Ilium in due order’ (in fact bits of the Iliad, expanded
through the Aethiopis and other poems of the Epic Cycle) which
Aeneas sees in Juno’s temple at Carthage in Aen. 1.455–93.40 The
Amazon is thus not completely invisible in the Aeneid, and her
portrayal at 1.490-3 seems from at least one detail to be drawn
perhaps from her depiction in the Aethiopis: her scene, in fact,
comes immediately after the scene representing Memnon, the other
ally who holds down the fort in the Aethiopis after the Amazon is
killed (1.489). As the last of the figures depicted on the temple’s doors,
Penthesileia’s placement parallels the final, memorable position
which is held by Camilla in a different list, the catalogue of Turnus’
allies at Aen. 7.803–17. Last but not least, at 11.659–63 Camilla and
her female companions are compared to the Amazons either tramp-
ing over Thermodon’s streams, led by Hippolyta, or exulting as
Penthesileia returns in her chariot. The emphasis on the precedent
of the Amazons in the presentation of Camilla seems to point to a
correspondence between her and Penthesileia, but at the same time
the contextual details of these two occasions when the Amazons show
their joy are not known from other sources.
In fact, even at the point where the identification of Camilla with
Penthesileia seems closest, at 11.662–3, the rejoicing (exultant) of the
Amazons when Penthesileia ‘returns’ (se refert) in the chariot is either
fictionalized by Virgil or refers to a war raid of Penthesileia which is
unknown to us, and concluded with her ‘return’ home (clearly not the
40
On the ‘Cyclic way’ in which Virgil has his Aeneas feel the war at Troy, cf.
Barchiesi (1994).
Flirting with the Enemy 281
adventure at Troy, which is found in the Aethiopis); alternatively, the
allusion may point to an episode of Penthesileia’s martial glory which
was recounted in the Aethiopis before the duel with Achilles. In any
case, a direct identification between Camilla and Penthesileia never
takes place.41 Camilla remains the synthesis of more than one past
model heroine (apart from the Amazon, at least Atalanta: cf. 7.808–
11), and also reflects features of typical Italian mythology (she has
features of Diana, first of all).42 In particular—this is the most im-
portant point I wish to make—nothing in Camilla’s life in the Aeneid
hints at the moment of Penthesileia’s duel with Achilles or at the brief
love-story at the end of her life. Despite the special honour which her
body will deserve, Camilla also dies in a rather ugly, common, and
inglorious way, in contrast with the pulchra mors—both erotically
and martially splendid—of Penthesileia in the Aethiopis (or of Pallas,
in the Aeneid).43 To conclude, though Aeneas is never more closely
modelled on Achilles than in the last books of the Virgilian epos, and
though it is precisely in these books that Virgil has Aeneas betray his
feelings for Pallas, albeit ambiguously,44 Camilla never goes all the
way to become the Penthesileia of the Aethiopis and in particular
inspires no thunderbolt of love to strike her foe. We cannot know
whether Virgil intentionally excluded the Thersites-risk for his Ae-
neas, hoping to preserve the grandeur of the apogee of his military
glory, or preferred for any other reason to hint at the Achilles–
Patroclus relationship in Aeneas–Pallas, without throwing a Penthe-
sileia-like love interest into the mix. The Roman poet could also,
simply, have never thought of dealing with the model of the Aethiopis
and relied on post-Cyclic traditions of the Amazons at Troy, which
41
For a magisterial analysis of the substantial difference between them, cf.
Arrigoni (1982), chap. iii–iv. Fraenkel (1932) 243 had already been very clear about
the difference. Heinze (1993) 159 even subscribed to the idea that Virgil did not read
the Aethiopis; but see Kopff (1981), 931–2, 942–4, maintaining that Virgil probably
read the Aethiopis, and modelled his ‘Penthesileia’ of 1.490-3 and 11.661–2 on this
Cyclic poem. For an infelicitous attempt at considering the Penthesileia of the
Aethiopis the model for Camilla: Assereto (1970).
42
Cf. Arrigoni (1982) chap. v.
43
Cf. Arrigoni (1982) 56–8. On the pulchra mors: Lassandro (1990). In LIMC
‘Ach.’ 733 (mentioned above, p. 270) Penthesileia has all the splendour of a queen,
with diadem, foot- and arm-rings, and sumptuous clothes: cf. Simon (1976) 130;
Schefold and Jung (1989) 242.
44
See above, p. 252.
282 Flirting with the Enemy
are almost totally unknown to us.45 However the temptation to adopt
the former position is strong, since the stage seems almost perfectly set
to trigger a Camilla-Penthesileia, though the final erotic charge of
Penthesileia never materializes for Camilla.
Before becoming the illogical oddity criticized by Nicolaus,46 the
paradox of a victor who regrets his victory as he is defeated by his love
for a weaker opponent had appeared already many centuries before in
the love poet Propertius. In Propertius, however, the paradox of the
victor being vanquished by eros is a paradigm of the irresistability of
some female ‘winners’ (Medea, Omphale, Semiramis): with no trace
left of Thersites’ blameful censure, Achilles’ ‘defeat’ was seen as a
triumph of the frightening power of love. Prop. 3.11 wonders why it is
that his beloved Cynthia controls his life so totally, and answers first
of all with a list of women whose power could prevail in the most
difficult situations. Among them, the Amazon (3.11.13–16):
ausa ferox ab equo quondam oppugnare sagittis
Maeotis Danaum Penthesilea rates;
aurea cui postquam nudavit cassida frontem
vicit victorem candida forma virum.
Penthesileia, the fierce maid of Maeotis, once dared from horseback to
attack the ships of the Greeks with arrows, and when the golden helm
was lifted to reveal her face, her shining beauty conquered her male
conqueror.
Propertius is the oldest poetic text on the death of Penthesileia
known to us and it seems perhaps odd that in our attempt to track
down the motivations for Thersites’ criticism of Achilles in the
Aethiopis narrative it is only now, after reviewing Quintus and Nico-
laus, that we turn to this earliest of our extant evidence. But in fact,
while these other later authors seem to have preserved something of
the original critical perspective from which the archaic idea of martial
epic viewed Achilles’ love for Penthesileia (a view reflected though
exaggerated in Thersites’ insulting speech), Propertius, the love poet,
clears Achilles of dishonour. If Achilles’ dismay at killing the defeated
enemy was something paradoxical in terms of the epic ideology
of ŒF, Propertius, by contrast, is drawn by his perspective as an
45
We know of an adespoton Latin tragedy Penthesilea: TRF p. 271 Ribbeck 3rd
edn.; cf. Morelli (1990).
46
See above, p. 279.
Flirting with the Enemy 283
erotic poet to amazed appreciation for this afterthought of the winner
who willingly renounces the pride—the ŒF—of his victory. His
polyptoton of the verb for ‘victory’, vincere, highlights the paradox of
the situation, radically unsettling the pride of the war victor by
focusing on his obvious defeat at the hands of omnipotent love. It is
not uncommon to find this playful polyptoton of vincere, and its
erotic specialization, in Latin,47 but the trope seems to have been
much rarer in Greek. This is certainly not enough to prove that
Propertius was the first to deploy the motif that Achilles’ love for
Penthesileia meant that he became the erotic victim of the very
opponent he had defeated on the battlefield. The motif may well
have been included, for example, among Thersites’ slanders in the
Aethiopis or in Chaeremon’s tragedy Achilles slayer of Thersites,48 or
in other lost texts on this subject; and Propertius may simply have
reversed its value from epically negative (qua militarily disloyal) to
erotically positive, and thus applied the typical Latin polyptoton to it.
But it is significant that Nonnus, as we shall see, uses similar poly-
ptota in his episode inspired by Achilles and Penthesileia (çBÆ j
hÆ PÅŁ E Æ, hÆ Æ PÆÅ; also çŁØÅ ŒÅ ): plausibly
he had the same model in mind, or rather the same erotic tradition as
Propertius.49
At the beginning of Dion. 35, Nonnus recounts that, after a mas-
sacre of Bacchants by the Indian prince Deriades, one of his soldiers
conceived a quasi-necrophiliac passion for one of the girls who was
47
In fact this polyptoton is usually applied to love for female slaves, an especially
common motif in Latin erotic poetry. For the polyptoton/parechesis cf. e.g. Plaut. Cas.
510; Cic. Brut. 254; Hor. Epist. 2.1.156; Ovid. Met. 13.386, etc. For its erotic specializa-
tion, cf. Hor. C. 2.4.5–6; Ovid. Ars am. 2.406 and Her. 9.2; Sen. Agam. 175; Val. Flacc.
2.146. In particular, as G. Rosati (per litteras) points out to me, Ovid. Her. 9.2 victorem
victae succubuisse queror ‘that the victor has yielded to the vanquished, I complain’
and Sen. Agam. 175 amore captae captus ‘captured by love for a captive’ reinstate the
indignant viewpoint which outside love poetry the polyptoton was perhaps to express
in popular morality: these two betrayed women (respectively Deianeira and Clytaem-
nestra), not unlike the Briseis of Her. 3 (see above pp. 133–43), vindicate and try to
repristinate the heroism of their beloveds, whose erotic choices they censure—better
fierce heroes, than misguided lovers.
48
Cf. Arrigoni (1981) 257.
49
Of course we cannot rule out the possibility that Nonnus also had Propertius in
mind. Allusions to Latin poets in Greek authors are objectively few, and only
occasionally admitted by modern scholars: cf. the exemplary cases investigated by
Yardley (1980); Knox (1988); De Stefani (2006). But see the most persuasive case
made about Ovid and Nonnus by Diggle (1970) 180-200.
284 Flirting with the Enemy
moribund on the ground after the battle. The desire, Nonnus tells us,
arose despite the precise orders of Deriades to his sex-starved soldiers
(ªıÆØÆ E, 35.18—like Achilles in Thersites’ words, as recounted
by Quintus quoted above) not to have sex with the enemies, c
—ÆçÅ Iºª Iç Ø ø Ø ’¯ıF ‘lest in thinking of the Pa-
phian they should be slack in the fight’, 35.20.50 But nevertheless this
moribund Bacchant worked her erotic power over the soldier:
‘wounded, she wounded her lusting slayer; her beauty was her bolt,
and dying she conquered’ (ƒ æÆ çBÆ j hÆ PÅŁ E Æ,
º ƒ º æç, j ŒÆd çŁØÅ ŒÅ , 35.23–5). Had he
not feared the orders of Deriades, the poor Indian soldier ‘would have
felt desire for a lifeless corpse, as Achilles did—seeing a new Penthe-
sileia on the ground, he would have kissed the cold lips of the girl,
prostrate in the dust’ (ŒÆ Œ Œæe åø Ł ¼, u æ
åØºº , j ¼ººÅ — Ł º ØÆ bæ ÆØ Œ ø j łıåæa
ŒØÅ æ Æ å º Æ çÅ, 35.27–9). Stricken by pas-
sion, the Indian soldier even confessed to the moribund girl to have
been ‘defeated’ by her: ÆæŁ ØŒc ÞÅåı, e ı æøÆ çBÆ j
hÆ Æ PÆÅ, çŁØÅ ÇÆ Æ Ç Ø, j ŒÆd f e º ç æØ Ø
OØ Ø Oº BæÆ ‘Maiden of the rosy arms, wounded yourself you
have wounded your lovesick slayer, slain you conquer the living, you
pierce your own destroyer with the arrows of your eyes’ (35.37–9).
Nonnus’ passage appears to operate a ‘dialogic’ combination of two
polar elements. On the one hand, an emphatic eroticism (the descrip-
tion of the body of the Bacchant with her chiton pulled aside, 35.22, her
naked thighs, 35.25–6, and in particular her ‘white ankles and the
parting of the uncovered thighs’, 35.32, or the groping of her limbs
and breast by the soldier (‘handled often the swelling rosy breast even
now like an apple’, 35.33–4) doubtless heighten the erotic enargeia of
the narrative; on the other, it increases the critical doubts of the ‘epic/
military’ viewpoint, to which Achilles’ love for the Amazon seems to
have already given rise in the Aethiopis through the ‘megaphone’ of
Thersites’ slanders. The radical opposition and incompatibility of war-
like activity and eros had, as we have seen, probably been part of
Thersites’ insulting rebuke of Achilles in the Aethiopis, and was cer-
tainly his main charge according to Quintus 1.726–33 quoted above.
50
Deriades’ fear might well have derived from an awareness of Thersites’ concern
about Achilles in love and consequent warning, in Quintus 1.738–40, quoted above:
‘only toil produces glory . . . the coward’s pleasure is bedding with women’.
Flirting with the Enemy 285
Continued by the epic or at least non-erotic voice of Quintus and
Nicolaus, now, tellingly, it still guides the military leader Deriades as
he prohibits his soldiers from wanton behaviour with their female
enemies, lest ‘thinking of the Paphian’ his soldiers become ‘slack in
the fight’ (35.20, quoted above).
Both Quintus and Nonnus were influenced by a long tradition of
erotic poetry (including Propertius’ sources, if not Propertius) which,
inter alia, helped bring about the interpretation of Achilles’ and
Penthesileia’s love as a paradigmatic victory of love over death that
would provide much symbolism in funerary contexts.51 This myth
features in more than two dozen sarcophagi datable from the second
and the third centuries ad (LIMC ‘Achilleus’ 757–83), and in at least a
dozen of them a special stereotypical structuring is adopted, where
the whole front slab of the sarcophagus depicts hectic and bloody
scenes of individual fights between male warriors and Amazons
(Amazonomachy), but at the centre, isolated from the surrounding
chaos, in a sort of sentimental oasis, Achilles tenderly holds the dying
Penthesileia.52 The coeval Rome inscription IG 14.1839 is a different
case of the same funerary fortune of Achilles and Penthesileia, where
eschatological implications still seem absent, and all the emphasis
goes to the survival of the memory of physical beauty beyond death,
and the erotic attractiveness of the dead despite death. At lines 12–13
the husband observes about his dead wife, Markia Helike, that ‘after
death, she had the unbelievable beauty of the Amazon, so that one
was more drawn to love of her when she was dead than when she was
alive’ (Œ ºº ’ Æs a EæÆ ÆÇ å ¼Ø , j u
ŒæA º j Ç Å N æøÆ çæ ŁÆØ).53
Taking advantage of a narrative freedom not available to Quintus’
Posthomerica (which would have had to preserve at least the main
events featured in the Cyclic post-Iliadic poems), and being himself
51
Missonnier (1932) 117–31; Bakalakis (1971) 81–3; Blok (1995) 199.
52
LIMC ‘Ach.’ 758, 767–74, 777, 782–3). See the comments of Stahre (1998) 161
and Zanker and Ewald (2004) 52–4 on the Vatican sarcophagus LIMC ‘Ach.’ 767.
Zanker and Ewald point to it as a clear example of the technique of ‘Abstrahierendes
Lesen’, through which the stonemason asks the viewers to abstract themselves from
the narrative of the myth, or even from most of the details represented on the
sarcophagus, and focus instead on some emphatic details to which is ascribed a
superior message (in the Vatican sarcophagus Achilles and Penthesileia are taller
than the other warriors and Amazons, Achilles being twice as tall as a horse!).
53
Cf. Arrigoni (1981) 263–4.
286 Flirting with the Enemy
eager to make room for erotic themes and episodes in his epic,
Nonnus gave voice and ample space to the sexual compulsions of
his Indian soldier. His depiction even stands on the verge of offering a
full-scale enactment of Achilles’ alleged necrophilia, according to
both the author’s explicit comment (cf. 35.27–9, quoted above) and
the admission of the Indian soldier in his desperate one-sided dia-
logue with the now dead Bacchant: E åø ŒÆd ¼Ø Kªg Ł,
‹Ø ØŒø j ŒæÅ Œæe æøÆ ŒÆÆçŁØø Æø ‘a strange
incredible desire is in me, when I pursue a girl’s dead love to attain a
perished wedlock’, 35.44–5. But this shameful new episode of necro-
philia does not actually occur, and the unnamed Indian passes on,
‘hiding in his heart his desire for the dead’, 35.78. That in the end,
after long torment, reason prevails over passion and the Indian
soldier observes Deriades’ prohibition of sex with the enemy, is
most probably, first of all, a piece of evidence of the fact that Nonnus
remained a Christian, despite his inclination to explore the dialogue
between classical and Christian views of the world,54 and to confront
in particular their stances about potentially disturbing issues such as
the power of sexuality. But it is also, perhaps, a shrewd metaliterary
way of confirming the Dionysiaca’s ultimately epic pedigree, while at
the same time acknowledging the relevance and charm of erotic
contaminations of the epic genre.
54
Cf. most recently Shorrock (2011), esp. 123–4.
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Index
(b)