Luck, Fate and Fortune: Antiquity and Its Legacy

222 Pages·2011·1.31 MB·English

by  Esther Eidinow

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ANCIENTS AND MODERNS
General Editor: Phiroze Vasunia, Reader in Classics, University of Reading
How can antiquity illuminate critical issues in the modern world? How does
the ancient world help us address contemporary problems and issues? In what
ways do modern insights and theories shed new light on the interpretation
of ancient texts, monuments, artefacts and cultures? The central aim of this
exciting new series is to show how antiquity is relevant to life today. The
series also points towards the ways in which the modern and ancient worlds
are mutually connected and interrelated. Lively, engaging, and historically
informed, Ancients and Modernsexamines key ideas and practices in context.
It shows how societies and cultures have been shaped by ideas and debates
that recur. With a strong appeal to students and teachers in a variety of disci-
plines, including classics and ancient history, each book is written for non-
specialists in a clear and accessible manner.
ESTHER EIDINOW is Reader in Ancient Greek History at Newman
University College, Birmingham. She is the author of Oracles, Curses, and
Risk Among the Ancient Greeks(Oxford University Press, 2007).
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ANCIENTS AND MODERNS SERIES
ISBN: 978–1–84885–200–6 (cid:129) www.ancientsandmoderns.com
THE ART OF THE BODY: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) MICHAEL SQUIRE
DEATH: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) MARIO ERASMO
DRAMA: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) DAVID ROSENBLOOM
GENDER: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) BROOKE HOLMES
LUCK, FATE AND FORTUNE: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) ESTHER EIDINOW
MAGIC AND DEMONS: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) TO BE ANNOUNCED
MEDICINE: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) CAROLINE PETIT
PHILOSOPHY: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) EMILY WILSON
POLITICS: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) KOSTAS VLASSOPOULOS
RACE: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) DENISE MCCOSKEY
RELIGION: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) JÖRG RÜPKE
SEX: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) DANIEL ORRELLS
SLAVERY: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) PAGE DUBOIS
SPORT: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) TO BE ANNOUNCED
WAR: ANTIQUITY AND ITS LEGACY (cid:129) ALFRED S. BRADFORD
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ANCIENTS AND MODERNS
LUCK, FATE
AND
FORTUNE
ANTIQvITY AND
v
ITS LEGACY
ESTHER EIDINOW
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Published in 2011 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
Copyright © Esther Eidinow, 2011
The right of Esther Eidinow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any
part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN (HB): 978 1 84511 842 6
ISBN (PB): 978 1 84511 843 3
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typeset in Garamond Pro by Ellipsis Books Limited, Glasgow
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham
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CONTENTS
FOREWORD: vii
Phiroze Vasunia
INTRODUCTION: 1
CHAPTER I: PHILOSOPHIES OF FATE 12
CHAPTER II: A MINISTRY OF MISFORTUNE 25
CHAPTER III: OEDIPUS: A TRAGEDY OF FATES 53
CHAPTER IV: CULTURAL MODELS AND
SHIFTING MEANINGS 66
CHAPTER V: THE ARCHAIC POETS:
POLITICS OF FORTUNE 76
CHAPTER VI: HERODOTUS: PATTERNS OF FATE 93
CHAPTER VII: THUCYDIDES:
RHETORICS OF COINCIDENCE 119
CHAPTER VIII THE RESURRECTION OF CHANCE 143
NOTES 163
INDEX 209
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FOREWORD
Ancients and Moderns comes to fruition at a propitious moment: ‘recep-
tion studies’ is flourishing, and the scholarship that has arisen around it is
lively, rigorous, and historically informed; it makes us rethink our own
understanding of the relationship between past and present. Ancients and
Moderns aims to communicate to students and general readers the depth,
energy, and excitement of the best work in the field. It seeks to engage,
provoke, and stimulate, and to show how, for large parts of the world,
Graeco-Roman antiquity continues to be relevant to debates in culture,
politics, and society.
The series does not merely accept notions such as ‘reception’ or ‘tradi-
tion’ without question; rather, it treats these concepts as contested categories
and calls into question the illusion of an unmediated approach to the ancient
world. We have encouraged our authors to take intellectual risks in the devel-
opment of their ideas. By challenging the assumption of a direct line of conti-
nuity between antiquity and modernity, these books explore how discussions
in such areas as gender, politics, race, sex, and slavery occur within partic-
ular contexts and histories; they demonstrate that no culture is monolithic,
that claims to ownership of the past are never pure, and that East and West
are often connected together in ways that continue to surprise and disturb
many. Thus, Ancients and Modernsis intended to stir up debates about and
within reception studies and to complicate some of the standard narratives
about the ‘legacy’ of Greece and Rome.
All the books in Ancients and Modernsillustrate that howwe think about
the past bears a necessary relation to whowe are in the present. At the same
vii
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luck, fate and fortune
time, the series also seeks to persuade scholars of antiquity that their own
pursuit is inextricably connected to what many generations have thought,
said, and done about the ancient world.
Phiroze Vasunia
viii
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INTRODUCTION
‘Nothing is written’
From Lawrence of Arabia1
Lawrence of Arabia, Sherif Ali and their men have almost finished crossing
the blazing Nefud desert, the so-called ‘Sun’s Anvil’, on their mammoth trek
to the city of Aqaba, when they notice that one of the camels in their party
is riderless – one of their companions, Gasim, is missing. Without pausing,
Lawrence turns back towards the desert to search for him. Sherif Ali tries to
dissuade him, protesting: ‘What for? To die with Gasim? In one hour comes
the sun. In God’s name, understand! We cannot go back!’ and ‘Gasim’s time
is come, Lawrence. It is written!’ But Lawrence disagrees: ‘Nothing is written.’
And when he finally returns from the desert, bringing Gasim, still alive, he
proclaims this again to Ali: ‘Nothing is written’.2
In the 1991 cult film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the heroine, Sarah
Connor, is on the run with her son and the cyborg that has been sent from
the future to protect them. They are fleeing from a ‘Terminator’, another
machine from the future, but sent by enemies to kill Sarah and her son. The
fugitives arrive at a farm, where they pause to collect crucial provisions and
plan their next move. Sitting at a wooden table, watching her son play with
the cyborg, Sarah falls asleep – and has a vision of the terrible future that
she is trying to prevent. At first, in her dream everything seems peaceful,
even joyful. She watches herself and her children playing in a small park, her
1