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Iostephanos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Arthur Bernard Cook
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Extract

Why was Athens called the City of the Violet Crown? The question, though often asked, has not—so far as I am aware—been satisfactorily answered. Two widely divergent and mutually exclusive explanations already hold the field: but the one is open to grave objections, and the other, though true, is not the whole truth. There is therefore room for a fresh attempt to throw light upon the matter. It will be advisable to begin by summarising the essential facts of the case, then to review the hypotheses that have been framed to account for them, and finally to propound, if possible, a more adequate solution of the problem.

The admitted facts are these. Pindar in one of his dithyrambs composed later, perhaps several years later, than 480 B.C. praised Athens for her prowess in the war with Persia.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 20 , November 1900 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1900

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References

page 1 note 1 No such honour was accorded to Pindar by the Thebans: Athen. i. 19 B.

page 2 note 1 I say advisedly ‘of the couplet,’ not ‘of the epithet.’ For, as a rule, it is not the word ἰοστέφανοι but the remainder of the sentence that is echoed by writers later than Aristophanes. Perhaps they failed to catch the full significance of the adjective.

page 3 note 1 Cp. what Prof.Mau, (Pompeii p. 6)Google Scholar says of Vesuvius: ‘the sun as it nears the horizon veils the bare ashen cone with a mantle of deep violet.’

page 3 note 2 Prof. Ernest Gardner informs me that there is no heather on Hymettus, but that wild thyme is abundant.

page 3 note 3 Philostratus in the early part of the third century A.D. connected the line with Hymettus in a still more fanciful way: he says (imagg. ii. 12, 2) of the bees that instilled their honey into the infant Pindar-ἐξ ᾿γμηττοῦ τάχ᾿ ἤκουσι καὶ ᾀπὸ τῶν λιπαρῶν καὶ ἀοιδίμων καὶ γἀρ τοῦτ᾿ οἶμαι αὐτὰς ἐνστάξαι Πινδάρῳ

page 3 note 4 Prof. Ernest Gardner writes: ‘At sunset, when Hymettus turns purple, the sea round Aegina usually turns a kind of light opalescent hue; all day it is blue. In the Aegean generally, the sea becomes purple to the east, but opal to the west, at sunset.’

page 3 note 5 According to Schömann opuse, ac. ii. 147 ᾿Ιάνθη the Oceanid mentioned in Hes. Theog. 349, alib., means ‘violiflora.’ Anacreont. 55, 21 Bgk. describes Aphrodite swimming in the sea: κρίνον ὤς ἴοις ἐλιχθέν

page 4 note 1 It is quite possible that Pindar himself in the context of frag. 76 Chr. supplied an excellent instance of the idiom in question, viz. Νηρηἶδων ἁλιπορφὑρων Cp. Himer., or. xvi. 2Google Scholarκαί μοι δοκῶ καὶ τῆς Πινδάροι λύρας λαβὼν μέλος ἐκεῖθεν εἰς αὐτὴν ἀναφθέγξασθαι *εὶ καὶ τῆς Ελλάδος μὲν εἰπεῖν ἔρεσμα, μικρόν, ὄπερ εἰς τὰς Αθήνας ἦσται Πινδάρῳ πάσης δὲ τῆς ὑφ᾿ ἤλιον ἤδιστον ἄγαλμα σὶ μὲν καὶ Ποσειδῶν ὁ βασι λεὺς ὁ θαλάσσιος γλαυκοῖς περιβάλλει τοῖς κύμασιν, οἶά τινα νύμφην Ναῖδα, καὶ πανταχόθεν περιπτύσσει καὶ γέγηθε σὲ καὶ Νηρηἰδων ἁλιπορφύρων χοροὶ ἄκροις ἐπισκιρτῶντες τοῖς κύμασι κύκλῳ περὶ πᾶσαν χορεύουσι Boeckh (p. 580), Dissen (p. 622), and Donaldson (p. 346) concur in the opinion that Himerius is here applying to Constantinople expressions which Pindar had used of Athens in the dithyramb under discussion.

page 5 note 1 Mr. William Watson's Purple East, and The Purple City as a sobriquet of Perkin, are the nearest that occur to me. But we should be tolerant of such a conceit as e.g. ‘the rose-wreath'd Matterhorn,’ which would be an exact parallel.

page 5 note 2 Donaldson, p. 345, thinks that they were. ‘probably hung up in chaplets at the temples and houses.’ Ovid must have had such offerings in his mind when he wrote: ‘siquis erat, factis prati de flore coronis | qui posset violas addere, dives erat’ (Fasti, i. 345 f.).

page 6 note 1 For further details of this interesting ceremony see Bötticher, , Baumkultus, pp. 263Google Scholar 267, Preller, , Gr. Myth. 4 ii. 646Google Scholar, 648, Frazer, , Golden Bough, i. 297Google Scholar, n. 4, Cumont in Pauly-Wissowa, II. ii. 2249 f.

page 7 note 1 Possibly ἀοίδιμος means here ‘singing’ rather than ‘sung of’: στάσιμος, τρόφιμος and perhaps πένθιμος are active as well as passive; ἀκέσιμος κάρπιμος, μάχιμος, μόνιμος, νόστιμος φαίδιμος φρόνιμος are active only. See Kühner-Blass, ii. 288, 299.

page 8 note 1 Quoted by Friend, Hilderic, Flowers and Flower Lore, p. 608 f.Google Scholar

page 8 note 2 See Cratinus, , Μαλθακοί, frag. 1Google Scholar, 2 (Meineke, ii. 72), Pollux vi. 106, Verg. copa 13 reading ‘aunt et Cecropio violae de flore coronae,’ Anth. Pal. iv. 1, 21 (Meleager), iv. 2, 12 (Philippus) v. 73. 4 (Rufinus), cp. Carm. Pop. 19 Bgk., Verg. ecl. ii. 47, etc.

page 9 note 1 Connexions between Hera and the violet are accidental. Folkard, R., Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics, p. 579Google Scholar, quotes Lycophron's anagram ᾿Αρσινόη=᾿´Ηρας ἴον and Shaksp. Winter's Tale, ‘violets dim, | But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, | Or Cytherea's breath.’

page 9 note 2 Artemis, or rather Diana, is associated with the violet only in spurious mythology. Rapin relates that ‘This modest flower was once a charming maid, | Her name Ianthis, of Diana's train.’ She sought in vain to avoid the importunities of Apollo, till Diana ‘stain'd with dusky blue the virgin's face’ and changed her into a violet. Others say that Ia, a daughter of Midas, betrothed to Attis, was transformed by Diana into a violet, that she might be saved from Phoebus. See Folkard, op cit. p. 578 f. But neither Ianthis nor la are genuine mythological characters. Nor is there any warrant for ‘the old tradition which said that this flower was raised from the body of Io by the agency of Diana’ (Hilderic Friend, op. cit. p. 201).

page 9 note 3 Violets were also appropriate to Aphrodite as a goddess of ‘vegetativen Fruchtbarkeit’ (Roscher, , Lex. I. i. 397Google Scholar f.). Among the Cnosians she was known as Ἄνθєια (Hesych. s.v.) See further Farnell, , Cults ii. 642 ffGoogle Scholar. By mediaeval astrologers the violet was held to be under the dominion of Venus. Its connexion with the goddess of love perhaps explains why it was considered a token of faithful affection. Clémence Isaure at the beginning of the fourteenth century instituted at Toulouse floral games, which are still kept up: the prize awarded to the most skilful troubadour was a golden violet, the flower sent by the foundress to her lover during an enforced separation. A sixteenth century poem runs: ‘Violet is for faithfulnesse, | Which in me shall abide; | Hoping likewise that from your heart | You will not let it slide.’ There is no ancient authority for Herrick's tale (in his Hesperides) that violets are the descendants of some unfortunate girls, who, having defeated Venus in a contest of sweetness, were beaten blue by the goddess in her jealous anger! Vide Folkard, op. cit. pp. 579–581.

page 9 note 4 The line may be a reminiscence of the Pindaric passage, cp. ibid. 8 λιπαρῶν ἄνθεμον ἠιθέων

page 10 note 1 The Graces had the same double title as Aphrodite to a violet crown. On their special connexion with spring-flowers, see Escher in Pauly-Wissowa III. ii. 2161, Stoll in Roscher, , Lex. I. i. 876Google Scholar f.

page 10 note 2 Cp. the later personification and deification of Demos. At Athens there was in fact a joint cult of Demos and the Graces (see Frazer, , Pausanias, vol. ii. p. 28Google Scholar), and bas-reliefs represent Demos clasping the hand of Athena (e.g. Bull. de corr. hell. 1878, Pl. 10). The intermediate link between Pindar's apotheosis of Athens and the popular apotheosis of Demos is furnished by Aristophanes, , Knights, 1329Google Scholar ff. ὦ ταὶ λιπαραὶ καὶ ὶοστέφανοι καὶ ἀριζήλωτοι ᾿Αθῆναι, . . . ὄδ᾿ ἐκεῖνος (sc. Demos) ὀρᾶν τεττι γοφόρας ἀρχαίῳ σχήματι λαμπρός, κ.τ.λ.

page 11 note 1 Cp. Pliny, , N.H. xxi. 11Google Scholar, 38 ‘florum prima ver nuntiantium viola alba.’

page 12 note 1 Cp. Wilmanns, , Inscrr. 313, 14 ffGoogle Scholar. ‘ut die parentali [meo, item xi k. apr. die viola]tionis, item xii k. Iunias die rosationis,’ etc., if the restoration is sound. See C.I.L. vi. 10239.

page 13 note 1 Cited by Prof. Ernest Gardner, who cp. Beethoven's ‘Adelaide,’ ‘Auf jedem Purpurblättchen,’ etc.

page 13 note 2 Prof. Ernest Gardner states that, in the Carrying of the Bier on Good Friday in modern Greece, it is usually sprinkled with flowers, violets among others.

page 13 note 3 This accounts perhaps for the belief prevalent in the province of Novara that, if you offer a man violets on a festal day, he will shed many tears: de Gubernatis, op. cit. ii. 369.