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Mythographic Humor in Ancient Greek Comedy City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2015 Who Stole the Daedalen Statue? Mythographic Humor in Ancient Greek Comedy Alan Grau Sumler Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1147 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Who Stole the Daedalean Statue? Mythographic Humor in Ancient Greek Comedy by Alan Grau Sumler A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Classics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2015 ©2015 Alan Grau Sumler All Right Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Classics in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Joel Lidov _____________ _____________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Dee Clayman _____________ __________ ___________________________ Date Executive Officer Joel Lidov____________________________________________ Dee Clayman_________________________________________ Jennifer Roberts______________________________________ Jeff Rusten (Cornell University)__________________________ Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract Who Stole the Daedalean Statue? Mythographic Humor in Ancient Greek Comedy by Alan Grau Sumler Adviser: Joel Lidov The following work adds another topic to the analysis of ancient Greek comedy. I cite excerpts from Aristophanes, Menander, ancient Greek comic fragments. I cover examples which contain mythological material. I compare them to ancient historiographic, philosophic, and mythographic approaches used by writers such as Hecataeus, Empedocles, Prodicus, Paleaphatus, Euhemerus, Heraclitus the Paradoxographer, and other writers. I am looking for instances of myth criticism, myth rationalization, and myth allegory in the comic material. My research adds another item to the list of ancient comic approaches and shows the prevalence of rationalism in ancient Greek world. Regardless of time period (Old, Middle, New) ancient Greek comedy contained a variety of mythological references. When isolating all fragments with themes of myth criticism, rationalization and allegory, some observations can be made about each particular comic approach to myth. Myth rationalization was another approach for the comic poets to employ and parody. Scholars have touched upon this topic, but have not treated it in full. According to them the few examples of comic mythological rationalization are found in Middle and New Comedy. Scholars have not designated this trend in ancient Greek Comedy. I will show that ancient Greek comedy as a whole had the tendency to rationalize myths. Mythographic humor was part of comedy from its inception. iv Preface I wish to thank the scholars who have given me input on the early and late stages of this project. First I thank my dissertation committee - J. Lidov, J. Rusten, D. Clayman, and J. Roberts. Second I thank the early readers of the project - J. Stern, J. Henderson, and H-G Nesselrath. And finally I thank consultants on certain topics of this project - G. Hawes and R. Fowler. I also wish to thank D. Sweet of the University of Dallas, N. Lenski of the University of Colorado Boulder, and D. Sullivan of Metropolitan State University of Denver for giving me library access and teaching positions while I completed the project. Part of the project was completed with help from a dissertation fellowship from the City University of New York Graduate Center. Different versions of my thesis were presented at academic conferences and talks. These presentations include Ancient Aitia at NYU (Dec 2011), Friday scholar’s symposium at the CUNY GC (Nov 2013), and CAMWS comedy panel (April 2014). Excerpts of this dissertation are published in the journal Quaderni Urbinati Cultura Classica (2, 2014). v Table of Contents: Title Page i Abstract iv Preface v CH01 Myth Rationalization, Mythography, and Comic Criticisms of Myth 1 CH02 Aristophanes and Remythology 44 CH03 Old Comedy and Myth Humanization 74 CH04 Middle Comedy and Myth Rationalization 103 CH05 New Comedy and Mythographic Parody 122 CH06 Menander 137 CH07 Conclusion and Epilogue: Comic Myth Rationalization in Lucian 152 Bibliography 163 vi Chapter 01 Introduction: Myth Rationalization, Mythography, and Comic Criticisms of Myth I begin with a discussion covering four topics which are integral to my interpretation of ancient Greek comedy. First I cover some approaches to myth found in archaic Greek poetry, then instances of myth rationalization in ancient Greek historiography and philosophy, next I cover mythography as a genre, and finally the genre and approach called allegory. In each topic I will highlight different rationalizing approaches and other approaches to myth used by ancient writers. This survey will provide us with a repertoire of different ancient approaches to myth. Afterward I will describe the categories of comic approaches used in my analysis. Once the framework is briefly established, I will present a survey of ancient Greek comedy, its origins, writers, and themes as they pertain to my work. The rationalization of myth as an approach to analyzing myth narratives has no clear origin. It does not evolve over time in a linear fashion so that each new approach replaces the old one. We see it more and more in ancient Greek literature beginning around the 6 th c. BC. Just as Greek mythology consists of a myriad of narratives and explanations, so myth rationalization consists of a myriad of approaches to myth. 1 These approaches culminate in the genre called mythography which was not recognized as genre until the Hellenistic times. In mythography we see the full repertoire of approaches. Some of them are rational, while others use a different approach. As to rational approaches Plato and Aristotle mention some of them. In Plato’s Phaedrus , which I discuss below, Socrates gives some examples of rationalizing a myth. His criteria include making a myth more plausible or probable. According to Aristotle in his Metaphysics , discussed below, early thinkers questioned the traditional myths and gods. They set forth rational explanations for them. The rational approach is one technique used by writers who criticize myth and offer alternative versions of the myth based on some rational criteria. Before mythography as a genre, we see these approaches used by historiographers, philosophers, and poets. Ancient Greek comic writers applied these same rational approaches to myth in their dramas. At times they even made 1 See Cameron 2004.x-xi and 27-32 for the difficulty in defining the genre. 1 parodies of writers who applied these approaches. I now turn to the ancient origins of these approaches. 1. Early Criticism of Myth in Hesiod and Pindar The poems of Hesiod (8 th -7th c. BC) do not exhibit any level of myth rationalization or myth criticism, but they supply the material, i.e. myths, which others criticize. Hesiod’s works also provide some of the basic approaches to myth which writers would later employ, for instance etymology, aitiology, theogony, and genealogy. 2 His subjects represent the mythological past, a past which historians would use as a bridge to their own times and events. At times this bridge needed modification or rationalization. His Theogony , containing the birth of the gods and the universe (cosmogony, cosmology), and Catalogue of Women (genealogy) provide the material and the approach which philosophers and historiographers would later use in their analysis. Early historiographers give their own versions of theogony and genealogy, while philosophers would explain the birth of the cosmos using rational criteria. For the philosopher Empedocles the beginning of the cosmos contains elements of nature which might be thought of as gods. The historiographer Akousilaos of Argos writes his own versions of theogony and genealogy which break away from Hesiod’s. The historiographer Herodorus gave his own versions of Prometheus; Hecataeus wrote his own versions of Cerberus. Euhemerus and Prodicus would tackle the topics of the gods, while mythographers like Heraclitus and Palaephatus would rationalize other Hesiodic characters, for instance Pandora and Medusa. There are some particular techniques Hesiod employs which are picked up later by historiographers, philosophers, mythographers, and even comic poets. In the Theogony etymology is often employed as an approach to myth content. 3 The Cyclopes ( Κύκλωπες ) are explained by an analysis of their name 2 See Fowler 2014 (introduction), Dowden 2011.47-72, Griffiths 2011.195-208, and Saїd 2008.76-88 for discussions about this material and approach. 3 See Stern 2006.60 for a discussion about this shared approach. 2 meaning circle-eyed (lines 144-145 - κυκλοτερὴς ὀφθαλμὸς). The name of the goddess Aphrodite (Ἀφροδίτη ) comes from the circumstances of her birth, since she was born and nourished from the foam (lines 195-196 - ἀφρογενέα τε θεὰν and ἀφρῷ θρέφθη ). The Titans ( Τιτῆνες) are named because they are strained tight in wickedness (line 209 - τιταίνοντας ἀτασθαλίῃ). Pegasus (Πήγασος ) and Chrysaor ( Χρυσάωρ ) receive their names because one was born near the spring of
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