1 Theognis Revisited

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Theognis Revisited: A Historic, Thematic and Literary Reading of the Theognidean Corpus

Odiseas Espanol Androutsopoulos Department of History and Classical Studies McGill Univeristy, Montreal December 2016

A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Classics (Thesis Option)

Table of Contents

Table of Contents 2 Abstract 5 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 7 Part I: The Muddled History of Theognis 9 1. Our sources on Theognis 9 1.1.Classical and post-Classical antiquity 9 Sources from Classical antiquity 9 Sources from post-Classical antiquity 10 Information in the ancient sources 11 1.2.The Middle Ages 11 Theognis’ fame in the Middle Ages 11 Information in the Suda and the chronicles 12 2. The manuscript tradition 13 3. The historical issues surrounding the Theognidean corpus 14 3.1.Theognis as a compilation 14 Theognidean analysts and unitarians 14 The content and structure of the Theognidean corpus 15 Further indicators of a compilation 17 3.2.The dating of the Theognidean corpus 19 Views on and problems with dating Theognis 19 Indicators of an early date 20 The problem of the “Persian War” verses 22 3.3.Theognis’ Megara 23 The ancient debate on Theognis’ origins: which Megara? 23 Specific references to mainland Megara in the corpus 24 History of Nisaean Megara 25 Theognidean biographies: mapping Theognis onto Megarian history 26 Solving the debate and making sense of the Sicilian evidence: Figueira’s Pan-Megarian Theognis 27 Using the Pan-Megarian Theognis to help solve the dating problem 29 3.4.The compilation and inception of Theognis: a corpus of oral poetry 30 A series of compilations: the “analyst” view 30 A unified Theognis 31 A unified Theognis as a tradition of oral poetry 33 4. A “real” Theognis? 37 5. Conclusion to Part I 39 Part II: A Literary and Thematic Reading of the Corpus 40 1. Themes in Theognis 40 1.1.The Theognidean narrative of decay 40 2

Decay in the Theognidean corpus 41 Theognis as a “conservative”: similarities and differences in Theognidean and Hesiodic narratives of decline 42 1.2.Urban Theognis 46 Theognis and the polis 47 City and country 49 1.3.International aristocratic and local Megarian identity 50 Theognis the Megarian Panhellenic aristocrat 50 Panhellenism and the universal fame of Theognidean poetry 54 2. Theognis’ aristocracy 55 2.1.Theognis the mouthpiece of aristocracy 56 Aristocratic readings of Theognis 56 Theognis’ aristocratic activities and political discourse 57 Problems with the traditional view of Theognis as an aristocrat 61 2.2.Defining the aristocrat: the terms agathos and esthlos in the Theognidea 62 The pairs agathos/kakos and esthlos/deilos 62 Intertwined moral and political connotations 63 Implications of the ambiguity in the central terms 65 2.3.Cobb-Stevens’ hierarchy of values 67 2.4.Ploutos in the Theognidea: necessary but not sufficient 68 Theognis’ peniē and the social consequences of poverty 68 Improper distribution of wealth as a social problem 70 2.5.Genos, dikē, and the paedagogical mission of the poetry 72 Nature vs. nurture: the role of genos in imparting dikē 72 Reduced importance of genos and dikē as the defining trait of the agathos 73 Implications of Theognis’ definition of aristocracy: a biographical concern? 74 2.6.Dikē, the morality of the philoi 76 Philia as the main topic of Theognidean moralizing 76 Philia as connected to the agathos 80 Philia as informing a universal moral code of dikē 82 2.7.A broader perspective on Theognidean thought 83 The moral system of philia as inherently aristocratic 83 A proto-philosophical sublimation of traditional aristocratic thought 85 3. The Theognidean symposium and the initiatory aspect of Theognidean poetry 86 3.1.The Theognidean symposium 86 The importance of the Theognidean symposium 87 The symposium as a microcosm of the aristocratic world 87 The symposium as a place for educating the agathoi 90 3.2.The Youth of the Poetic Voice 93 Theognis as a young poet 93 The implications of the poetic voice’s age 97 4. Cyrnus 97 3

4.1.Cyrnus as a textual element and a poetic character 98 4.2.Cyrnus and the pais in Book II 99 4.3.The conceptualization of the Cyrnus/Theognis relationship in the poetry 102 The Theognis/Cyrnus relationship as mainly paedagogical 102 The “romantic” aspect of the Theognis/Cyrnus relationship 103 4.4.The paedagogical and initiatory aspect of the Theognis/Cyrnus relationship 105 Theognis and Cyrnus as a single unit 105 Theognis as a model for Cyrnus 107 Cyrnus’ membership in the group of philoi through his relationship to Theognis 108 Cyrnus as a son and the ultimate subordination of genos to philia 110 Conclusion 112 Bibliography 115

Abstract

A unified reading of the ancient Greek text attributed to Theognis of Megara as an oral corpus of symposiastic, didactic aristocratic poetry within the wider political & historic context of early archaic Megara & its colonies.

Une lecture unifiée du texte Grec traditionellement attribué a Théognis de Mégare comme un corpus oral de poésie aristocratique, didactique et symposiaque dans le cadre historique et politique de la cité-état de Mégare et ses colonies dans l’Âge Archaique Grec.

Acknowledgements

I would like to effusively thank my thesis supervisor Prof. Lynn Kozak for her invaluable knowledge and expertise, tireless revision and correction work on the present thesis, and general support and guidance throughout my graduate studies, both in and out of class; Profs. Michael Fronda and

Martin Sirois for their wealth of knowledge and guidance in formative classes without which I would be in no state to produce the present work; Prof. Hans Beck for the opportunity to gain all manner of insights into archaic Megara during the 2016 Megarian Moments workshop, and the chance to present a segment of the present work during the 2015-2016 oberseminar series and receive valuable feedback, not the least his own; likewise the speakers and respondents at these events; Prof. William Gladhill and the Department of History and Classical studies in general, faculty and fellow students, for an intellec- tually enriching and formative academic experience; Ms. Mitali Das for helping me navigate the ad- ministrative side of this undertaking; the Classical Studies Committee for their generous support through the Paul F. McCullagh fellowship.

I likewise wish to thank Mrs. Antonia Androutsopoulou and Prof. Manuel Español Echevarría for editorial work and endless support of every kind; Miss Delia Androutsopoulou for being there; Mrs.

Euphrosyne Androutsopoulou for being wherever she was needed; and Messrs. Bruce, Sam and Jasper for being themselves.

ἐσθλῶν ἄπ᾽ ἐσθλὰ ἔμαθον.

All remaining errors are my own.

Introduction

Out of the entirety of archaic Greek poetry, three major corpora have come down to us in the manuscript tradition. The first two, the texts attributed to Homer and Hesiod, are traditionally assigned to the epic genre. The third is the body of verses attributed to the lyric poet Theognis of Megara.1 The

Theognidean corpus is very important for the study of archaic poetry in general, and for the study of archaic lyric poetry in particular. The only archaic lyric poet to have survived to our day in the manuscript tradition,2 Theognis’ verses account for a huge proportion of extant archaic lyric poetry, and over half of extant pre-Alexandrian elegy.3 They thus provide a simultaneously normative (by their size) and anomalous (by the singularity of their preservation) model for these very significant genres.

Their study is consequently significant for our broader understanding of lyric poetry. However, despite the size of the corpus and its poetic significance, as we shall see both in antiquity and in modern studies

Theognis and his work have remained shrouded in mystery. Unanswered questions linger regarding both every aspect of the poetry and the figure of the author himself.

The present work is a historic, thematic and literary study of the poetry of Theognis, or, more accurately, of the approximately 1350 verses (known as the Theognidea) that have come down to us under that name. It is grounded in a multi-faceted analysis of the Theognidean corpus, informed by our historical knowledge of the poetry. In the first section, I will attempt to address the traditional problems of Theognidean scholarship, such as the dating of the poetry, its place of origin, its compilation, and the potential of Theognis as a historical figure. I believe these issues are best addressed by reference to the theory of oral composition of the poetry. Based on this information, subsequent sections will undertake a broader philological, historic and thematic analysis of the Theognidean corpus, first looking at some

1Nonetheless, Theognis’ similarities to the Hesiodic Works and Days, for example, suggest a greater interconnectedness between the corpora than is first apparent from this broad classification. 2B.M. Knox, “Elegy and Iambus”, in J.P. Barron, P.E. Easterling, B.M. W. Knox (ed.) Cambridge History of Classical Literature, London, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 118-164 (Theognis: pp. 136-146), p.136. For a complete overview of the Theognidean manuscript tradition, see D.C. Young, “A Codicological Inventory of Theognis Manuscripts” in Scriptorium v.7.1, 1953, pp. 3-36. Manuscript A is the oldest manuscript, and the only one containing Book II. 3L.E. Woodbury, “The Riddle of Theognis: the Latest Answer” in Phoenix, v5, n1 (Spring, 1951), pp. 3-10, p.1. 7

general topics before proceeding to its central theme, which I believe to be aristocratic identity and the ideological creation of a community of aristocratic philoi based on a common moral code; a code expressed didactically by poetry itself. Lastly, I will look at the symposiastic context of the poetry, and at the figure of Cyrnus, its addressee, and his relationship to the poet, as the context for the transmission of this moral code. Overall, I believe such a study can shed new light on many of the topics addressed in Theognidean poetry and on many of the old debates of Theognidean scholarship. It can also draw attention to some of the most poetic and insightful qualities of this too often overlooked body of work. And, ultimately, it can offer a new, enriched and unified reading of the corpus.

Part I: The Muddled History of Theognis

Regarding the history of the Theognidean corpus, the debate on issues like its dating and origin has been going on since the inception of Theognidean scholarship; indeed, since antiquity itself. As

David Campbell says, the field of Theognidean studies is “battle-scarred (…) strewn with theories dead and dying”.4 And while I do not purport to provide a final and definitive answer to these age-old questions, it is important to go over them before proceeding to the thematic analysis in order to ascertain what we can know about the 1350-line body of text that has come to us under the name of

“Theognis”. I will begin this discussion by looking at our ancient and medieval sources on Theognis, and then at the history of the manuscript itself. I will then address the questions of dating and origin, before continuing to a theory of the Theognidean corpus as a compilation of oral poetry, which I believe best accounts for its origin and the peculiarities of the text. Finally, I will conclude on a consideration of the possibility of a historical poet named Theognis.

1. Our sources on Theognis

1.1. Classical and post-Classical antiquity

Sources from Classical antiquity

There is a suprising contrast in our ancient sources on Theognis. On the one hand, references to him abound. On the other, they provide next to no biographical information. Beginning in the Classical

Era, we know that Theognis was very well-known and appreciated in Athens, Megara’s next-door neighbor, and also the conduit for the preservation of much if not all Classical and pre-Classical Greek literature: our oldest reference to Theognis comes from Plato, who quotes Theognis in several of his dialogues (Laws, Book I, 630a, Meno, 95c, and Lysis, 212e). Aristotle also quotes Theognis several times, by name in the Nichomachean Ethics, 1179b4, and without giving his name, but quoting verses which are preserved in our Theognidean text, in the Nichomachean Ethics 1129b, and the Euthydemian

4D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric Poetry, Bristol, Bristol Classical Press, 1982, p.347. 9

Ethics, 1214a1. Isocrates cites Theognis as one of the great writers of gnomai along with Phocylides and Hesiod (Isocrates, To Nicocles, 43) specifically to be read for edification. Xenophon is said to have written a treatise on Theognis, quoted by Stobaeus (Stobaeus, Florilegium, 88.14), and likewise, if we are to believe Diogenes Laertius, Antisthenes would have written not one but two books on the poet

(Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, 6.15). Even if these purported treatises are not authentic, they denote an impressive level of interest in Theognis.

Theognis seems to have been particularly well-liked by the aristocratic party in Athens: all the authors who quote Theognis in the Classical Era seem to have been Athenians with more or less aristocratic sympathies. T.J. Figueira’s analysis even posits a closer link, in the Classical Era, between the Theognidean corpus and the Athenian aristocratic party than between Theognis and Megara, pointing to the aristocratic ideology of the corpus, and to the aristocratic bent of elegiac poetry in general,5 as well as to the lack of references to Theognis in Megarian sources:6 for Figueira, it would have been mainly Athenian aristocrats that were responsible for the preservation of the Theognidean corpus in its current form during the Classical era.

Sources from post-Classical antiquity

Moving on to post-Classical antiquity, Theognis is extensively cited by both pagan and

Christian sources: Among others, Dio Chrysostom7 and Plutarch8 refer to Theognis and quote him.9

The list continues into the Christian Era, with figures like Clement of Alexandria10 and Basil,11 and

5T.J. Figueira, “The Theognidea and Megarian Society”, in T.J. Figueira, G. Nagy (ed.) Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, Baltimore and London, John Hopkins University Press, 1985, pp.112-158, pp. 128-143. 6Figueira, pp.112-124. 7Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 2.18. 8Plutarch, How the Young Should Listen to Poetry, 2 and 4. 9By name: Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 14.632d, and Stobaeus and Diogenes Laertius in discussing works about him. Plutarch, Moralia, 98, 777, 916, 978, 1040, 1069, twice quoting two verses from our compilation. Demetrius of Phalerum, On Style, 35. Gellius, Attic Nights, Book I, 3, quoting a lost work by Lucilius, in which the poet is used as proverbial for antiquity (“Hoc nemo ignoravit et priusquam Theognis”, “this was not unknown to anybody even before Theognis”. This expression is also found in Plutarch, Moralia, 777, in Greek). Quoting verses in our collection: Pherecrates, fragment 161, in direct parody. Dioegenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 10 (Epicurus), 1.26, Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 8.364b, Lucian, Timon, 26. There is also a lemma on him in Harpocration. 10Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 6.2.8. 11Basil, To Young Men, 9-10, 19 quoting several verses from our Theognidean corpus, but attributing one of them to Solon. 10

goes all the way down to Ammianus Marcellinus and Emperor Julian at the very end of antiquity, the latter of whom reprises the list of wise Greek writers of gnomai from Isocrates in order to contrast them to the bibilical Solomon.12 Thus, throughout antiquity, we see Theognis respected as a didactic poet. It also seems that Theognis eventually became proverbial for being old, as evidenced by quotations in

Plutarch,13 repeated by Gellius.14

Information in the ancient sources

Nonetheless, despite this extensive quotation by ancient authors, which, along with Theognis’ unique survivial in the manuscript tradition, denotes a poet of great importance, very little biographical information on Theognis survives. The late antique view of him as proverbially ancient is telling: proverbial antiquity implies wisdom, but also obscurity.

Out of our Classical sources, only the oldest, Plato, gives us a bit of biographical information, stating, in the Meno, that Theognis is from Hyblaean Megara, in Sicily. And even this was contested from ancient times: the scholiast on the passage immediately chimes in to inform us that this was a subject of controversy “tois palaiois”, “among the ancients”, even in his time. He then mentions what is presumably a number of authorities (“oi men”), and specifically quotes Didymus, as attacking Plato and giving Theognis’ birthplace as the Nisaean (mainland Greek) Megara. Likewise, Harpocration (s.v.

“Theognis”) also gives the poet’s birthplace as Nisaean Megara. Thus, the one bit of ancient information we have on Theognis is contested. To the ancients, Theognis seems to have been little more than a block of verses with a name attached to them! In order to get more information on Theognis, we must continue to our medieval sources, even if these are scarcely more enlightening.

1.2. The Middle Ages

Theognis’ fame in the Middle Ages

Regarding an overall view of medieval readers on Theognis, no extensive study of the use of

12Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae, 29.1.21. Julian, Misopogon, 349, D; Against the Gallileans, 224C. 13Plutarch, Moralia, 777. 14Gellius, Attic Nights, Book I, 3, quoting a lost work by Lucilius. 11

Theognis in medieval texts has to my knowledge been carried out. Thus, any appraisal of his significance in the Middle Ages must necessarily be conservative. Overall, the presence of dates and locations for Theognis in several chronicles and lexica15 along with the preservation of the text itself shows that he must have been fairly well known as an ancient author. Perhaps especially indicative is his presence in the lemma for “Megara” in Stephanus Byzantinus’ geographical dictionary, indicating that he was one of the city’s claims to fame. On the other hand, the relatively brief nature of the references to him (mostly the aforementioned dates and locations), as well as the Byzantine origin of most of them, suggests that Theognis’ medieval fame might simply have been a remnant of his ancient fame, while the actual text might not have been very widely circulated.

Information in the Suda and the chronicles

The most extensive of the medieval sources (and, indeed, of any sources on Theognis) is the poet’s entry in the 10th century Byzantine Suda lexicon (s.v. “Theognis”). Nonetheless, even it is tellingly opaque. Aside from a summary of the verses—which it cites as 2800, over double the currently preserved amount—it only gives Theognis a location, Sicilian Megara, which it seems to have gotten from Plato—and which is also contested in another medieval source—16and a date, our only new bit of information.

The Suda’s floruit for Theognis is in 544 BC, the 59th Olympiad. This is in line with several chronographers, who make up the rest of our medieval sources. Eusebius, Jerome, Cyril and the

Chronicum Paschale all mention Theognis living around the mid-6th century BC. However, as this date does not show up in ancient sources, we have no way of knowing where they got it from; nonetheless, as noted by M.L. West,17 the relative consistency suggests a common, and thus possibly a reliable tradition.

15 He is spoken of in Stephanus Byzantinus, Eusebius, Jerome, Cyril and the Chronicum Paschale (M.L. West, Studies in Greek Elegy and Iambus, New York, Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1974, pp.65-71, p.65). 16Stephanus Byzantinus in his lexicon (s.v. “Megara”) places Theognis in Nisaean Megara. 17West, p.65. 12

2. The manuscript tradition

The Theognis we have today is a single compilation of around 1350 lines preserved in a few manuscripts as the Gnomai or Elegiai of Theognis. The verses as we publish them are divided into two books of grossly unequal length, the second accounting for barely 150 lines. The oldest manuscript (A) is first attested in 18th century Verona, and probably dates to the 10th century AD, with some Latin glosses in a 12th or 13th century hand which D.C. Young in his “Codicological Inventory of Theognis

Manuscripts” tentatively connects with the Crusader conquest of Constantinople.18 Physically, the manuscript is artful and remarkably well-preserved, and it contains a number of other Christian and ancient works: notably, related to Theognis, it preserves text it attributes to the gnomologist Phocylides and a few disparate epigrams.19 It is of Byzantine origin, and according to Young likely a copy of an original from the time of Photius (9th century AD).20 Aside from being by far our oldest, this manuscript is also the only one containing Book II. The rest of the manuscript tradition is clearly inferior and much later, all stemming from the extant manuscripts O (Vatican, gr. 915), X (London,

British Museum, Additional 16, 409, XIII/XIV) and Ur (Vatican, Urbinas, gr. 95), with the possibility of the independence of K (Venice, San Marco, Codex XCII, 7, gr. 522) and I (Venice, San Marco,

Codex XCII 6 (gr.520), all of which date from the 14th century onward, and apparently derive from an original which branched off from the tradition that gave us A at some point in the 300 years intervening between the two.21

As our historical sources have provided little conclusive evidence regarding the origns of

Theognidean corpus, it is to the text in these manuscripts that modern scholarship must, and did, turn in order to elucidate historical questions.

18D.C. Young, “A Codicological Inventory of Theognis Manuscripts”, in Scriptorium v.7.1., 1953, pp. 3-36, p. 4. 19Paris, BNF, Suppl. Gr. 388. 20Young, p.5. 21Young, pp.5-9. 13

3. The historical issues surrounding the Theognidean corpus

The Theognidea that we have in the manuscripts is rather obviously a compilation of poetry.

This, of course, must inform our view on the main topics of Theognidean scholarship—the dating and location of the corpus—as it makes it more diffcult to attach the text to the single, historic figure of a

“Theognis”, the poet referenced in the sources, whose hometown and date of birth we would be trying to find. Yet despite the elusiveness of a historical Theognis, we can establish a general timeframe for the verses’ composition by combing the information in our sources with the content of the poetry. This sort of knowledge would enable a more focused reading of the poetry, while also firmly establishing the unity of the corpus. In this and the following chapters, I will be arguing for Archaic Era mainland

Megara as the focal point of the Theognidean corpus.

3.1. Theognis as a compilation

Theognidean analysts and unitarians

That the corpus is a compilation has been noted from the earliest modern editions: in 1826,

Welcker already attempts to find the “authentic” verses in the collection.22 The debate regarding whether or not the Theognis we have is a unified whole—especially in connection to such attempts to find the “real” Theongnis—becomes one of the main focuses of Theognidean scholarship during the19th century. H.W. Smyth’s review of E. Harrison’s Studies in Theognis23 summarizes not only

Harrison’s work24, but most salient 19th century scholarship on the matter. Harrison himself25 argued for a unified Theognis, but he was in the minority. Smyth argued for Theognis as a compiler of symposiac poetry.26 More recently, M.L. West also argued for “Theognis” as a compilation, as did Peretti and

22F.G. Welcker, Theognidis Reliquiae: Novum Ordinem Disposuit, Commentationem Criticam et Notas Adiecit, Frankfurt, L. Broenner, 1826, pp. lxxix-cxii. 23H.W. Smyth, “Review: Harrison on Theognis”, in The Classical Review, v.17 n.7, 1903, pp.352-356. 24E. Harrison, Studies in Theognis together with a Text of the Poems, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1902, pp. i- xii. 25Smyth, p.352. 26Smyth, p. 355. 14

Carrière.27 In their introduction to perhaps the most important recent collection of Theognidean scholarship, Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, Cobb-Stevens, Figueira and Nagy28 likewise refer to the poetry as a compilation from the start.

The content and structure of the Theognidean corpus

The textual evidence for such a compilation is extensive, and has been cited, entirely or in part, by all the scholars mentioned above. Firstly, the corpus itself has no clear structure, aside from the separation into two books. Our “Theognis” is a series of more or less extensive poems in elegiac couplets framed, after a series of introductory prayers (lines 1-18, and again, for Book II, lines 1231-

1234), as advice to the young Cyrnus, traditionally (already from the entry in the Suda) seen as the poet’s eromenos—although, as we shall see in later sections, the use of this later term is somewhat misleading. Theognis’ programmatic statement comes in lines 19-38, the famous Sphregis. The

Sphregis sets the tone for the poems and establishes most of the poetry’s main themes: in these lines,

Theognis sets his “Seal” on the corpus, which will make him famous throughout the world, even if he is not yet able to please all men in his city. He will give advice to Cyrnus, the son of Polypaus—or

Polypais, or Polypas, we only ever see the patronymic “Polypaïdes”—that the poet himself has learned from agathoi, “noble” men, as a child.29 Because of the importance of these lines, and because we will be returning to them throughout this study, I present them here in full:

Κύρνε, σοφιζομένῳ μὲν ἐμοὶ σφρηγὶς ἐπικείσθω τοῖσδ᾿ ἔπεσιν· λήσει δ᾿ οὔποτε κλεπτόμενα, οὐδέ τις ἀλλάξει κάκιον τοὐσθλοῦ παρεόντος, ὧδε δὲ πᾶς τις ἐρεῖ· “Θεόγνιδός ἐστιν ἔπη τοῦ Μεγαρέως· πάντας δὲ κατ᾿ ἀνθρώπους ὀνομαστός”· ἀστοῖσιν δ᾿ οὔπω πᾶσιν ἁδεῖν δύναμαι. οὐδὲν θαυμαστόν, Πολυπαΐδη· οὐδὲ γὰρ ὁ Ζεὺς οὔθ᾿ ὕων πάντεσσ᾿ ἁνδάνει οὔτ᾿ ἀνέχων.

27West, pp. 40-65. 28V. Cobb-Stevens, T.J. Figueira, G. Nagy, “Introduction”, in T.J. Figueira, G. Nagy, Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1985). 29The name of Cyrnus, along with his patronym, also appears throughout the poems. It is worth noting that the verses immediately following the opening prayer in Book II have the air of a small Sphregis themselves, this time addressed to an anonoymous pais. 15

σοὶ δ᾿ ἐγὼ εὖ φρονέων ὑποθήσομαι, οἷάπερ αὐτός, Κύρν᾿, ἀπὸ τῶν ἀγαθῶν παῖς ἔτ᾿ ἐὼν ἔμαθον. πέπνυσο, μηδ᾿ αἰσχροῖσιν ἐπ᾿ ἔργμασι μηδ᾿ἀδίκοισιν τιμὰς μηδ᾿ ἀρετὰς ἕλκεο μηδ᾿ ἄφενος. ταῦτα μὲν οὕτως ἴσθι· κακοῖσι δὲ μὴ προσομίλει ἀνδράσιν, ἀλλ᾿ αἰεὶ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἔχεο· καὶ μετὰ τοῖσιν πῖνε καὶ ἔσθιε, καὶ μετὰ τοῖσιν ἵζε, καὶ ἅνδανε τοῖς, ὧν μεγάλη δύναμις. ἐσθλῶν μὲν γὰρ ἄπ᾿ ἐσθλὰ μαθήσεαι· ἢν δὲ κακοῖσι συμμίσγῃς, ἀπολεῖς καὶ τὸν ἐόντα νόον. ταῦτα μαθὼν ἀγαθοῖσιν ὁμίλει, καί ποτε φήσεις εὖ συμβουλεύειν τοῖσι φίλοισιν ἐμέ.30

Let the seal of the wise man, Cyrnus, be placed by me / on these verses. Their theft will not escape notice, / nor will anyone exchange something worse for the good which is here, / but everyone will say: “these are the words of Theognis / of Megara, famous among all men.” / But I cannot yet please all my fellow-townsmen. / This is not to be marvelled at, Polypaïdes: for not even Zeus / can please all, whether by letting the rain pour or by withholding it. / But to you, with kind thought, I will give advice which, / Cyrnus, I learned from the noble men when I was still a child. / Be wise, and neither with shameful nor with unjust works / draw to yourself honour or virtue or wealth. / Know that this is so. And do not associate with base men, / but always cling to the noble. / And with them drink and eat, and with them / sit, and be pleasing to them, whose power is great. / For from the noble you will learn noble things. But if you mix / with the base, you will lose even what wits you have. / Knowing these things, associate with the noble, and one day you will say / I advise my friends well.

In the over 1300 verses that follow, the poet indeed muses, in a series of relatively short and seemingly randomly arranged poems, on all manner of topics ranging from religious, moral and political issues to interpersonal matters regarding the family, friendship and love (both paederastic and heterosexual), often combining various subjects. Despite the unifying themes, however, the haphazard arrangement and the very broad nature of the topics addressed indicates not only independent composition for each poem—the divisions between which poems are unspecified in the manuscript, and thus entirely the work of modern, often conflicting, editors—but might even lead to believe that they were gleaned from originally different genres of poetry, which would have covered everything from religious hymns to gnomic advice to symposiastic love songs.

30Text from Douglas E. Gerber’s 1999 edition of the Theognidea. Theognis et al. Elegiac Poetry from the Seventh to the Fifth Cenuries, ed. and trans. D.E. Gerber, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press 1999. 16

Further indicators of a compilation

Beyond these structural qualities, the repetition of similar verses31 and sometimes the (seeming) contradictions between certain verses’ points of view likewise point to a compilation of poetry. Already in Plato’s Meno, 95d-e, Socrates discusses the contradiction between two Theognidean poems, making himself the first Theognidean scholar!32 Furthermore, a few verses even appear like introductions or epilogues to otherwise lost poems, announcing either the start or the end of a song.33 To add to the confusion, some verses of our Theognidean corpus are attributed by other sources to different poets: lines 227-232, 315-318, 585-590 and 1253-1254 are given elsewhere as Solon’s; 795-796 and 1017-

1022 are attributed to Mimnermus; and 933-938 and 1103-1106 to Tyrtaeus.34

The few seemingly historical references in the poems also strongly suggest a compilation: the poems appear to speak of events that are far too distant in time to be covered by the lifetime of a single man. The opening verses of the poem in lines 39-52 seem to refer to Theagenes, the Megarian tyrant from the late 7th century BC:

Κύρνε, κύει πόλις ἥδε, δέδοικα δὲ μὴ τέκῃ ἄνδρα εὐθυντῆρα κακῆς ὕβριος ἡμετέρης. ἀστοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἔθ᾿ οἵδε σαόφρονες, ἡγεμόνες δὲ τετράφαται πολλὴν εἰς κακότητα πεσεῖν. (lines 39-42).

However, the poems in lines 757-764 and the first part of 773-788 refer prima facie to the

Persian Wars of the 5th century BC, with the second poem also seemingly referencing dissension

31Repeated verses: lines 87-90/1082cf, 116/644, 116/644, 39–42/1081–82b, 209–210/332ab, 509–510/211–212, 853– 854/1038ab, 877–78/1070ab, 415–418/1164eh, 1151–52/1238ab, 1253-1254/1255-1256. 32The Theognidean verses cited as a contradiction by Socrates are lines 33-36/434-438. 33Lines 1055-1058 seem very clearly to be the conclusion to a poem. 943-944 is a bit more ambiguous, but also seems like the beginning of a song. Also notable is the grand total of five introductory poems, each very clearly separate (the prayers in lines 1-4, 5-10, 11-14, 15-18, and the Sphregis 19-38). Certainly, the poems being separate, or even incomplete, does not indicate several poets (it could be a haphazard collection of poems by the same author), but it does imply a compilation. 34List from Allen, p.387. For more extensive references for the quotations, see the notes to these verses in Elegy and Iambus, vol. I, ed. J.M. Edmonds, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1931. 17

among the Greek city-states in that time period.35

Ζεὺς μὲν τῆσδε πόληος ὑπειρέχοι αἰθέρι ναίων αἰεὶ δεξιτερὴν χεῖρ᾿ ἐπ᾿ ἀπημοσύνῃ ἄλλοι τ᾿ ἀθάνατοι μάκαρες θεοί· αὐτὰρ Ἀπόλλων ὀρθώσαι γλῶσσαν καὶ νόον ἡμέτερον· φόρμιγξ δ᾿ αὖ φθέγγοιθ᾿ ἱερὸν μέλος ἠδὲ καὶ αὐλός· ἡμεῖς δὲ σπονδὰς θεοῖσιν ἀρεσσάμενοι πίνωμεν χαρίεντα μετ᾿ ἀλλήλοισι λέγοντες, μηδὲν τὸν Μήδων δειδιότες πόλεμον. (lines 757-764)

May Zeus who dwells in the sky hold / forever his right hand over this city, to ward off harm, / and the other blessed immortal gods too. And also may Apollo / set our tongues and minds straight. / And let the lyre and the flute sound the holy song. / And we, offering libations pleasing to the gods, / will drink, saying pleasant things to one another, / fearing not the war of the Medes.

Φοῖβε ἄναξ, αὐτὸς μὲν ἐπύργωσας πόλιν ἄκρην, Ἀλκαθόῳ Πέλοπος παιδὶ χαριζόμενος· αὐτὸς δὲ στρατὸν ὑβριστὴν Μήδων ἀπέρυκε τῆσδε πόλευς, ἵνα σοι λαοὶ ἐν εὐφροσύνῃ ἦρος ἐπερχομένου κλειτὰς πέμπωσ᾿ ἑκατόμβας, τερπόμενοι κιθάρῃ καὶ ἐρατῇ θαλίῃ παιάνων τε χοροῖς ἰαχῇσί τε σὸν περὶ βωμόν. ἦ γὰρ ἔγωγε δέδοικ᾿ ἀφραδίην ἐσορῶν καὶ στάσιν Ἑλλήνων λαοφθόρον· ἀλλὰ σύ,Φοῖβε, ἵλαος ἡμετέρην τήνδε φύλασσε πόλιν. (lines 773-782)

Lord Phoebus, you yourself fortified the city’s citadel, / gifting it to Alcathous the son of Pelops. / You yourself too keep away the proud army of the Medes / from this city, that the peoples in rejoicing might send you, / when the spring comes, glorious hecatombs, / delighting in the lyre and joyful good cheer / and paeanian dances and shouts around your altar. / But I fear seeing the thoughtlessness / and people-destroying dissension of the Greeks. But you, / propitious Phoebus, guard this our city.

Lines 891-895 are more problematic, as the reference is obscure, but they are generally read as referring to conflicts in Euboea from the early 6th century, while also speaking of the Cypselids, the ruling dynasty of Corinth in that time period:36

ὤ μοι ἀναλκίης· ἀπὸ μὲν Κήρινθος ὄλωλεν, Ληλάντου δ᾿ ἀγαθὸν κείρεται οἰνόπεδον· οἱ δ᾿ ἀγαθοὶ φεύγουσι, πόλιν δὲ κακοὶ διέπουσιν.

35Editions vary on the grouping of lines into poems. Unless otherwise stated, I will be using Gerber’s grouping. For the two “Persian War” poems, for example, Edmonds combines lines 757-764 with the immediately following 765-768, and conversely lists lines 773-788 as two poems (773-782 and 783-788). In any case, the significant lines are the same. 36Cobb-Stevens, Figueira, Nagy, p.1. 18

ὡς δὴ Κυψελιδῶν Ζεὺς ὀλέσειε γένος. (lines 891-895)

Alas for weakness! Cerinthus is destroyed, / and Lelanthus’ fine vineyards are being ravaged. / Noble men flee, and base men govern the ctiy. / Were it that Zeus would destroy the race of the Cypselids!

3.2. The dating of the Theognidean corpus

This discrepancy in the dates of the events referenced has proved to be the main point of contention for determining the date of the Theognidean corpus. After going over the old debates regarding Theognidean dating, I will argue here that, while the issue is problematic, it is possible to claim a relatively early origin for the verses in the Theognidean corpus, specifically around the end of the 7th and the first half of the 6th century BC.

Views on and problems with dating Theognis

The issue of dating has played a part in the older attempts to find the “authentic” verses in the text, and has thus also been debated since Welcker’s 1826 edition. In 1974, West’s look at the text37 summarizes some then-recent scholarship on the subject, with the potential dates clustering around three focal points: the floruit given by the Suda and the chronographers, the Persian invasion of Greece in the early 5th century BC suggested by the poems referencing the “Medes”, and the tyranny of

Theagenes and subsequent political upheaval in Megara (640-580BC). West himself argues for an early date, around the tyranny of Theagenes, for the poetry he considers authentic. More recent scholarship seems to stick to viewing the Theognidea essentially a compilation, while, however, refraining from overtly naming a historic Theognis as a compiler, or giving a specific date for the entire corpus. Knox, although he conservatively works with the historic and local references to try and find a real Theognis, will go on to outright state that we do not know the date of the text,38 limiting himself to a terminus ante quem in the Persian Wars. Cobb-Stevens, Figueira and Nagy, in their introduction to Theognis of

37West, pp.65-71. 38Knox, p.137. 19

Megara: Poetry and the Polis,39 defer to the poetry’s nature as a compilation, although their articles in that tome seem largely partial to an earlier date.

Overall, the Theognidea’s nature as a compilation, as well as the very vague tone of most of the historic references, makes their use to date the corpus highly problematic. Although some of these references seem unmistakable (most evidently those to the Cypselids, and, to a lesser extent, the apparent mentions of the Persian Wars), the lax way other events are mentioned renders their use as a dating mechanism suspect in and of itself. Of the Theognidean “biographers”, for example, West uses lines 1103-1104 (a poem which mentions the fall of Smyrna due to the hubris of its citizens) to push the date of those verses squarely in the 7th century BC:

ὕβρις καὶ Μάγνητας ἀπώλεσε καὶ Κολοφῶνα καὶ Σμύρνην· πάντως, Κύρνε, καὶ ὔμμ᾿ ἀπολεῖ.

Pride destroyed the Magnesias and Colophon / and Smyrna. And your people too will it utterly destroy

West argues that these verses would have been written after the proverbial fall of Magnesia to the

Treres in 650BC, but before the destruction of Smyrna by Alyates in 600BC: the latter, he claims, was clearly not due to hubris, and would have overshadowed any previous fall, thus making the use of

Smyrna as proverbial for hubris impossible.40 While the 650BC reference can be taken as sound, the terminus ante quem here is founded on the rather weak basis of a speculative reconstruction of

Megarian poetic perception of the fall of Smyrna in 600 BC, which would not only be famous enough as to wipe out all poetic references to any previous fall of Smyrna, but also impossible to attribute to hubris.

Indicators of an early date

Nonetheless, some of the textual indicators in Theognis for an early date are very solid.

Furthermore, it is practically impossible to move the “older” references further down the timeline,

39Cobb-Stevens, Figueira, Nagy, p.1. 40West, pp.66-67. 20

except by treating them as relics of earlier history that were subsumed into the compilation and repurposed for later times: for example, it is true that he is not mentioned by name, but there is no known Megarian tyrant in the time period potentially covered by Theognis but Theagenes. And it is most probably Theagenes being referred to in the “pregnant city” verses (lines 39-42), as well as in the poems on tyrannicide, including lines 1179-1182 and 1203-1206. All this points squarely to a late 7th- early 6th century dating. Likewise, the Cypselids of lines 891-895 fell for good in the first quarter of the

6th century.

Furthermore, there is very tellingly not a single reference to Athens, either direct or indirect, in all of Theognis: this is significant, as Athens was very important not only for 6th century Megara as a political rival, but also, according to Figueira, very influential in the transmission of the text. That this major force in both Megarian history and the transmission of Megarian texts would be completely absent from the corpus is highly suspect. Athenian transmission might be the reason why there are no references to Athens: those mentions that existed may have been negative, and thus have been expunged. However, for better or for worse, there are none, and we cannot assume Athenian tampering, especially since the positive references to places like Sparta and Thebes, rivals of Athens, did not similarly fall out.

Another indicator of archaicity are the constant direct and indirect references to tensions, both political and moral, between aristocrats and oligarchs—the latter seen, in the poems, as base kakoi with money, as opposed to the traditional agathoi who by Theognidean standards should have power but don’t. We know that these tensions were especially strong in Megara—we will delve into this more extensively in the next section of this study—41and, more broadly, they can be seen as a staple of the traditional view of the political transformations of the Archaic Period. In Theognis, there is an implied political contest betwen an old “landed” gentry, the traditional warrior class that would have held

41 Our main sources are local historians, known as the Megareis, of whose works we have a few fragments, and Plutarch. See Figueira, pp.115-121, more extensively pp. 261-303 (Chronological Table). 21

power earlier in the Archaic Period, of which the poet is a member; and a new political class of leaders, more focused on a new type of wealth hinging on more movable assets than land and social capital. In the case of Megara, this “bourgeoisie” would probably also have been strongly associated with commerce, given the city’s extensive colonial activity. These two factions would be the “aristocrats” and the “oligarchs” in the context of the kyklos, the ancient narrative of the evolution of Greek polities from monarchies to aristocracies, then oligarchies, then tyrannies and ultimately democracies (with various states remaining fixed at various points in this evolution).42 If we take this traditional ancient timeline, Theognis is very clearly placed between the second and the third point, squarely in the earlier part of Greek history, with a possible look forward in the looming references to Theagenes.

Furthermore, the way political conflict is spoken of seems implicitly archaic in the lack of extensive references to the demos as a distinct political entity: this is very telling since we know that

Megara would later become a democracy, then an oligarchy, then a democracy again in the Classical

Age, and thus we would expect political poetry from that time period to speak of the demos more extensively.43 However, the overall conflict in Theognis is not between the “few” and the “many”, but between two different groups of the “few”: oligarchs and aristocrats. It is difficult to see this being the case in the late Archaic or the Classical Era.

In general, then, not only does Theognis explicitly and implicitly speak of a specific time period, the Archaic Age of Megara, through the historic and political events he seems to reference and through the sort of political issues he is concerned with, but furthermore, by not referencing very significant later elements and circumstances, he gives us a rather clear terminus ante quem. Theognis is very evidently archaic, and most probably early archaic.

The problem of the “Persian War” verses

The one problem with this theory that remains are the “Persian War” verses. West generally

42As articulated, e.g., by Polybius, Histories, 6. 3-4. 43Most analytically see the chapters already referred to in Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, for the 5th century especially L.A. Okin, “Theognis and the Sources for the History of Archaic Megara”, pp. 9-21. 22

defends the poetry as being earlier than the Suda date, and bluntly states that these verses are inauthentic, even discounting earlier attempts to explain them away: the suggestion that the lines speaking of the “Medes” would have any other reference point but the Classical Era Persian Wars is readily dismissed, especially the suggestion that they might refer to the Persian king Cyrus’ conquests.44 While, in view of Theognis being a compilation, it is certainly easy to write off these verses as “inauthentic”, a more modern reading of the text might be able to account for them, as well as for many other Theognidean peculiarities, without compromising the unity of our text or abandoning these old questions as unanswerable. Such a theory, however, also ties into the issue of the location of

Theognis.

3.3. Theognis’ Megara

As seen in our sources, the debate on Theognis’ origins has been going on since antiquity.

Generally, the evidence seems to indicate that Theognis was from mainland (Nisaean) Megara. This position appears solid based on our sources and the text itself, and is reinforced some of the historical analyses of the corpus by modern scholars. A particularly interesting view is T.J. Figueira’s theory of a

“Pan-Megarian” Theognis, which, while still ultimately keeping Theognis focused around mainland

Megara, also makes sense of the references to other places of origin in our sources, and might even elucidate some Theognidean dating issues.

The ancient debate on Theognis’ origins: which Megara?

The debate on Theognis’ origin is first brought up by the scholiast on Plato’s Laws, who addresses the question of whether Theognis (for him a real, historical Theognis, not just the corpus) was from Nisaean or Hyblaean Megara. Plato himself, in the passage being commented upon (Laws,

Book I, 630a), says that Theognis was a Sicilian, but as we have seen there were proponents in ancient times for either Megara as Theognis’ birthplace. In order to solve the contradiction between Plato and

44West, p.65-66. 23

his other sources, the scholiast suggests the possibility of Theognis having been born in mainland

Megara and having moved to Sicily during his lifetime. While there is no conclusive answer to the question in ancient sources, what we can note from this debate is that it focuses in its entirety around which of two Megaras can claim Theognis. Indeed, all the ancient sources potentially referring to the

Theognidean corpus, even in their disagreement, invariably place Theognis in a Megara. Thus we can at least narrow down the corpus’ origins to either mainland Megara or one of its colonies.

Specific references to mainland Megara in the corpus

The debate on Theognis’ origins has continued into modern times, and ideas of a migratory

Theognis similar to those of Plato’s scholiast have been proposed: Allen45 suggested a move from the mainland to Sicily, as did Knox, albeit very tentatively.46 To complicate matters even more, 19th century researchers like Beloch argued for the exact opposite: a move from the colony to the mainland.47

It is theoretically possible that a historic poet called Theognis would have at some point migrated between Sicily and the Greek mainland. The Theognidea certainly speak of exile,48 and there are relatively few explicit local references in the text. However, all those that do exist come out squarely in favour of Nisaean Megara, which is generally accepted as the poetry’s focal point today (by

West, Knox, and others): most notably, the poem in lines 773-788 explicitly names the Megarian hero

Alcathous in the context of building Megara’s walls. There are, it is true, a number of references to other locations in the Greek world, but most of them show the speaker as a foreigner in these lands.

The second part of the second “Persian War” poem (or, depending on the edition, the poem immediately following it),49 lines 783-788, seems to showcase this. Here, the poet speaks of travelling to Sicily, Euboea and Sparta but ultimately preferring his home:

45Allen, p.395. 46Knox, p.145. 47J. Beloch, “Zur Geschichte der alteren griechischen Lyrik”, in Rheinishches Museum fur Philologies, Neue Folge, 50bd, 1895, pp.250-267, (pp.250-255), as well as Kruger (Allen, p.395). 48References to exile in general appear in 209-210, 332A-332B, 333-334 and 1211-1216, as well as the more localized verses that will be addressed shortly. 49Theognis et al., Elegy and Iambus, vol. I, ed. J.M. Edmonds, London, Cambridge University Press, 1931. 24

ἦλθον δ᾿ Εὐβοίης ἀμπελόεν πεδίον, Σπάρτην τ᾿ Εὐρώτα δονακοτρόφου ἀγλαὸν ἄστυ, καί μ᾿ ἐφίλευν προφρόνως πάντες ἐπερχόμενον· ἀλλ᾿ οὔτις μοι τέρψις ἐπὶ φρένας ἦλθεν ἐκείνων· οὕτως οὐδὲν ἄρ᾿ ἦν φίλτερον ἄλλο πάτρης.

I once came to the land of Sicily, and to the vine-clad plain of Euboea, and to Sparta, the splendid city of the reed-nourishing Eurotas, and they all earnestly welcomed me when I arrived. But no joy came to my heart from them. Thus, then, there is nothing more beloved than the fatherland.

This poems implies that Theognis is not Sicilian, nor, for that matter, Euboean or Spartan. The couplet in lines 1209-1210 also has Theognis specifically exiled in Thebes, thus similarly indicating that he is not Theban. And as luck would have it, almost all the other explicit local references in the poems speak of Sparta (lines 879-884 reference Mount Taygetus, and 1087-1090 Castor and Pollux and the river Eurotas) or Thebes (the invocation of the Muses in lines 15-18). Beyond such verses as the proverbial reference to Smyrna (lines 1101-1104) the other references to a specific location are both contained in the already-quoted lines 891-894: a reference to the Lelantine Plain (in Euboea, which also we know Theognis is not from), and to the Cypselid rulers of Corinth. These can easily be mapped onto the historic rivalry between Corinth and Nisaean Megara, and Nisaean Megara’s old subjugation to

Corinth. Furthermore, beyond such explicit locations, almost all the political references in the poetry can be historically mapped onto Nisaean Megara:

History of Nisaean Megara

Nisaean Megara (after the hero Nisus) is located near the Isthmus, between Athens and Corinth, and was a powerful polity in the Greek Archaic Period. It played a part in the colonization of, in addition to Sicily, many cities along the Black Sea, but it was eventually defeated by its neighbor

Athens in a protracted conflict over the island of Salamis. Ultimately, Athens’ influence subsumed

Megara, with the punitive embargo declared in the notorious Athenian “vote against the Megarians”

(the Megarian Decree of 433/432 BC) finally neutralising the city in the Classical Era. This vote effectively and seemingly irredeemably crippled the Megarian economy and any potential of the city 25

playing a major role in subsequent centuries.

According to Okin50 and Figueira’s51 analyses of the (rather late and scanty) sources for archaic

Megara, the city would have been under the influence of Corinth until the middle of the 8th century, divided into five kōmai. These gained independence from Corinth after their synoecism, which was followed by the new city’s extensive colonial activity. The original aristocratic government, largely influenced by the Corinthian Bacchiad regime, was followed by the tyranny of Theagenes which came about somewhere in the second half of the 7th century BC. This tyranny was overthrown by a notoriously excessive democracy, one of the most famous measures of which was the Palintokia,52 a debt-relief measure. The democracy was followed by a new aristocratic government around the mid-6th century BC. The 6th century also saw the beginning of the protracted and ultimately disastrous

Megarian conflict with Athens over Salamis, which would only be conclusively resolved when Megara entered into an alliance with Sparta: Sparta would award Salamis to Athens in 510 BC.

Theognidean biographies: mapping Theognis onto Megarian history

Two of the most recent Theognidean “biographies”, those undertaken by West and Knox,53 both specifically map Theognis onto mainland Megara, seeing references to many of these events in the

Theognidean corpus. However, these biographies are selective of which verses they use, basing their selection especially on what parts of the corpus the authors consider “authentic”. West, for example, uses the old idea of the name “Cyrnus” as a “Sphregis” marking the authenticity of every verse that contains it. The selective biographical tendency is indeed particularly visible in West, who devises an elaborate life story for the poet: Theognis would have been born before the rise of the tyrant

Theagenes, specifically predicting his ascension to power (in the famous lines 39-52, and again 1081-

50L.A. Okin, “Theognis and the Sources for the History of Archaic Megara”, in Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, pp. 9-21. 51T.J. Figueira “The Theognidean and Megarian Society” and “Chronological Table of Archaic Megara”, in Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, pp. 112-158 and 261-303. 52Such “redistribution” and the ensuing economic tumult may be what Theognis is referring to in places like lines 331-332, 667-682 (see the references to Figueira below). 53See footnotes 2 and 16. 26

1082b).54 In another group of fragments, vaguely indicative of an unstable situation, West sees evidence for a plotted aristocratic counterstrike against the tyrant, of which Theognis would have been a part.55 Theognis is betrayed, forced into exile, and then returns, potentially, for the installation of a democracy.56 West also states that Theognis held some sort of judicial function, based on his advice to

Cyrnus to do things like judging rightly.57 For his part, Knox is more conservative, but also states that the real Theognis lived around the tyranny of Theagenes,58 and was on the losing side of civil strife, potentially exiled,59 although we do not know whether he lived to see the restoration of the aristocracy after the democracy that overthrew Theagenes.

None of these claims are particularly hard to believe. Certainly, a historical Theognis might have at some point been exiled. The speaker in the poems is also cleary involved in politics, based on his extensive reference to political matters, sometimes from an obvious position of authority. However, the selective tendency in the biographies is problematic: for example, on the grounds that they do not contain references to Cyrnus, West and Knox’s biographies reject many of those verses referring to external wars and expeditions, especially the “Persian War” poems (lines 757-764, 773-788), which would throw off their dating entirely. While taking these studies into account, a more conservative reading might be helpful. The connections pointed out are there; but they can only be used as further evidence for the Theognidean corpus’ solid basis in Nisaean Megara.

Solving the debate and making sense of the Sicilian evidence: Figueira’s Pan-Megarian Theognis

But if Theognis is from mainland Megara, what are we to make of the Sicilian evidence in the ancient and medieval traditions? Indeed, a majority of our sources claim Theognis as a Sicilian.

Furthermore the Suda, in its summary of the corpus, attributes an entire Elegy to the Sicilians to

54West, p.68. He quotes, of course, the famous lines 39-52 (“The pregnant city”), reiterated at 1081-1082b. 55West, p.69. The verses quoted, lines 833-836, 235-236, 1133-1134, 75-78, 79-82, 329-330, are all exceedingly vague. 56West, pp.69-70. Betrayal: 811; results of his “fall” and exile: 173-182 (poverty); sweetness of revenge: 337-340, 361-362; potential unsatisfactory return to a democracy: 333-334. 57West, pp.68-69. The verses cited are 543-546, 331-332, 219-220, as well as those about Theognis failing to please everybody (lines 24-26, 369-370, 1183-1184b). 58Knox, p.138. 59Knox, p.145. 27

Theognis. Should this be ignored? I believe that, while keeping the focus on a Nisaean Megara, a more complete solution regarding the origin of Theognis, as well as some elucidation regarding his dating, can be found in T.J. Figueira’s more recent analysis of the historical references in the text.60 Figueira posits a Pan-Megarian reading of Theognis, seeing the corpus as a compilation of Megarian poetry, both Nisaean and Hyblaean, which generally integrates poems from the entirety of the very extensive

“Megarian” network of the Archaic Age. Even for Figueira, the main location for the poetry is still

Nisaean Megara, but in a different way than for older scholars. It is simply the focal point for a compilation of poetry coming from across the Megarian colonial network. This view makes full use of our knowledge that the poetry is a compilation, and masterfully settles the Nisaean-Hyblaean Megara origin debate, conciliating the preponderance of Nisaean evidence in the poetry with what is clearly a very strong Sicilian bias in the sources.

Historically Figueira’s attempt at a Theognidean “biography”, which maps the poetry onto

Megarian history, is far more convincing than that of older scholars, as he addresses the same topics of origin and dating, but relies more on ideological perspective than references to specific events.61 Such an approach is generally more in accordance with the nature of the corpus as a compilation. For example, according to Figueira, lines 53-57, which speak in almost animalistic terms of the rural kakoi gaining power in the city, make sense in the context of synoecism, and even more so when considered in light of the fact that Megara was supposedly subordinate in its early years to Corinth: the image of a sharp divide between a civic aristocracy and uncouth rustics resonates strongly with the Corinthian paradigm of the mystically aristocratic Bacchiad clan ruling the flatlands around it from the impregnable fortress of the Acrocorinth, as does the extreme abhorrence of intermarriage between agathoi and kakoi seen in lines like 183-192.62 Figueira also sees a lot of the aristocratic sentiment as

60T.J. Figueira, “The Theognidea and Megarian Society”, in Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, pp.112-158, pp.124- 128, esp. pp. 127-128. 61Figueira, p.112. 62Figueira p.128. 28

an ideological reaction to the post-Theagenian democracy and elegy in general as an embodiment of the aristocratic moral code, as opposed to Megarian Comedy, which flourished during the years of the democracy.63 Specifically, line 638, which complains that there is no longer “equal division in the middle”,64 as well as the poem in lines 903-932, in which the poet outright addresses Democles (“the

Glory of the Demos”), would both refer to the socioeconomic upheaval of the democracy and the abnormal distribution of wealth, and perhaps even specifically to the massive debt-relief measure that was the Palintokia.

Using the Pan-Megarian Theognis to help solve the dating problem

Beyond making sense of the Sicilian evidence and solidifying Theognis’ place in Megarian history, by taking Figueira’s Pan-Megarian reasoning one step further, we might even be able to explain the “Persian War” verses in a more satisfactory manner, and thus also better settle the question of

Theognidean dating: a Pan-Megarian Theognis need not only include Sicilian and mainland Greek elements, but might also include some originally from Megara’s extensive colonial network along the

Black Sea. This is what I believe the poems in lines 757-764 and 773-788 are. A reference to the

Persians in mainland Greece before the Classical Era, as West argued, is certainly strange. But it would not at all be strange in a Megarian colony along the Black Sea coast, where the pressure of the Persian juggernaut would have been felt much earlier. And this is if we even accept that the “Medes” referred to are Persians: the word might well be referring to any number of non-Greek foes in Asia that the

Megarian colonies could have had to deal with at any point in the 6th or even 7th century BC. We must note, of course, that this does not also preclude a Persian War interpretation: a cryptic prayer to Apollo to ward off “Medes” might very well have been re-purposed and gained currency in the Classical Age.

Overall, we are not bound by a single, strict historic reading. However, the consideration of a new type of unity in the text in the form of a Pan-Megarian Theognis makes it possible to place these verses at an

63Figueira pp.137-143. 64Figueira, pp.149-150. 29

earlier date, reinforcing the chronological unity of the corpus rather than fragmenting it.

Philologically, Figueira’s Pan-Megarian Theognis also works very well in reading the corpus thematically: although Theognis’ ideas can be mapped onto mainland Megara, they are not exclusive to it. Knox himself notes that, simply based on the political ideas expressed, Theognis would be at home

“in almost any Greek city of the Archaic Age”.65 As seen, after all, he resonated very strongly with aristocrats in Athens.

If Figueira is right about his Pan-Megarian Theognis, then the Theognidea is a stunning monument to the interconnectedness of an archaic city and its colonies, even if eventually the overt local references regarding Sicily would have been “smoothed out” by either the centripetal force of mainland Megara or by the later Athenian pen. I believe that Figueira’s analysis also removes us from the awkward position of arguing for a Megarian Theognis, but (without solid grounds in any topical references in the text itself) not a Megarian corpus, which seems to be the case for West. Overall, while not placing a “real” Theognis, this more modern reading of old questions allows us to better understand the origin of the corpus, both giving a clear picture of its origin, and reinforcing our views of its dating.

3.4. The compilation and inception of Theognis: a corpus of oral poetry

We know, then, that “Theognis” is a compilation of archaic Megarian poetry. But how did this compilation come about? I believe that the best answer to this is to view Theognis as an authentic

Megarian compilation of archaic oral poetry. However, we will first look at some older, competing theories on its origin.

A series of compilations: the “analyst” view

Once the view of Theognis as a single, historic poet responsible for the composition of all the verses in our corpus was abandoned, the general tendency was to argue for the Theognidea as we have it as the product of a complex series of compilations including poetry from all sorts of time periods and

65Knox, p.138. 30

origins, and to try and find the authentic verses in this compilation.66 West’s theory on the origin of the corpus is indicative of this approach: he assumes a 3rd century compilation of elegiac poetry, from which various authors drew in a series of anthologies that fused together into our current corpus, thus accounting for the repetitions of verses, as well as the presence of verses attributed to other poets. West specifically divides the poetry into the excerpta meliora and excerpta deteriora according to two anthologists who culled verses from the same source at different time periods.67 Similar theories were advanced by Peretti and Carrière, the former arguing for a 3rd century collection that was likewise drawn upon by the compiler of our corpus, but this time as far down as the 6th to 9th century AD; the latter that the original “Theognis”, compiled in Athens in the 4th century BC, was lost, and that what we have as Theognis is an independent medieval elegy collection.68 In West’s version, the collections’ keeping the name of Theognis would have occurred because the majority of the verses were

Theognidean and the title “Gnomai of Theognis and Others” eventually dropped the “and others”.

A unified Theognis

However, a more succint view of the history of the corpus, as a compilation of archaic Megarian poetry divided into two books (the former more gnomic, the latter more “amorous”), is more convincing. These books, and the poems within them, although arranged in no particular order, are still too strongly unified to be a compilation of such as disparate a nature as West and others imply. They are unified on the most visible level by an addressee, Cyrnus, whose name is woven into the verses throughout the corpus, as well as by a similar structural setup for both books: they both begin with introductory invocations to the gods (lines 1-18, 1231-1234), and a similar programmatic statement

(lines 19-38, 1235-1238). Furthermore, it seems that some of the verses address each other: for

66Gerber accurately describes the confusion regarding the composition of the text: “It is not possible to give a detailed account of the many theories that have been proposed. These range from the extremes of treating almost all the corpus as spurious to accepting almost all as genuine, but the majority fall somewhere in between (...) In conclusion, there is no agreement on how the corpus as a whole was formed or on what parts are genuine.” (D.E. Gerber, A Companion to the Greek Lyric Poets, Leiden, Brill, 1997, pp. 117-121, pp.117-118) 67West, pp.40-61. 68Gerber, p. 119. 31

example, certain poems, like lines 1161-1162 or 1255-1256, can be read as parodies of others (in this case lines 409-410 and 1253-1254 respectively), and the already-referenced Sphregis as well as lines

783-788 appear to address the concerns regarding the obscurity of Theognis’ origins. In addition to this, the speaker, Theognis, is stated at the very start of the corpus, and despite the contradictory verses, overall, the ideas, ideology and setting are very strongly consistent throughout the poetry—I hope the extensive analysis in the next part of the present work will demonstrate this. Lastly, the fact that all indications of date and location which we do have point to the Archaic Era and to Megara cannot be discounted. There is no evidence for any other place of origin in the text but archaic Megara. Theognis, then, seems very much “unified” as a compilation of archaic Megarian poetry. Such a compilation would have come down to us from the Archaic Age, if not intact, at least in its original form for the part that did survive.

Beyond these indicators of a more unified corpus, the explanatory power of the elaborate theories of anthologizing and re-anthologizing to account for problems in the text is also unnecessary.

To an extent, West’s history does account for some quirks in the tradition, such as the very clear imbalance between the Theognidean work we have and what the medieval Suda refers to, which seems to indicate an evolving corpus. The Suda’s attribution of 2800 verses to Theognis, including the now conspicuously absent Elegy to the Sicilians, would, it is true, seem to indicate that the Theognis we have today is not intact. But we must here bring up the weaknesses of the Suda as a source, especially considering its proximity to our first manuscript: if we even take its claim at face value, we must own that, somehow, the Theognidea “lost” over 1400 verses in the relatively brief period between the writing of the Suda and our first manuscript. The only alternative is either that there was more than one version of Theognis available at the time of the Suda’s writing (which in and of itself tells us very little about our current Theognis), or else that the author of the Suda did not even have access to Theognis but was simply restating older sources. None of these options make the lexicon particularly trustworthy.

And regarding these lost verses, if we even take the Suda’s claim at face value, Allen’s older but far simpler suggestion that, at some point in the manuscript history, the end of Book II may simply have broken off or been otherwise lost to any of the myriad of perils of manuscript tradition,69 thus also accounting for the large imbalance in the sizes of Book I and II and here for the loss of verses, still seems plausible. Did this part of the compilation also contain the Elegy to the Sicilians? Perhaps.

However, overall, the Suda’s entry alone does not warrant the assumption of baroque histories of anthologizing and re-anthologizing and re-combining of anthologies, all of which also fortuitously kept the name of Theognis. And lastly, if the Suda points to an evolving Theognis then we must also note the parts of our tradition that point to the opposite, that is to say, to the quotations of Theognis in our sources, which despite some exceptions, seem largely drawn from the same Theognis we have today.

These indicate a static corpus: the fact that many of our sources quote as Theognis lines which we also have as Theognis seems like a strong indication of unity; stronger than an inaccurate description of the corpus we have today in a Byzantine lexicon should be able to do away with.

More importantly, perhaps, the extensive compilation theories account for the repetitions, contradictions, and missattributions in the corpus, already listed above. To an extent, with the

Theognidea being a compilation, this could also much more simply be explained by the fact that a compiler, having known two versions of the same verse, would have wished to preserve them both.

Still, in conjunction with the verses attributed by our ancient sources to other poets, it admittedly raises issues. However, rather than dissecting the corpus into a series of anthologies, the answer to these questions lies again in a more modern view of the poetry, focusing especially on the orality of the

Theognidean corpus.

A unified Theognis as a tradition of oral poetry

The view of Theognis as oral poetry seems to solve many of the problems in the corpus, as well

69Allen, 393. 33

as generally help to bring together the various topics discussed in the first part of the present work.

Rather than attempting to “fix” the Theognidea by seeing it as a muddled compilation in which we must divine the real Theognis, the theory of oral composition attributes to Theognis a new sort of unity.

Gregory Nagy’s extensive analysis of the Theognidea within the context of Archaic Megara in

“Theognis of Megara: A Poet’s Vision of his City”70 emphasizes the oral nature of the poetry, saying that “the figure of Theognis represents a cumulative synthesis of Megarian poetic traditions (...) the poetry of Theognis may then be appreciated as a skillful and effective—maybe even beautiful— dramatization of Megara through the ages”.71 Nagy views Theognis in comparison, especially, to historical or semi-mythical lawgivers like Solon or Lycurgus, or the epic poet Hesiod, in terms of the civic importance that is implied by such a compilation.72 Furthermore, Nagy specifically addresses

West’s theories on the Theognidean tradition, stating that his excerpta meliora and excerpta deteriora simply account for different points in the oral tradition. Andrew L. Ford, in his analysis of the meaning of the Sphregis, makes an even more pointed use of the reference to Theognis’ orality to forcibly disentangle one of the gordian knots of older scholarship,73 the precise interpretation of the Sphregis,

70G. Nagy, “Theognis of Megara: A Poet’s Vision of his City”, in Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, pp.22-81. 71Nagy, p.33. 72Nagy, pp.35-46. Specifically on the connection to law-givers, and to Hesiod’s wisdom-poetry, which for Nagy speaks with similar moral authority, see also G. Nagy, “Théognis et Mégare: Le Poète dans l’Âge de Fer”, in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions, vol.201, n.3, pp. 239-279. 73See L. Pratt, “The Seal of Theognis and Oral Poetry”, in the American Journal of Philology, vol.116, n.2 (Summer 1995), pp.171-184, pp.171-173, for her overview of the opinions on what the Sphregis (Seal) is, as well as A.L. Ford, “The Seal of Theognis: the Politics of Authorship in Archaic Greece”, in Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, pp.82-95 for an overview of some older theories and a general argument against the Sphregis as a claim of authorship. The idea that the name Cyrnus, much less any catchword, would be the Sphregis seems far-fetched, especially since, the poetry being oral, it would probably not have been composed at the same time as it was being written. Even West, who actively supports this theory, uses it in a minimalist way, noticing very rightly that, especially in a collection of fragments, it is very possible that even if we do accept that Theognis himself used “Cyrnus” as a seal, some of the fragments without it are simply those parts of his poems where the name didn’t show up. Furthermore, even if the authorial intent were for “Cyrnus” to be a seal, it proves nothing: if the compiler of Theognis goes through the trouble of compiling Theognis, while also inserting some false Theognis into this compilation, would it be very difficult for them, with the Sphregis at the very start of his book, to insert Cyrnus’ name at random points in the text? As Van Groningen says (B.A. Van Groningen, Théognis: Le Premier Livre, Amsterdam, Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1966, p.446), if we write a poem to Cyrnus about cosmonauts, does it become Theognis? Of course, the idea of the name of Cyrnus and its consistent use holding some significance is not without merit. The perception of the name “Cyrnus” as significant at the time of the composition of the poetry would certainly account for its widespread usage. A conservative view on the Sphregis would be to simply state that, while “Cyrnus” might have been a trope in Megarian oral poetry, the Sphregis itself is precisely the group of verses at the start of the compilation, a declaration of intent and a title “stamping” the 34

and the nature of the “Seal” Theognis speaks of in it. For Ford, the idea of the Sphregis as a claim of authorship is meaningless, as archaic poetry is mainly oral.74

Much of what we know regarding Theognis and his time period points in the direction of oral poetry: pre-Classical poetry in general was primarily an oral endeavour. The committal to writing of the main body of pre-Classical verse extant today, the Homeric corpus, happened exceedingly late in its history,75 and even in the Classical Era, the odes of Pindar (to say nothing of the works like those of

Attic theatre) were clearly composed for a specific performance.

Theognis himself makes no secret of the performative aspect of his poetry: he frequently references the context in which he is performing, the symposium. To mention but two instances, lines

237-254 specifically speak of the Theognidean verses and of Cyrnus’ name being sung at symposia.

Lines 467-496 describe an ongoing symposium, with the poet giving directions to the host. These are only a few of the many Theognidean poems that explicitly reference their own performance, or the performance context of the symposium.76 1055-1058, for example, seems explicitly like the end of an ode. Even the ever-present name of Cyrnus can very easily be seen as an oral trope, perhaps a typical quaintness of Megarian poetry of the time period: “Cyrnus” could be the typical addressee of aristocratic, archaic Megarian oral poetry. In certain verses, the name seems tacked on almost as an afterthought, with no relation to the meaning, almost as if it were a vocable in a song. For example the prayer in lines 653-654 for some reason also addresses Cyrnus:

εὐδαίμων εἴην καὶ θεοῖς φίλος ἀθανάτοισιν, Κύρν᾿· ἀρετῆς δ᾿ ἄλλης οὐδεμιῆς ἔραμαι.77

May I be happy and beloved by the immortal gods, / Cyrnus. I crave no other merit.

poetry in its written form. Additionally, Pratt’s own views on the deeper links between the Sphregis and the written compilation, although these links cannot be ascribed to authorial intent, are definitely insightful and seem convincing. 74Ford, pp.82-84. 75G.S. Kirk, “Homer”, in J.P. Barron, P.E. Easterling, B.M.W. Knox (ed.) Cambridge History of Classical Literature, pp.41- 91, pp.42-51 (“the Poet and the Oral Tradition”). 76See below. References to the symposium include lines 499-502, 503-508, 531-532, 533-534, 757-764, 765-768, 769-772, 773-788, 789-792, 825-830, 837-840, 879-884, 939-942, 973-978, 993-996, 1041-1042, 1045-1046, 1047-1048, 1055-1058, 1063-1068, 1207-1208. 77Cf. 337-340. 35

Furthermore, as Nagy points out,78 the names in the Theognidea are, or at least seem, significant: Theognis is “born of the gods”. Cyrnus, conversely, means “bastard”. And Cyrnus is often addressed by the patronymic Polypaïdes: Cyrnus’ father is either Polypaus, “wealthy”, or, even more interestingly, Polypais, “with many children”. Such “speaking” names seem to point to oral tradition.

With this oral view of the Theognidean corpus in mind, an ideological reading naturally becomes much more comfortable, seeing that orality grants “Theognis” the unity of a tradition, even without reference to a single poet. Furthermore, such a reading also works well in tandem with

Figueira’s Pan-Megarian Theognis, as it explains the smooth production and evolution of a corpus of diverse geographical origins. And from the point of view of the text itself, it also explains away many of the problems with the poetry:

In a world of oral poetry, poets freely borrow from one another, and verses are frequently re- used; to say nothing of adaptations, or quotations, or refutations of one poet’s opinions by another. The inspiration and content of the poem, after all, comes from the Muse.79 The “poetry” itself is first and foremost the performance. This does not mean that poetry was necessarily impersonal. Poets were known, and became famous, by name. And if in the audience someone heard a poet reciting, as their own work, something already known to them by another name, they could certainly have recognized it; and, conversely, sometimes verses were attributed to famous poets precisely to lend them credence. But overall, in a world where poetry is a performance act, that a verse is “Theognis” (or “Solon”, or

“Sappho”, or “Homer”) does not carry the implication that the poet personally came up with it, wrote it down in their study and published it. Rather, it means first and foremost that it was once either performed by Theognis (or Solon, or Homer, or Sappho), or else that it was part of a body of poetry traditionally attributed to them. Often, as with Homer, an entire tradition is attributed to a specific name. Why could this not be the case with Theognis? Whether he existed or not, Theognis would

78Nagy, pp. 55-56, quoting a gloss by Hesychius. 79Ford, pp.82-84. 36

certainly not be the first poet to have spurious quotes attributed to him, nor is he the only poet whose quotes are attributed to other poets! And this process only becomes more understandable when we consider the Theognidea’s image in antiquity as didactic poetry, essentially, wisdom literature, rife with the sort of pithy sayings Greeks loved to attribute to their wise old poets, but which also, objectively, can be used as proverbs in many different traditions.

The Theognidean corpus, then, rather than a very late descendant of Theognis through a series of compilations, makes far more sense as anthology of a specific poetic tradition of archaic aristocratic

Megara, which came together under the name of Theognis. This tradition may have included both different editions of similar verses—it is no stretch to believe that a scrupulous compiler (or performer) would have felt obliged to include variations of the same verse—and also included verses that were either actually performed by other poets across Greece and heard at Megara, or else were also included in the traditions attributed to such poets, although these too may originally have been Megarian. After all, why should it be Theognis including Solon, rather than Solon including Theognis? In the end, an oral tradition accounts for all the irregularities observed by scholars, without needless complexity and without compromising the unity of the text. Although the Theognidean corpus, as we have it, was probably not itself meant for oral performance as a whole, or at the very least the verses were not composed to be performed in their current arrangement—though it is not too difficult to imagine a performance of the entirety of the Theognidea either—the poetry was undoubtedly oral at some point in its history.

4. A “real” Theognis?

But can we know anything about who this “Theognis” whose name is on the verses was? If we can still speak of a historical figure of Theognis after this, he must fit somewhere into this process of the poetry’s compilation: where is largely an issue of speculation. He might have simply been the most significant composer of Megarian poetry under whose name, especially with the passage of time and

later perhaps under the Athenian pen, all elegiac Megarian poetry was subsumed, much like almost everything old and nameless in Greek literature was eventually attributed to Homer. From this body, our anthology would have been compiled. Or, perhaps a more attractive alternative, he was the main performer of a long tradition of poetry, a sort of oral “compiler” from whose songs the corpus was in turn compiled. Or he could have been any mixture of both, performing at some point in Megarian history within the context of an extensive oral tradition, and then having subsequent verses attributed to him: in a way such a view nicely mirrors the old debates on the authentic and inauthentic verses. L.

Pratt, in her 1995 article “The Seal of Theognis and Oral Poetry”,80 one of the best approaches to the oral nature of the Theognidea, specifically links the Sphregis, wherein the poet declares that his verses will not be changed, to the transition from oral to written poetry: the “Seal” of Theognis, for Pratt, is precisely the committal of Theognidean poetry to writing. Thus, Theognis himself would be the linked to the compilation of the corpus, though this does not at all mean he was not also a performer. In a culture until recently oral, the writing-down of a work would have great cultural significance as perceivedly granting permanence, even more so as the pitfalls of manuscript tradition would as of yet be inconceivable. The very act of publishing a work in writing would have been a very strong claim of authorship in a fluid oral tradition. Furthermore, Pratt adds, at the early stages of Greek writing, the semantic connection between stamps, seals and writing was very close, thus strengthening the significance of the Theognidean Sphregis, while the lines may even be referring to a specific copy of the text written down, perhaps deposited at a temple, as Heraclitus was famously said to have done with his own works.81

This is one of the best guesses regarding the placement of a historical Theognis, as well as a potential source for additional insight into the nature of the poetry. In any case, however, if we abandon attempts to attribute this or that verse to a historic Theognis, and simply view the poetry for what it is,

80Pratt, pp.171-184. 81Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, Heraclitus, 5. 38

the sum of the poetic expression of a community (or a community of communities) over a period of time, many of the old debates become clearer and far less convoluted, and the text is rendered more, not less unified by our reading.

5. Conclusion to Part I

To presume that the present analysis provides a definitive answer to the myriad of questions plaguing old and new Theognidean scholarship would be the sort of hubris for which Theognis would chide Cyrnus. Nonetheless, by shedding the light of recent perspectives onto old questions, we have come to a few certainties: Theognis was a Megarian, and the poetry itself is a compilation of

(aristocratically biased) Megarian poetry, whether from mainland Megara, or its colonies, certainly, at least in its great majority, from the Archaic Period. Oral performance would have played a huge part in the constitution of the corpus, which was eventually written down, and was extant, at the time of

Classical Athens, largely in the form in which we have it today, if not more extensive. From there, it entered the manuscript tradition, to give us today our single most extensive monument of archaic lyric poetry. Having addressed these questions, we are now on more solid ground to deal with another no less interesting aspect of Theognidean poetry: the thematic and literary analysis.

Part II: A Literary and Thematic Reading of the Corpus

After going over the main historic issues surrounding the Theognidean corpus in the first part, the second part of this thesis will tackle some of the main thematic and literary topics in the poetry. The goal is to provide an enriched reading of Theognis informed by the previous analysis. I will first go over some more general topics which can affect our reading of the corpus and the way we view it in the broader historic, ideological and literary context of its time: namely, the narrative of decay in Theognis, the idea of Theognis as an urban poet, and the tension between local Megarian and international aristocratic identity in the corpus. The next section will begin on an analysis of the traditional view in scholarship of Theognis as the “mouthpiece of the aristocracy”. I will then proceed to look more closely at the Theognidea’s main ideological trait, the poet’s aristocratic value system and identity, and to analyze it in as great a depth as possible. I will conclude by looking at the symposiastic and paederastic aspects of the corpus, and how they help to structure it as a vehicle for transmitting the aforementioned value system, hopefully bringing all these topics together and ultimately arriving at a clearer overall image of this very significant but still obscure corpus of poetry.

1. Themes in Theognis

1.1. The Theognidean narrative of decay

Traditional views of Theognis, largely centered on his image as the poet of a waning aristocracy

(see below), are strongly tied to reading a narrative of decay into the poems. Analysing this narrative can inform both our view of the poet’s position in political and literary history—the theme of decay is common in Greek and Roman literature, and particularly visible in the work of Hesiod, the archaic poet most similar to Theognis—as well as our reading of the poetry in general. The narrative of decay is most especially visible in Theognis’ bemoaning of the decline of the agathoi, ancient Megarian aristocrats, as a social class. While Theognis is connected to traditionally pessimistic ancient views of history, we can also demonstrate a significant nuance here: Theognis’ views are not “reactionary”, as

we could qualify much of similar ancient thought. He does not harken back to a past golden age.

Rather, Theognis is “conservative”, referring directly to events in his own time, and taking a stance against the changes occurring around him in a current political conflict.

Decay in the Theognidean corpus

The temporal narrative of a general moral decay is visible throughout the Theognidean corpus, and immediately ties moral concerns to political ones: Theognis sees his society as changing from better to worse, specifically as his own social class, the agathoi, lose power and their values are overturned. In poems like the one in lines 53-60 the sorry current state of affairs is contrasted with a hypothetical, older ideal. In this particular poem, the men who have become agathoi explicitly used to live lawless lives outside the city, while those who used to be esthloi have become deiloi:

Κύρνε, πόλις μὲν ἔθ᾿ ἥδε πόλις, λαοὶ δὲ δὴ ἄλλοι οἳ πρόσθ᾿ οὔτε δίκας ᾔδεσαν οὔτε νόμους, ἀλλ᾿ ἀμφὶ πλευραῖσι δορὰς αἰγῶν κατέτριβον, ἔξω δ᾿ ὥστ᾿ ἔλαφοι τῆσδ᾿ ἐνέμοντο πόλεος. καὶ νῦν εἰσ᾿ ἀγαθοί, Πολυπαΐδη· οἱ δὲ πρὶν ἐσθλοὶ νῦν δειλοί. τίς κεν ταῦτ᾿ ἀνέχοιτ᾿ ἐσορῶν; ἀλλήλους δ᾿ ἀπατῶσιν ἐπ᾿ ἀλλήλοισι γελῶντες, οὔτε κακῶν γνώμας εἰδότες οὔτ᾿ ἀγαθῶν.

Cyrnus, this city is still a city, but the people are different. / They who formerly knew neither justice nor laws, / but wore tattered goatskins about their sides / and lived outside this city like deer; / and now they are noble, Polypaïdes, while those who were noble before / are now base. Who can endure the sight of such things? / They deceive one another and mock one another, / knowing neither the distinctive marks of the base nor those of the noble.82

Many other poems which complain of such problems are also temporally defined. The term νῦν comes up again and again when referring to the degenerate state of the city according to Theognis’ moral code. For example, lines 287-292:

ἐν γάρ τοι πόλει ὧδε κακοψόγῳ ἁνδάνει οὐδέν· †ωσδετοσωσαιει† πολλοὶ ἀνολβότεροι. νῦν δὲ τὰ τῶν ἀγαθῶν κακὰ γίνεται ἐσθλὰ κακοῖσιν ἀνδρῶν· γαίονται δ᾿ ἐκτραπέλοισι νόμοις· αἰδὼς μὲν γὰρ ὄλωλεν, ἀναιδείη δὲ καὶ ὕβρις

82Gerber merges this poem with the immediately following lines 61-68. I prefer to follow older editions, such as Edmonds, in keeping them separate. In any case, lines 61-68 will come up later in the present work. 41

νικήσασα δίκην γῆν κατὰ πᾶσαν ἔχει.83

For in a basely fault finding city, nothing pleases / [...] many are worse off. / Now the evils of noble men have become the good of base men. / And they rejoice in crooked laws. / For Shame has been lost, and Shamelessness and Outrage / have defeated Justice across the whole earth.

Things are not just bad, they are bad now. They have become bad.

Theognis as a “conservative”: similarities and differences in Theognidean and Hesiodic narratives of decline

This narrative of decay connects Theognis to other works: of the other two pre-Classical corpora, the one in which this theme is very much prevalent is Hesiod. Both Theognis and Hesiod seem to believe that, generally, in the olden days things were better, almost by law, and that human history is a cycle of decay. In Hesiod, this thought is expressed using the grand and universal language of myth— e.g. the myth of the Ages of Man (Hesiod, Works and Days 109-210). Another picture of decay found in Theognis, in lines 1135-1150, with Hope being the only good goddess remaining among men, is reminiscent of the tale of Pandora’s box:

Ἐλπὶς ἐν ἀνθρώποισι μόνη θεὸς ἐσθλὴ ἔνεστιν, ἄλλοι δ᾿ Οὔλυμπον ἐκπρολιπόντες ἔβαν. ᾤχετο μὲν Πίστις, μεγάλη θεός, ᾤχετο δ᾿ ἀνδρῶν Σωφροσύνη, Χάριτές τ᾿, ὦ φίλε, γῆν ἔλιπον· ὅρκοι δ᾿ οὐκέτι πιστοὶ ἐν ἀνθρώποισι δίκαιοι, οὐδὲ θεοὺς οὐδεὶς ἅζεται ἀθανάτους, εὐσεβέων δ᾿ ἀνδρῶν γένος ἔφθιτο, οὐδὲ θέμιστας οὐκέτι γινώσκουσ᾿ οὐδὲ μὲν εὐσεβίας. ἀλλ᾿ ὄφρα τις ζώει καὶ ὁρᾷ φάος ἠελίοιο, εὐσεβέων περὶ θεοὺς Ἐλπίδα προσμενέτω· εὐχέσθω δὲ θεοῖσι, καὶ ἀγλαὰ μηρία καίων Ἐλπίδι τε πρώτῃ καὶ πυμάτῃ θυέτω. φραζέσθω δ᾿ ἀδίκων ἀνδρῶν σκολιὸν λόγον αἰεί, οἳ θεῶν ἀθανάτων οὐδὲν ὀπιζόμενοι αἰὲν ἐπ᾿ ἀλλοτρίοις κτεάνοις ἐπέχουσι νόημα, αἰσχρὰ κακοῖς ἔργοις σύμβολα θηκάμενοι.84

Hope is the only noble goddess that dwells among men, / but the others, departing, have gone

83Cf. lines 38-52, 287-292, 603-604, 635-636, 667-682 647-648, 1109-1114 for temporally defined decay. Lines 833-836 also use a perhaps temporal tade in reference to a sorry current state of affairs. 84Cf. Hesiod, Theogony, 560-612, Works and Days, 44-105. 42

to Olympus. / Faith was grieved, the great goddess, by men / Good Sense was grieved, the Graces, oh friend, have left the earth. / And just oaths are no longer trusted among men, / nor does any one respect the immortal gods, / and the race of pious men has withered away, nor do they know traditions / anymore, nor piety. / But so long as one lives and sees the light of the sun, / let him revere the gods and count upon Hope. / And let him pray to the gods, / and burning splendid thigh bones / let him sacrifice to Hope both first and last. / And let him ever guard himself from the crooked speech of unjust men, / who never thinking of the immortal gods / always have their thoughts set on other people’s possessions, / making shameful compacts to further shameful deeds.

However, despite the many similarities to Hesiod,85 this passage also highlights the key unique elements of the Theognidean view of social decay. Even here, the political tone is visible. The poet links his vaguely mythological discussion of deities or personified abstractions specifically to the discussion of a conflict between good and bad (in this case pious and impious) humans, echoing his concerns elsewhere about the conflict between the agathoi and the kakoi, a conflict expressed, as we shall, both morally and politically.

Furthermore, in both Hesiod and Theognis, the downward curve is projected into the future: much like with Hesiod, Theognis fears that his current time period is a step down the ladder to utter decay, although in Theognis, Hope is not sealed in the box, but rather, perhaps more optimistically, the only one of the good gods remaining among mankind. This explicit reference to Hope as still extant points to another significant trait in the Theognidean view of decay also present in other verses: for

Theognis, decadence is ongoing. Lines 287-292, with hubris having triumphed across the earth, are the exception. In lines 39-52, for example, another clearly political poem, the process of decay—again linked to the agathoi/kakoi conflict—is explicitly still in progress:

Κύρνε, κύει πόλις ἥδε, δέδοικα δὲ μὴ τέκῃ ἄνδρα εὐθυντῆρα κακῆς ὕβριος ἡμετέρης. ἀστοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἔθ᾿ οἵδε σαόφρονες, ἡγεμόνες δὲ τετράφαται πολλὴν εἰς κακότητα πεσεῖν. οὐδεμίαν πω, Κύρν᾿, ἀγαθοὶ πόλιν ὤλεσαν ἄνδρες·ἀλλ᾿ ὅταν ὑβρίζειν τοῖσι κακοῖσιν ἅδῃ, δῆμόν τε φθείρωσι δίκας τ᾿ ἀδίκοισι διδῶσιν οἰκείων κερδέων εἵνεκα καὶ κράτεος,

85Beyond the allegories, we also have the focus on the attempt to gain other people’s property through “crooked speech”. 43

ἔλπεο μὴ δηρὸν κείνην πόλιν ἀτρεμίεσθαι, μηδ᾿ εἰ νῦν κεῖται πολλῇ ἐν ἡσυχίῃ, εὖτ᾿ ἂν τοῖσι κακοῖσι φίλ᾿ ἀνδράσι ταῦτα γένηται, κέρδεα δημοσίῳ σὺν κακῷ ἐρχόμενα. ἐκ τῶν γὰρ στάσιές τε καὶ ἔμφυλοι φόνοι ἀνδρῶν μούναρχοί τε· πόλει μήποτε τῇδε ἅδοι.

Cyrnus, the city is pregnant, and I fear lest she give birth to a man / that will put straight our base outrage. / For these townsmen are still of a sound mind, but the leaders / have gone astray falling into much evil. / Never, Cyrnus, have noble men destroyed any city. / But when it pleases base men to commit outrage, / and they corrupt the people and give judgements in favour of the unjust / for personal benefit and power, / do not expect that city to be quiet for long, / not even if it is now very peaceful. / For when these become dear to base men, / gains that come with public evil, / from these come civil strife and internicine murders of men, / and tyrants. May these things never please this city!

The city finds itself halfway through the process of decline. Some of it has already occurred: the leaders are already corrupt; but other elements, such as the tyrant that the poet fears, and the ills that he prays against, will come in the future. Further in the corpus, in lines 667-682, the extensive “ship of state” metaphor also points both ways: on the one hand, the mutinous crew has recently taken control; on the other, Theognis fears for a possible future disaster.

εἰ μὲν χρήματ᾿ ἔχοιμι, Σιμωνίδη, οἷά περ ἤδη, οὐκ ἂν ἀνιῴμην τοῖς ἀγαθοῖσι συνών. νῦν δέ με γινώσκοντα παρέρχεται, εἰμὶ δ᾿ ἄφωνος χρημοσύνῃ, πολλῶν γνοὺς ἂν ἄμεινον ἔτι, οὕνεκα νῦν φερόμεσθα καθ᾿ ἱστία λευκὰ βαλόντες Μηλίου ἐκ πόντου νύκτα διὰ δνοφερήν, ἀντλεῖν δ᾿ οὐκ ἐθέλουσιν, ὑπερβάλλει δὲ θάλασσα ἀμφοτέρων τοίχων. ἦ μάλα τις χαλεπῶς σῴζεται, οἷ’ ἔρδουσι· κυβερνήτην μὲν ἔπαυσαν ἐσθλόν, ὅτις φυλακὴν εἶχεν ἐπισταμένως· χρήματα δ᾿ ἁρπάζουσι βίῃ, κόσμος δ᾿ ἀπόλωλεν, δασμὸς δ᾿ οὐκέτ᾿ ἴσος γίνεται ἐς τὸ μέσον· φορτηγοὶ δ᾿ ἄρχουσι, κακοὶ δ᾿ ἀγαθῶν καθύπερθεν. δειμαίνω, μή πως ναῦν κατὰ κῦμα πίῃ. ταῦτά μοι ᾐνίχθω κεκρυμμένα τοῖς ἀγαθοῖσιν· γινώσκοι δ᾿ ἄν τις καὶ κακόν, ἂν σοφὸς ᾖ.

If I had possessions, Simonides, as once afore, / I would not be distressed being in the company of the noble. / But now although I know it passes me by, and I am voiceless / because of poverty, although I know better than many. / For we are being carried, with the white sails lowered, / out of the Melian sea into the murky night, / and they refuse to pump, although the sea is rising / on both sides. And it is very difficult for anyone / to be saved, with 44

the things they are doing. For they have deposed the noble helmsman, / who kept watch with skill. / And they seize possessions by force, and order is lost, / and equitable division is no longer. / And the porters rule and the base are above the noble. / I am afraid, lest perchance a wave swallow the ship. / Let these riddles be uttered by me, with hidden meaning for the noble. / But anyone can recognize the evil, if he is wise.

Notice also the decline in Theognis’ personal fortunes, connecting the personal to the political.

It also bears mentioning that all the references to the agathoi, the “good” (or “noble”) men in the Theognidean poems refer to an extant group of people. For example, even the already-cited lines

287-292 imply the agathoi and the kakoi coexisting and making value judgements on equal footing. For

Theognis, there are still good men in the world. The agathoi are not the long-gone men of Hesiod’s

Gold or Silver Ages, but alive, though perhaps not well, in Theognidean society as a political class; and

Theognis (and his addresee Cyrnus) often interact with them. Indeed, as we shall see, they are central to

Theognidean thought. We need look no further than the Sphregis, in which interaction with the agathoi is one of the central imperatives from the poet to his addressee:

But to you, with kind thought, I will give advice which myself, / Cyrnus, I learned from noble men when I was still a child. / Be wise, and neither with shameful nor with unjust works / draw to yourself neither honour nor virtue nor wealth. / Know that this is so. And do not associate with base / men, but always cling to the noble. / And with them drink and eat, and with them / sit, and be pleasing to them, whose power is great. / For from the noble you will learn noble things. But if you mix with the base, / you will lose even what wits you have. Knowing these things, associate with the noble, / and one day you will say I advise my friends well.

86Cf. references like lines 1134-1135, which seems like a call to action (Knox, p.145), or even the naming of the tyrant as an euthuntēr in line 40. Such passages could even suggest the possibilty of reversion of the decline! 45

In Theognis, then, we do not generally see a long-gone golden age and an awful present, but a current, ongoing historic conflict between agathoi and kakoi. Of course, Hesiod’s ideas could also be linked to the political reality of his time. And even in Hesiod, there is an even more degenerate age still coming. But it is simply the final conclusion of the decay that is all but completed in the present age, and all the good ages are gone irredeemably and pertain squarely to myth. Theognis, by contrast, refers to a good political situation as an ideal age, and the entirety of Theognidean decay hinges around a contemporary struggle in which the poet himself takes a clear political stand in favour of the agathoi.

Many readings of Theognis have viewed the fall of the agathoi as more or less a fait accompli.

For example, Veda Cobb-Stevens in her analysis of the key words in the Theognidean corpus, which we will return to more extensively below, presents the reversal of the aristocratic value system, the downfall of the agathoi and the rise of the kakoi, as having already happened.87 However, I believe I have demonstrated that while a nebulous idealized past is implied by certain verses, and used to reinforce Theognidean ideology, the transformations are still occurring.

The fact that Theognis does not himself give us the difference between agathos and kakos, or define the agathos very clearly as a social class could also be a symptom of how his work refers to a current political situation. Theognis does not need to explain: he is not expounding ancient history or myth, but rather discussing the reality of Megara in his day. These are terms with which the community views itself, or, at least, with which Theognis and his audience view the community. And he is understood. His point is not to describe past times but to reinforce the values of the current agathoi.

But in what context do these agathoi exist? The next section will discuss the setting of Theognidean poetry.

1.2. Urban Theognis

We have seen that Theognis is a highly political poet, and deeply interested in the

87V. Cobb-Stevens, “Opposites, Reversals and Ambiguities: The Unsettled World of Theognis”, in Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, pp.159-175, p.159. 46

transformations of his time. The main setting for these transformations is the Archaic Era polis.

Although it has seldom been specifically dwelt upon by scholarship, Theognis is very evidently and very explicitly an urban poet. Theognis’ politics are those of the polis.

Theognis and the polis

Theognis, as he appears in the corpus, lives in a city. He speaks of the polis and interacts with other citizens. Even in the Sphregis, in line 24, he speaks of his fellows as astoi. The political poems that follow it (lines 39-52, 53-60) speak specifically of the polis and its internal situation:

Κύρνε, κύει πόλις ἥδε, δέδοικα [...] (line 39) Cyrnus, this city is pregnant and I fear...

οὐδεμίαν πω, Κύρν᾽, ἀγαθοὶ πόλιν ὤλεσαν ἄνδρες (line 43) Never yet, Cyrnus, have noble men destroyed a city

Κύρνε πόλις μὲν ἔθ᾽ ἥδε πόλις, λαοὶ δὲ δὴ ἄλλοι, (line 53) Cyrnus, this city is still a city, but the people are different.

These poems are not unique: references to the polis permeate the text. Lines like 287-292, already cited, or lines 603-604, make reference to the internal state of the polis in which Theognis lives:

τοιάδε καὶ Μάγνητας ἀπώλεσεν ἔργα καὶ ὕβρις, οἷα τὰ νῦν ἱερὴν τήνδε πόλιν κατέχει.88

Such works and outrage destroyed the Magnesians / as now have hold in this holy city.

Throughout the text there are various references to the external politics of the city, defining the polis as an actor on the international scene of archaic Greece. The poem in lines 825-830 complains of an approaching war and specifically speaks about the dwindling borders of the polis.

πῶς ὑμῖν τέτληκεν ὑπ᾿ αὐλητῆρος ἀείδειν θυμός; γῆς δ᾿ οὖρος φαίνεται ἐξ ἀγορῆς, ἥ τε τρέφει καρποῖσιν †ἐν εἰλαπίναις φορέοντας ξανθῇσίν τε κόμαις πορφυρέους στεφάνους.† ἀλλ᾿ ἄγε δή, Σκύθα, κεῖρε κόμην, ἀπόπαυε δὲ κῶμον, πένθει δ᾿ εὐώδη χῶρον ἀπολλύμενον.89

88Cf. lines 235-236 (unclear whether it refers to internal collapse or an outside threat) 287-292, 541-542, 603-604, 757-768, 845-846, 855-856, 885-886, 891-894, 1043-1044, 1081-1082B, 1043-1045. 89Cf. lines 235-236 (see previous footnote), 757-764, 773-778, 825-830, 891-894. 47

How do you endure in your hearts to sing with the piper? / From the marketplace the border of the land is visible, / [that land] which feeds with its fruits those who [at feasts?] wear / crimson garlands on their blond hair. / Now come, Scythes [Scythian?], crop your hair, and stop the revelry, / and grieve for the fragrant land that is being lost.

In many of these poems, moral and political themes overlap, and moral decay of the polis is associated with political problems. Even many of Theognis’ more generic gnomic poems specifically reference the polis context, for example lines 865-868, which in verse 868 contain the pronouncement αἰχμητὴς γὰρ

ἀνὴρ γῆν τε καὶ ἄστυ σαοῖ, “a spearman saves both soil and city”.90

Sometimes, Theognis’ concern is personal: as West has pointed out, certain verses in the poems seem to indicate involvement in public affairs. And much of the advice to Cyrnus deals explicitly with navigating the social world of the polis. For example, the second part of poem 53-68, in lines 61-68, advises Cyrnus on friendship, specifically, friendship with astoi: μηδένα τῶνδε φίλον ποιεῦ,

Πολυπαΐδη, ἀστῶν (line 61); “make none of these townsmen your friend, Polypaïdes”. So does the poem of lines 283-286:

ἀστῶν μηδενὶ πιστὸς ἐὼν πόδα τῶνδε πρόβαινε, μήθ᾿ ὅρκῳ πίσυνος μήτε φιλημοσύνῃ (lines 283-284).91

Do not take a step forward in trust with any of these your townsmen, / neither trusting in an oath nor in claims of friendship.

The people with whom Cyrnus interacts are astoi, by default.

Furthermore, there are a few references to the material locations in the polis. The poem in lines

267-270 speaks of Poverty as being hated “everywhere”:

γνωτή τοι Πενίη γε καὶ ἀλλοτρίη περ ἐοῦσα· οὔτε γὰρ εἰς ἀγορὴν ἔρχεται οὔτε δίκας· πάντῃ γὰρ τοὔλασσον ἔχει, πάντῃ δ᾿ ἐπίμυκτος, πάντῃ δ᾿ ἐχθρὴ ὁμῶς γίνεται, ἔνθα περ ᾖ.

Poverty is known indeed, even though she is someone else’s. / For she comes neither to the marketplace, nor to the trials. / For everywere she has the lesser part, / and she is hated everywhere where she may be.

90Cf. lines 949-954, 1003-1004, 1211-1216. 91Edmonds and others link this poem with the immediately subsequent lines 287-292 making the connection between personal and political even more evident. 48

For Theognis, “everywhere” is the law-courts and the agora. Lines 825-830 and 773-782 also reference internal landmarks of the polis, such as the agora and the walls.

As Megara was an important port city, another element that could help establish Theognis as an urban dweller of the Archaic Era is the text’s deep familiarity with ships. Ships seem to be ubiquitous in the daily world of the poet: the poem in lines 511-522 welcomes his friend Clearistus from a journey, beginning like this:

ἦλθες δή, Κλεάριστε, βαθὺν διὰ πόντον ἀνύσσας ἐνθάδ᾿ ἐπ᾿ οὐδὲν ἔχοντ᾿, ὦ τάλαν, οὐδὲν ἔχων·92 νηός τοι πλευρῇσιν ὑπὸ ζυγὰ θήσομεν ἡμεῖς, Κλεάρισθ᾿, οἷ᾿ ἔχομεν χοἶα διδοῦσι θεοί. (lines 511-514)93

You have come now, Clearistus, arriving over the deep sea, / here, poor man, having nothing, to one who has nothing. / We’ll store under the benches at the side of your ship, / Clearistus, such things as we have and the gods provide.

Proverbial references, such as that in lines 83-86, which uses ναῦς μία, “a ship’s company”, literally

“one ship”, to refer to a small group of people, further evidence familiarity with navigation, as does the recurring “ship of state” image, as seen in the already-quoted 667-682, or in lines 855-856:

πολλάκις ἡ πόλις ἥδε δι᾿ ἡγεμόνων κακότητα ὥσπερ κεκλιμένη ναῦς παρὰ γῆν ἔδραμεν.94

Many times this city, because of the baseness of its leaders, / like a veering ship has run beside the land.

City and country

Opposite to urban references, there are very few references to traditional rural activities, or traditional rural concerns (the seasons, the harvest, land, etc.), at least beyond generic (but admittedly pervasive) images of farming and animals, for example in lines 183-192 (which we will refer to in the discussion on Theognis’ aristocratic identity) or the border of the land seen in 825-830. Considering the

92West transposed the immediately subsequent lines 515-518 between 511 and 512, and Gerber publishes them as such, as we will see in a full reading of the poem below. 93On ships, cf. 11-14, 691-692, 1375-1376. 94Cf. also 667-682. For general references to the sea, see lines 173-178, 179-180, 575-576, 667-682, 1029-1036, 1229-1230. 49

size of most pre-industrial communities, let alone the ones in archaic Greece, it would be very strange for Theognis not to be familiar with such images. However, Theognis still seems much more at home in a port city than on a farm. Although a writer of conservative wisdom literature, he certainly does not share Hesiod’s suspicion of seafaring in favour of farming. At its best, for Theognis, working on land is on equal terms with seafaring as a way of making a living:

χρὴ γὰρ ὁμῶς ἐπὶ γῆν τε καὶ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης δίζησθαι χαλεπῆς, Κύρνε, λύσιν πενίης. (lines 179-180)

It is necessary to search equally over the land and the broad back of the sea, / Cyrnus, for a remedy to harsh poverty.

At worst, the dwellers in the countryside are rustic upstarts, half-animal savages when contrasted to the city dwellers of old stock, of which Theognis is one, as in the already-referenced poem of lines 53-60.

Theognis, then, is a city-dweller, and very proudly so. Theognis’ home is the ever-evolving archaic polis. Thus, it is natural not only that his poetry be profoundly political, but also that, despite his conservative ideology, he interact with and react to the profound changes of this time period, and that his poetry be deeply informed by these.

But, as already hinted at by Theognis’ concern with international affairs, the setting for the transformations of the Archaic Era, the polis, is not an isolated unit, but rather part of an interconnected network of rapidly evolving similar poleis. Likewise Theognis, although very resolutely Megarian, also has a very strong “international”, Panhellenic identity, and one which is also specifically linked to his aristocratic identity.

1.3. International aristocratic and local Megarian identity

Theognis the Megarian Panhellenic aristocrat

We have already seen, in trying to determine Theognis’ origin, a tension between the local and the “international” (Panhellenic) aspects of the poetry. Although Megarian, it is clear that “Theognis”

the character in the text does quite a bit of travelling, and the frequent references to places that are not

Megara are significant in the corpus. The second part of the poem in lines 773-788, already quoted, showcases this in speaking of the poet travelling to Sicily, Euboea and Sparta but ultimately preferring his home. Much of Theognis’ travel is also seen in the negative light of exile, which is referred to throughout the corpus. Lines 1211-1216 speak of the poet—and if the plural is taken literally, of many others—as an exile, and conclude with what is probably a reference to death:

μή μ᾿ ἀφελῶς παίζουσα φίλους δένναζε τοκῆας, Ἀργυρί· σοὶ μὲν γὰρ δούλιον ἦμαρ ἔπι, ἡμῖν δ᾿ ἄλλα μέν ἐστι, γύναι, κακὰ πόλλ᾿, ἐπεὶἐκ γῆς φεύγομεν, ἀργαλέη δ᾿ οὐκ ἔπι δουλοσύνη, οὔθ᾿ ἡμᾶς περνᾶσι· πόλις γε μέν ἐστι καὶ ἡμῖν καλή, Ληθαίῳ κεκλιμένη πεδίῳ.95

Don’t revile my parents, mocking me brazenly, / Argyris. For upon you there was a day of slavery, / but for us, woman, although there are many other evils—for we flee / our land— there is no painful slavery upon us, / nor do they sell us. And there is a beautiful city for us too, / lying on the Lethaean plain.

Such references darken the idyllic view of both the international travels and the relationship between

Theognis and his city seen in poems like 773-788. The reference to exile could also be connected to

Theognis’ aristocratic politics: the speaker’s aristocratic sentiments are visible in these lines in the disdain for the slavish “Argyris”, “Silver”, whose name also denotes wealth. This could be connected to the new, non-aristocratic plutocrats, the oligarchs of the kyklos. Considering the turbulent political climate of archaic Megara, and the ultimate defeat of its aristocracy, and also considering the fact that exile was a tool par excellence for getting rid of political oponents in ancient Greece, it is likely that exile would have been a common experience for Megarian aristocrats. And Theognis, as the oral poetry of the Megarian aristocracy, would include references to it.

The specific cities referenced in many of the “foreign” poems, both those related and those unrelated to exile, can also be connected with Theognis’ aristocratic ideology. These are mainly Sparta

95Cf. lines 209-210, 332A-332B, 333-334, 1209-1210. 51

and Thebes. Lines 1209-1210 have the poet explicitly exiled to the latter:

Αἴθων μὲν γένος εἰμί, πόλιν δ᾿ εὐτείχεα Θήβην οἰκῶ, πατρῴας γῆς ἀπερυκόμενος.

I am Aethon by birth, but I live in the well-walled city of Thebes, / excluded from my fatherland.

The Theban connection in Theognis is indeed especially strong: in the opening invocations of the corpus, of all the places the Muses would sing, for Theognis the significant one is the wedding of

Thebes’ founder Cadmus:

Μοῦσαι καὶ Χάριτες, κοῦραι Διός, αἵ ποτε Κάδμου ἐς γάμον ἐλθοῦσαι καλὸν ἀείσατ᾿ ἔπος, “ὅττι καλὸν φίλον ἐστί, τὸ δ᾿ οὐ καλὸν οὐ φίλον ἐστί”· τοῦτ᾿ ἔπος ἀθανάτων ἦλθε διὰ στομάτων. (lines 15-18)

Muses and Graces, daughters of Zeus, who once / came to the wedding of Cadmus singing this beautiful song: / “what is beautiful is dear and what is not beauitful is not dear”, / this saying crossed your immortal mouths.

Conservative Sparta is also present. Lines 1087-1090 invoke Castor and Pollux in a distinctly Laconian setting:

Κάστορ καὶ Πολύδευκες, οἳ ἐν Λακεδαίμονι δίῃ ναίετ᾿ ἐπ᾿ Εὐρώτᾳ καλλιρόῳ ποταμῷ, εἴ ποτε βουλεύσαιμι φίλῳ κακόν, αὐτὸς ἔχοιμι· εἰ δέ τι κεῖνος ἐμοί, δὶς τόσον αὐτὸς ἔχοι.96

Castor and Pollux, who dwell in heavenly Lacedaemon / by the fair-flowing river Eurotas, / if ever I plot evil against a friend, may I have it myself. / And if he plots to harm me, may he have twice as much himself.

Both Sparta and Thebes were bastions of aristocracy, as well as enemies of Megara’s later democratic oppressor Athens. Thus, as foreign cities go, a clear line might connect Theognis’ aristocratic ideology and the cities his poetry is interested in. This might even hint at an international aristocratic network.

After all, where would Theognis be staying during his exile in Thebes, or during his travels to Sparta?

In lines 511-522, already quoted in part and presented here in full, a description of proper xenia

96Cf. also lines 879-884, which refers to Taygetus, the mountain range between Sparta and Messenia. 52

reinforces this view by reference to what would be the specific rituals of international travel among aristocrats—even, it seems, in spite of some economic difficulty.

ἦλθες δή, Κλεάριστε, βαθὺν διὰ πόντον ἀνύσσας ἐνθάδ᾿ ἐπ᾿ οὐδὲν ἔχοντ᾿, ὦ τάλαν, οὐδὲν ἔχων· τῶν δ᾿ ὄντων τἄριστα παρέξομεν· ἢν δέ τις ἔλθῃ σεῦ φίλος ὤν, κατάκεισ᾿ ὡς φιλότητος ἔχεις. οὔτε τι τῶν ὄντων ἀποθήσομαι, οὔτε τι μείζω σῆς ἕνεκα ξενίης ἄλλοθεν οἰσόμεθα. νηός τοι πλευρῇσιν ὑπὸ ζυγὰ θήσομεν ἡμεῖς, Κλεάρισθ᾿, οἷ᾿ ἔχομεν χοἶα διδοῦσι θεοί. ἢν δέ τις εἰρωτᾷ τὸν ἐμὸν βίον, ὧδέ οἱ εἰπεῖν· “ὡς εὖ μὲν χαλεπῶς, ὡς χαλεπῶς δὲ μάλ᾿ εὖ, ὥσθ᾿ ἕνα μὲν ξεῖνον πατρώιον οὐκ ἀπολείπειν, ξείνια δὲ πλεόνεσσ᾿ οὐ δυνατὸς παρέχειν.”

You have come now, Clearistus, arriving over the deep sea, / here, poor man, having nothing, to one who has nothing. / But of what we have, we will provide the best. And if someone comes / who is your friend, recline according to the degree of friendship. / I will not put away anything of what I have, nor bring in anything / from elsewhere for the sake of your entertainment. / We'll store under the benches at the side of your ship, / Clearistus, such things as we have and the gods provide. / And if someone asks how I live, reply to him as follows: / “He lives well for one doing poorly, and poorly for one doing well, / so that he doesn’t fail to offer guest-friendship to one friend of the family, / but is unable to provide it for more people.”

If we go by these lines, there is a high importance attached to this sort of guest-friendship. The international network of aristocrats at times seems to be a better, more functional, “home” for Theognis than his turbulent and soon-to-be democratic hometown. Both the good reception in foreign lands in lines 773-788 and perhaps more blatantly the explicit exile in lines 1209-1210 show this.

Nonetheless, it is important to note again that, despite Theognis’ international connections,

Megarian localism prevails. In lines 1209-1210, the poet is a foreigner in Thebes. And the conclusion to the second “Persian War” poem, lines 783-788, a more positive representation of this international perspective, this time showing the poet as a traveller rather than an exile, nonetheless only has him happy in his homeland:

ἦλθον δ᾿ Εὐβοίης ἀμπελόεν πεδίον, Σπάρτην τ᾿ Εὐρώτα δονακοτρόφου ἀγλαὸν ἄστυ, καί μ᾿ ἐφίλευν προφρόνως πάντες ἐπερχόμενον· ἀλλ᾿ οὔτις μοι τέρψις ἐπὶ φρένας ἦλθεν ἐκείνων· 53

οὕτως οὐδὲν ἄρ᾿ ἦν φίλτερον ἄλλο πάτρης.

In spite of all temptations, Theognis remains Megarian.

Panhellenism and the universal fame of Theognidean poetry

The “international” aristocratic aspect of Theognidean poetry is also evident in and connected to its claims to universal fame. This can be implied from some verses, but it is explicitly stated in the very poetic lines 237-254, which speak of the poetry in a Panhellenic, and also explicitly aristocratic context. Theognis, with his verses, has given wings to Cyrnus, to fly throughout Greece, and to be present at every symposium. I quote the lines here in full, as we will return to them later in other contexts:

σοὶ μὲν ἐγὼ πτέρ᾿ ἔδωκα, σὺν οἷς ἐπ᾿ ἀπείρονα πόντον πωτήσῃ καὶ γῆν πᾶσαν ἀειρόμενος ῥηϊδίως· θοίνῃς δὲ καὶ εἰλαπίνῃσι παρέσσῃ ἐν πάσαις, πολλῶν κείμενος ἐν στόμασιν, καί σε σὺν αὐλίσκοισι λιγυφθόγγοις νέοι ἄνδρες εὐκόσμως ἐρατοὶ καλά τε καὶ λιγέα ᾄσονται. καὶ ὅταν δνοφερῆς ὑπὸ κεύθεσι γαίης βῇς πολυκωκύτους εἰς Ἀΐδαο δόμους, οὐδέποτ᾿ οὐδὲ θανὼν ἀπολεῖς κλέος, ἀλλὰ μελήσεις ἄφθιτον ἀνθρώποις αἰὲν ἔχων ὄνομα, Κύρνε, καθ᾿ Ἑλλάδα γῆν στρωφώμενος ἠδ᾿ ἀνὰ νήσους ἰχθυόεντα περῶν πόντον ἐπ᾿ ἀτρύγετον, οὐχ ἵππων νώτοισιν ἐφήμενος, ἀλλά σε πέμψει ἀγλαὰ Μουσάων δῶρα ἰοστεφάνων· πᾶσι δ᾿ ὅσοισι μέμηλε καὶ ἐσσομένοισιν ἀοιδὴ ἔσσῃ ὁμῶς, ὄφρ᾿ ἂν γῆ τε καὶ ἠέλιος·

To you I have given wings, with which you will fly over the boundless sea / and over all the earth / with ease. You will be present at all dinners and parties, / sitting on the mouths of many, / and with clear-voiced flutes decorously loveable young men / will sing of you beautifully and clearly. / And when you go beneath the depths of the murky earth, / to the much-mourned halls of Hades, / never, not even dying, will you lose your glory, but you will be remembered / forever having an immortal name among men, / Cyrnus, travelling throughout all the Greek land or the islands, / crossing over the fishy, unharvestable deep, / not on the backs of horses; but / the splendid gifts of the violet-crowned Muses will send you. / For to all who care and 54

who will be in the future, a song / you will be, so long as there is an earth and a sun.

Theognis, through Cyrnus and his poetry, is staking a claim to Panhellenic fame, at least among the people who attend symposia. The nautical familiarity reminds us again of the urban setting, but the horse imagery and the symposia make it aristocratic. But the poem continues:

αὐτὰρ ἐγὼν ὀλίγης παρὰ σεῦ οὐ τυγχάνω αἰδοῦς, ἀλλ᾿ ὥσπερ μικρὸν παῖδα λόγοις μ᾿ ἀπατᾷς. (lines 253-254)

Yet I do not get even a little respect from you, / and you deceive me with words as if I were a small child.

This complaint is here directed at Cyrnus specifically, but one cannot help but recall lines 22-24 of the

Sphregis. Theognis is recognized internationally, πάντας δὲ κατ᾽ ἀνθρώπους ὀνομαστοῦ, “renowned amongst all men”. But ἀστοῖσιν δ᾽ οὔπω πᾶσιν ἁδεῖν δύναμαι: he has not been able to please all his fellow-townsmen. Theognis’ fame is thus subject to contradictions, like so much in the corpus: although he will be famous forever, everywhere, his own polis and his own friends do not appreciate him; and his main addressee, Cyrnus, treats the poet with disrespect, just as his own city exiles him.

But Cyrnus is still at the forefront of the poems, as is the Megarian polis. In the end, Megara, despite the troubles, is a constant in Theognidean poetry. But as a Megarian, Theognis stakes a claim to a place in a Panhellenic aristocratic network.

2. Theognis’ aristocracy

We have referred to Theognis as an aristocrat several times; we will now address this aspect of the poetry specifically. Theognis’ political opinions and his ideas on how the city should be run are one of the most salient features of the corpus. The depth and degree to which he expounds on them, if seen as a whole, present us with no less than a proto-political theory of aristocratic governance.

Furthermore, Theognis’ aristocratic outlook permeates all facets of his worldview: it informs his ideas on politics, morality, and interpersonal relationships, and ultimately binds them together, largely providing the framework with which the poet maps the world and his own identity. Overall, Theognis

being an aristocrat is almost a truism of Theognidean studies. The present section will seek to examine what exactly we mean by this and to re-visit some of the more general conclusions on the topic before proceeding to an in-depth analysis, which will ultimately be central to our understanding of the poetry as a whole.

More broadly, of the three great pre-Classical corpora, none is as intimately focused on the political struggles of the Greek polis as the Theognidea. Thus, a study of Theognis’ political views also sheds valuable light onto political thought in the Archaic Period; a time period which is much more significant than it is well-documented.

2.1. Theognis the mouthpiece of aristocracy

Aristocratic readings of Theognis

The fact that Theognis’ aristocratic identity permeates the corpus has been remarked upon from the earliest scholarship. Nietzsche already saw the Megarian poet as “a mouthpiece of the Greek aristocracy”.97 This is also the focus of a large part of more recent scholarship, and modern studies of

Theognis refer to it as a given: West98 and Knox99 both read Theognis as a politically active aristocrat.

V. Cobb-Stevens, T.J. Figueira and G. Nagy pick the aristocratic theme up in the introduction to

Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis,100 and it is referred to throughout the book. Notably, T.J.

Figueira’s chapter, aside from also being a biography of Theognis from an aristocratic perspective, also, as mentioned, discusses the theme of elegy in general as an aristocratic mode of expression101 while V.

Cobb-Stevens’ “The Unsettled World of Theognis” likewise deals with the aristocratic politics of the corpus. Indeed, Theognis’ already alluded-to appropriation by the Athenian aristocratic party, as discussed by Figueira, indicates that this would even have been the reading in ancient times.

97F. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. S.B. Horace, New York, Boni and Liveright , 1887, p.9. 98West, pp.67-70. 99Knox, pp. 142-146. 100Cobb-Stevens, Figueira, Nagy, p.3. 101Figueira, pp.112-158. 56

Theognis’ aristocratic activities and political discourse

When we say that Theognis is an aristocrat, this means first and foremost that he is a member of the traditional ruling class of Megara, the “aristocrats” of the kyklos, a hereditary ruling class of land owners traditionally focused on war, often specifically in the role of cavalry, in conflict with a rising ruling class of “oligarchs” presumably more focused on wealth.

Theognis’ aristocracy is visible throughout the poetry, particularly in his constant presence at aristocratic symposia, and in general in the symposiastic nature of much of the poetry—a topic to which we will return in its own section. Aristocratic ideology is also visible in the poet’s emphasis on war, his lack of reference to menial employment, and, of course, his explicit political discourse.

It is worthwhile to dwell a bit on Theognis’ ideas about war, which are both traditional and somewhat innovative. Despite the generally civilian setting of the Theognidea, war, a traditional aristocratic activity, is referenced quite a few times, for example in lines 885-886:

εἰρήνη καὶ πλοῦτος ἔχοι πόλιν, ὄφρα μετ᾿ ἄλλων κωμάζοιμι· κακοῦ δ᾿ οὐκ ἔραμαι πολέμου.102

May peace and wealth possess the city, so that with others / I might revel. I do not love evil war.

This reference to war, like most of the others on the same topic, is generally negative. In the verses on the Medes (lines 757-764 and 773-788) war appears specfically as an impediment to the highly significant religious feast. Overall, furthermore, traditionally martial kleos in Theognis is more associated with song (e.g. lines 237-254). However, bravery itself is a virtue, and there is still some allusion to traditional military kleos, as in lines 865-868:

πολλοῖς ἀχρήστοισι θεὸς διδοῖ ἀνδράσιν ὄλβον ἐσθλόν, ὃς οὔτ᾿ αὐτῷ βέλτερος, οὐδὲν ἐὼν, οὔτε φίλοις· ἀρετῆς δὲ μέγα κλέος οὔποτ᾿ ὀλεῖται· αἰχμητὴς γὰρ ἀνὴρ γῆν τε καὶ ἄστυ σαοῖ.103

To many worthless men the god gives noble prosperity, / which is of no advantage to the man

102Cf. lines 549-554, 757-764, 887-888, 889-890. 103Cf. lines 233-234, 865-868, 889-890. 57

himself, / or to his friends. But the great fame of valour will never die. / For a spearman keeps the land and the city safe.

And when war happens, Theognis is involved in it. In lines 549-554, he is specifically a part of the traditionally aristocratic cavalry, along with Cyrnus:

ἄγγελος ἄφθογγος πόλεμον πολύδακρυν ἐγείρει, Κύρν᾿, ἀπὸ τηλαυγέος φαινόμενος σκοπιῆς. ἀλλ᾿ ἵπποις ἔμβαλλε ταχυπτέρνοισι χαλινούς· δῄων γάρ σφ᾿ ἀνδρῶν ἀντιάσειν δοκέω. οὐ πολλὸν τὸ μεσηγύ· διαπρήξουσι κέλευθον, εἰ μὴ ἐμὴν γνώμην ἐξαπατῶσι θεοί.

The voiceless messenger rouses tearful war, / Cyrnus, shining from the far-gleaming lookout post. / But put the reins on the fast-heeled horses. / For I believe they will meet the foemen. / The distance is not great; they will traverse it swiftly, / if the gods beguile me not.

Lines 889-890, which also reference cavalry, perhaps sum up Theognis’ views on war most succinctly:

ἀλλ᾿ αἰσχρὸν παρεόντα καὶ ὠκυπόδων ἐπιβάντα ἵππων μὴ πόλεμον δακρυόεντ᾿ ἐσιδεῖν.

But it is shameful, when one is present and mounted / on swift-footed horses, not to behold tearful war.

It is not so much that it is glorious to go to war, as that it is shameful to avoid it. Thus, war is tearful, and bad. And although virtue in war is to be praised, it is either no longer a souce of kleos except in a negative way, in that avoiding it is shameful, or else it is specifically associated with civic virtue.

Nonetheless, for Theognis, it is a part of his life and his aristocratic identity, and one of his main activities. Theognis’ attitude towards war is a point where he seems to be at his most innovative, transitioning away from the epic ideal, even if in the end he does not break with traditional notions of military virtue.104

Beyond war and the symposium, like a good aristocrat, Theognis does not appear to have any employment, unless we read one into his advice to Cyrnus in couplet 179-180 to seek deliverance from poverty ἐπὶ γῆν τε καὶ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης, “on land and the broad back of the sea”.

104As, for example, Alcaeus seems to do (Herodotus, Histories, 5.98). 58

Theognis is, however, very interested in politics: the fact alone that political discourse permeates the corpus would appear to point to a poet who is a member of a class that holds political power. Some verses, as West had said, even appear to indicate a position of authority and personal involvment in public affairs, for example lines 542-546:

χρή με παρὰ στάθμην καὶ γνώμονα τήνδε δικάσσαι, Κύρνε, δίκην, ἶσόν τ᾿ ἀμφοτέροισι δόμεν, μάντεσί τ᾿ οἰωνοῖς τε καὶ αἰθομένοις ἱεροῖσιν, ὄφρα μὴ ἀμπλακίης αἰσχρὸν ὄνειδος ἔχω.105

I must judge this case by rule and square, / Cyrnus, giving equally to both sides, / with the aid of diviners and bird-auguries and burning sacrifices, / so that I might not incur the shameful reproach of error.

And from the point of view of his explicit political discourse, Theognis’ sympathies are evident from the start. Already in the Sphregis Theognis speaks of agathoi and kakoi, “noble” and “base” men, and advises Cyrnus to consort with the former, “whose power is great” (ὧν μεγάλη δύναμις). The political undertones are obvious, even if the terms are ambiguous and can mean “good” and “evil” as well as “aristocrat” and “commoner”. However, the political connotations gain strength in the immediately following poems. In lines 39-52, Theognis speaks of agathoi and kakoi in an evidently political context.106 Indeed, these lines largely sum up Theognis’ political views: going by the kyklos, he is an aristocrat, and despises both tyrants and the kakoi, ignoble people who still somehow hold power. Theognidean invectives specifically against tyranny recurr elsewhere in the poems, for example in lines 1181-1182:

δημοφάγον δὲ τύραννον, ὅπως ἐθέλεις, κατακλῖναι· οὐ νέμεσις πρὸς θεῶν γίνεται οὐδεμία.107

Lay low the people-devouring tyrant however you wish. / It entails no retiribution from the gods whatsoever.

And it is hard to see the already-quoted lines 53-60 as anything but an aristocratic rant, albeit one

105Cf. lines 945-946, 947-948, which seem to refer to civic duties, and which we remember West used to conclude that Theognis held a specific office, as well as lines 805-810. 106Cf. the very similar 1081-1082b. 107Cf. 1203-1206. One cannot help but think here of the (also explicitly aristocratic) Tyrannicides in nearby Athens. 59

coloured with urban pride, when they describe the upstart rustics of lowly descent who now rule the polis, even as the poet bemoans the loss of power of noble agathoi and the rise of base deiloi. About a hundred lines later, Theognis’ kakoi are explicitly oligarchs who gain power and prestige from money rather than birth. In the first set of lines on marriage, lines 183-192 (a typical Theognidean and tellingly aristocratic combination of personal and political concerns), Theognis overtly and extensively chides marriages between aristocrats and rich upstarts. According to Knox, this leaves no doubt that agathos is a political term referring to an aristocrat:108

κριοὺς μὲν καὶ ὄνους διζήμεθα, Κύρνε, καὶ ἵππους εὐγενέας, καί τις βούλεται ἐξ ἀγαθῶν βήσεσθαι· γῆμαι δὲ κακὴν κακοῦ οὐ μελεδαίνει ἐσθλὸς ἀνήρ, ἤν οἱ χρήματα πολλὰ διδῷ, οὐδὲ γυνὴ κακοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀναίνεται εἶναι ἄκοιτις πλουσίου, ἀλλ᾿ ἀφνεὸν βούλεται ἀντ᾿ ἀγαθοῦ. χρήματα μὲν τιμῶσι· καὶ ἐκ κακοῦ ἐσθλὸς ἔγημε καὶ κακὸς ἐξ ἀγαθοῦ· πλοῦτος ἔμειξε γένος. οὕτω μὴ θαύμαζε γένος, Πολυπαΐδη, ἀστῶν μαυροῦσθαι· σὺν γὰρ μίσγεται ἐσθλὰ κακοῖς.109

We seek out rams and donkeys and horses, Cyrnus, / that are purebred, and one wishes that they mount [females] from good stock. / But to marry a base woman [born] from a base man does not bother / the noble man, if he [the base father] gives him many possessions, / and a woman does not refuse to be the wife of a base / and wealthy man, but prefers a rich man in the place of a noble one. / For they honour possessions. And a noble man has married [a wife born] from a base man, / and a base man has married [a wife born] from a noble man. Riches have confounded race. / So do not marvel, Polypaïdes, that your townsmen’s race / is diminished, since what is noble is mixing with what is base.

Furthermore, although lines 39-52 specifically refer to the people of the polis as still wise (as opposed to their leaders and the dangerous potential tyrant), and in lines 1181-1182 the tyrant is explicitly “people-devouring” (δημοφάγος), in other verses Theognis also seems to have a problem with the demos, as in lines 847-850—although here too φιλοδέσποτος might hint at tyrants being involved:

λὰξ ἐπίβα δήμῳ κενεόφρονι, τύπτε δὲ κέντρῳ ὀξέι καὶ ζεύγλην δύσλοφον ἀμφιτίθει·

108 Knox, pp.141-142. 109Cf. the immediately following 193-196. 60

οὐ γὰρ ἔθ᾿ εὑρήσεις δῆμον φιλοδέσποτον ὧδε ἀνθρώπων ὁπόσους ἠέλιος καθορᾷ.

Trample upon the empty-headed people, and prick them with a sharp goad, / and place a harsh yoke upon their neck. / And you will never find a people more loving of their lord / out of all the men whom the sun sees!

Overall, Theognis’ main problem is with people who should not have power holding power. He is articulating a theory of how the city should be run. And according to that theory, the people who should have power are the agathoi, the aristocrats; and the people who shouldn’t are everyone else: tyrants, commoners and oligarchs.

Problems with the traditional view of Theognis as an aristocrat

Of course, we must be wary of a reductionist view of Theognis: the definition of agathos in

Theognis is in fact more complex, and the traditional view of the kyklos itself, which provides our main groundwork for speaking of an “aristocrat” and giving Theognis this historic context in the first place, is more a projection by later Greeks onto their own history than a historical record. And this is to say nothing of the projection of more recent models of European aristocracy and its own decline onto similar processes in antiquity that can colour modern readings. Nonetheless, I believe this section has demonstrated that, if anyone can be referred to as an aristocrat in archaic Greece, it is Theognis. The poet and, more importantly, the authorial character of the poet in the Theognidean corpus can be securely claimed as a member of a traditional class of Megarian power-holders in political decline, and the Theognidea as an oral tradition that speaks for that social class of archaic aristocrats.

However, both in order to rectify the generalizations of calling Theognis an aristocrat, but also in order to better understand what actually is implied when we say that he is one, a deeper analysis is required, on the poetry’s own terms. The next section will look more closely at the words which the

Theognidean corpus uses for aristocrat: agathos and its synonym esthlos; and also at their antonyms kakos and deilos.

2.2. Defining the aristocrat: the terms agathos and esthlos in the Theognidea

As noted by Veda Cobb-Stevens, the two words agathos and kakos (and their synonyms esthlos and deilos) are the central axis of the Theognidea.110 They are present from the very start of the corpus, and much of Theognidean thought follows an agathos/kakos dichotomy: the agathoi are/do x, the kakoi are/do y. Thus the terms provide a key to understanding the poetry as a whole.

The pairs agathos/kakos and esthlos/deilos

As mentioned, the term agathos can be ambiguously political and moral. Although if Theognis were to say “aristocrat”, he would indubitably use the word agathos, and kakos for the opposite, the low-born man, he also uses the words to refer simply to good and bad people. Theognis, a composer mainly of maxims, seamlessly jumps between moralism and politics, and between the moral and political meaning of these key words. “Noble” and “base” (as given, for example, by Gerber) are perhaps the best translations.

In order to look at them in conjunction, we will first confirm that the two pairs of terms

(agathos/kakos and esthlos/deilos) are interchangeable. Sure enough, for Theognis, there is no great difference between them. Already in the Sphregis, esthlos is simply used for the reiteration of similar maxims regarding agathoi and kakoi, e.g.:

[...] ἀπὸ τῶν ἀγαθῶν παῖς ἔτ᾽ ἐὼν ἔμαθον. (line 28) Which I learned from noble men still being a child

[...] ἀλλ᾽ αἰεὶ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἔχεο: (line 32) Always cling to the noble.

But:

ἐσθλῶν μὲν γὰρ ἄπ᾽ ἐσθλὰ μαθήσεαι [...] (line 35) You will learn noble things from nobles.

And in the poem in lines 53-60 both terms are used to say that the esthloi are now deiloi, as opposed to the implied former kakoi that are agathoi, another clear equivalence.

110Cobb-Stevens, p.159. 62

καὶ νῦν εἰσ᾽ ἀγαθοί, πολυπαΐδη: οἱ δὲ πρὶν ἐσθλοὶ νῦν δειλοί. τίς κεν ταῦτ᾽ ἀνεχοιτ᾽ ἐσορῶν; (lines 57-58)

And now they are noble, Polypaïdes. And those who were formerly noble / are now base. And who can endure to see such things?111

The use of both esthlos and agathos as adjectives in addition to their fluctuating use as political and moral terms not only further expands their already broad meanings, but also increases their interchangeability. Thus, there is no harm in looking at them together.

Intertwined moral and political connotations

We have already touched upon the political connotations of the terms, seen in the Sphregis, as well as the poems in lines 43-52, and 53-60. In the latter, however, moral implications begin to creep in: those once kakoi are now agathoi, and people no longer recognize the good or the bad. Nonetheless, in this poem too the political aspect is clearly dominant. And overall, this strong political sense at the very start of the corpus, including in the Sphregis, which sets the tone for the entirety of the text, cannot but colour our reading of the terms throughout.

However, beyond these opening poems, only a handful of the references to agathoi and esthloi appear in an uncontestedly sociopolitical context: lines 183-192 (and 193-196), on marriage, are the poems which most explicitly refer to noble birth, complaining of inter-class marriage. According to

Knox, the connection there between the agathos and good pedigree probably secures them as a reference to the aristocracy. However, even in this context it is conceivable that Theognis may simply be speaking of innately good and bad people, with virtue as a hereditary characteristic; nonetheless the ideology is still at least implicitly an aristocratic one, as people are born good or bad. Likewise referring in all probability to politics, with explicit mention of laws, nomoi, we have lines 287-292, already quoted. But here too reference is also made to moral traits like aidōs:

νῦν δὲ τὰ τῶν ἀγαθῶν κακὰ γίνεται ἐσθλὰ κακοῖσιν

111Cf. lines 161-164, 183-192, 283-292 (agathos/esthlos pair but with a double kakoi, also alternating between the use of the terms as qualifiers for men and things) 429-438, 441-446, 577-578, 659-666, 667-668, 789-792, 873-789, 1162a-1162f and 1167-1168. 63

ἀνδρῶν· γαίονται δ᾿ ἐκτραπέλοισι νόμοις· αἰδὼς μὲν γὰρ ὄλωλεν, ἀναιδείη δὲ καὶ ὕβρις νικήσασα δίκην γῆν κατὰ πᾶσαν ἔχει. (lines 289-292)112

Now the evils of noble men have become the good of base men. / And they rejoice in crooked laws. / For Shame has been lost, and Shamelessness and Outrage / have defeated Justice across the whole earth.

Several other verses can also be reasonably assumed to refer to the agathoi as a social class, although they are more ambiguous: for example, in lines 355-360, Theognis enigmatically speaks of

Cyrnus receiving kakon from agathoi, leading one to believe that he means agathoi in a strictly social, not moral, context:

ὡς δέ περ ἐξ ἀγαθῶν ἔλαβες κακόν (line 357) As you have received evil from noble men.113

Beyond this, there are a number of instances where agathos and esthlos could easily refer to either a moral or a social category, e.g. lines 69-72:

μήποτε, Κύρνε, κακῷ πίσυνος βούλευε σὺν ἀνδρί, εὖτ᾽ ἂν σπουδαῖον πρῆγμ᾽ ἐθέλῃς τελέσαι, ἀλλὰ μετ᾽ ἐσθλὸν ἰὼν βούλευ καὶ πολλὰ μογήσας καὶ μακρὴν ποσσὶν, Κύρν᾽, ὁδὸν ἐκτελέσας.114

Never, Cyrnus, take council with a base man, / if ever you want to undertake something important, / but go with the noble, even if it means you must labour much / and take a long road, Cyrnus, on foot.

In many other contexts, however, agathos and esthlos clearly have strong (though perhaps not absolute) moral connotations. For example, in lines 233-234, there are connotations of military virtue to the definition of esthlos, as an esthlos man is compared with no less than an acropolis for the city,

(even though he receives little recognition):

ἀκρόπολις καὶ πύργος ἐὼν κενεόφρονι δήμῳ, Κύρν᾽, ὀλίγης τιμῆς ἔμμορεν ἐσθλὸς ἀνήρ. (lines 223-224)

112Cf. similar lines 667-682, 891-894. 113Cf. similar lines 367-370 , 903-930, 1109-1114 (on marriage, but with no extensive talk of genos), 1117-1118. 114Cf. similar lines 563-566 and 1165-1166, 789-792, 525-526, 567-570, 797-798, 971-972 (a kakos and an agathos can both win drinking prizes; a rare example of social conciliation in a common feast?), 1079-1080 (Theognis will judge his friends and his enemies impartially as good or bad; a rare show of Theognidean impartiality), 1161-1162 and 1225-1226 (a very rare appearance of agathe, the feminine form). 64

Even if he is a citadel to the empty-minded people, / Cyrnus, a noble man is alotted little honour.115

The aristocratic implications are still obvious: the esthlos is a natural leader, and his virtue is here explicitly related to war. But the emphasis is nonetheless on a moral characteristic. This same verse could easily be sung by a democratic rather than an aristocratic poet, and several other poems are unambiguously moral as well. For example, in lines 315-318, Theognis once again bemoans that agathoi are poor and kakoi rich, but then says that, even so, we should not trade aretē, virtue, for wealth:

πολλοί τοι πλουτοῦσι κακοί, ἀγαθοὶ δὲ πένονται· ἀλλ᾿ ἡμεῖς τούτοις οὐ διαμειψόμεθα τῆς ἀρετῆς τὸν πλοῦτον, ἐπεὶ τὸ μὲν ἔμπεδον αἰεί, χρήματα δ᾿ ἀνθρώπων ἄλλοτε ἄλλος ἔχει.

Many base men are rich, and noble men are poor. / But we will not exchange / our virtue for their wealth, for the former remains forever, / but possessions among men are now held by this one and now the other.

Overall, we see that there are a plethora of lines in which agathos and esthlos have a moral significance, and many others in which they have a political one. And there are also many where the meaning is ambiguous. One line even seems to address the ambiguity: in the second part of couplet

147-148, Theognis appears to tell us that ultimately it is the moral sense of the word which prevails:

πᾶς δέ τ᾽ ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός, Κύρνε, δίκαιος ἐών.” (line 148) Every man is noble, Cyrnus, if he is just.

This line almost counteracts the strong political significance given to the term by its mainly political use in the opening poems of the corpus. Overall, the Theognidean agathos remains ambiguous.

Ultimately the scales tip in favour of whichever meaning we wish to assign the contested lines to.

Implications of the ambiguity in the central terms

Such a strong ambiguity in the main defining terms of the poetry cannot fail to have extensive

115Cf. similar lines 105-112, 161-164, 165-166, 303-304, 315-318, 319-322, 393-398, 407-408, 429-438, 441-446, 571-572, 577-578, 611-614, 615-616, 635-636, 865-868, 889-890, 979-982,1025-1026, 1037-1038, 1104a-1106b, 1135-1150 (in the feminine, describing a deity), 1162a-1162f, 1167-1168. 65

ramifications. Historically, of course, it could simply point to the early date of the poetry, when clearly political, non-morally charged terms would perhaps not have been readily available. Thus “Theognis” would have found himself in a position of having to define a social class on his own, using the moral terms agathos and esthlos to articulate his poetic proto-sociology. After all, even our own term

“aristocrat”, is also morally charged in Greek.

Nonetheless, if we cynically take Theognis as an aristocratic propagandist, that is to say as interested mainly in justifying aristocratic political claims and furthering an aristocratic agenda and aristocratic values, the use of defining “aristocracy” in this way is rather obvious: the ambivalence ultimately buttresses Theognis’ ideological claims, by implying rather than expounding: the aristocracy is not only a paragon of virtue in Theognis; it is synonymous with virtue. Agathos means an aristocrat but it also means good. And, as Theognis links morality to politics on all levels, moral good becomes synonymous with aristocratic power, as in lines 39-52, where the agathoi have never ruined a city and their being in control is integral to the proper functioning of the society.

However, the “pull” of the signifier also goes in the opposite direction, with the various moral standards attributed to the aristocrats becoming their defining trait. If an aristocrat is by definition a good man, then, again by definition, a bad man loses this status. Goodness being associated with aristocracy is a good “propaganda” tool for self-projection and self-perpetuation in the minds of the agathoi; but it also essentially imposes the expounded set of values of the agathos as defining for an aristocrat. In a way this holds aristocrats to higher standards, by implicitly and even explicitly excluding anyone who does not follow these moral precepts, even if he is rich or highly born—as we shall see, base men can be rich, and the son of a noble father is not necessarily noble himself. Of course, in this way also, the poetry itself, as didactic poetry which imparts these moral precepts, gains huge importance.

But what are these morals, and how do they interact with the other elements that make the

agathos, the good Megarian aristocrat?

2.3. Cobb-Stevens’ hierarchy of values

Veda Cobb-Stevens’ analysis of the terms agathos and kakos, and their attached meanings, is very helpful in making sense of their composite significance.116 For Cobb-Stevens, in terms of morality, dikē and metron are the purview of the agathos, and hubris and koros that of the kakos. Dikē is justice, the moral code of the agathos, a behaviour based on metron. Furthermore, for a complete agathos, riches, ploutos, and noble birth, genos, are also required, thus creating a threefold definition.

However, Cobb-Stevens continues, this list of values alone does not tell the whole story. Their hierarchy is also paramount. Dikē must come first: genos alone does not make an aristocrat,117 and neither does wealth, even though both are proper of an agathos:118 wealth and birth are pre-requisites for the aristocrat to exercise his obligations; but the paramount virtue is dikē.

Continuing with Cobb-Stevens’ analysis, problems arise when this hierarchy is upset. For example, on the topic of ploutos, several verses seem to disdain wealth. But it is not wealth specifically that is evil, but the excessive emphasis placed on it. Such an emphasis creates social issues in the polis: in contrast to the agathoi, the kakoi strive for wealth above all things; and although wealth is the lowest of the aristocratic values, it is also a prerequisite for holding power. Thus, because of this paradox, ploutos and the kakoi who focus on it ultimately triumph at the expense of the agathoi.119 This creates chaos and undoes the proper social order, leading to the political strife that characterizes much of

Theognidean poetry. Thus, according to Cobb-Stevens, for Theognis, the moral aspect of the agathos is one of many; but it is the most important, and it is precisely upon its dominance that the functioning of the agathos, and indeed of the entire polis, hinges.

A look at Theognis’ views on wealth and birth individually will, I believe, both confirm and

116Cobb-Stevens, pp.159-175. 117E.g. lines 429-430. 118E.g. lines 525-526. 119E.g. lines 677-679. 67

expand upon Cobb-Stevens’ views:

2.4. Ploutos in the Theognidea: necessary but not sufficient

Theognis’ words on wealth leave little doubt that it is a very politically charged topic, but also that he does not define an aristocrat based primarily on this criterion, even if, as Cobb-Stevens notes, it is an essential element and strongly tied to his aristocratic identity. Expanding on this, for Theognis, ploutos is especially important socially, in order to maintain one’s position within the circle of the agathoi, and poverty is largely harmful because it prevents this. However, wealth is also very problematic, especially when the kakoi have it: the kakoi having wealth as opposed to the agathoi is one of Theognis’ main social concerns.120 This troubled view is reinforced by the fact that Theognis himself dwells very extensively on ill-gotten wealth as a negative trait of the kakoi, more so than on wealth in general as a good thing. This is focused upon to the point where wealth is more associated with the kakoi than the agathoi.

Theognis’ peniē and the social consequences of poverty

That an aristocrat is certainly not first and foremost a rich man is visible throughout the poems.

For one thing, tying Theognis’ personal to his social and political discourse, Theognis himself is explicitly poor.

See, for example, lines 351-354:

ἆ δειλὴ Πενίη, τί μένεις προλιποῦσα παρ᾿ ἄλλον ἄνδρ᾿ ἰέναι; μὴ δή μ᾿ οὐκ ἐθέλοντα φίλει, ἀλλ᾿ ἴθι καὶ δόμον ἄλλον ἐποίχεο, μηδὲ μεθ᾿ἡμέων αἰεὶ δυστήνου τοῦδε βίου μέτεχε.

Oh wretched poverty, why do you stay and delay / your departure towards another man? Don’t love me against my will, / but go and visit another house, and with me / don’t always share this miserable life!

Similar personal complaints on poverty abound in the poems.121 Furthermore, much of Theognis’ more general gnomic content also speaks of peniē in all-too-familiar tones, further indicating that the speaker

120Cobb-Stevens, esp. pp. 160-166. Also, Knox p. 143. 121Cf. lines 619-620, 649-652, 667-689, 695-696, and implicitly 1114A-1114B and 1115-1116. 68

himself suffers from it—we will later see more of Theognis making his gnomic statements strongly personal. See for example, among many others, lines 155-158, which seem very impassioned for a proverbial protreptic utterance:

μήποτέ μοι πενίην θυμοφθόρον ἀνδρὶ χαλεφθεὶς μηδ᾿ ἀχρημοσύνην οὐλομένην πρόφερε·122

Oh, never in anger against a man throw at him heart-rending poverty / or cursed indigence!

Just how poor Theognis is is debatable: he never complains of hunger or any overt material effects of poverty beyond a degree of social isolation, and even so it seems that he is still wealthy enough to maintain an aristocratic lifestyle: he regularly attends symposia, maintains social relations, engages in politics, and certainly has some material wealth, or at least had some, which he seems to have lost and then regained, probably in civil strife as West suggests for the historic Theognis.123 Where this wealth comes from is not known, although we can surmise land ownership or possibly ships based on the productive activities with which Theognis seems familiar, as well as the already alluded-to lines

179-180, in which Theognis gives, in very general terms, ways of avoiding poverty. Overall, Theognis’ complaints about poverty speak more than anything about the tension of maintaining an aristocratic lifestyle on diminished revenue rather than actual deprivation. He is a broke aristocrat, familiar from many eras of social upheaval. All this is epitomized in poem 695-696:

οὐ δύναμαί σοι, θυμέ, παρασχεῖν ἄρμενα πάντα: τέτλαθι: τῶν δὲ καλῶν οὔτι σὺ μοῦνος ἐρᾷς.

I cannot, my heart, provide you with all things right for you. / Be patient: you are not the only one who loves beautiful things.

More specifically, the part of the aristocratic lifestyle which Theognis fears losing the most is his interaction with the other agathoi. Social isolation because of poverty is seen in the already quoted lines 267-270, or in lines 857-860, where it is contrasted with the many “friends” the poet has when he

122Cf. lines 173-178, 179-180, 181-182, 267-270, 1129-1132; on poverty unfairly distributed among the good and the bad, lines 373-392, 393-398, 525-526, 683-685, 731-752, 1059-1062; on friends untrue in hardship, possibly (although not necessarily) because of poverty, lines 697-698. 123Because of lines like 341-350 and 831-832, which refer to a loss of possessions. 69

is in good fortunes:

τῶν δὲ φίλων εἰ μέν τις ὁρᾷ μέ τι δειλὸν ἔχοντα, αὐχέν᾿ ἀποστρέψας οὐδ᾿ ἐσορᾶν ἐθέλει· ἢν δέ τί μοί ποθεν ἐσθλόν, ἃ παυράκι γίνεται ἀνδρί, πολλοὺς ἀσπασμοὺς καὶ φιλότητας ἔχω.124

Of my friends, if one sees me doing badly, / turning his neck, he does not even wish to look at me. / But if something good befalls me from somewhere, which happens rarely / to a man, I get many embraces and friendships.

The mainly social consequence of poverty is also explicit in the opening lines of poem 667-682.

Theognis specifically feels isolated in company of the agathoi, and the main problem with being poor is that one cannot be a proper agathos and maintain proper friendship with other agathoi:

εἰ μὲν χρήματ᾽ ἔχοιμι, Σιμωνίδη, οἷάπερ ἤθη οὐκ ἂν ἀνιώμην τοῖς ἀγαθοῖσι συνών: νῦν δέ με γινῴσκοντα παρέρχεται, εἰμὶ δ᾽ ἄφωνος χρημοσύνῃ, πολλῶν γνοὺς ἂν ἄμεινον ἐτέων,

If I had possessions, Simonides, as once afore, / I wouldn’t feel distressed in the company of the noble. / But now I am aware that it passes me by and I am deprived of a voice / by want, although I would have recognized still better than many...

We have already seen the extensive ship-of-state metaphor that follows. Thus, poverty also specifically prevents the poet from speaking up on politics, again explicitly tying the personal sphere to the political. Overall Theognis’ poverty is linked to and spoken of within the context of his aristocratic political and social identity and his place within the community of the agathoi:

Improper distribution of wealth as a social problem

But the link between aristocracy and wealth goes even deeper, as the personal concerns also open onto broader social ones, now in a negative way. More than anything, Theognis is poor compared to how rich he considers he should be, and he is especially poor compared to how rich the kakoi are. On a gnomic level, beyond lamenting his personal woes, the improper distribution of wealth, with the bad being rich and the good being poor, becomes a moral issue.125 In the poem in lines 315-318, the

124Cf. lines 115-116, 267-270, 643-644, 697-698. 125 Cf. Aristophanes, Ploutos. 70

opening line overtly states Theognis’ main complaint with wealth:

πολλοί τοι πλουτοῦσι κακοί, ἀγαθοὶ δὲ πένονται· Many base men are rich and many noble men poor

These concerns are stated again and again, to the point where there are more negative than positive lines on wealth in the Theognidean corpus.126 Although ploutos is essential to the agathos, it is so frequently associated with negative traits of the kakos that it almost becomes an element of negative self-definition for the agathos, despite its also being necessary to his perpetuated existence. The whole concept, for Theognis, is profoundly problematic.127

Read in the light of the rest of the poems, there is thus a very specific social and political undertone to Theognis’ railing against poverty: even in these very personal complaints, the importance of wealth for maintaining aristocracy and the tensions with an upcoming ruling class in a time of social upheaval, which we know to have occured in Megara, are evident. Once again, personal and political concerns intersect. Overall, of course, in terms of how it is expressed, much of what Theognis says on wealth, both negative and positive, falls within the realm of traditional moralizing: virtue is better than wealth, etc. However, for a large part of the poems, the political undertones are clear, and they certainly do not imply that wealth is the main criterion for an agathos.

But if Theognis does not define the agathos based on possessions, he does not define him based

126Cf. the long list of passages that specifically lament bad men having wealth, in lines 183-192, 315-318—here with a caveat that the poet would not trade virtue for riches—319-322, 523-524, 525-526, 667-682, 683-686, 699-718, 731- 752), and 1059-1062 and 1117-1118 which specifically present wealth as a mask for bad character. On the evils of pursuing wealth to excess: lines 129-130, 227-232, 557-560,719-728, 1155-1156. On the evils of getting wealth through evil means: lines 145-148, 699-718, 753-756. Furthermore, many specifically moralistic passages, like lines 155-158, 165-166, 659-666, are equally negative, focusing on how men perceive wealth as the only good (in the context of the other verses, heavily implying that they are wrong), and how wealth, good and evil are distributed by the gods or Fortune, and thus, implicitly, hold no merit; however, line 595 states, albeit in passing, that there cannot be too much wealth, as do lines 1157-1160, though these may be negative references to insatiability. Comparatively, only lines 595- 602, 1119-1122 and 1153-1154 present wealth as an unambiguously good thing, to be prayed for, and 621-622 states simply that men value wealth and not poverty, and that they are all similar for doing so, though in the context of 699- 718, this is clearly a bad thing. The mention of riches at the end of lines 903-930 is similar. 903-930 is a rather strange and extensive moralizing poem about wealth which essentially ends in a surrender to fatalism, as, Theognis says, a man cannot know if he will live long and should thus save his wealth, or if he will die early and thus prove wiser by squandering his fortune. In general, this extensive emphasis on bad wealth seems to link it more to the kakoi than the agathoi. 127One could even think of Theognis’ agathoi companions as not agathoi at all for shunning him for his poverty, if it were not for the fact that they are explicitly referred to as such. This only renders ploutos even more problematic. 71

on birth either.

2.5. Genos, dikē, and the paedagogical mission of the poetry

Theognis’ relationship with genos, or noble birth, could be said to be as difficult as his relationship with wealth, albeit less obviously so. Unlike ploutos, genos is never presented in a negative light, and when contrasted to ploutos, as in the verses on marriage, it clearly has the upper hand.

However, genos is also clearly not Theognis’ main concern, and, as Cobb-Stevens noted, it too appears subordinate to dikē in defining the agathos.

Expanding upon this, it is also important to note that dikē is closely linked to education, and can be defined as not only a set of values, but specifically the set of values imparted by Theognidean poetry, a didactic poetry that focuses precisely on how the agathos should behave. Thus education about dikē, and through it the poetry itself, overtake genos. Furthermore genos is also eclipsed by another element, philia, friendship, as a defining trait for the agathoi. And dikē, as we shall see, also plays a role in philia.

Nature vs. nurture: the role of genos in imparting dikē

Declarations of the poet’s intentions, like the Sphregis, make it explicit that the proper moral code of dikē is linked to the didacticism of the poetic corpus. In the Sphregis, Theognis both himself imparts agatha, noble (words), to Cyrnus, and recommends that he consort with the agathoi for his own improvement.

Ideally, genos works in conjunction with this education in transmitting values and wisdom for the creation of a proper agathos, with the former being a given and colouring the latter. Poetically this is visible in lines 1049-1054, another Theognidean declaration of intent, where the poet imparts wisdom to the listener “like a father to a son”, appropriating and subsuming the genealogical terms to describe his own paedagogic relationship with the addressee, and specifically linking “agathotes” with right thinking:

σοὶ δ᾿ ἐγὼ οἷά τε παιδὶ πατὴρ ὑποθήσομαι αὐτὸς ἐσθλά· σὺ δ᾿ ἐν θυμῷ καὶ φρεσὶ ταῦτα βάλευ. μήποτ᾿ ἐπειγόμενος πράξῃς κακόν, ἀλλὰ βαθείῃ σῇ φρενὶ βούλευσαι σῷ ἀγαθῷ τε νόῳ. τῶν γὰρ μαινομένων πέτεται θυμός τε νόος τε, βουλὴ δ᾿ εἰς ἀγαθὸν καὶ νόον ἐσθλὸν ἄγει.

To you as a father to a child I myself will give / good advice. And you, put these things in your heart and mind: / never hasten to do evil but deep / in your mind plan with your good sense. / For the wits and heart of madmen fly, / but reflection leads to good and to a noble mind.

However, sometimes, the paedagogical and genealogical aspects of the poetry are at odds. See, for example, lines 429-438:

†̣φῦσαι καὶ θρέψαι ῥᾷον βροτὸν ἢ φρένας ἐσθλὰς ἐνθέμεν: οὐδείς πω τοῦτό γ᾽ ἐπεφράσατο, ὅστις σώφρον᾽ ἔθηκε τὸν ἄφρονα κἀκ κακοῦ ἐσθλόν. εἰ δ᾽ Ἀσκληπιάδαις τοῦτό γ᾽ ἔδωκε θεός, ἰᾶσθαι κακότητα καὶ ἀτηρὰς φρένας ἀνδρῶν, πολλοὺς ἂν μισθοὺς καὶ μεγάλους ἔφερον: εἰ δ᾽ ἦν ποιητόν τε καὶ ἔνθετον ἀνδρὶ νόημα, οὔποτ᾽ ἂν ἐξ ἀγαθοῦ πατρὸς ἔγεντο κακός, πειθόμενος μύθοισι σαόφροσιν. ἀλλὰ διδάσκων οὔποτε ποιήσεις τὸν κακὸν ἀνδρ᾽ ἀγαθόν.128

To give birth to a mortal man and bring him up is easier than to put a noble mind / into him. No-one has ever devised this, / one who has made wise a senseless man, and a noble man from a base one. / If the god had given this [gift] to the Asclepiads, / to cure baseness and the mischievous mind of men, / many and great recompenses would they receive: / but if it was possible and wisdom was capable of being put into a man, / never from a noble father would a base son be born, / because he would be persuaded by good counsel. But by teaching / you will never make the base man noble.

Here Theognis very explicitly states that noble birth is not enough to make an agathos, although it is a pre-requisite. The son of a base man cannot be noble, but the son of a noble man can be base. The poet seems to vacillate: noble birth is acknowledged as necessary, but it is the easy part; the superior part appreas to be the imparting of dikē.

Reduced importance of genos and dikē as the defining trait of the agathos

In other places, dikē and education prevail more explicitly. In the Sphregis itself, for example,

128Cf. lines 535-538. The same sentiment is also implicit in lines 183-192, where the genealogical makeup of a whole city can be corrupted, and in lines 271-278, where a man is presented as good but having evil children. 73

where the agathoi make their first appearance, no mention is made of their birth. But Cyrnus is told to consort with them, whereas if he consorts with the kakoi, he will lose even what wisdom he has. In the couplet at lines 147-148, already mentioned, the final line seems to explicitly assign agathotes to dikē rather than genos: “Every man is noble, Cyrnus, if he is just”. In the end, Theognis compares genealogical self-perpetuation with the ideological self-perpetuation through the values of dikē which his poetry champions, and finds the latter to prevail.

A broader look at the amount of lines dedicated to specific topics, and at the specific references in Theognidean poetry, also substantiates the reduced importance of genos: Despite the presence of advice on marriage, along with some other general advice on family relationships, Theognis does not dwell particularly extensively on the topic of family. Indeed, sometimes, especially for an aristocrat,

Theognidean poetry seems surprisingly silent on, if not outright suspicious of, aristocratic families. We have already seen that good birth is not enough to make a noble man. Furthermore, Theognis himself does not have a patronym, but is simply, in the one time his name appears in the corpus (line 23),

Megareus. Furthermore, the poetry makes almost no reference to genealogies, except divine ones. And the only family mentioned by name are the Corinthian Cypselids, which as already seen appear in an entirely negative light as an ominous foreign force in lines 891-894.

The lack of references to genealogies can be accounted for, to a degree, by the relative dearth of specific topical references in the Theognidea, as well as by the poet’s relative aversion to mythology129.

But this is not the whole story.

Implications of Theognis’ definition of aristocracy: a biographical concern?

Of course, both Theognis’ negative attitude towards wealth (especially when he compares it to his own poverty), and his relative silence with regards to birth (especially his own birth), might rouse a suspicion of a trickier motive related to vaguely biographical concerns: is the oral poet Theognis trying

129See Van Groningen, pp.454-462 (Appendix V: “Les Dieux et la Religion”). 74

to de-emphasize birth because he lacks it? In his disdain for wealth and noble lineage, we might see the speaker of the poems as an imperfect aristocrat, trying to re-define aristocracy to meet his own personal status, or even as a non-aristocratic poet singing to aristocrats and attempting to ingratiate himself with them: one of the traits which he does not possess, birth, is minimized, and the other, wealth, is presented as almost not a trait of the aristocracy at all, but as more closely connected to the base and vile kakoi. Conversely dikē, which hinges on the values expanded upon in the poetry itself, is extensively praised.

However, a broader view of Theognis’ definition of the agathos seems to belie this. Specifically, we must look at another trait which for Theognis is integral to the agathos: philia, friendship, which in fact occurs far more often than genos in the poems. Throughout the corpus, loyalty in friendship, and access to friends and to social circles, is repeatedly and unambiguously presented as noble and a trait of the agathos, with the polar opposite, that is, disloyalty and duplicity, being characteristic of the kakos.

Even wealth, as we have seen, when it is good, is good because it promotes good social ties. However,

Theognis himself also suffers from duplicitous and inconstant philoi. Thus, it is inconsistent that

Theognis would be trying to define aristocracy to fit him, as one of the traits, if not the main trait of aristocracy according to him is also one in which he presents himself as deficient.

Rather than trying to re-define aristocracy, I believe that Theognis, that is to say the authorial voice of the oral tradition of the Theognidea, is quite honest about the fact that he is an imperfect aristocrat, lacking perhaps in pedigree and sometimes in funds and friends, as well as about the imperfections of aristocracy in general.130 This is only one of his many insightful ways of looking at the institution of which he is a member: Theognis’ poetry not only defines aristocratic behaviours, but realizes that real aristocrats do not always live up to these ideals. And authorial Theognis, as the ideal

Megarian aristocrat portrayed in the poetry, is himself a prime example of such an imperfect man.

130In lines 39-52, Theognis even refers to “our own” kakotes. 75

But what precisely is philia? And how does it tie to dikē, which acording to Cobb-Stevens, is

Theognis’ supreme value?

2.6. Dikē, the morality of the philoi

The following section will demonstrate that, for Theognis, philia, friendship (as we shall see later both in the social and in the romantic sense, which are closely connected), is the most important form of relationship. As Cobb-Stevens states, for Theognis dikē is the supreme value of the agathos.

But the following analysis of the term philos (and its synonym, hetairos)131 in the poems will show that, in the Theognidean corpus, dikē, the moral code that the whole of this body of moralistic wisdom literature is built upon expounding, is largely expressed as proper behaviour within the community of philoi, according to the precepts imparted by the poetry. And even the imperatives regarding behavior towards those outside the community can be seen as an extension of this morality. Most precepts of

Theognis’ moral code can be strongly associated with the reinforcement of a closed circle of aristocratic friends and its projection of power in the polis. Ultimately, dikē/philia functions as the code which binds together and promotes the community of the Theongidean agathoi; and it supercedes, informs or subsumes all other relationships.

Philia as the main topic of Theognidean moralizing

For Theognis, genos is not merely pushed to the sidelines; it is specifically diminshed in importance in comparison to philia. Theognis’ ideological prioritization of friendship over birth, of philia over genos, can also be seen in specific verses. Beyond its close connection to the agathos, to which we will return briefly, a few lines appear to state the superiority of philia explicitly: the translation of lines 644-645 is ambiguous, but seems to suggest that even kinsmen can be untrue, explicitly bad hetairoi:

παύρους κηδεμόνας πιστοὺς εὕροις κεν ἑταίρους

131Much like with agathos and esthlos, the use of philos and hetairos as synonyms in various poems can substantiate their essential interchangeability, and that any use of hetairos can be taken as a reference to philia. See lines 87-92, 93-100, 115-116, 209-210, 332A-332B (the restatement of the previous couplet), 595-602, 1164A-1164D and 1311-1318. 76

κείμενος ἐν μεγάλῃ θυμὸν ἀμηχανίῃ.

You will find few people of your kin to be faithful comrades / when you lie in sore distress of the heart.

Here, for Theognis, even family is held up to the standards of good friends; and it is found wanting.

Even family is thus subsumed, and unfavourably at that, into the value system of philia.

The manuscript version of lines 1161-1162 could be read as even more extreme, in no uncertain terms placing friendship with agathoi above the closes family ties:

Οὐδένα θησαυρὸν παισὶν κατανῆσαι ἄμεινον: αἰτοῦσιν δ᾽ ἀγαθοῖς ἀνδράσι, Κύρνε, δίδου.

It is better to leave no treasure for your sons: / but when noble men ask, Cyrnus, give.132

The above poems are very strong, but they are both textually problematic. However, just by the extent of the references to it, philia is clearly one of the main concerns of Theognidean poetry. The number of verses which refer to, for example, family relationships are dwarfed by those which speak of friendship.133

Much of the Theognidea is dedicated to both praising and defining this good philos.134 For example, in lines 77-78, a faithful friend is worth his weight in gold:

πιστὸς ἀνὴρ χρυσοῦ τε καὶ ἀργύρου ἀντερύσασθαι

132Gerber, following West, prints the second verse according to a Stobaeus quotation as “αἰδοῦς, ἢν ἀγαθοῖς ἀνδράσι, Κύρνε, διδῷς”, but Edmonds and Van Groningen give the manuscript tradition, which is used here. Edmonds’ explanation of the verse as a parody of lines 409-410 makes sense of this. 133Compare the number of poems referencing family, marriage and all, to the number of poems that speak of friendship. On family we have lines131-132, 183-192, 193-195, 203-208, 261-264, 271-278, 409-410, 429-438, 517-522, 645-646, 731-752, 821-822, 1161-1162, 1211-1215 1225-1226, 1253-1254, 1255-1256 (these last two couplets are repetitions of each other and might also be paederastic), 1283-1294. Conversely, mentions of philia, in Book I alone, are made in the following poems: lines 29-38, 59-60, 61-68, 67-72, 73-74, 75-76, 77-78, 79-82, 87-92, 91-100, 101-1044, 105-112, 113- 114, 115-116, 117-118, 119-128, 155-158, 209-210, 213-218, 295-298, 299-300, 305-308, 323-324, 325-326, 332a- 332b, 333-334, 337-340, 355, 360, 371-372, 399-400, 407-408, 411-412, 415-418, , 489-490, 511-522, 520-530, 563- 566, 573-574, 575-576, 641-642, 644-644, 645-646, 655-656, 689-690, 697-698, 811-814, 823-852-852, 853-854, 920- 930 (in the broader context of 903-930), 957-958, 959-962, 963-970, 979-982, 1013-1016, 1029-1036, 1071-1074, 1082ξ-1082φ, 1083-1083, 1087-1090, 1091-1094, 1095-1096, 1097-1100, 1101-1104, 1107-1108, 1133-1134, 1151- 1152, 1164α-11064δ, 1164ε-1164η, 1165-1166, 1219-1220, as well as the addresses to a friend in lines 753 and 1138, all of which bear witness to the importance of friendship. 134Conversely, there are no such effusive praises explicitly dedicated to good family members. The closest we get are the ambiguous lines 1253-1254 and 1255-1256, where paides are presented as part of a happy life, but even here they come along with xenoi, as well as good horses and hunting dogs. We do, however, have explicit blaming of bad family members: for example, probably lines 644-645. Other poems, like lines 271-278, are more explicit. 77

ἄξιος ἐν χαλεπῇ, Κύρνε, διχοστασίῃ.

A faithful man is worth much gold and silver, / Cyrnus, in harsh dissension.135

Loyalty is paramount. So is honesty, at least to friends. Lines 93-100 combine the two and describe the good friend:

ἤν τις ἐπαινήσῃ σε τόσον χρόνον ὅσσον ὁρῴη νοσφισθεὶς δ᾽ ἄλλῃ γλῶσσαν ἱῇσι κακήν, τοιοῦτός τοι ἑταῖρος ἀνὴρ φίλος οὔτι μάλ᾽ ἐσθλός, ὅς κ᾽ εἴπῃ λῷα φρονῇ δ᾽ ἕτερα. ἀλλ᾽ εἴη τοιοῦτος ἐμοὶ φίλος, ὃς τὸν ἑταῖρον γινώσκων ὀργὴν καὶ βαρὺν ὄντα φέρει ἀντὶ κασιγνήτου. σὺ δέ μοι, φίλε, ταῦτ᾽ ἐνὶ θυμῷ φράζεο, καί ποτέ μου μνήσεαι ἐξοπίσω.136

If someone praises you so long as he sees you, / but when he turns his back on you takes to a bad tongue, / such a man for a comrade, indeed, is not a very noble friend; / he who though he speaks well with the tongue yet thinks other things. / But be this type of friend for me, who his comrade’s / temper knowing, even if it [that temper] is burdensome, bears with him / as a brother. And you then, friend, these things from me in your heart / enshrine, and someday hereafter you will remember me.

Another key trait of philia is reciprocity: Theognis repeatedly prays in emphatic language, as if it were the supreme good, to be able to repay his friends, and also his enemies, in kind, as in lines 337-

340. The idea is very traditionally Greek: good to friends and evil to enemies.

Ζεύς μοι τῶν τε φίλων δοίη τίσιν οἵ με φιλεῦσιν, τῶν τ᾽ ἐχθρῶν μεῖζον, Κύρνε, δυνησαμένων: χοὔτως ἂν δοκέοιμι μετ᾽ ἀνθρώπων θεὸς εἶναι, εἴ μ᾽ ἀποτεισάμενον μοῖρα κίχοι θανάτου.137

Zeus grant me that I may repay the friends that love me, / and my enemies that have proven, Cyrnus, stronger than me: / in this way I would be seen among men as being like a god, / if with everything paid the fate of death would overtake me.

Theognis also has advice on how to navigate a circle of philoi and what sort of behavior to have in their company. One must be cautious and smooth with them. Theognis’ opinions on this are perhaps most clearly expressed in lines 213-218 where he is advising his own heart; although even this sounds

135Cf. for good friends, 411-412, 1253-1254, and, for the poet presenting himself as one, 511-522, 529-530, 1087-1090, 1091-1094. 136Cf. lines 87-92, 283-286 529-530 (the poet himself boasting). 137Cf. lines 561-562, 861-864, 1029-1036, 1107-1108, 1318A-1318B. 78

like a gnomic pronouncement for the benefit of the listener:

θυμέ, φίλους κατὰ πάντας ἐπίστρεφε ποικίλον ἦθος, ὀργὴν συμμίσγων ἥντιν᾽ ἕκαστος ἔχει. πουλύπου ὀργὴν ἴσχε πολυπλόκου, ὃς ποτὶ πέτρῃ τῇ προσομιλήσῃ τοῖος ἰδεῖν ἐφάνη: νῦν μὲν τῇδ᾽ ἐφέπου, τότε δ᾽ ἀλλοῖος χρόα γίνου. κρέσσων τοι σοφίη γίνεται ἀτροπίης. (lines 213-218)138

My heart, turn a changeful disposition towards all your friends, / mingling with the mood of each. / Adopt the mood of the cunning octopus, who to whichever rock / he keeps company with appears alike. / Now follow along this road, now become of a different colour. / Indeed, artfulness is superior to inflexibility.

Thus, the good philos is loyal, but in the context of his friendships, he is also cautious.

A reason for this is visible elsewhere in the poetry: sadly for Theognis, not all philoi are good.

Although they are as precious as gold, like gold, they are also rare, as in lines 79-82:

παύρους εὑρήσεις, Πολυπαΐδη, ἄνδρας ἑταίρους πιστοὺς ἐν χαλεποῖς πρήγμασι γινομένους, οἵτινες ἂν τολμῷεν ὁμόφρονα θυμὸν ἔχοντες ἶσον τῶν ἀγαθῶν τῶν τε κακῶν μετέχειν.139

You will find few men, Polypaïdes, who will be faithful comrades / to you in difficult affairs, / who would endure to be of one heart / with you equally in good plight and in bad.

Indeed, bad philoi are one of Theognis’ main complaints, and one of his main sources of anxiety. The theme of duplicitous and problematic friendships is present throughout the poetry. In lines 575-576,

Theognis bemoans treacherous friends as even more dangerous than enemies:

οἵ με φίλοι προδιδοῦσιν, ἐπεὶ τόν γ᾽ ἐχθρὸν ἀλεῦμαι ὥστε κυβερνήτης χοιράδας εἰναλίας.140

My friends betray me, for from my enemies I can steer / clear like the steersman from the rock standing in the sea.

138Cf. lines 73-74, 283-292. 139Cf. lines 115-116, 415-418, 643-644, 645-646, 1164e-1164h. Also interesting is 1367-1368, where a pais is said to be more faithful than a woman hetaira (one of the few appearances of this ideologically charged term in the feminine, although probably with other connotations; another rather interesting instance of overlapping between the fields of friendship and romantic relationships). 140Cf. lines 87-92, 115-116, 119-128, 209-210, 299-300, 595-602, 641-642, 697-698, 811-814, 851-852, 861-864, 857-860, 903-930, 979-982, 1082C-1082F, 1219-1220 . Although traditionally viewed as somewhat separate, the complaints of duplicity in an ambiguously or even an explicitly paederastic context can be seen as an extension of this, e.g. lines 1091- 1094, 1101-1104, 1241-1242, 1243-1244, 1271-1274, 1311-1318,1361-1362, bemoan the pais consorting with kakoi— contrary to all the advice given elsewhere. Xenoi, foreign friends, are praised in lines 1253-1254. 79

In light of the omnipresence of bad philoi, Cyrnus is thus also advised to be cautious in whom he befriends and how he befriends them, for example in lines 61-68, where he is told to keep away from the mass of townspeople, while also being friendly with them:

μηδένα τῶνδε φίλον ποιεῦ, Πολυπαΐδη, ἀστῶν ἐκ θυμοῦ χρείης εἵνεκα μηδεμιῆς: ἀλλὰ δόκει μὲν πᾶσιν ἀπὸ γλώσσης φίλος εἶναι, χρῆμα δὲ συμμείξῃς μηδενὶ μηδ᾽ ὁτιοῦν σπουδαῖον: γνώσῃ γὰρ ὀϊζυρῶν φρένας ἀνδρῶν, ὥς σφιν ἐπ᾽ ἔργοισιν πίστις ἔπ᾽ οὐδεμία, ἀλλὰ δόλους τ᾽ ἀπάτας τε πολυπλοκίας τ᾽ ἐφίλησαν οὕτως ὡς ἄνδρες μηκέτι σῳζόμενοι.

Make none a friend of yours of these townsmen, Polypaïdes, / from the heart and not from any necessity [or, for any important matter]: / but seem by your tongue to be a friend to all, / and never mingle with any of them in any matter of any / importance whatsoever: for you will know the miserable minds of men, / and in what they do there is not trusting them at all, / but they have loved wiles and deceits and cozenings, / like men no longer sure of salvation.

Philia as connected to the agathos

Philia is also very important as it is closely and specifically connected to the agathos, again to the implicit detriment of genos. Returning again to the Sphregis, Cyrnus is told to maintain relations of philia with agathoi because of their power, for his own improvement. No mention is made of his birth or theirs. And elsewhere, a good philos is defined in ways that make it clear that what is being referred to is an agathos in both the moral and the social sense, but with little reference to genos. For example, in lines 411-412, we have:

οὐδενὸς ἀνθρώπων κακίων δοκεῖ εἶναι ἑταῖρος ᾧ γνώμη θ᾿ ἕπεται, Κύρνε, καὶ ᾧ δύναμις.

To no-one among men is he to be considered inferior, that comrade, / Cyrnus, who comes with judgement and power.

In lines 529-530, the poet’s boast that he is a faithful hetairos is combined with a boast that there is nothing doulion in him:

οὐδέ τινα προύδωκα φίλον καὶ πιστὸν ἑταῖρον, οὐδ᾿ ἐν ἐμῇ ψυχῇ δούλιον οὐδὲν ἔνι. 80

I have never betrayed any friend and faithful comrade, / nor is there in my soul anything slavish.

Thus, philia is again strongly associated with the agathos.

Another aspect of Theognis’ advice focuses on who specifically is to be excluded from philia, cementing it even more as an aristocratic value system. These are the kakoi, as in lines 113-114:

μήποτε τὸν κακὸν ἄνδρα φίλον ποιεῖσθαι ἑταῖρον, ἀλλ᾿ αἰεὶ φεύγειν ὥστε κακὸν λιμένα.141

Never make a base man your beloved friend, / but always flee him, like a bad harbour.

And one of the hallmarks of the kakoi is ingratitude, one of the defining traits of a bad philos; just as gratitude, a trait of the good philos, is a hallmark of the agathoi (lines 101-112):

μηδείς σ᾿ ἀνθρώπων πείσῃ κακὸν ἄνδρα φιλῆσαι, Κύρνε· τί δ᾿ ἔστ᾿ ὄφελος δειλὸς ἀνὴρ φίλος ὤν; οὔτ᾿ ἄν σ᾿ ἐκ χαλεποῖο πόνου ῥύσαιτο καὶ ἄτης, οὔτε κεν ἐσθλὸν ἔχων τοῦ μεταδοῦν ἐθέλοι. δειλοὺς δ᾿ εὖ ἔρδοντι ματαιοτάτη χάρις ἐστίν· ἶσον καὶ σπείρειν πόντον ἁλὸς πολιῆς· οὔτε γὰρ ἂν πόντον σπείρων βαθὺ λήιον ἀμῷς, οὔτε κακοὺς εὖ δρῶν εὖ πάλιν ἀντιλάβοις. ἄπληστον γὰρ ἔχουσι κακοὶ νόον· ἢν δ᾿ ἓν ἁμάρτῃς, τῶν πρόσθεν πάντων ἐκκέχυται φιλότης· οἱ δ᾿ ἀγαθοὶ τὸ μέγιστον ἐπαυρίσκουσι παθόντες, μνῆμα δ᾿ ἔχουσ᾿ ἀγαθῶν καὶ χάριν ἐξοπίσω.142

Let no-one among men convince you to befriend a base man, / Cyrnus. For what is the benefit of having a base man for a friend? / For he would not deliver you from harsh pain or trouble, / nor would he, if some good came to him, wish to share it with you. / For him who does good to the base, the reward is most insignificant. / It is the same to sow the wide expanse of the hoary sea. / For neither from the deep sea by sowing will you get a good harvest, / nor in doing good to the base will you get back good in return. / For the base have an insatiable mind. And if once you miss the mark, / the love for all previous [good deeds] is poured out. / But the noble endure to suffer the most grievous wounds, / and in the future have gratitude and remembrance of good done.

Philia, or at least good philia, one that follows the precepts of dikē, is thus defined as a trait of the agathoi. It is integral to the Theognidean aristocracy and defines its members. Furthermore, the good

141Cf. lines 113-114, 305-308, 1152-1153, 1238A-1240, 1377-1380. 142Cf. lines 995-996. 81

philoi/echthroi distinctions largely parallel the agathos/kakos divide.

Philia as informing a universal moral code of dikē

The moral code based on philia also informs behaviour towards people outside the circle of the philoi: in general, Theognidean philia divides the world into categories of philoi and echthroi. And on top of prescribing who should be in which category, it also dictates proper behaviour for both. In lines like 1079-1080, Theognis admits no distinction between friend and foe in praise and blame; but they are an anomaly. One should generally be good to philoi, and harsh to echthroi, as in lines 337-340, already cited:

Ζεύς μοι τῶν τε φίλων δοίη τίσιν οἵ με φιλεῦσιν, τῶν τ᾽ ἐχθρῶν μεῖζον, Κύρνε, δυνησαμένων (lines 337-338)

Zeus grant me that I may repay the friends that love me, / and my enemies that have proven, Cyrnus, stronger than me…

More generally, the specific relationship between people dictates the proper behaviour between them.

This is even seen in some of the rare separate prescriptions for how to treat neutral strangers and subordinates:

πικρὸς καὶ γλυκὺς ἴσθι καὶ ἁρπαλέος καὶ ἀπηνὴς λάτρισι καὶ δμωσὶν γείτοσί τ᾿ ἀγχιθύροις.

Be bitter and sweet, harsh and soft, / to your workmen and your servants and the neighbor at your gate.143

And, just like it is bad to treat a philos as an echthros (this is the definition of the supremely dangerous false friend), in lines 271-278, a bad child is bad specifically because they would treat their parent as one would treat a beggar:

ἴσως τοι τὰ μὲν ἄλλα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ἀνθρώποις γῆράς τ᾿ οὐλόμενον καὶ νεότητ᾿ ἔδοσαν, τῶν πάντων δὲ κάκιστον ἐν ἀνθρώποις θανάτου τε καὶ πασέων νούσων ἐστὶ πονηρότατον, παῖδας ἐπεὶ θρέψαιο καὶ ἄρμενα πάντα παρασχοις, χρήματα δ᾿ ἐγκαταθῇς πόλλ᾿ ἀνιηρὰ παθών,

143Cf. lines 143-144, 271-278. 82

τὸν πατέρ᾿ ἐχθαίρουσι, καταρῶνται δ᾿ ἀπολέσθαι, καὶ στυγέουσ᾿ ὥσπερ πτωχὸν ἐσερχόμενον.

Equally have the gods allotted all other things to mortal men, / grievous old age and youth, / but of all things among men, more evil than death / and all illnesses, this is the worst, / when once you have brought up children and in due order have provided everything for them / and you have invested money in them, suffering much, / that they (come to) hate their father, and curse him to death, / and revile him as they would a beggar coming towards them.

And this despite the fact that elsewhere (lines 143-144), Cyrnus is told that the gods are watching if a man “deceives, Polypaïdes, a stranger or a suppliant”, ξεῖνον, Πολυπαΐδη, ἐξαπατήσας οὐδ᾿ ἱκέτην.

Theognidean morality is thus situational and dependent on the object; and this view extends even beyond the phillos/echthros dichotomy. There is a good for one’s family and a good for one’s friends, a good for strangers and a good for enemies. Furthermore, we see that Theognis’ personal concerns with philia not only touch upon the more general moral issues of the poetry, but also relate to the morality of the polis as a whole, and thus to politics. The connection is most clearly made in lines like 61-68, where Theognis speaks of philia with the astoi, but it pervades the poems, as all morality is informed by philia, and as seen in lines 43-52, morality is essential to the functioning of the polis.

Overall, Theognis presents a rather elaborate, and, indeed, deeply insightful political and moral theory.

Personal, moral and political concerns intertwine, and at the root of Theognis’ politics is precisely the community of philoi and its values, dikē, as expressed by the corpus itself.

2.7. A broader perspective on Theognidean thought

The moral system of philia as inherently aristocratic

From a broader historic perspective, the importance of such a philia, focused on reciprocal relationships, loyalty, and a closed in-group, can be understood as a deeply aristocratic notion, despite the apparent oddity of its prioritization over genos. First off, the general idea of a morality based on different behaviours towards different people, when applied broadly to the polis (as it is in Theognis), reinforces the view of the sort of stratified society an aristocracy would thrive in, as opposed to the egalitarianism implied by impartial moral absolutes. 83

Furthermore, the politically aristocratic nature of emphasis on philia is also visible if we oppose it to the sort of impartial and impersonal institutions that are the hallmarks of republics and democratic polities: rather than state institutions, in archaic Greece, it is religion and tradition and personal ties more than anything which bind the aristocracy to one another; and tightly knit interpersonal communities of power are essential to keeping that power within the closed circle of the aristocracy and maintaining control of the polis. In Theognis, religion is present, like genos, but it is not the main focus. Indeed, the gods, when called upon, often are called upon in relation specifically to human affairs, as Zeus in the Sphregis or in the prayer of lines 337-340.144 Thus, the weight of maintaining a functioning aristocracy falls on philia, which, as we have seen, can even ideologically subsume family relations. After all, a kinsman can be philos too, and even marriage could be seen as simply philia by another name, both with the spouse themselves and with their family. And thus, despite the highly personal tone of many of the references, the political meaning of Theognis’ emphasis is again clear: friendship, and good bonds of philia, and the dikē of philia as imparted by the poetry, are essential to the smooth functioning of the society of the agathoi, to maintaining the bonds within the closed community of aristocrats and consequently their monopoly on power, and, indeed, as seen in the educational aspect of the poetry, to ideologically crafting and justifying the community of aristocratic philoi itself through the education of the new agathoi.

Theognidean values also reinforce aristocracy externally, both by clearly delineating it, and by imposing a morality with regards to those outside the circle; a morality, at that, which often hinges on principles that rather explicitly contribute to maintaining the community of aristocrats as a whole— things like helping other aristocratic philoi in times of need—and projecting its power—the moral axiom of punishing enemies, for example, is a clear projection of power, and certainly not politically

“innocent”.

144Cf. the extensive prayers, especially in lines 192-208, 373-392 and 731-752, in which Zeus is invoked in the context of moral issues relating to human affairs, specifically here divine retribution and the very socially significant topic of proper and improper distribution of wealth and good fortune. 84

Even Theognidean poetry’s pervasive connection between the personal and the political can be seen as ideologically aristocratic, shifting the weight of politics from law and institutions to the personal politics of the aristocracy. Historically, in monarchic polities, family issues of the elite, like succession, become the focus of wars and political developments. Likewise, from an ideological perspective, in Theognis’ world political issues become personal. But because of the diminished importance of genos, politics are not tied to family, but rather to the philia morality of agathoi.

A proto-philosophical sublimation of traditional aristocratic thought

Overall, Theognis’ definition of aristocracy and all its implications thus analyzed appear to be one of his most deeply philosophical insights on many levels. For example, the discussion of the way in which a city should and shouldn’t be run foreshadows much of later Greek political philosophy, and the tension between the necessity of a hazy inborn virtue and the learning of dikē could be linked to the

“nature/nurture” debates of Greek philosophy (e.g. in Plato’s Protagoras). More generally, however,

Theognis is almost “proto-philosophical” in his attempt to define aristocracy for his purposes of perpetuating it by passing on its values.

Of course, this is done in the traditional context of didactic poetry, and Theognis is largely drawing from traditional morality; most of his discourse on morality, through philia, is ultimately a traditional Greek “good to friends, evil to enemies”. But he expands on it to a remarkable extent.

Theognis not only buttresses and transmits the values of aristocracy, he also tries to tell us what exactly it is. He will be one of the first to do so; this, as mentioned, is perhaps part of the root of the ambiguity in the terms he uses, though it is certainly not its only end result. Through the transmitting of aristocratic values, and through exploring the meaning of an agathos in compiling a proper oral tradition to pass on dikē to the agathoi, Theognis seems to become aware of the actual nature of aristocracy rather than its pretensions: indeed, one could say Theognis is conscious of aristocracy, or at least of aristocratic communities, as a social construct. To Theognis, aristocracy is not powerful

because it is descended from the gods, or because traditions declare it to be so. It is a group of people bound together by a strong net of ties of family and, more importantly, friendship, a broad “party”. And most importantly, it is also bound together by a shared set of values.

These values are being expounded precisely in the form of the didactic poetry of Theognis.

Thus, Theognidean poetry, as a vehicle for articulating this dikē and passing it on (through the figure of the poet) to the next generation (in the person of the addressee) implicitly and explicitly presents itself as essential to the proper functioning, if not the continued existence, of the agathoi. We will proceed to explore this didactic aspect more fully. In this vein, however, it is worthwhile to look first at the performance context of the poetry itself and the environment in which this paedagogy seems to be being carried out, before proceeding to the poetry’s views on its own didacticism.

The following section will first look at the aristocratic symposium, which seems to be the main performance context of the poetry, and then more closely at its didatic nature, before finally proceeding to Theognis’ audience, first on more general terms. We will subsequently look at a figure which is perhaps even more important as a character in the poetry than Theognis himself: Cyrnus, the omnipresent Theognidean addressee, and the object of all the poetry’s education.

3. The Theognidean symposium and the initiatory aspect of Theognidean poetry

3.1. The Theognidean symposium

The main setting for Theognidean poetry is the aristocratic symposium, and the whole of the corpus can be read as symposiastic. In lines 237-254, it is specifically through being sung at symposia that Thegonidean poetry makes a claim to international and immortal fame. The setting plays a huge role in the corpus. From a historic perspective, Figueira’s analysis emphasizes the ideological importance of the symposium to the aristocracy, especially as opposed to “democratic” comedy. The following section of this thesis will look at the symposium’s literary significance within the

Theognidean corpus, especially as the environment par excellence for aristocratic philia. Furthermore,

as I hope to show, the poetry’s main didactic purpose is not unrelated or incidental to the symposiastic environment, but can be strongly connected to it, especially by looking at the initiatory aspect of many of the verses, and certain traits of the poetic voice itself.145

The importance of the Theognidean symposium

The importance of the symposium is visible from the very start of the Theognidea. The

Theognidean corpus opens with an invocation to Apollo in lines 1-10. Apollo is connected with music and feasting in Theognidean poetry (see for example the “Persian War” verses 757-768 and 773-788), and thus the theme is already foreshadowed. And after a brief reference to Artemis, even before the opening invocations to the gods are over, we already have the wedding feast of Cadmus in lines 15-18.

This can be seen as a mythologised symposium in the sense that it is a communal feast with drinking and singing, or poetry. Such a reference not only gives a double mythological validity to the symposium (and to Theognis as a poet), tying it to the divine Muses and also to the heroic myth of

Cadmus, thus representing both levels of the mythological world; it also specifically links the symposium to gnomic sayings or songs—in this case a proverbial pronouncement that appears in several other instances in Greek literature—like those in the Theognidean corpus. Here they are in the mouth of the Muses:

“ὅττι καλὸν φίλον ἐστί, τὸ δ᾿ οὐ καλὸν οὐ φίλον ἐστί”· τοῦτ᾿ ἔπος ἀθανάτων ἦλθε διὰ στομάτων. (lines 17-18)

“Whatever is beautiful is dear, and what is not beautiful is not dear.” / This saying crossed your immortal mouths.

Overall, the authorial Theognis’ main occupation, aside from politics, seems to be the symposium.

The symposium as a microcosm of the aristocratic world

The symposium itself, or its components, are referred to throughout the text. Lines 467-496,

145On the initiatory nature of the Theognidea, albeit specifically connected with paederastic themes, see J.M. Lewis, “Eros and the Polis in Theognis Book II”, in Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis, pp.197-222, to which we will return later. 87

make up one of the longest poems in the Theognidea, and they perhaps showcase the symposium most extensively. They are essentially a symposiastic etiquette in the form of the description of a succesful symposium. It is worthwhile to look at them in full:

μηδένα τῶνδ᾿ ἀέκοντα μένειν κατέρυκε παρ᾿ ἡμῖν, μηδὲ θύραζε κέλευ᾿ οὐκ ἐθέλοντ᾿ ἰέναι· μηδ᾿ εὕδοντ᾿ ἐπέγειρε, Σιμωνίδη, ὅντιν᾿ ἂν ἡμῶν θωρηχθέντ᾿ οἴνῳ μαλθακὸς ὕπνος ἕλῃ, μηδὲ τὸν ἀγρυπνέοντα κέλευ᾿ ἀέκοντα καθεύδειν· πᾶν γὰρ ἀναγκαῖον χρῆμ᾿ ἀνιηρὸν ἔφυ. τῷ πίνειν δ᾿ ἐθέλοντι παρασταδὸν οἰνοχοείτω· οὐ πάσας νύκτας γίνεται ἁβρὰ παθεῖν. αὐτὰρ ἐγώ, μέτρον γὰρ ἔχω μελιηδέος οἴνου, ὕπνου λυσικάκου μνήσομαι οἴκαδ᾿ ἰών. ἥκω δ᾿ ὡς οἶνος χαριέστατος ἀνδρὶ πεπόσθαι· οὔτε τι γὰρ νήφων οὔτε λίην μεθύων· ὃς δ᾿ ἂν ὑπερβάλλῃ πόσιος μέτρον, οὐκέτι κεῖνος τῆς αὐτοῦ γλώσσης καρτερὸς οὐδὲ νόου, μυθεῖται δ᾿ ἀπάλαμνα, τὰ νήφοσι γίνεται αἰσχρά, αἰδεῖται δ᾿ ἔρδων οὐδὲν ὅταν μεθύῃ, τὸ πρὶν ἐὼν σώφρων, τότε νήπιος. ἀλλὰ σὺ ταῦτα γινώσκων μὴ πῖν᾿ οἶνον ὑπερβολάδην, ἀλλ᾿ ἢ πρὶν μεθύειν ὑπανίστασο—μή σε βιάσθω γαστὴρ ὥστε κακὸν λάτριν ἐφημέριον—ἢ παρεὼν μὴ πῖνε. σὺ δ᾿ “ἔγχεε·” τοῦτο μάταιον κωτίλλεις αἰεί· τούνεκά τοι μεθύεις· ἡ μὲν γὰρ φέρεται φιλοτήσιος, ἡ δὲ πρόκειται, τὴν δὲ θεοῖς σπένδεις, τὴν δ᾿ ἐπὶ χειρὸς ἔχεις, ἀρνεῖσθαι δ᾿ οὐκ οἶδας. ἀνίκητος δέ τοι οὗτος, ὃς πολλὰς πίνων μή τι μάταιον ἐρεῖ. ὑμεῖς δ᾿ εὖ μυθεῖσθε παρὰ κρητῆρι μένοντες, ἀλλήλων ἔριδας δὴν ἀπερυκόμενοι, εἰς τὸ μέσον φωνεῦντες, ὁμῶς ἑνὶ καὶ συνάπασιν· χοὔτως συμπόσιον γίνεται οὐκ ἄχαρι.146

Hold back none of these [guests] so that he remains with us unwillingly, / nor order out the door anyone who is unwilling to go. / Nor rouse, Simonides, anyone among us who is slumbering, / whom fortified with wine soft sleep has overtaken. / Nor him who is awake order to sleep unwillingly. / For everything which is forced is troublesome. / To him who wants to drink let [a servant] pour wine standing beside him. / For it is not possible to make

146Cf. lines 211-212, 467-496, 497-498, 499-502, 503-508, 509-510, 531-532, 533-534, 757-768, 769-772, 773-788, 789- 792, 825-830, 837-840, 841-844, 879-884, 939-942, 943-944, 973-978, 989-990, 993-996, 997-1002, 1039-1040, 1041- 1042, 1045-1046, 1047-1048, 1063-1068, 1129-1132, 1207-1208 and finally 1351-1352, all references to the symposium or its components. The two “Persian War” poems in particular (lines 757-768 and 773-788) hold up public festivities (ambiguously symposia or civic religious celebrations) as emblematic of peace: war must be warded off so that celebrations can be carried out. 88

merry every night. / But I, for I have had my measure of honey-sweet wine, / will remember sleep, the deliverer from troubles, going home. / For I have come to where wine is most pleasant to drink for a man: / neither sober nor excessively drunk. / For he who goes beyond the measure in drinking, neither is he / in charge of his tongue, nor of his mind. / But he says reckless things, which become shameful to the sober. / And he is not ashamed to do anything when he is drunk. / Before being sensible, now he is foolish. Yet you, these things / knowing, drink not wine to excess. / But before you are drunk, stand up—don’t let / your stomach control you like a base hireling—or, / if you stay, don’t drink. But you [say]: “pour!” This vain thing / is always your chatter. That is why you are drunk! / For one [cup] is a toast to friendship, another is brought before you, / another you offer to the gods, / and another you have in hand. / And you don't know how to say no! He is invincible indeed he, / who while drinking much says no vain thing. / But we will speak well, sitting by the drinking-bowl, / avoiding quarrels with one another, / making conversation one and all. / Thus a symposium becomes not at all graceless.

This multi-layered description of the symposium details the proper behaviour of both the guest and the host through a complex alternation between the first and second person. It begins with Simonides, the host, as the addressee, then switches to speaking of the poet himself as a “good” guest, then goes back to the second person, now chastising a bad guest—are we to understand that this is Simonides again, or could it be someone else? Finally, the poem concludes on a high note of symposiastic concord with the first person plural. The symposium is thus an ideal place for merriment, and by extension for philia.

The extensive code of conduct surrounding it itself furthermore indicates that the symposium has a great cultural significance. In these particular verses, the rules, in parallel to the precepts of dikē in the poetry in general, serve to regulate each person’s behavior with regards to everyone else in order make the symposium a pleasant space for relaxation, mirth and friendship for all involved, ultimately describing a microcosm of well-functioning philia.

Elsewhere in the poems, however, the tension between the symposium as a place of mirth and the appearances that have to be kept up is presented in a more negative light, and it showcases the negative aspects of philia and the poet’s pervasive anxieties about unfaithful friends in a dubiously trustworthy social circle. In lines 115-116, the good friends in the symposium prove to be not so good out of it—the perfect philia of the symposium is a sham:

πολλοί τοι πόσιος καὶ βρώσιός εἰσιν ἑταῖροι, 89

ἐν δὲ σπουδαίῳ πρήγματι παυρότεροι.

Many indeed are comrades in drink and food, / but in serious affairs much fewer.

Further in the text, excess wine makes a man foolish (lines 497-498):

ἄφρονος ἀνδρὸς ὁμῶς καὶ σώφρονος οἶνος, ὅταν δὴ πίνῃ ὑπὲρ μέτρον, κοῦφον ἔθηκε νόον.

Wine makes the mind of both the foolish and of the sensible / man empty when he drinks beyond measure.

It also shows the true nature of a man in lines 499-502. In vino veritas holds true for Theognis:

ἐν πυρὶ μὲν χρυσόν τε καὶ ἄργυρον ἴδριες ἄνδρες γινώσκουσ᾿, ἀνδρὸς δ᾿ οἶνος ἔδειξε νόον, καὶ μάλα περ πινυτοῦ, τὸν ὑπὲρ μέτρον ἤρατο πίνων,ὥστε καταισχῦναι καὶ πρὶν ἐόντα σοφόν.

Expert men recognize gold and silver in fire, / and wine shows the mind of a man, / even if he is very prudent, / who likes to drink beyond his limit, / so that it shames even one who was formerly wise.

Considering the duplicitous nature of many of Theognis’ friendships, this might be a sobering realisation. Thus, although it is a place of mirth, the symposium is also a place where one must be prudent, and where the mind of a man can be known. It is a key setting for aristocratic interactions, a closed and regulated environment for a closed community of philoi, and it showcases philia, both in its positive and in its negative aspects.

The symposium as a place for educating the agathoi

Because of this, the symposium is also integral to the agathoi and to the creation of aristocratic identity. And it is explicitly, and crucially for Theognis, tied to them not only through general promotion of goodwill, but also through education. We saw this implied by reference to gnomic poetry in the invocation of the Muses. To see it explicitly, we need go no further than the Sphregis, specifically lines 31-36:

ταῦτα μὲν οὕτως ἴσθι· κακοῖσι δὲ μὴ προσομίλει ἀνδράσιν, ἀλλ᾿ αἰεὶ τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἔχεο· καὶ μετὰ τοῖσιν πῖνε καὶ ἔσθιε, καὶ μετὰ τοῖσιν 90

ἵζε, καὶ ἅνδανε τοῖς, ὧν μεγάλη δύναμις. ἐσθλῶν μὲν γὰρ ἄπ᾿ ἐσθλὰ μαθήσεαι· ἢν δὲ κακοῖσι συμμίσγῃς, ἀπολεῖς καὶ τὸν ἐόντα νόον.

Know that this is so, and do not seek the company of base / men, but always cling to the noble. / And with them drink and eat, and with them / sit, and be pleasing to those whose power is great. / For from the noble you will learn noble things, but if you mingle with the base, / you will lose even the sense you have.

Cyrnus is told to eat and drink, specifically with the agathoi, in order to be educated. He is told to join the community of the agathoi. And one becomes a part of the community of the agathoi and learns their values by being present at the symposium.

This aspect of initiation into the group of aristocratic philoi is once again a triumph of philia, inextricably linked to the didacticism of the poetry, and it can be reinforced by looking at other elements in the poetry, for example the meaningful names noted by Nagy: Theognis means “he who is born of the gods”. And he is passing on his wisdom to Cyrnus: “the bastard”. Furthermore, depending on how we reconstruct Cyrnus’ father’s name, Cyrnus is son of the “rich man” (Polypaus)—we remember the problematic nature of wealth. Or else even more pointedly, Cyrnus’ father may be the

“man with many children” (Polypais). The symbolic/initiatory reading is tempting: “Theognis”, “the son of the gods”, is already an initiate, and he is molding the “bastard” “Cyrnus”, the son of a rich man, or one of a crowd of children, to be one of the agathoi, the nobles. Cyrnus is to be made agathos not on his own merits, specifically not on the merits of his own genos, but rather through the philia with the agathoi that imparts dikē and membership into the closed circle. One could perhaps even see a ritual initiatory demeaning at work, which could also be linked to the number of negative qualities that sometimes seem lumped onto the addressee—more on this below.

In the “The Unsettled World of Theognis”, Cobb-Stevens147 brings up the following lines, which we recall as part of the longer poem 667-682, and mentions them as explicitly initiatory:

ταῦτά μοι ᾐνίχθω κεκρυμμένα τοῖς ἀγαθοῖσιν·

147Cobb-Stevens, pp.166-167. 91

γινώσκοι δ᾿ ἄν τις καὶ κακόν, ἂν σοφὸς ᾖ.148 (lines 681-682)

Let riddles be uttered by me, with hidden meaning for the noble. / But anyone can recognize the evil if he is wise.

Anyone: even the “bastard”. And we remember that anyone, if he is just, that is to say if he has the dikē imparted by the poetry in the context of the closed group of philoi that is the symposium, is noble.

The symposium is thus a place of mirth but also one of restraint, and, overall the main performance space for aristocratic friendship, philia, whether idealized by proper conduct as in lines

467-490, or duplicitous as in lines 115-116. It is also the space in which the poetry is performed, being the vehicle for immortal kleos of the poet, and, authorially, his main occupation. And it is most crucially the space of philia into which the addressee is brought, and, through this philia and the poetry, it becomes a vehicle for imparting the values of the aristocracy to new agathoi such as Cyrnus and integrating them into the community. On very practical terms, the symposium is where “Cyrnus” would hear the poetry articulating these aristocratic values and become one of the agathoi.

We have seen the importance of poetry in general in lines 237-254. Lines 769-772, which seem almost as important a programmatic statement as the Sphregis, explicitly declare the duty of the poet to educate through song, to invent verses and to share them:

χρὴ Μουσῶν θεράποντα καὶ ἄγγελον, εἴ τι περισσὸν εἰδείη, σοφίης μὴ φθονερὸν τελέθειν, ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν μῶσθαι, τὰ δὲ δεικνύναι, ἄλλα δὲ ποιεῖν· τί σφιν χρήσηται μοῦνος ἐπιστάμενος;

It is necessary for the servant and messenger of the Muses, if he knows something exceptional, / to not be jealous of his wisdom, / but to meditate on certain things and show other things, and compose other things still. / Of what use is it for him if he alone knows it?

Theognis is defining the values of the agathoi in his poetry, which is sung at symposia, and which educates the addressee in order to bring him into the community of the agathoi philoi.

But who exactly is this addressee, or, more accurately, who are we to imagine as the literary

148This is the manuscript reading, as printed by Gerber. According to Gerber, Brunck emmends it to kakos, which reinforces the meaning: even a kakos can understand Theognis, if he is initiated! 92

character of “Cyrnus” formed by the poetry? And who exactly are these philoi present at the symposium? We have a general idea that they are aristocrats, but perhaps there is something more we can know. And since we are speaking of oral poetry, these specifics about the audience may be especially useful in enriching our reading.

3.2. The Youth of the Poetic Voice

As wisdom literature, Theognis’ main objective is moralizing, the inculcation of values and the relaying of gnomic statements. However, especially if we begin from the “schoolbook” view of

Theognis seen in our ancient sources, that of a very wise and very ancient poet,149 some aspects of the poetry may seem strange. The first, of course, is that as just seen all this moralizing takes place orally in the context of the drinking party that is the symposium. However, the great cultural significance of the symposium to the Greeks can serve to explain this in part. The second strange aspect, however, more seldom noted by scholarship, is the relative youth of the poet himself as a character in the corpus.

This prima facie literary concern could in fact be very important in speaking about the nature of the

Theognidean corpus as an oral tradition in general, and about its audience specifically, who would be of a similar age. It is also important in understanding the poetry’s paedaogical and initiatory aspect of the poetry and the nature of the all-important philia referred to.

Theognis as a young poet

That Theognis is, by ancient standards, a young adult can be shown from many elements in the poetry; most directly by explicit references to his age. Theognis repeatedly speaks of old age as a situation that is impending, and of youth, although fleeting, as something in the process of fleeing rather than already fled. Lines 983-988 most explicitly refer to a young speaker speaking to a group of young people:

ἡμεῖς δ᾿ ἐν θαλίῃσι φίλον καταθώμεθα θυμόν, ὄφρ᾿ ἔτι τερπωλῆς ἔργ᾿ ἐρατεινὰ φέρῃ.

149See Part I for the Classical and post-Classical sources on Theognis. 93

αἶψα γὰρ ὥστε νόημα παρέρχεται ἀγλαὸς ἥβη· οὐδ᾿ ἵππων ὁρμὴ γίνεται ὠκυτέρη, αἵ τε ἄνακτα φέρουσι δορυσσόον ἐς πόνον ἀνδρῶν λάβρως, πυροφόρῳ τερπόμεναι πεδίῳ.150

Let us give our dear heart over to festivities, / while it can still sustain the lovely works of pleasure. / For splendid youth passes as quickly as a thought, / nor is the rush of horses swifter, / who bring a spear-wielding king to war, the toil of men, / rejoicing in the wheat-bearing field.

And the opening line of poem 567-570 likewise explicitly states ἥβῃ τερπόμενος παίζω, “I play, delighting in my youth.”

Certain poems even indicate a speaker that might find himself before the point of hebe, such as lines 1119-1123:

ἥβης μέτρον ἔχοιμι, φιλοῖ δέ με Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων Λητοίδης καὶ Ζεὺς ἀθανάτων βασιλεύς, ὄφρα δίκῃ ζώοιμι κακῶν ἔκτοσθεν ἁπάντων, ἥβῃ καὶ πλούτῳ θυμὸν ἰαινόμενος.151

May I have the full measure of my youth, and may Phoebus Apollo / the son of Leto and Zeus the king of the immortals love me, / so that I might live in righteousness keeping apart from all evils, / warming my heart in youth and riches.

The ending of poem 1323-1326 seems to be in the same vein:

[...] δὸς δ᾽ εὔφρονι θυμῷ μέτρ᾽ ἥβης τελέσαντ᾽ ἔργματα σωφροσύνης. Grant me in sound mind the workings of wisdom / when I have completed the span of my youth.152

Theognis, it is true, speaks rather extensively about old age along with youth. However, it is at most referred to in a general gnomic sense, such as in lines 527-528:

ὤ μοι ἐγὼν ἥβης καὶ γήραος οὐλομένοιο, τοῦ μὲν ἐπερχομένου, τῆς δ᾿ ἀπονισομένης.153

Alas for youth and alas for cursed old age, / the latter that it comes, the former that it goes

150Cf. lines 1129-1132. 151Cf. lines 1063-1068 and 1069-1070 which are more generic, but certainly do not betray an elderly speaker. And in Book II lines 1353-1356, which speak of love, personally, from an emotional perspective, and specifically, as it applies neoisi, “to the young”. 152Gerber gives a similar version as an alternative translation to his own “now that I have completed”. I believe that, given the context, this is less likely. Edmonds also translated telesant’ in the future tense. 153Cf. references to old age in lines 173-178, 271-278, 457-460, 527-528, 719-728, 757-768, 1129-1132. 94

away.

And elsewhere, such as in lines 1007-1012, the age of the speaker is not stated, but the advice is specficially given to young men:

ξυνὸν δ᾿ ἀνθρώποις ὑποθήσομαι, ὄφρα τις ἥβης ἀγλαὸν ἄνθος ἔχων καὶ φρεσὶν ἐσθλὰ νοῇ, τῶν αὐτοῦ κτεάνων εὖ πασχέμεν· οὐ γὰρ ἀνηβᾶν δὶς πέλεται πρὸς θεῶν, οὐδὲ λύσις θανάτου.

Advice will I give to men, while one has youth’s / splendid flower and thinks noble thoughts in his mind, / let him enjoy his possessions: for it is impossible to receive again a second youth / from the gods, nor a remedy to death.

But when the age of the speaker is stated explicitly with regards to old age, it is always from the point of view of someone who will grow old, rather than someone who is already old, as for example lines

1017-1022:

αὐτίκα μοι κατὰ μὲν χροιὴν ῥέει ἄσπετος ἱδρώς, πτοιῶμαι δ᾿ ἐσορῶν ἄνθος ὁμηλικίης τερπνὸν ὁμῶς καὶ καλόν· ἐπὶ πλέον ὤφελεν εἶναι· ἀλλ᾿ ὀλιγοχρόνιον γίνεται ὥσπερ ὄναρ ἥβη τιμήεσσα· τὸ δ᾿ οὐλόμενον καὶ ἄμορφον αὐτίχ᾿ ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς γῆρας ὑπερκρέμαται.

Suddenly a copious sweat flows over my skin/ and I tremble when I behold my generation’s / delightful and fair bloom. It ought to last longer! / But precious youth is like a fleeting dream; / in no time accursed and hideous / old age hangs over one’s head.

In the second line of couplet 577-578, Theognis declares that he is too old to learn, but this is no evidence for anything other than, perhaps, the fact that he is older than Cyrnus: μή με δίδασκ᾽: οὔτοι

τηλίκος εἰμὶ μαθεῖν, “do not teach me: I am no longer of such an age as to learn.” If anything, such an anxious but vague declaration of age would argue for a speaker who is only recently an adult! Overall, despite his claims to wisdom in the Sphregis and implicitly throughout the poems, nowhere is Theognis explicitly endowed with the gravitas of age.

A young age is also implied in Theognis’ discourse on marriage, which is gnomic and often overtly tied to his aristocratic ideology, almost invariably forward-looking, and never in reference to

experience of living with a wife. A good example are the already-quoted lines 183-192.154 The last

Theognidean poem on marriage is the only one to buck this trend, although it is not found in manuscripts but quoted by Stobaeus. It is given as lines 1225-1226 in modern editions, and seems to be the only one that points to a married Theognis, albeit enigmatically. It looks as if Theognis is well- married and suggesting that Cyrnus do the same:

οὐδέν, Κύρν᾽ ἀγαθῆς γλυκερώτερόν ἐστι γυναικός: μάρτυς ἐγώ, σὺ δ᾽ ἐμοὶ γίγνου ἀληθοσύνης.

Nothing is sweeter than a noble wife, Cyrnus. / I am a witness to it; and you, become witness to my truthfulness.155

This couplet has all the airs of an anomaly,156 but even if we take it as authentic, it still points to a

Theognis who is not too old: if we consider the relationship with Cyrnus, and the obvious fact that the age difference between him and the poet is static, then it becomes clear that if Theognis is married and

Cyrnus is not, Theognis cannot have been married all that long.

Perhaps most importantly, the nature of the advice Theognis gives and of his personal relationships in the Theognidean corpus also point to his being an adult (in the modern sense) but also a relatively young, unmarried man, speaking to a similar audience. This might also explain, in a narrower sense, the emphasis on philia over genos in the poems which we saw in the previous sections. On an ideological level, philia is emphasized as the cornerstone of the community of agathoi. But on a practical level, this lack of emphasis of the family could very well occur because Theognis himself is unmarried; or, more to the point, because, as the conduit for an oral tradition, “he” is a member of, and

154Cf. the other sections on marriage, lines 193-196, 457-460, 579-584, 1109-1114. 155Gerber, less literal, gives “Nothing is sweeter than a good wife, Cyrnus. I testify to it; you testify to my truthfulness”. 156Although considering, for example, the difference in tone between Book I and Book II of the corpus, it is not implausible that it should be one of the 2800 verses of Theognis the Suda reports as having existed. It might have been set in a different context, considering the nature of Book II, or perhaps it was part of a different group of verses now entirely lost along with the Elegy to the Sicilians. However, even taking the poem as authentic does not cause us too many problems: if we consider the poem from strictly a biographical standpoint there is nothing that would have prevented Theognis from having married at some point during the composition of the corpus, or, with regards to the oral tradition, for a poem written by someone married to have made its way into the oral tradition of the Theognidea, or have been quoted by Theognis. As for the authorial Theognis it is likewise entirely natural that the character described by the poetry and presumably imagined by its audience should marry eventually and thus also incorporate experience of married life into his work. 96

he is speaking for and to (e.g. lines 1007-1012) a group of young people for whom philia, epitomized in the symposium in which the poetry is sung, is the main form of social interaction. Theognis, being unmarried and speaking to young men in an educational context, focuses not on family but rather on friendships and mostly homosocial society, either political, or symposiastic, or else romantic, or else paederastic, or a combination of all of these (the term philos is at times tellingly ambiguous on the matter), and makes all other relationships subordinate to them.

The implications of the poetic voice’s age

If we take the poet’s implied youth at face value, the Theognidea is thus not simply an aristocratic poetic tradition, but the poetic tradition of a circle of young, unmarried aristocrats, performed at drinking parties, and mainly concerned in these songs with imparting their values to each other. In this sense, the symposiastic context ties far more easily to the nature of the poetry as wisdom literature. The youth of the speaker and of his audience is linked to the paedagogic imparting of values, as well as to the integration of the addressee into the symposium, that is to say it is tied to the educational and initiatory aspects of the poetry: Theognidean poetry is thus not only a general exposition of values. It is specifically an exposition of aristocratic values for young aristocrats as they enter the community of the agathoi philoi, as idealized and performed (the verses and the community) at the symposium.

Key to this whole transmission is the character of Cyrnus, which, if we take this view, is ultimately the name given to the generic addressee who is receiving the values. I believe the study of the addressee within the poetry will largely substantiate these views, and will furthermore tie together all the aspects of Theognidean poetry referred to thus far.

4. Cyrnus

The final sections of this thesis will look at the character of Cyrnus, or, more precisely, of the addressee in the poetry, and his relationship with its speaker. After attempting to clear up some

philological issues, such as “Cyrnus’” possible function as an element of oral poetry, and the relationship between the term “Cyrnus” and the nameless character addressed with the vocative pai in

Book II, I will conclude on an analysis of the textual character of the addressee in the Theognidea and his relationship to the poet through the text, which I believe is related to, and, indeed, binds together all the themes in the poetry. The Theognidea is a paedagogical text, and thus the relationship between

Cyrnus and Theognis, the subject and the object of this paedagogy respectively, is the main theme of the text. In a sense, this relationship largely is the text itself.

4.1. Cyrnus as a textual element and a poetic character

While the theory, mentioned in Part I, that the “Seal” of the Theognidean corpus is the name

“Cyrnus” itself is somewhat problematic, it is indubitable that the name of the addressee is at least partially an element of oral poetry, completing the meter, serving as a unifying thread throughout the corpus, and appearing in all manner of contexts. At times, the context in which the name is mentioned makes little sense, and it seems almost to have been added as an afterthought. Cyrnus, for example, is mentioned in the already-quoted prayer to Zeus in lines 337-340, or in lines 653-654:

εὐδαίμων εἴην καὶ θεοῖς φίλος ἀθανάτοισιν, Κύρν᾿· ἀρετῆς δ᾿ ἄλλης οὐδεμιῆς ἔραμαι.

May I have divine favour and be dear to the immortal gods, / Cyrnus. I crave no other merit.

The view of Cyrnus as an element of oral poetry is further reinforiced by the potential of it being, along with “Theognis” and Cyrnus’ patronymic, a speaking name related to the initiatory and paedagogic aspect of the poetry.

However, much like “Theognis”, regardless of whether or not it refers to a real historical person, the name also denotes a character within Theognidean poetry, in this case the youth to whom much of the poetry is addressed; in this sense it is literarily “real”.157 And this “Cyrnus’” relationship with “Theognis” is at the core of the text. In “biographical” terms Cyrnus has traditionally been

157Nagy, pp.34-35. 98

referred to, perhaps catachrestically, as Theognis’ eromenos. The term is first applied to him in the

Suda’s summary of the poetry. Whether or not the term accurate, a picture of this relationship and of

Cyrnus himself can be drawn from the poetry.

Such a picture is first and foremost useful in reading the poetry itself, both literarily and in a historical context: we must assume that ancient audiences believed in Cyrnus as much as they did in

Theognis. It is, perhaps even more importantly, useful in conceptualizing the ideal relationship between the speaker and the addressee in the poetry, a relationship which is at the core of the very central paedagogic and initiatory program of the Theognidean corpus, and which could also be read, in a broader historical context, as an “ideal” archaic Megarian paederastic relationship in the context of the value system of philia and the community of agathoi described by Theognis: we have said that the term eromenos first appears referring to Cyrnus in the Suda; tellingly for the place of the relationship in the broader scheme of Theognidean thought, the term Theognis uses is simply philos.

4.2. Cyrnus and the pais in Book II

Before proceeding to analyze the poet-addressee relationship, however, we will first address a textual question. Cyrnus could be broadly taken as the addressee of the entirety of Theognidean poetry.

However, although he is omnipresent in Book I, in fact he is almost entirely absent from the (more paederastic) Book II, in which his name only appears once, in line 1354. For the most part, Book II is addressed to an anonymous pais. This, of course, begs the question: are Cyrnus and the pais in Book II actually the same person? And what can the answer to this question tell us about the character of the conceptualized relationship between “Theognis” and his addressee?

Cyrnus and the pais of Book II can be read as the same person, and, furthermore, a link can be drawn between the books of the Theognidea precisely if we look at these two together from a literary standpoint. Such a link would not only reinforce the unity of the text (which as we have seen in Part I has often been attacked), but it would also enrich our reading of it and our understanding of the

relationship between the poet and his audience.

I will here advance the hypothesis that the verses in Book II predate Book I with regards to the characters’ “biographies”. From the point of view of the text itself as a literary work, within the “story” of the Theognidea, Book II precedes Book I. Book II representes the romantic pursuit which leads up to the established relationship in Book I. This storyline, of course, is more conceptual than strictly temporal. It does not require us to see all the instances of the vocative pai as referring to the same person, or, even less, to see either Cyrnus or Theognis as historical figures. It does not even require the verses to have been composed or performed in any particular temporal order. But the two books would simply represent two different phases of the same paederastic relationship as conceptualized throughout the Theognidea: in the Theognidean paradigm of a relationship, the pais, Cyrnus, is first romantically pursued and then, in the paedagogical Book I, educated into the community of the agathoi through his relationship with the poet.

Considering that the arrangement of verses in the Theognidea is not chronological, and has never been viewed as such by any of the poet’s biographers, the fact that Book I comes before Book II in our manuscript is of little concern in this case. For the purposes of this argument, the arrangement of the verses can be attributed to any point in the history of the oral or manuscript tradition. But the narrative view of the relationship between the two books seems supported by the extensive references to what looks like courtship in Book II, and their almost complete absence in Book I. Such poems include, for example, lines 1299-13044:

ὦ παῖ, μέχρι τίνος με προφεύξεαι; ὥς σε διώκων δίζημ᾿· ἀλλά τί μοι τέρμα γένοιτο κιχεῖν †σησοιγη†· σὺ δὲ μάργον ἔχων καὶ ἀγήνορα θυμὸν φεύγεις ἰκτίνου σχέτλιον ἦθος ἔχων. ἀλλ᾿ ἐπίμεινον, ἐμοὶ δὲ δίδου χάριν· οὐκέτι δηρὸν ἕξεις Κυπρογενοῦς δῶρον ἰοστεφάνου.

Boy, until when will you flee me? Until when in pursuit / will I seek you out? But may there come an end / [to my pursuit for you?]. For having a lustful and arrogant heart, / you flee me adopting the cruel ways of a kite. / But stay, and grant me favour. For not for long /will you 100

have the gifts of the violet-crowned Cyprus-born one.

The recounting of the myth of Atlanta in lines 1283-1294 is in a similar tone, and it furthermore predicts the addressee’s ultimate yielding to the poet:

ὦ παῖ, μή μ᾿ ἀδίκει· ἔτι σοι κα<τα>θύμιος εἶναι βούλομαι, εὐφροσύνῃ τοῦτο συνεὶς ἀγαθῇ. οὐ γάρ τοί με δόλῳ παρελεύσεαι οὐδ᾿ ἀπατήσεις· νικήσας γὰρ ἔχεις τὸ πλέον ἐξοπίσω, ἀλλά σ᾿ ἐγὼ τρώσω φεύγοντά με, ὥς ποτέ φασιν Ἰασίου κούρην παρθένον Ἰασίην ὡραίην περ ἐοῦσαν ἀναινομένην γάμον ἀνδρῶν φεύγειν· ζωσαμένη δ᾿ ἔργ᾿ ἀτέλεστα τέλει πατρὸς νοσφισθεῖσα δόμων ξανθὴ Ἀταλάντη· ᾤχετο δ᾿ ὑψηλὰς εἰς κορυφὰς ὀρέων φεύγουσ᾿ ἱμερόεντα γάμον, χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης δῶρα· τέλος δ᾿ ἔγνω καὶ μάλ᾿ ἀναινομένη. 158

Boy, do not do me an injustice. I still wish to be agreeable to you, / and I say this with good cheer. / You will not overcome me through ruses, nor will you deceive me. / For you have won in the past, / but I will wound you as you flee me, as they say once / the maiden Iasie daughter of Iasius, / although she was ripe for marriage, fled, refusing men. / Girding herself she undertook works not to be undertaken, / and turning her back on the halls of her father, blonde Atalanta / ran to the high peaks of the mountains, / fleeing happy marriage, golden Aphrodite’s / gift. But in the end she came to know, although she refused much.

Conversely, the verses in Book I would follow this yielding: they all seem to refer to an extant relationship. There is no question of romantic pursuit in Book I.

This theory would also account for the more impersonal use of pais in Book II, while Book I uses exclusively Cyrnus, or else his patronymic, denoting a closer relationship, and, perhaps, a considerably more mature addressee. Sometimes the addressee is even referred to as just phile. Such a theory also allows for the possibility that not every pais in Book II is Cyrnus (not all romantic pursuits need have ended well). Lastly it would also account for the fact that, as we shall see, Theognis and

Cyrnus are on much better terms than Theognis and the pais in Book II: in the Theognidea almost all the strife between the speaker and the addressee is relegated to Book II.

158Cf. lines 1235-1238, 1319-1322, 1327-1328, 1329-1334, 1345-1350, 1353-1356, 1365-1366. 101

4.3. The conceptualization of the Cyrnus/Theognis relationship in the poetry

Relating to Cyrnus’ relationship with Theognis, the later term eromenos in fact does him little justice: as mentioned the term Theognis himself uses is philos. Thus, the relationship is largely subsumed into the moral system of philia, and intimately linked to the paedagogical and initiatory program of the poetry. The following sections will substantiate this. Indeed, although there is very clearly a “traditionally” paederastic aspect to the Theognis/Cyrnus relationship, with imagery of courtship, romantic disappointment, etc., this is largely relegated to Book II, and the bulk of the addresses to Cyrnus are gnomic and moralistic in nature. Furthermore, the relationship between the poet and the addressee is far more positive in its paedagogical manifestation in Book I than in the courtship of Book II: while Book II contains a large amount of complaints of faithlessness and duplicity, and even threats, in Book I, Theognis and Cyrnus are often shown acting in tandem in social settings and Theognis is presented as a model for Cyrnus. Furthermore, even in Book II their relationship is specifically linked to Cyrnus’ integration into the group of philoi. Thus, even the romantic aspect of the relationship is subsumed into the initiatory and educational program. Through the use of family imagery, Theognis even explicitly subordinates Cyrnus’ status as a noble son to his status as Theognis’ philos and a new member of the agathoi being educated, thus subsuming genos to philia. The generally paedagogical and initiatory nature of the paederastic relationship in Theognis has already been explored by J.M. Lewis in his analysis of the paederastic verses in Book II. Given the central position of these themes, of the name and character of Cyrnus, and of his relationship to

Theognis in the poetry, I believe that such a reading can in fact be expanded to the whole of the

Theognidea, and ultimately serve as a focal point for our reading of the entire corpus.

The Theognis/Cyrnus relationship as mainly paedagogical

The poetry’s own conceptualization of the speaker/addressee relationship (and of itself) makes no secret of the fact that it is mainly paedagogical in nature. In the Sphregis, Theognis speaks first and

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foremost of imparting and transmitting wisdom to Cyrnus, and specifically links this to his advice to

Cyrnus to hold to the company of agathoi. The poet’s relationship with the addressee is thus from the very start tied to his advice, and includes bringing Cyrnus into the group of aristocratic philoi. But even in lines 1235-1238, the “micro-Sphregis” of Book II, to which most of the typical images of the romantic hunt, the spurned lover, etc. are relegated, Theognis speaks first and foremost to the phrenas the “mind”, of the youth, and it is only the use of the verb damazein, perhaps more evidently when compared with the use of horse metaphors later in that book,159 that gives the introduction its somewhat romantic connotation:

ὦ παῖ, ἄκουσον ἐμεῦ δαμάσας φρένας· οὔτοιἀ πειθῆμῦθον ἐρῶ τῇ σῇ καρδίῃ οὐδ᾿ ἄχαριν. ἀλλὰ τλῆθι νόῳ συνιεῖν ἔπος· οὔτοι ἀνάγκη τοῦτ᾿ ἔρδειν ὅτι σοι μὴ καταθύμιον ᾖ.

Boy, listen to me and tame your thoughts. I’ll not / say anything unpersuasive or displeasing to your heart. / But have patience in your mind and understand my words: you are under no compulsion / to undertake that which is not in accordance with your sentiments.

Even this introduction to the “paederastic” Book II reads almost as if it were simply a friendlier opening of an educational text. And in the already-quoted lines 237-254, perhaps Theognis’ most poetic and heartfelt address at Cyrnus, where in an imprecation brilliant enough that it now seems commonplace he tells Cyrnus that he will grant him immortality, it is not affection that the poet demands, but rather aidōs, respect, of the kind that is accorded to the gods, and to one’s superiors and teachers. Aidōs is also requested in the “paederastic” Book II in lines 1327-1334.

4.4. The “romantic” aspect of the Theognis/Cyrnus relationship

Indeed, Theognis and Cyrnus do not come particularly close in the unbridled emotion of the amorous verses. The more lyric verses in Book II speak largely of rejection and are overwhelmingly negative. Lines 1249-1252, for example, typical of Book II, indict the pais for faithlessness using the image of a horse:

159Cf. lines 1249-1252, 1267-1270. 103

παῖ, σὺ μὲν αὔτως ἵππος, ἐπεὶ κριθῶν ἐκορέσθης, αὖθις ἐπὶ σταθμοὺς ἤλυθες ἡμετέρους ἡνίοχόν τε ποθῶν ἀγαθὸν λειμῶνά τε καλὸν κρήνην τε ψυχρὴν ἄλσεά τε σκιερά.

Boy you are a very horse. For once you’ve been sated with barley, / immediately you come to our stables, / longing for a skilled driver, a lovely meadow, / a cool spring and shady groves.

Similar animal metaphors and general references to faithlessness appear throughout this short book.160

Lines 1337-1340 are an outright rejection of the pais’ love:

οὐκέτ᾿ ἐρῶ παιδός, χαλεπὰς δ᾿ ἀπελάκτισ᾿ ἀνίας, μόχθους τ᾿ ἀργαλέους ἄσμενος ἐξέφυγον, ἐκλέλυμαι δὲ πόθου πρὸς ἐυστεφάνου Κυθερείης· σοὶ δ᾿, ὦ παῖ, χάρις ἔστ᾿ οὐδεμία πρὸς ἐμοῦ.

I am no longer in love with a youth, I have kicked aside harsh pains / and have gladly escaped from grievous hardships, / and I have been unbound from desire by the fair-crowned Cytherean. / But as for you, boy, there are no charms in you to my eyes.

Even the positive verses in Book II hardly paint a blissful image. Lines 1279-1282 state, as if this were extraordinary, that the speaker will not harm the youth. For good measure, they also complain of ill- treatment:

οὐκ ἐθέλω σε κακῶς ἔρδειν, οὐδ᾿ εἴ μοι ἄμεινον πρὸς θεῶν ἀθανάτων ἔσσεται, ὦ καλὲ παῖ· οὐ γὰρ ἁμαρτωλαῖσιν ἐπὶ σμικραῖσι κάθημαι. τῶν δὲ καλῶν παίδων †ουτοσετουτ᾿ αδικων†.

I do not wish to treat you badly, not even if it were mine to fare better / before the immortal gods for it, oh fair youth. / For I do not sit upon petty wrongs. / But there is no requital for handsome youths.161

The rest of the verses are no better. Most of them are simply straightforward demands for reciprocated affection, some with the specific warning that one day the youth will be in Theognis’ position. Lines

1327-1334 seem particularly backhanded, as they state a passionate love unto the death, but also very clearly delineate a time limit for it: the object’s youth. And they appear to simultaneously coax and

160Cf. lines 1249-1252, 1257-1258 (see Van Groningen, Gerber and Edmonds’ notes on this for what animal exactly is being referred to), 1259-1262, 1267-1270. For faithlessness in general in this book cf. lines 1263-1266, 1311-1318, 1361- 1362, and 1377-1380 specifically for consorting with kakoi. 161Most editors agree the meaning is to this effect, although the text itself is corrupt. Cf. lines 1295-1298, which simply tell the pais not to have ill sentiments towards the poet. 104

threaten him with similar rejection or acceptance by others, depending on his answer, in due time, once he reaches the poet’s age:

ὦ παῖ, ἕως ἂν ἔχῃς λείαν γένυν, οὔποτέ σ᾿ αἰνῶν παύσομαι, οὐδ᾿ εἴ μοι μόρσιμόν ἐστι θανεῖν. σοί τε διδόντ᾿ ἔτι καλόν, ἐμοί τ᾿ οὐκ αἰσχρὸν ἐρῶντι αἰτεῖν. ἀλλὰ γονέων λίσσομαι ἡμετέρων,αἴδεό μ᾿, ὦ παῖ <>, διδοὺς χάριν, εἴ ποτε καὶ σὺ ἕξεις Κυπρογενοῦς δῶρον ἰοστεφάνου χρηΐζων καὶ ἐπ᾿ ἄλλον ἐλεύσεαι· ἀλλά σε δαίμων δοίη τῶν αὐτῶν ἀντιτυχεῖν ἐπέων.162

Boy, so long as you have a smooth chin, I will never cease to praise you, / not even if it is destined that I die. / It is a fair thing for you to give, and it is not shameful for me who desires / to ask. I beseech you on behalf of our parents, show me respect, / boy, and give grace; if one day you too / will crave the gift of the violet-crowned Cyprus-born one, / and pursue another, may the god / grant that you meet with the same response.

Further on, in lines 1351-1352, the poet even has time for a strange moralistic intrusion, only fitting in the book because of its use of the vocative pai: Theognis, surprisingly compared to the extensive symposiastic references everywhere else, tells the youth not to kōmazein, that is, not to revel; this may be tied to the kōme/symposium distinction, along the lines of the elegy/comedy dichotomy.

The most positive poems in the group are those which predict the speaker’s ultimate triumph and the progression to the next stage of the relationship, such as the already-quoted retelling of the myth of Atalanta in lines 1283-1294, an exemplum which moralistically ends, after telling of how she fled marriage, on τέλος δ᾿ ἔγνω καὶ μάλ᾿ ἀναινομένη: “but in the end she came to know, though she refused much” (line 1294).

4.4. The paedagogical and initiatory aspect of the Theognis/Cyrnus relationship

Conversely, in the more didactic Book I Theognis and Cyrnus appear far less at odds. It is in

Book I that, in many verses, Theognis and Cyrnus are treated as a single unit; and this frequently happens in an explicitly aristocratic context.

Theognis and Cyrnus as a single unit

162Cf. lines 1305-1310 for a similar warning, and more generally for demands of affection, lines 1319-1322, 1299-1304, 1305-1310. 105

We know, for example, that Cyrnus goes to war together with the poet in lines 549-554. Cyrnus is called to prepare the horses (ἵπποις ἔμβαλλε ταχυπτέρνοισι χαλινούς, line 551). In terms of traditional aristocratic activity, specifically of the educational kind, one can hardly think of anything more typical than the knight-squire paradigm that seems to be shown here.

In another situation, which remains unspecified (this segment looks like it was once part of a larger poem), Cyrnus also finds himself in some very dire straits along with Theongis.

ἐς πολυάρητον κακὸν ἥκομεν, ἔνθα μάλιστα, Κύρνε, συναμφοτέρους μοῖρα λάβοι θανάτου. (lines 819-820)

Cyrnus, we have arrived at this unmentionable evil, where it would be best / for the fate of death to seize us both!

Theognis’ atypical use of the first person plural also appears in 1133-1134, which indicates the two acting in tandem in the context of a group of philoi:

Κύρνε, παροῦσι φίλοισι κακοῦ καταπαύσομεν ἀρχήν, ζητῶμεν δ᾿ ἕλκει φάρμακα φυομένῳ.

Cyrnus, with the friends we have let us stop the evil at its beginning, / and seek a remedy for the ulcer that is growing.

The first person plural also appears elsewhere, such as for example in the moralistic lines 315-318 already cited. Considering the paramount emphasis Theognis places on proper attitudes in philia,

Cyrnus at the poet’s side and forming a single unit with him in the context of his aristocratic social sphere is perhaps the most privileged position he could hold. Of the three poems, then, where Theognis and Cyrnus are at their “closest”, the first refers to a traditionally aristocratic activity, and the last explicitly to a circle of philoi. Only 819-820 is vague. None of them, however, are particularly romantic.

Regarding the negative side of Theognis’ relationship with Cyrnus, there are far fewer explicit complaints of ill-treatment of the poet and duplicitousness in Book I than in Book II. One has already been mentioned, lines 237-254. Some of the generic advice against treating friends poorly could also be

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read as a personal jab, such as lines 87-90:

μή μ᾿ ἔπεσιν μὲν στέργε, νόον δ᾿ ἔχε καὶ φρένας ἄλλῃ εἴ με φιλεῖς καί σοι πιστὸς ἔνεστι νόος. ἤ με φίλει καθαρὸν θέμενος νόον, ἤ μ᾿ ἀποειπὼν ἔχθαιρ᾿ ἀμφαδίην νεῖκος ἀειράμενος.163

Don’t show me affection with your words, but having a differing mind and heart, / if you love me, and there is a faithul mind within you. / Either love me firmly establishing your mind, or disavowing me / be my enemy, and making enmity with me openly.

Such lines, however, are relatively few, not only when compared with Book II’s pais, but also when compared with the ever-present threat of duplicitous philoi in general. Perhaps the fact that lines 237-

254 are so poetically memorable colours our view of Cyrnus; however, in fact, it seems that going by

Book I Cyrnus is actually the best of Theognis’ philoi. Theognis’ generally sour tone, or perhaps the paedagogic and initiatory nature of the poetry, can explain why this not expounded upon.164 However, objectively, Cyrnus is only dupliticous if we consider him as the pais of Book II, in which case, there are indubitably quite a few more “negative” poems. In any case, the relationship presented in the paedagogical book seems to function far more smoothly than the one in the paederastic text, though both of them together are overall positive when compared to Theognis’ other relationships.

Theognis as a model for Cyrnus

Furthermore reinforcing the paedagogical aspect of the poetry as a whole, and its defining role in the relationship between poet and addressee, in addition to the lines where they act in tandem, in certain lines, like 219-220, Theognis specifically sets himself as a model for Cyrnus. In this case, it is in a political setting:

μηδὲν ἄγαν ἄσχαλλε ταρασσομένων πολιητέων, Κύρνε, μέσην δ᾿ ἔρχευ τὴν ὁδὸν ὥσπερ ἐγώ.

Do not be distressed excessively when the citizens are in turmoil, / Cyrnus, but go along the middle of the road, as I do.

163Cf. similar potentially personal gnomic lines on faithlessness 117-118, 119-128, 299-300, 323-324. 164The addressees of didactic works (for example, Hesiod’s Perses in Works and Days) seem to generally be portrayed in a negative light. 107

Theognis also sets himself as a model for Cyrnus, explicitly, in matters of marriage in lines 1225 -1226.

Even more tellingly, in the Sphregis, Theognis tells Cyrnus that he will impart to him wisdom as it was imparted to himself in his childhood, specifically in the company of agathoi. If we consider the seemingly young age of the poet, and the consequent closeness in age between the poetry’s two main characters, this aspect of the relationship becomes more pronounced. As mentioned, even in the

“paederastic” Book II, the pais is warned not in general of old age (in and of itself a rather trite imprecation) but specifically that he will, one day, be in the poet’s position, and of the poet’s age.

Overall, there is an underlying but very strong identification of Cyrnus with Theognis. This is even visible in the poetry’s amorous verses, and ultimately it helps to subsume even the romantic aspect of the relationship into the paedagogical one. The transient station of the pais as an object of affection is likewise clear in many of the verses mentioned, as well as in such imprecations as lines

1327-1328, where the intensity of the poet’s passion is unlimited, but not its duration. Cyrnus will not always be a passive object of affections, but will one day, more or less, become Theognis. The poet even gives him advice on marriage (lines 1225-1226) and children (lines 409-410, 1161-1162)!

Theognis not only imparts wisdom to Cyrnus, but becomes a model for him, and the ultimate point of the relationship is again for Cyrnus to be educated and to become an agathos, like Theognis.

Cyrnus’ membership in the group of philoi through his relationship to Theognis

An initiatory aspect is also visible in the Theognis/Cyrnus relationship. As seen, in the public setting, Theognis and Cyrnus act in tandem several times, and the use of the word philos to describe their relationship, the same word used for the friends in the broader aristocratic community in which they find themselves, implies very strongly that integration into this community of philoi is at the core of the relationship (and indelibly tied to the transmission of values). Indeed, a few times, Cyrnus, or the pais of Book II, is specifically referred to in the context of other philoi (or hetairoi). Most tellingly, even in the romantic context of Book II, lines 1311-1318 have Theognis specifically stating that he

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wished to make the pais the best of all his hetairoi. Furthermore, in these lines, many of the personal references are not singular, but, rather, refer to groups of philoi:

οὔ μ᾿ ἔλαθες κλέψας, ὦ παῖ—καὶ γάρ σε†διωμαι†— τούτοις, οἷσπερ νῦν ἄρθμιος ἠδὲ φίλος ἔπλευ, ἐμὴν δὲ μεθῆκας ἀτίμητον φιλότητα. οὐ μὲν δὴ τούτοις γ᾿ ἦσθα φίλος πρότερον, ἀλλ᾿ ἐγὼ ἐκ πάντων σ᾿ ἐδόκουν θήσεσθαι ἑταῖρον πιστόν. καὶ δὴ νῦν ἄλλον ἔχοισθα φίλον· ἀλλ᾿ ὁ μὲν εὖ ἔρδων κεῖμαι· σὲ δὲ μή τις ἁπάντων ἀνθρώπων ἐσορῶν παιδοφιλεῖν ἐθέλοι.

You did not escape my perception, boy, in cheating me and in fact [I will chase?] / you [towards?] those with whom you now are a close friend, / throwing my friendship away as if it was of no value. / For you were no friend of these before, / but I thought that I would make you out of all men my faithful comrade. / But go now and take another friend. / But I, who did you good, am laid low. Let no one among all / men, seeing you, desire to undertake a paederastic relationship [with you].

Gerber translates παιδοφιλεῖν here as “desire to love a boy”. But neither “love” nor “befriend” does justice to the term, especially if we imply σε as the object. Many of its nuances can be explored in this very poem: even the plural used earlier on is significant. Theognis first speaks in the context of several groups of friends: the pais is not indicted for having a new lover, but “new friends”, and Theognis himself would have made him the “truest of his friends”. It is only near the end, in line 1315, that the

“new friend” becomes singular, although the relationship is never disassociated from social groups. In a similar fashion, lines 655-656, and 1133-1134, both couplets already quoted, assume a shared group of philoi.

Neither is poem 1311-1318 the only one to refer to the community of philoi in Book II.

Although their location and content make it very easy to read them as purely romantic, even lines like

1249-1252 speak in the first person plural: if we take into account the ideological context of the whole

Theognidea, Theognis might here be speaking not of a personal relationship, but of the pais’ group of friends, which the pais has abandoned. We could be witnessing not an amorous rivalry but rather a competition between two circles of philoi for a new “recruit”. While tentative, such a reading would

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link Book II and the vocative pai more closely to the more clearly communal and paedagogical context of Book I and the vocative Cyrne, further weakening the distinction between the two, and reinforcing the paedagogical and communal-initiatory nature of them both. A similar link between the two could be seen in the overtly paedagogical intrusion into Book II of lines 1351-1352, with their advice “not to revel”, as well as the still constant advice against befriending kakoi.

Overall, through his relationship with Theognis, Cyrnus shares in the values and wisdom of his philos in all matters, political or personal, at the symposium or in the assembly. He is also given a model to emulate, and a mentor to latch onto and act as a unit with in social contexts. Cyrnus’ position is that of the best of Theognis’ philoi. And, ultimately he is, in both books, explicitly brought into

Theognis’ broader community of philoi through his philia with Theognis.

Cyrnus as a son and the ultimate subordination of genos to philia

The subtle, perhaps, but consistent links of Cyrnus’ characterization to the concept of his

“coming of age” (the transient nature of his position, his integration into a group, etc.) can also point us in another direction: beyond his role as an eromenos (if we can even continue to use this term for him), in the Theognidea Cyrnus is also cast, implicitly but consistently, in the other, perhaps more important

(and more historically transcendent) role a youth would play, that of a son. Indeed, Cyrnus is often referred to by his patronymic, being the only person in the Theognidea afforded this honour except the gods—and once, in a generalized sense, the “Asclepiads”, that is, doctors (line 432). Polypais (or

Polypaus) gets more mentions in the text than Cronus, the father of Zeus. Furthermore, as we have seen, a large segment of Theognis’ advice is focused on family relationships, both looking backwards

(the addressee’s treatment of his parents) and looking forward (advice on Cyrnus’ own marriage and children).

But this very real family link is still paralleled in the relationship between Theognis and Cyrnus.

The poet almost says as much in 1049-1054, when he purports to give Cyrnus advice “as a father to his

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child”. The family connection between advice giver and addressee in several other works of wisdom literature, such as Hesiod or Biblical wisdom literature, comes to mind. It is also worth noticing, again, that at the end of this particular poem, even an inherently good mind needs good counsel, or, even more tellingly, that a mind becomes good, or, rather, noble, through counsel; we remember the discussion of genos and dikē/philia in which we quoted these verses earlier, and the triumph of dikē. Thus, through his relationship with Theognis, Cyrnus becomes a sort of double-son: he is dependent on his father, an adult citizen, by blood, but he is also dependent on Theognis for education and philia. And the latter ultimately trumps the former. In this sense, Cyrnus’ position reinforces the general Theognidean value system regarding aristocracy: in constructing aristocracy, although family ties are still strongly present, ultimately the universe of the philoi, through the poetry, both works in tandem with and eventually overtakes the family, not only for aristocratic definition, but also for education and self-perpetuation.

And, at the same time, ideologically, Cyrnus is placed in the continuum of a family line in both through genos and through philia. The references to his parents and his children cement this for his blood family. And in the sphere of philia, not only will Theognis speak to Cyrnus as to a son, but, in the

Sphregis, he says he will pass on advice to Cyrnus as was passed on to him in his youth: Cyrnus is thus bound both by blood and ideologically, by bonds of genos and philia, into the social and ideological community, past and present, of the agathoi created by Theognis in the poems.

Overall, if one were to define as succinctly as possible the function of paederasty in the

Theognidea, it would be precisely as an initiation, via a close bond with someone of similar age and position, into the brotherhood of the agathoi. And this also seems to be the function of Theognidean poetry: it is to be performed at symposia, its addressee is the young man, and it imparts to him the values of the proper functioning of the social and political community of the agathoi. The relationship between Cyrnus and Theognis is the unifying thread, and indeed the ideal representation, of the all the themes in the corpus.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, then, Theognidean poetry is a sum of the oral tradition of aristocratic archaic

Megarian wisdom literature, specifically an oral tradition which aims to impart the values of the

Megarian aristocracy to its next generation in the context of the symposium, and, in my opinion, speaking specifically to, if not exclusively of, a circle of young agathoi. This process of imparting values and wisdom and of integration into the community of the agathoi is exemplified and essentialized in the relationship between the corpus’ two main characters: Theognis, the mouthpiece of the aristocracy, and Cyrnus, his silent but omnipresent young addressee and a stand-in for his audience.

That such poetry would have been greatly significant in its time on a civic level, enough to be compiled and ultimately end up as the only surviving corpus of archaic lyric poetry, is not surprising given the great importance which the ancient Greeks accorded to paideia—not only on a private, but especially on a civic, institutional level. Furthermore, paideia was often centred precisely on groups of young people, like the symposiastic circle of agathoi in the Theognidea—we can compare these to anything from the choruses that performed Pindar’s poetry to the “herds” of the Spartan agōge. And considering the sometimes very vague powers of the archaic Greek state, “Megarian” and “Megarian aristocratic” institutions would have seamlessly overlapped, especially in the heyday of the aristocracy, when the broader community of the agathoi described in Theognis would have held power: in a community where power is held by aristocrats, the internal organization of these aristocrats must to an extent overlap with the “official” state. And thus, what could be more important for the Megarian aristocracy, and the city it rules, than perpetuating its values in the context of its communal celebrations and passing them on to the next generation? This somewhat amusingly parallels Theognis’ later success as a schoolbook moralist. But the term “moralist” obscures a grander function: Theognidean poetry, on all levels—the paederastic relationship, the community of philoi, the political statements, the implicit and explicit claims of authority—presents itself as no less than the vehicle for perpetuating,

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through education, the very essence of the society of the agathoi.

In the context of such a significant poetry, it is likewise not surprising that the Theognidean corpus should contain some very profound and complex reflections on its own value system, on the nature of aristocracy, and on the archaic world in general. Some of Theognis’ ideas seem to herald later developments in philosophy, and certain Theognidean passages present us with some of the most elaborate thought we have from the Archaic Period, an era of which the urban, striving aristocracy of

Megara would have been at the forefront. Theognis lived in a time of great transformation; and the combination of traditional systems, conceptions and ways of thinking, and of new, surprisingly philosophical ways of looking at these ideas, which nonetheless still stem directly from this tradition, is visible in the Theognidea. In order for a proper educational text to be produced, in Theognis, the old aristocrats as a social class are distilled to their essence, or, at least, to what the poet or poets perceive as their essence: social bonds of friendship, and a moral ideal keeping these bonds together, and keeping not only the aristocracy, but the whole polis functioning; and this is passed on through the text, which represents a crystalization of the ideal paederastic relationship. This is showcased as the main way for perpetuating the existence of the social group. Theognis looks into the ancient values of his community to present them to us and Cyrnus in a profound and splendid didactic poetry, both traditional and philosophical, worthy of the time and place in which he lived.

The drinking-songs of a group of young aristocrats hardly seem a fit medium for this. But when considered in their cultural context, the authority of the all-knowing archaic poet is compounded with the authority of educating the young on an institutional level, as well as with the excuse, or, indeed, the imperative which this gives for reflecting on traditional ideas usually taken for granted. And thus we get one of the monuments of archaic Greek thought, this so very quintessentially Greek book of wisdom literature, an archaic Greek Book of Proverbs couched in symposiastic lyricism, in which the

“ideal” Megarian aristocrat transmits his values to the “ideal” Megarian youth, and in a dangerous and

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changing world perpetuates himself and his nobility for “as long as there is an earth and a sun”.

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