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The Ajax Myth, the Trojan War, and the Construction of Civic Ideology in Fifth-Century Athens

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The Ajax Myth, the Trojan War, and the Construction of Civic Ideology in Fifth-Century Athens Ἕρκος Ἀθηναίων: The Ajax Myth, the Trojan War, and the Construction of Civic Ideology in Fifth-Century Athens Charles D. Carver A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 Reading Committee: Ruby Blondell, Chair Alexander Hollmann Olga Levaniouk Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Classics 1 © Copyright 2018 Charles D. Carver 2 University of Washington Abstract Ἕρκος Ἀθηναίων: The Ajax Myth, the Trojan War, and Civic Ideology in Fifth-Century Athens Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Ruby Blondell Department of Classics This project explores how fifth-century Athens attempted to appropriate the myth of Telamonian Ajax as a way to express its civic ideology and sociohistorical identity in the decades following the Second Persian Invasion. I argue that Athens used the Ajax myth in order to promote its political interests as Hellenic liberator to the larger Greek world. Because the Persian Wars were often treated as parallel with the Trojan War, Athens could propagandize its role in the Battle of Salamis by articulating the Ajax myth as an exemplum. The scope of the Ajax myth also provided Athens with a means to address its political anxieties, as it shifted during the fifth century from Greece’s dark-horse champion at the Battle of Salamis, to Delian League hegemon, and finally to imperial power. I first orient readers with the myth of Ajax in general, and the history of Athenian disputes with other poleis over his home island of Salamis. I then look at the Athenian artistic representation of “Ajax and Achilles playing a board game” and suggest reasons for its popularity. I turn next to Ajax in Homer, highlighting characteristics that Athens might find expedient for its projection of civic identity after the Persian Wars. This chapter also considers Ajax’s relationship with other figures, notably Achilles, Hector, and Odysseus, in order to provide a foundation for my project in toto. 3 I look next at literature in the decade after the Persian Wars, the era of “celebration culture” after Greek victory. I explore the new Simonides’ Plataea elegy and epigrams from the Athenian Agora to demonstrate that Greeks employed the Trojan War to parallel the Persian War. I then examine Aeschylus’ Persians and argue that he uses the Iliadic Ajax in order to epicize Athens’ role in the battle of Salamis. Finally, I address Sophocles’ Ajax as a vehicle to examine the shift in Athens’ identity from Greek defender in the Persian Invasions to imperial aggressor in the Peloponnesian War. I argue that the Ajax alludes to Aeschylus’ Persians as a way to integrate Athens’ identity as defender of Greece in the battle of Salamis with its imperialist identity at the time of Ajax’s production. Lastly, I argue that Ajax recalls his single combat and gift exchange with Hector from the Iliad (Aj.654-665 alluding to Il.7.161-312), as a way for Athens to problematize shifting civic values and to incorporate that problematization into its civic identity. 4 Dedication To my grandfather, who taught me to never give up, to my wife who carried me through this process, and to my two distracting little sons, Charlie and Henry, who were no help at all. 5 CONTENTS Acknoledgments………………………………………………………………………………..7 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….8 Chapter 1: The Homeric Ajax…………………………………………………………………23 Chapter 2: The Persian War as Trojan War: An Athenian Ajax in Aeschylus’ Persians……..73 Chapter 3: Sophocles’ Athenian Ajax………………………………………………………….121 Appendix 1: Simonides fr. 11W2 Plataea poem……………………………………………….170 Appendix 2: Eion Epigram III…………………………………………………………………173 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………174 6 Acknowledgements I would like to thank foremost Ruby Blondell for her steady guidance and insight in this process and for her canny ability to draw forth clarity from my often unshuffled thoughts. Alex Hollmann and Olga Levaniouk provided invaluable sugestions and often needed encouragement. To the Classics Department at the University of Washington, I would like to give my utmost thanks for the opportunity to spend many years studying and teaching what I love. I would finally like to thank my family, without whom none of this would have been possible, to my mother and father for their love and support from across the continent, but especially to Amanda, my wife, who spent the last five years married to a graduate student whose mind was more often than not lost somewhere in the fifth century BCE. This dissertation is a product of your patience and constant love. 7 Introduction: Athens and the Ajax Myth In the 470s BCE, after Athens led the Greek coalition that routed Xerxes’ fleet around Salamis, it began to associate its achievement with Ajax’s Panhellenic fame as the bulwark of the Achaeans in the Iliad. It is little wonder. Homeric tradition depicts Ajax as the quintessential Greek hero of defensive warfare. Entering battle, he wields the massive Mycenaean body-shield, the implement of a bygone era, carrying it “like a tower,” in defense of his Greek comrades. The shield indicates Ajax’s heroic personality, intractable to change, and is an extension of his warrior prowess –it is the tangible representation of Ajax’s essence. When Achilles abstains from battle, the Greek army looks to Ajax, Achilles’ understudy and the second best warrior. Ajax provides military cohesion, and leads the defense against Hector’s assaults, securing the Achaean wall, and warding fire away from the Greek ships. Like Ajax defending the Greek army atop the ships at Troy, Athens looked to its ships at Salamis for the protection of Greece, and soon styled itself, the defender of Greek liberty –the “bulwark of Hellas” (Pi. fr.76). However, where the Iliad distinguishes Ajax for his unrelenting defensive prowess, the larger tradition marks him for his humiliation –losing the judgment of the arms, his madness, the attack on the Greek livestock, and for his subsequent suicide.1 The contrast between the Iliadic Ajax and his depiction in the Epic Cycle reveals the stark disparity separating the gloried Achaean defender and the frenzied and humiliated warrior. This Ajax, Athens would also look to in mid-century, when Sophocles depicted his myth in the troubled years leading up to the Peloponnesian War. Previously unattested, Ajax’s attempt to murder Greek comrades is more 1 These events are related in the Aethiopis and the Little Iliad of the Epic cycle, of which only fragments and Proclus’ summary survives. 8 than likely a Sophoclean innovation, and one of particular relevance for the years marked by Athens’ increasing tendency to punish disinterested allied poleis. This project examines how Classical Athens interpreted the myth of Ajax through the poetic texts of Homer, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, in order to address its evolving civic identity. I argue that Athens constructs and criticizes its civic ideology by articulating Ajax as a model for the Athenian state, one that facilitated self-interpretation as its civic identity shifted from dark- horse champion of Greece, when it led the Greek defense at the battle of Salamis (480BCE), to hegemon of the Delian League and finally to Athenian Empire. In this way, Athens employed Ajax as an analogue for its national character—that is, Athens continually tailored Ajax from the Homeric tradition to fit an “Athens as Ajax” identity. Examining culture through the prism of its mythological heroes has often preoccupied scholars. Seminal works such as W.B. Stanford’s Ulysses Theme analyzes how ancient Greeks and later cultures adapted Odysseus’ diverse characterizations to articulate social and political narratives. Stanford understands the Homeric Odysseus as a complex character which serves to buttress the many later diverse interpretations of his figure. In a similar vein, I understand Ajax as an “adaptable” hero, who serves the cultural needs of Athens for its own ideological articulation. Many scholars have written about the political implications of Ajax’s myth, often concentrating on Sophocles’ play, such as Bernard Knox’s “The Ajax of Sophocles,” R.P. Winnington-Ingram’s “Sophocles: An Interpretation”, or Peter Rose’s “Historicizing Sophocles’ Ajax” which offers a detailed Marxist interpretation, centered on conflict between the demos and aristocratic elites in fifth-century Athens. Among these, David Bradshaw’s essay, “Ajax and the Myth of the Polis”, stands out for its insight into the myth of Ajax and its applicability for the Athenian city-state. But Bradshaw’s study, while illuminating, does not comprehensively discuss 9 the Ajax myth for the time-period I intend to treat. Bradshaw does not fully incorporate the texts of Homer, Aeschylus, and Sophocles, nor does he examine how Athens utilized the epic past in service to its burgeoning sense of historical awareness and as a vehicle for its socio-historical identity. Moreover, scholars have only recently investigated the extent to which the epic past has shaped fifth-century Athenian history, identity, and ideology.2 Certainly, Homer and the tradition of the Trojan War were integral to the development of a Panhellenic consciousness and allowed city-states to promote individual interests and identities originating in the Panhellenic praise of local heroes.3 Moreover, following the most recent conflict involving allied Greeks fighting an eastern enemy, the tradition of the Trojan War supplied a convenient framework for an interpretation of the Persian Wars.4 Furthermore, as leader of the Greek defense at the Battle of Salamis, Athens capitalized on the battle’s location near the island home of Ajax and promoted this association in the articulation of their national character. This study focuses on non-historiographical texts in an effort to glean an organic understanding of how Athens developed a sense of historical identity at a time when historical fact, mythology, and political issues were not yet disentangled from poetic expression.
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