A Speaker of Words and Doer of Deeds: The Reception of Phoenix’ Educational Ideal

Jacqueline Klooster

Introduction: Iliad 9.438–443

In Iliad Book 9, the episode of the embassy, Achilles’ old tutor Phoenix emo- tionally addresses his one-time pupil, who has just announced that he will no longer stay at Troy where he is not treated with the honour that he deserves. If Achilles goes so will he, Phoenix says, because:

[…] σοὶ δέ μ’ ἔπεμπε γέρων ἱππηλάτα Πηλεὺς ἤματι τῷ ὅτε σ’ ἐκ Φθίης Ἀγαμέμνονι πέμπε νήπιον, οὔ πω εἰδόθ’ ὁμοιΐου πολέμοιο, οὐδ’ ἀγορέων, ἵνα τ’ ἄνδρες ἀριπρεπέες τελέθουσι. τοὔνεκά με προέηκε διδασκέμεναι τάδε πάντα, μύθων τε ῥητῆρ’ ἔμεναι πρηκτῆρά τε ἔργων. Il. 9.438–443

With you the old horseman Peleus sent me on the day when he sent you out from Phthia to Agamemnon, a mere child knowing nothing as yet of evil war, nor of gatherings in which men become preeminent. For this reason he sent me to instruct you in all these things, to be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. trans. murray-wyatt

Besides highlighting the intimate bond of tutor and pupil and underlining the irony of the fact that Achilles is currently anything but a doer of deeds, the speech has largely been taken to express the composite ideal of Homeric male virtue: to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds. Because of this, Phoenix’ speech and the ideal it expresses have in fact been read as a Princes’ Mirror of sorts, both in antiquity and in modern scholarship: the ideal often turns up in contexts of advice on how to rule, and features prominently in both ancient and modern discussions of Homer as the educator of the Greeks.1 In

1 See the contribution of De Jong in this volume.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi: 10.1163/9789004365858_005 66 klooster this chapter, I trace the fortune of this ideal by looking at the way in which Phoenix’ phrase is quoted in particular ancient contexts, or referenced by later authors. Besides reflecting the enduring authority of Homer as educator of the Greeks and general compendium of values,2 this itinerary allows us to follow the development of important discourses in Greek thought. Examples are the relation between words and deeds in the ideal education of princes, but also the casting of Alexander the Great as a model ruler, through the link of his well- documented admiration for Achilles. The theme of ‘words and deeds’, or even ‘words versus deeds’, in the context of good rule is potentially very broad. It might be said to include, on the one hand, the entire philosophical debate about the relative merits of the public vita activa (bios politikos) versus the philosophical and private vita contempla- tiva (bios theōrētikos), which finds its first systematic discussion in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.3 That Phoenix’ words were sometimes taken to epitomize a conciliation of these two ways of life can be seen in Cicero’s De oratore 3.15.57:

That ancient learning, indeed, appears to have been at the same time the preceptress of living rightly [recte faciendi] and of speaking well [bene dicendi]; nor were there separate masters for those subjects, but the same teachers formed the morals and the language; as Phoenix in Homer, who says that he was appointed a companion in war to the young Achilles by his father Peleus, to make him an orator in words, and a hero in deeds [ut efficeret oratorem verborum actoremque rerum]. trans. watson

On the other hand, through its highlighting of eloquence in the life of the heroic king, the topic is crucial to the tradition of using Homeric epic as a model text for orators and the debate this entails on whether or not Homer was aware of rhetoric—and whether this meant it was a technē (art) or rather an aretē (inborn talent). This rich and well-studied theme is beautifully exemplified in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria 2.17, also with a reference to our passage.4

2 For this role of Homer in antiquity, cf. Pl. R. 10.606e, X. Smp. 4.6, D. Chr. Or. 18.8; see e.g. Jaeger (1933) 3–56, Verdenius (1970), Pontani (2016). See also the contribution of De Jong in this volume, with further references. 3 Arist. en 1.4. 4 Kennedy (1957 and 1980: 89–90) discusses the ancient debate on whether Homer was aware of an actual technē of rhetoric or whether this only came into existence with Tisias and Corax in the fourth century bc. See recently also Pontani (2016), with ample reference to the theme. Ancient discussions about this topic can be traced from Plato via Aristotle, Aelius Aristides,