Antisthenes' Odysseus
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Antisthenes’ Odysseus: its Context in Ancient Literature and Culture A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classics at the University of Canterbury by Andrew James Wong Classics Department University of Canterbury 2017 i Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 1 Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 2 Abbreviations ......................................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 5 Scope and Methodology .................................................................................................... 7 Literature Review .............................................................................................................. 10 1. Antisthenes’ Ajax and Odysseus and Their Context ............................................ 18 Antisthenes’ Ajax and Odysseus .................................................................................... 19 Antisthenes and Versatility in Rhetoric: Testimonia t.187 .......................................... 26 Odysseus in Alcidamas and Gorgias ............................................................................. 32 2. Λόγοι and ἔργα in Antisthenes and Thucydides: Odysseus as an Athenian Prototype. ............................................................................................................................... 47 Pericles’ Epitaphios: λόγοι and ἔργα............................................................................. 56 Intelligence and Deliberation in the Mytilene Debate ................................................. 68 Thucydides’ Character Judgements: Themistocles, Hermocrates, and Brasidas. ... 78 3. Themistocles: An Herodotean Odysseus? ............................................................... 96 Themistocles in Herodotus: The Salvation of Hellas ................................................. 100 Themistocles at Salamis: Strategy, Persuasion and Cunning ................................... 119 The Sicinnus Trick ........................................................................................................... 129 Themistocles and Self Interest: Euboea and Andros ................................................. 136 Themistocles and Antisthenes’ Ajax and Odysseus .................................................. 143 4. Odysseus in Drama 1................................................................................................. 156 Hostility to the Character of Odysseus ........................................................................ 158 Depictions of the Hoplôn Krisis: Fragmentary Aeschylus ....................................... 171 Pitying the Enemy: Odysseus in Sophocles’ Ajax ...................................................... 178 Working for the Greater Good: Odysseus and Philoctetes ....................................... 190 5. Odysseus in Drama 2................................................................................................. 208 ii Euripides’ Hecuba: Friendship and Funeral Oration ................................................ 210 Euripides’ Cyclops: Protecting φίλοι and Taking Revenge...................................... 229 Odysseus and φιλία in Cyclops .................................................................................... 245 Conclusion to Odysseus in Drama ............................................................................... 251 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 253 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 258 iii Acknowledgements It is a pleasure to thank those people who have helped me throughout the completion of this dissertation. Any errors and omissions which remain are solely my responsibility. I would like to express my gratitude to the staff of Department of Classics at the University of Canterbury, whose teaching over the years was an inspiration for me to continue as a graduate student in the field of Classics. I would also like to thank the University of Canterbury for providing me with the financial support of a Doctoral Scholarship. I am very grateful to Prof. Chris Pelling for the time he spent with me at Christ Church; our conversations and his comments on my work were extremely helpful. I would like to thank the Wakefield Scholarship Committee and Wakefield Charitable Trust for their generous award of the Edward Gibbon Wakefield Doctoral Scholarship, and I am grateful to Christ Church, Oxford, for its hospitality. I would also like to thank the Christ Church Association for their contribution to the scholarship. I am forever grateful to Prof. Graham Zanker, who has been a constant source of help and advice throughout my years as a student of Classics. I am also very appreciative for his input in my candidacy for the Wakefield Scholarship, and for introducing me to Prof. Pelling. Finally, I would especially like to thank Dr. Parick O’Sullivan for his guidance and knowledge in supervising this thesis. His patience and support has been immense, and it is thanks to him that this thesis was possible. 1 Abstract Antisthenes’ Ajax and Odysseus speeches present the conflict between the Homeric heroes as they compete for the arms of Achilles. The use of mythic characters enables Antisthenes to demonstrate the opposing natures of the two contestants in speeches which are examples of forensic oratory. While each hero’s arguments are closely matched to the Homeric figures on which they are based, Odysseus, as the versatile hero, is shown as more closely aligned to the intellectual concepts of the fifth- and fourth-centuries. The ethical ideas raised bring the characterization of Odysseus into a contemporary intellectual context, and the attributes of his character in Antisthenes can be matched to other examples of forensic oratory. However, these speeches are of significance to the characterization of Odysseus beyond forensic oratory – they can be used as a framework from which to re-evaluate Athenian attitudes towards the figure of Odysseus, and his presentation in fifth- and fourth-century literature more generally. In terms of characterisation, the speeches help to highlight parallels between Odysseus and the idealised Athenians in Thucydides – specifically from Pericles’ Epitaphios. Further to this, I argue that Antisthenes’ speeches help to identify themes in the characterisation of the Athenian hero Themistocles which are comparable to Odysseus. These examples show how a hero who represents intelligence and cunning was seen favourably, at least to a strand of Athenian intellectual discourse. In Odysseus’ characterization in drama, there is a continuation of the themes which are found in Antisthenes and elsewhere in classical literature. A better understanding of the reception of the hero of intelligence in the context of fifth- and fourth-century literature allows for a reassessment of Odysseus in drama, where the villainy of his character has been overstated by modern commentators. 2 3 Abbreviations ARV T. Carpenter, T. Mannack, and M. Mendonça, Beazley Addenda, 2nd ed. Oxford, 1989. DC D. Caizzi, Antisthenis Fragmenta. Milan, 1966. DK H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds.), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 6th ed., 3 vols. Berlin, 1952. FrGH F. Jacoby (ed.) Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin, 1923-58. LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. 9 vols. Zürich, 1981-1999. LP E. Lobel and D. L. Page (eds.), Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta. Oxford, 1963. LSJ H. G. Liddell and R. Scott (eds.), Greek-English Lexicon, rev. H. S. Jones, 9th ed. Oxford, 1968. SSR G. Giannantoni (ed.), Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae, 4 vols. Naples, 1983–90. TrGF R. Kannicht, S. Radt, and B. Snell (eds.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 5 vols. Göttingen, 1971–2004. 4 Introduction There has been somewhat of a rising interest in the works of Antisthenes in the past two decades. Winckelmann produced the first collection of fragments and testimonia in 1842, but for a period during the twentieth century there were few major contributions to the scholarship. A Commentary from Caizzi (1966) and an expanded volume from Giannantoni (1990) filled some of this gap, but for the most part, Antisthenes received surprisingly little attention considering his importance as a student of both Socrates and Gorgias, and as an inspiration for Diogenes.1 Popper went as far as speculatively commenting, in The Open Society and its Enemies, that if the works of Antisthenes had survived rather than Plato, it would have changed the course of western philosophy.2 This relative lack of interest in Antisthenes’ surviving work was partially explained by the fact that so little survives except as testimonia. The Ajax and Odysseus speeches, which are a central part of this thesis, are in fact the only complete surviving works. They present the arguments of the two Homeric heroes in their bid to win the arms of Achilles, spoken in the first person and addressed to a jury of judges. The use of Homeric or mythical characters was reasonably