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FRAMING THE DELPHIC ORACLE, INSTITUTIONALIZING THE OLYMPIC GAMES: PHLEGON OF TRALLES’ OLYMPIADS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2024

Zilong Guo Open the ORCID record for Zilong Guo [Opens in a new window]
Zilong Guo*
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Northeast Normal University
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Abstract

This article re-examines the account of the Delphic oracle in Phlegon of Tralles’ Olympiads (FGrHist 257 F 1). It argues that the oracular utterance is framed in an attempt to bolster the Lycurgan institution of the Olympic Games in 776 b.c. More specifically, according to Goffman's theory, the divine anger of Zeus (mênis) is keyed to the modulation of the frame, or the cognitive perspective, that has been radically changed by warfare and plague in the Peloponnese, thus serving a heuristic function in achieving political rationality. By showing the Delphic oracle to be even more dynamic than previous scholarship has suggested, frame analysis increases knowledge and understanding of the literary, social and political progresses reported in ancient sources.

Keywords

Delphic oracleOlympic GamesPhlegon of TrallesErving Goffmanframe analysisdivine anger1
Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , First View , pp. 1 - 12
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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Footnotes

I thank my colleagues and students at the Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations at Northeast Normal University for feedback on early drafts, as well as CQ's reader for helpful suggestions.

1

The following works are repeatedly cited: P. Christesen, Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History (Cambridge and New York, 2007); J.E. Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle: Its Response and Operations (Berkeley, 1978); E. Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York, 1974); H.W. Parke and D.E.W. Wormell, The Delphic Oracle (Oxford, 1956); K.E. Shannon-Henderson, ‘Phlegon of Tralleis (1667)’, in S. Schorn (ed.), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker. Part IV. Biography and Antiquarian Literature, E.2 (Leiden and Boston, 2022). In citing Phlegon, Eusebius and Plutarch, I use the section/line numbers of the FGrHist/BNJ edition, P. Christesen and Z. Martirosova-Torlone, ‘The Olympic victor list of Eusebius: background, text, and translation’, Traditio 61 (2006), 31–93, and the Loeb edition. The translation of Phlegon is based on J. McInerney, ‘Phlegon of Tralles (257)’, in I. Worthington et al. (edd.), Brill's New Jacoby (Leiden and Boston, 2012).

References

2 PIR, P 389; RE s.v. Phlegon 2; LGPN 5B s.v. Φλέγων 1.

3 FGrHist 257 F 36.9 = Phlegon, Mir. 9 Stramaglia. See Shannon-Henderson (n. 1), ad loc.; Hansen, W., Phlegon of Tralles’ Book of Marvels (Exeter, 1996), 39Google Scholar; Birley, A.R., Hadrian: The Restless Emperor (London and New York, 1997), 75Google Scholar.

4 Yourcenar, M., Mémoires d'Hadrien (Paris, 1951), 183, 207Google Scholar. For recent discussions about Phlegon's life and career, see Hansen (n. 3), 1–3; S. Fein, Die Beziehungen der Kaiser Trajan und Hadrian zu den litterati (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1994), 193–9; J. Doroszewska, The Monstrous World: Corporeal Discourses in Phlegon of Tralles’ Mirabilia (Frankfurt am Main, 2016), 15–20.

5 Christesen (n. 1), 57–62; Giannini, A., Paradoxographorum Graecorum reliquiae (Milan, 1966), 170–219Google Scholar; Brodersen, K., Phlegon von Tralleis. Das Buch der Wunder (Darmstadt, 2002)Google Scholar; Pereira, R.M.T., Flégon de Trales: História, Histórias e Paradoxografia (Coimbra, 2019)Google Scholar. But largely because of its fragmentary condition, the Olympiads does not attract the same attention as On Marvels does. For the latter see K.E. Shannon-Henderson, ‘Constructing a new Imperial paradoxography: Phlegon of Tralles and his sources’, in A. König, R. Langlands and J. Uden (edd.), Literature and Culture in the Roman Empire, 96–235: Cross-Cultural Interactions (Cambridge, 2020), 159–78.

6 FGrHist 257 T 1, T 4 with Doroszewska (n. 4), 15, 17. On the dating of the ‘first Olympiad’ (884, 828, 776 or 704 b.c.), see T.F. Scanlon, ‘Homer, the Olympic Games, and the heroic ethos’, in M. Kaila et al. (edd.), The Olympic Games in Antiquity: Bring Forth Rain and Bear Fruit (Athens, 2004), 61–91, at 61–3. Phlegon's account (FGrHist 257 F 1.1) that twenty-eight Olympiads were neglected from Iphitus to Coroebus, who won the first Olympic stadion race, would point to 884, hence separating the ‘Lycurgus–Iphitus Olympics’ from the canonical ‘Coroebus Olympics’ of 776, but this issue is of no significance for our purposes: Christesen (n. 1), 18–21, 146–57; Shaw, P.-J., Discrepancies in Olympiad Dating and Chronological Problems of Archaic Peloponnesian History (Stuttgart, 2003), 70–1Google Scholar.

7 Suda φ 527 Adler = FGrHist 257 T 1: McInerney (n. 1), ad loc. Doroszewska (n. 4), 17, among others, claims that there are an abbreviated version in eight books and an epitomized version in two books. There is no citation of the sixteenth book and so a fifteen-book version of the Olympiads is entirely possible: Christesen (n. 1), 328–9.

8 Interest in chronological details such as listing the Athenian archons and the Roman consuls is also attested in On Marvels: see Christesen (n. 1), 331–2; Shannon-Henderson (n. 1); Stramaglia, A., Phlegon Trallianus: Opuscula De rebus mirabilibus et De longaevis (Berlin and New York, 2011), xiv–xviGoogle Scholar.

9 Phot. Bibl. 97.83b = FGrHist 257 T 3. See also PIR, A 134; Birley (n. 3), 151; Doroszewska (n. 4), 16–17; Hansen (n. 3), 1; Baldwin, B., ‘Photius, Phlegon and Virgil’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 20 (1996), 201–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 201.

10 See, following Jacoby, Christesen (n. 1), 58 n. 30.

11 Phot. Bibl. 97.83b = FGrHist 257 T 3 ἄρχεται δὲ τῆς συναγωγῆς ἀπὸ τῆς πρώτης ὀλυμπιάδος, διότι τὰ πρότερα, καθὼς καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι σχεδόν τι πάντες φασίν, οὐκ ἔτυχεν ὑπό τινος ἀκριβοῦς καὶ ἀληθοῦς ἀναγραφῆς. See also Christesen (n. 1), 333.

12 Schepens, G. and Delcroix, K., ‘Ancient paradoxography: origin, evolution, production and reception’, in O. Pecere and A. Stramaglia (edd.), La letteratura di consumo nel mondo greco-latino (Cassino, 1996), 373–460Google Scholar. See Shannon-Henderson (n. 1) for a summary.

13 On this subject see Hubbard, T.K., ‘Pindar, Heracles the Idaean dactyl, and the foundation of the Olympic Games’, in G.P. Schaus and S.R. Wenn (edd.), Onward to the Olympics: Historical Perspectives on the Olympic Games (Waterloo, 2007), 27–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar. D.W. Roller, A Historical and Topographical Guide to the Geography of Strabo (Cambridge, 2018), 451 remarks that the dual creation of the Olympic Games reflects a mythical-historical foundation. It is widely accepted that the informal, pre-Lycurgan Olympic Games consisted only of running events: Scanlon (n. 6), 61; S. Instone, ‘Origins of the Olympics’, in S. Hornblower and C.A. Morgan (edd.), Pindar's Poetry, Patrons, and Festivals: From Archaic Greece to the Roman Empire (Oxford and New York, 2007), 71–82, at 73.

14 Cf. Fontenrose (n. 1), 268–70; Juul, L.O., Oracular Tales in Pausanias (Odense, 2010), 216–17Google Scholar. The account of Charillus’ tyrannical rule falls into the category of stasis, and both φιλία and ὁμόνοια convey the notion of political reconciliation: see also section 3 below.

15 On the Greek words for ‘plague’, see Michelakis, P., ‘Naming the plague in Homer, Sophocles, and Thucydides’, AJPh 140 (2019), 381–414Google Scholar, at 389–95.

16 Hist. Aug. Hadr. 16.1 = FGrHist 257 T 5 with Shannon-Henderson (n. 1), ad loc. See also Syme, R., ‘Journeys of Hadrian’, ZPE 73 (1988), 159–70Google Scholar, at 159: ‘The biography of Hadrian is the most intricate and baffling in the whole work.’

17 Plut. Lyc. 1.1.

18 Cf. Heraclides Lembus, Excerpta politiarum 10; Plut. Lyc. 3.4, 5.5. See also Christesen (n. 1), 61 n. 32.

19 Cf. FGrHist 257 F 1.4; Arist. fr. 408 Gigon = Plut. Lyc. 1.1; Strabo 8.3.33; Plut. Lyc. 23.2; Paus. 5.4.5–6, 5.8.5, 5.20.1; Ath. Deipn. 14.37 = Hieronymus of Rhodes, fr. 33 Wehrli; Eusebius’ list, lines 20–44; Σ Pl. Resp. 465d; see also Christesen (n. 1), 60–2, 85–8; Fontenrose (n. 1), 115 n. 31; Shaw (n. 6), 65. The expression ἐπιμέλειάν τινος ποιεῖσθαι is understood as ‘to take charge of something’ by McInerney (n. 1), but see LSJ s.v. ἐπιμέλεια A.1; Christesen (n. 1), 60.

20 See FGrHist 257 F 1, F 36.2–3, 10 = Phlegon, Mir. 2–3, 10 Stramaglia.

21 Phot. Bibl. 97.84a = FGrHist 257 T 3. See also Christesen (n. 1), 333.

22 ‘prosimetria oracolare’: A. Stramaglia, ‘Le voci dei fantasmi’, in F. De Martino and A.H. Sommerstein (edd.), Lo spettacolo delle voci (Bari, 1995), 1.193–230, at 221–3.

23 Fontenrose (n. 1), 268–70 and passim; Parke and Wormell (n. 1), 2.197–200; Andersen, L., Studies in Oracular Verses: Concordance to Delphic Responses in Hexameter (Copenhagen, 1987), 38–9Google Scholar and passim; Scott, M., Delphi: A History of the Center of the Ancient World (Princeton and Oxford, 2014), 11–12Google Scholar, 19–20, 27. Parke, H.W., ‘The use of other than hexameter verse in Delphic oracle’, Hermathena 65 (1945), 58–66Google Scholar, at 58 is right to argue that the authenticity of an oracular response should be examined primarily on historical rather than metrical grounds (say, those given in iambics should be judged spurious). On its oral composition and performance: Maurizio, L., ‘Delphic oracles as oral performances: authenticity and historical evidence’, ClAnt 16 (1997), 308–34Google Scholar; narrative patterns: J. Kindt, Revisiting Delphi: Religion and Storytelling in Ancient Greece (Cambridge and New York, 2016). Epigraphical evidence indicates that a chest might be used to keep the archives of oracular responses (LSJ s.v. ζύγαστρον). Herodotus (6.57.4) tells us that the Spartans kept the oracular responses as official archives: CAH 2, 4.541.

24 See also Shannon-Henderson (n. 1).

25 Cf. Hdt. 1.65; Xen. Lac. 8.5; Plut. Lyc. 2.3, 5.3, 6.1–4, 13.6, 23.2, 29.2–4. See also Parke and Wormell (n. 1), 1.82–98; Scott (n. 23), 56–7.

26 This derives from the polis-religion model developed by C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘What is polis religion?’, in R. Buxton (ed.), Oxford Readings in Greek Religion (Oxford, 2000), 13–37. See further J.-P. Vernant, ‘Speech and mute signs’, in J.-P. Vernant, Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays (Princeton, 1991), 303–17; R.C.T. Parker, ‘Greek states and Greek oracles’, in Buxton (this note), 76–108; Bowden, H., Classical Athens and the Delphic Oracle: Divination and Democracy (Cambridge, 2005)Google Scholar; Trampedach, K., Politische Mantik. Die Kommunikation über Götterzeichen und Orakel im klassischen Griechenland (Heidelberg, 2015)Google Scholar. For literature reviews see Kindt, J., ‘Polis religion – A critical appreciation’, Kernos 22 (2009), 9–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harrison, T., ‘Review article: Beyond the polis? New approaches to Greek religion’, JHS 135 (2015), 165–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; L.G. Driediger-Murphy and E. Eidinow, ‘Introduction’, in L.G. Driediger-Murphy and E. Eidinow (edd.), Ancient Divination and Experience (Oxford, 2019), 1–14, at 2–5.

27 Goffman (n. 1), 21. See also Farenga, V., Citizen and Self in Ancient Greece: Individuals Performing Justice and the Law (Cambridge, 2006), 144–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Kidd, S.E., Nonsense and Meaning in Ancient Greek Comedy (Cambridge and New York, 2014), 102CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 109–11, unlike Robson, J., Humour, Obscenity and Aristophanes (Tübingen, 2006), 16–18Google Scholar, 29–36, is inclined to apply this process to Bateson's theory of play, which is developed by studying animals at play. Cf. Goffman (n. 1), 49.

29 On the ‘Olympic Dream’ and nationalism in China see Xu, G., Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895–2008 (Cambridge, MA, 2008), chs. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 8.

30 Cf. Scott (n. 23), 27–30.

31 Hdt. 7.141.3–144.3; SEG 22.274 = C.W. Fornara, Translated Documents of Greece and Rome, vol. 1: Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War (Cambridge, 19832), 53–5 (no. 55). On this subject see CAH 2, 4.540–2; Bowden (n. 26), 100–7; Fontenrose (n. 1), 124–8, 316–17; Parke and Wormell (n. 1), 1.169–72; Trampedach (n. 26), 468–9.

32 See R.M. Entman, ‘Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm’, Journal of Communication 43.4 (1993), 51–8, at 55: ‘Framing in this light plays a major role in the exertion of political power, and the frame in a news text is really the imprint of power.’

33 See Fontenrose (n. 1), 268–70; Parke and Wormell (n. 1), 2.197–200; M. Nelson, ‘The first Olympic Games’, in G.P. Schaus and S.R. Wenn (edd.), Onward to the Olympics: Historical Perspectives on the Olympic Games (Waterloo, 2007), 47–58, at 56 n. 28.

34 Goffman (n. 1), 21–39 (‘primary frameworks’), 40–82 (‘keys and keyings’), 345–77 (‘breaking frame’). See also E. Günther and S. Günther (edd.), Frames and Framing in Antiquity, 2 vols. (Changchun, 2022–3).

35 Hom. Il. 23.258–897. Cf. 11.689–702 and Strabo 8.3.30 for a possible allusion to the Olympic Games: Scanlon (n. 6), 63 and passim; Roller (n. 13), 449.

36 Pace Fontenrose (n. 1), 268–9.

37 FGrHist 257 F 40.1.1 (referring to the Secular Games of Rome). See also McInerney (n. 1), ad loc.

38 Σ Ar. Ach. 243a: see also Parke, H.W., Festivals of the Athenians (London, 1977), 126Google Scholar; C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘Something to do with Athens: Tragedy and ritual’, in R.G. Osborne and S. Hornblower (edd.), Ritual, Finance, Politics: Athenian Democratic Accounts Presented to David Lewis (Oxford, 1994), 269–90, at 270. For the plague as a consequence of pollution (miasma) in the consulting city, see Parker (n. 26), 94.

39 The indexes in Parke and Wormell (n. 1), 2.250 and in Andersen (n. 23), 175 yield only this result.

40 Fontenrose (n. 1), 180.

41 Cf. Aesch. Pers. 249; Soph. Aj. 859, OT 1223; Eur. Hel. 1593, IT 1386, Phoen. 1225.

42 See Hom. Il. 1.1–9, 43–75, 5.178, Od. 2.66, 5.146–7; Hom. Hymn Dem. 254, 305–12; Ap. Rhod. Argon. 1.802–3; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.38.2; Lucian, Vera Historia 2.20; Apollod. Bibl. 2.5.9; [Aeschin.] Ep. 1.2; Lib. Or. 32.23; L.C. Muellner, The Anger of Achilles: Mênis in Greek Epic (Ithaca and London, 1996), 15, 99–102. A common explanation is that μῆνις is mainly associated with the divine: LSJ s.v. μῆνις A; D. Konstan, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (Toronto, 2006), 48. Aristophanes, for example, employs ὀργή to describe Pericles’ wrath against Megara whilst comparing him to the Olympian Zeus: Ar. Ach. 530–4 = Fornara (n. 31), 141 (no. 123B). But see D.L. Cairns, ‘Ethics, ethology, terminology: Iliadic anger and the cross-cultural study of emotion’, in S. Braund and G.W. Most (edd.), Ancient Anger: Perspectives from Homer to Galen (Cambridge and New York, 2003), 11–49, at 31–2 for the manifestation of μῆνις among mortals.

43 On μῆνις as a ‘taboo word’ see Cairns (n. 42), 32 n. 93; Muellner (n. 42), 186–94.

44 Goffman (n. 1), 43–4. See also Farenga (n. 27), 145 n. 51.

45 Cf. Entman (n. 32), 52.

46 Goffman, E., Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior (New York, 1967), 32Google Scholar. See also Cairns (n. 42), 39–41, to which this point is due.

47 Such as courage, and hence ‘spiritedness’ (τὸ θυμοειδές): cf. Hdt. 7.140.3; Plut. Thes. 24.5; Paus. 8.9.4; Euseb. Praep. evang. 6.3.1 = Porph. De philosophia ex oraculis haurienda 171 Wolff; see also Parke and Wormell (n. 1), nos. 94, 154, 163 and 470. On θυμός as a male ideal see C.A. Faraone, ‘Thumos as masculine ideal and social pathology in ancient Greek magical spells’, in S. Braund and G.W. Most (edd.), Ancient Anger: Perspectives from Homer to Galen (Cambridge and New York, 2003), 144–62; for further discussions see Cairns (n. 42), 21; P.W. Ludwig, ‘Anger, eros, and other political passions in ancient Greek thought’, in R.K. Balot (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought (Malden, MA, 2009), 294–307, at 298–301; Kalimtzis, K., Taming Anger: The Hellenic Approach to the Limitations of Reason (London, 2012), ch. 1Google Scholar. There is one attestation of ὀργή in the corpus, but in this case it is used to describe an enquirer who treats his son harshly: Suda δ 1145 Adler = Aelian fr. 106 Domingo-Forasté with Fontenrose (n. 1), 351; Parke and Wormell (n. 1), 2.189–90 (no. 468).

48 Cf. FGrHist 257 F 36.10a = Phlegon, Mir. 10A.472 Stramaglia: ὅσσαι ἐν ἡλικίῃ νεοθηλέα θυμὸν ἔχουσιν with Shannon-Henderson (n. 1), ad loc. A search in the TLG database yields no further attestations of θυμός in Phlegon.

49 Cf. D.L. Cairns, ‘thymos’, in OCD 4.

50 Cf. Goffman (n. 1), 502.

51 The oracle is not named ‘Delphic’ in these passages, but the identification is almost a matter of course: McInerney (n. 1), ad loc.

52 Cf. Plut. Lyc. 24.4 χοροὶ δὲ καὶ θαλίαι καὶ εὐωχίαι καὶ διατριβαὶ περί τε θήρας καὶ γυμνάσια καὶ λέσχας τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον ἐπεχωρίαζον, ὅτε μὴ στρατευόμενοι τύχοιεν.

53 See Instone (n. 13), 78–82.

54 Pritchard, D.M., Sport, Democracy and War in Classical Athens (Cambridge and New York, 2013), ch. 5Google Scholar.

55 Vernant, J.-P., Myth and Society in Ancient Greece (New York, 1990), 42Google Scholar.

56 Goffman (n. 1), 54. Cf. Mart. Spect. 9; Apul. Met. 10.34; Tert. Apol. 15.5; F. Fellini's film Satyricon (1969); MacMullen, R., Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary (Princeton, 1990), 206Google Scholar; J.P. Sullivan, ‘The social ambience of Petronius’ Satyricon and Fellini Satyricon’, in M.M. Winkler (ed.), Classical Myth and Culture in the Cinema (Oxford and New York, 2001), 258–71, at 262.

57 S. Swain, Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, ad 50–250 (Oxford, 1996), 78 n. 33.

58 E.g. Paus. 3.14.8, 3.16.6. Further on this subject see Hupfloher, A., Kulte im kaiserzeitlichen Sparta: eine Rekonstruktion anhand der Priesterämter (Berlin, 2000), 178–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; N.M. Kennell, ‘Spartan cultural memory in the Roman period’, in A. Powell (ed.), A Companion to Sparta (Hoboken, NJ, 2018), 643–62, at 648–9.

59 Cf. Hist. Aug. Hadr. 14.7–8 with Birley (n. 3), 356 n. 38; Syme (n. 16), 162, 164. Notice, too, Hadrian's visit to Delphi in 125: Swain, S., ‘Plutarch, Hadrian, and Delphi’, Historia 40 (1991), 318–30Google Scholar.

60 If the second, ‘Homeric’ oracular response is forged by Lycurgus, it also reflects to some extent his role in the early reception and transmission of the epics: cf. Plut. Lyc. 4.4–5.

61 Cf. Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi 35; Anth. Pal. 14.102 with Fontenrose (n. 1), 263–4; Parke and Wormell (n. 1), 2.188 (no. 465).

62 On this conception, see König, A., Langlands, R. and Uden, J., ‘Introduction’, in A. König, R. Langlands and J. Uden (edd.), Literature and Culture in the Roman Empire, 96–235: Cross-Cultural Interactions (Cambridge, 2020), 1–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 21–2.