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To praise, not to bury: Simonides fr. 531P

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Deborah Steiner
Deborah Steiner
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York, [email protected]
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Extract

Unresolved questions surround Simonides fr. 531, which eulogizes the Greeks who fell at Thermopylae. To what genre do these lines belong, what were the original conditions of their performance, and does Diodorus Siculus, who preserves the fragment, transmit just an extract (as seems most likely) or the complete piece? Commentators even differ as to where Simonides’ lines began: for some the words τŵυ ༐υ Θερμοπὐλαιζ θαυóυτωυ form part of the original composition, for others they conclude Diodorus' prose introduction. In my reading of the fragment, I aim to address some of these puzzles by focusing chiefly on issues that allow for greater certainty: the structure and sentiments of the lines, and the cohesion between the song's contents and the conventions found in near contemporary commemorations of men fallen in battle on their country or polis’ behalf. As the comparative material will suggest, Diodorus’ designation of the lines as an encomion, something ‘properly’ delivered in praise of living men, should perhaps not be dismissed out of hand. Simonides‘ words may have been embedded within a composition as much designed for the purpose of praising, exhorting and inspiring the living as for memorializing the dead.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , December 1999 , pp. 383 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1999

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References

1 For treatment of these issues, Bowra, C. M., Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford, 1961), 345Google Scholar, recapitulating his more prolonged discussion in ‘Simonides on the fallen of Thermopylae’, CPh 28 (1933), 277–81; Harvey, A. E., ‘The classification of Greek lyric poetry’, CQ 5 (1955), 157–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 163–4; Podlecki, A. J., ‘Simonides: 480’, Historia 17 (1968), 257–75Google Scholar, at 258–9, 262. Note too Loraux, N., The Invention of Athens. The Funeral Oration in the Classical City, trans. A., Sheridan (Cambridge, MA, 1986), 44.Google Scholar Diodorus’ mode of citation suggests an extract; the phrase ༐υ ὦιλέγει seems to indicate his familiarity with more of the poem than he actually cites.

2 For the argument that the phrase did not form part of the original lines, see West, M. L., ‘Prose in Simonides’, CR 17 (1967), 133Google Scholar and ‘Melica’, CQ 20 (1970), 205–15, at 210; for refutation of his view, Page, D. L., ‘Poetry and prose: Simonides, P.M.G 531, Ibycus 298’, CR 21 (1971), 317–18Google Scholar, at 317.

3 That Simonides was well versed in the conventions of the epitaphic form, his own position as perhaps the pre-eminent composer of grave epigrams of his age guarantees. For this see Carson, A., ‘Writing on the world: Simonides, exactitude and Paul Celan’, Arion 4 (1996), 1–26Google Scholar, at 1. As West, M. L., Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus (Berlin, 1974), 20CrossRefGoogle Scholar notes, there was probably a whole book of epigrams eventually collected under Simonides’ name. The poet also more broadly shows himself concerned with the relations between his activity and that of the artisan who works in stone, clay, or paint; indeed, it has become something of a commonplace of recent discussions to describe Simonides as a composer who reflects on the ‘materiality’ of his own product. For this see, Svenbro, J., La parole et le marbre. Aux origines de la poétique grecque (Lund, 1976), 141–93Google Scholar; Detienne, M., Les mattres de vérité dans la grèce archaïque (Paris, 1967), 108Google Scholar; Carson, A., ‘Simon-ides painter’, in R., Hexter and D., Selden (edd.), Innovations of Antiquity (London, 1992), 51–64.Google Scholar

4 Hdt. 7.228 records that no corpses were removed from Thermopylae after the encounter.

5 See Fränkel, H., Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy, trans. M., Hadas and J., Willis (New York, 1973), 320–1Google Scholar for a very different account of the transformation effected by the song: in his reading ‘physical death is transfigured into moral life’.

6 For example, GVI 1, 23; FGE 21. For these inscriptions, I have used the collections of Peek, W., Griechische Versinschriften I; Grab-Epigramme (Berlin, 1955)Google Scholar, hereafter GVI with his numbers, Hansen, P. A., Carmina epigraphica graeca saeculorum viii-v a Chr. n., Texte und Kommentare xii (Berlin and New York, 1983)Google Scholar, hereafter CEG with his numbers, and Page, D. L., Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar, hereafter FGE with his numbers. For further discussion of the inscriptions, Pritchett, W. K., The Greek State at War vol. 4 (Berkeley, 1984), 153–208Google Scholar; note too Jacoby, F., ‘Some Athenian epigrams from the Persian wars’, Hesperia 14 (1945), 157–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clairmont, C. W., Gravestone and Epigram. Greek Memorials from the Archaic and Classical Period (Mainz, 1970)Google Scholar; more recently, Clairmont, C. W., Patrios Nomos: Public Burial in Athens during the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., BAR International Series 161 (Oxford, 1983).Google Scholar

7 For this ‘general rule’, and discussion of exceptions to it, see FGE, 189–90.

8 On this practice, see Jacoby, F., ‘Patrios nomos: state burial in Athens and the public cemetery in the Kerameikos’, JHS 64 (1944), 37–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Kurtz, D. and Boardman, J., Greek Burial Customs (London, 1971), 246–7Google Scholar and 257, Loraux (n. 1), 18–19.

9 As FGE, 222 observes, such pronouns are characteristic of epitaphs at places of burial.

10 West (n. 2, 1967), 133, in an attempt to improve on what he sees as the prosaic nature of the opening line, suggests that at the original beginning of fr. 531 there may have stood τŵυδε.

11 Other examples include GVI 10, 13, 21; CEG 6, 8, 10.

12 Sourvinou-Inwood, C., ‘Reading’ Greek Death (Oxford, 1996), 147–51Google Scholar; as the author points out, if the grave itself does not feature in the account, then the epitaph obliquely alludes to it with a reference to the fact of burial (e.g. ‘here lies A’ or ‘A laid B here’). For the ‘co-dependency’ between the monument and inscription, see the remarks by Raubitschek, A. E., ‘Das Denkmal-Epigram’, in L'épigramme grecque. Fondation Hardt. Entretiens 14 (Vandoeuvres and Geneva, 1967 [1968]), 1–26.Google Scholar

13 For instances where the lines describe the fact of burial or the fallen as occupying this particular site, see, among others, GVI 4, 8; CEG 131.

14 For discussion of the occasion, see FGE, 168–71 (but for doubts on the authenticity of the lines, Pritchett [n. 6], 177–8). For the very similar formulation, see CEG 6 which refers to the μυῆμα that the dead have acquired.

15 For the heroization of the war dead, see Loraux (n. 1), 28–30, 38–42, and Stupperich, R., Staatsbegräbnis und Privatgrabmat im klassischen A then (Diss. Münster, 1977), 65–6.Google Scholar The sources describe how rituals suitable to heroes were conducted on behalf of those who died in the battles at Marathon and Plataea; for these see Paus. 1.32.4, Thuc. 3.58, and Plut. Aristid. 21. Paus. 3.12.9 speaks of the dzερóυ or shrine dedicated to two soldiers who died and were buried at Thermopylae back in Sparta. Euripides uses the term σηκóς of Semele's grave (Ba. 11). Note too Paus. 1.17.6, Diod. 1.22.2, AP 7.510, 8.118.

16 On the ‘presentness’ of the inscription and monument, see J. Svenbro, Phrasikkia: Anthropologie de la lecture en grèce ancienne (Paris, 1988), 51–2.

17 For example, GVI 1 and 10; CEG 131.

18 As Jacoby (n. 6), 172 observes, for both private and public epitaphs, the fifth-century composer had a variety of possible speakers. He might endow the monument itself with powers of expression, and, as in the first of the two epitaphs for the men who fell at Potidaea (CEG 10), make it announce itself the σῆμα or μυῆμα of the dead. Or the voice might belong to the community that does the burying, which speaks with regret, pride, and praise of those whom it inters. But particularly frequent in the extant public inscriptions is the phenomenon of the speaking dead. Examples of the dead speaking include GVI 1, 8, 28; CEG 131; FGE 16. See too the further examples cited in Goldhill, S., ‘A footnote in the history of Greek epitaphs: Simonides 146 Bergk’, Phoenix 42 (1988), 189–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 195.

19 The Pindaric parallels that commentators cite demonstrate the changes Simonides has rung on the conventional form. In both O. 9.98–9 and O. 13.108, it is the actual structure that does the witnessing.

20 For elaboration of this point, see Sourvinou-Inwood (n. 12), 192; Loraux (n. 1), 44–51, 54–6; Stupperich (n. 15), 14. In her treatment, Loraux calls the prohibition against bewailing the dead and the focus on their eternal renown ‘a strictly civic prescription that was universal throughout Greek poleis’ (44). For a more nuanced view, which focuses on the mixture of lamentation and praise included in the inscriptions on polyandreia and other memorials, see Stecher, A., Inschriftliche Grabgedichte auf Krieger und Athleten: Eine Studie zu griechischen Wertprädikationen (Innsbruck, 1981), 28–36.Google Scholar The epitaphs’ combination of ‘moderate expressions of grief and considerable praise’ ( Alexiou, M., The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition [Cambridge, 1974], 108Google Scholar ) prompted the hesitation of later compilers seeking to classify pieces which sometimes appear as eulogistic ༐λεγεîα, and sometimes as ༐πικ⋯δεια. On this latter category, see Gentili, B., ‘Epigramma ed elegia’, in L' épigramme grecque, Fondation Hardt. Entretiens 14 (Vandoeuvres and Geneva, 1967 [1968]), 39–81Google Scholar, at 44–6; Loraux (n. 1), 54–5. I return to this issue in the second part of the discussion.

21 The use of πρó is particularly curious here, and commentators regularly gloss it with ảυτí, which is the conventional term in the funerary epitaph (see Sim. 106B, 116D). For discussion, Campbell, D., Greek Lyric Poetry (Bristol, 1982)Google Scholar and E., Degani and G., Burzacchini (edd.), Lirici greci (Florence, 1977).Google Scholar

22 Inscriptions both public and private make frequent reference to the actual raising up of the tomb: e.g. GVI 1; CEG 14, 53, 117, 139, 143, with discussion in Day, J., ‘Rituals in stone: early Greek grave epigrams and monuments’, JHS 109 (1989), 16–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 23–7; according to his argument, references to this and other aspects of the actual funerary ritual involve a re-enactment of that original event. γóωυ is itself an emendation of the manuscript reading προγóυωυ, independently proposed at the end of the eighteenth century by Eichstädt and Ilgen and adopted by most editors since. Hermann proposed πρó Χοŵυ, and was followed by Edmonds.

23 This reading would counter commentators’ worry about the lack of parallelism between sobbing, one a vocalization, and μυâστις, a mental state (see Fränkel [n. 5], 320, n. 30 for one attempt to explain it away).

24 Cf. Aesch. Cho. 106. Several Greek inscriptions do refer to the tomb as a βωμóς (see Lattimore, R., Themes in Greek and Latin epitaphs [Urbana, 1942], 131)Google Scholar, but these all long postdate Simonides’ piece.

25 Podlecki (n. 1), 261.

26 For the debate concerning the meaning of the term, see Podlecki (n. 1), 261.

27 See CEG 159 for an explicit evocation of the ekphora in an epitaph.

28 LSJ s.v. Perhaps as an extension of this meaning, the adjectival form can describe something obscure or unknown.

29 As adjective, the term can mean blind or sightless, observing the Greek rule that seeing and being seen form two sides to a single coin. Sappho fr. 55 LP suggestively applies the term to the shades of the dead in Hades.

30 These are sentiments endlessly repeated in Pindar, e.g. P. 6.14, P. 8.96–7, P. 9.89–90, N. 7.12–13. On darkness, silence, and forgetfulness as interlinked, see Detienne (n. 3), 22–3.

31 As West (n. 2, 1970), 211, briefly observes: ‘ὂδε σηκóς need not refer to the physical tomb any more than ༐υτάøιου τοιοûτου refers to the physical shroud. It refers rather to the metaphorical heroon … at which praise and remembrance take the place of lamentation.’

32 Cf. Pindar's use of the word in N. 2.8 where the designation of the laudandus as a κóσμου signals his new status as a creation of the song.

33 For example, Pind. P. 6.7–17, N. 4.80–1, N. 5.1–5, N. 8.43–6. See too Simonides’ own use of the notion of the ephemerality of man-made structures in fr. 581 which offers an interesting pendant to 531; here much more explicitly the poet challenges the claims of the inscribed stone as he takes issue with Kleoboulos’ epitaph on Midas’ tomb, and declares the monument unable to withstand the destructive powers of natural and human forces. The anecdotal tradition contains a reflection of Simonides’ apparent mistrust of the durability of grave monuments. Suidas reports that his own tomb was pulled down by the Agrigentine general Phoenix in the war with Syracuse, who had no respect ‘for the writing thereon which declared that beneath lay the son of Leoprepes of Ceos’.

34 Note how Bacchylides declares the object ảΧειρές, not the product of human workmanship.

35 A point made rather differently in Carson (n. 3, 1992), 56.

36 Several discussions of fr. 531 (e.g. Bowra [n. 1, 1961], 347–8; West [n. 2, 1970], 211) refer in passing to Pericles’ funeral oration, but none does more than note the continuity in sentiment. While concentrating on the parallels between the two texts, I do not wish to mask the discontinuities; as Loraux (n. 1), 58–60 emphasizes, the period of the Persian wars is not that of Athens of the 460s which probably saw the beginning of the πάτριοσ υóμος cited by Thucydides. For the earlier period, an ‘ethos of the aristeia’ persists alongside the celebration of the anonymous citizen as fighter in the communal battle line, and like Herodotus in his account of events at Thermopylae, Simonides makes place for the extraordinary individual whose behaviour can stand paradigm for the rest. Note too Vernant, J.-P., Figures, idoles, masques (Paris, 1990), 56.Google Scholar

37 Among the many parallels, both refer to the concept of the ảυ⋯ρ ảγαθóς and his ảρετ⋯ (Sim. 531.6 and 8; Thuc. 2.35.1, 42.2–3); notions of εὐτuΧíα, κλέος, and εὐδοξíα also punctuate both, and each work replaces inappropriate lamentation with praise (Thuc. 2.44.1).

38 Loraux (n. 1), 235.

39 Does the eternal youthfulness of the verbal monument perhaps correspond to the notion that warriors who die in their youthful prime (an element included in GVI 13, CEG4, 6) escape the ravages of old age, and possess an eternal beauty? For this, see Vernant, J.-P., ‘La belle mort et le cadavre outragé’, in G., Gnoli and J.-P, Vernant, (edd.),La mort, les marts dans les sociétés anciennes (Cambridge, 1982), 45–76.Google Scholar Note too the visual assertiveness lent to speech by the term ༐πισημóτατου which grants the address the virtues the displaced σῆμα might more properly claim.

40 So Immerwahr, H. R., ‘Ergon. History as monument in Herodotus and Thucydides’, AJPh 81 (1960), 261–90Google Scholar, at 287. However, the phrase could also mean ‘on every recurrent occasion that calls for word and action’.

41 See Immerwahr (n. 40), 287 for discussion of the sense of the term ἒργου here. Note too the comments of Loraux (n. 1), 28–9 on the passage.

42 For a comparable play on the μυ⋯μη/μυῆμα distinction in Sim. 146B, see Goldhill (n. 18), esp. 192.

43 The term is suggested by West (n. 2,1970), 211.

44 Loraux (n. 1), 231–5 offers invaluable discussion of the place of λóγος in the funeral oration, and its tacit struggle with the ᾤργα—both the physical monument and the deeds of the fighters—of which it speaks. While Pericles confronts the physical monument, we should also recall that behind him stands the figure of Thucydides, no less concerned with constructing his own verbal monument, or κτῆμα ༐ς α⋯εí (1.22.4).

45 And explicitly describes itself as such in CEG 40; cf. II. 16.457. For discussion of the term, see Hausle, H., Einfache und frühe Formen des griechischen Epigrams (Innsbruck, 1979), 123–5.Google Scholar

46 For the tomb's function as generator for praise, see II. 7.89–91; Od. 24.93–4.

47 So Sourvinou-Inwood (n. 12), 120.

48 For a full list of examples, see Sourvinou-Inwood (n. 12), 174, n. 277.

49 On this point, see Day (n. 22), 24–7.

50 Here I differ from Da y (n. 22), who, in order to demonstrate the close links between encomiastic strategies an d the design of epitaphs, privileges the epitaphs’ praise function over all else. While some inscriptions d o dwell exclusively on the merits of the deceased (e.g. CEG 16, 19), at least a n equal number mingle praise with lament, or focus principally o n the sorrow caused by the death.

51 Indeed, the praise earned by the dead may be predicated o n the fact of sorrow; the greater the degree and extent of the affliction caused by his demise, the more outstanding must have been the merits of the individual while he lived (for this, see Sourvinou-Inwood [n. 12], 171).

52 For the equivalent transformation of πóθος into κλέος in the funeral oration, see Vernant (n. 36, 1990), 53.

53 Note the remarks in Mullen, W., Choreia. Pindar and Dance (Princeton, 1982), 73Google Scholar on the conceit's placement near the end of the song.

54 The term ༐λαøρóυ chosen by Pindar to describe the ‘ease’ with which he sets up his monument may include a reference to the more cumbersome quality of the literal stone.

55 ‘Everyone laments him, the young and the old, and through painful regret, the whole city goes into mourning.’ See particularly CEG 14,43, 159 for the use of similar terms.

56 The adjective that Tyrtaeus applies to the children may look back to the grave, retroactively investing it with the descendants’ own living presence; note Homer's use of the prefix ảρι- to describe conspicuous physical σ⋯ματα at II. 2.318, 13.244, 23.326.

57 Tyrtaeus has already signalled the importance of the poet's role in this process in the opening line of the song, and his emphasis on poetic renown is entirely in keeping with the Spartan outlook: the Spartans apparently made a sacrifice to the Muses before going into combat, and when asked the meaning of their act, they would reply that it was in order that their exploits might receive ‘good λóγοι’ (Plut. Mor. 221a).

58 Cf. CEG 6 which is almost identical in structure; also CEG 155. The term μυ⋯μα may be used in similar ways to direct thought to the virtues of the dead, rather than to the sorrowful quality of his demise, in private inscriptions; see particularly CEG 32, 62, 96.

59 For discussion, and questions of authenticity, see FGE, 272–3 and Pritchett (n. 6), 77–8.

60 LSJ s.v.

61 For this reading, and Bergk's emendation which reads ἒμΨuΧ’ ảΨὐΧωυ—whereby the dead have replaced the living—see Carson (n. 3, 1996), 22–3, whose translation I use here.

62 For a later use of the same turnabout, there is the epitaph included on the polyandreion of the Athenians who died at Potidaea in 432 (CEG 10); here the memorial (μυ⋯μα again) which the fallen have won is ảθάυατου (1) and an enduring witness to the ảρετ⋯ which they purchased in glorifying (εὐκλ[ε]ισαυ 9) their country. Cf. Tyrtaeus 9.24 with Prato, C., Tyrtaeus (Rome, 1968), 133.Google Scholar

63 A form of praise that, as many point out, moves even further from the fact of death by dwelling not on the fighters but on the still present city for whom they died.

64 For these different possibilities, and the difficulties each classification raises, see Bowra (n. 1, 1933), 277; Harvey (n. 1), 163; Podlecki (n. 1), 262; Loraux (n. 1), 44.

65 Bowra (n. 1, 1933,) and, in more understated form, id. (n. 1, 1961). Page (n. 2, 1971) follows Bowra's account.

66 Podlecki (n. 1), 258–62, who refutes Bowra's arguments for a public cult.

67 W. J. H. F. Kegel, Simonides (Groningen, 1962), 28–37. However, the observations of Loraux (n. 1) and Vernant (n. 36, 1990) effectively counter this view.

68 So particularly Tyrt. 9.35–42. Pericles’ address more broadly dwells on the surviving citizens and future fighters as it celebrates the delights of life in Athens. By their very nature the grave epigrams do not concern themselves with the surviving fighters, but many do incorporate the living, and the lessons they may derive from their exemplary compatriots, in their conceits.

69 In his unpublished discussion of the fragment, which he kindly showed to me, Alan Griffiths reaches a similar conclusion, but by a very different route.