LYRIC CITIES: POET, PERFORMANCE, AND COMMUNITY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS AND THE COMMITTEE OF GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Nicholas Boterf June 2012 © 2012 by Nicholas Owen Boterf. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/sj539hc7564 ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Richard Martin, Co-Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi, Co-Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Josiah Ober I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Susan Stephens Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii iv LYRIC CITIES: POET, PERFORMANCE, AND COMMUNITY Nicholas Boterf, Stanford, Ph.D. Stanford University, 2012 Reading Committee Member: Richard Martin Richard Martin My dissertation analyzes how poets in archaic Greece interacted with their own local communities and how they positioned themselves within the community through their poetry. Archaic Greece (ca. 800-480 BC) was a time of great political and social change as interactions between the various autonomous Greek city-states intensified. Recent research has emphasized the role that poets had in negotiating local identities within this growing network of Greek states. Instead of studying how poets communicate with and praise other communities, this study will analyze how poets interact with and position themselves within their own community. As I argue in this study, a poet adapts a fundamentally different persona at home rather than abroad. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I want to thank first of all my committee (Richard Martin, Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi, Susan Stephens, and Josiah Ober) without whose sound advice and constructive criticism this dissertation would not come into being. I also wish to thank my peers Matt Simonton and Al Duncan for always providing helpful suggestions and advice. I also wish to thank Leslie Kurke and Melissa Mueller, who kindly provided me drafts of their forthcoming articles. Last, but far from least, I thank my parents, whose support I have always relied on. vi All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own, though in most cases I have consulted the Loeb translations. Sometimes no doubt my translation betrays their influence. For Sappho, I have used the standard edition of Voigt; for Theognis, I use the text and line numbering in Gerber’s Loeb; for Pindar, I use Snell-Maehler’s edition. Quotations for all other texts are from the either standard editions of the text listed in the Oxford Classical Dictionary or the most recent Loeb editions. For abbreviations of ancient sources, I follow the list at the front of the Oxford Classsical Dictionary. In rare cases where the OCD does not provide a particular abbreviation for a text, I have consulted the abbreviations listed in the most recent edition of the LSJ. vii Table of Contents Introduction: A Lost World of the Local ....................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Locality and Community ......................................................................................... 6 Introduction................................................................................................................................. 6 Getting Local: Local and Translocal in Contemporary Scholarship .......................................... 6 Living Local: Anthropological Perspectives ............................................................................ 13 Local Knowledge: Greek Ideas of “Locality” .......................................................................... 17 Nothing to Do with Panhellenism?........................................................................................... 32 Conclusions............................................................................................................................... 42 Chapter Two: The Poet In His Community.................................................................................44 Introduction............................................................................................................................... 44 Poets: A Vaguely Defined Job.................................................................................................. 45 Placing the Poet: The Topography of Authorship .................................................................... 48 Ramblin’: A World of Wandering Poets .................................................................................. 79 Community, Space, and Strife .................................................................................................. 86 Guests and Authority ................................................................................................................ 93 The Return Home: Poets in their Own Communities ............................................................... 97 Conclusions............................................................................................................................. 102 Chapter Three: Sappho’s Exclusive SonG................................................................................. 104 Introduction............................................................................................................................. 104 Sappho: Monodic or Choral?.................................................................................................. 105 Charis Wars: Sappho and Her Rivals ..................................................................................... 112 Sappho’s Superior Song: The Rhetoric of Exclusivity........................................................... 117 An Agōn at the Kallisteia? ...................................................................................................... 135 Out the Door and Into the World: Sappho’s Kleos................................................................. 142 The Girl From Sardis: Recreating Memory Abroad............................................................... 157 Sappho the Iambist?................................................................................................................ 167 Chapter Four: Theognis’ Virtual Cities..................................................................................... 184 Introduction:............................................................................................................................ 184 Sympotic Poetry as Communal Poetry ................................................................................... 184 The Nature of the Theognidea ................................................................................................ 189 Playing Theognis: His Various Roles..................................................................................... 196 Theognis and Megara: A City and its Poet ............................................................................. 218 Conclusions: Megara as a Virtual City ................................................................................... 229 Chapter Five: Pindar in Thebes: Pythian 11, Gender, and Community ......................... 232 Introduction:............................................................................................................................ 232 A Date with the Oresteia ........................................................................................................ 232 Pythian 11 As “Local” Poetry................................................................................................. 239 Myth and Gender: Tragedy in Pythian 11 .............................................................................. 244 The “Break Off” and the Local Citizens................................................................................. 251 Theban Peers, Local Features ................................................................................................. 261 viii Conclusion: New Directions in Locality and Archaic Greek Literature......................... 275 Appendix A: Evidence for Naming Practices in Epigraphy................................................ 277 Appendix B: Names of Authors in Archaic and Classical Greece ..................................... 284 Bibliography: .................................................................................................................................... 290 1 Introduction: A Lost World of the Local Archaic lyric poetry is above all a poetry of