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Tragedy in Antiphon 1, Against the Stepmother

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Tragedy in Antiphon 1, Against the Stepmother Michael Edwards Tragedy in Antiphon 1, Againstthe Stepmother It is aprivilegetocontributetoavolume in honour of Georgia Xanthankis-Kar- amanos, whose own contributions to the study of Greek drama, especiallytrag- edy, have been so extensive and influential, as alsohas been her work on rhet- oric and the relationship between tragedyand rhetoric.¹ That relationship has recentlybeen explored again by David Sansone,inacontroversial book, Greek Drama and the Invention of Rhetoric,² which has receivedmixed reviews.³ My purpose here is not to consider the merits or otherwise of Sansone’sargument that ‘the development of rhetoric was directlyinspired by the creation of the new,evenrevolutionary,genre of tragic drama’,⁴ as opposed to the more tradi- tional view that rhetoric influenced tragedy,⁵ but rather to takeanother look at the undoubtedlytragic elements in what has claims to being the earliest surviv- ing speech in the corpus of Attic oratory,Antiphon 1, Against the Stepmother.⁶ Anyattempt to link these directlytorecent tragic performances is, to my mind, avain one, simply because we do not know the datesofmanyofthe plays or indeed of the speech itself.⁷ Rather,inmyopinion these elements, com- bined with other stylistic usages, should be taken first and foremost as indicators of Antiphon’sfine oratorical technique. In Against the Stepmother Antiphon’sunnamed client prosecutes his step- mother for the killing of his father.The father was entertained to dinner in Pi- See her earlyarticle 1979,66–76. Sansone 2012. ‘It is, indeed, one of those books that every reader is happy to have read even though she doubts that it will fullyconvince anyone’:Scodel 2013.See also Lloyd2013,457–459; Stewart 2014,26–28. Sansone 2012,4. See, for example, Lloyd1992. Fortexts, translations,discussions of and commentaries on the speech see Blass /Thalheim 1914; Gernet 1923;Wijnberg1938; Maidment 1941; Barigazzi 1955;Due 1980,16–28;Gagarin 1997 and 2002;Gagarin /MacDowell 1998. The datingofthe speech is amatter of controversy.Older scholarship, such as Blass 1887, vol. 1, 193; Jebb 1893, vol. 1, 67;and Maidment 1941, 12, would see speech 1asbeingaproduct of Antiphon’searlier development.This view was challengedbyDover 1950,44–60,who sug- gests adatebetween 418/17 and 416/15;and his sequencefor the survivingcourt speeches of 6, 1, 5isfollowed by Gagarin 2002,139.Iwould still myself prefer amuch earlier date,perhaps as far back as the 430s. See Edwards 2000,236. DOI 10.1515/9783110519785-014 Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 09.11.17 10:19 244 Michael Edwards raeus by his friend Philoneus, whose mistress (or παλλακή)served them wine poisoned with what she believed to be alovepotion. Philoneus, receiving alarg- er draught,died instantlyand his friend twenty days later. The mistress was a slave,and so wastortured and executed by relativesofPhiloneus. Some years later,onreachingmaturity,one of the friend’ssons, in accordancewith his fa- ther’sdeathbed injunction, prosecuted his stepmother,whose defence was con- ducted by one of her own sons, the half-brothers of the plaintiff. With no substantial evidence to relyon, Antiphon constructs for his client a vivid and largely imaginarynarrative of these events. Itsdramatic tenor was noted manyyears agointhe Budé edition of Louis Gernet.Commenting on the words which introduce the narrative,Gernet writes: Δίκη δὲ κυβερνήσειεν.Expression poétique, qui prélude assez naturellement àlanarration dont la couleur n’est point celle de la prose judiciaire(notamment §17, τ ὸ ν ἑ αυτῶνφονέα,« leur meurtrier », en parlant de la coupe empoisonnée; cf. Soph., Ajax,815 et 1026). Dans la seconde partie surtout – dans la scènedumeurtre – ce récit fait penser àcelui d’un messagerdetragédie; l’auteur ymet visiblement quelque complaisance.⁸ Similarly,Adelmo Barigazzi comments: L’espressione èsenz’altropoetica, ma non èilcaso di pensarealla chiusa d’un esametro desunta da qualche poeta. Essa appartiene al tono elevatoepoeticoche charatterizza la narrazione.⁹ On the narrative itself Bodil Due remarks: This narrative is the broadest and most vivid in the extant speechesofAntiphon … The lit- igant obviouslystrivestocreateanatmospherefilled with terror and vaguepresentiments, which is strongly reminiscent of tragedy, especially, as observed by Gernet,ofthe messen- ger-speeches.¹⁰ Finally, Michael Gagarin notes, also with referencetoGernet, that ‘A. here produces avivid account whichhas been likened to amessengerspeechintragedy’.¹¹ There are anumber of features of the narrative,and other parts of the speech, that support this consensus opinion. These include: Gernet 1923,42n.1.For the personification Wijnberg1938, 93, compares Hes. Theogony 902; Soph. OT 274. Barigazzi 1955,87. Due 1980,20. Gagarin 1997, 114. Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 09.11.17 10:19 Tragedy in Antiphon 1, Againstthe Stepmother 245 (i) The striking metaphor in §20: τὸν ἑαυτῶνφονέαμεταχειριζόμενοι (‘tak- ing hold of their own killer’). Parallels for this,asGernet noted, are Soph. Ajax 815–816, ὁ μὲνσφαγεὺς ἕστηκεν ᾗ τομώτατος γένοιτ’ ἄν (‘the slayerstands whereits stroke willcut sharpest’)and 1026, ὑφ’ οὗ φονέως ἄρ’ ἐξέπνευσας (‘your killer that took your final breath’), and Due adds Eur. IT 586, οὐχὶ τὴν ἐμὴνφονέανομίζων χεῖρα (‘not thinking my hand was amurderer’). Barigazzi comments ‘tutta la frase ha coloritopoetico, èpiena di solennità egravità trag- ica’,¹² and he rightlydefends the Greek text of the sentence τὸν ἑαυτῶνφονέα μεταχειριζόμενοι ἐκπίνουσιν ὑστάτην πόσιν (‘taking hold of their own killer, they drinkitdown, their last drink’)byreference to Aeschyl. Cho.578, ἄκρατον αἷμα πίεται τρίτην πόσιν (‘[the fury] will drink unmixed blood as her third drink’). Inote also afragment of Euripides(912.7 N), which contains the verb in the context of holding Zeus’ sceptre(σκῆπτρον τὸ Διὸςμεταχειρίζεις). (ii) Asecond vivid metaphorical usageisfound in §17: ταῖςΚλυταιμήστρας τῆςτούτου μητρὸς ὑποθήκαις ἅμα διακονοῦσαν (‘following the advice of Clytem- nestra, this man’smother’).¹³ Barigazzi notes that Antiphon would have been about 20 years old when Aeschylus’ Oresteia wasperformedin458,¹⁴ and Gagar- in comments ‘the name adds to the tragic tone of the narrative,inwhich several passages seem intended to recall the Oresteia’.¹⁵ This is fine, but there were, of course, other versions of the myth, in tragedyand other poetry (starting with Homer, Odyssey 11.405–434), which could equallyhaveinfluenced Antiphon. His use of the name of acharacter from mythologyisexceptional in the orators: all the commentators note the onlyparallel at And. 1.129.¹⁶ Thismay be another sign of the lack of real evidence in the case, with Antiphon relying on the meta- phor to kindle in the jurors the male fears of women that are afeature of so many tragedies(joined to the theme of the wickedstepmother). The metaphor helps to draw attention away from the fact that much of the narrative is the pure inven- tion of its narrator (here the imaginary thoughts of the pallake). (iii) As we noted above, athird strikingmetaphor,with poetic flavour,¹⁷ is found in the words thatintroduce the narrative in §13, Δίκη δὲ κυβερνήσειεν Barigazzi 1955,91. Iadopt the textofGagarin here. Assumingabirth datearound 480,with Ps.-Plutarch, Mor.832F. Gagarin 1997, 116. τίς ἂνεἴηοὗτος; Οἰδίπους, ἢ Αἴγισθος; ἢ τί χρὴ αὐτὸν ὀνομάσαι;(‘Who would he be himself? Oedipus or Aegisthus, or whatshould we call him?’). As Gagarin 1997, 27.His other examples of poetic metaphor come from speeches5(§§ 37,77, 93)and 6(§21). More examples of metaphorical expression aregiven by Cucuel 1886,28–9: 1.13, 17,20, 2.1.7, 2.2.13,2.3.10, 4.10,3.2.10, 3.3.4, 4.2.7(wrongly givenasΓγ7byCucuel), 5.37,71, 86,94. Bereitgestellt von | De Gruyter / TCS Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 09.11.17 10:19 246 Michael Edwards (‘mayJustice be my guide’). Thismetaphor,however,recalls not tragedy, but Pin- dar, Pyth.5.122–23, Διόςτοι νόος μέγας κυβερνᾷ δαίμον’ ἀνδρῶνφίλων (‘the mighty mind of Zeus governs the destiny of men he loves’;cf. Ol.12.3–5, Pyth.10.72). Nor is it onlypoetic: it is also paralleled laterinPlato, Eu- thyd.291c-d: Σωκράτης ταύτῃ τῇ τέχνῃἥτε στρατηγικὴ καὶ αἱἄλλαι παραδιδόναι ἄρχειν τῶν ἔργων ὧναὐταὶ δημιουργοί εἰσιν, ὡςμόνῃἐπισταμένῃ χρῆσθαι. σαφῶςοὖνἐδόκει ἡμῖναὕτη εἶναι ἣν ἐζη- τοῦμεν, καὶἡαἰτίατοῦὀρθῶςπράττειν ἐντῇ/πόλει, καὶἀτεχνῶςκατὰ τὸ Αἰσχύλου ἰαμ- βεῖον μόνη ἐντῇπρύμνῃ καθῆσθαι τῆςπόλεως, πάντα κυβερνῶσα καὶ πάντων ἄρχουσα πάντα χρήσιμα ποιεῖν. Socrates To this art,wethought, generalship and the other arts handed over the management of the productions of their own trades,asthis one alone knew how to use them. So it seemed clear to us that this was the one we wereseeking, and was the cause of right conduct in the state, and preciselyasAeschylus’ line expresses it,isseated alone at the helm of the city,steering the whole, commanding the whole, and makingthe whole useful.¹⁸ Socrates refers to the similar metaphor at Aesch. Septem 2, but therethe verb used is in fact φυλάσσει: ὅστις φυλάσσει πρᾶγος ἐνπρύμνηι πόλεως (‘whoever guides affairs at the stern of the state’). (iv) Poetic vocabulary andphraseologymakeafurthercontributiontothis pic- ture.The firstportofcallhereisthe dissertationonAntiphon’slanguageand style by Cucuel,who discusses Expressionspoétiques on pp.22–23.¹⁹ Cucuel is conser- vative in hisapproach,²⁰ butheidentifies eighteen expressionsinthe Antiphon- tean corpus as poetic,two of whichare used twice andthe greatmajorityof whichare foundinthe
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