An Amazon in Athens

Gendered Correlation and Political Association in Sophocles’ Trachiniae

by Gesthimani Seferiadi

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philology (Classical Studies) in the University of Patras

2019

Doctoral Committee:

Associate Professor Efimia D. Karakantza, Chair Professor Vayos Liapis Professor Barbara Goff

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ABSTRACT

This thesis seeks to explore the gendered politics in Sophocles’ Trachiniae. In particular, in the first chapter, I suggest that Deianeira’s Amazonian prehistory introduces from the outset a paradoxical and unstable symbol of similarity and difference that creates tension between masculinity and femininity. Following that, in the second chapter, I discuss the remote and monstrous un-political setting that is defined by disclaimers of marriage and illicit sexualities, namely Herakles and his monstrous competitors (Acheloos, Nessos), in order to argue that this world is juxtaposed to the social sustainability that is ensured through the well-being of the oikos. With an Amazon being placed within the civilized arrangement of an oikos, Trachiniae negotiates the locus of the female and advocates the need to expel the monstrous sexualities from the polis. Within the blurred boundaries of gender distinctions, however, it is striking that the sustainability of the oikos and the polis is projected onto the female pole while the male is deployed to project their destruction. Next, in the third chapter, through a discussion of the marital narratives of the drama, I follow the way this irregular mythical material is civilized to be included within a structure that repeatedly refers to marriage. It will appear that the structure of the play is formed on the basis of repeated distortions of the wedding ritual, and consequently of nuptial gender categories, so that the entire synthesis can be read as the dramatization of three potential marriages, two ‘death as marriage’ ceremonies and a funeral. In the fourth chapter, I focus on Deianeira’s interaction with the monstrous Centaur and the problematic of this exchange, which I read as the reasonable and unpreventable consequence of an already corroded network of reciprocities. As a follow up to this exchange, I look closer at the play’s proposal as far as the consequences of this deed are concerned and in relation to different systems of justice. Finally, in my last chapter, I examine the end of the play within the frame of the patriarchal structures of Greek tragedy, and in particular in view of dramatic and patriarchal authority. With Deianeira being absent, this concluding part seems to function as a defense against the collapse of gender boundaries and as an attempt to reinstate the impaired gender order. Still, Hyllos’ stance and Deianeira’s dynamic absence provoke a protest against this attempt, a protest which succeeds in enhancing the dynamics of negotiation in which the play has invested.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was conducted in the Department of Philology of the University of Patras, under the supervision of Associate Professor Efimia D. Karakantza (2015-2019). So, firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor for her continuous support in many respects. It was definitely her deep insight that prompted, inspired and influenced my study of the Sophoclean text but, even more significantly, her profound generosity at all levels that guided me continuously while writing this thesis. I could not have imagined having a better mentor for my PhD studies. I warmly thank her for all her positive attitude. My sincere thanks also go to the rest of my thesis committee, Professor Barbara Goff and Professor Vayos Liapis who encouraged me to improve my writing and widen my research from various perspectives. Working as prominent scholars in the field of Greek tragedy, they have both greatly enhanced my work with insightful comments. But, more importantly, their keen support was a great honour for me. For all their contributions, I am deeply grateful to both. The guidance of this committee of experts resulted in great improvement of my thesis but, needless to say, all remaining oversights remain mine. I also need to acknowledge the support of the Department of Philology, University of Patras, who gave me the opportunity to join their team as a PhD student and provided me with access to the research facilities. Special thanks go to Gregory Nagy amd the people behind the Center of Hellenic Studies Fellowship Program, who invited me for an official visit to the Center in 2017-2018, gave me full access to the resources of the library and the opportunity to share my ideas with the members of the community on campus. Finally, of particular importance for the completion of this dissertation was the funding of the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT) and the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI), which granted me a scholarship (2017-2019) under the Action “1st HFRI Announcement for PhD Candidates”. Without their precious support, it would not have been possible to complete this research task. I could not fail to mention my thanks to my friends for the stimulating discussions and for all the good time we have had in the last four years, especially beneficial in relieving stressful moments. Lastly, it goes without saying that I am deeply grateful to my family for supporting me spiritually throughout my doctoral studies and my life in general. Writing a dissertation is a laborious task, and it is only the security of the people who are mentally close to you that makes it possible to bring it to an end.

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Contents ABSTRACT ...... 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 5 INTRODUCTION: Sophocles’ Trachiniae: Where Does the Feminine Belong? ...... 9 General Review of Scholarship ...... 10 Trachiniae and Feminism ...... 17 Where Does the Feminine Belong: Thesis Outline and Theoretical Preface ...... 25 Outline of the Thesis’ Structure ...... 25 The Female Subject ...... 26 ‘Deianeira’s Claim’: Paraphrasing and Affirming Butler’s Model ...... 31 Dynamic Silence ...... 33 Female Subject of Law ...... 35 CHAPTER 1: An Amazon in Athens: A Retrieval of Pre-Sophoclean Deianeira ...... 40 CHAPTER 2: Deianeira and the Monsters: Monsters, Gender and the Polis ...... 54 The Monster and Monster Studies ...... 54 The Monsters and the Female ...... 58 Acheloos and Nessos: Biological and Political Monsters ...... 60 Herakles: The Culture Hero and the Monster ...... 73 CHAPTER 3: What Went Wrong? Three Weddings, Two Deaths and a Funeral ...... 82 PART 1: Introductory Remarks ...... 82 Marriage and Sexual violence in Trachiniae...... 82 Marriage and Athenian Tragedy ...... 83 Marriage as Rape in Trachiniae ...... 88 PART 2: Mirrored Weddings and Sexual Violence ...... 93 Deianeira’s Extraordinary Μarriage...... 93 The End of Toils for Deianeira ...... 100 Whose Wedding Song? ...... 107 The Displacement of the Bride ...... 111 Mirrored Weddings and Sexual Violence ...... 121 Acheloos and Herakles: Rapists or Suitors? ...... 133 PART 3: Rape to Death ...... 136 Nessos’ Dirty Ferrying: Rape to Death ...... 136 Death after a Death: πρὸς θανάτῳ θάνατον ...... 139 CHAPTER 4: Beware of Monsters Bearing Gifts: Reciprocity and Justice ...... 157

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PART 1: Reciprocity in Crisis ...... 159 Corroded Reciprocal Transactions ...... 159 Nessos: Α Gift for a Fee and the Writing Motif ...... 161 Herakles: Reciprocity in Crisis...... 169 Marital Reciprocity on Sale ...... 174 PART 2: ‘Crime’ and Punishment ...... 180 An Amazon Declaims, Speculates and Determines ...... 180 Reciprocity and Justice ...... 190 CHAPTER 5: Where is Deianeira? Authority and Masculinity in the exodos of Trachiniae...... 201 The Authority of ‘History’ ...... 202 The Dramatic Necessity of Herakles’ νόμος ...... 212 Hegemonic Masculinity and Hyllos’ Maturation ...... 218 CONCLUSIONS ...... 231 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 235

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INTRODUCTION: Sophocles’ Trachiniae: Where Does the Feminine Belong?

In contrast to the dominant viewpoint that locates the female element among the catastrophic forces of nature, my interpretation will argue that Trachiniae1 retrieves the female from the margins of the polis to place it at the centre of a well-organized society as a keystone of its orderly structure, whereas it assigns liminal space to the male.2 Thus, I propose that it would be appropriate to exculpate Deianeira and interpret her role with respect to the basic issue at stake in this drama: Familial affiliation and marital cohabitation as an essential component of political society, juxtaposed with a distant non-political world which insidiously permeates the schema of the play. I believe there are firm grounds for believing that such an interpretative shift would promote further inquiry and engagement in the field of “tragedy and gender identities” as well as in humanities in general. The general intention of this thesis is to move a little further from the common expectation that in general, ancient texts reproduce the stereotypical Greek male view of women as belonging to the untamed, animal, non-political world, as being morally weak, susceptible to strong desires, and consequently, subjected to male domination.3 My approach will not attempt to disprove this general observation. This is indeed a predominant view of the female in the collective imaginary and one that has emerged through the careful and extensive study of a great number of ancient texts. Instead, a renegotiation of the question “Where is the feminine located in Trachiniae” will be attempted. On these grounds, I will try to achieve a balance between biased and contradicting interpretations of the play. In particular, I will question those interpretations that reproduce the general assumption of the

1 In the main body of the thesis, ancient authors and works are cited in unabbreviated form. Abbreviations of authors and works, which are used regularly in the footnotes and parenthetical references within the text, follow the guidelines of Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th Edition, 2012. Journal titles in the Bibliography section are given in full-form. The original form of Greek terms is usually preferred, unless commonly appearing in Classical scholarship in Latin form (e.g. polis, oikos). These latinised Greek terms are italicised. Greek sources are cited in the original, followed by their translation in English (in quotation marks). Unless serious textual problems have been observed, all Greek sources are cited from the editions available in Thesaurus Linguae Graecae digital library (for Trach. see next note). Translations from non-English sources are my own unless otherwise indicated. 2 The text used is Lloyd-Jones and Wilson 1992 (corrected revision of 1990 impression), the most widely used edition. The translation in English is always cited by Lloyd-Jones 1998 (corrected revision of 1994 impression), which offers almost exactly the same text (with reduced apparatus) as Lloyd-Jones and Wilson 1992, accompanied by facing translation. Commentaries used are Easterling 1982 and Davies 1991, the best modern commentaries, while Jebb 1892, even though inevitably out of date, is a still essential classic commentary which proved useful in many respects. 3 See, e.g., Pomeroy 1975 8ff., 96ff.; Gould 1980 55ff.; Cantarella 1987, 28ff. Female sexuality and motivation also tends to be generalized as destructive; see, e.g., Rabinowitz 1992, 36-52; Goldhill 1995, 149.

9 female being destructive and prejudge Deianeira’s position, supposing a stereotypical representation of the female in every text that is produced within patriarchal structures, without paying equal attention to the particularities of the Sophoclean text. I will express, however, similar skepticism toward perceptions that want to see Deianeira as the innocent victim of Nessos, as another Nausicaa, giving little or no attention to sexual politics in the ancient world. As a preface to my negotiation of Deianeira’s political whereabouts, I have first included a brief review of literature, in lieu of a general introduction to the reception of Trachiniae in scholarship. Following this review, I have offered a more focused introduction to the ways in which feminist criticism has interacted with classical studies, and more specifically with tragedy and Trachiniae. Finally, in the last section of this introductory chapter, I have tried to preliminarily delineate the general structure of my thesis and map out the general methodological issues raised by my research.

General Review of Scholarship

Trachinae is a nostos drama; that is, a play dramatizing the return of a hero.4 To elaborate on this return, the first two-thirds of the play are allocated to the person that is in the greatest agony about this return, the hero’s wife. However, in Herakles’ case, it happens that this nostos coincides with his death while his wife Deianeira is gradually turning into the agent of this death. The structure of the play is determined by the fact that Deianeira and Herakles never share the stage. Deianeira commits suicide after realizing her tragedy, and Herakles enters the scene straight after the announcement of Deianeira’s suicide, to act upon his tragedy. Thus, each of them owns his/her own tragedy. On these grounds, Sophocles has been criticised for creating two tragedies instead of one, or creating a tragedy that lacks unity, or creating a diptych tragedy.5

4 The play conforms to the plot pattern which Taplin calls “nostos plays”: “In such plays the hero returns from some mission or expedition; he may return safely to some catastrophe at home, or may [...] return from a catastrophe. His first entry is bound to be a central event, and so tends to be the object of considerable dramatic preparation and attention” (Taplin 1977, 124). 5 This is an accusation that goes as far back as Schlegel 1861, 109, who questioned the authenticity of the play solely on the basis of stylistic criteria. Clearly disappointed, he admits that since its authenticity has not been doubted, ”we are compelled to content ourselves with the remark, that in this one instance the tragedian has failed to reach his usual elevation”. For the idea that Trach. is a diptych play, see, e.g. Webster 1935, 102-104 and Kitto 1939, 290-300. Kirkwood 1941, 203-211 (also see Kirkwood 1958, 42-54), however, disagrees with Kitto’s emphasis on Herakles and the consequent devaluation of Deianeira’s tragedy. For Hoey 1970, 1-22, disunity is not a defect but the main theme: the drama is about disunity, a union that was never achieved. For unity also see McCall 1972, 142-163; Kane 1988, 198-211; Kitzinger 2012, 111-125 and, more recently,

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Discontinuity of structure or/and characterization has been the earliest deficiency that scholars identified in Trachiniae;6 and since we lack any evidence on dating the play,7 this accusation also happened to coincide with a tendency to place it among Sophocles’ juvenilia. Nevertheless, it is now agreed that the separation of Deianeira’ and Herakles’ worlds, as well as more contradictions of several kinds (culture/beast, compassion/revenge, human/divine, polis/non-polis etc.), are dramatic elements that are incorporated into the inner structure of the play, thus ensuring structural and thematic unity. These two worlds that never meet, the mutually destructive and gendered worlds of a man and a woman, form the dramatic setting of a single drama. Although the diptych classification is no longer fashionable, the attempts to interpret the play could be categorized on the grounds of their focus on either the first or the second panel of the diptych, and consequently in their focus of attention on each panel’s protagonist, Deianeira or Herakles. Starting with the latter, it is mostly because of his absence from Trachiniae that Herakles has been discussed by scholars. Deianeira is the main character for most of the play while, in this play about Deianeira’s and Herakles’ conjugality, the couple never meets, and the hero only appears for a much shorter time in the exodos of the drama. As a general rule, difficulties in interpreting Herakles in Trachiniae are connected to the fact that he does not seem to conform to the model of the tragic hero. Thus, despite the hero’s omnipresence in the ancient world,8 the story of the suffering hero has only been dramatized twice in the corpus of the extant tragedies, in our drama and in Euripides’ Herakles. As his origin from a divine father and a mortal mother and his civilizing mission suggest, Herakles is modeled as a Greek hero. But in contrast to the heroic model, after his

Catenaccio 2017, 1-33 (in an interesting discussion, the scholar examines the play’s unity on the grounds of the play’s musical and metrical structure). 6 Gould’s essay (1978, 43-67) is an influential discussion of the relationship between character and action in Greek tragedy. 7 The play’s date of production cannot be firmly fixed (as with all other Sophoclean dramas apart from Phil. that we know that was produced in 409 BC). See Hoey 1979, 210-232 and Easterling 1982, 19-23, on a survey of attempts to find dating criteria. See Davies 1991, xviii-xix, n.4 on a critique against these attempts. It seems that despite so many suggestions for a more specific time slot, any date between 457 BC (Aes. Ag.) and 406/5 BC (Sophocles’ death) remains possible. 8 Covering both Greek and Roman eras, the available material on Herakles is more than any other Greek god or hero. His story covers numerous incidents, starting from his birth and moving to his myriad battles with various opponents, his death and his apotheosis as well as his post-mortem existence in Olympus. Herakles was widely worshipped as a god and a hero. His presence in literature is also covering a wide scope of genres: from the earliest Greek epic to lyric, tragic, satyr and comic poetry, philosophical essays and love poetry. He is one of the most –if not the most– easily recognizable mythical figure in art, his image being familiar throughout antiquity up to the present day. As expected, the bibliography on the “Herakles” theme is equally expansive. Galinsky 1972 and more recently Stafford 2012 offer comprehensive studies on Herakles’ varying presentation in Greek art and literature.

11 death he gains immortality and he is granted the special advantages of gods. Whereas this inconsistency between his divine and heroic qualifications is not unique in the mythical corpus,9 it has been presumed that his dual nature as a ἥρως θεὸς as well as the ambiguities inherent in his persona deterred tragic poets from dramatizing his sufferings.10 And whereas Euripides needs to humanize Herakles in order to fit this heroic magnitude to his tragic plot, Sophocles chooses to deprive him of the protagonist role, saving this part for Deianeira for most of Trachiniae.11 To a great extent, discussions focusing on the last part of the play have centred around four basic axes: (i) the unusual brutality and egocentricity of Sophoclean Herakles, which can be considered disturbing, at least on the grounds of modern ethical conceptions; (ii) the incomprehensible request to Hyllos to marry Iole; (iii) the alluded-to or silenced apotheosis, and (iv) the fulfillment of the divine plan, and more importantly of Zeus’ plan, through the oracles and the divine course of action. Moving backward towards the first part of the play, we notice that, in general, earlier scholarship on Trachiniae was eager to take sides in the debate concerning the guilt or innocence of Deianeira, either arguing in order to acquit her on the grounds of her intentions or her husband’s unacceptable behaviour, or condemn her by proving the opposite. From the beginning of the 20th century and until the late 1980s, the most popular trend regarding Deianeira’s culpability was to see her as an ideal wife whose mistake is a kind of Aristotelian ἁμαρτία (“failure”). These scholars who see a portrait of an exemplary wife –modeled on Penelope’s mould– drawn in the first part of Trachiniae find it hard to understand her so- called deception of the chorus and Lichas or her involvement in sending the poisonous robe. Thus, her compassionate nature has often been complemented with an innocent naivety or

9 Asclepius, Dioskouroi, Dionysus et al. are other pretenders to the hero-god status. See Stafford 2010, 229- 230. 10 Ehrenberg 1946, 144-166; Galinsky 1972, 41; Silk 1985, 1-22. On tragic Herakles, also see Papadimitropoulos 2008, 131-138, who discusses Soph. Trach. and Eur. HF to suggest a shared conception of Herakles as tragic hero between the two dramatists (as the conflict between the human and the divine aspect of the hero). For the ambiguities of Herakles’ character and the way Sophocles deploys the Homeric text as a template to ironically comment on these ambiguities, see Liapis 2006, 48-59. 11 The play is performed by three actors. According to the most plausible allocation of roles the first actor (πρωταγωνιστής) is assigned with the roles of Deianeira and Herakles, the second actor (δευτεραγωνιστής) with Hyllos’ and Lichas’ parts, and the third actor (τριταγωνιστής) with the Nurse’s, the Messenger’s and the Old Man’ parts. See Davies 1991, xxxix, Easterling 1982, 1-2. The transformation of the first male actor in female to perform Deianeira’s part and finally back to male to perform Herakles’ part, as well as the general challenging of gender distinctions in Trach., has been seen as calling attention to disruptions of sexual regulation in the reality of male theatrical tragic space (Hicks 1992, 77-84). On the grounds of Ringer’s metatheatre approach to Trach. (Ringer 1998, 51-66), the assignment of both roles to the same actor suggests “through theatrical convention the dysfunctional nature of their relationship” (Ringer 1998, 52).

12 even foolishness.12 Another characterization, obviously connected to her female ‘physis’ and enhanced by the fact that Deianeira very early in the prologue of the drama is shown to be reluctant to take action and reliant on the nurse’s advice, is that of her impracticality and lack of initiative.13 It has also been claimed that deception is alien to her character,14 but she can equally be seen as acting impulsively,15 or out of an uncontrollable sexual passion for Herakles that blurs her ability to make considered decisions.16 Early traces of Deianeira’s guilt can be detected already at the beginning of the twentieth century when Errandonea argued that Sophocles did not innovate but followed the tradition of Deianeira the violent murderer. Thus, the Sophoclean Deianeira, accurately reflecting the etymology and the tradition of her name, deliberately deceives the chorus and orchestrates her husband’s murder by poison in order to get revenge for his infidelity. Following Müller, who was first to point out similarities between Deianeira and Clytemnestra, Errandonea suggested that the behaviour of Clytemnestra of Aeschylus, as well as that of Medea and Hermione of Euripides (in Medea and Andromache respectively), offer close parallels to the Sophoclean heroine.17 Ever since, Deianeira has been read by several modern critics in the view of the Aeschylean counter-model either to point out similarities or to juxtapose differences.18 Similarly, a fragment thought to belong to the epic Οἰχαλίας ἅλωσις, which mentions Medea’s murder of Creon by means of φάρμακα, has also been considered to provide evidence of an early epic figure who deliberately murders her husband, as well as an analogy to Deianeira’s intentional crime.19

12 Jebb 1892, xxxviii; Wilamowitz 1917, 148; Kirkwood 1941, 205; Whitman 1951, 103–121; Kamerbeek 1959; Kitto 1966, 173 (“simple-mindedness”); Easterling 1968, 63 (“compassionate”); Wender 1974, 2 (“good and depressed”); Segal 1977, 125 (“naivete” and “ignorance”); March 1987, 50 (“well intentioned but foolish”). 13 See, e.g., Bowra 1944, 120; McCall 1972, 147. Hester is speaking about the paradox existing between the pre-Sophoclean husband-slayer and the Sophoclean exemplary noble wife and suggests that the deception speech “sets the seal upon the paradox of Deianeira before Sophocles proceeds to its solution” (Hester 1980, 8). 14 Bowra 1944, 124. More recently Effe 1995, 229-246 argues that Sophocles’ play challenged male attitudes and sought to modify them by manoeuvering the audience into identifying and sympathizing with Deianeira, and viewing Herakles in an uncomplimentary light (as cited in Heiden 2012, 130, n.3). 15 McCall 1972; Gellie 1972, 55; Hester 1980, 8; March 1987, 67. 16 Easterling 1968; Winnington-Ingram 1980, 80-90. Holt 1981, 69, speaks of “a fierce erotic passion which Deianeira clearly feels but only occasionally mentions”. Cf. Parry’s reading of the conflation of eros and the Furies in Trach. (Parry 1986, 103-114). 17 Müller 1904, 403; Errandonea 1927, 145-164. Cf. Pozzi 1996, who is not much interested in defending or accusing Deianeira but starts from the etymology defended by Errandonea in order to suggest that the reference to the slaying of men in Deianeira's name is likely to have alluded, in a mythic tradition, perhaps earlier than any of our texts, to her father's actions rather than to her own. 18 E.g. See Webster 1936, 164-180; Wender, 1974, 1-17; Easterling 1982, 21-22; Parry 1986, 103-114; Garner 1990, 100-104; Schlesier 1993, 89-114; Wohl 1998, 25; Lyons 2012, 77-90; Kratzer 2013, 23-63. 19 Stoessl 1945, 27-57. For parallels between Medea and Deianeira, also see Tyrrell and Brown 1991, 115-119. Whereas not refuting that Deianeira may originally have been conceived in the Medea type, Davies

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The 1980s were marked by several important studies that introduced new aspects of the play and distracted scholars from the out-dated dilemma of innocence or guilt. Within this trend, Segal’s structural readings of Trachiniae can be considered as some of the most well- read and oft-cited studies of the play. In his 1977 essay, Segal had already noticed that the play dramatizes opposed system of values between savagery/nature and culture, placing the spectator “at the frontier between man and beast, between civilization and primitive animal drives”.20 In his book published a few years later, in 1981, Segal applied Lévi-Strauss’ conclusions on the fundamental opposition between savagery and civilization in Sophocles’ tragedy –an opposition which indeed unleashed a Pandora's box in terms of interpreting classical texts on the grounds of bipolarity– when he noted that this contrast is sharper in Trachiniae than in any other Sophoclean play.21 Later, in 1992, following Seaford’s anthropological/ritualistic readings, which examined the way Trachiniae and tragedy, in general, presents nuptial rituals in a reversed way,22 Segal presented a detailed reading of marriage as a perversion of the normal order.23 Within this nuptial framework, many scholars noticed the significant role that Deianeira’s and Herakles’ marriage is playing in Trachiniae; Patterson, for example, argued that their marriage “functions as a sort of negative model of marriage to the same extent that the marriage of Penelope and Odysseus is a positive model”.24 The 1980s also marked a shift in the way the theme of knowledge, which was traditionally approached as ‘late learning’, was understood.25 Moving away from the Aristotelian schema of the tragic character’s ignorance,26 it was suggested that the uncertain

discourages the theory that early epic provides evidence for the theory that Οἰχαλίας ἅλωσις mentioned Medea’s poisoning of Creon in order to provide an analogy to Deianeira’s murderous action (Davies 1989, 469- 472). Schmakeit also argues against the similarities between the stories of Deianeira and Medea (Schmakeit 2001, 659-674). 20 Segal 1977/1995, 27. 21 Segal 1981, 60. 22 Seaford, 1986, 50-59; Seaford 1987, 106-130. Seaford’s conclusions are also followed by Rehm 1994, 72-83, whose study focuses on the conflation of marriage and death ritual in tragedy. 23 Segal 1992/1995, 69-94. 24 Patterson 2012, 389. For the connection between Trach. and Hom. Od., also see Stoessl 1945, 35 and Segal 1981, 81. 25 In readings of Trach. that approach the characters’ actions on the grounds of an oedipal tragic ignorance (see, e.g., Whitman 1951, 103-121 and Easterling 1982, 3-4), ‘late learning’ has been seen as a leitmotif that applies to all basic roles; had Deianeira, Hyllos and Herakles known before acting, they probably would not have acted as they did: Deianeira wouldn’t have sent the poisoned robe, Hyllos wouldn’t have irreversibly blamed his mother and Herakles wouldn’t have introduced Iole as a new bride. But then, had they not acted as they did, we would not have had this tragedy. 26 Aristotle was the first critic to note that in a successful tragedy suspense should be constructed on the scheme of tragic ignorance. Αs part of his discussion of ἔλεος and φόβος in Poet. (14. 1453b1-1454a15), he argued for the benefits of tragic ignorance, by positively evaluating tragedies in which the tragic action was

14 way information is presented in Trachiniae as well as the frequency of cognitive and perceptual expressions indicate that the play echoes epistemological skepticism.27 Later, Solmsen’s suggestion for the interpretation of the chorus’ warning in lines 588-593, as a call to caution on the basis of knowledge derived from experience instead of action influenced a number of new suggestions about Deianeira’s deed.28 So, Heiden studied the play’s rhetorical strategies to show that “the character’s faulty theories of knowledge indicated rhetorical techniques that lured the characters and the play’s spectators as well into illusion and error”.29 Knowledge was also approached through a narratological perspective by Kraus, who analysed the extended narrative parts of Trachiniae and suggested that “the stories in the play, which reach into the distant past in order to shed light on the present, are closely connected with Trachiniae’s major preoccupations: knowledge and learning, past and present’.30 Modern criticism, acknowledging the ambiguity inherent in mythic discourse and the complexity of the dramatic characters of Greek tragedy, has also re-examined the criteria of Deianeira’s guilt. Ryzman’s ethical analysis sees Deianeira as a complicated and contradictory figure who may have “unwittingly transgressed natural laws, although she has attempted to retain her moral values”. So, “whilst she attempts to retain warm, compassionate qualities and rise above feelings of bitterness, at the same time we can find indications of other characteristics which draw her closer to the destructive forces represented by the centaur and elements of his world, such as the poisonous ointment”.31 Similarly, Gasti’s ethical analysis finds Deianeira guilty of an offence against natural law, as she totally misunderstands the natural laws that govern the sequence of events. Thus, against the dilemma between an inward and outward morality that she faces, she chooses to act in secrecy in order to avoid social criticism.32

either performed in ignorance (i.e. action preceded ἀναγνώρισις, as in Soph. OT) or was about to be performed in ignorance and knowledge prevented action (i.e. ἀναγνώρισις prevented action, as in Eur. IT); while he ranked in a lower position tragedies in which the tragic persona had knowledge and action was either taken (as in Eur. Med.) or not (as in Soph. Ant. where Haimon threatens his father), namely tragic plots which lacked ἀναγνώρισις (for a discussion of these lines and the discrepancies concerning them, see Else 1957, 421- 451). 27 Lawrence 1978, 288-304. For different levels of knowledge, also see Roselli 1982, 9-37. For the limits of human knowledge in Soph., see Liapis 1997 (in Trach., 121-192). 28 Solmsen 1985, 490-496. Also see Schwab 2006, 33–55 who agrees with Solmsen. Blössner 2002, 217–251 argues against Solmsen’s translation of line 592. 29 Heiden 2012, 132. The main analysis is in Heiden 1989. 30 Krauss 1991, 76. 31 Ryzman 1991, 385, 391. 32 Gasti 1993, 20-28.

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Psychoanalysis has also offered sophisticated analyses of Deianeira’s innermost intentions. Slater’s early reading of the play on the grounds of family dynamics and mother- son relationships of Hera in a male-dominated society, read Deianeira as another figure exemplifying the maternal malevolence, inherent in Herakles’ mythical career; she simply “duplicates Hera”, while Herakles is away for so long as he is “avoiding his wife”.33 Deieneira’s subconscious repressed motives are noted by duBois, who believes that Deianeira, “like Clytemnestra and Medea, […] is a murderess, albeit against her conscious desires”,34 but also Scott, who argues that: “Deianeira herself is unaware of her own motives. She is aware only of her loving motives and has repressed all awareness of her murderous fury at Heracles’ behaviour”.35 More recently, employing insights from modern trauma research and trauma theory, Weiberg has argued that Trachiniae traces the direct connection between Deianeira’s psychological wounds and the physical wounds of her husband and dramatizes her psychological wounds as a victim of violence and sexual assault.36 Apart from the differences in approaching guilt, most of these studies acknowledge the fact that Deianeira’s intentions were innocent. However, it seems that on the grounds of the fifth-century morality, regardless of whether she acted with full knowledge or partial ignorance and carelessness, desperate risk or optimistic hope, naivety or subconscious anger, the fact remains that Deianeira caused the death of her husband and in that sense, she is to blame. To Adkins, in the fifth century intentions were of little importance, while Dodds also believes that the concept of motive in a moral sense is a very late development.37 In this line of thinking, a number of scholars have moved away from Deianeira’s defence on the grounds of innocent intentions and have applied different criteria in order to give an explanation to her error.38 Faraone, for instance, suggested that Deianeira’s actions were part of a widespread pattern in which toxic substances were generally approved and wives used love magic as they jockeyed among their competitors. But Deianeira erred in administering an incorrect dosage,

33 Slater 1968, 355, 358. For his analysis of Herakles’ character, see 337-396; for Trach., see 351-364. 34 duBois 1982, 100. 35 Scott 1997, 33. Also see Scott, 1995, 17-27. 36 Weiberg 2016, 121-190 and Weiberg 2018, 19-42. 37 Adkins 1960; Dodds 1951. 38 Yet, the value of innocent intention as mitigating evidence is acknowledged by both Hyllos and the chorus (1123, 1137, 1140). Furthermore, it has been suggested that in Trach. the archaic and the democratic systems of values, represented on the one hand by Herakles and on the other by Hyllos and the chorus, collide. As Ryzman notes: “Both Hyllus and the chorus accept good intentions as a redeeming feature of Deianeira’s behaviour. Heracles alone is an exponent of old archaic values, including the desire for revenge” (Ryzman 1991, 395). I am discussing these issues in Chapter 4, pp. 182-202.

16 thus she only needed to be tried for accidental homicide.39 Then, Caravan challenged the cardinal assumption that Sophocles’ Deianeira is guiltless in the eyes of the ancient audience and suggested that since for the Athenians an act qualifies as murder if it has a lethal result, regardless of the perpetrator’s intention, “Deianira emerges in Trachiniae as a figure endowed with innocent intentions but burdened with guilty knowledge”.40 Finally, Hall’s ethical-political reading attributed Deianeira’s mistake in her false precipitate judgment and incompetent deliberation and saw Trachiniae as “a sophisticated lesson in the activity entailed by practical deliberation –what the Greeks termed to bouleuesthai”.41 It follows from this outline that Trachiniae is a play that has provoked a variety of responses in modern criticism, having been mainly discussed with a disposition to be disassociated from (or criticised for) many types of discontinuity. So, having roughly described this reception, I will now attempt a more focused outline of the way the play has interacted with feminist criticism.

Trachiniae and Feminism

The study of ancient texts through the lens of gender studies has a long history in classical studies, while the quality and complexity of recent publications have emphasized the enduring richness and relevance of the field.42 It is only after feminist criticism recognised that we live in a patriarchal world in which women are, and have historically been, oppressed by and unequal to men that the study of ancient texts has been re-evaluated and reinforced with tools that allow us to detect the power-politics that are incorporated within the structure of the texts.43 However, there are several more ways in which feminist criticism interacts with

39 Faraone 1994, 115-135. Also see Faraone 1999, 110-119 and Faraone 2002, 400-426. Cf. Wohl 2010, 33-70, who discusses the concept of female intention and poisoning through the allusions between Antiph.’s Against the Stepmother and the tragic model of the Sophoclean Deianeira. 40 Caravan 2000, 189-237. 41 Hall 2009, 69-96. 42 A useful and extensive list of titles for the study of women and gender in antiquity (updated up to 2011 and thematically classified) is provided on the “Diotima” website: http://www.stoa.org/diotima/biblio.shtml. For a review of the literature up to 2015, one can take the bibliographical appendices of recent publications as a guide: Hubbard 2014; Blondell and Ormand 2015; Masterson, Rabinowitz and Robson 2015. Blondell and Ormand 2015 offer a useful introduction that surveys developments in scholarship in the study of ancient sex and gender since 1990, when the post-Foucauldian ground was defined by three new publications (Halperin 1990; Halperin, Winkler and Zeitlin 1990 and Winkler 1990). 43 I need to acknowledge and stress at the outset that, despite what can be taken as a ‘dominant’ and biased concern with women throughout this thesis and although I may not stress it that often, my use of ‘maleness ‘, ‘mascular’, ‘masculinity’, ‘male’ etc. does take it for granted that, as with women, these concepts denote socially constructed qualities that are stereotypically connected with men. Men and masculinities are different

17 ancient texts, besides the recognition of the power structures in which one side was valorized and the other subordinated. In ancient writing, we may also trace feminist seeds, uncover silenced voices or imagine alternatives within hegemonic hierarchies. We may also use models of the past to better understand the politics of the present, or even resituate tragedy within a modern and more inclusive model of interpretation. Tragedy, in particular, has greatly benefited from being treated by feminist readers.44 In the male-dominated world of Greek tragedy, where all-male playwrights too often exploit female characters,45 in order to address the all-male audience,46 as well as explore public issues via all-male actors, a paradox of gender identities emerges at the outset. Under these circumstances, female tragic voices offer a complex multifocal perspective through which female discourse is enunciated. This striking prominence of the female in tragedy becomes even more emblematic if one considers the status of real women in contemporary Athenian society, that is to say, the fact that, in general, women in ancient Athens were considered minors and were excluded from public life.47 Therefore, as far as tragedy is concerned, feminist scholarship has assumed the fundamental precondition that the female voices of this genre are always mediated by the interests and conventions of a male-authored and male- directed genre. It is not then surprising that within this genre, female agency, motivation and sexuality tends to be generalized as destructive, or at least problematic.48 It is almost forty-five years since Pomeroy inaugurated the field of ‘women in the ancient world’ with her ground-breaking social history on ancient women (1975). Although her approach to tragedy as a potential source for the lives of contemporary women is now outdated, her contribution is commonly accepted as highly valuable. Soon after Pomeroy, female tragic women were no longer mirrors of real women but, as Foley saw them, a cultural concept operating in the symbolic systems of drama, namely “characters which grew out of

things. On the one hand, men are not a unified group while, on the other, all things that men do are not masculine and all things masculine are not necessarily done by men. 44 Foley 2002, 6-12, Wohl 2005, 145-160 and Skinner 2014, 1-16 offer comprehensive introductions to the way classicists and tragedy interacted with feminism. 45 If not playing the first role, female characters play substantial parts in all of the surviving plays of the three tragedians, while Soph. Phil. is the only extant tragedy that contains no female character at all. 46 All-male audience is a matter of debate which has not yet reached a conclusion. On the question of women’s presence in the theatre, see Podlecki 1990, Henderson 1991; Goldhill 1994, 347-369; Katz 1998, 105-124. 47 Although they were excluded from important civic institutions, e.g. voting, I am of the opinion that women played significant roles in Athenian culture as participants in public and private religious rituals and festivals, as caretakers within households, and of course as reproducers of children. For the significance of their role in ritual practice, see Goff 2004. 48 See, e.g. Zeitlin 1985, 63-94; Rabinowitz 1993; Goldhill 1995, 149; Wohl 1998; McClure 1999; Foley 2001.

18 their psychological, religious, political, and social lives and problems”.49 Zeitlin also saw women operating as symbols within the gendered structures of drama, but, differing slightly from Foley’s socio-historical approach, she examined the ways the female functions within the (thematic, metaphoric, visual, and spatial) codes of a literary text and suggested that tragedy projects this opposition between male and female to other cultural polarities in order to address fundamental concerns of the male society.50 This productive intersection of tragedy and feminism that appeared in the 1980s proved fruitful in many anthropological or sociological studies of the next decade, studies that sought to explore the relationship between tragedy and the sociocultural environment.51 As a political and ideological institution, tragedy was seen to interact with cultural norms in many, often diverse and complex, ways, that is, by reflecting but also shaping and reaffirming or even subverting and challenging established social structures. Within this fruitful interaction between gender studies and antiquity, Trachiniae also attracted the interest of feminist criticism. As noted, feminist critique has provided a different perspective in the study of ancient texts, including tragedy. Then, given that Trachiniae is a play about sex and sexual opposites, the study of the play in the light of feminist criticism had the potential to make a decisive step towards the understanding of Deianeira’s motives. However, when one is attempting to approach the bibliography of tragic women studied through the perspective of gender studies via, for instance, the extensive list of titles on the ‘Diotima’ website, she/he might be struck by the fact that Deianeira has provoked less interest, in comparison with other “detrimental” tragic women. So far, feminist research on Greek tragedy has dissected in detail Euripides’ female protagonists – a feminist Medea taking the lioness’s share of attention, with Phaedra, Alcestis, Helen and the other dramatic characters close on her heels together with Aeschylus’ Clytemnestra. As far as Sophocles and the female figures that appear in his extant plays are concerned, we may note that while Antigone is the subject of growing interest, Deianeira and Electra receive less attention. It is not only this imbalance in interest that encourages me to attempt a redefinition of the dynamics of the female in Sophocles’ Trachiniae. It is also the fact that in general, whenever Deianeira is interpreted in terms of a gendered dualism, it is often in the context of classifying her as an insufficient or foreclosed subject, or an innocent and victimized object

49 Foley 1981, 36. 50 Zeitlin 1978, 149-184 and Zeitlin1985, 63-94. 51 E.g., Winkler and Zeitlin 1990 and Goff 1995. Within this trend, many studies focused on marriage as the fundamental structure of kinship and social exchange: Loraux 1984/1993; Rabinowitz 1993; Wohl 1998; Ormand 1999; Foley 2001.

19 which is excluded by any activity that involves deliberation. Or, on the other, in the context of fostering a trend towards assuming systemic sexism which renders her guilty in terms of a presumed male-dominated audience and aligns her with other well-known female figures, harbingers of misery (Clytemnestra, Pandora, Medea etc.). In this sense, the Sophoclean Deianeira is simultaneously engaging in a conversation with both Penelope and Clytemnestra, as the extreme ends in a continuum presenting marital virtue; but she is to let both of them down, as Deianeira is too modest to be a Clytemnestra and too dark/Amazonian to be a Penelope. Feminist interest in Trachiniae was first recorded in the 1980s. However, a premature feminist discovery was that with Deianeira being “a recognizable fifth-century Athenian woman, dependent, domestic, submissive, timid, secretive, ‘good’, and ‘depressed’, the “Trachiniae comes closer than either Oresteia or Medea to a real examination of the fundamental social and sexual problems of men and women”.52 In Wender’s view, Deianeira, far from being a heroic figure of tragedy, can hardly claim the protagonist role: “It is as if Sophocles had chosen to write a tragedy around Ismene or Chrysothemis, rather than Antigone and Electra”. But, be that as it may, it is now generally accepted that in Greek tragedy, a highly elaborated and stylized theatrical genre, female figures played far more significant and complicated roles than they did in the real world, and that is, of course, a statement applicable to males as well. Furthermore, the gender system of Trachinae is a tangled network of signs and signifiers, exemplary for the examination of gender identities in ancient texts, which is by far too intricate to be fit into a dualistic scheme of exemplary gender roles. Thus, Trachiniae is the text most quoted – among Bacchae, Oresteia, Medea and Hippolytus– in order to support Zeitlin’s case in her influential early essay on gender and tragedy.53 Trachiniae serves as an example to give substance to Zeitlin’s arguments in many ways. Either to suggest that in tragedy women are not ends themselves: “She (sc. Deianeira) is the agent designated to fulfill the deceptive, riddling oracles which predict the tragic destiny of Heracles rather than a well-earned respite from his labors here on earth. She kills herself offstage in remorse, but his are the sufferings we witness publicly on stage, and it is he who, in his first and last appearance before us, provides the climax and resolution of the drama”.54 Or to argue that in the gender system of tragedy “the role of representing the

52 Wender 1974, 2. 53 Zeitlin 1985, 63-94. 54 Zeitlin 1985, 67.

20 corporeal side of life in its helplessness and submission to constraints is primarily assigned to women”.55 The play is also exploited to substantiate the normative pattern of the female being associated with plot construction and dolos: “Heracles too practices deception, first to conquer the girl Iole, the current object of his erotic desire and the immediate cause of all his woe, and then to introduce her secretly into the house. But in his case, deception returns quite literally (and most dramatically) against him. […] The point is that innocent as Deianeira may be of conscious intent to harm her husband, she still easily proves a better and more successful plotter than he”.56 Zeitlin agrees with the view that as a general principle in tragedy the female is identified with the destructive interior/house in which the absent hero returns “either never to enter through its doors again […] or to meet with his own destruction within”.57 Similarly, for duBois Deianeira is a heroine who allows her Aetolian and Amazonian past to penetrate into the Athenian polis and disrupt the social normality. So, like the Hydra’s poison, hidden in the innermost parts of the oikos, she embodies the Other, the symbolic difference and the undercurrent danger to the polis. Like Zeitlin, duBois sees Deianeira as an agent rather than consisting an end herself; thus, she operates on two levels, as the victim of Nessos and as a destructive force of violence.58 However, rather than understanding Trachiniae as a drama of sexual opposites, duBois speaks about a confusion of gender categories. So, Herakles is both the preserver, who is standing in the centre of the polis and is fighting against his enemies, and the destroyer of the polis. For her, the play “treats the problematic of differentiation not as definition through oppositions, but centres rather on the central figure in the polis, the human subject, the man who exchanges women within the city. The polis is the terrain of his existence, and he acts out his life within its circumference, keeping his enemies, animals as well as barbarians, the alien and the monstrous, at bay outside the circle of exchange”.59 Within this scheme, the male subject both defines himself in agonistic relationship to the Other but is also the locus of the collapse of traditional polarities. This collapse is detected, for example, at the end of Trachiniae when Herakles is completely emasculated: “At critical

55 Zeitlin 1985, 71. 56 Zeitlin 1985, 77. 57 Zeitlin 1985, 73. 58 DuBois 1982, 103-104 (for Trach., 95-109). As opposed to Zeitlin’s literary approach, duBois’s reading of the play focused less “on the play as a literary text, and more on the cultural assumptions about species and sexual difference which the tragedy explores” (duBois 1982, 106, n.2). Also see duBois 1979, 35-49 (on Nessos’ rape), duBois 1988, 151-156 (on Trach.) and 130-166 (on women as tablets in general). 59 DuBois 1982, 102.

21 moments in the best of tragedies, as in this scene of Herakles’ death, there is a fusion of oppositions, a released dialectic, which plays upon the audience’s pity and fear, and demands an examination of the traditional categories of difference”.60 On the grounds of the contradictory attributes inherent in Herakles’ persona, Loraux discussed the fusion of gender categories as an essential feature of the popular Greek hero.61 Herakles is a mythical configuration that exemplifies how the Greek male, in order to enhance his virility, appropriates all or some part of the feminine; that is to say, elements resembling the regulated practice of its irregularity. Thus, the feminine element represented by the figure of Herakles is a necessary condition demanded by his masculinity: “An excess of virility leaves Herakles’ strength in constant danger of being exhausted, and so it is appropriate for him periodically to return to a more reasonable level of male energy. Given Herakles’ own ambivalence, such equilibrium will always be unstable, and he can only acquire it by balancing one excess against another –a surplus of femininity against an excess of masculinity. The feminine element in Herakles is essential, in that it is a major factor in keeping him within the human limits of andreia (maleness/masculinity)”.62 Drawing on this paradox of gender symbols, Trachiniae presents the warrior who suffers like a woman juxtaposed to the woman who dies like a warrior.63 These fundamental feminist readings of Trachiniae gave way to the renewed interest that came from studies appearing in the 1990s, which examined the play from the view of marriage and the orderly exchange of women through marriage as the elementary mechanisms of establishing kinship in the patriarchal world.64 The problematic exchanges of the play had already been observed earlier by scholars. DuBois, for example, had pointed out that in Trachiniae the circle of human exchange of women, the most central institution founding the city, is violated by the bestial Centaur Nessos and his contaminating act of attempted rape. On the other hand, through the final act of Hyllos’ betrothal, the play considers the necessity for a degree of endogamy for the preservation of the city and for the reproduction of a family.65

60 DuBois 1982, 105. 61 Loraux 1982/1995, 116-139. 62 Loraux 1982/1995, 129. 63 On Herakles’ and Deianeira’s deaths see Loraux 1987 and Loraux 1995, 39-43. 64 Rabinowitz’ study on Eur. (1993) is an early account of this trend. For her analysis of Trach., see Rabinowitz 1992, 44-46. For her, Trach. is another example of a play that “clearly defines the female as destructive, as since Deianeira’s attempt to protect her marriage (inadvertently) kills Heracles”, 44. 65 DuBois 1982, 96-98, 102.

22

Αlmost simultaneously, at the end of the 1990s, two important studies on Trachiniae under the light of exchange, marriage and homosociality were published. Sedgwick had analysed male desire within a system of ‘homosocial’ bonding between men, in order to suggest that women are central to this system but at the same time, they are radically excluded from the same system.66 Elaborating on Sedgwick’s model of interpretation, Ormand discussed marriage in Sophoclean tragedy as a homosocial exchange between men, in which women are objects who may attempt, but always fail, to become self-acting subjects. In general, Ormand emphasised the failure of Sophoclean marriage to offer women any sense of fulfilment or completion, whether they are virgins failing to attain marriage, or married women longing endlessly for intimacy or the opportunity for further children. In his analysis of Trachiniae, he suggested that Herakles only sees marriage as a relation between men, while Deianeira falsely believes that she is a subject in her own marriage but fails to understand her marginal status, the fact that she is simply an agent in homosocial relations among men.67 Within a similar line of thinking, Wohl argued that “the transfers of Deianira and Iole both emerge at a point on the spectrum of male homosocial relations where aggression and eroticism intersect: the relations generated by these exchanges are driven simultaneously by a desire for domination and a homoerotic desire”.68 For her, the rejected and murdered body of the female subject reaffirms the fundamental system of homosocial bonding: “Owned completely and known entirely, she [‘the female other’] is a fantasy of absolute proprietorship, of male self-presence and epistemological certainty, like the female house that in Trachiniae conceals a male bed, the heroine’s deathbed. The divisive female subject is rejected and reduced; her murdered body becomes the token in the Oedipal identification between father and son, a fetishized gift that binds men one to another”.69 This line of interpretation, however, leaves the woman outside the male sphere of homoerotic desire for domination, downgrades her into an object which is marginal to the homosocial negotiations and underestimates or conceals the violence that the female subject experiences. Τo make amends for this injustice, Wohl acknowledges, tragedy also reveals the artificiality and violence of the systems it eventually reaffirms: “The homosocial world is reinaugurated, but in the process attention is drawn to its constitutive exclusions, its brutal,

66 On male homosociality, see Sedgwick 1985. 67 Ormand 1999,14-18, 36-59, 68 Wohl 1998, 18. 69 Wohl 1998, 179; also see Rabinowitz 1993, part III.

23 often murderous denial of difference”.70 Thus, she suggests that Deianeira’s attempt to participate in the male territory of contest and gift exchange, despite failing and in reality justifying female exclusion, succeeds in questioning the economy of heroism.71 As far as the question of female subjectivity is concerned, Wohl concluded that Deianeira’s attempt to participate in the male activities of gift exchange and competition, which are the loci of the male subject-formation, in fact, valorizes the same structures that reproduce her subjection and reaffirms the formation of the masculine subject.72 In respect to Deianeira’s claim to the position of a subject, Ormand found her guilty for appropriating a subjectivity preserved for males.73 In general, he argued that the literary texts, being the product of a society structured on the basis of homosocial bonding, fail to imagine a female erotic subjectivity. So, when trying to describe marriage as a transformation for the woman, they either portray the transformation as a failure, or fail to describe the transformation, or both.74 On these grounds, Trachiniae calls attention to the woman’s experience, only to translate that experience into an expression of subjectivity that is by and for men. Deianeira’s claim for subjectivity through her transition to the status of wife and her marriage is failed, as she wants to fulfil the traditional feminine role, to be desired by her husband, but fails to see that the only important relationships for Herakles are the homosocial ones. She only succeeds in becoming a subject when she enters the masculine bestial Herculean world and becomes part of Herakles’s homosocial context, listed among his enemies and causing his death. Ultimately, any resistance to the masculine point of view (like her way of dying) is circumscribed by the inexpressibility of female subjectivity.75 Deianeira is, finally, found guilty again in Lyons’ more recent analysis. Lyons returned to anthropological kinship models but focused on the materiality of the gifts (e.g. she examined the difference between metal and cloth gifts) and on the ways gifts are symbolically and economically coded in ancient Greek thought. In her reading, Deianeira is aligned with Clytemnestra (Pandora, the archetypal woman releasing evil for men, being their mythic predecessor) as examples of mythical figures that transform textiles into husband- killing weapons.76

70 Wohl 1998, 180. 71 Wohl 1998, 17-28. 72 Wohl 1998. 73 Ormand 1999. 74 Ormand 1999, 27. 75 Ormand 1999, 36-59. 76 Lyons 2012, 77-90.

24

Where Does the Feminine Belong: Thesis Outline and Theoretical Preface

Outline of the Thesis’ Structure

This thesis will take a broad spectrum as its starting point; this will embrace young women yet to be married (i.e. the chorus), a girl violently seized from the paternal home and about to be “married” (i.e. Iole) and a physically, intellectually and emotionally mature wife (i.e. Deianeira). In this light, I will address a series of individual topics, such as the female confronted with bestiality, the destructive nature of beauty, the contrast between youth and maturity, the female as subject and object of transaction or the transitional wedding ritual and its reversal. In particular, in the first chapter of this thesis, I will argue that Deianeira’s Amazonian prehistory introduces from the outset a paradoxical and unstable symbol of similarity and difference that creates a tension between masculinity and femininity. Following that, in the second chapter, I will discuss the remote and monstrous un-political setting that is defined by a number of disclaimers of marriage and by illicit sexualities, namely Herakles and his monstrous competitors (Acheloos, Nessos), in order to see how this world is juxtaposed to Deianeira’s world and societal sustainability. Within the blurred boundaries of gender distinctions of Trachiniae, it is striking that Sophocles is projecting onto the female pole the sustainability of the oikos, while using the male to project its destruction. Next, in the third chapter, through a discussion of the marital narratives of the drama, I will follow the way this untamable and irregular material is civilized to be included within a structure that repeatedly refers to marriage and its reversal. With this Amazon being placed within the civilized arrangement of an oikos, the play negotiates the locus of the female and comments on the necessity of the monstrous to be exiled from the polis. In the fourth chapter, I will analyze the way Deianeira interacts with the monstrous Centaur and the problematic of this exchange, which I read as the reasonable and unpreventable consequence of an already corroded network of reciprocities. As a follow up to this exchange, I will look closer at the play’s proposal as far as the consequences of this deed are concerned and in relation to different systems of justice. Finally, in my last chapter, I will examine the end of the play within the frame of the patriarchal structures of ancient tragedy, and in particular in view of dramatic and patriarchal authority. With Deianeira being absent, this concluding part seems to function as a defense against the prostration of gender boundaries and as an attempt to reinstate the order. Still, Hyllos’ stance provokes a protest against this attempt, a protest which succeeds in enhancing the dynamics of negotiation the play implies.

25

In order to elucidate this brief outline, it is important to include here some methodological remarks and discuss in more detail more specific theoretical issues that came to light during my research on gender politics in Trachiniae. I will start with a discussion of the concept of the female subject, a critical question of feminist theory, which has raised intense and extensive debate.

The Female Subject

It is widely and commonly accepted that within the structures of Athenian democracy and democratic tragedy, the tragic subject is a male subject. Vernant, for instance, suggested that Athenian tragedy introduced a new discourse on the subject which implicated the citizen of democratic Athens. Greek tragedy “involved the creation of a ‘subject’, a tragic consciousness, the introduction of tragic man. Similarly, the works of the Athenian dramatists express and elaborate a tragic vision, a new way for man to understand himself and take up his position in relation to the world, the gods, other people, himself, and his own actions”.77 At the same time, it is equally accepted that the female is considered incompetent as per its potentiality to claim subjectivity; that is, to deliberately engage in the tragic plot as an agent of action. As Zeitlin puts it, “functionally women are never an end in themselves, and nothing changes for them once they have lived out their drama onstage. Rather, they play the role of catalysts, agents, instruments, blockers, spoilers, destroyers, sometimes helpers or saviors for the male characters”.78 On the other hand, tragic women, as opposed to real Athenian women, do speak and act, claiming the position of the subject within a system that de facto objectifies them, namely a system which considers them the object of male activity. This is the paradox of female subjectivity in Athenian tragedy, and it is this exact point that has caused serious debate for feminist critique on tragic texts. Because although feminist ideology speaks about a systemic objectification of the female that too often excludes the potentiality of female subjectivity, tragic texts have been seen as a locus of – limited from its very outset and eventually foreclosed but still detectable– potential resistance. On these grounds, in order for the female to be constructed as an acting and speaking subject, it needs to temporarily appropriate a kind of subjectivity. From this provisional and precarious position, the female construct makes possible a multifaceted scan within the male-dominated world of drama. As Wohl puts it, the female subject in tragedy is a very useful construct, as it entails “a dynamic of critique

77 Vernant, 1988, 240. 78 Zeitlin 1985, 67.

26 foreclosed”, which operates dynamically in different directions exploring various possibilities:

The woman’s failed attempt to participate in the system that oppresses her achieves a multiple purpose: first, it reaffirms the system, which is posited as the only valid forum for subject formation; second, it allows for an institutionalized (and therefore contained) form of resistance to the system, a critique that questions without undermining the basic structure; and third, while allowing that critique to be voiced, it delegitimizes anyone who voices it, thus reinscribing the repressed status of the critique and the hegemonic status of the system and its legitimate participants. This dynamic of critique foreclosed is in part, I suggest, what makes the female subject so useful a construct in tragedy.79

How does this dynamic function in Trachiniae? As I will suggest in my discussion on the act of sending the robe (fourth chapter), despite the fact that Deianeira’s failure in her transaction with Herakles can be seen as embodying structural elements that are located to the sphere of the female (e.g. secrecy, association with magic, destructiveness), this failure cannot be simply seen as a ‘natural defect’ of the female but as another aspect of a generalised crisis in reciprocal relations presented in the play. In fact, the exchange between Herakles and Deianeira is not simply an exchange ‘with a woman’ but it is, in fact, an exchange between men, and it is exactly because of the mediation of the monster, that this exchange is destructive. However, this is a suggestion that raises a theoretical question: If Deianeira was designed to unwittingly turn into a Clytemnestra, what kind of control did she have over her action; in other words, how does this affect her agency? Deianeira may be seen as a passive object, trapped within the structures of the male- centred society which objectifies her. Thus, what originally seemed like an exchange between Herakles and Deianeira proved to be another male agon between Herakles and Nessos, under the control of the omnipotence of Zeus.80 Nessos first violated Herakles’ marriage, by

79 Wohl 1998, 28. 80 Zeus’ omnipotence raises the significant question of the potential of human determination (in relation to the divine will) in Greek thought and especially in Greek tragedy (‘human agency’). I will not become involved in this discussion, which of course is of great significance for any discussion of the tragic, as I believe that such a debate would inevitably deviate from my focus on the political location of the female. For a comprehensive

27 attempting to get something for nothing. In turn, this violation is reciprocated by his murder by Herakles and, finally, Herakles’ death is orchestrated by the Centaur as his revenge on Herakles. On the other, the problematic reciprocities with Eurytos function as the activator of Nessos’ plan. So, through the introduction of the young maiden, Herakles is cooperating with the Centaur, being an accomplice in the execution of his own death. On the basis of this outline, Deianeira’s involvement in Herakles’ death might be interpreted as merely instrumental: the collection of the poisonous blood and the sending of the robe function as the murder weapon, in a murder that was premeditated by the Centaur and accomplished through Herakles’ own actions. The female is excluded from this scheme, while Deianeira’s participation is subjugated to both the agon between the hero and the Centaur and the poet’s superior aim to dramatize the death of a great hero. Within this line of thought, feminist readings of the play in general deny the possibility of the female subject, arguing for Deianeira simply acting as a mediator and not as an end/or a subject herself. Hence, for Zeitlin Deianeira’s role in Trachiniae is an eloquent example of the foreclosure of self-determination for the tragic female:

Although the distress and despair of Deianeira, the innocent, virtuous wife, commands our attention for most of the play, and although she loses none of our sympathy when unwittingly destroying her husband Heracles for love of him, we come to realize that her entire experience, her actions and reactions, are in truth a route for achieving another goal, the real telos or end of the drama. She is the agent designated to fulfill the deceptive, riddling oracles which predict the tragic destiny of Heracles rather than a well- earned respite from his labors here on earth. She kills herself offstage in remorse, but his are the sufferings we witness publicly on stage, and it is he who, in his first and last appearance before us, provides the climax and resolution of the drama.81

At the same time, in order for Deianeira to be constructed as an acting and speaking subject, even if she is only seen as the agent of the Centaur, she needs to be fabricated as a

discussion of the spectrum of divine intervention and human determination in Greek tragedy and, especially, in Soph. OT, see Karakantza 2019, 131-144 (“Oedipus as a Human Agent”). 81 Zeitlin 1985, 67. Similarly, Foley 2001 notes that “wives are not expected to have the knowledge and self- control to make important independent decisions in the absence of a guardian or, ideally, to have interests that divide them from a spouse” (95-97), while elsewhere speaks about Deianeira as an example of “female moral incapacity” (116).

28 provisory subject. Female subjectivity, however, has always been seen as problematic and suspicious. So, on the one hand, whenever female subjectivity is expressed, it is too often dangerous and destructive. Ormand, for instance, sees marriage and/or erotic desire as the predominant loci to express the threatening moment of female subjectivity.82 Within this typical understanding of the female as threatening the patriarchal schemes, hence being excluded from humanness, Deianeira can be viewed as a creature analogous to the monsters Herakles confronts. As DuBois puts it:

Deianeira is in the tragedy both a heroic figure destroyed by her unwitting actions, and a creature made analogous to the monsters who battle with Herakles in his many labors [my emphasis]. She has an Amazon name; unlike the bull, the birds, the Amazons, she destroys him. Deianeira, like Clytemnestra, is a murderess even though she is the agent of another, the Centaur, the barbarian other whose attack on civilization was an attempt to gain power over her. In her act of unconscious violence, she becomes a figure analogous to him, not simply a victim but an agent of destruction and barbaric chaos.83

Similarly, Lyons, presuming the negative connotations of the “usual gendered patterns of exchange” (i.e. the assumption that in tragic genre “exchanges between men and women are inevitably fraught with negative consequences”), examines Trachiniae along with Aeschylus’ Agamemnon as examples of destructive gift exchange and failed reciprocity within the context of a crisis in a marriage relationship.84 Lyon’s Deianeira is “a foil to Klytemnestra, for her destructive act, also marked by the arrival of a new woman in the house, arises out of her love for her husband, and her own inability to recognize the fierceness of her jealousy and desire when faced with a rival’.85 Thus, modelled on Hesiod’s μέρμερα ἔργα γυναικῶν (“the ills that women craft”, Theog. 603), Deianeira’s participation in gift exchange is suspect and destructive by the definition of its gender: the metal container as a signal that something is wrong, the actual act of accepting a gift from a man to whom a woman is not married as a violation of the norm, and the contents and the location of the container which suggest female sexual secrets of a potentially threatening nature, all point towards the incrimination of Deianeira’s act of gift giving.

82 Ormand 1999, 5-6, 16. 83 DuBois 103. 84 Lyons 2012, 5. See Chapter 5: “Tragic Gifts”, 77-90, for a discussion of Aesch. Ag. and Soph. Trach. 85 Lyons 2012, 81-82.

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On the other hand, with the female functioning as a mere instrument and Deianeira simply acting as the agent of the Centaur’s victory in the original conflict between him and the hero, heterosexual relations are subordinated to a superior order of homosocial bonding, which ultimately ignores the female. That is, in a society which is defined by a series of relationships between men, women not only fail to function as subjects but also fail to understand the broader homosocial nexus within which male relationships are established. For Ormand, whereas Deianera’s marriage constructs her as a subject (i.e. from her marriage “she derives an identity, a social position, and a sense of self”), she fails to understand that, “from Heracles’ point of view, she is not the subject of his marriage”.86 Hence, Deianeira’s tragedy rests on the fact that she only passively desires to be the object of Herakles’ desire and fails to see that she is only marginal in Herakles’ universe of homosocial relationships.87 Within this view, Deianeira’s claim to subjectivity has been seen as deriving from her attempt to be a part of the male/heroic economy of exchange. According to Lévi-Strauss, the economy of heroism is an economy built on the circulation of women by men; these exchanges establish kinship and culture and defuse hostility among men.88 But in tragedy, the disruption of the fundamental system of male bonding, including gift exchange and host- guest relations (xenia), and the exploration of a possibility of female subjectivity entail an attack on male subjectivity, dissolving social bonds and objectifying men.89 So, for Wohl, although objectifying Deianeira, Trachiniae also gives her the option to position herself as a subject by actively participating in the gift exchange of the heroic world and by entering an agon with Eros. However, in Wohl’s view, even when Deianeira is given the opportunity to claim subjectivity, it is only to explore the destructive and illegitimate potentiality of the female subject and to finally justify and re-establish the exclusion of the female from the authoritarian areas of the patriarchal society. For her, Deianeira’s subjectivity is ‘bought’ at the price of Iole’s; that is, she positions herself as a subject in a gift exchange by using Iole as an object and receiving her as a gift: “To the extent that Deianira is in fact able to occupy a legitimate position in the aristocratic gift exchange, it is only by constructing Iole as the object of exchange. […] Iole-as-object allows Heracles and Hyllus to define themselves as subjects in the final transaction of the play. Deianira, too, buys her own subjectivity at the

86 Ormand 1999, 36-37. 87 Ormand 1999, 50-55. For male homosocial desire, also see Ormand 1999, 14-18. 88 Lévi-Strauss 1963 and 1969. For feminists, Lévi-Strauss’s system of exchange is a means of reproducing normative and unequal gender relations; see, e.g., Rubin 1975, 157-210. 89 See Wohl 1998, xiii-xv, xx-xxiv. On the subject of exchange, see xxix-xxxvii.

30 price of Iole’s, thus reaffirming a system that, in the First Stasimon, had objectified her as well”.90 Since Deianeira’s subjectivity can only be sought through male paths, it is prescribed to reproduce these hegemonic structures which in fact objectify her, only to finally present the failure and delegitimising of the female subject and the reaffirmation of the system that oppresses her, by sustaining the line of exchange through the union of Hyllos and Iole.91 Thus, in the end, Deianeira’s participation is forgotten and her actions prove to have been merely instrumental in the larger conflict between Nessos and Herakles.92 Nevertheless, even if the possibility of the female subject is immediately foreclosed, from that position, Deianeira makes possible a critique of exchange.93 However, is this the only possibility of critique that can be expressed via the precarious locus of the female? I will return to this question in the next section of this introductory chapter (“Dynamic Silence”). Let me now continue this excursus with a reference to the theoretical working model, which has determined the line of my thinking and my main arguments.

‘Deianeira’s Claim’: Paraphrasing and Affirming Butler’s Model

Needless to say, feminist reading of antiquity, in general, has formed the structure of my reasoning and has provided me with the theoretical tools with which I read the play. Especially as regards Deianeira’s value as an ‘object of exchange’ which establishes kinship, I appeal to Butler’s theoretical model, as developed in her discussion of Sophocles’ Antigone.94 According to Butler, Antigone called for a renegotiation of the structures of a male-centred society, in particular the laws of kinship governing the treatment of women as goods of exchange, thus consigning them to, and consolidating, an inferior social position. As opposed to critics, such as Hegel, Lacan, or even Irigaray and other feminist readers,95 who have seen Antigone as a figure “who articulates a prepolitical opposition to politics, representing kinship as the sphere that conditions the possibility of politics without ever

90 Wohl 1998, 28. 91 Wohl 1998, 56: “Trachiniae offers Deianira the options of being either an object or a dangerous and illegitimate subject; it allows her only male models for the definition of her own subjectivity, then shows her inability to use these models and her ultimate entrapment by them. In the scene of her death, it writes man inside of woman”. 92 See Wohl 1998, 46 et passim. 93 Wohl 1998, 27-28. 94 Butler 2000. 95 As Butler (2002, 2) notes, Antigone “hardly represents a feminism that might in any way be unimplicated in the very power that it opposes. […] as a figure for politics, she points somewhere else, not to politics as a question of representation but to that political possibility that emerges when the limits to representation and representability are exposed”.

31 entering into it”, Butler denies the separation of kinship and state and positions her Antigone as having already departed from kinship.96 For Butler “Antigone’s power, to the extent that she still wields it for us, has to do not only with how kinship makes its claim within the language of the state but with the social deformation of both idealized kinship and political sovereignty that emerges as a consequence of her act. In her act, she transgresses both gender and kinship norms, and [...] exposes the socially contingent character of kinship, only to become the repeated occasion in the critical literature for a rewriting of that contingency as immutable necessity”.97 Following a route that is different but parallel to the route of Butler’s Antigone, Deianeira also poses a challenge to the system that oppresses her. Like Antigone, in her act Deianeira transgresses both gender and kinship norms. On the one hand, as I will argue in the first chapter, in terms of gender norms Deianeira introduces an unstable Amazonian symbol, which creates an unsettling subtext that continuously deregulates the stability of her presence within the play and creates cracks within her speech. Whereas Deianeira is instated on the opposite side of the monsters, representing a proficient member of the political body, which is fully aware of the official gender ideology of Classical Athens, she gradually denounces the femininity of the devoted wife who secures the safety of the oikos and coincidentally the well-being of the polis, and appropriates male qualities. Her suicide, which I will discuss in the third chapter, can be seen as her attempt to claim a posthumous masculine kleos, while her ‘mistake’, which I will discuss in the fourth chapter, nearly transports her to the irrational dark world of magic and beasts and turns her into the agent of the Centaur. Therefore, as the play progresses Deianeira abandons the world of reason and polis and moves to a non- political territory which lies beyond human cognition; this area coincides with the liminal realm of both the monsters (the extreme end of masculinity) and the Amazons (the extreme end of femininity). Within this unstable ground of blurred and dislocated gender symbols, Deianeira proved to have been a disguised Amazon, playing the role of a Penelope who was unwittingly turned into a Clytemnestra. On the other hand, the play invests in a complete reversal of the fundamental principles of kinship. Trachiniae places the female and the oikos within the political and citizenship, whereas it does not hesitate to align the male with the forces which destabilize political order. As a result, any temporal or ontological antecedence of oikos (kinship) over polis (state) is abolished while the norms of familial affiliation and marital cohabitation (i.e.

96 Butler 2000, 2. 97 Butler 2000, 6.

32 kinship) and sociality are being renegotiated in terms that define the oikos as being a prominent political entity. By denying the separation of oikos and polis, the play exposes the artificiality of the socially constructed kinship, thereby challenges the common psychoanalytic notion that presocial (‘natural’) relations determine social relations. At the same time, Deianeira’s action acquires a contradictory impetus and an additional dynamic of negotiation of kinship norms. By accepting the Centaur’s offer, keeping his poison and deciding to use it, Deianeira is violating and challenging the act of exchange, which together with the incest taboo, is taken as an elementary structure which establishes the symbolic order. Thus, she contributes to the denunciation of the vocabulary of kinship proposed in Trachiniae, and in that sense she helps to renegotiate women’s position in the oikos and their ‘value’ as goods of exchange. 98 It is, however, interesting that whereas the Centaur has deprived her of the ownership of her own act, Deianeira refuses to defend herself by delegating the responsibility to Nessos as the truly accountable for Herakles’ death. Like Antigone’s refusal to deny that it was she who performed the burial (“I am claiming ownership of my action and I am not declaring the deed void” (καὶ φημὶ δρᾶσαι κοὐκ ἀπαρνοῦμαι τὸ μή, Soph. Ant. 444), an act which, as Butler notes, refuses “the linguistic possibility of severing herself from the deed”, with her silence, Deianeira refuses to denounce ownership of her action.99 But, as we will see in the following section, through this dynamic silence, Deianeira opens up another possibility for a critique of the phallocentric order while remaining within the female strata.

Dynamic Silence

My belief is that Trachiniae also raises collateral issues about justice and non- institutionalised punishment, issues that indicate a tension between individual attitudes and communal norms, and that these issues are addressed as a consequence of Deianeira’s ‘mistake’ and through the way the characters of the drama comment on her deed. By way of a disputation on Deianeira’s ‘mistake’, which could be taken as the substitute for the missing ‘trial of Deianeira’, the play does not only comment on the tensions that the system of justice entails but also attempts to fill void ‘gaps’ that patriarchy has not managed to complement.

98 Following Butler, in her reading of Soph. OT, Karakantza has suggested that Jocasta, simultaneously being the mother and the wife, owns a heavily gendered body which undermines kinship (Karakantza 2019, 70-78: “Questions with Jocasta: Dislocating the Origin (or Jocasta’s Body and Mind)”. 99 Butler 2000, 7. This is an act that, as Butler notes, is everywhere delivered through speech acts.

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Elaborating on and disputing a long history of critical discussion on ‘phallogocentric’ discourse,100 Butler has analysed the centrality of logos (phallocentric language) and phallus as privileged sites of power that authorize the heteronormative matrix of coherent and intelligible gender norms.101 Following Butler, Athanasiou has argued that within a schematic phallocentric dichotomy between active masculine speech and passive feminine silence,102 the absence of speech-silence is a communicative device of contesting authorized linguistic forms and refuting the normative discourse of phallogocentrism.103 Within this line of reasoning, Deianeira’s stance after the anagnorisis of the consequences of her action discloses a further possibility of resistance. As I will argue in the fourth chapter, as per her sense on punishment, Deianeira is moving closer to Herakles’ and Nessos’ liminal territory, where justice is rewarded on the grounds of a pre-political distributive society, which defies the function of institutionalized law. On the other hand, whereas Deianeira’s silence relocates her in the non-political territory of Herakles and Nessos, and in that sense, it is also exiled from the discourse of the polis, through her silence she can also be seen as performing an act of dynamic resistance.104 But in contrast to Herakles’ expulsion of the political world that is defined by institutional justice, Deianeira’s exile from the polis entails a different dynamic. Because it is enacted through silence, thus refusing to conform to the semantics of the proper language, her

100 Phallogocentrism is a neologism used by Jacques Derrida to refer to the privileging of the masculine (phallocentric) in assigning meaning to the world through language (logocentric). 101 Butler 1990, esp. 22-44; 45-100. 102 Athanasiou 2010, 219-246. In her study (and recently in Athanasiou 2017), Athanasiou analyses the ways gendered mourning silence “speaks and undos the languages of the political”. For her, mourning signifies the normative role assigned to women by kinship normativity. By re-embodying the ambiguous sign of mourning outside the sanctioned boundaries of the home and the valences of femininity, Serbian activists (‘Women in Black’) undermine this role. Rather than a gendered cliché of voiceless suffering, mourning silence (no-speech, anti-speech, between silence and noise) is employed as a political act of performing the dynamic of the language-in-the-feminine. 103 Athanasiou’s approach on mourning silence (2017), would also contribute to the deliberation on the function of the ritual of lamentation in tragedy, which has already been discussed by several classists: Seaford 1994 (esp. ch. 4) has seen tragedy permitting collective public grieving; Foley 2001, 21-55 has discussed how political and social tensions emerge in the way death ritual and lamentation are represented on the tragic stage. Loraux 1998 has explored lamentation through the figure of the mourning mother and motherhood (cf. Loraux 2002 where tragedy and tragic lamentation are thought to oppose the political, hence being ‘antipolitical’); Goff 2004, 289-370 has seen Athenian drama using “women’s ritual to articulate anxieties about women’s place in the community, about their relation with the city, and sometimes about the city itself (369)”. On the politics of lamentation also see Honig’s attempt to put the politics back into lamentation in her activist reading of Antigone (2013), which reconfigures Antigone within a so-called ‘agonistic humanism’. 104 For silence in archaic and classical Greece (through analyses of cultural practices, including religion, literature, and law), see Montiglio 2000. In chapters 5-7, she discusses several examples of tragic silence but whereas acknowledging that the treatment of silence in tragedy is gendered, she does not recognize the possibility of resistance to female silence. For Deianeira’s silence, see 239-240; for Iole’s silence, see 190-191, 213.

34 exile is a performance of the dynamic of silence as the language-in-the-feminine, in a way that it speaks and at the same time undoes the languages of the political. This possibility of a critique to a patriarchal structure, posed by the exiled and silenced female subject, is indeed a positive proposition that is appended to the negativity of its foreclosure. But even more importantly, it is a possibility that is explored through female paths. As opposed to the critique to the patriarchal order posed through her participation in the gift exchange, which can be seen as a critique that employs male paths, Deianeira’s dynamic silence is a way to pose a critique while remaining within the female strata.105 This is a silence that, while reproducing the exclusion of the female from the discourse of patriarchy, at the same time it exploits this exclusion in order to open up a dynamic possibility of nullifying the phallocentric logos that establishes, sustains and reinforces this exclusion by declaring it void.

Female Subject of Law

Let me now conclude this excursus on theory with just a few methodological remarks related to the field of ‘Greek Law’ and in particular the conceptions of law and justice within Athenian democracy.106 With respect to my concern with the notion of reciprocity and justice which I will explore in the fourth chapter of this thesis, I am also interested in the ideas concerning homicide law, expressed in the play as a consequence of Deianeira’s offence. These ideas are closely intertwined with the notion of female agency, which was previously discussed, and I am addressing them here as a follow-up and a supplement to my concern

105 In general, recent scholarship has discussed ‘female voice’ in a compelling way. On the grounds of this feminist interest in ‘female voice’, the myth of Echo has received great attention. See, e.g. Spivak 1993, 17-43 (a deconstructional reading of the myth of Narcissus and Echo); Geyer-Ryan 1994 (discusses Echo among other female voices of antiquity); Cavarero 2005 (discusses Echo in her attempt to retrieve the subject from the voice : “through the fate of Echo, logos is stripped of language as a system of signification and is reduced to a pure vocalic. And yet this is not any vocalic, but rather a vocalic that erases the semantic through repetition”, 168). 106 Gagarin (2005, 29-40) has offered a comprehensive discussion on the alleged unity of Greek Law, and has argued that rather than seeking to identify common principles of substantial law, any discussion about Greek Law needs to focus on the way law functions and is practiced in a polis (legal process). Contributing to the contemporary study of Greek legal traditions and the ‘Greek Law’ debate of the century, he stressed the importance of confronting methodological problems, such as the extent to which the use of comparative evidence from other legal systems is legitimate in order to draw conclusions (Gagarin 2005, 36-40); or the need to counter the “evolutionist” tendency to use what we know of later periods to reconstruct what developments “must have” been like. This seems to be a great tendency when, for example, we appeal to our sources on early Greek Law, which are rather fragmentary or problematic (e.g. we cannot be confident in identifing the historical period Homer refers or to understand the extent he refers to actual legal institutions). On the latter, see Gagarin 2005 82-96, where he discusses early Greek Law (700-450 B.C.), and his more detailed discussion in Gagarin 1986.

35 with the relation of ideology and female subjectivity in tragedy. I will not address here issues related to private/familial law, such as to what extent concubinage was considered justified. As I mention below, in the third chapter of this thesis, our sources on the legal regulation of sexuality in Athens are rather contradictory, and despite acknowledging the ambiguity of the sources, I am inclined to think that anxiety about these issues is nonetheless reflected in the play.107 I will start by briefly addressing the issue of the legal status of women in the Greek world, and mainly in Athens, on the basis of which the discussion on moral responsibility and female agency is conducted. It is a common assumption that “the law is gendered, and at the same time engenders society: on the one hand, it reflects the social construction of sexual roles, and on the other it reinforces this construction”.108 We can take as an example the earliest known Athenian legislation, the laws of Draco –enacted by Draco in 621/0 B.C. and reinscribed in 409/8 B.C.– which, as Cantarella has shown, “codified the Homeric division of women as ‘seduced’ and ‘seductresses’, transforming the social stereotype into a legal classification which had fundamental legal consequences on women’s life”.109 However, the way women were treated in the full range of legal contexts seems to be a rather disputed matter. The widespread position is that women’s legal status was analogous to that of slaves and children, a view that seems to reflect Aristotle’s concept of citizenship, which is defined in his Politica as “the participation in the deliberative or judicial administration of a polis”.110 But Cantarella and Patterson have firm grounds to reject this view. Cantarella recognizes that “Athenian women had the status, but not the functions, of citizens”. This means that although they were barred from taking part in political life, they “were considered citizens and indicated as such by the words aste and politis (feminine forms of astos and polites), two words indicating two different levels of participation in civic life”.111 And even after Perikles’s citizenship law (450 B.C.), which excluded from citizenship those not born of two citizen parents, their status became a condition for the citizenship of their children.112 Patterson also discusses Perikles’ law within its linguistic and historical context to show that Athenian women who met the requirements of the law were citizens.113 These conclusions are

107 See Chapter 3, esp. part 1. 108 Cantarella 2005, 237. 109 Cantarella 2005, 239. 110 ᾧ γὰρ ἐξουσία κοινωνεῖν ἀρχῆς βουλευτικῆς ἢ κριτικῆς, πολίτην ἤδη λέγομεν εἶναι ταύτης τῆς πόλεως, 1275b19-21. 111 Cantarella 2005, 245. 112 As Aristotle notes, μετέχουσιν μὲν τῆς πολιτείας οἱ ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων γεγονότες ἀστῶν, [Ath. Pol.] 42.1. 113 Patterson 2005, 267-289.

36 particularly important, since they prove that although women in Athens were undoubtedly controlled and could not in fact function as complete citizens, they were not completely alienated from either their privileges under the law neither their obligations to the law. Hence, I am of the opinion that despite being considered legal minors, they are not at the outset debarred from any discussion on agency and moral responsibility. Modern theories on ideology and the subject can also be exploited towards the positive possibility for female agency to be expressed and defined. On this discussion, the working model of ideological production proposed by Goff has been enlightening.114 Goff starts by admitting that “the subject comes to consciousness in the terms of a dominant ideology that has already closed off certain possibilities for him or her and opened only certain others”,115 but, following the Gramscian construct of hegemony and other theoretical models, such as the theory of structuration developed by Anthony Giddens and the model of subcultures, she also discusses alternatives to gender ideology and female agency and sees a space for the articulation of resistance that is opened up within the process of ideological production. She also observes the paradox of gender ideology and female agency, thus: “Although gender ideology often seeks to deny women active independent agency, it also requires them to be successfully functioning wives and mothers, and thus requires them to exercise an energetic practical agency in their own sphere”. Therefore, for Goff the relationship between gender ideology and female agency is not necessarily contradictory: “Women’s agency is part of gender ideology, not in its interstices like bacteria between healthy cells, but like a virus that itself occupies the cell. If women in such societies have been able to retain the possibility of resistance, it is perhaps partly because they have been required to retain the possibility of active agency. The agency of free adult wives and mothers may, however, be differentiated from the simple material agency required from other subordinates, such as hired workers and slaves of either sex”.116 Accordingly, Goff sees religion as a privileged area of dissent and suggests that “in performing rituals women of ancient Greece exercise unusual agency and cultural presence and are constituted as active subjects of the ritual process. Yet at the same time and in the same gesture, if the ritual reproduces symbols or narratives that confirm the culture’s account

114 Goff 2004, 9-14. 115 Goff 2004, 10. 116 Goff 2004, 11.

37 of women’s inferiority, women may be reproducing the ideological constraints that govern their lives”.117 Let us now move to my methodological concern about the form of the continuum that links tragedy and Athenian legal and political thought. There is no uncertainty about whether Athenian tragedy deals with imaginative political and legal crises.118 So, scholars tend to agree as to the fact that there is some kind of influence between tragedy and real society, but the direction of this influence –whether it goes from tragedy to society or the opposite– can be disputed; namely, whether tragedy functions as a reformative institution or simply reflects society. There is also no agreement as to whether these imaginative crises can inform us about the historical reality of law in Athens. Nevertheless, the methodology of connecting plays to specific political and/or legal events, employed by old school historicists in the middle of the twentieth century, has now been abandoned. Most contemporary scholars agree with Allen’s more sophisticated and flexible position that tragedians “certainly employed, manipulated, and refashioned the crucial concepts of the Athenian legal and political vocabulary, albeit vivifying those terms via the experiences of heroes, princesses, Thebans, and Danaids”.119 Thus, to the question of the relationship between these two areas of research, we would answer that while the study of Athenian law fosters our ability to read Greek tragedy, the same does not work from the opposite direction. It has been suggested that Greek law in general conforms to a generalised Greek tendency toward openness, public debate and discussion among a large segment of the community. And that as it grew during the archaic period, Greek law maintained this productive twofold nature, as a combination of fixed, stable, written legislation together with an oral, dynamic legal process for settling disputes that will persist in Athens right through the classical period.120 As I have already noted, I see Athenian tragedy as contributing to this

117 Goff 2004, 12-13. 118 On the question of whether or not Greek tragedy articulates a political discourse I would agree with Karakantza’s positive stance, as exemplified in her reading of five out of the seven plays of Sophocles: OT, El., Aj., Ant. and Phil. (Karakantza 2011, 21-55). For the associations of Attic tragedy, civic ideology and the imaginary, see 20-28. Following Castoriades’ analysis of Athenian Democracy, Karakantza argues that the Sophoclean corpus can be read as the reflection of the playwright on the suitability and sustainability of the ideological structures of the polis. Thus, she concludes that through the dramatic realizations the polis- ideology is readjusted so as the ‘ideal’ citizen can mediate his position in a better reality. 119 Allen 2005, 376. 120 Gagarin 2005, 94. For the distinction between substantive law (legal procedure) and written legislation (any rule that belonged to the special body of written rules backed by the authority of the polis) see Gagarin 2005, 91-93. In short, Gagarin suggests that while writing was extensively used for legislation, legal procedure was an oral process. In Gararin 2005, 38 he alleges that “it is possible that a tendency to avoid using writing in the heart of the legal process, combined with a fondness for writing and displaying legislation, characterized other Greek poleis in addition to Athens and Gortyn (my emphasis)”. Thus, he concludes that “the Greeks […] were

38 public debate, as consisting a part of this dynamic oral process within the polis. I also find it very interesting that in stark opposition to legal systems that believe that legal ‘gaps’ must at all costs be avoided, Greek legislators seem to have readily acknowledged the notion of ‘gaps’ in the laws as well as the ‘lawmaking’ capacity of judges; 121 namely, they saw the role of judges as ‘filling in’ what was required to do justice in individual cases.122 I am inclined to see these same ‘gaps’ as causing great tension in tragedy, and Sophocles in particular. Or, to be more precise, I am inclined to see them as causing great tension in society, a tension which in turn is reflected in tragedy. The problem of legal ‘gaps’ lies at the heart of Antigone, where both Antigone and Kreon claim to act on the basis of laws that they have written for themselves in violation of communal norms; or at the heart of Oresteia where fundamental questions about what it means to do justice before the law are explored. I am also inclined to see the tragedians’ desire to contribute to the filling of these ‘gaps’ via many sophisticated pathways, through the chorus’ remarks and statements, through the debates between the actors, through the commentary function of the choral songs, through the irony of the ignorant tragic personae. More importantly, whereas we cannot be certain about the extent to which tragedy’s function was reformative, I would like to see the cracks and the ironies of the texts contributing significantly to the negotiation of norms, and consequently the filling out of political, legal and societal ‘gaps’.

very concerned to provide written rules for bringing cases to court and to make these rules clear and accessible to those members of the community who would be likely to use them, but the litigation that arose from these written rules in fact required little or no ability to read or write” (93). For the relation of writing and law, also see Thomas 2005, 41-60. 121 Legal gaps pertain to all cases in which legal regulation is deficient or fails. In the ethical analysis of Aristotle, these gaps are covered by the form of justice he calls ἐπιείκεια (Eth. Nic. 1137a-1138a). This is not a form of justice that abides by the law but is a kind of correction to the law, which is required because the law is general and cannot take into account all possible circumstances. 122 Sealey 1994, 51ff. and passim; Gagarin 2005, 35-36.

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CHAPTER 1: An Amazon in Athens: A Retrieval of Pre-Sophoclean Deianeira

In the following pages and before we look closer in Sophocles’ account of Deianeira’s story, I will attempt to trace the connotations that this persona evoked in the Athenian imaginary on the basis of the available testimonies. My reading aims to reposition Deianeira on the stage of the Dionysian theater, just at the exact moment when she comes out of the palace to introduce herself and expose her present situation to the Athenian spectators. This will enable us to better approach the perspective of the polis and the expectations of the audience as far as the question of “who is Deianeira” is concerned, at the moment when a new reinterpretation of the myth is introduced. Deianeira’s mythical existence, as can be documented on the basis of the available sources, does not extend beyond the scope of the Herculean narrative and her involvement in the death of Herakles.123 However, evidence, albeit scarce, allows us to infer that pre- Sophoclean mythology had established an independent female figure. In general, Deianeira before Sophocles is taken as a bold-hearted and aggressive woman of an old Aetolian legend, associated with an Amazonian origin.124 Starting with her name, Δηϊάνειρα follows the linguistic form of the adjective ἀντιάνειραι that typically describes the Amazons. Δηϊάνειρα (δήϊος: ‘destructive’ and ἀνήρ: ‘man’) is initially explained to mean “the slayer of men”, but this meaning is narrowed to denote “the destroyer of a husband”, when Deianeira becomes known for the legend of Herakles’ death. Thus, the etymology of Deianeira’s name predicts a heinous and murderous aspect of her character, which classifies her among a ‘femme fatale’ of the class of Clytemnestra. Then, a number of sources, albeit late, give evidence to an Atalanta-like prehistory. Apollodorus provides us with a narrative on a war-like figure that “drove a chariot and practiced the art of war” (αὕτη δ’ ἡνιόχει καὶ τὰ κατὰ πόλεμον ἤσκει; Bibl. 1.8.1). Diodorus Siculus speaks of her as one of the Amazons that Herakles fought against during his ninth labour in order to gain Hippolyta’s belt (4.16.3). These descriptions fully agree with a scholium on Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica (Schol. Ap. Rhod. 1.1212 = 288W), referring to a lost poem of Archilochus which recounted that Deianeira was injured in the chest when

123 Commentaries of Trach. provide useful discussions on earlier treatments of the myths of Herakles and Deianeira: see Jebb 1892, x-xxiii; Kamerbeek 1959, 1-7; Easterling 1982, 15-19; Davies 1991, xxii-xxxvii. Helpful discussions of the available sources can also be found in March 1987, 49-77 and Gantz 1993, 431ff. 124 Jebb 1892, xxxi-xxxii. Also, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1895, 78: “She is an Aetolian, and the women of this tribe are endowed by saga with the most vigorous traits, as is Althea, Deianira's mother, who killed Meleager with a similar malice, as her daughter slew Heracles”. Cf. Errandonea 1927, 145-164 and Stoessl 1945.

40

Herakles recruited her in the battle with the Dryopes, while they are also consistent with Nonnus’ report of the same incident (Dion. 35.89-91). Moving to Deianeira’s genealogy, we can also find traces that bear witness to the etymology of her name and can lead us towards a dark and remote mythical past that alludes to a female destroyer of kinship. From her mother’s side, she originates in a mythical world, related to well-known narratives, which, among others, include the famous Calydonian Boar hunt. From her father’s side, she is connected with a genealogy of a strong Dionysian echo. Geographically speaking, these myths are generally placed in Aetolia, while at some point, not safely specified, they are incorporated into the Herculean mythology and, in particular, into the part that refers to the last years of Herakles’ lifetime as a mortal, his death and his restoration through the abolition of his mortality. This part is placed in Thessaly and refers to Trachis and Mount Oita as its focal points.

Figure 1: Ancient regions of central Greece including Aetolia, prior to its expansion, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aetolian_League#/media/File:Ancient_Regions_North_and_West_Greece.png

Calydon, the reign of Deianeira’s father Oineus, is a city situated beside the river Evenus in south-west Aetolia. Pleuron, the city of Althaia’s father Thestios, was situated west of Calydon, in the plain between the rivers Acheloos and Evenus, at the foot of Mount Curium, from which the Curetes, the traditional inhabitants of Pleuron, are said to have

41 derived their name. These neighbouring towns were the two chief loci of Aetolia in the heroic age and their inhabitants, the Curetes of Pleuron and the Aetolians of Calydon were engaged in frequent wars (Hom. Il. 9.529). Although Calydon was usually taken as Oineus’ location,125 Sophocles, as early as the prologue of Trachiniae (7), preferred Pleuron instead of Calydon as Deianeira’s parental home. This may be an indication that he is tracing descent through the female line of her family, thereby directing the audience towards Deianeira’s matrilineal genealogy and the stories connected with the brutal death of Meleager.126 But let us look more closely at the genealogical line originating from her mother. It is clear that the legend associated with Deianeira’s mother documents a history of exemplary domestic violence as well as a tendency to promote the prosperity of the parental oikos at the expense of the conjugal oikos. According to the most widespread account on Meleager’s death,127 Deianeira’s mother, Althaia, is charged with the intentional murder of her own son because he killed her brothers during the Calydonian Boar hunt. Myth had it that it was destined for Meleager to meet death, when a torch, burning in the family hearth, was consumed by fire. Although initially Althaia secured her son’s survival by hiding the torch in a box, after the death of her brothers, she herself lit the torch, causing his sudden death.128 The Homeric account of the incident, however, which is probably adapted to offer a parallel in favour of the argument put forward by Phoenix, omits the torch motif and only refers to Althaia calling the Furies and cursing her son. Yet the description does not fail to underline Althaia’s fieriness, the intensity of her anger and the cruelty of her request to inflict death upon her own child (Il. 9.561-572):

τῇ ὅ γε παρκατέλεκτο χόλον θυμαλγέα πέσσων ἐξ ἀρέων μητρὸς κεχολωμένος, ἥ ῥα θεοῖσι πόλλ’ ἀχέουσ' ἠρᾶτο κασιγνήτοιο φόνοιο, πολλὰ δὲ καὶ γαῖαν πολυφόρβην χερσὶν ἀλοία κικλήσκουσ’ Ἀΐδην καὶ ἐπαινὴν Περσεφόνειαν πρόχνυ καθεζομένη, δεύοντο δὲ δάκρυσι κόλποι,

125 Hom. Il. 9.529ff.; Apollod. Bibl. 2.7.5; Diod. Sic. 4.34.1. 126 See Jebb 1892, ad loc. 127 As evidenced by the titles and fragments of many lost dramas (Phrynichus Pleuroniai; Aesch. Atalanta; Soph. Meleager; Eur. Meleager; Accius Meleager), the story of Meleager’s death seems to have offered a popular tragic plot. 128 Apollod. Bibl. 1.8.1-3; cf. Aesch. Cho. 602-611; Diod. Sic. 4.34, 4.48; Paus. 10.31.3-4; Ovid. Met. 8.266-546; Hyg, Fab. 171. For a reconstruction of Meleager’s story on the basis of available sources, see March 1987, 29- 46 and Gantz 1993, 328-335.

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παιδὶ δόμεν θάνατον· τῆς δ' ἠεροφοῖτις Ἐρινὺς ἔκλυεν ἐξ Ἐρέβεσφιν ἀμείλιχον ἦτορ ἔχουσα.

By her side lay Meleager nursing his bitter anger, wroth because of his mother’s curses; for she prayed instantly to the gods, being grieved for her brother’s slaying; and furthermore instantly beat with her hands upon the all-nurturing earth, calling upon Hades and dread Persephone, the while she knelt and made the folds of her bosom wet with tears, that they should bring death upon her son; and the Erinys that walketh in darkness heard her from Erebus, even she of the ungentle heart.129

In the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, the part of the papyrus describing the fate of Meleager is mostly lost (F25 MW);130 thereby, it does not allow us to attribute to Althaia any responsibility for the death of her son. Yet the use of the adjective κυα[ν]ῶ̣[π]ις (“dark-eyed”, F25.14 MW), albeit formulaic, may be taken as an indirect indication of a ‘dark’ figure, one that is consistent with her presentation in Bacchylides Ode 5, which clearly refers to Althaia as a murderous son-slayer. This Olympic victory ode, composed in 476 BC, reports an encounter between Herakles and the shade of Deianeira’s brother when the former visits the Underworld on his way to fetch Kerberos. Meleager’s heinous past provides a narrative model of crime within kinship that informs Deianeira’s and Herakles’ future story. While Meleager tells the story of his death by his own mother, Herakles expresses his pity and says that he would like to marry the sister of such a hero. Deianeira is introduced as a sister worthy of her great brother, Meleager (σοὶ φυὰν ἀλιγκία; “resembling your appearance”, 168), and consequently as a potential wife worthy of the great hero, Herakles. Meleager tells him of his young sister and Herakles listens with pleasure, oblivious of the fact that this choice of wife will set in motion events leading to his own death. A similar and even more complex reversal and destruction of kinship norms can also be traced through the paternal lineage of Deianeira. Most sources take her as the daughter of Oineus, the king of Calydon. Oineus, in turn, the son of Potheus or Porthaon, has a special connection with both Dionysus and Ares.131 On the one hand, this king, who Bacchylides calls a “favoured of the god of war” (Οἰνῆος ἀρηϊφίλου, Ode 5, 166), is related with the god Ares, as in some sources the latter is the real father of two of Oineus’ putative sons, Meleager

129 Transl. by Murray 1999. 130 =F22 in the translation of Most 2007. 131 Hom. Il. 9.543, 14.115-118; cf. Hesiod. F22, F19a.50 MW; Apollod. Bibl. 1.7.10. For Oeneus, see Roscher 1884-1890, Bd.3.751-762.

43 and Tydeus, while in others he can be his grandfather. On the other hand, Oineus is said to have been the first to receive a vine-plant from Dionysus, introducing wine-making to Aetolia, while sometimes Dionysus is taking Oineus’ role as the father of Deianeira.132 As Pozzi has suggested, this Dionysiac interference as part of Oineus’ name as well as the disruptive violence that prevails in the myths concerning him and his family, form part of a complex Dionysiac pattern resulting in the inversion of the normative kinship.133 It is the same pattern that can be traced in Althaia’s disposition to favoring her own family line and destroying Oineus’ heir, but also in Deianeira’s disposition to violating the laws of conjugal affinity.134 Oineus’ story becomes more interesting when Althaia dies and he takes Periboia, daughter of Hipponomos, as his second wife. Periboia is received as a gift of honour when the city of Olenus was sacked (Theb. F5 PEG) or sent away by her father from Olenus in Achaia to Oineus with an injunction to put her to death, either because she had been seduced by Hippostratus (Hesiod. F12 MW) or because she was already with a child by Ares (Diod. Sic. 4.35.1ff.). Tydeus, who is the son Periboia had with Oineus, is also involved in stories incorporating traces of kinship violations or even incest. He is said to have killed his uncles (Hesiod. F10a MW, 55-57) or the sons of Melas (Alcmeonis F4 W) or the sons of Agrios (Pherecydes 3F122 FGrHist) because they tried to wrest power away from Oineus. In an odd story told by Apollodoros, he is said to have been slain by his father Oeneus “because he leaped over the trench”, (ὑπερπηδήσαντα τὴν τάφρον, Bibl. 1.8.1). This explanation, however, is too uncertain to accuse Oineus of a deliberate homicide. And in an even more serious, extreme case of incest, albeit by the will of Zeus, Tydeus is Oineus’ son by his own daughter Gorge (Peisandros 16: F1 FGrHist; cf. Paus. 10.38.5). To sum up, Deianeira’s prehistory reveals a dark and heinous family story from both the sides descending from her maternal and paternal mythical genealogies. Following this paradigm, Deianeira herself, being engaged in a cycle of kinship violations that appears to be

132 Apollod. Bibl. 1.8.2; cf. Hyg. Fab. 129; Servius’ commentary on Verg. Aen. 4.127; Eur. Cyc. 37-40. 133 Pozzi 1996, 104-108. Following Sulgberber’s and Svenbro’s conclusions about the names of the offspring of mythological heroes, Pozzi has proposed the hypothesis that Deianeira may carry in her name an epithet of her father. Along this line of thinking, it is suggested that Oineus and Deianeira can be examined as a parallel, mutatis mutandis, with Oinomaos and Hippodameia. Thus, Pozzi’s speculation concludes that Deianeira’s name is likely to have alluded to an unknown, perhaps earlier, tradition that could have presented her father, unwilling to give his daughter to marry, presiding at a test where the losers perished (following the example of the well-known fatal chariot-race to which Oinomaos subjected his daughter’s suitors). 134 In many publications, Seaford has shown how the metaphor of maenadism or Bacchic frenzy functions in myth and tragedy; see Seaford 1988, 118-36; 1989, 691-699; 1993, 115-146.

44 inherent in her family, could have been perceived as an Amazon-like figure who deliberately acts as the murderer of her husband.

***

This hazy Amazonian figure, which preexists in a space located outside the limits of the polis and the citizen body, seems to be at odds with the Sophoclean Deianeira; namely, the Deianeira who is deceived by the Centaur and, despite causing Herakles’ death, acts out of innocent intentions. It also appears that the decisive step forward in order to absolve her from blame is made when the story of Nessos’ attempted rape is linked with Deianeira’s deception and the Centaur’s interference in Herakles’ death. Although Herakles’ interference in defense of Deianeira’s honour while Nessos attempts to rape her is a well-known story before Sophocles, the episode does not seem to be linked with the deception version in any of the available versions dated before Sophocles’ time, as it is in Trachiniae. And while we cannot confidently attribute this innovation to Sophocles, we can at least observe that the integration of these two independent stories seems to be a late development, as it is not attested earlier than Bacchylides’ Dithyramb 2 (Ode 16) and Sophocles’ Trachiniae.135 This rape and rescue incident can be traced back as far as the seventh century BC in literature, and possibly even earlier in art.136 In archaic art the most popular depiction of the episode is a combat at close quarters between Herakles and Nessos, the former using his sword or club rather than arrows. Herakles, despite being typically cast in epic as an archer, appears with his bow to rescue Deianeira only around the late sixth century.137 Deianeira, on the other hand, plays a more active role in contributing to her own rescue. She is either presented standing on a chariot holding the reins while Nessos kneels before Herakles

135 Diodorus’ summary of the story could be influenced by Sophocles, as it follows the same line of thought presented in Trachiniae (Diod. Sic. 4.38.1-2): ἡ δὲ Δηιάνειρα πυθομένη τοῦ Λίχα τὴν πρὸς Ἰόλην φιλοστοργίαν καὶ βουλομένη πλέον ἑαυτὴν ἀγαπᾶσθαι, τὸν χιτῶνα ἔχρισε τῷ παρὰ τοῦ Κενταύρου δεδομένῳ πρὸς ἀπώλειαν φίλτρῳ (“But Deianeira learned from Lichas of the affection that Herakles had for Iole and wishing that she would be loved more, she anointed the tunic with the destructive philtron that the Centaur had given to her ”). However, as Prof. Gregory Nagy, pointed out to me, it is also possible that Diodorus’ narrative is independent. 136 For the testimonia and relevant discussion, see March 1987, 49-77; Gantz 1993, 431- 34; Stafford 2012 76- 77; Caravan 2000, 189-237. 137 LIMC s.v. Nessos 80 and 91a, ca. 530-520. There may be an earlier rendition of Nessos' death by archery in a fragment from the Argive Heraion dated to the early seventh century (LIMC s.v. Nessos 89), but identification is uncertain (see March 1987, 52-53).

45 pleading for mercy,138 or running away from the Centaur and making her own escape.139 Therefore, early accounts of this rape and rescue scene also point towards the direction of an independent warrior-like figure who is contributing to her rescue. Furthermore, this rescue scene as depicted in archaic art has been considered incompatible with Sophocles’ account of a deceiving Centaur and a deceived Deianeira, since the close fight of the competitors while Deianeira is running away does not allow for the interaction of the young girl with the Centaur. This interaction, in turn, is the logical prerequisite for the love-philtre version. On the basis of this argument, scholars who insist on the logic of the story have argued that it is only with the appearance of the bow that the deception story can fit into the narrative without logical inconsistencies.140 On the other hand, scholars who argue against this conclusion do so on the grounds of a few early exceptions that present Herakles using the bow.141 It could be argued that insistence on detail and logic when the testimonies come from art is rather risky, so I would be inclined to agree with Stafford who moves away from the logistics of the episode, suggesting that this scenario is more in keeping with the archaic conception of a good fight, as well as suiting the limited canvas offered by most Greek media.142 Unfortunately, the earliest extant literary sources do not give any insights into Deianeira’s motivation either. In the pseudo-Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, which appears to be the earliest and the most extensive literary account of Herakles’ death, there is no suggestion that Nessos was involved in Deianeira’s action (F25 M-W: 17-25):143

κ̣[αὶ ἐπί]φ[ρ]ονα Δηϊάνειραν, ἣ τέχ' ὑποδμηθεῖ[σα βίηι Ἡρ]ακλη̣[ε]ίηι Ὕλλον καὶ Γλῆνον κα̣ὶ̣ [Κτή]σ̣ιππον καὶ Ὀνείτην· τοὺς τέκε καὶ δείν' ἔ̣ρξ̣[', ἐπεὶ ἀάσατ]ο̣ μέγα θυμῶι, ὁππότε φάρμακον ∙[ ἐπιχρί]σ̣ασα χιτῶνα

138 This is her earliest appearance in extant art, in a proto-Attic vase in New York, LIMC s.v. Nessos 36, but is also seen in a Melian amphora in Athens, LIMC s.v. Herakles 1690. 139 LIMC s.v. Nessos 43-45, ca.550 BC; 22 and 27, c.515 BC. An interesting momentum is depicted in the tondo of the Ambrosios Painter, c.520 BC (LIMC s.v. Nessos 98), who reduces the scene to just Deianeira riding on Nessos’ back, reluctantly submitting to his embraces. As Stafford (2012, 77) notes, this choice “shifting the focus away from the physicality of the fight towards the emotionally fraught relationship between would-be rapist and victim, is ahead of its time”. 140 See, e.g., March 1987, 52-53. 141 See, e.g., Caravan 2000, 189-237. 142 Stafford 2012, 77. 143 March 1987, 49ff. discusses the fragment. On dating the Catalogue of Women and on the traditions it drew upon, see West 1985, 164-168 and Hunter 2005, 2-4 et passim.

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δῶκε Λίχηι κήρυ[κι] φ̣[έρειν· ὃ δὲ δῶ]κ̣εν ἄνακτι Ἀμφιτρυωνιά[δ]ηι Ἡ[ρακλῆϊ πτολιπό]ρθωι. δ[εξ]αμένωι δέ ο[ἱ αἶψα τέλος θανάτοι]ο παρέστη· καὶ] θ̣άνε καί ῥ' Ἀΐδ[αο πολύστονον ἵκε]το δῶμα.

and [thoughtful] Deianeira, who, overpowered by Heracles’ [force], bore Hyllus and Glenus and Ctesippus and Onites; these she bore, and she committed terrible deeds, [for she acted ] very [foolishly] in spirit, when, [ smearing] the philter on the cloak, she gave it to the herald Liches [to take; and he gave] it to lord [Heracles], Amphitryon’s son, [the city-sacker]. Once he received it, [the end of death was swiftly] at hand for him; and] he died and [came to the much-groaning] house of Hades.144

The text is lacunose at the points where Deianera’s emotional state is described (ἀάσατ]ο̣ μέγα θυμῶι). This is certainly not incompatible with Sophocles’ version of the story, and interestingly it already includes a role for the herald Lichas, but it would be equally consistent with a version in which the murder was deliberate on the part of Deianeira. ἀάσατ]ο̣, which is Lobel’s suggestion, can equally describe a deliberate or an unintentional murder (ἀάω in aor. med: “to be infatuated”), directing us to think that maybe the ambiguity raised here is intentional. Archilochos had also told the story of the attempted rape by Nessos, the murder of the Centaur by Herakles and the rescue of Deianeira by the latter but the scarce remains of his poem, contained in a reference from Dio Chrysostom and in two scholia on Apollonius Rhodius and the Iliad respectively (F286-288 W), do not allow us to infer whether Nessos’ deception formed part of his version. The first reference (F286 W) is included in the Sixtieth

144 Transl. by Most 2007.

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Discourse of Dio Chrysostom, a little dialogue that clearly reveals the author’s sophistic training and his attempt to display his dexterity in reconstructing Greek myth:

Ἔχεις μοι λῦσαι ταύτην τὴν ἀπορίαν, πότερον δικαίως ἐγκαλοῦσιν οἱ μὲν τῷ Ἀρχιλόχῳ, οἱ δὲ τῷ Σοφοκλεῖ περὶ τῶν κατὰ τὸν Νέσσον καὶ τὴν Δηιάνειραν ἢ οὔ; φασὶ γὰρ οἱ μὲν τὸν Ἀρχίλοχον ληρεῖν, ποιοῦντα τὴν Δηιάνειραν ἐν τῷ βιάζεσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ Κενταύρου πρὸς τὸν Ἡρακλέα ῥαψῳδοῦσαν, ἀναμιμνῄσκουσαν τῆς τοῦ Ἀχελῴου μνηστείας καὶ τῶν τότε γενομένων· ὥστε πολλὴν σχολὴν εἶναι τῷ Νέσσῳ ὅ τι ἐβούλετο πρᾶξαι· οἱ δὲ τὸν Σοφοκλέα πρὸ τοῦ καιροῦ πεποιηκέναι τὴν τοξείαν, διαβαινόντων αὐτῶν ἔτι τὸν ποταμόν· οὕτως γὰρ ἂν καὶ τὴν Δηιάνειραν ἀπολέσθαι, ἀφέντος τοῦ Κενταύρου’ (Dio Chrysostom, 60.1).

Can you solve this problem for me: whether or not people are justified when they find fault with Archilochos and with Sophocles, in the way they treat the story of Nessos and Deianeira? For some say that Archilochos is being nonsensical when he makes Deianeira chant a long story to Herakles while the centaur is forcing his attentions on her, reminding him of Acheloos’ wooing of her and of what happened at that time: as a result of which Nessos would have had plenty of opportunity to achieve his desires. And others say that Sophocles introduced the arrow-shot too soon, while they were still crossing the river; in which case Deianeira too would have died, because the centaur would have dropped her.145

The speaker of this dialogue wonders about the logistics in Archilochus’ and Sophocles’ treatments of the story of Nessos and Deianeira, as in his opinion both versions fail in terms of time consistency. So, while Sophocles speeds up Herakles’ attack, which means that Deianeira would have perished before being instructed by the Centaur, since the dying beast would have dropped her in the river, Archilochus does the opposite, delaying Herakles’ attack and giving the Centaur plenty of time to accomplish his assault. Whereas Dio’s reference does not make this clear, it has been suggested that the version of Herakles using the club or sword makes more sense here, and since this version is not consistent with the

145 Transl. by March 1987, 55, n.22.

48 love-philtre addition, we should possibly assume that the deception did not form part of Archilochos’ story.146 Arriving at Sophocles’ era, we can look at Bacchylides’ version of the story (Dithyramb 2=Ode 16), which is a synthesis of the details very similar to what we find in Trachiniae (13-35):

πρίν γε κλέομεν λιπεῖν Οἰχαλίαν πυρὶ δαπτομέναν Ἀμφιτρυωνιάδαν θρασυμηδέα φῶθ’, ἵκε- το δ’ ἀμφικύμον’ ἀκτάν· ἔνθ’ ἀπὸ λαΐδος εὐρυνεφεῖ Κηναίῳ Ζηνὶ θύεν βαρυαχέας ἐννέα ταύρους δύο τ’ ὀρσιάλῳ δαμασίχθονι μέ[λ]λε κόρᾳ τ’ ὀβριμοδερκεῖ ἄζυγα παρθένῳ Ἀθάνᾳ ὑψικέραν βοῦν. Τότ’ ἄμαχος δαίμων Δαϊανείρᾳ πολύδακρυν ὕφα[νεν] μῆτιν ἐπίφρον’ ἐπεὶ πύθετ’ ἀγγελίαν ταλαπενθέα, Ἰόλαν ὅτι λευκώλενον Διὸς υἱὸς ἀταρβομάχας ἄλοχον λιπαρὸ[ν] ποτὶ δόμον πέμ[π]οι. Ἆ δύσμορος, ἆ τάλ[αι]ν’, οἷον ἐμήσατ[ο·] φθόνος εὐρυβίας νιν ἀπώλεσεν, δνόφεόν τε κάλυμμα τῶν ὕστερον ἐχομένων, ὅτ’ ἐ- πὶ {ποταμῷ} ῥοδόεντι Λυκόρμᾳ δέξατο Νέσσου πάρα δαιμόνιον τέρ[ας.]

Meanwhile we sing of how the son of Amphitryon, a bold-minded man, left Oechalia devoured by fire, and arrived at the headland with waves all around it;

146 Kamerbeek 1959, 3; March 1987, 55.

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there he was going to sacrifice from his booty nine loud-bellowing bulls for Cenaean Zeus, lord of the wide-spread clouds, and two for the god who rouses the sea and subdues the earth, and a high-horned unyoked ox for the virgin Athena, whose eyes flash with might. Then a god, useless to fight against, wove for Deianeira, to her great sorrow, a clever scheme, when she heard the bitter news that the son of Zeus, fearless in battle, was sending white-armed Iole to his splendid house to be his bride. Poor woman, ill-fated, what a plan she devised! Widely powerful envy destroyed her, and the dark veil which covered what was to come, when on the rosy banks of the Lycormas she received from Nessus the fateful, monstrous gift.147

Deianeira is definitely the innocent victim of an ‘invincible divinity’ (ἄμαχος δαίμων, 23), who weaves its destructive plan in her mind. However, her emotional state is not explicitly revealed, as she finally seems to be destroyed by a combination of this mighty divinity together with her jealousy for Iole (φθόνος, 31) and the Centaur’s deceit (Νέσσου πάρα δαιμόνιον τέρ[ας, 35). As in Sophocles, Iole’s arrival as a bride (ἄλοχον, 28) sets the tragic events in motion but, once again, it is impossible to say which of the two poets influenced the other, since neither the ode nor the play is precisely dated.148 Therefore, the available sources do not allow us to be certain about which part of the story as presented by Sophocles is his work. Under these circumstances, it seems impossible to answer confidently whether Sophocles invented the tale of Nessos’ deception, which allocates the role of an innocent victim to Deianeira, despite the fact that this seems like a really plausible possibility. However, either introducing a novel version or following precedent tradition, Sophocles seems to be drawing upon a narrative that departs from the version of an Amazon-like impulsive husband-slayer.

***

Given the context of Deianeira’s pre-history as outlined in the preceding pages, it can be noted that Sophocles needs to manipulate and deal with mercurial and diverse mythical material. He needs to manage intense antitheses stemming from an Amazonian mythical background that provides a model of the absolute inversion of the historically documented

147 Transl. by Svarlien 1991. 148 A possible fragment of Bacchylides (P. Berol. 16140 = Snell and Maehler 64) also refers to the confrontation between Herakles and Nessos. But the attribution of the poem is uncertain; Bowra thought it was Pindar’s (F341B). See Snell 1940, 177-183.

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Greek social norm.149 In an Amazonian society, men are despoiled of all those eminently masculine activities that constitute the basic structural principles of patriarchal societies from which real women are excluded: authority over social and political institutions, participation in war and control over the reproduction of offspring. Thus, Amazons, this distant ethnic group of those female warriors, equal to men, that the Homeric formula Ἀμαζόνες ἀντιάνειραι most likely describes, embodies an essential ambiguity of gender, blurring masculinity and femininity. While feminine, they perform in accordance with masculine standards, providing a model example against the natural conceptions of gender dichotomies and in favour of the social construction of gender roles. They participate in traditionally male activities depriving men of their authority, while at the same time they also perform feminine roles, taking full advantage of their reproductive competence and the dynamics of their sexuality. Seen in this light, Deianeira’s Amazon-like nature introduces in advance a paradoxical and unstable symbol of similarity and difference that creates a tension between masculinity and femininity. Her distant Aetolian origin and the myths concerning her family clearly indicate a confirmed tendency towards violence within the marital and familial kinship. Also, the etymology of her name refers to a strongly competitive relationship with the male. Therefore, Deianeira is by the definition of her name and origin doomed in advance to stand against all the forces that establish gender difference in a patriarchal community. She is predisposed to damage the institution of marriage, through which patriarchy aims to control sexuality, ensure perpetuation and ultimately secure the survival and prosperity of the oikos and the polis. Even so, Sophocles is very careful in civilizing this untamable and irregular material. He discreetly places an Amazon within the civilized arrangement of an oikos, also moving her marriage to Herakles to a fairly early stage in the hero’s life, thereby giving her enough time to conform to the political entity of the oikos.150 Especially as far as marriage as a political institution is concerned, we need to underline from the outset the significance of marital narratives in Trachiniae, which I will discuss in the third chapter of my thesis. Trachiniae is a drama whose background is defined by Amazons and Centaurs, the traditional

149 For the Amazons, see Bothmer 1957; Bennett 1967; duBois 1982, Tyrrell 1984; Blok 1995, Dowden 1997; Bremer 2000; Eller 2011, Mayor 2014. 150 In Bacchyl. 5 and Hom. Od., Deianeira’s marriage happens after Herakles’ last labour in the Underworld and his meeting with Meleagros. Hence, Wilamowitz 1917, 100-102 reasoned that this series of events follows the traditional version, according to which Deianeira’s marriage to Herakles must have come at the end of the hero's lifetime and in close connection with his death. Sophocles will probably innovate by transferring the meeting of the two persons at a much earlier stage, before the accomplishment of the labours.

51 disclaimers of marriage, kinship, familial association, and consequently of societal conformity, while marital and sexual anxieties stand prominently in the foreground; it is a drama whose present, the Sophoclean Trachis, is violated by a distant mythical world of monsters and illicit sexualities. Nevertheless, it has been argued that the Sophoclean Trachis is a frontier town while the setting of the play lacks indications of civic life, thus adding to a sense of suspension of normal civilized procedures.151 Or that “the public life of the polis is firmly off-stage in the Women of Trachis and quite marginal: the name of the King of Trachis is not even mentioned, and the Malian people in their meadow/agora are of minimal interest for the action that concerns Deianira, Heracles and their descendants”.152 However, it is now generally accepted that the “public-private” distinction might require some revision. The Athenians did not see the oikos standing against the polis, but for them the oikos is the nuclear element/the vital cell of the polis.153 Thus, to the Athenian ideology the problems of the oikos are hardly separated from the problems of the polis. Therefore, as opposed to views that think that the political setting of Trachiniae is vague or marginal, I am of the opinion that in the play Deianeira’s house is the centre of civic life, as it represents the civilized institution of marriage that is essential for the wellbeing of society as a whole.154 Deinaeira’s oikos is not a private but a political entity; hence Deianeira is exploiting and misappropriating the ship metaphor, a very common and striking metaphor referring to

151 Segal 1992/1995, 92. Also Segal 1981, 62: “The Trachiniae is the only extant play of Sophocles in which a human community, the polis or the heroic society of warriors, does not exert strong pressure on the protagonists. Trachis is the vaguest of political entities (cf. 3940). This is a play not of cities, but of wild landscapes. Cities here are either hopelessly distant, like Heracles' Tiryns, or objects of plunder, like Eurytus' Oechalia”; and Segal 1995, 29: “Like the Ajax and the Philoctetes, the Trachiniae is a play not of cities, but of wild landscape. The city of Trachis never tangibly materializes, and Heracles' family is not especially well established there: they are "uprooted" (anastatoi, 39), a word that gives a certain restless coloring to the setting from the beginning”. Also, Knox 1983, 7: “Sophocles […] poses the heroic figures of the ancient saga against the background of a half-mythical, half-contemporary polis, or, in the case of the Trojan War plays Ajax and Philoctetes, of the polis in arms, the στρατός. There is only one exception: Trachiniae. This play deliberately emphasizes the primitive, even monstrous, features of the Heracles saga […] The scene of the action is not a polis at all. […]The characters of this play seem to be untrammelled by any sense that they are part of a community and the young women of the chorus are given no words which will identify them, justify their presence or attach them to a locality”. 152 Easterling 1987, 19. According to Easterling the house in Trach. “represents the familial order that is destroyed both from outside and, at the same time, by the agency of a poison secretly stored within it. What it does not represent in this play is the house as opposed to civic space”. 153 See the discussion of the oikos as the foundation of Aristotle's polis in Nagle 2006. 154 On the idea that in Trach. Deianeira is located in the polis, in contrast to Herakles’ bestial world, I would also refer to my supervisor Effy Karakantza, who kindly sent me early drafts of her article in progress (“Beauty and the Beast: An Interpretation of Sophocles’ Trachiniae”).

52 the governance of the city-state,155 to refer to the management of her oikos: “I have taken in as a captain takes on a cargo” (παρεσδέδεγμαι, φόρτον ὥστε ναυτίλος, 537). Deianeira has received Iole in her oikos, like a sailor who is getting more merchandise on a ship, being unable to manage the extra freight. Her oikos cannot bear the cost of a stasis between spouses; neither can it survive under the controversy raised when two commanders are forced to coexist and rule the same body. In this light, Trachiniae is reflecting on a collective political concern about the sustainability of the polis, which can only be ensured through the institution of marriage. Thus, the destruction of familial order represented in the play is not a domestic or personal but a public political issue, insofar as societal cohesion depends on each oikos’ sustainability. On the basis of this suggestion, in the following part of this thesis, I will elaborate on the idea that in contrast to the remote mythical un-political setting that is defined by disclaimers of marriage and illicit sexualities and is placed away from the drama’s present in terms of time and space, the Sophoclean Trachis and Deianeira’s oikos are placed in the kernel of a civilised community, with Deianeira embodying the extreme end of the defender of the oikos and marriage as a civilised procedure, and Herakles and his monstrous competitors (Acheloos, Nessos) representing the bearers of illicit sexualities and the disclaimers of marital –and accordingly societal– sustainability. What is striking is that within the blurred boundaries of gender distinctions of Trachiniae, the play projects the sustainability of the oikos onto the female pole, while it exploits the male to project the oikos’ destruction.

155 Alc. F6, F208, F249; Aesch. Sept. 2, 62, 208-210; Soph. Ant. 162, 189-190; OT 22, 922-923; Pl. Resp. VI. 488a- 489d.

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CHAPTER 2: Deianeira and the Monsters: Monsters, Gender and the Polis

As we will see in the following pages, Trachiniae presents a world that is haunted by over-masculine monsters, all of them constituting a world that stands against order and reason, is extremely violent and hyper-sexual, thus representing the non-polis element of the drama, in striking contrast to the female world of Trachiniae, political on its own terms. My suggestion is that the female in Trachiniae stands against a number of monstrous forces that are personified through three different but at the same time quite similar agents: Acheloos, Nessos and Herakles. These three agents, despite differing in genus, form and function, share common qualities that allow us to classify them within the extensive category of monsters.

The Monster and Monster Studies

The study of Monsters is a relatively young field from which there is still good opportunity for Classics to benefit. Thus, before elaborating on my argument, I will present a brief outline of this research area. Since a monster is a deviation from the norm, it was more than likely for Monster Studies to grow within the frame of postmodernism, which inherently calls for norms to be re-examined. Cohen’s Monster Theory: Reading Culture (1996) constitutes the most important contribution to the field in the sense that it sets the foundation to the interdisciplinary effort of studying monsters.156 However, over the last decade or so, the field has grown significantly, as the impact of Monster studies has resulted in a relatively large number of articles, edited volumes, journals and books.157 Gilmore’s Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors (2003) is another important book, in terms of being the first attempt to pursue study of monsters that is extensive in terms of time and space, and which is guided by the insights of anthropology and psychoanalysis.158 Although Monster Studies have already been established as a sub-discipline, Classics has yet to benefit substantially from the progress made, despite the fact that discourse on monsters in antiquity, stemming from different areas and various genres, is definitely

156 Cohen’s “Seven Theses”, as presented in his essay “Monster Culture (Seven Thesis)” have worked as a precious “toolbox”, to use the same term he himself applies to his analysis, in forming this chapter, namely as “a series of reconfigurable postulates about the relationship between monstrous and cultural bodies”, Cohen 1996, x. For a concise delineation of the monster’s traits, also see the concluding chapter in Gilmore 2003, 174- 194. 157 Recent bibliographical guides are offered by Mittman and Dendle 2012; Picart and Browning 2012; Musharbash and Presterudstuen 2014; Weinstock 2014. 158 Gilmore 2003.

54 extensive. Needless to say, monsters are omnipresent in almost every literary account of antiquity which reproduces a mythological theme. The creation of monsters has its place in both mythic and philosophical accounts of the cosmos’ genesis, from Hesiodic Theogony to Empedocles’, Orphic and Lucretius’ cosmogonies. Historiography and ethnography (e.g. Herodotus' Histories, Ctesias’ and Megasthenes’ Indika) place the monsters in the far extremities of the known world to use them as screens on which they project the unfamiliar and diverse. Finally, Aristotle’s biological texts as well as medical writings from Hippocrates to Galen, attempt to rationalize and categorize reproductive monstrosities as failures of nature’s purpose.159 However, for classicists a monster is mostly a figure within the frame of mythological narratives. Morgan’s, Constructing the monster: notions of the monstrous in classical antiquity (1984), though not receiving much attention, is one of the first studies to focus on the notion of monstrosity instead of mythological monsters, while applying the modern theories of Foucault and Derrida to a classical concept. Atherton’s Monsters and Monstrosity in Greek and Roman Culture (2002), a collection of five essays first presented in a conference held in Nottingham in 1998, is an important book as well, as it brings out the dialogue between classical literature and the often-neglected topic of monstrosity, but is more limited to questioning the legitimacy of the anthropological methodology of Douglas’ taxonomies,160 than exploiting the opportunity to apply the interpretive tools offered from Monster Studies.161 Murgatroyd’s more recent study, Mythical Monsters in Classical Literature (2007), though a comprehensive and specific book about monsters in classical literature, is mostly –as clearly stated by the author and suggested by the title– a study on mythological monsters from a literary aspect rather than it is a study on monstrosity or monster theory. It is also worth mentioning Felton’s contribution to The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous (2012), as it is unique in terms of being a study on monsters in classical antiquity incorporated within a collection of essays which attempts to offer a comprehensive review of the Monster Studies field.162 Finally, monsters in Latin

159 See Morgan 1984 and in particular: for cosmogonic discourse, 70-120; for medical discourse, 121-180; for mythic narratives, 181-241; for ethnographic stories, 242-294. Also see Asma’s first part of his “unnatural history of our worst fears” which deals with ancient monsters (Asma 2009, 17-60). 160 Douglas 1975. 161 For a review of the book, see Giordani 2003. 162 It also needs to be noted that the organising of two graduate classics conferences on monsters in antiquity, held in UCLA (2006) and University of Virginia (2012), argue for the increased interest and popularity of the subject. See Lowe 2015, 27.

55 poetry are studied for the first time at full length in Lowe’s Monsters and Monstrosity in Augustan Poetry (2015).163 But what exactly is a monster? The modern term monster, stemming from the Latin monstrum, which in turn is etymologically linked with the verbs monere (“to warn” ) or/and monstrare (“to show”), incorporates the double meaning of the monster as a divine warning and a morphological abnormality. Likewise, the Greek word τέρας, referring to both a physical monstrosity and a portent, seems like the closest equivalent to the modern concept of the monster. The Greeks also used the words πέλωρ/πέλωρον or θήρ to denote wild animals and mythological monsters. Nonetheless, we can observe a similarity in the range of meanings of all these terms, as they all cover a broad semantic area, starting from portentous phenomena but also extending to mythological, biological or even metaphorical irregularities.164 Monsters are morphological, physiological or ontological deviations from what is familiar to the culture that produces them. They are constituted by the fears and preoccupations of the society that gives birth to them. At the same time, the monster is what escapes any attempt at categorization; it is a “breaker of category” or “the harbinger of category crisis”.165 Thus, monsters cannot be defined on the grounds of their physiology, but being a cultural product they can only be defined on the grounds of the society they haunt, while the study of the monsters can give us insight into the culture that brought them forth.166 In fact, as Cohen notes:

The monstrous body is pure culture. A construct and a projection, the monster exists only to be read: the monstrum is etymologically “that which reveals,” “that which warns,” a glyph that seeks a hierophant. Like a letter on the page, the monster signifies something other than itself: it is always a displacement, always inhabits the gap between the time of upheaval that created it and the moment into which it is received, to be born again. 167

163 Gloyn 2019, the most recent book on the reception of classical monsters in popular culture (since the 1950s to the present day) appeared to late to be considered when writing this chapter. 164 These terms cover a very broad semantic area and extend into various metaphorical uses that even a brief outline would be more extensive than the limitations of this chapter allow. See Morgan 1984, 27-43, who provides a comprehensive account of the uses of both terms teras and monstrum. Also see Lowe, 2015, 8-14. 165 See Cohen 1996, x and 6-7 (“Thesis III: The Monster Is the Harbinger of Category Crisis”). 166 Hence, to a large extent they are the subject of anthropology and ethnology. For the way anthropology can contribute to the field of monster studies see Musharbash and Presterudstuen 2014, 1-24. 167 Cohen 1996, 4.

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Thus, monsters are culturally specific creatures, subjected to diachronic approaches that examine continuity and change; they are fabrications that cannot be examined collectively and in distinction from the culture that gives birth to them. Despite the significance of cultural diversity in the study of monsters, on the grounds of all-human phobias that occupy human nature, we could also speak about common and recurring universal qualities among the monstrous forces. Thus, it seems that the fear of the monster is the fundamental and universal expression of constrained desire. As Cohen puts it, the fear of the monster is in fact “a kind of desire”:

the linking of monstrosity with the forbidden makes the monster all the more appealing as a temporary egress from constraint. This simultaneous repulsion and attraction at the core of the monster’s composition accounts greatly for its continued cultural popularity, for the fact that the monster seldom can be contained in a simple, binary dialectic (thesis, antithesis... no synthesis). We distrust and loathe the monster at the same time we envy its freedom, and perhaps its sublime despair.168

In this light of repressed desire, and speaking in Freudian terms, the creation of the monster is similar to the process of constructing the dream. According to Gilmore, “the anatomical pieces of the monster are captured by the imagination from empirical reality, as a form of nightmare bricolage, or opportunistic scavenging by day, but imbued with powerful emotional content that informs their shape and context as dark forces”.169 Hence, monsters are oneiric and fictitious and as such they are composed of shattered fragments of reality. They are never created out of nothing, but rather through a process of deconstruction, abstraction and imaginative reassembling they consist of parts of our world. In Hesiod, for example, we can meet mere abstractions of frightening concepts of monstrous birth, such as the offspring of Night who, among others, mothered the personified deities of Doom, Ruin, Death and Deception (Theog. 211-225). Homer’s Odyssey also provides one of the most eloquent examples of an oneiric, nightmarish and exotic fictional world, full of Lotus-eaters, Cyclopes, Laestrygonians, Sirens among many other fantastic creatures, where human and bestial, real and fictional elements are intermingled to provide another dimension of the existing intelligible world.

168 Cohen 1996, 17. 169 Gilmore 2003, 190.

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The Monsters and the Female

According to the Greek standards of normality and its opposite, a monster embodies a variety of antitheses against authoritarian principles; that is, it represents everything that is beyond control. Hence, a monster can represent chaos over order, irrationality over reason, natural forces over civilisation.170 Politically speaking, as opposed to all the tendencies that are considered to contribute to societal cohesion, the monster promotes anarchy and chaos and can be classified as a non-polis element, together with other elements that are usually thought of as aberrancies, such as the barbarian, the bestial and the female. Seen from this perspective, the impulse to create monsters stems from the need of the authority to denigrate those who are different, whether they are lower classes, foreigners, or marginalized deviant groups; it stems from the desire to demonize the outcast or the pariah by considering him/her the ‘Other’. Therefore, monsters, as political devices, are being utilized in order to disbar those whom the rules of society deem impure or unworthy. Since the monster stands against order and since order is always patriarchal, the monster also contradicts patriarchy and structurally speaking can be considered ‘female’. The females, as well as the slaves and the barbarians, commonly seen by the Greeks as incomplete males, belong to the same category as the monsters, altogether constituting what for the communal unconscious qualifies as the ‘otherness’.171 It is not then surprising that a very large proportion of Greek monsters are female, such as Medusa, Hydra, Chimaera, Scylla, Charybdis, Sphinx, the Harpies or the Furies.172 In general, it can be argued that in the ancient Greek thought the following line of reasoning is plausible and valid:

Female = Other Monster = Other Thus, Monster = Female

However, in Trachiniae the ‘Monster = Female’ equation is not verified. As I concluded in the previous chapter, as per the definition of her name, her Aetolian origin and her Amazon-like nature, Deianeira is predisposed to stand against the forces that ensure the

170 See Felton 2012, 103. 171 As Prof. Goff pointed out to me, it needs to be noted that monsters are quite often seriously phallic and they routinely attack females. The equation that I propose here aims to indicate the definition of normativity within patriarchy, rather than disregard the 'masculine' element in the concept of the monster. 172 See Felton 2012, 105.

58 survival and prosperity of the city through the production of offspring. Nevertheless, whereas Deianeira pre-exists in a liminal space located outside the circle that surrounds the limits of the polis and the body of the citizens, Sophocles does not utilise the female in order to project his notion of ‘otherness’. By contrast, he retrieves the female from the margins of the polis, whereas he assigns this liminal space to the male, which he imbues with a sense of monstrosity and presents as approaching the female with particularly violent intentions. As will become clearer in the next two sections of this chapter where I will attempt to establish the monstrous appearance of Acheloos, Nessos and Herakles in Trachiniae, the non-polis element of the play is monstrous and overly masculine,173 while it is menacingly approaching the political world of the female, resulting in the destruction of a polis (see Iole’s city) or the eradication of an oikos (see Deianeira’s oikos).174 Like the Amazon symbol, monsters are utilised by Sophocles in order to introduce a paradoxical and unstable symbol of masculinity. By being abnormal, intermediary and inexplicable, monsters offer a threat to the intellectual schemes used to comprehend our existence and undermine basic understandings of humanity, nature and culture. They expose the artificiality and the fragility of all our classificatory boundaries, while violating the established structures that constrain the social unity and reproduce the hierarchical social relations. They ask us to reconsider and re-evaluate our understanding of difference and re- examine our tolerance toward its expression. In this light, Trachiniae defies the widespread view that the male perspective is inclined to an unfriendly predisposition towards the female, so becoming paradoxically an early manifesto of the feminist movement. By bringing the female back into the fold of the social and the polis, the play redefines the female and reverses the stereotypical Greek male view, that as a woman Deianeira belongs to the untamed, animal world, while she is morally weak, susceptible to strong desires, and consequently, subjected to male domination.175 That is not to say that Trachiniae is composed on the basis of the female-male bipolarity and that we can consistently draw conclusions and attribute specific attributes to characters based on

173 With the exception of Hydra, whose reference in Trachiniae does not imply the establishment of an independent dramatic character, such as Nessos’ or Acheloos’, but is absorbed by the Centaur’s supremacy. However, it is also interesting that Herakles’ νόσος, caused by the poison of the Hydra combined with the blood of Nessos, despite being feminine, is also treated like an opponent who resembles a real beast. For the bestial features of the νοσος, see Biggs, 1966, 223-235, Segal 1977/1995, 36-37, Sorum 1978, 59-60, 62. For the feminine aspect of the νοσος, see below, pp. 150-158. 174 The fact that this monstrous element approaches the female with particularly violent intentions prompts me to further investigate and identify elements of rape narratives as part of the monstrous world of the drama. Sexual violence is the subject matter of the third chapter of this thesis. 175 See Introduction, esp. pp. 9-10.

59 this distinction. But it is to suggest that because the gendered structures of this drama are disordered, symbols of instability are introduced in advance in order to dramatize moments of great tension and of great crisis. By disrupting the systematic arrangement of the categories of monstrosity, masculinity and femininity, this drama presents an unstable world in which the mechanisms of the identification with the self and the detachment from otherness fail.

Acheloos and Nessos: Biological and Political Monsters

Acheloos and Nessos are both biologically abnormal creatures that disrupt the social hierarchy/normality that is based on biological hierarchy/normality.176 Their biological aberrancy can be established on the basis of the following three basic manifestations of biological monstrosity. As a principle, a monster’s physical abnormity is expressed in terms of enormous or extraordinary size. So, a primary definition of the ‘monster’ could be anything outstandingly big. Of course, great size translates into an advantageous position and superior, supernatural strength. The Titans, the Cyclops, the Giants were all vastly oversized mythical beings with superhuman powers. It has been suggested by Mayor in her reading of myth as natural history that skeletons and fossils of large extinct mammal prehistoric species visible around the Mediterranean may have provided the model for such mythical giants and monsters.177 Regardless of whether these creatures were formed in the light of actual reality or just imagination, it is a fact that immense size is a recurring feature of monsters, closely intertwined with their superhuman power. Second, monsters are almost by definition anthropophagous, man-eaters, while the weapons they use to attack their human enemies are very often related to the monster’s colossal mouth as an organ of predation and destruction. As Gilmore observes, the monster fantasy is a cannibal, orally aggressive one.178 The oral cavity appears as a deadly weapon in a remarkable variety of ways, not only by biting, chewing, and swallowing but also by emitting noise, smoke, and fire. Polyphemus is the most famous man-eater of classical literature, devouring one by one Odysseus’ comrades, but one can add famous examples to the list of the mythic cannibals such as the Echidna, Typhoeus et

176 For Aristotle, biology confirms a purposeful (teleological) order that is inherent in nature. In this light, monsters are seen by the philosopher as rare exceptions to this recurring, common and principal pattern. However, for him, the fact that monstrous births only occur rarely and accidentally implies that they do not violate or annihilate the rationality of biological teleology but, in fact, contribute to the definition of the natural norm. So, Aristotle’s idea about natural perfection does not exclude the monster but can incorporate it and rationalize it, by defining it as unfinished, incomplete or unsuccessful. For Aristotle’s monsters, see Morgan 1984, 124-127; Asma 2009, 45-49. 177 Mayor 2000. 178 Gilmore 2003, 180-187.

60 al. And thirdly, it is the feature of hybridization in monster imagery that is typical and recurring among different cultures. The Tritons, the Centaurs, the Satyrs, the Silenoi, all half human half animal creatures, constitute only a small sample of the crossbreed beasts of the Greek mythology. The monsters belong somewhere between the human and the beast, like the lion-bodied Sphinx, and the snake-headed Hydra, or conflate ontological realms like the Manticore, or consist of discordant parts from a variety of organisms like the dragon-snake- goat-lion Chimaera, or multiply the most terrible parts of repulsive beasts, often appearing as multi-headed or multi-limbed, like Skolopendra, Cerberus and Orthrus. Acheloos, the first biological aberrancy appearing in Trachiniae, was the deity of the largest river in central Greece and he was often portrayed as the god of water in general, that is, as the source of all nourishment. He appears in the prologue of the play as a very strange and terrifying suitor who is wooing Deianeira and asking her for marriage from her father (ἐξῄτει πατρός, 10).179 At first glance it seems strange that a river and not a human being is asking the young girl in marriage (μνηστὴρ … ἦν μοι ποταμός, 9). But for the Greeks a river could also imply the river god, and especially for Acheloos this could sound normal.180 Acheloos combines the vast size of the greatest river in Greece together with the immense energy of the physical world. He has the power and impetuosity of a river (ποταμοῦ σθένος, 507) enhanced by the tremendous form of a high-horned, four-footed bull (ὑψίκερω / τετραόρου / φάσμα ταύρου, 507-509). His oral cavity is likened to an aggressive fountain from where a large amount of water is spilled (ἐκ δὲ δασκίου γενειάδος / κρουνοὶ

179 The prologue of this drama is unique among Sophocles’ dramas, in the sense that it is monological and has been compared with the ‘genealogical’ prologues, typical for Euripides. Although the Nurse is present on stage (49ff.), Deianeira doesn’t address her for the first 48 lines, so that the long single speech has the character of a monologue. However, though Euripides's influence on Trach. has been a topic of discussion, it is now widely accepted that the first part of the Sophoclean prologue (1-48) is far too dramatic to be compared with the informative monological ῥήσεις of Euripides. See Jebb 1892, XLIX-L; Jong 2007, 7-28. Admittedly, the prologue does offer a retrospective narrative which provides information on the pre-dramatic time and sets the starting point of the action, thus activating the engagement of the audience. This speech is a soliloquy which establishes both her character and her relationship with the audience (see Ringer 1998, 53-54, for the metatheatrical function of this monologue). On the other hand, it forms an integral and vital part of the whole drama that motivates the plot. Its dramatic function can be summarised to the following: (i) It activates Hyllus’ mission to seek his father, thus setting the drama’s primary thematic structure which is Herakles’ nostos. This way, the audience becomes aware of what to expect to the following, i.e. Herakles’ repatriation. (ii) At the same time it reveals the first hint (δέλτον, 47) regarding the oracles that foretell Herakles’ fate and introduces the idea of the crucial timing (δέκα μῆνας πρὸς ἄλλοις πέντ', 44-45), therefore it sets the secondary narrative axes and advices beforehand for the significant function of the thematic motifs of oracles and time. (iii) Lastly and more importantly, it illustrates Deianeira’s ethos and emotional status. The heroine’s tragedy, directed by the emotions of fear and abandonment she experiences, is the main concern of Trach. and this is a statement that the poet makes in the very first 50 lines of the drama. 180 For Acheloos, see Isler 1970, 1981; Gantz 1993, 28-29, 41-42, 526, 432-433, 150, 168; Brewster 1997, 91-14. Currie 2002 is showing how ritual bathing by girls in a river could be interpreted by myth as sexual intercourse with the river-god.

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διερραίνοντο κρηναίου ποτοῦ: “and from his shaggy beard there poured streams of water from his springs”, 13-14). His beard is an inexhaustible source from where water, as an elemental natural force, flows out, making clear that, as Segal notes, he is “a figure who is not yet fully differentiated from the forces of nature”.181 Hybridization is one of the main features he incorporates. In his description in the prologue of the Trachiniae, Acheloos makes himself visible to the mortal Oeneus taking three different forms (τρισὶν μορφαῖσιν ἐξῄτει πατρός, 10), all of them occurring already in other pre-fifth century works of art. He appears in coins and vases as a bull with human head, or as a serpent with human torso and horns of an ox, or as a mixture of a bearded human face with elements of an ox.182 Clarke speculates that the Sophoclean account’s iconography alludes to “a peculiarly archaic, perhaps half-forgotten, fragment of his artistic and poetic inheritance when Deianeira describes Acheloos taking on the form of a bull-headed man”.183 In any case, Sophocles is drawing on a complex, possibly archaic, monstrous image in order to illustrate in a prominent way the difficult situation that Deianeira is experiencing due to the animalistic monstrous configuration of her suitor. In the first place, Acheloos’ hybrid form is just another example of a general tendency to attribute the power of self-transformation to deities related to the unstable element of water. Proteus, Nereus and Thetis all practice the same method in order to confront their opponents accordingly, i.e. Menelaus (Hom. Od. 4.456), Herakles (Apollod. Bibl. 2.5.11) and Peleus (Soph. F151 and F152). This tendency not only alludes to the instability and versatility of the liquid element but also conveys the desperation and exaggerated effort of the deity who must try every available resource to overcome her/his enemy. However, Acheloos’ transformations in the prologue of the drama are not imposed by the needs of his duel with a superior opponent, as Herakles has not yet appeared in the scene of the battle. These are more like an exhibition of the river god’s monstrous appearance and a demonstration of superiority towards a girl who obviously strongly resists a monstrous claim than they are a defensive stratagem.184 This emphatic way that the river god is introduced highlights Deianeira’s terror and her repulsion against this aspiring suitor.

181 Segal 1977/1995, 29. 182 See Jebb 1892, ad 10; Stafford 2012, 75-76. 183 Clarke 2004, 112. 184 The presentation of Acheloos as an aspiring suitor of Deianeira in the prologue of the play (Trach. 6-17) is placed within an antagonistic framework of a suitor-contest. Pozzi 1996 has suggested the hypothesis that Oineus may have been reluctant to give away his daughter in marriage and may have presided at a test where the losers perished, so that Deianeira’s name represents accurately an epithet of her father. In this light, Acheloos’s multifaceted and protean representation by Sophocles may serve his intention to create the

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Then, Nessos, as a horse-like Centaur, is also a hybrid of great size and supernatural power that exceeds the human potential. Centaurs are mostly known as the beast-like creatures that fought the Lapiths. Early artistic representations and scattered references attest to the popularity of the stories about this group of human-equine hybrids that populated the mountains, but complete narratives about the Centaurs are only known through later mythographers. Early accounts only mention the origin of Cheiron but they do not explain the origin of the race of the Centaurs. This is only done by Pindar in the second Pythian, where Kentauros is the name of the offspring of Ixion and Nephele, the latter being a cloud in the form of Hera. In due course, this male offspring mates with Magnesian mares and they beget children that have the familiar half-human half-horse form of the Centaurs, which is reflected in the iconographical development of the sixth century.185 Nessos’s superior strength is clearly understood if one considers that with the strength of his hands alone, he used to ferry people across the deep waters of the river Evenus (559- 561):

ὃς τὸν βαθύρρουν ποταμὸν Εὔηνον βροτοὺς μισθοῦ πόρευε χερσίν, οὔτε πομπίμοις κώπαις ἐρέσσων οὔτε λαίφεσιν νεώς.

[Nessos,] who for a fee used to carry people across the broad flow of the river Evenus, not by plying oars to transport them nor by a ship with sails, but in his arms.

His encounter with Deianeira takes place at the moment when he attempts to rape her while she is crossing the river, but the emphasis of the drama is so much drawn on the Centaur’s monstrous nature as on the deception of the heroine and the collection of the fatal poison. However, θήρ is the word that best describes this monstrous hybrid figure, and this is the most-cited word used to refer to Nessos in the drama, appearing either as a noun on its own (556, 568, 680, 707) or as an apposition to the noun Κένταυρος (1162), while twice Nessos is simply called Κένταυρος (831, 1141).

pretext of a fight with more than one participants-suitors. Therefore, the scene may be intended to recall a (well-known?) suitor-contest set by her father. 185 For Centaurs, see DuBois 1982; Gantz 1996, 143-147; Marangou and Leventopoulou 1997, 671-721; Padgett 2003; Bremmer 2012, 25-53. For Nessos, also see Diez de Velasco 1992, 838-847.

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The aggressive attack of this beast is well presented in the third stasimon, where the chorus is contemplating the events that led to the fulfilment of the oracles which predicted Herakles’ completion of a laborious lifetime, right after Deianeira’s silent departure and before the announcement of her suicide. This lyric passage signals the transition to the second half of the drama, where we are about the watch the outcome of Deianeira’s action. The effect of the monster’s indirect murderous offense is described in a particularly vivid way, also referring to the other well-known female monster that was involved in the death of the hero, Hydra (831-840):

εἰ γάρ σφε Κενταύρου φονίᾳ νεφέλᾳ χρίει δολοποιὸς ἀνάγκα πλευρά, προστακέντος ἰοῦ, ὃν τέκετο θάνατος, ἔτεκε δ’ αἰόλος δράκων, πῶς ὅδ’ ἂν ἀέλιον ἕτερον ἢ τανῦν ἴδοι, δεινοτέρῳ μὲν ὕδρας προστετακὼς φάσματι; μελαγχαίτα τ’ ἄμμιγά νιν αἰκίζει ὑπόφονα δολόμυ- θα κέντρ’ ἐπιζέσαντα.

For if the cunning constraint of the Centaur with its deadly snare strings his sides, as the poison soaks in whose mother was the darting snake and whose begetter was Death, how could he look upon tomorrow’s sun, being glued to an apparition deadlier than the Hydra? And he suffers every torture from the deadly sting caused by the cunning words of the black-haired one as it boils up.

This is clearly the description of a venomous assault that is not only deadly but also gruesome and painful. The weapons used for this attack are a combination of the lethal venom of the monstrous Hydra that has stuck fast to Herakles’ body, together with the murderous goads of Nessos. On top of these, it is the morbid deceit of the cunning Centaur has activated the snake’s venom. This explosive combination of the deadly man-eating means of two monsters, enhanced by the malevolence of cheating, does not only cause death but, more importantly, it causes death through severe and promiscuous torture (ἄμμιγά νιν αἰκίζει, 838).

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Therefore, the presentation of both Nessos and Acheloos in Trachiniae suggests that they are both perceived as biological aberrancies that disturb biological regularity, and, consequently, the social hierarchy that is based on biological criteria of supremacy. As such, they represent a serious threat to human society and need to be excluded from it. But even more importantly, these monsters do not only come from a world but they also make up a world that opposes political regularity, thereby they refer to political dislocations on multiple levels. In what follows, I will discuss these monstrous dislocations of Trachiniae.

***

At a first level, the monster, as a universal allusion to raw bestiality and consequently to cultural primitiveness, is a departure from the institution of the polis on the temporal and ontological level. According to Gilmore, the monster is not only a metaphor for retrogression to a previous age and time in a bioevolutionary sense, namely by being bestial in appearance and primitive in behaviour, and therefore signalling a return of the lowest animal instincts in humankind. Monsters also signal primitivism in a psychodynamic sense, namely by reflecting primary process thinking and the oral sadism of the human neonate and therefore alluding to the return of the individual to prior states of development.186 So, the monster stands as the reminder of the animalistic origin of the primitive nature of the self, while it is fuelled by the fantasy of the incomplete evolution of human nature. Likewise, Trachiniae is a drama of a primitive and animalistic origin, both in terms of being obsessed with the past but also because it echoes the savagery of wild nature or primitive bestiality which invades and destroys the civilised house of Deianeira. So, Trachiniae is unique among Sophocles as per its extensive narrative parts (un-staged action) which outweigh the dialogical/interlocutory sections (staged action).187 Thus, compared to other Sophoclean dramas, in Trachiniae, the development of the plot depends more on the character’s storytelling ability than on staged action, a fact which may allude to an earlier stage of the ancient drama’s development.188 However, rather than assuming an evolutionary

186 Gilmore 2003, 187-189. 187 See Jebb 1892, xlvii-xlix. For the importance of stories and storytelling in Trach., see Kraus 1991, 75-98. For the formal qualities of the play see Easterling 1982, 14. 188 See, e.g., Reinhardt 1979, 36: “The succession of situations in the Trachiniae may be compared with archaic sentence-structure in which ideas are strung in a row, in which one phrase is set next to another without link or connection”.

65 course of the dramatist,189 and attributing this peculiarity to a still immature stage or considering it evidence for an early dating of the play, one can think of a deliberate regression to a less ‘developed’ (archaic) stage that is consistent with the primitive nature of the play’s content and its overall systematic insistence on the idea of the past and on the mode of past-narrative. As Segal notes, in Trachiniae the “violent, primitive past encroaches upon and destroys a civilized house with which we identify and sympathize”.190 The fact that this primitive monstrous past has haunted this drama’s present becomes clear from the very first verse: “There is an ancient saying among men, once revealed to them” (λόγος μέν ἐστ’ ἀρχαῖος ἀνθρώπων φανείς, 1). The adjective ἀρχαῖος is the most prominent word of the line and its emphatic position is not a random choice. It is conjugated adverbially with the verb φανείς, but the normal order of the words has been disrupted so that ἀρχαῖος precedes the genitive ἀνθρώπων. Thus, the selection and the emphatic position of the adjective ἀρχαῖος do not only stress the oldness of the Solonian ancient saying, but they also prefigure the primitivism of the mythical content of the play in general. Acheloos’ wooing constitutes the first example of this distant past that still haunts the present of Deianeira. This narrative, given at the very beginning of the play, is a particularly emphatic statement that broadens the perspective of the drama, expanding at the very distant monstrous past of an already ancient story. It is a retrospective narrative, reported as an argument to support Deianeira’s case for challenging Solon’s proverbial saying. Indeed, this narrative provides a really plausible argument to support her point of view, as this woman seems to have every right and several reasons to feel absolutely disappointed with her life so far. Starting already at that very early moment when she was about to leave her parental home and follow this peculiar and repulsive suitor, Deianeira’s emotional state is still defined in terms of prolonged agony and abandonment. Nessos’s story, associated with another past narrative about older prophecies, provides another eloquent example that spells out the way the distant non-political past intrudes upon the present and how the present is interpreted on the basis of this primitive and remote past. On the one hand, Nessos is an important chapter of Deianeira’s and Herakles’

189 In his interesting narratological discussion of Sophoclean drama, Markantonatos (2012, 354-355), for instance, assumes this kind of evolution: “There are strong grounds for thinking that in his later surviving plays, especially in Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles has reached a power and massiveness of narrative manipulation which other contemporary dramatists (Euripides included) have hardly surpassed, unless in the exceedingly self-referential and narratively intricate Bacchae.” 190 Segal 1977/1995, 27. For the ways the primitive past pervades the Trach., see Segal 1977/1995, 30, 39 et passim.

66 shared past, a significant part of the drama’s mythical background. He is not only an ‘ancient beast’; his gift to Deianeira is also ‘old’ (555-556). Nessos, as Karakantza notes, “emerges from the remote past, as an ἀρχαῖος θήρ; not just from Deianeira’s past […] but from the Stygian depths of mythical narratives from the primitive past”.191 He intrudes into the present life of this couple in order to complete his fatal attack, one that was already premeditated a long time ago by him alone. But this is also an attack that was already planned to activate the fulfilment of older prophecies that firstly, predicted the hero’s end at that exact moment when he will be relieved from his labours, and secondly, foresaw his death by a strange enemy, an inhabitant of the Underworld. On the other hand, as a Centaur, Nessos is associated with a raw lawless bestiality. The Centaurs, the controversial offspring of an unnatural rape-based birth, are in general considered to be connected with the wilderness of nature and the uncivilised past of the familiar world. Herakles is a well-known victorious opponent of these horse-like warriors, thus the defeat of their wild army is listed among his monster-killing labours that are mentioned in Trachiniae as a reminder of the hero’s glorious and victorious past (1090- 1100). The Centaurs are there described as a lawless and arrogant army of half equine hybrid monsters of superior strength (1095-96):

διφυῆ τ’ ἄμικτον ἱπποβάμονα στρατὸν θηρῶν, ὑβριστήν, ἄνομον, ὑπέροχον βίαν

And the fierce army of the monsters, with two natures and with horse’s feet, insolent, lawless, overwhelming in their might.

This description is consistent with a general view about the Centaurs, repeated in numerous mythical narratives. These equine hybrids are always associated with the violation of orderly exchanges (gift-exchange and the exchange of women/marriage) and, consequently, violations of the norms of marriage and reproduction (see, e.g., the story of Ixion, the Centaurs’ father). They are incapable of controlling themselves when drinking wine and they consume raw meat, hence they also violate the laws of xenia and feasting.192 In short, they

191 Karakantza 2019, 106. 192 Κενταύρους ὠμοφάγους, Theognis Eleg. 542. For Centaurs as the embodiment of wilderness, see Bremmer 2012, 27-30.

67 appear as promiscuously sexual and violently bestial anti-cultural beings that lack the skills to socialise with humans.

***

It is therefore clear that both Acheloos and Nessos originate from a world that blurs the boundaries of the civilised (political) world, both in terms of the nature of their being but also in temporal terms. Moving to the next level, the monster signifies a political dislocation on spatial grounds; that is to say, by being placed in a transitional and liminal locus the monster constitutes an extra-political being. In general, the monster’s spatial liminality is representative of an attempt to exorcize inward fears in a factual, rational and non- mythological way, by placing the danger at the far end of the known world. As Cohen suggests, it is “at the gates of difference” that the monsters dwell.193 So, in all cultural traditions monsters emerge from borderline, unexplored, wild, peripheral, liminal space. They infest distant wildernesses of which people are afraid, like mountain tops, oceans, glaciers, or jungles; they live in an unseen dimension like the Underworld, or in watery places like marshes, fens, or swamps; they emerge from their territory at night or during abnormal cosmological events like storms, earthquakes and famines to shake humans from their tranquillity. Thus, the Sphinx is located in Mt Phoikion, outside of Thebes, the Minotaur is in the Labyrinth, Polyphemus lives in a cave, while in general the wonders of water occupy humid areas close to or into the sea, lakes and rivers. By similar reasoning but vice versa, what belongs to the distant and unexplored world produces several xenophobic monstrosities. Especially in ancient societies, where knowledge about the distant world is de facto more limited, it is common for narratives of people who have traveled abroad or for fictitious tales about the far world to reproduce an enlarged and xenophobic description of the distant and exotic world, which often includes monstrous forces. In this light, the exaggerated descriptions of monstrous races and animals of Herodotus’ Histories as well as other ethnographic accounts, such as Ctesias’ and Megasthenes’ Indica or Pseudo-Callisthenes’ Alexander Romance, aim to rationalize the instinctive fear of the unfamiliar and distant diversity. From these accounts, we arrive at the general observation that the further away from Greece’s ethnocentric starting place one travels, the more barbaric and the less human are the races one encounters. Hence, dog-

193 Cohen 1996, 7-12.

68 headed men (Cynocephaloi), werewolves and gold-guarding griffins, among other Herodotean mirabilia, were all located in the furthest regions of the known world. Herodotus, despite expressing scepticism when talking about these creatures, does not neglect their existence. Ctesias and the later ethnographers are adding even more exaggerated creatures into Herodotus’ list of the fantastic freaks of nature, such as One-legged (Monocoloi), Shade- footed (Sciapodes) and man-eaters (Μanticores). The Giants give another illuminating example of how the unknown and unfamiliar barbarism is associated with a monstrous and chaotic excessiveness. These huge animalistic creatures fought with the Olympians before Zeus took his place as the ruler of the cosmos. The Gigantomachy was a very popular theme in literature and especially in art, serving as a prime metaphor for the establishment of order (=Olympians) against chaos (=Giants).194 In Classical Athens, under the influence of the Persian Wars and in order to adorn the east metopes of the Parthenon and the shield of Athena Parthenos, the Gigantomachy became the visual expression of the Greeks’ victory over the Persians, with Giants resembling not only chaos but also barbarianism and the Olympians incorporating the Doric order and harmony.195 Nessos of Trachiniae, like his horse-footed relatives, is a Greek highlander originating from the mountains to be found, though, near the riverbanks. Centaurs, these ‘mountain-bred animals’ as Homer calls them (φηρσὶν ὀρεσκῴοισι),196 are the traditional inhabitants of the mountains, and mountains both in reality and in the Greek mythological imagination, have been analysed by Buxton as being “outside and wild”, “before” and “places of reversals”.197 Elaborating on this concept, Bremmer has suggested that as inhabitants of the mountains the Centaurs corroborate Buxton’s conclusions about the wilderness, the primitiveness and the inverted character of the mountains.198 Whereas a Centaur and, as such, a designated highlander, Nessos has additionally undertaken the task of transporting commuters across the river Evenos. Therefore,

194 See Felton 2012, 111. For Gigantomachy as the visual expression of excess over rationality and order, also see Dwyer 1998, 295. 195 The decoration of both the metopes (Amazonomachy in the west, Fall of Troy in the north, Gigantomachy in the east and the Fight of Centaurs and Lapiths in the south) and the chryselephantine statue of Athena Parthenos, housed in Parthenon, has a purely warlike theme which evokes the opposition between order and chaos, between the human and the animal, between civilization and barbarism. This general theme is considered to be a metaphor for the Median wars, and thus the triumph of the city of Athens. See Schwab 2005, 159-197. 196 Hom. Il. 1.268; cf. [Hes.] Shield of Herakles, 186; Bacchyl. F 66; Eur. Her. 364-365, IA 1047. 197 Buxton 1994, 80-113, where his article, Buxton 1992, 1–15, is reproduced, in slightly reduced form, and juxtaposed with similar treatment of “other territories: sea, caves and springs”. 198 Bremmer 2012, 25-53.

69 occasionally we meet him close to the other well-known imaginative liminal locus, the banks of a river, and in this light he is related to Acheloos.199 Acheloos, on the other, is not only located at the exact place of the homonymous river but he is himself the personification of the largest river in central Greece. The Acheloos river rises in the Pindos mountain range, flows south through the heart of Aitolia and Akarnania, to empty into the Ionian Sea near the mouth of the Gulf of Korinthos. So, since Deianeira’s paternal home is located in Kalydon, which is a city situated in south-west Aitolia, Herakles’ contest with this water creature fits well with the geographical background of the story. Acheloos was often portrayed as the god of water in general, that is, as the source of all nourishment, and as such he is also related to femininity and fertility.200 In an attempt to acculturate and placate the river’s impetuosity, Acheloos was extensively worshiped and the oracular Zeus at Dodona usually added to each oracle he gave, the command to offer him sacrifices.201 We can clearly understand the liminal function of a river not only because it is associated with the unstable, fluid, nourishing and purifying element of water and has a crucial role in initiation and purification rituals, but also because it serves as a natural boundary between distinct geographical regions. Indeed, in antiquity, the river Acheloos constituted the often-contested boundary between Akarnania and Aitolia.202 With Acheloos and Nessos being placed at, or being associated with, the riverbanks, the precariousness of their transaction with Deianeira is not only anticipated but firmly predetermined. In general, the crossing of the boundaries set by the localities of these monsters signifies a threat to the social equilibrium of the drama. According to Cohen, the monster sets the boundaries that secure social cohesion by establishing and enforcing the normative framework that reproduces social inequalities. As he puts it:

The monster of prohibition exists to demarcate the bonds that hold together that system of relations we call culture, to call horrid attention to the borders that cannot —must not— be crossed. Primarily these borders are in place to control the traffic in women, or more generally to establish strictly homosocial bonds, the ties between men that keep a patriarchal society functional. A kind of herdsman, this monster delimits the social

199 Places near water, as localities beyond the limits of the ordered polis, have associations with sexual danger. See Karakantza 2004a, 35-36 who cites many mythical examples. 200 See Lee 2006, 317-325, where an interesting statuette of Acheloos in feminine dress is discussed. 201 Ephorus, quoted in Macrobius 18. 202 See Lee 2006, 318.

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space through which cultural bodies may move, and in classical times (for example) validated a tight, hierarchical system of naturalized leadership and control where every man had a functional place.203

In this light, anything that has to be exiled from society takes the form of a monster and is demonized by being placed beyond the permissible boundaries. It continues to exist in the form of a threat and a prohibition while it is always present and can always intervene disrupting the social equilibrium. Then, as Karakantza notes, among other potentially dangerous and liminal regions, the riverbanks, “as localities that mark the borderline between civic and non-civic are fused with the ambivalent status of yet untamed maidenhood”.204 With Trachiniae’s monstrous suitors crossing the permissible boundaries and being associated with the yet untamed maiden, the controlled traffic in women that ensures the regularity and functionality of the patriarchal structure of the drama is being disturbed. As we will see in the next chapter, the monstrous over-sexuality of the Trachiniae turns the regularity of women’s exchange out of control, causing a great crisis for the patriarchal society. A possibility of a re-establishment of the impaired order will only be discussed under new terms, when at the end of the drama a different connubial transaction, one between the father and the son, between Herakles and Hyllos, will take place. Even so, as I will argue in the last chapter of this thesis, the patriarchal crisis represented in the play will not be called off.

***

Let me now conclude this chapter with a final reference to another distinctive attribute of the monster that moves it away from the polis, an indeed paradoxical feature that nonetheless brings it quite close to a god: its unlimited ability to escape. Etymologically both Greek and Latin terms for monster, τέρας and monstrum, originally denoted any supernatural divine sign provoking awe, and gradually expanded to denote any physically anomalous being. In fact, the monster acts as a screen on which the duality of human impulses, monstrous and humane, mortal and immortal, murderous and compassionate is

203 Cohen 1996, 13-14. 204 Karakantza 2004a, 36. Also see Gould 1980, 52: “Encounters between men and women in Greek myth regularly associate women with the wild and the sacred, with what is outside the limits of ordered civilisation, and with the forces of life, with mountains and forests, with rivers, springs and fountains”. About the way the landscape is reproduced in the imaginary of the myth see Buxton 1994, 80-113.

71 simultaneously projected. Neither side can be totally deactivated and is always contaminated by the other. Equally, the presence of monsters seems to be inextricably intertwined with the lives of those they haunt, even after they are vanquished. As Cohen notes, once the monster is created, it always escapes and can never be totally defeated.205 In the Hesiodic Theogony, for example, monsters and their offspring are never totally eliminated. They form an integral part of the poem’s world; they do not just belong to the departed past. So, the order which was continually opposed by the constant threat and instability caused by the centrifugal monstrous forces that governed the pre-Olympian stage of the Theogony and was finally established by the generation of the Olympian gods, does not preclude a later disorder; the centrifugal forces that undergo the Hesiodic creation are only temporally disabled, the balance that has been achieved can be interrupted, since this centrifugal dynamic can be reactivated. In short, while Hesiod certainly describes a dynamic towards progress, evolution and patriarchy free from monstrous powers, the monsters are still fundamental elements of the same cosmos. When studying the Hesiodic monsters, one can also notice that the various generations of monstrous forces that populate the pre-Olympian chaotic stage of the universe are of contested origin. Not all of them belong to the same category neither there is an absolute duality between monsters and nature or between monsters and gods.206 Some monsters can be defeated while some others are immortal and can only be contained; some are anthropomorphic while others are bestial. Within a complex structure of successive incestuous births, monsters are the offspring of gods and genealogically belong to the same categories as gods do. The monster and the gods consisting of anything non-, extra- and super-human, they seem to share an intimate relationship and a genetic relevance. Monsters and gods observe no limits, respect no boundaries, are not subject to prohibitions and can break the rules; for these reasons, they threaten the social cohesion that is ensured by regulating human behaviour and thereby they cannot be fully incorporated into the human society.207 Either as non-political subjects free from societal restrictions or as powerful beings

205 Cohen’s Thesis II: The Monster Always Escapes; see Cohen 1996, 4-6. 206 For the generation of monsters in Hes., see Clay 1993, 105-116, where it is generally argued that with the interference of monsters Hesiod gives us a glimpse of what a monstrous anti-cosmos might be. 207 The locus classicus for the beasts and gods determining the nonhuman boundaries is Aristotle’s Politics (1253a1ff.; cf. Eth. Nic. 1145a20-28). According to the philosopher people are naturally designed to live in a polis (ὁ ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῷον, 1253a2). The one living solitary is either a worse or a better man (ὁ ἄπολις διὰ φύσιν καὶ οὐ διὰ τύχην ἤτοι φαῦλός ἐστιν, ἢ κρείττων ἢ ἄνθρωπος, 1253a3), namely he/she is either a beast or a god (ὁ δὲ μὴ δυνάμενος κοινωνεῖν ἢ μηδὲν δεόμενος δι᾽ αὐτάρκειαν οὐθὲν μέρος πόλεως, ὥστε ἢ θηρίον ἢ θεός, 1253a28-29).

72 with powers that reach beyond and above the limited human capabilities, monsters and gods both belong to the same super-human imaginary fantasy. Trachiniae provides an eloquent example of this feature of the always escaping monster that incorporates the supernatural power of the gods. Herakles has received this strange oracle that he is to die at the hands of someone who is not alive. He is to die at the hands of a resident of the Underworld. It proves that this monstrous being, which Herakles considered defeated and dead, has the inexhaustible and immortal power to harm his enemy, even from the Underworld (1159-1163):

ἐμοὶ γὰρ ἦν πρόφαντον ἐκ πατρὸς πάλαι, τῶν ἐμπνεόντων μηδενὸς θανεῖν ὕπο, ἀλλ᾽ ὅστις Ἅιδου φθίμενος οἰκήτωρ πέλοι. ὅδ᾽ οὖν ὁ θὴρ Κένταυρος, ὡς τὸ θεῖον ἦν πρόφαντον, οὕτω ζῶντά μ᾽ ἔκτεινεν θανών.

It was predicted to me by my father long ago that I should never die at the hand of any of the living, but at that of one who was dead and lived in Hades. So this monster the Centaur, as the divine prophecy had foretold, has killed me, I being alive and he dead.

As we already noted, Nessos as a Centaur is the monster par excellence. In fact, he is also the one and only prize winner of the drama and the invisible perpetrator of the whole conception. He is omnipresent from the beginning of Herakles’ association with Deianeira until the last moments of the hero’s lifetime, having tremendously haunted the lives of this unfortunate couple. In a supernatural way that closely resembles the divine, this monster has superior powers that exceed his mortality. While in the Underworld, he has the power to harm Herakles and orchestrate his revenge. Like his Hesiodean relatives, he stands as a reminder of a monstrous past that can always invade the present and disturb the precarious order of things.

Herakles: The Culture Hero and the Monster

Herakles is also a liminal figure, located in-between a man and a beast, in-between a culture-hero and a monster, in between a mortal and a god, whilst displaying an equivocal attitude towards basic archetypical polarities, such as ‘human/god’, ‘nature/culture’,

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‘male/female’.208 This peculiar and complex character, who –to name only some of the contradictions he incorporates– can equally act in favour of and against the human community, who has the potential to offer beneficial service to the world but also to severely damage his own family, who suffers like a human but is also enjoying the bliss of the immortals, who is excessively masculine but is also flirting with female deficiencies, is the subject of numerous narratives that caused confusion for mythographers already in antiquity. On the grounds of these successive antinomies, it becomes clear that, above all, Herakles avoids taxonomies. That brings him quite close to a monster, which is by definition a category that refuses to be confined within familiar categories.209 This conceptual fluidity does not only result in a broad semantic range within which the concept of monstrous can be applied but it also causes great difficulty in defining the monstrous. In fact, the monster’s avoidance of classification, this paradox of the monster’s identity, constitutes the differentia to construct its definition. Thus, it is on the grounds of this difficulty that Cohen suggests the following generic definition of the monster:

[Freely blending the medieval with the postmodern (Beowulf with Alien, Richard III with Lestat)], I argue that the monster is best understood as an embodiment of difference, a breaker of category, and a resistant Other known only through process and movement, never through dissection-table analysis.210

Similarly, Gilmore, when concluding his history of monsters, notes:

The power of monsters is their ability to fuse opposites, to merge contraries, to subvert rules, to overthrow cognitive barriers, moral distinctions, and ontological categories. Monsters overcome the barrier of time itself. Uniting past and present,

208 It is commonly accepted that Herakles’ heroic identity becomes very complicated when he acts as a tragic hero. Reinhardt, 1979, 42 views Herakles as operating outside heroic society. Bowra 1944, 137, on the other hand, regards him as a figure of the heroic world who is not subject to the same laws as ordinary men. Segal 1977/1995, 38ff. discusses Herakles' oscillation between heroism and bestiality, between “greatness” and “nothingness”. Foley 1985, 177 notes that Herakles was too superhuman and too anticultural to fit readily into a genre that specialised in civic and domestic disasters. 209 Whereas monsters as the mythological background of Herakles’ legendary background were noticed by several critics, Segal 1977/1995, 26-68 and Sorum 1978, 59-74 were the first who seriously took them into account in their readings of Trach. Sorum was also the first to suggest that Herakles is himself a monster (Sorum 1978, 63ff.). 210 Cohen 1996, x.

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demonic and divine, guilt and conscience, predator and prey, parent and child, self and alien, our monsters are our innermost selves.211

Indeed, regardless of how much we like to think in terms of polarized opposites, it seems to be the case that there are no clear boundaries between the man and the beast, between nature and monster, between civilization and bestiality. By refusing to conform to a specific category, Herakles’ multifaceted and inconsistent persona fits well into this scheme of the monster’s genetic confusion. Herakles’ story is an extremely complex and extensive one, namely a narration in constant evolution and transformation across millennia, which incorporates many and varied traditions and extends over a broad temporal and geographical context. This Panhellenic superhuman exists in the no-mans-land between the civilized and the non-civilized, between the familiar and the unknown, with any attempt to securely integrate him into either being, at best, precarious. Undoubtedly, he is a great hero, but he is so contradictory that he can both be downgraded to the level of the beast and rise to the level of the god. Herakles’ complexity incorporates the contiguity which generally exists between the culture hero and the monster. In various traditions, the monster is the opponent of a culture hero, and in that sense, it stands against culture and civilization as an archetypical anti- cultural opponent.212 In both Near Eastern and Greek mythological tradition, a pattern of a god or a hero fighting against a monster or a number of monsters is well attested. In Greek mythology, this pattern is first detected in the three generations’ myth of the Hesiodic Theogony and recurs in later versions of the same narrative but also in narratives about Herakles and other culture-heroes, such as Perseus, Cadmus and Bellerophontes. At a first level, this contestation symbolizes the establishment of order, culture, reason and patriarchy over the chaotic, natural, emotional and feminine dynamics, present in every representation of the cosmic normality. The monster then represents all that is beyond human control, the uncontrollable and the unruly that threatens the moral and social order, and thus the hero’s triumph over the monster/monsters proclaims the humans’ ownership over the world and justifies the present order.213

211 Gilmore 2003, 194. 212 Zeus being one of the first culture heroes, followed by Apollo fighting against Pytho and other semi-gods or heroes, such as Cadmus, Bellerophon, Theseus, Odysseus, Herakles. For the notion of the hero, see Schwartz 1996; Campbell 2004; Long 2005, 2090-93. For the notion of the hero (and Herakles in particular) and the monster in Greek Myth, see: Kirk 1974; Eisner 1987, 189; Dowden 1992, 111-112; Dowden 1998, 113-133. 213 See Gilmore 2003, 28-29.

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However, as the culture hero needs to fulfil his task to clear the field for humanity and fight the monsters, he also needs to approach the monster and to deal with it on an equal footing. In his endeavour, the hero follows a route that is unsettlingly similar to those of the monsters he fights: he resembles the monster, he uses the same weapons and he follows a similar martial morality. In his study of myths of the epic hero in the early cultures from Egypt to the pagan Norse, Cohn repeatedly notes the convergences of the monsters and the heroes who fight them.214 But also vice versa, the monsters usurp and appropriate human qualities. Characterologically speaking, as Gilmore notes, monsters are fully human: their unmotivated destructiveness, for example, is a human, not a bestial trait.215 Thus, both the hero and the monster share common features and represent different sides of the same coin.216 Likewise, as a culture hero, Herakles is traditionally the opponent of monsters. But in another sense, he also seems to resemble the monsters he fights. On the one hand, Herakles is a super-powerful male, an ideal athlete and a civilizing benefactor. In general, he is defending order over chaos while he also presides over initiation rituals. He is always seen as the superior and ever-winning man who is fighting against super-human strength and is accomplishing the impossible. He symbolizes the prime defender of civilization, protecting the community from widespread destructive forces and fighting against violations of law. Hence, he is so often presented as a savior; he releases Prometheus from chains and Theseus from the Underworld; he saves Hesione from a sea-monster, Alcestis from the Underworld, Deianeira from Acheloos and Nessos. Of course, a man of that stamina could well fit into the model of the ideal athlete; namely, the virtuous exemplar of archaic aristocratic values who serves as the legendary founder of both Olympic and Nemean Games and holds a leading role in Pindar’s epinicean odes. It is not then surprising that such a benefactor will end up being a god and enjoying the divine privileges in Olympus, together with his immortal wife, the goddess of youth Hebe. On the other hand, traces of arrogance, egotism, as the inevitable negative sign of an excessive heroic excellence, infect his idiosyncrasy. But what predominantly undermines his grandeur is the tendency to angry violence and brutality, already noticed when as a young man he murders his teacher Linos out of anger. This quality is a recurrent pattern in several narratives, such as the story of mutilation of the heralds of Erginos, the anti-heroic murder of Eutytus’ son Iphitus or more notably in the slaughtering of his own family. Therefore, while

214 Cohn 1993/2001. 215 Gilmore 2003, 193. 216 See Gilmore 2003, 11-12.

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Herakles, the monster-slayer par excellence, is entering the monsters’ territory in order accomplice his civilising mission, purge the earth of its primitive dangers and make it fit to live in, he exceeds the boundaries that distinguish the world of beasts from that of humans and appropriates features that are specific to wild animals. Hence the many bestial qualities intertwined with Herakles’ identity: his hairiness; his lion-skin clothing; his club made of untreated wood; his inclination to rage and madness; his freedom over love, food and wine; his supernatural and brute strength; his exceptional vitality.217 Following these contradictory qualities, Herakles of Trachiniae is a liminal hero who violates humane sensibilities and too often approaches bestiality. Although he is a much more complex figure than his monstrous rivals so that we cannot strictly align him with these non- human beasts, in many ways he seems to resemble them. His confrontation with Acheloos in Trachiniae is indicative of the way Herakles struggles to hold on to a role between a culture hero and a beast. He is first introduced in the play in a grand way that suits his reputation as a son of Zeus and Alcmene (ὁ κλεινὸς ἦλθε Ζηνὸς Ἀλκμήνης τε παῖς, 19), but soon his role as a husband and saviour is undermined and questioned (εἰ δὴ καλῶς, 27). As I will discuss in more detail in my next chapter about marriage, Herakles completely fails in his role as a husband and this failure is underlined by the poet’s choice to completely avoid contact between this couple in Trachiniae. He is clearly nominated for the role of a renowned savior, appearing to confront the hideous monster that is claiming Deianeira and to prevent her from suffering (18-21):

χρόνῳ δ’ ἐν ὑστέρῳ μέν, ἀσμένῃ δέ μοι, ὁ κλεινὸς ἦλθε Ζηνὸς Ἀλκμήνης τε παῖς, ὃς εἰς ἀγῶνα τῷδε συμπεσὼν μάχης ἐκλύεταί με·

But at the last moment, and to my relief, there come the famous son of Zeus and Alcmene, who contended with him in battle and released me.

Although this first appearance of Herakles as a savior and benefactor who stands as the opposite of the monstrous Acheloos is initially greeted with a temporary contemplation of joy from Deianeira (χρόνῳ δ’ ἐν ὑστέρῳ μέν, ἀσμένῃ δέ μοι, 18), this impression is

217 See Kirk 1974, 206-209. To Kirk’s list of oppositions, Loraux 1995, 116-139 adds the opposition between super masculinity and femininity.

77 immediately undermined by the prevalent phobic emotion of the prologue. Reality contradicts the original expectation that the fear Deianeira experienced while expecting to be awarded to one of the two suitors will go away. Instead, fear begets new fear as Deianeira follows Herakles as his wife (λέχος γὰρ Ἡρακλεῖ κριτὸν / ξυστᾶσ’ ἀεί τιν’ ἐκ φόβου φόβον τρέφω, 27-28). Fear, as the dominant emotion of the prologue, is not eliminated, as expected, but escalates, and at the present moment, Deianeira is experiencing the worst fear ever (ἐνταῦθα δὴ μάλιστα ταρβήσασ’ ἔχω, 37), since there is no news about Herakles while she is abandoned and displaced in Trachis. Therefore, while Deianeira is recounting her life so far as Herakles’ wife (27-35), any positive outcome of the battle of Herakles and Acheloos is called into question (εἰ δὴ καλῶς, 27). By comparing the concluding image of the terrified maiden who is passively watching the battle in the first stasimon (523-530) with the mature Deianeira of the prologue, we can note a similar bewilderment. It seems that the young maiden is watching the battle without expressing a preference for any of the males that claim her as a prize but, on the contrary, her passivity or tolerance can easily be translated to hesitation or even aversion, which is directed invariably towards both suitors. Similarly, even after many years as Herakles’ wife the mature Deianeira is still in doubt about the success of her coupling with the ‘glorious’ hero. In the first stasimon, where the contest of the great river and the hero is fully elaborated, in the view of his monstrous rival, Herakles’ bestiality becomes even more evident.218 It will prove that the two opponents, albeit juxtaposed as antagonists, share more common features than one would expect.219 They are depicted in a close-contact corporeal battle, where literally they are united in one body, while it is clear that the text does not allow for the distinguishment between the two or the indication of the superiority of the one against the other. That leaves Aphrodite alone to be designated as the only winner of the game. Equally, one cannot deny that the pre-political character of the scene points to primitive bestial brutality that can be indistinguishably ascribed to both Herakles and Acheloos. The two opponents rush into the battle fully armed and fully prepared for an intense confrontation (504-505):

τίνες ἀμφίγυοι κατέβαν πρὸ γάμων, τίνες πάμπληκτα παγκόνιτά τ᾽ ἐξῆλθον ἄεθλ᾽ ἀγώνων;

218 Herakles and Acheloos’s battle has been already identified as one between two monsters. See, e.g., Galinsky 1972, 37; Sorum 1978 61-64 et al. 219 The contest of the two opponents was a popular theme in literature and visual arts; see Gantz 1993, 432- 433; Stafford 2012, 74-76. I discuss in detail the first stasimon in my next chapter (pp. 128-137).

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What mighty antagonists entered the lists for the sake of the marriage? Who set out for the ordeal of the contests amid many blows and much dust?

The use of the intensifying (πάν-: ‘all’) and the duplicate (ἀμφί-: ‘two, from both sides’) prefixes convey the sense of the absolute preparation of the opponents for a battle that will make use of every possible means of attack and defence in order to declare the winner of the prize.220 The antistrophe presents the battle scenery in a static way. The two opponents are introduced in all the magnitude that is appropriate to their impressiveness. The grandeur of the style is achieved through a series of specifications that precede their final naming. Acheloos’ excellence stems from his physical power, presented as a combination of the impetuosity of a river and the tremendous form of a high-horned four-footed bull (507-510). Accordingly, Herakles is defined by a lively and sonorous image of him carrying all three weapons traditionally attributed to him, the bow, the spear and the club, an image which is further emphasised by the reference to the wilderness of his bacchanal origin (510-513):

ὁ δὲ Βακχίας ἄπο ἦλθε παλίντονα Θήβας τόξα καὶ λόγχας ῥόπαλόν τε τινάσσων, παῖς Διός·

And the other came from Bacchic Thebes, brandishing his springing bow, his spears and his club, the son of Zeus.

While Aphrodite is standing right in the middle in order to supervise the contest, the combatants are approaching to meet each other in the middle of the palaestra. The symmetry of the presentation of the competitors, which again argues for the equation of both opponents, is emphasized by both the hiatus in lines 510-511 but also by the repetition of ἐς μέσον and ἐν μέσῳ in the interval of just two lines (513-516). With the epode there is a sudden transition into a scene of intensive violence and loud sound. The opponents are now presented in a close combat wrestle echoing a resounding and violent effect (517-522):

220 Regardless of which of the four ancient explanations of the word ἀμφίγυοι we were to choose It is obvious that no definitive answer can be provided to this question, but I think that this is not a problem that creates serious interpretive difficulties. For the relevant discussion see Jebb 1892, Easterling 1982 and Davies 1991, ad loc.

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τότ’ ἦν χερός, ἦν δὲ τό- ξων πάταγος, ταυρείων τ' ἀνάμιγδα κεράτων· ἦν δ' ἀμφίπλεκτοι κλίμακες, ἦν δὲ μετώ- πων ὀλόεντα πλήγματα καὶ στόνος ἀμφοῖν.

Then there was a clatter of fists and of the quiver, and of the bull’s corns, all together; and legs were wound around waists, and deadly blows struck foreheads, and groans came from both.

The two competitors are finally united in one mixed body consisting of both human and bestial elements: hands, bows and horns intertwined altogether resulting in a powerful and loud clash of phallic and warlike symbols of masculinity. In the course of the play, the degradation and undermining of this hero’s success escalate. As we will see in the following chapters of the thesis, Herakles’ monstrosity is gradually enhanced through recurrent comments on the corrosion of this character while his grandeur shrinks through various references to his brutal and anti-heroic behaviour: the treacherous murder of Iphitus, the destruction of Oechalia and the rape of Iole, the blatant violation of his marriage and the unjust replacement of his legal wife, the violent murder of Lichas, and ultimately in the exodos of the drama the excessive vindictive rage against Deianeira and the inconceivable demands to his son. Then, it also seems that like the political monsters we examined in the previous section, Herakles is too bestial to fit into the political setting of Athenian tragedy, as his monstrous heroism cannot comply with the requirements of the democratic polis. On the one hand, Herakles’ archaic heroism leaves traces of arrogance and egotism, traces which will be fully developed in Trachiniae through the elaboration of his anti-heroic deeds. On the other hand, like Ajax and Achilles, Herakles’ excellence is manifested through a heroic individualism, a quality that fits the archaic aristocratic values, which praises the self-reliance of a one-man task and rewards independence but fails to fit into the democratic ethos, which requires a collective sense of achievements. Indeed, the start of the fifth century sees a steep decline in the frequency with which Herakles is depicted in Attic art, while images of Theseus increase in popularity. This shift has been explained as reflecting the political

80 transformation that followed Kleisthenes’ reforms of 508/7 BC, from the sixth-century aristocratic oikoi and tyrannies to the democratic city-state. Whereas, as Stafford notes, “the shift from one hero to another is not as neat as some have supposed”, the frequency with which his exploits are attested in art and literature of the archaic period suggests that they were more appealing to archaic than to classical sensibilities.221At the same time, Herakles is too important to be excluded from the democratic polis. We know that he was extensively worshipped, that his figure predominated in art and literature and that his stories were extremely popular among the Greeks. However, in a strange way, Herakles was never, strictly speaking, a fully integrated part of the human political world neither was he fully differentiated from the monsters he stood against.

221 See Stafford 2012, 167.

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CHAPTER 3: What Went Wrong? Three Weddings, Two Deaths and a Funeral

PART 1: Introductory Remarks

Marriage and Sexual violence in Trachiniae

In Trachiniae, distortions of the wedding ritual and consequently of nuptial gender categories constitute the basis upon which the poet forms his plot.222 This is not only manifest in the form of the play, as imagery and diction of marriage are used at a high frequency by the poet,223 but also in the structure, as the entire synthesis can be read as the dramatization of three potential marriages and two ‘death as marriage’ ceremonies. As made clear in the choral song that follows the revelation that Herakles is about to return home (20ff.), the house is about to celebrate a wedding. This wedding pronouncement song, which creates the pretext of a pseudomarital ceremony,224 can be interpreted in different ways, as the news of Herakles’ coming creates different possibilities. Firstly, it is Deianeira who is about to experience the re-enactment of her wedding. Her husband is finally about to return home, having completed the labours that kept him away from his family for such a long time. Then, Herakles’ movement towards his home can be seen as a reversed wedding procession. In both cases, the ‘bride’ (Deianeira-Herakles), resembling a sacrificial victim, is moving towards her/his sacrificial death, which in the drama’s world has turned into reality. And finally, the house is literally about to celebrate Iole’s marriage. The girl is being carried in the house with the aim to be Herakles’ new wife, but she finally turns out to be the wife of Hyllos, the two of them united in order to ensure the perpetuation of Herakles’ oikos. In the course of the play the normal order and arrangement of events and the allocation of gender roles in the wedding ritual are confused, dislocated or reversed. What started as two parallel processions, one of a new bride towards her welcoming home (Iole) and another of a victorious hero coming back to his family (Herakles) ends in a wife’s re-

222 The importance of marriage in Trach. has been noted by several scholars. More importantly, Seaford 1986, 50-59 and 1987, 106-130, and Segal 1992/1995, 69-94, present reading of marriages of the play as perversions of the normal order. Krauss, 1991, 79-88, provides a narratological reading of marriage. 223 The motifs of light/darkness, disease, knowledge, as well as sexual, bestial and nuptial imagery are the most recurring thematic patterns in the language of image and symbol of Trach. For an extensive study of imagery, see Hoey 1964 and Holt 1976. 224 Homer also has Odysseus order a marriage pseudo-ceremony in order to conceal the slaughter of the suitors (Od. 23.130-152). However, in view of his imminent reuniting with his wife, this feast is appropriate. See Segal 1995, 235 (n.30), who notes the parallelism.

82 enactment of a failed marriage through suicidal death (Deianeira) and a sacrificial ‘marriage to death’ of a pseudomaiden (Herakles). So, while the play dramatizes the eager expectation for the arrival of the bridegroom and the unsuccessful attempt of a wife to achieve happiness through the re-experience of her wedding ceremony, it ends up with suffering, death and an undesirable marriage. These unsuccessful marriages are opposed to marriage as a civilised institution aiming at the reproduction and the continuation of the oikos and reflect an anxiety about the practice of marriage, thus allowing for the exploration of the consequences of the transgression of the norms of marriage. My interpretation will take marriage as a starting point in order to demonstrate, as has already been stated, that the basic issue at stake in this drama is familial affiliation and marital cohabitation as an essential component of a political society, juxtaposed with a non-political distant world, which is constituted, as I suggested in the previous chapter, by masculine monstrosities. Thus, I will further suggest that in all wedding transitions of Trachiniae the norms of the hymeneal conjugation are distorted, as the orderly economy of marriage as exchange and reciprocity between houses is violated by illicit sexualities and violent rapes. It is because the bestial world violates the political frame of the drama that marital and sexual relations are ruptured. Trachiniae is a text of silent but excessive sexual violence emanating from the distant bestial primitive world but expanding into the political present of the drama. Monstrous and aggressive sexual desire is the non- political element that interrupts the political order of the drama’s present, resulting in a morbid crisis, personified as a paroxysmal disease which takes the leading role on stage at the end of the drama. These aggressive anti-political elements are definitely gendered, but what is striking is that they are performed via the masculine characters of the play, Acheloos, Nessos and Herakles, leaving the locus of the polis to the female.

Marriage and Athenian Tragedy

Needless to say, marriage in antiquity is a much-discussed topic.225 It is beyond the scope of this study to delve deep into the problematic issue of marital unions and the codification of family law in the ancient world. But it would be useful to include here, by

225 Here I offer only a selection of titles that proved influential for this chapter. For the institution of marriage in Ancient Greece and Athens see Pomeroy 1975, 1997; Vernant 1980; Just 1989 (Ch. 4: ‘Marriage and the State’); Patterson 1991, 48-72; Leduc 1992 235-295. For a useful review of what we know of the legal, social and economic issues that may condition tragedy’s response to the Athenian tragic system, see Foley 2002, 61- 73, et passim. For the wedding ceremony in Ancient Athens, see Oakley and Sinos 1993. For marriage in Trach., see Seaford 1986. For tragic wedding, see Seaford 1987. For marriage in Sophocles, see Ormand 1999; Patterson 2012.

83 way of a brief input before entering my main discussion of the nuptial narratives in Trachiniae, an outline of the study of the institution of marriage in Classical Athens and the way tragedy dramatizes nuptial rituals.226 In the ancient Greek world, the union of two people as partners in a personal relationship was not strictly defined by family law, at least not in the way we understand it today in the western monogamous world. As Aristotle notes, in Greek there is no word to denote the union between a woman and a man (Pol. I.3.2). This absence is compatible with the fact that when trying to reconstruct marriage in ancient Greek society we come across several types of heterosexual unions whose implications for the status of women and their offspring are somehow fluid. Different criteria are applied in order to delineate legitimate unions, which vary depending on the place, the period of time, the status of the families and so on. What is important for our discussion is to note that, as Vernant remarks, “one can speak in terms of a break between archaic marriage and marriage as it became established within the framework of a democratic city, in Athens, at the end of the sixth century”.227 While marriage practices seem to be rather flexible in the archaic period, when different types of union can coexist with one-another, it is agreed that starting from the age of Solon we can trace a trend to formalize marriage, while this trend might also mark a move in our evidence from ‘Greece’ to ‘Athens’. We can also trace a turn in the objective of a marriage from the enhancement of the power of independent aristocratic families (oikoi) to the perpetuation of the polis through controlling and evaluating reproduction. This means that marriage within democratic Athens turns into a political issue which is closely connected with citizenship and political rights. In general, marriage in classical Athens seems to be an economic transaction between two households which is validated by ἐγγύη (‘betrothal’),228 a practice that seems to be at odds with the Homeric marriage which usually entails the exchange of valuable gifts. The daughter’s κύριος (‘guardian’, lit. ‘lord’), who is the girl’s father or, in the absence of the father, the closest male relative, hands the responsibility for the bride to the κύριος of another household with the aim of producing legitimate offspring (ἔκδοσις: ‘giving in marriage, dowering’). The daughter’s dowry, however, remained at her disposal under a specific arrangement, since she could not spend it, but it was held as a kind of insurance for her paternal oikos, with her husband not being allowed to own or spend it.

226 Also see my discussion on the female as a subject of law, pp. 34-38. 227 Vernant 1980, 60. 228 See Dem. Against Stephanus II, 18; Against Leochares 49.

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Under these circumstances, in order to decide whether a union is eligible for producing legitimate children, namely children that are eligible for the status of the citizen, control over marital unions had to be intensified, as is evident from the much-quoted citizenship law of Pericles (451/0 B.C.E.). At the same time, clearer distinctions between legal spouses (γαμετὴ or ἐγγυητὴ γυνή), concubines (παλλακαί) and prostitutes (ἐταῖραι) needed to be drawn. As Just suggests “in the aristocratic society of the seventh century BC the distinction between a woman married by engue and a woman not so married, a pallake, was rather less important than in the classical period”.229 Thus, the marked opposition between children that were νόθοι or γνήσιοι, and consequently of marriages by ἐγγύη and ‘less formal’ unions with παλλακαί, can be seen as the result of Athens’ growing democratization from the time of Solon onwards, which placed greater emphasis on the individual citizen’s oikos and consequently greater strictures on membership of it.230 Although our sources on the institution of marriage in fifth-century Athens are often ambiguous, there are many indications suggesting an attempt to promote monogamy and unions between Athenian citizens, at the exclusion of other more informal unions. Sutton, for example, has examined scenes presenting young brides and grooms and has argued for a new, idealized notion of heterosexual love for the last third of the fifth century.231 On the other hand, the city seems to change into a more flexible form, operating in a way that recalls earlier periods, during the Peloponnesian War, when the lack of men allowed for the cohabitation of more than one wife in one household, as Diogenes Laertius’ remark about Socrates having two wives suggests (Vitae Philosophorum, 2, 26).232 This means that the process of the ‘democratization’ of marriage within Athens was neither a process that was completed without discontinuities nor one that can be accurately reconstructed on the basis of the available sources. In any case, it seems that marital issues caused great anxiety and intense controversy, as is evident in many cases that are delivered through the orators’ texts, and that under these circumstances it is highly likely that Sophocles’ society would be witnessing changes in the state of affairs between husband and wife. It is also true that the tensions caused by the coexistence of two women in the same household should have been a matter of anxiety for

229 Just 1989, 37. 230 Vernant 1980, 50. 231 Sutton 1981; Sutton 1989, 333-359; Sutton 1997, 27-48. 232 As Prof. Liapis pointed out to me, Diogenes’ story, circulated by Aristotle and a number of his pupils (see Athenaeus 13.556a), sounds fabricated, or it may originate in a misunderstanding. It is also surprising that the comic poets failed to pick Socrates’ reported bigamy up for ridicule.

85 the Athenians of the fifth century, and Trachiniae is a drama that calls for attention with regards to this issue.233 However, given the fact that mythical figures are much removed (temporally, topically, ideologically and so on) from fifth-century Athens, any attempt to interpret the drama in terms of the legal and social context of contemporary society can only be based on shaky arguments. Therefore, I will not argue here that we need to see Sophocles’ drama as a critique or a representation of contemporary marriage practices. I will agree in this regard with Patterson, who understands both Aristotle’s comments on marriage and Sophocles’ tragedy as presenting a kind of truth that “is not historical truth, but a kind of philosophical or necessary truth”. As she continues, “we do not learn much about ‘everyday married life’ in classical Athens from Sophocles’ plays, but we do come to understand, as they are ‘writ large’ on the tragic stage, the necessary choices of ancient marriage and the essential tensions of marriage as a cultural institution built upon, and shaping, a natural biological relationship”.234 Of course, Trachiniae is not the only tragedy that explores the areas of tension and contradiction that the realities of the marital system generate. Through marriage, tragedy often contemplates the notions of citizenship, democracy, and political participation. In turn, these are notions that are closely intertwined with the female, as the latter is an essential element for the continuation of the society through reproduction, while it always constitutes a suspect entrant for the citizen body. As Foley observes, these contradictory areas of the marital system which tragedy explores, “open spaces in which tragic women can, whether constructively or destructively, speak for themselves and take significant action”.235 Thus, familial and marital issues which are discussed through a political lens in tragedy do not only result in just offering voice to the female but they often result in giving the leading role to a female character. This is a role that has been discussed extensively, mainly on the basis of two different perspectives: marriage as a state of transition reflected in ritual practices and marriage as an exchange that shapes society. Let me start with the latter. The importance of marriage for the formation of elementary social structures and the establishment of culture, which was initially theorized by Lévi-Strauss in Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949), proved influential for discussions of tragic women as objects of exchange. Scholars, such as Rabinowitz, Wohl, Ormand, and more recently Lyons, have made this symbolic exchange of women the starting

233 The social acceptability or criticism of keeping mistresses in the home in Athenian society is a matter of controversy; see p. 116, n. 301. 234 Patterson 2012, 382. 235 Foley 2002, 60.

86 point for their studies, all of them arguing, more or less, against the possibility of expressing female subjectivity in a society that aims at the identification and validation of the male subject.236 Even so, all of the above studies are also interested to express, each in its own way, a mild optimism about the possibility of female subjectivity that the tragic genre might offer. Other studies approach marriage through the lens of ritual and, to a great extent, have invested in the fundamental interaction of the transitional states of marriage and death. Loraux, for instance, in her study of representations of women through their way of death in tragedy, has suggested that tragic women, in striking contrast to the historical Athenian women, are suffering publicly, while the typical suicidal death of a married woman is seen as the only chance she gets to enact her marriage.237 Other scholars discuss marriage from a strictly ritualistic point of view, drawing on the fact that tragedy often dramatizes the subversion of rites of passage. Within this context of subversion, the wedding, which constitutes one of the most fundamental transitions in the life of an individual as it attempts to establish the successful separation of the maiden, is often presented as a kind of death. As in any case of transition into a new stage, the individual needs to experience the death of the previous stage in order to be incorporated into the new stage. The symbolic death of the maiden and her transition to a new state of her life is profoundly imprinted in the case of the marriage of the queen of the underworld, Persephone, to Hades, a myth which predominantly incorporates a merge of death and wedding elements. Seaford has examined the way tragedy presents the failure of the wedding ritual and has noted that death before marriage, an event that is repeatedly imagined as a kind of marriage with Hades, is the most obvious form of this failure.238 The conflation of wedding and death rituals, as Seaford argued, is facilitated by the occurrences of elements associated with death in the wedding itself, or –to put it more accurately– the overlapping of elements that are common for both rituals. While the actual wedding ritual finally overcomes the negative elements of the bride’s reluctance, fear, anxiety, and feelings of loss, to conclude with the μακαρισμός of the couple, tragedy explores the negative possibility of the wedding ritual and dramatizes its subversion or failure in various ways. As a result, the death of an unmarried girl is often associated with her frustrated wedding (Antigone, Iphigenia, Cassandra), whereas the death of a married woman is equally often imagined as the re-

236 Rabinowitz 1993; Wohl 1998; Ormand 1999; Lyons 2012. 237 Loraux 1987. 238 Seaford 1987, 106-130.

87 enactment of her marriage (Deianeira, Jocasta). These are tragic cases that have also attracted the interest of Rehm’s research. While Seaford’s analysis is based on a selection of tragic texts that present the subversion of the wedding ritual, Rehm’s book offers a more extensive collection of references to marriage and death rituals through a series of different tragedies, His study emphasizes the significance of the complex dialectic between the two rites and the prominence that both the female tragic characters and the oikos as the traditional area of wedding and funeral rites attain through public representation.239

Marriage as Rape in Trachiniae

Marriage in Trachiniae is not only omnipresent in every scene; it is also closely intertwined with sexual violence and echoes of rape.240 This intertwinement prompted me to deal with the notions of marriage and rape as a unity in a single chapter. So, the poet chooses a structure whereby a violent contestation between contenders for a maiden’s bed/body narrated retrospectively (Herakles’ and Acheloos’ claim) stands prominently at the introduction to the drama, while a forcible abduction of a maiden to be imported as the new bed/body in an existing oikos (Iole’s rape) motivates the action of it. At the same time, Trachiniae presents the consequences of what seems to be a failed attempt at rape but is, in fact, a successful seduction of a maiden (Nessos’ seduction of Deianeira) and a deathly violation of a hero’s body (Herakles’ rape). Herakles’ movement towards his ruined oikos can also be seen as a wedding procession culminating in the scene of ἀνακαλυπτήρια (‘festival of unveiling’), which also incorporates evidence of rape and sexual violence because of the νόσος that has penetrated his overwhelmed body and has transformed him into a crying maiden. Thus, Nessos’ violation implicitly directs the whole action and indirectly penetrates not only the maiden but, more importantly, the great hero. These observasions bring me to the interpretative category of this chapter, namely sexual violence as it is integrated into the play with the category of marriage. So let me

239 Rehm 1994. 240 Interestingly this is how Martin’s Crimp’s Amelia (=Deianeira), in his adaptation of Trachiniae introduces herself in the prologue of Cruel and Tender (p.1): There are women who believe all men are rapists. I don’t believe that because if I did believe that how – as a woman – could I go on living with the label ‘victim’? Because I am not a victim – oh no – that’s not a part I’m willing to play – believe me.

88 continue this introductory discussion with some brief comments on rape in the ancient world, a complicated topic that has caused disputes.241 On the outset of every discussion on rape, not only in antiquity but rape in general, it is important to note that culturally predetermined perceptions of a gender-based society significantly affect the construction of rape narratives. It is therefore true that even today, after the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, modern societies still live with great ambiguity and confusion about the phenomenon of rape. Be that as it may, rape, in the way we commonly understand it today, focuses on the victim’s lack of consent to sexual intercourse, while –given that in the schematic presentation of gender categories the active role is always assigned to the male and the passive to the female– rape has mostly been considered as the violation of the female. So, in Brownmiller’s definition, rape is “a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear”.242 In the male-dominated ancient world, a world where consent or free will in general, which presupposes the right to administer oneself at her/his disposal, was not defined on the basis of the same criteria as it is today, while violence under certain circumstances could be considered justified,243 any discussion on rape becomes even more complicated. On the one hand, the definition of rape as sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or without consent becomes problematic when used to speak about the Greek past because consent did not have the same value or meaning as it does today. So, there seems to be no one-to-one correspondence between the modern term ‘rape’ and any related Greek term. On the other hand, it needs to be noted that rape in the ancient world has been discussed through ambiguous and diverse sources that include mythic accounts of rape, cases of rape in wartime and rape in real time legal cases.244 Especially as women are concerned, Athenian law does not much consider the consequences of a sexual assault for the female victim nor does it distinguish sharply enough between sexual intercourse with or without the female victim’s consent. Women, in general, did not have the option to refuse consent in any of the transactions between men that directly affected them. An unmarried girl below a certain age was a legal minor, surveilled under the

241 Deacy and Pierce, 1997, Omitowoju 2002, Zeitlin 1987 and Lefkowitz 1993 are probably the most read and most cited studies on the topic of rape in antiquity. However, bibliography is more extended and a new volume, edited by Deacy and McHardy, is expected in 2020. For a concise outline of feminist approaches to the topic of rape and a reading of Greek tragedy’s rape narratives through this lens, see Rabinowitz 2011, 1-21, where recent bibliography is cited. Also see Karakantza 2004a, 29-45, for a study of literary conventions and political ideology in rape narratives. 242 Brownmiller 1975, 15. 243 E.g., slaves could testify under torture, see Antiphon, On the Murder of Herodes 29-32. 244 See Karakantza 2004a, 30, n.1.

89 protection of a κύριος, as she was considered incapable of making any decision or choice, including consenting to sexual intercourse.245 Therefore, lack of consent as a legal argument can only be applied to the κύριος of a female, since he is the only one who could bring a charge of assault against the offender in court and claim recompense for the damage (shame or dishonour) this offense caused to him and his family. A further difficulty we encounter when attempting to discuss rape in antiquity, particularly important for our discussion on Trachiniae, is that elements of sexual violence and female resistance are often incorporated in connubial narratives. As Oakley and Sinos note when discussing the Talos Painter krater depicting Helen’s abduction by Theseus in the context of a wedding setting, “to try to distinguish between weddings and abductions may be a modern rather than an ancient concern, one that requires drawing a clearer boundary than ancient iconography permits”.246 This means that within the gendered schemes of male- dominated Greek myth, where the female body is so vulnerable to sexual assault, female resistance against a male pursuit is such a common motif, so that Zeitlin wonders: “Does Greek myth then support a general model of courtship in which the male is expected to take the initiative and the female coyly or modestly to resist? Does she say ‘no’ when she actually means ‘yes’, dissimulating desire behind a screen of feigned reluctance or taking refuge in fantasies of ravishment and forced possession?”247 After that, a further question needs to be raised: Is there any difference between wedding and rape scenes in Greek myth, and more particularly, are we entitled to speak about rape in narratives that explicitly point towards the direction of rape but are boxed within the context of marriage? Taking rape narratives as typical examples of a general model of courtship on the basis of which the female body is silently passive and the male pretender is violently aggressive by default, leads in different directions. On a first level, the experience of marriage is obscured by connotations of violence and abhorrence. And conversely, the experience of rape can be exemplified and legalized; as Rabinowitz warns, “the violence sometimes merges into normative heterosexual relations”.248

245 On legal grounds, Omitowoju 2002, 128-30 has proved that sexual intercourse without the consent of a woman was an offence only if her kyrios had not consented to it either. 246 Oakley and Sinos 1993, 12-13. Also see Oakley 1995, 66-68, for wedding iconography in scenes with pseudo-brides, i.e. victims of rape, concubines, and willing pre-marital partners, in vase painting. Cohen 1996, 131 proposes that the wedding procession would have involved false struggling on the part of the bride and false abduction on the part of the groom. 247 Zeitlin 1986, 123. 248 Rabinowitz 2011, 16.

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Given that marriage is the elementary structure ensuring societal cohesion, a wedding ritual which is violently subverted through a rape raises a further implication, which lies at a political level. In her reading of literary rapes Karakantza has suggested that “the narratives of rape explore the possibilities of how – by violating the institutional order of the society – some of the female members fall victims to a secondary symbolic process – notably that of a symbolic subverted wedding ritual that seems to deny the very legitimacy of the polis”.249 The mythical abuse of the virginal bodies is a narrative nucleus inherited by the discourse of polis that “contradicts the public image that it (sc. the polis) wishes to formulate and present in order to legitimize its body politic”.250 In addition, we could also argue that, along with all other patriarchal political structures which are underpinned by the suppression of the female, the polis is also underpinned by rape.251 While studies focusing on the evidence on Athenian attitude towards rape provided by legal texts tend to consider that the distinction between consensual and non-consensual sex was unimportant for the Athenians, tragic scenarios provide us with plenty of examples which demonstrate that rape was considered inadmissible. Discussing several tragic scenarios, Scafuro (selectively, dealing with six tragic characters) and Sommerstein (more comprehensively) have suggested that the evidence of Athenian tragedy shows that the distinction between consensual and non-consensual sex was a matter of substantial importance to the Athenians.252 As Sommerstein puts it, “a society in which this story-pattern [i.e. the ‘Potiphar’s wife’ scenario] was popular, or even comprehensible, must have been a society in which, while a woman who willingly committed adultery was abhorred, a woman raped against her will was seen as an innocent victim”.253 Moving to Sophocles, fragmentary Tereus is an eloquent example of how the poet has dealt with the heinous crime of rape, emphasising the atrocity of Tereus’ crime against Philomela by possibly supplementing the traditional story with the mutilation, the betrayal and the wrong that is done to Tereus’ own wife, Procne.254 Similarly, Trachiniae is a drama

249 Karakantza 2004a, 39. 250 Karakantza 2004a, 40. 251 This annotation was pointed out to me by Prof. Goff. 252 Scafuro 1990, 126-159; Sommerstein 2006, 233-251. 253 Sommerstein 2006, 235. Similarly, Harris 2015, 298-314, drawing on a variety of sources, argues against the views which suggest that women’s desire in tragedy is inherently disruptive, a threat to family and community and presents evidence showing that men in ancient Greece did notice whether women said yes or no in sexual matters, and therefore recognized that women had a will of their own and could make decisions about their bodies. 254 Tereus survives in 17 fragments (TrGF 581-595b). See Fitzpatrick 2001, 90-101; March 2003, 139-161; Coo 2013, 349-384.

91 which expresses deep concern about the disastrous consequences of aggressive sexual violence, either implied (Iole’s presumed rape) or presented as a failed possibility (Deianeira’s attempted rape). As we will see in the following two parts of this chapter, in Trachiniae we are confronted with the problematics of sexual violence against the female, which is not only excessive but also mirrored and doubled.255 This fact allows us to speak about a repeated pattern which permeates all erotic contacts made in the drama, directing to a critical stance towards male aggression against the female. Sexual violence is a non-political drive which distorts the typical arrangement of marital exchanges, skipping the orderly agreement between the female’s κύριος and the potential groom in all narratives recounted (Oineas-Acheloos and Herakles-Deianeira, Herakles-Nessos-Deianeira, Eurytos-Herakles- Iole) but the last one (Herakles-Hyllos-Iole), which I will discuss in the final chapter of my thesis. Thus, having this preparatory discussion in mind, in the following two parts of this chapter I will follow the intertwinement of nuptial and rape connotations in Trachiniae, with a view to exploring the severe impact that this connection has on Herakles’ oikos.

255 Deianeira clearly states that her pre-marital fear, being the worst of women of Aitolia, exceedes the acceptable limit (νυμφείων ὄτλον / ἄλγιστον ἔσχον, εἴ τις Αἰτωλὶς γυνή, 7-8).

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PART 2: Mirrored Weddings and Sexual Violence

Deianeira’s Extraordinary Μarriage

In Trachiniae, Deianeira’s miserable and hard lifetime, as presented in the prologue and the first part of the first epeisodion, is assessed on the basis of her personal experience as a married woman. Her general view of marriage, formed on the same personal grounds, is well-presented in the first lines of the first epeisodion, when she replies to the young maidens of the chorus (144-150):

τὸ γὰρ νεάζον ἐν τοιοῖσδε βόσκεται χώροισιν αὑτοῦ, καί νιν οὐ θάλπος θεοῦ, οὐδ’ ὄμβρος, οὐδὲ πνευμάτων οὐδὲν κλονεῖ, ἀλλ’ ἡδοναῖς ἄμοχθον ἐξαίρει βίον ἐς τοῦθ’, ἕως τις ἀντὶ παρθένου γυνὴ κληθῇ, λάβῃ τ’ ἐν νυκτὶ φροντίδων μέρος, ἤτοι πρὸς ἀνδρὸς ἢ τέκνων φοβουμένη.

For such are the places of its own where youth is nourished, and it is afflicted neither by the sun god’s heat, nor by rain, nor any winds, but uplifts its life in pleasures, untroubled, till the time when one is called a woman rather than a maiden, and gets during the night one’s share of worries, fearing for one’s husband or one’s children.

The three conditions that the ancient Greeks distinguished in the life of a sexually developed woman were these of a παρθένος (‘maiden’ or ‘virgin’ of marriageable age), a νύμφη (‘young woman of marriageable age’ or ‘bride’) and a γυνή (a ‘woman’ after the birth of a child). These lines present the two end stages in juxtaposition (ἀντὶ παρθένου γυνὴ, 148).256 For Deianeira there is nothing but fear, worries and suffering (θυμοφθορῶ, 142 φροντίδων, 149 φοβουμένη, 150; κακοῖσιν, 152) in a married woman’s life, in contrast to a young unmarried woman’s carefree and pleasurable idealized living (ἡδοναῖς ἄμοχθον ἐξαίρει βίον, 147),257 in

256 For textual problems and a discussion of these lines, see Seaford 1986, 50-59. Also see Parca 1992, 177-181, who discusses the lines as an example of how the play adapts and manipulates archetypal natural metaphors to treat erotic and other liminal experiences. 257 Segal 2000, 72 finds a connection between these lines and the oracles: “Deianeira's description of the change from the girl's "life free from toil" (bios amochthos) to the anxieties of marriage (147-150) is also the

93 the protected house of her parents, being unaffected by heat, rain and wind (θάλπος θεοῦ, / οὐδ’ ὄμβρος, οὐδὲ πνευμάτων οὐδὲν κλονεῖ, 145-146). This generic and contrasting preamble prepares for the specific and real juxtaposition of Deianeira and Iole at the following section of the epeisodion, with Iole embodying the fantasy of a virgin. A maiden’s carefree youth is envisioned like a secluded and protected plant in striking contrast to a married woman exposed to the agonies of adult life.258 For Wohl, this alternative image of the “garden of virgins” is presenting the “virginal other fantasy” as “a fantasy of a female physis beyond or before the rule of the paternal nomos […] a fantasy of a radically pure and free female subject”.259 As it is customary in wedding songs, Deianeira is looking at the pre-married life of a virgin through rose-coloured glasses. However, as we will see in the following sections of this chapter, this virginal fantasy will soon prove to be a fallacy. The transition from παρθένος to γυνή is signalled by the sexual union during the wedding night (ἐν νυκτί, 149), which also indicates the reaching of maturity through assuming conjugal and maternal duties (λάβῃ φροντίδων μέρος, 149; πρὸς ἀνδρὸς ἢ τέκνων φοβουμένη, 150). A woman would normally be considered a γυνή after giving birth to her first child, while the bridal stage of a νύμφη covers the period between the wedding of the παρθένος and the birth of her first child.260 But time in Deianeira’s description is significantly compressed within a single night and skips the stage of the νύμφη,261 as well as the performance of the ritual that was considered essential for a proper wedding: appeasing the gods, feasting, and the ceremonial conveyance of the bride and her incorporation into her new home.262 Indeed, the transition from Deianeira’s paternal oikos to the reception house followed a deviated route. Starting already from the time of her wooing, when she was still at her father’s house, she experienced the worst premarital anxiety of all Aitolian women (6-8):

πατρὸς μὲν ἐν δόμοισιν Οἰνέως ναίουσ’ ἔτ’ ἐν Πλευρῶνι νυμφείων ὄτλον

woman's house- and marriage-oriented version of the oracle that predicted Heracles' change in this present time from toils to a life free from suffering or toils”. 258 The landscape of a garden or meadow is often the setting for love-making narratives, while comparison to a plant is a typical wedding song image; see Hague 1983, 131-143. 259 Wohl 1998, 46-48. 260 See Oakley and Sinos 1993, 10; Reeder 1995, 128. 261 For a reading of Trach. on the grounds of (dramatic and tragic) time, see Bakonikola 1994, 49-59. 262 Oakley and Sinos 1993, 10.

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ἄλγιστον ἔσχον, εἴ τις Αἰτωλὶς γυνή.

While I still lived in the house of my father, Oineas, in Pleuron, I suffered painful affliction in the matter of my wedding, if any Aetolian woman did.

Herakles’ appearance as another suitor and his victory over the monstrous rival appeared like a seemingly successful integration (τέλος, 26),263 resulting in a momentary relief from anxiety (18-21):

χρόνῳ δ’ ἐν ὑστέρῳ μέν, ἀσμένῃ δέ μοι, ὁ κλεινὸς ἦλθε Ζηνὸς Ἀλκμήνης τε παῖς· ὃς εἰς ἀγῶνα τῷδε συμπεσὼν μάχης ἐκλύεταί με.

But at the last moment, and to my relief, there came the famous son of Zeus and Alcmene, who contended with him in battle and released me.

Regrettably, this ephemeral promise of happiness (ἀσμένῃ δέ μοι, 18) was quickly undermined and eventually disproved (26-27).

τέλος δ’ ἔθηκε Ζεὺς ἀγώνιος καλῶς, εἰ δὴ καλῶς.

But in the end Zeus the god of contests decided well, if it was well.

Therefore, Deianeira was never a νύμφη, as she did not have to wait until her first child was born to be considered a γυνή. In fact, since she was selected to be the favoured wife of the great hero with the purpose of birthing and parenting children, she has been nurturing and reproducing fear while nights go by with her worrying about the safety of her husband (27-30):

λέχος γὰρ Ἡρακλεῖ κριτὸν

263 The wedding was a ceremony of completion (τέλος). Thus, prenuptial sacrifices were called προτέλεια. See Oakley and Sinos 1993, 11.

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ξυστᾶς ἀεί τιν’ ἐκ φόβου φόβον τρέφω, κείνου προκηραίνουσα. νὺξ γὰρ εἰσάγει καὶ νὺξ ἀπωθεῖ διαδεδεγμένη πόνον.

For I clove to Herakles as the bride he had won, and always nourish one fear after another, in my anxiety for him; night brings trouble, and the succeeding night pushes it away.

Marriage in her case has not succeeded in overcoming the premarital anxiety of a maiden before the wedding night (νυμφείων ὄτλον, 7). On the contrary, her premarital anxiety is a prolonged state extended up to the marital state.264 In addition, it is an anxiety that is multiplied and reproduced because of the special nature of this marriage that has condemned her to nurture fear on top of fear (ἐκ φόβου φόβον τρέφω, 28). In general, in the world of Trachiniae the notions of pregnancy, childbirth and nurturing are dislocated and misappropriated. Diction of pregnancy and birth is used metaphorically to denote the birth of darkness: (ὃν αἰόλα νὺξ ἐναριζομένα / τίκτει κατευνάζει τε φλογιζόμενον, / Ἅλιον Ἅλιον αἰτῶ, 94-96) and poison (ἰοῦ, / ὃν τέκετο θάνατος, ἔτεκε δ’ αἰόλος δράκων, 833-834). When women give birth, it is to fear and fury (ἐκ φόβου φόβον τρέφω, 27; ἔτεκ’ ἔτεκε μεγάλαν / ἀνέορτος ἅδε νύμφα / δόμοισι τοῖσδ’ Ἐρινύν, 893-895). With no news coming for the safety of her husband, Deianeira has been in a prolonged never- ending state of agony, which is likened to an extended pregnancy (ἐμοὶ πικρὰς / ὠδῖνας αὐτοῦ προσβαλὼν ἀποίχεται, 41-42; κακοῖσιν οἷς ἐγὼ βαρύνομαι, 152). Iole is also experiencing her suffering like a pregnancy: ὠδίνουσα συμφορᾶς βάρος, 325. As a consequence, maternity and reproduction, which normally declare the ultimate purpose of marriage and the quintessential contribution of the female to the household, are undermined and finally cancelled. Even so, Deianeira’s and Herakles’ union should be considered complete since it has produced offspring, and indeed male heirs, which is a prerequisite for a valid marriage. However, it does not meet another important requirement that renders a marriage successful, the state of cohabitation (συνοικεῖν, ‘to live together’). συνοικεῖν is the word most commonly used to denote the enduring state of marriage, as opposed to γαμεῖν, which refers to the act of marriage, the physical inception of a marital union, as well as the marriage celebration

264 See Seaford 1986, 55.

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(wedding).265 While entering the orchestra during the parodos (94-140), the maidens of the chorus notice this deficiency in Deianeira’s bed. They heard that Deianeira withers sleepless on a bed deprived of a husband (εὐναῖς ἀνανδρώτοισι, 109-110), fearing the fulfilment of her direst dreams; thus, they approach with the intention to animate the queen (103-111):

ποθουμένᾳ γὰρ φρενὶ πυνθάνομαι τὰν ἀμφινεικῆ Δηιάνειραν ἀεί, οἷά τιν’ ἄθλιον ὄρνιν, οὔποτ’ εὐνάζειν ἀδάκρυ- τον βλεφάρων πόθον, ἀλλ’ εὔμναστον ἀνδρὸς δεῖμα τρέφουσαν ὁδοῦ ἐνθυμίοις εὐναῖς ἀναν- δρώτοισι τρύχεσθαι, κακὰν δύστανον ἐλπίζουσαν αἶσαν.

For I learn that with an ever yearning heart Deianeira, she who was fought over, like some sorrowful bird can never lull to sleep without tears the longing of her eyes, but, nourishing a fear that keeps in mind the absence of her husband, she is worn away on her anxious couch bereft of him, fearing, poor woman, a miserable fate.

Indeed, a more miserable fate has been awarded to Deianeira; on top of hardly ever sharing her house and her bed with Herakles, she will soon find out that she will be forced to live in the same house and share her marriage-bed with her husband’s new bride, Iole, and asks with indignation: “what woman could live together with this girl, sharing a marriage with the same man” (τὸ δ’ αὖ ξυνοικεῖν τῇδ’ ὁμοῦ τίς ἂν γυνὴ / δύναιτο, κοινωνοῦσα τῶν αὐτῶν γάμων; 545-546). Deianeira’s and Herakles’ idiosyncratic cohabitation is described as a consequence of the latter’s continuous mobility. So, up to the present moment, Herakles has been moving away from his house, unable to fulfil his role as the κύριος of his house. The reason for this movement is that he was charged with the servitude to Eurystheus and the challenging tasks he commanded (31-35):

265 Vernant 1980, 57; Just 1989, 30, 35.

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κἀφύσαμεν δὴ παῖδας, οὓς κεῖνός ποτε, γῄτης ὅπως ἄρουραν ἔκτοπον λαβών, σπείρων μόνον προσεῖδε κἀξαμῶν ἅπαξ· τοιοῦτος αἰὼν εἰς δόμους τε κἀκ δόμων ἀεὶ τὸν ἄνδρ’ ἔπεμπε λατρεύοντά τῳ;

We had, indeed, children, whom he, like a farmer who has taken over a remote piece of ploughland, regards only when he sows and when he reaps. Such is the life that was always sending my husband home or away from home in servitude to a certain man.

Thus, Herakles had had children he barely knew, while he only visited home briefly to be gone again, being in a constant centrifugal movement away his house, like farmers who visit their distant crops only at sowing and harvest. The agricultural metaphor illuminates Herakles’ inadequate participation in family care and suggests that leaving his wife pregnant is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the completion of this marriage. As the standard pronouncement “I give my daughter over to you for the plowing of legitimate children”, uttered when the father of the bride was officially handing over his daughter to the groom suggests, marriage and reproduction were seen as the political equivalent of agriculture.266 Once again, this is a misappropriation of a common marriage metaphor, indicating the absolute discontinuity between female and male space,267 and, as has been already noted by scholars, the spatial separation of this couple.268 It has also been observed that it is not only space but movement that is gendered in Trachiniae: Herakles’ sense of space locates the oikos at the margins rather than the centre of his trajectory, while his motion is centrifugal, in contrast to Deianeira’s centripetal movement.269 Under the special conditions of coexistence of this couple, hardly ever did Deianeira experience happiness through her marriage. Instead of the feeling of completeness that marriage promises to the couple, Deianeira has felt nothing but uncertainty, fear and loneliness. What seemed like final completeness for the bride (τέλος, 26), is shortly contradicted by a marriage that has already proven to be an unfulfilled promise of happiness. Deianeira’s misfortune is such that it even allows her to disclaim the validity of the ancient

266 Men. Pk. 435-436: ἐπ' ἀρότῳ γνησίων δίδωμί σοί γε τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ θυγατέρα (also in Clement of Alexandria Stromata 2.23.1). 267 See for a recent analysis of female mobility and gendered space in Greek myth, see Konstantinou 2018. 268 Segal 1992/1995, 79 and 1981, 64; Zeitlin 1985, 73; Wohl 1998, 45. 269 Wohl 1998, 45.

98 and authoritative saying that advises not to prejudge anyone’s fate before the end of life, thereby considering the possibility of a transition from happiness to misery and vice versa (1- 5):

λόγος μὲν ἔστ’ ἀρχαῖος ἀνθρώπων φανεὶς ὡς οὐκ ἂν αἰῶν’ ἐκμάθοις βροτῶν, πρὶν ἂν θάνῃ τις, οὔτ’ εἰ χρηστὸς οὔτ’ εἴ τῳ κακός· ἐγὼ δὲ τὸν ἐμόν, καὶ πρὶν εἰς Ἅιδου μολεῖν, ἔξοιδ’ ἔχουσα δυστυχῆ τε καὶ βαρύν.

There is an ancient saying among men, once revealed to them, that you cannot understand a man’s life before he is dead, so as to know whether he has good or bad one. But I know well, even before going to Hades, that the one I have is unfortunate and sorrowful.

Ιt is notable that in the very first lines of the drama and at the critical point of the protagonist’s introduction, Deianeira is exposed in an impressive way which reveals the emotional intensity she experiences. There is no doubt that this proverbial statement (γνώμη), commonly attributed to Solon, constitutes one of the most authoritative axioms of antiquity and that it was meant to be applied without any exception to everyone.270 But Deianeira profoundly declares that the epitome of Solonian wisdom does not apply in her case, rejecting any possibility for her life to change either for the better (i.e. she has lost any hope for the future) or worse (i.e. she seems ironically unsuspicious of the worst misfortunes that may come).271 As Aristotle explains, a speaker experiencing an excited emotional state may effectively dispute the validity of popular and commonly accepted axioms (παθητικῶς εἰρημένη [γνὼμη]).272 Thus, the rejection of this γνώμη, although a common rhetorical scheme (refutatio sententiae), has an ironic and impressive effect to the audience.

270 Hdt. 1.32: σκοπέειν δὲ χρὴ παντὸς χρήματος τὴν τελευτὴν κῇ ἀποβήσεται; cf. Soph. OT 1529-1530. See Fraenkel 1950, ad 928-929. 271 The fact that the theme of circlicity as announced in the prologue is central in Trach. has been noticed by several scholars; see, e.g., Whitman 1951, 106, 120-21; Musurillo 1961, 372-383; Lesky 1965, 108-109; Kitto 1966, 154-191; Hoey 1972, 133-154. 272 Rh. 1395a18ff.: δεῖ δὲ τὰς γνώμας λέγειν καὶ παρὰ τὰ δεδημοσιευμένα (λέγω δὲ δεδημοσιευμένα οἷον τὸ “γνῶθι σαυτὸν” καὶ τὸ “μηδὲν ἄγαν”), ὅταν ἢ τὸ ἦθος φαίνεσθαι μέλλῃ βέλτιον ἢ παθητικῶς εἰρημένη. ἔστι δὲ παθητικὴ μὲν οἷον εἴ τις ὀργιζόμενος φαίη ψεῦδος εἶναι ὡς δεῖ γιγνώσκειν αὑτόν: οὗτος γοῦν εἰ ἐγίγνωσκεν ἑαυτόν, οὐκ ἄν ποτε στρατηγεῖν ἠξίωσε: τὸ δὲ ἦθος βέλτιον, ὅτι οὐ δεῖ, ὥσπερ φασίν, φιλεῖν ὡς μισήσοντας, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον μισεῖν ὡς φιλήσοντας (“Maxims should also be used even when contrary to the most popular

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Seaford has shown how these lines present an inversion of the μακαρισμός of the wedding ritual, in order to emphasize that Deianeira has never achieved the εὐδαιμονία of incorporation into her new home.273 μακαρισμός is the pronouncement that the married couple will live happily ever after, which in the case of Deianeira and Herakles is totally reversed into the opposite. Consequently, in that case “the negative tendency in the rite of passage has emerged as a reality, the actual isolated death of Deianeira”.274

The End of Toils for Deianeira275

By misappropriating the μακαρισμός of the wedding ceremony, Deianeira enters the scene to emphatically denounce the failure of her marriage and declare that she has nothing to hope for. Nevertheless, a series of oracles connected with Herakles’ future may allow the likelihood of Deianeira achieving happiness in the future,276 even if, as has been suggested, “the prophecies of Trachiniai concern only the fates of males”.277 Whereas in a first reading, it seems that the oracles are exclusively concerned with Herakles’ future, very early in the play, it becomes clear that the possibility of Deianeira achieving happiness through her marriage is directly dependent on the eventual conclusion of these oracles.278 For as long as the hero is away wandering around and finding no peace because of his unusual destiny, his family remains unsettled and on edge while his future being will directly affect well-being or destruction of his family. As Deianeira explains to Hyllos, their life depends on the outcome sayings, such as ‘Know thyself’ and ‘Nothing in excess’, either when one's character is thereby likely to appear better, or if they are expressed in the language of passion. It would be an instance of the latter if a man in a rage were to say, ‘It is not true that a man should know himself; at any rate, such a man as this, if he had known himself, would never have claimed the chief command’. And one's character would appear better, if one were to say that it is not right, as men say, to love as if one were bound to hate, but rather to hate as if one were bound to love”, transl. by J. H. Freese, 1926). 273 Seaford 1986, 54 and 1987, 122. For μακαρισμὸς in wedding songs also see Hague 1983, 134-135. For μακαρισμὸς in Eur., see Halleran 1991, 114 (n.34), who cites the following passages: Alc. 918-919, And. 1218, Supp. 995-999, Hel. 639-40, IA 1076-79, Tro. 308ff, Phaethon 240-244 (Diggle). 274 Seaford 1897, 119. 275 For the oracles in Trach., also see my discussion in Chapter 5, pp. 167-171. 276 The problems connected with the oracles in Trach. were first noticed by Wilamowitz 1917, 116-133. It has now been admitted that the fluidity that the accounts of the oracles exhibit is more like a characteristic of Sophocles’ dramatic technique than it is a sign of dramatic weakness. See Davies 1991, 268-269, with reference to relevant bibliography. Bowman 1999, 344-346 discusses the writing down of Zeus’ oracle and Nessos’ instructions in terms of the authoritative voice behind prophecy. Segal 2000, 151-171 provides a defense of the supposed discontinuities of the oracles. 277 Bowman 1999, 335. 278 Segal 1992/1995, 69-94 has shown the connection between time, oracles and marriage in Trach. He notes that “the oracles, […] like marriage, extend over an entire lifetime with happiness or its reverse. Marriage for the woman and oracles for the man make visible the changes that a mortal being undergoes in time. The analogy appears in the close verbal and thematic connections between Deianeira's remarks on marriage in her prologue (1-3, 21, and 26-27) and the ambiguous oracles about a happy end of life or a peaceful end or fulfilment (telos) from Zeus at various points later in the play (79-81, 166-168, 1169-71)”.

100 of the prophesies, thus: “Either we are saved if he has saved his life or we are gone with him” (ἢ σεσώμεθα […] κείνου βίον σώσαντος, ἢ οἰχόμεσθ’ ἅμα, 83-85). Therefore, Deianeira’s existence in Trachiniae is completely dependent on the course of Herakles. The prophecy concerning Herakles’ future is introduced at the final lines of Deianeira’s first autobiographical long speech in the prologue of Trachiniae, which presents in a climax her unsuccessful married lifetime but various versions of it are repeated at different junctures in the play. It is reported in a synoptical and vague way by Deianeira in the second part of her speech, which moves from the narrative about her distant past (6-35) to the disclosure of the seriousness of the present moment (36-48). Herakles has now repaid his debts to Eurystheus and the labours belong to the past (νῦν δ’ ἡνίκ’ ἄθλων τῶνδ’ ὑπερτελὴς ἔφυ, 36). But even after Herakles completed his servitude and one would imagine that he would finally be able to fulfil his conjugal indebtedness, to our disappointment, he did not. On the top of Herakles’ long absence from his house to serve the king of Tiryns, now his family has also been uprooted and is staying as a guest in Trachis. Deianeira’s fear is now greater than ever (ἐνταῦθα δὴ μάλιστα ταρβήσας ἔχω, 37), as this time he has left because of the murder of Iphitos, with no one knowing where he is gone, having condemned his family in exile (ἡμεῖς μὲν ἐν Τραχῖνι τῇδ’ ἀνάστατοι / ξένῳ παρ’ ἀνδρὶ ναίομεν, 39-40), while his departure has left worries equivalent to labour-pains with his wife (ὠδῖνας αὐτοῦ προσβαλὼν ἀποίχεται, 42). A reference to the hero’s length of absence and a brief remark about a prophecy he communicated before going away end this first long speech, which started with the refusal of the ancient wisdom and ended with a projection to an even darker future to come (43-48):

σχεδὸν δ’ ἐπίσταμαί τι πῆμ’ ἔχοντά νιν· χρόνον γὰρ οὐχὶ βαιόν, ἀλλ’ ἤδη δέκα μῆνας πρὸς ἄλλοις πέντ’ ἀκήρυκτος μένει. κἄστιν τι δεινὸν πῆμα· τοιαύτην ἐμοὶ δέλτον λιπὼν ἔστειχε· τὴν ἐγὼ θαμὰ θεοῖς ἀρῶμαι πημονῆς ἄτερ λαβεῖν.

And I am almost sure that he is suffering from some trouble, for we have had no news of him for no small lapse of time, but for fifteen months now. And it is some grave trouble; such is the tablet that he left for me when he went; often I pray to the gods that my receiving it did not mean disaster.

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This first brief version of the oracle is followed by a second, more informative, one, which is mentioned after Hyllos’ appearance (61ff.) and is added to the news about Herakles having now being released from his year-long servitude to Omphale and warring –or being about to war– against Eurytos’s city (69-75). This time it is the spatial context –the remark about Oechalia– that activates Deianeira’s memory about the oracles, as they are somehow related to Eurytos’ city (μαντεῖα πιστὰ τῆσδε τῆς χρείας πέρι, 77).279 It seems that this place – Oechalia– is decisive for Herakles’ life since this will either mark the end of his life or the starting point of a peaceful life (79-81):

ὡς ἢ τελευτὴν τοῦ βίου μέλλει τελεῖν, ἢ τοῦτον ἄρας ἆθλον εἰς τό γ’ ὕστερον τὸν λοιπὸν ἤδη βίοτον εὐαίων’ ἔχειν.

That either he is about to come to the end of his life, or he will accomplish this ordeal and for the future live from now on happily.

In contrast to the previous report of the oracle, this formation introduces a perspective of hope. Of course, the pseudo-dilemma included in this account of the prophecy is, in fact, nothing more than a seeming selection between an optimistic and a pessimistic interpretation that the formulation of the oracles anyway allows. By manipulating the oracle to imply that even under these circumstances there may be some hope left, the poet conditions the expectations of the audience and his characters and creates a mood of anxiety.280 A third, more detailed, reference to a “tablet inscribed with words” (δέλτον ἐγγεγραμμένην / ξυνθήμαθ’, 157-158) that Herakles left with his wife before going away, followed by instructions in the event of him dying, is reported by Deianeira at the beginning of the first epeisodion, when she is narrating her troubles to the maidens of the chorus who have just arrived. Deianeira repeats that the last departure of Herakles has caused her much worry, because although the hero used to depart with the winner’s confidence (ὥς τι δράσων

279 χρείας is Hense’s emendation, following Dronke’s desire for a consistent oracle but proposing a better word instead of the latter’s ὥρας. The paradosis is χώρας and this seems to be incompatible with the other versions of the oracle, which focus on time and not space. See Easterling 1982 and Davies 1991 ad 77. 280 This is common practice in the Sophoclean use of oracles. See Segal 2000, 155: “the shifting movements between hope and disaster that are characteristic of Sophocles' use of oracles in general”; and 156: “Sophocles often introduces new oracles late in a play (as in Ajax 748-761) or allows different versions of oracles to interact until they add up to a coherent whole”.

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εἷρπε κοὐ θανούμενος, 160), this time was different; now he left like a person who is condemned to death (νῦν δ’ ὡς ἔτ’ οὐκ ὢν, 161). Timing is important, just like it was in the first account of the prophecy, but this last account specifies a time as the decisive factor for Herakles’ fate: the fifteen-month absence which was already mentioned in lines 44-45 (χρόνον προτάξας ὡς τρίμηνος ἡνίκ’ ἂν / χώρας ἀπείη κἀνιαύσιος βεβώς, 164-165). At that exact time, Herakles’s future was preordained as follows (166-172):

τότ’ ἢ θανεῖν χρείη σφε τῷδε τῷ χρόνῳ, ἢ τοῦθ’ ὑπεκδραμόντα τοῦ χρόνου τέλος τὸ λοιπὸν ἤδη ζῆν ἀλυπήτῳ βίῳ. τοιαῦτ’ ἔφραζε πρὸς θεῶν εἱμαρμένα τῶν Ἡρακλείων ἐκτελευτᾶσθαι πόνων ὡς τὴν παλαιὰν φηγὸν αὐδῆσαί ποτε Δωδῶνι δισσῶν ἐκ πελειάδων ἔφη. καὶ τῶνδε ναμέρτεια συμβαίνει χρόνου τοῦ νῦν παρόντος ὡς τελεσθῆναι χρεών·

He was fated either to die at that moment (sc. his absence for a year and three months) or to survive that moment of crisis and for the future to live a life free from pain. Such a fate appointed by the gods was to be the end, he said, of the troubles of Heracles, as he had heard the ancient oak at Dodona say through the two doves. And the exact moment when this should be fulfilled falls at the time now present.

Like the second account of the oracle, this one is also reported in the form of the pseudo- dilemma ‘death/end of toils vs happiness’. It also names for the first time the oracular shrine at Dodona as the authoritative source of the prophecy (τὴν παλαιὰν φηγὸν αὐδῆσαί ποτε / Δωδῶνι δισσῶν ἐκ πελειάδων ἔφη, 171-172), foreshadowing Zeus’ pre-eminence on Trachiniae. The next consideration of the prophecy is made by the chorus in the stasimon that follows Hyllos’ report of the fatal effects of the poisoned robe at Cenaeum and Deianeira’s silent withdrawal and precedes the announcement of her suicide (fourth stasimon, 821-862). After the latest developments, the chorus ascertain that Nessos’ interference activated the fulfilment of the old divine saying (προσέμειξεν ἄφαρ / τοὔπος τὸ θεοπρόπον ἡμῖν / τᾶς παλαιφάτου προνοίας, 821-824) and that, consequently, the oracle that predicted the end of

103 the succession of toils (ἀναδοχὰν τελεῖν πόνων, 825) could imply nothing else but the death of Herakles (πῶς γὰρ ἂν ὁ μὴ λεύσσων / ἔτι ποτ’ ἔτ’ ἐπίπονον / ἔχοι θανὼν λατρείαν; 828- 830). Once again time markers are used in the formulation of the prophecy. However, the chorus now adds a time detail that has not been mentioned before, a twelve-year period that specifies the time between the initial reception of the oracle and the time of fulfilment (ὁπότε τελεόμηνος ἐκφέροι / δωδέκατος ἄροτος, 824-825).281 There is considerable inexactness in the way this consideration of the oracle by the chorus is made. As Segal notes, “Sophocles does not tell us where this oracle comes from, or how the chorus knows it, or what its relation is to the other oracles that we have heard”.282 This is indeed a premature reference to the fulfilment of the divine plan, occurring unexpectedly and “swiftly” (ἄφαρ, 821), and preceding the actual realization of the truth by Herakles (1164-1173). It could, thus, be considered an unnecessary addition, unless we took it as the substitute to Deianeira’s recognition scene that has been omitted in favour of her emphatically silent withdrawal. It is after Hyllos reports the fatal effects of her gift to Herakles that Deianeira realises the true meaning of the oracle (anagnorisis). It is then that she comes to understand that the oracle did not only foresee the death of Herakles but also the failure of her marriage and the definitive denial of her hope for happiness. But her emphatic exit was considered preferable to a scene of anagnorisis. With her silent withdrawal she inexpressibly consents to the divine plan, which had deprived her of the possibility of joy, and exits in order to carry out the final act of her wedding through her suicide. Within this context, this premature reference to the prophecies in the ode that follows Deianeira’s silent exit could be taken as the substitute for the missing anagnorisis scene. The last retelling of this prophecy is done by Herakles, when everything has become clear and the hero is ready to accept gods’ plan (1164-1173). Since this account is given by Herakles himself, who is the direct receiver of the oracle, it seems that the form of this version should the closest to the form in which the prophecy was first uttered. Once again, the voice of the priests at the sanctuary in Dodona is the authoritative source (1164-1168, cf. 171-172):

φανῶ δ’ ἐγὼ τούτοισι συμβαίνοντ’ ἴσα

281 The twelve-year period is mentioned in Apollod. (Bibl. 2.4.12), where it is said that Herakles receives from Pythia an oracle promising immortality after his twelve years of service to Eurystheus. Sophocles is probably drawing on this tradition. See Segal 2000, 165. 282 For Segal 2000, 165, this account of the oracle and the third stasimon in general “prepares for the progression toward Heracles' final understanding of the oracles”.

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μαντεῖα καινά, τοῖς πάλαι ξυνήγορα, ἃ τῶν ὀρείων καὶ χαμαικοιτῶν ἐγὼ Σελλῶν ἐσελθὼν ἄλσος ἐξεγραψάμην πρὸς τῆς πατρῴας καὶ πολυγλώσσου δρυός.

And I shall reveal new prophecies that fit with these, saying the same as the prophecies of old, that when I entered the grove of the Selli who live in the mountains and sleep upon the ground I wrote down at the dictation of the ancestral oak with many voices.

Time is again the decisive factor that determines Herakles’ fate (χρόνῳ τῷ ζῶντι καὶ παρόντι νῦν, 1169, cf. 43-48; 164-165), but now the time has approached menacingly and there is no dilemma (1169-1171):

ἥ μοι χρόνῳ τῷ ζῶντι καὶ παρόντι νῦν ἔφασκε μόχθων τῶν ἐφεστώτων ἐμοὶ λύσιν τελεῖσθαι·

It said that at the time that is now alive and present my release from the labours that stood over me should be accomplished.

Now that all the actions have been processed and all the decisions have been taken, the truth of the oracle has cleared up (λαμπρὰ συμβαίνει, 1174) and there is no ambiguity. Herakles realises belatedly that he wrongly thought that the prophecy predicted future wellbeing (κἀδόκουν πράξειν καλῶς, 1171) and that it was death that was foretold for him, since death means reaching an end of suffering and subsequently being released from toils (1172-1173):

τὸ δ’ ἦν ἄρ’ οὐδὲν ἄλλο πλὴν θανεῖν ἐμέ· τοῖς γὰρ θανοῦσι μόχθος οὐ προσγίγνεται.

But it meant no more than that I should die; for the dead do not have to labour.

It is now obvious that release from toils was the only alternative given from the beginning. The pseudo-dilemma projecting a future carefree happy lifetime or release through death was

105 the result of interpretation and did not derive from the oracle per se. But now the time has come for Herakles to re-evaluate the meaning of past narratives, fully understand the meaning of the vague oracle and for the dilemma to disappear. There is, finally, a second older prophecy that is mentioned for the first and last time by Herakles a few lines before Dodona’s prophecy (1159-1164):

ἐμοὶ γὰρ ἦν πρόφαντον ἐκ πατρὸς πάλαι, πρὸς τῶν πνεόντων μηδενὸς θανεῖν ποτε, ἀλλ’ ὅστις Ἅιδου φθίμενος οἰκήτωρ πέλοι. ὅδ’ οὖν ὁ θὴρ Κένταυρος, ὡς τὸ θεῖον ἦν πρόφαντον, οὕτω ζῶντά μ’ ἔκτεινεν θανών.

It was predicted to me by my father long ago that I should never die at the hand of any of the living, but at that of one who was dead and lived in Hades. So, this monster the Centaur, as the divine prophecy had foretold, has killed me, I being alive and he dead.

This older prophecy suggests a seemingly paradoxical outcome, that ‘the dead are killing the living’; an outcome that cannot be challenged since it comes from Zeus himself.283 In fact, Dodona’s newer prediction is fully consistent with (τούτοισι συμβαίνοντ’ ἴσα, 1164) and confirms the validity of the older one by saying the same things (τοῖς πάλαι ξυνήγορα, 1165). Thus, on the one hand, the older prophecy interacts with the newer and helps Herakles re- evaluate and clarify the meaning of it, while reality validates the meaning of both. Nessos, on the other hand, works as a confirmative link between these two prophecies, since the dead centaur murdered Herakles, having planned his deceit years ago when he was still alive, but completing this plan while he was an inhabitant of the underworld, through the manipulation of Deianeira. Therefore, coming back to Deianeira’s marriage and her happiness, the possibility of release from toils and the chance of enjoying a happy life that the oracles seemingly suggest (τὸ λοιπὸν ἤδη ζῆν ἀλυπήτῳ βίῳ, 168) do not only signify a false promise of liberation and happiness for Herakles but also for Deianeira. By witnessing the fulfilment of the oracles, as they are gradually revealed to the protagonists in different junctures of the play, we are

283 The paradox that ‘the dead are killing the living’ is often exploited in tragedy; see, e.g., Aesch. Cho. 886, Ag. 1018; Soph. Aj. 1026-1027, El. 1417ff., Ant. 869ff., OT 1451-1454.

106 simultaneously witnessing the failure of Deianeira’s promise of happiness. Within this scheme, Nessos’ role is crucial. However, the monster does not only function as the mediator for the confirmation of the prophecies but also brings together this disconnected couple, Herakles and Deianeira. The communication between them is only achieved and at the same time is irrevocably interrupted by this vicious monster.

Whose Wedding Song?

Under these circumstances, it becomes clear that the news about Herakles’ return at the beginning of the first episodeion (180ff.) promise a fresh start for Deianeira’s life as a married woman. With Herakles being away for such a long time and, in fact, never having settled in his home after his marriage, this seems like the right time for Deianeira to start imagining the belated fulfilment of the promise of happiness her marriage gave.284 And since Deianeira’s happiness is completely identified with Herakles’ future, it is clear that Deianeira’s oikos is experiencing this imminent meeting as the forthcoming re-enactment of her marriage and that the wedding song sung after the news announcing the hero’s return (205-224) celebrates this moment. The choral song, positioned here instead of the expected first stasimon, responds to Deianeira’s call to celebrate the unexpectedly good news to the women of both the inside of the palace and of the outer court (202-204):285

φωνήσατ’, ὦ γυναῖκες, αἵ τ’ εἴσω στέγης αἵ τ’ ἐκτὸς αὐλῆς, ὡς ἄελπτον ὄμμ’ ἐμοὶ φήμης ἀνασχὸν τῆσδε νῦν καρπούμεθα.

Speak out, women, both inside the house and outside the court, since now we are enjoying the dawning, beyond all hope, of this radiant news!

In many instances, this preamble as well as the song itself point towards the direction of a wedding song intended to celebrate an imminent wedding (Ὑμὴν ὑμέναιος).286 In a typical

284 See Seaford 1986, 56: “Now, with the return of Herakles after his last labour, Deianeira can look forward to a delayed completion of the transition to permanent happiness embodied in the wedding”. 285 See Jebb 1892, ad loc.: “Those 'within' are her handmaidens; those 'without', the Chorus”. 286 Unfortunately, only a few songs that were composed for actual weddings (ἐπιθαλάμιον) are reserved. Sappho is the author of most of them. Alcman’s fragments do not contain any, although he had the reputation of a ‘singer of wedding songs’ (see T3 Campbell). For a discussion of the surviving fragments and other songs that seem to have been composed under the influence of the wedding songs’ tradition, see Hague 1983. On the basis of the surviving fragments, she concludes that the most profound features that seem to suggest a

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Athenian wedding the beginning of the actual wedding day (γάμος) was signified by a feast full of wine, food, dancing and song, which could be held either at the family’s home or even in a sanctuary or shrine. The feasting was followed by the main ritual of marriage, the wedding procession, which consisted of music, singing and shouting, under the light of torches that were held high in the air. In correspondence to the actual wedding ritual, Herakles’ movement towards his home could be envisioned by Deianeira as a bright wedding procession accompanied by lit torches (ὄμμ’… ἀνασχόν, 203-204).287 Deianeira visualises that the procession leading Herakles to his home will bring prosperity and fertility to the household (καρπούμεθα, 204), using a metaphor that might allude to the rituals of incorporation of the bride into her new home. In a wedding setting, upon arrival in the groom’s home several short rituals took place, performed around the hearth –as the centre of household rituals– and intending to install the new bride into the new oikos and establish her new status. Both the bride and groom would be showered with elements symbolizing prosperity and fertility, like dates, coins, dried fruits, figs, and nuts (καταχύσματα).288 Often the bride would be offered a ripe fruit, whose consumption signaled her consent to the integration into the new household.289 Responding to Deianeira’s invitation, the coryphaeus calls for the celebration of the imminent wedding (205-209):290

ἀνολολυξάτω δόμος ἐφεστίοις ἀλαλαγαῖς

wedding song are: 1. complimenting the bride and the groom by means of comparison (often to gods, heroes and plants), 2. μακαρισμός (of the groom) and 3. prayers for the future happiness of the couple. 287 Within the particularly complicated syntax of the phrase “ὡς ἄελπτον ὄμμ’ ἐμοὶ φήμης ἀνασχὸν τῆσδε νῦν καρπούμεθα”, the participle ἀνασχόν should be taken as intransitive. In that case, ἀνέχω/ἀνίσχω (see LSJ, s.v. ἀνέχω Β.1.b) should be attached with ὄμμα (which could mean ὄμμα αἰθέρος, namely “sun”) to signify the sunrise (cf. the phrase πρὸς ἥλιον ἀνίσχοντα, Hdt.3.98). Thus, the phrase is commonly understood to mean the sunrise (see Easterling 1982 ad loc. and Lloyd-Jones transl.) Nevertheless, ὄμμα could be used in a more general sense to mean light or something precious (LSJ s.v.). Also, see LSJ for ἀνασχὸν<ἀνέχω as trans.: ἀ. φλόγα hold up a torch, esp. at weddings, Eur. IA 732; hence the phrase ἄνεχε, πάρεχε (sc. τὸ φῶς), hold up, pass on the light in procession, Eur. Tr. 308, Cyc. 203, cf. Ar. Vesp. 1326. Thus, given the nuptial setting of the ode, I am inclined to think that the second meaning could be implied here. Besides, torches were such an integral part of the wedding ceremony so that the expression for an illegitimate union was “a wedding without torches”; see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 26. 288 The custom of καταχύσματα was also observed at the introduction of a new slave into the household and at the time when the city inaugurated its sacred and secular ambassadors. The rite signified the incorporation of an outsider, whose addition was expected to bring prosperity and fertility. See Oakley and Sinos 1993, 34 and Reeder 1995, 127. 289 Oakley and Sinos 1993, 35. 290 For the identity of the singer see Jebb 1892, ad loc.: “this would be given either by the coryphaeus, or by the leader of one semichorus”.

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ὁ μελλόνυμφος· ἐν δὲ κοινὸς ἀρσένων ἴτω κλαγγὰ τὸν εὐφαρέτραν Ἀπόλλω προστάταν…

Let the house that is to receive the bridegroom utter a cry of joy, with shouts of triumph at the hearth! And let a song from the men also go up in honour of him of the fine quiver, Apollo the protector…

The coryphaeus first calls the house (or the maidens of the household) to raise a shout of joy (ἀνολολυξάτω δόμος … ὁ μελλόνυμφος).291 These shouts of joy (ἀνολολυξάτω) and songs of triumph (ἐφεστίοις ἀλαλαγαῖς) at the female centre of the house, the hearth, create a feasting mood that once again points towards a wedding setting. The singer also calls the men of the household to jointly sing to Apollo (207-209). This individualised invitation may allude to the fact that, as was usual for ritual performances, the participants in a wedding procession were divided into age and gender categories. Similarly, during the feasting and dancing which was taking place before the wedding procession guests would have been separated by gender.292 An analogous gendered emphasis to the participants of the ceremony is given by Sappho’s song of the wedding procession of Hector and Andromache (F44, lines 31-34):

γύναικες δ᾽ ἐλέλυσδον ὄσαι προγενέστερα[ι, πάντες δ᾽ ἄνδρες ἐπήρατον ἴαχον ὄρθιον Πάον᾽ ὀνκαλέοντες ἐκάβολον εὐλύραν, ὔμνην δ᾽ Ἔκτορα κἈνδρομάχαν θεοεικέλο[ις.

The older women all cried out “Eleleu,” and all the men shouted high and clear invoking Paion, the archer skilled in lyre, and all praised Hektor and Andromache, godlike.293

291 For the textual problems, see Jebb 1892, Easterling 1982 and Davies 1990 ad loc. ἀνολολυξάτω has been recognised as a certain correction of the codds’ ἀνολολύξετε, -ξατε, -ζετε, -ξον. δόμος is Burges’ emendation of the codds δόμοις. On this interpretation that I find more convincing, δόμος will go with ὁ μελλόνυμφος to allude to the imminent wedding of Herakles and Deianeira. Erfurdt keeps the coddices’ δόμοις and writes ἁ instead of ὁ μελλόνυμφος, suggesting that this is a self-collective reference to the maidens of the chorus; ἁ μελλόνυμφος can also refer to the maidens of the household or even Deianeira. 292 See Oakley and Sinos 1993, 22, 27. 293 Transl. by Rayor and Lardinois 2014.

109

Then turning to the maidens of the chorus, the coryphaeus calls them to sing a paean to Apollo’s sister, Artemis, and her neighbors, the nymphs (201-215):294

ὁμοῦ δὲ παιᾶνα παι- ᾶν’ ἀνάγετ’, ὦ παρθένοι, βοᾶτε τὰν ὁμόσπορον Ἄρτεμιν Ὀρτυγίαν, ἐλαφαβόλον, ἀμφίπυρον, γείτονάς τε Νύμφας.

… and do you raise up the paean, the paean, O maidens! Call upon his sister, Artemis of Ortygia, the shooter of deer, the bearer of torches, and her neighbouring nymphs!

Artemis is a goddess who was granted eternal virginity; as such, she is related to unmarried girls and holds a leading position during the wedding ritual that signals the transition from a παρθένος to a γυνή. Besides the preliminary sacrifices (προτέλεια),295 the preparations for the wedding included dedications (toys, garments, a lock of hair, the bride’s virginal girdle or zone etc.) that the bride would offer to Artemis, among other goddesses. These dedications aimed to recognize the protection of Artemis throughout the bride’s girlhood, ask permission to leave the goddess’ sphere of protection and ensure her protection during later childbirth.296 The call to Artemis in these lines draws upon this traditional role of the goddess, while Ἄρτεμιν ἀμφίπυρον recalls an image of the goddess holding two torches, one in each hand, and can allude to the torches that the mother of the bride or the groom was holding during the nocturnal wedding procession. The second part of the song, possibly delivered by the leader of the other semichorus until the whole chorus joins in at 221 to sing the refrain of the paean, answers positively to the call (216-221):

αἴρομαι οὐδ’ ἀπώσομαι τὸν αὐλόν, ὦ τύραννε τᾶς ἐμᾶς φρενός.

294 See Jebb 1892 ad loc; Davies 1990 ad loc. believes that this is a choral self-address. 295 Seaford (1987, 108) states that “the normal role of the προτέλεια, the sacrifice preliminary to marriage, appears to have been to give to the deity the life of an animal as a substitute for the life of the bride”. 296 See Cole 1998, 34 and Oakley and Sinos 1993, 12, 14-15.

110

ἰδού μ’ ἀναταράσσει, εὐοῖ, ὁ κισσὸς ἄρτι Βακχίαν ὑποστρέφων ἅμιλλαν. ἰὼ ἰὼ Παιάν·

I rise up, nor shall I reject the pipe, you who are the ruler of my mind! See, the ivy excites me––Euoi!––whirling me around in the Bacchic rush! Oh, oh, Paean!

The chorus’ self-referential reply responds to the coryphaeus’ invitation to sing and dance. But instead of a paean celebrating the imminent wedding, the chorus sing and dance in a Bacchic competition (Βακχίαν ὑποστρέφων ἅμιλλαν) with flute accompaniment (αἴρομαι τὸν αὐλόν).297 The flute is the instrument associated with religious enthusiasm, and especially the Dionysian worship. With the members of the chorus envisioning themselves as bacchanals or even as members of a real tragic chorus, the mood of the song changes from dithyrambic to Dionysian.298 Drawing on the concept of disastrous maenadism, this transition from a wedding to a tragic setting prepares for the actual reversal of the forthcoming marriage and the absolute destruction of Herakles’ oikos.299 The last three verses, given to the coryphaeus, are addressed to Deianeira and introduce the next scene, in which Lichas and a group of female war-captives will enter (222- 224). This entrance, however, completely overturns Deianeira’s and the chorus’s expectations. It will turn out that the house will, indeed, ultimately celebrate a wedding, but this will not be the queen’s wedding, as expected. Instead, the house will allow for a new bride to enter, one that is about to replace the older one.

The Displacement of the Bride

The arrival of Lichas and the group of female captives, including the royal maiden in a prominent position (225ff.), initiates the process of replacing Deianeira, the assumed bride to be, with Iole, the actual bride to be. From this moment and for the rest of the first

297 LSJ commenting s.v. ὑποστρέφω translates the phrase ὁ κισσὸς ἄρτι Βακχίαν ὑποστρέφων ἅμιλλαν as “bringing back the Bacchic struggle, i. e. the swift and eager dance”. 298 For the choral self-referentiality in Greek Tragedy, see Henrichs 1994/5, 56-111. 299 For the disastrous maenadism of the Theban women in Eur. Bacch., see Goff 2004, 351 (also see 213-220 for a Dionysian version of a city of women and 271-287 for maenadism). For the maenad as anti-wife, see Seaford 1996, ad 1273.

111 epeisodion (225-496) the plot is driven by the question of Iole’s identity and the position she is expected to hold within Herakles’ oikos, a question debated between Lichas, Deianeira and the Messenger. Eventually, the revelation of the truth about Iole’s future status at the end of the epeisodion sets up a truly important dramatic momentum, as it urges Deianeira’s decision to send the poisoned robe, thus promoting a series of events that will prove decisive for the development of the whole story. Deianeira is the first to notice the arrival of the procession, which should have been moving in the direction of the orchestra while the chorus sing the wedding song: “I see, dear women, nor does the sight of this procession escape my watchful eye” (ὁρῶ, φίλαι γυναῖκες, οὐδέ μ’ ὄμματος / φρουρὰν παρῆλθε, τόνδε μὴ λεύσσειν στόλον, 225-226). “A στόλος is a company of persons characterised externally in some particular way and moving or having moved to a certain place for a definite purpose”.300 Given that the primary meaning of the word is a military expedition,301 and that we already know that Herakles is on his way back home after the occupation of Eurytos’ city, we can infer that Lichas is guiding a group of spear-won captives and that the reason for his arrival is to announce the good news of the hero’s return.302 However, Herakles’ return is postponed until he completes his dedications to Zeus’ sanctuary in Euboea: “he is marking off altars and offering due first fruits to Zeus of Mount Cenaeum” (ὁρίζεται / βωμοὺς τέλη τ’ ἔγκαρπα Κηναίῳ Διί, 237-238). Within the wedding setting of the play, these offerings can be seen as carrying associations of the προτέλεια, namely the sacrifices performed as part of the preliminaries to the new marriage on the day before the actual wedding (προαύλια).303 Moreover, the delay in Herakles’ entrance on account of these sacrifices retains crucial dramatic time and space that allows for the development of a series of decisive scenic episodes before the actual resolution –namely Iole’s arrival, the accounts of Lichas’ and the Messenger’s stories, the sending of the robe, and the reports of the fatal effects of the robe followed by Deianeira’s suicide. Thus, Zeus’ sanctuary in Euboea will remain a parallel dramatic scene for almost another six hundred lines if we consider that Hyllos announces that Herakles is being transferred to Trachis in lines 797-805, or for even more lines if we consider that Herakles’ actual appearance is not made before line 971.

300 Johansen and Whittle, as cited in Davies 1991, ad 226. 301 See LSJ, s.v. στόλος. 302 For the exploration of rape warfare against girls and women see Gaca’s various publications: 2010, 2011a, 2011b, 2012, 2014, 2015. 303 Segal 1992/1995, 80; for προαύλια and προτέλεια, see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 11-13.

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Whereas the herald is eager to bring the news about Herakles’ triumph and his imminent return, Deianeira is more affected by the spectacle of the captives, which moves her attention away from the arrival of the hero to focus on the pitiful misfortune of the girls, and particularly of the girl that seems to be the noblest among them, Iole.304 In her dialogue with Lichas, she repeatedly guides the conversation towards the question of the identity of the captives and, essentially, Iole. After a brief introductory dialogue with the herald, in which she receives news of Herakles’ safety and his current location (232-241), the queen eagerly asks to be informed about the captives’ origin, not failing to admit that their sorrowful look has aroused her sympathy: “And they, pray tell me, whom do they belong to and who are they? They deserve pity, if their calamity does not deceive me” (αὗται δέ, πρὸς θεῶν, τοῦ ποτ’ εἰσὶ καὶ τίνες; / οἰκτραὶ γάρ, εἰ μὴ ξυμφοραὶ κλέπτουσί με, 242-243). With this question Lichas gets the chance to briefly inform about his followers’ identity, before getting into the details about the purpose of Herakles’ absence and his sacking of Eurytos’ city: “He (sc. Herakles) picked them out, after he had sacked the city of Eurytos, as a choice prize for himself and for the gods” (ταύτας ἐκεῖνος Εὐρύτου πέρσας πόλιν / ἐξείλεθ’ αὑτῷ κτῆμα καὶ θεοῖς κριτόν, 244-245). Prompted by the reference to Eurytos’ city, Lichas gives his report on the details on the conquest of Oechalia, which is presented as the result of Herakles’ wish to take revenge on Eurytos and restore justice (248-290). But even after this report, Deianeira is still concerned with the young slaves. After only two lines acknowledging her pleasure in listening to the good news that seem to express typical courtesy rather than real admiration for her husband’s triumph (293-295), she is once again distracted from Herakles' deeds and repeats her sympathy for the captives, hoping that nothing like their misery will ever occur to her family (296-306). The queen shortly turns towards Iole, who is the most pitiful of all the others and arouses her interest in a vague and indirect way. Although it is clear that Iole is in a prominent position among the other captives, we cannot understand the exact reason this girl catches Deianeira’s attention or the exact kind of a relationship she is expected to have with Herakles. On the grounds of the information given by the text, we can only assume that Iole’s passive, silent and noble suffering is juxtaposed to the other captives’ reaction, which may be expressed with more vivid movements and louder cries.305 But there is no other clue for us to

304 For pity in Trachiniae, see Faklner 2005, 165-192. Falkner has argued Trachiniae locates the pitier’s subject position outside the grid of masculine power and prestige in the competitive polis and that pity in the play is metaphorically engendered ‘feminine’. 305 Cf. Rowland’s comments on how the scene was perceived in York production of Trach.: “Although the York production did not use masks, we started by agreeing with Donald Mastronarde’s suggestion that in ll. 325–32

113 visualise Iole’s scenic presence. It is therefore safer for the unrealistic and stylistic Athenian drama of the fifth century to take the words and reactions of Deianeira in her interaction with Lichas and the Messenger as a guide for the appearance and the status of Iole than make further assumptions. Judging from her appearance Deianeira assumes that she is a virgin (ἄνανδρος, 308) and not a wedded mother (τεκνοῦσσα, 308), while she notices that though she does not seem to know anything of marriage and maternity, she looks like a noble person, (πρὸς μὲν γὰρ φύσιν / πάντων ἄπειρος τῶνδε, γενναία δέ τις, 308-309). She then turns to Lichas asking him about Iole’s family and explains that the look of her caused her the greatest pity because she is the only one among the other girls who looks like she knows how to behave prudently (φρονεῖν οἶδεν μόνη, 313). However, Lichas denies any kind of knowledge and tries to avoid the persistent questioning by the queen. He only admits that she does not look to be of humble origin: “Perhaps she is the child of people not among the lowest over there” (ἴσως / γέννημα τῶν ἐκεῖθεν οὐκ ἐν ὑστάτοις, 314-315). Her nobility is such that prompts Deianeira to presume that she may be a girl of the royal family: “Is she of the royal house? Had Eurytos any children? (μὴ τῶν τυράννων; Εὐρύτου σπορά τις ἦν; 316). When Deianeira returns to ask Iole in person (320-321), Lichas advises that it is pointless to try and make her speak, as since she left her home she has been suffering silently, in a way that recalls birth pain: “she has always wept, poor creature, in grievous travail, ever since she left her windswept native land” (αἰὲν ὠδίνουσα συμφορᾶς βάρος / δακρυρροεῖ δύστηνος, ἐξ ὅτου πάτραν / διήνεμον λέλοιπεν, 325-327). It seems that Deianeira can see her tears (δακρυρροεῖ, 326), but there is nothing excessive in her mourning (οὔτε μείζον’ οὔτ’ ἐλάσσονα, 324), and for that reason she is considered to be a prudent girl of noble birth. Within this context of a bride being introduced into the new oikos, this benevolent reception of the foreign girl by Deianeira symbolically assimilates the latter with the groom’s mother, accepting and praising the new bride, as was typical in the process of an actual wedding.306 As an outsider, the identity and origin of a new bride are of primary importance, thus Deieneira’s repeated insistence on being informed about Iole underlines the significance of this detail. However, the identity of Iole will only be revealed after the entrance of Lichas

the remarks of both Lichas and Deianira imply that the mask worn by the actor who played Iole in the first performance would have portrayed deep sorrow and probably weeping […]. So, unlike the rest of the Oechalian captives who appear to have been stunned into a state of silent passivity by their ordeal, Iole’s distress is, although mute, clearly visible” (Rowland 2017, 9). 306 Cf. 465. For comparison and praise of the bride, see Hague 1983, 132-133.

114 and the captives into the palace and the Messenger’s interruption (334ff.), when Deianeira will also realise the real threat she has allowed to enter her house. The Messenger’s version of Oechalia’s capture (351-368) provides a more informative and accurate account of the girl’s expected status within Herakles’ oikos. He claims that he heard –and that there are witnesses that can confirm this information– that it was Herakles’ desire for the girl that prompt him to conquer her city: “It was Eros alone among the gods that bewitched him into his deed of arms” (Ἔρως δέ νιν / μόνος θεῶν θέλξειεν αἰχμάσαι τάδε, 354-355). Another significant detail is added a few lines later: Herakles destroyed Oechalia because “he failed to persuade her father to give him his daughter, to have as his secret love” (οὐκ ἔπειθε τὸν φυτοσπόρον / τὴν παῖδα δοῦναι, κρύφιον ὡς ἔχοι λέχος, 359-360). As David notes, “λέχος means a legitimate and regular union unless a characterizing epithet is added, as here”.307 Thus, the epithet κρύφιον which describes λέχος here determines this union as illegitimate and characterises Iole as Herakles’ concubine.308 Indeed, this request could not convince Iole’s father, hence Herakles decided to abduct the girl by means of violence: “he trumped up a petty accusation and a pretext and marched against her country” (ἔγκλημα μικρὸν αἰτίαν θ’ ἑτοιμάσας / ἐπιστρατεύει πατρίδα, 361-362). And now he is sending this girl with special care (οὐκ ἀφροντίστως, 366) and he not intending for her to serve him as a slave (οὐδ’ ὥστε δούλην, 367); because his desire for her is too strong (ἐντεθέρμανται πόθῳ, 368) for someone to believe that she will have the status of a slave within Herakles’ oikos. Alternatively, one could argue that the nobility of this royal girl prescribes her special treatment and her exceptional position within the new

307 See Davies 1991, ad 360, where further bibliography and parallels are cited. 308 The social acceptability or criticism of keeping mistresses in home is a matter of controversy. Jebb (1892, ad 447) and Bowra (1944, 127) argue for acceptability, citing Lysias 1. 31, Isaeus 8. 39 and Eur. And. 222-227. In contrast, Kitto (1966, 168–169) adduces examples in which husbands are criticized for housing their concubines in the same house as their wives. Hester (1980, 3, n.3) disagrees with Jebb and Bowra (op. cit.) and thinks that the passages quoted imply the reverse: “Lysias and Isaeus are both arguing a fortiori that if one has some regard for mistresses, one must have more for wives; Andromache's willingness to accept Hector's mistress into her house is clearly intended as the extreme example of tolerance to which the most devoted wife could go”. Faraone (1999, 110) agrees with Kitto and Hester (op. cit.), regarding Herakles’ act of bringing his concubine home with him as “an act that even by the patriarchal standards of Sophocles’ audience was obnoxious and threatening”. He is also quoting more passages adding to Kitto’s and Hester’s list (110, n.51): “To their lists add [Demosthenes] 59.22, where an Athenian husband out of respect for his mother and wife refuses to “lead in” (eisagein) his Corinthian concubine to his own home at Athens while she is being inducted into the Mysteries, preferring to send her off to stay with a friend. An anonymous referee also points out that the earliest of the Greco-Egyptian marriage contracts (P. Eleph. 1, dated to 311 B.C.E.) clearly stipulates that the husband is not allowed to “lead in” (epeisagesthai) another wife”. Also see Munteanu, who discusses tragic responses to male infidelity (Aesch. Ag., Soph. Trach., Eur. And. and Med.) and argues that “while the ferocious tragic heroines who do not tolerate their partners’ infidelity appear to be dramatic projections of men’s fears, tragedies also suggest that commonly women were expected to tolerate infidelity to such a degree that their natural resentment toward their husbands’ affairs was misjudged as hypersexuality” (Munteanu 2012, 8-9).

115 house. In any case, Deianeira’s first response when she realised Lichas’ deceit and her misfortune, is that Iole is not ἀνώνυμος as Lichas swore. That is to say, she does “have a name”, she is of the royal family, and this is obvious in her dazzling look and shape (ἡ κάρτα λαμπρὰ καὶ κατ’ ὄμμα καὶ φύσιν, 379).309 Therefore, we can infer that it is not only Herakles’ desire for the girl that arrays her in a prominent position among the other captives and designates her dangerous for his wife. It is her identity as well as her noble birth that is stressed as equally important and seems to cause great concern to Deianeira. As Wohl notes, instead of speculating on Herakles’ motives for sending Iole to Trachis, Deianeira is mostly interested in uncovering Iole’s identity. Thus, what the former is actually doing is ascribing an active motivation to lole in the affair, interpellating her as a desiring subject: “Deianeira is really inventing this identity; her interpellation is more properly an interpolation. In this process, Deianira functions like the playwright himself”.310 Given that female subjectivity is always taken to be problematic, Wohl’s Dianeira, by ascribing dangerous desire to Iole when she might more rationally be concerned with Herakles, is said to seek subjectivity through male paths, and she is therefore trapped in misogynist structures: “But if Deianira constructs Iole as a desiring subject primarily to exonerate herself, this attribution of desire nonetheless provides a misogynist foothold, and ends up trapping both Deianira and Iole. […] Deianira's interpellation of Iole is overdetermined by Deianira’s own interpellation within a misogynist ideology, and subjectivity thus becomes another noose in which women hang themselves”.311 However, as Rabinowitz notes, Wohl might also be trapped in misogynist paths here: “Given Iole’s existence as a cipher, whose only function is to be exchanged, I think that Wohl is doing what Deianira does, that is, projecting onto the figure of Iole our own modern desires for such a possibility”.312 What is more, given that the playwright allocates more than forty lines in describing the reception of the captives (242-243, 293-306) and Iole (307-334) by Deianeira, I too am skeptical about the suggestion that we should read Deieneira in these lines as the agent of misogynist discourse. What is emphasized here is the fact that Deianeira is less interested in

309 In view of the light imagery in Sappho’s poetry, Parca (1992, 185) suggests that with λαμπρὰ it is likely that Sophocles is implying marriage: “He grants lole a godlike nature and presents her as the prospective victorious warrior in the coming war for Heracles' love, while he prepares Deianeira's withdrawal from it”. 310 Wohl 1998, 39. Wohl bases her argument on a new interpretation of lines 443-444: οὗτος γὰρ ἄρχει καὶ θεῶν ὅπως θέλει, / κἀμοῦ γε· πῶς δ’ οὐ χἀτέρας οἵας γ’ ἐμοῦ; and 462-463: ἥδε τ’ οὐδ’ ἂν εἰ / κάρτ’ ἐντακείη τῷ φιλεῖν. 311 Wohl 1998, 41. 312 See Rabinowitz 2000.

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Herakles’ triumph than she is sympathising with the women’s misfortune and objectification by the aggressive male (293-302):

πῶς δ’ οὐκ ἐγὼ χαίροιμ’ ἄν, ἀνδρὸς εὐτυχῆ κλύουσα πρᾶξιν τήνδε, πανδίκῳ φρενί; πολλή ’στ’ ἀνάγκη τῇδε τοῦτο συντρέχειν. ὅμως δ’ ἔνεστι τοῖσιν εὖ σκοπουμένοις ταρβεῖν τὸν εὖ πράσσοντα, μὴ σφαλῇ ποτε. ἐμοὶ γὰρ οἶκτος δεινὸς εἰσέβη, φίλαι, ταύτας ὁρώσῃ δυσπότμους ἐπὶ ξένης χώρας ἀοίκους ἀπάτοράς τ’ ἀλωμένας, αἳ πρὶν μὲν ἦσαν ἐξ ἐλευθέρων ἴσως ἀνδρῶν, τανῦν δὲ δοῦλον ἴσχουσιν βίον.

And how should I not rejoice at hearing at my husband’s successful action, with every right? Without fail, my joy must match his triumph. But none the less it is the way of those who consider things with care to fear for the man who is fortunate, in case he may one day come to grief. Yes, a strange pity comes upon me, dear women, when I see these unhappy ones homeless and fatherless, astray in a foreign land; perhaps they were formerly the children of free men, but now their life is one of slavery.

Deianeira is more seeing herself as one of these girls, sharing similar experiences, while, as we will see to the following section, both her and Iole being victims of sexual violence, she seems to identify her younger self in Iole’s fate. Furthermore, I am more inclined to see a possible irony and a critique against Herakles’ supposed triumph in these lines, which is not only supported by the fact that Deianeira undermines her husband’s achievement by clearly directing our attention to the enslavement and the misfortune of the captives (298-302) but it is also substantiated by the fact that Lichas’ account of the capture of Oechalia is apparently and deliberately untrustworthy and will be too shortly challenged. Soon, the Messenger will be confronted with Lichas, asking him to verify his account as exposed earlier in his dialogue with Deianeira. Through a series of questions, the Messenger attempts to elicit the truth from the herald, repeating that he heard him saying that he was guiding a girl of the royal family (οὔκουν σὺ ταύτην, […] Ἰόλην ἔφασκες Εὐρύτου

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σπορὰν ἄγειν; 419-420), with the purpose of being Herakles’ wife (οὐκ ἐπώμοτος λέγων / δάμαρτ’ ἔφασκες Ἡρακλεῖ ταύτην ἄγειν; 427-428), and that it was Herakles’ desire that was the real cause for the sack of her city (ἤκουσεν ὡς ταύτης πόθῳ / πόλις δαμείη πᾶσα, κοὐχ ἡ Λυδία / πέρσειεν αὐτήν, ἀλλ’ ὁ τῆσδ’ ἔρως φανείς, 431-433). Being fully consistent with his previous statement, the interrogation of the herald rephrases the same details concerning Iole’s noble birth, her expected status and Herakles’ desire as the motive for sacking Oechalia that are first mentioned in the first conversation between the Messenger and Deianeira. But now, expressing no hint of hesitation, the Messenger uses the word δάμαρ to describe Iole’s expected status (428), while Lichas repeats the same word in the next line (429). δάμαρ is usually used for the lawfully wedded wife and it was also used a few lines earlier for Deianeira (Δῃάνειραν, Οἰνέως κόρην, δάμαρτά θ’ Ἡρακλέους, 405-406). I would agree with Davies who suggests that there is a special point in using this word, as opposed to Easterling who argues that due to the heroic setting there is no legal accuracy in the way marital unions are described.313 I am of the opinion that, although the text does not allow for a clear distinction between a legitimate and an informal union,314 the repetition of the same word for both women (406, 429, 430), emphatically signifies Deianeira’s replacement by the younger bride. This ambiguity of the marital terms in Trachiniae is intentionally exploited in order to stress the confusion that Iole’s entrance has caused into this house.315 In any case, although it is really important that Lichas himself will confirm the Messenger’s reality, his interrogation ends in a stalemate. It is only Deianeira’s interference that will prove decisive for eliciting the truth from the herald (436-469).316 Having realised the deadlock of the Messenger’s negotiation with Lichas, Deianeira’s initial speech of despair gives way to a moderate and pragmatic rapprochement. She has now apprehended that Lichas is afraid of her reaction, therefore in her speech she is trying to calm his fears by invoking his

313 See Davies 1991, ad 429 (citing Steven’s comment on Eur. And. 4); Easterling 1982 ad 429, cf. 1224. On δάμαρ, γάμος and related terms, also see Segal 1981, 75 and 1995, 77-80. 314 MacKinnon 1971, 38, has rightly shown that there is no clear linguistic distinction between legal wife and concubine in Trach. and that in order to understand the nature of Hyllos’ union with Iole we can only rely on the context. 315 For a discussion on the same dilemma (wife or concubine), but in regard to Hyllos’ marriage to Iole, see MacKinnon 1971, 33-41 and Segal’s response, 1994, 59-64. MacKinnon suggests that lole’s slave status is a serious barrier to legitimate marriage with Hyllos and that in his request of Hyllos at the end of the play (1216- 1251) Herakles intends only concubinage and not marriage for lole. Segal, on the other hand, has firm grounds to contradict MacKinnon’s view: “That Heracles is actually commanding marriage is a much more economical explanation, and more in keeping with the mythical tradition and the vocabulary for marriage in the rest of the play”, p. 64. 316 On the question of whether this speech represents a deception speech, as Reinhardt has suggested, by comparing Ajax’s deception speech (Ajax, 646ff.), see Davies 1991, ad 531. This suggestion has failed to convince most scholars, including Easterling 1982 (ad 436-69).

118 logic. In general, she is trying to convince him that she is sensible enough to understand that getting involved in an unequal fight with the god of love is pointless (441-448). That is because she acknowledges that Herakles’ desire for Iole is a kind of disease (νόσῳ) and that it is unreasonable for her to blame him for that. But, she continues, she cannot blame Iole either, since she has done nothing wrong and nothing that is harmful to Deianeira. Indeed, she claims, whereas this is not the first time that Herakles had a lover, she has never argued against any of his previous mates. Even more, she will not argue against Iole, for whom she has already expressed her sympathy. Within this line of reasoning, her arguments prove strong enough to persuade the herald to admit the truth. Thus, he ends us repeating for the third time that Herakles’ lust was responsible for the destruction of Oechalia: “a fearsome passion for this girl one day came over Heracles, and it was for her sake that her unfortunate native city of Oechalia was conquered with the spear” (ταύτης ὁ δεινὸς ἵμερός ποθ’ Ἡρακλῆ / διῆλθε, καὶ τῆσδ’ οὕνεχ’ ἡ πολύφθορος / καθῃρέθη πατρῷος Οἰχαλία δορί, 476-478). Although Deianeira looks as though she seeks to lessen the blame attaching to Herakles’ passion, either in order to appease her own despair or to persuade the herald to speak the whole truth (or both), it is a fact that this affair is different from any past liaison her husband had and his wife knows that well. The Messenger already talked about the girl being brought into the house to be Herakles’ δάμαρ. And Deieneira, as she will state later, when she will explain her decision to use Nessos’ philtre to the girls of the chorus, knows that Herakles has already shared his bed with this girl and that this is what he plans to do in the future. Iole is not an innocent parthenos that Herakles brought into her house. She is already a ‘yoked’ woman (“for I have taken in the maiden –but I think she is no maiden but taken by him”; κόρην γάρ, οἶμαι δ’ οὐκέτ’, ἀλλ’ ἐζευγμένην, / παρεσδέδεγμαι, 536-537), who has already taken a place in Herakles’ marriage-bed (“and now the two of us remain beneath one blanket for him to embrace”; καὶ νῦν δύ’ οὖσαι μίμνομεν μιᾶς ὑπὸ / χλαίνης ὑπαγκάλισμα, 539-540). Deianeira repeats that she is not planning to object to this disease: “I do not know how to be angry with my husband now that he is suffering severely from this malady” (ἐγὼ δὲ θυμοῦσθαι μὲν οὐκ ἐπίσταμαι / νοσοῦντι κείνῳ πολλὰ τῇδε τῇ νόσῳ, 543-544). However, she cannot bear the fact that this time her husband rewarded her with this gift for her long caring of the house: “such is the reward that Heracles, he who is called true and noble, has sent me for having kept the house for so long” (τοιάδ’ Ἡρακλῆς, / ὁ πιστὸς ἡμῖν κἀγαθὸς καλούμενος, / οἰκούρι’ ἀντέπεμψε τοῦ μακροῦ χρόνου, 540-543). This time, he decided to bring his lover in her house, forcing her to tolerate her displacement from her own bed. But

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“what woman could live together with this girl, sharing a marriage with the same man? (τὸ δ’ αὖ ξυνοικεῖν τῇδ’ ὁμοῦ τίς ἂν γυνὴ / δύναιτο, κοινωνοῦσα τῶν αὐτῶν γάμων; 545-546). The legal problematic of this new union –essentially the question of the legal status of the offspring that will descend from such a union– is not a matter of concern in the play.317 Βut the interaction between this union and Deianeira’s oikos is. Besides, in Herakles’ myth there is a structural and recurring pattern uniting infidelity and jealousy in a ‘cause and effect’ scheme. Zeus’ infidelity with Almene (and Herakles’ birth) cause Hera’s anger and Herakles’ torture. Similarly, Herakles’ infidelity with Iole causes Deianeira’s jealousy and despair. Deianeira knows that the youthful and blooming beauty of Iole will soon make her invisible in the eyes of Herakles; and soon, Herakles will only be called Deianeira’s husband but will be the actual man of the younger girl (“This is why I am afraid that Heracles will be called my husband, but the younger woman’s man”; ταῦτ’ οὖν φοβοῦμαι μὴ πόσις μὲν Ἡρακλῆς / ἐμὸς καλῆται, τῆς νεωτέρας δ’ ἀνήρ, 550-551).318 In turn, this reaction ends up in Herakles’ torture and motivates his death. Moreover, the arrival of this girl initiates a series of misunderstandings that reflect on the fundamental theme of inconsistency between phenomenal and actual reality which this tragedy explores. From now on Herakles will be called Deianeira’s husband (πόσις ἐμὸς, 550-551) but he will actually be Iole’s (τῆς νεωτέρας ἀνήρ, 551); this girl entered as one of the slaves without a name (ἀνώνυμος, 377) but proved to be noble in appearance and birth (λαμπρὰ καὶ κατ’ ὄμμα καὶ φύσιν, 379), not merely a slave (οὐδ’ ὥστε δούλην, 367); entered without a proper wedding ceremony but proved to be a secret bride (ἀνέορτος ἅδε νύμφα, 894); looked noble (γενναία δέ τις, 309) but is in fact a misery (πημονὴν, 376), a disease (τῇδε τῇ νόσῳ, 544); looked like an inexperienced virgin (ἄνανδρος; πρὸς μὲν γὰρ φύσιν / πάντων ἄπειρος τῶνδε, 308-309) but is a yoked wife (τεκνοῦσσα, 308; κόρην γάρ, οἶμαι δ’ οὐκέτ’, ἀλλ’ ἐζευγμένην, 536); looked like she was pregnant with her own misery (ὠδίνουσα συμφορᾶς βάρος, 325) but she finally gave birth to to a great Fury (ἔτεκ’ ἔτεκε μεγάλαν / ἀνέορτος ἅδε νύμφα / δόμοισι τοῖσδ’ Ἐρινύν, 893-895).319

317 As it is, e.g., in Demosthenis’ In Neaeram, 51, where the author uses the word συνοικεῖν to describe the illegitimate cohabitation of Neaira and Stephanos. See Vernant 1980, 57-59, who discusses this problem. 318 MacKinnon 1971, 35, sees this juxtaposition (πόσις - ἀνήρ) as indicating the wife-concubine distinction. 319 On the basis of the inconsistency between seeing and being that Iole is presented with, Wohl (1998, 41-44) has analysed how the imagined relationship between the interior and the exterior of the individual is different for men and women in tragedy. She suggests that while the model for this relationship for male characters is the aristocratic ideal of kalokagathia (nobility and goodness), for women the paradigm is the externally beautiful but with “wily ways and the mind of a bitch” Pandora (Hes. Op. 67). Therefore, as Wohl concludes, a woman’s physical appearance and status serve as a false mirror reflecting the interior state, which is always

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Consequently, after the Messenger’s interruption, Deianeira realises that this girl who has secretly violated her house is nothing but a misery that signals a serious threat for her marriage and her replacement in Herakles’ bed. She has imported this merchandise that outrages her senses, this unbearable burden, like a sailor who accepts a ‘baneful’ freight on his ship (φόρτον ὥστε ναυτίλος, / λωβητὸν ἐμπόλημα τῆς ἐμῆς φρενός, 537-538). Under these circumstances, Iole’s arrival signals Deianeira’s replacement by a new younger bride and Deianeira is seeing this threat menacingly approaching towards her oikos: μεγάλαν προσορῶσα δόμοισι / βλάβαν νέων ἀίσ-/ σουσαν γάμων, 842-843. And as we will see in the following section, this arrival not only signals the aborting of Deianeira’s wedding but also duplicates and mirrors a nuptial failure.

Mirrored Weddings and Sexual Violence

When meeting Iole, Deianeira identifies an image of her younger self. Just like the young girl, she had experienced herself the fear that her beauty will prove destructive. And she recalls that when watching her suitors’ rival: “I was sitting there struck numb with fear that my beauty might end by bringing me pain” (ἐγὼ γὰρ ἥμην ἐκπεπληγμένη φόβῳ / μή μοι τὸ κάλλος ἄλγος ἐξεύροι ποτέ (24-25).320 Thus, she is in a position to sympathise with her and feel her misery, on the grounds of her ill-omened beauty that has put her at the risk of a forcible claim and has assigned her the role of the desired object, a role that is so familiar for Deianeira (465-467):

σφ’ ἐγὼ ᾤκτιρα δὴ μάλιστα προσβλέψασ’, ὅτι τὸ κάλλος αὐτῆς τὸν βίον διώλεσεν, καὶ γῆν πατρῴαν οὐχ ἑκοῦσα δύσμορος ἔπερσε κἀδούλωσεν.

I pitied her most of all when my eyes lit on her, because her beauty had destroyed her life, and by no fault of hers, poor creature, she had brought her native land to ruin and to slavery.

potentially suspected. A woman’s beauty, as we will see to the following section, apart from being suspect, can be seen as a cause of misery. 320 For the destructive power of beauty in Trach., see Easterling 1982, ad 24-25, 465 (cf. Eur. Hel. 27); for the power of Aphrodite, see Davies 1991, ad 497 and 137-138 and Easterling 1982, ad 497.

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As many scholars have noticed, in many ways this younger bride mirrors the old one. Segal, for instance, suggests that Herakles’ two marriages are ironical mirror images. Iole is Deianeira’s complement, a younger Deianeira, a doublet of Deianeira’s younger self, so that the two women evoke all the different stages in a woman’s life: the wooed girl, the new bride, the mother, the widow.321 Also, Rabinowitz believes that Iole is a doublet of Deianeira, so that two stages in women’s lives, the young and the mature woman, are represented simultaneously. Iole is a pathetic object of the war and of the gaze, just as Deianeira was at one time the passive prize sought by Nessos and Acheloos and rescued by Herakles.322 Then, Wohl shows that “Deianeira explores her own subjectivity by imagining a subjectivity for Iole”; she “creates Iole in her own image and as a means to her own self-definition”.323 Elaborating on these observations, in the following, I discuss how the common experience of separation from the paternal oikos is mirrored in Acheloos’ and Oechalia’s narratives, both of them echoing the betrothals of Deianeira and Iole respectively.324 Instead of an orderly wedding ceremony following a betrothal agreement between two involved parties, the bride’s and the groom’s families, Deianeira’s and Iole’s wedding experiences start with the violent removal from the protected place of their youth, this imaginary utopia where they are enjoying an exceptional life that is free from toils (ἡδοναῖς ἄμοχθον…βίον, 147) and unaffected by heat, rain and wind (οὐ θάλπος θεοῦ, οὐδ’ ὄμβρος, οὐδὲ πνευμάτων οὐδὲν κλονεῖ, 146). In a civilised environment, like Athens, the betrothal (ἐγγύη) would be an agreement between the legal guardian of the prospective bride and the groom (or his legal guardian) arranging the transition of the bride to her new home, an agreement which was typically accompanied by the transfer of a dowry from the girl’s legal guardian to her future husband.325 But in the stories recounting the betrothals of Deianeira and Iole, no proper agreement is taking place. Both girls presented as objectified victims of their sexuality, they are violently separated from their paternal utopia under the rule of fear and constraint. Let me start with Iole’s betrothal. The sack of Oechalia and the rape of Iole by Herakles should have been a standard and well-known version with the value of a

321 Segal 1992/1995, 72-73. 322 Rabinowitz 1992, 45. 323 Wohl 1998, 38. 324 Winnington-Ingram 1980, 88 and Krauss 1991, 86-88 also note the analogies between these two narratives. Krauss 1991, 87: “Heracles' behaviour toward lole at Oechalia was in all likelihood very similar to his violent wooing of Deianeira, so in its return to the combat that Deianeira failed to describe the chorus also recalls and fills, by description this time rather than by report of another narrative, the ellipse in Lichas' story”. 325 See Just 1989, 32-35; Oakley and Sinos 1993, 9-10.

122 mythological exemplum illustrating the destructive dynamics of beauty and desire, as is evident in strophe b of the first stasimon of Euripides’ Hippolytus (545-554):326

τὰν μὲν Οἰχαλίαι πῶλον ἄζυγα λέκτρων, ἄνανδρον τὸ πρὶν καὶ ἄνυμφον, οἴκων ζεύξασ’ ἀπ' Εὐρυτίων δρομάδα ναΐδ’ ὅπως τε βάκ- χαν σὺν αἵματι, σὺν καπνῶι, φονίοισι νυμφείοις Ἀλκμήνας τόκωι Κύπρις ἐξέδωκεν· ὦ τλάμων ὑμεναίων.

That filly in Oechalia, unjoined as yet to marriage-bed, unhusbanded, unwed, Aphrodite took from the house of her father Eurytus and yoked her like a footloose Naiad or a Bacchant and gave her—to the accompaniment of bloodshed and smoke, with bloody bridal—to Alcmene's son. O unhappy in her marriage!327

Here, Iole is an unwed filly, a husbandless virgin, violently abducted from her father’s house, amidst blood, smoke and murderous marital vows, whom Kypris gave as a bride to Herakles. This is clearly a rape described as a type of wedding concluding in an inverted μακαρισμός (ὦ τλάμων ὑμεναίων), in which Kypris exceptionally assumes a role that is traditionally assigned to the male guardian of the bride, handling the girl over to the groom (ἐξέδωκεν). However, the violence Iole experienced when Herakles sacked her city and the fact that she was raped are almost silenced in Trachiniae, as Sophocles’ account of the sack of Oechalia is not straightforward. This is because it is part of Lichas’ ‘lying tale’ (248-290), which intends to hide part of the truth from Deianeira, and is therefore adjusted accordingly. However, it needs to be noted that Lichas is not lying; he is just not speaking the whole truth. According to the herald, the sack of Oechalia occurred as a fulfilment of Herakles’ vow of vengeance. This was stimulated by Eurytos’ abusive treatment and expulsion of Herakles from his house, which in turn provoked the murder of Eurytos’ son, Iphitos, by treachery.

326 The second exemplum is Zeus’ passion for Semele. For an analysis of the first stasimon of Eur. Hipp., see Halleran 1991, 109-121. 327 Trans. by Kovacs 1995.

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Zeus punished Herakles for this murder by having him sold as a slave to the Lydian queen Omphale. Nevertheless, Deianeira already knew about the murder of Iphitos (ἐξ οὗ γὰρ ἔκτα κεῖνος Ἰφίτου βίαν […] κεῖνος δ’ ὅπου βέβηκεν οὐδεὶς οἶδε, 38-41) and the enslavement to Omphale (τὸν μὲν παρελθόντ’ ἄροτον ἐν μήκει χρόνου / Λυδῇ γυναικί φασί νιν λάτριν πονεῖν, 69-70), so she is only deluded by Lichas into a wrong idea about the motive behind the capture of Oechalia. Whereas Herakles’ motivation for the attack on Oechalia has some precedent in archaic tradition, as does the murder of Iphitos, the two narratives are never explicitly linked as they are in Lichas’ tale.328 A fragment of the Catalogue of Women mentions Eurytos’ four sons and “blonde Iolea, / for whose sake Oechalia […. / Amphitryon’s son [ ” (F26.29-33 MW, transl. by Most 2007). A Corinthian krater of c.600 BC (Louvre E632), probably referring to a stage in the story before the sack of Oechalia, depicts a scene (with named figures) on which Herakles reclines in the company of Eurytos and five sons of his, including Iphitos, with Iole standing between Herakles and her father. Despite the missing words of the Catalogue and the abstract character of artistic representations in general, Iole’s role as a motivating factor can be inferred with certainty for both testimonies. Then, the murder of Eurytos’ son is first attested in Odyssey, where Iphitos met his death when he was staying as a guest in Herakles’ house, on account of some stolen horses he had retrieved on an expedition to Messene with Odysseus (21.11ff.). Herakles’ motive is not spelt out, but since he is said to have kept the horses, while the violation of xenia and the impiety of the murder are stressed, the obvious inference is that he killed Iphitos in the ignoble pursuit of gain.329 Nevertheless, the sack of Oechalia at the hands of Herakles is not mentioned in Odyssey; instead, Eurytos dies at the hands of Apollo for his arrogance in challenging the god to an archery contest (8.223-228). Eurytos’ skill with the bow will be fully elucidated in another strand of the story, accounted in Apollodoros (Bibl. 2.6.1), according to which Herakles won an archery contest for Iole’s hand in marriage but the family refused to let him claim his prize. Herakles’ quarrel with Eurytos and his subsequent attack on the city must have been the subject of Kreophylos’ Sack of Oechalia (Οἰχαλίας ἅλωσις), a little later than the Odyssey, in the seventh century. Very little of this survives, but one line (fr. 1 W) is addressed by Herakles to Iole, taunting her with the ruin she has brought upon her people. The fact that Kallimachos (Epigramme 6.2-3 Pfeiffer) mentions that

328 For the attack on Oechalia, Iphitos’ murder and Iole, see Stafford 2012, 81-6. For Herakles’ affair with Iole, see Stafford 2012, 130-131. 329 Pherecydes of Athens (FGrHist 3F82b) confirms that Herakles employed trickery in killing Iphitos.

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Kreophylos’ poem celebrated “what Eurytos suffered and fair-haired Iole” strongly suggests that the girl was central to the story.330 However, these instances do not reveal any connection between Iphitos’ murder and the sack of Oechalia, not in the way that the two incidents are connected in Trachiniae. Thus, the available evidence does not allow a definite answer to the question of whether the story presented by Lichas was a Sophoclean invention or if another poet before Sophocles had already connected these events. Wilamowitz presumed that the connection of the contents of Lichas’ tale was a Sophoclean conjunction, which, however, linked pieces derived from a different version used in an earlier poem.331 Davies, on the other hand, has suggested that Lichas’ tale does not derive from a different version of the story in earlier epic, but is rather Sophocles’ invention, elaborated with various motifs, to create an account from which Iole is absent, an account that is dramatically convenient.332 Liapis has argued that Sophocles, following closely and appropriating the language of the Homeric description, formulates Lichas’ narrative of the events concerning the incident at Eurytus’ house on the model of the Homeric account of Iphitus’ murder by Herakles, exploiting an ironical intertextuality which implies that Herakles is prone to lapse into the kind of lawless behaviour that is typical of his enemies.333 In any case, Lichas’ presentation of the murder of Iphitos as being stimulated by Eurytos’ violation of xenia is a total inversion of the Homeric presentation of Herakles’ crime against xenia (Od. 21.11ff.). This inversion allows Lichas to fabricate a motive for the sack of Oechalia other than Herakles’ desire for Iole, and thus to conceal the significant detail that would upset the queen. Under these circumstances, it seems possible that the audience should have suspected that Lichas’ version, if not intentionally deceptive, is at least eclectic. After all, Lichas’ concealment was was a lie deliberately refined, as Davies notes, in order to create an account from which Iole is suspiciously absent, and a lie which is soon uncovered by the Messenger. However, even after Lichas’ lies have been exposed, the status of the circumstances surrounding Iphitos’ murder and how this murder fits the true story is not clear. This impious murder is placed in the background and is never mentioned again. But this is not to conceal Herakles’ violent instincts, as another violent and even more impious murder is eloquently described later, the murder of the herald.

330 Kreophylos’ Capture of Oechalia is discussed by Burkert 1972, 74-85. 331 Wilamowitz 1917, 101 ff. 332 Davies 1984, 480-483. For Lichas’ ‘deception tale’, also see Halleran 1986, 239-249 and Heiden 1988, 13-23. 333 Liapis 2006, 51-52.

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On the other hand, what becomes clear and is repeated emphatically more than once – twice by the messenger (351-370; 431-433) and once by Lichas (476-478)– is that the real motive behind the sack of Iole’s city was Herakles’ passion for the girl. Nevertheless, in the ode that follows this revelation (first stasimon) the poet chooses to return to the theme of Deianeira’s wooing by Acheloos, which was introduced in the prologue, rather than directly comment on Herakles’ erotic drive that prompted him to rape an innocent girl and destroy her city.334 But since the ode comes right after the account of the events that led to the sack of Oechalia, it seems likely that the idea of Herakles’ destructive passion also overshadows the scene of Deianeira’s wooing. Then again, on the grounds of the scene that follows, the ode prepares for the unequal battle that will be held between Deianeira and her rival in Herakles’ bed (see above, 539-540), by means of magic charms. This is because Deianeira’s concern in the second episode will focus on the hope that she may somehow overcome this girl with spells and charms imposed on Herakles (φίλτροις δ’ ἐάν πως τήνδ’ ὑπερβαλώμεθα / τὴν παῖδα καὶ θέλκτροισι τοῖς ἐφ’ Ἡρακλεῖ, 584-585). Exploring the idea of destructive sexual desire, the first stasimon stands in between these two episodes. Of all the erotic narratives of Trachiniae, Acheloos’ wooing is particularly significant as it is not only prominently exposed in the prologue, but it is also emphatically doubled in the first stasimon. This repetition illustrates the details of Acheloos’ claim by means of a lyric passage, a mode which allows a more elaborate revelation of the excitement and emotion that the scene of primitive violence evokes. Coming after the narrative about the violence Iole experienced when raped by Herakles, which was suspiciously suppressed by Lichas, the mythical exemplum of Acheloos’ wooing elaborates on the recurring theme of the destructive power of love and desire. Thus, Iole’s silenced rape is indirectly and ironically echoed in the background of the ode’s narrative. And vice versa, through a reverse dynamic set by the perspective of the frightened female silent object, on the grounds of the preceding narrative, Deianeira’s story is overshadowed by Iole’s rape, a scene that presupposes a convention of sexual violence. Therefore, the narrative about Deianeira’s wooing from Acheloos is manipulated in order to work as a template not only for Deianeira’s but also Iole’s traumatic experiences of their separation from the paternal oikos. Both women being the objects of Herakles’ sexual desire, their premarital history is treated as a unity, under the common parameters of violent sexual desire and beauty as a destructive force. At the same time, the consecutive

334 For Acheloos and Herakles’ battle, also see Chapter 2, passim.

126 juxtaposition of these two scenes gives the impression that the two women make up one person; at distinctive time levels, both women are nothing more than the object of Herakles’ lust. In that sense, Deianeira is Iole’s alter ago just like Iole is Deianeira’s alter ego. The ode begins with a generalization about the power of Aphrodite: “A mighty power is the Cyprian! Always she carries off victories” (μέγα τι σθένος ἁ Κύπρις· ἐκφέρεται νίκας / ἀεί, 497-498), that corresponds to Deianeira’s previous acknowledgment of eros’ almightiness: “he (sc. Ἔρως) rules even the gods just as he pleases” (οὗτος γὰρ ἄρχει καὶ θεῶν ὅπως θέλει, 443). In fact, the ode develops in detail material treated in the prologue. As Davies notes, the repetition of the same material treated by an iambic scene in a choral passage is a technique that is common in Greek tragedy, but usually, the choral song precedes the iambic scene.335 As Davies continues, the correspondence between the two scenes in terms of context, structure and phraseology is hard to neglect. We can also add to his observations the note that both scenes begin with the rhetorical figure of praeteritio (or παράλειψις).336 Just like in the prologue, where Deianeira refused to recall the details of the confrontation between Acheloos and Herakles and declared that only a person uninvolved could fearlessly watch and give an account of the fight (“I cannot tell of the manner of his struggle, for I know nothing of it; whoever was sitting there not terrified by the sight, he could tell you”; καὶ τρόπον μὲν ἂν πόνων / οὐκ ἂν διείποιμ’· οὐ γὰρ οἶδ’, ἀλλ’ ὅστις ἦν / θακῶν ἀταρβὴς τῆς θέας, ὅδ’ ἂν λέγοι, 21-23), the young girls of the chorus refuse to speak about Aphrodite’s triumphs over the three most powerful Gods that govern the universe, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon, whose amorous stories were paradigmatic (499-502).337

καὶ τὰ μὲν θεῶν παρέβαν, καὶ ὅπως Κρονίδαν ἀπάτασεν οὐ λέγω οὐδὲ τὸν ἔννυχον Ἅιδαν, ἢ Ποσειδάωνα τινάκτορα γαίας·

The stories of the gods I pass over, nor do I relate how she tricked the son of Kronos, or Hades shrouded in darkness, or Poseidon the shaker of earth.

335 See Davies 1991, 136. 336 The scheme could also be considered as an example of priamel or praeambulum, which lists a series of alternatives only to reveal in a climax the true subject of the poem. 337 These three gods are considered to rule the universe, see Il. 15. 190. For their paradigmatic amorous relationships see Davies 1991 ad 499-500, 501, 502.

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However, it seems that these girls have the detachment which Deianeira considered necessary for someone to be able to report the details of this intense fight. Thus, among other alternative exempla that comment on the omnipotence of eros and the destructive dynamic of sexual passion, the chorus chooses to speak about Aphrodite’s triumph over Acheloos and Herakles. So, they reject all the possible alternatives one by one, in order to place the emphasis on the story they choose to speak about, which is the last in the climax (503-506):

ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τάνδ’ ἄρ’ ἄκοιτιν <τίνες> ἀμφίγυοι κατέβαν πρὸ γάμων, τίνες πάμπληκτα παγκόνιτά τ’ ἐξ- ῆλθον ἄεθλ’ ἀγώνων;

But to win this bride what mighty antagonists entered the lists for the sake of the marriage? Who set out for the ordeal of the contest amid many blows and much dust?

In the first antistrophe and the first part of the epodos the narrative focuses on the battle itself, initially presenting the two opponents from a long shot, and then zooming in for a close-up of the body-to-body battle (507-522):

ὁ μὲν ἦν ποταμοῦ σθένος, ὑψίκερω τετραόρου φάσμα ταύρου, Ἀχελῷος ἀπ’ Οἰνιαδᾶν, ὁ δὲ Βακχίας ἄπο ἦλθε παλίντονα Θήβας τόξα καὶ λόγχας ῥόπαλόν τε τινάσσων, παῖς Διός· οἳ τότ’ ἀολλεῖς ἴσαν ἐς μέσον ἱέμενοι λεχέων· μόνα δ’ εὔλεκτρος ἐν μέσῳ Κύπρις ῥαβδονόμει ξυνοῦσα.

τότ’ ἦν χερός, ἦν δὲ τό- ξων πάταγος,

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ταυρείων τ’ ἀνάμιγδα κεράτων· ἦν δ’ ἀμφίπλεκτοι κλίμακες, ἦν δὲ μετώ- πων ὀλόεντα πλήγματα καὶ στόνος ἀμφοῖν.

One was a mighty river, appearing as a bull, long-horned, four legged, Achelous from Oeniadae; and the other came from Bacchic Thebes, brandishing his springing bow, his spears, and his club, the son of Zeus. They then met together in the middle, longing for her bed; and alone in the centre the beautiful Cyprian was there to umpire in the contest. Then there was a clatter of fists and of the quiver, and of the bull’s horns, all together; and legs were wound around waists, and deadly blows struck foreheads, and groans came from both.

The erotic echo of the scene is expressed at multiple levels. The presence of the goddess of love and desire in the centre of the scene, together with the sexual connotations of εὔλεκτρος (515) and ξυνοῦσα (516), evince a pervasive erotic mood.338 The iconography and vocabulary recall Deianeira’s wedding bed and point towards the sexual intercourse at the wedding night: ἐπὶ τάνδ’ ἄρ’ ἄκοιτιν, 503; κατέβαν πρὸ γάμων, 504; ἱέμενοι λεχέων, 514; ὄμμα νύμφας, 527. Then, the athletic agonistic context points towards the celebration of an event which will lead to the rewarding of the winner with the object of his desire. The agonistic imagery (κατέβαν, 504; ἐξῆλθον ἄεθλ’ ἀγώνων; 505; ἀμφινείκητον ὄμμα νύμφας, 527), the introductory generalization and the absence of copula (497), the question-answer scheme (504-505), the grandiose presentation of the opponents with a series of descriptions that precedes their naming (507-513), the schema pindaricum (ἦν … κλίμακες, ἦν … πλήγματα, 520-521),339 all have a Pindaric echo and create the pretext of a victory ode which concludes with the presentation of the prize.340 The scene exudes violence, both visually and audibly; deafening sound effects (τινάσσων, 512; πάταγος, 518; πλήγματα, στόνος, 522) and spectacular sight, in a scenery

338 See Wohl 1998, 199, n.8: “Suneimi often means to live with in marriage or sleep with; see, e.g., Hdt. 4.9.3; Soph. El. 276; Ar. Ec. 619; Arist. Pol. 1262a33”. 339 See Schema Pindarĭcum, in Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. 340 See Davies 1991, 137 and ad 497, 505. Also see Swift 2011, 391-413, who studies the epinician language and athletic imagery of the first stasimon of Trach., suggesting that the epinician portrayal of Herakles stands as a reminder of Herakles’ positive role as a civiliser and an upholder of the moral order, in contrast to his presentation as an extreme figure whose greatness is at odds with social norms (408).

129 full of blows and dust (πάμπληκτα παγκόνιτά, 505), where different means of weaponry and phallic symbols (τόξα, λόγχας, ῥόπαλόν, 512; χερός, 517; κεράτων, 519) are all mixed together, in order to determine the winner of the wrestling bout. Of course, as Easterling notes, neither opponent is the winner here; it is Aphrodite, always victorious, who is in charge of this game, and this time she will be the winner once again (ἐκφέρεται νίκας ἀεί, 497; μόνα δ' εὔλεκτρος ἐν μέσῳ Κύπρις ῥαβδονόμει ξυνοῦσα, 515).341 After all, this game is just another example of Aphrodite’s omnipotence over both gods and men. Then, the erotic context of this victory ode, as Wohl puts it, shows “a shift of erotic focus away from Deianeira and onto the agon itself”, […] “a movement from the heterosexual (with each man vying individually for the woman) to the homoerotic (with the bond between the two heroes mediated through the woman)”.342 The victimized, passive and silent female object is presented in striking contrast to this context of aggressive eroticism, violence and loud sounds. Whereas the violence is between the two males, not against the female, Deianeira’s appearance at the end of the ode carries clear connotations of rape. She is transferred away at the shore of the river, in agony about the outcome of the fight which will determine which of the two opponents will be her mate in bed. This is an agony that has implications of rape, conflated with premarital fear (523-530):

ἁ δ’ εὐῶπις ἁβρὰ τηλαυγεῖ παρ’ ὄχθῳ ἧστο τὸν ὃν προσμένουσ’ ἀκοίταν. †ἐγὼ δὲ μάτηρ μὲν οἷα φράζω·† τὸ δ’ ἀμφινείκητον ὄμμα νύμφας ἐλεινὸν ἀμμένει <τέλος>· κἀπὸ ματρὸς ἄφαρ βέβαχ’, ὥστε πόρτις ἐρήμα.

But she in her delicate beauty sat by a distant hill, awaiting her bridegroom. [I tell the tale as though I had been there]; but the face of the bride who is the object of

341 See Easterling 1982, 133-134. 342 Wohl 1998, 20. For the homoerotics of the agon between Herakles and Acheloos, also see Ormand 1999, 39-41.

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their strife waits there piteously. And suddenly she is gone from her mother, like a calf that has wandered.

This violent and sudden separation of the girl from her mother, like a heifer which is taken away from its dam (κἀπὸ ματρὸς ἄφαρ βέβακεν, / ὥστε πόρτις ἐρήμα, 529-530), marks the end of the intense fight and signals the satisfaction of the winner’s desire. Removing the prize from the battlefield can be interpreted as a further indication to the homosociality of the scene. The eroticism of the agon, as Wohl puts it, “is shown to unite the two male competitors, rather than either competitor with the female object”.343 Be that as it may, I am more inclined to see Deianeira’s image at the end of the ode as focusing on her own alienated emotional experience. This is an abrupt focus shift from the battle scene to the image of the frightened young girl. It is a displacement which is not only evident on the grounds of meter (from dactylic to iambic) and language, but it also sets up a sudden shift on visual and acoustic grounds. Thus, the concluding image of the ode illustrates the anxious and silent anticipation of the bride-to-be and displays the same isolation and distancing of the heroine which was described in the prologue. The lyrical means, of course, allow much more emphasis on the emotions experienced by the heroine and a kind of liveliness that resembles the technique of visual art.344 Moreover, this is an image which mirrors Iole’s silent appearance in the first epeisodion. Like Deianeira’s betrothal, Iole’s abduction is a moment of great violence which defies any kind of reaction from the maiden. Since she left her home, Iole has refused to speak a word and is shedding silent tears (322-327):

οὔ τἄρα τῷ γε πρόσθεν οὐδὲν ἐξ ἴσου χρόνῳ διήσει γλῶσσαν, ἥτις οὐδαμὰ προύφηνεν οὔτε μείζον’ οὔτ’ ἐλάσσονα, ἀλλ’ αἰὲν ὠδίνουσα συμφορᾶς βάρος δακρυρροεῖ δύστηνος, ἐξ ὅτου πάτραν

343 Wohl 1998, 20. 344 Davies 1991, ad 523. Davies, citing Kakridis, suggests that Deianeira is here visible to the claimants while they fight, so that she may serve as a reminder of the prize to win, and thus as motivation. Of course, the athletic context could not but point towards the direction of a valuable award given in recognition and honour of an achievement. However, if only this was the case, it is more likely that the image of Deianeira would have preceded the description of the fight. In addition, there is no hint that the two opponents are able to see her; the chorus may claim that they are in a position to ‘see’ her, but we cannot really know if anyone sees her properly since she is sat by a distant hill, seen only from afar (τηλαυγεῖ παρ’ ὄχθῳ, 524).

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διήνεμον λέλοιπεν.

If she gives tongue, it will not be like the past, for she has come out with nothing great or small, but has always wept, poor creature, in grievous travail, ever since she left her windswept native land.

Just like another Sophoclean rape victim, the mutilated Plilomela in fragmentary Tereus whose striking feature is silence, both Deianeira and Iole internalize their suffering and remain passive and silent observers, refusing to speak for themselves while the male subject is deciding upon their destiny. As regards to Deianeira’s silence in particular, this will be made even more explicit when she will exit the scene never to be seen again, uncomplainingly accepting Hyllos’ accusations for the murder of his father.345 Despite the warning of the chorus that this way she is seconding her accuser (τί σῖγ’ ἀφέρπεις; οὐ κάτοισθ’ ὁθούνεκα / ξυνηγορεῖς σιγῶσα τῷ κατηγόρῳ; 813-814), she will silently withdraw, having already decided that she will herself put an end to her insufferable life. Consequently, on the grounds of the preceding analysis, it has been argued that violent sexual drive stands prominently as the link between the first two episodes, ensuring structural and thematic consistency. The mirrored narratives of Acheloos’ claim and Iole’s rape are particularly indicative of how the play stands against sexual violence. Besides, one of the main themes of Trachiniae is the tragic consequences of erotic desire. Of course, this is not to suggest that Trachiniae is a melodrama; instead, (among other things) it is a drama about the different manifestations of the power of Aphrodite, namely the way Aphrodite acts as a catalyst, regulating and manipulating human relationships.346 As Zeitlin notes, the Greek society is “a system that receives the operation of eros as an irresistible and coercive force and sees its effects as a dangerous encroachment upon the autonomy of the self”. This typical perception of eros does not only focus on the virginal feminine body but is broadened in order to “encompass the ways in which the power attributed to the erotic drive also makes violent assaults upon the male”.347 Zeitlin resorts to the myths of Hyllas, Hermaphroditus, Pentheus and Hippolytus to illustrate her argument. We could add that Trachiniae offers another illustrative example of the coercive force of eros, and indeed an example unique in

345 On the dynamics of Deianeira’s silence, see Introduction (pp. 31-33) and Chapter 4 (pp. 199-201). 346 On sexual love as the actual motivator of Trach., see, e.g., duBois 1979, 41; Holt 1981, 63-73; Parca 1992, 175-192. 347 Zeitlin 1987, 143. In general, the experience of erotic desire was perceived by the Greeks as the onset of a pathological disease. On this idea, also see Winkler 1991, 222-224 and Faraone 1999, 43-55.

132 that it monitors eros from multiple and heterogeneous perspectives. Being monstrous and masculine (Acheloos’, Nessos’ and Herakles’ pursuits of Deianeira, Herakles’ pursuit of Iole) or, as we will see to the following part, ‘feminine’ (Deianeira’s pursuit of Herakles and even Herakles’ ‘rape’ by a severe νόσος –or Nessos), thus spreading simultaneously over different gender and species categories, the complex erotic narratives of Trachiniae classify the play among the most comprehensive and multivariate analyses of eros in surviving Greek literature.

Acheloos and Herakles: Rapists or Suitors?

To sum up, in the preceding analysis I have suggested that Acheloos’ and Oechalia’s narratives are complementary, enhancing one another and at the same time doubling the parallel narratives of Deianeira’s and Iole’s betrothals, in which they are both presented as victims of rape. However, one could challenge the idea that Deianeira in Trachiniae is a victim of rape, given that the definition of rape is rather flexible while strictly speaking Deianeira was never raped in Trachiniae; only Iole was. So, speaking from a legal perspective, Acheloos’ claim cannot be considered an assault, since he seems to follow the customary code of acceptable behaviour with regards to marriage by competition in Greek myth, while Deianeira is clearly stating that the monster is asking her from her father (ἐξῄτει πατρός, 10). The use of the verb ἐξῄτει, instead of any other verb available in the Greek language in order to denote the use of violence (βιάζειν, δαμάζειν, ὑβρίζειν, αἰσχύνειν, μοιχεύειν, ἁρπάζειν),348 seems to imply that Acheloos’ claim complies with the requirements of the Greek family law and can be considered acceptable. Furthermore, Herakles’ role in Trachiniae as Deianeira’s saviour rather than her rapist is commonly accepted by scholars. Segal, for example, although agrees that both women are victims of their sexuality, believes that the winning of a legitimate bride in a heroic contest and the defending of that bride from the Centaur’s rape are Herakles’ ‘praiseworthy’ deeds; these are only later inverted, when winning Iole by martial force and causing the destruction of his established marriage, thus finally playing the role of the bestial violator of marriage that he once fought.349 On these grounds, Herakles did save Deianeira, but that was only to re-enact these failed rapes later with Iole.

348 Cole 1984, 98-99. On legal provisions of sexual assaults also see Harris 1990, Cohen 1993 and Omitowoju 2002. 349 Segal 1992/1995, 73. In the context of his structural view of tragedy (on the contrast between civilized and savage in Trachiniae see Segal 1981, 62ff., 72ff.), Segal sees marriage in Herakles’ house as moving between

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Within this line of thought, one could suggest that Deianeira was only the victim of a frightful wooing by Acheloos while Herakles appeared as her saviour. Then, as Zeitlin notes, Greek myth “almost invariably projects its scenarios of sexual violence on to others than adult Greek males, others who in one way or another inhabit the peripheries of its cultural space. These actors may be other gods, whose sexual energy represents their natural fecundating force, or those demonic hybrids of mixed human and animal nature such as satyrs and centaurs. They may be barbarians whose despotic and sensuous nature puts them outside of Greek rules, and they may be adolescent males who are still on the boundary between child and adult”.350 So, responding to a possible objection to Herakles’ contested role as a rapist, we need to counter a further question: Are we entitled to consider Herakles of the Trachiniae as an inhabitant of the peripheries of the Greek cultural space, as an ‘other’ on to whom this scenario of a sexual offender is projected? Herakles is a figure located in between the peripheries and the mainland of the Greek cultural space, as he is generally located in-between a lot of oppositions.351 After all, Herakles’ desire for sexual pleasure and his extensive love-life in his mythology is too often excessive.352 At the very beginning of his life, he was conceived after a prolonged period of sexual intercourse, while his father was one of the most famous seducers in antiquity. In general, apart from the fifty daughters of Thespios supposedly bedded by Herakles either in a single night or over fifty consecutive nights, he is said to have slept with an impressive total of ninety women.353 He is also said to have had quite a few young male lovers, including Hylas, Philoktetes, Admetos, Abderos, and even his nephew Iolaos. Continuing with Herakles’ role in Trachiniae as Deianeira’s savior from the repulsive river-god (ὁ κλεινὸς ἦλθε Ζηνὸς Ἀλκμήνης τε παῖς / ὃς εἰς ἀγῶνα τῷδε συμπεσὼν μάχης / ἐκλύεταί με, 19-21; τέλος δ’ ἔθηκε Ζεὺς ἀγώνιος καλῶς, 26), we need to note that this is not only immediately questioned already in the prologue (εἰ δὴ καλῶς, 26), but explicitly undermined on the grounds of the narrative on Oechalia. The latter, a narrative that clearly portrays Herakles as a rapist and destroyer of cities, deliberately precedes the first ode’s

extremes: “This (sc. Herakles) is a hero, then, without city or household, an exile because he is stained with the blood of murder (38-40, 258). As a result, his marital relations partake of the rudeness and violence of the wild Centaur in his river. Marriage in his house swings between contradictory, impossible extremes: both rape and betrothal, both secret concubinage (360) and legitimate marriage in bringing Iole to his household; both ‘normal’ exogamous marriage in leading Deianeira from remote Aetolia to mainland Greece (and eventually to Trachis) and a quasi-incestuous endogamy in giving Iole to his son” (Segal 1992/1995, 89). 350 Zeitlin 1986, 125-126. 351 On Herakles’ liminal status, see Chapter 2 (pp. 74-82). 352 For Herakles’ love affairs see Pike 1977, 73–83; Brommer 1984, 117-141; Stafford 2012, 130-136. 353 Brommer 1984, 183-184.

134 account of Deianeira’s wooing. As a result, Herakles’ bestiality is already evident when his ‘praiseworthy’ deed as a saviour is presented. In addition, in her pursuit by Acheloos and Herakles, Deianeira’s presentation strongly opposes her traditional image as an Amazon-like figure that strongly resists her abduction.354 Differing strikingly, and presumably deliberately, from this independent figure, the description of the ode assigns her the schematic female passivity that is typical in mythical erotic pursuits and rape scenes, a passivity that can be translated to hesitation, or even aversion, invariably directed towards both suitors. Given that an analogous passivity was previously assigned to Iole, we can observe that starting from Acheloos’ narrative and reaching up to Oechalia’s story, Herakles’ violent sexuality has always been on the beasts’ side, juxtaposed to the female’s premarital anxiety and never contributing to the overcoming of it.

354 On Nessos’ attempt to rape Deianeira in art and literature, see Chapter 1 (pp. 45-50).

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PART 3: Rape to Death

Nessos’ Dirty Ferrying: Rape to Death

As we will see in the following last part of this chapter, Nessos’ interruption is a decisive turning point for Trachiniae. This bestial violator is functioning as a connection between different incidents of the drama, and more importantly he provides the only link between an extremely disconcerted couple, between Herakles and Deianeira. Starting with the initial act of interruption, we notice that a rite of passage from maiden to wife is violated by an attempted rape, a death and a gruesome transaction (555-569): 355

ὃς (sc. Nessos) τὸν βαθύρρουν ποταμὸν Εὔηνον βροτοὺς μισθοῦ ’πόρευε χερσίν, οὔτε πομπίμοις κώπαις ἐρέσσων οὔτε λαίφεσιν νεώς. ὃς κἀμέ, τὸν πατρῷον ἡνίκα στόλον ξὺν Ἡρακλεῖ τὸ πρῶτον εὖνις ἑσπόμην, φέρων ἐπ’ ὤμοις, ἡνίκ’ ἦ ’ν μέσῳ πόρῳ, ψαύει ματαίαις χερσίν·

(Nessus), who for a fee used to carry people across the board flow of the river Evenus, not by plying oars to transport them nor by a ship with sails, but in his arms. While he was carrying me upon his shoulders, when I was first accompanying Heracles as bride, after my father had sent me off, while I was in mid-stream he laid lustful hands upon me.

These lines present a violent dislocation of the normal wedding procession; as Armstong puts it, “a bad dream of bestial violence”.356 Armstong argues for the effect of a word-play here, based on the double meaning of εὖνις as both ‘bedfellow, wife’ and (followed by a genitive) ‘bereft of’. Therefore, he suggests that “those of Sophocles’ audience who enjoyed word-play would hear the double meaning: ‘when I first followed Heracles as his bride’ / ‘when I first followed Heracles, deprived of my father (and family)’ (πατρός understood with εὖνις from πατρῷον); or even “when I first followed Heracles, alone

355 For the problematics of the exchange between Deianeira and Nessos, also see Chapter 4 (pp. 163-171). At this point, I am mostly interested in the sexual violation of the maiden. 356 Armstrong 1986, 101.

136 and uncompanioned (otherwise)”. The second meaning of ‘deprived of’ also fills out the preceding description of Deianeira as a calf which is lost and bereft of its mother (κἀπὸ ματρὸς ἄφαρ βέβαχ’, / ὥστε πόρτις ἐρήμα, 529-530) and agrees with the scholiast on 562.357 In any case, Deianeira complains about her bridal journey, which was deprived of every bridal honour and was nothing like the πομπή she, as a princess, ought to have had. The sending forth her father ordained, the bride-procession leading to her new home (πατρῷον στόλον, 562) that she dutifully followed, was an unpleasant experience overshadowed by an attempted rape and a bestial death. According to Segal, Deianeira’s transition to her new house is a parody of the typical wedding procession: “this pompe was not the traditional cortege of wagons loaded with gifts and accompanied by joyful families within the limits of the polis but a long and dangerous journey in a wild place, alone, and across water (557-568). The means of conveyance was not the bridal chariot in which bride and groom stood happily together, but a Centaur who carried the bride on his bare shoulder, a transport ‘by hands, not rowing by escorting oars [pompimois kopais] nor by a ship’s sails’ (560-561). The hands that provided the pompe, moreover, were a far from reliable conveyance, for they wandered to touch her in sexual violation (565)”.358 Together with Segal and Armstrong who see the reversal of the nuptial ritual here, Rehm adds that the background myth behind this epeisodion describing Deianeira’s violation by Nessos during her transfer to her husband’s home is the famous battle between the Centaurs, the well-known representatives of the negation of marriage,359 and the Lapiths during Peirithoos’ wedding.360 DuBois also deals with Nessos as the bestial violator of Deianeira’s marriage. In her study on the notion of difference based on the polarization of kinds, she reads Trachiniae as an example of the human/animal doublet in Greek thought. She detects a shift to the imaginary difference and otherness marked by the eruption of the Peloponnesian War, when the city was threatened and what was traditionally placed to the outside (i.e. the barbarian, the bestial and the feminine) had invaded; when the ‘Greek human male’, which formed the subject of the polis and the centre of the culture, struggled against the imaginary ‘barbarian animalistic female’.361 Within this line of thought, she suggests that in Trachiniae “the bestial

357 Armstrong 1986, 101. 358 Segal 1992/1995, 88. cf. Segal 1977/1995, 30: “The long account of Nessus' attempted rape (555-577) continues the theme of elemental violence”. 359 See Kirk 1970, 152-162; Detienne 1977, 87-88; duBois 1979, 35. 360 Rehm 1994, 75. 361 duBois 1982, 1-18, esp. 5. Within the new ordering of the polis culture, duBois suggests, social relations were no longer based on polarity and analogy, but they were rather forged in relations of superiority and subordination (hierarchy).

137 threatens to intervene into the most central institution founding the city, the orderly exchange of women through marriage”. The attempted abduction of Deianeira, she continues, is a contaminating act of intervention which requires catharsis, through the cleansing action of Nessos’ φάρμακον, which functions as both a sign of pollution and its cure, as it “cleanses the city of the taint brought on by the Centaur’s initial act of sexual violence”. She also suggests that the sexual echo of the centaur’s violent act is implied in the writing tablet’s shape, the δέλτος (χαλκῆς δέλτου γραφήν, 683; cf. παλαιὰν δέλτον, 156-7), on which Deianeira kept Nessos’ instructions.362 This initial sexual violation of Deianeira’s dirty ferrying does not only permeate her marriage but it is also recalled when Herakles’ poisoned body is being ferried back to his house.363 At the end of Hyllos’ report of the events in Cenaeum we are informed about Herakles’ wish to be transferred away from this land, in a place where no one would be able to see him in this miserable and shameful state, and that Hyllos would place him in a boat (897-806). The use of the verb πορθμεύω to describe Herakles’ ferrying over the sea (μ’ ἔκ γε τῆσδε γῆς / πόρθμευσον ὡς τάχιστα, 801-802) establishes this connection, alluding to Deianeira’s ferrying by the vicious Centaur (ἐπόρευε, πομπίμοις, 560; πορθμῶν, ἔπεμψα, 571). Both ferries, Deianeira’s bridal procession across the river Evenus and Herakles’ ferry over the sea, are violently interrupted by the monstrous Centaur, who functions as the decisive link between this disconcerted couple. Whereas the beast failed in his attempt to rape Deianeira, it succeeded in penetrating and emasculating Herakles’ body. The diseased body of the great hero will be finally carried on-stage in a procession (ἐκφορά: a funeral procession with mourners), which will expose his living corpse in the scene of the theatre of Dionysus (πρόθεσις: the laying out of a corpse), to present his final moments before being transferred to his tomb. Like his assault against Deianeira, Nessos’ attack against Herakles incorporates evidence of a violent rape, with the νόσος having penetrated the hero’s overwhelmed body and having transformed him into a terrified crying maiden (ὥστε παρθένος, / βέβρυχα κλαίων, 1071-1072), about to lift her veil in the final act before the wedding night (1078-1080 imply a scene of ἀνακαλυπτήρια, namely the ritualistic unveiling by the bride). Consequently, Nessos’ attack started as a violent rape/penetration of Deianeira’s wedding but ends up in the rape/penetration of Herakles’ body, turning the imminent wedding into a funeral and the sacrificial perpetrator of the preparatory offerings (προτέλεια)

362 duBois 1982, 96-100. On tablet as metaphor of the female body, also see duBois 1988, 130-66. 363 For this allusion, see Rehm 1994, 76-77.

138 into the sacrificial victim.364 So, if we turn back to the beginning of the drama and the wedding song celebrating Herakles’ return, we may be surprised to realize that the house which was about to celebrate a wedding is finally greeting a funeral procession. In the course of the play the procession of the triumphant hero from Cape Cenaeum to his house undergoes multiple reversions; it was first imagined as a pseudonuptial procession to celebrate the re- enactment of Deianeira’s wedding; then it transformed into another quasi-wedding procession introducing Iole as Deianeira’s replacement; eventually, it turns into a final pseudonuptial procession with Herakles oscillating between the role of the new bride lifting the veil and the sacrificial victim being burned alive. In a nutshell, the outcome of this dramatic setting is ‘three failed weddings, two deaths and a funeral’.

Death after a Death: πρὸς θανάτῳ θάνατον

The final result of Nessos’ vicious intrusion is the death of both protagonists. And, as already noted, with Nessos acting as a common denominator, it is only through their death that the experiences of Deianeira and Herakles meet in Trachiniae. Standing between the two incidents, the fourth stasimon (947-970) comments this futile meeting. As the chorus notice, the deaths of Deianeira and Herakles converge (κοινὰ δ’ ἔχειν τε καὶ μέλλειν, 952) in that they are both equally terrible misfortunes so that they wonder which one to lament (947-952):

πότερα πρότερον ἐπιστένω, στρ. αʹ πότερα μέλεα περαιτέρω, δύσκριτ’ ἔμοιγε δυστάνῳ. τάδε μὲν ἔχομεν ὁρᾶν δόμοις, ἀντ. αʹ τάδε δὲ μένομεν ἐν ἐλπίσιν· κοινὰ δ’ ἔχειν τε καὶ μέλλειν.

Which case shall I lament for first? Which is the sadder? It is hard for me, poor creature, to decide. The one we can see in the house, the other we await in expectation; seeing and waiting to see are just the same.

364 As Segal 1992/1995, 30, notes, in Trach. the wedding setting undergoes a series of multiple inversions; Herakles turns “from the returning husband to the arriving new bride, and from the human celebrant to the bestial victim”.

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This first strophic doublet of the song seems to match well with a typical lamentation: initial hesitation expressed by means of questions, antithesis, parechesis and repetition.365 The strophe and the antistrophe stand in absolute correspondence, underlining the symmetry between both deaths. In the way these deaths are presented, we can detect analogies that underline the fact that the parallel pathways of this otherwise failed union intersect at the time of the tragic closing ceremony. On the one hand, it is the association or juxtaposition of death and wedding, in such a way that once again death is presented through the reversal of a proper wedding ceremony that recurs as a pattern in the account of both deaths. Thus, these two incidents correspond in that they are presented in a way that presumes upon the nuptial patterns which cohere the play as a whole. On the other, what is striking is that within this wedding setting the typical correlations of gender roles are completely dislocated, emphasizing the ultimate subversion of gender order in which Trachiniae invests.

***

I will start with the analysis of Deianeira’s death, which comes first within the play’s progressive sequence. As I have already noted, very early at the prologue of the play, Deianeira stated that her existence is completely dependent on that of Herakles (82-85):

ἐν οὖν ῥοπῇ τοιᾷδε κειμένῳ, τέκνον, οὐκ εἶ ξυνέρξων, ἡνίκ’ ἢ σεσώμεθα [ἢ πίπτομεν σοῦ πατρὸς ἐξολωλότος] κείνου βίον σώσαντος, ἢ οἰχόμεσθ’ ἅμα;

So since he stands at such a crisis, my son, will you not go and help him, since either we are saved if he has saved his life or we are gone with him.

With that in mind, even when the deathly effect of the philtre was only a suspicion and not a confirmed reality, she announced her intention to die and despite the chorus’ attempts to remind her of her good intentions, she did not negotiate her decision (719-720):

365 See Alexiou 2002, 161ff. and Easterling 1982 ad 947-952.

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καίτοι δέδοκται, κεῖνος εἰ σφαλήσεται, ταὐτῇ σὺν ὁρμῇ κἀμὲ συνθανεῖν ἅμα.

Well, I have determined, if he comes to grief, that with the same movement I too shall die with him.

Therefore, her wish to die with her husband in the event of his fall was rather expected. So when, at the end of the third epeisodion and after her son’s description of the effect that her gift had on his father and his accusations, Deianeira silently left the scene (813ff.), she had already decided that she would herself put an end in her life. The account of her death is reported by the Nurse in the fourth epeisodion (900-931). The report starts following her from the moment she was headed towards the house. Although Deianeira had already decided her death, it seems that the look of Hyllos in the yard preparing a litter that would accommodate Herakles’ dying body (κοῖλα δέμνια, 901), motivated and confirmed her intention. First, Deianeira bid farewell to the part of her oikos that included the physical space, its objects, her children and servants. She hid herself in the court, and while falling near the altars and touching her belongings, she moaned aloud for the altars being abandoned. Then, as she moved in the house, when seeing the face of any of her attendants, she was calling upon her fate and her “childless future state” (τὰς ἄπαιδας ἐς τὸ λοιπὸν οὐσίας, 911).366 After giving the send-off to her oikos, Deianeira started preparing for the actual suicide in a way which suggests that her death is envisioned as the re-enactment of her unfortunate marriage: she rushed into the bedchamber (“suddenly I saw her burst into the marriage chamber of Heracles”; ἐξαίφνης σφ’ ὁρῶ / τὸν Ἡράκλειον θάλαμον εἰσορμωμένην, 912-913), made the nuptial bed (“I saw the woman casting blankets on the bed of Heracles”; ὁρῶ δὲ τὴν γυναῖκα δεμνίοις / τοῖς Ἡρακλείοις στρωτὰ βάλλουσαν φάρη, 915-916) and lay down on the middle of it (“took her place in the middle of the bed”; καθέζετ’ ἐν μέσοισιν εὐνατηρίοις, 918). Having completed the arrangement of the nuptial scenery, within a chamber that is completely owned by and surrounded by Herakles, as the double repetition of the adjective Ἡράκλειος for both the chamber and the bedding suggests, she then addressed

366 The concrete meaning of οὐσία as ‘property’ seems impossible for highly elevated poetry. The philosophical meaning ‘reality, existence’ seems like a more convincing alternative. Other corrections that have been suggested (οἰκίας, ἑστίας) also seem rather inefficient. For a discussion of the problems concerning this line, see Davies 1991, ad loc.

141 the final farewell to what constitutes the symbol of her own existence (ἐμά), her bridal bed and her marriage (920-922):

ὦ λέχη τε καὶ νυμφεῖ’ ἐμά, τὸ λοιπὸν ἤδη χαίρεθ’, ὡς ἔμ’ οὔποτε δέξεσθ’ ἔτ’ ἐν κοίταισι ταῖσδ’ εὐνάτριαν.

Oh, my bridal bed, farewell now for ever, since you will never again receive me to lie upon this couch.

λέχη refer to the marriage-bed, and generally, marriage. νυμφεῖα could refer to the “bridechamber” (νυμφεῖον [sc. δῶμα]), the “nuptial rites” (νυμφεῖα [sc. ἱερά] or the “bride”. Both Davies and Easterling take νυμφεῖα to mean ‘bridal chambers’.367 In any case, there is a tautology in this syntax (λέχη τε καὶ νυμφεῖα, 920), underlining that Deianeira is referring to her sleeping together with her husband, namely the sexual aspect of her marriage (cf. εὐνάτριαν: “bedfellow”). And indeed, if we consider that with this final farewell to her husband, she left herself bare, posing her body available for the actual penetration by the sword (923-926):

τοσαῦτα φωνήσασα συντόνῳ χερὶ λύει τὸν αὑτῆς πέπλον, οὗ χρυσήλατος προὔκειτο μαστῶν περονίς, ἐκ δ’ ἐλώπισεν πλευρὰν ἅπασαν ὠλένην τ’ εὐώνυμον.

Having said so much, with a sweeping hand she loosed her robe, where a gold pin lay above her breasts, and bared all her side and her left arm.

The eroticism of the bridal chamber, with the woman naked in the centre of her bed, suggests that with her death Deianeira re-enacts her wedding. Deianeira prepared herself for the subsequent forcible penetration by the sword by imagining it as an imminent act of sexual intercourse with her husband. The tragic setting, however, encompassing her absolute

367 Easterling 1982 and Davies 1991 ad loc. Also see LSJ. s.v. λέχος and νυμφεῖον.

142 isolation and alienation and frustrating the bridal fantasy, confirms the failure of this wedding. As has been noted by Loraux, in their deaths tragic wives bring their marriages to fulfilment. On these grounds, we can see Deianeira’s suicide as a way to be connected with her husband through death, as an example of “to die with”, in Loraux’s words, just like Euripides’ Helen, who swears that, if Menelaus dies, she will kill herself with the same sword and rest at his side (Hel. 837, 986-986). As Loraux suggests, the fate of “to die with”, “becomes, in the case of female suicides, the object of a will that seems at once like love and like despair” […], “a tragic way for a woman to go to the extreme limit of marriage, by […] drastically reordering events, since it is in death that ‘living with’ her husband will be achieved”.368 Similarly, Seaford sees Deianeira’s death as the extreme manifestation of the negative tendency of her wedding transition, which has never been accomplished. Her death is the only moment when she enacts her otherwise failed marriage.369 Also for Segal, Deianeira’s suicide, right before the arrival of ‘Herakles as the new bride’, is the grim form of “the consummation of the union on the wedding night as Deianeira dies in the conjugal bed with gestures that evoke the new bride’s defloration (‘loosing her peplos’, 924-926)”.370 Within this line of thinking, Deianeira’s death is feminine, as it is both a conjugal death of a tragic wife fulfilling her marriage and a suicidal death that conforms to a pattern of tragic women’s deaths. However, Deianeira’s death also entails contradictions and inconsistencies so that it both reaffirms the gendered world of tragedy but at the same time it questions these same gendered schemes. Death denotes a movement, and especially for women death is a flight, an escape from reality, which is implied through the vocabulary used for female suicides (αἰώρημα, πτῶμα, πήδημα).371 Deianeira’s journey towards her death is also described as a movement, a flight, but it is one with a “motionless foot” (874-875):

βέβηκε Δῃάνειρα τὴν πανυστάτην ὁδῶν ἁπασῶν ἐξ ἀκινήτου ποδός.

Without movement of her foot Deianeira has gone on the last of all journeys!

368 Loraux 1987, 25, 26. For Herakles’ and Deianeira’s deaths, also see Loraux 1995, 39-42. 369 Seaford 1987, 119. For a similar approach see Rehm 1994, 72-83. 370 Segal 1992/1995, 85. 371 See Loraux 1987, 19-20.

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This oxymoron may suggest, as Loraux notes, that Deianeira did not fly away by hanging herself but that she has died like a soldier. Then, Deianeira’s death, completed in the time in which the Nurse ran to warn her son of what she was about, comes to her in a manly way (930-931):

ὁρῶμεν αὐτὴν ἀμφιπλῆγι φασγάνῳ πλευρὰν ὑφ’ ἧπαρ καὶ φρένας πεπληγμένην.

We saw that she had struck herself with a two-edged sword in the side below the liver and the seat of life.372

Whereas female death in poetry is normally associated with the throat, the side and the liver are the two fatal places on the warrior’s body.373 But Deianeira’s death comes to her as a bloody slaughter with the use of a sword, through a stab on the side below the liver, just like death comes to a man. On the other hand, although dying like a soldier, Deianeira uncovered her left side (ἐλώπισεν / πλευρὰν ἅπασαν ὠλένην τ’ εὐώνυμον, 925-926), the side of the female, and not, as could be expected, her right side, where the liver is anatomically placed.374 Through these contradictions, we can recognise the constraints of her gender creating deliberate inconsistencies, and assume, as Loraux suggests, that “a woman’s death, even if contrived in the most manly way, does not escape the laws of her sex”.375 For Loraux, “tragedy certainly does transgress and mix things up –this is its rule, its nature– but never to the point of irrevocably overturning the civic order of values”.376 As a result, tragedy only questions the fixed gender schemes of patriarchy in order to reinforce them, without proposing any alternatives. As Wohl sees it, Deianeira’s death journey is a metaphor for female subjectivity, which is, in fact, a movement towards her bed, a female space owned, at its very core, by the man. Seeing from the perspective of the foreclosed female subject moving within the gendered spatial schemes of Athenian tragedy, Deianeira’s death scene

372 Cf. Eur. IT 621, where Orestes questions the slaughter prepared by a woman’s hand: “Do you yourself, a woman, sacrifice men with the sword?” (αὐτὴ ξίφει θύουσα θῆλυς ἄρσενας;). 373 Loraux 1987, 49-50, 52, 54-56. 374 For semiotics of body organs, see Padel 1992. 375 Loraux 1987, 55. 376 Loraux 1987, 60.

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“reinforces the impossibility of forming a dominant female subjectivity through male models”.377 Even so, in her death and through her death Deianeira has grown. She is no longer frightened and passive; she takes action; and through her daring and violent deed (“a grim death as regards the doing of it”; σχετλίῳ τὰ πρός γε πρᾶξιν, 880) of forcing herself onto a two-edged sword (“she was pierced by a two-edged sword”; ταύτην διηίστωσεν <ἄμφηκες ξίφος>, 881), wrought by her own hand (“She struck herself with her own hand”; αὐτὴ πρὸς αὐτῆς χειροποιεῖται τάδε, 891), she claims a ‘masculine heroic kleos’ so that the young girls of the chorus are surprised and bewildered to hear (882-888):

τίς θυμός, ἢ τίνες νόσοι, τάνδ’ αἰχμᾷ βέλεος κακοῦ ξυνεῖλε; πῶς ἐμήσατο πρὸς θανάτῳ θάνατον ἀνύσασα μόνα στονόεντος ἐν τομᾷ σιδάρου; ἐπεῖδες—ὢ μάταια—τάνδε <τὰν> ὕβριν;

What passion, what affliction, took her off with the point of its cruel dart? How did she contrive it, achieving alone death after a death, by the stroke of the cruel iron? Did you –ah, the futility!– see this violent deed?

The chorus wonders about the kind of θυμός and the kind of νόσοι that led her to such an inconceivable act. νόσος occurs nineteen times in Trachiniae, of which eleven denote Herakles’ actual sickness (784, 980, 1013, 1030, 1084, 1115, 1120, 1230, 1235, 1241, 1260), three Herakles’ desire (435, 544 twice), two an unpleasant state in general (235, 852) and one Iole herself (491).378 The νόσοι of 882 should refer to Deianeira’s motive and, given the reference to the new bride a few lines later (ἀνέορτος ἅδε νύμφα, 894), I am inclined to believe that these νόσοι might refer to Deianeira’ desire for Herakles and her jealousy of Iole, and to agree with Jebb’s translation (“what pangs of frenzy?”), rather than Lloyd-Jones’

377 Wohl 1998, 36. 378 Heroic suffering is presented in terms of physical disease in three of Sophocles’ extant plays: Aj., Phil. and Trach.; see Biggs 1966, 223-235 for a discussion of the disease theme in these plays.

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(“what affliction?”).379 It is also possible that it refers to Herakles’ νόσοι, and in that sense, Deianeira’s suicide is motivated by the account on the effect of the poisoned robe given by Hyllos at the end of the previous (third) epeisodion and her despair at the news that her husband is dying. θυμός, on the other, is a generic word denoting the principle of life, and as such can be seen as the seat of strong emotions, whether joy, grief, anger, desire, courage, but also the seat of thought.380 With ἐμήσατο two lines later, we can take τίς θυμός as meaning “what kind of mind” or “what line of thought?” and not necessarily assume a deranged mind, as both Jebb (“what fury?”) and Lloyd-Jones (“passion”) do.381 Given the context of gender confusion associated with Deianeira’s way of dying, we can also take it as denoting transgender ‘courage or daring’ (cf. καὶ ταῦτ’ ἔτλη τις χεὶρ γυναικεία κτίσαι; 898). Still, these two words, θυμός and νόσοι, shed some light on the circumstances-based motive of her suicide. And they suggest that the act of Deianeira’ suicide, even if motivated by strong emotion (νόσοι), is one that requires a bold and courageous heart/mind (θυμός). Her moral map, however, namely the principles of right and wrong behaviour which dictate Deianeira’s suicide, direct her decision and enlighten her motives, are exposed in the dialogue with the chorus that comes straight after her statement that she is determined to die together with Herakles (721-730):

Δη. ζῆν γὰρ κακῶς κλύουσαν οὐκ ἀνασχετόν, ἥτις προτιμᾷ μὴ κακὴ πεφυκέναι. Χο. ταρβεῖν μὲν ἔργα δείν’ ἀναγκαίως ἔχει, τὴν δ’ ἐλπίδ’ οὐ χρὴ τῆς τύχης κρίνειν πάρος. Δη. οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τοῖς μὴ καλοῖς βουλεύμασιν οὐδ’ ἐλπίς, ἥτις καὶ θράσος τι προξενεῖ. Χο. ἀλλ’ ἀμφὶ τοῖς σφαλεῖσι μὴ ’ξ ἑκουσίας ὀργὴ πέπειρα, τῆς σε τυγχάνειν πρέπει. Δη. τοιαῦτά τἂν λέξειεν οὐχ ὁ τοῦ κακοῦ κοινωνός, ἀλλ’ ᾧ μηδὲν ἔστ’ οἴκοι βαρύ.

379 Cf. “What passion or what madness?”, transl. by Torrance 1966. 380 See LSJ s.v. 381 But cf. Jebb 1892, ad 882: “The words ἢ τίνες νόσοι are really parenthetical,—suggesting that the excited mind (θυμός) may have been also deranged; hence the verb can agree with θυμός, on which the chief stress falls”.

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De. For a woman whose care is to be good cannot bear to live and to enjoy evil repute. Ch. Dreadful actions must need inspire fear; but one should not expect the worst before the thing has happened. De. When one has proved ill-advised, there is no hope that can furnish any confidence. Ch. But when people come to grief through no fault of their own, anger is softened and you should benefit from this. De. That is the kind of thing that a person who has no trouble of his own would say, but not the one to whom the evil belongs.

These lines are important from a dramatic point of view, as these are the last words spoken by Deianeira in Trachiniae, with the exception of a few lines exchanged in a distichomythia with Hyllos that introduce his long speech about the events in Cenaeum (749-812). The idea expressed in these lines is that for a woman whose care is to enjoy a good reputation, consistent with her noble origin (μὴ κακὴ πεφυκέναι, 722), death is preferable to staying alive but having a bad reputation (κακῶς κλύουσαν, 721). The chorus attempts to reassure her by suggesting that she should not prejudge the outcome and lose her hope before the actual realization of facts but Deianeira knows, having witnessed the effect of the philtre on the woollen flock, that it is more likely that she will prove ill-advised (μὴ καλοῖς βουλεύμασιν, 725). On the basis of Deianeira’s moral map, the distinction between instigation and actual offence, between good and vicious intention does not make any difference. For Deianeira the fact that she has a share of this misfortune (ὁ τοῦ κακοῦ / κοινωνός, 729-730) and that this misfortune affects her own oikos (ἔστ’ οἴκοι βαρύ, 730), and consequently her reputation, is enough to condemn herself to death and bypass the state law.382 Deaneira’s conception of kleos echoes the traditional aristocratic conception of female virtue, as expressed by Thucydidean Pericles in the funerary epitaph, which suggests that a woman’s kleos is to have nothing said of them, neither for good nor ill: “and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men whether for good or for bad” (ὑμῖν μεγάλη ἡ δόξα καὶ ἧς ἂν ἐπ᾽ ἐλάχιστον ἀρετῆς πέρι ἢ ψόγου ἐν τοῖς ἄρσεσι κλέος ᾖ, 2.45.2). But equally, it also echoes the ideal of aristocratic heroism, as expressed by the Sophoclean Ajax, who chooses noble death instead of ill reputation, even if Athena’s anger was not meant to last for

382 For an analysis of Deaineira’s mistake, see Chapter 4 (esp. pp. 200-201).

147 more than a day (“The noble man must live with honour or be honourably dead”; ἀλλ’ ἢ καλῶς ζῆν ἢ καλῶς τεθνηκέναι / τὸν εὐγενῆ χρή, 479-480). In this light, with her suicide, Deianeira, a woman with transgendered courage (θυμός), contests her own femininity to fantasize a masculine possibility, murders her weakness and passiveness, and requests the right to aristocratic heroism so that the chorus asks agitatedly: “And did a woman bring herself to do this with her own hand?” (καὶ ταῦτ’ ἔτλη τις χεὶρ γυναικεία κτίσαι; 898). Therefore, at this moment we can see her claiming a transgendered posthumous kleos, despite knowing that kleos will be hard to come by.383 At this same moment, we can also recognize her Amazonian origin, her pure sexuality and her genderless existence emerging, free from any legal, social, or political restrictions imposed by femininity. The Amazonian symbol, as already noted, offers an unstable symbol of similarity and difference that can create gender confusion and tension between masculine and feminine markers. As an excessively gendered marker, the Amazonian symbol does not only denote the blurring but can also indicate the collapsing of any gendered boundaries and consequently the absolute absence of actual gender markers. In a similar way, as we will see in the following analysis, Herakles’ excessive masculinity is another unstable symbol that is also offered and apt for the negotiation of gendered distinctions.

***

Like Deianeira, who is experiencing her death positively, as a metaphorical final sexual intercourse with her husband and as the means to claim a posthumous kleos, Herakles is begging for death, as the only resource left in his situation. Thus, for the sufferers themselves, death is a desirable solution that will redeem them from their current unbearable life. Despite any analogy, however, Deianeira’s ‘heroic suicide’ is emphatically juxtaposed to Herakles’ emasculation as the result of an attack by a vicious νόσος. Thus, not only does Deianeira claim a man’s death for herself, but, in Loraux’s words she “robs Heracles of a man’s death”.384 But let us look closer at Herakles’ last moments. As a special case within the tragic corpus, the arrival of Herakles’ funeral πομπή is announced prematurely within the lyric song

383 Another sourse of female kleos is maternity, see Loraux 1995, 23-43; cf. Wohl 1998, 35-37, who suggests that Deianeira’s sourse of kleos is not, as expected, maternity but her death. For kleos in epic, see Nagy 2013, 26-47 et passim. For kleos in tragedy, see Stefanidou 2014. 384 Loraux 1987, 25.

148 itself (fourth stasimon), underlining the critical conditions of this exceptional entrance.385 In the second strophe, the chorus had expressed their wish to be carried away by a wind not to witness the “unspeakable spectacle” (ἄσπετον θέαμα, 961) of the mighty son of Zeus dying in great agony, who, as they have been informed, is approaching (953-961). But the procession must have been already visible from the εἴσοδος when they were singing the second antistrophe and observed that: “it was for what was near, not what was far […] For here is a party of strangers, come from far away” (ἀγχοῦ δ’ ἄρα κοὐ μακρὰν […] ξένων γὰρ ἐξόμιλος ἅδε τις στάσις, 962-964). Thus, the arrival of the πομπή prevented them from fleeing. Herakles’ living corpse is introduced into the scene of the theatre with great solemnity and formality, dictated by the ritual setting of a funeral. An aged man is leading the procession of Herakles’ litter, which is carried (φορεῖ, 965; φέρει, 967; φέρεται, 968) by a party of strangers walking in silence: “as though caring for one dear to them they are planting silently their heavy tread” (ὡς φίλου / προκηδομένα βαρεῖαν / ἄψοφον φέρει βάσιν, 965-967). At the same time as the procession arrives, Hyllos enters the scene, coming from the house,386 and expresses his horror at the spectacle of his dying father with loud screams that violently interrupt the deathly tranquillity of the procession (971-972). The Old Man advises silence to prevent awaking the savage pain of sleeping Herakles (973-982). As Segal has noticed, “the rite moves forward again to a grotesque parody of the ‘awakening song’ (diegertikon) for the new couple after their wedding night; but these songs are horribly transferred to the awakening of Heracles from his bed of pain (974-987)”.387 When he first speaks, Herakles utters a series of disoriented appeals, exclamations, questions and commands, indicative of his erratic state. We can assume that the visual contact with his surroundings is limited, possibly blocked by the garment that should completely cover his body and face, until he removes it after line 1078. His first words spoken in Trachiniae are addressed to Zeus, while Herakles is absolutely confused about his current state and oblivious of the presence of others (983-987):

ὦ Ζεῦ, ποῖ γᾶς ἥκω; παρὰ τοῖσι βροτῶν κεῖμαι πεπονημένος ἀλλήκτοις

385 See Taplin 1977, 174, for more examples of entry announcements within an act-dividing song. 386 I am convinced by Winnington-Ingram 1969, 44-47, who has demonstrated that Hyllos is coming from the house, where a while ago he had witnessed his mother’s corpse (936-942). Easterling 1982 ad 971-1003 also agrees. 387 Segal 1992/1995, 84-85.

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ὀδύναις; οἴμοι <μοι> ἐγὼ τλάμων· ἁ δ’ αὖ μιαρὰ βρύκει. φεῦ.

O Zeus, where in the world have I come? Among what mortals do I lie, racked by unceasing pains? Alas for me in my misery! Again this cursed plague consumes me! Ah!

This is an exceptionally dramatic moment, when the much expected (for almost a thousand lines) nostos is finally accomplished. Here we would normally “expect a climax in the form of a prayer to his native land from the returning traveller”, as Davies notes.388 On the contrary, we hear Herakles lamenting, having completely lost his orientation and desperately wondering about his surroundings (cf. Odysseus’ lament: “Alas, to the land of what mortals have I now come?”; ὤ μοι ἐγώ, τέων αὖτε βροτῶν ἐς γαῖαν ἱκάνω;, Od. 13.200 = 6.119). He calls upon the altars of Cenaeum, where he offered sacrifices, wondering about the reward they have rendered to him (993-995). He turns to Zeus (995-999), asking about the kind of outrage he has done upon him so that he sees this “ever-growing flower of madness” unappeasable (τόδ’ ἀκήλητον / μανίας ἄνθος, 998-999). He queries whether the abilities of a charmer or a surgeon, other than Zeus, will be able to “lull to sleep this plague” (τάνδ’ ἄταν / χωρὶς Ζηνὸς κατακηλήσει, 1001-1002). He reacts spasmodically to any attempt made by the attendees to relieve him, probably by touching him and perhaps trying to lift him off: “Where are you touching me? Where are you laying me? You will kill me, you will kill me! You have roused up every part that had been lulled to rest!” (πᾷ <πᾷ> μου ψαύεις; ποῖ κλίνεις; / ἀπολεῖς μ’, ἀπολεῖς / ἀνατέτροφας ὅ τι καὶ μύσῃ, 1007-1009). Within the heroic world of tragedy, a male death can only be imagined as one coming from the sword or spear of another man on the field of battle. A man wounded in close combat is a complete man, as opposed to a warrior returning without a mark earned in a battle like the inglorious Menelaus of Euripides’ Andromache (“You alone came back from Troy unwounded”; οὐδὲ τρωθεὶς ἦλθες ἐκ Τροίας μόνος, 616). Notwithstanding, Herakles of Trachiniae is too severely affected by the νόσος to force himself onto a ‘beneficial’ sword, which will release him from his suffering, like the one Deianeira owned and used as the means of her emancipation. It is striking that Herakles’ repeated request for a weapon as well

388 Davies 1991, ad 984.

150 as the fact that the great hero is bereft of his weaponry strongly contradict the subversive use of the sword by Deianeira just a while ago. It is more than once that Herakles begs for a mercy killing, as a preparatory expression of his final brutal request to be burned alive. When calling upon the Greeks, Herakles accuses them of being unjustifiably unrighteous in that they do not offer him a beneficial weapon or fire that can relieve him of the pain of being alive, in reciprocal exchange for the services he has offered to them: “will no one bring fire or a weapon that can help me? Will no one come and lop off my head, ending the misery of my life?” (οὐ πῦρ, οὐκ ἔγχος τις ὀνήσιμον οὔ ποτε τρέψει; / οὐδ’ ἀπαράξαι <μου> κρᾶτα βίου θέλει / μολὼν τοῦ στυγεροῦ; 1014-1017). Later, after recognizing his son’s familiar voice (1023-1025) and starting to interact with others, he calls upon Athena, who has always been his protector (1031); and he then turns to his son begging for some kind of relief by a sword, as an act of favour that, given the circumstances, everyone would approve: “take pity on your father, draw a sword that none can blame and strike beneath my collar-bone!” (τὸν φύτορ’ οἰκτίρας, ἀνεπίφθονον εἴρυσον ἔγχος, / παῖσον ἐμᾶς ὑπὸ κλῃδός, 1034-1035). And later, he turns to Hades himself, to “put him to sleep with a swift death” (εὔνασον εὔνασόν μ’ / ὠκυπέτᾳ μόρῳ, 1041-1042). Eventually, he asks Hyllos to throw his miserable body, while still alive, on a funeral pyre on mountain Oeta, without tears of lamentation (1191-1200). Though abhorrent for someone to even think about, Hyllos’ contribution to Herakles’ death is received by the latter as a positive favour to be granted with (χάριν, 1252), since this will be his “rest from labour, the final end of this man” (παῦλά τοι κακῶν / αὕτη, τελευτὴ τοῦδε τἀνδρὸς ὑστάτη, 1255-1256).389 Herakles’ repeated request for redemption through death as well as the abhorrence and brutality of his request to be burned alive emphasize the insufferableness of his current situation. This has been presented as a violent attack by a bestial νόσος. In the anapaestic- lyric preface of the final exodos (971-1043), this disease, caused by the poison of the Hydra combined with the blood of Nessos, is treated like an invisible opponent, another beast Herakles needs to fight against.390 Like a fourth actor, it is vividly presented as if it were live on stage, described as it is with expressions which treat it as a personified wild beast that should not be irritated: “do not arouse the savage pain of your stern father” (μὴ κινήσῃς /

389 The contradictory and paradoxical reciprocity implied in these examples presenting Herakles’ concept of χάρις as a 'beneficial death' is part of a generalized reciprocal crisis presented in Trach. On this crisis, see Chapter 5. 390 See Biggs, 1966, 223-235 who discusses this metaphor at length. See also Segal 1977/1995, 36-37 and Sorum 1978, 59-60, 62.

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ἀγρίαν ὀδύνην πατρὸς ὠμόφρονος, 974-975); “You must not wake him from the sleep that holds him, nor stir and rouse up the awful malady that comes and goes” (μὴ ’ξεγερεῖς τὸν ὕπνῳ κάτοχον / κἀκκινήσεις κἀναστήσεις / φοιτάδα δεινὴν / νόσον, 978-981). This is a “cruel plague, irresistible” (ἀποτίβατος ἀγρία νόσος, 1030),391 while the verbs used to describe its effect on Herakles’ body are normally used to denote food consumption (βρύκει, 987: “devours”; δαίνυται, 1088: “feasts on”). In particular, the νόσος is presented as an attack by an outrageous and inconceivable enemy, worse than anything he has ever encountered in the past. The emphatic cumulative apposition of Herakles’ past enemies in his long speech (1046-1111) serves in order to direct to this comparison. His body has undertaken great toils commissioned by Hera and Eurystheus, but none of them was as much evil as the misfortune Deianeira put upon his shoulders (1046-1052). “The spearmen of the plain”, “the army of the Giants”, “the violence of the monsters”, his enemies met in “Greece or the barbarian lands” – none of them managed to bring him down (1058-1061). His hands once confronted the lion in Nemea, the Learnean Hydra, the Centaurs, the beast of Erymanthus, the dog of Hades, the serpent of the Golden Apples, and endured several other labours, but he was never defeated as he is now (1089-1102). We can detect a turn in the way Herakles endures his suffering, no longer addressing his νόσος, from the moment he realizes that it was Nessos rather Deianeira who managed to defeat him (1143).392 Until then, the hero endures and identifies his νόσος, as the personification of his mischievous wife. And it is the female origin of this attack that Herakles finds inconceivable, unbearable and shameful, and this is an argument that is further enhanced by the fact that in Greek νόσος is a feminine noun. Both Deianeira and the νόσος are seen by Herakles as potential threats, as typical dangerous women who incorporate secret sexual power that may emasculate him. So, in striking contrast to this great number of powerful enemies that never managed to defeat mighty Herakles, he was mastered by one single evil woman and one single female νόσος, without the use of a weapon: “But a woman, a female and unmanly in her nature, alone has brought me down, without a sword” (γυνὴ δέ, θῆλυς οὖσα κἄνανδρος φύσιν, / μόνη με δὴ καθεῖλε φασγάνου δίχα, 1063-1064). Never before had someone caused such great suffering to him as this one, which “the daughter of Oineas with beguiling face” (ἡ δολῶπις Οἰνέως κόρη, 1050) caused. Her gift is called “the woven covering of the Erinyes” (Ἐρινύων / ὑφαντὸν ἀμφίβληστρον, 1051-1052), which “has

391 ἀποτίβατος is the Doric form of ἀπρόσβατος, ‘inaccessible, unapproachable’, see LSJ, s.v. 392 On the significance of this overturn, see Chapter 5, pp. 208-220.

152 been put upon his shoulders” (καθῆψεν ὤμοις τοῖς ἐμοῖς, 1051), having enchained him in “unspeakable bondage” (ἀφράστῳ τῇδε χειρωθεὶς πέδῃ, 1057).393 This attack is not only disgracefully performed by a feminine hand. Even more importantly, the effect of the disease is defined in terms that designate a direct attack on his masculinity, a symbolic emasculation. Consistent with what seems like a widespread idea among the Greeks, according to which the effect of magic love-charms indicated intellectual manipulation and assault on someone’s ability to think and act autonomously, and so as a means of passivation and mental castration,394 Herakles’ νόσος is an offense against the self- determination of his masculine spirit. Its effect is internalized and treated as an incurable mental disorder which has irreparably influenced the interior of Herakles’ soul: “What outrage have you done upon me, what outrage, so that I see this ever-growing madness, not to be appeased” (οἵαν μ’ ἄρ’ ἔθου λώβαν, οἵαν, / τόδ’ ἀκήλητον / μανίας ἄνθος καταδερχθῆναι, 996-999). This is an inconceivable malady that requires an expert to tranquilize: “Who is the charmer, who the surgeon that shall lull to sleep this plague, other that Zeus?” (τίς γὰρ ἀοιδός, τίς ὁ χειροτέχνας / ἰατορίας, ὃς τάνδ’ ἄταν / χωρὶς Ζηνὸς κατακηλήσει; 1000-1003). It strikes aggressively at regular intervals (φοιτάδα / νόσον; “the malady that comes and goes”, 981-982; cf. Soph. Phil. 808: ὀξεῖα φοιτᾷ καὶ ταχεῖ᾽ ἀπέρχεται), having fully occupied Herakles’ brains, resulting in his body convulsing into spasms: “Again this cursed plague consumes me!” (ἁ δ’ αὖ μιαρὰ βρύκει, 987); “here it comes again” (ἅδ’ αὖθ’ ἕρπει, 1010); “It leaps up again, the evil thing, it leaps up to destroy me, the cruel plague, irresistible” (θρῴσκει δ’ αὖ, θρῴσκει δειλαία / διολοῦσ’ ἡμᾶς / ἀποτίβατος ἀγρία νόσος, 1027-1030); “Again a spasm of torture has burned me, it has darted through my sides, and the ruthless devouring malady seems never to leave me without torment” (ἔθαλψέ μ’ ἄτης σπασμὸς ἀρτίως ὅδ’ αὖ, / διῇξε πλευρῶν, οὐδ’ ἀγύμναστόν μ’ ἐᾶν / ἔοικεν ἡ τάλαινα

393 These two expressions are the most direct intertextual references between Trachiniae and Aeschylus’ Oresteia (Ag. 1382, Cho. 493, 982). On the comparison of Deianeira to Clytemnestra and Medea, see Introduction, p. 13. 394 See, e.g., Plutarch’s Moralia 139a (cited, discussed and translated by Faraone 1999, 113): ἡ διὰ τῶν φαρμάκων θήρα ταχὺ μὲν αἱρεῖ καὶ λαμβάνει ῥᾳδίως τὸν ἰχθύν, ἄβρωτον δὲ ποιεῖ καὶ φαῦλον: οὕτως αἱ φίλτρα τινὰ καὶ γοητείας ἐπιτεχνώμεναι τοῖς ἀνδράσι καὶ χειρούμεναι δι᾽ ἡδονῆς αὐτοὺς ἐμπλήκτοις καὶ ἀνοήτοις, καὶ διεφθαρμένοις συμβιοῦσιν. οὐδὲ γὰρ τὴν Κίρκην ὤνησαν οἱ καταφαρμακευθέντες, οὐδ᾽ ἐχρήσατο πρὸς οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς ὑσὶ καὶ ὄνοις γενομένοις, τὸν δ᾽ Ὀδυσσέα νοῦν ἔχοντα καὶ συνόντα φρονίμως ὑπερηγάπησεν (“Fishing with pharmaka is a quick and easy way to catch fish, but it renders them inedible and paltry. In the same way, women who use love potions and sorcery against their husbands, and who gain mastery over them through pleasure, end up living with stunned, senseless, crippled men. The men bewitched by Circe were of no service to her, nor did she have any “use” at all for them after they had become swine and asses. But Odysseus, who kept his senses and behaved prudently, she loved in excess”).

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διάβορος νόσος, 1082-1084); “For again it is feasting on me, it has blossomed, it is launched” (δαίνυται γὰρ αὖ πάλιν, / ἤνθηκεν, ἐξώρμηκεν, 1088-1089). In Herakles’ long speech (1046-1111) of the exodos, this agonizing address to Hyllos that is moving erratically between his major accomplishments, his shameful and painful downfall and his insatiable desire for revenge, he begs for his son’s succor to take revenge from Deianeira, exposing in detail his current condition to arouse his pity. The attack of the νοσος is there exposed as an offense against his body, against his corporeal entity, which constitutes the core of Herakles’ existence and substantiates his masculinity. As Loraux notes, “Herakles is constituted from the outside. Identified with his body and specifically with his invincible strength, Herakles has no interior. Even when he appears in tragedy, it would be sheer fantasy to attempt to endow him with one”.395 So, the bestial imagery associated with the νόσος refers metaphorically to the consumption of Herakles’ raw flesh by a corrosive disease, which has devastated the whole body of the great hero. It has thereby stolen his freedom, which is determined by the ownership of the body, and has degraded his body to the status of a slave (1053-1057):

πλευραῖσι γὰρ προσμαχθὲν ἐκ μὲν ἐσχάτας βέβρωκε σάρκας, πλεύμονός τ’ ἀρτηρίας ῥοφεῖ ξυνοικοῦν· ἐκ δὲ χλωρὸν αἷμά μου πέπωκεν ἤδη, καὶ διέφθαρμαι δέμας τὸ πᾶν, ἀφράστῳ τῇδε χειρωθεὶς πέδῃ.

It has clung to my sides and eaten away my inmost flesh, and lives with me to devour the channels of my lungs, Already it has drunk my fresh blood, and my whole body is ruined, now that I am mastered by this unspeakable bondage.

As Zeitlin observes, it is at “those moments when the male finds himself in a condition of weakness, that he too becomes acutely aware that he has a body -and then perceives himself, at the limits of pain, to be most like a woman”.396 This is because “in the gender system the role of representing the corporeal side of life in its helplessness and submission to constraints is primarily assigned to women”.397 In the critical moment when he

395 Loraux 1982/1995, 117. 396 Zeitlin 1985, 71. 397 Zeitlin 1985, 69.

154 is asking Hyllos to renounce his mother, Herakles embodies the virgin body, a “miserable body” (ἄθλιον δέμας, 1079) that is degraded to perform pain and lament (1070-1080):

ἴθ’, ὦ τέκνον, τόλμησον· οἴκτιρόν τέ με πολλοῖσιν οἰκτρόν, ὅστις ὥστε παρθένος βέβρυχα κλαίων, καὶ τόδ’ οὐδ’ ἂν εἷς ποτε τόνδ’ ἄνδρα φαίη πρόσθ’ ἰδεῖν δεδρακότα, ἀλλ’ ἀστένακτος αἰὲν εἰχόμην κακοῖς. νῦν δ’ ἐκ τοιούτου θῆλυς ηὕρημαι τάλας. καὶ νῦν προσελθὼν στῆθι πλησίον πατρός, σκέψαι δ’ ὁποίας ταῦτα συμφορᾶς ὕπο πέπονθα· δείξω γὰρ τάδ’ ἐκ καλυμμάτων. ἰδού, θεᾶσθε πάντες ἄθλιον δέμας, ὁρᾶτε τὸν δύστηνον, ὡς οἰκτρῶς ἔχω.

Come, my son, bring yourself to do it! Pity me, pitiable in many ways, who I am crying out weeping like a girl, and no one can say he saw this man do such a thing before, but though racked with torments I never should lament! But now such a thing has shown me as a womanish creature. And now draw near and stand close to your father, and see what a calamity has done this to me; for I will show it to you without a veil. Look, gaze, all of you, on my miserable body, see the unhappy one, his pitiable state!

With a dynamic movement that alludes to the bare female body before sexual intercourse and through a linguistic mode that refers to the ritualistic removal of the veil by the bride (ἐκ καλυμμάτων, 1078, refers to the ritual of ἀνακαλυπτήρια),398 Herakles’ violently penetrated, degraded, and servile body is finally exposed fully naked. Herakles’ death is a critical moment, when, as duBois also notes, “there is a fusion of oppositions, a released dialectic, which plays upon the audience’s pity and fear, and demands an examination of the traditional categories of difference”.399 This dialectic could be further underlined by the fact that the same actor performs Deianeira’s and Herakles’ parts; the transformation of the male actor into female to perform Deianeira’s parts and finally back to

398 For the ritual of ἀνακαλυπτήρια, see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 25-26. 399 duBois 1982, 105.

155 male to perform Herakles’s parts, despite being a standard convention with which the audiences were definitely familiar, may also be seen as calling attention to disruptions of sexual identities both in the fictional world of Trachiniae and in the reality of male theatrical tragic space.400 However, on the basis of the proposal offered at the much-debated end of the play, namely the re-establishment of patriarchy through the engagement of Hyllus with Iole, one could claim that Herakles’ feminisation is only presented on stage with a view to revealing the desire of the male subject to reaffirm the patriarchal order and finally reassure the traditional gender schemes. It is also true that Herakles’ commands to Hyllos indicate a movement from the exterior corporeal towards the interior mental side of the hero, inviting us to speculate on his thought processes. At the same time, as I noted earlier, Deianeira can be seen as escaping from her gender only to be again subdued within the constraints of gendered masculinity; that is, by claiming a virile death and male heroic qualities. Therefore, it could be suggested that, despite undoubtedly questioning the established gendered structures of patriarchy through their deaths, both Deianeira and Herakles remain captured within the gendered dualism of the tragic universe. I will address this question in the final chapter, where I will discuss the problems associated with the end of the play on the grounds of authority and patriarchy. In the following chapter, I will discuss the problematic of Deieneira’s transaction with the beast.

400 For the process and effect of transformation of the male actor from male to female and then back to male in Trach., see Hicks 1992, 77-84.

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CHAPTER 4: Beware of Monsters Bearing Gifts: Reciprocity and Justice

As I noted in the last chapter, Deianeira’s masculine death provides her an opportunity to escape from the passivity of her gender. Whereas this ‘aberrant’, unfeminine suicide is unique in the extant tragic corpus, it forms a deviancy that is consistent with the special qualities of this Amazonian figure, which is susceptible to an inconstant representation of her gendered attributes, since it embodies the collapse of any distinction between self and other. Similarly, in her transaction with Herakles, Deianeira is given another opportunity to proclaim herself a subject, an opportunity that is seen as incompatible with her gender. In particular, it has been suggested that Deianeira’s request for subjectivity through proclaiming herself an equal partner in her transaction with Herakles is doomed to fail, and it is a fact that it finally does. But is this due to a general ineptitude of the female subject, as has generally been assumed, or it can be better explained as a plausible and inevitable consequence of a general crisis in reciprocity that is presented in the play? In this chapter, I will inquire into a slightly different possibility in understanding Deianeira’s alleged offence and her failed transaction with Herakles. To be more specific, I will examine the kind of contingencies that arise if we look at her failure to successfully accomplish a positive transaction as another example of the all-embracing breakdown of reciprocal transactions presented in the play, rather than a personal and gendered failure. In the first part of this chapter, I will argue that, as a general rule, the concept of reciprocity in the exchanges that occur within this complex network delineated by three interested parties (Herakles, Nessos and Deianeira) is corroded. Reciprocal transactions are particularly important in Trachiniae, forming a network that parallels and is associated with the nuptial setting, which was discussed in the previous chapter. These transactions are indicated through the general term that the Greeks used for a present, either to the gods or to human beings, i.e. δῶρον.401 In Trachiniae δῶρον or δώρημα may refer to Nessos’ gift to Deianeira (the philtre being the gift: 555), Herakles’ gift to Deianeira (Iole being the gift: 494, 872) or Deianeira’s gift to Herakles (the robe being the gift: 494, 603, 668, 692, 758,

401 And other related terms that I will discuss below. Derivatives of δῶρον such as δώς, δωρεά, δώρημα, δόσις, δωτίνη are sometimes used synonymously with δώρον, but they can also have specific meanings. In addition, there were a number of terms for gifts in specific contexts, such as the bride-price (ἕδνα), the gifts given by a host (ξένιον) and those given for the purpose of honouring someone (γέρας). Votive gifts to the gods were a separate category, called ἀνάθημα or ἀνάθεσις. See Wagner-Hasel and Weeber 2006.

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776). Just like in the nuptial narratives of the play, in all these cases, the positive dimension of the exchange turns negative. After exploring this complex network of corroded exchanges in Trachiniae, I will look closer at Deianeira’s transaction with Herakles. This transaction also raises the question of guilt and punishment, which in turn is associated with the issue of female agency; hence, I thought it appropriate to incorporate this discussion into a second part, where I will discuss Deianeira’s offence and the issues of female agency that are raised collaterally, as a consequence of the fact that the act of sending the robe is the result of Deianeira’s self- conscious decision. Despite the fact that this part of my discussion of the play is the part where my suggestion locating Deianeira within the polis may be in a somewhat precarious position, since Deianeira is now moving closer to the realm of the beasts and magic charms, this is also a part that allows me to detect a different dynamic of the female, a dynamic of resistance expressed in terms that disclaim the authority of phallocentric logos.

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PART 1: Reciprocity in Crisis

Corroded Reciprocal Transactions

Deliberation on reciprocity in Ancient Greece has its roots in the theories of the French sociologist Mauss, who is generally recognised to be the founding father of modern debates on gift-exchange in the early twentieth century.402 Mauss’ analysis of the ceremonial gift and gift-exchange was a kind of counter model that traditional societies could present as opposed to the purely self-interested and selfish exchanges involved in a capitalistic economy. Denying the notion of a ‘free’ gift, he suggested that all gifts are embedded in a set of social relationships and obligations following the scheme of giving, receiving and reciprocating. Thus, the purpose of the gift is to create group cohesion by establishing an on- going cycle of gift-exchange, which is profoundly different from the exchanges of commodities in the marketplace. Although Mauss’ ideas have been generally criticised and revised, his notion that societies exchange with the purpose of creating and reinforcing social bonds has become commonplace. Mauss’ concept of gift-exchange is closely linked to and often confused with the concept of reciprocity. Reciprocity denotes a mechanism for exchange and social integration of particular importance in pre-market civilizations, on the basis of the normative obligation for equalization of what is given and received. The term had been initially used by ethnologists to describe exchange processes in primitive societies and was later introduced by Polanyi into the debate about pre-industrial economies.403 Polanyi uses the term to describe the exchange principle between symmetrical relations in so-called ‘embedded’ economies not regulated by law or the market, but on the basis of social obligations. Thus, in contrast with the exchange of gifts, reciprocity does not presuppose the exchange of material goods but only refers to the principle of mutuality. Characteristic for both concepts, though, is the intertwinement of the material with social and political implications, which on the whole does not apply to the modern alienated monetary exchanges. Mauss’ and other anthropologists’ and sociologists’ theories on gift-exchange and reciprocity, such as those of Malinowski, Lévi-Strauss, Bourdieu, and Sahlins,404 were very appealing to classicists who dealt with the economy of gift-exchange in ancient Greece and

402 As developed in his Essai sur le don, first published in 1923-1924 (Mauss 1990/1923–1924). For useful and comprehensive introductions to the theories on gift and reciprocity, see Wees 1998, 13-50 and Wagner-Hasel 2006, 257-269. Also see Schrift 1997. 403 Polanyi 1968. 404 Malinowski 1922/1961; Lévi-Strauss 1950/1987; Bourdieu 1972; Sahlins 1972.

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Rome.405 Whereas reciprocity is not unanimously recognised to constitute a notion that can be applied to all (commercial, political, and ethical) relationships that are characteristic of Greek culture, it is generally accepted that, as a more abstract social and moral principle, reciprocity is to be identified in various kinds of practice and discourse in the entire period of Greek antiquity.406 As far as the Greek democratic polis is concerned, it has been suggested that once democracy had developed, reciprocity as an economic and social exchange mechanism (i.e. the voluntary requital of benefit for benefit and loss for loss) competed with and was gradually replaced by forms of legally regulated market/commodity exchange (i.e. non voluntary impersonal exchange of items which is motivated by the desire by both exchange parties to maximize self-benefit).407 It is now agreed that this transition from reciprocal to commodity-based society could not be uninterrupted and without any discontinuities. Thus, it seems that whereas commodity exchanges progressed at the expense of reciprocal transactions, resulting in the marginalization of reciprocity, in actual social practice reciprocal exchanges persisted alongside commodity-based exchanges.408 Then, in Greek thought, it seems to be a common belief that commodity exchange reinforces a corrosive moral disorder, as opposed to a social order that is regulated through reciprocity.409 Athenian drama, in particular, dramatizes the harm done within relationships that are expected to be defined within positive reciprocal bonds; that is, it dramatizes crises of reciprocity within relationships that unite individuals into into relationships of philia (sc. marriage, xenia and suppliancy). On these grounds, tragedy has been seen as manifesting the problematic nature of reciprocity in Classical Athens, which seems to be at odds with the Homeric, more straightforward, treatment of reciprocity.410 Of course, crises of reciprocity are also significant in epic (e.g. Paris violates xenia in Menelaus’ house, Achilles’ refusal to

405 E.g. Finley 1955, 167-194; 1973; 1974, 13-31; 1981; MacMullen 1974; Morris 1986, 1-17; Herman 1987; Gernet 1981a; Gernet 1981b, Seaford 1994; Gill, Postlethwaite and Seaford 1998, Kurke 1991; Von Reden 1995; Satlow 2013; Wagner-Hasel 2003, 141–71; Wagner-Hasel 2006, 257-269; Wagner-Hasel and Weeber 2006. 406 See, e.g. the topics covered in Gill, Postlethwaite and Seaford 1998: Reciprocity in ancient literature (Homer, Herodotus, tragedy, Menander), in Greek religion and worship, in foreign affairs, in ethical philosophy, in rhetoric, law and politics. 407 See Seaford 1994 and Seaford 1998, 1-11. 408 A conference held in Heidelberg at the local Akademie der Wissenschaften in February 2012 focused in the relationship and ‘tensions’ between gift-giving and commerce in the ancient world. The idea which underlined the discussions was that these two forms of exchange cannot be conceived as chronologically successive to each other but are present in every society and are deeply intermingled with each other. The proceedings of that meeting were published in 2014. See the editors’ introduction, where this tension in discussed in length (Carlà and Gori, 2014, 7-47). 409 See below, pp. 162-170. 410 See Belfiore 1998, 139-158 and Belfiore 2000.

160 fight turns against the Greeks) but, in general, these crises are treated through a different perspective.411 Trachiniae does not escape from this general rule of problematic tragic reciprocities. Using Sahlins’ terms, what could best describe the corroded reciprocal network between the three exchangers of the play (Nessos, Herakles and Deianeira) is ‘negative reciprocity’. According to Sahlins, reciprocity is a spectrum defined by its extremes, the solidary extreme (Generalised reciprocity) and the unsociable extreme (Negative reciprocity), and mid-point (Balanced reciprocity).412 Negative reciprocity, as he notes, “is the attempt to get something for nothing with impunity, the several forms of appropriation, transactions opened and conducted toward net utilitarian advantage. The participants confront each other as opposed interests, each looking to maximize utility at the other’s expense”.413 Taking this as a starting statement, in the next sections I will discuss how is this notion of negative reciprocity exemplified in the individual transactions that take place between these three parties in Trachiniae.

Nessos: Α Gift for a Fee and the Writing Motif

The story of Nessos’ gift to Deianeira is presented at the beginning of the second epeisodion. It is introduced as an emphatic oxymoron, as an escape plan whose success depends on ‘the beneficial and generous donation’ (δῶρον, 555) of a self-interested rapist and enemy (555-565):

ἦν μοι παλαιὸν δῶρον ἀρχαίου ποτὲ θηρός, λέβητι χαλκέῳ κεκρυμμένον, ὃ παῖς ἔτ’ οὖσα τοῦ δασυστέρνου παρὰ Νέσσου φθίνοντος ἐκ φονῶν ἀνειλόμην, ὃς τὸν βαθύρρουν ποταμὸν Εὔηνον βροτοὺς μισθοῦ ’πόρευε χερσίν, οὔτε πομπίμοις κώπαις ἐρέσσων οὔτε λαίφεσιν νεώς. ὃς κἀμέ, τὸν πατρῷον ἡνίκα στόλον ξὺν Ἡρακλεῖ τὸ πρῶτον εὖνις ἑσπόμην,

411 For philia in epic, see Belfiore 1998, 147-151. For Homeric transactions and distribution, see Seaford 2004, esp. 23-67. 412 Sahlins 1972, 191-196. 413 Sahlins 1972, 195.

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φέρων ἐπ᾽ ὤμοις, ἡνίκ᾽ ἦ ’ν μέσῳ πόρῳ, ψαύει ματαίαις χερσίν·

I had an ancient gift from a monster long ago, hidden in a brazen pot, a thing I received as a girl at the death of Nessus,414 who for a fee used to carry people across the broad flow of the river Evenus, nor by plying oars to transport them nor by a ship with sails, but in his arms. While he was carrying me upon his shoulders, when I was first accompanying Heracles as a bride, after my father had sent me off, while I was in mid-stream he laid lustful hands upon me.

This is an odd narration that includes a beneficial offer among too much death, a rough wedding, lurking self-interest and sexual aggression.415 Nessos’ act of giving is imbued with excessive death (φθίνοντος ἐκ φονῶν, 558) and driven by considerations of personal advantage. As it is said, Nessos had not unconditionally taken over the transportation of commuters across the river Evenus. He was doing that using his arms (χερσίν, 560) and he was doing it for a fee (μισθοῦ, 560). In the Athenian state, the free male was self-employed in a great variety of occupations and avoided work that required regular and repetitive service for the receipt of a salary (what we would term a ‘job’); unlike skilled labour, μισθοφορία was the hallmark of a slave.416 Thus, μισθὸς could never be transacted between equals; it always marked an asymmetrical relationship between the exchanging partners and a lack of self-sufficiency or autarky in the part of the recipient.417 In that sense, apart from Nessos’ service being disgraceful as a paid subjugation, it is also clear that it constitutes a self- interested service. As a result, it seems that when Nessos laid his lustful hands upon Deianeira (ψαύει ματαίαις χερσίν, 565), he was expecting this lewd gesture to be his payment or, at least, her ticket for the transportation. However, Nessos’ act of giving was perceived by Deianeira as a disinterested contribution (δῶρον, 555). Indeed, the verb used for Deianeira’s act of receiving (ἀνειλόμην, 558), while can be translated as passively accepting, also gives a sense of

414 Lloyd-Jones’ translation omits the adjective δασυστέρνου (‘shaggy-breasted’). Indeed, this is interesting omission, as Prof. Goff pointed out (per litteras), because it is such a physical masculine word that it is practically erotic. In an upcoming publication (still in progress), I will refer to Deianeira's desire and its oppression in more detail. 415 For the sexual implications of this exchange, see Chapter 3, pp. 138-141. 416 Cohen 2002, 100-101. Of course, it needs to be noted that slaves were not directly paid and that their wages usually went to their masters. 417 von Reden 1995, 89-92.

162 actively ‘picking up’, ‘taking away’.418 So, Deianeira is manipulated into trusting that her dealings with the beast could be beneficial to her (568-571):

ἐκθνῄσκων δ᾽ ὁ θὴρ τοσοῦτον εἶπε· ‘παῖ γέροντος Οἰνέως, τοσόνδ᾽ ὀνήσῃ τῶν ἐμῶν, ἐὰν πίθῃ, πορθμῶν, ὁθούνεχ᾽ ὑστάτην σ᾽ ἔπεμψ᾽ ἐγώ·

As he expired, the monster said so much: “Child of aged Oeneus, you shall get this benefit from being carried by me, if you will follow my instructions, because you were the last of my passengers.

In his dying declaration, Nessos skilfully influences Deianeira to believe that if she will be convinced to follow his instructions (ἐὰν πίθῃ, 570), she could benefit from his ferrying (ὀνήσῃ τῶν ἐμῶν …/ πορθμῶν, 570-571, cf. εὔνοιαν, 708). In Greek aristocratic thought, the expectation of profit from services (κέρδος) is generally considered shameful and distinctive of lower-class people. Under the influence of the egalitarian male citizenship model, profitable practices, like lending, trade, and financial services, were relegated to the margins of society, where they were controlled by foreigners, women, freedmen, and slaves. As Finley suggested, in Homeric exchanges the pursuit of profit at the expense of another is morally dubious: “Whether in trade or in any other mutual relationship, the abiding principle was equality and mutual benefit”.419 Later, in the Classical polis “receiving money or gifts signified inferiority, dependence and, if not legal, metaphorical slavery. A person who needed to make a profit —that is, aimed at receiving more than he had given— forfeited his autarky, preferred slavery to freedom and reduced his status of a political being to that of a mere ‘body’, like a prostitute”.420 Therefore, κέρδος is one of the most suspect terms for wealth, its connotations being almost always crassly material.421 The word κέρδος, for instance, serves as a leitmotif in all of Creon’s speeches in

418 I am grateful to Prof. Goff for this observation (per litteras). Also see, LSJ, s.v. ἀναιρέω. 419 Finley 1954, 66. 420 von Reden 1995, 219. 421 See Kurke 1991, 228-232. Also, Seaford 2004 argues that the invention and rapid spread of coinage was a momentous development for the early Greek mind. By transforming social relations, monetization contributed to the concepts of the universe as an impersonal system (fundamental to Presocratic philosophy) and of the individual alienated from his own kin and from the gods, as found in tragedy. Especially in Athenian tragedy, Seaford notes that, albeit dramatising the largely premonetary world of epic and of myth generally, tragedy

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Sophocles’ Antigone, a play which presents his thinking to be governed by constant fear of conspiracies that are driven by the greed for money and power.422 Within this line of an idealistic aristocratical thought, the Messenger’s expectation to profit from his services is boldly expressed in monetary terms (τι κερδάναιμι, 191). Τhe same expectation expressed from Lichas is ironically very close to the moral opposite of κακός (ἀνάγκη χρηστὰ κερδαίνειν ἔπη, 231). Equally ironic is Deianeira’s utilitarian and unrefined articulation of the benefit possibly earned through the good news of Herakles’ wellbeing (κέρδος ἐμπολᾷ, 93). On these grounds, Deianeira’s transaction with Nessos is conducted within a grey zone of self-interested trading, which is located outside the area of noble and trustworthy exchanges; hence, it is by definition suspicious and unacceptable not simply because a woman mediates but because it is conducted with a beast who is driven by self- interest while Deianeira is manipulated to trust that this transaction will somehow bring her benefit. However, the power of the Centaur’s enticement is such that it completely numbs Deianeira’s mind and turns her into his docile and involuntary instrument (ἔθελγέ μ’, 710). As if hypnotised by the beast, she is continuously struggling to maintain a distance from the conscious act of sending the tunic and resorting to the use of potions, insisting on the accuracy with which she follows his instructions: “I remembered this, […] adding all the things he while he still lived had told me” (τοῦτ’ ἐννοήσασ’, […] χιτῶνα τόνδ’ ἔβαψα, προσβαλοῦσ’ ὅσα ζῶν κεῖνος εἶπε, 578-581). With comparable attention, she gives Lichas accurate and clear instructions when she handles the gifts he needs to deliver to Herakles. Describing the strict ritual that is to be followed, her tone implies the sacredness of the sacrifice that is to be accomplished (604-609): “take care that no other person puts it on but he, and that neither the light of the sun nor the sacred precinct nor the blaze at the altar light upon it before he […] show it to the gods” (φράζ’ ὅπως μηδεὶς βροτῶν / κείνου πάροιθεν ἀμφιδύσεται χροΐ, / μηδ’ ὄψεταί νιν μήτε φέγγος ἡλίου / μήθ’ ἕρκος ἱερὸν μήτ’ ἐφέστιον σέλας, / πρὶν κεῖνος […] δείξῃ θεοῖσιν, 604-609).

was the first literary genre to appear in the brave new world of the widespread use of coined money, and – as an increasingly complex performance at a civic festival – itself required considerable monetary expenditure (147). 422 Also see Soph. Ant. 295-299, where money is accountable for various bad consequences, such as destroying cities, driving men from their homes and corroding good minds. The concept of monetization is brought out by Seaford in the construction of the figures of Creon and Oedipus in Ant. and OT respectively. In both plays, the desire for monetary gain (kerdos) seems to have sinister implications. See Seaford 2004, 311-315 where other relevant passages are cited.

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Similarly, when she is accounting the effect that the poison had on the tuft of wool she used to anoint the robe, she repeats that she did not miss anything from the strict instructions of the beast: “I neglected none of the instructions which the monster gave me, […] but observed them, like writing hard to wash away from a bronze tablet” (ἐγὼ γὰρ ὧν ὁ θήρ με Κένταυρος, […] προυδιδάξατο / παρῆκα θεσμῶν οὐδέν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐσῳζόμην / χαλκῆς ὅπως δύσνιπτον ἐκ δέλτου γραφήν, 680-683). This act of preserving Nessos’ guidelines through writing on a tablet (δέλτος), as it has been suggested by duBois, is a metaphor for an aggressive, masculine sexual act.423 Thus, via the sinister and sexual allusions of the writing tablet, it is implied that the course and the end of this story that started with Deianeira’s attempted rape have been recorded on Deianeira’s assaulted body since a very early moment of her common past with Herakles. Then, the way Nessos’ instructions are reported reveals a particular interest in the way information is transmitted, an interest that comes back on various occasions in the play and is closely associated with the question of knowledge (and in particular of delayed knowledge),424 the oracles and the function of writing. Whereas these instructions were orally transmitted to Deianeira long ago, she has indelibly kept his words in her memory so that she is in a position to report them verbatim in direct speech (569-577). His words constitute an authoritative order (θεσμῶν, 682),425 which she followed to the letter (παρῆκα […] οὐδέν, 682) and saved like a written decree to a bronze writing tablet, from which Nessos’ word is hard to be washed away (χαλκῆς ὅπως δύσνιπτον ἐκ δέλτου γραφήν, 683). As opposed to νόμος, which signifies a rule that “was motivated less by the authority of the agent who imposed it than by the fact that it is regarded and accepted as valid by those who live under it” (see νόμον / κάλλιστον, 1177-1118; cf. 616), θεσμός is “the decree or decision of a single, authoritative person”.426 The writing tablet that saved Nessos’ instructions recalls the writing tablet on which Deianeira kept Herakles’ instructions, mentioned early in the prologue and repeated at the beginning of the first epeisodion (δέλτον, 46, 157). The prophecy that predicted the end of toils was recorded in writing by Herakles (ἃ τῶν ὀρείων καὶ χαμαικοιτῶν ἐγὼ / Σελλῶν

423 duBois 1988, 130-131, 139-140 and 151-156. On the association of δέλτος, female genitalia and interior space in Eur. Hipp., see Zeitlin 1985b, 76-77, 189 n. 64. 424 A topic that has proved very appealing to scholars. For the treatment of the theme of knowledge in Trach., see Introduction, pp. 5-6. Also see my discussion in Chapter 4, pp. 188-191. 425 Bowman 1999, 39ff. suggests that despite Nessos’ lack of authority as a source of prophecy, his instructions parallel the function and status of the statements of Zeus, i.e. the oracles. However, she argues that by listening to an unauthorized prophecy, Deianeira allows the centaur to "write on her”, and that this allowance has the same effect as accepting him as an unauthorized sexual partner (356). 426 Allen 2005, 389, who cites Ostwald 1969, 55.

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ἐσελθὼν ἄλσος ἐξεγραψάμην / πρὸς τῆς πατρῴας καὶ πολυγλώσσου δρυός, 1166-1168), and was left in a writing tablet to Deianeira before departing for his last journey (δέλτον, 46; δέλτον ἐγγεγραμμένην / ξυνθήμαθ’, 157-158). This implication is a premature indication of the fatal connection between Nessos and the oracles, and the writing motif connotes this connection; both the oracles and Nessos’ instructions constitute important sources of information and they are both associated with writing. This suspicion over written normative discourse has deep foundations in ancient ideology, which in general did not perceive the recording of information as ensuring or promoting comprehension and knowledge. This seems to be a modern perception of societies in which relationships and laws are regulated on the basis of written texts, which cannot be applied in antiquity. Especially in democratic Athens, this suspicion can be discerned in the debate over written laws, which suggests that the written version of the law could be seen as agitating conflicts. At the time of the radical democracy and even in the fourth century the Athenians still thought highly of ancient Solon and considered him to be their lawgiver, as they referred to all their laws with the description ‘the laws of Solon’, despite the fact that his early sixth-century law was revised and shown on the wall of the Stoa Basileos in the late fifth century (410-406 B.C.).427 Yet, there were some critics, as Aristotle mentions in Athenian Constitution, who believed that even Solon’s laws suffered from lack of clarity and that this was the cause of disputes. Aristotle thinks that this fuzziness was deliberate in order to put the demos in charge of the trials.428 And, as he later tells us, the oligarchy of the Thirty annulled the laws of Solon which had ambiguities and abolished the authority of the jurors.429 So, it is possible, as Thomas alleges, that these critics –or some of them– were oligarchic, since “democrats were content to leave the jury scope for interpretation in individual cases, and oligarchs were keener to iron out ambiguities”.430

427 The Solonian code of the early sixth century was, in fact, the revision of the first Athenian law that was enacted by Draco in 621/0 B.C. 428 Arist. [Ath. Pol.] 9.2: ἔτι δὲ καὶ διὰ τὸ μὴ γεγράφθαι τοὺς νόμους ἁπλῶς μηδὲ σαφῶς, ἀλλ᾽ ὥσπερ ὁ τῶν κλήρων καὶ ἐπικλήρων, ἀνάγκη πολλὰς ἀμφισβητήσεις γίγνεσθαι, καὶ πάντα βραβεύειν καὶ τὰ κοινὰ καὶ τὰ ἴδια τὸ δικαστήριον. οἴονται μὲν οὖν τινες ἐπίτηδες ἀσαφεῖς αὐτὸν ποιῆσαι τοὺς νόμους, ὅπως ᾖ τῆς κρίσεως ὁ δῆμος κύριος. (“And also, since the laws are not drafted simply nor clearly, but like the law about inheritances and heiresses, it inevitably results that many disputes take place and that the jury-court is the umpire in all business both public and private. Therefore, some people think that Solon purposely made his laws obscure, in order that the people might be sovereign over the verdict”, transl. by H. Rackham 1952). 429 Arist. [Ath. Pol.] 35.2: καὶ τούς τ᾽ Ἐφιάλτου καὶ Ἀρχεστράτου νόμους τοὺς περὶ τῶν Ἀρεοπαγιτῶν καθεῖλον ἐξ Ἀρείου πάγου, καὶ τῶν Σόλωνος θεσμῶν ὅσοι διαμφισβητήσεις ἔσχον, καὶ τὸ κῦρος ὃ ἦν ἐν τοῖς δικασταῖς κατέλυσαν. (“and they removed from the Areopagus the laws of Ephialtes and Archestratus about the Areopagites, and also such of the ordinances of Solon as were of doubtful purport, and abolished the sovereignty vested in the jurymen”, transl. by H. Rackham 1952). 430 Thomas 2005, 42.

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Whatever the case, Aristotle’s comments reflect an anxiety about problems that arose when the laws were recorded in writing, a practice which was considered to encourage the initiative and power of the bodies which put them into action; an anxiety which in turn can be seen as deriving from a general Greek tendency to advance the oral at the expense of written word.431 On the other hand, writing down the law was definitely seen as a way to eliminate inequality and provide equal and all-embracing justice,432 and we do know that Athens pledged itself to use only written law in law courts from 403 B.C. onward. Within this context, Aristotle’s numerous remarks on the question of whether written laws should be changed or whether they were better than unwritten give proof that the argument went on well into the fourth century.433 When reading Trachiniae with this debate in mind, we are confronted with an ambivalent issue that causes public anxiety being reflected in tragedy.434 Like writing down the laws, writing down Zeus’ prophecies or Nessos’ instructions does not eliminate the inconsistencies neither does it necessarily promote knowledge. Instead, in these cases, the writing misguides the ‘reader’. Besides, oracles are by definition ambivalent, whether they are written or oral.435 They constitute open texts, and as such, they provide a valuable and flexible dramatic tool, which is always manipulated so as to serve specific objectives that vary according to each drama. Whereas their function is certainly authoritative and delimiting, at the same time they do not eliminate the tragic persona’s (and/or the poet’s) autonomy; neither do they abolish the character’s entitlement to pose themselves independent subjects within an entrenched narrative. In Trachiniae, the oracle’s generic ambiguity is also diffused into the written means of recording them, namely the writing tablet. But this diffusion also works vice versa. Written speech is flexible and susceptible to various interpretations; thus, recording does not ensure the right interpretation of the prophecy. Instead, in Trachiniae it is an indication that foreshadows its misinterpretation. Therefore, because oracles are written, they are additionally ambivalent as they are charged with the elliptical and abstract character of writing.

431 This tendency is recorded, for example, in Cratylus, a Platonic dialogue whose subject is the correctness of names. 432 See e.g. Eur. Supp.: “When the laws are written down, then both the weak and the rich have equal justice” (430-434); quoted and discussed by Thomas, 2005, 42. 433 E.g. Rh. 1354a-1354b; 1373a-1374a; Pol. 1268b39, 1269a8, 1282b2, 1286a10, 1287b1; Eth. Nic. 1137b. See Thomas 2005, 59. 434 As Prof. Liapis pointed out to me, it is also possible that the suspicion of writing reflected in Trachiniae might not reflect the ideology of 5th century Athens but would be a conscious anachronistic retrospective in the world of myth, that is, in a world where writing is still a rarity and dangerous. 435 As Aristotle argues, prophecies are necessarily ambiguous until resolved (Rh. 1407a35-1407b6).

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In that sense, despite writing down the oracle, Herakles misjudged its meaning and wrongly believed that his suffering had ended (κἀδόκουν πράξειν καλῶς, 1171). Like Deianeira, Herakles is manipulated (by the poet) to misinterpret the information dictated to him by the priests of the sanctuary of Zeus at Dodona, as the insufficiency of data blurs his judgment (cf. Oedipus). Like Deianeira, Herakles will belatedly understand the meaning of the prophecy, and even then he will be able to interpret a second, even older oracle which was revealed (without being recorded) to Herakles by his father (πρόφαντον ἐκ πατρὸς πάλαι, 1159).436 So, it is only after Herakles gets the information about Nessos’ interference that this prophecy will make sense, proving to be consistent with the newer prophecy (προσέμειξεν ἄφαρ / τοὔπος τὸ θεοπρόπον ἡμῖν / τᾶς παλαιφάτου προνοίας, 821-824; ὡς τὸ θεῖον ἦν / πρόφαντον, 1162-1163). Like the oracles’ meaning, the true substance of Nessos’ gift is belatedly comprehended by Deianeira, when the knowledge cannot prevent the action already taken. Like Herakles, she perceives the real balance of the transaction when it is already late (“this I learn too late, when the knowledge cannot serve me”; μεθύστερον, / ὅτ’ οὐκέτ’ ἀρκεῖ, τὴν μάθησιν ἄρνυμαι, 710-711). Being herself the very cause of the Centaur’s death, and therefore him being her enemy, his contribution could only be unfavourable. This gift, as Deianeira belatedly realised, could be nothing but a counter-gift (707-710):

πόθεν γὰρ ἄν ποτ’, ἀντὶ τοῦ θνῄσκων ὁ θὴρ ἐμοὶ παρέσχ’ εὔνοιαν, ἧς ἔθνῃσχ’ ὕπερ; οὐκ ἔστιν, ἀλλὰ τὸν βαλόντ’ ἀποφθίσαι χρῄζων ἔθελγέ μ’·

For why, in return for what, could the monster have done a kindness to me, the cause of his death? It cannot be; but he cajoled me, wishing to destroy the man who had shot him;

Besides, the very nature of the gift, advocates the same conclusion, that Nessos turned Deianeira into her husband’s murderer, in order to take revenge on his attacker. Thus, Deianeira rightly concludes that she herself has caused her husband’s death: “For if I am not to prove mistaken in my judgment, I alone, miserable one, shall be his ruin” (μόνη γὰρ αὐτόν,

436 Cf. the double function of same shepherd who was both a witness to the murder of Laius and of Oedipus’ infant exposure at the end of Soph. OΤ.

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εἴ τι μὴ ψευσθήσομαι / γνώμης, ἐγὼ δύστηνος ἐξαποφθερῶ, 712-713). The proof for the rightness of this reasoning is unmistakable, as she belatedly infers: “How shall it not destroy my husband also? That is my belief” (πῶς οὐκ ὀλεῖ καὶ τόνδε; δόξῃ γοῦν ἐμῇ, 718). It is not only that the philtre is contaminated by the murderous arrows of Herakles which did not only kill Nessos but once defeated even an immortal: “I know that the arrow that struck him tormented even Chiron, who was immortal, and it destroys all the beasts whom he touches” (τὸν γὰρ βαλόντ’ ἄτρακτον οἶδα καὶ θεὸν / Χείρωνα πημήναντα, χὦνπερ ἂν θίγῃ, / φθείρει τὰ πάντα κνώδαλ’, 714-715); but it is also the fact that the philtre consists of the poisoned blood of the dying Centaur that confirm her belief (“the black poison of the blood, coming from the fatal wound”; ἐκ δὲ τοῦδ’ ὅδε / σφαγῶν διελθὼν ἰὸς αἵματος μέλας, 716-717). For all that, Deianeira erred in not evaluating the transaction with the beast in time, although the data that were required for the right reasoning were available from the very beginning. To sum up on Nessos’s gift to Deianeira: Deianeira mistakes a commodity exchange for a disinterested transaction. By implicitly engaging her in a corrupted gift exchange, Nessos’ original violation inaugurates a series of refracted transactions, which altogether reflect on the imbalanced economy of the play. This imbalance is expressed in terms of a tension between the nobility of aristocratic transactions and the corroded morality of the market. It is also implied through the written means of the beast’s gift, which has inscribed on Deianeira’s body both the ending of her story and Herakles’ fate as foretold by the oracles. The same tension is also evident when Deianeira receives Iole, a ‘gift’ that Herakles offered as a reward for her marital devotion. The debased economic language employed to refer to this transaction suggests a moral corrosion in relationships of trust and erotic reciprocities, while at the same time it points to Herakles as the corrosive factor. Although he departs from a starting point that is different from Nessos’, Herakles’ participation in the transactions of the play, which I will discuss next, is equally pervasive and once again brings the hero closer to the disordered world of the beasts.

Herakles: Reciprocity in Crisis

Herakles’ world presents a heroic economy in crisis. Starting from the trafficking of his own body in the story of his enslavement to Omphale, Herakles’ independence, and thereby his ability to participate in the aristocratic gift exchange between equals, is irreparably affected and eroded. Diodoros (4.31.5-8) and Apollodoros (Bibl. 2.6.2-3) both mention the story connected with Herakles’ murder of Iphitos, before recounting the

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Kerkopes and Syleus episodes. After the murder, the hero falls ill and is advised by the Delphic oracle that he must be sold as a slave, in order to compensate Eurytos for his son’s murder. However, neither of the sources deals with the love affair between Omphale and Herakles and the exchange of clothes between the couple, which was an aspect of the story that proved very appealing to Latin literature. Whereas the visual arts may provide much earlier evidence for the transvestism, from as early as the sixth century BC., it is in Latin literature that it is treated in detail, providing a mythological exemplum for the modern lover metaphorically enslaved by his mistress.437 On the other hand, although the surviving fragments do not give much indication of the plots involved, the popularity of the story in comic poetry –Omphale was the title of two satyr plays and at least three comedies– suggests that the episode must have provided comedians with the opportunity to present the anti-heroic aspects of Herakles’ identity, namely his libertine tendency towards food, drink and love affairs.438 In Trachiniae the episode of Herakles’ enslavement is briefly accounted in the prologue, in order to explain the hero’s absence from home. His loss of freedom is first mentioned in relation to his servitude to Eurystheus (“such is the life that was always sending my husband home or away from home in servitude to a certain man”, τοιοῦτος αἰὼν εἰς δόμους τε κἀκ δόμων / ἀεὶ τὸν ἄνδρ’ ἔπεμπε λατρεύοντά τῳ, 34-35) and a few lines later in relation to his enslavement to Omphale (“they say that he was a slave to a Lydian woman”, Λυδῇ γυναικί φασί νιν λάτριν πονεῖν, 70), an indeed shameful experience, as Deianeira’s response suggests (“then one might hear anything, if he put up even with that!”, πᾶν τοίνυν, εἰ καὶ τοῦτ’ ἔτλη, κλύοι τις ἄν, 71). The consequent reference to the capture of Oechalia, another anti-heroic episode in Herakles’ career, which indicates his metaphorical enslavement because of his unbridled passion for Iole,439 completes the heroic/anti-heroic portrait of Herakles, which undermines the hero’s aristocratic nobility by questioning his freedom, and thus, as I noted earlier for Nessos, his right to be included in the aristocratic reciprocal exchange as an equal party. With this, a secondary network of problematic reciprocities between Herakles and Eurytos, indicating a crisis within relationships that unite individuals into relationships of philia, is

437 See Stafford 2012, 132-134. 438 Τhat was, indeed, an opportunity which was so often sought by the comedians; for the way comedy treated Herakles, see Stafford 2012, 105-116. 439 As Lichas admits, Herakles proved inferior to his desire for Iole: ὡς τἄλλ’ ἐκεῖνος πάντ’ ἀριστεύων χεροῖν / τοῦ τῆσδ’ ἔρωτος εἰς ἅπανθ’ ἥσσων ἔφυ, 488-489.

170 included in the play. The story is a frame narrative that is embedded as a ‘tale within the main tale’ about Iole and is reported by Lichas in his so-called ‘deception speech’ (248-290).440 According to the herald, it was Eurytos that first insulted Herakles, doubting his skills in archery and throwing him out of his house at dinner time; in short, violating xenia (262- 269):

ὃς αὐτὸν ἐλθόντ’ ἐς δόμους ἐφέστιον, ξένον παλαιὸν ὄντα, πολλὰ μὲν λόγοις ἐπερρόθησε, πολλὰ δ’ ἀτηρᾷ φρενί, λέγων χεροῖν μὲν ὡς ἄφυκτ’ ἔχων βέλη τῶν ὧν τέκνων λείποιτο πρὸς τόξου κρίσιν, †φώνει δέ, δοῦλος ἀνδρὸς ὡς ἐλευθέρου, ῥαίοιτο·† δείπνοις δ’ ἡνίκ’ ἦν ᾠνωμένος, ἔρριψεν ἐκτὸς αὐτόν.

When Heracles had come to his house and was at his hearth, being an old friend, Eurytus had reviled him greatly with insults coming from a baneful mind, saying that, though he held in his hands arrows that could not be escaped, he was inferior to Eurytus’ own sons when matched in archery, and [that he was a slave who was crushed by the mere voice of a free man.] And at dinner when he was full of wine he threw him out.

In return, Herakles killed Eurytus’ son Iphitus by treachery (269-273):

ὧν ἔχων χόλον, ὡς ἵκετ’ αὖθις Ἴφιτος Τιρυνθίαν πρὸς κλειτύν, ἵππους νομάδας ἐξιχνοσκοπῶν, τότ’ ἄλλοσ’ αὐτὸν ὄμμα, θἠτέρᾳ δὲ νοῦν ἔχοντ’, ἀπ’ ἄκρας ἧκε πυργώδους πλακός.

440 For Lichas’ ‘lying tale’, also see Chapter 3, pp. 113-123.

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Angry at this, when Iphitus came later to the ridge of Tiryns, on the track of wandering horses, as he had his eye in one place and his mind in another Heracles hurled him from the high platform of the fortress.

To punish him for this murder, Zeus sent him to be sold to Omphale (274-280):

ἔργου δ’ ἕκατι τοῦδε μηνίσας ἄναξ, ὁ τῶν ἁπάντων Ζεὺς πατὴρ Ὀλύμπιος, πρατόν νιν ἐξέπεμψεν, οὐδ’ ἠνέσχετο, ὁθούνεκ’ αὐτὸν μοῦνον ἀνθρώπων δόλῳ ἔκτεινεν. εἰ γὰρ ἐμφανῶς ἠμύνατο, Ζεύς τἂν συνέγνω ξὺν δίκῃ χειρουμένῳ. ὕβριν γὰρ οὐ στέργουσιν οὐδὲ δαίμονες.

It was on account of this deed that the lord, Olympian Zeus, the father of all, sent him to be sold. He did not tolerate it, because this was the only man he had killed by treachery; if he had fought him openly, Zeus would have pardoned him, since he had worsted his enemy in just fashion, for the gods also do not put up with violent crime.

Herakles indeed committed an antiheroic murder, which offended the ethics of Zeus, as it was not a self-defense reaction committed openly (εἰ γὰρ ἐμφανῶς ἠμύνατο, 278), which could be considered justifiable homicide (ξὺν δίκῃ χειρουμένῳ, 279), but constituted a violent and unjust crime committed by treachery (δόλῳ, 277; ὕβριν, 280), which required to be purified through his enslavement (ὅθ’ ἁγνὸς ἦν, 258). But Herakles felt that Eurytos was the one who was truly responsible for his disgraceful enslavement and for that reason, after completing his servitude, he returned and conquered his city (252-261):

κεῖνος δὲ πραθεὶς Ὀμφάλῃ τῇ βαρβάρῳ ἐνιαυτὸν ἐξέπλησεν, ὡς αὐτὸς λέγει, χοὔτως ἐδήχθη τοῦτο τοὔνειδος λαβὼν ὥσθ’ ὅρκον αὑτῷ προσβαλὼν διώμοσεν, ἦ μὴν τὸν ἀγχιστῆρα τοῦδε τοῦ πάθους ξὺν παιδὶ καὶ γυναικὶ δουλώσειν ἔτι. κοὐχ ἡλίωσε τοὔπος, ἀλλ’ ὅθ’ ἁγνὸς ἦν,

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στρατὸν λαβὼν ἐπακτὸν ἔρχεται πόλιν τὴν Εὐρυτείαν. τόνδε γὰρ μεταίτιον μόνον βροτῶν ἔφασκε τοῦδ’ εἶναι πάθους·

Heracles was sold to the barbarian Omphale and served out a year, as he himself tells me. And he was so much stung at having this shame set upon him that he put himself on oath and swore that in all truth he would yet enslave the man who had brought about this affliction together with his child and wife. And he did not fail to keep his word, but once he had been purified he raised a mercenary army and went against the city of Eurytus; for he it was whom he held responsible, alone among mortals, for what he had suffered.

The causal sequence of the events as presented by Lichas runs as follows: Eurytos violated xenia, Herakles killed Iphitus in return, Zeus punished Herakles by commanding his enslavement, and Herakles thought Eurytos was responsible for his punishment and sacked his city. The Messenger’s version of the story (351ff.), finally admitted by Lichas at the end of the first epeisodion, only questioned the fourth point of this sequence, namely Herakles’ motive for the sack of Eurytos’ city; that is, Lichas admitted that Herakles’ passion for Iole was the real cause for the capture of Oechalia (475-477). However, the fact that Lichas’ story was immediately disputed by the Messenger allows us to doubt whether the audience originally received the whole story as the real one. I am of the opinion that, although only the part referring to Herakles’ motive was clearly refuted, there are enough reasons to believe that the whole version of Lichas could have sounded suspicious and untrustworthy to Sophocles’ audience. Although parts of this story already appear before Sophocles, suggesting that this story has not been invented from scratch by Lichas, it seems that the version recalled at this time has been adjusted in order to fit Lichas’ intention to mitigate Herakles’ indecent behaviour and conceal his motive for the destruction of Eurytos’ oikos. As I have already remarked, Lichas’ account is a total inversion of the Homeric presentation of Herakles’ crime against xenia (Od. 21.11ff.), which offers him the flexibility he needed in order to carry out the purpose of his narrative. Nevertheless, it is also possible that Sophocles is purposely amending the well-known Homeric version of the story, introducing the violation of xenia by Eurytos and not Herakles, with a view to undermining the validity of Lichas’ version on the whole.

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Besides, Lichas’ account is generally suspect and inconsistent. In respect to the person responsible for Herakles’ enslavement, his explanation is vague, since it clearly points towards Zeus as commanding Herakles’ punishment, while at the same time it reports Herakles’ belief in Eurytos’ responsibility (ἀγχιστῆρα τοῦδε τοῦ πάθους, 256; μεταίτιον […] τοῦδ’ εἶναι πάθους, 260-261). Given that the real motive for the sack of Oechalia will be soon revealed, Eurytos’ blame is to be discarded to the benefit of Zeus’ exclusive responsibility for Herakles’ enslavement. In any case, even if we ignore the question of the person truly responsible for Herakles’ servitude, his behaviour is still unacceptable (see ὕβριν, 280), despite the fact that it has been ‘smoothed over’ to Herakles’ advantage by the herald. To conclude, in Herakles’ world the concept of reciprocity, which is particularly important for the establishment of stable and healthy relationships within the wider social circle which delineates one’s living area, is fundamentally disturbed. If one considers, in addition, that, as we have already noted, the brutal murder of Lichas’ will also be added later to the hero’s violations (772-785), Herakles’ defense becomes a particularly difficult task. The hero’s misconception of reciprocity can partly be explained on the grounds of a deficiency in his potentiality to act as a free man, which is a prerequisite for participation in noble transactions. Consequently, as the episodes of the murders of Iphitos and Lichas, Herakles’ enslavement to Omphale and the sack of Eurytos’ city suggest, the hero repeatedly transgresses the laws of the civilised community; that is, violates xenia, destroys an oikos only to satisfy his lust and commits two unjust murders. As we will see in the following section, the violation of his marriage adds to this long list of transgressions of the fundamental bond that unites individuals into the group of philoi and further exemplifies the crisis within reciprocal relationships presented in Trachiniae.

Marital Reciprocity on Sale

On top of this inappropriate behaviour, Herakles violates his own marriage by sending his mistress to Deianeira’s oikos and by asking her to accept an indeed ill-suited and humiliating cohabitation. This violation of reciprocity is particularly important as it is a prerequisite and a direct cause of Deianeira’s act of sending the robe. Taking Herakles’ and Deianeira’s wedding as a reference point, the exchanges taking place between the couple are framed within the nuptial setting of the play, having connotations that point towards the gifts

174 exchanged on the occasion of an actual wedding.441 Given that, as shown in the previous chapter, in Trachiniae this setting is reversed, these exchanges also follow a course that opposes the regularity of a normal transaction and the proper reciprocity of trust and affection that is expected in a marriage. Starting with Nessos’ initial violation of the wedding πομπή of Deianeira and Herakles (πατρῷον στόλον, 562), accompanied by Nessos’ ‘escorting oars’ (πομπίμοις κώπαις, 560-561; cf. wedding πομπή), marital reciprocality undergoes multiple transformations. Thus, Nessos’ gift to the the newlyweds (δῶρον, 555), is recalled in Herakles’ sending of Iole as both a bride and a wedding gift to Deianeira (στόλον, 226; πέμπων, 366; ἀντὶ δώρων, 494; στόλῳ, 496; δῶρον πόμπιμον, 872), but also in Deianeira’s act of sending the poisonous robe to Herakles (δῶρα, 494; δώρημ’, 603; στελεῖν, 612; δωρημάτων, 668; δῶρον, 692; δώρημα, 758; στολῇ, 764; δώρημ’, 776), in a way that indicates that these three offerings are closely intertwined within a scheme of gift and counter-gift.442 In all these offerings, however, the positive reciprocity expected in a proper marriage turns into negative. The concept of a gift given in return is denoted in Greek with the terms ἀντίδωρον, ἀντιδωρεά, ἀντίδοσις (‘counter-gift’), while the terms ἀμοιβή (‘gift as repayment’) and χάρις (‘gift expressing gratitude’) were also used for gifts that included the aspect of mutuality.443 χάρις is especially significant in the noble economy of heroism, where it signifies the sense of gratitude, whether on the part of the doer or the receiver, which can be reciprocated through

441 The garment Deianeira sends to Herakles is called, rather indiscriminately, χιτών (580, 612, 769) or πέπλος (602, 613, 674, 758, 774, cf. Deianeira’s πέπλον in 924) or στολή (764). χιτών is a staple element of Greek male and female dress (it is attested only as a male garment in the Homeric period, but it is predominantly female in the Classical); it is basically a generic term for a Greek tunic, a non-specific word for clothing (Cleland, Davies and Llewellyn-Jones 2007, s.v. χιτών). πέπλος is a female garment, a single large draped and pinned piece of woollen cloth, specifically the type offered to Athena at the Panathenaia, and was casually regarded as the epitome of Greek female dress. It had a profound symbolic association with ideas of gender; it expressed feminine virtues of chastity, fecundity, and domestic labour. After the archaic period, the πέπλος was in practice primarily a ritual garment (Lee 2005, 55-64 and Cleland, Davies and Llewellyn-Jones 2007, s.v. πέπλος). χλανίς (derivative of χλαμύς: a male garment worn throughout the Greek world) was a mantle made of finer wool and worn on festive occasions. It was worn by both sexes, but its softness sometimes marked out its male wearers as effeminate (Cleland, Davies and Llewellyn-Jones 2007, s.v. χλανίς and χλαμύς). In classical Athens the bride would send a cloak (χλανίς) to the groom for the wedding (Ar. Av. 1693; Poll. 3.39ff.). Reeder suggests that this tunic, woven by the bride herself, was meant to represent women’s skill in weaving and textile production, which was their most important contribution to the household and intimately identified with female sexuality, marriage and procreation (Reeder 1995,128). Also see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 37, 39. 442 Segal 1992/1995, 87-88 also notes the series of destructive exchanges within the nuptial setting of the play. He suggests that Herakles’ defense of marriage when saving Deianeira from Nessos’ attack is undercut by the grotesque parody of the wedding procession indicated by Iole’s arrival, as with Iole he is playing the role that Nessos attempted with Deianeira. Thus, Herakles is continuing the pattern of destructive exchanges initiated by Nessos, when giving Iole as a bride to Hyllos. 443 Wagner-Hasel and Weeber 2006.

175 an equal gift; it seems to be the closest Greek synonym to the English ‘reciprocity’ and can be translated as ‘thankfulness’, ‘gratitude’, ‘favour’, ‘service’, ‘grace’ etc. The term occurs in all central relationships based on reciprocity, whether in the relationship between mortals and gods or between mortals, such as warriors or members of the household community. In her study on the meaning of χάρις, MacLachlan has suggested that all these different meanings can be reduced to a single definition of χάρις as reciprocal “social pleasure”.444 In contrast to the benefit one would expect to get from monetary transactions (κέρδος), reciprocal favour (χάρις) is not driven by self-interest. It is granted a positive value and it is potentially beneficial but it is immaterial; it cannot be sold, exchanged or transacted. This immaterial aspect of χάρις is more evident when the term is used with a visual significance to designate the gratifying effect which was supposed to emanate from woven pictures on clothes, engraved images on jewels or the mental images evoked by the poet’ words.445 Also within marital relationships, χάρις meant the thankfulness of the bride in return for the groom’s offerings, as in the case of the bride of Iphidamas in Iliad 11, where the poet reminds us of the fate of the hero who died at Troy and despite being given a great deal of bride-wealth had seen no χάρις from his bride (Hom. Il. 11.242-245).446 In that case, χάρις must be seen as part of the reciprocal relationship between married couples and their families or can be taken as the wife’s selfless offering of herself and her devotion in favour of the prosperity of her husband’s oikos. Nevertheless, it is clear that marital χάρις carries predominantly sexual connotations (as in Soph. Aj. 522; Eur. Hec. 830; Hel. 1397).447 However, in Trachiniae χάρις is always corrupted; χάρις is what the Messenger expects to get in return for the good news he first arrived to bring to Deianeira (κτῴμην χάριν, 191); or what Lichas gets from the chorus in return for the truth (κτήσῃ χάριν, 471); or what both Deianeira and Herakles will enjoy if Deianeira agrees to Lichas’ advice to show kindness to Iole (κοινὴν χάριν, 485); or what Herakles thinks Zeus rewards him with as a

444 MacLachlan 1993, 4-7, 52. For χάρις also see Wagner-Hasel and Weeber 2006 and Wagner-Hasel 2013, 164- 165. 445 On this aspect of χάρις, see MacLachlan 1993, 10-11, 37, 66, 113 n. 38, 131, 136; Wagner-Hasel 2000, 152- 165. 446 See Wagner-Hasel 2013, 164. Also Vernant 1983, 132. For marriage gifts in ancient Greece also see Oakley and Sinos 1993, passim. In the epics the bride receives δῶρα (gifts of jewellery and clothes) from her groom, whereas her family receives ἔδνα (cattle and sheep). The special gifts that the groom presented at the moment when the bride's veil was removed (ἀνακαλυπτήρια,) were called ὀπτήρια (Poll. 2,59; 3,36). A specific day of the wedding was devoted to receiving presents from the family or friends of the bride (Hesych. and Suda s.v. ἐπαύλια); these may include soaps, fragrances and generally items intended to increase the bride’s beauty. 447 See Wagner-Hasel 2002, 17-32, who analyses the meaning of χάρις as female countergifts for male gifts. Also see McNeil 2005, 1-17, who applies this concept in her discussion of Aesch. Ag., and Lyons 2012, 110-112, who concludes her book on destructive exchanges with a consideration of female χάρις.

176 repayment for his sacrifices (χάριν ἠνύσω, 995); or the small favour Herakles asks from Hyllos, namely him marrying Iole (χάριν βραχεῖαν, 1217); or the kindness Hyllos shows towards his father in agreeing to burn him alive (τὴν πάρος χάριν, 1230; τὴν χάριν, 1252). χάρις is particularly important in the context of Deianeira’s marriage, where it indicates what she believes that she has offered to Herakles, through her long-lasting support as a devoted wife, and obviously what she expects to get back from her husband. Instead, Deianeira’s χάρις is degraded to the level of οἰκούρια, while Herakles’ gift in requital for her devotion is just Iole; this is indeed an unfair repayment, a reversed ‘gift in return’, as Deianeira admits with clear frustration (536-542):

κόρην γάρ, οἶμαι δ’ οὐκέτ’, ἀλλ’ ἐζευγμένην, παρεσδέδεγμαι, φόρτον ὥστε ναυτίλος, λωβητὸν ἐμπόλημα τῆς ἐμῆς φρενός. καὶ νῦν δύ’ οὖσαι μίμνομεν μιᾶς ὑπὸ χλαίνης ὑπαγκάλισμα. τοιάδ’ Ἡρακλῆς, ὁ πιστὸς ἡμῖν κἀγαθὸς καλούμενος, οἰκούρι’ ἀντέπεμψε τοῦ μακροῦ χρόνου.

For I have taken in the maiden –but I think she is no maiden but taken by him– as a captain takes on a cargo, a merchandise that does outrage to my feelings. And how the two of us remain beneath one blanket for him to embrace; such is the reward that Heracles, he who is called true and noble, has sent me for having kept the house so long.

So, within Deianeira’s marriage, the expected reciprocity is degraded to the level of the vulgar marketplace and relationships are relegated to the area of commercial shipping.448 This reciprocal crisis is personified through Iole. Having initiated a circle of unjust transactions with Eurytos, Herakles introduced Iole into his oikos as a commodity (ἐμπόλημα) which distorts the equilibrium of his bed (δύ’ οὖσαι μίμνομεν μιᾶς ὑπὸ / χλαίνης ὑπαγκάλισμα), and consequently the equilibrium in his house. Being overburdened with two wives, Herakles’ oikos will soon sink. Deianeira has received this gift from Herakles like a sailor who accepts too much cargo on a ship, and proves unable to manage the extra freight (παρεσδέδεγμαι,

448 See Wohl 1998, 26-28.

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φόρτον ὥστε ναυτίλος, / λωβητὸν ἐμπόλημα τῆς ἐμῆς φρενός). By appropriating the ship metaphor, for the management of the oikos, Deianeira implies that the order of her oikos is in a deep, ‘political’ crisis;449 this is expressed in terms of stasis between spouses, a controversy which has been raised because two women were forced to coexist and rule the same body. Thus, Deianeira bitterly remarks that in return for the long time during which she has offered him her services (οἰκούρι’ […] τοῦ μακροῦ χρόνου),450 Herakles rewarded her with this kind of gift (τοιάδε). The hyperbaton of τοιόσδε and its noun emphatically underlines the great discrepancy of quality between the parts of this exchange. Correspondingly, the gift Deianeira sent to Herakles in return for this unfair repayment is not only dubious and corrupted but murderously destructive. For all that, Herakles is the one who essentially initiates the circle of uneven and unjust reciprocities, as he is the one who answers her positive gift, her devotion, with a negative gift, a younger woman to replace her in his bed. Seen in this light, Deianeira believes that she is responding to Herakles’ unfair treatment in an equal way that corresponds to his offending against his marriage (δίκαια, 495). This is implied at the end of the first epeisodion when Deianeira prompted Lichas to follow her into the palace in order to take away and deliver to Herakles some unspecified gifts in exchange for his gifts that she felt obliged to attach (490-496):

ἀλλ’ εἴσω στέγης χωρῶμεν, ὡς λόγων τ’ ἐπιστολὰς φέρῃς, ἅ τ’ ἀντὶ δώρων δῶρα χρὴ προσαρμόσαι, καὶ ταῦτ’ ἄγῃς. κενὸν γὰρ οὐ δίκαιά σε χωρεῖν προσελθόνθ’ ὧδε σὺν πολλῷ στόλῳ.

But let us go into the house, so that you may take away the message that I charge you with, and may also carry gifts in exchange for gifts that I must attach. It would not be right for you to go empty-handed after having come here with so large a train.

449 Rather than being a domestic crisis. For the political aspect of the oikos and the ship metaphor, see Chapter 1, pp. 50-53. 450 τοῦ μακροῦ χρόνου must be translated as a gen. of price (see Jebb 1982, ad loc.) and οἰκουρία must be taken to mean the woman’s task of keeping at home; cf. Eur. Her 1372-1373: ὥσπερ σὺ τἀμὰ λέκτρ᾽ ἔσῳζες ἀσφαλῶς, / μακρὰς διαντλοῦσ᾽ ἐν δόμοις οἰκουρίας (see Wilamowitz 1895, ad loc., who is taking these lines to be the model for Trach.) and Plut. Coniugalia Praecepta 142d: οἰκουρίας σύμβολον ταῖς γυναιξὶ καὶ σιωπῆς.

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προσαρμόζω (‘fit to, attach closely to’) is etymologically linked to ἁρμόζω, a word used for betrothal and also, in the middle voice, to indicate the harmony between the couple as the goal of their marriage.451 In this context of sinister wedding gift exchanges, προσαρμόσαι seems to recall the nuptial setting only to prefigure the fastening of the cloak to Herakles (ἁρμόσαιμι, 687). The ambiguous allusion to these ‘gifts to be attached’ at the closure of the first epeisodion undermines Deianeira’s preceding magnanimous speech (436-469) and foreshadows her announcement that she will use the Centaur’s philtre, which is made right after the first stasimon and at the beginning of the second epeisodion (531ff.), as well as the ultimate disaster that this exchange will cause. At this point, we are left with nothing but a feeling of agony mixed with fear so that we wonder: How was Deianeira expected to respond to her husband’s ‘gift’? Was she expected to tolerate his infidelity, as she had done in the past, as her noble status dictated and she herself envisioned as the prudent and sensible reaction? Having this corroded network of reciprocities that was presented in the first part of this chapter in mind, I will now proceed to the second part to discuss Deianeira’s decision and her alleged ‘crime’.

451 See LSJ, s.v. προσαρμόζω and Oakley and Sinos 1993, 41 for the meaning of ἁρμόζω in marriage.

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PART 2: ‘Crime’ and Punishment

An Amazon Declaims, Speculates and Determines

Let us now follow step by step Deianeira’s reaction after receiving Herakles’ ‘gift’, in order to have a closer look at her complex motivation before her decision to send the poisonous robe. As already noted, Deianeira first expressed compassion for the captives’ misfortunes, mixed with an indeterminate sense of anxiety (242-243; 293-313). When confronted with the truth by the Messenger, having realised the danger this girl introduced in her house, she seemed desperate (375-379), and while she turned for some kind of advice to the chorus, she admitted the impasse in which she had found herself: “What must I do, women? The story we have heard leaves me struck dumb” (τί χρὴ ποεῖν, γυναῖκες; ὡς ἐγὼ λόγοις / τοῖς νῦν παροῦσιν ἐκπεπληγμένη κυρῶ, 385-386). Acting as a wise advisor and in accordance with current judicial regulations, at this crucial point the chorus considered that the examination of the witness before taking any decision was decisive.452 However, the interrogation of Lichas by the Messenger only exacerbated the impasse. It was only Deianeira’s contribution that proved effective in eliciting the truth from Lichas, coming after the Messenger’s repeatedly failed attempts. Her long speech at the end of the first epeisodion was crucial in order to persuade the herald that her reaction will comply with the standards prescribed by her noble status (436- 469). The arguments in favour of Deianeira’s case were of two kinds, and she appealed to these at the beginning of her statement: those based on her moral status (“The woman you will be telling it to is not evil”; οὐ γὰρ γυναικὶ τοὺς λόγους ἐρεῖς κακῇ, 438) and those based on her sensibility (“nor is she ignorant of the ways of men, that they do not always take pleasure in the same things”; οὐδ’ ἥτις οὐ κάτοιδε τἀνθρώπων, ὅτι / χαίρειν πέφυκεν οὐχὶ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἀεί, 439-440). Following these strong statements, Deianeira first argued for her sensibility, by elaborating on her belief that a reasonable woman was not supposed to fight against the invincible god Eros; since he ruled everyone, including the gods, herself, other women like her, her love-struck husband and blameless Iole (441-449). She then turned to Lichas, appealing to her opponent’s morality (καλὴν, 450; χρηστός, 452; κακός, 452; ἐλευθέρῳ, 453; οὐ καλή, 454) and asking him to consider the consequences of lying (449- 456). And lastly, she invoked her own moral status, by convincingly reminding Lichas of the ethos and integrity she had proven in the past relationships that Herakles, the famous lover,

452 For the role of the witness in Athenian Law, see Thür 2005, 146-169.

180 had and, more importantly, the sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings of Iole and the other captives she expressed when first confronted with them (457-469; cf. 242-243; 293- 313). That was indeed her strongest argument, hence Deianeira reminded Lichas of this when at the end of the second epeisodion she was giving him the last instructions: “Well you know, as an eyewitness about the welcome of the foreign girl, how kindly I received her” (ἀλλ’ οἶσθα μὲν δὴ καὶ τὰ τῆς ξένης ὁρῶν / προσδέγματ’ αὐτός, ὥς σφ’ ἐδεξάμην φίλως, 627-628). Deianeira proved to be a percipient interpreter of Lichas’ hesitation and smart enough to understand that he was lying because he was afraid of her reaction; thus, her speech at this decisive point aimed to dispel this fear. She demonstrated an efficient presence of mind and convincingly acted the role of the ‘good wife’ who is responding to her husband’s infidelity in a sensible, prudent way; thereby, she persuaded Lichas of her good judgment (“I can see that you, being mortal, think like a mortal and not unreasonably”; σε μανθάνω / θνητὴν φρονοῦσαν θνητὰ κοὐκ ἀγνώμονα, 472-473) and convinced him to speak the whole truth. For all that, the fact that Lichas alone chose to conceal the truth, acting, as he claimed, autonomously rather than being guided by Herakles, as he was afraid of the consequences of her sadness (“afraid I might wound your heart by telling you this story”; δειμαίνων τὸ σὸν / μὴ στέρνον ἀλγύνοιμι τοῖσδε τοῖς λόγοις, 481-482), prompts us to think that he considered anger and desperation to be the expected reaction in a similar case. Thus, in the common perception of the audience, the opposite reaction –the unreasonable/emotional reaction of a heavily depressed woman– even if not acceptable and recommended, should be considered at least possible, expected, and presumably justified. In fact, Sophocles constructed the circumstances so that two different possible responses against male infidelity would be presented, asking us to consider the critical impasses caused on such occasions. Nonetheless, his Deianeira was presented as being very well aware of which behaviour was sensible, and she repeatedly stated that hers was not a reaction advised by anger. As noted above, when confronting the herald she claimed to be conscious of the fact that “whoever stands up to Eros like a boxer is a fool” (Ἔρωτι μέν νυν ὅστις ἀντανίσταται / πύκτης ὅπως ἐς χεῖρας, οὐ καλῶς φρονεῖ, 441-442) and made clear that she considered her husband’s love affair to be a disease of divine origin against which she did not intend to fight (“my husband for being taken by this sickness”; τὠμῷ γ’ ἀνδρὶ τῇδε τῇ νόσῳ / ληφθέντι, 445- 446). And this is what she repeated, at the end of the first epeisodion and before entering the palace, after having adequately proved her prudent mind to Lichas, when she reassured him that she did not intend to “take a sickness that is foreign to [her], in a vain struggle against the gods” (κοὔτοι νόσον γ’ ἐπακτὸν ἐξαρούμεθα, / θεοῖσι δυσμαχοῦντες, 491-492). Accordingly,

181 her decision to use the Centaur’s philtre, presented in her speech given at the beginning of the second epeisodion, continued the same line of thought. Once again, she repeated that she “did not know how to be angry with [her] husband now that he is suffering severely from this malady” (ἐγὼ δὲ θυμοῦσθαι μὲν οὐκ ἐπίσταμαι / νοσοῦντι κείνῳ πολλὰ τῇδε τῇ νόσῳ, 543- 544), as “it is not honourable for a woman of sense to be angry” (ἀλλ’ οὐ γάρ […] ὀργαίνειν καλὸν / γυναῖκα νοῦν ἔχουσαν, 552-553). Consequently, it was constantly underlined by Deianeira that her intention was not prompted by instinct or anger. But how did such a wise woman come to such a decision? Deianeira’s determination to send the poisoned robe has been seen as contradicting her intentions, as presented in her “good wife” speech in the preceding epeisodion. With that, we may notice a purposefully conspicuous shift in her mood or inconsistency between the promise she gave earlier to the herald and her final decision, analogous to Ajax’s deception speech.453 However, there is nothing in the text implying a shift in her mood; neither did she ever notice that something occurred during the first stasimon that could justify such a shift. By singing the mighty power of Aphrodite, this ode illustrated in a lyrical way the image of the uneven fight with the goddess of love and desire that Deianeira had earlier introduced. Of course, it could be suggested that the ode also foreshadows her participation in an uneven contest with Iole (“overcome this girl”; ὑπερβαλώμεθα / τὴν παῖδα, 584-585), a contest that was set in motion with her decision to use the philtre. It goes without saying that the speech introducing her decision to use the philtre is a paradoxical mixture of bitter frustration and rational reasoning, full of ambiguities and irony. On the other hand, her decision was sufficiently and persuasively supported, as she exposed the circumstances under which she was forced to take action, her “suffering” (τὰ δ’ οἷα πάσχω, 535). As Deianeira explained, her decision, even if desperate, was made under sensible reasoning, in an attempt to confront her husband’s much younger concubine that was about to replace her in her own oikos (536-554). It seems that Herakles left her no choice than to act in a way that she herself considered shameful. Therefore, under the influence of these developments, an ultimate and shameful means seemed to offer a lifeline: λυτήριον λύπημα,

453 This has been already been noticed by the scholiast in Aj. 646 (ed. Papageorgiu 1888): ἅπανθ’ ὁ μακρός ἐξέρχεται ὁ Αἴας ὡς δὴ κατακηληθεὶς ὑπὸ Τεκμήσσης μὴ σφάττειν ἑαυτὸν καὶ προφάσει τοῦ δεῖν εἰς ἐρημίαν ἐλθεῖν καὶ κρῦψαι τὸ ξίφος ἐπὶ τούτοις ἀναχωρεῖ καὶ διαχρῆται ἑαυτόν· παρίστησι δὲ ὁ λόγος ὅτι καὶ οἱ ἔμφρονες καὶ παρακολουθοῦντες τῇ φύσει τῶν πραγμάτων ὅμως ὑπὸ τῶν τοιούτων παθῶν ἐπὶ τὸ χεῖρον ἀπολισθάνουσιν ὡς ἐν Τραχινίαις ἡ Δηιάνειρα περὶ τοῦ ἔρωτος διαλεγομέν καὶ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ὅτι αὐτῷ οὐκ ἀντιστήσεται οὐδὲ λυσιτελεῖ αὐτῇ ἀντιπράττειν τῇ ἐπιθυμίᾳ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς πράττει μετὰ ταῦτα ἅπερ αὐτὴν ἀνέπεισεν ἡ ζηλοτυπία· for a full discussion of Deianeira’s ‘deception speech’, see Hester 1980, 1-8.

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(554).454 Lloyd-Jones’ translation “a means of remedying pain” (cf. Torrance: “solacing release”),455 seems to miss the idea that this means does not only offer the possibility of disentanglement (λυτήριον) from pain but is itself painful (λύπημα); that Deianeira is painfully forced to resort to this resource, as the last and desperate source of help in an extremely difficult situation. As well as containing an emphatic alliteration, λυτήριον λύπημα is also a resounding and unmistakable oxymoron, which outlines in brief and in advance Deianeira’s plan and prefigures the destructive effect of the poison; that is, a “liberating pain” that will not only cause pain but is itself painful. In many more ways this “liberating pain” evokes negative connotations and is suspect. As noted, this gift is itself a problematic offering, which was not only given to Deianeira a long time ago by her would-be rapist (δῶρον, 556) but is also a gift reciprocating Herakles’ unfair reciprocity (494-496). As for the intention of the giver, it needs to be noted that whereas a gift is expected to be a selfless offering aiming to please the receiver, in Deianeira’s case the gift is the pretext used to conceal her true intention, namely that she will overcome the younger bride and win back Herakles. This idea of a gift being pleasant for both the receiver and the sender is expressed in Deianeira’s suggestion to Lichas: “make sure that his gratitude and mine shall be combined, so that you get double thanks” (φύλασσε […] ὅπως ἂν ἡ χάρις κείνου τέ σοι / κἀμοῦ ξυνελθοῦσ’ ἐξ ἁπλῆς διπλῆ φανῇ, 616-619).456 So, instead of sending a gift to her husband, Deianeira is, in fact, using the philtre in the hope that she “may somehow overcome this girl with spells and charms [aimed at Herakles]” (φίλτροις δ’ ἐάν πως τήνδ’ ὑπερβαλώμεθα / τὴν παῖδα καὶ θέλκτροισι τοῖς ἐφ’ Ἡρακλεῖ, 584-585); while she trusts an untrustworthy promise given by a beast that claimed that its poisoned blood “shall be a charm for the mind of Heracles, so that he shall never more see and love another woman instead of [her]” (ἔσται φρενός σοι τοῦτο κηλητήριον / τῆς Ἡρακλείας, ὥστε μήτιν’ εἰσιδὼν / στέρξει γυναῖκα κεῖνος ἀντὶ σοῦ πλέον, 575-577). In addition, as I have already noted, there is an ominous verbal link between Deianeira’s robe and Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon and her use of weavings to

454 The meaning and reading of the text in this passage are disputed: see Davies 1991 ad 554, for the various conjectures. Also see Stinton 1976, 138-139. 455 Lloyd-Jones 1998. However, in Lloyd-Jones and Wilson (1990, ad loc.) the phrase is explained as an idiom expressing a cure that requires painful and serious measures, while the pain is taken as referring to Deianira's reluctance to resort to magic. For the conjectures regarding these disputed lines, see Davies 1991 ad 554. 456 The idea expressed here should be that Lichas will successfully deliver the robe. However, the expression is quite bewildering. Is it that Herakles will be grateful to Lichas for being the giver of the precious gift, just like she is already grateful to him for bringing her the good news for Herakles’ return? Easterling (1982 ad loc.) reads differently: Deianeira will be grateful to Lichas for delivering the gift, as Herakles is already grateful to Lichas for delivering the captives and Iole.

183 destroy her husband (1051-1052, cf. Ag. 1580).457 Like Aigisthos’ sword which dyed Agamemnon’s robe red (φᾶρος τόδ’ ὡς ἔβαψεν Αἰγίσθου ξίφος, Aesch. Cho. 1011), Deianeira ‘dyed’ Herakles’ cloak with the poison (χιτῶνα τόνδ’ ἔβαψα, 580), repeating the same word that was used a few lines earlier for the effect of the lethal arrows dipped in the Hydra’s poison (ἔβαψεν, 574).458 This philtre is also suspiciously kept hidden in a brazen pot in the inside of the house for a long time (λέβητι χαλκέῳ κεκρυμμένον, 556; δόμοις γὰρ ἦν / […] ἐγκεκλῃμένον καλῶς, 578-579; ἐν μυχοῖς, 685-686). Just like the philtre, which is imbued with a lot of portentous secrecy, the act of Deianeira using it also needs to be kept secret (λάθρᾳ, 533; μόνον παρ’ ὑμῶν […] σκότῳ, 596; ἐν δόμοις κρυφῇ, 659). So, even the most well-meaning audience would not miss the fatal connection. Then, the act of sending the robe is described in terms signifying a cunning deed, (χερσὶν ἁτεχνησάμην, 534; μεμηχάνηται τοὔργον, 586; μηχαναῖς, 774). τεχνάομαι can be translated as contrive or execute cunningly, while μηχανάομαι is more frequently used in a negative sense to denote the act of devising by art or cunning.459 The garment itself is the product of female weaving, thus a symbol of domestic female labour, which is generally associated with female deceit (δόλος).460 However, it is surprising that, although Deianeira is described by Herakles as δολῶπις (1050), when δόλος is used in Trachiniae it describes male deceit, namely Herakles’ killing of Iphitos (δόλῳ, 277) or the Centaur’s deception (Κενταύρου […] δολοποιὸς ἀνάγκα, 831-832); δολόμυ- / θα κέντρ’, 839-840). Thus, I would be inclined to think that the obscure guile connected with the philtre seems to be mostly in line with the use of magic charms (κηλητήριον, 575; φίλτροις, 584; θέλκτροισι, 585; φάρμακον, 685; φαρμακεὺς, 1140; φίλτρῳ, 1141),461 which is generally considered shameful and dishonourable, rather than implying female deceit.462 In general,

457 On the comparison of Deianeira to Clytemnestra, see Introduction, p. 13 and Chapter 3, p. 155 (n. 384). 458 Halleran 1988, 129-131 points the significance of the repetition of the verb βάπτειν. He suggests the translation of 573-574, thus: “where he [Heracles] caused a wound with his gall-dark arrows, [gall-dark] with the hydra's poison” (129). 459 See LSJ s.v. Also note that Deianeira’s death is also a τέχνη (τῆς τεχνωμένης τάδε, 928). For the ambivalence of τέχνη in Trach., see Wohl 1998, 2000-201, n.25. 460 For female weaving, see Bergren 1983, 69-95 and 2008; for female δόλος, see, e.g. Zeitlin, 1985, 63-94 and Lyons 2012, passim; for πέπλος, see Lee 2004, 253-279, who discusses its development as a motif symbolizing the inversion of social order (also see Lee 2005, 55-64). Ormand 1993, 224-226 and Pozzi 1995, 577-585 discuss the effect of Deianeira’s poisoned robe under the presence of the subtext of marriage. 461 λυτήριον λύπημα (554) may also refer to magic, as the binding formula seems to have been a common theme in magic; see Faraone and Obbink 1991, 4-10. 462 Faraone 1999, 15-30 (et passim) has shown that exclusion of the use of magic and aphrodisiacs as a category distinct from “religion” or “science” is inappropriate for ancient Greece and that the Greeks did not think of magic as ‘bad religion’. Nevertheless, he also cites evidence proving the anxiety over wives using aphrodisiacs, which dates back as early as the classical period (1999, 114ff.). As for Deianera’s fault, he argues

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Nessos’ gift introduces a layer of magic and irrational elements and in this sense is threatening the intellectual schemes of human cognition. This layer is hidden in the innermost and most sunless place of the palace, placed in the far distant past of the drama (παλαιὸν δῶρον ἀρχαίου θηρός, 555-556), when Deianeira is still a young girl (παῖς ἔτ᾽ οὖσα, 557), and inscribed in Deianeira’s memory in an indelible way (ὅπως δύσνιπτον γραφήν, 683). Hence, Deianeira, despite having already applied the philtre to anoint the robe, seems really reluctant in proceeding with the execution of her plan and once again turns to the chorus for some kind of advice (582-597):

κακὰς δὲ τόλμας μήτ’ ἐπισταίμην ἐγὼ μήτ’ ἐκμάθοιμι, τάς τε τολμώσας στυγῶ. φίλτροις δ’ ἐάν πως τήνδ’ ὑπερβαλώμεθα τὴν παῖδα καὶ θέλκτροισι τοῖς ἐφ’ Ἡρακλεῖ, μεμηχάνηται τοὔργον, εἴ τι μὴ δοκῶ πράσσειν μάταιον· εἰ δὲ μή, πεπαύσομαι. Χο. ἀλλ’ εἴ τις ἐστὶ πίστις ἐν τοῖς δρωμένοις, δοκεῖς παρ’ ἡμῖν οὐ βεβουλεῦσθαι κακῶς. Δη. οὕτως ἔχει γ’ ἡ πίστις, ὡς τὸ μὲν δοκεῖν ἔνεστι, πείρᾳ δ’ οὐ προσωμίλησά πω. Χο. ἀλλ’ εἰδέναι χρὴ δρῶσαν· ὡς οὐδ’ εἰ δοκεῖς ἔχειν, ἔχοις ἂν γνῶμα, μὴ πειρωμένη. Δη. ἀλλ’ αὐτίκ’ εἰσόμεσθα· τόνδε γὰρ βλέπω θυραῖον ἤδη· διὰ τάχους δ’ ἐλεύσεται. μόνον παρ’ ὑμῶν εὖ στεγοίμεθ’· ὡς σκότῳ κἂν αἰσχρὰ πράσσῃς, οὔποτ’ αἰσχύνῃ πεσῇ.

De. Of rash crimes may I never know or learn anything, and I detest women who perform them. But in the hope that I may somehow overcome this girl with spells and charms, the deed has been contrived … unless you think that what I am doing is foolish! If so, I shall abandon it. Ch. Why, if one have any faith in the performance, we think you have not been ill- advised. that she only errs in not using the right dosage and killing Herakles by mistake (112-119). However, I am of the opinion that the text clearly indicates her reluctance and shame in resorting to such means.

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De. My faith extends so far, that I can believe it, but I have never put it to the test. Ch. Well, you must know when you take action, since even if you think you have one, you have no way of testing it unless you try it. De. Well, we shall soon know, for I see this man already at the door, and he will soon be here. Only do you cover my tracks loyally, for in darkness even if what you do is shameful you will never be put to shame.

There are two things to be observed in these lines: Deianeira’s insistence on her reputation and the recurring use of words that correlate in the realm of human cognition. These two seem to be closely associated since for the Greeks the moral quality of action (δρᾶν/πράττειν καλῶς or κακῶς) is determined accordingly to the process of thinking (βουλεύεσθαι). The ancient Greek model of human cognition held that information processing occurs in a series of stages, starting from an opinion that rests on belief (δόξα, δοκεῖν) rather than have a factual basis (πεῖρα, ἐμπειρία, πειρᾶσθαι), thereby being liable to error, and terminating in the confident knowledge (ἀλήθεια, γνῶσις, γνῶμα, πίστις, γιγνώσκειν, εἰδέναι). These lines show a particularly disturbed reasoning process, which leads to an extremely obscurantist and absurd conclusion, a conclusion that undermines Deianeira’s sensibility as presented up until now: “in darkness even if what you do is shameful you will never be put to shame” (ὡς σκότῳ / κἂν αἰσχρὰ πράσσῃς, οὔποτ’ αἰσχύνῃ πεσῇ, 596-597). Deianeira seems to be well aware of the anxiety the use of love magic caused to the public opinion and explicitly acknowledges the risk taken by acting without knowledge; that is, using the magic philtre without having prior knowledge of the effect of it (κακὰς τόλμας, 582). At the same time, she tries to distinguish herself from those who resort to such extreme solutions (μήτ’ ἐπισταίμην ἐγὼ, 582; τάς τε τολμώσας στυγῶ, 583) and wishes for the success of her plan, so that she will not be forced to learn about these deeds when it is already late (μήτ’ ἐκμάθοιμι, 583). Thus, in these lines Deianeira ironically observes the difference between knowing (ἐπισταίμην) and learning (ἐκμάθοιμι), but nevertheless ignores the chorus’ advice of caution (ἀλλ’ εἰδέναι χρὴ δρῶσαν, 592); she proceeds with her plan to win back Herakles (the goal of action), comforting herself with the idea that the act of shame (the means of action) can be kept a secret. As Solmsen has suggested, “the chorus, inquiring about

186 the presence (or absence) of a πίστις, learns that the πίστις on which Deianeira proposes to act is no better than (subjective) belief and declares this inadequate”.463 It is not that Deianeira is naïve or does not understand the difference between having knowledge which is the result of experience and having an opinion which rests on belief.464 It is just that Deianeira is too involved in her own suffering, too focused on on her goal (namely, winning Herakles back and overcoming her misfortune) and too hasty to realise this difference in respect to her own situation. Besides, it was on the grounds of her previous experience that she claimed to have some kind of superior knowledge (ἔξοιδ’, 5; cf. ἐκμάθοις, 2) in the first lines of the prologue, when she rejected the applicability of the Solonian saying for her case. Based on the same reasoning, in the first lines of the first epeisodion she discouraged the chorus’ promptings, by telling them that they are not in a position to fully understand her as they are too young and inexperienced (141-143, 151-152):

πεπυσμένη μέν, ὡς ἀπεικάσαι, πάρει πάθημα τοὐμόν· ὡς δ’ ἐγὼ θυμοφθορῶ μήτ’ ἐκμάθοις παθοῦσα, νῦν δ’ ἄπειρος εἶ. […] τότ’ ἄν τις εἰσίδοιτο, τὴν αὑτοῦ σκοπῶν πρᾶξιν, κακοῖσιν οἷς ἐγὼ βαρύνομαι.

You are here, it seems, in the knowledge that I suffer; but may you never learn to know through suffering such agony of heart as mine, of which you now have no experience. […] Then one could see, looking at his own condition, what evils I am burdened with.

Despite their young age, these young girls seemed mature and empathetic enough to suffer along with the queen and offer her a good piece of advice, just like they did in the prologue, when they encouraged an optimistic approach to life by contemplating on the idea of rotation and invoking the successive movement of the wheel of fortune that alternates joy and sorrow (112-140). The optimism that the girls proposed at this point cannot be seen as teenage naivety but as a sophisticated suggestion to attitude to life, which is the counter-argument to

463 Solmsen 1985, 493. Within this line of thought, see Heiden’s (1989) detailed analysis of the rhetoric of Trachiniae and Hall’s (2009, 69-96) reading of Deianeira’s mistake as lying in her false precipitate judgment. 464 For the way the theme of knowledge in Trach. has been seen by scholars, see Introduction, pp. 14-15.

187 the absolute denial of hope expressed by the queen already in the first lines of the play. But Deianeira repeatedly missed the chance to benefit from the chorus’ advice, and this is what she will do later, at the end of her report on the woollen fleece and before facing Hyllos, when the chorus’ advised that “one should not expect the worse before the thing has happened” (τὴν δ’ ἐλπίδ’ οὐ χρὴ τῆς τύχης κρίνειν πάρος, 724) but Deianeira repeated her strong belief that there is no hope left for her: “When one has proved ill-advised, there is no hope that can furnish any confidence” (οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τοῖς μὴ καλοῖς βουλεύμασιν / οὐδ’ ἐλπίς, ἥτις καὶ θράσος τι προξενεῖ, 725-726). By denying the maidens’ advice because of their lack of experience at this early stage of the drama, Deianeira ironically introduced the significant opposition between experience and knowledge and prematurely undermined her own decision to use Nessus’ love philtre without first testing it. The chorus’ knowledge, however, just like the Solonian saying, is based on collective experience (objective knowledge),465 as opposed to Deianeira’s view of life, which is only informed by her own personal experience (subjective knowledge). Based on her subjective and insufficient knowledge and driven by her desperation, Deianeira misjudged the circumstances of Nessos’ gift, ignored the chorus’ advice and precipitately took the risk to deliver the cloak to hurried Lichas (αὐτίκ’; θυραῖον ἤδη; διὰ τάχους, 594- 595), being carried away by a sense of urgency, which was dictated by her anxious need to keep her husband and her place within his oikos and to overcome the young bride. In due course of time, however, the meaning of the chorus’ advice will be clarified and fully comprehended; it will be very shortly after the sending of the present, at the beginning of the third epeisodion, but still inevitably late. The third epeisodion is about Deianeira learning; and the process of her learning is deliberately divided into two parts. She first reported the effect of the poison on the woollen tuft she used to anoint the robe to the chorus (672-706) and then faced Hyllos reporting the facts (749-806). It is true that Hyllos’ report would suffice to illustrate the effect of the poison. The woollen tuft narrative, however, is an additional version that deliberately puts forward another possible way Deianeira could have acted. The observation of the effect of the poison on the woollen fleece could have informed Deianeira better. Still, she would have

465 The collective identity of the tragic chorus and its function as a conveyor of communal wisdom is stressed by many scholars; see, e.g., Murnaghan 2012, 220: “The fictionalized chorus introduced a collective character into every tragic plot; but the chorus also retained features of its non-fictional identity in the non-dramatic choral lyric that was one of tragedy’s roots: its role as the narrator of traditional myths and as the voice of communal wisdom, its self-consciousness about its own status as a group of performers, and its vivid performance style combining song and dance (my emphasis).”

188 formed an opinion and not a stable belief (δόξῃ γοῦν ἐμῇ, 718), but it would have been a better-informed opinion that could have prevented her action.466 So, the observation of the sample was enough for Deianeira to realise that her action might have gone further than the acceptable (περαιτέρω / πεπραγμέν’ ᾖ, 663-664); enough to acknowledge that she might “have done great harm in the expectation of good” (κακὸν μέγ’ ἐκπράξασ’ ἀπ’ ἐλπίδος καλῆς, 667); and that she has shown “eager haste” (προθυμίαν, 669) in a matter that was incomprehensible to her (ἄδηλον ἔργου, 670). Therefore, with this premature and still incomplete, yet completely comprehensive account of the possible effect of the poison (672ff.), the chorus’ warning becomes fully understood: Had Deianeira tested (πειρωμένη, 593) the poison on a sample, she would have had some kind of knowledge of the effect (γνῶμα, 593), which could have prevented the sending of the robe to Herakles. But she acted (δρῶσαν, 592) completely out of an opinion (δοκεῖς ἔχειν […] γνῶμα, 592-593), when she was advised that action should follow knowledge: ‘you need to act with knowledge’ (εἰδέναι χρὴ δρῶσαν, 592). Whereas the chorus’ stance is situated in the political realm of human cognition and critical competence, with her hasty decision to use Nessos’ philtre, Deianeira’s tragedy is being transferred to the irrational pre-political realm of supernatural powers, magic charms, monsters and Amazons. Up until then, by representing an extremely devoted wife and a proficient member of the political body, which is fully aware of the official gender ideology of Classical Athens, Deianeira had been located on the opposite side of the male monsters. However, no matter how steadily she has been placed within the civilised arrangement of a polis, Deianeira is still an Amazon, representing the extreme end of femininity which coincides with the liminal realm of the monsters (the extreme end of masculinity). This unstable subtext that the Amazon symbol inserts into the main narrative functions as a disintegrating agent, manipulated in such a way that it continuously deregulates the stability of her presence within the play and creates cracks within her speech. So, within the blurred gender schemes of Trachiniae, Deianeira proved to have been a disguised Amazon, playing the role of a Penelope who unwittingly turned into a Clytemnestra. Therefore, as the play progresses Deianeira abandons the world of reason and polis and moves to a non-political territory, which in Trachiniae is identified with the world of the beasts. In terms of gender ideology, Deianeira gradually denounces the femininity of the devoted wife who secures the safety of the oikos and coincidentally the well-being of the

466 Also see my discussion of these lines in pp. 169-170.

189 polis and appropriates male qualities. As it has been suggested, in her transaction with Herakles, she anticipates the more active male role by transforming Iole into an object of exchange but also by actively participating in a corrupted transaction with a beast.467 We also saw the peak of this movement in the scene of her suicide, which allocates her a male heroic death. As she moves closer to the realm of masculinity, Deianeira approaches Herakles’s bestiality to ultimately meet him in her death. However, the way this dislocation of the female from the political to the bestial occurs makes it clear that it was again the bestial masculine interference of Nessos and Herakles that orchestrated and set this corruption in motion, rather than Deianeira’s feminine deceitfulness, which could be falsely, stereotypically and biasedly alleged. Let us now move to a concluding discussion of Deianeira’s mistake, through the way Hyllos as her accuser and defender, Herakles as the directly offended victim, the girls of the chorus as representatives of a society in crisis and Deianeira as the offender, deal with this crime. This discussion will allow us to follow the play’s proposal as far as Deianeira’s guilt is concerned, which, as I will suggest, leaves enough gaps in order to negotiate the female’s position within the gender order of Trachiniae. As I have suggested, on the grounds of this corroded network of problematic reciprocities, the female is represented as upholding a better kind of reciprocity (or, at the very least, an equal one) than the male. For that reason, to the moral standards of all the participants in this drama except Herakles’, and presumably of the members of the audience, Deianeira will be exempt from guilt (or, at the very least, her version of events will be heard and her guilt will be mitigated).

Reciprocity and Justice

Through the presentation of the way these characters perceive Deianiera’s offence, the play seems to comment on the effectiveness and the fragility of political institutions which dispense justice and to make a sophisticated public statement on a question which appears to have caused an intense debate in Sophocles’ time: private desire for revenge against justice which serves public interest. Together with the Protagoras of Plato,468 Trachiniae locates private vengeance in the bestial world of Herakles while it allocates the ideology of institutionalised and forward-looking punishment to the benefit of the community to Hyllos and the chorus. It also attributes another kind of perception of justice to Deianeira, one which

467 Also see Segal 1992/1995, 83; Wohl 1998. 468 See below, p. 194.

190 moves her closer to Herakles’ disavowal of the political lawmaking power but entails a political dynamic, a dynamic of negotiation of gendered loci by means of silence. The private and primitive desire for revenge and retribution in response to intentional insult or injury under the rubric of “blood demands blood” (lex talionis) was a widespread notion in Greek culture.469 In Homer, for instance, wreaking vengeance is “sweeter than honey dripping down the throat” (Il. 18.109) while in numerous tragic plots, an unpunished crime was seen as the cause of pollution or disease, either to the insulted party or the offender.470 We also know that Draco’s legislation on homicide (621/0 B.C.) sought to regulate and limit private revenge; thus we can speculate that until that moment this should have been the habitual response to every offense. Accordingly, it seems plausible for an agonistic society like classical Athens that the private desire for revenge in response to intentional insult or injury was not completely discarded; as sources suggest, seeking revenge could be cast as a familial or religious duty or as an imperative of honour.471 On the other hand, as evidenced by the portrayal of the demise of blind retributivism in Oresteia, for instance, the rejection of retributive justice would have been familiar to the Athenians as early as Aeschylus’ time. Therefore, it seems that there was simultaneous and equally widespread skepticism about the legitimacy of retribution as an appropriate public response by the institutions of the polis, expressed by those thinkers who pondered the nature of legal institutions. Political thinkers, orators, and philosophers in classical Athens explicitly confronted the problem of the justification of punishment. In their discussions, we can discern two diverse trends reflecting current views on the award of justice and the justification of punishment: private motives (revenge) of the prosecuting party and public interest in punishing an individual who had violated the laws of the city. In most discussions, these two interests are subordinated to the question of whether justice should be understood as the common good of a community and, if so, what the common good was. Besides, in many ways, Greek political thought is a fundamental response to the potential for civil strife and instability within the polis. On these grounds, as Cohen suggests, Greek political thinkers were well aware of the fragility of legal institutions in their world and agreed with Thucydides’ conviction that a legal system based primarily on the fear of punishment was

469 On theories of punishment in ancient political thought, see Cohen 1995, 61-86; Cohen 2005, 170-190 and Ober 2005, 394-411. 470 See Allen 2005, 380-385. On the Greek popular belief that one should help one's friends and harm one's enemies, see Blundell 1989, 26-59. 471 See, e.g., Pl. Euthphr.; Lys. Against Agoratus (13.3.48); Arist. Rh. 1370b-1371a, 1378a-1378b.

191 unlikely to prove effective in maintaining the social order, particularly in times of need or crisis.472 Consequently, as Cohen continues, thinkers such as Isocrates, Aristotle, and, above all, Plato focused on incorporating legal punishment into a larger framework of education and socialization, which would instill the kinds of moral dispositions that might make law an effective guide for human behaviour.473 Within this line of thought, although the primitive desire for revenge was a distinguishable trend in discussions about punishment, it was by no means seen as serving the community. On the contrary, it could be seen as belonging to a pre-political system of justice. In the Platonic dialogue, for example, Protagoras condemns any backward-looking rationale for punishment as primitive or bestial (ὥσπερ θηρίον ἀλογίστως). He draws a strict line between a private primitive desire for revenge and retribution on the basis of public interest and argues in favour of a forward-looking punishment that can only be justified by institutions that look to the future consequences of punishment.474 Herakles’ system of justice, as presented in Trachiniae, belongs to the realm which Protagoras attributes to a θηρίον. As Allen has observed, “tragic characters who are said to punish excessively or lawlessly are often accused of three other violations: of impiety, of introducing novelty to the laws, and of treating law as a private possession”.475 Of these three accusations, Herakles can be considered guilty of the third. He longs for a private punishment, which is intended to extract suffering from the offender in reciprocal exchange for the suffering of those against whom she/he had offended: “Heal the agony with which your godless mother has engaged me! May I see her fall in the same way, the very same, in which she has destroyed me!” (ἀκοῦ δ’ ἄχος, ᾧ μ’ ἐχόλωσεν / σὰ μάτηρ ἄθεος, τὰν ὧδ’ ἐπίδοιμι πεσοῦσαν / αὔτως, ὧδ’ αὔτως, ὥς μ’ ὤλεσεν, 1035-1040). The impact of this kind of punishment is considered by Herakles as educational and two-folded: “Let her only come near, so that she may be taught to proclaim to all that both in life and death I have punished

472 Cohen 2005, 182. Οn the occasion of the debate on the fate of Mytilene, Thucydides (3.36) offers a lengthy consideration of the question of the usefulness of punishment as a mechanism for guiding human behaviour. 473 Cohen 2005, 182. 474 Pl. Prt. 324a-b: οὐδεὶς γὰρ κολάζει τοὺς ἀδικοῦντας πρὸς τούτῳ τὸν νοῦν ἔχων καὶ τούτου ἕνεκα, ὅτι ἠδίκησεν, ὅστις μὴ ὥσπερ θηρίον ἀλογίστως τιμωρεῖται: ὁ δὲ μετὰ λόγου ἐπιχειρῶν κολάζειν οὐ τοῦ παρεληλυθότος ἕνεκα ἀδικήματος τιμωρεῖται—οὐ γὰρ ἂν τό γε πραχθὲν ἀγένητον θείη—ἀλλὰ τοῦ μέλλοντος χάριν, ἵνα μὴ αὖθις ἀδικήσῃ μήτε αὐτὸς οὗτος μήτε ἄλλος ὁ τοῦτον ἰδὼν κολασθέντα (“No one punishes a wrong-doer from the mere contemplation or on account of his wrong-doing, unless one takes unreasoning vengeance like a wild beast. But he who undertakes to punish with reason does not avenge himself for the past offence, since he cannot make what was done as though it had not come to pass; he looks rather to the future, and aims at preventing that particular person and others who see him punished from doing wrong again”, transl. by W.R.M. Lamb 1967). 475 Allen 2005, 386-387.

192 evildoers” (προσμόλοι μόνον, / ἵν’ ἐκδιδαχθῇ πᾶσιν ἀγγέλλειν ὅτι / καὶ ζῶν κακούς γε καὶ θανὼν ἐτεισάμην, 1109-1111). It aims at educating the wrongdoer and preventing him from committing other offenses (“specific deterrence”: ἵν’ ἐκδιδαχθῇ), but more importantly at using the punishment of an offender as an example to educate the populace as to the consequences of crime and to strike fear into the hearts of other potential criminals (“general deterrence”: πᾶσιν ἀγγέλλειν). On the basis of his understanding of justice (ἐν δίκῃ, 1069), Herakles believes that his son should carry the burden of revenge taken in the name of his father (1064-1069):

ὦ παῖ, γενοῦ μοι παῖς ἐτήτυμος γεγώς, καὶ μὴ τὸ μητρὸς ὄνομα πρεσβεύσῃς πλέον. δός μοι χεροῖν σαῖν αὐτὸς ἐξ οἴκου λαβὼν ἐς χεῖρα τὴν τεκοῦσαν, ὡς εἰδῶ σάφα εἰ τοὐμὸν ἀλγεῖς μᾶλλον ἢ κείνης ὁρῶν λωβητὸν εἶδος ἐν δίκῃ κακούμενον.

My son, become my true-born son, and do not honour the name of your mother more! take your mother from the house with your own hands and give her into mine, so that I may know for certain whether you suffer more at seeing my body tortured than at seeing hers justly maltreated!

He wants to turn his son into another Orestes, who will assume the obligation of revenge in the name of a dead father and will continue the cycle of vengeance killings, as in Aeschylus’ Oresteia. On the opposite side of this attitude stands the chorus. The chorus in Trachiniae is presented as a group of young girls which is not directly affected by the offense that occurred within the oikos of Deianeira and Herakles (see οἴκοι; τοῦ κακοῦ / κοινωνός, 729-730). At the same time, the chorus being a part of the community (like the audience),476 they have the right and the obligation to judge and they can judge objectively and effectively. As such, they can be seen as a citizen body or a body of jurors whose distance from the wrongdoing is beneficial, since their involvement does not affect their judgment. They do believe that Deianeira deserves a fair trial and remind her of her rights in judicial terms: “Why do you

476 Goldhill and others argue that citizens were performing a civic duty as viewers, since attendance at the festival was analogous to sitting at the Assembly (Goldhill 1996, 19; 1998; 1999; 2000).

193 depart in silence? Do you not know that your silence seconds the accuser?” (τί σῖγ’ ἀφέρπεις; οὐ κάτοισθ’ ὁθούνεκα / ξυνηγορεῖς σιγῶσα τῷ κατηγόρῳ; 813-814). Like jurors ought to do, they acknowledge the factor of good and evil intent and make a distinction between intentional and accidental homicide (“people that come to grief through no fault of their own”; τοῖς σφαλεῖσι μὴ ’ξ ἑκουσίας, 727). Their verdict is summarized in the second strophe of the third stasimon (841-845):

ὧν ἅδ’ ἁ τλάμων ἄοκνος μεγάλαν προσορῶσα δόμοισι βλάβαν νέων ἀίσσου- σαν γάμων τὰ μὲν αὐτὰ προσέβαλεν, τὰ δ’ ἀπ’ ἀλλόθρου γνώμας μολόντ’ ὀλεθρίαισι συναλλαγαῖς

Of these the poor woman had no foreboding when she saw the great disaster of the new marriage speeding towards the house; part of the deed she herself supplied, but part came from another’s will, at a fatal meeting.

This verdict acknowledges a part of guilt for Deianeira (τὰ μὲν αὐτὰ προσέβαλεν, 843-844), but at the same time it recognizes two kinds of extenuating circumstances. First, the idea of instinctive reaction in urgency (ἀίσσουσαν, 843; cf. ἄφαρ, 821), which is consistent with a serious (μεγάλαν, 842), unexpected (νέων; ἀίσσουσαν, 843) and dangerous attack (βλάβαν, 843) against her oikos (δόμοισι, 842), requiring immediate action. This seems like a discharge in the light of self-defense, which in Athenian law system could render a homicide lawful and repudiate any accusation.477 And second, they repeat the idea that Deianeira is exempt from deliberation to kill, as, in fact, she acted as the instrument of the Centaur (ἀπ’ ἀλλόθρου γνώμας, 844-845; cf. μὴ ’ξ ἑκουσίας, 727), who is charged as the moral instigator of this crime, the person who had the βούλησις to kill.478 We could discern a similar line of reasoning in Hyllos’ reception of his mother’s offense. Whereas his initial reaction, before taking into account Nessos’ deception, was identical to his father’s, Hyllos’ position proves flexible as in the course of the play we notice

477 See MacDowell 1986, 113-114 (where other cases of lawful homicide are also mentioned). 478 For the distinction between intentional and unintentional homicide (killing ἑκουσίως or ἐκ προνοίας) in Athenian law, see MacDowell 1986, 114-115; for the distinction between planning to kill (guilty of βούλησις) and performing the act of killing, idem, 115-116.

194 a reversal in his awareness. Hyllos is at first presented as another Orestes, who looks forward to a punishment for his mother that will reciprocate the offense made against his father: “farewell to her; and may she have for her own the joy she gave my father” (ἀλλ’ ἑρπέτω χαίρουσα· τὴν δὲ τέρψιν ἣν / τὠμῷ δίδωσι πατρί, τήνδ’ αὐτὴ λάβοι, 819-820). He is an avenger, and this is stressed through an emphatic triple repetition of the word ‘right’ (θέμις; θέμιν, 809-810), together with an appeal to the traditional observers of punishment, ‘avenging justice’ and the ‘Furies’ (ποίνιμος Δίκη; Ἐρινύς, 808-809). However, as the tragic events unfold, we observe Hyllos growing older and gradually becoming a part of the chorus’ communal world in which justice is awarded via public debate and fair trial. His final verdict, as uttered at the end of his debate with Herakles (1114-1142) —a part that I think it would be appropriate to call ‘Deianeira’s Trial’ as it is the only part of the exodos that deals with Deianeira and can be taken as replacing the significant gap created by her absence from the concluding part of the play— like the chorus’ verdict, has taken into account the special conditions of her offense and thus acknowledges similar extenuating factors (1122-1142, cf. above 841-845):

Υλ. τῆς μητρὸς ἥκω τῆς ἐμῆς φράσων ἐν οἷς νῦν ἔστ’ ἐν οἷς θ’ ἥμαρτεν οὐχ ἑκουσία. […] Υλ. ἅπαν τὸ χρῆμ’ ἥμαρτε χρηστὰ μωμένη. […] Υλ. στέργημα γὰρ δοκοῦσα προσβαλεῖν σέθεν ἀπήμπλαχ’, ὡς προσεῖδε τοὺς ἔνδον γάμους. […] Υλ. Νέσσος πάλαι Κένταυρος ἐξέπεισέ νιν τοιῷδε φίλτρῳ τὸν σὸν ἐκμῆναι πόθον.

I have come to tell you about my mother, how it now stands with her and how she did wrong by accident. […] She did altogether wrong, but her intent was good. […] Why, she went wrong thinking that she was applying a philtre, having seen the bride who is in the house!

195

[…] Nessus the Centaur long ago persuaded her to inflame your passion with such a love charm.

Deianeira’s motivation is now presented so as to point to Herakles’ responsibility for introducing a second woman in his house (ὡς προσεῖδε τοὺς ἔνδον γάμους; cf. μεγάλαν προσορῶσα δόμοισι βλάβαν νέων ἀίσσουσαν γάμων, 842-843), her instigation is mitigated by Nessos’ ulterior motive (Νέσσος ἐξέπεισέ νιν; cf. ἀπ’ ἀλλόθρου γνώμας, 844-845) and her error is evaluated as accidental damage caused by innocent intent (ἥμαρτεν οὐχ ἑκουσία; ἥμαρτε χρηστὰ μωμένη; cf. μὴ ’ξ ἑκουσίας, 727). So, what we can note through Hyllos’ transformation is a transition from a law that prosecutes to a law that counsels the wrongdoer. Like the chorus’ ideas of justice, Hyllos’ arguments are formed on the basis of placating the vindictive urge of the offended and restraining him from taking the law into his own hands. Like the chorus who believe that Deianeira deserves to be treated with equity and advises her that “anger is softened” (ὀργὴ πέπειρα, 728) when intent is innocent, Hyllos’ defence of his mother against his diseased father aims to quiet his anger (“you are out of temper and stung to anger”, δάκνῃ / θυμῷ δύσοργος, 1117-1118; “your mind would be altered, if you were to learn all”, κἂν σοῦ στραφείη θυμός, εἰ τὸ πᾶν μάθοις, 1134). These arguments are now in the city, they move away from Herakles’ bestial understanding of punishment as private, lawless and brutal, and belong to the rhetoric of the courts and of the polis that seeks to control vengefulness by channeling it into open public discourse. As opposed to Herakles’ idea of regulating his anger through an ‘eye for an eye’ response, already seen in the way he reacted to Eurytos’ offense, his son and the chorus suggest another pathway, a solution that arises through the discourse of the polis and aims to the benefit of the polis. It is the same means that is listed among the achievements of a civilized community and celebrated in the ‘Ode to Man’ of Sophocles’ Antigone: the anger that is city-regulated and/or city-regulating (ἀστυνόμους / ὀργὰς, 354-355).479 Their arguments reflect the radical democratic notion of the rule of law, which, as Cohen notes, “meant that in principle no individuals, whether magistrates or ordinary citizens, were above the law. It also meant, however, that the rule of law was inextricably connected to the court’s

479 Quoted and discussed by Allen 2005, 391-393.

196 perception of the interests of the demos”.480 And as Allen has observed, “anger in the community disturbed the peaceful relations among citizens. To cure anger was to restore and also order, and so punishment was used not only to cure anger but also to establish stable power structures”.481 Thus, regulating Herakles’ anger is not only meant to ensure that the rule of law would be applied through a legal procedure but, more importantly, it is meant to establish that dispense of justice will ultimately work to the interests of the polis. Whereas Hyllos’ and the chorus’ ideology represents ‘political’ justice, at first reading, Deianeira’s justice scheme seems to contradict Hyllos’ and the chorus’ ideas and to be in the same line with Herakles’ ‘pre- or non-political’ understanding of justice as a private issue. The lines citing Deianeira’s last statements before her silent exit (719-730) are significant in order to understand the line of thinking that led to her suicide. Two kinds of arguments are conflated here, her identification with Herakles’ fate, which has been pointed out already in the prologue, and her reputation (719-722):

καίτοι δέδοκται, κεῖνος εἰ σφαλήσεται, ταὐτῇ σὺν ὁρμῇ κἀμὲ συνθανεῖν ἅμα. ζῆν γὰρ κακῶς κλύουσαν οὐκ ἀνασχετόν, ἥτις προτιμᾷ μὴ κακὴ πεφυκέναι.

That is my belief. Well, I have determined, if he comes to grief, that with the same movement I too shall die with him. For a woman whose care is to be good cannot bear to live and to enjoy evil repute.

On the one hand, Deianeira’ wish ‘to die with’ her husband agrees with the reaction of a woman who is in love with her husband at the news of his death, especially if one considers that she has some kind of responsibility for this death. On the other hand, it seems that Deianeira thinks highly of her reputation, holds it in greater value than her own life, and so decides that a life in disgrace is not worth living. So, within a line of reasoning that agrees with Thucydides’ idea of female kleos as deriving from female invisibility but also with Ajax’s perception of personal honour,482 she disclaims her right to a fair trial and rejects the

480 Cohen 1995, 192. 481 Allen 2005, 385-386. 482 For Deinaeira’s kleos, also see pp. 148-149.

197 chorus’ argument that she should consider that she erred unintentionally, and thus deserves a more lenient judgement (729-730):

Χο. ἀλλ’ ἀμφὶ τοῖς σφαλεῖσι μὴ ’ξ ἑκουσίας ὀργὴ πέπειρα, τῆς σε τυγχάνειν πρέπει. Δη. τοιαῦτά τἂν λέξειεν οὐχ ὁ τοῦ κακοῦ κοινωνός, ἀλλ’ ᾧ μηδὲν ἔστ’ οἴκοι βαρύ.

Cho. But when people come to grief through no fault of their own, anger is softened, and you should benefit from this. De. That is the kind of thing that a person who has no trouble of his own would say, but not the one to whom the evil belongs.

With the exception of a brief dialogue with Hyllos, when he enters the scene to report the latest news from Cenaeum (734ff.), we can take these lines as consisting of Deianeira’s last words before her silent exit since, after her son’s accusations, she will be lost for words. It is important to note that at this point Deianeira thinks that the wrongdoing is part of her own private oikos (οἴκοι, 730), and that she is personally participating in this offense that belongs to her (τοῦ κακοῦ / κοινωνός, 729-730). She is seeing herself as a part of a burdened (βαρύ, 730) blood cycle, which can only be alleviated with new blood, her own blood. So, having chosen her own way of private justice, she will affirm Hyllos’ accusasions and she will refuse to defend herself. The chorus may warn her that “silence seconds her accuser” (ξυνηγορεῖς σιγῶσα τῷ κατηγόρῳ; 813-814) but her refusal to speak suggests that she has already condemned herself. Equally, in the description of her death by the Nurse (899ff.), there is nothing in the text implying that she did not consider herself guilty. She bypasses the institutionalized way of awarding justice within the polis, reaching alone and for herself a verdict that is strict and plain: she erred, and so she needs to be punished, as a life devoid of a good reputation is not worth living. Thus, it seems that her idea of justice is also formed on the basis of a private law system, which is akin to Herakles’ ethical standards and does not belong to the discourse and ideology of the polis. It is also consistent with the idea of honour expressed by the other over- masculine Sophoclean hero, Ajax, in a way that unexpectedly brings Deianeira so close to a masculine aristocratic system of ethics. However, while appertaining to male discourse, Deianeira’s perception entails a different dynamic, a dynamic of resistance expressed in

198 terms that disclaim the authority of phallocentric logos. As I explained in the introduction, feminine silence is a dramatic device that tragedy exploits in order to dramatize moments of crises and in order to express a possible dynamic of resistance. As opposed to active masculine logos, the absence of speech is a communicative device of contesting authorized linguistic forms and refuting the normative discourse of phallogocentrism. Within this line of reasoning, Deianeira’s silence (σιγῶσα, 814) does not only refute institutional justice but can also serve as the means of performing an act of dynamic resistance. Her silence is excluded from the discourse of the polis as it refuses the validity of institutionalised punishment, and in that sense it approaches Herakles’ political exile. But while Herakles’ exile does not offer any alternatives, Deianeira’s does. Via a pathway that brings her close to Butler’s Antigone, by refusing to conform to the semantics of the proper language, Deianeira refuses “the linguistic possibility of severing herself from the deed”.483 Her political exile, thus, becomes a performance of the dynamic of silence as the language-in- the-feminine, in a way that it speaks and at the same time undoes the languages of the political. And this is an act of resistance that opens up a possibility of nullifying the patriarchal exclusion of the female, explored through a completely feminine stratum. Deianeira’s dynamic absence from the end of the play, along with Hyllos’ disinclination to follow his father’s commands, which I will discuss to the last chapter of this thesis, can also be seen as nullifying (or, at least, silently interrupting and so, negotiating) the fundamental logos of patriarchy, as articulated by Herakles in the concluding part of the drama.

483 Cf. Butler’s reading of Antigone’s refusal to to deny that it was she who performed the burial (καὶ φημὶ δρᾶσαι κοὐκ ἀπαρνοῦμαι τὸ μή, 444), an act which is everywhere delivered through speech acts: “In effect, what she refuses is the linguistic possibility of severing herself from the deed, but she does not assert it in any unambiguously affirmative way: she does not simply say, ‘I did the deed’ (Butler 2000, 7)”.

199

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CHAPTER 5: Where is Deianeira? Authority and Masculinity in the exodos of Trachiniae

Following my previous statement on the counteracting power of Deianeira’s dynamic absence from the end of the play, I will now proceed with the substantiation of the way the establishment of hegemonic masculinity and phallocentric logos is articulated by Herakles in the concluding part of the exodos. In particular, I will discuss two kinds of authority, first, the authority of traditional narratives over tragic mythos, and second, the authority of Herakles over Hyllos in view of the latter’s coming of age and his enforced marriage with Iole. Both these aspects of authority are raised for discussion at the end of the play, through the system of rules invoked by Herakles that he calls κάλλιστος νόμος (1178-1179). The enforcement of this law sets from the outset a kind of authority that is associated with the development of the plot (i.e. the Aristotelian concept of mythos) in a tragic closure. This is because a tragic closure is the part of the play in which very often the dramatic plot may be defined in a authoritative way by the various extra-dramatic worlds, such as the world of history, the world of traditional and continuing myth, the contemporary world and the world of ritual. In this light, in the first two parts of this chapter, I will be discussing the idea of the authoritarian dynamics of these extra-dramatic worlds over tragic mythos, by delving into these issues as posed by Trachiniae. This analysis will allow me to suggest that in the exodos of the play Herakles is being transformed into a kind of deus ex machina or a speaker of aetiology, namely a speaker whose privileged knowledge extends beyond the boundaries of the drama. While maintaining his dramatic role, he is slightly disconnected from the action, so that he can speak with two voices, foretelling for Hyllos events he does not understand, while explaining a mythical version and an institution already familiar to the audience. Moreover, as will become clear in the second part of my chapter, by dramatizing Herakles’ rite of passage to death and possibly immortality the exodos successfully necessitates the settlement of a dramatic order and sets up the closure of the play but nonetheless continues to invest in the scheme of irregularity in terms of ritual and gender roles. Then, the enforcement of κάλλιστος νόμος can be considered to suggest the establishment of the circulation of women and consequently the affirmation of hegemonic masculinity. So, in a first reading, it may seem that Trachiniae, despite having repeatedly challenged traditional structures through the repositioning of the female and the blurring of gender identities, in the name of this κάλλιστος νόμος, is finally seeking to re-establish the

201 patriarchal order, and to a certain extent, it succeeds. As feminist readers of the play notice, this νόμος and the exchange of Iole it suggests grounds the play’s social order that is patriarchal, patrilineal, and aristocratic, and legislates the circulation of women.484 However, as I will argue in the final part of this chapter, the exodos of Trachiniae still retains the dynamics of negotiation that has been meticulously formulated so far, no matter how hard it seems to try to reset the foundations of hegemonic masculinity. This dynamic resistance is not only a force that the play preserves because of the momentum already gained, but it is a force that is enhanced in the exodos, both through Herakles’ pathetic appearance and Deianeira’s absence,485 but more importantly through Hyllos’ reluctance.486 Thus, despite the fact that the exodos of the play successfully establishes a dramatic order that brings the play to an end, it does not succeed in restoring (neither does it seek to restore) the gender order as defined by the structures of hegemonic masculinity, which it has already irreparably offended.

The Authority of ‘History’

From an Aristotelian point of view, the expectations of the ancient audience, as far as tragic closures are concerned, are conditioned by two kinds of authority.487 On the one hand, tragic closures were expected to be consistent with the unfolding of the events of the plot (‘dramatic authority’). In his discussion on beginnings and endings in the Poetics, Aristotle applies his conceptual nexus linking unity, wholeness, and completeness, to define the tragic ending as that part “which naturally comes after something else, either as its necessary sequel or as its usual sequel, but itself has nothing after it”.488 Thus, for him, an ending is an element

484 See Wohl 1998, 5, 11 et passim. DuBois (1982, 95-106) also emphasizes the importance of the exchange of women in establishing civilization in Trach., while Rabinowitz (1992, 46) suggests that “the conclusion to the play establishes a male dyad, replacing the mother-son pair that dominates the play’s beginning”. 485 On the effect and dynamics of Deianeira’s silence and absence, see previous chapter. 486 Wohl 1998, 10-16 also argues that in his reluctance to comply with his father’s request, Hyllos challenges the necessity of the exchange under the rules of patriarchy: “Hyllus's anagnorisis and the moment of hesitation it precipitates offer a point of resistance that, though it does not in the end hold up against the suasion of the paternal law, nonetheless opens a space for interrogation, critique, and the imagination of alternatives. In Hyllus's ambivalent acceptance of Iole, the power and prerogative that he inherits from his father are reexamined, questioned, and challenged, if only momentarily, by the knowledge and insight that are his mother’s bequest” (Wohl 1998, 16). 487 For tragic closures (and beginnings), see Roberts 2005, 136-158. Also see Goldhill 2015, who discusses interesting aspects of the ends of tragedy, both in view of poetic theory and the way the plays thematize the notion of closure and of the idealist readings of Soph. OT by Hegel and Schelling. 488 Poet. 1450b27-30. For a survey of the conceptions of literary unity, wholeness, and proportion in Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, see Heath 2015, 381-392.

202 that is required in order to finalize any connected narrative sequence (criterion of finality), while it is also a necessary complement of any plot that is a well-structured whole (criterion of connectedness).489 Then, tragedies, in general, were read as part of a continuing myth and in relation to previous tragic versions of that myth.490 In the Poetics, Aristotle acknowledges this kind of authority when he speaks about mythological necessities. He recognizes that each myth has certain elements which are needed if the story is going to hold together and explains that the poet cannot undo the received stories.491 The audience’s knowledge of the myth is not only critical to their reception of the particular version of the story as presented in a tragedy but may also reinforce closure (‘authority of history’). Of course, it is anticipated that in a tragic ending the audience expectations as raised by the events of the plot will be reconciled with the expectations that are conditioned by their knowledge of the mythical tradition from which that plot is taken. Agamemnon’s death at the end of Aeschylus’ play, for instance, is not only the expected end of a very old and very familiar story, already told in Homer’s Odyssey, but it also follows from the conditions the play has established, such as his guilt for Iphigenia’s death, his actions at Troy, the curse on the house of Atreus, Clytemnestra’s (and Aegisthus’) desire for revenge.492 Similarly, at the end of the Sophoclean Oedipus Tyrannus, regardless of whether Oedipus remains king of Thebes (as Homer has it in Od. 11.271ff.) or not, we expect that he will be shown to have killed his father and married his mother, not only because the traditional story has it that way but also because the prophecies and the overall action of the play predict this outcome. Trachiniae is a challenging play regarding these expectations. The exodos (971-1278), in particular, is agreed to be one of the most problematic parts of the play and many scholars

489 It is in the Poetics that we also first find the articulation of the view that an unhappy ending, with a change from prosperity to misfortune, is a mark of those plays that are best constructed and most essentially tragic: ἀνάγκη ἄρα τὸν καλῶς ἔχοντα μῦθον […] μεταβάλλειν οὐκ εἰς εὐτυχίαν ἐκ δυστυχίας ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον ἐξ εὐτυχίας εἰς δυστυχίαν (1453a12-16). 490 For the process of transforming myth into tragic plot, see Burian 1997, 178-208 and Anderson 2005, 121- 135. 491 Poet. 1453b23-26; Clytemnestra being killed by Orestes and Eriphyle being killed by Alcmeon are the examples he applies. It needs to be noted that, to a certain extent, our sense of the tragic and our sense of endings has been conditioned and defined by Aristotle and his Poetics. Without intending to enter into the intense debate about whether Aristotle’s Poetics (written several decades after the heyday of tragedy in fifth- century Athens) reflects his own aesthetic perception or describes the aesthetics the fifth-century audience, I am addressing his definition of endings, only to note how these have intruded in our aesthetic mode and have informed our interpretive criteria. 492 The story of Agamemnon is repeatedly mentioned in Odyssey, by various narrators (Zeus, Athena, Phemius, Nestor and Agamemnon himself: 1.35-43, 298-300 [cf. 1.46-47, 326-27]; 2.1.193-98, 234-35, 255-312; 4.90-92, 512-37, 546-47; 11.387-89, 409-34, 452-53; 13.383-84; 24.19-22, 96-97, 199-200) and is usually interpreted as the counter-foil for the story of Odysseus and his family.

203 are inclined to see it as the second part of a diptych tragedy, one which has a vague association with the events previously presented and fails to give the impression of an irreversible ending. Hence, many scholars tend to see it as a closure which disrupts the criteria of connectedness and finality that a play’s closure is expected to meet. In brief, connectedness is interrupted as Deianeira, the main persona of the play who dominated the scene for almost one thousand lines, is totally forgotten, while finality is disturbed as the play alludes to events outside the plot, and indeed events that suggest a happy conclusion that contradicts the tragic finale. As a result, the closure has been seen to disprove the audience’s expectations as aroused by the events of the plot and being enforced by the audience’s expectations as conditioned by their knowledge of ‘traditional narrative’ or ‘history’.493 It has been noted, for instance, that after line 1114 of Trachiniae Herakles “speaks with the authority of history”,494 or that the playwright “yields to the obligation of history”.495 In what follows, I will discuss this alleged subjection to ‘history’, which can be seen as a kind of authority that restricts the poet’s freedom to depart from the conventional rules of the genre. In particular, I will discuss the way the end of the play interacts with the authority of ‘history’ and I will explore the question of whether the relationship between mythos and traditional narrative is authoritative and restrictive. I will also take advantage of the opportunity this discussion offers to consider other interpretative issues that are related to the end of the play and have been appealing to traditional criticism, such as the apotheosis dilemma and concerns about dramatic unity and characterization. Despite the views they suggest that the end of the play is enforced by ‘history’, and thus inconsistent or disruptive to the unity of the whole, I will suggest that the subordination to traditional narrative that can be discerned at the end of Trachiniae is a sophisticated rather than an uninvolving subordination, and one which has specific dramatic intent. But let me first start by offering, by way of an introduction to the issues of dramatic unity raised in the exodos, an outline of its structure:

1. Lament and the νόσος of Herakles, who has already entered the scene carried in a litter without giving an indication of life during the fourth stasimon (964), is the focus

493 In the context of this discussion, ‘history’ is taken as a synonym for ‘traditional or legendary narrative’, namely the history of Herakles as a hero unfolding in a time lying between the time of origins and that of recent events. 494 Easterling 1982, 11. 495 See Linforth 1952, 262: "After composing the essential play with a conscientious regard for dramatic propriety the poet breaks off when he is one step from the end and writes an afterpiece in which he yields to the obligation of history. He does the same thing again in Philoctetes.”

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of the introductory part of the exodos (971-1043). We watch him gradually recovering his consciousness while the νόσος is repeatedly attacking him. a. This part starts with an anapaestic exchange between Hyllos, the Old Man and Herakles, which meets the arrival of the funeral procession (971-1003). b. This is followed by a lament song sung by Herakles (1004-1043), which is interrupted by two sets of dactylic hexameters, uttered by Herakles, the Old Man and Hyllos (1018-1022; 1031-1040). 2. Then, two lines uttered by the chorus (1044-1045), signal the transition to the final episode of the exodos (1044-1258). a. These two lines together with another set of two lines also uttered by the chorus (1112-1113, possibly the last words spoken by the chorus), frame Herakles’ long speech (‘Herakles’ rhesis’: 1046-1111). This is an agonizing address to his son, which moves erratically between his major accomplishments, his shameful and painful downfall and his insatiable desire for revenge. b. The second set of two lines uttered by the chorus seals the end of Herakles’ rhesis and marks the transition to a dialogue between him and Hyllos, which I like to call ‘Deianeira’s trial’ (1114-1142). This is a scene of double anagnorisis, which reveals both Deianeira’s ‘innocence’ and Nessos’ interference, but in fact it is only the latter reference to Nessos that is considered significant by Herakles and this is the revelation that signals a notable overturn within the final episode. c. From now on, Herakles develops an insight that allows him, as has been observed, “to speak with the authority of history”. We can call this last part of the final episode ‘Herakles’ deathbed instructions’ (1143-1258). 3. The play closes with a typical anapaestic coda (1259-1278), which functions as a proclamation communicating the final instructions and setting the procession in motion.496

496 The mss. are not in agreement about the identity of the speaker of the four final lines of Trach. (they attribute them either to Hyllos or the chorus).

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As noted, a significant overturn is indicated in the lines following the anagnorisis of Nessos’ involvement (1143ff.), an overturn which is signalled by the sense of finality that the definitive fulfilment of the oracles entails. After this revelation, Deianeira is completely forgotten and is never again referred to,497 while Herakles’ first words suggest that he now sees his death as a complete reality (1143-1145):

ἰοὺ ἰοὺ δύστηνος, οἴχομαι τάλας· ὄλωλ’ ὄλωλα, φέγγος οὐκέτ’ ἔστι μοι. οἴμοι, φρονῶ δὴ ξυμφορᾶς ἵν’ ἕσταμεν.

Ah, ah, I am done for! I am dead, I am dead, there is no longer light for me! Ah me, I know now in what a calamity I stand!

The finality of this consummation is highlighted through a series of present perfect verbs, which do not only demonstrate the way the past affects the present,498 but also indicate the function of Nessos as the mutual factor between past and present, between Herakles and Deianeira (οἴχομαι; ὄλωλ’ ὄλωλα). Indeed, it will turn out that the clue about Nessos’ involvement is also consistent with a second oracle predicting the origin of Herakles’ murderer. And once Herakles realizes this correlation, he understands that Zeus’ prophesy simply indicated the end of his life (828-830, 1173) and complies with his father’s plan since death appears to be the only option left. However, the final part of the exodos that follows this anagnorisis and presents Herakles’ future plan to Hyllos seems to interrupt the finality that is indicated by the fulfilment of the oracles and to extend to a future that resides beyond the play’s present. Because, in view of Herakles’ future deification,499 this oracle should not be interpreted disjunctively (as a choice between two mutually exclusive possibilities of death or happy life for the rest of time) but conjunctively (as one and the only possibility that accommodates both death and happiness). It now looks as if once again, by investing on the scheme of phenomenal and real knowledge, the play directs us (and a mythologically informed

497 This is a negligence that mirrors Deianeira’s refusal to defend herself and her silent exit at the end of the third epeisodion (813-820). 498 See Easterling 1982, ad 1145 and Panousis 2013, 161. 499 For a review of mythological and historical examples of voluntary death by fire associated with immortality, see Currie 2005, 369-381. (cf. Currie 2012, 336-337, where the scholar parallels Herakles’ situation with Oedipus in Soph. OC). Also see Calame 2005, 181-195, who examines many examples of heroic funerary ritual and sacrificial practice and compares them with Herakles’ death in Trach.

206 audience) to think that this revised interpretation of the oracle is not necessarily correct and that the hindsight acquired by Herakles and the chorus just a while ago is still partial. Furthermore, Herakles now refers to two different facts of undeniable historical value for the Athenian audience and plans future arrangements that extend beyond dramatic time. The audience could surely infer that Herakles’ request to Hyllos to marry Iole referred to the well-known myth which considered that Hyllos and Iole were the ancestors of the illustrious dynasty of the Heracleidai.500 This was certainly a strong tradition, and Pherecydes stretches it as far as to claim that it was for Hyllos that Herakles asked Iole’s hand.501 And secondly, everybody should have understood the procession leading Herakles on the top of the mountain Oeta to be cremated as aetiology for the actual and archaeologically confirmed ritual, during which a bonfire was lighted and dedications were offered.502 It is also very likely that, as Lloyd-Jones has pointed out, the detail of Herakles giving permission for someone else to light the pyre and ensuring ritual purity for Hyllos (1210-1215) referred to the version according to which Poeas, or his son Philoctetes, was the person responsible for this task.503 In any case, this pyre would not only relate to a narrative but also to a practice that was perfectly familiar to the Athenians, belonged to real contemporary life and created a link between the world of the drama and the world of the audience.504 I will leave aside for the moment the implications of Hyllos’ enforced marriage (and return to it in the last part of this chapter where I will discuss Hyllos’ maturation) to dwell a little longer on the possibility of Herakles’ pyre and his apotheosis, a possibility which has sparked heated debate among scholars and has raised issues concerning dramatic unity and consistency which I am discussing in this part. It has been noted by several scholars that Hyllos’ remark about the undefined future (1270) and the mention of the story of the pyre

500 See Hdt. 9.25-28; Thuc. 1.9. Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 84 mentions the arrival of Herakles’ children in Attica. Eur. in Heracl. treats the story of their protection from Eurystheus by King Demophon, son of Theseus, in Athens. Aesch.’ Heraclidae possibly treated the same story but nothing is known of the plot. For a list of the cults of Herakles’ children in Attica, see Kearns 1989, 166-167. 501 FGrHist 82a= Schol. Trach. 354. 502 There was already a myth that Herakles met his death in Oeta and we also know of a cult celebrating Herakles’ resurrection, in which bonfires were lighted on the top of the mountain and offerings were made, that was established long before Sophocles’ time, from at least the sixth century. Excavations have yielded figurines and inscriptions which confirm the literary tradition. For the traditions regarding Herakles’ death and deification, see Stafford 2012, 172-1744 and 184-185. 503 Lloyd-Jones 1971, 128. Apollod. Bibl. 2.7.7 mentions Poeas (see Frazer 1921, ad loc) but others mention Philoctetes (see Gantz 1993, 59); cf. Soph. Phil. 801-803. 504 In general, divine and heroic cults of Herakles are extremely common throughout Attica, as he was worshipped, mostly as a god, by citizens of all categories and by non-citizens. On Herakles’ worship, see Woodford 1971, 211-225; Kearns 1989, 166-167; Verbanck- Piérard 1989, 43-65; Shapiro 1983, 15 and 1989, 157-163; Lévêque and Verbanck- Piérard 1992, 43-65; Stafford 2005, 391-406; Stafford 2012, 176-180.

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(200, 436-437, 633-635, 1191-1216) would not only refer to the actual ritual practice on the top of Mt. Oeta but could also direct the audience’s attention towards the possibility of Herakles’ post-mortal deification, despite the fact that nothing is explicitly said anywhere in the play.505 However, whether or not the story of the pyre naturally carried with it thoughts of the apotheosis (and vice versa) is a puzzling debate insofar as our sources on the matter are rather ambiguous. Literary and artistic sources provide strong evidence that the narratives were explicitly connected, but none of these sources is certainly dated before Trachiniae.506 Therefore, although the audience should have been familiar with both the pyre narrative and the widely known, from at least 600 BC, happy-ending story of Herakles’ apotheosis,507 we do not know if there was a causal association between the two branches at the time when the play was written. It could be equally possible that the two stories were circulating independently and had not yet merged or that they had long ago been moulded into a single whole. The answer suggested to this dilemma is both affected by and affects the interpretation of the play.508 On the one hand, one could plausibly note that, even if the link between the two stories had not yet been confirmed, it remains certain that both the narratives

505 Of course, to a certain extent, this difficulty can be ascribed to a notorious difficulty in circumscribing the limits of allusion, namely to indicate which part of the mythical knowledge is presupposed by the poet, which details has he suppressed and which is he asking his audience to add in order to bridge the gap between two texts that interact which is intentionally supressed. The limits of allusion are noted, for instance, by Currie 2005, 364-365, but cf. Garner 1990. 506 Hahnemann 1999, 67-73 re-examined two fragments from Aesch.’ Heracleidae (F73b and F75a Radt) and suggested that the apotheosis version was current already before 456 BC. But the sources that provide a definite link between the pyre and the deification (Eur. Heracl. 910-918 (dated possibly around 430-427 BC) and Soph. Phil. 727-729 (409 BC)) are possibly later than Trach. Archaic art focused on Herakles’ apotheosis but not his death, which is only alluded to on a few classical red-figure vases. Be that as it may, as Stafford notes, there is no means of telling whether this is purely accidental; see Stafford 2012, 173-174. For other possible representations of Herakles’ apotheosis in lost literature and art, see Holt 1992, 38-59. 507 The idea of Herakles’ entry to Olympus appears quite early in literary sources (Od.11.602-604; Hes. Theog. 950-955; Pind. N. 1.69-72; N. 10.17ff.; I. 4.73-78), while it was current in fifth-century Athens, as can be demonstrated by the appearance of his wedding to Hebe in many contemporary vase-paintings and on the comic stage and by his status as a god in Attic cult (see Stafford 2012, 176-180). However, Iliad’s citation of Herakles’ death omits this entry (18.117-119). Then, although Herakles’ promotion to Olympus was a well- known story, it was not one that did not cause any second thoughts. It is interesting that Odyssey mentions his deification but his mortality is also presupposed, since he is not totally excluded from death and his eidolon still stands in the Underworld. This ambivalence held by his heroic and divine nature leads Aristophanes to criticise Herakles for being “a bastard god”. Ancient literary criticism, finally, seems to give consideration to this uncertainty about Herakles’ god status. Thus, the scholiast of Odyssey (11.602-604) mentions that the lines were believed to be an insertion by the sixth-century Orphic Onomacritus. Similarly, the scholium to Hesiod’s Theogony (950-955) mentions that the lines had been athetised (ἀθετούνται), while F25 (Merkelbach and West) of the pseudo-Hesiodic Catalogue of Women is marked in the margins with obeli in the section where Herakles in heaven is quoted (20-33). 508 The debate about the play’s ending is usefully summarized by Liapis 2006, 56-59, who gives comprehensive lists of critics who favour or oppose apotheosis.

208 about the bonfire ritual and Herakles’ status as an immortal were already established by the time of Sophocles. Therefore, it would be difficult for someone who was familiar with a famous ritual celebrating, precisely, Herakles’ resurrection and immortality not to recall this when watching the hero on stage preparing for the funeral pyre. On these grounds, it could be possible that Sophocles plays with his audience’s knowledge about Herakles’ future apotheosis and expects them to recollect the traditional happy ending and the future compensation of the hero. Within this line of thinking, one is directed to discern a heroic progress in the exodos of the play which leads towards Herakles’ recompense. And conversely, this possibility of a future apotheosis mitigates the inconceivable negligence of Zeus for his own son and restores justice for this great Pan-Hellenic benefactor. On the other hand, this prospect to a future recompense for Herakles implies a happy ending which seems to undermine the tragic finality of the play. Thus, a number of critics who believe that the play ends on a note of grim reality, which leaves no room for compensation, either suggest that the apotheosis allusion is only faint or deny any hint and propose that the poet deliberately suppressed this possibility and explicitly diverged from the tradition of a happy ending.509 Other critics, while agreeing that Herakles’ exaltation would be out of keeping with the tragic tone of the play, see that this ambiguity is intentionally exploited by the poet and that the play is purposely open-ended.510 Besides, the allusion to an unknown outcome underscores the tragic ignorance of the person involved and introduces a theme that was very familiar to Sophocles, the circumscribed human knowledge, which is

509 Sophocles’ suppression of the apotheosis story has also been interpreted on political grounds. It has been argued that Herakles’ image in archaic and classical Athens was invoked in support of the tyranny of Peisistratos and his sons, and was later displaced by the more ‘democratic’ hero Theseus. Boardman 1972, 57- 72 (and 1975, 1-12 for more evidence) has suggested that the exceptional popularity of Herakles in Athenian art of the Peisistratean period was due to some degree of deliberate identification between tyrant and hero, both appearing as special protégés of the goddess Athena. The scholar links the chariot type scenes with Peisistratos’ return to power in Athens in 546 BC, in a chariot accompanied by a mock Athena (Hdt. 1.60) and suggests that this episode was mirrored by or inspired a change in the usual iconography of Herakles' introduction to Olympus by Athena, on foot, to a version in which the hero is shown with the goddess in a chariot. On these grounds, Sophocles’ silence of Herakles’ introduction to Olympus may be understood as an intention to suppress the political hints of the episode. However, Boardman’s suggestion has been criticised; on this topic see Stafford 2012, 163-170 and 256, n.30, where relevant bibliography is also cited. For a political reading of the play, also see Vickers 1995, 45-53 who argues for a link between the foundation of Herakleia Trachinia in Thessaly by the Spartans in 426 BC (Thuc. 3.92-93) and Sophocles’ Trach. 510 Hoey 1977, 273 first suggested that the play leaves the question of apotheosis open “as though [it] had weighed both options and felt itself unable to decide”; Holt 1989, 69-80 took the view that the allusion to apotheosis is only faint in order not to spoil the overall sombre effect of the play. Stinton 1990, 493-507 argued that Sophocles meant his audience to be aware that he is diverging from the apotheosis tradition and discouraged them from taking apotheosis for granted, by exploiting the Iliadic version of Herakles’ end (“even Heracles was not exempt from death”, Il. 18.117-119) as a subtext. Liapis 2006, 56-59 reads the ending as a deliberate allusion to the Odyssey’s double version of Herakles’ fate and suggests that the play is equally and self-consciously indecisive and ambiguous.

209 tragic per se, regardless of whether his character is ignorant of future happiness or imminent misfortune.511 In spite of the solution proposed to the apotheosis dilemma, it remains a fact that after the revelation about the Centaur’s involvement, the dynamics of tradition reveal a tendency to displace the dynamics of the plot. One can easily see both the pyre and coerced marriage as being appended to the superior will of traditional narrative and also paralleling the self- referential function of Euripides’ formulaic endings. At this point, poetry submits to the justification of the actual worship of Herakles on Mt. Oeta and the establishment of the mythological continuity of the Heracleidae, while Herakles’ words are given a new kind of aetiological and prophetic authority. The prime role is now given to the tragic chorus who is dancing in a festival of Dionysus in real time, while Deianeira’s and Herakles’ tragedy is left aside. In addition, after this point, Herakles develops an insight that enhances the performance of his speech with the force of an institutional speech act; he is not only speaking but he is ‘doing things with words’, to use Austin’s phrase, while the perlocutionary effect of his speech extends beyond the time limits of this drama.512 Besides, Herakles’ liminal status as a moribund human, and indeed a moribund human who is not far from being deified, exalts the prolocutor of this speech to the status of a divine agent. The hero now acts in the knowledge that he is fulfilling some divine plan. Thus, it is not coincidental that the processing of Herakles’ directives is formalised with the sacredness of the contractual

511 In her analysis of the allusive Sophoclean endings, Roberts 1988, 184ff. pairs Trach. with OT, and notes that although in both plays the end appears to be final, in each play there is a mysterious suggestion that something is more to come. This future stands in ironic contrast with the end of the action while the characters are ignorant of the future that the play suggests: Hyllos does not know that he and Iole will be the ancestors of the Heraclidae and that his descendants will bear and perpetuate Herakles’ name, Herakles does not know that he will become a god and the fallen Oedipus knows nothing for the future Sophocles has created for him in his late Oedipus (and how could he?; for the reasons why OC should not be considered a ‘sequel’ to OT, see Karakantza 2019, 114 (with n.233) and 122-123). On Sophoclean endings as opposed to Euripidean, see Dunn 1996, 5-6, who suggests that the tragic end in Sophocles embraces the paradox of belated understanding in the manner of Croesus: “the final destruction of the protagonist brings to him and to those who witness his drama a new and authoritative understanding” (6). In Euripides, on the other hand, it seems that this tragic end “is ignored, discarded as irrelevant in a larger story that has no end” (7). 512 Several conventions exploited by drama, such as the divinities’ utterances, the oaths, the prophecies, the aition, the deus ex machina, exemplify the type of language that speech act theory categorized as ‘illocutions’ or ‘speech acts’. The original distinction between the ‘descriptive or constative’ and the ‘performative’ utterance (what he later calls ‘speech-act’) was made by Austin, in his well-known book, How to Do Things with Words (1975). Although the initial distinction has been challenged, starting from Austin himself who concludes that apparently descriptive language can have performative force (1975, 132-147), his and his disciple Searle’s ideas that language generates actions (‘doing things with words’, Searle 1969 and 1979) initiated speech act theory, a theory which accounts for the performative force of a variety of utterances.

210 language of Hyllos’ blind oath,513 or that his instructions are validated by the authority of a νόμος (1174-1179):

ταῦτ’ οὖν ἐπειδὴ λαμπρὰ συμβαίνει, τέκνον, δεῖ σ’ αὖ γενέσθαι τῷδε τἀνδρὶ σύμμαχον, καὶ μὴ ’πιμεῖναι τοὐμὸν ὀξῦναι στόμα, ἀλλ’ αὐτὸν εἰκαθόντα συμπράσσειν, νόμον κάλλιστον ἐξευρόντα, πειθαρχεῖν πατρί.

So now that this is clearly being fulfilled, my son, you must fight at my side, and not wait until my words grow sharp, but comply and work with me, finding that it is the noblest of laws that bids a man obey his father.

This νόμος that Herakles appeals to must refer to the long-lived and common unwritten law according to which one is expected to obey and show respect to her/his parents (see Aes. Cho.707-709; Eur. fr. 853N2; Soph. Ant. 639-640). But πατρί here is ambiguous. It certainly refers to the obedience of Hyllos to his father Herakles, which is what the latter struggles to ensure for the traditional story to be confirmed. I will return to this aspect of πατρί later, when I will dicuss Hyllos’ coming of age. But let me dwell a little longer on the aspect of Herakles’ respect for his father Zeus, which I believe is also implied by this phrase (cf. the phrase πατρῴῳ Διὶ, 753, describing Zeus as Herakles’ father or as a father in a more general sense). Zeus is not only the regulator of his son’s fate as the actual voice behind the oracles but also the ultimate source of divine authority and the general regulator of all human beings and actions: “[he] who ordains all things” (ὁ πάντα κραίνων βασιλεὺς, 127).514 It is no accident, therefore, that the written oracle which Herakles left with Deianeira before he went away is said to have come from Dodona, a sanctuary of Zeus, rather than the more usual source of tragic oracles, Apollo’s Delphi. And certainly, the last line of the play (“And nothing of this is not Zeus”, 1278) is not an accident; this picks up all these references to Zeus and seals the end with the idea of inevitability or inaccessibility of superior forces.515

513 For oaths in Greek drama, see Fletcher 2012; for Hyllos’ oath, see 81-89. 514 This is commonplace in Greek thought; see, e.g., Pind. I 5.52-53 and Aesch. Ag. 1485-1488. 515 However, if we accept that the end of the play alludes to Herakles’ apotheosis, this last reference to Zeus seems to pay attention to the inaccessible rather than the inevitable of the divine will. In any case, Hyllos’ (or the chorus’) theological perspective in denouncing the god’s indifference is unparalleled in its extremity in Sophocles. See Budelmann 2000, 169-171 and Goldhill 2012, 158-162 who discuss this statement.

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Zeus is prominent in the play: he is referred to more than thirty times, which is about twice as frequently as in any other play, as Budelmann notes, while his superior plan and the paternal kinship with Herakles function as a kind of leitmotif in Trachiniae.516 Of the various references to Zeus in the play, what is of great interest to our discussion is the aspect of Zeus as the planner that structures and shapes poetry, an aspect which evokes the poet’s persona, as in Διὸς βουλή of the Iliad. Quite early, in the parodos of the play, when rejecting the likelihood of Zeus lacking a general counsel for humans, the chorus speaks about Zeus as a general planner: “who has seen Zeus so lacking in counsel for his children?” (τίς ὧδε / τέκνοισι Ζῆν’ ἄβουλον εἶδεν; 139-140). This Zeus, however, could possibly have a poetic plan for Trachiniae as well. And this must be a plan that would include the extra-dramatic events that are meant by this κάλλιστος νόμος, the noblest of laws validated by the authority of the father, despite the fact that these events exceed the staging time and are not directly associated with the plot. Therefore, Herakles’ voice at the moment when he spells out these orders that are dictated by the authority of a paternal νόμος, has been elevated to an extra- dramatic level, lying on a scale of events that derive directly from Zeus and exceed both human contemplation and dramatic delineation.

The Dramatic Necessity of Herakles’ νόμος

So summing up, in view of the preceding analysis I would suggest that after 1143 Herakles is being transformed into a kind of deus who appears at the end of the play and spells out an aetiology which explicitly connects the enacted events of the plot with the world of the audience. In general, the deus ex machina may be read as redirecting a play’s disoriented route towards the established tradition and real ritual practice and confirming the end by inducing a stasis.517 Especially in plays where something went wrong during the course of the events, as it often did, and tragic mythos had reached an extremity which seemed to depart from tradition, the deus offered the means to readdress the plot in the direction of the established narrative. In these plays, the authoritative force of the traditional

516 Budelmann 2000, 154. For Zeus in Trach., also see Mikalson 1986, 89-98, who discusses the relationship between Herakles and his father, as presented in Soph. Trach. and Eur. HF (for Trach., pp. 90-93). As he notes, “Sophocles, rather than developing a single and unified conception of Zeus, introduces a wide range of Zeuses and then binds them together through the paternity of Heracles. […] The Zeus of Sophocles is a hybrid, an amalgam of various local cultic (Kenaios and Oitaios), functional (oaths, lightning, etc.), and mythological bits which were never found together in such a combination in practised religion. As such he is the type of deity commonly found in epic and lyric poetry, not in life. Euripides’ Zeus, however, has his roots more in the cult and religion of the Athenian audience” (90-91). 517 See Roberts 2005, 145. For aspects of staging in the use of deus ex machina, see Mastronarde 1990, 247- 294.

212 ending is so strong so that it seems to enforce (rather than reinforce) closure, despite disrupting the direction the play has been taking or being in conflict with the audience expectations as aroused by the events of the plot. As Sophocles’ Philoctetes, for example, draws to an end, it appears that the conclusion is going to depart quite radically from tradition; if Neoptolemus and Philoctetes simply return home, as they plan to, the Greek expedition in Troy will fail.518 At this point, however, Herakles appears and commands them to embark for Troy and capture the city, and so the myth is back on track. The disjunction between the direction of the plot and the conclusion imposed by Apollo is even sharper at the end of Euripides’ Orestes, one of the most disconcerting endings in all of Greek tragedy which explicitly draws our attention to the struggle between the inherited myth and the direction in which the play is heading. Apart from the deus, the effect of this concluding stasis can also be caused by a prophecy that predetermines the future through the authority of a divinity or an aition that founds a cult.519 The aition, or closing aetiology, spells out the connection between past and present, between myth and history by showing that the events of traditional narrative exploited by the poet survive in some specific way into the present world of the audience. The speaker of aetiology, as suggested by Dunn, is “a figure whose privileged knowledge extends beyond the bounds of the drama” and Herakles from that point onwards seems to qualify for this role.520 While maintaining his dramatic role, he is slightly disconnected from the action, so that he can speak with two voices, foretelling for Hyllos events he does not understand, while explaining an institution already familiar to the audience. By their very nature, these formulaic devices are subversive, since they underscore the artificiality of closure by drawing attention to themselves as conventions and as self- conscious rhetorical gestures.521 However, this kind of enforced and artificial ending is rather

518 For a discussion of Soph. Phil.’s closure, see Hoppin 1990, 141-182. 519 Often tragedy includes at the close of the play an interpretation of the play’s action as the foundation story for a contemporary cultural institution (aetiology or aition), a practice that continues a long tradition of poetic mythmaking that grounded religious practices in the distant past. Through this association the action of the drama is enhanced and legitimised with the promise of perpetual, established and institutionalised ritual commemoration. As Roberts notes, the aition “displaces the movement of historical narrative with the stasis of contemporaneous presence or repeated practice” (Roberts 2005, 145). For the aition (most notably in Eur.), see Dunn 1996, 45-63. 520 Dunn 1996, 49. 521 Indeed, their artificiality is evidenced by the conventional coda, a few lines of verse, usually anapaestic, spoken by the chorus that seals the ending of the play. This conventional coda is a feature that marks the end of both Sophocles’ and Euripides’ extant plays (Trach. can be a possible exception, as some of the manuscripts ascribe lines 1275-1278 to the chorus and others to Hyllos), but it is so broadly applicable and formulaic in Euripides, that two of these choral tags are repeated with little or no variation in several plays. By expressing widespread morals that can be generally applied under various conditions, these codas seem to propose a

213 exceptional in Sophocles but very typical in Euripides, who appears to make regular use of these conventional features (what Dunn calls “closing gestures”), which reinforce the conclusion by marking in several ways the boundary between the world of the play and the extra-dramatic world but without shedding any particular light on the preceding events.522 As a result, half of Euripides’ extant plays make use of a deus ex machina. Thus, in contrast to Euripides’ formulaic endings, which subversively mark the boundary between the world of the play and its various tangential words, Sophocles’ endings have been seen as exploiting these boundaries in a more subtle way.523 In general, Sophocles’ endings have been seen as exemplifying the Aristotelian virtues of connectedness and finality (as Roberts puts it: the plays end with a ‘simple finality’), as opposed to Euripidean ‘anti- Aristotelian epilogues’.524 Nevertheless, possible allusions to extra-dramatic events can be detected in the endings of all his extant plays.525 But despite these cases of contingent disruption of the play’s finality and/or connectedness, scholars desist from seeing them as direct and artificial projections to future events that are not thematically or structurally integrated within a well-designed plot. Instead, they prefer to read these connotations as indirect allusions that are typical of an elegant and discreet irony, or discern an open- endedness (in Smith’s terms, an ‘anti-closural’ mode), in which a subtle hint of a familiar story opens up a future beyond and even at odds with the mood of the play’s conclusion.526 Open-ending and closing resistance can surely be detected at the end of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, for instance, where the audience knows that Agamemnon’s murder cannot be the final end since the same tradition includes Orestes’ vengeance for his father’s death. But in that case, the audience’s knowledge of the myth, enhanced by various forms of prolepsis in the drama itself, disturbs closure by leading them to think of an end that lies beyond the end of the play and looks forward to the rest of the trilogy. Then again, as noted, Euripides’ endings reveal a trend to submit to the authority of a fixed narrative, in an artificial way that

simplified understanding of the events, and indeed they have seemed so abrupt and simplistic as to provoke readerly resistance and scholarly claims of spuriousness. For the formulaic codas in Soph. and Eur., see Roberts 1987, 51-64 and 2005, 145-146. 522 See Dunn 1996, 13-25. 523 See esp. Roberts 1988, 177-196 and 2005, 136-158. Also Dunn 1996, 5-6, 80-82. 524 Roberts 1988, 178 and Dunn 1996, 83. It needs to be noted that both scholars’ sophisticated analyses of closures do not embrace the familiar story of rise and decline but their (and mine) invoking of the Aristotelian and anti-Aristotelian terminology is conventional, referring to interpretive trends rather than models. 525 See Roberts 1988, 177-196. 526 See, e.g., Lloyd-Jones 1971, 125-128; Winnington-Ingram 1980, 302; Easterling 1981, 65-69; Taplin 1983, 155-174; Halleran 1997, 155-158; Goldhill 2015, 238.

214 explicitly and deliberately demonstrates the divergence between his mythos and traditional narrative. Instead, Sophocles’ endings tend to engage in a conversation with the authority of tradition in a quiet and allusive way. His closures have been seen as particularly typical of an open-endedness, in which the audience’s knowledge of the myth complicates the closure of a single play and is manipulated in order to comment on the infinitude of the forces that set human tragedies in motion.527 In that sense, his ambiguous endings do not directly disturb the completeness of the play to put emphasis on the artificiality of the ending (as in Euripides) or the continuation within the extent of a trilogy (as in Aeschylus), but intentionally interrupt the dramatic present in order to give an ironic hint of continuation in perpetuity and play with the tragic ignorance of the persons involved, regardless of whether this allusion points to another happy finale (as in Herakles’ apotheosis in Trachiniae) or to another tragic story (as in the future pursuit of Orestes by the Erinyes in Electra). Similarly, at the end of Trachiniae, though it would appear that the power of ‘history’ tends to displace the play’s dramatic present, it is also true that closure meets expectations as raised by the plot and that these extra-dramatic references are integral elements of a whole.528 Repeatedly in the course of the play the expectation of the hero’s return was prepared and encouraged and this is exactly the exodos’ content. Of course, within the tragic arrangement this nostos is reversed and instead of the triumphal entrance of the hero we witness his funeral. Besides, the concept of an extended and failed nostos lies at the core of Herakles’ existence; he was born in exile, he was deprived of his patrimonial inheritance in ruling over Argolid, he always remained an extensive traveler and he never succeeded in his familial life. Moreover, given that the exodos starts with diseased Herakles being carried on a stretcher and ends with Herakles being transferred to his tomb, thus dramatizing the hero’s death and funeral, it seems plausible that the scene consists of the agonies he has been suffering, the realisation of the imminent and inevitable death by the moribund himself and his deathbed instructions. Therefore, these requests are included within this funeral frame and smoothly incorporated into the dramatic setting of the hero’s last moments.

527 See Roberts 1988, 192. 528 In her recent study on narrative and ritual in Sophoclean drama, Brook (2018), following Yiatromanolakis and Roilos (2004) model on ‘ritual poetics’, has rightly suggested that in Sophocles rituals do not only have ritual but also have dramatic and poetic implications: “[R]itual functions as a poetic device, directing the audience’s experience of the plot and perception of the characters of the plays. These poetic effects depend on the close analogy between ritual and narrative” (Brook 2018, 3). However, her analysis on Trach. (21-49, esp. 33-36, and 175-178) only focuses on sacrificial ritual and does not take the opportunity to discuss the function of marriage, which is particularly significant in the play and an eloquent example of a ritual mistake (in terms of all parameters of conflation, repetition and status) that is embedded in the plot.

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Then, the requests themselves have a specific dramatic function which advances our reading of the play. Hyllos’ marriage to Iole does not only verify the established genealogy of this legendary family and bind Hyllos to this role by swearing an oath, but it is also essential for the continuation of Herakles’ generation and planned to salvage the remains of his family, especially since the play has presented the destruction of his oikos.529 Then, the hero’s immolation completes the sacrificial pattern which was repeatedly exploited in the play, while it is also included within the pattern of the Herculean labors, as it is presented as the ultimate and possibly the hardest task the hero needs to accomplish.530 And finally, the possibility of apotheosis encourages a retrospective interpretation of the play. In particular, Herakles’ imminent self-immolation and the eternal bliss he was known to enjoy on Olympus, as a possible aftermath to his cremation, is based on an idea of confusion between life and death. This is not merely an implication raised by the hero’s ambivalent status between a mortal and a god but it is an implication also embedded in the way the oracle is articulated and an idea that is extensively elaborated in the exodos, where he is presented as a living corpse who organises and attends his own funeral.531 Besides, the uncertainty about the future to which the allusion to apotheosis gives rise is also embedded in the very deep structure of a play which repeatedly comments on the inaccessibility of superior knowledge, while it ends up a circular motion which started in the very first lines of the play, proposing a retrospective interpretation of Deianeira’s reference to the Solonian saying. In addition, the very nature of this conclusion advises us to see it as one of the type of closures which is included (among departure, reunion or reconciliation, solution or fulfilment and ritual) in the list of closures that for Smith evoke one of “natural stopping places of our lives and experiences” (or “cultural markers of closure”) which have themselves terminating force.532 As Roberts notes, of these markers mourning is not surprisingly the most common of concluding rituals in existing tragedies: of twenty-three plays that end with death, nineteen end with some form of or reference to burial or mourning ritual.533 It is interesting, however, as Roberts continues, that in tragedy these markers may be used in such a way as to interfere

529 It was also necessary for Hyllos’ maturation which I will discuss to the second part of this chapter. 530 See Panousis 2013, 163: “He desperately seeks to transform his death into an ultimate labour, with which to provide ritual closure to a heroic life. And the only solution he can find at this critical juncture is death in the pyre of Mt. Oeta, (transl. from Greek)” 531 Brook 2018, 44-46, discusses the peculiarity that Herakles, though he is still a living man, attempts to direct his own funeral, as an example of a ‘ritual mistake’ in terms of the status of the participant. 532 Smith 1968, 101-102, 172-182. 533 Roberts 2005, 143 and 1993, 573-589.

216 with closure.534 In several plays, for example, the ritual of burial is deprived of some of its effect by the exclusion of a would-be participant. In Euripides’ Medea, Medea and Jason will remain divided in the ritual expression of their grief for their children, since Medea alone will carry out the burial. In Trachiniae, Herakles’ burial will be completed in the absence of his family, underlining the alienation from his oikos presented in the play, while ritual lament is denied, emphasizing the extremity of strength and endurance of this superhuman hero, whose suffering will be accentuated through ritual inertia. On the other hand, the ritual confusion of this burial with both rituals of marriage and sacrifice results in a ritual crisis which hinders its completion and underlines its propensity to fail.535 Herakles’ pyre is a holocaust, a fire ritual, usually associated with the worship of the dead, in which the destructive power of fire will be fully displayed as the sacrificial victim will be wholly burned.536 As Calame notes: “On Oeta, no libations, no slitting of the victim’s throat, no sharing of the meat, no parts which would have been reserved for the people, no companionship with or without the gods: the victim is entirely destroyed by fire”.537 However, it is not only the sacrificial ritual that fails. The play also dramatizes the failure of this marriage through the transformation of the nuptial ceremony into a funeral, but on the grounds of Herakles’ apotheosis even this concluding funeral is at stake. In general, through the linguistic and metaphorical use of the symbolic gestures attached to ritual acts, our text indicates disarrangement of active and passive identities and gendered role models, elaborated in terms of ritual irregularity. In the course of the play, Herakles is constantly moving between the roles of the sacrificer and the sacrificial victim. As a follow up to his violent act of destroying a city, Herakles founds a sanctuary on Cape Cenaeum and performs a sacrifice, but Deianeira’s sacrificial robe will transform this

534 Of course, this observation applies to the way ritual in general functions in tragedy, not only closures. This is also an idea which is consistent with the pattern that Seaford identifies in Greek tragedy, inherited from the Dionysian cult, whereby “the self-destruction of the ruling family, expressed in the perversion of ritual, ends in benefit, and in particular in the foundation of cult, for the whole polis” (Seaford 1994, xix, 274, 276; cf. Segal 1997, 349-373). As has been noted by several scholars (see e.g. Zeitlin 1970, 359; Seaford 1994, xv; Henrichs 2004; 2012, 194; Rehm 2012, 427; Brook 2015, 29) in Greek tragedy, and especially in Sophocles, the rituals performed and described onstage seldom proceed without problems and often fail to achieve their intended ends. 535 On the idea of ritual conflation, also see Brooks 2018, 33-36, who suggests that the conflation of sacrificial and death ritual in Trach. aims to point to the double-sided death of Herakles: “ritual conflation casts him in two different lights in a way that hints broadly at the future awaiting him beyond the end of the drama. Both sets of ritual expectations will be fulfilled. Heracles’ mortal side will perish, like Deianeira, when his funeral pyre is lit. However, his immortal side will ascend to Olympus and escape victimhood, an outcome alluded to by his survival in the play’s first sacrifice scene (36)”. 536 On fire rituals and the holocaust ritual, see Burkert 1985, 60-64. 537 Calame 2005, 194.

217 foundation sacrificer (θυτήρ, 656) into the sacrificial victim. Then he moves to Trachis and acts again as a sacrificer, organizing a second holocaust on Mt. Oeta (1192), but once again he will be transformed into the victim of this second sacrifice, as the fire will consume his own diseased body. Moreover, while it is clear that Deianeira acts as the sacrificer of her spouse, the text simultaneously qualifies her, like Ajax, for the role of the victim of a sacrificial slaughter (ἀρτίως νεοσφαγής, 1130; cf. same phrase in Aj. 898). Herakles’ feminine and passive sacrifice would, thus, correspond to Deianeira’s heroic and active sacrifice. All these roles that Deianeira and Herakles undertake move irregularly between the poles of a subject (active doer) and an object (passive receiver) of action and are in constant interaction with the corresponding active and passive roles related to the rituals of sacrifice, marriage and funeral.538 Consequently, we have so far suggested that through the way the audience knowledge of traditional narrative is exploited at the end of the play, we can discern a sophisticated interaction between tragic mythos and the authoritative principle of history. This is not a one- sided submission to the established tradition but rather a diplomatic relationship that simultaneously allows for the reaffirmation and exploitation of the dynamics of tradition. Additionally, we have established that by dramatizing Herakles’ rite of passage to death and possibly immortality, the end of Trachiniae necessitates the settlement of a dramatic order, no matter how precarious this order may be, and sets up the closure of the play but nonetheless continues to invest in the scheme of irregularity in terms of ritual and gender roles. I will now continue and conclude my analysis of the idea of authority, in view of the authority Herakles exercises over Hyllos on the grounds of the latter’s transition to adulthood and his enforced marriage with Iole.

Hegemonic Masculinity and Hyllos’ Maturation

Herakles’ authority over Hyllos is imposed as a form of gendered hegemony, thereby raising issues of gender order. That brings us to the fundamental aspect of Herakles’ speech and the exodos in general: his attempt to put back together and re-establish hegemonic masculinity,539 which is currently impaired and diseased, through the only source of power

538 For the conflation of death and sacrifice ritual, see Calame 2005, 181-195 and Brook 2018, 33-36. For the conflation of marriage and sacrifice ritual see, most notably, Segal 1975, 30-53 and 1981, 65-72, 98-108. It is interesting that marriage also interacts with Herakles’ immortalization in the tradition that mentions that his deification was consecrated through his marriage to the eternally young Hebe. 539 For the history of the concept of “hegemonic masculinity”, deriving from the theory of the Gramscian concept of cultural hegemony, see Connell and Messerschmidt 2005, 829-859.

218 left to him, the paternal sovereignty over his son. This is of course of the greatest interest to my thesis’ argument and, therefore, I kept this discussion for my closure. Hyllos’ course within Trachiniae reflects a narrative of adolescent initiation. Although Hyllos’ journey of transformation from an ephebe to a complete male is not the main issue at stake, it forms a supplementary subtext elaborated throughout the play and culminating in the exodos, thus calling for our consideration.540 This scenario of Hyllos’ entry into adulthood is incorporated within a broader framework of the family crisis that is dramatized in Trachiniae and intersects with both his father’s rite of passage to immortality as well as his mother’s wedding journey to her death.541 The play begins with and observes this young man’s journey, from the moment when he is prompted to abandon the maternal space of the oikos and set out in search of his father (ἀνδρὸς κατὰ ζήτησιν, 55),542 just like Odyssey begins with and observes Telemachus’ quest for his father (‘quest pattern’). When he first appears in the prologue of the drama, Hyllos is introduced as one of Deianeira’s young sons (παισὶ μὲν τοσοῖσδε πληθύεις, 54), an ephebe. In Athenian society, the ephebes constituted an age-group of young men from about sixteen to twenty who had reached puberty but were not yet adult men, while they also formed a distinguished status- group which was assigned with social roles that corresponded to their transitional status of not being yet citizens with full civic rights.543 Thus, as an ephebe, Hyllos is a young man who has arrived at physical and sexual maturity and belongs to a special age and status category. And as in all communities, this category entails a considerable reconfiguration of kinship and other social relationships, as ephebes gain some measure of independence from paternal authority and leave their birth families to enter the ranks of the citizenry and assume the role of a male. This transitional status of the ephebe seems to be reflected in narratives about adolescent initiation, which are very common in ancient Greek myth, ritual and literature. The study of these narratives became widespread in the wake of Vidal-Naquet’s essay “The Black Hunter and the Origin of the Athenian Ephebeia”, an essay written under the influence of Lévi-Strauss’ structuralist anthropological theory of and Van Gennep’s work on rites de

540 Many critics have identified this adulthood scenario in Trach.; see, e.g., Segal 1992, 69; Wohl 1998, 11-16; Pozzi 1999, 29-41. 541 Pozzi (1999, 30, 37-38) speaks about a doubled, “shared rite de passage” between Herakles and Hyllos: of Hyllos to adulthood and Herakles to immortality. 542 It is interesting that Herakles seems to have a special relation with the young and childcare (but note that he concerns himself only with children, not with mothers and not with the event of birth itself). Thus, he has a striking role among the ephebes and in the gymnasium; he is present at the ceremony where they cut their hair while the ephebes have a special libation to offer to Herakles (οἰνιστήρια). See Kearns 1989, 35-36. 543 Polinskaya 2013, 102.

219 passage. Defining the mature Greek man in terms of his social roles, as hoplite warrior, citizen, husband and father, Vidal-Naquet’s model established that adolescence entailed a temporary identity that was the reversal of these roles. Thus, the ephebe appeared as a hunter with a precarious sexual identity, favourably disposed toward deceitfulness and located out in the wild. Ever since Vidal-Naquet described the ephebe as a “creature of the frontier area, of the eschatia”,544 the Greek adolescent has been identified in those behaviours that contradict what is expected of the adult Greek man. More recently, Dodd and Polinskaya have deliberated on the ‘Black Hunter’ model and have concluded in a more flexible perception about the ephebe, arguing that, the ‘Black Hunter’ model implies a rigidity to Greek thought that is unwarranted by evidence, while, as far as the evidence tells us, the activities of the ephebes at the frontiers were not strictly antithetical to the norms of civilized community.545 Therefore, whereas numerous narratives that share an interest in the problems a family faces as a father tries to hand down his place in society to his son combine the elements of youth, marginality and a transition in status,546 these can not all conform to a rigid tripartition of a rite of passage to adulthood (separation, liminality, and integration) neither do they strictly define the ephebe as a creature of the wilderness. Be that as it may, in a more general sense, these narratives seem to reflect the concern over the question of how a boy becomes a man. By necessitating a paternal model, male initiation describes an Oedipal succession, that of the replacement of the father by the son. However, in Greek tragedy this succession is decidedly unconventional, since the transition from youth to adulthood is frequently explored within the framework of a family crisis and presented as incomplete or irregular.547 Likewise, in Trachiniae Hyllos’ rite of passage to maturity is presented in an irregular way which reflects a concern over the question of the emancipation of a young boy. His journey begins in the prologue, when he sets out in quest of his father, to be completed in the exodos, when he agreed to marry Iole and continue his father’s lineage. But nonetheless his journey was not completed without obstacles and hesitation. During this transformation, Hyllos undergoes several liminal and irregular experiences, which are all appropriate to the liminal stage of his rite of passage. The liminality and precariousness of his journey are expressed in terms of the continuous crisis that Hyllos undergoes while he is forced to assume the responsibilities of a

544 Vidal-Naquet 1968/1986, 120. 545 Dodd 2003, 71-84; Polinskaya 2003, 85-106. 546 Dodd 1992. 547 For examples of this irregularity in Greek tragedy, see Anderson 2005, 119-135.

220 traditional manliness represented through Herakles.548 In the course of the play and until the final resolution he experiences the extremity of being physically and psychologically detached from the safety of his parental oikos and the emotional strain of getting in intense conflict with his parents. Furthemore, the scenario of his maturation carries troubling undertones of impiety and violations of kinship bonds, and specifically undertones of matricide, patricide and incest. In particular, Hyllos’ accusations may be seen as motivating his mother’s suicide, while his renouncing of her name can be considered as a symbolic matricide. Subsequently, both his participation in the holocaust of Herakles and his replacing of his father’s role as Iole’s partner signify a symbolic patricide. Finally, the Oedipal episode with his mother, as well as the fact that he will share the same bed with his father’s concubine bear connotations of excessively close, almost incestuous, relations. Although, strictly speaking, Hyllos is not guilty of any of these violations, he comes close enough to the possibility of being affected by these impieties and reacts with strong hesitation on his father’s demands. As we will see in the following closer reading of Hyllos’ journey, which will provide a greater focus on the symbolism of these near violations, this hesitation reinforces the forces that stimulate negotiation and change within the system of Trachiniae. Hyllos first appears in a dialogue with his mother in the second part of the prologue (61-93). Following the pattern which indicates the play’s concern with learning processes, his task is to set out in search of his father and learn the truth about his whereabouts (πᾶσαν πυθέσθαι τῶνδ’ ἀλήθειαν πέρι, 91). His cognitive behaviour is presented as still being immature; his knowledge of his father’s whereabouts relies on indirect and imprecise information (μύθοις, 67; κλύεις, 68; φασί, 70; κλύω, 72; ἀγγέλλεται, 73) rather than facts. He is still in the stage when he expects his mother to be his tutor (δίδαξον, μῆτερ, εἰ διδακτά μοι, 64), while he admits of being oblivious of the important prophecies concerning Herakles’ fate (τὸν λόγον γὰρ ἀγνοῶ, 78). Thus, his journey of transformation will focus on his maturation through the development of his critical ability. Together with the other tasks he needs to accomplish, this development is considered significant in order to be entitled to the role of a complete male adult. In the first place, the gradual development of Hyllos’ cognitive and emotional maturity will be promoted through the re-negotiation of his relationship with his mother. In the course of the play, Deianeira’s and Hyllos’ connection undergoes several critical phases

548 As Polinskaya 2003, 100 notes, “the liminal stage of the rite of passage cannot be identified on the basis of the topographical position alone; it has to be marked with liminal experiences, and the latter may occur in a variety of topographical locales without making the activities that take place there any more or any less liminal”.

221 before it evolves. His attachment to his mother and identification with the maternal symbol implied in the prologue give way to a severe disengagement occurring during the third epeisodion, when he ends up disowning his mother’s name for causing the death of his father and temporarily proving himself to be in a perfect match with his father’s name. Having witnessed the effect of Deianeira’s robe on his father’s body, Hyllos returns during the third epeisodion (731ff.) to denounce his mother and report the atrocious incidents in Cape Ceneum by way of a ‘messenger-rhesis’ (749-812), thereby bringing about Deianeira’s suicide. At the end of this epeisodion and while his mother is heading towards her deathbed, he bids farewell with words that confirm his complete detachment from the maternal shelter (815-820):

ἐᾶτ’ ἀφέρπειν. οὖρος ὀφθαλμῶν ἐμῶν αὐτῇ γένοιτ’ ἄπωθεν ἑρπούσῃ καλός. ὄγκον γὰρ ἄλλως ὀνόματος τί δεῖ τρέφειν μητρῷον, ἥτις μηδὲν ὡς τεκοῦσα δρᾷ; ἀλλ’ ἑρπέτω χαίρουσα· τὴν δὲ τέρψιν ἣν τὠμῷ δίδωσι πατρί, τήνδ’ αὐτὴ λάβοι.

Let her depart! May a fair wind carry her far from my sight! For why should one vainly honour the dignity of the name of mother, when none of her actions are a mother’s? Let her go; farewell to her; and may she have for her own the joy she gave my father!

At this moment, Hyllos breaks away from his mother and commits a symbolic matricide to fully identify with his father’s name and desires. Yet, in the Nurse’s speech which reports Deianeira’s death during the fourth epeisodion (899-956), this severe separation is completely abrogated and Hyllos is presented in an erotic rebinding with his mother, which was prompted by the revelation of Deianeira’s true motives and her decision to commit suicide. Once again, however, the truth was belatedly delivered (932-942):

ἰδὼν δ’ ὁ παῖς ᾤμωξεν· ἔγνω γὰρ τάλας τοὔργον κατ’ ὀργὴν ὡς ἐφάψειεν τόδε, ὄψ’ ἐκδιδαχθεὶς τῶν κατ’ οἶκον οὕνεκα ἄκουσα πρὸς τοῦ θηρὸς ἔρξειεν τάδε.

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κἀνταῦθ’ ὁ παῖς δύστηνος οὔτ’ ὀδυρμάτων ἐλείπετ’ οὐδέν, ἀμφί νιν γοώμενος, οὔτ’ ἀμφιπίπτων στόμασιν, ἀλλὰ πλευρόθεν πλευρὰν παρεὶς ἔκειτο πόλλ’ ἀναστένων, ὥς νιν ματαίως αἰτίᾳ βάλοι κακῇ, κλαίων ὁθούνεχ’ εἷς δυοῖν ἔσοιθ’ ἅμα, πατρός τ’ ἐκείνης τ’, ὠρφανισμένος βίον.

When he saw, the son cried out; for he realised, poor man, that he had charged her with the crime in anger, having learned too late from those in the house that that monster had got her to do this act in innocence. Then her unhappy son never ceased to lament, weeping over her, not to cover her with kisses, but lying side by side with her he uttered many a groan, saying that he had charged her falsely with the crime, and weeping because now he would be bereft of both, his father and her also.

With this heavily emotional scene, Hyllos’ adolescence crisis culminates, as the Orestean hostility of the previous scene gives way to an Oedipal proximity which carries latent tones of incest.549 This is a crucial moment for both Hyllos and for the play in general, as it signifies a transitional moment. On the one hand, it signifies the transition of Hyllos to adulthood while, on the other hand, it denotes the final transition to the last scene of the drama, in which Herakles will be the centre of interest and activity. As I argued in the previous chapter, in the way Hyllos stands against Deianeira’s mistake we can trace an onward movement, while his view, together with the chorus’ perception, make up the view of the polis and democratic culture, as opposed to Herakles’ pre-political view of private justice. It is in this moment, right before Herakles’ awareness and acceptance of the truth, that I can locate Hyllos’ cognitive and emotional maturation and his transition from the state of a young boy to that of a fully-grown citizen. It is interesting that Hyllos successfully enters the maturation stage while remaining on the mother’s side. Nevertheless, after this rebinding with the maternal symbol, in the immediate following part of the exodos and while the play will conclusively attempt to resolve the crisis, Hyllos will be expected to abandon the maternal locus to take his place in

549 See Pozzi 1999, 30-31.

223 the male society represented by his father and assume the responsibilities that he, as a complete male that replaces his father by duplicating him, needs to assume. But this will be neither an easy task nor a precisely successful one. He will be confronted with the inconceivable commands and the hardness of his demanding father, who will first ask Hyllos to reject his mother’s name and identify himself with him (1064-1065):

ὦ παῖ, γενοῦ μοι παῖς ἐτήτυμος γεγώς, καὶ μὴ τὸ μητρὸς ὄνομα πρεσβεύσῃς πλέον.

My son, become my true-born son, and do not honour the name of your mother more!

Like Apollo in Aeschylus’ Eumenides (657ff.), Herakles is trying to defuse the woman’s always suspect and dangerous intermediary reproductive role within the patriarchal family. In Herakles’ androcentric and homosocial conception of kinship relationships, Deianeira’s participation in her son’s birth seems to constitute a disturbing interruption and thereby he attempts to eliminate her role.550 Thus, Hyllos must renounce his status as a child of his mother and consent to the law of his father, just like Herakles consents to the law of Zeus and accepts his death, regardless of whether this is fully comprehensible or not. Nevertheless, in the dialogue between him and his father that follows Herakles’ long rhesis (1114-1142), Hyllos is still his mother’s son, thus endangering and disrupting his relationship with his ill father. But his obligation and desire to defend the dead and, for him, innocent mother is too strong to remain silent. No matter how sovereign his father stands, Hyllos confronts him like a knowing and mature adult and stands by the side of his mother. Against his father’s repeated accusations (ὦ παγκάκιστε, 1124; εὐλαβοῦ δὲ μὴ φανῇς κακὸς γεγώς, 1129; ὦ κάκιστε, 1137), he argues for his mother’s innocence and establishes his transformation into an efficient public speaker. Of course, for Herakles, this is not enough proof of his son’s maturation and Hyllos is still expected to establish his loyalty to his father by embracing the heroic and aristocratic ideals he acts for. So, after the revelation of the real culprit and Deianeira’s dismissal, Herakles announces his last commands to his son, explaining that this is the critical moment when Hyllos need to prove that he is the worthy son of a nobleman: “You have come to a

550 On the idea of Herakles trying to exclude Deianeira’s mediation between him and his son, see Ormand 1999, 57.

224 point where you will show what sort of man you are, you that are said to be my son” (ἐξήκεις δ’ ἵνα / φανεῖς ὁποῖος ὢν ἀνὴρ ἐμὸς καλῇ, 1157-1158). In Herakles’ view, Hyllos needs to be transformed into a worthy fighter who fights at the side of his father (σύμμαχον, 1175), the fighter par excellence, and complies and works with him (συμπράσσειν, 1178). He needs to follow the one and the only law Herakles respects, the law of the father: νόμον κάλλιστον, πειθαρχεῖν πατρί (1178-1179). In addition to this stern preface of his pronouncement and the authoritarianism that this νόμος suggests, Herakles also demands the assurance offered by a blind oath, so that he will bind Hyllos’ compliance by means of sacred language (1181-1190). The oath is a gendered marker associated with masculine authority in a political setting, which signals and confirms the transition into maturity. As Fletcher suggests, the oath in ephebic dramas punctuates the achievement of adulthood, that a youth becomes a man, by means of language.551 Especially the oaths of Sophocles’ heroes, Fletcher notes, “emphasize the connection between masculine friendship and political authority, and seem to be especially pertinent to the transition to manhood”.552 Thus, with the oath, Hyllos is committing himself to the world of hegemonic masculinity and to the responsibilities of adulthood, which, among other commitments, entail accountability for his words and the agreement between word and deed. Then, the fact that Herakles commits Hyllos to an unconditional consensus with an open contract that precedes his declarations anticipates the aversion expected by the forthcoming commands. As Hyllos admits, out of respect to his father he will comply with his will, although he foresees that things have come to a critical moment which might lead to a serious conflict: “Father, I am afraid at coming in our talk to such a point, but I will obey your decisions” (ἀλλ’, ὦ πάτερ, ταρβῶ μὲν ἐς λόγου στάσιν / τοιάνδ’ ἐπελθών, πείσομαι δ’ ἅ σοι δοκεῖ, 1179-1180). In Herakles’ commands to Hyllos we can discern the heroic pattern found in the myths of Perseus, Jason, and Theseus, who need to fulfil specific tasks in order to successfully pass into adulthood. As Anderson observes, these heroes’ entry into adulthood is typically marked with a hunting exploit, the slaying of a beast or monster, a task which confirms their manhood, and the securing of a spouse either by surpassing rival suitors or successfully challenging the bride’s father, a second task which validates their transformation into complete adults. However, in cases of interrupted maturation, for example in the

551 For Hyllos’ oath, see Fletcher 2012, 81-89. 552 Fletcher 2012, 17.

225 scenarios of Euripides’ Hippolytus or Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, the hunting rite and the marital rite are systematically inverted.553 Similarly, Hyllos’ ephebic testing will include both a hunting achievement and an obligation to marriage. More specifically, in the place of the monster he needs to slay in order to prove his worth as a hero, Hyllos is asked to burn his father’s body to death (1191-1202). Indeed, throughout this thesis, we have identified Herakles with a monster and this coincidence corroborates this analogy. Hyllos reacts with intense abhorrence and terror to this command which he perceives as patricide (“to have the guilt of your murder on my hands”; φονέα γενέσθαι καὶ παλαμναῖον σέθεν, 1207). However, he is compelled to abide by Herakles’ decision, as he is bound to obey by blind vow. So, he agrees with merely participating in his transportation to Oeta, assuring him that the act of carrying him there will not be neglected (“I shall not grudge the act of carrying you there”; φορᾶς γέ τοι φθόνησις οὐ γενήσεται, 1212), provided Hyllos himself would not come into direct contact with the fire (“Except that I shall not put my own hands to it”; ὅσον γ’ ἂν αὐτὸς μὴ ποτιψαύων χεροῖν, 1214). Hyllos’ conditional participation in this rite is peculiarly unconventional and can be considered to dispute his public role as fulfilled through the performance of his religious duties. But, more importantly, it underlines the impiety implied by this action of symbolic patricide. Following the hunting achievement, the confirmation of Hyllos’ maturity and his acceptance among equal and political adults needs to be sealed and validated by his marriage to Iole (1216-1229).554 With this marriage, Hyllos takes his father’s place as Iole’s spouse and completes the process of replacing his father initiated by the symbolic patricide that Herakles’ sacrifice implied. So, he successfully performs his ephebic appraisal assignments, proves his worth and ends his journey of transformation from an ephebe to a complete male, by assuming the role of the male genitor of the illustrious dynasty of Herakles’ descendants.

553 See Anderson 2005, 125. Hippolytus gets into conflict with his own father and instead of confirming his manhood by slaying a monster he falls victim to the monstrous bull of Poseidon, while he disowns marriage and Aphrodite and declares perpetual devotion to the virgin huntress Artemis. Oedipus also slays a monster, the Sphinx, thereby he secures a wife and moves successfully into adulthood. Despite the seeming success of this maturation transition, having married his mother and slain his own father, Oedipus will prove to be guilty of incest and patricide. 554 The exact motivation for Herakles’second request and the reason for Hyllos’ objection is a matter of debate and various explanations have been suggested. Kirkwood 1941, 203 and Winnington-Ingram 1980, 85 blame Herakles’ for insensitivity and brutality; Bowra 1944, 143-144 thinks that the request shows Herakles’ love for Iole; MacKinnon 1971, 34-41 suggests that Herakles intends concubinage rather that marriage (cf. Segal’s response, 1994, 59-64); Wohl 1998 14-15 suggests that Hyllos objects to the exchange itself.

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This endogamous and incestuous marriage is a predominantly androcentric resolution which does not only ensure the survival of the oikos but eliminates any risk that arises from the transition and importation of an external and dubious reproductive object into the oikos.555 Thus, by neatly replacing the disastrous extramarital relationship between Iole and Herakles with a marriage that is untainted by sexual desire and paternally sanctioned, this union can be considered to ensure the continuation of Herakles’ collapsed oikos and reaffirm the patriarchal authority which has been questioned throughout the play. In that sense, the closure of the play could be seen as a “good end” (καλῶς τελευτᾷς, 1252), which complies with Herakles’ ideals and the patriarchal order he represents. However, the following intense dispute between Hyllos and his father (1230-1251) at the critical moment of the epilogue of the drama denotes a significant crisis which puts this “good end” at serious risk. Whereas Herakles introduces this last request as a “small favour, over and above great things” (χάριν βραχεῖαν πρὸς μακροῖς ἄλλοις, 1217), Hyllos’ response reveals even greater aversion. He perceives this command as a symptom of Herakles’ disease (νοσοῦντι, 1230; εξ ἀλαστόρων νοσοῖ, 1235; ὡς νοσεῖς φανεῖς, 1241), as an act of irreverence toward the gods (δυσσεβεῖν, 1245; δυσσέβεια, 1246), and explicitly states that he could not tolerate a marriage with the woman that was the real cause of his family’s disaster: Iole “is the sole cause of my mother’s death, and of your being in the state that you are” (ἥ μοι μητρὶ μὲν θανεῖν μόνη / μεταίτιος, σοὶ δ’ αὖθις ὡς ἔχεις ἔχειν, 1233-1234). Thus, he unconditionally states that death is preferable than living together with this woman (κρεῖσσον κἀμέ γ’, ὦ πάτερ, θανεῖν / ἢ τοῖσιν ἐχθίστοισι συνναίειν ὁμοῦ, 1236-1237) and proclaims the impasse he has encountered (ὡς ἐς πολλὰ τἀπορεῖν ἔχω; 1243). Hyllos clearly states that he will only compromise with this union in the name of his father (“For I could never be shown up as a traitor if I obeyed you, father”; οὐ γὰρ ἄν ποτε / κακὸς φανείην σοί γε πιστεύσας, πάτερ, 1250-1251), while it is obvious that he himself objects to his ideals. As he finally admits, his compliance is only the outcome of coercion: “there is nothing to prevent these things from being accomplished, since you command and you compel me, father”; ἀλλ’ οὐδὲν εἴργει σοὶ τελειοῦσθαι τάδε, / ἐπεὶ κελεύεις κἀξαναγκάζεις, πάτερ, 1257-1258). It is important to note that Hyllos clearly states that he

555 See Segal, who reads the last scene as an area of tension between exogamy and endogamy. He argues that through this ambiguity “the play completes its problematization of marriage and sexuality as the areas of destructive fusion between humanity and bestiality, order and disorder, lust and restraint” (Segal 1992/1995, 90; and 86-91 for a reading of the last scene). For DuBois the final act of exchange preserves the city: “Yet paradoxically Herakles preserves the city, the community, the exchange of women, in his gift, Iole, to his son Hyllus. He keeps the female object-not Deianeira, but a younger woman to replace her-within the community of equals; she is untouched by his victorious rivals” (DuBois 1979, 102).

227 only abides by Herakles’ commands ‘for his sake’ (σοὶ).556 Thus, despite Herakles’ striving, and in a direction that opposes his effort to re-establish a compromised order, Hyllos’ reluctance, repeatedly expressed in his interaction with his father and peaking in the final verse of the play (κοὐδὲν τούτων ὅ τι μὴ Ζεύς, 1278), is a marker of resistance against the paternal, patrilineal, androcentric, and patriarchal authority as expressed through Herakles, which, as has been suggested, should be excluded from the democratic polis. In agreeing to participate in the holocaust of Herakles and assume the role of the genitor of the illustrious dynasty of the Heracleidae, Hyllos will replace his father but will not simply duplicate him. He may agree to comply with Herakles’ authority, but this is a compromised and precarious agreement, in the name of a paternal authority that has already been challenged and at stake. Therefore, by renouncing the traits of his father that describe him as an inefficient political being, Hyllos has been shaped like a person who is distinct from a group, class, or even family. Then, as noted above, during his journey to adulthood, Hyllos has undergone a transformation and has been shaped as an independent individual, who has not renounced his identity as a son of his mother but nevertheless has been promoted to the status of a mature political adult. Paying respect to his mother and preserving her memory in this part of the play where she is physically absent, by acting as her advocate, he avoids the possibility of Deianeira being tried in absentia and ensures her symbolic presence in this final act of a play that could, in fact, have been named after her. Through the intensity of a love scene in which Hyllos unequivocally declares his love but also his refusal to break away from the name of his mother and by providing a worthy representative for the absent defendant, the play seems to refuse to violate the locus of the female in favour of a broken patriarchy. In view of these impasses, it becomes clear that the end of Trachiniae presents significant resistance to a denouement. As it has been so often noted throughout this thesis, the play has repeatedly disputed the gender order defined by male hegemonic schemes, thereby implying that the aristocratic patriarchal society as defined by the bestial masculinities presented in our drama is not an unchallengeable structure. In the course of the play, the ideals of the aristocratic patriarchal world have been recurrently identified with the world of the beasts and questioned. Following this impetus, the exodos of the play maintains the dynamics of negotiation of hegemonic masculinity gathered throughout the play and

556 σοὶ is a dative denoting the person or thing for whose benefit or to whose prejudice the action is performed (dative of advantage); see Smyth 1481-1486. Lloyd-Jones’ translation (1998) fails to include the meaning of σοὶ here.

228 persists in setting this world into question. Hyllos’ hesitation against Herakles’ authority and his response to his incomprehensible and abhorrent demands, illuminated by Herakles’ challenging presence and Deianeira’s absence, reiterates and amplifies this motif of resistance against patriarchal schemes, so that the dynamics of negotiation that has been constructed from the very beginning of the play continue to be maintained and even reinforced at the end of it. Therefore, Herakles’ attempt to tidy up the messy setting of the exodos is not a complete and straightforward success story. Hyllos’ agreement to his father’s commands may signal the end of the present crisis, yet the potential of a future crisis is not eliminated. There are still issues at stake and there still remain uncertainty and hesitation about the proposed ending of the play. And as such, the closure of Trachiniae is a disputed ending which is open to diverse interpretations.

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CONCLUSIONS

In these final pages I wish to reiterate and summarize my conclusions, which have already been set out in the individual chapters of this dissertation, in order to give a comprehensive view of the argumentative route I have followed and the evolution of my central thesis. As the title of this dissertation suggests, what has been put forward as a premise to be maintained and proved is Deianeira’s political locus within Trachiniae. My main aim has been to negotiate the way Trachiniae converses with the established gender order of hegemonic masculinity. Subsequently, I suggested that the play invests in a scheme of irregularity in terms of gender roles, calling attention to the deregulation of hegemonic masculinities as embodied in its non-political hyper-males. In the first chapter of this thesis, I have dealt with the question of Deianeira’s origin, to retrieve this mythical figure from the distant past and unravel the connotations that this character invoked within the Athenian imaginary. Although the available sources do not allow us to be confident, it seems that Trachiniae draws upon a tradition that departs from the version of an impulsive husband-slayer of an Amazonian origin. Despite being hazy and hard to be accurately retrieved, it seems plausible that the background of Deianeira’s dark prehistory introduces from the outset a paradoxical and unstable Amazonian symbol, which pre-exists in a space located outside the limits of the polis and the citizen body. This symbol confuses the concepts of similarity and difference, thus creating tension between masculinity and femininity. By offering an excessively gendered marker, and as such an unstable symbol of similarity and difference that can create gender confusion and tension between masculine and feminine poles, the Amazonian symbol does not only denote the blurring but can also indicate the collapsing of any gendered boundaries, and consequently the absolute absence of actual gender markers. Thus, it inserts in the main narrative an unstable subtext which functions as a disintegrating agent that is manipulated in such a way that it continuously deregulates the stability of Deianeira’s presence within the play and creates cracks within her speech. Following that, in the second chapter, I have discussed the remote and monstrous un- political setting that is defined by a number of disclaimers of marriage and by illicit sexualities, namely Herakles and his monstrous competitors (Acheloos, Nessos), and established that this world is opposed to societal sustainability. Thus, Trachiniae is a drama whose background is defined by Amazons and Centaurs, the traditional disclaimers of

231 marriage, kinship, familial association, and consequently conformity to social norms, while marital and sexual anxieties stand prominently in the foreground. It is a drama whose prehistory is burdened with the implications of a precarious and impulsive Amazonian symbol, while its present, the Sophoclean Trachis, is violated by a distant mythical world of monsters and illicit sexualities. Although Trachiniae deals with particularly untamed and irregular mythical material, it nevertheless succeeds in civilizing this material and placing an Amazon within the civilized arrangement of an oikos. What is striking is that, within a context of blurred gender identities, Trachiniae projects the sustainability of the oikos onto the female pole, while it exploits the male to project the oikos’ destruction. I also established that the destruction of familial order represented in the play is not a domestic or personal but a public political issue, insofar as societal cohesion depends on each oikos’ well-being. The play is, thus, reflecting on a collective political concern about the sustainability of the polis that can be ensured through the institution of marriage. On the basis of this suggestion, in the third chapter, through a discussion of the marital narratives of the drama, I followed the way this irregular material is civilized to be included within a structure that repeatedly refers to marriage, but is mainly committed to reversing this arrangement. I elaborated on the idea that in contrast to the remote mythical un-political setting that is defined by disclaimers of marriage and illicit sexualities and is placed away from the drama’s present in terms of time and space, the Sophoclean Trachis and Deianeira’s oikos are placed in the kernel of a refined community, with Deianeira embodying the extreme end of the defender of the oikos and marriage as a civilising procedure, and Herakles and his monstrous competitors (Acheloos, Nessos) representing the bearers of illicit sexualities and the disclaimers of marital –and accordingly societal– sustainability. With its Amazon dwelling in the political arrangement of an oikos and its monsters being exiled from the polis, the play negotiates the female and male loci and challenges the established gendered structures of patriarchy. In the fourth chapter, I dealt with reciprocal transactions in Trachiniae. These are particularly important for the play, as they form a network that parallels and is associated with the nuptial setting, which was discussed in the preceding chapter. I was particularly interested in Deianeira’s participation in the gift exchange, as this collaboration gave her an opportunity to proclaim herself a subject endowed with agency, an opportunity which seemed incompatible with her gender and, as such, was predisposed to fail. However, I have argued that this failure should not be seen as the result of a general ineptitude of the female subject; instead, it could be better explained as the inevitable consequence of a general crisis in the

232 network of reciprocities that is presented in the play. Thus, I established that in Trachiniae, as a general rule, the concept of reciprocity in the exchanges that take place within the complex network delineated by three interested parties (Herakles, Nessos and Deianeira) is corroded. However, in her transaction with Herakles, just like in the critical moment of her suicide that allocated her a male heroic death, I recognized Deianeira’s Amazonian origin, her pure sexuality and her genderless existence emerging, free from any legal, social, or political restrictions imposed by femininity. Until her hasty decision relegated her to the irrational dark world of magic and beasts and turned her into an agent of the Centaur, Deianeira had been located on the opposite side of the monsters, by representing an extremely devoted wife and a proficient member of the political body, fully aware of the official gender ideology of Classical Athens. But, in her participation in the gift exchange, Deianeira gradually renounces the femininity of the devoted wife who secures the safety of the oikos and coincidentally the well-being of the polis and appropriates male qualities. As the play progresses, she abandons the world of reason and the polis and moves to a non- political territory which lies beyond human cognition; this area coincides with the liminal realm of both the monsters and the Amazons. As a follow-up to Deianeira’s exchange with Herakles, I considered the play’s proposal as far as the consequences of this action are concerned and in relation to different systems of justice: through the way Hyllos as both her accuser and defender, Herakles as the directly offended victim, the girls of the chorus as representatives of a society in crisis and Deianeira as the offender, deal with this crime. I noticed that through the presentation of the way these characters perceive Deianiera’s offence, the play seems to comment on the effectiveness and the fragility of political institutions which award justice and to make a sophisticated public statement on a question which appears to have caused an intense debate in Sophocles’ time: private desire for revenge against justice which serves public interest. Despite the fact that this part of my discussion of the play, with Deianeira moving closer to the realm of the beasts and magic charms, was the part where my suggestion locating Deianeira within the polis was in a somewhat precarious position, this was also a part that allowed me to detect a different dynamic of the female, a political dynamic of negotiation of gendered loci, expressed by means of silence, namely in terms that disclaim the authority of phallocentric logos. Finally, in my last chapter, I examined the ending of the play within the frame of the patriarchal structures of ancient tragedy, and in particular in view of dramatic and patriarchal authority. Following my main argument that Trachiniae has invested in presenting a

233 disrupted gender order and an impaired patriarchal society, defined by bestial masculinities, sexual violence, and diseased reciprocities, I suggested that the exodos of the play maintains the dynamics of negotiation of hegemonic masculinity gathered throughout the play and persists in setting this world into question. Whereas in a first reading, this concluding part could be seen as a backing against the subsidence of gender boundaries, it does not succeed in restoring (neither does it seek to restore) the disturbed gender order. By dramatizing Herakles’ rite of passage to death and possibly immortality, the end of Trachiniae necessitates the settlement of a dramatic order, no matter how precarious this order may be, and sets up the closure of the play but nonetheless continues to invest in the scheme of gender irregularity within diseased hegemonic masculinity. Hyllos’ hesitation against Herakles’ authority, illuminated by his refusal to break away from the name of his mother, as well as Herakles’ challenging presence and Deianeira’s dynamic absence, reiterate and amplify this motif of resistance against patriarchal schemes. Thus, the play finally seems to refuse to violate the locus of the female in favour of broken masculinity.

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