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ΑΙΓΑΙΩΝ in Achilles' Plea to Thetis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

J. T. Hooker
J. T. Hooker
Affiliation:
University College London
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Extract

When Achilles asks Thetis to plead his cause before Zeus, he urges her to remind the god of her past favours towards him (II. i 396-406):

      πολλάκι γάρ σεο πατρὸς ἐνὶ μεγάροισιν ἄκουσα
      εὐχομένης , ὅτ᾿ ἔφησθα κελαινεφέϊ Κρονίωνι
      οἴη ἐν ἀθανάτοισιν ἀεικέα λοιγὸν ἀμῦναι,
      ὁππότε μιν ξυνδῆσαι ᾿Ολύμπιοι ἤθελον ἄλλοι,
      ῾῾ ´ Ηρη τ᾿ἠδὲ Ποσειδάων καὶ Παλλὰς ᾿ Αθήνη
      ἀλλὰ σὺ τόν γ᾿ ἐλθοῦσα,
      θεά, ὑπελύασο δεσμῶν,
      ὦχ᾿ ἐκατόγχειρον καλέσασ᾿ ἐς
      μακρὸν ᾿ ´ Ολυμπον, ὅν Βριάρεων καλέουσι θεοί, ἄνδρες δέ τε πάντες Αἰγαίων᾿—ὁ γὰρ αὖτε βίην οὖ πατρὸς ἀμείνων—
      ὅς ῥα παρὰ Κρονίωνι καθέζετο κύδεϊ γαίων
      τὸν καὶ ὑπέδεισαν μάκαρες θεοὶ οὐδ᾿ ἔτ᾿ ἔδησαν

A major problem attends the phrase ὁ γὰρ αὗτε βιην οὗπατρὸς ἀμείνων(11. i 404). It has been suggested that the name Αἰγαίων represents a patronymic in -ῖων based on Αἰγαῖος. The suggestion is unexceptionable in itself, in view of the close connexions between Poseidon and Aegae; but it does nothing to resolve the difficulty of supposing that Poseidon was Aegaeon’s father and, above all, it does not tell us how the name Αἰγαίων is explained by the phrase ὁ γὰρ αὖτε. . . In a note on these words, M. M. Willcock accepted the common view that they give an ‘etymological’ explanation of the name Αἰγαίων, but suggested that they would be more easily intelligible as anexplanation of the giant’s other name, Βριάρεως (after βριαρός etc.). Willcock was right to raise this objection. There is no reason to suppose that the father of Aegaeon/ Briareos was different from the father of the other giants, and Hesiod specifically says that his father was Uranus (Th. 147-9). The paternity of this giant might therefore be a scholarly invention; and not a happy invention, for however strong Aegaeon may have been he could hardly be said to be mightier than Poseidon.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 100 , 1980 , pp. 188 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1980

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References

1 Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos, s.v.

2 Cf. Schachermeyr, F., Poseidon und die Entstehung des griechischen Götterglaubens (Bern 1950) 21Google Scholar.

3 PCPS clxxxiv (1956–7) 25–6.

4 I am not, however, convinced by Willcock's subsequent argument that the episode is an invention of the poet. On the contrary, I see it as a fragment of a poetical tradition represented elsewhere in the Iliad: cf. Hedén, E., Homerische Götterstudien (Uppsala 1912) 43–4Google Scholar; Krause, W., WS lxiv (1949) 10–54Google Scholar; Heubeck, A., Gymnasium lxii (1955) 519Google Scholar; Schadewaldt, W., Iliasstudien 3 (Darmstadt 1966) 118Google Scholar.

5 For the formation of personal names in -ῑων see Ruijgh, C. J., Minos ix (1968) 141–7Google Scholar.

6 Indogerm. Forsch. xiv (1903) 345.

7 Die Heimat der indogermanischen Gemeinsprache (AAW Mainz xi 1953) 43. It remains true, as Thumb saw, that both αἰγανέη and αἰγίς have the underlying sense of ‘that which is swiftly-moving’. That fits αἰγίς not only in its Homeric meaning (‘shield of Zeus and Athene’) but in its post-Homeric meaning (‘rushing storm’): cf. Schrade, H., Götter und Menschen Homers (Stuttgart 1952) 82–3Google Scholar.

8 The γάρ, however, seems pointless in Zenodotus' variant ό γὰρ αὖτε βίῃ πολὺ ϕέρτατος ἄλλων, which Wackernagel thought might be the older reading: Sprachliche Untersuchungen zu Homer (Göttingen 1916) 233. I prefer to regard it as a substitution made by someone to whom ‘the history of the gods which is lost to us’ (Wackernagel's words) was equally unknown.

9 Wackernagel (n. 8) 241–2.

10 Cf. Risch, E.. Eumusia: Festgabe für E. Howald (Erlenbach/Zurich 1947) 72–91Google Scholar; Deichgräber, K., ZVS lxx (1952) 19–28Google Scholar; Strunk, K., Glotta xxxviii (1959) 79Google Scholar: Liebermann, W.-L., Donum Indogermanicum: Festschr. A. Scherer (Heidelberg 1971) 130–54Google Scholar; M. L. West on Hesiod's Op. 3, 66 (1978 edn.).

11 Mnem. xx (1892) 139–40.

12 Cf. Heubeck, A., Würzburger Jahrbücher ii (1949–1950) 214Google Scholar.

13 A theory expounded by Güntert, H., Von der Sprache der Götter und Geister (Halle 1921) 111Google Scholar. C. Watkins reverts to it, using the ponderous jargon of modern linguistics, whereby Güntert's, ‘poetical’ terms are called ‘rarer, more “charged”, semantically marked’: Myth and law among the Indo-Europeans: studies in Indo-European comparative mythology (1970) 2Google Scholar. But the theory is no more acceptable in this guise than it was when put forward by Güntert. We have only to apply Watkins' principle to the passage under consideration to see how meaningless it is; for in what sense can Βριάρεως be said to be ‘semantically marked’, in contrast to Αἰγαίων? R. Lazzeroni maintains that ‘men call Briareos by the name Aegaeon because he is stronger than his father Poseidon’ and that ‘men bestow upon Briareos the epithet proper to his father because he is stronger than his father’: Studi linguistici in onore di T. Bolelli (Pisa 1974) 167, 169. To my mind, Lazzeroni is doubly mistaken in this mode of argumentation: first because he takes it for granted that the giant was regarded as stronger than Poseidon (an assumption which seems to me impossible), but also because he wrongly interprets the text. If this were the only Homeric passage referring to a double system of nomenclature, it might be possible to understand it in the way postulated by Lazzeroni; but our passage should, if possible, be interpreted according to a method which is applicable also to the other Homeric instances of double nomenclature.

14 Watkins (n. 13) again goes astray in explaining the word μῶλυ (Od. × 305) in terms of black magic. The correct account of the matter is given by Clay, J., Hermes c (1972) 127–31Google Scholar.

15 Aglaophamus (Königsberg 1829) 858–63.

16 Cf. Spieker, R., Hermes xcvii (1969) 136–61.Google Scholar