Variations on the Myth of the Abduction of Ganymede Intertextuality and Narratology

Polyxeni Strolonga Hellenic Open University [email protected]

Abstract

This article explores the verbal and the mythological intertextuality of the archaic Greek sources that relate the abduction of Ganymede and either omit or overemphasize the compensation of horses provided by Zeus to Ganymede’s father. By employing focalization, I trace the myth’s re-presentation in different narrative contexts and I investigate its reception by Hellanicus and Apollodorus. I argue that although the myth is tailored differently according to the narrative purposes of each work, its narratological function as a hortatory analepsis and a celebratory myth is consistent.

Keywords

Ganymede – intertextuality – narratology – Homer – reciprocity

The abduction of Ganymede,* a popular story in art and literature, is mentioned twice in the Iliad, in passages that differ significantly from each other.1 The passage in Iliad 5 (263–273) focuses on Zeus’s compensation to Tros in

* I would like to thank the participants and the two organizers, Vassiliki Panoussi and Andro- mache Karanika, of the conference “Emotional Trauma in Greek and Roman Culture,” where a version of this article was first presented. I am also grateful to Deborah Lyons and David Sansone for their insightful comments. Translations are my own unless noted otherwise. 1 Provencal points out that Ganymede’s myth survives through citation only and “no complete or autonomous account of Ganymede’s abduction to Olympus exists, nor is known to have existed, in Greek literature” (2005: 90). Cf. Lucian’s Dialogueof theGods 10, a dialogue between Zeus and Ganymede after Ganymede’s abduction. For representations of Ganymede’s abduction in art, see Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae 4, Ganymede nos. 7–56; Sichter- mann 1953, 1959: 10–15.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/24688487_00201007Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 191 the form of the god’s own horses and alludes only briefly to the abduction. This scene deals with the special value of Aeneas’s horses, which descend from Zeus’s. The passage in Iliad 20 (230–235) provides a description of Ganymede’s abduction by the gods without reference to any compensation. The story fig- ures in Aeneas’s recitation of his genealogy. A similar treatment of the myth can be found in two passages in Apol- lodorus’s Library (2.5.9, 3.12.2) where the two parts of the story (Zeus’s compensation to Tros and Ganymede’s transference to Olympus) are found as well in two different mythological strands. As in Homer, Zeus’s reparation is employed as a means to illustrate the high value of horses, which in the Library’s version belong to Laomedon. These are promised to Heracles for the rescue of Laomedon’s daughter. Also like in Homer, in another section of the Library Ganymede’s abduction is incorporated in a genealogy, this time of Dardanus, and the recompense is omitted. Apollodorus’s use of the compensation theme in Hesione’s story may stem from Hellanicus of Lesbos (Troica frr. 26b–d Fow- ler), who offers the most detailed narrative of the first sack of Troy and uses as well only the compensation theme from Ganymede’s myth. The interrelation between the two parts of the story (abduction and compensation) can be further illuminated by two other versions of the myth. In the Little Iliad (PEG F29 = F6 Davies = F6 West) Zeus’s compensation is again the only focus of the story, but in this version it takes the form of a golden vine, instead of immortal horses. In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (202– 214), the two narrative elements are interwoven in an elaborate description of Ganymede’s abduction along with Zeus’s offer of compensation to the dis- tressed father. This article explores the mythical and verbal intertextuality of these sources in order to trace the evolution of the myth of Ganymede’s abduction and its adaptation in different narrative contexts. The focus of Ganymede’s myth in each of these sources depends on the focalizer’s emphasis either on the special value of the compensation or on the exceptional fate of Ganymede (or both). I argue that although the myth is tailored differently according to the narrative purposes of each work, its main narratological function is consistent. Regardless of the narrator’s focus, the myth serves to lend grandeur to another entity, either the descendants of Zeus’s horses (Aeneas’s or Laomedon’s) or the descendants of Ganymede: Aeneas in the Iliad, Anchises in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, and Dardanus in the Library. Ganymede’s story is employed in a genealogy of animals or people and has the function of a hortatory analepsis, which motivates a hero to perform a courageous task. These variants therefore share more similarities than mere verbal and mythical cross-references.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 192 strolonga

Ganymede’s Myth as a Compensation Story

In the first passage of the Iliad (5.263–273), Ganymede’s abduction is only implied in a brief reference to Zeus’s compensation:

Αἰνείαο δ’ ἐπαΐξαι μεμνημένος ἵππων, ἐκ δ’ ἐλάσαι Τρώων μετ’ ἐυκνήμιδας Ἀχαιούς. τῆς γάρ τοι γενεῆς, ἧς Τρωί περ εὐρύοπα Ζεὺς δῶχ’ υἷος ποινὴν Γανυμήδεος, οὕνεκ’ ἄριστοι ἵππων, ὅσσοι ἔασιν ὑπ’ ἠῶ τ’ ἠέλιόν τε· τῆς γενεῆς ἔκλεψεν ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Ἀγχίσης, λάθρῃ Λαομέδοντος ὑποσχὼν θήλεας ἵππους· τῶν οἱ ἓξ ἐγένοντο ἐνὶ μεγάροισι γενέθλη. τοὺς μὲν τέσσαρας αὐτὸς ἔχων ἀτίταλλ’ ἐπὶ φάτνῃ, τὼ δὲ δύ’ Αἰνείᾳ δῶκεν, μήστωρε φόβοιο. εἰ τούτω κε λάβοιμεν, ἀροίμεθά κε κλέος ἐσθλόν.

but remember to rush at the horses of Aeneas and drive them away from the Trojans to the well-greaved Achaeans. For they are of that stock from which Zeus, whose voice resounds afar, gave to Tros as recompense for his son Ganymedes, because they were the best of all horses that are beneath the dawn and the sun. From this stock the lord of men Anchises stole, putting his mares to them while Laomedon knew nothing of it. And from these, six were born to him in his halls; four he kept himself and reared at the stall, and to Aeneas he gave the other two, devisers of rout. If we could take these two, we should win glorious renown. trans. Wyatt 1999

In this passage Diomedes responds to Sthenelus, who warns him that Pan- darus and Aeneas are about to attack and suggests that they flee with the chariot. Diomedes rejects the proposition and orders Sthenelus to capture Aeneas’s horses, if Diomedes defeats the two Trojans. Diomedes then explains the importance of these animals by providing their lineage. Originally, Zeus had offered them to Tros as a poinē (penalty or fine) for the abduction of Ganymede. After Tros apparently handed them to his grandson Laomedon, Anchises (Laomedon’s nephew) secretly mated his mares with the divine horses. From this mating six horses were born: Anchises kept four and gave two to his son, Aeneas. In narratological terms Diomedes’s story of the ancestry of Aeneas’s horses is an example of analepsis, “the narration of an event, which took place before

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 193 the point in the story where we find ourselves” (de Jong 2001: xi).2 In this passage, analepsis is actorial, provided by the character, and external, referring to events that take place outside the time limits of the main story. It has also an argument function, since it is hortatory (de Jong 2001: xii). It particularly aims to encourage Sthenelus to capture the horses (5.273), which Sthenelus eventually does (5.319–327). Moreover, the analepsis serves as a description, which, as is common in such narratives, is marked by the use of the particle γάρ (5.265). According to Irene de Jong’s definition, description marks “a passage in which features are ascribed to characters, objects, or locations,” and in the case of “explicit actorial charac- terization (in a speech),” there is “dynamic description of objects … in the form of an external analepsis, which recounts the history of an object” (2001: xiii). The lineage ascribed to Aeneas’s horses and the recollection of their ancestors’ interbreeding with Zeus’s horses explains their trait of semi-immortality.3 In Diomedes’s narration, the description and the history of Aeneas’s horses receive the form of a genealogy, which, as in the case of heroes, has a celebratory function. As will be shown in the other variants, Ganymede’s myth is commonly incorporated in genealogies and it is attached to the memory of the heroic past. The abduction of Ganymede, narrowed down to the compensation given to Tros forms an embedded story. It is inserted in the main narrative and in an allusive manner, since the speaker focuses only on those aspects of the story that are important to his own message (de Jong 2001: xiii). As the focalizer, Diomedes concentrates entirely on the value of the horses; the abduction of Ganymede is only implied in the compensation offered to his father. Zeus acts foremost as the compensator, who pays a poinē, and only secondarily by implication as the abductor.4 The role of exacting poinē for harm is usually reserved for the father of the victim or other relatives or companions, but Zeus in this atypical case offers poinē voluntarily (Wilson 2002: 30, 69n46).5 The focus turns from the abduction of Ganymede to Zeus’s payment of horses in order to demonstrate the high value of Aeneas’s horses as booty.

2 The term analepsis was coined by Genette 1983: 39–40. 3 The immortality of the horses is only implied. They are described as ἄριστοι but not as ἀθά- νατοι. See Harrison 1991: 252–254 on Hector’s ignorance of the horses’ immortality when he confronts Diomedes. 4 For poinē as compensatory reciprocity, see Donlan 1982: 143–145. On Zeus as the pursuer rather than the abductor in art, see Kilmer 1997: 128–129. 5 See also Wilson 2002: 153: “Zeus both inflicts the damage and initiates the payment of poinē.”

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 194 strolonga

This transference of focus serves other narrative purposes as well. Aeneas, for example, turns into a foil for Diomedes, and the story of the horses eventually adds to Diomedes’s honor. Unlike Anchises, who steals the special breed, and Aeneas, who just inherits the horses, Diomedes acquires them on the battlefield (Brillet–Dubois 2011: 130). Moreover, the lineage of the horses traces in an implicit way the line of Trojan kingship. As Michael Anderson shows, the passing of the special horses from Tros to his successor, Laomedon, indicates that the horses hold a special prestige, which is transferred only to the Trojan king (1997: 68). In this framework, Anchises’s theft of this symbol of power, an equivalent to a scepter, has a symbolic value as well. The transmission of horses to Aeneas represents the transfer of power. This is seen clearly, since after the sack of Troy the kingship changes from Priam’s line to Aeneas’s (Anderson 1997: 68). The same narrative emphasis on compensation alone is detected in a fragment from the Little Iliad, where the abduction is again only allusively implied (PEG F29 = F6 Davies = F6 West, from schol. Eur. Tr. 822 2.365 Schwartz).

ἄμπελον, ἣν Κρονίδης ἔπορεν οὗ παιδὸς ἄποινα χρυσείην, φύλλοισιν ἀγαυοῖσιν κομόωσαν βότρυσί θ’ οὓς Ἥφαιστος ἐπασκήσας Διὶ πατρί δῶχ’, ὃ δὲ Λαομέδοντι πόρεν Γανυμήδεος ἀντί.

The vine that Zeus gave in compensation for his son; it was of gold, lux- uriant with splendid foliage and grape clusters, which Hephaestus fash- ioned and gave to father Zeus, and he gave it to Laomedon in lieu of Ganymede. trans. West 2003a

This version differs significantly from the Homeric one.6 First, Zeus’s compensation, a ransom this time (apoina), consists of a golden vine, not horses, a unique variant among the surviving sources.7 The vine has special value because it is decorated by Hephaestus himself. Second, the ransom is offered to Laomedon, who in this version is the father of Ganymede and therefore of Priam himself (cf. Antiphanes fr. 74 Kassel-Austin). Priam inherits the vine and offers it to Eurypylus’s mother, Astyoche, as a bribe so that she will convince her

6 For a comparison of the two versions, see Kelly 2015: 342–343. For a general overview of the fragment, see West 2013: 191–192. 7 On the difference between apoina and poinē, see Wilson 2002: 26–27.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 195 son to enter the battlefield at Troy.8 To this end, compensation for the abduction of Ganymede is mentioned in a different mythological context and, unlike in the Iliadic version, is dissociated from Aeneas. Despite these differences, the narratological function of Zeus’s compensation is consistent.The vine’s history has the form of an external analepsis, either actorial or narratorial, as it is not clear who the focalizer is, a character or a narrator, and it probably appears in an embedded story. The description of the object is based on its attributes and its aesthetics but also on its history. It is an exceptional object, Hephaestus’s personal handiwork that functioned both as Hephaestus’s gift to Zeus and as Zeus’s ransom for Ganymede.9 Such a rep- resentation of the vine raises the exchange value of the object, which will be reciprocated by Astyoche’s compliance with Priam’s request. It also increases the prestige of Priam, the negotiator, who is the possessor of such a valuable object. The short analepsis has a hortatory function as well, since it motivates Astyoche to convince her son to fight. Despite the fragmentary state of the passage, the history of the vine appears to trace its transfer from Hephaestus to Zeus to Laomedon to Priam and eventually to Astyoche. In a similar manner the Iliadic version follows the transmission of the immortal stallions from Zeus to Tros to Laomedon and indirectly through interbreeding to Aeneas. The version of the Little Iliad may reflect a different account of Tros’s compensation, perhaps according to a pre-Iliadic oral tradition that is not incorporated in the Iliad.10 Alternatively, the poet of the Little Iliad intentionally may have adapted a relatively fixed traditional version, thereby disagreeing with his Homeric predecessor (Kelly 2015: 325).11 To this end, the poet of the Little Iliad combines the myth of Ganymede’s abduction with the myth of Astyoche’s

8 For the story of Astyoche’s bribe with the vine, see schol. Od. 11.520 (2.517.15–17 Dindorf = Acusil. fr. 40 Fowler). 9 Cf. the vagueness of the Homeric reference to Astyoche’s bribe: γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων (Od. 11.521). The same expression is used for Eriphyle’s bribe, Harmonia’s necklace, which was offered so that she would convince her husband Amphiaraus to fight at Thebes (Od. 15.247). See Tsagalis 2014: 364, 367, 373. 10 According to Tsagalis, “the retrieval of other rival traditions is possible through the epics of the Cycle, which are later than the Homeric poems but represent oral traditions ante- dating the shaping of both the Iliad and the Odyssey” (2008: xii). See also Burgess 2001: 134–135. On Homer’s use of the cyclic epics, see Kullmann 1960: 362–379. Cf. Kullmann 1960: 360–361, 2015: 125 on a pre-Iliadic Faktenkanon that was the basis of the Epic Cycle and to which the Iliad alludes as well. 11 Cf. Provencal 2005: 89, who argues that, because all post-Homeric sources of the myth of Ganymede draw from Homer with slight changes and embellishments, “no other account of the original myth was available after Homer.”

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 196 strolonga bribe. While in Homer (Od. 11.521), Astyoche is lured by gifts for women, perhaps jewelry, the poet of the Little Iliad attaches to her bribe greater value, since the golden vine, whether it refers to jewelry or something else, is made by Heph- aestus and possessed by Zeus. Therefore, Astyoche’s act of convincing her son to enter the battlefield appears more justifiable. The replacement of the horses by the vine in this version has a specific narrative function, since the Little Iliad downplays the divine origin of Aeneas’s horses in order to make insignificant their capture by Diomedes (Kelly 2015: 343). Moreover, it avoids the negative connotations of Anchises’s theft of the immortal breed (Kelly 2015: 343). In addition, the compensation of the vine reminds the audience that Eurypylus would die on the battlefield just like his father, Telephus, because of a vine (Tsagalis 2014: 376). According to the Cypria, Telephus’s horse stumbled over a vine due to the intervention of Dionysus, and he was wounded by Achilles during the Teuthranian expedition (PEG F20).12 Even though the compensation theme is shaped according to the narrative needs of the poem or under the influence of other traditions or poems, it retains its narratological function as a hortatory analepsis and a description. A similar narratological treatment of the compensation theme is found in a passage in Apollodorus’s Library, in which Ganymede’s tale, like in the Little Iliad, is dissociated from Aeneas and instead linked with another war narrative, that of the first sack of Troy (2.5.9):

χρησμῶν δὲ λεγόντων ἀπαλλαγὴν ἔσεσθαι τῶν συμφορῶν, ἐὰν προθῇ Λαομέδων Ἡσιόνην τὴν θυγατέρα αὐτοῦ τῷ κήτει βοράν, οὗτος προύθηκε ταῖς πλησίον τῆς θαλάσσης πέτραις προσαρτήσας. ταύτην ἰδὼν ἐκκειμένην Ἡρακλῆς ὑπέ- σχετο σώσειν, εἰ τὰς ἵππους παρὰ Λαομέδοντος λήψεται ἃς Ζεὺς ποινὴν τῆς Γανυμήδους ἁρπαγῆς ἔδωκε. δώσειν δὲ Λαομέδοντος εἰπόντος, κτείνας τὸ κῆτος Ἡσιόνην ἔσωσε. μὴ βουλομένου δὲ τὸν μισθὸν ἀποδοῦναι, πολεμήσειν Τροίᾳ ἀπειλήσας ἀνήχθη.

But as oracles foretold deliverance from these calamities, if Laomedon would expose his daughter Hesione to be devoured by the sea monster, he exposed her by fastening her to the rocks near the sea. Seeing her exposed, Heracles promised to save her on condition of receiving from Laome- don the mares, which Zeus had given in compensation for the abduction

12 Cf. Pind. Isthm. 8.49–51; Apollod. Epit. 3.17. On Eurypylus’s death, see Acusil. fr. 40 Fowler. On the interconnections between Eurypulus, Neoptolemus, Telephus, and Achilles, see Tsagalis 2014: 364; Currie 2016: 244.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 197

of Ganymede. On Laomedon’s saying that he would give them, Heracles killed the monster and saved Hesione. But when Laomedon did not want to pay the reward, Heracles put out to sea after threatening to make war on Troy. trans. Frazer 1921 (adapted)

Ganymede’s compensation is briefly mentioned in the narrative about Laome- don and his daughter Hesione. Hesione was about to be devoured by a monster sent by Poseidon as a punishment because Laomedon did not keep his promise to pay Poseidon and Apollo for the fortification of Troy.13 Heracles promised to save Hesione on condition that he would receive the horses of Laomedon, the very ones that had been given as poinē for the abduction of Ganymede. However, after Hesione was saved, Laomedon refused to pay the agreed upon recompense to Heracles, who attackedTroy in revenge.14The abduction story is used in a myth that precedes the Iliadic story of Anchises’s mischief (the illicit mating of the horses) in particular and the Trojan War in general. Ganymede’s myth is again allusive to the extent that, like in all the examples, the embedded narrative focuses pointedly only on the elements of the story that are relevant. The vagueness of the phrase ποινὴν/ἄποινα Γανυμήδεος (“fine/ransom for Ganymede”) with its variant ἀντὶ Γανυμήδεους (“in lieu of Ganymede”) and the aposiopesis of the abduction indicate that the myth of Ganymede was a traditional and popular myth that did not need to be fully articulated. The phrase of compensation sufficed to trigger in the memory of the audience the abduction story, which could have been more developed in other sources, as we will see especially in the case of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.15 Apollodorus, however, is more specific, since the horses are offered as a penalty for the abduction of Ganymede (ἃς Ζεὺς ποινὴν τῆς Γανυμήδους ἁρπαγῆς ἔδωκε; cf. Il. 5.265–266: Ζεύς / δῶχ’ υἷος ποινὴν Γανυμήδεος). The author makes a poetic stock phrase more explicit for less mythologically informed readers.

13 Cf. Laomedon’s breaking his promise to Apollo and Poseidon in Il. 7.452–453, 21.441–457. 14 Cf. Strabo 13.1.32; Diod. Sic. 4.32.1. In these sources Laomedon’s horses are not presented as Tros’s horses. For an overview of the sources that relate Heracles’s sack of Troy, see Stafford 2012: 70–72. 15 Cf. Schein 2015: 81, who shows how a formulaic verse evokes a traditional theme. Also, Burgess 2012: 170: “When performed to a knowledgeable audience, early epic is potentially allusive to shared aspects of mytho-poetic traditions, including mythological narratives and the epic phraseology commonly employed to express them.” See Bakker 2001; Tsagalis 2008: xiii.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 198 strolonga

Like in Homer and the LittleIliad, the passage in Apollodorus presents a brief external narratorial analepsis and a description encompassed in the history of the object. The reference to the immortal nature of Laomedon’s horses raises their exchange value, which is equated by Heracles with Hesione’s life. Like in the case of the description of Aeneas’s horses in the Homeric passage, the history of the object lends grandeur to it and has a hortatory function. Both Aeneas’s horses and Laomedon’s horses, reappraised through the background story, motivate courageous deeds: Sthenelus’s capture of the horses and Hera- cles’s rescue of Hesione.The main elements of the epic version of the abduction story, such as the great value of Zeus’s horses, their re-use by a descendant, and the prestige they lend to the new owner, are transferred to the myth of Hes- ione. Apollodorus’s narrative is more specific than the highly compressed Home- ric depiction of Laomedon’s transaction with Heracles in the Iliad (5.638– 651),16 where it is mentioned that Heracles sacked Troy “for the sake of Laome- don’s horses” (ἕνεχ’ ἵππων Λαομέδοντος, 5.640), which were not provided to Her- acles as promised (5.649–651).17 The previous owner of Laomedon’s horses is not specified, as is the case in Apollodorus, who equates Laomedon’s horses with the horses given as compensation by Zeus.18 Nor are the horses explicitly associated with Hesione.19 To this end, Apollodorus reflects more closely Hellanicus of Lesbos,20 who offers the first (surviving) continuous account of the sack starting from the

16 As Anderson notices, Apollodorus agrees with Homer and was aware of the wider epic tradition that had developed before the Iliad reached its final stage (1997: 92–93). 17 Heracles’s fight with the sea monster is mentioned once in Homer with respect to Her- acles’s stronghold, which was built by the Trojans and Athena for his escape from a sea monster; no reference is made to Hesione (Il. 20.144–148). On the first sack of Troy, see Hellanicus (FGrH F26) and Diodorus (4.32.1–5, 4.49.3–7). On Heracles’s stronghold as a time marker of the Trojan past, see Tsagalis 2012: 150–151. 18 The absence of the dative of indirect object, the recipient of the horses, suggests that Zeus offered the horses to Laomedon in accordance perhaps with the version in the Little Iliad in which Laomedon was the father of Ganymede. Alternatively, Apollodorus’s omission of a dative of indirect object can be explained as accidental or as a reflection of an inherited ambiguity. 19 Notice that Strabo (13.1.32) corrects Homer: οὐ γὰρ ἕνεκα ἵππων, ἀλλὰ μισθοῦ ὑπὲρ τῆς Ἡσι- όνης καὶ τοῦ κήτους (“for it was not on account of horses but of the payment for Hesione and the sea-monster”). 20 Born probably in the early 530’s B.C.E. On his date, see Fowler 2013: 682–683. On Apol- lodorus’s debt to Hellanicus, see Larson 2001: 122, 195; Fowler 2013: 689. On Homer’s influence on Hellanicus of Lesbos, see Kim 2010: 28.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 199 servitude of Poseidon and Apollo and ending with Laomedon and Heracles (Fowler 2013: 311).21 Following the Homeric example, Hellanicus (Troica frr. 26b–d Fowler) in the narrative about Laomedon and Hesione only implies the abduction of Ganymede and concentrates on the compensation of the horses. Like in Apollodorus, the horses become in Laomedon’s myth the promised payment to Heracles (schol. Il. 20.145 (4.237.12 Dindorf), 26b Fowler, fort. book 1 Troica, περὶ Λαομέδοντος ἱστορία):

προθεὶς δὲ ἐκεῖνος τὴν θυγατέρα μισθὸν ἐκήρυξε τῷ τὸ κῆτος ἀνελόντι τοὺς ἀθα- νάτους ἵππους δώσειν, οὓς Τρωῒ Ζεὺς ἀντὶ Γανυμήδους ἔδωκεν.

and after he exposed his daughter he announced that he would give as payment to the one who would kill the monster his immortal horses, which Zeus had given to Tros in lieu of Ganymede. my translation

In narratological terms, the employment of the background story of the origin of Laomedon’s horses in Hellanicus’s version does not differ from the other examples. It functions as a brief analepsis and an embedded story that sup- ports the exhortation for a brave deed—the saving of Hesione. The object’s description justifies the unique property of the object, in this case the horses’ immortality. The myth is again adapted to the particular narrative’s needs. For example, Hellanicus identifies Laomedon’s horses as immortal—unlike in the Iliad where the horses are characterized as the best (ἄριστοι)—since this detail plays an important role in the myth. Laomedon in the end tricks Heracles by offer- ing mortal, rather than immortal horses, and Heracles sacks Troy in revenge. By contrast, Apollodorus, perhaps following the Homeric tradition, mentions that Laomedon refused to pay Heracles the promised horses, which are not described as immortal. Also, Hellanicus, contrary to Homer’s vagueness, makes it explicit that the horses that Laomedon promises to Heracles are the same as those that Zeus gave to Tros. In Hellanicus’s narrative of the first sack of Troy, not only is the obscurity of Laomedon’s horses removed but also the implications of Zeus’s offer to Tros are reconsidered. The phrase ἀντὶ Γανυμήδους is more subdued than the loaded phrases in the other sources, which use some form of compensation either as ransom (apoina) or as penalty (poinē). It thus echoes the phrasing found in

21 According to Fowler 2013: 311, fr. 26b “is a historia attached to Il. 20.145.”

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 200 strolonga the Little Iliad (δῶχ’, ὃ δὲ Λαομέδοντι πόρεν Γανυμήδεος ἀντί, “and he gave it to Laomedon in lieu of Ganymede”), although there it functions almost as a variant to apoina in the small ring composition (παιδὸς ἄποινα / Γανυμήδεος ἀντί, “ransom for the child/ in lieu of Ganymede”). According to Hellanicus’s version, Zeus’s horses are offered as a replacement for Ganymede just as Laome- don’s horses are offered in exchange for Hesione. Hellanicus responds to the traditional phrasing of the Homeric model or the oral tradition that Homer represents by toning down the negative connotations of Zeus’s action and by presenting the provision of horses as a fair compactual exchange of the quid pro quo type, not as compensatory payment.22 The phrase ἀντὶ Γανυμή- δους (“in lieu of Ganymede”) represents balanced reciprocity, which contrasts with the treacherous employment of Laomedon’s horses and the deception of Heracles. Moreover, for the second transaction between Laomedon and Heracles, Hellanicus employs another word for compensation, μισθός (“hire,” “reward”), which represents the new function of the horses, a payment for services to be performed. This is why Laomedon announces the reward and why it is not Heracles who proposes the deal as happens in Apollodorus. The term, however, appears in Apollodorus (μὴ βουλομένου δὲ τὸν μισθὸν ἀποδοῦ- ναι, “when he did not want to pay the reward”) in reference to the violation of Laomedon’s promise, an echo perhaps of Hellanicus or Hellanicus’s tradition. The different function of the horses calls for different vocabulary: poinē /apoina for compensation after the fact (that is, the abduction) and misthos for wages agreed upon in advance. The word misthos encapsulates the essence of balanced reciprocity that benefits both parties. By contrast, Laomedon’s actions exemplify negative reciprocity, which Marshall Sahlins defined as “the attempt to get something for nothing,” and which ranges from barter to theft, cunning, and cheating (1972: 195). In both versions in Hellanicus and in the Library, Laomedon engages in negative reciprocity, since he performs an act of trickery (mortal horses instead of immortal) in one and refuses payment in the other. In all the aforementioned sources the subsequent use of the object contrasts with its past noble employment. An object of reconciliation becomes an object associated with trickery. In Hellanicus’s and Apollodorus’s versions, the gift of horses that reconciles Zeus and Tros after Ganymede’s abduction becomes an object of contention, leading to betrayal and hostility. The horses that Zeus

22 On the difference between compactual and compensatory balanced reciprocities, see Donlan 1982: 143–151. See also Cook 2016: 98–101.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 201 offers generously, Laomedon keeps for himself. Similarly in Homer, Anchises, who does not inherit the horses, “steals” the divine breed and manipulates a relative’s property. Deborah Lyons compares the two types of transaction in the Iliad and in Apollodorus. She notices that by giving the horses “Zeus tries to turn the rape of Ganymede into an even exchange, an example not of negative reciprocity but of balanced reciprocity. But this is something not even Zeus can accom- plish, for the horses continue to attract negative reciprocity” (2012: 64).23 Lyons concludes that the essence of negative reciprocity, which was encapsulated in the rape of Ganymede, remained strong in the cases of Anchises and Laome- don (2012: 64). The same sinister use of an item of reconciliation is evident in the Little Iliad. Kelly also points out that “the ring compositional emphasis on the gift’s purpose ironically underscores Priam’s responsibility and limited vision: an item given to compensate a parent for a child’s loss is now used, by that child’s brother, to bribe another parent into losing her child” (2015: 343; cf. Lyons 2012: 70). The background story of the horses and the vine from the focalizer’s perspec- tive has a limited effect, since it raises the item’s positive value as a conciliatory precious gift, although it eventually becomes an infamous object and assumes a new negative history.The enhanced value of Zeus’s compensatory gift contrasts pointedly with its subsequent renewed function as a bribe, payment, or booty, and always in the context of war and strife. Overall, a compensatory balanced reciprocity turns into the negative reciprocity of stealth and deception. The horses (or the vine) function differently in each narrative, but the wider implications remain consistent: a valuable commodity possessed by Zeus evolves in the hands of mortals into an object of strife. Although the mythological contexts of the abduction of Ganymede differ in the sources discussed, the embedded allusive focalization redirects the emphasis from the abduction to the compensation for analogous narratological purposes.To this end, Ganymede’s myth turns into a compensation story and is employed in order to raise the exchange value of an object (horses/golden vine). The enhanced object acts as an incen- tive for a difficult task, from convincing a mother to let her son enter battle, to encouraging a comrade to capture the horses on the battlefield, to motivating a brave hero to kill a monster. In addition, it accentuates the implications of treachery, which ironically is performed by means of an item of reconciliation, a divine property that mortals cannot handle properly. The similar treatment of the theme of compensation by different authors suggests the existence not

23 On balanced and negative reciprocity, see Sahlins 1972: 194–195.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 202 strolonga only of an intertext, “a system or set of interwoven fabrics whose constituent parts are interrelated” (Tsagalis 2008: xii), but also of an internarrative. We can thus trace the transference from one source/text/tradition to another of a certain myth and its diction, however these may be adjusted, as well as its narratological function.

Ganymede’s Myth as an Abduction Story

Unlike the examples discussed so far, the longer versions of the abduction of Ganymede in Homer and Apollodorus neglect the topic of compensation. The abduction in these cases is not a mischievous action that requires recompense but a positive event that honors Ganymede, who holds a special proximity to the gods and attains immortality. Nevertheless, despite the different narrative emphasis, the myth functions again as hortatory external analepsis, a myth incorporated in a genealogy. Aeneas offers one such version in the Iliad. He leaves out any reference to compensation and provides the reason, manner, and purpose of Ganymede’s abduction (20.230–235):

Τρῶα δ’ Ἐριχθόνιος τέκετο Τρώεσσιν ἄνακτα· Τρωὸς δ’ αὖ τρεῖς παῖδες ἀμύμονες ἐξεγένοντο, Ἶλός τ’ Ἀσσάρακός τε καὶ ἀντίθεος Γανυμήδης, ὃς δὴ κάλλιστος γένετο θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων· τὸν καὶ ἀνηρείψαντο θεοὶ Διὶ οἰνοχοεύειν κάλλεος εἵνεκα ,οἷο ἵν’ ἀθανάτοισι μετείη.

And Erichthonus begot Tros to be king among the Trojans, and from Tros again three incomparable sons were born, Ilus, and Assaracus, and godlike Ganymedes, who was born the fairest of mortal men; and the gods caught him up on high to be cupbearer to Zeus because of his beauty, so that he might dwell with the immortals. trans. Wyatt 1999

Aeneas speaks to Achilles before their duel and brags about his ancestry in order to be on the same level with his opponent.24 As Aeneas goes back eight generations starting from Dardanus—an extensive genealogy, compared to

24 On this genealogy and the epic plupast, see Grethlein 2006: 65–70, 2012: 15–19.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 203 similar ones in the Iliad—he mentions his famous ancestor Ganymede. In this case, Ganymede’s abduction is presented in detail. Ganymede is the only one of the three children of Tros who is characterized as godlike (232),25 an epi- thet that foreshadows the motivation of his abduction (235), namely physical beauty (κάλλεος εἵνεκα, “for the sake of beauty”).26 Godlike Ganymede, who is the most beautiful of the mortals, is abducted by the gods in order to become the wine pourer for Zeus. The abduction story this time focuses not on the horses but on Ganymede himself and the beauty that elicits the attraction of the gods.27 Attention is also given to his special role as Zeus’s cupbearer and as a mortal who lives along with the gods. Nevertheless, his immortality is only implied, just like that of the horses, since the Homeric epics typically exclude references to immortal- ized humans.28 Loaded words of abduction, such as “snatching” (ἁρπάζω) with its sexual connotations, are replaced with the milder verb ἀνερείπομαι, which denotes the method of the abduction: being carried off by a storm.29 Aeneas deliberately omits the compensation paid by Zeus, an act that would signify that a crime had been committed against his ancestor. The words poinē and apoina have generally negative connotations (Wilson 2002: 26–27).30 While Diomedes in Iliad 5 only implies the act of abduction, which was irrelevant to his narrative and a well-known mythical fact, Aeneas in his romanticized version excludes any allusions to the compensation of the horses. To this end, the abductor Zeus is replaced by “the gods,” and the recipient of the compensation, Tros, is briefly mentioned as the father of Ganymede. By having the gods abduct Ganymede—a unique version—Homer avoids the homosexual implications of

25 The adjective ἀντίθεος is functional and echoes the equivalent adjective ἀγχίθεος in the HomericHymntoAphrodite (200) in reference to Anchises’s relatives including Ganymede. Cf. h. Aphr. 279 θεοείκελος for Aeneas. 26 See schol. Il. 20. 235b (5.42.92 Erbse), for the prepositional phrase, which could explain both the abduction and the cohabitation with gods. 27 Achilles Tatius (Leucippe and Clitophon 2.36) is the only author who repeats the Homeric version of Ganymede’s abduction by the gods, going so far as to quote Il. 20.234–235. 28 On the absence of narratives in Homer that relate the provision of immortality to humans, see Griffin 1977: 42–43; Edwards 1987: 138–142. Cf. Burgess 2001: 167–168. Nagy argues that immortality is a topic of local traditions and is suppressed in the pan-Hellenic Homeric epics: the Homeric heroes only wish to become immortal (1995: 169–170). 29 Cf. νῦν αὖ παῖδ’ ἀγαπητὸν ἀνηρείψαντο θύελλαι (“now again the storm-winds carried off my beloved child,” Od. 4.727). 30 According to Wilson, “the only two themes in which composition [goods for injury or death] is successfully exchanged are those in which Zeus gives poinē to Tros (5.265–267) and secures poinē for Hektor (17.198–208)” (2002: 28).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 204 strolonga

Zeus’s abduction of the handsome young boy.31The homosexual nature of their relationship is strongly suggested in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (Smith 1981: 72) and is even more explicit in later sources, especially in Lucian.32 In Homer’s version, Aeneas presents the abduction in the context of aristocratic gift giving. The gods kidnap Ganymede in order to offer him to Zeus as a beautiful and valuable commodity.33 In narratological terms, Aeneas’s genealogy constitutes an actorial external analepsis, the speaker’s flashback, and an embedded story narrated in some- what elliptical style. Genealogical information is typically exchanged between combatants before a duel, as a mechanism to intimidate the opponent. The story of Ganymede, shaped by the focalizer Aeneas, has, like in the other cases, a hortatory function: Aeneas encourages himself and tries to discourage his opponent.34 The Ganymede myth raises the valor and honor of the speaker, his descendant, just as the narrative about the horses raises the value of their pedigrees.35 The history of Aeneas through genealogy serves eventually as his own description, a justification of his prestige. Similarly, in Apollodorus’s account, Ganymede belongs to a genealogical list of famous Trojans, which starts with Dardanus and ends with Aeneas, before the narrative continues with Ilus (3.12.2):

γενομένων δὲ αὐτῷ παίδων Ἴλου καὶ Ἐριχθονίου, Ἶλος μὲν ἄπαις ἀπέθανεν, Ἐριχθόνιος δὲ διαδεξάμενος τὴν βασιλείαν, γήμας Ἀστυόχην τὴν Σιμόεντος, τεκνοῖ Τρῶα. οὗτος παραλαβὼν τὴν βασιλείαν τὴν μὲν χώραν ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ Τροίαν ἐκάλεσε, καὶ γήμας Καλλιρρόην τὴν Σκαμάνδρου γεννᾷ θυγατέρα μὲν Κλεοπά- τραν, παῖδας δὲ Ἶλον καὶ Ἀσσάρακον καὶ Γανυμήδην. τοῦτον μὲν οὖν διὰ κάλλος ἀναρπάσας Ζεὺς δι’ ἀετοῦ θεῶν οἰνοχόον ἐν οὐρανῷ κατέστησεν· Ἀσσαράκου δὲ

31 Dover 1978: 196–197; cf. van der Ben 1986: 24. Contra Edwards 1991: 319–320 at 233–235; Faulkner 2011: 262–263. For a similar issue in the Little Iliad, see Davies 1989: 65; Kelly 2015: 326. 32 Ibyc. fr. 289; Thgn. 1345–1348; Pind. Ol. 1.40–45, 10.103–105; Eur. Cycl. 582–584; Luc. Dial. deor. 10. See Gerber 1982: 81; Provencal 2005: 92–93; Richardson 2010: 246–247 at 202–217, 208; Faulkner 2011: 262–263. On Pindar’s modeling his story of Pelops on Ganymede, see Gerber 1982: 79–81; Clay 1989: 186–187. 33 Cf. Arafat 1997: 103: “the pursuit of Ganymede by Zeus is never overtly sexual on Attic vases.” 34 See examples of Homeric speeches with external analepsis in de Jong 1987: 160–168. 35 Cf. the praise of Pelops by his comparison with Ganymede in Pind. Ol. 1.42–45; see Ger- ber 1982: 79. Also Kakridis 1970: 175–188, on the parallels between Pindar’s and the Hymn’s versions of Ganymede’s abduction.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 205

καὶ Ἱερομνήμης τῆς Σιμόεντος Κάπυς, τοῦ δὲ καὶ Θεμίστης τῆς Ἴλου Ἀγχίσης, ᾧ δι’ ἐρωτικὴν ἐπιθυμίαν Ἀφροδίτη συνελθοῦσα Αἰνείαν ἐγέννησε καὶ Λύρον, ὃς ἄπαις ἀπέθανεν.

And he had sons born to him, Ilus and Erichthonius, of whom Ilus died childless, and Erichthonius succeeded to the kingdom and marrying Asty- oche, daughter of Simoeis, begatTros. On succeeding to the kingdom,Tros called the country Troy after himself, and marrying Callirrhoe, daughter of Scamander, he begat a daughter Cleopatra, and sons, Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymede. This Ganymede, for the sake of his beauty, Zeus caught up on an eagle and appointed him cupbearer of the gods in heaven; and Assaracus had by his wife Hieromneme, daughter of Simoeis, a son Capys; and Capys had by his wife Themiste, daughter of Ilus, a son Anchises, with whom Aphrodite had intercourse because of amorous desire, and to whom she bore Aeneas and Lyrus, who died childless. trans. Frazer 1921 (adapted)

In this version the abduction story is again detailed. Ganymede is the son of Tros, and the abductor Zeus (not the gods like in the Iliad) kidnaps Ganymede in the form of an eagle (or by means of an eagle), a version that developed in the fourth century B.C.E.36 Like in Homer, when Apollodorus mentions Ganymede in the genealogy of Dardanus, the description of his abduction does not include the element of compensation.37 The praise of Ganymede (and consequently of his relatives) is based on his proximity to Zeus. Any references to the commis- sion of a crime, which must be compensated, even though the compensation according to the myth is of high value, would negatively affect the represen- tation of Dardanus’s long line. The short narratorial analepsis of Ganymede’s abduction is pointedly incorporated in a celebratory genealogy. Considering that Hellanicus also mentions a Trojan genealogical list, as a fragment indicates, we can perhaps assume that like Apollodorus he also included the abduction of Ganymede.38

36 Cf. Luc. Dial. deor. 10 (4).1; Verg. Aen. 5.252–255; Ov. Met. 10.155–161. The abduction by Zeus as an eagle is not attested in art or literature before the fourth century B.C.E. See Olson 2012: 239. On the lateness of the bestial version of the myth of Ganymede in accordance with other bestial myths, see Robson 1997: 65–66, 85. 37 Dardanus’s progeny is mentioned in Homer Il. 20.215–240 and Hesiod fr. 177 M-W. Apol- lodorus combines both sources (Lib. 3.140), which differ from each other as far as the genealogy of Ilus is concerned. See Fowler 2013: 524. 38 In reference to τρεῖς παῖδες, the scholiast at Il. 20.231 (5.39.21 Erbse = fr. 138 Fowler) provides

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 206 strolonga

Ganymede’s Myth as Both Abduction Story and Compensation Story

The two strands of the abduction story (Ganymede’s transference to Olympus and the compensation for his abduction) are united in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (202–206):39

ἤτοι μὲν ξανθὸν Γανυμήδεα μητίετα Ζεὺς ἥρπασε ὃν διὰ κάλλος ’ἵν ἀθανάτοισι μετείη καί τε Διὸς κατὰ δῶμα θεοῖς ἐπιοινοχοεύοι, θαῦμα ἰδεῖν, πάντεσσι τετιμένος ἀθανάτοισι, χρυσέου ἐκ κρητῆρος ἀφύσσων νέκταρ ἐρυθρόν.

Flaxen-haired Ganymede was seized by resourceful Zeus because of his beauty, so that he should be among the immortals and serve drink to the gods in Zeus’s house, a wonder to see, esteemed by all the immortals as he draws the red nectar from the golden bowl. trans. West 2003b

The poet of the Hymn might have been aware of the two different strands, which are found in Homer and survive in Apollodorus, and he brought them together intentionally. In this case, there were two different versions in pre- Iliadic oral tradition: one focusing on the compensation of the horses, which was later attached to the myth of the first sack of Troy, the other focusing on Ganymede’s abduction, without compensation being offered by the abductor, and his new status on Olympus. If the Hymn’s combined version is the hymnist’s innovation, it could have stood independently in the tradition of the myth. Alternatively, the hymnist reflects an earlier version, a complete account, which was then manipulated in two separate strands in the Iliad. Either way the

the name of the wife of Tros, Callirrhoe, who appears in Apollodorus but is missing from Homer, and names his source, Hellanicus (ὡς Ἑλλάνικος). Hellanicus perhaps related Ganymede’s abduction in this genealogy. 39 Cf. the two strands in Homer according to Pausanias (5.24.5): ἔστι δὲ Ὁμήρῳ πεποιημένα ὡς ἁρπασθείη τε ὑπὸ θεῶν Γανυμήδης οἰνοχοεῖν Διὶ καὶ ὡς Τρωὶ δῶρα ἵπποι δοθεῖεν ἀντ’ αὐτοῦ (“Homer has it that Ganymede was abducted by the gods in order to be a wine-pourer to Zeus and that horses were given to Tros as gifts in exchange for him”). See Olson 2012: 238: “the Hymn-poet has supplied the narrative bridge between the two sources, loading it with emotional detail of a sort notably absent from the Homeric passages.”

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 207 myth is adapted to its narrative context, and its length or details alone cannot indicate its chronological or literary relationship with the sources that contain the same myth.40 The combination of the two elements of Ganymede’s story is justified by the needs of the narrative. The abduction of Ganymede is an exemplum that Aphrodite provides to Anchises along with that of Tithonus in order to explain her plan. Unlike Zeus and Eos who abducted their beloveds, Ganymede and Tithonus, Aphrodite will not transfer Anchises to Olympus and she will not make him immortal. Both stories of Ganymede andTithonus are abduction stories that highlight the complications of immortalization.41 Eos had asked Zeus to make Tithonus immortal but not ageless forever. He thus continually gets older and grows weaker. Ganymede has a better lot. He receives both immortality and eternal youth, but there is a collateral victim, his father Tros, who mourns as if Ganymede died, until he is compensated. Aphrodite pointedly compares and contrasts herself to Zeus, the abductor. She, unlike Zeus, will not abduct Anchises, since she has no means to immortalize him or to compensate his father as Zeus did. Nor can she ask Zeus for such a favor, since she is not on good terms with him. Anchises is therefore in a better situation, since he avoids the peculiar and dangerous immortalization of his two ancestors and will gain another type of immortality through a long line of descendants.42 In the Hymn the abduction story follows thematically and verbally the Homeric version in Iliad 20. Echoes between the two passages (and Apol- lodorus) are listed in the following table:

H. Aphr. Homer, Iliad Apollodorus, Library

μητίετα Ζεύς/ ἥρπασε τὸν καὶ ἀνηρείψαντο θεοὶ ἀναρπάσας Ζεὺς ὃν διὰ κάλλος κάλλεος εἵνεκα οἷο τοῦτον μὲν οὖν διὰ κάλλος ἵν’ ἀθανάτοισι μετείη ἵν’ ἀθανάτοισι μετείη θεοῖς ἐπιοινοχοεύοι Διὶ οἰνοχοεύειν θεῶν οἰνοχόον

40 Van Eck, for example, argues that the Iliadic version is secondary, although the oldest (1978: 74). 41 On the negative aspects of immortalization of Ganymede and Tithonus, see Smith 1981: 71–82. Contra Clay 1989: 186–187. 42 Smith 1981: 88–90; Clay 1989: 196; Strolonga 2012: 16–17; Schein 2013: 311.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 208 strolonga

Unless the hymnist echoes Homer, the similar phraseology can be explained as the resonance of an earlier oral tradition, or a specific oral poem if we accept some type of text fixation as many neoanalysts do.43 In either case, they derive their material from a common source. Alternatively, Homer and the poet of the Hymn may have manipulated the traditional language of the narrative motif of abduction and relevant formulae (Nagy 1979: 192–197, 1990: 242–245).44 Thematic echoes are also found. First, the abduction narrative is part of a short genealogy that consists of Anchises’s godlike ancestors who established a close proximity to gods and were abducted by them. Aphrodite appropri- ates the male rhetoric of genealogies and presents Anchises’s and her future son’s ancestors. Apollodorus also mentions the story of Anchises’s affair with Aphrodite and the birth of Aeneas in the genealogy of Dardanus (3.12.2) and in reference to Anchises. In the Iliad, however, Aeneas, enumerating only his male ancestors, has no reason to include his mother (20.240), whom he mentions outside the genealogy at the very beginning of his speech (20.209). In the Hymn, Ganymede’s abduction takes place for the same reasons as in the Iliad (and in Apollodorus)—namely, because of his beauty and so that he may become a cupbearer on Olympus. Unlike Aeneas’s version in the Iliad, however, in the Hymn it is not the gods who abduct the beautiful Ganymede, but Zeus alone, just like in Apollodorus. As I already mentioned, Aphrodite aims to make a sharp contrast with Zeus. A narrative about gods abducting a mortal could not frame this contrast. Moreover, the abduction story in the Iliad and in the Hymn includes the description of Ganymede’s special fate and his service to the gods. While in the Iliad the reference to his new role as wine pourer is brief, the hymnic version emphasizes the positive aspects of his new life. The single line in the Iliad (20.234) that states his role on Olym- pus (Διὶ οἰνοχοεύειν) is expanded in the Hymn with two more lines (204–206) to include the benefits that his position entails. This description of the great honor Ganymede receives on Olympus from all the gods contrasts sharply with the following description of Tros’s grief as a way to devalue the gift of immortality.

43 On the hymnist employing Homer, see among others Olson 2012: 235. 44 Eos’s abduction of Cleitus in the Odyssey (15.250–251; κάλλεος εἵνεκα οἷο, ἵν’ ἀθανάτοισι μετείη, 251) echoes verbally both Il. 20.235 (κάλλεος εἵνεκα οἷο ἵν’ ἀθανάτοισι μετείη) and the Hymn (ἥρπασε ὃν διὰ κάλλος, ἵν’ ἀθανάτοισι μετείη, 204) in the manner of a quota- tion. The abduction is used in the genealogy of Theoclymenus also as a praise narrative.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 209

The hymnist expands the myth as it is narrated in Iliad 20, since he incorpo- rates the compensation theme mentioned in Iliad 5 and devotes a long section to describe Tros’s grief, perhaps another innovation of his (207–214):45

Τρῶα δὲ πένθος ἄλαστον ἔχε φρένας, οὐδέ τι ᾔδει ὅππῃ οἱ φίλον υἱὸν ἀνήρπασε θέσπις ἄελλα· τὸν δὴ ἔπειτα γόασκε διαμπερὲς ἤματα πάντα. καί μιν Ζεὺς ἐλέησε, δίδου δέ οἱ υἷος ἄποινα ἵππους ἀρσίποδας, τοί τ’ ἀθανάτους φορέουσι. τούς οἱ δῶρον ἔδωκεν ἔχειν· εἶπεν δὲ ἕκαστα Ζηνὸς ἐφημοσύνῃσι διάκτορος Ἀργειφόντης, ὡς ἔοι ἀθάνατος καὶ ἀγήρως ἶσα θεοῖσιν.

As for Tros, nagging grief possessed his heart; he did not know which way the miraculous whirlwind had snatched up his dear son, and he went on lamenting him day after day.Zeus took pity on him, and to compensate for his son he gives him prancing horses, of the breed that carry the immortals: those he gave him to keep, and on Zeus’s instructions the go-between, the Argus-slayer, explained everything, how Ganymede was immortal and unaging just like the gods. trans. West 2003b

The detailed description of Tros’s reaction is lyrical and un-Homeric. The emotional turmoil of Tros, who witnesses the abduction of his son but does not know his whereabouts echoes the excessive grief of Demeter, who hears her daughter being abducted in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter: τῆς δ’ ἔκλυε πότνια μήτηρ./ ὀξὺ δέ μιν κραδίην ἄχος ἔλαβεν (“but her respectful mother heard her. / And sharp pain seized her heart,” 39–40).46 Both parents experience the loss of their child as a form of death and grieve similarly (Sowa 1984: 122–126). Tros’s grief and other presumed innovations in the Hymn, such as Hermes’s par- ticipation, which is nevertheless manifested in art and literature (albeit very late: Lucian Dial. deor. 20.6; Mart. 9. 25.8), could have been drawn from earlier versions (Faulkner 2011: 262). Andrew Faulkner acknowledges that even if

45 Expansion and abridgment of the original is a reception technique that has been studied in the case of Lucian’s reworking of his models, including the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. See Vergados 2013: 99. 46 On the view that the poet of the Hymn to Demeter knew the Hymn to Aphrodite, see Mar- avela 2015.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 210 strolonga there could be an imitatio and the hymnist knew the Homeric version, “he had another model in mind here” (2011: 262). Tros’s initial grief and subsequent joy after the compensation is also a natural reaction (Faulkner 2011: 262). The hymnist presents the provision of the horses not only as compensation but also as an act of mercy (ἐλέησε, “showed mercy”), which alleviates Tros’s distress. The word δῶρον (gift), which glosses the word ἄποινα, gives another dimension to the compensation (Olson 2012: 241). The Hymn prefers the compensation term apoina (δίδου δέ οἱ υἷος ἄποινα) instead of poinē, perhaps influ- enced by the tradition reflected in the Little Iliad, as the similar line suggests (ἔπορεν οὗ παιδὸς ἄποινα, “he gave as ransom for his son”). The term apoina overall seems a more appropriate word choice. Although it is still not accu- rately used, since ransom is usually offered by the family of the captured to the abductor for the release of the abducted, it is more appropriate for a case of abduction and it overcomes the deficiency of the term poinē, which is more often used in cases of murder (see Il. 9.632–633, 13.658–659).47 The abduction story in its expanded version is an example of a successful type of exchange via compensation, which overturned the negative consequences of the abduction. A similarly successful act of reciprocity takes place at the end of the Hymn when, in exchange for a son, Anchises keeps his liaison with Aphrodite a secret. Most important, the hymnic version, unlike in Homer, emphasizes the immortality that Ganymede received. This is an important topic not only in this hymn, as the example of Tithonus shows, but also in the other major Home- ric Hymns: one notes Demophoon’s attempted immortalization in the Hymn to Demeter and Apollo’s provision of eternal honor to his priests in the Hymn to Apollo. Accordingly, in addition to obtaining the horses, Tros receives the news that Ganymede has been made immortal. The poet of the Hymn appears to expand again the version found in Homer. Tros is well compensated, since he receives both immortal horses and an immortal son. Another difference in the hymnic version is that the poet provides the reason for the compensation, which is Zeus’s pity, while Homer offers only the explanation for the abduction, which is Ganymede’s beauty. S. Douglas Olson suggests that the compensation in the Iliad has a commercial character, while the horses in the Hymn, which Olson characterizes as an incidental gift, are offered by Zeus out of pity and not out of a sense of equity, as they are in Homer (2012: 240 at 210–217). In both cases, however, we have a case of balanced compensatory reciprocity. Olson

47 The word apoina is also used in the Hymn for a dowry (140), a unique case.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 211 also notices the different attributes of Zeus’s horses in the two sources (2012: 240–241). In the Iliad they are characterized as the best mortal horses, but in the Hymn they are at least implicitly immortal, since they carry the chariots of the gods in the air.48 There is creative interaction between the Hymn and the Homeric version.49 Despite these differences, which may (or may not) suggest an innovative treatment of a traditional myth, there are narratological similarities to take into consideration.50 Like in Homer, Aphrodite’s actorial analepsis is also hortatory (θάρσει, “have courage,” 193). It aims to appease Anchises’s fear of some kind of punishment for sleeping with a goddess (189–190), seeing that his other relatives were also close to gods and were not punished for their liaison with their divine lovers (with the exception of Tithonus and Eos’s honest mistake). The peculiar genealogy of Anchises also motivates him to accept a better deal: as long as he does not reveal their liaison, he will receive his son five years after his birth—a safer type of immortality, as the examples of Anchises’s ancestors show, through succession and the continuation of the line. Like the abduction myth in the Iliad, the version in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite is adapted to specific narrative necessities. However, its overall function as a myth that praises and exhorts, a myth of the past that relates to the present and motivates a course of action, remains consistent.

48 Nagy connects the horses that have “feet of wind” with the manner of the abduction in a gust of wind, since “both themes, of taking and giving in return, center on the element of wind” (1990: 245). 49 Olson proceeds with his commentary on the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite on the assump- tion that the poet of the Hymn “knew the Iliad and the Odyssey, and perhaps the Theogony and the Works and Days as well, in more or less the form in which we have those poems today,” although the poem is not simply in contact with Homeric and Hesiodic traditions but “interacts creatively and often aggressively with the Iliad and the Odyssey” (2012: 16). Cf. Brillet-Dubois 2011: 129–132 on the interaction between Aphroditean and Iliadic traditions: in the first, Anchises and Aeneas receive a prominent position, while in the Iliad they play minor roles, with the narrative at 5.263–271 being the only one that involves Anchises. According to Brillet-Dubois, Aeneas is not destined to receive Iliadic glory as Achilles’s opponent, but he achieves immortality with a long line of descendants (2011: 131). 50 Cf. Tsagalis 2008: 219–228 on the comparison between Eos’s supplication of Zeus in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and Thetis’s supplication in the Iliad. See also Tsagalis 2008: 230 for the argument that deviations from traditional patterns turn from “intratextual frag- mentation into intertextual integration.”

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 212 strolonga

Conclusions

The employment of the specific myth of the abduction of Ganymede, or of the general motif of abduction adapted in the case of Ganymede, is framed by the intention of the poet, who in manipulating the oral tradition relies often on the expectations of the audience and their familiarity with the same oral tradition from which he draws (cf. Dowden 1996: 51–52; Burgess 2006: 154, 2009: 69–70). Despite narrative and verbal echoes, the transference of a specific narrative or a motif is not the outcome of a spontaneous mimesis but rather a conscious re-presentation of a well-known myth/motif.51 The intention of the poet is revealed in his own version of a traditional myth and in his adaptation of traditional language of narrative patterns. Even when the author abridges or expands a traditional version, he nevertheless retains certain recognizable parts of the story, while omitting irrelevant or inappropriate elements. Wolfgang Kullmann writes (2012: 15),

a special characteristic of early Greek epic is the existence of an oral Fak- tenkanon (standard list of events) and that epic story-telling, unlike the modern novel, is marked by a strong tendency to preserve its traditional content. Exaggeration, substitution or suppression is allowed but not a strong deviation from the contents of an already-established story. Appar- ently there was a rule that some basic elements must not be altered by free poetic invention.

While the authors of the discussed versions innovate when it comes to the type of compensation (horses vs. vine) or the identity of the abductor (gods vs. Zeus), certain elements are retained. If we endeavor to reconstruct a traditional pan-Hellenic version of Ganymede’s abduction, it would contain some or all of the common narrative elements that appear in the discussed versions: abduction, Ganymede’s transference to Olympus, and compensation. Both the poet of the Little Iliad and Homer appear to manipulate the traditional version and deviate from it intentionally.The LittleIliad has a unique narrative about the nature of compensation and Ganymede’s father, and Homer has the gods collectively abduct Ganymede—a version that does not appear in art and cannot be found in any other literary sources. The poets both evoke a

51 On oral intertextual neoanalysis and motif transference “not between texts but between the Homeric poems and pre-Homeric oral traditions,” see Burgess 2006: 148–149, 177, 2009: 61–62, 70–71. Cf. Kullmann 1984: 311–312.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 213 traditional version (the use of a compensation word) and reject it (the compensation is a vine instead of horses), or they overemphasize some elements (the manner of abduction and the role of Ganymede as wine pourer in Iliad 20) while omitting others (the compensation).52 But as I have shown, in the case of Ganymede at least, not only are certain facts of a myth easily recognizable among the different sources and retained through the myth’s different applications but the narratological function of the myth remains consistent as well.The myth of Ganymede is always a celebratory narrative, a hortatory analepsis, which praises Ganymedes’s descendants by association or the descendants of his compensation. To this end, Ganymede’s abduction is incorporated into the genealogy of either Aeneas or his horses. We detect a common tendency to use the myth as part of a story about the heroic past that enhances the status of another character. Moreover, it is always employed to motivate a courageous deed. This similar narratological function is apparent in both strands of the story, one with the compensation theme and the other without it, and also in their combination. It is attested in different mythological contexts: those of Laomedon and Aeneas, the first sack of Troy, and the Trojan War. This consistent narratological deployment was recognizable in the wider oral tradition and was transmitted in various contexts. Despite the evolution of the myth, its abridgement and its expansion based on various focalizations and changes in diction, the narratological function of the myth does not change. The narration of the abduction of Ganymede is framed by intertextuality and internarratology, which cross the boundaries between oral and written sources, and earlier and later ones as well.

Works Cited

Anderson, M.J. 1997. The Fall of Troy in Early Greek Poetry and Art. Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press. Andersen, Ø. and Haug, D.T.T. eds. Relative Chronology in Early Greek Epic Poetry. Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press. Arafat, K.W. 1997. “State of the Art—Art of the State: Sexual Violence and Politics in Late Archaic and Early Classical Vase-painting.” In Deacy and Pierce, eds. 97–122. Bakker, E.J. 2001. “Homer, Hypertext, and the Web of Myth.” In Schaefer, U. ed. Varieties and Consequences of Literacy and Orality / Formen und Folgen von Schriftlichkeit und Mündlichkeit: Franz H. Bäuml zum 75. Geburtstag. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 149–160.

52 Currie discusses the conscious adaptation of a traditional myth in the case of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2012: 203–205, 2016: 97–100).

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 214 strolonga

Brillet-Dubois, P. 2011. “An Erotic aristeia: The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and its Rela- tion to the Iliadic Tradition.” In Faulkner, A. ed. The Homeric Hymns: Interpretative Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 105–132. Burgess, J.S. 2001.TheTradition of theTrojanWar in Homer and the Epic Cycle. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Burgess, J.S. 2006. “Neoanalysis, Orality, and Intertextuality: An Examination of Home- ric Motif Transference.” Oral Tradition 21: 148–189. Burgess, J.S. 2009. The Death and Afterlife of Achilles. Baltimore:The Johns Hopkins Uni- versity Press. Burgess, J.S. 2012. “Intertextuality without Text in Early Greek Epic.” In Andersen and Haug, eds. 168–183. Clay, J.S. 1989. The Politics of Olympus: Form and Meaning in the Major Homeric Hymns. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cook, E. 2016. “Homeric Reciprocities.” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 29: 94– 104. Currie, B. 2012. “Perspectives on Neoanalysis from the Archaic Hymns to Demeter.” In Relative Chronology in Early Greek Epic Poetry. In Andersen and Haug, eds. 184–209. Currie, B. 2016. Homer’s Allusive Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davies, M. 1988. EpicorumGraecorumFragmenta. Göttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Davies, M. 1989. The Greek Epic Cycle. Bristol: Bristol Classical Paperbacks. Deacy, S. and Pierce, K.F. eds. 1997. Rape in Antiquity: Sexual Violence in the Greek and Roman Worlds. London: Duckworth. de Jong, I.J.F. 1987. Narrators and Focalizers: The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad. Amsterdam: B.R. Grüner. de Jong, I.J.F. 2001. A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press. Dindorf, G. 1855. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Odysseam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donlan, W. 1982 “Reciprocities in Homer.” Classical World 75: 137–175. Dover, K.J. 1978. Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dowden, K. 1996. “Homer’s Sense of Text.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 116: 47–61. Eck, J. van 1978. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. Dissertation, Utrecht. Edwards, M.W. 1987. Homer: Poet of the Iliad. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press. Edwards, M.W. 1991. The Iliad: A Commentary. Volume 5: Books 17–20. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press. Erbse, H. 1977. Scholia graeca in Homeri Iliadem (scholia vetera). Vol. 5. Berlin: De Gruyter. Fantuzzi, M. and Tsagalis, C. eds. 2015. The Cambridge Companion to the Epic Cycle and its Reception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Faulkner, A. 2011. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: Introduction, Text, and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 215

Fowler, R.L. 2000. Early Greek Mythography. Volume 1: Text and Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fowler, R.L. 2013. Early Greek Mythography.Volume 2: Commentary. Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press. Frazer, G.J. 1921. Apollodorus: The Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Genette, G. 1983. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Trans. by J.E. Lewin. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Gerber, D. 1982. Pindar’s Olympian One: A Commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Grethlein, J. 2006. Das Geschichtsbild der Ilias: Eine Untersuchung aus phänomenologi- scher und narratologischer Perspektive. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Grethlein, J. 2012. “Homer and Heroic History.” In Marincola, J., Llewellyn-Jones, L., and Maciver, C.A. eds. Greek Notions of the Past in the Archaic and Classical Eras: History without Historians. Edinburg: Edinburgh University Press. 14–36. Griffin, J. 1977. “The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 97: 39–53. Harrison, E.L. 1991. “Homeric Wonder-Horses.”Hermes 119: 252–254. Kassel. R. and Austin C. 1983. Poetae comici Graeci. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Kelly, A. 2015. “Ilias parva.” In Fantuzzi and Tsagalis, eds. 318–343. Kakridis, J.Th. 1970. “Pindaros und Bakchylides.” In Calder III, W.M. and Stern, J. eds. Die Pelopssage bei Pindar. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. 175–190 (= Philologus 85 (1930), pp. 463–477). Kilmer, M. 1997. “Rape in Early Red-Figure Pottery: Violence and Threat in Homo-erotic and Hetero-erotic Contexts.” In Deacy and Pierce, eds. 123–142. Kim, L. 2010. Homer between History and Fiction in Imperial Greek Literature: Greek Cul- ture in the Roman world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kullmann, W. 1960. Die Quellen der Ilias: Troischer Sagenkreis. Wiesbaden: Steiner. Kullmann, W. 1984. “Oral Poetry Theory and Neoanalysis in Homeric Research.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 25: 307–324. Kullmann, W. 2012. “Neoanalysis between Orality and Literacy: Some Remarks Con- cerning the Development of Greek Myths Including the Legend of the Capture of Troy.” In Montanari, F., Rengakos, A., Tsagalis, C. eds. Homeric Contexts: Neoanalysis and the Interpretation of Oral Poetry. Berlin: De Gruyter. Kullmann, W. 2015. “Motif and Source Research: Neoanalysis, Homer, and Cyclic Epic.” In Fantuzzi and Tsagalis, eds. 108–125. Larson, J. 2001. Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lyons, D. 2012. Dangerous Gifts: Gender and Exchange in Ancient Greece. Austin: Uni- versity of Texas Press. Maravela, A. 2015. “Demeter ‘Nods’ to Aphrodite? Narrative Interactions between the ‘Homeric’ Hymn to Aphrodite and the Hymn to Demeter.” In Dell’Oro, F. and

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access 216 strolonga

Lagacherie, O. eds. Πολυφόρβῃ Γαίῃ: Mélanges de littérature et linguistique offerts à Françoise Létoublon. Grenoble: Université Stendhal. 157–172. Merkelbach, R. and West, M.L. 1967. Fragmenta Hesiodea. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nagy, G. 1979. The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Nagy, G. 1990. Greek Mythology and Poetics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Nagy, G. 1995. “An Evolutionary Model for the Making of Homeric Poetry: Comparative Perspectives,” In Carter, J.B. and Morris, S.P.eds.The Ages of Homer: ATribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule. Austin: University of Texas Press. 163–179. Olson, S.D. 2012. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite and Related Texts: Text, Translation and Commentary. Berlin: De Gruyter. Provencal,V.2005. “GlukusHimeros: Pederastic Influence on the Myth of Ganymede.” In Verstrate, B. and Provencal, V. eds. Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiq- uity and the Classical Tradition of the West. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press. 87–137. Richardson, N. 2010. Three Homeric Hymns: To Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite. Hymns 3, 4, and 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robson, J. 1997. “Bestiality and Bestial Rape in Greek Myth.” In Deacy and Pierce, eds. 65–96. Sahlins, M. 1972. Stone Age Economics. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton. Schein, S.L. 2013. “Divine and Human in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite.” In Bouchon, R., Brillet-Dubois, P., and Le Meur Weissman, M. eds. Hymnes de la Grèce antique: Approches littéraires et historiques. Lyon: Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée. 295–312. Schein, S.L. 2015. Homeric Epic and its Reception: Interpretive Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schwartz, E. 1887. Scholia in Euripidem. Berlin: Reimer. Sichtermann, H. 1953. Ganymed: Mythos und Gestalt in der antiken Kunst. Berlin: Mann. Sichtermann, H. 1959. “Zeus und Ganymed in frühklassischer Zeit.” Antike Kunst: 10–15. Smith, P.M. 1981. Nursling of Mortality. A Study of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. Frank- furt: Lang. Sowa, C.A. 1984. Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns. Chicago: Bolchazy-Car- ducci. Stafford, E. 2012. Herakles. London: Routledge. Strolonga, P. 2012. “Aphrodite against Athena, Artemis, and Hestia: A Contest of Erga.” Illinois Classical Studies 37: 1–20. Tsagalis, C. 2008. The Oral Palimpsest: Exploring Intertextuality in the Homeric Epics. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. Tsagalis, C. 2012. From Listeners to Viewers: Space in the Iliad. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access variations on the myth of the abduction of ganymede 217

Tsagalis, C. 2014. “γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων: Interformularity and Intertraditionality in The- ban and Homeric Epic.” Trends in Classics 6: 357–398. van der Ben, N. 1986. “Hymn to Aphrodite 36–291: Notes on the pars epica of the Home- ric Hymn to Aphrodite.” Mnemosyne 39: 1–41. Vergados, A. 2013. The Homeric Hymn to Hermes: Introduction, Text and Commentary. Berlin: De Gruyter. West, M.L. 2003a. Greek Epic Fragments from the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press. West, M.L. 2003b. Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Lives of Homer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. West, M.L. 2013 The Epic Cycle: A Commentary on the Lost Troy Epics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, D.F. 2002. Ransom, Revenge, and Heroic Identity in the Iliad. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press. Wyatt, W.F. 1999. Homer. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 04:28:37PM via free access