‘THE ODEION ON HIS HEAD’: COSTUME AND IDENTITY IN CRATINUS’ THRACIAN WOMEN FR. 73, AND CRATINUS’ TECHNIQUES OF POLITICAL SATIRE

Jefrey S. Rusten

I. The Form of Cratinus’ Attacks on Pericles

Cratinus was considered the  rst political satirist of ancient comedy (test 17, 19 Kassel-Austin = Rusten (2010) 177), especially in his constant attacks on Pericles (Dionysalexandros test. 1, frs. 73, 118, 171, 258–259, 324, 326). These are attested foremost in numerous fragments cited in Plutarch’s Life of Pericles, though it is important to remember that Plutarch’s Old Comedy citations are not derived from study of the texts of full plays, but from previous excerptors of Pericles-related comic citations.1 Yet none of Cratinus’ twenty-nine preserved titles is overtly political, nor do any of them hint at a contemporary subject (with the notable exception of Pytine, about himself). The most frequent titles are in the category of literature (Archilochuses, Odysseuses, Cleoboulinas) and especially myth (Dionysuses, Dionysalexandros, Nemesis, Plutuses), and Bakola has argued for his persistent and widespread adaptation of forms from Aeschylean tragedy and satyr play, as well as a strong individual authorial persona, as the basis of his compositional pro le.2 Assuming that it is correct that Pericles was Cratinus’ special bête noire,3 how can Cratinus have satirized him so frequently when not a single one of his plots seems able to accommodate him directly? This is in sharp contrast to the ‘demagogue-comedies’ of the later  fth century inuenced by Aristophanes’ Knights, like Eupolis’ Maricas and Platon’s Hyperbolus,

1 Uxkull-Gyllenband (1927) 7–29, Stadter (1989) xliv–liiii, noted for the present fragment especially by Miller (1997) 224. For Plutarch’s distaste for old comedy as anything but a historical source see Table Talk 7.8 711F = Rusten (2010) 83 Nr. 7. 2 Bakola 2009, see also Guidorizzi 2006. 3 So Pieters 1946; Rosen 1988; Vickers 1997; McGlew 2006. 280 jeffrey s. rusten

Peisander and Cleophon4 This question is brought to the fore especially in one fragment which is universally—and, I think, wrongly—assumed to prove that Cratinus did bring Pericles as a character on stage.

II. Cratinus’ Thracian Women, Fr. 73

PCG Cratinus fr. 73, cited by Plutarch, is usually printed and translated as follows: Plutarch, Pericles 13.9–10: τὸ δ’ ᾽Ωιδεῖον, τῇ µὲν ἐντὸς διαθέσει πολύεδρον καὶ πολύστυλον, τῇ δ’ ἐρέψει περικλινὲς καὶ κάταντες ἐκ µιᾶς κορυφῆς πεποιηµένον, εἰκόνα λέγουσι γενέσθαι καὶ µίµηµα τῆς βασιλέως σκηνῆς, ἐπιστατοῦντος καὶ τούτῳ Περικλέους. διὸ καὶ πάλιν Κρατῖνος ἐν Θρᾴτταις παίζει πρὸς αὐτόν· ὁ σχινοκέφαλος Ζεὺς ὁδὶ προσέρχεται ὁ Περικλέης, τᾠδεῖον ἐπὶ τοῦ κρανίου ἔχων, ἐπειδὴ τοὔστρακον παροίχεται.

Plutarch, Life of Pericles 13.9–10: They say that the Odeion, in its interior arrangement with many seats and columns, and with its roof constructed to slope uphill to a single peak, is modeled in imitation of the pavilion of the king of Persia, and Pericles supervised this too. That is why Cratinus once again mocks him in Thracian Women: Here comes Zeus of the onion-head, Pericles, with the Odeion on his cranium, now that the ballot on ostracism is past. This fragment has by no means been neglected by scholars; but like Plutarch, they all without exception assume the following: 1) that the character whose entry is announced (for ὁδὶ προσέρχεται PCG compare Knights 146, Plutus 1038, Wasps 1324, Lysistrata 77) is Pericles, stated most decisively by PCG in the introduction to the play: ‘prodiit in scaena Pericles,’ (on fr. 73 their reference to Pollux 4.143 implies they think this fragment is evidence for a portrait-mask). 2) that the passage gives us some sort of information about a) the appearance of the Odeion, and b) a terminus post quem for its construction. On the latter two points, however, numerous discussions have produced nothing conclusive: initial speculation that the structure was circular with

4 Sommerstein 2000.