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Battle narrative and politics in Aeschylus' Persae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Simon Goldhill
Simon Goldhill
Affiliation:
King's College, Cambridge
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Extract

In JHS cvii (1987), I argued that the Festival of the Great Dionysia needed to be seen in the context of fifth-century Athenian culture and that the plays which make up a major part of this festival could be seen as offering a profoundly questioning attitude towards what might be called fifth-century Athenian democratic polisi ideology. One play which seems to fit uneasily into that description of Athenian tragedy—as indeed it fits uneasily into many general arguments about Athenian theatre—is Aeschylus' Persae. In this brief paper I want to suggest some ways in which the social and political context I outlined in my earlier paper may help us to understand certain elements of the Persae which have worried critics.

Type
Notes
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The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 108 , November 1988 , pp. 189 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1988

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References

1 We know little of Phrynichus’ Sack of Miletus, or of his Phoenissae, on which the Persae is said to be based (by the Hypothesis). Other ‘historical tragedies’ (e.g. Moschion's Themistocles, Philicus’ Themistocles) are fourth century or later.

2 Much criticism has focused on the nature of this ‘historical writing’. In general, see e.g Winnington-Ingram, R., Studies in Aeschylus (Cambridge 1983) 1–15Google Scholar; Kitto, H., Greek tragedy2 (London 1961) 33–45Google Scholar, ‘Political thought in Aeschylus’, Dioniso xliii (1969) 160–5Google Scholar and, in particular, Poiesis (Berkeley 1966) 74–115Google Scholar; Gagarin, M., Aeschylean drama (Berkeley 1976) 46–50Google Scholar; Broadhead, H., The Persae of Aeschylus (Cambridge 1960) xv ff.Google Scholar; Conacher, D., ‘Aeschylus’ Persae: a literary commentary’, in Serta Turyniana (Urbana, Chicago, London 1974) 143–68Google Scholar; Lattimore, R., ‘Aeschylus on the defeat of Xerxes’, in Classical Studies in Honor of W. A. Oldfather (Urbana 1943) 82–93Google Scholar; Lloyd-Jones, H., The justice of Zeus2 (Berkeley 1983) 88–9Google Scholar. For attempts to tie the play closely to a specific political situation, see Stoessel, F., ‘Aeschylus as a political thinker’, AJP lxxiii (1952) 113–39Google Scholar; Podlecki, A., The political background of Aeschylean tragedy (Michigan 1966)Google Scholar who both see the play as written expressly to support Themistocles. For more general attempts to relate the play to a political background, see di Benedetto, V., L'Ideologia del potere e la tragedia Greca (Turin 1978) 3–43Google Scholar; Paduano, G., Sui Persiani de Eschilo problemi di focalizzazione dramatica (Rome 1978) passimGoogle Scholar, especially 1-27, 71-84.

3 For discussion and bibliography on Athenian self-definition and its importance in tragedy, see Goldhill, S., Reading Greek tragedy (Cambridge 1986), especially 57–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and now Zeitlin, F., ‘Playing the Other: theater, theatricality and the feminine in Greek drama’, Representations xi (1985) 63–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See, for example, Winnington-Ingram (n. 2) 1-15; Kitto, H., Greek tragedy2 (London 1961) 33–45Google Scholar; Paduano (n. 2) 71-84; Benedetto (n. 2) 3-43; Gagarin (n. 2) 46-50; Conacher (n. 2) 163-8; Holtsmark, E., ‘Ring composition and the Persae of Aeschylus’, SO xlv (1970) 23Google Scholar; Anderson, M., ‘The imagery of the Persians’, GR xix (1972) 166–74Google Scholar.

5 See in particular Hartog, F., Le miroir d'Hérodote (Paris 1980)Google Scholar; Pembroke, S., ‘Women in charge: the function of alternatives in early Greek tradition and the ancient idea of matriarchy’, Journal of Warburg and Courtauld Institutes xxx (1967) 1–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 So, for example, Blomfield, quoted by Broadhead (n. 2) xv; Sidgwick, A., Aeschylus’ Persae (Oxford 1903) ad 847Google Scholar; Prickard, A., The Persae of Aeschylus (London 1928) xxviiiGoogle Scholar. For a more balanced view, see Gagarin (n. 2) 84-6.

7 iii 80-2. See e.g. Giraudeau, M., Les notions juridiques et sociales chez Hérodote (Paris 1984) 101–11Google Scholar; Lasserre, F., ‘Hérodote et Protagoras: le débat sur les constitutions’, MH xxxiii (1976) 65–84Google Scholar; Ferrill, A., ‘Herodotus on tyranny’, Historia xxvii (1978) 385–98Google Scholar; Waters, K.Herodotus on Tyrants and Despots, Historia Einzelschriften xv (1971)Google Scholar; Romilly, J. de ‘Le classement des constitutions d'Hérodote à Aristote’, REG lxxii (1959) 81–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and, in particular, Lanza, D., Il tiranno e il suo pubblico (Turin 1977) esp. 39–41, 226-32Google Scholar.

8 A sophistic interest in νόμοι need hardly be stressed (the standard work remains Heinimann, F., Nomos und Phusis [Basel 1945]Google Scholar). Protagoras was involved in drawing up the constitution of Thurii, see Ehrenberg, V., ‘The foundation of Thurii’, AJP lix (1948) 149–70Google Scholar.

9 Finley, M., Politics in the ancient world (Cambridge 1983) 123CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 The Persae was produced in 472 BC. I take it as an early indication of Finley's ‘intense and public’ analysis and reflection.

11 ‘ E.g. Flickinger, as discussed by Broadhead (n. 2) xix. For a more interesting discussion and extensive bibliography, see Paduano (n. 2) 15-27; see also n. 13 below.

12 Page's text.

13 The description of Walcot, P., Greek drama in its theatrical and social context (Cardiff 1976) 96Google Scholar. Benedetto (n. 2) links these lines to Athenian claims of hegemony; cf. Gagarin (n. 2) 33 for the emphasis on Athens in this play. It is not by chance that Athens is the only Greek force mentioned, as I discuss below.

14 (n. 2) 90 n. 1.

15 Cf. Soph. Ajax 1120 ff, which is discussed by Goldhill (n. 3) 157-8; also Eur. Her. 157 ff., and Eur. El. 377, which I have commented on in GRBS xxvii (1986) 168.

16 Cf. 85 έπάγει δουρικλύτοις ανδρασι τοξόδαμνον 'Aρη [Ξέρξης] for a similar opposition of Persian bowmen and Athenian spearsmen. At 460-1, however, the Greeks use bows, but Labarbe, J., La loi navale de Themistocle (Paris 1957) 180CrossRefGoogle Scholar comments that these are unlikely to be Athenians. G. Bond's extensive note (ad Eur. Her. 161) underestimates the continuing and developing importance of traditional military values in fifth-century writing.

17 See e.g. Gagarin (n. 2) 44-5; Anderson (n. 4) 170-2.

18 See e.g. Podlecki (n. 2) 15, and Winnington-Ingram, Gnomon xxxix (1967) 641-3. Verrall sees a similar reference at Eum. 945-6 γόνος … πλουτόχθων.

19 See Labarbe (n. 16) passim. Even if evidence for ‘Themistocles’ law’ is not conclusive, it is difficult to account for the rapid and great rise in Athenian naval power without assuming a conscious diversion of state funds.

20 Broadhead asks pertinently if στράτῳ here means ‘people’ (as at e.g. Eum. 569); certainly the overlap of citizen and soldier makes such a rendering easy.

21 Winnington-Ingram (n. 2) 7 writes ‘Herodotus is the best commentator on the first half of the Persae, giving us the range of ideas within which the Aeschylean characters are moving.’ The opposition of tyranny and democracy is particularly evident in later fifth-century writing, but the early and continued importance of the tyrannicides as founders of democracy—a patently untrue assertion—demonstrates the role of tyranny from the earliest days of democracy as the always-to-be-rejected alternative. See Taylor, M., The Tyrant slayers: the heroic image in fifth-century B.C. Athenian art (New York 1981)Google Scholar, who sees a cult of Aristogeiton and Harmodius as stemming from ‘a need to reverence the city state’ 193. On tyrants and tragedy, see D. Lanza (n. 7) 1-32, 95-159; Berve, H., Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen (Munich 1967) 190–4Google Scholar; Cerri, G., ‘Antigone, Creonte e l'idea della tirannide nell'Atene del V secolo’, QUCC x (1982) 137–55Google Scholar; and in particular Cerri, G., Il linguaggio politico nel Prometeo di Eschilo: Saggio di semantica (Rome 1975)Google Scholar.

22 Each element of this exchange is picked up, however briefly, in the messenger's words. The number of the Persians before the battle and then dead is repeatedly stressed (e.g. 272, 432, and the repetition of πλῆθος and related words at 272, 334, 337, 342, 352, 429, 432; cf. Avery, H. ‘Dramatic devices in Aeschylus’ Persians’, AJP lxxxv (1964) 174–7Google Scholar); and ‘he contrast in numbers between Greeks and Persians is forcibly made (337 ff., 352). The insufficiency of the bow is declared (278), and the role of wealth is hinted at in the language of 250-2. The single leader apart from his troops is perhaps picked up at 465 ff. in the picture of Xerxes watching the disaster from the high bank (467) near the sea. That the Athenians are called slaves to no man is perhaps echoed in their cry of έλευθερούτε πατρℓδ', έλευθερούτε … (403).

23 On the imagery of yoking, see Taplin, O., The stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977) 78Google Scholar; Fowler, B., ‘Aeschylus’ imagery’, C&M xxviii (1967) 3–10Google Scholar; Anderson (n. 4) 167-8; Winnington-Ingram (n. 2) 11.

24 See Lembke, J. and Herington, C., Aeschylus’ Persians (Oxford 1981) ad 343Google Scholar, who rightly note that Zeus, whose justice for many critics determines the narrative, is called εύθυνος at 828; n.b. also εύθυντηριον 724, discussed below. de Ste-Croix, G. E. M.The class struggle in the ancient Greek world (London 1981) 285Google Scholar writes ‘It was a fundamental principle of democracy that everyone who exercised any power should be hypeuthynos, subject to euthyna, the examination of his conduct (and audit of his accounts) which every official had to undergo, at Athens and most if not all other democracies, at the end of his term of office, normally one year’. He adds in a footnote (601 n. 11) that critics of democracy were not fond of remarking on this aspect of democratic power.

25 See Taplin (n. 23) 121-7, especially ‘26- On Darius and Xerxes, see Saïd, S., ‘Darius et Xerxes dans les Perses’, KTEMA vi (1981) 17–38Google Scholar.

26 Pace Quincey, J. in CQ xii (1962) 184Google Scholar, who calls this reading of άρωγή ‘landlubberly’.

27 On the relations between these three catalogues see Albini, U., ‘Lettura dei Persiani di Eschilo’, PP xxii (1967) 256Google Scholar; Holtsmark (n. 4) 20; Paduano (n. 2) 72. I have not the space here to discuss the relevant and complex issues of the relations between lists and epic narrative and the claims of κλέος, or of the relations between lists, naming and mourning.

28 (n. 2) 90.

29 (n. 4) 33-45. A common view: see e.g. Murray, G., Aeschylus, the creator of tragedy (Oxford 1940) 126Google Scholar, who writes ‘If one Greek general had been named the play would have become modern and been exposed to all the small, temporary emotions of the immediate present, the gratified vanity, the annoyance, the inevitable criticism.’ I hope to be showing how the Persae is modern, though without the flaws Murray fears.

30 (n. 2) xx. For further bibliography and discussion see Paduano (n. 2) 52 n. 3.

31 JHS cvii (1987) 65–7Google Scholar. The connection between the anonymity of the έπιτάφιοι and the Persae is briefly mentioned by Pohlenz, M., Die griechische Tragödie (Leipzig and Berlin 1930) 51Google Scholar. As Loraux remarks, there are exceptions to the general rule of anonymity. In Lysias ii 42, and ii 52, Themistocles and then Myronides are mentioned by name. Both, however, are not contemporary military figures being buried, but characters from the past history of Athens (and hence Seager, R. [e.g.] JHS lxxxvii [1967]Google Scholar may be wrong to see contemporary party political significance in the failure to name Conon in this speech). The later example of Hyperides offers a more interesting case (discussed at length by Loraux, , L'invention d'Athenes [Paris 1981] esp. 110–13Google Scholar). For Hyperides’ speech contains an extensive έπαινος of Leosthenes, the general, quite out of keeping with earlier έπιτάψιοι. Loraux relates this to a move away from democratic norms towards the cult of the ‘great man’ (and presumably an early example of what becomes the norm in Hellenistic eulogy). Certainly it is easy to see some unease on Hyperides’ part, especially when he writes vi 15: καί μηδείς ύπολάβη με των άλλων πολιτων μηδένα λογον ποιείσθαι, [άλλά] ∧εωσθένη μόνον έγκωμιάειν συμβάινει γάρ τόν ∧εωσθένους έπαινον [έπί] ταίς μάχαις έγκωμιον καί των άλλν πολιτων είναι. The difference between our examples of fifth- and early fourth-century democratic ETrrrdKpioi and the epic or, say, Herodotean narratives with their concern for individual κλέος remains extremely important, despite these examples.

32 Cf. Gagarin (n. 2) 44.

33 It is interesting to note that the battle's success is preceded by a trick (66Aov 361) by a single Greek man, which is concerning, if not in, the night; cf. Vidal-Naquet, P., Le chasseur noir (Paris 1983) 125–74Google Scholar. If the Persians and monarchy provide a contrast by which to understand the democratic, hoplitic collectivity, so perhaps the δόλος of an individual (though still unnamed) Greek provides a different contrast by which the military values of the play are developed.

34 It was Wilamowitz (Hermes xxxiii [1898) 382-98) who first suggested—and then recanted—that it was so surprising, that we should consider the Persae to have been written first and foremost for production in Sicily.

35 Though see the sensible comments of Gagarin (n. 2) 84-6. A complex model of weeping with (though not precisely for) an enemy is provided by the end of the Iliad in Achilles’ tears for his father and Patroclus, shared with Priam's tears for Hector (Il. xxiv 471 ff., esp. 507-12). The communitas—and individualism—of mourning in Homer's scene in the tent and at night between two enemy warriors seems importantly different, however, from the public festival's representation of a kommos for a defeated invader and sacker of the (still ruined?) Athens. If sympathy for others is part of the ‘tragic experience’, it is none the less part of what I see as Aeschylus’ boldness in this play to place an audience in the position of discovering tragic sympathy for such an ‘other’ as the Persian invaders. It is in the variety of possible reactions to such boldness—and what such variations imply for the self-definition of the Athenian audience—that a major part of the ‘questioning’ of the Persae lies.

36 Winnington-Ingram (n. 2) 15 seems to me to show less than his usual awareness when he writes ‘The interpretation of the East—West relations… does not seem to go much further than might be expected from an intelligent Greek of the time. Morally, it is a a study in black and white, and so lacks subtlety.’ For a somewhat simplistic view of a possible audience reaction to the play, see Gagarin (n. 2) 51-6.

37 Thanks to Robin Osborne for all his help.