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W O M E N A N D T H E C O M I C P L OT IN MENANDER
Taking a fresh look at mistaken identity in the work of an author who helped to introduce the device to comedy, Professor Traill shows how the outrageous mistakes many male characters in Menander make about women are grounded in their own emotional needs. The core of the argument derives from analysis of speeches by or about women, with particular attention to the language used to articulate problems of knowledge and perception, responsibility and judgment. Not only does Menander freely borrow language, situations, and themes from tragedy, but he also engages with some of tragedy’s epistemological questions, particularly the question of how people interpret what they see and hear. Menander was instrumental in turning the tragic theme of human ignorance into a comic device and inventing a plot type with enormous impact on the western tradition. This book provides new insights into his achievements within their historical and intellectual context. ar i ana t r a il l is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
WO M E N A N D T H E C O M I C P L OT I N M E N A N D E R ARIANA TRAILL University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521882262 © Ariana Traill 2008 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2008
ISBN-13 978-0-511-39719-6
eBook (NetLibrary)
ISBN-13
hardback
978-0-521-88226-2
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For Brian
Contents
Preface
page ix
1 Those obscure objects of desire
1
2 Misperception of status
14
Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians) Misoumenos (The Man She Hated) Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks) H¯er¯os (The Hero) Dyskolos (The Grouch) Aspis (The Shield) Phasma (The Apparition) P. K¨oln 203 (Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott) Conclusion
3 Misperception of character
16 25 33 46 50 56 65 67 72
79
Samia (The Girl from Samos) Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver) Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos P. Ghˆoran ii and Theophoroumen¯e (The Girl Possessed) Roman adaptations Conclusion
4 Informing the audience
86 92 110 117 119 125
130
Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos Samia Conclusion
131 156 170
5 The women of the Epitrepontes
177
Who is Pamphile’s kyrios? Charisios’ perspective Another mistaken whore? The mistakes of Smikrines, Onesimos and Charisios
vii
179 188 196 203
viii
Contents Informing the audience: Pamphile’s choice Habrotonon’s choice Conclusion
6 Why women? References Index of passages discussed General index
205 223 235
245 269 284 287
Preface
This project began as an attempt to explain the origins of the so-called bona meretrix (“good prostitute”) in Terence, but the Menandrian material proved so richly informative that it soon became a study of Menander’s hetairai. It transformed into something much broader when it became clear that the mechanisms at work in the representation of hetairai applied to other female characters. The simple question “Are they good?” led to many other questions about the dramatic representation of women, women’s identity, and the basic premise of mistaken identity. With roots in folk tale, tragedy, and Old Comedy, the mistaken identity plot was developed by Menander and his contemporaries into a versatile and productive comic form. Menander’s plays, in particular, show how it could be adapted to all kinds of situations. This book traces some of these variations and explores the rich dialogue Menander engaged in with his literary predecessors and with the intellectual currents of his time. His comedies have not only enriched the western tradition with many of its basic plots and devices, but they also open a fascinating window into the laws, customs and social mores of late fourth-century Athens. This book has been many years in the making. I owe special thanks to Richard Thomas, who supervised the Ph.D. thesis from which it grew, and to Cynthia Damon and James Halporn, who both read the thesis with a critical eye. I have been very fortunate to have had supportive colleagues both at the University of Colorado at Boulder and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Peter Hunt patiently answered many questions about Greek historical topics. David Sansone, Maryline Parca, and Angeliki Tzanetou all read chapters with their usual painstaking care, generously sharing their expertise on ancient women, tragedy and Greek literature in general. I am very grateful to Kirk Freudenburg for his support and advice, both as a department chair and a friend. David Konstan was kind enough to read chapter four, giving invaluable advice. Andreola Rossi and Jud Hermann invited me to present portions of the work in progress ix
x
Preface
and provided both warm hospitality and an appreciative audience. Thanks are also due to my editor, Michael Sharp, to my copy-editor, Muriel Hall, and to the anonymous readers for Cambridge who offered valuable suggestions for making this more of a book and less of a dissertation. Students in classes at the University of Illinois, both graduate and undergraduate, have commented helpfully on excerpts. My graduate research assistants Lindsay DesLauriers, Angela Kinney, Ryan McConnell, Michael Monroe, and Rebecca Muich all took time from their own work to make this a better book, reading it with an awareness of the needs of the nonspecialist, pointing out opportunities for clarification, and catching innumerable errors. I owe a special debt to Michael for his sensible suggestions and his tireless proofreading and reference checking; now there is, indeed, a little bit of him in the book. Thanks are also due to the other Greek historian who has provided so much advice and encouragement over the years: my father, John Traill. Finally, no thanks can ever express my gratitude to my husband Brian whose unwavering support has done more than anything else to bring this book to completion.
chap t e r 1
Those obscure objects of desire
! " # (Thrasyleon, Men. fr. 181 K-A)
Most of the time ‘know thyself ’ is not good advice: ‘know other people’ would be a lot more useful.
There is a plot type that has become a staple in the western comic repertoire: the troubles of a small community – a few families, some friends – escalate as misunderstandings grow, accusations fly, and everything threatens to unravel until the situation is set right with the discovery of a long-lost son or daughter. The lovers can now marry; the rich man has an heir; the orphan finds his or her parents. These mistaken identity plots are essentially stories of wish-fulfillment which pretend, perhaps in deference to conservative attitudes towards social mobility, that the transformations required by poetic justice are simply revelations of a hidden truth. The plot type may be traced back to Plautus and Terence, who inspired the Renaissance dramatists who in turn instated it at the heart of the western comic tradition. Credit for its original development, however, must go to the Greek models for the Roman plays, most of which have been lost. Fortunately, a number of the comedies of Menander (342/1 – c. 290 bc), the most famous Greek New Comic playwright, still survive. They center on problems of social identity and the obstacles that blind people to truths about their closest friends and family. Over and over in Menander’s mistaken identity plots characters are forced to make judgments on partial or misleading evidence, while emotion, self-interest and self-delusion foster misapprehension (# ) – the recurring theme of the plays. Proverbial wisdom may have urged “Know thyself,” but Menander’s comedy had the more utilitarian goal, “Know other people.” The plays dramatize how and why things go wrong. 1
2
Those obscure objects of desire
The basic narrative pattern of the mistaken identity plot has a long history prior to comedy. “Theoxeny” stories of gods such as Demeter, Dionysus, or Aphrodite disguising themselves to test mortals are common in Greek myth and folk tale.1 The motif first appears in epic, where gods regularly appear incognito and where a favored mortal like Odysseus can even perform his own “test” in disguise, complete with epiphany, revelation of special powers, and distribution of rewards and punishments.2 Once mortals become the protagonists, the disguise-recognition story begins to take on a familiar dramatic form, particularly in Euripidean tragedy. Alcestis, Telephus, and Menelaos in the Helen conceal their true identities; Ion and Iphigeneia (from the Iphigeneia in Tauris) do so as well, although not by choice. All are eventually recognized and restored to their rightful positions. In the cases of Alcestis, Menelaos, and Iphigeneia, the recognition is clearly associated with transcending mortality, a connection already evident in Homer and still detectable in Menander. In the Aspis and Perikeiromene¯, for example, misrecognized figures are left for dead.3 This plot type was not entirely foreign to Old Comedy: although he makes little use of other forms of mistaken identity, Aristophanes does spoof the disguise motif in the Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and Frogs. It is hard to know whether New Comedy borrowed this central, structuring device directly from tragedy or whether earlier fourth-century comic poets should be given credit for adapting it. In either case, so thoroughly were disguise and recognition stories naturalized in their new genre that ancient scholars started to identify prototypical elements of “comedy” in the Odyssey.4 This book explores how the mistaken identity plot was used by one of the playwrights who helped to give it definitive form as a comic device. Two major developments from myth and tragedy are noticeable in Menander. First, the motif takes on an increasingly sophisticated shape. Mistakes are rationalized, with supernatural intervention yielding to human psychology as the primary cause. The “disguise” is usually unwitting and the focus is the dupe, not the trickster, with a corresponding emphasis on how the mistake is made. By grounding identity mistakes in psychological mechanisms, Menander was able to use comedy to explore questions of perception and subjectivity. Second, the misrecognized characters are disproportionately 1 2 4
Burnett 1970: 24–5 n. 8. See Thompson 1955–8 K8111 “Gods (saints) in disguise visit mortals” for folk-tale examples. 3 On the Homeric association see Murnaghan 1987: 16–17. Murnaghan 1987: 11–13. E.g., Ps.-Long. 9.15, Eust. Com. ad Hom. 2. 3.488.17–20. Even Aristotle thought the resolution of the Odyssey was more comic than tragic (Poet. 1453a31–9). See further Knox 1970: 89. The kyrieia disputes discussed in chapter 2 are arguably prefigured in the Odyssey (Lacey 1966: 62).
Those obscure objects of desire
3
women, particularly when the mistakes concern relatively objective aspects of identity, such as social status. Plays frequently revolve around attempts to free or marry a seemingly forbidden woman, such as a slave, captive or prostitute, who is eventually restored to her rightful status. The characters who suffer loss of status – e.g., through piracy, war, exposure or more complicated mishaps – are predominantly women. One particular group is a useful entry point to my discussion because they typify a problem Menander explored with many different characters: the difficulty of knowing the truth about one’s $% (“loved ones,” immediate family and close friends). In Athens and other Greek cities there was a demimonde of women who could not marry for economic or legal reasons and who therefore had to form other relationships for support. These women included the expensive call girls and musicians Greeks called hetairai (“companions”).5 The foreigners, freedwomen and slaves who made up the majority of historically attested hetairai are the women with the largest speaking roles in Menander, including many of his female romantic leads.6 Although these women are misidentified in many different ways, some of the wilder mistakes concern their moral character. Readers since antiquity have suggested that some of Menander’s hetairai are “good,” since they usually prove innocent of the worst charges laid against them. His brand of mistaken identity certainly involves falsely suspected hetairai and some “good” women who are not hetairai at all, but did he really depict – or even invent – the whore with a heart of gold?7 The strongest positive claim occurs in Plutarch’s Moralia at the end of a speech on the merits of various dinner entertainments. This passage is worth examining because it raises questions about the definition of status, the relationship between status and character and the appropriate criteria for virtue – the same questions 5 6
7
On the etymology and connotations of the name see Davidson 2006: 35–6. Examples of foreigners include Chrysis (Sam.), Thais (Ter. Eun.), the “Bacchides” (Dis Ex.), Pythias (Syn.), and probably a number of title characters (And., Per., Hymn., Khalk., Leuc., Mess., Olyn.). Slaves include the two Habrotonons (Epitr., Perik.), Malthake (Sik.), Dorkion (Fab. Inc. 5 Arnott), the title figures in the Aul¯etris (and Paidion?), a habra-turned-pallak¯e (Pseudher.), and the three-mina woman in the Kolax. There are a few lost daughters (Glykera, Perik.; Plangon, Syn.; Krateia, Mis.) but no hetairai of recognized citizen status. There may be a few freedwomen, such as the & mentioned in Rhap. fr. 332 K-A, if she is the woman who is ‘slapped’ (a sign of a lover’s jealousy, Luc. Dial. Mer. 8.1) and perhaps the title figure of the Anatithemen¯e. The title character of the Thais and the two hetairai in Fab. Inc. 8 Arnott are free but nothing more is known about their status. Cf. Keuls 1985: 188 “the stereotype [of “the whore with the noble character”] can be traced back to Classical Greece, at least as far as the fourth-century playwright Menander, and perhaps further.” See also Webster 1953: 117, Henry 1988: 113–15, Zanker 1987: 149, and Zagagi 1994: 33. Modern scholars agree that Menander depicted women sympathetically (e.g., Ruiz 1981: 49 and passim, Keuls 1985: 191–4, Henry 1988 and 1987 and Martina 1997 ii.2: 287) but no one quite matches Post 1940: 457–8: “Every woman in Menander’s gallery is courageous and independent in face of trouble.”
4
Those obscure objects of desire
that create misunderstandings in the plays. After praising Menander for offering both pleasure and instruction, Plutarch claims that he is the sort of poet to send symposiasts running back to their wives. But the philosopher has to resort to some special pleading about the sexual content: '( )%, * ( + ,, ' -$. , / % - , '( , & / 0 &% 0 , / 1 2-, $ '3 2 - $-. (Mor. 712c) As regards hetairai, if they are audacious and bold, the affair is cut short by selfcontrol or a change of mind in the young men; for those who are good and loving in return, either a legitimate father is found or some additional time is allotted to the affair, with a humanely indulgent attitude towards the disgrace.8
Scholarly efforts to apply these categories to the extant Menandrian comedies and Roman adaptations have been unconvincing, in part because of the limitations of the evidence and in part because this passage is selective and slightly tendentious.9 Plutarch’s categories do not hold up well, even for the few plot endings that survive. The only affair to be “cut short” (in the Heauton Timoroumenos) is terminated by paternal authority, not youthful remorse, while one of the two affairs granted “additional time” (between an old man and his live-in mistress in the Samia) seems permanent. It is hard to believe that a time limit figured prominently in any resolution that left a lover and a hetaira together (no limit is mentioned in the other example, in the Eunuchus); furthermore, the sudden shift to the topic of “humanity,” $-%, suggests that these endings did not promote marriage in quite the same way as fifth act weddings. Scholars have also asked who counts as a hetaira and how many types are distinguished.10 Plutarch’s categories require a broad definition of the 8
9
10
With Minar, Sandbach and Helmbold, I take $ as “indulgence” rather than “companionship.” Brown 1990: 246, follows Russell and Winterbottom’s “which brings a humane relationship of respect,” with reservations. ' , usually “sense of shame,” can mean “that which causes shame, scandal” (LSJ s.v. ii.1). Cf. Gilula 1987: 513–14. Plutarch’s scheme excludes certain plays (Gilula 1987: 512–13, Brown 1990: 246). Contra Anderson 1984: 128 takes it as roughly accurate. Plutarch consistently criticizes hetairai (Pomeroy 1999: 118) and his views on marriage may reflect a new “reciprocal” ideal promoted by Stoic and Christian ethics (but contra Patterson in Pomeroy 1999 argues that much of this is traditional). Gilula 1987, Anderson 1984. Brown 1990: 249–50 argues that two of these women (Glykera and Krateia) are % (“mistresses”) and not hetairai, but Davidson 1997: 101–2 cites cases where such women are called hetairai. These are subjective terms reflecting the attitude of the speaker as much as the status of the referent (Reinsberg 1989: 89, Konstan 1993: 142) and categorical distinctions may be impossible (Ogden 1996: 157). Since kinless women had little hope of marriage, any arrangements they might make were liable to be represented as prostitution. Cf. Omitowoju 200: 213, McClure 2003: 9.
Those obscure objects of desire
5
term hetaira. His argument, after all, is that these women get their just deserts, not that most of the women who appear to be hetairai are really something else. The underlying opposition between marital and extramarital relations suggests that “hetaira” covers virtually all objects of male affection who are not recognized daughters of respectable families from the start of the play. It is not entirely unreasonable to group these women together, but in the surviving plays young women with “legitimate fathers” in their background are not openly and straightforwardly classed as hetairai. The four best-known lost daughters are described as a “captive” and soldier’s “beloved” ( -, Misoumenos), as a “beloved” who was “raised as befits a free woman” (Siky¯onioi), as a “slave . . . to an extent, in a way” (H¯er¯os), and simply as a “girl” ( , ,4, Perikeiromen¯e). The lost daughters in Terence and Plautus are described as a “girl” (puella, virgo) and a “citizen . . . I think” (Eunuchus), as a “teenager” (adulescentula) and “foreigner” (peregrina, Andria), as a “girlfriend” (amica, Heauton), and as a “girl”(puella) reared “decently and chastely” (bene et pudice, Cistellaria). None of these characters accepts the label of hetaira and one explicitly rejects it (Perik. 711). This problem stems from real ambiguities about the status of women in fourth-century Athens. One of the arguments of this book is that Menander’s plots characteristically involve women whose social position is unclear, many of whom could be (and sometime are) called “hetairai” by biased observers. A more troubling issue is that Plutarch’s categories are not parallel. In the surviving fragments of Menander, “audacious” (0) and “bold” ( ,) are stock epithets for hetairai but “good” ( 0) and “loving in return” (& ) are not.11 It has been suggested that the latter should be split, so that “good” women find fathers and “loving” women earn extensions, although as Peter Brown points out, the Greek construction ( . . . ' indicates that “good and loving” is meant to parallel “audacious and bold.”12 There appear to be only two groups here, one of which – the “good and loving in return” – does not correspond to a Menandrian type. Finally, it is also unclear whether Plutarch uses “good” ( 0) in a Menandrian sense: does it carry social implications which would make its application to hetairai oxymoronic, or does it mean little more than “nice” and potentially apply to anyone?13 Menander uses the feminine form 11 12 13
For 0, cf. Dis Ex. 21, 101, Perik. 713. For ,, cf. 163 K–A, P. I.F.A.O. 337 (= Demiourgos iv K-A). Brown 1990: 251. I would add that the single article in , '( , & also supports this reading. Gilula 1980: 147 restricts 0 to citizens. Brown 1990: 252 argues that it was used in a broader sense in the fourth century bc and suggests the translation “nice” here.
6
Those obscure objects of desire
surprisingly rarely (whereas the masculine and neuter are quite common), and two examples turn up in sententiae which leave no doubt that the virtues commended belong to a wife: “a good ( 0) woman is the rudder of the house”(Mon. 155); “a good woman is a prized possession for a decent man” (Mon. 835). Menander wrote a Khr¯est¯e, which may have featured an atypical hetaira (a “good” wife or daughter is not much of a premise), but nothing is known of the play. “Loving in return” is equally problematic. It means “rival in love” as often as “love in return” (cf. the “young rivals,” & %-, at Samia 26).14 Furthermore, Menander barely recognizes the possibility that a woman might reciprocate her lover’s passion. The most devoted women, the loyal young wives in the Epitrepontes, Stichus and (probably non-Menandrian) Didot Papyrus i, do not even speak of affection, much less the intense sexual passion of 2-.15 The hetaira in the Epitrepontes would like to be loved ( 5 432) but shows no sign of succumbing to 2- herself, while the “Samian Girl” speaks of her lover’s 2- with good-natured condescension (“he’s in love too, and pretty badly” Sam. 81). The title character in the Perikeiromen¯e is assumed, at most, to have “liked” her lover (491). In fact, in the entire Menandrian corpus only two women are “in love:” the title character of the lost play Syner¯osa (a feminine participle which translates roughly “loving jointly with,” perhaps in a kind of rivalry?) and the lost daughter Plangon in the Synarist¯osai, who returns her lover’s & (fr. 338 K-A) – the sort of emotion a nurse might feel for a baby (e.g., Sam. 247, 278). If Plautus’ adaptation of this play is any reliable guide, the opening scene dwelt on the bizarreness of her problem (“A heart-ache? Where did you get a heart?” Cist. 65). Plutarch is probably referring to hetairai who forego multiple relationships in favor of a single lover. They are “good” because they are faithful. But he makes an association that Menander does not. Sexual fidelity for Menandrian women has comparatively little to do with virtue and a great deal to do with opportunity. The luxury of a monogamous relationship is out of reach for slaves in the clutches of pimps and for many freeborn hetairai as well. The important choices facing these women are not about fidelity to a lover but about dedication to a natal family, if they have one, or to the welfare of their community, if they do not. Romantic attachments were anything but virtuous, except in the eyes of the lover. As L. A. 14
15
Both Antiphanes and Nikostratos wrote an Anter¯osa (“qui peut signifier la Rivale,” Legrand 1910: 112). There are, however, love-struck hetairai in Plautus, Lucian and Alciphron. Posidippus’ Apokl¯eiomen¯e may have been another (Legrand 116). They admit only to “goodwill” and “liking” (Epitr. 830, P. Did. i.18). Cf. Konstan 1994: 142–3, 145–6.
Those obscure objects of desire
7
Post remarks, “the word eros did not become respectable until late, at least where women were concerned.”16 For Plutarch, who is arguing that the plays promote married love, it is not unreasonable to claim that virtue and “loving in return” go hand in hand, but nothing could be less Menandrian. 2-, a disruptive and often violent emotion, is not associated with good behavior in anyone.17 Its male victims may be treated with considerable sympathy, but their obsessive desire is still an affliction, an embarrassment, and a potential threat to the stability of the community. If Menander was playing to the fantasies of a freeborn male audience, it was surely by making their kin, and not their hired girlfriends, good and loyal. Plutarch might be dismissed as a moralist writing five centuries after Menander and determined to find lessons the plays were not written to teach, but arguments over the moral character of hetairai go back to at least the fourth century, when Middle Comic poets started to describe hetairai in positive terms and to debate the virtues of individual women, praising them as “dignified” ( 0), “clever” ( $0), “witty” (& ,), and “wellbehaved” ( %).18 The comic poet Antiphanes (iv bc), perhaps the first to give a heart of gold to a whore, defended the “true” hetaira in his Hydria: 6 ' 7 - 8 '9 )% 2- &$%, & 1, 0 ' , ! 3 &: , ;- )%. < ( # = > , ;- ? The man I’m speaking about saw a certain hetaira living in his neighborhood and fell in love with her – a citizen, but bereft of a guardian and relatives, in possession of a character of gold where virtue is concerned, in truth a “companion”. The rest damage the name with their character, although it is in reality a fine one. (Athen. 572a = fr. 210 K-A)
The word “hetaira,” itself a euphemism, had acquired some tarnish by the fourth century. In Anaxilas’ (iv bc) Neottis (“The Chick”), the modest suggestion from an unidentified speaker that “hetaira” is a more appropriate term than “whore” ( ) for a particular woman elicits a rant from his companion about the general destructiveness of hetairai, followed by a point 16 17 18
Post 1940: 454. Dover 1974: 212, for example, defines 2- as “an exceptionally strong response to stimuli, i.e. a very strong and obsessive desire.” Henry 1988: 37.
8
Those obscure objects of desire
by point comparison between named individuals and the legendary monsters of myth (Chimaera, Charybdis, Scylla, the Sphinx, Harpies, Sirens, frr. 21–2). The speaker in the Antiphanes passage above, however, is not simply pointing out the hypocrisy of the name. He is making the paradoxical argument that the woman’s virtue (&0) makes her all the more a hetaira. He takes pains to distinguish her @ (“character,” often in a moral sense) from the (“ways” or “character” in the sense of habits and temperament) of other hetairai. His argument requires redefining “hetaira” by resurrecting its original meaning. Any suggestion that it might be possible to be virtuous despite being a hetaira is undercut both by the concession that this woman is an exception to the rule (“the rest hurt the name”) and by her juridical status. Destitution, he seems to imply, is what drove her to become a hetaira, and her heart of gold is unmistakably associated with citizenship. Since Athenian citizenship required two married Athenian parents, she is, evidently, another lost daughter who was probably not left to a life of prostitution. The suggestion that individual hetairai ought to be called something more in accordance with their character would be wholeheartedly endorsed by several Menandrian figures who bandy about less euphemistic names like “whore” and “ground-beater”. An anecdote recorded in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophists, composed some time after the death of Commodus in 192, describes a disagreement between Menander and his fellow comic playwright Philemon: A '( B' C : @ D 0 '. E0 )% , : 8 F ' 3 ', & G B' H '5 = 1. That Menander the poet loved Glykera is common knowledge. But he was ashamed of it. For when Philemon fell in love with a hetaira and called her “good” on stage, Menander wrote in response that none [sc. no hetaira] was good. (13.594d)
Athenaeus’ acceptance of the dubious tradition that Menander loved a hetaira named Glykera is consistent with the assumption, common in antiquity, that playwrights’ lives provided material for their plays.19 By this principle, if Philemon expressed his opinion in a play, Menander must have responded in kind. The story has a suspiciously comic flavor: an infatuated lover finds in his girlfriend virtues that a more cynical lover denies to her whole profession. The phrase “none is good” suggests a lover at a low point, not a playwright discussing his work. It looks as if a biographical incident 19
See K¨orte 1919 on Menander and “Glykera.”
Those obscure objects of desire
9
has been extrapolated from passages that happened to make contradictory claims about hetairai, but unfortunately none survive.20 All this story can confirm is something implicit in the Antiphanes passage: it was provocative to claim that a hetaira could be “good” since her profession was thought to preclude it. The issue, then, is not literary innovation – at least, not before Donatus – but whether a member of a despised status and profession could be “good” in any sense.21 Antiphanes and Athenaeus are operating within the fictional world of New Comedy. Plutarch is more detached, but what he sees is noticeably shaped by his own agenda. It is questionable whether any of these references really provides evidence for a “good” stock type on the comic stage, although they do testify to an interest in the moral character of a type that had formerly embodied only vice. I have used the question of the good hetaira as a point of departure because it introduces larger questions about female identity. Menander’s female characters were shaped by a combination of literary traditions, philosophical ideas and the real circumstances of life in the Hellenistic Greek world. Economic and social conditions dictate some of their behavior, as do contemporary expectations about qualities that come naturally to different subsections of the population. Greeks recognized many significant status distinctions among women: legal (e.g., citizen, foreigner, slave, freedwoman), social (e.g., unmarried girls, wives, old women), even professional (e.g., midwives, market sellers, pipe players). Menander’s plays fully acknowledge the status divisions which Greeks – and Athenians in particular – considered important, but they also challenge notions of absolute and clearly demarcated groups by presenting women whose status is not quite clear. Problems of determining status lie at the center of these plays: virtually all contain errors about a woman’s position within her community. This book begins with an examination of relatively objective mistakes, the most common type for women. Chapter 2 argues that Menander devised ingenious variations in order to explore how and why characters make blatant mistakes which they often refuse to give up. The underlying psychology in the plays is consistent with fourth-century theories of perception. Chapter 3 examines errors about more subjective aspects of identity, arguing that serious suspicions about a woman’s moral character are acceptable only when her status is low. These suspicions often draw on the stereotype of the wicked prostitute, whether the woman is a prostitute or not, and 20 21
Henry 1988: 44, Gilula 1987: 514–15, n. 16. See also Legrand 1910: 113, Anderson 1984: 133 n. 2. Donatus credited Terence with inventing the “good hetaira” (ad Eun. 198, ad Hec. 774, cf. Evanthius De Fabula 2.4, discussed by Norwood 1923: 145, Duckworth 1952: 259, Perelli 1973: 39 and Gilula 1980). On his generally sympathetic treatment of women see Taladoire 1972: 114 and Perelli 1973: 32.
10
Those obscure objects of desire
the emotional disposition of the viewer plays an even greater role than in mistakes about status. Naturally, the audience needed to recognize mistakes as such, since they provide much of the dramatic interest, and New Comedy often resorts to artificial means to provide the sort of background knowledge that tragedy could simply assume. This was particularly tricky for morally ambiguous behavior, since the audience had to be convinced, and not merely informed, of the correct interpretation. Chapter 4, which explores questions of women’s moral agency and the relationship between social roles and moral expectations, examines how Menander tries to engage our sympathies for the characters who are rewarded at the end of the play. Chapter 5 focuses on a single play, the Epitrepontes, which features the likeliest “whore with a heart of gold” in Menander. This chapter shows the connection between mistakes about “who” (socially, legally) and mistakes about “what” (personally, morally) a woman is and argues that even a sympathetic hetaira can only be called “good” in a limited sense. The final chapter turns to broader questions about the Menandrian mistakenidentity plot: where did it come from and why did women become the typical objects of mistakes? Did Menander also create la femme incomprise? The core of my argument derives from close analysis of speeches by and about women, with particular attention to the language Menander uses to articulate problems of knowledge, perception, responsibility, and judgment, as well as the multiple means he employs to keep his audience in a position of privileged understanding. I concentrate on the Greek plays and fragments. Although some reference is made to Roman adaptations, these are of limited use in demonstrating that devices and themes are characteristic of Menander (my findings do, however, offer new insights into Plautus and Terence). My primary concern is how Menandrian women are seen and judged by Menandrian men. I am interested in the subjective elements of statements about status and moral character, and my readings emphasize both the fictional context and dramatic character of the speaker. My goal is to recuperate the range of meanings available to an original audience, including both implicit and contextual meanings and the nuances of individual words or phrases. “Contextual meanings” include the specific dramatic context, the generic context (how conventions of New Comedy, or in some cases tragedy, influence what is said and how it is received), and the broader historical context. My basic approach is philological, starting with close readings of the text and drawing on the growing corpus of Menandrian textual criticism and commentary. Emphasis is placed on concepts expressed within the plays themselves (e.g., # , ) and interpretive tools available to the playwright and his audience (e.g., contemporary
Those obscure objects of desire
11
ethics and rhetorical theory). Ancient readers praised Menander for his realism and plausibility, a standard held up by Aristotle and plenty of “internal playwrights” within the corpus.22 For actions to seem plausible, either on stage or in the courtroom, they had to conform to commonly held assumptions that were being investigated and classified by contemporary philosophers, especially the Peripatetics. Many Menandrian characters in fact think and act in ways that fourth-century scholars of rhetoric and ethics were theorizing. For the historical context, I am indebted to the many scholars who have illuminated the questions of formal status and points of law and custom that figure in Menandrian identity mistakes.23 It is important to recognize the implications of being a citizen, metic, freedwoman or slave, the relevant Athenian laws of family and property, and the socioeconomic context – from women’s religious activities to marriage customs, family dynamics, and the many gradations of ancient prostitution. Menander’s plays have long been recognized as sources, albeit slippery ones, for Attic social and legal history; they show the “law in action” – how people thought about the law and how it affected their daily lives. Nor can political context be discounted. These plays were once disparaged as apolitical, escapist fantasies written for people who took two-talent dowries as a matter of course and did not need the theoric fund to afford tickets. But more recently scholars have shown the plays’ ideological engagement, particularly with social and economic issues, and have questioned whether they really are politically neutral.24 Classicists have drawn on theories of Marx and Althusser, among others, that works of fiction are always ideologically engaged in a broad sense of “ideology”: the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. Fiction often supports values that serve the interests of politically powerful groups (“dominant codes of behaviour”), even when it is not overtly political.25 Several major recent studies have collected ample evidence of “political” engagement in this sense in Menander, even though New Comic conventions did not make it easy to include overtly political 22 23
24
25
Aristophanes of Byzantium, Manilius and Quintilian note Menander’s “realism” (Test. 83, 94, 101 K-A). Arist. Poet. 1451b12–13, 1455a33–4. More scholars have grappled with the problems of using Menander as a historical source than can be listed here. Scafuro 1997, Krieter-Spiro 1997 and Lape 2004 are excellent starting points for law, society and politics, respectively. Apolitical readings include Shipp 1960, Barigazzi 1965: 18, 222, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 23–4, Davies 1978: 113–14, Webster 1953: 100 and 1974: 2–5, Green 1990: 73, Walton and Arnott 1996: 29–30, and Nesselrath 1997: 287, n. 54. Ideological readings include Masaracchia 1981, Konstan 1995 and Rosivach 1998, who focus on social issues; Scafuro 1997 and Omitowoju 2002, on legal issues; and Wiles 1991: 29, on tensions between the individual and the state. E.g., Lape 2004. Quotation from Rabinowitz 1987: 127.
12
Those obscure objects of desire
content.26 Although I have profited greatly from these, my own project differs from studies which read Menander for implicit ideological content in order to better understand the values and assumptions behind Attic laws. My purpose is not to analyze the extra-textual work the plays are doing (for example, defending and justifying patriarchal values such as the subordination of women) but to illuminate the patterns of thinking that generate errors within this fictional form. I share the historicist belief that a phenomenon like mistaken identity is best understood through its historical development, starting with its original historical, intellectual, and artistic context, and I am more interested in the development and application of the device than in the specific values it was used to promote. Finally, this project owes an enormous debt to feminist scholarship on the representation of women in earlier Greek literature. Tragedy and epic addressed problems that recur in New Comedy, such as the conflicting loyalties wives often feel for their natal and marital families or the problems of integrating women into civic space, and used similar strategies to neutralize the threats posed by women’s supposedly insatiable sexuality and propensity for deceit.27 Anthropologically based studies have shown the importance of evaluating women’s behavior within a framework of expectations based on social roles.28 This work has been particularly helpful to me for understanding the moral choices faced by Menander’s women, who are often subjected to conflicting demands from very different roles: a false identity forced upon them by circumstances and a true identity which must remain hidden. This is usually dramatized as conflict of loyalties to different male figures. The problem in evaluating their moral choices is to situate them in the right role (and what other characters see is heavily influenced by what they believe this role ought to be). Menander thus follows in a long tradition, going back to tragedy, of using women to explore questions of ethics, perception, and judgment. Since Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal work on women as Other, classical scholars drawing on Freud and psychoanalytic theory have shown how the tragedians and others used women as a “projection surface,” for both fantasies and problems of interest to fifth-century male audiences.29 Menander’s women are particularly well suited to serve as a screen for the projection of male hopes and fears because they are 26
27 28 29
Evidence has been found of pro-Macedonian (Major 1997), oligarchic (Wiles 1984), and even democratic (Hofmeister 1997, Lape 2004) ideology. Incidental references to political figures and events had long since been noted, e.g., by Webster 1953: 103–110. See, e.g., Murnaghan 1995, Rabinowitz 1993. E.g., Demand 1994, Wohl 1998, Foley 2001, Blok 2001. Rabinowitz 1993, Seidensticker 1995, Zeitlin 1996, Kurke 1997 and 1999, Wohl 1998, Gilhuly 1999, McClure 1999, Ormand 1999, Foley 2001, and Griffith 2001.
Those obscure objects of desire
13
heavily constructed figures – sometimes in multiple ways, as, for example, when a stock type is overwritten by individual characters who determine “who” and “what” she is to serve their own ends. There is little possibility of recovering any kind of authentic female voice here; even when they are allowed to speak, these women ventriloquize the values of others. What these plays do show is an awareness of the construction of identity as a process – an act of interpretation, even creation (an idea which becomes explicit in Plautus) – rather than a detection of some underlying truth. There is considerable overlap with techniques of rhetoric. Indeed, Menander and his contemporaries were very much aware of the subjectivity of the viewer, a principle that is explicitly articulated in the Aspis.30 Not only does Menander freely borrow tragic language, situations, dramatic techniques, plot elements, and themes, but he also engages with some of the epistemological questions that interested the tragedians, notably the question of how people interpret what they see and hear.31 In other words, he is interested in the process of creating meaning out of spectacle. As a comic poet, he explores these problems lower down the social scale than tragedy, in the “real” world of the average citizen rather than the mythic world of kings and heroes. He uses women to develop scenarios that make these problems dramatically interesting and exploits comedy’s traditional license to rupture dramatic illusion in order to comment on the play as a play. Not only does he create internal spectators, whose reactions offer insight into how contemporary audiences interpreted the actions of characters on stage, but he embeds critiques of their interpretations within the dramatic fiction. Menander was able to look back on a long history of dramatic explorations of problems of knowing oneself and others. He also had the benefit of a critical tradition that had named and classified many of the conventions used in these plays. This book argues that his comedies show an awareness of the process by which identity mistakes are made and that they employ a richly varied language, to which formal rhetoric and ethics certainly contributed, to reflect on a central, absorbing problem: how do people fail to understand those they supposedly know best? 30 31
See the discussion in chapter 2, pp. 62–5. Euripides, for example, articulates the problem of inferring the unknown from the visible: , 3 &$1 (Oenomaus, fr. 574 Nauck), &$1 % - I% (Phoenix, fr. 811 Nauck).
chap t e r 2
Misperception of status
The mistaken identity plots of Greek and Roman comedy are notoriously formulaic: pirates, kidnappings, sale into slavery, threats of prostitution and then last-minute rescues through recognition. It can be hard to see why audiences kept coming back for new plays. The most familiar type is probably the “lost daughter” play, about a girl on the brink of prostitution who clutches her birth tokens through three or four acts until a legitimate father turns up by the fifth.1 She appears in many guises. Some lost daughters pass for prostitutes (e.g., in Plautus’ Cistellaria and Terence’s Andria, both adapted from Menandrian originals); others are living as concubines (e.g., in the Perikeiromen¯e) or as slaves (the Misoumenos, Siky¯onioi). Women can be “lost” in many different ways, however, and mistakes are made about other things than free birth and a legitimate father. This chapter looks at ways the stock device can be varied in order to try to explain why ancient audiences and playwrights found this premise so engaging. My focus is on how and why characters go wrong and my aim is to show how Menander managed to turn relatively simple errors about legal and social status into dramas full of conflict, emotion and even humor. Disputes over the position a woman holds or ought to hold in a community figure prominently in almost every Menandrian play. The Siky¯onioi, Misoumenos, Perikeiromen¯e, and H¯er¯os feature heated arguments about the heroine’s status, while the Dyskolos, Aspis, and Phasma explore more imaginative mistakes. An unidentified play, Arnott’s Fabula Incerta 8, preserves the remains of a particularly complicated mistake: an excitable young man seems to have fallen successively for two different women, thinking they were the same one. These disputes are largely between men and usually 1
Often called “lost citizens,” these women are rarely referred to as such in the Greek. Before recognition they are “slaves,” “captives” and even “hetairai;” after, they are “daughters.” Only Philoumene is called a , (“citizen”) and it is in the context of a debate over her juridical status. There is also a & 0 in Karch. 38–9. See Omitowoju 2002: 206–8 on the scarcity of citizenship terms. It was Terence who regularly used the word civis (e.g., And. 780, Eun. 890, Phor. 114, Ad. 725, cf. Poen. 372).
14
Misperception of status
15
over sexual access to the woman: who has it and on what terms. They range from a very public assembly to a very private debate between friends and they cover everything from the legal (a deadlocked ransom negotiation) to the metaphysical (an argument about a psychological illness). Much of the humor of mistaken identity plots comes from what the philosopher Henri Bergson called the “reciprocal interference of series,” situations which “[belong] simultaneously to two altogether independent series of events and [are] capable of being interpreted in two entirely different meanings at the same time.”2 Menander was a master in creating ironic arguments at cross purposes between characters who cannot see beyond their own interests. This chapter emphasizes women, not because the playwright is uninterested in mistakes about men, but because the latter tend to concern moral character rather than status, at least when they are central to the plot (the Siky¯onioi is an exception). Mistakes which play out as arguments are of course a useful technique for providing insight into a character’s motivation and beliefs. As one scholar notes, “Menander is by no means concerned with ¯ethos [character] by itself, but rather with the way his characters think, the way they make assessments and deductions, the way that ¯ethos is sometimes a function of dianoia [intelligence, intellectual capacity].”3 Misperception is treated here as an aspect of dianoia, an intellectual process grounded in what Menander’s contemporaries would have recognized as basic human psychology. Fourth-century rhetorical and philosophical theory about the role of emotions in perception can help contextualize Menandrian mistaken identity. For an ancient audience, it was common wisdom that emotions affected judgment. Rhetorical handbooks recognized that moving an audience was halfway to convincing them and accordingly taught how to exploit the conditions that made people irrational judges. A late fourth-century manual in the sophistic tradition advises aspiring orators to gauge the disposition of their audience and address any hostility right away: “in addressing an audience on [subjects liable to rouse hostility] one should . . . put the blame on necessity, fortune, circumstances, considerations of expediency, and say that the responsibility . . . lies not with the advisers but with the facts of the case.”4 Implicit is the assumption that the case is already lost if the audience is “hostile” (' 0). This manual also suggests that emotional impairment could serve as a criminal defense: “try to gain pardon 2 4
3 Scafuro 2003: 115. Bergson 1981: 123. Rhet. ad Alex. 1437b22–7 tr. H. Rackham. Speech introductions should secure attention and goodwill: “we shall secure their goodwill by first considering how they happen to be disposed towards us of themselves – whether they are friendly or hostile or merely neutral” (1436 b17–19).
16
Misperception of status
by bringing in the passions to which all mankind are liable, that divert us from rational calculation ( ) – namely love, anger, intoxication, ambition and the like.”5 In his own treatise on rhetoric, Aristotle also recognizes the possibility of swaying an audience by appealing to their emotions: “all people are persuaded either because as judges they themselves are affected in some way ( % < %) or because they suppose the speakers have certain qualities or because something has been logically demonstrated.”6 Aristotle takes a greater interest in causes than the author of the sophistic treatise and offers a psychological explanation of the effect of audience disposition ( ', % - &0) on judgments at trials: Things do not seem the same to those who are friendly and those who are hostile (misousin), nor [the same] to the angry and the calm but either altogether different or different in importance: to one who is friendly, the person about whom he passes judgment (krisin) seems not to do wrong or only in a small way; to one who is hostile, the opposite; and to a person feeling strong desire (epithumounti) and being hopeful, if something in the future is a source of pleasure, it appears that it will come to pass and will be good; but to an unemotional person and one in a disagreeable state of mind, the opposite. (Rhet. 1377b31–1378a5 tr. Kennedy)
What is important here is that Aristotle sees emotions directly affecting perception – how things “seem” ($%). The plays discussed in this chapter will furnish many examples of “persons feeling strong desire” who believe that their hopes will come to pass: Moschion (the Perikeiromen¯e), Sostratos (the Dyskolos), Daos (the H¯er¯os), Smikrines (the Aspis), Speaker A (Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott). There are also examples of the pairs Aristotle cites: Polemon and Pataikos in the Perikeiromen¯e can easily be described as “the angry and the calm;” Thrasonides and Getas in the Misoumenos are certainly “the friendly and the hostile.” We may see outrageous errors by characters desperate to believe their beloved belongs to an accessible status category. In contemporary terms, however, they are simply “judging” as people in the grip of desire generally do.
s i k y o¯ n i o i (the sikyonians) The Siky¯onioi is one of a number of plays in which the heroine’s status is at the center of all major conflicts. It is a good starting point because it concerns juridical status in a narrow sense: whether or not the woman is 5
Rhet. ad Alex. 1429a16–19.
6
1403b10–13, tr. Kennedy.
Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians)
17
an Athenian citizen. One of the few status categories with a clear legal definition, citizenship is theoretically determinate, although Menander knew how to muddy the waters. In this case, he motivates the conflict by setting up a complicated situation of false enslavement. A prologue fragment tells how a four-year-old Athenian girl named Philoumene and a family slave were kidnapped and taken to Caria, where they were sold to an “extremely decent commander – rich too.” The commander is probably a soldier named Stratophanes. Sikyonian by birth but raised in Athens, he has returned home intending to settle down with Philoumene, now old enough for him to have fallen in love with her.7 The young woman has other ideas, however. She takes advantage of their return to Athens to flee to the sanctuary at Eleusis, where she pleads for a chance to find her lost family and reclaim her citizenship. Not surprisingly, since the enslavement of Athenians was illegal at Athens, she receives a sympathetic hearing. Her disclosure effectively blocks the marriage, since a Sikyonian could not marry an Athenian.8 Stratophanes’ status of course proves satisfactory in the end: the Sikyonians were only adoptive parents; his real parents were Athenian. His recovery of citizenship generates comparatively little conflict, however. Menander is far more interested in the tensions created by the temporary uncertainties surrounding Philoumene’s status. In the course of the play almost everyone becomes involved in the dispute between Stratophanes and Philoumene. The people of Eleusis meet to adjudicate it. There are at least two, and possibly three, claimants to Philoumene, not counting her actual father. The dispute also affects the soldier’s other dependents: his parasite Theron, who hopes to marry Stratophanes’ housekeeper (and interim mistress?) Malthake, and the slave sold with Philoumene, Dromon, who wants to reunite her with her family.9 Some of the uncertainties about Philoumene’s situation cannot be easily resolved. The background would be clearer if more of Acts I and II had
7
8 9
Alternatively, the buyer might be his deceased Sikyonian foster father (“more probably,” Arnott 2000a: 211 n. 4, cf. MacCary 1972: 286 and n. 22), but this character sketch would then be superfluous. It is unlikely that an Athenian family gave a child to a mercenary and unclear how Stratophanes was once poor (fr. 6 Arnott) if his father had been rich. On prohibitions on marriage between Athenians and foreigners see Harrison 1998 i: 24–9, MacDowell 1978: 87, Sealey 1984: 112–19, and Just 1989: 62–4. Malthake must be Athenian if Theron is (Arnott 2000a: 209) but they might both be non-citizens (Lape 2004: 219 “the marriage. . . . would have been akin to a metic marriage”). Pollux (4. 119) mentions a parasite wearing white to a wedding “in the Sikyonios,” probably this play. The title is attested in both the singular and plural. Faced with the necessity of a choice, I have followed papyrological and pictorial evidence against the majority of the testimonia (see Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 632, Belardinelli 1994: 56–9, and Arnott 2000a: 196–8 for discussion).
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Misperception of status
survived.10 As it is, some detective work is needed to reconstruct her relationship to Stratophanes. Photius preserves a short quotation from the play, evidently from the prologue, suggesting that the soldier originally intended to make her a habra (lady’s maid) but changed his mind. He bought another woman for the purpose and raised Philoumene as a free woman instead: J> &-8, - 8 ( '- 2 , 2$ '( - H . (fr. 1 Sandbach = fr. 4 Arnott)11
. . . buying instead a lady’s maid, he did not hand his beloved over for her to have but raised her separately, as befits a free woman.
It looks as if Philoumene was raised to replace Malthake in a more formal union when Stratophanes was ready to settle down. “For her” must refer to the only other female member of Stratophanes’ household, Malthake, who is probably the soldier’s mistress.12 She is the only person in the play who could be called a hetaira (409) and the likeliest to complain about feeding donkeys on marches (411–12). (The speaker here is female because of the feminine participle and cannot be Philoumene. A “free woman” would be spared this menial task.) As soon as everything falls into place for Stratophanes’ marriage, Malthake is bustled out of the house with enough baggage (“suitcases, knapsacks, hampers, trunks” 388–9) to imply years of generous maintenance. This rather suggests a mistress who had to be dismissed before the bride could be received and who was ready to retire whenever the soldier would release her on good terms.13 “His beloved” in line 2 of the fragment is best taken as a pregnant construction, describing Philoumene as she is now, not as she was at the time of purchase (although 10
11 12
13
Except for three short scraps appearing in 1906, most of the play was first published by A. Blanchard and A. Bataille in 1964. Arnott 2000a prints the remains of 470 lines, the majority from Acts III–V. All Siky¯onioi citations are from Arnott except fr. 1. I have moved up Sandbach’s comma after - so that the J> is not the beloved. A J> was an unusually trusted and privileged slave (Francis 1975, cf. Men. frr. 63 and 411 K-A). The unnamed woman might be the soldier’s foster mother (Galiano, Corbato, both cited Belardinelli 1994: 235–6) but '- is a casual way to describe sending someone across the Aegean (the sale takes place in Caria and the foster parents evidently lived in Athens, since Stratophanes sends a slave “home,” K' at 120). They cannot have raised Philoumene (Arnott 2000a: 207) because her enslavement at Athens was illegal. For the same reason, it is unlikely that she lived there with Stratophanes and exploited a campaign absence to seek sanctuary (as Lape 2004: 218 suggests). See Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 634 and Henry 1988: 89–92 (Malthake as mistress), Krieter-Spiro 1997: 53 (as housekeeper) and Ireland 1992: 114 (as both).
Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians)
19
this means the prologue speaker must have stopped referring to her as “the child” somewhere in the 26–40 missing lines).14 Stratophanes’ intentions are a mystery. Raising her “as befits a free woman” suggests that he freed her (technically, one had to be born an or “free woman,” so he could only make her an &, “freedwoman”) but he is still called her master (' ) at the beginning of the play. At four, the girl was too young for any kind of work.15 He had to raise her in any case, but why as a free woman? One possibility is that he intended to return her to her family, a benevolent scheme which figures in the Eunuchus and the Andria. There was, however, no reason to wait until she was an adult or to conceal his intentions (and if he had told her the truth, she had no reason for flight). He does claim to have “saved” her for her father (253), but only after he has learned of his own citizenship, and in the same breath as a marriage proposal. It seems unlikely that he restored her to her homeland intentionally. I suspect the benefactions he brags about in 79–84 (“benefactor,” “favor . . . child,” “doing an act of charity”) were similar to those Thrasonides conferred on Krateia: nominal freedom, clothing, jewelry, servants, and a position of authority within the household. Stratophanes paid Philoumene’s $, or rearing expenses and gave her a comfortable life when she could have expected only slavery. We are told about this at least three times: in fragment 1, at 226 (“I raised [her from] a small child”), and at 237 (“I waive her $,”). Child rearing was an expensive investment, never undertaken in New Comedy for purely sentimental reasons – at least, never by men – and Stratophanes can hardly have fallen in love with a four-year-old. He must have had some hope of future return and a long-term plan to make her a domestic partner seems the likeliest explanation. Slave concubines were probably common (although raising one for the purpose is a little unusual).16 Stratophanes’ willingness to waive her rearing expenses when he bids for her hand suggests that he regards marriage as adequate compensation. Moreover, the education he gave her qualified her for nothing but concubinage or marriage: a “free woman” did not learn marketable skills.17 We know that Stratophanes had 14
15 16
17
First suggested by Marzullo 1967: 16–17, but Gallavotti 1970: 50 notes that the two participles (&-8, -) would need to refer to different points in time. The lack of an article with - is also a problem. My reconstruction follows Henry 1988: 88–9 and Arnott 1997c: 102. Barigazzi 1986: 189, Belardinelli 1994: 234 n. 1, Arnott 1997c: 102. Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 168. Adoption of (but not marriage to) a freed /0 is attested (179); concubines evidently had to wait until they had children to be manumitted (see 167, 169 for examples). Clark 1989: 12.
20
Misperception of status
enough money to forego a dowry. Since his Sikyonian citizenship left him few marital options at Athens, a freedwoman of his own rearing may have seemed preferable (or simply easier for an ex-soldier to obtain?) than the daughter of another metic. Menander goes to some effort to mislead his hero about the heroine’s status. It looks as if Stratophanes never knew Philoumene’s Athenian origins. A tantalizing fragment from the prologue, right after the account of the purchase, mentions a man bringing someone or something in apparent ignorance: [] '%- : [%'] [.]. - , [ [ ] ..'. ', []
(perhaps [])
(17–19)
for the little child, her father[land] . . . [recently?] bringing . . . into (her?) familial . . . [before] seeming to know [what/anything]
Philoumene is the only “little child” in the play (mentioned as such in lines 5, 17 and 84). At some point Stratophanes brought her from Caria, where she was purchased and probably reared, to her “fatherland” of Athens, the setting of the play (“this is Eleusis” in line 57 suggests recent arrival). It is hard to believe that he knew he was repatriating her. He had every reason to avoid Athens, the one place where she could permanently escape his grasp. It may be simply that Dromon lied to him in the hope that they might return some day, a reasonable expectation once he learned that his master had Athenian ties. Her flight to the sanctuary clearly comes as a surprise; evidently he has been under a false belief about her nationality. This ignorance has serious consequences: his most important emotional relationship – at least a decade in the planning – is now predicated on a mistaken assumption about Philoumene’s status. The question of who has kyrieia (legal authority) over Philoumene thus pits the two principal characters directly against one another, eventually bringing them before a local deme assembly. The messenger who reports the assembly’s deliberations in Act IV describes Philoumene sitting “by the gates” of the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore – appropriately enough for a kidnapped girl fleeing an unwanted marriage.18 “Sitting” ( 190) can also mean “sitting in supplication.”19 He also describes her as “having fled” (214), which suggests some urgency. We do not know her immediate reason for flight. Dromon offers an explanation, but the lines 18
Arnott 1997a: 3, Lape 2004: 238 n. 89.
19
Belardinelli 1994: 165 ad 190.
Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians)
21
are badly preserved (“that the master . . . do harm,” C 8 0 194) and it is not clear whether he is discussing why she fled or how the soldier reacted. We were told earlier that she had three causes for fear. An unidentified speaker, probably Moschion, reported: “she’s afraid, (s?)he says, of him as master (' ), foreigner (4[]), and third, lover ( )” (97–8).20 This passage, the only potentially direct evidence for Philoumene’s views, significantly puts “master” before “lover” and suggests that their relationship was colored by fear. She seems to think of herself as an Athenian: calling Stratophanes a “foreigner” sounds like an assertion of national identity, since it implies membership in some group against which foreigners could be defined. As an Athenian, she has grounds to challenge his claim to be her “master,” although she does acknowledge the amorous relationship (but only as a third cause for fear – perhaps because he will be more reluctant to relinquish her). Since Greeks did not assume, or even expect, mutual affection in such relationships, recognition of his tender feelings need not imply any on her part: “ardent suitor” may capture the sense here. What anticipated harm, then, drove her to flight? Belardinelli suggests she was worried about losing her virginity and the consequences it might have for her reinstatement as an Athenian.21 It seems unlikely, however, that this would prevent her from seeking her parents. Glykera and her father are delighted to find one another in the Perikeiromen¯e, despite her affair with a soldier, and the father in the Misoumenos still wants to reclaim a daughter who has belonged to a soldier for some time. Moreover, Dromon later praises the soldier to Philoumene’s father for “saving your girl [ , i.e., unmarried girl] for you” (379) and emphasizes that she is “a virgin still, without experience of men” (373–4). This would be an odd position to take if he knew that she had fled to avoid rape. It also seems out of character for a “thoroughly decent commander” like Stratophanes to use force against a girl he has raised. Even the soldier in the Misoumenos balks at rape, and he is violent enough that his slave hides the household swords. If “lover” really is the most important item it is hard to see why it comes last on Philoumene’s list. Stratophanes’ love is a complication but surely not the main problem. Philoumene must have had a more pressing reason to flee. Fear of obstruction in the search for her family is a more plausible explanation. When he addresses the informal assembly, Stratophanes takes it for granted that she wants to find her relatives and tries to release her from 20 21
CGFP 242.85–6 suggests this list may have been a topos (Belardinelli 1994: 126 ad 97–8). “Lover” might come as a surprise, a '% effect. Belardinelli 1994: 126 ad 97–8.
22
Misperception of status
“fear” of himself ($ > . . . L 3 241) by relinquishing kyrieia to the assembly (a bit gratuitous, since she would be as well protected from any advances once she was lodged with the priestess, whether he remained her kyrios or not). His concession, “let her find her father and relatives – I’m not offering any opposition” (238–9), suggests a change of heart and at the same time acknowledges that opposition from him might be expected. If he had learned or suspected the truth, he may have threatened to take her away from Athens. Even if he had made no explicit threat, a dependent who hoped to escape his kyrieia had grounds for fear. He had the authority to take her away (as her “master”), soluble ties to Athens (as a “foreigner”) and a particular reason to block her flight (as her “lover”). There are hints earlier in the play of a plan that may have included leaving Athens. An unidentified speaker, most likely Theron, proposes “dragging off” someone (59–60), very likely Philoumene, during the confusion of a town meeting. His talk of finding a person “to witness thus” (M- , 55) is probably not a proposal to pass Philoumene off as a citizen, as Arnott suggests, because this would not do Stratophanes any good (he is still a presumptive Sikyonian).22 It is more likely a conjecture about her own plans: a scheme of this sort would help her. Theron is projecting his own duplicity, pointing out how easy it would be to find a dishonest witness and advising the soldier to forestall this with a quick abduction. There would be no point in dragging her away from the sanctuary unless steps were also taken to prevent further attempts. Leaving Athens would have been the simplest solution. Stratophanes puts a very different color on the relationship than Philoumene does, if my reconstruction is correct. Implicitly denying all three of her reasons for fear, he claims that he is not a “foreigner” but “a citizen of yours” (% L), if his mother’s will and the tokens can be trusted (and he is modest – or clever – enough to profess some doubt). Far from calling himself her “lover,” he avoids any suggestion that he might have treated an Athenian girl as a sex object. Instead he talks about “having saved her for her father” and about “petitioning” for her hand (253–4), confesses to “hope” (251) – putting sex firmly in the future – and twice refers to her as a , “unmarried girl” (252, 255). The lines about their past relationship are fragmentary, but two references to “rearing” (226, 237) and the word (“girl/maiden” 236) suggest that he did not represent himself as her master or speak of her as his slave. When the papyrus resumes at 235 he is grandly giving her something that was 22
Legrand 1910: 93 n. 1, Arnott 1997a: 7, 2000a: 217–18.
Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians)
23
her father’s “but is now mine.” This can only be Dromon (the gift is in the masculine singular). Not only does this magnanimous gesture win him sympathy, but it also gives credibility to his narrative of generous treatment, at the same time underscoring the difference between Philoumene and the actual slaves in his household. He had already convinced the assembly of his sincerity with sighs and tears (220–21); he may even have invited them openly to judge his conduct (this seems to be the implication of “in a way worthy of you (plural)” in 230). Surprisingly, Stratophanes carries his denial of the master-slave relationship to the point of ceding his legal rights, claiming neither kyrieia (he fully acknowledges her citizenship) nor recompense for her rearing expenses – all in order to advance his suit with her undiscovered father, for which he asks permission (“allow me to ask him” 254). This is pure flattery, “a masterstroke,” as one critic describes it.23 Not even the full Athenian Assembly, the voting body of male citizens that met on the Pnyx, could deny someone the right simply to ask a man for his daughter. They could however adjudicate a kyrieia dispute, which is what this assembly does when it places Philoumene with the sanctuary priestess. It is also flattery to pretend that the girl belongs to the assembled citizens, at least temporarily (“being this girl’s guardians yourselves” 240–1), and that the priestess will serve their interests by keeping her (“let her watch the girl for you” 242–3). “Guardians” is an honorific title without legal force here. It was the archon, not the Assembly, who acted as kyrios of orphans.24 Stratophanes, moreover, has already recognized her father as her real kyrios. But the pretence that she belongs to the people of Eleusis serves his rhetorical ends: it earns him “much goodwill” (243–4) and a favorable response to his request. The assembly shouts approval and encourages him to continue (“everyone cried ‘he’s right,’ and then again from everyone ‘speak’” 244–5). It also allows him to appear disinterested – the sort of person to give up his rights for the girl’s benefit – and it gives the assembly a personal interest in her fate. Since it effectively turns his rivals into their opponents, it also forestalls alternative proposals (“let none of my opponents become kyrios of the girl before he [sc. her father] appears” 255–7). Finally, he is careful to make denial appear particularly cruel: “don’t take this hope away from me yet” (251–2).25 23
24 25
Hofmeister 1997: 311, q.v. 312–13 on Stratophanes’ use of rhetorical strategies typically employed by elite speakers before mass audiences (it is unclear, however, that a foreign ex-soldier, without property, political clout, or aristocratic birth, would necessarily have been regarded as “elite”). Harrison 1998 i: 102–4. Lape 2004: 231–2 emphasizes the symbolic meaning of yielding kyrieia: sexual control (which he cedes) symbolizes political control (which they assert in accepting kyrieia). Lape 2004: 218 n. 39.
24
Misperception of status
At least one of Stratophanes’ opponents takes a less benign view of the relationship between the soldier and the young woman. Moschion, who speaks up against the soldier in the assembly, attempts to arrest him and Theron afterwards as kidnappers (&'' 272). The young man seems to have chosen this particular charge less for its plausibility than because it permitted summary arrest, which would keep the soldier from contracting a marriage in the short term (Moschion actually uses the technical term for summary arrest, & ,[], in 272). Because “kidnapping” a citizen usually meant enslavement, the ostensible crime is probably not placing her with the priestess, which would be hard to construe as enslavement (or even detention, since she is at the sanctuary of her own will), but having kept her as a slave for the last decade.26 This would imply that Stratophanes knew she was a citizen. “Kidnapping” may even allude to the “tragic rubbish” (i.e., the story about recently discovered citizenship) Moschion criticized when he accused the soldier of planning to keep the girl, now that he had “got her for himself” (262–3).27 It is not unreasonable for him to suspect fraud. The will that made Stratophanes a citizen turned up at a suspiciously convenient moment and might well look like a scheme to keep Philoumene in a sham marriage, arguably little more than “kidnapping.” Although this assembly ignored the smooth-shaven fellow who “looked like a womanizer” (210), Moschion may have hoped to convince another assembly that the soldier’s claim to citizenship, and thus to the girl, was fraudulent. His agitation during the assembly (he turned white and “jumped in,” 258–9) suggests that the news came as an unpleasant surprise. At very least, it removed an advantage he had probably hoped to exploit. Moschion applies a revealing double standard to the two claims of citizenship. Stratophanes’ infuriates him; Philoumene’s (via Dromon) seems to have inspired him to “dare” something (102), despite momentary doubts about the slave’s honesty. We do not know what he had in mind but he must have contacted the slave prior to the assembly, since he asserts there that Dromon knows who he is (or perhaps what he is saying – the text is uncertain) and he claims to have been “helping” the two for a while (204–5). His envy at the news that Stratophanes is indeed a citizen (and his 26 27
Placing her with the priestess might be “kidnapping” if Moschion thought his family owned her (Arnott 2000a: 260–1 n. 27), but he seems to have accepted her as a citizen. & may imply more of a victory than Stratophanes actually won: it can mean “marry” when the object is a woman. Pace Arnott 1997b: 30 (“there seems to be no designed ambiguous allusion here”), the ambiguity is unavoidable: “taking” a was marrying her and Stratophanes has made no secret of his intentions. On the “tragic rubbish” see Hunter 1985: 119.
Misoumenos (The Man She Hated)
25
own brother!) confirms that he had wanted to marry Philoumene himself. He cannot “even look at the girl any more” with her “milky white skin and beautiful eyes” (397–9); it is his “brother who is marrying her, lucky him” (400); and he will have to “be the best man” ( 0 404). These are not the complaints of a man who hoped to amuse himself with a pretty slave; he must have believed in her citizenship. Like many Menandrian lovers, Moschion saw what he wanted to see. At the time of the assembly neither the girl nor the soldier had proved a claim to citizenship, and yet she was “not alien” ( &% 105) while he was a foreigner talking “tragic rubbish.” Even with scant remains of Moschion’s part and nothing of Philoumene’s (if she even had a speaking part) we can see very different constructions of her relationship to Stratophanes. Moschion is unwilling to concede any legitimacy to the soldier’s claims: he does not own her and cannot marry her. Stratophanes is reluctant to represent himself as her master, or even former master, and he is too rhetorically astute to represent himself as her lover. Philoumene, who probably regarded him as both master and lover (and a foreigner as well), at least made her opinion clear when she fled to the sanctuary. Even in an apparently simple case of mistaken identity, Menander creates dramatic conflicts from different views of the same situation. He explores the subjective elements of what characters see and the emotional implications of their mistakes.
m i s o u m e n o s (the man she hated) The Siky¯onioi illustrates a pattern we see repeated in the Misoumenos.28 Here too an ambiguity concerning a woman’s status gives rise to a kyrieia dispute. Another soldier who wants to marry a dependent finds himself at odds with her over their relationship, largely because he is unaware of a family connection which threatens to destroy the “marriage.” The soldier Thrasonides, like Stratophanes, is trying to circumvent normal marriage procedures by buying himself a bride – in this case, a Cypriot war captive named Krateia. When the play begins, he has recently returned from campaign and set up house with Krateia as his mistress. He would like to believe she is his wife but he has little success in establishing this archaic model of marriage in the real world of the late fourth century.29 The “marriage” is valid only within the household, where he can compel a semblance of recognition from his other 28 29
All Misoumenos citations are from Arnott 1996a. Translations are my own. See Lacey 1966: 62 “in Homer, the state of marriage was the state of living openly with a woman and calling her your wife, installing her as the mistress of your N and acknowledging her children as your heirs”.
26
Misperception of status
dependents; it lacks the support of the community, Krateia’s family and even Krateia herself. Indeed her rejection of any intimate connection with Thrasonides, including the role of wife, is the problem that gives the play its title. She refuses even friendly conversation with the would-be husband she “hates,” probably out of the mistaken belief that he killed a member of her family (the scholarly consensus is that it was her brother).30 When her father arrives, he is overjoyed to discover that his lost daughter is still alive and, he assumes, available for ransom. Thrasonides, however, has different plans. Hoping to marry Krateia formally, he insists on treating Demeas as her proper kyrios, much to Demeas’ confusion. After a difficult interview, the father eventually secures his daughter’s release. Eventually the confusion about the death is cleared up and the play ends with a betrothal and wedding preparations, all with Krateia’s full consent. There are a number of uncertainties about the plot, due to the poor state of preservation of the play.31 Fortunately, two comparatively well-preserved scenes, the opening and the beginning of Act IV, treat Krateia’s relationship to Thrasonides. Her situation is far from straightforward, even before a second potential kyrios arrives. Thrasonides ought to be pleased with his enviably secure possession of Krateia. The first thing we learn about him, however, is that he self-identifies as a lover, not a master. His opening monologue starts with a reference to Aphrodite (line 1) and runs through the stock elements of comic love: the paraclausithyron (“I’m standing now in front of my own door” 6),32 the hint of insanity (“loving as madly as possible” 11–12) and the declarations of passion (the root -- appears in 3, 5, 9, 12). Thrasonides is perfectly aware of his rights (“I can lie down . . . I have the right,” 4 8' . . . 24 9–10) but he refuses to exercise them. We learn that he wants her consent even more than her compliance when he tells Getas, a trusty confidant just returned from abroad, about his efforts to make Krateia his wife. 30
31 32
The prologue presumably identified the deceased mentioned at 647–50 and the sword mentioned at 677 (evidence that Thrasonides killed him?). Arnott 1996a: 273, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 441, 452–3 ad 246–50, MacCary 1972: 285, Sisti 1985: 11, 104–5 ad 246–58. Following Borgogno 1969a, Arnott assigns lines 647–50 (Sandbach 246–50) so that Krateia is the one who knows the identity of the murderer. Choricius attributes her hatred to Thrasonides’ miles gloriosus traits (Test. 1 Arnott = fr. 1 Sandbach) but the soldier is not particularly offensive (Turner 1979: 109–11, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 438, Sisti 1985: 115–16, contra Lape 2004: 188–91 and n. 55). If anything, he needs to be prodded to act like a soldier (see lines 244–5). Since her hatred vanishes by Act V, it is unlikely that his basic disposition was the problem. Choricius may not have read the actual play ($ , “they say that . . . ,” suggests an intermediary source). Arnott 1996a prints about 160 nearly complete lines and another 430 partial lines of text. Turner 1979: 108–9, Bornmann 1980: 157, Goldberg 1980: 50–2, Lape 2004: 193.
Misoumenos (The Man She Hated)
27
[0, ] %, 1 % [' ] &'%4, %, % [< ']8, , % – (D.) N %; [ 0 L>]%O; (37–41) Having bought [her], granted her freedom, appointed her [mistress] of the house, [given] her maids, jewelry, [dresses,] considered her my wife – (Ge.) Then what? [Your wife] abuses [you]?
Krateia’s formal status is not clear. Although Thrasonides claims he freed her and later uses a word that may suggest free status (“little girl,” '% 53), “granted” (%) is not a technical term and there is no indication he has gone through the usual forms of manumission.33 It is possible that concubinage was a formal condition of Krateia’s manumission, as Borgogno suggests (freedom often had strings attached), but nobody mentions this later when it ought to matter.34 Her situation is not apparently that of a freedwoman. Simply walking out, as the soldier’s mistress does in the Perikeiromen¯e, is evidently out of the question (admittedly, this right had to be spelled out in the rare manumission that came with unconditional freedom).35 No one even suggests the possibility. When her father arrives, he negotiates as if for a captive, unaware that his daughter is supposedly free, and later in the play Getas seems to think the choice to ransom her still lies with his master (“I wouldn’t ransom her” 716), despite a concession at 41 (“your wife,” supplemented by Turner) to make Thrasonides come to the point.36 Some translators have been tempted to modify Thrasonides’ language (“promised her her freedom” [Arnott], “treated her like a free girl” [Miller]), but the Greek is explicit. Since the soldier treats Krateia as free when he pleads with Demeas, he must mean what he says here. The problem may be that he has granted her a privilege of little practical use. Far from Cyprus and without friends or kin, she can do little with this “freedom” – except 33
34
35
Manumission generally included a public announcement and witnesses (Harrison 1998 i: 183, Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 184–5, 207). On % see Lloyd-Jones (cited Brown 1980: 6). Krieter-Spiro 1997: 54 n. 7 takes his declaration at face value (q.v. for further references). Ammonius the grammarian (Men. fr. 97 K-A) distinguishes , (a slave) and '% (a free girl) in Attic usage but LSJ provide examples of '% in both senses. Borgogno 1987: 195 n. 3 and 1988: 94–6. The life of a slave freed with “conditional release” (. 0) could change very little: it was not uncommon to serve former owners until their death (Hopkins 1978: 146–9, Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 225–6). See further Harrison 1998 i: 185, MacDowell 1978: 82–3, Todd 1993: 190–1, Davidson 1997: 101 and Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 222–48. A recent Athenian law banning the purchase of a freeborn person enslaved in war may be suppressed for dramatic reasons (Lape 2004: 191–2), if the play is set in Athens. 36 Brown 1980: 6. E.g., SGDI 1719 (Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 271).
28
Misperception of status
marry him. He has, after all, given her authority over the household slaves, while his gifts of clothing, jewelry, and servants, all typical dowry items, give her the trappings of a married woman. Thrasonides is aware of the difference between what he has chosen to believe (he only “considered,” % , her his wife) and what custom and the law recognize. He refers to her as “the captive” in line 37, partly for Getas’ benefit and partly in order to represent her behavior as hubris (“I’m being abused,” he complains at 36). It counts as “abuse” only because it comes from an ex-slave who has received far better treatment than she could have expected. It is because Thrasonides realizes she is not really his wife that he feels entitled to her gratitude (a wife would not owe all of her possessions to her husband), he considers himself disgraced by her rejection (41), and he does not press his claims as her husband when he meets her father. His forebodings when the father arrives (“my soul presages some ill, Getas” 668–9) betray a more realistic fear. He is afraid that Demeas will reject him as a suitor (“what if he does not . . . give her legally” 663–4), not that he will insist on a divorce. As in the Siky¯onioi, this conflict starts with the couple but affects the whole household. After a little prodding, Thrasonides admits that Krateia hates him, despite his gifts, and that her hatred is no accidental discovery. He had his suspicions; in fact, he even devised a scheme to test them: (P.) Q% M [= ], & , >. 2 - : '( . (D.) N %; (P.) “'% >'% ,” $%, “', @' ', ,”
% ; . 5 * : ': []3[ ] K, “3 Q M, + ; [ #]- ;” (50–6) (Thr.) I watch for a real downpour, when it’s night, with lightning and thunder. I’m lying down with her. (Ge.) Then what? (Thr.) “Little girl,” I shout. “I have to go right now to see someone,” and I come up with a name. Any woman would say at least this: “in a downpour, poor dear? To see someone?”
The weather needs to be harsh enough to make her reaction a clear sign of her feelings; hence the elaboration of what we already know from Getas’ grumbling (“it’s not fit for a dog out here” 15–16). The soldier spares none of the conventional details – darkness, thunder, lightning, heavy rain – and he reminds us that it is loud enough, even inside, for him to have to shout to his bedmate ( is an otherwise odd word for pillow talk). We do not
Misoumenos (The Man She Hated)
29
know what Krateia said, but it is clear she did nothing to stop him, and so we see him pacing in front of his own house. Thrasonides tells the story as evidence of her hatred, but it also offers a glimpse of the domestic situation he tried to create. He has been playing the husband, chatting in bed about household trivia, pretending she has a right to know his whereabouts and generally treating her as the wife he would like her to be. A correct response would show compassion, even echo his thoughts (his word “downpour” should also figure in her response) with feminine expressions of concern (“poor dear”).37 Better yet, she should question the necessity of the errand (“to see someone?”), perhaps even try to dissuade him. His affectionate “little girl” looks for a reciprocal endearment, something like the “poor dear” that any woman would say. As we later learn, not being “spoken to kindly” is a sore point (88–9). Putting himself in danger and giving her an opportunity to intervene is a tactic he will also repeat. Krateia not only fails as a wife but demonstrates a basic lack of humanity. “Do you suppose this is human (& ) and ordinary?” (44– 5), he eventually asks Getas. Thrasonides considers his wish realistic and reasonable: he only wants to hear what “any woman” (line 55) would say. By “any woman” he naturally means any woman in the same situation, i.e., a wife or mistress ( 0 can mean either “woman” or “wife,” depending on the context). Knowing nothing of Krateia’s past, the soldier assumes she will accept his generosity, as any sensible slave would. Her un-slavelike behavior leaves him mystified. The audience of course knows the real reason: she has refused him out of loyalty to another man, probably her brother. A third party is thus central to the quarrel, even though he is not named. Not surprisingly, the conflict between the couple escalates when this party gains an advocate. What is surprising is that Thrasonides receives the news that his “wife” is the daughter of a visiting Cypriot so quietly (“Krateia’s father, you say, has just arrived” 660) and accepts his authority so readily: “if he doesn’t find me suitable (' ) and give her legally (%-), Thrasonides is done for” (663–4). Of course, he thinks of Demeas’ authority primarily as a right of disposal, including the right to test and approve suitors (' covers both).38 It never occurs to him that her father might have other intentions and he discounts Krateia’s influence completely in assuming that Demeas will make the decision. 37 38
+ is gendered (Wilamowitz 1925: 74, Dedoussi 1964: 2, Bain 1984: 33–5, McClure 1995: 45). 'O- occurs several times in connection with matrimony (Men. fr. 804.11 K-A, Dysk. 137, Sisti 1985: 106 ad 262) and may also have legal overtones. By the end of the fourth century, ' % was becoming usual for finalizing the conferral of citizenship by decree (Harrison 1998 ii: 207).
30
Misperception of status
The two men see the situation so differently they can scarcely communicate with one another. Thrasonides wants to convert his informal “marriage” into a legitimate one; Demeas wants to rescue his daughter from enslavement as a soldier’s concubine. The two come head to head in an amusing scene of mutual misunderstanding. Ironically, both men place themselves in the weaker position as each pleads with the other for Krateia. As in the Siky¯onioi, the soldier yields his legal claim in order to win his beloved back as a bride, initiating a dispute about who her kyrios actually is. We learn about this off-stage discussion at cross purposes from Getas, who does his best to win our sympathy for his master: ,] '( 3 .].[. ] [] [], Q, $ R] , [H] C5, [ " ' N ]: < > 8.” J[] -, &> ; 8. (692–6)
Not a peep out of [that guy] . . . (reporting Thrasonides’ speech) “and further, Demeas, [I love Krateia] myself, as you can see, I really do. [You’re her father] guardian.” He says all this crying, pleading. But it was like a donkey hearing a lyre.
Thrasonides frames the dispute as a marriage negotiation and accordingly addresses Demeas first. He makes a point of his affection (the main emphasis of the sentence falls on the subject, highlighted by the demonstrative and the grammatically unnecessary pronoun ), presumably to counter a claim of fatherly affection. But then he makes the surprising assertion “you’re her guardian.” Since Thrasonides became her kyrios when he purchased her, this is tantamount to renouncing his ownership. He is negotiating as if she were free and eligible for marriage. Of course, he has good reason to take this line of argument. He could hardly accept a ransom and then demand the girl back along with a dowry (which was required, whether he wanted it or not, if the marriage was to be distinguishable from the concubinage that preceded it). He therefore accords her the status that serves his long-term goal. But no one else believes that she is free to leave and rejoin her father – neither Krateia, nor her nurse, nor her father, nor even Getas. Demeas simply assumes, and Getas confirms (“if it were me, I wouldn’t ransom her” 715–16), that she is the soldier’s to release. The only question is whether he will agree. The old man is understandably confused by Thrasonides’ suit and never quite sees his point of view:
Misoumenos (The Man She Hated)
31
S 3 ' K “: 3 &4 T- &3 U 0.” “ 9 ' , , Q.” (698–700)
But he adds just this: “I’m here to ask you to ransom my daughter, as her father.” “But I’m begging you for her as a wife, now that we’ve met, Demeas.”
Demeas offers several justifications for his request: Krateia is “his own” (: 3 excludes any significant connection to Thrasonides); he is her father (that is, his is a prior and more valid claim); and custom and decency are on his side (&4, “ask for, expect to, think appropriate,” applies slight moral and social pressure). Getas himself confirms that ransom is “Greek custom and done everywhere” as an act of pity (716–17), although he thinks custom should be disregarded, given Demeas’ and Krateia’s “unheard of and inhuman cruelty” (685–6).39 What Demeas does not do is act as his daughter’s kyrios, even though the soldier seems willing to allow it and it would remove any need to argue about ransom. The choice not to exploit the soldier’s “gift” of freedom must be deliberate. It is unclear who made this decision, but Demeas does seem to be guided by his daughter’s opinion. She was answering all of the questions and inviting him inside “to plan” (657) at her last appearance. Perhaps she refused to take anything from Thrasonides, even a dubious and highly conditional offer of freedom. Since the two men both stubbornly insist on their own view of her formal status, they have no real dialogue and quickly reach a stalemate. Demeas makes his request and holds his peace while Thrasonides repeats his pleas. The deadlock forces Thrasonides to take up his suit with Krateia herself, thus returning the dispute to the original parties but with a new balance of power. He has to adopt a different approach with Krateia. He was inviting her father to enter a new relationship; he is asking her to acknowledge and continue an existing one. This means convincing her to accept that he really has been her husband: “&>, R, , : [ ]%, K[]$ [ &: 0 , V , & ], $, R $ % %; 8 , %.” ' & . (706–11) 39
See Lape 2004: 190 on social and ethical pressures to ransom.
32
Misperception of status
“I’m begging you, Krateia, don’t abandon me. I took you as a virgin, I was the first man called your husband, I loved you, still love you, adore you, Krateia sweetie! What have I done to upset you? You’ll find out that I’m dead, if you abandon me.” No answer.
Thrasonides uses similar language with father and daughter – “love” ($), “plead” (&>), “wife/husband” ( 0/&0), vocatives (“Krateia,” “Demeas”), even an emphatically placed “I” – and encounters the same silence. The claim to have taken her as a (“virgin, unmarried girl”) need not signify that she has lost her virginity (his complaint that they are not having sex at 9–12 suggests otherwise); his point is that he took her as a marriageable girl, i.e., not as a slave. Furthermore, local gossip supposedly recognized the union: “I was the first man called your husband.” &0 is as close as Greek comes to a word for husband; in informal unions, the man is more likely to be called an 0, “lover” (e.g., Perik. 128, 343, Sam. 26). His subsequent declaration of love (“I loved you, still love you, adore you”) lays out his qualifications, along with a hint of disbelief that feelings as strong as his are not returned. Thrasonides treats the negotiation almost like a divorce, demanding that she show cause (“what have I done?”). He also appeals to her sense of responsibility: the word “abandon” (707, 711) connotes heartlessness, betrayal and desertion (incidentally, it also confirms that he considers her free); the “hammering away on the second person at the ends of the lines” ( , , ) demands her attention;40 and lastly the suicide threat escalates the consequences of refusal. At no point does he assert his legal rights as her owner, even though he understands that he could “prevent this man from taking her away” (794–5). Instead, he decides to turn to drink (765–6) once her coldness has destroyed any hope that “pity” (his pity in letting her go) will change her mind: “but will she say ‘you’ll charm away all my hatred of you with pity?’” (797–8). Thrasonides is determined to have either marriage with consent or nothing at all, even if it means parting with the woman he loves. His generosity, like Stratophanes’, is not entirely disinterested but it is not hypocritical either. Menander gives this soldier a highly subjective perception of Krateia’s position in his household – a perception that is part willful denial, part wishful thinking – to motivate otherwise implausible behavior. He contrasts this misperception, if it may called that, with the more practical and realistic views of Getas and Demeas. Like the Siky¯onioi, the Misoumenos uses differing perceptions of the heroine’s relationship to the soldier in order to generate conflict. Even a 40
Brenk 1987: 50.
Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks)
33
comparatively straightforward matter like kyrieia, for which there were laws and procedures to settle rival claims, could generate emotionally charged misunderstandings with dramatic consequences. These surprisingly subjective disputes over what ought to be objective facts have a certain psychological plausibility, at least in fourth-century terms. The disputants’ emotions strongly influence what they perceive to be true; their most improbable speculations are limited to the short period of uncertainty after the heroine’s old identity is brought into question but before the new one is confirmed. Their limited perspective is striking, particularly in the Misoumenos, where neither party seems able to understand the other’s point of view. The insight into dianoia offered to the audience is deliberately withheld from the actual participants, whose misguided efforts acquire a poignant, if amusing, irony.
p e r i k e i r o m e n e¯ (the rape of the locks) The third preserved soldier play, the Perikeiromen¯e, also dramatizes the story of a rejected soldier who discovers, to his dismay, that his “bride” has stronger ties to another household. This play, too, features an illusory “marriage,” with the same cast of characters: the decent soldier, his loyal confidant, his shady young rival, the lost daughter who refuses to become his unofficial “wife,” and her fortuitously discovered father. It also uses the same technique of contrasting perspectives on the status of the heroine, with both lovers seeing only what they want to see and struggling to persuade the larger community to share their perspective. The soldiers in all three plays are quick to cede kyrieia, real or fancied, when it no longer serves their purpose to assert it. What is remarkable is how small a role coincidence – or fate, the gods, pirates, etc. – plays in these mistaken identity plots. The set-up may be artificially contrived, but the mistakes escalate because of very human causes. We learn from the prologue that the hot-tempered soldier Polemon has settled with Glykera next door to a young man named Moschion. A quarrel arises when Polemon, learning that Glykera had embraced Moschion while he was out of town, cuts off her hair in revenge. The embrace was innocent on her part because the young man is actually her unacknowledged brother. It was less innocent on his part: ignorant of the family tie, he has rather inconveniently fallen in love with her. Happily for him, she is unwilling to spoil his reputation by disclosing the truth. She is, after all, only a soldier’s mistress, whereas he passes for the legitimate son of a wealthy couple. Angry with Polemon, Glykera takes shelter with the only other person who knows the truth – Moschion’s mother – a move that gives the young man
34
Misperception of status
false hopes and the soldier false suspicions. Like other misperceiving lovers, Polemon and Moschion look at Glykera with a kind of circumscribed vision, perceiving her only in relation to themselves. What each sees is not implausible, although deeply colored by personal hopes and desires; yet their views are mutually contradictory and, in point of fact, equally wrong. The two rivals are actually introduced in analogous situations: each sends for a report on Glykera (with the same question: “what is she doing?” 296, 355) and each consults with a confidant about how best to win her. Moschion appears first, in Act II, Scene i (lines 267–353). His errors are relatively straightforward, deriving from the simple assumption that Glykera is a hetaira. He never says this directly but it is clear enough from his boast about being “[attractive] to hetairai” (303), which he assumes is the reason Glykera did not flee his embrace (301). It is not unreasonable for Moschion to assume that a soldier’s ex-mistress intends to take up the trade. Although she is reluctant to call herself a hetaira (711–13), a destitute orphan had few other options, and he does not know that she is his sister. From an initial mistake about her reasons for entering his house, wishful thinking soon leads to a further error: presuming that she is available for a casual relationship. He expects her to drop Polemon at a moment’s notice and require nothing more than “encouragement” (, 293) to accept him instead. His slave Daos feeds this delusion by claiming to have expended “thousands of words” in “persuading” her ( 273, cf. 327, 328). At this point even Moschion can smell a fib (“if you’re lying to me again . . .” 267–9) and promptly sends the slave to confirm his report (295). In the meantime he speculates about Glykera’s motives. & 2'4 3 H 1 ) ' 2$ , & >3 [ ] . &': H 2 K ', ' [ ,, K, : W5, & )%[ $0.
(300–3)41
But she showed something of this when I approached her last night. She didn’t flee when I ran up, but put her arms around me and [drew me close]. I’m not unpleasant, it seems, to look at or [talk to], I do believe – by Athena! – but [attractive] to hetairai.
Her approval flatters his vanity, confirming – at least in his own mind – that hetairai find him charming. His satisfaction (and he is still pleased a few lines later, “I’m not unpleasant” 309) betrays a mixture of insecurity 41
All Perikeiromen¯e citations are from Sandbach 1990. Arnott’s 1996a supplement $0 is printed in 303.
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and pride; he even invokes Adrasteia, the goddess who punishes pride, as a precaution.42 It has been noted that Moschion displays traits of the braggart soldier that Polemon himself lacks, such as vanity and overconfidence.43 Unlike his namesake in the Siky¯onioi, who tries to exploit the girl’s fear of the soldier, Moschion simply leaves Polemon out of the reckoning. Attributing the rift to his own charms, he ignores the act of violence and anticipates no retaliation as he crows over his rival’s defeat (293–4). It is not even clear that he knows what happened (although it may be implied by , 293, which can also mean “comfort”). Moschion is wrong-headed on a number of counts. He presumes rather naively that hetairai choose lovers for “charm” alone and hardly considers the terms of his offer until Daos brings up the subject (339). His interpretation of the embrace fits his notions about hetairai, revealing what one scholar has described as “a strong tendency to reinterpret events as his own impulsive spirit suggests.”44 In an analysis of the discrepancies between Moschion’s version and the prologue’s account, Lamagna notes that the former makes Glykera the subject (“she put her arms around me and [drew me close]” 301), whereas the latter does not (“running up, he embraced her” 155–6). In his recollection, it was she who embraced him.45 Moreover the prologue merely says she “did not flee,” but according to Moschion she “drew him close.” The prologue also explains that she accepted his embrace and his kisses – which Moschion omits – out of family loyalty, choosing to regard them as brotherly. But her motives are lost on the young man, who reads her action strictly within the parameters of her presumptive type. Hoping for a sign of a hetaira’s favor, he not only reads his own meaning into her behavior but even makes her responsible for what is, in effect, his subjective impression: “she showed . . . this” (i.e., that she liked him). He felt confident enough to hazard a pick-up line about wanting “to see her about something when they had more time” 159–60) and now, knowing of no invitation except his own, he takes her arrival as an acceptance. He is ready to believe anything that confirms she really is there “for him” (331–2). Daos is ready to oblige: she is “bathed and waiting” (305), he reports, “the meal is ready” and they wait on Moschion, or at least “seem to,” to judge from the preparations ( '3 % 308).46 42 43 44 45 46
Schol. in Aesch., P. V. 936. Wehrli 1936: 111, MacCary 1972: 282–4, Goldberg 1980: 49–50, Ireland 1992: 84–5 ad 164f., Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 485 ad 302–3, Brenk 1987: 40–1 and Lape 2004: 180. Lamagna 1994: 202–3 ad 111, and see also 48, 63–4. Lamagna 1994: 202–3 ad 111. See also Capps 1981: 167 ad 181. “Bathed and waiting” suggests the hetaira (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 485 ad 305, citing Ar. Pax 868, Ireland 1992: 87 ad 305). Cf. Men. fr. 471 (Lamagna 1994: 204 ad 115).
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This scene dramatizes the psychological mechanisms at work in comic identity mistakes. In this case, the youth is mistaken about both his prospective mistress and his mother. Coincidence certainly plays a role where Glykera is concerned, but the underlying dramatic trick of disguising a citizen as a hetaira only sets the process in motion; Moschion’s greater mistakes spring from interpreting her actions according to his own wishes. Much of his perception is pure fantasy. Like many young Menandrian lovers, he is given to substituting fantasy for action. While waiting for Daos to return, he imagines how the encounter will play out: she will be as modest as she was the night before (“she’ll feel shame”) and will draw her veil when he enters, since “[this] is the [custom]” (312). There is no ambiguity to this gesture: the veiling is part of his fantasy and it carries the meaning he assigns to it – modesty, rather than coyness or pretensions above her class. K¨orte’s very plausible supplement ! (“custom”) in 312 has Moschion admit he is going by common practice (although we may wonder how many women, veiled or unveiled, he has actually met). Since Glykera did not veil herself at their last meeting, he really has little reason to expect that she will now. The gesture might, however, help to conciliate his mother, who looms large in his world. Whatever may be happening inside, Myrrhine is definitely “in charge” (', 306). Daos’ report makes it clear that she decides whether Glykera is received into the house. Persuading her on this point is almost as important as persuading Glykera herself (273–5). Even Moschion, who takes Glykera’s consent for granted, realizes that his mother’s may be harder to win. This is why he focuses on Myrrhine, instructing Daos to find out where she is. Moschion is worried, despite the slave’s optimistic report, that she may not be “wholly” convinced, but he is willing enough to believe that she will fall in with his plans if he exerts a little effort: : '( " $1 ', , &0 A-, 8 . , O1 8 I H %- . (312–15)
But when I come in I need to give my mother a kiss straight away, wholly win her over, turn on the flattery, simply live for her alone. She’s managed the present affair as if it were her own business!
This short speech covers a remarkably swift transition, from first appeal (after an irresistibly charming entrance) to triumphant success. The audience can appreciate the dramatic irony of “her own business,” knowing
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that Myrrhine considers Glykera very much her own business – and not Moschion’s. His surprise (“as if it were . . .” H ) reveals a vague awareness that maternal cooperation was not to be assumed. Moschion is asking his mother to approve, and even arrange, a liaison with a hetaira in her own home and in his father’s absence – an unprecedented indulgence, even in comedy. The closest any New Comic mother ever comes to abetting a son’s love affair is at the end of Phormio when Nausistrata, furious with her bigamous husband, overrules his objections: “So you think it’s wrong if a young man has one girlfriend, while you have two wives!” (1040–1). More typical is Artemona from Plautus’ Asinaria, who limits her son’s allowance “as fathers usually do” (Asin. 79) to keep him from the “corruption” his father happily tolerates (Asin. 867). Yet Moschion imagines his mother completely supporting the scheme, indeed playing (in his fantasy) the unlikely role of madame.47 The audience knows that Myrrhine considers Glykera a member of her own circle, but in Moschion’s imaginary world influences are reversed: the matron is drawn into the hetaira’s world, where everyone strives to gratify his desires. “As if it were her own business,” is pure projection. In his imagination, women are susceptible to his eloquent charm, eager for his attentions (the language he uses of his mother is almost erotic: “simply live for her alone, kiss her,” cf. 300–4), and willing to do improbable favors out of love. Moschion is so willing to be deceived about Glykera that he overlooks contrary evidence. From the start of the scene, he suspects Daos of lying (“if you’re deceiving me” 269). Disillusionment comes abruptly when Daos reports Myrrhine’s far-from-charmed response: “No more of this! . . . [How] did he hear about it? Or did you blab to him about how she was terrified and ran over here [to us? Of course you did . . .], damn you!” (319–21). Conspicuously absent here is any reference to the young man’s charm and savoir-faire. As Myrrhine shrewdly guesses, Moschion has done little besides gossip with the family slave. She unknowingly exposes Daos’ lie: Glykera has come for refuge, not employment. Although he has difficulty believing that Glykera is not there “on his account” (he asks the question three times: 326, 331–2, 333), Moschion is shaken out of his daydream by his mother’s brusque dismissal and Daos spends the rest of the scene coaxing him back into it. Daos mixes error with fabrication when he promises what Moschion is so eager to believe: that Glykera finds him charming and will soon be his. His strategy is to appeal to the one belief that has not been challenged – the 47
Cf. Lape 2004: 180.
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belief that Glykera is a hetaira. Without directly answering the question “not for me, then?,” Daos reinterprets the scene inside to bode better for his young master. Glykera’s actions do promise gratification, he argues, just not immediately. Moschion needs only to understand her motivation, which he proceeds to fabricate out of stock assumptions about hetairai. His speech mimics an improvisation, as if the slave were thinking aloud, stalling and spinning each idea out of the one before: K - >8, , 4 '1 3 , H 2 , & &4, [ ' ] ' , &3 3 , : Q%. H ]. [] ' H %' !. (B.) 3 '], Q5 . (Q.) '. %.[ N ] X[ ] , N. %, . . $.. .[, <> ] 0 " , / Y >8, 4 % &3 ]3 &3 ', 3. (337–45) Just maybe she doesn’t want this, you know, so suddenly – um – as it happens, but she thinks she should hear your terms [before] you find out, yes by Zeus! It’s not as if [she’s here (?)] as a pipe-girl or some cheap slut. (Mo.) [Now] you’re talking again, Daos. (Da.) Examine (the situation). I think [you know the sort of thing that’s going on.] She left a home [and – I’m] not making this up – a lover. If you’re interested in three or four days, someone will pay attention to you. Oh, she shared this with me. And now is when you need to hear about it.
His explanation makes reasonable sense for an exclusive hetaira: she did not come to start an affair directly but to look into Moschion’s offer. Trying to learn his terms before he “found out” was simply a negotiating tactic (perhaps because revealing that she had left Polemon would have tipped her hand?). Daos suggests that the incident reflects her wishes and intentions and reduces Moschion’s mother to an accessory. By putting Glykera behind the scene, he manages to account for Myrrhine’s opposition (she is just acting on the young woman’s wishes), but he still must explain to a young man who thinks himself irresistible why Glykera would want to hide from him. And so he moves her up the professional scale, reminding Moschion that terms of employment could not simply be assumed for a hetaira of her class. But the young man should not despair: she has shown a sign of interest in “abandoning” Polemon. Daos chooses his words carefully. “Abandon” suggests that the break is permanent, while “lover” makes the relationship a casual affair, blurring any distinctions between a rich ex-mercenary who can offer a permanent home and a penniless youth who needs his mother’s
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permission. “Lover” allows Moschion to assume he is next in line.48 The prediction that she will accept a three- or four-day contract is a reasonable inference (only a “pipe-girl” would look at anything shorter than a few days), but he still caps it with a lie – “She told me” – and a weak excuse for withholding the information: “now is when you need to hear about it,” as if Moschion would not have wanted to know earlier. Daos’ errors are less innocent than his master’s. He is much more realistic about the motives of hetairai (money, concern about professional standing) and less subjective in his assessment than Moschion, although no less wrong. He is also astute enough to be perplexed by the women’s “completely strange” (318) behavior. After extolling Myrrhine’s indulgence in receiving a hetaira into her house (“I can’t praise my mistress enough . . . that’s a mother!” 262–4), he is at a loss to explain her about-face. As Moschion bitterly observes (544–6), Daos has no emotional stake in the outcome beyond a dim hope of freedom. For him the problem is an intellectual one, something to be “examined” ('% 341) and reasoned through. But his efforts only result in frustration (“You aren’t letting me think in peace!” 348) at what proves a surprisingly tough call: “this isn’t as clear ([1]) as I thought” (353).49 Daos may be no Pseudolus, but he is not stupid. Glykera’s actions really are puzzling to anyone who takes her for a hetaira because she is not motivated by either money or sex.50 He manages to make her behavior appear to conform to the norms of her ostensible status, without realizing that she has no intention of adapting her conduct to her socio-economic position. It is not difficult for Daos to resurrect a mistake which Myrrhine’s comments had temporarily dispelled. As Ireland notes, Moschion is eager to accept this new reality. Even though Daos’ first story proved false, the second is prefaced with “a highly significant ‘perhaps’,” and he has had no chance to speak to Glykera himself.51 When the young man reappears at 48 49
50
Lamagna 1994: 213 ad 153. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 493 ad 353 and Lamagna 1994: 219 ad 163 take [1] in the sense “indicating a good crisis, favourable, of symptoms” (LSJ s.v. iv) but also suggest =[], as at Epitr. 353. “Easy to judge” is inappropriate because Daos is not making a judgment. He wants to “think in peace” (348) because he is baffled (I take “dry from fear” as a sign of uncertainty, cf. Epitr. 901, Sam. 515; slaves who see definite trouble express despair). But 0 is also problematic. As a medical term, it varies according to the word modified: “having had a good crisis, convalescent” of a -, but “indicating a good crisis” of symptoms. Neither makes sense as a description of Daos’ earlier impression (H + 353) before anything went wrong. Since 0 only means “favourable” with respect to a % (turning point in a disease) and there is nothing to suggest a medical metaphor here (3 is too general and Daos uses no other medical language), the non-technical sense “well-separated” and therefore “distinct, clear” (LSJ ii) seems preferable. 51 Ireland 1992: 87 ad 341 and 343. Cf. Omitowoju 2002: 218.
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the end of the next act to recount a second setback (the text of his monologue unfortunately breaks off before he explains why there is “no more wretched man alive” 535–6), we learn his state of mind at the end of the earlier interview. After dispatching Daos to report his arrival, he retired to a back room to wait. “Lying down, I said to myself, ‘Mother will be here any minute with a message from my love about the conditions on which she’ll get together with me.’ I was working on my speech . . .” (547–50). Glykera and Myrrhine are back in their roles as the “beloved” ( -) and the go-between sent by her to report her terms. In the meantime he composes a speech in his head, preparing for a moment that will never come. Moschion shares none of Daos’ doubts; he believes the rationalizations that put Glykera within his grasp and clings to his mistake, even as her intentions become all too clear. If Moschion is a day-dreamer, content to lie in a back room while his slave negotiates on his behalf, Polemon is a man of action, armed and ready for attack at his first entrance. When the soldier finally comes on stage in Act III, Scene i (lines 486–525), he has been drinking and is ready to storm the house. But from the start he proves a half-hearted attacker and a relatively sober komast (“I’m talking to you because you’re less stewed” 471, says his friend Pataikos). In fact, he denies being drunk at all, claiming to have stayed alert for “what might come” and to have “foreseen all this” (471–3). In other words, this is not typical komastic violence. Polemon had already intended to take action before the drinking began, but he had no clear plan. His slave Sosias evidently proposed the attack on the house and Polemon leapt at the suggestion. Pataikos has the unwelcome task of dissuading him and disabusing him of a fundamental misunderstanding of his legal relationship to Glykera. The argument between the two friends began offstage. When pressed to defend his claim, Polemon must have asserted that she was his wife. She cannot be, Pataikos explains, without a “giver,” a legally qualified guardian. 3 !, Z-, X $ L, , : , – (Z.) X , Z. (Z.) '$ ' . (Z.) 9 : 8. (Z.) : > . % ' 2 C '8; (Z.) %; 0. (486–90) If the matter were something of the sort you (pl.) claim, Polemon, and she were your married wife – (Po.) What a thing to say, Pataikos! (Pa.) But it makes a difference. (Po.) I considered her married! (Pa.) Don’t shout. Who gave her away? (Po.) Who gave her to me? She did.
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Here we watch Polemon discover that his assumptions about the relationship are false, moving from initial denial (“what a thing to say”) to reluctant admission that what he considered fact is merely opinion (“I considered her married”). He has a very different notion than Moschion or even Sosias of Glykera’s social status. To him she has always been a “wife,” a woman whose fidelity could be assumed. The prologue hinted that he expected more than a temporary arrangement. He bought a house in his native town (suggesting an intent to settle) and effectively made Glykera mistress of the household. Although he did not make a point of secluding her (Pataikos has spoken with her “many times” – enough to be a “friend” ( 0) and to have seen her wardrobe, 508–9, 519–20), she was not expected, as a hetaira would be, to accompany the soldier on his travels.52 Indeed, he showed a sense of entitlement bordering on ownership when he cut off her hair. This is why he refused to accept Sosias’ explanation that she succumbed to the charms of a “womanizer” and sent the slave on two spying missions (177–80, 354–6) to learn her intentions. His mistake is not simply self-delusion. The Old Woman gave Glykera to him as a virgin, almost as if in marriage (“she gave the girl to him as her own daughter” 130–1) and afterwards Glykera lived a modest life, socializing primarily with Myrrhine.53 The “difference” that Pataikos points out was clear enough to those who knew her situation (as Rosivach notes, Moschion felt free to kiss her),54 but outsiders could not easily have known whether she was a mistress or a wife, and there would have been few occasions to remind Polemon of her real status if he chose to ignore it. Moreover, his household takes a casual attitude towards the distinction and is ready enough to treat the relationship as a marriage. Pataikos’ plural “you” in 487 implies a consensus that Glykera is more or less a “married wife.” Even Sosias considers her off-limits to the likes of Moschion, and Doris goes further, lamenting the hard lot of anyone who “takes” (2>, a gnomic aorist) a soldier as a husband (&0, 185–6).55 Her indignant complaint, “they’re 52
53
54 55
Hetairai might be taken to parties and festivals all over Greece (Davidson 1997: 92, McKechnie 1989: 153) or follow soldiers on campaigns (Cox 1998: 174 and n. 33). Aristippus spent two months a year with Lais at Aegina for the festival of Poseidon (Athen. 13.588e) and Phrynion showed off Neaira everywhere (Ps.-Dem. 59.33). Polemon’s “she gave herself” (490) does not contradict this account, since Glykera must have agreed to the arrangement. He emphasizes her consent while the prologue emphasizes its respectability (“the language sounds vaguely like giving one’s daughter away in marriage,” Rosivach 1998: 54, cf. Omitowoju 2002: 216). See also Konstan 1995: 110. Rosivach 1998: 54. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 477 ad 186 and Konstan 1995: 110 translate #' “husband.” > was a technical term in marriage contracts (> , , Beauchet 1969: 126) but could be used of informal unions as well (Cox 1998: 182).
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all law-breakers – can’t be trusted!”, implies a long-term relationship very different from the one- or two-year contracts common between hetairai and soldiers, with their stipulated fees and expiry dates. In this short scene Menander sketches a surprisingly complex motivation for Polemon’s refusal to accept that Glykera is nothing more than a mistress. He has several incentives to misrepresent the affair. As his “wife,” she can, he believes, be reclaimed by force. This is of course false. The very last thing a husband could do was bring an adulterous wife home (at Athens, he was obliged to divorce her on pain of &%, loss of civil rights). If Glykera had moved in with Moschion, as Polemon assumes, he could not take her back.56 We may also detect a prick of conscience in his reluctance to accept responsibility for the quarrel. When Pataikos reproaches him, “She left because you didn’t treat her appropriately,” he objects, “What? Didn’t treat her appropriately? You hurt me most of all when you say that” (492–5). In a marriage, Polemon’s actions alone would not determine whether Glykera stayed or left (her “giver” would at least need to approve) but a less formal relationship depends only on the will of both parties (“maybe she liked you but not anymore,” suggests Pataikos). His neutral wording minimizes the problem: Glykera did not “abandon” Polemon (, the word Daos and Polemon both use, connotes emotional as well as physical rejection, suggesting a permanent break); she simply “left” (&0) because he treated her “inappropriately” ( ) (492).57 Pataikos eventually forces his dejected friend to recognize that he is nothing more to Glykera than a “lover in a sorry state” (as Omitowoju notes, Polemon makes no objection to the word “lover”).58 On his side is 2- (sexual love); on hers, mere “liking” (and even this is a qualified “maybe,” K -). Polemon needs to realize he is not her husband and to accept that Glykera belongs to the class of women who can indulge their likes and dislikes. As Pataikos puts it, she is “her own mistress.” The phrase he uses, )1 %, is very close to a recurring formula in manumission inscriptions, which often mention freedom of movement as a newly acquired right (e.g., “doing whatever she wants and 56
57 58
Harrison 1998 i: 35 . See also Sealey 1990: 28–9 and Todd 1993: 279. His options had he known she was not committing adultery are less clear. There is a legal inconsistency in his plan (Omitowoju 2002: 217, although wanting her back may not be “acknowledging her status as unmarriageable,” since Polemon has a dim grasp of the law). It is also unclear why a play apparently set in Corinth should emphasize fine points of Attic law (on the setting see K¨orte 1931: 743–4, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 470 ad 125, Webster 1974: 169, Lamagna 1994: 21, Konstan 1995: 107 and Arnott 1996a: 374). Corinth perhaps had similar laws (Rosivach 1998: 173 n. 16, Scafuro 1997: 442) or the “the law” in New Comedy may simply be Attic by convention (Lape 2001: 53; contra Webster 1960: 11 n. 1). Goldberg 1980: 49. The usual word when a wife left was &% (Lamagna 1994: 249). Omitowoju 2002: 217 and n. 47.
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going wherever she likes” SGDI 1719, line 12). The latter can probably be connected, as Zelnick-Abramovitz argues, to phrases in honorific decrees protecting foreigners from arbitrary seizure.59 Calling Glykera “her own mistress,” therefore, just after asking Polemon whom he intends to “seize” (# , the technical term for reclaiming a runaway slave) is a reminder that he cannot, legally, reclaim her by force.60 With the legal misconception removed, Polemon’s fantasy of marriage collapses. Yet he is not yet ready to regard Glykera as a freelance hetaira who can change lovers on a whim. He looks to Moschion’s actions to justify an attempt to retrieve her: “her seducer in my absence – doesn’t he do me an injustice?” (499–500). Polemon is not seeking revenge against Moschion; he simply wants Glykera back. Pataikos understands this when he asks “who are you after?” (496–7). Moreover, his commonsense arguments (“She’s her own mistress” and “Your problem is that you’re in love”) aim at dissuading Polemon from pursuing Glykera, not Moschion. Polemon’s word “seducer” (C '$ , literally “corrupter”) probably implies sexual activity rather than corruption of morals.61 Although he is furious about the supposed affair, he does not consider Glykera too “corrupted” to take back, and the fact that he dates the “corruption” to his absence suggests he is thinking of the embrace (he is in town when Glykera actually leaves him). Blaming a third party helps to excuse both his actions (they were not the reason – or at least, not the only reason – she left) and hers (she is a victim herself ). Of course, this also classes her again with respectable women: hetairai are not “seduced.” But Pataikos cuts all of this short. The soldier’s grievance provides grounds for “complaint” (2 ), not legal action. “Not even now [sc. that her departure has proved the affair]?,” objects Polemon. “Not even now” (503). By convincing the soldier that his only recourse is persuasion (498), Pataikos forces him to recognize Glykera’s independence and to adopt methods more appropriate to winning a hetaira. He also helps Polemon to several realizations necessary to turn him into an acceptable husband. First, he must win Glykera’s consent (“This is the way to save the situation” 513 – a precondition for marriage, as Pataikos will insist on it when he recognizes her as his daughter).62 Second, he must share the blame. Polemon does concede at 514, “if I ever actually did anything wrong . . . ,” a qualified and 59 60 61 62
Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 271. The recurring formula is - 3/-5. Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 221 (on # ). Lamagna 1994: 247 ad 249. Contra, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 507 ad 499–503. He also needs to win Pataikos’ approval, an unintended result of his efforts here (Lape 2004: 187, q. v. 180–3 on the “lesson in civics” Polemon learns).
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hypothetical confession, but a confession nonetheless. Unfortunately, the promise of reform starts a sequence of associations that lead him back to an idealized view of his relationship.63 Already presupposing her return, he agrees to “continue making every effort” – presumably, to make amends and treat her appropriately in the future. This in turn reminds him of his past generosity and the gifts she has esteemed so lightly. : ' $8 – 1 -0 – (Z.) 2 . (Z.) , Z, 5 0 . (Z.) + Z '. (Z.) '8 K. '8 X [ '( $% Y% * > 8- ) K -. (Z.) 2 - . (Z.) '0 ! #4 ',. (515–22) (Po.) If I don’t go on striving in every way64 – if you could just see her clothing! (Pa.) That’s okay. (Po.) Take a look, Pataikos, for god’s sake. You’ll pity me more. (Pa.) Oh, Poseidon! (Po.) Come in. (His mind wanders.) What clothes! And how she looks whenever she puts one of them on. Not something you’ve seen, maybe. (Pa.) Yes, I have. (Po.) And she’s so tall, really it’s worth seeing.
The clothing is intended to stir pity as proof of his generosity, and perhaps to suggest a subject of conversation for Pataikos, whom he has asked to intercede (“talk to her, be my envoy” 509–10). Implicit is the idea that his generosity imposes an obligation which has not been met: he is still reluctant to admit that he deserves to be cast off. Basing his claim on gifts is as close as Polemon comes to acknowledging that Glykera is a hetaira (Thrasonides, in contrast, pleads love when he wants to be accepted as a suitor). This does not, however, mean that he regards the gifts simply as payment, as Demeas does in the Samia, or that he sees her in the same light as Moschion. Long-term affairs at the higher socioeconomic levels were not normally conducted on a fee-forservice basis. As James Davidson and Leslie Kurke have demonstrated, these relationships worked as gift-exchange systems. One salient feature of gift exchange is that the social function of the gift is prioritized over the 63 64
Lamagna 1994: 251 ad 266. See also 252 ad 269 (Polemon reasons by association, not deduction; the traductio N/[ shifts from the beauty of the clothes to Glykera’s beauty). Brenk 1987: 43 takes $8 as ambiguous, “to treat lavishly” and “to strive for honor,” reflecting both “the military and the romantic,” but I am persuaded by Lamagna’s argument 1994: 251 ad 265 that the context demands a promise to Glykera. Lape 2004: 184–5 reads $8 in a civic sense, as an attempt “to reconfigure the romantic relationship along the lines of the liturgical or euergetic bond.”
Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks)
45
economic: gifts help to create or maintain relationships between people.65 Polemon wants his gifts to carry this kind of personal meaning. When he mentions the (clothing and jewelry) he gave Glykera, he describes it not in terms of its economic value but as she looked “when she wore it.” The clothing has a special personal meaning because, as a tangible sign of his affection (he even attributes to it the capacity to arouse pity, 518), it evokes recollections of a time when she welcomed his love. The general condition (“whenever”) suggests that the image in his mind’s eye is still true – a frozen picture of the Glykera he desires, wearing his gifts. Even as a hetaira, she belongs to the exclusive sort who cultivate serious long-term relationships with select individuals, often only one at a time. Polemon’s lapse into nostalgia shows how difficult it is for him to see her as anything but his. Now that Pataikos has banished this misapprehension for the present, his only alternative to accepting the truth is to slip into the past. He leaves the stage lost in remembrance of the days when she was entirely his, an image he intends to recreate with the help of the clothing she left behind. It is a nice dramatic irony that these reminders of their happy union include the tokens – perhaps the only thing Polemon did not give her – that will place her under another man’s kyrieia. A pattern in the mistakes about Glykera’s identity emerges from these two scenes. Both Polemon and Moschion assume that she has little choice in her relationship with them and that they can dictate the terms. They see different, although equally limiting, sets of constraints. Both err in their own favor in assessing her social position and look to her to confirm or disprove a cherished self-image. Polemon wants to be generous, devoted, and sincere; Moschion fancies himself charming, witty, and attractive. Each interprets her actions accordingly. Moschion imagines that she comes as a hetaira, free of attachments and willing to consider his offer. Polemon, who also thought she came to him without attachments, assumes her complete dependence. There is nothing deliberately dishonest in his attempt to elevate her socially. He is not even aware that the law is against him when he launches his attack and he is willing enough to abort it when he learns the unpleasant truth. These are typical errors for Menandrian lovers – more delusional fantasy than deliberate scheming. Menander is skilled in using these mistakes to show us motivations of which the characters themselves are unaware, inviting us to make our own inferences, as the rhetoricians 65
Davidson 1997: 109–112, 120–7, Kurke 1999: 182–5. Cf. Miner 2003: 21 n. 9.
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advised.66 These mistakes can also manipulate our sympathies by aligning characters with or against normative values. Soldiers who pursue marriage are not only gratifying their sexual desires legitimately; they are seeking a settled life as part of a community. Young men who lust after their sisters (or future sister-in-law, in the Siky¯onioi) are pursuing sexual partners who cannot become wives. Behind their misconceptions lie values we are supposed to notice and question.
h e¯ r o¯ s (the hero) Soldier plays are a good place to start because their errors are fairly obvious (the type was not known for intellectual subtlety), but we can see similar mechanisms in other lost-daughter plots. The H¯er¯os is a good example. Like the other plays, it features a heroine whose ambiguous status gives rise to a fantasy, and a lovelorn youth who is convinced that she can and will be his. As a slave, this youth is an unusual victim of 2-.67 He exhibits the same psychology as other lovers, however, although his story is not resolved as happily. The 97 lines of the play that survive include an expository scene in which Daos tells his fellow slave Getas of his love for a girl named Plangon. Plangon is the twin sister of Gorgias, who is currently working off a debt to Daos’ master, Laches. The love-struck slave emphasizes that she has the right background for him: “a young girl ('% ) – brought up with me, innocent, at my level ( )” (18–19). He wants to see her as socially available (Arnott translates more explicitly “she’s my class”), but he uses an ambiguous word: '% could designate both slaves and free girls.68 Getas understands the importance of her status and is quick to pin him down with an uncommon but legally precise word for slave: “is she a '8?,” he asks.69 Getas’ bluntness forces Daos to qualify his claim (“yes, to an extent, in a way”) and to deliver a lengthy justification for setting his sights on a girl who is not, strictly speaking, a slave. Her situation is not as straightforward as Daos pretends. Plangon and Gorgias were allegedly born to the shepherd 66
67 68
69
Theophrastus (in Dem. De Eloc. 222), following Aristotle (Rhet. 1371b5–10), advises speakers to exploit the satisfaction audiences derive from making inferences on their own (Massioni 1998: 172–3). Cf. Rhet. ad Alex. 1434a35–7. On his “typical” symptoms see Barigazzi 1956: 325, Hunter 1985: 49, Krieter-Spiro 1997: 60. Arnott 1996a: 17. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 38 ad 19 translate “suited to me,” “of my own station in life;” Capps 1981: 15 ad 19, “‘in my station’ i.e., H '8.” On '% see n. 25 above. H¯er¯os citations are from Arnott 1996a. “'3 is used only where the emphasis is on the legal status” (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 389 ad 20).
H¯er¯os (The Hero)
47
Tibeios, “as he said himself ” (24). The name suggests he was an ex-slave, although probably not Laches’, since he is described as joining his household (“having become a domestic servant when he was young” 22), and Laches later says, “I took on a shepherd” (73). Plangon and Gorgias have names which suggest citizenship but, as children of a manumitted slave, they are probably 48 (freedmen) at this point.70 Their situation is complicated by Gorgias’ decision to enter Laches’ service after Tibeios dies in order to pay off a debt. As Daos tells it, he did so voluntarily (Laches may have had means of compelling him, but gratitude for two loans seems a likelier motivation for the decent young man Gorgias appears to be).71 He also brought along Plangon, who now serves Laches’ wife. At this point, the conversation turns to a thoroughly puzzling exchange about Plangon’s current status: (D.) Y Z 9 '( %; (Q.) 1 1 O 2 ', . (D.) '% . (Q.) , D – 5. (D.) W (Q.) , D, %. (36–40)
(Ge.) What about Plangon? (Da.) She works wool with my mistress and serves her. (Ge.) (sarcastically) A slave-girl! (Da.) Quite. Getas – you’re mocking me! (Ge.) No, by Apollo. (Da.) She’s quite genteel and demure, Getas.
Not all editors agree with the speaker divisions printed here, which follow the papyrus. Sandbach, for example, gives all of 38 to Daos. There is even less agreement about the meaning of these lines. Capps suggests that Getas is amused by the “tragic seriousness with which Davus recites the trivial hardships of Plangon” and accordingly takes '% as “spoken in a tone of mock sympathy, a girl does such things?”72 Daos’ language is not, however, noticeably tragic and several of his lines violate Porson’s bridge. Arnott finds 70
71
72
Hesych. s.v. 48, cited Harrison 1998 i: 181 n. 3. Children were not automatically manumitted with their parent(s) (Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 164–5) but Tibeios was already free when he acquired the twins (21–3). Laches gave Tibeios the loans for compassionate reasons (he was struggling to feed the children). He could hardly have expected to repay them himself but may have pledged his son’s labor (debts could be inherited, Harrison 1998 i: 124 and n. 4). Certainly Gorgias’ first step after the burial is to work off the debt. Whether Laches could compel repayment depends on whether the Solonian law against enslavement for debt applied to non-citizens. See Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 389 ad 24, 391 ad 36, Post 1940: 442–3, and Ogden 1996: 205. Capps 1981: 17 ad 38–9.
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a double entendre in '% (“little girl” often meant “slave girl” and sometimes “working girl”); he translates “(leering) Serves you, does she?”73 But it is not obvious why “works wool with the mistress and serves her” – both perfectly respectable tasks – should prompt a wink and a nudge from Getas, whose earlier views on sex (it is an indulgence that will probably land Daos in the mill) make envy or approbation seem unlikely here. It is also hard to explain why '% has a suggestive double sense here that it did not have a few lines earlier when Daos used it at 18, particularly since Getas asked him to clarify a different ambiguity there (Did “little girl” mean “slave girl”?) and claimed to understand the answer (“Now I get it,” 25). Getas has said or done something to prompt “you’re mocking me.” But what? It may simply be that Daos takes '% as an indication of agreement until he realizes that Getas is being sarcastic, repeating Daos’ word, which was not very well defined (“a slave?” “to an extent, in a way”), only to mock it (“oh yes, wool and service prove it – definitely at your level”). Getas already showed a sarcastic side when he suggested that overeating was the root of Daos’ romantic problem, and he has been skeptical since his opening line (“I think you’ve gotten yourself into huge trouble” 1–2). His insinuating '% shows a continuing interest in the girl’s formal status and helps explain his surprise when he learns that Laches has actually promised her to Daos (“Well, aren’t you something!”, N 44). Daos reasonably objects that servile status need not imply low character (“She’s genteel ( ) and demure”), although his choice of words is ironic and probably prescient: literally means “of freeborn character.” Daos may be making a social rather than a strictly legal argument. Being dependent on others and working for them could suffice to label someone a '3, regardless of the legal relationship.74 Plangon falls into this category: she performs the work of a slave but is not owned and her service lasts only until her brother (with her help?) works off Tibeios’ debt. Although the remaining fragments of the play do not add substantially to our understanding of Plangon’s situation, it is clear enough that her ambiguous, “quasi-servile” status is contrived to facilitate misunderstanding and conflict. A reference to a woman’s misfortune (“the only woman in such misfortune!” 76, perhaps spoken by Laches’ wife, Myrrhine) and to a rape in the past (“someone . . . you by force once?” 79) suggest that Plangon was indeed Myrrhine’s daughter, as the hypothesis states. Myrrhine would have known who the children were if she gave them to Tibeios to raise 73
Arnott 1996a: 21. See LSJ s.v.
74
Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 34–5, 38–9, 245.
H¯er¯os (The Hero)
49
(hyp. line 2); hence her distress at discovering that her daughter was apparently raped by Daos and about to marry him (hyp. 9–10).75 Daos’ brief description shows Myrrhine taking care to employ her daughter respectably – no running about on public errands – in the hope, perhaps, that something might happen to improve her marriage prospects. She can do nothing more without knowing the identity of her rapist. Thus, even though Daos does not actually call Plangon a “fellow slave” (C ', hyp. 6), he has some justification for regarding her as tantamount to one. The scam Getas suspected was just a red herring, a ploy to focus our attention on important background information as we scrutinize Daos’ narrative for signs of duplicity. After watching his distress (“Why are you standing around pulling out your hair?” demands Getas, 5), we may be surprised to learn that no one opposes the union and all Daos has to complain about is a few months’ delay. Daos’ mistake is interesting because it shows that he has internalized values above his class. Getas’ joke about overeating (a stock one, cf. “You were never in love” “Because I never had enough to eat” fr. 490 K-A, “In satiety Kypris, not in hunger” Mon. 231, or “Kypris’ power is greatest in satiety [sc. of food]” Mon. 263) is an implicit accusation of inappropriate aspirations. Like other lovers, Daos also seeks a reflection of an ideal self in his beloved and he is, in a sense, aping his social superiors in choosing a wife for her respectability. He sees Plangon as “innocent” (#), “genteel” ( ), and “demure” ( %), qualities normally attributed to citizens like Knemon’s “innocent” daughter, with her “genteel rusticity,” or the Samia Moschion and his “modesty.” Like lovers of higher classes, he wants the kind of woman who has to be approached through her kyrios. Technically this is Gorgias, but Daos needs Laches’ permission to bring another dependent under his roof. He therefore makes a point of consulting his master, who assumes that Gorgias will raise no objections (“he promised she [would live with] me, after he spoke with [her brother] 43–4). In following proper channels, Daos treats Plangon as if she were what she in fact is: a legitimate daughter of freeborn parents. He explicitly rejects anything “underhanded,” i.e., rape, which her apparent status might authorize (the rapist in the Eunuchus pleads that he thought his victim was a “fellow slave,” conservam 858, the same mistake Daos makes).76 He even takes the blame 75
76
Sonnenburg 1914: 81–2. Cf. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 386, Omitowoju 2002: 192. It is probably an informal union; slaves could not legally marry at Athens (Todd 1993: 186, contra Harrison 1998 i: 24; see further Ruiz 1981: 98–9 on this passage). % 42 “probably . . . would not be incompatible with rape as we are finding it described in these texts” (Omitowoju 2002: 192).
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for her soon-to-be-discovered pregnancy (hyp. 8–9), presumably in order to secure the marriage. This false confession allows him to act out a stock crime of high-status comic lovers without doing anything that would preclude a happy ending (a slave could not make the conventional reparation of marrying his victim). Daos’ love of course is doomed to disappointment, but his behavior reveals a standard of ethics that sets him in sharp contrast to the young neighbor who actually committed the rape (and, incidentally, to Laches himself, who will prove the twins’ father). In Plangon, Daos sees a woman who embodies the qualities of free birth but – conveniently – occupies the position of a slave. Unfortunately for him, he is only half right. The virtues he admires also qualify her for a better marriage (to the actual rapist, hyp. 12). Falling in love may prove presumptuous, as Getas warned, but Daos is at least more aware than other lovers of his beloved’s problematic social position and cautious about taking her availability for granted.
d y s ko l o s (the grouch) The examples discussed so far have all concerned lost daughters whose separation from their families disqualified them for marriage. Other aspects of status, however, are also subject to misconception. The Dyskolos and Aspis feature women who are known to be the legitimate daughters of freeborn parents but are still misidentified in ways which affect their eligibility for marriage. In the Dyskolos, Knemon, an antisocial farmer, blocks his daughter’s social development by isolating her from the community and setting an impossible standard for any prospective suitor. The would-be groom, a young man named Sostratos, is thus left to chase a bride who can be approached illicitly but not actually married. In the Aspis, the prospective groom is a decrepit old man in love with the bride’s money but not the bride. Her status as an heiress is the central issue in this play, since her choice of suitors depends on whether she comes with an estate. In all of the plays discussed so far, the real problem is the absence of a proper kyrios. For any number of reasons – death, warfare, piracy, rape – the contested women are deprived of a legitimate authority to give them in marriage. Unsurprisingly, other characters try to exploit this vulnerability. The soldiers attempt to create marriages by purchase or cohabitation, while the would-be grooms in the Dyskolos and the Aspis scheme to subvert the wishes of a kyrios who cannot or will not exercise his authority. Again, ambiguous circumstances may create the initial misconceptions, but mistakes escalate
Dyskolos (The Grouch)
51
because of individual wants and needs. Menander depicts people who are more than willing to be fooled. The Dyskolos explores the consequences of a misanthrope’s withdrawal from society. Knemon lives with his daughter in the rural deme of Phyle, next to a shrine of Pan and the Nymphs. Because the daughter (who is not named) has been conscientious in honoring her divine neighbors, Pan has made the rich young Sostratos fall in love with her. Sostratos recognizes her immediately as a “freeborn child” with a kyrios somewhere (although there is a significant ambiguity in his allusion to “the kyrios of the house, whoever he is” 73–4).77 Assuming that this kyrios will be more than happy to arrange such a rich match, he worries only about whether to approach him in person or through a proxy. Sostratos’ assumption is reasonable: a freeborn girl’s eligibility could normally be taken for granted. Knemon’s daughter, however, is a special case. To start, the antisocial Knemon is in denial about her appeal to outsiders. We learn from her half-brother Gorgias that he has done nothing to find her a husband. He fails even to provide what the family slave Daos considers an appropriate guard (223–4), simply because threats of rape or seduction – threats which preoccupy her brother – never cross his mind. Knemon refuses to acknowledge that he has anything an outsider might want: “not a pot, not an axe, not salt, not vinegar” – and certainly not a marriageable girl. He regards his daughter as part of a self-contained household; she has no role outside it and she is of no use as a means of establishing community ties. He forbids his only servant even to open the house door. The problem is not only that the girl cannot leave the house and no one else can come in; she is also not allowed to grow up. There is a kind of timelessness in Knemon’s house. As resistant to change within as he is to contact without, he ignores his daughter’s approaching maturity, infinitely deferring the choice of groom by demanding the impossible: that she marry someone like himself. “He says he’ll give her away as soon as he finds a groom with a personality like his,” explains her brother (336–7). “In other words, never,” concludes Sostratos. Knemon is in effect seeking stasis, not just solitude, and, like a folk-tale villain, he deprives his daughter of her rightful transition to adulthood by enforcing an artificially prolonged childhood.78 The situation is structurally identical to that in the Aulularia, except that 77 78
Konstan 1983: 101. All Dyskolos citations are from Sandbach 1990. On folk-tale elements here see Theuerkauf 1960: 40–6 (Knemon) and 64–5 (the girl), Zagagi 1994: 96, and Hunter 1985: 173 n. 9. Not everything in the “virtue rewarded” metanarrative is fiction. “Downwardly mobile marriages” between urban/rural or rich/poor families are attested (Cox 2002a:
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Euclio hoards the dowry-money while Knemon hoards the girl herself.79 So effectively does the old man conceal his daughter that Pan must exploit her one pious gesture of disobedience (she leaves the house, under pain of a beating, only to “garland the nymphs” 51) in order to let the community know she exists. Hidden away and virtually enslaved by a man who gives only orders and beatings, Knemon’s girl is a kind of lost daughter waiting to be recovered. Sostratos’ initial mistake is in assuming that Knemon will give the girl to a reasonably qualified suitor. The question of whose consent he really needs is not resolved until Knemon transfers his authority to Gorgias, instructing him to “find her a husband.” Gorgias takes a very different view of the girl. He sees neither a potential bride nor an eternal child but a daughter mistreated by her own father and about to be victimized by a dubious stranger. Suspecting nothing good from a young man who dresses like a wealthy Don Juan and – even worse – was seen chatting with the girl, he is quick to assume a planned rape or seduction. In a tense meeting with Sostratos, who has learned his mistake about Knemon, he complains that the poor are always at risk from the rich. “Don’t trust to wealth, if you have it and treat poor folk like us with contempt” (284–6). Gorgias sees an innocent victim on the brink of disaster. Both he and Daos repeatedly refer to the girl as a (“girl” 220, 222, 228, 235), a word with status implications. R are usually unmarried, respectable and freeborn (young female slaves, in contrast, are ,'), that is, the sort of girls whose families kept a close watch on them. In speaking to Sostratos, Gorgias makes no mention of kinship, calling the girl only a “a freeborn unmarried girl ()” (290–1), a blunt reminder of what the youth ought to have noticed and respected. He offers impersonal arguments: he would consider any harm to a freeborn girl the “injustice,” even hubris, of the leisured class (293–5).80 As a stranger, Sostratos is entitled to know nothing more. In fact, Gorgias admits to being her brother only after the young man has made his intentions clear. Gorgias is being disingenuous: the girl is not really poor (her father’s estate is worth two talents). He is, however, unwilling to let a stranger know that she is – as he sees it – regularly neglected by the person who
79 80
393–4), although Knemon’s daughter is hardly poor, Sostratos’ family is not really urban (Cox 2002b), and both marriages reflect the custom of marrying locally (Cox 2002a: 391–2). See Theuerkauf 1960: 46–51, Arnott 1964a and 1964b, and Ireland 1995: 15–16 on similarities between the plays. Arnott 1964a: 118, Rosivach 2001: 129, and Lape 2004: 117 see an accusation of hubris (restored in line 298). I agree with Rosivach that economic class is the play’s major stumbling block and that its characters form judgments based on it, but I do not think the Dyskolos is exceptional in problematizing social status (127).
Dyskolos (The Grouch)
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ought to be her most vigilant protector. Although more or less resigned to Knemon’s negligence in arranging her marriage, Gorgias agrees with Daos about his “duty” ( 1 223) to shield her from the likes of Sostratos. It is such a fundamental duty that negligence is tantamount to a repudiation of family ties. Even Daos acted “like a stranger” (& 238) when he failed to intervene and Gorgias himself would be imitating Knemon’s estrangement (“our father wants to be a stranger,” C : & – a bitter oxymoron 241) if he took no action. The girl is an “innocent maiden left deserted by her father” (Daos’ words, 222–3), needing and deserving protection. In pointed contrast to Knemon, Gorgias acknowledges a moral obligation (“I still worry about my sister” 240–1), criticizing the sour disposition that has made Knemon “want” to be estranged from his wife and stepson: “let’s not imitate this fellow’s ' %” (242–3). He also cares about the good opinion of the community, embodied in the outsider who judges by “the event” without inquiring who is responsible (245–6). Unlike Knemon, Gorgias recognizes that his sister has a public character at stake and that kinship ( 240) links his own reputation to hers: her disgrace ( 8) is his shame (;', a supplement 243–4). He takes her victimization personally; when it comes to the question of reputation he ceases to speak for his household (“us,” 242, 243) and begins to speak for himself (“me,” 244). Whereas her father demonstrates a dispositional and physical incapacity for the role of kyrios, her stepbrother fulfills the essential responsibilities without recognition or legal sanction (Sostratos still talks of negotiating with Knemon even while he is asking Gorgias for her hand, 305–6).81 It gradually becomes clear that Gorgias has a more subjective reason for regarding his sister as a victim of paternal neglect. He is taking a selective view of events. Knemon did not “desert” his daughter. As far as he knew, she was safe behind locked doors (427–9). As she herself admits, she disobeyed him when she opened the door (“I’ll get a beating if he catches me outside” 205–6) and she spoke to Sostratos of her own will (showing, it must be admitted, more interest in the water than the young man). Gorgias concedes that she might be complicit when he accuses Sostratos of planning a seduction (% . . . 4, 290, “to persuade to sin”), with force as a back-up (292–3), even though he privately faults Knemon alone. The reason he is so hard on his stepfather is clearly personal. When he describes the experience of speaking with Knemon he uses the uncommon word 81
“Gorgias’ relationship to Knemon’s daughter [does not] give him any legal right to make himself responsible for her” (Handley 1965: 177 ad 240ff.). See Konstan 1983: 101 on Knemon’s “abdication of the responsibility for his household.” Cf. Zagagi 1994: 101.
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O ,, “to fight in a yoke” (250), the same word Pan used to sum up the old man’s treatment of his wife (“fighting in the yoke with her” 17). This conspicuous repetition reminds us that Gorgias’ only personal experience of his ex-stepfather was the squabbling that drove his mother away and forced him into an early maturity, according to the prologue. The “estrangement” he resents on his sister’s behalf (241–2) has not really separated father and daughter. Gorgias knows that the old man takes her to work the fields with him and she is the only person he “chats” with willingly ( , 334, a very uncharacteristic verb for Knemon). If Knemon has abandoned anyone, it is his wife and stepson, as he more or less admits when he entrusts kyrieia of his daughter to Gorgias: “you’re properly ( -) your sister’s guardian” (737), making the adoption a recognition of kinship as well as a recompense for a specific service. This adoption also rescues Gorgias from poverty (unlike his sister, he has ample reason to resent the arrogance of the rich). Gorgias is projecting his own abandonment onto the girl, exaggerating Knemon’s neglect and downplaying her part in the meeting with Sostratos. His view of his sister’s situation is highly subjective, and we may perhaps detect, behind his noble ideals of family solidarity, the same wishful thinking that makes him hope for a supernatural providence that will reward his own virtue and punish Sostratos’ supposed vice (271–87). Sostratos’ perception of the girl is equally subjective. Where the brother sees a victim of neglect, the suitor is determined to see nothing but an attainable bride, despite the grim warnings of Pyrrhias, Gorgias and Daos. His initial impression is of compatibility: he sees a “freeborn child” of “incomparable beauty” – his first, and perhaps only, desiderandum. His friend Chaireas lists the sort of thing one ought to investigate (“family, property, character” 65–6) but none of this concerns Sostratos, who knows nothing of her lineage or disposition and is ready to overlook her apparent poverty. When his more conservative father objects to bringing “beggars” into the family, Sostratos affects a lofty contempt for “such an uncertain thing as money” (797). As a man with a stake in the girl’s virtues, he is eager to find evidence of them in everything she does. The resultant absurdities show how deeply passion colors his judgment. He exclaims at her manners, “Hickish (# ), in a genteel kind of way” (201–2, %-, a word with both social and ethical implications) in response to a remark only a lover would find genteel. “Yes – for god’s sake [and be quick],” she barks, when he offers to fill her jug from the nymphs’ spring (201).82 We know little about how well-bred Athenian girls spoke, but Knemon’s daughter 82
associates breeding with citizen status (Fantham 1975: 57 n. 33). See also Omitowoju 2002: 208.
Dyskolos (The Grouch)
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does not sound particularly refined. Several commentators have noted her exit without so much as a “thank you,” after Sostratos brings the water.83 Oaths, moreover, are more characteristic of free-spoken old slave women and hetairai than high-status women, and the girl’s chatter about buckets and wells, hot water and beatings (mentioned twice, 196, 205) might pass for the conversation of a slave.84 In fact, it is the old slave Simiche who brings us the next two installments in the story of the well, bucket, rotten rope and manure shovel. Linguistically, the statement “he’ll give her hell” (&, []) classes the girl with slaves, and we already know enough of Knemon’s discursive style to recognize his influence.85 There is also her remark about “annoying” the people sacrificing inside: the only other characters who use the verb “annoy” ( ,) are Daos, Getas, Sikon and of course Knemon. The girl is admittedly upset, but the Georgos shows how a widowed citizen, a “well bred and modest woman” (42) expresses distress. She uses phrases like “I’m at a loss” (&3 86, cf. 49) and leaves the oaths to her slave, who monopolizes the invective in this scene. At her loftiest, Knemon’s daughter achieves only bathos, using the language in which Krateia recalls the death of her brother (Mis. 648–9) and Glykera laments her own exposure (Perik. 810) to describe dropping a bucket down a well: “unhappy me, with all my woes” (Dysk. 189).86 Girls with one-talent dowries did not normally work as field-hands.87 Knemon has not only taken slaves’ chores upon himself (328–31); he has imposed them on his daughter too, obliging her to work the fields and heat his water. Her life of menial tasks differs little from Simiche’s and her conversation reflects her living conditions. An ancient audience might, as Ireland suggests, have found her shyness sympathetic, but they are unlikely to have seen “concern for others” in her efforts to cover for a slave’s mistake 83 84
85 86
87
Frost 1988: 45, Ireland 1994: 128 ad 212. Oaths could mark gender (e.g., 9 9 for women, + % % for men) and individualize the speaker (Webster 1974, Bain 1984, Feneron 1974). Women’s oaths are fewer and less varied than men’s (Bain 42, Feneron 90), although hetairai seem to be exceptions (e.g., Dis Ex. 21–2, Epitr. 480, 484). Lost daughters do use oaths (e.g., Perik. 807, perhaps 827, Ter. And. fr. 38 K-A), but is rare (there are two other possible instances from women versus at least thirty-six from men, Bain 40–1). The girl’s + $% \8$ (197) is not really an oath. The nymphs are “neighbors” (445), not imaginary friends (as Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 169 ad 212 suggest); deities were presumed to inhabit their sanctuaries, at least occasionally. E.g. 442, 601, 926–7. Cf. Ireland 1992: 11 ad 212. For tragic parallels see Handley 1965: 164 ad 189 (who notes Sostratos’ idealization 167 ad 210f., cf. Walcot 1987: 6, but finds less evidence of & % in her speech, along with Bain 1984: 40), Sisti 1985: 105 ad 247, Ireland 1995: 8, and McClure 1995: 47. Her lament is complemented by Sostratos’ at 202–3 (Arnott 1975: 144), arguably equally overblown. Zagagi 1994: 101, 184–5 n. 22. Women do not perform field work on vases but this may be for ideological reasons (comparative evidence, and perhaps Arist. Pol. 1323a5f., suggests that the poor had little choice, Scheidel 1995: 210–11, Lewis 2002: 83).
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(195–6).88 All of this makes a mockery of Sostratos’ speculation about her classy upbringing (“raised as befits a free person” 385–7). But the young man is determined to find an # (677), a priceless treasure, and manages to convince himself that her education has only increased her value for her “lucky” husband (, a conventional epithet of bridegrooms).89 He makes assumptions about her (character) from what little he knows about her background and praises her isolation for insulating her from the influence of women and giving her a share in her “vice-hating” father’s virtue (384–9).90 We know that this is not entirely true. The girl may be dutiful towards the gods, but she has also learned from Simiche how to deceive her father in order to escape a beating. While Pan tells us that she grew up with “no meanness” in her (35–6), he also makes it clear that her father had no moral legacy to bequeath. Her signal virtue, piety, flourished despite Knemon, not because of him. (The old man greets even Pan begrudgingly and regards the Nymphs as the kind of neighbors one moves to avoid, 444–6.) In Sostratos, Menander is caricaturing Knemon’s belief that contact outside a narrowly defined social category (people who are like him, C ) inevitably means contact with vice and that isolation is conducive to virtue (“if everyone were [like me], there would be no courts, nobody dragged off to jail, no wars” 743–5). We may suspect from the youth’s scoffing at his mother’s “daily sacrificial rounds” (260–3, not dissimilar to Knemon’s own grumbling, “they bring couches and wine jars – not for the gods but for themselves” 448–9) that piety is the very last quality he will be disposed to admire in a wife. His image of rustic purity owes more to infatuation than to observation.
a s p i s (the shield) The three soldier plays, the Dyskolos, and the H¯er¯os are all reasonably sympathetic to young men who labor under false beliefs about the women they love. They invite a certain indulgence for delusions inspired by 2-; even Gorgias’ misplaced resentment has an understandable cause. If we make 88 89
90
Ireland 1995: 127 ad 198–9. # is the language of aristocratic gift exchange (Lape 2004: 127 and n. 43, cf. Wohl 1998: 27, 71). On see Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 87 ad 294, Sisti 1985: 100 ad 133, and Martina 1997 ii.2: 475–6 ad 873–4 (also used of brides). See Theuerkauf 1960: 65 (who also notes the irony of Sostratos’ praise), Foley 2001: 115, and Pomeroy 1999: 120 and n. 22 on this misogynistic commonplace. The complaint recalls earlier criticisms of his mother (Handley, 1965: 196–7 ad 384–9, Ireland 1992: 18, 1995: 140 ad 381–92). Lape 2004: 128 sees his recognition of gender difference as a social construct as potentially subversive. Sostratos certainly thinks women’s faults are acquired, not essential, although Knemon makes a similar point about vice in general (742–5), an argument with which Sostratos would sympathize (he justifies the old man’s behavior, for example, as %).
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allowances for self-delusion, these mistakes are made more or less in good faith. But errors follow a similar pattern even when they are not made in good faith and the characters who make them are not sympathetic. The Aspis depicts a selfish old man’s efforts to marry the young heiress to a rich estate. Smikrines is a greedy miser, long resentful of his brother’s prosperity. The unnamed woman, who happens to be his niece, is sister to the warhero Kleostratos, presumed dead on a battlefield in Asia Minor. She has been living with her other uncle Chairestratos, brother to Smikrines and stepfather to Chaireas, a decent young man who also wants to marry her. The young man had petitioned Chairestratos for her hand, believing he was acting in accordance with the laws and Kleostratos’ own wishes (“I asked the uncle to whom you [sc. Kleostratos] left her” he says in a monologue 291–2). Giving her away in marriage was her uncle’s responsibility and no one could fault him for choosing his stepson. Kleostratos had in fact entered military service in order to earn a dowry to secure her a “worthy groom” (9). But when Kleostratos’ slave, Daos, returns from Asia Minor with rich spoils, Smikrines demands the girl for himself. This kyrieia squabble pits a legal claim against a moral one; it is not resolved until an individual with both rights – Kleostratos – returns in the fourth act. It is important to understand the niece’s legal situation in order to follow the conflict that ensues. Smikrines bases his claim on well-established Athenian law. An orphaned girl who came “with a property” (epikl¯eros), usually because her father had died without a male heir, had to marry a relative on her father’s side in order to keep the property within the (male) family line.91 The epikl¯eros found herself in an unstable and often contentious position. She was a desirable match because she could bring a husband far more property than a dowered wife normally would (dowries were one third of an estate or less), but there might well be more than one aspiring groom. A law specifying the order of claimants attempted to limit the disputes that frequently arose (Andoc. 1.117–23 is an example), but it could not eliminate them entirely, as this play makes clear.92 The Aspis exploits 91
92
MacDowell 1996: 60–1. See also Ireland 1992: 105 ad 272f., Ruiz 1981: 58, and Omitowoju 2002: 148–9 on the situation in this play. Brown’s 1983: 419 suggestion that the booty was the sister’s personal property is less likely ( % Y C%- % 348 seems to rule this out) but Brown is right that Smikrines – like any Athenian – might well fear prosecution for reasons that had little to do with the law. On the legal position of the epikl¯eros see Harrison 1998 i: 132–8 and MacDowell 1978: 95–8. The main details can be corroborated from other sources. On the evidential value of those that cannot see Karabelias 1970, MacDowell 1996, Brown 1983, and Omitowoju 2002: 144–6. With Brown and Omitowoju (against MacDowell 1996: 64–5), I see the play criticizing not the law itself but those who exploit it. Comedians were never kind to the $ and Chance’s expressed purpose, as Brown 414 notes, is to expose Smikrines, not the inequities of Attic inheritance law. Aspis citations are from Sandbach 1990.
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the inherent divisiveness of the epiklerate for the familiar comic purpose of exposing vice and folly. The young woman may be the object of contention, but we know from the prologue that the real issue is Smikrines’ own standing within the family. All of his schemes will of course prove futile, since Kleostratos is not really dead. The prologue-goddess Chance has deliberately misled the old man about his niece (and Daos is quick with a counter-scheme – to mislead him about another niece) in order to dispel a much more serious misapprehension. “After giving himself a lot of trouble and toil, he’ll make himself much better known ( - ) to everyone – what kind of man he is,” the goddess explains (143–5). In other words, the other characters will eventually be able to do what the audience can already: read mistakes for what they reveal about the person who makes them. The opening scenes show why Smikrines needs to be exposed. It is not just that he is a grasping old miser but that he knows how to cast himself as a champion of justice and the law. He understands the art of misrepresentation. As Katherine Gutzwiller points out, in an attempt to secure the support of his “good fellow” Daos, he tries very hard to create an illusion of his own.93 He argues, for example, that it would have been “just and lawful” ('%, " ) for his nephew to have lived and become the legal owner (kyrios) of all of Smikrines’ goods after his death. Of course, he is fishing for the assurance that it is equally just for him to receive all of Kleostratos’ goods as a fair return for the legacy Kleostratos would have received.94 Smikrines is careful to advance his legal claim only indirectly, mentioning the crucial point of his seniority (“I’m the eldest” 172, i.e., legally first in line for the epikl¯eros) as the basis of a grievance rather than an entitlement. Alleging that his brother “always” encroaches on his rights, he complains of injustice (“I put up with being wronged,” &'8) and greed (“I see him always grabbing more,” 3 172–3). His brother, moreover, has treated him like “a slave or bastard” (175–6) in failing to consult him about the girl’s marriage and even mistreated her in promising her to “some I-don’t-know-who” (177) – an outrageous misrepresentation of Chaireas’ connection to the family.95 93 94
95
Gutzwiller 2000: 126. This is not the normal order of succession, as " suggests, but an unusual provision which would have required a special will (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 76–7 ad 164). Smikrines ignores inconvenient details and stretches the truth (Brown 1983: 415, Ireland 1992: 102–3 ad 170f.). On here see Ogden 1996: 204–205. Bastardy was figuratively associated with “other secondary statuses,” including slavery (Ebbott 2003: 45–6). Ireland 1992: 102–3 ad 153 and 170f., and 105 also notes his twisted reasoning and sense of persecution.
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Smikrines needs to establish his brother’s negligence because he is trying to base a moral claim, not just a legal one, on kinship. Casting himself as the victim and his brother as the aggressor, he pretends that righteous anger (“I’m furious when I look at all this” 180–1) has moved him to adopt a course recommended by his acquaintance and necessitated by his brother’s “estrangement”: ': ' &%- 2 - , 0 - 3 : % %G- : : ' 8, A '( 3 % -%- 0G : , 8 C ', M- -, Q5. (181–7) Since he’s estranged towards me, I’ll do the same. I won’t leave my property to be plundered by these people, but – as some of my acquaintances suggest – I’ll take this girl as my wife. And the law I think says something like this, Daos.
As at Dyskolos 238, “estranged” (& ) implies neglect of family responsibilities, allowing Smikrines to suggests that his purpose in marrying the girl is retributive: to treat his brother in turn “like a stranger” by disinheriting him. The marriage will ensure that his own property (he omits any reference to the girl’s) goes to a deserving heir.96 One can only admire the ingenuity of appending his legal claim to an accusation of mistreatment, as if the law merely confirmed what fairness and decency require. As Ireland notes, “By his contorted reasoning . . . Smikrines has managed to convert his greed . . . into action prescribed by law, supported by others, justified by the neglect he has supposedly suffered from his brother, and designed to wreak vengeance on Chairestratos in turn by denying him a share in Smikrines’ own estate.”97 The miserly old devil can quote scripture, using the language of the law to defend an action that good sense and human decency condemn. His speech ends, in good forensic form, with a demand for a verdict from Daos. Behind his talk of justice we may detect a tacit recognition that he is violating the spirit of the law, but we have the advantage of knowing from the prologue that “he beats everyone in wickedness.” We also know that he has no acquaintance to advise him (“he knows neither relation nor friend,” 96 97
Smikrines would not disinherit his brother just by marrying the girl; an heir was needed (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 78 ad 184). Ireland 1992: 103 ad 184f. He was entitled, but not obliged, to marry her himself (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 78 ad 187).
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explained Chance 117–18), that the groom Chairestratos picked out is his stepson (132–7), and that Smikrines was not consulted because he had long since rejected any contact with his family. Daos has no sympathy for his ludicrous allegations. He even goes so far as to repudiate any family connection, at least as the old miser defines it. “You ought to think about this . . . you’re not a stranger,” says Smikrines (188–9). “Oh I’m just a Phrygian,” Daos eventually replies (206), although he acknowledges strong ties to Kleostratos outside Smikrines’ hearing (2, 14, 213–15). Daos knows the old miser well – better than anyone else, in fact – but to an outsider his arguments might seem persuasive. An elder brother had a right to be consulted, a sense of family responsibility was laudable, and letting an epikl¯eros go to “just anyone” was not only wrong but illegal. Smikrines can play the aggrieved, mistreated elder brother with reasonable credibility. We are not meant to believe him but we are meant to recognize that his performance might play well before a jury. He is dangerous because he knows what his legal rights are and how to secure them by cloaking shameless behavior with a semblance of decency. Thanks to Chance, Smikrines and his brother are equally wrong in supposing the girl to be an epikl¯eros, but their common mistake reveals how differently each regards the ties of kinship. For the generous Chairestratos, Kleostratos’ death brings an additional obligation (“we have to see to the burial” 251–2) but does not change his familial or even financial responsibilities to the girl; it simply deprives him of the authority to fulfill them. Chairestratos had been acting as the girl’s kyrios. He raised her and shouldered the heaviest burden of kyrieia – the one that drove Kleostratos to mercenary service – in offering a dowry from his own property (268–9). Faced with his brother’s alarming proposal, he makes little difficulty about Smikrines’ legal rights but disputes his decision to exercise them by marrying the girl himself. A revealing argument ensues over whose wife she should become, who is entitled to make the choice and what the guiding criteria ought to be. In choosing a groom, Chairestratos argues, one ought to consider age and familiarity: “Chaireas was raised with her” (262–3); “let her have a groom her own age” (266–7). Smikrines counters that he is not the first old man to marry (260), but at the same time he is careful not to emphasize the age gap, referring to her only as a “girl” ( 271) or “unmarried girl” ( 177, 185, 253), while his brother calls her a “child” (, 258, 262) and “little girl” ('% 266). While Chairestratos speaks of “moderation” (257) and humanity (“handle this humanely!,” &-%- 260–1) – allocation of property is noticeably absent – Smikrines speaks of a wife almost as an acquisition
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(“you have a wife inside; I should get one” 255–6). He treats death, including his own, as an occasion for the transfer of wealth (169–71) and talks of kinship purely in terms of rights and privileges: possession of property (171, 182–4), consultation about his niece (178–9, 254), the right to marry her, and the deference due an elder brother (176, 172 and 255). Kinship is not simply void of emotional meaning; it is reckoned in economic terms. He harbors resentment, for example, at the “injustice” that precedence in birth should not correlate with precedence in wealth and he sees in his brother’s good fortune only 4%, desire for gain beyond one’s entitlement. Kinship means nothing to him until property enters the picture, and even then he is only interested in a legally significant “distinction of kinship” ('$ 202) that works to his advantage. It is exactly the kind of distinction that Chairestratos has tried to elide – treating his niece like a daughter, bringing his stepson closer into the family – in order to strengthen ties of affection.98 Smikrines is motivated by a fundamentally illegal urge, as Daos hints when he hails him as “heir” ( 85) and Chairestratos begins to understand in this scene. Realizing that the only kyrieia his brother really wants is of the property, Chairestratos proposes a separate distribution: “You take everything, become legal owner (kyrios), we give it to you. Just let the little girl have a groom her own age. I’ll throw in two talents of my own money as a dowry” (265–9). But he is still thinking as the girl’s guardian, considering only the complications for her (she would need a dowry). As Smikrines hastens to object (269–73), the proposal is illegal because it effectively disinherits her future children. Tellingly, he does not argue that he wants a wife and child, as he asserted in line 256, but that the proposal will not secure him the property against a lawsuit (“if there is child, I’ll face prosecution” 272). The whole point of the marriage, however, was to produce a child who would eventually claim the estate. Whether Smikrines or Chaireas married the girl was in a sense immaterial, unless the old man intended to father no children (and a Solonian law in fact specified sexual relations at least three times a month to prevent precisely this problem).99 The purpose of the epikl¯eros law was to secure the property not for the husband but for the family (it was essentially held in trust for 98
99
Omitowoju 2002: 148–9 also contrasts Chairestratos’ broad view of the forces that keep an oikos together (affection, decency, blood ties, marital bonds) and Smikrines’ narrow one (“purely legal terms”). I differ only in regarding the legalistic language as a strategy to coerce his brother and hide his real view of the oikos as a closed group competing for control of limited wealth. Sealey 1990: 30, 174 n. 60. Smikrines is afoul of the law and custom, too, since he is too “advanced in years” (142–3) to marry an epikl¯eros (Lape 2004: 108–9).
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the woman’s children). The Aspis is emphatic about Smikrines’ % (“wickedness,” mentioned at 116–17, 140, 309, 316, 369): he is marrying for the wrong reasons and at the wrong age, causing others “pain” (371) and seeking to profit from the death of his nephew. The Aspis is unusually explicit about the role of human psychology in comic identity mistakes. So successful is Chance’s plan in exposing Smikrines that Daos quickly recognizes “love of money” as the old man’s Achilles’ heel and invents a second, richer epikl¯eros to lure him away from the first.100 He instructs Chairestratos to make his daughter an epikl¯eros by feigning his own death. Smikrines is “related to both in the same degree” (352) but his greed will perceive a vast difference between the two: sixty talents to four. After a hasty wedding, his first concern will be to inspect and secure his “dream wealth” (358–9) and he will “gleefully give [the other girl] to the first comer, in front of three thousand witnesses” (353– 5). Like Chance, Daos plans and thinks like a playwright (“We need to put on another kind of tragedy” 329–30), deliberately setting up a comic error for the dramatic purpose of exposing Smikrines. He goes further than Chance, however, in articulating the general principle behind this type of plot. Schemes like these work because they exploit natural human behavior: 7 >8 C ' & 2 1 &% 0. (326–7)
Seeing and expecting only what he wants, he will be an irrational judge of the truth.
Daos is speaking about Smikrines but the link between desire (“what he wants”), perception (“seeing”) and rational judgment could describe many mistaken characters in Menander. Desire limits what the old man sees and expects, and deficient observation in turn limits his grasp of the truth. That is, a choice has already been made, albeit an unconscious one, even before he “looks” at the new epikl¯eros. We have seen this principle at work in other plays but only here does Menander explicitly ground identity mistakes in the psychology of the viewer.101 Implicit is the idea that people choose among multiple interpretations of what they see. One has to be a “judge” (0) of the truth; simply “looking” is not enough. 100 101
On this “doubling” of the larger plot see Gutzwiller 2000: 122, 132 and n. 75. Cf. Gutzwiller 2000: 128–9. She emphasizes the metatheatrical context of lines 326–7.
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Something similar to Daos’ theory can be found in Aristotle. In a study of emotions and judgment, Stephen Leighton cites several passages, including Rhetoric 1377b31–1378a5 (cited at the start of this chapter), which show that “Emotion can alter perception and consequently the judgments based on these perceptions.”102 For example, in De Somniis Aristotle uses the example of the coward and the lover: We are easily deceived about our perceptions (t¯as aisth¯eseis) when we are in emotional states (en tois pathesin ontes), some in one state and others in another; e.g. the coward in his fear, the lover in his love; so that even from a very faint resemblance the coward expects to see his enemy, and the lover his loved one; and the more one is under the influence of emotion, the less similarity is required to give these impressions. Similarly, in fits of anger and in all forms of desire all are easily deceived, and the more easily, the more they are under the influence of emotions. So to those in a fever, animals sometimes appear on the wall from a slight resemblance of lines put together. (460b1–15, from Leighton, based on Hett’s translation)
Leighton points to the role of expectation in making the coward mistake another person for his enemy, something Daos actually makes explicit (“seeing and expecting,” ').103 Smikrines is all the more ripe for a second duping because the unexpected first epikl¯eros alerted him to the possibility of instant wealth. Daos himself mistook a corpse for his master, in part because a long, bloody battle predisposed him to fear the worst. He literally misidentified the figure he was seeing. One might compare Aristotle’s explanation of how emotions can prevent people from hearing correctly in a passage from the Nicomachean Ethics about the relative dangers of failing to control anger versus desire. Anger seems to listen to argument to some extent, but to mishear it, as do hasty servants who run out before they have heard the whole of what one says, and then muddle the order, or as dogs bark if there is but a knock at the door, before looking to see if it is a friend; so anger, by reason of the warmth and hastiness of its nature, though it hears, does not hear an order, and springs to take revenge. For argument or imagination informs us that we have been insulted or slighted, and anger, reasoning as it were that anything like this must be fought against, boils up straightaway; while appetite, if argument or perception merely says that an object is pleasant, springs up to the enjoyment of it. (1149a24–35, tr. Ross, revised by Ackrill and Urmson)
102 103
Leighton 1996: 213. On philosophical treatments of the broader problem of inferring the unknown from visible signs, see Grimaldi 1980 and Allen 2001. Leighton 1996: 212 “this concerns the perceptual level of emotions affecting perceptions rather than the epistemic level of emotions affecting beliefs and knowledge.”
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If emotion can create illusions like the hallucinations of the sick, it can also alter how people “put together” ( %) what they see.104 Sometimes the very object we perceive allows room for misperception. Leighton notes a distinction made in De Anima 2.6 between objects perceived per se (
L), e.g., “a white thing,” and objects perceived per accidens ( . >> ), e.g., the white thing perceived as “the son of Diares.” People may see the same thing per se, but differ in their perceptions per accidens. The hasty servant “hears the object per se, the sound, but through his or her emotion he or she is expecting something, and does not hear (does not put together) the object per accidens, the order issued.”105 Similarly, the coward and lover correctly perceive a person but misidentify the individual through fear or desire. Menander often exploits the discrepancy between perceiving something per se and per accidens. Daos recognizes a fallen Greek soldier but the swollen face prevents him from identifying the individual (“it wasn’t possible to recognize him clearly” 69–70); hence he relies on a nearby shield. Sostratos sees a “freeborn girl” and has to learn that she is the daughter of a notorious misanthrope; Moschion sees an attractive young woman and has to learn that she is his sister; Thrasonides sees a “captive” and even a “wife,” but only discovers later that she is related to a man he claims to have killed. This kind of selective perception is especially characteristic of the lover, who rarely envisions possibilities outside his hopes and desires, and the old Smikrines is as passionate about money as the young men are about women. He is also “rash” (0) 324 and egocentric, like other comic lovers. There is a sharp contrast, however, between his love of money and the legitimate passion of the real lover in this play. Chaireas “fell in love but not by choice” (288), with an idealized expectation of marriage (“to be blessed () in life” 294) and a proper sense of priorities. He envies Smikrines his kyrieia of the girl rather than her property: “the law makes another man kyrios of her” (297–8). A reason for this contrast is not hard to find. ] ^- was pardonable, particularly in the young, but New Comedy had no sympathy for the avarice of old men. We are consistently alienated from Smikrines’ point of view by the hostile perspectives of Daos, Chaireas and Chairestratos, by the authoritative condemnation of the prologue and by the old man’s transparent attempts to misrepresent himself (what was probably his only monologue begins with “So no one can say I’m greedy . . .”149). The Aspis suggests that humans are partly responsible for their own mistakes; everyone can mistake the truth when they “see” what they expect. 104
Leighton 1996: 215.
105
Leighton 1996: 213–15. See also 215–16.
Phasma (The Apparition)
65
Even Daos “mistook” a feigned death for a real one (' 110), just as Smikrines does (“having mistaken,” ' 324). However, the play also distinguishes degrees of gullibility. Because Smikrines understands kinship only in terms of money and privilege, he is particularly vulnerable to a scheme that promises to fulfill his dreams. He believes in the second epikl¯eros, even though it means accepting the extremely sudden, and highly unlikely, death of his younger brother. What Daos saw was a thoroughly convincing spectacle, staged by Chance; the play performed for Smikrines could only fool an “irrational judge of the truth.”
p h a s m a (the apparition) The “hidden” daughter of the Dyskolos and the false epikl¯eros of the Aspis illustrate alternatives to mistaken identity plots centering on lost daughters. Menander probably reused both premises in other plays. There is a false epikl¯eros in the Phormio of Apollodorus, who was heavily influenced by Menander, and Menander himself wrote two plays entitled “The Epikl¯eros.”106 The hidden-daughter motif, however, recurs in the slightly better preserved Phasma. Fifty-six lines from the first act survive, as well as fragmentary remains of another 65 lines and some testimonia, including a plot summary in Donatus, the author of a fourth-century commentary on Terence. The identity mistake in this play has an unusual, supernatural twist but a familiar psychology. As in the Dyskolos, the sequence of events in the Phasma starts when a young man (“Pheidias”) glimpses an attractive young woman he is not supposed to see. Pheidias sees a female figure in a shrine in his stepmother’s room. We know from Donatus’ summary that she is really his stepmother’s secret daughter by a pre-marital rape. After her marriage, the woman hid the girl in a neighbor’s house and constructed a passageway through the adjoining wall, disguising the entrance as a shrine.107 Thus the girl finds herself, literally and figuratively, between households, and the shrine makes her seem to emanate from the divine world. Pheidias initially takes her for a 106
107
One of these even featured an informal trial, mentioned in a rhetorical treatise: “when both the husband and wife plead their case with the child as judge, he [sc. Menander] does not give either a proem because there was already goodwill [sc. on the part of the child]” (Anon. Seguerianus 34, Rh. Gr. i, p. 359, 21, Epikl. > Test. iii K-A). Quintilian confirms that there was a iudicium (Inst. Or. 10. 1.70). Unfortunately, not enough of the play remains to determine if the problem that required the mock trial stemmed from a misidentification. Phasma citations are from Arnott 2000a. A recent trial may have given new life to this old device (used, e.g., in Euripides’ Protesilaus, Webster 1953: 175). In 333 bc a man was accused of conducting an illicit affair through a secret passageway (P. Oxy. 1607, cited Turner 1969: 319).
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numen (“divine power,” probably a translation of the Greek $ , Kock’s supplement in line 40), perhaps even “the goddess” (56) of the shrine herself. There is a marked element of subjectivity to his misapprehension. The prologue describes her flesh-and-blood appearances with a verb that emphasizes the role of the viewer, $O (“appears” 49, not a common word in Menander), and the young man’s father evidently makes no such mistake (a mosaic depicting a scene from Act II shows an angry man discovering the girl).108 Pheidias is wrong about her physical identity but his misconception aptly reflects her symbolic role: as living proof of her mother’s carefully hidden secret, the girl has long exerted an unseen influence over the household. Only now does the young man experience this “ghost” of his mother’s past directly. Initially her influence is manifested in a strange malaise, a kind of “psychosomatic melancholia and insomnia,” that follows the vision.109 According to Donatus, “at first sight of the lovely girl [Pheidias] was terrified” (ad Ter. Eun., prol. 9). When he first appears, he does not seem to know the truth (the divine prologue will soon explain “she’s [not an apparition] but a real girl” 40). In the opening scene between Pheidias and his slave, Menander presents discrepant perceptions of the “apparition” in the unusual form of an argument concerning the nature of the young man’s illness. Where other lovers speculate about the status of the women they love, this youth puzzles over his symptoms. He describes insomnia (9) and general discomfort (“I feel strange and sluggish” 21), while his slave scoffs at his “sickness” (& 20) as the ennui of the idle rich. In the slave’s view, Pheidias has insomnia because his whole life is sleep – an indolent course of strolls and baths (10–12) – and his problem is foolishness (& 22). He suffers from an empty evil, not a real one (25–8), and ought to be able to cure himself with a change of attitude (“Find a fake drug for a fake disease, and imagine it’s doing you some good” 27–8), or perhaps try a few quack remedies for bad dreams (29–31).110 Comic slaves often trace spiritual ills to physical causes (compare Getas’ “You’re probably over-fed” at Her. 17). In good comic form, this slave takes a reductive view of human existence, reminding Pheidias of the basic physical needs that preoccupy the less fortunate: “You have so many blessings, you have nowhere [to crap]” (17–18). But there may be more than a slave’s 108 109 110
See Turner 1969: 320, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 674, Barbieri 1999: 87, and Arnott 2000a: 366–7 for interpretations of this mosaic. Unfortunately the figures are not labeled. Quotation from Arnott 2000a: 368. Arnott had earlier suggested 1998b: 46 that the illness might be a sham to hide his new passion but this seems unlikely (why dupe his confidant?). Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 679 ad 45. See also Arnott 2000a: 380 n. 3.
P. K¨oln 203 ( Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott)
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pragmatism behind the advice to appreciate his enviable lot. Significantly, he tries to draw his young master down to a human plane: “How much does wheat [cost in the market]? (2); “Be aware that you’re a human being yourself and that [the needy] are human beings too, so that you don’t desire [things] beyond [you]” (6–8, cf. Mon. 246). Nothing in Pheidias’ conversation here or in Donatus’ summary would suggest he wanted a second look at the terrifying vision, and yet this seems to be implied by the word “desire,” which introduces a hint of attraction as well as fear. The slave happens to be right. As soon as Pheidias realizes the girl is not an apparition, he slips into a more conventional sickness (“and then after the truth gradually became known, he fell in love with the girl,” Don. loc. cit). His symptoms indeed invite comparison with 2-, revealing more to us than to the patient himself: he has a lover’s sleeplessness (cf. Mis. 6–9, Fab. Inc. 8 Arnott, 5–7), wretchedness, irrationality, and even “possession” (cf. Dysk. 44 “I’m making him possessed”). Empty though it may be, the disease has also had consequences. It has delayed a marriage with the neighbor’s daughter and prompted a stern reprimand at 34–8 (from his father?).111 His vision thus fills the same plot function as 2-, obstructing an impending marriage and preoccupying him with another woman. Pheidias’ vague self-diagnosis shows that he does not understand his affliction but realizes that the “apparition” is the cause. Once the truth was discovered the conflict presumably shifted to a more conventional form, following a typical Menandrian pattern in moving from perceptual to practical difficulties. The hidden daughter becomes a lost daughter, who is eventually “found” in time for the wedding in the fifth act. If characters in the Dyskolos make relatively realistic guesses about a hidden girl, the Phasma shows some of the more imaginative possibilities of this comic premise. ¨ p. k oln 2 03 ( fa b u l a i n c e rta 8 arnot t ) A highly conventional genre runs the risk of growing tedious, and Athenian audiences evidently grew bored with lost daughters, hidden girls and disputed epikl¯eroi. An extremely fragmentary play suggests a demand for ever more bizarre cases of mistaken identity, offering a fascinating glimpse of Menander’s ingenuity in devising new variations. The remains of some 241 lines of an unnamed play include two scenes between a lover (speaker A) and a skeptical confidant (speaker B, probably a slave and perhaps the 111
The father who eventually allows the marriage (Donatus mentions his consensus, perhaps significantly) may have planned another one initially (Barbieri 1999: 86–7).
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lover’s ' - , a kind of male nanny), not unlike the pair in the Phasma.112 Speaker A suffers from an extreme case of comic confusion. In the two fragments of P. K¨oln 203 he appears both before and after making a serious mistake about the identity of a woman he claims to love. He is thoroughly aware that he has a perceptual problem, so aware in fact that he calls his mistake an “error of ignorance” (& ). # , often thematic in Menander, carries specific associations: the “ignorance” always concerns the character or identity of an intimate friend, lover, or relative and usually has harmful consequences for both the household and the larger community. This is the first time the form & appears in comedy, but this play seems to have been unusually insistent about its departures from convention.113 Speaker A draws attention to the novelty of his “unlikely” situation: C %- & - [ 9] [] - [] )9[ ] : ;G _ , " ' ' [8] 9–11 For I’m in love, miserable me, in the newest way in all mankind. I haven’t seen what the woman I love looks like, by the twelve gods!
Comic lovers rarely understate their symptoms, but this speaker is trying especially hard to convince his confidant that his feelings are real. He claims all the symptoms of conventional passion: misery, rejection of his friends (“I couldn’t care less about the [post-symposium street revel]”), obsessive pursuit (“night and day I’m shut out”) and perseverance (“I’m persisting,” 8). How he first fell in love with his unseen marvel is unclear, but he tells us a little about her attractions. In the last badly preserved lines of this fragment, he appears to praise her “sophisticated character” (& , !) for leaving him “struck dumb” ( 0 18, a common metaphor for sudden love), and he may be claiming to place a low value on physical appearance: “for [I believe? I have said?] looks (;G) are never” (17).114 This nameless lover is not the only Menandrian character to fall in love with a woman’s !. The husband of P. Ant. 15 professes to have been 112
113 114
See ch. 33, n. 33 on the identification of this play. Speaker B’s crass language and reproving tone suggest a pedagogue or slave (Gaiser 1986: 17, Corbato 1988: 421, N¨unlist 1993: 262 ad A 14) rather than a friend (Maresch 1985: 2). Similar reproaches appear at Phasma 27ff. (N¨unlist, loc. cit.), frr. 740 (= 602 K-A) and 538.1 (= 761 K-A, N¨unlist, loc. cit.) and the first scene in Samia (63–5, 67–9, 70–6). Fab. Inc. 8 citations are from Arnott 2000a. Maresch 1985: 16 ad B ii 14 (“& hier zum ersten Mal in der Kom¨odie”). See further Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 466–7, Lef`evre 1979: 314–20, Duckworth 1952: 141 and Stoessl 1973. LSJ s.v. ii.2. See also Zagagi 1986: 39 and N¨unlist 1993: 266 B ii 17.
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“bound by [his new wife’s] freeborn character and honest way of life” (11).115 How Speaker A came by his information is a mystery, but it may not be completely reliable. He attributes to the woman both sophistication (lit. “a citified character,” i.e., the sort of polish acquired from urban living) and modesty (being % 19), a virtue normally associated with seclusion. & , ! suggests charm, refinement, intelligence, and wit – qualities one would expect in the more exclusive sort of hetaira and therefore an odd match with “modesty.”116 Is this simply a complimentary way of describing an expensive hetaira’s selectivity? It seems more likely that these lines are not straightforward description (it is clear enough from the next fragment that the speaker knows little about the woman) but a reflection of his desires: urban glamor but with the reassurance that the beloved will remain true. This young man is in love with an ideal. He is also striving for a certain self-image, which may account for the note of pride in the uniqueness of his situation. Commentators have pointed out that the complaint of unparalleled distress was itself an erotic topos, and this lover’s predicament, although paradoxical (love was proverbially sparked by sight), is no more implausible than Thrasonides’.117 Its novelty strikes the lover more forcefully than the slave, who shows only a perfunctory curiosity about this latest manifestation of $0 (“I think you screw around and party too much” 14). After claiming the sort of refined sensibility that holds beauty in contempt, he looks rather silly in the next fragment. By this point he has finally seen his beloved but appears to have confused her with someone else and inadvertently transferred his affections. Despite the mistake, he remains blissfully infatuated: % '( , [], ' ; @[-] '9 [ ,] 3 3. ;G- ,[] V> _ N' _ ` . N' A -, : & $ '[,] & 0 3 2 L - , a ) , , Y', , )% -. 115 116
117
Printed in Sandbach 1990: 327–8 but not attributed to Menander. Cf. Men. frr. 570, 571, and 580 K (cited N¨unlist 1993: 265 ad B ii 10). See Ireland 1992: 36 ad 18 and N¨unlist 1993: 262 ad A 16 and cf. Ter. Heauton 521–2 (mulier . . . faceta haec meretrix). The paraclausithyron and B’s , also suggest the hetaira (Zagagi 1986: 38, N¨unlist 1993: 261 ad A 6–7). % often implies chastity (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 569 ad 272 ) but N¨unlist 1993: 263 ad A 19 cites examples used of hetairai. E.g., Zagagi 1986: 38, N¨unlist 1993: 259–60. Maresch 1985: 10–11 ad A 11 notes the topos of love at first sight. Love, sight unseen, does figure in the Greek novel (e.g., Heliodorus 8.2, Achilles Tatius 2.13) and in an anecdote about Alcibiades (Athen. 13.574).
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What have I suffered, by the gods, that’s so terrible? I loved a particular personality, sight unseen, and I still praise it. I wanted to get a look at [lit. see the ;G of ] the woman I saw, not the woman I thought (I saw (?)). I don’t know what I’m saying, except that I really like her a lot and this mistake suits me just fine. She has a supremely lovely face, the one I’ve seen – sweet in conversation, a hetaira’s personality.
The original editor wanted “the woman I saw” and “the woman I thought” to be one and the same and accordingly suggested that the lover had seen her veiled.118 But as Brown points out, he praises her face specifically, calling her L -, “of supremely lovely face”, an unlikely choice if this is precisely what he could not see.119 Another solution is to give lines 31–2 to B and construe “in conversation” with the preceding clause (“I saw through description,” as at Soph. Oed. Col. 138 “I see through sound, as the saying goes”). The lover would not have seen the girl at all, and the slave would be expressing a hypothetical wish (“I would like to get a view I’ve already seen”).120 But it is hard to imagine a report arousing this degree of enthusiasm, particularly in the one area where language can least do a subject justice (and he is already coining new words for it: L -). This highly subjective view can only be the statement of an eyewitness. I follow Brown in assuming that two women were involved: the one the speaker loved without seeing her ;G (“appearance”) and the one he did see (and now loves).121 Arnott suggests several possible explanations for the first love: “the passion might have been inspired by a portrait of the girl, a glimpse of her from behind, a dream, or he could even have raped her at a festival in the dark during the previous night.”122 ;G means “looks” or “appearance” and although face-to-face contact is usually implied (it can also mean “face, countenance”), the word does not exclude a portrait or a partial glimpse and it is frequently used of visions in dreams (although 118 120
121
122
119 Brown 1986: 33. Maresch 1985: 2. Gaiser 1986: 13. Gaiser’s attempt to fit these fragments into the Hydria (“she” is actually a pot of gold and speaker A is deceiving B, who takes “her” to be a hetaira) is ingenious but unpersuasive. In addition to the difficulties noted by Arnott 2000a: 563, Gaiser’s theory requires an extension of the erotic metaphor over several scenes to no apparent purpose (B was presumably “duped” by the end of the first) and it does not account for B’s evident attachment to A. If B is A’s slave, why is he not an accomplice? If he is not A’s slave, why does he care about A’s romantic woes? Brown 1986: 33. N¨unlist 1993: 265 ad B ii 12 suggests yet another possibility: different aspects or impressions of the same woman (_ N' and _ ` would represent “die verschiedenen Stufen des Wissens”). His argument for attributing these fragments to the Dis Exapat¯on (pp. 271–8), however, requires two women, “Bacchis” and her sister. Cf. Sheldon 1988: 16. Arnott 2000a: 559. Sheldon 1988: 12 makes similar suggestions.
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this is usually made clear by phrases like “at night” or “in a dream”).123 But Arnott’s first three suggestions would have the lover equivocating with a word he later uses in a straightforward sense (“I wanted to get a look” 30–1). A rape is also unlikely. Rapes of unknown women in New Comedy do not inspire tender feelings, and the parties involved rarely get a good glimpse of one another (hence the many plots involving victims and rapists who marry one another unawares, e.g., in the Epitrepontes, H¯er¯os and Phasma). This speaker lays such stress on not having seen her ;G that he must mean he has no idea what she looks like. Something other than looks inspired his feelings (and he tells us what it is: her character). Without further knowledge of the circumstances it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to make sense of lines 28–33. [ ] might also mean “someone’s personality,” if the genitives are taken separately; the emendation [] would change the meaning to “was sort of in love;” “I wanted” (V> ) might also mean “I would like;” and it is not absolutely certain that two women were involved.124 The language may well be “deliberately incomprehensible,” as Brown suggests, in order to show the speaker’s distraught state of mind.125 He is on the defensive and trying to save face after being blamed for his own misfortune (“you surrendered yourself,” speaker B remarks), evidently by arguing that the new development, whatever it was, is not so terrible. He certainly believes there are two women, whether or not this actually proves true, and he thinks he has transferred his feelings from the one with the & , ! to the one with more conventional attractions. With a half-hearted claim to consistency (“Even now I praise it” 30), the man who made so much of loving inner beauty abandons sophisticated modesty for good looks, appealing conversation, and a hetaira’s personality. His “mistake” shows a discrepancy between his professed and real values. Perhaps his aspirations to a more spiritual love had more to do with being locked out than with loving modesty. The slave naturally takes a cynical view, answering his “I want to spend the rest of this life with her” with a terse “None of the gods could save this fellow” (36–8). He remains unpersuaded that this confessed hetaira could or should make a life time partner (particularly if she was instrumental in either the 123 124
125
LSJ s.v. i.3. N¨unlist 1993: 265 suggests separating the genitives. Otherwise the genitive construction is paralleled at Amphis fr. 15.3 - 0, Bato fr. 7.4 K-A - . . . 5 (cited Maresch 1985: 16 ad B ii 10). Brown 1986: 34 conjectures . On V> as an unreal condition without * see Gaiser 1986: 13, Verdenius 1974: 19–20 ad 30. Cf. Epitr. 166, perhaps also Sam. 640. “I wanted” would continue the narrative begun with @[-] line 29 and would perhaps better suit his speaker, who is anything but hesitant in asserting his wants (note, e.g., >8 36). Brown 1986: 33.
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lock-out (7) or the continuing ill-treatment the lover complains about at line 23. This man is so determined to be in love that the woman he sees immediately becomes the woman he loves. Her identity is almost a matter of indifference. As J. S. Sheldon has pointed out, his unseen love recalls the situation in the Phasma,126 but whereas the Phasma collapses different perceptions of the beloved into a single character (Pheidias sees first a goddess, then a real girl), Fabula Incerta 8 apparently splits the different roles between different women. conclusion The same basic mechanisms underlie all of the plots studied in this chapter. Stratophanes, Thrasonides, Polemon, Moschion, Daos, Sostratos, Smikrines, Pheidias, and Speaker A in P. K¨oln 203 are mistaken in points of fact about the women they hope to marry (or at least seduce). Why was something as formulaic, artificial, and implausible as the mistaken identity plot so popular with Athenian audiences? Its advantages are not hard to see. Mistaken identity is one solution to the basic problem of involving women in dramatically interesting situations without openly challenging the rules that were supposed to keep them out of these situations in real life. It was not always easy to introduce doubt into what ought to have been determinate facts; hence, the far-fetched coincidences for which the genre was famous. For Menander and the other New Comic poets, the obvious way to jeopardize a woman’s legal, social, and economic position was to deprive her of a legitimate father. This device has roots in earlier versions of the disguise-and-recognition plot: the absence of the male head of the household in the Odyssey, for example, already results in a kind of “disguise” – in the form of diminished status – for his dependents (Laertes, Telemachus, Eumaeus, Penelope).127 In New Comedy, the lost daughter is separated from her family long before the play begins. In the Siky¯onioi, Misoumenos, and Eunuchus she is stolen by pirates or captured in war; in the Perikeiromen¯e and Heauton Timoroumenos her father orders her exposed at birth. In the H¯er¯os, Phasma, and Synarist¯osai, she is the result of a pre-marital rape forgotten by the father. Even within the small Menander corpus that survives there are many variations of the lost-daughter plot. Plays like the Dyskolos and Aulularia remove the father by incapacitating him. In Terence’s Andria and Eunuchus, complicated misfortunes leave the girl in the care of a kindly prostitute, 126
Sheldon 1988: 12.
127
Murnaghan 1987: 25.
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and something similar probably happened in the Perinthia. The Aspis kills off both the father and his next of kin, leaving the girl officially an orphan. In a sense, all of these young women are orphans (even those in the H¯er¯os and Phasma who have surviving mothers), because a legitimate father – the deus ex machina of New Comedy – is the parent they really need. Like the minister or ship’s captain in comedy of a later era, the father is the man who can tie the knot, and in many of these plays he does little else. Plutarch in fact singles out the “legitimate father” (: 0 ) as the reward for “good and loving” hetairai, i.e., lost daughters (Mor. 712c, cited in chapter 1). A double identity also opened up the dramatic possibility of social mobility – precisely what law and custom tried to prevent. As a dramatic premise, mistaken identity is thus virtually guaranteed to create conflicts involving the entire community, with some members resenting apparent violations and others trying to exploit them. Questions of identity, including social, economic, and juridical status, touched on emotional issues, particularly for Athenians, and women posed special problems. In theory, divisions between citizen/slave, slave/wife, wife/mistress, and mistress/prostitute were clear and no one made mistakes about whether a woman was eligible for marriage. But the historical record shows that this was not always the case. Despite the importance which Pericles’ citizenship law of 451 bc attached to double citizen marriage, Athens did not keep track of female citizens nearly as carefully as male citizens. Without phratry registration, birth certificates, or marriage licenses, and with custom limiting the public visibility of women of the propertied classes, it was often difficult to prove a woman’s juridical status (and sometimes even existence) to the satisfaction of a jury.128 Athenians could and did argue about whether a woman was a “wedded wife” and who should marry an epikl¯eros; young men did fall in love with ineligible women, perhaps even trying to marry them (Isae. 3.17), and cases could hinge on whether a woman was married or a citizen.129 It was difficult enough to distinguish men by class. One self-styled citizen was initially prosecuted as a metic and later accused of being a runaway slave (Pancleon in Lys. 23). A historian went so far as to complain that “The Athenian People is no better clothed than the slave or alien, nor in personal 128
129
One girl is said to have been introduced to her father’s phratry (Is. 3.73 and 76), perhaps because she was an epikl¯eros. A wife was normally presented to her husband’s phratry but probably not registered (Lambert 1993: 36, 180–1, 183–5, contra Pomeroy 1995: 117–18, see also Gould 1980: 40–2, Cole 1984: 235–8). E.g., Dem. 57, Is. 8. See Hunter 1994: 112, Patterson 1994: 35, Cox 1998: 178–9, Lewis 2002: 100, and Miner 2003: 26 on the difficulties of proving women’s status at Athens and see Connor (1994) on larger problems of defining and policing citizenship.
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appearance is there any superiority” (Ps.-Xen. Ath. Pol. 1.10 tr. Dakyns) and a Middle Comic poet complained “Many are not now free, but tomorrow they’ll be Sounians and the day after they’ll use the agora” (Anax. fr. 4). The ease with which women slip in and out of status categories, whether by accident or by choice, has some basis in reality. These are problems an Athenian audience could imagine happening. There were good reasons to fight over status. For a lost daughter, recognition meant the difference between poverty and secure maintenance, prostitution and marriage, self-support and the protection of a family. An epikl¯eros suddenly left with an estate could expect a change in her marriage arrangements in order to keep the estate within the family. Men can of course be “lost” too. Stratophanes and Gorgias (the twin brother in the H¯er¯os) are recognized as Athenians and Moschion (Perik.) recovers his biological father. The title character in the Hypobolimaios (“Changeling”) is probably restored to his rightful parents, like the baby in the Epitrepontes, although little is known of this play.130 Men can also be subject to identity mistakes: Kleostratos and Krateia’s brother are both presumed dead because of a misleading piece of armor. A summary of the Hiereia indicates that the misperceived characters are both young men: the son and the supposititious son of the priestess’s neighbors. I also suspect that the “Carthaginian” who wants to marry a citizen girl (Karch.37–9) proves to be another lost citizen; his frank naivet´e suggests that he will get the girl.131 Their stories are less gripping, however, than the women’s. Moschion is not about to slip into prostitution and Stratophanes has never been enslaved. There was clearly some discomfort about subjecting citizen men to the same humiliations as women (prostitution was an option for destitute young men, too, but we would never know this from New Comedy). Chapter 6 will explore this gender bias in more detail. Here I only note that kyrieia could not be a dramatic issue with freeborn adult men (they were their own kyrioi) and that conflicts over women’s status were as much about emotional as legal issues. Both twins are in the same situation in the H¯er¯os, but the debate focuses on Plangon because Daos is in love with her. Stratophanes has the same claim to citizenship as Philoumene, but he does not have suitors vying for his hand. Indeed, because the emotions that women inspire are more important than 130
131
We know of five comedies entitled Hypobolimaios (Ogden 1996: 110). “Changelings” are always male and usually children, although adults are involved in Hier., Perik., and Mis. Pressure to produce male heirs may well have created a real-world black market (Ogden 110–11). The pueri suppositio (Plaut. Capt. 1031) motif is common in folklore, however (see ch. 6 n. 22); it cannot be attributed simply to Athenian preoccupation with citizenship. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 408.
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those they feel (a phenomenon that continues even in twentieth-century film), they often get relatively little stage time.132 The people we actually watch quarreling, arguing, misjudging, and misinterpreting are men. The real dramatic interest of these plots is not in the formulaic elements – the abductions, exposures, recoveries, and recognitions – but in the unique course each error takes in a character’s mind, as he clings to his mistake and struggles to convince himself and others of its truth. It is not the maze itself but how the characters negotiate it that holds our attention. Mistaken identity is about more than ignorance, as Menander realized (and so did the orators and playwrights who studied his plays with an eye to writing performance scripts of their own). His characters do not quite turn lines on the wall into animals (although Pheidias in the Phasma comes close), but they do repeatedly demonstrate that people are “easily deceived about perceptions when in emotional states.” Speaker A in the Cologne papyrus comes closest to Aristotle’s example: he expects to see his beloved and therefore does, even though he is looking at the wrong woman. Characters in the grip of desire “spring up” – as Aristotle argues (NE 1149a29, cited above) – to enjoy hoped for pleasures long before they are secure. Daos in the Aspis speculates that Smikrines will “immediately” give the one niece away, marry the other, and get down to the business of inspecting his new property (353–9). Sostratos in the Dyskolos likewise falls in love “immediately” and presses his suit the next day; moreover, he can barely refrain from kissing the girl while he is supposed to be rescuing her father (686–8). Moschion in the Perikeiromen¯e chafes at waiting “two or three days” to fulfill what his imagination promises immediately (343–4), while Polemon has to be restrained from storming the house of the “seducer” who has stolen his “wife.” These lovers are eager to believe the women can and will be theirs. These plays should be appreciated as studies in human psychology which explore the relationship between perception and knowledge and the role of the emotions in shaping how people see and judge one another. They show similarities to the principles taught by contemporary teachers of rhetoric, although it is impossible to prove direct influence. Menander makes no obvious effort to describe misperceptions in Aristotelian terms, for example, and the statement in the Aspis of the psychological principle behind the stock comic device is unparalleled elsewhere in the corpus. Menander was 132
“What counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself, the woman has not the slightest importance” (Boetticher, cited in Mulvey 1999: 63).
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simply developing a premise that was conventional wisdom in rhetorical handbooks and had been elaborated by at least one major philosopher. He grounded mistakes about a woman’s status in what was, in fourth-century terms, realistic psychology. His comedies part company with philosophy in exaggerating the absurdity of the mistake and emphasizing the degree to which characters collude in their own deception. Young men like Polemon, Glykera’s Moschion, Daos, and Sostratos expend considerable efforts to persuade themselves and others that their beloved belongs to an accessible class. Smikrines’ is the most blatantly instrumental view of a woman, but all of these characters embrace a particular status assessment for practical reasons. Thrasonides and Stratophanes cede kyrieia because they hope to get their mistresses back as wives. Moschion in the Siky¯onioi supports Philoumene’s claim to citizenship because he wants to marry her. Conversely, the other Moschion barely acknowledges that his own sister might be more than a “pipe-girl or cheap slut.” These are characters who want to be wrong. As speaker A cheerfully admits, “This mistake is fine by me” (Fab. Inc. 8.33). Misapprehension and Chance may preside over the plays, but mistaken identity propagates through human mechanisms. These mistakes are richly revealing of hopes and fears, and even values and ideals. The more sympathetic characters pursue women for their own sake, not for dowries or social connections. Stratophanes, Thrasonides and Polemon are looking for companionship; Sostratos brags of his indifference to the girl’s fortune or family; Pheidias falls in love with his “apparition” as soon as she proves mortal (but before she finds a father . . .); and poor Daos, far from seeking advancement through Plangon, actually tries to convince himself that she is a slave. The soldiers who take their mistresses for wives show a very unmilitary preference for the stability of civilian life. They want recognition of their kindness, generosity, and devotion, not their rich spoils or battlefield accomplishments. Young men like Chaireas, Sostratos, and Moschion (Sik.) cherish an idealized notion of marriage, wistfully pronouncing the man who marries their beloved “blessed” (). They also want wives of superlative beauty. Like Daos, who takes the blame for a rape he did not commit, Sostratos and Moschion regard themselves as rescuers (from poverty and “kidnappers,” respectively). Of course the real rescuer in the Dyskolos is Gorgias, whose mistake reveals his own values. His intervention to protect an abandoned child is intended as a criticism of Knemon’s ' % (“grouchiness”) and a lesson in the meaning of kinship. Smikrines, on the other hand, calculates kinship in drachmas and is ready to regard either niece as the instrument of his “dream wealth.” Since misperceptions often reflect what characters would like to believe
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about themselves, errors about status can also reveal deficiencies of selfknowledge. Smikrines is the obvious example, but Moschion (Perik.) and the lover in Fabula Incerta 8 also look for confirmation of rather unlikely selfimages. There are obvious parallels here with feminist theories of women as “a mirror of value of and for man” without specific qualities of their own.133 These men are treating the women as blank slates, ready to be overwritten with their own values. Misperceptions accordingly help an audience to separate the good from the bad. The more sympathetic the character, the more plausible the mistake. At one extreme is Smikrines, who believes in a second false heiress; at the other is Daos, who mistakes an unrecognizable corpse; somewhere in between we find figures like Stratophanes, who was probably never told that Philoumene came from Athens. Chance in the Aspis makes everyone “wander in ignorance” for a while, heroes and villains alike. Menander goes to some trouble to create situations in which misunderstandings seem plausible so that characters can be drastically mistaken without looking like fools. The unlikely coincidences – enslaved citizens returned to their native city, exposed twins living as neighbors, girls raised in secrecy – ensure misunderstanding, even by sensible and well-intentioned characters, and permit broadly discrepant views on the woman’s status. These mistakes are often self-serving, but they are not deliberate deceptions. Polemon is not trying to fool the neighbors, and he does not even consider pretending that Glykera is his wife after Pataikos assures him that she is not. The two Moschions chase women they sincerely believe to be accessible and desist, albeit reluctantly, when they learn otherwise. Daos would like to marry Plangon, but he is not trying to deprive her of her birthright as a freeborn citizen. These men produce fantasies, not schemes, and their clumsy efforts at realization are never calculated to deceive (unlike those of the many real Athenians who misrepresented mistresses and illegitimate children). When lovers do succeed in turning an illicit affair into an acceptable one, it is through chance, not machination, and the woman’s promotion is always justified as a restoration to a lost “true” status. The most implausible aspect of the Menandrian mistaken identity plot may not be the far-fetched coincidences, the unlikely confusions or the exaggerated emotions, but the fact that there is a clear solution at the end. Ancient readers thought highly of Menander’s plays because they are more than just rote applications of comic formulas. Their complicated identity mistakes show imagination and artistry, permitting far more varia133
Irigaray 1985: 177, 187.
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tion than might initially appear. Not all concern daughters stolen in infancy who flirt with prostitution, ensnare stable young men, and manage to marry them in the end. Mistaken identity was a versatile plot device, useful for putting attractive young women in unusual situations – without infringing social norms – and for creating possibilities for social mobility that rarely existed in real life. It also served as a test of character. What individuals see reveals more about their own psychology than about the reality of any particular case, and their mistakes often take a convoluted course as they struggle against the truth. These errors had antecedents in earlier genres and were to a degree theorized by contemporary intellectuals, but their real roots and enduring appeal surely lie in a universal tendency to cling to a comforting delusion. Mistaken identity taps into something very human.
chap t e r 3
Misperception of character
The previous chapter showed how Menander used mistakes about comparatively objective aspects of identity to generate conflict and reveal aspects of character. This chapter focuses on mistakes about more subjective aspects: “what” a woman is, morally, rather than “who.” Misperceptions of character and misperceptions of status have much in common: what characters see is partly determined by what they expect and what they expect is shaped by their assumptions about sex and status. Again, we watch distraught characters reason their way into false conclusions about women they love. We have already seen Sostratos’ sudden convictions about the sterling qualities of Knemon’s daughter (she has real virtues, of course, but they are not what inspires his enthusiasm). The mistakes examined in this chapter are less flattering than Sostratos’. Where female characters are concerned, misperceptions of character typically involve “discovering” in a more or less innocent figure the negative stereotype of the avaricious prostitute and concluding that this is the real truth – everything else about her is pretence. Mistakes about moral character accordingly tend to center on socially marginal women: foreigners, orphans, and slaves. In other words, they involve women who are or might easily become prostitutes. There is a certain cultural logic to this. The prostitute was an adaptable villain. Her vices included greed, lust, drunkenness, shamelessness, dishonesty, pretense, and servility, and her misbehavior ranged from ruining young men and breaking up marriages to threatening the stability of respectable households. She flourished as both a stock comic type and a cultural stereotype, alluded to time and again by Menandrian characters, even if she does not appear in propria persona in any of the preserved plays. She represents a latent possibility in all hetairai. A kind of all-purpose malefactor, she represents one side of a pervasive cultural image. That she comes readily to mind when characters think about female misconduct is consistent with what anthropologists have identified as the paradox of the prostitute in general, a figure who is often “socially marginal” but “culturally central” 79
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because she is so useful, conceptually, as a negative example for groups that are socially central to use in their own self-definition. Marxist- and Freudian-influenced critics often treat her as a “fetish” whose use-value is concealed behind an illusory appearance.1 This illusory appearance may be partly traced to necessity: the professional prostitute had to possess skill as a performer (many Greek hetairai were in fact musicians, dancers, acrobats or amateur actresses – what Davidson calls “mousik¯e-workers”).2 A figure who must appear be something other than she is makes a convenient medium for male projection. We have already seen Menandrian characters who love low-status women because they see qualities in them they would like to possess themselves (e.g., Plangon in the H¯er¯os) or who read their behavior in terms of their own emotional needs (e.g., Polemon and Moschion in the Perikeiromene¯). As a publicly viewable woman, the prostitute could also play a double role as an object of desire for both the fictional characters and the audience, a phenomenon that has been explored extensively for women in film.3 Of particular concern here is the literary prostitute, who has been described as “a cultural sign that could embody a broad range of literary, social, political and discursive issues.”4 So deeply engrained is this figure in the Greek cultural imagination that she is used to “think with” in many genres besides comedy (oratory, lyric, even philosophy). Laura McClure shows, for example, how Athenaeus uses her as a nostalgic emblem of Athenian civilization at its acme back in the fifth and fourth centuries. As a professional roleplayer and performer, she was useful precisely because of her “artificiality and fictiveness.”5 She brought especially useful traits for comedy – intelligence, initiative, and trickery – along with the capacity to represent the best and worst of women: she could be maternal, loyal and affectionate or lustful, dishonest and greedy. As McClure points out, “the hetaera is represented as inherently theatrical: she is never herself, but always performs the part of someone else.”6 Over two thousand years later, Simone de Beauvoir could still describe the literary prostitute as “one of the most plastic feminine types, giving full scope to the grand play of vices and virtues.”7 1
2 5 7
Quotations from McClure 2003: 3. The classic discussion is Irigaray 1985: women have traditionally served as products for male consumption, holding either a “use-value” (as wives/mothers) or an “exchange value” (as virgins). Prostitution is a special case because it illustrates a breakdown in this distinction (“Prostitution amounts to usage that is exchanged” 186) and because of its overt recognition of “woman” as a sexualized body (84–5). Notable applications by classicists include Davidson 1997 and Kurke 1999. 3 E.g. Mulvey 1999: 63. 4 McClure 2003: 26. Cf. Gilhuly 1999: 12. Davidson 2006: 35–42. 6 McClure 2003: 120. McClure 2003: 5. Cf. Hawley 1993: 75. “For the timorous puritan, the prostitute incarnates evil, shame, disease, damnation; she inspires fear and disgust; she belongs to no man, but yields herself to one and all and lives off such commerce . . .
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Her versatility obviously appealed to the comic dramatist: as a type, she could take on any role from “whore” to “wife.” Versatility was no virtue, however, for those who – in fiction and real life – distrusted someone who could play anyone. This chapter looks at characters who share the view attributed to Menander, in the anecdote from Athenaeus cited in chapter 1, that “no hetaira is good.” They think in terms of a particular version of the literary hetaira, the “whore” who embodies the traditional faults of women (intemperance, sensuality), vices relevant to the dramatic situation (infidelity, deception), and anything that threatens the stability of the household (financial ruin, corruption, social fragmentation, even illegitimacy). They condemn the women for embodying qualities and behaviors which they themselves vehemently reject. Their projections, however, are just that. They are not accurate perceptions of the women, nor are they consistent with what the audience sees. In fact, the projected images these men use to “think with” are at odds with the figures who actually appear on stage. No clear distinction has been made here between prostitutes and other low-status women. The reason is a certain amount of overlap and assimilation between the two categories. Once the possibility was introduced, little evidence was required to identify a low-status woman as a prostitute. Some errors about character thus begin as errors about status and many of the same subjective factors are at work. The arguments these men make would have been familiar to a fourth-century audience; they are the kind of arguments that were taught by rhetoricians and familiar from public fora (as Michael Gagarin notes, most men “did not learn rhetoric through formal education but rather from direct experience in the Assembly or the courts”).8 The problems these characters face are similar to those faced by juries: deciding whether an action constituted a crime, weighing it against past behavior, determining the agent’s motivation, evaluating the evidence, and generally trying to expose truths other people would like to hide. Menander wrote for an audience accustomed to sophisticated oral arguments, often constructed according to principles developed by philosophers and teachers of rhetoric. It is therefore important to understand something of the style of argument and the assumptions about human nature that underlie these comic mistakes.
8
On the other hand, a man who is not afraid of the flesh will enjoy its generous and straightforward affirmation by the prostitute; he will sense in her the exaltation of a femininity that no morality has made wishy-washy” (Beauvoir 1953: 193–4). Horn and Pringle 1984 survey the prostitute in western literature; Roberts 1993, in western history and culture. Gagarin 2001: 166.
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When Menandrian characters talk about “character” in the abstract, the word they most often use is . 0 (stamp, personality), the term Theophrastus applies to human personality types, appears only once: “a man’s 0 is known from his speech” (72 K-A). This was, however, a recent and somewhat technical use of the word ( 0 means literally an “engraved mark” or “stamp”),9 which one would not expect in a genre that draws its vocabulary from daily speech. !, the term Aristotle uses in the Poetics, is not common either. A short fragment mentions that wealth changes a person’s ! (fr. 840 K-A) and the word occurs in the sense of “moral character” a few times. There are also scattered references to @, “habits, character.”10 For human nature in general or under particular conditions – such as love or misfortune – Menander uses the word $8 , “nature.” When applied to an individual, $8 denotes innate, and usually inalterable, qualities.11 To speak of a person’s character, Menander most often uses the word , literally “turn” and by extension “manner, way of life, habit, character.” One fragment claims, “b8 is the same for all, but contributes the personal” ( ,, fr. 698 K-A). is fundamentally ethical. When characters speak of someone’s (sometimes plural, ), it is usually to categorize it as good or bad, although there may be more specific descriptors: civilized, reticent, blunt, Greek, youthful, elderly, vice-hating.12 does not mean “character type” on the order of a Theophrastan 0; there are no categories of under which everyone may be classified. Many Menandrian figures do, however, share with Theophrastus the assumption that a person’s does not change, although it may be deliberately concealed. A person who “says a lot about every topic” shows his in his words (fr. 693 K-A); another who “pretends to be boorish” is actually a scoundrel (fr. 780 K-A); Knemon’s makes persuasion useless (Dysk. 253–4, cf. 869–70); and grooms ought to learn the of their bride before 9 10
11
12
Steinmetz 1960: 188 n. 12. ! means “habits” in a moral sense in fr. 165 K-A, Mon. 287, 310, 320, 856. On Aristotelian and Theophrastan $8 , !, and in relationship to Menander, see Steinmetz 1960, Barigazzi 1965: 69–86, Keuls 1975, Hunter 1985: 148–9, Rusten 1993: 11–18, and Massioni 1998: 9–43. On conceptions of character in Greek literature, oratory, and philosophy generally see Pelling 1990. b8 of human nature: K-A frr. 219.3, 191.1, 250, 286, 602.14, 698, 701, 848, Mon. 42; $8 of women’s nature: K-A frr. 808, 812, Mon. 153, 157, 860; $8 of innate qualities: Asp. 338, Epitr. 322, Perik. 136, K-A frr. 323, 776, 793, 835. as , -, '%, $-, , 8, , , T, c ^0, or , $3, , : Asp. 125, Dysk. 321, 388 (and implicit at 770), Perik. 1008, Sam. 347 and 550, frr. 764, 793–94, 803, 851–2, Mon. 148, 206, 215, 232, 334, 393, 458, 458, 701, 711, 717, 731, 867. Cf. Mon. 267. A is probably good (opposed to at Mon. 461, bearing Mon. 402); some are neutral, e.g., (Mon. 240), O- (fr. 831), - (fr. 776).
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they marry (presumably it will not change). A cynical father promises, “I’ll drag my girl through the whole city . . . look at what kind of evil you’ll get” (fr. 804 K-A) and Chaireas in the Dyskolos follows the same procedure (“I find out her family, finances, ” 65–6). There are also maxims based on the stability of character: “if you would be just, use your as a guide” (Mon. 193); “ is judged most in silver” (i.e., in financial affairs, Mon. 267); “Know the of your friends but do not hate them altogether” (Mon. 804). Since is usually moral and unchanging, it is not surprising that human fortunes are sometimes attributed to it: “To some Chance gives plenty of [evils]; to others, their ” (fr. 846 K-A); “[those things] for which is not responsible . . . the well-born ought to bear nobly” (fr. 159 K-A); “what else, if not his , destroys this man [sc. who thinks an evil deed a necessity]?” (Epitr. 1106).13 Sometimes people deceive themselves: “the person who doesn’t bear things according to nature calls his own chance” (fr. 687 K-A). Despite a general belief that individuals do not usually change in their moral character, some exceptions are recognized. Knemon is not alone in complaining about the corrupting effect of society. Bad company (fr. 165 K-A, Mon. 383) and bad habits (Mon. 287) corrupt, as do wealth (frr. 839– 840, implicit in Mon. 359) and misfortune (fr. 854 K-A, Mon. 313). There is of course no reason to expect philosophical consistency from different characters in different plays. We will see two characters who try to convince themselves, when faced with evidence of misconduct, that the culprit was bad all along. Others blame misconduct on necessity, suggesting that the individual has not really changed (e.g., Perik. 164, fr. 854 K-A). What is consistent is the moral content of statements about “character” in the abstract and the minimal role given to individual choice: a Menandrian character does not choose to have a good or bad . Nor does Menander use Peripatetic language to talk about character generally or apply Aristotelian criteria (sc. of habitually practiced virtue, deliberately chosen) or even Theophrastan personality types. When characters make judgments about specific individuals, as this chapter will argue, they rely on assumptions about what people of a given status usually do. Their mistakes arise from misinterpretations of ambiguous evidence, not deficiencies in their understanding of human nature. And this is where another branch of contemporary philosophy can be helpful. 13
Massioni 1998: 16–19, 30–1, 43 argues that Menandrian and Theophrastan $8 both include innate as well as acquired qualities, which are hard to change once ingrained and can determine an individual’s lot (q.v. pp. 29–31 on the philosophical context of fragments contrasting 8 / or identifying with an individual’s '%-). Cf. Steinmetz 1960: 188–90.
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For a fourth-century Greek audience, it was axiomatic that character differs predictably with age, sex and status. We may be more likely to see figures who depart from a stereotype as individualized and therefore realistic, but it was an accepted convention among ancient audiences that “realism” meant conforming to familiar types (embodied, most notably, in the advice in Aristotle, Rhet. 1388b31–1391b6). Plato’s Ion was already boasting that he knew “what is appropriate for a man to say, and for a woman, and for a slave, and for a free person, and for a subject, and for a ruler” (540b). Aristophanes of Byzantium praised Menander for “imitating life” (Comm. in Call. Pin. fr. 5) and Quintilian singled out his characters as models for aspiring orators: “he has all the more to offer declaimers, since they must adopt multiple personae according to the circumstances: fathers, sons, bachelors, husbands, soldiers, farmers, rich people, poor people, angry people, entreating people, gentle people, fierce people” (Inst. Or. 10.1.71). It is not surprising that orators found common ground with playwrights. Both needed to appeal to common beliefs and opinions (what Aristotle called 2'4) in order to write effective speeches.14 One fourth-century dramatist in fact wrote a rhetorical treatise, unfortunately lost, and some of the best evidence for the underlying assumptions about character in Menander may be found in contemporary rhetorical theory.15 Two surviving works mentioned in the previous chapter are particularly valuable. The first is Aristotle’s Rhetoric, which covers proofs, style and arrangement and draws on sophistic rhetoric, as well as Aristotle’s own research into logic, politics, and ethics. Composition of the Rhetoric spanned many years (the latest datable reference is 336 bc) but the work was certainly available before Menander produced his first play in 321.16 The second is the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, a handbook named for a spurious dedication to Alexander the Great, dating to the late fourth or early third century.17 Both treatises cover types of oratory and formal elements of speeches. The Rhetorica ad Alexandrum offers more practical advice than Aristotle, outlining, for example, the best arguments for common legal defenses: what to say for a defendant who admits the charge, how to counter the defense that it was a mistake or bad luck, how to discredit witnesses, how to use arguments from probability. Probably little in this treatise is 14 15 16 17
Cf. Ober and Strauss 1990: 238–9, Dover 1974: 13–14 and n. 10. Theodectes’ lost work on rhetoric is summarized in Arist. Rhet. 1410b2 (see Kennedy 1963: 80–1). On the date of the Rhetoric see Kennedy 1963: 84–5 and n. 73. On the date of the Org¯e see Men. Test. 3 and 49 K-A. The work has been attributed to Anaximenes on the strength of a passage in Quintilian (3.4.9). On the date see Rackham 1937: 258 and Kennedy 1963: 114. All translations are from these editions.
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original, but it is the best surviving representative of the sophistic tradition and it offers insight into the expectations of Menander’s audience.18 Menander counted on his audience to recognize when characters use arguments intended for winning lawsuits in order to fool themselves. The contents of a handbook such as the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum were the ABCs of rhetoric. An audience used to hearing these rhetorical techniques and argumentative strategies from public speakers would have little difficulty recognizing them in the mouths of comic characters.19 Many of the assumptions about human psychology and human character voiced in Menander are consistent with the advice in these treatises. Athenians were evidently willing to hear arguments such as the following: “Now perhaps he will lament his poverty, the blame for which rests not with me but with his own character ( )” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1433a33–5). This was not just amoral sophistry; even Aristotle acknowledged that considering oneself rich or poor could have an effect on one’s moral character or @ (Rhet. 1369a28–31.). According to the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, the argument that a rich person behaved well fits with “reasonable expectation” because “most people obviously think that those who are rich are more honest than those who are poor” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1429a31–7). The character in Menander who says “the words of the poor are empty” (Mon. 752) is not necessarily a crank or a snob. Both Aristotle and the author of the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum understood how a jury’s emotional disposition towards a defendant could influence their verdict. This chapter takes a closer look at how three lovers judge women they believe have betrayed them: Demeas in the Samia, Sostratos in the Dis Exapat¯on and Thrasonides in the Misoumenos. The images Demeas and Sostratos create reflect the type of the corrupt prostitute and serve their immediate emotional needs. When faced with suspicious behavior, they rush to cast the women as whores, even supplementing their accusations with scenarios they invent. Since both eventually decide to break off their affairs, the monologues detailing their responses are, at least functionally, decision speeches. But the real dramatic interest of the speeches lies in their exploration of the essential Menandrian problem of knowing intimate friends and family ($%). The men’s distorted reasoning illustrates the effects of emotion on their perception and judgment, and the portraits they draw reveal their own anxieties and fears. In the Samia and 18 19
Kennedy 1963: 115. Mutual influence is now generally recognized. On political and legal rhetoric in drama see Bers 1994, Hall 1995, Ober and Strauss 1990: 259–69, and Scafuro 1997; on “persuasion” more broadly in tragedy see Buxton 1982.
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Dis Exapat¯on, conventional mistakes are made in conventional ways; in the Misoumenos (and to a lesser extent, in the Perikeiromen¯e), Menander splits the “disillusioned lover” role between two closely linked characters who reason their way into different mistakes. In all four plays Menander again exploits the ambiguous position of the outsider with emotional ties to the oikos. The misjudged women are of low status, at least at the beginning of the play. A few exceptional examples involving high-status characters, including two from Roman adaptations, will show how misperceptions of character follow a different track when the women are known to be of good birth.
s a m i a (the girl from samos) The Samia illustrates the difficulty of inferring moral character from behavior. This play shows how the figure of the “whore” can shape what characters see, suggesting charges beyond anything warranted by the immediate evidence. Guaranteed to evoke a hostile response, the stereotype was equally useful to slander an enemy (by association) or to exculpate a friend (by offering a more culpable party to blame). The central character in this play does both. A wealthy citizen named Demeas has fallen in love with a hetaira from the island of Samos, famous for its expensive prostitutes. His adoptive son, Moschion, explains in the prologue how he encouraged his father to bring “Chrysis” into the house in order to spare himself the nuisance of young rivals. Once there, the ex-hetaira struck up a friendship with the wife and daughter of Demeas’ neighbor Nikeratos, eventually inviting them over to celebrate the festival of Adonis. It was at this festival that Moschion impregnated the daughter, a little more than nine months before the play begins. Since the fathers have been out of town, they know nothing of the child and Moschion is reluctant to confess the truth. To help him out, Chrysis pretends that the baby is hers. She is quite convincing because she has recently given birth herself (the fate of her child is unknown) and can therefore nurse Moschion’s. The play’s complications all develop out of this basic misrepresentation of her relationship to the baby. Demeas initially worries that Chrysis is manipulating the ill-defined position of a concubine to insinuate herself into a more permanent position in his household.20 His first instinct is to expel her along with the child, thereby affirming his control over the household and preventing a “hetaira” from passing herself off as “married.” 20
Blume 1974: 61.
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(Q.) . . . : )%, H 2 , 2 -. (B.) 0; ; & < > . (Q.) [] [ ] L< >, H 2, . [. . .] # 1 % [@]'. >. []3. . (B.) '. (Q.) '; # ! G 2' L '5 ; (130–6)21 (De.) It escaped my notice that I’ve evidently married a hetaira. (Mo.) Married? How? I don’t get your meaning. (De.) A son has been born to me, evidently, in secret . . . She can go straight from my house to hell and take him along! (Mo.) No!! (De.) What do you mean ‘no’? Do you really expect me to raise an illegitimate son inside?
Technically, even a married woman lacked the authority to recognize a child as legitimate and raise it; this was the father’s right.22 Demeas is downplaying issues of gender, however, to concentrate on the social offense. For a hetaira to introduce a child into a household was tantamount to claiming a much more privileged status: that of the freeborn, legitimate daughters of Athenian parentage whom men such as Demeas married. Marriage, after all, was “for the sowing of legitimate children,” a formula that appears several times in Menander (e.g., Dysk. 842, Perik. 1013–14, Sam. 727). Demeas takes it for granted that his mistress knew what to do with any child she might bear but chose to disregard his wishes, effectively breaking their informal contract. He reads her action in strictly social terms, as an attempt to better her own position and that of her illegitimate child.23 He also assumes it is deliberate, even hinting at deception (“in secret”).24 This is a little unfair, since he was out of town when she supposedly gave him “a secret son.” Moreover, a calculated attempt at social climbing is not the only, or even the most obvious, motivation to attribute to a mother who keeps a child against the father’s wishes. New Comedy is full of women who 21
22 23
24
Bain 1983, Lamagna 1998, and Arnott 2000a print & ! (“do you really expect”) in 135; Sandbach, following Turner, prints #- (“for someone else,” i.e., Chrysis). On the generalizing masculine see Lamagna 1998: 229 ad 135. But #- gives the wrong emphasis. What upsets Demeas is the thought of raising a bastard, not the incidental benefits to Chrysis. Harrison 1998 i: 70–1, MacDowell 1978: 91. Illegitimate children ( ) who were recognized had some legal status at certain periods. On the status of the concubine and her children see Wolff 1944: 75, MacDowell 1978: 85, Sealey 1984: 112–16, Ogden 1996: 157–9 Harrison 1998 i: 15, and Cox 1998: 183. Goldberg 1980: 96 takes to refer to the conception (“. . . he presumably means that it was not conceived with his prior consent, an unreasonable but not unheard of attitude for a father to adopt”). The issue, however, is recognition, not conception. Chrysis is at fault for giving him a “son” (L i.e., a recognized child) in secret.
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secretly rescue illegitimate or unwanted babies. The mother in the Phasma hides her daughter next door, the old woman and Myrrhine collude to save Glykera and Moschion in the Perikeiromen¯e, and the mother in the H¯er¯os may have helped to place her twins with Tibeios.25 Nikeratos’ own wife colludes with Chrysis to save her grandson. Nikeratos himself, aware that his women have encouraged Chrysis, regards it as typical feminine misconduct rather than a violation of a specific status code. Keeping the child was “idiocy” (411) but throwing Chrysis out of the house on the eve of Moschion’s wedding is just irrational temper, evidence that Demeas has spent too long in the “unhealthy” Pontus (416–19). Nikeratos shows no sign of the deeper suspicions about Chrysis’ motives that trouble Demeas. He sees the child as a trivial infraction, hardly worth disrupting two households on an occasion that should bring them together (“a bad omen in the middle of the wedding preparations . . . Demeas is acting shitty” 423–7). Demeas’ response is, in his view, an overreaction. If keeping the baby is presumptuous, Chrysis’ second offense is far worse. After yielding to his son’s plea for leniency, Demeas overhears an old servant woman babbling about the baby’s resemblance to Moschion, “its father.” A quick and merciless examination of his slave Parmenon confirms that the child is in fact Moschion’s. Since Demeas has no reason yet to doubt that Chrysis is the mother, he concludes that the two have had an affair. In an attempt to preserve his good opinion of his son, he slants the evidence to pin most of the blame on his mistress: she is obviously fond of the baby, whereas Moschion seems happy about the marriage. She must have lusted after him; he must want to escape her (“not from love, as I once thought, was he in a hurry [sc. for the wedding] but from eagerness to escape, finally, from my Helen in there” 335–7). Demeas infers motivations that seem “plausible” ( ): Moschion is “so decent and well-behaved to everyone else” (344– 5), whereas she is “a whore ( 8, literally ‘ground-beater’) and a curse” (348).26 A hetaira was always vulnerable to such accusations, but Demeas goes out of his way to emphasize the social gulf between himself and Chrysis. (She was never a streetwalker, as 8 implies. Even he acknowledges that she would return to the symposium circuit.) Nor does he try to fit her behavior into an individualized portrait, as he does with Moschion. He simply maps it onto a template – the depraved hetaira – in keeping with his emotional priorities. 25 26
Cf. Plaut. Cist. 123–4 (a woman picks up an exposed baby), Truc. 407–9 (she canvases households for an unwanted child), Ter. Heauton 629–30, 636 (she gives the baby a chance to survive). The only other instance in Menander, fr. 472 K-A & 8 | %O , is evidently another insult (“shrieks” is hardly flattering).
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When he confronts her face to face, however, he frames his objections in socioeconomic terms, accusing her of taking her comfortable life for granted and not knowing how to behave. He evicts her without specifically naming her fault, effectively denying her any chance to defend herself (a plot necessity at this point, although adequately explained by his distress and his wish to protect Moschion).27 Again, Menander creates an argument at cross purposes. She assumes he is angry because she kept the child; he assumes her real offense is too obvious to mention. (d.) A 3 & ; (Q.) ' 3 % – (d.) % “%”; (Q.) ' 3. (The cook interjects briefly.) (Q.) $5 V% . (d.) V ; % ' 2 7 ; (Q.) % 2 _ ' '%, d % – ; – . (d.) % e; (Q.) ! , A $8- 2. (d.) 3 '( %; (374–80) (Chr.) Because I kept it? (De.) Because of that and – (Chr.) And what? (De.) Because of that. (Cook) . . . (De.) You didn’t understand how to live in luxury. (Chr.) I didn’t understand? What are you saying? (De.) Even though you came to me in linen, Chrysis – do you hear me? – completely plain linen! (Chr.) And so . . . ? (De.) Then I was everything to you, when you were badly off. (Chr.) And who is now?
“Live in luxury” does not mean that Demeas regards his lifestyle as extravagant; he is using “luxury” in a relative sense, reminding Chrysis that she was living above her station. He mentions that she came “in plain linen,” i.e. with nothing more than a chiton, a kind of tunic. It is hard to miss his implication: back then, when she wore simple clothes and lived hand-to-mouth, she looked like who she was. In representing his benefactions in economic terms he implies that they have no emotional meaning for her; she was never interested in anything but his money (“when” (A) implies a causal as well as a temporal connection: “when/because you were doing badly”). Unlike Polemon, Demeas distances himself from his gifts, stripping them of any personal meaning (“you have everything of yours” 381) and leaving no doubt that his parting gifts, “a hint that she has been paid for services rendered,” signify only termination (“I’m throwing in the slaves and jewelry. Get out of my house” 381–3).28 Demeas is selective about the accusations he makes to Chrysis directly, tailoring them to reflect the low standard of conduct he believes appropriate for a woman who would seduce his son. He frames his criticisms in largely 27
Cf. Bain 1983: 119 ad 369ff.
28
Quotation from Konstan 1993: 142.
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social terms (“Who do you think you are?”), faulting her for social climbing and abusing his generosity, rather than for disobedience or unchastity, the rules she would have broken had she been his wife. Even a hetaira could be expected to show gratitude, or at least to recognize when she was well off, but Chrysis has forgotten what she owes him and how desperately she needs his support. The underlying suspicion is that she is incapable of becoming anything other than a hetaira. Expelling her, he reasons, will put her back where she belongs and remind her who she is: (Q.) 5 . 1 ;G : 3 &> T X. < , d %, ' ' f ', % # # * &- , / * : 3 )%- 8 . K ' ' 3 , N' A, _ 8, % e Y. (390–7)29
Such a big shot! In the city you’ll see yourself exactly as you are. Women like you, Chrysis – other ones – chase after dinner parties to collect only ten drachmas and drink their wine straight until they die; or they go hungry if they don’t do this readily and quickly. You’ll know this better than anyone and I know you’ll come to realize who you are and what a mistake you made.
The burden of his criticism is not, as one might expect, that she has done something unheard of (the complaint Nikeratos makes later), but that she has let good fortune turn her head. Demeas had written off the infidelity as the cost of bringing a “Helen” into the house and he was already assimilating her to a larger group at line 385, when he anticipated her replacement (“another woman will be happy with what I have to offer”). In other words, she has nothing another woman could not easily provide and the only difference between her and her kind (“women like you,” that is, party entertainers paid per diem) is that the latter have no alternative to a life of poverty. She is by nature a hetaira. The verbs he uses, N 391 and e 397, describe a state of being. Despite living in Demeas’ house, she never abandoned her true self; it only took a “mistake” on her part to reveal it. A love-struck man like Demeas might be expected to lament the difference 29
With Dedoussi, Austin, Lamagna, and Arnott I print < from the Cairo codex in 392, in preference to from the Bodmer codex (Jacques, Sisti, Coppola, Sandbach). Demeas’ point is surely to group her with other hetairai (“women like you”), not to distinguish her (“not like you”). g ^ is inclusive (Barigazzi 1972: 206–7).
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between what he thought she was and what he now knows, but he actually downplays his own error and attacks her arrogance and folly instead: “such a big shot . . . what a mistake you made.” These charges derive in part from a stereotype and in part from a personal conviction that luxury has left her deluded about her true worth. Another woman will be grateful “and sacrifice to the gods” (386). Once thrown back into public life (“in the city”), where Chrysis will live and look like a ten-drachma call girl, she will “see,” “know,” and “realize” the truth about herself. The future tenses (;G, K , ) only emphasize the contrast with the present. She does not know herself now. The grim fate Demeas describes for Chrysis – as if she knew nothing of symposium life – is something of a revenge fantasy, showing her how she will suffer for treating him so contemptuously. The termination of their relationship returns her to the status she deserves, while the ominous reference to death from alcoholism or starvation suggests she possesses qualities which will keep her there.30 By real-world standards, however, what Chrysis faces is mild: a ten-drachma symposium entertainer lived in luxury compared to a three-obol streetwalker, and Demeas omits the possibility of unemployment, declining fees with age, or the poverty that may have forced real-life prostitutes to moonlight as textile workers.31 Ten drachmas does not of course represent a reliable daily wage,32 but what makes it paltry in Demeas’ eyes is the comparative value of what she has lost. He has, after all, just given her goods and slaves worth considerably more than tens of drachmas. And by New Comic standards, it is a harsh picture. Nothing could be further from the carefree world of parties and beauty contests depicted by Lucian and Alciphron. Roman comic bawds like Scapha in the Mostellaria may lecture on the importance of accumulating a nest egg and Epicrates’ Anti-Lais and Philetairos’ Kyn¯egis certainly paint harsh pictures of old hetairai, but these all concern the inevitable onset of age. Demeas is the only New Comic character to recognize that the profession itself might hasten the process, or that a young and attractive woman might starve. Demeas has no illusions about hetairai or the world 30
31
32
Old prostitutes were proverbially alcoholic, e.g., Epicrates’ Lais (called fr. 3.1–2) or the famous sculpture of an old woman clutching a wine jug (iii bc, fig. 86 Reinsberg 1989 = Keuls 1985 fig. 180) probably a prostitute (the slipping garment is an attribute of Aphrodite, Reinsberg 153). Davidson 1997: 86–90 argues that the “spinning hetairas” depicted on many vases testify not to the erotic appeal of women’s work (Keuls 1985: 258–9) but to economic necessity. They may, however, not be hetairai at all (Lewis 2002: 188–9). See also Reinsberg 1989: 142 and McClure 2003: 130. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 587–8 ad 392–3.
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of the symposium. He sketches the hazards of the profession with enough empathy to recognize that even a successful woman had reasons to hate it. To him, Chrysis is simply a pauper who was lucky enough to be offered a home.
d i s e x a pat o¯ n (the d ouble deceiver) Demeas’ mistake is a typical Menandrian misunderstanding that is paralleled in other plays. Women who appear to behave inappropriately are often simply playing the “wrong” part through mishap or pretence. Chrysis is not the child’s mother, however affectionately she may pamper it, and Demeas has turned a relatively small mistake about her biological relationship into a much larger mistake about her moral character. He is not the only Menandrian lover to interpret ambiguous evidence to realize his worst fears: Phaedria does not trust Thais enough to leave her with a rival for a few days in the Eunuchus and even Clinia briefly suspects the irreproachable Antiphila in the Heauton Timoroumenos (both plays based on Menander originals). Nor is he the only lover to hurry into an imprudent decision on the strength of a false suspicion: Polemon cuts off Glykera’s hair in the Perikeiromen¯e and Charisios rejects his wife for a harp-player in the Epitrepontes. The closest parallel to Demeas’ situation, however, is in the Dis Exapat¯on, which also features a lover who reasons his way from a mistake about identity into a mistake about moral character. This young man is equally enamored of a hetaira. He shares many of the same assumptions as Demeas, makes similar arguments, and reaches similar conclusions. Like Demeas, he too is eager to salvage a relationship with a man he believes to be his rival and consequently willing to interpret the evidence to maximize the woman’s fault. The extant fragments of the Dis Exapat¯on include two monologues by the lovelorn Sostratos, delivered after he has been given reason to believe that his hetaira (unnamed in these fragments) is having an affair with his friend Moschos. His reaction unfolds over three partially preserved scenes. These 113 lines, pieced together from 13 papyrus scraps, constitute the longest Menander passage for which a Latin adaptation survives. Eric Handley first identified them as the source for Plautus’ Bacchides 494–562, a play long known to have been adapted from the Dis Exapat¯on.33 The Bacchides 33
P. Oxy. 4407 (Handley 1997). The major portions have been published by Questa 1965, Arnott 1979, and Sandbach 1990 since Handley’s original publication 1968. N¨unlist 1993 tentatively ascribes
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helps to fill in the plot behind these fragmentary scenes, although questions remain. The opening scene is largely lost and the Roman play appears to have three, rather than two, deceptions. Even before the publication of the Greek fragments, it was clear that Plautus made significant changes: he removed the choruses and act breaks and added lyrical passages (notably Chrysalus’ songs at 640 and 925) as well as a fourth speaker in the final act.34 The new fragments showed that he also changed the names and the meter. He combined two separate monologues, removed the father from the on-stage conflict and teased out the misunderstanding between the two friends for 30 lines, adding his own jokes and rhetorical figures. As a result, his version is both longer and emotionally less complex; Plautus was “playing it for laughs.”35 It is, accordingly, difficult to reconstruct the Dis Exapat¯on from the Bacchides, but we do know the broad outline of the plot. Two hetairai, who may have been sisters, were using the same professional name (Plautus calls them both “Bacchis”).36 Sostratos, an Athenian, met one while he was in Ephesus collecting a family debt, but she soon left for Athens. At this point he solicited (by letter?) the help of his friend Moschos. While arranging Sostratos’ affairs, Moschos fell in love with the other woman, to the chagrin of his relatives. When the fragments begin, his father and paidag¯ogos are encouraging the recently returned Sostratos to admonish the “wastrel” (16). They must have told him about Moschos’ infatuation, without realizing that a second woman was involved. Their misinformation elicits an angry outburst from Sostratos after they leave the stage. Like Demeas, Sostratos struggles through an intense emotional reaction to what appears to be evidence of betrayal. He delivers two monologues. In the first, he decides that the money he collected should actually go to his father – and not to the fickle hetaira.
34
35 36
other fragments (which Arnott prints as Fab. Inc. 8) to the Dis Exapat¯on, an attractive suggestion although the evidence is inconclusive. Gaiser 1986: 15–22 proposes a less plausible attribution to the Hydria. Fraenkel 1960: 67–9, Webster 1960: 131, Questa 1965: 30–3, Anderson 1993: 23–7. The scholarly literature on the Bacchides/Dis Exapat¯on fragments is extensive. See Barsby 1986, Damen 1992 and Katsouris 1995 for references. Handley 1968: 14. Handley 1968: 21 ad 15 and Del Corno 1973: 31 translate $ ' L1 94 as “her own name says it” (i.e., she is called Chrysis) but this seems forced (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 124 and Arnott 1979: 161 translate simply, “she’s telling herself”), while the parallel ipsum nomen clamat (Bacch. 284, cited by Handley), reflects Plautus’ predilection for name puns (e.g., Bacch. 240, 362 on Chrysalus; 53, 371 on Bacchis, Fraenkel 1960: 145), a type of humor Menander avoids (Barigazzi 1993: 122).
94
Misperception of character (h-.) @' 6 $3'. [ 8 4. h 0 . &0 , #' % – : – < T4 . : % [.][ : % – []. . [ , h] K - % '3[ 9 , Y ' H[ ] 2 '[ ] [ ].. % [] 8 [A] K [, 1 ]%, [] [3. & ] @' [] ', [ , ],. (Dis. Ex. 18–30)
He’s already gone . . . She’ll get him under her thumb. You snatched up Sostratos first . . . She’ll deny it – that’s quite clear to me. She has some nerve – and all the gods will come into it. So don’t . . . All right, to hell [with her]! Hold on, Sostratos. Maybe she’ll talk you into [it]. A slave . . . I, especially. But let her work her magic on (lit. “succeed in persuading”) a man as good as broke, with nothing to spend . . . The money [is going back] to my father. Oh, she’ll stop the sweet talk as soon as she notices that she’s talking, as they say, to a corpse. But I should go to him immediately.
This rash step moves the plot forward, but money is hardly the focus of the speech. As Cesare Questa notes, the decision to return it is merely “a moment of decisiveness in the midst of emotional turbulence.”37 Menander shows less interest in providing clear and stable motives for the return of the money, or in developing the relationship between the youths, than in exploring the effects of Sostratos’ emotions on his assessment of the hetaira.38 What the money reveals about the woman matters considerably more than who ends up with it. (In Plautus the conflict is simpler: direct competition for a prize in which the youth has a personal stake. He calls it mea pecunia 512.) And whereas Moschos’ father and paedagogue stressed the perils and disgrace of chasing a hetaira (12–17), Sostratos has other priorities. After line 19 (“she’ll get him”) his friend does not cross his mind until the end of the second speech (around line 100). His first speech is followed by a short scene with his father and an act break, and then roughly thirty fragmentary lines before the second speech begins. This monologue also reveals conflicting emotions which influence 37 38
Questa 1970: 198. Cf. Blundell 1980: 39. On Plautine changes to the psychology of the scene see Jacques 1968, Questa 1970: 195–7, Gaiser 1970: 59–61, P¨oschl 1973: 17, Grisolia 1976: 69–70, Maurach 1976: 481–2, Bain 1979: 33, Barigazzi 1993: 115, and Batstone 2005.
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how the young man interprets the news. He speculates about how the hetaira will treat him, now that he has empty pockets, and tries to explain his friend’s behavior: [] . . [: '] : 0 & : ', - * Y. '. []-. ' – “%” $ % ' L1 – 5 7 %O- %. “ %O 3 %, : " 8, %- – % 5; – &4%- 3.” M ' <, 3 , L [<> i e , ' &> B .. . ( 2 - F %O, ' , 3 K &'0 , : ' - %. (Dis. Ex. 91–102) I can just see my fine, upstanding sweetheart – I’ll enjoy it now that I’m broke – wheedling and expecting – “any minute now” she’s saying to herself – all the money I’m bringing. “Of course he’s bringing it, like a gentleman, by the gods – who better? – and just as I deserve!” She has turned out (and it’s a good job she has) to be about what I once thought. But Moschos, poor fool . . . and I’m certainly mad about part of it but as for the rest I think he’s not responsible for what has happened and she’s the most shameless woman in the world . . .
Sostratos’ description of his beloved is no more reliable than Demeas’ complaints about Chrysis. The inferences about her current character are false because he has mixed her up with her “sister,” while his arguments from prior knowledge rest on a reinterpretation of the past. Both Demeas and Sostratos draw their accusations from the standard New Comic arsenal.39 Greed is a stock charge against hetairai. Sostratos convinces himself that his hetaira thinks only of his money, “all the gold I’m bringing,” even as she works on her next victim. He means nothing to her: “she’ll stop the sweet talk when she realizes she’s talking, as they say, to a corpse.”40 Demeas relies more on innuendo but expresses a similar view: Chrysis ought to have appreciated his money (if nothing else . . .); it was more than she will make working parties. The gold-digging meretrix avara, “greedy prostitute,” so familiar from Roman comedy and the letters of Lucian and Alciphron is rare in Menander but attested.41 Thais’ legendary prices lived on in Roman poetry 39 40 41
Anderson 1993: 11, Batstone 2005: 19, 22, 25. From the intensity of his disappointment, he must have believed she loved him (pace von Reden 1998: 271–2, he wanted more than “a good bargain”). See Legrand 1910: 100–4 on the rapacious hetairai of Lucian and Alciphron.
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(Propertius, for example, mentions “Menander’s pricey (pretiosa) Thais,” 4.5.43) and some Menandrian hetairai have considerable economic clout. Thais and a hetaira in Fabula Incerta 8 (Arnott) are in a position to shut out lovers at will (from their own homes?), while Terence’s Chrysis (Andria) and Thais (Eunuchus), like Sostratos’ hetaira, maintain their own residences. A woman in Fabula Incerta 5 (Arnott) who offers ten minae in goods has enough wealth to waive repayment, and an old man in Terence’s Heauton Timoroumenos is ready to believe that a meretrix loaned the same sum on the surety of a slave girl. If they are not quite profiteers on the order of a Phronesium, these women have no illusions about the costs of fidelity. Demeas and Sostratos are imagining a viable possibility within Menander’s dramatic world. They are, however, quick to turn a single infidelity into an ingrained habit: Chrysis is a “ground-beater” and a “Helen,” while Sostratos’ hetaira, “beats them all in shamelessness” (Dis Ex. 101, cf. 21). Demeas invokes, as Blume points out, only the negative side of the Helen myth, Helen as libidinous seductress.42 He simply cannot conceive of Chrysis in any other role than hetaira. He must see her nursing the baby to believe she really is a mother, and even then he tries to work the child into the evil whore stereotype, perversely taking it as a sign of her desire for Moschion. He calls her a “married hetaira” but not a mother and certainly not a wife; she is only an object of desire ( , 2-, Sam. 350). Hence his initial embarrassment at falling in love with her (“He hid it, he was ashamed” Sam. 23) and his readiness to believe Moschion did the same – at least after a few drinks. Sostratos concentrates his reproaches in the word 0 (“brash, reckless, shameless”), which evidently covers lying (“she’ll deny it” Dis Ex. 20), false oaths (“all the gods will come into it”), manipulation (“wheedling”) and “injustice” (&'% Dis Ex. 101) – in short, any morally reprehensible behavior that brings in money. When used of women, 0 also implies sexual aggressiveness and may have been a stock criticism of comic hetairai (context suggests that they are the primary referent of “all,” when he calls her “most 0 of all” 101–2).43 42
43
Blume 1974: 126–7. Phaedra may seem the more obvious parallel (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 578 ad 337), especially if the Hippolytus story is recognized as an intertext (see Wehrli 1936: 64, 120, Katsouris 1975: 131–5, Jacques 1971: xxiv–xxv, Lamagna 1998: 64–7, and Gutzwiller 2000: 109). Euripides may have made Phaedra so infamous that an explicit reference was better avoided (Lamagna 1998: 294, an attractive idea, particularly since Menander needed a heroine he could rehabilitate by Act V). Also, Helen’s seduction brought ruin (e.g., Eupolis fr. 267 K-A, cited Lamagna 1998: 292) whereas Phaedra’s attempt failed (Gutzwiller, 2000: 109). 0 is associated with hetairai, e.g., in Plut., Con. Praec. 18 (with sexual connotations) and Mor. 712c.
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Demeas and Sostratos also see the women as con artists who prey on the vulnerable: “Moschos, poor fool” (Dis Ex. 98–9) and the “modest” and “decent” Moschion, caught off guard (“She must have gotten hold of him when he was drunk of course – when he wasn’t in control of himself.” Sam. 339–40). As William Batstone notes, “the focus on the hetaira makes Sostratos a victim in his own eyes as well as in the audience’s eyes.”44 These are comforting fantasies. Sostratos’ fantasy indeed presupposes a satisfying revenge: Moschos will meet with the same betrayal (and so he can comfortably offer pity).45 Demeas wants reasons to believe Chrysis seduced his son. The young man’s (“decency”) supplies one; her sluttishness, another. He describes the seduction as “co-conspiring” and acknowledges her allure (“my Helen . . .” 337), although he gives her little chance to use it (“Don’t talk to me!” Sam. 380). Sostratos describes his hetaira’s “wheedling” (Dis Ex. 93, restored in 27) in similarly predatory terms (“She’ll get him,” “snatched you up” Dis Ex. 19) and eventually decides that an empty wallet is his only safeguard against her powers of persuasion (“She just may persuade you” Dis Ex. 24). These are also stock accusations. The hetaira’s talk was proverbial. The larger-than-life Thais is “persuasive” (0), as well as beautiful, and skilled in “pretending” ( ) to love the men she fleeces. A monostich claims that “the whore and the politician have the same tears.”46 Not only was the hetaira’s speech deceptive; it was also uninhibited. Sostratos scripts ruminations for his hetaira in the style of women without a shred of respectability: chatty, colloquial, flippant. Even her oath “by the gods” (Dis Ex. 95) suggests the hetaira.47 Comic models strongly influence what they see. Accusations of greed, promiscuity, shamelessness and deceit all belong to the stock type. One Menander fragment runs, “A hetaira has never worried about virtue when vice brings a reliable income” (fr. 811 K-A), while another mentions a “brazen, but not wicked” woman, probably a hetaira.48 The “greatest of the gods, Shamelessness” is invoked in yet another (fr. 201 K-A); a hetaira is probably somehow involved. Who else would need “shamelessness” on a 44 47
48
45 Batstone 2005: 22. 46 Mon. 584. Cf. Ter. Eun. 67–8 Batstone 2005: 19. Hetairai use six of the seven “oaths by the gods generally” spoken by Menandrian women (Feneron 1974: 90). The Dis Exapat¯on opened with , (P. I.F.A.O. 337 = Sandbach fr. 1), a speech habit, perhaps, of Sostratos’ hetaira (or just what Sostratos himself would say, Sommerstein 1995: 65 n. 16)? Unfortunately the speaker, though probably female (Damen 1995: 16), cannot be identified. P. I.F.A.O. 337, attributed to the Demiourgos (Borgogno 1969b), Karine fr. 201. If Turpilius’ Demiurgus is based on Menander’s (Webster 1974: 129), a meretrix had a role (fr. 4.42 Ribbeck). On the shamelessness of hetairai, cf. Men. fr. 811 K-A. Orators accused them of M> (e.g., Ps.-Dem. 59.12, 107, 48.55, Isae. 6.48), & > (Ps.-Dem. 59.12), $ (ibid.), and & % (Ps.-Dem. 59.50) (Glazebrook 2001: 69–71, 98 n. 96). See also McClure 2003: 40–2.
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cosmic scale? Likewise, Menander’s Thais is allegedly “brazen” ( ,) and “unjust” (&'3 ) (fr. 163 K-A), while Glykera in the Perikeiromen¯e thinks playing the hetaira to Moschion would be (adverbial, Perik. 713) and “shameless” (Perik. 717). In the same play, Sosias can hardly believe the pipe-girl is “embarrassed” (Perik. 485) by his lewd suggestions; hetairai were supposed to be incapable of shame. In the Epitrepontes, Smikrines says much the same as Sostratos and Demeas of a hetaira he does not even pretend to know as an individual: she is a capable of destroying a man’s substance (; 3 >% Epitr. 750, cf. Sam. 348) through flattery and other corrupt means (Epitr. 794–6). These accusations have their origins in Greek social attitudes and can be traced back to Old Comedy.49 Although Demeas toys with tragic models – Chrysis as Helen and himself as the outraged husband – he soon reverts to the stock comic scenario of a drunken, late-night sexual encounter. Sostratos never deviates from comic types (Moschos as the dupe, the hetaira as the gold-digger) and comic diction (“to hell with her,” Dis Ex. 23, “broke ( )” Dis Ex. 25, 92). Of the roles available to non-citizen women, only the “whore” permitted sexual infidelity, which is why Sostratos and Demeas immediately fix upon it, filling out their scraps of misinformation with other traits and behaviors of the stock type. Their misunderstandings are plausible since they are thinking along comic lines quite close to the truth: Moschion and Moschos are in fact involved with forbidden women, just not the ones they think.50 Moreover, their sources inspire reasonable confidence. It is Moschos’ father and pedagogue who gives Sostratos the unwelcome news, while the servant who lets Moschion’s secret slip used to be his nurse. She ought to be a reliable witness because she spoke without any reason to lie, not knowing that Demeas was there (Sam. 276–7).51 Both happen to be wrong, but there is nothing in the commonplaces themselves or even in the assumptions about typical hetaira behavior that signals their mistake. Because New Comedy regularly connects specific behaviors with specific types, it is logical for characters to assume that knowing an individual means getting her type right, rather than constructing a more complex image, for example, with contradictory traits or traits that change over time (either of which might account for the “surprising” actions of these ex-friends and lovers). Many reliable characters, including prologue speakers, describe characters accurately through stock traits and 49 51
50 Damen 1995: 24 n. 18. Henry 1988: 13–31. This is what is recommended when a witness is suspect (“You must declare that a man of that sort would not give false testimony either as a favour or for the sake of revenge or gain” Rhet. ad Alex. 1431b27–28).
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behaviors. For example, Pan explains that Knemon “hates everyone from here to Cholargos” and the goddess Chance types Smikrines as a miser and little else (Dysk. 32–4, Asp. 114–21). Within the semiotic system of the genre, one stock action can be enough to classify a character and there is an underlying assumption that character is fixed, with little possibility for change or growth. An audience can reasonably expect a character who thinks according to comic norms to be correct, whether he applies these norms self-consciously (as “what happens in drama”) or more naturalistically (as simple truths about human nature). Demeas and Sostratos are not wrong because they are thinking in types or excluding the possibility of reform. They are wrong because they identify with the young men and not the young women. Demeas’ initial mistake about the baby’s parents may have been an easy one to make but he reaches very different conclusions about their relative responsibility. Whereas it is “by no means likely” that someone as “decent and well-behaved” as Moschion should betray him, he does not consider Chrysis’ past “decency.” Sostratos, likewise, makes excuses only for his friend. Both men use their prior knowledge to try to understand the young men and reconcile past and present behavior, while they ignore what they know of the women, overwriting their old image with the “evil whore,” the femme fatale of New Comedy. In a sense, they want to be wrong. The emotional biases in these speeches have been analyzed in detail. William Batstone shows how Sostratos suppresses contradictory and antisocial impulses in the interest of creating a socially acceptable façade.52 Gregor Maurach demonstrates how an inconsistency in Sostratos’ rhetoric can even be read (and performed) as the result of unconscious motivations.53 Although one must be cautious about treating Menander as a psychological realist, these monologues do create emotionally complex characters who appeal to an audience’s sympathy.54 At the same time, Menander blocks any straightforward identification by telling us truths the characters are unaware of, creating emotional distance through a layer of dramatic irony. He also uses subtle techniques to expose their errors and misjudgments, giving us the sense that we see the women through a kind of filtering subjectivity. 52 53
54
Batstone 2005: 25–7. The switch from excusing Moschos to blaming him (V'%, Dis Ex. 110) is a revelation of Sostratos’ true feelings: he did not mean what he said. He does not want to believe the woman he loves guilty (Maurach 1976: 482–3). Cf. Batstone 2005: 38, who explores with subtle insight the hypocrisies, self-contradictions, suppressions and sublimations of the Menandrian scene and Plautus’ exposure of emotional “truths” which Menander conceals under a “smooth surface of realistic civility and self-control” (25). Cf. Batstone 2005: 18–19.
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Demeas’ and Sostratos’ speeches are filled with small linguistic cues that they are emotionally invested in their mistaken views. Demeas, for example, begins in high tragic style with a quotation from Euripides’ Oedipus: “O, city of the Kekropian land, O, spreading heavens, O–.” Andr´e Hurst has demonstrated that “tragedy” for Menandrian characters is often synonymous with the improbable, and tragic models mislead those who use them to interpret “real” i.e. comic, events.55 Although Demeas explicitly rejects the tragic perspective, the tragic paradigm of Helen-the-adulteress recurs to color his thinking and his high-flown opening sounds a note of warning, suggesting a kind of posturing. The abrupt change in tone that follows (“Demeas! Why are you yelling? Why, you fool, are you yelling? Get a hold of yourself, tough it out”) shows that he can choose the style in which he speaks.56 Even more than diction, the shifting disjointed syntax of both speakers shows their uncertainty and confusion, warning us that what they say cannot be trusted. Sander Goldberg describes Demeas’ “short, choppy sentences” as “characteristic of comic figures in distress.”57 Choppy sentences and sentence fragments characterize Sostratos’ speech as well: “wheedling and expecting – ‘any minute now’ she’s saying to herself – all the money I’m bringing” (Dis Ex. 93–4). These lines must be construed without strict regard for syntax (how to punctuate “any minute now” is unclear). Particles reveal other deficiencies of logic. Demeas uses , “for, because,” six times to mark the steps of his reasoning, but no other word to show causal connection (at Sam. 328, 330, 335, 338, 343 and 347). At least two of these suggest conclusiveness (335, 338) and the speech could be cited to support Denniston’s observation that “confirmatory and causal” (all six fall under this category) is “commoner in writers whose mode of thought is simple than in those whose logical faculties are more fully developed.”58 Sostratos connects his arguments with no more rigor: he uses %, “therefore, so,” twice in successive lines (“so don’t . . . all right, to hell [with her]” Dis Ex. 23–4). j% is common in dialogue, particularly colloquial dialogue, to introduce a new point, often only loosely connected with the preceding one.59 Its repetition here shows the disorder in Sostratos’ 55
56 57 59
Hurst 1990: 109. See Gutzwiller 2000: 109–10 and 105 n. 12 on the extensive scholarly literature on Menander and tragedy. Sostratos makes no tragic allusions, although $3' might be considered a “high-flown, out-of-date word” (Bain 1979: 206 n. 51). Goldberg 1980: 100, Blume 1974: 120, Lape 2004: 154. 58 Blume 1974: 125, Denniston 1954: 58. Goldberg 1980: 100. Denniston 1954: 568–77. He cites a passage (574) from Aristophanes to illustrate a similar pairing of a “logical” and a “transitional” %: O % < %', – '8, , – % >( $ (Cl. 255).
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stream-of-consciousness tirade and creates an impression of distinct voices in dialogue with one another, as he shifts through first and second person verbs: “Hold on, Sostratos. Maybe she’ll talk you into [it]” (23–4), “I can just see my fine, upstanding sweetheart” (91–2). Both speakers use more structured ( . . . ' constructions (“on the one hand . . . and on the other”) only at the end, when they have sufficient detachment to try to control the emotions that have dominated them to this point (“I’m furious” Dis Ex. 99, “forget desire, stop loving” Sam. 350).60 There are also tell-tale signs of ambivalence. To convince themselves, Demeas and Sostratos both look for earlier signs of corruption. In effect, they are re-evaluating the women’s past behavior to create a more consistent, and therefore more credible, picture of guilt. They are not looking for evidence of innocence. Demeas reinterprets Chrysis’ affectionate treatment of the baby, previously no more than a sign of stubborn disobedience, as indirect testimony of her love for Moschion and therefore of the truth of his suspicions: “then again when I look at how she was fond of it and forced me to rear it against my will . . .” (Sam. 277–9). Sostratos claims to have had misgivings earlier: “she has turned out . . . to be about what I once thought” (Dis Ex. 97–8). This is certainly the first we hear of them, since it is his first appearance in the play, and they sound suspiciously like an attempt to save face by convincing himself of something he does not quite believe (comic lovers usually begin affairs with a rosier perspective).61 Both men harbor doubts. Sostratos wants to pay a visit to confirm his suspicions (will she really “drop the sweet talk”?), while Demeas waits for Parmenon’s confirmation before constructing his own imaginative scenario. “Clearly (''0) she got hold of him, perhaps () when he was drunk” (Sam. 339). The particles which mark the suppositional nature of this story stand out all the more here because of their absence from the preceding survey of the “evidence.” As Blume points out, Demeas presents the affair “in the form of an unreal condition” and fails to recognize the elements from his own imagination.62 If the emotional language and hints of ambivalence in these speeches warn us not to trust them, so too do the obvious elements of fantasy. We are not allowed to forget that the speakers’ assertions spring from their imagination as they sketch unmistakably hypothetical scenarios. Sostratos 60 61
62
Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 580 ad 351–2. There is a certain hypocrisy to the accusations of theft and deceit from a speaker who is lying about his own feelings and had planned to steal his father’s money (Batstone 2005: 21, 24). Grisolia 1976: 63, Barigazzi 1993: 121 and Bain 1979: 32 note his efforts to convince himself. Blume 1974: 124.
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sets his encounter in the future: she will deny it (Dis Ex. 20), the gods will come into it (21–2), she will persuade him (24), and she will stop (27) as soon as she notices (in the future-more-vivid subjunctive, K []) that he is broke (28). He writes both her dialogue and her monologues, telling us what she says when he is not there (93–6).63 Even the form of his speech serves to undermine his credibility. The monologue fantasizing an off-stage lovescene is a regular New Comic device, employed for example in the Samia (120–6) and the Perikeiromen¯e (287–300), as well as in Plautus’ Casina (117– 40, a parody). Dario Del Corno has shown how these monologues give a theatrical form to an internal, mental event. Drawing on a psychological model that interprets daydreaming as substitution for an unsatisfactory reality, Del Corno reads them as examples of “projection:” as a means of actualizing reality on a psychological level and thereby avoiding the need to act. These monologues do not advance the plot, but they do foreground the ineffectiveness of the love-struck youth, whose efforts to transform his situation are limited by an inability to envision multiple outcomes. If the lover’s fantasy becomes reality, it is by coincidence – despite, rather than because of, his conscious efforts. It is the imagined scenarios of characters with a “transformative vision of reality” (such as clever slaves) that actually come true.64 Genre conventions are, accordingly, enough to tell us that Sostratos’ speculation is idle. Although his imaginary encounter reflects fears rather than wishes, it is as much a “pure projection” as the daydreams of the two Moschions.65 His scene will never be played. It is not even clear that he wants to perform it. One can read, with Batstone, “an almost erased trace of a lingering desire” in words like - and Y'- (92). At the end of the second speech he still has not reached a decision.66 Whereas the imaginative elements of Sostratos’ monologues suit a lovelorn youth, Demeas’ take a form more appropriate to his age and status. His speech is essentially a defense addressed to an audience of Athenian citizens with a view to winning acquittal for his son. Scafuro notes that his “address to ‘gentlemen’ (#'), directed to the audience of spectators, carries overtones of an address to dikasts.”67 In treating the theatrical 63 64 65 66 67
Del Corno 1973: 30. Cf. Batstone 2005: 25, “the words he gives her become the evidence that she is what he says.” Del Corno 1975: 207–8. Del Corno 1975: 207 describes these daydreams as “una mera proiezione mentale sprovvista di effetti propulsivi sulla vicenda del dramma.” Batstone 2005: 25. Scafuro 1997: 261. I am greatly indebted to her stimulating interpretation of this speech as a formal defense here and in Scafuro 2003. See also Lape 2004: 153–5. Others have found traces of tragic addresses to the chorus (Leo 1908: 117) or comic parabases (Wilamowitz 1925: 97, Martina 1997 ii.2: 484–5 ad 887). See also Kraus 1934: 68, Blundell 1980: 41–2, and Ireland 1992: 44–5 ad 214.
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audience as a jury, Demeas continues a pose he had already adopted in an earlier speech (“gentlemen, I’m not asserting this before you, nor am I insinuating it, but I’m bringing the matter into the open” Sam. 269–70). The forensic character of the speech becomes evident when he shifts from self-address to the second person, speaking to the spectators, “gentlemen” (#'), directly. After telling himself to “stop yelling” and “tough it out,” he turns to his case: '( &', B %- . > C K - , #', & & . ( / > / 2- 3 24 / , ! * 1 1 '% 2 " % . ' & $ # &8 . (Sam. 328–335) After all Moschion does you no wrong. This may be a rash claim, gentleman, but it is true. For if he had done this because he wanted to, or he was pricked by desire, or he hated me, he would brazen it out with the same intent, drawn up against me. But now he has defended himself as far as I’m concerned. He was happy to hear about the marriage when it was made known to him.
The technical term & , “has defended himself,” introduces a legal note, alerting us that Demeas regards this speech as a defense.68 He uses the rhetorical topos of “division” ('% ) at 330–1, “if A, or B, or C.”69 Like any good orator, he anticipates objections with counterarguments (G): is innocence a “rash” claim (328–9)? It is Moschion’s motivation, not the actual deed, that counts. Is it not natural for an adopted son to be less loyal (346–7)? Blood ties are beside the point when a man has always behaved well, even to strangers.70 His arguments are couched in the language of criminal justice: “does no wrong,” “has defended himself,” “responsible” (% 338, cited above), “co-conspirator” (342), and “accident” (&8 351). Even the exaggeration of ', “ten
68 69 70
Dedoussi 1965: 46 ad 118–20. Rhet. 1398a30–2, esp. 31 / 3' f / 3' / 3'. See also Lamagna 1998: 290 ad 330. Cf. Rhet. ad Alex. 1432b11–13 “Anticipation (prokatal¯epsis) is the device by which we shall remove illfeeling that we encounter by anticipating the criticisms of our audience and the arguments of those who are going to speak on the other side.” Speakers were advised to “explain the cause” of paradoxes (Lamagna 1998: 288–9 ad 328 takes > in the sense “paradoxical”), e.g., Arist. Rhet. 1400a24, Rhet. ad Alex. 1430b5–7). Lysias also uses the kin/stranger and / - antitheses (31.23, 13.91, cited in Lamagna 1998: 297 ad 344–5 and 298 ad 346).
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times” (“no, not if he’s ten times adopted” line 346) is common in oratory.71 Demeas uses standard techniques for manipulating a jury: false inference, suppression of contrary evidence, and “sophistic argumentation.”72 The comparison to Helen is a typical example. As Edith Hall notes, “the orators introduced mythical parallels to themselves or their opponents in order to provide a memorable and familiar analogy which would stick in the jurors’ minds when detailed evidence might be lost on them.”73 Demeas also depersonalizes the defendant by avoiding her name and using the derogatory J- (“the person” 348, often of slaves), while recalling her foreign status (“the beautiful Samian” 353–4).74 At the same time he individualizes Moschion by naming him in 328 and emphasizes their kinship (“my son” 346–7). Demeas’ imagination leads him to employ strategies common in forensic speeches. Arguments from probability ( ), “a major characteristic of Greek rhetoric, in part because of the distrust of direct evidence,” were recognized as a type of proof (% ) and rhetorical treatises taught how to use it properly.75 The Rhetorica ad Alexandrum advises that such arguments work best when they appeal to what an audience already knows or believes, and Aristotle offers some blatantly fallacious arguments as examples.76 Here, in order to support his claim that it is not “probable” ( ) that Moschion did him an injustice, Demeas needs to offer an explanation that seems likelier than those he dismisses (lust, hatred). Accordingly, he must show that his scenario fits the character of each defendant. For Chrysis, he draws on negative female stereotypes his audience knows, from Helen, the archetypal adulteress, to the cheapest of prostitutes. The stereotype of the whore appeals to common feelings of resentment and mistrust; it also helps to establish a pattern of behavior (a tactic also advised by handbooks: “with regard to persons, in accusations prove if you can that the party has often committed the same act before, or if not, actions like it,” Rhet. ad 71
72 73 74 75 76
E.g., Dem. 8.37, Isae. 9.31 (cited in Lamagna 1998: 298 ad 346), Lys. 24.9, and Dem. 19.53. Dem. 21.119 perhaps suggests ' was losing its force. Lines 343–6 are an argument 3 5 _ (Arist. Rhet. 1397b12–19). See Scafuro 1997: 261–2 and Lape 2004: 153–4 on other forensic elements in this speech. Weissenberger 1991: 427 and n. 43. On the flaws in his reasoning about maternity/paternity, see Scafuro 2003. Hall 1995: 54–5, citing as examples Ant. 1.17, Dem. 1.37, Andoc. 1.129, and Hyper. 1.7. On J- as an insult see Lamagna 1998: 299 ad 348, Austin 1969–70 ii: 71 ad 348, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 579 ad 348, and Ireland 1992: 46 ad 265, 49 ad 337. Quotation from Kennedy 1991: 176. See also Scafuro 1997: 58–60. “A probability is a statement supported by examples present in the minds (en tais dianoiais) of an audience . . . we must always pay attention in our speeches to the question whether we shall find our hearers possessed of a personal knowledge of the thing we are speaking of, as that is the sort of statement they are most likely to believe” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1428a27–32). Arist. Rhet. 1392b19–21.
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Alex. 1428b18–20). What started as a single seduction has progressed to the point of driving Moschion out of the house. This is pure supposition, based on assumptions about her character (and as such, a circular argument), but it is consistent with rhetorical theory, at least in the sophistic tradition represented by the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum. Speakers are encouraged to fabricate intentions and even character traits, and when a probability argument cannot be made about an opponent personally, they are advised to “infer what is normally the case from people resembling them (& C%-) . . . for example . . . say that [a young man] has acted as persons of that age usually do act, for the allegations will be believed against him too on the ground of similarity” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1428b25–9). Demeas is simply assimilating Chrysis to her A here; later he will speak openly of “women like you” (< ). Demeas employs standard arguments for each side of the case. If the action was characteristic of Chrysis and women like her, it was an aberration for Moschion: “no, it’s not this. I’m looking at his character” ( , 347).77 What was planned and deliberate for her was unplanned and involuntary for him: “if he had done this voluntarily (> ) . . . he would be in the same intent ('%)” (330–2). Arguing that a crime was planned was a technique of magnification (=4 ); arguing that it was deliberate might be necessary to establish that it was a crime at all.78 Demeas’ “proof” is another argument from probability intended to show, as Aristotle recommends, that the accused had the capacity and will to commit the crime. She had the opportunity to seduce Moschion, he claims, when he “wasn’t himself ” and she acted with premeditation as a “co-conspirator.” The young man, on the other hand, acted with neither will nor intent: “she must have gotten hold of him when he was drunk of course . . . wine and youth cause a lot of stupid things when they find a co-conspirator nearby.” Here Demeas sketches the extenuating circumstances usually invoked to exculpate the aggressor in a rape (wine, night, youth) in order to depict Moschion as the victim of an involuntary sexual encounter, euphemistically described as an 77
78
His argument may be analyzed as an application of Aristotelian % (“fairness,” or the obligation to assess the deed in terms of the whole of a person’s character, Arist. Rhet. 1374b15–16, Scafuro 1997: 262). Demeas may also be protecting himself in downplaying Moschion’s misdeed. The Rhet. ad Alex. 1441a16–18 cautions speakers, “say little, for people do not think that orderly conduct and self-restraint [ % N $, cf. Sam. 344] in young people is due so much to themselves as to those who are in charge of them.” “The more premeditated the crime, the greater the wrong” (Arist. Rhet. 1375a7); wrongdoing is “doing harm intentionally () ) contrary to law” (1368b6). “Another possible way of magnifying good or bad actions is if you prove that the agent acted intentionally” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1426a35– 37); “if possible prove that the defendant committed the offence of his own free will, and not from a merely casual intention, but with a very great amount of preparation” (1426b40–1427a5).
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“accident” &8 351).79 This was the recommended line to take when a defendant had to admit the charge.80 By suppressing the prior relationship between the two parties, Demeas manages to present the offense as a common and minor one, the sort of “stupid thing” young men are always doing. In good forensic style, he closes by proposing a verdict: acquittal for Moschion, with the additional protection of silence, and expulsion for Chrysis (her “guilt” was of course settled in line 338: “she’s the one responsible”). If we should be aware of the techniques of characterization behind the personae he creates for Chrysis and Moschion, we should also notice how distorted his thinking is, even as he tries to persuade us of its logic. The faulty reasoning by which he identifies Chrysis as the mother is an example.81 Aristotle warned speakers that they must show good sense ($ ) to be persuasive, and Demeas provides a striking example of someone who “does not form opinions rightly” on account of his “lack of sense” (&$ 8).82 He might apportion blame more equitably, even from the facts he knows. Nikeratos, for example, blames Moschion as well as Chrysis. There is a subjective element to Demeas’ “mistake” about Chrysis. He does not have enough information to prove Moschion’s relative innocence or Chrysis’ premeditation. Various explanations have been offered based on his character type, his psychology, and the play’s continuing engagement with the Hippolytus myth.83 One particularly persuasive argument is that Demeas cherishes the belief that he and his son have an exemplary relationship and is therefore reluctant to face evidence to the contrary.84 Part of his motivation in defending Moschion is surely a wish to preserve his self-image as an ideal father, but he is neither as candid nor as unselfconscious as these explanations suggest. We soon learn that his tolerant, forgiving tone is a façade from his quarrel with Moschion in the next act. A modern audience may find this about-face more surprising than Athenians did. Greek orators were skilled at creating rhetorical personae, and Menander’s contemporaries were unlikely to have taken a speech that began with an assertion of candor (“rash . . . but true” 328–9) as a revelation of the speaker’s true feelings. The forensic language should pose 79
80 83
84
Blume 1974: 125–6, Ireland 1992: 48 ad 328. The verb >- (339) “find someone in a certain condition,” implies that Chrysis controlled the situation (Lamagna 1998: 294–5 ad 339, following Oguse). See also Arnott 1998: 14 and n. 20 on these lines. 81 Scafuro 2003: 132. 82 Arist. Rhet. 1378a 10–1. Rhet. ad Alex. 1428b37–9, 1429a15–19. Angry old men are supposed to be irrational (Goldberg 1980: 101); loyalty to his son (Legrand 1910: 310, Zagagi 1994: 127–8), emotion (Dworacki 1977: 21–2) or anger, combined with “his vision of Moskhion’s kosmiot¯es” (Scafuro 2003: 127), blind him to his own unfairness. See also West 1991: 18 and Weissenberger 1991: 427 n. 43. Jacques 1968: 223 compares him with Sostratos in this regard. Weissenberger 1991: 420–1.
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an obstacle to interpreting his speech as a reflection of an individualized consciousness (Adele Scafuro has shown that New Comic characters tend to think and act in forensic terms).85 As John Blundell has demonstrated, Menander’s monologues are not strictly devices to reveal a character’s inner thoughts and unconscious motives, like Shakespearian soliloquies. These monologues can be overheard and often are.86 The characters who deliver them recognize that they are speaking out loud to a potential audience (a slave girl, for example, reprimands the old woman for spilling the secret, 255–6). Demeas is not just thinking out loud but presenting his thoughts to an audience he recognizes in a manner which minimally ruptures the dramatic illusion: he treats them as a jury. This does not, however, mean that his persona in this speech is simply pretence, based on a calculation of what will win over an audience. His struggle to make a convincing case out of arguments he does not quite believe himself speaks volumes about his priorities and feelings for his son. It also reveals the limits of his friendship with Nikeratos (he will lie in order to keep the wedding on track). Demeas is a serious character by comic standards and Menander invites us to sympathize with him, even though we know he is wrong. In Nikeratos, however, we see Demeas’ mistakes repeated and caricatured: the accusations are more ridiculous and the threats more outrageous. One example is his use of the term 0. After learning that his neighbor’s mistress has slept with his prospective son-in-law, Nikeratos imagines a humiliating revenge for the “hubris” of “shaming” Demeas’ bed: “the next day, I would be the first person to sell the concubine” (508–9). This unlikely proposal requires him to represent her as more dependent than she really is, calling her a 0 (508) or “concubine.”87 Z0 is a status term of uncertain legal significance. It is not clear just when and how a hetaira became one.88 Passages in the orators suggest that 0-relationships once had legal recognition and some protection, although by Menander’s time this no longer appears to be true.89 (Pataikos, for example, advises Polemon that 85 87
88
89
86 Blundell 1980: 19–20. Scafuro 1997: 10–11 and passim. There is no mention of purchase from a pimp (Dedoussi 1970: 161). Nikeratos is either hearkening back to Solon’s era, when female kin could be sold as punishment for sexual activity (Lamagna 1998: 361 ad 509), or simply exaggerating (Krieter-Spiro 1997: 44 n. 4). Chrysis was still vulnerable nonetheless (Sandbach, in Dedoussi 1970: 178, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 601 ad 509, Lamagna 1998: 361 ad 509). See Bushala 1969: 71 on the status of the non-citizen 0. A woman needed to cohabit for a while to be a 0 (MacDowell 1978: 89, Todd 1993: 178, Roy 1997: 17) but it is not clear that this sufficed. We know of monogamous, long-term relationships with “hetairai” (Davidson 1997: 101–2); some even produced families (Cox 1998: 186–7). See also Konstan 1993: 142 and McClure 2003: 18–21. Dem. 23.53 cites a law exempting a man who kills another found “with a 0 whom he keeps for free children” from prosecution for homicide. There may have been no legal definition
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he cannot legally use force against Moschion for the supposed seduction of Glykera because she is not his married wife. He does not even suggest claiming her as a 0.) Menander does not often use the word. Eight plays feature women in some form of concubinage either during or prior to the action, but only two women besides Chrysis are called %: the title figure of the Z0 and a former lady’s maid in the Pseudheracles.90 Elaine Fantham describes the term as “archaic and technical,” and a distinction should probably be made between an obsolete legal sense and a slightly honorific social sense, which seems to survive in Menander.91 At most we can say that “hetaira” put a polite gloss on a disreputable occupation, for which cruder terms were always available, whereas 0 seems to have carried respectable associations. Nikeratos is speaking in grandiloquent style here, invoking the archaic paradigm of the nobleman and his slave concubine.92 His first instinct, like Demeas’, is to think in tragic terms. He compares Moschion, for example, with legendary perpetrators of incest – Tereus, Oedipus, Thyestes, and Amyntor (Demeas himself alluded to a tragic version of the Oedipus myth). He misrepresents Chrysis’ status in order to magnify her crime. Calling her a 0 gives her an exclusive relationship to Demeas and makes her actions accordingly “dreadful” ('% 516); as Demeas points out, they are simply what one would expect from a whore. The mythical allusions go even further, implying that she has been a kind of wife to Demeas and stepmother to Moschion. Nikeratos is deliberately overstating the case to incriminate Moschion, whom he considers the primary culprit and greater threat. “Who would you not touch?,” he asks the young man (501), while Chrysis is just an “and also” in 508. Demeas wanted to see habitual behavior so he could forgive his son; Nikeratos wants to see a horrific crime so he can call off the wedding. Nikeratos is more liberal about status mobility than Demeas. He was willing to accept Chrysis as his neighbor’s mistress and his wife’s close friend so
90 91
92
of % (Sealey 1984: 118). See Wolff 1944: 74, MacDowell 1978: 89, Todd 1993: 178, Harrison 1998 i: 15 and Ogden 1996: 33 on who counted. The other examples are: Antiphila (Heauton), Glykera (Perik.), Krateia (Mis.), Malthake (Sik.), and Plangon (Syn.). Alexis (fr. 169 K-A) and Diphilus (fr. 59 K-A) also wrote Pallakai. Fantham 1975: 65 n. 47. Socially, the 0 held a lower position than the married woman (Harrison 1998 i: 13 n. 1, Roy 1997: 17, Kapparis 1999: 8–9), although her day-to-day life could be similar (Post 1940: 445, Vernant 1980: 47–9, Cantarella 1987: 49, Davidson 1997: 132, Cox 1998: 178–81). On the status of the concubine in relation to Menander see further Ruiz 1981: 131–6. Bain 1983: 124 ad 517: “The word melathrois, absurd as a description of Nikeratos’ humble abode, belongs to lyric and tragedy, and so does its scansion [sc. the long first syllable].” Likewise the anacolouthon 0 . . . 0 . . . “is mainly found in tragedy” (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 601 ad 510).
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long as she behaved appropriately. Once he classes her as a threat, however, he is unwilling to change his mind, even after he discovers his daughter nursing the baby. Although Chrysis is clearly not the mother and therefore not guilty of incest, she is still “plotting against me and doing absolutely terrible things” (556–7). He realizes that his own women must have colluded with her (he knows that they have something to “confess” 558), but he still blames Chrysis: she “conspired” (556) and “talked them into” (558) defying him. Demeas resorted to similar tactics when he realized Chrysis could not be held solely responsible for the baby: he accused Moschion of being “in league with” his enemies (474–5) and described Parmenon as “in the know” (478). In other words, Nikeratos’ bad-apple theory serves the same purpose as Demeas’ drunken-seduction scenario: it exculpates his immediate family. But he goes further than Demeas, representing himself as a victim too. (\.) : , ( C , A- '( : , 2 '( >% '% 0 % $ % k : 8O , 1 -. (Q.) 1 ; (\.) 8' M. (Q.) ', \0. (\.) ' > ,. (Sam. 558–63) (Ni.) She’s talked my wife into admitting absolutely nothing and my daughter too, and she’s keeping the baby by force and refuses to hand it over! So don’t be surprised if I end up killing her . . . (De.) Killing your wife? (Ni. oblivious) . . . because she knew about the whole thing . . . (De.) Don’t, Nikeratos! (Ni.) . . . but I wanted to tell you first.
Chrysis’ offences form a neat tricolon in the past, present and future tense: “she has talked . . . is keeping . . . and . . . refuses to hand it over (a future infinitive).” Nikeratos threatens far worse than the bleak life of poverty Demeas wished upon her. The last clause (“so don’t . . .”) makes his threat the result of these offenses, suggesting that they provide ample provocation. The emphatic “she” in line 562 could refer equally to Chrysis or Nikeratos’ wife. Hence Demeas’ question. But Chrysis is Nikeratos’ bˆete noire here.93 His accusations center on her and he follows up his threat by chasing her out of the house (568ff.). There is no reason to suppose he intends to go after his wife until Chrysis escapes with the baby and 93
Legrand 1910: 310, Ireland 1992: 55 ad 568, Lamagna 1998: 381, and Arnott 2000b: 120 identify “her” as Chrysis (“though the Greek is ambiguous at this point – no doubt deliberately so,” Ireland). Austin 1969–70 ii: 90, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 610 ad 580, and Zagagi 1994: 190 n. 124 identify “her” as the wife.
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Demeas threatens a lawsuit (“I’ll go in and kill my wife! What else can I do?,” he mutters in desperation (580–1)). Demeas mentions the wife at 561 to distract him, but Nikeratos pursues his own train of thought. The causal clause, “because she knew the whole,” justifies his plan to kill Chrysis, while the “but” clause, “but I wanted to tell you first (sc., before killing your ex-mistress),” is a courtesy to his friend, acknowledging Demeas’ stake in her punishment. Demeas had appealed to their friendship earlier (“share my injury, as a true friend” 518) and Nikeratos has consistently shown him deference throughout the play. Even the threat (560–1) is politely phrased as a mere possibility, in a conditional clause rather than the simple future. The gesture shows Nikeratos’ respect for his wealthy neighbor and accounts for an otherwise unmotivated entrance (why else interrupt a heated argument inside?). Nikeratos’ principal function here is to parody his neighbor’s mistakes: misinterpreting a chance discovery, attempting to force a confession, resenting his exclusion from a circle of insiders, even blaming Chrysis for another’s misconduct. He plays an angrier, less rational, and funnier Demeas. We are not supposed to take his ranting, any more than that of Demeas or Sostratos, at face value. All three characters make accusations based on the wrong stock type and to serve their immediate need for a scapegoat. It is more important to cast the women as outsiders, blaming them for the misdeeds of $%, than to salvage anything of the romantic relationship. The dramatic purpose of detailing the men’s mistaken reasoning is to reveal their fears and anxieties, as well as their emotional and moral priorities, not to characterize the women. They do not even try to assign blame reasonably: Moschion, Moschos, Plangon, and her mother are simply excused as victims or at worst accomplices. Ties of affection certainly influence these judgments, but it should be noted that Demeas and Sostratos also love their mistresses. The problem is that they believe in an underlying moral basis for social divisions and are therefore determined to see evidence of status-appropriate moral character, even if it means going to extraordinary lengths to dismiss evidence to the contrary. Like the mistakes examined in the last chapter, these errors comically illustrate what happens when people observe and judge those they care about most.
p e r i k e i r o m e n e¯ and m i s o u m e n o s As hetairai, Chrysis and Sostratos’ unnamed beloved open up new possibilities for misperception because their moral character can be questioned in ways that are unacceptable for women of higher status. Not a breath of
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criticism touches Nikeratos’ daughter Plangon, for example; even her sexual experience casts no shadow on her character. For well-born women, “mistaken identity” is almost always a matter of false social or juridical status. The only way to subject their morals to suspicion was to lower their status artificially, something we see in the Misoumenos and Perikeiromen¯e. In both plays the men are wrong about the character of the women they love because they are wrong about their birth-identity – not because they are cynical or stupid or too emotionally engaged, and certainly not because women who lose status also lose corresponding qualities of character. Moreover, these men want to believe that their mistresses can and should be wives; it is their slaves who scrutinize the women’s actions for qualities consistent with their apparent status. Much of the hostility expressed by the conflicted lovers in the Samia and Dis Exapat¯on is thus displaced onto cynical confidants in the Misoumenos and Perikeiromen¯e. This role-splitting makes it possible to explore some of the more disturbing implications of the heroine’s behavior without altering the lover’s feelings or lending any real authority to the charges. The worst suspicions are voiced by the lowest-status characters, whose dramatic function is to be proved wrong about both status and morals. Glykera is not a novice hetaira, Krateia is not going to remain a slave, and neither has betrayed her lover. In the Perikeiromen¯e, it is Sosias who criticizes Glykera on moral grounds. Polemon refuses to blame her at all (the rift is entirely Moschion’s fault) and Pataikos offers her an excuse (she left because Polemon treated her badly). But Sosias assumes that she betrayed him for another man. He insinuates that she left for mercenary reasons (“What a lifestyle they’re living!” 183–4) and reads her departure as an expression of contempt (“telling us to go howl at the moon (lit. ‘wail long and hard’)” 370–1). To Sosias, Glykera is a hetaira who chases young men and easy living. He believes she has flouted her obligations to Polemon, and he certainly identifies with his master’s point of view, but he does not mistake her actual position in the house.94 He does not speak of her as a “wife,” nor does he question her freedom to leave. It is clear from his choice of “forcible detention” (of a free woman, 375–7) as a pretext for attacking the house that he sees no real sexual offense. If Moschion were really an “adulterer” ( ) numerous forms of selfhelp would be legally available.95 Sosias means (357, 370, 390) only in the general sense “womanizer” (a was any man who had relations 94 95
I see a more limited identification than Konstan 1995: 111. On self-help against adulterers see Harrison 1998 I: 35, MacDowell 1978: 124–5, Todd 1993: 277, Carey 1995, Kapparis 1996, and Scafuro 1997: 196–201 (including 197 n. 13 on as “comic katakhresis here”).
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with women from protected classes – or simply looked like the sort who would). If Sosias actually witnessed the compromising embrace (the text has a gap at line 157, but a reference to Sosias seems likely), it would explain how he convinces himself of her passion for the young man, whom he calls her “care” ( 404, a word from lyric monody, perhaps ironic here).96 When Glykera’s maid challenges him (“she isn’t doing any of the things you think” 405), he calls her a liar (G'[-] 406). Although the text breaks off here, in the missing lines – about 60 by Sandbach’s estimate – Sosias must have dismissed Doris’ protests, perhaps by elaborating on the accusation in 399 (“You’re most at fault (-) for this”) and charging her with ulterior motives (e.g., the taste for the good life he noted earlier, “Look at her [sc. the maid] – she’s thriving!” 182 – a hint of romantic interest on his part?). There was evidently abuse on both sides because Sosias is leading an angry attack when we next see him in Act III. In the Misoumenos, it is the slave Getas who judges Krateia most critically, voicing the kind of suspicion that lovers entertain only in despair. Thrasonides is simply frustrated and confused by her rejection. He takes her silence to signify dislike (he feels “hated” 43, “wretchedly ill-used” 37, and perhaps “ignored,” if he is, in fact, the speaker at line 86) but he admits that her motivation is still a mystery. Getas is the one who thinks in terms of types and topoi, who speaks in proverbs (“not even a dog should be out in this weather” 15), and who sees things in conventional ways. When confronted with his master’s “strange problem” ( 90), he cites common wisdom about women: '( $ ' N #[]- &': k , & [ &[] 3 -3 [>>. &[] ;G L (Mis. 90–3) After all, you’re not completely unpleasant, in a manner of speaking. Never mind that your low soldier’s pay hurts you. But you’re very chic to look at.
Women in New Comedy typically find soldiers offensive (“A civilized soldier? Not if a god made him,” runs an unattributed fragment, 777 K-A, cf. Ter. Hec. 85–7, Pl. Mil. 125–8), a possibility which Getas dismisses, although the three modifiers and double negative suggest that he has not altogether ruled it out. Poverty might be a problem, he concedes, but good looks should compensate. By attributing to Krateia the preferences of women who pick their own lovers, Getas effectively classes her with hetairai 96
Arnott 1995: 11–12 (identifying Sosias as the witness), Lamagna 1994: 234 ad 214 ().
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(implying, incidentally, that she is incapable of acting like a wife, even a nominal one) and subsumes her identity under that of her sex (women are “a foul species” 97, cf. fr. 508 K-A). Thrasonides is less of a misogynist.97 He considers kind expressions of concern, for example, what “any woman would say” (55) and accordingly rejects his slave’s facile explanation, telling him to “Go to hell!” (95) and giving Krateia credit for a motivation that cannot be simply assumed or guessed. “We need to find out what it is, show some compelling cause” (95–7. An unattributed fragment may also fit here: “find out from her for what cause . . .” 653 K-A). A curt order to change tactics (“if you don’t give it up . . . !” 98) only elicits an even more cynical theory from Getas: “She’s getting [you] horny for [some purpose]” ( [] O [ ], 99–100). When the text breaks off, the slave appears to be challenging the theory of a “compelling cause” by arguing that women can act for no reason at all (“not always [some] rational . . .” 100). Getas is quick to detect disloyalty in a fellow slave and appears resentful of privileges he does not share, such as the “excess luxury” he mentions in line 84 and the domestic authority he grumbles about in line 45 (“She’s not in charge [%]”). Later he suspects a lover, perhaps the “foreigner” mentioned in line 424 (he refers to Demeas as “this fellow we’ve been looking for” (619) when he catches him embracing Krateia), and worries about “an ill turn” behind a dinner invitation (570, some attempt to get at her perhaps?). Like others who misjudge, he sees people with disillusioned eyes. Getas has an excuse for misunderstanding Krateia. He arrived only yesterday (31–2) and knows her simply as “the captive” (37). Of course, he does not know the truth: charm, money, and looks mean nothing to a woman who believes her lover killed her brother. But when her father arrives to put an end to the enslavement, Getas realizes she is not simply a capricious female or a slave who does not know her place. Since the father is hardly more communicative than the daughter, Getas and Thrasonides are left to speculate about Krateia’s reasons. Again each judges her differently. Getas mentions first and last her failure to answer the soldier’s pleas: “but she turns away from him while he speaks” (705–6), “[and there is] no answer” (711). Her insensitivity puts her outside the civilized world, even outside humanity: he calls her “savage” (>>) and “a she-lion” (712–13).98 A proverbial image of cruelty (cf. Men. Mon. 374 “a woman’s savagery is 97 98
On traditional notions of a “race” of women see Lape 2004: 244 and nn. 2, 4. Long 1986: 153. “By imagining supplications rejected in silence, tragic poets touch upon an almost inconceivable behavior, one that epic poetry attributes exclusively to a brute who lives at the margins of the civilized world” (Montiglio 2000: 250–1).
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like a she-lion’s”), “she-lion” acknowledges that Krateia negotiates from a position of strength. l> implies that she is not a true Greek in a moral sense and therefore not entitled to courtesies Greeks extend to one another. 9 ( [0], W - %, * &[] . c ^ [3] [] K . & , F 2 &[]3 . A '( ' L,[ ], '( L ' $: 2 -. (Mis. 715–19)
By Apollo here, I wouldn’t have ransomed her! We know it’s the Greek way and done everywhere, but it’s proper to pity someone who shows pity in return. I don’t have either consideration or concern for you when you don’t have any for me.
Athenians no doubt appreciated the irony that a slave from one of the notoriously violent tribes of Thrace should hold up “Greekness” as the standard of civilized conduct.99 Getas does not fault Krateia for failing to return the soldier’s affection or repay his kindness (the argument Thrasonides makes) but for failing to show pity. Taking advantage of the “Greek” custom that forces the soldier to agree to ransom shows a lack of “concern” that should make Krateia and her father forfeit any right to be treated as Greeks. Getas is shifting his moral parameters, pretending that the only constraints on Krateia’s behavior are those of ethnicity, rather than gender. It is no longer a question of money, looks, or a woman’s whims; it is about behaving like a human being and a proper Greek. Despite this ostensibly general standard, he is still making an ad hominem argument. Her “failure” to show pity is simply a new excuse to blame her for his master’s misery. As he admits, he is taking an unconventional view in suggesting that ransom, as an act of pity, is “proper” only when the pity is returned. This places the onus on Krateia to rise to a “Greek” standard and deserve her ransom, paradoxically, by declining it. The captive has a moral obligation to refuse her family for her captor! It is hard to imagine a more subjective argument. Getas takes no account of her age and sex, which both obligate her to choose a father over a lover.100 Instead, he speaks of Greek versus barbarian (“everywhere” means everywhere in the Greek-speaking world) and holds her to a standard applicable to all Greeks. This is not just an oversight or 99 100
Lape 2004: 195. On the ethical sense of >> here and elsewhere in Menander see Long 1986: 152–4. Cf. Lape 2004: 195–6.
Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos
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rhetorical sleight of hand. Getas thought Demeas also failed to respond “like a human being” (&-%- 703) when he answered Thrasonides’ pleas with the same silence as his daughter (“not a peep from him” 692), only to ask “one thing” when he finally spoke. For Getas, the daughter’s silence and the father’s request convey the same message and he treats the two as a common enemy (“you” plural, 718). In order to claim the moral high ground and justify refusing ransom, he needs to find a fault common to both (if it were only a matter of repaying kindness, Demeas would have done nothing wrong). Both father and daughter can, however, be charged with the “barbarous” inhumanity of failing to show pity. Although Getas’ criticisms of Krateia’s moral character still stem from ignorance of her identity (no one could argue that a sister should feel “pity” for her brother’s killer), he is no longer judging her in gendered terms. Now that her father supports her decision to reject Thrasonides, he must hold her to the standards of a group which includes Demeas. Whereas Getas blames the two equally, Thrasonides seems to have minimized Demeas’ role and held Krateia primarily responsible. He knows no more than Getas about her relationship to the man he killed, but he draws rather different conclusions from her silent rejection. Thrasonides situates her behavior within a different set of role-based expectations. He insists on evaluating it in the context of their relationship, discounting her filial obligations and holding her only to those of a wife. In what survives of a speech delivered after the interview, Thrasonides also recognizes the force of custom, reiterating Getas’ “it’s that way everywhere” (at 795–6). He does not, however, consider refusing ransom. Instead, he comforts himself by imagining the vindication of posterity: ;[]' 1 3 , ', &. e 3 -0 & 1 ' . (Mis. 804–6) You must leave this immortal shame to her: although well treated she took vengeance on the man who gave her the good things.
Tellingly, he makes her the sole subject of this crucial sentence.101 Thrasonides does not regard the issue as a matter of filial obedience, ransom protocol or conformity with civilized customs any more than Getas did. 101
Not only does he recognize her as a moral agent but he also rejects a tradition which objectified the spear-prize (Lape 2004: 197, “Thrasonides assumes that Krateia has decisional autonomy, that she is an agent whose actions are subject to moral evaluation [praise and blame] rather than an object whose purpose is to augment masculine honor”).
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He also invokes an ethics of reciprocation: “good things” and “good treatment” deserve a good return. This is a rhetorical commonplace. Aristotle cites “having gratitude ( ) to a benefactor and rewarding a benefactor in turn (&, e 0 )” as a just action according to unwritten laws, and the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum likewise states: “as it is just to take vengeance (-, ) on those who do us harm . . . so it is also proper to do good in return to those who do us good (" 0 . . . & ,).”102 Thrasonides uses -, to imply deliberate intent and to suggest an unprovoked act of aggression: Krateia took “vengeance” – in return for good treatment – by imposing a life of misery upon him (803). He is, in effect, trying to hold her responsible for harm he intends to do himself (“live in poverty, in pain, in weakness” 803), the same sort of emotional blackmail he used on the stormy night and during the interview (“You’ll learn I’m dead, if you abandon me” 710– 11). Thrasonides’ moral outrage is baseless: simply knowing his intentions does not make Krateia responsible for the consequences and it is absurd to describe a fifteen-year-old girl as an agent of revenge. It is not even clear that he means what he says. Getas is worried enough to remove the swords after the interview (“He’ll yell and decide to kill himself,” he predicts 721–2), but the soldier seems to be proposing some kind of pretence at the end of this speech ( [ “pretend,” 807). Thrasonides pretends to apply universal standards of reciprocity – returning good treatment in kind – but he wants a specific kind of return. The “good things” he has given her (clothing, jewelry, servants) are what a man gave his wife.103 In later Greek marriage contracts from Egypt, a husband could actually be required to “provide everything appropriate for a free woman” (P. Eleph. i.4f ).104 Thrasonides has certainly done this. Moreover he has “loved” Krateia, he insists, with the verbs $ and & (694, 708, 709, 770). Right after claiming that she “is loved” (770), however, he concedes a problem: Y [ (771, Arnott “we didn’t fix it”). I O-, “join together, accommodate” can mean “fit, suit” when used intransitively and is natural metaphor for marriage (in the middle voice, it 102 103
104
Arist. Rhet. 1374a23–4, Rhet. ad Alex. 1422a36–8. For Giacomoni 2000, the issue is the reciprocity of the erotic bond (although she sees a tragic model here, e.g., Medea’s situation). For Lape 2004: 197 “gave her the good things” is the language of euergetism, refiguring the romantic relationship as a liturgical one (Krateia represents the Greek city and Thrasonides, the Hellenistic ruler). His argument is a topos, however, and Rhet. ad Alex. 1422a38 shows that even , could be used of relationships between private individuals. Cf. Men. Mon. 243–4. Williams 1961: 45.
P. Ghˆoran II and Theophoroumen¯e (The Girl Possessed)
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can mean betroth).105 The sense here is not clear, but some kind of incompatibility is clearly implied. Thrasonides is not talking about a master-slave relationship. His arguments all presume a voluntary relationship based on goodwill. Krateia owes him a return for being a good husband, not for being a good master. She, of course, does not agree that he has conferred only benefits and the problem is compounded by his insistence on treating the relationship like a marriage. Master and slave alike are victims of # and the inferences they draw about Krateia’s character are false. She is not cruel or thankless, just loyal to her family. The problem in the Misoumenos is a gap in their knowledge of her social identity. The Perikeiromen¯e exploits a similar gap; the Samia, an outright pretence. In all three plays, cynical characters interpret the women’s ingratitude as a sign of their fundamentally corrupt natures, which the men attribute to their ostensible class. Thus their low status – as a hetaira, an ex-hetaira, and a captive, respectively – leaves them open to accusations spared women of more privileged classes. Unlike the wife, the mistress held only a tenuous position in a household and, thanks in part to the stereotype of the whore, suspicions about her moral character were always plausible. The misogynistic commonplaces that attached to hetairai could even be extended to a slave-mistress like Krateia, even though she was in no position to reject Thrasonides for low pay or disagreeable manners.
t h e o p h o r o u m e n e¯ (the girl possessed) Whereas the “whore” stereotype might be broadly applied to socially marginal women, there were taboos against using it to interpret the actions of high-status women. Two brief counterexamples will illustrate what happens when the suspicious behavior occurs in free women with respectable families. In a scene preserved on a papyrus scrap from Ghˆoran, Egypt, a lover finds himself in a situation similar to Sostratos’ (P. Ghˆor. ii = P. Sorbonne 72). His beloved is freeborn, however. The disappointed young man heaps accusations on his supposedly false friend but spares the girl, even though she has been far from passive (she seems to have left her father’s house for that of the friend).106 Far from holding her responsible, he continues to assume she is entirely at her father’s disposal (“Since her father planned to deprive me of her, you thought, I’m sure, that you ought to marry her” 148–9). It is not that elite women could never be accused of 105 106
On I O-, of marriage, see Zeitlin 1996: 229 and n. 24. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 730–1. The authorship of these fragments is disputed (Arnott 2000a: 418–19 excludes them from his edition of Menander).
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hetaira-like behavior, but there were limits on who could make the charge, in what circumstances, and how far they could press it. In a 16-line fragment of the Theophoroumen¯e, a character reports an off-stage argument in which a man blames a girl for accepting gifts: “& ' ”, &8; Y “ '” $ “& 4% ”. C '( “% ' 2>, < ; '( ' [ N 3; % '( % . [ ; / " % >3 $ 24- ,; %; % e 2' %;” (Theoph. 17–23) “My gifts” – are you listening? The girl said, “They took away my gifts.” Then he said, “What did you accept, you great whore? The man who gave them to you – how do you know him? What [or why] [does?] a young man . . . ? And why are you wandering around outside wearing a garland? You’re mad, are you? Why can’t you be mad shut up inside?”
The “possessed” girl of the title is evidently of good birth. (“girl”) is used exclusively of freeborn girls in Menander and the angry off-stage speaker demands the conduct of a respectable woman: remaining indoors and not consorting with men.107 He evidently holds some authority over the girl and may well be her father, since his language is too presumptuous for a slave and too rude for a suitor.108 A jealous ex-lover might speak in such terms, but the girl would not be a if she had one. Irascibility and lack of self-control, however, are stock traits of comic fathers. This play may have paired a comparatively sympathetic daughter with a cranky father – perhaps the “Craton” of a misanthropic speech preserved in Stobaeus – as Menander does in the Dyskolos and Epitrepontes.109 A Sosias or a Getas might freely criticize women of dubious status but only close kin had the authority to reproach a freeborn . 107
108
109
The mentioned in Asp., Georg., Dysk., Epitr., Kar., Kith., Sam., Sik., and Phas. are legitimate daughters; those in Her., Sik., and Perik. are lost daughters. See N¨unlist 1993: 262 ad A12 for a full list of examples. Theophoroumen¯e citations are from Sandbach 1990. < is less coarse than a primary obscenity like (Perik. 485, cited by Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 402 ad 19 as a comparison): the root of refers only to sale. It can be used without apology (e.g., at Perik. 340, unlike at Phasm. 42), even in front of a respectable woman (Epitr. 794). < is harsh (Alciphron uses it of particularly greedy hetairai, Pagliardini 1982: 117) but if a father could beat a girl for merely leaving the house (Dysk. 205–6), one who suspected worse might well use strong language. See further K¨orte 1935: 432 and Handley 1969: 95. Stob. Ecl. iv. 42.3 = fr. 1 Sandbach. A reference to a deus ex machina (fr. 5 Sandbach) suggests that Craton, if he was the girl’s father, appeared late in the play (Webster 1973: 200). But the girl need not have been a lost citizen; possession, real or fake, surely posed a sufficient obstacle to marriage.
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Like Sostratos and Demeas, this speaker immediately leaps to the worst conclusions. It may seem surprising that he invokes the “whore” as a model of feminine immorality even though the girl is clearly not a prostitute of any kind. His questions are insinuating: the word “gifts” (often euphemistic for “payment” to hetairai) implies an understanding with the giver; “garland,” associated with the symposium, suggests she flaunts herself in public; and the demand that she “rave inside” presumes a degree of control possible only if she is faking.110 He does not really believe she is a prostitute, since he holds her to higher standards. His epithet “great whore” expresses a fear that her actions will endanger her social position. Like the outraged speaker of fr. 450 K-A (“Get out of this house: a decent woman shouldn’t dye her hair blonde”), this man is trying to shock, bully, and threaten the young woman into behaving in a way that will preserve her status and marriageability. He has an interest in protecting her reputation. Unlike Demeas, who broadcasts his quarrel by kicking Chrysis out of the house, or Nikeratos, who fantasizes about publicizing her behavior in the barber shops, this speaker makes the charge in private. He also spares her the accusation that such behavior is natural or normal for her. The misconduct, or apparent misconduct, does not change his basic view of her identity. In fact, a youth who hears this speech takes the man’s frustration as proof that her possession is genuine (“She’s not faking” 23–4). Evidently there has been some suspicion, since he and a friend have arranged to test her by playing korybantic music (if she really is “possessed,” she will have to respond to the call of the god). His faith in her suggests he is in love (it would be in his interest to see her vindicated, if he hoped to marry her), while his unaccountable enthusiasm (“By Zeus, this is great, Lysias, absolutely great” 29–30) suggests that he, like so many Menandrian lovers, sees what he wants to see. Despite the obvious advantages to classing her with approachable women, he still chooses to see someone marriageable. with fathers are not potential hetairai, even in a comic fiction. roman adaptations The figure of the hetaira may have been more central to errors concerning moral character than the extant Menander corpus would suggest. Three Roman adaptations of Menander’s plays show the same pattern of scrutinizing the behavior of women who are already marginalized as prostitutes. 110
See Davidson 1997: 120–7 on the hetaira’s “gifts” (“Such language labels the girl immediately as a Hippoporne, a Mega-whore” 123).
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In two cases, the woman’s status is further lowered through confusion with her dramatic double: a lost daughter about to enter the profession is mistaken for a veteran. It is unfortunate that so few of Menander’s hetaira plays have survived, as he seems to have used the type imaginatively in misperception plots. His most famous hetaira, Thais, is attacked in the prologue of the Thais (“brash . . . doing them wrong, shutting them out, making frequent requests”). Presumably these complaints were developed, since the monostich “bad company corrupts good morals (@)” suggests that her moral influence was a recurring theme. One lover even mutters about tolerating a few harsh epithets (“intemperate, imbecile, disaster”), so long as he has “her.” Were the “good morals” his? Unfortunately, we know very little about this play. Her reception by the Roman elegists who made Thais an icon of sophisticated refinement suggests that the portrait was not entirely negative.111 Plautus’ Cistellaria, which is based on Menander’s Synarist¯osai (“The Women who Breakfast Together”), has a false accusation scene, similar to those in the Samia and Dis Exapat¯on, in which an angry father upbraids a meretrix (the usual Latin translation of “hetaira”) for ruining his son. This short scene shows the license permitted where low-status women were concerned. Not only does this man freely address a woman he has never met (and in a public street, something she admits is degrading: “standing alone in the street is for streetwalkers” 331), but he is tactless and rude. “I want something at your house” (323). “Haven’t you got any other lover besides my son alone?” (368–9). Like Demeas and Sostratos, he readily scapegoats the woman in order to excuse the young man. “Why do you mark out me, and my son, and his mother, and our property for ruin and robbery (perditui et praedatui)?” (365–6, 369). In good Roman fashion, this father concerns himself primarily with the financial damages (he greets the young woman as “you incentive to Trouble and Loss” 321, after complaining privately that she is keeping the young man from “a sumptuous, fattened-up dowry” 305), but he also believes she is “corrupting” his son (corrumpit filium 317). What he does not realize is that he is speaking to the wrong meretrix. The woman in front of him is simply house-sitting for a few days as a favor to the actual girlfriend, who will of course prove a marriageable lost daughter. Attacking her through a surrogate is a more vivid way of dramatizing an alternative possibility than the hostile speculations we have seen in other plays: the quick-talking floozy who mocks the old man is literally what the respectable lost daughter might become. It also allows the playwright to 111
See further Traill 2001.
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stage a direct confrontation without subjecting a well-born woman to the indignity of having a stranger make insulting accusations to her face. Her status entitles her to a proxy. The father’s moral censures are grounded in an identity mistake that results from misinterpreting ambiguous signs – the young woman’s appearance, her words, the house. Emotions play a large role in the process. He came on stage spoiling for a fight (“She’s keeping him from enormous wealth” 305) but was sidetracked by a rather Menandrian emotional ambivalence. Like Demeas, he is worried about drawing false conclusions and – unlike Demeas – a little reluctant to condemn a woman he finds attractive (“I may be an old nag, but I could still whinny at a fine filly like her if I had her alone” 307–8). When he lays out his case, as if appealing to us to judge it, he speaks with hesitation and uncertainty: sed cum dicta huius interpretor, haec herclest, ut ego opinor, meum quae corrumpit filium. suspicatiost eam esse, utpote quam nunquam viderim; de opinione credo. nam hasce aedis conductas habet meus gnatus, haec ubi astat: hoc hanc eam esse opiniost; nam haec illum nominavit. (316–20)112
When I interpret her words – Hercules! – she’s the one, if I’m not mistaken, who’s corrupting my son. It’s a guess it’s her, since I’ve never seen her; going by conjecture, I believe so. Because my son has rented the house where she’s standing. It’s my belief that this woman is the one; also, she just named him.
The parataxis, parenthetic phrases and general disorganization of this speech create an effect of spontaneity. There are ample markers of the subjective nature of his argument, e.g., the first person verbs interpretor, opinor, and credo, or the postponement of his last piece of evidence (“She just named him”) until after his summation (“This woman is the one”), as if he does not need it to convince himself but believes his audience might. Although we are not allowed to forget that it is an argument from probability (suspicatio est, opinio est), there is nothing really wrong with his reasoning. He knows that his son has been keeping a meretrix and the woman in front of him is “a decked-out hussy” (mulierculam exornatulam 306) – the sort who probably corrupts young men regularly. Moreover, she has just stepped out of his son’s house and her comments are misleading – innocently at first (she praises the house and the young man without making her own identity clear), and later by design (“The wretch has it 112
Text of Leo 1895. Terence citations are from Kauer and Lindsay 1961.
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wrong . . . I’ll fool him” 366–7). He has typed her correctly but has confused her with another meretrix, that is, perceived her accurately per se but inaccurately per accidens, as discussed in the previous chapter. The result is an amusing situation of dramatic irony: she can truthfully claim to be innocens (368) of the specific charges, particularly when he accuses her of limiting herself to a single lover (“She gets married daily,” brags her mother, “got married today and will get married tonight” 43–4). At the same time she is guilty of everything else he insinuates. Indeed, her last preserved line sounds like a proposition (“You old fellows usually provide a thoroughly charming bit of business” 373–4). As we will also see in the Epitrepontes, a prostitute was a useful stand-in for a high-status woman, and not just for reasons of decorum. A performer by definition, she was expected to be willing and able to embody someone else’s fantasy – or nightmare – adapting her “mutable and fluid identity” to any role.113 There is a similar confusion in Terence’s Heauton Timoroumenos. In this play a young man briefly mistakes a ruinously expensive meretrix for the demure lost daughter he once loved and launches into a string of false accusations. The evidence is purely circumstantial: he is told that his beloved is approaching with a retinue of servants (she is, but they belong to the meretrix), all “weighed down” with gold and clothing (245–8) and ready to bring the house to ruin (“What they’ll eat! What they’ll drink!” 255). The youth is quick to identify the marks of the meretrix avara: greed, infidelity, ingratitude. “While I was wandering far from home because of you, out of my mind, you made yourself rich meanwhile and deserted me in my misfortune. It’s because of you that I’m in utter disgrace” (258–60). The slaves and gold, however, only confirm a suspicion he had formed on much slighter grounds. He was already speculating about his girlfriend’s “corruption” from the most trivial of infractions: she was late (“If my love affair were going well, I know they would already have arrived” 230). His suspicions are easily traced to emotional causes. Having risked his father’s affection and his own reputation, he is understandably nervous about her fidelity. A friend reproves his hasty judgment (“Do you insist on judging (diiudicare) this before you know the truth?” 236) but he justifies his pessimism (“My mind foresees some sort of mishap”) by pointing to her social situation: “many factors fit together . . . the circumstances, the place, her age, the evil mother under whose power she was, a woman who valued nothing but payment” (231–4). In other words, she was already suspect before she took up the profession: simply being a poor woman 113
Quotation from McClure 2003: 26.
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without male relatives was enough to make prostitution a possibility. Later he makes it clear that the character of the individual counts for little against the norm. “It’s standard procedure,” he remarks, “to bribe the maids first, for those who are trying to get to the mistresses” (300–1). The mere signs of wealth are sufficiently damning. This youth was in a sense preprogrammed to expect the worst. His father was constantly “harping on the morals of these women” (260) and upbraiding him for keeping a girlfriend “in the position of a wife.” The young man’s suspicions balloon in proportion to his anxieties. Indeed, they are strong enough to persist even after the identity mistake is cleared up. He still demands proof of chastity in the form of an unannounced visit by his slave. When this goes well, he concedes a degree of uncertainty about his fears (“There’s nothing I would prefer than to suspect this falsely” 267–8), but does not question that moral character can be inferred from external signs. “Do you know what this ‘dirty and badly dressed maid’ means? It’s a huge sign that the mistress is blameless” (297–8).114 The slave calls this what it is: an “inference” (coniectura 266). In addition to the ambiguities surrounding the youth’s suspicions, there are further cues to set us straight about the girl. The woman who “was called her mother” held “power” (imperium) over her, a more appropriate word for an owner/slave relationship. Typed as a bawd with a single word (“payment” 234), this ostensible mother evidently hoped to profit from the girl but died prematurely. Thus Terence foreshadows the girl’s recognition and reassures us that she would never have embraced prostitution of her own accord. Like Glykera, she is at most a victim of “corruption” (corrupta 231) in the eyes of her lover, not responsible for her own potential fall. Of course, she will prove innocent of even the semblance of misconduct (the tardiness is the fault of the real meretrix). Again a prostitute serves as a potential alter ego for a lost daughter, brought on stage so that the two may be confused. A final example from Terence’s Eunuchus shows the same interplay of status-based preconceptions and emotional biases in fostering misperceptions of a prostitute. In this play, the high-priced meretrix Thais offers ample grounds for suspicion: she does in fact spurn an earnest youth for a rich soldier, at least for a few days. Like Chrysis, she is trying to do a favor and counting on her lover’s tolerance. She may be guilty of a little overconfidence but she is not actually playing him false. The young man, however, disbelieves her claims of wanting to return an enslaved Athenian 114
The description of poverty was in the original ( ! % | M 8$ m ' fr. 80, cf. Heauton 293); perhaps the inferences drawn from it were as well.
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to her family. The whole scheme to wheedle the slave from the soldier looks like business as usual to him, “the outrageous behavior of prostitutes” (meretricum contumelias 48). Again we see a young man predisposed by his socialization to demonize a prostitute. His complaints prompt a disquisition from his jaded slave on the psychology of human sexual behavior, all calculated to reinforce the image of the whore. Thais is manipulative (“She’ll end this blather with one fake tear, which she can barely squeeze out” 67–8), rapacious (“You were never satisfied with one man” 122) and dishonest (“Anything false, empty or fake becomes public knowledge immediately . . . if you want it kept quiet, tell the truth” 104–6). Outside the young man’s hearing he calls her a gold-digger (meretrix avara 927) and even congratulates himself on showing him “the character and habits of prostitutes” (meretricum ingenia et mores 932). Despite appearances, these women are really “disgusting . . . and greedy for food,” devouring “black bread dipped in yesterday’s broth” (935–40).115 In the Greek original, the young man’s father also cast a vote against Thais. According to Donatus “Menander shows more openly that the old man has hitherto been hostile to the prostitute since [the youth] was corrupted by her” (Don. ad Eun. 1000, p. 477, 18). A relatively trivial offense is enough to class Thais as a despised type and invite charges of more serious misconduct. Her disgruntled lover recites all of the stock accusations: “You didn’t see my generosity being shut off, did you?” 163–4); “For this (sc. the gift of an Ethiopian girl and a eunuch) I’m spurned?” (171). She is corrupt (scelestam 71), dishonest (“If only you were speaking truly and from the heart” 175), incapable of returning honest love (“Would that I had a share of love equal to yours, so that either this hurt you as it hurts me or I didn’t care that you had done it!” 91–4) and possibly even jealous (“You’re afraid that this girl . . . will steal such a fine fellow from you” 161–2). Bitterness and resentment cause him to see a world of vices in one small rebuff, and yet, like other despairing lovers, he is not quite ready to surrender his illusions: “If I believed this were true, I could put up with anything” (176–7). The satirist Persius, who cites the opening scene in the Greek play as a moral example (Schol. ad 5.161), has him ask hopefully, “Do you think she’ll be upset, because she’s been left?”. There is no mistake about Thais’ identity here, or even, broadly speaking, about her moral character. She is neither a lost daughter nor a reluctant professional like Chrysis, eager to retire into a quiet domestic life. Thais 115
This description hardly fits the elegant Thais, but see Rosivach 1998: 117, 137 on the ideological importance of proving the “poverty” of hetairai, even successful ones.
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fully expects to work for a living and can offer her young lover only a brief period of exclusivity, despite her affection for him. If anything, she treats the soldier as she is accused of treating the young man, pretending to love him only for his gifts. She is still in a sense vindicated (or at least absolved of the worst vices of her type) and allowed the protection of a grateful family. She is also allowed to challenge the basis of virtually every false accusation against a Menandrian hetaira: “He . . . judges me now by the character of other women” (ex aliarum ingeniis 197–8). This young man is not the only one to assimilate an individual to a larger group on tenuous grounds: Demeas openly spoke to Chrysis of “women like you,” while the Heauton youth’s father used to denounce “the morals of these women.” The shameless whores of their anxious speculations, however, never materialize. It seems that the type was of more interest to Menander as a conceptual tool than a dramatic reality, a figure more useful to “think with” than to dramatize. Donatus believed Terence was innovating by making a meretrix like Thais “good,” but he was simply making explicit what was already in Menander. conclusion With the limited scope of high-status women’s roles, it is no surprise that many of the most active and visible female characters in Menander are drawn from the lower echelons of Greek society. Women of low status generally and hetairai in particular suit plots involving misperception well because their social position was fluid and could be misconstrued. As one recent scholar has noted, “As foreigners and outsiders who belonged to no one and yet made themselves available to all, the courtesan’s visual and textual signification could more readily be multiplied, manipulated, and continually mediated than that of citizen wives.”116 The category of “hetaira” was loosely defined. Any woman without a solid claim to a more privileged status (a suitable father was usually sufficient) might be accused of being a hetaira, a kind of default category that was much harder to stay out of than to fall into. Even poor citizens and metic women from good families were not immune. The woman who lived as a man’s mistress was not quite part of the demimonde (although the threat always hung over her), but she was not part of a citizen family either. Since status was often hard to pin down, mistaken ideas about it were easily made to seem plausible. Because women at the social periphery were presumed to envy 116
McClure 2003: 108.
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the privileges of higher-status women, suspicions of social climbing, like Demeas’ in the Samia or Smikrines’ in the Epitrepontes (discussed in chapter 5), always had a certain credibility, regardless of past behavior. Hetairai were the women with the liberty to live lives that made interesting drama – quarreling with lovers, breaking up families, managing significant sums of money and property, traveling and socializing with the wealthy and prominent. They had a degree of mobility and independence denied to women with family networks. Their connection to any household was informal and voluntary, and thus easily broken. In Menander, misunderstandings give rise to sudden, dramatic ruptures, with all the emotions but few of the social and financial repercussions of divorce. The ease with which Demeas terminates his affair is out of proportion to its emotional cost, Glykera can leave Polemon at a moment’s notice, and even a captive like Krateia is eventually given the chance to leave Thrasonides. In these plays Menander takes advantage of the soluble ties which marginal women had to a citizen oikos. As a flexible symbol, the hetaira in particular served as an ideal locus of # : an ambiguous figure in whom other characters could credibly see an image of their own creation, a reflection of their hopes or fears. An optimist like Moschion in the Perikeiromen¯e sees a woman who is attractive and available; angry and disillusioned characters see only shameless profiteers. High-status women, on the other hand, are given the same protection they enjoyed in the courts: they are hardly seen, much less scrutinized, by outsiders. Questioning the moral character of a marriageable girl was so unthinkable that one Menandrian father makes a joke about it, complaining that prospective grooms haul the dowry onto the table “so an assayer can test whether the silver – which won’t last five months – is good, but they do not test the woman who will live inside for life” (fr. 804). The (character) of freeborn girls, like the legal status of citizen men, was simply not acceptable material for comic misunderstanding. Comparatively few plays, accordingly, involve mistakes about a woman’s moral character although almost every play involves some confusion about her status. When women are easily accessible the playwright looks elsewhere for obstacles, creating problems from perceived (or real) faults of character. High-status men, however, face plenty of ethical scrutiny. Indeed, the central problem of the genre is the difficulty of learning the true worth of one’s $%. Their character is what really matters, a bias consistent with the norms of public discourse. Propertied citizen men could expect personal attacks in the courts and the assembly if they took any significant part in public life. Their female relatives were mentioned only when questions of
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status came up, and even then their names were kept private. Accordingly, in Menander women of good birth – the legitimate daughters of freeborn propertied men – must be demoted before they may be suspected, and the harshest accusations come from the least authoritative characters. The lower down the social scale, the fewer the restrictions on what might be said against them. Mistakes about character thus start with mistakes about social identity. Sostratos in the Dis Exapat¯on, the young man in the Heauton Timoroumenos, and the Cistellaria father simply have the wrong woman; Demeas misidentifies the mother of the child; Getas and Thrasonides are unaware of Krateia’s relationship to the soldier’s alleged victim; Sosias and Polemon do not know that the young rake next door happens to be Glykera’s brother. The false inferences these men draw about the women’s moral character result from reading ambiguous behavior against the norms of a particular status category. These norms vary; there is no single standard of conduct by which all women are judged. As Helene Foley has shown, judgments about women’s moral behavior are socially conditioned.117 A baby mean something quite different for a hetaira than for a married wife, but a hetaira had liberties a wife did not. Opinions about the appropriateness of a particular action can take account of sex, age, class, juridical status, nationality and all the other factors that determined a person’s place in Athenian society; these opinions may also be influenced by subjective factors, such as emotions. This is why mistaken identity is so often a moral issue, with considerable room for disagreement. If there is already a subjective element in assessments of a woman’s status, there is even more room for bias and emotional distortion in interpretations of her behavior. Menander’s plays reflect moral standards that we know many Athenians held, but they also have rules and conventions of their own (e.g., that rapist-victim marriages are always desirable to both parties) and we cannot assume a strict correlation between what is presented as acceptable on stage and what was considered acceptable in real life. Character types come with their own normative standards. Some are quite subjective: an angry father wants a hetaira to spread her costs over dozens of clients; her infatuated lover wants her to reject everyone but him. I have tried to draw attention to the dramatic irony of these misperceptions and to show how the playwright invites us to sympathize with the characters’ emotions, while at the same time cuing us to mistrust their understanding and judgment. Sostratos’ portrait of his hetaira is not to be 117
Foley 2001: 112–44, esp. 119–20.
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taken at face value any more than Demeas’ picture of Chrysis (which we know to be false) or Getas’ cynical remarks about Krateia. Their misperceptions are plausible within the dramatic context, however. They fit what characters have observed and they are formed under the influence of emotions that proverbially distorted judgment. “No one deliberates soundly in anger” runs one fragment (Mon. 564), “We’re all crazy, when we’re angry” runs another (Mon. 503), while a fragment from the Naukl¯eros claims that “Every man in love is by nature easily led” (fr. 250 K-A). Aristotle recognized anger and love as emotions that could prevent people from perceiving accurately, and Demeas and Sostratos offer textbook examples of “springing to take revenge” after a kind of preliminary reasoning (“reasoning as it were,” k NE 1149a33) convinces them that they have been injured.118 They use techniques familiar to Athenians from public life: arguments from probability, invention of motives, the “proof” of consistency with past behavior. The Athenian legal system encouraged this kind of argument, but it was comedy that showed people using it to fool themselves. Techniques for influencing others have become techniques for controlling unwelcome information. As Davus exclaims in the Andria, “Now the old man is duping himself!” (495). Menander’s most interesting characters are all irrational judges of the truth. Do these apparent victims of emotional thinking have ulterior motives? It is not hard to see in these harsh portraits an attempt to preserve a core community by expelling a marginal figure. “A good father does not hold anger against his son” runs one monostich (635). He certainly does not do so because of a hetaira. The outsider status of the hetaira offered special dramatic possibilities. She could be punished without the repercussions that would ensue from punishing central, permanent members of the community. Accordingly, characters try to shift responsibility down the social scale and outside the oikos. Demeas, Sostratos, and the old man in the Cistellaria quarrel with the women directly, blaming them and excusing the young men, hoping their problems will vanish if the women are removed. Demeas will hide the matter from Nikeratos; Sostratos will not be angry with Moschos. Even Getas condones Thrasonides’ obsession, blaming Krateia for all his distress. This sense of shared victimization at the hands of a woman brings the men closer together, offering an image of male solidarity and showing how even a “corrupt” woman may serve as an instrument of homosocial bonding. Demeas and Sostratos view their faithless mistresses as everything the young men should not be – disloyal, 118
Rhet. 1377b31–1378a5, De Somn. 460b1–15, EN 1149a24–35 (discussed in ch. 2).
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dishonest, intemperate and thankless – even as they suppress nagging suspicions that this may not be quite true. Nikeratos blames Chrysis for the disobedience of his wife and daughter and even Thais is blamed for spoiling a youth who was once serious and self-restrained (severus, continens, Ter. Eun. 227). These angry men readily cast the women as whores, even supplementing their accusations with scenarios they invent, as if by burdening them with additional faults they could make the young men less guilty. As one recent scholar has argued, “Menander’s realism and humanity come . . . at the expense of sublimating our desires, of suppressing our rage at our friends, forgetting who we are, finding a pleasing image for ourselves, and finding convenient scapegoats on the periphery of society.”119 As a rhetorical strategy, the position these characters take is consistent with the advice of handbooks. To turn an audience against someone, speakers were advised to show that he belonged to a “hated” class, like thieves or sycophants. Semonides’ catalogue notwithstanding, for women there was only one such class (although comedy was freer than other genres to criticize rich wives), which is why Demeas, Sostratos, Parmeno in the Eunuchus, the father in the Cistellaria, and even the Theophoroumen¯e speaker all draw upon the figure of the corrupt whore. As the embodiment of virtually every misogynistic trope, she typifies the “radical other,” a role Froma Zeitlin has applied to all women in tragedy.120 In Menander, she can serve as an “antimodel” for both men and women, embodying qualities that are unthinkable in the well born. Indeed, her utility as a worst-case scenario may be one reason she does not actually appear on stage. There is more than just rhetorical technique here, however. These men are not deliberately or cynically manipulating evidence. Low status left women vulnerable both to errors about their identity and to speculation about their morals. A long cultural tradition, shaped by Old Comedy, invective and oratory and inculcated by moralizing fathers and cynical slaves, created a ready-made villain in the hetaira and exerted pressure to scapegoat her, rather than higher-status members of the community. Psychology and enculturation thus combine in creating comic misperception. When Menandrian men look at the women they love, paradoxically, a whore is what they actually see. 119
Batstone 2005: 26.
120
Zeitlin 1996: 347.
chap t e r 4
Informing the audience
The preceding chapters explored how and why characters in Menander make fundamental mistakes about those closest to them. Much of the genre’s appeal lies in watching people “wander in ignorance,” as Chance says at the beginning of the Aspis, and for this, an audience needs to know the truth. Status questions are easily resolved simply by situating the disputed individual within the correct kinship group. In these cases, Menander generally uses the prologue to set us straight. For example, “Misapprehension” in the Perikeiromen¯e explains Glykera’s relationship to Moschion, Moschion in the Samia confesses that the baby is his, Chance explains that Kleostratos is not really dead, and an unidentified prologue speaker in the Phasma tells us that the apparition is a real girl. It was not so easy, however, to enlighten an audience about more complex aspects of identity such as personality and moral character, particularly in ambiguous cases. Chance succinctly types Smikrines as “rotten,” (140), and Chairestratos as “good,” (125), but most characters fall in between. The debate over whether Menander created a “good hetaira” reflects the moral complexity of his low-status women, many of whom engage in problematic behaviors – good by one standard, bad by another. This chapter focuses on techniques Menander uses to win sympathy for women of compromised status who are the objects of mistakes about their moral character (Glykera, Krateia, and Chrysis), in order to persuade us that they deserve the social elevation they receive at the end of the play. In all three cases confusion comes about largely because they are caught between conflicting obligations from different social roles. The playwright gives us a unique understanding of their moral character through a variety of dramatic techniques, from significant choices to reasoned defenses and – in one case – a visual symbol, as he tries to persuade us gradually, steering us, like a good orator, toward the right conclusions but leaving us to draw them ourselves. By giving us a unique frame of reference, Menander invites 130
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us to judge the women by a different standard than characters within the play. Behavior that appears irrational to the other characters is revealed to us as the product of reasoning, showing qualities the resolutions suggest we ought to approve. Not everyone in an ancient audience would necessarily have agreed with the final distribution of rewards and punishments but dissenters would at least have been able to judge the women from a more balanced perspective and could thus appreciate the errors of those who cannot. Whether or not these techniques convince us that the women have behaved properly, they do clearly establish who is “wandering in ignorance.”
p e r i k e i r o m e n e¯ and m i s o u m e n o s In both the Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos lost daughters are restored to fathers who arrange legitimate marriages for them (the Siky¯onioi will not be discussed here because so little of Philoumene’s part remains). Accounts of low-status women who end up with plush marriages are essentially stories of upward mobility. There was nothing surprising about this story pattern; it was familiar from myth and folktale. The problem was to justify the promotion legally, socially, and morally. As the prosecution of Neaira illustrates (a notorious Corinthian hetaira who was tried in Athens between 343 and 340), marriage to an unqualified woman was a sensitive topic at Athens. In order to excuse the crossing of boundaries which Athenians – and Greeks generally – were committed to defending (legitimacy, citizenship, freedom), New Comic playwrights make heavy use of the fiction that an original “lost” status is being restored, a solution that appears in many of Menander’s plays. Questions of social and moral suitability required subtler treatment. To address these, Menander makes a point of emphasizing that this original status, far from being forgotten, remains at the core of the woman’s sense of identity and reveals itself in the internalized values she expresses when she makes major decisions. Her values are of course at odds with the position in which the she finds herself. When faced with a dilemma that tests their priorities – for example, being forced to choose between claims of natal and “marital” families – these characters think and act like the legitimate daughters they really are. Menander thus invites us to judge them by their former status, overlooking their ingratitude to the soldiers, for example, because they remain loyal to their unacknowledged brothers. In the case of Glykera and Chrysis (who will be discussed later), he also affirms their place in a legitimate oikos by showing that they are socially accepted by other married women.
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Glykera actually makes four significant choices in the course of the play. The first draws on a familiar tradition.1 In the prologue to the Perikeiromen¯e, the goddess Agnoia (variously translated as “ignorance,” “misperception,” “misapprehension,” and even “mistaken identity”) narrates Glykera’s decision to let her brother embrace her, an incident which was reported to Polemon, thus sparking the quarrel. It is not unusual to attach dramatic weight to a “choice” we do not see on stage. Philoumene’s supplication, narrated by a witness in Act IV (and probably discussed earlier by at least one principal character), is not dramatized either. Given the importance of misperception here, the narrative format is useful for limiting what we see and how we interpret it. It allows the playwright to exonerate Glykera in the eyes of the audience while leaving her reasonably suspect to the other characters. And Menander takes some trouble to shape our response. Agnoia, the one figure who cannot be mistaken, uses her divine authority and considerable rhetorical skills to convince us of Glykera’s innocence, perhaps correcting or supplementing a less sympathetic account in the lost opening scene (she mentions a man who “[has said] the rest” 158), like the nonce-god Auxilium (“aid”) in the Cistellaria. She hints that Glykera was a reluctant accomplice in Moschion’s unwitting imposture: she would have preferred to act “openly” ( -, also suggesting the “frankness” associated with free birth). Moschion only saw her “by accident,” as she stood in the doorway to send her maid on an errand, and her role was entirely passive (“she didn’t run away” but “wept, standing”).2 Like any good speaker, Agnoia recognizes the importance of proper motivation: Glykera acted for perfectly suitable reasons, reasons so important that Agnoia mentions them before describing her reaction (“because she knew he was her brother, she didn’t run away”). At the same time the goddess discredits Moschion as a “rather impudent” young man with a disreputable habit of watching the house (“always deliberately hanging around”), who “swooped in” unexpectedly. Admittedly, the wailing about “not being able to do these things openly” (161) could suggest duplicity, but there is an innocent explanation: she means she cannot embrace her brother openly, for fear of revealing his secret – not her lover (as the witness must have assumed), for fear of Polemon. 1
2
See the Eurpidean examples discussed below and cf. Poen. 1301–25. Aristotle mentions another variant at Rhet. 1400a25–6. There is a (humorously?) misunderstood embrace at Eur. Ion 519–24 and a misrepresented one in Plautus’ Miles 288–9. Only prostitutes let themselves be seen on the threshold (e.g., Athen. 13.586a, implicit at Theophr. Char. 28.3), a boundary respectable women were not supposed to cross (Men. fr. 815 K-A, Ar. Thesm. 792, but see Cohen 1991: 148, McClure 1999: 24 and n. 90, Blok 2001: 109–10, 116).
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Euripides had already exploited the dramatic irony of the compromising embrace – an intimate gesture from an apparent stranger, a sister failing to recognize her own brother – in the Electra (220–4) and the Iphigeneia in Tauris (795–7). He also recognized the possibility for humorous misunderstanding. Electra is later “caught” by an angry husband who complains “It’s disgraceful for a woman to stand around with young men” (El. 343–4).3 In the Perikeiromen¯e, Menander minimizes the sister’s resistance and defers the recognition scene in order to instigate a quarrel that will test Glykera’s loyalty. He turns this tragic gesture into a declaration of allegiance and a demonstration of character intelligible only to the audience. But he can also develop its comic potential. The Misoumenos uses the same gesture for its humor and spectacle value. In the otherwise serious reunion between Krateia and Demeas, an embrace elicits an amusing overreaction from Getas: 41 24-; ,, % 3 ; M % [%,] #-; % , 6; 9 [ ;] $ - ' O8[] 2 -. - 6 $%[,] 40 , A- '( 8[ .] % > $, 6 [',;] (617–22)
(to a slave inside) She went out? What’s this, boy? (to Demeas) Hey, you! What’s she to you? What are you doing – you there! (to himself) Didn’t I say so? I’ve caught him red-handed, this guy we’ve been looking for. Looks like an old grey-beard, this one, some sixty-year-old. Well, he’ll still pay for it. (to Demeas) You there! Just who do you think you’re hugging and kissing?
Getas uses the same language as Agnoia (“hug,” >, “kiss,” $, 622, cf. IT 796, 799) and harbors the same suspicions as Electra’s husband. The humor is at his expense here, since Demeas’ grey hair makes him an unlikely adulterer. The actual embrace is serious – a spontaneous expression of joy with lavish endearments (“daddy . . . dearest” 614, “you’re a sight for sore eyes” 616). There is nothing planned or deliberate about the warm welcome Krateia gives her father (and she soon sets Getas straight: “It’s my dad” 623). There are no dramatic consequences to this action. Without Getas’ misinterpretation, it would be a straightforward bit of traditional stage business. If tragic conventions lie behind the compromising embrace, they also lie behind the significant silences both Glykera and Krateia maintain. To 3
See Knox 1970: 71–3 on comic elements in the opening scenes of the Electra.
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start with Glykera: the most important choice she faces is whether to keep Moschion’s secret. Her reticence in front of him is more than the natural modesty of the well-born (i.e., reflex behavior, like Knemon’s hostility); she promised Myrrhine not to reveal the truth. This is also why she stands by her impulsive decision afterwards, neither denying nor explaining it (the fight with Polemon makes this much clear), although it costs her a lover and a head of hair. An ancient audience would have had little difficulty situating her voluntary silence, despite temptation to speak, within a wellestablished tradition. Tragedy had long represented the decision whether or not to speak as a morally significant one, often with thematic implications (for example, in the Hippolytus, where “the choice between silence and speech . . . is . . . a metaphor for the operation of human free will”), and Oliver Taplin has shown how tragedians used silence as “a basic tool for conveying a crisis in human relationships.”4 The choruses in the Ion and Orestes debate whether to “speak or keep silent.”5 Theonoe spends a scene choosing between “telling” and “hiding” Menelaos’ arrival in Euripides’ Helen, while Cassandra’s silence functions as both an ominous reproach, and a dramatic contrast, to Clytemnestra’s deceptive eloquence in the Agamemnon.6 The silences of Phaedra and Hippolytus have very different motives but both precipitate dramatic events and develop the larger speech-silence polarity that structures the Hippolytus.7 The significant silences of Jocasta, Iphigeneia, Alcestis, Creusa, Phaedra, and Tecmessa have been studied in detail.8 It is no accident that women are given some of the most meaningful silences in tragedy. As Laura McClure, Helene Foley and others have shown, silence was a cardinal feminine virtue, particularly in the presence of men, where (at least in theory) it indicated deference.9 Outspokenness was a privilege of hetairai; the less a respectable woman asserted herself, the better (hence the politely reticent daughters of New Comedy).10 An ancient 4 5 6 7 8
9 10
Taplin 1978: 102 (see also Taplin 1972). Quotation from Knox 1952: 6. Eur. Ion 756–8, Or. 1539–40. Eur. Hel. 865–1029. See Montiglio 2000 on silence as an action (193–9) and the significance of Cassandra’s silence (213–16). Knox 1952. See Rabinowitz 1993: 72, 87–8 (Alcestis) and 159–63 (Phaedra); Wohl 1998: 77–8 (Iphigeneia), 150–1, 174–5 (Alcestis); McClure 1999: 93–4 (Cassandra); Ormand 1999: 119–23 (Tecmessa); Montiglio 2000: 240–1 (Jocasta), 179 (Alcestis), 199–200 (Creusa), 177–8, 191–2, 233–8 (Phaedra); and Foley 2001: 317 and n. 54 (Alcestis) and 91 (Tecmessa). Foley 2001: 91, 111, McClure 1999: 7, 19–24, Pomeroy 1999: 119. Cf. Post 1940: 438, Griffith 2001: 123–4. The comparatively respectable Chrysis speaks “with an economy of language” (Henry 1988: 68). Women in general speak much less than men in Menander. Bain 1984: 31 gives the following line ratios: 60 : 900 (Dysk.); 141 : 650 (Epitr.); 57 : 400 (Perik.); 31 : 720 (Sam.).
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audience would not have found it paradoxical that a freeborn woman like Glykera should reveal her character through her silence. One Menander fragment describes silence as an index of virtue in a marriageable daughter: “If she says nothing at all, by her silence she says most about herself ” (Men. fr. 820 K-A); another repeats the proverbial wisdom “For all women silence brings adornment” (Mon. 139, cf. Soph. Aj. 293). But if tragedy consistently represents female speech as deceptive, it also recognizes that female silence can be ambiguous, a sign of criminal plotting as often as modest virtue. As Silvia Montiglio argues, “The silence of real women in tragedy is never an ornament.”11 Women like Deianeira, Electra, Jocasta, and Creusa keep dangerous secrets, frequently involving other women through appeals to female solidarity.12 Silence thus becomes a form of collusion, a legacy New Comedy carried on with its secret pregnancies and supposititious children. Glykera chooses to remain silent at two crucial points, both of which offer ample incentive to speak: when Polemon buys the house next door to Moschion’s and when Pataikos asks about the brother who was exposed with her. The first occurs soon after the Old Woman’s deathbed disclosure: - ' 3 &'$3 ( 5 0 ' , >8 N '3 : & ,, ; ' n ''- Y 8 . (147–50)
Despite living in the neighborhood she did not make her brother’s situation known. She did not want to bring any change while he seemed so successful; she wanted him to enjoy what fortune gave him.
The prologue emphasizes that the decision not to reveal Moschion’s secret was both voluntary and deliberate (“she wanted . . . ,” “she did not make known . . .”). It therefore meets the Aristotelian conditions of a moral choice, but it also reveals what many Athenians would have considered, at best, a mixture of good and bad qualities. Unselfish loyalty to a brother was commendable, but supporting a scheme to pass off a foundling as a legitimate child was not. Moschion was originally brought into the house because Myrrhine wanted or needed a baby (the participle ' in 123 covers both). Her husband is not mentioned here, probably significantly (convention argues against his involvement: baby-smuggling was traditionally 11 12
Quotation from Montiglio 2000: 291. See also 252–6 on conniving silences. Cf. Foley 2001: 122.
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a woman’s crime). Since this decision lay outside her authority, it is reasonable to assume Myrrhine got her wish by keeping her husband in the dark. Even if her husband had known, he could not have done anything to legalize the situation. Adoption of foundlings was illegal at Athens (a person could in fact be prosecuted simply for being supposititious) and the “law” in effect here seems to be Athenian, despite the probable setting of Corinth.13 An Athenian audience probably did not need the legalities spelled out to understand why Glykera’s revelation would harm Moschion. It was not just that she was a soldier’s mistress. A disreputable sister might tarnish his reputation, if it were known, but he could still enjoy “what fortune gave him.” Finding out that he is not the legitimate son of the couple he calls mother and father, however, would bring him a “reverse” (translated “change” above).14 Glykera is tacitly supporting a lie in order to preserve her brother’s social position (“successful,” , implies wealth, status and esteem), even though she knows it to be false (mere “semblance,” '3). In other words, she is consciously helping him to enjoy privileges he does not really deserve. This is a violation of ethics, Athenian law and divine will. Agnoia explains that she intervened in order to bring about precisely what Glykera refuses to do: “disclose” the truth ( 0 148, cf. “the beginning . . . | of disclosure” & : . . . | 8 - 165–6). Incidentally, Glykera also perpetuates a lie about her own status by pretending to be the Old Woman’s daughter. Yet we are asked to view her decision sympathetically. The prologue tries to minimize her complicity: she learned about the scheme at the last possible moment and has the decency not to relish it (“she wept and lamented” 160– 1). By implication, her goodwill toward Moschion is voluntary (“she wanted to . . .” 148); her silence, imposed (“it wasn’t possible . . .” 161–2). Agnoia urges us to judge this decision as a matter of loyalty, referring to Moschion only as “her brother” (136, 147, 157) in order to suggest that Glykera feels an obligation to the family tie rather than the individual. The prologue also emphasizes that Moschion did nothing to make his sister’s decision easy: the Old Woman eventually revealed the truth only because she expected trouble from this “rich and always partying” brother. As Susan Lape notes, “she saw that Moschion was young, wealthy, and virtually stalking his unknown 13 14
Harrison 1998 I: 71, 87, Ogden 1996: 109, Rubinstein 1993: 18. See ch. 2 n. 51 on the setting and legal situation. Moschion is probably being passed off as legitimate (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 472–3 ad 150, Ireland 1992: 84 ad 149, Lamagna 1994: 173 ad 30, Ogden 1996: 108).
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sister.”15 Evidently she feared that a serious quarrel with Polemon would leave Glykera with no alternative but the symposium circuit. Since there is ultimately no real harm in the scheme (Moschion and Glykera will prove to be legitimate children after all), an ancient audience may have excused her silence. This certainly seems to be the assumption of the prologue, who is more concerned about allaying resentment of the injury done to her. A woman, moreover, was less likely to be faulted than a man for putting family before civic responsibilities. There can be no doubt that Glykera’s silence is a deliberate decision. When she permits Pataikos to interrogate her in the recognition scene, she makes it clear that she speaks on her own initiative (“[go on] and ask what you wish from me” 780) and feels no pressure to answer his questions. Her silence is more than a choice: it is a vow. 2 * , &, & ' , m 3 % , ' 1 : $ F . (789–91)
I’ve heard and could tell you all. Ask me about my own affairs, for these may be spoken by me; those things, however, I’ve sworn to her not to tell.
The distinction between her affairs and Moschion’s – an artificial one since her story is also his – is useful because it shields him from any risks from her own disclosures. It also shows that she understands and supports a value system that treated an exposed boy differently from an exposed girl (no rich woman wanted to raise Glykera). The oath was presumably sworn to reassure Myrrhine (792–3). We already know from the prologue that Glykera was happy to keep her brother’s secret simply out of loyalty.16 An oath does not excuse her from entering into a dubious agreement in the first place, but it does shift some of the responsibility to Myrrhine (it is she, not Glykera, who insists on maintaining the deception) and it provides a conveniently unquestionable reason for silence. The impersonal m (“things that may be spoken”) even suggests external necessity with quasi-religious overtones, as if the gods themselves forbade disclosure.17 Glykera’s predicament is ironic. Not only do the gods want Moschion’s secret revealed, but her sense of obligation is out of all proportion to the young man’s merits (there will be no rewards for protecting him) and 15 17
16 Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 521 ad 791. Lape 2004: 173. LSJ s.v. ii. E.g., Aesch. Prom. 765–6, Soph. OT 993, 1289.
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incongruous with her social position. Any hetaira worth her salt would be trying to flatter and conciliate Pataikos as a potential protector. Few culturally literate Athenians would have missed the tragic precedent for refusing to break a vow, even to clear oneself of the suspicion of adultery. Like the other tragic elements in this scene, Glykera’s oath seems out of place in its comic setting. On the one hand it evokes figures like Hippolytus, drawing attention to the discrepancy between her temperament and her circumstances. The promises of soldiers’ mistresses are usually written in water (one thinks of Plautus’ Phronesium or Terence’s Thais), but Glykera regards her oath as binding. On the other hand, the oath ties her to a questionable scheme to hide a young man’s embarrassing origins. One effect of the tragic form and language of this scene (e.g., % . . . &% , “what shred of my destiny awaits” 779, m “no secret” 790, “allowed” 799, and the quotations at 788, 809) is to confer a certain authority on Glykera and to set her choice within a tragic context.18 In effect, she plays a comic version of the “sacrificial virgin” of tragedy, the young woman who gives her life for the benefit of her family, in this case through her observance of familial duties that Moschion is unaware of and Pataikos has neglected. T. B. L. Webster describes her as “inheriting something from the Sophoclean Antigone”; she also recalls figures like Iphigeneia, Electra and even the Danaids, who also choose to forego normal marriage out of loyalty to their natal family.19 There is plenty of New Comic sentimentality in this scene, but also a few traces of its more serious prototypes. As Nancy Rabinowitz has shown, the self-sacrifices of women like Iphigeneia, Makaria, and Polyxena are motivated by firmly held convictions and they often uphold a code of masculine values which the men of the play neglect (“There is a sense that the men are morally bankrupt, but the sacrificial heroine gives new currency to outworn values by her investment in them. In effect, she shores up the status quo within the plays”).20 Glykera makes her own small sacrifice without expecting any recompense or harboring any resentment against either the brother who propositioned her or the father who exposed her. 18
19
20
Translations from Arnott 1996a. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 519 note the tragic meter, quotations, and language (522 ad 799, 522 ad 809). See also Lamagna 1994: 272–3 ad 338–97, 275–6 ad 349, 277 ad 358, 278 ad 360, and Ireland 1992: 94–5 ad 779. Brother and sister recognize their father and one another in Euripides’ Alkmaion in Corinth (Webster 1974: 63 n.11). Webster 1960: 16, Ormand 1999: 18. On the conflicting claims of the marital vs. natal oikos in tragedy see Seaford 1990. Choosing brother over husband/child is a common motif in myth and folktale (see Thompson’s 1955–8 motifs P 253.3, P 22.1, P 231.4, Visser 1986: 152–3, 161 n. 17) and there are mythical examples of self-sacrificing virgins, e.g., the daughters of Erechtheus (Lefkowitz 1995: 35). Rabinowitz 1993: 38.
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If tragedy celebrates the willing sacrifice of young women in the name of shared community values, it also uses women to explore alternatives to the public morality of the male characters. Helene Foley has shown that women’s moral choices in tragedy are often conditioned by social constraints and expectations specific to their gender and status (as virgins, wives or mothers). There is an underlying assumption in the Perikeiromen¯e that men and women will make different moral choices in similar situations. For example, whereas Myrrhine and Glykera conspire to protect Moschion, the men in the play are kept ignorant. Myrrhine’s husband is absent during the crisis and Moschion is barely allowed inside the house, much less informed about the circumstances of his birth. Glykera’s behavior is puzzling to other characters because she holds herself to standards appropriate for her ideal, not her actual, social role, yet she conforms to the appropriate norms. Young women were expected to be “emotionally and morally linked primarily with their natal families.”21 This is a comedy, of course, and her idealistic notions of family duty are misplaced. She acts with a dedication her brother is very far from reciprocating (he is actually disappointed to learn the truth 777–8). In the heroic world of tragedy, where the family was a microcosm of the polis, the virgin’s self-sacrifice brought benefits to a wider community; in the mundane realities of New Comic middle-class life, a not-quite-virgin’s self-sacrifice only protects the privileges of a spoiled youth. Like Glykera, Krateia in the Misoumenos also chooses to keep a fraternal secret at several crucial junctures. The audience must have learned why she “hates” Thrasonides in the prologue, since her reasons are a mystery to him and to his household (at 532–7 her behavior still puzzles a couple of unidentified speakers) and she does not herself appear until Act III. The fragmentary state of the play leaves many questions unanswered but it is a reasonable assumption that her “hatred” springs from the grief she voices at 648–50. Her deliberate silence, like Glykera’s, is almost certainly a gesture of family solidarity. In her few extant lines she expresses a strong sense of victimization (“we’ve suffered lamentably 649–50, “by the last person who should have” 650) which the women of the house condone, as we 21
Foley 2001: 123. The problems Foley identifies (pp. 189–92) in applying Carol Gilligan’s theories of women’s moral development and reasoning to tragedy hold equally true for Menander. Her criticism that Gilligan does not “sufficiently account for the possibility that the ethical positions women adopt . . . are socially constructed by the communities in which they live” (191) has particular relevance because Menander is interested in how characters behave when they do not identify with the roles they are asked to play, especially when these conflict. Glykera, for example, is variously held to the standards of a wife, mistress, sister, daughter and a “Greek.”
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learn from Thrasonides: (to his maid) “What are you saying! She’s suffered everything? You’re sticking up for her?” (791). Krateia’s affectionate chattiness with Demeas (“Daddy dearest, hello, hello!”, , 614) shows how deliberately she has withheld the endearments Thrasonides so desperately wants. In the negotiation scene her second significant silence stands in stark contrast to his impassioned rhetoric, with all its charged language (“abandon” 707 and 711, “dead” 710), insistent repetition (“I loved you, love you still, cherish you” 708–9), and vain attempts at intimacy (he uses her name twice in six lines and calls her “dearest”). In the previous chapter, I suggested that Krateia is not simply maintaining the deferential silence of a good daughter. In refusing to answer Thrasonides, she is deliberately rejecting any form of exchange (words, gifts, etc.) and denying any special bond. The gesture of averting her eyes (“she looks away while he is speaking”) reinforces the message: Thrasonides must negotiate with her father as if she were a stranger; past intimacy (“I took you as a (unmarried girl, maiden)” 707) entitles him to nothing. Her identification with her natal family is also a kind of resistance to slavery, a refusal to accept the “social death” that Orlando Patterson identifies as a defining characteristic of the slave.22 Certainly Getas and Thrasonides interpret her emotional withdrawal in this light, the slave indirectly accusing her of acting like a “mistress” (45) and the master complaining that she, “a little scrap of a girl” (' ), has enslaved him (Mis. fr. 4).23 The prologue presumably oriented the audience correctly by introducing her as a lost daughter (implicit in the information that she is a “captive,” i.e., recently enslaved, in line 38). Krateia may have made another significant decision with tragic precedents. It looks as if she did more in the Misoumenos than give Thrasonides the silent treatment and hug her father. The preserved fragments of the play include three or four references to supplication, in conversations involving at least three speakers and perhaps as many as five. In Act III, an eavesdropper – most likely Getas – listens as a woman tells a friend about a recent incident. While engaged in some activity with a “suppliant branch” (<0 is in the accusative but the verb is lost), the woman (or, less likely, another woman she saw) met with opposition from someone sympathetic to Thrasonides: 22
23
“Slaves differed from other human beings in that they were not allowed freely to integrate the experience of their ancestors into their lives, to inform their understanding of social reality with the inherited meanings of their natural forebears, or to anchor the living present in any conscious community of memory” (Patterson 1982: 5). On Krateia’s silence as a form of power see Lape 2004: 194.
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(h.) <%; % ; (d.) “ ,, ;” “[] Q% , & %[-,” $[ ]%, “' >% O1 [] %- [] (D.?) . . . (d.) M '( O- ; .” (D.?) . . . . . . (d.) [#] <' > N' )1[] . (532–7) 24
(Syra) A suppliant branch? Saying what? (Chrysis) “Oh dear, will you fight with me?” “Not with you, by God, but with him,” he says. “Because he leads a terrible and tortured life . . .” [Getas interjects?] (Chr.) “. . . while she leads a fortunate and enviable one.” [Getas interjects?] (Chr.) She knows her own business pretty well.
Since “oh dear” () is only used by women and the speaker later calls someone “daughter,” she is probably Krateia’s nurse Chrysis, as Arnott suggests. The only woman in the play who might be described as living an enviable life is Krateia. A few lines earlier, someone mentions the same suppliant branch (<0 is all that remains of line 522) only three lines after the question “Who are you (fem.)?” (519) and three lines before a reference to “the foreigner” (525). This earlier speaker, presumably the person who is perceived as an obstacle in 532, is (or was) curious about the suppliant branch and the intentions (or identity: " ' T N could also mean “Who do you think you are?”) of the woman carrying it. We can only guess at the dramatic importance of the incident. From the nurse’s tone of resignation (537), Krateia has evidently taken an initiative that she does not approve or does not understand, and her plea to be shown a ring at 542–6 suggests the girl has not taken her nurse entirely into her confidence. Perhaps Krateia rejected advice to make peace with the soldier. Glykera ignores similar counsel in similar language (“I know my own business best,” Perik. 749). What emerges from these fragments is a picture of a young woman who thinks for herself. As Lape points out, “the play presumes that she has the capacity to engage in deliberation and to make her own decisions.”25 The suppliant branch is a puzzle. There was a form of supplication at Athens whereby an individual might petition the Assembly, but it is unlikely that a slave girl could use it (the ten known cases include one adult male slave but no women or children) and it is not even certain the play is set in Athens.26 Arnott reasonably suggests “a gesture or ritual of supplication 24 26
25 Lape 2004: 194. The name appears to be confirmed by P. Oxy. 4408 (Gonis: 1997). Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 446 ad 101–31 mention this type of supplication. Cf. Sisti 1985: 99 ad 122, contra, Arnott 1996a: 287 n. a. See Naiden 2006: 173–83 on the procedure and attested cases. Even if it were available to Krateia, it is not clear what she would request. A mistreated slave could take refuge at the Theseion or the altar of the Eumenides on the Areopagus in the hope of finding
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designed presumably to draw attention to Krateia’s plight.”27 A ritual context seems implied by fragmentary references to “the woman beating the ground” (dancing?) and a “libation pourer,” just before the third mention of “suppliant branches” (in 550–2). Women in New Comedy certainly do participate extensively in religious rituals. Plays like the Hiereia and Rudens feature priestesses as major characters and other plays show women with considerable mobility for religious purposes (this is consistent with the historical picture).28 They take part in rituals without their kyrioi and travel to near-by sanctuaries (in the Dyskolos), to one another’s houses (in the Samia), or to all-night festivals (a stock motif in rape plots). Religious supplication was very much accessible to women and slaves. As Fred Naiden notes, “no other religious practice – no practice whatever – has so humble as well as diverse a cast of participants.”29 Achilles Tatius, for example, describes how a female slave with a grievance against her master could supplicate at the temple of Artemis of Ephesus and could, if her complaint was upheld, remain as a temple slave (7.13). In New Comedy, enslaved girls of Athenian birth turn to shrines for sanctuary in the Rudens, the Siky¯onioi (Philoumene is twice described as “sitting,” i.e., seeking asylum, in the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore) and perhaps the Leucadia (an unidentified girl questions a temple servant in the longer surviving fragment). In tragedy, the enslaved Andromache likewise becomes a “suppliant” (<) in the shrine of Thetis (Eur. Andr. 115) to escape the anger of a jealous Hermione. Supplication could be made by proxy, but it is not clear why Krateia would send her nurse if she wanted personal protection or on what grounds she might claim it.30 It is more likely that her supplication had to do with mourning the brother who seems to fill her thoughts. In her only on-stage scene she loudly laments his death, something she could hardly do in the house of his killer (Thrasonides’ confusion, when Simiche tells him Krateia has “suffered everything” 791, suggests he has seen nothing suspicious). As a woman and the only relative aware of his death (she never expects to see her father again, 616), she has a responsibility to mourn her brother and
27 29 30
a new purchaser (Harrison 1998 i: 172, see also Naiden 2006 373–4), but New Comic girls with recognitions in their future do not try to sell themselves. 28 Gould 1980: 50–1, Blok 2001: 112–15, Goff 2004: 35–51. Arnott 1996b: 33. Naiden 2006: 19. Religious suppliants still needed to persuade a priest of the justice of their claim (Rigsby 1996: 10, Naiden 2006: 30). Even in the Siky¯onioi, where false enslavement is at issue, the assembly is cautious about removing a slave from her master.
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see that he receives funeral rites.31 These could be performed in absentia.32 In the Aspis, for example, the women carry out ritual mourning, weeping and beating their breasts (227–8), even though Kleostratos was supposedly cremated and buried abroad (75–9). Again, few ancient spectators would have missed the tragic models for hiding sisterly grief or secretly mourning a brother who is not really dead. In addition to Electra 942ff., suppression of mourning is also a theme in Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Aulis and Erechtheus and Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus.33 There are even tragic precedents for seeking assistance to fulfill funerary obligations. In Euripides’ Suppliant Women, the Theban mothers come to Athens as suppliants requesting burial for their sons, while Helen supplicates Theoclymenus for permission to perform burial rites for Menelaos in the Helen (1237–47). Tragic models suggest that Krateia is more likely to be discharging a duty to her brother than seeking to better her own lot. Like Glykera’s silent weeping, her attempted supplication would be a gesture of family solidarity, safely within the parameters of acceptable female behavior but suspicious under the circumstances. The supplication evidently raised eyebrows and was important enough to figure in her conversation with her father: [<][]% 642, if this restoration is correct, occurs shortly before she mentions the death at (647). Both Krateia and Glykera find themselves in dilemmas with tragic precedents and respond in ways an audience familiar with tragedy would have regarded as conventional. Menander uses more than situational cues, however, to set the audience straight. In the Perikeiromen¯e (and quite possibly in the Misoumenos, too, although it is too fragmentary to be certain), the woman makes her own case directly. By Act IV, when she is ready to retrieve her birth tokens and make the separation permanent, she delivers her longest preserved speech, a defense against the charge of moving in with Moschion and, by implication, of having betrayed Polemon while she was still under his roof. She is speaking with Pataikos, a man she believes “convinced” of her guilt (and his approval matters more than she realizes, since he will turn out to be her father). Naturally, she cannot use the one argument that would exonerate her but we know it and consequently understand her speech very differently than Pataikos. This scene shows us 31
32
This responsibility, which fell heavily to women (Kurtz and Boardman 1971: 143–4, Alexiou 1974: 21, 212 n. 107, Blok 2001: 104–6, Goff 2004: 31–4), began early. Small girls are often depicted as mourners on vases; one is even identified as the “sister” of the deceased (Paris Louvre MNB 905, Lewis 2002: 23). 33 Foley 2001: 42–3. Kurtz and Boardman 1971: 258, see also 99–100 (on cenotaphs).
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the emotional costs of her silence and underscores the significance of her “not fleeing” the embrace. We learn that she does not take either the loss of her reputation or the violation of her person lightly. It was indignation, and not just panic, that made her flee Polemon and she tolerated Moschion’s rudeness out of a sense of duty: [ : ] 3, $%.[]. . , [ ]$ 3 '; ,; [ > ,; ( 6. & 3 , )% ' [ 2 ; N , 8 * 2 ', , ,; & , < ' M- 9 &$ - 2 2 [ L, L , [ a 4%G ; ' [8, Z; " 3 !, 8 L> [ ; (708–19)
. . . fleeing, could I [the verb is lost] his mother, sweetheart? Won’t you think about it? So that he can marry me? Oh, he’s just the kind of man to marry someone like me! OK, not that but so that he can have me as a hetaira? Then wouldn’t I have tried to hide it from these people – poor me! – and wouldn’t he have done the same thing himself? But he recklessly set me up in his father’s home, and did I choose to be so stupid and [create] hatred and leave suspicion with you [. . .] which you will no longer erase? Do I have no shame, either, Pataikos? And you too came convinced of this, suspecting [I’m] that kind of woman?
In good Euripidean tradition Menander gives a solid rhetorical education to the unlikely figure of a poor young woman.34 Glykera uses rhetorical questions, balanced cola (“so that . . . so that”) and a strategically placed personal appeal (“Pataikos!”) at the climax of her speech. There are few markers of sex or status (only and ) and, apart from “sweetheart” ($% 708, also at 746), little of the hetaira’s casual sweet talk: no flattery, flirtation, oaths, exaggerations, or especially colorful language. As she walks Pataikos through a rational “examination” of the case (“think about it,” ,, means literally “look into, examine”), Glykera uses 34
Plut. De Aud. Poet. 28a. The same may be said of Pamphile in the Epitrepontes (Arnott 2004: 277; see my discussion in ch. 5). See McClure 1999: 25–6 on women’s rhetorical skills in drama and Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 515 ad 711 and Lamagna 263–4 ad 303 on Glykera’s, specifically. There are women’s speeches of considerable sophistication in forensic rhetoric (e.g., by the daughter of Diogeiton in Lys. 32), although internal evidence suggests the speechwriter contributed substantially to their preserved form (Gagarin 2001: 165–9).
Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos
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arguments that appeal to the intellect, not the emotions. The behavior he “suspects” would be implausible, rash, and politically stupid; the idea that she acted recklessly and senselessly is absurd and insulting. She is following textbook advice here: “the best line for those on their defense is to show . . . that it would not have paid them to commit such actions” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1428b33–7). She also uses irony effectively, as she scoffs at the accusation: “Oh, he’s just the kind of man to marry someone like me.”35 She chooses her words carefully, reducing what Polemon considers a certainty to a mere suspicion (“suspecting [I’m] that kind of woman”), asking not “Did I?” but “Could I?” ( ', which of course implies that she could not) and interjecting a note of self-pity (“poor me!”) to suggest that such behavior, even in the hypothetical (“Wouldn’t I have tried?”), would have gone against her nature. She closes with the subtle reproof of an et tu. After all, he is a 0 (“friend,” 508) familiar enough to call “sweetheart.” Implicit is an accusation of '>0 (“slander/prejudice”). The intellectual character of Glykera’s defense establishes (or tries to establish) that the decision is a considered and ethical one, neither an emergency reaction, as her original departure “in terror” seems to have been, nor a capricious whim. In defending the ethics of her decision (she does not defend the move as a practical necessity) she tacitly accepts that it reveals moral character (“I’m not that kind of woman”) and accordingly claims to act from good sense and decency (not being #$-, showing 8). Her defense “If I were guilty I would have tried to hide it” of course requires that she make a credible claim to good character, in order to forestall the argument that shamelessness, not innocence, was the reason for her openness.36 The modest tone she strikes at the start, as she dismisses ideas “above her station,” and her claim of “modesty” at the end ( 8) not only refute the implicit charge of being a hetaira but also support the positive defense that she acted responsibly and rationally. She fingers Moschion subtly, avoiding his name (she uses the demonstratives 6 – slightly pejorative – and ,) and only hinting that what would be “shameless” in him () would be merely “senseless” in her (&$ -). The assertion “I am not so #$- as to do/think such-and-such” is a rhetorical topos (Demosthenes was particularly fond of it), and the verb
35
36
Rhet. ad Alex. 1434a17–29 discusses the proper use of -%. There is also a dramatic irony in ( | : Moschion was born at her level (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 514–15 ad 710, Ireland 1992: 92 ad 710f., Lamagna 1994: 263 ad 303, Arnott 1996a: 437 n. a). This is a version of the topos I- (Arist. Rhet. 1400b9–16), used, e.g., in Lysias 1.46, 3.33–4 and Antiphon 5.43 (my thanks to Peter Hunt for these references).
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“erase,” 4%$-, may also have struck a forensic note to Athenian ears.37 The dramatic purpose of all of this careful argumentation is to defend her decision to us as well as to Pataikos. It is worth noting that Menander gives Moschion no such chance: his speeches merely sketch sexual fantasies. Glykera claims to be motivated by decency, concern for her reputation and a wish to avoid making enemies. Knowing her innocence, we may be inclined to sympathize, but Pataikos has reservations. His cautious response elicits her only direct comment on Polemon in the preserved portions of the play: (Z.) : ': , + o3 [% p '( '%4 & ; 9 [ (D.) & # '( _. [ ) L>O- (720–3) (Pa.) May it never happen, reverend Zeus, and may you prove the truth [of what you say]. I . . . (Gl.) Oh, go away all the same! Let him abuse [some other woman] in future.
Glykera accuses Polemon of hubris, arrogant mistreatment intended to humiliate the recipient. Hubris covered more than specific crimes committed on specific occasions: Athenians regarded it as a characteristic fault of the rich and privileged, an insulting type of misbehavior often presumed to be habitual.38 Glykera is faulting her lover not for having suspicions in the first place (how could he know why she indulged the young man?) but for acting on them in such a violent and humiliating way and for being the sort of person who will do the same to his next mistress. An Athenian audience may well have sympathized, and not simply because resistance to hubris played well in democratic-minded Athens. When Agnoia made excuses for Polemon, she begged us not to consider his treatment of Glykera “dishonor,” an injury Athenians took seriously (&% was also the technical term for deprivation of civic privileges).39 In a genre which routinely features rapes, the symbolic violence of cutting off a woman’s hair hardly pushes the limits of audience tolerance, but this does not mean Glykera should have accepted it calmly. Normally Greek 37
38 39
Examples of M- #$- . . . k include Dem. 3.21, 19.173, 21.143, 45.41 and Lys. fr. 2, section 7+45+73, line 14. ^4%$- is common in the orators and historians (of laws, debts and even citizens, in the technical sense “remove from the register”). Fisher 1992: 1. Polemon is both young and wealthy, and allegedly “takes pleasure” in Glykera’s tears (188, cf. Fortenbaugh 1974: 440–1). See further Omitowoju 2002: 29–50. LSJ s.v. i.2. Ireland 1992: 85 ad 168 suggests Agnoia has the whole situation in mind and not just the haircut.
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women cut their hair only in mourning, a disfigurement comparable to tearing the cheeks.40 A very short haircut was probably not a traditional punishment for infidelity, as Lamagna suggests (the one law we know about forbids adulteresses to wear jewelry but says nothing about their hair), or an attempt to make Glykera look like a slave.41 Women are often depicted on vases with page-boy hairstyles which might be described as “cut round,” the literal meaning of . Many are playing double pipes and may be slaves, but there are also pipe-girls with long hair and girls who may be of high status with short hair.42 It is possible that short hair was simply a style available to hetairai (who were much freer than wives to experiment, e.g., with dye, cf. Men. fr. 450 K-A, and perhaps also with styles), but not to women of higher social standing and therefore avoided by hetairai who “adopted the appearance and mannerisms of ladies,” a class to which Glykera surely belongs.43 But a parallel from the American south suggests a simpler explanation. When Harriet Jacobs’ master and frustrated lover cut off her hair, she understood that he meant to humiliate her and remind her of his authority.44 There is a similar dynamic here: what Glykera resents is Polemon’s hubris in asserting over her the kind of authority a master held over a slave. Plutarch, for example, cautions that hubris and % (alcohol-fueled violence) are acceptable with hetairai and slave girls but not with wives (Mor. 140b3–12). The charge also implies that Polemon has damaged her public standing.45 In her view, the haircut was a kind of &%, and it is the humiliation – not the shearing – that she could expect to see repeated “in future” (and with good reason, given Moschion’s proximity and Polemon’s temper). 40 41
42 43 44
45
Harvey 1988: 245 cites an example of a woman with short hair in mourning. Henry 1987: 145. Lamagna 1994: 180 ad 53 cites Tac. Germ. 19.1 (but this is not relevant to fourthcentury Athens), Thesm. 838 (which mentions “cutting off” a woman’s hair, &%, as a hypothetical punishment for giving birth to a worthless son), and Acharn. 849 (which may refer to an adultery punishment for men, Carey 1993: 54, Sommerstein 1980: 199 ad 849, but see Carey for other views). On the adultery law see Harrison 1998 i: 35–6, Sealey 1990: 28–9, and Todd 1993: 278–9. Shearing may have been a punishment for unchastity in Sophocles’ Tyro (fr. 659). Lape 2004: 175–6 reads the incident as an offence against the state as well (because Polemon usurps its power to punish). Kilmer 1993: 160 and 146 n. 39. Contra Peschel 1987: 358 identifies short hair as a clear sign of slave status. Quotation from Keuls, cited in Kilmer 159 n. 73. Cf. Lewis 2002: 105–6. “When Dr. Flint learned that I was again to be a mother, he was exasperated beyond measure. He rushed from the house, and returned with a pair of shears. I had a fine head of hair; and he often railed me about my pride of arranging it nicely. He cut every hair close to my head, storming and swearing all the time” (Jacobs 2000: 86). For cross-cultural parallels for the symbolic shaving/shearing of slaves’ hair see Patterson 1982: 60–2. Lape 2004: 177.
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Informing the audience
Everyone agrees that Glykera is entitled to resentment. Agnoia apologizes for Polemon (164–5) and more or less admits that he did something “wrong” ( 169–70). Sosias faults him for “military” behavior at the wrong time and place (“our Mr. Violence ( > ), Mr. Warfare ( ) – the man who doesn’t let women have hair” 172–3) and Pataikos concurs, calling him “rash” (0) and ordering him to “forget his soldier’s ways” (1016–17). Glykera’s maid Doris denounces Polemon as a lawless criminal (“a soldier for a husband – they’re all hooligans,” , 186–7) who takes a cruel pleasure in making his mistress cry (189–90). Even Polemon finally admits he was jealous and violent (987–8). But would an ancient audience have thought Glykera justified in walking out on Polemon? Mario Lamagna defends her decision as a demonstration of , a virtue Aristotle defines as a mean between irascibility and complaisance.46 The unusual circumstances, however, make it difficult to see how her response might become habitual (a requirement of any Aristotelian virtue) and it is only her true status that entitles her to resentment at all. Susan Lape suggests Athenians would have seen her situation in a juridical light and excused her because of her legal disabilities, inasmuch as the word hubris “casts her injury as a harm requiring legal response or correction.” Glykera leaves, by this argument, because she has no access to legal remedies and therefore no way of preventing recurrence (“While the play never raises the possibility that Glykera might make use of judicial processes to exact compensation for her injury, her very inability to do so informs her behavior”).47 Glykera, however, says nothing to suggest that she means hubris in a strictly legal sense and it is unlikely that an Athenian audience attached more weight to her legal than to her social disabilities. No woman, regardless of her status, had direct access to the courts. Other women did, however, have male relatives to whom they could appeal for protection from an abusive partner (it is a father, after all, who finally solves Glykera’s problem with Polemon). An Athenian audience would probably have agreed with Pataikos, who dismisses her decision as an overreaction (“nonsense” 748, cf. 745, 752) and offers practical advice that indirectly alludes to her lack of resources (“You should have thought about everything” 748–9). For a woman with no family, leaving her sole means of support is foolish. Pataikos’ attitude is also important for understanding the final choice Glykera makes. In the fifth act, he comes on stage quoting her decision to 46 47
Arist. NE 1125b26–1126a4. Lamagna 1994: 59. On in Aristotle see Konstan 2003. Lape 2004: 177.
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reconcile with Polemon in a tone of approval. His praise suggests he has neither imposed the reconciliation nor taken it for granted; it was her own free choice. There is no tragic precedent for this choice, a necessary prelude to the happy ending, but it is still morally significant and it shows how her status change has also changed her moral obligations. When she was poor and helpless, her refusal to reconcile was simply silly; in prosperity, it becomes “un-Greek.” (Z.) 3 $ “3 ' 0 ” A 8 , ' : '% 0 3 g ^ . & %- '. [9] [ 8.
(1006–9)
(Pa.) I very much like your “now I’ll be reconciled.” That’s the sign of a Greek character: when you’ve had good fortune to accept a penalty (sc. “as paid”) then. But someone should run [quickly] and fetch him.
Pataikos forms a judgment about Glykera’s from her decision to reconcile, the first significant action she takes as his daughter. He praises her for a virtue he considers characteristically “Greek” (and therefore one he presumably shares), an appeal to Greek pride which would have played well in other cities.48 Unfortunately he does not actually name the virtue he sees in “accepting '% in good fortune.” “Generous forgiveness” has been suggested, but Pataikos is not yet talking about forgiveness; he is talking about accepting '% as an act of reconciliation, and the condition that makes it a moral obligation is good fortune ( %).49 That is, the obligation to reconcile exists regardless of exculpatory circumstances, the reason for which one grants forgiveness ( ), as he later explains to Polemon. Nor is he speaking of “generosity” (in Greek terms “magnanimity,” . G %). Greeks did not consider turning the other cheek a virtue and Pataikos makes it clear that a penalty ('%, “satisfaction, punishment”) has been paid, presumably in the grief and heartache Polemon has suffered.50 On the other hand, curbing one’s anger and accepting compensation for injury (0) is a virtue as far back as Homer (held up, for example, 48 49 50
Lamagna 1994: 295–6 ad 430. On “Greekness” overriding gender differences here see Lape 2004: 187–9. Webster 1960: 16 writes of her “magnanimity.” Lamagna 1994: 295–6 ad 430 sees the Aristotelian virtue of % (EN 1143a20–1). “Returning positive good for ill, an important stage beyond mere refraining from requiting ill, does not seem to be exemplified in the available literature” (Dover 1974: 192). For '% ' “accept the proffered satisfaction” cf. Thuc. 5.59.5 (cited Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 530 ad 1007, Lamagna 1994: 295 ad 429); for a political reading see Lape 2004: 186–8.
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by Ajax to Achilles at Il. 9.632–6). Glykera is choosing to forego further vengeance and to put an end to her personal quarrel in the interest of her new family, a neat reversal of the initial situation, where family loyalty put her at odds with Polemon. Glykera’s decision conforms to the expectations of her new role: a daughter was expected to marry according to the wishes of her kyrios. It also strengthens the friendship between the two men and helps establish good relations with her new-found father. None of this quite explains why good fortune should demand her reconciliation, but Gorgias in the Dyskolos perhaps offers a clue when he criticizes people who commit injustice “induced by their prosperity” (278). Good fortune proverbially disposed people to wrongdoing. Characters in other plays complain, “He’s the only man to learn pity from prosperity ( )” (Hen. fr. 157 K-A) or “Wealth drove its owner into a different personality (!), not the one he had before” (fr. 840 K-A). Pataikos may be complimenting his daughter for resisting a natural temptation to abuse her position, now that she has the upper hand (since she can choose not to reconcile without facing poverty). And if Gorgias is a reliable guide, it was important to do this publicly. The prosperous had an obligation to “show themselves worthy in the eyes of others” (Dysk. 286–7). Likewise, scholars have reached various conclusions about the moral implications of Krateia’s agreement to reconcile in the Misoumenos. The choice to marry Thrasonides is emphatically hers, as Getas reports to the skeptical soldier, even though both Demeas and her brother are at hand to “give” her ('' in 961 is plural): (P.) 4[]5 '[(?)] (D.) [ ] (P.) N; (D.) c q[, (P.) m0 [$ - , [ (D.) 2 “ %, [3 * >8 2 ;” “%,” $ %, “ >8[ (964–9, suppl. 968 ex. grat. Arnott)
(Thr.) You’re not fooling me? (Ge.) [. . .] (Thr.) How did he say it? (Ge.) Oh, Herakles! (Thr.) [Tell] me his actual words, and hurry up about it [. . .] (Ge.) He said, “Little daughter [would you like to have this man?]” “Yes,” she said, “Daddy, [I] want to.”
Since the beginning of the play, Thrasonides has distrusted Getas and resisted easy answers. The emphasis on ipsissima dicta seems appropriate in
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a conflict which has played out through reticence on her side and wordy pleas on his.51 At last he hears the “kindly” phrases he hoped for in Act I. At the same time, his exclusion from the conversation between father and daughter guarantees that her agreement is unconstrained by gifts, pleas or threats of suicide. The new relationship will be based on her consent, backed by a father’s authority, and with a dowry to make it a proper marriage. Krateia’s change of heart, like Glykera’s, has been interpreted as evidence of generosity or gratitude, or simply as a belated recognition of Thrasonides’ better qualities.52 The only character to comment on it explicitly, however, takes it as a sign of remorse. With Sandbach, I attribute the fragmentary summation at 987–96 to Thrasonides: “Well then. She’s sorry . . . Boy, light and hand us some torches.” This speech recalls Getas’ in Dyskolos 965–6, which is also followed by wedding instructions and an invocation of the goddess Nike (“Victory”). Arnott gives the speech to Demeas, but he is unlikely to be ordering someone else’s slaves to prepare an expensive dinner. Thrasonides on the other hand has already mentioned a meal at 980 and might reasonably give instructions about its timing (“and not yet . . . meal” 991). The final verdict, “Well then. She’s sorry” (N[)]
[1] 988), also makes better sense from Thrasonides. The particle N) registers a note of resignation, perhaps even surprise (“well, so be it,” cf. Dysk. 965), at a decision which he takes as evidence of remorse. As an aggrieved party, Demeas had no reason to fault Krateia for hating the soldier and he cannot have been greatly surprised by her change of heart, once she learned the truth. But the sentiment suits Thrasonides perfectly. A man who considered himself a victim of irrational hatred might be expected to look for signs of remorse. Polemon was satisfied simply to get Glykera back but Thrasonides always wanted more. He insisted from the start that the relationship be based on affection and appealed repeatedly to Krateia’s compassion. Apologies for false suspicions may have been a conventional part of fifth act resolutions (cf. Samia 695–6, Perikeiromen¯e 985–8). If so, Thrasonides’ attribution of (unexpressed!) regret to Krateia would be a variation on a familiar motif. Right or wrong, he has the satisfaction of detecting in her final choice a promise of the emotional commitment he has sought from the beginning. There is an element of wish-fulfillment about a world where women reject lovers only out of higher loyalties and daughters readily obey even the most delinquent fathers, but we should not be too quick to see selfsacrifice or the loss of any cherished independence where an Athenian 51
Cf. Lape 2004: 198.
52
Dover 1974: 192–3 (Glykera), Webster 1960: 20.
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audience would have seen a rise in status and security.53 Both Glykera and Krateia marry into reasonably wealthy households, with fathers and dowries to guarantee good treatment. The “independence” they give up was of little practical use: Krateia could not even leave Thrasonides and Glykera had no means of support. We are told enough to understand that their consent matters and they enter their marriages willingly. If these choices put the interests of male kin first, this is nothing new. They were doing this before they found legitimate fathers: Glykera could not stay with Polemon and continue to indulge Moschion; peace with Thrasonides required Krateia to overlook her brother’s killing. Nor should we pity them as victims of a plot which leaves them tied, like Terence’s Thais, to men unlikely to make them happy.54 They are not “in love” in any sense recognized by an Athenian audience and they do not seek romantic fulfillment. What Glykera wants is to acknowledge her brother “freely” and not to be subjected to “hubris” (both reasonable expectations for a freeborn daughter); what Krateia wants is to mourn her brother and to find her father again. Neither expresses any desire for the dubious privileges of a hetaira. They want to be treated like what they are: legitimate daughters of freeborn parents. Not only is Glykera formally restored to her birth status, but she is also shown to be justified in her emotional priorities and conduct. I see the resolution of the Perikeiromen¯e in this sense slightly differently than David Konstan, who argues that “Menander’s decision to neglect Aristotelian or other grounds of forgiveness in favor of, as Fortenbaugh calls it, ‘a carefree pardon’ indicates his indifference to overcoming the division between Glykera and Polemon on grounds pertinent to their quarrel.”55 Everyone – Pataikos, Sosias, Doris, Glykera, Moschion’s mother – thinks Polemon is in the wrong. Polemon even blames himself, when he learns the truth, for “getting violent right away” (" 988). Pataikos in fact
53
54
55
Both Konstan 1995: 115 and Lape 2004: 178–9 and n. 26 contrast the independent figure who rejects Polemon with the silent, compliant one who accepts him. Konstan emphasizes the contradictions between her social roles (courtesan, wife); Lape, between her civic roles (rehabilitator of a mercenary, reproducer of citizens). I agree that the different roles demand very different, even contradictory, behaviors and would only argue that she never really identified with the wrong role: a daughter’s deference to her male kin figured in the break-up as well as the reconciliation. Pace Fortenbaugh 1974: 442 (“even if Polemon abandons military service, he will remain impetuous and . . . likely to come running whenever Sosias fabricates a story about Glykera and a paramour”), Agnoia made it clear (164–6) that this was a one-time occurrence. Reasonable treatment in the future seems assured, less perhaps by any abiding memory of “Glycera’s dignity and her resentment of unjustified abuse” (Konstan 1995: 115) than by the normal safeguards marriage provided. Cf. Lape 2004: 183. Konstan 1995: 115. Cf. Lape 2004: 186–7.
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tacitly acknowledges the justice of his daughter’s grievance by attaching conditions to the marriage: (Z.) [i, [ ( 0 '( S [ (Z.) r, 7 3 & - [ F% , 4- ; '( [$ D. ' , $, . (1016–20)56
(Pa.) In future, forget [being] a soldier [so] you don’t do anything violent – anything! [. . .] (Po.) By Apollo! After I [almost] died just now, would I be violent again? And [I] don’t [blame] Glykera. (to Glykera) Just agree, sweetheart, to be reconciled.
Pataikos makes several concessions to Glykera. He acknowledges that Polemon treated her inappropriately (492–3) and did something terrible (' 724), violent (a 1022) and rash ( 1017). He is not simply looking to his own interests in encouraging her to accept Polemon. Even before the recognition, he was unwilling to call the offense hubris or injustice, and he thought “rejecting the man altogether” was absurd. Pataikos may seem to us to be trivializing Glykera’s complaint, but we bring different beliefs about women’s rights and domestic violence. Athenian arbitrators sent Neaira back to her lover Phrynion, despite credible charges of “hubristic” conduct far more serious than hair-cutting.57 Pataikos’ position has actually changed very little since Act III, when he started trying to patch up the quarrel. Here he is simply doing what mediators were expected to do: looking for a solution to which both sides can agree.58 He believes that Polemon needs to treat Glykera “appropriately,” that persuasion – not force – is the way to win her back, and that she should reconcile (explicit at 1006 and implicit in his agreement to serve as Polemon’s “ambassador” at 510–11). The stipulation “for the future” addresses her stated reason for leaving: that Polemon will repeat his hubris “in the future” (723). Polemon is forgiven because he is considered capable of reform and because Pataikos has a reasonable expectation that his stipulations will be met (in Act III he did manage to stop the soldier from attacking Moschion’s house and 56
57
58
Brown 1974, Lamagna, and Arnott assign 1021–2 and 1023 to Glykera but Pataikos is more likely: Polemon answers him in 1024, not Glykera; pressure to reconcile has already come from him (1021–2 is one more reason); Glykera thinks the misdeed was hubris, not a ; and a father is more likely to speak for “us” (Y,) publicly. Contra Lape 2004: 187–8 n. 47 argues that Glykera’s unique situation justifies a breach of the three-actor rule. The arbitrators disagreed with Neaira about what constituted “hubris” (Ps.-Dem. 59.37, 46, see Omitowoju 2002: 45–7): her lover evidently did have the right to make her available to an entire party (in a sense, she still “belonged” to him, Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 221). Scafuro 1997: 191.
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made him agree to approach Glykera with pleas, not threats). All parties understand that Glykera is resuming the relationship on a different footing, one which offers her protection from violence in the future. It has been argued that Glykera is deprived of any meaningful voice in the final scene. David Konstan has written about her loss of a voice, both literally and figuratively, as a sign of her new subordination: “[Her] change in status, imposing as it does a silence that is the sign of dutiful obedience, cancels the independence she had enjoyed as a concubine . . . [She] is no longer )1 % (her own mistress), and she cannot act, or speak, in her own right and with her former freedom.”59 It is certainly true that she maintains the public silence Athenians expected of a young woman with a father to speak on her behalf, but gaining a kyrios does not mean she loses all say in decisions that concern her. New Comedy makes it very clear that women spoke their minds privately (e.g., Moschion’s mother, Pamphile in the Epitrepontes, the Didot Pap. 1 speaker, Nikeratos’ wife in Samia) and expected that their kyrioi would listen. Pataikos, a great believer in “persuasion” (498), used arguments rather than authority to obtain her consent.60 Moreover, her voice is not entirely suppressed: Pataikos quotes her words to show us that he acts with her approval and Polemon seeks her consent in addition to Pataikos’, begging her to reconcile after she has been formally betrothed.61 His plea “just agree, sweetheart, to be reconciled” surely calls for some sign on her part – perhaps a gesture, like walking over to him or allowing him to embrace her. No response at all would be quite odd (Alcestis and Cassandra provoke comment when they fail to acknowledge questions directly addressed to them, Eur. Alc. 1143, Aesch. Ag. 1060–3). Arguably the character most deprived of a voice here is Moschion, absent while Pataikos chooses his future wife (and everything we know about him suggests that marriage is the last thing he wants). Genre conventions may give Glykera no choice but to consent, as Konstan argues, but they give Moschion little more freedom: returning fathers regularly put a quick stop to their sons’ amours.62 And whereas Glykera’s marriage takes the entire scene, Moschion’s – more penalty than reward – is something of an afterthought (“Time to look into another marriage,” mutters Pataikos. “I’ll get Philinos’ daughter for my son,” 1024–5).63 It is hard not to leave with 59 60
61 63
Konstan 1995: 115–16. See also Konstan 1994: 147, Lape 2004: 178–9. A bride’s consent was not legally necessary (Harrison 1998 i: 21) but may have been sought in practice (Post 1940: 428). These are unusual cases, however. Few brides would know their grooms as well as Glykera and Krateia. 62 Konstan 1995: 116. Lape 2004: 186–7. Cf. Garzya 1966: 82. Forgiveness for Moschion may be contingent on his willingness to marry, as it is for Clitipho in the Heauton (Fortenbaugh 1974: 442 n. 17). Cf. Garzya 1966: 80–1, Ireland 1992: 96, and Post 1938: 20.
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the impression that the daughter he already knows and likes is much more important to her proud papa than his new-found son. The Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos illustrate how Menander uses tragic techniques to show the ethical disposition of his more serious characters. Tragedy had already explored the moral ambiguities of female silence and developed creative solutions to the problem of staging it. Menander is doing nothing new in problematizing conduct that was, in a sense, simply good manners for young women of free and legitimate birth. He makes their excessive and abnormal silences an issue for other characters to discuss and makes sure we understand that these silences are not just reflex behavior but a deliberate choice. The dramatically significant choice, a considered decision in a moral dilemma serving as an index of character, is another legacy from tragedy. Glykera and Krateia confidently take their own decisions, against the advice of friendly advisors (and Philoumene may be following advice from Dromon but she is clearly a suppliant of her own will). Their choices show that they have not accommodated themselves to the roles in which circumstances have placed them. Instead, they think and act as if their misfortunes were temporary. For example, they adhere to the moral code that restricted the public movement of highstatus women. Glykera walks out on Polemon only to move next door. Krateia’s delayed and carefully explained entrance suggests she would never have left the house were it not for her father’s unexpected arrival, and Getas’ surprised outrage (617–22) makes it clear that she has had little contact with men outside the household. In a sense, they have never been anything but respectable daughters and sisters of freeborn, propertied men. Both demonstrate gendered and status-marked virtues: modesty, reticence, loyalty, as well as the sort of proud indifference to gifts that Greeks liked to believe characteristic of the well born. In dramatic terms, their decisions type them as lost daughters, foreshadowing their eventual recognition. There are plenty of examples in tragedy of women caught between roles with conflicting obligations. The Danaids, Antigone, Iphigeneia, Electra, and Euripides’ Helen all define themselves through relationships to men they perceive to have a prior claim on their loyalty. Glykera, Krateia, and even Philoumene follow in this tradition, resisting in their own way “marriages” that demean them and pressures to choose a new household over their natal family. Like tragic figures, they cling to a sense of identity that is out of joint with their circumstances. Just as Euripides’ enslaved Polyxena, Hecuba, and Andromache held themselves to the code of conduct they knew as nobility, experiencing no change in what Rabinowitz calls
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their “essential status,”64 so Krateia and Glykera think and act like freeborn women with legitimate fathers. Both identify with their natal families to the point of sacrificing the advantages – substantial advantages – of romantic relationships in the interest of brothers who cannot aid, protect, or even thank them. They re-enact a tragic conflict in attenuated form, much further down the social scale, with life and death no longer at stake. Their divided loyalties are eventually reconcilable but the tragic pattern is there – the stranger at the heart of the household, the sister/daughter stubbornly clinging to a memory of her lost brother or father.
samia The problem of persuading an audience to accept a promotion in status is more difficult with a hetaira than with a lost daughter. Menander has to show that Chrysis can adapt to her new social role, even in some sense deserve it, without suggesting that she was never really a hetaira – the solution that worked for the lost-daughter type. This was not an easy task. The standard to which Athenians held women like Chrysis was low and a citizen who brought a hetaira into his household could not expect much sympathy. It was an intolerable affront to a wife (the act of a L> 0, “scoundrel,” Andoc. 4.14) and a grown son might also object (Hypereides kicked his son out of the house before bringing in a hetaira, Athen. 13.590c). Even the liberal-minded Moschion admits that falling for Chrysis (he calls her a “hetaira” twice in five lines, 21–5) was nothing to be proud of (“It was only human” 22). Menander justifies Chrysis’ social and economic rise in part by separating her from the worst examples of her type – the sort of women Demeas describes in his fury – and making her undergo a little re-education. He also shows us that she can fit into a respectable community and, more importantly, that she has a sincere commitment to the household as a whole and not just to Demeas. This is not immediately apparent. Like Glykera and Krateia, Chrysis is in some sense caught between roles: the glamorous, free-spirited party-girl Demeas fell in love with and the demure homebody he expects her to become. She herself has some ambivalence about retiring completely. In Act I, for example, she makes a hetaira’s decision to exploit her lover’s infatuation. Because the various misunderstandings require her silence through most of the play, it is not clear until much later that she means no real harm. The audience is left in uncertainty for much longer about Chrysis than about Glykera or Krateia. 64
Rabinowitz 1998: 62, quoted phrase on 65.
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The only information we have about Chrysis initially comes from Moschion, who presents two different perspectives. Speaking for himself, he tells us twice that she is a “Samian” hetaira (21, restored in 36). This had particular implications for an Athenian audience. At least two other Menandrian hetairai come from the island of Samos: the mother of Thais in Terence’s Eunuchus (107) and one of the women in the Bacchides (199/200). For Romans, “Samos” meant jokes about breakable dinnerware (Plaut. Bacch. 202, Men. 178, alluding to the island’s famous pottery), but the island had a different reputation for Greeks. Not only were its hetairai famous, but a notorious sex manual was attributed to a Samian woman named Philainis.65 The epithet confers glamor, desirability, and sexual experience; it is perfectly natural that a “Samian” should inspire Demeas’ % (“desire,” 21). For Moschion, Chrysis exists purely within a sphere of pleasure and her only function in the household is to please Demeas. He recalls encouraging his father to indulge himself when “he was ashamed because of me” (27) and doing him the “favor” (18) of letting him conduct the affair in his own house. She was brought into the family home not because she belonged there but so that Demeas could avoid “being annoyed by young rivals” (26). She is the “French maid” whose presence eroticizes everything. Not surprisingly, what he saw at her Adonia party was an occasion for rape – a loud noisy event, organized by Chrysis, where the women were scattered and no one was paying attention to Nikeratos’ daughter. To be sure, Moschion has an interest in emphasizing Chrysis’ sexual role now that he “feels ashamed in front of father” (67) because of sexual misconduct of his own. The women of the community, however, saw something else in her. Moschion also reveals their perspective when he describes how Nikeratos’ wife and daughter welcomed her: [$] - '( : 3 [h%]. . ' Y 1 0, , ! , T', ( 6 Y,. (35–8) The girl’s mother was kindly disposed towards my father’s [Samian]. Most of the time she was at their house, and then sometimes they were over here.
The social hierarchy is made very clear here. It was up to Nikeratos’ wife to decide if there would be a relationship and to set the tone. How she felt about Chrysis mattered much more than how Chrysis felt about her. There 65
“Samos was notorious for the loose morals of its women as well as for the number and quality of its hetairai” (Tsantsanoglou 1973: 193, cf. Plut. Mor. 303c1–4). Samian hetairai may have been a familiar sight at Athens after the cleruchs were driven out in 322.
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was nothing unusual about visits between neighbors. Moschion makes a point of it here only because Chrysis once belonged to a social circle avoided by women with reputations to lose. He also suggests that the relationship was more than a perfunctory courtesy from the wife of a poor man to the mistress of a rich one. The girl’s mother was “kindly ($ -) disposed,” he explains, toward Chrysis. b-%, literally “love of humans,” implies a willingness to overlook the minor faults and differences that divide out of a sense of shared humanity. It suggests that the neighbor’s goodwill was an act of charity, beyond what was required or expected. In other words, the eminently respectable mother of a (“maiden”) overlooked Chrysis’ past for the same reason Moschion forgives Demeas’ infatuation (“something only human”). This is important testimony to her character. Unlike the infatuated Demeas or the self-absorbed Moschion, the women have no personal stake in defending Chrysis and they have a unique authority to sanction her position in a respectable oikos. One orator even cites acceptance by “the demesmen’s wives” as evidence of a woman’s status (Isae. 8.19). The actions of Nikeratos’ wife and daughter are thus an important counterbalance to Moschion’s narrative of desire and shame, “human” failings and “sophisticated” favors, which suggests that Chrysis’ arrival was a step toward turning the house into a brothel. The neighbors’ behavior shows that they consider the space she occupies perfectly respectable. Her presence does not eroticize everything. In describing the women’s friendship, Moschion also reveals an important shift in Chrysis’ social orientation. She moved from a male circle into a network of women. Moschion tells us that she soon put her hetaira’s social skills to work, bringing the local women together to celebrate the summer festival of Adonis: 4 & 3 ': '9 [H 2] . [] W' > ' Y5 - [#-] 1 ' )1 ' [:] 8 X . . . (38–42) Coming back from the farm, [as it happened], I ran into them gathered together here at our place for the Adonia, along with some other women. The holiday occasioned [a lot of ] fun, as you might expect. .
Hetairai are known to have taken part in festivals together with married women but there is a difference between merely attending an event and
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being permitted to host it.66 Women besides the next-door neighbors evidently knew her, liked her enough to visit, and did not – presumably – expect to have to explain themselves afterwards. Chrysis has not made any dramatic or implausible transformation. The Adonia festival was especially popular with hetairai and this particular party would have done a professional entertainer proud.67 There were enough guests to “spread out” (46); there was dancing (and therefore music, probably part of the “racket” (44) that kept Moschion awake); and they kept it up all night ( 8 O 46). Moschion was of course excluded: a young man had no business at a women’s party. In fact, we are left with the general impression that Chrysis has spent little time with him, thanks to her activities with the local women. Their warm welcome not only makes Demeas’ suspicions seem less plausible but also offers a more compelling reason to keep her in the house than Moschion’s talk about indulging “human” desires (which are what got him into trouble with Nikeratos’ daughter). Far from regarding Chrysis as a guilty indulgence on Demeas’ part, they act as if he had an obligation to support her and raise a fuss when he kicks her out (426). The women’s vote is important because an affair with a hetaira could mean many things. A lover might parade her at every opportunity, as Phrynion did with Neaira, or keep her in almost marital seclusion, as the wrestler Leontiscus did with Mania (Machon fr. 15.218–20). Some hetairai had a measure of respectability and even entree into the circles of citizen women. The 0 (“concubine”) of the Athenian citizen Philoneus, for example, known from Isaeus 3, had the opportunity to meet and plot with his stepmother. A certain tolerance seems to have been accorded such relationships, particularly for men who had no civic responsibility to marry. A mature citizen with an heir, such as Demeas, would probably have been excused. He seems to be a confirmed bachelor and is too old to marry a woman of usual marriage age. There is some ambiguity, however, about Chrysis’ exact position. Nikeratos calls her a 0, but his head is in a tragic cloud; Demeas snaps about having a “married hetaira” but is being crueler, perhaps, than he would be in a better mood. Moschion refers to her as a hetaira before she moves in but afterwards calls her simply “father’s Samian” and “Chrysis.” We do not know how the neighbors described her 66 67
Goff 2004: 153–8. Detienne 1977: 65–6, 79–81 describes the Adonia as a licentious festival celebrated primarily by hetairai and their lovers, but the Samia provides evidence that men could be excluded – at least from the parties married women and their daughters attended. See also Weill 1970, Winkler 1990: 188–93, Brown 1990: 263–4 n. 45, and Goff 2004: 138–44. Cf. Lys. 390–6 (married women attending).
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but it is hard to imagine they frequented the house of someone they called a “hetaira” in the professional sense (women could and did refer to female friends as hetairai).68 She seems to have domestic authority and responsibilities comparable to a wife’s. She is spoken of as 0 (“herself,” used of the mistress of a house, 258) and expected to run the household in Demeas’ absence.69 Demeas also entrusts the wedding preparations to her (413–14, 730–2) and takes it as a matter of course that she knows how to care for an infant (he is only surprised that she had the nerve to keep it). Childcare could be expected of a 0. For example, a fragment from the Pseudherakl¯es recounts: “the mother of these two girls died. A 0 of their father is raising them, a former lady’s maid to their mother” (fr. 411KA). Demeas does not expect Chrysis to raise children but he relents under pressure from Moschion. Despite his griping, he does not really think of her as a hetaira. Chrysis’ behavior in Act I does nothing to resolve the questions raised by Moschion’s speech. She shows us something of the hetaira but also something of the loyal servant. In the scene immediately following the prologue she faces a choice familiar from Roman comedy: whether to oblige a strict old master or a love-lorn young one. Now that Demeas has returned, Moschion knows he has to admit to fathering the child, but he would rather put off the uncomfortable conversation. Accordingly, he suggests a plan to stall for time, to which Chrysis readily agrees. It is only after he mentions the risks that we realize she is counting on the old man’s emotional state: (B.) 0 - % ', ; (Z.) 9 ( K . . . (B.) '% M- H 2 8 $ 0 $ . (d.) % ': =; (B.) C : , < >. (d.) 8 . 5 , + > , &, , _ / 8 3 ' ' # F . (76–83) (Mo.) I’ll do everything. What should I say? (Pa.) Well I think . . . (Mo.) (interrupting) Let’s allow her to take care of the baby, just as she is now, and say she gave birth to it. (Chr.) Why on earth not? (Mo.) My father will give a hard time. (Chr.) And then he’ll stop. He’s desperately in love, my good friend, no less than you. And this brings even the angriest man to make peace quickly. 68 69
E.g., Ar. Lys. 701, Eccl. 528, IG i3 1295 bis (Lewis 2002: 223 n. 75). On 0 see Krieter-Spiro 1997: 48, n. 2.
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Chrysis clearly does not propose the plan at 77–9, but editors are divided on whether the lines should be given to Moschion or Parmenon.70 Parmenon later denies any wrongdoing (651–2), although this may not rule him out (he says nothing about who proposed the false claim, only that “someone” made one).71 But he also blames Moschion for “bringing the child into the house” (649–50) and he seems an unlikely advocate of a procrastination scheme here, having just urged the young man to approach his father “immediately” (64). Moschion, on the other hand, later admits to trying to keep the truth secret (528–9). He is also preoccupied with how to present his case to Demeas. He worries about this in his exit monologue, complaining about being at a loss for words (“I’m rather [lost adj.] right now when it comes to words” 93) and planning to “practice” ( O 95) for the “contest” (& 95). He also says something about a “friendly orator ([m]0-)” (92).72 And he has “practiced” (0 121) when he returns. Commentators have been hard pressed to explain why the young man would give up his best argument for marrying the girl. Francis Sandbach argues that the plan must be for Chrysis to keep the baby permanently (“Nothing is said at this point to suggest that the position of the baby will be affected by the marriage . . . there is no phrase meaning ‘for the time being’”) and so Moschion keeps mum about it when Demeas proposes the marriage.73 Alternatively, Stephanie West suggests he is afraid that Nikeratos might choose to prosecute rather than accept him as a son-in-law.74 But he shows no sign of any such concern and his reluctance to confess need not mean he never intends to acknowledge the child. He is simply waiting for the right moment to tell his father. The baby may not even be his best argument, since the hot-tempered Demeas might well refuse to have his hand forced. Keeping his father’s goodwill – which has gotten him dogs, horses, a lavish % (sponsorship of a dramatic chorus) and a phylarchy (command of the cavalry of a $0 or tribe), as well as money to lend his friends – is probably the better strategy. Unfortunately the text breaks off at 85, before anyone explains how long the arrangement is to 70
71 72
73 74
Sandbach (tentatively), Sisti, Bain, and Arnott gives 77–9 to Moschion; Jacques, Austin, and Lamagna, to Parmenon. I follow Arnott in giving 9 ( K to Parmenon (K is often used with ',, LSJ s.v. vi.2) and I take Moschion’s remark as an interruption (a suggestion of D. Konstan, private correspondence). Ireland 1992: 39 ad 77. Since he is the subject of the verbs in 88, 91, 93, and 95, the nominative [m]0- presumably also refers to him (the word could be used of those with natural rhetorical gifts, e.g. Epitr. 236, Lamagna 1998: 213 ad 92). Sandbach 1986: 160, contra Dedoussi 1988: 40–1 (he intends to recognize it). West 1991: 13–14.
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last. But it would surely have been obvious to an Athenian audience that a healthy firstborn son of married citizen parents was not going to be left to a hetaira (even another hetaira thinks this would be outrageous, Epitr. 568–70). Chrysis’ moral obligations are very different from Moschion’s. Parmenon makes it clear that the young man owes it to the girl to approach his father. Courage (64, 69), justice (68), and his promise (73) also demand it. These are conventional expectations of any decent young man with an injury to repair. But an ex-hetaira is under no pressure to demonstrate the virtues of a male citizen. The choice facing her is one of loyalty: should she lie to help Moschion or tell the truth to Demeas? In agreeing to the scheme first and thinking about it later, she makes a decision that suggests she has not quite left her past behind. Trusting that love will conquer all – an amusing, if ineffective, solution to the problem of anger in this play – she predicts that infatuation will quell Demeas’ fury.75 She adheres to type in assuming she can weather a quarrel over a baby. In fact, she flaunts her indifference to Demeas’ anger, in rather sharp contrast to Moschion, and even uses a polite “my good friend” to make the condescending observation that the love-struck can be led by the nose.76 Chrysis is not alone in harboring a certain pride. All of the professional types spoofed in Middle and New Comedy – hetairai, cooks, doctors, and soldiers – brag about their specialized skills. Hetairai are expected to be (and often are) flamboyantly confident in their charms. Sostratos in the Dis Exapat¯on gloats over the come-uppance he has planned for his hetaira, who is supposedly waiting to swindle him with her sweet talk (Dis Ex. 91–6). The Thais prologue describes Thais as persuasive, grasping, and contemptuous (fr. 163 K-A). Although Chrysis would have Moschion believe she has nothing left to learn about men, events prove her wrong, both undermining her claim to expertise and subtly dissociating her from her type. In assimilating Demeas to other men she has known, she makes the same kind of mistake about him that he makes about her, and she is proved equally wrong when he tosses her out of the house. (He kicks her out for sleeping with Moschion, which is how he misinterprets the claim that the baby is hers.) She is basically right about his disposition. Nikeratos also 75 76
This was proverbial wisdom (cf. frr. 250, 826 K-A) but especially apt for a hetaira (Jacques, Sisti, and Del Corno, cited Krieter-Spiro 1997: 119 n. 11). > expresses polite respect (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 185 ad 319, 553 ad 81, Dickey 1996: 120), although it may sound presumptuous from a woman (Sommerstein 1995: 77) and it need not be sincere. At Dysk. 497 the cook identifies > as the right word to flatter a slave and then proceeds to use it on Knemon (504).
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thinks his rage will pass, although he expects reason, not desire, to end it. Demeas acts, however, for reasons neither she nor Nikeratos appreciate.77 He loves Moschion enough to “swallow his anger” ( 0 446–7) and “forget his desire” ( 350). He was, after all, managing to resist her charms until Moschion intervened (23–8). Chrysis’ decision to lie about the baby has one potentially redeeming aspect which is not typical of the hetaira and which may turn an apparently straightforward fraud into something morally more complex. After a breezy “why not?”, she starts to consider obligations to the child.78 In the few surviving lines of her speech, she pledges herself to safeguarding it: ' 2 - * L, ' / 3 % % (84–5) I myself would go through anything sooner than . . . a nurse . . . this baby in some tenement
Putting the baby out to nurse would solve the immediate problem of hiding the evidence. Dramatically, however, the baby is too useful to relegate and Chrysis’ pity provides a plausible excuse for keeping it near enough to cause misunderstandings. Although Chrysis does not criticize Moschion for postponing his confession, she does introduce the only note of concern for the child. She opposes putting it in a tenement with a disparaging % (“some”), suggesting there is little distinction among them.79 We know she has experienced life outside a wealthy household and it was not, Demeas reminds her, very comfortable. The danger of expulsion hangs over her, too, although she does not realize it yet. Her empathy here establishes a bond with the infant that continues throughout the play (we never see her without it) and aligns her emotionally with a figure who is unambiguously entitled to protection. Whatever we may think of her hetaira’s conniving, she claims a more legitimate purpose than just sheltering a timid young man with a guilty secret. 77
78
79
See Groton 1987 for an insightful discussion of how patterns of anger and appeasement structure this play. Nikeratos uses similar language (at 419–20, Groton 440). Zagagi 1994: 119 argues that Chrysis fails to distinguish between the lover and the head of an oikos. ': = dismisses any objections (“certainly not,” Denniston 1954: 243). Keuls 1973: 16 sees “positive interest in the child’s welfare,” rather than “shoulder-shrugging nonchalance” here (cf. Lamagna 1998: 210 ad 77–9, who also cites Dysk. 364–5). The line could be delivered either way, but nonchalance is more consistent with 80–3 and a better contrast with Moschion’s glum pessimism. Noted by Keuls 1973: 13–14, Bain 1983: 115 ad 84–5, and Henry 1988: 73. There is no evidence that Moschion intended to expose it (Krieter-Spiro 1997: 118–19 and n. 12, contra Keuls 1973: 13); he probably explained why he took it into the house (mentioned at 54, 650) after the text breaks off at 56 (perhaps to prove his sincerity about the marriage, 52–3?).
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By keeping the baby near its parents, Chrysis is ensuring more than its physical comfort. She is also helping to guarantee its recognition. Simply raising a child was quite different from raising it as a recognized member of a citizen family, a distinction Nikeratos later makes when he complains about Chrysis’ “idiocy” in “taking up and rearing” the child ($/& 410–11). Demeas makes the same distinction when he evicts her for “taking up” (A . . . &% 354–5) a child he is happy to let her raise elsewhere – even when he thinks it is his.80 He assumes she will take it with her (“she can go to hell . . . | . . . with it,” >. []3. , 133–4) and he pairs it with a slave when he throws her out (“You’ve got the baby, the old woman” 372–3). What angers him of course is her apparent attempt to make a “son,” a recognized child, out of the baby, since this would commit him to supporting it (“You think I’m going to raise ($) a bastard son?” 135–6).81 Behind the threat to evict her for acting “married” (130) is an implicit accusation of using the child to secure a permanent claim on him and to improve her position in the household, an accusation also leveled at Habrotonon (Epitr. 538–40).82 Everyone understands the implications of keeping the child in the house. Naturally the audience does not know whether Chrysis is representing her motivation truthfully. Is she serious about “going through everything” for the child’s sake, is she hoping to exploit the situation, or is her intention simply to humor Moschion as long as it is convenient? Like the major decisions of Glykera and Krateia, Chrysis’ carries different meanings for different observers. This opening scene raises questions that are not immediately resolved and Chrysis is allowed no further opportunity to speak in her own defense, since she reappears only as the bewildered object of Demeas’ and Nikeratos’ rage, weeping and lamenting her fate. But the playwright does give us a visible reminder of her decision.83 Each time she comes on stage, she is clutching the baby. She is almost certainly holding it at her first appearance. “Just as she is now” confirms that the infant is living in Demeas’ house, as Moschion said in the prologue (54), and the demonstrative in 85, 3, points to its presence on stage. She clutches it through both expulsion scenes. In the first, this is implicit from subsequent events (the baby is inside Nikeratos’ 80
81 82
83
Cf. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 580–1 ad 355: “&, is the vox propria for taking up an exposed child (Perik. 134 n.), but here is used, as at 374, 411, of the decision to keep, and not expose, one’s own baby.” Lape 2004: 103. Dedoussi 1988, Brown 1990: 265–6 n. 73, West 1991: 13, and Krieter-Spiro 1997: 118 n. 7 and 119 all explain why Chrysis cannot have intended to keep the baby (contra Keuls 1973: 18, Sandbach 1986: 158–60, Bain 1983: xix n. 5). Cf. Ireland 1992: 54–5.
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house by Act IV); in the second, she worries out loud that Nikeratos will snatch it from her (568–9). We are even told that she refused to hand it over while she argued with him off-stage (559–60). The baby functions as a symbolic prop, “a visible symbol of the vicissitudes of the potential family,” used to present the play’s central conflicts as physical struggles to control it.84 These follow a pattern of increasing violence, from grumbled threats by a disgruntled Demeas to Nikeratos’ overt attempt to grab the infant (568) and his angry pursuit of Chrysis (577).85 The two men end up in a shouting match (“It’s mine.” “But it’s not yours!” “Yes it is!” 579–80). They are in effect attempting to control access to knowledge given to the audience from the beginning – knowledge of the baby’s identity. The correlation between holding the baby and keeping its secret is particularly clear at 351–2, when Demeas explains that ousting Chrysis will hide the family’s “misfortune” and also at 572–3, when Nikeratos tries to grab it in order to learn the truth (“Let me get hold of the baby so I can hear this from the women”). It is consistent with this symbolic pattern that the baby’s parentage should be discovered only when Chrysis is separated from it: first, during the wedding preparations (“She [the old nurse] saw it wailing neglected,” V, 239 – and proceeded to blurt out the truth); and later when Nikeratos catches his own daughter nursing it (540–1). The baby provides incremental evidence of Chrysis’ motives. The longer she holds on to it at personal cost, the more credible her claims of concern. By the fourth act, when she still keeps it although Nikeratos knows the truth and there is no hope of shielding Moschion, it becomes clear that she was serious about protecting it and that her decision reflects more of the foster-mother than the hetaira. The implications of holding the child, however, are very different for the characters within the play. For the men, the baby is evidence of misconduct, a badge of “guilt” or %, and taking it up is therefore an assumption of responsibility. Moschion, who sees in the child a crime he would like to hide, calls it a “favor” (“She was doing me this favor in claiming it was hers” 524). Demeas takes it at first as a sign of defiance; later it shows Chrysis’ illicit desire for Moschion. In the expulsion scene, he even points to the child to signify to accusations he cannot bring himself to make explicit (“Because of that and . . .” “And what?” “Because of that.” 374–5). Nikeratos at first thinks the child is mere folly on Chrysis’ part. When he learns the true father, he regards it as an outrageous crime (“impiety” 493, “murder” 513); when he learns the true mother, it becomes evidence of a conspiracy between Chrysis and his wife and daughter. It is 84
Quotation from Post 1939: 201.
85
See Arnott 2000b: 120–1 on the staging.
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also evidence that Moschion “cheated” him ( %- 586, 8 599) – as if the main offense were deception!86 Chrysis carries this stigma of sexual misconduct, literally and figuratively, throughout the play. To the men of the play the baby may point to the misconduct of its parents but it has a more positive meaning for the women. From the nurse’s careless chatter, we get a glimpse of how the other women feel. The nurse calls the baby a “great blessing” ( & 243), a phrase unconsciously echoed by Demeas with poignant irony (“A great blessing has left the house” 443–4).87 Far from hiding its parentage, she insists on its rights as Moschion’s son and reproves the slave girls for not taking care of it “at its father’s wedding” (253–4). The affection she lavishes on the baby (“She kissed it, carried it about” 244) springs from her affection for the father (“Not that long ago I was nursing little Moschion himself, just like this baby” 246–7), which seems to have blinded her to any wrongdoing on his part. Significantly, the nurse makes no mention of Chrysis (her “Where’s mommy?” 243 misleads Demeas, but we know who she means). As the sign of a successful marriage and the continuation of a family, the baby can have no connection to a hetaira. In the nurse’s nostalgic reminiscence, it becomes another Moschion. She reminds us of the good fortune a male heir represents, not least because it re-establishes a natural order of succession and obviates the need for adoption in the future. In her eyes, caring for the baby is an expression of dedication to the household. And so Chrysis’ nursing, described a few lines later, takes on a double meaning: for those who know the truth, it is a demonstration of loyalty; for those who do not – notably Demeas – it is an index of betrayal (and his opinion of the nurse may be guessed from his decision to give her away).88 The child thus becomes a polyvalent sign. Not only are there two possible fathers, but the usual signs of motherhood mislead: Chrysis nurses the baby and treats it with maternal affection (265–6).89 Characters struggle not only to decode this sign, but to encode their own message onto it so that the baby points to crimes that neither require punishment nor 86 87
88
89
Omitowoju 2002: 202. The nurse expresses conventional values (and garrulous reminiscences may be characteristic of the type, cf. Aesch. Ch. 749–62). Cf. fr. 817 K-A on the wretchedness of the house 2 '' . See also Post 1939: 205–7. The 3 he gives to Chrysis at 373 is probably, but not certainly, the nurse (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 583 ad 373, Bain 1983: 120 ad 373). Demeas may not be able to give her legally (she is freed 238, Lamagna 1998: 310 ad 373), but he can certainly throw her out of his house. See Lape 2004: 103–4 on Chrysis’ connection to the baby and Scafuro 2003 on the misleading signs. As Lape notes, this is a way of acknowledging and exploiting a hetaira’s maternal qualities without actually allowing her to reproduce.
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threaten good relations with a $%. We have seen how Chrysis agrees to represent the child as a minor act of disobedience – grounds at most for a lovers’ quarrel – in order to hide the more serious misconduct it would otherwise reveal. Moschion, terrified that the baby will cost him his father’s good opinion, argues against attaching any stigma to it at all, challenging conventional notions about legitimacy (“I don’t think one class ( ) differs from another” 140). Demeas, wanting to maintain good relations with his son, pins the responsibility on Chrysis: it is her baby. He also helps to deceive Nikeratos by pretending that the baby is his and expelling it, along with Chrysis, in order to hide Moschion’s misconduct. When Nikeratos finally learns the truth, Demeas hints that it might be a god’s child (602), trivializing the incident in order to keep the marriage on track: “There are ten thousand examples among us” (601); “He’ll marry her, don’t worry” (599, cf. 586).90 He even pressures Nikeratos to continue the lie about the baby’s origins, an attempt, perhaps, to assuage his resentment at being “cheated” by inviting him to cheat others. A dissimulation that protects the heir of two households was evidently forgivable. Chrysis is eventually pardoned and taken back into the house, apparently for reasons too obvious to state. Some modern readers have felt that a brusque “Chrysis, over here!” (569) is poor reward for all her troubles, but a commitment to maintenance is also implied. By 730–2 she is again the de facto mistress of the house, charged with overseeing the servants and the wedding preparations.91 And for the first time in the play Demeas acknowledges that her status entitles her to protection (De. “You’re assaulting a free woman.” Ni. “You’ve got no legal case,” $,, 578). In threatening a lawsuit on her behalf (the crucial phrase is “against a free woman”), Demeas acts as her kyrios, or at least (“patron” of a metic, in a legal sense).92 He never explicitly forgives the lie but this is not out of character for him (even Moschion has to extort a formal apology) and he does support the story while it serves his interest, eventually concocting an ever more outrageous fib about the baby’s birth. He apparently objects more to being the target than to the tactics used against him. 90 91
92
The joking comparison to Akrisios in 589–91, a mythical king and father of Dana¨e, may also be a touch of flattery of the humble Nikeratos (Gutzwiller 2000: 111). Pace Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 566 ad 228, Demeas expects them to take orders from her (the nurse does at 258–9) and she is the only member of Demeas’ household capable of running it in his absence. Before the Bodmer codex was discovered some critics wanted to reward her with marriage (discussed by Jacques 1971: x n. 2, Bain 1983: xviii, Lamagna 1998: 61, West 1991: 22–3). Malthake (Sik.), who may deserve as much as Chrysis, seems to have been disposed of equally casually. Demeas at least loves Chrysis (Ireland 1992: 49 ad 337).
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Chrysis’ contribution to the preservation and continuity of the household was probably felt to merit its protection; this seems to be one message of the play.93 Whether an Athenian audience would have considered her behavior “good” in an absolute sense is hard to say. Parmenon cites it as a “wrong” (“Someone . . . claimed this child was hers. Did Parmenon do any wrong?” 651), but he feels ill-used and is trying to shift the blame. Moschion calls the fib a “favor” ( %O 524) and Demeas does not challenge this defense (he only asks “Why did she do you this favor?” 526). Aristotle does count as a virtue in the Rhetoric, defining it as a service to one in need when not given in exchange for something. He also acknowledges that “needs” might include desires such as love.94 Strict moralists may have frowned on Chrysis’ behavior, but it is difficult to imagine a service to the love-struck that would have met with their approval. And the Samia consistently represents favors as a privilege and obligation of $% (kinship, friendship). Moschion claims to have done his father the , in return for his generosity, of being (modest, decent) and later asks Demeas to forgive Chrysis as a (468), while Demeas asks Nikeratos to move up the wedding date as a (183). Chrysis’ decision to pass the baby off as her own must also be evaluated within its social context. Like Glykera, she is part of a network of women who want the secret kept. She may tell the lie at Moschion’s instigation, but she does so with the knowledge and support of the women next door.95 Her eviction distresses them so much that they try to enlist Nikeratos’ support (he complains that his wife “pesters” him, 421, and mutters about the fuss: “There were tears, the women made a racket” 426). He takes it as a matter of course that they know each others’ secrets and does not need to ask why Demeas is upset about the baby. “I heard from the women,” he explains (410). Chrysis was warmly befriended by these women and her actions should be understood to reflect their wishes and values. The nurse who laments her carelessness (260–1), the slave girl who reproves the nurse, and Nikeratos’ wife and daughter also collude in the deception of the two old men. Nikeratos acknowledges their cooperation: despite fingering Chrysis 93
94 95
Cf. Patterson 1998: 199. Starting with Jacques 1968: 238, verdicts on Chrysis have generally been sympathetic. E.g., Stoessl 1973: 209, Henry 1988: 70, 73, West 1991: 22, and Lamagna 1998: 62. Scholars are only divided on whether she acts from pure altruism (Jacques 1971: xlii–xliii, Henry 1988: 63 and 71f., Dedoussi 1988: 41, Ireland 1992: 37–8 ad 56) or mixed motives (Brown 1990: 265–6 n. 73, Krieter-Spiro 1997: 120). Rhet. 1385a17–19. It was expected that a favor would be returned (Pearson 1962: 136). Even Moschion overcomes his fear to speak up twice in Chrysis’ defense (134–42, 453–73). Cf. West 1991: n. 18.
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as the ringleader, he never quite absolves his wife and daughter. One of Chrysis’ dramatic functions here is to deflect criticism – both Nikeratos’ and the audience’s – from the citizen women who defy their kyrios. She takes actions which the girl and her mother cannot (the former actually faints when her father walks in) and puts her professional outspokenness at their service, presenting Demeas with an unexpected and unwanted son and defying the enraged Nikeratos. To judge Chrysis is, in a sense, to judge the women of the play collectively. She may be the one holding the baby, but it is not really hers. The Samia offers a fantasy for older men: a woman with all the attractions of a hetaira but none of the dangers. Demeas wanted something impossible: a glamorous Samian party-girl as a long term partner. He brought Chrysis into his house and dressed her for the part but then faulted her both for playing the wife and for playing the hetaira. Her odd combination – a hetaira’s looks without the temperament to thrive in the profession – is the play’s solution to his dilemma. Chrysis is drawn so as to minimize the threat her type conventionally posed the citizen household. Stock vices such as deception, lasciviousness, and greed either prove illusory or are co-opted for its benefit.96 Menander exploits the scheming for which hetairai were famous but he also engages our sympathy for Chrysis by giving her reasonably altruistic motives. Her lies shield the legitimate heir as well as his reluctant parents and, despite appearances, she has neither slept with the son nor taken the father’s generosity for granted. She has, we are reassured, neither the desire nor the influence to better her own position. Far from capitulating to her every request, Demeas “forgets” his desire when paternal obligations demand it. Gradually she is stripped of her professional confidence and rehabilitated for the role in which the old man eventually accepts her. Menander could not make a lost daughter out of her but he could make a useful servant (the solution that will also work for Habrotonon, in the Epitrepontes). The tearful, frightened figure who exits in Act IV, with no illusions about her charms (even Nikeratos threatens to kill her . . .), is a sharp contrast to the brash professional of Act I. Beautiful, charming and unexpectedly loyal, she makes an attractive partner for an old man who has done his duty by his household. 96
Cf. Rosivach 1998: 142 “not unlike the ‘good’ slave, whose ‘goodness’ consists of putting his master’s interest before his own, women who are subservient to their men are consistently represented as ‘good’ women.” For more general arguments that “good” women uphold male values and social structures see, e.g., Murnaghan 1995 and Rabinowitz 1993. As Treu notes 1981: 214, Menander was interested in poetic justice; social justice was another matter. See further ch. 5 pp. 168–72.
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All three women examined in this chapter demonstrate virtues which serve the larger interests of their community, even though they alienate their lovers. Geoffrey Arnott has argued that Menander reflects Athenian popular morality, giving sympathetic characters conventional views and using them as a backdrop for the unconventional (“Menander deploys this panoply of popular values as one of the stabilizing, background features against which, in designed contrast, he illuminates some of his most striking and original effects”). Arnott puts family duty at the top of the list of popular values but cites only male characters, an oversight corrected by critics like Madeleine Henry, who point out the significant role hetairai play in preserving citizen families.97 Chrysis promotes the welfare of a household to which she does not legally belong. Glykera, Krateia, and even Philoumene resist assimilation to a soldier’s household out of loyalty to their natal family. In a world of international conflict, piracy, economic instability, and other hardships, New Comedy offered the comforting message that damages are temporary and losses may be restored by individual acts of loyalty and generosity. The paradox of the lovelorn soldier, driven to shed his violent habits and even, in the case of Thrasonides and Stratophanes, to help restore a family shattered by war, must have offered a particularly welcome fantasy. Conflicts of interest are always resolved, concubinage is only a temporary misfortune – except for an ex-hetaira like Chrysis, for whom it is a promotion – and the noble acts that would bring real-life ruin (where would Glykera have gone, after she left Moschion’s mother?) restore lost status and wealth. New Comedy routinely offers private solutions for public woes and these women play a crucial role in creating harmonious households and communities.98 I have argued that the women demonstrate qualities of character primarily through the choices they make. Chrysis illustrates how even hetairai may be placed in positions of moral choice and held accountable (Habrotonon offers another example, to be discussed in the next chapter). Menander’s 97
98
Arnott 1981: 217, Henry 1987: 144–6. This is a traditional female role (Zeitlin 1996: 74–7), going back to Homer’s Penelope. See also Foley 2001: 124. Whereas Lape 2004: 34–7, 149, 251–2 views Menander’s “empowered females” positively, Konstan (1993) p. 146 cautions against finding any overly empowering messages (“I am not disposed to celebrate women in New Comedy for their role in reconstituting the . . . oikos . . . not least because I see this oikos itself as the prime locus of the subordination of women in Greek society” 156 n. 7). I would only add that there is an emphasis on women’s willing cooperation: the choices they make in the interest of an oikos are represented as unconstrained, in some cases even self-interested. Lape 2004: 172, 180–3 makes a similar argument (“romantic reunion offers a solution to the ‘Hellenistic mercenary problem’”) but emphasizes the re-education of the soldier.
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use of significant choices in this way is a point of continuity with tragedy and a sharp divergence from Old Comedy, which was more interested in people as representatives of social, political, and economic groups than as morally responsible individuals. In my discussion I have deliberately avoided the Aristotelian term % (“purposive choice”) because I attribute Menander’s use of dramatic choice more to tragic models than to Peripatetic influence (it is by no means certain that Aristotle even recognized % in comedy).99 Menander’s plays provide ample evidence of exposure to Peripatetic ideas but they do not show strict adherence to the ethical theories underlying Aristotle’s explanation of tragic choice.100 One pertinent issue is women’s moral agency. Aristotle partly reconciles the indisputable fact of moral choice by women in tragedy with his belief that women lack this capacity (a woman’s deliberative capacity is “without validity,” #, Pol. 1261a14) by conceding that they may have a good ! within prescribed limits: 2 '( ) - 0 : '3, % K - 8- ( ,, '( A- $3 . (Poet. 1454a20–2) This rule [that an ! will be good if the % is good] is relative to each class. Even a woman may be good, and also a slave; though the woman may be said to be an inferior being, and the slave quite worthless. (Tr. Butcher)
According to Aristotle, the playwright ought to aim at appropriateness ( I 1454a22) in his depictions of women. For example, they should not be brave or clever. Many sympathetic women in Menander do conform to the feminine ideal Aristotle describes in the Rhetoric: “the virtue of females is beauty and stature of body; of mind, modesty and industriousness without slavishness” (1361a5–7). For example, Polemon remarks on Glykera’s “beauty and stature,” Daos describes Plangon as “ladylike and demure” (Her. 40), and there are many examples of women’s industriousness: Plangon working wool, Knemon’s daughter fetching water, the Samia women caring for the baby, Chrysis helping with the wedding. But these take place as a rule offstage and the circumstances that 99
100
Fortenbaugh 1981: 247, 250–1 argues that he may have; contra Tierney 1935/7: 249–54, Barigazzi 1965: 222. See also Goldberg 1980: 75–6, 136 n. 7 and Anderson 1970, who find examples of prohairesis in an Aristotelian sense in the Dyskolos. Most scholars accept the tradition recorded in Diog. Laert. 5.36 that Menander studied under Theophrastus (Tierney 1935/7: 242, Webster 1960: 217, Barigazzi 1965: 27–8, Massioni 1998: 17; contra, Wilamowitz 1932: 285 n. 1). Many have argued for the influence of Peripatetic ethics (including Tierney, Post 1938, Barigazzi, Gaiser 1967, Anderson 1970, Marcovich 1977, and Fortenbaugh 1981). Gutzwiller 2000: esp. 113–18, 123–6 and Munteanu 2002 see elements from Aristotle’s literary theories.
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make the women’s stories interesting also make traditional feminine virtues impracticable. Not only are Chrysis, Glykera, and Krateia only tenuously attached to the households in which they live (and consequently never far from Aristotle’s slavish industry), but they are held to different moral standards by different observers. Their lovers show less interest in traditional women’s skills or virtues, such as thrift, industry, or efficient household management, than in qualities that make them good companions. Other characters look for equally non-traditional qualities. Onesimos, as we will see in the next chapter, admires Habrotonon’s shrewdness (“a sharp one, the little woman” 557) and berates himself for not “looking ahead” as well as she does 561), while Pataikos praises Glykera for her Greek (not womanly) spirit of reconciliation. Aristotle’s requirements put the playwright in a bind: how could a woman be “appropriately” virtuous in a theatrical spectacle when a woman’s chief virtue was not making a spectacle of herself? “The greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men,” Pericles famously pronounced. As Michael Shaw notes, “By the very act of being in a drama, which always occurs outside the house, they are doing what women should not do.”101 Menander not only depicts circumstances which reward unconventional virtues but he also shows how expectations change as a woman’s social role changes.102 The real difficulty is not just that Menander fails to present women as Aristotle recommends or that conventionally virtuous women make dull heroines (plenty of tragic women do not conform either, but the prescriptive nature of the Poetics is not at issue here). The problem is that Aristotelian % is a philosophical, not a dramaturgical, concept. Aristotle is theorizing decision-making in drama in accordance with a system of ethics that prioritizes the mental disposition of the agent. For him the purpose of “ethical” speeches is to provide information about will and intent, fleshing out the ! of the agent in order to show the meaning of the actions.103 Given the fundamental importance of % to Aristotelian ethics, it is understandable that the philosopher should attach particular weight to choice in drama, particularly since he undervalues spectacle. Some characters in Menander do take intention into account in judging an action. Demeas, for example, reasons that Moschion’s offence was not voluntary (> ) or motivated by lust or hatred, and was therefore not an act 101 102 103
Shaw 1975: 256. Contra, Anderson 1970: 207. Of course, many tragic women (including Melanippe, criticized at Poet. 1454a29–31) do not conform to Aristotle’s recommendation (Foley 2001: 109). “Revealing a moral choice means, for Aristotle, declaring the moral character of an act in a situation where the act itself does not make this clear” (Jones 1962: 33). See also Halliwell 1986: 149–52.
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of injustice. The young man’s ' is crucial (“He would be in the same '”). Likewise Glykera hesitates to criticize her father’s decision to expose her without learning his reasons (Perik. 801). But other characters are quick to judge without knowing the disposition or mental state of the agent (or worse, they infer these from the actions) and judgments can change as circumstances change: Polemon’s violence may seem like hubris at one point but at another it is the “beginning of good fortune.” The dramatist can also separate moral character from action, as, for example, when Pan characterizes Knemon’s daughter by her mental disposition (“knowing no meanness at all” Dysk. 35–6), which he attributes to her upbringing (i.e., to Knemon’s actions, not her own) or when Agnoia speaks of Polemon as “being of a certain character by nature” (Perik. 165–6). Polemon’s fit of rage actually contradicts his nature. His intent is complicated by misperception (Glykera did not embrace a lover), and his will by the intervention of a deified abstraction (Agnoia admits she “drove” him to an uncharacteristic act of rage, 164). We might be inclined to dismiss Agnoia (“misapprehension”) as the personification of a mental process, but the playwright has taken care to give her a point of view and purpose (“so that the rest would begin to be revealed” 165–6) quite independent of Polemon’s. And this is not the only occasion on which Menander makes use of divine agency, a tragic device Aristotle sought to minimize. Sostratos’ divine-sent passion and his mother’s urge to sacrifice (Dysk.) come from Pan, and Chance brings confusion to the characters of the Aspis.104 Menander depicts a fantasy world where divinities intervene to right human wrongs, guiding human decision-making with an unseen hand. If we apply Aristotelian criteria such as will, intention, or moral disposition to these choices we sometimes end up judging the gods. The playwright and the philosopher of course have different ends in view. New Comedy is much less concerned with the nature of virtue and how to achieve it than with whether one’s neighbor, father, son or mistress is virtuous and how to recognize it. Aristotle himself notes this difference when he refers to comic poets as professional gossips, descendents of the iambographers (“those whose main occupation is with their neighbor’s failings – people like satirists and writers of comedy; these are really a kind of evil-speakers and tell-tales”).105 For him, comic % 104
105
Poet. 1454a39–b8. See Halliwell 1986: 146–8 on the connection between “the primacy of human agency and [the Poetics’] neglect of the religious element in Greek tragedy.” Pace Anderson 1970: 216, I see no reason to dismiss Pan’s agency as “the one feature that the audience does not take seriously.” We are reminded of his influence throughout the play (Photiades 1958, Ludwig 1969: 84–8). Rhet. 1384b9–11 (tr. Ross), Poet. 1449a.
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(“bad-mouthing”) is not a form of philosophical inquiry, even though it may promote virtue (but only through fear of exposure, not through better understanding). How the gossips come to know the failings they report and whether they are right or wrong is of little concern. Menander, however, is fascinated by errors of perception and judgment and he readily exploits the dramatic possibilities of hidden motivations, making misunderstanding itself the focus of interest. The difficulty of knowing another’s intentions is a recurrent problem in plays which demonstrate over and over that external signs mislead – a problem Aristotle recognized in real life but thought drama should avoid.106 In a sense, Menander’s comedies derive their humor from the very problem for which Aristotle proposed ! as a solution: knowledge of character does not always show what a friend or loved one is “choosing or avoiding” because people regularly misunderstand the motives and circumstances of the choice. Glykera makes perhaps the most explicit statement about this when she acknowledges that a choice (“I chose,” < 714) has put her character on trial because Pataikos has inferred from it what sort of person she is (“You assumed [L>] I was that sort of woman [8]” 719). Tellingly, instead of challenging the principle (she concedes that such an action would have shown her to be a fool) she merely criticizes his assumption about her motives, emphasizing that he has only suspicion (L 716). Menander also uses the un-Aristotelian device of spectacle to reiterate and amplify the message of a particular choice. The baby in Samia reminds us of Chrysis’ dedication to Demeas’ household; the suppliant branch in the Misoumenos may have served a similar function, reminding us of the reason for Krateia’s hatred; the tokens that are, symbolically, ever at Glykera’s side (744) in the Perikeiromen¯e represent the lost child’s connection to her natal family. I have concentrated on props mentioned in the text, but masks could also communicate information about character. Pollux lists a large number of highly specific masks, distinguishing, for example, between the “false hetaira” and numerous “real” hetaira masks, while the terracotta masks discovered on the island of Lipari confirm that there were wide variations in facial features. Because New Comedy dealt in types, masks alone could imply certain traits and exclude others. Costume would have provided further information. Glykera, who leaves her expensive wardrobe behind, would have looked quite different from Chrysis, who was happy to 106
Thus Halliwell 1986: 152 and n. 21 accounts for the recommendation at Poet. 1450b9–11: “if character is to play a part in tragedy . . . there must be no uncertainty or ambiguity about it; we must be able to identify it as a specific dimension of the action, embodied in clear evidence for the ethical dispositions of the agents.”
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give up her “plain linen.” If we can judge from Moschion’s lavish upbringing and Demeas’ references to her jewelry, Chrysis was well dressed (she certainly wears expensive-looking clothes in the Mytilene mosaic).107 The baby and the clothing would have presented an incongruous picture, a visual reminder that the sumptuously dressed ex-hetaira is not the baby’s mother. Given the heavy influence of tragedy, it is perhaps surprising that these women have so little in common with their most obvious tragic counterpart, the devoted concubine who “sets herself apart from the majority of tragic wives through the perfection with which she enacts the role of marital partner (from the male perspective).”108 It has been suggested that the concubine “anticipate[s] the important role of the courtesan or concubine with the heart of gold in New Comedy” but I have argued that the devoted daughters and sisters of tragedy are the real ancestors of lost-daughtersturned-concubines like Glykera, Krateia, and even Philoumene.109 Far from identifying with their soldier-lovers, like Tecmessa or Andromache, these young women refuse the soldiers’ most urgent requests with equal indifference to the distress they cause and to their own vulnerability. Even Chrysis considers protecting the baby more important than humoring Demeas. Menander uses the concubine, rather than the wife, to explore the tragic problem of the outsider who never entirely identifies with her marital family. At a symbolic level, it is vital that these lost daughters identify with their natal family exclusively. As its most vulnerable and most sheltered member, the daughter stands as a poignant symbol of the family line in jeopardy (note that Glykera and her brother are significantly “lost” when the household’s material wealth is lost). She is an emblematic victim who suffers in place of the male family members and she demonstrates qualities appropriate to her symbolic function. Dedication to the natal family is accordingly more than just a sympathetic trait; it is a promise and guarantee of the continuity of the oikos. By rejecting the informal marriage her lover offers until formally given, the lost daughter preserves her father’s right to dispose of her and retains her value as an instrument of exchange. The worst mistress makes the best wife. It was a tricky matter to make a character identify with the values of a higher class without giving her improper aspirations (of the sort, for example, that Demeas denounces in Chrysis). Menander’s solution was to 107
108
Henry 1988: 73 and n. 123 suggests her dress reflects the same “blending of roles” I have argued for (a hetaira’s diadem but clothing like the married woman’s in the Plokion mosaic). The blond/red hair would also suggest the hetaira (cf. Men. fr. 450K-A). 109 Foley 2001: 88. Patterson 1998: 198–200 makes a similar point. Foley 2001: 90.
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show that this identification was detrimental, bringing present suffering but no real hope of future reward. Hence the emphasis on the women’s failure to thrive in the humble positions they occupy at the start of the play. Their choices show that they have not capitulated; they have not quietly consented to become good concubines, hetairai or slaves. Their choices also illustrate how Menander adapted a dramatic element from tragedy. Tragedy had long dealt with the problems of representing character, and particularly with the question of female moral agency. As Helene Foley has shown, social and cultural expectations heavily influence women’s moral choices in tragedy. Menander’s comedies follow in this tradition, asking us to evaluate women’s choices within their social context, with different expectations for hetairai, mistresses, wives, and daughters. He guides our responses so that the same choices communicate a different meaning to us than to the characters on stage, who regularly misconstrue them. Information about a woman’s “true” status gives us the right expectations about her moral character and women invariably make choices which qualify them for the social station they occupy at the end of play, a station determined primarily by birth, to which personal qualities – by a reassuring comic fiction – always correlate.
chap t e r 5
The women of the Epitrepontes
The preceding chapters treated mistakes about status and mistakes about character separately because they rely on different background knowledge. Mistakes about status require an understanding of the significant divisions of Athenian society; mistakes about character require familiarity with New Comic stock types and contemporary attitudes towards their reallife counterparts. This division is somewhat artificial, however. Both are manifestations of New Comic agnoia and it is up to the playwright how far to turn mistakes about “who” into mistakes about “what” a character is. The Epitrepontes (“The Arbitrants”) shows how these different forms of misperception can operate together: how “who” can shade into “what” and how personal biases can reinforce errors based on misinformation. The men in this play make typical mistakes about the women, moving from partial or false information about their sexual activities to broad inferences about their motives, intentions, and character. There are actually two mistaken women in this play: a high-status wife who remains offstage for much of the action and a low-status “surrogate,” who acts out her story both literally and figuratively. These women illustrate the relationship between mistaken identity and social and cultural expectations, as well as the problems that arise when women identify with roles they are not entitled to play. The apparent mismatches will of course prove illusory, and Menander uses techniques familiar now from other plays to help the audience recognize mistakes as such. But he also draws us into the tangle of misperceptions, complicating the moral choices each woman makes and denying us absolute certainty, particularly about low-status figures, until the end of the play. It is by no means clear, even then, that an Athenian audience left the theater convinced, as some modern readers have been, that they had witnessed another Penelope and the original whore-with-a-heart-of-gold. The plot of the Epitrepontes is similar to Terence’s Hecyra. A young man discovers that his new wife has had a baby only five months into their 177
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marriage and tried to dispose of it secretly. Furious, he hires a harp player and spends the next few days drinking at a friend’s house. The unhappy wife, who was raped (as it happens, by the husband himself, although neither realizes it), is left to explain to her outraged father why she should not divorce a man who intends to squander her dowry on wine and harp players. This would not be difficult if she could bring herself to mention the baby, but she balks at telling the truth. Like the Misoumenos and Perikeiromen¯e, the Epitrepontes starts with an illusory marriage which one partner would like to think real. Even before the husband (Charisios) learned about the baby, the marriage was in the transitional period between the wedding and the birth of the first child, which put a union on a more permanent footing – creating “an intimate connection” ( , Lys. 1.6) and making it “stable” (firmae . . . nuptiae, Ter. Hec. 101).1 In fact, the wife (Pamphile) is still referred to as a “bride” (8$), i.e., not a “wife” ( 0). Charisios appears to be under no legal obligation to divorce Pamphile, but he would probably have to reveal her pregnancy, if he did, or else keep the secret permanently, if he did not.2 Neither course of action appeals to him, and a temporary move next door proves much easier than withdrawing from the relationship. Unable to bring himself to a decision, he procrastinates and dallies with the harp player Habrotonon. It may be that he hopes to drive Pamphile to leave on her own. This is what Pamphilus, who finds himself in a similar situation in the Hecyra, expects (“I hope she’ll leave when she figures out she can’t be with me” 155–6).3 But as Martina and Sandbach point out, there is no evidence for Charisios’ motives and, unlike Pamphilus, he chooses a course of action better calculated to cure a heartache than to end a marriage.4 It looks as though Menander deliberately withheld his motives to engage our curiosity. If the husband’s choice is difficult, however, his father-in-law’s ought to be simple: Charisios is clearly the sort of man a woman should divorce. It appears that the old man (Smikrines) is worried about retrieving the dowry and losing certain advantages of the marriage, and he faces opposition from his daughter.5 1
2
3 4 5
Cf. Demand 1994: 17. A child made it difficult, perhaps impossible, for a father to end a daughter’s marriage (Paoli 1952: 284, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 29, 350 ad 637, cf. Post 1939: 197). Ties to the natal oikos were never completely severed for women (Pomeroy 1995: 114–15). Ogden 1996: 141, contra Ireland 1994. On pressures to reject a wife who has borne a nothos see Lape 2004: 250 and n. 17. The husband had no legal obligation to cite grounds for divorce but it was probably expected by the family (Scafuro 1997): 323 and n. 100). Scafuro 1997: 323, Capps 1981: 31. Martina 1997 ii.2: 9–10, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 292. It is not clear what these advantages are. Martina’s text identifies Smikrines and Pamphile as “registered metics” at 691–2 but the crucial word 0 [ ] is badly preserved, and there is no evidence
Who is Pamphile’s kyrios?
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Charisios’ half-hearted rejection thus puts Pamphile in a kind of limbo: her father effectively lacks the authority to take her away, while her husband refuses to decide. Like the misfortunes which reduce lost daughters to soldiers’ mistresses, Pamphile’s problematic marriage gives her choices that would not normally have been hers make. It also leaves her exact status open to dispute. who is pamphile’s k y r i o s ? As in other plays, conflict over the heroine’s social position plays out as a debate over kyrieia. The Epitrepontes approximates more closely than any other Menandrian play to the Odyssean model in which an “abandoned” wife, under pressure to remarry, is allowed a degree of autonomy while the question of who her kyrios is remains unresolved.6 At issue is Pamphile’s marital status. Smikrines insists she ought to divorce her delinquent husband, implicitly assuming she is still subject to his kyrieia. She challenges this assumption: so long as she is “married,” her kyrios is Charisios. The argument in Act IV between father and daughter resembles the one between Demeas and Thrasonides (and, arguably, the ongoing dispute over Penelope’s status in the Odyssey): the two disagree about the nature of the dispute and spend much of their time arguing at cross purposes. Smikrines claims to be “saving” his daughter from a failed marriage but Pamphile treats his meddling as “despotic” intervention in what she chooses to regard as a test of loyalty. From the beginning, she makes it clear that her views on marriage and the father-daughter relationship differ from her father’s. She demands the right to be consulted and to make the final choice and even accuses him of overstepping his authority, since she no longer considers herself under his kyrieia: (Z.) <>, % <'(> 3 . [ & . ". %. 8 [ ; (h.) 3 ; < >.. :. [ % 3 '. (Z.) &. $%.>[]. ',.[ (Epitr. 705–8)7
6 7
of the normal legal implications (Charisois would also need to be a metic to marry Pamphile and therefore could not own his house). Arnott construes differently: “I swear that he (Charisios) has treated us like written-off (sc. powerful) metics” (2000c: 157); more recently, “like immigrants who’re here illegally” (for $-, 2004: 274 and 289 n. 13). See Lacey 1966: 61–4 on the ambiguity of Penelope’s marital status. Epitrepontes citations are from Martina 1997 except where noted.
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(Pa.) Dad, what is this? Are you always to be [my] kyrios? (Sm.) This is nonsense (lit. arguing over ‘a donkey’s shadow’). And [I have absolutely no] time [for it now]. (Pa.) [With] ambiguous cases [it’s] necessary to . . .
Much of this scene is unfortunately fragmentary but her strategy is fairly clear. The point of denying her father’s kyrieia is to recognize her husband’s; later in the speech she will insist that they are married for better or worse (820). Pamphile really has no better case than Polemon or Thrasonides, who also put convenience before legality in deciding questions of kyrieia.8 In a normal marriage, the husband would have assumed the responsibilities of a kyrios, but Charisios has made it clear he has no interest in a normal marriage. In real life, this would have left little question about who still held these rights and responsibilities. Pamphile is also being disingenuous: the issue is whether Smikrines holds authority right now, not whether he intends to hold it forever. Accordingly, since she cannot effectively challenge his legal rights, she introduces what was probably only an illusory “ambiguity” (unfortunately the text breaks off here) and turns the dispute into an argument over the proper use of a father’s authority:9 & K O- 3 : % , : % * & ' . (714–15)
But if you were to ‘save’ me without persuading me of it, you would no longer be judged a father but a tyrant.
Her sarcastic “save” treats the old man’s claim (the word is evidently his, since he repeats it at 720) as little more than a self-serving pretext for autocratic behavior. In order to put his intervention in the worst possible light, she invokes the Athenian archetype of abusive power: the tyrant (exactly how a daughter should not be ruled, according to Aristotle).10 This is a significant exaggeration, since Smikrines has pressured, but certainly not 8
9
On a father’s legal right to end his daughter’s marriage, even against her will, see Harrison 1998 i: 31, Martina 1997 ii.2: 424 ad 706 and 429–30 ad 714 (affirming the right), Verdenius 1974: 36, Zucker 1944: 204–6, and Rosivach 1984: 222–8 (denying). See Paoli 1946 and Rosivach 1984 on &$% in general. The daughter’s wishes were probably respected in practice (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 354–5 ad 714, Martina 430) and it was always easier to convince than to compel (Rosivach 222–8). Menekles’ wife, for example, was “just barely persuaded” to leave him (Isae. 2.9, cited Scafuro (1997) p. 314). On the possibility of mobilizing “competing kyrieiai” see Just (1989) p. 33, Foley 2001: 100 and Omitowoju 2002: 119 and n. 11. 10 Patterson 1998: 200. Cf. Scafuro 1997: 318, 322.
Who is Pamphile’s kyrios?
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ordered, her to leave (“for some time [I’ve] been advising,” . %[-] 709). “Tyrant” (' ) implies that he has failed to treat her as a free woman, presumably by taking away a decision which should rightfully be hers (and we may appreciate the irony of invoking such a democratic view of authority to persuade a man who rebuked two strangers in “leather cloaks” – the dress of the poor – for “talking about legal proceedings” (228–30). Voicing the universal complaint of angry children – that no real father would act this way – Pamphile tries to frame his decision about her marriage as a test of paternal affection. It is a good rhetorical strategy for someone in a weak legal position because it puts the old man in a dilemma: if he were to exercise his legal rights (and she is careful to keep this choice hypothetical) he would forfeit the name “father” – or at least the kind of relationship “father” represents for her. She is doing something more manipulative than “simply underlining the difference between a moral and a legal right, as against her father, who is suggesting that his undoubted legal right is also moral.”11 As Martina notes, the presumption that her father has her best interests at heart may be nothing more than a rhetorical gambit.12 Her strategy seems to work. The effort he puts into persuading her, both here and later (via Sophrone), shows that he recognizes the need to gain her consent. She owes her relative independence as much to an ineffectual father as to an indifferent husband. The fragmentary lines that follow preserve the remains of a rhetorical contest between these two eloquent and forceful speakers. Both have a stake in misrepresenting the marriage. In order to deprive her father of the pretext of “saving” her, Pamphile needs to represent her marriage as valid. To change his mind about divorce, she needs to convince him that she should remain Charisios’ wife whether he reforms or not. Accordingly, she insists that marriage is a lifetime bond (820, where “lifetime” is an editorial supplement), with some share of inevitable “pain” (824–5), and that a wife ought to remain loyal through thick and thin (817–19). Smikrines has an easier position: it requires little exaggeration to argue that this marriage is no marriage at all, and Charisios has given him ample grounds to predict a miserable future, should she stay. He refers to his daughter as a wife only when he wants to fault Charisios for not living in the marital home (“He doesn’t consider himself his wife’s housemate” 135). Otherwise she is his daughter – and nothing else – until news of the child forces him to concede that she is indeed Charisios’ “wedded wife” (1132). In the debate here, he recognizes only the filial relationship, even showing a spark 11
Harrison 1998 i: 31, cf. Martina 424 ad 706.
12
Martina 451 ad 804.
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The women of the Epitrepontes
of family solidarity when he takes the insult against his daughter as an insult against himself (“daughter (acc.) . . . | things we don’t deserve” 664–5). Smikrines is assuming that a bad marriage from his perspective is also a bad marriage from hers. Unlike his daughter, he assesses the marriage largely from an economic perspective. For example, he refers to Charisios’ receipt of the dowry in what may have been the technical language of marriage contracts.13 For him, divorce creates legal but not ethical difficulties, and he yields to his daughter’s demand to be “persuaded” in the confident assumption that she will respond to an appeal to self-interest, obviating the need to use paternal authority. He is accordingly dismayed to discover that she takes a different – and to him incomprehensible – point of view (“This requires reasoning and persuasion?”, he asks in disbelief, 716). His strategy is to frighten her with a nightmarish sketch of her future with Charisios. Unfortunately, about 23 lines are lost from the beginning of his speech. He evidently argued that the marriage would mean financial ruin, a point he begins at 720 (“That man still would[n’t] ever be saved, [nor] would you”) and finishes when the fragments resume (“recognize the destruction of your livelihood” 750 – a dire enough prediction to scare even a listener who does not share his parsimony). He sketches the trajectory of the two relationships: the marriage will deteriorate as the affair develops, with Habrotonon becoming a virtual second wife. “Count on two Thesmophoria, two Skira” (749–50), he warns, i.e., Charisios will have to pay for two women to attend the annual festivals. Citing this basic obligation of a male head of household to his female dependants effectively represents Habrotonon as a long term dependent, but Smikrines is stretching in pretending it will be a ruinous expense.14 Smikrines proves a surprisingly skilled speaker for an old curmudgeon. He uses techniques of character delineation (¯ethopoiia) effectively, devising personae to frighten his daughter into compliance. Like Demeas and Sostratos (Dis Ex.), he draws on stereotypes to imagine the worst. His daughter will turn into a lonely, abandoned wife, condemned to a life of lies and neglect: 13
14
, '( >9 and & occur in Egyptian marriage contracts, which often stipulate that the groom not “sleep elsewhere” (Williams 1961: 47–48, 51). Fourth-century Athenian contracts may have differed, although these documents tend to be conservative (Williams) and similar sentiments are attested in the classical period (Martina, 62–6). Husbands may have been legally required to cover Thesmophoria expenses (Kron 1992: 618 and n. 38, citing this passage and Isae. 3.80). It is not clear that hetairai could attend (see Dillon 2002: 112 and 327 n. 48).
Who is Pamphile’s kyrios?
183
$ ', Z. 5 >'% . .', , . [ " '( . 8[] F. '. . 0 , . . %' #'[] C ['(] % [ ]%.. . . '. . ['0.
(752–5)
He’ll say he has to walk over to Piraeus. When he gets there he’ll settle in. [But you] will be hurt by this. You’ll wait all night, without dinner. [Of course] he’ll be drinking with her . . .
With a large dowry at stake, Smikrines needs to put himself in his daughter’s position and imagine what she would want and how she would feel in the kind of marriage this incident is supposed to typify. Far from applying the double standard by which Athenians usually judged infidelity, he actually blames the husband. At this point, his rhetorical strategy is to profess sympathy for his daughter. He describes her supposed patience through physical and emotional distress (hunger, lack of sleep, “pain”). Hunger may be a stock motif: the philandering Demipho in the Mercator also mentions a resentful, fasting wife (esuriens) at home waiting for him (556).15 Smikrines wants to emphasize the contrast between Pamphile’s own hard lot and her husband’s life of pleasure. A very plausible restoration has him using the pronoun “you” emphatically, and perhaps a repeated particle to underscore the antithesis (“[you] . . . he,” [ " '(] . . . C ['(] 753–5). The cheating husband, however, is only one side of the coin. Smikrines is equally ready invoke the image of the jealous wife, dropping his sympathetic pose to sketch a truly hellish marriage. Pamphile’s life, he declares, will be a long losing battle with a whore: 3 . 1 8 [&] -O , 3 &%, [ ]1 2 0. . .4.%. . . . [f] [ 3] 8 . , Z$%, . % ,, % N' , 8 ', 8 5, [J]. (790–6)
then [you’ll provide (?)] this encouragement for her: always scowling, always criticizing, having the manners of a wife † . . . has equaled in [every point]. That’s where she’ll beat you. It’s a difficult thing, Pamphile, for a free woman to fight 15
Wilamowitz 1925: 94.
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The women of the Epitrepontes
with a whore. She cheats more, knows more, has no shame, flatters better, [stoops to] disgusting things.
The prediction that the wife will contribute to the whore’s success presumes that anger and jealousy (of Habrotonon, not Charisios now) will turn her into the sort of resentful shrew who vents her anger on her husband, like Krobyle in the Plokion or the many Plautine uxores dotatae who regularly punish marital infidelity.16 He still uses antithesis but shifts to the women: “she’ll live [well] . . . and you, badly (789). It is a commonplace in New Comedy that the matrona is the natural enemy of the meretrix (e.g., Plaut. Cist. 26–35, Ter. Hec. 756–7, 789), ironic here since we know how little Habrotonon has impressed Charisios (“The man hates me” 433). Smikrines’ last two lines actually undermine the opposition, implying that Pamphile will use the same tactics as the prostitute, just less effectively (the latter “cheats/knows more” and “flatters better”). All women, evidently, are liars and flatterers; their differences are merely in level of skill. This resentful, jilted wife is a far cry from the pathetic figure of solitary abandonment with which he began. It is a minor inconsistency but one of several cues to the subjective nature of his views about Pamphile’s position. Smikrines is quite frank that his aim is “persuasion” ( 8 716, a hapax legomenon) and his speech is full of textbook rhetorical devices. He enumerates his arguments (“I’m going to set out three points for you” 719), hints at reluctance to speak (“if I too must speak” 718) after opening with the topos “the crime itself cries out,” and depersonalizes Charisios by avoiding his name (“that man,” 6 720, 751).17 He also uses plentiful hyperbole (“he wouldn’t be saved” 720, “destruction of your livelihood” 750, “isn’t he ruined – by unanimous opinion?” 751) and techniques of ¯ethopoiia, such as the hypothetical visit to Piraeus (752–5). He follows many of the recommendations in the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum for constructing an argument from probability: he appeals both to Pamphile’s “personal knowledge” and to “those emotions that human beings naturally experience,” particularly fear of a perceived threat (“if for instance, it happens that certain persons despise or fear someone” Rhet. ad Alex. 1428a33–41, tr. Rackham). Speakers are encouraged to show, if possible, that the accused has often 16 17
Schuhmann 1977: 60–3. Indeed, Smikrines has just received a himself (Martina 1997 ii.2: 443 ad 791). Enumeration suggests “a rhetorically conscious composition” (Scafuro 1997: 314–15), consistent with handbook advice on '% (Rhet. ad Alex. 1445b34–7) and possibly reflecting the miser (through his tendency to reduce things to numbers, Martina 1997 ii.2 433 ad 719). On “the crime cries out” cf. Dem. 1.2, Ar. Wasps 921, Eur. Phoen. 623 (Martina 432 ad 717) or Eur. Her. 1295, Dem. 19.81, 119, and Aesch. 3.16 (Arnott 2004: 277).
Who is Pamphile’s kyrios?
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done the same thing before (Smikrines does this for Charisios at 680–3); if not, they should “infer what is normally the case from people resembling them” (Rhet. ad Alex. 1428b19–20, 25–6, which he does for Habrotonon here and, to a degree, for Pamphile). Eventually he admits that the horrors he describes have not actually happened but he manages to affirm their truth nonetheless: “Consider the Pyth[ia] to have [told] you these things with certainty, exactly as they will come to pass” (797–8).18 Apart from this one transparent attempt to forestall a charge of speculation, Smikrines fails to anticipate any of the arguments his daughter will make (he might, for instance, have included some of the standard refutations to the defense that an act was simply a mistake or bad luck, Rhet. ad Alex. 1427a5–18). Smikrines is hard to trust for several reasons. Imaginative scenarios which dramatize a character’s hopes or fears are common in Menander, but sympathetic characters usually confess to some measure of uncertainty. For example, Habrotonon is diffident about reconstructing events she only partially witnessed: “I don’t know” (486), “She had it, maybe, but didn’t show it to me – I won’t lie” (491–2). Smikrines’ overconfidence undermines his credibility, particularly with an audience who knows that his primary motivation is greed, and he fails to adopt the mild tone recommended to make an examination seem “plausible” ( , Rhet. ad Alex. 1445b17–20). He also takes a morally questionable position. Tolerance of a husband’s infidelity was a traditional wifely virtue. Andromache famously claims to have nursed her husband’s bastards, and marriage treatises like Plutarch’s Conjugalia Praecepta admonish “If [the husband] . . . commits an offense with a mistress (hetaira) or a maidservant, his wife ought not to be angry or annoyed, but reflect that it is his respect for her that makes her husband share his intemperance or violent behavior with another woman.”19 Tragedy shows wives who resent rivals – women like Medea, Clytemnestra, Hermione, and Deianeira – committing terrible crimes. Euripides’ Clytemnestra complains that Cassandra, not Iphigeneia, was what drove her to murder (El. 1030–4) and is reproved by the chorus, “A right-minded woman ought to forgive her husband everything” (1052–3). Deianeira manages to swallow her resentment, until Iole arrives: “Has not Heracles . . . married many other women? And not yet has one of them born a harsh word or reproach from me” (Tr. 459–62). When Menelaos, in Euripides’ Andromache, defends his daughter’s right to sexual attention from her husband (370–2), Peleus 18 19
This was a proverbial expression (Martina 1997 ii.2: 445–6 ad 797–8). Cf. Men. Heauton Tim. fr. 84 K-A. Eur. Andr. 222–5 (see Wehrli 1936: 116 and Barigazzi 1955: 323); Plut. Conj. Praec. 16, tr. Pomeroy. See Zucker 1944: 215–16.
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criticizes him roundly for condoning her lack of -$ 8 (“decent modesty,” 594–6, cf. 235) and Hermione herself eventually realizes she has alienated her husband (856–7). Even in New Comedy, wives are advised to show forbearance when their husbands cheat. The father in the Menaechmi responds to his daughter’s complaints by rebuking her impudentia: “How many times have I told you to humor your husband? Don’t watch what he does, where he goes and what his business is! . . . Do you want men to be slaves to you?” (787–9, 795–6). Myrrhine offers Cleostrata similar advice in the Casina, “Don’t oppose him, let him have an affair, let him do what he likes” (204–7). A slave in the Hecyra even compliments a young wife for “tolerating all of her husband’s mishaps and misdeeds and concealing his offenses” (165–6). Her father is even ready to condone his son-in-law’s infidelity, so long as it is “discreet and infrequent” (552). Far from pressuring his daughter to make her departure permanent, he apologizes for the “paternal feelings” (patrius animus) that keep him from ordering her back (243–5). Adultery by the husband was tolerated to a point. A contemporary marriage contract from Egypt (P. Eleph. 1, c. 311 bc) specifies that the groom must neither father a child by another woman nor bring her into the marital home. “He is regarded as culpable insofar as [the adultery] is a flagrant insult to the wife.”20 Even more informative is another contemporary document, a neo-Pythagorean letter attributed to Theano, a philosopher from Metapontum, advising a woman in Pamphile’s situation to show forbearance.21 The letter is useful here because it illustrates the advice Smikrines ought to be giving: “A wife’s virtue is not surveillance of her husband, but indulgence ( $),” which means “tolerating folly” in this case (#, p. 198 line 35 – p. 199 line 1 Thesleff ). Theano uses both practical and moral arguments. For example, she argues that the wife has a stronger hold on the man (“He associates with the hetaira for pleasure, but with the wife out of interest” ( 8$, p. 199 lines 1–2) and that confrontation often backfires (“Some failings (I0) . . . are stirred up more when they’re scrutinized; ignored, they tend to cease, just as fire, they say, is put out by stillness” (p. 199 lines 3–5). A man who is not “entirely wicked” quickly tires of a hetaira once he realize the damage this “self-inflicted harm” does to his wealth and reputation (p. 199 lines 11–15). Smikrines makes none of these arguments; indeed, he speaks as if Pamphile’s “defeat” is inevitable and the affair will continue indefinitely. There is some overlap 20 21
Vatin 1970: 203. The letter probably dates to the fourth century, although the authorship is disputed (Snyder 1989: 110). Biographical information on Theano comes from the Suda.
Who is Pamphile’s kyrios?
187
with his censure of the wife’s normal reaction. Being despondent “day and night,” retaliating against the hetaira, quarreling endlessly and even plotting against the husband are all futile: “In punishing him you will appear to punish yourself ” (p. 200 2–3, cf. Epitr. 789); “She’ll be on her guard: a woman who doesn’t blush is a fighter” (p. 200 lines 7–8, cf. Epitr. 793–4); and “Fighting and complaining doesn’t stop the screwing around, it just worsens the quarrel by increments” (p. 200 lines 9–10, cf. Epitr. 791–3). There is no overlap, however, in the moral arguments. Theano is concerned about the hazards of jealousy (“Tragedy teaches the control of jealousy,” she explains, citing the example of Medea, p. 200 lines 11–12; “Don’t be envious of her; envying the virtuous is what’s right,” p. 199 lines 21–2). She also warns against following the husband’s example. His “sickness” may encourage his wife to be “sick with vexation,” his “misconduct with respect to propriety ( = )” may encourage her “misconduct with respect to decency” ( ), and his “harming his livelihood” may encourage her to “harm her interests” (p. 199 line 32 – p. 200 line 1). Theano has fundamentally different goals than Smikrines. She is concerned about the moral improvement of both partners and the restoration of a happy marriage. Part of her strategy is to show that the one will follow from the other. “You think that your husband’s love is not for good character; but this is the reward of companionship . . . He will cherish you much more eagerly having admitted his mistreatment of you” (p. 199 lines 7–8 and 27–8). Paradoxically, the affair will make the relationship stronger: “Just as bodily suffering makes respite sweeter, so disagreements between people who are close ($%) bring more affectionate reconciliations” (p. 199 lines 29–31, cf. Ter. And. 555). The moral standard repeatedly held up is “a wife’s virtue”; the addressee’s sole obligation is to perform this role as well as possible, in particular by showing “orderly conduct” (4%) towards her husband. Smikrines is advocating the very opposite of conventional ethics. He is using a traditional image of virtue – the meekly forbearing wife – to frighten his daughter and he is attempting to excite her jealousy. Like Euripides’ Menelaos, he validates feelings he ought to be trying to check, and he does not even have the excuse of paternal affection. Moreover, he says nothing, at least in what remains of his speech, of filial love or duty. Demeas bases his appeal to Moschion on their close, personal relationship (Sam. 694–712), stressing the claims of a father (“I’m your father” 698, “I raised you” 699, “You should bear with things I do like a son” 701–2) but Smikrines shows little interest in developing or maintaining a close relationship with his daughter. He makes comparatively impersonal arguments, speaking less as a concerned father than as an older, more experienced friend, like Scapha
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The women of the Epitrepontes
in the Mostellaria. His arguments are similar to those used by Gymnasium’s mother (and bawd . . .) in the Cistellaria or Bacchis in the Heauton: “He’s going to leave you for another woman” (cf. Mos. 196, Heauton 390–1); “He can’t support you” (cf. Mos. 235–6, As. 524–5): “Look after yourself first” ( 752, cf. Cist. 96–7); and “Wives and prostitutes are natural enemies” (cf. Cist. 33–6). Smikrines is uninterested in such socially approved functions of marriage as producing legitimate children, uniting households, providing for women, and stabilizing young men. Instead, he regards the exchange of women in strictly economic terms. Marriage is a kind of reverse prostitution where the husband is paid to sleep with the wife: “four talents . . . and he sleeps elsewhere!” he complains (134–6). Even comic bawds acknowledge that a matrona ought to “devote herself to a single man” (Mos. 190, cf. Cist. 78–9). Smikrines seems ready to stoop to any argument, even a pernicious one, to secure his property. Menander has minimized the emotional attachment between father and daughter to allow Pamphile to identify more completely with the role of wife. Emphasizing the unprincipled miser over the loving father helps to limit our sympathy for Smikrines (unlike Thrasonides and Demeas in the Misoumenos, he never formally reconciles with his son-in-law and is excluded from the reunion of husband and wife). It also helps to excuse Pamphile’s defiance of a man who is arguably her rightful kyrios. In insisting that she has one husband and does not need or want another, Pamphile gives the proper answer. Her views on a wife’s duty are actually similar to those of Antiphila in the Heauton, who speaks of “taking pains to put his convenience ahead of my own” (396–7). Pamphile is like Plutarch’s “good and loving” hetaira – the woman whose loyalty to a single lover is rewarded when a legitimate father is eventually found for her, enabling her to marry. In other words, she is like the lost daughters who face a choice between wealth and fidelity (examples from the Roman Menander plays include Antiphila, Selenium in the Cistellaria, and Glycerium in the Andria). With no natal family to claim their loyalty, these women all cling to dubious promises of marriage in preference to a life of prostitution. Their “goodness,” like Pamphile’s, lies in rejecting more practical counsel. charisios’ perspective While Smikrines and Pamphile debate her marital status and how she ought to act, Charisios cares much more about how she has acted. His false conclusions are partly the result of incomplete information (no one knows the baby’s real parents) and partly the result of bias. He proves as subjective
Charisios’ perspective
189
a judge as any other lovestruck Menandrian youth, at first blaming his estranged wife for faults he would like to reject in himself and later praising her for virtues he would like to claim. Menander uses a familiar technique to set up this misunderstanding: Charisios learns an incriminating partial truth about the woman he loves (cf. Samia, Perikeiromen¯e, Misoumenos) and gives her no chance to explain it. He seems to have gotten his information from his cynical slave Onesimos. We do not know what Onesimos said exactly because he delivered his report before the action starts and any references to it in the prologue or first act are unfortunately lost. Since he could not know the circumstances of conception, he presumably dwelt on her failure to reveal her pregnancy. It is not hard to guess the tone of his “disclosures” (- 423) and the picture of Pamphile he painted. Like Sosias (Perik.) and Getas (Mis.), Onesimos expects the worst, sees the worst, and attributes the worst motives to everyone around him. For example, he accuses Habrotonon of conniving for freedom (discussed below), writes Smikrines off as a trouble-maker (“Oh, it’s that nuisance Smikrines, here for his daughter and her dowry” 1078–80), and wonders when his master’s next violent outburst will occur (425–7, 901–6, 932–4). His later suspicions of Habrotonon hint at what he saw in Pamphile: a conniving woman with a guilty secret, determined to take advantage of Charisios. Although we do not see Charisios’ initial reaction, we learn something about it from Onesimos: “H $ 3 [ C o" & .” 0 ': ' [ : , $ 3[ ' &$% > . (423–7) . . . because he says pretty often “Zeus damn to hell the lowlife who told me this.” Just so long as he doesn’t reconcile with his wife and decide to obliterate me, the insider who told him this.
Like Polemon and Thrasonides, Charisios is initially reluctant to view his hapless partner through the eyes of his whistle-blowing slave. He has not been a suspicious husband. In fact, he clearly resents being told a secret that spoils his marriage. Not only does he blame “the man who told [him]” for the bad news but he may even suspect complicity, if ' (lit. “the one in the know,” translated “insider” above) reflects what Charisios supposedly thinks, rather than what Onesimos is willing to confess (it is not clear who is the focalizer at this point). The slave has born the burden of incriminating his mistress and coping with his master’s angry
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The women of the Epitrepontes
frustration. We know that Charisios has not divorced his wife and we soon learn that he has not started an affair with Habrotonon either. Onesimos shows us a wavering Charisios, poised to reconcile by forgiving Pamphile and punishing her “slanderer” (903, the slave’s word but clearly the master’s point of view) but fluctuating between love and anger. His ambivalence is typical of the mistaken lover. Demeas and Sostratos also hesitated as they tried to exculpate the people who matter most to them by shifting blame elsewhere. Charisios acts with a comic youth’s usual indecision, procrastinating in the hope the situation will resolve itself and taking his anger out on Onesimos in the meantime. We learn the full details of Charisios’ misapprehension late in the process and we see his error largely through other characters, since the conflict between husband and wife is played out through surrogates for much of the play. The prologue must have explained some of his strange behavior but the young man himself does not actually appear until Act IV, when he describes a judgment he has come to regret.22 Onesimos reports the first part of the speech, describing his master as a man distraught (“He looks around with blood-shot rage” 900), “shrieking,” and punctuating his utterances with silences and gestures of grief. At this point, we actually understand the situation better than Onesimos, who is puzzled by Charisios’ laments. In this speech, quoted here without Onesimos’ narrative commentary, the repentant husband claims to have rejected his wife on principle (he seems uninterested in the material or social advantages of the union), but with some ambivalence: + . . . - [ . . . . . . [ >9 , C V8 . . . 9 I0 . . . . . . 3 2 4 . '% : 2 ' 2'- ( &. 8 = %, >> &0 . (888, 890–1, 894–9) O sweetheart, of all speeches what a speech! . . . What a wife I’ve got, wretched me, and been so unlucky! . . . I’m the guilty one . . . after doing the same kind of thing, becoming the father of a bastard child myself, I didn’t feel and didn’t offer 22
Charisios probably makes his first appearance at 908; Pamphile herself does not appear until 705 (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 363 ad 908, Martina 1997 ii.2: 497 ad 908).
Charisios’ perspective
191
any forgiveness even though she had the same misfortune, heartless savage that I am.
Charisios is quite explicit about the degree to which his situation has affected his perception and judgment. There has been no change in the facts of Pamphile’s case but he has lost status himself, now that he has fathered an illegitimate child, as he admits (and by a hetaira, as everyone – including Smikrines – now knows). His faux pas is arguably even worse than his wife’s, since he intends to raise his own baby while she had quietly exposed hers. Now that the tables are turned and Pamphile has a chance to reject him for the “same kind of thing,” he realizes that much of his behavior was a public posture for the sake of reputation. With this change in his emotional disposition comes a corresponding change in his view of the relationship. For the first time, he calls Pamphile his “wife” ( ,) and acknowledges that he has damaged her standing. When he finally comes on stage, he represents his “mistreatment” – as it now appears – in terms of honor and reputation: &, ' 4 >- A , &, &% >%- – e - ' – 3 2'4 #- i. ‘+ ', $ 5 ,, &8 &8 $, '( '%4- A . 0 0 . V%-, " '( 8 &O ' 0 J [&] : 9 & - &0.
(908–18)
I, a man without fault, with an eye on my reputation, worried about what is noble and what is base, untainted, my life beyond reproach – the god has treated me well and exactly as I deserve – that’s where I showed I was human. “You poor wretch, you blow hot air and talk big, but you can’t handle a woman’s innocent accident. I’ll show that you tripped in a similar way yourself. And she’ll treat you gently while you humiliate her. And at the same time, you’ll be exposed as a man of misfortune, and a stupid and senseless one, too.”
Charisios’ initial reaction was not unreasonable. The marriage contract preserved on P. Eleph. 1 specifies “being caught conniving anything ( 3 ) to the dishonor of the husband” as grounds for a wife to be divorced, and what a husband might perceive to bring dishonor
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The women of the Epitrepontes
was probably broader than just adultery.23 Their estrangement was never a strictly private matter, nor was it intended to be. Tellingly, concern for reputation comes to his mind first and standards of right and wrong second, and even here he uses language that emphasizes appearance: (“fair, lovely”) and (“shameful, base”). A wife with a spotless past was part of his self-image, and he demanded only that she contribute to his social standing. He judged her from the perspective of an outsider, in much the same way that Gorgias judges the encounter between his stepsister and Sostratos (“An outsider doesn’t know [who]’s responsible, only what happened” Dysk. 245–6). Charisios hardly knew his wife as an individual. Vanity distorted his judgment and, he was, like the typical youth Aristotle describes in the Rhetoric (1389a10–11), quick to defend his wounded honor. But he has lost more than honor. Like Moschion (Perik.), Thrasonides (Mis.), and to a lesser extent, Polemon (Perik.), Charisios cherished an image of himself that blinded him to his wife’s thoughts and feelings, and this monologue offers a glimpse of his earlier delusions. He harbored a sense of moral superiority, a belief that he was “without fault” and “beyond reproach,” living, as one scholar notes, “in a fantasy of his own moral perfection.”24 After his own failure, the standard to which he held his wife now seems hypocritical and his moral talk seems like the empty posturing of an “arrogant” blowhard (LG , 922). Of course, he knew that he was responsible for a rape when he rejected her. As Lape suggests, “we might say that Kharisios had rejected Pamphile because he was projecting onto her the behavior he was unable to recognize in himself.”25 Charisios has undergone a kind of Aristotelian peripeteia (“reversal of fortune”) which has brought about a change in his ethical thinking.26 His new-found forgiveness arises from the perception that his situation is analogous to Pamphile’s (“doing the same kind of thing,” “the father of a bastard child myself,” “tripped in a similar way,” “she had the same misfortune”). He can draw a rather improbable analogy between committing rape and being raped because he takes issue with the child rather than the sexual act.27 Not forgiving Pamphile under these circumstances now seems “barbarous and pitiless.” Charisios’ position is consistent with Greek popular morality. Aristotle linked the capacity to feel pity with fear of misfortune: “Pity may be defined as a feeling of pain caused by the sight of some evil, destructive 23 26 27
24 Lape 2004: 250. 25 Ibid. Vatin 1970: 200–1. Goldberg 1980: 69–70, Martina 1997 ii.2: 500 ad 908–32. Capps 1981: 112 ad 695, Ruiz 1981: 141, and Ireland 1992: 77 ad 883 interpret the change in self-image as a sign of personal growth. Konstan 1995: 146–7. See also Blanchard 1983: 334–5, Omitowoju 2002: 177–82, and Lape 2004: 249–50 on Charisios’ paradoxical equation.
Charisios’ perspective
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or painful, which befalls one who does not deserve it, and which we might expect to befall ourselves or some friend of ours” (Rhet. 1385b13–14, tr. Ross). Extreme good fortune makes pity impossible (“It is therefore not felt . . . by those who imagine themselves immensely fortunate” 1385b21), even if this good fortune is illusory. For Aristotle, pity is also the recognition of an evil befalling one who does not deserve it, and he counts physical assaults (% --) among these evils (1385b14, 1386a8). Like much of the Rhetoric, these positions seem to reflect conventional wisdom. The Rhetorica ad Alexandrum advises that “All men pity those whom they conceive to be closely related to them, or think not to deserve misfortune” (1439b27–8), while another Menandrian character describes a man as “the only person to learn pity from good fortune” (Hen. fr. 157). Charisios parts company with Aristotle, however, when he argues that a shared misfortune ought to move him to pity his wife (Aristotle, unlike the author of the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, denied the possibility of pitying close kin or feeling pity while experiencing misfortune oneself, Rhet. 1386a17–20 and 1385b19–21). And this is not the only place where Menander recognizes the possibility of reciprocal pity between parties who are both in a pitiable state. Getas in the Misoumenos remarks, “It’s right to pity the person who offers pity in return” (316–17). If any one counts among the “completely ruined” (< &- ) who do not pity others according to Aristotle (1386b19), it is surely the suicidal Thrasonides. Yet Getas credits him here with an act of reciprocal pity. This was not a unique position. As Turner points out, Thucydides had already given the same sentiment to Cleon (3. 40.3).28 Some scholars have identified Aristotelian terminology and ethical distinctions here in the Epitrepontes, but they may be looking for sharper differences between Aristotle and popular ethics than these speeches really support. That a misdeed was unintentional is frequently offered as a defense in the orators. Pleading error or misfortune was a standard criminal defense (e.g., Rhet. ad Alex. 1427a28–30, 1429a15–16, 1444a8–10). Charisios’ talk of “misfortune” (& ,) also deliberately echoes language Pamphile had used in arguing with her father. She referred to Fortune (j8 807), to a maxim about misfortune (& 813), and to good fortune in marriage ( 0 818). It is not clear that she spoke of “misfortune” in order to distinguish Aristotelian degrees of responsibility. Her speech seems rather to have prompted her husband to ask whether she herself deserved or had done anything to cause her own misfortune. Now that he wants forgiveness himself, he starts to take her motivation into account. For 28
Turner 1970: 153 (in the discussion following Wehrli).
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the first time, he considers her intent, judging the misfortune “innocent” (&8 , lit. unwilling), partly because it befell a woman ( highlights the victim’s helplessness), and partly because the same “misfortune” happened to him. Naturally, he has to minimize the differences between their “misfortunes” in order to apply the same standard to himself: “without fault” (&) is as close as he comes to admitting that his act may fall further along the scale of misdeeds than hers. There is of course no reason to assume an ancient audience would share or an Athenian court uphold his point of view. The point of the monologue is not to prove his innocence but to convince us of his remorse. What has he learned here? By his own confession, not to confuse character, “what kind of woman” his wife is ([ . . . ,), with reputation. Just as Habrotonon exposed the fallacy of his own “spotless” reputation, so Pamphile shows him the hypocrisy of his moral posturing.29 The exaggerated self-reproaches that follow his uncomfortable discoveries (“guilty,” “heartless savage”) reveal the distortions that still color his perception. >. > covered a host of faults for Greeks and often needed to be qualified, as here (“a pitiless barbarian,” with epexegetical ), where it serves to intensify the other criticisms. The switch to self-address at 919 (“as you thought”) suggests internal conflict – the “I” admonishing the “you,” as he looks back in embarrassment on his “arrogant” past self. Sostratos and Demeas also shifted into the second person in moments of ambivalence, as they struggled to choose a course of action. Charisios even projects his outrage onto an imaginary divine prosecutor, attaching a god’s authority to the charges and hinting that divine assistance helped him overcome his own folly (“I’ll show . . . and you’ll be exposed”). If it seems strange for a man who has raped one woman and abandoned another to blame his “stupidity” and call himself “ill-starred” and “unfortunate” ( '%-, & 0), it is worth remembering that Greek sexual ethics attached considerable importance to status. Charisios thought he had slept with a hetaira and rejected a wife who lied about an out-of-wedlock child; by Greek standards there was nothing particularly wrong with either action. What distresses him is the realization that his pride rests on a fundamental misconception of his own past. Like Oedipus, he rushed to condemn another, in his ignorance, for a fault that really lay in himself. In terms of character development, this speech prepares Charisios for an eventual reconciliation with Pamphile on the basis of more than just shared misfortune or the convenient discovery that their nothoi are one and 29
Goldberg 1980: 70.
Charisios’ perspective
195
the same. The peripeteia that puts him at Pamphile’s mercy also teaches him the value of pity and exposes the misconceptions he had held about his wife and himself. When he contrasts his own public “humiliation” (&%) of her with her “gentle treatment” of him, he starts to place a new value on loyalty and forgiveness. By these standards, Pamphile now proves exemplary, indeed his own moral superior (a possibility Theano also recognized: “in this (sc. nobility, %) it is possible for a wife to far exceed ( ) the authority of a husband,” p. 199 lines 24–5). As he struggles to compensate for his earlier harshness, he makes Pamphile an example of the very qualities he lacks. The portrait that emerges is a study in remorse. [A]. N X " ' [] , - T 3 >% [ ] ', &8 : $ , [ >]>. . " ' LG $ ' . . . (four and a half very fragmentary lines are omitted) . . . C '( : [ ]. . . 1 0 . % ' ; [ ] '. .. ..0' ‘ ", h%, [:] . &. .%. Y 0. []%. . . >. O Z$%;
(919–31)30
Then she said things [to] her father [similar] to what you used to think: that she was entering a life-time partnership . . . [and] she shouldn’t run away from the accident that [had] happened. But you, like some incredibly arrogant . . . Her father will really give her a [hard time]. Why do I care about her father? I [will tell] him straight out: “[Don’t] you give me a hassle, Smikrines. My wife is not leaving me! Why are you harassing and bullying Pamphile?
There are echoes of her language in this and his earlier speech: “misfortune” (&8 914, &. . 813), “stumble” (%-, 915, 821), “shouldn’t run away from the accident (921–2, 813–14), “entering a life-time partnership” (920, 820).31 He also imitates her forbearance and professes the same view of marriage. Despite the imperfect tense (“what you used to think”), the phrasing and thought are clearly hers and probably new to Charisios. Now that she represents qualities he would like to claim himself, he calls her his wife and casts himself as her protector. He essentially behaves as Theano 30 31
Text of Arnott, with the exception of his [$ ] in 921 (line 919 already has a verb of speaking and there are too many possibilities to be confident about supplementing another). Ireland 1992: 77 ad 883, Arnott 2004: 279. >O, too, is in the spirit of Pamphile’s accusation at 714–15 (Martina 1997 ii.2: 513 ad 931).
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The women of the Epitrepontes
predicted: “educated () by you, he will feel rather ashamed, will rather quickly want to reconcile, and will love you more passionately for acknowledging the injustice done to you, noticing your attention towards his property and making trial of your affection towards him” (p. 199 lines 26–9). In Charisios, at least, the play validates this sort of advice. Charisios’ fantasizing is typical of the lover. The imaginary confrontation in which he plays the hero never takes place (in fact, it is Onesimos who finally stands up to Smikrines) but it does allow him to blame someone else for his wife’s misery and to find common ground with her as they bond – hypothetically – over their opposition to Smikrines. “My wife is not leaving me” echoes Pamphile’s sentiments and perhaps her exact words (Koenen and Gagos supplement “I’m not leaving him” at 816).32 She is still vital to his self-image, but it is a new self-image. As discussed in the previous chapter, there are tragic precedents for scripting a young woman into embodying masculine ideals, but Charisios’ attempt to idealize the woman he had once vilified is problematic, to say the least. Unlike the husband in the Hecyra, Charisios forgives his wife before he learns that the baby is his. As far as he knows, his moral exemplar has still given birth to an illegitimate child and chosen a course of action which keeps her secret out of the public eye.33 It would have been an extremely liberal Greek who shared his enthusiasm; fathering a child on a hetaira was not the same for a man as bearing an illegitimate one was for a woman. Charisios is in love anew and seeing what he wants to see. Again, the dramatic purpose of this speech is not to convince an audience of her sterling character (Pamphile has already had a chance to speak for herself ) but to show that Charisios believes in it himself. His transparent attempts to appropriate the qualities he now sees in her is evidence both of the “like-mindedness” (C ) that lay at the heart of a happy marriage and the sincerity of his new, happier misapprehension.34 another mistaken whore? If the freeborn daughter of a respectable family has to answer for her decisions, the hetaira faces even greater scrutiny. When we meet the hetaira, we first learn what the local gossips know: her name, specialty, and current client (“The young master . . . the one who has Habrotonon the harp 32 33 34
Ireland 1992: 78 ad 930. On &% see also Verdenius 1974: 39 ad 610. This may be a stock situation: another husband stands by a maligned wife in Men. fr. 433 K-A. Barigazzi 1955: 318–19. On the radical implications of Charisios’ position see Omitowoju 2002: 214 and Lape 2004: 250–1. Cf. Od. 6.183 and Men. fr. 803.
Another mistaken whore?
197
player now, didn’t he marry recently?” fr. 1 Martina).35 She has a typical comic hetaira’s name and a common, although relatively prestigious (and expensive) musical specialty. “Having her” accordingly confers a certain status. But things are not quite as they seem. When Habrotonon appears in Act III, she complains about being “pure” enough for Athena’s procession (438–9). Like Pamphile, Habrotonon also finds herself holding something of an empty title. Charisios, we learn, will have nothing to do with her. The rejected wife and mistress thus share a predicament – the one not quite a wife, the other not quite a mistress – because of Charisios’ ambivalence. The chatty laisser-faire hetaira will in fact perform a comic version of the demure wife’s melodrama, re-enacting her dilemma and even appropriating her story. They are both trying to escape authorities who do not deserve their allegiance (a greedy pimp, a greedy father); both eventually help the young hero to self-knowledge by shattering his illusions about himself; and both are cast as the mother of an illegitimate child – the same child, in fact. It is no surprise, then, that Habrotonon and Pamphile have a common adversary in Smikrines, who readily assumes that the hetaira will be freed and set up on her own in the Piraeus (the complaint about “two houses” which Pamphile addresses at 822 is presumably his).36 His predictions about her future with Charisios reflect his own preoccupation with money. Initially he regards her as little more than an expensive catering item, like the costly wine Charisios insists on drinking (“twelve drachmas a day to a pimp . . . that’s enough to feed a man for a month – and six days more” 136–40). She is another drain on his daughter’s dowry and symptom of Charisios’ self-indulgence but not a culpable party in her own right. Smikrines realizes that the money is going to a pimp (136). His concerns about his son-inlaw’s current spending are not entirely unreasonable. There is no reason to suspect exaggeration in the twelve drachmas per day he mentions here. A penny-pincher like Smikrines is not the sort to get an expense wrong and this fee compares with the ten drachmas Demeas mentions at Samia 392 (an unlikely context for a taunt about exorbitant fees: he is, after all, telling Chrysis she is going to die young from heavy drinking).37 As a very young psaltria (harp player), Habrotonon ranks high enough in the professional 35 36 37
The article (<:> s> ) indicates she is known to the speaker (Wilamowitz 1925: 48, Verdenius 1974: 17 ad fr. 1, Martina 1997 ii.2: 17 fr. 1), suggesting a certain local fame. Martina 1997 ii.2: 437 ad 752, Arnott 1979: 478 n. 2. The assumption she will attend the Thesmophoria also implies that she will be freed (Goff 2004: 134–5 and n. 168). Although fees varied according to the service, the woman’s skills, age and status, market demand, and subjective factors like infatuation or celebrity, they ranged from a low of one obol to an unlikely high of 10,000 (supposedly for Lais, Aul. Gell. N.A. 1.8.5–6). A law capping symposium
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The women of the Epitrepontes
scale to fetch a good wage, and Charisios is doing something unusual in paying symposium rates indefinitely. We do not know what impression Habrotonon made on the old man in their only face to face meeting in the opening scene. She evidently convinced him that she was going to be around for more than a day or two. He certainly takes the baby as a sign that she has Charisios in her clutches and he should therefore start worrying about more than the wine bills. Like Demeas, Smikrines assumes the hetaira is using the baby to angle for permanent support, which would indeed be her most rational course of action. His suspicions derive from assumptions about hetairai; he takes little interest in Habrotonon personally. In fact, he does not even know her name (he refers to her only as “the harp player” at 589 and 600 and “the pretty woman,” below) and he goes to remarkable lengths not to individualize her, even as he complains about Charisios’ excessive attachment: 2.[] . [1] ',, N ) []:. ',. , [2]. . [] ' =[ :] ', 2 [. []. . . . .. [%][ (681–3) he was drinking with what’s-her-name, had what’s-her-name last evening, planned to have what’s-her-name tomorrow. He has made a lot of women [. . .] $ %- >% 1 1 a [ ] (694–6) > .
. . . and after being utterly corrupted in a brothel, he will live his life with the pretty woman he’s also [bringing into the house]
As Arnott notes, “Smikrines expresses his disgust over the alleged object of Charisios’ infatuation by refusing to acknowledge her name or status.”38 His language is similar to Demeas’ (cf. “kick out the pretty (0) Samian,” Sam. 353). Smikrines too casts beauty in the hetaira’s teeth and places her at the bottom of her profession: , (from 3, “pimp”), an extremely blunt way to refer to a brothel, is consistent with his earlier grousing about a (“whore,” Epitr. 646). But he has other concerns
38
musicians’ fees at two drachmas (Ath. Pol. 50) may no longer have been in force (Post 1940: 448 n. 67, Davidson 1997: 198). Five or ten drachmas are typical prices in Lucian (Dial. Mer. 8.2–3, 11.1). Loomis 1998: 176 sees comic exaggeration in Habrotonon’s 12 drachmas (which yields a yearly 43 minas, “disproportionately high in relation to . . . the prices of slave-prostitutes”). But a party musician did not work every day (Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 587–8) and New Comedy depicts a standard of living even the well-off might envy (cf. Halperin 1990: 109). Arnott 2004: 273.
Another mistaken whore?
199
than the hetaira’s moral failings here. He dwells on the drinking and feasting, contrasting it with Pamphile’s lonely fast at 755 and complaining about a “smorgasbord” (% # 608). As part of an expensive lifestyle, Habrotonon is useful for putting Charisios’ behavior in the worst possible light. His rhetorical purpose is quite different from Sostratos’ and Demeas’ (he is trying to incriminate, not excuse, the young man), even though his strategy is similar. The scenario he imagines gives a shape to his fears: Charisios will “bring her in as well ” (he repeats the verb - at 695 and 697).39 The blame lies squarely with him – with his “degeneracy” (# -[ 584) and “arrogance” (LG i 693), his drinking, gambling and expensive dining (588, 601, 609–10), his “harp girl” (600, 621), and the child he “shamelessly” fathered on her (645–6). Although Smikrines resents that his daughter will be put on the same footing as a prostitute (“He’ll have the one and bring the other in too” 697), he does not yet blame the prostitute. She simply represents the degenerate demimonde the young profligate intends to bring into the marital home. The old man is still harping on the same theme when he represents her as an instrument of “financial ruin” in the next act. When Smikrines does sketch Habrotonon’s personality, he extrapolates from assumptions about her profession and her relationship with Charisios. The portrait is heavily based on the stereotype of the corrupt whore and designed to exaggerate the dangers facing his daughter.40 He sketches only enough of the hetaira’s character to make his predictions seem credible. To convince Pamphile that her marriage will only deteriorate, he focuses on the kind of behavior likely to drive the couple apart. When the issue is neglect, the hetaira is a party girl who lures Charisios away from home (“He’ll be drinking with [that] woman”); when it is expense, she is a festival-attending second wife (“two Thesmophoria, two Skira”); and when it is alienation of affection, she is a malicious gossip (“[She’ll plot] against,” “She’ll [slander] you”). Smikrines emphasizes the stock traits that make a hetaira a formidable enemy: lack of scruples (“She’ll stoop to any dirty trick,” “She knows no shame”), formidable – if vague – expertise (“She knows more”), and a glib tongue (she not only “slanders” but also “flatters better”). The cleverness which Onesimos will admire in Habrotonon is reduced here to groveling flattery, while her success is attributed to 39
40
On in the sense “bringing [another woman] into [the house]” see Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 353 ad 693, Martina 1997 ii.2: 407 ad 695. Cf. P. Eleph. 1. Arnott 2004 attributes 697 to Chairestratos, but this still leaves Smikrines with the complaint at 695. Cf. Martina 1997 ii.2: 445 ad 793b–6.
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The women of the Epitrepontes
manipulation rather than attractiveness or even musical talent (he mentions neither). Pamphile’s ruin is no longer the consequence of Charisios’ behavior alone. Indeed the wayward husband starts to look like a victim himself. Smikrines is clearly trying to stir up his daughter’s anger against a women he assumes she hates, unlike her husband, whom she might conceivably forgive. It served his purpose earlier to emphasize the differences in their daily lives – Pamphile at home, hungry and lonely, Habrotonon down at the Piraeus, feasting and drinking – but now that he wants to depict her as a rival what matters is the difference in her background and character. There is no reason to believe Smikrines has any particular interest in Habrotonon’s moral character. Outside his daughter’s hearing he objects only to the corruption she reveals in his son-in-law and the expense (in Act V he is still grumbling about “waiting for that fine husband of hers to eat through my dowry” 1065–6). At this point he is simply trying to imagine what would distress Pamphile enough to convince her that she will face a “fight” so long as she remains married to Charisios.41 Smikrines’ description shows how adaptable the image of the whore could be: the same figure that embodied his own worst fears (as an agent of financial ruin) can just as easily embody his daughter’s (as a predatory home-wrecker). Onesimos, on the other hand, sees yet another dimension of the type: the cunning trickster. Like his master, he judges his female counterpart on the basis of suspicions which will prove unfounded. After she overhears him explaining how Charisios lost the ring that was found with the baby (“He lost it at the Tauropolia . . . it stands to reason that this is about the rape of some girl, who bore it and exposed it,” 451–4), she connects the incident to a rape she knew happened at the same festival. He responds with suspicion, questioning her attendance (“You were there?” 476) and scoffing at her claim to have been a virgin at the time (“Oh, sure!” 479). He also frets about the plan they devise to confirm that Charisios is indeed the baby’s father. She will pretend it is hers in order to extract a confession from him, at which point she will be able to identify the mother without causing alarm (because she will bring the “good” news that the rapist is a citizen who will, presumably, marry his victim). Because Onesimos regards Habrotonon as a cheat with hidden motives, he fears foul play (“If you don’t look for her but drop it and cheat me,” “If you turn rotten (8 )” 544–6, 551). This is not entirely rational, since the plan he treats with such mistrust is actually her second suggestion. Her initial advice was simply to show Charisios the ring (“If you’re sensible 41
Scafuro 1997: 313 n. 85. Cf. Martina 1997 ii.2: 450.
Another mistaken whore?
201
and listen to me, you’ll make this known to your master” 493–5). It was actually Onesimos who insisted on finding the mother first, presumably to avoid the “suspicion and turmoil” he worried about earlier (457), leaving Habrotonon with the problem of confronting one parent without knowing the identity of the other. She devised the second scheme at his instigation and his misgivings stem from a very belated realization that she could easily cheat both Charisios and himself.42 After Habrotonon leaves, Onesimos explains his suspicions more fully, assessing her actions, speculating about her motives, weighing alternatives and disclosing his own fears. His blunt self-reproaches foreshadow Charisios’: 8. H @ A 2- 2 % , #- ' &8, : ) 8 C' . & 9 '8 - , $, & , ' 3. 8 ' K - 0G, * 8 . '%. H ' %O C '%-, ' , : [] >. (557–66) The little woman’s shrewd. As soon as she figured out there’s no way to get freedom out of sex and she’s stuck any other way, she goes a different route. But I’ll be a slave forever – a brain-dead, driveling idiot with no foresight at all in these things. Maybe I’ll get something out of her if she succeeds. After all, it would only be fair. Oh, I’m adding up zeroes, miserable wretch, expecting to receive a favor from a woman. Just so long as I don’t get any extra trouble.
This deliberative monologue, like Charisios’, is filled with warning signs – emotional self-reproaches, imaginative scenarios, hints of ambivalence – while qualities the speaker himself would like to possess are again projected onto the woman. Both portraits are actually shaped to make a case against the dejected speaker. Like Charisios, Onesimos considers himself a sorry specimen compared to his female counterpart, although he is more interested in Habrotonon’s social prospects than her moral character. He too heaps abuse on himself and indulges in self pity ('%-, “miserable wretch,” cf. Charisios’ '%-, “triply miserable wretch” 913). He expresses his remorse in more colorful terms than his master (“Hack out my teeth if you catch me poking my nose around again” 574–6) and on rather 42
Cf. Capps 1981: 86 ad 325, Martina 1997 ii.2: 339 ad 543 and 335 ad 535.
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The women of the Epitrepontes
different grounds.43 Charisios also confesses to being “stupid” (918), but he is thinking of his own insensitivity and self-delusion; Onesimos takes a more utilitarian view of intelligence, admiring Habrotonon’s “shrewdness” and “foresight” only for the rewards he believes they will bring. Behind his fear lies envy: Habrotonon has the future that he would like (“I’ll always be a slave”) because she seized an opportunity he overlooked. “No foresight” is ironic, coming from the man who actually did spot the chance for freedom.44 Habrotonon certainly longs for freedom – the only “payment” she admits to wanting – but in other respects Onesimos is projecting his own feelings onto her. He tends to measure others by his personal standards of behavior.45 For example, he thinks “being stuck” (&8, “be at a loss, be distraught,” cf. Epitr. fr. 3) is a problem she “perceived” (@ ). She has given no sign of being at a loss, however; what she has complained about is neglect and wounded pride (“I didn’t notice I was being mocked: I expected to be loved but the man hates me” 431–3). Habrotonon has shown such resourceful optimism that it is hard to imagine “being stuck” ever describing her state of mind.46 It is, however, an apt description of Onesimos’ own sense of hopelessness, particularly during his entrance monologue (“I started to show him the ring at least five times . . .” 419–29). While she devises solutions, he tries to avoid having to act; while she offers hope, he expects only failure. As Hofmeister notes, he makes a poor showing against both Habrotonon and Syriskos, “who act in a manner more suggestive of the freeborn.”47 Onesimos accuses the hetaira of calculated negligence (“if you don’t look for her on purpose”) and dishonesty (“You’re leaving out that you’ll become free” 538–9), and yet he is the one who resolves to pipe low in the future (“Enough meddling! If anyone catches me poking my nose about or blabbing . . .”). He will try to pass the blame later (“She talked me into it, by Apollo” 951) – rather unfairly, since she initially told him to show 43
44 45 46
47
F' is an odd expression in an unmetrical line (C has & L %). The closest parallel, Buc. Gr. 166 Gow, concerns a boar (whose tusks can in fact be “cut out,” Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 344–5 ad 576). F' may be a polite substitution for ; (Capps 1981: 90 ad 359). See further Martina 1997 ii.2: 360–2 ad 576. Henry 1988: 59, Omitowoju 2002: 220 n. 55. Wilamowitz 1925: 84 and Verdenius 1974: 33 ad 365. LSJ s.v. i.2 (&8-). Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 341 ad 559 suggest “is distressing herself in vain” and “is wasting her pains” (unlikely here, Martina 1997 ii.2: 347 ad 559). He might be thinking of her complaint about neglect (Wilamowitz 1925: 85) but it is not clear that he heard it (Martina 275–6 ad 430 ff., 347 ad 558). Since he was worried about a marital reconciliation at 425–7, he presumably knew that Charisios was not in love with Habrotonon (Martina). Hofmeister 1997: 325.
The mistakes of Smikrines,Onesimos, and Charisios
203
Charisios the ring (and he hardly needed to be “talked into” her second plan: “I love it!,” he enthused at 550). He also hints that the baby-scheme is the latest in a succession of attempts to win freedom: she has been on the look out for “another route” since her first plan failed. There is nothing inherently implausible about accusing a scheming hetaira of trying to exploit a lover. As discussed in chapter 4, a stock charge by itself need not raise suspicion. But in this instance it is Onesimos who insists on the scheme (because he is afraid of Charisios) and the long-term plan he attributes to her seems a little implausible. Habrotonon had no reason to expect manumission from a recently married man who had hired her for only a few days. Once she has the ring and the baby she admits to hope (“I would like it”), but seems to be content to leave it to chance. In the end, Charisios does not free her “immediately,” as Onesimos predicts, nor does she press him. The scheme for freedom is largely a product of Onesimos’ envy. Onesimos is no promoter of traditional values. He regards bad character as blameworthy only when it harms him (“if you drop it and cheat me”), mirroring his master’s egocentrism. A few lines earlier he had actually praised her cleverness for relieving him of the problem of the ring.48 His errors mimic those Charisios makes about Pamphile, just as Demeas’ mistakes about Moschion and Chrysis are parodied in Nikeratos. We see the master through the servant and in the servant as well. Their shared indecision is one example. After several half-hearted attempts, Onesimos still cannot make up his mind whether to show Charisios the ring that identifies him as the father of the exposed baby. He settles on procrastination, showing a resourcelessness worthy of the most infatuated young lover (“What should I do now?” 492–3, “What’s a person to do then?” 511). In this scene, the surrogates again set the pattern for the principals: just as Onesimos puts his own welfare first – before considerations of fairness or even common sense – in judging Habrotonon, so Charisios will in judging Pamphile. the m istak es of smikrines, onesimos, and charisios Like most of Menander’s plays, the Epitrepontes explores the difficulties of judging actions that are open to multiple interpretations. The 48
Z8 - (535), “a compliment from one of the same stripe” (Capps 1910: 85 ad 318). Cf. Wilamowitz 1925: 84, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 338 ad 535, Martina 1997 ii.1: 289.
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The women of the Epitrepontes
misperceptions and false assumptions about Pamphile and Habrotonon follow familiar patterns. Odd circumstances create mistaken impressions about the women’s social position and misjudgments follow accordingly, since the rules for women’s conduct varied according to their status. When Smikrines sees that his daughter is not being treated like a wife, he assumes she is still subject to his kyrieia and therefore available for a new marriage. The unflattering portrait he sketches of her failed marriage is predicated on the assumption that she did nothing to deserve Charisios’ neglect. Like his portrait of Habrotonon, it draws on stock traits and behaviors. Coincidence plays a large role in this particular misperception. Smikrines does not know that his daughter has had a child, much less that it is Charisios’; he thinks she is simply a mistreated wife with a spendthrift husband. And Charisios contributes to the confusion by refusing to divorce her outright. Even Onesimos is uncertain about her future: Charisios might decide to reconcile and punish his tale-bearing slave or he might marry the unknown mother of his nothos (illegitimate child). Appearances are just as misleading when it comes to Habrotonon. Everyone assumes that the “man who has her now” is having an affair with her. It takes three days for Habrotonon herself to realize she is not going to see any “loving,” and it is not clear that Smikrines ever learns the truth. The circumstances that give rise to these misunderstandings are certainly contrived to mislead, but the inferences characters draw from them are highly subjective. Smikrines’ errors are the most willful. He knows virtually nothing about Habrotonon except that she is a harp player who appears to have ensnared his daughter’s husband. He draws, accordingly, on the figure of the ruthless whore, making her the model of everything Pamphile is not: smooth-talking, calculating, and unscrupulous. Onesimos, on the other hand, knows that the young hetaira is not much of a siren. What he sees is a con artist out to manipulate Charisios and likely to succeed. She is, in short, everything he is not. As Martina notes, “there is Onesimos’ Habrotonon, the Habrotonon of the guests and Chairestratos and Smikrines’ Habrotonon, who differs from Menander’s Habrotonon; there is also Smikrines’ Pamphile . . . who differs from Menander’s.”49 When it comes to his daughter, Smikrines is puzzled. He cannot understand why she would stay with a man bent on ruining himself for a hetaira. Rescue from a failed marriage is a kind of interference most daughters would welcome. The wife in the Menaechmi actually begs her father to take her away from her cheating husband and complains that he will not 49
Martina 1997 ii.2: 417–18. Cf. Henry 1988: 72–3 on Chrysis.
Informing the audience: Pamphile’schoice
205
help her (780–3, 798–9). Reasonably enough, Smikrines assumes that Pamphile underestimates the expense and is jealous of the mistress. The lonely, embittered, nagging wife he sketches is a cynical prediction, appropriate enough for an old grouch. Onesimos has better information about Pamphile since he knows about the child, but we do not know what inferences he has drawn from it. He has a low enough opinion of women that he may have suspected Pamphile of the same self-interested dishonesty he sees in Habrotonon. Whatever he told Charisios, it induced him to condemn a wife he loved, and the young husband’s subsequent remorse offers some insight into his original decision. Pamphile’s illegitimate child made her an unfit wife because it compromised her (and therefore his) social standing. After another nothos tarnishes his own reputation, he begins to concern himself with her character and reconsiders his criteria for an ideal wife. Loyalty now seems more important than enhancement of his social standing. The irony of course is that the discoveries that move him first to condemn and then to forgive her are equally illusory: since they are married to one another, neither is the parent of a nothos. in forming the audience: pamphile’s choice We can appreciate the psychology of these mistakes (that is, assuming that the mother of an illegitimate baby is a conniving whore or faithless wife, respectively) only if we know the truth. To set us straight, Menander provides information unknown to some or all of the other characters: Habrotonon is not going to be Charisios’ long-term mistress, while the baby will make Pamphile his securely wedded wife (this was almost certainly explained in the prologue). By helping us to predict the status the women will hold at the end of the play, the playwright allows us to judge them accordingly. He also gives them significant choices. Like other Menandrian heroines, the women of the Epitrepontes make decisions that reveal a sense of identity at odds with what other characters try to project onto them. Pamphile is asked to agree to a divorce; Habrotonon, to decide about the ring. Neither does quite what is expected of her and both are subjected to severe, if mistaken, criticism. They are, however, given a chance to defend their decisions. Pamphile, in particular, is allowed a formal speech in an ag¯on (“debate”) scene which fulfills many of the functions of a deliberation speech.50 Smikrines gives voice to arguments of self-interest and sexual jealousy, reminding us of the injuries Pamphile has suffered without turning 50
See Arnott 2004: 276 on tragic models for this scene.
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The women of the Epitrepontes
her into a typical “dowered wife” (like the wife in the Plokion, for example, who persecutes a supposed rival, fr. 296.3–4 K-A). Pamphile, in contrast, clings to an idealized notion of marriage and a social role she desperately wants to play. She is also trying to negotiate a new relationship with her father. Unlike Demeas in the Misoumenos and Pataikos in the Perikeiromen¯e, Smikrines does not readily grant his daughter a say in her own marriage. It is a reluctant and hard-won concession and her basic arguments about the obligations of a good wife are partly calculated to excuse her disobedience as a daughter. This debate is as much about the kind of wife Pamphile would like to be as why she should stay with Charisios. When Smikrines gives her a chance to defend her position, she does everything she can to persuade him that it is the only ethical one, rebutting his arguments point by point and countering his dire predictions. The state of the text is poor but it is possible to extract some sense from the fragmentary remains. There are only three papyri for this speech (P. Mich. 4733, P. Oxy. 3533 and P. Oxy. 3532, frr. 1+2, 3). The first breaks off at 822 (21 lines into the speech) and the second at 810. Since Michael Gronewald’s editio princeps, Ludwig Koenen and Traianos Gagos have collated the papyri again and I have printed many of their readings from Martina’s 1997 edition and Geoffrey Arnott’s 2004 text and apparatus (the basis for the text below). Thanks to these editors’ painstaking efforts, enough of the speech is available to draw a few conclusions that do not rely entirely on conjectural supplements (which I have been cautious in adopting). It is difficult to reconstruct the exact arguments but something can be said about the structure of the speech and the order of topics, as well as the language Pamphile uses and the values on which she bases her appeal. Her speech is reminiscent of Glykera’s. She speaks with firm selfassurance before a skeptical opponent. The opening lines introduce her general position and the kind of argument she intends to make: [+ ]., : .. . . . [ [. . . . . .] -, A . Y . , $.[ [. . . . . .].; $., [ [. . . . . .]., Y. = L. . . . . [ [. . . . .] , %. . . [% ] 7 5 .[
(801–5)
Father, to speak my considered opinion, . . . of all, whatever you think advantageous . . . . ? For even . . . be sensible . . . . . . , and goodwill∗ standing in protection . . . . . . you, to be convinced and what . . . rather . . . ∗ = gramm. subject
Informing the audience: Pamphile’s choice
207
Pamphile begins on an emphatic note of disagreement, postponing her captatio benevolentiae in order to set out their differences first: “my opinion” vs. “what you think advantageous” (perhaps “a concealed accusation of heartlessness,” as Turner suggests).51 Her choice of words is revealing. Not only does the word “considered” (some form of -, “shape, form” is almost certain here) represent her position as a product of reflection, a subtle reproof of Smikrines’ intemperate bluster, but it also suggests she has put thought into the form in which she presents it – appropriately enough for someone with a secret to hide. Unlike her father, Pamphile sees “ambiguous” (&$%> 708) facts which do not speak for themselves and a situation in which the best course of action is subject to debate. She uses the verb “persuade” (%-) twice: “if . . . you don’t persuade me” (714) and “you to be convinced” (805). With any other father, this would be an odd basis for a daughter’s appeal. Instead of claiming to speak from the heart, or out of love, or even from filial duty, Pamphile talks about reasoned opinions and “being sensible” ($,), while appealing to “goodwill” in the abstract (there is some uncertainty about = at 804, the reading of Koenen and Gagos). Since Glykera also asserts her own good sense when she, too, is pressed to defend a puzzling choice (“Did I choose to be so stupid?” Perik. 714–15), it may be that Pamphile is the subject of “be sensible” ($, 803) as Martina, Gronewald and Koenen-Gagos all suggest (contra Arnott supplements [[ ] “has been allotted to you”); “for even . . .” would then anticipate the objection that her opinion is silly and help to establish her competence to speak. As a young woman, Pamphile faces a double prejudice as a speaker and she has a reasonable expectation that her speech will offend its audience. Conventional advice in this situation was to address both problems immediately.52 Her only personal appeals, however, are a badly preserved “papa” in line 806 and a restored “father” (also in the vocative) in 819; otherwise her arguments are relatively impersonal and she does not emphasize their relationship. This opening makes it clear she knows her father well enough to appeal to his intellect rather than to his emotions – the strategy Smikrines had used on her – but she is not above a little subtle flattery. She assumes that a man who prides himself on his rationality (a delusion Onesimos mocks, “a rational ( ) and extremely sensible ( $ ' $3) man,” 1081–2)53 will be persuaded by “sense.” 51 52
53
Turner 1983b: 48 n. 15/13. Rhet. ad Alex. 1432b11–25 (a type of G), 1437a32–5, b38–42. The % is also the place to secure = (1436b38). Pamphile’s attempt in 804 suggests she sees Smikrines as a hostile audience: “if they happen to be friendly (e), to talk about goodwill is superfluous” 1436b19–21). Martina 1997 ii.2: 557–8 ad 1081.
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The women of the Epitrepontes
Pamphile answers her father’s speech point by point in what was clearly a reasoned argument. She uses the connective particle (“for”) three times (Smikrines’ favorite connective is ' “but” and he favors asyndeton), she links two arguments with a ( . . . ' construction (“on the one hand . . . on the other” 824, 827), and she counts off her replies to his “three points:” [. . . . .] 3, . . , [. . . .] '. . . '. .,. [. . . . .] '( V',. 8 . [. . . . .] I.8 . .. '8. [, [. . . . .] 8. K [ [& ]'( . [ F% . [ [. . . . .]> < [ [. . .]. , H [(806–12) . . . this, Dad, seems . . . possible. . . . chance which has done no wrong . . . . . . let’s pass over . . . erring women. In the second place, . . . from him,∗ he (or this) . . . responsible . . . [but it’s] no disgrace to . . . among a minority . . . . . . the majority∗∗ . . . [ ] and they say that . . . ∗
, usually of a person; limitative implies “we’re talking about just him now, not others” ∗∗ = gramm. subject
Since she marks her “second” point, she may well have identified her first, even though Smikrines did not (he launched directly into the argument that Charisios “couldn’t be saved”). Later in the speech she alludes to one of his claims explicitly (“what you said just now”). Her rhetorical strategy is quite conventional. The Rhetorica ad Alexandrum advises: those replying to exhortations (%) spoken by others must first set out in their introduction the position they are going to oppose, and make a preliminary statement of their other points seriatim. After the introduction the best plan is to put forward one at a time each of the statements made in the previous speech, and prove that they are not just nor lawful . . . if he has expediency ( $) on his side, you must show that his policy is unjust (#'). (Rhet. ad Alex. 1440a5–10, 20–1)
Justice/expediency was a traditional antithesis (cf. Men. Mon. 391) which Pamphile seems to have used effectively to counter Smikrines. She rephrases many of his points as rhetorical questions. For example, “He’s stumbled?” (821) and “He’ll throw me out?” (829) may well be responses to his second
Informing the audience: Pamphile’s choice
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and third points.54 We would therefore expect her to begin with the allegation of financial and moral ruin, and “chance (j8 ) which has done no wrong” certainly looks exculpatory. She uses cognate words at two other points: “being unlucky” (& 813, the referent is unclear but must be masculine) and “sharing in good fortune ( 0 818, of herself ). This may be an attempt to excuse her husband’s nothos as an accident, the excuse Charisios offers her after hearing the speech, but more importantly, it makes a distinction between misconduct and misfortune, an ethical lesson Charisios has grasped when we next see him. Pamphile’s second point concerns some kind of responsibility “from this man” ( 8), most likely Charisios. Her precise argument is uncertain but she is clearly trying to cast doubt on something Smikrines took for granted and claiming the moral high ground with a maxim about the opinion of “the few” versus “the many” (Balme supplements and translates “Most people know . . . | And say an honest friend who’s had bad luck | Should be esteemed above a bad man who | Is prosperous”).55 This is the kind of sentiment we might expect from someone who began by rejecting what her opponent thought “advantageous.”56 Perhaps she justified condoning a bastard – as she must have done at some point in the speech – by disagreeing with common opinion about what constitutes “disgrace.” As Martina notes, she must have refuted the charge that Charisios is responsible for all of her ills.57 What is strikingly clear from these fragments is the contrast in language and tone between her speech and Smikrines’. While he made highly personal and specific arguments (“two Thesmophoria,” “He’ll say he has to walk over to Piraeus”), she speaks in generalities and abstractions.58 While he held forth from his own experience, she appeals to common wisdom (“they say”). He was blunt (“a whore who cheats more”); she is euphemistic (all that can safely be said about her enigmatic “erring women”).59 And while he spoke of ruin, expense and destruction, she speaks of chance, responsibility, and justice. Pamphile uses different language than her father because she is arguing a different question: whether it is right for her to leave Charisios, not 54 55 56
57 58 59
Turner 1983a: 40 frr. 1+2, Martina 1997 ii.2: 414–16. See also Gronewald 1986: 12 ad 44. Balme 2001: 106. “Some current philosophical dogma has been taken up by Pamphile” (Turner 40 n. 1). Cf. Gronewald 1986: 10 lines 27–8 and Martina 1997 ii.2: 454 ad 812. Arnott 2000c: 161 reads this quite differently: “there’s nothing dishonorable in having a good . . . in company with a few people” (i.e., as exculpating Charisios). Martina 1997 ii.2: 453–4 ad 809–10. Cf. Barigazzi 1955: 291 (Smikrines loves concrete facts and hates abstraction). See Martina 1997 ii.2: 452–3 ad 808 for interpretations.
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whether it is prudent. She has a difficult position to defend. Smikrines had appealed to practicality, financial interest, and common sense, as well as jealousy and resentment. Pamphile has no means of refuting the charges against her husband without disclosing the real reason for his estrangement. Hence the string of concessions cited below. But she can argue that she has an obligation which supersedes obedience to her father. She responds to Smikrines’ prediction of a failed marriage by challenging his assumptions about the nature of marriage (at this point in the speech, P. Oxy. 3532 fragments 1+2 start to supply the beginning of each line). &. . % . [ $[] , '( ', 3 [; 7. . ( N &%-[ &. [$]1, &,. 6[ ' 3; !. [][ 0 ; * '[ 3 t'-; [ - !. [3 >% 2; K - 3[ ' % 3 , L[ %[(or -[) & ( f . [ . . '( F' . [' 2 3[. (813–26)
a man in misfortune. . . . in preference to . . . Should I flee this man? . . . As you said just now . . . you have sent . . . away, that [man] will come to ruin . . . because of this? So did [I] come . . . to share in good fortune? If . . . show concern for him? No, by . . . I came as a partner in [life . . .] He’s stumbled? I will put up with this (or “him”) . . . living in two houses . . . [and] paying attention to this woman (or “those women”) but if (a),∗ to another . . . nothing painful or . . . this is fine by me∗∗ . . . ∗
( . . . ' translated here ‘(a), (b)’ connect this point with the one made in lines 827–8 below ∗∗ a polite refusal (“that’s OK”)60 60
Arnott 2000c: 162.
Informing the audience: Pamphile’s choice
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By emphasizing the role of chance (“misfortune,” “share in good fortune”) Pamphile implicitly denies that calculation or planning can achieve a happy marriage. This is the closest she comes in the preserved portions of the speech to addressing her father’s concern about Charisios’ ruinous spending. Her role in the marriage is to share in the fortunes of her husband and tolerate a “stumble” (perhaps equivalent to “bad fortune,” depending on who the “man in misfortune” is). She minimizes Charisios’ fault by treating it as a single incident (“He has stumbled,” perfect tense) in contrast to Smikrines, who used it to make inferences about the young man’s entire life (694, 750). She also downplays and depersonalizes the love affair, representing what her father had taken as a sign of contempt and a dissipated nature as a mere distraction (“paying attention to”) and speaking about “those women” rather than “her.” Theano used similar rhetorical techniques, generalizing about hetairai (“[men] are hunted by these women” p. 198 line 32) and describing the husband’s infidelity as “sickness” ( p. 198 line 32), “folly” (# p. 199 line 1), and “derangement” ( p. 198 line 30). The philosopher became more critical, however, calling it a “mistake,” I (p. 199 line 3), and eventually an “injustice,” &'% (p. 199 line 28). Since her purpose was not to excuse the husband but to persuade the wife to respond rationally and ethically, she was – unlike Pamphile – willing to concede that the latter had ample grounds for complaint, once she had established that it would be counterproductive to make it directly. Pamphile cannot risk this concession because her father does not believe that forbearance will lead to reform or that she ought to behave like an ideal wife. She has no choice but to minimize Charisios’ faults, however implausibly, and to deny the evils her father insists they will bring. When she borrows his language it is only to disagree. Her use of the future tense, “will come to ruin” (&,), for example, subtly undermines his argument that the “ruin” has already taken place: he used the perfect (“has been ruined,” & -). She responds to his prediction of “pain” with an argument about the impossibility of guaranteeing that “another” (f = marriage? husband?) will bring “nothing painful.”61 The possibility that her problem might recur in another marriage is of course absurd – at least to an audience who understands the truth. She also talks of sharing, partnership, and “concern,” implying an obligation to look after her husband’s interests (Smikrines had urged her only to protect her own), and she treats the “stumble” not as evidence of her husband’s corruption but as a test 61
Comparison with P. Did. 1, Stichus, and Hecyra suggests he means another marriage (Barigazzi 1955: 305–6, Gronewald 1986: 11–12 ad 38+40, Martina 1997 i: 88, Balme 2001: 106 and 300 n. 106, Arnott 2000c: 162), but he may not have a specific groom in mind (Barigazzi 304–5).
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The women of the Epitrepontes
(cf. Theano’s “trial” ,, p. 199 line 29, cited above) of her own forbearance (“I will put up with him”). For Pamphile, the crucial point is not whether they can afford two houses (the inevitable consequence of the “stumble” that produced a child), but whether she can tolerate the situation. Her main argument for staying is that she is willing to overlook his misconduct. Smikrines had assumed continuous strife, casting his daughter first as a lonely, abandoned wife and then as the jealous, nagging shrew (“always scowling, always criticizing”). Pamphile emphatically rejects both roles: ' #' 3[ 3 , 3 T4. [ & >, ; d[ %- ( < >0 = 6 [ . .. . % [ [. .]-. ; A . [ [C]5. , m'%- [ [Y]. 5 % '>[,;] [*]. S '. >. . (827–35) or if (b), this is unclear . . . these . . . I (or she) about to come to such things . . . But he’ll throw me out? To Ch[arisios] . . . will perceive∗ me remaining well disposed honoring that woman∗∗ . . . . . . . ? Because when towards . . . [Subject unknown] easily sees the worse . . . She [will] slander us? . . . If she says one word of slander . . . ∗
= singular subject = gramm. object
∗∗
Her repeated claims to forbearance (“I’ll put up with him,” “this is fine by me”) counter both charges: she will be “well-disposed” no matter what.62 The rather incoherent ethics she articulates here forces her into the paradoxical position of promising to maintain the goodwill of a wife, even if he divorces her. Patience may have been the weapon she planned to use against Habrotonon, too, but unfortunately the last five lines of the papyrus are very fragmentary. Pamphile clearly keeps her psychological distance, referring to her rival as “that woman” (834). She acknowledges Smikrines’ “she 62
Balme 2001: 106 makes Habrotonon the subject (“she will throw me out?” 829) but this gives her an unlikely degree of authority and implies there will only be one household. Her argument is similar to Aristotle’s . . . 3 5 _ (Rhet. 1397b12–29).
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will slander you” (787) with a rhetorical question but the text breaks off just as she begins her answer.63 Evidently she conceded that slander was a possibility – ironically, since Habrotonon has actually tried to protect her secret (it was Onesimos who informed Charisios about the baby and then worried about being “the slanderer,” '> 904). Although she cannot explain the real reason for Charisios’ neglect, Pamphile can emphasize the unpredictability of human affairs and challenge the presumption that her happiness lies within anyone’s control. She repeatedly suggests that things may not be what they seem, speaking about error, chance, and uncertainty. While Smikrines confidently expressed his “Pythian” predictions in the indicative, she often uses the subjunctive, representing what were certainties for him as mere possibilities and turning his assertions into questions: “Did I come to share in good fortune? Show concern for him? If another . . . If this is unclear . . . , If she says one word of slander.” The text breaks off approximately seventeen lines before the following scene with Habrotonon begins. Although Pamphile speaks second, the position that always wins in drama, we know from later events that she did not persuade her father.64 Her speech does however keep him from insisting on an immediate divorce and sends him looking for someone to bolster his case. For the audience, her words carry a double meaning. Behind the protestations of loyalty lies a truth that would partly exonerate Charisios. We know that she risks exposing her own secret if she objects to his baby too loudly and too publicly. We may also detect a hint of self-interest, or at least wishful thinking, behind her forgiving persona. Forgiveness is a quality she has an obvious interest in promoting65 and her speech has its effect when Charisios takes it as a moral lesson. Her situation thus affects how we receive her arguments and we can appreciate how much she shapes what she says to persuade her audience (a double audience, as it proves, since Charisios has been eavesdropping). Scenes between a daughter who wants to preserve her troubled marriage and a father who wants to end it are a stock New Comic test of wifely fidelity and a conventional showcase for feminine virtue. We can form an idea of an ancient audience’s expectations from no fewer than four other surviving versions (and the letter of Theano also addresses some of the same issues). One appears in Plautus’ adaptation of Menander’s first Adelphoe (re-titled Stichus), another comes from a papyrus fragment (P. Didot i), a third is cited in the Rhetorica ad Herennium, and a fourth comes from one of Seneca’s Controversiae (some of the arguments also appear in a fifth example, from Euripides’ Andromache, where the wife takes the wrong position and has 63
Martina 1997 ii.2: 461 ad 834–5.
64
Scafuro 1997: 323.
65
Barigazzi 1955: 323.
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The women of the Epitrepontes
to be admonished).66 The Senecan controversia is particularly illuminating because it tells us something the dramatic passages cannot: how a third party – such as an audience – might respond. It will be helpful to begin with an overview of these passages. In the Stichus, two distraught sisters lament their husbands’ three-year absence and worry about their father’s plans to remarry them. When the father enters, he tests them by asking about a hypothetical remarriage (his own) and then confesses that “friends” have advised him to end their marriages (line 128). The sisters reject this at length (the whole scene takes 96 lines) but the following excerpt covers their major points: Sor. At enim nos, quarum res agitur, aliter auctores sumus. nam aut olim, nisi tibi placebant, non datas oportuit, aut nunc non aequomst abduci, pater, illisce apsentibus. Ant. Vosne ego patiar cum mendicis nuptas me vivo viris? Sor. Placet ille meus mihi mendicus: suos rex reginae placet. idem animust in paupertate qui olim in divitiis fuit: Ant. Vosne latrones et mendicos homines magni penditis? Sor. non tu me argento dedisti, opinor, nuptum, sed viro.67
130
135
Sister: Yes but we, who are most concerned, hold other opinions. Namely, either we should not have been given in the first place, if they weren’t acceptable to you, or it’s not right now for us to be removed, father, while they’re away. Antipho: While I’m still alive I’m supposed to leave you married to beggars? Sister: I like my beggar. Every queen likes her own king. My attitude is the same in poverty as it once was in wealth. Antipho: You think so much of thieves and beggars? Sister: You didn’t marry me to money, I think, but to a man.
The second example is a forty-four line speech, preserved on a papyrus, in which a young woman tries to persuade her father not to force her to remarry. The text has sometimes been attributed to Menander and was even thought, at one point, to have been spoken by Pamphile herself. Although it is doubtful that Menander wrote the speech (the speaker belabors and repeats her points in an un-Menandrian manner), it is a good source on the stock arguments of these “Fish Got to Swim” speeches.68 The central 66 67
68
See Rosivach 1984: 212–13 on conventional elements of these scenes. Zucker 1944: 212 first identified the Senecan parallel. Plautus citations are from Leo 1895–6, who brackets 135 as redundant after 132 (Antipho has no grounds to call the husbands latrones). But Plautus is often redundant and Antipho has no way of knowing they are mendici either. It may not even be comic. Page 1992: 180–8 prints it as a tragic fragment and Sandbach 1990 includes it with reservations (explained in Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 724).
Informing the audience: Pamphile’s choice
215
points are not easy to excerpt because the speaker makes her arguments at a leisurely pace, but the first ten lines will establish the tone (the whole speech is printed at the end of this chapter): + , 1 ( u 9 8 I $, ( 5 / ( A ',. ' &$,, K - ( 1 & '% : . % ( ,O V'% , ( 0 > 8- '% ' 2 Y, 2'. & & '0, K - #$- 9 e * &%
5
10
Father, you ought to speak the words that I’m speaking. It suits you more than me to be sensible and say what’s needed. But since you have neglected this, perhaps it is left for me, out of necessity, to say what is right myself. If he has done some fairly serious wrong, it does not befit me to punish him for it. If he has erred against me, I ought to have it noticed it. But I know of nothing at all, perhaps because I’m foolish. I wouldn’t contradict you.
The situation was evidently familiar enough to furnish a textbook example of a particular kind of argument and counterargument. The third example comes from a rhetorical handbook from the early first century bc. It is a short dramatic fragment, of uncertain authorship, in which the wife of a man named Chresphontes argues with her father. iniuria abs te adficior indigna pater; nam si inprobum esse Chresphontem existimas, cur me huic locabas nuptiis? sin est probus, cur talem inuitam inuitum cogis linquere? nulla te indigna, nata, adficio iniuria. si probus est, te collocaui; sin est inprobus, diuortio te libero incommodis. nam si inprobum esse Chresphontem existimas, cur me huic locabas nuptiis? // duxi probum; erraui; post cognoui et fugio cognitum. (Rhet. ad Her. 2.24)69
[Daughter:] You do me an undeserved wrong, father. For if you think Chresphontes a bad man, why did you give me to him in marriage? If he is good, why do you force 69
Text of Marx 1894. Attributed to Ennius by Jocelyn 1967 as fr. 53 (q. v. p. 272, with Scafuro 1997: 308 n. 66, for other attributions). It may also be comic (Scafuro, Rosivach 1984: 216–17 and n. 55) and was perhaps modified by the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium (Rosivach 217 n. 56).
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The women of the Epitrepontes
me to leave such a man against my will and his? [Father:] I do you no undeserved wrong, daughter. If he is a good man, I gave you to him in marriage. If he is bad, I will free you from trouble by divorce. (The second passage is an alternate response to the same question.) [Daughter:] For if you think Chresphontes a bad man, why did you give me to him in marriage? [Father:] I thought he was a good man. I was wrong. I came to know him afterward and shun the man, now that I know him.
Adele Scafuro identifies the dramatic situation in these scenes as a topos, “a clearly defined subject of debate which has well-known supporting or opposing arguments.”70 Its appearance in a rhetorical treatise is not surprising; by Seneca’s day it was a well-established declamation topic. His Controversia 2.2 presents the conflict with a small variation which gives the father a stronger case against the husband, making for a more balanced dispute (an advantage in a declamation topic). As is usual in the Controversiae, Seneca sets out the topic before summarizing how famous orators treated it: Vir et uxor iuraverunt, ut, si quid alter optigisset, alter moreretur. vir peregre profectus misit nuntium ad uxorem, qui diceret decessisse virum. uxor se praecipitavit. recreata iubetur a patre relinquere virum; non vult. abdicatur.71 A husband and wife swore that if anything should happen to either the other would die. While traveling abroad, the husband sent a messenger to his wife to tell her that her husband had died. The wife threw herself headlong [sc., in a suicide attempt]. Upon recovery she is ordered by her father to leave her husband. She refuses. She is disowned [sc. by her father].
A number of conventional points emerge from these examples. The speakers argue (1) that a woman knows her own business best; (2) that ethical considerations outweigh practicalities; (3) that the marriage bond is inviolate; (4) that the husband is satisfactory; (5) that a second marriage is no solution; and (6) that the father is overstepping his authority. (1) A woman knows her own business best: the wife begins by asserting that her interest in the situation qualifies her to speak and she hints, with varying degrees of subtlety, that it disqualifies her father.72 This is a 70
71 72
Scafuro 1997: 315. Cf. Rosivach 1984: 222. Scafuro explains the rhetorical strategies used here to compensate for ethically or legally weak positions (306–25) while Rosivach gives a detailed treatment of the stock arguments (218–22). Text of H˚akanson 1989. P. Did. i.10–12, Stich. 129 (another reason to suppose Pamphile makes a comparable claim at 830); P. Did. i.36–7, cf. Epitr. 706. The charge can be subtle, as Scafuro 1997: 315 notes: “the daughter [in the Didot rhesis] . . . grants her father’s case, 2 - ' 7 >8 3 . . . , but immediately interrupts by questioning the basis of her father’s judgment.”
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conventional opening strategy, recommended to speakers who anticipate prejudice or ill-will.73 (2) Ethics outweigh practicalities: the wife chooses virtue over wealth, refuting prudential arguments with moral ones.74 Several respondents cited by Seneca assume that the wife regards the vow as binding (P. Asprenas, Blandus, Fuscus Arellius, Latro, Cestius, and Silo Pompeius) or claims to be unable to live without her husband (Marullus, Hispo Romanus, who concedes that the vow is “without reason,” sine ratione 2.2.2, and Papirius Fabianus, who suggests a hardnosed reply: “What can’t you do, if you can die? You can live without your husband: you managed while he traveled” 2.2.4). Poverty, present or imminent, was evidently a traditional objection since three of the fathers make it, two of them with apparent justification. (Antipho is the exception, since he has no way of knowing whether his sons-in-law are rich or poor at this point. That he makes the argument nonetheless suggests it was conventional.)75 (3) The marriage bond is inviolate: marriage is a life-long partnership and a wife should accept her lot for better or for worse.76 She claims to be bound by a wife’s duty and appeals to custom and public opinion to justify her disobedience.77 In the Chresphontes example the wife is explicitly bound by a vow; arguments for keeping it could include exempla of women who gave their lives for their husbands. For example, 73
74
75
76
77
See n. 56 above. In general, speakers should claim that they are experienced in the subject and their opponent is not (Rhet. ad Alex. 1431b10–15) and should disarm prejudice by professing to speak from & or % - (1437b24, 1432b22, both used in P. Did. 1) and 3 (from “special interest in the matter” 1437b1). Moral terms abound, including forms of '- (P. Did. i.5–7, 24, 41, cf. Scafuro 1997: 315 n. 90), 8 P. Did. i 44, aequum (Stich. 8, 11, 40, 44, 131), pietas (Stich. 13), (im)probus (Stich. 19, 144, Rhet. ad Her. 2.24), sapientia (Stich. 39), pudicitia (Stich. 100), and the examples from Pamphile’s speech cited above. The wife refuses to leave a poor husband for a wealthier one on principle (P. Did. i.19, 20–3, Stich. 133, 136, 138–40, Rhet. ad Her. 2.24, perhaps Epitr. 802). Cf. Arnott 1972: 57, Zucker 1944: 196, 198. Peleus makes an argument like Pamphile’s at Andr. 639–41 (Gronewald 1986: 10 lines 27–8). The men probably left to restore fortunes lost through luxurious living (628). This would explain olim in divitiis (134) and Antipho’s complaints about poverty (Barigazzi 1955: 324), as well as his eventual reconciliation (Rosivach 1984: 214–15 and n. 47–50). It does not explain the three-year delay in demanding divorce, which would make more sense if the charge were abandonment. Perhaps the father in the Didot rh¯esis represented poverty itself as a form of mistreatment (Scafuro 1997: 317). P. Did. i.15, 26, 40, Stich. 34–6, 43–6, Epitr. 814–21 (partnership); P. Did. i.26, 6–7, Stich. 134, Epitr. 817–18 (for better or for worse). The commonplace that marriage should be a -% 3 >% resembles Stoic doctrine (Williams 1961: 56, Barigazzi 1955: 321 n. 1, Martina 1997 ii.2: 509–10) but is already attested in Xenophon, Isocrates, Nikocles, and Aristotle. It appears in P. Oxy. 4304.11 (Zucker 1944: 210–12, 210–11, Williams 56, and Martina 509–10) and Theano 199 lines 9–10). Cf. Eur. Andr. 213–14, Oed. fr. 909, and Phrixos fr. 823 (on a wife’s proper conduct when her husband suffers misfortune, Zucker 1944: 211–12). P. Did. i.14–16, Stich. 2, 7, 34–5, 39–40, 42, 46, Epitr. 814 (wifely duty); Stich. 133, 144, Epitr. 812 (custom, public opinion). Cf. Barigazzi 1955: 310–11.
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The women of the Epitrepontes
Fuscus Arellius argued “some women threw themselves on their husbands’ burning funeral pyres, some purchased their husband’s health with their own lives” (2.2.1). (4) The husband is satisfactory: the wife claims to be content and either denies or minimizes his failings.78 None of the wives explicitly mentions love but the Stichus sisters’ love is clear enough from their lamentations and several respondents to the Chresphontes controversia assume it.79 (5) A second marriage is no solution.80 This particular test of fidelity goes back to Penelope, to whom one of the sisters in the Stichus actually compares herself (line 2). The example from Seneca shows that this argument could be pushed to extremes (“A father-in-law wants to divide those whom not even death can divide?” 2.2.1), and Fuscus Arellius notes the a fortiori case against divorce (“Doubtless the intention behind the oath was that they should not be divided while they lived, since they took care that they should not be divided even by death” 2.2.5). The more pragmatic argument that marriages are gambles (“To what point . . . will you experiment with my life?” P. Did. i.32–3) was apparently so hackneyed that even the Didot playwright felt the need for variation, supplying a reductio ad absurdum (“And if that one loses his property, will you give me to another? And then another?” 30–2). Theano uses a similar argument (“And if that [second husband] slips up in the same way, [will you try] yet another?” (p. 200 lines 3–4). Plautus works a reference to the hazards of remarriage into the earlier conversation about the father’s plans (109–10). (6) The father is overstepping his authority: it would be an abuse of his power to remove her – an exercise of force, neither fatherly nor just.81 Chresphontes’ wife attempts to catch her father in a dilemma by making divorce either a new iniuria or proof of an old one. This looks like another traditional argument, since the sisters in the Stichus take a similar line (130–1). None of the respondents to Contr. 2.2 blames the wife for disobedience. The issue was apparently not whether the father could force her to leave but whether he could disown her for refusing (an pater abdicare possit propter matrimonium 2.2.5). Silo Pompeius’ argument (“Even if she is removed by separation (repudium), the 78
79 80 81
P. Did. i.17, 19, Stich. 21–2, 133, Rhet. ad Her. 2.24, Epitr. 826 (she is content); P. Did. i.8–9, Stich. 43, 133–4, Epitr. 807, 813, 821 (downplaying faults). The Didot wife may be covering for her husband, as Philoumene does in the Hecyra (Rosivach 1984: 216 and n. 53), or she may be in denial (Barigazzi 1955: 310–11). Porcius Latro, Marullus, Hispo Romanus, Argentarius, and Papirius Fabianus. P. Did. i.28–9, Stich. 142, Rhet. ad Her. 2.24, Epitr. 824. Cf. Andr. 344–8 and Tro. 667–8 (it is also wrong). P. Did. i.42–3, Stich. 21, 48–54, Rhet. ad Her. 2.24, Epitr. 715.
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contract of marriage (foederis pactio) is not dissolved” 2.2.6) suggests that he could. Fuscus Arellius however argues that the oath bound her (legally?) to stay (2.2.5). The popularity of these sentimental scenes (and someone liked the Didot papyrus speech enough to memorize it and write it on a papyrus scrap) suggests that much of Pamphile’s reply would have been predictable to an ancient audience. Indeed, the young idealist and the old pragmatist are stereotypes which Aristotle describes in the Rhetoric.82 But Menander departs from convention in several points. The Didot papyrus and Stichus wives are also up against an interfering and materialistic father, but they neither seek nor initiate the dispute and they challenge their father with a tactful show of reluctance: “You ought to speak . . . I wouldn’t contradict you” (P. Did. i.1, 10); “We should put our effort into persuading him, not opposing him” (Stich. 70). They concede his authority, either implicitly (“Will you give me to another? And then another?”) or explicitly (“since his authority (potestas) is greater,” Stich. 69), and they represent their request as a favor, albeit one backed by justice and humanity (“a just and humane favor ( )” 41, “We seek it as a favor (per gratiam)” 71, resistance proves them “more upright (probiores)” 144). The women also represent themselves as deferential daughters who have been forced into an uncomfortable position. “It is left to me, out of necessity, to say what is right” (5) protests the Didot papyrus wife, while the Stichus sisters complain “We can’t oppose him without disgrace and the worst kind of wickedness” (72). Their father may be acting “like a dishonest man” (12–14) and treating their husbands unjustly (15–16) but they still have to recognize his authority. Their choice is not a simple one: they debate at length just what the course of “duty” really is.83 Pamphile stands out in this group. These women are good daughters and good wives, caught between conflicting loyalties. The Didot speech is full of appeals to the affective bond between father and daughter: the speaker uses the vocative “father” five times. The Stichus sisters greet their father with kisses and offer him cushions. Chresphontes’ wife addresses her father slightly more formally (pater, as opposed to mi pater, as at Stich. 90) but hers is a highly abbreviated argument.84 In Pamphile’s speech, however, there is no disarming diffidence, no polite preface about the necessity of speaking, no tactful nods to a father’s wisdom and authority, and no sign of ambivalence or moral conflict (although a restoration has been proposed 82 83 84
The young prefer over $ and think everyone (Rhet. 1389a32–b12); the old live $, not (b36–90a1). Scafuro 1997: 320. “Mi pater or pater mi would indicate a warmth evidently lacking here” (Jocelyn 1967: 275 n. 125).
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to supply some of this).85 Her only concern is whether she will carry her point (“ . . . you to be convinced”). It is hard to detect any feelings of filial obligation. She openly resents her father’s continuing kyrieia and speaks of his authority as despotism and force. The wives in the Didot papyrus and Rhetorica ad Herennium passage also speak of “force” but they wait until the end of their speeches; it is not their opening shot. Antipho’s daughters do not even make the charge to his face, although they refer to his potestas outside his hearing (perhaps alluding to the legal authority a Roman father retained over a daughter married sine manu).86 Their examples show how underdeveloped the emotional bond is between Pamphile and Smikrines. Unlike Antipho, who “can be moved by pleas” (exorabilest 74) and at least pretends to consult his daughters, Smikrines is impervious to appeals to the sanctity of the marriage bond and heedless of his daughter’s wishes. Greed simply cancels out any countervailing feelings of affection. By downplaying these ties, Menander turns a traditional problem of divided loyalties (how Argentarius, Hispo Romanus, and Papirius Fabianus all see the controversia) into a question of marital responsibility. The question facing Pamphile is not whether a husband should come before a father (neither has much claim to her love or loyalty), but whether a man who “sleeps apart” with the hetaira who bore his child is owed allegiance at all (a line of argument Latro takes: “such a thoughtless and inconsiderate husband ought to be divorced” 2.2.5). Not having to sacrifice a loving father makes her final choice seem a little less implausible. She does have every reason to leave Charisios, however, and none of the usual obstacles. The wives in both the Stichus and the Didot papyrus have at least the rational arguments that virtue is better than wealth and that their loyalty springs from affection. Even Theano assumed that the husband was “not altogether a bad man” (p. 199 line 13), with “sense” enough not to persist in self-inflicted ruin (line 15) and to recognize the “justice” owed his wife (line 16). But Pamphile cannot claim to be choosing a good husband over a rich one and the warmest conjugal feeling she can summon is “goodwill” (=), enough perhaps for a man she expects to divorce her but hardly reason to forego wealth and comfort. She does not even pretend to expect any reward, nor does she recognize equivalent obligations 85
86
Arnott 2000c: 160 ( $, [[ ] | [>]. 803–4), who argues for “a polite, selfbelittling proem” against Koenen (“a self-endorsement of Pamphile’s ability to defend her actions and beliefs” 159). See also Arnott 2004: 278. Sine manu marriage is not necessarily implied (Zucker 1944: 203–4). References to compulsion may mean psychological, rather than legal, pressures (Rosivach 1984: 222–8) but the women seem immune to the former and the latter is unlikely (a kyrios did not need legal support to enforce the obedience of female dependents). Does “force” simply mean physical force?
Informing the audience: Pamphile’s choice
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for Charisios. The notion that a husband ought to love and cherish his wife is a New Comic commonplace. The Didot wife mentions “an established custom for husband and wife: that he should love the woman he has, always and to the end; and that she should do exactly what pleases him” (14–16); Sostratos pledges to “continue loving” Gorgias’ sister, despite receiving no dowry (Dysk. 308–9); Moschion undertakes to “marry and love” his betrothed (Sam. 729); and a young husband in a papyrus fragment confesses “I loved the woman who loved me, bound by her free-born character and the honest way she lived” (P. Ant. 15.11–12, cf. Eur. fr. 1062 Nauck “a woman’s happiness is having a loving husband”). Asprenas and Silo Pompeius both recognize that the oath in Contr. 2.2 binds the husband as well as the wife. Even the Stichus sisters concede that their husbands have neglected their officium (34/5–6) and Theano promises that the husband will love his wife for her forbearance and the marriage will be stronger (p. 199 lines 27–31, cited above). Pamphile, however, has little hope of a happy marriage. Nor does she try to justify her loyalty as a virtue in its own right (cf. Thean. pp. 198–9 lines 35–1), or even as philanthr¯opia, the generous disposition towards humankind so often idealized in New Comedy. Instead, she pretends that her husband has suffered a “mishap” (not just in conceiving the child, apparently, but also in recognizing and raising it). The proposition that she ought, out of wifely patience, to tolerate the maintenance of two houses, a mistress, an illegitimate child, abandonment, and eventual divorce pushes conventional arguments past any reasonable limits. Weeping and lamenting, she plays the part of the loyal wife and makes the traditional choice but without any of the traditional reasons to support it. Pamphile is not quite the Griselda she pretends to be here. Because neither party can admit their real motivation (Smikrines wants to keep the dowry money and Pamphile wants to keep her secret), each has to improvise arguments to convince the other. What we see here is a skilled speaker in a dilemma: admitting to her out-of-wedlock pregnancy would partly excuse Charisios, but it would also confirm Smikrines’ belief that the marriage was a failure; not admitting to it, however, leaves her with no defense of Charisios. Either way, her father was likely to insist on divorce. And so she gives the speech expected of a woman in her situation, hoping it will persuade him to let her stay. As so often in Menander, the dramatic context puts her seemingly noble sentiments in a ironic light. This marital crisis is no more about wifely forbearance than it is about marital neglect. There is a discrepancy between her wifely ideal and the reality – at least, as she sees it – of her illegitimate child. As Scafuro notes, “paradox and moral ambiguity
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characterize her situation: she will not leave her husband, who, for all intents and purposes, has left her with justification – i.e., with society’s sanction, if society only knew what Kharisios knows; she will remain in this partnership . . . though she has produced an infant conceived outside of marriage and he has, in perplexity, taken up with a harpist.”87 Menander puts a new twist on a highly conventional scenario here by complicating her motivation with a layer of self-interest. We know that she is not entirely neglecting her own welfare. She describes Charisios’ misdeed in terms which make it comparable to her own (blaming “chance,” after all, exculpates them both) and she adopts an attitude she might well like her husband to take. If she can forgive an erring spouse, why cannot he? It is the husband, of course, and not the father who needs the lecture on forbearance. The choice Pamphile makes in this speech demonstrates very different qualities to her different listeners.88 Smikrines sees a stubbornly defiant daughter with an irrational attachment to a husband who offers neither stability nor affection. Charisios, on the other hand, sees a loyal and patient wife whose decision to forgive him seems more important than her lapse of chastity, now that he has an out-of-wedlock baby of his own. Again we see Menander exploiting the discrepancies between what the audience and the on-stage characters know. Pamphile fails to convince her father that he should let her stay but manages to persuade her husband to ignore her nothos. The responses of ancient audiences presumably varied. Seneca records opinions on the wife ranging from the sympathetic (she was like women who die on their husbands’ funeral pyres, 2.2.1) to the cynical (the oath was not serious, she deliberately picked a safe spot for her jump, and the whole thing was a practical joke on her husband, 2.2.7). This scene could certainly be played several ways – with a hopelessly impractical and slightly ridiculous Pamphile, or coy, slyly calculating one, or even a straightforward young idealist. The same could arguably be said for some Euripidean heroines, however, not to mention the virgo in Plautus’ Persa. There is certainly nothing absurd in the ideals Pamphile invokes (Theano and Euripides’ Andromache hold up the same standards), and a Greek audience would not necessarily have condemned the deception of Smikrines. New Comedy does not as a rule blame rape victims who hide their out-of-wedlock pregnancies and Pamphile is, after all, remaining true to the man who is still her husband, in defiance of an authority who ought to be telling her to bear with his misdeeds. Penelope’s “trickery” (' ) earned her renown, while her improbable twenty-year fidelity made her 87 88
Scafuro 1997: 325. Contra Arnott 2004: 277 and 279 takes the sentiments at face value. See also Zucker 1944: 208. Capps 1981: 114 ad 706, Barigazzi 1955: 313, Martina 1997 ii.2: 438 ad 754. Cf. Scafuro 1997: 324.
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an emblem of wifely virtue (twice in the poem it is mentioned that the '1 (community) expect her to await his return: 16.75, 23.149–151). On the other hand, the Odyssey itself raises questions about its heroine’s motivation, hinting that morally ambiguous decisions like appearing before the suitors or setting the contest of the bow need not be interpreted only as her fond husband sees them (Od. 18.282–3).89 Menander is doing nothing new in obscuring the distinction between loyalty and self-interest, even in a “good” woman’s actions. Like so many Menandrian heroines, Pamphile is caught between the conflicting obligations of different social roles. Her formal status as a bride but not quite a wife is conveniently ambiguous and her behavior seems confusing because she identifies with a role neither her father nor her husband expect her to play. A psychologist might take her talk of life-long partnerships and bearing “stumbles” with goodwill as over-compensation for her failure to meet Charisios’ expectation of chastity. Polemon and Thrasonides, however, showed the same persistence in clinging to their spurious marriages, despite lack of support from their communities and their partners. Like these misguided lovers, Pamphile is cherishing an ideal self-image, playing the loyal wife with limitless tolerance of “slips” and “misfortunes,” ready to “bear” all without a murmur and stoutly opposed to divorce. She, too, clings to an illusory marriage, struggling to play Penelope despite having an illegitimate child and a husband who behaves more like one of the suitors. This does not mean that she is insincere or unsympathetic. To the contrary, her desperate need for her husband’s goodwill and forgiveness make her professions seem all the more genuine and there is a poignancy in her dedication to an ideal which circumstances have taken out of her reach. She is trying as hard to persuade herself as to persuade her father. habrotonon’s choi ce It clear from the play’s resolution that we are supposed to sympathize with Pamphile. Giving her a disagreeable, money-grubbing father is one technique Menander uses to avoid compromising his heroine. Another is to displace the qualities necessary to effect change – resentment, initiative, assertiveness – onto a surrogate who can be removed after the hero has reformed.90 By using a socially marginal double Menander gives his heroine the benefits of a duplicitous scheme without making her party to it. In order 89 90
Murnaghan 1987: 129–35, Schein 1995. See Goldberg 1980: 63, Ireland 1994, 1992: 76, 79, and Lape 2004: 38, 166–7 on Habrotonon and Onesimos as dramatic surrogates for Pamphile and Charisios.
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to act in Pamphile’s place (and, as we eventually realize, on Pamphile’s behalf ), Habrotonon needs many of the skills of the hetaira. Menander could not, therefore, use the same strategies for justifying her final reward (whatever it was . . .) he used in other plays. Habrotonon cannot turn out to be anyone’s lost daughter, nor can she be temperamentally unsuited to the profession. Menander needed to find another way to create a positive role for her within a respectable community. He does this by giving her an opportunity to perform a service for a citizen household. The choice that faces her is appropriate for a slave: whether to use her discovery for her own benefit or to help the unknown mother. It allows her to choose her allegiance and to win the rewards any slave might expect from good service – if not outright freedom, at least an easier servitude under a better master. It is important to establish early that Habrotonon is not Charisios’ mistress so we can appreciate the larger errors that derive from Onesimos’ and Smikrines’ initial mistake about her prospects. The choice she makes about the ring, however, remains ambiguous so long as her motives are unclear, and Menander leaves plenty of room for doubt. We can see this even in the modern scholarship. Variously identified as a prototype for the bona meretrix and an unscrupulous opportunist, Habrotonon, like Terence’s Thais, has elicited a lively range of responses. Wilamowitz’ partiality is well known. He even emended line 986 to grant her a “freeborn spirit” ( 8 3).91 Capps hailed her as “one of the few genuine women of the better sort portrayed in Greek comedy,” while others have enthusiastically classed her among “good” hetairai.92 Less sentimental critics have questioned her motives. One early editor argued “she is cool but lively, full of exclamations, but not seriously moved except when she utters a prayer for freedom” while Gomme and Sandbach caution, “Habrotonon is attractive because she is young, warm and clever. But her only deep feelings are for herself.”93 Even her language has drawn fire. An Irish viscount who edited an early edition of Menander took exception to her vulgarity: How admirably too does the character of that artful hussy Habrotonon come out in the scene before us. The vulgarity of the woman oozes out at every pore. The distress of Pamphila, her despair as she rejoins her companions, affect her but little. It is the ruin of the Tarantine, as it seems to her, that is truly deplorable.94 91 92
93 94
Wilamowitz 1925 (followed by K¨orte 1937); see especially 138–9 on Habrotonon. Capps 1981: 30. Legrand 1910: 114–15, Taladoire 1972: 111, Martina 1997 ii.1: 289, and Omitowoju 2002: 221 count her among )%. Sympathetic critics like Dario Del Corno and Madeleine Henry have stressed her positive qualities. Quotations from Post 1931: 233, Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 334 ad 489. Harberton 1909: 108.
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We have seen how other characters find reflections of their own preoccupations in Habrotonon: Smikrines sees a gold-digger who values money as much as he does; Onesimos, a fellow slave with the same hopes as himself but better prospects. To an Athenian audience, Habrotonon was first and foremost a high-priced harp player with the traits of her type: charm and diplomacy, a nose for opportunity and the resourcefulness to exploit it, experience working parties – and men – and amusing conversation. Hetairai were known for their charming manners and Menander’s are no exception.95 The love-struck youth in Fabula Incerta 8 describes the woman he finally settles on as “sweet in her conversation, a hetaira in her manner” (35) – and he means it as a compliment. Thais is “beautiful and persuasive” (fr. 163) while her namesake in the Eunuchus juggles jealous rivals with considerable dexterity (“One fake tear and you’ll be accusing yourself instead,” mutters a disgusted slave, 67–9). An observer with a philosophical bent even tries to analyze a hetaira’s appeal: “By what exactly are they enslaved? By looks? Nonsense! Then we would all be in love with her . . . Well, is it the pleasure in the sex . . . ? So how is it that one man who has her suffers nothing, but walks away laughing, and another is destroyed? It’s the occasion ( ) that is the sickness” (fr. 791 K-A). In his frustrated attempt to unlock the woman’s secret, he settles on the comforting conclusion that her influence is beyond her control: the lovers are struck down by an illness which she simply exploits. She cannot make men fall in love with her; she can only take advantage of those who do. The less reflective Smikrines simply blames Habrotonon’s shameless flattery, not without reason. Complaisance was part of a hetaira’s appeal. As Demeas brutally points out, complying “readily and quickly” (395) when the liquor went around was a symposium worker’s survival skill (and, it must be said, Chrysis is ready enough to humor Moschion). The pipe-girl in Perikeiromen¯e accompanies the ill-conceived attack with good grace, at least until Sosias’ insults drive her back into the house, and a mother in the Rhapizomen¯e puns on $. - to describe her daughter: “She’s extremely man-loving by nature” (fr. 323). (It is not certain the daughter is a hetaira, but this seems an odd quality to praise in a marriageable girl.) “Charm” also included a knack for saying the right thing. Eloquent hetairai reputedly had the power to force lovers to act against their interest, even against their will. Sostratos in the Dis Exapat¯on concedes that his hetaira might well “wheedle” his money from him (27, 93), despite his 95
See McClure 1999: 23, 79–105 on the “outspoken and rhetorically gifted” hetaira and her conversation and Davidson 2006: 44–7 on the qualities of the “superstars”.
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anger. Thais also understood the art of the request (“a woman who locks them out and makes frequent demands” fr. 163) and practiced it with some success, since at least one man was ruined in the course of the play (fr. 164). Chrysis comes up short on this score (partly because Demeas refuses to let her speak), but Habrotonon shows a little of the flattery Smikrines considers such a threat. She couches her advice in polite terms (“Bless you, don’t say . . .” 159–60, “If you’re sensible and listen to me . . .” 493–4) and is liberal with endearments (“sweetest!” 143, 953, “dearest!” 856, 860, “sweetie” 862). A little blandishment (“I’ll owe everything to you!” 543–4) extracts the ring from Onesimos, and she knows how to trick Charisios into confessing the rape: “How shameless you were, and rash . . . how violently you threw me down, and what good clothing I ruined, poor me!” (527–9).96 Not only does she emphasize his virility, but she carefully avoids provoking feelings of anxiety or guilt. She represents herself as ineffectual, then and now (“poor me”), and chooses accusations no one would take seriously from a hetaira (they were notoriously “shameless” and “rash” themselves). Habrotonon knows how the unknown woman felt; she saw her crying and tearing her hair, oblivious to the ruin of her dress. But she tells Charisios only about the clothing, a detail that enhances her credibility without reminding him that he caused more serious harm.97 She is not trying to trivialize Pamphile’s experience (she has already called it an injustice, 499, and worried about alarming the victim unnecessarily, 500–1), but to flatter Charisios into spilling the details: “Once he’s had a few drinks he’ll blurt out everything before I can – and eagerly, too” 522–3. Resourcefulness, for good or ill, and expertise in the area of men and sex were expected of women who lived by their wits. Smikrines has some grounds to complain that “knowing more” gives a the edge in any competition with a freeborn wife. Thais, her Terentian namesake (Menander’s original was a Chrysis), and the “Bacchises” in Heauton Timoroumenos and Bacchides connive to cheat unsuspecting lovers.98 For the drunken 96
97
98
Martina 1997 ii.2: 338 ad 543 (“&%O nei riguardi di Onesimo”), following Capps 1981: 86 ad 326 and Verdenius 1974: 33 ad 367. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 338 ad 526. Cf. Goldberg 1980: 63, Martina 1997 ii.2: 332 ad 526, and Gutzwiller 2000: 121. Verdenius 1974: 32 ad 350 sees an attempt to elicit pity but this would hardly encourage him to brag, which is what she really wants. There may be a subversive element to her flattery (Rosivach 1998: 32). Conventional details (tears, hair-pulling, the torn dress, cf. Eun. 645–6) show that it was rape. On the question of consent here see Omitowoju 2002: 174–5, 180–1. She is not more concerned about the clothes than the victim (Harberton 1909: 108, Post 1931: 233, dismissed by Martina 1997 ii.2: 311–12 ad 489). The “absence of emotive vocabulary” is a rhetorical strategy, and not a “failure to read the attack from the perspective of the victim” (Omitowoju 2002: 186). Men. Thais fr. 163, Ter. Eun. 151–2, Ter. Heauton 730–7, Plaut. Bacch. 77–8, 1150–3. Cf. Plaut. Mil. 882–4, Truc. 389–422.
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Sosias in Perikeiromen¯e, the pipe-girl’s sexual expertise is her contribution to the fray (“You’ve got some useful skills for a siege: mounting, straddling” 483–4). Inebriation may account for his annoyance at her refusal, but there was also an expectation that hetairai were ready to put their ingenuity at men’s disposal. Parmenon and Moschion confer with Chrysis; even Nikeratos’ wife and daughter follow her advice. Likewise Chairestratos, a friend of Charisios, seeks Habrotonon’s advice in the first act (“Should we tell him [sc. Charisios] that this fellow [sc. Smikrines] has come here?” 164), as does Onesimos (“So what should I do now?” 492–3). Like Chrysis, Habrotonon can draw on professional expertise to produce her “brainchild” ( 8 512). She knows the language of lending and gambling all too well – “collateral” ( ), “ante” (L ), “in the pool” ( >), “made a deal” ( ) – and the many circumstances in which rings change hands (502–7). She also knows how to make a story about sex believable. In this sense she does “know more” than a wife would and she certainly “has no shame” (another of Smikrines’ complaints) about reminding Charisios of the rape.99 Habrotonon speaks in a chatty, informal style, appropriate for a hetaira of the less educated sort. Her lines are filled with emotional interjections: “oh dear!” () (six times!), “poor luckless guy” (468), “miserable me” (431), “lucky woman” (873), perhaps “wretched fellow” and “three times cursed” (if she speaks 144–5).100 Her many oaths are typical for a hetaira: “O gods” (484, 489, 548), “by the two goddesses” (543), “my dear Persuasion” (555), and even the slightly incongruous “by Aphrodite” (480), i.e., “I was a virgin, by Sex!”.101 She also uses colorful language, including typically feminine endearments (“dearest” 856, 860, 865, and “sweetie” 143, 862, 953, perhaps characteristic of prostitutes),102 intensifiers like “extremely” ( $ ') and “altogether” (), and exaggerations (“He hates me with a hatred from the gods” 433, “It [sc. Pamphile’s dress] was in shreds” 490, “Dying would serve you right,” 470, “ten thousand ways” 506). She is not the most sophisticated of speakers: she uses simple syntax with little subordination, and her favorite connector is (“for”), appearing at one point 8 times in 20 lines (475–95).103 99 101 102 103
100 at Epitr. 434, 439, 466, 546, 853, 970. Cf. Masaracchia 1981: 233. Feneron 1974: 89–90, Webster 1974: 99 (but Sandbach 1969: 131 is more hesitant). See also Bain 1984: 41 and Sommerstein 1995: 65 n. 15. Sommerstein 1995: 71–2. She also uses at 434, 440, 854, and 870. Henry 1988: 57–8 identifies other repetitions: + % (three times), and ',, ', 0, 8 and &'3 (twice each).
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There is plenty here to establish that Habrotonon is a bona fide hetaira with all the necessary qualities to hatch and implement a comic scheme. Her decision to make the unknown mother’s story “her own” (513) commits her to a course of action that is easily misconstrued, as she herself admits. It might be a ploy to displace the mother or simply an innocent trick to spare her the nuisance of a false report. The motive she actually professes is sympathy for the child and its mother. This is not entirely out of character for a New Comic hetaira. Thais in the Eunuchus and Chrysis in the Andria also befriend freeborn women, partly out of compassion for their misfortunes and partly out of self-interest. The lena and her daughter in the Cistellaria, as well as the rich hetaira in Fabula Incerta 5, also act as close, supportive friends to young women in need. The latter, for example, is obligingly cavalier about a loan (“You’ll pay me back [at your convenience] . . . or if not, I’m donating it” 6–9). Menander is still careful to create a plausible basis for Habrotonon’s sympathy. She pities what she can identify with – slavery, wasteful expenses, even damaged clothing – and draws on believable personal experiences (gambling, drinking, private loans) for excuses to keep the unknown mother’s secret (504–7). Her conversational style – lively, outspoken, impulsive – creates an impression of spontaneity and candor, lending credibility to her expressions of sympathy for the different members of Charisios’ shattered household.104 For example, she is well-disposed towards the baby at first sight (“cute!” 466) and quick to identify with its predicament. “If you can watch him raised a slave, dying would serve you right!” 468–70, she tells Onesimos – a strong reaction for someone with no connection to the household. Her sympathy for the unknown mother emerges from her worries about disclosure and her first account of the rape, which emphasized the victim.105 She even pities Charisios for the money he is wasting.106 Her emotional identification with Pamphile is not implausible: Habrotonon is scripted to be a suitable surrogate. About the same age as Pamphile, she is also in a transitional period, new to her profession and young enough to remember life before it.107 She is still familiar with the religious duties of , such as “carrying the basket” to Athena and attending the Tauropolia, a women’s festival in honor of Artemis. She describes 104 105 106 107
Many have noted her compassion: Wilamowitz 1925: 77, Del Corno 1966: 182, Henry 1988: 58, Ireland 1992: 73 ad 469 and 479, Martina 1997 ii.1: 289, and Omitowoju 2002: 174, 220. Omitowoju 2002: 220 n. 56. Her speech “often refers to the monetary aspect of human affairs” (Henry 1988: 58). Cf. Ireland 1992: 72 ad 437. Masaracchia 1981: 2383–4, Henry 1988: 60, Martina 1997 ii.2: 305 ad 47.
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participating in this festival on equal footing with the other women, at least ritually if not socially (“since I didn’t yet know what a man was” 479), and she was allowed to listen to the gossip about Pamphile’s wealth (485).108 The two girls essentially switched roles at this festival: the freeborn girl was singled out for a sexual encounter while the hetaira remained safe with the other women. Although she performs for men now, Habrotonon can still contact these women (“I could find out” 481, “I’m worried about giving those women . . . a false alarm” 500–1). She can thus serve as an intermediary between the female world of the Tauropolia and the male world of the symposium. In fact, she continues to circulate between the two groups. Despite being on hire, she is apparently free to roam the house, since she notices a slave woman nursing the baby “inside” – presumably somewhere other than the &' , where a drinking party is still going on. This may be a consequence of her failure to charm Charisios, or perhaps simply a sign that the women of the house were not as rigidly separated from the hired entertainment as Greeks liked to think. Etiquette kept them in separate quarters but did not absolutely prohibit contact.109 In some sense, Habrotonon takes on the function of the tragic confidant or nurse: she knows and protects the heroine’s secret, appears in her absence, and represents her interests. For example, she articulates complaints Pamphile is too generous (or compromised) to make: she “expected to be loved” (432) and Charisios has treated her with contempt (“I didn’t realize I was being mocked” 432). As this scene progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that one of her functions is to draw our attention to Charisios’ misdeeds, voicing resentment on Pamphile’s behalf in a more sympathetic and credible way than Smikrines can. If Pamphile cannot tell her own feelings about the rape, Habrotonon can at least invest the story with the emotions of an involved spectator of the same age and sex. Despite her expertise, she is not strongly associated with the sexual side of her trade. She has to rely partly on alcohol to manipulate Charisios, and we are asked to imagine her while she was still a virgin ( 517). As Madeleine Henry argues, “Menander has given her . . . a kind of innocence, by explicitly keeping her chaste and having her reminisce about the time of her virginity.”110 By downplaying her sexuality, Menander reassures us that she is not a 108 109
110
On her “ritual purity” see Omitowoju 2002: 171 n. 5, Dillon 2002: 38. Eryximachus’ suggestion in Plato’s Symposium that the pipe-girl “leave and play to herself or, if she likes, for the women inside” (176e) raises no eyebrows among the guests. Pipe-girls might be hired to accompany weddings, funerals, and women’s gatherings for work or pleasure (Starr 1978: 405, 410 n. 34, West 1992: 28–30, Lewis 2002: 96). Henry 1988: 60. See also Omitowoju 2002: 219.
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competitor to Pamphile. He also reminds us that she is young and new to the profession, too new to have developed into the monster Smikrines imagines but with enough of the professional in her to invite speculation about her motives. If it is important for Habrotonon to identify emotionally with Pamphile, it is equally important for her to show little sympathy for Pamphile’s enemy, her fellow slave Onesimos. Dismissing his qualms, she proposes the very last thing he wants to hear: “If you’re reasonable and listen to me, you’ll make this known to your master, because if it’s a free girl’s, why should this incident stay hidden?” (493–6). The prefatory clauses emphasize her seriousness: this is a course of action she expects to appeal to reason (3), unlike the second plan (at this point she only asks for his approval: “if you like it . . .” 512). For Habrotonon, the problem is protecting the girl – not Onesimos. The answer to “Why should it stay hidden?” is obvious enough. Onesimos is worried about angering Charisios (419–29) and wants to identify the mother first, as he admitted back at 470–1. But Habrotonon is thinking of Charisios, the mother, and the baby – not Onesimos – and assuming, tellingly, that the young father will do the right thing.111 Her tepid rapport with Onesimos underscores her allegiance to the freeborn characters: she ridicules his suspicions (“Do you think I want kids?” 547) and shows more interest in securing his agreement – and the ring – than in allaying his fears (“Do you agree then? . . . hand over the ring – fast!” 550–4). Sympathy is not her only motive, however. Habrotonon pursues the “investigation” ( 4 536) from curiosity as much as altruism. Unlike Onesimos, for whom secrets bring unwelcome burdens (and who spends the play proving that he is not, as Carion claims, “a busybody,” fr. 2), Habrotonon is nosy. She asks about Smikrines (“[Who i]s [this man]?” 143, if the restoration is correct) and the baby (“The one the woman inside is nursing?” 464), and wonders why Charisios wastes his money (437–8) and whether he really is the father (“I couldn’t tell, before knowing [for certain] who the culprit is” 499–500). She notices details: Syriskos is a charcoalburner 465; the ring was lost “at the Tauropolia” (471–2); Pamphile wore a luxury fabric. Habrotonon’s inquisitive bent is reflected in her language: she repeatedly uses verbs of inquiry (“seek out,” O,, 509, 537, echoed by Onesimos at 545) and disclosure (“make known” 495, “reveal,” 8 501, cf. 509; “show,” '%4- 535). Her curiosity makes some of her reassurances to Onesimos more credible. She is too nosy to be content with speculation. 111
Martina 1997 ii.2: 313–14 ad 495–6.
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Whereas Smikrines claims Delphic foresight, Habrotonon will only vouch for what she saw: “I don’t know [sc. whether the baby’s mother is the rape victim she saw]” 485, “Maybe he had it [the ring] but he didn’t show me – I won’t lie” 491–2.112 She recognizes degrees of certainty, as for example when she insists she does not “know clearly” or “yet know” that Charisios is the father (499–500, 508) and she resists leaping to conclusions: the rape she knows about is “similar,” but not necessarily identical, to the one that produced the baby (475–6). For Onesimos, “it stands to reason” ( | % 452–3) that a ring and a baby add up to rape by Charisios, but Habrotonon recognizes the limits of “reason” (“Who knows if someone else who took it as a security lost it . . . or if he bet it gambling” 502–5). She seems likelier to ferret out the truth because she is actually interested in learning it, and not just in getting her way or making a problem go away – the principal motivations of Smikrines and Onesimos. The insinuation that she plans to terminate her inquiry as soon as she has the information to supplant the real mother comes, after all, from a character whose antipathy to honest disclosure has been well established. Not all of Onesimos’ insinuations are off the mark. When he accuses her of angling for freedom, he forces her to admit that she likes the idea. A child may have been a classic means of prolonging an affair and Onesimos is certainly applying conventional wisdom about hetairai, but he is not simply mistaking her generosity for egotism.113 Habrotonon is not above profiting from the situation, even if she did not devise the scheme for her own benefit. She is accustomed to paid service and considers herself on a kind of hire with the possibility of an especially large fee (“Gods, if I could only become free! That’s the only payment I would take from this” 548–9). Her confession does not however invalidate her moral claims, as Onesimos implies; it simply exonerates her of worse motives and sets her behavior within the norms of her type. As Stanley Ireland points out, “Menander is careful to limit thoughts of personal advantage by specifically exploring its extent. By raising and then rejecting the possibility of Habrotonon seeking further advantage through abandonment of the search for the child’s real mother . . . Menander avoids potential problems of his own making.”114 The hetaira acts like a hetaira but from a mix of motives that leave her intentions open to doubt – doubt planted by Onesimos. 112 113 114
v G8 , in the future with a desiderative force (Verdenius 1974: 31 ad 316). Cf. Martina 1997 ii.2: 309 ad 485. Martina 1997 ii.2: 340 ad 547, pp. 347–8 ad 559–60 (exploiting a child); 344–5, 347–8 ad 558, 559–60 (conventional wisdom); ii.1: 289 (mistaking her generosity). Cf. Ireland 1992: 74 ad 541.
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Habrotonon’s real motives are not made clear until the end of the play but there are many hints that Onesimos’ stock accusations are no better founded than Smikrines’. Although she is clearly skilled at role-playing and manipulating others into supporting parts, she knows that she is creating nothing more than an illusion. The rehearsal scene demonstrates that her appropriation of Pamphile’s identity is an act, and an uncomfortable one at that. She has doubts about giving a convincing performance and worries about “making mistakes” (524, 527), repeatedly reminding us that her part will be heavily improvised: “I’ll pretend what happened to her happened to me,” “Whatever he says I’ll agree with,” “I’ll put on the usual act.” She is worried enough to plan out the props, timing, blocking, and stage business: “When he notices I have the baby and asks where I got it I’ll say . . .” (516–17), “Before that I want to get the baby inside and cry and kiss it and ask the woman who has it where she got it” (530–2).115 Menander is careful to distinguish the performer from the part in order to minimize the threat her deception poses. Emphasizing her feelings about it – that it is uncomfortable, unfamiliar, false – reassures us that it will be temporary and grounds her decision to forego the long-term advantages not in any implausible, self-sacrificing altruism (she is still looking for a way out of slavery) but in an awareness of the limits of this particular illusion.116 We are not asked to believe that she never lies – her investigation depends on a lie – but that her lies are a professional skill and she is not always playing the professional. In these back-stage scenes we get to see her off duty. Menander thus stages the deception so that we cannot ignore the artificiality of casting a hetaira as a “mother” or the effort required to sustain the role. Habrotonon takes it on at Onesimos’ instigation and after Charisios has denied her the one part she was ready and willing to play. Chrysis showed some maternal feelings for the child she nursed, but Habrotonon shows little sign of any “repressed maternal instinct” (and there is no practical need for it, since the child already has a foster mother in Syriskos’ wife).117 The baby was the drawback to the scheme, not the incentive, and she treats it as little more than a prop. Gestures of affection are an afterthought, added 115
116 117
I am indebted to Katherine Gutzwiller’s 2000 metadramatic reading of this scene. There is of course nothing new about on-stage “rehearsals” (which appear in the Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae, and Ecclesiazusae). Cf. Henry 1988: 60. Pace Martina 1997 ii.1: 289 (“`e figura umanissima incapace di mentire”), she does know how to fib. Quotation from Arnott 1981: 222. Cf. Legrand 1910: 641, Zini 1938: 38, 58, Del Corno 1966: 182 and Henry 1988: 59. Wilamowitz 1925: 83 and Martina 1997 ii.2: 333 ad 530 take at 530 to indicate that the child occupies her thoughts but Capps 1981: 104 ad 638ff. seems more on the right lines (“from v. 638 to v. 643 she devotes herself rather ostentatiously to the baby”).
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to mimic a mother’s feelings (“cute!” was the extent of her own) and for the benefit of a less than sober audience of one. Her discomfort with the role becomes even more obvious when she comes back on stage in Act IV, encumbered with a “prop” that turns out to have a mind of its own. With a screaming infant she can neither pacify nor relinquish – it is allegedly hers – she has become persona non grata inside and has to assure everyone that she is taking it out of hearing: “I’m taking it out! Oh dear, it’s been wailing for a while. I just don’t know what its problem is” (853–4).118 When the real mother notices the pair, she is not fooled for a minute (“Miss, where did you get the baby?” 864–5).119 Habrotonon presents an even more incongruous picture than Chrysis – a hetaira decked out for work at twelve drachmas a day, clutching an infant. Her attempts to soothe the baby have a slightly desperate tone (“[When] will you see your mother?” 856) and she is more than ready to hand it over. The scene with Pamphile is crucial to settling any lingering questions about the hetaira’s motives. Not only does Habrotonon use her information to benefit the young mother, as she promised, but she also wins the approval of the most credible of the play’s dubious moral authorities. Pamphile, who knows about the hetaira’s supposed baby, gives her a chance to confess without prejudice (“Where did you get the baby?”) before forcing a direct admission (“You didn’t give birth to this child, did you?” 867). Habrotonon lays out her defense: she “pretended” it was hers in order to find the mother, not “in order to do her an injustice” (868). She stresses that it was an inquiry, not a plot (“so I could find,” “now I have found,” “so you can learn clearly from me”), emphasizing her role as an observer (“It’s the woman I saw,” “I see you, whom I saw before”). Her curiosity is unexpectedly validated when the wife starts to ask some of the same questions. In fact, all of her lines are questions: “Do you know me? Who are you? Where did you get that baby? You didn’t give birth to this child, did you? Who’s the father? Do you know this for certain?”. As the two women begin to develop a rapport, they echo each other’s language, a technique Menander used earlier to show Charisios’ new-found goodwill towards Pamphile. Habrotonon unconsciously repeats Pamphile’s entrance speech (“Which of the gods would pity me, poor wretch” 855, “One of the gods pitied you” 874).120 They initially trade “ma’am”s ( 8, “Ma’am, wait!” “Do 118 119 120
Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 357–8 ad 853, Martina 1997 ii.2: 463–5, contra Verdenius 1974: 37 ad 533 (“she is more likely to monologize than to ‘tell someone inside that she is going out’”). The -% presumably play a role here (Martina 1997 ii.2: 472 ad 864–5). The plural “you” is probably significant: Habrotonon is thinking of Charisios as well. Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 360 ad 874, Martina 1997 ii.2: 476 ad 874. Stockert 1997: 8–9 sees a reference to “Chance,” whom he identifies as the prologue speaker.
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you know me, ma’am?” “Ma’am, where did you get the child?” “Don’t be afraid of me, ma’am”) until the happy disclosure warms up the tone of the conversation.121 Their forms of address reflect the shifting emotional relationship between them: after starting with “ma’am” (858), Habrotonon switches to “dearest” (to present herself as an acquaintance rather than a stranger, 860, 865), and then shifts back to “ma’am” after a sign of reserve from Pamphile (866). After hearing the good news, Pamphile picks up Habrotonon’s “dearest” (871, cf. 860, 865) and allows herself to be drawn into a symbolic meeting half-way between the houses. As in the Samia, the respectable woman has the vote that matters on a hetaira’s conduct. When Pamphile grants Habrotonon’s request “Bring me inside your house | so you can learn all the rest from me plainly” 876–7), she effectively acquits her of any malicious intent. Ironically, after all of Smikrines’ dire predictions, it is the wife who receives the hetaira into the family home – and while still believing her a rival. Habrotonon’s choice is also validated at a larger thematic level. Her decision to seek out the truth and forego the advantages of concealing her knowledge is closely connected to central themes of the play. “Discovery” functions throughout as a mechanism of justice. The verb “find” (L% -) occurs 13 times; the related verbs “seek” (O-), “disclose” (8-) and “show” ('%) occur 20 times; and there are 22 occurrences of cognates of “justice” ('%), more than in any other play. The Epitrepontes defends an ethics of restitution – of property, identity, or status – and explores ethical questions surrounding finds. Is the finder entitled to keep the find? Does the finder have an obligation to report the find or to seek out the owner and restore it? To consider the consequences of disclosure? Daos, Syriskos, Onesimos, and Habrotonon all undergo the test of an unexpected find. Arguably, even Smikrines and Charisios are tested, although what they “find” is evidence of a corruption (in a son-in-law and wife, respectively). Just as Smikrines arbitrates claims to the discovered tokens, eventually deciding in favor of their infant “owner,” so Habrotonon is asked to weigh the father’s interest against the mother’s. The stratagem she devises to protect both actually leaves her with a similar choice: whether to keep the child and the material advantages it brings (Daos’ position) or to forgo these in the interest of restoring it to its rightful parents (Syriskos’ position). She and Onesimos replay arguments of the arbitration scene, such as the right of a free-born child to be raised free and the finder’s obligation to honor 121
Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 359 ad 860, Ireland 1992: 76–7 ad 856 and 865, Martina 1997 ii.2: 469 ad 858, 470–1 ad 860, and 472 ad 865–6, Omitowoju 2002: 185 n. 46.
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its mother’s intentions. Each “test” reiterates the same message: when the implications of a find are unclear – tokens that may link a child to free parents, a ring that may prove a youth guilty of rape – concealment is wrong. Ironically, it is Habrotonon’s very nosiness that makes her an instrument of justice and divine compassion – in answer to Pamphile’s plea – while her reluctance to deceive and her urge to make everything “open” ($ ) align her with the forces of justice. Habrotonon understands the moral implications of hiding the truth. She is right that it is reprehensible to allow a freeborn child to be “raised as a slave” (469). The word she uses, '3, underlines the baby’s legal status and she refers to it as Onesimos’ “young master” ( $), thereby implying a claim to his allegiance.122 In pressing the child’s claims, she recognizes the importance of a potential heir to a propertied household and helps to maintain what Athenians would have considered crucial status boundaries. She understands the value of a discovery which will make Pamphile a “fortunate woman” (% 873) – a true “wedded wife” ( : 0 953), as she later tells Charisios (it is no small irony that the hetaira should make this pronouncement). She also uses more judgmental language than Onesimos in talking about “the culprit” ( &'3 499, cf. 508), even though he is readier to assume that his master is the rapist (453).123 Charisios is guilty of injustice, as he more or less admits (“a man without fault,” 908, who “stumbled” 915). Habrotonon raises this issue repeatedly (“Dying would serve you right” '%- & 470, “not so that I could wrong (&'0 -) the mother” 868), with evident faith in the possibility of bringing it to pass. Onesimos, on the other hand, shows no concern for any wrongs done to the mother, Charisios, or the child; he worries only that Habrotonon may cheat him (546) and deprive him of his “just” ('%) share of the benefits (563). Yet even he eventually recognizes the force of her arguments (“You have a point” 510). conclusion Like Chrysis in the Samia, Habrotonon is allowed a degree of access to a women’s network and entrusted with one of its secrets. Both hetairai fib with the tacit support of higher-status women. After all, no one at the festival disclosed Pamphile’s secret, even though they all knew who she was (as Habrotonon explains, “She was a friend of the women I was with” 481–2). 122 123
Martina 1997 ii.2: 300 ad 469. Cf. Wilamowitz 1925: 80. &', becomes virtually a technical term for rape in New Comedy (Bonanno 1973: 110 f., cited Martina 1997 ii.2: 316–17 ad 499). Cf. Georg. 30.
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Again we see an informal women’s network protecting one of its members and a hetaira who takes a decision consistent with its priorities. Just as Chrysis took actions her citizen neighbors could not, so Habrotonon uses her professional skills to make Charisios confess.124 She exhibits qualities that might compromise a respectable woman – initiative, resourcefulness, deceit – and she represents the more disturbing side of Pamphile: the spouse who lies to her husband, the rape victim who seeks out and confronts her rapist, the mother who wants to keep her illegitimate child. While the wife only speaks of her husband’s “stumble,” the hetaira calls it a “crime.” If Chrysis’ actions reflect indirectly on the women she protects, Habrotonon’s impersonation tells us far more (indeed, all we ever learn) about Pamphile’s hidden past. Menander thus uses the hetaira to explore issues that make for potentially disturbing comedy under the comforting fiction that they concern someone of no social consequence. This is a role later prostitutes have often been forced to play. As Simone de Beauvoir notes, “It has often been remarked that the necessity exists of sacrificing one part of the female sex in order to save the other and prevent worse troubles . . . a caste of ‘shameless women’ allows the ‘honest woman’ to be treated with the most chivalrous respect. The prostitute is a scapegoat; man vents his turpitude upon her, and he rejects her.” Habrotonon fills a time-honored function: she helps to keep the respectable woman respectable.125 She is certainly useful, in many senses, and the worst assumptions made about her are proved false: she is not going to lure Charisios down to the Piraeus until his wife’s dowry runs out, nor does she set herself up as the mother of his child. But is she a “good hetaira”? Would an Athenian audience have called her 0? Probably not – at least in any sense that transcends status or gender (which seems to be what Donatus saw in the bona meretrix he attributed to Terence). Habrotonon does not possess the signal virtues of high-status women: she is not chaste, modest or quiet in front of men; she lies and deceives “craftily and unscrupulously” (8 - 0-); and she confronts and blames where a “good” wife like Pamphile, in contrast, tolerates and forgives. It was of course all but impossible for a hetaira to practice the virtues of a freeborn woman. Sobriety, chastity, and fidelity were privileges of the lucky few, unavailable to woman who made their living at symposia. Nor could they imitate the demure silence demanded of daughters and wives: hetairai were paid for their wit. Distraught helplessness might be respectable, but these women 124 125
On the sympathetic traits shared by Chrysis and Habrotonon see Omitowoju 2002: 220. Beauvoir 1953: 555. Cf. Roberts 1993: 222–4 on nineteenth-century versions of the same theme and 325–52 on continued stigmatization and scapegoating in the twentieth century.
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needed ingenuity to survive. Attempts to imitate the qualities that defined the virtuous freeborn woman were more likely to count against a hetaira than to earn her the epithet 0. The example of the Corinthian prostitute Neaira (discussed in chapter 4) is instructive. She was welcomed all over Greece so long as she was touring parties as a rich man’s mistress. It was after she settled, raised a family, and tried to marry her daughter into a citizen household that she faced prosecution. Is Habrotonon “good,” then, in a more limited sense? Hetairai had always been praised – and blamed – for qualities that made them attractive. Many were admired for their beauty, elegance, and refinement, their often substantial accomplishments, and their legendary witticisms. In Eubulus’ (c. 380–c. 335 bc) Kampylion, for example, a hetaira is praised for having the dainty table manners of a “Milesian maiden” (fr. 41K-A). Ephippus’ (iv bc) Empol¯e praises another for “sweetly flattering” and “comforting” a despondent customer in need of a warm welcome (fr. 6), and a speaker in Theophilus’ (iv bc) Philaulos enthuses over the looks and talent of a kitharistria (lyre-player) who is “a sweeter sight than free tickets” (- ) (frr. 11–12).126 These are the criteria, however, of a restricted group of wealthy clientele. Menander’s plays are written for an audience who shares the bourgeois values of a character like Demeas or the Cistellaria father, who speaks favorably of a meretrix (“She’s charming and her talk is too” 315) until he “discovers” she is corrupting his son. For these men, a hetaira was an attractive nuisance, tolerable within limits, like other forms of conspicuous consumption, but presumptively guilty until proven innocent. The infatuated may have sought fidelity, gratitude, and affection, but soberer heads wanted something else. The test that really matters is whether the women protect or jeopardize the welfare of citizen households. All of the things that lovers prize, including the “heart of gold” which Antiphanes gave to his “genuine” hetaira, are irrelevant by this standard, as are any qualities real hetairai may have admired in themselves. Accordingly, if Habrotonon is “good” in any sense a contemporary audience would have recognized, it is not for being a Theodote (the hetaira Socrates visits in Xenophon’s Memorabilia) – coy, seductive, and charmingly manipulative – or even for being an Antiphila, the faithful one-man-only heroine of the Heauton Timoroumenos. In fact, she is not even particularly good at her profession – at least from a financial perspective. As Plautus’ Ballio explains, the job of a meretrix is to see that gifts keep flowing in: grain from the grain-dealers, meat from the butchers, oil from the oil merchants 126
See Henry 1988: 35 n. 68 for further examples.
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(Pseud. 188–229). Menander depicts other hetairai who have the potential to impoverish citizen households: Sostratos’ hetaira (Dis Ex.), the title figure in the Thais and perhaps also the Phanion, and the models for Terence’s Thais (Eun.), Bacchis (Heauton) and Chrysis (And.). Habrotonon, however, is a half-hearted gold-digger. She worries about giving her client value for money and complains of having time on her hands. She also admits to something no experienced hetaira would ever acknowledge: that she is not desirable to all men. There is nothing to suggest she “pretended to love” Charisios out of calculation, as do Terence’s Thais and her Menandrian namesake (“loving no one, always pretending”). Although miffed by his neglect and curious about his situation, she is not particularly attached to him. He is just another wealthy young man, like the others she has worked for, who could have lost his ring “ten thousand ways.” She plays a hetaira for him in much the same way she plays a mother – only less convincingly. Since the money all goes to the pimp, she has of course no personal stake in ruining the young man (and little power or inclination, we are assured, to do so). Instead, she offers an unpaid service which ends any hope of future employment: she saves his marriage. Like Pamphile, Habrotonon identifies with a role she is not entitled to play but without offering any challenge to the social hierarchy. She knows her place perfectly well: she does not want the right to bear and rear children – the privilege she is trying to secure for the unknown mother – just freedom from a pimp. To obtain this, she promotes the interests of a citizen household, seeking advancement through service. This is the kind of behavior sought in a family slave. Ideally, slaves with positions of trust in a citizen family were expected to identify their own welfare with that of the household and be motivated by long term rewards, rather than threats of immediate punishment.127 The contrast with Onesimos (the only character to whom she clearly offers a morally instructive example) is marked. In many ways Habrotonon is the good slave he ought to be: instinctively forthcoming, tactful and discreet, clever and helpful with an unexpected solution. Onesimos, in contrast, is cynical about the rewards of loyalty. He believes that freedom is more likely to come from a clever scam than from honest service (“I’ll be a slave forever – a brain-dead, driveling idiot with no foresight at all in these things”), and his primary concern is avoiding punishment. This is why he agrees to Habrotonon’s scheme, 127
E.g., Eur. Med. 54–5, Hel. 726–7, 1640–41. On the ancient ideal of the “faithful slave” see Finley 1980: 103–4. Hope of manumission supposedly made slaves work harder (Xen. Oec. 5.16, Arist. Pol. 1330a31–3; Hopkins 1978: 170, Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 59). For Menandrian examples see Cox 2002c: 38.
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even though he distrusts her and knows he ought to show Charisios the ring immediately. Volunteering nothing, showing no initiative, acting only when directly ordered: these are common tactics of resistance to slavery. They come as no surprise from a slave who resents his position and sees no moral justification for it.128 If Onesimos is doomed to a life of slavery, Habrotonon seems to be fitted, as Menandrian women often are, for a better position than she holds at the beginning of the play. The play hints at freedom broadly (539, 548, 558), and both she and Onesimos consider it a real possibility (he treats it as a fait accompli when he speculates about the thanks he is likely to receive, 557–66). They have some credibility since they understand comic “reality” well enough to reconstruct the rape (452, 473–5) and predict how Charisios will react (Onesimos anticipates the reconciliation, 425, and Habrotonon the cross-examination, 521–2). Whether she gained her wish is another question. Charisios has not freed her when he leaves the stage for the last time in Act IV. He is not the likeliest manumittor, however, since he seems to have little money of his own.129 His friend Chairestratos, the host of the three-day party, evidently does have some wealth and something of an interest in Habrotonon, if he is the person who talks about “no ordinary little hetaira” (985–6) and struggles with some difficulty involving her, the baby, and remaining a $% (this word is restored) to Charisios at 982– 9. As Arnott notes, he is the likeliest subject of her complaint at 430–1 (“Let me go . . . and don’t cause me trouble”) and his lament “my whole business is turned upside down” (699) may refer to his hopes of winning her.130 An enamored – and apparently unmarried – Chairestratos might well purchase Habrotonon from the pimp, once he learned she was not the mother of Charisios’ child. She would then become his dependent, whether nominally freed or still his slave. The historical evidence suggests she is more likely to have switched masters than to have gained immediate, unconditional freedom. Most manumitted slaves had conditions attached to their release, usually to provide services to the manumittor (in many cases, they were obliged to continue serving their former master until his or her death, but there are also examples of female slaves who were required 128 129
130
See Hopkins 1978: 121 on tactics of resistence. Freedom seems likely (Capps 1981: 117 ad 776, Post 1940: 451, Ireland 1992: 80 ad 987). She will still be a psaltria but perhaps with a lover to maintain her (Chairestratos? Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 372, Ireland 1992: 80 ad 1060, Martina 1997 ii.2: 408 ad 699, 530, 592). Pace Martina 525 and 592–3, Chairestratos is unlikely to marry a hetaira who does not want children (and he cannot, if he is a citizen, Harrison 1998 i: 26, 184). Arnott 2004: 275.
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to serve a third party).131 Some form of continued dependency seems likely for someone as young as Habrotonon (it was long since pointed out that she would still need to earn a livelihood, even if freed).132 The beginning of Act V is unfortunately too fragmentary to determine the resolution of her plot-line, but a rise in status for her would certainly parallel the happy ending for Pamphile. At very least, poetic justice demands that she be given a master who sees more in her than twelve drachmas a day. Menander takes care to make Habrotonon’s actions plausible in terms of her type but he does not exploit her situation for social commentary or literary polemic, as Terence does later. He is neither rehabilitating the profession nor demonstrating that his audience’s beliefs about hetairai, real or fictional, are fundamentally wrong, but exploiting the discrepancy between a particular hetaira’s actions and the worst presumptions attaching to her type.133 Habrotonon is a constructive member of her community within the limitations of her class and type and she acts as well as “no ordinary little hetaira” might be expected to act. Menander treats her with the same bemused detachment Konrad Gaiser saw in his treatment of philosophical ideas, which all appear in some way parodied, qualified, distorted, or otherwise made humorous. As Gaiser argues, dramatic purposes override philosophical purposes and the playwright sometimes ridicules positions with which he sympathizes elsewhere, as a kind of “self-irony.”134 “Selfirony” may be an apt explanation of Habrotonon’s better qualities. We are reminded, even as she talks of honesty and justice, that she is a slave who longs for freedom and a comic hetaira whose road to freedom lies not through love but through championing her rival. There is nothing inherently implausible about a clever slave girl ensnaring a young man or a rich neglected wife turning bitterly against her husband. To set the audience straight, Menander has to do more than discredit the characters who make the mistakes. He gives both women the chance to make revealing choices and allows them to explain their reasons. Pamphile describes the wife she would like to be and is convincing enough to win over her chastened husband. Habrotonon’s hopes are more modest: she wants only to be free. Both are allowed to weigh in on the question of their own status, in part because of Charisios’ neglect (Habrotonon has unexpected leisure; Pamphile is, in a sense, between kyrioi). Pamphile argues with her father about his legal and moral authority to remove her from her 131 132 134
See Zelnick-Abramovitz 2005: 217, 223–48 and Hopkins 1978: 169 for instances from Delphi. 133 Cf. Legrand 1910: 578–9. Wilamowitz 1925: 105. Gaiser 1967: 37. Gigante 1971: 483 argues that parody is not his central purpose but Menander occasionally raises a laugh at philosophers, 473–4. See also Webster 1970: 110–13.
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marriage; Habrotonon engages in a pursuit of freedom, although Onesimos suspects and Smikrines assumes that she is angling for more. Neither is simply and unambiguously “good,” but they are associated with sympathetic models (the good slave, the loyal wife) and we are given enough information to situate them in the right role and judge them more fairly than the other characters judge them. Menander does not ask us to disregard our assumptions and beliefs about slaves, hetairai, wives, or women generally; he simply asks us to acknowledge the positive contributions these two particular women make to the welfare of their community. We know too little about other New Comic playwrights to know the degree to which Menander modified the type, but the evidence of Old Comedy and Middle Comedy suggests the comic hetaira began as a satirical combination of everything that was wrong with the profession (pretensions, bragging, exorbitant fees), the lower classes (servility, lies, flattery) and women (gluttony, lust, deceit). “Associated with public figures to signify . . . corruption and wastefulness . . . prostitutes entered comic literary debates as the personifications of cheap and decadent versifying and degraded subject matter.”135 It is possible that by Menander’s day the only place for innovation was in showing hetairai to be better than they seem. Menander certainly made innovations of this kind: several of his soldiers are quite sympathetic, even if they have not altogether shed their conventional faults, and hetairai such as Habrotonon and Chrysis are not greedy, malicious, or especially dishonest.136 But he worked within a comic tradition which imposed a certain conservatism through its established system of costumes and masks. These communicated socioeconomic information visually: before a character had even spoken, the audience already expected traits associated with his or her age, sex, and status. It requires very little exposure to New Comedy to learn this visual language and the burden of explaining deviations lay with the playwright. Accordingly, it may be better to pose the question of the “good” hetairai negatively: could there be a hetaira who was not bad, or at least not all bad? Menander partly answers this question when he describes an otherwise unknown hetaira as “bold but not bad” ([] . , . . . , Demiourgos, p. 98 K-A). Perhaps the comic hetaira’s moral ceiling was to be “no worse than nature made her,” as Pericles advised women generally (Thuc. 2.45). The irony of the “bold but not bad” hetaira clearly appealed to 135 136
Henry 1988: 29. Cf. Legrand 1910: 291–2, McClure 2003: 110. Many, perhaps all, in Middle Comedy, were based on historical figures: Webster 1953: 63, 66, Nesselrath 1997: 278. On sympathetic treatment of the soldier, flatterer, mother-in-law etc. see MacCary 1972: 297–8, Sandbach 1977: 82–4, and Webster 1953: 124, cf. Moss´e 1989: 259).
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the playwright, who chose in the Epitrepontes not to exploit the conventional wife–hetaira rivalry in favor of the paradox of an unloved hetaira rescuing a much loved wife. In general, Menander seems to have de-professionalized the hetaira, tempering her traditional faults and turning her, like the soldier, into a law-abiding member of a harmonious community. His hetairai do not help one household grow rich or powerful at the expense of another, nor do they make the sort of public gifts we know real hetairai made to advertise their own economic power and enhance their public image.137 Women like Habrotonon, Chrysis, and Terence’s Thais (Eun.) and Chrysis (And.) show their public spirit through private channels. It is by no means clear that he invented a “good hetaira” (his hetairai are not called good, except by Plutarch, and it cannot be argued that they are good in any absolute sense), but he did play a major role in the development of the type, recognizing, perhaps for the first time, that a hetaira might provide benefits other than sex and entertainment. By allowing his whores-with-hearts-of-gold to earn the protection of a respectable oikos by benefiting it in ways that also benefit the larger community (notably, by restoring its lost sons and daughters), Menander established a long-standing precedent: the prostitute’s road to virtue lay in serving interests other than her own. tex t of p. d i d o t i + , 1 ( u 9 8 I $, ( 5 / ( A ',. ' &$,, K - ( 1 & '% : . % ( ,O V'% , ( 0 > 8- '% ' 2 Y, 2'. & & '0, K - #$- 9 e * &% % , + , w % & 0, )1 - K - $,. 2 - ' 7 >8 3 % &', . 2 &' % , ( ' a 2 &%, 137
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transl ation Father, you ought to speak the words that I’m speaking. It suits you more than me to be sensible and say what’s needed. But since you have neglected this, perhaps it is left for me, out of necessity, to say what is right myself. If he has done some fairly serious wrong, it does not befit me to punish him for it. If he has erred against me, I ought to have it noticed it. But I know of nothing at all, perhaps because I’m foolish. I wouldn’t contradict you. And yet, father, even if a woman is a silly judge of everything else, she may have some sense when it concerns her own affairs. Let the situation be as you would have it. Explain how he mistreats me. There is an established custom for husband and wife: that he should love the woman he has, always and to the end; and that she should do exactly what pleases him. He has
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been to me what I hoped, and everything that pleases him also pleases me, father. So, he’s a good man by me but he’s broke and now you’re giving me, as you say, to a rich man so that I won’t live my life out in grief. And where is there enough money at hand, father, to give me more joy than a husband? Or how is it just or decent to take my share in the prosperity he had but to take no share in joint deprivation? Consider: what if the man who is going to take me now, something I hope may never happen, dear Lord, and it won’t – not if I have my way and can help it, at any rate – if this man also loses his property, will you give me to yet another husband? And if it happens again, to another? How long, father, will you test chance in my life! When I was a child, then you should have looked for a man to give me to; it was your choice back then. But since you gave me away, now it’s my job to worry about this, father, reasonably enough. If I don’t use good judgment, it’s my own personal life I’ll harm. That’s it. So don’t, by Hestia, deprive me of the husband you had me live with. I’m begging you for this favor, a just and compassionate one, father. If you say no, and do what you want by force, I’ll try to bear my fortune without shame, as I should.
chap t e r 6
Why women?
One of the questions this book has set out to answer is whether Menander created the “good” hetaira Plutarch mentions at Moralia 712c. In the course of my investigation, I have shown that mistaken identity embraces a much wider range of characters than low-status women from the ranks – or potential ranks – of hetairai. Something of a demographic profile has emerged: characters who make the mistakes are mostly highstatus men, while those who are mistaken are mostly low-status women. This chapter addresses the question of this gender imbalance. Why are women such apt objects of misperception? Historical factors are certainly part of the explanation. Menander wrote for a particular audience whose experiences, values, and beliefs clearly shaped his mistaken identity plots. Events generally play out against a backdrop of Athenian public institutions, among characters who are often thoroughly conversant with Athenian laws and customs. Menander’s compliance with these laws raises questions about whether his plays defend or justify them. The plays also comply, however, with norms and values that would have had wider currency throughout the Greek-speaking world (e.g., the idea that status ought to reflect moral character). Other aspects of the Menandrian mistaken identity plot can be traced to shared artistic and cultural traditions. For example, Menander’s debts to earlier drama raise particular questions where women’s status is concerned. Tragedy and Old Comedy had long explored tensions and ambiguities surrounding their role in the polis and the oikos. Menander, too, asks questions about the nature of women’s membership in, and obligations to, their marital oikos. At the same time, he transforms a fundamental element of tragedy by turning tragic ignorance into comic misperception. He exploits the double identity these plots make possible to construct a fantasy tailored to a male audience: a long-term sexual relationship with a partner of their own choosing, not subject to the usual restrictions of law and custom. Menander thus uses mistakes about women to explore ideological tensions surrounding love and marriage. 245
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Why women?
To start with the playwright’s time and place: there were practical reasons for making men mistake women’s status, rather than the other way round. The relative insignificance of women politically was one. They may have given the state a few priestesses, but they provided no generals, statesmen, jurors, or even voters and were largely excluded from the political life of the city.1 The recovery of “lost” women would not have been inconsequential to the polis, but it would have mattered most to their immediate families. At the same time, restrictions on women’s legal, economic, and even social activities limited the impact of any identity mistakes they themselves might make. The authority of adult male citizens, on the other hand, gave their errors serious consequences. Demeas controls who lives in his household; Smikrines (Aspis) has first rights to the epikl¯eros; Stratophanes and Thrasonides own their girlfriends; and even Polemon has enough money and slaves at his disposal to make a nuisance of himself after Glykera leaves. Flawed reasoning, imperfect observation, and mistaken inference mattered most in the people who made the decisions. Much of this would have been true in the other cities that furnish settings for plays such as the Perikeiromen¯e and Synarist¯osai. A few laws unique to Athens, however, made women’s status a particular issue in a genre which typically resolves with marriage. The epikl¯eros law which figures so prominently in the Aspis and in Terence’s Phormio is one example. Another is Pericles’ citizenship law of 451 bc, which restricted Athenian citizenship to those born of citizen fathers and citizen mothers (previously only an Athenian father had been required for citizenship). This law made citizenship a virtual qualification for marriage, and Menander often used mistaken identity to get round this peculiarly Athenian dilemma. Restoration of a “lost” Athenian citizenship is explicitly said to make marriages possible in the Siky¯onioi, Andria, Eunuchus, and Heauton Timoroumenos. This may also have been true for the H¯er¯os and Phasma, which appear to be set in Athens. Throughout the corpus, Athenian men who marry invariably end up with Athenian women.2 This raises the question of the plays’ attitude towards the law. In chapter 2 I argued that the Aspis faults the individual who exploits the epikl¯eros law, rather than the law itself. A number of plays address problems caused directly or indirectly by the citizenship law. Indeed, so many end with double Athenian marriages that Susan Lape has described adherence 1 2
Just 1989: 13, cf. Seidensticker 1995: 151. On the civic dimensions of women’s ritual activities, including serving as priestesses, see Goff 2004: 160–226. Resolutions in fact comply with this law (Lape 2000/1: 57 n. 13) regardless of the setting, perhaps in deference to Athenian tastes (Ogden 1996: 178–9).
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to the law as a “central generic convention” and reads the plays as evidence of the author’s support for both the law and its underlying principles.3 She sees this support operating at the level of the plot, rather than in the conscious choices or expressed values of individual characters. Plots which end with the revelation that the object of a young Athenian’s affections is herself an Athenian make compliance with the law seem a natural outgrowth of the “generically predetermined biological necessity” that Athenian men should desire only Athenian women.4 This may be something of an overstatement, however. Not all Athenian male passions are for women who will prove citizens: Demeas loves the Samian Chrysis, Sostratos and his friend love two other Samians; Phaedria loves the Rhodian Thais (Eunuchus); Chairestratos may well love Habrotonon (Epitrepontes); Clinia in the Heauton loves and loses Bacchis (and Plutarch tells us that his case is not unique, Mor. 712c); and we know that hetairai like Thais and Phanion did not lack for lovers. Nor are all Athenians sexually attracted – at least, initially – to the women they marry. The youth in P. Ant. 15 marries to please his father (3) and falls in “love” (V [-] 12) – not lust – with his wife’s “freeborn” character. Gorgias in the Dyskolos accepts his bride because of her dowry and his new friendship with her brother. Charisios seems to have married Pamphile at least in part for her dowry, while poor Clinia (Heauton) is married off to keep him away from Bacchis. Likewise, a bride is chosen for Moschion (Perikeiromen¯e) while he is offstage lamenting that the woman he loves is also his sister. Part of what makes high-status women attractive brides is certainly what Lape calls their “hyperfertility” (all rapes lead to healthy sons, a motif which may be traced back to myth), but they are also desirable because of their agreeable personalities and ample – often implausibly ample – dowries. Their sex appeal is rarely emphasized. Sluttish wiles and blond hair are, after all, unacceptable in “decent” women (Epitr. 794–6, fr. 450 K-A), and most of the marriages that follow rapes have more to do with reparation than passion. Moschion in the Samia, for example, promises marriage in a spirit of contrition and in order to mollify the victim’s mother (Sam. 51–3, cf. Ter. Ad. 332–4), while the Georgos youth abjures the “impiety” of “mistreating” his victim (&'0 # > 16). And no one in the plays suggests that biology (i.e., $8 ) has pulled a wayward youth in the right direction, romantically speaking, without his knowledge. Occasionally a character like Habrotonon credits the gods (Epitr. 874) or a god takes credit in person (e.g., Pan in the Dyskolos). More often, the happy outcome is the 3
Lape 2000/1: 53.
4
Lape 2000/1: 53.
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Why women?
result of an artificial, eleventh-hour recognition which qualifies the beloved for marriage.5 If anything, Menander offers forbidden fruit – marrying a foreigner, slave, or captive, having sex with a high-status woman, or simply choosing a bride without regard for dowry or family connections – with the humane indulgence ( $) Plutarch noted approvingly (Mor. 712c). Menander seems less interested in defending the Athenian citizenship law or celebrating the successes of Athenian women in winning the affections of Athenian men than in affirming that happiness can, after all, be found in marriage. As Plutarch argued, “Even the love affairs ( -) . . . are suitable for men who have drunk and are about to retire soon, going back to their own wives” (Mor. 712c). In this, Menander follows in a tradition going back to the Odyssey, recognizing the possibility of happiness with someone “like-minded” (6.183).6 A very different Hesiodic tradition dwelling on the faults of women and the miseries of married life flourished in Old and Middle Comedy and received a philosophical treatment in Theophrastus’ On Marriage.7 There are reflexes in Menander of both points of view. The bickering couples so common in Aristophanes appear, for example, in the epikl¯eros type (who appears in the Plokion, evicting a maid her husband may have fancied) or the ongoing squabbles between Nikeratos, Knemon, and Chremes and their respective wives in the Samia, Dyskolos, and Heauton Timoroumenos. The central plot lines, however, enact an idealized notion of marriage. The young women are desirable and blameless; the young men, confident that their marriages will be happier than their parents’. There is such an idealization of marriage that even outsiders such as soldiers and slaves seek fulfillment in it. Characters subject to Athenian laws certainly comply with them, but one suspects an ancient audience left with the idea that non-citizen women were much more appealing and wishing that things worked out in reality as they do on stage. Menander’s compliance with prevailing laws and customs may have more to do with respecting the sensibilities of his audience than with communicating any message about the inherent rightness and naturalness of 5
6 7
Contra Lape 2000/1: 47 argues that the “discovery” of citizenship for women raped or beloved by Athenian men is a defense of the double ascendancy principle: “this seemingly accidental compliance with the norms of civic matrimony powerfully affirms them by suggesting that they are really based on love and sentiment rather than on arbitrary legal rules.” Cf. Lape 2004: 99, Ogden 1996: 179, and Masaracchia 1981: 224. But the lip service of a last-minute legal fix is quite different from the explicit, reasoned endorsement of shared values and beliefs presented in funeral orations. On the Homeric model of affectionate marriage see Arthur 1984: 14–16. See Arthur 1984: 14, 22–5, 46–7 on the negative tradition, which arguably goes back to Iliad 14. On marriage in Old Comedy see Henderson 1996: 26–7. On the relationship between Menander and the Theophrastan treatise see Webster 1960: 214–17.
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particular laws. These plays were about subtly flattering an audience, every bit as much as law-court or assembly speeches, and this required validating their values and beliefs. There are nods to Athenian pride beyond obvious praises of Athens (e.g., P. Didot ii, Sam. 101–4) and denigrations of places like Byzantium (Sam. 99–101), Bactria, Caria, etc. (Sam. 628–9).8 For instance, we may detect a certain chauvinism in the celebration of Athenian citizenship – always an inestimable benefit to the “lost” individual who recovers it, no matter what his or her former status. Stratophanes, to take an example, expresses no regrets at losing his Sikyonian citizenship (and one suspects that the Carthaginian who wants to “register according to the laws” at Karch. 39 would willingly trade). And it was certainly flattering to substitute Athenian citizenship for the royal, or even divine, lineage discovered by the changelings of folk tale and myth.9 This is a fairly simple adaptation of a folk motif, however, which would have resonated in many fourth-century Greek cities and need not imply denial (or defiance) of recent Macedonian-backed changes to Athenian citizenship rules.10 New Comedy did not deal in kings and gods; the best a lost child at Athens could hope for was an Athenian family. Exclusivity was not, of course, unique to Athens, and not all lost children recover Athenian citizenship. In the Epitrepontes, which sets the mythic model and its comic adaptation side by side, Neleus and Peleus “became kings” (333), gaining wealth and preeminence; a real-world foundling is lucky to escape “the lot of a slave” (469).11 Nor is there any sign that lost Athenians need to demonstrate anything more than Athenian parentage. It is much more important to show “freeborn” or even “Greek” character than a particular aptitude for or interest in Athenian civic responsibilities. This seems to be equally true of women as well as men. No lost daughter laments her missed chances of serving as a Brauronian # (bear) or bearing Athena’s basket, or eagerly anticipates her new opportunities to take part in the Thesmophoria and Skira. Menander was 8 9
10 11
Gaiser 1968: 210–21, Hofmeister 1997: 329. The abandoned baby who becomes a great leader is a common figure in folklore (e.g., Moses, Cyrus, Romulus: Post 1939: 198–9). See Thompson’s 1955–8 motif l111.2 “foundling hero,” s371 “abandoned daughter’s son becomes hero” and r130–131.20 (there are 42 variants of “the rescue of the abandoned child”). New Comedy adapts the motif more realistically than tragedy: foundlings are more often female and the practical reasons for their exposure are frankly admitted (Huys 1995: 88–90). See Huys 121, 334–5 on New Comic adaptation of motifs in the tale-pattern for a “comedy of errors” plot. On this problem see Lape 2004: 11 and n. 8. Omitowoju 2002: 160–1, 166. On Syriskos’ “aristocratic” conception of identity see Lape 2004: 124– 5. Huys 1995: 363 sees a parody of a motif he calls “The extraordinary capabilities of the foundling and the conflict with his inferior social position” (335). This motif figured in most tragic versions of the exposed-hero tale-pattern, including Euripides’ Auge, the tragic intertext here.
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Why women?
more interested in validating widely shared cultural attitudes (e.g., inherent differences between the servile and the freeborn) than in defending specifically Athenian values and beliefs.12 The plays reflect tensions between the reality of legal and other restrictions on marriage partners and an idealized fantasy of free choice. Although Menander’s audience did not, evidently, demand any more than a begrudging recognition that established laws and customs must be obeyed (the consensus of the sympathetic characters in Aspis), they were willing to recognize that laws could be subverted or violated and that they were an imperfect instrument for creating a just society. “Forensic thinking” in New Comedy, as Scafuro has shown, does not simply mean thinking in accordance with the laws – much less with abstract notions of justice – but thinking “by ‘formulations’ . . . e.g., how conduct can be formulated as justifiable, how an end can be attained, how an argument can be most persuasive, how the law can be circumvented, how at times the truth can be explicitly concealed but rendered implicitly self-evident.”13 Over and over the plays illustrate the inadequacy of human institutions to create just distributions of wealth and privileges, although individual acts of generosity may relieve small inequities (the rich alleviating their neighbors’ poverty, soldiers restoring captives) – hardly a radical message. Many of these good deeds reflect widely shared and, in a few cases, politically charged values. Marrying or dowering a poor girl, for example, could be regarded as a public service at Athens and in one play is justified in terms reminiscent of debates about the performance of liturgies (Dysk. 797–812).14 There is some sympathy for a deserving outsider like Stratophanes, whose “recovered” citizenship enacts an obvious kind of poetic justice, but there is no hint that he could or should have obtained it in any other way, even though he has performed the kind of civic service (restoring a lost citizen at personal expense) for which public honors, conceivably even citizenship, might have been awarded.15 What Menander’s audience was not willing to hear, evidently, was the suggestion that the law should be bent in cases such as this. And any audience
12 13 14
15
Cf. Rhodes 2003, who notes the difficulties of distinguishing Athenian democratic ideology from “general Greek polis ideology” in tragedy. Scafuro 1997: 326. Demand 1994: 13, Lape 2004: 118 n. 21, 131–3. Lape sees the generous mercenaries who restore lost citizens as representatives and even role models for the Hellenistic rulers (62–3, 186) but it is hard to imagine Athenians saw a Cassander or a Demetrius in these low-level captains and foot soldiers. On the late fourth-century increase in privileges awarded to metics see Moss´e 1989: 266–7. Naturalization was comparatively rare, particularly for individuals who actually lived at Athens, and usually entailed significant expense (Osborne 1983: 187–200, Todd 1993: 175).
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member so inclined was always free to blame human nature for human injustice. Menander is accordingly not teaching wayward citizens a lesson in democracy or defending the city’s laws. Sympathetic characters often vocally disagree with principles behind both law and custom. Moschion questions the ethics of legitimacy in the Samia, Chaireas faults the epikl¯eros law, and Polemon is enraged that he has no legal means of retrieving Glykera or punishing Moschion. Although technically they do comply with the law, their compliance is belated, unintentional, and due to forces beyond their control. Demeas independently plans the match that Moschion wants; Pan gives the polis a helping hand in steering Sostratos towards Knemon’s daughter; a chance meeting with Philoumene’s father makes Theron’s shady scheme unnecessary. The genre’s highly contrived solutions do not resolve the basic problem of bringing the values of the young men in line with the priorities of the polis or even of their families. They simply remove the source of conflict in specific cases (as Blume notes, New Comedy offers individual, not general, solutions).16 Indeed, their erotic impulses violate norms with deeper and broader cultural roots than particular Athenian laws: prohibitions against rape, a father’s right to choose his children’s spouses, or the importance traditionally attached to birth, wealth, and family connections in arranging marriages. Nor are the Periclean citizenship and epikl¯eros laws the only obstacles to the happy unions at the end. In both the Andria and Heauton Timoroumenos, legal issues are decidedly second to the defiance of paternal authority, while the Perikeiromen¯e and Misoumenos emphasize the heroine’s own resistance. Recovery of citizenship did offer an acceptable solution to the very real problem of population diminution in war-torn Greece: expansion through the restoration of ‘lost’ members. It was a remedy unlikely to give offense because it did not compromise the integrity of the citizen body, it added members who would help repopulate the polis but not directly impact its governance (i.e., women), and it affirmed the moral basis for excluding outsiders (hetairai, soldiers, metics, slaves) from the civic body, inasmuch as characters live up or down to their true status. These plots developed in a culture which believed that status and moral character ought to correlate, and so apparent anomalies must be traceable to errors about social identity. Nobody is much better than their birth. Good-hearted prostitutes who help restore legitimate heirs lie and scheme to do so, while their seemingly chaste and modest counterparts are really lost daughters from good homes. 16
Blume 1974: 64.
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Why women?
A “thoroughly decent” foreigner like Stratophanes (Siky¯onioi), who restores one of these women at his own cost, is actually a citizen after all. There is nothing new here: Homer was already reminding his audience that Eurykleia and Eumaeus, the most loyal of Odysseus’ slaves, came from aristocratic backgrounds, and Euripides explained the virtue of Elektra’s farmer-husband in much the same way (his family is , “illustrious” in birth, but poor, El. 35–8).17 Comic mistaken identity thus offered an acceptable way to acknowledge atypical virtues in a member of a disadvantaged class without really questioning the social, economic, and juridical divisions that created the disadvantages. Challenges to the “comfortable acceptance of city-state exclusiveness and the privileges of class,” are, as Konstan notes, subtle.18 Although some characters do question the relationship between behavior and birth or (e.g., Moschion, who asserts, “in justice . . . the good man is legitimate, and the bad illegitimate” (Sam. 141–3) or the young speaker in fr. 835, who claims “a noble man is well born by nature . . . even if he’s an Ethiopian,” 11–12), the resolutions validate more conservative views, and the most provocative positions are given to characters with the least authority.19 As David Wiles notes, radical notions about the redistribution of wealth coexist with a conservative belief in the superiority of an agricultural lifestyle.20 Supporting restoration of a temporarily “lost” privilege or economic redistribution that happens through private charity poses no real threat to social and political divisions at Athens or elsewhere. The Menandrian mistaken identity plot, which characteristically revolves around problems of women’s status, naturally reflects the context in which the plays were written and performed. It may be vain, however, to look for a specific political program or affiliation.21 The focus on private affairs may well have encouraged a political quietism that served Macedonian interests.22 Peace, political stability, and the opportunity to devote oneself to private affairs, however, were already part of the utopian vision of Old 17 18 19
20 22
Zanker 1987: 147–8. See also Murnaghan 1987: 40–1. Konstan 1995: 167. As Masaracchia 1981: 232 notes, recognition closes the door which love opens between conservative bourgeois society and the marginalized. These are not revolutionary ideas: “in literary-historical terms [Sam. 142–3] are platitudes” (Ogden 1996: 204). See Masaracchia 1981: 222 on how daily life is “corrected” to conform with bourgeois ideals (and to “reinforce the social hierarchy,” Hofmeister 1997: 302). But how comforting are corrections that do not address the underlying problems? I am inclined, with Konstan 1995: 6 and Scafuro 1997: 325, to see exposure, but not resolution, of the contradictions in publicly professed values. Cf. Ruiz 1981: 81 (the resolutions are artificial). As Lape 2004: 130–3 notes, the most subversive ideas are expressed by compromised characters or given a cold reception. 21 Here I am following Konstan 1995: 6 and Omitowoju 2002: 165. Wiles 1984: 174. Major 1997: 60, 63, 71.
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Comedies like the Acharnians. Nor did Menander use mistaken identity to solve the problems created by recent changes in the criteria for Athenian citizenship. The beneficiaries are primarily women who lose their citizenship through war, abduction, or exposure, and not men disbarred by the property qualification which Cassander had imposed in 318.23 Male children are exposed only when they are illegitimate (i.e., not even potential citizens), never abducted or enslaved, and rarely adopted out of state. A few swapped boys are eventually restored to their rightful families (e.g., Moschion in the Perikeiromen¯e, the priestess’s son in the Hiereia, Stratophanes in the Siky¯onioi), but they never lost their citizenship in the first place – they only held it under false pretences. Even the lost daughters are sometimes non-Athenian: Krateia is Cypriot, Glykera is probably Corinthian, the Kitharist¯es girl is simply “free and from a Greek city” (39), and Plangon in the Synarist¯osai may have proved Sikyonian (the setting of Plautus’ Cistellaria). Although the plays are all concerned with the preservation and restoration of the oikos, there is no explicit recognition of its political significance at Athens. It might be possible to read an implicit message, but the use of identical plot mechanisms in both Athenian and non-Athenian plays argues against this. The Misoumenos and Perikeiromen¯e, for example, are resolved in the same way as plays involving lost Athenians: a legal guardian arrives bringing legitimacy and a dowry (cf. Ter. Andria, Eunuchus). As Plutarch notes, “good and loving” hetairai, i.e., lost daughters, find a legitimate father (: 0 , Mor. 712c). He is Athenian and/or rich only when the situation requires it (and one lost son – Stratophanes – discovers that his Athenian parents were quite poor). Continuation is just as important as restoration from the city’s perspective, but women’s reproductive contributions are not viewed in political terms. In Aristophanes, women claim to have benefited the city as a whole by providing citizens. The chorus leader in the Thesmophoriazusae, for example, argues that women contribute to the polis by giving birth to taxiarchs and generals and deserve public honors for producing “a man useful to the city” (#' 1 , 832–5). Lysistrata argues that women support the war effort by “bearing and sending off children as hoplites” (589–90), while the chorus leader 23
Property of at least 10 minae (= 1000 drachmas) was required for participation in city government (Diod. Sic. 18.74.3). The number of people excluded is uncertain. See Omitowoju 2002: 162–3 and Lape 2004: 44 n. 10 for discussion and references and Pr´eaux 1957: 93–4 on the plays’ reflection of the problem of displaced persons. Such changes may explain New Comedy’s preoccupation with loss of status (Davies 1977/8: 113–14 and Konstan 1995: 166, cf. Hofmeister 1997: 311–12). A reference to the property qualification at Sam. 101–4 (Hofmeister 301) seems dubious.
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claims that they pay taxes in sons (651). In Menander, however, women’s reproductive role is depoliticized. There is no language of civic service. In fact, interests of the polis are not even mentioned when children’s status is disputed. Demeas and Charisios talk only about legitimacy (cf. the Hiereia summary, P. Oxy. 1235), while Habrotonon frets about whether Charisios’ baby will be raised “as a slave” (469). Indeed, Menandrian comedy is so sympathetic to its protagonists’ unpatriotic preferences for tiny families that woman are, if anything, begrudged the few children they are allowed to keep. Any wife minded to preserve more than a single son often has to circumvent a husband’s express prohibition (and in these cases the children lose their civic status, so the polis does not benefit). It is hard to imagine a Menandrian mother boasting that she enriched the city with hoplites and taxiarchs. My focus so far has been on the historical factors that help explain why women play such key roles in Menandrian mistaken identity plots. No sharp line, of course, can be drawn between historical context and dramatic utility. Menander takes advantage of the relative ease with which women could be hidden to explore some implausible premises: fathers are unaware of their daughters’ pregnancies, rapes pass unnoticed, and girls like the title figure in the Phasma can even be reared in secret. Because of social pressures limiting the visibility and mobility of women from the propertied classes, if a kyrios was absent (on a business trip to Byzantium, for example, as in the Samia), his female dependents were essentially free of oversight. In the absence of public processes for establishing their identity, it was also possible to “hide” women in a less literal sense, placing them in the hands of people who have no idea who they are. Examples include the many lost daughters in Menander who pass for mistresses and slaves of lovers or would-be husbands. As discussed in chapter 2, Menander’s far-fetched coincidences and improbable mistakes exploit the cracks in the system where the freeborn daughters of good families were concerned. Mistakes about women’s status also had more serious emotional consequences than mistakes about men’s status. In a genre which prioritized the romantic fulfillment of high-status men, telling over and over the story of falling in (heterosexual) love and surmounting obstacles, only women are the focus of feelings intense enough to give misunderstandings dramatic effects. As we saw in chapter 2, infatuated men care deeply about the social position of the women they love because it determines the kind of relationship they can enter. Basic errors about social identity also underlie the more complicated mistakes about moral character (discussed in chapter 3), which have even more severe emotional consequences, particularly when they lead
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to mistaken suspicions of male $%. Misunderstandings create needless rivalries between family and friends (e.g., in the Perikeiromen¯e, Samia, and Dis Exapat˜on) and generally undermine the stability of the oikos. Smikrines in the Aspis, for example, nearly thwarts Chairestratos’ plan to bring his stepson closer into the family. Errors about women’s identity could also disrupt a wider community: Demeas and Nikeratos nearly come to blows over Chrysis, Polemon all but attacks Moschion’s house, and even Sostratos and Moschos quarrel in the Dis Exapat˜on. Identity mistakes cause particular problems when they disrupt marriages and the long-term alliances these served to establish. Discovery of the “apparition” in the Phasma entails new marriage arrangements, since another groom must be found for Pheidias’ original fianc´ee. The girl in the H¯er¯os eventually unites neighboring families, but only after narrowly escaping marriage to a slave. Even the cantankerous Smikrines in the Epitrepontes wants to preserve the marriage alliance with Charisios. Menander’s identity mistakes frequently exploit gender stereotypes familiar from earlier drama. Many of the errors about low-status women discussed in chapters 3 and 5 draw on the image of the corrupt whore. High-status women, by contrast, are cast in traditional roles as the victims of domestic crimes (and sometimes perpetrators, as in cases of baby swapping). It is assumed that they will know a household’s secrets much better than the men. These women rarely labor under any misapprehensions about one another’s identity or motives, and they tend to close ranks, keeping silent about rapes, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, foundlings, and illegitimate children. Far from challenging a stereotype which goes back to archaic poetry,24 Menander goes to some effort to absolve the men of complicity in the most serious “feminine” deceptions. Moschion (Perikeiromen¯e), Stratophanes (Siky¯onioi), and the priestess’s son in the Hiereia, for example, all sincerely believe themselves to be the legitimate children of the couples who raised them.25 Menander takes care to exclude high-status men from any voluntary participation in schemes with no moral or legal justification (unlike the second epikl¯eros scam in the Aspis, for example, or Sostratos’ 24 25
See, for example, Bergren 1983: 74–5. Sudhaus’ supplement at Perik. 818 ([ ,$ I'$ 2 ']'0) would give Moschion tokens identifying him as a foundling (Lamagna 1994: 282–3 ad 387–8, Ireland 1992: 95 ad 817). Glykera’s imperfects (815, 820) certainly imply that she does not have the necklaces, gem-set trinket, embroidered purple belt, cloak or gold-[embroidered?] head-dress, but Moschion may not have them either. Unlike the home-made items she kept, these had intrinsic value and we know the Old Woman was poor (126). Why give them to Moschion’s rich mother? His comments at 819 and 822 may imply that Moschion recognizes the tokens but they seem rather indirect from a man looking for “plain signs” (792).
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relatively harmless duping of Knemon). This suggests that ancient audiences were unwilling to watch respectable men engage in the domestic misdemeanors that often generate misunderstandings. The ignorance of these “lost sons,” however, deprives them of the sense of double identity that generates so much puzzling behavior, discussed in chapter 4, from the lost daughters. Male victimization was evidently a sensitive subject. Menander’s plays offer stories of rape, abduction, and enslavement under the comforting fiction that such misfortunes only befall women.26 They bear the brunt of the domestic mishaps that are a staple of the genre, not to mention a disproportionate share of the false accusations. When male citizens are “lost,” they suffer very little. Pamphile’s baby might have been “raised among workers” (Epitr. 321), but he only spends a few days with a slave foster mother. What little we know about the Hiereia indicates that the priestess’s son was well maintained by his foster family. Likewise Stratophanes (Siky¯onioi) and Moschion (Perikeiromen¯e) are cherished by their adoptive families. Philoumene (Siky¯onioi) and Plangon (H¯er¯os), on the other hand, are raised in quasi-slavery, while Glykera grows up in poverty. The captive Krateia is trapped in Thrasonides’ house while her father (and brother?) are free to travel the Greek world. Gorgias in the H¯er¯os is the only lost son to face any real hardship. Unlike his sister, however, he is spared a sexual assault and his “hardship” – working off an inherited debt – is the kind of virtuous toil that New Comedy tends to celebrate.27 Sostratos wins esteem and a bride for undertaking similar work in the Dyskolos, and two propertied citizens (Menedemus in the Heauton and Knemon in the Dyskolos, admittedly both nonconformists) consider it no disgrace to work their own fields. The figures with whom an audience of adult male citizens was most likely to identify are spared the humiliation of slavery or prostitution.28 It was no doubt easier to win the sympathy of an audience that was conditioned to pity, rather than blame, women for their misfortunes. Young men who fail to stand up for themselves – e.g., Moschion in the Samia and Aeschinus in Terence’s Adelphoe – require elaborate excuses: “I’m ashamed 26
27 28
Lape 2004 offers another reason for the gender bias: lost female citizens represent the Hellenistic polis (18–19), the democratic city (239), or even democracy itself (217). Female figures could certainly be “allegories for political principles” but examples like Diallag¯e (cited 19 n. 59) Eir¯en¯e, Op¯ora, and The¯oria in Aristophanes (or more obviously, D¯emokratia and Aristokratia in Hen. fr. 5.16–17) are all named to make their function clear, unlike the Glykera’s, Pamphile’s and Philoumene’s of New Comedy. It is unclear what would cue an ancient audience to identify them with the polis instead. See further Major 2004. Arnott 1981: 220, Lape 2004: 126 and n. 40. The P¯oloumenoi, “Sold Men,” may have been an exception but we know nothing about the title figures.
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in front of my father!” (Sam. 67, cf. Ad. 681–3.). The silent passivity culturally expected of women also simplified the task of creating and sustaining mistaken impressions. The sort of victimization Menander depicts probably owes more to literature than real life. The women who are forcibly raped, kidnapped, or captured and sold miles from home are the legitimate daughters of affluent families, that is, women who were actually comparatively well protected. It was low-status women who saw most of the violence in reality. Many enslaved prostitutes owed their miserable lot to kidnapping or exposure, and they experienced plenty of abuse. As James Davidson describes it, “The streets could be rough. Fighting over prostitutes was a commonplace of low-life escapades and pipe-girls were especially vulnerable to being mauled by competing males.”29 But in Menander, apart from the occasional abduction (and whatever happened to the title character in The Girl Who is Set on Fire, which one would prefer to think accidental), low-status women experience only symbolic violence: a bout of drunken hair-cutting, an uninvited embrace, a slap on the cheek, an unspecified act of hubris (Pall. fr. 281K-A), or a verbally abusive slave (Sosias to Habrotonon in Perik. 483–5). This raises an interesting corollary to the claim, argued in chapter 3, that only low-status women are subject to mistakes about moral character. Why are high-status women spared false allegations but subjected to real violence (abductions, rapes, exposure)? There were some practical dramatic advantages: kidnapped or exposed daughters could be restored; babies born from freeborn mothers had prospects worth exploring. From a psychological perspective, this odd division of adversities allowed the dramatist to offer the fantasy of sexual access to respectable women without offending deep-rooted beliefs about the barriers to different classes of women. The main obstacle to women who could be bought was supposed to be expense, and so plots about obtaining hetairai revolve around raising cash. The main obstacle to women who could not be bought was supposed to be consent, and so plots about obtaining them often involve violence. Every effort is made to reassure the audience that these women are involved in sexual contact against their will. Legitimate, freeborn daughters do not agree to prostitute themselves. As Legrand points out, women “comme il faut” yield to force but never propositions.30 And too many rapes are specifically 29
30
Davidson 1997: 82. See also Post 1940: 439, Cox 1998: 171–2 and n. 17. On visual evidence for violence against prostitutes see Keuls 1985: 180–6, Kurke 1997: 137–9, Sutton 1992: 11, Shapiro 1992: 54–7, Kilmer 1993: 155–9, and Lewis 2002: 124–7. Legrand 1910: 581–2. This is consistent with Greek values (see Halperin 1990: 92), although there may have been a gap between theory and practice (Roy 1997).
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described as violent for them to be simply face-saving devices to disguise consensual pre-marital sex.31 Aristophanes may depict a lusty young citizen girl (Eccl. 884–1048), but Menander does not (and even Aristophanes’ girl has been described as “a striking anomaly in all of extant comedy”).32 Nor is any recognized daughter ever driven by an exploitative kyrios to “earn wages with her body,” the phrase repeated with such contempt in Against Neaira. Fathers may have infant daughters exposed, but they do not prostitute them. One goes so far as to blame his wife for giving their daughter to a woman who would “make her earn her living or sell her” instead of having her killed (Heauton 632–43). She would have been better off, he suggests, if his orders had been followed. Moreover, when lost daughters are restored they are acknowledged, dowered, and betrothed; no one suggests abandoning them to their fate. One character even begins a search when he learns that an old rape produced a daughter (Cist. 182–4). Chremes in the Heauton is the only father to grumble at the expense (835–41, a touch of realism – the burden of a dowry was probably a common reason for exposing girls).33 Although New Comic poets like Menander gave it definitive form, the mistaken identity plot has roots in tragedy and shows traces of its origins. A Hellenistic biographer was already crediting Euripides with the most common basic devices: “rapes of girls, substitutions of children, recognitions by rings and necklaces: these are to be sure what comprise New Comedy, and Euripides perfected them.”34 In addition to plot motifs, New Comedy also inherited broader concerns about women’s membership in sociopolitical groups within the polis, starting at the level of the oikos. Issues which are relatively straightforward for men can be problematic for women. For example, to what oikos do they belong? Both tragedy and Menandrian comedy explore the difficulties of integrating women into a new oikos and the conflicts that arise when they fail to identify with it.35 Both genres 31
32 34
35
Scafuro 1997: 113–14 suggests that they provide an opportunity for the playwright to explore strategies of conflict resolution but this would be equally true of consensual sex (and, as she notes, the presence or absence of violence was not always a legally significant factor). 33 Pomeroy 1975: 140, Ruiz 1981: 201. See also Golden 1990: 94. Henderson 1996: 26. Satyrus, Vita Eur., P. Oxy. 9.1176 fr. 39.7, lines 8–22. Cf. Schol. Eur. Andr. 32, “the mutual suspicions of women, their rivalry and abuse, and other elements that make up a comedy, every last one of these is included in this play” (trans. K. M. Aldrich 1961: 11–12, quoted in Foley 2001: 103 n. 223). Aristophanes, too, was said to have “introduced a rape and recognition and all the other things Menander emulated” in his K¯okalos (Ar. Test. 46–51 K-A), while the Suda dubs Anaxandrides “the first to introduce love affairs and the seductions of girls on the stage” (Anaxandr. Test. 1 K-A). Were these intermediate steps between Euripidean tragedy and Menandrian New Comedy (Nesselrath 1993: 185)? On tragedy see Seaford 1987: 106–7 and 1990: 152–3, 166–8, Wohl 1998: xiv, 17–37, Ormand 1999: 13–25, Foley 2001: 84; on comedy see my discussion in chapter 4 (but note also Seaford 1990: 168).
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also treat the special problem of women who assert active membership in groups in which they have limited rights. The consequences that ensue when women emerge from the oikos to acquire a political voice, taking actions which affect the fate of the polis, have long been a central concern of tragedy.36 Women’s rare positive contributions as civic members (e.g., the self-sacrifices of parthenoi) benefit the polis at the expense of the oikos. Menandrian comedy transfers these conflicts to the oikos. Self-sacrificing virgins are still the models of “good” behavior, but they do not act in concert with the demands of the polis. Instead, they protect the interests of their natal families, honoring ties to brothers (Glykera, Krateia) or actively seeking restoration to their birth families (Philoumene, Glycerium in the Andria). They resist the compromised status they are forced into when not properly “given” in marriage. Their problems arise because they honor ties to an oikos to which they no longer belong. Problematic behavior in Menandrian women thus stems from disruptions in the normal process of transfer from one oikos to another – a reflex of the “tragic wedding,” only with less intractable problems. Rape victims want to conceal their rape or, if they know the rapist, to enter his oikos as a legitimate wife. Lost daughters want to be recognized and properly married. Even if they have no hope of marriage, they nonetheless refuse to disqualify themselves further by sleeping with men other than their first lover (e.g., in the Perikeiromen¯e, Andria, Heauton Timoroumenos, and Synarist¯osai). These women are “bad” for their lover’s oikos only because they have not been properly integrated into it. Women who can never be formally included, such as hetairai, provide a different model of misconduct: they threaten the oikos with moral and financial ruin. As discussed in chapters 3 and 5, the threat they are perceived to pose is often a misconception: Chrysis, Thais (Eunuchus), and Habrotonon actually promote the welfare of an oikos in exchange for its protection. In Menander, the interests of the outsider and the family into which she marries are eventually reconciled in ways that are never possible in tragedy. In the oikos-based world of New Comedy, women rarely cross into the public realm as they so often do in tragedy. Scenes played in front of the stage-building are sometimes notionally “inside,” as for example the title scene in the Synarist¯osai (of course, not all tragic space is marked as public, or even “outdoor,” space).37 Others are played at the threshold: Knemon’s daughter steps outside only to hand Sostratos a jug; Krateia, to 36 37
Important contributions to this enormous topic include Shaw 1975, Foley 1981, 1982, and 2001, Easterling 1987, and Mendelsohn 2002. Easterling 1987: 17–18, Seidensticker 1995: 155.
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greet her father; Pamphile, to lament her misfortunes. Hetairai come the closest to having a public role in the social world of the polis, yet even Chrysis is eager to relinquish symposium work for a tenuous position in a wealthy household. Women’s overall role is to be part of the reality of the oikos. Those who leave of their own free will do so only to take refuge in another oikos. Glykera moves next door; the girl in the Phasma flits between houses; even Philoumene in the Siky¯onioi enters a public sanctuary only to assert her membership in her natal oikos. In this, Menander depicts a social world closer to Aristophanes’ (and to reality),38 where women circulate freely within a female network but avoid public spaces when they are frequented by men. And even when they do enter these spaces, they are still “metaphorically contained by the boundaries and values proper to respectable women,” as Foley has shown for Aristophanes.39 They have, in a sense, never left the oikos. In Menander there is no sense that a female character ever really enters public space. Women make none of the polite apologies, so common in tragedy (e.g., Eur. Herakl. 474–5, Suppl. 297– 300), for presuming to speak in public, and they do not try to use religious or ritual roles as an extension of their citizenship.40 Although many are eventually revealed to be members of the polis, their citizenship is passive, linked to concerns about legitimacy, property, and producing heirs. In this, the plays match the historical record.41 Marriage and citizenship go hand in hand not because the plays police the boundaries of women’s civic conduct, but because they seek to guarantee the legitimacy of offspring. The tragic origins of the New Comic mistaken identity plot are one reason why so many of these mistakes evoke a serious response. The stock domestic problems – rapes, infidelities, supposititious children and orphans, abductions by pirates, enslavement in war, or simply poverty, greed, and neglect of kin – are serious, and the mistakes they engender have potentially grave consequences. Although Menander may avert the worst disasters with a timely recognition, the happy endings are still artificial solutions brought about by a deus ex machina, whether he or she appears in the trappings of a god or operates more subtly under the guise of “chance.”42 Menander really wrote melodramas with moments of comic 38 40 41 42
39 Foley 1982: 7. Fantham et al. 1994: 109–11, Blok 2001: 116. Eur. Med. 214–15, often cited in this connection, is not an apology for speaking in public (Easterling 1987: 24 n. 32). On women and public speech in tragedy see further McClure 1999: 24–9. See, for example, Sealey 1990: 14. On Tych¯e as a deus ex machina see Wehrli 1936: 115, Tiernay 1935/7: 250, Lef`evre 1979: 320–8, and Omitowoju 2002: 152–3. Coincidence, noticeable already in the Odyssey, was part of the underlying folk tradition (Murnaghan 1987: 134) and tragedy also used recognition to avert & - (Arist. Poet. 1453b34–6, 1454a4–9).
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relief and did not hesitate to draw on tragic forms to elicit the response his audience was conditioned to feel at the misfortunes of tragic figures. One example is women’s victimization. Chapter 4 showed how Menander recreates women’s roles as war victims and objects of sacrifice from both epic and tragedy. Dramatic irony is a second example. Because the basic elements of the myths were well known, tragic audiences could view decisions made in ignorance with a full understanding of the consequences. Tragic poets exploited the discrepancy between what the audience knew and what the characters on stage knew for dramatic effects such as pathos, foreshadowing, or suspense. Menander achieves many of the same effects, even though his plots and characters are new, by giving his audiences inside knowledge through prologues and “rehearsal” scenes. A third example of New Comedy’s debt to tragedy raises wider questions about the relationship between the two forms and affords a broader perspective on why identity mistakes are most often made about women. All of Menander’s plays have a recognition of some sort. One is even explicitly called an & - (Epitr. 1121), while another uses tragic language to evoke its tragic model (the stichomythia at Perik. 779–827). Aristotle defines tragic & as “a change from ignorance to knowledge” ( 4 & % >0, Poet. 1452a30–1), and his famous conception of tragic hamartia can be interpreted in ways that fit Menander quite well. Gerald Else, for example, defines hamartia as a mistake of identity: “tragic recognition, or the best tragic recognition, is a discovery of the identity of a ‘dear’ person, a blood-relative; it follows that the precedent hamartia would denote particularly a mistake or error or ignorance as to the identity of that person.”43 This is not the place to delve into the complexities of Aristotle’s hamartia (Menander does not use the word in any demonstrably Aristotelian sense), but it is important to recognize that Aristotle theorized something the playwright grasped intuitively, and, equally important, that ignorance of $% was a tragic device long before it was a comic one. In other words, mistaken identity was not inherently funny to Greek playwrights or audiences; on the contrary, its comic potential was something of a late discovery. As Bernard Knox points out, “the presentation of the recognition [in Euripides’ Ion] not as catastrophe (Oedipus the King), nor as the prelude to the tragic action (the three Electra plays), or escape (Iphigeneia in Tauris and Helen), but as the happy ending, seems to have no 43
Else 1957: 379. Cf. Else 189 “the comic error is as much a part of Aristotle’s thinking as the tragic error.” See also Post 1938: 20–1. Dworacki 1977: 19 attaches ethical significance to I%/I- in Menander.
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precedent in drama but becomes . . . the stock comic solution.”44 Making this device humorous (or at least less serious) involved attaching it to people who matter less, socially speaking. A mistake about Oedipus’ identity brings a plague on a city and destroys a royal line. Mistakes about lowstatus mistresses upset a few young men for a couple of acts. As we saw in the Samia, when the mistake attaches to both a high-status man and a low-status woman, the playwright relieves some of the tension by focusing on the woman. There are certainly tragic prototypes for this type of mistaken identity. As Eckard Lef`evre notes, the false report of Orestes’ death in Sophocles’ Electra prefigures the plot of the Aspis.45 A temporary misconception about a female figure resolves happily in the final scene of the Alcestis, for example, as do errors about the embraces witnessed in the Electra and Iphigeneia in Tauris (discussed in chapter 4). Yet so effectively did New Comedy transform the basic error-recognition sequence, which Aristotle considered a fundamental element of tragedy, that “mistaken identity” has become synonymous with a particular type of comedy. Menander played an important part in the transformation of tragic ignorance into comic misperception. His plays represent an early stage in comedy’s appropriation of mistaken identity, before it was so well established as a dramatic premise that it figured in self-conscious allusions. There is no language in Menander or in the fragments of other New Comic poets which might carry a metatheatrical double meaning like ludus or fallacia in Roman Comedy. Menandrian characters rarely talk about the creation of theatrical illusion. The few who do reflect self-consciously on performance speak of “making” another’s story their own (3, Epitr. 513, 519) or “staging a tragic misfortune” ( -'1 , Asp. 329).46 There is, however, a consistent interest in the process by which errors are made, including its underlying psychological principles. The plays are full of maxims about the difficulty of learning the truth about oneself and others: “it’s difficult to know things that someone wants to go unknown” (fr. 703 K-A); “seeming ( ',) has incurred greater slander than doing” (fr. 763 K-A); “whoever readily believes slander either is rotten in character or has the mind altogether of a little child” (fr. 764 K-A). It is surprising how often characters discuss 44 45 46
Knox 1970: 85. On the tragic origins and serious tone of Menandrian # see also Lef`evre 1979: 314–20. Lef`evre 1979: 316–17. As Gutzwiller 2000 has shown, this is more than a figure of speech. References to tragedy were the primary mechanism by which New Comedy invited its audiences to reflect on the play as a play (122).
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the intellectual processes that result in mistakes. The verbs “misapprehend” (& ) and “mistake” (I-) are common, as well as their cognates, and Menander deploys an extensive vocabulary of perceiving, judging, and understanding, as well as hiding, duping, and revealing. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Samia, a play about the problems of determining responsibility from external signs. Demeas repeatedly speaks of suspecting, guessing, perceiving, and comprehending.47 In his two major monologues he lays out his reasoning step by step, even calling on the audience to judge. Demeas is confident in his interpretation of the evidence. Seeing Chrysis nursing the baby and hearing Moschion defend her (“I want her [at the wedding] too”) have made the truth “known, knowable” ( , 267 and 473), an adjective Aristotle also sometimes uses in this sense.48 As Adele Scafuro has demonstrated, the “woman with milk” was a stock example, used by the author of the Menexenus, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Rhetorica ad Herennium, to show how to construct a proof through “necessary signs” (0).49 Some members of an original audience may even have recognized this “textbook example” as such and appreciated its misapplication in a faulty proof (particularly when Nikeratos repeats Demeas’ mistake: “I just caught my own daughter inside giving the breast to the baby!” 540–1).50 The emphasis here is consistently on reasoning and comprehension. When Demeas finally apologizes for suspecting Moschion, he represents his mistake as a failure of understanding, using forms of & and I-: “I did not know” (703, 705), “I made a mistake” (703, 704), “you’re exposing my mistake” (I%, 707).51 This is still everyday language. Menander was not interested in developing a systematic and consistent set of philosophical terms, although he did appreciate the epistemological questions mistaken identity plots could raise. As Scafuro points out, a “preoccupation” with proof runs through the plays (“Menander . . . explores evidentiary and epistemological problems with great gusto”) and although these proofs have intellectual links with philosophy and rhetoric, they are not necessarily the product of a particular school.52 Menander’s transformation of tragic ignorance was influenced by other models of human behavior. He certainly did not set out, as Gigante 47 48 49 51
52
He uses (153), L (270, 551), (308), O- (311), N' (316, 466) and K (336). Scafuro 2003: 134, following Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 569 ad 267. 50 Scafuro 2003: 132. Scafuro 2003: 118–20. V 703, V 705, T 703, I9 704, I% 707, cf. ' $ 710. He also speaks of folly (&% 708) and madness ( 703), essentially answering his own question at 216 ( [ e $] | V %). Scafuro 2003: 114–15, quotation from 125.
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sensibly notes, to give Aristotelian propositions artistic form, and any assessment of the influence of his philosophical education needs to leave room for artistic growth and the expression of ideas of his own.53 On the other hand, it is important to recognize a more creative application of contemporary philosophy than occasional maxims or allusions to well-known ideas. We need to look at his famous “philosophizing” differently. In using identity mistakes to explore questions of knowing oneself and others, Menander treated a philosophical problem in a comic form. He used a device that might have served simply to illustrate human folly as a mechanism for exploring human psychology. Menander’s plays offer a pessimistic view of human intelligence in a form appropriate to comedy. Whereas tragedy often uses fundamental errors about $% to demonstrate how little mortals understand of the will and intentions of the gods, Menandrian plots emphasize human gullibility.54 Deliberate deceptions are sometimes part of the spectacle, right from the planning stages, and mistakes are grounded in the psychology of the people who make them. Ignorance thus becomes increasingly subjective. As discussed in chapter 2, characters make different mistakes when presented with the same information, and dupes often unknowingly collude with their deceivers. As mortals become responsible for more of their own misunderstandings, the ignorance that was the inevitable lot of humanity in tragedy starts to seem abnormal – an affliction of the deluded, the infatuated, the stupid, the greedy, the anti-social. We are not asked to see ourselves in people who fall prey to transparent deceptions by their own families and friends. The plays discredit dupes like Nikeratos (Samia), Smikrines (Aspis), and the other Smikrines (Epitrepontes) to the point of casting doubt on the legitimacy of their authority. Plautus went further than Menander in ridiculing members of a highly privileged class (freeborn male propertyholders), setting a precedent for much later comedy of manners, although even he stepped carefully, as Kathleen McCarthy has so brilliantly shown, around questions of patria potestas and slave owners’ authority.55 This emphasis on human folly, especially in exaggerated villains like Knemon, either Smikrines (Aspis, Epitrepontes), or the braggart soldier in the Kolax, is one of Menander’s more obvious legacies from Old Comedy. There are also some points of continuity in the representation of women. The model of female unity in the Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazusae, and Ecclesiazusae, where women band together to rescue the polis from the 53 54
Gigante 1971: 466–17. Gutzwiller 2000: 116–17 argues that he does dramatize elements of the Poetics but in a playful and self-conscious way. 55 McCarthy 2000 passim, but esp. 20–5, 211–13. Cf. Lef`evre 1979: 316.
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men, has been transferred to the oikos, where women work together to protect lost children and endangered heirs.56 One is more struck, however, by the changes between Aristophanes and Menander: imaginative fantasies of endless banquets and limitless sex in newly founded utopias give way to the sedate realism of respectable marriages in an all too lifelike middle-class world.57 Menander developed a type of plot which emphasized mistakes about the status of women in order to offer his audience a different kind of fantasy than Aristophanes, one better suited to an age in which philosophers taught that individuals could achieve happiness and fulfillment in private life. Comedy no longer had to promise peace, food, and sex and, apart from the occasional reference to the turmoil of the Hellenistic world (e.g., Perik. 125, Sam. 628–9), political stability is assumed. Perhaps the most drastic change between Old Comedy and New was in the problems an audience wanted to see solved. The fantasy Menandrian comedy offers is a private and individualistic one: romantic fulfillment in a long-term relationship with a partner of choice, with the approval of family and community. Menander’s protagonists do not simply want sex with anyone young and attractive, nor do they wish to compromise their own social standing. This fantasy seems to be tailored to high-status men chafing at restrictions on their choice of sexual partners. Plots which resolve by revealing an apparently unsuitable woman to be qualified for marriage allow the characters to operate outside the normal system. They may marry women who “give themselves” with community sanction or marry the sort who do not without going through the usual process of scrutiny by their kyrioi. They are effectively given an exemption from paternal authority and other social pressures in order to marry for love, while their bride’s “double identity” ensures that she can fulfill her new role of gratifying a fantasy of sexual and romantic fulfillment as well as the old role of providing an heir, bringing a dowry, and establishing connections between households. Menander still makes civic status, legitimacy, and a dowry part of the closural tableau of marriage, but unlike Plutarch, who explicitly attaches weight to these criteria, he employs them to legitimate the central character’s sexual fulfillment. Transgressing norms of marriage is allowable, so long as it can be reconciled with the needs of the oikos. These plays pose no serious challenge to patriarchal authority, but they do offer sympathy for some of its discontents. If ideology is always 56 57
On the Aristophanic model see Foley 1982. On other changes see (among others) Fraenkel 1912, Wehrli 1936, Webster 1953: 10–97, Dover 1968: 142–51, Sandbach 1977: 55–7, Hunter 1979, 1985: 8–13, Handley 1985: 398–414. Some contemporary comic poets did treat politics, notably Timocles (Major 1997: 47–52). See also Webster 1953: 103–10.
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a site of struggle, Menandrian comedy recognizes that an audience might feel the pull of both sides. There were limits, however, to dissent. Menander evidently had to appease the same moral censors as tragedy. In adopting the form and content of late tragedy, New Comedy seems to have lost the license permitted to Old Comedy to violate sexual taboos. Obscenity is limited to the more buffoonish characters and the only sexual license allowed is the rape of marriageable women by unmarried rich young men under extenuating circumstances. Most strike at night, under the influence of alcohol, against victims they usually cannot see well enough to recognize later, even when they have married them (hence the need for snatched rings and witnesses).58 They are never premeditated or deliberate. When a young man seeks to marry a woman he loves, it is because moral scruples have ruled out a more direct approach. Sostratos, Chaireas, and Daos, for example, make a conscious choice not to try anything “underhanded” and consider themselves to be walking the path of virtue when they approach the girls’ guardians (Dysk. 301–13, Asp. 290–1, Her. 41–2). Even Moschion seems to have followed the usual pattern of raping first and developing an emotional attachment later. And incest, like female adultery, appears to be beyond the limits of permissible comic fantasy.59 The Moschions in the Siky¯onioi and Perikeiromen¯e are not allowed near their sisters and the quasi-incestuous relationship which is merely suspected in the Samia is roundly condemned. Menander may in fact have faced greater censorial restrictions than tragedy, insofar as setting plays in the real world made it harder to pretend that morally dubious behavior only happens in the remote past. How far a playwright conformed to conservative tastes and standards of decency was presumably a matter of individual choice. Menander seems to have been much less willing to risk offense than a notoriously provocative playwright like Euripides, whose first Hippolytus seems to have caused something of a scandal, perhaps because its Phaedra lusted too openly after her stepson (the hypothesis to the second version claims “what was unseemly and worthy of censure [in the first version] has been corrected,” lines 29–30).60 This incident speaks volumes about what an audience would tolerate: if Phaedra could not behave like a Phaedra, what could a Samian girlfriend do? It is accordingly no surprise that Menander’s women are not asked to help the men fulfill their fantasies at the expense of the stability or continuity of the oikos. 58 59 60
Konstan 1994: 144, Omitowoju 2002: 177 and 191. Konstan 1995: 148–9 (no female adultery). See Barrett 1964: 11–12 and Gregory 1991: 51 on the controversial first Hippolytus.
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The real question is not why ancient audiences liked mistaken identity plots but why they cared about the kind of crises they resolved: why did people want to watch plays about marital discord, out-of-wedlock children, wayward sons, cheating mistresses, and family in-fighting over inheritances? Part of the answer is cultural. I have already mentioned dissatisfaction with a marital system which prioritized the interests of the oikos (economic sufficiency, legitimate reproduction, reputation) over the happiness of the individual. But there is also a public dimension to this type of plot. Athenians had, in a sense, been staging “misrecognition” for a collective audience for hundreds of years. All of these problems are paralleled in the forensic record, where speakers used many of the same arguments to show guilt or innocence. “Dramatic contests,” notes Edith Hall, “shared with legal trials not only formal aspects – the performance before an audience, and the judgment by a democratically selected jury – but the subject-matter as well. Crime, and the problem of what to do with the criminal, were the topics which had to be addressed by both the dramatist and the writer of forensic speeches.”61 Athenians clearly appreciated their value as entertainment: trials had been the subject of drama from Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women and Eumenides to Aristophanes’ Frogs, Thesmophoriazusae, and Wasps, where Philocleon rhapsodizes about the pleasures of listening to litigants: “some whine about their poverty and add misfortunes to what they actually have . . . some tell us stories (mythoi); some a funny bit from Aesop; some make jokes so that I laugh and put aside my anger” (563–7).62 From the sheer volume of litigation, it is clear that Athenians had a taste for probing one another’s secrets. In this sense Menander did write for “jurymen on holiday,” who may have missed the drama of the courts while they were suspended.63 It is no surprise that he was popular with orators and teachers of rhetoric: his plays are filled with forensic rhetoric, forensic argumentation, and what Adele Scafuro has called “forensic thinking.” There are even informal trials, e.g., in the Epitrepontes, Epikleros B, and Lokroi.64 In one sense, misrecognition on stage offered even better entertainment than the courts, since it allowed audiences to watch the proceedings in full knowledge of who was guilty and who innocent. Menander may have written for an unusually litigious audience but the mistaken identity plot was highly adaptable. Conflicts between fathers and sons, men and women, natives and strangers, or rich and poor are nearly 61
62
Hall 1995: 39–40. See also Cartledge 1997: 14–15 (tragedy and the law courts shared subject matter, technical language, “a structure of competitive performance” and even specific practitioners who wrote or performed in both venues). 63 Quotation from Turner 1979: 119. 64 Quintilian Inst. Or. 10.1.70. Hall 1995: 40, 46.
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universal, as are problems in negotiating love, sex, and marriage so as to balance the needs of the individual against those of the community. These basic romantic problems translated easily to cultures where citizenship was no obstacle. Richard Steele simply made the love affair in the Andria a clandestine marriage and kept the plot intact; Moli`ere did the same in his adaptation of Terence’s Phormio.65 Identity mistakes permit women dramatically entertaining actions – bearing children out of wedlock, impersonating a legitimate wife, walking out on a violent partner – without the normal consequences. They make problems conveniently vanish: faithless women are actually true (they just have misbehaving twins or long lost brothers); out-of-wedlock children are actually legitimate heirs (from a forgotten rape by the husband himself ); and the captivating floozy next door is really a nice girl from a good home. With respectable girls off-limits and hetairai a threat to their financial future, young Greek men had few suitable choices for love affairs. Mistaken identity offered an alternative to the prevailing system of arranged marriage by making women who were ineligible for any number of reasons suddenly permissible. It made the fulfillment of illicit fantasies possible: marrying the kind of woman one would choose as a mistress, carrying on with a hetaira without losing economic or social standing, even getting away with rape. This is surely part of the reason these plays were popular throughout the Greek-speaking world and with Roman audiences. The Menandrian mistaken identity plot gave the western comic tradition a means of pleasing everyone: a style of comedy liberal enough to acknowledge the attractiveness of the forbidden, and even to permit it, but too conservative to offer any real challenge to the rules that forbade it in the first place. 65
The Conscious Lovers (1722), Les Fourberies de Scapin (1671).
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Index of passages discussed
Antiphanes fr. 210 K-A 7–8
Aristotle De Somniis 460b1–15 63 Nicomachean Ethics 1149a24–35 63, 128 Poetics 1452a30–1 261 1454a20–2 171 Rhetoric 1361a5–7 171 1377b31–1378a5 16 1385b13–21 193 1386a17–20 193 1386b19 193
Athenaeus 13.572a 7–8 13.594d 8–9
Menander (text of Sandbach, except where noted) Aspis 143–5 58 168–77 58 181–7 59 250–73 60–2 326–7 62 329–39 62 Dis Exapat¯on fr. 1 97 18–30 94, 96–102 91–102 95–102 94 93
Dyskolos 73–4 51 189 55 195 55 197 55 199 55 201–2 54 238–46 53 250 54 384–9 56 737 54 Epitrepontes (Martina) fr. 1 197 134–6 188 136–40 197–8 423–7 189–90 466 228 468–70 228 493–6 230 502–7 227 516–17 231, 232 527–9 226 530–2 232, 233 548–9 231, 232 557–66 201–3 559 202 574–6 202 681–3 198 691–2 178–9 694–6 198–9 705–8 179–80 714–15 180–1 716–55 184–5, 197 752–5 183 790–6 183–4, 187 797–8 185 801–35 206–13, 219–23 804 207 824 211 829 212
284
Index of passages discussed 853–6 232, 233 855–77 233–4 874 233 888–99 190–1 908–18 191–5 919–31 195–6 Fragments (Kassel and Austin) Epikl¯eros a b Test. iii 65 163–5 (Thais) 97, 98, 120, 126, 226 201 97 250 (Naukl¯eros) 128 323 225 472 88 653 113 791 225 804 120, 126 H¯er¯os hyp. 9–10 49 16–17 49 18–19 46 36–40 47–8 41 49 Karch¯edonios 37–9 74 Misoumenos (Arnott) Test. 1 (Choricius xlii) 26 fr. 4 140 1–12 26 36–41 27–8 38 27, 140 45 140 50–6 28–9 53 27 56 29 90–3 112–13 99–100 113 519 141 522 141 532–7 141–2, 143 550–2 142 617–22 133 642 143 660–4 29 663 29 692–6 30 698–700 31 706–11 31–2, 140 712–13 113–14 715–19 114–15 771 116 797–8 32
803–7 115, 116 964–9 150–1 987–96 151 Monostichs (Jaekel) 503 128 564 128 635 128 752 85 Perikeiromen¯e 130–1 41 147–50 135–6 155–7 35, 112 157–61 132 165–6 173 182 112 183–4 111 185–7 41, 42 300–3 34–5 305 35 312 36 312–15 36–7 319–12 37 337–45 38–9 353 39 370–1 111 375–7 111 404–6 112 471–3 40 486–90 40–1 490 41 492–5 42 497–9 42–3 499–500 43 512–14 43–4 515 44 515–22 44–5 708–19 144–5, 146, 174 720–3 146–8 713, 717 98 789–91 137–8 818 255 1006–9 149–50 1016–20 153, 154 1024–5 154 Phasma (Arnott) 9–12, 21–31 66 P. Didot I 1–44 214–20 P. Ghˆoran II 148–9 117
285
286 P. K¨oln 203 (Arnott) 5–8 68 9–11 68 16–19 68–9, 70 28–35 70–1 Samia 21 157 35–8 157–8 76–83 160–1, 162 79 163 81 162 84–5 163–4 92 161 130–6 87–8, 164 132 87 135 87 258 158–9, 160 269–70 103 277–9 101 324–56 88, 95–107 328–9 103 328–35 103 335–7 88, 96 339 106 346 103 348 104 373 166 374–83 89–90, 95 385 90 390–7 90–2 392 90, 197 508–9 107, 108 524 168 556–8 109 558–63 109–10 578 167 703–7 263 Siky¯onioi fr. 1 18, 20 14–15 17 17–19 20 55–60 22 79–84 19 97–8 21, 22
Index of passages discussed 190 20 194 21 230 23 235–7 23 238–9 22 240–3 23 254 23 263 24 272 24 397–404 25 411–2 18 Theophoroumen¯e 17–23 118–19 19 118 29–30 119
Plautus Cistellaria 316–20 121–2 Stichus 58–154 214–21
Plutarch Moralia 712c 4–7, 73, 248, 253
Rhetorica ad Herennium 2.4 215–20
Seneca the Elder Controversiae 2.2 216–22
Terence Eunuchus 176–7 124 197–8 124 Heauton Timoroumenos 231–4 122 297–8 123 300–1 123 835–41 258
General index
Please check the Index of passages discussed for specific citations. Acharnians (Aristophanes), 253 Adelphoe (Terence), 256 Adonia party in Samia, 157 Adrasteia (goddess who punishes pride), 35 adultery consequences of wife’s infidelity, 42, 146 father’s sketch of marital infidelity and jealousy in Epitrepontes, 182–7 virtue, wifely tolerance as, 185 Aeschylus, 267 Agamemnon (Aeschylus), 134 Agnoia (goddess) in Perikeiromen¯e, 132, 136, 146, 148, 173 Alcestis (Euripides), 262 Alciphron, 91, 95 Alexander the Great, 84 Althusser, Louis Pierre, 11 Anaxilas, 7 Andria (Terence) Athenian citizenship and marriage laws, 246, 251 emotions and desires affecting judgment in, 128 friendship between hetaira and freeborn woman in, 228 greedy hetairai in, 96 household threatened by hetaira in, 238 integration of women into new oikos in, 259 as “lost daughter” story, 19, 73 political agenda, lack of, 253 status misperception in, 14 Steele’s adaptation of, 268 Andromache (Euripides), 185, 187, 213, 222 Anti-Lais (Epikrates), 91 Antiphanes, 6, 7, 8, 9, 237 Antipho, 217, 220 Apollodorus, 65 Argentarius, 220
Aristophanes, 2, 248, 258, 260, 265, 267. See also specific plays, e.g. Frogs Aristophanes of Byzantium, 11, 84 Aristotle, 2, 11 on comic poets as gossips, 173 dramatic needs vs. ethical goals of, 171–4 on emotions and desires affecting judgment, 15–16, 63–4, 75, 76 on fathers and daughters, 180 on gratitude, 116 hamartia (recognition sequence), 261 Menander’s treatment of philosophical ideas and, 264 on moral character, 82, 192–3 moral choice, conditions for, 135 proof construction in, 263 on rhetoric, 83–5, 104, 106, 219 on virtues, 148, 152, 168, 171–4 Arnott, Geoffrey, 14, 22, 27, 46, 47, 70, 141, 151, 170, 198, 206, 239 Asinaria (Plautus), 37 Aspis (The Shield) (Menander), 56–65. See also specific characters, e.g. Smikrines in Aspis emotions and desires affecting judgment in, 15–16, 62–4 heiresses (epikl¯eroi), legal situation of, 57 kinship, sense of, 58–65 kyrieia dispute in, 57–64 mortality, mistaken identity as means of transcending, 2 mourning rites in, 143 psychology and motivation in, 58–65 status misperception in, 14, 16, 50, 56–5 subjectivity of viewer and construction of identity as process in, 13 Asprenas, 217, 221 Athenaeus, 8, 9, 80, 81
287
288
General index
Athens appeals to pride and values of, 249–50 citizenship marriage of citizens, 73, 131, 246–51 recovery of “lost” citizens, 251–2 in Siky¯onioi, 14, 16–25 foundlings, illegality of adopting, 135 Greek standards of humanity, gratitude, and reciprocity in Misoumenos, 113–16 hetairai as nostalgic emblem of civilization of, 80 popular morality, Menandrian comedy as reflecting, 170, 192–6, 237 social mobility, dramatic/real possibility of, 73–5 audience sympathies, engaging, 10, 130–1 child in Samia, Chrysis’ care for, 163–7, 168 compromising embrace, 132–3 in Epitrepontes, 205, 224 hair, symbolic violence of cutting, 146 for hetairai in Samia, 156–69 independence, arguments regarding women’s loss of, 151, 154, 170 kinship/household/family duty, 175–6 in “lost daughter” plays, 131–56 loyalty of hetaira to household in Samia, 156, 160–3, 166, 168 in Misoumenos, 133, 139–43, 150–2 moral character misperceptions, 130 moral virtues, choices of women demonstrating, 170–6 mourning rites, Krateia in Misoumenos fulfilling responsibility for, 142 narrative accounts of offstage action, dramatic use of, 132 pardon and return of Chrysis to household in Samia, 167 in Perikeiromen¯e, 131–9, 143–50, 152–5 prologues used to inform audience of truths hidden from other characters, 130 psychology and motivation, 172–4 reconciliation of women with lovers, moral implications of in Misoumenos, 150–2 in Perikeiromen¯e, 148–50, 152–5 in Samia, 156–69 separation from Polemon in Perikeiromen¯e, Glykera’s defense of, 143–8 sexual pleasure figure, Chrysis in Samia as, 156 silence, female character’s choice of Glykera in Perikeiromen¯e, 133–9 Krateia in Misoumenos, 139–40 status misperceptions, 130 status of hetaira in household, recognition in Samia of, 167
supplication in Misoumenos, 140–3 tragic conventions, use of, 132, 134–5, 138–9, 142, 143, 155–6, 171, 175–6 values of characters expressive of original lost status, 131, 155–6, 175–6 women, Menander’s focus on, 256 women’s acceptance of hetaira in Samia, 157–9, 168 Aulularia (Plautus), 51, 73 Bacchides (Plautus), 92, 94, 227 Balme, Maurice, 209 Batstone, William, 97, 99, 102 Beauvoir, Simone de, 80, 236 behavior, difficulty of inferring character from, 86, 127, 131, 203–5, 263 Belardinelli, Anna Maria, 21 birth tokens, 14, 143, 255 Blandus, 217 Blume, Horst-Dieter, 96, 251 Blundell, John, 107 bona meretrix, see “whore with a heart of gold” Borgogno, Alberto, 27 Brown, Peter G. McC., 5, 70, 71 Capps, Edward, 47, 224 Carion in Epitrepontes, 230 Casina (Plautus), 102, 186 Cassander, 253 censorship of Menandrian comedies, 266 Cestius, 217 Chaireas in Aspis, 57–64, 76, 83 Chairestratos in Aspis, 57–64 Chairestratos in Epitrepontes, 239 character assumptions about nature of, 81–5, 98 dianoia (intelligence or intellectual capacity), as function of, 15, 33 moral, misperceptions of, see moral character, misperceptions of physical beauty vs. personality in Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott, 68–71 psychological evaluation of, see psychology and motivation social status in H¯er¯os and, 48, 49, 50 words used for, 82 Charisios in Epitrepontes, 92, 178, 188–96, 203–5 children Chrysis’ care for child in Samia, 163–7, 168 Epitrepontes, mothers and fathers of illegitimate children in, 191, 192, 194, 196, 198, 199, 204, 205, 223, 228, 232–3, 235 exposure of children, 3, 72, 137, 191, 194, 249, 253, 257, 258, 261. See also H¯er¯os; Perikeiromen¯e
General index illegitimate, see illegitimate/foundling children marital transitional period between wedding and birth of first child, 178 Philoumene and Stratophanes in Siky¯onioi, 18–20 Chresphontes’ argument in Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, 213–21 Chrysis in Misoumenos, 141 Chrysis in Samia, 86–92, 99–110, 156–69, 225, 226, 227, 232, 235 Cistellaria (Plautus) Epitrepontes compared, 188 friendship between women in, 228 moral character misperceptions in, 120–2 nonce-god Auxilium in, 132 political agenda, lack of, 253 popular morality reflected in values of, 237 status misperception in, 14 citizenship, Athenian marriage of citizens, 73, 131, 246–51 recovery of “lost” citizens, 251–2 in Siky¯onioi, 14, 16–25 coincidence replaced by psychology and motivation in Perikeiromen¯e, 33, 36 used in Epitrepontes, 204 concubinage in Misoumenos, 27–8 in Samia, 107–8 in Siky¯onioi, 18–20 contextual meaning, 10 corruption, high-status women in poor social circumstances as victims of, 122 costume, 174 court trials, popularity of, 102–7, 250, 267 curiosity of Habrotonon in Epitrepontes, 230 Daos in Aspis, 57–65, 75 Daos in Dyskolos, 51–5 Daos in H¯er¯os, 16, 46–50 Daos in Perikeiromen¯e, 34–42 daughters “hidden daughter” stories, see Dyskolos; Phasma lost, see “lost daughter” stories marriage and divorce, arguments between father and daughter regarding, see under fathers Davidson, James, 44, 80, 257 deceitfulness of hetairai, 97, 124, 160–3, 199 Del Corno, Dario, 102 Demeas in Misoumenos, 25–32, 113, 115, 133, 206 Demeas in Samia, 44, 85, 86–91, 92, 93–110, 118, 120, 156–69, 179–88, 190, 194, 198 Denniston, John Dewar, 100
289
desires and emotions affecting judgment, see also psychology and motivation in moral character misperceptions, 85, 128 in status misperceptions, 15–16, 62–4, 75–8 dianoia (intelligence or intellectual capacity), character as function of, 15, 33 Didot Papyrus i, 213–21, 242–4, 249 Dis Exapat¯on (The Double Deceiver) (Menander), see also specific characters, e.g. Sostratos in Dis Exapat¯on disjointed syntax in, 100 Epitrepontes compared, 190, 194, 199, 225 hetaira typology, reliance on, 92–8, 162, 238 moral character misperceptions in, 85 Plautus’s Cistellaria compared, 120 psychology and motivation in, 99–102 discovery as mechanism of justice in Epitrepontes, 234–5 the divine, see religion and religious ritual divorce dishonor as grounds for, 191 in Epitrepontes, see under Epitrepontes father-daughter arguments regarding, see under fathers Donatus, 9, 65–7, 124, 125 Doris in Perikeiromen¯e, 41, 112, 148 dowries in Aspis, 57, 60 compared to epikl¯eroi, 57 in Epitrepontes, 178, 182, 183, 197 exposure of girl children to avoid expense of, 258 in Misoumenos, 30 in Siky¯onioi, 18–20 dramatic opportunities hetairai, afforded by liberty of, 126 in hiddenness of women’s lives, 254 philosophical/ethical goals vs., 171–4 women, Menander’s focus on, 171–4, 254–66 Dromon in Siky¯onioi, 17–24 Dyskolos (The Grouch) (Menander), 50–6. See also specific characters, e.g. Knemon in Dyskolos behavior of daughter in, 54–5 economic class as issue in, 52 Epitrepontes compared, 192 kyrieia dispute in, 51, 52, 53, 54 piety of daughter towards Pan and Nymphs in, 51, 52, 56 psychology and motivation in Gorgias’ projection of self onto sister, 52–4 Knemon, 51–2 Sostratos’ perception of girl, 54–6 status misperception in, 14, 16, 50–6 stock comic father traits in, 118
290
General index
economic class as issue in Dyskolos, 52 economic view of marriage in Epitrepontes, 178, 188, 197 Electra (Euripides), 132, 143, 185, 252, 261, 262 Electra (Sophocles), 262 Else, Gerald Frank, 261 emotional consequences of mistakes about women, 254 emotional fulfillment of high-status men, prioritization of, 254 emotions and desires affecting judgment, see also psychology and motivation in moral character misperceptions, 85, 128 in status misperceptions, 15–16, 62–4, 75–8 Empol¯e (Ephippus), 237 epikl¯eroi (heiresses), 57, 65, 74, 246, 267. See also Aspis Epikleros B (Menander), 267 Epikrates, Anti-Lais, 91 Epitrepontes (Menander). See also specific characters, e.g. Pamphile in Epitrepontes audience sympathies, engaging, 205, 224 child in, 191, 192, 194, 196, 198, 199, 223, 228, 232–3, 235 combination of status and moral character misperceptions in, 177–9 Dis Exapat¯on compared, 190, 194, 199, 225 discovery as mechanism of justice in, 234–5 divorce in dishonor as grounds for, 191 father’s reluctance to instigate, 178 husband’s refusal to choose, 178 kyrieia dispute regarding, 179–88, 220 rhetorical argument between father and daughter regarding, 181–5, 205–23 dowry in, 178, 182, 183, 197 Dyskolos compared, 192 hetaira in child and, 191, 192, 194, 196, 198, 199, 228, 232–3, 235 freedom from slavery sought by, 202–3, 231, 238–40 as low-status proxy for high-status woman, 122, 177, 197, 223, 228–30, 233–4, 236 marital infidelity and jealousy, father’s sketch of, 182–7 moral choice of, 223–35 moral misperceptions regarding, 196–203, 204 shamelessness of, 98 sympathy for mother and child, 228, 233–4 as “whore with a heart of gold,” 177, 224, 235–42 wife and hetaira in New Comedy, natural enmity between, 184
kyrieia dispute in, 179–88, 220 “lost daughter,” wife as type of, 179, 188 lost son in, 74 love/sexual passion barely attributed to women, 6, 207 low-status proxy for high-status woman in, 122, 177, 197, 223, 228–30, 233–4, 236 marriage in, 178 economic view of, 178, 188, 197 idealized view of wife regarding, 178, 206, 210–11 infidelity and jealousy, father’s sketch of effects of, 182–7 kyrieia dispute regarding, 179–88, 220 remarriage, 211, 218 rhetorical argument regarding, 181–5 Misoumenos compared, 178, 179, 180, 189, 192, 193, 206, 223 moral character misperceptions in, 92, 203–5 father’s and slave’s misperceptions of hetaira, 196–203 husband’s misperceptions of wife, 188–96 moral choice of hetaira in, 223–35 moral choices given to wife in, 179, 205–23 moral evolution of husband in, 192–6 Penelope in Odyssey, wife modeled on, 177, 179, 222, 223 Perikeiromen¯e compared, 178, 180, 189, 192, 206, 207, 223, 227 plot summary, 177 psychology and motivation in behavior, difficulty of judging, 203–5 father’s economic view of marriage, 178, 188, 203–5 hetaira’s moral choice, 223–35 husband’s self-projecting perspective on wife, 178, 188–96, 203–5 slave’s self-projecting perspective on hetaira, 200–5, 225 wife’s patience, intent[s] behind, 221–3 rape committed by husband/suffered by wife, 71, 178, 192, 194, 228, 229, 231 rhetorical argument between father and daughter regarding marriage and divorce in, 181–5, 205–23 Samia compared, 187, 190, 194, 198, 225, 226, 227, 232, 235 status misperception in, 177–9, 191–2, 194, 223 stock comic father traits in, 118 tyrant, father depicted as, 180 virginity in, 229 as “whore with a heart of gold” story, 177 eros/love/sexual passion, 5–7 audience sympathies, engaging, 156
General index barely attributed to women, 6, 152, 207, 218, 221, 254, 257 desire of young man to be in love in Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott, 72 fidelity as matter of opportunity rather than virtue, 6 husband’s duty to love wife, 221 for money vs. women in Aspis, 64 overeating as metaphor in H¯er¯os, 48, 49 prioritization of romantic fulfillment of high-status men, 254 Samian hetairai, reputation of, 157 status disputes about sexual access to women, 15 symptoms in Phasma, 66–7 Thrasonides in Misoumenos, 26 ethics. See morality and virtue ¯ethos. See character Eubulus, 237 Eumenides (Aeschylus), 267 Eunuchus (Terence) Athenian citizenship and marriage laws, 246, 247 greedy hetaira in, 96, 124 Habrotonon in Epitrepontes and, 224, 225, 226, 228 household threatened by hetaira in, 238, 259 independence, arguments regarding women’s loss of, 152 as “lost daughter” story, 72, 73 moral character misperceptions in, 92, 123–5 Plutarch’s categories and, 4, 5 political agenda, lack of, 253 pretense of love made by hetaira in, 238 promises of soldiers’ mistresses in, 138 rape in, 49 return of woman to family in, 19 Euripidean tragedy, see also specific plays, e.g. Electra compromising embrace in, 132 mistaken identity stories in, 2 moral character misperceptions in New Comedy taking models from, 100 mourning rituals carried out by women in, 143 provocativeness of, 266 recognition scenes in, 261 silence of women in, 134 wifely intolerance of infidelity in, 185 exposure of children, 3, 72, 137, 191, 194, 249, 253, 257, 258, 261. See also H¯er¯os; Perikeiromen¯e Fabula Incerta, 96, 228 Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott (P. K¨oln 203) hetaira references in, 69–72, 96, 225
291
physical beauty vs. personality in, 68–71 psychology and motivation in, 69–72, 75, 77 status misperception in, 14, 16, 67–72 family, see kinship/household/family duty fantasy elements in Menandrian comedy, 101, 265 Fantham, Elaine, 108 fathers comic stock traits of, 118 marriage and divorce, arguments between father and daughter regarding authority of father, 218 in Epitrepontes, 181–5, 205–23 ethics vs. practicalities, 217 inviolate nature of marriage bond, 217 legal right of father to end marriage, 178, 180 popular scenes in New Comedy of, 213–21 remarriage, 218 satisfactoriness of husband, 218 tyrant, father in Epitrepontes depicted as, 180 wife’s better knowledge of own business, 216 as pivotal figures in “lost daughter” stories, 73 feminist theory and scholarship, 12–13 Foley, Helene, 127, 134, 139, 176, 260 foreigners as female characters in Menander, 3 “forensic thinking” in New Comedy, 102–7, 250, 267 Fortenbaugh, William W., 152 foundlings, see illegitimate/foundling children freedwomen as female characters in Menander, 3 freeing of slaves, 27–8, 202–3, 231, 238–40 Freudian literary criticism, prostitute in, 80 Frogs (Aristophanes), 267 funeral rites, 142 Fuscus Arellius, 217, 218, 219 Gagarin, Michael, 81 Gagos, Traianos, 206, 207 Gaiser, Konrad, 240 gender stereotypes, Menandrian exploitation of, 255–8 Georgos (Menander), 55 Getas in H¯er¯os, 46–50, 112–17 Getas in Misoumenos, 16, 26–32, 133, 140, 189 gift-giving Greek standards of gratitude and reciprocity in Misoumenos, 113–16 hetaira relationships as gift-exchange system, 44, 89 in marriage, 116 in Theophoroumen¯e (The Girl Possessed), 117–19
292
General index
Gigante, Marcello, 264 Gilligan, Carol, 139 Glykera in Perikeiromen¯e, 21, 33–45, 98, 111–12, 131–9, 143–50, 152–5, 206, 207 Glykera, Menander’s supposed love for, 8 gods, see religion and religious ritual Goldberg, Sander, 100 Gomme, Arnold W., 224 “good” hetairai, see “whore with a heart of gold” Gorgias in Dyskolos, 51–4, 76, 150, 192 Gorgias in H¯er¯os, 46–9, 74 gossips, comic poets as, 173 gratitude and reciprocity, Greek standards of, 113–16 “Greekness” and Greek standards of morality and virtue humanity, gratitude, and reciprocity in Misoumenos, 113–16 “lost” citizens, recovery of, 251–2 reconciliation with Polemon in Perikeiromen¯e, moral implications of Glykera’s choice of, 149, 172 Gronewald, Michael, 206, 207 Gutzwiller, Katherine, 58, 232 Habrotonon in Epitrepontes, 182, 184, 185, 189, 194, 196–203, 212, 223–42 hair, symbolic violence of cutting, 146 Hall, Edith, 104, 267 hamartia, 261 Handley, Eric, 92 Heauton Timoroumenos (Terence) Athenian citizenship and marriage laws, 246, 247, 248, 251 Epitrepontes compared, 188, 226 hetaira in, 96, 237, 238 integration of women into new oikos in, 259 as “lost daughter” story, 72, 122–3 moral character misperceptions in, 92, 122–3 Plutarch’s categories and, 4 restoration of lost daughter in, 258 victimization of males vs. females and, 256 Hecyra (Terence), 177, 178, 186, 196 heiresses (epikl¯eroi), 57, 65, 74, 246. See also Aspis Helen (Euripides), 134, 143, 261 Helen the adulteress, invocations of, 96, 100 Henry, Madeleine M., 170, 229 H¯er¯os (The Hero) (Menander), 46–50. See also specific characters, e.g. Plangon in H¯er¯os illegitimate children, rescue of, 88 kyrieia dispute in, 49, 74 moral character and social status in, 48, 49, 50 overeating as metaphor in, 48, 49 Plutarch’s categories and, 5 rape in, 48, 49, 71
slaves’ scene, puzzling nature of exchange in, 47–8 status misperception in, 14, 16, 46–50 Hesiod, 248 hetairai, vii, 3–9 as attractive nuisances, 237 audience sympathies, engaging, 156–69 children of in Epitrepontes, 191, 192, 194, 196, 198, 199 in Samia, 163–7, 168 Chrysis in Samia, 86–92, 99–110, 156–69 as comic type, 98 as con artists, 97, 124 cultural/social role as marginalized scapegoats, 128–9 dark picture of life painted in Samia, 91–2 deceitfulness of, 97, 124, 160–3, 199 dramatic opportunities afforded by liberty of, 126 fees, 197 Getas’s view of Krateia as hetaira in Misoumenos, 112 gift-exchange system, relationships as, 44, 89 Glykera in Perikeiromen¯e, see under Perikeiromen¯e “good” hetairai, see “whore with a heart of gold” as greedy, 94, 124 Habrotonon in Epitrepontes, see under Epitrepontes kin/household/family, “bad” hetaira as threat to, 238, 259 kin/household/family, “good” hetaira as protector of in Epitrepontes, 237–8, 242 in Samia, 156, 160–3, 166, 168 loose definition as social category, 125 lost daughters on brink of prostitution, 14–16 as low-status proxies for high-status women, 120–2, 177, 197, 223, 228–30, 233–4, 236 loyalty of hetaira to household in Samia, 156, 160–3, 166, 168 Malthake in Siky¯onioi, 18 “marital” or permanent relationship with, 86, 159 Menander’s supposed love for hetaira named Glykera, 8 moral character misperceptions and literary prostitute typology, see under moral character, misperceptions of New Comic tradition and Menandrian innovation regarding, 241–2 oaths used by, 97, 227 old age and, 91 performance skills of, 80
General index in permanent position in household, 159 Plutarch on, 3–9, 73 pride in skills, 162 rhetorical skills of, 97, 129, 134, 199, 226, 227 Samian hetairai, reputation of, 157 seen vs. unseen women in Fabula Incerta 8, 69–72 as shameless, 96, 97 spinning hetairai, 91 status of hetaira in household, recognition in Samia of, 167 virtues and qualities necessary for, 236 as the “whore with a heart of gold,” see “whore with a heart of gold” “hidden daughter” stories, see Dyskolos; Phasma hiddenness of women’s lives, dramatic advantages of, 254 Hiereia (Menander), 74, 142, 253, 254, 255, 256 Hippolytus (Euripides), 134, 266 Hippolytus myth, 96, 106, 138 Hispo Romanus, 217, 220 historical context of Menander’s comedies, 11–12 Hofmeister, Timothy P., 202 Homer marriage in, 25, 248 mistaken identity stories in, 2, 72 Penelope as model for women in New Comedy, 170, 177, 179, 222 status and virtue, connection between, 252 virtue of reconciliation in, 150 household, see kinship/household/family duty hubris Neaira and Phrynion, 153 potential mistreatment of girl in Dyskolos, 52 rejection of Thrasonides by Krateia in Misoumenos, 28 separation from Polemon in Perikeiromen¯e, Glykera’s defense of, 146–8, 153 supposed affair between mistress and son in Samia, 107 humanity, Greek standards of, 113–16 Hurst, Andr´e, 100 Hypobolimaios (The Changeling) (Menander), 74 identity, process of construction of, 13 ideological engagement of Menander’s comedies, 11 Iliad, see Homer illegitimate/foundling children audience sympathies, engaging, 135, 164 in Epitrepontes, 191, 192, 194, 196, 198, 199, 204, 205, 223, 228, 232–3, 235 exposure of, 3, 72, 137, 191, 194, 249, 253, 257, 258, 261
293
in H¯er¯os, 88 moral character misperceptions and, 87, 88 in Perikeiromen¯e, 88 in Phasma, 65, 88 in Samia, 163–7, 168 status misperception and, 65 women, reasons for Menandrian focus on, 249, 253, 255 incest, Menandrian avoidance of, 266 independence, arguments regarding women’s loss of, 151, 154, 170 infidelity consequences of wife’s, 42, 146 father’s sketch of marital infidelity and jealousy in Epitrepontes, 182–7 virtue, wifely tolerance as, 185 informing the audience, see audience sympathies, engaging intelligence or intellectual capacity (dianoia), character as function of, 15, 33 intention, see psychology and motivation Ion (Euripides), 134, 261 Iphigeneia in Aulis (Euripides), 143 Iphigeneia in Tauris (Euripides), 132, 261, 262 Ireland, Stanley, 39, 55, 231 Jacobs, Harriet, 147 jealousy and infidelity, father in Epitrepontes on long-term effects of, 182–7 judgment, emotions affecting, 15–16. See also psychology and motivation Kampylion (Eubulus), 237 Karchedonios (Menander), 74, 249 kinship/household/family duty in Aspis, 58–65 Athenian popular morality in Menandrian comedy and, 170 audience sympathies, engaging, 175–6 in Dyskolos, 51–4 friends and family, difficulty of knowing truth about, 1, 3, 13, 85, 110, 262 hetaira as protector of in Epitrepontes, 237–8, 242 in Samia, 156, 160–3, 166, 168 hetaira as threat to, 238, 259 integration of women into new oikos as common theme, 258–60 Kitharist¯es (Menander), 253 Kleostratos in Aspis, 57–64, 74 Knemon in Dyskolos, 49, 50–6, 76, 82, 83 knowing self vs. knowing other people, 1 Knox, Bernard M. W., 261 Kock, Theodor, 66 Koenen, Ludwig, 206, 207
294
General index
Kolax (Menander), 264 Konstan, David, 152, 154, 252 K¨orte, Alfred, 36 Krateia in Misoumenos, 19, 25–32, 112–17, 133, 139–43, 150–2 Kurke, Leslie, 44 Kyn¯egis (Philetairos), 91 kyrieia disputes in Aspis, 57–64 in Dyskolos, 51, 52, 53, 54 in Epitrepontes, 179–88, 220 as essential problem of status misperception plays, 50 in H¯er¯os, 49, 74 male characters, not dramatic issue, 74 in Misoumenos, 25, 26, 29–31, 33 in Perikeiromen¯e, 33 in popular New Comedy disputes between fathers and daughters over marriage and divorce, 218 in Siky¯onioi, 22–3 symbolic meaning of yielding kyrieia, 23 Laches in H¯er¯os, 46–50 Lamagna, Mario, 35, 147, 148 Lape, Susan, 141, 148, 192, 246, 247 Latro, 217, 220 Lef`evre, Eckard, 262 legal status, see status misperception Legrand, Philippe E., 257 Leighton, Stephen, 63, 64 Leontiscus and Mania, 159 Leucadia (Menander), 142 litigation, popularity of, 3 Lokroi (Menander), 267 “lost” citizens, recovery of, 251–2 “lost daughter” stories, 50–1, 72. See also H¯er¯os; Misoumenos; Perikeiromen¯e; Siky¯onioi audience sympathy, engaging, 131–56 father as pivotal figure in, 73 hidden daughter becoming lost daughter in Phasma, 67 rape in, 21, 72 restoration of lost daughters, 258 Roman adaptations, see Cistellaria (Plautus); Heauton Timoroumenos (Terence) wife in Epitrepontes as type of, 179, 188 love, see eros/love/sexual passion loyalty of hetaira to household in Samia, 156, 160–3, 166, 168 Lucian, 91, 95 Malthake in Siky¯onioi, 17–18 Mania and Leontiscus, 159
Manilius, 11 manumission of slaves, 27–8, 202–3, 231, 238–40 marriage adultery consequences of wife’s infidelity, 42, 146 father’s sketch of marital infidelity and jealousy in Epitrepontes, 182–7 wifely tolerance as virtue, 185 of Athenian citizens, 73, 131, 246–51 divorce dishonor as grounds for, 191 in Epitrepontes, see under Epitrepontes father-daughter arguments regarding, see under fathers dowries, see dowries economic view of, 178, 188, 197 of epikl¯eros in Aspis, 56–65 in Epitrepontes, see under Epitrepontes father-daughter arguments regarding, see under fathers gift-giving in, 116 happiness to be found in, 248 hetaira in Samia, permanent arrangement with, 86, 159 hidden daughter/apparition in Phasma and, 67 in Homer, 25, 248 idealized notions regarding of male characters, 76 of wife in Epitrepontes, 178, 206, 210–11 kyrieia disputes and, see kyrieia disputes legal relationship between Glykera and Polemon in Perikeiromen¯e, 40–5 as lifetime bond, 178 between misanthrope’s daughter and rich suitor in Dyskolos, 50–6 remarriage, 211, 218 between “slave” and owner in Siky¯onioi, 16–25 between slaves in H¯er¯os, 46–50 social mobility, dramatic/real possibility of, 73–5 transitional period between wedding and birth of first child, 178 between war captive and soldier in Misoumenos, 25–33, 116 Martina, Antonio, 178, 181, 204, 206, 209 Marx, Karl, 11 Marxist literary criticism, prostitute in, 80 masks, 174 Maurach, Gregor, 99 McCarthy, Kathleen, 264 McClure, Laura, 80, 134
General index Memorabilia (Xenophon), 237 Menaechmi, 204 Menander, see also specific plays, e.g. Epitrepontes Athenian popular morality reflected in comedies of, 170, 192–6, 237 censorship of, 266 Glykera, supposed love for, 8 hetairai, New Comic tradition and Menandrian innovation regarding, 241–2 monologues of, 107 philosophical ideas, treatment of, 171–4, 240, 263 political agenda, lack of, 252–4, 259 realism and plausibility, contemporary praise for, 11, 84 recognition scenes in comedies of, 261–2 Menexenus, 263 Mercator (Plautus), 183 Middle Comedy, 7, 248 Miller, Norma, 27 misanthropes and misers, see Knemon in Dyskolos; Smikrines in Aspis; Smikrines in Epitrepontes misfortune and pity in Epitrepontes, 192–6 misogynist views of women, 112, 113, 248 Misoumenos (The Man She Hated) (Menander), 25–33. See also specific characters, e.g. Krateia in Misoumenos audience sympathies, engaging, 133, 139–43, 150–2 downpour plot in, 28–9 Epitrepontes compared, 178, 179, 180, 189, 192, 193, 206, 223 eros/love/sexual passion barely attributed to women, 152 Greek standards of gratitude and reciprocity in, 113–16 hetaira, Getas’s view of Krateia as, 112 kyrieia dispute, 25, 26, 29–31, 33 marriage in, 25–33, 116 moral character misperceptions in, 85, 112–17 Plutarch’s categories and, 5 psychology and motivation in, 32 rape in, 21 silence, Krateia’s choice of, 139–40 status misperception in, 14, 16, 25–33 supplication in, 140–3 virginity in, 21, 32 women, “common wisdom” about, 112, 113 mistaken identity plot in Menander’s comedies, vii, 1–13 audience and, see audience sympathies, engaging behavior, difficulty of inferring character from, 86, 127, 131, 203–5, 263
295
construction of identity as process in, 13 contextual meaning in, 10 disproportionate involvement of women as misrepresented characters, 2 feminist theory and scholarship, 12–13 hetairai and, see hetairai historical context, 11–12 ideological engagement of, 11 moral character misperception, see moral character, misperceptions of New Comedy, identification with, 262 origins of mistaken identity plot, 1–2 philological analysis of, 10–11 political context, 11 psychological mechanisms of, 2, 15. See also psychology and motivation reasons for popularity of, 72–8, 267–8 scholarly approach taken to, 10–13 social status, see status misperception tragic roots of, 258–64 truth about friends and family, difficulty of knowing, 1, 3, 13, 85, 110, 262 women as focus of, see women, Menander’s focus on Moli`ere, 268 monologues of Menander, 107 Montiglio, Silvia, 135 moral character, misperceptions of, 3, 5–9, 79–86 assumptions about nature of character and, 81–5, 98 audience sympathy, engaging, 130. See also audience sympathy, engaging behavior, difficulty of inferring character from, 86, 127, 131, 203–5, 263 in Cistellaria (Plautus), 120–2 combined with status misperceptions in Epitrepontes, 177–9 in Epitrepontes, 92, 203–5 father’s and slave’s misperceptions of hetaira, 196–203 husband’s misperceptions of wife, 188–96 in Eunuchus (Terence), 92, 123–5 Greek standards of humanity, gratitude, and reciprocity in Misoumenos, 113–16 in Heauton Timoroumenos (Terence), 92, 122–3 hetaira typology, reliance on, 3–9, 79–81, 125–9 cultural/social role as marginalized scapegoats, 128–9 in Dis Exapat¯on, 92–8, 162 in Epitrepontes, 196–203, 204 evil hetaira topos as central to, 81 high-status women and, 111–12, 117–19 performance skills of hetairai, 80
296
General index
moral character, misperceptions of (cont.) as rhetorical device, 129 in Roman adaptations, 119–25 in Samia, 86–92 women as mirrors of values of men, 80, 110 love/sexual passion barely attributed to women, 6 in Misoumenos, 85, 112–17 in Perikeiromen¯e, 86, 92, 111–12, 117 psychology and motivation, 85, 126–9 disjointed syntax exposing, 100, 121 emotions and desires affecting judgment, 85, 128 in Roman adaptations, 121 in Samia and Dis Exapat¯on, 99–102 women as mirrors of values of men, 80, 110 rhetorical argument and, see rhetorical argument and misperceptions of moral character in Roman adaptations, 119–25 in Samia, 85, 86–92 sexual fidelity as matter of opportunity rather than virtue, 6 status and moral character, 79, 86, 125–9 assumption of connection between, 84, 110, 122 corruption, high-status women in poor social circumstances as liable to, 122 focus on low-status women’s character, 79, 84, 86, 261 in H¯er¯os, 48, 49, 50 hetaira typology and high-status women, 111–12, 117–19 low-status criticizers of high-status women, 110–17 low-status proxies for high-status women, 120–2, 177, 197, 223, 228–30, 233–4, 236 perceptual overlap between prostitutes and low-status women, 81 tragic models used in, 98, 100, 108, 196 words used for character in Menander, 82 morality and virtue Aristotle on, 148, 152, 168, 171–4 choices of women characters regarding, 170–6, 179 in Epitrepontes hetaira, moral choice of, 223–35 husband, moral evolution of, 192–6 wife, moral choices given to, 179, 205–23 in father-daughter arguments about marriage and divorce, 217 “good” women, 169 “Greekness” and Greek standards of
humanity, gratitude, and reciprocity in Misoumenos, 113–16 “lost” citizens, recovery of, 251–2 reconciliation with Polemon in Perikeiromen¯e, moral implications of Glykera’s choice of, 149, 172 hetairai household, “good” hetaira as protector of, 156, 160–3, 166, 168, 237–8, 242 qualities necessary to, 236 popular morality as reflected in Menandrian comedies, 170, 192–6, 237 reconciliation of women with lovers, moral implications of in Misoumenos, 150–2 in Perikeiromen¯e, 148–50, 152–5 status and virtue, connection between, 252 mortality, mistaken identity as means of transcending, 2 Moschion in Perikeiromen¯e, 16, 33–45, 64, 80, 132–9, 144, 145, 154, 192 Moschion in Samia, 49, 86–9, 97–110, 156–68, 187, 221 Moschion in Siky¯onioi, 21–5 Moschos in Dis Exapat¯on, 92–8 Mostellaria (Plautus), 91, 188 motivation, see psychology and motivation mourning rites, 142 Myrrhine in H¯er¯os, 47, 48 Myrrhine in Perikeiromen¯e, 33–41, 135, 137 Naiden, Fred S., 142 narrative accounts of offstage action, dramatic use of, 132 Neaira, 131, 153, 159, 237, 258 New Comedy, 2, 6, 10, 11, 12 assumptions about nature of character in, 98 “forensic thinking” in, 102–7, 250 hetairai, New Comic tradition and Menandrian innovation regarding, 241–2 husband’s duty to love wife in, 221 identification of mistaken identity plot with, 262 infidelity of husbands, wifely forbearance of, 186 jealous wives in, 184 marriage and divorce, popularity of arguments between father and daughter regarding, 213–21 masks in, 174 popularity of status misperception in, 72–8 rape in, 70 religious ritual frequently participated in by women of, 142
General index seriousness of problems derived from tragedy, 260, 261 tragic roots of, 258–64 virtue and morality in, 173 Nikeratos in Samia, 86, 88, 90, 106, 107–10, 119, 159–69 Nikostratos, 6 oaths, women’s use of, 54–5, 97, 227 Odyssey, see Homer Oedipus (Euripides), 100, 261 Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles), 70, 143 offstage action, dramatic use of narrative accounts of, 132 oikos, see kinship/household/family duty Old Comedy, 2, 98, 171, 245, 248, 252, 264–6 old misers and misanthropes, see Knemon in Dyskolos; Smikrines in Aspis; Smikrines in Epitrepontes Omitowoju, Rosanna, 42 Onesimos in Epitrepontes, 189–90, 196, 200–5, 207, 225–35, 238 Orestes (Euripides), 134 overeating as metaphor in H¯er¯os, 48, 49 P. Ant. 15, 69, 221, 247 P. Didot i, 213–21, 242–4, 249 P. Ghˆoran ii/P. Sorbonne 72, 117 P. K¨oln 203, see Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott Pamphile in Epitrepontes, 179–88, 205–23, 240 Pan and Nymphs in Dyskolos, 51, 52, 56 Papirius Fabianus, 217, 220 Parmenon in Samia, 161, 162, 168 Pataikos in Perikeiromen¯e, 40–5, 77, 107, 111, 143–50, 152–4, 206 Patterson, Orlando, 140 Penelope (Odyssey) as model for women in New Comedy, 170, 177, 179, 222 Pericles, 73, 172, 241, 246 Perikeiromen¯e (The Rape of the Locks) (Menander), 33–46. See also specific characters, e.g. Glykera in Perikeiromen¯e audience sympathies, engaging, 131–9, 143–50, 152–5 compromising embrace in, 132–3 Epitrepontes compared, 178, 180, 189, 192, 206, 207, 223, 227 eros/love/sexual passion barely attributed to women, 6, 152 hair, symbolic violence of cutting, 146 hetaira, Glykera viewed as Getas on, 111–12 gift-exchange system, relationship as, 44 legal relationship between Glykera and Polemon, 40–5
297
Moschion’s self-delusion regarding, 34–9 shamelessness as characteristic of hetairai, 98 illegitimate children, rescue of, 88 incest, Menandrian avoidance of, 266 kyrieia disputes in, 33 moral character misperceptions in, 86, 92, 111–12, 117 mortality, mistaken identity as means of transcending, 2 Plutarch’s categories and, 5 prologue used to inform audience of truths hidden from other characters, 130 psychology and motivation, 45 coincidence, small role of, 33, 36 Moschion, self-delusion of, 34–40 Polemon’s view of relationship to Glykera, 40–5 separation from Polemon, Glykera’s defense of, 143–8 silence, Glykera’s choice of, 133–9 status misperception in, 14, 16, 33–46 virginity in, 21, 41 voice, arguments regarding Glykera’s loss of, 154 Perinthia (Menander), 73 Peripatetics, 83 Persa (Plautus), 222 Persius, 124 personality, see character Phaedra myth, 96 Phanion (Menander), 238 Phasma (The Apparition) (Menander), 65–7 eros, symptoms of, 67 illegitimate children, rescue of, 65, 88 Pheidias, character of, 65–7, 75, 76 prologue used to inform audience of truths hidden from other characters, 130 psychology and motivation in, 66–7 rape in, 65, 71 status misperception in, 14, 65–7 Pheidias in Phasma, 65–7, 75, 76 Philainis, 157 Philaulos (Theophilus), 237 Philemon, 8 philological analysis, 10–11 philosophical ideas, Menander’s treatment of, 171–4, 240, 263 Philoumene in Siky¯onioi, 17–25 Phormio (Apollodorus), 65 Phormio (Terence), 37, 246, 268 Photius, 18 Phrynion, 41, 153, 159 physical beauty vs. personality in Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott, 68–71
298
General index
piety, see religion and religious ritual pity in Epitrepontes, 192–6 Plangon in H¯er¯os, 46–50, 80 Plangon in Samia, 111–12 Plato, 84 Plautus, 10. See also specific plays, e.g. Bacchides construction of identity as process in, 13 Dyskolos compared to Aulularia, 51 jealous wives in plays of, 184 love/sexual passion barely attributed to women, 6 mistaken identity plot in, 1 mother on son’s love affair in Asinaria, 37 Plutarch’s categories and, 5 promises of soldiers’ mistresses in plays of, 138 ridicule of high-status males in plays of, 264 Plokion (Menander), 184, 206, 248 Plutarch, 3–9, 73, 147, 185, 188, 242, 247, 248, 253 Polemon in Perikeiromen¯e, 33, 40–45, 76, 80, 89, 92, 111, 146–9, 152–3, 189, 192, 223 political agenda, Menander’s lack of, 252–4, 259 political context of Menander’s comedies, 11 popular morality as reflected in Menandrian comedies, 170, 192–6, 237 population diminution in Greece, remedies for, 251 Porson’s bridge, 47 Post, L. A., 7 pride in skills of hetairai and other professionals, 162 prologues used to inform audience of truths hidden from other characters, 130 Propertius, 96 prostitutes and prostitution, see hetairai Pseudolus (Plautus), 237 psychology and motivation, 2, 262–4 in Aspis, 58–65 audience sympathies, engaging, 172–4 coincidence replaced by, 33, 36 comic slave’s psychological perception in Phasma, 66–7 dianoia, as function of, 15, 33 in Dis Exapat¯on, 99–102 disjointed syntax exposing, 100, 121 in Dyskolos Gorgias’s projection of self onto sister in, 52–4 Knemon, 51–2 Sostratos’ perception of girl in, 54–6 in Epitrepontes, see under Epitrepontes ethical/philosophical vs. dramatic goals regarding, 172–4 in Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott, 69–72, 75, 77 fantasy elements displaying, 101
in mistaken identity plots generally, 2, 15 in moral character misperceptions, see under moral character, misperceptions of in Perikeiromen¯e, 45 coincidence, small role of, 33, 36 Moschion, self-delusion of, 34–40 Polemon’s view of relationship to Glykera, 40–5 in Phasma, 66–7 in Samia, 99–102, 263 status misperception and, see under status misperception truth about friends and family, difficulty of knowing, 1, 3, 13, 85, 110, 262 public space, rarity of women’s intrusion into, 259 Questa, Cesare, 94 Quintilian, 11, 84 Rabinowitz, Nancy S., 138 radical other, hetairai as, 128–9 ransom of war captive in Misoumenos, 25–33 rape Adonia party in Samia and, 157 aims of victims of, 259 committed by husband/suffered by wife in Epitrepontes, 71, 178, 192, 194, 228, 229, 231 as face-saving device for consensual premarital sex, 257 healthy sons resulting from, 247 in H¯er¯os, 48, 49, 71 in “lost daughter” stories, 21, 72 marriage following, 247 in Misoumenos, 21 in New Comedy generally, 70 in Phasma, 65, 71 rhetorical techniques for exculpating aggressor, comic use of, 105 of slaves, 49 in status misperception stories, 21, 48, 49, 65, 70 reciprocity and gratitude, Greek standards of, 113–16 recognition scenes in Menandrian comedies, 261–2 reconciliation of women with lovers, moral implications of in Misoumenos, 150–2 in Perikeiromen¯e, 148–50, 152–5 religion and religious ritual divine agency in Menandrian comedy, 173, 194, 247, 260 mourning rites, 142
General index New Comedy women frequently participating in religious ritual, 142 piety of daughter towards Pan and Nymphs in Dyskolos, 51, 52, 56 sanctuary sought by Philoumene in Siky¯onioi, 16–25, 142 supplication of Krateia in Misoumenos, 140–3 theoxeny stories of gods, 2 remarriage, 211, 218 Rhapizomen¯e (Menander), 225 Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, 84–5, 104, 145, 184, 193, 208, 213–21, 263 Rhetorica ad Herennium, 215–20 rhetorical argument between father and daughter regarding marriage and divorce in Epitrepontes, 181–5, 205–23 “forensic thinking” in New Comedy, 102–7, 250, 267 hetaira typology and, 97, 129, 134, 199, 226, 227 moral character misperceptions and, 81–5 proof construction in, 263 separation from Polemon in Perikeiromen¯e, Glykera’s defense of, 144 Roman adaptations, moral character misperceptions in, 119–25. See also specific Roman plays, e.g. Cistellaria Rudens (Plautus), 142 Samia (The Girl from Samos) (Menander), 86–92, 156–69. See also specific characters, e.g. Chrysis in Samia Adonia party in, 157 audience sympathies, engaging, 156–69 behavior, difficulty of inferring character from, 86, 263 child, implications of Chrysis’ care for, 163–7, 168 disjointed syntax in, 100 Epitrepontes compared, 187, 190, 194, 198, 225, 226, 227, 232, 235 incest, Menandrian avoidance of, 266 literary prostitute typology, reliance on, 86–92 love/sexual passion barely attributed to women in, 6 loyalty of Chrysis to household, 156, 160–3, 166, 168 “marital” or permanent relationship between Chrysis and Demeas, 86, 159 moral character misperceptions in, 85, 86–92 moral obligations of Moschion, 161 pardon and return of Chrysis to household, 167
299
Plautus’ Cistellaria compared, 120 prologue used to inform audience of truths hidden from other characters, 130 psychology and motivation in, 99–102, 263 sexual pleasure figure, Chrysis as, 156 Sostratos in Dis Exapat¯on compared to Demeas, 93–10 as “whore with a heart of gold” story, 86–92, 123–5, 169 women’s acceptance of Chrysis in, 157–9, 168 Samian hetairai, reputation of, 157 sanctuary sought by Philoumene in Siky¯onioi, 16–25, 142 Sandbach, Francis H., 47, 112, 151, 161, 178, 181–5 Scafuro, Adele, 102, 107, 216, 221, 222, 250, 263, 267 Seneca, Controversiae, 213–21, 222 seriousness of problems in Menandrian Comedy derived from tragedy, 260, 261 sexual access to women and status misperception, 15 sexual passion, see eros/love/sexual passion Shakespeare, William, 107 Shaw, Michael, 172 Sheldon, J. S., 72 Siky¯onioi (The Sikyonians) (Menander), 16–25. See also specific characters, e.g. Philoumene in Siky¯onioi incest, Menandrian avoidance of, 266 kyrieia dispute in, 22–3 Plutarch’s categories and, 5 psychology and motivation in, 24–5 sanctuary sought by Philoumene in, 16–25, 142 status misperception in, 14, 15, 16–25 silence, female character’s choice of Glykera in Perikeiromen¯e, 133–9 Krateia in Misoumenos, 139–40 Silo Pompeius, 217, 218, 221 Simiche in Dyskolos, 55–6 slaves and slavery Athenian citizenship in Siky¯onioi, 16–25 behavior of girl in Dyskolos, 54–5 choices facing Habrotonon in Epitrepontes appropriate to, 202–3, 224, 238–40 female characters as slaves in Menander, 3 hair of female slaves, cutting, 146 “lost daughter” stories of women living in slavery, 14–16 manumission of, 27–8, 202–3, 231, 238–40 psychological perception of comic slave in Phasma, 66–7 rape of slaves, 49 social death as defining characteristic of, 140
300
General index
slaves and slavery (cont.) social positions of Daos and Plangon in H¯er¯os, 46–50 war captive in Misoumenos, 25–33 Smikrines in Aspis, 16, 57–65, 75, 76, 77 Smikrines in Epitrepontes, 178, 179–88, 197–200, 203–22 social status, see status soldier plays, 46, 56. See also Misoumenos; Perikeiromen¯e; Siky¯onioi Sophocles, 70, 143, 262 Sosias in Perikeiromen¯e, 40–1, 98, 111–12, 148, 189 Sostratos in Dis Exapat¯on, 85, 92–102, 118, 120, 162, 190, 194, 199 Sostratos in Dyskolos, 16, 50–6, 75, 76, 79, 221 spectacle, Menandrian use of, 174 spinning hetairai, 91 status and moral character, see under moral character, misperceptions of status and virtue, connection between, 252 status figures as objects of ridicule, 264 status of hetaira in household, recognition of, 167 status misperception, 3, 5, 9, 14–16 audience sympathy, engaging, 130 behavior of girl in Dyskolos, 54–5 combined with moral character misperceptions in Epitrepontes, 177–9 in Dyskolos, 14, 16, 50–6 in Epitrepontes, 177–9, 191–2, 194, 223 in Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott, 14, 16, 67–72 father as pivotal figure in, 73 heiresses (epikl¯er¯e), 57, 65, 74. See also Aspis in H¯er¯os, 14, 16, 46–50 kyrieia disputes and, see kyrieia disputes low-status proxies for high-status women, 120–2, 177, 197, 223, 228–30, 233–4, 236 in Misoumenos, 14, 16, 25–33 nature of disputes about, 14–15 in Perikeiromen¯e, 14, 16, 33–46 in Phasma, 14, 65–7 psychology and motivation in, 15, 75–8 in Dyskolos, as above emotions and desires affecting, 15–16, 62–4 in Fabula Incerta 8 Arnott, 69–72, 75, 77 in Misoumenos, 32 in Perikeiromen¯e, as above in Phasma, 66–7 in Siky¯onioi, 24–5 rape in, 21, 48, 49, 65, 70 reasons for popularity of mistaken identity plots involving, 72–8
sexual access to women and, 15 in Siky¯onioi, 14, 15, 16–25 situations leading to, 50–1 social mobility, dramatic/real possibility of, 73–5 values of characters expressive of original lost status, 131, 155–6, 175–6 virginity in, 20–4, 32, 41 of women vs. men, 74 status mobility, dramatic/real possibility of, 73–5, 131 Steele, Richard, 268 Stichus (Plautus), 6, 213–21 Stobaeus, 118 Stoics, 263 Stratophanes in Siky¯onioi, 17–25, 74, 76, 77 subjectivity of viewer, 13 Suppliant Women (Aeschylus), 267 Suppliant Women (Euripides), 143 supplication in Misoumenos, 140–3 Synarist¯osai (Menander), 6, 72, 246, 253, 259 Syner¯osa (Menander), 6 Taplin, Oliver, 134 Tatius, Achilles, 142 Terence, 10. See also specific plays, e.g. Eunuchus bona meretrix (“good prostitute”) in plays of, vii, 9, 123–5 mistaken identity plot in, 1 Plutarch’s categories and, 4, 5 Thais in Menander’s Thais, 95, 97, 120–2, 162, 225, 238 Thais in Terence’s Eunuchus, see Eunuchus Theano, 186–7, 195, 211, 213, 220, 221, 222 Theophilus, 237 Theophoroumen¯e (The Girl Possessed) (Menander), 117–19 Theophrastus, 82, 83, 248 theoxeny stories of gods, 2 Theron in Siky¯onioi, 17–24 Thesmophoriazusae (Aristophanes), 253, 267 Thrasonides in Misoumenos, 16, 19, 25–32, 44, 64, 85, 112–17, 140, 150–2, 189, 192, 223 Thrasyleon (Menander), 1 thresholds, women on, 132 Thucydides, 193 Tibeios in H¯er¯os, 47, 48 tragedy, 2, 12, 13 audience sympathies engaged through use of tragic conventions, 132, 134–5, 138–9, 142, 143, 155–6, 171, 175–6 Menandrian transformation of elements of, 245, 258–64 mistaken identity plots rooted in, 258–64
General index moral character misperceptions in New Comedy using tragic models, 98, 100, 108, 196 recognition scenes in Menandrian comedies derived from, 261–2 seriousness of problems in Menandrian Comedy derived from, 260, 261 wifely intolerance of infidelity in, 185 trials, popularity of, 3 tropos, see character truth about friends and family, difficulty of knowing, 1, 3, 13, 85, 110, 262 Turner, Eric G., 193, 207 tyrant, father in Epitrepontes depicted as, 180 victimization of males vs. females, 256 virginity, 20–4, 32, 41, 229 virtue, see morality and virtue war captive in Misoumenos, 25–33 Wasps (Aristophanes), 267 Webster, T. B. L., 138 West, Stephanie, 161 the “whore with a heart of gold,” 3–9 Chrysis in Samia, 86–92, 123–5, 169 in Epitrepontes, 177, 224, 235–42 household, “good” hetaira as protector of, 237–8, 242 Terence, bona meretrix (“good prostitute”) in plays of, vii, 9, 123–5 whores generally, see hetairai Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich von, 224 “woman with milk” and proof construction, 263 women, see also hetairai acceptance of hetaira into women’s network, 157–9, 168, 235 “common (misogynist) wisdom” about, 112, 113, 248 daughters “hidden daughter” stories, see Dyskolos; Phasma lost, see “lost daughter” stories
301
marriage and divorce, arguments between father and daughter regarding, see under fathers eros/love/sexual passion barely attributed to, 6, 152, 207, 218, 221, 254, 257 oaths, use of, 54–5, 97, 227 sympathy of hetaira for mother and child, 163–7, 168, 228, 233–4 women, Menander’s focus on, 10, 245–68 Athenian marital laws and women’s status, 246–51 audience sympathies, engaging, 256 disproportionate involvement of women as misrepresented characters, 2, 245 dramatic factors, 171–4, 254–66 emotional consequences of mistakes about women, 254 gender stereotypes, exploitation of, 255–8 hiddenness of women’s lives, dramatic advantages of, 254 historical factors, 245–54 insignificance of women in Greek society, 246 integration of women into new oikos as common theme, 258–60 “lost” citizens, recovery of, 251–2 mirrors of value for men, women as, 75, 77, 80, 110 moral character of low-status women, focus on, 261 political agenda, lack of, 252–4, 259 public space, rarity of women’s intrusion into, 259 status misperception of men vs. women, 74 tragedy, Menandrian transformation of elements of, 245, 258–64 victimization of males vs. females, 256 Xenophon, 237 Zeitlin, Froma, 129 Zelnick-Abramovitz, Rachel, 43
