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Darkness from Light: The Beacon Fire in the Agamemnon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Stephen V. Tracy
Stephen V. Tracy
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
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Extract

The fire beacon in the opening scenes of the Agamemnon commands attention and creates the positive image of light from darkness. In the immediate context the light of the beacon relieves the watchman of his toil and brings joy to Argos. The image, however, is not totally positive. The fire signal announces both the fall of Troy and the return of Agamemnon to Clytemnestra. The negative aspect, furthermore, is emphasised at the opening — the watchman's joy at seeing the beacon (lines 22ff.) gives way at line 36 to foreboding (τ⋯ δ' ἄλλα σιγ⋯). For the original audience of 458 b.c. I suggest that this fire beacon proclaiming victory must have conveyed other negative overtones. In brief, it will have recalled to them vividly the signals used by the Persian commanders during the great invasion of 480 to announce Athens' capture to an expectant Persian court.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , May 1986 , pp. 257 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

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References

1 On the watchman and the opening in general, see Sheppard, J. T., ‘The prelude of the Agamemnon’, CR 36 (1922), 5–8Google Scholar; Owen, E. T., The Harmony of Aeschylus (Toronto, 1952), 62–9Google Scholar; Fraenkel, E., Der Agamemnon des Aeschylus, Ein Vortrag. Kleine Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie (Rome, 1964), 329–32Google Scholar; Vaughn, J. W., ‘The watchman of the Agamemnon’, CJ 71 (1976), 335–8Google Scholar.

2 See Gantz, T. N., ‘The fires of the Oresteia’, JHS 97 (1977), 28–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who examines the fire imagery in the trilogy and finds that ‘fire repeatedly serves to symbolize the destructive aspects of vengeance’ (28).

3 For the burning and destruction of the city by Mardonios, see Herodotos 9.13.2.

4 Herodotos merely records Mardonios' intention to employ a fire beacon. Whether or not he actually did makes little difference; his intent to do so was well enough known for Herodotos writing some 35 years later to deem it worthy to record as a motive for taking Athens. I suppose the fire beacon was indeed sent; but, if not, the notoriety of Mardonios' plan will have been sufficient for the playwright to make use of it.

5 Rawlinson, G., History of Herodotos (London, 1880), iv. 373 n. 5Google Scholar.

6 See Wecklein, N., Äschylus Orestie (Leipzig, 1888)Google Scholar on line 293 (= 281 in the OCT) and Thomson, G., The Oresteia (Amsterdam, 1966)Google Scholar on line 282.

7 For the route of the beacon as described by Aeschylus, see Quincey, J. H., ‘The beacon-sites in the Agamemnon’, JHS 83 (1963), 118–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Quincey refers to the passage in which Herodotos mentions the beacon of Mardonios (p. 126) but does not draw, or imply, any parallel. For a sometimes intriguing, but extreme, discussion of Clytemnestra's language see Maxwell-Stuart, P. G., ‘Clytemnestra's beacon speech’, PP 28 (1973), 445–52Google Scholar.

8 Relays of signal beacons covering great distances were, in fact, a feature of the Persian empire at its height; there was a network of fire signals connecting the King at Susa or Ecbatana with the most remote areas of the empire ([Aristotle, ] De Mundo 398a31–2Google Scholar). In the Greek world fire signals covering relatively short distances were common enough (Thucydides 2.94; 3.22.8, 80.2; 8.102; cf. Aristophanes, , Birds 1161Google Scholar). These were, so far as we know, simple signals of the ‘one if by land, two if by sea’ variety. Polybius describes (10.43–7) with evident pride a signalling system with torches which he developed for sending complex messages, and comments (10.43.5) that fire beacons of former times were of little practical use for anything other than a simple signal.

9 Furthermore, several of the place names in the speech (lines 281–316), most notably Ἀθῷον αἶπος (line 285) and πεδίον Ἀσωπο⋯ (i.e. Plataea, line 297), seem designed to evoke memories of the Persian invasion. Quincey has seen this and remarked (op. cit. 122) ‘…Aeschylus' choice of sites may reflect no humdrum routine with ruler and map but certain niceties of history and myth which he did not need to make explicit’.

10 Though it is the subject of another (larger) study, it is at least worth noting that Clytemnestra becomes implicated in the Persian connotations of the beacon by this usage and by her claim in this speech that the beacon is her own. To what extent, if at all, her claim is true is moot; Agamemnon has actually sent the signal. At the end of her speech (lines 312–14) Clytemnestra exchanges the Persian pony express metaphor, which has been the controlling metaphor of the speech, for the purely Hellenic image of the torch race, as though trying to compensate. Here, as elsewhere, she attempts (not wholly successfully) to impose a positive note on a negative situation.

11 Fraenkel, E., Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Oxford, 1962), ii. 266–7Google Scholar, rejects line 527 as an interpolation from Persians line 811. Denniston, J. D. and Page, D., Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Oxford, 1960), 120–1Google Scholar, rightly defend the line and stress its importance for answering the concern raised by the Queen in lines 338–9 about the Greek treatment of the Trojan gods and sanctuaries. Lloyd-Jones, H., Agamemnon by Aeschylus (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1970), 46Google Scholar, similarly comments ‘…it is clear from Clytemnestra's speech at 320f. that she is hoping that the victorious Greeks may provoke divine anger, and that this hope is likely to be fulfilled. The line is very hard to remove from its context and is doubtless genuine.’

12 See also Dover, K. J.'s article, ‘I tessuti rossi dell' Agamennone’ , Dioniso 48 (1977), 55–69, especially 63–6Google Scholar. He suggests that Clytemnestra's invitation to walk on the crimson fabric may be better appreciated if one understands Aeschylus to intend the Spartan King Pausanias and his fate as a parallel for Agamemnon. I am indebted to the editors for calling this reference to my attention.

I owe thanks to my colleagues J. W. Allison and J. M. Balcer for reading a preliminary draft of this paper and to M. Gagarin for the discussion which prompted note 4 above. The paper was originally presented at the meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in Williamsburg, Virginia in April, 1984.