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VICE'S SECRET: PRODICUS AND THE CHOICE OF HERACLES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2019
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In a well-known parable, told by Xenophon but credited by him to the sophist Prodicus, the young Heracles setting out on the road meets two women whose appearance turns out to be in accord with their characters and names, which are soon proclaimed by each to be Virtue and Vice. The former comports herself as a proper Greek woman should, ‘becoming to look at and freeborn by nature, her body (σῶμα) adorned with purity, her eyes with shame, her stature with moderation (τὸ δὲ σχῆμα σωφροσύνῃ), dressed in white’ (transl. Mayhew). Vice, on the other hand, is self-absorbed and slutty: ‘well nourished to the point of fleshiness and softness, made up to appear whiter and redder than she was in fact’, τὸ δὲ σχῆμα ὥστε δοκεῖν ὀρθοτέραν τῆς φύσεως εἶναι, ‘with wide-open eyes, dressed to show off her ripeness, often checking herself out and seeing whether anyone was looking at her, often even looking at her own shadow’.
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1 Xen. Mem. 2.1.21–34 = Prodicus B 2 DK = fr. 84 Mayhew = D 21 Laks–Most. The physical description occurs at 21–2: Πρόδικος …. φησὶ γὰρ Ἡρακλέα, ἐπεὶ ἐκ παίδων εἰς ἥβην ὡρμᾶτο, ἐν ᾗ οἱ νέοι ἤδη αὐτοκράτορες γιγνόμενοι δηλοῦσιν εἴτε τὴν δι᾿ ἀρετῆς ὁδὸν τρέψονται ἐπὶ τὸν βίον εἴτε τὴν διὰ κακίας, ἐξελθόντα εἰς ἡσυχίαν καθῆσθαι ἀποροῦντα ποτέραν τῶν ὁδῶν τράπηται· καὶ φανῆναι αὐτῷ δύο γυναῖκας προσιέναι μεγάλας, τὴν μὲν ἑτέραν εὐπρεπῆ τε ἰδεῖν καὶ ἐλευθέριον φύσει, κεκοσμημένην τὸ μὲν σῶμα καθαρότητι, τὰ δὲ ὄμματα αἰδοῖ, τὸ δὲ σχῆμα σωφροσύνῃ, ἐσθῆτι δὲ λευκῇ, τὴν δ᾿ ἑτέραν τεθραμμένην μὲν εἰς πολυσαρκίαν τε καὶ ἁπαλότητα, κεκαλλωπισμένην δὲ τὸ μὲν χρῶμα ὥστε λευκοτέραν τε καὶ ἐρυθροτέραν τοῦ ὄντος δοκεῖν φαίνεσθαι, τὸ δὲ σχῆμα ὥστε δοκεῖν ὀρθοτέραν τῆς φύσεως εἶναι, τὰ δὲ ὄμματα ἔχειν ἀναπεπταμένα, ἐσθῆτα δὲ ἐξ ἧς ἂν μάλιστα ὥρα διαλάμποι· κατασκοπεῖσθαι δὲ θαμὰ ἑαυτήν, ἐπισκοπεῖν δὲ καὶ εἴ τις ἄλλος αὐτὴν θεᾶται, πολλάκις δὲ καὶ εἰς τὴν ἑαυτῆς σκιὰν ἀποβλέπειν. The agreement between body and ethos is based on the principle enunciated in the first sentence of Aristotle's Physiognomonica, ὅτι αἱ διάνοιαι ἕπονται τοῖς σώμασι, καὶ οὐκ εἰσὶν αὐταὶ καθ᾿ ἑαυτὰς ἀπαθεῖς οὖσαι τῶν τοῦ σώματος κινήσεων.
2 Mayhew, R., Prodicus the Sophist (Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar. Αs a reading of Aristotle's Physiognomonica shows, although there is some overlapping of meaning between σῶμα and σχῆμα, the latter tends to refer more specifically to ‘shape’, ‘form’ or ‘figure’, each of which can serve as its translation, depending on context. Thus, for example, σῶμα, unlike σχῆμα, can be contrasted with mind and interred at death. For σχῆμα more or less as ‘body’, cf. Aesop 76 aliter 6 (a weasel) μετεβλήθη γε εἰς γυναικεῖον σχῆμα, Eur. Hel. 379 σχῆμα λεαίνης, Ar. Ran. 463 καθ᾿ Ἡρακλέα τὸ σχῆμα καὶ τὸ λῆμ᾿ ἔχων (‘body and bearing’).
3 On Greek attitudes toward female cosmetics, see Bandini, M. and Dorion, L.-A., Xénophon: Mémorables 2.1 (Paris, 2011), 155–7Google Scholar.
4 σχῆμα BΦ Stobaeus, σῶμα A. See n. 2 above.
5 For the attractiveness of the Betty Boop look, cf. Cunningham, M.R. et al. , ‘“Their ideas of beauty are, on the whole, the same as ours”: consistency and variability in the cross-cultural perception of female physical attractiveness’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68 (1995), 261–79, at 262–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 A particularly apt passage that defends this translation of ὥρα is Crates, fr. 43 K.–A.: πάνυ γάρ ἐστιν ὡρικὰ | τὰ τιτθί᾿ ὥσπερ μῆλον; see further below.
7 Xenophontis Memorabilium libri iv (Oxford, 1749).
8 Xenophon's Werke. 2. Memorabilien (Stuttgart, 1864).
9 In Sprague, R.K. (ed.), The Older Sophists (Columbia, S.C., 1972), 79Google Scholar.
10 The Greek Sophists (London, 2003), 112.
11 Sofisti: Testimonianze e frammenti, vol. 2 (Florence, 19612), 181.
12 This passage is adduced as a parallel by Gigon, O., Kommentar zum zweiten Buch von Xenophons Memorabilien (Basel, 1956), 65Google Scholar, but, although an object turned ὀρθότερος will appear taller (like a rearing horse; Hdt. 5.111, 9.77), Vice is already upright, and ὀρθός in itself does not indicate height. (Gigon's main interest here is in demonstrating how the descriptions of Virtue and Vice are in accord with Xenophon's own views of womanly deportment.)
13 Arist. [Phgn.] 807a31 ἀνδρείου σημεῖα … τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ σώματος ὀρθόν, 808a13 θυμώδους σημεῖα· ὀρθὸς τὸ σῶμα.
14 Although the allure of this female attribute hardly needs documentation, cf. Gerber, D., ‘The female breast in Greek erotic literature’, Arethusa 11 (1978), 203–12Google Scholar.
15 Cf. Suda s.v. ὀρθοτίτθιος· ἡ παρθένος ἡ ὀρθοὺς τοὺς τιτθοὺς ἔχουσα; Philostr. Imag. 2.18.4 μαζὸς ὑπανίσταται. Note too as an interesting aside a possible etymology of παρθένος as *pr̥-steno-, ‘having protruding breasts’; cf. Beekes, R., Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden and Boston, 2010)Google Scholar, s.v.
16 Anth. Pal. 5.113; Sider, D., The Epigrams of Philodemos (New York, 1997)Google Scholar.
17 On the whole, however, I agree with Sansone, D., ‘Heracles at the Y’, JHS 124 (2004), 125–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar that Xenophon has largely reproduced Prodicus’ language accurately, a view Sansone later defends against those who argue otherwise: ‘Xenophon and Prodicus’ Choice of Heracles’, CQ 65 (2015), 371–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 ‘The most striking conclusion to be drawn from the passages listed above is the total absence of any preference for large breasts.’ See further Henderson, J., The Maculate Muse (New York, 1991 2), 148–9Google Scholar on quinces and other foods to describe breasts.
19 Large breasts are mentioned unfavourably by Mart. 1.100 mammas atque tatas habet Afra, sed ipsa tatarum | dici et mammarum maxima mamma potest, 2.52 mammosam Spatalen, 14.66; cf. Richlin, A., The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (New Haven, 1983), 54Google Scholar. Note also Cole Porter's lines, sung by Mercury as he remembers (in the present day) his affairs with many famous women of the past: ‘As for Beatrice D'Este, she was a pest and far too chesty’ (‘They Couldn't Compare to You’, from Out of this World, 1950, an adaptation of Plautus’ Amphitruo).
20 I am grateful to Larissa Bonfante for comments on this note.