language in Euripides
Caspers, C.L.
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Caspers, C. L. (2011, March 8). Healing speech, wandering names, contests of words : ideas about language in Euripides. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/16568
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III Euripides and the idea of the ἀ ἀ ἀγ ἀ γγ γώ ώ ών ώ νν ν
0. Introduction
The topic of this chapter is Euripides’ treatment – mainly, but not exclusively in his so-called ‘agon’ scenes – of what I call the ‘idea of the ἀγών’: the notion, associated in our sources especially with Protagoras, that sound policy should be based on a con- sideration of the ‘two opposed λόγοι’ that arise from every πρᾶγµα. Like the ὄνοµα- πρᾶγµα talk discussed in the preceding chapter, agonistic terminology is distinctly prominent in Euripidean drama: the poet is alone among the extant tragedians in con- sistently using such expressions as ‘ἀγὼν λόγων’ or ‘ἅµιλλα λόγων’ to refer to on- stage verbal exchange.1 Euripides also appears to go further than the other tragedians in underlining the formality of such exchanges by means of explicit headlines and in- terventions;2 and accordingly, modern scholarship has come up with the term ‘agon scene’, to describe a generic template that typically consists of a pair of opposing speeches, balancing each other both in length and in content, separated by two or three lines from the Chorus, and frequently followed by a further stichomythic ex- change between the antagonists. This ‘agon’ template seems exclusively, or (depend- ing on the strictness of your definition) predominantly, to have been favoured by Eu- ripides.3
1 A preliminary conspectus: Hcld 116-7 (πρὸς τοῦτον ἁγὼν ἆρα τοῦδε τοῦ λόγου | µάλιστ’ ἂν εἴη) and 160-1 (µὴ γὰρ ὡς µεθήσοµεν | δόξῃς ἀγῶνα τόνδ’ ἄτερ χαλυβδικοῦ); Med. 546 (ἅµιλλαν γὰρ σὺ προύθηκας λόγων), Hipp. 971 (τί ταῦτα σοὶ ἁµίλλωµαι λόγων;); Suppl. 427 (ἐπεὶ δ’ ἀγῶνα καὶ σὺ τόνδ’ ἠγωνίσω...) and 465 (τῶν µὲν ἠγωνισµένων | σοὶ µὲν δοκείτω ταῦτ’, ἐµοὶ δὲ τἀντία); Andr. 234 (τί σεµνοµυθεῖς κεἰς ἀγῶν’ ἔρχηι λόγων); Hec. 271 (τῶι µὲν δικαίωι τόνδ’ ἁµιλλῶµαι λόγον); Her.
1255 (ἄκουε δή νυν, ὡς ἁµιλληθῶ λόγοις | πρὸς νουθετήσεις σάς); Pho. 588 (οὐ λόγων ἔθ’ ἁγών); 930 (ὀρθῶς µ’ ἐρωτᾶις κεἰς ἀγῶν’ ἔρχηι λόγων); Or. 491 (†πρὸς τόνδ’ ἀγών τις σοφίας ἥκει πέρι †).
2 In this respect, it is instructive to compare E. El. 1055-6 (Electra: µέµνησο, µῆτερ, οὓς ἔλεξας ὑστάτους | λόγους, διδοῦσα πρὸς σέ µοι παρρησίαν [‘Mind your last words, mother, in which you granted me the right of speaking freely to you’]) with its parallel passage in S. El.: while both plays thematise the restrictions imposed upon Electra’s speech, Euripides’ precise marking of the speech turns and his use of quasi-technical language (παρρησία) contrasts with Sophocles’ more naturalistic way of introducing the discussion (554-5, ἀλλ’ ἢν ἐφῆις µοι, τοῦ τεθνηκότος θ’ ὕπερ | λέξαιµ’ ὀρθῶς κασιγνήτου θ’ ὅµου [‘If you let me, I would like to speak my mind about the dead man and my brother’]). For the difference between Euripidean and Sophoclean practice, cf. Lloyd, Agon 8-13.
3 Lloyd, Agon 3 lists thirteen “generally recognized” agon scenes in Euripides: more inclusive defini- tions than Lloyd’s can be found in e.g. Duchemin, AGON 39-41; Collard, ‘Formal Debates’ 60-1 (who, like Lloyd, differentiates Euripidean from Sophoclean conflict scenes); and Dubischar, Agonszenen 44- 7 and 53-6.
Why did Euripides foreground the idea of an ‘ἀγὼν λόγων’ in his tragedies to this extent? It will presently appear that the ‘agon’ in Euripides is a flexible device:
the significance of any particular ἀγὼν in Euripides is determined by such variables as its position in the dramatic structure and its embedding in the thematic concerns of a given play, by the nature of the issue that is being debated, by the presence or absence of a third party to ‘judge’ the proceedings, and by the characterisation of its partici- pants – whether they are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ characters, and (most crucially for present purposes) whether they are ‘for’ or ‘against’ the ἀγών itself. In what follows, it is not my intention to give a complete coverage of agonistic references in Euripides, or of every Euripidean ‘agon’ scene; instead, as I explain in section 1.1 below, I focus on four plays, from various periods in the poet’s career, whose ‘agon’ scenes touch par- ticularly upon the ἀγών as a model for socio-political deliberation. By the mid-420s, the idea of an ‘ἀγὼν λόγων’ associated with Protagoras, and featured prominently in the political theory that Thucydides ascribes to Protagoras’ associate Pericles, had evidently become controversial enough for Aristophanes to stage, in his Clouds of 422, a parodic ἀγών between the ‘stronger’ and the ‘weaker’ λόγος; and what I hope to show in this chapter is that in the ‘agon’ scenes of Children of Heracles (2), Sup- pliant Women (3), Hecuba (4) and Phoenician Women (5), Euripides can in various ways be seen to engage with this controversy.
1. ‘agon’ scenes and the idea of the ἀἀἀγἀγγγώώώώνννν
1.1 As was noted above, the term ‘agon scene’ is a modern one, coined by Theodor Bergk with reference to the ‘epirrhematic’ agon encountered in the plays of Aristo- phanes. Only in the early 20th cent. did it catch on as a label for the characteristic tragic construction described in the opening paragraph of this chapter;4 and in spite of its present currency, its definition continues to be debated.5 Indeed, even within the narrow range of what Michael Lloyd designates as the “thirteen generally recognised agon scenes” in Euripides (cf. n.3 above), diversity is great; and this flexibility of the
‘agon’ form allows the poet to do very different things with these scenes, and with the conventions that determine their shape and purpose.
One striking feature of Euripides’ ‘agon’ scenes is the fact that most of them are inconclusive: what is debated in these scenes fails to affect the course of the dra- matic action.6 This can clearly be seen in a batch of dramas from the 430s-early 420s.
In Hippolytus, the formal ‘agon’ takes place after Theseus has irreversibly invoked a lethal curse upon his son: accordingly, nothing that Hippolytus can say or do in his
4 For the history of the term, cf. Nuchelmans, ‘Agon’.
5 Cf. esp. Dubischar, Agonszenen 48-52, a critique of Lloyd’s restrictive definition (cf. n.3).
6 So e.g. Lloyd, Agon 15 (“the agon in Euripides rarely achieves anything”); Conacher, ‘Rhetoric &
Relevance’ 21; Mastronarde, ‘Optimistic Rationalist’ 205-6. See also Strohm, Interpretationen 45-6, who differentiates between early and late Euripides.
defence will have any substantial effect upon the subsequent action, and the main dramatic purpose of the debate (as Michael Lloyd notes) is to give the fullest exposure of the two contestants’ points of view, before the curtain definitively falls for one of them.7 The ‘agon’ scene of Alcestis, a debate between Admetus and Pheres about the latter’s apparent dereliction of his parental duties, similarly takes place after Alcestis has sacrificed herself in Admetus’ stead: the scene puts Alcestis’ self-sacrifice in per- spective, but does not change the course of events.8 Finally, Medea’s ‘agon’ scene oc- curs, not only after Jason has already deserted Medea, but also after Medea has set in motion the train of events that will lead to Jason’s downfall by negotiating a day’s re- prieve before leaving Corinth: anything she might yet have to ask of her husband is phrased in the counterfactual mood (e.g. Med. 586-7), and Jason’s offers are emphati- cally rejected (e.g. 616-7). One important difference, then, between these Euripidean
‘agon’ scenes on the one hand, and the real-life judicial and deliberative ἀγῶνες on which the poet may have modelled them on the other,9 revolves around the fact that the tragic ‘ἀγῶνες’ are situated more or less emphatically post eventum: they are set to clarify issues, not to create new action.
Lloyd (as cited above, n.7) extends this conclusion to Euripides’ treatment of the ‘agon’ in general; but in doing so, he appears to elide some notable differences be- tween the early ‘agon’ scenes discussed above and those of other Euripidean plays.
For instance, it is notable that none of the three scenes highlighted above is explicitly introduced as a ‘contest’. To be sure, the contestants use agonistic terminology to re- fer to what they are doing (e.g. Hipp. 971, Med. 546, both cited in n.1 above); but no ἀγών has been called for: Hippolytus is gradually drawn into the altercation, without at first understanding what his father’s abstract moralising is about (esp. Hipp. 923-4);
and neither Pheres nor Jason, both of whom come with peaceful intentions, has bar- gained for the invective that their addresses provoke from their interlocutors. Things are different in, e.g., the first ‘agon’ scene of Andromache, which has a quasi-judicial setting (being located at the altar where the persecuted Andromache has sought ref- uge), and opens with Hermione’s assertion of her formal right, as a free Spartan, to speak her mind about the matter at hand (147-53):10 here, it seems, a true ἀγών has been instituted. Yet as in Hippolytus, Alcestis and Medea, the debate – evidently
7 Cf. Lloyd, Agon 43-4 (on Hipp.) and ibid. 132, where it is noted by way of a general conclusion that
“the main advantage of the agon form for Euripides was that it enabled him to give the fullest and subt- lest possible account of a given point of view”.
8 For the location of Alc.’s ‘agon’ scene in the play’s dramatic structure, see esp. Lloyd, ‘Alcestis’ (also idem, Agon 41; and Sicking, ‘Admetus’ Case’ 52-3).
9 Cf. e.g. the general remark of Lloyd, Agon 13: “the agon in Euripides evokes a variety of situations...
in which conflicting logoi competed with each other”. For the pervasive conception of judicial and de- liberative procedure as an ἀγών, cf. below, section 1.2 with n.21.
10 On this passage and its use of formal rhetoric, see Lloyd, Agon 52-3. Andromache in her turn replies:
ὅµως δ’ ἐµαυτὴν οὐ προδοῦσ’ ἁλώσοµαι (Andr. 191: ‘I will not let myself be taken without defending myself’, a markedly judicial reply – cf. Allan, Andromache 128).
‘won’ by Andromache – has no effect upon the dramatic action, since although the contest proceeds on the assumption that Andromache stands a good chance to escape with her life, the audience know that Menelaus is all the while plotting off-stage to murder Andromache and her child (e.g. Andr. 66-9).11 This construction – an ‘agon’
scene set as a genuine contest, but prejudiced by stealthy plotting – can be seen to serve a second purpose, besides offering the poet the opportunity to expose the ‘com- peting’ issues at the outset of his play: like Andromache’s second ‘agon’ scene, which (again inconclusively) pits the play’s eponymous heroine against the villainous Mene- laus, it juxtaposes Andromache’s exemplary role in the ἀγών against her Spartan op- ponents’ brazen abuse of that instution.12
We see something similar happening in a later (but equally anti-Spartan) drama: Trojan Women of 415.13 This play’s formal ‘agon’ scene, involving Helen, Menelaus and Hecabe, is set up with the express purpose of deciding what is to be done with the captive Helen, who – faced with an irate husband – asks for an oppor- tunity to argue her case (903-4). When Menelaus refuses, Hecabe steps in to say:
ἄκουσον αὐτῆς, µὴ θάνηι τοῦδ’ ἐνδεής Μενέλαε, καὶ δὸς τοὺς ἐναντίους λόγους ἡµῖν κατ’αὐτῆς· τῶν γὰρ ἐν Τροίαι κακῶν οὐδὲν κάτοισθα, συντεθεὶς δ’ ὀ πᾶς λόγος
κτενεῖ νιν οὕτως ὥστε µηδαµοῦ φυγεῖν. (Tro. 906-10)
‘Listen to her, so she won’t die deprived of her say, Menelaus, and let me have the opposing λόγοι against her: for you know nothing of her mischiefs in Troy, and when you put together the whole λόγος, you are bound to kill her so that there will be no escape.’
Hecabe’s successful intervention has the paradoxical effect that this ἀγών takes place on the express understanding that it will not affect Menelaus’s already made-up mind that Helen must die;14 and as she predicts in the lines cited above, Hecabe scores a de- cisive rhetorical victory over her opponent:15 Menelaus rejects his wife’s apologia
11 This complicated situation is deployed to great dramatic effect: note esp. Andr. 163-8, where Hermione – apparently forgetting about her father’s plotting – envisages the humiliation that she would have to endure should Andromache be ‘acquitted’.
12 For the marked anti-Spartan tenor of these exchanges, note esp. Andr. 437: ἦ ταῦτ’ ἐν ὑµῖν τοῖς παρ’
Εὐρώται σοφά ([Andr. to Men.:] ‘Is that what counts as wise among you Eurotas-dwellers?’).
13 Anti-Spartan: cf. e.g. Tro. 208-13, where the Chorus of captive Trojan women express their prefe- rence for being brought anywhere, but not to Sparta, ‘most hated dwelling-place of Helen’.
14 Cf. Tro. 912-3: ... τῶν σῶν δ’ οὕνεχ’, ὡς µαθῆι, λόγων | δώσω τόδ’ αὐτῆι· τῆσδε δ’ οὐ δώσω χάριν ([Menelaus to Hecabe:] ‘But know that it is because of your λόγοι that I will let her; I won’t do it for her sake’).
15 Cf. e.g. Grube, Dramas of Euripides 293; Lee on Tro. p. xxiii (“[Hecabe’s] arguments are more co- gent than the feeble defence of her opponent”); Goldhill, Reading 237 (Helen is defeated by “Hecuba’s
and stands by his earlier decision to punish her for her misdemeanour. Another incon- clusive ‘agon’ scene, then, that ostensibly does not affect the course of the action – but one with a curious sting in the tail, as the audience will find it difficult to forget that the epic tradition has Helen return home safe and sound; so that, by implication, Hecabe loses the ἀγών after all.16
Thus, we can see Euripides put different kinds of spin on the apparent ‘rule’ or convention that his ‘agon’ scenes fail to affect the action: some are simply not posi- tioned so as to be able to influence the course of events, since larger forces have al- ready been set in motion – their primary purpose seems to be expository, rather than genuinely dramatic. Others, like Andromache’s first two ἀγῶνες, are set to make a dif- ference, but, tragically, don’t; and while Trojan Women’s ‘agon’ scene seems not to affect the dramatic action, it does so after all, in a dramatically effective way. Of the four plays that shall presently be discussed in detail, two have ‘agon’ scenes that (de- spite the ‘rule’ or convention) result in a meaningful course of action: in Children of Heracles, the Athenian king Demophon resolves a conflict between two contestants by heeding each side’s λόγος, and pronouncing a verdict that all parties abide by; and in Hecuba, the eponymous heroine successfully negotiates her impunity after having avenged herself on the treacherous Polymestor.17 The success of Children of Hera- cles’ ‘agon’ scene can be fairly straightforwardly interpreted by seeing it as a para- digmatic depiction of Athenian-style, proto-democratic decision-making, designed to promote Athens as the place to go when in trouble; but that of Hecuba’s will require a more sustained effort; as do the inconclusive ἀγῶνες of Suppliant Women and Phoe- nician Women. What distinguishes these plays from the ones that we have so far been looking at is that they feature characters who take issue, precisely with the idea that political or judicial deliberation should take the form of an ἀγών. The ‘agon’ scenes in which these characters become enmeshed accordingly acquire a self-reflexive dimen- sion: they are ἀγῶνες, not just about the issue at hand, but also about the ἀγὼν λόγων itself; and accordingly, whether these ‘agon’ scenes succeed or not becomes a reflec- tion on the feasibility of the idea of the ἀγών as a deliberative model. In what follows, I hope to show that this reflection does not just extend to the tragic ‘ἀγών’, but also to the ἀγών as a socio-political phenomenon.
superior reason and superior rhetorical manipulation”); for the nature of Hecabe’s victory, see esp. the analysis of Meridor, ‘Creative Rhetoric’.
16 Lloyd, ‘Helen Scene’ 303-4 and Agon 111-2 argues that Euripides leaves open the possibility that Helen will be punished in spite of the tradition’s weight (cf. e.g. Gregory, Education 174; Croally, Eu- ripidean Polemic 158-9), so that Hecabe succeeds in destroying what she, rightly or wrongly, perceives to be the ultimate cause of her misfortune; but it is perhaps more likely that the poet intended Helen’s trial to end in yet one more humiliation for Hecabe (so e.g. Scodel, Trojan Trilogy 98-9; Meridor,
‘Creative Rhetoric’ 26-7).
17 Hcld. and Hec. are the two exceptions that Lloyd allows to the ‘rule’ cited in n.6 above (Agon 15; cf.
Collard, ‘Formal Debates’ 66).
1.2 Towards the end of the 19th cent., Burckhardt and Nietzsche perceived that ago- nistic metaphors pervade Greek life and thought from the earliest times onwards;18 and although their essentialist preconceptions are nowadays not widely shared,19 con- temporary scholarship is still apt to point out that ‘competitiveness’ is a defining fea- ture of Greek social behaviour in its various forms and manifestations.20 Besides this general ‘agonism’ ingrained in Greek culture, however, political conditions in 5th- cent. Athens accommodated a more specific form of the ἀγών, as procedure both in the city’s key political institutions and in the newly instituted or reformed lawcourts was modelled on an ‘agonistic’ template, with ‘competitors’, ‘judges’, ‘winners’ and
‘losers’:21 it is at this period in time that the Greeks’ traditional ‘agonism’ was chan- nelled into a highly specific socio-political discourse.22
Going by the ancient testimonies, a key figure in this process was Protagoras, who is credited in one source with being ‘the first’ to expound that there are ‘two op- posed λόγοι’ that arise from every πρᾶγµα,23 and in another with ‘instituting a contest (ἀγών) of λόγοι’.24 At first sight, neither the rather trivial notion of ‘opposed λόγοι’
18 See Burckhardt, Kulturgeschichte 3.313 (“Endlich war das ganze griechische Leben von derjenigen Kraft belebt, welche wir als agonale im weitesten Sinne des Wortes werden kennen lernen”), ibid. 4.82- 114; Nietzsche, ‘Homers Wettkampf’ passim. On the cultural climate that helped shape these interpre- tations, cf. e.g. Momigliano, ‘L’Agonale’ and ‘Introduzzione’; O. Murray, ‘Introduction’.
19 Cf., on the reception of Burckhardt’s ideas in the study of Greek athletics and politics, e.g. Brüggen- brock, Die Ehre 64-81; on their persistence in military studies, Dayton, Athletes of War 7-30.
20 See e.g. G.E.R. Lloyd’s contrastive discussion of ‘agonistic’ versus ‘irenic’ cultures in Adversaries
& Authorities 20-46.
21 For the extension of the word ἀγών ‘contest’, properly applicable to sports and/or warfare (cf. the in- structive anecdote at Hdt. 9.33-5), to cover judicial deliberation, cf. e.g. A. Eum. 744 ([Orestes to Apollo:] πῶς ἁγὼν κριθήσεται; also Eum. 677), Lys. 3.20 (the speaker complains that his opponent in- volved him εἰς τοιοῦτον ἀγῶνα); Isoc. 15.1 (categorical distinction between ἀγῶνες and ἐπιδείξεις )
&c. Common though it was, however, this metaphor never quite ‘died’: cf. e.g. [Andoc.] 4.2 ὁ µὲν οὖν ἀγὼν ὁ πάρων οὐ στεφανήφορος (‘this “contest” is not for the prize of a crown’). For the ‘agonism’ of Athenian trials, cf. e.g. Osborne, ‘Law in Action’; Cartledge, ‘Fowl Play’; Todd, Shape 160-2; Cohen, Law, Violence 185-8.
22 For a suggestive discussion of the relationship between the 5th-cent. re-invention of ‘agonism’ and classical-period athletic practice, cf. Hawhee, Bodily Arts (passim). Tannen, Argument Culture 3-26 discusses the prevalence of agonistic metaphors in present-day Western culture; the contingent nature of these metaphors is foregrounded by Lakoff & Johnson, Metaphors 3-4.
23 DL 9.51 = Protagoras 80B6a, πρῶτος ἔφη δύο λόγους εἶναι περὶ παντὸς πράγµατος ἀντικειµένους ἀλλήλοις. It seems likely that this summary had something to do with the two-book Ἀντιλογίαι or Ἀντιλογικοί (‘Controversies’?; cf. fr. 80B5) included in Diogenes’ catalogue of Protagoras’ works, but the connection is not made in our sources.
24 The Suda claims that Protagoras ‘invented eristic arguments (τοὺς ἐριστικοὺς λόγους εὗρε) and esta-
nor that of an ‘ἀγὼν λόγων’ seems sufficiently spectacular for them to be credited ex- plicitly to such a purportedly avant-garde thinker as Protagoras, as our sources do; but both these notions gain in significance when we consider them, not in isolation, but in relation to such other, fragmentary testimonies to Protagoras’ thought as have made it through the ages. Thus, it seems likely that the notion that every πρᾶγµα gives rise to λόγοι ἀντικείµενοι ἀλλήλοις was connected with Protagoras’ celebrated thesis that
‘man is the µέτρον of all things’.25 If it is so to be connected, then this notoriously un- derspecified claim can be taken to imply that there is no external ‘measure’ for judg- ing the issues from which the two opposing λόγοι arise;26 and since – as yet another isolated Protagorean fragment has it – the realm of the divine is by definition inacces- sible,27 human accounts would then remain the only meaningful basis for all utter- ances involving the predicates ‘ἐστί’ and ‘οὔκ ἐστι’.28 This connection would make for a radical vision of the political process, according to which the community as a whole functions by virtue of a dual distribution of political responsibilities: for active politicians to construct and communicate sound λόγοι,29 and for the passive majority to judge these λόγοι on their merits, without having recourse to absolute, ‘god-given’
standards.
blished the contest of λόγοι (ἀγῶνα λόγων ἐποιήσατο)’ (80B3); cf. Pl. Prot. 335a: ἐγὼ πολλοῖς ἥδη εἰς ἀγῶνα λόγων ἀφικόµην ἀνθρώποις ([‘Protagoras’ speaking]: ‘I have engaged with many a man in a contest of λόγοι’) – evidently an allusion to Protagoras’ ipsissima verba.
25 Protagoras 80B1 (from various sources): πάντων χρηµάτων µέτρον ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος, τῶν µὲν ὄντων ὡς ἐστίν, τῶν δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ὡς οὐκ ἐστίν (‘Of all things man is the µέτρον, of the things that are that they are, of the things that are not that they are not’); cf. below, n.28.
26 For the connection between Protagoras’ rhetorical teachings and his ‘relativism’, cf. e.g. Guthrie, Sophists 182-3; Kerferd, Sophistic Movement 84-5; Classen, ‘Study of language’ 219-25 and
‘Aletheia’; Rademaker, ‘Most Correct Account’ 13-6.
27 Protagoras 80B3 (from various sources): περὶ µὲν θεῶν οὐκ ἔχω εἰδέναι, οὔθ’ ὡς εἰσὶν οὔθ’ ὡς οὐκ εἰσὶν οὔθ’ ὁποῖοί τινες ἰδέαν· πολλὰ γὰρ τὰ κωλύοντα εἰδέναι ἥ τ’ ἀδηλότης καὶ βραχὺς ὢν ὁ βίος τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (‘I cannot know about the gods, neither that they are nor that they are not, nor what kind of beings they are: many are the things that obstruct knowledge – the uncertainty and man’s life being brief’). DL 9.51 cites this fragment as ‘another incipit’ (καὶ ἀλλαχοῦ δὲ τοῦτον ἤρξατο τὸν τρόπον·), and Eusebius cites it as being from a Περὶ θεῶν; but the fact that they come from different treatises need not imply that Protagoras saw no connection between his claim about the gods and his ‘man is the µέτρον’ thesis.
28 This is not the place to discuss the uncertainties pertaining to the interpretation of just about every word in the ‘man is the µέτρον’ thesis, and I hope the reader will excuse the non-committal paraphrase given above. Most of the problems are highlighted by Neumann, ‘Problematik’; full doxography can be found in Huss, ‘Homo-Mensura-Satz’; Rademaker, ‘Most Correct Account’ 14.
29 This burden of responsibility seems to be addressed in part by the teaching of Protagoras and his col- leagues on ὀρθοέπεια and/or ὀρθότης ὀνoµάτων: see e.g. Kerferd, Sophistic Movement 68-77; Classen,
‘Study of Language’ 22-5; Sicking, ‘Plato’s Protagoras’ 191-2; Rademaker, ‘Correct Account’ 12-3.
As Cynthia Farrar has argued most extensively, such a vision makes for an eminently democratic line of thought; one that – if we can trust the general tenor of our sources – was epitomised in the political climate that prevailed in Athens in the heyday of Pericles.30 In the Funeral oration, Thucydides makes Pericles stress the cru- cial, if unequal, involvement of the entire Athenian δῆµος in the decision-making process: according to the statesman, the δῆµος is involved as a whole ‘in the correct judging, if not in the active consideration, of τὰ πράγµατα’.31 In his last speech to the Athenian Assembly, the Thucydidean Pericles expands on this thesis, arguing that sound government is predicated on a concern for the πόλις’s general well-being, not on the interests of the private individual:32 accordingly, Pericles says, the πόλις’s sur- vival as a whole relies on the readiness of the mass of the citizens to align themselves with those who are ‘action-minded’.33 This distinction between a ‘passive’ and an ‘ac- tive’ part of the constitution makes for a division of labour, according to which the policies that the collective must ratify are ideally proposed by men – like Pericles –
‘who have the ability to see what ought to be done and to mediate this vision to oth- ers’.34
The ability to ‘see what must be done, and mediate this vision to others’ was, evidently, what Protagoras’ teaching aimed to instill in the would-be politicians who availed themselves of his services. In order for the active politician to serve his πόλις regardless of the interests of its individual citizens, he must, according to Protagoras, be able to construct either of the two competing λόγοι that arise from every πρᾶγµα:
that, at any rate, seems to be the gist of the ‘Protagorean slogan’ (τὸ Πρωταγόρου ἐπάγγελµα) reported by Aristotle, to the effect that the ‘weaker λόγος’ can be made
‘stronger’.35 Aristotle’s reference is contained in a wide-ranging discussion of argu- ments intended to make ‘what is improbable probable’; and this context suggests that Aristotle took the terms ἥττων and κρείττων in a morally neutral way, as referring to
30 See esp. Farrar, Origins 77-98 on the political implications of Protagoras’ thought, and, for its rela- tionship with Periclean democracy, ibid. 158-67. For the Protagorean basis of the Periclean constitu- tion, see also Yunis, ‘How do the People Decide?’; and Taming Democracy 42-3.
31 Thuc. 2.40.2: οἱ αὐτοὶ ἤτοι κρίνοµέν γε ἢ ἐνθυµοῦµεθα ὀρθῶς τὰ πράγµατα. For the translation given above, cf. Edmunds, ‘Thuc. 2.40.2’ 17.
32 Thuc. 2.60.2: ἐγὼ γὰρ ἡγοῦµαι πόλιν πλείω ξύµπασαν ὀρθουµένην ὠφελεῖν τοὺς ἰδιώτας ἢ καθ’
ἕκαστον τῶν πολιτῶν εὐπραγοῦσαν, ἁθρόαν δὲ σφαλλοµένην (‘I believe that the city benefits its citi- zens more when, as a whole, it is doing well, than when the community fares badly, while its citizens prosper individually’).
33 Thuc. 2.63.3: τὸ γὰρ ἄπραγµον οὐ σῶιζεται µὴ µετὰ τοῦ δραστηρίου τεταγµένον (‘The passive part of the constituency can only survive by being combined with the active part’).
34 Thuc. 2.60.5 (Pericles, speaking of himself:) οὐδενὸς ἥσσων οἴοµαι εἶναι γνῶναι τὰ δέοντα καὶ ἑρµηνεῦσαι ταῦτα.
35 Arist. Rhet. 1402a24-6 (= Prot. 80B6b): ... καὶ τὸ τὸν ἥττω δὲ λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν τοῦτ’ ἔστιν· καὶ ἐντεῦθεν δικαίως ἐδυσχέραινον οἱ ἄνθρωποι τὸ Πρωταγόρου ἐπάγγελµα κτλ. (‘... and that is “making the weaker λόγος stronger”: and accordingly, men are right to take issue with Protagoras’ slogan...’).
‘probability’ or ‘persuasiveness’ – as, presumably, Protagoras himself did. On this reading of the ἐπάγγελµα that Aristotle associates with Protagoras’ name, the success- ful politician must be equipped with the technical skills to construct their λόγοι so that they transcend their lack of immediate popular appeal.36
It is this aspect of the great sophist’s programme, however, that would soon prove to become quite controversial. In Aristophanes’ 423 play Clouds, we first en- counter the tendentious substitution of ἄδικος ‘unjust’ for ἥττων ‘weak’, by means of which Strepsiades contrives to impose a moral interpretation on the Protagorean slo- gan.37 This moral interpretation is elaborately worked out in the same play’s agon scene,38 as well as by later interpreters, who tend to take it for granted that Protagoras and other sophists taught speakers to make the ‘unjust case prevail over the just’.39 This controversy over the legacy associated with Protagoras and his scandalous ἐπάγγελµα has its pendant in the controversy over the political legacy that Pericles left at his death in 429. Thucydides, for one, observes that whereas his hero effectively and successfully ruled Athens as its πρῶτος ἀνήρ, his successors, ‘who were more on a level with each other and who were each of them aspiring to become preeminent, began to neglect τὰ πράγµατα in order to please the δῆµος’.40 While modern scholars are justifiably sceptical about Thucydides’ all-but-wholesale condemnation of Peri-
36 On the early sophists’ interest in arguments from probability, cf. Gagarin, ‘Probability & Persua- sion’; see also Gagarin, Antiphon 25-6 and Woodruff, ‘Euboulia’ 259-60 on the embedding of the technical distinction between a ἥττων and a κρείττων λόγος in Protagoras’ political theory.
37 Ar. Nub. 112-6: εἶναι παρ’ αὐτοῖς φασιν ἄµφω τὼ λόγω, | τὸν κρείττον’ ὅστις ἐστὶ καὶ τὸν ἥττονα.
τούτοιν τὸν ἕτερον τοῖν λόγοιν, τὸν ἥττονα, | νικᾶν λέγοντά φασι τἀδικώτερα. | ἢν οὖν µάθῃς µοι τὸν ἄδικον τοῦτον λόγον κτλ. (‘I am told they have both λόγοι here, the stronger, no matter what it is, and the weaker; and one of these λόγοι, the weaker, I am told, can plead the unjust case and win: now, if you teach me this unjust λόγος...’); cf. Nub. 657 τὸν ἀδικώτατον λόγον and 885 τὸ γοῦν ἄδικον (sc.
λόγον). On the substitution, cf. e.g. Newiger, Metapher u. Allegorie 136n.1 (“Damit wird der wertfreie Logos des Protagoras wertend festgelegt”); Pucci, ‘Nuvole’ 8-10; De Carli, Aristofane 62; O’Regan, Rhetoric 32-3.
38 In the agon, the two λόγοι consistently refer to themselves as ὁ ἥττων and ὁ κρείττων λόγος (Nub.
893-5, 1038; cf. also 1336-7, 1444-5 and 1451-6), and it is in these terms that ‘Socrates’ refers to the Aristophanic scene at Pl. Ap. 18b; but the actual debate starkly juxtaposes Weak’s immoralism with Strong’s reactionary position. On the resulting tension between the neutral and the moral overtones of ἥττων and κρείττων, cf. Dover on Nub. lvii-lviii; MacDowell, Aristophanes & Athens 137-8.
39 On Plato’s reframing of sophistic thought in absolute moral terms, cf. Gagarin, Antiphon 24-7 with references. Plato’s absolutist critique is continued in the Aristotelian Soph. Elench., where it is estab- lished early on that ‘there exists a class of fallacious arguments, and the so-called sophists have per- fected their use’ (165a33).
40 Thuc. 2.65.10: οἰ δὲ ὕστερον ἴσοι µᾶλλον αὐτοὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὄντες καὶ ὀρεγόµενοι τοῦ πρῶτος ἕκαστος γίγνεσθαι ἐτράποντο καθ’ ἡδονὰς τῶι δήµωι καὶ τὰ πράγµατα ἐνδιδόναι. Pericles as πρῶτος ἀνήρ: Thuc. 2.65.8: καὶ οὐκ ἤγετο µᾶλλον ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ [sc. τοῦ πλήθους] ἢ αὐτὸς ἦγε (‘It was he who led the people, not the other way round’).
cles’ successors, 41 writers in the 4th cent. readily concurred with him in thinking that after Pericles, the Athenian political climate rapidly deteriorated;42 and such contem- porary texts as Aristophanes’ Knights (produced in 424) suggest that in the popular perception, if not in verifiable reality, after Pericles’ death, politics were not what they had once been.43
Thus, by the time Euripides came to produce most of his surviving dramas, the
‘idea of the ἀγών’ as it was theorised by Protagoras and implemented – if we can trust Thucydides on this – during Pericles’ heyday, was a matter of controversy. Still effec- tively dominating the goings-on in Athens’ law-courts and deliberative institutions, the notion that for every πρᾶγµα, there are ‘two λόγοι’ to be weighed could be re- garded as a relativist aberration that obfuscated rather than clarified issues, and gave free rein to moral laxity and deterioration. In order to get a grip on this controversy, we shall presently examine 5th-cent. literature’s most direct challenge to the idea of the ἀγών, viz. Thucydides’ ‘Mytilenaean debate’; but first, we turn to the relatively unproblematic world of Euripides’ Children of Heracles, a play that was most likely produced in the late 430s, when Pericles was still alive.44
41 See e.g. Hornblower on Thuc. 2.65.7-10 (p. 1.346-7): “In retrospect it is hard to see what was so new or different about Pericles’ successors, especially if they are compared... with Pericles the pushing poli- tician of the 460s and 450s”. Finley, ‘Athenian Demagogues’ and Connor, New Politicians 119-33 had already observed that the traditional dividing line may be unfairly drawn, pointing out that Pericles’
rhetorical skill, professionalism and rejection of traditional family alliances made him the first of a
‘new’ generation of politicians rather than the last of an old one. For detailed discussion, cf. Mann, Demagogen u.d. Volk 75-83.
42 E.g. Lys. 30.28 (present-day legislators unfavourably compared to Solon, Themistocles and Peri- cles); Pl. Gorg. 503b-c (pressed for the names of commendable politicians, Callicles can only come up with Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades and Pericles: cf. ibid. 517a, and for Socrates’ perversely negative view of Periclean Athens see Dodds on Gorg. pp. 30-1); Isoc. 8.124-8 (unlike later politicians, Pericles rated the πόλις’s interests over his private concerns); 14.230-6 (Pericles was the last in a line of politi- cians who used their prominence for the good); cf. [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 28 with Rhodes ad loc. (p. 344) and Σ Ar. Pax 681 (citing the 4th-cent. historian Theopompus).
43 For comedy’s sustained criticism of e.g. Cleon and Hyperbolus cf. Ar. Nub. 549-559 (alluding to his own Eq. as satirising Cleon, as well as to Eupolis’ Marikas and Hermippus’ Breadsellers as satirising Hyperbolus), and see e.g. Lind, ‘Gerber Kleon’; Mann, ‘Aristophanes, Kleon’; McGlew, ‘Everybody’;
Sommerstein, ‘Demagogue Comedy’. For the nostalgia for Pericles and his predecessors expressed in post-429 comedy, cf. e.g. Eupolis fr. 102 (from Dēmoi [produced in 417 or 412]: Pericles, returned from the dead, is favourably compared to living politicians – cf. Braun, ‘Dead Politicians’ 204-16; Sto- rey, Eupolis 131-4); and see Schwarze, Beurteilung des Perikles 132-5, who points to comedy’s gene- rically determined tendency towards nostalgia and the passing of time as the factors responsible for the progressive softening of comic poets’ view of the great statesman.
44 Hcld.’s stylistic and metrical features align the play with Med. (431) and Hipp. (428): see Cropp &
Fick, Resolutions & Chronology 5, 23. Historical arguments (first advanced by Zuntz, Political Plays 84-6 and endorsed most recently by Allan on Hcld. pp.55-6) suggest a terminus ante quem in the sum-
2. The ἀἀγἀἀγγγὼὼὼὼν λν λόν λν λόόγωνόγωνγωνγων in Children of Heracles and beyond
Right after the play’s prologue and parodos, which establish the presence of Heracles’
fugitive offspring on Athenian territory, the play stages a debate that, as Michael Lloyd observes, is “clear-cut in its issues and regular in its form” (Agon 72); and its regularity will help us hold our bearings when we come to discuss the poet’s more complicated later agon scenes. It consitutes, as it were, a textbook ἀγών, that illus- trates not only Euripides’ use of the ‘agon’ form, but also the political values associ- ated with this form.
The speakers are Iolaus, guardian of Heracles’ children, and an Argive Herald who acts as the spokesman of their persecutors. The issue that the two contestants put before the Athenian king Demophon is simple: should Athens take in the fugitives and make war with Argos, or not? The Herald is accorded the opening speech, in which he blandly states a number of reasons why Athens should turn the fugitives away. His speech contains a mixture of appeals to justice and appeals to expedience:
the Argives have a right to try and condemn their own subjects (Hcld. 137-43); there is no gain and considerable risk for the Athenians in protecting these aliens (144-61);
there are many better reasons to go to war (162-8); and friendship with the Argives is more precious than friendship with the hapless suppliants (169-78). Iolaus in his turn observes that Argos’ right to try its citizens does not extend beyond its borders (184- 91), points out that Athens has a reputation for protecting aliens to keep up (189-204), stresses the mutual obligations pertaining between Athens and Heracles’ family (202- 22), and then directly appeals for Demophon’s pity (223-31).
The ‘agonistic’ principles on which this debate takes place are explicitly estab- lished, both beforehand and as the scene progresses. Having learned from the Athe- nian Chorus who the ruler of the country is, the Herald affirms that it is to Demophon that ‘the contest over this case’ (ἁγὼν τοῦδε τοῦ λόγου 117-8) is to be addressed.
Then, in the lines that separate the contestants’ speeches from one another, the Chorus ask rhetorically:
τίς ἂν δίκην κρίνειεν ἢ γνοίη λόγον,
πρὶν ἂν παρ’ ἀµφοῖν µῦθον ἐκµάθηι σαφῶς; (179-80)
‘Who can judge a case or know a λόγος before having taken clear cognisance of both sides’ story?’
And Iolaus, before beginning his counter-speech, thanks his host for allowing him the unaccustomed privilege to hear the prosecution and react:
ἄναξ, ὑπάρχει µὲν τόδ’ ἐν τῆι σῆι χθονί·
εἰπεῖν ἀκοῦσαί τ’ ἐν µέρει πάρεστί µοι,
κοὐδείς µ’ ἀπώσει πρόσθεν, ὥσπερ ἄλλοθεν. (181-3)
mer of 430, after which the Spartan invasions would have put the play’s various references to Attica’s future inviolability in a bizarre light.
‘Lord, this is how things are in your country: I can speak and listen in turn, and nobody shall kick me out before I have done so, as hap- pened elsewhere.’
This exchange situates the mythical debate squarely (and somewhat anachronistically) within the institutionalised ‘argument culture’ of classical-period Athens,45 and the Chorus give a clear statement of the rules of procedure that were no doubt supposed to guide actual Athenian decision-making, as the play’s audience knows it to take place in the ἐκκλησία and the law-courts: there is a λόγος to be tried, that consists of two opposing ‘stories’ (µῦθοι), each of which deserves to be heard before judgment is passed.
The first episodes of Children of Heracles have been characterised as display- ing an unproblematic attitude towards Athenian political identity – an attitude that re- sembles Aeschylus’ depiction, in Eumenides, of Athens as the place to go in case of trouble.46 This essentially positive outlook seems to be reflected in the behaviour of the participants in its formal agon, who refrain from attempting to prejudge the issue or contesting each other’s right to speak: whereas Iolaus and the Argive Herald com- pete with one another for Demophon’s approval, neither of them does so with a view to excluding the other’s case totally from reasonable consideration. The Herald’s ar- guments from expediency (τί κερδανεῖς; 154) and Iolaus’ appeal to the χάρις that Athens owes to Heracles’ family (220, 241) – arguments that make up by far the greatest part of their performances – neatly complement one another, enabling Demo- phon to balance the issue’s pros and cons. True, both speakers also file opposing claims in presenting their cases: the Herald claims that Argos has a ‘right’ (δίκαιοι ἐσµέν 142) to try its citizens according to its own νόµοι, and Iolaus counters by ques- tioning that ‘right’ (187; 190); but these claims concern only a sub-issue – one, more- over, that Demophon refrains from taking into account at all when he delivers his judgment. What counts most for Demophon is Athens’ obligation to protect ξένοι, and this is the ‘right’ to which, upon being asked by the losing party, he claims to have given prevalence (253-4).47
As Michael Lloyd and others have observed, the verbal ἀγών at the beginning of Children of Heracles is that rare thing, a Euripidean ‘agon’ scene that successfully accomplishes the goals it has set for itself;48 but there is more to it than that. As the audience witness a deliberative process that, for all its being displaced into a prede- mocratic past, can nonetheless be associated with Athenian deliberative mores, the
45 Cf. Lloyd, Agon 75.
46 For Hcld.’s prima facie positive take on Athenian political identity, see e.g. Zuntz, Political Plays 5.
47 Other references to δίκη concern the Herald’s general claim that he has come πολλά ... | δίκαι’
ὁµαρτῆι δρᾶν τε καὶ λέγειν ἔχων (137-8), and Iolaus’ specific claim that if Demophon should expel the fugitives, ‘it would not be on grounds of justice, but in fear of Argos’ (τῆι δίκηι µὲν οὐ | τὸ δ’ Ἄργος ὀκνῶν, 194-5).
48 Cf. above, nn. 6 & 15.
Protagorean/Periclean model of deliberation – a model consisting of λόγοι pro and contra, weighed equitably on their merits alone – is upheld as a successful means of attaining sound policy; and Athens is explicitly commended as the place, perhaps the only place in all of Greece, where you can get a fair hearing of your case along these lines. As the play progresses towards its darker final episodes, this positive image of goings-on in Athens is counterbalanced by the unrestrained revenge that Alcmene ex- acts from the former suppliants’ pursuers: the tragic idea that Children of Heracles dramatises is that, even in an exquisitely well-ordered world, things may go spectacu- larly wrong. But in the early scenes, a bright idealism about Athenian political iden- tity prevails.49
Euripides’ depiction of an unproblematical, conclusive ἀγὼν λόγων in the opening episode of his Children of Heracles proved to be, as far as we can tell by the surviving plays, a one-off: his subsequent dramas problematise on-stage deliberation, not only by situating the ‘ἀγών’ outside or beyond the dramatic action – as we have seen in section 1.1 above – but also by including contrary voices within the ἀγών, and thereby questioning its validity as a model for deliberative procedure. As we have al- ready seen, the 420s produced various challenges to Protagorean/Periclean practice, not only in Aristophanic comedy but also, going by Thucydides’ account, in socio- political reality. Thucydides, writing in the final decade of the 5th cent., provides a paradigmatic example of such a challenge in his account of the ‘Mytilenaean debate’;
and although this set-piece, situated in 427, cannot simply be taken as the historical document that it purports to be, it is the closest thing to a contemporary analysis of the prevailing political climate of the 420s that we have; and the stark contrast between a
‘Periclean’ and a ‘Cleonic’ perspective that it construes will prove to be a helpful key in our reading of Euripides’ Suppliant Women, Hecuba and Phoenician Women.
The Mytilenaean debate pits the prominent politician Cleon – tendentiously labelled by the narrator as ‘the most violent-minded of citizens, and the one who held at the time by far the greatest sway over the δῆµος’50 – against the otherwise unknown Diodotus, with Cleon starting off the day’s proceedings by protesting against the re- opening of a debate that in his opinion was settled decisively the day before.51 In the course of this protest, Cleon takes issue with the extent to which the idea of the ἀγών dominates discursive practice: commending citizens ‘who are judges acting on a basis of equality’ (κριταὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἴσου) over those who ‘engage in competitions’
(ἀγωνισταί),52 Cleon enjoins speakers in the Assembly not to have recourse to ‘impos-
49 For this line of interpretation, see e.g. Burian, ‘Heraclidae’ 3-6; Albini, ‘Falsa convenzionalità’;
Allan, ‘Euripides & the Sophists’ 151-2.
50 Thuc. 3.36.6: ἐς τὰ ἄλλα βιαιότατος τῶν πολιτῶν τῶι τε δήµωι παρὰ πολὺ ἐν τῶι τότε πιθανώτατος.
51 On the general problem addressed by Cleon, see e.g. Saxonhouse, Free Speech 72-9; Yunis, Taming Democracy 87-90 (‘the problem of reconsideration’) and Balot, ‘Free Speech’ 238-9 (‘revisability’).
For the aptness and consistency of Thucydides’ treatment of Cleon, cf. Andrews, ‘Cleon’s ethopoetics’
and Spence, ‘Thucydides’ (contra Woodhead, ‘Portrait of Cleon’).
52 Thuc. 3.37.4. Andrews, ‘Hidden Appeals’ 55 glosses the difficult κριταὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἴσου as “equal part-
ing speech and contests of cleverness’ (δεινότητι καὶ ξυνέσεως ἀγῶνι), in which they
‘strive to advise the δῆµος contrary to the opinion of the majority’ (ἀπαιροµένους παρὰ δόξαν τῶι ὑµετέρωι πλήθει παραινεῖν);53 and he proceeds to berate the πόλις for
‘according the prizes to others while carrying all the risk itself’ (3.38.3), and the As- sembly-goers for ‘organising these harmful ἀγῶνες’ (αἴτιοι δ’ ὑµεῖς κακῶς ἀγωνοθετοῦντες).54 In these ‘contests’, the δῆµος assume the role of ‘spectators and listeners’ who content themselves with judging the performances of able speakers, rather than forming their own opinion of the issue at hand,55 behaving themselves in the ἐκκλησία as they would in the theatre or gymnasium.56
By consistently and critically foregrounding the ‘agonistic’ metaphors that lie under the surface of what the Assembly-goers are actually doing, Thucydides’ Cleon takes issue, not just with the ἐκκλησία’s failure to stick with the specific results that they attained the day before on Cleon’s own initiative, but also, and more importantly, with the way it implicitly construes its own functioning. The Assembly routinely op- erates on the unspoken assumption that the basis for communally approved action is to be attained through the δῆµος’s ‘judging’ of the experts’ arguments pro and contra;
but in order for Athenian democracy to achieve its full potential, this assumption
ners in the joint task of reaching sound judgment”. Hornblower ad loc. (p.1.425) interprets the phrase as “being impartial judges”, but as Andrews observes, this does not make a contrast with ἀγωνισταί.
53 Thuc. 3.37.5: cf. Andrews, ‘Hidden Appeals’ 54, who points out that the omission of the article in παρὰ δόξαν is significant: Cleon does not accuse the Assembly’s regular speakers of going against
‘what has been decided’ (×τὴν δόξαν τὴν ὑµετέρην), but against ‘public opinion’ tout court.
54 Thuc. 3.38.4, once again difficult to translate. The verb ἀγωνοτίθεσθαι refers to the organisation of ἀγῶνες, as opposed to taking part in them (ἀγωνίζεσθαι): cf. e.g. Hdt. 2.160, where the two activities are explicitly contrasted. The adverb κακῶς disqualifies the activity expressed by the verb per se (‘...
for wrongly organising’), not the way this activity is conducted (ב... for badly organising’): Cleon does not want ‘well-organised’ ἀγῶνες, he wants to do away with ἀγῶνες altogether. For a similar disjunc- tive use of the adverb, cf. e.g. E. Tro. 904 οὐ δικαίως θανούµεθα ‘it is unjust for me to die’ (not בI shall die in an unjust way’).
55 Thuc. 3.38.4: ... οἵτινες εἰώθατε θεαταὶ µὲν τῶν λόγων γίγνεσθαι, ἀκροαταὶ δὲ τῶν ἔργων· τὰ µὲν µέλλοντα ἔργα ἀπὸ τῶν εὖ εἰπόντων σκοποῦντες ὡς δυνατὰ γίγνεσθαι, τὰ δὲ πεπραγµένα ἥδη, οὐ τὸ δρασθὲν πιστότερον ὄψει λαβόντες ἢ τὸ ἀκουσθέν, ἀπὸ τῶν λόγων καλῶς ἐπιτιµησάντων (‘You have become habitual speech-goers, and mere listeners to action: of future actions you estimate the possibili- ties by listening to able speakers; and as for the past, you rely on what you have heard in clever verbal criticisms rather than on what you have seen being done with your own eyes’).
56 Thuc. 3.38.6: ... καὶ µάλιστα µὲν αὐτὸς εἰπεῖν ἕκαστος βουλόµενος δύνασθαι, εἰ δὲ µή, ἀνταγωνιζόµενοι τοῖς τοιαῦτα λέγουσι µὴ ὕστεροι ἀκολουθῆσαι δοκεῖν τῆι γνώµηι, ὀξέως δέ τι λέγοντος προεπαινέσαι, καὶ προαισθέσθαι τε πρόθυµοι εἶναι τὰ λεγόµενα καὶ προνοῆσαι βραδεῖς τὰ ἐξ αὐτῶν ἀποβησόµενα (‘And the chief wish of each of you is to be able to speak himself, and if you can- not do that, to compete with those who can in order not to seem out of your depth when you listen to what is being proposed, by sharply applauding a good point before it is made and by being as quick to anticipate what is said as you are slow to foresee its consequences’).
should be abandoned.57 While Pericles had already argued that Athens’ imperialist as- pirations force the Athenians to adopt a quasi-‘tyrannical’ foreign policy,58 Cleon now goes one step further, arguing that since Athens is ‘de facto a tyranny’,59 the city should act like a τύραννος with regard to its internal as well as its external policy:
viz., they should respond directly to the issue at hand, without having recourse to ad- visers who aspire to empower themselves rather than attend to the δῆµος’ wishes.60 It is the δόξα of the masses that should guide the attainment of correct decisions – for while the ἀµαθία of the lower classes (φαυλοί) goes hand in hand with σωφροσύνη (‘moderation’), so the ‘cleverness’ (δεξιότης) of the ξυνετοί (‘experts’) comes with
‘excess’ (ἀκολασία).61 As Cleon has it, the majority’s δόξα should be regarded as νόµος (‘law’);62 and the attempts of the Assembly’s regular speakers to argue παρὰ δόξαν – as Pericles, on the Thucydidean narrator’s account, was wont to do (cf.
2.65.8) – should be suppressed in order to ensure sound government.63
Thus, Thucydides’ Cleon both challenges the ‘agonistic’ principles according to which the ἐκκλησία purportedly functions, and offers the Assembly-goers an alter- native model that would have them base their decisions upon their gut feeling of the issue at hand, rather than on the polished λόγοι of the usual ἀγωνισταί. Since Cleon is implicated in the very deliberative process whose construction as an ἀγών he here challenges, it could be – and has been – argued that his whole argument is itself a
57 Cf. Andrews, ‘Hidden Appeals’ 46-7: Cleon’s general objective is to “remove for his audience the ideological impediment to the realization of their unspoken desire for greater power”.
58 Thuc.2.63.2: ὡς τυραννίδα γὰρ ἥδη ἔχετε αὐτήν... (‘since your dominion is like a tyranny’). The
‘πόλις τυραννίς’ metaphor has been extensively discussed: see most recently Raaflaub, ‘Stick & Glue’
77-81 with references.
59 Thuc. 3.37.2:... οὐ σκοποῦντες ὅτι τυραννίδα ἔχετε τὴν ἄρχην (‘you don’t realise that you have a tyr- anny on your hands’): note that, in reiterating Pericles’ τυραννίς metaphor, Cleon tellingly omits the qualifying ‘ὡς’.
60 Cf. e.g. Andrews, ‘Cleon’s Hidden Appeals’ 55 (“ordinary people, if simply left to their own conclu- sions, can be depended on to reach a wise collective decision” [author’s emphasis]); Ober, Dissent 97-8 (“Cleon wants the Assembly-goers to act according to a mimetically restored emotional state... relying on their visceral emotions when making decisions”).
61 Thuc. 3.37.3: ἀµαθία τε µετὰ σωφροσύνης ὠφελιµώτερον ἢ δεξιότης µετὰ ἀκολασίας, οἵ τε φαυλότεροι τῶν ἀνθρώπων πρὸς τοὺς ξυνετωτέρους ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πλέον ἄµεινον οἰκοῦσι τὰς πόλεις (‘Ig- norance combined with moderation is more useful than cleverness combined with excess, and as a rule, the lower classes are better governors than the experts’).
62 Thuc. 3.37.4: οἱ δ’ ἀπιστοῦντες τῆι ἐξ αὑτῶν ξυνέσει ἀµαθεστέροι µὲν τῶν νόµων ἀξιοῦσιν εἶναι (‘Those who do not rely on their own wits value themselves as being less intelligent than the laws’). As Hornblower ad loc. (1.423-4) observes, Cleon’s suggestion that the Assembly regard their own opinion in terms of νόµος, though tendentious, is technically correct.
63 Ober, Mass & Elite 163-4 observes that in constructing this argument, Cleon is proposing an extreme form of an idea that would become common in 4th-cent. oratory: the capacity of the many for wise de- cision (cf. e.g. Dem. 24.37 and 23.145-6; Arist. Pol. 1281a40-5 and see Balot, ‘Free Speech’ 238-42).
mere rhetorical gesture, a move designed to win over the Assembly for Cleon’s own point of view; and that all this makes his performance painfully paradoxical.64 The significance of this argument can be seen, however, to extend beyond merely putting on record the controversial politician’s hypocrisy: in combination with Diodotus’
equally paradoxical counter-speech, Cleon’s contribution to the Mytilenaean debate also serves the more important function of demonstrating to the reader of Thucydides’
narrative that, with Pericles gone, the political climate is changing for the worse. As Cleon asks the Assembly to adopt a ‘tyrannical’ internal procedure, and Diodotus nominally upholds the ideal of the ἀγών while acknowledging implicitly that the pre- vailing political climate makes it impossible for politicians to speak their minds hon- estly,65 it transpires that, unlike Pericles himself, his successors are no longer whole- heartedly committed to the principles that used to govern Athenian institutional deci- sion-making.
As we have seen above, few scholars would nowadays accept at face value the stark contrast between a Periclean and a post-Periclean phase in real-life Athenian politics that Thucydides projects onto Athens’ political history: it is too clearly in- formed both by the historian’s possession of hindsight, and by his political prefer- ences.66 It is notable, however, as we shall now proceed to see, that the two contrast- ing positions that Thucydides juxtaposes in the Funeral Oration, in Pericles’ final ad- dress and in the Mytilenaean Debate – viz., the contrast between a ‘Periclean’ and a
‘Cleonic’ perspective on political decision-making – inform Euripides’ treatment of the idea of the ἀγών in plays ranging from the mid-420s to the century’s final decade.
3. ἀἀἀἀγγγγώώώών ν and πν ν πππόόόόλιςλιςλιςλις: Euripides’ Suppliant Women
64 Paradoxical: cf. e.g. Macleod, ‘Reason & Necessity’; Ober, Dissent 98; and the extended discussion of Cleon’s “rhetoric of anti-rhetoric” in Hesk, Deception & Democracy 242-55. As Andrews, ‘Cleon’s ethopoetics’ notes, however, Cleon consistently disavows the role of ‘adviser’ and claims to represent the voice of the people rather than the voice talking to the people: the paradox is wholly in the eye of the beholder.
65 Cf. Thuc. 3.42.4-43 (esp. 43.4 καθέστηκε δὲ τἀγαθὰ ἀπὸ εὐθέος λεγόµενα µηδὲν ἀνυποπτότερα εἶναι τῶν κακῶν, ὥστε δεῖν ὁµοίως τόν τε τὰ δεινότατα βουλόµενον πεῖσαι ἀπάτηι προσάγεσθαι τὸ πλῆθος καὶ τὸν τὰ ἀµείνω λέγοντα ψευσάµενον πιστὸν γενέσθαι [‘A state of affairs has been reached where a good proposal honestly put forward is just as suspect as a bad one, so that not only a speaker who ad- vocates dreadful measures has to win over the people by deceiving them, but a man with good advice to give also has to tell lies to be believed’]); and see e.g. Andrewes, ‘Mytilene Debate’; Ober, Dissent 98-102; Debnar, ‘Diodotus’ Paradox’, all of whom concur in describing Diodotus’ performance as an exemplification of the ‘Cretan Liar’ paradox.
66 As many scholars have pointed out, Thucydides’ pessimism about post-Periclean politics is not borne out by the facts: significant victories continued to be scored after Pericles’ death (see Mann, Demago- gen u.d. Volk 78-81). The historian’s programmatic remarks at 2.65.11-13, moreover, are lost sight of in the subsequent narration of the Sicilian expedition: see e.g. Westlake, ‘Thuc. 2.65.11’; Romilly,
‘Optimisme’ 566; Andrewes on Thuc. 8 (p. 5.423-7); Rusten on Thuc. 2.65.11-13 (p. 212-3).
