Tragedy and Athenian Religion

293 Pages·2002·30.607 MB·English

by  Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane

Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary ~~proadhes
Series Editor: Gregory Nagy, Harvard University
Assistant Editor: Timothy Power, Harvard University
On the front cover: A calendar frieze repl-esenting the Athenian months, reused in the Byzantine Tragedy and Athenian Religion
Church of the Link Metropolis in Athens. The cross is superimposed, obliterating Tams of the
Zodiac. The choice of this frieze for books in GreekStudies: Interdisciplinn~A pproaches reflects
this series' emphasis on the blending of the diverse heritagesNear Eastern, Classical, and
Christian-in the Glrek tradition. Drawing by Laurie Kain Halt, based on a photograph. Recent
titles in the series are:
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by Hanna M. Roisman
Lyric Quotation in Plafo
by Marian Dmos
Exile and the Poetics of Loss in Greek Tradition
by Nancy Sultan
The Classical Moment: Yiewsfrom Seven Literatures
Edited by Gail Halst-Warhaft and David R. McCann
Nine Essavs on Homer
Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood
by Roger Travis
Dionvsism and Comed,v
by Xavier Riu
Contextualiring Classics: Ideology, Performance, Dialogue
Edited bv Thornas M. Falkner. Nancv Felson. and David Konstan
me Pity of~chillesO: ral Style and ;he ffn;ty of the Iliad
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Bemeen Magic and Religion: Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Mediterranean Religion and
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Edited by Sulochana Asirvathan, Corinne Ondine Pache, and John Walunus
Iambic Ideas: Essays on a Poetic Traditionf rom Archaic Greece to the Late Roman Empire
Edited by Antonio Aloni, Al-ndm Balchiesi, and Alberto Cmazere
The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, Second Edition
by Margaret Alexiou
revised bv Dilnitrios Yalminanolakis and Panaeiotis Roilos
Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis
by Casey Dud
Imagining Illegitimacy in Classical Greek Literature
bv Maw Ebbott
The ~sdble~ &tG:r eekMetahistories
Edited by K. S. Brown and Yannis Fla~nilakis
Trngedy and Athenian Religion LEXINGTON BOOKS
by Ch~istianeS aurvinou-Inwood Lanham .Boulder. New York Oxford
1
Filozoficki fakulta
Univerzity Karlovy v Praze
I
I for Mike
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Infamation Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data I('
Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane.
Tragedy and Athenian religion I Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood.
p. an. - (Greek studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7391-0399-7 (alk. paper) - ISBN 0-7391-0400-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Greek drama (Tragedy)-History and criticism. 2. Religious drama, Greek-
History and criticism. 3. Religion and literatur4eec+Athens. 4. Athens
(Greece)--Religion. I. Title. 11. Series.
Printed in the United States of America
emTbep aper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Anmican
National Standard for Infonnation Scienc-Peamanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSIINISO 239.48-1992.
Contents
List of Photographs xi
Foreword xi~i
On the Jackson Lectures xv
Preface XV~I
Part I. Tragedy, Audiences, and Religion 1
1. Tragedy and Rel~gionS: hifting Perspectives and Ancient
Fllters 1
2. Setting Out the Distances: Religion, Audiences, and the World
of Tragedy
i. Filters and Distances
ii. Tragic Settings and Shifting Distances
iii. Zooming and Distancing in Action: Euripides' Erechtheus and
lphigeneia in Tauris
iv. Performanceso utside Athens: Aeschylus' Aitnaiai and Euripides'
Archelaos
v. Preferred Setting and Religious Exploration; Universality and Its
Construction
vi. Ritual Context, Tragic Performance and Permeability
Part II. The Ritual Context
1. The Great Dionysia: A Reconstruction
i. Reconstruction and Methodology
ii. The Festival: Xenismos of Dionysos, Komos, Procession, Sacrifices,
and Performances
a) Literary, Epigraphical, and Comparative Evidence
b) Iconographical Evidence
c) A Set of Conclusions
d) Topographical Evidence and Further Comparative
Evidence; Pindar, Dithyramb fr. 75
e) Another Set of Conclusions
f)T he Reconstmction of the City Dionysia:
A Summary
Contents
iii. Changes and Developments: The Early History of the 3. Euripidean Tragedy and Religious Exploration
Great Dionysia i. EuripideanTragedy and Religion; Problematik, Methodology
a) Changes and Beginnings: The Polis Dimension and Euripides' Reception
b) A Process of Bricolage: City Dionysia, Anthesteria, and (1) Introduction, Problematik Some Methodological Remarks
Other Festivals (2)T he Reception of Euripides: "Atheism" and Aristophanes
C) Reconstructing the Early Festival (3)Modem Critiasm and Ancient Audiences
d)T he Early City Dionysia and Its Developments< ii. The Tragedies: Part One
A Summary (1)I phigeneia in Tauris
Appendix: Lenaia and Lenaion (2) Medea
(3) Suppliants
2. [Relconstructing the Beginnings iii. The Religious Dimemion: Some Remarks
i. Tragodoi and the Emergence of Tragedy iv. The Tragedies: Part Two
a) Tragodoi and Tragos Sacrifice (1) Alcestis
b) Singing at the Sacrifice (2) Herakleidai
C) From Sacrificial Hymns to Prototragedy: Mythological (3) Hippolytos
Content and Problematization (4) Andromache
d) From Sacrifiaal Hymns to Prototragedy: Some (5) Hecabe
Reconstructions (6) Electra
e) From Saa'ificial Hymns to Prototragedy: Some (7) Troades
Possible Scenarios (8) Heracles
f) Ritual and Skene (9) Phoenissai
g) Further Reconstructions: The Question of Mimesis (10) Orestes
h) "Thespis" and Another Poet (11) Ion, Helen, Bacchae, Iphigeneia at Aulis
i) Fissions and Enlargements; The Satyr Play v. Conclusions: Differences, Patterns, and Meanings
j) Epilogue Appendix 1: Other Views on Orestes: a Brief Critique
ii. Komos and Comedy d Appendix 2: Euripidean Endings: Strategies of Closure and Ancient
iii. Men and Women at the Dionysia Audiences
3. The Great Dionysia and the "Ritual Matrix" of Tragedy 4. Walking among Mortals? Modalities of Divine Appearance
in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides
Part Ill. Religion and the Fifth-Century Tragedians
i. Divine Appearances in Tragedy and in Lived Religion
ii. Aeschylus
1. "Starting" with Aeschylus iii. Euripides
i. Introduction and Methodological Problems iv. Sophocles
ii. Suppliants v. Modalities of Divine Appearance: Shifts, Constants, and Meanings
iii. Persai
iv. Septem Part IV. A Summary of the Central Conclusion
v. Oresteia
vi. The Skene in the Oresteia Bibliography
vii. Conclusions: Aeschylean Tragedy and Religion
Index Locorum
2. From Phrynichos to Euripides: The Tragic Choruses
About the Author
List of Photographs
PHOTOGRAPH 1: Neck amphora (Oxford 1965.126)
PHOTOGRAPH 2: Neck amphora (Oxford 1965.126)
PHOTOGRAPH 3: Neck amphora (Oxford 1965.126)
PHOTOGRAPH 4: Neck amphora (Oxford 1965.126)
PHOTOGRAPH 5: Neck amphora (Oxford 1965.126)
PHOTOGRAPH 6: Cup (Oxford G.262 [V.516])
PHOTOGRAPH 7: Janiform head kantharos (Ferrara, Museo Nazionale di
Spina 9410 [T 256 B VP])
PHOTOGRAPH 8: Janiform head kantharos (Ferrara, Museo Nazionale di
Spina 9410 [T 256 B VP])
PHOTOGRAPH 9: Janiform head kantharos (London 786)
PHOTOGRAPH 10: Janiform head kantharos (London 786)
Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches
Foreword by Gregory Nagy, General Editor
Building on the foundations of scholarship within the disciplines of
philology, philosophy, history, and archaeology, this series spans the
continuum of Greek traditions extending from the second millennium
B.C.E. to the present, not just the Archaic and Classical periods. The aim
is to enhance perspectives by applying various disciplines to problems
that have in the past been treated as the exclusive concern of a single
given discipline. Besides the crossing-over of the older disciplines, as in
the case of historical and literary studies, the series encourages the
application of such newer ones as linguistics, sociology, anthropology,
and comparative literature. It also encourages encounters with current
trends in methodology, especially in the realm of literary theory.
T~agedya nd Athenian Religion, by Christiane Sourvinou-lnwood, was
originally presented as the Carl Newell Jackson lectures at Harvard
University (spring 1994). It now appears as a book of major proportions
in impact as well as amplitude. Sourvinou-Inwood examines tragedy as
a central mode of public self-expression for the polis of fifth-century
Athens. The Athenian tragic perspective, which is here painstakingly
reconstructed on the basis of all available evidence, is fundamentally
religious. As the author observes, "Tragedy was perceived by the fifth-
century audiences not as a discrete unit, a purely theatrical experience,
simply framed by ritual, but as a ritual performance; and that the deities
and other religious elements in the tragedies were not insulated from the
audience's religious realities, but were perceived to be, to a greater or
lesser extent, somehow close to those realities, part of those realities, in
ways that need to be defined."
The definitions of this book rely on a vast array of literary and
archaeological evidence, yielding important new readings of Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides. Of special interest is Sourvinou-Inwood's
revisionist assessment of Euripides: she sees him as a serious religious
thinker, not as the glib and conflicted ironist or atheist who
emerges as a typical creation of twentieth-century scholarship.
The Department of the Classics at Harvard is delighted that Christiane
Sourvinou-Inwood's memorable Jackson Lectures of 1994 are now ap-
~earingin the series Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches. On behalf
of the Department I am happy to recall the memory of those lectures,
and there can be no better way of doing so than by quoting the intro-
duction given by my colleague, Richard Tarrant:
"Our lecturer is Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Senior Research Fel-
low at University College, Oxford, and the topic of the lectures is 'Greek
Tragedy and Athenian Religion: A Discourse of Exploration'.
"Before introducing our lecturer I should like to say a few words
about the Jackson Lectures and the man who made them possible. This
lecture series is the result of an extraordinary act of generosity, and it is
only proper that we, its beneficiaries, should periodically give thanks for
what we have received.
"Carl Newell Jackson was born in 1875 and graduated from
Harvard College in 1898. He remained at Harvard for graduate
study, and obtained his Ph.D. in what now seems the astonishingly short
time of three years. His dissertation was a study of the role of horses in
Greek religion (or, in its Latin dress, Quas partes equi habebant in
religionibus Graecorum?). In 1905 Jackson joined the faculty of the De-
partment as an Instructor; he rose to become Eliot Professor of Greek
Literature, a chair from which he retired in 1943. Jackson published very
little, but his teaching and force of personality exerted a profound influ-
ence on generations of Harvard classicists; in a memoir of Jackson John
Finley described him as a man of 'Promethean largeness, [which]
showed itself in the heavy lines of his face, in his measured and deliber-
ate speech, in his raw-boned figure and somewhat awkward gestures,
and in the general ruggedness of his mind and appearance'-a descrip-
tion which is borne out, at least in externals, by the remarkable photo-
graph of Jackson that hangs in Smyth library. Yet this imposing figure
was also a shy and modest man. He never married, and it may be that
his beloved Harvard and Radcliffe came to occupy the place of a family
in his affections. On his death in 1946 it was learned that he had left the
entire income of his estate to the Department of the Classics, an act of
devotion as commendable as it is uncommon.
"The Samuel and Sarah Morrill Jackson Fund-named for Jack-
son's parents-became available to the Department in 1955, and a lecture
series was established in 1957. The first Jackson lecturers delivered one
or two lectures each, which were subsequently published in Harvard
Studies in Classical Philology. They included J. B. Ward-Perkins, Sir
Ronald Syme, Bernard Knox, Werner Jaeger, Russell Meiggs, and James
xvi On the Jackson Lectures
Notopoulos. In 1964 it was decided to expand the lectureship into a bi-
ennial series offour lectures. The fist series in the new format was de-
livered by Sir Roger Mynors in 1966; subsequent Jackson lecturers have
Preface
been Amaldo Momigliano, Sir Denys Page, Jacqueline de Romilly, Peter
Brown, Eugene Vanderpool, E. J. Kenney, Walter Burkert, Machteld
Mellink, Fergus Millar, Anna Morpurgo Davies, and,Peter Dronke. Though I have been working on the relationship between tragedy and
"To this distinguished list we are now pleasea to add the name of Athenian religion for many years, this book would not have been writ-
Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, one of the most .original and exciting ten if the Department of the Classics of Harvard University had not
scholars now working in the area of Greek literary and cultural studies. done me the great honor of inviting me to give the Carl Newell Jackson
No one with an interest in the Greeks will be unfamiliar with her work,
Lectures. I am enormously grateful to them; for the honor and also for
but few will perhaps be aware of its full range, which extends from Mi-
the warmth, hospitality, and friendship they so lavishly offered, and for
noan glyptic rings to the choral odes of the Antigone, from female ini-
the exciting discussions and problem raising after the lectures. But their
tiation rituals to scenes of erotic pursuit on Greek vases. The subtitle of
generosity went further: they most kindly provided a subvention to help
her lectures, 'a discourse of exploration', well describes one of the lead-
with the production of a book that turned out to be very much longer
ing characteristics of her scholarship, her effort to understand Greek
myth, religion, art, and literature in the rich complexity of their interre- than was expected. They have my gratitude. My very special gratitude is
lations. Several of her articles bear titles such as 'myth and history' or owed to Professor Greg Nagy, whose help and support during the com-
'myths in images', and the important collection of her essays published pletion and publication of this book has been truly invaluable.
by Oxford in 1991 is significantly called 'Reading' Greek Culture: texts and I have benefited very significantly from discussions with many col-
images, rituals and myths. Her Jackson Lectures bring together two of her leagues and friends over the many years of this book's preparation and
long-standing interests, in Athenian religion and in Greek tragedy, and
it seems invidious to single out a few; so I will limit myself to those who
so with great pleasure and anticipation I present Christiane Sourvinou-
have been, in one way or another, a continuous presence: my former
Inwood."
colleagues Dr. C. B. R. Pelling and Dr. Peter Wilson and also Dr. Ian
Rutherford, who had been at Harvard when I gave the lectures, and
Richard F. Thomas
subsequently became my colleague at Reading; Professor Pat Easterling;
Chair, Department of the Classics
Harvard University and above all, Professor Robert Parker, whose learned interaction and
friendship were a constant inspiration.
Short versions of a few parts of the book formed the basis of lec-
tures given in London and Oxford, including the Gaisford Lecture,
which was delivered in Oxford in May 1998.
For the photographs I am indebted to Mr. Michael Vickers of the
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to Dr. Dyfri Williams of the British Mu-
seum, to Dottoressa Fede-Berti of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di
Spina in Ferrara, and Dr. M. Marini Calvani, Soprintendente, So-
printendenza Archeologica of Emilia Romagna.
Finally, I would like to express my warmest thanks to Timothy
Power, who has prepared the manuscript for publication with great sen-
sitivity, helpfulness, and learning.
ragedy, Audiences, and Religion
Tragedy and Religion: Shifting Perspectives and
Ancient Filters
s book is about many things, but above all it is about the rela-
y and religion.' One of its important aims is to
e nature of the perceptual filters through which Greek
y is made sense of by modem readers, to change them in complex
that will restore the religious dimension, which, I will be
had had in the eyes of the fifth-century
will also be arguing, tragedies were, among
things, a discourse of religious exploration, part of the religious
the fifth-century audiences tragedy was not a
erience, which had included gods and other
ical devices. The notion of such elements as
includes a spectrum of possibilities, and
ent scholars have taken different positions along this spectrum.
or example, the perception of deities ex machina
ty rhetorical gestures of closure. At the other end would be the
ion that the tragic gods were serious gods in the world of the
ed only within the tragedy, insulated from the
and its religious realities. In theory, tragedy
ious exploration even if it had been a purely
in which religious elements were no more than
what I am arguing is something different: that
edy was perceived by the fifth-century audiences not as a discrete
, a purely theatrical experience, simply framed by ritual, but as a
a1 performance; and that the deities and other religious elements
t insulated from the audience's religious
rceived to be, to a greater or lesser extent,
realities, part of those realities, in ways that
d to be defined.
I will be building up this case in a variety of ways, and in different
t chapters. Thus, for example, I discuss cult
ndations and aetiologies at one level in chapter 1.2, and then return
hem in a fuller and more detailed way in chapters 111.3 and 111.4,
with, and attempting to show the fallacy of, views that
aetiologies to be other than religiously serious and religiously
, in the context of the in-depth investigation of Euripidean
2 Part I: Tragedy, Audiences, and Religion Chapter I: Tragedy and Religion 3
tragedies. Thus also the lightness of this introductory chapter, that one moderate view of Aristotelian inspiration as an illustration, in
only skims the surface of issues that will be considered in increasing order to bring into sharper focus the parameters of the debate. While
depth throughout the book. acknowledging that tragedy has a theological content, Heath claims
I will be keeping the different strands of the argument separate and that the fact that tragedies were performed in the course of a religious
independent, to avoid cross contamination from fallacious assumptions festival is not related to what religious content they may have: "[Tlhe
and unconscious adjushnent to make the different parts of the evidence theological content derives, not from the requirements of a religious
fit, and also in order to be able to cross-check, the results of the occasion, but from the nature of the material on which the tragic plots
different lines of enquiry. For if the results of independently conducted are based. The world of Greek heroic legend is a world in which the
sets of investigation, mostly deploying different sets of evidence, gods are everywhere at work; the narrative of events in which they
converge, this would offer significant validation for these results. are at work must of necessity have some theological structure, for if one
If my central thesis is right, one of its many implications would be is going to tell a story about gods, they must be gods of some particular
that the fashionable notion that tragedy challenges the polis kind, standing in a certain relation to the world and other characters,
discourse by which it is framed2 would be based on a misunderstanding and so forth." The alternative he perceives is simple and expressed in
of what the polis discourse is: on my reading tragedy is part of the intentionalist terms as involving "a concern with theological reflection
polis discourse, and this polis discourse is much more complex than is in its own right, a desire to explore problems in religious thought or to
often assumed. commend answers to those problems." He believes that "the
The notion that we must replace the perception of Greek tragedy as assumption of such specifically intellectual interests will be
in some ways comparable to, and so to be to some extent understood in superfluo~s."~
terms of, our notion of theater needs to be defended against an obvious To begin with the last, the notion that the exploration of religious
objection: that this perception of tragedy as comparable to what we problems is a purely intellectual exercise, motivated by purely
understand by theater has the most authoritative ancient authority m intellectual interests, is a culturally determined perception which
its side.3 takes no account of the nature of Greek religion. I will return to this.
If no Greek tragedy had survived and our sole source of information Further, the religious content of tragedy is not limited to what may be
on the genre had been Aristotle's Poetics we would have had a rather classified as "theology." Easterling has recently discussed the
idiosyncratic idea of what fifth-century tragedy had been like, and we important place of ritual in tragedy and I shall be discussing this and
would have certainly believed that religion had ody had a very other aspects of the religious ,discourse articulated in tragedy
small and marginal place in it. The perception of trag6dy underlying throughout this book. Most importantly, because it illustrates the
the Poetics was shaped by rigidly rationalizing perceptual filters and tendency to privilege rationalizing perceptions which are mistaken for
structured through the conceptual schemata Aristotle set out to neutral readings, the notion that the presence of religion is the simple
construct, schemata which reflected his own preoccupations and result of the fact that tragedies are set in the world of Greek legend is
assumptions. It is methodologically dubious to use the perceptions of a implicitly circular; for it is based on two a priori (and culturally
rationalizing thinker, who was not even a participant in the culture, determined) assumptions. First, that the primary element was the
since he did not live in the fifth century and he was not Athenian, as narrative and the religious elements were secondary; given tragedy's
evidence for those of the audience of fifth-century Athenians. ritual context, this assumption is even a priori less likely than a
The distorting selectivity of Aristotle's presentation of tragedy has hypothesis that involves a religious content as a basic component. And
been acknowledged and stressed in recent years4 Nevertheless, modem second, that the fact that tragedies were set in this legendary world in
perceptions of tragedy have been influenced by Aristotle's Poetics, if which the gods were everywhere was a prior and natural phenomenon
only in strengthening the conceptual bias towards what we perceive as that needs no explanation and was unrelated to the performances'
"the rational" which reflected modem conceptual hierarchies. Of religious context. Besides the a priori implausibility of this
course, in this respect also things have changed in recent years, and the assumption, the fact that a short experiment with contemporary
place of religion in tragedy is no longer underplayed. However, the settings by Phrynichos and Aeschylus did take place is one indication
Aristotelian mind cast and the marginalization of religion in tragedy that the settings were not a necessary, but a preferred choice. I shall be
have not disappeared, and they can take many forms. I shall mention returning to this in chapter 1.2. Besides, as we shall see in chapter