Barker 9780199542710_000i-0xiv_Barker_frontMatter Final Proof page i 29.4.2011 10:34am ENTERING THE AGO¯ N Barker 9780199542710_000i-0xiv_Barker_frontMatter Final Proof page ii 29.4.2011 10:35am Barker 9780199542710_000i-0xiv_Barker_frontMatter Final Proof page iii 29.4.2011 10:35am Entering the Ago¯n Dissent and Authority in Homer, Historiography and Tragedy ELTON T. E. BARKER 1 Barker 9780199542710_000i-0xiv_Barker_frontMatter Final Proof page iv 29.4.2011 10:35am 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. 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Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2008942572 Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Digitally printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne ISBN 978–0–19–954271–0 (Hbk) ISBN 978–0–19–960928–4 (Pbk) Barker 9780199542710_000i-0xiv_Barker_frontMatter Final Proof page v 29.4.2011 10:35am Preface Though it has become axiomatic to think of ancient Greek society in terms of competition, the contest of words (ago¯n) in literature—the scene of debate in which, with varying degrees of formalization, char- acters confront each other with opposing views—is less well appre- ciated. This book sets out to explore for the first time the agon in three generic traditions—epic, historiography and tragedy—and trace its changing representations over those genres and, by comparing two examples of each type of narrative, within them. It demonstrates not only the fundamental importance of debate to these genres, but also the ways representations of debate construct a political community through the reproduction of dissent. Previous works have studied the ago¯n in isolation: yet, the focus on one genre, author or text, most commonly Euripidean tragedy, has failed to grasp the ago¯n’s range of forms and has encouraged the assumption that it should provide resolution or derive ‘naturally’ from the plot; moreover, the cataloguing of the ago¯n’s features in abstraction from textual context has overlooked its performance in each narrative or drama. Combining literary approaches to debate with a sociological understanding of structures within society, this book aims to investigate textual debates in relation to recognizable parameters that indicate an institution, such as the assembly. Being closely connected to the idea of public gatherings, literary representations of debate set issues out ‘into the open’, challenge authority and enact the potential for dissent. But this book also shows that, because debate gestures towards allowing difference of opinion, its establishment and procedure are highly charged and important to control. Act I investigates the two Homeric epics for the rival narrative strategies towards dissent that each bequeaths to the tradition. Building on the recent suggestion that the Iliad acts as a foundational narrative, Chapter 1 demonstrates the Iliad ’s institutionalization of dissent within the Achaean assembly. It differs, however, from previous studies that have located a political community at the end of the Iliad by conceiving of the discovery of politics as a process originating from the poem’s very Barker 9780199542710_000i-0xiv_Barker_frontMatter Final Proof page vi 29.4.2011 10:35am vi Preface beginning in the strife between Achilles and Agamemnon. Chapter 2 presents the Odyssey’s radically different approach to the subject, in which dissenting voices are grouped together and aligned as obstruc- tions to Odysseus and his epic return. As well as showing the narrative’s marginalization of dissent, this study exposes the playfulness of the Odyssey rather as a serious challenge to the utility of debate and exam- ination of the authority exercised over it. Act II rethinks the relationship between Herodotus and Thucydides, who, as prose authors and uniquely responsible for their narratives, faced the problem of getting their voice heard in a culture which privileged the oral, public spoken word: their differing responses can be traced through their representation of debate. Herodotus counters the marginalization of his voice by reworking an Odyssean strategy towards representing debate that challenges its normative institutional value: while the most formal debates occur paradoxically in the Persian king’s court, Greek assemblies frequently degenerate into rival in-fight- ing. The problem clearly relates to the incapacity of the assembly to transcend any one particular polis: Herodotus’ written enquiry provides an alternate means by which a Panhellenic political community may be achieved. Chapter 4 suggests that Thucydides takes an even more challenging approach to the way politics was done by representing debate as ago¯n. In contrast to the usual claim that Thucydides’ debates serve only to show the limits of democratic deliberation, this chapter interprets Thucydides’ more exact reproduction of assembly scenes as exposing his readers to the dangers of rhetoric, while providing them with the tools to analyse it. In an Achilles-like stand against the decision- making practice of his contemporaries, Thucydides’ representation of debate offers a strikingly innovative, and better, way of doing politics, through the activity of reading. Act III re-examines the tragic ago¯n and the issue of politics in tragedy more generally in the light of this broader enquiry by looking anew at two problem plays that suffer from an overly formal ago¯n. Chapter 5 discusses Sophocles’ Ajax as a reworking of the Iliad from the viewpoint of others engaged with the hero: this approach makes sense of the problematic double agon which takes place after Ajax’s suicide by showing how it dramatizes competing reactions to the hero and repro- duces the crisis of interpretation among the audience. Chapter 6 takes the even more disturbing case of Euripides’ Hecuba, whose Odyssean Barker 9780199542710_000i-0xiv_Barker_frontMatter Final Proof page vii 29.4.2011 10:35am Preface vii insistence on the protagonist’s suffering culminates in an ago¯n that appears to legitimize even Hecuba’s extreme vengeance. Yet, dissent spills over this formal frame as Polymestor continues to speak frankly, ultimately leaving the audience to deal alone with dissent and face the consequences of their own judgement outside the security of any institutional framework, including the play itself. The aim of this book is to show how the presence of formal debate in the public literature of ancient Greece helps to create a ‘mentalite´’ of ago¯n that intersects with and informs the political development in the culture at large. It will be of interest to scholars and students alike, especially those specializing in Greek epic, historiography or tragedy. Yet, its broad scope and careful consideration of the cultural context of literature will also appeal to non-classicists interested in the origins of political thought or literary critics interested in narrative constructions. Given the breadth of this study and the correlative importance assigned to interrogating each example closely, it has been neither possible nor desirable to examine every single instance of debate in the three genres under investigation. It is hoped, however, that the reason for omission will be clear from each particular study, and that no single omission detracts from the overall value of the argument being made. The same may be held for other generic traditions that are not investi- gated here, but that also feature debate, such as the comedy of Aristo- phanes and the philosophical dialogues of Plato. While it is true that both authors have been the subject of recent dissertations (see N. Papageorgiou, ‘A Study in the Aristophanic Ago¯n: Clouds, Wasps and Plutus’, Diss., Royal Holloway (2000) and A. G. Long, ‘Character and Dialectic: the Philosophical Origins of the Platonic Dialogue’, Diss., Cambridge (2004)), even so there is sufficient overlap with the genres included in this book for most relevant issues and considerations to be discussed here. It should also be noted that this study explores