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Plutarch On The Glory Of The Athenians: A Reassessment

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Plutarch On The Glory Of The Athenians: A Reassessment

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Content PLUTARCH ON THE GLORY OF THE ATHENIAN A REASSESSMENT by James LeRoy Johnson A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Comparative Literature) February 1972 I I 72-17,1+77 JOHNSON, James LeRoy, 191+5- PLUTARCH ON THE GLORY OF THE ATHENIANS: A REASSESSMENT. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1972 Language and Literature, classical University Microfilms, A XER O X Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. U N IV E R S IT Y O F S O U T H E R N C A L IF O R N IA T H E G R A D U A T E S C H O O L U N IV E R S IT Y P A R K L O S A N G E L E S , C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by James LeRoy Johnson under the direction of h.±.Q Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by The G radu ate School, in partial fulfillm ent of require ments of the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y Dean DISSERTATION COMMITTEE .. . C h a irm a n f i i ........ PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I "Is Plutarch Serious?" 1 Chapter II "The De Gloria As Moral Criticism" 14 Chapter III "The De Gloria As Epideictic" 45 Chapter IV "The City As Witness" 63 Chapter V "Plutarch on the Glory of the Athenians: A Reassessment" 95 Appendix "Epameinondas' Mantineia and Euphranor's: A Comparison" 101 Bibliography 116 ii I Is Plutarch Serious? ’ AXXa vf\ A ia T tc u S ia x a icov Ttoirixcov --Plutarch,Moralia, 55OB Plutarch's epideictic, noxepov 'AQrivcuoi xaxa udAeuov ?i uaxa ao<pCav 6v6og6xepoi, otherwise known as 1 De gloria Atheniensium, has attracted so little scholarly comment that L'Ann&e philologique, the annual bibliography of classical scholarship, has not noticed a single article in this century. This neglect of the oration is due, perhaps, not so much to its difficulty or dullness, but to the perversity of its critical argument. In the De gloria, Plutarch takes up the question of whether the Athenians ought to be held more in repute for their accomplishments in martial arts or whether they ought more to be honored for their contributions 1 2 to the fine arts. With unswerving purpose and ruthless argument, the orator proceeds to a conclusion which the modern reader finds incredible: that the Athenian accomplishment in the arts was secondary and inferior to the accomplishment of Athenian statesmen and warriors. This is the sort of argument which classicists or students of literature are likely to find embarrassing-- if they are admirers of Plutarch--or irritating and to ignore, if possible. Although the De gloria has no bibliography of its own, it has not, of course, escaped incidental comment by Plutarchists or historians of criticism. These incidental comments have ranged from 3 Babbitt's gentle bemusement, it is somewhat surprising to find [Plutarch] arguing for this thesis, especially since he shows by incidental statements that he is thoroughly aware of the contributions that Athens has made to literature, 4 and Grube's elegant put-down, Plutarch is a great biographer, a superb raconteur and a staunch moralist, but he is no critic and it is at least doubtful whether he ever enjoyed and appreciated literature as such, whether in verse or prose, 5 to Ziegler's sputtering outrage: 3 Die Gedankenfuhrung ist noch kiimmerlicher. . . .Ein pueriles Machwerk eines sich an Phrasen berauschenden. Mit forcierter Geistfeindschaft koketierenden, in einem Wolkenkuckucksheim schwebenden Pseudo- Patriotismus, noch tie£ unter den Romer-und Alexanderdeklamationen stehend, wahrscheinlich von P. in noch sehr jugendlichem Alter fur die Rhetoren- schule verfasst. Dabei verfiigt der Verfasser schon uber eine ausgebreitete Belesenheit und beherrscht die rhetorische Mache durchaus. The De gloria Atheniensium is curtly dismissed or it is ignored; it has not been studied, although it deserves to be. The oration deserves study chiefly because of the comment which it has raised. It is not enough to snort, as Ziegler does, that it is a "puerile patchwork," without examining its rhetorical form, and the competence with which it has been executed. It will not do to carp, as Grube does, or to bleat with Babbitt, that the argument is critically insensitive; we must attempt to put Plutarch’s critical position in its proper classical context. There is more to be served by an investigation of the De gloria than the cause of pure truth--as noble a cause as that might be, it could be better advanced than by verifying the incompetence of a minor production of the second Sophistic. There is more at stake in 4 this investigation because the De gloria shows Plutarch to have been "more obstinately utilitarian than any 6 Roman" in his view of literature. If it can be established, or at least seriously suggested, that the De gloria Atheniensium is a sophisticated composition, well within the ancient critical tradition, we will have to consider whether we have been reading ancient criticism properly, whether classical thought may have been far more obstinately utilitarian than we have imagined it to have been. It is a commonplace of the history of criticism that the ancients required of a work that it be both 7 dulce and utile. If, however, literature performs a useful moral function, or if we believe that it does, we must have made some assumptions about what that function is and how it is performed. It is a common place that the ancients had made the assumptions, for they speak as if they had, but we are not as certain as we might be about the depth and breadth of classical utilitarianism. The customary practice, in reviewing ancient critical thought, is to consult the philosophers, the writers and the grammarians and to try to glean the rationale from a sheaf of rules. This approach has not 5 been as successful as we might have hoped it had been. Aristotle, to be sure, is very specific about the nature of literature and its function, but his specificity is not particularly useful to us, for the Poetics was lost in antiquity and could have had little influence, if any, on subsequent critical thought before 8 the renaissance. Most other ancient "critics" restrict their inquiries to matters of style or structure. We are more likely to find illumination on the meaning of utilitas in the classical moralists than in the critics and grammarians. Plutarch is surely chief of the moralists of the ancient world, if only because of the number of his works which remain. He is also ideal as guide to the thought of his age, for his works are a treasure store of citations and allusions to hundreds of classical sources; he rarely speaks without an authority at hand 9 to support him or to illustrate his point. Furthermore, no one has ever accused Plutarch of originality of thought or systematic philosophy. He is a spokesman for the educated man of his age, and the more valuable to us for being only that. Plutarch's opinions and concerns mirror the thought of an age. As moralist, 10 as reader and as teacher, Plutarch is the kind of 6 man to whom it should be most useful to turn for elucidation on ancient--or at least second Sophistic-- ways of thought. Unfortunately, only a very few of Plutarch's extant works are concerned with literature or criticism, and much of what we do possess is of questionable authen- 11 ticity. Ziegler notes that the Lamprias catalog of Plutarch's works lists five specifically critical 12 titles, all of which are lost. Volume seven of 13 Bernardakis' edition of the Moralia includes a 14 number of works on literary themes, but they do not belong to the traditional corpus of the Moralia as it was established by Stephanus in his edition of 1572, and their authenticity, dates and tradition are uncertain. Of the extant works in the Stephanus canon, there are four which address themselves in large part to critical questions. These are Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debeat ("How a Young Man Ought to Listen to Poetry"), 17D-37B; De recta ratione audiendi ("On Listening to Lectures"), 37B-48D; De gloria Atheniensium or Bellone an pace clariores fuerint Athenienses ("Concerning the Glory of the Athenians" or "Whether the Athenians were Greater in War or Peace"), 345C-351B; 7 Comparationls Aristophanis et Menandri compendium ("Summary of a Comparison Between Aristophanes and Menander"), 853A-854D. The last of these is inappropriate for a study of the theory of literature in antiquity because it is too specific, besides being only a summary of a longer work. The first two works, while useful for being Plutarch's clearest statements on the private use of literature, are neither so interesting nor so potentially significant as the third, the De gloria Atheniensium. For in the De gloria, Plutarch forthrightly examines the value of literature, as well as of painting, to the commonwealth and just as forthrightly finds them overvalued. 15 Plutarch probably began the De gloria with a 16 quotation of Themistokles which he reports elsewhere. When some of the generals who succeeded him had underestimated him, or overestimated themselves, Themistokles told the story of the feast day and the day following the feast. The day-after had pointed out that the feast day was all bustle and chaos, but that she--the day-after--provided the opportunity for rest and enjoyment. To this the feast day replied, "Yes, but if I had not been, you would not be." Plutarch points out that this point could also be 8 applied to the contest between the men of action and the men of letters. "For if you take away the men of action, you will have no men of letters." Plutarch develops his argument, which is paraphrased here, on this theme. For if you take away all of the victories and trophies of the great Athenian generals, the historians would have nothing to write about, and so no opportunity to make a name for themselves. The glory which men of letters have is a reflected glory, as if in a mirror. Among the many arts which Athens has originated and nurtured, painting holds a considerable place. The paintings which adorn the city include, for example, Euphranor's picture of the battle of Mantineia. But the Athenians certainly would prefer to have the battle and the victory than only a painting. Poetry has been called painting which speaks, and there is some truth in the saying, for those writers whom we most admire--like Thucydides--are they who make their narrations vivid, like pictures. But if painters aren't the equals of generals, writers can't be either. Or, if writers are like messengers, we value the news they bring, but we don't reward them for the victory they announce. We may conclude that writers are read 9 because of the great deeds they report, not because they have done anything great themselves. Some people have said that, with regard to poetry, "the words match great deeds," and have maintained that style is everything. Menander, however, said that it was the subject matter which was supreme, and when Pindar tried to ignore the subject matter, he made a fool of himself. So poetry depends as much upon its subject as does history, and since the subject matter of poetry is fiction, it is, to quote Plato, just a "picture and an image of a picture and an image of reality." Tragedy has won wide acclaim, however, and does not claim to be more than fiction, or of any great consequence. We may ask whether the drama has really contributed to the Athenian glory. We might bring the dramatists on stage bearing their trophies and in the company of their actors and baggage: they are a ridiculous sight. But suppose all the great generals paraded by, bearing their trophies and memorials-- including the walls and buildings of the city? Clearly, there is no comparison; the dramatists have brought the city nothing, as compared with what the victors have brought to her. 10 Orators might have some claim to having contributed to the glory of the city, for they operate in the area of public policy. But speeches are not the equal of deeds. Consider Isocrates, for example, who frittered away nine years on one speech while Athenian military men were accomplishing great deeds. Or consider Demosthenes .... Plutarch's De gloria ends abruptly, as do his other 17 epideictics, as if it had been cut off at a time limit. It is also possible that the text has been damaged at the end of the oration, as it was at the beginning. Briefly, this is the argument which has provoked the scholars and critics, and which has been dismissed from serious consideration--dismissed, as Ziegler suggests, for being the work of a very young man, a man who was too immature to know better or to do better. To attempt the dating of a composition by the immaturity of its argument--leaving aside the question of technical competence--is less than ideal procedure, but it must be admitted that there is no very certain indication, anywhere, of the chronological position of the De gloria in Plutarch's work. It is no help to know, for example, that it must have been delivered as 18 a lecture at Athens, for Plutarch must often have 11 19 been in the city. The so-called "Lamprias Catalog" of Plutarch's works lists the De gloria (under the title Kara x£ evfiogoL 'AdnvatoL) as number 197 of 227 , indicating that it is a later work. But the catalog, which appears in several Plutarch MSS. and claims to have been compiled by Plutarch's son, Lamprias, is likely 20 to be a medieval forgery. There seems to be no choice but to say that the question of the position of the De gloria in the Plutarch corpus is open to investigation. If the oration cannot be dismissed as a flight of youthful fancy, the matter of chronological placement will have to be approached in a more satisfactory and rigorous manner. We may not dismiss the De gloria Atheniensium as either incompetent or immature until we have examined its critical argument in the classical context and then examined the form and structure of the composition. We will return to a consideration of the significance of the work following an examination of the De gloria as moral criticism, as epideictic and as a public lecture in Athens. 12 FOOTNOTES 1. Plutarch, Moralia, 345C-351B. In most cases, I refer to the De gloria by Stephanus number only in the footnotesT Other works from the Plutarchean corpus will be cited by title and Stephanus number. Following Helmbold and O'Neil (see footnote 9, below), I indicate citations to the Moralia with the Stephanus number followed by a capital letter (345C); citations to the Vitae include a lower case letter (345c). 2. I am convinced that the De gloria was delivered, or was intended to be delivered, at Athens. See footnote 18 and chapters three and four, below. 3. F.C. Babbitt, ed. and trans., Plutarch's Moralia, volume four (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1962) , p. 490. 4. G.M.A. Grube, The Greek and Roman Critics (Toronto, 1968), p.317. 5. K. Ziegler, Plutarchos von Chaironeia (Stuttgart, 1949), col. SIT 6. Grube, p.317. 7. Recalling Horace, Ars poetica, 343-344. 8. G.M.A. Grube, Aristotle on Poetry and Style (Indianapolis , 1958) , p .xxvn . 9. W.C. Helmbold and E.N. O'Neil have collected the identifiable sources and allusions in the Plutarch corpus in Plutarch's Quotations (American Philological Association, Philological Monographs,19), 1959. 10. Whether Plutarch actually read and remembered all of the sources which he cites or alludes to, or whether he relied to a great extent on commonplace books is irrelevant in this context, for either way, he is a repository of ancient thought and opinion. 11. Ziegler, cols. 221 and 70. 13 12. Catalog number 47, Tiepu prixopLKTK 86, eC dpexri f ) prixopixri 219, npos touq 6ia to pnxopedeuv pf) cpiAoaocpouvxac 220, Ttepi tcoilyudxcov x(s n atixcov enLp.£Aei,a 60, nepl noiriTLxfis. 13. Leipzig,1896. 14. In Hesiodum commentarii (Bernardakis, 7.51-98); Homericae exercitationes (7.99-101); De vita et poesi Homeri (7.329-462); Quaestiones de Arati~ signis (7.102-109); Ad Nicandri Theriaca (7.110) . 15. The beginning of the oration has dropped out of the text; Plutarch begins, as it were, in mid sentence: "Thus rightly spoke the great Themistokles" 16. Names of major literary figures are spelled in the traditional English fashion; I have Hellenized the spelling of the names of historical figures and minor literary figures. Thus it would be Thoukydides, the general and antagonist of Perikles, but Thucydides, the historian. 17. De fortuna Romanorum, 316C-326C; De Alexandri Magni fortuna aut virtute, partes duo, 326D-345B. 18. Plutarch indicates as much at 345F, where he speaks of f | udAis rj6e. 19. Plutarch seems to say that he was studying philosophy in the city as a youth (De E apud Delphos, 385B). See also, R.H. Barrow, Plutarch and His Times (Bloomington and London^ 1967) , pp.36-37. 20. On the catalog, see Ziegler, cols. 60-66 and Barrow, pp.193-194. II The De Gloria As Moral Criticism ouSeug eucpdpg vsog p xov ev Iluap deaaApevog Aia yevioQai <Dei6Cag exeduuriaev p xryllpav xpv ev 'Apyei IToAtixAeuxog, ou6' 'Avaxp£cov p OaApxag p 'ApxtAoxog padetg auxcov xoCg uoipuaaiv. ou yap AvayxaCov, eC xp£uei x6 epyov wg xApiev, AElov anouSpg etvat xov eCpyaapdvov. 60ev ou6' wcpeAeU xa xoiauxa xoug Qeoou£voug, Ttpdg a uiupxix6g o u yCvexcu £pAog ou6& AvA6oaig xivouaa npoduuCav xai opppv exu xpv egouoCcoauv. AAA1 * f ) ye apexp Ttaig xpAgeaiv euQOg oOxco SiaxCdpauv c&axe Apa dauud^eadau xa £pya xai £pAouadai xoC>g e£pyaavi£voug. --Plutarch, Perikles, 153a. We look at art hyperopicly; at close range, books and paintings and plays seem less significant than they do from a distance. The visit of the President to China seems earthshaking and is much discussed and well noted; that Joyce Carol Oates has written a new book seems to matter very little. Even from a distance of three centu ries, our vision is not much changed: Jonathan Edwards and Cotton Mather are still, somehow, more important than 14 15 Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor. As the distance grows, however, art overtakes relevance and grows larger than life. Who was Chaucer's King, and what great issues rocked England under his sway? Probably, we would have to look it up. In large part, it is this far-sightedness about art which leads us to question the seriousness of Plutarch's critical position in the De gloria Atheniensium. Could any man have stood before a Greek audience and seriously demeaned the value of the Athenian contribution to the arts? More than that, could the orator prate about the lasting greatness of the liberators of a city which had not been free for five hundred years? The position seems absurd; that Plutarch could claim it as his own seems impossible. It would be interesting to know how far his was the typical Greek view of his day, outside Boeotia. Certainly we should not assume without strong evidence that he represents the Greek contemporary point of view. (1) We must address the problem of the credibility of the critical attitude expressed in the De gloria: what evidence is there that Plutarch's could be the typical Greek view of his day? A reading of the oration as 16 a critical document is necessary in order to put Plutarch's arguments into the larger context of classical criticism and to attempt to discover to what extent the De gloria Atheniensium may be considered to make a legitimate contribution to our knowledge of ancient critical thought. Plutarch defines history in the De gloria first as a mirror, in which the glory of others is reflected, 3 then as a vivid and pictorial representation, and finally as the stylistic and pleasing report of 4 events. The argument throughout is that the measure of the historian is the fidelity and skill with which he writes, but that the accomplishment of the historian is, in any event, inferior to and dependent upon the greater accomplishments of the men whose deeds he records. The controlling metaphor in the section of the oration which deals specifically with history is the comparison of the historian's function with that of the painter. This is a comparison which Plutarch also makes elsewhere, most significantly in some important passages discussing the purpose and nature of the Vitae. 5 In the introduction to the "Life of Alexander," where Plutarch denies that he is writing history (ouie 17 yap uaxopCaQ yp&cpouev, aXXa pious) , he compares his 6 function with that of the painter. Accordingly, just as painters get the likeness in their portraits from the face and the expression of the eyes, wherein the character shows itself, but make very little account of the other parts of the body, so I must be permitted to devote myself rather to the signs of the soul in men, and by means of these to portray the life of each, leaving to others the description of their great contests. Plutarch is speaking here, however, of what is not history, but biography. Yet there is no inconsistency between this passage and the argument of the De gloria. History and biography share the quality of striving for pictorial representation, as we shall see. The chief value of the passage from the "Life of Alexander" lies in that it is evidence for the seriousness of Plutarch's arguments in the De gloria Atheniensium. He does not mean to belittle the historical accomplishment by comparing it with painting--it is a comparison which he also makes to the writing of biographies, without intending anything by it but definition. The significant difference between history and bio graphy, although both strive at vivid pictorial expression, is that the biographer--at least as Plutarch 18 conceives his task--is concerned to discover virtue, for a man's deeds, however great, may not be an index to his moral worth. On the other hand, Plutarch believes that the concern of the historian is to record the deeds of great men or, as he puts it, to describe their great contests. The difference between the historian and the biographer--and their similarity--is set forth also in the "Life of Nikias" (523c-524a), where the svdpyetav of Thucydides --the pictorial vividness praised in the De gloria--is also referred to. In the "Life," Plutarch modestly asks not to be compared with Thucydides, who has surpassed even himself in his discussion of the tragedy at Syracuse. The biographer asks that there be no comparison because he says that his purpose is not the historian's. He admits that Thucydides deserves the highest praise for his style, as some of his imitators do not, but the biographer hopes that he may be allowed his stylistic weaknesses: he does not strive to rival Thucydides, his purpose is different. Again, we have evidence of Plutarch's belief that historical writing should be pictorial, and that the accomplishment of the vivid narrative is no small credit to the historian. 19 Nothing which Plutarch says anywhere concerning history and historians would lead us to believe that he did not believe, as the author of the De gloria expresses it, that "the most effective historian is he who...makes his narration like a painting." Indeed, Plutarch's consistently anecdotal method of construction, whether in the Lives or in the Moralia, and his consistent concern for style would argue that he constantly sought this vividness, himself. Still, vividly pictorial representation--style--is enough accomplishment to claim true greatness. It isn't even primary. We have seen, for example, that Plutarch seeks to excuse any inferiority in his own style in comparison with Thucydides' by appeal to a different purpose, a different subject matter. Style is important, but for Plutarch, matter is supreme. It is precisely this point of view which underlies 7 Plutarch's case against Herodotus. We are told that Herodotus was a consummate stylist, so much so that people are led into believing him simply on account of the beauty of his style. Yet Plutarch believes that Herodotus was a false historian and that his subject matter was wickedly erroneous. The historian's first allegiance must be to the truth, and style must be 20 subsidiary to that allegiance. If the historian writes a true account, as Thucydides does, his efforts at a pleasing style are entirely commendable; if the historian is lying, his stylistic sweetness is disingenuous device. The argument of the De gloria is consistent throughout with the view expressed in the De malignitate in regard to style. Plutarch argues in the De gloria that technical skill is a worthy accomplishment and that the poets, painters and historians who have advanced the techniques of their respective arts have achieved notable success, yet these technical advances are significant only because they have allowed a more faithful representation of the subject matter. The supreme consideration is the representation of the subject. Both Kinesias and Herodotus, for example, made technical or stylistic advances, but both were wicked men and men who did not serve the truth, so, in Plutarch's view, their successes were a shame to them. For Plutarch, style served the purpose of making truth and virtue more accessible. If truth and virtue were not served by technical skill, then the skill itself was more than worthless. Or, as one of Plutarch's 21 noted readers expressed it: "Lilies that fester smell 8 far worse than weeds." It was important to Plutarch that the historian should write well and vividly, but it was more important that he should tell the truth. History should be pleasing and pictorial in style, a true report of great deeds and a mirror in which the glory of great men is reflected, but history should also be more than 9 that. I began the writing of my "Lives" for the sake of others, but I find that I am continuing the work and delighting in it now for my own sake also, using history as a mirror and endeavoring in a manner to fashion and adorn my life in conformity with the virtues therein depicted. Plutarch’s concern is moral, first and last. The historian must tell the truth, but the reader must also gain from the truth. The service which the historian performed was to make accessible the models of virtue and action. The historian is like a painter, because he makes a pictorial representation, but history is not to be used like a painting--just looked 10 at, as we have seen. No generous youth, from seeing the Zeus at Pisa 22 or the Hera at Argos, longs to be Pheidias or Polycleitus; nor to be Anacreon or Philetas or Archilochus out of the pleasure of their poems. For it does not of necessity follow that, if the work delights you with its grace, the one who wrought it is worthy of your esteem. Where fore the spectator is not advantaged by those things at sight of which no ardour for imi tation arises in the breast, nor any uplift of the soul arousing zealous impulses to do the like. But virtuous action straightway so disposes a man that he no sooner admires the works of virtue than he strives to emulate those who wrought them....The Good creates a stir of activity towards itself and implants at once in the spectator an active impulse; it does not form his character by ideal repre sentation alone, but through the investigation of its work it furnishes him with a dominant purpose. We might rephrase it and say that no admiring reader of Plutarch or Thucydides on Perikles would desire to be Thucydides or Plutarch, he would rather wish to emulate the virtue of Perikles. The glory of the accomplishment of the historian or of the biographer is a reflected glory. However successful he may be in his accomplishment, the man of letters is inferior to the man of virtuous action whose deeds he relates. In presenting this argument with regard to the use and the greatness of history, the De gloria Atheniensium is consistent in attitude with Plutarch's view as it is elsewhere expressed. We must now ask whether that view would have been 23 consistent with the larger view of history in antiquity. The question is easily answered. Ancient historians set down their purposes in writing history as a matter of course. R.M. Ogilvie speaks of the 11 tradition. The historian was expected to preface his volume with a prooemium in which he set out the scope and purpose of his work and advanced his own attitude to history (Cicero, ad Att. 16.6.4; Lucian, Quomodo Historia 52-55). The custom had been begun by Hecataeus, Herodotus, and Thucydides and had been canonized by the historians of the Hellenistic period under the influence of Isocrates and others. As the writing of history was increasingly governed by rhetorical principles, so the themes deployed in such prefaces degenerated into rhetorical common places. Their aim was the rhetorical aim of winning the reader's goodwill by presenting the history as something worthy of his attention, as something useful and profitable. Into the basis of that utility they did not closely inquire. It was taken for granted that the statesman would learn to regulate his policy of the individual his conduct by historical example. The moral use of history was, we understand, a common place in antiquity. With Plutarch’s moral bias the ancient world would have had no argument, nor would the classical world have supposed otherwise than that the historian should tell the truth and that it should be 12 well told. 24 Plutarch's view of history, as expressed in the De gloria, is not only consistent with the ancient view as it is elsewhere expressed, but it is superior to the more general attitude for being the better considered. If antiquity did not closely inquire into the utility of history, Plutarch did, and his view of the moral use of history explains what the historians themselves took for granted. After stressing the representational nature of 13 history in the first chapter of the oration, Plutarch begins, in the second chapter the fuller development of his critical theme: av yap aveAqg t o C j q updTTovxag, ouy Sgeig t o u q ypdcpovxag. Plutarch extends his dis cussion to include other forms of art, beginning, after history, with painting. As he seeks to show that the arts in general share a common representational function, Plutarch begins by arguing that even the greatest of Athenian painters--those who contributed most to the development of the art--attained their height in the representation of the deeds of other men. However great their accomplishments, Plutarch says of the painters as he has said of the historians, the deeds which they represent are greater. There is much ancient testimony, as there is much 25 testimony in Plutarch, to the uses of history and to the critical approach to history. There is not so much helpful material regarding painting. Plutarch no where has so much to say about painting as he has to say in the De gloria, however little he says here. Not only are the other references consistent, however, with the view expressed here, but the better part of them is connected with the quotation of Simonides which is cited here at 346F. A moral association between poetry and painting, such as we see in the De gloria Atheniensium, is also present in a reference at Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debeat, 17F, where Plutarch remarks that we will "firmly ground" (enLarriaouev) a young man by reminding him--even beyond the use of Simonides' words-- that poetry, like painting, is representational. He will thus not allow his moral judgment to be deceived by artful technique; he will know that form serves matter and that he should judge the deed and not the representation of the deed. There are two passages in which Plutarch approaches something like real art criticism. The first is at Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur, 53D, where 14 the author says that the flatterer imitates wickedness 26 even as bad painters, who by reason of incompetence are unable to attain to the beautiful, depend upon wrinkles, moles and scars to bring out their resemblances. At first glance, this looks like a repudiation of realism--representationalism--in painting, a repudiation which would imply an argument counter to Plutarch's position in the De gloria. This first impression is not really a correct one. Plutarch has just said that the flatterer, himself being wicked, cannot 15 imitate (and by imitating, praise ) the noble actions of his patron or blame the unfortunate characteristics. No matter how good a person may be, the flatterer is not able to copy his goodness. In the same way, a painter who has not the skill to capture the beauty of the character in the portrait must rely on outward marks, which are perhaps not so beautiful, in order to make his representation. As a matter of fact, this argument is consistent with the argument set forth in the De gloria; the subject matter--in this case, the character-- is the important thing. The painter whose skill does not allow him to portray the subject matter faithfully is a bad painter. The second reference which approaches criticism is in the Mulierum virtutes. In the introduction, at 27 243AB, Plutarch argues that the virtues of women are the same as those of men, and he supports his argument by saying that no one would doubt the seriousness of his purpose if he were to exhibit paintings by women which were the equal of paintings by men. This passage is interesting because it precedes a restatement of the same argument, but with poetry as the exhibit, and because it stands in the introduction to a historical work which seeks to establish the similarity of 16 feminine to masculine virtues by putting lives beside lives and actions beside actions, like great works of art, and considering whether the magnificence of Semiramis has the same character and pattern as that of Sesostris. Again, we have the yoking of history and painting and poetry to serve a moral purpose. Here, as in the De gloria, art is paralleled with life, representation with act. Here again history appeals to art as another way of representing virtue, and here again it is virtue which is the more important. The attitude toward painting which Plutarch displays in the De gloria Atheniensium is not inconsistent with his attitude as it is expressed elsewhere. The art criticism which remains from antiquity 28 is historical criticism, chiefly concerned with the history of the development of art, and we are left almost in the dark concerning the ancient idea of the use of art. There was no systematic attempt to form- 17 ulate an aesthetic theory in antiquity before Plotinus, and aesthetics as a branch of philosophy belongs to the post-renaissance world. There is a beginning of aesthetics, of course, in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and it was on the foundations laid by them that the modern structure of aesthetics was raised. It is not within the scope of our concern to undertake here any broad study of the Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines of art as they affected ancient thought, but some note should be taken of the attitudes of the two philosophers toward the questions of the meaning of mimesis and the moral nature of art. It is exactly this matter of mimesis and morality which lies at the center of Plutarch's critical 18 attitude. Expanding upon Simonides' epithet, Plutarch says that the actions which the painters show as if they were at that moment taking place (Tip&geig qq YiYvduevag), writers describe and record after they have been completed (YeYevriu^vas) . The function 29 of the plastic art and of the literary are the same, 19 only the method varies. The difference in method and medium is irrelevant; the single effective purpose of the two is what is important--and there is no doubt but that they share the same purpose (6'avLcpotSpoig 20 £v utx6xe iiat, Plutarch says). The function of both is mimetic; the t£Aoq is representation. The most effective historian, like the most effective painter or poet, is he who most faithfully represents his subject. There is no further consideration. Even by the choice of the verb eiScoAouoifiaag (the com- 21 pound literally means, "to make an image"), Plutarch associates the function of the historian with that of the painter. For both Plato and Aristotle, as for Plutarch, the concern of the poet seemed to be the representation 22 of men in action. The purpose of painting is also representational, in the view of all three. The differ ence in theory among them lay in different ideas about what was represented, not in any disagreement over whether representation, or imitation, was the proper 23 function of art. For Plato, the imitation was quite literally that. The poet or painter reflected material objects in his 30 24 work as a mirror reflects them. The world of material objects, which is itself removed from Truth, is re moved once more in its artistic imitation, which is, 25 in effect, a copy of a copy of reality. The imitative artist does not need more than a sur face acquaintance with the thing he represents. He is on a level below the skilled craftsman whose art is intelligent and based on rational principles, and who alone has a title to be called a "maker" or creator. A painter may paint a table very admirably with out knowing anything of the inner construction of a table, a knowledge which the carpenter, who would fashion it for its proper end, must possess. 26 Thus, for Plato, the imitative artist stands below the doer in the same sense that the copy is inferior to the material appearance. Because of his quite different attitude toward the relationship of being to becoming, Aristotle saw artistic imitation as a representation of the ideal possibility. The imitation was an accomplishment superior to the material fact because it represented 27 the thing as it might be. Whereas Plato had laid it down that "the greatest and fairest things are done by nature, and the lesser by art, which receives from nature all the greater and primeval creations and fashions 31 28 them in detail," Aristotle saw in fine art a rational faculty which divides nature's unfulfilled intentions, and reveals her ideal to sense. The illusions which fine art em ploys do not cheat the mind; they image forth the immanent idea which cannot find ex- 29 pression under the forms of material existence. 30 Helmbold and O'Neil give no evidence that Plutarch knew any of the pertinent passages of Aristotle. The orator seems restricted, in his aesthetic views, to a dependence upon Plato. Yet Aristotelian influence is not entirely lacking from Plutarch's approach. For Plutarch knew and 31 used Duris of Samos, who had been a pupil of Theophrastus, and who wrote anecdotal biographies of 32 artists. With typical peripatetic concern, Duris intended that his lives should discuss works and lives of artists together, especially as they were involved in changes of fortune and illustration of character. This is, of course, precisely what Plutarch attempted in his biographies, as we have seen. The concern for the relationship between character and deed belongs first 33 to Aristotle, who passed it on to Duris through Theophrastus and, through the generations, the concept had become a commonplace of Greek thought. Plutarch is under influence of Aristotle unconsciously, although 32 he follows Plato. As a critic, Plutarch is a Platonist, but as a writer, he is Aristotelian. This is so because morality as an end in art is an Aristotelian concept, at least in part. Aristotle viewed the aesthetic representation from a moral vantage, and he reduced the different types of character 34 to moral categories. Aristotle's pupils and their pupils handed this moral tradition down to all antiquity. Yet morality as an end in art is a concept which 35 is only partially--or impurely--Aristotelian. Aristotle never allows the moral purpose of the poet or the moral effects of his art to take the place of the artistic end. If the poet fails to produce the proper pleasure, he fails in the specific function of his art. He may be good as a teacher, but as a poet or artist he is bad. Aristotle would not have gone as far as Plutarch goes when 36 he says that poetry may be used as an introductory exercise in philosophy, and that the young should learn to seek what is profitable in what otherwise merely gives pleasure. If the idea of the utilitarian use of poetry or of art did not spring from Aristotle, whence did it come? How did it come to be a classical concern? The answer 33 is that it had been a concern from the beginning. Strabo tells us that there were two prevailing views of 37 38 the function of poetry. The one, held by Eratosthenes, was that the aim of the poet was to delight, not to instruct. The more traditional view, held by Strabo himself, was that 39 poetry is a kind of elementary philosophy, which intro duces us early to-Tife, and gives us pleasurable in- 40 struction in reference to character, emotion, action. Poetry was the first lesson prescribed for children. This was surely, Strabo says, not because poetry delighted, but because it offered moral guidance. Marrou notes the attitude of the ancients toward poetry at the very beginning of his A History of Education in 41 Antiquity: The poet’s function is to educate, and education means inculcating this high idea of glory. The aim of the poetry is not essentially aesthetic but the immortalization of the hero. The poet, as Plato was to say, "clothes all the great deeds accomplished 42 by the men of old with glory, and thus educates those who come after." I have emphasized the last few wf ords because they seem absolutely funda mental . That the idea of the moral utility of poetry should seem 34 "absolutely fundamental" to a study of education in antiquity from Homeric times indicates to us how very thoroughly the concept of utilitas permeated ancient critical thought. Aristotle's contribution to ancient aesthetic theory was precisely that he attempted to qualify the strictness of the moralistic view. In this area 43 of contention, he did not prevail. Few of Aristotle's successors followed out this way of thinking; and the prevailing Greek tradition that the primary office of poetry is to convey ethical thinking was carried on through to the schools of Greek rhetoric till it was firmly established in the Roman world. Aristotle's more moderate view was not strong enough to prevail against the pervasive moral tradition, a tradition in which Plutarch whole-heartedly belonged. Plutarch knew of the tradition in which Eratosthenes belonged. He went so far as to say, in the Quomodo adolescens (16A), that most people judge the purpose of poetry to be to please and charm the ear--most people are willing to accept the argument that the poetic accomplishment is purely aesthetic and that literary greatness is to be recognized as the reward for technical skill alone. In the fourth 35 chapter of the De gloria Atheniensium, Plutarch tells us that poetry has won praise from the people to whom poetry seems, with its eloquence, to be equal to great deeds. Even if poetry does not speak the truth, they would say, it reaches greatness by its form of expression. That the author does not belong to that troop which would accept this point of view appears --even if Plutarch had nowhere else spoken to the subject-- 44 in his choice of authority. Thus the fam'd hero, perfected in wiles 45 With fair similitude of truth beguiles This is Pope's translation of the Homeric line which Plutarch quotes both to state the opinion of the aesthetic school and to refute it. Some say, Plutarch tells his audience, that the truth of poetry is insig nificant to the accomplishment. They say, with Homer, that similitude, alone, if fair, beguiles. But as he presented the argument, Plutarch knew--as surely as did his audience--that this line is from the passage of the Odyssey in which Odysseus tests the faithfulness of his wife Penelope. The hero, who has not revealed his identity to his wife, lies artfully when he asserts that Odysseus is dead. Penelope's moral character will 36 be shown by her reaction. By citing this passage, Plutarch implies his own opinion. Penelope's fidelity did not allow her to be beguiled by skillful lying words. If some people argue that the skill of composition is enough, if they cite Homer as their authority, they should remember the context. Even when Homer's words seem to support the aesthetes, his context betrays them. For poets, Plutarch says, do not believe that composition and charm are all that matters. Menander, for example, didn't believe it, as the anecdote reveals. Even Pindar, who belonged to the aesthetic school in his youth, was shown the error of his ways when he discovered that lack of attention to subject matter made his poems inappropriate, or even ridiculous. Plutarch does not believe that the aesthetic critical position can be maintained. Poetry, which may at first appear to rest its accomplishment solely on composition and technique, is in a way an accomplishment inferior to painting or history. For the subject matter of poetry is of an inferior sort. 46 Plutarch reminds us that Plato says that the subject of poetry is pudoTtoi tag, which we may call fiction, and that fiction is only an imitation of 37 reality. Furthermore, if objective reality is one degree removed from ideal truth, and if a true narration is two degrees removed from truth, a piece of fiction-- which is an imitation of a report of a material reality-- is too far removed from truth to be of much value. So the historian and the painter actually deserve more praise than does the poet. For while the former two are not equal in greatness to the men whose deeds they report, at least they are not so far removed from greatness as is the poet. By this argument, Plutarch believes that he has removed poetry from serious consideration as a proper vehicle for greatness. On the other hand, the orator admits that tragedy-- in which Athenians were pre-eminent--had won some acclaim. He believes that the praise of the drama is predicated upon the same point of view as was the aesthetic praise of poetry. Tragedy became, for golden Athens, a marvelous spectacle because its audience was charmed by its plot and by its language. Tragedy was fiction; like pure poetic subject matter, the plot of the drama was deceptive for being twice removed from reality. Yet despite its being fictional, the drama had a certain honesty, Plutarch tells us, 47 citing Gorgias, because the tragedian offered nothing 38 more than fiction, and did not claim any high signif icance for his art. It is clear that Plutarch is better disposed toward the drama, at least toward the tragic drama, than he was toward poetry. Poetry claimed its justif ication in its adornments, but its claim was shown to be false. The tragedy admits its reliance on subject matter and, further, admits that its subject is only fiction. Tragedy does not claim that skillful composition and the clever use of language are anything more than adornments. Plutarch has already granted a certain value to technique, always praising it as a worthy accomplishment, when seen in proper perspective with greater accomplishments. Plutarch appreciates that tragedy lacks the presumptiousness of pure poetry 48 and claims to be nothing more than it is. That the tone of Plutarch’s discussion of the tragedians is especially harsh does not gainsay that the burden of his argument against them is lighter than it is against the poets, particularly. The 49 shrill tone of the passage will be considered in some detail in chapters three and four, below. Whatever the problems of tone or composition which may trouble us concerning the De gloria Atheniensium, 39 it is clear that the critical arguments set forth in the oration are not shockingly out of step with ancient thought, nor are they narrowly provincial. Plutarch's view, whether of history or of literature, is neither original nor complicated. It is consistent with the view of his time. If Plutarch's aesthetic has a specific ancient authority, it is Plato. If Plato could call 50 even Homer and Hesiod liars, it is doubtful whether any one would be shocked to hear Plutarch calling the tragedians irrelevant. Still, if Plutarch read even Plato too literally and applied Platonic doctrines too legalistically, there is no indication that his audience would have challenged his rigor. In the view of the ancients, the function of the poet was to teach virtue by example. Once that assumption is allowed, it follows only naturally that 51 the accomplishment of the poet or of the painter or of the historian or even of the biographer was significant--or glorious--only in so far as it faith fully reflected the glory and virtue of its subject. That is the argument of the De gloria Atheniensium. It remains now for us to consider the tone and the composition of the argument as it is expressed in the oration, and to ask what kind of literature the 40 De gloria is, and why it is put together as it is. 41 FOOTNOTES 1. G.M.A. Grube, The Greek and Roman Critics (Toronto, 1968), pp.317-318. This work will hereafter be cited as: Grube, Critics. 2. 345F. 3. 347A, 347C. 4. 345DE. 5. 664e-665a. 6. Perrin's translation 7. See De Herodoti malignitate (845E-847C). 8. Shakespeare, Sonnet 94. 9. Plutarch, "Life of Timoleon," 235a, Perrin's trans lation . 10. Plutarch, "Life of Perikles," 153ab, Perrin's trans lation . 11. A Commentary on Livy, Books 1-5 (Oxford, 1965), p.23. 12. See, for example, Lucian's "How History Ought to be Written." Polybius says (12.28.2-5.) that the errors of history will not be eliminated until men of action take to writing history. Thus, Polybius' judgment on historians and men of action would seem to be the same as Plutarch's. 13. It is strange, of course, to speak of "chapters" in an oration. Yet since the text has been divided into chapters for us, it is helpful to use them. 14. Babbitt's translation. 15. This is the crux of Plutarch's critical position: to imitate, or to represent, is to praise. That the imitation is less valuable than the original follows naturally. 42 16. 243C, Babbitt's translation. 17. S.H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, fourth edition, repr..(New York, 1951) , pp.161-162. A very fine survey of ancient art criticism will be found in E. Sellers' introduction to K. Jex- Blake's translation of The Elder Pliny's Chapters on the History of Art, repr., Chicago, 1968. 18. Plutarch refers to Simonides' opinion again without credit at Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur, 58BT He extends the meaning-- or at least the application--at Quaestionum convivalium, 748A, where he calls dancing silent poetry and poetry dancing which speaks. 19. The reader will recall Lessing's argument in Laokoon that the painter captures the "pregnant moment" and portrays action only by indication or implication, whereas poetry imitates action by progressive relation. Whether Lessing knew the De gloria, I am not prepared to say; he says that his theory sprang from reflection on Homer's method and otherwise gives no source. Despite the apparent similarity of Lessing's theory to Plutarch's, they are not the same. Ancient painting did not restrict itself temporally; it was free to portray several related events as if happening at the same time. 20. Plutarch could not have connected the arts more definitely than he does here by saying that it is acknowledged (uTidweuTca) that their perfect fulfillment (x£A.og) is one and the same. 21. 347A. 22. Plato, Republic, 10.603C: Tip&xxovxac; cpApev Avdprfmoue miieLTai r ) ULUOTixf) |3iaCoug r ) exouauag Ttpd^eig. Aristotle, Poetics, 1448a: erteu &£ piuoOvxou ol uuuoupevou Ttp&TTOVTag. Plutarch, 345C: av ydp av£Apg xoug Ttp&TTOVTag, otix Sgetg xoug Ypdcpovxag. 23. See Butcher, chapter two, "'Imitation' as an Aesthetic Term," pp.121-162. 43 24. Republic, 10.569E. Compare, De gloria, 345F. 25. Republic, 10.597C. Compare, De gloria, 348A. 26. Butcher, pp.159-160. 27. Poetics, 1460b; Metaphysics, 1030a,1034a; Parts of Animals, 640a. 28. Laws, 10.889A, Jowett's translation. 29. Butcher, p.161. 30. W.H. Helmbold and E.N. O’Neil, Plutarch's Quotations (Baltimore, 1959), pp.8-10. 31. Indeed, he accuses Duris of constant disregard to the truth at "Life of Perikles," 167c. See also "Life of Alkibiades," 209c and compare De gloria 348E. 32. On Duris, see Sellers in Jex-Blake, pp. xlvi-lxvii. 33. See Butcher, pp.228-239. Also, see G.M.A. Grube, Aristotle on Poetry and Style (Indianapolis, 1958), p.xxi. 34. Butcher, p.238. 35. Butcher, p.238. 36. Quomodo adolescens, 15F-16A. 37. The discussion is found in Strabo, 1.2.3-8. 38. For Plutarch’s comment on this view, see 347E-348B. 39. My italics. Compare Quomodo adolescens, 15F-16A. 40. Strabo, 1.2.3. Butcher's translation. 41. H.I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (G.Lamb, tr.), New York, 1964, p.33. 42. Plato, Phaedrus, 245A. 43. Butcher, pp.238-239. 44 44. 347E. 45. Odyssey, 19.203. 46. At Phaedo, 60-61, specifically, 61B for this citation. Plutarch has reference to this passage of the Phaedo also at Quomodo adolescens, 16C. 47. 348C. 48. Plutarch expresses a similar opinion at Quomodo adolescens ? 15D, where he also cites Gorgias and argues that tragedy can do no harm, as long as the young man is prepared to understand the terms under which it is offered--as fictional enter tainment- -and accept those terms. Indeed, some useful lesson can often be inferred from the drama, as long as the person watching it maintains his priorities and keeps the proper perspective. 49. 348D-349B. 50. Which he does at Republic, 377E. 51. On the place of painting in education, see Marrou, pp.187-188. Ill The De Gloria As Epideictic ['AOpvaCous] Ttcos a v . . . f ) e n o u v e iv , eC un 2xoiy.ev xfiv tv E aA auivi vaupaxCocv p xpv ev MapaOc&vi udxpv p xa. im£p ’ Hpa.HAeiScov npaxD ^vxa * f| &AAo x i xcov xoiotixcov; e h yap xcov uuapxdvxcov p S o k o O vxco v UTidpxetv xaAciov ^ t i c u v p Ocji, Tidvxes. --Aristotle, Rhetoric, 2.22.6 For Babbitt, to whom Plutarch's attempt to glorify men of arms and to "vilify" men of letters seemed strange, it was apparently comforting to think that the De gloria^Atheniensium was an epideictic oration, for he notes: We may, then, be justified in the inference that the essay is a tour de force, like other rhetorical discussions whicFTwere popular in Plutarch's day; it does not necessarily represent his own belief. We have seen, on the contrary, that the critical argu- 45 46 ment of the De gloria is not necessarily--even probably-- contradictory to Plutarch's own beliefs, or to the critical canons of his age. The question now arises of whether this work is, indeed, an epideictic oration-- a show-piece or tour de force --or whether it is some thing else. We may no longer say that the De gloria Atheniensium must be an epideictic because its argument is untenable, but we may ask if it is an epideictic on other, purely rhetorical terms. 2 If the De gloria was a public lecture, it was an epideictic, for with the withering of the Greek state and of its legal system, the epideictic was the 3 only one of Aristotle's three types of rhetoric to survive in Greek. The epideictic not only survived, it 4 flourished, and, Marrou says, it was in a thriving condition, seeping into all the neighboring subjects and invading everything.... Hellenistic culture was above all things a rhetorical culture, and its typical literary form was the public lecture. It is clear, then, that the epideictic form was not 5 exclusively that of the nap&Soga eYKcZiuia: if the epideictic was the genre of the age, it is impossible 6 to maintain the assumption that the argument of an 47 epideictic oration need not be taken seriously. We must ask, rather, what the epideictic was and what it meant to the men of Plutarch's day and what relation ship it had to the speaking of the truth. If it is 7 granted that the epideictic was a show-piece, it still remains to be seen how it was so. For a definition of the epideictic, we must begin with Aristotle, as we began with him for the definition of the purpose and value of literature. 8 Aristotle divides rhetoric into three types, the division based upon the attitude of the listener as he hears the speech. The listener must be either a mere spectator (Decopdg) or he must be a judge (xpnrfig) • If he is a judge, it is either at things to come or of things past to which his attention is directed. Deliberative oratory (auu3ouApg, A6yog auuPouA,exLx6s) directs the judgment of the listener toward things to come, and is either persuasive or dissuasive. Forensic oratory (6Chug, Adyog Sixavixdg) calls upon the listener to judge things past, and is either accusatory or defensive. The epideictic genre (en£6eigig, Adyog eTii,6eixTtxdg) depends upon a listener who is a spectator only, and whose concern is with the ability of the speaker (6 6e Ttepi tfig duvdpecog o decopdg) , its object 48 is to praise or to blame. Further, while each genre has its own appropriate c-ime-reference, it is common for the epideictic orator to concern himself with the past and the future, as well as with the present. Each of the three genres has its own purpose 9 ( t &Xo q ) or final concern. The concern of deliberative oratory is what is either expedient or unwise; the forensic orator concerns himself with what is either just or unjust. The concern of the epideictic is what is either honorable or disgraceful (xois 6'enaivouoL nai, iJj£YOuai x6 naAov nat x6 ataxp6v) . All other considerations within the speech or within the purpose of the speaker are referred to these final concerns. 10 Aristotle further tells us that the narrative of the epideictic should not be consecutive, but disjointed. That is, there are no formal rules of composition and structure for the epideictic, as there are for the 11 deliberative and the forensic. This is because, in 12 the epideictic, it is necessary to go through the actions which form the subject of the speech. For a speech is made up of one part that is inartificial (the speaker being in no way the author of the actions which he relates), and of another that does depend upon art....It is only necessary to recall famous actions; wherefore most people have no need of narrative. 49 If there is no need for well-ordered narrative, 13 amplification becomes easier and, indeed, Aristotle notes amplification as a characteristic of the epideictic style. The purpose of the amplification is to prove that the things which are praised are good and useful; the facts of the argument are to be taken on trust (to yap TipdYliara 6ei nuaxeOeaOai,\ since the subject of 14 the epideictic is in actions which are not disputed, so that all that remains to be done is to attribute beauty and importance to them. Except for a consideration of the nature of praise and 15 blame, this is substantially all that Aristotle says in definition of the epideictic. In terms of Aristotle's definition of the genre, the De gloria Atheniensium is an epideictic: it is neither deliberative nor forensic; it seeks to discover what is honorable --or glorious--in the Athenian character and history; it makes use of amplification, not to prove the facts of the case which it states, but to establish that the facts reveal what is praise worthy. But Aristotle's definition does not tell us enough, unless we are to take "epideictic" as an all 50 but meaningless general term. Aristotle's definition would suffice only so long as deliberative and forensic oratory were really possible in Greek, only so long as civic life prevailed independently; after Demosthenes, it would have been increasingly true that forensic and deliberative oratory were matters only of academic concern: Aristotle looked backwards, not ahead. We have seen that in Plutarch's day, Greek rhetoric was epideictic, but we know that there was a great variety of oratorical topics and types, and that it 16 cannot be true, as Grube says, that the word euC6ei.Eie seems to have been used as a critical term precisely to apply to those displays of rhetorical virtuosity on paradoxical subjects which became a regular practice with pro fessors of rhetoric. The application of the term was, in fact, hardly precise. 17 In his treatise, Txept enu6e iktixcov , the grammarian Menandros lists no fewer than twenty-seven A6y o l , or sub-genres of the epideictic, and he deals only with topics of praise. While he identifies the Tcapdfioga eyjuouia (with which Professor Grube associates the epideictic "precisely"), the grammarian lists it last 51 18 and does not deign to discuss it at all. T.C. Burgess is more useful--for all his lack of 19 precision--in his Epideictic Literature, where he defines the genre. Like many other rhetorical terms among the Greeks, the word eniSelktuk6s held at different times or at the same time quite different meanings; to generalize, it had its stricter and its loose and more inclusive application. Aristotle is the earliest and most important authority for the former.... A more inclusive use of the term "epideictic" may be found even before Aristotle in the works of Isocrates, who placed under it symbouleutic oratory as well. Cicero does not confine the epideictic class to oratory. History also belongs here. Quintilian's references to history and poetry (X,1,28,31,33) seem to associate them with this division. Hermogenes includes all literature except distinctively legal and deliberative oratory.... Thus epideictic oratory varies greatly in the themes which it may treat. According to one conception, it had a comparatively narrow field into which praise and blame entered as a definite and easily distinguishable, usually the most prominent, element. This was especially true of its earlier theoretical treatment. Its practice was always wider than its theory. There was also the more comprehensive view by which it came to include the "occasional speech" of almost endless variety in theme and treatment. This is illustrated to some extent in the time of Socrates, but more especially in the period known as the second Sophistic. The remains of epideictic literature, taken in a rough way, fall into three classes: First, that characterized by elevation of subject and a certain practical application usually arising from the admixture of the deliberative element.... Second, the treatment of a paradoxical theme, a mere j eu d'esprit. Third, the vast mass of epideictic 52 literature lying between these extremes, presenting mixed motives and treatment....Here may be found speeches which serve chiefly to dazzle an audience, flatter a prince.... Burgess' definition is the more useful because it does not require us to look for evidence to establish that the De gloria Atheniensium belongs in the genre of the paradoxical arguments --such as Dio Chrysostomos' encomia of the parrot and the gnat--nor to deny that Plutarch's oration shares some of the elements of the more frivolous type of epideictic. To read the De gloria fairly, we must admit its affinities to the "mere" showpiece, as well as recognizing its seriousness. Plutarch's moral argument, as we have seen, is 20 quite serious. E.M. Cope is convinced that Aristotle's concept of praise and blame --encuvoe and i1 j6yo£-- is 21 essentially a moral concept. "Praise" we are told means, "words setting forth magnitude of virtue"; we must therefore (in using this branch of Rhetoric) show that men's actions are virtuous....These completed acts are signs of the moral state from which they proceeded (which is the real object of praise, as showing the npoaCpeaue, in which virtue resides); for we should praise one who had not actually performed them if we believed him to have the disposition to do so."...enauvoQ has always a moral character, is specially and properly applied to distinguish virtue, and 53 therefore referred 'to moral actions' Ttpdgeig, in which virtue is exhibited. Thus Aristotle's Rhetoric (1.9.33-34.) may lend support to our reading of the De gloria as serious moral 22 criticism. In these terms, it is not at all strange that Plutarch should praise the npaxTOVTag rather than 23 the vpdcpovrag. Furthermore, this moral emphasis is also to be found in Plutarch's De Alexandri Magni fortuna aut virtute (326D-345B). In this epideictic, the orator argues that Alexander prevailed through his virtues --among them "the intelligence of Themistokles" and the "statesman- 24 ship of Perikles." Plutarch further argues, in 25 connection with Alexander, In short, if Solon's statesmanship also was due to fortune, and if Miltiades generalship and Aristeides' justice were but the result of fortune, then surely there was no work of virtue in these men, but it is a name only, talk based on appearance, pervading their lives to no purpose, a figment of sophists and legislators. Plutarch clearly believes in the virtue of Alexander, as clearly he believes in the virtue of the Athenian men of action. The purpose of the epideictic is to praise 54 and to blame, and the context in which it operates is the context of virtue. The De gloria Atheniensium is an epideictic; it presents no problem to the reader within the Aristotelian definition of the genre. (If Plutarch has written a problem epideictic, it is not the De gloria Atheniensium, but the De fortuna Romanorum (316C-326C). For in the oration on the Romans, Plutarch argues that their greatness is due not to virtue, but to fortune. It would perhaps be intriguing to compare the argument of the De fortuna Romanorum with that of the De gloria Atheniensium, but that comparison is not within the limits of this investigation.) The epideictic was a show-piece oration, from which the hearer was "to gain pleasure, at least, if not information. The style is the most distinctive 26 feature." A discussion of Plutarch's particular virtuosity in the De gloria will be taken up in the next chapter, "The City As Witness." It is a virtuosity which depends on a close relationship between the argument and the structure of the oration, both as seen within the context of the topography of Athens. It remains here only to discuss the possibility of the topic--praise of a city--and its relationship to 55 the outrageous epiaeictics, the TtapdSoga £YKCoy.ia. 27 Menandros lists no less than three sub-genres of the epideictic which dealt with praise of cities: the praise of a city, its situation, history, attractions, etc.; the praise of a city from its y £ v o q ; the praise of a city from its characteristics or pursuits. The De gloria would seem to fit either the first or the third category, although no doubt it is most clearly an example of the first. There were t 6t i o l associated with each of the 28 traditional types of epideictic, and Burgess discusses them, beginning with Aristotle, Rhetoric, 2.22.6: "How eulogize the Athenians unless we are informed of the sea-fight at Salamis, the battle of Marathon, or the exploits achieved by them in behalf of the Heraclidae and other like matters? For it is on the real or apparently honorable traits attaching to each object that all orators found their panegyrics." Note also Isocrates (Phil., 146-8), where 'he says that no one praises the city (Athens) for anything so much as for Marathon and Salamis and Sparta for Thermopylae. Though more closely identified with the epitaphius than with any other single form, Marathon, Salamis and earlier mythical contests, as Aristotle here suggests, are among the standard topics of epi deictic literature as a whole. Cf. Xenophon, Mem., 111,5,7-14, where Socrates discusses with Pericles the younger the remedies for the decline of Athens. The record of their ancestors should stimulate them-- the contest between Athena and Poseidon; the birth and rearing of Erechtheus and the wars waged by 56 him; the defense of the Heraclidae; the wars carried on at the time of Theseus against the Amazons, the Thracians and Crete; how they fought against the Persians, who were masters of Asia and Europe and did u^yi- ct^cx Spyot (canal through Athos, bridge over the Hellespont); alone of the Greeks they are auT6x^oves; Athens has been the defender of justice, an asylum for the oppressed. The earliest grouping of epideictic themes taken from Athenian history is to be found in Hdt., IX,27, where the Athenians employ the familiar topics in presenting their case....Cf. also Lucian, Rhet. Praec.,18. Obviously, Plutarch's epideictic on the glory of the Athenians is in the line of a long tradition--a tradition which was taken quite seriously. The Ttapdfiogov eyhcoulov would not have been taken 29 seriously. It was a mere display of ingenuity, a jeu de langage. The Athenians had a native keenness m cTetectmg the ridiculous and a great fondness in representing it. It is in large part the element of comedy entering into prose which inspires this form of composition. The other chief motive is the desire to startle, to win admiration and applause by a mere exhibition of smartness. But we must admit that a certain element of this rhetorical ridiculousness enters into the De gloria Atheniensium, especially, perhaps, in the pomp of the tragedians at 348D-349B. 57 Yet the choice of the chorus from the Frogs shows evidence of careful and suggestive construction. The quotation itself implies an argument, for it was in the Frogs that Aristophanes ridiculed the tragedians. If Plutarch wants to minimize the contribution of the playwrights to the glory of the city, he could choose no more appropriate authority than the great Athenian comedian. Nothing Plutarch says about the tragedians can be as damaging as Aristophanes' ridicule could be, so Plutarch relies on Aristophanes. The use of the passage is also structurally competent, for further on in the same chorus (at line 366) is one of the lines which the scholiast on 30 Aristophanes associates with Kinesias. Indeed, 31 as even a brief examination of this chorus will show, if Kinesias is the intended target of line 366, he may well be the intended target of the entire eighteen lines. If that is the case, we may have an explanation of Plutarch's use of Kinesias' name to begin the discussion of dramatic poetry; he may be saying, in effect, "Kinesias, whom Aristophanes ridicules in this fashion in his play about the tragedians, reminds us of the tragedians themselves --what was their contribution? We have a chorus ready, let's have an 58 entrance." If we are led by the harshness of Plutarch’s ridicule of the tragedians to doubt the seriousness of this passage or of the oration as a whole, we forget the authority to whom Plutarch appeals (as he normally begins discussion of a new topic by citing the opinion of some other writer--an appropriate epideictic 32 device ). The authority is Aristophanes, and the play in which he made the tragedians look very much like buffoons, long before Plutarch was born. If Plutarch is most ruthless just where he seems to have least cause to be, it is also true that he is most ruthless just where he could make the strongest appeal to authority. That the Athenians of the golden age appreciated and rewarded the accomplishments of the tragedians did not keep them from laughing at Aristophanes reductio ad absurdum. And if Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were still read and revered in Plutarch’s time, so was Aristophanes. The Athenian audience would have enjoyed this literate put-down of the tragedians, because it made use of Aristophanes and integrated the argument with the structure of the oration. It is not the only place where we see evidence of Plutarch's rhetorical 59 skill--especially in regard to the construction of the argument. There is evidence to believe that the entire oration integrates the structure and construction of the Athenian Agora with its own, and that the whole is based, at least in part, on a triple-level pun on TidpoSos. That Plutarch's argument is a serious one does not prevent it from being an epideictic--a tour de force. Indeed, the value of an epideictic was in 33 its treatment of a well-worn theme. That the De gloria Atheniensium is an epideictic is certain, but that does not excuse it from competence, it requires rather a more splendid construction. 60 FOOTNOTES 1. F.C. Babbitt, "Introduction to Plutarch's De gloria Atheniensium," Plutarch's Moralia (Cambridge^ Mass., and London, 1962) , pp.490-491. 2. As I believe that it was--or at least that it was was intended to be. For evidence, see chapter four, "The City as Witness," below. 3. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.3. 4. H.I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (G. Lamb, tr.~) New York, 1964 , p. 33. 5. See T.C. Burgess, Epideictic Literature (Chicago, 1906), pp. 157-166 for a discussion. 6. This is certainly Babbitt's assumption, as well as Ziegler's (see chapter one, "Is Plutarch Serious?" above) and apparently Grube's (see footnote 16, below, and the text at that point). 7. Again, both Babbitt and Grube, at least, grant it. It might even be said that they depend upon it. 8. This paragraph follows Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.3.1-4. 9. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.3.5-6. 10. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 3.16.1. 11. For Aristotle's rules of composition, see Rhetoric, 3.12-19. 12. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 3.16.1. 13. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 3.17.3. 14. Aristotle, Rhetoric, 1.9.40. 15. Which will be considered below, see p. 52 . 16. Grube, Critics, p.17. 61 17. Burgess' Epideictic Literature (see footnote 5, above) is based largely on Menandros' treatise. For the Aiyot,, see Burgess, pp.110-113. 18. Burgess, p.113. 19. Burgess, pp.91-93 ,96-97 . 20. An Introduction to Aristotle's Rhetoric, London and Cambridge, 1867. 21. Cope, pp.212-213. 22. The Rhetoric, unlike the Ars poetica, was known to antiquity and to Plutarch"] See Helmbold and O'Neil, p.8ff. 23. Aristotle notes at the end of chapter one (1.13) of the Nichomachean Ethics that: "Virtue may be divided....Wisdom, intelligence and prudence are intellectual; liberality and temperance moral. In describing a person's moral character we do not say that he is wise or intelligent...." (Welldon translation) Wisdom is a virtue, Aristotle adds, since it can be praised, but it is not a moral virtue. Here again we have support for the seriousness of Plutarch's praise of the men of action; in a genre which investigates moral worth, he is dealing with moral virtues. 24. 343B. 25. 343CD. Babbitt's translation. 26. Burgess, p.94. 27. See Burgess, p.110. 28. Burgess, p,105f, n.4. 29. Burgess, pp.157-158. 30. There are references also at 153,404 and 1433. 31. Frogs, 354-371. 62 32. The epideictic regularly made use of "the xpeCa, a maxim made the basis of a disquisition" and of the Yvwyn- Burgess, p.108. 33. Grube, Critics, p.325. IV The City As Witness drtdvxcov vdp huiv xaAGv gpycov ra Cmouvi*iuaTa ev rq ayopg. avAxeirai. --Aeschines, 3.186. A reading of the De gloria Atheniensium as an example of moral criticism and as an epideictic oration has shown that the views expressed are not inconsistent with the general critical opinion of antiquity, nor with Plutarch's opinion as we have it elsewhere, and that the form and the structure of the oration are consistent with classical definitions of the epideictic. Yet problems remain which have not been explained in the preceding chapters. Why, we may ask, for example, does Plutarch choose the things which he does to make his arguments? Why does he digress through several pages to speak of Epameinondas, a Theban, in his investigation 63 64 of Athenian glory? And why does his retelling of the events at Mantineia not conform to the facts of the engagement? How did he decide which Athenian heroes to include in his argument, and is it possible that he might have chosen more wisely? What prompted him to include the pomp of the dramatists and the generals in chapters six and seven? Assuming that the oration was delivered in Athens, or at least that it was prepared for delivery in Athens, we may turn to the ancient city itself and to the monu ments and memorials which adorned it for elucidation on these points. Both from ancient descriptions of the city and from recent archaeological testimony, there is evidence enough to support the suggestion that Plutarch was making use of the examples which were at hand in the city, and that he refers, throughout the speech, to monuments which were within the view of his audience, even as he spoke. Plutarch's tendency to appeal to the judgment and opinion of his audience has been noted as a feature of his epideictic style. To make the ultimate appeal to popular feeling, to take his examples from the monuments raised by the Athenian people, would be consistent with this device. Indeed, it would further add to the 65 effectiveness of the oration as a show-piece. With this possible appeal to the audience in mind, another reading of the oration, with particular regard to the topography and monuments of the ancient city, will suggest that the De gloria was intended for delivery in Athens--more particularly in the Agora of the Kerameikos, perhaps from the (3hucx which stood before the Stoa of Attalos. It will thus be possible to demonstrate that some of Plutarch's problem examples are more easily understood with reference to the larger context of the speech: the location in which it was given. The Later Agora, the Agora of the Kerameikos, was itself a monument to the martial successes of the Athenians. A1. N. Oikonomides relates the origins of 1 the Agora in The Two Agoras in Ancient Athens. The city was looted, maliciously destroyed and burned by Persian invaders in 479 B.C. When the victorious Athenians returned triumphantly to their homes, having defeated the barbarians of the Great King, they were confronted by the still smoking remains of what once had been Athens. Their romantic attachment to the historical and religious traditions of Athens, plus the ready supply of building materials to be found among the ruins, caused the people to rebuild on the same site along the lines of a completely new city plan of which we still know only part. The Acropolis hill surface was enlarged by means of the embankments marked by the Themistoclean and Cimonian walls, a new wall ring was built for Piraeus, boundary stones, nearly uniform in size, fixed the various points of the 66 areas within the city to be built and the plans of Cimon and Themistocles for the embellishment and fortification of the "new Athens" were carried out. This would seem to have been the most opportune time to relocate the Agora, transferring it from its original site at the entrance to the Acropolis to the open space below the hill of Agoraios Kolonos in Kerameikos. The boundary stones of the Agora, as well as those from the Kerameikos, and many others found in Athens are roughly dated in the "first half of the fifth century B.C." A good many of them can be dated more specifically between 479-475 B.C., the years during which the new city plan of Athens was approved by the boule and put into motion by the placement of these markers amidst the ruins of the old city as well as out in the new fields which were to be newly incorporated within the enlarged area surrounded by the new city wall. With this in mind, the Themistoklean allusion with which Plutarch begins the oration takes on greater significance. If Themistokles had not been, we are told, the generals who followed him could not have been. Similarly, if Themistokles had lacked a plan for the ruined Athens, the Agora in which Plutarch stood would not have been where it was. We may even suggest that the lost beginning lines of the oration contained a reference to the Agora in which the speaker stood, and that from this reference, Plutarch proceeded to the famous remark of Themistokles' which serves as the theme statement of the De gloria Atheniensium. After the implied compliment to Themistokles, 67 Perikles' administration stands at the head of Plutarch's catalog of Athenian glories. It is appropriate that Perikles should hold this primary position, for the Periklean age of Athens was its golden age. Perikles rebuilt both the Athenian constitution and the city itself after the conclusion of the Persian Wars. He established Athenian sea power and extended and strengthened the empire. He presided over an age of unprecedented commercial success and pressed Athenian interests undaunted and undeterred by the sensibilities of allies or rivals. Half a millenium after his death, Perikles' position in Athenian history was unchallenged. The glory which was still undeparted from Plutarch's Athens was Perikles' monument, and every one of Plutarch's audience would have been familiar with enduring memorials to Perikles' administration. It might, indeed, be said that the whole city, and its spirit, were 2 Perikles' memorials. If the memory of Perikles lived chiefly in the city's 3 spirit, the monuments raised by Themistokles and Kimon were as solid and material as the walls which enclosed 4 the new Athens. Kimon is also reported to have adorned 5 the Agora with Plane Trees, and his brother-in-law Peisianax was the architect of the Stoa Poikile--to a 68 discussion of which we shall return--which was also known 6 7 as the Stoa Peisianakteios, in his honor. Aristeides was also instrumental in the reconstruction of the city, and the plan for its embellishment is "probably to be 8 credited" to him. Even before the new Agora rose from the ruins of plundered Athens, the Deme of Kerameikos had been the public burial ground. Tombs of fallen Athenian soldiers and statesmen lined the Panathenaic Way from the Dipylon Gate to the entrance of the Agora. The Athenians con tinued to bury their honored dead here, as they had since 9 the Bronze Age, and any traveller to Athens in Plutarch's day could have entered the Agora past these tombs and memorials, as perhaps Plutarch did, as he rehearsed his epideictic on the glory of the Athenians, just prior to delivering it. Certainly Pausanias came this way; he reports seeing the tombs of many of the heroes to whose example Plutarch makes reference. We will discuss them in the order in which they appear in the De gloria. Perikles was buried in the Kerameikos, as were, says Pausanias, all the Athenians who died in battle, 10 11 except those who fell at Marathon. Phormio lay next to Perikles, even as he is mentioned first after 12 13 Perikles by Plutarch. Tolmides and his troops 69 14 15 16 were there. Thrasyboulos' tomb had first position, 17 before even that of Perikles. Konon's tomb was in 18 the Kerameikos, and there was also a statue of him in 19 the Agora, near the Stoa Basileios. Burial in the Kerameikos was apparently not restricted to soldiers and statesmen, for the painter 20 21 Nikias was buried there. Nikias is, however, the only artist of any sort for whom we have evidence of burial in this honored ground. 22 23 Chabrias had a tomb in the Kerameikos, and may have had a herm, as well, for "in a statue base as yet unpublished, found along the Panathenaic Way near the Eleusineion appears the inscription XABPIOY in letters of 24 the Imperial period." Timotheos was buried next to his father, Konon, and 25 also had a statue with him in the Agora. It is not clear from what Pausanias tells us whether Kimon was buried with his troops, but the men were in the Kerameikos, 26 buried near Konon and Timotheos. Pausanias reports that the road from the gate to the Kerameikos was lined with colonnades--probably commercial stoas--in front of which stood bronze statues of famous 27 men and women, but he does not tell us the names of the famous whose images stood here, and we have no way 70 of knowing how many more of the noble Athenians to whom Plutarch alludes may have greeted the orator as he made his way toward the Agora. It is almost certain that some of the statues portrayed others of the Athenians whose memory the speaker honors in the De gloria. It is certain that once Plutarch, or any traveller, had entered the Agora by the route described by Pausanias, he would find himself immediately confronted with the images and memorials of the men with whom the oration associates the glory of the Athenians. The first buildings on the traveller's right as he entered the Agora were the Stoa Basileios and the Stoa of Zeus 28 Eleutherios. These buildings, and the images and memorials which adorned them, provide the first key to the understanding of why Plutarch chose as his examples the statesmen and generals whom he chose. It will become clear, as we proceed, that if Plutarch delivered the De gloria Atheniensium in the Athenian Agora, the monuments and memorials of what he calls the glory of the Athenians were all around him, within his view and within the view of his audience. It will also become clear, as we follow both the traveller and the argument, that this epideictic is, itself, something of a ndpofios, and that its movement parallels 71 the direction of a journey into the Agora. The epideictic begins with Themistokles, as the traveller would begin at the Themistoklean Dipylon. Plutarch then moves through a catalog of Athenian heroes and deeds, one after the other, just as, upon having entered the city, he might have moved past the tombs and memorials of the great, one after another. Now, as we have reaced the Agora and seen the Stoa Basileios and the Stoa Eleutherios on the right, painted and adorned by the finest artists of Athens, the oration begins the consideration of what share those artists had in the city's fame. Plutarch begins his argument with painters, which seems odd because painting was not an Athenian strength, but his reason for doing so is clear from the testimony of the city itself. The first thing which Plutarch would have seen, after the imposing row of memorials, was the Basileios and, behind it, the Eleutherios, which together held the most famous--we may even say most glorious--of the accomplishments of the Athenian painters. Let us examine these buildings in more detail. Until 1970, it was thought that the Stoa Basileios and the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios must have been one and 30 the same. The foundations of a very small stoa--only 72 17.75m by 7.18m, with only eight columns to a colonnade-- have since been uncovered just north of the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios. It is certainly the remains of the 31 Basileios. The very title of the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios recalls Athenian greatness, for the building was named in honor of Zeus, called Eleutherios "for having freed 32 the Athenians from the Persian menace." It was adorned within by paintings --the twelve gods; Theseus, 33 Democracy and the People; the battle of Mantineia 34 and without by decrees commemorating liberation. Before 35 it stood the statue of Zeus Eleutherios and that of the 36 emperor Hadrian, also called Eleutherios. 37 The painter of the battle of Mantineia was Euphranor; this was the painting concerning which Plutarch digresses 38 for several pages in the De gloria. Near the Basileios and the Eleutherios were the Temple of Good Fame--an offering from the spoils of the 39 Medes defeated at Marathon --and at least one statue of 40 Nike. The Annex to the Stoa of Zeus was, in Plutarch's time, "the seat of an imperial cult in which successive emperors were presumably worshipped in connection with 41 Zeus Eleutherios." Just to the northeast of the Stoa Basileios and the 73 Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios, and to the traveller's left as 42 he entered the Agora, was the Stoa Poikile. Within the 43 Poikile, and giving it its name, were paintings of the fall of Troy, Theseus doing battle with the Amazons, and 44 the battle of Marathon, in which Kallimachos and 45 Miltiades were prominently featured. The walls were also hung with bronze shields, some of which were taken 46 from what Plutarch calls "Kleon's four hundred 47 48 captives." Indeed, A badly crushed but nearly complete fine bronze oval shield (0.95m X 0.83m) found in a cistern south of the Hephaisteion [by modern excavators] seems to be a relic of the long blockade. The rim is bordered with an elaborate guilloche design, and the smooth convex surface is inscribed with carelessly punched letters which read: A0HNAIOI / AIIOAAKEA / AIM[ON]IQN / EK [IIY] AO Although the next to the last letter is not clearly defined, the most reasonable restoration of the final word is IIYAO, which would refer lo the Athenian victory at Sphakteria in 424 B.C. Near the Stoa Poikile was a statuary group of Eirene 49 carrying the boy Ploutos, "which was probably dedicated soon after the establishment of the cult of Peace, after 50 51 the battle of Leuktra in 374 B.C." The group of the liberators Harmodios and Aristogeiton was also not far 52 away--opposite the Metroon, in which memorials of 74 53 54 Marathon were also set up. If the images of Kynegeiros 55 and Polyzelos did not appear in the painting of Marathon in the Poikile, perhaps their names were listed in the Metroon. To the west of the Stoa Poikile and northeast of the Basileios, stood the Stoa of Herms, of which nothing is 56 known. It can be presumed that there may have been still more memorials of Athenian greatness here. If Plutarch stood on the 3hiia to deliver his oration, this concentration of memorials would have been before his eyes as he spoke, for the rostrum stood before the Stoa of Attalos, on the east side of the Panathenaic 57 Way, almost directly across from the Metroon. The speaker's eyes would turn, almost naturally perhaps, from the tombs along the Panathenaic Way to the painted stoas and from them to the statue of Pindar, which also stood in the northwest Agora. Certainly the argument of the oration turns almost naturally from the catalog of heroes, through a discussion of painting and on to a discussion of poetry. (It should be noted that the pivotal figure in the argument is not Pindar, but Simonides. That, too, is appropriate. The speaker is moving in his argument from painting as an art, as exemplified by memorial paintings, towards a consideration 75 of poetry as an art--in Pindar. It is appropriate that the transitional figure should have been a poet, such as Simonides, whose greatest achievements were examples of memorial verse--most significantly in this context, perhaps, the elegy on the fallen at Marathon.) Pindar received the statue which stood in the Agora, 58 Pausanias tells us, because he praised the Athenians in a song. Perhaps it was for the very poem of praise 59 from which Plutarch quotes, nauSes 'AdavaCcov epAAovxo cpaevvav HpirnLS' EAeudepCag, that the Athenians chose to honor Pindar with a statue so near to the monuments of the Eleutherioi--Zeus and 60 Hadrian. After discussing the relationships between form and matter in poetry, there was little else to say to an Athenian audience, since, as Plutarch says himself, Athens could claim no great epic or melic poet to be 61 cited as exemplary. Such poets as Athens possessed-- 62 Menander, who recognized about poetry what Pindar did not, 63 the unfortunate Kinesias, and the great dramatists-- were all associated with the theater. It is not surprising that a discussion of the 76 contribution of the dramatists to the glory of the Athenians should follow a survey of the deeds and men whose memorials dotted the northern part of the Agora. Whether a man were journeying into Athens--as Pausanias did, as presumably most travellers did, along the Panathenaic Way--or whether he was standing on the platform before the Stoa of Attalos--as perhaps Plutarch was--all that he could see would be the north Agora, with its memorials of men and deeds. The view from the Panathenaic Way across the Agora to the west or to the south would be blocked or obscured by the immensity of the 64 Odeion of Agrippa, which rose in the center of the Agora. Most of the statues which adorned the facade of the Odeion were of poets of little mark--men, perhaps, like 65 Kinesias or Kratinos --for the most part, men of little mark were all that Athens had to offer to poetry, as we have noted. But Menander had a statue on the Odeion, as 66 did Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. If the size and position of the Odeion were any guide to the Athenian judgment of the city's greatness, there could be no question of the pre-eminence of the playwrights and their productions. The theater was large: "the original auditorium was 25m square....The 67 seating capacity was 1000." It was also notable: "The 77 plan of the Odeion shows a complete break with Greek 68 tradition." The theater was a Roman Imperial extrava gance towering up in the Athenian Agora. It was all out of proportion to the other buildings and monuments which lined the relatively small public square. Its 69 importance could have been overestimated by the casual traveller; perhaps he would have overestimated the importance of the dramatists as contributors to the greatness of Athens as well. In any event, if the De gloria Atheniensium is itself a ndpoSoQ into the glory of the Athenians, similar to the journey of a traveller into the Agora which was witness to the glory, the theater will claim a disproportionate attention with a rather gaudy, perhaps slightly overdone appearance. If Plutarch really thinks that the accomplishment of the dramatists is subordinate to the accomplishment of the generals and statesmen, why does he devote so much time to the former? Why is his argument in this part of the oration so large and gaudy and slightly ridiculous? Perhaps because the city, and specifically the Agora, gave the speaker the structure, as well as the subject matter, of the speech. This is perhaps the most reasonable explanation for a difficulty which the exigencies of utilitarian 78 criticism and the epideictic genre will not comfortably enclose. The passage from 348C-349B is a major difficulty in understanding the De gloria as a serious piece of work or as an acceptable argument. It is out of proportion; its tone is harsh. Combined with the burlesque pomp which accompanies it, the consideration of the contri bution of the tragedians is hard to accept. Yet it must be allowed that if the form of the epideictic under discussion depends on the form of the Agora, and if its movement parallels an entrance into the Agora, then a gaudy and disproportionate attention to the dramatists and to their memorials is far from out of place. Indeed, it would be essential. Perhaps it is the section of the argument dealing with the tragedians which goes farthest to validate the suggestion that the topography of the city supplied Plutarch with the outline of his argument. For if the suggestion is valid, the theater and its memorials will be hard to ignore: they will have to thrust themselves up rudely in the middle of the oration as they thrust themselves up rudely in the center of the Agora. The treatment of the dramatists, as a problem in the oration, is connected with the two processions: the bumbling entrance of the dramatists and their props, and 79 the parade of the triumphant generals. This is the second TtdpoSoQ in the oration. The first came at the very beginning, when Themistokles opened an entrance for the generals who followed his successes with theirs. That entrance could also be understood to stand for the entrance of the traveller into the Agora, or of the speaker into his argument. Here, there is a stage entrance, if we read it with the dramatists in mind or, for the generals, it is a triumphant procession. Presumably, an Athenian triumph would follow the same route which Plutarch or Pausanias would have followed into the Agora. Military pomps, like religious pro cessions, would have followed the Panathenaic Way from the Pompeion at the Dipylon Gate at least as far as the Agora. Perhaps the military processions, as well as the religious ceremonies, would have continued to the 70 Acropolis. In any event, Plutarch has managed another nice transition from a discussion of one area of Athenian success into the discussion of another. Let us briefly paraphrase the movement of the oration at this point. Having dealt with the imposing pretense of the theater to greatness, Plutarch asks his audience to consider an entrance by the tragedians. Suppose, he suggests, 80 they were to wind their way into the Agora in triumphal procession and pass by here, right in front of the rostrum, just as a triumphant general would. Let’s compare the entrance and the pomp of the dramatists with those of the generals; let's see how the apparently imposing successes look when compared with the trophies which the victors bear. It would be precious, but perhaps not too much so for Hellenistic taste, to suggest also that the entrance of the generals would allow Plutarch to lead his audience again past the tombs and memorials which lined the Panathenaic Way. It is certain that this second TtdpoSos repeats some of the triumphs of the first, and reviews some of the memorials which we have already seen. Among the dydAuaTa xcu adyfioAa which the victors bear are not only spoils and booty, but some of the very buildings which adorn the city. Plutarch has said at last what we have suspected him of intending to say: if you seek the glory of the Athenians, look at their city, which is symbol of their greatness and witness to what they glory in. Religious and festival processions, as we have said, proceeded along the Panathenaic Way, as well as did military triumphs. Perhaps it is the thought of this 81 which prompts Plutarch to ask his audience to consider 71 the festivals of the city. If the audience was watching a festival procession, instead of imagining a triumph of victors, would they be celebrating the day of victory of a dramatist? No, it is likely that the feast would be in commemoration of one of the victories whose trophies were all around them. This appeal to the audience to consider the feast days recalls the Themistoklean allusion with which the oration begins, and refines it. For here, the feast days follow the generals. Not only is it true that without Themistokl^s, there would have been none to follow him and not only is it true that without the feast day's celebration, there would be no rest from the feast day, but it is also true that without the generals, there would be fewer feast days. Perhaps there would be none, for perhaps Athens would not have survived. But Athens survives, Plutarch says, and is witness to its own glory. This is perhaps the place to consider another problem with the oration, since we have reached the point at which it is raised. Plutarch attaches the glory of the Athenians specifically to their establishment of freedom, first for Greece and then for all the world. 82 Yet Plutarch spoke these words in a city from which the glory of freedom was largely departed, and from a platform in a Roman provincial city. Perhaps the modern reader would detect a note of irony in this praise of freedom in a city which was not free, and find in this irony some testimony that the oration ought to be taken less than seriously. To assume the irony is to err, if only because there is no internal evidence to support the assumption. Plutarch can be ironic, indeed has been, in the course of the speech. But if we believe that he is mocking Athenian greatness while he seems to praise it, we will be reduced to secret ciphers and occult explanations in an attempt to prove what the speech really says, or we will have to dismiss it as an incompetent patchwork. It is clear by now that the argument and the structure are too care fully crafted to allow the latter alternative. This is not the place to discuss ancient ideas of public and private freedom, but it may not be out of 72 place to quote Plutarch on the question of Greek freedom. Indeed, if one excepts the action at Marathon, the sea-fight at Salamis, Plataeae, Thermopylae, and the achievements of Cimon at the Eurymedon and about Cyprus, Greece has fought all her wars 83 to bring servitude upon herself....Whereas men of another race.. .underwent the greatest perils and hardships in order to rescue Greece and set her free from cruel despots and tyrants. So ran the thought of the Greeks. We need not suppose that it was ironically that the Athenians raised the tribute to Hadrian, who had restored 73 much of the city's glory, and appealed to him as Eleutherios. It is best to accept the honesty of Plutarch as regards this, and to realize that it was true of the Athenians as it is true of other men, that they were free if they thought that they were. It was true of the Athenians as it has been true of very few men of more recent times, that their contributions to freedom benefit us still. Plutarch's statement perhaps needs qualifi cation, but it does not violate the truth. Plutarch has appealed to Pindar to close the dis cussion of the value of poetry, as he made use of Pindar to begin it. We may assume that he directed his attention again to the statue of the poet which stood in the northern Agora. He would not have had to look too much away from Pindar's memorial to see those of the 74 orators Demosthenes and Isocrates. Having dismissed the claims of the poets, Plutarch considers the case of the orators, and begins by noticing Demosthenes' suit for 84 75 possession of the Strategeion, on behalf of the Bema. That the section of the oration which deals with the orators should begin with Demosthenes is appropriate for several reasons. Demosthenes did have a memorial in the Agora, he probably had more claim to greatness as a statesman and contributor to the political greatness of Athens than did any other of the great orators, and, finally, the choice of Demosthenes is appropriate, structurally, because it allows reference to Aeschines. For Plutarch turns against Demosthenes and the other orators the same argument which Aeschines turned against Ktesiphon--who proposed to give Demosthenes a crown. Aeschines appealed to the city and to its monuments and memorials for support of his argument that Demosthenes 76 did not deserve the glory of a victor. In the De gloria Atheniensium, Plutarch is making the same appeal to the same witnesses. Aeschines appealed to the Agora and its memorials to show that Demosthenes' glory was not equal to the greatest glories of the Athenians, and Aeschines won his point. Plutarch's audience knew that, and although a statue of Demosthenes stood in their Agora, it was a tribute which bore its own qualification. Inscribed on 77 the base of the statue were the lines: 85 eCnep Canv pcounv yvcoup Atiuicrdeveg e tx e c oOttot' av ’ EA.At'ivwv fjpgev i\pr)S ManeScSv Had your strength been equal to your resolution, Demosthenes, The Greeks would have never been ruled by a Macedonian Ares. In Plutarch's time, Demosthenes had his memorial set up among the memorials of Marathon, but the speaker had only to point to the inscription to make his argument: Demosthenes' accomplishment, great as it was, was not worthy of comparison with the accomplishments of others to whom memorials were raised. Had Demosthenes power been equal to his resolution, perhaps he would stand easily among the saviors of freedom and the tyrranicides whose images crowded the Agora, but his contribution to the glory of the Athenians was secondary, and his failure was inscribed upon his memorial. If Demosthenes, who had his memorial, was not equal to the true greatness of the Athenians, Plutarch asks, are any of the other orators equal to it? The memorials which filled the city are recalled again, and the accomplishments which they honored are compared with rhetorical successes. We know of the existence of the tributes to all of the generals mentioned here but 78 Archinus. Perhaps he had a monument in the Agora about 86 which we know nothing, perhaps he shared the honors of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, by extension. There is no evidence of memorials having stood to any of these orators but Demosthenes. Isocrates had a statue in the Agora, but he did not 79 have a great name or a glorious reputation. On a column is a statue of Isocrates, who left behind him a threefold reputation: a reputation for industry, in that, though he lived to the age of ninety-eight, he never left off taking pupils; a reputation for prudence, in that he steadily abstained from politics and from meddling with public affairs; and a reputation for a generous spirit, because the tidings of the battle of Chaeronea grieved him so that he died a voluntary death. Exinei, aocpiaxixriv ULwpocppoaOvriv! Plutarch's ridicule of Isocrates, however harsh it may look in the context of the De gloria Atheniensium, is not overwritten, it would appear from Pausanias' damning revelation of the repu tation which moved the tribute. Is this a man, Plutarch asks, worthy of comparison with the men of Marathon? It would appear, from Pausanias' comment, that Plutarch's scorn at 350E is not directed primarily against Isocrates' avoidance of hiatus--as it almost seems to be-- but aims rather at the orator's timidity. Plutarch him self normally avoids hiatus. The clash of vowels was 87 80 unpleasant to the Athenian ear, and avoidance of hiatus is a characteristic of well-constructed classical Greek 81 prose. Plutarch is not arguing against the avoidance of hiatus in this passage, nor is he saying that the device is ridiculous in itself. He is saying only that it would be ridiculous to enter a claim to greatness for Isocrates because of his use of it--and that it is his greatest accomplishment. It would be an especially ridiculous claim to enter on behalf of a man so timid that he died of distress simply upon hearing about a battle. Pausanias does not report an inscription on Isocrates' 82 monument, but he does feel moved to report the orator's "three-fold reputation," and presumably it was the reputation by which Isocrates was known, and which was associated with the statue. It is probably safe to assume that Plutarch is again making use of the materials which were at hand in the Agora, as he has repeatedly done, throughout the oration. Perhaps Plutarch would continue, perhaps we would find verification in the speaker's own words for the thesis which has been advanced here, but the oration breaks off, just as Plutarch returns to Demosthenes. Whether Plutarch said what his point of departure was is less important than the fact that the speech itself 88 shows that it could have depended upon the city of the Athenians for its structure and for the movement of its argument. What difficulties there are in the construction of the oration can largely be laid to the form and the limitations of the Agora in which it was intended to be delivered. There is enough evidence to suggest that Plutarch intended to say that the glory of the Athenians was their city, and that the accomplishments which made it great were the accomplishments which built the city, with its buildings and its memorials. Perhaps he intended to say. with Aeschines, that the memorials of all of the city's noble deeds stand dedicated in the Agora, and that the Agora should lend its witness to an investigation of the glory of the Athenians. 89 FOOTNOTES 1. Chicago, 1964, pp. x-xi. 2. Although there was no memorial in the Agora, there was a statue on the Acropolis --along with a statue of Miltiades. See Pausanias, 1.25.1. 3. Whom Plutarch first mentions at 348D. 4. Perikles built walls, too, of course. See 351A. 5. American School of Classical Studies at Athens, The Athenian Agora: A Guide to the Excavation and Museum, second edition (Athens, 1962) , p . 22 . This work will henceforth be cited as: Guide. 6. I.T. Hill, The Ancient City of Athens (London, 1953) , p.68. 7. See 350B. 8. Hill, p.150. 9. Hill, pp.8-31. 10. These men were honored by being buried on the battlefield. 11. See 345C. 12. For Perikles and Phormio, see Pausanias, 1.29.3. 13. See 345D. Thucydides devotes only three sentences to Tolmides (at 1.108), at least to the circum- navagation (although there are other short notices at 1.103 and 1.113). Thus Tolmides is an odd choice for an exemplary hero, or as a maker of history. Tolmides' memorial, however, was apparently prominent: one would be more likely to think of him after strolling through the Kerameikos than after browsing through Thucydides. 14. Pausanias, 1.29.13. 15. See 345D. 90 16. On the arrangement of the tombs, see A. von Domaszewski, Per Staatsfriedhof der Athener, in Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie~der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-nistorische Klasse, 8 TT9T7T,- iFTmbF r 7' ' . ------ ------------------------- 17. Pausanias, 1.29.3. 18. Pausanias, 1.29.14. Konon, whom Plutarch first mentions at 345E, escaped with eight ships from the disaster at Aigospotami, where the Athenian fleet was destroyed in 405 B.C. He sought refuge in Cyprus and sailed from there in 394 to encounter and destroy the Spartan fleet. Babbitt's "Restoration of Athens to her power on the sea," is an overly generous translation; "causing the Athenians again to embark upon the sea" would be more faithful to the fact, as well as to the Greek. 19. Pausanias, 1.2.23. 20. See 346A. See also, K. Schefold, The Art of Classical Greece (J.R. Foster, tr.), New YorlTJ 19 6 7, p. 196, where we are told that Nikias "went in for big compositions full of incident, such as cavalry battles and sea-fights." It may be that some cf Nikias' historical compositions were at Athens, although there is no evidence of that. 21. Pausanias, 1.29.15. 22. 349F. 23. Pausanias, 1.29.3. 24. Oikonomides, p.106. 25. Pausanias, 1.29.15; 1.2.23. 26. Pausanias, 1.29.14. 27. Pausanias, 1.2.4. 28. Pausanias, 1.3.1-3. 29. TtdpoSos, whose most general meaning is 'passage" (either in the sense of a "way past" or a "going by") also has the more specialized meanings of "a coming forward to speak" and "the first entrance of a chorus." Plutarch intends to convey all three. 91 30. Hill, pp. 43-44. 31. P.M. Fraser, "Archaeology in Greece, 1969-1970," in Archaeological Reports for 1969-1970 (Council of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies and the Managing Committee of the British School of Archaeology at Athens), London, 1970, pp.3-4. 32. Hill, p.44. 33. Pausanias, 1.3.2-3. 34. Hill, p.45. 35. Pausanias, 1.3.1. 36. Pausanias, 1.3.1. For the epithet, "Eleutherios," see, Guide, p.63. 37. Euphranor's "Theseus," which is compared to that of Parrhasios at 346B, was in the Stoa Eleutherios along with his picture of the battle of Mantineia. See Pliny, Historia naturalis, 35.129. 38. I am convinced that Plutarch is describing the painting and not the battle itself. See the first appendix, "Epameinondas' Mantineia and Euphranor's, a Comparison," pp. 101-115. 39. Pausanias, 1.14i4. 40. "In front of the Stoa the excavators came on one almost complete and two more fragmentary marble figures of Victory." Guide, p.63. 41. Guide, p. 63. 42. Pausanias, 1.15.1-5. 43. Pausanias, 1.15.4. Pliny (35.57) credits the work to Panainos: adeo iam colorum usus increbruerat, adeoque ars perfecta erat ut in e£ proelio iconicos duces p'inxisse tradatur, AtEeniensium Miltiaden Callimachum, Cynaegirum.... 44. 347D. 45. 348D. 46. 345D. 92 47. In 425 B.C., Demosthenes fortified Pylos, on the west coast of the Peloponnesus, in Spartan territory. The Spartans occupied the island of Sphakteria, opposite, and laid siege to Pylos. The Athenians destroyed the Spartan fleet and laid siege to Sphakteria in turn. The action eventually resulted in the unprecedented capture of a garrison of Spartans alive --unprecedented because the Spartans were expected to be victorious or to die. These prisoners were "Kleon’s four hundred captives," for Kleon was co-commander with Demosthenes at Pylos; although he had been publicly embarrassed into the command, he was quick to take credit for the victory. Plutarch exaggerates the number of captives --which was actually one short of three hundred--if he does not otherwise credit Kleon too much. For the entire affair, see Thucydides, 4.3-40. 48. Hill, p.69. 49. Pausanias, 1.8.3. 50. See the first appendix. Although Leuktra and Mantineia were nearly a decade apart, Plutarch joins them at 346B. Perhaps the nine year ellipsis may be explained by the fact that there were memorials of Leuktra and of Mantineia in the Agora, but none for any of the intervening battles or years. 51. Hill, p.78. 52. Pausanias, 1.8.5. Besides the two fragments which Plutarch cites at 350A, Pindar has lines of praise for Athens at Nemean 2.8 and 4.18. 53. Aeschines, 3.186. 54. 347D. 55. 347D. 56. Guide, p.65. 57. Hill, p.66 . 58. Pausanias, 1.8.5. 59. 350A. See footnote 52, above. 93 60. I realize that I am probably guilty of anachronism here, for presumably the statue was raised before that of Hadrian. I allow the anachronism to stand, however, because I believe that it is clear that the association could have been made, in Plutarch's time. 61. 348B. 62. That form was subordinate to matter. See 347EF and chapter two, above. 63. 348B. Kinesias was grotesque in appearance and profligate in behavior (Athenaeus, 551). The Pseudo-Plutarch (De musica, 1141E) reports the opinion that K. was the death of the dithyramb with his clumsy, left-handed innovations. Far from being a credit to the city with his skill, K. was an unattractive laughing stock. If his image graced the Odeion, it would have done much to discredit the pretensions of the building. 64. Pausanias 1.21. 1-3. For a more explicit discussion of the Odeion and its site, see Hill, pp. 73-77. 65. Pausanias makes the derogation at 1.21.1. Plutarch cites Kratinos at 351A. 66. Pausanias, 1.21.1-3. 67. Hill, p. 75. 68. Hill, p. 76. 69. By Plutarch's time, it was no longer a theater, but had descended to the status of a forum for the sophists. Hill, p.76. 70. On the processions, see Hill, pp. 41,75, 153-156. 71. The Athenian calendar began, properly, at the summer solstice, 21 June, and contained 12 months of 30 days and 29 days alternately. Since that makes up.' only 354 days, the system required a thirteenth inter calary month every three years and the days went out of order in 12 month years. Assuming a year beginning 21 June, the dates for the festivals which Plutarch mentions would be: 24 August; 3 September; 30 August; 21 August; 29 March; 23 May. My source is Gow in Whibley, pp. 589-591. 94 72. "Life of Flaminius," 375cd. Perrin translation. For Plutarch’s attitude, see also Ad principem ineruditum, 779C-782E; Praecepta gerendae reipublicae, 798A-825E. 73. Hill, pp.207-213. 74. Pausanias, 1.8.4; 1.18.8. 75. The Strategeion would not have been visible from the Bema, because of the obstructive bulk of the Odeion. 76. See Aeschines, 3.181-196. 77. Plutarch, "Life of Demosthenes," 860c. 78. According to Plutarch ("Life of Phokion," 759c), Phokion had a statue in the Agora. 79. Pausanias, 1.18.8. 80. W.W. Goodwin, A Greek Grammar, second edition (New York, 1965), p.13 (paragraph 34). 81. The avoidance of hiatus is the characteristic of well- constructed Greek prose even today, as any first semester Greek student can testify, having been introduced to the wonders of moveable consonants, crasis, elision and aphaeresis. The rules of Greek composition are still set, as they were in Plutarch's day, in accord with Attic tastes. 82. But Plutarch (or Pseudo-Plutarch) does record the inscription in Vitae decern oratorum, 839B. V Plutarch on the Glory of the Athenians: A Reassessment The excellence of man, in short, directly or in directly, was the point about which Greek art turned; that excellence was at once aesthetic and ethical; and the representation of what was beautiful involved also the representation of what was good....Through and through, the Greek ideal is Unity. To make the individual at one with the state, the real with the ideal, the inner with the outer, art with morals, finally to bring all phases of life under the empire of a single idea, which, with Goethe, we may call, as we will, the good, the beautiful, or the whole. 1 --G. Lowes Dickinson We have tried to see the De gloria Atheniensium whole and in context, and in the attempt we have validated the worth of this investigation. For we have discovered that the oration is a mature and sophisticated rhetorical construction, well within the limits of classical thought and expression. We have discovered nothing 95 96 which would urge us to describe the De gloria as a major critical work, but everything which we have discovered would urge us to take the oration seriously. We have seen that Plutarch says, in effect, that the glory of the Athenians is their city. Using the streets and walls, the buildings and monuments of Athens for proof, the orator invites his audience to look around them and to see the glory of the city. He urges the Athenians to consider the deeds of the men who built Athens and who preserved it. The greatness of the city, he says, reflects the greatness of its men of virtuous action. The painters and poets and orators, although they adorned Athens, did not create or defend the city. 2 Indeed, Plutarch says, the city was mother and nutrix to the artists. The accomplishments of the men of arts embellished the Athenian glory, but they did not establish the city's greatness. Plutarch does not intend to belittle the artistic accomplishment, but only to put it in perspective. Further, the orator does not wish to glorify martial success, he intends only to show that it was by the establishment and preservation of the city that the glory of the Athenians established and maintained. 97 For Plutarch does not consider the men of whom he speaks, whether generals or artists, as single individuals. Rather, he looks at them as Athenians, as representative of the virtues and spirit of the city and of the race. He does not distinguish between Athenians of Theseus' time, or of Perikles' and of Hadrian's. All men of all times participate in the glory of Athens, if they are Athenians. The builders and saviors are greater examples and vehicles of Athenian greatness than the decorators and chroniclers, but all are part of the whole. The vision of a mystic unity would not have seemed strange to a second century Athenian audience. A contemporary of Plutarch's, who also spoke to the 3 Athenians, speaks of it in another context And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers.... The whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself.... St. Paul's revolutionary vision would shatter the ancient unity, but Paul himself could not escape the pagan metaphor--what Dickinson calls the Greek ideal-- 98 of society as a living body, in which all of the parts served for the edification of the whole, and shared in the beauty and goodness of the whole. For the Athenians, Athens was the whole. They were, and knew themselves to be, Athenians before they were Greeks, Athenians before they were subjects of Rome. The city was its own glory. Plutarch urges his Athenian audience to recognize the glory whose monuments and memorials were all around them and in which they participated, and to realize that the glory of the Athenians was more than the accomplishment of any man and, further, that the accomplishments which created the city were greater than those which were created from it. The oration itself is a remarkable demonstration of the unification of several elements into one theme. Plutarch involves the history of the city, its contri butions to the arts and its physical reality in a traditional epideictic form. Nothing is out of place in the argument of the De gloria, and nothing can stand alone. Scholars who have seen a problem in the speech have not looked at the composition as a unified structure, but have separated out problems from their proper context. We have attempted to see the De gloria Atheniensium 99 whole and in context. As a result of this attempt, we should be reminded that the utilitas of classical criticism was not a moral criterion as opposed to an aesthetic one, but was rather a blending of what are, to the modern way of thinking, two different types of judgment. That which was virtuous was beautiful, and glory was the reward of beauty and virtue. When we remember this, the De gloria Atheniensium seems neither difficult nor provincial. Far from being a puerile patchwork, the oration is seen to be a mature and sophisticated exposition of the Greek ideal. It is, besides, a careful and sincere appreciation of what was f) tgov 'AdpvaCoov euSogCqL, p ti6Alq dQdvaxp. 100 FOOTNOTES 1. G.Lowes Dickinson, The Greek View of Life (Ann Arbor, 1960), pp.213 and 249. 2. 345F. 3. Ephesians 4.11 and 4.16, Authorized Version. Appendix Epameinondas' Mantineia and Euphranor's: A Comparison The battle at Mantineia which resulted in the death of the Theban general Epameinondas did not at all come 1 about as Plutarch reports it to have been in the De gloria. The orator surely knew the facts of the engagement, for 2 he wrote a life of Epameinondas, and he has reference to 3 the battle also in the "Life of Agesilaos." Yet the narration of the events at Mantineia and those which led up to the battle, as it appears in the De gloria, is confused and abridged. The most likely explanation for this confusion and abridgement is that Plutarch was not describing the battle at all; he was describing Euphranor's painting of the battle, the painting which adorned the wall of the Stoa 4 5 of Zeus Eleutherios. We have seen that Plutarch depends heavily upon the monuments and memorials which 101 102 stood in the Agora to support his argument concerning the glory of the Athenians. We know that the picture of the battle was there, so that Plutarch's reference to the battle is not surprising. We may still be puzzled, however, at the amount of space the orator devotes to a discussion of a battle in which the Athenians played a very small part. A comparison of the facts of the battle with Plutarch's version of the facts will tend to support the suggestion that the orator is describing 6 the painting. There was more than one battle at Mantineia. The city was involved from the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, and invariably found itself on the wrong side--no matter how often its allegiance shifted. Mantineia was first defeated by the Spartans, against whom it had allied itself with Elis, in 418. After a resurgence of localism, Sparta reduced the city again in 385, this time destroying the walls and razing the city to the ground. By 371, the scattered Mantineians had again resolved themselves into a city, re-established with Theban aid. When the physical integrity of the city had been restored, however, the Mantineians swore a separate peace with Sparta against the Thebans. In the final battle of Mantineia in 362, which is the battle with which Plutarch 103 is concerned, the Mantineians were allied with Sparta and Athens against Thebes and the cities of the Arcadian League. The significance of the battle of Mantineia of 362 is related to the decline of Spartan hegemony, the rise of Thebes and the presumptions of Arcadia, all of which situations combined to make political chaos in Greece in the first half of the fourth century, B.C. 7 'Ano The ev AetinTpoie u&XPS, says Plutarch, and thus by neat ellipsis avoids the necessity to untangle nearly a decade of intrigue, confusion and counter-intrigue in the Peloponnesus and throughout Greece. The battle of Leuktra (371) was, indeed, the beginning of whatever was concluded at Mantineia nine years later, but the connection between Leuktra and Mantineia was not a simple one. Epameinondas enters history at Leuktra--or shortly before--and Thebes comes behind him in its search for hegemony in Greece. Sparta had entered Theban territory in the summer of 371, bent on enforcing a resolved peace on Thebes and the Boeotian League. Out of necessity, the Thebans accepted the advice of the recently appointed Boeotarchs, Pelopidas and Epameinondas, and resolved to meet King Kleombrotos and his Spartans at Leuktra. 104 Epameinondas received command and it was as a result of his innovations in strategy that the Spartans were defeated in a brief encounter. The Leuktrian affair marked the effective end of Spartan hegemony--although this was unnoticed at the time--it strengthened the Theban position, which had been all but untenable the day before, and encouraged Theban imperialism. Finally, it brought Epameinondas himself to greatness. It was he who was unswerving devotee to the cause of Theban ascendency. As a result of the Spartan defeat, the Peloponnesian League was broken and Arcadia presumed to rise to power in the peninsula. Thebes was to align itself with the Arcadians, but each party would seek first its own ends. Sparta would be left in unenthusiastic alliance with the remnants of the old order: Athens, Corinth, and, incidentally, Mantineia. This is a basic outline of the situation in Greece from 371 to 362. Never mind the intrigues of the Thessalians, the Macedonians and the Persians; never mind the uneasy alliance of Corinth and Athens; never mind the Spartan inability to face the reality of its situation; these are only incidental to the main struggle. There were three other expeditions to the Peloponnesus for Epameinondas before his last, which ended at 105 Mantineia. In the first, a winter campaign of 370-369, Epameinondas laid the foundations of Messene on Mount Ithome. This city would become the defiant stronghold of the Helots and Perioikoi who had revolted against Spartan power. The city was also to be the capital of the newly independent state of Messenia. In a second campaign, in late 369, Epameinondas opened Arcadia to sea communication by capturing the towns of Sikyon and Pellene. It was also during this campaign, apparently, that he laid the ambitious foundations of Megalopolis, destined to be the Arcadian capital. In a third expedition, mounted in 367, Epameinondas secured the coastline of Achaea. By 362, the ambitions of the Arcadians and those of the Thebans were in collision in the Peloponnesus. Led by Mantineia, a number of Arcadian cities had joined with Elis, Sparta and Achaea against the Theban domination of the Arcadian League. Epameinondas' gains in Achaea on his third expedition had been undone by a series of revolts provoked by Theban arrogance. Thebes found it necessary to re-establish itself as a power in the Peloponnesus or withdraw. Epameinondas supported the war party and led the final expedition. Nearly three pages of something less than a detailed summary of events between 371 and 362 have brought us 106 over Plutarch's easy ellipsis. Nine years after the battle of Leuktra, Epameinondas was drawn up at Tegea, planning an attack on Mantineia. Plutarch's version of the events leading up to the battle at Mantineia is as incorrect as it is abridged. Incorrect is perhaps the wrong word, at the outset, but the narration is certainly disordered. Epameinondas was pleased with the outcome at Leuktra, and he wished, throughout his career, to press every Theban advantage, but his sudden descent upon Sparta did not come as a result of Leuktra, nor is there other report that it came as the result of vengeful glee. Despite what Plutarch tells us, Epameinondas marched on Sparta because an attempt on Mantineia seemed unwise. The pillage of Laconia and the encouragement of the Perioikoi have, of course, no place in the last exped ition at all. They do follow immediately upon the victory at Leuktra. Plutarch's version of the first avoidance of battle has things reversed. Epameinondas had come into the Peloponnesus and made camp at Nemea to await the Athenians and, it was hoped, to defeat them there. But the Athenians had come into the region by a circuitous route, missing the Theban ambush, and Epameinondas' delay had allowed the concentration of forces at Mantineia. 107 This concentration included a part of the Spartan force-- another part of which had just set out under Agesilaos. Seeing an advantage there, Epameinondas proceeded to Tegea and thence undertook a forced march to Sparta, hoping first to draw the Spartans back from Mantineia and second for a psychological victory at least. To say, as Plutarch says, that Epameinondas almost succeeded in capturing and occupying the city is surely 8 granting the Theban too much. Yet Xenophon too is evasive on this point. Epameinondas would have taken the city like a bird's nest, deserted by those that should have defended it.... Epameinondas, therefore, when he went in- .o the city of the Spartans, where, while he and his men would have had to fight on the ground, they would also have been assailed with missiles from the tops of houses; and where the larger would have no superiority in the g struggle over the smaller number, he did not enter it.... Epameinondas, concluding that the Arcadians would come to the aid of Sparta, had no desire to fight with them and all the Lacedaemonians in conjunction.... He therefore marched back with all possible expedition to Tegea. We can only assume, as regards the truth of the matter, that Epameinondas would have taken the city if he had had the means. Plutarch says in the "Life of Agesilaos" that Epameinondas pixpov e6£nae. . . egoucpvne HaraAa(3euv xhv tx6A.iv, and further speaks of the fear with which 108 10 the Spartans regarded Epameinondas while he lived, but otherwise he says no more to clarify the exact nature of Epameinondas' action against Sparta. The testimony of other ancient writers is no help, but modern sources 11 have suggested that Epameinondas had perhaps no more than a flying column along on the raid and "made no serious attempt to break into the strongly defended town." Whatever the truth of the matter, Plutarch seems generous, although perhaps even an attempt upon Sparta ought to be considered no less a wonder than Kleon's unprecedented capture of Spartan prisoners. It is certain that the Theban band was not turned from the city by the arrival of the allies, for even the major Spartan force, under Agesilaos, missed the engage ment. Nor did Epameinondas apparently deceive, or attempt to deceive, the Spartans or their allies. The Theban raiders returned to Tegea as quickly as they had come. The most that can be said for the raid is that it did draw the Spartans off from Mantineia, thus reducing the odds which the Thebans had already found unattractive. Epameinondas avoided Mantineia and marched on Sparta not, as Plutarch would have it, because the Mantineians were unwilling or unable to meet him, but because his own delay had allowed the Mantineians to gain too much 109 strength. It is probable that the raid on Sparta was never intended to do any more than to keep the odds from getting any worse. It is true that the advantage of the Mantineians was much reduced by the raid. Not, as we have it from Plutarch, because they were surprised while planning how Sparta might be aided, but because the main pd.rt of the army had already moved toward Sparta. Plutarch's account of the consternation of the city and of Epameinondas' 12 attack is credible and seems to be supported by Xenophon. The climactic drama of the Athenian rescue is stressed by Plutarch, however, if it is not exaggerated. The death of Epameinondas, to which Xenophon credits the Mantineian victory--if a victory is what it was--is not mentioned by Plutarch. It would hardly serve the purposes of an oration on the nature of Athenian glory to point out that the death of the Theban general threw his troops into confusion and that, as a result, they blundered 13 into the Athenian line. Nor, for the same reason, is Epameinondas' death likely to have been a part of Euphranor's Athenian painting. Plutarch's interest in the Theban is unimportant; he is describing a painting. So, according to Plutarch, the Athenians thus xpaffiaavTeg fe w t&v xei-pcov xoO 1STtauei.vtf>v6a acpeCAovxo 110 xnv MavrCveiav. It was not that way at all. The battle of Mantineia of 362 went quite otherwise than Plutarch reports it, both in the events which brought about the pass and in the engagement itself. Plutarch the Boeotian must have known better. Even if the De gloria precedes the "Life of Epameinondas" by many years, the author could hardly have been so ignorant of the deeds of his famous townsman, Epameinondas, that the confusion was innocent. Neither is there any reason to suppose that Plutarch spoke only to his audience, and that he hopelessly confused the issue for rhetorical purposes alone: to add to the glory of the Athenian accomplishment at Mantineia or to heighten the drama in the telling. It is true that Plutarch's version serves both these ends: the abridgement and dislocation of the events from Leuktra to Mantineia is far more interesting and exciting than the facts would be in their telling. The same thing might be said for the Athenian "rescue," and also that it does magnify the Athenian contribution, and so it better serves the purposes of the oration. Yet Plutarch could not have presented a falsified version of the battle of Mantineia, unless it was a version which his audience knew and would accept, or unless he was not speaking of the battle itself, but of a representation Ill of rhe battle, a representation which was known to the audience. We may assume that Plutarch is describing Euphranor's pictorial description of the battle, rather than the battle itself, essentially for three reasons. In the first place, unless Plutarch is depending on the witness of the city, and glorifying Mantineia because it was glorified in the Stoa Eleutherios, there is no reasonable explanation for the choice of this example for a long digression. The battle at Mantineia was one in which the role of the Athenians was minimal; it took place at a time when Athens was in decline; its chief figure was Epameinondas, an enemy of the Athenians. Yet the battle meant something to Athenians, for they had raised a memorial to it in the Stoa of Freedom. Plutarch's words also indicate that he is describing 14 the painting. This city, he tells his Athenian audience, has nourished many arts, painting among them. Technique has added to realism and realism has served to relate the history of the city's glory. You have an example of this in Euphranor's depiction of the battle of Mantineia which you see in the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios. This is the story which it relates... Finally, while Euphranor could not well have 112 represented nine years of tangled political history, he could have shown the high points of the story: the harrying in Laconia, the raid on Sparta, the surprise at Mantineia, and the Athenian rescue--no doubt as the central panel of the painting. Plutarch chose Mantineia as an example and described the battle as he did because his exhibit was at hand for his audience to see. The odd and unhistorical narration of the facts of the battle is explained by the fact that Plutarch was speaking at Athens of an Athenian monument, and that the monument, Euphranor's "Mantineia," is being used as a prop to advance the orator's argument. Plutarch asks his audience to look at the painting. There is boldness and courage and spirit to be seen in it, but surely, he urges, it is not the equal of the battle itself, as regards those qualities, so the accomplishment of the painter is not equal to the accomplishment of the men of arms. For the modern reader, this section of the De gloria is especially interesting because we may assume that it contains a description of Euphranor's painting. All evidence of the paintings which adorned the Stoa of Zeus Eleutherios has long since disappeared; we must rely on literary testimony to discover what they looked 113 like. Plutarch's De gloria Atheniensium contains the only extant description of Euphranor's pictorial version of the battle of Mantineia. 114 FOOTNOTES 1. 346B-346F. 2. Pausanias preserves excerpts from Plutarch’s "Life of Epameinondas" at 9.13. The work itself has been lost. 3. 615c-616a. 4. Pausanias, 1.3.4. 5. See chapter four, above. 6. Xenophon reports the battle of Mantineia in book seven of the Hellanica, especially in chapter five. See also Diodorus Siculus 15.82-84 and book nine of Polybius. I have used these sources for the historical material, as well as the Cambridge Ancient History (J.B. Bury, S.A. Cook and F.eT Adcock, eds.), volume six (Cambridge and New York, 1927), pp.80-102. 7. 346B. 8. Hellanica, 7.5.10,11,14. The translation is by J.S. Watson and H. Dale, The Cyropaedia and the Hellenics of Xenophon (London,1855), pp.559-560. 9. The Watson-Dale translation is literal and repro duces the Greek faitfully--even to the odd shift of moods ("when he went into" and "he did not enter") which confuses the meaning. E.C. Marchant, ed., Xenophontis opera omnia, tomus I, Historia Graeca (Oxford, n.d.), 7.5.11, reports enei 6' ev^vexo tlTxaue ivciivSae ev xn6Ae i . . .ouh av£|3cavev eCq xfiv ti6Alv, but notes that Curtius deleted the oOk avdpcavev, apparently for the sake of clarity. 10. 615c, 616a. 11. See Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 6, pp.101-102. 12. Who does not, however, notice the dramatic Athenian rescue. See Hellanica, 7.5.20-26. 115 13. Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 6, pp.101-102. 14. 346B. 116 BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, C.D., ed. The Speeches of Aeschines. Cambridge, Mass. and London^ 1948. American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The Athenian Agora: A Guide to the Excavation and Museum, second edition, revisecT! Athens, 1962. Babbitt, F.C., et al. , eds. Plutarch’s Moralia. ! ! 5 vols. Cambridge, Mass. and London"J 1927- Barrow, R.H. Plutarch and His Times. Bloomington and London, 1967. Bernardakis, N. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia. 8 vols. Leipzig, 1888-1896. Burgess, T.C. Epideictic Literature. Chicago, 1906. Burnet, I., ed. Platonis opera. 5 vols. Oxford, 1902- 1906. Bury, J.B., S.A. Cook and F.E. Adcock, eds. The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 6. Cambridge and New York, 1927. Butcher, S.H. Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, fourth edition"! Repr. New York, 1951. Bywater, I., ed. Aristotelis Ethica Nicomachea. Repr. Oxford, 1949. Clark, W.G. and W.A. Wright, eds. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, vol. 2. Garden City, n.d. Cope, E.M. An Introduction to Aristotle’s Rhetoric. London and Cambridge, 1867. Council of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies and the Managing Committee of the British School of Archaeology at Athens. Archaeological Reports for 1969-1970. London, 1970. 117 Dickinson, G.L. The Greek View of Life. Ann Arbor, 1960. Domaszewski, A. von. Per Staatsfriedhof der Athener. Heidelberg, 1917. Diibner, F., ed. Scholia Graeca in Aristophanem. 4 vols. Paris, 1842. Frazer, J.G., tr. Pausanias1 Description of Greece, second edition. " 6 vols. London, 1913. Freese, J.H., ed. Aristotle, The "Art’1 of Rhetoric. Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1947. Gianakaris, C.J. Plutarch. New York, 1970. Goodwin, W.W. A Greek Grammar, second edition. Repr. New York, 1965. , ed. Plutarch's Morals. 5 vols. Boston, 1871. Grube, G.M.A. Aristotle on Poetry and Style. Indianapolis, 1958. ____________ . The Greek and Roman Critics. Toronto, 1968. Hall, F.W. and M.M. Geldart. Aristophanis Comoediae, second edition, vol. 2. Oxford, 1951"]! Helmbold, W.C. and E.N. O'Neil. Plutarch's Quotations. * Baltimore, 1959. Hill, I.T. The Ancient City of Athens. London, 1953. Jaeger, W., ed. Aristotelis Metaphysica. Oxford, 1957. Jex-Blake, W., tr. The Elder Pliny's Chapters on Art. Repr. ChicagOj 1968. Jones, W.H.S., ed. Pausanias' Description of Greece. 5 vols. Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1918-1935. Jowett, B., tr. The Works of Plato. New York, n.d. Kassel, R., ed. Aristotelis De arte poetica. Oxford, 1965. 118 Lattimore, R., tr. Aristophanes, The Frogs. Ann Arbor, 1962 . Marchant, E.C., ed. Xenophontis opera omnia. 2 vols. Oxford, n.d. Marrou, H.I. A History of Education in Antiquity. (G. Lamb, trT) New York, 1964. Merry, W.W., ed. The Odyssey. 2 vols. Oxford, 1880-1896. Ogilvie, R.M. A Commentary on Livy, Books 1-5. Oxford, 1965. Oikonomides, A.N. The Two Agoras in Ancient Athens. Chicago, 1964. Perrin, B., ed. Plutarch's Lives. 11 vols. Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1914-1926. Pope, A., tr. The Odyssey of Homer. New York, 1942. Schefold, K. The Art of Classical Greece. (J.R. Foster, tr.) New York, 1967. Watson, J.S. and H. Dale, trs. The Cyropaedia and the Hellenics of Xenophon. London"] 18 55 . Welldon, J.E.C., tr. The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. London and New York, 1897. Whibley, L., ed. A Companion to Greek Studies, fourth edition. London and New York, 1§63. Wickham, E.C., ed. Q. Horati Flacci opera, second edition, revised by H.W. Garrod. Oxford, 1959. Wyttenbach, D.A. Lexicon Plutarcheum. 2 vols. Hildesheim, 1962. Ziegler, K. Plutarchos von Chaironeia. Stuttgart, 1949.

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Creator Johnson, James Leroy (author)

Core Title Plutarch On The Glory Of The Athenians: A Reassessment

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Advisor O'Neil, Edward N. (committee chair), Brown, William H., Jr. (committee member), Goodrich, Norma Lorre (committee member)

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