Greek notions of the past in the archaic and classical eras : history without historians

393 Pages·2012·4.34 MB·English

by  Marincola

Edinburgh Leventis Studies 6
GREEK NOTIONS
‘If this brilliant collection allows any one unarguable inference, it is that
there’s no such thing as “the past”, any more than there’s one single and OF THE PAST IN
uncontestable definition of, or way of doing, “history”. Going back to
the very roots of Western historiography in early Greece, John Marincola TG
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and his expert team do a grand job of radical conceptual reappraisal
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in this far-reaching, deeply scholarly and yet accessible addition to the E
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outstanding Edinburgh Leventis Studies series.’ K
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Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture CLASSICAL ERAS
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A wide examination of the ways in which the Greeks constructed, CO
de-constructed, engaged with and relied on their pasts AN
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This book looks at Greek notions and beliefs about the past as they DO
History Without Historians
are revealed in areas other than historical texts. A range of experts CF

from diverse fields examine, amongst other things, epic, didactic, lyric LT
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and epinician poetry, tragedy, comedy, epigraphy, philosophy, religious
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practice and material culture in an attempt to tease out how the S
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Greeks in the archaic and classical eras thought about, imagined and ICA
constructed their pasts. AS
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But it is not only literary texts that are studied here. Material culture, EI
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cult acts, inscriptions and monumental buildings are analysed to see R
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what each of these can tell us about the relationship between past and
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present and about the important role that the past played for Greeks
of all social classes.
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John Marincola is Leon Golden Professor of Classics at Florida State d Cydite
University in Tallahassee. Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones is Senior Lecturer in alu Lled b
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Jacket image: A reading from Homer, L. Alma-Tadema,
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ISBN 978–0–7486–4396–7
Jacket design: Michael Chatfield
Edited by
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EDINBURGH LEVENTIS STUDIES 6
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Previously published
Edinburgh Leventis Studies 1
Word and Image in Ancient Greece
Edited by N. Keith Rutter and Brian A. Sparkes
Edinburgh Leventis Studies 2
Envy, Spite and Jealousy: The Rivalrous Emotions in Ancient Greece
Edited by David Konstan and N. Keith Rutter
Edinburgh Leventis Studies 3
Ancient Greece: From the Mycenaean Palaces to the Age of Homer
Edited by Sigrid Deger-Jalkotzy and Irene S. Lemos
Edinburgh Leventis Studies 4
Pursuing the Good: Ethics and Metaphysics in Plato’s Republic
Edited by Douglas Cairns, Fritz-Gregor Herrmann and Terry Penner
Edinburgh Leventis Studies 5
The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations
Edited by Jan N. Bremmer and Andrew Erskine
Edinburgh Leventis Studies 6
Greek Notions of the Past in the Archaic and Classical Eras: History
without Historians
Edited by John Marincola, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and
Calum Maciver
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EDINBURGH LEVENTIS STUDIES 6
GREEK NOTIONS OF THE
PAST IN THE ARCHAIC AND
CLASSICAL ERAS
History without Historians
Edited by
John Marincola,
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and
Calum Maciver
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© editorial matter and selection, John Marincola, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and
Calum Maciver, 2012
© in the individual contributions is retained by the authors, 2012
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in 11/13pt Times NRMT
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 4396 7 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 4397 4 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 5466 6 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7486 5465 9 (Amazon ebook)
The right of the contributors
to be identifi ed as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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CONTENTS
Preface vii
List of Illustrations viii
Notes on Contributors x
1 Introduction: A Past without Historians 1
John Marincola
2 Homer and Heroic History 14
Jonas Grethlein
3 Hesiod on Human History 37
Bruno Currie
4 Helen and ‘I’ in Early Greek Lyric 65
Deborah Boedeker
5 Stesichorus and Ibycus: Plain Tales from the Western
Front 83
Ewen Bowie
6 Pindar and the Reconstruction of the Past 95
Maria Pavlou
7 Debating the Past in Euripides’ Troades and Orestes and
in Sophocles’ Electra 113
Ruth Scodel
8 Euripidean Explainers 127
Allen Romano
9 Old Comedy and Popular History 144
Jeff rey Henderson
10 Attic Heroes and the Construction of the Athenian Past in
the Fifth Century 160
H. A. Shapiro
11 Family Time: Temporality, Gender and Materiality in
Ancient Greece 183
Lin Foxhall
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vi contents
12 Common Knowledge and the Contestation of History in
Some Fourth-Century Athenian Trials 207
Jon Hesk
13 Plato and the Stability of History 227
Kathryn A. Morgan
14 Inscribing the Past in Fourth-Century Athens 253
S. D. Lambert
15 The Politics of the Past: Remembering Revolution at
Athens 276
Julia L. Shear
16 ‘Remembering the Ancient Way of Life’: Primitivism in
Greek Sacrifi cial Ritual 301
Emily Kearns
17 The Great Kings of the Fourth Century and the Greek
Memory of the Persian Past 317
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
18 Commentary 347
Simon Goldhill, Suzanne Saïd and Christopher Pelling
Index Locorum 366
Index 376
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PREFACE
This volume brings together revised versions of papers originally
presented at the Sixth A. G. Leventis conference, ‘History without
Historians: Greeks and their Past in the Archaic and Classical Era’,
which was held at the University of Edinburgh, 5–7 November
2009. The conference was an attempt to get at the issue of what we
would know about Greek conceptions of the past if we lacked the
historiographical texts of Herodotus, Thucydides and others.
J.M. would like to thank the Classics Department at the University
of Edinburgh for the honour of naming him the A. G. Leventis Chair
in Greek Studies in 2009. The hospitality shown by the department
and the School of History, Classics and Archaeology during his stay
was extraordinary, and he thanks in particular Sandra Bingham,
Glenys Davies, Elaine Hutchison, Gavin Kelly, Lloyd Llewellyn-
Jones, Wendy and Keith Rutter, and – last but assuredly not least – his
nonpareil assistant, Kate Collingridge. At a later stage he benefi ted (as
always) from the sage advice of Christopher Pelling. He also thanks
his research assistant, Anastasia Belinskaya, for her help in compiling
the Index Locorum.
We are grateful to the Department for its care in putting on the
conference and in making it such a wonderful occasion. We also off er
thanks to Fiona Sewell, our excellent copy-editor, and especially to
Carol Macdonald, our editor, who encouraged and supported the
project from the beginning and patiently awaited the fi nal version.
Tallahassee, Edinburgh, Leeds
J.M.
L.L-J.
C.M.
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ILLUSTRATIONS
10.1 Three herms. Attic red-fi gure pelike, Louvre Cp 10793.
C. 470. Photo: Réunion des Musées Nationaux. 163
10.2 Kanephoros and youth with hydria. Side B of the pelike
in Fig. 10.1. Photo: Réunion des Musées Nationaux. 164
10.3 Departure of Greek heroes for Troy. Attic black-fi gure
kantharos, Berlin, Antikenmuseum F 1737. C. 550. Photo:
museum. 168
10.4 Odysseus and Diomedes competing for the Trojan
Palladion, with Akamas, Demophon and Agamemnon.
Attic red-fi gure cup, St Petersburg, Hermitage B 649.
C. 480. Photo: museum. 171
10.5 Greek heroes at Troy deliberating on the Palladion.
Side B of the cup in Fig. 10.4. Photo: museum. 171
10.6 Farewell of Theseus and Aithra. Interior of the cup in
Fig. 10.3. Photo: museum. 172
10.7 Greek heroes leaving for Troy in the presence of Athena.
Attic red-fi gure cup, Bologna, Museo Civico PU 303.
Photo: museum. 174
10.8 Theseus and Phorbas setting out for war. Side B of the
cup in Fig. 10.7. Photo: museum. 174
10.9 Kodros and Ainetos. Interior of the cup in Fig. 10.7.
Photo: museum. 175
10.10 Grave stele of a warrior with his father. Athens, National
Archaeological Museum 731. C. 350. Photo: museum. 178
10.11 Eriboia presenting the baby Ajax to Telamon. Attic red-
fi gure cup, Basle, Antikenmuseum + Sammlung Ludwig
BS 432. Photo: museum. 180
10.12 Apollo and others. Side B of the cup in Fig. 10.11.
Photo: museum. 180
10.13 Theseus and a woman (Argeia?). Interior of the cup in
Fig. 10.11. Photo: museum. 181
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list of illustrations ix
11.1a Pantanello, Metaponto: loom weights impressed
& b with (a) a fi bula (dress pin) and (b) earrings. 202
11.2a Metaponto survey: loom weights 221–L2 and 358–L1,
& b with identical footprint stamps. 203
11.3a Metaponto survey: two loom weights with identical 
& b rosette stamps found at contemporary sites about 3 km
apart, on opposite sides of the Venella valley. 203
11.4 Fattoria Fabrizio farmhouse: inscribed late archaic
loom weight found in late fourth/early third-century
bce use context. 204
11.5 Metaponto survey: 309–L6, heritage stamp on fourth-
century bce loom weight. 205
15.1 SEG XXVIII 60: the decree in honour of Kallias of
Sphettos. Courtesy of the American School of Classical
Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations. 285
15.2 Plan of the Agora in c. 300 bce. Earlier, in the fi fth
century, the structure of the Metroon was the city’s
(Old) Bouleuterion. Courtesy of the American School of
Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations. 288
15.3 IG II2 682: the decree in honour of Phaidros of Sphettos
(EM 10546). Courtesy of the photographic archive of
the Epigraphical Museum, Athens. 299
17.1 Line drawing of the Xenophantos lekythos. St
Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum P 1837.2. 321
17.2 Line drawing of the ‘Darius Vase’; Apulian volute-krater
by the Darius Painter. Naples, Museo Archeologico
Nazionale 81947 (H 3253). 330
17.3 Reconstruction of the audience scene, originally from
the northern Apadana staircase at Persepolis and later
moved to the Treasury. Courtesy of the team of
Persepolis3d.com. 339
17.4 Poulydamas statue base by Lysippos, c. 330 bce; front
relief. Olympia Museum 45. Photo: courtesy of H. R.
Goette. 344
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