SHADOWS ON THE SON: AESCHYLUS, GENEALOGY, HISTORY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Richard Evan Rader Jr., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2007 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Anthony Kaldellis, Adviser Professor Tom Hawkins _____________________________ Adviser Professor Bruce Heiden Greek and Latin Graduate Program ABSTRACT This dissertation examines genealogy and history in Prometheus Bound, Seven against Thebes, and Persians. It asks how a character‘s relation to his own family history affects his perspective on the past. I argue that in each play the conflict between a son and a father, say between Xerxes and Darius, is replicated at the level of a theory of history. Genealogy suggests two different relations between the past generations and the present, since it is both a reproduction of the same (the ideal son who takes after his father) and a production of difference (the son can never be identical to the father). These two genealogical relations correspond to two theories of history: what I identify as a retrospective view of history, which transfigures discrete historical events into teleology and inevitability, where history becomes the movement of necessity; and a prospective one, which sees historical events as only the trace of desire, hope, potential and human agency, where history becomes the movement of what could have been, the contingent unfolding of unlimited possibilities. In the Prometheus Bound, for example, Aeschylus stages the discord between Zeus and Prometheus as a conflict between two views on history: Prometheus leverages a secret about Zeus‘ sexual desire against him because he sees a necessity of repetition in Zeus‘ genealogical past; but Zeus, the play stresses, is fully capable of reason, compromise, and collaboration, and thus his future (unlike his predecessors‘) remains open to will, desire, and choice. My project combines recent ii historicizing approaches to tragedy and close attention to the literary qualities of the plays. Drawing on diverse theories of history, it poses historical and political questions but seeks to answer them through detailed philological analysis. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Apart from the need to acknowledge the necessary influence on one‘s work by a committee of advisors, these recognitions are normally little more than a formality. In this case, however, I wish to genuinely express my gratitude to the following people who have brought me through this difficult process, especially most recently when I was facing the sisyphean push of the final months. Victoria Wohl, who has guided me through every year of my graduate study and has seen, even driven, this project from beginning to end; whose patience and support in some of the most difficult times of my academic life have remained undeterred; whose tough love finally brought this project to its end. Anthony Kaldellis, who was always a contrary reader but always provided challenging and timely advice; who more or less carried me through the final stage of this project with his personal and professional help; who called me from Europe during the Summer (!) on numerous occasions to lend a hand. Bruce Heiden, whose influence on my ideas he has no idea runs as deep as it does; who saved my ass in an eleventh-hour appeal for help when he never had to. Tom Hawkins, who stepped up to replace a lost advisor and ended up providing some of the best criticism and help I have received thus far. And Gregory Jusdanis—last but never least—who asked about the quality. iv VITA January 15, 1978………………………...Born – Jacksonville, Florida, USA 2000……………………………………...B.A. Classics, University of Virginia 2002……………………………………...M.A. Greek and Latin, The Ohio State University 2000-2006………………………………..Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 2006-2007………………………………..Research Fellow, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdiesnt, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg PUBLICATIONS Review 1. Elizabeth Wayland Barber & Paul T. Barber, When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth. Archiv für Religionsgeschichte v.8 (2006). FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Greek and Latin Minor Fields: Greek Tragedy, Greek and Roman Drama, Critical Theory v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................... iv Vita ................................................................................................................................. v Chapters: 1. Introduction: Shadows on the Son ........................................................................ 1 1.1 Two Perspectives on the Past.......................................................................... 2 1.2 Making Meaning in History............................................................................ 8 1.3The Tragic Subject in History ........................................................................ 12 1.4 Tragedy and the City .................................................................................... 21 1.5 Chapter Breakdown ...................................................................................... 26 2. The Tyrannies of the Past, The Tyranny of the Past: Prometheus Bound ............ 29 2.1 The Father and the Tyrant…………………………………………………...36 2.2 Hesiod and Aeschylus .................................................................................. 42 2.3 Zeus in History ............................................................................................. 48 2.4 The Potential of Prometheus and Zeus .......................................................... 61 3. ―And whatever it is, it is you.‖ The Autochthonous Self in Seven Against Thebes ......................................................................................... 80 3.1 The Civic Force of Autochthony .................................................................. 91 3.2 A Civic Incest? .......................................................................................... 100 3.3 The Autochthonous Citizen and his (Br)other ............................................. 118 4. The Undead Past in Persians ............................................................................ 127 4.1 Persians in Persae, Persians in History ....................................................... 132 4.2 Genealogical Anxiety ................................................................................. 136 4.3 The Long Shadow of Darius ....................................................................... 147 4.4 Aeschylus and Herodotus ........................................................................... 155 4.5 An Open Past, an Open Future ................................................................... 162 4.6 Traces of the Past ....................................................................................... 171 4.7 Aeschylus‘ Responsibility to History .......................................................... 175 vi 5. Conclusion: The Fate of Fate............................................................................ 180 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 192 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: SHADOWS ON THE SON My principal concern in this dissertation is the past—history broadly conceived— and its representation in Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and Persians of Aeschylus. The guiding question will be: how does the protagonist of each play (Prometheus, Eteocles, and Xerxes respectively) conceptualize the past and his relationship to it? How does this past affect his ability to act and make decisions in the present and for the future? The primary link with the past, I will argue, is genealogy. It is perhaps a rather commonsensical observation that each of these protagonists faces the past from the perspective of his family history. As Aristotle already noted, tragedy‘s most effective plots focused on a handful of well-known families and did not draw 1 randomly or too widely from the well of mythical stories. F F But the prevalence of these few noble families in tragedy (such as those of Oedipus, Orestes, or Thyestes) may blind us to the broader significance of genealogy, in particular in the tragedies of Aeschylus that I consider here. All of the surviving seven tragedies of Aeschylus deal in part with the influence of a family‘s past on a protagonist and its ramifications for the present and future. Most in fact focus on or are underpinned by this very issue. So it is perhaps safe 1 Poetics (XIII.16-22) 1 to say that Aeschylus has a keen interest in the meaning of the past and its influence on the present and for the future. If, Aeschylus asks, we are trapped by our ancestors‘ decisions and actions like Orestes, seemingly forced to make our own decisions in accordance with the limits imposed by theirs, then how can we imagine a future unbeholden to the past, a future all our own? In the plays I will examine here Aeschylus has his protagonists grapple with all the ambiguities and repercussions inherent in this difficult, important question. Tragic protagonists have no choice but to pay attention to history, so perhaps we too ought to pay careful attention to their attempts to come to grips with it. It