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Ajax's Entry in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Margalit Finkelberg
Margalit Finkelberg
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Extract

The list of Helen's suitors in the Catalogue of Women, a late epic poem attributed to Hesiod, is directly related to the Catalogue of Ships in Iliad 2, in that it is in fact a list of future participants in the Trojan war. That the two catalogues treat the same traditional material is demonstrated above all by their agreement on minor personages: not only the protagonists of the Trojan saga, but also such obscure figures as Podarces of Phylace, Elephenor of Euboea, Thoas of Aetolia, or Menestheus of Athens feature in both Homer and Hesiod, and are characterized by basically the same traditional expressions. But, though the Hesiodic catalogue is sometimes used as evidence that a given Homeric personage belongs to the authentic tradition,3 it seems that the exegetic potential of this poem has not yet been exploited in full. As I hope to show, the Catalogue of Women throws light on one of the most controversial issues in Homeric scholarship, that of the representation of Athens and Salamis in the Catalogue of Ships.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , January 1988 , pp. 31 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1988

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References

1 Hes. frr. 196–204 M–W. On the relation to the Catalogue of Ships see West, M. L., ‘Hesiodea’, CQ N.S. 11 (1961), 132–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Simpson, R. Hope and Lazenby, J. F., The Catalogue of the Ships in Homer's Iliad (Oxford, 1970), p. 166Google Scholar. On the Catalogue of Women as a traditional poem see Parry, M., ‘Homeric Formulae and Homeric Metre’, in Parry, A. (ed.), The Making of Homeric Verse (Oxford, 1971), p. 238Google Scholar, Janko, R., Homer, Hesiod and the Hymns (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 27–8, 221–5Google Scholar, West, M. L., The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (Oxford, 1985), pp. 125–6, 135–6Google Scholar.

2 Cf. ll‘ļφíκλον νíóσ πολνμDzλον φνλακíδαο and Cat. fr. 199.5 νíóσ τ’ ‘<φíκλον ποσρκησ φνλακíδαο ll. 2.541 and Cat. fr. 204.53 χαλκωδοντιδησ, μεγαθμων ρχó7sigma; ‘Αβντων (of Elephenor), ll. 2.638 Αíτωλὡν δ’ ἠγεῖτο Θóασ Ανδραíμονοσ νíóσ and Cat. fr. 198.9 Αíτωλὡν δ’ μντο Θóασ Ανδραíμονοσ νíóσ ll. 2.552 and Cat. fr. 200.3 νíóσ πετεο Mενεσθεσ The only case where the same state is represented by different persons is that of Argos: in Hesiod Helen's Argive suitors are the sons of Amphiaraiis, and not Diomedes, Sthenelus and Euryalus, who command the Argive contingent in Homer (Cat. fr. 197.6, ll. 2.563–6). According to West's suggestion (op. cit., p. 117), Diomedes and Sthenelus were mentioned as additional suitors from Argos in the lost lines 11–29 of fr. 196.

3 This refers especially to the Athenian commander Menestheus, see Page, D. L., History and the Homeric Iliad (Berkeley, 1959), p. 173 n. 79Google Scholar, Kirk, G. S., The Iliad: a Commentary, i (Cambridge, 1985), p. 206CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 And is not supported elsewhere in the Iliad: this was the reason why the line was athetized by Aristarchus, see Schol. A to ll. 3.230 and 4.273, cf. Kirk, op. cit., pp. 207–8.

5 Ajax's entry is the shortest in the Catalogue of Ships. Next in brevity are the entry of the Magnetes under the command of Prothoos (three verses) and that of another Thessalian contingent under the command of Eurypylus (four verses).

6 ll. 2.560–2, 570. W. Leaf was probably right when he claimed that ‘Hesiod's’ way of describing Ajax's control over the territories in question suggests raiding rather than regular possession, see his ‘Hesiod and the Dominions of Ajax’, CR 24 (1910), 179–80Google Scholar. Yet this does not alter the fact that Ajax is presented in Hesiod as exercising authority over the lands that in Homer are ascribed to such a prominent leader as Diomedes and even to Agamemnon himself. Hence, unless we are prepared to entertain the possibility that Ajax could raid the territories of Diomedes and Agamemnon and also (as the Iliad clearly suggests) be on good terms with them, it should be concluded that the Homeric and the Hesiodic versions are mutually incompatible.

7 To my knowledge, the extant bibliography consists of the following items: von Wilamowitz, U. in Berliner Klassikertexte v. 1 (Berlin, 1907), pp. 31ff.Google Scholar, Allen, T. W., ‘Argos in Homer’, CQ 3 (1909), 83–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Leaf, W., CR 24 (1910), 179–80Google Scholar, Meier, W. D., Die epische Formel im pseudohesiodeischen Frauenkatalog (Zürich, 1976), pp. 184–6Google Scholar.

8 According to West, op. cit., pp. 130–7, esp. p. 136, the Catalogue of Women was composed in the period between 580 and 520 B.C. Even if we raise the date of the poem to the beginning of the sixth or the end of the seventh century (see Janko, op. cit., pp. 85–7 and 247–8 nn. 37, 38), it would still be much later than the accepted date for the Iliad.

9 This view is still held in the recent dissertation by W. D. Meier; cf., however, Janko's comment on Meier, loc. cit., that the variations between parallel lines in Homer and ‘Hesiod’ ‘suggest oral knowledge and recomposition’ (op. cit., p. 248 n. 39; Janko's italics).

10 As G. P. Edwards put it in his discussion of the phrases common to Hesiod and the Odyssey: ‘We can never rule out the existence of an older place X, which provided a common source for both A and B at the lines in question, so making their chronological relationship impossible to determine’, see his The Language of Hesiod in its Traditional Context (Oxford, 1971), p. 189Google Scholar. The conditions in which imitatio can be admitted in oral poetry have been tentatively formulated by Janko, see op. cit., pp. 225–8.

11 Neither the Homeric Ei'ones (an unknown town) nor the Hesiodic Megara are mentioned in the other version; note, however, that the formula μγαρα σκιóεντα (seven times in the Odyssey) is identical with ‘Hesiod's’ expression for the city of Megara, cf. Meier, op. cit., pp. 178–9.

12 ll. 2.640/ χαλκíδα τ'; γχíαλον, 697 / γχíαλóν τ' 'Ανθρνα (γχιλην Zenodotus, see Schol. A ad locum).

13 Note that ‘Hesiod's’ use of the epithet involves an unnecessary metrical fault which could have been avoided if the poet had used the form γχιλην, cf. Zenodotus’ reading of ll. 2.697 (n. 12 above).

14 ll. 3.184 δρνγíην…μπελóεσσαν, 9.152, 294 Πῄδασον μπελóεσσαν, H. Pyth. Ap. 438 κρíοην…μπετλóεεσσαν, cf. H. 9.5.

15 Or ναιετὡσα or ναιεταοσασ, see ll. 2.648, Od. 8.574, Hes. fr. 141.17 M–W, H. Del. Ap. 175, cf. Meier, op. cit., p. 186 n. 4.

16 Cf. also the epithet βαθκολποι (three times in the Iliad).

17 See Kirk, op. cit., p. 209. S

18 Herod. 5.92 (= Parke, H. W. and Wormell, D. E. W., The Delphic Oracle, ii [Oxford, 1956], N 7, p. 5)Google Scholar.

19 Or of personal estate, see ll. 14.122, Od. 1.393 (δμα, δ), Od. 1.232,17.420, 19.76 (οῖκοσ): the only parallel to Homer's application of this epithet to a place is Hes. fr. 240.1–2 M–W ‘Eλλοπíη…/λοισι και εíλιπóδεσσι βóεσσν

20 See Dunbabin, T. J., ‘The Early History of Corinth’, JHS 68 (1948), 59–69 (esp. pp. 60 and 66). CfCrossRefGoogle Scholar. also Salmon, J. B., Wealthy Corinth (Oxford, 1984), p. 18Google Scholar.

21 Cf. Allen, , CQ 3 (1909), 84Google Scholar. Note that, according to Strabo 8.6.16, p. 375, some preferred to read νσóν τ' Αγιναν into ll. 2.562; this variant also appears in what is supposed to be a quotation of ll. 2.559–68 in the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, see Allen, T. W. (ed.), Homeri opera v. 236–7Google Scholar.

22 As seems to be implied in Meier, op. cit., pp. 185–6.

23 This is also true of the general context of the passage. Thus, the unhomeric θανματ ἔργα (Cat. fr. 204.45) is paralleled in Aspis 165, H. Herm. 80, 440, H. 7.34 (on this expression, see Janko, op. cit., pp. 137, 184); μὡμητοσ πολεμιστἠσ (in Homer only πονλνσδμαντοσ μωμἠτοιο at ll. 12.109) can be compared with Aspis 102 ‘μὠμητοσ ļóλαοσ and H. 33.3 μὠμητον πονλνσδμαντοσ and H. 33.3

24 Op. cit., p. 180.

25 On the problem of Agamemnon's and Diomedes' representation in the Catalogue of Ships see Page, op. cit., pp. 127–8, 129–32, Hope Simpson and Lazenby, op. cit., pp. 70–2, Giovannini, A., Étude historique sur les origines du Catalogue des vaisseaux (Bern, 1969), pp. 26–7Google Scholar, Kirk, op. cit., pp. 180–1.

26 This fact has been given due prominence in Allen, , CQ 3 (1909), 83–4Google Scholar.

27 See e.g. Page, op. cit., p. 120, Kirk, op. cit., p. 239.

28 Cf. Hope Simpson and Lazenby, op. cit., pp. 154–5.

29 See the data adduced in Hope Simpson and Lazenby, op. cit., pp. 62–3.

30 Both Wilamowitz, op. cit., pp. 37–8, and Leaf, W., CR 24 (1910), 179–80Google Scholar, saw in ‘Hesiod's’ description of Ajax's dominions confirmation of the political situation suggested by the Catalogue of Ships: if Ajax is described as able to raid the lands of all his neighbours except for Attica, this means that he was an Athenian vassal. But it is hard not to agree with West who, proceeding from the inner standpoint of the Catalogue of Women, finds this reading tendentious: after all, there is no indication in the Hesiodic poem that the lands in question were controlled by someone other than Ajax, see West, op. cit., p. 132 n. 21. Note also that though the suitors from Argos do appear in the Hesiodic list (see n. 2), the only characterization of this state given here is that it was μλ γγθεν from Sparta (Cat. fr. 197.7).

31 The relation of this Athenian leader to Ajax shows the opposite of the alleged subordination of Salamis to Athens: on the few occasions that Menestheus' fighting is described in the Iliad, he is found associated with Ajax and his brother Teucer, but very much in Ajax's shadow, see ll. 12.331–77, 13.190–7, 690–710, cf. Kirk, op. cit., p. 206.

32 For a representative collection of the testimonia see Page, op. cit., pp. 172–5 nn. 78–9. Page dismisses the Dioscuri invasion of Attica as late fiction (ibid., p. 174); however, the tradition of this inroad goes well with the fact that in Homer Theseus' mother Aethra is in Troy, as Helen's servant, see //. 3.144: Aethra's sojourn in Troy was also attested in the cyclic Iliu persis (Allen, , Homeri opera v. 108, 139)Google Scholar and, according to Paus. 5.19.3, on the Corinthian Chest of Cypselus. As was pertinently observed by M. P. Nilsson, a line mentioning the mother of Theseus as Helen's servant ‘is not of such a nature as the Athenians would have introduced in order to enhance the mythical fame of Athens’, see The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (Berkeley, 1931), p. 168Google Scholar.

33 ll. 3.229. Cf. Shipp, G. P., Studies in the Language of Homer* (Cambridge, 1972), p. 239CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘The description of Idomeneus… which is commonly considered to have been inserted, truncating the description of Ajax’. Kirk, op. cit., pp. 208, 297–9, seems to hesitate between adopting the above explanation and the psychological interpretation proposed in Parry, A., ‘Have we Homer's Iliad?, YCS 20 (1966), 197–200Google Scholar. However, Parry's interpretation is uneconomic in that it cannot account for other cases of Ajax's underrepresentation in the Iliad.

34 ll. 2.768 (the absent Achilles is, of course, beyond compare in both categories, see vv. 769–70).

35 Op. cit., pp. 147, 232–5.

36 Cf. Kirk, op. cit., p. 208.

37 Hes. fr. 250 M–W, Pind. Nem. 3.37ff., 4.25ff., Isthm. 6.27ff. Sn., Apollod. 2.133. Another guarantee that Telamon is a contemporary of Heracles is that Ajax's half-brother Teucer, who participates in the Trojan war, was born to the Trojan princess Hesione, a sister of Priam taken by Telamon as part of his booty after Heracles' sack of Troy, cf. Soph. Ai. 1299ff., Apollod.3.162.

38 Ajax's rivalry with Odysseus and his subsequent death is the major theme of the cyclic poems Aethiopis and Iliasparva, see Allen, (ed.), Homeri opera v. 106–7, 126, 129–30Google Scholar; this subject is also mentioned in the Odyssey, see 11.543–7.

39 Diog. Laert. 1.57 (quoting the fourth-century Megarian historian Dieuchidas), Str. 9.1.10, p. 394, Plut. Sol. 10.1, Diog. Laert. 1.48, Schol. B to ll. 2.557. The reliability of this evidence has been fully debated in Merkelbach, R., ‘Die pisistratische Redaktion der homerischen Gedichte’, RhM 95 (1952), 23–47Google Scholar, republished in Untersuchungen zur Odyssee 2 (Miinchen, 1969), pp. 239–62 (accepting it as reliable)Google Scholar and Davison, J. A., ‘Peisistratus and Homer’, TAPA 86 (1955), 1–21 (rejecting its reliability)Google Scholar. See also Jensen, M. Skafte, The Homeric Question and the Oral Formulaic Theory (Copenhagen, 1980), pp. 128–58Google Scholar.

40 Allen, , CQ 3 (1909), 84Google Scholar, Davison, , TAPA 86 (1955), 18Google Scholar, id. in A. J. B. Wace and F. H. Stubbings (edd.), A Companion to Homer (London, 1962), pp. 220, 239, Kirk, op. cit., p. 180.

41 Which agrees with the Athenian tradition that the synoecism of Attica took place under Theseus but disagrees with the historical evidence, see the discussion by Andrewes, A. in CAH 2 iii.l, pp. 360–3Google Scholar. Cf. Hope Simpson and Lazenby, op. cit., p. 56, suggesting that such important towns in Attica as Marathon and Eleusis ‘were deliberately omitted in order to project the synoecism back into the heroic past’, and Giovannini, op. cit., p. 26, taking Homer's description of Attica as conclusive proof of the Catalogue's late origin.

42 Davison, , TAPA (1955), 16–17, and op. cit., p. 239Google Scholar. Cf. also Allen, , ‘Lang's Homer and his Age’, CR 21 (1907), 18Google Scholar, and CQ 3 (1909), 84–5Google Scholar.

43 See Hammond, N. G. L. in CAIP iii. 3, pp. 338–9Google Scholar, cf. Giovannini, op. cit., p. 26.

44 Str. 8.3.33, p. 358, cf. Hammond, in CAH 3 ii.2, pp. 694–6Google Scholar, and CAIP iii.l, p. 715Google Scholar.

45 Corinth annexed part of the Megarian territory as a result of a series of wars concluded c. 700 B.C., see Hammond, in CAH iii.3, p. 334Google Scholar.

46 See Dunbabin, , JHS 68 (1948), 63–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, cf. Hammond, in CAIP iii.l, p. 722Google Scholar.

47 To judge from the absence of Messenia, Sparta is the next most probable candidate. The argument that Messenia is not mentioned in Homer because it was a Dorian state is as invalid as in the case of Megara (see above); moreover, it is worth keeping in mind in this context that the Dorian Messenia actually occupied the territory between the Dorian Sparta and Pylos, which was still inhabited by its former population (see Huxley, G. L., Early Sparta [London, 1962], pp. 31–2Google Scholar and Hammond, in CAH 2 iii.l, p. 731 and iii.3, pp. 327–8)Google Scholar. This territory, which corresponds fairly well to the blank space on the Homeric map between Nestor's Pylos and Menelaus' Sparta (see Hope Simpson and Lazenby, op. cit., p. 75, Map 4, cf. Str. 8.5.8, p. 368), was densely populated in Mycenaean times (see the map adduced by Blegen, C. W. in CAH 3 ii. 2 between pp. 171 and 172)Google Scholar. Hence, we have good reason to ask where the towns and leaders representing this territory are to be found in the Catalogue of Ships. Answering this question exceeds the limits of the present discussion (though the seven Messenian towns of Agamemnon, mentioned in ll. 9.149–53 and 291–5, the leaders of one of them falling in battle in ll. 5.541–60, and also such passages as Od. 21.13–16 and 3.488–9 may be seen as providing at least some of the clues, cf. Hope Simpson and Lazenby, op. cit., p. 89 n. 37), but the very fact of the absence of Messenia from the map of the Catalogue can reasonably be connected with the arbitration on the Salaminian issue between Athens and Megara (probably, in 560s, see Andrewes, in CAH 2 iii.3, p. 373)Google Scholar, for Sparta was the arbitrator who decided in Athens' favour. According to the literary tradition, the Athenians quoted to the five Spartan arbitrators the Salamis entry in the Catalogue of Ships, in which the ships of Ajax had already been placed alongside the Athenian contingent (Arist. Rhet. 1. 1375b30, Str. 9.1.10, p. 394, Plut. Sol. 10.1); that the deletion of Messenia affected the outcome of the arbitration is indeed a very tempting conjecture. Anyway, the tradition of the Athenian-Megarian arbitration strongly suggests this event as a terminus ante quern for the Athenian ‘recension’ of the Catalogue of Ships (though not necessarily of the rest of the Iliad; note that in many respects the Catalogue can be seen as an intrusion on the poem, see e.g. Mazon, P., Introduction a Vlliade [Paris, 1943], pp. 151–6)Google Scholar, while the subsequent introduction of the Panathenaic rule was exactly the institution that would give the revised version the unique status of the normative text (on the Panathenaic rule see esp. Davison, , TAPA 86 [1955], 7–15)Google Scholar.

48 Str. 9.1.10, p. 394 Αἴασ δ' κ σαλαμíνοσ γεσ κ πολíχνησ / ἔκ τ' ´γειρσοησ Nισαíησ τε Tριπóδων τε

49 The line in question, δεινóσ μω ἔτειρεν ἔπανοπηíδσ Αἴγλησ (giving the reason for Theseus' abandoning Ariadne) seems to be a quotation from the Aegimius, see Hes. fr. 298 M-W. Since Plut. Thes. 20 is our only evidence on the Athenian ‘recension’ of Hesiod, Merkelbach is very cautious in admitting the possibility that not only the Homeric but also the Hesiodic poems have undergone this ‘recension', see RhM 95 (1952), pp. 41–2 n. 55Google Scholar.

50 The Calaurian League, united around the cult of Poseidon on the island Calauria in the Saronic Gulf (in historic times belonging to Troezen), is an example of a similar conglomeration. The members of this ancient Amphictiony, originating either in the Bronze or, more probably, the early Iron Age (see Snodgrass, A. M. in CAH 2 iii.l, p. 670)Google Scholar, were Orchomenus, Athens, Aegina, Epidaurus, Nauplia, Hermione, and Prasiae, see Str. 8.6.14, p. 374. Argos became a member of the Calaurian League only in the early sixth century, occupying the place of Nauplia.

51 Aegina is the homeland of Ajax's father Telamon; Ajax's mother Periboea (or Eriboea) was the daughter of the Megarian king Alcathoos, see Xen. Cyn. 1.9, Paus. 1.42.4. The cult of Ajax is attested for Megara, the cult of Telamon for Aegina.