Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T08:17:19.044Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Archilochus and Lycambes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. Carey
C. Carey
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A persistent ancient tradition has it that a man named Lycambes promised his daughter Neoboule in marriage to the poet Archilochus of Paros, that he subsequently refused Archilochus, and that the poet attacked Lycambes and his daughters with such ferocity that they all committed suicide. When we reflect that the iambographer Hipponax drove his enemies Bupalus and Athenis and Old Comedy a man named Poliager to suicide, that the ancestress of iambos, Iambe, killed herself, and that all these suicides, like those of Lycambes and his daughters, took the form of hanging, we will not take too seriously the ending of the story of Archilochus' relations with Lycambes and his family.

However, it seems now to be generally accepted, at least among English-speaking scholars, that the whole Lycambes tradition is to be rejected. The present note seeks to demonstrate that this extreme scepticism is misguided. I shall begin with a survey of Archilochus' references to Lycambes and his family to ascertain how far the indirect tradition is consistent with the surviving fragments.

Lycambes appears to have played a consistent role in Archilochus, as far as the fragments allow us to see. In fr. 38 he appears as the father of two daughters (οἴην Λυκάμβεω παῖδα τ⋯ν ύπερτέρην), in fr. 33 (where the voice of ‘the daughter of Lycambes’ is mentioned) as the father of at least one daughter. In fr. 71 his role cannot be determined. But in fr. 54, if his name is correctly restored in v. 8, he may again figure as the father of a daughter, for a female is mentioned in the fragment, whether for good or ill. If his patronymic is correctly supplied in fr. 57.7, it may be significant that the letters πατρ occur in the same verse.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , May 1986 , pp. 60 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See especially Dublin, P. 193a, ed. Bond, G. W., Hermathena 80 (1952), 1ff.Google Scholar, A.P. 7.351 (Dioscorides), 352 (possibly Meleager), Horace, , Epod. 6.11ffGoogle Scholar. with schol. ad v. 13, Epist. 1.19.23ff., Ovid, Ibis 54 with schol., A.P. 7.71 (Gaetulicus), 69–70 (Julian of Egypt).

2 See Pliny, , H.N. 36.11Google Scholar, pseudo-Acron ad Horace, , Epod. 6.13Google Scholar, Aelian, , V.H. 5.8Google Scholar, schol Hephaest. p. 281.8 Consbruch, Eustath. in Hom. Od. 1684.45.

3 Cf. notes 15, 17, 23, 25 below. See however Rankin, H. D., QUCC 28 (1978), 7ffGoogle Scholar. Continental scholars have in general been less eager to reject the biographical tradition. See Rösier, W., RhM 119 (1976), 300ff.Google Scholar, Bonanno, M. G., MH 37 (1980), 65ff.Google Scholar, Gentili, B., QUCC n.s. 11 (1982), 24 n. 50Google Scholar.

4 All references to iambic and elegiac poets are based on West, M. L., Iambi et elegi Graeci (Oxford, 1971–1972)Google Scholar. I ignore fr. 151, where only circular reasoning can justify the restoration of Lycambes' patronymic.

5 E.g. Hom. Il. 24.362, Od. 7.28, 17.553.

6 Origen, c. Celsum 2.21.

7 Dio Chrys. 74.16.

8 Burnett, A. P., Three Archaic Poets (London, 1983), 63fGoogle Scholar. finds this poem ineffectual as abuse and concludes therefore that ‘direct personal abuse was never part of the poet's true purpose here’: Podlecki, A. J., The Early Greek Poets and their Times (Vancouver, 1984), 49Google Scholar finds fr. 172 ‘rather mild’. Certainly the poem contains no abusive language; it was not meant merely to insult. But it was meant to condemn, for Lycambes is accused of betrayal of friendship (no slight offence in aristocratic society — cf. Theogn. 91ff., 575f, 811ff.), and made to look ridiculous (fr. 172), thus losing both his reputation and his dignity. There is nothing ‘mild’ in the assertion that Lycambes is a laughing stock. Mockery by the public, or public mockery by an enemy, was something to be feared; cf. e.g. Pind. O. 8.69, P. 8.86f., Soph. El. 1133, 1295, Aj. 367, 382, O.C. 902f., Eur. Med. 381ff., 1049f., Ar. Ach. 221f., 1195ff. Whatever the form of Lycambes' punishment, the eagle in the fable is severely punished, for its young are destroyed; viewed in anthropomorphic terms (as the fable form invites) this is a catastrophe in a society which placed immense value on the survival of the oikos.

9 Latte, K., Hermes 92 (1964), 387 n. 2Google Scholar argues that this fable does not belong to the epode attacking Lycambes. But we know from Philostratus, Imag. 1.3 that Archilochus used beast fable against Lycambes; given the identical metre and the aptness of a fable dealing with betrayal to the behaviour of Lycambes in frr. 172–3 it is difficult not to link the fable fragment with the attack on Lycambes.

10 If West is correct in locating fr. 181 at the end of Archilochus' narrative, the words σ⋯ς δ⋯ θυμ⋯ς ἔλπεται at 181.12 are presumably addressed to Lycambes by the poet, and his punishment is placed in the future. West, argues, Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (Berlin, 1974), 134CrossRefGoogle Scholar, that κλύσας v. 9 makes sense only ‘in connexion with the burning nest’. However, the ending of the fable is then disagreeably abrupt and anticlimactic, and his reconstruction of the content of the passage (the eagle extinguishes the burning nest before flying away) introduces an otiose detail. I suspect that we should place this fragment earlier in the narrative, and that the words σ⋯ς δ⋯ θυμ⋯ς ἔλπεται are spoken by the eagle in exultation (‘you hope to see me punished, but…’) or the fox in recrimination (‘you expect to escape punishment but…’). The fragmentary nature of the text rules out confident speculation about the meaning of κλύσας.

11 Fab. 1 (Hausrath).

12 See Kirkwood, G. M., Early Greek Monody (Ithaca and London, 1974), 41Google Scholar.

13 This fragment now appears as fr. 196a in West, 's Delectus ex iambis et elegis Graecis (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar.

14 I assume with most scholars that the poet's interlocutor is Neoboule's sister. The two girls belong to the same household (v. 4 ⋯ν ⋯μετέρον; parallels indicate a household rather than a larger social or religious unit — cf. Hdt. 1.35.4, 7.8.δ, also Od. 2.55, 7.301, 8.39, 15.513, 17.534, h. Hom. Herm. 370) and the man's respectful address (10ff.) indicates that his interlocutor is no slave. The two girls must be related. Conceivably one is an orphaned cousin or more distant relative living in the other's house, but it is more likely that the two are sisters. This appears to raise a problem. How do the man's respectful tone and physical tenderness to the girl square with Archilochus' hostility towards Lycambes and his family? However, the problem is illusory. In a society which valued chastity (n. 27 below) an unmarried girl's readiness to be seduced will have met with less indulgence than it receives from modern scholars. That she does not submit to full intercourse (παρ⋯ξ τ⋯ θεῖον χρ⋯μα v. 15, for which see Degani, E., QUCC 20 (1975), 229Google Scholar) is hardly relevant. She is moreover persuaded to supplant her sister, thus adding betrayal to unchastity; treachery is again revealed as a family characteristic, and the man's praise of her innocence (v. 36) becomes ironic. If West, M. L., ZPE 26 (1977), 44ffGoogle Scholar. is correct to link fr. 196 with the epode, the.poem began as a simple declaration of love. This is entirely conjectural, but if correct this merely confirms the evidence of the Cologne fragment that Archilochus described his seduction of Neoboule's sister (real or imagined) without any explicit criticism of the girl; to do otherwise would reduce the plausiblity of the narrative.

15 West, , Studies 27fGoogle Scholar.

16 For the text of this verse see Richardson, N. J., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford, 1974), 188Google Scholar.

17 Nagy, G., The Best of the Achaeans (Baltimore, 1979), 243ffGoogle Scholar. See also Van Sickle, J., QUCC 20 (1975), 152Google Scholar, Henderson, J., Arethusa 9 (1976), 160Google Scholar, M. R. Lefkowitz, ibid. 184f.

18 See Buck, C. D. and Petersen, W., A Reverse Index of Greek Nouns and Adjectives (Chicago, 1945), 386f., 389Google Scholar. Archilochus himself has χηράμβη fr. 285.

19 There is thus no reason to take the patronymic as a pseudonym invented by Archilochus, with Bonanno 78ff. (cf. already Gallavotti, C., PP 4 (1949), 139 n. 2Google Scholar). Of patronymics or names patronymic in form found in Archilochus, only Σελληίδης fr. 183 (< Σελλοί)can confidently be viewed as Archilochus' invention. With names such as Ἐράσινος, Ἐρατίων, Ἐράτων, Αἴσιμος, Αἴσιμίδης, Αἴσιος, Αἴσίων, Κηρυκίων attested (see Kirchner, J., Prosopographia attica (Berlin, 1901–1903)Google Scholar s.vv.), it would be rash to dismiss Ἐρασμονίδης (fr. 168), Αἰσιμίδης (fr. 14), Κηρυκίδης (fr. 185) as inventions. Νεοβούλη is at first sight a suspiciously apt name for a girl who rejects her suitor, but both νέος and βουλή are commonly found as elements in female names; see Bechtel, F., Die attischen Frauennamen (Göttingen, 1905), 9, 28Google Scholar. None of this proves that the names in Archilochus were real names, but it should make us pause before assuming that they are inventions, especially when we reflect that the etymological aptness of a name is no argument against its historicity in a society where most names had meaning (cf. e.g. the famous politician Pericles, the wise poet Sophocles, the successful general Nicias); cf. Rankin 17.

20 SEG 15.517.45. Cf. Burnett 22.

21 MSS have Χειδόν. Χαρίλαον is Liebel's conjecture (cf. Athen. 415d), accepted by West ad fr. 167. This may be the poem which began with fr. 168; if so, τέρψεαι v. 4 will be ironic, and πολὺ ɸίλταθ' έταίρων possibly so.

22 Glaucus' existence is proved by an inscription bearing his name (Meiggs-Lewis no. 3). Pericles' historicity is strongly suggested by the nature of the elegy addressed to him, fr. 13 (Archilochus is unlikely to share the grief of a figment). Nagy 244 regards Charilaus as a fictitious character. ‘In this particular instance, the target of reproach may have been the Kharí-laos figure himself, whose very name suggests the notion of “mirth for the lāos”.’ ‘Mirth' is of course a mistranslation of the first element of the name; the semantic range of Χάρις suggests that the name means ‘kindly/gracious to the people’ or ‘welcome to/favoured by the people’, but hardly ‘amusing to the people’. The name itself is no more an argument against the historicity of this character than is the almost identical name of the fourth-century general, Χαρίδημος. On the other hand, the historicity of Archilochus' other ἔταιροι (Pericles, Glaucus) strongly suggests that Charilaus is a real man.

23 Nagy 248 finds the iambic blame poetry of Archilochus, Semonides and Hipponax ‘replete with a great variety of stock situations and stock characters’. It has been demonstrated above that this is not true of Archilochus. Semonides does not offer us any ‘stock characters’. His attack on women (fr. 7) divides the sex into types, but there are no stock characters, if by that term we mean recurrent names attached to specific and recurring character types. Hipponax however does seem to deal with stock characters and stock situations. He represents himself as living in the lowest echelons of society. This is unlikely for a Greek poet. Composing poetry requires time as well as talent, and for this reason it is generally confined (professional rhapsodes excepted) to those whose livelihood is assured, the upper classes; even Hesiod, though no man of leisure, is far above the social and financial level of Hipponax's milieu. In addition, the poet places himself in situations which are criminal or ridiculous; the former would be exceedingly dangerous if the events narrated were true, while the latter would not accord with the Greek sense of personal dignity. Either we have here a chronological development (much as Anacreon presents love as a stylised game where Sappho had presented it as a serious experience), or a geographical difference. We know that in some areas iambos remained closely connected with ritual (cf. the iamboi in Semus of Delos ap. Athenaeus 62If; for versified jesting at Eleusis see Richardson 214), and it is possible that at Clazomenae it developed into a scurrilous narrative form depicting immoral, anti-social and ridiculous behaviour and offering, like Attic Old Comedy, vicarious freedom from the restraints of society within the context of a religious festival.

24 Burnett 89. The distinction between artefact and work of art is artificial when dealing with an age when all literature is verse literature. The political and military poems of Archilochus, Alcaeus, Tyrtaeus, Callinus and Solon are oratorical artefacts intended to persuade as well as works of art.

25 Burnett 91. Her view of the Lycambes tradition in general and its significance for the Cologne epode in particular has the approval of Davies, M., CR n.s. 34 (1984), 169fGoogle Scholar. Podlecki 49 appears to conclude, like Burnett, that Lycambes and his daughters were real, but is disinclined to accept ‘the whole series of incidents recorded by the later biographical tradition’.

26 Burnett 22.

27 We know from Archilochus himself that public reputation was very important in his society (fr. 172.3f); we also know that female chastity was prized (indicated by the criticism of promiscuity in vv. 29ff. of the Cologne epode; cf. fir. 206–9). It is unlikely that in this society a father would tolerate an attack on his daughter's reputation simply as a poetic exercise, or indeed that such a procedure would be acceptable to public opinion.

28 Dover, K. J. in Archiloque, Entretiens 10 (Geneva 1964), 206ff.Google Scholar, West, , Studies 27Google Scholar, Burnett 31, Gentili 20. Nagy 248 is rightly sceptical.

29 The examples from the Theognidea are presumably complete, but they are too brief to be of any significance.

30 Frr. 1, 11.20, 21–2 (probably), 89–99 (probably, since these poems deal with fighting in and over Thasos), 102–5 (same reason), 116, 120–1 (probably, in view of SEG 15.517.31ff.), 215, 223, 228. From the mention of Glaucus in frr. 96 and 105 I would add to this list the other poems in which Glaucus figures: frr. 15, 48, 117, 131. From the conclusion that Pericles is a real acquaintance of Archilochus (n. 22 above), I would also add frr. 13, 124.

31 It is to be stressed that there is nothing Romantic about the tradition of Archilochus as the rejected and embittered suitor. A marital link with Lycambes no doubt offered political and social advantages. (Rankin 27 and Gentili 24 see a political element in Archilochus' relations with Lycambes. The betrothal and its breaking may have sealed a political alliance and its rupture. For the slandering of an enemy's female relatives as part of political λοιδορία cf. Dem. 18.129f., 259, 19.199, 281, Aeschin. 2.149, 3.171f., and cf. Apollodorus' attack on Stephanus through Neaera, [Dem.] 59.) The rejection may have damaged Archilochus' interests materially. Certainly it constituted a public affront; archaic Greek society regarded revenge for wrongs suffered as an important aspect of manhood (see Archilochus fr. 23.15, 126, and cf. Solon 13.6, Theogn. 337f., 872; the ethic persisted into the classical period, e.g. Eur. H.F. 585f., Plat. Men. 71e), and Archilochus repaid a public affront with public humiliation.

32 I am grateful to the anonymous referee for a number of perceptive criticisms from which I have gained.