Twins on Two Stages: The Dioscuri in the Performances of Sparta and Athens Katharine Gavitt Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Prerequisite for Honors in Classical Studies under the advisement of Professor Kate Gilhuly May 2021 © 2021 Katharine Gavitt Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..3 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..4 Chapter 1…………………………………………………………………………………………..8 The Dioscuri and Twins in Sparta Chapter 2…………………………………………………………………………………………30 Spartan Twins in Athenian Comedy Chapter 3…………………………………………………………………………………………49 The Dioscuri in Euripides Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….70 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..72 2 Acknowledgements Like a theater performance, this thesis came from the incredible community that surrounds me. I’m grateful to my many professors, mentors, and friends who have supported me throughout my time at Wellesley and made me into who I am today. Thank you to my advisor, Kate Gilhuly, the one person who was more excited about what I was writing than I was. I never would have imagined I would have been translating Alcman or even mentioning Sparta when I first came up with the idea for this thesis, but she saw the potential for where this project could go from the first day. Her comments were invaluable and I’m grateful for all the guidance she provided every step of the way. I would also like to thank the other members of my thesis committee: Bryan Burns, for allowing me to derail discussions in GRK 307 with my thoughts about the Dioscuri and Sparta and still offering to read more of them, and Helena de Bres, for being willing to join me on this project and learn about my highly specific opinions on twins. I only had the confidence to take on this thesis because of the many other classics professors I’ve had over the years, who have changed the way I approach the ancient world: my major advisor Ray Starr, who answered every question over the years and helped me grow from my first day at Wellesley; Jessica Wise, who reminded me why I love Latin; Carol Dougherty, who challenged me to face even the hardest Greek head-on; and Jeff Ulrich, who was the first to tell me I would someday write a great thesis. I am so fortunate to have had the chance to learn from every one of them. I’m also grateful to the committee of the Jerome A. Schiff Fellowship for accepting my research and funding my work. I never would have ended up studying classics at Wellesley without Melissa Dowling, who has guided me on my journey from childhood Greek camp, to high school Latin, to college applications, to this thesis. Thank you for being my Wellesley away from Wellesley this fall and shaping me into a proud classicist. Thank you to my family for all their love and support during the difficult year. To my parents, who instilled in me a love of theater from such a young age, I never would have come to this topic without you. To my younger siblings, Audrey and James, I’m glad you finally know at least a little about what I study, and I hope you can understand parts of this. I’m lucky to have been surrounded by so many wonderful friends, who have given me much needed food and hugs and distractions this year. Thank you especially to Emily Martin for reading everything as I wrote it and helping me turn it from Greek into comprehensible English. I hope we have time for even more group solitaire now that we’ve made it through. Finally, I owe the inspiration of this thesis to my own twin sister, Miranda. I’m glad we’ve turned out less like a Romulus/Remus and more like a Castor/Polydeuces (although I’m clearly the Polydeuces). You’ve been by my side for every moment, from birth to struggling through our theses together, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 3 Introduction There is something about twins that captures the imagination. From real-life biographies of conjoined twins sharing a body to Shakespearean tales of mistaken identity, stories about twins draw us in. They allow us to examine themes of both similarities and differences, siblings who have so much in common while maintaining individual identities. Juliana de Nooy argues that twins’ lasting popularity in literature is due not to a singular meaning, but because they can be used to represent just about anything: Pressed into the service of the imagination, twins can be used to signify not only the unconscious, the divided self, narcissistic love, death, and fear of sexuality, but also the nation, the couple, fertility, eroticism, chance, life choices, uncertain paternity, writing, reality versus image, monstrosity, race relations, sexual differences, indeed any kind of difference, any figure of the Other (another ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality), and any duality, and to explore nature/nurture debates in any field.1 Twins in literature are not identical to one another. Rather, they are specific to an author’s work and what theme they want to explore. What they mean is not defined simply by their identity as twins, but by what they mean to their community. The Ancient Greeks are no exception. Greek mythology and literature are full of twins, and no two pairs are alike. Artemis and Apollo are both gods, each with their own divine domains but shared stories. Heracles and Iphicles, on the other hand, have little in common beyond their mother, and Iphicles is often invoked in comparison to his divine brother. The Dioscuri are a sort of middle ground between Apollo and Artemis and Heracles and Iphicles. Like Heracles and Iphicles, they are born of different fathers, one Zeus and the other Tyndareus, making one of them divine and the other mortal. Yet like Apollo and Artemis, they both become gods and are worshipped together. Castor and Polydeuces’ myth in its many versions throughout 1 de Nooy 2005, 4. 4 different times and people in the classical world can be associated with themes of brotherhood, comradery, mortality and death, and immortality and rebirth. This thesis examines themes of duality in Sparta and Athens literature through the Dioscuri. Through their invocations and depictions of Castor and Polydeuces, Spartan and Athenian authors define their writings and communities in comparison with one another. Because I am studying what the Dioscuri mean to these states as a whole, my literary analysis is centered around performances, choral poetry in Sparta and comedy and tragedy in Athens. These types of public displays were not the work of a single poet or historian writing alone, but an effort made by a larger group to share a message together. Between the roles of the poet, the performers, and the audience, the work is not only for but by the community it represents. Although I draw on historians and other authors for context, it is through choral poetry and theater that Sparta and Athens project their self-image out into the world, so it is through these performances that their communal understanding of duality is shown. I begin with a study of the myth of the Dioscuri and what it means to Sparta. Focusing on Pindar’s Nemean 10, I show how the story of the Dioscuri balances the twins’ individual identities with their shared divinity. The inequality between Castor and Polydeuces from their birth is equalized in their death and deification, giving them a unique position among mortals and gods. Although this myth was clearly well-known and the Dioscuri were worshipped across Greece, the story is centered geographically in Sparta, the place of their birth. Using Pausanias’s writings on the geography of Greece, I argue that these themes of both individuality and shared identity are essential to how Spartans worshipped the Dioscuri. Through their temples and festivals, the Spartans form a strong and unique connection to the Dioscuri in their divine duality. This duality is tied to Sparta’s government in its diarchy, the rule by two kings. In the 5 foundation of its state, Sparta’s dual kings are like the Dioscuri, a pair made equal to one another and therefore elevated above other individuals. The connection of Sparta and its rulers with duality is reaffirmed by its choral poetry, as I show in my analysis of Alcman’s Partheneion. Alcman’s language celebrates duality and its role in leading and outshining the community. The Partheneion is especially useful for this thesis, as all Athenian plays discussed in later chapters reference it. Studying Alcman and his receptions in Athenian works offers a rare and unique perspective in the study of Sparta because it allows for both an insider and outsider view of the culture. Spartan scholarship often runs into the problem of the “Spartan mirage,” a vision of Sparta invented by Athenians and other foreign writers who frequently made Sparta into the strange other to their own society.2 Analyzing Alcman and comparing his work with how Athenian playwrights interpret it can help to reconstruct a more authentic Sparta against its reputation abroad. Alcman’s work is essential not only to Sparta’s understanding of itself, but how it presents itself to others and how others understand it. While other scholars have studied Alcman and allusions to the Partheneion in Athenian dramas, this thesis will show that these performances aided in the construction of identity between the two states, especially through the communities’ relationships with duality. The Partheneion provides the model of Spartan duality that Athens interprets. My second chapter turns to Athens and how Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata engages with Sparta through duality. Written as the Athenians were meeting the Spartans on the battlefield in the Peloponnesian War, this play allows the Athenians as a community to confront Spartan ideas of duality on their own stage through the comparison of Athenian and Spartan characters.