Table Of ContentThe Greeks and their Legacy
COLLECTED PAPERS
VOLUME II: PROSE LITERATURE, HISTORY, SOCIETY,
TRANSMISSION, INFLUENCE
K. J. Dover
Basil Blackwell
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Copyright © K. J. Dover 1988
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First published 1988
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Dover, K. J. (Kenneth James), 1920-
Collected papers.
Vol. 2: The Greeks and their legacy:
prose literature, history, society,
transmission, influence
1. Greek civilization, ancient period
I. Title
938
ISBN 0-631-15951-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dover, Kenneth James.
The Greeks and their legacy.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
Contents: — v. 2. Prose literature, history,
society, transmission, influence.
1. Greek philolögy. 2. Greece — Civilization — To
146 B.C. I. Title.
PA27.D734 1988 880'.9'001 88-16773
ISBN 0-631-15951-7 (U.S.)
Typeset in 10 on 11) pt Baskerville
by Joshua Associates Limited, Oxford
Printed in Great Britain by
TJ Press, Padstow, Cornwall
Contents
PREFACE vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS viii
1 ION OF CHIOS: HIS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF GREEK LITERATURE 1
Reprinted from Chios: a Conference at the Homereion in Chios 1984
(Clarendon Press, Oxford 1986)
2 THE CHRONOLOGY OF ANTIPHON’S SPEECHES 13
Reprinted from Classical (Quarterly xliv (1950)
3 TWO PROBLEMS IN THE TEXT OF ANTIPHON 36
Translated from ‘Due problemi testuali in Antifonte’, Maia ns xxi
(1969)
4 THE ORIGINALITY OF THE FIRST GREEK HISTORIANS 38
Reprinted from Humanities: Christianity and Culture xvii (1983)
5 ANECDOTES, GOSSIP AND SCANDAL 45
6 THUCYDIDES *AS HISTORY’ AND ‘AS LITERATURE’ 53
Reprinted from History and Theory xxii (1983)
7 THUCYDIDES ON ORACLES 65
Translated from ‘Tucidide e gli oracoli’, Miscellanea di studi di filo-
logia classica in Onore di Giusto Monaco (Palermo 1987)
8 THUCYDIDES’ HISTORICAL JUDGEMENT: ATHENS AND SICILY 74
Reprinted from Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy lxxxi c (1981)
9 ANDROTION ON OSTRACISM 83
Reprinted from Classical Review ns xiii (1963)
10 THE DATE OF PLATO’S SYMPOSIUM 86
Reprinted from Phronesis x (1965)
11 ARISTOPHANES’ SPEECH IN PLATO’S SYMPOSIUM 102
Reprinted from Journal of Hellenic Studies lxxxvi (1966)
VÎ CONTENTS
12 GREEK HOMOSEXUALITY AND INITIATION 115
13 THE FREEDOM OF THE INTELLECTUAL IN GREEK SOCIETY 135
Reprinted from Talanta vii (1976)
14 ΔΕΚΑΤΟΣ ΑΥΤΟΣ 159
Reprinted from Journal of Hellenic Studies lxxx (1960)
15 ANTHEMOCRITUS AND THE MEGARIANS 181
Reprinted from American Journal of Philology lxxxvii (1966)
16 ANAPSEPHISIS IN FIFTH-CENTURY ATHENS 187
Reprinted from Journal of Hellenic Studies lxxv (1955)
17 REVIEW OF PETER GREEN, ARMADA FROM ATHENS 194
Reprinted from Phoenix xxvi (1972)
18 ANCIENT INTERPOLATION IN ARISTOPHANES 198
Reprinted from Illinois Classical Studies ii (1977)
19 EXPLORATIONS IN THE HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF ARISTOPHANES 223
20 REVIEW OF (ED.) D. MERVYN JONES AND NIGEL G. WILSON, SCHOLIA
VETERA IN ARISTOPHANIS EQUITES ET SCHOLIA TRICLINIANA IN
ARISTOPHANIS EQUITES 266
Reprinted from Classical Review ns xxii (1972)
21 EXPURGATION OF GREEK LITERATURE 270
Reprinted from Entretiens de la Fondation Hardt xxvi (1979)
22 BYRON ON THE ANCIENT GREEKS 292
23 ON WRITING FOR THE GENERAL READER 304
Reprinted from Proceedings of the Classical Association lxxiii (1976)
24 WHAT ARE THE‘two CULTURES? 314
The 1985 Mary Roberts Memorial Lecture given at Rougement
School, Newport, Gwent
INDEX 327
Preface
The first volume of my minor contributions to Greek studies, Greek and the
Greeks, contained my articles on the Greek language and Greek poetry,
together with one or two reviews. The present volume completes the collec
tion by bringing together articles on Greek prose literature and history, the
transmission of Greek texts in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and the
part which study of the Greeks has played in our own culture.
As in the first volume, I have omitted most reviews, but (by contrast with
the first volume) I have not wholly excluded lectures aimed at a non-Classical
audience; there are two of these (chapters 23 and 24) which contain points — I
hope - of some interest to Classicists.
I have omitted articles of which the argument was all, or nearly all,
absorbed into one or other of my books; those articles are ‘La Colonizzazione
di Sicilia in Tucidide’ (1953), ‘Problems in Thucydides VI and VIT (1955),
‘The Patmos Scholia and the Text of Thucydides’ (1955), ‘Eros and Nomos’
(1964), ‘Diokleides and the Light of the Moon’ (1965) and ‘Classical Greek
Attitudes to Sexual Behaviour’ (1973). I decided also to omit ‘The Palatine
Manuscript of Thucydides’ (1954) on the grounds that since it was written the
entire study of the history of the text of Thucydides has moved up on to a
different plane.
I have taken the opportunity to put into print four items (chapters 5, 12,19
and 22) which have been presented, in one form or another, to seminars and
conferences.
My thanks are due to Sonia Argyle and to Gillian Bromley at Basil Black-
well, and to Joshua Associates Limited; they had to deal with copy of daunt
ing complexity.
K.J.D.
St Andrews
Acknowledgements
The author and publishers are grateful to the following for permission to
reproduce previously published material written by the author.
Casa Editrice Licinio Capelli for ‘The Chronology of Antiphon’s Speeches’,
translated from ‘Due problemi testuali in Antifonte’, Maia, ns xxi (1969).
Fondation Hardt for ‘Expurgation of Greek Literature’, Entretiens sur
l’Antiquité Classique, xxvi (1980) pp. 55-82.
Institute for the Study of Christianity and Culture for ‘ The Originality of the
First Greek Historians’, Humanities: Christianity and Culture, xvii (1983)
pp. 1-10.
The Johns Hopkins University Press for ‘Anthemocritus and the Megarians’,
American Journal of Philology, lxxxvii (2) (1966) pp. 203-9.
Oxford University Press for Ton of Chios: His Place in the History of Greek
Literature’ from Chios: A Conference at the Homereion in Chios 1984, edited by
John Boardman and C. E. Vaphopoulon-Richardson, Clarendon Press
(1986); ‘The Chronology of Antiphon’s Speeches’, Classical Quarterly, xliv
(1950); ‘Androtion on Ostracism’, Classical Review ns xiii (1963); and review of
D. Mervyn Jones and N. G. Wilson (eds), Scholia in AristophanisEquités, Classical
Review, ns xxii (1972).
Pergamon Press, Inc. for ‘The Freedom of the Intellectual in Greek Society’,
Talanta, vii (1976).
Phoenix, Journal of the Classical Association of Canada for ‘Review of Peter
Green, Armada from Athens’, Phoenix, xxvi (1972).
Rougemont School for ‘What are the “Two Cultures”?’, the 1985 Mary
Roberts Memorial Lecture.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IX
Royal Irish Academy for ‘Thucydides’ Historical Judgement: Athens and
Sicily’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, lxxxi c (1981).
Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies for ‘Aristophanes’ Speech in
Plato’s Symposium’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, lxxxvi (1966); ΔΕΚΑΤΟΣ
ΑΥΤΟΣ, Journal of Hellenic Studies, lxxx (1960); ‘Anapsephisis in Fifth-
Century Athens’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, Ixxv (1955).
University of Illinois Press for ‘Ancient Interpolation in Aristophanes’, Illinois
Classical Studies, ii (1977).
University of Palermo for ‘Thucydides on Oracles’ translated from ‘Gli
Oracoli in Tucidide’ from Miscellanea di Studi di Filologia Classica in Onore di
Giusto Monaco (1988).
Van Gorcum for ‘The Date of Plato’s Symposium’, Phronesis, x (1965).
Wesleyan University for ‘Thucydides “as History” and “as Literature”’,
History and Theory, xxii (1983).
IF**’“
1
Ion of Chios: His Place in
the History of Greek Literature
I. POETRY
We have more precise information about the essential dates of Ion’s life than
we normally expect to have about fifth-century writers.1 According to an anec
dote derived from him by Plutarch (Cim. 9. 1) he was still very young
(παντάπασι μειράκιον) on the occasion of a meeting with Cimon later than
the Greeks’ capture of Sestus and of Byzantium. This datum indicates that he
can hardly have been born much before 490 at the earliest, and a date of birth
a little after 480 would not be incompatible with the evidence. The first
tragedies of his to be produced at Athens were produced in the 82nd
Olympiad, i.e. 451-448; 429/8 was one of the years in which he competed.
We know from a reference to him in Aristophanes’ Peace 835 that he died
shortly before the spring of 421. He was a man of remarkable versatility,
whose works have conferred on him the unusual distinction of inclusion in the
modern standard corpora of fragments of the historians (FGrHist), pre-
Socratic philosophers (DK), tragic poets ( TGF) and elegists (IEG).2
I suspect that he would have wished to be remembered, and to be com
memorated in a gathering at the Homereion on Chios, as a poet. It was, how
ever, the misfortune of his poetic ambition that he was a contemporary of
Sophocles and Euripides, and against them competition was unequal. When
the Athenians in the following century formed the notion of a classical canon
and defined Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides as the ‘great’ poets of
tragedy, Ion was relegated to the second division along with Agathon,
Philocles, Achaeus, Neophron and a score of others; and from that category,
as classicism strengthened its hold on ancient taste, he was never allowed to
1 Essential data are incisively separated from speculation by Felix Jacoby, ‘Some Remarks on
Ion of Chios’, CQ, 41 (1947) Iff, reprinted in his Abhandlungen zur griechischen Geschichtsschreibung
(Leiden 1956) 144ff. See also G. L. Huxley, ‘Ion of Chios’, GRBS 6 (1965) 29ff and Η. B. Mattingly,
‘Poets and Politicians in Fifth-century Greece’ in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean in Ancient
History and Prehistory (Studies, Fritz Schachermeyr; Berlin/New York 1977) 231 ff.
2 The fragments of Ion’s work in all genres were edited by A. von Blumenthal (Stuttgart/Berlin
1939). He included some fragments of a satyr-play now ascribed with good reason to Sophocles
{TGF IV F 1130ff).
2 ION OF CHIOS
emerge. The anonymous author of On the Sublime, contrasting fallible genius
with impeccable, but uninspired, competence, asks (Subi 33. 5): ‘Would you
rather be Homer or Apollonius? ... In lyrics, would you choose to be
Bacchylides rather than Pindar? And in tragedy, Ion of Chios rather than
Sophocles?’
Now that we have some of Bacchylides’ poetry, we can see the point made
by the critic’s rhetorical questions. Unfortunately, we cannot judge for
ourselves whether or not the analogy ‘Ion is to Sophocles as Bacchylides is to
Pindar’ is a just analogy. The new edition of TGF presents us with eighty-six
citations and fragments of Ion’s tragedies.3 Nearly half of them consist each of
a single word or phrase; of the remainder, the longest contains five lines, and
only half a dozen run to more than two lines. Little of significance can be said
of a poet represented by such exiguous scraps. Ion’s surviving elegiac poetry
amounts to thirty-six lines, including one citation sixteen lines long. He seems
to have been a more elegant versifier than Xenophanes before him and Critias
after him, but any such judgement rests on rather small samples. I shall have
occasion to refer to one or two passages of his elegiac poetry in different con
nections, but turn now to more detailed consideration of the philosophical
prose work which was called (not necessarily by him, and even after him not
always by everyone) Τριαγμός or Τριο.γμοί.
\ II. PHILOSOPHY
The opening words of this work are cited by Harpocration (DK 36 B 1): ‘This
is the beginning of my exposition. All things are three, and nothing is either
more or less than those three. The goodness (άρετή) of each individual (ένός
έκάστον) is a triad: understanding (σύνεσις) and power (κράτος) and fortune
(τύχη).’ The style of the opening, a direct launch into dogmatic statement,
resembles that of the earliest prose work known to us by citation, the Theology
of Pherecydes of Syros (DK 7 B 1): ‘Zas and Time and Earth (Χθονίη) always
were.’ Soo too Anaxagoras (DK 59 B 1): ‘All things were together’, or
Philolaus (DK 44 B 1): ‘Nature, throughout the universe, was put together
from indeterminates and determinants.’
This was not the only way of beginning. Protagoras, for example, began
with a statement about the nature of his subject (DK 80 B 4): On the subject
of gods, I am not in a position to know whether they exist or do not exist, or
what their form is. There are so many impediments to knowledge: the obscur
ity of the subject and the brevity of human life.’ Comparable statements about
the writer’s purpose and the character of his subject are made by Heraclitus,
Diogenes of Apollonia, Alcmaeon, Archytas, Herodotus and Thucydides.
In one respect, then, Ion’s Τριαγμός may have been ‘old fashioned’, but in
3 On the possibility that Ion was the author of a tragedy about Gyges of Lydia known to us only
from a single long fragment (TGF II F 664), see Huxley 43ff. Present evidence does not really
allow us to get much further in consideration of this hypothesis.
ION OF CHIOS 3
another important respect it exemplified a new tendency. Pherecydes and
Anaxagoras told a story, so to speak; they explained the universe in cosmogonic
terms, answering the question, ‘How did things begin?’, so following a tradi
tion which goes back, beyond the beginnings of scientific speculation, to
Hesiod. Ion, however, speaks in cosmological terms, answering the question,
‘How do things work?’ If we possessed all the works of late-archaic and
classical thinkers, I do not suppose that we could identify a point in time at
which a clear line could be drawn between myth and science or between myth
and metaphysics, but I suspect that we should observe a steady encroachment
of cosmology on cosmogony.
It is tantalizing to have the beginnings, and so little else, of so many early
prose works. What did Protagoras say about gods after declaring his in
ability to say anything about them? And in his work Truth did he ever
develop and explain his opening statement (DK 80 B 1) that ‘a man is the
measure of all things’? Or should we infer that he did not from Plato’s refer
ence to the statement as an ‘allusion’ (Tht. 152c) and Plato’s invention
(ibid.) of an imagined ‘secret doctrine’ which spelled out the implications of
the statement? An ancient reader, taking up the Τριαγμός for the first time,
could hardly fail to assume, when he read the words ‘All things are three,
and nothing is either more or less than those three’, that Ion was speaking,
as others had done before him, of the fundamental elements of which all
things were composed. Isocrates, whose patience with scientific speculation
was not unlimited, implies as much by saying (15. 268) that among ‘the
sophists of earlier days’ Empedocles postulated four elements, but Ion no
more than three; and Philoponus, a late commentator on Aristotle, names
Ion’s three elements as fire, earth and air (DK 36 A 6). So far, so good; but
the next sentence would give the ancient reader pause, άρετή, which func
tions as the abstract noun corresponding to άγαθός, can be predicated of
entities other than persons; one can speak of the άρετή of land, and Plato
on one occasion (Rep. 601 d) speaks of the άρετή of a utensil. One might
then suppose that ένός έκάστον, ‘each one’, covers both animate find
inanimate beings. But although there are circumstances in which in
animates could be regarded as having power (κράτος) and fortune (τύχη),
they do not have understanding (σύνεσις).
It is possible to reconcile the opening of the Τριαγμός with the attribution
to Ion of a three-element theory by postulating first, that he did indeed assert
the composition of all material from three elements; secondly, that he asserted
a tripartite structure of all non-material entities (concern with the structure of
virtue is an interesting, though perhaps illusory, anticipation of Plato); and
thirdly, that in both cases it was ‘threeness’ that he emphasized. If he did, his
inclusion among Pythagoreans in DK is justified, for it was the Pythagoreans
who turned the discussion of scientific laws and causation away from
elements and towards numbers (Arist. Met. 985b 23ff). Plutarch on one occa
sion ( Quaest. Conv. 8. 1.1) cites with approval, though without identification of
the work on which he is drawing, a dictum of Ion to the effect that ‘Fortune is
