[[153]]
CHAPTER IX
PEITHO
In the last two chapters we have studied the little drama of Cleon's
exaltation and fall, and noted some analogies of treatment which point to
Aeschylean influence. Thucydides, however, is not primarily interested in
Cleon, nor does he allow him to hold the stage. Cleon's personal drama works
itself out on its own lines, but the thread of it crops up only at those points
where it crosses the woof of a larger web and contributes a dark stain to its
pattern. It is with the tracing of this pattern that we shall henceforth be
occupied; and though it spreads backward and forward some way beyond the timits
of Cleon's story, it will be convenient to start from the point we have
reached. The treatment of the Pylos incident is still not completely explained,
for that episode is not a part of Cleon's story, but belongs to the larger plot
and marks a critical stage in its development. The heroine, we need hardly say,
is Athens herself, whose character is set in the focus of so many lights, and
whose tragic destiny takes a larger sweep, `in proportion as her stake is the
greatest of all--freedom or empire.' Athens, we shall come to see, has a
character of her own and a psychological history, passing through well-marked
phases, which are determined partly by this character, and partly by the
intervention of external or internal forces. One of these forces is embodied in
Cleon; and in order to make out how the mode of its operation is conceived, we
must again look for assistance from Aeschylus.
From the standpoint of form, we have attempted to describe the
duplication of the drama discernible in the Agamemnon. There are, as it
were, two parallel trains of action: the
[[154]]
human action visibly presented on the stage, and an abstract, universal
counterpart of it, revealed in the lyric. The persons on this abstract plane
are what we commonly (and somewhat misleadingly) call personifications,
such as Hybris, Peitho, Nemesis, Ate. They are universals, not particular
concrete instances, like this or that legendary man or woman in whom they are
embodied. We might change the instances and leave the abstract plot unaffected;
Hybris runs the same course, whether it be impersonated in Agamemnon or in
Xerxes.And, further, that course is inevitable; its law
is written unalterably, whatever be the power that legislates Destiny, or
Justice, or the Will of Zeus. We see it illustrated in the tale of Troy or in
the tale of Thebes: Sin leads through Sin to punishment. The taint steals down
the lineage of a house once smitten with God's curse; sorrow is heaped on
sorrow; till the last light is smothered in the dust of death. (note 1) In this
abstract procession the first figure is linked to the last with iron bands.
But if that be so, wherein lies the guilt of the human agents in any particular
case? Are not the unseen powers responsible (afit[[currency]]ai), and may not
the sinner cast his burden on Necessity? Thus we reach the problem of free will
on the lower, human plane,a moral problem, corresponding to the artistic
problem which arises when the two elements in the drama begin to drift apart.
The characters must not seem to be the blind puppets of superhuman powers; the
dice of God must not be too heavily loaded. If, when seen from above, Guilt
appears to gravitate by unalterable necessity to its punishment; seen from the
level, the guilty man must choose the act that precipitates his unknown fate.
Is there not here a contradiction fatal at once to the moral doctre and to the
aesthetic effect?
The solution, if there be one, must be psychological; we require a theory of
human motives which will allow of our conceiving them, simultaneously, both as
supernatural causes coming from without, and also as integral parts in the
working
[1. Soph. Ant. 693.]
[[155]]
of the agent's mind. Modern psychology is, of course, not equal to the
task of this reconciliation. If we conceive of every mental state as completely
determined in a continuous series by preceding states and by natural
environment, the problem of free will arises in relation to causal law and lies
wholly within the normal spheic, the intervention of supernatural causes being
left out of account.Aeschylus, however, was not hampered by
determinism; and he was helped by some psychological conceptions, surviving
from the mythical order of thought, which have so completely dropped out of our
scheme of things that it is easy for us to misinterpret, or to overlook, them
in the ancient writers. They are, nevertheless, essential to Aeschylus' scheme,
and we shall find the after-working of them in Thucydides. We hope to carry the
analysis as far as it can safely go; but it must be remembered that we are
dealing with a poet and theologian, not with a psychologist, and moving in a
region of thought where one phase melts into another at no rigidly definable
point.
The problem arises at every link in the chain of terrible deeds.
Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Orestes, commit, each of them, an act which is both
the execution of divine justice and also a sin. Modern ethics will of course
admit that an action may be both right and wrong. It will be externally right
if it produces more good than any possible alternative; but the same action may
be also internally wrong, if the agent intends to do harm and only does good by
accident. Thus a Christian will hold that Judas' betrayal of his Master was one
of the causes of the Redemption; but Judas will be damned for it to the
nethermost circle. Aeschylus, however, had not reached this modern way of
conceiving a right action done from a wrong motive; the psychology involved is
less distinct and partly mythical.
At the beginning of the Agamemnon, the balance of right and wrong stands
as follows. Agamemnon has committed two of these ambiguous acts. The sacrifice
of Iphigeneia was enjoined by the chartered representative of Heaven, Calchas,
[[156]]
the seer; yet it was a deed of horror, for it was an offence against
nature, symbolized by Artemis, the patroness of young creatures. So too the
conquest of Troy was the stroke of Zeus; but the same avenging fire will fall
on the house of the conqueror, who has brought the innocent with the guilty to
suffering which only the guilty had deserved. Paris may have merited death; but
what of Cassandra?In regard to the second of the two acts the
conqueror of Troy has gone beyond his divine mandate; the excess and spirit of
his vengeance have carried to his account with Justice an adverse balance. What
concerns us is the psychological process by which this has occurred; and to
understand it we must refer to Clytemnestra's second speech, (note 1) where, as
in the former speech about the beacons, she is setting forth, not her own
character, but an indispensable moment in Aeschylus' moral theme.
As if endowed with second sight, she bodes the indiscriminate slaughter of
young and old among the Trojans in the captured city. The conquerors, released
from the weary discipline of a siege, and the nights of restless watching under
the cold dews, rove uncontrolled through Troy and lodge themselves at hazard in
her plundered palaces. The sentence ends with a magnificent stroke of irony
(note 2): `The unlucky wretches will sleep all night long and keep no watch!'
The words sound sympathetic until we catch the second meaning which lies under
them. A man is `unlucky' (dusda[[currency]]mvn) when an evil spirit is haunting
near him; his peril is the greater if he is not on the watch
(éfÊlaktow). And the name of the spirit follows almost
immediately: Eros, the spirit of lust after forbidden rapine, may fall upon
the
[1. Agam. 330 ff. [2. Agam. 348
t<<n
Ípaiyr[[currency]]vn pãgvndrÒsvn tÉ
épallagdeg.ntew ...w dusda[[currency]]monewéfÊlakton
eÍdÆsousi pçsan eÈfrÒnhn.
It is
questionable hov these lines should be punctuated and constrved; but any
interpretation preserves the ironic ambiguity. The correction ...w dÉ
eÈda[[currency]]monew (`and how blest! will sleep' &c.) merely makes
eÈda[[currency]]mvn the ironical equivalent of
dusda[[currency]]mvn.]
[[157]]
host, unsentinelled against this invisible assailant. (note 1) And when
Clytemnestra ends by saying that she utters these bodings `as a woman'
(note 2) (or `as a wife'), we know that she is thinking of Chryseis and the
poet is thinking of Cassandra.
The Greeks believed that in the hour of sudden triumph when `Fortune',
as Diodotus says, `presents herself unexpectedly at a man's side,' the
conqueror is in a perilous condition; for in thc flush and tumult of his
feelings reason is clouded and caution laid asleep. Then comes Temptation, and
it is especially with the manner in which it comes that we are now concerned;
since it is at this point that we are apt to miss the psychological
conceptions, unfamiliar to us, which govern Aeschylus' design and will
reappear, in somewhat altered form, in Thucydides.
Internally, temptation takes the form of a violent passion, uncontrollable if
its victim is unguarded and secure. The conquerors of Troy are beset by Eros,
the spirit of rapine; but this passion is not conceived as a natural state of
mind determined by a previous state--the effect of a normal cause; it is a
spirit (da[[currency]]mvn) which haunts, swoops down, and takes possession of
the soul, when reason slumbers and keeps no watch. Eros is constantly spoken of
by the Greeks as a disease (nÒsow); but that word had not the
associations merely of a wasting and painful bodily corruption. Disease was
caused by invading spirits, those malignant Keres of whom Age and Death
are the chief, and who seize as much upon the soul as upon the body. Abnormal
states of mind--the intoxication of wine, religious enthusiasm, nympholepsy,
poetic inspiration, an army's panic fear, the raving of the
[1.ÖErvw dcents mÆ tiw prÒteron
[[section]]mp[[currency]]pt[[dotaccent]] strat"porye>n ì mØ
xrØ kdeg.rdesin nikvmdeg.nouw. Eros, as the lust of blood, is
alluded to in Agamemnon's first speech where he compares the Trojan horse to a
ravening lion that has leapt over the city's wall and is glutted with the royal
blood that it has licked. Agam. 818Íperyor[[Delta]]n dcents
pÊrgon >>mhstØw ldeg.vnêdhn [[paragraph]]leijen
a.matow turannikoË.
Cf. 1479 ÖErvw afimatoloixÒw;
Sept. 679 >>modakØw ÖImerow.
[2. 360
toiaËtã toi gunaikÚw [[section]]j [[section]]moË
klÊeiw.]
[[158]]
prophet, the madness of the lover--all these were phenomena of the same
order, all instances of spiritual occupation. This to the Greeks was a very
familiar idea. The entering of a god or spirit into a man's body, so that he
becomes [[paragraph]]nyeow, was the central doctrine of the orgiastic cults.
Official religion recognized it in the oracular possession of the Pythian
priestess. Medical practice recommended the wild music of the Corybant's
timbiel and drum as a purge to exorcize the fiends of madness. (note 1) Plato,
in his study of Peitho and Eros (the Phaedrus), avails himself in all
earnestness of the idea of indwelling divinity as the most natural mode of
conceiving the relation between the all-pervading Form of Beauty and the world
which it penetrates and informs vith its splendour. His `participation'
(mdeg.yejiw) is first conceived as a mystical relation, the participation of
the mortal in the immortal, long before it withers up and becomes a logical
relation of subject to predicate; the neoplatonist only restores its original
significance. Even in Aristotle the theory of tragedy looks back to the belief
that the passions, which art is to purge, are spirits of madness to be
exorcized by wild music and the frantic rhythm of the dance. They are, in
Diodotus' words, `irremediable and mastering powers', which `possess' the
various conditions of human life, and lead men on into danger (note 2).In theological theory the violent passions are conceived as forms of
delusion sent by God upon the sinner to drive him to his punishment. This
aspect of them we shall study later at some length; here it remains to note
that the idea of spiritual possession provides the psychological link we
needed
[1. Arist. Vesp. 119. See the evidence collected in Susemihl and
Hicks, Politics of Aristotle i-v. p. 644 (note on kãyarsiw).
[2. Thuc. iii. 45 afl êllai juntuxa[[currency]]ai
Ùrg[[ordfeminine]] t<<n ényr~pvn ...w *kãsth tiw
katdeg.xetai ÍpÉ énhkdeg.stou tinÚw
kre[[currency]]ssonow [[section]]jãgousin [[section]]w toÁw
kindÊnouw. katdeg.xesyai is of course regularly used of spiritual
occupation of all kinds. énhkdeg.stou recalls Aesch. Agam. 384
biçtai dÉ è tãlaina Peiy~, | prÒboulou pa>w
êfertow ÖAtaw: | êkow dcents pçn mãtaion.
kre[[currency]]ssvn is associated with the `daemons', who were called `the
stronger ones', ofl kre[[currency]]ssonew, Plato, Euthyd. 291 A mÆ
tiw t<<n kreiiÒnvn par[[Delta]]n aÈtå
[[section]]fydeg.gjato; Aelian, V. H. iv. 17 Pythagoras called the noise
in his ears fvnØ t<<n kreittÒnvn.]
[[159]]
between the abstract and symbolic series in which Hybris, Koros, Eros,
hold a place, and the level of human drama, where these passions become
literally embodied in individual men and women. Eros, for instance, is
in its higher aspect a supernatural `cause', an agency from God, ministering to
the divine purpose. But when Eros takes possession of me, it is also my
passion, an internal spring of action; and I become responsible
(a[[daggerdbl]]tiow) for the results that come of it.A character
in Aeschylus, as we remarked above, should be thought of, at any given moment,
as a single state of mind, with no background or margin of individual
personality. It has neithei a past nor a future, except a few other states
which come in a settled order, but are (as it weie) a discontinuous
series, with gaps of any length between the terms. The masked and muffled
figures posed on the stage contain no more concrete humanity than this.
Agamemnon, as we see him, is Insolence, possessed at the moment by Eros, who is
the inward tempter sent to blind him and drive him to his fall. This Eros is
outwardly symbolized, not indeed in Cassandra, but in Agamemnon's relation
towards her--a one-sided relation which (as it were) falls short of her,
leaving her white spirit wounded but unstained.
Now let us turn to Clytemnestra; for in her we shall see Temptation
besetting the king in its other, external, shape. The earlier scenes, down to
the entrance of Agamemnon, are an overture, of which the keynote is
Waiting;--the note which is struck in the opening words of the sentinel,
tired of his yearlong watch upon the constellations, as they rise and set in
the slow procession of the seasons. We watch the mustering of solemn
storm-clouds, and feel the increasing tension of expectancy before the first
blinding flash. Clytemnestra is an enigma; her words are spoken from the lips,
and reveal nothing. She is like a compressed spring, a nameless undetermined
force, charged, and awaiting the touch that will release it. Then, in the scene
with Agamemnon, she becomes animate in a peculiar way: a spirit has entered
[[160]]
her, and the name of it is Temptation of Delusion, Peitho or Apatê
(note 1).Dr. Headlam (note 2) has interpreted this famous scene,
in which the proud and masterful princess, at the death-grip now with the
opposing principle of Agamemnon's lordship, lures and flatters him to the
committal act of pride, which calls down his doom. Temptation in the inward
form of passion has already mastered him; now, from outside, as incarnate in
another person, she spreads the final snare. (note 3) Clytemnestra too is
ministerial; she is sent by God to draw him to the meeting ways where a false
step is perdition. Another angel of Justice has left the ranks of that
invisible company and taken shape in this woman.
Clytemnestra, however, is not, like Hamlet, the conscious scourge and
minister of Heaven, fulfilling an explicit command. In herself she is the woman
with the man's courage and brain, masterful and ambitious (note 4); and she
stands as a Queen defending her native right of sovereignty against her consort
and the veiled captive at his side. As between wife and husband, her account
with Agamemnon is exactly balanced: he has sinned, through Eros, against divine
Justice and against her; but her relation with Aegisthus was an equal sin, and
she has forfeited her claim. (note 5) Hence her vengeance on Agamemnon, in so
far
[1. The effect is prepared for in her previous (third) speech to the
herald (587 ff), and symbolically illustrated by the lion-cub simile in the
following chorus (717). [2. Cambridge Praelections (1906), p. 126. I
owe this tragic conception of Peitho, and the interpretation of the scene, to
Dr. HeadUrn.
[3. Agam. 1371.KL. poll<<n pãroiyen
kair[[currency]]vw efirhmdeg.nvnténant[[currency]]É efipe>n
oÈk [[section]]paisxunyÆsomai.p<<w gãr tiw
[[section]]xyrÚw [[section]]xyrå poorsÊnvn,
f[[currency]]loiwdokoËsin e[[perthousand]]nai, phmon[[infinity]]w
érkÊstatÉ înfrãjeien Ïcow kre>sson
[[section]]kphdÆmatow;
Schol. ad loc. i filik<<w
ÍperxÒmenÒw tina ka< épat[[infinity]]sai
boulÒmenow efiw êfukton fragmÚn [[section]]mpldeg.kei
aÈtÚn t[[infinity]]w ÉApãthw.
[4. Agam. 10
Œde går krate> gunaikÚw éndrÒboulon
[[section]]lp[[currency]]zon kdeg.ar,--a fine example of Aeschylus' power of
describing a character in five words.
[5. Clytemnestra is queen in her own
right in a country originally matriarchal; Agamemnon is merely her consort.
Under a gynaecocratic system the husband-consort's sin would be thought to be
as outrageous as the wife's is under the patriarchal system recognized by the
foreigner Agamemnon and familiar to us. The situation is symmetrical. It is no
question of mere womanly jealousy; but a conflict of two principles of society.
Similarly the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, her daughter and heir, was as
great an outrage as Agamemnon would have felt the sacrifice of the son,
Orestes, to be. Clytemnestra would have acquiesced in the latter as Agamemnon
did in the former, but she would regard the murder of the daughter as an
attempt to secure the throne, which on her own death would pass from Agamemnon
to the daughter and the daughter's husband. (See Fraser, Adonis, Attis,
Osiris, p. 28.) For the whole question of the conflict of patriarchy and
matriarchy see Miss J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek
Religion, and Ridgeway, Cambridge Praelections, 1906. I am convinced
that this conflict is vaguely but unmistakably present to Aeschylus' mind, and
that the conception of Cly[emnestra can only be understood by taking account of
it.]
[[161]]
as it is conjugal, or rather queenly, is unjust; much more is the murder
of Cassandra. (note 1) With regard to Iphigeneia, her daughter, she has justice
on her side. Revenge upon this score bad been a long-harboured motive; and if,
at the moment of the crime, it bad been the dominant and real force in her, the
sin would have been much less, and Aegisthus would not have been involved in
her punishment. From the scene where she reveals her motives to the chorus
(note 2), we think it could be shown that the long-cherished, rational design
of just vengeance for Iphigeneia was, at the moment of the murder, eclipsed in
her mind by a sudden passion which she herself describes as `the lust for
blood to lick'. (note 3) When she first appears, standing over her victims,
she is drunken with this passion (note 4) and with the triumph of vindicated
queenship. `There Agamemnon lies,
My husband!' (note 5)
Then, as she begins to recover her reason,
comes the mention
[1. Clytemnestra describes this as eÈn[[infinity]]w paroc~nhma
t[[infinity]]w [[section]]m[[infinity]]w (l. 1446). It is something over and
above her due, even as she conceives it ([[section]]k perious[[currency]]aw,
Schol.). See also 1396 where dika[[currency]]vw...Íperd[[currency]]kovw
mcentsn oÔn is, by tragic irony, an unconscious confession that she has
gone beyond justice. 1384 pa[[currency]]vddeg. nin d[[currency]]w: these are
the two blows which Agamemnon's two sins have merited; but Clytemnestra adds a
third, above due measure: ka< peptvkÒti trÄthn
[[section]]pend[[currency]]dvmi. [2. Agam. 1371-1576.
[3. 1478
ÖErvw aflmatoloixÒw, the very passion described by Agamemnon (see
above, note on p. 157).
[4. 1427 Xo...Àsper oÔn fonolibe>
tÊx& [[section]]pima[[currency]]netai, | l[[currency]]pow
[[section]]pÉ Ùmmãtvn a.matow eÔ prdeg.pein.
[5.
1404 oÔtÒw [[section]]stin ÉAgamdeg.mnvn,
[[section]]mÚw | pÒsiw. pÒsiw has all the maximum emphasis
of position. Cf. (just above, 1400) Xo...[[yen]]tiw toiÒndÉ
[[section]]pÉ évdr< kompãzeiw lÒgon. Kl.
peirçsydeg. mou gunaikÚw ...w éfrãsmonow.]
[[162]]
of Iphigeneia, as if this other motive were re-emerging from temporary
obscuration. In the next speech it is overpowered again by the passion against
Chryseis and Cassandra, but as the scene proceeds she insists exclusively on
Iphigeneia. The dialogue becomes lyrical, and we begin to see the crime as it
appears from the higher plane. She who was just before triumphing over her
`husband' now cries out that she is not to be named Agamemnon's wife; the deed
is not hers: the ancient bitter fiend has appeared in her shape. (note 1) But
it is not she who first thinks of this supernatnral aspect; it is suggested by
the chorus, and then she catches at it. (note 2) When she claims to be an
incarnation of the fiend who haunts the race, the chorus answer: `That thou art
guiltless (éna[[currency]]tow) of this murder, who shall aver? It
cannot, cannot be; though perchance the fiend of his sire (Atreus) might be thy
helper (sullÆptvr).' (note 3)Thus Aeschylus indicates that
Clytemnestra was indeed a minister of heaven, but not a conscious
minister at the moment. The righteons and rational motive, connected with
Iphigeneia, was for the time superseded by an unrighteous passion--`the lust
for blood to lick', which comes upon one and another of the race `till the old
woe be laid to rest'. This passion may come, as she says it does, from the evil
fiend of the house; (note 4) but when it filled her it was her passion,
and withal unrighteous in excess, and so she is not guiltless.
Clytemnestra, then, is possessed in two ways. Her consciousness, at the moment
of her act, is merged in, and identified
[1. 1497. Kl.
aÈxe>w e[[perthousand]]nai tÒde toÎrgon
[[section]]mÒn;mhdÉ
[[section]]pilexy[[ordfeminine]]wÉAgamemnon[[currency]]an
e[[perthousand]]na[[currency]] mÉ êloxon, ktl. [2. 1468 Xo.
da>mon, [[breve]]w [[section]]mp[[currency]]tneiw, ktl. 1475 Kl. nËn
dÉ ryvsaw stÒmatow gn~mhn, | tÚn tripãxunton
| da[[currency]]mona gdeg.nnhw tÒnde kiklÆskvn.
[3. 1506. Cf.
Choeph. 909. Kl. <= Mo>ra toËtvn, Œ tdeg.knon,
parait[[currency]]a, partly responsible, not wholly; a collateral,
supernatural cause, which becomes natural when it takes possession of the
agent. Contrast the complete disclaiming of responsibility in Iliad, T,
86: [[section]]g[[Delta]] dÉ oÈk a[[daggerdbl]]tiow efimi, |
éllå ZeÁw ka< Mo>ra ka< +/-erofo>tiw
ÉErinÊw.
[4. 1477 da[[currency]]mona gdeg.nnhw... |
[[section]]k toË går ÖErvw aflmatoloixÚw |
ne[[currency]]r[[dotaccent]] trdeg.fetai, pr
[[163]]
with, a violent passion, a manifestation of the hereditary curse or
fatal genius of the race. In the earlier temptation scene, she is further an
incarnation of Peitho, the spirit of Delusion sent in this external shape to
ruin Agamemnon; although, since she is not conscious of this ministerial
character till all is over, she cannot cast her responsibility on Fate. (note 1)
It may help-us to glance at a few incidents in `history' where this
latter idea of incarnate Temptation occurs.
Miltiades, the victor of Marathon, died in disgrace; his last expedition
against Paros had failed disastrously, and he was tried for his life on the
charge of having deceived Athens to satisfy a private revenge. The people let
him off with a fine of fifty talents, but he died soon afterwards of a wound
received, it was said, while he was at Paros. How he came by the wound was a
matter of some obscurity; the current tale is told by Herodotus (note 2) as
follows:--
`Now for so much of the story all the Hellenes agree; but for the sequel we
have only the Parians' account that it happened thus. When Miltiades was at his
wits' end, a captive woman sought an interview with him. She was a Parian by
birth, and her name was Timo, and she was underpriestess of the Lowerworld
Divinities. She, coming into Miltiades' presence, advised him, if he set great
store upon taking Paros, to do whatsoever she should suggest to him.
(note 3) Thereupon, at her suggestion, he made his way to the knoll that is in
front
[1. Her unconsciousness, of course, makes the great difference between
her and Orestes, who was commanded by Apollo. Again, in the Choephori
(892 ff.), where Orestes is about to murder her, in pleading for life she does
not mention Iphigeneia at all to Iphigeneia's brother, but she does refer to
Agamemnon's adulteries. This is Aeschylus' way of indicating that her death is
deserved, because her queenly vengeance was her real motive at the
moment of her crime: and it is for that that she is now to be punished. He
also indicates it by putting the Iphigeneia chorus at the beginning of
the Agamemnon, the Helen chorus (connected with the conjugal relation)
next before the Temptation scene. [2. Herod. vi. 134.
[3. tå
în aÈtØ Ípoy[[infinity]]tai, taËta
poideg.ein.]
[[164]]
of the city and leapt over the enclosure-wall of Demeter Thesmophoros,
not being able to open the doors. And having leapt over he went towards the
Megaron to do such and such things within it,--either to touch one of the
things which it is not lawful to touch, or to perform some act, whatever it
might be. And he came up to the doors, and immediately a shuddering horior came
over him and he hastened back by the way he came. And in leaping down from the
wall he strained his thigh; but some say that he struck his knee.
`So Miltiades sailed back home, being in evil case: he neither brought money to
the Athenians nor had he added Paros to their dominion, though he had blockaded
the island six and twenty days and laid it waste. And when the Parians learnt
that the underpriestess of the Gods, Timo, had guided Miltiades, desiring to
take vengeance for this, they sent men to inquire of the God at Delphi, as soon
as they had rest from the siege. And they sent them to ask whether they should
put to death the underpriestess of the Gods, for that she had shown their
enemies how to take their country and had revealed to Miltiades the sacred
things which it is unlawful for men to know. But the Pythia would not suffer
them, saying that the cause of these things was not Timo, but, because it was
necessary that Miltiades should not make a good end, she had presented
herself to him to guide him to his destruction.' (note 1)
So long as we confine our attention to `history' and neglect the study of
mythical types, we cannot perceive that a story like this is a temptation myth,
containing the very motive we have seen in the Agamemnon. When
Destruction (Ate) is about to overtake the sinner, he is safe till he commits
some overt act which will put him in her power.' (note 2) To `suggest'
(Ípot[[currency]]yesyai) this act is the function of Temptation, Peitho
or Apatê, who comes incarnate in a woman, Clytemnestra or Timo.
Thucydides would have rejected
[1. oÈ TimoËn e[[perthousand]]nai tØn
afit[[currency]]nh toÊtvn, éllå ddeg.ein går
Miltiãdea teleutçn mØ eÔ,
fan[[infinity]]na[[currency]] ofl t<<n kak<<n kathgemÒna.
Stein, followed by Macan, thinks that the moaning is that a fãsma,
apparition, in Timo's shape, had misled Miltiades. [2. See W. Headlam,
Cambridge Praelections (1906), p. 118.]
[[165]]
this story because the evidence was insufficient--the very ground on
which Herodotus expresses scepticism. Some modem histories still recite it with
about as much scepticism as Herodotus.We fail to see that it is mythical
because the idea of impersonation is unfamiliar to us, but Herodotus failed to
see it because that idea was too familiar to him.
Let us look now at the story of another conqueror, Pausanias, the victor
of Plataea. (note 1) When the battle is just won, Peitho comes to him likewise,
in the form of a woman. He is tempted to an act of violence, such as Ajax had
committed when Troy fell, such too as Agamemnon expiated at the bands of his
outraged queen.
`As soon as the Greeks at Plataea had overthrown the barbarians, a woman came
over to them from the enemy. She was one of the concubines of Pharandates, the
son of Teaspes, a Persian; and when she heard that the Persians were all slain
and that the Greeks had carried the day, forthwith she adorned herself and her
maids with many golden ornaments and with the bravest of the apparel that she
had brought with her, (note 2) and alighting from her litter came forward to
the Lacedaemonians, ere the work of slaughter was well over.' She recognized
Pausaniag, and, embracing his knees, said: `O king of Sparta! save thy
suppliant from the slavery that awaits the captive. Already I am beholden to
thee for one service--the slaughter of these men who had no regard either for
gods or spirits. I am by birth a Coan, the daughtei of Hegetoridas. The Persian
seized me by force (b[[currency]][[dotaccent]]) and kept me under
constraint.'
Will Pausanias yield and do the act of violence which this woman, the innocent
vehicle of Temptation, unwittingly suggests by deprecating it? No; this time he
eludes the snare. `Lady,' he answered, `fear nothing: as a suppliant
thou
[1. Herod. ix. 76. [2. We are curiously reminded of Hesiod's
description of how Pandora was decked to tempt man to his bane: z<<se
dcents ka< kÒsmhse yeå glauk<<piw ÉAyÆnh: |
émf< ddeg. ofl Xãpitdeg.w te yea< ka< pÒtnia Peiy[[Delta]]
| ~rmouw xruse[[currency]]ouw [[paragraph]]yesan xro[[currency]], Erga
72.]
[[166]]
art safe.' We breathe again; but a moment later appears. another
tempter. (note 1) Lampon, the soothsayer of Aegina, came in baste to Pausanias
with `a most unholy word'. `Son of Cleombrotus,' he said earnestly, `what thou
hast already done is passing great and glorious, and God has given it to thee
to deliver Greece and lay up for thyself the greatest glory of all the Hellenes
whom we know.' The action which Lampon prompts is a deed of cruel vengeance;
Pausanias is to do to Mardonius as Xerxes had done to Leonidas, and hang his
dead body on a cross; so will be have praise in Sparta and in all Greece. But
Pausanias again evades the trap. He rebukes Lampon for his ill counsel: `First
thou liftest me up on high, me and my country and my work; and then thou dost
cast me down, bidding me to maltreat a dead man, and saying that if I do this I
shall be the more well spoken of.' So Lampon is dismissed; and Pausanias takes
further precautions against the lust of rapine in his army. (note 2)
These incidents can be classed as fabulous anecdotes. Miltiades ended
his life under a cloud; therefore he must have been guilty of some impious act;
therefore Temptation must have come to him and brought him to ruin. Pausanias,
for a while, prospered after his victory; therefore he must have escaped
Insolence; but Temptation always comes to a man in such circumstances; so he
must have spared a captive woman and resisted a prompting to cruel excess in
vengeance. Such is the logic, or mythologic, by which ancient history was made.
(note 3)
[1. Herod. ix. 78. [2. Herod. ix. 80.
[3. Tradition was not to
be put off with the account of Pausanias' end given by Thucydides (L 134); he
must have been the victim, not only of Hybris, but of Eros. Accordingly a man
of Byzantium inforrns his namesake, Pausanias the traveller, that `the reason
why the intrigues of Pausanias were detected, and why he alone failed to find
protection in the sanctuary of the goddess of the Brazen House, was simply that
he was sullied with an indelible taint (êgow) of blood'. When he was at
the Hellespont he lusted after a Byzantine maiden Kleonike. She was brought to
him at nightfall, and by upsetting the lamp awakened Pausanias from his sleep.
Haunted by the terrors of a guilty conscience, the king leapt up and killedthe
maiden, not knowing who she was. All sorts of purifications he tried in vain,
and `paid the penalty, as was natural, to Kleonike and to the god'
(Paus. iii. 17).]
[[167]]
Let us return now to the story of Pylos and Sphacteria. We are concerned
no longer with the minor drama of which Cleon is the hero; but with the tragedy
of Athens, whose character has been studied in the earlier books. She is
adventurous, restless, quick, ambitious; if she fails in one attempt, she
immediately conceives a new ambition ([[section]]lp[[currency]]w) to take its
place; so rapidly does the act follow the decision, that hoping and having are
to her the same. (note 1) A dangerous temperament, this, peculiarly liable to
be carried away in the flush of success. `And Fortune,' says Diodotus,
`contributes to intoxication; for sometimes she presents herself unexpectedly
at a man's side and leads him forward to face danger at a disadvantage; and
cities even more than individuals, in proportion as their stake is the greatest
of all--freedom or empire.' We have seen this temptation of external
circumstance at work in the Pylos episode, and it is enough to make us expect
that temptation will appear in another form. For Elpis and Eros also in such a
case `are never wanting--Eros leading the way and devising the attempt, Elpis
busy in attendance and suggesting the wealth in fortune's store (note 2)--and invisible as they are, they are stronger than the dangers that are
seen'. One of these passions might be expected to come to Athens with
flattering and delusive suggestions.
Elpis had not to the Greek the associations which Christianity has given to
`Hope'; (note 3) she is not a virtue, but a dangerous passion. The future is
dark and uncertain,
[1 i. 70 (Corinthians, characterizing the Athenians) [[partialdiff]]
dÉ êra tou ka< pe[[currency]]r& sfal<<sin,
éntelp[[currency]]santew êlla [[section]]plÆrvsan tØn
xre[[currency]]an: nÒmoi går [[paragraph]]xous[[currency]] te
imo[[currency]]vw ka< [[section]]lp[[currency]]zousin ì ìn
[[section]]pinoÆsvsi diå tÚ taxe>an tØn
[[section]]pixe[[currency]]rhsin poie>syai Œn ìn gn<<msin.
See the whole chapter. [2. iii. 45 <= dcents (ÉElpsa (the word used of Timo's suggestion to
Miltiades). [3. To the Christian the hope of immortal life is a duty; to
the Greek it was `seeking to become a god' (éyãnatow =
yeÒw)--the worst symptom of infatuate pride, exciting
fyÒnow.]
[[168]]
and although rational foresight (gn~mh) can see a little way into the
gloom, Fortune, or Fate, or Providence, is an incalculable factor which at any
moment may reverse the purposes and defeat the designs of man. Elpis is the
passion which deludes man to count on the future as if he could perfectly
control it; and thus she is a phase of infatuate pride, a temptress who besets
prosperity (note 1).Again and again we find this conception of
her in the earlier poets. There is hardly one who has a good word for Elpis.
`Hope and Danger are twins among mankind, spirits of evil both', (note 2) `Hope
and alluring Temptation feed us all, straining after the unattainable'. (note 3) `Up and down toss the Hopes of men, cleaving the waste foam-drift on a sea
of lies. No mortal upon earth has ever found a sure token from God of the thing
which is still to be done; but of what shall be all discernment is blinded'.
(note 4) `Blind Hopes' were the only remedy Prometheus could give to man in
place of the foreknowledge of death--`a great boon', say the chorus, with
innocent irony. (note 5) Hope is called `blind' because she looks to the
invisible future; she is `light' (koÊfh) and `winged', like the flying
bird which the child will never catch. (note 6)
With these associations in mind, we will now take up again Thucydides'
narrative, (note 7) and consider whether certain expressions
[1. Compare the following moral from Polybius ii. 4 Afitvlo< ddeg.,
t[[ordfeminine]] paradÒj[[florin]] xrhsãmenoi sumforò,
pãntaw [[section]]d[[currency]]dajan mhddeg. pote bouleÊesyai per<
toË mdeg.llontow, ...w >=dh gegonÒtow, mhdcents
prokatelp[[currency]]zein bebaioumdeg.nouw Ípcentsr Œn
ékmØn [[section]]ndexÒmenÒn [[section]]stin
êllvw gendeg.syai: ndeg.mein dcents mer[[currency]]da t"
paradÒj[[florin]], pantax[[ordfeminine]] mdeg.n, ényr~ppouw
^ntaw, mãlista dcents [[section]]n to>w polemiko>w. [2. Theognis,
637.
[3. Simon. ap. Stob. 96, 16, p. 529 ÉElp [4. Pindar, Ol. xii. 5 a. ge
mcentsn éndr<<n pÒllÉ ênv, tå dÉ
aÔ kãtv ceud[[infinity]] metam~nia tãmnoisai
kul[[currency]]ndontÉ ÉElp[[currency]]dew... t<<n dcents
mellÒntvn tetÊflvntai frada[[currency]]. [5. Aesch.
Prom. 252.
[6. Aesch. Agam. 404 di~kei pa>w potanÚn
^rnin. Euripides, Aegeus frag. 11 pthnåw di~keiw, Œ
tdeg.knon, tåw [[section]]lp[[currency]]daw. Solon v. (Gaisf.). 36
xãskontew koÊfaiw ÉElp[[currency]]si terpÒmeya.
[7. iv. 53 ff.]
[[169]]
employed in it are, as they are usually taken to be, mere poetical
metaphors out of which all literal meaning has faded, or, on the other hand,
are intended to suggest the circle of ideas which we have been
studying.The Athenians followed up their success neat year by
the capture of Cythera, the island which commands the entrance to the Laconian
Gulf. The Lacedaemonians were much disheartened by their `great and
unlooked-for disaster' (note 1) at Sphacteria. They were involved in a war at
sea `and that a war against Athenians, to whom to miss an enterprise was always
to fall short of some anticipated achievement; and at the same time so many
strokes of Fortune coming together within a short time against all calculation
(note 2) caused them the greatest dismay They feared lest some new reversal of
fortune (peritÊx[[dotaccent]]), like that of Sphacteria, should overtake
them'.
In the same summer a conference of the Sicilian states was held at Gela; and
Thucydides gives a speech in which Rermocrate of Syracuse appeals for united
action against the designs of Athens. Some expressions which occur in it are
worth noting. In the opening sentences our attention is caught by a
reminiscence of Diodotus' Mytilenean speech. `No one,' says Hermocrates, `is
driven into war in ignorance of what it means; no one is deterred from it by
fear, if he conceives that he will gain some coveted end.' (note 3) The
`covetous designs' of Athens upon Sicily, he says later, (note 4) are
pardonable; human nature will always seek rule where it finds submission. He
touches on the secure blessings of peace in contrast with the hazards of war;
and then follows a curious passage about the uncertainty of hopes in the
future. `If there be any one who makes sure that he will effect something (in
revenge upon
[1. iv. 56. 1. toË [[section]]n t[[ordfeminine]]
nÆs[[florin]] pãyouw ènelp[[currency]]stou ka<
megãlou. [2. iv. 55. 3 tå t[[infinity]]w TÊxhw
pollå ka< Ùl[[currency]]g[[florin]] jumbãnta parå
lÒgon.
[3. iv. 59 oÎte fÊb[[florin]], [[partialdiff]]n
o,hta[[currency]] ti pldeg.on sxÆseinm épotrdeg.petai. Cf. iii. 45
(Diodotus) èpl<<w te édÊnaton ka< pll[[infinity]]w
eÈhye[[currency]]aw ~stiw o[[daggerdbl]]etai t[[infinity]]w
ényrvpe[[currency]]aw fÊsevw irmvmdeg.nhw proyÊmvw ti
prçjai épotropÆn tina [[paragraph]]xein [[partialdiff]]
nÒmvn fisxÊi [[partialdiff]] êll[[florin]] t[[florin]]
dein".
[4. iv. 61. 5 toÁw mcentsn ÉAyhna[[currency]]ouw
taËta pleonekte>n ka< pronoe>syai pollØ juggn~mh.]
[[170]]
Athens) by right or by force, let him not take his disappointment to
heart. Let him know that too many before now who have prosecuted revenges
against those who wronged them, so far from succeeding, have themselves
perished; and others who with no inconsiderable power have conceived hopes
of some coveted gain, instead of grasping it, have in the end lost even what
they had. (note 1) Revenge may be just, and yet not prosper; and
strength is not sure because it is full of hope. The instability of the
future everywhere controls the event; (note 2) and, though most treacherous, is
also most salutary, since mutual fear makes men think twice before they attack
one another.' The speaker disclaims that ambitious folly by which men arrogate
as complete a mastery over Fortune, which is beyond their control, as over
their own purposes. (note 3)Immediately after this speech
Thucydides describes tho return of the Athenian fleet from Sicily, whither it
had proceeded from Sphacteria. The officers in command had concluded a treaty
in conjunction with their allies in the west. They bad been sent, we remember,
`to finish the war in that region', (note 4) and they did so; but they returned
to find Athens in an altered mood. Two of them, Pythodorus and Sophocles, were
banished, and the third: Eurymedon, was fined; on the charge of having been
bribed to withdraw `when they had the chance of subjugating Sicily'. `So
indignant were the Athenians, in the enjoyment of their present good fortune,
at the idea of any check. They thought they could accomplish anything--what
was almost beyond their means as well as what was within them, with any force,
no matter whether great or insufficient. The reason was the good fortune which
against all calculation had attended most of their undertakings and now
suggested the strength of Hope.' (note 5)
[1. iv. 62. 3 [[section]]lp[[currency]]santew ßteroi
dunãmei tin< pleonektÆsein... ént< toË pldeg.on
[[paragraph]]xein proskatalipe>n tå aÍt<<n... [2.
Timvr[[currency]]a går oÈk eÈtuxe> dika[[currency]]vw, ~ti
ka< édike>tai: oÈdcents fisxÁw bdeg.baion, diÒti
ka< eÎelpi. tÚ dcents éstãymhton toË
mdeg.llontow ...w [[section]]p< ple... [3. iv. 64 mhdcents
mvr[[currency]]& filonik<<n <=ge>syai t[[infinity]]w te
ofike[[currency]]aw gn~mhw imo[[currency]]vw aÈtokrãtvr
e[[perthousand]]nai ka< [[Sigma]]w oÈk êrxv TÊxhw.
[4.
iii. 115.
[5. iv. 65 oÏtv t[[ordfeminine]] [te]
paroÊs[[dotaccent]] eÈtux[[currency]]& xr~menoi
+/-j[[currency]]oun sf[[currency]]si mhdcentsn [[section]]nantioËsyai,
éllå ka< tå dunatå [[section]]n
[[daggerdbl]]s[[florin]] ka< tå épor~tera
megãl[[dotaccent]] te imo[[currency]]vw ka< [[section]]ndeestdeg.r&
paraskeu[[ordfeminine]] katergãzesyai. afit[[currency]]a dcents
[[Sigma]]n <= parå lÒgon t<<n pleÒnvn
eÈprag[[currency]]a aÈto>w Ípotiye>sa fisxÁn
t[[infinity]]n [[section]]lp[[currency]]dow. Cf. i. 138. 2 (of Themistocles
tempting Ataxerxes to undertake the conquest of Greece) tØn... toË
ÑEllhnikoË [[section]]lp[[currency]]da, [[partialdiff]]n
Ípet[[currency]]yei (suggested, insinuated) aÈt"
doul~sein.]
[[171]]
Cleon was not the only victim of covetous ambition Inspired by
undesigned good luck. His overweening confidence at Amphipolis, when he `never
so much as expected that any one would come out and fight him', appears as
illustrative of the reckless confidence of the Athenians who `in the enjoyment
of their present good fortune were indignant at the idea of any
check'.And who conveyed to the Athenians the flattering
suggestions of Hope? who was the channel through which she insinuated her
strength?. We need only turn back to the story of the peace negotiations and
repeat the sentences in which Cleon intervenes. `The Athenians thought that,
now they held the men on the island, it was always in their power to make terms
whenever they chose, and they coveted something more. (note 1) They were
urged on above all by Cleon, the son of Cleainetos, who was the popular leader
in those days and stood highest in the confidence of the multitude, and he
persuaded them.'
To make his meaning unmistakable, Thucydidcs says later (note 2) that Athens
refused the offers of peace on this occasion becausc she had `confidence in
the hope of her strength'. It is not without design that Cleon, both at his
first appearance in the Mytilenean debate (note 3) and again at this second,
disastrous intervention, is described as ` first in the people's
confidence'. His little, personal catastrophe, could they have foreseen
it, might have warned his trusting followers of the peril that lurks in
`coveting more'; as the speech of the Spartan envoys, could they have listened,
had actually warned them in those very words.
[1. iv. 21 toË dcents pldeg.onow >>rdeg.gonto. mãlista
dcents aÈtoÁw [[section]]n[[infinity]]ge Kldeg.vn... t"
plÆyei piyan~tatow: ka< [[paragraph]]peisen.... [2. v. 14
[[paragraph]]xontew tØn [[section]]lp[[currency]]da t[[infinity]]w =~mhw
pistÆn.
[3. iii. 36. Kldeg.vn... Œn ka< [[section]]w
tîlla biaiÒtatow t<<n polit<<n t" te
dÆm[[florin]] parå polÁ [[section]]n t" tÒte
piyan~tatow.]
[[172]]
`And so the promise of Cleon, mad as it was, resulted in
success.' Yes, mad as it was! The promise was inspired by ÉElpnote 1)
Thus Cleon stands to Athens as Peitho or Apatê, incarnate in
Clytemnestra, Timo, the Coan captive, Lampon stood to their victims. The
passion with which he is identified at the moment is Elpis, combined with
`Covetousness'. His intervention at the Mytilenean crisis was of a similar
kind; but Athens was not then elated by undesigned success, and she escaped
temptation.
We cannot, of course, prove what we have here put forward; it is
only the analysis of the impression actually produced on us by Thucydides'
story. If the reader does not find that it interprets his own impression, we
can do no more; but we will ask him to suspend judgement till we have pointed
out how the rest of the drama is worked out by means of the same conceptions.
The `causes' of the Sicilian expedition, as we have so far seen them,
are `Fortune, attending against all calculation the enterprises of Athens'; `
Covetousness' impersonated in Cleon; Elpis, mad, delusive confidence and
ambition, incarnate in the same individual. (note 2) These are the
[1. Herod. viii. 77 (oracle):...ÉElp[[currency]]di
mainomdeg.n[[dotaccent]] liparåw pdeg.rsavtew ÉAyÆnaw:d>a
D[[currency]]kh sbdeg.ssei kraterÚn KÒron, ÜUbriow
uflÒn,deinÚn maim~onta, dokeËntÉ énå
pãnta piydeg.syai. The sack of Athens and the destruction of the
temples were the committal acts to which Xerxes was tempted by Elpis, thus
precipitating his own ruin (Ate).
[2 The epithet mani~dhw stuck to Cleon;
see Suidas, s. v. kldeg.vn. Referring to Thucydides' expression
koufolog[[currency]]a (iv. 36--Cleon's `wild words' at which the Athenians
laughed), Plutarch (malig. Herod. 2, p. 855) says that a writer who uses
unnecessarily harsh expressions--who should speak, for instance, not of Cleon's
koufolog[[currency]]a, but of his frasÊthw ka<
man[[currency]]a--oÈk eÈmenÆw [[section]]stin
éllÉ o[[perthousand]]on épolaÊvn t" saf<<w
dihge>syai toË prãgmatow. He adds that it is another sign of
malignity in a historian if he goes out of his way to drag in the misfortunes
and errors of his characters: ~yen i Youkud[[currency]]dhw oÈdcents
t<<n Kldeg.vnow èmarthmãtvn éfyÒnvn ^ntvn
[[section]]poiÆsato saf[[infinity]] tØn diÆghsin. It is
curious that this writer should, even for controversial purposes, pitch upon
Thucydides' treatment of Cleon as a case where Thucydides actually departs from
his plan of recording t<<n geneomdeg.nvn tÚ safdeg.w in order
not to be `malignant' against Cleon. Plutarch himself does not shrink
from the word man[[currency]]a (vit. Nic. vii).]
[[173]]
first terms in a series of `causes' which lead in a detcrmined order to an end
that can be predicted. We have now only to follow out its later course.