ephebes and origin tragoidia.pdf

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The Ephebes' Song: Tragidia and PolisAuthor(s): John J. WinklerSource: Representations, No. 11 (Summer, 1985), pp. 26-62Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928426.Accessed: 11/01/2011 06:06

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2/38

JOHN J.

WINKLER

The Ephebes' Song:

Tragoidia

nd

Polis

THE

QUESTION

OF TRAGEDY'S

origin

hasfor uite

sometime

been

stuck

n

an

impasse,

with the same

fewbits of ancient

information

eing con-

stantly

nd inconclusively

ecycled.'

The average

skeptic and

I count myself

one) would

rightly oubt

thatanything

new-much

less true-could

be said

on

the subject.Nevertheless, he presentessayclaimsbothto be new and to standa

reasonable

chance

of being true.

If

I

may

be allowed ust

one

small attempt

o

elicit

the

skeptical

reader's benevolence:

I

hereby

cknowledge

thateach

of

the

items

here assembled

could, one

by one, be

construed

n

another

waythan

I

do.

Some are late,

some

are incomplete,

most

are relatively

mall

and either

mbig-

uous or

inconclusive.

ndeed,

it s because

of these

veryfeatures

n the evidence

that no one

has noticed

the coherence

that am about

to trace.

In itsfavor,

t

maybe said that

hefollowing

ypothesis

raws

together

nformation

rom uite

different reas-ritual,

politics,

vase painting,

dance,

costume,

audience,

and

even

from

he

texts.

Like the

ndividualpoles

that

form teepee,

no one

of these

data

can

standalone,

but their oincidence

forms

structure

hat s farstronger

thanits simplecomponents.

will first etup

the evidence

in

the

first our

sec-

tions,

hen

et theskeptical erspective

xpress

tsreservations

n

the

next

ection,

and conclude

with a

tail-piece

on

satyrs.My

minimal

hope

is

that the

compre-

hensiveness,

s

well as

the

novelty,

f thishypothesis

will

provoke

further

dis-

cussions,

whetherby way

ofconfirmation,

efutation,

r amendment.

A

Duel on

the Border:

The Trick

of

the Black Goatskin

A storywillfocusthe ssue. In theold daysofthekings disputearose

between

Attika nd

Boiotia over

the control

of

a

village

n the

hill

country

hat

formsthe

naturalboundary

between

them.

Border

squabbles,

of

course,

were

endemic

n

a

culture

that s

aptly

described

as not

only

face-to-faceutscowling,

and

it

is

not

surprising

o

find

disagreement

oo over

the name of

the

hamlet,

which s

variously

iven

as

Melainai,

Oinoe,

Panakton,

or

Eleutherai.2

An

agree-

ment

was reached

to settle

he issuebysingle

combat between Xanthos,king

of

Boiotia, and

Melanthos,

who

had been

promised

the kingship

f

Attika

f

he won

the

fight.

As Melanthos

strode

forward

he either

saw or

claimed to

see behind

Xanthos an apparition of a beardless man wearinga black goatskinover his

26

REPRESENTATIONS 11

*

Summer

1985

?

THE REGENTS

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA


3/38

shoulders.

He

shouted

out to

Xanthos that

t

was unfair

for

him

to

bring

helper

to fightwhatwas agreed

to

be

a

singlecombat;

as Xanthos

turned to

look

behind

him, Melanthos struck

withhis spear and killed

him.

There is a curious

fact about

the use of this story,

whichwill set

up

the

parameters f myhypothesis.

n the

cycle

of Athenianfestivals he tale ofMelan-

thos' trick

r deception

(apatM)

erved as

the

etiology

for

the

Apatouria,

a

very

old kinship

elebration n the fourthmonthof the Atticyear called Pyanopsion,

roughlySeptember-October).3

On the

three

days

of this

festival,

he

phratries

recognized boys and girls born in the preceding

year with sacrifices o Zeus

Phratrios and Athena

Phratria and also acknowledged the coming

manhood

(hebe) of sixteen-year-old

oys with a sacrifice

alled the koureionon

the

day

Koureotis).

The latterwords were etymologized

ither by reference

to kouros,

"youth

r

young

man,"or to koura, cutting he hair,"

which

was then

dedicated

to Artemis.4The later word for kouroi, oungmen in the primeof lifeon the

threshold f

adulthood,was

epheboi,

ephebes," iterally hose

at

(ep')

theiryouth-

ful

prime hebe).

n

addition

to denoting

the ideal youth t the

first

lowering

f

his adult vigor a flexible sage), "ephebe" came

to be the specific esignationof

the

eighteen- o twenty-year-olditizen

n

military raining.5

his training egan,

after heir

nrollment

s eighteen-year-olds

n

the register

f tribe nd deme,

in

the third

month f

the Atticyear Boedromion).6Their new

statuswas confirmed

by an ancient oath of loyalty o the polis, which

begins, "I will not disgracethese

sacred

weapons [hopla]

nd

I

will not desert the comrade beside me [parastaten]

wherever shallbe stationed n a battle

ine."7

Pierre Vidal-Naquet has brilliantly

iscerned the relevance

of

thatstrange

tale

to the

Apatouria by emphasizing

that one of the themes ncorporated

nto

the

celebration

of clan inductionwas that of the young

man

as

new soldier.8

n

developing

thistheme from

Vidal-Naquet

we must llow for and watch

out

for)

a certain

play

between the looser and stricter enses of "ephebe" and

between

the

olderphratry clan) organization nd the

newerdeme-and-tribe rganization

of the

polis.

Even more

important

s an

ambiguity

nherent

n

the

institution f

the

ephebate

itself.

The two

years of ephebic training

re not

only

a

practical

induction ntothetechniques f nfantry ighting,

nwhichheavily rmedsoldiers

(hoplites) arranged

in

a phalanx march out to

meet

an opposing phalanx

on

the

field of

battle;

it is

also

a

passage betweentwo distinct ocial

identities.9

he

ephebate

therefore

ontains not

only training

n military isciplineand

in civic

responsibility ut

also ritesand fictions hatdramatize the difference

etween

what he

ephebes

were boys) nd what heywillbe (men). The myth f

Melanthos

told

at

the

Apatouria

expresses the character

nd status of the new soldiersas

in-betweeners,mixing he categories, pecifically

y an implied contrast

etween

that

disciplined and honorable phalanx fighting

n the plains thatwas the duty

of

every citizen-soldier,10

nd Melanthos' tricky, eceitful, olo fighting

n the

mountains.To appreciate how shocking was Melanthos' trick one mustread

The

Ephebes' ong

27


4/38

chapters7-9 of W

K. Pritchett's he Greek

tate t

War,

art 2

(Berkeley,

1974):

warfare

between

Greek

poleis was governed

by rules of honor

comparable

to

those for

dueling. Enemy armies

might amp quite

close to each other

without

fearof surprise ttack;battles ook place in responseto a formal hallenge,which

mightbe declined for

several

days in succession;ambuscades

and night

ttacks

are serious violations

n

honor,

t

least

between Greeks.

There is some

indication

that the exercisesof the

Athenianephebate

con-

tained a

literal actingout of

Melanthos'role, though

it may

have been more

symbolic

nd conventionalrather

than the literal program

describedby

Vidal-

Naquet. Like all

thingsmilitary nd

mostthings archaic,the

discipline

of the

young s

best attested

for Sparta,where

the sons of citizenswere

segregated n

"herds" (agelai)

according

to a carefully

regulated systemof

age classes. The

training f Spartan

youth sknown to have

includeddistinctly

onhoplitic

xer-

cises-unarmed forays n the hills, feedingoff the wild land instead of in a

company

mess, stealthy ight

fighting. uch

exercisesdo contain

a component

of thepractical,nsofar

s theypromote

ruggednessand self-reliance,

ut on

the

wholethey re quite

useless

forGreek ntercity ighting

incetheydo

not develop

that orporatediscipline

nd

well-drilled bedience

thatwasthe essence

of nfan-

try

maneuvers.'

The Attic

evidence

is much

sparser

but

contains

some

significant

arallels.

Specifically

he

ephebes

in

Aristotle's

ccount ofmilitaryrainingwere sundered

from ll citizenduties

or claimsat law and

were takenout of the

city o the

series

offorts n theperimeter fAttika.12t is not necessarily he case thatAthenian

ephebes

in

thisperiod were

much

exercised

in

mountain

foraging nd ambus-

cades, as Vidal-Naquet

concludes fromthe Spartan

parallel.

Insofar

as

thegoal

of the

ephebate

was

to

produce

hoplites

who

would not break

ranks,

one wolf

trainingmust

formonly

a

very

imited

and subordinate

part

of the

program;

the

point

that such training

erves

is more

symbolic

han

practical.

We should

rather ay

that

n

the

ephebes'

time

of

novitiate,when they

weresegregatedfrom

the

regular

community

nd

waiting

for

entry

nto the ranks

of full citizen-sol-

diers,

the Melanthos

tale becomes

theirsfor

ts border

setting,

ts

patriotism,

ts

unprovenhero,and above all because Melanthos s one whohas notyet earned

the

honorable

conventions

of

phalanx

battle.

Because the

ephebate

is both a

period

of

practical

militaryraining

nd

containsrituals f

passageby egregation

and

inversion,

tale of

a

fighting

rick

set

on the border

captures

the

very

character

of the

ephebic

ideal

(or

anti-ideal).

This

is

strikingly

onfirmedwhen

we

observe

that the

mysterious

pparition

is

both beardless

(the iconographic

sign

for

ephebes)

and

black-caped,

for Athenian

ephebes

wore a distinctive

black

cape.13

But,

granting

ll

that,

here remains

a

problem.

The

black-caped apparition

is

Dionysos,

explicitly

amed

in some versions

of the

story,

nd

well known

by

thattitle

Melanaigis)

elsewhere.

4

Dionysos,

s

far

as

we

know,

has no

particular

28

REPRESENTATIONS


5/38

connection

with

theApatouria;15

in

fact the association

s

distinctly

dd.16 The

place names Oinoe and Eleutherai fallwithinhis sphere

of

influence,

he former

suggesting

oinos or

wine,

the latter the title Eleuthereus under which he was

worshipped at the CityDionysia,

thefive-day

ramaticfestival ach

spring.

The

titleMelanaigis s explained in the Souda (a tenth-centuryreeklexicon) bythe

story

that the

daughters

of

Eleuther

(eponymous

hero of

Eleutherai)

saw

an

apparitionof Dionysos wearing

black

goatskin

nd because

they

mocked t

went

mad; to cure

their

nsanity

heir ather ollowed he advice

of an oracle to nstitute

the cult of

Dionysos Melanaigis.

The tale

type

s

fairly

ommon.

Its most

signif-

icant nstance forour investigation

s the foundation

myth

f the

CityDionysia:

a certain

Pegasos of

Eleutherai

rought

the statue of

Dionysos

to

Attika,

ut

the

Athenians did not

receive

it with honor. The

angry god

then

sent

an incurable

affliction n

the

genitals

of

the

men,

which could

only

be cured

(said

an

oracle)

by paying everyhonor to the god, whichthey proceeded to do by fashioning

phalloi for use

in his

worship

as a memorialof their

uffering.17

Mosttellingforpresent purposes

is the factthat the

entry

f

Dionysos

into

Athens was reenacted each year by

the

ephebes. They inaugurated

the festival

by bringing he

cult statue

n

procession

from he

Academy just

outside

the

city

boundaries on the

road to

Eleutherai)

back to its

temple

and theater

precinct

n

the southeast lope

of the

Akropolis.

This reenactment

f the

origin

of

Dionysos

Melanaigis by

the

ephebes

for the

city

eems

to mirror

with

he normal

cloud-

iness and

unevenness of

ancient metal mirrorsrather

than with the

sharpness

of

our silvered

glass ones)

those ceremonies of induction

and that

myth

of

apprenticeship

ocated at the

opposite

end of

theyear.

One

might, f course, tryeither

to

expunge Dionysos

from

the tale

of

the

warrior's rick r to

sever

the tale from he

Apatouria.

8

An

older style f analysis,

well

exemplifiedby

W

R.

Halliday,

xcelled

in

the use of text-editorial

methods

to detect inconsistencies

nd

to delete intrusive lements

in

the myth.19 ike

restorers f old paintings

uch

scholars

aimed to uncover the authentic riginal

fromcenturies

of

grime

and

inexpert

retouching.The currentunderstanding

of

such

myths, owever, ecognizes that

ogical gaps and overlay re sometimes

not the

unfortunate ccretions f time

but signsof a social process,of an ongoing

negotiationbetweenvarious groups or pointsof view.Our story eems caught n

some sort

of force

field

betweentheApatouria and the CityDionysia:

I

propose

that a

specific

featureof these two festivalsmade itseem to belong to both and

that

ephebes

are the

link.

There

are

in

fact

numerous ndications-all of them a matter f record but

not hitherto assembled

in

this way-that

the City Dionysia was a social event

focused

precisely

n the

ephebes.20By

"focused" mean that nthe complex and

ever-changing rganization

f the

CityDionysia the ephebes wereboth physically

and

analytically

t the center of

attention-often

as we will see) a still enter.A

carefulanalysisof thismaterialwill ead to the theory hat the earliest form of

The

Ephebes' ong

29


6/38

tragicperformance

was by,for, nd about them. So put, the claim

will undoubt-

edly seem hyperbolic, ut I believe there

s enough hard evidence to support it

as a literal nd

accurate (though not exhaustive) ccount of the origin

of Greek

tragedy.The evidence is found in all threecomponents of the festival xhibi-

tion-audience, scripts, nd performers.

he first wo the "for" nd

the "about"),

though they re

in no way ess essential

omponentsof the triangle, an be dealt

withrelatively riefly.t is the third lement,

he performers the "by"), n which

I

will have most

to say, eading up to a new etymology f tragoidoiY2

nd then

concluding

with a brief assessmentof remaining difficultiesnd

an encore on

satyrplays.

Audience

The opening eventof theCityDionysia was the ephebes'

reenactment

of

the advent

of

Dionysos,

which

ncluded

a

sacrifice t a hearth-altareschar&)

near the Academy, torchlight rocession

with

he cult statue, nd

(perhaps on

the

next

day,

s partof the generalbarbecue) their acrifice f a

bull on behalf

of the entire

city.22

he

daylightparade

was a

lavishspectacle-metics

in

red

robes, phallusesand other precious religious

objects carried by priests nd hon-

ored

citizens,

wenty ithyrambic

horuses

ten

of

fifty oys

each

and

ten of fifty

men

each)

in their laborate and expensive

costumes. n

the

center

of all this

he

ephebes

stood as

the

god's

immediate

colytes.23

They also had a special block of seats in the theater.Aristophanesrefers

explicitly

o

the

bouleutikon,

he sectionofthe

auditorium

where the membersof

theBoule

(Council)

sat-fifty

councillors

from ach of the

ten

tribes.

The scho-

liastthereon,seconded by

Pollux and Hesychios,

nforms

us

that

the

ephebes

too were so

honored.24

The

parallelism

between

the

dithyrambic

horuses

(ten

groups of fifty

n

competition)

nd

the

Boule

(fifty

ouncillors

from

ach

of

the

ten

tribes)

s not accidental.

The

City

Dionysia,

like the

Panathenaia,

was an

occasion for

marking

the structure

s well

as

the

magnificence

f

democratic

Athens,

hat

s,

thespecific

tructure

iven

to the

democracyby

the

constitutional

reforms fKleisthenes 509-508

B.C.E.).

The prominent lementsof that struc-

ture

were

carefullydisplayed-the

ten

tribes;

the

governingCouncil;

and the

newestgeneration

ofcitizens,

he

ephebes.

The

layout

f the auditorium

formed

(at

least

ideally)

a

kind

of

map

of the

civic

corporation

withall its tensions

and

balances.

The fundamental

ontrast

was that between the

internal

competition

of tribe

gainst

tribe

mirrored

on other evels

of Athenian

society

y

the

always

vigorous competition

of individuals

and

households)

and the

equally strong

determination

o honor and

obey egitimate

uthority,

o

that

he

polis

as a whole

would

display

united front

gainst

ts enemies.

These two vectors

f civic

man-

liness

cross at

a

balance

point

that

s

a locus

of no little

nxiety, articularly

ince

the

unit

of

intra-Athenian

ompetition,

he

tribe,

s also the

unit of

military

30

REPRESENTATIONS


7/38

organization. n describing

he concernsthatwere

writtenntothe

physical rga-

nization of the audience we

willat the same time

be

characterizing

he

expecta-

tionsof that udience, its

readiness to

perceive

certain

messages

eliciting

ts

sym-

pathy nd anxiety eleos

nd

phobos).

his

in

turn

will

xplain

why

he

city's phebes

were placed precisely t thecross hairs of thosepowerfulforces.

Consider

first he

seating

of the ten tribes.Three statue bases found at the

foot of the thirteen eatingsections kerkides,wedges")

correspond

to the tra-

ditional order of the ten tribes, ssuming

that the central

wedge

was

thatofthe

Boule

and ephebes and the two outermostwedges

were

assigned

to noncitizens.

The statues re Hadrianic,

but

much

earlier

evidence exists

n

the

formof lead

theater ickets,

whose

spelling

conventions nd letterforms

put

them at least

in

the earlypartof the fourth entury

.C.E.

if

not earlier.

These tickets re

marked

with

ribal

names.25

f

the

citizens re seated

(at

least

grossomodo) y

tribal ffil-

iation, these tentribalblockswillto some extenthave been in competitionwith

each

other

since the

dithyrambic

erformances unlikecomedy

and

tragedy)

re

organized by tribe;

on the

choregic

monuments

t

s

the tribe

that s announced

as the winner.

This

would be true even

though-as

it seems-the

dithyrambs

were

performed

n the

agora;

see note

79

below.)

The

panel

of ten

udges

for

all events was selected

one from

ach

tribe,

nd as a

matter f course

they

were

carefully worn

not to show

favoritism. he recorded

instancesof

bribery

nd

cheating how

that the oath

and other

safeguards

were

necessary.26

The lateral spread of the

auditorium thus formed an axis of competition

among theten citizengroups,with heBoule as theirrepresentativesnd media-

tors at

the

center.

The

vertical xes up and

down the blocks

displayed

relative

prestige.Prohedria, ront owseating,was one of the highest

honors that could

be paid to benefactorsnd specialfriends f the city, ttested

n

numerousdecrees

and

in

one

funny tory

bout Demosthenes.27 ince this festival ook

place just

when the winter storms

had ceased and travel became tolerable, ts splendor

attracted large audience

of

sightseers, uests,

nd

other noncitizens,

who are

generally hought

o have been seated

in

the twooutermost

wedges.Athens used

the

opportunity

o score

propaganda

points. Before

the musical events, cere-

monies were held

in

the orchestra: golden crowns were bestowed

on favored

friends f the city, he tribute

aid by the allies was carried n and displayed fifth

century),

nd

boys

whose fathershad died in war

and who had been supported

bythecity

ntil

hey eached

hebewere

paraded

in a

suitof hoplite

rmor supplied

to them

by

the

city,

ow that

hey

were

ready

to enterthe

ranks

of the ephebes.28

If

the tribute nd the

presence

of the city's riends epresenther active mil-

itary lliances,

he war

orphans

who

are

ready

to become soldiers n theirfathers'

places inevitably ring

to mind the city's attles,both past and future.29 his

description may

sound more like a West Point

graduation

ceremony, ut it is

importantto underscore

the fact that the

toto aelo difference

we experience

between the military ealm and the theatrical,between marchingto war and

The Ephebes' ong

31


8/38

going to a play,did not apply to the City Dionysia.

To cite a caricaturewhose

degree of truthwill ater become apparent,

AristophanespresentsAischylos

n

theFrogs efending

his tragedies s a form fmartial rt: his SevenAgainst

hebes

made every man in the audience lust for battle

1022).

On

the map

of the body politicformedbythe theater eating, he ateral

xis

of intracity ompetition

mong tribes s crossed in the center by a vertical

xis

containing heBoule

and ephebes. Like the

Boule

the ephebes are organizedby

tribe.That central

xis thus contains wo kindsof tribal epresentatives-citizen-

governors and citizens-in-training-whose ompetition

s muted by their

func-

tion as administratorsnd defenders of the

polis as a whole. Since the vertical

axes

in

all the wedges are used to symbolize

rank (prohedri&),he presence of

councillors nd

ephebes on the centralaxis highlights he relationshipbetween

those who rule and

those who are ruled. (Myconjecture that the ephebes

were

seated nthe centralwedge s not theonly onceivable rrangement, ut t ccords

best withthe social

map of the auditorium,making them separate, central,

nd

subordinate

to

the Boule.) In sum, then, the entire audience is organized

in a

way

that demonstrates ts corporate manliness

as a polis to be reckonedwith,

comprising ndividuals

who are both vigilant o assert excellence against

other

membersof thecity tribeversus tribe)

and ready to follow egitimate uthority

against

external threats

cadet

soldiers

and

Council).

The

plays they

watched spoke to thisorganization.

Script

The surviving cripts

or

tragicperformances

nd the

plot

summaries

of

lost

plays

are rich

in

ephebic

themes. There

already

exists some work

of

brilliant onception

and detailalong

these ines

by

Froma

I.

Zeitlin30

nd

Pierre

Vidal-Naquet,31

nd

much

more

remains to be done.

But for

present purposes

we can

be contentwith

brief ketch ince

the burden of

this

ssay

s not

iterary

criticism

ut a reconstruction f

performances

based on the hard

evidence

of

the sectionon

"Performance,"

elow.

Against

the festival

ackground

that have

described,

occasional

moments

of

tragedies

tandout

as direct mitations

f ceremonial vents.

The most

triking,

to

my mind,

is the

entry

of a chorus

of sons of

fallen soldiers at the

end

of

Euripides' Suppliant

Women.

hey

mourn for

their fathers

nd

look

forwardto

the

day

when

they

will

put

on armor

and take their

fathers'

places

in the

city's

defensive

ranks

1143ff.,

1150ff.).

ince

the audience has

recently

witnessed he

ceremonial rmoring

f

Athenian

boys

whose fathers

ad died

in

battle

nd who

are now

entering

the

ephebate,

this scene

must

have

had

an

unusually

strong

impact

on the

audience

as a sort of

premonition

x

post acto:

the

Argive

boys

look forward o

the moment

when

they

will do

what theirAthenian

equivalents

have indeed ust done.

32

REPRESENTATIONS


9/38

But the

boysare

Argive,

not Athenian,

sons

of the

soldiers

ed by

the

mag-

nificent

even

who

attacked

Thebes

in

the myth-historical

ast. Balancing

the

visible

mmediacy

withwhich

hat

ragic cene represents

he

parade

of

Athenian

orphan-ephebes

s

the removal

of the signifier

rom

he

present

ocation

Athens)

and thepresent ime c.425 -415

B.C.E.).

It isgenerically haracteristicftragedy

(as

opposed

to

comedy)

to be

removed

in

space

and

time from

the

Athenian

here-and-now.

he

ephebic

realities

projected

ntothe

dramatic cript

herefore

are

as a rule

considerably

more remote

and less recognizably

xact

than

the

orphan

scene

of

the Suppliant

Women.

or instance,

the presumed

subject

of

Sophokles'

Sk9rioi

as the

summoning

f

Neoptolemos

from he

sland

ofSkyros,

where

his

father

Achilles

had been hidden

in

maiden's

clothes,

o

takehis

dead

father's

place

in

the

Greek

forcesat Troy.32

his is

more

typically

he

level

of

relevance

and

remoteness

at

which

tragedy

operates,

the distance

in

fictional

space and timefromwhich tcharacteristicallypeaks to the audience and (as I

argue)

to the

city's

entral

concern

for

ephebes.

I

offer

tentative ypology

f

these

ephebic

concerns

under

three

headings.

1)

A son,

now grown

o

manhood,

omes

home o claim

his patrimony

nd

to

be

recognized

s the

egitimate

uccessor

f

his ather

he

paradigm

sOrestes,

nd a

key

issue

in his

restoration

s the guileful

thatis,

prima

acie

unmanly)

means

by

which

he confronts

his enemies

and

gains

control

of his

paternal

territory:

A(ischylos)

Choiphoroi,

(ophokles)

Elektra,

(uripides)

Elektra.

ome protago-

nists,

ike Orestes,

face a usurper

n oco atrisJason,33

Kresphontes34)

who

must

be overcomebyguilefulviolence;othersfindthemselves he unexpectedvictim

of

violence

from

a

stepmother

Theseus

almost

poisoned

by

Medeia,

E. Aigeus)

or

a mother/father

ho

doesn't

recognize

her/his

on

(E. Ion,

in which

Ion

is

almost

poisoned

by

Kreousa;

E. Alexandros,

n which

Alexandros

is set

upon by

his brothers

at Hekuba's

instigation;35

. Kresphontes,

n

which Kresphontes

s

saved

at the

last

minute

from his axe-wielding

mother

Merope;

S. Euryalos,

n

which

Euryalos

is killed

by

Odysseus

at Penelope's

instigation;

. Odysseus

kan-

thoplex,

n which

Telegonos

is

attacked

by

his father

Odysseus

and slays

him).

It

is possible

to

read

the violence of

these plots

in terms

of generic

intrafamilial

anxiety,

ut

insofar

s the

principal

ctor s an

ephebe

in search

of

hisadult

role

and identity,hoseanxieties can be givena more specific ocation n social psy-

chology

than has usually

been

done.36

Often

the

ephebe

sets out to

assume

his adult

identity

ot ust

by finding

r

avenging

his unknown

father

utbyperforming

bold and

heroic

deed that

will

establish

his

manhood

for all to see:

Theseus' journey

to

Athens,37

haethon's

ride

n

the

chariot f

histrue

father

Helios,38

Bellerophon's

capturing

nd

riding

of

Pegasos

(S.

Iobates

?],

E.

Stheneboia),

ason's

quest

forthe

fleece

S.

Kolchides),

Pelops'

chariotrace

(S. Oinomaos,

.

Oinomaos),

idipous'

outwitting

f theSphinx

(E.

Oidipous),

Meleagros'

huntingofthe

boar,39

Telephos'

prowess

n an athletic

contest nd in battle S. Mysoi),40 erseus' exploitwiththeGorgon and the sea

The

Ephebes'

ong

33


10/38

FIGURE

1

(above nd opposite). etail from

the Pronomos vase, late

fifthentury

B.C.E.

From MargaretBieber, TheHistory f

Greek

nd RomanTheatre, nd. ed., by permission

of

Princeton

University ress.

monster E. Andromeda).

he

young

man's demonstration

f manhood

by

a bold

deed sometimes

wins

him

a

royal

bride:

Jason

and

Medeia,

Pelops

and

Hippo-

dameia, Perseus

and

Andromeda,

Theseus

and Ariadne

(E.

Kretes), ellerophon

and

princess

S. Iobatks), elephos

and Teuthras'

adopted daughter,

who turns

out

to

be

Auge, Telephos'

own mother

S. M~soi);

Phaethon's

marriage,probably

to a

daughter

of

Helios,

has

just

been

arranged

when he sets out

to find

his

father.4'

But neither

he

winning

of

a

bride nor the successful

performance

of

a heroic deed

guarantees

the

ephebe's

smooth

ntry

nto

his

rightful

lace.

Often

enough

he

too,

ike

those cited

above,

meets

resistance nd becomes involved

n

an

act

of

righteous

or

unrighteous

violence

against

members of his

clan:

Jason

killshisuncle

Pelias

(E.

Peliades),Meleagros

and

Telephos

each

killshis mother's

brothers E. Meleagros,

.

Aleadai),

Perseus

is

reconciled with his wicked

grand-

father

Akrisios

but

accidentally

kills

him

with discus

(S. Larisaioi).

Shelving

the

deeper questions

of

interpretation

e can at the

very

east

sug-

gestthat an audience arranged in competitivemale groupsand centered on its

34

REPRESENTATIONS


11/38

current commanders and newestinitiatesmightwell be fascinatedand pro-

foundlymoved by such

tales

of manhood's first ssertion,

he

necessity

f

proper

violence against

other

men and

the

sometime

demonic

ease

with

which

that

violence may

be

misdirected.Both

the structure

f the

family

nd

that of the

democratic polis

in

their

differentways

demand

that individual

men be both

allies and enemies,

both

cooperators

and

competitors,

nd that these

polarized

and shifting oles

be

maintainedwith

passion.

The tensionbetweencasual

acci-

dent

and

late-discoveredephebic

design

is at its

most extreme

in

Sophokles'

Oidipous

Tyrannos

here

the

ephebe

sets

out to find his true father

and,

in a

confrontation

hat s

much

closer

to the

reality

f

daily

ife on

the

Greek roads

than the meetingwith monsters nd warriorsof other plays,once and for all

proves

himself

man

in

combat.42

In

addition to

looking

for

his

father,

he

young

man

sometimes

earches for

his sister

Orestes-lphigeneia

n

S.

Chryses

nd E.

Iphigeneia

Among

he

Taurians)

or

his mother Telephos-Auge

n S. Mysoi),thus displaying

his role

as family ro-

tector.

everal

plays

feature

a

beleaguered mother

who

is rescued by

her now-

grown ons S. Tyro,

.

HypsipylM,43

. Melanippe inBondage,

. Antiop) The return

to defend the mother

is the polar opposite

of the

return to kill the mother

(Orestes,

Alkmeon),

which

Zeitlinreads as

ritual ymbol

for

expelling

all that s

feminine rom heboy norder tomakehimdecisivelynd unmistakablyman.44

The Ephebes' ong

35


12/38

The

paradigm

of theboy

whodivests

himself

f thefeminine

world nwhich

he

has until

now been

engulfed

is

Achilles

dressed

in girl's

clothing

but

showing

himselfnstinctively

man when

it is time

for

himto

oin the ranksof

warriors

(E.

Skyrioi).

The extirpation f the feminine nd therescue of themothermay

be

reconciled

by

noting

hat n all the examples

mentioned

he ephebes

save

their

oppressed

mother

rom

wicked,

omineering

woman,

who s either

killed

Antiope,

Melanippe

n

Bondage,

Tyr6) r

simply

dissuaded

(HypsipylM).45

his

gives equal

expression

to the

ephebicpropositions

hatwomen

who

have

and exercise

power

are dangerous

and thatgood

women

are

vulnerable,

helpless,

oppressed

bycir-

cumstance,

nd

in need of a

man'sprotection.

2)

A ruler

whohas

ust

entered

ffice

hows

imself

nwise.

f the

plots

ofthe

first

group

are

symbolic

nactments

fwhat

a grown

boy

mustdo

and may

have to

suffer

o be acknowledged

as

a man, those

in the second

group

are

cautionary

talesof a moreliteralkind."This ishow, s a youngman newlyundertaking he

responsibilities

f controlling

household,

youare

not

o behave'"

Aischylos

ives

us

the best

examples.

The siege

of Thebes provided

one of the

most mportant

tragic

tories,

ssentially

hat

of two

brothers

who

begin their

dult

rulewith

n

agreement

to share

it by

turns,

but

Eteokles

after

his

first ear

refuses

to yield

his authority

o

his brother.

The

mostlikely

reconstruction

f the Aischylean

Prometheus

triology

s that

Zeus is to

be conceived

as

a newruler

who is overly

harsh

buteventually

earns the

wisdom

fcompromise.

he Persai

presents

Xerxes

as

a headstrongyoung

man,

a new

king

who

overextends

himself

nd brings

down a greatempirethroughhis youthful olly. llofthese tories oncernrulers

at

the

inaugural

or

early

moments

of their dult career

who are implicated

n

a

catastrophe

hat,

f character

were

not

destiny,

might

have

been avoided.

The pattern

recurs

n the

Bakkhai:

Pentheus

s a

new

ruler,

xcessively trict,

warned by

his

elders

Teiresias

and

Kadmos

thathe must

come

to terms

with

powers

he finds candalous

but

who

remainsdetermined

against

their

counsel

to

dominate

entirely.

he

energy

of the

conflict,

s

the audience

would

have

perceived

it,

lies

in the contradictorynjunctions

aid

upon

all male

citizens,

whether

cting

as soldiers

or as householders,

o maximize

their

dominance

and

yetto accept the inevitabilityf some cooperation. Because the discriminations

that

determine

which

behavior

s

appropriate

are

finely

uned, elusive

to

rules,

and

only

earned by ong

experience,

young

malesare the ones

most ikely o get

it

wrong.

It

is

not that

Pentheus

s

overly

harsh

but that

he

displays

admirable

strictness

t the

wrong

time

and over

the

wrong

persons.

I

would

also

suggest

that

the

protagonist

need

not be

literally

young

man to make

this

young

man's

mistakes.

Kreon

in

Sophokles'

Antigone

as

ust

assumed

control

of the

city

nd

displays

n

his

first

xercise

of

authority

xactly

the same misdirected,

ncom-

promising

ternness

s does

Pentheus.

Unlike

the first

roup,

where

tyche

nd

hamartia

onspire

to

produce

a

pattern

of

events that

elicits

ur

worst

fears and

deepest sympathies

orthe ephebe-in-

36

REPRESENTATIONS


13/38

passage, this

second group

is more directly

hortatory or

better,

autionary),

showingthe

consequences

of an ephebe's

ill-advised

behavior.

3) In a grab-bag

of

army tales

I

class

all thoseplays

that how

the

problems

of

military

uthority,

eroism

in

battle,

and the misfortunes f

war.

Though

ephebes are often nough thesubjectofthese plots, hepointofgathering hem

here

is more precisely

hat such lessons

are inevitably

irected at those

in the

audience who

may

be presumed

not

to know them

ratherto thosemore expe-

riencedmembers

who

are presumedalready

to understand

them.

The death of a young

man on

his first ntry

nto

fighting

was

a

peculiarly

poignantsubject-the

death of Protesilaos,first

Greek to leap offthe ships

at

Troy

and just married

to boot,

was portrayed

n Sophokles'Poimenes.

is Tr6ilos

told of theTrojan prince

of

whom

t was prophesied

that

f

he livedbeyond

the

age of twenty

roywould

not fall.46

he

same

motif nforms

he

Rhesos:

n

the

verynight heThracian king rrives ohelptheTrojans,Athena warnsOdysseus

(600-605)

that f Rhesos lives through

the

night

no Greek

will be able to

stop

him,so he must

be killedat once

in

a night ally.

Greek tragediesfrequently

xamine moral issues that become acute

under

the pressure

ofwarfare.

Neoptolemos

must earn

to

define he imits

f

deception

and personal ntegrity

n

Sophokles'

PhiloktMs.

he

ways

of

conquerors

with

he

defeated

are examined

withprofound

rony

n

Euripides'

Trojan

plays.Sopho-

kles

twice presents

the

issues

that arise

around a

soldier

who

runs

amuck

and

becomes

an enemy

to his own side-in

the

Aias

and

theAiasLokros.

n a

simpler

leveltragedy lso showedsoldierswhowere over-eageror under-eagertofight:

Achilles,

n a fragment

f Euripides'

TMephos,s impatient

of

restraint,47

nd

Odysseus

in

Sophokles'Odysseus

ainomenos akes

madness

when

the recruiters

visit

thaka.

A

lengthy

hesis

from

Euripides'

Erechtheus

uts

one of

his

favorite hemes,

the heroismofyoung

maidenswho sacrifice

hemselves

or theirpolis,

nto per-

spective

as

an

equivalent

to what is demanded

of

young

men.

An oracle has

announced

thatAthenswillfall

unlessthe king's aughter

s sacrificed.

he

queen

says,

If I

had a

son at

home insteadof daughters

nd

enemyfires

were mastering

my

city,would

I not be sending

himforth o battle

withhis spear,

howevermuch

I feared his death? ... When crowdsof men die in battlethey hare a common

tomb

and

a singlefame,

but mydaughter's

rownof glory

will be for

her alone,

awarded

to

her

when she dies

for

this

ity."48

n

a

startling

ombination uripides

presents

n

the HMrakleidai

oth a heroic

young womanwho

givesher life to

save

a

polis under

siege and a doddering

old man who dons

armor and enters

the

fight: s

he charges towardthe

enemyhe praysto

Hebe and

Zeus and is

mirac-

ulouslytransformed

nto an

ephebe

(hebe~tn)

ithbulging

muscles 843-58)

The

texts

f

tragedy,

ot

only because

theyremain

available

to us

when

the

music

and movementand audience

have long ago

been forgotten

ut because

they re words, nvite n endless responseof otherwords.But in the structure

The

Ephebes' ong

37


14/38

FIGURE

2. Polychrome

fragment,etail,

early ourthentury ;

)

B.C.E. Martin on

Wagner-Museum

der UniversitAt

Wurzber.

Photo:

museum.

of

my rgument,his

s

a

temptation

o

be resisted.

aving ketchedhe haracter

of

the audience

nd established hat he narratives f

tragedy ften poke to

ephebic ssues,

want

o

draw

no immediate onclusions ut

simply

o

regard

this

s a nihil bstat

orthe

following

xploration f tragic erformance.

n the

order f discovery

ather han xposition heevidence

ited n thenext ection

is

in fact hefirm tarting oint

hat

onverts

he nformationn thepreceding

sections romnterestingosignificant.

Performance

The

habits f modern

lay eading

nd

play

oing

make t ll too

easy

for

us

to scant he horuswhen eadingGreek ragedy.

s a conventiont s not

only

foreign

o our dramatic

ense,

but there s even evidence

hat n the fifth

century

t

was already oming

o seem

n archaic

nstitution.49

henwe do try

to

give

full

weight

o theroleof the horus

ur

attentions usually

rawn o the

beauty nd power f some of the choral des. But fewwilldeclare hemselves

partisans

f

the chorus's actually

he chorus eader's) tandard rimeter

om-

ments

f praise nd warning.My ccount,

owever,mphasizes hat he

events

and

characters

ortrayed

n

tragedy

re

meant

o

be contemplateds lessons y

young

itizensor rather y he ntire

olisfrom hevantage oint f the

young

citizen),

nd

therefore

makes he watchful

crutiny

f

the chorus tructurally

important

s a still enterfromwhich

he tragic urbulence

s surveyednd

evaluated.

38

REPRESENTATIONS


15/38

Considernow the relation

of role to

performer,

irst or actors and then for

chorus members.While

the actorsportrayyoung

men and

maidens,

older men

and women,

who

carry

or

support

the

responsibility

f correct ocial

action,

the

chorus usually performs

n the

guise

of

persons

who do

not

bear

such

respon-

sibility-slave women, prisonersof war,old men-who willcertainly e impli-

cated in the effects f unwise,

headstrong,

r

ignorant

ction on the

part

of their

principals. On the level of roles, then,

there is a vector

of

attention

from

the

watchful

though

not

personally

responsible)

chorus to the actors.

This seems to

be balanced by an inversion

on the level

of

performers,

for

several

kinds of

evidence

conspire

to

suggest

thatthe

three actors for each

tragedy

were menbut

the twelve or, afterSophokles,fifteen)50

horus memberswereephebes.

There are manyvase paintings

based

on

tragic plays

from which we can

cautiouslydeduce

information bout plots, cenery,

nd

costumes,51

ut there

s

only one unbroken representation f thecompletecastfor a tragic ompetition.

It is a late fifth- r earlyfourth-century tticvolute krater

now

in

the Naples

Museum (fig. 1)

whose obverse

depicts

the three

actors,

ach dressed

for one

of

the

parts

of a

play Herakles,

Pappasilenos,

and

probably aomedon)

and

holding

the mask

of that

role;

eleven chorus members

n costume nd

holding

theirmasks

(one

has donned

his mask and

is

practicing

kick

tep);

the

poet-trainer

eme-

trios

watching

hat

horus member

get

his

pose right;

he aulos

player

Pronomos

(from whose prominence

n the

composition

the krater

s nicknamed the

Pro-

nomos vase)

in

full

ostume nd playinghis double aulos;

an

auxiliary yreplayer;

thegod Dionysosand hisconsort probablyAriadne); and anotherfigure eated

on

the divine ouch whose

sex, dentity,

nd function

n

this ontext re debated.52

It appears to be the victory

edication of a successful nsemble,who have chosen

to

be portrayed

n the

equipment

of their final and more hilarious satyrplay

rather than in thatof one of their three tragedies. The

personnel is of course

identicalfor all four plays.)

I

take t to be significant

hat the three actors are represented s full-grown

men

with

beards

whilethe chorus membershave full-grownodies but are beard-

less, .e., they re, iconographicallypeaking, phebes. (Whether

hey re ephebes

in

the loose

or

the

strict ense remains to be seen.) The number of persons

involved s obviously oo large for the distinction o be due to coincidence, and

if

t is not coincidence it must represent ome sort of rule

or principle, t least

for

this

group

of

actors and tragbidoi. ow

if

t s a rule for thisparticulargroup

of

competitiveperformers,

t

is virtually ertain that it was a rule for other

performinggroups

in

the same competition.We cannot

with quite the same

confidence assert that the rule (howeverwe may formulate t) must have been

operative

for

tragiccompetitions

n

some or all years previous

to this one; but,

since

nnovations

n

festival rocedureswerewelldeliberated nd farfrom asual,

there would seem

to

be every ikelihoodthat such was thecase. Thus, although

sufficientngenuity ould ofcourse devise other explanationsof thisvisiblerule

The

Ephebes' ong

39


16/38

distinguishingctorsfrom horus members n the Pronomos

vase, the

primafacie

interpretations that n the late fifth entury nd for

some previous time Attic

tragedywas performedby choruses of young men.

Though the chorus'scontribution o the whole performance

was probably

being more and more

overshadowed n the course of the

fifth entury y thatof

the actors, the Pronomos vase is witnessboth to the

continued importance of

chorus membership nd

to the segregation f actors from

horus. Note thatthe

honor of the upper register s given to the divine figures

nd the heroic roles,

but t s the musical nd dancing performerswho are dignified

with heirpersonal

names: the two musicians, he poet-trainer,nd nine members

f the chorus have

their

names inscribed;

he actorsdo not though the role

playedby one is labeled

Herakles).53 everaldetailson thisvase are of uncertain

nterpretation,54ut the

matters f controversy

o not touch on the distinction f the performers nto

twogroups-fully mature,bearded men (actors) and young men who have yet

to

grow a beard (chorus

members).55

The othermonuments nown

o

me are consistent ith

hisdistinction. mong

them

I

would single

out

the lovely polychromefragment

n Wurzburg (fig. 2)

showing an actorwith a commoner's face holding the

maskof a noble-visaged

king; the man has salt-and-pepper

hair,which s thinning nd receding, and a

three-days' rowth

of stubble

on

his cheeks and

chin.56

everal vases show

two

or

three chorus

membersin different tages

of

dress: a

"maenad"

holds

the

costumefor

young

man

who

is

hurriedly ulling

n his

kothurnoi;57

"maenad'

whose face is clearly mask,does a dance stepwhilea beardlessyouthwearing

the same loose-sleeved

dress

and

holding

a woman's

(?)

mask

looks

on;58

two

ephebes

in

furry

drawers

hold

satyr

masks while

a

third

has donned his

mask

and is

practicing hip

thrust

fig.3).59

There

are

some other

fragments

f vases

that

might,

f

they

had remained

whole,

have

been

informative

n this

ubject.60

The

Pronomos vase

is

the principalpositive

vidence for the

hypothesis

hat

tragic-satyrichoruses

were

composed

of

young

men who were

reaching

their

Ube. Other evidence

is consistent

with

that

hypothesis,

nd one item will

ustify

our

calling

these

young

men

ephebes

in

the strict

ense. Direct

testimony

bout

the constitution

f choruses

s

extremelymeager.

Aristotle

Politics

.3.1

276b4

-6)

remarks that

the same persons (anthr6poi,

ot

andres)may perform

n

a

comic

and in

a

tragic

chorus.61 A scholiast

on

Aristophanes Ploutos953) says

that

noncitizens ould

not

perform

n

the choruses

of

the

CityDionysia though they

could perform and

metics could

produce)

at

the

Lenaia,

a

Dionysian

festival

held two months

beforethe

CityDionysia.62

One

occasionally

ncounters state-

ment

n

modern

writers

o

the

effect hat

chorus membershad

a

special exemp-

tion from

military

ervice,

which

would

imply

that

they

were men rather

than

ephebes,

but this

half-truth

merely

erves to reveal

our own collective

I

do

not

exempt myself)

nsensitivity

o

age

classes and

festivals.

There was a

military

exemption during theiryear of officefor members of the Boule (Lykourgos

40

REPRESENTATIONS


17/38

LeoArates

7) and for

ustoms

fficers[Demosthenes]

59.27).

Twice

Demosthenes

mentions

such

an exemption

for choral

performers,

but

we must

then ask

in

what

kind of

chorus-comedy,

tragedy,

men's

dithyramb

boys' dithyramb

s

obviously

utof the

question)-and

at

whatfestival?

ne

of them ertainly

efers

to a men's

dithyrambichorusatthe CityDionysia 21.15 and scholion), heother

is apparently

lso at the

CityDionysia

but

whatchorus

is not

clear

(39.16).63

On the

surface

this

meager

evidence

about militaryxemption

does

not

tell

against

the ephebic-choral

hypothesis;

on a deeper

level

it

speaks

for it.

The

question

to ask

is

why

hould

there

have been

an

exemption

from

marching

nd

fighting

or

the

fivehundred

men each

yearwho

danced

the

dithyramb

n

honor

of

Dionysos?

Part

of the answer

may

be sheerlypractical-a

feeling

that

n

the

winter nd

early

pring

busy

citizen

ould

be

expected

to

spend

about

the

same

amount

of time

either practicing

drill

with

his

(tribal)

company

and getting

n

shape for thecomingsummer'sbattlesor rehearsingthe (tribal)dance, but not

both.Was

there

n

addition

any

deeper,

symbolic

quivalence

between

these

two

civicdutiesthat

made

sense

of the exemption?

n what framework oes

a

dance

for Dionysos

equal

a season

of

campaigning?64

he

relation

s one

of

contrast

and

of

similarity.

ristophanes,

or

nstance,

hows

us the

opposition

n a

diptych

contrasting

hegeneral

Lamachos

called up

to

serviceagainst

midwinter

andits

in Boiotia

while

Dikaiopolis,

the

man

who refuses

ofight,

elebrates

he

Anthes-

teria

with the

priest

of

Dionysos

(Acharnians

071-end).

The similarity,

n

the

other

hand,

can

be seen

in the military

one

of some dithyrambs,

nd

in the

fact

thattheywereperformed ntheregionoftheagora,whichwas also the ocation

of warmonuments.65

ut such

mimetomilitarism

s actually

bestseen

not

in the

dithyrambs

ut

in

the

oldest component

of the

CityDionysia,

the

dances

of the

tragoidoi.

t is

thiscomponent

of the

performance

hat

will ustify

my

reading

of

the young

men

on the

Pronomos vase

as ephebes

in the stricter

ense

of the

word-eighteen-

to twenty-year-old

adets

in training.

One must

recall

that the history

of

performances

at the City

Dionysia

is

marked

bythree

stages:

tragoidoi

irst erform

under the

direction

fThespis

in

534

B.C.E.

during

the

ong tyranny

f Peisistratos;

rizesfor

men's nd boys'

dithy-

rambs are

added

at the time

of the

constitutional

eforms

of

Kleisthenes,

508

B.C.E.

;66

komoidoi

re

introduced s a prizecategory n486

B.C.E.

(Ofcoursedithy-

rambic nd

comic

chorusesare

much

olderthan

these

particular

estival

rrange-

ments,which

simply

give

a newfinancial

nd

competitive

tructure

oold

tradi-

tions.)

There are

two

contrasts

n the structure

f

this

set of performances

hat

are

"ephebically"

ignificant.

he

first s that

the

dithyrambs

re designated

as

belonging

to

two

age

classes,

men and

boys.

"Men's

chorus"

and "boys'

chorus"

are

the

terms,

both official nd popular,

for these dances

at all times

for

which

we

have

records.

This is at

least consistent

with the

hypothesis

that

tragoidoi

specifically

esignated

ephebes.

When

the dithyrambs

fficially

ecame

a com-

petitive ventin theCityDionysia,theywerecomprisedof and named forthe

The Ephebes'

Song

41


18/38

age groups

above and below

ephebes-men and boys. (Paralleling

the series

"boys,ephebes, men" in

the Dionysia, the age classes at the

Panathenaia and

several other panhellenic

games were boys,

ageneioi, nd men. Ageneioi, esig-

nating

ephebes, literallymeans "beardless ones.")

The

second contrast s thatmen'sand boys'

dithyrambic ances

were circular

dances, while tragoidoimoved

in a rectangularformation.Reasonably

detailed

information

urvives boutthis square"-dancing.67

he chorusmembers rocessed

in

three

files nd four or fiveranks depending

on whether herewere twelve r

fifteen ersons marching).

Since they entered

the orchestrathreeabreast and

the left-hand ilewas nearest

the spectators, he best performers

were stationed

in

the eft-most

ile.When thatfile ontained

fivemembers hekoryphaios ccu-

pied thecentralposition.

The orchestra f coursewas a circular

pace, but there

is no evidence

that tragicchoruses ever took

up a circular formation;68 n the

contrary, he name kyklioshoros, hich s used as a general termfor all dithy-

rambs,seems to guarantee

that

tragoidoi

haracteristically erformed

in rank

and

file.69

We often nd

quite

casually

use theterm

marching"

f the chorus's ntrance

without

really thinking bout

its

mplications.

Rectangularformation bove all

requiresthatthe

dancers move

with

precision, ince they re

ordered along two

sight

ines.

Circulardancing, by comparison,

especially

n

masses

of

fifty,

an be

impressivewhile admitting

certain

degree of,

not

sloppiness,

but

looseness.

The usual

reconstruction

f

tragic

choral movement

magines

that the

dancers

sometimes ccupied thecenterofthe orchestra, ometimes plit ntotwogroups,

at

times

facing

the actors and at other timesthe audience.

The

performance

of

such maneuverswould

haveexercised

the same

precision

kills hatwere

required

for

hoplitemarching,70

nd

though

do not

magine

that he

koryphaios ctually

barked sotto oce "Right

face"'

"Company

halt,"

nd so forth

o

his

squadron

of

ephebes,

such commands

were

mplicit

n

their

well-regulated

motion.71

Not

only

our

phrase

"rank

and file" ut a numberof traditionalGreek choral

terms

point

to a

homology

betweenthe movementof

tragoidoi

nd of

hoplites:

parastates

nd other

compounds

of

-states, sileis

unprotected)

of the

persons

with n exposed side in theformation, egemon

f

the

chorus

leader. Sometimes

the

comparison

s

explicit,

s

in this

very ignificant

ragment

f Chamaileon:

[The

olderdances

were

ignified

nd

manly;]

herefore

ristophanes

r

Plato

n

his

Gear,

as

Chamaileon

writes,poke

s follows: So

thatwhen

nyone

ancedwell

t was a real

spectacle,

utnow

hey

o

nothing; heyust

stand n one

place

s if

paralyzed

y

stroke

and

they

owl." or the

form f

dancing

n choruses hen

was well rdered

euschemon]

and

mpressive

nd

as itwere mitative

fmovements

n

full rmor

kineseis

n

ois

oplois];

whence

okrates

ays

n

his

poems

hat he

finest

horal

ancers re

best

n

war; quote,

"Those who mostbeautifully

onor

the

gods

n

choruses

re best

n

war."

or

choral

dancing

was

practically

ike

troop

eview

or

maneuver

n

arms,

xhoplisia]

nd

a

display

not

only

of

precisionmarchingeutaxia]

n

general

but more

particularly

f

physical

preparedness.72

42

REPRESENTATIONS


19/38

FIGURE 3.

Apulian bell-krater

by

theTarporley

Painter, 00-380

B.C.E.

The Nicholson

Museum,

University _

of

Sydney.Photo:

museum.

So too

a scholiast

n

Aristeides:

The best

n

the chorus are

stationed

on

the

eft

...

since

in

choruses the left side

is

more

honorable,

in

battles the

right."73

Teachers

of

each

discipline

re even

found

giving

he same

advice to

put

the best

soldiers

or

dancers

n

the front nd

rear

ranks,

he ess

good

ones

in

the middle.74

The

homology

extends to the

accompanying

music

Dorian

in

large part)

and

the instrument

aulos).75

We

may

have a

depiction

of

such

precision

dancing by

a semichorus

of

six on a

red-figure

olumn-krater

n

the

Mannerist

tyle,

.

480

B.C.E.

(fig.

).76

In presenting he Pronomos vase I left topen whether tschorus

membersare to

be thought

of

as ephebes

in

the loose sense

of

young men

who

have ust

reached their physical

prime or in the stricter ense of

eighteen- to

twenty-year-olditizens n

military raining.The

evidence

of

choral dancing in

tragedy

seems to me an irresistible

rgument

for

the relevance

of

the stricter

sense.

The suggestion

that the tragicchorus's

formation and movements were

homologous to (or

aesthetic

refinements f) hoplite drill becomes

all the more

The

Ephebes' ong

43


20/38

plausible

when

we considerhow

widespread

were

the practices

f military anc-

ing.

Bywayof a

very ummary

ccount,we

can say

thatdancing

with rmor

and

weapons

was a regular

part of

everyGreek

man's ocal culture

though

presum-

ablynoteveryonewas equallygood at it). Stylesweretraditional nd differed y

region and polis.

Xenophon describes

a

banquet where

his foreign

guestswere

amazed at

the Greek

soldiers'

dancing skills:

each local

contingent

had its ownform

of dancing

featuring

eaps or somersaults

r

mock battles-all

in

armor

and all

strictlyn time

to an aulos

(Anabasis .1).

At

Athensour infor-

mation converges

from

two

directions nd

just misses

meetingat a description

of ephebic military

ancing

in the theater

of Dionysos.

On the

one hand,

we

know

of dancingcalled

gymnopaidike,77

hich

mitateswrestling

nd pankration,

and the

pyrrhikO,

fast,warlike

ance performed

yenhoploi

aides, oys

n armor.78

Aristoxenos onnects

hese

as phases

of a regular

sequence: "In

olden

times hey

first racticedgymnopaidike,hen progressedtopyrrhikeeforethey ntered nto

the theater." rom

thiswe know

thatDionysos'

theater s in some

sense the final

stagewhere boys

well trained

n military ancing

wouldperform.

To what

might

this refer?

One obvious

candidate,

the boys'

dithyramb,

an probably

be ruled

out on the

grounds

that dithyrambs

t the

City

Dionysia

seem

to have been

performed

n theagora,

not

in

the

theater.79 propose

thatthe

athletic-cultural

cursus described

by

Aristoxenos

culminates

"in

the theater"

with the ephebes'

tragicmarching,

small

corps display

of

virtuoso

dancing that

was,

in

coordi-

nation nd

in refinement,

ne grade

higher

hanthe vigorous,

paramilitary

anc-

ing of boysoloists.

From the

other ide

we have

one secure

witness

o

ephebes

actuallyperform-

ing

in

a

body

in the

presence

of

Dionysos

and the

people,

though

what

they

perform

s a regular

drillof the

whole class

rather

han a

virtuoso

displayby

the

top fifteen:

In their

econdyear,

efore

an assembly

onvened

in the

heater,

the

ephebes]

made

a

display

to

the

populace

of all

that

pertained

to

taxeis

orderly

formations]."80

he

early

fifth-century

ase

showing

ix

young

men

doing

a

pre-

cision dance

in three

pairs

fits

eatly

here as an

image

of that owardwhichboth

wings

of

our evidence converge.8'

Altogether,

he

evidence is

richly

uggestive

of the culturalframeworkwithinwhichmy hypothesis perates,though tfalls

shortof

converting

hat

hypothesis

nto an

iron-clad urety.

In

sum, then,

our evidence

about

tragic

performance

contains

reasonably

strong

ndications

that

the chorus

members

were

ephebes.

If

true,

this

would

allow

us to sense a

complex

and

finely

ontrolled

ensionbetween role

and

role

player,

or the

ephebes

are cast

in

the

most

"disciplined"

part

of the

tragedy-

disciplined

n the

exacting

demands

of unison

movement,

ubordinated

to

the

more

prominent

ctors,

nd

characterized

s social

dependents

(women,

slaves,

old

men)-while

the

actors,

who are

no

longer ephebes,

perform

tale

showing

the

risks,

hemisfortunes,

nd

sometimes

he

glory

f

ephebic

experience.

What

most makesthe tensioncome alive is thescrutiny f thewatchful udience, the

44

REPRESENTATIONS


21/38

body politic f

Athens

rranged

n

a

seating

hat onfirms

heir

ompetitive

pirit

and

their

precarious,

hard-won

ivic

unity.

hese

social tensions n

the

audience

are

focused on

the crucial and

centraltransition

igures

f

the

ephebes,

who

are

(as it

were) the

growth

point,

the bud

and flower f

the

city.

ragedy

s

the

city's

nurturanceof thatpreciousyouthbya publicritualofdiscipline, nactingtales

(moreoften

than

not)

of

its

blight.

Let

me

conclude

this

section

with two

points

that

are

conjectural

but

very

important-the

political

rationale

behind

the

institutionf

tragedyunder

Pei-

sistratos

nd the

meaning

of

the

word.

The

conventional

account

conjectures that

Peisistratos

nvented or

elabo-

rated

the City

Dionysia to

please the

common

people-a

policy

of wine

and

circuses.

But

as

Dionysos

comes

to

be

better

understood,

this

ncreasingly

eems

to

be too

simple an

explanation.82

he

institutional

eature

hatwe

ought

to

ook

at carefullys thecontrast etweenthedithyrambicompetition s tribalnd the

tragic

ompetiton s nontribal.

fter

he

revolution

hat

verthrew

he

Peisistratid

tyranny,

leisthenes

reorganized the civic

structures f

Attika,

nventing

new

corporations

o exercise

political

power

and

leaving

the

older bodies

with

merely

ceremonial

functions

n

the

hopes that

they

would

wither

way.

Not all

did: in

the

fifth

entury itizenswere

still

being introduced to

their

father's

hratry

s

well

as

enrolled in

his

deme,

but

some

parts

of

the

new

Kleisthenic

ystem

were

so

successful

hat we

have

virtually

o

idea

what

t

was

they

replaced.83

One

of

the

most

successfulwas

the

devisingof

ten

new

tribes o

replace

the

old four.84

It

will

not

be too

wild

to

imaginethattheprovisionof a formatfortribal om-

petition n

the

dithyrambs f

the

City

Dionysia

helped

instill

nd

solidify con-

sciousness of

the

new tribal

dentity.

The Attic

hoplites

ought

n

tribal

nits; he ists f

the

war dead

were

rranged

by

tribe; he

annual

funeral

ration

was

delivered n

front

ften

cypressoffins85-

and

the

ephebes were

inducted and

trained

by

tribe.86

All this

of

course

refers

to

the

years

post-Kleisthenes;

efore

therewere

ten

tribes, he

military

olls

were

maintained

by

an

old

institution

nown as

the

naucrary.87

ut

tragedy

seems

never

to

have

been

organized as a

competition

y

tribeor

by

naucrary

r by

any

other

subgrouping of

the

polis.88 t

was

fromthe

first

celebration

of the

polis

as a whole here weslideover nto nterpretation)nd notof ts ompetitive arts.

For

this

periodour

information s

notoriously

hin

nd

we can

only

grope in

the

dark,

but

it

maynot be amiss

to

note

that

Peisistratos

ccording to

one tra-

dition

succeeded

in

disarming

the

citizens

nd

protected

himselfby

a

personal

bodyguard

of

armed

men.89No

sixth-centuryolis

could

have

survivedfor

ong

if

ts

citizen-soldiers

emained

permanently

narmed.

It

seems safe

to

imagine

that

citizen-hoplites,

erhaps

after

time

of

troubles, ontinuedto

be on call

for

military

perations

and

that

young

men

continued to

be

trained n

the

essential

arts of

war.

Against

this

background of

a

struggle

for

power and the

need to

directcitizens' llegiance,and afortioriheirwill to fight, o thepolis as a whole,

The

Ephebes'

ong

45


22/38

I would tentativelyonjecture hat he flower f Athenianyouth-in-trainingere

set by Peisistratos nd Thespis to perform heirbest manlydances in a way that

declared thattheybelonged to all Athens and not to any smaller, raditional lan

grouping.90

Such a social-aesthetic itualwould obviouslybe useful to a polis under any

formof government,not only under tyranny,o it would be sensible for Kleis-

thenes to have maintained t in his new order, merelyreorganizingthe dithy-

rambic dances of men and boys as a tribal competition longside the already

existingnontribal phebic dances of Peisistratos.

That publicevents ould have ust such

a

function

n

thesixth-century reek

polis

is

explicitly

ttested n connectionwithour

one most mportant tem n the

early history

f

tragedy.

Kleisthenes of

Sikyon,

maternal

grandfather f our

Athenian Kleisthenes nd a likemind,reorganizedthe festival f the Argivehero

Adrastos as it was celebrated n Sikyon. He demoted the ancient hero of now-

hated Argos by reassigningAdrastos' splendid sacrifices nd festivals o Melan-

ippos, the Theban hero who was Adrastos'worst nemy, nd the "tragic horuses

withwhich

they

honored

his

sufferings"

o

Dionysos.91

This is

pure Kulturpolitik

and notuncharacteristicf the shrewdpower-brokeragen that era. The same

Kleisthenes enamed the tribes

f

Sikyon

n

a waythat ignificantlyffected heir

honor. It was this atter ct, according

to

Herodotos, that served as model for

the Athenian Kleisthenes' tructural eforms. he events n sixth-centuryikyon

are

not

well enough

known for

us

to draw

any very

definite onclusions.

They

do, however, ndicatethat tribal llegiance and reform, leader'smanipulation

of

cult

and festival,

nd

choral

performances

n honor

of

a

dead

warrior

belong

together n a once-coherent tory.

t

may

never be

possible

to know

the

compli-

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